angelgirlmia- I know her name is pronounced "Lin," but it is spelled "Rin" in the American version, and for some reason, I like that better. It's like saying "Kirara" the way you hear it: "Kilala." I think I explained this earlier, but I don't mind restating it.

Devlinn Reiko-sama- Thanx for the comment. And you reminded me of what my friend wrote in my HP story notebook. Here he comes, to save the daay!

Jgal- Actually, that dragon was just causing problems. And yeah, the staff noticed. The question is, will Yubaba? You're right, though. He will feel that. Thanx for the review.

LadyPearlDragon(Anonymous)- thanx for the comment, however short it was. I appreciate it.

Baka Psycho-Well, I'm not putting his survival to vote. (wink wink). He'll do what he needs to survive, though. thanx for the comment.

Kiikii-Usagi- Yeah, I have this wayof gettingpeople to feel bad for him, don't I? Thanx for the review.

Ch. 10

When Maru next awoke, he only felt pain. He could sense that there was a tight cloth wound around his head. He groaned, feeling unwell. His back really hurt, his head really hurt, and his leg was beyond his pain tolerance.

"Unh…"

"Maru? You're awake!"

Rin's face swam in his foggy vision.

"R-Rin?"

"You dope. Why did you do that? You could've died there! That was a Chinese Fireball!"

"You were hurt."

Rin's face went blank.

"I was…Maru, that was still really stupid! You shouldn't have wielded that sword! Yubaba confiscated it; now you don't even have it."

Maru sighed. The Toukijin was lost to him now. All he had was his Tenseiga, and little good it would do him in a fight. All it was good for was blocking and things like that, other than bringing people back from the dead.

"How long…has it been…?"

"You've been out for a day and a half. But it turns out that the Fireball is what was causing our food problems. You fixed it, so Yubaba decided to give you sick leave."

"Sick leave? Hn."

"I was actually going to rub some salve on your wounds and re-bandage them. Can you move?"

Maru fought against his pain and got into a sitting position so that Rin could help him. She took a soft cloth and swabbed a white cream onto her friend's back.

"Unh," he grunted, face contorting in pain. His leg shuddered violently.

"Oh, I should re-bandage that too."

After Rin was done, Maru tried to get up. He was driven down again by horrible nausea.

"Don't move. You got a hard knock on the head, you know," she told him.

He put a hand to where he felt pain emanating the most. Even underneath all the bandages, he could feel the bump on his head. It must have been when that shard of wood hit him…

"I wonder…what was it that happened?" he said absent-mindedly. "I could hardly control myself after I killed that dragon. I wanted to keep on killing. It was worse than touching the Toukijin…"

"That's because your demon blood is way too pure for your human body. It's eating at you every time you transform," Rin told him.

"Hn. Very similar to my dear brother's predicament, I see. Tainted blood…"

Maru sighed.

"Father, wherever he is, must be rolling on the ground laughing at me," he muttered sourly. "I'm just as filthy as my own half-breed brother."

"What's so bad about him?" Rin asked. "You guys must have some issues…"

"It's more of a fact that he is a constant reminder of how Chichi-ue disregarded the death of my mother and tainted our line with the blood of a human," Maru explained.

"Is that all? You fight each other just because of that!"

Rin was disgusted.

"Ugh! You're pathetic!"

She stormed off, leaving a confused ex-youkai in her wake.

"What did I say?" he wondered.

Rin didn't come back until the end of the night, and she seemed very disappointed in Maru since she had learned about his and Inuyasha's ridiculous sibling rivalry. It gave him a lot of time to think about exactly what they were fighting over.

And he was starting to doubt the plausibility of their reasons.

Why do we fight so tenaciously? I know that having a different species' blood in my family line is undesirable, but is this really requited?

What poor Maru didn't realize is that it was within an animal's instinct to reproduce with a desirable mate of the same species. The more pure the blood, the better your genes are. And all animals wanted to pass on their genes. That is why lions killed off their stepchildren—infanticide is a cruel, but necessary process in the wild.

However, as Maru now realized, his human mind conflicted very badly with this. Yes, his brother was ruining a pure family line of old, but his newly enlarged conscience now screamed at him that it was horrible to think that one could kill their brother with no remorse. However, humans had done it before, and so had he; so why did he feel remorse for this?

Quite simply, Maru was not a killer. He may have been a ruthless demon, but he never killed any creature, human, demon, or otherwise, without some sort of reason.

He too respected the laws of honor and loyalty.

With all this ascertained, he knew what he must do to pull together the ties between him and Rin.

He would have to apologize.

Slowly, he rose and walked to the balcony where he and Rin always shared dumplings and any other food they could get their hands on. She turned her nose up to him before she even saw him today, however.

Maru sighed. He shouldn't have moved, he was starting to feel very dizzy and ill.

"Rin…"

"Yeah, what?" she snapped.

"I wish to apologize for what I said before. I did not mean to upset you," he told her.

"The only thing that upsets me is that I thought you were better than that, Maru! I thought you had kindness in your heart…"

"Feh. I am a demon. What makes you think I have kindness in my heart?"

"You were a demon. But that's beside the point. Everyone has feelings and emotions."

"I do have feelings and emotions, but I was raised not to show them. I trust you can understand?"

"It's so much easier to block out the hurt if you're stoic, Maru. I think that's a good trait."

"So do you forgive me?"

"Aw, who could stay mad at you, ya big lout?"

Maru smiled a bit, then began to breathe harshly. His head was throbbing fit to burst, and his nausea was catching up to him.

"Here, you'd better lie down."

"Such motherly concern, Rin."

A familiar voice cut through the silence that ensued after Rin had finished her sentence.

"Haku, what do you want?"

"I came to visit you both. So how are things, Maru?"

"They could have gone better. Damn that dragon to the depths of hell…"

"Here. Just lie still. This is going to hurt, but it should help you in more than one aspect…"

Haku put his hand on Maru's head and began to push against the huge bump. The ex-demon's eyes watered in pain and he began to sob at the pain, but he could sense Haku's healing magic working on him, however painful the process seemed.

Just when he thought he would pass out with the pain, the young river spirit removed his hand from Maru's head.

"Feel any better?"

"…unh…"

Maru collapsed forward in a dead faint.

"He'll be okay. Here, when he wakes up, give him these for me Rin. Okay?" Haku said, handing a bundle of rice balls to Rin.

"Sure. I think he'll be happy to see these, he's pretty hungry."

"Good. Now, what he doesn't know is that I gave him some of his demonic powers back…"

"You did?"

"Look at him."

Rin gave Maru a good look over and gasped.

His ears were pointed.

R and R Pretty Please!