May 04 2007: Author's Notes: Still having a lot of fun and a bit of insomnia so I figured I'd do this chapter as well. I'm actually combining the old chapters four and five into this one chapter because the older ones were both pretty darned short so I figured it would be a good idea.

Summary of Chapter 3: Sesshomaru and Kagome reached a safe area that had some illumination and water that could help them clean wounds and was drinkable. Sesshomaru was cleaning Kagome's wounds when he found that all sort of odd symbols had been carved into her back.

Chapter Four: More Than She Appears or What Are You?

"What?" she asked in disturbance to the news. "What did they write?"

"I'm not sure." he answered with a nonchalant shrug. His manner starting to annoy her given what he'd just said to her. "I believe it's something dealing with demons but I'm not completely familiar with some of the zymology being used. I should be able to tell more once I have the other blood cleaned off."

"Why would someone carve mystical symbols into my back?" she thought aloud, her own endless list of possibilities making her sick to her stomach.

"I'm not sure." He replied honestly, carefully picking small stones from her back and cleaning it as gently as he could in the circumstances, he was eyeing the strange patterns a little but using more of his concentration to work at cleaning her up some.

"Her scent isn't fully human." he observed now that some of the blood was being washed free he could pick up her personal aroma. "It was more akin to the plum and flowers he'd barely gotten a whiff of before but there was some sort of power inherent in her. Even for a priestess there is something not quite right about her, there is too much power in her."

Finally he dug out her medical kit, using the contents to further cleanse her back of dirt and grime, finally having to rinse out the scarf and taking his time to get it clear of her blood before he began again.

"Why are you helping me?" she asked nervously, not certain she wanted to hear the real answer.

"Because it seems like someone attacked both of us, I need to find out what that is and if you are injured you are more of a hindrance than if you are fixed." he shrugged as he moved back over.

"That was brutally honest." she sighed mentally; not very surprised, "I shouldn't mind what the reason is as long as he doesn't plan to kill me. Still…if he can be so gentle with my wounds then he can't be all bad."

"Could you take out the brown bottle and use some of the liquid inside to clean my wounds?" she asked.

He considered her to see if she was of an all right mind and then picked it out when she didn't seem mentally incapable, pulling it away from his nose as soon as he'd opened it.

"It's acid!" He took back his last observation immediately.

"It's weak and it'll keep my wounds from getting infected." Kagome argued meekly. "It'll hurt but I need it or I could get much sicker."

He eyed her skeptically but shrugged and used the rag to get some of the liquid, pressing it to her wounds and continuing to clean them, ignoring the squirms or gasps of pain as she had asked for it. After a short while that seemed like an eternity for her he finished by bandaging her up, propping her against a leg so he could wrap her whole chest along with her back.

"I'm not sure how to help whatever is wrong with your lower body. I think you may have broken a hip." He observed with the same indifference as usual for such statements. "I will have to carry you for a while and you'll have to try to move it as little as possible. You seem as if you have some sort of regenerative ability so it shouldn't take more than a couple days."

"I don't have regenerative ability." Kagome pointed out and winced as he picked her up and settled her onto the blanket she always brought back to the feudal era with her. "What about your wounds?"

He again gave her a slightly skeptical glance and shook his head. "If you didn't have regenerative ability you wouldn't have lost a lot of your smaller scraps in the time I carried you here and cleaned you up. I only have a single wound and it will heal much more quickly than yours. It would be better to worry about who or what put us here and why."

"Or what they did to us." she added with a hint of the same nervousness.

He didn't offer a retort, his mind considering things as well. "They could have easily done the same to me. My skin would have healed long before I woke and I would be none the wiser about such a graft to my person. The circles on her back where hard to make out, two separate ones that were both similar but slightly different, one involved demons in some way and the other, I couldn't tell what it was suppose to mean. I have a bad feeling about this."

"What do you think it was?" she asked, voice rather steady despite her fear.

"It could have been a lot of things. I would prefer to wait to make many guesses but most likely it is some sort of very complicated spell. I will be able to look at it better tomorrow once some of the swelling has gone down and it's scared more heavily." he answered with another shrug, starting to take his clothes off, shoving the kimono over a shoulder after setting the upper piece of the armor down carefully.

Kagome flushed a bright red as he started to undress, looking away from him. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to take a bath." he answered without pausing, pushing the kimono over his shoulder and then letting the smooth fabric slide down his full arm. She closed her eyes so she couldn't accidentally glance while he doing that and did her best to rest without being flustered at her very handsome and very naked savior nearby.

The silence was almost unbearable for her, he seemed content simply to clean himself while she lay there unable to really do much for her own poor hygiene. All she heard was the falls or the occasional splash of the demon that was in the water.

"What's he doing in there? Playing?" Kagome asked herself in irritation. "Why does this day seem to be taking ages?"

She was feeling better at her bandaged front and back but she hoped she'd be able to wash off her legs and clean her hair of the caked blood soon. She wasn't about to ask him to take her skirt off, it was bad enough that he'd removed her top and bra and didn't put it back. She gave him quite some time to dress before finally opening her eyes again to see him laying naked nearby.

She flushed perhaps further than before - if that was possible - and turned quickly away.

"Oh my god." she thought frantically. "Doesn't he know he should wear clothes? I thought he was the proper one? I guess him and Inuyasha really do have a lot in common, they are both clueless when it comes to women!"

The demon lord smirked some, able to scent her frustration and slight attraction. He was used to mortal women being attracted to his appearance but they needed their clothes to hang and dry now that he'd cleaned them - she would have to survive.

He waited for a long while for her to fall asleep before digging the brush he'd seen out of her bag to brush at his tail and hair; she wasn't awake to protest it. He brushed his hair for a time and then gathered what he figured would be able to burn, having to hop about the large cavern for a while but managing to find pieces of wood that had drifted down the river, a good sign at least that there was an opening to the outdoors upstream.

He'd finally removed her other clothing to wash it as well so it could dry and then returned to their small campsite. Once he'd spent a while wandering he dug through the rest of her bag, sniffing at the foodstuff she seemed to have but likely needed preparation, a reason to wake her from the nightmare she seemed to be having.

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Kagome woke to utter darkness but blinking in panic when she not only couldn't see but didn't feel anything else nearby her. She was completely naked now and all alone in a place where she couldn't see, she couldn't hear the running water anymore.

"Embrace the darkness." a dark hypnotic sort of voice reached her ears and sent a shiver up her spine.

"I'd rather not…" she muttered, trying to look around to no avail and growing more panicked by the moment.

"You have it in you. If you don't accept it then it will eat you away."

"What do you mean? I have it in me? I have what in me?" she demanded, doing her best to keep the fear out of her voice as she kept herself from shivering.

"The darkness."

She forced herself to sit up, it hurt but she found she could manage it.

"You cannot run from it."

She felt sand brushing against her from a sudden wind and then familiar stickiness of blood on her hands, suddenly wanting to cry a little.

"Running will only end in it's consuming you."

Then the ground was breaking up again and she was about to fall when someone grabbed her.

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She woke up with a start when Sesshomaru grabbed her arm. Suddenly thankful that she could see him and then frowning as she pulled the blanket around her person.

"Pervert!" she accused.

"Pardon?" he gave that small raise of a brow at the name calling.

"Why are you grabbing me when I'm naked?"

"You seemed to be having a nightmare." he answered without much emotion. "You were asleep for several hours and the clothes are dry now, more of your wounds have closed and I'd imagine that you can take a bath if you'd like before putting back on the clean clothes. Then you can make some of your food, your stomach has been rumbling loudly for the past hour."

"Just coming to wake me up." Kagome chided herself again. "Sesshomaru hates humans and Inuyasha just cause he's half human so I shouldn't be worried about that sort of thing with this guy. Paranoid much Kagome?"

"Yeah, I'll take a bath and then make something." she agreed, bashfully gathering her soaps and shampoos before moving toward the water, her back and body were still sore but he'd been right - she healed far faster than she should have been able to.

The red clouds in the water around her as she washed herself weren't helping her already worried mood. Blinking at her hands as they were so red from it all.

"Darkness and blood on my hands? It's been dark here but I've done anything but embrace it. And whose blood on my hands? Sesshomaru's? No…he's fine, his back is already healed according to him. So who? Are my dreams telling me something? Or it could be just a nightmare like Sesshomaru said when he woke me up."

She wasn't really thinking about it and removed her bandages to wash completely, losing herself in thought as she worked at getting all of the red liquid from her skin, she needed to get herself as clear of it as possible. It opened back up a couple of her own wounds but was worth it to feel clean for the first time since the fall.

"No looking." she reminded just once given the sniff of aversion he'd given her when she'd mentioned it. She still thought he was occasionally glancing over but knew it was more than likely for any threats to her than for some sort of sexual thing.

She finished after a while and climbed carefully out, still sore enough that she didn't want to press her luck, shaking dry and then using the blanket to dry before hanging it up and putting her clothes back on. Frowning when she found her brush and the white hairs within it.

"Hey, who told you that you could use my brush." she protested.

"You were asleep, I could hardly ask." he pointed out.

"Well…next time ask." she snapped, sitting down in a huff and starting to pull his hair from it in silvery clumps.
She finished that and then went to her bag to pull out the small pot and start cooking, she really was hungry and needed nourishment if she really wanted to get better. "would you like something?"
"I don't need to eat human food." he answered with a shake of his head. "I am able but I think you should save it as you may need it yourself."

"Oh." that dampened her spirits. "Right."

"What are you?" he asked bluntly.

She had just started to eat and almost choked on the noodles.

"You clearly aren't fully human, so what are you?"

End Chapter

Okay, this chapter was much longer thanks to the combined two, one of which I actually ditched quite a bit of as it wasn't really needed. Hope folks enjoy my putting this back up in it's re-written state.

-Aura

Same comment as last time as for reviewer replies.