AN: This piece was written in the summer, and I thought that I would post it. It's short, and kind of picks up in an AUverse. I don't know if I'll make it a story or not, it just depends on if you guys want to read a whole piece.

Told from Kagome's POV.

I don't own InuYasha.

Enjoy!

I looked at InuYasha's long legs outstretched along the brittle ledge. Even from where I stood, his body looked a million miles long.

He knew that I would eventually have to purify him, but he doubted that I actually would go through with it. It was like coaxing a child to a bath.

I gave in to him and he gave into me. It was like a back and forth tug-of-war that I seldomly thought would come to fruition. We'd been suffering each others company for almost a year, now. And, the fall was once again flush as the first time we met.

After a moment or two, I turned my attention back to the dusk that was hanging over head. There wasn't a moon and that meant he would be free to escape the boundaries of the castle he had always known.

These nights were treats for the both of us. It was a darkly kept secret that the heinous youkai could leave his keep. I even kept this from my brother, for a lack of keeping those probing questions at bay.

Tonight, however, I knew what I had to do. He would be weak, most likely needy as he was when he was human.

He looked down at me as if he knew what I was thinking. His face had aged mildly, but that childish scowl would never change. It didn't matter how many centuries he'd sat guarding those grounds.

"Temee, what are you looking at?" He rasped, waving a pointy little claw in my direction.

I frowned and wrapped myself deeper in my coat. The chill was starting to curdle my skin with its presence. "Obviously, you think that you're the only thing to look at out here." I said, arching a brow.

"I'm just pointing out just how much you make that face at me." He scoffed, brushing his fingers through his bushy, white hair.

"The only face I make at you is this disappointed one." I gestured at how the facade I carried barely changed around him.

"Keh, I suppose that's why you smell like a girl in love." He said poignantly. I'm not a fan of his attitude, but I will say, that he has a smart mind and sharp tongue, sometimes.

"You know I'm going to have to end this." I said quietly, watching his lanky body tense and tussle around in the leaves he sat on. My heart could falter in its pace all it wanted, I couldn't allow myself to love him.

But, I did. I did so wholy that I felt my body disperse with heat, torching my fingers with the urgency girls only read about.

The look he gave me sent worse shivers down my spine than the cold did. I felt my pale skin redden from embarrassment and a little fear. If he had been allowed to leave that very ledge, I'm sure I would have been dismembered and laid out everywhere in Nippon.

He knew what I was talking about and it didn't bode well. For that matter, I didn't think that it would. No one wants to be told that they're going to be exterminated.

"I suppose that you just lead me around and took me away from this place and let me stay with you, and let me enjoy my time before I go, right?" InuYasha hissed, turning away from me with his ears twitching in anger.

For a moment, my stomach knotted and I felt ill. I had my satchel, that Miroku had given me, filled to the brim with purifications and sutras. I doubted that there would be enough, but I had my conviction as much as it hurt to have it.

"InuYasha-kun," I said, "I promised you that I would let you live if I could. I don't see any other option. If I purify you, you'll be free in a sense. You can't live outside of those walls."

I felt my blood run cold as the wind kicked my dark hair around my face. His eyes lit up as he felt the wind grip at his face and sneak down into his chest. His kimono seemed to be wrestling around as his fingers draped across his heart.

"I've tried to think of any other option, because you are a living creature." I said softly, watching him hide his face as his hair grew dark like the night and his skin pale to a cool white. He was almost like a doll when he was human - far too fair for a man and delicate.

"Hm, I guess that's why the kit ran free after being purified." He grumbled slipping down the ledge to where I stood. He waited there for three days before the moonless nights, just hoping that he would be able to indulge in the mortal act of living.

InuYasha had been bound to the Inuyama-jo since Nobuyasu constructed the castle on the mountain. It was like its own floating world, glistening with color and a virginal aesthetic. It was on the top of a hill, in the middle of the forest.

There was seldom a way to get there without feeling completely overwhelmed with its beauty. If I had been a stronger woman I doubt I would have spared him as long as I had. I'd truly grown fond of him, in someway or another.

I'm certain that as his smooth hands braced my shoulder, that he wanted to snap my neck. It felt so heavy and warm as he jerked my backpack from me. I always brought him clothing and something to eat that he didn't have to kill.

It was nice to see him dressed in regular old clothes. From time to time, as he snatched them out of my beat up yellow bag, he wore them on his own around the grounds. I came to see him most everyday when I had the chance.

It was about three hours out of my day, and a pretty penny out of my pocket, but it was worth keeping the poor boy company.

"InuYasha?"

"What do you want?" He eyed me suspiciously. His dark hair fell in his eyes and I brushed it back as he jerked away from me. A rush of color flooded his cheeks as he headed behind a thrush of trees.

"I was just going to see what you want to do. Where do you want to go?" I asked, looking down at my shoes shuffling in the dirt. I felt my heart skip along as I wondered what people thought when they saw us together.

It was childish, and admittedly, I was a child in a way. I didn't ask to have this life, or be raised as a miko even in this modern times. My brother and sister were suited for it, but not me. My brother was a stretch, actually.

He was a whore of a man, truth be told and my sister died during a purification and absorbed too much energy. It was sad to think of, but I couldn't hide from it. I worried everyday since. I know that my fate won't be much different, and if anyone were to kill me...

My heart pounded in my chest as I glanced over my shoulder to see InuYasha stumble in his tennis shoes and black peacoat. I knew that it would be extremely hopeful of me to expect the best out of this entire ordeal.

I couldn't lie to myself, I'd kill to touch him and to just have him. There was something about the youkai that wasn't like the stories I'd heard and grew to expect when I encountered them. He was special, and it took this long for me to realize it.

The tall boy put his hand on me and I felt my senses overload. I turned to face him in the low luminscence of street lights hanging like souls in the treeline. My breath burned with cold as I forced a sad smile and began to trudge forward.

"You never told me what you wanted to do." I said, glancing back at his soft face as he shoved his hands deep within his pockets. His jeans rustled louder than he spoke as he trailed behind me.

He shrugged his shoulders and looked away. The heaviness he was carrying was weighing me down as well. I felt almost helpless at that moment. I could throw my bag in the river and keep this routine and these idle threats going for another year or so, but...

...what good was any of this doing for us?

"What difference does it make anyway?" He asked me.

I took a moment to wonder if he doubted that I could actually bring myself to end him. It wasn't him I was actually ending, but the energy and his body couldn't withstand losing his jyoki - not after all of these centuries, anyway.

He was basically a living ghost, haunting the halls and shrines of the Inuyama-jo and Kiso. Even in the darkness, I saw the hurt on his face as we walked to a paved part of the road. His dark eyes were like lustrous pools of untapped emotion, hiding their depths by the night's cloak.

"I don't think that it really does, if you feel that way." I shrugged, wanting nothing more than to extended my hand to his. I wasn't sure if it was because I felt bad, or of my feelings. Either way, I stuck my hands in my jean pockets and watched as a line of small shrine houses popped up in the dark.

"I've never known why you weren't afraid of me." InuYasha said, leaning his head back to eye me precariously. If he had smiled in his normal form, his fangs would have peeked.

I scoffed, "You're nothing but a child beneath all that rough exterior."

His smile fell and his feet stamped all over the leaves as he caught up to me. "I think you've got it bad for me and that's why you haven't done me in yet."

I stopped and clutched the front of my coat until my knuckles were white. How could he say something like that? He already knew that my feelings were off limits to anyone. Well, as much as they could be. I'm not going to get my panties in a bunch when I can't actually have them bunched.

I felt like I was turning into my brother. Ugh.

I turned around to face him, barely being able to see his eyes, I let out a stark sigh. "I don't know why you feel the need to justify my reasons for not killing you. I don't think that it's necessary to kill something just to kill it, InuYasha."

"I'm just pointing out the way you are, Kagome." He said and my heart fell. Each syllable sounded like a round of bullets, daring, fast, and brash.

It was one of the only times he'd ever said my name. All of the men in the city knew my name and begged and pleaded for me to come around, but I seldom would. I don't know why this being was any different.

He was special to me, but in a way I couldn't put my finger on. If I lifted the rosary from his neck, I would surely be a fool. I think that it was an ownership and entitlement I had in protecting him for so long.

My brother, Miroku, would have done him in already for me, but I chose to step in the way. We had exterminated all of the ghosts and oni that lived in shrines, castles, and old homes for the past several years together...

...but this one was a little different.

"Miroku could have already purified you and I wouldn't have ever gotten a chance to understand you. There's so much more to you than a demon lurking around, haunting the place."

"Keh," He scoffed at me as he walked along my side as we made it to the town on the Kiso river. Ukai fisherman were out, lighting up the river with lanterns and the sound of birds rushing on the water.

"It's funny that you always bring up that bastard, and you hide me from everyone. I don't think that you could allow yourself to do it." InuYasha said soundly, as if he was attempting to see through my skull to my thoughts.

I shook the thousands of words and places and times from my head and just existed as he stopped alongside me. He watched the Ukai fisherman, as he did often and smiled down at me - a rarity to see.

It was like his brain had an on and off switch. Then again, being as old as he was, surely he had to have developed a mechanism to shut himself down.

"I used to come down here when I was a little girl and watch them." I said, catching the warmth of the lantern light as it danced further into the river.

InuYasha tilted his head and lowered his chin to rest on my head as he watched the Comorants dive in for the catch. "I used to when I was a kid, too. I barely remember it, now."

A twinge of sadness crept over me as he leaned back into him. He was just as warm as I imagined him to be. This was one of those times I wanted to relish being away from my trade, and not be some sort of huntress for a while.

The smell of the river was murky in this damp air and made me feel almost ill. There had been a fire, whether it was still burning or not was unbeknownst to me, burning in the town and the smell lingered, as well.

InuYasha was very much apart of the history in this sleepy region. No one ever actually saw the white haired ghost, unless they went to the shrine. I still have a hard time believing that I've been in his life, and the only person at that, for this long.

I loved listening to the sound of his voice, even when he growled and huffed in a frenzy of anger, or in a tired plea. Maybe I should leave him be and go on my way. Then again, who wants to be bound to the same place until they wither and pass on?

If he wasn't back before morning, when his ears sprouted and his hair lost its color, he would be drawn back and vomit all the way. I found that out the first night I figured out that he could leave when he lost his jyoki.

I laughed a little to myself and felt my lungs freeze. I never would have met him if I hadn't have been chasing off a kistune on the back side of the floating castle. I was running with a bamboo stick in my hands, trying to scare the little thing off and slipped into the wooden railing, snapping it in half.

The hidden side of the castle was a little beaten up, and if I had fallen through, I wouldn't be standing here now. I would have if InuYasha hadn't have grabbed my shirt collar and jerked me back.

I fell into him and cried as Miroku came around the corner, abashed at whatever he thought had happened. When he saw InuYasha, his dark eyes seemed large, astounded by what he saw. He told me that he was a beast and he needed to be killed.

It was just a natural reaction to something that you'd never seen with your own eyes. When my heart stopped pounding and the ringing in my ears had ceased, all I could do was stare. My eyes burned with moisture as I wrapped my arms foolishly around him.

Miroku forcefully pulled me away. I thrashed and screamed for his violent behavior to stop, but InuYasha flashed a toothy grin and disappeared.

My brother told me that we would return and purify him. That's why I'm still standing here in the chilly night, moonlighting with a friendship. After all, he saved my life, and I'm supposed to take his.

There's no justice in that. I've tried a million times to think of a way to free him from the world that he's chained to, but I doubt that I will ever find the answer.

There's nothing more futile that trying to rewind a plan that fate had already made.