Endless

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Kagome brushed Inuyasha's gleaming hair from his face, and uncovered his annoyed eyes. Violet. They were violet.

Blinking furiously, the girl dubiously confirmed that the man before her was Inuyasha.

"Your hair, your eyes," Kagome said in a hushed whisper, catching a few of the hanyou's bold black locks in her fingers.

Inuyasha gazed out at the dark sky, lit only by shimmering golden stars dancing in it.

"Even your ears are gone!" Kagome exclaimed, slapping Inuyasha where his ears used to be.

"Eh, wench! What was that for?" the hanyou glared furiously at the girl before him.

She frowned. "You will tell me what happened to you, now," Kagome said, her voice menacingly quiet.

Inuyasha grumbled sarcastically, "Like hell I'm gonna do anything you say." He turned his head stubbornly.

Kagome tugged roughly on the locks of Inuyasha's hair that she had in her grasp, pulling him towards her.

"Hey! Eh, stop that! Alright, I'll tell!"

Kagome looked satisfied as she released Inuyasha's tortured hair.

"Well?" she demanded, glancing at the hanyou through the corners of her eyes.

Inuyasha sighed defeatedly, and confessed, "There's something I've been keeping from you and the others."

"Well, obviously," Kagome said coldly.

"Yeah," the hanyou continued somewhat nervously, "remember, I'm a hanyou. And that means I'm half human. So every month I turn human on the night of the new moon."

Kagome surveyed Inuyasha for a moment, as if daring him to be lying.

"How long does it take for you to change back?" she asked curiously. "To hanyou form, I mean."

"I have to stay like this until dawn," Inuyasha answered, with effort. Wincing in pain, he let out a gasp of surprise when a sudden dose of scorching heat shot through his whole body.

"What's wrong?" Kagome gasped, as Inuyasha suddenly crumpled into a heap on the ground. Panicking, she searched for a pulse on the hanyou's wrist. Biting her lip in relief when she found one, she averted her eyes to the rest of Inuyasha's body, searching for a wound.

"Don't bother," grumbled the injured hanyou, catching Kagome's hand in his own. "It must be the fucking poison. My youkai blood hasn't melted all of it yet. And now since I'm human, my demon blood has hid itself, and isn't in effect anymore."

"But then there's nothing to stop the poison from spreading in your body," Kagome realized, tears brimming at her eyes. "No... What am I going to do?" she sobbed, searching Inuyasha's dimming violet eyes for an answer. "You saved me, and everything was going to be okay, but now this... This is just an endless cycle, isn't it?" she asked the hanyou bitterly.

"Aw... Poor baby," a slippery voice slithered in feigned sympathy, jerking Kagome unpleasantly from her trance.

She flicked her gaze abruptly in the darkness, searching for the source of the voice. The voice that sounded so sickeningly familiar. It belonged to someone she was sure she did not want to remember... (You can probably guess who that is! )

"Wh-who are you?" Kagome whispered boldly. "Ow..." she muttered, rubbing her head, where something sharp had struck her.

"Ah... that's not important right now, now is it?" the oily voice replied. "Now, then, don't fret. I'll fix everything up, won't I? Yes, now you just need to take a nap, and when you wake up everything will be okay. Now, then, be a good little girl and go-"

Kagome strained her ears to hear the voice, but it became fainter and fainter, until it seemed to be just a mere memory in her mind. But that didn't matter anymore. In fact, nothing mattered. Kagome caught a last glimpse of Inuyasha, before giving in to her heavy eyelids.

"Sort out their feelings?" Sango muttered, wrinkling her brow. "Does that take this long?"

Miroku paced silently along the width of the inn lobby, deep in thought.

"Were you lying to me?" Sango suddenly demanded, averting her eyes abruptly to the monk. "When you said that Inuyasha and Kagome were sorting out feelings for each other?"

"No," Miroku answered simply. Then, after a thought, "You know I would never lie to you, Sango dear."

"Oh sure," Sango said sarcastically, but she looked troubled.

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot," the monk said abruptly, "Where's Shippo?"

Suddenly, the door leading to outside flung open, and a small acorn flew in and hit Miroku square in the face.

Kagome slowly awakened, rubbing at the back of her head. Placing a hand on the ground to support her, she slowly pulled herself into a sitting position. She opened her eyes reluctantly, and was met with complete darkness. Blinking several times, Kagome realized that she was in a dark room of some sort.

The floor was damp and felt clammy to the touch. Kagome spread a hand carefully on the ground, exposing herself to the iciness of it.

The coldness jolted her into reality. A man with a strangely familiar voice had done this to her. 'Done what?' she asked herself in confusion. 'Oh, right. He brought me and Inuyasha here,' she remembered.

Right. Inuyasha.

Kagome fumbled uselessly in the dark, determined to feel her way to the hanyou.

A sudden groan revealed where he was.

"Inuyasha!" Kagome exclaimed in a hushed whisper, crawling towards him. Bending over his form with squinting eyes, she could make out his rapidly paling face. He had gone unconscious again.

'Since most of the poison has been melted away already, he will probably last a lot longer than I would have, under the influence of the poison,' Kagome thought. But that thought offered little comfort. Kagome soon found herself sobbing her heart out, touching Inuyasha's cold hands gently.

"Awake already?" the sickening voice disturbed Kagome's thoughts.

Refusing to allow the man the satisfaction of hearing her cry, Kagome quickly wiped away her tears.

"I can smell them, you know," the voice said, a tinge of amusement showing. "Your tears. It's no use hiding from me. It never is. You should have learned that by now."

"Who are you?" Kagome demanded.

"You know who I am," the voice replied simply.

"No... I don't recall ever meeting anyone that makes me gag like you do," Kagome countered curtly.

The man gave a cold laugh. "Ah... Just like your parents, stubborn and, might I say, dim-witted to the extent that you don't know when to give in."

Kagome felt a rush of red flash before her eyes. Yes, the voice, everything... it matched.

"Naraku..." she said in a bare whisper.

The said man laughed icily, seemingly pleased that the girl had finally recognized him.

"What a strange-looking acorn," Sango muttered, brushing dust off of the little item.

Miroku clutched at his forehead, where the acorn had struck him. "It hurts me that you're more concerned about an acorn than about me, Sango. It hurts deeply."

Sango shrugged his comment off, studying the small acorn closely.

"Hey, houshi," she whispered. "I'll bet it's not normal for acorns to have strange faces drawn on them."

"Strange faces?" Miroku paused from writhing in pain. He took the acorn from Sango, making sure that in the process his hand took a good rest on hers.

Just when Sango was shooting him a warning glare, he retrieved his perverted hands. Glancing at the acorn, he frowned. "Shippo's in trouble," he said seriously.

"What?" Sango exclaimed, bending over the monk's shoulder to look at the acorn. "How do you know?"

"Shippo has a whole pocketful of these," Miroku explained, pointing at the acorn. "When he's in trouble, he blows on one, and it finds the person with the name that he calls. It's a calling for help, you might say."

"How do you know all this?" Sango asked suspiciously. "You better not be making it all up."

Miroku shook his head. "Once, at the palace, when Inuyasha was beating him up again, Shippo blew on one of these acorns, and it flew straight to Lady Ayame. She came out, and pulled Inuyasha away from Shippo by his ear."

Sango couldn't help but laugh a bit.

"So now, Shippo is calling for help from us," Sango concluded. "We have to find him!"

"Where to start looking..." Miroku wondered aloud.

AN: Well, hope you liked it! Review please! Can I have 15? Or 10 at least? [puppy dog eyes] I'll wait for 10 reviews before I update, then! Thanks!