InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Bottled Genius ❯ Normality ( Chapter 18 )

Author's Notes: It seems everyone seems to be going away on holiday, except for me. Well, sorry for those who went on holiday before I did this update, I tried to go as fast as I could but I've been busy enjoying the great weather down here! It's so hot and the sky is so blue… I think Manchester suddenly moved to Spain or something ^_^

Anyway, chapter eighteen already? Wow… time flies - I still feel like I'm on chapter nine.

Bottled Genius

Chapter 18

Normality

When the pain shot through Inuyasha's head, he had naturally assumed that Miroku had dealt him the killing blow. So it confused him when Miroku suddenly pulled away from him, blinking in surprise and looking upwards to something above Inuyasha, and even more confusing when something fell into the mood beside him.

The pain faded rapidly to a dull throb and he reached up to rub his head as he looked down into the mud and saw the object that had just hit him on the noggin.

Kagome's alarm clock.

"Leave him alone you bully!"

Inuyasha looked up like Miroku and spotted Kagome half hanging out of her bedroom window with a furious expression. Everything snapped into place at once. "You hit me!" Inuyasha yelled up to her and pointed at the alarm clock.

"Sorry - I was aiming for Miroku!" She yelled back, smiling weakly in apology. Behind her Hojo was looking on in mild confusion.

"Miroku?" Inuyasha echoed and switched a glare to the other Wishbringer. Miroku turned his gaze blandly back to Inuyasha and they both watched each other for a moment before Inuyasha's fragile tether on his patience snapped. "YOU BASTARD!"

With a feral sound in the back of his throat he lunged forward and toppled both himself and Miroku back into the mud. Inuyasha straddled him at once and grabbed fistfuls of his clothes to slam him repeatedly back onto the wet ground. "How - dare - you!" Inuyasha yelled, punctuating each word with a slam on the ground. "You - know - Kagome - how - the - hell - do-"

Miroku flipped their positions and resumed banging Inuyasha's already sore head against the edge of a concrete slab that was part of the platform for the oil tank. "How - dare you - break - so many - rules!" Miroku began striking him around the head. "We have them *smack* for a reason!"

"Rules were made to be broken!" Inuyasha snapped back as he jammed two fingers into Miroku's eyes.

"Ah! That hurt!" Miroku poked a finger against the wound on Inuyasha's chest.

"Ow-hahaow!" Inuyasha planted his feet on Miroku's chest and kicked him away quickly. He clutched his own sore chest, mumbling various explicit insults under his breath as she tried to catch his breath.

Miroku was in a similar state, his chest heaving in an effort to drag in more air, as he pushed a few stray locks of black hair out of his eyes. He didn't look so immaculately dry now. And they were a little too out of breath to resume any deadly conversations of scuffles.

It wasn't long before Kagome came running around the corner of the building, her coat pulled up over her head to protect her hair from the rain. When she arrived beside the oil tank before them, she gave them both a stern glare. "This is neither the time nor place for petty squabbles!"

Inuyasha struggled to stand. "This isn't petty!"

"This is a matter of duty and responsibility." Miroku said calmly as he stood again. "Now if you'll excuse me, Miss Kagome, but I have a job to do." He started to move towards where Inuyasha half crouched on his knees in the mud. He had barely gotten two steps closer when Kagome stepped right into his path and blocked him with a hard glare.

"You're not hurting Inuyasha." She said grimly.

"That's not for you to decide." He told her politely and attempted to move around her, Kagome stepped sideways to block him again, preventing him from getting to her Wishbringer. Inuyasha watched in amazement. Miroku was getting slightly pensive. "Please move aside."

"If you have to kill Inuyasha, you'll have to kill me first." Kagome said in a steady voice, proud that she could hold a glare without trembling even slightly.

"I can't kill you, that would be against the rules." Miroku scowled at her.

"Exactly. I won't let you kill Inuyasha just so you can sleep better at night without the First guy after you." She told him fiercely. "You have to go through me first."

Miroku blinked at her in surprise while Inuyasha turned his gaze downward. She really was quite amazing…

Suddenly Kagome found her hands snatched up by the young man standing before her, causing her coat to fall backwards behind her, flopping over Inuyasha's head. The rain hailed down on top of her unprotected hair, but she barely noticed as she stared at her and Miroku's clasped hands. "What the…?"

"Miss Kagome, your loyalty and bravery is impressive and endearing. Your heart must be as kind and warm as the vibrant aura which surrounds you." Miroku told her gently. "And I would be honoured if your would bare my chi-"

He didn't get a chance to finish that sentence as Kagome was suddenly shoved to one side and found himself staring into the eyes of a particularly angry Hanyou… one who looked like he was a breath away from tearing out his tonsils. "I wasn't talking to you." Miroku told him coolly.

"You've got some nerve, asshole." Inuyasha snarled. "Some nerve and no tact - you can't just barge in here threatening to kill me and then ask to have sex with Kagome-"

"I have my priorities in life and you have yours. Mine are to stay alive and whenever possible, ensure that I have a couple of heirs to carry on the family line seeing as how… I'm not entirely the human I used to be."

"That makes no sense!" Inuyasha exploded angrily. "You can't have children - you're a Wishbringer!"

"Of course I can have children. I'm still technically human, and so are you." Miroku seemed surprised for a moment, before sighing in a knowing way. "Ah… I see… five hundred years and you still haven't figured out the basic mechanics have you?"

Inuyasha pushed his sleeves up as he stepped closer with a menacing growl. He probably would have slogged the twit if Kagome hadn't stepped in between them and braced a hand against each chest to keep them apart. "Do we have to do this in the rain?" she called up to them both, shaking her head to try and flip the wet curling tendrils of her own hair out of her face. "If we stay out here any longer I'm going to catch a cold-"

"He's not going into the house!" Inuyasha jabbed a finger at Miroku.

"But I've been inside once already. Last night in fact. In Miss Kagome's room actually." Miroku nodded at the stiffening girl between them.

Inuyasha stared at Miroku before snapping a glare at Kagome. "What?!" he barked. "Is that true?!"

"Perhaps." Kagome said elusively before feeling the tension rise in Inuyasha again through the hand on his chest. "Ok - whoa, whoa, whoa - we really need to take this inside before one of us gets hypothermia-"

"Screw that - he's dead!" Inuyasha pushed Kagome out of the way as he went for Miroku's neck.

Kagome lost her temper. "Stop that! Get down!"

Somewhere between pushing Kagome and reaching out to grab Miroku's collar, Inuyasha's foot slipped in the mud and he plummeted to the ground. He was too shocked to get up.

After a moment or two of listening to the steady pitter-patter of the rain, Kagome drew in a shaky breath to cool her temper once more. She was a lot better at the control thing than Inuyasha, but still glared down at his back down near the ground. "I think…" she stared slowly and strictly. "We should take this inside. And no killing anyone until we talk this through." She shot both him and Miroku a pointed look before turning heal and stomping away around the corner of the house, wringing out her sopping wet hair with a very fowl look on her face.

Inuyasha finally managed to string a few slightly shocked words together. "She subdued me…"

"Clever thing isn't she?" Miroku sighed dully as he slowly traipsed after Kagome.

Inuyasha shot his retreating back a dirty look as he levered himself out of the mud and scowled as he looked down at himself. And Mrs Higurashi had only just washed this shirt…

^_^

"God knows what Hojo thinks of me now…" Kagome sighed and she rubbed a towel through her hair. She'd had to send her old friend back home again thanks to these unexpected turn of events… but he'd be back tomorrow… hopefully. "And my clothes are soaking now…"

"Maybe you should take them off?" Miroku helpfully suggested from the dusty armchair in the corner of her room.

"NO!" Both Inuyasha and Kagome chorused the response together, despite Inuyasha being across the hall in the bathroom, washing his clothes again.

Kagome lowered the towel around her shoulders and looked across at Miroku, trying to be diplomatic about the whole ordeal. "Ok… I think there have been a few misunderstandings that we need to clear up."

"And just what has been misunderstood?" Miroku asked.

"Like… I think you misunderstood that the bad guy here is not Inuyasha - it's Naraku. If you have to kill anyone - kill that guy!" Kagome shrugged.

"I can't kill Naraku. But I can kill Inuyasha." Miroku shrugged casually. "And if that will save my life then I am willing to do that."

"But that seems unfair. What did Inuyasha ever do to you?" Kagome scowled.

"Nothing. But he will get me killed, and that I don't appreciate too much."

"But Inuyasha isn't the bad guy here."

"You honestly think that?" Miroku gave her a quietly amused look. "You think after all the lives he's taken and ruined, he is still in heaven's favour?"

Kagome fumbled for something new to say… she was almost certain that Inuyasha had heard that last comment. And it was always a touchy subject for the Hanyou…

"That was never his fault." Kagome responded quietly.

"I never said it was." Miroku told her placidly. "But that still doesn't mean he shouldn't be afraid of what awaits him in the afterlife."

"That's harsh…" Kagome trailed off and looked up as she heard Inuyasha enter the room again. She blinked at the deep scowl on his face… but was distracted by the fact that he was wearing one of her own, blue flowery dressing gowns with his clothes slung over one arm.

Miroku opened his mouth to say something about his change in style when Inuyasha's slid down between the Miroku's back and the back of the chair itself. Kagome watched in surprise as Miroku stiffened as though in pain before Inuyasha pulled his hand away and stomped off to Kagome's side of the room to finish towelling his hair as well.

"What did you do to him?" Kagome gaped as Miroku trembled in either pain or sheer intensity to move… he looked very stiff all of a sudden.

"Something Naraku showed me a few days ago in the mountains." Inuyasha replied grumpily. "Pressure point for the Wishbringer."

"You have your own pressure points?" Kagome looked between them.

"We have to have some kind of weakness I suppose." Inuyasha shot Miroku another nasty glare. "He never told me about them though. I had to learn the hard way."

"There was a reason why I never taught you…" Miroku said in a strained voice. "I knew you would use them on me if you learnt them…"

"Well it nearly cost me my life you toe-ragged, slimy, butt-munching, creepy, ass-"

"Inuyasha - maybe you should take that thing off him." Kagome broke into his rant. "That looks painful."

"Good." Inuyasha folded his arms with a snort, but he looked uncomfortable.

"Inuyasha…?" Kagome turned pleading eyes on him. "Please? For me?"

Inuyasha scowled at her a moment before muttering something under his breath and stomping back over to Miroku to relieve the pressure point. Miroku smirked as the pain dispersed. "She really has you buttered up, hasn't she?" he muttered loud enough for only Inuyasha to hear. Inuyasha gave him a hard slap over the head before marching back to Kagome and sitting behind her on the bed as if she was some kind of shield.

Kagome took Inuyasha's wet clothes and went over to hang them on the radiator as she spoke. "I really think we don't need to kill each other for this. We all have a common enemy, so why can't we just work together to stop Naraku?"

"Because he will kill me the moment your back is turned!" Inuyasha snapped.

"Because he will break more rules and endanger our lives." Miroku said coolly.

Kagome finished hanging the clothes and turned back to the two boys with a frown. "What if Inuyasha doesn't break any more rules? And what if Miroku promises not to kill you?" Kagome asked them both. "Then can we work together against Naraku?"

Inuyasha made a disbelieving sound as Miroku sighed. "I'm not usually one to turn down a beautiful lady's request… but this time will have to be an exception." Miroku shook his head. "I don't normally involve myself with more than one person at a time."

"Only for a threesome." Inuyasha said dryly.

"True." Miroku nodded.

"But that's ok then - we're a threesome!" Kagome said happily. "There's three of us isn't there?"

"Uh… Kagome…" Inuyasha stared at her. Was she really that naïve?

"I don't do threesomes with other men." Miroku told her seriously.

"Oh…" Kagome was sincerely sad to hear that. Inuyasha was still staring at her in disbelief.

"Well." Miroku stood up suddenly and folded his arms. "Seeing as how the First isn't out to get us all just yet… I suppose I can let you off this time, Inuyasha. But any funny business in the future will get you executed. And I mean that." He glanced over at the sulking Hanyou. "I really do mean that."

"Don't start acting like you care." Inuyasha snapped at him.

"I don't care about you." Miroku shot back. "But think how distraught she will be." Miroku glanced at Kagome who averted her gaze from either of them in favour of watching Inuyasha's clothes dry…

"Nothing would come to bear with us working with each other." Miroku continued, regardless. "I can't help you and you can't help me. Although… maybe I can help you concerning your conflict with Naraku."

"Bull." Inuyasha said shortly.

"Do you know something we don't?" Kagome asked, ignoring Inuyasha's attitude.

"Naraku has been, until recently, trying to kill something inside of him." Miroku told them. "I don't know for certain… and not a lot of people know for sure either, but I have a feeling he may be trying to purge the humanity out of his blood."

"What?" Kagome blinked in surprise.

"You mean… he's trying to… separate himself from Onigumo?" Inuyasha seemed just as surprised. "But, that's ridiculous - why doesn't he just wish for me to do it?"

"Because he probably knows you'll make a mess of it for him." Miroku replied.

"But why would he want to do that?" Kagome asked. "I thought he was Onigumo."

Inuyasha glanced at her. "Not really. Naraku is a collective consciousness of a thousand demons into one… Onigumo is like the frame that holds it together. It's like the demons are the flesh… Onigumo is the skeleton. Onigumo isn't really a conscious part of Naraku, but he's the only thing holding Naraku together."

"So…?" that still didn't answer her question. "Why does he want Onigumo out?"

"Probably because he doesn't like having a human inside him." Miroku shrugged.

"That's not it." Inuyasha said quickly. "He doesn't want Onigumo because he's driven by what Onigumo wants. Naraku is forced to submit to those desires… I guess he doesn't want to want the things he wants."

"Want what?" Kagome frowned, it was all getting a little confusing. These Wishbringers were very complicated…

"As it stands Naraku wants you, he wants me dead and he wants Kikyo too… if Naraku gets rid of Onigumo then he won't want these things any more."

"So then he won't try to kill us?" That didn't sound so bad in Kagome's opinion.

"Oh, he will." Inuyasha told her. "And he won't have petty human feelings to interfere. I did get confused as to why he tried to kill you in that car crash when he only wanted to kill you after he'd… um… done things to you."

Kagome grimaced. "You think-"

"Naraku must have been trying to override Onigumo's desires for you by killing you." Inuyasha scowled. "We can't let him separate himself from Onigumo otherwise he'd kill us all in a heartbeat, no messing around."

"Ouch…" Kagome prayed that wasn't what Naraku was up to at that very moment.

"Well, you seem to have figured things out for yourselves well enough." Miroku said with the tone of someone about to leave. "Hopefully this will be the last time we ever cross paths… but if you, Inuyasha, break any more rules, I will be forced to bring it down on your head, no matter how much Miss Kagome tries to defend you."

"Hey, wait a minute-!" Kagome started to call him back, but Miroku had already dissipated a wisp of faint blue.

After a moment or two of silence Inuyasha turned a disgruntled look on Kagome. "And you stopped me from beating him up… why?"

Kagome gave a faint sigh of annoyance. "Well. He didn't strike me as a bad guy. And the last thing we need to do is make a new enemy, and you have to admit that it saved your life this time." She suddenly gained a smile. "I saved your life this time, didn't I?"

"Yeah, whatever." Inuyasha scowled even deeper. "But remember I've saved your life three times so far, so it's three to one in my favour."

"And…" Kagome carried on ignoring him. "He did tell us something useful about Naraku… about what he wants to do about Onigumo."

"And that reminds me - you haven't once thanked me for all those times I saved your life."

"I wonder how Naraku plans to separate himself of Onigumo if he won't make you do it with a wish."

"And as soon as that Homo boy turned up you were all over him."

"It's worrying… once he gets Onigumo out of his system he'll probably come and kill us straight away."

"And then you stopped me from attacking Miroku - like you prefer him and Hobo to me! Do you know how insulting you are?"

"Are you listening to me?!" Kagome suddenly interrupted him.

"No. Should I?" He said dryly as he straightened the floral pattern on the dressing gown he was wearing.

"Yes!" Kagome ground out. "This is important - Naraku could be out there right now-"

"Relax!" Inuyasha snapped angrily. "I injured Naraku badly. He's half dead and barely hanging on at all… he hasn't got the time to separate himself from Onigumo right now, he's probably more concerned with holding all his body parts together. Trust me, I would be a heck of a lot more worried if he was a threat right now."

"You're right…" Kagome sighed slowly.

"Of course I am." He folded his arms huffily. "And you still haven't thanked me for saving your life. And you still haven't apologised for smacking me into the mud outside - and I don't know about you, but I find it rude how you've been ignoring me in favour of that pretty boy from your old school. He's only looking to get his hands up your skirt."

Kagome, who had just been on the brink of thanking and apologising for her mistakes, suddenly stiffened at the last comment out of his flapping mouth. "Hojo isn't like that!" she leapt to the poor boy's defence at once. "He's decent and nice - unlike some people!" she hissed and glared at him.

"Are you saying I'm not nice and decent?!"

"You're not decent - you're wearing my dressing gown - and you're not nice - you're shouting at me!"

"Well you're shouting at me too!"

"Because you're shouting at me!"

"I try to do something nice for you and what do I get?!" Inuyasha growled. "No gratitude. I don't know why I wanted to come back here so bad - I should have just stayed away and enjoyed a little more freedom for myself! The moment I get back here you start slapping me around and ordering me to go eat mud while you go flirt with boys!"

"You make it sound like I'm the bad guy here!" she cried.

"Well you are!" He turned his back on her in a huff.

"I wasn't flirting with Miroku and Hobo - I mean, Hojo!!" she snapped, he heard her shifting closer to yell at the back of his head. "I was being polite to them! I didn't want to lose Hojo as a friend and I didn't want Miroku to just kill you! Don't you understand that?"

He whirled back to face her. "I understand that you would-" he cut himself short as he very nearly bumped noses with Kagome. "Um…"

Kagome seemed stiff with shock, afraid to move away or do much else… and he felt very much the same way. No matter how hard he tried he couldn't seem to remember the point he'd been trying to get across… the only thing he could really pay attention to at that moment was the fact that Kagome's face was barely an inch from his own and that her gaze was, instead of on his own, but on his lips.

"Kagome…?" he said softly, in an attempt to break her out of the trance she'd fallen into, and the trance he was falling into as well.

"Mm?" she wasn't really paying attention. Her nose gently touched against his and he knew now was probably the time to reinforce the boundaries of personal space… but he didn't really seem to care right then.

However, when he saw her start to lean forward, his sense snapped back into place. He couldn't let his curse hurt them both…

Kagome saw Inuyasha turn away suddenly and stopped dead in her tracks. Had she been about to kiss him? In sheer horrified embarrassment she pulled back quickly and struggled to find a decent apology. He looked slightly angry… "I-I'm sorry!" she found her voice at last. "I don't know what I was thinking!"

"It doesn't matter." He kept his gaze averted to the floor. She could still hear the ticked off tinge to his voice and naturally assumed it was her that he was mad at.

"Look, I'm…" She reached out to touch his should comfortingly, but he only shrugged out of her range and stood up, putting a physical distance between them of a metre. Putting an emotional distance between them of miles. Kagome felt strangely cold and alone all of a sudden.

"I think your mother has a tumble drier." He said simply as he went to retrieve his clothes and walked out. Kagome stared after him in surprise, reeling from what had just happened.

It all dawned on her with crushing force and she groaned loudly as she dropped to lie flat on the bed and pushed her face into the pillow. It helped to muffle her anguished scream somewhat, but didn't help relieve her embarrassment…

She couldn't believe she'd done that… she felt like a complete fool now. She'd made to kiss him and he'd turned away…

"Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid girl!" he ranted angrily and punctuated each word with a bang of the head against the headboard. It really didn't hurt as much as she needed it to… "How could I be so stupid?!"

She wilted back down to the pillow and tried hard not cry, but her eyes were beginning to sting and weren't remaining completely dry. She hated herself for her own stupidity, she'd embarrassed herself and Inuyasha in one swift move and now had made things very awkward between them. She half dreaded the next time she would have to speak to him…

Her pillow grew damp with her tears and she sniffed pathetically, but was at least grateful that she didn't bawl her eyes out and sob at the top of her lungs. Inuyasha was bound to hear her if she did, and she still had a little dignity left… perhaps.

She idly wondered what a strange thing it was to do… to cry, that is. Why was it, when people were sad, or hurt, or really happy, their faces screwed up, they're eyes watered and they sobbed? What was it supposed to accomplish?

Eyes watered when you had something in them like an eyelash. Noses sneezed when you'd sucked up too much dust. Chests coughed when some water had gone down the wrong why? But what was the point of crying? It didn't solve anything, and it didn't help the pain go away.

And yet everyone did it… well, nearly everyone. People broke down and cried all the time, and it achieved nothing other than let everyone know you were upset. When, in human evolution, had it decided that crying was useful? Because it wasn't.

Kagome sat up with the pillow pulled into her lap and dried her eyes. Perhaps… perhaps crying was the proverbial eyelash in the heart. Crying was maybe the emotional way of trying to rid yourself of the emotional pain. She had to admit she felt a little bit better now… though not by much.

She still felt like a foolish moron who wanted to crawl under a rock and hide until Inuyasha perhaps forgot her stupidity. The urge to crawl under the bed and hide was surprisingly strong.

And why did she feel so foolish? Because at some point she realised that she'd fallen in love with Inuyasha, and what he thought of her seemed very important all of a sudden.

It was easy to try and avoid those kinds of thoughts about him when he had his shirt off or something… she would repeat the 'he's a jerk' mantra in her head and ignore her attraction. But when he was fully clothed and being his normal self, she'd been off guard and unknowingly building her emotions up to something that couldn't be…

She was a stupid moron. She wanted to kick herself but settled for pinching her thigh instead. "Ow!" she jumped… best not try that again.

She flopped back down onto the bed and stared at the window beside her, listening idly to the birds twittering their songs in the trees beyond. She was remembering something her mother had told her long ago…

First love was the best and the worst. It felt wonderful and terrible at the same time… but it tended to be short lived, though never forgotten. Kagome seriously doubted that the ache inside her would go away any time soon. She loved Inuyasha… yet he felt nothing of the sort for her…

How was she supposed to handle this kind of thing?

After a few minutes of thinking she gathered her wits and came to her conclusion. There was no need for things to change. She got up and checked her appearance in the mirror to make sure she looked like she hadn't been crying, before making her way downstairs with what she hoped was an ordinary smile on her face.

Things went on as normal.

AN: No evil cliff-hanger this week? That's good, right?