Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha, although that would be nice.

And so, without anymore...oh, fine, go start reading already...

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Chapter 7

The group moved on, feeling it was unsafe to stay where they were, even though it was still raining hard.

Inuyasha heard what sounded like a moan come from Kagome who rode on his back as he ran.

"What's wrong?" He asked with concern.

She rested her uninjured cheek against his back, using him to sheild her face from the pelting rain, "Inuyasha, I'm tired, cold, and wet."

"I know, we're close to the next village. I'm sorry, Kagome."

She held him tighter because she didn't blame him, and didn't want him to think she did.

'I don't know if he heard me say it...' Kagome thought sadly. She wanted Inuyasha to hear her say she loved him.

The truth was he had heard her. It had shocked him beyond words at the time, making him think everything through over and over again, trying to convince himself he really had heard it.

Could he ask her to be his mate? Could he ask her to give up her own time to stay with him if, once the jewel was destroyed, the well closed?

He had promised her he would stay a half demon. He had given up becomeing a demon, the one thing he had wanted so badly for the only thing he wanted more. He gave it up for her. He gave it up for Kagome.

What would they wish for to make the jewel disapear?

Him and Miroku had had no luck figuring out what had happened because the women refused to talk about it.

'After they go to sleep, I'll ask Shippo. Maybe he'll know what happened even though he and Kirara just now woke up,' Inuyasha thought.

With no desire to think about it anymore, he instead turned his mind to Naraku and Akakios. The sooner they got rid of them, the sooner they would be out of danger.

A short distance away from the village, they found an abandoned hut which they took shelter in, Sango starting a fire in the old stove, and Kagome passing out food for everyone.

They all got ramen, exept for Kirara, who got her favorite cat treats from Kagome's time.

"Who was it what confronted you?" Miroku asked as he made himself comfortable against the wall.

Sango looked at him, then said, "They were sisters who said their father was Akakios. Amaya and Hikari were their names."

Kagome sat with the wooden box on her lap, and Shippo came and sat beside her and asked, "Are you going to open it kagome?"

She shrugged, looking up to see Sango sit down across the room from the man she had said she wanted to be her husband.

'Sango...don't do this...' Kagome whispered to herself.

Kagome turned to the demon slayer as she put the box back in her bag, unopened, "Sango, I understand...When you love someone, people say things like that to get to you. It won't stop and you'll get used to it. You told me not to listen to them, and you shouldn't either."

"What are you talking about?" Inuyasha asked at the sad looks both of them had, "What did they do?"

Both of them looked to the ground as they thought back, not wanting to answer.

"Hey, tell me Kagome! What did they do!" Inuyasha's worry grew, along with all the others in the room.

Kagome looked into Inuyasha's golden eyes, saying quietly, "They told us how they could make us kill you."

It had affected Sango so much more, because she wasn't used to those threats, and Kagome felt terrible.

Sango stood and walked out into the pooring rain, looking like she was about to cry.

Miroku went out after her before Kagome had the time to tell him he should. She was proud of him for going to help Sango without having to be told he should. He really did love her.

"Is it me, or does me dying not seem to faze you?" Inuyasha scowled defensivly.

Kagome looked at him in complete disbelief, but with that look she said super calmly, "Inuyasha, sit please," after he hit the ground, she continued, "That was a stupid and hurtful question that you already know the answer to. I would DIE for you Inuyasha."

Inuyasha didn't go off in a rampage and yell at her for sitting him this time. He had deserved it after all.

Shippo , Kirara, and Kohaku looked on in confusion, wondering what was going on in their minds to make them stare silently at eachother.

Kohaku, knowing less about it than Kirara and Shippo, went to the corner and closed his eyes, ready to sleep. The other two followed him and left them alone with whatever it was they were doing.

'God, Kagome, I love looking at you...'

'Inuyasha, I want you to love me as much as I love you.'

Kagome had loved him for so long. What would that love turn into if he never returned it? Would it turn to hate?

'Inuyasha, there's so many things that stop us from being together. Kikyo, my being from a different time. The sisters were right, you will live so much longer than me...will I even be in your life when I do die?' Kagome's thoughts only made her sad and want to cry.

She wanted to scream out loud how she felt, to let the whole world know how she felt.

"What do you want me to do for you?" Inuyasha inquired in a whisper.

"Love me?" She said in a hopeless voice as if it was a fleeting dream, and she moved so there was a few feet between them.

Inuyasha tensed, then sighed, understanding. Kikyo had always been between them, a small nagging in the back of his mind that never allowed him to give Kagome all she deserved, but Kikyo was gone, and he realized that all he had felt for her was pity.

"Kagome..." He whispered, waiting for her to turn towards him.

When she did, he looked her straight in the eyes. He couldn't say those three words, but he grabbed her hands and said, "I do..."

This made her eyes water, and a little smile touched her lips. He knew, because they were what he was looking at. He had wanted to kiss her again, but their hadn't been time. Now, Miroku and Sango where gone and the others were sleeping silently.

Gently, he pulled her to him, but it was her who leaned in and kissed him as she wedged herself under his arm for more warmth.

They kissed eachother again, letting their actions speak rather than their words.

It went on for what seemed like forever, them holding eachother and kissing. They were in a world where there was no bad to follow them. A world where nothing could take them away from eachother.

When Miroku and Sango returned, they found Kagome curled up against the half-demon whose arm was tight around her shoulders, his temple against her forhead. Both of their eyes were closed, chests rising steadily.

A hand around Sango's waist, and for once, not on her backside, Mikoru whispered to her, "They belong together, don't you think?"

Sango gave a bright smile, feeling better than she had earlier, "Yes, they do."

"I'm not asleep you know," Came a hiss from Inuyasha which made both the slayer and the monk jump. He hadn't even opened his eyes, barely moved his mouth.

"Oh...well then..." Sango stumbled and blushed, then pulled away from Miroku and sat down.

Miroku of course, sat right next to her after putting more wood in the fire.

"You do look good together.." Miroku jabbed with a smile that the half-demon didn't see.

"Shut up," Inuyasha repied half-heartedly, too busy thinking about what him and Kagome had spent most of the time they had been gone doing.

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Kikyo walked along the small stream that ran through the forest.

She hated Akakios, but he offered help in killing the one person Kikyo hated most of all. The half-demon who had once been a man she had nursed back to health.

Naraku, who he was now, had taken her life. He had taken her world and shattered it to pieces. No, she hadn't been happy the majority of her life until Inuyasha came along, but still, he had betrayed her, and in that made HER betray the one person she had ever been able to talk with, to love.

Inuyasha had been a half-demon himself though, and her being a priestess, it wouldn't have worked. Her relationship with him had weakened her powers, and so she asked him to become a human. He had agreed without protest, having the same fear of being alone as she had.

"Inuyasha, we were so alike, but so different, and we thought we loved eachother. What fools we were, when such a small thing made us turn against one another," Kikyo kneeled by the stream and felt the water that was no colder than her skin, "No matter I had loved you, or you had loved me, we did not trust eachother, and thats what love is..."

She had seen him kiss that girl, her very own reincarnation that was, despite it, completely different from her.

"Yes, you love her like you never loved me. You trust her like you never could have trusted me. Why does fate choose such cruel paths, Inuyasha. Why did I have to die and you get to live? I was a priestess, you a demon who had killed so many innocent human beings?"

She walked on with sadness in her eyes, and her anger grew.

"I who still in death walk this earth and heal the sick and injured, must face this pain, when he, a halfbreed gets to live, and love, and be loved! A fair world this is not, but, with Inuyasha and Naraku's deaths, I shall be able to start again. I will have rid the world of those who rid the world of me..."

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"When's it going to stop raining?" Shippo pouted as he looked out the doorway, but the wirlwind coming at the little hut at a very fast pace made him forget about his question that none of them knew the answer to.

"Hey Kagome, I think Koga's come to see you," He holared, and in a split second Inuyasha was stomping out the door, Kagame running after him to stop a possible fight.

"Do you think we should help her?" Sango asked with a look at Miroku.

He looked thoughtful, and nodded, "She could definately use it."

They walked out just in time to see the wolf-demon stop in front of Kagome and grab her hands, "Kagome, what happened to your cheek? I'm sorry for not coming to see you sooner."

'Actually, I kinda forgot about you Koga...' Kagome said guiltily to herself.

Inuyasha drew his tetsusaiga while facing Koga, "I'm getting really tired of you wolf-boy!"

"Its just a scratch," Kagome answered Koga's question while ignoring Inuyasha.

"Oh, hi, dog turd. Still hanging around I see, and you still can't protect Kagome."

"Why you..." Inuyasha growled, and Kagome got more and more frustrated.

"Oh! Would you two stop it already! I'm so sick of it! Koga, your nice and everything, but I don't love you, I'm sorry."

Koga didn't look in the least bit abashed, "Kagome, I'm sorry, but I've taken Ayame as my mate. Don't be too sad. I would have picked you, but Ayame's a wolf-demon like me."

Everyone looked at him, stunned, "Koga, did you really take Ayame as your mate?" Sango asked.

"I just came to tell you that, Kagome, but I still love you, and I always will," He dug into his cafes and pulled out the shards, holding them out to her, "I want you to take these in hopes of being able to forgive me."

Still in shock, Kagome took the shards slowly, then smiled, "Koga, I forgive you. Could you tell Ayame hi for us?"

"Sure, well, see you around. You better start taking care of my Kagome, mut!" And then Koga was gone.

"Wow. Did that really just happen?" Sango questioned, making sure she wasn't the only that had wittnessed what had happened.

"We have most of the shards now..." Kagome whispered with a smile as she looked at the two that sat in her hand and then took the much larger one from around her neck and made them one, "There's only the ones Naraku has that are left."

"We've come a long way, havn't we?" Miroku gave a happy smile.

The mood was light as they got out of the increasingly hard rain.

Inuyasha sat down next to Kagome as she dug through her bag, "How's your cheek, Kagome?"

"It only hurts a little. Its fine."

She was looking at the box again, but not opening it, staring at it instead, in thought, hands on the sides as if she would open it at any moment.

'I'll open it...' Kagome decided silently and as she opened it, everyone moved closer to see what was in it.

Kagome didn't understand, "Its..."

"Kagome..." Miroku said startled, "Do you know what that is?"

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Well, there's the 7th chapter for you, and I hope you liked it!

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Its a chain reaction, the more reviews, the more chapters.

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