CH. 3:

He felt chilly and somehow lighter. But it wasn't a lightness that felt freeing. At the same time, he felt muffled, as if somebody had taken a heavy blanket and thrown it over all of his senses. His head was pounding. He fought back the panic that began to surface in the back of his mind.

It was a feeling he was familiar with, this panic. It had tormented him as a child whenever he was hiding in the woods, praying the next nobody wouldn't find him. Every sound that he heard was another demon on its way to end his life. The only benefit to the constant terror was that he had developed the ability to not let it affect him anymore. The feeling was still there, but he had learned to not let it get to him.

There was one instance where he could never suppress the panic or the fear that always tried to sneak its way inside his head and heart. That was whenever Kagome's life was in danger. The times that she had been kidnapped, like by that idiot Koga, or when her life had been put in mortal danger, like by that idiot Naraku, he experienced feelings that he had never experienced before. Such a new mix of fear, anxiety, and panic always made it past his carefully placed defenses.

Although the feelings were extremely annoying, they did provide one key advantage: he fought harder. It was more difficult for enemies to keep him down and he found that he could accomplish just about anything if it was for her. His mind told him it was in order to free himself from such human emotions, but if he looked deep inside his heart, he knew the true reason was…

Kagome!

All at once, the memory of what happened hit him. He remembered chasing Kagome into the field with the well and smelling her blood. He remembered feeling those crazy emotions and being filled with the intense desire to harm whoever had dared to cause her any harm.

Then he remembered nothing aside from dizziness and darkness. And he remembered the scent of a demon. Kagome might be in danger!

The mere thought pulled him completely out of unconsciousness and he resurfaced into reality. He inhaled deeply and didn't have time to care about why he felt like he could barely hear or why he couldn't smell or detect anything aside from the wind that ruffled his hair. Even that felt out of place, but he didn't have the time to worry about such frivolous things because Kagome could be in danger!

Inuyasha sat up and quickly looked around the clearing. He met a pair of golden eye staring intently at him. He took in the confused look and the dropped ears. He glanced quickly at the red robe and the long silver hair.

Then, he did something that shocked even him. He did it without thinking and without reason. He did something that he never thought possible.

Inuyasha, staring at his own body as it stared back at him, let out a scream that sounded like that of a fifteen-year-old girl.