Chapter 2: Blood

The healer in the village had taken Kagome and Inuyasha in for the night after a moment's hesitation. He could not overlook the fact that the young boy clad in red, and the strange girl had saved the village from destruction. Even though the girl traveled with a hanyou, and was dressed rather indecently, she was the guardian of the legendary Shinkon no Tama, and he could not just allow a miko of such power and pureness to die. So he had led Inuyasha, who carried a bleeding Kagome in his arms, to a room in the back of his hut. With the help of some peasant women, he had cleansed the wound in the girl's torso, and bandaged it. The semi-demon had refused to leave while the healer tended to the wound, and when he was done, and there was nothing left to do for her he turned to Inuyasha and said:

"The blood loss, and damage is much too great. I doubt she shall live through the night." With that he sadly left the room, inwardly grieving for what he could see would be a destructible loss for the hanyou.

~~~

It was dark in the hut, the only light being offered by the moon and the single window in the room. It was so quiet he was sure the world could hear the blood rushing through his veins.

Inuyasha was alone with Kagome. She lay in a futon in the middle of the room, her forehead displaying a small amount of sweat. He crawled over to her, and lay his hand to her cheek. It was hot, and slightly flushed. His fingertips slowly made their way up and down her face, sadly caressing her.

"You can't leave me." he told her unresponsive face, "You can't, I won't let you." He had to fight to keep his voice from cracking, "Please", he begged, "Just open your eyes." She didn't even flinch.

Inuyasha bent down, and inhaled her scent at the crook of her neck. Without further delay, he scooped her up into his lap and out of the futon. Holding her upper body to his chest with his left hand, as he draped his haori on top of her, and then let his right bury itself in her raven black hair, as he gently rocked her.

"I'm sorry Kagome," he choked, "I'm so sorry..." He told her he was sorry, he apologized for every insult, every tear. "I couldn't protect her. If she dies it will all be my fault."

~~~

Kagome's skin was a sickly pale. Her lips were losing their rose red color, and her cheeks no longer held their pink blush. Her pulse was weak, and her heart beat even weaker. Her breaths

were labored, and shaky. Inuyasha could already smell death on her.

She was cold. Every now then she would shiver and he would pull her closer to himself, tightening the jacket around her. Her skin, once hot with fever was now cold. She was slipping and he knew. He just refused to admit it to himself.

He kept thinking of every memory he had with her. Of every time she smiled for him, every time she cared for him. Even of every time they fought. A part of him liked fighting with her. It brought a glitter of passion into her eyes. He loved to get her mad.

But now he realized that he would never see her smile again, that he would never fight with her again. Kagome would never speak his name again, would never fist her hands at her hips and tap her foot against the ground in fading patience. "This can't be happening," he kept thinking, "There has to be a way, she can't die."

But there was a way.

"Maybe I could..." How could he make it work? Would she hate him for binding himself to her, and her to him in this manner? Would she rather die than spent eternity with trash like himself? And then the smell of death made its way into his nose once again, this time stronger.

"No..." he said out loud, "NO!"

He couldn't let her die, not when there was something he could do about it. So he moved himself, pulling her along, to the farthest and darkest corner of the hut. After making sure she was securely wrapped in his red fire-rat haori, and tucked safely into his lap, he ripped off a piece of his white kimono and placed it carefully on the floor beside him. The hand of the left arm he kept on Kagome's back to hold her to him slowly made its way down the arm that wasn't laying against his chest, rubbing up down, hopefully offering some kind of comfort, while the other grabbed her opposite wrist. His fingers wrapped securely around it and pulled it up to meet his lips.

He displayed his fangs as he inhaled sharply and thought, "Here it goes..."

Inuyasha shut his eyes tightly as his fangs made contact with the flesh there and as carefully as possible ripped it. At first he tasted her skin, sweet but somewhat salty, and then he could feel the blood dancing on his tongue. Now he had to hurry, before his chance slipped from him. He took his own right wrist and tore at until it bled profoundly and placed the gash over Kagome's, allowing the blood to mix. Small sharp pains were coming from the junction as Inuyasha wrapped the piece of white cloth over their wrists, binding them together. With one final knot he buried their linkage into the folds of his haori at her stomach, and rested his chin on top of her head. He began to feel dizzy and light-headed. The blood was mixing. He felt his eyelids begin to droop, and as he began to drift of to some much needed sleep, he took in a sniff of her scent. The last thing that made its way into his ears was the already stronger beating of Kagome's heart.

~~~

The sun streaked in through the little window of the shabby hut. It swept across the floor, the walls, and at last made its way to the sleeping boy and girl in the corner of the room. They seemed to be too comfortable to wake, too caught up on the warmth of each others' body. As the light reached their slumbering forms the boy's ears twitched and his left arm tightened around the girl that lay in his lap. The girl on the other hand buried her face into his chest and groaned.

Inuyasha's eyes snapped open when he felt Kagome move against him, and then again when she groaned. He looked down at her; she was in the state of waking. Slowly her head came out of his chest and her eyes opened to meet his. She smiled at him, completely baffled. "Why is he looking at me like that? What's up with that face?" Inuyasha's eyes were scanning hers, his ears were pointed forward listening to anything that may be awry, and he used his nose to sniff the air about her. "She's okay!" he beamed, his amber eyes shining, as he muttered out:

"A-are you a-alright? D-does it h-hurt?"

"Inuyasha what are you talking about?" Kagome was sleepy, she had just woken after having soundly slept all night. Her eyes were adjusting to the brightness around her, as her mind was trying to focus. She arched her back, cracking the sore bones. She stiffled a yawn with her left hand as her right arm went up past her head in a stretch, taking some extra weight along with it. She looked up at her hand only to find Inuyasha's attached to it with a piece of what seemed to be blood soaked cloth. That's when she realized, "Oh my god! Am I...Am I ON HIS LAP?!!" Her head turned back to look at Inuyasha again, her eyes blinking once, twice, before asking:

"Umm...Inuyasha? What's...umm...what's going on?" Inuyasha looked down at Kagome, his face filled with worry and what seemed to be some fear. "What is she going to say when I tell her? She'll probably sit me a hundred times. Would she hate me that much?"

He gulped and croaked out to her, "Don't you-don't you remember?" His eyes brows lifted in question as she stared up at him, bringing her arm down to rest on her lap. Kagome thought back to yesterday. She remembered their trip to the village, she remembered the screaming women, and the boy, and she remembered-

Her free hand went to her mouth as she gasped. "Oh my god!" The demon! The demon had slashed at her. She could still feel its claws digging into her and sliding through her abdomen. "I should be dead! Why-? Shouldn't I at lest feel some pain?"

Her eyes traveled down her body, as she placed a hand at her below her shirt on her stomach. "It doesn't hurt at all!" Inuyasha watched her intently as the emotions ran across her face. As her hand came out and began to lift the blouse of her school uniform to reveal a bandaged torso.

"Shouldn't I feel them?" she asked, "The wounds I mean, shouldn't I be in pain?"

She stared at him, her eye pleading for some answer, or some reason as to why she wasn't dead right now.

"P-please dont' b-be mad. Please." He was whining, he was begging her. If she hated him he didn't know what he would do. She was his best friend, the only friend he'd had in a very long time.

"Why am I in your lap. Why are our hands tied?"

He looked down at her, looked at her pleading eyes, and slowly he drew out the words and told her of what happened after she was attacked.

~~~

"My blood...It not only healed you...There are side affects. I'm not sure I remember all of them, but Myoga will know." "I hope." ,he added mentally.

Kagome wasn't looking at Inuyasha, instead she was looking at the wall behind him, her face devoid of any emotion. "Inuyasha used his blood to save my life. I was going to die. And he saved me! I was going to die...WAIT!!!"

"Side affects?!" she questioned. "What kind of side affects?!!"

"Anou..." Inuyasha ears twitched nervously for a while, something that did not go unnoticed by Kagome, until finally flattening against his skull. "Umm...you see...My blood is kinda mixed with yours now." He shut his eyes and his body tensed as he awaited the inevitable.

"Relax Inuyasha. The only way your are going to get 'the word' is if you don't tell me everything you know."

With a small breath of relief, he relaxed and continued with his explanation.

"My blood must have made you somewhat stronger, maybe even sharpened your weak human senses. It obviously wasn't enough to do a lot of change, from what I can see you haven't developed any demon trade marks."

"Is that it?" Kagome asked in a small, delicate voice.

Inuyasha searched his mind for any other side affects, and it came up with nothing else, except- "Immortality." A simple word, with a simple meaning. But for Kagome its complexity was hard to grasp.

"Immortality?" She questioned. What did that mean? That now she would live forever? Eternal youth? Hundreds and hundreds of years. She looked up him, into his amber orbs, her own eyes awaiting an answer.

"Aa. Immortality. You will live forever Kagome, like I will, like Shippo, and Kirara. Like Sesshoumaru, and Naraku..." And with a tiny smirk he finished off with, "If I don't kill the assholes first."