Disclaimer : I do not own InuYasha. I wish I did *drool* : ) InuYasha and all characters belong to Rumiko Takahashi, who is a living goddess for creating such wonderful characters and letting us use them for our own twisted ideas
Authors' Notes :
1- Whoa! People are actually requesting MORE? Holy Hanyou, Inu....that I never expected! I'm so glad you guys like it : ) This is, as I once stated, my first fan fic ever, and I'm astounded at the overwhelmingly GREAT response I'm getting. You people could kill me with kindness : )
2 - Okay, InuYasha is starting to show how much he cares about Kagome (now that he finally woke his sorry hanyou butt up to the fact that he DOES care about her.) As I said before, I'm hoping you think I did this in a convincing manner in line with how InuYasha would come about these self revelations. Please, feel free to email me/ review me with what you think - IE changes, ideas, whatever. I can even deal with flames if I have to.
3- For those of you requesting more earnestly, don't worry, there is much more to come. I'm currently up to about 8 chapters on paper...which translates into about 16 chapters here. But... I'm stuck at the moment. Don't worry, there won't be a pause in my posting...I have enough stuff already written to give me some time before I have to start fending off rotten fruit. I post Sunday Nite/Monday Morning and Wednesday Nite/ Thursday Morning. So, those are the days to check. In between...review, review, review. Your reviews are my inspiration and give me the urge to sit down and write - so please, keep reviewing : )
4- I did manage to escape InuYasha, by the way. He chased me into the city and lost me (silly hanyou). Now I'm hoping he won't come back till I'm done this post . . . but I'm not betting on it. Anyone got any dog treats? *ducks a blow from behind her* Uhoh...he's back : P well, on with the story anyway . . .
Chapter 3 - Banishing the Shadows Part 1
Slowly, InuYasha and Kagome retraced the path to the Bone Eater's Well, stumbling over rocks and branches. The wounded hanyou grimaced in pain with each step, but stubbornly kept moving, supported and led by the girl at his side. His eyesight was so fuzzy that he could barely make out his surroundings, but he took comfort in the knowledge that Kagome was safe from harm.
'She killed him . . .' he thought, wonder and amazement coloring his thoughts. 'She killed another human being . . . to protect me.' His heart skipped a beat, then began to pound. 'Maybe . . .' he wondered, 'Maybe I'm not just a disgusting dog hanyou o her. But . . . could she really care about me THAT much?' His mind taunted him with her words back in the cave. ' The one . . . the one what? What did she mean by that?' He tried not to let himself hope too much, afraid he was wrong and reading too much into her words.
Finally, they stumbled into the clearing where the Bone Eater's Well rested. Moving to cross it towards the path to the village, InuYasha collapsed, his energy spent.
"InuYasha!" Kagome cried, falling to her knees beside his prone form. "Please, InuYasha, you have to get up! We have to get you to the village . . . to Kaede!" He lay still, his cheek pressed to the grass, eyes closed in pain. "Please . . ."
"I'm . . . sorry . . . Kagome." he whispered brokenly. "I . . . can't . . . lost . . . too much . . . blood." He opened his eyes slowly, struggling against the darkness that loomed over him. "This . . . human body . . . too weak . . . Kagome. Forgive me."
"Oh InuYasha . . ." she sighed. Lying prone, she gazed into his pain clouded eyes. "There is nothing to forgive . . . my beautiful hanyou." His eyes widened at the endearment, and widened still further as she lovingly caressed his blood stained cheek. Tears dripped silently to the ground as she gazed at him, her memory reliving all the time they had spent together, the good and the painful. 'So much time wasted . . . but so many memories together.' She thought back to the cave, back to the moment she'd seen InuYasha go down and had KNOWN he was going to die. Her rage had overwhelmed her, and she'd yanked her wrist free in one hard motion. She vaguely remembered picking up and unsheathing Tetsusiaga, then lunging and burying it in the thief's back with all her hatred, rage, and fear behind it. She still couldn't believe she'd take a man's life, but looking into InuYasha's eyes, she found her conscience was clear.
"I've never been able . . . to tell you . . . before," she whispered to him, "how much I care about you . . . "
Gathering what little energy he could, he silenced her with a finger to her lips. "Don't . . ." he whispered back. "Don't say . . . anything . . . you'll regret . . . later."
"The only thing I'll regret is not saying it before this, you silly hanyou," she sighed, taking his hand in hers and intertwining their fingers.
"Ka . . . gome . . ." he said softly, "I . . ." his voice drifted into silence. Kagome watched as he slipped into darkness, unconscious.
"Don't leave me, InuYasha. Please, don't leave me," she prayed. Holding his hand tightly, shivering in the night air, she lay beside him, hoping help - or dawn - would arrive soon enough.
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"We have to hurry!" panted the young kitsune as he raced down the path toward's the well clearing. Miroku and Sango followed not far behind, a slower moving Kaede trailing. "Something is wrong . . . I can just feel it!" This sense of wrongness had been growing on him all evening, until he had finally erupted when Sango and Miroku had returned early, and there was still no sign of InuYasha or Kagome. 'InuYasha is never far from the village on the night of the new moon . . ." he thought. 'Something must have happened to them.'
Bursting into the clearing, he slid to a standstill, eyes widening at the carnage before him. Human bodies lay scattered throughout the clearing, and Kagome's pack lay abandoned near the well. A flash of red caught at his attention on the far side of the clearing.
"InuYasha!" the young kit cried, sprinting towards his prone figure. "Kagome!" Behind him, he heard Sango gasp, and Miroku say a quick prayer as they spied him as well.
Kagome sat up in time to catch a panicked kitsune in her arms. "Shippo!" she cried, hugging him tightly, tears flowing down her face. Miroku paused at the sight of her dishevel, moving again only after Sango nudged him sharply in the ribs. He quickly turned his attention to the prone hanyou, kneeling at Kaede's side as she examined him.
"He be near death," Kaede murmured.
"Are we in time to save him, Lady Kaede?" he asked.
"I know no, young priest. Perhaps, if we are lucky. Once we get him bandaged up, 'tis a matter of how strong his will is to live, and how soon the dawn arrives. A normal human would be dead already. We need must get him to the village, and quickly, if we are to have any chance of his survival." She glance at Kagome, sobbing quietly into Sango's arms as the exterminator wrapped her outer kimono around the shivering young miko.
"They . . . were going to rape me . . . and sell me!" she sobbed. "He came to . . . rescue me . . . I killed someone . . . oh gods, don't let him DIE!" Kagome broke down completely, all the rage, horror, and fear at last overwhelming her. Sango gently got her to her feet, handing her into Kaede's care so she could help Miroku with InuYasha's limp form.
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Dawn was still an hour away when Kaede finished tending InuYasha. As she had worked, Miroku by her side, Kagome had told them in bits and pieces what had transpired that night. They were all surprised, horrified, amazed, and proud in turn, listening to Kagome tell of InuYasha's arrival at the cave and her final action against the man who had attempted to rape her. Kaede turned her attention to Kagome's lacerated wrists, suggesting gently to the young miko that she go take a bath and change out of her destroyed clothing.
Kagome shook her head violently. "I can't leave him," was all she said, her tone stopping any arguments the group could utter before they reached their lips. Miroku quickly volunteered to go retrieve some water for her to sponge off with, while Sango left for her hut to retrieve something for Kagome to wear. Shippo and Kaede went to retrieve her pack from Kaede's hut, where Shippo had dragged it.
While they were gone, Kagome sat silently beside an unconscious InuYasha, holding his hand and running her fingers through his hair, untangling the snarls as she went. The ebony strands slid through her fingers like silk, and she gazed at it sadly, fascinated that this same hair would be turning pearlescent white with the sun's first rays. She glanced at the bandage across his back. It was spotted with blood already, but it wasn't seeping through anymore. "Oh, InuYasha . . ." she sighed, staring down at his bare back. "Please don't leave me. We still have so much to do . . . and I can't do it without you." She caressed his cheek gently, her fingers brushing over his lips to feel the slight puffs of air from his breathing. "Gods . . ." she whispered, "I don't know what to think of you anymore. I don't think I ever really did." She glanced out the open door, looking at the starlit sky, and squeezed his hand gently. "Everything had happened so fast, and usually all at once . . . do we ever have time to ourselves? There's so many things we need to talk about . . . but we never seem to do anything but fight." She grinned wryly at that, remembering some of their more spectacular shouting matches. Her grin faded as she remembered the cause for most of those fights. "I still don't even know . . . how you feel about Kikyo . . . or me. . ."she paused, then sighed. A rustle from the door attracted her attention.
She watched her friends file in with their burdens, and felt a profound sense of relief and gratitude for them. They meant more to her then any of her giggling school friends back home, and she knew all of them cared for her in some way. They were her strength here, her reason for returning over and over again. . . although the hanyou at her knees was the strongest reason of all. 'Whatever happens . . . I want him to be happy,' she thought.
Kaede hung a blanket over the doorway and ushered Miroku and Shippo out after they set down their burdens. Sango alone remained behind, to help Kagome.
Sango watched as Kagome stripped what was left of her modern clothing off, tossing it into the flames. She winced inwardly at the bite marks and cuts that decorated Kagome's arms, shoulders, and chest. 'I'm surprised she's so calm . . . any other woman would be in hysterics for a week after what happened to her . . .' she mused. Kagome gently sponged off the dirt and blood, wincing as the water came in contact with tender flesh. She dressed quickly in the white training suit Sango had brought her, the exterminator helping her tie the unfamiliar hakama and yukata around her.
"Kagome, are you going to be okay?:" Sango asked gently. "That was a very horrifying experience you lived through . . . and I just . . ."
"I'm fine now, Sango," Kagome replied softly. "I'm more worried about InuYasha."
Sango eyed her as she tied her hair back and resumed her vigil on InuYasha, returning to sit beside him with his hand grasped in her own. 'Something has changed between the two of them . . . they seem closer. Maybe this will help them admit how they feel for each other.' She stood slowly and walked quietly out the door, deftly dodging Miroku's 'accidental' attempt to fondle her behind.
Quietly she discussed her thoughts with the others. They has all come to the same conclusions about the couple. Now, all that remained was to see if the changes held, and if InuYasha survived. The idea that he might not be around for the next fight was a sobering one to all of them. Each of them, in their own way, had come to care about the moody hanyou, and coming to terms with the idea that he might not be around for the next fight was difficult, at best. He'd saved all of them at least once. They all sat brooding over their own thoughts, waiting for the sun to rise.
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Dawn came quietly to the village that morning, as if all the world held it's breath to await the fate of one hanyou hero. Kagome, running her fingers through InuYasha's silken hair, first began to notice the change as the strands began to glisten and shimmer, slowly bleaching to the silver-white his demon heritage had bestowed on him. She watched carefully as his fingernails lengthened into the steel hard claws he'd used to defeat so many enemies, and as his dog ears slowly made their own appearance. She'd never been able to really watch his transformation this closely, and she found herself fascinated by it.
She caught herself in a yawn as Kaede came through the door. "He survived the dawn," the old miko whispered, gingerly beginning to change the blood spotted bandage on his back. Kagome nodded in reply, turning her head away from the horrendous gash across his shoulders. "It's beginning to heal nicely, but it will be a few days before he should get up. Hopefully, he will be a better patient this time then he has been in the past." She smoothed more medicinal salve carefully into the wound, rebinding it with clean linen. The other, minor wounds he had received were already beginning to disappear.
Finishing with InuYasha, she turned her attention to Kagome's wrists. "Ye should get some sleep, child."
"I can't leave him Kaede. Not like this."
"He is out of danger now, Kagome. Surely ye can allow thyself a few hours of rest?"
Kagome looked down at the unconscious hanyou, then back up at Kaede, tears glittering in her eyes. "I'm afraid of the dreams that will come, Kaede. Reliving all that . . ." her voice trailed off as she shivered.
"Then ye should sleep here with him, child."
Kagome stared at her in shock. "But . . . isn't that . . ."
"Is not that what, child? Improper? I think not that anyone will care. I know that I do not." Kaede said, standing slowly. "Be that as it may, ye must get some rest. Ye are in nearly as bad of a condition as InuYasha is. If it will help thee to sleep, then do so here, beside him. We shall come in to check on thee from time to time." With that said, she slid the blanket aside and left.
Kagome stared after her in shock then stared down at InuYasha. "She's right . . . I do need to sleep . . . and I would rather stay near him . . ." Standing, she picked up his inner and outer yukata, wincing at the blood stiffening the garments. She packed them into the water she'd used to wash, hoping it would help the blood come out easier.
Pulling her sleeping bag from the corner, she unzipped it and draped it over InuYasha's inert form gently, then slid under it and cuddled up next to him. 'Don't get to used to this,' she reminded herself. 'Last night was probably just due to what happened and his being human. He'll probably kick you out the moment he wakes up and knows you're beside him.' She couldn't help wishing that last night's revelations would stand the light of day, however. Cradling his hand gently in hers, she studied his face as her eyes slowly drifted closed. 'He looks . . . so innocent . . .' was her last conscious though, her other hand resting gently against his ribs.
To Be Continued
AN : Inu's busy with the cats under my house atm, so I'm safe. Well, what do you think? Will he wake up anytime soon? And what will be his reaction to finding Kagome sleeping next to him if he does? *rubs her hands together in glee* You know, I see a very irrate Hanyou trying to clobber a meddling author at the moment. Ah well, if he'd just do it himself.... Anyway, please review. It makes me really happy and excited . . . it's the sugar coated bon-bon to the serious writer : )