Chapter Two

Kagome had seen them, and he knew it, and he wasn't going to do anything about it, yet.

InuYasha paced like a caged tiger around the well. She would have to come back out sometime or other, or he reasoned, he could always go see her, but that wouldn't do. He actually wasn't sure yet what his decision would be. Kagome was probably already sure he'd gone back to Kikyo, it only took one incident to let someone in on that and now Kagome had witnessed it twice.

Once when he'd kissed Kikyo and just recently, when he'd held her close, told her he'd keep her safe, and basically given her his life. But on the matter of his heart, he still debated back and forth. It was extra confusing since they both looked so much alike and that they shared a reincarnated soul. Kagome was defiantly a unique person, not like anyone he'd ever met but so had Kikyo been, and he had been prepared to become human for the dead priestess.

Yet the situation was complicated. He supposed he could have fallen for Kagome had Kikyo not been raised in a body of bone and earth. He could have come around to enjoying Kagome's company and just transferred his emotions from one to the other, as though nothing had changed. As though Kagome were Kikyo.

Having both women alive and around him made it into what it was, a mess. He could no longer see Kagome as Kikyo's replacement. He couldn't just give Kikyo his heart either, now that he knew there was another so much like her in appearance yet a completely separate and intriguing person. He had enjoyed Kikyo's company when she was alive in a much different way than he enjoyed Kagome's now. The original priestess had always acted her station, never making friends with other humans because she was more powerful and wise, yet at the same time being everyone's savior as her duty to the Shikon-no-Tama demanded. The woman had been an enigma to InuYasha from the moment he'd first seen her and he supposed their relationship, born of adverse conditions, was an incredible phenomenon.

Yet the relationship between himself and Kagome was also the product of stress, danger, and the Shikon Jewel. Evaluating it objectively, he actually found himself amused at the ironic similarities of both him and Kikyo, and him and Kagome's situations. The most distinguishing difference being that Kikyo normally wanted to kill him and presently he suspected it was Kagome that would wish him bodily harm. It brought his current bind back into context.

He stopped pacing and starred at the well, almost willing her to return. There had been no way for him to guess what she was thinking, what she was suspecting and assuming. All he knew was that she had seen him and Kikyo, had looked at him with a devastating and angry look in her eyes, and then had taken off. His senses had long ago lost the distinctive sweetness of her presence, being she was alive and gave off a much more pleasing aura than Kikyo, yet he'd not been able all night to go into the well, to follow, apologize for before, and explain for Kikyo. Feeling the morning sun finally reach his back across the horizon, he understood in himself that he wanted them both.

He wanted the mature and clear-witted Kikyo to guide him in his life, in order to make mistakes and learn from them properly, so that he had a mother figure almost. He wanted Kagome too, someone presently his own age who he could relate to, who he could get into trouble around without feeling guilty or childish. He loved them both as one person, which was probably dangerous, but he could manage. He was after all the son of a demon lord, the result of a human and demon love. Why shouldn't he love both a demon and a human? It was part of his nature, right?

Having decided InuYasha approached the well and crossed into Kagome's futuristic Tokyo. The shrine was empty but for a few moths fluttering about in the morning light that seeped in between wallboards. He paid them no mind, his demon senses telling him he was alone in the building. At the door he paused, a strange sense of panic and foreboding suddenly clogging his throat. Around his neck the ward beads seemed to become heavier causing him to go down on one knee. Unsure what was happening and realizing he may soon need help, InuYasha reached out to the door and opened it, perhaps not more than five or six inches. He could see Kagome, her back to the Goshinboku tree, apparently pinned there by an arrow. In front of her was a man, perhaps a little older, slightly taller, and he was just standing there, his hand on her arm, watching her as she was watching him.

The scene reminded InuYasha of Kikyo gazing at him after she has magically sealed him in a pseudo death that lasted 50 years. The day Kagome had freed him there'd been an ache in his chest he'd never realized was there, a sort of incompleteness that had since been slowly filled. He'd thought he'd never feel it again, that it was gone, but as he watched, it began to return mixing with his rising anger.

The rising tide of emotion brought him strength and an iron resolve. He must protect that which was his. Struggling, InuYasha tried to get to his feet, to come closer to Kagome and release her from this man's spell, since it was obvious that he'd shot her to the tree. The beads became heavier and he lost his footing completely. On all fours, head bowed from the weight around his neck, the half-demon cursed under his breath. What the hell was going on?

Kagome, he thought. I have to help Kagome... He looked up in time to see her double over at the waist as though in pain. The bastard was still touching her too, almost oblivious to her pain. InuYasha gritted his teeth and called out to her.

"KAGOME!" His strong voice rattled off the walls, echoing up into the rafters of the mini-shrine. "KAGOME," he roared, but she did not move, did not hear him.

He'd just drawn the breath to yell again, this time willing to risk straining his voice in order to be heard, but he stopped suddenly as the man with Kagome moved. The bastard wrapped his arms around her, using one to cradle her head to his shoulder. The motion showed InuYasha that Kagome was not pinned to the tree, because the arrow still stuck out of the trunk just beyond where she'd stood, previously giving the illusion that it went through her. He felt a tiny part of the panic inside him lessen, but not much. He was still in a sticky situation, weighted to the floor by the prayer beads, and unable to be heard outside the shrine.

Thinking that if he could get through the door, maybe Kagome would be able to hear him, InuYasha rocked on his hands and knees, trying to get some momentum behind his weight, hoping to fling himself out the door. It didn't work. The instant he went to stand, to launch his body forward, the weight increased again and he ended up on his stomach, his nose to the rough wood floor, and a whole two inches away from the outside world. Knowing Kagome would not hear him he began cursing, saying anything that came to mind. He felt like he'd just been sat.

Wrenching his head up, InuYasha looked out the door to where Kagome was now crying softly in the man's arms. Her shoulders shook slightly with each sob and he could hear her dainty snorts and gasps as she let her emotions go. He knew too, why she was so upset. He'd done it.

Painful though it was, InuYasha watched the two, or more specifically, he watched Kagome. He didn't know what he was going to say or how he would clean up the mess he'd obviously made. He chastised himself for not stopping her before she'd left and then for not coming to find her sooner. Even coming now seemed to have been the wrong move, added to that he had to watch another man offer comfort to one of the women he held claims to.

Kagome calmed, and raised her head. InuYasha watched as the two looked at one another for a long few minutes, as though communicating silently, before Kagome spoke.

Though the distance from the well shrine to the Goshinboku tree would have made it impossible for any normal being to eavesdrop on the conversation, InuYasha, having demon blood to improve his senses, could hear just fine.

"Thank you," she said, a small hiccup escaping her throat afterwards. She apologized for the sound, touching her lips with her right hand and blushing slightly.

The man smiled, the arm he'd held around her shoulders slowly lowering to her waist. InuYasha felt hot demon anger filling his entire being, his claws digging destructively into the floor and leaving deep rents in the wood. He wanted to kill the man, that was all there was to it, he simply would have to kill him and then rip him to pieces and then burn everything to ashes and then, then mix those ashes with manure and make his brother eat it. A smug smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

The man brought his far hand up and tucked Kagome's hair behind her ear. InuYasha watched his expression change though as he looked down at Kagome. Unsure what held his attention, InuYasha squinted his eyes, though it was not necessary, to try to discern what it was that the bastard human found so disconcerting.

"You hurt yourself," his sickening, male human voice said.

InuYasha watched as he drew the hand at her mouth down between them. Though he could not see the wound he could smell it. There was a subtle sweet and metallic taint to the air, but it seemed to come from the arrow more than from Kagome. He saw her turn to face the trunk, her back to the human man, and noticed for the first time where exactly the arrow was in the tree.

Since his release from Kikyo's spell, there had developed a scar in the bark of the tree. The rough outer shell was broken here, where the powerful aura of Kikyo's arrow had pushed the bark back, almost as though the tree had sought to take InuYasha inside it. When Kagome had released him form the arrow, had awakened him after only 50 years of sleep, he'd not wanted to ever see the tree again, the towering shrine too painful a remembrance of his past. After time though, it hadn't been so bad. He'd come to see the Goshinboku tree as a symbol of his rebirth almost, his second chance to do things right and to make his dreams come true. But Kagome had stabbed the tree with an arrow. The reincarnated soul of the woman who had initially trapped him, the only difference this time being he had not been between the arrow and the tree at the time.

He had been so caught up in his thoughts that he did not notice Kagome and the man had climbed down to the ground and were standing back, looking up at the tree. The half-demon dragged himself a little across the floor so he could see out the door to where they were standing. The man reached over, flipped Kagome's pack shut, hefted it onto one shoulder, and then turned to the silent girl who stood next to him.

"Come on." He took her hand and she looked down at their joined appendages. InuYasha noticed that she didn't hold his hand also, but rather let her relaxed fingers be held. "I'll help you clean your hand and maybe we'll go get something for breakfast."

Because he made a statement instead of asking the question, InuYasha doubted Kagome would comply. It was the hardest thing he'd ever had to watch when her fingers slowly grasped the man's and she turned her back on the tree, walking silently at another's side away from the half-demon.

She chose him, his mind whispered. "No," InuYasha spoke to himself, his own sarcastic tone adding salt to the wound, "I chose him in choosing Kikyo."

Once the two figures had begun moving towards the house they'd passed out of his line of sight. Alone and still carpeting the floor, InuYasha began to worry about his predicament more than his slowly failing relationship with Kagome. It seemed that the weight around his neck lessened the more he thought about going home. He was eventually able to push himself up off the floor, sitting back on his heels. InuYasha took a moment to study the ward that hung apparently harmlessly about his neck. It didn't show any signs of the strange magic it possessed only minutes before. Maybe it had something to do with Kagome's change of heart towards him.

Flustered and not a tiny bit exhausted, he collected himself and turned back to the well. Once on the other side, at home again in his time, InuYasha crossed the short distance to the Goshinboku tree and stood looking at the scar in its bark. He did not even hear the approaching footsteps.

"Where is Lady Kagome?"

Giving the priest a side-glance, InuYasha found that Miroku was wearing a kitsune cub on his shoulder and a slightly suspicious look on his face. Shippou seemed ready to pounce on the half-demon if he did not like the answer and Miroku's staff of rings jingled innocently as the priest impatiently drummed his finger on the shaft.

"She's at home in her time," he said, looking back up the tree. "I went to see her but I don't know when she's coming back."

The kitsune cub narrowed his eyes, glaring daggers at InuYasha. "What'd you do to her, you asshole? Did you make her angry again?"

"HA! Hardly. Especially after she kept me from killing that Kouga jerk. If anyone should be angry it should be me!" He swung away from them and began stalking back towards the village. That and now she's cheating on me…

"Then what did happen?"

Miroku's question sobered him instantly. "Well, she saw Kikyo and me, and she left."

"Right, we established that last night, InuYasha. What I want to know is what happened just now, when you were in her country?"

InuYasha looked at his two friends. There were standing tears in the cub's eyes and Miroku was beginning to look angrier by the second. He sighed, letting the weight of exhaustion stoop his shoulders.

"Lets go back to Kaede's, okay." Without waiting for an answer he turned and began walking.