InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Bottled Genius ❯ The New Tutor ( Chapter 17 )

Author's Notes: I know people want me to get on with Life Exchange (I get too many reviews and emails pleading for me to finish unfinished fics) so let me tell you now that when there is a lull in updating, it usually means I have temporarily gone out of my writing mood. But I usually get my writing mood back quite quickly so you shouldn't have to wait too long. Trust me, I know how horrible it is when fics seem to stop being updated and you feel like throttling the author in case more chapters drop out of their pockets… but please understand it isn't that easy (though how I wish it were).

And for those who want more fluff between Inuyasha and Kagome… you may like this chapter.

Bottled Genius

Chapter 17

The New Tutor

According to the little glowing alarm clock on Kagome's bedside table, it was getting close to two o'clock in the morning when she woke up. It wasn't so unusual to be having a restless night… somehow when Inuyasha wasn't around she never slept well.

There was not much she could really do other than try to get back to sleep. Only she was wide awake now and not even remotely tired… but she tried anyway. With a weary kind of sigh she rolled onto her back and closed her eyes gently as she tried to think of sleepy things… like… kittens… ice cream… roller coasters…

A cold, wet hand closed over Kagome's mouth and her eyes snapped open at once.

"Naraku." She whispered against his hand. Though it came out more like a quiet, "Mawamphf."

The person above her glared… golden, amber eyes piercing into hers. She realised her mistake at once and a happy little feeling fluttered through her stomach. All she wanted to do right then was leap up and squeeze Inuyasha to death… but he seemed to have other ideas.

"I guess I have some explaining to do." He said, a little miserably. "And while I do it I don't want a peep out of you, ok?"

Kagome's happy little fluttering feeling faded and her smile disappeared beneath his hand as she took in his appearance.

She'd looked in the mirror when she was ill a few days ago and had cringed at what she'd seen… but right now, Inuyasha looked ten times worse. He was pale, drenched in water (even though it wasn't raining outside), and the hand pressed to her mouth was giving away the slightest tremor of fatigue… or nerves. There were dark smudges under his eyes and for some reason his haori was missing again… but what probably worried her most was that his white undershirt was stained a dark red over his heart.

The urge to squeeze him to death melted away into the urge to hold him tenderly and whisper comforting words in his ear. She had to blink in surprise at that strange urge and began chanting something familiar in her head.

He's a jerk, he's a jerk, he's a jerk, he's a jerk, he's a jerk, he's a jerk, he's a jerk, he's a jerk, he's a jerk, he's a jerk…

She tried to push her feelings towards a different urge… of wanting to batter him for making her worry so much. But somehow she couldn't sum up the courage… not when his hand trembled like that of a feeble little kitten. Well… not so feeble seeing as how he was holding her down and shutting her up pretty effectively.

"Ok, now look… a lot of things have been happening recently-"

"Mrmphf mmph mm mmrmphf?"

"I was afraid you'd ask that…" he gave a pained winced. "Well… all over the place really. You see, I did something to Naraku and then he kinda disappeared so I went looking for him to finish him off… but then I got lost…"

Kagome blinked in surprise. "Mrmph?"

"Yes. Lost." He sniffed and wiped a hand across his face to brush away the water clinging to him. "And well… I was on this mountain thing and I was getting really hungry and since I'd lost the ability to… um… what's the word… relocate like I normally do. And I couldn't bring any food to me… so I had to draw it out of the air. It was horrible, Kagome."

She gave him a sympathetic rub on the arm.

"I had to open a can of beans with my teeth."

"Mmphf mrmph mmph."

"How'd you know?" he gave her a guilty look. "Ok, yeah, I conjured a can opener as well…"

"Mmphf mrphf?"

"Well then I passed out… upside down - but that's a long story so I'll tell you later. I planned to come back when forty eight hours were up but I overslept." He shrugged limply. "Nearly didn't wake up at all until it started to rain. Fortunately stealing enough of Naraku's life kept me alive long enough… and even though I wanted to keep searching for him I figured… well… that you'd be worried, and it wouldn't be fair to… well… worry you. So I came back." He looked very uncomfortable for a moment before hurriedly adding, "And I also came back to catch some time out in the bottle."

They watched each other for a moment before Inuyasha slowly drew his hand from her mouth and let it fall to his lap. They continued to stare at each other in silence. "Well?" Inuyasha frowned. "Aren't you going to say something?"

Kagome made a strangled little noise in her throat as she launched out of her bed and threw her arms around his neck. They probably would have fallen off the bed if Inuyasha hadn't balanced out the momentum by leaning into her the very moment he saw her move for him.

Kagome nearly fainted from sheer relief when she felt him there in her arms - solid, breathing and shivering like most people did when they were alive. He wasn't fading into nothing and he wasn't going to be leaving any time soon - not if she had a say in it! Though she very nearly fainted anyway when she felt his arms lock around her middle and pull her closer. She almost pulled away in shock…

Last time she'd tried this he'd gone nuts about it.

"Are you ok?" she muttered, her chin pressed tightly against his shoulder, strangely aware of how warm and a smooth his neck was against her cheek, despite him being wet and shivering. "You're shaking all over and you're wet and cold-"

"I'm ok." he cut her off abruptly.

He must have had a fever or something… because he wasn't pushing her away like he normally would. Well, someone was looking down on her from up there and smiling… she wasn't going to second-guess such an opportunity as this and held him tighter as she rubbed his back and shoulder blades, as if trying to warm him up a little. "I was so worried - I thought Naraku had gotten to you…" she whispered her greatest fear to him.

"But I'm ok." he insisted, giving a slightly more violent shiver.

"No you're not - you're sick." She argued.

"But I will be ok." he sighed. "I will now…"

His wet clothes were beginning to soak Kagome's pyjamas as well, causing slight tremors of cold to run through her, but she made no move to pull away. She was just too busy delighting in the fact that Inuyasha was alive and… sort of well. She stiffened, however, when he took one particularly deep breath.

Did he just smell her hair?

Should she say something…?"

"You put perfume in your hair don't you?" Inuyasha suddenly said, probably in an effort to change the subject.

"Uh…" Kagome stammered a little self-consciously. Her hands tightened on his shoulders, debating whether or not she should rip him in half for making that comment. "Yeah… sometimes I put it on my brush and comb it through my hair… you know…"

"Oh…" he said simply. "What is it?"

Kagome really didn't know what he was trying to do here. "Cherry bark and almonds."

"It's nice."

"You're changing the subject aren't you?" she said brusquely, mostly to change the subject as well, back to something which wouldn't make her face so hot. "Don't be sneaky."

"I'm not sneaky!" he protested automatically and drew back a little.

"What I want to know is how you were able to break so many rules in so little time when only breaking one should have been enough to kill you." She glared at him suspiciously for a moment. "Or are you really Naraku in disguise?"

His irritable gaze softened slightly and she found herself losing her glare in return. "I guess… nothing is impossible when you have the right kind of strength behind you…"

"Meaning?" she prompted.

His gaze turned irritable again, evidently annoyed by her lack of comprehension. "Meaning you can do anything you bloody well want to when you really need to."

This reply still didn't satisfy Kagome but she let it go. "Well… at least you're alive I suppose."

"Oh. Sorry to disappoint you."

"Stop being rude."

"Stop nagging then."

"You can't be civil for more than two minutes can you - you've always got to be grumpy haven't you?!"

"Well maybe I would feel better if I hadn't been wandering around the mountains for the last few days, wondering if I'll survive to see another sunrise or if I'll have the strength to return here at all or stand up to Naraku if he decides to come after me while I'm weak and vulnerable!" he snapped, rising off the bed and releasing her arms which he'd been clasping loosely. "I'm tired, cold, wet and hungry and I stepped on a nail so now I'm worried about tetanus - and I slept upside down, hanging from a tree by my foot - and then I had to eat beans! I hate beans!"

"So why did you conjure them?!" she demanded.

"Because they're simple! Simple and easy to digest - which was what I needed because I felt like I was going to throw-up through the whole ordeal."

"Whine, whine, whine and whinge! You only came back to complain to me you wimp!"

"What did you say?!" he yelled. Kagome mildly wondered if they'd woken up the rest of the household with their rowing. "I risk my life for you and you call me a wimpy whinger?!"

"Well I was going to thank you but then you started shouting at me!" she snapped back at him. "Some chivalrous hero you are!"

"Maybe I should have just let you die!"

"Maybe!"

"I'm so angry at you right now I can barely look at you!"

"Then why don't you leave?!"

"I think I will!"

"But not for long though, right?" Kagome asked quickly.

"No, I'll just catch some sleep." He answered seriously before remembering the argument. "Well I'm going then!"

"Good riddance!"

"Goodbye!"

"Goodbye yourself!"

Just before he dissipated into the air, he shot her a quirky little grin. Kagome grinned back and she knew for certain that neither of them were actually mad at the other. She flopped back down into bed and made a mental note to warn him about Miroku in the morning… and possibly to tie Inuyasha up so she could check for any wounds and injuries he might be hiding.

Unless of course that blood on his chest wasn't his…

She had to wonder, though. How on earth had he summoned enough energy to break all those rules and stay alive? He'd said anything was possible if you had the right strength behind you… but what was that supposed to mean?

Kagome finally decided to stop picking at her brain, it wasn't going to get her anywhere. So instead she just huddled down in her bed and smiled to herself, basking in secret joy that Inuyasha was back safe and sound. She'd never say it out loud, but inside her head there was no one to hear her but herself. She liked Inuyasha… he may have been a jerk, and perhaps he still was, but he was a loveable jerk.

^_^

"Morning!"

Kagome groaned sleepily and tried to block out the young hyperactive voice that had just bounced into her bedroom. Perhaps if she just pulled the covers over her head and slithered down in bed, he wouldn't notice she was in there.

No such luck. Souta scrambled to the bed and started tugging at her blanket. "Guess who's back from the Mafia?" he called.

"Grandpa?" Kagome sat up as her bed cover was dragged off. "What… - oh!" she suddenly remembered and snapped awake in an instant. "Inuyasha!"

"He's downstairs!" Souta grinned and scampered off again.

Kagome instantly rolled off the bed in her hurry to get changed into her day clothes. She tripped up several times and all but fell down the stairs in her hurry to get down them. Evidently her mother heard her fairy footsteps coming. "In here!" Mrs Higurashi called from the kitchen when she stumbled to a halt at the foot of the stairs.

Inuyasha was sitting on the table when Kagome entered, listening attentively to Mrs Higurashi scolding him for being so clumsy and forgetful as she tended to a wound on his chest.

"Kagome's been worried sick of course." Her mother filled him in as she pressed a white square of fabric over the wound above his heart. Kagome had to get over her disappointment that her mother had beaten her to undressing Inuyasha as the older woman continued. "What on earth happened to cause this mess?"

"Fell on a rake." He replied with a one shouldered shrug. "Those things are dangerous."

"I hear they kill forty thousand people a year." Grandpa rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "You're lucky to have survived."

"Thanks." Inuyasha nodded in his direction, with a slightly perturbed look.

"And look how skinny he is!" Mrs Higurashi suddenly broke in, finishing her work on the injury to stand back and look critically at Inuyasha. "Doesn't anybody feed you?"

"Well, not really-"

"He's fine, mom, leave him alone." Kagome cut in quickly, not at all keen on her attention being drawn to Inuyasha's physique. "He's supposed to be that way."

"I don't know." Mrs Higurashi still look dubious as she poked Inuyasha in the ribs with a finger cold enough to make him squirm. "You need more meat on your bones boy."

"Well it's in case I come across any man-eating cannibals." Inuyasha explained, as the woman helped him into his cleaned and ironed undershirt. "Given a choice, a cannibal would rather eat Kagome."

Said girl just glowered at him. "You just open your mouth and balderdash comes out, doesn't it?" she shook her head in disgrace. "Man-eating cannibals… what else would they be? Vegie-eating cannibals?"

Somewhere off in the house a bell rung. Everyone in the kitchen blinked around them in surprise before Mrs Higurashi voiced her opinion. "What on earth was that?"

"That was the doorbell." Grandpa said without looking up from his paper.

"We have a doorbell?" Souta seemed surprised. "I didn't know that."

"No one's ever paid us a visit, that's why." Kagome sighed. She really hated being in such an isolated place like this.

Mrs Higurashi was already moving out of the kitchen. "That'll be your tutor, Kagome."

"Tutor?" she echoed uncertainly. She'd completely forgotten about her education, of course. It happened when insane abominations were out to get her… and among all the other strange things that had happened to her, it was hard to remember the simpler things in life.

Kagome and Inuyasha traded equally dubious looks across the kitchen as they heard Mrs Higurashi welcome in someone down the hall. A few moments later Kagome's mother entered, followed by none other than Hojo.

"Hojo!" Kagome cried before the boy could utter a syllable.

Inuyasha watched in utter astonishment as she ran up to the surprised boy and grabbed his hand. "I must be daydreaming!" she squealed in delight. "What are you doing here?!"

"Well, your mother said that you somehow managed to lose your place in your new school, Higurashi." Hojo told her in complete politeness. "So she asked if I could help you catch up with the work you were missing before the entry exams for high school."

"Oh - you wonderful boy - you came all this way?" Kagome smiled at him.

Now, Inuyasha thought this was very unfair. He'd saved her life and gone through hell to make sure Naraku didn't pull the same stunt twice with her, and she hadn't even uttered a single word of thanks so far. This smiley guy turns up from no where to give her hard algebra problems and scientific equations and she calls him a 'wonder-boy'?

Something just seemed totally wrong with that.

"Well I'm only going to be here for about three hours, so we better get started." Hojo told her with a cheerful enough smile.

"Only three hours?" grumbled Inuyasha, but he went unheard by the others.

Kagome nodded in agreement with Hojo and ushered him out of the kitchen. "My room's this way." She could be heard telling him as their voices faded up the stairs.

"You're letting her have strange boys in her bedroom?" Inuyasha snapped a question to Mrs Higurashi who shrugged blandly. "I let you in her room didn't I?" she replied.

Souta snorted with laughter, before quickly ducking out of the kitchen so as to avoid being hit with Inuyasha's temper. Grandpa went back to reading his paper and Mrs Higurashi smiled lightly as she went back to cleaning up the bloody cotton swabs she'd been using to dress Inuyasha's wound. Inuyasha glanced between the two older Higurashi's, waiting for someone to say how unfair Kagome was being towards him. Here he was with a stab wound all the way down to his heart and she was off flirting with the nearest eligible boy?

But neither said anything, and the only sounds in the house was Souta starting up a new game on the playstation and an anonymous female voice upstairs laughing at some stupid boy's joke.

"I'm sure she's glad you're back really." Mrs Higurashi said quickly, almost to cover up the sound of Kagome's laughter. "She really did miss you very much while you were gone. She even cried."

Inuyasha blinked at her for a moment before covering for his own surprise with a scoff. "Yeah, whatever." He slipped off the table and exited the kitchen with a slight temper smouldering under the surface. As soon as he was out of everyone's sights he dissipated into the air and landed with a heavy thud on the ground beside the oil tank outside.

"Dammit… I missed…" he glared up at the top of the tank where he'd been aiming to appear on.

Well… he'd never been much of a whiz at dissipating. His disappearance into thin air was always slightly too messy and smoky, and his appearance usually made people jump. And if he was emotionally unbalanced he tended to make loud cracking sounds when he disappeared which often had people clutching their ears.

No, he'd never been good at the dissipating thing. Not a natural born talent, but he got by. His ninth generation Wishbringer had told him the scant basics… but not much more than that. Inuyasha was obliged to blame all his problems on that guy… if he could just get his hands on that twit he'd throttle him to death!

Of course, his inability to land on his targets was probably due to his current weak state. He acknowledged this with a pained grunt as he pulled himself up by his arms onto the tank… the wound on his chest went taut and gave a twinge of pain. He ignored it as he settled down onto his back and stared up at the sky. If he turned his head ever so slightly he could see Kagome's window and from this point he could just about make out the fuzzy red mop of hair that belonged to that boy.

Three hours alone with that boy…Inuyasha could handle three hours alone. He could entertain himself, right? Just… maybe he was a little miffed that Kagome wasn't paying him a little more attention right now.

Absently, he tapped a finger against the padded bandage over his heart and scowled at the overcast clouds above. It seemed as though the storm he'd been caught in earlier had followed him east, away from the mountains. Typical. The ominous and barely audible sound of rumbling thunder echoed in the distance. Inuyasha estimated it would probably be over the house in a couple of hours. Knowing Inuyasha's luck he would be caught out in the rain all over again if that Hojo boy didn't leave.

A few minutes drifted by… Inuyasha half listened to Kagome chatting away to Hojo, catching up on gossip of old friends that Inuyasha personally didn't understand. And, as what tended to happen, his thoughts wandered and he found himself dwelling darkly on what had happened over the last three days.

He wondered if it had been a mistake. Not the saving Kagome part - he'd never consider that a mistake… but he wondered if perhaps he shouldn't have gone after Naraku so soon.

Kagome had asked him where he'd managed to get the strength to defy all those rules… and it had made him wonder a little as well. It was just that… when he'd seen Kagome lying there - giving up and going to sleep hadn't been an option. He just couldn't watch another girl die… especially not innocent little Kagome who didn't know what it was like to suffer through life like him and Kikyo.

Inuyasha drew an arm across his eyes and blotted out the light. Kagome losing her innocent spark of life had pushed him a little too far… and once he'd saved her and seen her peacefully unconscious instead of dead, all he'd been able to think about was getting her revenge. He couldn't allow an irrepressible person like Kagome to be repressed like that.

So the minute she was safe, the moment the paramedics had gone down to her and the brigade had begun to cut her free of the car wreck, he'd searched for Naraku and found him, in the mountains. What on earth Naraku was doing in the mountains was beyond Inuyasha. How on earth he had managed to find Naraku was also beyond Inuyasha. But somehow he'd done it, all with a horrible burning sensation in his chest which he liked to call something beyond livid rage.

Naraku had taunted him about Kagome… demeaned her and related the irony with Kikyo's history. He'd laughed about how that history seemed to like repeating itself, and perhaps, would Inuyasha's next master be Kagome's reincarnation - and would he kill her too?

Clumsily, Inuyasha had done the first thing that had come to his mind. He'd literally ripped Naraku's life out of him to replenish his own depleted supplies… the result had been the transfer of energy. But it also resulted in Naraku's chest being ripped open… something that wouldn't heal easily. Inuyasha's heart had been pierced as well as the life had entered him… but that had been an acceptable price to pay, and it was already healing.

Naraku had fled, probably to give himself time to recover the loss of life. The monster wouldn't be out of the running for long.

At that point Inuyasha would have happily given anything to return to Kagome. Perhaps her smile would have made his headache seem less painful. Or perhaps her endless questions and demands for explanations would make his head explode. He couldn't return to her either way… he'd wasted everything he'd had… he didn't have the energy to summon anything. He couldn't zip himself back to Kagome in the blink of an eye either, he would have to walk. And seeing as how he was lost, walking back wouldn't be very productive.

So he'd waited until he'd worked up enough energy to break one last rule. He'd conjured a teeny tiny can of beans… the first thing he'd thought of. He'd even been too pathetic to open it himself and had regretted it really, until the can opener had landed in his hand like a prayer.

After that he'd passed out and woken up in the middle of a storm. By then he'd managed to gain enough energy to flash straight back to Izu in a millisecond… the first thing he'd done was go check on Kagome to make sure his little trick on her hadn't backfired.

She'd been alive. That had warmed his heart.

But rather suddenly his heart was blasted cold.

He'd saved her. Rather than just stand back and let her die he had stepped in and broken the rules. Did that mean he preferred Kagome to Kikyo? Did that mean he was beginning to get attached to her in a way that he really shouldn't?

Her tinkling laughter drifted down through her open window, laughing at another one of Homo's jokes. The rumble of thunder was getting closer, and as if on some automated cue, it began to rain lightly.

Inuyasha lifted his arm off his face and blinked up at the watering heavens, a few rain drops splattered straight into his eyes and he scrunched his face up as she quickly sat up, though quickly regretted the action when pain shot right through his chest.

But really only one thing throbbed in his skull right then. He couldn't get attached to Kagome like this. He'd saved her, yes, good for her. But he couldn't let his heart continue down the path it was heading… He couldn't risk hurting them both when all ten wishes were up. He couldn't risk hurting either of them if Naraku got to them…

The cookie would crumble… so to speak.

Inuyasha made to gracefully leap off the oil tank to the ground, yet somehow he misjudged the distance to the ground and his hand slipped on the edge of the large metal box. He plummeted to the ground and landed face down in the earth that was quickly being turned into mud with the new onslaught of rain.

"Oh fuck it." He muttered angrily to no one in particular. Why did all these bad things have to happen to him? Why did he always have to be the underdog?

"Well you don't look like a very happy bunny."

Inuyasha slowly pushed himself onto his knees and wiped the rain out of his eyes as he turned a smouldering glare upwards and locked eyes with the one person he really didn't need to be getting involved in this problem.

Miroku smiled faintly down at the dirty Hanyou and straightened to fold his arms impassively. Somehow, despite the rain coming down in sheets, Miroku seemed to remain completely dry and not a hair out of place.

"You brought the dead back to life." Miroku said slowly, his placid smile fading to a sober glare.

Inuyasha swallowed hard, fighting back the urge to snarl at him. "I know."

"You abandoned your master for more than two days."

"Yes, I-"

"You conjured."

"That was a-"

"You injured one of your masters without permission."

"Because he was being an ass-"

"You used your power outside of wishing."

"I can-"

"You exposed your abilities to civilians."

"I didn't have a choice, it was-"

"And you created the abomination Naraku." Miroku's eyes hardened slightly. "An abomination which has managed to create more chaos and disorder than you have, without your knowledge."

Inuyasha glared at him angrily. "So? What are you going to do about it?"

Miroku broke off his glare for a moment to squint up at the pouring heavens, as if gouging how long the rain would carry on. "You should know, Inuyasha, that when a Wishbringer becomes as disobedient and disorderly as you, the First has methods of dealing with them." He switched his gaze back on the Hanyou. "Or didn't I teach you that?"

"You taught me nothing." Inuyasha hissed. His patience reaching the end of its tether. Maybe he could perhaps break one more rule and snap this crackpot's head off.

"The First doesn't like Naraku you know." Miroku told him in a balanced tone. "If Naraku makes any more trouble, the First will kill him."

"Oh good." That didn't sound so bad.

"To ensure a creation like Naraku never graces this earth again, the First will also kill you."

"Oh…" that wasn't so good.

"And to make sure another like you is never created, the First will then kill me."

"Oh good."

"Unless of course, the First goes straight to the killing you part." Miroku narrowed his eyes ever so slightly. "I'm terribly sorry to say, but my sense of self-preservation has always been particularly strong. I don't wish to die, no pun intended there. And if you go on living then I will surely die."

"Meaning?" Inuyasha snapped.

"Meaning…" Miroku crouched down so he was eye level with Inuyasha. "I have to sever any link between me and Naraku… and me and you. You're the link. So it is my duty to kill you."

Inuyasha flinched back, automatically trying to raise some power to his own defence. Too bad he'd used it all up on the rule breaking. "You can't - you'll kill yourself if you use your power outside of wishes!"

"This is my born duty. I don't need a power of a wish to kill you." Miroku said simply as he raised a quick hand to press against Inuyasha's forehead.

Inuyasha tried to reel back and out of range… but his whole body seemed shot through with paralysis. Miroku's hand was getting uncomfortably hot… and Inuyasha couldn't do a thing about it.

"For what it's worth… I'm sorry."

Inuyasha didn't hear the last part of what he said, not when his words were drowned out by the blinding pain that racked through his head.

AN: Another cliff hanger? Well I'll try to update soon and ease the pain…