Chapter 11

"Don't you come any closer!"

Having snatched her bow from its resting place by her side, Kagome was holding it in front of herself in a warding gesture against the approaching demon. Her arrows, of course, were all the way on the other side of the fire and of absolutely no use when facing off against a being that could have her in his claws before she managed to blink let alone make a dash for her weaponry. The only reason her bow had been handy was because she had been using it as a convenient poker for the fire (something she was sure Kaede would have lectured her about for weeks, but which now she had a good defense as to why it was a good idea to be so reckless with her weapon). She was screwed, and she knew it. But that didn't mean she was about to let the big dog turn her into some Feudal era version of his own personal scratching post. No sir!

Toga took another step closer to the crouching priestess, but stopped when she flared her aura powerfully to expend a sweeping wave of brilliant white light. It was a defensive gesture, he knew, one not meant to bring him harm; but it still ripped across his senses like blades of white fire, singeing and cutting through his defenses at the same time as soothing against the eternal blaze of his own power.

"Woman," he addressed her curtly. "Be reasonable. Sealing you wounds will mute you scent as well as reinforce your body's defenses."

"My defenses are just fine!" Kagome bit out in a low, gravely voice grating with annoyance and frustration. Proving her point, she allowed the swell of energy surrounding her to expand, flooding the camp with the radiant light as it drifted gently across every surface like a gentle wave. She watched him tense against the assault, and she smirked. "Come any closer and I'll be forced to prove it to you."

He brushed his hand through the heated air in front of him in dismissal. "Unnecessary. I intend you no harm."

"Easy for you to say!" Kagome cried in outrage. "But I'm the one that already had a close encounter with your fangs today. I am NOT about to get up close and personal with you claws too!"

He paused for a moment as he debated her words, but then shook his head. "You can not hold me accountable for something I have not done."

"Why not?" she asked venomously. "You held me accountable. You blamed me for Inuyasha's dreams of the future; a future that no longer was after my wish on the Jewel. We had fought so hard for so long. And he remembered. Maybe it was only a dream, but it was a dream that was real to him!" Filled with rage so hot it carried out from her in the searing waves of energy surrounding her body, Kagome lifted herself to her feet in a rush of hard fury and leveled the tip of her bow at the Inu. "You took that from him. And from me. My wish gave you back your life, and you repaid me by stealing mine!"

The sharp lances of wild power streaking from the bow's tip forced Toga to take action against her. But rather than bringing his own weapons to bear, he moved in on her in a rush of speed, taking hold of the bow's glowing length and pushing it to the side. It burned against his hand, the crimson fires of his spirit raging against the pure light; but he held firm. "I have taken nothing from you!" he bit out, his velvet voice tarnished by the thick undertones of raw power rising just beneath the surface. He pulled hard against the heated wood of her weapon, ripping it from her hands.

The brilliance of the light died almost instantly, the young miko left at a loss without her weapon, but held by more than simply her vulnerability. She was breaking, he could see it in the dark azure of her eyes, in the way the surfaces no longer glinted with fire and fury but were muted behind a fog of pain and hurt. How? He couldn't help but wonder. How was it that she could stand so strongly against him, show no fear and no hesitations when so many others would have cowered and begged for his leniency? How could she be so strong but at the same time so weak that she could be bound so by something as fleeting as a memory and a dream?

He stepped back from her, giving her room to collect herself, and held out her bow. "Your life can only be what you make it."

Hesitantly, Kagome reached out and took hold of her weapon. Her hands closed over the polished surface tentatively, as though it were a burden simply too heavy to bear. "What does it matter," she asked in a trembling voice, "when everyone I've ever loved can't even remember who I am?

"The mind is a mysterious thing," he replied. "But the heart is stranger still. Sometimes, even when the mind has forgotten, the heart still remembers."

Slowly, she lifted her haunted eyes to his. "Tell me," she asked of him quietly, "something to make me believe you again."

For a long time, he said nothing, but Kagome could see the way he was looking at her, the way his anger and hostility had been replaced with contemplation and resignation. She waited.

Eventually, he spoke. "I can not defeat him."

"Who?"

He looked away from her, hiding his troubled eyes. "Memnon." The word was spoken so quietly it was as though he feared the mere mention of the name would condemn them all. "The Master of So'unga. He forged to blade in the fires of his eternal prison of his own talons; and after an eternity of searching he found a way to unleash it upon the mortal plane. Now, the sword has but one mission:

Corrupt the hearts of men. Fuel the fires of war. Have them spill blood and take life. And let that life become mine.

"So'unga gathers its minions of war, biding its time until it has procured enough lives to free Memnon from his prison. If it succeeds, if the gates of hell are opened and Memnon takes hold of So'unga's dark power, then he will not stop until every living being is destroyed and the minions of his hell are the only things that remain on this plane."

"Are you saying that So'unga was never of this world? It wasn't meant to be a weapon at all, but a key?"

Toga nodded solemnly. "A key that will only work once it has been fueled by the blood of lost souls, one which once awakened will bring the end of the world."

"There's so much of this story that I don't know."

"But how much more is there?" Toga asked as he turned his focus back to the young miko. "That I return from the fires of the battle with So'unga does not necessarily mean that Memnon was defeated." He shook his head slowly. "I am not certain that he can be." When he looked back to Kagome, his eyes were hard with conviction and determination. "If I was left with the choice between dying in a hopeless battle and escaping with not only my life but the very weapon that the creature sought to make its power ultimate; then I do not believe that the decision would be very difficult."

Blinking in surprise, Kagome asked, "What are you saying?"

"I have thought much of what you have told me," he replied. "And I can think of no other power that would bring such destruction and fear that I would seek to alter the very flow of time, than Memnon. I believe that the 'demon' you spoke of that was sealed by the Shikon was Memnon. I believe that in sending you to me now, I was trying to find a way to defeat him before that was allowed to happen."

He stepped closer to her again, but this time Kagome did not back away. "Perhaps this is the right path," he said quietly. "Perhaps it is not. I don't know. I suppose I will never understand why I made the choices I did in a future I will never know. But whatever the future may bring, here, now, I know that I will fight, that I must. I can not speak for you, nor would I expect you to understand when I am not certain I understand myself. But, perhaps, together we could make a better future for all of us, a future that will never be burdened with Memnon's power or the curse of the Shikon."

Hope echoed in his words, faith whispered in his tone, and in his eyes burned a passion for life that she could feel filling her with its consuming warmth. This was the General. This was the one whose will still carried on even centuries after his death. This was the one that would take on the world and walk away still standing tall. But what was more; she could see in him none of the dark burden he had carried in the future, none of the deep regret and painful longing. He was solid with conviction, his power fueled by a will so strong and a passion so hot they met together in raining blaze that ignited the golden fires burning in his eyes.

She knew what he was asking of her. She knew what going with him would mean. She knew what would be changed, and what could never be the same again. She knew these things, knew that there would be no turning back; but she knew as well that, like him, she couldn't walk away from this fight. He had said that he would, said that he had in the future she had known; but he was saying he didn't want to, didn't want to leave this burden to another, wanted to stand and fight through to the end, wanted to find the victory that they had all been denied.

And he was telling her that he couldn't do it alone. He was asking for her help.

"It just wouldn't be right," she said slowly, a devious twist pulling on her lips, "if I let you steal all the glory a second time around."

Confusion flashed through his eyes, a shifting of amber beneath the placid golden surfaces. But he quickly recovered himself, saying with a low chuckle, "You are an unusual woman."

"This coming from a talking dog," she quipped in retort.

He laughed again, the sound rich and full, making her want to laugh along with him. But his laughter slowly faded as his focus began to shift. Kagome could see that his eyes were trained on the line of puncture wounds running along her neck, and she brought a hand up to rub along the swollen markings uncomfortably. When he lifted his hand from his side, she tensed in uncertainty. But he waited patiently for her to relent, his eyes moving to find hers and catch her in his steady gaze.

"I am sorry," he told her quietly as his fingers brushed against her neck in a delicate caress, "if I have hurt you."

Catching his hand timidly with her own, Kagome slowly lifted it until she could brush her cheek over his palm. She felt him stiffen, but then relax his claws to allow himself to cup her face in a tender hold. She smiled faintly and closed her eyes to feel the full heat of his touch. "It is the pain," she whispered, "That lets you know you're alive."

Pulling back, Kagome turned her back to Toga as her hands worked shakily at undoing her blouse. "Let's get this over with," she said quickly, trying to hide her embarrassment, "Before Sesshomaru gets back."

"The boy is accustomed to battle and injury," Toga said from behind her.

Kagome's hands stilled on the last button. "I know," she said slowly, but with a sharp shake of her head, she managed to finish undoing the button. Pulling her blouse away from the tight wrappings of gauze and padded bandages that covered her midsection just below her bra, she gestured absently down the length of her body. "I just don't want him to see me like this."

"You have nothing he has not seen before."

"Not undressed, you hentai!" Kagome yelled as she spun around to face him. "Weak, okay? I don't want him to see me weak." Releasing a harsh breath, she tore her eyes away from his. "Just forget it," she said as she kneeled down to the ground, her bow planted firmly ahead of her and holding the lean of her weight. When she finally looked back to him, her eyes were hard. "Are we going to do this or not?"

Tilting his head, Toga looked over the young miko carefully. He understood the needing to harden oneself against a coming pain, but did she have to be so….bitchy? But, shrugging it off, Toga lowered himself down next to the miko and began cutting through the wrappings concealing her wound.

"The bindings are done well," he observed, a minor distraction to the girl as he began pulling the padding sticky with her blood from where it had sealed against the opening in her skin.

"I've had…a lot of practice," she hissed out through clenching teeth. Taking a deep breath once the last rip of pain had passed, she added, "Inuyasha had a nose for trouble, and he paid for it more often than not. I always ended up binding wounds on him that would have killed me ten times over." Hissing again when the last bandage was peeled away, Kagome panted to catch her lost breath. "I always thought he had it so easy, not having to put up with injuries like this for more than a day. But he never saw it that way. He would have been like Sesshomaru, able to heal almost any wound with hardly a thought. He just could never be satisfied with being a hanyou."

A sharp pain ripped through her side, and Kagome screamed shrilly. "What the fuck!" She cried in outrage as she pulled back from Toga, her arm wrapping around her side to catch the new flow of blood. "You're supposed to be sealing that wound not making it bigger!"

His eyes were wide with shock, as though he hadn't realized what he had done. "I apologize," he said quickly. "I did not mean to…"

Narrowing her eyes sharply in suspicion, Kagome cut him off. "Don't worry about it," she said tersely. Resetting her grip on her bow, she drew in a deep breath and held it. "Let's get this over with."

Toga's fingers twitched as he reached out again to the young miko. He paused and pulled back. Before, he had not thought anything of healing the girl's wounds. It was the most reasonable course of action. But now, he was…hesitant to touch her, feel the heat of her skin, know the curves of her body.

Hanyou. A human mate? It wasn't as though he bore any ill will to the humans; he had simply never considered such a thing an option. They were so fragile, their emotions so volatile, and their lives so very short. But then, he knew well what it was to loose a mate. It was not surprising that he would seek another in the future.

Giving himself a hard mental shake, Toga tore his thoughts away from future possibilities and brought his attention back to the young miko. Now was not the time for such thoughts. He would see to her injuries as he would any other ally. It was as simple as that.

Of course, it wasn't as simple as that. And the soft, coursing shivers that ran through the miko's petite frame when he spread his hand along her side and began applying pressure to draw the skin together was only the beginning. When his claws first pierced her skin, the strangled cry she released was almost enough to make him pull back before he could release enough corrosive poison to seal the flesh together. But he forced himself to ignore her cries, forced himself to continue without hearing, without feeling.

When at last he had finished, the miko was trembling, her body rigid with shock. He leaned over her, wrapping his hands around hers and gently prying her fingers away from their deadly grip on her bow. "Breath," he told her gently as he pulled her trembling body against his. "Just breathe."

She drew in several long, shaky breaths; but it did not lessen the trembling of her body or the soft heaving of her chest as she sobbed quietly. Turning her carefully, Toga wrapped her in a more soothing embrace. With her head cradled in his left arm, he lifted her legs and drew her up onto his lap. She held herself stiff at first, but slowly began to relax. Her breathing steadied and the trembling in her limbs faded to only an occasional tremor.

Still, she refused to look at him, keeping her eyes squeezed closed and her head turned away. But Toga could still see the hot path of her tears as they streamed down her face. He brought his hand up to her cheek and gently brushed them away. "It is over," he said quietly. "…Kagome."

Drawing in a shaky breath, Kagome blinked her eyes open to look at him. "Toga…" Her head suddenly snapped around to look over her shoulder. "What is that?"

Toga quickly tilted his nose to catch the wind. Blood. He had been so close to the miko's that it had overpowered the other scent. It was human blood. But not hers. And it had been spilled by…A low growl started vibrating in his chest.

Tightening his grip on the miko, Toga stood and set her on her feet. She swayed only once, but caught herself quickly. "What is it?" she asked again, her right hand reaching for the bow standing in the ground beside her.

His growl increasing in volume, Toga scanned the trees surrounding the camp. "Sesshomaru."

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Oh look, another cliffie. Kukukukuku! Who saw that coming? –Shadow raises her hand…and laughs maniacally--

Well I've certainly had a productive day. I wrote a chapter for Twilight, and managed to get about halfway through the finale of Tears. Pretty good, eh? It must be all that vacationing. –sigh-- too bad it couldn't last forever. Then again, I think I was more tired when I got back from my vacation than before I went…hmmm…funny how that happens. Must have been all that fresh air getting to my head ;P

A/N: Lol I don't know why I put that. This is all an author's note. But about the story, I just thought I would share that I was sorely tempted to name the bad guy in this fic Naraku. I figured I could always twist the plot to my favor to make it happen, but then I reconsidered. I ended up settling on Memnon, and I think it works well this way. --shrugs-- just in case anyone wanted to know.

Anyways, I guess it's time for me to get.

Later all

Shadow