A/N: I would like to take a moment out to say thank you to the people who reviewed. It means a lot to me. Also, I would like to warn all Youko lovers that he is a little out of character in this chapter, but I will explain soon.

Disclaimer: The only things I own in this story are the plot and Kei, who you will meet soon. Now, to the story!

Edit: This chapter has now been Beta-ed by Crazy idiot who is really Herman.

Kagome groaned from the car wreck. Her head was pounding, and she could feel some sort of liquid flowing down her chest. Disoriented, and thoroughly battered, Kagome began to untwine herself from the wreck. First to fall out of the mangled car was her torso, soon followed by her legs after they were disentangled from the ripped seat belt and shattered dashboard.

Staggering, Kagome stumbled to the roadside. Lying in the middle of it was a bloody silver fox.

Kagome's immediate thought was that she had killed it. She whimpered and weaved over to the body. Tears began to form in her eyes; she had never meant to kill anything. Never. Freezing rain pelted her shivering body as she picked up and cradled the body to her own.

The fox took a breath. It sighed, as if a great burden had been lifted, but Kagome didn't notice. She was too busy relieving that she wasn't a murderer after all.

"Oh, gods, you're all right! I thought for sure you were dead! But what am I thinking, I should be getting you to a vet!" Kagome scrambled to her feet and turned to her car.

If it was barely drivable before, there was no salvaging it now. The passenger's side was completely wrapped around a giant oak tree. All four tires were punctured by the metal framing and the trunk had been thrown halfway across the forest area. The front end was pushed in at least an inch, the front bumper was nowhere to be found and glass was scattered everywhere within twenty feet of the tree. There was no way that anything could be salvaged from it.

"Dam it." Kagome growled as she stalked over to the drivers side. Scrounging around the ruins, and getting more then a few cuts, Kagome searched for her purse.

"I know it's here somewhere...Aha! There it is!" Kagome glared at the bag, which was suspended from a branch in the tree.

Scowling, Kagome looked down at the fox in her arms. He looked so innocent. And he was loosing blood fast. She couldn't just leave him like this. She knew he would die.

Making a split decision, Kagome ripped off her shirt, exposing her creamy stomach and a black satin bra. After gently setting down the bloody and dieing creature, Kagome began to shred her green chenille top, a birthday gift from her friends, into strips. Using said strips, she began to create crude bandages for the fox.

Standing and dusting off her hands, Kagome turned and looked for a good branch to help her begin her climb. Seeing none in her current view, she circled. When she approached the back, a suitable one was found.

Crouching low to the ground, her black nylon pants stretching to their utmost, Kagome sprang forward and caught the eyed branch.

However, since she hadn't calculated for the rain making the bark a little slick, she fell right back to the earth.

"Damn tree. You just want to make my life hell, don't ya?" she shouted to the immobile plant. "You couldn't have helped me even a little?" Not getting a response, Kagome crouched again and tried once more.

It took her three more tries before she was able to pull herself up. Scrambling swiftly through the branches, Kagome was quickly able to make her way to her bag. Digging out some money and her cell, she dropped from the tree.

Kagome looked at the fox laying on what was left of the passenger's seat. Sighing for the loss of even more clothing, Kagome used a piece of scrap metal to cut off the legs to her beautiful pants and create a makeshift sling out of them. Stuffing her money into her pocket, slinging the mummified fox onto her back and dialing the police, Kagome set off down the road to town.

A police car pulled up in front of an animal hospital. Instantly, a group of veterinarians swarmed out of the buildings like hornets from a disrupted nest. A stretcher was brought out and a bloody green bundle was taken from the arms of a scantly dressed, raven-haired woman. Not paying attention to her, the vets rushed the ailing animal into the barking and hissing hospital, the main doctor shouting orders to the nurses to retrieve items and for bystanders to make way.

Kagome, who stood there dumbly, looked into her now empty arms. They had just whisked him -or was he really a her? - away, completely ignoring her. Somehow, Kagome felt alone without him -her, it- in her arms.

"Excuse me, Miss." The police-woman tapped Kagome's shoulder, making her wince. "We should really get you to the hospital. You look like your coming down with something, a cold at least."

Kagome nodded mutely and surveyed her own well-being.

Kagome was soaked from the rain, and as she thought of this, she sneezed. Sniffling, she began to poke at her stomach. She winced again as she came to some nasty bruises. One her chest was a deep gash, with blood still pouring out of it sluggishly. Her leg, now that she was acknowledging her hurt, began to make its own injuries known. With a yelp, it crumpled from underneath Kagome.

"Are you alright?" The woman asked, starting forward to help up the fallen victim.

"I'm fine, I think." Kagome stood with the help of the woman, favoring her injured leg.

"I'm getting you to a doctor of your own." Against Kagome's protests, the woman began to pull her to the car. "No buts! You're injured badly yourself, and on top of that, at high risk for pneumonia already! It may have stopped raining, but that almost makes your situation worse!"

Opening the door, the woman gently pushed Kagome into the vehicle. "You can sue me after you see a doctor. I'm Kea, by the way."

Kea slammed the door and made her way to her side.

Kagome smiled slightly before a dizzy spell washed over her, taking with its passing the rest of her energy. Kagome closed her eyes as she began to fight down nausea. It got even harder to control when not only she experienced the pothole-filled city road, she also soon discovered that blood was caked over her scalp and matted in her hair.

She had never really been one to stomach much blood and gore, but this had been the limit. Kagome blacked out.

Where am I? What happened?

These thoughts were the primary one's that rolled around in Youko Kurama's head.

He was very disoriented and confused. The last thing he remembered was helping Suuichi and his friends during a demon fight... After that, nothing but fuzzy glimpses of a road, a bright flash of light, and an attractive young woman.

Opening his eyes, his vision was filled with a large medical area. Off the corner of his vision, Youko could see some kind of cages. He didn't know that hospitals, for that was surely the only place he could be, had cages. That was something he would have to ask Suuichi about. He could smell the sterility of the room, and hear shifting noises of the other residents. The smell hurt his sensitive nose, and the sound was like a hammer pounding on a gigantic bell.

Youko tried to move his head, but it was stiff and sore. He tried his legs nest, but they were bound straight. He tried his arms then but they...

Weren't there.

Youko began to panic. Fear filled his golden eyes. He searched his conscious to find his human half, but when he did, he became even more frantic.

His human half was completely unconscious. That had never happened before.

Unlike most people thought, Youko Kurama had a heart. He cared for people who didn't judge him, and for people who cared for him in return. Suuichi Minnamino was the first person to accept Youko as he was then, a bloody murderer with an uncontrollable lust for women, and not think a thing of it. Youko would do anything for his human half, and this just added to the problem of being in his fox form.

This didn't bode well at all.

Youko heard a door open and close, and rattling. His panic-filled eyes turned as far as he could, and he could barely glimpse someone moving around the cages. He heard a bark, and much growling. The human was cooing and making soothing noises to the beast, and Youko realized that he was in an animal's hospital.

That confused him even further. Why would they put a human into an animal hospital? Unless...

Unless he was still in his Youko form. Either that, or fox form. Better to prepare for the worst.

Youko began to really panic then. After all, Suuichi had always told him that if he was ever caught in his Youko form, he would be capture, sedated and put under scientific investigation. Which meant that he was about to be ripped open, have his insides gutted out, examined, and stuffed back into his body like it was stuffing! Then they would bleed him for further information and put all kinds of hormones into his body and make him breed all kinds of kits for further study and make him run on one of those thing for hours and if they found out his plant abilities...

Who ever said murderers have no imagination should be put to a Death Tree.

The doctor turned and walked over to the table, one hand in her pocket. She was pretty attractive, in a crazed-doctor-woman sort of way. She had light blue hair, pulled back into a ponytail. She reminded Youko of Botan, the young ferry girl that assisted Yuusuke, with the exception of the eye color. Where Botan's was a cotton-candy pink, this woman's were a deep ocean blue.

"Hello you rascal. What did you do to get yourself here, Youko?" she asked in a British-accented voice. She sounded amazingly like the chipper

Youko began to panic again and strained to lift his limbs. The doctor noticed his distress and took pity on him, laughing nervously.

"Calm down, Kurama." The doctor waved for him to lie back onto the cold metal table. "It's me, Botan!"

Youko, who had fallen back with surprise, stared wide-eyed as Botan pulled out blue-colored contacts.

"You really think I would go on an assignment in the human world, in a place where some of the highest criminal activity is along with the highest population of spiritually aware people on the planet without at least wearing contacts to block my spirit energy, do you?" She looked at Youko with a depressed expression wrought on her pretty face. "You're mean."

Youko just kept staring. After all, it wasn't every day you make a fool of yourself in front of a team member -with the exception of Kuwabara-, especially when you have a certain reputation to uphold.

"Don't worry; I won't hold it against you!" Botan said, her mood swinging completely around. "Listen, you might be acting a little off and having a hard time remembering things for a while." Youko cocked his head. "It'll be because of some of the drugs effects. Now, can you tell me what happened?"

End Chapter
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