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Kagome was not a doctor.

Inuyasha would not let her anywhere near him while injured. From the very first time he had been wounded in front of her—during the battle with Yura of the Demon Hair—he had simply brushed off her concern and told her to go home. The fight at his father's grave was the same. Even though she had the medicine box right there, he wouldn't let her use it. "That thing smells disgusting," the half-demon claimed with a huff.

Since then, she had been able to treat a few minor wounds for Miroku and Shippo, but never for Inuyasha.

That is, until the day Sesshoumaru wielded Tessaiga.

Inuyasha had fought with every ounce of his being. After losing consciousness in a pool of his own blood, there was not much he could say to deter the priestess from treating him. But he'd woken up again a few moments later, noticed her opening up the dreaded white box, and immediately tried to talk her out of it anyway.

"Stop it, woman. I don't need that."

"Yes you do."

"No I don't! I'll be fine, just gimme a minute."

"Inuyasha." Her voice began to shake, and he could detect a faint smell of salt.

"Oi… you're not…." Sure enough, the tears began to fall. "Why are you crying?"

"Stupid! Because you almost died! If you weren't so rash and thoughtless—"

"Hey!"

"—if you would just stop pretending to be invincible—"

"I'm made of different stuff than you!"

"—if your stupid brother would just leave your sword alone already—"

Well, that was something they could agree on, at least.

"—if I wasn't so useless…" Kagome finally broke down, sobbing into one hand as the other clutched his red sleeve desperately.

Useless? That wasn't how he would have described her sacred arrows. Inuyasha could have sworn he'd seen a hint of worry in his brother's eyes that day, and that was a hard thing to achieve. Maybe she just hadn't noticed?

After a moment, the girl began reaching for her medical supplies again. Inuyasha tried to reason with her. "This isn't gonna look pretty," he said. "You saw what happened. I'll be fine, my demon blood will patch me up after a while—so don't bother looking at it."

"Is that what you're worried about?" she asked incredulously. "All this time you've been getting injured, and you just don't want me to be grossed out?"

"Idiot," The half-demon shot back, trying to sound sarcastic as usual. Her words were hitting a bit too close to home. The truth was, as a half-demon, his existence was a disgusting thing anyway. He was a freak of nature; injured or not, almost every single human or demon he came across had been grossed out by him. But Kagome wasn't, at least not yet. He didn't want to ruin it.

It was too late now, though. He could see her resolve hardening.

"Let me do this," she said firmly.

"Keh." Inuyasha finally relented, and bit down a hiss of pain as she peeled back his bloody fire rat robe and undershirt. He was right, it did look bad—there was a torn mess where his brother's poison-filled claws had gone right through his stomach. Kagome grimaced at the sight, but before he could say anything, she was apologizing. Her words tumbled over themselves as she said them again and again, her tears returning in full force.

"It's all my fault! I'm so sorry, so sorry… you're hurt because of me..." She began to treat the wound with trembling fingers, talking almost nonstop. "I tried to make a difference but I only made it worse, my arrows just made him angrier, I can't believe I was so stupid, I'm so sorry… I don't want to be useless, I just…"

There it was again. Useless. This girl didn't understand things at all, Inuyasha realized. He closed his eyes wearily, allowing himself to enjoy Kagome's soothing touch.

Soon she would be gone. He needed to make sure of that. But maybe, before he sent her away, he could clear up a few of her misunderstandings. This girl was many things, but useless wasn't one of them.

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AN: I hope this chapter turned out all right! I just wrote it today and didn't edit it as much as I usually would. This is based on the episode in which Sesshoumaru wears a human replacement arm (given by Naraku) in order to steal Tessaiga. I think it's episode 20-ish? After that battle, Inuyasha takes Kagome's jewel shards and sends her through the well for her own safety. I wanted to show a bit of his thought process leading up to that.

Reviews are always appreciated! Thanks for reading!

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