A/N: Ok. So. Guess what crazy thing nani off and did? She went to china. Yeah. Guess what she didn't realize that implied – not the same electrical outlets. Therefore, no typing on computer. I was so fucked. But now my Chinese is really good! And I'm also so behind on this story! So um, apologies! I would have warned you that I was going to China for a little over a month if I had realized sooner that it would have held things up. smacks herself stupid me.

Anyways, a reviewers was just remarking (about a month ago) that Inuyasha had it really rough in this fanfic. Yes, I agree, I've been quite mean. but the poor dear simply must go through hell and back again before he's capable of expressing his feelings... right?

Also, parts of this story may be confusing because I read the mangas ahead online. So, for those of you who don't, you should probably know that in the later episodes, Koga and Inuyasha have sort of become friends, and Koga has sort of given into the fact that Kagome loves Inuyasha, though, he still claims to have feelings for her. It's um… a bit complicated. If you don't like to think about it, just pretend as if it's part of the fic, yeah? OK. Again, sorry for being gone. Hope I can wrap this story up soon!

Disclaimer: No recognizable material belongs to me.

"Latent in every man is a venom of amazing bitterness, a black resentment; something that curses and loathes life, a feeling of being trapped, of having trusted and been fooled, of being the helpless prey of impotent rage, blind surrender, the victim of a savage, ruthless power that gives and takes away, enlists a man, and crowning injury inflicts upon him the humiliation of feeling sorry for himself." – Paul Velery.

A Reason to Hate: This Scar Upon My Heart...

OoOoOoOo

The silent stillness that Kagome found herself waking into was so thick, that it was as if the air had been laden with lead. For a moment, she wasn't sure if she had actually woken up at all. It felt like she was still in a dream.

And then she was dizzy.

And then, she had no idea where she was. Again.

But this time, she didn't scream. She didn't cry. And she didn't freak out. Not this time. In fact, she was almost tempted to just not get up. She would just lay there for hours on end and stare at the rock room until she recognized something. But of course, that would never happen…

"You're awake." Someone said.

A pair of sharp blue eyes were looking right at her.

'Is that a good thing or a bad thing?' She wondered to herself, but said nothing.

"I've been waiting for you all morning." He continued.

"…Thanks."

The man who was squatting before her was strong and lean, his face sharply cut at handsome angles, ebony hair teasing his dark blue eyes and drawn up into a high pony tail in the back. He might have been a year or two older than herself. And his hair must have been longer than hers too.

What was it with all the guys who she became involved with and really, really long hair? It was just… weird.

"You're the one who was fighting with Inuyasha?" It was only half a question. She didn't even care whether or not he answered it.

The man looked at her as if considering whether or not he should tell her something, but he seemed to think the better of it. Instead he stood up, and offered her his hand.

She took it without questioning or suspicion, not because she didn't have questions or wasn't suspicious, but just because she was too sick of them to care.

She was sick of being pulled around by all these crazy people. And at this point she just wanted to sigh, roll her eyes and say "whatever" to life.

So she did. And she took the stranger's hand.

Said stranger then lead her toward the exit, and then they walked out of the cave together into a blinding light. When her vision cleared again, she found herself standing on a long ledge of black rock, hanging over flat plateaus a giant river-valley. The ledge she stood on was wrapped around the face of a mountain, and the clear blue water that fell from the peak created sheet-like falls beside her, covering the entrance to the cave she had just left.

She stared at the beauty before turning to the man again. The look on his face was unsettling. He stared at her in such an odd way… an expression was a little too intense for comfort… but she didn't really want to know why.

"Where are we?" She said, letting go of his hand. She noticed that his fingers stayed closed around hers for a little longer than they should have, and her stomach started to crawl. No way. … Not him too!

"You're at the den of the western wolf-demon tribe." He said, totally serious.

"Of course I am." Kagome tiredly, closing her eyes. "And…" she slowly opened them again, looking at the sky. "Inuyasha?"

She couldn't stop herself from asking.

She just couldn't.

But it seemed to be exactly the wrong thing to say.

"Dead…" Koga answered bluntly, looking at the waterfall, his eyes a burning blue, as if trying to sear through rock. "Hopefully."

She hadn't realized that she'd forgotten to breathe until he'd said 'hopefully'. "So where is he?" she hated the funny feeling in her heart.

"… I don't know." The man answered hotly. "And frankly, I don't give a damn."

'I shouldn't either…' Kagome thought to herself, watching the water hit the ground. 'I mean - He is the boy… who betrayed me.' She shook her head and gave a little laugh, barring her right forearm across her stomach and holding onto her opposite elbow. The dark smear that had been on the black of Inuyasha's hand last night shot into her memory, as well as the look on his face when she had been taken away. 'Inuyasha…'

For some reason, she couldn't bring herself to hate him. Instead she just felt strangely numb.

"I would have died for her." She remembered his words, and smiled, bittersweet.

'… Liar.' Kagome thought, staring at the way the water turned white when it smashed into the surface, watching the patterns of the air stirred inside the pockets of mist.

"What happened?"

Her thoughts interrupted, Kagome turned around and looked at the man who was standing beside her. She didn't recognize him at all. But clearly, she had known him.

"What do you mean?" She asked emotionlessly, staring down over her shoulder at the ground.

"… You died." He said slowly.

She felt a momentary stab of pain and fear before it flit away again. She knew it was true. It had been the only constant in everyone's story. And plus, she could just feel it in her entire body.

But she was getting used to the idea of it.

"I guess…" She said slowly. "I did." 'I must have'.

"But... that was so long ago. I'd started to -" he stopped, and then trailed off, and she could only bring herself to stare at the ground. "And… now you're back." He said slowly, his voice sounding different.

"… Yes." She answered, and her voice didn't sound like her own. "I'm back…"

There was a moment of hesitation, and then he asked, "Are you real?"

She blinked and looked up at him. That was the cheesiest question she had ever -. But when she saw his face, and the way his eyes bore into the water below them, she realized that he was being so serious. And she found herself actually thinking about what he'd meant.

"… I don't know." She answered quietly, and then hesitated. "Does it… really matter?"

He didn't give her any answers.

OoOoOoOo

"I've got your wound re-covered. And you're bleeding's just stopped, so for God's sake don't move."

"Where is she?" was the response.

It was the first thought that his only just-half -conscious mind had formed.

"With Koga."

Inuyasha, half dead and barely conscious, flattened his silver ears against his head and growled groggily. "Son of a bitch."

"Yes. But at least she's safe with that, 'son of a bitch'." Miroku said. His words failed to comfort.

"… How's Sango?" Inuyasha's leader instincts kicked in, and that was very good. Miroku couldn't remember the last time Inuyasha had cared enough to check on either himself or Sango… ever since the incident three years ago, the only person Inuyasha's mind ever revolved around was her.

"She's alright." Miroku said. "Feeling dizzy from blood loss but… alright."

"… How much time does she need?"

"Less than you do."

"…"

Miroku eyed his friend dryly. "Inuyasha… you're not going to leave yet."

"…"

"Inuyasha." The man pushed.

"What?" The hanyou snapped, though he was still lying on the ground.

Miroku sighed and rubbed the heel of his palm over his eyes, his fingertips pushing back his hair out of smoky lavender eyes. "Koga's feelings from the past haven't changed at all. He still hates you just as much as when he-"

"Yeah." The hanyou interrupted. "I know."

"He won't hesitate to kill you."

Inuyasha grunted.

"So you won't go." Miroku proposed. "Not until you're healed."

Another grunt.

"Inu-"

"Alright! Fine! I get it!" Inuyasha snapped. "Now leave me alone!"

"Alright. If you promise me that you'll wait."

"What, you think I can't handle it?" Inuyasha challenged darkly from where he lay.

"I know you can handle it. I'm just not sure that afterwards we'll be able to handle you."

Inuyasha continued to look at the ground with that same brooding stare. "Alright. Fine. I'll wait." He finally caved, and Miroku let out a breath that both of them were surprised that he'd been holding.

"Alright then, call if you need me, or drag yourself to that hut over there, I'm going to go get Sango water."

"Hey, lech."

Miroku stopped and turned around. "Hmm?"

"Don't you try anything perverted with her…. I mean, taking advantage of her now… it's just low." Inuyasha said, adding a darkly muttered afterthought: "Even for you…"

Miroku laughed and raised his good hand into the air. "Of course, of course, Inuyasha, how could you ever even think that I would try something with her at a time like this?"

Inuyasha gave him a hard, dry stare. "Oh I don't know. Maybe because you're fingers are twitching like that?"

"Uh…" Miroku looked over at the hand that he had raised and saw that they were indeed slightly twitching in the air. Inuyasha stared pointedly at him, and Miroku could feel a line of sweat run down the back of his head. (A/N: Anime sweat drop! too cute!).

"Uh… heh heh." Miroku laughed nervously, snapping the hand back down to his side and clearing his throat in a sudden business like manner. "Please, ignore that. It's from a lack of… sleep."

"Sleep." Inuyasha repeated, his voice still low with accusation. "…right."

Miroku cleared his throat again, and decided to exit. They both knew that he wasn't fooling anybody.

"You realize that that sentence doesn't make you sound less like a lecher, right, lech?"

Miroku halted abruptly for a moment, and decided to simply pretend that he hadn't heard Inuyasha at all. "Right well…" he said, so horribly over-cheerful that Inuyasha wanted to vomit. "As I said before, if you need me-"

"I know. Get lost."

As soon as Miroku was gone Inuyasha started testing himself. He tensed the muscles in his arms, and he could still make them as hard as rock. He moved his arm in upward curls to his face and back to his sides, tried out his legs, did one crunch.

The crunches nearly made him cry out loud, but he bit his tongue in the nick of time. The bleeding had stopped, but the wound was still so sensitive that he could barely move it without feeling as if that damned ogre were ripping out his back all over again.

Well, then… he only had one choice.

He stood up slowly, looked around at his surroundings and inhaled deeply. He could have picked up her scent from a mile away. And that damn wolf's. He shrugged on his white shirt, which Miroku had removed to tend his wound, but didn't tie it. No time, the only coverage for his upper body were the thick white bandages wrapped around his middle. And he cursed the wound for still not having healed yet.

Within a second he had launched himself into the trees, ignoring the way every muscle in his body screamed at him to stop it. Because the weakest one, that lay alone beneath the cage of bone, thumping faster and faster the closer he grew to the old Wolf Den that he used to know so well, was desperately begged him to go faster.

Well… he had technically waited… a little.

OoOoOoOoOo

"Do you know me?" The man asked her, his gaze too intent.

Kagome shook her head.

A sense of hopelessness washed over Koga as he looked at her. She looked so… different than she used to.

"But you said my name last night."

She blinked and looked at him, actually surprised. "I - … What?"

"In the woods, when you used your sacred powers, you said my name." His voice was getting faster.

'Sacred powers?' She stared at him incredulously, not having a single clue. Maybe he had also go insane? It wasn't as if it wasn't a trend as of late.

"You were floating over me." His voice was getting louder, more insistent. "And you looked me right in the eyes and you said it, you said my name!"

Yup. Definitely a physco.

Forcibly, he took her shoulders into his hands, and she moved her head away from him, startled, as he pulled her closer, staring intently at her. "I know you know it!" He said. "Tell me my name!"

She looked at him for a moment, still taken aback from his sudden passion, and then let a slow, bitter-sweet smile slide across her face. "But… I don't even know my own." She told him.

Koga stared at her, taken aback, and then reached for her face with his hand. Suddenly he stopped, his eyes going narrow and his muscles tensed. And suddenly he focused, without moving a single muscle, in an entirely different direction.

For a moment she was sacred, and then just nervous. She wanted to ask him what it was, but didn't want to throw him off by speaking. Inuyasha always snapped at her for talking when he tried to concentrate on sounds or scents. Apparently she always got in his way.

"I smell something nasty." Koga told her, his face looking as if he were being forced to swallow bad milk. "Filthy, idiot's-blood." 'I'd know his scent anywhere…'. Suddenly he took her by the hand again, and before she could make a sound, he was dragging her back to the cave. She tripped over herself and then broke into a sort of half walk – half jog to keep up with the man in front of her.

"What-?"

Firmly, he placed her inside the stone walls and then looked directly at her. "Don't move." He told her and she nodded breathlessly, feeling as if she didn't have another choice. As he paused to study her, his gaze softened a little.

'Oh no. no, no, no. …'

He put his hand suddenly on her neck, his thumb resting on the line of her jawbone, and just looked at her. She felt panicky… he was looking at her in that way! Couldn't kidnappers these days just agree stay behind the lines of 'strictly business'? Or at least 'platonic' for crying out loud?

"Don't worry, Kagome," Koga said softly, the look in his eyes making her spine do strange tingly things that made her want to slap him. 'Stop it! Stop it!' She scolded him mentally, though she said nothing out loud. 'Don't you dare! I don't need this again!' "I'm protecting you now." He finished, smiled and then gently, kissed the top of her head. All the while Kagome stared straight at the man's neck, directly in front of her, feeling numb while a little voice yelled: 'No! No! NO! What's wrong with these guys? Are there no other girls in the universe or something?'

Giving her one last dreamy smile, at which the little voice screamed she should try to slap off his face, he left her behind, his long black hair trailing, wind blowing her hair around her face and her dress around her legs.

Immediately, she turned around, fuming, wiping at her forehead with the back of her palm viciously. "What is this!" She screamed. She pictured the man, standing before her, blue eyes gentle, lips against her forehead, his long black hair hung over his shoulder.

"You're all crazy!" She shouted, her voice echoing. "And could someone give the three of you all major hair cuts!" She demanded, referring to the three: Naraku, Inuyasha and this new guy. "I mean, for crying out loud! Why can't you all just-" Suddenly she stopped, her words frozen in her own mouth, halfway formed, like ice cubes stuck inside her chest. And everything gradually became still again as something… began… to sink… in. She turned around, at about the pace of a water droplet falling in slow motion, feeling numb.

"What…" She said softly, staring at the empty space he had left behind to surround her, "what did he just say?"

"Don't worry, Kagome. I'm protecting you now."

Kagome. So it was all 'Kagome' again.

It was always Kagome.

She shook her head slowly, closed her eyes and sank down to the cave floor, just trying to breathe.

After a minute or two, she reopened her eyes to stare lifelessly at the floor. "So…" She said quietly, as if trying to start a friendly conversation with the empty cave around her, but it only acted as a microphone, amplifying the surroudning silence. Resignedly, she drew her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them, still staring. "What am I supposed to do now?" She asked, half hoping that somebody would actually answer, and feeling strange when nobody did.

OoOoOoOoO

"Get out of my territory."

Inuyasha halted, face to face with the blue-eyed man who had come down to meet him on the shore of the river. Beyond the demon prince, a sharp, green mountain jutted out of the land like a thumb, a series of plateaus leading to the ledge that was wrapped around the top. He knew that behind one of the water-falls, Kagome was inside.

And he could smell the men, Koga's pack, waiting on those plateaus, no doubt instructed to stay behind. Koga had come down, saving Inuyasha the trouble of having to go up. Well whatever. That was fine with him.

"Feh. I'd be glad to, you wimpy wolf."

Koga ground his teeth. "Don't call me that again." He said plainly.

"Oh, right. Sorry, I forgot." Inuyasha said sarcastically, his voice hardening in mock care-freeness. He smiled grimly. "… You haven't called me mutt-face, yet either, have you?" He asked, his voice raw with a growl. "Not that I'm complaining or anything."

For a moment Koga looked so mad that Inuyasha thought the other man just going to plain out jump forwards and bite him right then and there. But then a cruel, forced, coldness passed over his face and entered Koga's hard blue eyes. The prince seemed to relax, though just barely. "Heh." He said, tossing his head to the side, smiling cruelly, though his eyes never changed. "Those days are gone."

"Never knew the nick-name meant so much to you." Inuyasha said, maintaining the smile with the same coldness.

This time Koga met him with sincerity in his voice and expression. "Shut up."

It was still strange to not hear "mutt-face" at the end of every word. And while three years ago Inuyasha would have been glad to be rid of the rather derogatory term, now… well, things were different now. Everything was different between himself and the man who stood before him.

Was it twisted for the two of them to have only realized after they hated each other that they had never actually hated each other?

Inuyasha shook his head, that shouldn't make any sense.

But it did.

He supposed what it was then, was… that, call him crazy, but they had once been… friends. Once. Rivals, yes, seriously annoyed by each other, yes, pissed the hell off by each other, yeah that too. But also, in some strange way they had sort of... not hated each other. It was almost called "friendship". Or something close to it, only it had been royally fucked up and demented because lately everything that he touched seemed to be that way. He had fought with Koga, mostly over Kagome, because it was just in their nature to fight, but they had also, on rare occasion, saved each other's asses. And people like them, didn't save romantic rival ass, in fact, they didn't save any kind of ass. Unless they were family or… friend.

And they had called each other those names. But he supposed he never realized how much they hadn't meant it until after Kagome died, and Koga started actually hating him.

Yes, he knew that now, Koga hated him. Completely. And he knew because when he saw his once-friend, he never heard any traces of the word "mutt-face". His old, familiar nickname.

How strange that they only stopped insulting each other once their friendship was officially over.

But he supposed they were just screwed up that way…

"Heh." Inuyasha sharpened his talons and took a step forward. Koga tightened his stance.

Oh, fuck it.

"I'm taking her back." Inuyasha stated.

If it had come down to a choice between his friendship with the wolf prince and Kagome …

"The hell you are." Koga spat.

It wasn't even a matter of choosing.

"So I guess you'll just have to move out of the way." Inuyasha told him.

"Like hell."

Of course Koga had probably felt the same way. Probably had since the day the demon prince discovered that Kagome Higurashi was dead. … Truth be told, Inuyasha couldn't blame Koga for hating him. … He supposed that he would have hated himself too. In fact, if Koga hadn't hated him for losing Kagome, Inuyasha might have hated Koga for not hating him.

Like he said, the whole thing was just really too screwed up.

"You're stupid as ever, you know." Koga said. "Facing me with that wound."

Inuyasha bared his fangs.

"I don't know whether to be angry with your disrespect for not facing me while you're healthy," Koga said viciously. "Or to just laugh at your pathetic face." The demon prince let his hands clench into fists, and the laugh never quite reached his eyes. "But I think…" he started, taking only a single step, and then he was in the air. "I'll just kill you in stead!"

His heel connected with Inuyasha's jaw, and the hanyou could taste the blood that spurted into his mouth. As Inuyasha staggered backwards, he spit it out onto the ground, trying not to cough on the rusty, metallic taste.

And then, after a moment, he found himself grinning and looking Koga in the eyes. "Is that all you've got?"

It was a stupid question.

And he knew it.

Since the answer was obviously no.

But he really, didn't care.

Koga's face got harder, and Inuyasha prepared.

"You're going to be sorry that you ever came here again." Koga said darkly, his eyes covered by his bangs. "Even I didn't think you were that dumb… If you were the kind of guy I thought you were, you'd never have returned, you'd never even have come near me again after what happened between us three years ago!"

Inuyasha grit his teeth at the memory.

Koga was shaking. "You were lucky on that day, hanyou. Lucky, when you shouldn't have been." Koga said, making the word 'hanyou' sound like a dirty creature to be swallowed alive, still squirming in his throat. 'You were the last person who ever should have been …'

Inuyasha watched the pained way in which Koga's fists tightened till his knuckles turned white. And then the other man became very, very still.

"But I doubt that you will still be so lucky… today!" Koga's voice escalated, and his punches flew.

By the time the two men were to be finished, the grass would be slick with that funny shade of brown you get when you cover green with bright red.

Latent in every man is a venom of amazing bitterness...

A/N: Ok so part one of this chapter is finished. The preview for part two was posted in the last chapter (before I knew that this chapter was going to be split in two). Only two halves I promise, and I've already got it partially written. Wish me luck guys!

-- and feel free to complain about writing style or lack there of, etc. etc. because I know I haven't been posting as of late.