Author's Note: Third chapter. Sorry about the delay, I caught a bad case of the flu…again.

Dark Hero

Chapter Three

Painting Mars

Some hours had passed since school had ended, and the hanyou found himself walking along a familiar street in search of his Friday requirements. The skies were a dark background speckled with shining stars, and only a few people were ambling around on the streets. Seeing the low, soft light of the shop he was looking for, Inuyasha stuffed his hand into his pockets.

Strolling into the convenience store, Inuyasha began whistling to some tune he had heard the other day as he looked around to locate his necessities. Spotting them, he wandered over to the aisle and picked up a six-pack of beer, holding it with one hand and making his way towards the counter, which was currently empty.

Walking past a mirror, he stopped in his path, before taking steps back slowly. Feeling something manifest inside of him, he reluctantly brought his head up to the mirror.

The case of beers slipped from between his fingers and shattered upon impact with the ground, the shards of glass spreading across the floor. Beer began to trickle from the casing as well, while Inuyasha stared at the mirror. His breaths began to increase rapidly as he saw the lack of a reflection, his hands slightly shaking by his side.

"No…"

He closed his eyes tightly, willing his image to appear. When he opened them again, it was there, and he saw how pale his face had become. Disgusted with the person in front of him, he looked away. He was so pitiful.

Bringing his gaze back to his image, he felt fear grip his heart once more when the image before him was indeed himself, but in place of his terror, there was a derisive smile on the reflection's lips. Inuyasha's eyebrows came together in anxiety, and he felt himself become short of breath once more.

"Stop!"

Before he registered the action, his fists connected with the glass and he saw the tiny pieces fall like silver snow to the ground, landing near his feet. The blood trickled between his fingers, dripping down to mingle with the shards. Feeling the pain blossom, Inuyasha smirked contemptuously as he retracted his hand, seeing pieces of glass embedded into his flesh.

Without bothering to think about the damage he had just delivered, he staggered over to the door, hearing the sounds of yelling behind him as the cashier kid emerged from the back room. There was a dulled cursing coming from the kid's general direction, but Inuyasha didn't bother to decipher what the words meant as he fell out into the streets in a haze.

He could see random people give him horrified or disgusted gazes, either by the blood dripping down from his knuckles or the dreadful state he was in. But, he was hardly aware of these looks as he continued stumbling down the dark streets, seeing cars zipping past in a blur and dim lights shining from passing shops. They seemed to blend together in a whirl of lights and it made him want to throw up.

He brought his hand up to his head as a sudden flash of a doctor with an ambiguous face appeared in his mind, before it disappeared to only surface once more. Seeing a random alleyway, he lurched towards the deserted corner and felt himself lean his weight against the wall, voices manifesting in his mind.

"After the incident, the images won't disappear due to the influence of a nerve problem. He can't look at himself, or any image of himself because of the memory. This will cause him to develop emotions, such as one being fear. When he reaches the point of panic, he will enter the state of false death; He will stop breathing, and his heart may even stop beating. It is a reaction to not remembering."

Inuyasha squeezed his eyes shut as images flashed through his mind, reminding him of his past. He hated this. He hated these memories.

Sliding down the dirty alleyway wall to lay sprawled along the ground, he slammed his head back into the bricks in an attempt to make the images disappear. He was only aware of a sharp pain releasing from his head, but was not disappointed when the figures vanished from his mind and instead, he could slightly see the stars above.

Taking in deep breaths, Inuyasha slowly allowed his hands to drop from his head, landing in the slightly damp ground next to him. Concentrating on the stars far above him, he allowed his mind to wander down forbidden thoughts. It was the easiest way to assure that he wouldn't stop breathing.

Somehow however, he found that the first thing that popped up in his mind was not what usually plagued him.

Surprisingly, the first image was that of Kagome's drawing, which he had kept in his backpack and had only told her was at home because he had wanted to gaze at it more. He remembered the emotions he had felt when he saw it, and at that moment, he found himself smiling almost bitterly as he realized why he was probably attracted to the drawing.

Inuyasha stayed in his position on the ground in the alley for a while, but not because he was physically unable to get up.

Somehow, mentally, he just couldn't get himself to forgive himself for his weakness.

---

It was Monday. She really didn't enjoy Mondays at all. Not many people liked Mondays because that meant another week of work and pressure, and she was one of those people. Sparing a glance at the subject she was painting for art class that day, she found herself being distracted by a rather flagrant red in the corner of her eyes.

She was surprised that although it was him once more, she didn't find herself dreading the words that were coming out of his mouth.

"Hey Kagome! Pst, can we talk right now?"

Forget about dreading the words from his mouth. He was asking her to ditch class when her teacher was right behind her. The idiot.

"Kagome, is there a problem?" the art professor questioned curiously, wondering why Inuyasha wanted to talk to one of her most well-behaved students.

"Nothing…" Kagome answered quietly, deciding to go back to ignoring the hanyou and concentrating on her painting.

"Hey! I need to talk to you for a moment, Kagome!"

The professor sent the waving student a rather cold glare, clearly signaling for him to stop disrupting her class. He simply grinned at her as a reply.

"Can I talk to Kagome for a second?" he asked, a charming smile in place.

"Kagome…why are you associating with such a bad kid?" the professor asked as she frowned and studied her quiet student. She shook her head. "Well, class is about to end, and since you're mostly done, go and talk to him. I expect this to never happen again though, do you understand?"

Kagome nodded, feeling rather bizarre that her professor would allow her to talk to someone during class time. Seeing Inuyasha using his hand as a gesture to hurry up, she slipped out of her stool and walked over to him. She didn't miss the inquisitive stares she got from her fellow students, and wondered what they were thinking this very moment. She didn't fail to see the jealous glares from some of the girls either as they began to pack their things in their backpacks and commenced whispering to one another.

Keeping her head down, she walked up to Inuyasha and questioned rather forcefully, "What is it?"

"Come on, we'll talk in the back," he said in reply, and put his hand on her arm, not missing the tightening of her jaws. He ignored this however, and pulled her towards the back room, which was the storage area.

Letting her go, he turned around to face her, leaning against one of the many busts of various statues. He sent her a grin as he dug through his pocket for something, before taking out a piece of paper and handing it to her. She took it gently, careful as to not have their fingers brush, before opening the crumpled paper to read its content.

"Sorry it's wrinkled. I don't take good care of things, even if they're not mine."

Kagome stared down at her sketch. He actually returned it to her. "Thank you."

"You're thanking me? I ruined the picture."

Kagome shook her head. "No…it's just a draft. I won't need it after I paint it on canvas," she explained, as she began to carefully fold the piece of paper and put it in her own pocket.

"You won't need it?" Inuyasha echoed. "Can I have the draft after you're done then?"

Kagome gazed up at him for a moment, before shaking her head as she looked down once more. "I'll give you the final oil painting."'

"Really?" Inuyasha asked, his eyes widening in almost childlike elation. "But this isn't fair. It's not like I can give you anything in return."

Kagome shrugged. "Doesn't matter." She guessed she owed him in a way, for everything so far.

Inuyasha laughed, his deep voice making her smile slightly. He was so uninhibited. "How about I give you my protection. Okay? I'll protect you."

She looked up at him, some sort of inexpressible emotion in her eyes. No one had bothered to offer their protection to her before, and the one person who had…

"Is that fine?" he continued. "That's all I can offer anyway."

She nodded gently.

"Well, then I'll be going." He turned around to make his way to the backdoor. However, he stopped in his steps and turned around, as if he forgot something. "Oh, and by the way, if you ever want to fool around and need my body, that's free." He winked and continued on his way.

He hadn't really expected an answer from the quiet girl.

"Can you lend me your body right now?"

"What!" Swinging around, Inuyasha accidentally hit one of the busts and caused a domino effect. The other busts continued to fall and he winced every time one hit the ground, and flinched when one cracked. When it finally finished with the last bust landing at Kagome's feet, he chuckled nervously. "Oops?" He seemed sheepish, but nervous. "You mean…right here?" His eyes quickly swept the room, and he could feel himself making a face.

"I meant, can you lend me your body to be my model?"

His eyes widened a little before he gave her an oh-I-knew-that look, shrugging noncommittally. "I know my body is appealing, but if you really want it, I'll show you the close-up and personal version." He saw her frown slightly, and laughed it off. "I'm joking."

Hesitating for a moment, he answered with an uncertain "Sure."

She simply nodded. "I think everyone has left. We can start now."

He shrugged again as a reply, and seeing her retreat back into the art room, he followed her, carefully stepping over the disaster he had caused. Gazing around at the wide expanse of space in the art room, he realized that he had saved the very girl in front of him from sexual harassment last Friday in this room. He wondered if he hadn't been there, would the teacher had gone further? The mere thought of that man touching her was sickening…she was too innocent.

"Here, sit here," she motioned as she rolled a chair into the middle of the room, motioning for him to come over. "Sit however you like."

While walking over to her canvas, Inuyasha placed his backpack on the ground and then turned around to gaze at her. "Do you want me to take off anything?" he asked, a suggestive tone underlying his words.

"Just your jacket," she answered straightforwardly.

Sighing, he took off his beloved red jacket and sat down heavily on the seat, his legs spread apart and his body slouched. He yawned as he watched her set up the necessary equipment, and decided to start talking again. Now that he had finally gotten the quiet girl to talk to him, he found himself not exactly wanting her to retreat back and stop. She really did have a lovely voice, although he told himself he would never tell her that again. It had slipped from his lips last time.

"Why do you hate men?"

She ignored him and continued setting up, her eyes avoiding contact with his as she shuffled around.

"Is it because…you like girls?"

She sent him a rather dry look---perhaps her first one with an emotion other than indifference or indignation---and he laughed. "Well, you can't blame me for coming to that conclusion when you don't like men."

"Men are men," she answered vaguely, as she got ready to begin.

Inuyasha reclined back into the comfortable chair as he gazed at the girl working behind her easel, seeing her sparing him a fleeting glance every once in a while. "I heard the end of the world is coming around someday," he announced randomly, deciding that perhaps he could sit still for her, but she could not stop him from talking.

"What do you think will happen when that comes around?" he continued, although he received no reply. "Did you hear about the Mars prophecy?"

She sent him one inquisitive look, and he decided it was her okay sign to continue talking.

"It says that one day, Mars will rule this world." He stopped to think about what he just said. "I wonder what the world would be like if Mars ruled it?"

"You question a lot…and you seem to believe Mars is evil."

"No. Not really. I just don't care. Everyone is so afraid of the future…so afraid of life ending. Wouldn't it be better to just come to a glorious and magnificent end? Like they say, go out with a bang? You can't escape death forever."

Kagome listened to him---she always did, even if she didn't seem like it---and pondered over his point. Was life really worth living for, or like he said, should people just all go out with a bang? She had to admit the world was corrupt already, and to attain world peace and all thosegood things people preached, was an utopian fantasy.

Inuyasha was right in a twisted sort of way…

Yet…

Glimpsing over at her subject, she saw that his right hand was slightly scarred. She knew he was a hanyou and they healed fast, but what had happened to make his knuckles look so pained? "What happened to your hand?" she asked.

There was no reply.

Bringing her gaze up to look at his face, she put her pencil down gently. He was sleeping.

Getting off her stool, she made her way quietly over to sleeping boy, his head slightly inclined to the right as he breathed in and out lightly. He must have been really tired if he fell asleep that quickly. She wondered what he had been doing last night to get him this exhausted; Perhaps she didn't want to know. Bending over slightly to stare at his face, Kagome found herself mesmerized.

How did it feel to be a hanyou, torn between two worlds and races? He never seemed to make his blood a big deal, and girls didn't really seem to care about it either, but she knew he must receive some sort of criticism from those who believe humans and youkai should stick to their own kind. Not many people bothered about that nowadays, and humans and youkai did live together easily…but still…she wondered, how did it feel to not belong to either worlds?

Smiling, she continued to observe his sleeping face.

However, he didn't really seem like such a bad person as she had initially thought. She had been wrong. It was true that he was wild, and it was also hard to connect and understand him, but his intentions were always clear. His face was innocent and held no trace of malice.

It was in that moment that she felt as if she understood all the other girls who had been partial to Inuyasha before. Although she had initially considered him to be a brainless wonder with nothing but emptiness in his head, she could now see something she had never noticed before.

Even with good looks and the external shows of superficiality, the inner part of him that was untainted shone with a beauty she had rarely perceived in others.

She stopped herself in mid action when she found herself reaching towards him, wanting to touch his face. Retracting her hand, she instead picked up his jacket and laid it over him, hoping it would protect him from the chill.

Perhaps the pure side of him was what caused her to talk to him in the first place. She found that although he occasionally touched her, she wasn't as afraid of his touch as she was of other mens'. Granted, she still felt uncomfortable, but there was something else that stopped her from completely hating his touch.

Compared to other people, she found Inuyasha to be someone she could accept. While others, no matter how much they pretended, their true character would reveal in time. Appearances could be deceiving, and her English teacher had proved that. It didn't matter how much they tried to hide their true nature, their wickedness would reveal bit by bit. Those were the people she was afraid of.

---

"To appear is a verb. That's easy, right? Can I have someone come up and construct a sentence using this verb," Anami-sensei asked, looking around and smirking mentally when he saw that the hanyou was asleep again. "Kotoku Inuyasha. Why don't you come up and help us all out."

Miroku elbowed his friend rather firmly in the side, causing the other boy to snort and wake up from whatever dream he had been having.

"Wha?" he mumbled groggily, bringing a hand up to wipe his sleepy eyes.

"The professor wants you to go up and construct a sentence using 'appear,'" Miroku explained, and didn't miss the dark look that suddenly flashed through his friend's eyes.

"Anami-sensei, I'll do it for him!" Sango volunteered, shooting her hand up high and waving it around.

"No, let's have Kotoku do this one," the professor said, smiling up at his student. To anyone, it would have been an innocent smile, but Inuyasha could recognize the spite in the twist of his smile. That man wanted to embarrass him. "What's the matter? It can't be hard for you."

Glaring at the professor, Inuyasha jumped up from his seat and stalked down the stairs to the front of the class. He could have allowed what happened Friday to breeze by if the idiot hadn't opened his big trap of a mouth, but now that he had woken him up from sleep, he was going to regret it. Inuyasha hated it when people bugged him from his sleep.

Going in front of the white board, he picked up a marker and looked thoughtful.

Anami-sensei gave a rather small undignified snort as he watched the hanyou stare at the board, before commenting so only Inuyasha could hear, "Are you really as stupid as you look?"

Inuyasha sent him a rather irritated glare before watching the professor walk away. Snorting in his own contempt for people like Anami, he opened the cap to the marker and began writing.

Students began to whisper as Sango seemed amused at the sentence on the board. Anami-sensei, who had been rearranging some things on his desk saw the commotion of his class and turned around to look at the board, at the same time Inuyasha began to read his sentence in perfect and fluent English.

"This professor appears to be nice and honest, but is really a man who sexually harasses his students."

Seeing the horrified expression on his professor's face, Inuyasha translated the sentence to Japanese. The fuss of the students heightened as they began staring and whispering at their professor.

"Quiet! I will not have such behavior in my class. This is all nonsense. How dare you write something like that on the board! Do you even understand what you wrote!" Anami-sensei bellowed, his face going red from either embarrassment or ire, or both.

Inuyasha looked deadpanned. "Anami-sensei, I have lived in Los Angeles for eight years since I was eight. I could pass this class in a heartbeat, but I don't bother to try when you're the professor." Sending him a triumphant smirk, he began to ascend the stairs to his seat again, but not before stopping near Kagome.

"I told you I'll protect you," he told her, smiling as he reached out his hand to give her hair a light ruffle.

A thousand thoughts ran through Kagome's head as she gazed at the warm golden eyes beaming down at her. She felt her heart soar and seeing him leave to take his seat, she returned his smile quietly.

---

The president of the psychiatric hospital walked along the rather white corridor, seeing some of his patients crying or running around. Seeing a familiar little girl sitting by herself, tangled in cotton thread, she stopped to put a hand on her head.

"Rin, you tore your clothes again?" she asked gently, seeing the little girl look up at her with apathy in her eyes. She never spoke---not a word---but always preferred to rip apart her sweaters and such. Perhaps she saw it as a way of releasing her pain at seeing her family being killed, but in any case, the little girl never spoke and she had yet to figure out how to help her. "Well, you should go out and try and play with your friends now."

She didn't nod, she didn't speak, but resumed in ripping apart her clothing thread by thread.

Sighing, Kaede continued walking to her office, her old age making her steps a bit heavier than she remembered. Pushing the door to her room open, she was relieved to see that the patient she had wanted to converse with was inside. He had been observing her fishes in their small fish tank, but turned around when he heard the door open.

"Hello," he greeted, a small smile on his face. "Two of your fishes were fighting and now they're both dead," he informed smoothly, showing her the two fishes that were now floating around on top of the water.

"I'll get new fishes," she answered, before motioning for him to sit down. He shook his head, preferring to walk over to the window and stare out at children and adults alike strolling around in the garden.

She examined the young man in front of her, before shaking her head. "You're not wearing your hospital clothes again," she commented, seeing that he had chosen to dress himself in dark colors.

"It makes me feel more normal than how everyone else makes me seem."

"Well, your doctor has informed me that you'll be released from the hospital in two weeks. Hasn't it been a few years since you've been here, Naraku?" she questioned, seeing the dark-haired man turn to give her an inquisitive gaze.

"You know my name," he said simply.

"People always come and go around here, but I remember every patient and their individual stories. I don't forget," she informed, a few of her older memories surfacing as she remembered the pain and suffering of the patients.

"That's such a twist of fate. I've been trying to find someone to answer a question for me," Naraku asked, his dark eyes floating to his pocket as he took out a piece of paper. Smoothing the paper out, he walked over to the old woman and held it out for her to take. When she was studying it, he asked, "I found that drawing by a previous patient. Do you know him?"

Kaede's eyes took on an edge of warmth when she saw the first picture Inuyasha had drawn, showing that he had been recovering. He had been such a strange and tragic child. "Of course I remember him. He was my patient." Looking up, Kaede saw the interest in Naraku's eyes. "He would actually be around your age right now. When he checked into the hospital, he was in terrible condition. He broke all the mirrors and throughout the time he was here, he refused to have any kids draw him or have our nurses take a picture of him."

Naraku looked out the window again, seeing the clouds float slowly away in the sky. He smiled deviously.

---

"I told you to stop pursuing her, Inuyasha. It'll hurt her!" he hissed, feeling exasperated at the infuriating smirk on his friend's face. "Don't you ever listen to me? Not even once in your entire lifetime?"

"I'm not pursuing her, Miroku. I just simply like talking to her," Inuyasha defended, as the two of them walked towards the parking area for his motorcycle. Miroku was getting rather annoying when he always stressed not to hurt Kagome. Why would that man care anyway? She was just a girl.

"Talking? You never just talk to a girl, Inuyasha. Your talking means necessary small talk then straight to bed," Miroku said, a frown appearing on his face for the first time in a long while.

Inuyasha seemed to contemplate that thought. "Well, that would be nice."

"Stop."

Inuyasha was really aggravated by Miroku's nagging now as he arrived at his bike. "Stop being such a hypocrite. You have no right to tell me what to do and what not to do when you are the exact same way as I am. If you really want to stop me, you'll have to punch me."

Getting on his bike, he stuffed his helmet over his head and gave his friend a glare from behind the object as he put on his gloves. Giving Miroku a peace sign, he started the engine and was already speeding down the ramp onto the main campus road, leaving behind a quiet Miroku staring after his friend.

Inuyasha raced down the campus road at illegal speeds, the irritating, preaching voice of Miroku repeating inside his head. Who was Miroku to tell him not to hurt Kagome when Miroku had actually supported Inuyasha when he had those one night stands with all those girls before. Why was Miroku being such a hypocrite and a pain in the derriere?

But still, there was that tiny little voice inside of him that asked him why he talked to Kagome. She wasn't exactly the type of girl he went for, and she hardly talked that it would have originally driven him crazy. Surprisingly however, he found that although he liked hearing her talk, it didn't frustrate him too much now if she just simply listened to him. He found himself looking for her in the crowd, and he always sat with her at least for a few minutes every lunch.

Of course, perhaps that was just so he could finally get her to sleep with him in the end, but he really wasn't sure. She wasn't gorgeous like some other girls he slept with, so he had a feeling it wasn't for her body. Something in her had touched a part of him that had been unexplored for years, and he wasn't exactly sure what element it was. When he had seen that picture of a mother with her baby boy, he had been attracted to her---not in a romantic way---but in another manner he wasn't sure of.

It was absolutely infuriating how he didn't know his own feelings. He hated that hopelessness of not being able to understand himself.

Speeding up as he found himself driving along the wide and rather deserted street towards his apartment, Inuyasha saw a rather large semi-trailer begin to squeeze its way out of the intersection in front of him. Annoyed that he would have to decrease his speed, he applied pressure to his hand brakes as the long body of the semi-trailer blocked the road in front of him.

Something wasn't right.

Squeezing his handbrakes some more, Inuyasha realized that his speed wasn't decreasing. Sparing a quick glance downwards, he saw that fluid was coming out of a cut on his brake lines. Looking at his speed, it was almost at 100 mph.

"Shit!" he shouted in a muffled voice as he saw himself riding at a high speed towards the side of the obstruction.

Before he knew it, he had hurtled under the semi-trailer.

A/N: Cliffhanger? So sorry.

Here, I'll answer some questions as repentance for my actions.

How old are the characters?

Inuyasha – 21
Kagome – 20
Sango – 21
Miroku – 21

They are all in their third year of college.

Is Inuyasha a hanyou?

Yep. So is the other hanyou in the series that you met in this chapter.

Kagome seems slightly OOC?

Oh, don't you say?

Lemon?

No. I don't write lemons. Just can't possibly. I even struggle with kisses. There might be slight lime, but that'll be later. The rating for this story is language, safety over rating rules, sexual innuendos, and such. It'll probably go up later for a latter scene, but it's still non-lemon. So if you're looking for a lemon, please look somewhere else.