To Kill a Frog by 17th Floor

To Kill A Sneeze

Wooot! It rained in Texas. Miracles! Maybe that helped my muse juice flow again. Anyhoo, this is for Skye's Challenge - Toxic. 

My allergies are killing me=oooooh Skye's new prompt=I hate when animals sneeze on me=big doggy sneeze WHOOSH=where's my Benadryl?

Disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer.

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To Kill a Sneeze: (And Run Away)

17th Floor

Kagome awoke in the dead of night. Sitting up in her sleeping bag, her surroundings at first seemed normal.  The campfire had faded to dull popping amber; Inuyasha was perched in a nearby tree, cuddling the Tetsusaiga in his lap.  Sango and Miroku were asleep, the respectable distance between their bodies broken by the inward bow of their heads towards each other.  Kirara was on her back near Sango, neko paws twitching in slumber, and little Shippo was tucked in beside Kagome, mouth open and adorable baby fangs glinting in the fading fire light.

Why had she woken up? Kagome fuzzily shook her head, preparing to go back to sleep when the faintest of sounds entered the clearing.  She cocked her ear carefully, wishing for the ten thousand seven hundred and sixty seventh time for a youkai's more amplified senses.  Body tense, she caught it again.  It was coming from the north, and it sounded like a sneeze.

Kagome clumsily reached for her shoes, shaking them out before stuffing her feet into them. She then slowly extracted herself from her sleeping bag, careful to replace her bulk with a pillow Shippo could snuggle against in case he became cold.  Her next destination was her bag where she extracted her crank flashlight and quiver of arrows.  On the way to retrieve her bow, which was propped beneath the gnarled tree Inuyasha slept in, Kagome heard the sneeze again, and then three in rapid succession. It sounded closer to their campsite.  Perhaps she should awake Inuyasha?  She glanced up, measuring what the reaction of her dear friend would be...loud, loud enough to wake everyone, most likely for no reason at all.  Although, she was quite surprised he had not awoken already.  He did seem awfully cuddly with Tetsusaiga, perhaps he was dreaming of Kikyo? Kagome grimaced at the image her mind helpfully produced for her; it involved lots of unhealthily pale skin. I so did not need that! she chastised inwardly.

It was just a sneeze though.  She could handle a sneeze, and she would prove it to.  Silently shouldering her bow and quivers, Kagome nodded with determination.  Four more sneezes reached her ears. Sneaking back to her bag, Kagome rummaged around until she found her final item, a box of Benadryl. Shoving it deep into her pocket, she headed to the north.  She was a miko. It was her duty to help those in distress, and uncontrollable sneezing would definitely qualify.

The night air was cool against her skin, hints of morning dew only just beginning to form.  Once she was a safe distance from her slumbering friends, she twisted the top of her flashlight for several moments, before deeming it sufficiently charged. This was one of her proudest purchases to date for her Feudal Era adventures. Why pollute the country side and timeline with discarded batteries when she could have an almost never-ending source of light, flint and tinder not required...She popped on the light. The leaves and foliage around her were bathed in a soothing LED blue.  Kagome advanced quicker then, and after roughly ten more minutes of brisk walking, realized the sneezing, now happening at a rapid, uncontrollable pace was accompanied by muffled whimpers and punctuated with squawks of distress. 

What in Kami?

Kagome moved faster.  There were several people obviously in need of her up ahead.  Her mind frantically worked to come up with possible scenarios she could be walking into.  An evil flower youkai with a cold had cornered a young girl and her bird?  Branches and twigs snapped as she began running.  An abandoned kit, much like her young Shippo, had fallen into a patch of....

"Milord!"

Kagome stopped dead in her tracks. She knew that voice. The gears in her head came to a grinding halt; the voice inspired an instinctive need to smash things, green things...The little toad demon that followed Sesshoumaru around!  The night air suddenly became frigid. Maybe I should have woken Inuyasha....

"Lord Sesshoumaru!" The image of the young girl with the buck-toothed grin flashed into her head. She sounded very afraid, very uncertain. Kagome fisted her hand around the comforting strength of the bow. The little girl needed help. The annoying toad needed help too. Did...Sesshoumaru...need help?  Her feet took her forward, and Kagome found herself in a scene she could have never imagined.

Before her there was a large clearing.  On the west end, there lay the discarded remains of a camp fire and bed rolls.  On the east side, several boulders lay jumbled together. Many were oddly formed, almost as if they had been melted, and were covered in some sort of strange ooze. One particular flat slab lay as a type of roof, held up by two smaller stones, and underneath the toad and the little girl huddled together in a mash of green and orange. Their wide eyes were frozen to the middle of the clearing where a fully transformed Sesshomaru stood panting heavily. 

"Pretty lady! HIDE!!!" The girl's voice pierced her. "Get hidden!"  Kagome watched as the great and terrible white dog began what was obviously an enormous sneeze. His sides began contracting, and his head pulled back.  Mesmerized Kagome watched as his muzzle broke the tree tops and was bathed in the pale light of the half-moon.  He's so beautiful....

"HIDE!!!" 

Then with a massive heave, the Taiyoukai released a huge sneeze, and she watched in horror as giant blobs of snot came barreling towards her. Too late, her gears started up, melted boulders, ooze, cowering companions...

Oh crap... that is probably poisonous. What a way to go Kagome, death by toxic doggie snot.

She closed her eyes, tensing up for the anticipated melting she was about to receive.  Kagome felt the warm blast of goo hit her body, sending her flying backwards into the arms of a waiting tree. However, instead of the liquification of her flesh and bodily organs, Kagome experienced a peculiar tingling feeling. Opening her eyes, she watched in amazement as the snot was slowly vaporized into a pale pink mist replete with green sparkles. She had never done that before...She stood carefully entranced as her miko powers turned her fully dry and snot free.

"SO COOL!" She shouted into the space of the clearing, pumping her fist into the air.  The Taiyoukai's great red eyes, distinctively watery, turned to address the newest witness to his misery.  If he recalled correctly, that was the fourth or fifth time he had attempted to (or accidentally) tried to kill the human miko and failed.  She was now approaching the record of his mother, whom he had attempted to murder at one point or another what should have been an auspicious total of seven times, crazy bitch that she was.  Those seven times were all highly purposeful though, so perhaps he would keep the miko's count down at four.  It made it less...upsetting...to his inner predator.

He watched as the miko gesticulated, not understanding her apparent happiness by being covered in his bodily fluids...at least not those kinds. Perhaps the perverted monk had been educating her in the profane arts? The great dog's musings were interrupted by another uncontrollable urge to sneeze.

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOSH! Kagome ducked to the left and watched in detached fascination as the snot flew past her obliterating a patch of poppies.  Edging around the outer corners of the clearing, Kagome made her way to where the little girl crouched hidden. She had the smaller frog in a death grip around his neck, and he looked decidedly grey around the gills. 

"Hi! I'm Kagome." She smiled with open arms, and the girl scurried into her embrace.  Letting the toad catch his breath, Kagome noticed the small holes forming in the roof of the stone shelter. It was a good thing she came when she did.  This structure wouldn't keep them safe much longer.

"What's gotten into Sesshomaru?" Kagome threw her thumb out towards the massive beast that was now pawing at his face.  The toad puffed himself up as if to chastise her for her lack of respect, but sighed resignedly instead.

"Jaken and Rin do not know." The girl spoke from between the safety of Kagome's arms, content to remain there for the duration of this trying moment. The pretty lady Kagome smelled much better than Jaken anyway. 

"Has he ever done this before?" Both heads shook no. "Did someone curse him?" Again, she received a negative."...Is he allergic to anything?" Could Sesshoumaru be allergic? Two pairs of eyes looked at her in confusion.  Oops, modern term.  She corrected her word, "Did he eat something or smell something strange?"

That got a response in the toad instantly.  Webbed fingers twisted into knots, and his eyes suddenly were looking at anything but her.  Bingo.

"What is it Jaken?"  Kagome pushed her head forward forcing the toad to catch her eyes.  He looked uber-guilty.  "Jaken...." Kagome placed her hands on her hips as best she could in the crowded space. Her mother always got results with this stance. It was evidently really scary.

The toad sighed anew, reached into his musty robes, and pulled out something Kagome had thought she had lost many, many, many months ago.

She couldn't help the next words from her mouth, "Well shit..."  Rin giggled.

It was her bra that she had lost several months ago. In a stroke of genius, she had thought to sew a jewel shard inside of it, to see if perhaps it would be a safer way to carry them around then in a bottle attached to her neck.  The next fight the tachi had encountered had been fierce but not once did she fear for the safety of the shard in her undergarment. In fact, if she didn't know any better, the huge onni that had attacked them didn't even realize that the shards in the bottle had not been in the only shards on the battle field...Maybe it had something to do with the underwire?  Her bosom was rather hefty, and she had custom-ordered the bra for her Feudal Era adventures.  Kagome had considered the experiment a rousing success, and had been preparing to sew all the shards into her undergarment until she...lost the bra. 

 It was her third biggest mistake to date in the Feudal Era, one that had been weighing heavily in her breast...err chest.  Second only was how she lost the bra in the first place, and the shattering of the Sacred Jewel as what topped both.  Now though, she had a chance to rectify it.  Looking at the forlorn bit of cloth and metal, Kagome noticed it looked decidedly pawed over.  She grabbed it out of the kappa's hands and felt around for the shard.  Nothing.  She had a sinking suspicion about where the shard was now located.

WHOOOOOOOSH!  It was in the nose of a big doggy. A big naughty doggy.   

Combined with the purity of her essence, the perfume still lingering on the bra, and the pointy ends the shard had, the jewel was driving the mighty youkai insane.  Kagome gritted her teeth.  This was going to be so disgusting, even with the bonus of not getting melted in the process.  Prying the young Rin off her body, she instructed the two loyal companions to retreat further under the slab.  If they wouldn't leave their Sesshoumaru, they could at least watch and maybe, just maybe, Sesshoumaru wouldn't kill her when she stuck her arm in his nose.

Oh yes. She was going to do that.  Time to go shard mining!  She felt abnormally giddy about the prospect.  Kagome eased from beneath the space, watching another patch of flowers melt under a sneeze.  The clearing was a poisoned paradise...She hummed a phrase of the song. Another sneeze partially uprooted a willow tree. It looked even weepier now! Kagome started giggling. Really something had to be wrong with her; maybe the vaporized toxins were affecting her logic...maybe she was dreaming? She pinched her arm just to be on the safe side.

No such luck. 

Kagome approached the Taiyoukai slowly, with her palms facing up in his direction. "Easy big guy..."  Suddenly, she remembered the box of Benadryl in her pocket.  She probably should drug him up first, and this was the perfect choice (albeit her only choice) to slow down his reaction time. For a brief second she pondered over the dosage and then with another giggle, reached into her pocket, pulled out and opened the box, and popped out every single grape chewable inside, crushing them as best she could using her hands.  "Time to go nitey-nite..." she whispered. 

Sesshoumaru watched the miko's advance through blurry eyes, unable to smell the strange purple pills he saw her take out.   He bent down and growled low in his chest though when he heard her giggle. The miko took joy in his suffering?  Perhaps he had falsely assumed that the undead golem was the only hard-hearted wench Inuyasha tried to shake his tail at....

'Now, now, "Kagome scolded, "Bad dog."  Before he could bite her for her disrespect, Kagome shoved one hand full of Benadryl into his mouth, and the other hand up his nose, praying that the hand in the mouth would go unnoticed because of the hand up the nose. 

Sesshoumaru felt all three of his paws give out at once as the miko yanked out the hand she stuck in his mouth. The female was assaulting his person in a most unseemly fashion!  And the substance in his mouth tasted like poison! Was the miko trying to finish him off?  He tried to scoot backwards, but his retreat was made impossible due to the impossibly strong hand holding onto the overly sensitized skin of his nose.  Pink and green sparkles began shooting out everywhere, dancing in front of his eyes like demented fairies.  He tried to shake his head to dispel the miko from her digging, but with an abrupt exclamation of triumph the miko released him, and he fell backwards onto his ass snorting pink mist from his abused nasal cavities.

"Got it!" shouted Kagome, waving the snot-covered shard in the air like it was a bridal bouquet. She gestured towards Jaken and Rin excitedly, "You can come out now! It's safe! I got it!" The girl and retainer gingerly exited their shelter; Kagome could hear the kappa warning Rin to avoid the patches of poison, but she had her eyes on the great and mighty lord.

He had reverted to his human form. Kagome stopped breathing, afraid to instigate deadly retribution onto her person.  Sesshoumaru delicately sniffed the night air, testing his nose.  He opened his eyes wide to the sky, which was beginning to show streaks of morning's approach, to test their clarity. Then he smiled.

Behind her, Jaken moved to cover Rin's eyes.

Sesshoumaru cracked his claw like Inuyasha did before a fight.  Drawing in a great breath, Kagome eyed her escape from the clearing.  Just then, a peculiar expression crossed the Taiyoukai's face, and he brought his fingers before his eyes, clenching and unclenching them rapidly.  They began to glow purple after a few moments, and the smell of grape chewable filled the clearing.  Kagome shivered in terror. That was probably not supposed to happen.

"Woman....what have you done to my poison?"

Kagome heard the Benadryl box crinkle in her pocket as she took a step back.  "Uh nothing...on purpose?" She managed to squeak out.  He slashed his claws at the nearby Jaken, but instead of a fricasseed frog legs, the smell of grape grew more intense, and then Jaken passed out.  Angry amber eyes met her widened sapphire blue ones. The only one happy in the clearing at this point was Rin, who thought Jaken smelled much better now than he normally did.

"It's no longer toxic; it's purple instead of green, and it smells of fruit!" 

Frantically Kagome thought of something to say, anything to say that might spare her approaching death.

 "It's a new attack?" she ventured hopefully, "You could call it...Diphenhydramine?" Then before Sesshoumaru could take one step closer, she took off running, even managing to grab her bra on the way out. 

It was only much, much, much later in the safety of her own era; (for stopping at camp would have been counter-intuitive) did Kagome feel comfortable enough to ponder three things:

•1.)      How long Sesshoumaru would be afflicted by the Benadryl?

•2.)      Why had he let her escape when he clearly could have caught her?

 •3.)      And whatever could he have been doing with her bra in the first place?

 Snuggling deep into her comforter, she decided some things were better left unknown.