Chapter Eight: Rescue and a New Plan

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Touga was surprised, in a distantly irritated kind of way, at how long it took for him and the wolf to reach the source of the strange, worryingly familiar glowing water. What seemed like minutes turned into ten, and then ten into twenty before they finally managed to reach their destination nearly an hour after first seeing the underground stream. He didn't like what he found. There, sitting almost innocently at the bottom of an upwelling lake was a ball of roiling, poison green and yellow light, spinning maliciously and churning the water around it. Its specific aura was more defined now, sharper since they were so close to the origin; if it weren't for the fact that Touga had felt it (or a variant of it) before, then he wouldn't have any idea what it was.

"What is that?" Kouga demanded breathlessly. His ribs had taken one too many blows, and all this climbing and squeezing through holes hadn't helped his case in any way. Touga tilted his head marginally in a disdainful acknowledgment, his entire focus centered like a laser beam on the view before them. "A pearl," he muttered acidly, folding his arms across his broad chest. Kouga's brows shot up, then drew together. "And what the hell kind of answer is that?"

It was Touga's turn to raise his eyebrows in minute disbelief, but then the expression vanished and an unimpressed one took its place. "Pearls," he repeated shortly, acidly. "Pearls from the oyster demons—just as sure a weapon as any sword, perhaps even more." Golden eyes roved the shallow, slick bank before them and searched for an appropriate entrance point. He found one, and stalked over to it, removing his gauntlets as he went. "They can take centuries to create, or days," he continued his impromptu lesson, wondering how the supposed tribe leader had not heard of such legendary artifacts before. They were as terrible and varied in abilities as Totosais swords, their crafting exquisite and the magic infused in them to give them power. It was an oyster demon who had crafted the pearl in Inuyasha's eye, and it was an oyster demon who created the Meido stone. Looking at the one resting carelessly on the lake bottom, he wondered who created it, and who it was created for. "And?" The wolf prodded when the silence between them became too long. "And they can kill you," Touga shot back bluntly, taking off his armor, piece by piece. They clunked to the cave floor with a horrendous crash of noise, each and every one of them, but he didn't care. What he wanted to know was why a pearl was here.

Once the armor was off, he reached for his kimono. "Woah—hey! Why are you stripping?"

Touga didn't answer the inane question and instead continued to remove his clothing. He had to destroy the pearl. It was a risk, touching it, since he didn't know its reaction but he could tell by the malice coming off of it in waves that it was absolutely something that needed to go.

Dressed only in his hakema, he dove into the water. The energy clashed against his own demonic aura, grating against his senses, but he ignored it as best as he could, just like he ignored the stinging in his eyes when he opened them under the contaminated water. Pearls were volatile and generally explosive in their abilities, but very few were made with a self-protection plan. Just like Inuyasha's pearl and the Meido stone, they were one time usages not meant to be repeated. He had a hunch that he could easily destroy the pearl as long as he knew how.

Reaching the bottom of the underground lake, since it was relatively shallow, he swam around the pearl, sending out tendrils of his youkai to test it. It rejected it fiercely, almost deflecting it like a shield but he was not deterred. He sent out a few more, like reaching fingers and got similar results before deciding for a different approach. Expanding his youkai in a bubble around him, he slowly pushed it outwards until it came in contact with the pearl. It crackled angrily and then dimmed significantly.

Touga raised his eyebrows in disbelief. While pearls were not protected, it was supposed to take much more to destroy one. Whoever made this had done it in a rush. Wrapping his demonic force around the contending energy, he compressed his own until the pearl could no longer support the strain. It shattered with a brilliant light show that had him seeing spots as he swam to the surface.

By the time he had hauled himself to the stone shoreline, the water had turned black with the lack of light and the air was thick with sudden stillness. He looked around him with a frown. Was that pearl the thing that was moving the cave? It would make sense in a way, but from what he heard about Naraku it didn't seem his style to be so easily defeated.

Wary, he made his way back to his clothes.

"Was that it?" The wolf prince intoned incredulously. "A fancy light show and the day's saved?"

Touga didn't know for certain, so he didn't answer his reluctant companion, mulling over possibilities as he dressed. If the pearl was controlling the cave then it had had a specific purpose to it. Trapping and killing cave-dwellers was a possible but suspicious goal for the evil spider-demon to have, so Touga had to assume that this was targeted towards them. But if it was targeted towards them, then Naraku had to have suspected and anticipated their arrival. Touga narrowed his eyes, uncomfortable with the thought of being so easily predicted. It meant that either their foe was a lot smarter than he originally gave credit for, or that they were being watched, and both options churned sourly in his gut.

Kouga had been talking the entire time, but Touga paid him no mind. It was time to leave and so he stalked off towards a possible exit. He had to find the rest of the pack and then get out. Being this far underground without light was setting his nerves on end.

"—million different ways—hey!" Kouga cried indignantly, noticing how the powerful demon was steadily making his way away from him. Scowling fiercely, Kouga followed, hating how submissive he was appearing to act and how injured he was, actually needing to stop for breath every once in a while. Stops that the dog general didn't bother to wait for.

He was uncertain how long they randomly wandered through the cave, feeling along the walls when the light became too dim to rely on sight alone, but it felt like an eternity. Kouga passed the time by recognizing rock formations, inwardly cataloguing every one he saw and almost obsessively checking the ground for any form of instability. As a wolf, he'd grown up used to caves and their winding, maze like tunnels, carved by rivers and lakes from eras gone by. As such, when he heard a particular sound, like a dragon releasing a dying breath so gently you could hardly know it was there, he stopped in his tracks.

"Wait," he said sharply, tilting his head towards the noise. Touga paused, his eyes immediately darting to the ground. After their earlier bout with the skeleton ground, he wasn't keen on meeting it for second time in so many hours. But when no immediate threat revealed itself, his face twisted into something grim. Was the wolf noticing things he wasn't? How…humiliating.

Sagging a little in self depreciation, he reluctantly turned towards his companion. "What is it?"

Kouga grinned. "Listen." Touga did, straining his ears. He didn't know what it was he was supposed to be hearing though, so it seemed like no sound was being made. "You hear that," Kouga continued, holding up a hand and half turning away from him. Irritated now that he couldn't pick up whatever the wolf was, Touga tried again. And then he heard it: a breathy, inhuman moan. He stalked over to where the wolf was at and the both of them peered into a crevice in the wall structure, nearly hidden in the shadows of a place devoid of light.

If he were not a demon, and dog demon at that, he would have completely missed the low grown seeping from that crevice, bringing with it a sure, but invisible wind so slight it wouldn't disturb a fly. "That's our way out," Kouga murmured confidently, sinking his claws into the crack and pulling outwards. The stone tore under the immense pressure, parting like the maw to some awful beast with a loud CRAAACK!

Wordlessly, the wolf prince bounded down the new, and surprisingly spacious chasm, just wide enough for the two of them to fit through single file. Touga grudgingly followed, annoyed that he was now following the wolf but not childish enough to deny help when it was right in front of him.

"Where will this lead?" He demanded. In front of him, barely visible, he could see Kouga shrug. "Up, out, in—anything really." Touga growled. "Then why are we following it?"

"They're good luck," Kouga said simply. "The wind has to be coming from somewhere." Touga couldn't deny the logic in that answer, so he silently followed. The space was tight, and more than once his armor scraped against the rocks and stopped him from moving entirely. After the fourth time this happened, completely immobilizing his ability to move forward, Touga tore a good portion of it off in a fit of annoyance. The blacksmiths would probably cringe at how he was treating such finely made armor, but it was either abandon it or be left behind.

Shedding his arm guards and breaking the spiked shoulder plates, he was left in nothing but his chest piece and leather leg coverings. It was loud work, but he could move afterwards so he didn't mind the noise.

They travelled like that for some time, shimming sideways down the ever changing rock formations. It was far from comfortable, but at least the rocks weren't caving in on him. Touga was hesitant to truly believe that the pearl was the cause for the strange life of the cave, but he was beginning to get comfortable with the idea that the threat had been dealt with.

It was then, somewhere between those rocks that they heard it. A distant, crying echo, so distorted in its form that they could barely make out what it was saying. They froze, waiting, and after a few startlingly still seconds, it came again. In two notes, the first one lower than the first, it ricocheted off the stone walls down into their ears. Kouga turned his face above him. "It must be one of the others," he remarked quietly, but still far too loud as they strained to listen. The cry came again and Touga was filled with such incredulity that anger quickly rose to the surface.

"Then why aren't you moving," he demanded sharply. One of their own was crying for help and the idiot was just sitting there. Kouga snarled. "We have to watch our own step," he defended. "We can't help them if we die on the way."

"Move," Touga simply ordered. He didn't want explanations, he wanted action. That echo, however distorted it may be, was laced with obvious distress. When the wolf still didn't move fast enough for his liking, Touga used the walls closing in on either side of him and climbed until he could vault over the wolf. There was wisdom in watching your step, but Kouga was being too cautious. Using his superior hearing, Touga followed the cries until they were loud enough to hear what was being said. A distant, muffled Touga. Someone was calling his name. No, she was calling his name.

Kagome.

There was a new urgency in his step as he traced the sound, the cry becoming clearer and clearer until he could actually hear the hoarseness in her voice. How long had she been calling his name?

And then the smell reached him.

Pungent, thick, and metallic it swelled over him like a wave, hitting him just as surely as a wall and stealing the breath from his lungs. Blood. That was Kagome's blood.

Touga was racing now. Kagome was special to him; delicate in frame but strong of heart. He had sworn to protect her the day she had washed his hair, heavy with the knowledge that she could be snuffed out as easily as a candle in the wind and now it looked like a gale was blowing by.

He wouldn't let her die.

"Touga!"

"Kagome!" he yelled. "Keep screaming!"

"Touga!"

Her voice had echoed in a strange way, making it seem like the call had come from too many directions. Finally he burst out of the narrow walkway he had been in and came to slope upward. "Touga!" Her voice was clear now, and so was the scent of blood. He crawled up the slope, the ceiling forcing him low until it dropped down so severely that he was forced to crawl on his stomach. But the cavern was becoming lighter now, and he could see that that there was an opening. "Touga! Can you hear me?"

"Kagome!"

"Oh thank god," she whimpered. He finally wriggled through completely, busting apart rocks with his bare hands when they wouldn't let him go. "I'm here," he called, turning his face upwards since that's where her voice was coming from. His eyes darted around the new surroundings but while he couldn't see her immediately, her blood was thick in the air. He pointed his nose up…and then to the right—there!

He leapt up, his claws finding purchase in the rock walls until he climbed up to where she was at. When he saw her, he had to pause to steel himself. She looked so broken, an arrow cruelly thrust through her torso and maliciously gleaming with her blood. In the dim light he could still make out the crimson completely soaking the right side of her kimono and dripping onto the ledge she was resting on.

He was at her side in an instant, awkwardly hovering over her as best as he could. The ledge was small and barely able to hold the both of them comfortably. "What happened," he demanded, pulling her hair away from her face. She had a hand up, putting pressure on the wound the arrow had made, but it did little to stem the flow of blood. She turned blank, sightless eyes towards him and he realized that she couldn't see a single thing.

"Kagome!" He could hear the wolf prince behind him, clamoring up the wall. Suddenly Kouga had grabbed his shoulder and pulled roughly backwards, and though it did little move Touga, the message was clear. "Outta my way!" Touga snarled at him and threw him off, pushing the already injured demon to the ground below. He landed with a pained grunt and a solid thud. "Find my son," he ordered sternly. The absolute last thing that Kagome needed in this delicate state was an issue between the two of them. Inevitably, the wolf would want to care for her and Touga refused to give him that privilege. Kagome would not be indebted to that scoundrel, not while he drew breath.

Below, he could hear the prince seethe. "You—"

"If you value your life," Touga responded coolly, letting loose his youkai in a vicious cloud of malice. "Then do as I say."

He did not spare any more time for the wolf demon, turning his back and immediately setting to removing the rest of his armor. It was with inner relief that he heard Kouga take his leave, though, and as the last of the armor fell to the ground, Kagome started. "Oh!" she gasped in pain, the motion too much. "Don't move," he snapped, his worry making him short. He'd regret it later, but right now he needed to get her out. "I felt you," she whispered quietly, and as she did so he saw tear tracks staining her cheeks. He tore off his kimono a little more fiercely than what was necessary, but he didn't care at this point. "Who did this to you?"

"I felt you through the jewel," she continued. "I've been screaming ever since."

"How long?"

"I'm so glad you heard me," she whimpered. If he didn't know how much pain it would cause, he would shake her. She was clearly in shock and it was a dangerous state to be in right now. "Listen to me, Kagome," he said, as gently as he could under the circumstances. "I need you to focus."

She seemed to come back to herself a little at that, turning her unseeing eyes towards his voice. He reached out his hands to cup her face and drew as close as he dared. "I'm going to get you out," he promised. "But I need your help."

For a second, she just stared, her eyes flickering around in the darkness he knew she must be seeing. She licked her lips, "What do you need me to do?" A relieved sigh escaped him upon hearing the determined note in her voice. She would accidently hurt herself if she went into hysterics, and he couldn't risk something like that. "Don't. Move." He said sternly. She must have fallen from above, judging by her twisted foot, and if that were true then she had been immensely lucky.

"Is there a hole nearby?" she asked hoarsely, her throat aching from screaming so loud. He looked around him. They were in a hole. She just happened to land on a very small, very narrow slab of rock jutting out into the cavern. If she had missed the ledge, she would probably be dead.

The thought chilled him more than he thought it would.

He decided not to tell her.

"Yes, I don't want you to slide in."

"Okay."

Gripping his kimono, he tore the fabric apart, using his claws and teeth to rip it into strips. "Kagome," he grunted over a mouthful of expensive silk before spitting it out and finishing with his hands. "I have to take the arrow out." She took shuddering breath and began to cry, but despite her tears, she swallowed back the lump in her throat and nodded.

Brave little bird, he thought, disturbed at what he was about to do. When he found who did this to her…

A growl was the only thing he could spare for them at the moment, but it was a terrifying sound. "Touga?"

"I'm going to break the tail of the arrow and pull it out from your back," he said, ignoring her silent question. He reached his hands out as if to grab her, but then paused and glanced up, seeking permission. But then he realized that she couldn't see him or his actions, she wouldn't know if he was going to hold her. "I'm going to touch you," he warned quietly before gently, as gently as his panic ridden conscious could, placed his large hands on her arms. Despite the warning, she still flinched. "I'm sorry," he murmured, seeing her eyes glaze over with the pain.

He moved her as little as he possible could, keeping her on her side, and straddling the side of her hip. Reaching down, he lightly gripped the arrow between his claws. It was solid and firm beneath his grip, and though he touched it with utmost caution, he could still feel the muscle trapping it in place.

With a quick snap of his fingers the end was severed completely. Kagome cried out in surprised pain, bucking violently before curling even further in on herself. "No, no, no, no," he whispered. "Don't move, Kagome."

"I-It hurts,"

"I know." He'd been shot through with arrows before, and while he died with them still in his corpse, he could imagine the pain of removing one quite clearly. "I need you to sit up," he said, looking over his shoulder at her foot. He could tell that it was broken, but he didn't know how to make it better. A rather large part of him sneered. Over a thousand years old, revered war general, and he didn't know how to fix a fucking broken bone.

Useless.

Looking around again, he found that the only way that they could both sit on the ledge and achieve in doing what he had to do, Kagome would have to straddle him. The thought didn't even faze him and he immediately prodded her good leg away and pulled it over his hip. He leaned forward over her, sliding his hands under her lower back, trying to brace her as best as he could. "I'm going to lift you," he warned. She jerkily nodded her head. "On three," she whispered. "Please."

"Alright," he complied, settling his arms more firmly. "One, two, three,"

"Aauugh!" The arrow had scraped against the stone behind her, twisting it in the wound. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he hushed, raising to rest on his ankles and situating her more firmly into his pelvis. There was a warm, sticky feeling and he realized that it was all the blood that had been soaked into her clothing against his bare chest. The smell was overpowering.

"Here," he pulled the hair away from her face and guided her mouth down to the soft skin between his shoulder and neck. "Bite."

"Touga?"

"I don't want you to crack your teeth."

"But—"

"Bite."

It was clearly an order, and though he couldn't see her face, hesitance was coming off of her in waves. "I don't want to hurt you," she said at last, quietly and laced with exhaustion. A prick of irritation shot through him—he was a trying to help and she was making it difficult. "I don't care," he growled back, pushing her head down more firmly. "I said to bite," Another short moment that aged him a few millennia passed before she opened her mouth and obediently placed each row of teeth on either side of his shoulder. "Hold onto me," he demanded next and the arms that had been lightly resting on his arms went under them to splay across his back. His right arm came up, resting along her spine so his hand could hold her head, her dark hair tangling around his fingers.

She began to hyperventilate then, her breaths coming rapid and short, hot against his skin. "Breathe, Kagome," he turned his face to hers and began to gently rock her. "This is going to hurt but you are strong." A high pitched wine of fear was his response and his gut rolled at the sound. She lifted her head up marginally. "On three?"

"On three." She put her head back down and this time he kept it there. "Try to relax," he advised. "It will loosen the muscles and make the arrow come out easier." She did as she was told, beginning to slow her breathing, though they weren't deep. He assumed because it pained her if it expanded her chest too much. For a moment, they just sat like that, breathing together as she slowly calmed down. In, out, in, out…in…out…

All at once his grip turned to iron and in one quick motion he had yanked the arrow out. The pressure of her jaw broke his skin immediately but he ignored the pain of her blunt teeth, his ears drowning in her borderline hysterical shriek of pain. She pulled back as soon as his arm loosened, her voice sobbing but angry. "What the fuck happened to three!"

He leaned away from her slightly, gently tugging her kimono off of her, belatedly realizing that she wasn't wearing one of her skin tight coverings like she usually did. Instead there was a scrap of form fitted fabric that covered her breasts only, pressing them tight against her chest and causing her cleavage to become more pronounced. He blanked for a second out of surprise, but quickly snapped out of it. Easing the rest of her shirt off, he began to tightly tie his make-shift bandages around the freely bleeding wound.

Once they were as good as they were going to get, he pulled the last one and tied it tight over her eyes. She didn't need to see the blood or the damage done to her body. She didn't need to see it until it was healed. Bending her good leg at the knee, he inwardly thanked that she was as flexible as she was or this would have been significantly more difficult. Keeping her close, he pushed her leg over the other way and scooped her up into his arms. She made a pitiful sound, but for the sake of a clear mind, he ignored it and looked around.

Kagome must have known what he was doing because she spoke, her voice watery and thick. "There's an opening up there," she said hoarsely. "We found it before I fell."

"We?"

"Me and…and Kikyo."

Touga became very, very still. "Kikyo," he murmured contemplatively, remembering that she was a priestess. Priestesses were archers. Kikyo…the whore must have done this to Kagome. His growing rage was hard to quell, but he did, somehow.

"Is the opening close?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Brace yourself." He crouched down, determining a safe place to jump up to, and leapt out of the hole. The exit was close, and he could see light and smell fresh air.

Kouga was right. That stupid rock crevice was good luck after all. The rocks were tight though, and he wouldn't be able get her through. Not without having Kagome walk on her own.

He narrowed his eyes.

The stone exploded outward, forced back by the sheer force of his demonic energy, Kagome's hair flying up into his face as he bent to cover her from the dust and debris. Light poured in from the suddenly gaping maw, nearly blinding him with its intensity. Once his eyes adjusted, he was racing out.

There was a scent here that smelled strongly of graveyard soil and his nose wrinkled at it. He pushed through, trying to find a clearing where there was water so he could clean Kagome's wound. While he searched, he called for Myoga. The flea demon was well versed in herbal medicines—he would be able to help Kagome more.

Rushing through the greenery he inwardly thanked the bright, noonday sun. He may be demon and have a demon's sight, but nothing could substitute for the clarity that such light would give him.

Finding water was an easy task, and as soon as he could, he had Kagome situated on the river bank, her back to a rock. Her hands came up to her face as she croaked out a weak, "Why'd you blindfold me?"

"Don't," he caught her hands, putting them together and holding them. They were so small, so frail and cold in his own. "Keep it on."

"I-Is it that bad?" she whimpered, pulling one hand out to hold the wound on her chest. In all honesty, he had seen much worse. As far as wounds went, it was relatively clean. The arrow had flown swift and sleek, piercing her flesh cleanly with so much force it came out the other side. For a time, it had clogged the injury and slowed the blood flow, but the removal was messy work and she was coated with so much blood that he feared there wasn't any more left in her. How could such a small body possibly carry so much blood?

He had to distract her, he realized. If she panicked her heart would be faster and that was the last thing he wanted. "How quickly do platelets take to form a scab?" He said instead, the information popping up from her lesson those few nights ago. When she responded, it was on an exhausted sigh. "I don't know."

"I need to clean the wound. I'll get the water."

"No!" she said, sitting up a little and it froze him in his spot. "The water—I can't—it's not clean."

"Clean?" And then it came to him. Offhand memories of seeing humans die from drinking river water and how it never seemed to be the case with demons. They're everywhere. "Bacteria," he murmured, awed at the epiphany. "There's bacteria in the water."

But it didn't last a frustration quickly overtook the awe. "How do I clean it?"

"Boil it," She whispered. His brow wrinkled in further show of anger. There was nothing to boil with! And they didn't have the time! Turning back to the woman who he was dearly beginning to fear for, he felt his heart stop.

She had fallen unconscious.

"Shit."

Coming closer he began to untie all the bandages. There was nothing for it. He would have to do this his way and hopefully she would forgive its inappropriateness when she woke up. Tearing off the last bandaged, he cut the strap of her strange breast binding and pulled it to the side. He tried to retain as much decency as he could for her, but at the same time he could care less. Sliding his other arm around her back to apply pressure, he dipped his head and began to slather the wound with his saliva.

Soon, all he could taste was metal and all he could think about was that those so called platelets weren't doing their job right. Why wasn't the blood stopping? And where was Myoga?!

As if this very thought had called him out the skies, Myoga came flying down on a crow, shouting his lord's name and sounding rightly panicked. What he saw was his lord shirtless, blood staining his chest and dribbling down from a bite wound on his shoulder, leaning over an unconscious, even bloodier Kagome. He didn't know what name to call, Touga's or Kagome's so he just settled for an inarticulate cry of distress. Touga looked up from his work, eyes as red as the blood he was licking from the wound and snarled.

"A-a-at once, s-sire!" Myoga stuttered, scrambling back up to the crow and flying back into the skies, his urgency spurring the crow faster. "Go! Go now you pigeon!" It let out a loud caw in reply, flapping its wings as fast as it could. A short while later Myoga returned, several crows working together to carry the monster of a faded yellow backpack to where the two of them were at. Touga had managed to slow the blood from the front entrance, but the back, the messier, much larger, exit point was giving him trouble. At least, he thought, the newly recognized bacteria were dead.

Myoga began to rummage through the backpack the second it was on the ground. Unlike his sire, he was familiar with the strange medical wonders that Kagome brought from her time. He'd been with the group on several occasions where they were in need of medicinal assistance and on those occasions he had made it a point to watch and learn carefully. As such, he knew exactly where the bandages were. "Lord Touga!" He called, getting his attention and pointing frantically to the white, sterilized rolls and the thick squares of gauze. Once Touga saw them, he ripped the rest of Kagome's kimono off, past the point of caring about decency anymore, applied the gauze pads (as strange as they were he could appreciate the ingenuity of such an invention) and began to tightly wrap them in place. As he came to the back, he had to hold a few flaps of skin closed while the bandage rolled over it. The arrow tip had not been kind and he felt sad that such a horrendous scar would be left behind.

A renewal of the hatred he felt for this woman called Kikyo flared to life. How dare she. What kind of earthly desire could drive a priestess, a maiden of supposed purity, to such lengths as to walk the world as an undead and prey on the living?

"Lord Touga," Myoga called again, waving his little arms around for attention. Once he had it, he began to frantically bounce around the camp, proving that for his miniscule size, he could manage to pull things together just fine. "You need to set her broken foot," he strained, wrestling sticks together as he started a fire. Touga tied off the last of the bandages, watching worriedly as blood bloomed under the white. Luckily, his saliva seemed to have some effect, as the red didn't go far to his immense relief. "What do I need to do?"

"You! Yes, you!" Myoga chattered, ordering a few crows about. "Get water!" Turning away once the task had been set, the flea bounced over to where the two were at and stared intently at the awkwardly broken foot. Pulling up the pant leg, he hummed at the swollen ankle, purple already deep set in place. "Feel for the bone break," he said at last. "It looks like it's this one right here." He pointed to a particularly swollen part and Touga gingerly, his eyes on Kagome, reached his hands out to feel.

To his astonishment, it wasn't just swollen. It was the actual bone, jutting out in a place where it shouldn't be. "Do you feel where it should go?"

Touga had a vague idea. He knew what a foot should feel like but he was no doctor. "Twist it back into place my lord." His eyes snapped down to his retainer, the flea able to read what was in those eyes loud and clear. "It cannot set like this," Myoga stated firmly. "You must set it as soon as possible."

"I am no healer," Touga growled, his lips twitching with words unsaid. Give him an army and he could carve a blaze of destruction and horror across a continent, but this was out of his league. He knew how to kill and to prevent, not how to deal with an issue that already happened. "And neither are the trees!" Myoga squealed, a rare show of irritation. "If you don't do it nobody will. I don't have the strength!" As if to demonstrate this, Myoga pulled a small but thick stick towards him and heaved it under his arms. He teetered under the miniscule weight, but continued to talk despite this. "I can guide you by words, sire, but you need to do this!"

Touga cursed. He knew that but it wasn't so easy, he had never done this before and the last thing he wanted to do was irreversibly damage Kagome with his ignorance. He could rip her foot clean off with his strength and he was worried that anything he tried to do would just hurt her more. But Myoga had a point—nobody else was around and there was no telling when the others would manage to get out of the cave. He needed to do this.

Growling he lifted her leg and began to gently prod at the damage done, gaining a mental picture and how things should go. He drew together what he saw in the pictures from the anatomy book with what he already knew (which wasn't much mind you) and settled himself. A glance to Myoga conveyed that he was ready, and the flea nodded in response, hopping up to Kagome and placing the stick between her teeth. He held her jaw around it as best as his small size could. "Whenever you're ready, sire." He nodded. Releasing a small breath, Touga looked towards the skies and prayed that she would stay unconsciousness for this.

She didn't.

The bone gave brief resistance under his hands, but he still felt every grating moment as he slid it back into place with a terrible sounding crack. Kagome's eyes shot open at once, pain hazing them as the stick in her mouth was snapped cleanly in two, the pressure throwing them away. As soon as she was awake, she passed out once again, twin lines of water streaking down her cheeks in a silent show of agony. Myoga patted her hair. "You poor girl."

"There is hell to pay," Touga seethed, placing her now righted foot onto the ground and rubbing his eyes. It seemed like ever since he met her she'd been through one painful catastrophe after another. Her back when she saved his life, minor injuries traveling together, the burning coals that were kicked in her direction, Kouga assaulting her, and now this drawn out nightmare. "Who did this?" Myoga grumbled, hopping away and got back to setting up a makeshift camp. The demon crows had managed to get a pot of water over to the camp and Touga got up to place it over the fire. "There's a sleeping mat in her bag," the flea demon said, pulling open the bag a little more. Touga reached in a grabbed the strange green fabric, laying it out close to the fire.

"Tell me what you know of Kikyo, Myoga."

"Kikyo?" The old flea sounded surprised, stopping in his preparations momentarily. Watching his master pull the limp girl into his arms, pieces clicked together. "Oh no," he murmured. Kikyo did this?

Touga set her down on the mat as gently as Myoga had ever seen him treat someone. "Is there anything else we can do for her?"

"I have sent the crows to find ingredients. She's lost a lot of blood and this specific potion will help. As for the wound itself, I believe your saliva will take care of the worst of it but I will prepare a salve for later use. For now she needs water and rest." The dog general nodded his consent, pulling up her kimono to cover her. Her breast binding had mostly come undone and she was practically bare from the waist up. Now that the blood had stopped and he had come down a little from his panic hazed high, he was beginning to grasp how much she was affecting him.

Even worried out of his mind he could still appreciate how enticing her curves were without anything hiding them. Kami she was beautiful.

"Here," Myoga pointed to a few sturdy sticks and a roll of bandages. "Secure her ankle, please. I don't want it to move." Neither did Touga, so he got up and began to carefully splint the bone, thankful for the distraction.

The caw of crows drew his attention upwards and he watched as several of them landed and dropped their load by Myoga. The flea demon wasted no time and immediately began to suck what he needed from each one. He sucked until he grew to the size of a small human child and rolled around on the ground to mix everything together. Then he rummaged for a spare bottle that the group carried and emptied the particularly gross looking potion into it. Touga twitched a little at the smell of the reddish-brown liquid and turned away back towards Kagome.

She was very dirty. Even before they entered the cave she was dealing with a lot of dirt and the jagged cliffs. And through the cave…she looked like she had stumbled through ash. Her face was covered in dust, tear tracks carving a wet trough through the grey to reveal a dirtied version of her skin beneath it. The grime was crusting around her eyes and coated her hair, turning the raven tresses into a tangled nest of grey. He reached a hand out to wipe away one of her tears, still glistening on her cheeks and then pulled away. His thumb had left a trail of blood on her cheek. Her blood.

He looked at his hands, then down at himself. His entire chest, arms and hands were crusting with her life liquid, the red turning to a sickly brown. Rust, he thought. The blood is rusting.

"My lord…" Myoga cautioned, holding the bottle of potion and capping it. Touga turned towards him, still as stone. "Eh…maybe you should bathe?" Touga looked back down to Kagome and Myoga sighed. "There isn't much else we can do for her at this point, my lord. Let her rest." When Touga still made no move to leave, Myoga hopped to his shoulder. "I'll protect her, sire. With my life."

All was still for a moment before Touga squished his retainer and dear friend between his fingers, a brief return of humor to the solemn air. "See that you do, Myoga." And with a flick of his wrist, the flea was sent flying. He landed with a squeak that sounded like a laugh and Touga was able to rise to his feet with a brief, hidden smile.

But it dropped the second he got to the river.

Touga was a demon—blood didn't bother him. It never had. But in this instance, he wondered if this is how every human felt when they saw so much at once. He was disturbed and disgusted, the taste of it rotting in his mouth and decaying his insides. He had swallowed some, and it felt like poison deep down in his gut. He had to get it out. Throwing himself into the water, clothes and all he began to furiously scrub every inch of him, the dried blood falling away and staining the river that carried it downstream. There was red everywhere, on his chest, his back, his hands and under his nails. He didn't even know it was on his face until he rubbed his eyes and they came away red. How did the blood get up there? But then he could still taste it and he brought water to his mouth to wash it away.

He'd never felt so much purity at once…

"Bitch!"

"I'll send you to hell!"

He…he never thought a woman like that, the one that had so fiercely battled against her enemy…

…He didn't think a woman like her could bleed.

"I never got the chance to thank you."

"I would have done it a thousand times, Touga-san."

He knew she was human. Oh, he most certainly knew that, but for some reason it was like it didn't register. Like in his mind she was Kagome, the warrior priestess that had decapitated her enemy with a war cry, Kagome the woman who had cherry blossom hair. She was Kagome, the woman who couldn't bleed.

What had he been thinking?

He had sworn to protect her, to preserve that beautiful candle flickering in the wind, however brief it might be. But it had gotten complicated, tangled like an insect in a spider's web. Lust had turned into Jealousy, then into Possessiveness. He wanted her, but he didn't know how much. At this point the only things that were crystal clear was that she was beautiful and he couldn't stand the thought of some other, unworthy bastard laying his hands on her.

What had happened to his common sense? He had asked his son for permission to court, and while he didn't regret that and he knew he wanted to know her better, she was human! Humans bleed, humans get sick, humans die like flies in the summer heat. And yet…he still couldn't believe it!

He punched the water in frustration. Get a hold of yourself! He railed inwardly. She's human! Humans don't last long in this world—four, maybe three decades at most. Not even half a century compared to his millennial lifespan. Had he overestimated her?

But no. Kagome was a time traveler, wasn't she? She spanned five hundred years in the blink of an eye, unlocking one of the world's greatest secrets again and again like it was normal. She was a priestess born with the Shikan no Tama inside of her body and she held intellect well beyond what was possible for this day and age. And by god he'd never seen a human with eyes so blue.

Was he…underestimating her? Was she even human?

He nearly punched himself for such an idiotic thought. Of course she was human—being so nearly killed her a few hours ago.

Human…human…human.

He laughed a little, not even remembering the last time he was this conflicted. To pursue or not pursue; the heart of the issue. Before, he was all for it. But now he was beginning to realize that he was being delusional because of the explosive entrance she made into his new life. He was hoisting her on a pedestal she couldn't even reach. But was that fair to even say? That she couldn't reach it? She was absolutely extraordinary—no one could deny that. But she was human which meant she had limits. Was he ignoring those limits? Had he been?

Touga splashed water on his face in anxiousness. He was getting nowhere with these thoughts. He had to think of this like a battle, and he the tactician. Lay out all the facts, all the pieces before making a move. First, what did he know.

He knew she was a priestess, a time-traveler that was attached to her life in the future, fighting Naraku, and a part of his son's pack. Despite the duality, she had made a life her in this time, forming a second attachment. She was human, was quite knowledgeable, intensely powerful, and on a mission.

He knew he was in lust with her. He couldn't deny the attraction that he felt and he didn't like the idea of Kouga touching her. He was a demon and had a demon's instincts and he would live much, much longer than her.

Unless of course he mated with her but that was too complicated to even think about right now.

So these were the things he knew. Now to think about situations. What would happen if he didn't pursue her? He would retract his courting right, allowing other men the privilege, destroy Naraku and…and what? Probably wander the countryside like he used to do, perhaps find someone special. His first mate was a prearranged political move meant to last, and he had hated it. Now that he had been resurrected, he had the freedom to choose his next life partner away from castles and wars and things that must be. So he would find someone. Kagome would either go back to her time—

Oh. He hadn't even thought of that. Kagome might return to her world after all of this. It was very likely that she had someone special of her own waiting on the other side of the well. He rolled this thought around his mind and found it to be unpleasant in the worst sense of the world.

So…she might return. Return and marry and live her life while he lived his. If she stayed, then Inuyasha would find someone for her to be with and she would most likely live out her days in the village after Naraku was destroyed and her mission complete. And…and that entire scenario made him feel like he'd be missing out on something amazing.

What if he did pursue her? He'd have to factor in that they were from two different species and that unless he were to mate (again, did not want to think about it now), she would die very early. He'd had this same dilemma with Izayoi, although part of the decision was already made since he was already mated to that bitch of Sesshomaru's mother. He'd get attached, and then be left alone again.

But wasn't Izayoi worth it? She had been. She so, so had been worth the two hundred years of mourning. But could he do that again? Live, lose, and learn to live again after such a blow? The option to mate was open to him now; it didn't have to be like that. But he didn't want to think about that. But he did. But it was complicated. And yet it wasn't.

"Oooh," he sighed, a growl hitching at the end as he rubbed his eyes. He was going in circles again.

Okay then, what did he want?

He wanted to know her. He just wanted to know her as a person and nothing more, human or not. He could admit that he wanted to have sex with her too but he supposed he could deal that issue as he was presented with it.

So…was that his answer? Just…know her? It seemed easy enough and it wasn't like he needed to make a decision this instant.

Mind made up, he waded to the river bank and got out. He would keep the courting right to deter other men from conflicting with their natural progression, but he would start with her on a clean slate. No grand expectations, and no delusions that she couldn't get hurt.

Feeling significantly calmer, he made his way back to camp, pricking his ears when he heard something. His face dropped immediately as he identified it and Kouga came barreling in, the rest of the pack hot on his heels. "Where's my woman!" He demanded.

Touga's eyes twitched as the rage of the statement boiled just beneath the surface.

Planning ahead was well and good for thought, but emotion didn't play by the same rules.

Dear god help him.


A/N: HOOOLLLLY CRAP! GUYS I AM SO SORRY! I really didn't expect for this story to go on a temporary hiatus like it did but...I just sorta...lost it for a little while. That being said I am back on track with fresh inspiration and a load of scenes prancing about my brain. Please have patience? Also I'm trying to save up to buy a new car so I'll be spending a lot of time at work and not on the laptop. That being said, I will try my absolute best to make sure that updates are frequent and consistent, though expect a smaller chapter size. Thirty pages are monsters to write and I had to FIGHT to get this one out.

And one of my reviewers commented that I really played up the DEFCON thing and sorta dropped it. Which is true. To be honest when I started I had such a different idea for this story that I could probably separate the two of them into different stories altogether. But yeah, sorry about that. I'll try to add a little bit of the DEFCON system here and there but the focus is no longer on that anymore. It's kind of shifted to a bigger, much nastier issue.

And as always. Please excuse any spelling mistakes. I am dyslexic and lazy and add-another-excuse-here :P

-Ruby