Disclaimer: I do not own any part of InuYasha, only my own character Kakiya.

Chapter 19

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"She didn't even know who I was?" he yelled out in frustration.

Kagome sighed, "Kakiya didn't even recognize me."

"Calm down, InuYasha. Naraku probably did something to her to make her forget about you. Besides, she looked different from the one we've seen before. She might have been a completely different person."

Sango turned to look at him, "And even if it was really Kakiya, it's been a whole day now so she probably remembers everything. Miroku might be right too, that girl may have not been Kakiya."

"But she still smells the same, even though the scent was a bit off… and she looked a lot like Kakiya, aside from her silver hair… red eyes..." explained InuYasha.

They walked along in silence, looking for a village to stay and work in; their supplies were running low and desperately needed restocking.

"I don't even get why you are obsessing over her now, it wasn't like this before when we first met her." Said Shippo, "And it's not like you've been with her a lot, aside from your childhood..."

Everyone except InuYasha, who was walking in front of them, stopped walking.

"You're right." Kagome muttered.

The group all gave InuYasha cold stares.

Sango stared at InuYasha through narrow eyes, "I bet he fell for her…again."

They saw his ears twitch; he had heard what they said. InuYasha too, stopped walking.

He angrily turned around to face them, "I did not fall for her!"

Miroku gave a heavy sigh, "InuYasha, you have got to stop going after women from your past."

"What!"

"I'm just saying that maybe you should forget about her and let your older brother take care of her. It's not like he's going to do anything bad to her."

"Don't even remind me about him." InuYasha growled, "Look, I just want to go see her again, to apologize for what I've done to her in the past."

"Ah, he wants an excuse to get in between her and Sesshomaru." Shippo sneered.

"InuYasha could have apologized to her way before, but I guess when he met Kikyou, you were too busy with her and forgot about Kakiya… how cruel." Miroku said, "I can see why Kakiya might hold a grudge against you."

"Guys, I don't think Kakiya would be the type to hold grudges for long." Kagome told them, "InuYasha, if you really must go, then go." She sighed again, not for the first time this hour.

InuYasha looked at her for a moment, "I'll be back, Kagome, before the sun falls. Wait for me in the next village; I'll go there when I return." With that, InuYasha jumped off, following the fading scent of Kakiya.

A ways away, Kakiya and Sesshomaru were resting by a small waterfall. Kakiya was floating around in the water with her face up towards the sky. Kakiya was trying to purify the remainder of Naraku's solidified miasma still in her body that her full demon self failed to remove. She let the water around her amplify her purifying ability since she was not a priestess like her adoptive-sister Kagome. Sesshomaru sat atop a giant boulder as he watched her purify herself, a process he knew to be slow since he could still smell Naraku's scent emitting from her body.

Kakiya opened her eyes and looked at the sky, "I should probably get Kagome to get rid of this, I didn't know it would take this long." She muttered, "Curse my counterpart for not taking care of our body… I always have to suffer for her carelessness." She frowned.

"That girl…acted exactly like a demon child; not caring about the things around her and only caring about what she wants."

Kakiya's expression softened, "But despite all of that, I still think she's amazing. She can control so much power with ease, while I can't even make an ice cube without getting tired afterwards." She laughed, "And she was the one who got my soul back, even though it was through her carelessness that it got taken in the first place."

She swam over to him and grabbed hold of a rock next to his and pushed herself up to sit upon it. Sesshomaru could still smell Naraku's scent as she neared him and wondered if she noticed that she still had some of Naraku's miasma left in her, but decided to not think much of it. He watched her wring her hair to expel the excess water in it and then let it go over her shoulder. Looking at her own kimono, and then to Sesshomaru's, Kakiya noticed that they were almost identical and she let out a laugh.

"How my other self managed to get a kimono like yours leaves me in awe." She smiled.

Sesshomaru looked over to her, "She somehow had your previous one ripped up while she was fighting." He simply told her.

She pushed her hair back, "I'll get another one later, so we don't match as much," she laughed.

"You have the ability to change your hair colour, do you not? Why do you keep it as that dark colour? It makes you look very human-like." He took a lock of his hair and combed through it, "Your other self had said that your natural hair was the same as mine."

"Really?" she touched her own hair, "I find that I can get around easier with this hair colour."

After a moment of silence, Sesshomaru sighed, "Do as you wish."

"Then I'll keep this hair colour then." She pushed herself off from the rock and stepped into the water, diving underneath it.

She resurfaced moments later in front of the small waterfall. A few metres away, InuYasha had finally found them and was now watching her and Sesshomaru from afar.

'He really doesn't do anything to her… only watching…' he thought.

Then, he saw a devilish grin appear on Kakiya's face and wondered what she was going to do. He watched her slowly slip under the water and disappear, then heard a loud slash as she reappeared in front of Sesshomaru, who was now drenched with water head to toe. Kakiya was now sitting in the shallow water in front of Sesshomaru's boulder and was laughing. InuYasha stared at her with disbelief, with a gaping mouth. InuYasha heard his older brother growl, but noticed he still has not done anything to her and felt a rush of relief. He watched Kakiya swim away from Sesshomaru and return to him again.

"If you think you are going to get away with that again, and then you are sadly mis–" he got cut off when Kakiya, again, doused him with more water.

He sighed and got off his rock and stepped onto the ground behind it. Sesshomaru heard small slashes of water and looked back to where Kakiya was and saw that she had fallen and now had her hand held out towards him; a way of telling him to help her get up.

Sesshomaru looked down at her childish form, "You are perfectly capable of picking yourself up." He turned away once more and started walking away from her.

Her expression turned into a pout, "Help me."

Kakiya's plead made him turned back to look at her. He walked back to the water's edge and reached out to take her outstretched hand.

InuYasha was still watching, "Sesshomaru is probably up to something… " he unsheathed his sword, "Don't you dare touch her…" he whispered, gripping his sword.

As Sesshomaru's hand neared hers, she smirked and was about to grab his hand and pull him down into the water with her. Suddenly, InuYasha's scent drifted towards them and they both stopped, looking at the direction he was in.

"Wind Scar!"

The two pulled back, and Sesshomaru jumped into the water, beside Kakiya, to avoid the blow that had headed towards his direction.

Hearing Kakiya stand up beside him made him smirk, "So you can get up after all. You didn't need my help."

"I was so close too!" he heard her mutter, "InuYasha, you ruin everything."

Mentally sighing, Sesshomaru drew his sword, 'I agree.' He thought.

"What do you want?" Demanded Kakiya.

InuYasha pointed his sword at Sesshomaru, "What do you mean 'What do I want'? I want you to come back to us!"

Kakiya frowned, "Just because I spend a few days with you doesn't mean that I would want to stay with you again, like we did once before. Besides, it was only a coincidence that we met up in the first place." She growled.

"Fine, but at the very least, can we just talk?"

Her whole body froze as he reminded her of that time so long ago, "I have nothing to say to you, that was a thing of the past." She bitterly replied, "We should go, I shouldn't keep Rin waiting this long." She quietly told Sesshomaru.

He simply nodded and jumped out of the water with Kakiya following close behind him. She put a hand on his back and quickly dried them both before letting her hand fall to her side again. Remembering the jewel shards that she had taken from Naraku, Kakiya took off a small pouch that was hanging off the side of her sash and walked over to InuYasha.

"Here, these were the shards that Naraku had embedded into the clay body of his." She dropped the pouch in InuYasha's hands.

He quickly slipped the pouch into his kimono, "Thanks." He muttered. As she turned to leave, InuYasha reached out and grabbed her arm, "Wait! I –"

"Let go." She said cutting him off, "It was a thing of the past; almost 60 years ago, it really doesn't matter anymore."

"Yes it does Kakiya," his grip on her arm tightened, "and I'm sorry for what I did, I only told him to leave for your sake."

"I'm sure you did, now let go." She threatened.

Trying to pull away only made his grip on her tighten, "No, until you hear me out; learn why I did what I did."

"You had a long time to tell me why you did that, so why didn't you?" Kakiya turned away from him, "InuYasha, it really doesn't matter anymore, I don't care so let me go."

Annoyed, Sesshomaru pulled out Tokijin and slashed at InuYasha, forcing him to let go of Kakiya and jump out of the way, "You should learn to listen when someone older then you tells you what to do." Sesshomaru told him.

"Stay out of this, Sesshomaru." He snarled and looked over at Kakiya with pleading eyes, "Please, I just really want to talk; tell you what really happened. It might not matter to you anymore, but it does to me. You said you would listen, even just once."

She looked at him and sighed, "Fine." She finally said. Kakiya watched InuYasha quickly glance over to Sesshomaru and sighed, "Fine." She repeated and looked at Sesshomaru, "You should go back to Rin and the others, they're waiting for you." She softly said.

Sesshomaru said nothing, and only sheathed his sword. InuYasha turned and walked back into the forest, and Kakiya quickly followed behind him. Kakiya looked back and saw that Sesshomaru had gone and felt a tang of sorrow.

"My brother is still there, he hasn't left yet." InuYasha told her and they continued to walk along.

Her hand twitched, "I didn't say anything." She muttered.

"But I know you were thinking about him."

"InuYasha…" she started.

InuYasha suddenly turned around and faced her, "I'm sorry if what I had just said made you angry, let's not start anything okay?"

She sighed, "Let's get to the point then, what did you want to tell me?"

InuYasha looked relieved, "I've told you once before that Takoro only want to use you. That night, he and his friends were planning on meeting up with you, then drugging you, and then they wanted to bed you while you were drugged." He quietly reminded her.

He saw a fallen tree and walked over to it and sat upon it. Kakiya only walked over to him and stood in front of him.

"Even if you tell me this now, there is no way that you can prove it, I'm sure Takoro is long gone now." She looked down at him, "Right now, you are only feeding me information that I cannot confirm, even if it is true, as you say."

InuYasha looked at her, "I didn't want him and his friends to use you like that… He had lied to you and made you think of him as your friend, and I couldn't stand that. You can even look into my memories or something to find out the truth; you can then hear and see what I saw that night."

Kakiya looked at him for a long time, "I guess I will then… but I'm not good at reading minds while I am in this form…I've only done it once before, and that left me unconscious for a while."

"I'll watch over your body then." He offered.

She stepped in closer to him, "I will still be able to talk to you, but only in your mind…"

Leaning over him, she moved her face closer to InuYasha until they were only inches apart. She gently cupped his face with her hands and slowly touched her forehead with his. Immediately, InuYasha felt a rush of her conscious flowing over him and felt Kakiya falling onto his lap, unconscious. He quickly adjusted her body so that it wasn't touching the ground anymore; she was now sitting on his lap, her head on his shoulder.

'InuYasha.'

'I'll make you search easier,'he answered, feeling Kakiya's strange presence within his mind when she talked, 'I'll just show it to you.'

'No need, I found it.'

InuYasha found that he was not thinking about that time. From the tree that he sat upon, many years ago, she watched from his eyes and heard what they had say through his sharp ears. She watched InuYasha talk to them; telling them to leave and felt him kill one of Takoro's comrades through his hands. She felt InuYasha's emotions during that time as the memory continued to play on. The memory neared the end as she heard herself yell 'I hate you' to him and immediately felt not only InuYasha's guilt but her own as well. She watched herself leave and felt sorrow build up inside her, she felt that even though InuYasha felt guilty, he had not regret what he did.

'InuYasha' she finally said a few moments after the memory ended, 'I should be the one who should have said sorry to you after all these years. I'm sorry I didn't believe you, and doubted you. I should have listened to you back then.'InuYasha saw an image of her smiling in his mind, 'Although threatening and then killing his friends was a bit much InuYasha…'

'I'm sorry.' He thought.

'But I wonder why he would do that? I really did think we were friends…'

He felt Kakiya's sadness build up inside him, 'That's just how humans are…'

Kakiya sighed within his mind, 'I should leave now, and I don't want to be intruding for long.'

'Alright.'

InuYasha felt Kakiya's presence in his mind leave him and immediately felt a tug of loneliness. He looked down at Kakiya's sleeping face and smiled, glad that he had finally lifted the burden from his shoulder and got Kakiya to understand. He lifted Kakiya up and started walking back towards his older brother, regretting each step he took, but knew it was only for the best. When he reached the waterfall, he saw Sesshomaru standing there beside the water's edge watching him. InuYasha walked over to him while still carrying Kakiya.

He stopped in front of him, "You…" he looked away, unable to look at his older brother who was now looking over him, "You better take good care of her… If anything happens to her again, I'll rip you to pieces." He growled then looked up at his brother.

Sesshomaru let a small smirk grow on his face, "I'd like to see you try."

InuYasha reluctantly handed Kakiya's body over to Sesshomaru, who took her gently into his arms, "She looks happier with you anyway." He whispered.

InuYasha jumped away, not before glancing at Kakiya one last time before he left to return to the village his friends were waiting at. Looking at the late afternoon sky, Sesshomaru let out a long breath.

'We have to return too.' He though. Looking down at Kakiya's peaceful face, he gently brushed the stands of hair from her face, "The only one allowed to hurt you is me." He whispered.

A blue, pale light surrounded them and he teleported them both back to his castle. He carried Kakiya to the room she stayed in before and set her on the bed. Sesshomaru decided to use this time to investigate something that has been on his mind since this afternoon: Kakiya still had Naraku's scent from his poison within her, even if it was only a faded scent, it was still there. He carefully pulled open her kimono, revealing only her stomach and noticed that there was still a line of poison where Naraku had stabbed through her many times in her demon form. Sesshomaru closed her kimono once more and gently pulled the blankets over her sleeping body.

'There must be a way to get rid of the remaining miasma…'

After watching over her for a moment, he left the room to inform Jaken and Rin of their return.

XXX

How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?