Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of Naruto or Sengoku Otogizoushi - InuYasha. InuYasha belongs to Takahashi Rumiko, Shogakukan, Viz Media, ShoPro Entertainment, and Shounen; while Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi, Shueisha, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. No copyright infringement is intended with this purely fan-made crossover, especially since no money is being made from this.

Altruistic Tenacity
And Dragged Back Home

By the time Kagome reached Kumogakure late the next night, Kagome was covered in sweat and panting. She dared not take a break, though when she did it was to use her hama no reiryoku to hide their trail (as she always did whenever she was traveling) and to heal him bit by bit. If she had not done that, she was certain he may have died on the way because he was in truly bad shape. How bad she did not know yet, and would not know until she reached her home. Her legs and arms were ready to give up on her as she lived an easy life in the hidden village. Or rather a much easier life than the one she had left behind in the feudal era. She did not usually walk all across the world of shinobi nor did she find herself constantly in battles to the death for the fate of said world nor had she practiced her archery since her arrival. Instead she helped out shinobi skilled in the healing arts called "medic-nin" and kept an eye on the Raikage's little brother who housed the youkai known as Hachibi.

Her uses had become rather decorative, yet there was nothing she could do to change it. The Raikage was not someone she could go up again -- he was not someone ninety-nine percent of the world's population could go up against either -- so she tried to make the most out of her new life as it was all she could do. And perhaps that had something to do with her dragging a nearly-dead shinobi back to the Land of Lightning. She wanted to feel the joy of being useful to someone in such a way again, but, most of all, she wanted something new and exciting in her life. She knew it was likely to backfire on her, especially if the Raikage ever found out about the stray she was bringing back home.

Because of her ornamental lifestyle, carrying the shinobi for as many kilometers as she had was taxing on what little strength she had. He was heavier than he looked, and his unconscious state made it that much harder for her. His feet and legs were the most uncooperative parts of his body as she discovered more than a few times. The hard-packed ground that made up the winding streets of Kumogakure made it easier on her as it allowed for his feet to drag across the ground without snagging. That made it easier for her to take the back-streets and alleys to avoid running across anyone who would alert the Raikage to her arrival and the person she had brought back.

As her modest house came into view, Kagome wanted to cry. She did not know how much longer she could have lasted before she collapsed under his weight. Yet even as she managed to open her door and stumble inside, she pushed aside the desire to collapse and relax. He had managed to hang on for quite a while, but she had no clue as to how much longer he had left. Every second from thenceforth was a moment she could not afford to take a break. His life was officially in her hands now.

Without a second thought as to what was on top of her low-table in her sitting room, she swept it all off and lay him down on top. Books and scrolls fell to the floor, a paperweight shattered, and the table creaked dangerously. Kagome swayed on her feet as her body tried to adjust to the loss of avoirdupois and right her balance. Barely a second had passed before she could feel her limbs begin to shake from over-exertion. She knew she had pushed herself far too much, but she could not have afforded to take a break. Especially not when a life hung in the balance.

Though she did allow herself to sit down on the floor next to the table and catch her breath for only a moment. She needed to in order to concentrate enough to bring forth her hama no reiryoku for what she was going to do. If there was one thing she had managed to learn from all the time she spent around medic-nin, it was to always check out the patient's condition thoroughly before beginning the healing process. She had half-skipped this process all ready in her desperation to keep him alive, but now she could afford to take the time.

What surprised her when she began her examination of him was that he was fine externally. He had no broken bones, had no bruises or lacerations, though she was sure she could pass that off as having been healed on the way. All he really seemed to suffer from, on the surface, was premature blindness. It was something she had never come across before in civilians or shinobi, though she had heard of it happening when she lived in Tokyo. If he lived, and she hoped he did, she would be sure to ask him about it and see if there was a way for her to help fix it.

She brushed back the dark strands of hair from his forehead with gentle fingers. "Just what happened to you, shinobi-san?"

Though she knew he would not answer given his condition, she still asked to fill up the silence surrounding her home. If he lived, his body would take a while to recover and repair the damage caused by chakra depletion and near-death. However she still had no clue as to why he was so close to death. Until she looked further into his body using her powers. She almost wanted to chuckle at the irony when she discovered it. Most shinobi worried about dying on missions or in wars, yet he was dying of a disease. In fact, contrary to popular belief, the disease he had was what killed off most prodigies as she had discovered in her studying.

It all had to do with how far they could push their bodies. Naturally, prodigies were better than regular shinobi in certain areas. That led to their clans and families and villages pushing them harder than anyone else. Too much pushing and too brutal of training led to weakened immune systems, and coupled with the blood that was almost always shed during battles... It all led to disease. Yet the ways of shinobi and villages were not about to change anytime soon despite that consequence.

Normally shinobi who came down with such a disease could only be treated. Medic-nin could not cure it, only prescribe medicine to help prolong their life and treat the symptoms. Yet Kagome was not a medic-nin. She was miko. Being one came with the ability to purify toxins be they youki or diseases. He was very lucky that she had stumbled across him or else he would have died anyway.

She smiled down at him as she removed her hand from his chest. "Yes, you are very lucky. But a good shinobi does always have a lot of luck on his side... But now the hard part..."

Kagome grunted as she lifted herself off the floor and onto the table, pushing his hips to the side a little more. The popping of a few of her joints had her grimacing over the state she was going to be in tomorrow. She would worry about that tomorrow, though. Right now, she had a disease to purify from a shinobi. She would keep her promise to herself and help him beat death as much as she could.

She looked over his body closely and felt around in his clothes, trying her hardest not to blush. She found what she was looking for though: one kunai. "Forgive me," she said with a grimace before plunging it into his chest. She hated doing so, but it was the only way she could heal. She needed an object to focus her hama no reiryoku into in order for it to heal internally, and in this case she did need for it to be in his body. The disease he had was in his blood and his lungs, so it would have done no good for her to push her power into him any other way. Or so it was what she told herself over and over again as she poured her power into him for what could have been hours.

Only when she could no longer feel the taint in his body did she pull her hama no reiryoku back into her body, and the kunai out of his chest. When the tip escaped, one last drop of her hama no reiryoku healed the wound she had caused him. She had removed all traces of his disease, now it was up to him as to whether he would live or not. If he wanted to live, then he would wake up and allow his body to gather the necessary chakra to replace his depleted store.

Whoever he had been fighting, he had truly gone all-out against them. She was almost sad to have stumbled across the result of it; that battle would have been epic to watch. And it made her terrified of the victor for they had to be just that much more powerful to be able to walk away.

She brushed her hand across his face, feeling the slightest trace of heat coming off it before she stood up. "I really do hope you'll choose to live... So please, don't give up just yet."

Maybe he would hear her words and decide to fight for his life. It would be too sad if he died after having held on for so long. Yet at the moment, she had a bath she needed to take before heading to talk to the Raikage.

Kagome took a deep, steadying breath as she pushed open the doors to the Raikage's office. Every time she took a trip outside of Kumogakure, she was required to report back to him when she returned. She dreaded it every time which was why she rarely left. Not because she had anything to hide, but because she was terrified of him and the look in his eyes every time he looked at her. It always felt as if he was assessing every word that fell from her lips and undressing her at the same time.

She blamed the way shinobi dressed for the latter. Though it was not as revealing as her school uniform had been, the fishnet she wore underneath her clothes was uncomfortable and made her actual clothes cling to her. She still wore a skirt, though it was a deep red, and it was a good bit longer than her old green one had been. The top was what she had an issue with: it was a white V-neck tank. A, the Raikage, had chosen the colors for her after he had learned of the traditional colors and clothes miko wore. She wished she had never told him.

Though she was not as stupid or naïve as she had been years ago when she was fifteen, she was still modest. Life in a shinobi village had changed it to a degree as they were very open and blunt people when they wanted to be, but she still retained a bit of the modesty she had grown up with. Even with that, when men twice her size and who could easily overpower her looked at her in such a way, she started to look for the nearest hole to crawl into. The only thing that kept their hands off her was her little lie that if she was no longer a virgin then they would no longer have their miko. The purity a miko needed and that the Shinto religion taught was a deeper one than that, but they did not need to know that. And they did not want to run the risk that it could be true.

While she had gotten away with lying before, they had all been petty and meaningless ones. Her lies had never been as huge or life-threatening as the one that was unconscious on her table in her house. She did not even want to think about the consequences if they found out about him.

"You're late." As soon as he spoke, Kagome bowed deeply to him. While her form of bowing was something he and his advisers had grown used to and accepted because she was not a shinobi, she had ulterior motives this time. She did not want them to see her face. The eyes were truly the window to the soul and mind, and the Raikage was too astute a shinobi for her likes. And she had always been an easy read.

"I'm sorry, A-dono. A battle had taken place near the border that I had to find a way around."

In her time spent mingling with people in Kumogakure, she had picked up a few things. One was the best way to tell a lie: to tell the truth as much as possible. By weaving in certain, small lies and half-truths into the actual truth, it became near impossible for anyone to tell which parts were false. She could all ready feel his eyes on her body, sizing her up and trying to figure out if she told the truth or not. While he may be known for his quick temper and emotional rampages, he was also very shrewd. One could not become a kage if they were not.

She heard his get up from behind his desk, the squeaking of his chair in the too silent room revealing that fact. Kagome held her breath as his feet came into her view, stopped in front of her.

"Oh yeah? What kind of battle was it?"

"A shinobi battle," she answered without daring to look up. "Or so it seemed. Given how the forest and sky looked in that area, it could have only been caused by shinobi fighting to the death. I took a detour that took a few hours out of my return to make sure I had completely bypassed whatever had taken place." Kagome resisted the urge to wince when she finished talking. She had rambled too much which made it seem even more suspicious. Honestly, she had done this enough times to know how to lie.

He grabbed a curling lock of her dark hair and rubbed it in-between his fingers, feeling the still-wet silkiness of it. She resisted an even larger urge to flinch away knowing she should have dried her hair more thoroughly before coming to visit. "And yet, you still had the time to take a bath. Not to mention you're clearly exhausted."

Kagome steeled herself internally toward what she was about to do. It went against everything that she was and believed in, but it needed to be done. She lifted her head before straightening and giving him her most innocent smile. "I'm sorry, A-dono. I pushed myself harder than I should have to make good time back here. I didn't want to be away longer than necessary and make you worry! Then I was so sweaty and filthy that I couldn't bear to bring myself here in such a condition."

He looked at her with an expression that held impassivity and scrutiny. So she added more to her act as she knew his one weakness. The tears she forced to well up in her eyes came easier than she had thought, but she blamed it on her exhaustion and how uncomfortable she felt in his presence instead on how well she was fitting into the shinobi world of deception. "I'm so sorry, A-dono! Next time I'll come here to see you the second I get back from another trip!" She bowed deeply again once she saw her act caused the desired reaction, even though she hated coming off as such a woman.

She knew it was wrong of her to lead A on as she was, and did, but it kept him out of her hair for a while. Like most of her plans, if not all of them, she knew it would backfire on her in some way. And she was playing with fire. But for the moment, it kept her out of trouble and her charge safe.

His hands were so much larger than she was and dwarfed her arms as he gripped them. She lifted her head and into his sincere-seeming face and almost felt horrible for deceiving him. His eyes, though, gave away his true thoughts about her and her little act, and kept those feelings of guilt from growing. It was not her fault he wanted her. "Kagome, you don't have to come see me the minute you get back. But when you arrive hours later than normal, I'm going to ask questions. You're too valuable to this village to disappear."

She bowed her head forward, not wanting to look into his face anymore and see the emotions he kept inside to appear normal to her. He was a very emotional, raucous man, and he never showed it to her. He probably thought it would endear him to her more, but it drove her away instead. She did not want someone who pretended to be someone else.

"I understand. I'll try not to do it again."

A nodded. "Good. Get some rest, you still have to look over Kirabi's training tomorrow morning."

She nodded before leaving as quickly as she could without seeming suspicious. She wanted to be far away from his hands and him as soon as possible, he was far too familiar with her for her tastes. She entertained the thought of taking another bath.

As soon as the door closed behind her, A turned to his two advisers and said, "Get Team Samui to keep an eye on her. She's lying about something, and I want to know what."

Yes, the Raikage's name is actually A. That's what it comes to in its romaji form, and I think it would look weird if I just used the characters for his name in the middle of an English fic. So it stays as A. And also, Kirabi is the correct name of Killer Bee.