Don't Mess With a Namikaze

Chapter 16

Kagome woke up with a start as she shot up, "Jiraiya-sensei!" she shouted out in concern. Last she remembered they were in the middle of battle and she was healing her teacher. If she had passed out before Jiraiya beat his opponent, then it was possible he could be really hurt. She was pretty sure Magatsuhi wouldn't have been able to stick around long after since she had been feeding him energy. That meant Jiraiya would have also lost his backup.

She felt a hand on her shoulder pushing her back into a laying position, "Easy Kiddo. We won and we are all safe."

Kagome allowed herself to lay back down as she realized she had a bit of a headache, "Is Takashi-san alright?"

"I am perfectly fine Kagome-chan. You should worry about yourself more." Takashi said reassuringly.

"You managed to keep your barrier up long enough. We managed to defeat the Kiri-nin just before your energy ran out. We're hiding out in a nearby town at the moment." Jiraiya explained.

Kagome let out a long breath of relief as tension she hadn't even known was there bled away, "Oh, thank Kami."

"We do need to talk about the white-haired man that could hold your sword. Who was he?" Jiraiya asked in all seriousness. Whoever that man was and how he was connected to Kagome was something she should have told him about before yesterday. The fact he was actually able to hold Kagome's sword was another mystery. He had made the mistake of trying to wield her sword, trying to see how balanced the thing was. The moment he had grabbed the hilt it had burned his hand so fiercely he had to drop it. Kagome had admonished him about touching her things without permission as she healed the acid burns on his hand.

Kagome had a look of confusion on her face for a split second before she realized who he meant. She had thought she had told him all about Magatsuhi. Now that she was thinking about it he did know some about him, but obviously not the fact that he could manifest himself. As much as she wanted to explain that to him, she was overly aware of the fact that Takashi was in the room with them intently listening to their conversation. She had to be careful how she explained it so she didn't give her secrets away.

"Do you remember the problem Minato-Nii asked you to look into?" she asked. When Jiraiya nodded in confusion she continued, "That was Magatsuhi, the one that is against Midoriko. I guess you could think of him as a type of summon. One that only I can summon."

Jiraiya's eyes widened in understanding. So, that is what a demon from her world was like? He would have never even considered them being humanoid. When he thought of demons, he immediately thought of animal-like beings. He gave a short considering nod, "Right, we'll talk more about that later. For now, we are going to spend the rest of the day here to rest and gather our strength. First thing tomorrow we head out."

"About that, I think we should take a more round-about way back home. After surviving an attack like that, most people would assume we'd hurry in pretty much a straight line back to Konoha. I'm pretty sure we can assume that wasn't going to be our last attack. If we take a more half-circle back it'll be harder to track us down. It'll take us a bit longer to get back, but it should be safer." She suggested drawing in experience from her past adventures.

Jiraiya nodded in agreement, "Good assessment, I was thinking of the same thing. The person or people wanting this mission to fail isn't going to just give up. Not after hiring those two. We need to keep our guard up, and a less predictable path will help. Now, let's all get some rest. This mission is long from over."

Two serious nods were his answer. He definitely had more questions for Kagome, but those would have to wait until they were back in Konoha. Where they could sit down, just the two of them, and talk about it in private.