Disclaimer: All characters from Inuyasha are owned by Rumiko Takahashi, but this story belongs to me.

Scullzee

“I’m bored.”

“Shut up, Shippo.”

“KAGOME! Inuyasha is being mean to me!”

The young miko rubbed her temples as she tried to focus on her homework assignment. Her slight headache was threatening to turn into a full blown migraine. She had hoped that the lull in activity would allow her to catch up on some of her homework. Yelling at Inuyasha was her first instinct. It was simpler to deal with an irritable hanyou than a crying kitsune. However, Inuyasha hadn’t laid a hand on the kid, and frankly, the whining was getting on her nerves as well.

“Shippo, there are no rumors of any jewel shards and the village has been relatively quiet. Sango and Miroku will be back tomorrow and we can start traveling again.”

“But I’m so bored!” He went over to her pack and began to dig through it. “I don’t see any games or anything! Just books and clothes!” HE dug a little farther and pulled out some treats he found and began munching on them.

“Oi, brat! Don’t just take stuff!”

Shippo held his head from where Inuyasha’s fist had made contact. “KAGOOOMEEEE!”

“Inuyasha! SIT!”

Whump.

“Remember the talk we had about hitting Shippo for no good reason?”

Inuyasha snarled back. “Remember the talk we had about Shippo turning into a thieving wimp other demons will eat for lunch if he doesn’t shape up? And it WAS a good reason. He was stealing from you.”

Kagome rubbed her temples again, hoping the pain would go away soon. “He wasn’t stealing. I brought the food for all of us.” She turned her gaze to the kit and frowned at him sternly. “Though you know that you need to ask before you take things, Shippo. It isn’t polite to go through other people’s belongings.”

“I’m sorry, Kagome.”

The magic let Inuyasha loose, but he decided to stay where he was at. It wasn’t every day the kit got a scolding from Kagome. It was worth the sitting. Though it did worry him that she seemed to be in pain. Another headache. He couldn’t wait until her schooling was finished. Then maybe the headaches would go away for good.

Kagome sighed.

“I need you to do me a favor, Shippo.” Anxious to get back into her good graces, he immediately agreed. “I need you to find me three smallish stones. Make sure that they look very different from each other. They need to be special.”

“Why?”

She smiled. “For a game.”

With a shout of joy, Shippo ran from the hut and hollered that he would be back soon. Inuyasha sat up and stretched.

“We gonna throw stones at the brat?”

Kagome actually giggled. He smiled, glad to hear her laugh. As her attention turned to the door, Inuyasha took her book and tossed it back in her bag. Maybe he could go out and bury the thing and she could just forget about traveling back to the future. Too bad this graduation thing seemed so important to her. And her family. He shivered as he remembered the look her mother had given him when he suggested she just quit school. Not even Naraku was THAT scary.

“No, of course not.”

Inuyasha was slightly disappointed. It would have been a good dodging exercise for the kit. And, to be honest, he’d really REALLY like to throw something at that trouble maker. Boredom was turning him into an ornery demon. Worse than usual.

“Okay, let’s go find a spot.”

He didn’t know what she was talking about, but he followed her out of the hut. She waved to villagers who called her name. Of course his name was never called, not unless it was Kaede. It never really bothered him, but it always bothered Kagome. She would smile and wave, and only Inuyasha could hear the things she said under her breath. It always made him smile. He would be that people didn’t even know that Kagome even KNEW some of those words. There was no way that he was admitting that he could hear her either. She might stop!

Along their walk, Kagome would touch leaves and trees, occasionally breaking something off to play with it. Inuyasha was conflicted. On one hand, she was leaving a nice easy trail for Shippo to follow to find them. On the other hand, she was leaving a nice easy trail for ANYONE (including wimpy smelly flea bitten wolves) to find.

Maybe when the kit was older and more skilled he’d worry about it. He knew that he could keep Kagome safe from the annoying wolves. When Shippo gets older and becomes a better tracker, then maybe he’d teach Kagome how to not leave a trail.

“Here we go,” she announced as they found a large clearing. “Now we need to find a nice sharp rock to use.”

“I thought Shippo was getting the rocks.”

“He’s getting different rocks.”

It didn’t make any sense, but he figured she knew what she was talking about. So he poked around looking like he was looking for a rock.

“What do you need the rock for?”

She paused her searching and looked over at him. “To make a circle in the ground.”

“Is this a game with magic?”

Kagome sat back and laughed. It was difficult to contain his own smile. His ears twitched as he picked up Shippo’s voice yelling her name. Her pathetic hearing hadn’t picked it up yet. Inuyasha almost felt sorry for her. Her sense of hearing, sight, and smell were all so weak and pathetic. He knew, since once a month he was human too. It felt like he was he was half blind with a clogged up nose and ears. It was horrible! And poor Kagome had to live her whole life like that. He wished she could experience things the way he could.

His eyes lit up as a thought occurred to him. Could he make a wish for Kagome when they completed the jewel, instead of for himself?

“Magic? No. But you just gave me a great idea. I’ll just use one of my arrows to draw with instead of a rock. Thanks Inuyasha!”

She grinned at him. He pictured her smile with slightly pointer canines. She reached into her quiver for an arrow and he pictured claws instead of fingernails. She flipped her hair over her shoulder as she walking in a large circle and he pictured her with ears like his on top of her head. Would it be too cruel and selfish of him to wish for her to be like him?

Finishing the main circle didn’t take long. Then she started cutting smaller sections into the earth and writing within them. Inuyasha watched her work. He stayed quiet and allowed himself to play a game of his own. Kagome called it the ‘what if’ game. What if he did make the wish? What if she did say yes? What if they were both hanyous? Or could he wish for them to both be demons? Nah, she wouldn’t like that. She’d probably still want to at least be partially human. Shippo entered the clearing and jumped into her arms. So he let himself continue to play his ‘what if’ game. What if that was a different child jumping into her arms?

He shook those thoughts out of his head. Those were dangerous thoughts. He definitely shouldn’t be thinking those thoughts. At least not in the middle of the day with Kagome only a few feet away!

“What this for?” asked Shippo.

Kagome made one last mark after transferring the kit to her shoulder. This is our game board. See how I made all these little sections inside the big circle?”

“Uh huh. You put numbers in them.”

“Yes, I put a number in thirteen of the spaces. In these six other spaces I wrote the word TRAP. For this game, we each get our own special rock. Then we toss them into each space. You start by throwing your rock into the space marked 1. Then you take it and toss it into space number 2. Then 3, and so on until you reach the 13th space. If it lands on one of the TRAP spaces then you lose a turn. The game is called Scullzee.”

“Who wins?” asked the kit.

“Whoever gets to the 13th space first.”

Shippo dug into his pockets and pulled out three stones. “Will these work?”

Kagome picked up the stones and smiled gently at him. Inuyasha could feel the ugly feeling of jealousy as she gave the kid that smile. He tried to stamp down the emotion before he blew up at the little demon. That was a sure way to end the game prematurely.

“They are just perfect!” She gave the green colored one to Shippo and the smooth black stone to Inuyasha, and kept the smaller broken rock for herself.

“No! That one’s Inuyasha’s!”

“Huh?”

“It’s mean and broken and ugly, just like Inuyasha.”

“Shippo!” Kagome scolded. “That’s a horrible thing to say. Apologize!”

“I’m sorry, Inuyasha,” he said contritely. Then just low enough for only the dog demon to hear, he said, “I’m sorry you’re mean and broken and ugly.”

Inuyasha clenched his fist to pound the kid on the head. He really was getting more obnoxious. Green eyes flashed at him with a violent emotion as Inuyasha raised his fist. That stopped him. It was an emotion he knew. In fact, it was an emotion that was so overwhelming that he never knew quite what to do with it.

Jealousy.

So… the kit was jealous huh?

Inuyasha lowered his fist and smiled. Then he opened his other palm, the one that held Kagome’s stone. Looking as pleasant as possible, he held it out to her like a gift.

“Here’s your stone, Kagome.”

Shippo’s little growl amused him, which spurred him on to try to look more pleasant. It felt weird, but he could feel the irritation radiating off of the kitsune. Who knew that the best way to get back at the bratty little kit was to be extra nice to Kagome? Oddly enough, however, she didn’t take the stone he was trying to give her. She looked at it thoughtfully, then clasped the one she held in her hand closer to her chest and took a step back.

“No, that’s ok. I’ll use this one.”

“But…”

“its fine, Inuyasha.” She shook off whatever sad thoughts she looked to be having and turned back to the game. “Okay, the youngest goes first. So go ahead and throw your rock, Shippo.”

Shippo stuck his tongue out at Inuyasha, then threw the rock. It hit the 1 space then skidded out of the circle.

“Oh, nice try Shippo.”

“You threw it too hard, brat.”

“I MISSED!”

Kagome gave him a pat on the head as she moved to throw her own rock. Inuyasha watched as she carefully weighed the rock and calculated the distance. Then she threw it slowly with a wide arc. It hit inside the line, and rolled once into dead center.

“What the…?”

“I believe,” she said with a smirk, “That the expression you meant to say was, ‘Nice shot, Kagome’.”

It was a nice shot.

“Keh.”

Inuyasha rubbed his thumb over the smooth stone. Did Shippo choose it as hers because it was pretty? Or because it was relatively flawless? Or to point out just how different she was from Inuyasha? Shippo shouldn’t have bothered. He knew that he was too broken for her. Too mean. She deserved someone more like her. Someone good. Someone nice. Someone perfect. Someone who deserved a stone as flawless as the one Shippo intended for her.

He threw the stone.

It hit dead center, then rolled out of the space and continued rolling and bouncing for several feet. Shippo laughed and Kagome hid her grin.

Shippo was up again. This time his throw barely made it into the circle, but it was close enough to count. Kagome once again hit the center with her ugly broken stone. Inuyasha’s rolled just outside of the line, even though he threw it much more gently that time. He swore at it. What he didn’t understand was Kagome’s smile whenever the stone would roll away.

Shippo began concentrating hard on the stone and how it was thrown. He landed in the TRAP space twice, Inuyasha only hit it once. Annoyingly, Kagome hit every space in order. She was on 12 before Inuyasha even got to 7. More annoyingly was that Shippo was only once space behind him.

Kagome threw her stone one last time, and landed on the 13. She smiled as she went to retrieve her stone.

The game was much more difficult than Inuyasha thought it would be. He would have to make sure to allow Shippo to talk him into playing it on days when Kagome was gone. It would be a good skill for the kit to improve.

“You cheated!” accused Inuyasha.

She simply shook her head and grinned. Tossing her rock up in the air she gave a giggle. “I just had a better rock.”

“What?” asked Shippo, astonished at her explanation. “That ugly thing?”

“Yup.” She dropped down where she could almost hug her knees so that she was eye level with the little fox demon. Then she showed him the stone. “These sharp edges and broken edge make it just perfect. It doesn’t roll because of the flat edge where it was broken and the edges dig into the dirt. So it stays pretty close to where I throw it.” She tousled his hair and stands back up. “The rough edges are what make it perfect,” she told them, though she was looking at Inuyasha with eyes that literally were sparkling. “And I wouldn’t trade it.”

He gulped.

Shippo shrugged and told them he was going to see if the others had come back yet so he could teach the game to Kirara. Kagome left with him, moaning about getting back to her homework assignment. And Inuyasha…

Inuyasha sat back and played the ‘what if’ game some more.

Author’s Notes:

Scullzee is an actual game, I didn’t make it up. I found it in a book about sidewalk chalk games.

Here are the rules: Make a game board using chalk. Section it off using the numbers one through thirteen (make sure they are NOT in order) as well as a couple of Trap Zone spaces. Toss rocks or bottle caps to toss into each space. You have to make the rock land in order. First one, then two, then three… If you land in the Trap Zone, then you lose a turn.