Having finally climbed the steep mountain where Totosai lives, an ancient volcano now inactive and located within a mountain range, Inuyasha clenches his teeth tightly and walks with firm steps across the hardened lava.
He had seen them! That bird was obviously Asahiko transformed, and the one riding on his back was Kikyo. It may have only been for a moment, from a considerable distance and in the middle of the climb... But he could never be mistaken!
That long black hair resembling a flowing sea of dark ink, a piercing gaze that seemed to look into your soul, and a face coldly beautiful yet noble. That was Kikyo without a doubt, his Kikyo!
"Damn it... Friend? Hahaha, does a friend do this with... With..."
Hesitating for a few moments before continuing his words even in his rather furious state, mainly due to momentarily seeing Kagome's face in his mind, Inuyasha lowers his head and feels strangely guilty without really knowing why.
He had begun feeling more and more like this ever since that encounter in the Terror Forest, the place where he lived through that incredibly realistic nightmare that was indistinguishable from reality itself, the very one in which he "chose" Kagome over Kikyo once again, and the latter... Only-.
"Agh, damn it!"
Kicking a nearby rock with completely unjustified fury, at least against the poor rock that had done absolutely nothing to him, Inuyasha breathes erratically and clenches his hands until his nails dig into his own palms.
He truly didn't know how to manage or categorize his feelings and thoughts, which were currently a complete mess, because before he had never felt Asahiko as a "threat" since he had never seen him together with Kikyo... But now he did, and he didn't know what to do.
His mind told him that he still loved Kikyo as he always had, but every damn time he thought about "love," the face that appeared was... Ahhh!
"Enough already, I'm going to do it!"
Biting his lip while the veins on his forehead seemed to swell from the pressure, Inuyasha's eyes turned slightly red from thinking so much, or perhaps from the fury he didn't know how to release, but the important thing was that he finally began moving forward.
...Some time later...
"KIKYOOO!"
"Oh, no. Not you again."
Looking toward Inuyasha, who seemed possessed by some kind of demon, with bloodshot eyes and several swollen veins, Asahiko smacks his forehead with the palm of his hand before throwing the table in front of him at him.
Yes, this is neither a joke nor anything similar. Asahiko really stood up, grabbed the table with one hand, and then hurled it over his head toward Inuyasha, hitting him right in the chest before he could react.
Obviously, that attack didn't do any damage to the dog boy, because even though the table was made of stone, it had been thrown with little to no force. It was simply enough to break his stance and make him fall to the ground without leaving any real injuries.
"Wh- what, what are you doing?!"
Jumping backward so quickly that he became a blurred stain, it seemed that behaving like a coward granted him an enhanced speed bonus whenever he fled, Totosai pressed his body against the nearest rocky wall and pointed a finger toward Asahiko.
Who didn't really care much and simply raised an eyebrow at those actions, just as the priestess did as she walked over to him from the other side of the table, both of them remaining standing while looking toward Inuyasha.
"I'm going to kill you right now, Asa-!"
"Stop being so loud, Inuyasha."
"Ki, Kikyo..."
Looking at the arrow that had literally just embedded itself in the ground before his feet, still faintly glowing with a pink hue, Inuyasha instinctively took several steps backward due to his demonic instincts.
"So it really was you who was releasing that nauseating stench, Inuyasha."
"What... What do you mean? No, more importantly, Kikyo, I wanted to s-"
"Silence. Can't you tell that every time you open your mouth you fill the surroundings with a disgusting demonic stench? I almost thought you were a true demon."
Directing her cold brown eyes toward the trembling figure of Inuyasha, who from her point of view was releasing an extremely dense demonic aura, Kikyo considered for a single fleeting instant whether he was a problem.
Fortunately for everyone, especially for the dog boy, Asahiko quickly snapped out of his daze and seemed to understand what was happening, stopping Kikyo's unexpected aggressiveness through words.
"Whoa, whoa, stop. I can assure you it's not what it looks like, nor what you're thinking, Kikyo."
"So you're going to defend him, Asahiko. But may I know since when have you two gotten along so well? The last thing I remember is the two of you constantly trying to kill each other."
"That's all water under the bridge, Kikyo. We've become friends now, brothers from different mothers, enemies of the same villain-"
"Enough, stop playing! You two... You two..."
Trembling furiously as if he were containing something burning inside him, Inuyasha finally grabbed the table that had been thrown at him earlier and then hurled it against the wall, smashing it into pieces with a powerful crash.
Now somewhat calmer after causing the previous destruction, releasing his fury against a poor defenseless table, he dug his nails into his palms and regained a bit of rationality through the pain.
"What... What are you two doing here? And none of your damn jokes, Asahiko!"
"Alright, alright, calm down, I'll explain. It's bad for your health. We came to see Totosai because of a small problem, and it has to do with you. It's about some cat yokai that have been raiding human villages and capturing their inhabitants."
"Cat yokai? I've never seen or even heard of them, so why would they have anything to do with me?"
"Nothing really important. It's just that your father beat them up, your older brother beat them up, and now they're coming to beat you up. You get how this works, right? The cycle of hatred, revenge, and family resentment... Basically, they're a bunch of idiots looking for revenge, and they're after your head."
Shrugging as though he hadn't just said something incredibly important, Asahiko smiled as he noticed Inuyasha's confusion and prepared to mock him for his stupidity, but unexpectedly he was attacked first by someone he hadn't expected.
"I had already noticed it before, but you explain things terribly even when all the information is on the table."
"How dare you slander me, Kikyo! I, I... I can explain things properly! Hahaha, yes! I only explained it that badly to confuse Inuyasha!"
"If that were true, you wouldn't need much to do it."
"Uh... Good point."
Nodding to himself without noticing the faint satisfied smile that briefly appeared on Kikyo's face, because without realizing it he had accepted that the priestess's previous words were correct, Asahiko coughed several times and redirected the conversation toward Inuyasha, who looked ready to burst into flames.
The last part was obviously a metaphor, since for now Inuyasha didn't possess that ability, but the blazing fury reflected in the dog boy's amber eyes was certainly no joke.
"I've already told you what I'm doing here... Barely. But what about you, Inuyasha? What are you doing here too?"
"Tsk, the same as you."
"...Explain yourself better, you idiot!"
"You're just as bad at explaining things, or even worse!"
Shouting at each other from their respective places in the room, both Asahiko and Inuyasha gradually began unloading everything they had stored in their arsenal.
"Submissive, Kagome practically has you eating out of her hand!"
"Look who's talking, you always do whatever Kikyo says!"
"It's called strategy, you idiot dog. Though I doubt you even know that word, otherwise I'd be on that side and you'd be on this one."
"Oh, strategy... Just like the one where you want to seduce Sesshōmaru's mother in order to..."
Closing his mouth just as fast, or even faster, than he had opened it earlier to insult Asahiko, though in truth it wasn't so much "insulting" as throwing truths at each other, Inuyasha looked toward Kikyo with a trembling expression.
At some point during that conversation the priestess had put away her longbow and remained in the background, observing the entire degrading spectacle with her emotionless brown eyes, but after hearing Inuyasha's last words... Oh, the situation had become serious.
Something the two involved quickly noticed, because it was impossible to ignore the killing intent currently radiating from Kikyo. Merely standing near her right now was unbearable, but being the target of her aggression... God save these two unfortunate fools.
"You have three seconds to explain yourself, Asahiko. You'd better use them wisely."
"...It was Totosai's fault!"
"Eh, but I-... Agh?!"
"When I came here earlier, he told me Clouded Fang had been modified, that its power had been reduced by an evil object, and that Sesshōmaru's mother has it. I swear I only want to steal it!"
Grabbing Kikyo by the shoulders while giving her a quick explanation, Asahiko exchanged a brief glance with Inuyasha and nodded. And understandably so, because the dog boy was keeping the scapegoat, Totosai, under control so he wouldn't ruin the moment.
"You know I can notice your look-"
"I'm sorry, it's simply human instinct guiding me to di-!"
"With Inuyasha... What were you covering up?"
"Cough, cough, nothing! Ah, yes, human instinct forces me to seek the optimal solution, even if it's through deception and lies."
Turning his gaze away after it had unexpectedly been drawn toward Kikyo's pale collarbone, seen up close and from directly above the priestess's outfit offered quite an interesting perspective, Asahiko stepped back while mechanically delivering a textbook explanation.
He had never noticed how dangerous a priestess's outfit could be! He had been around Kikyo for a long time, but never this close, directly in front of her, and with the advantage of being taller... Everything had led to the current situation!
"Enough already, you two! Let's get back to what's important once and for all!"
"You're right, Inuyasha. God, did I really just say that? I'm scared!"
"The important thing!"
"Sorry, sorry, there are too many things on my mind."
Shaking his head to get rid of the image that had so easily left him out of commission, Asahiko created a table and a group of chairs using his reliable transformation. With that done, he took a seat and adjusted the chair beside him for Kikyo, while Inuyasha was forced to sit next to Totosai.