Chapter 3: Inuyasha's resurrection

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He didn't stir, coming back to himself was a silent affair, one where the outside came washing down in calm waves. Slowly, he became aware of his surroundings.

First, the scent of petals and spring water assaulted him, a hint of lavender mixing with the wildflowers. A flavorful cocktail of soft aromas, something that was both familiar and new.

His nose twitched with effort to breathe it all in.

Second, the soothing touch of soft hands on his ears, a slow rumble built in his chest with the comfort they brought. Small nimble fingers running circles around his ears, lightly scratching his scalp before gently petting up, tracing the twitching ears to their point, pushing the fur back around-

His eyes shot open, big blue shining eyes met his golden ones.

"Sorr-" Before the words left her lips, he flipped them, effectively pinning her with both arms to the side of her head.

Inuyasha ignored the shooting pain that raced through him, eyes locked on her face. Was this the same girl from before? She was young with that round innocent face, long lashes, small plump lips. Who was she? More importantly-

"Where is it!" he bared down his fangs, eyes scanning her own for any trace of deceit, his hair creating a curtain around them.

"Dresser left drawer" Her words were breathless, and her pulse beat wildly beneath his fingertips, she stared back at him with wonder, not a trace of fear even as he snarled her way.

One moment he sat on top of her, pinning her to her bed, the next he was across her room. Had she blinked, the young girl would've missed it, her eyes following his moves from her prone position on her bed.

His head gave a dull throbbing, reminding the young man that his body was not yet out of the woods, as it were his legs threatened to shake, yet he forced them still.

Silver chain in hand, Inuyasha only managed to relax when he threw it back on, not much good it did now. She had already seen him...

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Kagome sat up as she watched with fascination.

His long silver hair shortened into the short choppy cut she had first seen on him, the color darkening till it was a pitch black. His claws shortened and his beautiful golden eyes tainted to a dark brown, the lone pointed fang that pressed over his bottom lip retracted.

She had watched the transformation when she first took the thing off, an act purely out of need, and had witnessed the disguise shatter before her.

But watching it now, in the daylight, without the shower of red obstructing her view... it sure was something.

The faint gasp passed her lips on its own accord, making him turn sharply towards her, as if reminding him of her presence.

Inuyasha had been darting his eyes around the small room, ears swiveling this way and that way, nose sniffing wildly at the air around him. He centered his senses to give him leads on where he was. He knew this to be her room, it had her smell all over, the aroma so strong it made him want to sit there for hours shifting through the scent.

Focus.

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The house was empty, no scent of anyone but her there for a long time, a week or so, maybe more. He needed to know more, he picked up the faint sound of a nearby street, nothing too busy but not too remote either, he was still in the city, but what district?

Her gasp brought him back to her, whoever she was, he found himself under her wide watchful eyes.

"Who are you" His tone was none too friendly, confusing her as evident by the frown falling over her soft features, Inuyasha watched her closely as she moved to sit on the edge of her bed.

"My name is Kagome," her voice was a melody, light with a certain chime to it, tender as they regarded him as if he needed handling with care.

"You're in my house, I brought you here. I'm sorry about the-" she pointed towards his necklace "-I didn't know."

"Oh, you didn't, didn't you?!" He accused; she was calm around him, far too calm.

This Kagome had seen him, the real him, and was carrying on like it was nothing. Something was amiss, everything about her was both calming him and setting his nerves on edge.

"I didn't-" Her protest had barely started when he was on her again, so fast she didn't register it until he had pinned her back down on her bed. The breath hitched in her throat and stayed there, his face but inches away from hers, red slowly tainted her cheeks as his face moved ever so closely.

Wait, was he... sniffing her?

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Inuyasha inhaled deeply, bypassing the girl's sweet fragrance, ignoring the warmth that spread over him as he savored her aroma. She was human alright; her scent was laced with nerves but no repulsion or animosity, plus he smelled no lie or deceit on her form.

Maybe she didn't know, she could be telling the truth, just a lost girl caught up in something ugly.

Yet, this girl who had no place in his world, had somehow- someway, found herself at the heart of the matter.

It sounded ludicrous even to his own ears.

"Inuyasha, right?" The girl interrupted his thoughts, tugging fruitlessly at her wrist, her face aflame "Can you let go now. Please?"

He glared down at her with such ferocity, it sent warning chills down her spine, "How do you know me!"

"T-That guy said your name, but I honestly don't know who you are, pinky promise!"

Kagome shut her eyes when he leaned back down over her, his breath tickling her neck as he inhaled through his nose, the sensation playing a terrible homage on her hammering heart.

With a disgruntled growl, he lifted his face to meet hers, his tough narrowed glare didn't quite have the same effect as when his long fangs had snapped down at her.

Once more she tugged feebly at his hands around her wrists, a silent plea to be released. His hands moved away but he didn't back off, still covering her with his being, and even though they didn't touch Kagome felt trapped beneath him.

"Who are you?" Inuyasha didn't miss the racing of her heart, or the rising blush on her face.

Was she embarrassed? Why?

"I told you already... I'm-"

"Yea, Yea" The handsome stranger sneered down at her "Normal human girl" the disbelief dripped from his tone.

She would've been offended, she was sure, but Kagome had caught on to something bigger.

"Human' girl? So, it's true." The girl stared up with barely masked excitement, "You're a dog demon then, is that it, or is that too on the nose? Eh, Inu-yasha?"

She spoke as if she had everything figured out, who was to say she didn't, this could be a trap.

Lowering his face to the nape of her neck he inhaled deeply, still no fear. He ignored the way she tilted her head away on her own, focusing on what underlying emotion was ruling her instead of her obvious discomfort.

His frustration spiked when, once again, her scent revealed nothing about her.

"You know nothing of me!?" He was off her then, across her room once more only to begin to pace in front of her like a caged beast. "Why were you even there?!"

His angry eyes scanned her room, moving between the short distance of her desk to her door and back.

"You can't expect me to just buy into the whole bystander coming to the rescue bullshit. Just how dumb do you think I am? How did you even get me out of there? I was a dead man; a dead man, don't you get it?!"

Inuyasha bit the inside of his cheek, his insides were hurting, and everything ached. But his eyes kept their frantic search around her space, looking for an angle, a trick of some sort, proof that this was another trap.

The girl slowly rose in the mist of his frantic movements, he was so engulfed in his musings he failed to notice her till she touched his shoulder; affectedly stopping his movements as if he were to have run into a brick wall.

"Stop, you'll reopen your wounds." Her voice was soft with concern, he looked into her eyes attempting to find trickery. Instead, he found two honest pools staring back, open for his inspection, as if she had nothing to hide from him.

Inuyasha took a deep breath, filling his lungs with her fragrance, not noticing how it eased his jumbled thoughts. Somehow, she managed to walk him back to her bed, helping him sit as if he hadn't shown how capable of movement he was.

"How'd you do it" Inuyasha asked, studying her face for anything that might give her away, the question had been one of the first ones that crossed his mind in the nano second it took to register he was alive... "I was done for; don't you get it?"

She tried to brush him off, hand coming up to wave at the space before them, "it was nothing"

"It was not nothing!" His hand snagged hers from the air, almost crushing it within his larger grip, "it might have been the dumbest decision of your life, but it was not nothing. Not everyone would have done what you did, Kagome."

Her name on his lips shouldn't have affected her as it did, as it were, she had to avert her gaze to keep the fluttering inside her stomach at bay.

Kagome pulled away, retrieving a box of medical supplies she had next to her side table, a small smile playing on her lips. "Well, I doubt anyone could, getting you here was the hardest part. You might look fit but you sure are heavy."

"Yea- Wait, What?! Are you calling me fat?" Inuyasha leaned closer to growl at her, his growl only rose when she giggled his way, he told himself it was only because she was ignorant of what he was capable of.

"Hey, if the shoe fits... Speaking of shoes, I lost one of yours."

Inuyasha shook his head, for the first time since he woke up, he looked down at himself. A fast blush rose to cover his face, his head snapping up to stare at her with disbelieving eyes. Whose pajamas was he wearing?

"Did... Did you change me?"

"No-uh. Well, thing is, um..."

The blush on her cheeks spread to tint her ears as well, he found it difficult to keep a straight face with the way she began to stutter and mumble, then optioned to ignore his single arched brow and get back to his wounds.

"Here" she said, trying to help him take off a shirt that was two-sizes too big for him "I need to change your bandages."

His sudden snarl kept her hands away, "I don't need your pity!"

"It's not pity, it's necessary medical care, now sit."

Inuyasha growled at her continued attempts, never expecting for her to glower right back, before he could protest further, she had the shirt up and over his head in one swift move.

Her small nimble fingers began inspecting his bindings, taking extra care when she neared a wound, stretching this whole ordeal for longer than was necessary. He needed time to study her, figure out what her deal was, so he allowed her to continue her fruitless attempts at playing doctor.

She went after the wrappings on his stomach, the first injury afflicted, her fingers just barely applying pressure.

"You wouldn't believe what I had to do to get them to close." The small chuckle that left her was strained, barely masking the tremor in her soft voice, still she went on as if the silence needed filling.

"The blood had been More than enough..." She continued working on him as if in a trance, body on task but mind reliving the nightmare, "But then the bullets... and that fever, it was bad."

Inuyasha knew this to be true, it had been the single most painful thing he had been forced to endure, the fact that he sat here- alive and well, was a damn miracle. And although he'd like to feel grateful, fact was he shouldn't be alive, and she in turn would gain nothing from keeping him that way; it made the girl before him that much more suspicious.

He watched in pensive silence as she walked in and out of the room, retrieving a bowl of warm water and a washcloth, before settling herself crossed-legged beside him, putting no mind to the size of her twin-bed.

The girl was dedicated in her art, and although her hands shook as they finished unwrapping his stomach, it was the only sign that she was a novice. She reached for the wraps around his shoulder, stopping when his larger hands landed on top of hers, bringing them down to rest over his leg.

"Why'd you do it?"

The girl tilted her head, as if he'd asked a strange question.

"What do you mean?"

Inuyasha tried not to snarl at her, but the innocent act was getting old, and he needed answers from her- quick. Who was to say they hadn't already found him; in which case he didn't have long with the girl.

"I said what I said! Why did you bother with me, he was going to kill me, understand?!"

She took her hands from under his, fixing him with an annoyed glare, before returning to her work. He thought for a second, she wasn't going to answer. But as the girl dunked the cloth into the steaming water, she sighed, with great indignation she answered him.

"Because he was going to kill you, isn't that enough of a reason?"

"No, it aint, because now he's going to kill you. You don't know the beast you've just awakened; he won't stop until your dead at his feet."

"Yeah, I figured that one out already. That Naraku guy didn't strike me like the peace and love type of individual."

"Keh! Quit joking around, don't you get I'm going to have to kill you now? You do get that, don't you? You're already dead as it is, if I don't kill you first- he will."

"What? Why on earth would you do that?"

Inuyasha blinked back his shock, staring at the girl as if she had grown two heads, it looked like he would have to explain this as well.

"I can't just let you go about when you've seen my true form!"

Rolling her eyes, Kagome blew away her bangs, "Okay, Mr-dramatic, do what you must."

Inuyasha flinched at her response, the fact she seemed at peace with her demise was unsettling, someone like her didn't seem like a quitter.

"Just like that, heh?"

She took a deep breath before smiling up at him, a specter of a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes "Yeah, just like that."

"Do you even know what you're consenting to? What exactly it is that I would have to do?"

"Yes?" She tilted her head slightly sideways, as if trying to get a new angle on him. There was a certain look that fell on him, one that had his now black eyes softening.

He looked like he wanted to communicate something, that look on his face caused her stomach to clench, but before Kagome had a chance to ask- he was scowling at her once more.

"I told you to just leave me be! None of this would be a problem had you just left me to die like I told you to."

"Look here, I don't know what Wolve's den you've been raised in, but around these parts people do good things. Just because it's the right thing to do, and for the record, there was no way I was ever going to leave you in that alley. So just drop it, okay!"

Ignoring his rolling anger, Kagome carefully wiped away the dried blood over his injury, losing grip on her own frustration when faced with his pain.

That bastard had gotten him right below the rib cage, barely missing vital organs

Only three bullets but the damage they had done- she shuddered to think of it.

The wounds had looked days old and untreated, three large holes for such tinny bullets, they had pumped out blood in frighting amounts to where Kagome feared for his life.

He needed stitches and medical team; a wound that great-

She stifled a gasp, her fingers ghosting over his stomach. The skin there, pink and new, greeted her.

Inuyasha growled low in his chest, his muscles tightening under her feather like caresses, still the girl continued her exploration.

Kagome couldn't help it, if she hadn't been there when the wound looked blue and swollen only three days prior, she wouldn't be able to believe it. Even now, her mind could hardly grasp that the rude scowling stranger, who shot about her room, was the same man that had laid gasping and grey in her childhood bed.

In another day or two there would be no proof he was ever even hurt.

'He's amazing.'

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"How did you- Uh, how did the... well, are there still bullets in me or what?"

She laughed; the sound coming off hoarse and a bit forced, taking her hands away from his stomach, the skin still tingled even after she'd stopped touching him.

"I took the bullets out, if that's what you're asking. I had to sear the wounds close, you're quite the bleeder" She laughed again, her voice just as strained, the laughter a ghost on her lips.

"Oh, so now you're a surgeon?" His tone was teasing, trying to change the way her shoulder seemed to slump.

In reality, Inuyasha was rather dumbstruck, she knew how to do all this and would use this knowledge to save him. He wanted to believe the girl had no ulterior purpose, that she stood in front of danger for him, continued to fight to save his life even after she saw him as he was, simply because she was capable.

Because he had been a life that needed saving.

But he simply couldn't afford to be so trusting, everything she said had to be taken with a grain of salt, until he knew more, this girl was not to be underestimated.

Kagome chewed her bottom lip, looking off to the side nervously, before chancing herself with some honesty.

"Well... to tell you the truth, I sort of pretended it was dissection day at school"

Whatever he had been expecting was not that, he nearly fell out the bed with sheer shock.

"Damn Bitch, I ain't no frog!"

Suddenly a fire he'd never seen in anyone's eyes sparked in hers, a look that branded itself in his brain, "And I 'm not a doctor, like the one I wanted to take you to!"

"You could've killed me!" He yelled back, shoving off the bed to tower over her.

A slow smirk eased onto his features when she rose with him, meeting him eye to eye. Even if she was tinny compared to him, the look in her eyes spoke defiance.

"Quit your whining, if the bullets didn't do ya in, my poking and prodding wouldn't've done much."

Inuyasha might have laughed, the girl had balls, and that much he could respect. But her eyes dropped, her stance changed, as did the atmosphere. That sweetness of her scent changing, turning bitter to reflect her twisting emotions.

"You were in a lot of pain" she whispered, her fists tightening as her head dipped, chin to chest so that her hair hid her eyes from him. "I did everything I could, but aspirin only does so much... I wasn't even sure I had done things right, and you didn't move after the first day- I thought- I thought I had-"

Inuyasha swallowed thickly, feeling a small trace of panic when he began to smell salt, "Shit. You're not gonna cry, are ya?"

Her head snapped back up, angry again, but at least her tears stayed where they were.

"No, I'm not going to cry."

"Good, now look here, you did enough. Kept me alive long enough, that's all you could do in that type of situation." She wouldn't know the meaning behind his words, but he felt the need to speak them. She had, after all, slowed down the poison enough.

Held back the clammy hand of death for just the right amount of time to allow his blood to do its thing.

Inuyasha moved closer to her when Kagome began to shake, her face palling as she relived the experience, he was suddenly weary she might faint on him. "Should you sit down?"

"Me?! You're the one that shouldn't be standing right now, it's only been three days, I'm surprised you're awake at all."

He scoffed at her insinuation of weakness, but allowed himself to be lowered back down on the bed. His knees locked on their own accord, just to keep him standing, but she hadn't known that.

The girl rummaged through her night stand drawer, taking one pill bottle out of the many there, before presenting two yellow pills to him. "Take these, it'll help with the pain"

Inuyasha stared at the two pills in his hand, eyes shooting up to glare at her, she ignored him as she presented a cup of water as well. "What's this"

"Painkillers"

Inuyasha gritted his teeth together, the pain was building from a dull ache to a pulsing pain, but it wasn't anything he couldn't take. As it were, these pills were no ordinary aspirin, already he could smell the bromide salt used in most common sedatives; he eyed her suspiciously.

"You think I'd just take whatever you hand me just like that? So I can pass out and you can go off on your merry way, just how stupid do you make me out to be. Huh?!"

Kagome rolled her eyes, pushing him to take the glass of water from her, "Take it- don't take it. it's your choice."

Inuyasha growled a loud crescendo, surprising the girl judged by her wide-disbelieving stare. He shot out of her bed; throwing the pills into his open mouth, he chugged the glass of water before handing it back, then marched to the wall opposite her bed.

With a defiant glare, he crossed his arms over his chest, before flopping down on the ground in a crossed leg position.

The girl gave a long-exasperated sigh, along with a shake of her head, "I'll go get you some more water"

Inuyasha didn't bother with a reply, just watched as she made her way out, his eyes glaring at the space around him. Now that he had a better look, he could see evidence of her work around the room.

From the soiled rags with his blood on them kicked under the bed, to her small desk and nightstand, that had all matter of paramedical garbage on them. Looking down at himself, Inuyasha focused on the two remaining wraps around his from; using his concealed claws, Inuyasha sliced through the wraps in one fluid move.

His stomach was pale, but clear, she had wiped the blood there to reveal the healed wound underneath. The other two were in the same shape, his side still throbbed, but the only wound that was still healing over, was the one over his shoulder.

By tomorrow that would be gone as well.

Somehow, that girl had found him as he clutched for dear life and found some way of keeping him alive.

Inuyasha stared blankly ahead as the gravity of the situation dawned on him, what the girl had done was reckless, but it was thanks to her that he had the luxury to sit here, those actions would have consequences but as for now- she had earned a sliver of his trust.

The corners of his eyes began to fade black, sleep was tugging at his tired form, and his weak body was no match for it.

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When Kagome entered the room, he was sitting up straight against her wall, arms still crossed, face still scowling. The only indicators he had fallen back to sleep were the soft snores emitting from him, just as he had been before, except there were no fussy ears to twitch about as he slept.

Kagome sat on her bed, staring openly at the young man, letting the events of the last few days pass over her.

Having already formed her own idea on what would happen next. From sending her away never to be seen again, to having her young life come abruptly to an end, ensuring silence.

Yes, Kagome had some time to think while she had watched him struggle, a handsome stranger fighting against the abnormal infection emitting from his wounds.

She watched as he survived against all odds, even when all hope had seemed lost, he had found his way through it.

No matter what came next-

"I'm just so happy... he's okay"