InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 3: Forever ❯ Finding Things Lost ( Chapter 12 )

~~Chapter 12~~

~Finding Things Lost~

 

It was cold---bitterly cold.

 

`Damn Ryo and his stupid ideas,' Nezumi thought sourly as she stomped through the thick blanket of snow. Her feet were starting to numb, which was almost preferable since they'd been aching just moments before. Then again, she'd heard before that after `numb' came frostbite, and if she ended up frostbitten, she'd kill Ryomaru, no questions asked.

 

He'd started it. He was the reason she was out here freezing. If he hadn't called her a coward . . .

 

She really had to learn to ignore that word. It got her into more trouble than it was worth. `Coward' had gotten her to help him break into the candy vending machine. `Coward' had made her drop water balloons off the top of the school building onto a few of the first graders. `Coward' had forced her into sitting on the handlebars of Ryo's bike while he popped wheelies, and she fell off. `Coward' was the one word that Ryomaru knew she couldn't brush off, and that was why she was out here, wandering around in the snow.

 

And for what? Nezumi snorted as she hitched the backpack over her shoulder and floundered on. `So he can have a stupid date with this week's `Flavor of the Moment'? He'll be bored with her by next week---two weeks, tops. What a baka . . .'

 

“Come on, Nez! I'd do it if I could, but the old man would know I left.”

 

“Shouldn't have gotten in trouble then, baka,” she pointed out as she scribbled the answers to the homework assignment in her notebook.

 

“Rub it in, why don't you?” he grumbled.

 

She didn't answer him.

 

“Just deliver the letter,” he pressed, holding out the plain white envelope.

 

“What part of `no' didn't you get?”

 

Ryomaru leaned back against the headboard, that knowing look she loathed surfacing on his face---loathed it because she knew what was coming, what he was about to say. “I get it. You're scared of crossing the stream in the snow.”

 

“'Scared' has nothing to do with it,” she assured him. “I'm just smarter than you.”

 

“Please?”

 

“No.”

 

“Aw, come on, Nez!”

 

“Hmm . . . no.”

 

He snorted. “Coward.”

 

She grimaced inwardly. “You're such a baka. Give me the damn thing.”

 

Snatching the letter out of his hand, she ignored his perfunctory `thank you' as she shoved her books into her backpack and grabbed her coat. “Next time don't get grounded because I'm not delivering your stupid love letters ever again,” she assured him.

 

“Feh! I don't write love letters!” he argued. “Thanks, Nez.”

 

That didn't even deserve a response, in her opinion. Nezumi heaved a sigh and stomped out of Ryomaru's room.

 

“Going home so soon, Deirdre?” Kagome asked as Nezumi headed for the front door. “Wait a second. The news just said the busses are being called in for the night. You should just stay here.”

 

“That's okay,” Nezumi grumbled, staring at the envelope clutched in her hand. “I'll be fine.”

 

She slipped out the door before Kagome could argue with her. `Stupid Ryo . . . He'd better appreciate this . . .'

 

A loud rattle-tap erupted behind her. Nezumi turned around as she tugged a woolen cap over her head. Ryomaru waved once from his window. He smiled at her, and she swallowed hard, shaking her head and trudging away into the swirling snow.

 

The temperature was dropping fast as night approached. She was almost to the `scary' stream, which meant she had nearly reached the edge of the forest, and the small subdivision where Ryomaru's latest love interest lived. `Why am I doing this?' Nezumi asked herself for the fiftieth time as she scowled at the letter clutched in her mitten-covered hand.

 

`Because he called me a coward, and I can't stand that.'

 

`Right. Baka.'

 

Unfolding her arms, Nezumi scowled at the envelope, now damp with melted snow. The wind caught the corner and nearly whisked it out of her grasp. Her scowl darkened as she stared. The flap was tucked into the envelope but it wasn't sealed.

 

`It'd serve him right, if you read it.'

 

She hadn't realized she'd stopped walking. She made a face as she turned the envelope over in her hands, read Ryomaru's hurried scrawl on the front.

 

`I can't read it! It's not written to me, and what do I care what he wrote her? I don't!'

 

With a disgusted snort, Nezumi shoved the envelope into her coat pocket and stomped off toward the fallen tree that traversed the stream. There was a small footbridge but it was much further downstream and her body was already nearly numb. The snow was escalating with the wind, blowing at her in gusts so thick that she had to stop a couple of times before she reached the tree to get her bearings again.

 

`Good thing the log's been here awhile,' she thought with a grimace as she fought to lift her foot the requisite six inches to scale it. The fallen tree was thick---easily three feet in diameter, and worn down almost flat since it was the preferred way to cross the stream. It was also embedded in the ground, which was why it wasn't that difficult to climb, and it extended across the thirty-foot wide gap over the stream.

 

The wind whipped her pants, cut through the fabric with a brutal force. The prickling sensation in her legs had diminished, and when she moved, she could feel her muscles extend and contract, but they didn't feel like a part of her body. She could feel the coarse material of her jeans rubbing against her skin, but the sensation was dulled, blunted. Her face felt paralyzed, and for the first time, she started to wonder if leaving the Izayoi house hadn't been a very big mistake . . .

 

“Almost there,” she told herself as she slowly picked her way across the log. The stream was iced over, but it had been unseasonably warm yesterday that she didn't delude herself into thinking that the ice was stable. The fallen tree, she knew, had a few places that would be harder to navigate since the entire thing was blanketed with snow. The deceptive covering hid the knothole, buried the remains of stumpy limbs that were too easy to catch shoes against. Ryomaru and Kichiro had broken the limbs off long ago to make the tree user-friendly. Nezumi gritted her teeth and shuffled her feet slowly as she crossed the two-foot high chasm.

 

It happened so quickly and yet here in her dream, there was a strange sort of lethargy to the entire scenario. The crack was loud, deafening, drawn out so long and so slowly that she had time to feel the rise of panic, the swell of terror. She realized before her foot slipped that she was going to fall. It hadn't made sense to her, at that time and in that place. `The log . . . cracked?' But it didn't break. The groaning rumble shook the solid surface under her feet, and as hard as she fought to hang onto her footing, she teetered precariously, mouth opening in a silent scream swallowed in the void of her dream. Her foot slipped---she could feel it scrape against the rough tree bark, and then she was falling.

 

Two feet separated the tree from the surface of the ice; two feet that seemed like two hundred thousand. `I should scream,' she thought in a disjointed calm. `Why don't I scream?'

 

She hit the ice hard, the breath rushing out of her body with the impact. The books in her backpack dug into her spine before the ice crackled, broke with the jarring sound like shattering glass. She felt her heart miss a beat as the frigid water closed around her, biting into the body she had thought was quite numb with the ferocity of a dagger stabbing into her flesh over and over. Her arms flailed wildly as the bulk of her coat and bag tried to pull her down. Panicking as she fought against the burn in her lungs, she kicked her feet as they touched the rocky bed, propelling herself toward the surface as she waved her arms in a frantic effort to break the water's surface. Fighting against the undercurrent made the ordeal that much more difficult, and when she finally, mercifully broke through, she gasped as she lunged toward the jagged edge of the ice.

 

`Get out of here or I'll . . .'

 

She didn't dare finish that thought. The ice kept crumbling, and she jerked off her soaked mittens. The air hitting her wet skin was excruciating, a freeze so deep that it felt more like a burn.

 

Dragging herself forward, she forced herself to move. Her hair was frozen to her neck, to her cheek, and she could feel the edges of exhaustion fighting against the will to live. It seemed like forever before her feet finally scraped the ground. She only knew she was standing because of the dull jarring ricocheting through her legs as her feet impacted the rocky streambed.

 

Staggering toward shore, convincing herself that she was almost safe, Nezumi let her legs break apart the ice as she waded. It felt like hours when she finally collapsed next to the tree trunk.

 

Movement hurt.

 

Too cold to shiver, too tired to force herself back to her feet, Nezumi huddled there. The blowing snow stuck to her, started to cover her. Grogginess washed over her in waves, dulling the cold, the wind, the blowing snow.

 

`Don't . . . sleep . . . Nez . . .'

 

She whimpered softly, a sound that was foreign to her. She wanted to cry. She could feel tears welling up inside her. They wouldn't spill over, and she squeezed her eyes closed, grimacing at the sharp ache thickening her throat. Her lips cracked, split, and she felt the heat of blood trickling from the lacerations.

 

Stuffing her hands into her pockets as she tried to find some sort of warmth, she frowned at the thick folded damp envelope as she drew it out of her pocket. `Ryo's letter . . .'

 

It didn't occur to her that she shouldn't read it. It didn't register that the letter wasn't addressed to her. Absently peeling away the soggy remains of the envelope, she carefully unfolded the short piece of writing paper. It was folded one time, down the center lengthwise. If it had been folded any more than that, she never would have managed it. Her fingers were stiff, uncooperative, but she finally got the paper open, protecting it from flying away as she smoothed it against her raised knees.

 

Ryomaru's scrawl was legible despite the slight smear the water had on the ink. Nezumi shook her head, blinked rapidly as she struggled to focus on the bold lettering in the gathering darkness.

 

:

 

`Mai,

 

`I thought about the other night; about what you said. I honestly can't see why you feel that way or how you'd think you'd have the right to tell me what I can and can't do, anyway. It's pretty damn stupid, if you ask me. If you really thought you could tell me what to do, then you're out of your mind. I don't discard my friends, and Nezumi is one of my friends. She's never shown interest in me that way, and even if she did, it really ain't your business, so if you can't accept that, then just forget it.

 

`Ryo.'

 

:

 

Nezumi stared at the paper, sure she had to have misread it. `Ryo's breaking up with her? Because of me? Because Mai doesn't like having me around? Why? She's prettier than me, smarter than me . . . she has more friends than I do . . . She's not stupid enough to go running around in the freezing cold . . .'

 

Another blast of air hit her. Nezumi crumpled the paper and held it against her chest as she leaned back against the log, her eyes drifting closed as a comfortable fog wrapped around her brain. `Cold . . .'

 

With a start, Nezumi awoke; warm and dry, comfortable in her own bed. Blinking in the darkness, it took a moment to orient herself. She sat up slowly and gazed around at the bedroom she knew so well. Goosebumps covered her arms, and she rubbed them away as she pulled up her knees and sighed. `That night . . . I forgot all about it . . .'

 

She remembered waking up when someone carefully lifted her off the ground. She thought it was InuYasha, because she recognized his voice, but nothing had been clear to her then, even when he kept shaking her and making her talk---almost making her cry. Movement had caused pain to erupt throughout her body, and all she wanted to do was sleep.

 

She sighed and reached over, fumbling around to turn on the lamp. `We were . . . how old? Sixteen? Why did I dream about that?'

 

A soft knock made her head snap up. Ryomaru stuck his head in the room. He looked bleary-eyed and half-asleep, but he blinked in the sudden light and stifled a wide yawn. “You okay? I saw your light under the door.”

 

“Yeah,” she assured him with a weak laugh. “Go back to bed. I didn't mean to wake you up.”

 

He waved a hand as he pushed the door open wider and stumbled inside. “Nah. I was in the bathroom.” Pushing her shoulder, he sank down beside her. “Scoot, Nez.”

 

“Don't get comfortable,” she warned but did slide over. “Do you remember the blizzard?”

 

There had been other blizzards before and there had been other blizzards since, but for reasons she didn't delve into very deeply, she had a feeling that he would understand.

 

“Yeah, I do.”

 

“I . . . I never told you. I read it . . . your letter.”

 

“You did?”

 

Nezumi nodded, hugging her knees tighter. “I forgot. I hadn't thought about that in years.”

 

Ryomaru snorted. “No big deal. It wasn't the first or the last time I broke up with a girl because of you.”

 

“Really?”

 

He shrugged and stretched out beside her, sticking his hands under his neck as he stared at the ceiling. “Nah. Dunno why. Girls didn't like that you were my friend.”

 

“And you . . . broke up with them because of me?”

 

He shot her a `Don't-Be-Stupid' look. “Well, yeah, why wouldn't I?”

 

“Should I be sorry?”

 

He snorted. “Feh. Nope.” Turning his head, he eyed her for a long moment. “Why were you thinking about that night, anyway?”

 

She rested her chin on her raised knees. “I dreamt about it. I hadn't thought about that night in years. You never asked me about the letter.”

 

A strange look darkened his features, as though he were remembering something he'd rather forget. “I didn't want to.”

 

“Why not?”

 

He looked away, and Nezumi frowned at the redness that filtered into his cheeks. “Because . . . it was my fault. You were out there, and . . . and I never said I was sorry for that.”

 

She pondered that and slowly shook her head. “That's not right . . . you did. You said you were sorry; that you forgot I wasn't like you.”

 

“You remember that?”

 

Nezumi straightened her legs as she slouched back against the headboard and dragged her pillow up, wrapping her arms around it. “Sort of. It was while I was sick, wasn't it?”

 

No doubt about it. He definitely looked guilty. “You got so sick, Nez . . . I never realized until then, just how fragile humans are.”

 

“What did you mean when you said I wasn't like you?”

 

“You aren't hanyou. Sometimes you're so tough, I forget.”

 

She snorted. “You mean, like a guy, right?”

 

He sat up and rolled so quickly as he leaned toward her that she gasped. Eyes glowing in the yellow lamplight, he didn't blink as he stared at her. “I haven't thought of you as one of the `guys' in awhile . . . Deirdre.”

 

A violent shockwave slammed through her body at the sound of her name spilling off his lips. “Don't,” she mumbled, unable to shift her gaze away.

 

“Don't what?” he countered as he leaned in closer.

 

Swallowing hard as her pulse singed a path through her body, roaring in her ears like thunder, she shook her head slowly. “D-don't call me that.”

 

Amusement lit his gaze even more but he didn't smile. “What? Deirdre?”

 

“Ryo---”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“I hate my name,” she whispered as her eyes fell to his lips.

 

“Does hearing it make you feel light-headed?”

 

As though in a trance, unable to stop herself from answering him, she nodded.

 

“Does it make your heart beat faster?”

 

She nodded again.

 

“Does it make you want to kiss me?”

 

“I . . .”

 

“You can, if you want. I won't stop you.” He was close now; close enough that she could feel the heat of him radiating straight to her. “I might,” he whispered, “kiss you back.”

 

She realized he was giving her the control. `My terms,' she thought, her mind bemused by his proximity. “Ryo?”

 

“Yes?”

 

“I . . . I . . .”

 

His voice was low, husky, caressing. “Spit it out, will you, Nez?”

 

She closed her eyes, gathering what was left of her faltering control, grasping at something---anything---to keep her from completely coming undone. “I . . . I have to go to the bathroom.” Pushing him aside, she scooted off the bed and ran out of the room straight to the bathroom where she slammed the door and collapsed back against it, hands pressed against her chest as she struggled to breathe.

 

`Why is he doing this?'

 

Covering her face in her hands, Nezumi sighed as she tried to find an answer. Nothing made sense to her. Nothing was simple.

 

`Sure it is, Nez. Remember the time that girl wouldn't give him the time of day? You saw him. He bent over backward to make sure she noticed him, and when she finally did . . .'

 

Nezumi winced. And when he did, he lost interest in her. That relationship hadn't lasted two weeks.

 

`I keep leftovers in the fridge longer than he keeps girlfriends. What makes anyone think this would be any different?'

 

Maybe Ryomaru would be able to deal, once it was all said and done. Nezumi couldn't. Too much of who she was had been entwined with Ryomaru. He'd been her friend too long, and maybe she'd loved him too long, too. She wouldn't be able to brush herself off and pretend nothing happened. If she couldn't separate herself now, what chance did she have when the dust settled?

 

`You could just take what he offers, can't you? Just enjoy his attention while it lasts?'

 

She sighed. `Sure . . . I could do that. It'd be easy, wouldn't it? It'd be . . . really easy.'

 

`If it'd be so easy, then why didn't you kiss him?'

 

Nezumi shivered as the sound of his voice saying her name echoed in her ears. She refused to answer her own question.

 

 

-=-0-=-0-=-0-=-0-=-0-=-

 

 

Ryomaru watched Nezumi's hasty retreat before flopping back on the bed with a defeated sigh. `Baka! You knew she wouldn't kiss you! Should have just done it.'

 

The problem was, he knew why he hadn't. He'd promised her that they'd do this on her terms, and as much as the tension was killing him, he had to admit that he understood her, too. He'd been too bad for too long, and Nezumi knew that better than anyone. He told her pretty much everything. She was his friend, right? That's what friends did. Trouble was, now it was coming back to bite him right in the ass, and damned if he didn't deserve that, too.

 

If he wanted to be completely honest, he'd have to admit that he'd dated too many women, and Nezumi probably remembered every single one of them better than he did. `Damn . . . she probably remembers their kami-forsaken names . . .'

 

Dragging a tired hand over his face, Ryomaru sighed again and glowered at the ceiling. He'd made a habit of coming over late at night, waking her up to tell her about his latest adventures. More often than not, he told her more than he probably should have. `That was stupid . . . even if we were just friends, how did that seem? What would I have thought, if she had been telling me all that crap?'

 

A low growl escaped him, and when he realized he was doing it, he winced. `I'd have killed the bastard . . .' He sat up, shook his head. `We're just friends . . . It wouldn't have mattered.'

 

`Are you sure?'

 

`Feh! Shut up!'

 

`Fine, but you do realize you're telling yourself to shut up, right?'

 

Deliberately ignoring the voice, he stood up and strode over to the window, idly toying with the nipple stud through the fabric of his t-shirt. The nearly full moon was high in the cold sky. Ryomaru stared at it, remembering another night years ago; a different room but the girl was the same . . .

 

Sitting in the wide windowsill as Nezumi's labored breathing filled the air, Ryomaru tried not to wince, tried to remember Kagome's assurances. “She'll be fine, Ryomaru. She's strong. You know that. Worrying won't help her.”

 

“It's my fault,” he mumbled as he glared at the floor, cheeks flaming, ears drooping miserably.

 

“She left before I could stop her, too. Your father found her as fast as he could. No one knew the storm would kick up that fast. Do you really think Deirdre blames you?”

 

Ryomaru snorted. “She should.”

 

“Damn straight, she should! What the fuck were you thinking, baka? Or were you thinking, at all?”

 

Wincing at his father's brutal honesty, Ryomaru nodded once but didn't lift his head. “I forgot,” he rasped out, his throat choked as his lowered gaze lit on the human girl buried in the pile of blankets on his bed. She hadn't moved since InuYasha brought her in. She hadn't woken up, either.

 

“You forgot? Forgot what?”

 

Ears flattening, Ryomaru shrugged, unable to do much more than that. “I forget sometimes. I forget she ain't like me.”

 

“How can you possibly forget that, Ryo?”

 

`Because,' he thought but didn't say out loud, `because sometimes she's so much tougher than me . . .'

 

“InuYasha,” Kagome admonished as she started out of the room to answer the trilling telephone. Ryomaru understood his mother's unvoiced words. She was asking his father to take it easy. Thing was, InuYasha was right, and Ryomaru . . . well, he knew it.

 

“You'd better hope she's all right,” InuYasha went on. “You'd better start thinking, Ryo, because if you do something this stupid again . . . What the hell would you have done if I hadn't been able to find her?”

 

“I . . . I'd have found her,” Ryomaru insisted.

 

“That's bullshit, Ryo! I barely found her! That blizzard . . . You can't smell a damn thing. You can't see a damn thing. You can't hear a damn thing, either. It was fucking luck I found her at all. How she got out of the water, I'll never know. I have half a mind to throw you in! Damn it, Ryo! This ain't just some stupid prank! Do you realize what you did?”

 

Staring at her ashen skin, the tinge of blue that dusted her lips, her cheeks . . . Ryomaru tried to swallow back the pang of fear that shot through him again. InuYasha was right. If he hadn't found her when he did, if he hadn't kept her awake on the journey back to the house . . . Ryomaru blinked as moisture gathered in his eyes, ashamed of his actions; ashamed that there wasn't a damn thing he could do for her now but shed tears. `I didn't think . . .'

 

“InuYasha, Deirdre's father's on the phone. He'd like to talk to you.”

 

Ryomaru could feel InuYasha's glare before he finally turned and left the room. Kagome slipped an arm around Ryomaru's waist and squeezed. “Your father's just worried about Deirdre.”

 

“No,” Ryomaru forced himself to say, fighting to control the tremor in his voice. “He's right.”

 

“You didn't mean to hurt her, did you?”

 

Ryomaru shook his head.

 

“Don't you think she knows that? You've protected her. You've always been her friend. You showed bad judgment. It happens. Don't beat yourself up over it.”

 

“I . . . I called her a coward. I knew she couldn't ignore that.”

 

Kagome laughed softly as she smoothed Ryomaru's bangs out of his eyes. “Your father used to do that to me, you know. I think I might have done it to him, too. Deirdre's strong. She'll be fine. You just have to believe that, too.”

 

Ryomaru blinked as the memory faded. He had ended up telling Nezumi's father that the entire incident was his fault. He wasn't sure why her father had still let him come around to see her. He hadn't questioned it at the time. He'd been too busy blaming himself for everything, but maybe Nezumi's father had realized that it didn't really matter, who was to blame. Ryomaru was still her best friend, and she had needed him as much as he had needed to be near, to know that she was going to be all right.

 

He wasn't used to seeing her so weak, so sick. It seemed unnatural. The Nezumi he knew was so different from the girl he saw. So vulnerable, so frail-looking, Nezumi seemed to be so far out of his reach that it frightened him. Ryomaru hadn't left her side. She woke up a few times when Kagome had forced medicine into her. The medicine hadn't helped much but it had kept Nezumi's temperature from escalating past a hundred degrees. In those days, Ryomaru had talked to Nezumi a lot. He didn't know if she had heard anything he'd said, and afterward, he hadn't had the nerve to ask her.

 

Nezumi's father had been away on a business trip at the time. He'd been ready to come home but Kagome had convinced him to let Nezumi stay with them, instead. It was nearly three days before the weather cleared. It took almost that long for Nezumi's fever to break. When she woke up, her eyes finally clear and focused, he'd never been more relieved.

 

“You look like hell,” she said as she sat up with a grimace. He stood up to help her. She shot him one of her patented `looks'.

 

“Yeah? So do you,” he countered, grinning for the first time since InuYasha had carried her into the house.

 

“Nice,” she commented with a grimace as she fingered a lock of her matted hair. “What'd I do? Fall into the creek?”

 

He winced at her joke and nodded as he dropped back into his chair. “Yeah, you did.”

 

She made a face. “Gross.” Looking around in sudden confusion, she frowned at him and slowly shook her head. “I was sick, right?”

 

“Just a little.”

 

“Ugh . . . I need a shower.”

 

“Okay. I'll tell Mother.”

 

He got up again and strode out of the room, a guilty sense of relief washing over him. Nezumi really was all right . . .

 

They hadn't really talked about that incident afterward. He couldn't bring it up. He couldn't even think about it without feeling the weight of the remorse all over again.

 

Leaning his forearm on the window frame, Ryomaru let his forehead touch the glass as he closed his eyes. If his scars were that deep from that one memory, just how deep were hers from the many times he'd let her down?

 

 

~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~ *~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~

A/N:

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Reviewers

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Jaunty (AFFnet):

I like this story, and the other purity's but something is bother me. Okay, you don't like the usual mating ceremony people use, so instead you pick a barbaric way? Cut them open until they are nearly dead then merge their blood? Oh yeah, that's a hell of a lot better then a bite. How did you come up with something so vile and think it was better then a bite? You sai dyou can't grasp, or something, the consept of the bite yet you went for something a lot worse! Why? You're stories are really good though!

 

I picked a `barbaric' way because I never had any REAL intention of using it. If I had used the `un-barbaric' bite that is NOT canon, is NOT based in fact, and is … well … demented, then everyone, including you, I'm sure, would have said, “Why can't InuYasha do that? It's not so bad.” Am I right? So to make it obvious, as it should have been all along, that I have no intention of ever USING this method, I intentionally made it as horrid as it could possibly be. I never thought that this `method' was `better' than a bite. In my mind, they're both the same: disgusting. What it boils down to is this: I wouldn't use EITHER of them. The point remains the same: hurting someone you love is not something you do. Whether it was a simple, bite (Hello! If my husband bit me, let alone hard enough to draw blood, he'd be in a world of hurt) or cutting someone wide open, I see no difference. Pain is pain is pain. It shan't be done.

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Ladyblade (MMorg):

Fic recommendations?

 

Gladly! Sari-15, RadiosNmyHead, BakaBokken, kougasprincess, Kellen, all can be found on Media Miner, all have very worthwhile reads, and two can be found in the Featured Fanfictions section!

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MMorg

Aitu ::: DarklessVasion ::: Suze ::: angelica incarnate ::: foamyfan15010 ::: notzathros (Right now I have enough betas, thanks, but I'll keep your offer in mind!!) ::: Iggy Lovechild (Nope, Ryomaru just knows that it's a done deal. I don't think he realizes how he feels about her, yet) ::: Kyonarai ::: serendith (I don't know … hadn't really thought about it. Lol) ::: blzzrd53

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FFnet

Drake Clawfang ::: DarkSerenity93 ::: Nel ::: WiccanMethuselah ::: xSilverShadowsx ::: Flames101 ::: Talisman (No plans on another, as yet. I reserve the right to change my mind. Lol) ::: My Own Self ::: Ryguy5387 ::: ILOVEINUS589 ::: SilverStarWing ::: agent-doo ::: darkpyroangel06 ::: lexi

eave

 

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AFFnet --- AScom--- ATnet

Sess_2005 ::: Deep Serenity ::: fruitcake ::: catt ::: psyco_chick32 ::: mizbum2u (He has a very large company) ::: Sarah ::: Rachel ::: obsesed_wit_fluffy ::: OROsan7706 ::: Jaxomruth ::: Shiga ::: inugrl15 ::: CJ Finnegan ::: littleolmee ::: wlfhund ::: Breezy99 (They were joking about moving back .. it's been about five years … and chapter length just depends on how long it takes to say what I want to say!) ::: Kraffin ::: Eve Nightingale ::: Anon ::: Lady_sttar ::: Alice M. ::: Lisa ::: xenus ::: CheshireAngel ::: jragoneyes

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Final Thought from Ryomaru:

…Damn …

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Blanket disclaimer for this fanfic (will apply to this and all other chapters in Forever): I do not claim any rights to InuYasha or the characters associated with the anime/manga. Those rights belong to Rumiko Takahashi, et al. I do offer my thanks to her for creating such vivid characters for me to terrorize.

 

~Sue~