Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha, Bleach, or any of the anime/manga characters.
Warnings: Language
History (Part II)
Kagome stared at her uncle, mouth agape.
After a small eternity, and a few false starts, she cleared her throat enough to talk around the lump that had formed.
"Shinigami… Do you want to run that by me again?" she finally managed, eyes wide.
With a sigh, Ryuken moved to the other empty chair in the room, at the foot of her mother's bed. Giving an impatient glare, the others left, except for Uryuu and Ichigo.
"This matter doesn't concern you, boy," Ryuken said shortly, glaring at Ichigo.
"He can stay," Kagome responded, surprising the three of them. "Uncle Ryuken, what are you talking about?"
"How much do you know about my brother?" he responded, adjusting his glasses.
"My dad? Not much. Just that you and he had a falling out a long time ago, and you don't like my mother. He died when I was five."
"Your mother doesn't even factor in beyond being involved with my brother," Ryuken sighed. "Let's start by saying that as a Quincy, I detest the Shinigami, and what they did to the Quincies. Of course, I don't feel too strongly about Quincies, either, as there's no money in it," he added with a shrug.
"What did the Shinigami do?"
"A long time ago, Quincy were the first line of defense against Hollows while Shinigami mobilized," Uryuu stated. "But there was a Shinigami named Mayuri Kurotsuchi, who held back the Shinigami when there were entirely too many Hollows for the Quincy to handle. They died so he could do research on them."
"That's horrible!" Kagome gasped.
"Yes. But, this really isn't important. What is important is that before he met my mother, my father had fallen in love with a Shinigami," Ryuken sighed.
"What? Grandfather did?"
"Yes. Be quiet, idiot," her uncle sighed. "He fell in love with a Shinigami. And he fathered something truly abominable. The first Shinigami-Quincy hybrid in history. My older half-brother, and your father."
"You're telling me… my father wasn't human."
"Not totally, correct. Quincy are humans, technically."
"Okay…"
"My brother was incredibly skilled, but we never got along. Especially when we both decided to quit fighting, and he ran off to marry a shrine maiden. We never worked anything out, and I despised him greatly. But you may be better than he ever was."
"So… this new power I supposedly have will mean more fighting?" she asked dejectedly.
"Yes. Because of his blood, you're going to suffer. You're half miko, a quarter Quincy, and a quarter Shinigami. If I grasped the situation correctly, then you were killed. Being brought back like you were, it released a huge amount of spiritual energy. If you're like Kurosaki, the energy will wake up your Shinigami blood. Theoretically, if you're half as fast-developing in that as with your Quincy blood, you could be something to tip the scales between humanity and monsters."
"And because I have power, I have to fight. Right?"
"Not necessarily, but it's most likely," he sighed. "For what it's worth, I don't envy you. Your family can stay here as long as they need."
Kagome sat silent, staring intently at the floor.
"Tell me something… Would they be in the hospital, if I could've used this power half an hour ago?"
"I couldn't say. I wasn't there to witness what happened. Hell, I barely even picked up on it. But my guess is that it doesn't matter, because that happened to them before you got there, right?"
"Yeah. But in the end, it's still because of me being too weak to purify that bastard before," she sighed.
Slowly, her head came up, and she met her uncle's surprised gaze.
"Alright then. Let me ask you something else. If I master these powers, assuming that they come to me, could I destroy Naraku?"
He stared back at her, gauging her oddly calm expression.
"It's very hard to totally destroy a soul," he started. "I don't know if you could do it. But if you have that power, you'll be very hard to beat. And probably on the radar of everything in existence, from Shinigami to Aizen to these demons that seem to have come here somehow."
Her eyes fell back to the floor, her body giving off small tremors.
"I see… Thank you. For telling me. Forewarned is forearmed, or whatever," she said, her voice going through several emotions.
The shaking was more noticeable now, and Ryuken stood up, eying his niece with pity.
"Don't mention it. Really. Don't," he sighed, eyes narrowed.
Ichigo and Uryuu stared at the miko, watching as she began to shake more violently by the second.
Kagome was only vaguely aware of the fact that her face was becoming wet, staring unseeingly at the floor.
But then, a pair of small, warm arms wrapped around her neck, and she felt something give.
She pulled Shippo against her, feeling the tears starting to flow and desperately wanting to get her son out before he saw her breakdown.
Ryuken headed for the door, Kagome's body beginning to visibly vibrate as she held back her tears.
As her uncle left, he grabbed Uryuu, dragging him outside and reaching for Ichigo.
"Ichigo, could you stay for a second?" Kagome asked, her voice sounding amazingly collected.
"Sure," he said, ducking under Ryuken's grab.
"Shippo, can you go play with Uncle Uryuu for a while?" she added, gently petting her kit while fighting the growing pressure in her eyes.
With a worried look at Kagome, the kit hopped down from the chair, quickly heading for the door behind Ryuken.
Ichigo quickly closed the door, and he moved to stand at the trembling miko's side.
"So… it looks like I'm going to need a Shinigami to help teach me so I don't end up causing problems for everyone," she said, voice light.
"It looks that way… Well, Rukia's the one that woke up my powers in the first place, and Urahara's the one that helped me learn to control it," he stated, surprised when her watery eyes seemed to become disappointed on top of everything else.
"Oh… I was hoping you would teach me," she sighed.
"I can, if you want," he said, eyes wide.
"Thank you…"
"I don't think it needs saying, but we're all feeling pretty shitty right now," Ichigo offered. "I would've helped in a heartbeat if I'd thought you couldn't win. For what it's worth, I'm kicking myself right now. Uryuu and Urahara are probably the same."
Kagome gave a nod, that tiny worry in the back of her subconscious vanishing once she heard it. Of course, a new one took its place when she realized she had absolutely no reason to doubt her friends beyond what Naraku had said.
"I know. I'm flattered you think I'm that strong," she sighed. "Naraku's a master of backstabbing, though."
"Yeah, literally, as it turns out. Next time, we'll stop gawking at all the things you can pull off and help you, I promise," Ichigo sighed, voice harsh. "So… do you want to talk about all this?" he finally asked.
"Not really," she groaned, still staring at the floor.
The room went silent, neither one saying anything as Kagome fought the emotions rising in her.
But in a matter of less than a minute, the silence was broken, and tears began to fall in earnest. Ichigo moved quickly, pulling her to him as she began to sob.
"Damnit! I never asked for any of this! Why the hell do horrible things happen around me? Whose sadistic sense of humor keeps doing this to me!"
"Hell if I know," Ichigo sighed.
"I want to know who decided to keep throwing more and more responsibility on me. First the stupid jewel, then beating a force of pure evil, then being put on a the radar of all kinds of people, and now being some kind of living power conduit. I'm just a regular girl! I hate seeing people get hurt. So why the hell do I keep having to fight!"
"You're a helluva lot stronger than you give yourself credit for," Ichigo stated, holding her shaking form tight. "And strong people usually end up having to fight with that power they have."
"I'm not strong," she practically growled.
"Yeah? For someone who's not strong, you're sure as hell impressing me," he retorted. "This morning started out by you finding out your house was in an explosion, and that the guy you were going through training with Uryuu to beat came here. You came back from that well with a helluva burn on your hand, too."
"You noticed?" she asked, surprised.
"Yeah. You fight a guy who's worse than any Hollow I've ever seen, with two other people backing him up, and barely even flinch until you got hit in the back. You came back from the dead. And on top of all that, you just learned you're pretty much living power. And you're taking that news better than I think I would."
"I'm having a mental breakdown!"
"Nah. You're scared. Hell, anybody would be. But you aren't running away. And you should think about that."
Kagome's eyes widened as she did think about it. Running away hadn't even crossed her mind. So maybe she was better off than she assumed.
Slowly, her tears started to ebb, and she pulled away from Ichigo.
"Oh, I'm sorry!" she gasped, seeing the large wet spot she'd made on his shirt.
"Don't worry about it," he said, grinning. "Feel better?"
She nodded, blushing as her mind registered how close the two were.
"A little… maybe… I'm still not happy about this at all… But I think all the crap that's happened today just kept wearing on me, and I just kind of blew up there… Thanks for calming me down. I don't ever want Shippo to see me like that."
"Nah. Just focus all the crap you're feeling right now, and use it the next time you see those three."
"Oh, I'll definitely beat them the next time… But I'm kind of terrified that I really am going to become some kind of a monster."
"I thought you've seen real monsters before," he quipped. "I'm pretty sure they aren't as pretty."
Her face turned bright red, and she looked up from his chest to find him grinning.
"Umm… thanks," she finally managed.
Their eyes locked, and Kagome's mind went blank as they closed in on each other.
"Sorry for all this crap," she croaked. "I must seem like I'd be a pretty high-maintenance girlfriend."
"Hmm… Nah, you seem self-sufficient. You're just a magnet for trouble," he said, grinning.
Before she could give another 'witty' retort, he moved. And the last of her strength for the day, as well as her shock-induced fears, vanished as liquid heat took their place…
A/N:
And so, Kagome gets more piled onto her. I don't know how well I wrote this scene, at all, and feedback would be very greatly appreciated. Hope you're enjoying the story. See you next time!