A/N: So here's the companion piece to "The Void." It may not make as much sense if you have not read "The Void," but I believe the plot can stand on its own. Inuyasha does not belong to me. However, I just made a really pretty picture of him. That counts for something right? Story rated for language.

In Need of Light

I hate waking up from being knocked out! Inuyasha thought to himself as his mind quietly slogged to the land of the living. Worse than waking up human. Worse than waking up to Kagome gone. Well…ok, maybe not that bad, but still…

His ears twitched on the top of his head as he struggled to open his eyes. Everything was so quiet and it immediately set him on edge. He willed a hand to come and scrape the morning gunk out of his eyes, but his muscles seemed disinclined to obey him. After several moments struggle, his eyelids won the battle and cracked open. He immediately wished they hadn't. His eyes opened from darkness to be greeted by more darkness, thick as shouki and black as ink.

What the…?

His mind struggled with the darkness as his other senses started to run in overdrive to compensate for blindness. Still, silence permeated around him. It pressed in on his ears and made them feel muffled. Could he even hear his own heart beating?

Memories pressing in on him didn't aid the rising panic and fear in his blood either. He could remember another time like this, sealed in velvet darkness, bodiless and helpless, doomed to dream of dark and bitter thoughts. But I'd remember! I'd remember if Kagome had shot me with a sealing arrow. Hell! I don't think she even knows how to use a sealing arrow. What if Kikyo…? But this is different. I remember everything. Am I sealed?

As if to answer his question, he heard the skitter of pebbles to his right. It was brief and very quiet, but there. His nose, which apparently was running late in waking up, suddenly told him that he was most certainly not outdoors. Somewhere in a distant corner of the room, a toilet was present. There was a human in the room with him. He grabbed that bit of information and worked on identifying said human past the stink of the latrine.

"Ka…Kagome?" he called softly after a moment. His mind was still panicking and the idea that Kagome was locked in this hell with him was not aiding it in the least. A groan answered him in the darkness, and he could hear more pebbles shift as a body moved.

"Inuyasha?" she whispered, her voice sounding abnormally rough and deep. That's right, his memory supplied, that bastard lizard was strangling her. His memories were coming faster now. They'd been battling a lizard youkai that had been intent on stealing their lone jewel shard. The youkai had friends. Those friends had ambushed, one of them snatching up Kagome and brutally shaking her by the neck. He remembered screaming as red clouded his vision, even with Tessaiga clenched firmly in one hand. Then all had been dark.

"Inuyasha, are you alright?"

"I…what about you? You were hurt," he answered, trying to keep his voice steady. He wanted to rip his instincts from the inside of his head and give them a sound beating for being as stupid as they were right now. Baka! Baka, you're not sealed. This isn't…that place. Calm down before you start scaring Kagome.

"I'll be alright, I think. Nothing's broken."

The information briefly soothed his mind until the slight echo of her voice faded away, leaving him again in the suffocating darkness. He had to resist the urge to growl to fill the silence. That would scare Kagome, too.

"Inuyasha, are you sure you weren't injured?"

He didn't answer immediately, trying to take stock of a body he could not see. "I…don't think so." He heard her shift and start moving towards him. "How long have you been awake?"

"A few minutes. It took me awhile to get moving. Can you smell anyone else? Sango or Mirouku?"

"We're the only ones here," he answered calmly, even as he dug his claws into his palms to keep from clawing at the stone floor beneath his feet.

"Oh…" She was close now, enough that her soothing scent was overtaking the other less than savory smells in the enclosed space. "Talk again. I can't find you," she told him as he heard sand and pebbles scratch across the stone floor under her hand.

"I…uh…I was once in darkness like this." Baka! Baka baka baka! his mind immediately screamed. She says talk and the first thing you do is blab about the shit your afraid of.

"Keep going."

"Um…I was alone, though. Well, I wasn't alone but…shit Kagome, I don't know what to say."

"That's ok," she said as he felt something tug his sleeve. "I found you." He felt her hand work up his sleeve to his arm. From there, her fingers turned south until she was gripping his hand in her own.

He could almost hear the frown in her voice as she said, "Inuyasha, your hands are wet."

"It…it's nothing."

She sighed in a rather exasperated manner. "It's blood, isn't it?"

He glared in what he felt was her general direction before turning away. "Keh."

"Baka. I asked you if you were injured or not."

"I wasn't when you asked." Damn it! What was that saying she told me? Open mouth, insert foot? Something like that.

"Inuyasha? You did this to yourself?"

He didn't answer, instead trying to tug his hand away from her. Kagome maintained a firm grip, despite the slippery blood trickling down his fingers. The wounds had already scabbed over, so he didn't understand her fuss. "You're shaking," she whispered, almost more to herself.

"Am not," he insisted mulishly, even as he felt her blindly snatch for his other hand to see if that one was shaking too.

"You are. Don't even argue with me on this. We can't be arguing in life or death situations."

"I don't see how shaking could possibly have an effect on this situation."

"What if you have a fever? What if you're getting sick? Then it has an effect."

"It's not sickness," he mumbled, again trying to tug his hands away without hurting her.

"How do you know?" she insisted, as stubborn to the core as he was.

"I just know, damn it!" he yelled, suddenly fed up with her mothering. He didn't need her fawning over his weaknesses. Especially not this weakness.

She immediately dropped his hands, scooting away from him like she'd been burned. His ears dropped as he realized that he'd probably just done yet another stupid thing in the course of less than five minutes. "I'm…I'm sorry," she stammered, her rough voice making her sound younger than she really was.

"Kagome…"

"No, I'll leave you alone. I didn't mean to pry."

He sighed and snatched for her hands in the darkness. He missed one target, his left hand instead grabbing her by the shoulder. Good enough, he thought to himself. His right hand succeeded in capturing her hand and he held it firmly, as though afraid she might try to wriggle free.

"Kagome, I didn't mean to snap. I'm just…I want to get out of here."

He was still shaking, and he knew she could feel it. He was quite surprised when she placed her hand over the one that was gruffly holding her shoulder. "Inuyasha," she whispered gently, "that other time you were in the darkness like this. When was it?"

Shit! She'll know if I lie. She'll know. What the hell am I supposed to say?

"It was a long time ago," he answered, releasing her shoulder only to find that he was the one captive in her grasp again.

"When?" she insisted, tightening her grip for emphasis.

He was silent for quite some time, staring blankly at the point where her head must be. Two voices were arguing back and forth in his head about how to best handle this situation without eating dirt or putting Kagome in tears.

Tell her. She'll understand then, why you want to keep holding her. She wouldn't laugh.

'She'll feel like it was her fault. She'll blame herself.'

She'll blame Naraku, just like she always has for everything that happened back then.

'She'll blame Kikyo and get angry like she does when we talk about her.'

Just tell her. Ease your pain a little.

'Don't tell her. She'll just get upset if you do.'

"Just shut up," Inuyasha growled under his breath. The voices were not easing his stress levels in any way, and they made his head hurt.

"What did you say?" Kagome prodded, her hands clenching eagerly in the cloth of his haori.

"I said…I said fifty years ago…and up until a year ago."

"You mean when you were sealed to the tree? You were conscious?"

He sighed, tugging on her wrists slightly to get her to ease up her grip. Carefully, he looped one of her arms over his shoulders and pulled her so they sat side by side, he leaning into her almost near enough to bury his nose in her hair.

"Not conscious exactly. I didn't know what was going on in the outside world. But in my mind, sometimes I was awake. It was like this place, except even less."

She was silent, but he sensed she wanted him to continue.

"I couldn't see, couldn't hear…couldn't even smell. Everything was always darkness and nothingness. Sometimes, there was a voice in my head. It told me things…things that made me angry and afraid and bitter. When I couldn't stand it anymore, I slept. I don't know for how long."

"That's what it was like for you, for fifty years?"

"Not all fifty years, no. Towards the end, right before you woke me up, a light appeared. I remember it made the voice angry. It kept getting bigger and bigger and the voice didn't want me to go towards it. One day, I could reach it and…I woke up."

She was quiet for a long while, seeming to chew on the facts. "Kaede told me that the arrow made you sleep," she murmured after some time. "I didn't know you were ever conscious."

He chuckled bitterly. "I get the feeling I wasn't supposed to be. After all, I really wasn't sealed properly, was I? I mean, I woke up before the arrow even left my body."

"I guess."

She leaned in towards him slightly, placing her head lightly on his shoulder. He hoped that was the end of the conversation, but clearly she didn't feel it was. "So the darkness is why you were shaking, right?"

"Keh. What are you talking about, wench? I don't like being in the dark, but it doesn't make me shake."

Kagome just shook her head against his shoulder, a small smile decorating her lips. She knew it was the closest she'd ever get to hearing him confess he was afraid of something.

"Do you still have Tessaiga?" she asked him after a moment.

"If I did don't you think I would have used it?"

"Just asking."

Surreptitiously, Inuyasha checked his hip with one hand to make sure the sword really was gone. He would've felt like an idiot if it had been within his reach the whole time. He had to hold back a sigh of relief when he found it was indeed gone.

"What about you? Bow or arrows?"

"None. Which is too bad because then I could make some light, too."

"If we could find a wall I could try my sankon tessou on it."

He felt her nod against his shoulder and carefully move away, keeping one hand touching him at all times. "Check and see if you have a big rock near you, would you please?" she asked. He heard her already searching the floor near her. Carefully, he reached out his free hand and started searching the floor. After a moment, he lifted what felt like a fairly decent sized rock.

"Found one," he told her. Carefully, he placed it in her hand.

"Ok, hold on a second."

He quirked an eyebrow at her, even though he knew she couldn't see it. He could hear her murmuring under her breath to herself, but none of the words made sense. Quite suddenly, pink light flared against the darkness, blinding his eyes with its brightness. He blinked, biting his tongue to keep from crying out in pain. When the spots had disappeared from his eyes, he looked up to see Kagome, rubbing her eyes with one hand and clutching a glowing rock with the other.

"How…how did you do that?" he asked, standing slowly and never moving his eyes from their sudden light source.

"I…I thought of it as an arrow. Same principle right? Energy stored in an object waiting to be released."

"Keh. Let's get the hell out of here."

He offered her a hand up and she took it, cradling the rock against her chest as though it was some precious baby. With the soft pink illumination from the rock, he could clearly see their small, rocky cell. No door seemed visible, but when he looked up it became evident that they were in some sort of pit.

"I can't claw us out of here if we're underground, but maybe I can climb up."

"Try the breaking the walls first. If we aren't underground it'll be easier."

He nodded, pushing her behind him as he drew his claws back. Gold light sparked as he struck the surface, gouging long valleys in the rock. Beneath the rough stone he felt dirt shift under his fingers. "It's underground. We'll have to climb out. Get on my back."

She nodded as he knelt, carefully looping her arms around his neck so that their light source shone before them. "You're not getting drained are you?" he asked her as he rose and carefully sank his claws into another rock wall to start the climb.

"I'm fine," she told him, though he could hear her voice waver and a sheen of sweat was visible on the arm he could see before him.

"Don't wear yourself out."

"It's fine. The rock's fighting me , but I'll be fine."

He snorted at her stubbornness, quietly admiring it at the same time. He liked to think that she'd probably gained part of her iron will through traveling with him. They continued their ascent, Inuyasha carefully anchoring his hands in the mortar between the rocks to ensure they didn't fall. If they did, he didn't know if he could turn over fast enough to keep from landing on Kagome.

Minutes passed as foot after foot was gained. Just five feet from the top, Kagome's light wavered, flickering like a candle. "Kagome?" he asked, concern evident in his voice even as he tried to hold it back.

"Just keep going," she hissed through her teeth, her free hand digging tightly into his collarbone.

He nodded and hastened his ascent, reaching out for the black object serving as the trap door. His fingers connected and he found that the door was made of several layers of heavy silk. The fabric was pushed away easily enough and flickering torchlight flooded their tiny cell. It came none too soon as Kagome's rock finally extinguished and she slumped against his back.

"Don't you dare fall," he hissed as he pushed off from the wall to scrabble over the edge and onto a tatami floor. Immediately he freed her from his back and laid her out on the floor. Her face was coated with sweat and pasty white. Her neck was badly bruised, and he could see more purple marks across her skin where she'd probably been manhandled by the lizards. She smiled up at him with tired eyes.

"I know you would catch me," she told him as her eyes slipped shut. She didn't get to see the bright blush on his face as she fell into a state of unconsciousness. Carefully, he lifted her and placed her across his back again, moving his hands under her knees to keep her from falling.

Finding Miroku and Sango was easy enough. He could hear them arguing from down the hall. From the sound of the shouts, the monk had taken advantage of the darkness of their cell and copped a feel of more than just Sango's bottom. He was groveling rather pathetically. Inuyasha ripped the cloth away from the entrance to their pit and yelled down, "Oi, you two! Quit arguing already and get your asses in gear. Are Kirara and Shippou with you?"

"No," Sango yelled back up, standing over a thoroughly beaten Miroku. Inuyasha quickly shredded the silk coverings and tied them together until they were long enough for Miroku and Sango to climb up. She, rather intelligently, insisted the monk go first. "To resist temptation," she told him as he pouted.

"What happened to Kagome?" she asked as she reached the top and noticed the unconscious girl.

"She spent all her energy making light for us to get out. I think she'll be alright with rest though." Sango nodded and whapped Miroku on the head.

"Sango," the monk whined, momentarily losing his usual stoicism, "I hadn't even done anything that time."

"That was for the one I know you copped while I was still unconscious. Now let's find Shippou and Kirara, get the shard, and get out of here." Inuyasha nodded in agreement, already tracking the kit and cat youkai. They were held in a different cell—one warded to seal their powers. Breaking them out was a simple matter for Inuyasha's claws. Inuyasha then turned his senses on the pervasive scent of lizard that wafted throughout the complex.

"They're this way," he told the others, nodding down a set of stairways that led up. The lizards were in fact gathered around a table trying to decide who got what part of the spoils. There was quite the argument going on over who should get hiraikotsu as Inuyasha and his friends stealthily approached from the underground cells.

"Anyone got any ideas how we're going to do this?" he asked softly as he shifted Kagome higher on his back.

Sango quietly said, "You have your claws and I have my hidden blade. Would that be enough to fight them?"

"They beat us once already. I don't know."

"We were ambushed before. Now we have them all in one spot."

Miroku coughed lightly and held up his hand as though the Buddha himself had given the lecherous monk the solution to their problem. "I believe," he said with a sudden and rather evil grin, "that I may have a plan."

Five minutes later the lizards were suddenly accosted by what appeared to be a monstrous Naraku, complete with burning blue fire, red eyes, fangs, and a tremendous wind that drew all objects towards it. The lizards, well aware of Naraku's reputation, quickly turned tail and ran, leaving their spoils scattered across the table.

Inuyasha poked his head out from behind the giant Naraku and patted one of its slimy tentacles. "Nice work, Shippou. Your illusions really are getting a lot better. Thanks for helping him Kirara."

The cat preened under the attention before shifting to her smaller form and leaping to Sango's shoulder. The group quickly gathered their supplies and left the castle at top speed, intent on escaping the lizards before their trick was discovered. They traveled several miles to gain distance from the captors before stopping for the night.

Inuyasha spent the night watching over Kagome as the girl continued to recover from the overstretching of her power. She awoke long after the others had turned in for the night, sometime around midnight. He was immediately at her side, placing a hand over her forehead to see if she was running a fever.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, pitching his voice low and keeping it gentle.

"Alright," she murmured, shifting to sit up. He helped her without being asked and gave her a nearby flask of water. "We got away, I take it."

"Yeah. Those lizards were cowards. All we had to do was cast an illusion and they turned tail and ran."

"Shippou-chan cast an illusion?"

"Quite well, actually. You would've been proud of him."

She nodded before looking down into her lap. She was surprised to see that the rock she had illuminated in their cell was still tightly clenched in her fist. Carefully she pried her cramped fingers from around the rock, cracking them as loudly as Inuyasha was sometimes wont to do before battle. She looked up to see Inuyasha staring at the rock intently, as though it had suddenly sprouted three eyes and a few extra fingers.

"About that rock," he murmured looking up briefly to meet her eyes, "I wanted to thank you…for making the light. It really meant…I mean…"

She smiled, placing a finger over his lips to shut him up before he did something stupid. "It's alright, Inuyasha. Anytime you need a light, just make sure you come to me, okay?"

He gulped heavily as she removed her finger, blinking rapidly before suddenly turning his back on her. "Keh," he muttered, staring into the fire and trying not to rub his eyes. She only smiled again. "You're welcome, Inuyasha."

Glossary type thingy:

shouki: what the dubbed version refers to as miasma; poisonous gas Naraku often releases to make a clean getaway

youkai: general term for demon

baka: idiot

haori: in actuality a Japanese overcoat; I've never been sure whether what Inuyasha wears really is a haori or not; haven't watched any subbed shows that mentioned it

sankon tessou: Inuyasha's general claws attack; literally translates to "soul-scattering iron claw;" abysmally translated in thedub to "iron reaver soul stealer"

tatami: bamboo mat often used for flooring in ancient Japanese homes (some modern ones too)

A/N: Awww! Wasn't that sweet? Hope everyone enjoyed it. Will be returning to Kenshin writing now. Just needed to get off that Inuyasha kick.