Kagome jumped up when she heard Kurama groan. Inuyasha jerked as well, sitting upright as the creature came out of his protective curl. Kurama's long dirty hair flopped unceremoniously behind his shoulders, and the little creatures in his lap hopped away.

"Kurama?" Inuyasha reached to pat the guy's cheek. The fox's long claws came up and grabbed Inuyasha's hand, stopping the touch. "You awake man?"

"I'm awake," Kurama agreed. "Mm, I feel like I've been asleep for months. Where am I?"

"What is the last thing you remember?" Kagome held out a hand to Kurama. He looked up at the alien thing, his ears flicking around like satellites as he decided what to do. He took her hand.

"I remember attacking Naraku. I was scaring the demons north, but some groups had been running south instead. I was going to collect them, but Naraku was there. I tried to kill him." Kurama stretched as he thought and looked around. His eyes slowly glazed over everything, from Miroku and Sango off to the side, to Inuyasha brushing himself off. "He's a strong half breed though, and he learned from my attack." Kurama brushed off his clothes. They bled white anywhere he touched. "I cut him with my rose petals, he cut me with all the chunks of fallen meat I'd sliced off. I had to think fast, so I spent too much energy and got the human away from him. We camped out in the woods for a few days, then left. I was hoping you guys would come back to the village, but you didn't."

"So you really are The Ghost, Fox?"

Kurama smiled, "Well, I can't be good all the time," he winked at Inuyasha. "Let's just say I am assuming my old name."

"So you 'were' The Ghost?"

"Youko of Mount Kurama," Kurama bowed to Sango.

Sango just stared at him-unamused. Her face stayed deadpan.

Kurama's ears flicked back. "I'm sorry?" he frowned.

"I remember" he looked back towards Kagome, "Sesshomaru, getting close. He caught me?" Kurama's eyes thinned as he tried to remember, his eyes flicking up towards his memory receptors. "I seem to recall that Sesshomaru and I were playing cat and mouse for a few days before I had to rest, and he caught up." Kurama's face eased. "Ah, right, he forced me to tell him why I was avoiding him. I tried to avoid telling him my name. He didn't know my name. He might have just forgotten. I'm not sure. It's odd. He almost tried to kill me. I stopped him offering my services eradicating the demons. He sort of, indentured me to the task. After a few weeks, I can't remember."

"So you're telling us that Sesshomaru spares your life twice?" Inuyasha asked.

Kurama shrugged. "It might not happen this time because he met me."

Kagome sighed, "So you've been avoiding us for all this time? Why didn't you come find us when you first got back!" Kagome scolded.

"I was trying to!" Kurama waved her off defensively, "It was just convenient that most of these demons recognized me from my past persona. I had to keep up my merciless act so they didn't think I was going soft."

"No one is going to think you were going soft because you didn't strip and molest them," Inuyasha muttered quietly. He eyed Shippo as the little creature perched on Kagome's shoulder.

Kurama blushed and sighed, "Side effects. I'm not typically that vicious. I doubt I was actually 'molesting' anyone either. Most of the time, well- I'd rather not say. Suffice to say it would be something I'd remember. That sort of intimate touch snaps me out of my disorientation very quickly."

"Rin was sent back to stay with Kaede because she said you were stripping your victims and making them scream. It made Sesshomaru uncomfortable," Inuyasha let that sink in.

Kurama frowned. "I know a few things that might do that. None of them are, that."

"We don't need to know," Sango shook her head. "Let's get moving. Kagome, you said you felt the jewel this way?" she pointed down the road.

Kurama yawned loudly and stretched. "Thank you for coming and retrieving me. I appreciate the concern," he bowed to the group.

"You're welcome, now let's get going before Sesshomaru comes back and takes you back."

Kurama hurried to catch up with Kagome walking by her side, "Good point, why did he run off?"

"Don't ask me," Kagome shook her head. "I have no idea. Hey, congratulations on your mom!" She smiled brightly and bumped his arm.

Kurama smiled down at her and blushed slightly as he averted his gaze to stare at the sky, breathing deeply, "Yeah. It feels good to have it off my chest, but she has a huge burden to deal with now because she knows. It's going to be hard for her to just ignore everything she sees and she still only knows about seventy five percent. I don't suppose you know a quick way to tell her everything, do you?"

"Unless you've got your life on DVD, I don't think there is one," Kagome chuckled. Kurama laughed as well, but the others just stared at them like nut jobs.

The forest was silent. No birds, no wind, not even the clattering of swords. Kurama walked like breath across the grass as he circled a demon in the woods, slipping between the tight trees.

"What did you say, whelp?" Kurama growled as he grabbed a leaf from one of the trees he passed and came closer to the man's back. "I didn't quite hear you." he whispered into the long ear of the man.

"I said you're nothing," he pulled at the vines dangling him from the canopy.

"Ah, I was hoping you didn't say that." Kurama scratched the leaf against the man's ear. The demon let out a blood curdling scream as the leaf dug under the skin on the back of his ear. Inuyasha came up closer to the fox and his prey. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the brown bulky demon suspended in crawling green thick vines.

"You see!" Kurama spoke up as he finished the ear. "Your ears must have been clogged! You didn't hear my name!" he continued to shout. He came around in front of the demon, who flared his energy. The ground shook momentarily around them as the demon's toes dangled towards it. Kurama smiled. "That's not going to work."

Tears rolled down the demon's cheek as he whimpered and pushed his ear into his shoulder. "What are you even doing here? You're supposed to be a myth! You're in the other world!"

Kurama smiled, "Just visiting." Kurama twirled the leaf between his fingers. "I heard you creeps were coming back, and I had to remind you who put you in Hell." His eyes thinned as his power shot up. The man was yanked higher into the sky as vines lashed his feet to the ground, pulling him taunt. "In case you've forgotten, I liked her."

"Stop it!" cried the man as his back and limbs popped. "Oh god! Please stop it!" he wailed as the lands continued to shake with his effort to attack.

"I'm not one for mercy, but if you'd like a job," Kurama relaxed the vines a little. "I'll consider letting you live until I find you again." Kurama suggested.

"What? What job?" the man panted desperately as he was relaxed slightly. His body convulsed in pain. "Please, anything."

"Go home, and take the others with you. Anyone who came through a portal must go back to Hell."

"Wh-wh" he swallowed as Kurama dropped him to the ground. "Ahh!" he screamed as the grass pierced his shins and hands. He crawled up to his feet away from the bloody grass and Kurama wrapped a vine around his neck. "Please, I'll do it! I'll do it!" The young demon's ear bled freely over the plant making it squeeze tighter around his neck. He grabbed the vine trying to pull himself free.

"Get them to head north instead of south, back through their portal. You are a warning, not a living man. Anyone who remains," he smiled and gently reached up touching a flower on the vine he'd created. "will wish they had died instead." Kurama looked over the demon in front of him with the same, smirking smile, and put a bloody finger to his lips. "You're missing something." The demon was gaping for air now, his face blue. "Ah, yes." Kurama stepped forward with his leaf, and dug into his forehead with it, cutting him like a bishop in a chess set. He shoved a seed inside and let the man go as the vine began to knit it's pouch shut. The demon ran.

"Did you…" Inuyasha shivered and stepped back, his face contorted in disgust.

Kurama frowned and looked over his shoulder. "Ah, Inuyasha. I'm glad you're awake. We shouldn't leave the others unprotected for long." Kurama's vine crawled back into the canopy wrapping around itself and dragging up like a snake. He dropped the bloody leaf and brushed off his clothes before turning for the river.

"Kurama," Inuyasha requested. He put his hand on his sword, swallowing. "why did you do that?"

"It's easier to get them running because of rumor than reality." Kurama yawned. "Go back to the group Inuyasha."

"Kurama," Inuyasha stiffened his grip on his sword. "He wasn't going to kill us. He didn't even raise his energy to attack."

"Inuyasha," Kurama mimicked. "I have a reputation to uphold. No one will know I have a heart for another three hundred years, at least. In that time I was an insatiable maniac. If those in Demon World approach me thinking I'm somehow able to be reasoned with, they will die, slowly."

"Just because you have a reputation doesn't mean you need to uphold it every minute of every day!" Inuyasha yelled now. He pulled his sword out. "Don't come back to camp."

"Don't be ridiculous. He was an enemy. He needed to be sent home."

"We didn't want to believe it was you, we didn't think that you would be able to destroy so many lives, but it is. You're nothing but a destructive killer!" Inuyasha yelled, stepping back towards the group again, Tetsusaiga between them.

"You know that's not true," Kurama pleaded, stepping back. "Inuyasha, I have to act this way! I can't be myself back here because I am not myself!"

"What's going on?" Sango asked as she came into the area from camp. "We heard screaming from camp." She was dressed to battle, but upon seeing both of them standing off, she put her weapon away. She stopped behind Inuyasha.

"He's a torturer. He's just what those demons say. He tortures them and nearly kills them!"

Sango's eyes hardened as she focused on Kurama.

Kurama's shoulders sagged. "Not you too." He shut his eyes and sighed. "Yes. I torture people. It is necessary in this era."

"No, it's not! You're a different person now and you can be that person here."

"Inuyasha," the fox crossed his arms, but let out a heavy sigh, the patience in his voice ebbing away. "I am not going to be the reason my other self is assumed a coward. I have to maintain my reputation so when I get to the future, it is the same. There were rumors of me being able to teleport, but never that I was two versions of myself. If they discovered I have two selves while I am here, or I seem different, that rumor would start and I would have changed my past."

"Kurama, you, our you has hurt hundreds of demons. They're rampaging through this world in fear of you!" Sango grabbed the corner of her boomerang and gradually slid into her ready position, aiming at him. "We didn't think it was you. We didn't want to believe that it could be you."

"But it was me," he finished. "It had to be me. I'm the cause for these people being here. I have to send them home. If I can avoid killing them all by scaring them off I will."

"You can scare them away without trying to rip them in two and suffocating them!" Inuyasha exclaimed, his fury still evident. As his energy clashed against Kurama's, Kurama held up an arm and stepped back.

"Inuyasha, I am doing this for you!"

"This isn't the type of help we wanted!" Inuyasha yelled back, his eyes following the Wind Scar.

"This is the help you need!" Kurama yelled back. "Inuyasha, don't fight me." He growled. The fox dropped into a better position, crouched mostly as his eyes glittered in the darkness through the waves of energy and wind. His hair whipped around with his tail and his ears fell back. "I might not be able to resist!"

"Inuyasha!" Kagome screamed as she came into the clearing. She grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. "Inuyasha stop it! Inuyasha that's Kurama!"

"He knows!" Sango pulled Kagome away from the dog and put her safely behind herself. "Kurama's been torturing demons when he finds them. It was him that caused the camp outside of Naraku's place. He's the reason the demons have been swarming the towns."

"No! This is just a misunderstanding," Kagome disagreed. "Inuyasha stop this!" Kagome pulled herself free from Sango as Miroku and Kilala slipped close just out of direct line of fire. Shippo was tucked in Miroku's arms.

"Damn it you filthy dog!" Kurama cried out. "How dare you challenge me! Me, you dare assault me with this petty wind? I am the king of this forest, and the master of your nightmares!" Kurama's accent had changed. He accentuated his vowels more, slipping more of the softer vowel sounds into his speech. "Dare your ignorance be so bold?"

"Kurama!" Kagome exclaimed. She ran forward causing both Inuyasha and Kurama to turn on her. The vines from earlier caught her up before Inuyasha could grab her and pull her back. She screamed as they bound her wrists and continued to crawl around her limbs like a boa, waiting to constrict. "Shuichi stop this!"

Kurama jerked and straightened, his energy dropping like a stone. Kagome fell leaving Inuyasha to catch her as she fell.

"You idiot! What the hell were you thinking getting between me and Kurama when we are fighting!" Inuyasha scolded. "When the hell did you start smoking stupid again because I thought I had you off that!"

"Sorry," Kagome laughed and smiled up at him. "I must have forgotten." She rubbed her throat and side, relieved to be down from the vines.

"Damn right! I don't care if it's me and Naraku or me and Kilala you can't just run into the middle of a fight! You're weak and useless. There's no way you'd last two minutes in close combat."

"Kagome," Kurama whispered. He was on his knees. His hands dug into the ground and his head bowed. "Kagome I'm-"

"Don't you say another word." Kurama's long silver hair fell to the ground as his head bowed further. "You know what you did you stinking mongrel." His chest convulsed a little, clear for Kagome to see as she stared down his loose tunic. "Get out of here. Go back home. We can't accept the company of torturers."

"I'm sorry. It's hard to keep who I am straight back here." Kurama whispered, and pushed himself up.

"Inuyasha, Kurama's here to help kill Naraku." Kagome pushed at his chest crawling out of his arms. She walked over to him and reached out to the fox.

Kurama flinched back. He dropped his head turning away.

"Kurama's not a bad guy." She reached out and grabbed the arm folded across his chest. "He's just not completely himself." A shiver ran down his form, sending his tail into a puff before it thinned and slickened.

"He still has been torturing demons." Inuyasha crossed his arms over his chest.

"Yeah, but Sango used to be a demon slayer." Kagome pointed out.

"He can't stay with us Kagome, he tried to kill you just now." Inuyasha shook his head, still not accepting what she was saying.

"Miroku nearly kills us every day he uses his Wind Tunnel."

"This isn't the same!" Inuyasha rebuked. "He-" he pointed to Kurama. "actually tried to kill you. Miroku is trying to get rid of some extra demons and we know what he's doing."

Kagome's lip twitched into a sneer, "Inuyasha, you tried to kill me before Kurama did. If we're not accepting people who tried to kill me in this group than you'd be the first one out of it."

Inuyasha paled. "He's not able to keep himself together. We got to have solid minds for this mission and he ain't one!" Inuyasha rebuked shaking his finger at Kurama.

Kagome stepped between them for the second time that day. "Kurama is back in the past getting two lives laid over one another all the time! He's constantly remembering who he is, and the pain he had when Midoriko left so that he can help us kill some half breed demon who happens to be too strong for you, Inuyasha. We are keeping him or so help me I will send you to America!"

"I can't trust him!" Inuyasha yelled angrily. "I can't trust him seeing what he's done!"

"Sit!" Inuyasha slammed into the ground. "He's staying!"

"Kagome," Kurama whispered.

"I'm not going to hear another word about this discussion until you find a better excuse than 'Kurama's doing what your brother asked him to' which is what torturing demons is!"

Inuyasha pushed himself up some. "My brother's a jerk!"

"Kagome," Kurama said, a little more urgency. He tugged at her sleeve.

"Your brother is a ruler of these lands and he's-"

"Currently headed this way!" Kurama interrupted. "Sesshomaru's about five minutes from us and he has Midoriko!" The fox panted heavily. "He has a lot of Midoriko." Kurama's head fell back as he sighed in relief. "God it feels like nearly all of her."

"What?" Inuyasha and the others stared at the fox in confusion. "What do you mean he's got Midoriko?"

"Oh god, I can feel it too. The jewel, most of the jewel is heading our way, and fast!" Kagome backed up closer to Inuyasha. "How do you know that's Sesshomaru and not Naraku? That's his part of the jewel."

Kurama took a long slow breath and sighed, "No, it's Sesshomaru. He's up-wind."

"There is no wind," Inuyasha huffed as he brushed himself off and pulled out his sword. "Why do there always have to be forests to level?"

"Don't you dare!" Kurama growled. "You leave this forest alone or so help me I will let it eat you."

"Shuichi!" Kagome snapped. Kurama growled at her in return.

Sesshomaru stepped into the clearing. "Brother, I have news." He held up the jewel.

"You also have the jewel," Inuyasha snapped, holding his sword up.

Sesshomaru held up the little roundish ball. "Naraku has fallen." He tossed the jewel to Kagome, who caught it, surprised. "Jewel Protector, protect it this time."

Kagome's eyes widened as she caught the jewel looking it over. She took a slow, long breath. "You said Naraku had fallen?" She pressed as she dumped the other shards out onto her hand.

"He has." Sesshomaru agreed. "He attacked me weakly and I overpowered him. He is dead."

Miroku stared down at his hand and glanced between Sesshomaru and it.

"Did you get his heart?" Inuyasha asked stuffing his sword in his sheath now that he knew Sesshomaru wasn't going to fight for the other half.

"I am no imbecile. The heart was destroyed, but not by me."

Kurama kept himself still as the encounter took place, not willing to be seen or acknowledged by Sesshomaru, not yet.

Miroku stepped away and slowly unbound his hand. He sniffed and readied himself as he pulled off the last seal.

"So you just, what? Thought it would be a nice gift?" Inuyasha asked.

"Don't be ridiculous. I don't need to explain myself to you."

"Your good intentions to return the jewel purified it," Kagome whispered in amazement. She shut her eyes. "If your good intentions can do that," the jewel shards clicked back into place like magnets. "I wish this jewel be gone!" she shouted.

Miroku's hand didn't react at all. He turned it over, and gently ran his fingers over his palm, then broke down sobbing.

Sesshomaru left, after giving Kurama an appraising stare.

Sango rushed to Miroku's side pulling him into a hug, while Inuyasha went to Kagome, who began to hover with the jewel pulling at her chest.

A flash of energy knocked everyone on their backs or fronts respectively.