(KARAMI DREAM SEQUENCE)
        Princess Karami in her layers of glorious kimono is pinned to the ground by a gang of wicked bandits on the way to her father’s palace in Edo. They’ve slain all of her retainers and the brave Samurai her father had charged with protecting her. But the noble warriors took many of the bandits into death with them, leaving their poor Princess in the hands of the remaining brigands, who are determined to avenge their fallen comrades upon her lovely, nubile young body. Suddenly, like a holy wind from heaven, a powerful Samurai in shining black armor arrives on the scene, as if sent by the gods themselves! With a terrifying war cry, he leaps from the back of his steed, the steel of his katana catching the sunlight like a mighty flame—
(END OF KARAMI DREAM SEQUENCE)

        Keiichi rolled his eyes. "Earth to Karami. Come in, Karami."
        "Oh, you must be a Samurai!" Karami gushed at Inu Yasha, utterly ignoring her boyfriend, who had also been in peril the previous night (apparently guys are never "in distress" and in need of rescuing in Karami’s fantasies). "The way you rescued me from those evil men—just like an honorable knight saving a damsel in distress!"
        "’Honorable knight’?" Everyone else muttered in unison. Shippo snickered.
        Inu Yasha gritted his teeth and told Karami in a tight voice: "I am not a Samurai. Samurai are human—and in my time, they’re the ‘evil men’ women like you need to watch out for. Even the ones who do have a lord are dangerous. Samurai take what they want, and anybody who doesn’t like it dies." He cursed at her in utter disgust and went to pour himself another glass of ice water. "And will somebody please tell me who the fuck this Oda Nobunaga sunnovabitch is before I start breaking shit over here?!" He slammed down his glass to illustrate.
        Keiichi hurried to explain: "He was a great warlord, the first to make effective use of firearms in battle in Japan. I have no idea when he lived in relationship to where you came from, but since you’ve never heard of him—"
        "—I met a kid named Nobunaga," Inu Yasha interrupted, "but he wasn’t from Oda Clan."
       "Different guy, I guess," Keiichi laughed self-consciously, then shut up as Inu Yasha glared at him over the rim of his glass.
        "Yeah, I guess."
        Karami, meanwhile, wasn’t taking having her bubble burst very well. She sank back against the cushions and pouted. "Well, maybe there are honorable ones and they would rescue a damsel in distress…"
       "Whatever," Inu Yasha snapped at her. "I don’t know much about the habits of humans. I usually find mortals pretty boring."
        No one said anything for a while. Inu Yasha sat down across from Karami and ignored his water, feeling inexplicably guilty for spoiling her romantic fantasies while at the same time utterly puzzled by them. She’d been a "damsel in distress" last night, and he’d rescued her, but that didn’t make him a Samurai. He didn’t even want to be a Samurai. Always having to live by some stuffy set of rules and act a certain way and kill himself if he got dishonored. What was the allure of that? Shippo sat on the couch next to Karami but couldn’t find anything to say. Finally, Inu Yasha said: "You don’t have to be a Samurai to be honorable, or rescue people from assholes like Tachi, you know."
        That perked her up a little. "I know. I didn’t mean to insult you by calling you a Samurai."
        He shrugged and took a sip of water. "I’m not insulted." When did he get so soft on women, anyway? Samurai rescuing beautiful princesses in layers of silk. Oh, brother. Is that what people in this time thought life was like in his? They called it "The Warring States Period", so at least they understood that there were a lot of wars going on, lots of bloody power struggles between warlords. But did they think those battles were fought by brave, noble knights defending somebody’s honor? Gods, he hoped not. Suddenly he smiled at what she’d said about Samurai rescuing damsels in distress. He did a lot of rescuing of Kagome in distress, which he supposed made him Karami’s sort of romantic hero (without the confining armor and restrictive lifestyle). Was that how Kagome thought of him? Her brave, honorable Samurai, who saved her from wicked men meaning to do her harm? The idea of being the hero of women’s romantic fantasies was oddly appealing to him, especially if the woman having the fantasy was Kagome.
        "You know, he’s right," Shunusuke commented as he sat on the floor by the table, "you don’t have to be a sword-slinging, ass-kicking Samurai warrior to be honorable. There are alternatives to fighting," he held up a dramatic finger, "which brings us to a point: What are we going to do to…*ahem*… discourage Tachimora-san from making any further trouble for the local beach goers and more specifically for us? Now, we could continue with the Inu Yasha Method and just keep mopping up the beach with his sorry ass," grins at that, especially from Inu Yasha, who expressed his willingness to carry on with the status quo by cracking his knuckles and showing his fangs. Shunusuke continued: "Or, we can solve this problem in a more permanent fashion."
        Karami blanched. "You don’t mean…kill him?!"
        Yuki, Shunusuke and Keiichi groaned. Shunusuke rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed. "There will be no killing. Killing is bad." He looked up and gave her a weary smile. "You’ve been watching too many John Woo movies, Karami-san. As I said, there are alternatives to violence, though in Tachimora’s case, I don’t think we’re gonna have much choice."
        "Damn right we won’t!" Inu Yasha didn’t get the movie reference but he latched right onto Shunusuke’s realization that Tachi wouldn’t give them any alternatives to violence. That was just fine with Inu Yasha, who found a knock down, drag out blood bath cathartic. Shunusuke’s thing about being one with universe was a tad confusing in the current context, however. Was Yuki’s brother a monk, or a martial artist? Was he both? A warrior monk, perhaps? And what was with that nonsense he kept spouting about alternatives to fighting?
        Shunusuke held up his hand to forestall any speech about ass kicking that Inu Yasha had planned, but was too late. "Let him come!" Inu Yasha crowed. "I hope he brings all of his ‘guys’, so we can take care of ‘em all at once!" He smacked his fist into his palm with gusto. Shunusuke slowly shook his head. "What? Why not get all of them at once?" Inu Yasha protested. "It’s better than picking them off one by one—"
        "Oh, I agree completely," Shunusuke insisted, holding up his hands in a peaceful gesture, "I just think we need a better strategy than beating the boogers out of them. If we do that, they’ll still come back—maybe not as long as you and I are here, but we don’t live here, and there are always tourists at this beach. What about them?" He nodded thoughtfully. "When I said we needed to solve this problem permanently, I meant we have to make it so Tachimora and his gang no longer threaten anybody—not together, not individually."
        "And short of killing them," Keiichi drawled with a nod to Karami, who flushed with embarrassment over her earlier outburst, "or throwing them in jail, what are our options? Killing them is, of course, definitely out. We could call the police and let the law handle it from here, but—"
        "What happened to us not wanting any questions?" Shippo growled from his perch at Karami’s elbow and shook his tail in defiance.
        Keiichi smiled at him. "I wasn’t finished. I was going to say: We could involve the law—if we didn’t have a hard-to-explain-away youkai involved in the crime for which we want them arrested. Namely: The attack on myself and Karami last night." He chewed his knuckle thoughtfully. "I suppose we could lie…say it was somebody else…you, maybe?" He looked at Shunuske.
        Shunusuke shook his head. "Too many regulars around here would recognize me, and Yuki said there were witnesses." He made a lazy gesture at Inu Yasha. "And even with the bandanna and shades, he’s hard to mistake for somebody else."
        Inu Yasha found that amusing until it dawned on him that witnesses meant gossip, which meant word of his heroics had probably reached Kagome’s ears by now, which meant he was in deep shit. No wait! He wouldn’t be in trouble with Kagome, because she’d hear that he’d beat up those guys to save a woman who was about to be raped! She’d be proud of him, just like Shippo had said! But if she was so proud of him, where was she? Maybe she didn’t know where he was staying. Surely the witnesses saw where he’d taken the wounded but maybe they didn’t know who this house belonged to. No, that didn’t add up, either, since Shunusuke was sure regular visitors to this beach would know him on sight, which seemed to indicate that the Asanos spent a lot of time here. So why hadn’t Kagome tried to contact him? Was she afraid Tachi would connect her to him and try to hurt her? His heart raced again at the thought of Kagome in the hands of Tachimora’s gang. "Good girl, Kagome," he thought, "just pretend you don’t know me till I can fix this!"
        They continued their discussion of the problem at hand, but even after chewing on it for almost an hour they still couldn’t come up with any plan better than waiting to see what Tachi’s next move would be and reacting to it. Then Shunusuke had an inspiration:
        "Hey, Inu Yasha, let’s go work out on the beach," he suggested as he rose and stretched, then headed for his luggage, which was still sitting where he’d left it just inside the door. "I brought my shinai with me to practice with Yuki, but I don’t think she’ll mind being left out this time." He smiled at his sister, who shook her head. No, she didn’t mind at all.
        Inu Yasha frowned. Yuki could use a sword, too? Or was she merely her brother’s student and never used more than the bamboo practice sword? Judging by Yuki’s combatant personality, Inu Yasha decided the girl wouldn’t be happy with a pretend sword and probably had a blade of her own, though he hadn’t seen her unpack one when they’d arrived. Probably left it at home, he reasoned, thinking they were headed for a nice, peaceful week at the beach, and no doubt wished she had it now. That had partly been his own reasoning for leaving the Tetsusaiga behind. What in the world had he been thinking? Of course, Shunusuke had started to tell them that people in this time only used swords as a hobby, so maybe Yuki didn’t have one of her own, and neither did her brother since nobody used them as real weapons in their time. If so, then it was a good thing after all that he didn’t have his father’s sword with him.
        "Hopefully," Shunusuke was saying as he passed Inu Yasha, suitcase in one hand, another large, odd-shaped case in the other and what Inu Yasha recognized as bamboo swords in cloth sheaths tucked under his arm, "one of Tachimora’s little creeps’ll see us and let him know Shunusuke Asano’s in town and working with Inu Yasha." He started to put his things in the room Inu Yasha and Shippo were using, realized it was occupied by non-family and installed his belongings in Yuki’s room. "We gotta get a bigger place," he complained as he got out the swords and returned with them to the living room. Removing the cloth sheaths, he tossed one of the swords to Inu Yasha, who caught it effortlessly. "I’ll sleep out here."
        "That’s where we’re sleeping, too," Shippo informed him. He hopped off the arm of the couch and had transformed into a teenage human again by the time his feet his the floor.
        Karami blushed. "We don’t mean to be such a bother, Yuki-san—"
        Yuki waved her off. "It’s no bother! Make yourselves at home."
        The other girl rose unsteadily and bowed with a relieved smile. With a catch in her voice, she said: "Thank you, Yuki-san!"
        Yuki gaped at her. From the tone of her voice, Karami seemed to think they’d just put her back on the beach so that gang could attack her again! The bruises on Karami’s body had been enough to bring tears to Yuki’s eyes last night and threatened to do it again now. She was just glad she hadn’t seen what Inu Yasha and Keiichi must have witnessed. And poor Keiichi, sitting there trying to be his usual cavalier self with two cracked ribs and a face that was still swollen and bruised from the beating he’d taken. Damn that Tachimora! "We won’t let them hurt you again, Karami-chan," she told the girl solemnly, her fingernails pressing little red half-moons into her palms, "that’s a promise. We won’t let them hurt you, or Keiichi or anybody else ever again."
        When she talked like that, Inu Yasha could almost forget the way she’d treated him before her brother’s arrival. In fact, right about now she sounded a lot like Kagome. He shook the thought from his head. Yuki was nothing like Kagome, no matter how brave the Asano girl might turn out to be or how good she might be with a sword (if she could use one that wasn’t made of bamboo and even owned a real one). He slipped into his diguise once again, then, turning Shunusuke’s practice sword in his palm, he followed Yuki’s brother out the door and down to the beach below the condo.
        No sooner did the two men step onto the beach when they were spied by several bathing beauties, who squealed their discovery to their neighbors. In minutes, Inu Yasha and Shunusuke had an audience.
        Or more accurately, they had groupies.
       

        "What’s going on down there?" Kagome asked Rei. Both girls tilted their sunglasses down their noses as several girls tore past them, making for the Asano residence, where a pack of mostly females was already gathered in the sand behind the condo. Kagome couldn’t see what they were all gawking at but could hazard a guess. The brave hero of last night’s gallant rescue had emerged: Inu Yasha of the great butt and leather wardrobe. Oh boy, the excitement never stopped. This was gonna be a loooong afternoon. Just as well get it over with. She sighed and stood up. "Shall we find out?"
        Rei however was already halfway down the beach, squealing: "Kagome, it’s him!"
        Kagome trudged after her in disgust. "You’d think Elvis had come back from the dead…" she muttered bitterly. What in the world had gotten these girls all worked up over a conceited jerk like Inu Yasha? Gallant? Puh-leeze! Sure, he was brave and strong and all that (hmmm…really strong) but he was also a brawler who couldn’t say two nice words to her without freaking out and taking them back. Usually. Well, ok, lately he hadn’t been taking it back—but he was a total jerk whenever she had to go home! As if she didn’t have a life apart from him! Grrrr! And he actually thought she was spending a whole week at the beach alone with Hojo? Even if she was that kind of a girl (which she wasn’t, and how dare that creep think she was), Hojo wasn’t that kind of a boy. Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen Hojo at all. Well, she hadn’t even been there a full day yet.
        She was at the back of the crowd of giggling, swooning girls (and handful of disgusted boys) by the time she finished that thought and realized she still couldn’t see what was going on. She could hear clacking sounds, men grunting and then what was unmistakably Inu Yasha’s voice cursing somebody named Shunusuke. Kagome guessed Shunusuke was Inu Yasha’s opponent, though the demon’s tone didn’t sound like the one he usually used in a fight. Just sparring? Inu Yasha had found a sparring partner already? Since when did he practice fighting? And who was—oh. Duh. She smacked her forehead. Drooling girls, Asano condominium, sparring. Kagome did the math and it added up to Yuki’s big brother Shunusuke, former Kendo Club President and high school heartthrob. From the sighs that reached her ears, University in America hadn’t spoiled Shunuske’s looks.
        "Excuse me," Kagome muttered as she tried to push her way to the fore, only to be shoved back for her rudeness. "I said ‘excuse me’!" She whined and bullied harder. This time she made better progress and was slowly able to work her way to just behind the first row of spectators and peek between their heads at the action.

      Shippo watched the match from the balcony above the beach and giggled at how Inu Yasha must feel about all those silly girls watching him fight. Come to think of it, Dog Boy wasn’t doing quite as well with the sword as he usually did. Not that Inu Yasha had ever fought with any particular skill, usually just going by his wits (such as they were) but today the scrappy demon really seemed off his game. "Must be the lack of sleep," Shippo reasoned. He watched the men circle each other, then Inu Yasha would attack with a shout, and Shunusuke would block him effortlessly. Another attack, another casual block. Attack, block, attack, block. Inu Yasha was working himself into a pretty foul temper, while his opponent remained as serene as the Buddha. Shunusuke would say something to Inu Yasha, who would look disgusted and attack, only to be deflected again. "I wonder what he’s saying?" Shippo mused. Inu Yasha didn’t look mad enough for his opponent’s words to be insults, so what could Shunusuke be telling him?
        A shout came up from one of the few males in the crowd: "Hey, Asano! Forget the swords! Let the man do what he does best!"
        That got cheers of assent from males and females alike, and a smug look from Inu Yasha. Shunusuke waggled a scolding finger at the audience and called back: "Not until he defeats me at what I do best!" There was laughter and cheers at that declaration, and somebody starting calling for bets.
        All of a sudden Shippo saw a familiar face pushing her way to the front of the crowd and his blood went cold. "Kagome! Oh no! Think fast!" He ran back into the house and collided with Yuki. "Kagome’s gonna talk to him!" Shippo explained as he freed himself from her and ran out the front door and down the stairs to the beach.
       Yuki rushed out onto the porch to see what he would do, then realized with great irritation that she wouldn’t be able to hear a thing the kitsune said. It only took her a moment to spot Kagome, standing in the second row, watching the fight. Soon Shippo appeared at the back of the crowd and began to insinuate himself, shouldering through until he was standing next to Kagome and speaking in her ear with a companionable expression on his face. "What in the hell are you doing, fox?"

        It was now Asano’s turn to be the aggressor, but Inu Yasha was only just barely able to block Shunusuke’s shinai. Kagome was near, he could smell her, and the intoxicating fragrance of her sun drenched skin was killing his concentration. She was here, she was in the crowd watching him— "Oh, dear gods, don’t let her try to talk to me!" Then he smelled Shippo. That could be good or bad, depending on what the kitsune planned to do. Inu Yasha turned the remainder of his concentration on what Shippo was saying to Kagome and quite justifiably got the sword knocked straight out of his hands. He watched the bamboo rod twirl through the air and land (no!) right at Kagome’s feet. When did she get in the front row?! His heart beat so hard and fast it threatened to strangle him as he forced himself to walk as normally as possible to retrieve his weapon. He bent over, got a trembling hand around it, straightened up—and looked right into her big, beautiful eyes and blushing face. He swallowed, she swallowed, then he forced himself to look around the rest of the front row, turn his back on her and prepare himself for Shunusuke’s next attack. He could feel sweat trickling down his back that had nothing to do with his exertions with Shunusuke.
        "You mustn’t let anything distract you," Kendo champion Asano was instructing him as if nothing had happened (did Shunususke know what Kagome looked like?) and just like he’d been doing the whole damn fight. As if he, Inu Yasha, wielder of the fabled Tetsusaiga, needed instruction in Bushido from a mortal! But the man was right: He had let a girl distract him. "Remember: You are the universe and the universe is you," Shunusuke rambled on. "Be one with it, one with the sword in your hand, one with me. There is no ‘defeat’ or ‘victory’, there is only the practice we are doing together here and now." Shunusuke planted his feet and nodded. "Again!"
        Who in the hell did this human think he was, anyway? He probably had no real combat experience and he presumed to instruct—"Shit!" Distracted again, this time by pride and anger. Inu Yasha once again retrieved his sword (from the other side of the ring from Kagome, thank all the gods) and prepared for the next round. "Who made you sensei?" He taunted, but Shunusuke remained unruffled.
        "I’ve been teaching Bushido for four years now," he explained in a conversational tone. "In my family the training begins almost as soon as a child can walk." He brought his sword up and around, seeming to allow Inu Yasha to block it, then came back with a quicker blow that nearly ripped the weapon out of the demon’s hands again. "I am Asano. In the days before the Samurai were outlawed, we were Lords in this land for almost eight hundred years." Swoop, clack, swat. "Our dojo is near the city of Osaka, where it has been for four hundred and thirty years. Once, when Tokyo was known as Edo, we had a castle not far from here, but we—"clack, clack, thwack "—set ourselves against Nobunaga, and he burned it to the ground." Whack!
        Inu Yasha’s weapon went flying once again. Asano’s family was that old? Inu Yasha scoured his memory for some hint of the name, but he honestly didn’t keep track of humans. After his mother’s death, they didn’t affect his life until… He sighed and picked up the sword. Until he met Kikyo. And then Kagome. Now it seemed everybody in his life was human, save Shippo and Myouga (that he could consider friends).
        Shunusuke wasn’t finished with his monologue yet. "Of course, we’re just a rich family now. Businessmen. There are no more nobles in Japan, except for the Emperor and his family." He sounded genuinely saddened by that.
        Inu Yasha thumped his sword against his shoulder and teased: "So what are you, anyway? A storyteller? I thought you were a swordsman."
        He feigned shock. "I? Why I am nothing more than the son of Mikoto Asano, heir to the Asano fortune and the family micro chip manufacturing and research business. Lucrative stuff, technology." The young swordsman performed a joking bow.
        Inu Yasha smiled to humor the mortal and tried to act like he knew what Asano was talking about. He hated it when these people tossed around lingo he didn’t understand. If Yuki had said all that stuff, he would’ve thought she was trying to insult him, but the way Shunusuke said it, it was just information, a simple presentation of his credentials to a skeptical student. With a bit of a punch line at the end to keep things light.
        The groupies found Asano’s little speech very inspiring and swooned and giggled over how "dreamy" he was. Inu Yasha rolled his eyes. Shunusuke enjoyed the attention enormously.

        Shippo sidled up to Kagome just before Inu Yasha’s blade landed at her feet. He had only enough to time to comment in a conspiratorial voice: "Hey! That’s that Inu Yasha guy! Man, I wouldn’t want to be a friend of his after what he did to Tachi’s guys last night!"
        "You wouldn’t?" Kagome asked, not recognizing her kitsune friend through his disguise. "Why not?"
        He snorted: "’Cause if Tachi finds out they know Inu Yasha—" he made a slashing motion across his throat, "—they’re history!"
        Then Inu Yasha was picking up his sword and looking straight into Kagome’s eyes. Shippo thought time would hang right there forever as he held his breath, thanked the gods that nobody could see Inu Yasha’s eyes through those dark glasses and fervently prayed that Kagome would take the hint and play dumb. In a heartbeat, it was over, with neither speaking to the other or even acting like they recognized each other. Shippo thought he might faint. Suddenly, he had an idea. If Inu Yasha and Kagome couldn’t get together, and Tachi’s guys would know the Asanos, Keiichi and Karami, then it was up to him to play middleman! But he had to let Kagome know who he was first. Easy enough:
        "Don’t I know you?" He mused, squinting at her and tapping a thoughtful finger against his lips. "Aren’t you Higurashi? Um…wait, I’ll remember…Kagome, right?"
        She looked a little suspicious but nodded.
        Shippo grinned from ear to ear. "You probably don’t remember me. Shippo? My mom used to bring me to the shrine—"
        "Oh! Shippo! Of course!" Kagome almost wept for joy. Shippo was here, too! He could be her go-between with Inu Yasha! "Shippo Kinu!" She made up a family name for him on the fly, hoping he’d remember it for the next time she used it at him, then smiled with a barely-suppressed giggle at her own cleverness. (Note: Shippo means "tail", Kinu means "silk" - QOS) "I do remember! How is you mother?"
        They reminisced about their totally imaginary past acquaintance for a few minutes, then Inu Yasha lost his grip again. The shinai would’ve hit Kagome right in the face, but a hand shot out in front of her and snatched it away. She looked up with a start to discover the hand belonged to Inu Yasha himself, who had spun about with supernatural speed to grab the sword before it could harm her. "Th-thank you," Kagome stammered and blushed furiously.
        He smiled at her and rubbed the back of his head. "Sorry about that," he apologized in a voice that shook just enough for her to notice, then he went back to sparring with Asano.
    Kagome clutched her chest, a gesture her friend Rei, who had just managed to reach the front row took completely wrong (or maybe completely right). She grabbed Kagome’s arm and gushed into her ear: "Eeek! He talked to you, Kagome! I’m so jealous!"
        She wrenched her arm out of Rei’s grasp with an irritated snort. "That stupid sword of his almost hit me in the face!"
        "But he caught it!" Rei reminded her, then went back to being a drooling groupie. "Did you see how fast he moved? He’s too chivalrous to let anything hurt a girl! Even his own sword!" All of a sudden she noticed Shippo looking at her like she’d just arrived from another planet. She quickly pulled herself together. "Kagome? Who’s your friend?"
        "Eh?" Kagome blinked confusion, but Shippo poked her arm to point her in the right direction. "Oh! Uh, Rei Taitsuko, this is Shippo Kinu. He used to visit our shrine with his mother. Shippo, Rei goes to my school."
       They bowed and shook hands at the same time, which was rather awkward across Kagome’s body, and Shippo wound up bonking his head on Kagome’s breasts on the way back up. Both he and Kagome turned bright red, and Shippo stammered an incoherent apology, which made all three of them giggle. Then Kagome said: "C’mon, you guys, let’s go. Sword fights are boring. And anyway, I’m hungry."
        Rei surprised her by not insisting she be allowed to stay and watch the "gallant" Inu Yasha spar with the handsome Shunusuke Asano. Instead, the girl attached herself to Shippo, who, unable to think of a good excuse not to accept Kagome’s invitation to go with her and her friend, allowed himself to be led away.

        It was all Inu Yasha could do not to watch Kagome go. He wished Asano was the one with his back to her, not him, but there was nothing he could do about it that wouldn’t be conspicuous. He could hear them giggling most of the way down the beach. Clever little Shippo had saved the day this time and was enjoying his just reward: Kagome’s company, which Inu Yasha couldn’t see himself sharing for at least the rest of the week. After all the trouble he’d gone through to be with her here, even enduring Yuki’s snide remarks, foot in his groin and weird come-ons, all he could do was catch glimpses of Kagome (if he was lucky). He couldn’t talk to her, or even acknowledge that he knew her or noticed her.
        "I’ve had enough, Asano," he growled, then realized how that would sound to the audience and quickly put on a companionable smirk.
        Shunusuke laughed and thumped Inu Yasha’s back. "Not so fast," he grinned as he tossed his shinai aside and took up a ready stance, "it’s time to do what you do best."
        The crowd cheered, and more bets were called for. Inu Yasha wasn’t in the mood to fight anymore, which just wasn’t like him. She’d been so close, just a few inches away, smelling like sunlight and sweat and some unfamiliar but delicious aroma. Maybe it was the oil that made her skin shine like it did. He couldn’t hear her voice anymore, something that left him feeling strangely hollow. "Sword fights are boring!" Her words rang in his head. Kagome thought watching him fight was boring. She could’ve stuck around just because she knew how much he liked to show off. Anyway, her friend Rei thought he was cool, even if she didn’t beg to stay when Kagome wanted to leave. Come to think of it, the girl had seemed a bit too eager to be introduced to Shippo. Stupid fox would have to put on a cute disguise. Now cute little fox-boy was off having a nice lunch with Kagome. "Is Shippo interesting?" Inu Yasha snarled at Kagome in his thoughts. "Is that who’s interesting?"
        He didn’t realize it, but the entire time he’d been working himself into a nice, deep funk, Shunusuke had been attacking him, and he’d been dodging and blocking each one. Inu Yasha blinked himself back to reality to find Asano regarding him thoughtfully from across the circle. "By George, Inu Yasha, I think you’ve got it!" He said in a funny accent.
        "Who’s ‘George’?" The demon shot back. "And what have I ‘got’?" Aside from an aching feeling of despair, Inu Yasha honestly couldn’t think of what Shunusuke might mean. "Better not be more of that oneness with the universe bullshit," he grouched.
        Shunusuke laughed. "If you’d been in this state when we fought with shinai you wouldn’t have lost your sword."
        "Damn," Inu Yasha muttered and made a lunge with his foot at his opponent’s middle, "it is more of that weird shit."
        This time, Shunusuke flipped him easily. Inu Yasha attacked again and again found himself on the ground. This simply would not do. What was he doing before that had kept Asano from beating him? Oh, right: Moping. So, Inu Yasha made a conscious decision to be extremely depressed and to not pay the least attention to what was going on around him. Since the rest of his day already sucked, why not do an annoying experiment? He went back to thinking about Kagome telling her friend and Shippo that sword fights were boring, told himself Kagome really meant to say he was boring. He imagined her having lots of fun, giggling and playing with Shippo. Just to really rub it in, he stirred Hojo into the mix, though he honestly had no idea what the boy looked like (so he made him as gorgeous as possible). Then he imagined this fantasy Hojo kissing Kagome on the beach in the moonlight.
        When he returned to reality, his hands were around Shunusuke’s neck, and the human was trying desperately to pry them off. "Inu *gasp* Yasha! *WHEEZE* This isn’t…funny!"
        He let go. "Oh, uh…sorry." As Asano caught his breath, Inu Yasha massaged his hands and sheepishly accepted accolades from the crowd. "Why didn’t I think of depression before?" Inu Yasha wondered to himself. Hm. A better question that popped into his head was why hadn’t depression worked before? Maybe the gloomy feelings weren’t the key, after all. Well, Asano seemed to know what had made the difference, so Inu Yasha decided to ask him when they got back into the condo. That is, if the man would forgive him for almost strangling him to death in front of all those people.
        "Damn, Inu Yasha," Shunusuke griped as they walked up the stairs to the door, "you didn’t have to go that far! It was just practice."
        Inu Yasha grunted another apology. He pushed open the door and ripped off his disguise, then his shirt and used it to mop the sweat off of himself. Behind him, Shunusuke shut the door then did the same. Yuki hurried in from her bedroom with a finger to her lips to warn them to keep it down.
        "Keiichi and Karami are sleeping," she explained. As she went to get them something cold to drink, she asked: "So what happened out there?"
        "It was close," Inu Yasha replied grimly, purposefully not addressing the question of when and why his hands had gone around her brother’s throat for no justifiable reason. "She almost talked to me. What if some of Tachimora’s guys were in the crowd? I saw some males there. Did you recognize any of them, Shunusuke?"
        Shunusuke shook his head as he flopped down onto the couch, still rubbing his neck. Suddenly, he chuckled: "The little guy really saved our asses, didn’t he?"
        Inu Yasha accepted his glass from Yuki, chugged down its contents, then set it on the table and leaned his head against the back of the chair and closed his eyes. All he could see was Kagome’s startled face when their gazes had met as he retrieved his sword. Was there anything more beautiful than her eyes, he wondered. She’d been scared. Not only could he see it in her eyes and face but he could smell it on her, as well. Shippo had gotten in his warning just in the nick of time, thank the gods, but it had frightened her. Had she heard about the attack on Karami? That the girl had almost been gang raped? Was that look of fear because Kagome was putting herself in Karami’s place, just has his own imagination had done? Or was she afraid for him? Inu Yasha’s heart skipped a beat at the thought of her worrying more for his safety than her own, then he cursed her for being so stupid. He could take care of himself, but she was just a human girl and all of her courage couldn’t save her from the kind of attack he’d witnessed last night. Anyway, he failed to amuse Kagome.
        "Am I really boring?" He wondered with a catch in his throat. She’d only said sword fighting was boring, but wouldn’t it be even a little interesting if one of the combatants was someone she wanted to watch? He knew Kagome hated fighting but he had no idea she thought it was boring to watch him fight. What did Kagome like to watch? Gods, he hoped it wasn’t that lousy Kabuki shit Sesshomaru loved. Movies? That was an activity he knew for certain she’d shared with Hojo. Had she enjoyed it? What else did she like to do? It occurred to him that he’d never really bothered to ask.
        Inu Yasha absently listened to Shunusuke recount the afternoon’s adventure for his sister and allowed himself to slip ever deeper into a well of self-pity. More than anything in all the world at that moment, he just wanted to be a little kitsune named Shippo.