Author's Notes: Just moving it on and updating the next chapter of my story!

Previous Chapter Quick Summary: Sesshomaru and Inuyasha battling was interrupted by Kagome when she thought Inuyasha was in trouble. The battle ended with Sesshomaru falling into a pit with the young priestess.

Chapter Two: Painful Realizations or Spiraling into Darkness

"Did it rain last night? It's really damp." Kagome thought wearily, her body starting to come back to consciousness at a snails pace. "Something is really heavy…did something fall on me while I was sleeping?"

Then in a flash memories of the battle were coming back to her. The silky red of Inuyasha's fire rat kimono being crushed by the curling of the snake-boa-like fluff of Sesshomaru's tail. A streak of white light in the air and the spreading sanguine over ivory. Sudden pain and weightlessness before slight unconsciousness…she remembered twisting the arrow in Sesshomaru's back and him moving to strike her.

She opened her eyes to pure darkness and tried to move just to send flashes of light that weren't there into her weary consciousness…it wavering at the painful attempt to give her muscles motion. A lot of her body was stiff and she stayed still in a fight to keep from passing out again - that would be the last thing she would need.

As she waited for her brain to calm down from her attempt to move she frowned deeply at the fact that she was in a place where she couldn't see something if it was pressed to her face. Then she noticed that there was something sticky on her skin, she started small and shifted her fingers feeling something flaking from them as she moved them. She knew it was on more than just her hands, she could feel it over quite a lot of her skin. She felt soft dirt beneath her and was thankful at least that it wasn't stone or concrete that had broken however long of a fall had dropped her into this lightless place.

"Something is on top of me…wait…I didn't get buried alive did I?" Kagome blinked a few times and then frantically raised her arm to try to test that heart-stopping theory. Her reaching hand grasped fabric and she sighed in relief. "No…not dirt."

She felt around further, feeling soft hair and the smooth fabric of a kimono, maneuvering her hand higher to feel along the head, searching for dog ears that weren't there.

"Wait…" she stopped her panic before it got worse. "Wasn't the new moon coming up? I couldn't have slept for two days could I?"

She took her hand slowly back down the body and then grazed the shaft sticking out of the bodies right shoulder…that much making her instantly realize that it was Sesshomaru that was snoozing away on top of her - thankfully warm enough that it wasn't his corpse crushing her. He half-growled, half-moaned when she grazed the projectile making his wound though he didn't seem to stir further than that, making her snatch her hand away as if she had burned her. After several moments when he still didn't wake she snuck her fingers back over to the arrow…wrapping her fingers around it and pulling it out.

She coughed when fresh blood poured out and dripped around his back and onto her stomach and legs, she didn't remember shooting him so low but was more concerned with the fuller growl he released upon her pulling the arrow out. She tugged her scarf free to press it on his open wound, it wouldn't be much but she knew she needed to stop it somehow.

"Real bright Kagome." she chided herself. "Now he might just bleed to death on top of you."

She tried to shift her weight again and push her off of him but daggers of pain shot through her pours and lower body when she attempted, making her cry out in pain and she saw more sparks and tears appeared in her eyes.

"Just how badly am I hurt?" she wondered and then froze as she felt Sesshomaru shift above her.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

"What isn't right this morning?"

Sesshomaru's thoughts were foggy, a tang of annoyance pushing on his back as he laid. Perhaps a bug or some other pest trying to draw him from his slumber.

"Something warm…something beneath me?"

He smelled at the air and tried to start pulling himself from unconsciousness.

"Blood. My blood, and…a human female. It's familiar. …and dirt, dampness, the scent of the deep underground." his thoughts as disoriented as he was from his wounds. "That's right, I fell with that damn interfering human girl. The fall had to have been deep if they were this far. What else? Plum? Flowers? This deep? No…the girl has some scent akin to that."

Another few shallow breaths and then he felt his consciousness flicker when something seemed to dig deeper into his back and he felt some more actual pain, though it was slight it helped him refocus waking up.

"Is the girl beneath me? Yes…she must be what's warm."

It was her trying to move and then screaming that got him to open his eyes and look at her.

Inuyasha's strange priestess, why was she pushing her hand against his wound? She'd pulled the arrow out but that didn't quite fit considering she'd put it there in the first place. He would have given her an annoyed glare but he realized from her unfocused eyes that she couldn't possibly see anything. They were both covered in blood, almost as if they had bathed in it, more than should have been caused by the fall. He shifted his weight off of her and let her hand fall free to allow the wound to bleed - he was already healing and it would likely close soon now that the arrow had been pulled free of his skin.

He eyed the cave walls and noted that there wasn't an opening above them that was completely free, meaning they either fell and we're moved here or that they had been very lucky and a cave in above somewhere had missed them. A large yellow pack that was likely the girls had busted open and dropped all sort of odd things nearby. That he left to nothing for now and instead glanced toward the only opening large enough to fit through that was leading away from here.

Then his sharp ears picked up a gentle hum in the distance.

"An underground river perhaps? A bath would do me well, I'm not in the habit of being caked in my own blood." he considered idly. "I can't just kill her yet. It might be someone's plan for me to kill her, I won't fall into such a simple trap so easily."

"Uh." she finally interrupted his train of thought. Her voice was weak from lack of water, barely audible for most, but nothing he would have trouble hearing. "Your wound needs to be bandaged."

"You are in worse shape than I." He observed with his cold voice, his wound was still bleeding but it had slowed to a trickle and would completely stop within a few moments.

He extended his study to his new and hopefully temporary companion in this entrapment.

"She's covered in cuts and bruises. Likely I was at some point too but healed all of those wounds already, a good reason that we'd be covered in blood like this. Seems like more than what could have been caused by the fall though." He frowned the last thought grimly.

"Are you going to leave me here?" she asked, unable to keep the hint of fear from her voice when she spoke.

"No." his reply didn't hold a hint of kindness but at least she wasn't going to be completely alone. "There is running water near here. Do you have bandages in your bag? A lot of it has scattered across the dirt."

"Yes." she nodded and winced when she tried to get up again, any pressure on her lower back or hips was making her want to feint. She could hear him gathering her things and then lifting her bag, freezing when she felt him reach down to pick her up. Biting her lip to blood to keep from screaming as he moved her and tried her best not to cry at the pain in her back and legs. She knew then that something down there was broken and grasped onto Sesshomaru's kimono over his chest.

"Will you make it?" he asked, able to see her ready to cry from pain. Wondering if she'd be able to be of any help if she was this injured as a human, they never healed as quickly as his race.

"Yes." she hissed out between clenched teeth. "Maybe I'll be able to adjust once I wash up."

He didn't reply and instead started off down the cavern speedily. Kagome near tears and thoughts of her situation just making her worse. She reached up toward her neck, however negative the jewel might have been it had somehow always connected her with Inuyasha. She reached up to grab the bottle holding them and then patted her chest in shock.

The shards were gone.

End Chapter

Whew, another chapter rewritten. Actually having a lot of fun with it now that I've stolen some free time from my super busy life. I tend to use most of my free time to write anymore, but that's okay cause I do really enjoy doing it.

-Aura

No reviews at this time - which isn't surprising as I just put back up chapter 1. Thanks to the people who Pmed me about the fiction though. Continued support is always helpful to keep stories going.