InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Daybreak ❯ How to get Your 'Home' Back ( Chapter 22 )

A/N: Okay,

 

Thank you to everyone who let me knew what they wanted!

 

Due to popular demand I'll keep this story going for a little while longer. I was going to take the advice of a few readers who asked me to end the story and write a sequel as a follow on, but I realised I don't have enough material to write a whole other series (at least, not now), and if I did, it'd probably be too short. So I'll keep this going (I still don't know for how long though).

 

Thankyous:

Shaun-Thanks for the reminders! They really do help! Glad you like the story!

Kagome_rocks- Thank you!

Psyco chick32- I know, how cute is he? Thank you!

Silver Dog of the Snow- I know, it was sad wasn't it? I got teary too… Thanks so much!

Feulner- Thank you! :D I guess summer's over now though, ain't it? Darn it…

Secret35- Thank you so much!

IDoInuyasha31- Dear valued customer, I'm afraid we are currently out of stock of child Inuyashas. However, as compensation we are sending you five virtual cookies and three mental hugs. We hope this will suffice. (lol! Thank you!)

Lunabell- Yes! Evil cliffhanger strikes once again! lol! Thank you so much for reviewing!

Nowyouseemenowyoudont- Sorry for making you wait for so long! Thank you for reviewing!

Angel at Risk- lol! Ok, you're getting more! Thank you!

Laur- Naaaaaawwww! Thank you so much! <3

Miss Megan- Oh wow! Thank you!

CandyEars- Thank you! Thank you!

 

Can I just say how thrilled and thankful I am for all of your support, guys? I wouldn't have kept going if it weren't for all you! And I am soooo soooo sorry for taking so long this time! I have a valid reason! There was a case of a bulging disc in my family so I practically became the woman of the house i.e. cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, etc. Anyway, everyone's okay now! So on with the damn story already!

 

 

 

Chapter 22- How to Get Your `Home' Back

 

 

“GODDAMMIT!!” swore Inuyasha as he blocked the unexpected assault of the youkai.

 

He was so close! The time pearl was right in front of him. It was lying right there! He would have had it by now if it weren't for this fucking youkai!! Out of the corner of his eye he saw Kagome pelting past him onto the bridge, towards the jewel lying motionless on the wooden planks.

 

`SHIT!'

 

Realising the gravity of the situation, Inuyasha laid a mighty swipe at the offending youkai before charging after Kagome. He saw the young miko's eyes widen as they landed on him.

 

Just a bit further. He was almost there!

 

She leapt for it, arms outstretched. Inuyasha's heart jumped.

 

“KAGOME-!!!” he shouted.

 

Everything stopped.

 

A brilliant white light abruptly shone from the pearl the second she touched it, engulfing everything around them. Inuyasha gave a shout of surprise and shielded his eyes with his sleeve. Over the other side of the bridge he heard Miroku and Sango give similar cries of exclamation along the mangy wolf's “KAGOME!!”

 

Keeping his eyes firmly shut, Inuyasha felt a strange hot feeling coming from the centre of the light which then quickly died down. With a sudden loud `BANG!' the sharp glow died down. Realising the light behind his eyelids had disappeared he quickly whipped away his haori sleeve and began to step towards the girl.

 

“KAGO-!!”

 

The last syllable got stuck in his throat as Inuyasha's golden eyes widened.

 

It was Kagome. But she looked different. Instead of her miko robes she donned a few seconds ago, she was dressed in a pink kimono and had her hair pulled back slightly. There was also something nostalgic, a familiar scent that seemed to float from her, or rather, the clothes. A sudden epiphany of what the scent was flashed through his mind.

 

`No way…' But that was impossible! It didn't make sense in the least! And wait… where was the pearl?

 

Inuyasha's mindset quickly went from confusion to frustration. Here they were, after weeks of being separated from Kagome, fighting over that godforsaken fucking time pearl and suddenly she disappears in a flash of light only to return wearing different clothes and holding some weird looking jar in the hand that used to have the pearl.

 

Suffice to say, Inuyasha wanted to know what the fuck was going on.

 

His anger suddenly cooled as he finally took notice of her face. She was staring at him with the most miserable expression he had ever seen. Her bright round eyes looked like glass, filled with unshed tears. They almost shimmered gold as they reflected the dying light of the sunset as they focused on him, shinning with pain, regret and even longing. A single tear had rolled its way down her cheek.

 

Inuyasha suddenly felt a little uncomfortable, but couldn't understand why. There was something so familiar about this picture. What had happened to her? She looked so heartbroken…

 

Kagome, never breaking the intense eye contact between them, opened her mouth before closing it again choking on her words. Inuyasha watched her swallow before opening her mouth again and whispering with a quiet, vulnerable voice.

 

“Koinu-chan…”

 

He stopped breathing. His mouth hung open.

 

It couldn't be…

 

The kimono, the tear rolling down her cheek, the exact position of her looking at him across the wooden planks of the bridge… Suddenly he was back to being a small child chasing after her, begging her to stay. The woman who gave him his fondest childhood memories. The woman who was the first, aside from his mother, to appreciate who he was, not what he was. The woman whose sad face had always lingered in the dark recesses of his mind only occasionally coming to the surface to create a longing sense of nostalgia. The woman who actually was…

 

“Kagome…” Inuyasha breathed.

 

 

*****

 

 

“Kagome!!”

 

Everyone flicked their heads up to see Kagura, standing in the middle of (what used to be) the castle grounds with her fan stretched out, keeping her remaining youkai at bay. The wind sorceress lowered her head to look directly at the human girl, her red eyes shining.

 

“It's gone, isn't it?” she asked in a serious, low voice.

 

Kagome looked at the youkai woman in hesitation, swallowed nervously and nodded. Kagura's face distorted into what looked like pity (or was it relief?) for a second before she resumed her usual lethargic composure.

 

“Oh well. It was fun while it lasted,” she said as she plucked a feather from her bun. Within seconds she was above them, flying away with her youkai pets following after her.

 

“Kagura!!” shouted Inuyasha.

 

“Don't you try to get away, you cowardly wench!!” shouted Kouga viciously.

 

“Wait! Kagura!!” came Kagome's voice. Inuyasha's head snapped down to look at her. Her eyes were wide with apprehension as she stared up at the retreating youkai woman, almost as if she were begging something of the wind sorceress.

 

The said sorceress looked over her shoulder at the young miko before returning her head to the front.

 

“You stay here, Kagome.”

 

“What?” gasped Kagome weakly. There was a large gust of wind and within seconds, Kagura was out of sight.

 

Sango came out of her stance, blinked and looked over to Miroku in a state of shock. “Did Kagura just let Kagome-chan go?”

 

Miroku returned the confused look to the taijiya, a little lost for words. “I suppose she thinks she has no more to do here. She said something about `it' being gone. Could she have meant the time pearl?”

 

“Was that what that light was?” squeaked Shippou from the back of the giant fire-cat Kirara.

 

“But Kagome-chan is human! How is that possible?” exclaimed Sango.

 

“Who cares?” snapped Kouga irritably as he walked onto the bridge and passed the silent Inuyasha. The wolf youkai stretched out his hand to the girl in the pink kimono in a gesture of reassurance. “Kagome, you're safe now-”

 

Kagome jumped and frantically stumbled away from him, her hands clutched to her chest. “Stay away!”

 

Kouga paused and blinked at her, a little surprised.

 

“Kagome-sama, please!” implored Miroku, stepping onto the bridge next to Inuyasha. “Enough of this, I beg you.”

 

“I-I said stay away from me!” shouted Kagome, desperately.

 

“But Kagome…!” came Shippou's hurt voice from behind them. At the kitsune's sad tone, Kagome's eyes widened a little. She sombrely lowered her head, her fringe covering her eyes and clenched her hands tighter.

 

“Sorry, Shippou-chan,” she whispered regretfully. “Sorry, everyone!” She quickly spun around and dashed as fast as she could across the bridge and into the thick foliage of the surrounding forest.

 

“Kagome!” shouted Inuyasha dashing after her into the bushes.

 

Kouga started. “Kagome, wait!” He was about to push off his back leg when a hand rested on his shoulder. The wolf youkai spun his head around to see the human monk looking at him with a soft expression on his face.

 

“What are you doing, monk?” spat Kouga furiously.

 

Miroku merely smiled. “I understand you want to make sure Kagome-sama is alright Kouga, but I think the retrieval of our princess would be a job best left for Inuyasha.”

 

Narrowing his eyes, Kouga threw off the monk's hand and stared him down. “What the hell gives you the right to say that? She needs someone to stop her right now!”

 

“I agree,” said Miroku solemnly. “But she's in a vulnerable state and I'm sure you also know who the one Kagome trusts the most is. Even though he's your rival, don't you think it would be alright to give them a moment?”

 

Kouga stared at the man for a moment before resuming a more relaxed posture, his arms crossed. “Well, I guess I can give that mutt a bit of time. For her sake.”

 

Sango, coming up to them, smiled. “Thank you Kouga,” she said sincerely.

 

Kouga merely shrugged. “Hey, it's not like it's gonna affect the fact that Kagome's my woman! She'll fall in love with me anyway!” he sneered as he scratched his nose, wreaking an aura of pure arrogance.

 

“Kouga's very confident isn't he?” whispered Shippou to Miroku.

 

The monk nodded wisely.

 

“I think it comes with the lack of intelligence.”

 

 

*****

 

 

“KAGOME!!!” shouted Inuyasha, more than a little frustrated, as he gave another big leap and landed in front of her path. Kagome gasped and quickly screeched to a stop in front of him.

 

Inuyasha glared at her and forced himself to take a deep breath. It hadn't taken long to catch her since she left the castle's clearing; there was no way she would ever be a match for his youkai speed, so that was not the reason he was trying to calm down. Rather, it was the burning rage he was feeling building up in his chest.

 

At first this anger was the result of his confusion over the fact that, somehow, Kagome was the woman he kept dreaming about in (what he thought was) his distant childhood memories. He didn't understand how that was even possible! But he had seen her disappear in a strange pool of white light and reappear a second later, wearing completely different clothes (that smelt VERY nostalgic) and standing in exactly the same position as the woman in his dreams!

 

Inuyasha was pissed. He was pissed that all the signs pointed to Kagome. He was pissed that it was impossible for it to be Kagome. He was pissed by the amount of questions he had. He was pissed that Kagura just up and left the fight…

 

Inuyasha caught the girl's panicked eyes darting to the left, as if assessing her surroundings for a break. Inuyasha's eyebrows knotted together. And he was pissed that even now she was still thinking of ways to escape him without answering any of these goddamned questions!!

 

Inuyasha took an intimidating step forward, his eyes locked on hers. Kagome jumped and took another step away from him.

 

“I said stay away!” she yelled.

 

“Kagome! Stop it!” yelled back Inuyasha. “You're always running away like this!”

 

Kagome shook her head and curled her hands into tight fists. “I am not! Just leave me alone!”

 

“No! Nothing you say will make me!”

 

“Aaah!!” screamed Kagome, her hands making exasperated gestures. “Why can't you just do what I want, baka!”

 

Inuyasha lost what little composure he had left. “Why you-!! Didn't I say not to call me an idiot?!!”

 

Kagome folded her arms and rebelliously flicked her head away. “I don't care! You are an idiot!!”

 

“Am not!”

 

“Are too!”

 

“AAARRGH!” screamed the infuriated hanyou, who was well at the end of his tether. “We were doing the same thing as this not an hour ago!!”

 

Kagome stopped, and looked at him confused, as if trying to make sense of his words. Inuyasha started at her lack of recognition. `No way… has she already forgotten?' Inuyasha's heart began thumping. There's no way she could have forgotten what just took place in the clearing a little while before, could there? But, didn't that mean something? The hanyou's mind instantly (and involuntarily) reeled back to the mind-numbing sensation of her soft, moist, warm lips against his. He felt the warmth glowing from his cheeks and forced himself not to look away, determined to receive some sort of acknowledgement for that secret moment.

 

As if his blushing was a tell-tale sign of what he meant, Kagome's eyes, still wet from her tears, suddenly widened and a deep blush of her own spread across her cheeks. He was sure her heart was thumping just as loudly as his own, but still remained vigilant, never taking his eyes off of hers.

 

“Kagome…” he breathed.

 

Kagome suddenly blinked, as if snapping out of a daze. Inuyasha saw moisture pooling around her eyes before she looked away in an effort to hide them. “L-l-look!! Just YOU need to keep away from me! GOT IT?!!”

 

The hanyou took a step back as his ears drooped, a little shocked. “Keep away…? Why?!”

 

“Because, I- I've worked out a pattern.”

 

Inuyasha looked at her. “A pattern?”

 

“Yeah,” she said looking at her twiddling fingers. “Over the last few weeks, whenever you're near me, I just want to cry. So stay away from me otherwise I'll start bawling,” she said, raising a finger as if in warning.

 

“W-what…?” he cried. `I make her cry…?'

 

“Oh, don't be like that!” she said, sparing him a glance. “It's just that whenever I'm feeling sad and I'm with someone close to me, I cry. Like I can't hold it back even if I want to. I don't know… it's like I don't have any defences because you see right through them. So I cry because I can't hold the tears back. I have nothing to hold them back with! No defences, nothing.”

 

Inuyasha continued to look at her side profile as he slowly made sense of what she meant. His shoulders sagged a little in understanding and he stepped closer towards the girl, looking directly down at her bowed head.

 

“The time pearl is gone now,” he said, keeping his voice level. “And crying aside, why are you still avoiding me?”

 

Kagome looked up at him and frowned. “You know why; Naraku will let Onigumo loose if I don't do what he says.”

 

“And that was to get the time pearl which is now gone. But if Naraku has no more use for you, there's no reason for you to sacrifice yourself any more because there's no reason for Onigumo to hold back. You don't have Naraku's protection, you can only rely on me-us!” he quickly corrected.

 

“But if I go to you, Naraku will let Onigumo attack and kill you!”

 

“What makes you think anything is going to stop him once he has you? He'll come after us anyway and kill us because Naraku won't be preventing him from getting you!”

 

“Inuyasha!”

 

He grabbed her shoulders. “I said I wouldn't leave you alone!! That was my promise, wasn't it?!”

 

There was silence in the forest. Inuyasha watched Kagome look at him with a strange expression; regret, sadness, surprise and… yearning? Desperate to emphasise his point he kept her gaze, never blinking, never straying away from her watering eyes. Strange how he felt like he could almost lose his thoughts within their chocolate brown depths…

 

Without warning, Kagome slumped forward, her head resting onto his chest. “I guess I thought if I kept running away, you would stop coming after me.”

 

Relishing in the proximity of her body, he squeezed her shoulders tighter to him before looking away, heat flowing to his face. “Feh. I'd keep coming back. Didn't anyone ever tell you that running away never solves anything?”

 

Kagome suddenly pulled her head away to look directly at him, her eyes wide in surprise. Inuyasha nearly jumped at the strong stare.

 

“W-what?”

 

“Wow, Inuyasha. You can say really smart things sometimes.”

 

“GAH! You say it like that's surprising!!”

 

His about-to-be-furious-rant was cut short when she rested her cheek back on his chest, directly over his heart and relaxed against him. “So, it's really okay for me to stay with you?”

 

Smiling softly, he moved his arms to wrap around her back and take a deep breath of her scent. “Yeah, stay here, cry, do whatever you want as long as you stay here…”

 

Kagome giggled. “Can I call you Koinu-chan?”

 

“No!!”

 

She laughed a little louder and Inuyasha found it hard to stay angry. He sighed, contented, as an involuntary smile spread over his face. She wasn't running away from him. He didn't have that tight, irritated feeling he would get in her absence anymore. She was in his arms again, safe. He'd won.

 

Inuyasha paused as a new thought rose in his mind. She had said it again. That name she had given him when he was a child. That confirmed everything. She really was the one from his childhood. And the time pearl was gone. That was what Kagura had said…

 

Slowly pieces of the puzzle began filling in the spaces of his mind as he tried to make sense of what had happened. The time pearl was gone, and Kagome reappeared in that light with different clothes on, which really did mean she had used the pearl to go back in time. But she was human, so how…?

 

“Hey, Kagome…” he began softly. “How come-?”

 

Inuyasha suddenly felt a rush of adrenaline pulse through his heart, squeezed Kagome closer and jumped before his mind had the chance to register the humongous white spear aiming straight for them. He only just managed to get away as the lance hit the ground with such force, the shock wave cracked the earth in pieces, uprooting all the trees around them. The hanyou faintly heard Kagome's surprised screech and landed on an even patch of ground taking in the change of their environment.

 

Where there used to be a thick forest was now a very messy clearing. There were huge hunks of land and broken tree stumps sticking out at uneven angles around a crater where the white spear was sticking out of. Inuyasha felt his heart thump as breathed in through his nose.

 

Yes… he knew that spear and he knew this nauseating stench!

 

“Huh! And I thought my aim was getting better!” came a dark voice above them.

 

He felt Kagome tense. Inuyasha gritted his teeth and crushed her waist to his before slowly looking up at the figure standing on a tall boulder that had somehow survived the impact of the attack. Blue arms crossed over a green scaled chest, spikes protruding viciously from his back, eyes gleamed maliciously as Onigumo smirked down on them with fanged teeth.

 

“Hey Kagome, Half Breed. Heard the time pearl was gone. I've come to collect what's mine.”

 

 

 

 

A/N: Aaargh! `nother cliffie! Anyway, hope you enjoyed it!