Disclaimer: Yep if I said it once I said it a bunch...Don't own Inu or Kag or Sess or Rin...(cries!)

Author's Note: Okay, this chapter is almost as bad as the last one...YES You're going to HATE me (review and tell me so!) But I promise it'll get better after this chapter...That's your warning: MORE BLOOD...yea...Nextly (I know not a word): to thank my reviewers, tho this time there was only one (cries) I wasn't going to update but becuase she reviewed and requested I had to (winks) tho she'll hate me after this chapter (sniggles). Kohikari THANK YOU for reviewing...it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside to see reviews! (YAYS! SQUEE!) and I understand the death glaring...the look on my sister's face when she read the last chapter...yea...anyway...I posted this for you Kohikari, but you're going to hate me...

Inuyasha's Rage

The sword came loose from the wall, and her flesh, rather reluctantly. She slid to meet the rotten floorboards almost in slow motion, much to Sesshomaru's misfortune. The stench of blood, reeking, rank, iron heavy, pervaded the room everywhere. He felt as if he might suffocate in it.

She was still alive, though he knew that she was no longer herself. The girl was a shell of whatever she'd been before. The mind had fled the agony and terror of her situation long ago. When he stood over her body now he could see that there were no thoughts within her skull...

She was suffering. She was a ball of pain and fear. The emotions that she gave off were almost as terrible as the stench of her blood, thick with iron. His stomach clenched again when he met her glazed, pain-ridden stare. Surely she would die soon enough, pass into the nether-realm. From there he could correct his mistake and flee this place before he ended up retching all over the floor...he'd never regretted killing something, anything before...he didn't want to start now.

He had to look away as she choked and tried to scream again, instinctually calling for help...calling for his miserable brother...she looked like Rin...

His thoughts turned to the sleeping child, faraway and safe elsewhere and the demon lord really did feel sick then. Just a few short hours ago he'd held the sweet, innocent child in his arms, thought about protecting her, about how powerful it made him feel, how good it was that he could help the poor little thing and in return she wouldn't fear him as any kind of monster like other humans would. When she saw him her eyes...he gulped thinking that they were very much like the dying girl's eyes...they lit up with happiness, with relief that he'd returned.

But here—here he'd proven himself a monster. A blood lusting monster. He should've seen, should've followed his nose. What'd made him strike without seeing that what he thought was Inuyasha was actually wearing a skirt?! He hadn't seen the bare legs when he'd tossed her from where she'd slept. He'd seen nothing but the hair and the haori. He'd struck at the haori...and killed the innocent sleeping girl...

"Rin..." he whispered to the bleeding, dying, writhing figure below him. She was still shrouded by his wretched brother's haori.

Outside Sesshomaru heard a sound and his spine stiffened. The hanyou was coming, calling what must've been the human girl's name.

Where had the stupid half-breed been when Sesshomaru had come? Why hadn't he been in the shack, protecting the girl?! Sesshomaru knew that he'd never let such an oversight happen with Rin, was Inuyasha that stupid? Humans were so frail...so easily caught unawares by terrible, hungry, foraging demons...he stopped himself, something close to shame reaching through him. Terrible hungry, foraging demons...terrible demons like me.

Uncaring of his half-brother's approaching voice and presence, Sesshomaru knelt at the dying girl's side. He was so shrouded and caught within his own emotions that he failed to notice, as his knees met with the rotted hut's floor, that the girl's blood was everywhere. As his weight settled on the floor his kimono soaked up the blood, as if thirsty, like a terrible, gruesome sponge.

Carefully, as if he were a father trying to wake a daughter tenderly, or a lover coming to lie at his mate's feet, Sesshomaru gingerly placed one hand underneath the girl's head, cradling it. Solemnly he stared into her dying eyes, trying to determine whether she was dead enough for him to draw the Tenseiga and bring her back. As if on cue the girl's breathing ceased, abruptly. An emotion—quite a rare event in itself—flickered clearly across not only Sesshomaru's eyes, but also his face. Though he wasn't one to show an emotion often his face displayed it well and to anyone that could've seen the sight it was clear that the demon lord was stricken by the mortal's demise. For the faintest of moments his chin quivered, his eyes grew misty and moist...

"Kagome! KaGOme!" Inuyasha dashed to the door; halted just outside the threshold as he saw that something was clearly wrong...even with his human nose he could smell the blood.

"KAGOME!"

Sesshomaru looked up, scenting the hanyou's presence. At his side he could feel the Tenseiga pulse and throb, demanding to be used. Indeed, even the sword knew that this had been a mistake, the girl, the innocent human, wasn't meant to die. But Inuyasha's return...Sesshomaru stood swiftly and backed away into the shadows, some part of him unable to handle being caught so near to the girl.

A moment later and Inuyasha stepped inside the doorway, eyes wide. When he caught sight of the figure on the floor, drenched in something that looked wet and black in the night's darkness, his stomach lurched dangerously. "No..."

Heedless, as good as blind to his half-brother's presence, Inuyasha raced to Kagome's body, his hands shaking, his heart thundering in his ears, his thoughts racing and muddled. Hurriedly, yet carefully, he knelt at her side, his clawed hands slipped beneath her skull, lifted her face to his ear. A moment passed, then two. In this space Inuyasha was certain nothing moved, not his heart, not his thoughts, not the wind...and not Kagome's breath.

Then he did move. The tears came, bitter, angry, disbelieving. A hole inside him came, swift and terrible. His hands slid slowly away from within her hair—it was still warm. Her head sank back to the floor, the beautiful pallid skin gleaming to Inuyasha's tear ridden eyes. Those tears fell as he stared at her, the realization still sinking in. They fell steadily, like a miniature rainstorm, falling from his cheeks to the rotted floorboards where they mixed with the iron-rich stink of Kagome's innocent blood.

Slowly Inuyasha looked away from her sweet face and toward her stomach where the blood came from. The culprit, the wound that'd stolen his precious Kagome's life...

A sword did this. A powerful sword, and a powerful creature...

"Kagome..." he whispered, feeling the emptiness within him reel and tear anew, thinking of how she'd been stolen from him, of how they'd spent the last few hours, of how he'd never had the courage to tell her how he felt...and now she was gone. He'd never have the chance...it wasn't worth living without her...

The floorboards shifted.

Instantly Inuyasha whirled around, his hand already resting at his hip where Tetsuseiga was stowed, lying in wait for its hanyou master to wield it. The darkness was unfamiliar and unfriendly to Inuyasha's limited human eyes, but he could still make out a form lighter than the rest. It was the form of a sibling in a white kimono...a kimono now drenched from the knees down in Kagome's blood.

Rage swept through the hanyou and he drew Tetsuseiga, uncaring of the fact that the sword would never transform for him without his demon powers. The thin, dulled blade rang in the darkness. Sesshomaru, a mere five or so feet away, felt the grief and regret of moments ago leave him as irritation overcame him instead. His brother, his weak, pathetic half-breed brother would dare to pull his useless Tetsuseiga on the mighty Sesshomaru! The runt should be running with his tail between his legs!

"You asshole! You KILLED KAGOME!" the hanyou screamed, leveling his sword at Seshsomaru's throat. The demon lord didn't so much as blink.

"Yes, I did, and I can bring her back as well." The words didn't mean anything to Inuyasha, he was too far-gone to register their significance, to see that his brother had yet to draw Tokijin and challenge him.

"You're going to die for what you've done you bastard!" with that Inuyasha lunged at Sesshomaru, flicking the untransformed Tetsuseiga desperately. Sesshomaru easily evaded his brother's wild blow with the dull, powerless sword. He moved swiftly outside of the shack and into the fading starlight. With a quick look to the east he saw that the sun was perhaps ten minutes from rising...

Inuyasha fell, stumbling clumsily, through the doorway, following his treacherous half-brother. Over his cheeks the tears were streaming. His eyes, completely human in the predawn morning light, were brownish...just like Rin's...just like the girl's...

He hefted the sword high and dashed at his brother wildly, screaming obscenities blindly. Sesshomaru ducked and swung away from the hanyou once more, unwilling to strike back at such a weak and clearly incompetent foe. Inside he was still reeling from having made such a mistake. He'd never meant to come and start a fight, he'd not come to kill anyone...and yet that was exactly what he'd done. But he hadn't even killed the right person!

Screaming frantically, desperate in his maddening grief, Inuyasha flung himself again at Sesshomaru, slicing at him with the thin, weak, blunt blade. "I'll kill you! I'll KILL you for this!" he was screeching, but with each scream and each wild thrust of the useless sword Sesshomaru could see that his brother was hopelessly lost at the death of the girl. Even in the heat of his furious attack the demon lord, though touched himself with pity and grief, could see that Inuyasha was crying, exhausted, crazy.

The hanyou's attacks were so clumsy, so blind, and so poorly aimed and timed that Sesshomaru had no problem evading them. Finally, tiring of seeing his brother in such a state, and knowing that time was running out to save the girl, the Inuyoukai snatched the Tetsuseiga away from his half-brother's claws, tossing it away. Inuyasha, showing surprising agility and instinct, whirled on his brother and slashed him with his claws.

The slash tore through one layer of the Inuyoukai lord's kimono, alarming him, but doing no physical damage. Yet, with the slash, Inuyasha had caused himself more harm than he had dealt Sesshomaru by far. On instinct, when he was attacked, Sesshomaru's deadly and poisoned claws lashed out, catching Inuyasha across the neck, severing the key vessels in his throat that carried precious blood to his brain.

Poisoned hopelessly, bleeding freely, Inuyasha tried to cry out in rage, but all that came out was a strangled, raspy name: "Kagome..." then he sank to his knees, barely managing to catch himself. Briefly he managed to maintain this position with his fists clenched and dug into the earth, his blood spilling, but then he collapsed, giving in at last.

For a moment Sesshomaru waited, shocked, though he didn't show it of course. Then, after a moment, he looked up abruptly, startled, to the east. The sun was just peeking over the horizon, its first rays touching the tops of the trees and landing annoyingly straight in Sesshomaru's eyes.

Yet on the ground, amidst the terrible rank stench of spilled blood, Inuyasha's hair was still black, his ears still clearly human. With another lurch in his stomach, Sesshomaru realized that, just like the girl before, he had inadvertently just killed his brother.

Endnote: The next chapter may take a little longer in coming (unless there're alot of REVIEWERS who scream at me to amend the situation above! Screaming does make me move my butt...just ask my dad...hehe) but I promise that things (as far as two beloved characters being DEAD!) will get better...