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Disclaimer: All standard ones do apply . . . I don't own Inuyasha
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I have to say; FanFiction dot Net's "no email notifications" thing sort of pissed me off. It makes you realize just how many people, that wouldn't without, use the Author Alerts to tell when an update has come along. I use it, but no. It was broken. I had to go hunting for all my watched fics on my own. Wonderful . . . not! Well, to the few (but kind) reviews I received:
Zora - Thank you for the compliment. I like action too! Now it's finally showing it's face! Dramatic action . . .
Prietess kurumi inu's sister - Preach it! :) Thank you for reviewing!
CherryBlossomLove - Anytime, dear, it's actually quite interesting. :P
Thanks for reviewing! They are my fuel for typing; why not send in another?
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BLOODY LIES
Part X
With These Secrets
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. . . You Nag And You Beg To Know . . .
. . . You Say It Will Help Me . . .
. . . How Can It Though . . .
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"Ja Ne, Kagome!"
"Ja, 'Gome!"
"Ja!"
"Seeya tomorrow?"
The words flowed to her ears, Kagome smiled happily at her friends.
"Of course! Why wouldn't I be here?" She asked them, a little bit of wonder creeping up into her voice.
"Oh, well, you never know," Yuka said, "You might get sick again! That'd be horrible luck for you, wouldn't it Kagome? This is the first time in what . . ."
"Two weeks!" Eri supplied the answer.
"Right, two whole weeks! With . . . what was it?" Yuka paused to think, Eri answered for her again,
"I think it was the . . . Stupido Influenozia!"
Kagome stared briefly at Eri, where in the world did her grandfather come up with these ridiculous names for illnesses? He probably had more fun making them up rather than looking up some real sickness that kept a person in bed for two weeks. Lazy old man.
"Yes! That's right! This is the first time in two whole weeks since you got Stupido Influenozia that you've been back to school! You seem to be very sickness prone."
"Hai, don't you think you should be in bed? Resting?" Ayumi asked, softly.
Kagome laughed a fake laugh (though it fooled her friends) "No way! I've been resting forever! Mama made sure I was good and better before I came back to school, Ayumi-chan!" She said 'cheerily.'
Ayumi smiled back at Kagome, "That's good."
"Of course it is! Now we can actually hang out again, like old times before your immune system died on you!" Yuka said, hugging Kagome's shoulders lightly.
"That's great." Kagome said.
"Wonderful! I've got to go a meeting with my father this afternoon, but tomorrow I'm free! You guys wanna go and watch a movie or something?" Yuka asked.
"Yeah, it's perfect for you, Kagome! You need the break!" Eri agreed whole-heartedly with the idea.
"And we can invite Hojo," Ayumi added.
"Now really, girls, that isn't necessary! Besides, I've got a ton of homework to catch up on. I got excused for the class work, but I still have two whole weeks worth of homework to finish. Maybe some other time, when I'm caught up. Okay, guys?" Kagome asked her friends.
"That's okay, see you later!"
"Hai, see you tomorrow!"
"Ja ne, Kagome!"
Kagome pulled away from her friends and headed on home. She would see her friends tomorrow. Why wouldn't she indeed? It wasn't like . . . he needed her there with him, did he? No, ma'am! Inuyasha was perfectly fine without Kagome there beside him. He had Kikyo to be there with him. Why could he possibly still need Kagome?
Even as she reassured herself with these thoughts, Kagome had a bad feeling in her stomach. The sort of feelings that she got when she felt something wasn't right. The kind of feeling she always got when Inuyasha was getting himself into a load of trouble.
Kagome desperately tried to dismiss the feeling from her stomach, and mind, but failed. After all . . . her 'feelings' had always before turned out to be correct . . . why should they quit out on her now?
"No way Kagome, don't listen to those thoughts now!" She told herself, "He's got Kikyo, remember? You saw what they almost did in the forest!"
'What if you were wrong?' The other part of her mind asked her.
"I'm not wrong! I saw her on him with my own eyes!"
'He promised you he was through with her.'
"He's broken promises before."
'When? You never before made him promise to stay away from Kikyo, have you?'
"No . . ."
'That's what I thought.' The voice replied smugly. 'You do remember what Sango told you, don't you? What if Inuyasha wasn't going to Kikyo? What is she was going to him? Or worse! What is she was forcing him to do something for her? You do remember those cuts on his wrists, and the one on his cheek, right?'
"What's that got to do with anything? Maybe the tree's cut him."
The voice snorted, 'How?'
"He fell out."
This time the voice outright laughed, 'Yeah, right! Can you see Inuyasha falling out of a tree? You also remember how Kikyo lips were so red . . . and how Inuyasha eyes . . .'
"Her lips are always red."
'Always red like blood?'
"Who wouldn't be afraid of a walking zombie, anyways?"
Still, her 'voice' had a point. Maybe she was wrong.
Kagome suddenly found herself in the kitchen of her house. She stared at the tiled floor. Should she go back? What was there for her? What if Inuyasha really was in trouble and the others needed her help?
"Kagome dear," Her mother called her name.
What if he needed her? He could die without her help . . . Her gut never had failed her before. This was certainly a feeling coming from the gut spreading throughout her body.
"Kagome,"
She had to go . . . who cared about Kikyo? She wouldn't stop Kagome from helping Inuyasha . . .
"Kagome!"
"Yes, Mama?" Kagome said, sweetly, drawn out from her thoughts.
Her mother held out a bulging yellow pack saying "I figured you would go back today. You've got things to do there, don't you Kagome?"
"How . . . ? I told you I wasn't going back there. Ever."
"I know, dear," Her mother smiled, "It's a mothers instinct, you know? So go on, go and help your friends in the past. Oh, Kagome dear, be sure to tell Inuyasha to visit sometime."
"Yes, Mama. Tell Souta and Grandpa I'll be back soon."
"Of course."
"Love you, bye!" Kagome ran out of the house to walk up the wooden steps into the wells old shrine. She pushed open the door and moved in to sit on the lip of the well on her side of time.
Staring into the darkness that was the bottom of the well, Kagome bit her lip slightly.
What if-?
She shook the opposing thoughts from her head and pushed off into the blackness.
The familiar blue light enveloped around her body, tickling her skin gently with a warming sensation. She closed her eyes momentarily and floated in the blankness of time. So quiet, so peaceful.
And then her feet hit the hard packed ground and old demon bones of the feudal era.
I'm back!
She called in her mind. Throwing her pack up ahead of her, Kagome heaved herself out of the well. Sitting in edge of it, she looked around. The sky was blue and clear, the grass was still green, as were the trees, the sun still shown brightly . . .
However the sinking feeling from her gut still rested inside her.
And Inuyasha wasn't there either.
Standing up and taking the yellow strap of her ragged pack, Kagome took a step toward the town, only to be flung over to her back by a seemingly flying mass of red and orange and blue.
"Kagome, Kagome, Kagome! You're back!" Shippo squealed into her arms, squeezing her waist tightly, "I'm so glad you're back again!"
At least someone was there to greet her.
"Ohayo, Kagome." Said Miroku, appearing out of nowhere beside Sango.
"You're back!" Sango smiled tightly at her friend, "Thank goodness."
"Hai. I'm here, but Inuyasha isn't. Where is he?"
"Well," Miroku shifted his weight, "That's sort of the problem. We sort of . . . have an issue on our hands."
"It involves Inuyasha, naturally." Sango said, pulling Kagome back up to her feet.
"Oh? How so?"
Shippo scampered over and up to Miroku's shoulder and answered her question.
"Kikyo, Kagome! Kikyo's taking all of Inuyasha's youkai blood and now he's gonna die because . . . because that's what happened all the other times!"
Kagome's face lost all of it's previous cheer, "Huh?" She asked stupidly, "What was that, again?"
"Well . . ." Sango took a breath, "It goes like this . . ."
Sango, Miroku, Shippo, and Kirara (with side comment mews) filled Kagome in about what had happened in the one day of her absence.
And so that left Kagome sitting there, legs tucked under her body, hands folded in her lap, head straight staring at Miroku and Sango. Shippo and Kirara had fallen asleep beside each other four feet from the group. They were in old Kaede's hut.
"So," Kagome said after what to her seemed an hour of silence, "He's going to die?"
Sango sighed and nodded.
"And now he's run off?"
Miroku sighed and nodded.
"Kikyo's out for his blood, for reasons we don't yet know . . . He's hiding some fact about the Tessaiga . . . Each time he loses more demonic blood he turns closer and closer to being human, which for unknown reasons, will kill him."
"That about sums it all up." Sango said, eyeing Kagome, "Why?"
Kagome turned her gaze to meet Sango's own eyes, "We have to do something."
"We know, Kagome. What can we do? We don't even know what's going on!"
"Well . . . interrogate him."
"Again?" Miroku raised an eyebrow, "As I can clearly still recall, last time we tried that it didn't work out very well."
"Yeah, and?" Kagome was insistent, "It also got some information out of him. It might work again this time."
"You're forgetting," Sango said, "He isn't here to question. Last time we questioned him, well that's how he ended up missing now."
Kagome's gaze lowered to glared into the crackling fire. It continued to grow in that bright orange, sometimes yellow, color. Cheerfully blazing while her, almost, best friend was missing outside in a place where a crazy mad-miko was trying to kill him for reasons they still didn't understand. How could it?! To her other friends sitting across from Kagome, it seemed to them that as the future school-girl glared more into the fire, it sort of died.
Some, but not all the way.
"Ah! I have to do something! I can't sit around here knowing Inuyasha might be killed any second by his past demented girlfriend!" She shouted in frustration. "How can you two sit here and be so calm?"
"Well," Miroku opened his mouth to answer, but he never got the chance to finish what he was intending to say.
Why, you might ask? Well, it was because at that second a shadow appeared behind Kagome. It's movements were quick and jerky, as if the person wasn't very stable in their standing.
The shadow stumbled farther into the hut, the fire which hadn't yet died, illuminated his figure, showing that it was none other than . . .
"Inuyasha!" Kagome got to her feet in seconds, "Inuyasha, I'm so sorry about what I said! I know I wasn't right and I shouldn't have judged you so quickly. I'll try not to be so qu- Inuyasha . . .?"
Sango and Miroku were suddenly at her side, looking at their friend with curious eyes.
"Inuyasha, so you're back?" Miroku asked in a friendly conversational tone.
"Wassit look like to ya, 'Ruko?"
"Inuyasha?" Sango asked, "Are you . . . okay? Your speech is . . . slurred."
Inuyasha turned his gaze to the taijiya, confusion written in his eyes, "It is?" He asked slowly.
Sango nodded, "Oh." Inuyasha spoke the word as if it pained him.
"D'ya think I could . . . just sort of . . . gotta . . . sleep?" The hanyou asked them, his eyes already becoming half-hooded.
"I don't see why not," Kagome said, "You've been out for a long time, or so Miroku and Sango have told me . . ."
Inuyasha nodded his head, but it was barely perceptible, "Tanks," He said sleepily.
He stood there swaying on his feet, his eyes clearly going in and out of focus. He took a half step forward, towards Kagome.
"Eeep!" Kagome emitted from her throat as Inuyasha crashed on top of her, "Inuyasha?" She poked him in the back with the hand of hers that wasn't under Inuyasha's body. Surprisingly enough to her, Inuyasha didn't feel that heavy. Actually, he felt abnormally light. That, of course, didn't mean she could move out from under his presently unconscious form. "Gerrehm offa me!" She said through his silvery hair.
"We know, we know! We're working on it, Kagome." Sango said kneeling beside her two friends, taking one of Inuyasha's arms while Miroku took the other.
"Can't . . . breathe"
"You can't?" Miroku asked trying to grip Inuyasha's, for some reason, slippery hand.
"No I can't M'ruko," Kagome's words still muffled by the hanyou's silvery mane, "Gerreh-," The young miko paused as a strange taste crept up softly to her slips, slipping quickly onto her tongue, "Gwah! Hu'y!" She tried to say without swallowing. The taste was blood.
Inuyasha's blood.
"We're going!" Sango nodded to Miroku, who nodded back to her, and they both pulled on Inuyasha arms. Thus lifting his body off of Kagome's comparatively smaller frame.
"He's quite light now, isn't he?"
"I agree, Sango. Does he seem lighter than when we treated his cuts before?"
"Maybe so . . ."
"Kagome, did you bite your lip? It's bleeding." Miroku observed offering the girl a hand.
"No, I did not bite my lip. It's not my blood," Kagome said accepting the hand and pulling herself off of the ground, "It's Inuyasha's."
"It . . . is?" Sango faltered, "But, we just healed his cuts this morning and yesterday night! They'd have healed by now on their own accord!"
"You had to treat them? Those measly cuts? Shouldn't they have healed on their own?" Kagome asked wiping Inuyasha's blood off from her mouth and spitting out the horrible taste.
"Well . . . we thought because his body was so exhausted they might be taking longer to heal." Miroku explained.
"That shouldn't matter. His body should have taken care of any simple, minor cuts minutes after they happened. They weren't deep were they?"
"No, no, not at all." Sango said biting her lip, "They were all small. We asked him what made them, but all he said was 'Something sharp and pointy.'"
"Not very descriptive during that first interrogation now was he, Inuyasha I mean." Miroku mused.
"Very vague." The demon exterminator agreed with the monk, "Didn't say much at all, now that I think about it. Asked him about . . . two or three questions and he leapt off to the forest."
"I see." Kagome said quietly bending next to the sleeping demon and examining his body for any more cuts, "Are you positive you healed the wounds properly, Sango? Miroku?" She asked.
"Of course!" Miroku sounded somewhat indignant, "We know how to wrap up things from cuts to balls sized holes! Do you doubt our abilities?"
"No," The school girl said slowly, "but maybe you missed some . . ."
"We got them all, Kagome. What are you trying to say?"
"There isn't a bandage on him."
"There isn't?"
"No. Some are healing right now, closing up, only very slowly. It's taking forever! There are some other cuts, by his neck that are bleeding without hesitation . . . but it's not deep at all."
Sango moved over to look at their comrade also, "You're right," She murmured faintly, "I don't understand . . ."
"Sango," Miroku suddenly piped up, "You remember those old scrolls we read, right?"
". . . Yes." Sango hesitated as she spoke, "What do you know?"
"Said it turned half demons to humans because of losing the demonic blood. Said too that the hanyou eventually died."
"Yes, and?" Kagome asked impatiently.
"Human's take a much longer time to heal when inflicted with a wound." Miroku stated, "So there's a reason why the wounds refuse to heal at Inuyasha's hanyou's body's speed. Another question is that the cuts keep reopening. That might be because of all the wild movements Inuyasha makes. When he jumps around in the trees and leaps off like that."
"Yes. That doesn't explain why they won't just give up on opening and heal completely."
"No, that doesn't. You know how . . . Kikyo . . . is obviously somehow involved with this. We think she's the reason Inuyasha's so wounded."
"We do?"
Miroku nodded fiercely, "We do. Maybe, since she is a miko after all, the blade is . . . enchanted of sorts. Keeping the wounds from healing. That would be why the hanyou's always died in the end. Their bodies couldn't heal the cuts."
There followed a silence in the hut. Miroku's words shifted around restlessly in the minds. Kikyo was taking Inuyasha's blood. Why? Inuyasha was going to die. What was the purpose behind it all?
For the second time that night, a shadow stood in the entrance way to the hut. It chuckled lightly,
"Impressive," It commented, "you figured it out all on your own, very smart. Too bad you don't know everything now, isn't it?"
Kikyo said as she waltzed into the room, "Poor Inuyasha," She lowered her voice by a fraction, "couldn't bare to kill himself. That would have resulted in everyone in the room dead. I wouldn't kill myself, of course. Why should I? I am dead after all. Well, almost dead."
"What. Do. You. Mean?" Kagome asked through gritted teeth.
"Hai, yes, what do I mean?" Kikyo smiled in a bone chilling way, "I mean what I said. I'm not exactly the living dead miko you idiots take me for. I'm quite alive, well I will be. Sooner than you think.
"You see, I am the one taking your precious Inuyasha's youkai blood. He turns human, do you know why?" When the quiet of night was the only thing the greeted her, Kikyo tilted her head slight, "You mean he didn't tell you why? Oh, well, I'll let him tell you that. His demon blood can give me the . . . 'power' . . . to become human again. Okay, so not necessarily human, alive."
"What are you saying?" Miroku asked, his voice a tone of steel.
"Just what I mean," Kikyo said softly, yet her voice sounded oddly loud, "Inuyasha's giving up his life so that I can be a living, breathing, human, or miko, once more."
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. . . When now I Lie On My Deathbed . . .
. . . But I'm Not Wasted Yet . . .
. . . I'm Still Not Dead . . .
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Authors Note: Well, isn't this wonderful? I think is might be one of the longer, if not the longest, chapters this story has gotten so far!It's what I promised, it's what you got. See? The action, thought there was a small bit here, is right around the corner! One thing though; You noticed how Kagome's speech is . . . messed up when Inuyasha falls on her, correct? That's because his hair's in the way, and because he is unconscious on top of her.
I don't see anymore attractions keeping you from reviewing, so please drop one in! ::Begs::
Thank you very much!
Eveligne
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