Ch. 9: Deeper In

Inuyasha couldn't see anything at all. Everything was pitch-black, even the cave. He waved one of his hands in front of his face just to prove that he could see nothing. Inuyasha scrunched up his face.

This put him ill-at-ease because anything could be hiding in this dark cave. He subconsciously tightened his grip on Kagome at the thought that danger could be near.

Her heard her murmer in her sleep. Inuyasha brought his face closer to hers, so that he could catch what she said.

"Kagome?"

She was silent, and he could feel her breath on his face. It was warm and it kinda tickled, the way it lightly brushed his skin. He let his face linger close to hers for a little bit, and then he reluctantly made himself pull away.

Kagome's head wrested on his chest, and Inuyasha had one of his arms brought around her waist, holding her gently to him, and his other arm was mirrored around her the same way.

Her long soft hair fell down her back to where just the tips of his fingers could touch it.

Inuyasha began to fiddle with the ends of the hair with his fingers. He liked the feel of it and he soon grew more curious and ran his hand through her hair, accidentally tangling her delicate hair together.

Inuyasha's curiousity and infatuation with her was still not satisfied, and he testingly ran his hand through the little knots, and he noted that they were easily pulled apart again. He kept running his hand through her hair until her hair was completely smoothed out again, and he was sure that there were no more knots.

He silently vowed to himself that Kagome would never know what he had done while she had slept next to him on this night. No one would ever know.

He held her close, and though it was pitch black, he had nothing but pure innocent love for her in his eyes, as he held her close to himself adoringly.

He was growing too soft. Only Kagome could do this to him. Damn his stupid human emotions!

"I knew I should have turned demon while I had the chance." He grumbled under his breath with a scowl. But deep deep down, he knew he wanted this girl just as badly as he wanted to become demon. He was in very deep denial that he didn't want her. He was almost sure that she wouldn't choose to stay with him and that she would return back to her home forever because he had run to Kikyou instead of her so many times before, but that went both ways too! But...why should she stay with him after he torchured her all those times that he did run to Kikyou..

He didn't want to center his life on Kagome yet. He wasn't ready.

He had to keep turning demon as an alternative if Kagome did leave him.

This whole thing was so confusing...he was almost positive that Kagome loved him, on another even higher note.

He had a flashback of the time when Kaguya had backfired Kagome's arrow, and it was going to purify him but Kagome ran and got in the way of the arrow and it pierced through her back. Then she told him she was happy he lived, that it was all right that way.

He ground his teeth together.

It was far far from all right.

And there were many other times too...that she had come to close to death because of him.

"You stupid girl..." He said gently into her ear. "you don't need to do those things for me...if anything ever happened to you i'd..." He trailed off, deep in his own thoughts.

The rain had steadily began to pour down harder, the wind was picking up and it blew harshly cold rain in. Kagome began to stirr around in his arms.

He picked her up and reluctantly walked even further into the cave, which he had not wanted to do, because there was no telling what was back there.

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Kagome slowly began to wake up. She thought she heard Inuyasha talking to her though his voice was really fuzzy, but as she began waking up more she realized that it had probably been a dream.

The wind was howling really loudly outside! She was about to ask Inuyasha if he was awake when he picked her up and started walking further into the cave. So that answered her question.

It was pretty creepy because she could not see a thing. At all. She only could feel Inuyasha holding her. She could feel his chest rise up and down as he breathed in and out. At least she was pretty certain that it was Inuyasha.

"Inuyasha?" She asked.

"Hm. I'm here Kagome." He said gruffly.

She listened to his feet padding along the cave floor. It was about the only noise in the cave. She leaned into his chest more because she was scared. His chest was so sturdy and warm...

He suddenly stopped and she felt him tence up.

"Inuyasha, what is it?" She asked worried. He was quiet for a while. "Inu-"

"I'm pretty sure I hear running water...or something.."

Kagome straigned her ears to hear it...and then, there it was. The sound of rushing water.

"Inuyasha, I hear it too! Let's go check it out!"

"Hrrm." He grumbled unsurely.

He cautiously walked deeper into the blackness of the cave, using his hands to feel his way along the rough cold cave wall, occasionaly his foot would connect painfuly with a small rock or something, but he held in his pain. It wouldn't kill him, and he didn't want to worry Kagome who was securly grasped in his arms.

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In Inuyasha's mind he was slightly worried. What if there happened to be demons down here where this water was? Why did they want to find this water in the first place, there was plenty outside!

Something subconsciously was willing them to go find the water...pulling them towards it.

It began to grow warm the further they traveled into the cave. And then there was a cloud of steamy mist...

"What is this?" Kagome asked unsurely. "It looks like..." They came around a corner in the cave and the place was slightly illuminated, Inuyasha could see Kagome in his arms.

"A hot spring!" They said in unison.

Inuyasha sat Kagome down next to it and he dipped his fingers into the warm water. It felt really good, he wouldn't admit it out loud, but it did.

"It feels so great!" Kagome cooed as she dipped her aching feet into the water. "Aaaah!" Inuyasha smiled inwardly at her, but kept his face hard. "Come on Inuyasha, just dip your feet in. It feels very good." She said smiling. Kagome reached her not broken hand in and splashed alittle water onto him.

"Hey!" He snapped harshly but ammused from behind his sleeve. He had raised it to shield himself just a second too late and the water had splashed onto his chest.

"If you don't dip your feet in, i'll have to do that again." She told him defiantly while pointing a finger at him.

"Yah? Let's just see you try it." He said cockily, immitating the way he talked to his enemies.

"It's your funeral!" She said seriously, but a smile was evident on her face.

Kagome cupped her hands under the water and she gently, because her hand was hurt, pushed a small wave of it at him. Inuyasha predicted her move, jumped up to his feet, and did a flip out of the way of Kagome's imminent water attack.

That got an impressed laugh out of her. "Oh yah! You silly little human, you can't dodge my next one!" She hissed playfuly. Inuyasha was out of her reach, and her foot was hurt besides he was having fun, so he walked back to her cockily.

"Oh? I don't think you can do a thing to me! Keh!"

"We'll see about that!" She said laughing and shoved more water onto him. Inuyasha fell over dramatically.

"Ah! You got me! But i'm not goin' down without bringing you with me!" Kagome stopped playing, and she looked at him shocked.

"W-What are you gonna do!" She said unsurely, her eyes wide. Inuyasha kicked his foot into the water over and over.

"Ah! Inuyasha!" She said laughing with her hands out, trying to shield her from the water. "S-stop! I'm getting soaked!" He didn't stop until she was drenched from head to foot. He didn't like loosing to anyone, over anything and he made sure he won this.

'Thank goodness I still have on Inuyasha's fire-rat robe, otherwise my white school shirt wood have soaked through!' She thought with a half-smile, eyes wide. Inuyasha noticed as a slight blush appeared on her face.

"What is it, Kagome?" He asked light-hearted and confused.

"Oh, nothing!" She waved her hands dissmisingly at him. He decided not to pry it out of her, because he didn't want to start a fight and ruin the happy atmosphere.

They sat there, quietly soaking their feet in the warm underground hot spring. Inuyasha then noticed Kagome out of the corner of his eye was ringing her hair out. He sat there and watched as she then began to run her hands through it, just as he had done.

"I wish I had my brush...it's a mess.." She said sadly.

Inuyasha bit on his lip. He could go over there and help her brush it out, but his bigger ego was screaming at him not to. He was a demon, and demon's did not do things like brush out their girl-friends, er:friends: hair for them.

So he stared straight ahead and thought of other things.

Like how cute Kagome looked while she slept.

WAIT A MINUTE!

He narrowed his eyes in frustration. He couldn't get this girl out of his head! She was literaly driving him insane!

"Hey Inuyasha?"

He jumped high into the air. "Hm!" He squeeked surprised, his heart stopping in his chest when she said his name. Why did she have him so on edge? It's not like she could read his thoughts! Kagome stared at him, shocked.

"What!" He yelled at her, miffed that she surprised him like that. And angrier that he couldn't rid his thoughts of Kagome.

She leaned away from him, hurt.

"What are you yelling at me for!" She said exasparated, not wanting to argue but her anger and pain was threatening to spill over at being yelled at.

"Hmph." He looked away from her and shut his eyes. He tried to stay angry, but he couldn't do it. He felt immence guilt wash over him. But he sat there defiantly and took it. His ego was to large to say that he was sorry. Even though it wasn't her fault that his thoughts were all on her. Well, not completely anyways.

Kagome sat there fuming at him. She couldn't believe he snapped at her! What had she done this time! Nothing! Or nothing that she could recall doing. And here she thought everything was going well. 'I guess some things just never will change.' she thought to herself myserably.

She sat there staring into the flowing hot spring...it was the only thing that was moving in this place.

After a while, the silence began to turn into torchure as the memory of them splashing eachother in the water and laughing began to haunt the both of them.

"Inuyasha..." Kagome said gently, being able to take no more of the silence. "I'm sorry that I got mad...I- shouldn't have." She said, trying to sound sincere but she really didn't know what she was apologizing for. But some-one had to do it, and the quietness was driving her crazy!

Inuyasha's stress level rose. She shouldn't be apologizing to him for anything! He turned around and faced her. His violet eyes looked straight into her brown ones.

"Why are you apologizing to me?" He said more agitated at her.

"I- I- surprised you.." She said unsurely, but trying to sound confident.

"As if that's something you should be apologizing for." He grunted. She glared at him.

"Ok. So maybe it wasn't a real apology. I was trying to make peace with you." She kept holding his gaze angrily.

His face softened alittle bit and he felt guilty but this was confusing for the both of them. He knew it was his fault but he just couldn't admit it out loud. His face scrunched up in agitation as he was again feeling on the spot.

kagome looked away from Inuyasha and sighed feeling defeated...'Inuyasha is such a confusing person..' She thought to herself.

Tt was quiet again and the pressure just kept on building up inside of Inuyasha. His feelings were so mixed up and he wanted to say something, he wanted so badly to say that he was wrong, and apologize--

''Ok. I'm sorry.'' he muttered. He couldn't take the hurt look on kagome's face anymore.

Her soft, relieved eyes turned to look at him but her face remained forward,her lips curved into a smile,almost a smirk. It sounded much like the first time he had apologized to her.

''Well arn't ya gonna say anything!'' he scolded angrily. ''Do you forgive me or are ya just gonna leave me the hell alone?''

''Yes,yes I forgive you.'' She waved him off with her unbroken hand of course. 'Inuyasha...thank you.'

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Ok so, I didn't get that many reviews for my last chapters! What's up with that? I hope i'm not getting boring! I really shouldn't even be updating because I got only 3 reviews. :frowning face:

Well neways, I worked extra hard on this chapter and made it extra long. So I :really: hope yall liked it and please review! If u guyz don't let me know it's good with reviews---- i'm gonna seriously quit on this:(

No---I probably won't quit but still...it makes me happy when I get reviews, so yall better review for me or else!