Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I don't own Inuyasha. Nor do I own Kagome, Sesshoumaru, Rin, Kagome's family, or any of the other copyrighted characters that may or may not appear in this fic. So please don't sue me, and enjoy the story!

Notes: Here it is, the first apex of the story. Where all the characters have to face up to something - even Miroku! But he gets smacked around every day so it's really nothing new for him. Anyway, I really hope this chapter came out as good as I wanted it to. No, Sango is *not* the girl in the first part of this chapter, but she will be coming in soon. Stay tuned!

For reference purposes - I know Sesshoumaru's sword can't kill, but I'm overlooking that fact in my story. His sword is just as deadly as any other sword here. Also, Kikyo makes reference to the 'hive' in this chapter. That's what Inuyasha described to Kagome in an earlier chapter (I think 'Snapping Out of It') - the slaves who have chips put in their brains and become mindless extentions of the government, used to hunt down renegade slaves. In the minds of the other slaves, this is a fate worse than death because it strips them of their very self. It's a deep violation of a person's very being, and it disgusts Inuyasha probably more than anything else, since he's dead set on retaining his own mind and thoughts no matter what happens to him. He doesn't really have any hopes of escaping being a slave or becoming free, because he's a realist and there's just not a chance of that happening in his mind - not to mention the fact there's no historical precident either. No slaves have ever escaped or been freed. Inuyasha's main driving force is his determination not to break. So yeah, now that I've gone on about that for way too long and bored you all, you can actually read the fic and see what the hell I'm on about. ~_^

Learning to Let Go

Chapter 17: Face Your Fears.

"Miroku!" Kagome and Rin cried in unison as they burst through the bedroom door. Once inside, they stopped, amazed at the situation. A young blond-haired woman in a slinky dress was holding a lamp over Miroku's prone form, ready to bring it crashing down on his head. He himself was looking a bit dazed, his eyes swirling with confusion and not a bit of pain.

Around the room, various other pieces of furniture had been smashed, leaving chunks of wood and glass littering the carpet and the bed.

Rin stepped forward. "Miroku! What did you do to this poor girl?!"

"M-Me?" he stammered out. "Why do I get blamed for everything? She's trying to kill me!"

"You probably deserve it!" Kagome chimed reproachfully, giving the girl a conciliatory glance. "Are you all right?"

The girl took several calming breaths and put down the lamp. "Don't ever call me again!" she shouted at Miroku, stepping on him as she stalked out of the room calling "Lech!" over her shoulder in tones of disgust.

Rin was still glowering, but Kagome sighed and reached down to help Miroku up to sit on the edge of the bed. "Are you mortally wounded?" she asked flatly.

"I don't think so, Kagome-sama, but thank you for your - "

"Save it!" Kagome snapped. "You have some serious issues! And get that woe-is-me look off your face! No one's going to sympathize with you!"

He sighed, his shoulders slumping. "Yes, Kagome-sama."

"Now," Rin said imperiously. "Explain to us exactly what happened."

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Inuyasha was having extreme déjà vu. It was exactly like the last time Kagome had left him - it was as though that bitch had just been waiting for her chance. No sooner had the girls disappeared upstairs when Kikyo stepped into the room with a smile of feline satisfaction.

The standoff between the two brothers now had another member.

"Sesshoumaru."

"Yes, Kikyo-sama." Sesshoumaru's voice was a flat monotone, and his menace had faded to blank nothingness at her entrance.

"Who is the slave in front of you?" Kikyo asked, smiling at Inuyasha the way a cat might smile at a mouse caught in a trap.

"My brother. Inuyasha."

"And why is he dressed in the clothes of a civilian rather than those appropriate for a vile miscreant?" She continued, sashaying closer to him, not taking her eyes off him.

Inuyasha started to panic again. He was the mouse - he was trapped. This was very, very bad.

Sesshoumaru answered her without hesitation. "Because his master does not treat him as a slave should be treated, Kikyo-sama."

"Hmmm. Very good, Sesshoumaru. I think we need to give him a lesson in proper behavior, don't you?" She didn't wait for him to answer. "Take of your clothes, slave."

Inuyasha's instincts screamed at him to obey. To let go of his consciousness has he had before, to retreat and leave the situation behind. To do otherwise would be insanity, idiocy, sheer lunacy. To do otherwise could mean death. It would go against hundreds of years of tradition, violate dozens of codes of conduct. He was trapped.

But Kagome. Kagome, who didn't want him to revert ever again. Kagome, who had treated him as an equal, told him that slavery was wrong, encouraged him not to take orders. Kagome, who had called him her friend.

"Hurry up, slave," Kikyo purred. "Or I might make your punishment last longer."

His muscles were locked, his body battling itself. He didn't have a choice. He had to do as she said. There was nothing that could change that fact, nothing that he could fall back on. He had nothing was nothing.

Except maybe himself.

Inuyasha's eyes narrowed, and the hands that had risen as though to unbutton his shirt fell back to his sides. "No," he said, clearly and precisely.

Kikyo's eyes widened almost comically. "What did you just say to me?" It was beyond her to comprehend that word coming from a slave's mouth. She couldn't even register the affront because until now it had been laughable to think that a slave - a slave - would dare to disobey anyone.

Inuyasha smirked, no longer caring what she did to him. Saying that one simple word had somehow changed everything. The trapped feeling had fled in the wake of triumph, and Inuyasha was beginning to understand that all that separated him from them, from the higher race of beings that slaves could never touch, never dream to become, the only barrier that stood in his way was that one word. And he had just said it. Adrenaline was pumping through his veins, a heady elixir that made him feel invincible, drunk on his own power.

He couldn't stop now and he didn't want to. "I said no, bitch," he taunted her, meeting her eyes directly. "So fuck off."

They locked in a battle of wills for a long moment, Kikyo's sneer of fury becoming more and more pronounced. And then, abruptly, she stepped back, her expression smoothing over.

For a wild, exhilarating instant, Inuyasha thought he'd won.

"Sesshoumaru."

"Yes, master."

"Teach him a lesson."

As if he'd been waiting for the order, Sesshoumaru drew his sword in a blur of motion, thrusting it toward Inuyasha's chest. Instinct saved him, and in a blinding flash his own sword was drawn, parrying Sesshoumaru's blow in a flare of silver.

For a long moment the two brothers struggled for dominance. Sesshoumaru's eyes were full of cold disdain. Kagome had been wrong - all Sesshoumaru felt toward him was disgust.

"You'll die here," Sesshoumaru said, too softly for Kikyo to hear, his upper lip curling. "You'll die, and when you do you'll still be a slave. You'll have proven nothing, changed nothing. Your impulsiveness, your lack of control - they will be your ruin, Inuyasha. You haven't grown up in the least. But what could I expect from my half-breed, inferior kin?"

"Don't be so sure," Inuyasha hissed, fury whiting out his vision as he focused on his sole purpose - killing Sesshoumaru. His brother had always been stronger in their youth, but Inuyasha had grown into his own strength since then. "I'm not that easy to kill anymore!"

And with that, Inuyasha exerted all his strength upward in a move that sent Sesshoumaru crashing backward into the table Rin had placed the food on, sending the tray flying. Immediately, he dove forward in an offensive swing that Sesshoumaru barely blocked. Once on the offensive he was unstoppable, a whirlwind of silver hair and silver sword, driving Sesshoumaru back inch by inch. Before tonight he didn't know who would have won the fight - Sesshoumaru was a formidable opponent and they might have been evenly matched. But Inuyasha had something to fight for now. He could taste his brother's astonishment could taste his defeat.

"Inuyasha!" Kikyo's voice cut through the battle. "If you win this fight you lose everything else. Kagome can't protect you from being reassigned to work in a mine for the rest of your life. She can't keep them from making you one of the hive."

Inuyasha froze as her words pierced him. He hovered above his brother, feeling despair stealing his elated, empowered haze. His euphoria was crashing down around him, a fantasy castle that had never existed in the first place. Suddenly he was powerless again. He could kill his brother - he could kill Kikyo. But in the end it would change nothing. He was caged, as always, with the familiar, bitter taste of his imprisonment heavy on his tongue. He had no choices left.

There's always a choice! His mind screamed at him. Slowly, deliberately, he straightened from his battle crouch, sheathing his sword in one smooth motion. He could choose to look his brother in the eye as he faced him. He could choose not to scream.

It wasn't the same kind of empowerment he'd felt a moment ago. Not the magic of rage and anger and defiance, not the glory of physical prowess and destruction. Something else - calmer, stronger, more enduring. A power that came from within. The flame that still burned when everything else was lost.

It wasn't fighting for a cause and it wasn't facing danger. It wasn't putting something above oneself. It went beyond strength, beyond intellegence, beyond reflex and intuition and instinct. It was fighting when you knew had no hope left, standing up when you had no defenses, speaking when your voice had been broken.

You can't break me, he thought, channeling his anger into superhuman strength. You can't even touch me. Golden eyes met golden, and for the barest instant Inuyasha thought he saw something alien in the icy, inhuman gaze. Something like respect.

And then he felt the tearing agony that was Sesshoumaru's blade stabbing through his chest.

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Kagome ran down the stairs, a desperate, burning feeling in her chest. Kikyo's car in the driveway. Rin's wide-eyed look of horror. Inuyasha - oh God, she'd left him again. How could she have done it? How could she have forgotten the danger?

She didn't even dare to breathe as she bolted through the living room, across the tiled kitchen floor.

Please, she thought as she turned the doorknob and the wood panel swung open before her. Please let him be all right.

She froze in the doorway, eyes wide in horror. Kikyo looked up at her and smiled. "Kagome. You're just in time to witness the punishment a slave merits when he dresses above his station."

Inuyasha stood in the center of the room, his face set with fury and determination. Blood dripped off him, pooling on the floor around him. Kagome nearly panicked - was he losing too much blood? Was she going to lose him? The thought was like a stabbing pain in her own abdomen though he was the one who had a physical wound there.

In front of him stood Sesshoumaru, holding a sword that was covered in Inuyasha's blood. It was poised to be driven back into him at Kikyo's command.

"Don't you dare!" Kagome cried, taking a desperate step forward. "He was doing what I told him to do, so if anyone should be punished it's me!"

Kikyo shook her head. "So pathetic so naïve. You're a fool, Kagome Higurashi. Your family may be powerful, but you yourself are nothing more than a little girl. You can't stand against me and you know it." The older girl looked away, back to the two brothers, dismissing Kagome as no threat. "Again, Sesshoumaru."

Kagome didn't stop to think. "No!" She flung herself forward, her only concern intercepting that swing before it hit Inuyasha. She had promised herself she wouldn't let anyone else hurt him, and she'd already broken her word to an unacceptable degree.

Sesshoumaru jerked the sword to the side as soon as he realized her intention, but it still grazed her collarbone and the resulting gash began to bleed immediately.

Kagome stood between the two brothers, her breath coming in quick, short gasps, her huge smoky blue eyes trained intently on Sesshoumaru's impassive face. "I forgive you," she said in a rush, holding his gaze. "I forgive you for hurting him. You didn't have a choice."

"For hurting *me*?" Inuyasha shouted, his voice rising in an enraged crescendo. "You bastard! I'll kill you for laying a goddamn *finger* on her!"

He lunged forward, his determination to kill his brother returning tenfold despite his injuries. Kagome spun, holding him back. "Inuyasha, stop it! You're hurt!"

The fury redirected at her. "What the hell were you thinking, you idiot?" he shouted, grabbing her by the shoulders. "You could have been killed! Do you hear me, Kagome? He could have killed you!"

Before she could recover and reply, Kagome was suddenly jerked away from Inuyasha by a painful grip on her arm. She found herself face-to-face with Kikyo, who was looking more discomposed than Kagome had ever seen her. They locked gazes for a moment before Kikyo released her bruising grip on the smaller girl's arm.

"It seems we're at an impasse, Higurashi," She said, her voice low and little more than an angry hiss. "Take your slave and go. In return for my mercy, you will speak of your injury to no one."

It penetrated Kagome's overloaded brain that she could have Sesshoumaru executed and Kikyo fined and put on probation for the injury that she'd received. Slowly she relaxed. "Never touch him again, Kikyo," she said, her voice holding only the slightest tremor. "If you do, I'll make you sorry."

Kikyo's eyes narrowed to slits. "Don't presume to threaten me, little girl. It's pure luck that he's walking out of here alive after his little show of defiance earlier." She thrust Kagome back, and she stumbled. "Now get out of my sight." Kikyo turned and swept out of the room, and Sesshoumaru fell into step behind her. Neither of them looked back.


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How'd I do?!?

And once again, the girl in the beginning was *not* Sango. Sango will be introduced later in the story. Also, I'm moving back into school tomorrow and starting a rather intense schedule of classes and work on Monday, so I'm not sure how the updating will go from here on. But be nice to me - I could have ended it right after Sesshoumaru stabbed Inuyasha!