DISCLAIMER: I do not own Inuyasha. That honor belongs to Rumiko Takahashi alone.

Aramitama -- Courage

From the moment he had first drawn breath, others had wished him dead.

Inuyasha had been called many things for as long as he could remember. Disgraceful. Impure. Wretched. He had even been called words that he had never heard of before. Sometimes they laughed when they called him names, and he'd laughed with them too, desperately wanting to belong, aching to fill his own niche. When he'd asked his mother what the things they had said to him meant, she could only hold him as the tears spilled uncontrollably out of her eyes. She wouldn't tell him of their cruel definitions, but he found out on his own, and it made everything so painfully clear that he didn't understand how he hadn't seen it before.

He finally knew why his mother wept so bitterly.

It isn't your fault, Inuyasha kept telling himself as he was rejected, again and again. It isn't your fault. You didn't ask for this.

Eventually, though, the voice inside himself faded to a whisper and it was nearly swept away by the tumult of curses and hurled insults. The one person that had managed to keep it alive for so long was always there for him at the end of the day, ready to take him in her silk-clad arms and soothe away the hurt and the anger that had built up inside of him, gently running her fingers through his silver-white hair until he fell asleep, exhausted.

And then she was gone.

It had been quick, like dried grass going up in flames. He hadn't even known until the guards had tossed him outside the manor gates like a sack of rice, with nothing but the clothes on his back. Then they'd told him, the words more toxic than nightshade even as they laughed.

"It was her heart. Lady Izayoi had never gotten over the shame of having a half-breed like you for a son."

Of course they were lying. Inuyasha knew that much. Nobody else had let him beg them for stories or fall asleep in their robes. Nobody else had held him without malice or told him that he was their entire world. You couldn't fake that kind of love, even if you tried.

And so he wandered the land, sleeping in dense trees with one eye open and nothing but the robe of the fire rat to keep him warm. He ate what he could catch and became more and more bitter and mistrustful towards everything that moved. After all, when creatures wanted you dead because your very skin was stained with the reek of the hanyou, it was hard to be completely secure. Even his brother, the youkai lord who shared half his blood, made sport of him and used him to sharpen his own poisonous claws. The years inched by as slowly as though they were being carried on the back of a tortoise. The world grew older, babies were born, and the dog-eared little boy who had been loved only by his mother died a little more every day.

Then he met Kikyou, and time stopped.

It wasn't about her, at first. Inuyasha had merely wanted the power the miko guarded; the hopeful promise of invincibility, of belonging, of well-deserved vengeance. He had wanted to laugh in their faces as he absorbed the Shikon no Tama and made them pay for the hurtful things they'd said and done. Of course, Kikyou hadn't been exactly welcoming to the notion, so she'd immobilized him numerous times with those damned arrows of hers, and it was always the same. He'd say something harsh, and she'd counter with something gentle, and it would go on and on until they met somewhere in the middle and oh gods above, he was having an actual conversation with someone.

He'd finally realized that he had grown fond of her when he found himself trying to steal the Shikon no Tama just to be able to talk to her.

Sometimes as he sat in the trees, watching the beautiful miko grind medicinal herbs with her mortar and pestle, he wondered why he even wanted to be near her. Perhaps he was curious. Perhaps he was lonely. Perhaps he was just pathetic.

And one day by the river, as he held her in his arms, he realized that perhaps he was in love.

Kikyou had figured out a way for them to be together. "Use the Shikon no Tama," she had said, taking his callused hands in her delicate white ones. "Use the Shikon no Tama to become human. It will be purified, I will no longer have to protect it, and we can be together. We can build a little hut and get married and have children, and we can be happy. We can be happy, Inuyasha."

He had agreed, and Kikyou's blood ran in rivulets through the soil the very next day.

But even as her sealing arrow sang through the air and pinned him to the tree, even as the Shikon no Tama slipped from his clawed fingers, even as they looked at each other with anger and hurt in their eyes, he loved her. He loved her, and then--

Fifty years had passed before anyone thought to pull out the arrow.

He had never thought he would be able to really trust anybody, especially after the supposed betrayal of Kikyou. He lashed out at those who tried to help him and brushed aside all forms of praise, and yet there were people who stood by him, even when he was too stubborn to admit that he needed someone. They didn't even care that he was a hanyou. Instead, they accepted him as he was, and they even seemed to like him for it.

Now, whenever he seeks to describe his relationships with the kindhearted miko from the future, the immature kitsune, the lecherous houshi, and the displaced taijiya, the words feel funny in his mouth and they even sound strange. When everyone else is asleep around the fire, though, and he is keeping watch, he takes his awkward professions of friendship and love and stores them in his mind so that he can put them together in a way that makes more sense and doesn't make him feel like a complete fool.

So with every single ounce of his strength, he protects all that he has, which was never really that much to begin with.

But to him, somehow, it's everything.

A/N: I don't really know how Izayoi died, so I just kind of, um, made it up. I'm not sure if Inuyasha was thrown out of his home, either, but judging by the way that the other humans treated him, it seemed pretty likely to me. Anyways, there will be four more chapters after this, so stay tuned!