AN: Ok, now in this chapter a character is referred to as 'Oba' or 'Obasan'. 'Oba' is 'Aunt' in Japanese as you would refer to your own aunt. 'Obasan' is how you refer to someone else's aunt.

Chapter V

The Hanyou Secret of the Moon

Afternoon was slowly sweeping its shadows across the land and the sun finishes it's descent to the horizon. Kagome lunges her heavy backpack over the lip of the well and it lands with a thud. She climbs out after it and smiles at the anxious kitsune-youkai waiting for her.

"Kagome!" Shippou calls as he bounces over to her. "What did you bring me?" He adds as he begins to dive into the backpack looking for sweets. Kagome smiles and picks up the small youkai and hands him a sucker.

"Here you go, Shippou-chan," she says handing the eager kitsune-youkai the sucker. "I didn't forget." Kagome looks back at the well and sighs as she lifts the backpack to her shoulder. She went home to gather more medical supplies for Nobara and bring some junk food for Inuyasha, to help console him for his nervous night. She wished he was there to greet her, but knew that with the new moon at hand it was safer if he stayed put.

"What is it, Kagome?" Shippou asks, the sucker stick hanging out of his mouth. Kagome looks down at Shippou and smiles.

"Nothing, Shippou-chan," she tells him and slings the heavy bag onto her back. "I hope everything is going well..." she thinks as she and Shippou start walking back to Kaede's.

Back at Kaede's village, Inuyasha sat in his nook in his tree. Despite the lowering sun, he was deep in thought over Nobara and her connection to Naraku. He was also still aggravated of her toying with him. The thought of it made him grind his teeth subconsciously. But also he realized there was something vaguely familiar about it. Especially when she was using her claws. The dark haired woman's face flashed in his mind again causing him to jump slightly. Her face was still somewhat blurred in his mind but he could see tears in her eyes.

"What is it with this woman I keep seeing?" he wonders, scratching the back of an ear with a talon. "I know it something from the past, but what? I know she is not my mother. Then who?"

"Inuyasha!"

He looks down as Miroku approaches.

"Inuyasha, it is late. Best if you come back inside," he counsels. Without a word Inuyasha leaps down.

"Where is Nobara?" he asks, his gold eyes darting around for her. Miroku shrugs. Ever since they had been back from Nobara's escapade she had been silent. She went for a walk over an hour ago.

"Sango and Kirara went to go find her," Miroku adds as he and Inuyasha walk back to Kaede's hut.

Nobara had wandered around the village. She had watched the children run and play together. The wives busy mending clothes or gathering plants for cooking. A mother kissing her child on the forehead after the child had been crying. Things that were everyday life for so many, yet Nobara knew none of it. Being what she was, she wondered if she ever would. She continued to walk sadly and found herself once again at Kikyou's shrine. She looked at the shrine, engulfed in afternoon shade from the overhanging maple.

"Keh, how ironic," she thought to herself, looking down at the shrine. "Here I am feeling pity for myself and I come to one everyone here feels pity for."

Her hand rises and she feels the bandage placed by Kagome under her kimono.

"Kagome," Nobara remembers her hurt face when she said she worked for Naraku. "Everyone here is connected to him and I played around as if it was no big deal." She scolds herself. Miroku told her how he and Sango were caught up in the hunt for Naraku. She had already guessed why Inuyasha and Kagome were, or had she?

"Kagome is Kikyou's reincarnation, but why does she hunt Naraku? What has she to gain? Naraku has not betrayed her. She is so innocent, no one has betrayed her...I remember when I was like that once."

Nobara sighs and closes her eyes. She remembered being innocent, like Kagome once. She held close the distant memory of her even being loved. The recollection was faint, but she could barely see the temple roof peeks over the fog. She is young, just a child then. She opens her eyes and continues to wander from the shrine. As she approaches the torii she notices the evening mists covering the stairs.

"What is this?" she wonders. She hears something behind her and sees the dark outline of the shrine shrouded in fog.

"Nani?" she becomes alarmed she spins around, looking for something familiar. She then sees the temple, its high roof peeking above the fog. The mists clear a little and she sees the shadow of a figure. She squints her pale blue eyes trying to make out the distant form.

"Can it be?"

"Yuugi-sama!" she suddenly calls. She didn't notice that her voice was small as she started running towards the fog, she can just make out the outline of the miko who once loved her. The figures arms outstretch towards her. But her legs had become smaller and it seemed to take forever. She could just make out the old woman's smiling face. Miko. She comes up to the figure as the fog dissipates. Suddenly Nobara smells what the fog really is, smoke. The figure disappears into the smoke.

"Yuugi-sama!"

The image fades.

"Nobara!!"

Nobara turns and finds herself at the bottom of the temple steps looking up at Kikyou. Kikyou stands bow drawn, her face distorted in anger. Nobara stares at Kikyou above her and feels something in her hand, a small smooth round object. She looks down and sees the Shikon no Tama.

"Nani?" she looks back up at Kikyou. She sees fire blazing behind Kikyou as she releases her arrow. Nobara leaps, Shikon no Tama in hand to flee the oncoming arrow. It hits her, pinning her to the trunk of a great tree. She looks up at Kikyou as she drops the jewel. Kikyou is injured, she can smell the blood. She closes her eyes. Nobara awakens to the sound of running water. She opens her eyes to see Kikyou before her again, arrow drawn. Kikyou watches Nobara for a moment and without expression raises her bow and fires. Nobara sees the arrow fly towards her again. She tries to move but suddenly realizes she is pinned to the rock wall.

"Nani! Kikyou!"

Nobara winces expecting to be hit, she opens her eyes when she still hears the running water from the waterfall. The arrow is mere inches before her chest, frozen in time. Kikyou stands before her, bow lowered. The Miko looks at Nobara curiously.

"Why did you?" she suddenly asks.

"Nani?" Nobara asks, still hanging against the rock wall. "What is going on?"

"You, you already shot me!" Nobara yells at her. "The Shikon?!" Nobara realizes she was holding the ball and now it was gone. She remembers the fire and Kikyou beneath the torii in the village. "That wasn't me! Inuyasha!?" Nobara realizes remembering what Kaede told her of the two's betrayal. Nobara looks up at Kikyou.

"You sealed Inuyasha, just as you sealed me!" Nobara snarls.

Kikyou stood quiet not responding to what she said.

"Why did you decide to stop your search for me?"

Nobara looks at the miko shocked. She then smiles.

"How did you know I did?"

"Didn't you? Or did you just tell them that? Tell them in order for him to trust you again?"

Nobara smiles wickedly showing a fang and looks back up at Kikyou with mad pale eyes.

"Can you blame me? You sealed me for 50 years! Just as you sealed him! Just for that I should kill you!" Nobara yells and then suddenly looks down. "But I can't. He still loves you."

Nobara hears laughter and jerks up to see Kikyou with Izayoi laughing at her.

"Izayoi!"

"You will never change, you who always try to be what you are not!" Izayoi laughs wickedly. Nobara suddenly sees the arrow move again.

"Why do you thing he deserves you!?" both women howl.

"NO!" Nobara screams, closing her eyes as the arrow with her fate pierces through her kimono.

"Kikyou!!!"

Nobara opens her eyes and looks up at the shrine. For a moment she felt the arrow pierce her heart again. She suddenly realizes she is kneeling in front of Kikyou's grave. Her face was sweaty, her breathing labored. She realized she was holding her right hand up to the scar on her chest, where the arrow struck. Her body hung forward her left hand holding herself up, clinging to the stone cold ground of the shrine.

"What was that? A vision? A dream? I don't remember blacking out."

She straightens herself up and sees the blue flowers Kaede left earlier blowing in the breeze. Her right hand clutches her kimono over the scar.

"How is it Kikyou that you are connected to someone like Kagome, someone who could so easily forgive..."

A wind blows by and Nobara lowers her hand and rises. She suddenly senses someone behind her and glances back. Sango approaches in her pink and white yukata with green apron, Kirara in her arms. Nobara suddenly realized she was there. She had been there for awhile, she realizes. The thought was unnerving. She didn't notice her. Facing forward towards the shrine, Nobara's icy gaze looks back at the youkai taijiya.

"Nobara-san," Sango starts, she takes a step forward then stops, waiting for some response. She was wondering what Nobara was doing. Was she praying? When she approached, Nobara was kneeling before the shrine in meditation, and then she seemed to have awakened. Nobara does not respond, Sango continues. "Gomen nasai."

Nobara turns and faces her, hiding her surprise with her expressionless gaze. The wind blowing strands of her yellow hair over her face.

"Gomen nasai," Sango repeats looking down shamefully. "For calling you a liar."

Nobara's familiar smirk crosses her lips and she nods in response. She is about to speak when she is suddenly distracted. Her shoulder throbs with a dull pain. She freezes and turns. The clouds blow past and through a crack of their billowing bodies she sees a sliver of sun still barely shining over the hills.

"The sun! I never noticed it was so low! How could I have been so careless?!"

Her pale eyes widen and her mouth drops. She begins to walk towards the shrine away from Sango and Kirara but the wound on her shoulder suddenly throbs with intense pain and she stumbles.

"No! Not now!"

"Nobara-san!" Sango exclaims concerned as Kirara drops down from her arms and she begins to walk forward.

"No! Leave me alone!" Nobara yells. She begins to feel weaker with each throb of pain from her shoulder. She turns defensively and Kirara sensing an attack growls.

"Kirara!" Sango exclaims unsure of the situation.

"Leave me!" Nobara screams as she leaps with all her strength over Sango and the neko-youkai onto the torii and disappears into the forest.

"Nobara-san!" Sango runs and calls after her, but she is gone.

"What is going on?!"

Kagome and Shippou slowly walk through the woods back to Kaede's village. Shippou joyfully sucks on his sucker. His upbeat attitude always lifted Kagome's spirits. She sees the dark shadows covering the land as the sun disappears.

"Inuyasha will be human soon," she thought, wondering how he was coping. She was also anxious on these nights. Inuyasha changes on these nights, he seems softer somehow. Kagome also still remembered the night when she first learned of the hanyou's secret.

Inuyasha lays on the floor in the back room of the temple, the youkai awaiting them right outside. Shippou and Myouga slept along with Nazuna. But Kagome could barely sleep; she was concerned for Inuyasha, who had just been poisoned by the youkai, and stayed by his side until he awoke.

"Kagome, would you lend me you lap?" he asked and she set his head on her lap as a pillow.

"Uh...sure," she responded surprised and helped him. "There….is that better?"

"You…smell good."

"Huh?" She responded shocked. "Wait a minute. You said you hated my scent!"

"That was....a lie," he sighed as he turned and fell asleep.

Kagome's heart still flutters at the memory and she sighs daydreamingly. A part of her always hoped for a repeat of that night, though so far none had come.

Suddenly the sound of breaking branches in the dark bushes gives her and Shippou a start. Shippou instinctively jumps up to Kagome's shoulder then realizing Kagome was without her bow, gathers his bravery and stands before her. Timidly ready for action. A large figure teeters out of the shadows towards them.

"Nobara!" Kagome exclaims. Nobara was clinging to her hurt shoulder which started bleeding again.

"What's wrong!?" Shippou adds jumping back to the concerned Kagome as they begin to approach her.

"Kuso," Nobara strains her eyesight was becoming blurred by the pain. She suddenly sees Kagome and Shippou. "Please leave me alone!"

"Nobara," Kagome reaches out without moving. She sees Nobara is in pain.

Nobara looks through the trees as she tries to get away but she already knew what she could not see. Every part of her knew, and she could not get away in time. The sun was gone.

"I'm too late!" She looks alarmed at an unsure Kagome and Shippou.

The pain in her shoulder suddenly becomes deafening. She falls forward with a painful scream and barely catches her self with her good arm. Her whole form shakes in pain.

"Noba-" Kagome starts but the name gets caught in her throat. With wide eyes Kagome and Shippou watch Nobara's slumped form. They watch the claws on the hand exposed on the ground that held her, retract into fingernails. Then the mane of bright yellow hair fades and darkens to a jet black.

Kagome stands frozen with Shippou beside her.

"She is a hanyou?!?"

Her youkai blood gone, Nobara faints with the pain. As her eyes close, Kagome caught a glimpse as her icy pale blue gaze dims into a dark midnight blue.

Kagome and Shippou stand there for a moment; the only sound was their breathing. Kagome snaps out of her shock and runs up to the unconscious woman, placing pressure on the blood soaked shoulder.

"The wound reopened. It must have happened with her sparring Inuyasha"

"Shippou-chan," Kagome instructs the young kitsune-youkai. Shippou still looks at her dumbfounded and nods slowly in response. "Help me get her to Kaede-obaa-chan."

In Kaede's hut, the cooking fire created long shadows in the darkness. An annoyed human Inuyasha sits cross-legged behind the fire, his raven black hair shining in the firelight. His arms folded in his haori, as a useless Tessaiga rests on his shoulder. He listens intently to Sango and Miroku as Sango tells him what happened with Nobara.

"She seemed as if she was in great pain," Sango explains.

"Keh, perhaps she is still in leagues with Naraku," Inuyasha states to the unsure Sango. Kaede just sat quietly at the fire cooking some rice for supper.

"Inuyasha!" Kagome's voice comes from outside. The gang runs out to see what is wrong.

Shippou in his pink bubble form is carrying an unconscious dark haired woman and Kagome walks beside him.

"Help me get her inside!" Kagome instructs anxiously as Miroku and Inuyasha without asking questions responds to Kagome's insistent plea and carry the woman inside Kaede's hut. They lay her down, seeing the bloodied shoulder and Inuyasha immediately turns to Kagome.

"Who is this, Kagome?"

Kagome looks at the quizzical faces of her comrades for a moment but before she can answer, Kaede responds for her.

"It is Nobara!" The old miko realizes as she begins to inspect the wound and sees Kagome's blood soaked bandages. Kagome walks over and joins Kaede with tending to Nobara.

Sango, Miroku and Inuyasha spin around to look at the unconscious Nobara.

"Nobara!?!" They all exclaim.

Inuyasha's brown human eyes widen as he looks at her sleeping face. He gasps slightly as the image of the black haired woman from before suddenly floods his mind. Her face clears and he realizes he is looking at her before him.

"O....ba."

Inuyasha becomes aware that everyone is looking at him with confused and shocked expressions. He realizes he said that out loud.

"What did you say, Inuyasha?" Miroku asks.

Inuyasha continues to look at Nobara, a strange look on his face. Shock was on his face but also a soft and yet almost sad sense in his human brown eyes. He recognizes her.

"It's her. Oba."

"Obasan?!?"

........End Chapter