AN- Thanks notoes for the beta work and your suggestions on this chapter! Loyal reviewers you rock! If you want to keep up with my updates, copy paste this link and join my notify list www. angelfire. com / anime5 /silverangels [take out the spaces for it to work! And by the way my site isn't finished so don't venture in there xD].

Chapter 8

In The Dark

Darkness within

Sango was late. She was supposed to have met Miroku over 30 minutes ago but she had overslept. Her lazy boyfriend had made a 'date' to help out at the temple. She rolled her eyes. That meant she'd be doing most of the work. She threw her gym bag in the trunk of her car and hastily hopped into the front seat. She turned the key and smiled when she heard the purr of her motor. She loved this car, it was her pride and joy, her first big purchase when she moved out of the Higurashi home and started to live independently. She popped in her Three Days Grace CD and lost herself in the music, staring at the road ahead of her. A flash made her look up into her rearview mirror. She noticed a car driving close to her. She narrowed her eyes. That car had been around her home for a few days now and she was getting suspicious. Was she being followed?

Sango pressed on the gas and let her fingers drum to the drums of the song while she kept a careful eye on the car behind her at the same time. She frowned; the car seemed to be getting closer to her, which made her uncomfortable. She watched the scenery pass her and mentally checked all the areas she needed to pass to get to the temple. She was still a little unsure about the location of the Temple and she had a careful list mappedout in her mind to find her way. It was slow but it got her there.

She looked up again in her mirror and noticed that the navy car had disappeared and she sighed with relief. 'Just my imagination, I'm not interesting enough to be followed. This isn't some kind of spy movie Sango' she scolded to herself. She turned to the right after the fifth set of lights 'Check' and lifted her eyes from the road for just a moment, to check her list hanging by her steering wheel when she felt a huge nudge hit her car, heard a crash and felt her car slide off the road and hop onto the side walk. She blinked. 'What the hell just happened?' She looked around her to see her car bent, the metal twisted at the front and the glass of her windshield cracked and split in an array of veins. Rage suddenly filled her. "My fucking car!" She was seething and when Sango was seething, you better run for your life.

She pushed the door opened and stepped out of her car, looked over the damage and raged. She turned her angry glare to the person responsible and saw him falter a little. She narrowed her eyes at him, letting her stare burn holes into the man and pointed at him "You!" her voice was dripping with enough venom to make the paint melt off a building.

"Umm… me?" the man answered.

"You! You broke my car!" she hissed at him. He weakly nodded. "Apparently." She looked over to his car to see what damaged he had suffered and she gasped. It was the navy car that had been trailing her.

"Who are you?" she asked. Her temper was suddenly calm and she had a nervous tone to her voice. The man only smiled at her.

"That's not really important. I wanted to ask you some questions but it seems that I was careless in my driving and accidentally hit your car."

"Sure. What do you want?"

The man walked slowly to her and she took a step back from him. She looked around to see if there were any witnesses but she saw that they were alone. She grabbed at her purse and fumbled through it to get her tazer out. The man stopped and lifted his hands in the air, as a show that he would not harm her in the open or in daylight. His eyes flashed dangerously and Sango sensed an energy eminate from him.

"I merely am curious about a certain individual." She frowned. "And who would that be?"

He flicked his long dark hair from his face and flashed her a smile. "I was wondering if you would be so kind to tell me if you had seen a man of unusual silver hair around?" Sango gave him a wary look. "What do you mean?"

He casually looked around the scene of the accident, feigning interest at his car's condition and replied "I've been watching you and your friends and I know you speak to a silver haired man once in a while." Sango held in a breath.

"I don't know who you are talking about." She answered carefully. No one knew of Inuyasha's true identity and she wasn't about to tell a weird looking stranger. She felt an energy wrap around her and she held her breath.

"Now, now Sango. I'll know if you are lying."

Her eyes widen in surprise 'How does he know my name?' "I know of a silver haired guy at my school but I don't really talk to him that much. He hangs around us sometimes because of school projects." She responded. The man narrowed his eyes at her, trying to figure out if what she said was the complete truth and he seemed satisfied with her answer because she felt the dark energy release her.

"We'll keep in touch Sango. Here is my card if you remember anything else and the insurance information is on the back." He bowed to her and returned to the driver seat of his car and left her standing in the road. Sango looked down to the paper and fought a sudden chill against her skin.

She needed to speak with Miroku.

***

Miroku looked out to the gardens before him, the sun was burning his skin and a small coat of sweat was building on his naked torso. He had been raking in the temple gardens for the last hour and the heat of the sun was starting to make him sleepy. He sat down near the cooling pond and stared at the fish in the water. He shuddered, those so-called goldfish had mutated into giants and it was disturbing. He wiped at his brow and sighed. Where was Sango? She had told him she would be here at noon and it was now 2 p.m. He leaned against the back of the bench and closed his eyes, enjoying the peace of his surroundings. One thing he did love about the temple was the garden; it always brought him a sense of peace and protection. His father used to bring him out here all the time when he was a young boy, he always told him that 'if things seemed to get crazy, just come back here to think, it always seems to help'. Miroku opened his eyes and looked ahead of him. How he missed his father.

Miroku was about to get up and try Sango again on the phone but he heard her cursing a blue streak before she opened the doors to the outside garden. She was fuming about something.

"Sango love, what is the matter?" he chirped at her, arms opened for a hug. She obliged him the hug in return and gave him a short smile. Irritation was conquering her fine features.

"Some stupid idiot ran into my car before I got here. Took me two hours to get through all the paperwork and get that idiot to give up his information." She seethed. Miroku bent down and kissed her lips with a soft laugh. She was cute when she was mad. Sango relaxed at his touch and forgot about why she was mad. 'Oh yeah, that idiot broke my car' She got angry all over again. Miroku sighed. It would be a few hours before she would calm down so he returned to his raking and listening to his girlfriend ranting about the 'idiot' and the only other sentence he could make out were 'who the hell does he think he is?'

"Why don't you tell me what happened from the beginning?" he quietly told her. She was barely making sense and he was getting a headache from her fuming. Sango took in a deep breath to calm herself, sat down on the bench and pressed her fingers to her temples, rubbing them slightly. She started to tell him the story while Miroku kept raking his leaves, nodding and listening.

Sango had stopped ranting for about 30 minutes before Miroku finally looked up; she was lazily sitting on the bench and watching him rake. He grinned; she looked like a cat drinking in the heat of the sun. She was staring down to the mutant fish and making cooing sounds at them, trying to get their attention. Miroku walked up to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

"Feel better now?" he inquired. He heard her sigh and nod. "I just wished he didn't completely creep me out." She said quietly. 'Creep you out?' 'What do you mean?" Miroku peered down to her face and brought his hand to her chin, forcing her to look at him.

"The guy creeped me out. I could sense it from him; there was something eerie about him, like a dark energy. It made my skin crawl." She unconsciously rubbed her arms at the memory, trying to keep the invisible chill away despite the sun on her. Her boyfriend wrapped his arms around her in a tender embrace, trying to reassure her. "He asked some really weird questions."

"Like what?"

"Like about if I knew the silver hair man I keep talking to." Sango looked out to the pond. Miroku frowned. "Silver hair? Like Inuyasha's?" She nodded. "Yeah. I told him that I wasn't sure what he was talking about and he wouldn't give me his information until I told him something. I could sense he was using something to see if I was telling him the truth so I told him I saw someone with hair like that around my school but I didn't say anymore than that."

Miroku frowned again. Who would be looking for Inuyasha? And why? Was that man watching Sango? He felt a surge of rage flash through him. No one threatened his Sango. "What was the guy's name?" Sango grabbed her purse from the ground and dug her fingers through it, grabbing a piece of paper, she handed it to him. Miroku grabbed it and read the gold kanji, watching it shimmer against the white of the card. He let his fingers feel the bumps of the ink, as though he was trying to sense the person behind the name.

"Naraku Rukh?"

* * *

Kagome sighed and watched Inuyasha disappear up the stairs to her bathroom. She muffled a giggle at the memory of the look on Inuyasha's face when he heard her mother ask her to 'clean up and meet her in the kitchen' he looked a little horrified. She had changed her pants before meeting with her mom because they had gotten a 'little' sticky 'more like a lot sticky' she corrected herself, and she doubted she could have a serious conversation with her mother and have a wet spot on her pants. She watched Inuyasha come back into the kitchen and give her a worried look; she gave him a shy smile and winked at him in reassurance.

He was nervous. He wasn't sure how much her mother had heard or seen from their afternoon 'break.' She had come in after he had flattened his ears to his head but he didn't have the concealing spell on him when she was in the room. Kagome fidgeted next to him, nervous also but more embarrassed than anything else.

"Kagome dear," her mother was staring at her cup of tea on the table "I know you're a young woman of 23 and you can do as you please with your boyfriend but not in the living room." She looked up to the couple and her eyes held a 'Dare me to say it again' look Inuayasha noted and both he and Kagome gulped. No one messes with that look, especially from Mrs. Higurashi. "And in the middle of the day of all things." She added.

Kagome groaned mentally, she was having trouble keeping still and Inuyasha had wrapped his fingers around her hand in an effort to stop her from fidgeting. She was glad he had stayed after they had straightened themselves out. It didn't look like her mother had seen Inuyasha's ears when she was at the doorway; he had managed to flatten them on his head while she was playing with them before her mother made her entrance.

Kagome had stopped listening to her mother after she uttered the word 'day', she was completely mortified at being caught by her mother. She could of have dealt with Souta walking in on them since she had walked in on him and Reina or heard them more times than she could count. Her mother still wasn't quite aware of that little bit of information that her brother and his girlfriend were like bunnies in heat. Blech, it still made her ill thinking about it.

She watched Souta come in from the back door and pause, staring at her and Inuyasha and a funny look came over his face. She narrowed her eyes at him in warning. He only grinned at her and pointed to Inuyasha. She looked over to her boyfriend and noticed he seemed subdued; his head down, eyes on the floor and his shoulders drooped. Since she was able to see through his concealing spell now, she could see his ears drooping in shame and embarrassment. He was so cute. She had to hold back the giggle. It was rare to see him this way.

Souta seemed to have put two and two together because she heard him snicker and she shot him a 'I'm going to kill you later you brat' glare. She even made a point to make her eyes flare with her miko power just to add effect and he gulped loudly and hurriedly ran up the stairs to his room.

Kagome looked back to her mother who was still ranting about the conduct of a proper young lady and how a man should treat such a young lady. She mentally kept correcting her mother's use of 'man' with 'hanyou' so she would stop from laughing out loud. She heard the phone ring in the back room and saw her mother get up to pick it up. She felt Inuyasha's fingers tighten around her own and she heard him whisper an apology. She looked at him and laughter danced in her eyes.

"It's not your fault Inuyasha, I forgot mom was coming back today. Otherwise I would have been way more careful about our 'amorous affair'" she said with a fake French accent. Inuyasha laughed.

"You know, French people don't actually sound like that." He smirked.

"Oh? And you would know how?"

"I speak the language and trust me, they don't sound like that." She raised an eyebrow.

"You speak French? Since when?"

"In my bored days as a near immortal hanyou I had to go somewhere to entertain myself, the hookers there are fabulous." He said in a haughty voice. She punched him hard in the shoulder. She was mad and he started laughing.

"Hookers? You slept with hookers?" she was nearly screaming at him. His eyes were tearing up and his stomach was killing him but the look on her face was priceless. When he finally got himself under control, Kagome was getting ready to leave the kitchen in a huff. He grabbed her arm and gave her a quick peck on the cheek. "No, I would never sleep with a woman I did not intend to make my mate" he said seriously. She looked at him curiously. "Then why did you say that?"

"I love that face you make when you get mad." He smirked. She hissed at him in annoyance but her eyes were smiling.

"So are you intending to make me your mate?" she asked him. He paused and his face faltered. Her eyes widened in surprise at his sudden reaction.

"What's wrong?"

Inuyasha swallowed and opened his mouth to answer her question but Mrs. Higurashi came back into the room and stopped him from answering her question.

"Inuyasha, Miroku is on the line for you. It sounds fairly important." Inuyasha nodded and Kagome stared after him as he got up and reached for the cordless phone in her mother's hands. She frowned. Had she said something wrong?

***

Inuyasha closed the door of Kagome's bedroom behind him and brought the phone to his 'ear' to listen to Miroku.

"What's up Miroku?"

"Inuyasha, there was a man looking for you today."

"A man?" he inquired. "What did he look like?" He heard Miroku mumble something to someone and a female voice answered his question. 'Must be Sango.'

"Sango says he had long black hair, seemed almost aristocratic in his stance. His voice was 'creepy'" Miroku snorted at her and heard a faint 'that description is pretty useless Sango' and a 'YOU go back there and talk to him then!' Inuyasha grinned. Those two were always at each other's throat.

"Anyways," Miroku continued "He asked if Sango knew any silver haired men in the area and apparently he knew of some magics because she felt him truth probe him." Inuyasha blinked.

"What? How do you know all this stuff?" he growled out. Miroku paused 'Shit, he doesn't know that we know he's a hanyou!' Sango glared at him and mouthed 'You're such an idiot' at him. He could only nod and he sighed.

"Well?" The hanyou was getting impatient. Miroku twisted the phone cord between his fingers and bit the inside of his cheek. He could loose a very good friend in the next ten seconds.

"Sango and I know you are a hanyou." There. He finally said it. He held his breath for a moment as Inuyasha remained silent at the end of the phone line. Sango stepped closer to Miroku, perking her ear closer to the phone in an effort to hear the conversation. Her eyes were twinkling with worry and she grabbed her boyfriend's hand in support.

"You do? Was it that obvious?" Inuyasha asked in a faint voice.

Miroku sighed, he didn't sound mad. "Well, to those with strong spiritual powers, we can see the shimmer of the concealing spell. Sango just knows because Kagome has been speaking about it." He heard Inuyasha snort at his answer and curse something about 'women' and 'their talks.' "So what kind are you?" Miroku asked him.

"Keh. What does my name say?"

"Dog she-demon?" Miroku said with laughter in his voice. "Keh! I'm a dog demon!" he answered, ignoring the jab at his name. "Let's get back on topic here, I don't have time for this!" he growled out at his friend, who was currently laughing at him with his girlfriend echoing every sound.

"What was this man's name? Do you know?" he barked out at them, trying to drown out the laughter.

"Yes" answered Miroku. "It was Naraku."

Inuyasha gripped the phone tightly between his fingers and bared his teeth to the name. Anger raged inside him at the six-letter name and he let out a deep menacing growl that made Miroku swallow in fear.

"What did you say?"

***

Sesshomarou looked out of his front door window. He could see a man standing in front of his door, patiently waiting for someone to open it. Sesshomarou stood behind the door, one hand on the handle and he paused there. Something was telling him not to open the door. He frowned. This Sesshomarou was not one to pause at anything.

He opened the door only to see the dark haired man walking away from his home and hop into the car. Sesshomarou narrowed his eyes and took a quick glance around his property. He noted a small envelope taped to his door and grabbed it. It was marked for 'The silver haired owner of the home'. He raised an eyebrow and fingered the texture of the paper envelope.

He moved back inside and closed the door behind him. Rin asked him who was at the door and when her mate didn't answer, she peered at him from the living room doorway and gave him a tolerant look.

"Well? Who was it?" she asked him. Sesshomarou looked up from the envelope and walked towards her. "I'm not sure, the person left before I answered the door." He glanced to the letter "but they did leave this in their haste." He handed her the envelope. She pouted her lip slightly in thought and let her fingers travel the length of the envelope; she brought it her nose and tentatively sniffed it. "Well, it smells fine." He rolled his eyes at her in annoyance. "Are you going to open it?" she handed him the envelop and he bit at the inside of his cheek in thought.

"Yes."

He made his way to the library with Rin following close behind him, falling into his step; he reached his desk and sat behind it, grabbing the envelope knife and dipping it into the flesh of the paper. The house seemed unusually quiet as the echo of the rip sounded clear through the room.

Sesshomarou grabbed the letter and let his eyes swallow every word on that paper. He heard something very faint surround him. A cold feeling over came him and a deep growl burst from his chest. Rin swallowed hard as his eyes closed and his hands fisted, crumpling the letter.

"What is it?" she stepped forward cautiously. Her voice was laced with worry and she wanted her husband to answer her, to open his eyes. Sesshomarou didn't respond. The air around him suddenly grew cold and she saw a glow form around him. She suddenly felt panicked. Her husband was … 'Not now… not here!'

She ran to him, grabbing the letter from his fingers and tore the paper apart with her small fists, she could feel it in her soul, their bond had screamed at her to do this. She saw her mate falter, leaning heavily against his desk, breathing heavily. She grabbed the remaining paper on the ground, fisting them in her hands and threw them in the fireplace of the library, rushing madly through the room looking for matches. She could hear her mate's growl growing and she turned to him to see his eyes open and she paused, utterly terrified. His eyes were red and his transformation was taking place. She had to stop it and quick.

She ran to the fireplace, her shaking hands grabbing for the box of matches. 'How did I forget that they were here?' she scrambled to get the match lit. She could hear him stepping towards her, she could hear him in her mind, a low plea filled with an unusual emotion for her mate: fear.

:Rin! Run! I cannot control my transformation!:

She whimpered, tears threatening to fall from her eyes. She could feel his pain,his fear and it was making her want to run out of the room. It only made her more determined. She frantically struck the match, praying for it to work. She dropped the box and watched as the matches spilled across the floor. She panicked as she scrambled to grab at the loose sticks and fumbled to scratch them against the striker. After four tries it finally came to life. She tentatively looked over her shoulder while she brought the fragile flame to the torn paper. She saw her mate struggling to keep control, on his hands and knees, struggling to slow himself. She could sense the darkness that had come over him. She turned her eyes from her mate to the fire and sighed with relief; the flame was licking the paper.

A hand reached out to her and grabbed her arm; she screamed and kicked her mate in an attempt to get him to let her go. This god awful sound came from his throat, a scream in Inuyoukai she faintly thought. She didn't know what it meant but she grimaced as his nails began to dig into her flesh and she whimpered, she could feel the unwanted tears slipping down her cheeks. She felt so helpless when she looked up to see that his eyes were not the ones of her mate, her loving husband.

:Where are you Sesshomarou?:

She pleaded to him in her mind, looking for him. She closed her eyes as she felt his breath licking her neck, his face was creeping closer to her, his fingers digging deeper until she thought he was going to rip her flesh from the bone. He let out an anguished scream in her mind and she nearly fainted from the force of it. She felt the vibration of his feral growl and the nicking of his teeth on her neck. She let out a sob and grabbed her mate by the arms, squeezing his flesh in a last attempt to wake him.

:Sesshomarou! Come back to me!:

She cried out to him one last time as she felt his teeth begin to slip into her skin and his growl increased in his efforts to slow himself. He had to win this fight with himself or they would be lost. She felt him whimper and his hands released her. He stepped away from her, stumbling backwards and he fell to the ground. Sesshomarou looked to her and gold was returning to his eyes.

"R..Rin…?" he asked her, weakly when he saw his frightened mate. He was confused at what had just happened. He could see her standing next to a blazing fire, her face streaked with tears and her arms bloodied. 'Did I do that?' he passed out as Rin ran to him, arms stretched out to him and he saw her worried face come close to his before everything went dark around him.

Rin fell to the ground next to him, ignoring the pain in her arms; she cradled the head of her unconscious mate and sobbed. 'What happened? Why did you start to transform?' She looked up to the fire and watched the letter burn. She noticed a small flare and heard a popping sound. She gently put down the head of her mate to the floor and crawled over to the fireplace. She peered down to the envelope and noticed black plastic melting from the seam. She frowned. She tentatively reached into the fire and pulled out the burning paper, blowing the flames away and brought it closer to her. It looked like a small device, you know, the kind you find in a card that sings. She listened closely and heard a sound so light that she assumed only Sesshomarou would have been able to hear it. It only lasted a few more seconds before she felt a shock. The device had burned and she bit her lip in wonder. Was this the cause of her mate's change?

She held the envelope close to her body and looked over to her mate who was stirring to life. She crawled over to him and laid her head on his chest while he struggled to wake up from his nightmare. She closed her eyes and breathed in his scent to calm herself. Sesshomarou wrapped his arms around her and said nothing. He was lost in thought. He couldn't remember what had happened to him. All he remembered were the words of that letter. He stared down to his mate clutching his body and frowned, that letter had done something to him and he needed to find out whom that man was. His brother could know more of this incident.

* *

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