Hope

By: HopePoe26

Disclaimer: Inuyasha is owned by Rumiko Takahashi. I, certainly couldn't do this type of work myself, simply because I can't draw shit.

Summary: Naraku was finally dead and the Inu-tachi has been recovering the jewel shards that were missing when Inuyasha suddenly keels over in pain and falls into a coma-sort of sleep. What will happen now?

Warnings: Inuyasha and other characters here are obviously a bit out of character. If it seems that Inuyasha looks too weak for the moment it's because for the moment he is… but later on in the story there would be a more hands on Inuyasha acting out.

A/N: I wish to thank all of those people who have reviewed. I adore getting reviews. On the other side… I would like – if possible that you give me some constructive criticism as that would make the chapters more understandable.

- Part I -

Kagome fretted. She was sweating bullets and her arms tightened considerably on Shippou who – though he looked like a tiny child – was finding it hard to try and pry himself out of Kagome's hard grip. Kagome squeezed her eyes shut as the unbelievable thought that Inuyasha may be hurt worse than possible passed through her head. Sango and Miroku were both treating Inuyasha while she was delegated to stay with Shippou as he was feeling a little out of sorts. Why? She couldn't fathom but she stayed with him anyway. It was only twenty minutes later that she found a shadow over her form and thought it was unusual for the sky to get dark so soon as it was no more over than lunch – which was when Inuyasha fell. She looked up and found a certain youkai prince looking at her weird. She hadn't even sensed him coming as she always did before but now found this new turn of events even weirder. She quirked an eyebrow at the Wolf Prince wondering what could he say to her.

"I…" – she attempted to tell him – like many other times before – that she wasn't leaving with him to become his mate, but found him just staring at the small hut in front of them.

"Inuyasha…" – she heard him breath as if the word itself was a caress. His eyes glowed a deep ocean blue with an intensity that frightened her.

She stood and took two steps backwards sensing danger about. Only this time did she heed the alarm bell go off in her head when a white blur sent Kouga sprawling away. She gasped – her eyes bright and opened as wide as they could go while her hand covered her gaping mouth to prevent another sound to come forth – and wondered what else could go wrong as she had also failed to see Sesshoumaru wheezing by quickly.

Kouga sat up slowly and shook his head as if clearing the haze that had clouded his mind, and growled up to Sesshoumaru as he stood stoically in front of the hut as if he were protecting it from harm. Was it any wonder that when they faced off in front of each other Kagome's face looked like she was threatening to split apart at the seams?

"Step away Lord of the West. I have to speak to Inuyasha." – Kouga growled showing off his sharp teeth in a threatening way. Kagome wondered why in heaven's name would Kouga want to speak to Inuyasha and why was he calling him by his name instead of mutt or idiot half-breed. Not that she ever liked Kouga disrespecting Inuyasha at all, but she had become used to the name calling, so she understood that anything that differed from the norm was some cause of concern.

"I do not follow orders wolf. Not from you. Not from anyone else." – with that Sesshoumaru turned around to go into the hut leaving the former seething. With the way he showed his sharp canine teeth and fangs, his blue eyes were heated and his clawed hands were grasping the earth as if he wanted to tear Sesshoumaru into pieces.

Kouga – once he managed to control his anger – stood up looking like he was being torn in two. Kagome could sympathize with him since that was her current outlook to life at the minute. Nevertheless, it came as a big surprise when he just slumped and sat back down next to her and Shippou staring over at the hut longingly where the Lord of the West had disappeared into.

They sat there in a not so awkward silence and Kagome let Shippou loose when she realized that in her fear of the new events, she had been hugging too tightly. His eyes were two green swirls and he looked more like he had when they had been about to enter Mt. Hakurei where he had been half-purified. About an hour before night fall, Kouga stood up and looked at the hut longingly again before turning to look at her with a serious gaze on his handsome face and then said something that shocked Kagome to the core…

"I revoke my claim on you Kagome. I realize now that we could never be and that now I'm feeling more like I want someone else. I'll be back tomorrow. Tell Inuyasha I said hi." – and then he ran away leaving her feeling a little out of sorts.

If he was revoking his claim on her, then why was he coming back on the next day? And why was it so important that she informed Inuyasha that he had been around? With her hair sticking out in various ways and Shippou lying out cold next to her, she could sense – just barely – that things were about to change in a way that she wouldn't like.

The next day turned out to be more awkward than before because Sesshoumaru walked out of the hut carrying Inuyasha's clothes in his arms. Kaede stood next to him and Kagome was surprised to see that neither seemed to be warding the other off. It was as if Kaede was in cahoots with Sesshoumaru over something. What it could be, she couldn't tell. She was that non-plussed about the idea of Kaede agreeing with a demon that she began to chew her lower lip in a decidedly nervous manner. Her gray eyes briefly met a golden honey gaze that seemed to bore down on her in a way that tempted her to speak out, but she didn't dare.

Nevertheless, when Sesshoumaru was passing by next to her, she gathered her courage and presented herself in front of him and demanded that he return Inuyasha's clothes. He just stared at her and then just side-stepped her. He continued walking as if she were nothing and this infuriated her so much she wished she had enough power to purify the daylights out of him. Her hair was swirling with her purifying energy as she was that mad, but; alas as she was the reincarnation of a powerful priestess, she knew her limitations and she knew that as untrained as she was she would never be able to summon enough purifying energy to hurt him even a bit.

She turned around and found Miroku standing there waiting for her to acknowledge him. His violet eyes were sad and his mouth was set in a grim line. Whatever news awaited her – they would certainly be bad if Miroku looked that stern.

"I have to speak to you." – he said and she noticed that he looked in every direction as if he were suddenly nervous of those beings that he could not see.

To know that her friend in the whole wide world (500 years in the past) was going thru a change that could very well kill him was disastrous. She wanted to say it wasn't fair to the poor hanyou lying in the hut. She wanted to kill Inuyasha's father for putting his son thru so much pain, so much hate through out his life – never mind that the man was already dead – and she wanted to rage – again – that it wasn't fair.

Miroku explained in a low tone of voice that the change had begun that morning when said hanyou had said that he didn't feel like eating Ramen. They had looked at him weirdly then, but they had let it go when he ignored said looks. Miroku went on to explain that while the change wasn't what Inuyasha would've wanted – this was a guess as good as any because said person wasn't awake to say so – it was undeniably impossible to stop the change now that it had begun. There wasn't a way that they could stop it even if they wanted to that could not result in Inuyasha not being hurt worst than he were already.

Inuyasha was still too young to even be considered at the age of adolescence in demonic terms. Due to his change and his duality, Sesshoumaru had volunteered to take him back with him to his castle to monitor his upcoming heat. Said upcoming heat was turning out to be too soon for Inuyasha and could irreparably end up in tragedy if taken lightly.

Heat? This had Kagome cocking her head to the side and projecting puzzled thought as it had Miroku when Kaede had explained it to him. So Miroku went on to explain that apparently Inuyasha was in his pre-teen years despite the fact that he did not look like a boy. Unlike Shippou who looked like a kid of – at best – eight years old, Inuyasha's seemingly physical maturity was fake due to his human blood running through his veins. He further explained that even if Shippou maintained the illusion of being younger, he was actually older than Inuyasha. In fact, Shippou's age could be said to be around fifteen to sixteen years old in human years.

Kagome was still dealing with the explanation and trying to work around the thought that Shippou had fooled her into babying him more than poor Inuyasha who had been thrown to the ground more than usual, she barely heard Miroku finishing his explanation with a brief sentence that further simplified all of the information told before.

"Inuyasha is but a boy in youkai terms, but because he's half-human his heat is coming about too early for him to handle the change."

"But what's the change supposed to do?" – she asked him feeling like the bottom of the earth beneath her feet was moving and was about to be dropped from her the minute that Miroku answered her.

"It makes him able to bear children."

Gasp! Kagome trembled astonished at how things could change that quickly. She didn't know that that was even possible! Apparently it was, but she knew that this wasn't the future she was living in and she would do anything in her power – and beyond – to help her friend.

"Because mating season isn't up to for another couple of months, Inuyasha is going to stay with Sesshoumaru throughout his heat and mating season and then he'll come back to us to continue searching the jewel shards missing. I think." – he mumbled at the end to which Kagome's confused stare brought him back to the present and he went on: "This is what Sesshoumaru said that it will happen and we have agreed that if its in the best interests of our friend then we will keep ourselves otherwise occupied and maybe we'll try to gather the jewel shards without him but we will not purify the jewel until after Inuyasha is well."

Kagome nodded and then she said… "Right!" and then she asked because she was puzzled by this bit of information "Why did Sesshoumaru take Inuyasha's clothes with him?"

"Kaede is doing a cleansing method on Inuyasha per Sesshoumaru's request and she has also removed the prayer beads because she knew that if you slipped the fall would make Inuyasha feel more pain and maybe cause him more injuries than he was able to handle." – Kagome grimaced knowing that most of the time Inuyasha's 'punishment' was said not in the terms of punishing him per se, but more because it was an accident when she called it out. She tuned back in as Miroku went on: "So Sesshoumaru took Inuyasha's clothing as to – I really don't know why he did, all I know is that he'll be returning with a new set of clothes tomorrow afternoon and then he will take Inuyasha to his home."

Kagome nodded. She had been meaning to take the prayer beads off Inuyasha's neck for awhile but she found that while she could command to sit him to the ground, she could not take them off. Kaede had put them on and Kaede had to take them off. She wondered the involvement of Kouga in all of this and decided that she knew of something that would make Inuyasha happy once he woke up and set out towards the well before Miroku could question her about it.

Inuyasha woke up to the noise of Kouga demanding to be let in to the hut to see him and Sesshoumaru's snarls that he better keep away from his sibling. He sighed and tried to stand up when he found himself looking at his nude body with curiosity. He knew that he had undergone a change that would make him different in the eyes of other demons and set to discover his body's new appearance.

He still had downy white doggy ears on top of his head and though at some point in his life he had wished he weren't a half-breed, he was glad that that at least had not change in him. His hair was much longer than it had been before and this made him a bit uncomfortable knowing that now he had to go thru greater lengths to keep his hair clean. How utterly wonderful.

Next came the assessment of his chest. He noticed that he had one light violet stripe on each side that hugged his two lower ribs and when he passed his claws tenderly over them he felt himself blush due to the reaction that this motion caused. He took hold of his nipples in to two of his fingers and wondered about this new sensibility that surrounded them. Why did it feel so soft to the touch and why did he feel so wet below?

He looked on to the mat that he was sitting on and discovered a clear liquid emerging from beneath his penis. It wasn't semen – he knew that he sometimes had morning erections that were seldom comfortable and when he touched himself briefly, he managed to wring some of the semen out and continue on with his day as if nothing happened – as it wasn't as viscous as semen – he ran a claw-tip through it testing its density. He rarely – if ever – masturbated but he was not an idiot not to know the "joys" – as Miroku was oft to call it – of sex. And he knew that women secreted their own lubrication when they were aroused, was that what the liquid was?

He licked it and found it to be too sweet, almost as if it were a mixture of water and sugar. But he wondered why it was that he secreted this lubrication? Then it caught up onto him. He blushed heavily as he realized what the change was about. He bundled himself up on the covers and wondered what would happen next. And why in the seven hells would Kouga – the mangy wolf - be out there demanding for a chance to see him?

Sesshoumaru didn't want the wolf to enter the hut and Kouga wanted in that bad that it had all the others who knew him wondering why this sudden change of heart. Finally Sango managed to convince Kouga to stop pestering Sesshoumaru and that if he waited a bit that he might be able to see Inuyasha in awhile.

Sesshoumaru went into the hut to find his little brother looking a bit flushed. Was the fever from mating season already starting? No. It seemed that his brother had been touching himself in self-discovery and had gotten a bit aroused. This caused a small smile to appear at Sesshoumaru's lips. He knelt down to the mat where his little brother was sitting and said…

"I brought you something to wear." – and was pleasantly surprised to see that Inuyasha did not jump away from him.

Deciding against staying there whilst Inuyasha got dressed, he decided to turn around to go, but was stopped by the boy when he said…

"Stay… please."

It was then both discovered the new physical change had also affected the boy's voice. Sesshoumaru nodded, but did not turn to look at his brother – giving him a semblance of privacy – while he changed.

Inuyasha realized that his brash and uncouth voice had changed as well into a slightly softer – more like delicate – tenor. He wondered if this was an omen for things to come and shrugged as he tied the obi around his hakama and thought that the silk was making him feel very uncomfortable. He tried to take a step, found that his legs being uncooperative with him and almost fell onto his butt if it hadn't been for Sesshoumaru he would have. He was now lying on his arms like a baby would in its mother's arms.

"I Will carry you to the western lands seeing as you're probably still getting used to your limbs." – Inuyasha just nodded and he clamped his arms around his brother's neck feeling so utterly and confusingly weak.