"Whaaat?!?"
"Kougaaa!?!"
Kouga's two loyal followers lamented and moaned with great concern as they flailed their arms and made nervous circles around their leader who was now frantically stuffing his face, growling furiously.
The afforementioned leader of the now small wolf demon tribe had much a blazing fire of rage and sheer determination burning in his eye. His two subordinates feared they saw some kind of contempt and maybe mania in his eyes, as if he couldn't stop eating even if he tried- as if he'd keep on eating until he died.
Kouga took a large slab of salted pork with two hands, leaned his head down before biting it harder than he had to. Then in one motion, Kouga snapped his head up, ripped the meat and swallowed the chunk he had tore off. He continued to eat the pork in a ravenous fashion until he had finished.
He was sitting crosslegged, facing the large, broken, old food cabinet. He leaned forward and started to furiously rampage the closet, knocking over a glass container of flour in the process, causing it to shatter in a loud crash.
"What do you think you're doing, Kouga? Is something wrong?" the two wolf demons that followed him cried, suddenly afraid that something was quite wrong with their chief and friend.
But Kouga kept on cramming messy handfuls of rice patties, tuna, cheese, and steak strips into his mouth with wild cycles of his arms, grumbling as he did so.
Ginta and Hakkaku grabbed Kouga's muscular arms, hoping to stop him before he stuffed himself to death. However his arms were only in their grasp for little more than a few seconds before he snapped his arms to the side and roared, "Get off me, you fools!" Ginta and Hakkaku were thrown off to the side.
Landing flat on their bottoms, blinking dumbly, the twosome sensed that there was something obviously wrong with Kouga. He seemed to be perfectly well at the beginning of the day. It was only a few hours ago when they were out with him, running through the forest, struggling to keep up as usual, and all seemed absolutely normal...
Kouga wanted to keep on running, but Ginta and Hakkaku were on the point of collasping, so Kouga agreed to allow them all to break. While the pair of rookie wolf demons were sprawled out on the ground, panting and trying to catch their breath, they took note that Kouga had decided to rest under a tree. Ginta sensed that something might not be right when he saw Kouga's eyes. They were darker and he seemed to be brooding, as if he were missing and wanting something.
Hakkaku figured that he was just yearning for Kagome again, however soon after they came across an abandoned village... Kouga said they would stay the night: something he very rarely said himself until it was well past sundown and his followers seemed about ready to fall asleep anyway. It was even more discerning when Ginta and Hakkaku soon lost track of Kouga- they thought he had took off, but they were shocked to find him inside a deserted kitchen, madly binging on delectables!
"Kouga, wait! Slow down! What's going on!" Ginta protested.
Kouga gave Ginta a death glare and snarled before sighing and putting down a slab of meat and crossing his arms. The two junior wolf demons looked at their leader for answers.
There was much silence as Kouga continued to eye the two.
Kouga burped deeply and patted his stomach, which now bulged out and was taut with the huge amount of food he had just consumed. Rising to his feet, Kouga turned his back to his friends who remained on the ground.
"What's it to you- none of your business anyway," Kouga sneered.
"...Kouga..." Hakkaku sighed, letting his head down.
"We just want to know if something's wrong- you seem very upset..." Ginta meekly admited.
"Yeah, and you seem... well, really determined to eat as much as you can get your hands on... what's going on?" Hakkaku implored.
Kouga scowled before crossing his arms and spinning around to face the twosome, his locks and ponytail of black hair flying in the hair briefly, a look of irritation etched into his face "Peh, if you have to know I was just... hungry, that's all."
"Hungry?" Hakkaku asked, his eyes wide.
Kouga sighed and hung his head low, "No..." he admitted, "Alright..." he whined hopelessly, "I can't lie to you guys, especially not about this..." he stopped and closed his eyes. Upon opening them, the two junior wolf demons gave him a look to continue, and he reluctantly did so.
"Alright, alright. I was trying to... put on some weight," he confessed.
"Put on weight?"
"But Kouga, why?"
"I don't know! Because I keep on getting blown away in battle!" Kouga snapped suddenly, causing the two wolf demons to cower and shiver. Kouga's fists tightened and his knuckles cracked and turned white. His voice started to waver, "I have lost, lost fight after fight against Inuyasha or Naraku or whoever."
"But Kouga, you win a lot of fights!"
"Yeah, you're the best!"
"No!" Kouga roared, "Those fights don't matter at all to me. Anyone could defeat half of the minor demons that tread this land. The fights that count are the ones I keep on losing... against Naraku," he spat the name out like poison.
"And I know," he trembled, "That I can't continue to win like this... Naraku gets stronger every day and Inuyasha does as well, by entire leaps and bounds... I'm going to get nowhere with this skinny boy frame," Kouga explained.
"And I think if I can put on more weight, then my speed from the Sacred Jewel would be a great advantage because my enemies would be struck hard by my weight and quickly from my speed. It would be a great combination, big weights at fast speeds- normally it couldn't occur and weight would slow me down."
"Lucky for me I've got these babies," Kouga smirked as the Sacred Jewels sparkled in the light.
"Ahh..." Ginta exclaimed, understanding his leader's motives.
"But wait," Hakkaku protested, "Your plan only has one big flaw... what about Kagome? Would she still care for you as much as she does if you started packing on the pounds."
Kouga's eyes widened slightly as he gasped under his breath, "Ah. Good point..." he said before he looked downcast at the ground.
"But what if Inuyasha was the one who put on the pounds," Ginta suggested, "Maybe she'd lose interest in him in favor of you!"
"That might work, but like I said before, I need to put on weight if I'm ever going to hope for victory," Kouga stated, "And imagine what could happen if Inuyasha learned to balance extra weight while wielding that sword of his... the results could be fatal!"
"Hmm..." Ginta thought, "Well, Kouga, what do you say."
Kouga took a deep breath and said: