Tell Me About Her… Part II

A/N: My sincerest apologies. I know took waay too long and there are no excuses. But this new school is a very good school and so that means that it's a very HARD one. (sobbing) Forgotten Angel, I'm so sorry, and I'm flattered that you would even think about coming back to check on this story, let alone give me another review (that made me happy) when I've taken so long to update. Sincerest apologies readers. And yes, I really, really mean it.

Disclaimer: While I was gone I was granted ownership to Inuyasha…. (Lawyers stare). What? (lawyers pull out threatening law suits) oh fine… he's still not mine.

Previously in MMHA:

"Inuyasha." She said suddenly, feeling her feeble strength start to return. "Tell me about Kagome."

OoOoOoO

Everybody froze.

Inuyasha stared so hard and long at Kagome that for a moment she thought that he was physically trying to bore a hole into her skull. Finally he blinked, but his expression was still stunned. "What?"

Kagome felt her heart jerk. The sound of her voice made her feel as if she had done something wrong. "I-" her throat cut her off, not allowing her to form any words. But that didn't really matter; she didn't know what she would have said anyway. Inuyasha continued to stare heard at her, and then he started trying to stand up.

"Inuyasha-" Miroku started forwards, either to try to stop, or help him, but he had hardly moved an inch when Inuyasha sent him a death glare that clearly said, 'touch me and die.' Miroku blinked. Kagome was afraid.

Slowly, she sat up, finally able to choke out his name when the hanyou was half way to the door. He stopped. When he heard her voice, his eyes turned as hard and cold as amber ice. "No." He said darkly, his tone final. "This is stupid."

His blunt words left a long, hurting silence in their wake. It filled the room like a gushing river, threatening to drown them all… torrents of silence as cutting as the flow from a broken dam. When Inuyasha finally spoke again, his voice had been softened with a trace of pain. "I can't do this." He said very quietly.

And then he walked out the door, the white light hitting his body as Kagome watched him leave, his silver hair illuminated in the sun, his back to her. He looked strangely alone as the straw-thatched flap started to fall closed behind him. She could feel the tears pricking and burning into the back of her eyes as she watched him leave. A slant of white light streamed under the shadow of his arm and fell across her face, sharpening her tear-swollen eyes and making the collecting tears shine.

She wondered, for a moment, if he would turn around and look at her as he left. Or say her name so she could feel the way it made her feel… but he didn't. He didn't even so much as utter her name. He was completely silent… and surrounded by white light... a lonesome solitude… just like her. The flap fell shut behind him. And just like that, Miroku and Kagome were suddenly alone.

Slowly the girl turned to face the standing man, and asked with only her tear-filled eyes, what she had done wrong.

Miroku sighed heavily before shaking his head and sitting back down. "What," he asked softly, "do you want to know?"

OoOoOoOoO

Inuyasha hobbled through the village roads with his face turned down, curtains of long silver hair and shadows hanging over his eyes. He was only looking at the road. But he wasn't really seeing it. He wasn't seeing anything. Blindly, unconsciously, his muscles were guiding him to the place where he always went when things like this happened… bad things.

His haori had been left behind in Kaede's hut, and beneath his bandages his wound burned. But he didn't really feel it.

He knew that he shouldn't have left Kagome alone like that, and with Miroku of all people. He knew he shouldn't have said those things to her, or let her cry like that. He knew he shouldn't have been so brazen and harsh… shouldn't have been so rough, shouldn't have become so cold… but to do what she was asking of him? To talk to Kagome about Kagome? His Kagome? The girl who had told him once that she loved him? Inuyasha's body tensed as he gripped at the Tetsuigia, his makeshift crutch, with a skull-shattering grip.

He couldn't do that. It was too real. The fact that it wasn't the same… that even though she was still alive he had still lost something in her – the part that loved him. That it was his fault. That he was still all alone even though she was right there in front of him… That she wouldn't even come near him anymore wouldn't come near the real him who she used to know so well. He couldn't talk about something like that. It hurt…

He had lived through losing everything that meant to him a year ago… but he couldn't relive it again. He couldn't tell her, couldn't talk about how he had let her go. How she had died. Her, with her beautiful smile… her beautiful eyes… the way she held his hand when they had been alone together… the way she moved … everything that had ever mattered to him… gone.

When the sheath started to give beneath his grip, Inuyasha came back to himself… but the pain was still drifting near his heart, ready for the new wave… for the next attack. He couldn't. It had hurt too much to lose her. It had driven him to the brink of insanity… to spend every day without her… knowing that she wasn't coming back. That she had been his everything, and she was gone. He couldn't even try to accept the fact that she had died once… not yet. Maybe not ever.

OoOoOoO

"I just don't know… what I did wrong." Kagome said quietly, her hands in her lap. She felt awful. But she didn't know why. And that upset her even more. "I-" her voice hitched. "I didn't mean anything by it…" the guilt was getting heavier, it was almost unbearable. "I didn't even mean to say it." She blurted, the first tear streaking down her cheek, barely skimming her skin before it fell to the floor. It was a light tear. "It just-" she hiccupped, "came out."

The silence was unbearable, and for a moment she thought that Miroku was angry her. And then finally he said, "I understand."

She could have hugged him. She could have kissed him. But she did neither. She was so grateful. Even though she knew that he didn't really understand. He couldn't have understood, or else he'd be crying with her. "I'm so… lost sometimes." She said. "When I'm with him its like I screw everything up… everything insides all… jumbled. God, what's wrong with me?" Kagome asked, not looking up for an answer. "Why am I crying like – hiccup – t-this? I-I'm not… I d-don't… I don't care what he thinks about me… I can't… I don't… I don't feel anything. I don't!" She practically cried, as if Miroku had accused her of lying… she was lying. And she knew that Miroku knew. She could tell from the way he was watching her… she could feel it. And that only made her cry even harder.

Everything about her gave Kagome away. It wasn't that hard to tell. Her expression, her tears, the way she sat, the way she stared, her reaction to his words, the way her russet eyes were water-filled and red… and torn. They were so impossibly torn. Miroku frowned. Maybe Kagome wouldn't ever be able to be pieced back together again… even by Inuyasha. Maybe she wouldn't ever be the same. Maybe the girl they had known would never come back again. It was starting to look like it… unless she could somehow regain her memories. But even then… all Miroku could hope for, was that he could help her now.

"Inuyasha didn't mean to hurt you." He said, his voice sudden and firm but still strangely soft. "That would be the last thing he ever wanted to do."

Kagome continued to cry. "C-could have f-fooled me…" She said softly, her shoulders still shaking a bit as glittery tears slapped at the wooden floor. "The j-jerk."

Miroku smiled. Maybe he had been wrong. Maybe she was the same.

"I think I know where he is." Miroku said, standing up. "Allow me to retrieve him… I think we all need to talk."

Kagome didn't respond. She just sat still with tears streaming down her face, though now her form had ceased to shake. "I don't ever want to see him again." She said softly. "I hate him."

"That, Lady Sayuri," Miroku said, turning as he looked at her through the door, "is what is commonly known as 'a lie'."

Kagome's face remained neutral as she stared at him. "It's not a lie." She said.

The man only smiled. "I will see you very soon."

"I might run away."

"Inuyasha will find you."

"He won't leave me alone."

Miroku stared hard at her, feeling as if there was a double meaning behind her words. Another meaning of something along the lines of, "he confuses me. I want to hate him but he's always getting in the way… I can't always believe myself when I'm around him… he has this power over me… I'm always thinking about him… no matter how hard I try not to… he won't leave me alone."

And for a moment, Miroku seriously considered telling her, "He loves you." And he almost did. But then… that wasn't really any of his business. Not yet anyway. So instead he turned to leave.

"You called me Sayuri." She said softly as he opened the flap to the outside world beyond the door.

He stopped and looked over his shoulder, the light hitting his figure and making him look strangely powerful and holy. "I did."

"Why?"

"To try and make you comfortable, Lady Sayuri…that's all we want for now."

Miroku gave her one last smile and then walked out, the flap shutting behind him.

"Thank you." She whispered, listening to the silence that replied. And once she was sure that he was gone, Kagome started to cry again. Because now the name Sayuri didn't sound quite so right anymore… it didn't settle inside her like a real name did… like a real name should… the name that Naraku had given her no longer seemed like it belonged… did it?

Oh God, what was wrong with her? She didn't even know her own name. Kagome… that didn't completely fit either, just like Sayuri. She couldn't understand either of them. She was so confused… she was starting to think of the two girls as two separate people. Real people… people who were tearing her apart. Just like Naraku and Inuyasha. And even if she were to finally make up her mind… decide which of the two she wanted to be… who she wanted to go with, how could she have ever lived up to either of them?

OoOoOoOoO

"You're a coward."

"… Excuse me?" Inuyasha glowered down through the leaves of his favorite tree, staring hard at Miroku, who refused to cast his glance away. The latter was used to that ice cold, amber stare by now. He had seen it a lot more since Kagome had gone. And Inuyasha had become bitter.

"I said, 'you're a coward.'." The monk repeated evenly, though there a slight tone of anger hidden inside his voice. It was that calm yet angry tone again, that one that Inuyasha couldn't stand, because no matter how many times he tried it, he could never pull it off. "Why couldn't you tell her." Miroku asked, though it wasn't a question. It was more of a demand.

Inuyasha looked up at the branches wreathed above his head. They annoyed him. "Feh."

"You won't ignore me." Miroku said calmly, his staff in his hand, gleaming in the sun. When the wind blew by, the dappled light danced over his face, his dark purple robes fluttering at his ankles. "And you won't ignore her either."

In his tree, Inuyasha stiffened. "Fuck off." His voice was angry.

Miroku's face hardened. "Gladly, but only after you answer my question."

Inuyasha scowled.

"You don't have a choice."

There was a long, screaming silence, in which Inuyasha glared at Miroku, and Miroku glared back at him. Both young men were unyielding, unwavering, testing each other's will, until finally the guilt inside Inuyasha got to him: he was the first to look away.

"What is it?" He asked moodily, his arms folded across his chest as he slouched against the trunk. "The faster you say it the faster you go away." He needed to justify the reason that he was listening. He didn't want to admit that he felt bad….

"You already know."

The hanyou did not reply.

"Inuyasha."

"What?" The silver-haired boy snapped, now blatantly refusing to make eye contact with the man he had just been having a staring contest with a few moments ago.

"Why couldn't you tell her?"

The question rang through the air, steadily cutting at Inuyasha's defense, until finally he couldn't keep himself from lashing out anymore. "It's none of your damn business."

"Yes… It is. I was the one who had to take your place."

"I said 'go away.'."

"No, you said 'it was none of my damn business.'."

The hanyou scowled. "Just. Leave." He gritted out through his fangs, one of the ivory tips threatening to pierce his lip.

"No. I'm here on her behalf."

That, was the wrong thing to say. He could tell by the look on Inuyasha's face.

"Why can't you-"

"Because I can't, alright!" Inuyasha cut him off angrily, now sitting straight up and staring at Miroku. "I just can't! Deal with it! I can't move on!"

"That much," Miroku replied after a moment, "has become clear."

"What?"

"Your thirst for vengeance, your drive to change the things that you can't, the way you cling to memories, to feelings, your stubbornness, your obstinacy… Inuyasha I know what kind of person you are."

Throughout the mini-speech, Inuyasha had remained silent.

"And I know that you can't go on like this. You're hurting yourself."

Inuyasha turned his face away. "What the hell do you care?" he asked, trying to make it seem like a throwaway question. He failed miserably.

"You're my friend."

Inuyasha's expression remained blank and hard, his eyes traced focused hard on the skyline. He would not look down. For a moment he considered saying 'I don't need any friends.' But then Miroku would have leave… it was the kind of thing that had always made Kagome cry. And then he would have felt even worse.

"I've known you for years now, and I'd like to say that I'm your friend as well… It's as your friend that I tell you that you have to stop. You have to move on."

From the tree there was only silence.

"You have to move on." Miroku said again, his voice firm, his mouth only a thin line. "Kagome never died."

In the tree, Inuyasha inhaled so hard that he practically choked, his form lurching up from the branch as he dug his fingers into the bark. All those painful memories, those festering emotions, everything that he had been battling down for the past year was surging back to the surface… why was Miroku doing this to him? Why did they have to talk?

"Stop torturing yourself." The man below him said. "You have to stop."

'Shut up.' Inuyasha thought to himself, though his form remained perfectly still.

"You've been tearing yourself apart for an entire year."

'Shut up.'

"And now you're hurting her too."

Within an instant Inuyasha had dropped to the ground. His golden eyes flashing, his glare crushing hard as he got into Miroku's face. The two were only inches away. "Shut - up." Inuyasha said slowly, his tone cold as his golden eyes.

"I won't. As usual you need this."

"Not – from – you."

"No one else is going to tell you."

"That's not my problem." The hanyou said before turning away, his back now facing the man behind him.

"So you don't care then," Miroku called after Inuyasha's retreating form. "That you're hurting Kagome in the worst possible way."

Inuyasha froze.

"Why can't you even tell her that you love her?"

"I did." Inuyasha said, his voice quiet but hard with anger. "It didn't make any difference."

There was a silence. But Miroku was the one to break it. "You claim to be so strong." Miroku said, disdainfully, watching as Inuyasha's fists balled at his sides, seeing the little drops of crimson dripping from his palms. "And yet look at how pathetically weak you are. You're so preoccupied with your own emotions that you can't even extend a little bit of kindness or pity towards her."

The crimson drops grew faster and thicker as they pattered onto the grass.

"You can't even bring yourself to tell her about her past."

He could tell how close Inuyasha was to the edge.

"I'm starting to believe that you don't even care about her at all." Miroku was lying. "You don't really lov-"

The hand that closed around his throat was so tight and fast that he hadn't even seen it coming. He coughed hard as his body was hurled into a tree, his head cracking dizzyingly against the trunk, the air was punched out of his lungs. His gasp was strangled beneath Inuyasha's fingers, slick with the blood from his claws. Inuyasha held Miroku's feet off the ground by an inch.

"Don't you dare." Inuyasha said softly, a growl resonating from inside his chest, his eyes narrowed in hatred and disgust. "Don't you dare say that I don't care about her!" He hissed. "What would you do if you lost Sango?" Inuyasha asked, his grip tightening on his friend's neck as he pushed in harder into the tree. "What would you do if the person you cared about the most in the entire world was ripped away from you in the span of a second?"

His voice was a threat. His eyes were a threat. All his anger and frustration and rage… Miroku could feel it, squeezing at his throat, getting tighter and tighter, cutting off his air. The grain of the bark dug into his back like knives, threatening to pierce his skin.

"Kagome wasn't the only one," Inuyasha said, his voice thick with anger, and his eyes dark and stormy, "who died that day. Do you have any idea what the hell dying feels like?" With every word he pressed Miroku harder into the tree. "Do you even have an inkling," he asked, his voice dark and low, "to how the hell that feels?"

"Inuyasha." Miroku finally, managed as his vision began to thicken and fuzz, his strangled voice quiet but still shockingly even. "You're choking me."

Inuyasha seemed to realize what he was doing, and immediately he let the Miroku drop, as if he had been holding onto coals. Miroku staggered, placing his hand on the tree to balance himself and recover, and all the while Inuyasha stared, waiting.

"I think…" Miroku managed, his vision still spinning from lack of oxygen, his throat aching whenever he took a breath, "that you need to go and talk to her."

Inuyasha didn't respond, his amber eyes were troubled and lost.

"I think… we all need to talk."

"… Fine."

The two stayed still and silent for a moment, feeling awkward and feeling unsure. Finally they turned around to head back to the village. But the sound of rustling leaves made them stop. Almost immediately Inuyasha caught the faint traces of a familiar scent. He turned around and stared at a certain bush, Miroku saw nothing special about it. Within a few seconds Kagome had crawled out, her body dripping wet and dirt-streaked.

The two men watched, their expressions blank as the girl stood, her face beautiful and pale, but exhausted. She straightened her dress and ran her fingers through her dripping raven hair before her quietly torn, and saddened eyes met Inuyasha's. It was like taking a shot to the chest.

"What's going on?" She finally asked, her voice so small and quiet that Inuyasha could barely hear. "Please…" she said again, a tear drop falling from her left eye. "Just tell me."

A/N: Crap crap crap crap crap! Do you see what happens when you start school? Everything turns to crap! Next time: "tell me about her pt. III" – what you've been waiting for… maybe. ;)