eek. nearly half a year. i'm so, SO sorry guys. but better late than never, right? heh...


Inuyasha woke up slowly, noticing first that he wasn't in the main shrine room anymore, but somewhere underground, judging from the damp, earthy smell. The second thing he noticed was that his mind was once again his. The third observation was accompanied by slight relief and also worry: the charms had been removed. The last thing he noticed was the cause of his worry, and this thing happened to be the sight of Kagome sitting next to him, sleeping lightly against one of the wood covered walls.

She was dozing lightly, and someone had wrapped a blanket loosely around her shoulders. The necklace that the Shikon no Tama had been strung on was dangling lightly from the one hand that wasn't under the blanket.

Inuyasha sat up slowly, afraid that any movement would wake the peacefully slumbering miko, noticing the purple robe that had been covering him only as it fell from his shoulders. Hn, it seemed that the monk had been here. The dog youkai sniffed, and sure enough, the faint smell of incense and ginger wafted around the small room, in just the same mixture that hung around the houshi.

Getting up off the futon that he had been laying on was more difficult than sitting up (Kagome had one of her legs stretched out over the end of the bed), but he managed and began investigating the room.

It was small and not normally used, as evident by the musty, stale air. There was a set of stairs a little bit back from the center of the room, but these he ignored; there wasn't a scent of blood in the room, either new or old, so he had no pressing desire to get out.

He placed a clawed hand against the walls, noting that he had been correct, the soft dirt was damp and smooth, as clay was. The only thing that was man-made was the ceiling above, which, he supposed, was actually the floor of the building above.

Done with his observation of the immediate area, he walked behind the stairs, noting several containers that, when opened, revealed scrolls, powdered incense and extra oil pans (like those used for early lamps, yo?). He snorted; oh yes, most definitely a shrine.

He headed back over to the tatami mat he had been spread out on and sat down, intending to have a long hard thought about all this.

He ran a hand through long white hair as he pondered. The first thing he did was recount the experiences he had gone though after biting the Jewel. From his painful transformation and his attempted attack on Kagome (here he winced), through his forced 'SIT' and subsequent loss of consciousness, he pondered. Why, why had he gone, well… psycho?

Kagome and the other's had explained to him, after the sword maker rambled, that his demon blood reacted to a threat provided against his life and took over. They said he showed markings that his brother showed just before transforming and then he killed anything that was in his path.

He sighed and ran a hand absently through his hair again, 'damn I wish I had a mirror…'

He had always been curious, ever since the first time it had happened, what he looked like when he had transformed. Then he learned about how his transformations would slowly eat away his soul, and the curiosity faded to a small wonder in the back of his thoughts that he would occasionally take out and explore. He knew what Sesshoumaru looked like when he transformed, and he had memories of his father, albeit vague and sometimes foggy memories. When times during the journey got difficult he would take them out and play with them, changing the color of the marks on his face, drawing in the dirt with a claw tip to make his markings change shape and design.

Now he finally had an answer and there wasn't a mirror in sight. How ironic.

But where the hell was everybody else? Here he was, locked in a room (well, he assumed he was locked…) with a sleeping Kagome, when he had probably spent about ten minutes giving her death threats. Why would they trust him? Moreover, why would she trust him?

But then again… she always trusted him, didn't she? He thought on that. Yes, she always trusted him. Even from the beginning, when they fought Yura of the Hair, she trusted him to keep her safe when she had no reason to. She trusted him to keep her safe, and he had done so. A few times he had felt he had failed her, but she had always reassured him that no one could be everywhere and know everything and that the fact that she was still alive and that he had saved her meant that he hadn't failed her.

He glanced over at her as she stirred in her sleep, half mumbling something vague but demanding.

He smiled softly at that. She was always demanding. Gentle but wanting everyone around her to stand up for themselves, to be the most they could be, despite what the rest of the world wanted, or thought, about them.

He sighed and reached over to wake her, glad that at least someone was here to answer his questions. As he reached out, his sleeve drew back and he frowned as he caught a hint of blue at his wrist. Turning his arm, he saw a blue strip running from the outside of his wrist to stop a few inches from his elbow.

Shrugging it off he grasped the miko's shoulder with one hand and began to shake her gently, "Kagome, hey, get up."

She stirred gently, mumbling incoherent denials in her sleep, eliciting a small smile from the demon, "come on, wake up Kagome. You can't sleep all day. Or night, or whatever," he trailed off, really not knowing how long he'd been asleep.

She murmured in her sleep again, pulling a frown that was still more sleep that wakeful, "f-five… more minutes mom…."

The smile turned dry, "nope, sorry Kagome; no more five minutes."

The miko snuggled further into the blanket, "commo' m'm… don' be me'n… sound… lik'…inu..y-yasha…"

Well, that got a frown. 'Mean'? She doesn't know what 'mean' is. "Higurashi Kagome, you're gonna miss your test," he said flatly.

"WHAT?!" that got a response. He had the miko up and out of bed before she'd fully opened her eyes. She turned to the left and stumbled into the wall, flinging the blanket over inuyasha's head in her haste.

The inu youkai stayed under the blanket she had so kindly provided him with long enough to get his snickering under control. By the time he crawled out, she was positively fuming. Arms crossed, she towered over his sitting form and he could swear that there were flames in her eyes.

"I. Nu. Ya. Sha," positively spat out his name, each syllable punctuated with a step closer to him.

"Not. Funny," the last two words were accentuated with her finger jabbing into his chest.

He blinked up at her innocently, trying oh so very hard to keep the self incriminating grin off his face and only in his mind, "what?"


sorry this ch's so short. i almost didn't finish it this way, but i thought it through and decided that doing it this way would better get my point across than just flat out telling you guys in an A/N, but i'm going to end up explaining it anyways, so, whatever.

basicaly, inuyasha's just had all his emotions released, well all his violent emotions and all his 'tickely, teasing, "teehee"' emotions. it's like a person who was born deft being able to suddenly hear and talking non-stop or walking around with a CD player blaring music 24/7. some of the words might not be pronounced right, and some of the music played might be a little hard on the ears, but how's a deft person supposed to know?

so, inuyasha doesn't know how to control his emotions, and he's gonna seem a little OOC for a bit. that is, untill- /clamps hands over mouth/ oops! cant say. but i think it IS safe to say that it'll be happening in the next few chapters, if not the next one.

and i do apologize that there was a lot on inuyasha inner diolouge, but i wanted to show him in a different light. it's my belief that he wasn't stupid; he just lacked some of the social context for some of what he was put through. so i showed him using his brain to think some things through.

and a BIG HUMONGOUS Thank You to bankotsu'chic who was my first reviewer on this fic and my first reviewr EVER/tears of gratitude/ Thank you so much!