Chapter Eighteen: Brother

XXX

"This is the police! Please ID yourselves!" A tall and broad shouldered man was standing in front of us. He had a flashlight in his hand even though it wasn't dark, and he had an unfriendly looking face that was in a frown. Besides the traditional Japanese features, his hair was long and pulled back behind his head, almost reminding me of that fucking nurse that stared at me.

"Sir, we are just walking to school. Oh, I'm Yuka." Sango told him standing in front of me and smiling at him, looking unconcerned despite that fact that this could mean us being sent back to the ward. My heart was pounding heavily in my chest. Rin was clutching to my left had and Inuyasha's right hand, trying to hide herself behind our thin forms. I think each one of us were more nervous than the last.

"Without your uniform?" The cop asked, a look of disbelief on his face. His frown deepened a little more.

"Yah," I told him, smiling. "My name is Sakura Seishiro, sir. We have to travel through the woods to our school each morning, and we sometimes get wood ticks if we travel in skirts and short sleeves." I lied easily, pasting a convincing friendly smile on my face.

Inuyasha sighed before continuing, "Have we done anything wrong, officer?"

The man looked at each of us with an immense amount of suspicion on his face. He glanced down at Rin too. "No, not really, it's just that it is rather suspicious to be traveling in the woods with a little girl in tow." That was a reasonable suspicious, I guess.

Inuyasha rolled his eyes, "This is my little sister, Karren. She goes to the primary school. My mom doesn't like her to travel alone so we take her each morning. That's why we are a little early."

Sango nodded and Miroku decided to keep his mouth shut. The officer then sighed, and put his hands on his hips. "Alright, I guess that sounds about right. It's just that we have so many runaways that come through here and we can never tell who's who. You attend Hori Private, right?"

That sounded not right to me, Hori Private was in Kyoto. "Hori Private? No sir, that's in Kyoto." I told him, scrunching up my eyebrows. The man finally smiled. "Just checking. Most runaways don't know that. How do you?"

I couldn't tell him that Kikyo and I once slept inside the bathrooms of that school when we were young and on the run, back before Hojo met us. It had been raining and we had hustled in through and open window. It had been scary to sleep in such a big school like that, and we knew that if anyone would have found us we would have been in lots of trouble. It was the only place we could go.

"I considered that as an option for high school." I told him instead.

He turned around, luckily, and waved from behind. We all looked at each other, nervous, and scared. Good thing we were convincing liars.

"Lying isn't good, Sakura-chan." Sango told me after the officer was walking back down the road, out of hearing reach. I smiled at her.

"How did you know about Hori Private?" Miroku asked me, looking at me with suspire. He looked tired and drained. I was pretty sure that if he looked that bad that I must look like hell. Inuyasha picked up Rin in his arms and looked at me also. Rin looked a bit red in the face, like she was coming down with a cold. It must have been all the cold nights sleeping in the woods. I hoped that she wasn't too sick; kids had such frail immune systems.

"I just did." I said, trying to smile but failing miserably at it. We started walking again. I was so tired. My stomach was churning with emptiness and my head was dizzy. There were black spots in my vision and I felt a little nauseous from all this physical activity. We had been traveling for three day and that last meal I had eaten was at the ward. I was probably coming down with a cold as well.

I bit my tongue though, because I didn't want to say anything. I kept telling myself, 'I don't want to cause them any trouble…' and the next thing I knew, I had blacked out.

XXX

I was surrounded by warmth when I woke up. I saw a brown ceiling with takatami mats neatly in a row. There was a light to my left and an alarm clock a little past it. The time was 2:24PM. I was fuzzy with unrecognition until I felt a cool hand on my head.

I looked above and saw Inuyasha's warm amber eyes.

"Feeling better?" he asked me, amusement in his tone. He looked adorable right then, looking down at me with his charming features and his soft smile that he really only had on when he was completely content. He never had smiled like that.

"Huh?" I asked, still hazy.

"You and Rin both caught yourself nasty colds. Were in Sango's brother's house now."

"In Kobe?"

"Yep. You've been asleep for about a day now."

I sat up, in surprise, the information finally seeping in. The sleepiness I felt went away suddenly, and I felt a large pounding in my head. My body felt achy, and my eyes felt heavy. My cheeks also felt warm.

"But we were at least 12 miles away from Kobe…"

He smiled, "I carried Rin and Miroku carried you. He was tough, and I made sure he didn't grope you or anything.

"Oh, your awake!" Sango appeared in the doorway, holding a mug with an anime character scribbled on the side. She stepped into the room and sat next to me.

"We were pretty worried about you when you fell yesterday. You hit the ground so hard. Dammit girl, you should have told us you weren't feeling good!" Sango scolded me.

"Sorry, Sango. Does your brother mind us being here?" I asked.

"Don't worry about that. Just get better. Remember, we are finally free from that fucking ward and now we have a place to stay! Once you and Rin get all better, we'll go down to the lake and go fishing! I can't wait till you meet my onee-san, but that can wait." Sango said in one breath. She often talked a lot, even to herself, and she had the whole speed talking ability down pat.

Inuyasha stroked my hair with his long nails. "Get some sleep for now. When you wake up, we'll make you some leek soup. Leek's are gross, but they are the best remedy for the cold."

I felt tired, and didn't fight as he gently pushed my shoulders back down. The bedding I was in was warm and soft, so I didn't fight it. I fell into a blissfully blank sleep moments later.