Feudal Friends

Chaper Two

"So, I believe introductions are in order," said the purple-robed man sitting cross-legged on a rock. The large party had put some distance between themselves and the dead demon, and found a large clearing near a river. The red-robed man was sitting in a tree over everyone else and seemed to ignore the newcomers. Both woman had made Kiba and Tsume lying comfortably, and the school girl had bandaged up Hige's leg. He was sitting near the fallen two, Toboe beside him. The little fox-boy, Shippo, and the cat Kilala(now the size of a nirmal cat) were sitting near the boys. A small campfire crackled in the middle of the group.


"Yeah, who are you?" asked Shippo cheerfully. Toboe turned and smiled. "I'm Toboe."


"Name's Hige," the oher boy said, winking at the boomerang lady.


"The silver-haired one is Tsume, and the other's Kiba," finished Toboe.


Shippo jumped up. "Hi, I'm Shippo! That's Kagome," he pointed to the girl in the school uniform, "Sango, the Demon Slayer," he pointed to boomerang lady, "Miroku the monk," he motioned to the purple-robed man, "and that's Inuyasha, in the tree. Oh yeah, and Kilala, too." The little cat purred in appreciation of not being forgotton. Shippo jumped onto Hige's shoulder and said "Nice to meet ya!"


"Oh great," Hige sighed, rolling his eyes. "Another runt."


"'Runt!' What's that mean?!" Shippo snapped before leaping onto Toboe's shoulder. "Is he always that grumpy?" he asked, making Toboe laugh as he nodded. "Pretty much!"


"Hey, this one's awake," said Kagome, who was kneeling next to Kiba. Kiba stirred and opened his eyes to see a black-haired girl looking down at him. "How are you feeling? Does anything hurt?"


"Who are you?" asked Kiba quietly. "Kagome," she said. Suddenly, Kiba tried to sit up, and she said "Wait! You shouldn't move!"


"I'll be fine," he said, and pulled his jacket on. If Kiba was in any pain, he didn't show it; instead he stood up, stretched, and walked over to the river to splash his face with cold water. "Doesn't say much, does he?" asked Kagome, and Sango nodded. "Yeah, he's pretty quiet, alright."


"So, what were doing in this forest?" asked Miroku.


Hige scoffed. "I've got no idea! We just sorta showed up here and got back-asswards lost." He looked at Toboe and smakced him upside the head. "And what happened to you? You don't just run off without tellin' no one!"


"I'm sorry!" Toboe said, rubbing his head. "I just saw this deer and sorta chased in until I fell in that hole. The hunger made me do it, I swear!"


"Toboe, there was no deer. You were chasing a ghost," said Kiba, sitting next to him. "Whatta ya mean?" he asked.


"No tracks, no scent, no nothing. Unless the deer was invisible, there was no deer," Kiba explained calmly.


"That demon may hace created an illusion of a deer for you to folloe, so it could catch and eat you," said Sango, causing Toboe to turn pale at just what a close call his death had been.


"It's okay, Toboe!" said Shippo cheerfully. "Everyone makes mistakes."


Everyone was quiet for a moment when Inuyasha's voice came drifting down from the tree branches. "So, exactly what kind of demons are you?"


There was a pause of deafening silence.


"Demons," said Kiba flatly, an eyebrow cocked in a questioning look. He had been called many things, but demon?


"We're not demons!" Toboe said, surprised and defensive.


"An interesting but wrong deduction there, Sherlock," Hige smirked.


"Oh, really?" said Inuyasha. He jumped from the branch he had been sitting on and landed gracefully on the ground. Without pausing, he started walking towards the three boys. "Well, then, explain to me how, when we first got here, there were three unconscious wolves and a pissed off demon. After that, there were three unconscious humans and a dead demon. If you're not demons, then what are you?"


"Yeah, that's right! I knew I saw a wolf when l looked in that hole!" said Shippo, looking at Toboe.


"Are you wolf-demons?" asked Sango, and Kagome shook her head.


"All the wolf-demons I met looked like Koga, but none of them could ever turn into wolves," said Kagome, not noticing the throbbing vein on Inuyasha's forehead at the mention of 'Koga'.


"Why did you have to bring that mangy wolf up, Kagome?" he growled.


Kagme glared. "I can 'bring up' anyone I want, thank you!"


"I don't care who you talk about, just don't mention him! I don't get what you see in that guy!" Inuyasha said, crossing his arms and looking away.


Sango leaned over and said quietly to Hige. "You could say Inuyasha is something of the jealous type."


Hige looked at her, saying "Really, now?" Okay, that ruled out Kagome, but maybe Sango...?


Shippo leaned over towards Hige from the other side and whispered, "Miroku is something of the jealous type, too."


Hige's shoulders slumped and he hung his head in defeat. If he had dog ears, they would've drooped. "Why am I not surprised?" he asked quietly.


Meanwhile, the arguement between Inuyasha and Kagome had grown worse, and it looked like they were about to come to blows, both standing only inches apart andglaring horribly.


"Why do you get mad whenever I say "Koga'? I don't get mad whenever you mention Kikyo, or even when I catch you together!" Kagome snarled.


"Koga's just using you to find jewel shards, that's all! What's that gotta do with me and Kikyo, anyway?!" Inuyasha shot back.


"Shouldn't we try to break them up?" Toboe asked worridly.


"It's best to stay out of it," said Sango, stroking the fire.


"Yeah, this happens at the time!" Shippo said.


"It'll be easier on everyone if they get it out of their systems now rather than later," said Miroku sagely, eyes closed and leaning on his staff as he sat on his rock.


"This is great, just great," Hige grumbled.


Suddenly. "Goddammit, will you two just shut up?!" roared Tsume, sitting up, hand to his head as if to surpess a throbbing headache. "Can't the injured have a little peace?!"


"Tell me shut up again, and I'll show you 'injured'!" Inuyasha snapped, turning from Kagome to Tsume.


"Show me 'injured' and I'll show you 'dead'!" Tsume snarled, eyes glaring, his hand going for the knive on the back of his belt. Before Inuyasha could move, a cry of "Tsume!" erupted from Toboe, who ran over to the silver-haired boy and fell to his knees beside him. "I'm sorry! I'll never run off again, please don't be mad! I just wanted to show you I could take care of myself, is all." A single tear trickled down Toboe's cheek.


"Quit the waterworks, Toboe," said Tsume. He reached his hand out, looking like he was about to comfort the boy, but instead slapped him upside the head. "Ow, Tsume!"


"If this is what you do to prove you can take care of yourself, I'm not impressed. Besides, it'd take more than an ugly-ass snake-thing to take me out, okay? I'm not going anywhere, I promise." Not looking at the boy, Tsume layed back down, the exchange seeming to exhaust him. Toboe smiled (which turned into a grimace as he felt the two lumps on his head), picked up an empty canteen and went to fill it with water.


"Does anyone else feel like they just saw something they weren't supposed to see?" asked Kagome, raising her hand. Without hesitation Sango, Shippo, Miroku, Inuyasha, Hige, and Kiba all raised their hands.




"What you said before wasn't all wrong. We're not demons, but we are wolves," said Kiba. Everyone was sitting around the fire as dusk fell, Inuyasha's and Kagome's fight long forgotton, but apparently not Inuyasha's and Tsume's, judging from the glares they kept throwing each other.


"Humph. That explains the smell," muttered Inuyasha, earning an extra-deadly glare from Tsume. "You can't exactly talk yourself, Dog-Boy," he spat.


"D-Dog-Boy?!" sputtered Inuyasha. Before he could lunge across the fire and strangle Tsume, Miroku swung his staff down on Inuyasha's head, stunning him. "Please try to get along," the monk said as Inuyasha lay twitching on the ground.


"So, you say you're wolves?" prompted Sango, wishing for Kiba to continue. She found herself liking the quiet, young man, even if he looked at everything with a cold, calculating stare.


"Where we come from, wolves are believed to be extinct for two hundred years. Obviously, there are still wolves alive, but the only to survive is to disquise ourselves as humans," Kiba finished.


"Yeah, and we have to look like this because there are some very stupid-ass humans who think wolves are evil and like to use us for target practice," said Hige, remembering a very persistant wolf-hunter named Quint.


"That's terrible!" said Shippo, remembering what it was like to be hunted.


"So, where exactly did you say you came from?" asked Kagome.


"Oh, I assumed they came from your time," said Sango, and the girl shook her head. "I don't think so. I mean, the clothes are the same, but wolves still exist in my time."


"Perhaps they're from another future era?" suggested Miroku.


Kagome shrugged. "Anything's possible, I guess."


"Well, wherever you're from, why don't you go back? We don't need you around," grumbled Inuyasha, sitting up, only to be smacked in the back of the head by Kagome. "Be nice, Inuyasha," she said, not looking at him.


"So, we're you guys from, Shippo? You don't exactly seem comfortably in the forest any more than us," said Toboe. He liked the little fox-demon, and they were quickly becoming friends, so any questions he had he asked Shippo. Toboe had noticed earlier when they had been trying to get away from the dead demon that several times Sango, Miroku, and Kagome had been looking around, clearly lost. It was only my following Inuyasha, who had been jumping from tree to tree overhead, that they had found their present campsite.


"We had just left a village early this morning when Kagome sensed a jewel shard. From the direction it was coming from, we thought that cutting through this forest might be a quick shortcut, but then we got lost," he explained.


"And exactly whose idea was it that we cut through this forest?" Inuyasha growled, his vein throbbing in bubbling anger. Shippo, looking terrified when he remembered it had been his idea, leapt and hid behind Toboe. "Well, it's not all my fault! You didn't exactly say no yourself, Inuyasha!"


"Hey, leave shorty alone," said Hige. " He's just a kid."


"Everyone makes mistakes, right?" asked Toboe, and the little demon smiled at him.


"Actually, it's a good thing we got lost in here, otherwise you'd be demon dinner," said Sango, unusually cheerful.


"Fate's hands were certainly involved here," Miroku spoke.


"Hmph. You owe us big time wolves, for saving your asses, so you can have first watch," said
Inuyasha.


"Why don't you take first watch, Dog-boy? Do you really want a weak little wolf watching over you while you get your beauty sleep?" Tsume growled. "And besides, we didn't need your help."


Inuyasha scoffed. "Riight. Could've fooled me. Is lying unconscious some kind of battle strategy I've never heard of?"


Everyone waited for Tsume's comeback, but nothing happened. He glared at Inuyasha for a moment, then
broke his gaze away. "Just stay away from me, Dog-boy," he said, standing and walking off to sit next to the river and look up at the stars, causing everyone to glare at the half-demon.


Toboe stood up suddenly, glaring at Inuyasha. "Leave Tsume alone! He may not it, but he's really hurt, and you're not helping, Inuyasha!" he said, and walked off to sit beside Tsume.


"Well, I hope you're proud, Inuyasha!" said Kagome, not looking at him.


"Yeah, you hurt the poor guy's pride," observed Sango, looking at the dark forms of Tsume and Toboe.


"That wasn't the wisest move," commented Miroku.


Inuyasha had had enough. He stood up abrutly. "Fine, dammit, I get it. Don't let everyone jump on my back at once!" he spat and leapt into the branched of the nearest tree.


"Great. Now we've gotta deal with three hurt wolves and two hurt prides," sighed Kagome. "It's going to be a long night," Sango agreed.


"Two hurt wolves," Kiba corrected, standing up. "You were right about the prides, though. Tsume never backs down from a fight, and getting knocked out in the middle of one and needing help is as bad as dying." He put his hands in his pockets and looked over at Tsume and Toboe. "I''m fine, so I'll take first watch," he said, his tone putting an end to any arguement, and without another word walked off to sit of a rock overlooking the river.


Hige, who was next to the fire, had his hands behind his head and was staring at the stars. "I never stopped to check out the stars. Gotta do it more often," he said sleepily, yawning loudly.


"Yeah, I'm sleepy, too," said Shippo, and he curled up on Hige's stomach, finding the boy's slightly larger abdomen extremely comfortable, and fell asleep immediatly.


"Inuyasha can be such a jerk sometimes," said Kagome a few minutes later as she stared into the fire. Whatever spell had been over the forest during the day was broken now, and there were gentle cricket chrips and the sounds of a faint breeze blowing through the branches. She looked at Hige and Shippo and smiled to herself. These wolves are certainly interesting! she thought. Kagome looked at the dark shapes of Tsume and Toboe and found herself thinking I wonder what their story is. Are they related? They certainly act like brothers.


"Inuyasha may be hard-nosed sometimes, but he means well," Sango said.


"And that Tsume wasn't being very friendly, either," observed Miroku. "And yes, I do think we jumped on Inuyasha a bit tonight. He's a very prideful man, and we took their side immediatly. It was almost a betrayal in his eyes."


Kagome sighed. "So I should go apologize?"


"Yes, Inuyasha cares about you, so you should care about him," Sango said gently but firmly.


"You're right," Kagome said, standing and walking beneath the tree where Inuyasha had gone, going to the opposite so Sango and Miroku couldn't hear them, and sat down. "Inuyasha?" she asked quietly. There was no reply, letting Kagome know just how angry he actually was.


"I'm sorry about earlier, okay? It's not fair that everyone jumped on you for being an insulting jerk. That's how you normally are, so I don't understand why we all got so mad."


The provacation worked, and an angry voice called down "I'm not an insulting jerk!"


Kagome smiled. She could tell by his tone that he had been feeling bad about earlier.


"I thought you came to apologize!" Inuyasha said.


Kagome was quiet for a minute. "Inuyasha, why are you actually mad? You've been in a bad mood since we ran into these guys. If you gave them a chance, and quit being such a smartass all the time, you might see that they're actually pretty cool, even Tsume."


There was a silence from the branches. After a minute, she realized that is wasn't an angry silnce, but a thoughtful one. "Good-night, Inuyasha," she said, walking back to the fire, feeling her mission had been accomplished.


Inuyasha watched Kagome walk back with a mixture of thoughtfuness and confussion. He couldn't explain what was rubbing him wrong wbout the wolves. There was just a feeling of uneasiness that clawed at him whenever he thought about the wolves. There was also an extremely odd...familiar feeling that he felt when looking at Tsume. He shook his head and leaned back against the trunk of the tree. Maybe a good night's sleep will help, he thought.


While Kagome went to talk to Inuyasha Sango stood up adn stretched. "If you don't mind being alone for a moment, Miroku, I'm going to talk to Kiba. I'd like to ask him something."


Miroku smiled. "Sure, go ahead. Just don't do anything that might result in you having a litter in a few months." He barely got the words out before she smacked his head, hard. "I can't believe you're a monk!" she sadi as she walked off.


Kiba was sitting on the rok, thinking to himself, when he heard footsteps and the woman Sango came up, standing beside him, looking up( for the rock was about six feet tall, an excellant lookout spot).


"Are they your brothers? Or just your friends?" she asked after a silent minute.


"They're not my brothers. I lost all my family and friends a long time ago in a fire," said Kiba quietly. "They're my packmates, nothing more."


"It's hard to reconnect after you lose everything you hold dear," Sango said, looking arcoss the river, lost in the past as Kiba looked down at her with a questioning stare.


"We were a whole village of demon slayers. Because of our profession, we were widely hated, as can be imagined. One day, a large horde of demons attacked, destroying and devouring everything in theri path. All of the strongest hunters, including myself and my brother Kohaku, were on a mission at the time. A powerful demon brainwashed my brother, and he killed everyone in our party, or tried to, including me." Sango wrapped her arms around herself despite the warm weather. "I will carry the scar until the day I die." she said quietly.


"I'm sorry," said Kiba. "Nobody deserves to go through that loss."


"Yes, but not making any friends after such a loss is even worse. Everyone needs a group of people they can count on, whether its a pack, or friends, or family. I don't know what I'd do without them," Sango said, pointing back towards the camp. After a few silent miutes, Sango turned to leave. "If you get tired, someone'll take over for you. Good night, Kiba," she said, walking back.


Kiba said a quiet "Good night," and turned back to the water. "Are they your brothers?" Sango had asked. Kiba had never thought about it like that before. He had always thought of them as allies in a fight and packmates on a good day, but brothers? Now that he thought about it, they certainly acted like brothers, with Toboe and Hige being the younger siblings to him and Tsume.


Maybe Sango had a point, he thought. They are not just allies, their my friends. And together, we're going to Paradise, one way or another.