Tailz: ::Looking worried:: Was Chappie 16 really that hard to understand? 2 reviewers said it was so confusing they couldn't manage to puzzle out what I'd meant, and that's really been bothering me. If you can't understand what I'm writing, then you can't understand my story! Basically, I'd intended it to be a little wacky, to make you wonder and use your imagination....but it was not my intent AT ALL to confuse you that much!!! Gomen big time, guys!!!

Sanji: The way Tailz pictured the last two chapters was an extension of the Trial. Last chapter was supposed to be that the Trial was mimicking the world through Kagome's memories—sort of a mirror world, if you will. The idea was that the fake Inuyasha was supposed to lure her into a false sense of security....but at the end of the last chapter she figured out that it was fake. And then it continues into this chapter. I can PROMISE you that she didn't mean to confuse you at all, only make your imaginations work. She takes your reviews very seriously.

Tailz: I hope that helps. If you have any more questions, please don't hesitate to email me, or ask a question in your next review. Thanks, everyone! Again, gomen!

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There were only a few (sensible) options open to Kagome. She could attempt combat again, as she had with the troll-thingy. She could try to make a break for it—but if the whatever-it-was could mimic Inuyasha's appearance, who was to say that it couldn't mimic his abilities as well? And if that were the case, both options would be just about as useful as what she was doing at the moment, which was standing there, frozen, trying to kick her mind back into action. The only thought her brain could manage to process was somewhere along the lines of "How could I let that thing trick me?"

She should've known something was wrong from the moment she'd come there. If she'd trusted her instincts, and her memories, she would've known right off that it was still another part of the trial. And Inuyasha....that demon had impersonated her best friend, and she hadn't been able to tell the difference! It was a terrible thing to think of—the demon could've led her into lord-knows-what trap, and she wouldn't have known at all until it was too late. She probably would've died like Kikyou, believing the poor Halfling had betrayed her—and, like Kikyou, she would've been wrong.

"Wh-who are you?" Kagome found her voice working, almost on its own. The Inuyasha-impersonator gave a chilling smirk and glared right at her while she nervously avoided his eyes. They would only unnerve her further, and it that were to happen, she might never escape. She repeated her question, trying to force her voice to toughen up a bit, but managing only to sound hoarse and shaken.

The thing laughed. "Who am I? Is that really important? You've already figured out who I'm not." So, it knew. It knew that she knew. "It took you long enough, you pathetic little wench. I was told you were much cleverer than this. I'd expected better." Kagome was mortified enough to keep from retorting, as she knew Inuyasha would have. She deserved that statement. She had been stupid. "If you can't tell an impersonator from your lover, how can you expect to defeat the Trial? Stupid, stupid wench."

"My...lover?" Where had that come from? The thing looked irritated.

"Don't play stupid. Or, maybe, you're not playing? Of course. You haven't figured it out yet." Kagome blinked and took in what he was saying. "It's no secret around here that your only current link to life is that pathetic half demon. You wouldn't have had the chance for this trial at all if not for him."

"Huh?" Kagome was at a loss for words, for the hundredth time since she'd half-died. She received another exasperated look from the thing—which was still hiding under Inuyasha's appearance, currently looking just like him, expression and all. Inuyasha often gave her that look, and it was often accompanied by an insult like 'stupid human wench' or something to that effect. Lately, though, she hadn't heard his insults nearly as often. She'd scared all of them into complete awkwardness. She knew, better than any of the others, that that night—right after she'd come back, when Inuyasha had been yelling and she'd smiled—had totally thrown the hanyou for a loop. There had been molasses-thick confusion in those honey-colored eyes.

"'Huh.' Honestly." The demon snapped her from her thoughts with another Inuyasha-like scoff. "You were dying of a blood disease. I trust your memory stretches that far, at least." Kagome nodded numbly, waving the insult aside. "Well, you SHOULD have died from that disease. Any other human would have, because in your time, there is no cure. There will be one in the near future, but it wouldn't have been invented in time to help YOU. You should have died." Her mind was spinning as she tried to comprehend all that was being said, nodding all the while. "Well, you haven't—not yet, anyway. Not fully. The Halfling Inuyasha saved you by accident. Accident! It was a mere coincidence that you lived to attempt the trial at all. You were in Limbo with Tsuki when it happened. He stumbled upon your body in the gully—"

"He came looking for me," Kagome mumbled forlornly. "I told him not to come, but he came anyway. The others, too?"

"Yes, but they didn't find you."

"Inuyasha did."

"Of course."

"Then what?"

"Then," the thing said, with the air of someone telling a boring story, "a bunch of greenhorn ogres with no sense whatsoever attacked the two of you. Inuyasha pulled some one-armed-combat crap, playing the hero as always. He saved you, but the demon's death strike was a little scratch that caught you both—shallowly, so it wasn't really anything to worry about. Inuyasha reached up to find out how deep you'd been cut. His fingers were already bloody with his blood. THAT is what saved you—temporarily, anyway."

"The...blood." It still didn't make complete sense. How could something that simple save someone dying of a rare blood disease?

"Yes, the blood. You know of the natural healing powers of demon blood—it helps flesh wounds heal faster. While it certainly couldn't heal you completely—it was only a little bit—it could sustain your life long enough for this Trial to take place. Any other time, you would've died of blood poisoning, but since you already had a disease, the demon blood balanced out and pushed your illness back just a bit."

Light sparkled in Kagome's eyes. Now, she understood. Now, she could see all that Tsuki had said had been true. The portal into the real world hadn't been fake. Inuyasha had been carrying her—SHE was the little red bundle, wrapped protectively in his haori. Her friends had come looking for her. She'd told them not to; begged them not to, but they'd come anyway. And they'd given her a chance. By disobeying her wishes, they'd saved her life.

All she had to do was finish the Trial.

And she was ready to do that.

"So....why haven't you attacked me yet?" The thought had finally occurred to her that the Inuyasha-impersonator had not tried to lay a single hand on her since she'd arrived.

"Not my job," the thing answered lazily, now looking thoroughly indifferent. "I was just to try to fool you into following me. In the given time, if you hadn't figured me out, Tsuki would've come for you to tell you that you'd failed and were staying in the afterlife. But you didn't. You figured me out, AND asked questions. So I got stuck wasting my time answering them." He yawned, and, with a very Inuyasha-like scowl, muttered, "How DOES the Halfling put up with you?"

"I dunno," Kagome answered with a smile. "So, what's the next stage of the Trial?"

"I was not informed of such. You will have to take that up with Tsuki and Maseru." The thing yawned again, then idly lifted up his hand and waved his claws around. The familiar darkness spread from his fingers and consumed everything, twisting around Kagome and swallowing her up as it had so many times before.

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Hey, this one isn't THAT much of a cliffy, right? RIGHT?! Sheesh, you people are hard to please! :D Nah, not really. You give me a reason to write, and you give me self-confidence. It's nice to know that someone reads your ficcy! Haha! To Moogle, who reviewed after all—thanks for your input! I'd almost swear you don't like angsty romance for all the complaining about this chapter!!! LOL! Don't worry. At the risk of spoiling something, fluffiness is headed this way full speed ahead. I am a lover of happy endings, myself.

Sanji: She likes the tear-jerking kiss-scene endings.

Tailz: SHUT UP!!! ::Whaps Sanji with Miroku's Shoe::

Miroku: What is it with you and my shoe, Chelsea-sama?

Tailz: ::Whistles innocently::