No Longer Alone
Disclaimer: I do not own the hanyou, I do not own his co. It all belongs to Miss Takahashi, who is a great … uh…… writer-ashi…
Don't you just love my rhyme? LOL. Sorry for all the short review responses last chapter. I had a high school orientation to go to and I was typing it all up last minute. I officially declare that I am going to a horrible high school. If I had my choice I would be going to San Mateo with all my friends, but nooooo I was assigned to Hillsdale and I didn't get transferred. I WAS NUMBER 3 ON THE FRICKIN' WAITING LIST!! ::pants heavily:: Ok, now that I have that out of my system, enter Chapter 10!
Ch. 10
Inuyasha dumped Kagome unceremoniously on the couch the second they arrived at the apartment, and toppled over himself, unable to hold up his own weight. He gave a small groan as his head collided with the couch. Kagome jumped up and kneeled down at his side.
"Oh, Inuyasha, your back! You idiot, you shouldn't have stood in front of those attacks like that! I told you not to!" She wailed. Inuyasha was too drained of energy to argue with her.
"Stay here, I'll get the First Aid kit!" Kagome sprang away and bolted down the hall. She returned seconds later with an armload of bandages and a large box marked with a large red cross. "Inuyasha, can you sit up?" She asked gently.
He placed his hands firmly on the ground and struggled to get up. Kagome put her hands under his arms and tried to help him up to the best of her ability. Inuyasha grimaced in pain as he lifted himself inch by inch until he was resting against the couch. Blood continued to drip from his wound and pooled onto the soft off-white colored carpet.
"Inuyasha, I need you to take off your… upper clothing," Kagome said, red slightly tingeing her cheeks. When he removed that, she fished around the kit for ointment. She pulled out a tube labeled Cut Healer. Kagome requested for Inuyasha to flip over, and after a few painful tries, he managed to lay stomach down with his head cushioned on a pillow and his chest across her lap. She squeezed liberal amounts to his back and gently rubbed it into the gruesome red slashes, wincing when he winced. The ointment must have had some sort of reaction to demon blood because she could see an instantaneous effect. The blood clotted before her eyes and the puckered skin smoothed out somewhat.
Inuyasha watched her attend to him through half-lidded eyes. His face was turned to her and he gazed at her silently as she leaned over his head to seize a thick roll of bandages nearby. Truth be told, it had felt rather nice when she was applying the salve to his gash. It had been pleasantly cool and her hands were soft and soothing as she tenderly rubbed his back.
Kagome was currently attempting to bind the bandages around his torso, while trying kept it in place at the same time. She really needed two hands to wrap it, but once she took her hand away from holding the wraps in place, they would unravel, driving her to frustration. Inuyasha gave a tired smile at her irritation and lifted his left hand, the one away from her, behind him to keep the binding in place. She smiled gratefully in return and proceeded to swathe him in the bandages.
Once she was done, Inuyasha relaxed his hand. It had been in an awkward position and had tired him. It flopped on her knee and he flipped it over so that the palm was against her leg. Gently, he caressed her knee in what he hoped was a thankful gesture. Startled, Kagome snapped her gaze to his prone form from packing up the First Aid kit, which she was having trouble doing in the position she was in. Inuyasha gave her a soft smile she had never seen before as he continued to stroke her knee. With great difficulty, he heaved himself up from her lap and sat next to her, leaning against the couch once again.
"Inuyasha…" she murmured.
"Thank you," he whispered into her ear. She leaned against him, resting her cheek against his shoulder. His arm snaked around her waist, holding her in place. She was beginning to doze off in the warmth of his body pressed against hers, but Inuyasha suddenly stiffened.
Kagome raised her head questioningly, "What is it?"
Inuyasha's sat up straight, "I sense that something's wrong…" he trailed off. "Help me get up." He ordered. With an arm around his waist, she acted as a crutch as he directed her where to go. They entered his bedroom and found the place in disarray. Drawers had been jerked open and clothes lay about in untidy heaps. The door to the closet hung crazily on its hinges. Small furniture was upturned and the covers to the bed were thrown disregarded to the floor. All of Kagome's accessories littered their carpet, spilled from their perch on a nearby table.
"Kagome," Inuyasha began slowly, "Where is the Jewel?"
Kagome gasped and ran to the table where her jewelry box lay upside down. She flipped it over and probed through the pile of necklaces and bracelets. She turned back to look at him, her face ghostly white, "It's gone." She said in a small voice, fearing his wrath.
"WHAT?!" Inuyasha screeched, throwing his head back angrily. When he looked back at Kagome, her face was scrunched and she had two fingers plugged in her ears. "How could you lose it?! You should have kept it with you to the party!" He shouted at her.
"There was no room to carry it! And even if I did, that Kagura woman would probably have taken it from us and then killed us! And why are you so upset? I understand that others will gain its power, but you never seemed to be the kind of person who cared what happens to strangers. It's almost like you… want… it…" she cut herself off abruptly and stepped back reflexively.
"Kagome…" Inuyasha tried to pacify her.
"Do you want the Jewel for your own selfish purposes?" She asked quietly. She lowered her head, letting her hair shadow her eyes.
"I did," Inuyasha replied just as quietly, turning his head.
"Why?" She asked shakily. "You're strong enough as it is, why use the Jewel?"
"I… wanted to become a full demon," he answered reluctantly. "It was centuries ago, but I can still remember how much both races of demon and human hated me. They despised me because of what I was. No one cared to get to know me because they thought that I would be just as nasty as they thought I was, since half of my blood was of the same race as their life-long adversary. The animosity they held for me was so great, so that the thing I longed for more than ever was to be a pure blood.
"I wanted to become a full demon, to take vengeance against those who spited me. They taunted me and tortured me. My father tried to protect me, but he was soon killed. I can't remember much about my mother. All I know is that she was a beautiful woman. She was beautiful in both body and spirit and whenever she looked at me, she wore a dazzling smile on her face. But she died. Her own people burned her alive for spawning with a demon. And then I was all alone… I was just a child. And all I knew was hatred and fear." Inuyasha clenched his fists tightly at the memory, closing his eyes tightly. To Kagome's surprise, what looked like a glimmer of a tear formed at his eyes. She crossed the distance she had formerly put between them and hugged him comfortingly. She understood.
"As I grew older," he continued, "I learned how to fight and I protected myself by building a mental wall around myself, shielding myself from the hate. I killed whenever I had to and I didn't care about anything. Soon, I found myself all alone in the world. The shield did that. But I had no regrets. No one had gotten even close to past my barrier. But then…"
"But then Kikyo came into your life." Kagome concluded for him softly.
Inuyasha nodded, a pained expression on his face. He felt a lump form in his throat as he began again. "Kikyo was a very powerful priestess. She was the woman who protected the Jewel. And I tried over and over to steal it. Each time I tried, I was caught, but Kikyo wouldn't kill me. I got to know her, and found that her problem was similar to mine. The thing she craved above else, was to be an ordinary woman, as I craved to be a demon and not an abnormal crossbreed. I understood her and she understood me. Before I knew it, I was… falling in love with her and she with me.
"I soon rediscovered what it was like to be cared for. It made me feel so… complete. Then, she made a compromise with me. She said that she would give me the Jewel on the condition that I used it to turn human. If the Jewel was used for good instead of evil, it would purify itself and it would eventually disappear, turning Kikyo into a normal woman; her priestess duties would have been finished for good. It was an intriguing plan and I agreed. I… loved her and I wanted to spend my life with her."
Kagome had never heard Inuyasha bring out such emotion before. He had bottled it all up inside for decades and decades. She was also impressed with his vocabulary. He never knew he could express himself so well. She listed intently.
"But the one thing that went wrong was that my emotional barrier had only been lowered and not destroyed. I had not trusted Kikyo even though I was in love with her. Naraku used that weakness to his advantage and tricked Kikyo into thinking I had betrayed her. She had not trusted me completely as well and believed in an instant that I had truly tried to kill her when I had really been away fighting demons that, surely, he had ordered to attack me. She shot me with an enchanted arrow and it was supposed to put me to an eternal sleep, but as she lay dying, one of her hands lay over the part of my chest she had shot and the arrow lost some of its enchantment as her dying hand instinctively healed the wound. I was stuck in a sort of semi-consciousness.
"Lucky for me, Kikyo's little sister, Kaede, happened to be nearby. She came at once to our sides and brought me back to the village. She also ordered the village men to give an honorable cremation to her sister along with the accursed jewel. She had taken a liking to me and she and her family took care of me while I was trapped in limbo. Through the centuries, her descendants attended to me, though I have no idea why. Sango is one of Kaede's descendants and when she was young, she somehow cured me. She had some priestess blood in her. But that cure seemed to have exhausted what little holy power she had at all. I think she's still mad about that." He finished with a small smile, despite his sad tale.
"I'm so sorry, Inuyasha. I had no idea," Kagome said softly.
"I have no clue why I just told you all that shit." He said with an almost-laugh.
"Maybe… it's because you trust me?" She ventured carefully.
He turned his brilliant tawny eyes to her. "Yes, that must be it. I do trust you."
~*~*~*~*~
Inuyasha burst through the front door of Sango's house. It was a well-furnished house. Elegant wooden furniture decorated the rooms. A cozy fireplace with a blazing fire stood to the left corner. Sango lay on her stomach near it. Her hair was tied at the very bottom of her brown-tinted locks. She wore a simple shirt and jeans. She was stroking a sleeping Shippo and playing with a cat Kagome had never seen before. The cat was obviously demon. It had two tails and menacing red eyes. Nevertheless, it was very cute because of its petite ness. Miroku was sitting comfortably on his white leather couch reading a magazine. His feet were propped up on a coffee table.
He looked up from his reading, "Why, Inuyasha, how nice to see you. What brings here?" His violet eyes shifted to Kagome. He stood up and took her hand. "And Miss Kagome, you are here too! The last time I saw you, you were sick in bed. You look so much nicer now. Come have a seat and tell us what you are here for. I can tell it has something else to do besides picking up Shippo." The man was very perceptive! Kagome thought to herself. He led her to the couch politely.
Suddenly, she stiffened. She definitely felt his hand on her backside. Does he know where he's touching me? She wondered. She went instantly rigid as he felt him caress her flesh. Kagome pivoted swiftly and smacked him hard on the cheek. A resounding slap could be heard. "Pervert!" She cried, appalled that such a nice-seeming guy would do such a thing.
Inuyasha was on him at once. He began to throttle him fiercely. Sango had her head in her hands exasperatingly. "Miroku, don't you ever learn? I thought I had hit you enough for you to understand. Maybe you need two women to straighten you out!"
Kagome would have tried to stop Inuyasha from killing Miroku, who was presently running out of air and turning blue, but something caught her eye. She picked up the science magazine he had been reading and out fell a magazine. "You… you…" She stuttered, doubly appalled. Sango came over to her and gaped at what she held. Numerous pictures of naked women filled the pages.
"You… unbelievable… PERVERT!" Sango screamed. How dare you bring THAT into my house!" She pushed Inuyasha aside and punched Miroku square in the nose. He slumped over unconscious. Still seething with rage, she scanned the room for anything to use as a weapon. She spotted a baseball bat that lay conveniently nearby. Blinded by her fury, she raised the bat, fully prepared to bring it down on the monk's deserving head.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Sango! Calm down, don't kill him!" Inuyasha conciliated.
"Oh, and you weren't trying to do that?" She shot back.
He smiled sheepishly, "Oh, well, we still need him. We came here for a reason. And like he said, it wasn't just about the kid."
"Well, what is it?" She asked impatiently.
"The… Jewel has been stolen," Inuyasha said seriously.
Sango froze in shock. The bat dropped from her frozen hands and landed on Miroku's prostrate form, creating a large bump on his head. "Y-you're kidding right?" She asked in a small voice.
Inuyasha shook his head in regret.
"You… you…" She gasped out, "You IDIOT! Do you know what this means?! It means possibly thousands of lives lost and the cover for demons will be blown! How could you lose the Jewel?!" She shrieked.
Inuyasha cowered from her outburst but recovered. He pointed a finger at Kagome, "It's her fault," he said quickly.
"What?!" Kagome glared at him.
"Hey," he glared back, "If you hadn't insisted on going to that stupid party, we wouldn't be in this situation!"
"You had pockets, you could have taken the jewel! Don't blame this all on me!"
Miroku, who had regained consciousness whilst they were quarreling, stepped between them with his hands pushing against both Inuyasha and Kagome, "Whoa, calm down, you guys! What's done is done, we can't do anything about that! Let's settle down now, and you two can fill us in with what happened. After that, we can take some sort of action."
Sango smiled almost admiringly at Miroku's ability to placate the two. Maybe he's not as bad as I thought… she mused.
Miroku exhaled as both Inuyasha and Kagome's anger subsided. Suddenly, a thought passed his mind. He grinned internally and slowly, his hand slid down from its position on Kagome's shoulder to her pert bosom. He only managed to get in one caress before Inuyasha's fist collided ruthlessly with his already throbbing head, forcing him back into unconsciousness. Inuyasha had an arm protectively around Kagome as she drew in ragged breaths, clutching a hand to her chest.
…Or maybe he is… Sango sighed.
The three of them waited reluctantly for Miroku to wake up before Kagome and Inuyasha proceeded to tell the others all that had happened since their last meeting.
Miroku pondered over the incident at the party. "So you say this Kagura woman attacked you. Why do you think she did that?"
Inuyasha snorted, "Isn't that obvious? She wanted the Jewel!"
Miroku was unfazed, "Yes, but did she ask you at all for the Jewel before her assault?"
Inuyasha grudgingly shook his head at his logic, "No…" He muttered.
"So she knew that you didn't have the Jewel," he said with a victorious glint in his eye, "I suspect someone was behind Kagura. Perhaps she was a mercenary or something, ordered to attack you. She was most likely buying time for someone else to steal the Jewel. That is the best theory I can come up with."
Kagome had to admit, although Miroku was the biggest pervert on the face of the planet, he was quite intelligent.
Miroku continued on his analysis, "Inuyasha, when you found out someone stole the Jewel, did you get a whiff of the person's scent?"
Inuyasha looked puzzled, "That's the most confusing part. I didn't smell anything at all. No one can hide their scent from a dog demon's nose. Even if it is well covered, it is impossible to hide all of the essence. It's just not possible. The only way someone's scent could escape my nose would be it they had no soul. After all that is where a person's scent originates. It originates from the soul. If the soul is evil, it has a malicious scent, if the soul is good, it has a pleasant fragrance. But the intruder… he or she had no scent whatsoever. There was just… nothing. Almost an emptiness, definitely of a soulless being."
Sango stepped into the conversation, "But it's really rare to come across soulless people. There are none I know of. The only way to become soulless is for the person to make a deal with a devil. But Sesshomaru took care of that. He barred all devils from this world. I don't see how that can be…"
Abruptly, Miroku sat up straight, "No devils can gain entry to this world, but that does not account for the ones that are already here."
Sango shook her head, "But there are no devils in this world," she protested.
Miroku had his face set gravely, "There is one…"
Kagome caught on, horror was etched on her face, "Naraku," she whispered.
^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^
Whew, I got this out fast! But I just HAD to leave it at another cliffhanger! OMG, I just realized my B-day is tomorrow! WOOHOO! LOL. Hopefully I'll get that BoA album and volumes 14 and 15 of Inuyasha like I *ahem* "hinted" at my parents. ^_~ See ya later! ::blows kisses::
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Review Responses~*~*~
Leomae108: Thank you! I hope this update was fast enough for you! LOL. Anyway, I don't like to make them get together so fast like some stories are. I read a story where the two were practically doing it on the second day they met! And this was an AU fic! Geez, talk about self-restraint! LOL. Don't forget to review, faithful reviewer!
Andray: Thank you so much! Please review again!
Angelstar = mitsukai-hoshi: Thank you thank you thank you! ::sobs:: You were the only one to wish me a happy b-day! Me so… HAPPY! ::starts bawling:: LOL. And no, it wasn't a cliffy. Well, if it was to others, I didn't mean it to be! Don't you just love the whole Kagura and Kanna thing? LOL. Ja ne!
ladykaa28: Well, now you know why right? I think I explained it fully enough in this chapter. It wasn't for information, just for time. Just letting you know, Naraku said that in the last chapter when he was talking to Kagura after Inuyasha fled. Yupyup. Review, please! Thank you!
chibilee: Haha, you are very perceptive! I did take some of the quotes from the dubbed episodes! LOL. Hmm, should I say that the quotes don't belong to me in the disclaimer? Nah, I'm too lazy. LOL. But, I don't like the dubbed episodes as much as I like the manga. The manga is much, much betted. LOL, that's like me, I repeatedly watch the episodes too! ::pats back reassuringly:: You aren't the only one!
Saria: Hey! Nope, I'm not going to add Kikyo to the story. I'm too far along the plot. There wouldn't be a place for her to fit in. Though I wanted to put her in at first so that Inuyasha's love for Kagome would have been stronger. ::sigh:: I'm a hopeless romantic! LOL. You're like one of my other reviewers! That other person didn't like to capitalize Kikyo's name either!
Kibo: Wow! ::blushes:: Thank you for all your compliments! They are greatly appreciated! Your review made me very happy! Thank you!
X: Heehee, thank you! I tried to be as creative as possible!
X: I'm glad you think so! I was afraid it wouldn't work. I had trouble getting the idea so that it made sense.
X: Thank you! It isn't as original in the chapter with the Thunder Brothers, but I tried my best! Thank you for all your reviews!
