Inuyasha clutched his ears as the banshee screamed, pain surging through his left arm and the claws of his right hand as he did so. Along with that pain came another from his abdomen, which had opened up again.

"Shut up, you – " he didn't get to finish his sentence because he was taken by a fit of coughing What? Why is it so bad?

Sakura looked at him worriedly, silent now. There was blood all over his clothes, and sticking to his hair. His fingernails were broken and bruised, and his left arm might've been broken, seeing as how he winced when he moved it. She heaved his body off the saber-cat she assumed was Kirara, and set him next to the other boys to tend to his wounds.

"Inuyasha, I'm going to get water. Please stay conscious!" she whispered to him, now afraid to be any louder.

"Keh. Don't worry." Inuyasha replied, sounding better then he felt.

Sakura left to get the water. As she was filling up the water tanks she wondered what kind of wound had caused so much blood, and who had been strong enough to create such a wound on the boy. And since when did Inuyasha have dog ears? Was he even human?

She made her way back to the campsite, contemplating on the last thought. When she got there she was more than surprised at what she saw. Inuyasha was unconscious, for one thing, but he had lost so much blood it wasn't very surprising. No, what had surprised her was his black hair, and his regular human ears.

It was him alright, but he looked... human.

0o0o0o0o0o

Inuyasha felt like he had missed a great battle.

When he woke up, Sasuke had all sorts of writing on him, and his chakra level was huge.

Lee was on the ground, defeated. (Where did he come from, anyway?)

Sakura was wounded and exhausted, and her hair was cut.

Naruto was unconscious.

And five other people were there, too.

Inuyasha went over to Sasuke, and whapped him on the head, like he would do to Shippo.

"Calm down, you idiot!" Inuyasha yelled at the overly-powerful Uchiha.

"You dare hit me?!" Sasuke yelled back, in a voice unlike his own.

"Yes, I do. You need to snap-out-of-it!" Inuyasha replied, hitting Sasuke again with every syllable.

This angered him, and he grabbed the hanyou's left hand in a tight, bone-crushing squeeze.

"Aah!" Inuyasha shouted out in pain, and stepped back. "Idiot!" He roared and lunged at the boy.

After a few minutes of the fighting, Inuyasha turned his attention elsewhere."Sakura you need to take care of this."

"W-why me?!" came the reply.

"He knows you. He loves you. Believe me, it'll work."

"Okay." Sakura walked up nervously at first, but when Sasuke threatened to kill one of the sound ninja, she threw herself at him.

"Please Sasuke, this isn't you." she said, embracing him.

Inuyasha smiled as best he could with his face swollen from a punch he received. Sasuke's youki died down to the normal feeble amount. Then he looked at the sound ninja.

"You'd better get out of here, before one of us kills you." he said calmly.

At this, the mummy-like one threw something lightly towards the group and started walking away, saying,

"Next time, I will not hesitate to kill you, Sasuke Uchiha. And you, dog-eared man, I'll find out what you are. You just might be interesting to Orochimaru-sama."

Inuyasha groaned. The Uchiha whelp gets a fight And he gets researched. The world hates me.

"Inuyasha, are you alright?" Sakura seemed worried.

"Yeah, just upset at the lack of enemies I'm making."

"Oh really?That's it?" Sakura's aura darkened. At that moment Naruto had woken up, and was making a ruckus about Orochimaru trying to kill them. Chouji hit him with a stick, and Sakura continued.

"I think we all deserve some explanations, Inuyasha."

"Explanations?" came the innocent reply.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'EXPLANATIONS'?! YOU COME BACK FROM WHO KNOWS WHERE WITH A CRUSHED ARM, BROKEN FINGERNAILS, AND A FREAKIN' HOLE IN YOUR ABDOMEN! THEN I FANGS! AND CLAWS!! AND YOU HAVE DOG EARS!!!!!!"

The people in the clearing started staring at him strangely, as if just realizing these facts.

"I don't feel like it." came the reply. Sakura snapped.

"AAARGH!" she yelled and lunged at him, punching him, trying to pound the information out of him.

"You have a hole in your body?" the voice was Lee's.

"Yeah." Inuyasha answered, lifting his shirt to show him the wound, which had closed up.

"And you're... alive?" that was Sasuke.

"Yup." was the short and simple answer.

"Dog ears?" Naruto asked.

"What are you?" Sasuke asked that question in a pondering way.

"A hanyou." Inuyasha replied before realizing he'd been tricked. Now he'd have to answer the next question, which was undoubtably coming.

"What's that?" they all asked in unison., as the hanyou sighed.

"It's A half-demon. I'm half dog demon."

"EHHHH?" They all gaped, then broke in to frantic conversation.Inuyasha only heard snippets of this.

"...would explain why..."

"-tray us?"

"...Kakashi-sensei."

"-kage!"

"...eat us!..."

After a few minutes, he got annoyed.

"SHADDUP!!"

The group silenced.

"Now, are you done?"

Sakura spoke. "We've come to an agreement."

"Yes?"

"We've decided to take this matter to the Hokage. He will decide what to do with you. But I have one more question. Why did you turn, well, human last night?"

Inuyasha gulped. Why did he have to explain this?

"You... that was my human night. It's my- the- when-." he stopped and took an intake of air. "Once a month, I turn into a human. This is the case with all hanyou.This is my most vulnerable time, so I beg of you... don't tell anyone. My life may depend on it."

There was silence.

"What are you talking about?!" Naruto yelled. "I"d never sell you out! Not in a milloin years! That's my way of the ninja!!"

Inuyasha smiled again. If Naruto wouldn't tell, he could be sure nobody else would.

"Sakura, what about last night? It must have been hard. I did a hole in my body."

"Ah! Anyway, we got the earth scroll. Now we only need the heaven scroll." Sakura didn't answer the question, not wanting to talk about the sleepless night, in which Inuyasha stopped breathing three times.

"Oh, yeah. You can give that to someone else." Inuyasha said matter-of-factly.

"What? Why?" Naruto asked, bewildered.

Inuyasha pulled out the two scrolls he had earned earlier. "Because of these."

He certainly had a knack of rendering people speechless.

0o0o0o0o0o0

The demon screamed in pain as blood poured from her numerous wounds. She collapsed to the ground, somehow not yet dead.

"You failed to complete your task." he figure above her said stoicly.

"I cough am coughcough sorry, m'lord." She begged pathetically between coughs.

"I told you to find Inuyasha, and yet you failed in doing so for me. It was not a hard task, Kagura."

"Naraku-sama, if I could juat have more time! I know where his companions are!"

"I did not askyou to find his companions. I asked you to find him." Naraku turned his hand into an enormous claw. He rose it to strike, but he stopped as an idea dawned on him.

"It seems like this is your lucky day, Kagura. I might have use for you yet."

Sorry for the wait. I blame school, homework, my four siblings who all want to use the computer, and my parents for not buying me a laptop. And my procrastinating self.