just to clarify, although their personalities have slightly changed due to each other's personalities, their thought processes have also somewhat changed due to that being how you develop your personality. but, since each brain is its own, conforming is not always easy. you will understand... i hope...

Sango treated Kagome's wounds as InuYasha sat away from the small camp, looking away from them in shame. He didn't know what had come over him and he actually hurt Kagome. He looked at his hand and the mark that was slowly going away where Sesshomaru had used his whip against him. That made him even more angry at himself because even Sesshomaru protected Kagome and could see the issue better than he could. Even though his brother's calmness in many manners seemed to be affecting him, it looked like a lot of the pure yokai blood in him was not corresponding with his own body. It was making him act like it did before when his yokai side would take over.

He didn't like it.

And yet he did.

The look of fear in Koga's eyes was something to relish in, since Koga usually tossed him off like he was nothing more than a fly and tried to get to Kagome like he owned her. Just because a wolf is slightly higher than a dog doesn't mean you can claim my woman. InuYasha thought as he squeezed his hand shut.

"Next time I'll make sure to run you through." He mumbled.

So not everything had been bad… he still hurt Kagome though and he still hated the looks of fear on his friends… even though it gave him a tiny high of satisfaction. Sometimes they took him for granted in him being their friend and although he would never do it, they seemed to think he could never hurt them. The fact that he was a hanyou and now was a yokai made the probability of that a little less since there were lots of things that effected pure yokais in regards to manipulation that would usually never effect him because of his human side. Now though… he wasn't used to this side of himself and resisting could be much harder. He needed his friends to understand that he was more dangerous than before…

"Have you finished brooding?"

"Have you?" InuYasha shot back, looking at Sesshomaru. "You're in a constant state of that so you're one to talk."

"It is not the same. Your human wants to talk to you. Will you choke her or let her speak?"

"She can do what she wants. She knows how dangerous I can be now so…"

Sesshomaru rolled his eyes and walked back to Kagome and the others.

"Did… did he say I could go to him?"

"He said you may do as you wish. I'm sure even if he said no you would do it anyway."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Sesshomaru looked at the irritated girl and found it hard not to smile at her frustration. She was temptingly adorable. He decided a lift of the eyebrow would suffice for her inability to see her own stubbornness.

"You are not one to leave things alone until they are resolved. Even if my brother had said no, you would only have gotten angry and stomped over to him anyway to show how much you were not appreciative of his lack of trust."

Kagome made a face because he was right but she looked over at her friend as he leaned against a tree. She felt bad for doing what she did and he had every right to be mad at her. She got up and used her crutches to head over to InuYasha.

InuYasha smelled her before she even got there but just sat, waiting for her. Trying to help her would only wound her pride and, like most of their thoughtful conversations, would end with him being slapped or 'sat' and he would rather die than go through the pain he'd gone through earlier.

"May I sit down?"

He nodded. He felt her sit beside him and he looked at her. She was playing with some grass in front of her and finally looked up.

"I'm really sorry, InuYasha."

"I know you didn't know."

"But I should have. I really wasn't trying to trick you about the necklace. I had no idea that it could still work against a yokai… in all honesty I thought that it would purify you if you kept it on which is why I said take it off but…"

"I didn't mean to hurt you." He said softly.

"I know you didn't… after seeing that horrible burn, I understand why you would be so angry with me. It didn't even heal, did it?"

"No… It must be a mild form of purification only activated by the command word because that's what it felt like; like a slight purification."

"I'll try to remember not to say it. I'm so used to you being so brash and impulsive…"

InuYasha wished he had his other arm so he could pull Kagome into a hug but he didn't. He cursed his luck and decided to just turn and make her look at him. He put his other hand under her chin and turned her face to him. He was about to stay something when he saw the wrap on her neck and then looked away. He was a monster, a horrible person who only hurt is friends.

"Never mind…" he said, looking away from her.

"InuYasha?"

"I'm nothing but a monster. Look at what I did to you."

"But I understand what happened."

"That may be true but do you really think Miroku and Sango will be as lenient as you? They are already very leery of me, especially Sango."

"You're making assumptions about your friends." Kagome said with a worried look. "We won't abandon you in your time of need."

"Again, you won't, but the others most likely will… I… I trust you with what you say. I really do. I know that you didn't know about the beads, honestly. It just happened so fast and I'm not thinking the same way but the others… It's different with them. Sango threw Hiraikotsu at me like I was a true enemy and Miroku was ready to use his wind tunnel. I feel he would have probably tried to warn me first but he was ready, he had his hand on his glove. Even Shippo… even Shippo looked like he was about to pull out a bag of tricks. The only person that didn't do anything was you."

"InuYasha, you're thinking like a pure yokai." She said softly, putting her hand on his knee. "Sango only threw her weapon because you were choking me. That was the height of your rage and she was just protecting me. Miroku would never have used wind tunnel on you and Shippo… well, I doubt he would have really done anything." She moved so she could be in front of him for a second. "If you truly believe what I say then please believe that your friends would never hurt you unless it was to protect you."

"How does that help?" he said with a frown.

"Because they know you just like I do and if they let you do the things this new body is trying to make you do, they know that if someone got hurt that you would torment yourself for the rest of your life. You'd like us to think that you could care less but that's not who you really are. They want to protect your feelings just like I do."

InuYasha turned his head a little as if he were listening to something and closed his eyes.

"I think you put more faith in them than they deserve but… I believe you because it's you who said it."

Kagome smiled and leaned over to hug him. He took in her scent -Mine…- and put his only arm around her.

"We'll get you back to normal soon." She whispered.

He believed her but from the conversation at the camp, he didn't believe them.

"That was a close one." Sango said, putting up the medical supplies from Kagome's first aid kit. "If I hadn't thrown Hiraikotsu he would have strangled her to death."

"Sesshomaru, if his actions and thought process are becoming more like yours then why would he try to kill Kagome?" Miroku asked, looking at the former taiyokai.

"For the same reason I now feel that it is my duty to make sure you humans are protected: because it's in that nature. I am a taiyokai who has put a lot of time into training myself to be as apathetic as possible, for emotions only give way to trouble. I was able to harness that and use it to my advantage. I still have that ability; it's just harder due to a leak in my brother's personality that I seem to have inherited. With him, it is quite different. His yokai side is untamed and just as wild as any yokai you may come to face. Although he has the ability to build on the apathy that most likely affects him, he is choosing not to and letting the nature of the beast, so to speak, do whatever it wants. I never let myself go unless I decided to. Since he doesn't know how that body works, it is… going haywire." He said with a frown at the lack of a better word.

"So you're saying that although you guys may have inherited the way each other think, you can still choose not to, right?" Miroku asked for clarification.

"Indeed. If I were to not use my training, there are a lot of choice words and loud sentences that I could be using… but I'm not. Not to say it doesn't happen, but it is less often, just as InuYasha's brash tone is less often as he is now. But, when the miko used the beads, his pure yokai thought process recognized that soft purification as a threat and instead of using my ability to think, he used his own nature to assume. It's quite complicated but I assure you, it's his own doing."

"I don't trust it." Sango said, making a frown at the fire. "He wasn't even trying to make sense of anything. All he saw was us as enemies. That yokai side of his is blinding him to who his friends are."

"Throwing your weapon didn't help either." Sesshomaru pointed out.

"You used your whip!"

"I am always at odds with him. It's nothing different than usual."

"Well Kagome doesn't seem to be affected by it at all." Shippo said. "If Kagome trusts in him then I will too."

"Kagome is in love with him, so of course she would look past it." Sango said. "That's why I'll never be in love, it blinds you to the truth."

"That's not fair, Sango. How are we supposed to have children if you don't love." Miroku said with a pouty lip.

"Who said I was having your babies?" Sango seethed.

Miroku laughed but cleared his throat, getting to the issue at hand.

"Both of you are right about how Kagome is viewing things but, Shippo is right in that we're his friends. Even if Kagome is in love with him, she is also InuYasha's friend. She would put that first before anything. Even though it's a bit confusing, Sesshomaru is right in that InuYasha is inexperienced with his new body and is not taking up the training that Sesshomaru's mentality has left for him. He's doing what he always does and is trying to do it himself without any help. As friends, we should try and help him."

"He will not do it." Sesshomaru said, shaking the ramen cup in his hand. "My brother is stubborn and quite idiotic. Accepting help from the likes of you will probably only make things worse. If he wants to ignore my apathetic nature, he probably will. After all, it's my nature and when has he ever accepted anything gracefully from me?"

Sango and Miroku looked at each other, knowing he was right.

Shippo took the ramen cup from Sesshomaru and opened it up for him.

"Here, you have to wait for the hot water to boil and then you pour it in. Haven't you had ramen before?"

"I do not eat human food." He remarked.

"Well, to end the conversation at hand, I think we should watch him and be ready if he does anything else. I'll keep my suspicions down on the account that Kagome will probably be able to keep InuYasha calm but… I'll be ready when he does something like that again."

"You know…" Miroku said, leaning back. "If InuYasha likes Kagome like I think he does, then what does that mean for his yokai body?"

Everyone looked at Sesshomaru as he poked the dried ramen inside the cup with confusion and then looked up.

"I do not have any interest in romance or it's bodily affects but I'm sure the attributes will not be hidden."

Miroku sighed, hoping to see some funny stuff from them but the hot water started boiling and he began to dip hot water into everyone's ramen cups.

"Then you let it sit and after three minutes, you eat it!" Shippo said, taking the cup from Sesshomaru again.

"Witchcraft…" he said with a frown but waited on his food.

jsyk, we will be getting into this attribute of yokai romance later on. but the mentality thing was quite hard to explain but i guess it's like they have more of the others' mentality but they can still add to it. so confusing i hope you get it *cries* but pretty much it's inuyasha's new yokai-ness as well as the sessh's new humanity that is causing odd issues

oh and sessh was shaking the cup because in ramen cups, the dried vegetables make noises at the bottom and such