Invisible Bonds

Chapter 2

"Young people are so energetic nowadays," Mrs. Higurashi added, looking as if she were fighting back a smile. "I came up to tell you that your dinner is warming, dear, and if you want you can take a bath first, I've switched on the heater." With that, she closed the door softly. Inuyasha could hear her light footsteps on the landing outside.

"Uh," Kagome said intelligently, then blushed. She could just picture what her mother had apparently 'walked in' on; Inuyasha, sprawled half on and half off her on her bed, while she appeared to be fiddling with his front. The hanyou seemed to be thinking the same thing, for his face was a shade that was giving his Robe of the Fire Rat fierce competition.

"Are you done?" Inuyasha inquired, striving manfully for an even tone and a composed countenance, and failing spectacularly at the latter. He could not imagine how anyone else would fail to at least suspect him of compromising behavior, let alone taking in the entire scene as if it was an everyday occurence. He decided that he was hanging around Miroku too much. The pervert must be tainting his innocent mind.

Meanwhile, Kagome tugged the last strand free, thanking Kami-sama that her mother was so.. tolerant? Respectful of her decisions? Not that she was actually doing anything, of course.. Feeling colour unaccountably climb her cheeks, she shoved him off to one side and sat up, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed so that she faced away from him. She waited for her face to stop burning, all the while wondering if she should say anything about what just happened. Perhaps it would be better for her not to mention it?

Behind her, Inuyasha got upright as well, settling into his usual cross-legged sitting position. Well, that was certainly strange, he thought. One didn't get pounced on in one's sleep all that often, though by what he could deduce it was an accident. Bizarre sort of accident, nevertheless. Brushing himself off and adjusting his robes to keep his hands occupied during the uncomfortable silence, he could not resist the urge to flick his ears expectantly in her direction, trying to gauge her reaction.

Kagome finally sighed and stretched, breaking the silence, which had hung in the room like the tense, intangible pressure of an approaching storm. He flinched at the sudden sound and movement, then stared at her warily as she stood, unconsciously folding his hands in his sleeves in a defensive posture.

"I'm going to bathe," she informed him mildly. She knew why he was here, so there was no point in pursuing the matter; count it her fault for not paying attention, though she wasn't about to grant Inuyasha the surety of victory. It was amazing how math could fry her brain to the point that she didn't consciously notice a bright red form on her light pink bed, but she supposed it was one of the mysteries of the universe.

Or perhaps she was getting so used to his presence that she just didn't register him as someone she should be keeping an eye on, she mused. Not that the degree of trust had not been earned, of course, but she hadn't really had the chance to consider the matter, had she? The brisk pace of life on the other side of the well usually spared little time for rumination, what with demons out for your fragments and indirectly, your blood, if you happened to be in the way. Kagome slid a sidelong glance at Inuyasha as she walked out, suppressing a fond laugh as she caught a glimpse of the patent "Huh! What the hell just happened?" look on his face.

Inuyasha sat there unmovingly after she was gone, head tilted and eyebrow raised. The question marks were almost visible, hanging blinkingly above his head. How unusual, he reflected. That was the second time that she hadn't picked a fight given the chance in what, four days? Five? He wasn't sure how he felt about that. Conflicting emotions surged and flared; the internal tumult was similar to that he experienced when he contemplated Kikyo, but with sentiments that were much more pleasant in variety..

In the midst of sorting out his myriad feelings and thoughts, he suddenly felt exhausted, something he definitely did not experience often out of the blue, if at all. He shook his head vigorously, trying to clear the swirls of thick fog that were invading it, slowly but surely. His brain did not want to cooperate. Wrestling sluggishly with his unwilling mind, he attempted to engage his logical processes and failed. Fighting it all the way, he slipped from confused stasis into an uneasy sleep rife with dreams.

------

Making sure the cloaking shield was firmly in place, the presence fluxed lazily. If it were a cat, it would have been sinuously stretching, loose-limbed and self-satisfied after finishing a bowl of cream. As it was, it was thrumming with pleasure at the unexpected harvest tonight. Who knew that a hanyou could possess such depth and intensity? Much more satisfying than most ordinary demon or human emotions. Those were generic; hatred, greed, bloodlust, fear, pain, all the baser and cruder cousins were about all that Sengoku Jidai had. This.. this was different. The only ever thing that ever approached it in terms of richness was a far cry from these delectable morsels.

Too bad the girl was shielded in her own invisible way; the vibrant violet glow of her aura told of a powerful miko in her own right. It was just about impenetrable, though feelings similar to the hanyou's lurked beneath the surface, at least as strong if not stronger. A yearning to sample it was soon overcome by caution and good sense; if this cover was not blown, a steady source of sustenance from the first source was assured. Greed would almost certainly bring downfall.

Carefully, it began to draw more youki from the target, to blunt his youkai senses. On an impulse, as the hanyou fell asleep, it delicately manipulated his mind so as to bring to the fore the memories which would evoke the strongest feelings..

------

Kagome towelled her hair dry and descended the stairs into the kitchen, drawn by the aroma of gently warming food. She murmured heartfelt thanks to her smiling mother as she fell upon her belated dinner. She was ravenous, no doubt due to the vast numbers of brain cells she had spent that day in attempting to comprehend mathamatic formulae. Hey, that rhymed.

As she inhaled her food, she found the quiet atmosphere of the house rather disturbing. Sure, Souta was still at his games and her grandfather was loudly trying to convince his grandson that the games in question were demonic and stole souls, but other than the usual domestic noises, there was nothing. Nothing, no sound to show that she had a hanyou from the Sengoku Jidai, five hundred years in the past, sitting in her bedroom at that very moment.

Kagome found it suspicious. It would have been totally in Inuyasha's nature to jump her as soon as she was fully clothed and demand that she return to the other era, right now. Either that or he'd bug her about packing and setting off as soon as possible the next morning. Neither was he teasing Buyo, something of a favourite pastime with Inuyasha, for the cat was winding itself around her ankles in a bid to coax tidbits from her. She absentmindedly offered the feline her last portion of fish, then stood up, stacked the dishes and washed them, her movements accompanied by satisfied cat-sounds as Buyo enthusiastically went to work on her prize.

Nothing like finding things out for yourself, Kagome decided, yawning as she trudged up to her room. Stifling another yawn as she opened the door and walked in, the first thing she noticed was that a familiar red blob was still on her bed. She rubbed tears from her eyes and took a closer look.

Inuyasha was still in the same position, cross-legged and in the corner of her bed closest to the door, back leaning against the wall. What was odd was that he was slouched sideways, head down and ears floppy, as if he had completely relaxed in his sleep, something Kagome had never seen happen. Even in slumber he was always alert to every sign of danger, and never let down his guard; the total relaxation alone was a subtle warning.

Maybe he simply felt at home here, but intuition overcame flattery and cautioned her otherwise. Clambering onto the bed to get an even closer look, she began to seriously worry as the gentle bounce of the bed under her weight made his body slump over limply. Kagome crawled over to his still form and anxiously tugged at a sleeve. "Inuyasha?"

There was no response. Inordinately concerned now, she pushed his obscuring silver fringe out of his face and scanned his face. It seemed peaceful but for the tiny frown lines between his eyebrows. Nothing seemed wrong but it didn't hurt to check. With this in mind, Kagome shook him gently by the shoulders. "Inuyasha?"

She started as the hanyou shifted, tensed, then whimpered brokenly. "Okaa.." There was a world of hurt and loss in the simple word, and the tone was so vulnerably unlike his usual rough-and-tumble personality that Kagome felt involuntary tears spring to her eyes. She eased him onto her lap and cradled him gently, murmuring soothing words. It didn't take a genius to figure out what he was dreaming about.

Soon enough, his body relaxed once again, curling trustingly toward her warmth. The simple gesture tugged at her heartstrings, and spoke more about the release of the untrusting part of his soul than she cared to contemplate. Smiling to herself, she stroked his back calmingly and rhythmically, the way one would comfort a small, scared child. Tomorrow would tell if there was anything other than weariness influencing his sleep.

-------

The presence cringed away from the storm of fear and pain and despair, too afraid of their intensity to even touch the bubble-thin skin that contained their full fury. What had it unleashed? If it had wanted such emotions, it could have gone looking in Sengoku Jidai. Unwillingly, it skimmed the very surface to get an idea of the cause, and flinched away as soon as it divined the essence of Inuyasha's dreams.

Sympathy and respect welled up as its estimation of the hanyou rose. For him to have recovered from such a turbulent childhood and to have built up such power even being what he was was a remarkable achievement, to say the least. And to still have the capacity for such strong, positive emotion, when he knew full well he could be hurt through them again.. Chagrined, it subdued the light mental push and let the dreams fade into deep sleep, which was accompanied by the mellow flavour of contentment and peace. For once, it left him alone, and withdrew to deliberate the next course of action.

-------

Inuyasha woke slowly. The first thing he noticed was the melancholy morning serenade of birds, sounding muffled and distant. He soon became aware of an insistent pattering noise at that same distance, which he deduced lethargically to be rain. As he struggled to open his eyes, he felt a warm, familiar presence just beside him. Sniff. Kagome?

His eyes snapped open. Or at least, they tried. All he could manage was a bleary, half-mast sort of look. The first thing he saw was blue, patterned with darker blue. What the..? With a heroic effort, he forced his eyes into focus. There wasn't much of a change, but now he could tell that it was the blue cloth of one of Kagome's sleeping kimonos. And where it was, she probably was too..

He tilted his head and angled his eyes upward. Um. Directing his gaze further north, it confirmed that this was, indeed, the girl in question, apparently sleeping slumped against the wall. Did I make her do that? The more pressing query was what he was doing there, however. Rolling to the opposite side so as to get enough space and a better view of his surroundings, Inuyasha realized too late that he was on her bed.

"Oomph," he grunted as he thudded onto the cold, unforgiving wood floor. Itai. Where was grass where you needed it?

The noise roused Kagome from her sleep. She sat bolt upright and reached instinctively for her nonexistent bow and quiver of arrows, then groaned as she discovered the painful crick in the back of her neck. Rubbing it ruefully, she looked around, blinking away the haze of sleep and wondering what woke her up. Why had she been sleeping in a semi-vertical position?

Yawning and stretching languidly, she peered at the window and the fine spray of drizzle that sifted in, through curtains that fluttered in the rampant breeze. Rain on a Saturday, she sighed to herself, then got up to close the windows.

"Ow, dammit," Inuyasha yelped, from somewhere beneath her feet.

Kagome jumped; fortunately, off his back, before more damage could be inflicted. At his voice, she remembered suddenly what had happened last night; hastily sliding the windows shut, she turned back to assess the damage. "Are you all right?"

"No," he ground out between clenched teeth, feeling much abused. His back concurred. "Try being stepped on sometime, wench." Gingerly, he pulled himself up into a sitting position and rubbed the sore spot.

"Well, good morning to you too, Inuyasha," Kagome crouched down beside him and fought back the urge to smile. "Sorry about that, I didn't see you."

"Yeah, well, your apology sure cures my pain," the hanyou grumbled, turning his back to her. There was a short pause. "And good morning," he added grudgingly. "Though it's not much of one."

She laughed and began rubbing the back so conveniently proffered to her. Inuyasha tensed at the contact at first, then relaxed as her hands massaged the sore part of his back he could not reach. He closed his eyes at the strange, but soothing mix of the dull ache from his bruises and pleasure, leaning back against her hands.

"Ano, Inuyasha?" Kagome offered tentatively, after a minute or so. He replied with a drowsy murmur of inquiry. She felt that this was about a good time as any to broach the subject of last night. "Last night when I came back to my room, you were asleep..?" Letting the statement trail off into a question, she stopped rubbing and waited expectantly.

Inuyasha turned about to face her, his expression uneasy. "Yeah.." he said carefully. What he had been trying to figure out last night finally started to turn the cogs in his brain. He decided that two heads were better than one. "Yesterday, when you left, I was, uh - that is, I suddenly felt really.. drained, so I fell asleep."

"Drained?" Kagome said, perplexed. "Do you mean tired? Like from running around?"

"Couldn't be, I was sleeping before you came and woke me up, and I don't need that much sleep anyhow," Inuyasha muttered, frowning, once again folding his hands into his sleeves.

"But what would drain so much of your energy?" she asked, furrowing her brow. "When I came in you were in as deep a sleep as I've ever seen you in. You didn't even wake up when I shook you."

"I.. didn't?" He looked distinctly rattled by the relevation. He had never failed to wake in response to such since his childhood. It was a skill born of needing to be awake and wary every time there was something out of the ordinary, for if one didn't manage to train the subconscious to respond instantly to any sort of threat, one was dead meat in the competitive world of the Sengoku Jidai. If it wasn't youkai looking for an easy meal, it was a ningen trying to exorcise him; being a hanyou was not easy on childhoods.

"You didn't," Kagome confirmed. "It got me worried. I've never seen you not immediately wake up to a summons before."

"That's because I usually don't." Inuyasha twitched his ears and sat up. "Someone's coming."

"Oh, that'll be Mama or Souta.." she got up and grabbed a brush from the table, finger-combing her ruffled hair with her free hand. "Breakfast must be ready."

Right on cue, a voice floated up the stairwell. "Kagome-neechan, Inu-niichan, come on down, Mama says breakfast is ready."

"We'll talk about that after breakfast, okay?" Kagome winced as her brush encountered a particularly stubborn tangle. "We could always ask Kaede or the others about it later."

Inuyasha nodded and stood up, looking rather pleased that he had gotten some sort of confirmation from her that she was finally ready to go back. "s probably nothing."

She worked out the snarl and continued brushing. "Meanwhile, could you go down first? I need my privacy to change."

"Sure, no problem," he replied off-handedly, making for the window and being diverted with a "it's raining, Inuyasha, use the door". His good humour was returning fast with the promise of food. "Not like you have anything to see, anyway," was his playful parting shot.

She mock-growled and shook her brush at him as he closed the door. Was it just her or was Inuyasha mellowing, just a little? Kagome grinned to herself as she picked an outfit. Must be the rain or something.

-------

"Come on, hurry up, wench," Inuyasha watched her from his perch on her bed, jiggling impatiently. Kagome was currently attempting to force a huge pile of her schoolbooks into her already-bulging bag. "Give it up, it'll never fit," he added as an afterthought; she had been trying to locate some free space for the past few minutes.

Ignoring him and contemplating the pile, she rapidly reduced it to about one fourth of its original size and crammed it relentlessly into the bag. Trying to buckle it down valiantly, she glared at the hanyou, who stared back in fascination. "You could try to help, you know."

"Nah," he replied dismissively. "It's much more fun to watch you try to do it." His golden eyes were narrowed with amusement.

"It would be fun to watch your face meet the ground, too," she snapped. One buckle met its mate with a strained click. She went to work on the other.

"You wouldn't dare," he drawled lazily. "It would break your precious bed."

Kagome revised her opinion of him mellowing. Baka inu. It was time to bring out the trump card. "We would leave faster if you helped."

"Keh!" he snorted. "You seem to be doing quite well by yourself, though," he noted, as the second buckle snapped into place. "C'mon, let's go." He bounded off the bed and grabbed the bag in one swift motion, as if it weighed less than one of the fragments themselves. Slinging it jauntily over his shoulder, he vaulted over the railing of the stairs and disappeared.

Kagome made a strangled sound that somehow conveyed disbelief, admiration, and exasperation, all at the same time, then followed him the orthodox way, picking up her little bottle of shards and slipping it into her pocket on the way.

At the entrance of the house, she stared in dismay at the pouring rain. There was no way they would get to the shrine without getting soaked to the skin. "Umbrella, umbrella," she mumbled as she hunted for one, then shrieked as she was picked up bodily and slung over a red-clad shoulder next to her yellow bag. The next moment, they were running across the grounds in the rain.

Kagome found out that Inuyasha's hair made a nice shelter, so much so that when she was finally put down in the shrine itself, her top was barely wet. Her legs were another matter; the shoes squelched happily as she dismounted.

"This way is faster," Inuyasha told her with an air of triumph, shaking himself like a dog. Drops of water flew in all directions. "No need to waste time with those things."

"We would have been drier," she pointed out, fleeing from the mini rainstorm to sit on the edge of the well and shake out her shoes. Her trusty bag, she noticed, had turned a rather darker shade of yellow. She hoped her books weren't wet.

"Everything will dry out eventually," he reasoned, leaping down the steps. "Come on, Kagome, we don't have all day."

"Fine, fine," she muttered, pulling on her soggy footwear. "Let's go, then."

They jumped into the well together.

And hit the bottom with a sickening thud that knocked the breath out of both of them, Inuyasha more so because he had been carrying a bag roughly the size and weight of an elephant.

"What - the - hell!" he croaked.

Sorry it took so long, it's been a long and tiring week, plus I had an idea for a oneshot I simply had to write.. it's called Misunderstanding, and it's been posted, read it for laughs!

By the way, since someone asked, shikon no kakera means the Sacred Jewel fragments. Mmyep. I know there isn't much action at the moment, but I'm fairly sure it'll get more interesting from here.. And the genre is such mostly because I find that nothing else fits, so.. yeah. Heh.

Oh, and thanks for the reviews, all. :D I wouldn't mind more.. -hinthint- Well, until next time!