The Hybrid
By: The Guardian of the Hell Gate
Chapter 9: Stay Alive
Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha & co. or Full Metal Alchemist.
12:00 a.m.
The digital clock's green glow informed all who were in its presence. Even though no one in its presence particularly cared…it carried on telling the time of a new day.
The clock's soft green light was, however, lost in the TV's predominant glow, to reveal the inhabitants of the room, four companions, one Inuyasha Kumori, Kagome Higurashi, Shippou Hiro, and Glace. The youngest of the four, Shippou lay sleeping peacefully wonderfully oblivious to his surroundings as he rested his young body for the on coming day…
The oldest of the four, Inuyasha and Kagome, lay sprawled on their stomachs next to each other facing the every changing scenes of the television. Glace lay happily curled in the small of Kagome's back.
Kagome and Inuyasha were at the moment staring blankly at the show the TV was presenting at the moment, which happened to be "Full Metal Alchemist", both too lost in their own thoughts to pay attention to the show itself, too bad.
Inuyasha let his thoughts drift, from his life, to its drastic change of pace, to the young woman that had leaned over gently so her head rested lightly on the back of his shoulders, her soft breaths making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. And all was peaceful, for now…
12:30 a.m.
THUMP
The peace was shattered, by that one sound, startling our quartet of heroes from their rest, Shippou and Glace rising quickly from their resting places, Inuyasha and Kagome not far behind. The two humans stood tensely as they grabbed hold of their nearby swords. The two glanced at each other, before quietly treading to the dark stair way that led to the attic door. Glace jumped silently onto Kagome's shoulder as, Shippou did they same to Inuyasha.
Opening the door, as quietly as she could Kagome called out, "Hey is everything ok? We thought we heard something."
Kagome's question was met with nothing but the silence of darkness. Of course, most would have taken this as nothing, maybe your imagination or someone falling out of a bed. Kagome and Inuyasha, however, were too suspicious of new places to think that.
That was after all, what had kept them safe when they were younger. And so, after their eyes adjusted to the darkness, Kagome gently grabbed Inuyasha's hand to keep from being separated and continued on into the darkness of the house.
Silently stretching out her miko abilities, she probed each room they passed, searching for the house's original inhabitants. Quickly, but quietly, they reached the steps that led downstairs and with a shake of her head confirmed that the old man and teenager were not in their rooms.
Continuing on they reached the steps were the flickering light of a TV could easily be seen. Making their way downstairs, they saw Nina as she sat up from her place on the sofa, sleepily rubbing her eyes.
"Was that you two?" asked Nina still groggy from her forced return to reality.
"No we thought it was you, or your grandfather, and he's not in his room," replied Mitsuki her voice portraying her worry.
"He's not!" said Nina, now fully awake.
Mitsuki shook her head, 'no', as Nina sprung up from her resting place only to head towards the back door.
"Hey Kagome why didn't she say anything about Glace or Shippou or our swords?" whispered Inuyasha.
"Because I never took off their concealment spells, and I just put one on Glace, now let's go see what's happening," whispered Kagome back as she headed after Nina.
"Nina!" Mitsuki cried as she Jinenji, and Souta raced towards the girl, who was now looking frantically around her yard.
Nina eyes turned to her momentarily, before they began scanning the surrounding area once more.
"What's up?" asked Jinenji as they finally reached her.
"My granddad is out here somewhere."
"Why would he be out here, in the middle of the night?" asked Mitsuki, this time.
"Because every now and then granddad sleep walks, and one time he came back he had hurt himself, so I have to find him," answered Nina in a frantic rush.
"Nina calm down, if you keep on searching like that you might over look him," said Mitsuki soothingly as she rubbed comforting circles in Nina's back.
"But…"
"Don't worry we'll help you look for him."
Nina looked at her strangely for a moment, silently contemplating why complete strangers would want to help her before deeming it as unimportant and smiling slightly nodded her head.
"Ok, Jinenji you and Souta make sure he's not wondering around the house, and Nina and I will make sure he isn't in the forest, if neither of us can find him we'll meet back up at the shed and go look in the forest itself. Agreed?"
The three nodded, somewhat surprised at how she could dish out orders, and good ones in a few short seconds, nevertheless the four split up to look in their respective areas. Inuyasha, however, looked back once more at Kagome. Kagome feeling his gaze threw a quick glance at him and a smile before turning to follow Nina towards the thicket.
At the house
"Inuyasha are you sure you should let Kagome go off with Nina all alone," asked Shippou as he began to search through the bushes near the house in search of the old man.
"No, but Kagome is a miko so she should be able to take care of herself. Besides she's not all alone she has Glace, and her sword, and you and I both know she can use it," replied Inuyasha, as he too began to look in some of the bigger bushes that someway or another had grown around each other to form one big bush.
"Yeah…" replied Shippou as he stopped searching for a moment to look towards the direction that Kagome and Nina had headed.
"You worry too much, Shippou I mean you know Kagome can kick ass, plus if you haven't noticed she's a miko. A damn strong one too, although her powers are slightly weakened because of the new moon, they're still strong and a demon would have to be a fool, to try and mess with her."
"Yeah, ok…Anyway maybe we should search inside too. Tom might have just locked himself inside a closet or something," suggested Shippou as he started towards the door, still open in their haste to reach Nina.
"Sure."
And with that Shippou and Inuyasha disappeared inside to look for the old sleep walker.
At the woods
"Nina, does you granddad do this often?" asked Mitsuki as she began to look in the semi – darkness for Tom.
"Every now and then," was Nina's vague reply.
"Well where do you usually find him."
"All around the place, every time I find him he's in a different place from before it's so frustrating sometimes."
Mitsuki was silent after that as she began searching once again. In their silence the two covered a large area and the darkened edges of the forest with Kagome's miko powers and still came up with nothing.
Sighing suddenly Mitsuki stood up straight, stretching her aching muscles.
"Nina we've searched the entire perimeter of the forest, I think we should meet back up with the guys."
"Ok."
Just as the two were starting out however Kagome quickly turned back her eyes scanning the forest and its shadows that could hide almost anything.
'You ok?" asked Nina as she noticed that Mitsuki wasn't walking back with her.
"Yeah," replied Mitsuki, "just thought I heard something, it was probably a raccoon or something."
In truth, however, Kagome thought that just for a minute she had sensed a youkai's ki.
And with that the two started back towards the shed that they had specified as their rendezvous point, only to see Jinenji and Souta also heading towards the shed. Walking quickly towards each other they reached the shed in record time.
"Did you guys find him at the house?" asked Nina as soon as they were in talking distance.
Jinenji just shook his head slightly, "How 'bout you guys?"
"Not a trace," answered Mitsuki as she affectionately patted Souta's head as he hugged her.
"Nina do you have any flashlights we could use in the forest?" asked Mitsuki.
Nina nodded as she headed towards the shed, Mitsuki, Jinenji, and Souta not far behind.
However as Nina began to open the shed it was almost as though time itself were slowing down as Kagome once again sensed a youkai's ki, this time it was completely free no one trying to conceal it.
Turning quickly, she spotted the approaching shadow of a demon, but it was too late as it quickly immobilized Kagome before she could attack it.
"Kagome!" cried Shippou as he realized that he was lying on his back knocked over by the sudden loss of Kagome's hand.
"Kagome!" cried Inuyasha in horror as he watched helplessly as the demon held Kagome captive his hand tightening on Tetsuiga.
Nina just looked on in terror as she looked into the blood thirsty eyes of the captor of her friend. Dimly recognizing that Jinenji and Souta had called her by a name that was not her own. However, her terror was nothing compared to her shock as the moon's light finally revealed, Kagome's captor…
Nina's own grandfather.
He was looking at them all with pride as he held Kagome almost as though she were a trophy. His head sat on a long knobby neck that disappeared into his shirt and jeans. However his arms and legs had elongated and split into eight equally long spider legs, minus their usual color and stiff hairs. His eyes were wide now, with almost non existent pupils, and from his mouth protruded long fangs. He was a truly monstrous sight.
"Thank you for bringing me this most lovely prize, and now since I have no more use for you I bid you all adieu," he wheezed as he slowly began to turn towards the forest.
"No, let go of Kagome!" cried Inuyasha, as he drew his sword, although he knew that it wouldn't transform since he wasn't a hanyou.
Inuyasha, to worried about Kagome didn't care at that moment as he ran towards the demon and brought the untransformed sword down on Kagome's bindings. And although it wouldn't transform the seal that didn't allow demons to wield it activated as soon as it touched his skin.
Surprised by the sudden pain the youkai's grip on Kagome loosened, giving Kagome the chance she needed as she quickly poured her miko powers through every pore in her body, through the seams of her clothes and straight into his hand.
And with a pain filled cry he released her revealing his palm almost completely burned black by her powers, she landed gracefully on the ground and quickly moved away from the youkai's grotesque form before he could capture her again.
"Foolish child!" he screeched in anger as his head quickly swooped towards Inuyasha, who was just now landing on the ground not even giving him the time to dodge as he quickly sunk his fangs into Inuyasha's side.
He picked Inuyasha up in his fangs for a moment, Inuyasha's eyes glazed over in pain, before he threw his limp body over to Kagome.
"Inuyasha! Inuyasha are you ok? Please say something!" cried Kagome as she kneeled by his side cradling his head in her arms as tears quickly began to flow down her cheeks in worry.
"Don't cry, Kagome. You know I hate it when you cry…" he trailed off as he finally gave into the pain and slunk into unconsciousness.
"What did you do to him?" said Kagome voice rough, her eyes narrowed in hate and anger.
"Oh, noting I just infected him with my poison, he'll be dead by sunrise," said the demon, satisfied with his work.
"Who are you, and where is my grandfather?" cried Nina as she finally remembered how to speak.
"I am Gokomaru, a spider demon and your grandfather has been dead for a long time, girl," Gokomaru sneered at Nina's crestfallen countenance.
Becoming impatient with these humans' useless babble he once again began to close in on Kagome, only to be stopped by a barrier, he snarled as his limbs began to burn on contact, at first not he didn't know what had stopped him until he saw Kagome's glowing body, keeping the barrier firmly in place.
"Shippou, Nina go into the shed, Glace take Inuyasha too," commanded Kagome her eyes not once straying from Gokomaru, who was now ignoring the burns left by the barrier as he began to pound on it.
And no matter how reluctantly, and how little they really knew about Kagome they knew not to disobey and slowly walked inside, Glace, in his larger form with Inuyasha on his back, not far behind.
"So little miko, have you come to your senses and surrendered," said Gokomaru, cockily.
"Never you bastard, and know this I could kill you right now if I wanted to but that would be wasting too much energy on a sorry waste of space like you!" hissed Kagome.
Turning sharply on her heel Kagome picked up the Tetsuiga and Ki and disappeared into the shed, as Gokomaru in his anger resumed his pounding on her barrier.
The shed was a stark contrast from the outside world. It was almost pitch black, and the air was stale as if no one had been in it for quite some time. However, Kagome did not have time to think of how uncomfortable it was in the shed as she turned quickly and drove both the Ki and Tetsuiga into the shed's door creating a barrier around the shed.
With that done, Kagome gathered her miko energies into her hand making it glow a brilliant blue chasing away the darkness of the shed. Her eyes scanned the interior until they came to rest on Inuyasha, his chest heaving as he tried to breathe normally, blood still slowly oozing from his wound, as sweat beaded on his forehead, Glace and Shippou sitting close to his head worried about him and yet not knowing what to do.
Moving to them quickly, they moved to allow her more room as he reached for his head feeling it to see how high his fever was, she gasped as she snatched her hand away in surprise of the heat. Her eyes clouded in worry as they trailed down to his injury, before placing her glowing hands over his wound closing her eyes she imagined it slowly closing over until there was nothing left, not even a faint scar.
Opening her eyes she looked over her handy work, gently prodding his skin were the wound used to be, finally satisfied when he didn't even flinch under her soft ministrations, she laid back on her knees by his head.
Searching in her pockets, she revealed a bandanna it was her favorite even though to others it looked like a regular red bandana with all of its regular designs. She fingered it slightly before instructing Glace to wet it with his water powers. Quickly doing so Kagome, wrung out the excess water before placing the cloth on Inuyasha's burning head.
"Hey, who are you really, Kagome?" asked Nina, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
Kagome's eyes slowly rose from Inuyasha's fevered brow to Nina's harsh glare before answering, "I am I."
"What?"
"I am I," repeated Kagome.
"What do you mean?" asked Nina, annoyed.
"I mean that I am I, no matter what name I take, no matter what name or shape any of us take I am still Kagome no matter what," clarified Kagome, never knowing the soft violet eyes that had opened and heard her philosophical words before falling back into the darkness…
"You lied to me, all of you did!" cried Nina furiously.
"Please keep your voice down," commanded Kagome sternly.
Nina did so, with a scowl on her face.
"Nina I'm sorry that we lied," Nina scoffed at the comment, " but we had to, you see there is a man after me, and I unfortunately dragged Inuyasha and Shippou into this," this time Shippou tried to interrupt but was stopped by a gentle hand on his head, " I knew he would track my movements so I decided if he found out that we, I, had talked to you; you would only tell him what I had told you, my false name, my husband's name, son's name and that we had a flat tire and we needed some help. However, he seemed to be prepared and probably set up demons at certain intervals to try and capture me, Gokomaru one of his demons set up his base here, and lucky for him we fell right into his lap."
Nina was silent as she digested all of this information, before looking away ashamed of her behavior as everything she said fell into place.
"I'm sorry."
"It's alright go to sleep, we won't be able to get out of here until morning," said Kagome comfortingly as she signaled for Glace to make her more comfortable by allowing her to cushion her head on his transformed stomach, "you too Shippou."
"Thank you," she said tiredly as she began to drift off to sleep.
"But Kagome…" he whined.
"Go," she commanded softly, like a mother would her child.
With a pout settled firmly onto his features, Shippou marched over to Glace before settling on his head and passing out as if he had been hit.
"You can sleep too, Glace."
He growled in appreciation, before closing his eyes, and drifting into a light slumber.
Turning back to Inuyasha, Kagome sighed softly as she looked at his pale face, feeling tears well up in her eyes she quietly murmured in his ear, "Please stay alive Inuyasha."
The hours dripped by like melting ice, as Kagome waited for the sun impatiently tending to Inuyasha as best she could in such a situation.
At about 3:00 a.m. as Kagome was gently wiping away a few loose beads of sweat, Inuyasha finally awoke.
"Inuyasha, how are you feeling?" asked Kagome worriedly as she looked into his unfocused eyes.
"I'll feel better in the morning."
"Won't we all…"
"Are you ok, Kagome?"
"Of course I am, now stop worrying about me and get some rest."
"Yeah sure," he smirked slightly.
"Hey Kagome…"
"Hmmm…"
"May I use your lap?"
Kagome blushed at the unexpected answer before, nodding gently and moving closer to him positioning his head so it rested on her lap.
"Thanks."
"No problem."
He turned slightly nuzzling his face into her stomach, "So soft," he murmured quietly to himself.
Kagome blushed, apparently not as quietly as he thought, but she didn't move or stiffen, she just leaned back against the wall a blush still staining her cheeks as she smiled slightly and ran her fingers through his soft onyx locks.
The last few hours passed in a comfortable silence.
Until suddenly and without warning, Gokomaru pounded on the roof harder than ever before knocking the two swords a loose, causing the entire structure, to cave in under his strength.
Kagome, and the now awake Shippou, Glace, and Nina quickly threw off the debris as quickly as they could so they dodge any on coming attacks until they realized if he wanted to attack he would've already.
Suddenly looking around, Kagome worriedly cried out for Inuyasha as she noticed the missing weight on her lap.
"Ahh, you're looking for your little boyfriend, eh Kagome?"
Looking up in horror, she saw Inuyasha who appeared to still be unconscious as Gokomaru held him by his head.
"Let him go!" cried Kagome furious as she watched with worried eyes as Gokomaru swung Inuyasha from side to side.
"Hmmmm, I don't know…" replied Gokomaru as though he were actually thinking about it.
None noticed that the sun was slowly beginning to rise until that is Inuyasha spoke.
"You should've killed me when you had the chance," said Inuyasha as he smirked.
"What!" cried Gokomaru, astonished that a weak human had even survived the night with his poison running through his veins, and now he was insulting him!
"Stupid human, I'll tear you apart!" cried Gokomaru as he raised Inuyasha into the lightning sky.
"Highly unlikely, but hey you're welcome to try," said Kagome who no longer seemed concerned with Inuyasha's well – being at all.
Causing Shippou and Nina to suddenly turn and look at her as though she were a completely different person. But as the sunlight hit both Inuyasha and Kagome they could all see why.
As Inuyasha and Kagome both began to pulse in time with each other, as black hair turned to silver, as bangs changed to white, as claws grew, as bodies strengthened, as Inuyasha and Kagome both turned back into their hanyou forms.
"Ahhaahahahahahah, you're dead now," cried Shippou between gasps as he tried to laugh, breathe and talk all at the same time.
"He's right don'cha know," said Kagome, as Inuyasha smirked while breaking free of the demon and jumping back to stand next to Kagome.
"Shall we?" asked Inuyasha, bowing slightly as he gestured to the now unnerved Gokomaru.
"We shall," answered Kagome, and then the two took of running, their steps perfectly synchronized as the two leaped up and sliced Gokomaru to pieces with one joint attack.
"Wow," said Nina completely and totally stunned by their display of power, and by the looks of it they didn't think much of it at all as though that were only exercise.
"Hey Nina, do you have anything we have fix our flat with?" asked Kagome after she finished checking Inuyasha over to make sure he was alright.
"Yeah, one minute."
About one hour later, a new wheel was on the car and our heroes' bellies were full, the only reason Inuyasha, Kagome, Glace and Shippou weren't on the road yet is because Kagome was worried about Nina staying at the house all alone.
"Kagome, don't worry I'll be fine," said Nina for the umpteenth time.
"But why can't we just drop you off somewhere?" asked Kagome for who knows how many times.
"Because you have to get going so whoever's chasing you doesn't catch up with you," rationalized Nina.
"But…"
"Nina's right Kagome, plus she'll probably be safer here than with us," persuaded Inuyasha gently.
"But…"
"Kagome…Please, don't worry."
"Oh, alright I give," said Kagome defeated as she gave Nina a hug and bidding her one final farewell, the two hanyous with their passengers were off, Kagome periodically yawning on the way, so when they finally got back to the car the seating arrangements had to be changed a bit.
Resulting in a weary Kagome in the passenger's seat, and a daredevil Inuyasha in the driver's seat, and with that our traveling group was on the road once more.
Kagome's last thought before she fell asleep, however, was…
Watch out Naraku you just gave me two new reasons to kill you…
TOBECONTINUED
Yo! I'm finally back, and I'm sorry for the long wait. But my review alert was disabled so until I went to my profile to find a particular story I didn't know I had gotten four more reviews. Anyway here's an extra long chapter that's actually about 20 pages in Word but only 10 on totally sucks! Anyway I've gotten a job and I'm workin' Monday through Thursday, and we do a lot of walkin' so I get really tired so I'm not sure when I'll next update. So just bear with me and please continue to read and review. And I need at least 3 or 4 reviews before I write the new chapter. And btw when I was writing the beginning I keep on changing from Inu's, Kag's, and Shippou's real name to fake name, which means that when I say the fake name they're acting like the people they introduced themselves as, but when I say their real names that means they're acting like themselves. I hope that didn't confuse too many people. Oh and I also went back and corrected some mistakes in my last chapters, just so you know. Anyway I hope you liked my chapter and until next time…REVIEW!
JA!