Monday, February 14, 2005

   Chapter 49: A Little Late To Be Shy...
Inuyasha blinked at her in confusion, attempting to connect that it really was Kagome speaking in that heartbroken voice. His ears flattened back as he knelt behind her, ignoring her soft sound of protest as he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her back into his lap. He growled to warn her that he wasn’t putting her down anytime soon and rubbed his chin over the top of her head. He nipped her ear, frowning when he saw just the slightest hint of a point to the tips, but pushed that aside to question, “What would you need forgiveness for, Kagome?”

Her eyes teared and she dropped her chin to her chest rather than chance meeting his eyes, “I’m no better than Kikyou.”

Inuyasha sucked in a breath sharply, his hands tensing as he yanked her around in his lap to face him, “What the fuck are you talking about?!”

Kagome cringed, still looking down at her hands fisted together between them, “I… I betrayed you… I went to Naraku and-“

Inuyasha grabbed her chin and forced her face up, his mouth closing over hers to stop the guilty stream of words tumbling from her lips. He was barely aware of the growl that filled Kagome’s senses, the contact rougher then normal, but his frustration and anger made him much less restrained.

For a moment, Kagome fought against him, the tears that had been burning behind her eyes sliding down her cheeks. Her hands came up to circle his wrists as she let out a choked sob against his lips, but finally slumped helplessly under the unyielding pressure. She didn’t want to fight against Inuyasha, and that kiss… she always wanted to melt into his kiss.

Inuyasha’s growl changed to a more soothing sound when her hands stopped pushing him away and instead tried to pull him closer. His arm wrapped tightly around her as he released her lips, staring down into her eyes as he ground out in a low, dangerous voice, “Don’t… ever fucking say that again, Kagome.”

Kagome’s eyes were wide as she stared up at him and her mouth opened and closed several times before she finally choked out, “But-!”

He lifted a hand to press a finger over her lips, “Your voices came to me too.”

Her eyes went wide, that casual sentence shocking her into silence as he very carefully fitted her body against his, rubbing his cheek over hers as he kept up the calming rumble and stroked the bare skin of her back. “What did Kagura say to you? What did you feel that made you… that made you go?” his voice broke slightly on the last and he buried his face in the curve of her throat.

Kagome swallowed convulsively, her hand shaking as it rose to stroke through his hair, “She… At first she said she only wanted to talk. She said that Naraku had been watching me, and he knew that I’d been bound to you by the spell.

“Kagura said Naraku was obsessed with me and he cold break the spell,” she admitted in a small voice, tucking in on herself in his lap. “She told me I wasn’t human anymore…that I was more like a youkai now. I’m not mortal.”

Inuyasha made a soothing noise deep in his throat, stroking her hair encouragingly, “It’s all right, koi. I’ll take care of you no matter what happens, you know I will.”

“I waited for you,” Kagome whispered, her eyes squeezing closed as her hands clenched into fists against his shoulders. “But then Kagura said you wouldn’t come because you’d gone to Kikyou. Then something… I thought it was me, but it wasn’t, was it? I fell for his trap again, just because I listened when I heard you were with Kikyou.”

“I told her to leave and she attacked me, Kagome,” he explained, setting his hands on her shoulders and pushing her back to look into her eyes. “Your voices told me that something was waiting, it wasn’t your fault that it happened. If anything it’s mine because I wasn’t there when Naraku came.”

Kagome lifted her hands to her cheeks, her gaze turning inwards as she murmured, “I should have known… I knew the bow cut me. I broke it in half when I saw you kissing her, but I barely felt it. I only knew because I smelled blood. Then I just felt like I had to get away, like I always did. That’s what he put in my head, wasn’t it?”

He nodded slowly, wondering if Kagome was even really seeing him. Something about the way her eyes had glazed over warned him that she was speaking to herself and if he spoke, he ran the risk of breaking her from her self inflicted trance and missing out on this insight.

“I went to Naraku’s palace and I was in so much pain,” she murmured, her fingers splaying wide over her heart as her brows lowered in remembrance. “But then he told me that the voice in my head was Onigumo. He told me… that he admired my strength, and he wanted to understand the spell. I couldn’t think. All I could hear was a woman’s voice, Kikyou’s voice, and he told me he could block it out. It hurt so badly, and his voice was making it go away. He kept telling me to ask for help and I… I took his hand…” she looked down at her palm, her eyes shining with unshed tears.

Inuyasha’s hands tightened sharply on her, baring his teeth in violent rejection of the thought of Naraku twisting such a confusing plot into Kagome’s already jumbled emotions. She had been in absolutely no condition to fight against that kind of mess on her own, especially not when she was surrounded by so much corrupted magic. Her soul would have been weakened trying purify the mass amounts it was absorbing, and with Naraku sliding his magic through the Shikon-no-Tama, he’d even tricked her into thinking some of that magic was pure.

“I couldn’t hear when I woke up and I was bleeding,” she put a hand to her head again. “My entire side was soaking and Naraku…he cleaned it and bandaged it, but when I tried to sense you, all the pain came back. I closed myself off, but then we sensed you coming, and Onigumo kept talking to me about Kikyou. I was so angry.”

Inuyasha had just opened his mouth to respond when Kagome’s brows lowered, her eyes clearing when they snapped up to his. She brought her hands up sharply, slapping the flat of her hands against his chest and knocking him back as she flipped to her feet in a motion that was definitely more hanyou than human.

“You were kissing Kikyou,” she hissed at him, backing away when he rose to his feet, her emotions redirecting abruptly into anger. She immediately began to look for her clothes, the tears in her eyes now frustrated and hurt instead of that lost sadness she’d been trapped in a moment ago. “I only went with Kagura when I saw that,” she found her kimono and began yanking it on with jerky, frustrated motions.

“Kagome, it really wasn’t what it looked like,” Inuyasha grabbed at his own kimono and hakama, not wanting to get drawn into this argument naked. “I didn’t know it was Kikyou when I went looking, I just smelled something. And she attacked me, dammit, why didn’t Kagura show you that!” he snarled out defensively.

Kagome gave him a dry look as she pulled on the black hakama, tying it around her absently as she turned to face him, “What I saw certainly didn’t look like fighting. You were just standing there and kissing her, Inuyasha. Why did you-!?” her voice broke, betraying her emotions as she clenched her hand into a fist over her heart.

“Kagome-!” Inuyasha took a step forward, only to go crashing backwards when Kagome lashed out, catching him in the jaw with her elbow. “Dammit, bitch, what did you do that for!?” he pushed himself up, lightly touching his jaw to make sure she hadn’t broken it with her increased strength.

“Don’t touch me, Inuyasha, I’m pissed off and I really don’t want to rip out your ears until I’m calm enough to fucking appreciate it!” she fisted her hands at her hips, glaring down at him.

Inuyasha set his jaw and pushed himself up to his feet to scowl down at her, ‘At least she looks…well, as human as she can anymore.’ He reached out, catching her wrists when she swung at him again and pressed her back against the tree behind her, “You’re my mate, Kagome, I can touch you whenever I damn well want. Now calm down before your youkai blood gets out of control and changes you!”

Kagome’s irises flashed scarlet for a moment and her body went stiff against his, but he pulled her up against him and growled out, “Listen to me, you know I’m right. I can feel what it’s doing probably better than you can, and you have to calm it down.”

Her brows twitched as she very obviously debated in her head whether to listen to him or not, but finally her hands stopped pushing him away and instead fisted in his kimono. She took several deep breaths and slumped against him, her already exhausted body protesting the energy she expended to control her youkai side, “Why?”

Inuyasha’s ears flattened back and he let out a defeated sigh, sinking down to his knees so he could pull Kagome up into his lap and wrap his arms around her. He didn't even pretend to misunderstand, “I thought it would make her go away.”

Kagome let out a bitter laugh, pressing her forehead to his chest, “So if I didn’t kill her when I threw her, you’ll kiss her when she comes back to make her go away?”

He growled in frustration, “Dammit, Kagome, you wanted to fight her and I didn’t get in your way. What the hell better way could I prove that I wasn’t kissing her on purpose!?”

She pushed herself up, taking in a deep breath as she focused on the strength she could feel in Inuyasha. ‘Who would have thought Naraku would teach me something useful,’ she thought in disgust even as she shuddered with the sudden rush of energy. ‘Without him I wouldn’t know I could do this…’

Inuyasha’s eyes narrowed when he felt a twinge, Kagome’s heart skipping a beat in his mind. He reached out and cupped her chin in his hand, ignoring her irritated look when he leaned closed and took a careful sniff, ‘Oh, Kagome, you’d better still be balancing.’ There was a note of relief in her voice as he sighed, “You almost smell human still.”

“What do you mean ‘almost?’ Why wouldn’t I smell human?” she shook her head in confusion. ‘What Kagura said… that was just a lie, right?’

He reached up and touched the slight point to her ear with a look of regret, “When… when Naraku had you, you were still bleeding. Your human blood, not mine."

Kagome's eyes widening, the scarlet fading back to azure as she gaped at him in disbelief, "My human blood? What does that mean?"

Inuyasha brought his fingers down to her lips, curiously pressing to feel her canines when Kagome's look changed to irritation at the prodding and she bit him. He smiled affectionately down at her even as his heart sank, "Your teeth are sharper."

She released him abruptly, scrambling backwards too fast for him to catch as her hands flew up to her mouth in alarm. She prodded at her canines tentatively, wincing when she pressed her fingertip into one and came away with a slight puncture, "Dammit."

Kagome was on her feet and searching the camp before Inuyasha could grab at her, his ears flattening back in cautious worry as he stood and folded his arms across his chest, "What is it?"

She knelt beside the slightly scattered contents of her pack, tossing things aside until she came up with a thin square case, "I need a mirror."

"Wait, don't-!" his eyes went wide in panic and he leapt across the grove, but she had already flipped the compact open. Inuyasha stopped behind her, his body tense and carefully attuned to hers as he watched her stare into the little mirror.

Kagome sat for a long moment, staring at the reflection with wide, unblinking eyes before she lifted her free hand to trail over the pale lines on her cheeks. Her eyes clenched shut in pain when a jolt of images tumbled through her mind, echoing voices and a horrible burning smell of- "Miasma... Naraku put it in the cuts to make them scar?"

Inuyasha growled, dropping down to his knees and wrapping his arms around her waist to pull her back against his chest, "He'll pay for it, Kagome. I swear I'll take him apart a piece at a time for what he did to you."

She let out a reflexive purring growl, leaning back into him for the comfort she could sense he was offering even as she moved her compact to study the rest of her face. Pale eyes, the barest hint of a point to her ears, and sharper canines... "I kinda look like a youkai," Kagome whispered in shock, turning her head to search for an answer in Inuyasha's familiar amber gaze.

Inuyasha let out a heavy sigh, lifting one hand to take the compact away from her and toss it away. His arms tightened around her as he wordlessly eased the spasmodic tensing in her muscles before he actually spoke, "You're still you, Kagome. You're still beautiful."

Kagome's eyes closed and she leaned into him, her arms lifting to slide around his neck, "Then it's true, isn't it? Kagura said I wasn't mortal, that I would live as long as a youkai."

He rubbed his chin over her head, finally smiling when her hands moved up to absently stroke his ears, "The voices said they thought you would, something about the distortion of my blood and your soul."

She leaned back to look into his face, "They talked to you?"

Inuyasha let her see a chagrined wince cross his features, "They bitched me out for letting Kikyou trick me and upsetting you among other things."

Her brow furrowed in confusion, even as she felt some of her upset pull away at the honest emotions she was pulling from the hanyou, "They? There was more than one?"

He nodded carefully, "One of them was a real bastard, but the other was... well, as helpful as it could be given the situation. Why are you surprised? They said they talked to you first."

She nodded, but her lips were turning down thoughtfully, "I only had one talk to me. The other was Onigumo, and he only talked to me when I was awake..."

"That won't happen again," Inuyasha's eyes darkened with promise when he saw the shadows start to creep back into her eyes. "Don't think about it, Kagome, it's more important that we get you healed," he trailed his claws lightly along her cheek, tilting her face up to give her a soft kiss. When he leaned back, he cupped her face in his hands and waited until her eyes had opened before he murmured, "I'm sorry for what happened with Kikyou."

Kagome stared searchingly into his glowing eyes for a moment before she offered him a tiny smile, blushing and dropping her gaze as she responded, "It... did feel good when you stepped aside and let me fight her."

"I would have done it myself," when her disbelieving gaze shot up to his, he gave her a laugh filled with self-disgust. "Don't believe me? Kagome, I took YOU to mate, and because of her I could feel you in so much pain in my head. I had to see you fighting beside Naraku, and I had to smell how much you were bleeding when I couldn't help you. You know what it feels like to feel anger as a youkai... What do you think I wanted to do?"

Her eyes dropped and she fidgeted nervously, still blushing at how easily he tossed out mating, but nodding in understanding, "I could have killed you."

Inuyasha snorted arrogantly, "Not a chance."

Kagome's eyes blazed when she speared him with a fierce scowl, but when he started laughing and gave her a bone-popping hug that had her breath rushing out in a surprised "oomph," she relaxed. Smacking him lightly on the head, she stuck out her tongue at him, "Baka. I'm going to have to figure out something to bring that ego of yours down a notch or two."

He rubbed his cheek against the curve of her neck, just letting her scent relax him as he growled lightly, "You could always tell me you love me again."

Kagome's face flamed at the memory, and she shoved him away, "Sit!"

It was probably the first time he'd been laughing that hard when he expected that response, and even still when he looked up from his subdued position with a smug grin, "Stay."

Her eyebrow was twitching with suppressed irritation, "This is so damn pointless."

"You started it," Inuyasha propped his chin up his hands and smiled as he reached out and tugged at her hair. "What's wrong, koi? That happens to be one of my favorite memories!"

Her cheeks got even darker and she stubbornly set her jaw and refused to look at him, "If you don't wipe that grin off your face, Inuyasha, I'm going to bite you."

He tilted his head to one side, making himself look much younger than he really was, "I bite back, and my instincts are better."

"Where the hell is everyone else?" Kagome growled, lifting her nose and pointedly ignoring him now as she folded her arms over her chest.

"Close," Inuyasha tested the remaining strength of the spell as he sniffed at the air. "They'll be here soon, Kagome, and we can take you home to sort this mess out," he shifted until he was lying beside her, rolling onto his back so he could rest his head in her lap. "You still smell nice," he closed his eyes and smiled, ears twitching when he felt her fingers lightly stroke through his hair.

"Home," Kagome repeated quietly, looking down at the peaceful lines of his face as she toyed with his hair and then moved her fingers to scratch his ears. 'Do I even have a home anymore? I can't go through the well looking like this!'

She sighed deeply and moved her hand down to touch Inuyasha's lips, 'I wonder... even if it's just a little. Do you love me back?'


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