AN: Honestly, I'm not sure if I should've posted this yet, since I have those other two fics going, and Eye just beginning and all. But with the summer, I'm hoping that I'll have more time to write fanfiction, rather than essays.

I have many ideas stewing about it that large puff of cotton that I use as a brain. Here's another one of 'em. In fact, I have an entire two pages of general summaries, but most of 'em are crap.

…and is it just me, or are the things I've been writing starting with unhappy beginnings?

One more thing: Here, the label "Separatists" means people who want to keep demons and humans separate, thus the name. This title has nothing to do with the religious group at all. And "Sympathizers" are on the other end of the spectrum. Now that we've got that settled…

Disclaimer: Inuyasha + mine ≠ truth. (Who says math isn't fun?)

x

Unattainable

x

Chapter One: Across the Border

x

"Just stay away!" Kagome screamed. With wide brown eyes, she watched in horror as her pursuers closed in around her, identical leers upon each shadowed face. "Look," she tried to bargain, "he's so small, he's not even worth your time, right?"

"Demon lover!" one of them hissed, eyes flashing in hate and fear at her bundle as he stepped into the dirty artificial light of the street lamp. "Demon lover! You're no better than the rest of 'em!" A tall man, he was the leader of the gang. "We ain't stoppin' 'til each an' every one of 'em's wiped out! Filthy scum!" he spat.

The others jeered in agreement and a sob of fear ripped from Kagome's throat. "Go away, please!" None of them relented. She clutched the tiny demon closer to her and fled, her breaths coming in ragged gasps. Their footsteps echoed behind her, their jeers and shouts hounding her around corners and around benches.

"Oh god, oh god," she mumbled incoherently, panic fueling her with energy. She ran without care, dashing down an alleyway and turning up a street. Dingy orange lights lit her way as she sprinted across a street and down the road. She could hear them coming after her, their sneers of contempt filling the empty nighttime streets with malignant clamour.

"Help!" She tried at the bottom of an apartment. She pressed the buzzer frantically. "Anyone! Please let me in! Please!" No one answered the door. She moved to the next house, glancing over her shoulder as the small mob approached. If they caught her, they'd kill her, and the little demon in her arms. "Come on! Open up!" She clawed at the door helplessly.

"They won't help you, demon-lover!" One man sneered as he came down the street. "No one likes a demon-lover!" With a ragged sob, she flung herself away from the door and rushed down the street again. The tiny bundle of life stirred in her grasp. Shadows blurred with the orange light of the streetlamps as she ran, but she couldn't escape them.

And suddenly, she was at the edge of town, she was surrounded, and her mind was a roaring blank of panic. "Please just leave me alone!" she begged as the men circled her, jeering and laughing at her. Some held baseball bats or lacrosse sticks; others had knives –she swallowed hard- and gold clubs. She never thought that this would happen to her. It was one of those things that you heard briefly mentioned on the news, something that happened to other people, and you didn't mention it. It wasn't supposed to be her.

"You've got nowhere left to run, bitch," the leader sneered, his face distorted by the shadows. "You and that bastard demon there, you're gonna die." They closed in around her, and Kagome pressed against the wall in a feeble attempt at escape, sobs coming quickly now as she looked for some way to defend herself, even if it was just a stick. No help was coming. She realized that now, and it left a bitter taste in her mouth. In fact, windows had shut; shades had been drawn as she ran by. No help was coming. The small demon in her arms stirred for the first time since she'd rescued him.

"Kitsunebi!" His voice was feeble, but stubborn. Bluish-green light flared and the men stumbled back. Kagome herself nearly dropped him. The fire flickered down and the demon looked up at her. "Run!" he urged her.

She rushed to the side, her hair swinging into her face, but all the exits were blocked. "Little swine," one of them growled furiously, his eyes locked with the little demon's. "How dare you try and escape! This is why you need to die!" He raised a lacrosse stick high above his head and Kagome scrambled back just in time.

"Pipe!" The demon told her, pointing to the ground. Kagome bend over and stood up, holding the pipe with one hand and the demon in the other. She backed against the wall again, fear coursing through her veins as the fire of determination took hold. The dark played with her mind, distorting her attackers from mere human beings into monsters from a dark nightmare.

"Stay back!" her voice rose above their laughter and sneers. "I'm not afraid!" She told them, the tremor in her voice giving her away. It was so horrible that she felt nearly surreal, as if she'd suddenly sit up in bed, her clothes soaked in sweat and the vague feeling of a bad dream lurking in the back of her mind.

Their laughter mocked her as the shadowy figures stepped forward, the dingy orange light behind them distorting their faces. "Oh, you're not?" they laughed. "Not only a demon-lover, but a liar! Of course you're afraid! You're about to die!"

The first one surged forward and Kagome moved back, slamming into the brick wall behind her. To her surprise, the old thing crumbled, fissures spreading across the ancient mortar as the bricks collapsed. "Wha-" Kagome fell back with the bricks, down into the darkness. Her scream reached the mob's ears as they stared down after her, down into the dark abyss of the forest called the Barrier.

One of them chuckled. "She didn't survive that fall," he muttered with sickening humor. The others laughed and turned, bantering and talking as if they'd accomplished a great deed. They'd just rid the world of another demon, and a Sympathizer.

"And even if she did," the leader chortled, his baseball bat swung causally over one shoulder, "the demons that she loves so much'll kill 'er." His laughter mingled nastily with the others', a discordant chord that filled the dingy alleyway with menace.

(\ /)

(•. •)

( )

The middle-aged woman paced across the carpet quickly, agitation clearly written across her face. She bit her lip and glanced at the clock as it ticked quietly above the mantelpiece. It was the fourth time that she had done so in the last five minutes. "Oh, Kagome!" she burst out at last.

"Where are you?" she murmured softly, and took a deep shuddering breath. Mrs. Higurashi paused in her pacing with a decisive snap of her fingers. She stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked up. "Souta?" she called. "I'm going out to look for her."

"What?" A light flicked on and an old man, Mrs. Higurashi's father, stumbled out of his bedroom in his pajamas and down the stairs. "You can't be serious, Umeko!" He shook his head. "You know what the mobs are like after sunset…" he trailed off, a pained look in his old eyes. "I'm sure that Kagome's fine."

"Don't go, Mom!" Souta's panicked face appeared at the top of the stairwell. "It's too dangerous!" He dashed down the stairs and slammed into his mother in a bone-crushing hug. "Don't disappear like Dad," he whispered hoarsely. Mr. Higurashi had gone out one night and had never returned. Perhaps he was alive; his body was never found.

Mrs. Higurashi's smile was bittersweet with worry and anxiety, but a smile nonetheless. She sighed, "You're right, Dad." She laughed and wiped her eyes. "I'm going to give that girl a talking to when she gets back!" If she got back… The unspoken sentence hung heavily in the air.

"She'll be fine," Mr. Higurashi assured his daughter. "She is fine. She's probably at Yuka's house because she was running late and didn't want to get caught out after dark. She's forgotten to call."

The middle-aged woman nodded. "Of course." She patted her son on the head and sighed heavily. "Children are always making their parents worry, aren't they?" She smiled gently and looked down at Souta.

"You make me worry too, Mom," Souta accused. "You're the one always saying not to go out after dark!" He moved away from his mother and sat down on the steps with a yawn.

"Go back to bed, Souta," Mrs. Higurashi said kindly to her son. He nodded and wandered up the stairs. The middle-aged woman turned to her father anxiously as soon as he was out of listening range. "The mobs…" she trailed off, a pained expression in her eyes. "They've been killing more and more people! They don't care who it is!"

Mr., Higurashi pulled his daughter in for a hug. "It'll be okay, Umeko." He patted her on the back comfortingly, though he himself was more than a little worried. "Now go back to sleep."

Mrs. Higurashi nodded tiredly and glanced at the clock once more, her throat tight with anxiety and tension. "Come home safe, Kagome," she whispered as the little mechanism ticked inexorably onwards.

(•.•)

( • )--

Kagome didn't mean to stay after school so late. She really hadn't meant to stay out after the sun set. She honestly wasn't thinking about rescuing a demon from a mob, and certainly hadn't meant to nearly get herself murdered by a group of bloodthirsty Separatists.

If things had gone her way, she would've walked home straight after school and been home at five. She would've done her homework and eaten dinner. She would've watched the News for a few agonized minutes, then turned it off when all it did was spew Separatist, anti-Demon propaganda. Then she would've stayed in her room and read.

She'd only met a demon once; he was tall and friendly, and he said that he was an activist from across the Border who was trying to bring the human world and demon one together in peace. He'd shaken her hand and smiled, and then he was gone. If anyone had bothered to ask Kagome, she would've said that humans were often worse than the demons that they were constantly calling monsters and beasts on the news.

And after the last incident, she was certainly inclined to agree with anyone who said that Separatists were all bloody, rampaging, warmongers who reveled in indiscriminate murder.

She'd been lucky. When the wall crumbled behind her and she fell back into empty black space, she'd only fallen a short distance when she hit the first tree branch, growing out of the side of the cliff. She gripped at the twigs and leaves for a moment, then plunged onward, screaming on the top of her lungs as they tore off.

The demon she was with snatched the leaves from her hand and placed one on his head. Suddenly, she was sitting on a large pink bubble. But this sudden turn of events coupled with the last half-hour's intense trauma just had her screaming louder.

"Sh!" The pink bubble warned. "You'll have demons all over us!" Naturally, the knowledge that she was sitting on not only a large pink bubble, but that she was sitting on a large, talking pink bubble didn't help matters in the slightest. "Shh!" The bubble repeated. "Do you want me to drop you?"

That got her quiet. "Sorry," she whispered. She gulped. She was sitting on a demon. All the propaganda and PR that had been pounded into her head since she was a small child blossomed in her head. Demons were bloodthirsty, murdering beasts that would kill a human on sight. And only moments ago, he'd been so small!

"Thanks for saving me," the demon said after a moment, his breaths coming in gasps as he neared the forest floor. They drifted through the thick growth of forest and onto the floor, twigs snapping and leaves dropping down all around them.

"No problem," Kagome smiled shakily and scrambled off the pink bubble-thing. From this new angle, the bubble looked more ridiculous than menacing. She giggled in spite of herself.

"What?" The demon demanded. Kagome shook her head and cleared her throat. The pink bubble disappeared in a flash of that bluish fire, and there was the kid again. The ginger-haired kid offered a hand. "I'm Shippo, by the way." As she watched, a long gash on his forehead healed itself and a bruise on his cheek faded.

"And I'm Kagome," the black-haired girl replied with a smile. It was hard to be afraid of someone so small. "And thank you, for becoming that… bubble thing." She crouched and shook his hand.

With a business-like air, Shippo looked about the forest with bright green eyes. "Well, we should find some shelter until morning. It's safer in the morning, but not much," he said matter-of-factly.

A twig snapped somewhere in the foliage and Kagome jumped, fervently wishing that she still hand that long pipe with her. She cleared her throat nervously. "Lead on," she told the small demon.

"Okay, but be quiet. And don't attract any attention, I have the perfect hiding place," the small demon told her officiously. He glanced back and signaled for her to follow him.

Kagome followed him cautiously as he led her deeper into the woods, eyes darting nervously in every direction at the slightest sound. Her nerves were strained to the limit as he led her through the thick underbrush. There was no moon to light the way and everything was dark.

"Here we are," her guide broke the silence at long last and pushed aside some bushes, revealing a cave entrance. He trotted in with a sigh of relief, Kagome following closely behind him and pausing to arrange the bushes as they were.

Suddenly, rough hands grabbed her from behind and her head hit the hard earth of the cave floor. Something sharp pricked her neck and she gasped, struggling. A rough voice came from above her. "Don't move."

Kagome stopped struggling at once, her breath coming in ragged breaths and useless adrenaline coursing through her system. Whoever –or whatever- it was that was above her shifted slightly and cloth rustled. Shippo gave a muffled yelp a large callused hand placed over his mouth.

"Shut up," the voice told the struggling child. Something in Kagome snapped. She'd used up her supply of fear today while running for her life and wandering through a dark and demon-infested forest. She was fed up with being attacked and abused by complete strangers. She was going to stop giving in, and fight back.

With a grunt of exertion, she pushed the arm away from her neck and grabbed a stone from the ground. She stood up and threw the rock at the shadowy form of the stranger on the ground. "Take that!" The rock –it was really a pebble, she noticed with dismay- hit the guy in the head. He didn't seem to take too kindly to that, and grabbed for her.

They struggled for a few moments, but exhaustion had taken its toll on Kagome. He pushed her to the ground, his weight on her so that she couldn't move. Her hand shot out desperately and he slammed it into the dirt above her head, knocking the bushes aside and letting in some light from the starlit sky. Kagome gasped in surprise. Her assailant wasn't a demon at all; he was human.

The man- teenager, really, about her age, she noticed- reacted similarly and scrambled away, his face pale and brown eyes wide with shock. "Kikyo," he growled harshly.

(\ /)

(•. •)

( )

"No, she's not here," Eri bit her lip with worry. "She never stopped by." Suddenly, she clapped her hands over her mouth in horror. "She had to stay late after school, for cleanup! It would've been dark…!"

Mrs. Higurashi nodded and swallowed painfully. She tried to smile at her daughter's friend. "Well, thank you Eri." She turned and walked heavily down the steps. She turned at the bottom. "If you… hear anything, please tell me?" There was a note of pleading in her voice that she couldn't erase.

Eri nodded slowly and shut the door, her stomach churning with dread. No one who ever stayed out after sunset ever came back if it wasn't later that night. No one ever had.

"Eri?" Her mother's voice echoed from the depths of the house. "You have school in ten minutes! You'd better get going!" Something hissed. "Oh, dear." Numbly, Eri listened as her mother rushed about in the kitchen, turning taps on and pulling things out of the sink. "And who was that, dear?"

"No one," the schoolgirl replied, her voice falsely bright. "Okay, Mom! I'll see you tonight!" She rushed out of the door and grabbed her bag, a few loose papers spilling onto the floor. She didn't bother to pick them up as she closed the door gently behind her and ran down the steps, her footsteps muffled against the dirty green carpeting.

One of the neighbors poked their head out of their apartment. "Can't you be a bit quieter?" the old woman demanded sourly, her limp grey held up tightly in curlers. "Some of us are trying to sleep." She shook her head. "Teenagers."

Without replying, Eri rushed by and hurried down the next flight of steps, distractedly trying to occupy her mind with trivial matters that she was normally absorbed in. Somehow, math homework just wasn't as important this morning. At the bottom of the complex, she pulled her shoes out of their cubby and pulled them on.

She rushed out of the apartment building, her mind racing, yet simultaneously feeling blank and empty. These murders happened all the time, and as sad as it was to admit, the general public had grown used to them. At night, the streets were dead, the houses silent. They lived in unspoken fear of the dark and what it hid. The police did nothing to stop it; they were killed just as indiscriminately as anyone else. No one could blame them. And as far as the crumbling government was concerned, the mobs didn't exist.

Faces blurred as she rushed by, dodging pedestrians, her ears deaf to the outraged exclamations she provoked as she crashed blindly into people. This was the first time one of the victims was someone that she knew.

The schoolgirl swallowed hard, gasping for breath as she ran up the hill, her book bag swinging back and forth and shedding paper. Did Kagome run up this hill last night as the tried to escape her pursuers? Did she stumble around this bench and cross this street?

Soon someone would find her body in some alleyway. The incident would be mentioned briefly on the news as yet another "mysterious murder"; the mobs would never be mentioned, and everyone would forget in a few days after seeing it. Well, there it was. Kagome was dead, and no one cared.

She dashed onto the school campus and screeched to a halt, her breaths coming in ragged gasps as other students looked at her curiously. Their chatter and laughter soothed her shattered nerves as she entered the school building surrounded by her peers.

"…so confusing! I didn't get half of the problems! I really hope we go over it in class today, I don't get it at all…"

"…told me that there were seven of 'em there, but no one remembered. I think they're lying, though. I mean, they were all there, so one of them has to remember! They just don't wanna back me up…"

"…told me that we didn't have any homework, and I didn't do any. And guess what- the essay's due this afternoon! I dunno what I'm gonna do… I'm gonna have a heart attack, I swear…"

"…really, really tired. I stayed up all last night studying and finishing the essay. But I got it done, so I guess it was worth it. I just hope I don't fail that English test. The past tense is so confusing sometimes! And the vocabulary was hard, too..."

Eri sighed and drowned her tortured thoughts in the bits of conversation surrounding it as she stepped out of her shoes and stored them in her cubby. At least she wasn't late to school. A small giggle at the triviality of her worry escaped her lips.

(\ /)

(•. •)

( )

The black-haired boy backed away as if she had a disease, his brown eyes wary and angry of her as he scrambled to his feet. "I thought you were dead," he murmured, his face white and painted.

"Huh?" Kagome rolled to her side painfully and sat up, clutching the wrist that he'd slammed into the ground. "What are you talking about?" she asked wearily. It occurred to her that perhaps her assailant was a lunatic. Who else would live in the Border?

Shippo struggled to his feet and leaped in front of the human girl. "Stay back!" His chin stuck out mulishly, trembling slightly with nerves. He owed this girl, who'd saved his life nearly at the cost of her own. It was only right that he repay her the favor. "If you want to hurt Kagome, you'll have to get through me!"

Kagome was genuinely touched. Who said that demons were all so terrible? Shippo certainly wasn't, she thought dazedly. And he remembered her name! She'd used up all her fear, excitement, anxiety and stress for one day, which left her muddled and exhausted as the adrenaline drained from her system. She yawned widely. "Who's Kikyo? Never heard of her, myself."

"What do you mean, of course you're Kikyo! Don't play games with me!" the black-haired teen said suspiciously, "Unless you got amnesia or something. That would happen after being hit in the head with a golf club."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Kagome mumbled. She was truly exhausted her head bobbing and eyelids flickering shut. "I just wanna get out of this hell and go home." Her bottom lip trembled. "If I can get there. The mobs'll just come after me again. No one gets lucky twice…" She didn't even realize that she was telling a complete stranger –and a hostile one, at that- about what befell her a few hours before as she dropped off, a sleep born of exhaustion wrapping itself around her like a blanket.

Shippo didn't move from where he stood in front of the exhausted girl, bottom fangs jutting out almost comically as he put his arms out. The two of them glared at each other silently for a few moments. Neither of them wanted to make any more noise and attract the attention of other demons in the woods.

But the day's traumas had taken effect on the young demon as well, and soon he was blinking and yawning, despite his good intentions. He sat down, eyes fluttered as he fought a hopeless battle against the inexorable effects of total exhaustion. He fell back against Kagome's stomach with small snores.

The black-haired youth looked at the two of them, the expression in his brown eyes unreadable. He knew that he should probably kill them; when morning came, they'd know his secret. They were dangerous to keep alive. But at the same time, he couldn't bring himself to strangle a sleeping child and a traumatized girl with his bare hands; upon looking closer, he realized that she wasn't-couldn't- be Kikyo. She was too young, her eyes lacking the deep soulful sorrow that he saw in Kikyo's, and her nature was far too trusting; she fell asleep in the presence of someone who'd tried just moments ago to kill her. And besides, Kikyo was dead, killed by the mobs on her way home from the Embassy. The mere idea of squeezing the life out of them with his hands made his stomach roll.

He sighed. "Damn human conscience," he muttered, and settled down, brown eyes as watchful. He could escape in the morning, before the sun rose and hide until it did. No one would know the difference, and he wouldn't have to soil his hands with a messy murder.

(•.•)

( • )--

The first conscious thought that cleared the muddle haze of sleep was that her back was killing her. The second was that her wrist was throbbing as terribly as her back. Kagome vaguely wondered why her bed felt so hard and lumpy. She also seemed to be lacking blankets. Her arms were bitterly cold and her legs were bare and frozen. The only place she was warm was her stomach, where what seemed to be an oddly-shaped Buyo was snoozing. Eyes still tightly closed, the black-haired girl realized that she must be wearing her school uniform, as odd as it was. And her shoes were still on! She sat up with surprise and confusion, blinking in the predawn light.

A light snore brought her attention down to her stomach, where a strange ginger-haired boy was sleeping. The events of the night before rushed into her head; the demon boy, the mob, the mad dash down and up the dark streets, the brick wall and the fall. And the strange boy who'd tried to kill her. She glanced around the cave with alarm. He didn't seem to be around any more. "Good riddance," she muttered and clutched her head with one hand.

She had a splitting headache, the source of which was a large tender lump from when the guy had slammed her into the dirt. She realized that her wrist was his fault, too. The splinters in her fingers could be accounted to the door that she'd torn at, and the large bruise on her stomach to the tree branch that possibly saved her life.

Shippo stirred on her lap and sat up, blinking. Suddenly, he gasped. "Mom! Dad!" he said frantically. "Where are they? Did the make it out in-" He cut himself off abruptly, sorrow evident in his green eyes. He sighed heavily and looked up at Kagome with a pained smile. "I never did thank you properly for saving me, did I?"

Kagome shrugged. "You don't need to. You saved me when we fell. If it wasn't for you, I'd probably be a small crater in the ground right now," she stated matter-of-factly. In fact, she was feeling decidedly reckless as she stood up, wincing, Shippo sitting on her shoulder. How much worse could it get, after all?

In the last 12 hours, she'd nearly been murdered or killed three times. She was in the Barrier, her family probably thought she was dead, and she was in pain. There wasn't something bad that could happen to her that hadn't already.

All she wanted to do was get home, sleep in her warm comfy bed and drink some hot tea. She glanced down at Shippo. "I want to go home. Where will you go?" she asked as she stumbled out of the cave in the predawn light.

The little demon shrugged. "Could I come with you?" Kagome stopped abruptly and stared. "Don't get the wrong idea," Shippo assured her hastily. "I'm a kitsune." The black-haired girl looked at him blankly. "That means I can shape shift, cast illusions, you know?"

"Oh," Kagome said as it dawned on her and she continued to tromp through the forest. "So you'll put a spell on yourself, and you'll look like a regular kid?"

Shippo nodded in the positive. "That is," he added uncertainly, "if you let me." Green eyes pleaded. "I don't have anywhere else to go." He shrugged matter-of-factly. "The mobs killed my parents," he said savagely. "They were part of the Embassy."

Kagome nodded sympathetically and squeezed the kitsune. "My Dad was killed by the mobs," she told him. "My Mom's a Sympathizer, and so's my Grandpa." She tried to shake the disturbing mental image that resurfaced in her memory; two bodies, beaten and bloody. They must've been Shippo's parents, she realized with a sickening feeling.

"Thanks," Shippo told her gratefully. Relief was evident in his voice. The two of them wandered in silence for a while, Kagome too exhausted to talk any more and Shippo quietly trying to come to terms with his parents' deaths. "Hey," he said after a moment. "Is this the right way?"

Kagome stopped and looked up through the thick foliage for some sign of the cliffs that they'd fallen over. She grinned nervously. "Actually, I have no idea," she told the kitsune. He stared at her in consternation. "Hey, I've never been here before, okay?" she said defensively. "Why don't you lead?"

"I've only been here a few times," Shippo replied. "I have no idea where we are," he told her flatly. He peered up through the dense foliage and got a small glimpse of the grey predawn sky above.

Kagome leaned against a tree despairingly. "Great," she muttered, misery thick in her throat. "Just great." She wiped her eyes- crying would do her no good- and wandered further in the direction that she'd been heading in.

There was a flutter of movement, a flicker of red, from behind some trees. Kagome frowned uneasily and kept walking. A twig snapped and Kagome twitched. There it was again! Kagome pretended to adjust her shoe and picked up a conveniently located rock. She kept walking, her eyes straight ahead. She glanced through the trees. And there! She threw the rock with deadly accuracy. "Hah!" she cheered. Shippo –who hadn't noticed a thing, he was brooding- looked at her oddly. "I got 'im!" She told the small demon cheerfully, a feeling of accomplishment warming her slightly. She could defend herself!

There was a groan from the mass of red, and Kagome realized with dread that she'd hit a person. "Oh, drat!" she exclaimed and rushed over to the person. She peered anxiously at his face, the dingy light making her squint. She reeled back in surprise. "It's him!" She pointed in horror at the same guy who she'd fought with the night before.

"Whoops," Shippo commented. He glanced at Kagome. "What are we gonna do? If we leave him here, he'll get eaten, but if we stay, he'll probably kill us…" A bright light suddenly spread across the forest floor, creeping across bushes and tree trunks as the sun rose.

Kagome shrieked and backed away from the unconscious guy. His hair was turning white. She and Shippo scrambled away and dashed behind a tree as he stirred and woke, piercing yellow eyes glaring at the two of them. "Hey, what was that for, you twit?" he grumbled angrily. "What did I do to you?" He rubbed his head irritably and dog ears flicked.

Kagome gaped like a fish for a moment, her mind a roaring blank. Finally, she pointed at his head asked, "What happened, and why do you have kitty ears?" Shippo snorted and suppressed his laughter.

The white-haired boy looked at her indignantly. "Do I look like a cat to you?" he snarled. "I'm a dog demon, idiot!" Kagome shut her mouth and flushed with anger. "And the hell's your problem?" he grumbled and rubbed his head again. "Do you throw rocks at everything that moves?" he demanded.

Kagome bristled. "You were following us!" she retorted vehemently.

"I was not!" The dog demon shot back. "I didn't even know you were there!" The white-haired boy took a step closer and poked a clawed finger in Kagome's face.

Shippo stared at him carefully, a frown of concentration on his face as the two of them argued back and forth. "Inuyasha?" he asked finally. The dog demon stopped arguing abruptly and turned to stare at the kitsune. "You are the hanyou Inuyasha, right?"

"And you're Shippo, an ambassador's brat. Who gives a damn?" He turned back to Kagome. "Where was I? Oh yeah. And it was you, not me who went barging into my cave!" He paused. "Are you even listening to me, you witch?"

Kagome wasn't listening. She was looking at Shippo with interest. "You two know each other?" She glanced at Inuyasha with surprise, who snorted in response.

"He was at the Embassy, but he left shortly after I got there," Shippo told her. "He got into a fight with one of the human ambassadors, or something. I dunno." He frowned. "No one ever told me anything."

Kagome looked at the dog demon with bewilderment and incredulity. "You worked at the Embassy?"

"I did," Inuyasha replied shortly, golden eyes flickering slightly. "And now I don't." He turned and walked away in the opposite direction. "Bye."

After a few moments of shocked silence, Kagome and Shippo scrambled after him. "Wait!" Kagome called. "Then you know how to get out of here!" She caught up with him, her head pounding and her wrist throbbing painfully.

"Yeah, I do." He glared at her testily. "So what?" He folded his arms across his chest stubbornly and tapped his bare foot impatiently on the forest floor.

"Well," Kagome explained patiently. She was starting to wonder if Inuyasha was a simpleton. "can you lead us back?" She couldn't keep the note of hope out of her voice, and it made it all the more depressing when he sneered at her.

"And why would I want to do that?" He chuckled darkly and shook his head, long white hair swinging back and forth. "I'm not going anywhere near that Cesspit." His outburst surprised Kagome with its violence.

"Well, could you at least tell me what direction to go in?" Kagome asked angrily, her hands on her hips as she shivered slightly in early morning chill.

The hanyou sighed and pointed in the opposite direction to which they'd been walking. "There. Happy?" he demanded. "Now get lost!"

"I already am, stupid!" Kagome retorted and headed off in the direction that he'd pointed. "Geeze. What's his problem?" she grumbled, twigs crackling underfoot and bushes shedding dew upon her as she picked her way through the forest.

"You are!" Kagome winced slightly. She should've realized that having dog ears –she still thought that they looked like a cat's- his hearing would be far better than her own. She smiled grimly.

"Let's go home!" she told Shippo, her voice filled with a confidence that she didn't feel at all. Her wrist throbbed painfully and she pulled the red kerchief from her uniform, tying it awkwardly around her wrist in hopes that it would help steady the throbbing joint.

They walked in silence born of exhaustion for some time. They stopped only for a few short breaks, once for water –Kagome was dubious of drinking water from a stream, but there was no other choice- and twice for a blister on Kagome's heel.

Finally, Kagome just stopped, her throat tight with despair. "Look, Shippo," she began with a weary sigh. "We really should find something to eat. Do you know any edible plants, or acorns or something?" She would welcome anything at this point. The black-haired girl looked up at the sky. Through the small patches of blue that shone through the thick foliage, she thought that it was about ten or so. And that would mean that she'd been walking for roughly… she didn't want to do the math.

"Um…" Shippo paused for thought. "Yeah, I can go look," he offered dubiously. "No guarantees, of course." He glanced back at Kagome. She yawned and waved him away. "I'll be back," he told her.

Kagome positioned herself comfortably in a niche in the old tree's roots, her back supported by the wide trunk. She sat there drowsily for some time; she wasn't sure how long, only that it took a lot of effort not to fall asleep. Although the forest seemed relatively tame so far, she'd heard far too many stories about the Barrier to truly feel safe sleeping in it.

A long shadow feel over her, and Kagome looked up slowly, fearing what she might see. Slowly, she got to her feet and stood, staring with horror at the monstrous thing before her. This was the kind of demon that they showed in Separatist propaganda. It didn't seem to have eyes, and was nosing blindly about for her with a large snout that twitched like a pigs. Large ears like a rabbits turned to catch her rapid breathing, and it took another step closer, nose eagerly questing.

She took a deep breath and dashed off, panic flooding her system with adrenaline for the umpteenth time in the last twenty-four hours. Behind her, the thing squealed and took off after her. She could hear it crashing through the underbrush and the ground shook slightly as the elephantine monster pursued her.

She dashed pell-mell around trees and leaped over bushes, her weariness banished into the far corners of her mind. With brown eyes sharpened by panic, she noticed a tree with a low overhanging limb. It probably couldn't climb trees; it was large and awkward, even on the ground. She ran towards the tree, the demon close on her trail, and leaped. She landed awkwardly on the branch and clambered onto it. She reached for the next branch, and the next, and then the next. She was blind to how far she was off the ground; she just wanted to get away from the thing.

She could hear it's outraged squeals from below, and she shuddered. Slowly, her heart stopped pounding and her breathing slowed. Tremulously, she leaned over in the tree to see what the demon was trying to do now. It backed away, muttering animal noises under its breath, and charged at her tree. "EE!" The branches shuddered and nearly knocked her loose, She hugged the trunk tightly and squeezed her eyes shut. "HEEEEEEEEELP!"

(•.•)

( • )--

Inuyasha came to her aid simply by accident. The screams and the shaking tree piqued his curiosity, and once he realized what was going on, he rolled his eyes. He landed on a branch next to the black-haired girl and looked at her irritably. "You again? Don't you know how to stay out of trouble?"

Kagome gritted her teeth as another shudder ran through the tree. This was accompanied by the cracking of splintered wood. "Look," she ground out, her voice high and tense. "Could you do me a favor and get that, that thing away from me?" She nodded at the demon below.

"Why would I want to help you?" Inuyasha sneered. "If I recall correctly, the only kindness you've done me so far is throw rocks at me." He counted off on his fingers, his incredible sense of balance keeping him steady even as the tree was shaken by another series of violent attacks from down below. "Once last night, and then this morning."

"Look, I'm sorry!" Kagome apologized sincerely. "But this morning I thought you were some evil demon come to eat me! And last night you're the one who attacked me! I was just defending myself!"

The shaking stopped for a moment while the demon down below backed away to charge again. Kagome looked at him curiously. "By the way, how did you turn into a demon this morning? You were human last night."

"Nosy, aren't we?" Inuyasha asked. "And it's none of your business." If she didn't know about hanyou then he wasn't going to enlighten her. A white ear twitched as the demon roared down below.

The thing crashed into the tree once again and the trunk splintered with a groan of protest. Kagome clutched the branch tightly as the large tree fell to the side, the air rushing by and making her dizzy. This was it. She was going to splat onto the forest floor, and if she survived that the demon would just eat her anyway-

Kagome opened her eyes in surprise. She was no longer falling. She blinked and looked up at Inuyasha with surprise. "Thank you!" she told him, sincerely grateful. "You're a nice person after all!"

Yellow eye glared at her irritably. "How nice for me," he grumbled and set her down on another tree branch before jumping down to earth. He turned to face the demon. "An ugly one, aren't you?" he asked idly.

If the demon understood him, it gave no signs of having done so. It flicked an ear in his direction and turned its snout blindly in his direction, nose questing for its prey. It squealed and charged, clearly furious at him for having taken its prey.

Kagome covered her eyes with her hands when the large thing came at Inuyasha. He was so much smaller! If he died, it was all her fault, too. There was a squeal and a juicy thud that made Kagome flinch. Slowly, she opened her eyes and looked down. She winced distastefully. There were demon guts all over the ground, and in the midst of it all, calmly cleaning his claws, was Inuyasha. "Whoa," she murmured. A white ear flicked in her direction and the hanyou looked at her smugly.

She gasped suddenly. "Shippo!" She'd forgotten all about him in her attempts to evade the demon. "Hey," she called down to Inuyasha. "Could you help me down?"

"I'd rather leave you there," the white-haired half demon remarked idly and kicked at a chunk of the demon that he'd slaughtered. He frowned and wiped his foot on the forest floor with distaste.

"Look," Kagome tried desperately, "I need to find Shippo! I left him all by himself, looking for food!" She clambered down the tree branch, wincing slightly as she accidentally jogged her wrist. She dropped onto a lower branch and gulped. It was a long way down…

Inuyasha watched with mild amusement as the disheveled girl struggled with the tree, grumbling under her breath as she did so. She dropped the last few feet and fell on her back with a groan.

"Ow…" She sat up and rubbed her back gingerly. The kerchief around her wrist was starting to unravel, too. Kagome suddenly realized that she must look like an absolute mess. Frankly, though, she really didn't care in the slightest. She stood up shakily and pulled some leaves out of her hair. "Thanks again!" she called to Inuyasha and walked off.

"And where are you going?" he asked curiously.

"I'm looking for Shippo," Kagome turned and told him. She continued to walk up the path she'd taken, clearly marked by the trampled bushes and broken-off tree limbs left in the demon's wake.

Inuyasha sighed and shook his head. "You're an idiot," he told her tiredly. "If you keep wandering around like this, you won't last more than a day." He walked up the trail after her, catching up to the exhausted girl with ease.

"Are you volunteering to help me get back?" Kagome asked tiredly. She looked up at him with a wan smile. "Because I think you're right." A guide would be great, even one as rude as Inuyasha.

"I'm not volunteering for anything," Inuyasha told her quickly as they tramped up the slope. "Look, I'll lead you to the nearest outpost and you should get some help there."

Kagome looked at him with confusion. "Outpost?" she echoed dubiously.

"Didn't you know that they have people posted in this nightmare?" he asked sarcastically. "Some people leave your side willingly so that they don't have to deal with the mobs." Anger flared in amber eyes upon recollection. They'd found her body in an alleyway one morning when she didn't return from work; the mobs had killed her. He'd read the reports, and then he left.

"Hm," Kagome replied, a dark gleam in her brown eyes as they walked along. "I can see why. They have no regard for life!"

Inuyasha glanced at her curiously. "Did the mobs go after you?" As far as he knew, no one had ever escaped the mobs. Although they were disorganized, just a mob of bloodthirsty and angry people, they somehow always managed to corner their victim and kill them.

"Yeah," Kagome sighed. Noticing Inuyasha's incredulous stare, she explained. "They cornered me and the wall behind me crumbled, and I fell into the Border. I was really lucky, I guess."

"Of course you were lucky!" Inuyasha snarled. "No one escapes the mobs!" He paused. "What did you do?"

Kagome laughed bitterly. "You don't need to do anything any more for the mobs to go after you, but I rescued Shippo from them. There was a few people in the back alley, and they'd killed some people from the Embassy," she swallowed, remembering the bruised swollen faces and beaten limp bodies, "and Shippo was there under one of the bodies. So I freed him and tried to hide him under my jacket, but it was dark and I was late. They saw me, and then saw Shippo, so they decided to kill me." She shrugged as if it didn't matter. "But even if I hadn't saved Shippo, they probably would've killed me anyway if the caught me. Then I really would've died because Shippo saved me when I fell." She didn't mention that she would've been home before dark if she hadn't been tending Shippo and making sure she didn't jar him while walking carefully home.

"Those bastards will kill anything that moves," Inuyasha muttered harshly. "They don't care if it's a child, old woman, whatever. They'll kill it." His claws bit into his palms as he clenched his fists tightly.

"What did they do to you?" Kagome looked at him curiously as she made her way around a bush. "I'd think that you're too strong for them to take." She was surprised when he stiffened, his expression unreadable.

"That…" he said, "is none of your concern." He stomped ahead in silence, leaving a very confused and weary schoolgirl behind him.

(\ /)

(•. •)

( )

Shippo came back to the tree laden with a variety of acorns and berries that he hoped were edible. When he noticed that Kagome wasn't there, he initially assumed that he'd gotten the wrong tree. After circling the area a few times, he realized that Kagome wasn't there. Little alarm bells went off in his head when he noticed the large hoof marks in the dirt. They were big and cloven, like that of a large deer.

Then, he noticed the trampled bushes and scraped tree trunks. He dropped his little collection in horror and dashed down the trail of destruction left by the demon. "Kagomeeee!" he wailed forlornly, leaping over a bush and dodging under a fallen branch. "I knew I shouldn't have left her alone!" he lamented, rushing down the path and hoping that Kagome was still running from the demon. He took a running leap down an outcropping and collided with something warm and red. "Waah!" He struggled in a strong grip.

"Well, if it isn't the kitsune brat." Shippo ceased his struggling in surprise. "You're a little late if you wanna save Kagome," he told the ginger-haired kit, and dropped him to the ground.

"Shippo!" Kagome exclaimed joyfully. "I was afraid that you'd get lost or something and we wouldn't find you!" She hugged the squirming demon and let him go.

He scrambled up onto her shoulder and looked at her apologetically. "Sorry, but I dropped all the food that I found." He sighed. "It wasn't much, anyway. I wasn't sure what was edible."

Inuyasha snorted at him. "How pathetic." They both bristled at him, brown and green eyes glaring angrily. Inuyasha didn't notice. "You wouldn't last one day in the Border, let alone the week it takes to get through to the human side."

Kagome looked at him in shock. "A week?" her voice came out squeakily. "But it only took us a day to get lost!" She sighed with despair. "Great," she muttered. "And I need a break." She sat down on the ground and Inuyasha sighed impatiently. "Look, I spent all last night running for my life, then I fell down a cliff and walked through demon-infested woods at night for about an hour, and then I woke up at dawn, was chased by a demon, and I haven't eaten. I think that I deserve some rest, don't you?" Inuyasha grumbled and sat down. Kagome sighed. "A week?" she repeated dumbly.

Inuyasha raised a sarcastic eyebrow at her. "Did you honestly think it would be that easy? It takes about a day for humans to get to the next outpost, and then at least four to get to the edge of the Border. Then two at least to get up the cliff."

"What?" Kagome turned and stared at him as she leaned back against a tree trunk. "But how can it take a week when it took us only one day? Besides, there're elevators and such on the cliff. Those can't take two days to go up!" she exclaimed with exasperation. On her shoulder, Shippo watched Inuyasha curiously.

"I'm assuming that you don't want to go through the heavily infested parts, right?" he demanded. Kagome nodded. "Well, then you have to skirt around 'em, which takes three days. Then you have to sneak up the cliff; they don't let anyone through from the Border unless they have an official passport. Those are only issued to Ambassadors, and only Ambassadors can use the elevators."

Kagome looked at him in surprise. " You're an Ambassador. So then, you could go through if you wanted to, right? And just… smuggle us in, or something?"

Inuyasha laughed at her and Kagome scowled back as she removed her shoe; there was a raw spot on her ankle, and it was killing her. "First of all, I'm only going to lead you to the outpost. Second, I was never an ambassador. I was just a 'part of the delegation'. In other words, I was a figurehead because I'm hanyou; a joining between a human and a demon." He glanced at her sourly. "You can see how that would be symbolic, right?"

Kagome nodded. "It must be useful for the Embassy." Getting back on the subject, she asked, "But you do have a passport, right? You'd need one to cross into the human side."

The hanyou smiled bitterly. "Oh, and I forgot to mention that I'm wanted by your country. And don't ask me about it," he said hastily as Kagome opened her mouth to do just that, "'cause it's none of your business, nosy."

Kagome glared at him ferociously and wished that she had a different guide. Well, at least it was only one more day… She closed her eyes wearily and fell asleep.

(\ /)

(•. •)

( )

Questions? Comments? Complaints? Suggestions? Press the button!