Chapter 2: Familiar Embrace

Kagome wrenched her wrist away from the abomination before her, still shuddering profusely. How could he be back now? And why, of all the places he could have returned to, why did he have to return here?

"Naraku…!" she gasped, still in complete shock.

He chuckled again, making her spine tingle.

"Naraku…how-how can you be here? What are you doing here, you filthy, scummy, lowlife! How dare you return! After what you did! How dare you show your face here! How dare you-!"

Naraku reached up and violently grabbed the girl by her throat and pulled her towards him. She was now so close that she could feel his putrid breath on her face.

"Listen well, wench." He growled menacingly into her ear. "If you so much as attempt to harm me in any way, I will kill him…understand?"

"You foul-!"

"Remember my words, wench. Remember them well…"

Still fuming, Kagome watched as his head fell to his chest and the shine returned to his hair, though she was still apprehensive of what was to come. A moment passed in silence, except for Kagome's still labored breathing from when Naraku had still had a firm grip on her throat. Suddenly, Ian's head shot up, gasping as if he had been held underwater for a long time. His eyes had once again become the familiar shade of honey gold.

"Inuyas- I mean... Ian? Are you...you?" she asked tentatively, not sure what she would do if Naraku reappeared again.

"Kagome," he gasped in a frightened tone, "Did I...did I do anything to you? Did he do anything to you?"

She looked at him curiously. Did he know that he had a whole different soul residing within him? Did he know that this soul was able to manifest itself through him? And finally, did he know that the other soul within him, was the soul of the demon who had laughed when he had killed him, two years ago?

"Inuyasha? What did you-"

"It's Ian."

"Oh! Right, sorry. What did you mean by 'Did I do anything to you? Did he do anything to you?' I don't quite understand."

"Its...its him. He shows himself from time to time, and whenever he does, someone gets hurt. I don't know who or what he is, but I know he's a part of me." He said this last sentence so sadly, Kagome almost felt like crying.

"So...you feel...responsible." She said these words carefully, unsure of what type of reaction they would bring about. She had been right to say them carefully, for the outburst that followed far outweighed her expectations.

"Goddamn it! Of course I feel responsible! Everyone thinks its me and I'm beginning to wonder if they are so wrong! I wake up and people are hurt...sometimes even dead! Either I'm going crazy...or I'm a psychopathic killer who can't even remember his victims."

Kagome just continued to look into his eyes, pity, hatred, and saddness welling up within her. She had finally found him and the one she had sworn to kill was now within the body of the man she loved beyond anything else in the world. She stood there, clueless about what she should do to remedy the situation.

Unfortunately for her, Ian took her emotional stare for what it wasn't and lashed out at her once again, catching her unprepared.

"I knew it! You too! You think I'm insane too! You're just like my father! You're just like everyone else! Stupid wench! Get away from me!"

She watched as he attempted sprint down the temple stairs. And that was when she noticed it. Around his neck was a string of prayer beads. It had taken her awhile to notice them because she had been so used to Inuyasha's wearing them constantly. She considered carefully what she was going to do, still unsure if it would work. Throwing caution to the winds, she summoned all her strength and yelled after him.

"Ian! You idiot! SIT!"

The results suprised her and caused her to feel something she hadn't felt in a long, long time: overjoyed. The beads glowed a bright purplish-blue and in another second pulled Ian to the ground by his neck, embedding him slightly within the shrine's many stairs. She couldn't help but let out a short, slightly stiffled laugh at his attempts to rise to his feet, cursing the whole way.

"You stupid girl! What the hell do you think you are doing!" Ian yelled up into the face of the laughing girl several stairs above him.

"What the hell are these...these things?" he inquired, gesturing furiously to the beads.

Kagome just giggled and replied simply, "Something you must have acqquired from your previous life."

Ian tugged and tugged fruitlessly at the beads, attempting to lift them from his neck. She just sat there, steps higher than he, smirking.

"You won't be able to take them off," she called down to him.

"Feh! The hell I won't!"

"Suite yourself."

As she sat there, just watching him, tears suddenly began to flow from her eyes. There he was, finally returned to her, and she had just found out that she could never, never be with him. If she tried to, she knew that Naraku would kill him. For he had not spoken this threat to her, but his eyes had said it for him. She had seen so many of his treacherous acts that she knew just how much he enjoyed playing with people's hearts and she knew, she just knew that he would never, ever let them be together.

"Hey...Hey, you alright?" It was just Ian, but he had startled her out of her reverie.

"I-Ian? Oh God!" And she broke down, there, on the steps of her family's shrine, wrapping herself in Ian's familiar, tight embrace.

"K-Kagome? Umm...are you okay?" he asked her, with an all to apparent air of uncomfortableness in his voice. But she didn't care.

"Please...Just for awhile...Hold me..." she sobbed into his shoulder, broken hearted.

"Oh God, I missed you so much... I love you... Inuyasha..." she mumbled incoherently into his shirt.

Ian just held her tighter, sensing it was what she needed right now.