InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity ❯ Answered Prayers ( Chapter 19 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

InuYasha felt like ripping the kid's head off. He didn't. But he didn't back down, either.

Kagura stepped between the two and pushed InuYasha back. "Houjou-kun, go check your tent." Houjou glared at InuYasha for another moment before complying. Then she turned to InuYasha. "And don't you have something better to do than standing here, trying your hardest to intimidate the students?"

InuYasha's glower switched from Houjou's retreating form to Kagura. "Don't defend the little bastard," he snarled.

Kagura rolled her eyes. "You're so much like your brother it's disgusting."

"Keh! Don't compare me to that—" A soft moan interrupted his tirade, and InuYasha glanced over to the source of it. Then he realized that Kagome was still sitting on the ground in pain, and he immediately dropped back down, dragging the huge backpack with him.

He dug into the huge bag as a sense of déjà vu crashed over him. Fierce memories with the ability to cut him to the quick, InuYasha tried in vain not to remember how often he'd done this before. The bag smelled the same as it had back then, during their travels in search of the shards of the Shikon no Tama. He shifted Kagome's things aside as he searched for the white box that she called a first-aid kit.

He finally found it and pulled it out. His heart skipped a beat. Hooked to the handle of the small plastic box were the sorely missed prayer beads—his prayer beads—his kotodama rosary . . .

He glanced over at the others. They were all talking to Kagome and seemed oblivious to what he was doing. InuYasha tried to put the beads back in the bag. He couldn't. He stared at them, draping through his fingers. They had a pulse of their own, and they whispered to him.

"My beads," he rasped out, letting the box drop from his fingers as he brought the necklace up to study it.

`They're mine after all,' he told himself as a vicious pang of guilt assailed him. She didn't have the right to take them, in the first place. And yet . . . and yet he knew, deep down, that she had removed them from him not to hurt him, but to set him free. She just didn't realize at the time that it was a freedom he never wanted.

"Get out of her things!"

InuYasha hadn't heard Houjou come back. He blinked in surprise and turned slowly as he stood, his glower darkening by the second as he eyed the disgruntled young man. He slipped the prayer beads into his pocket. "I was getting her first aid kit out," he said defensively.

Houjou took another step closer, his mouth twisting into a derisive sneer. "I'll just bet, Izayoi-sensei."

"Step back, Houjou," InuYasha warned, his voice dropping in pitch. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Kagome's irritated expression. She rolled her eyes in exasperation. He ignored it.

"InuYasha," Kagura warned as she tried to settle the rapidly rising tempers.

InuYasha didn't back down. Shippou sighed loudly and snatched the white box out of InuYasha's hands.

"Keep your hands off her," Houjou warned. "I've told you. Kagome is my woman now."

"And I've told you. She's not your property," InuYasha maintained, his voice dropping lower, softer, and somehow more menacing.

"Stop it, both of you!"

InuYasha turned in time to see Kagome struggle to her feet. She swayed slightly but shot him a cold glower when he reached out to steady her. She winced as she tentatively put some weight on her injury. InuYasha silently cursed himself for adding to her already pained expression.

Eri rushed over and steadied Kagome's arm. Yuka grabbed her other arm. Ayumi stood behind. "Can I have my first aid kit now? I'll wrap my ankle myself."

Glancing down, InuYasha realized that he wasn't holding the kit anymore. Shippou held out the box. InuYasha snatched it and shot a quick glower at Houjou before pulling Kagome out of her friends' protection. He carefully picked her up and carried her over to a tree stump before setting her back onto her feet.

She flinched and practically fell as she flopped down. "Give me your foot," he said gently.

Kagome sucked in her breath and lifted the limb. He flinched at the show of pain and offered her an apologetic half-smile as he popped open the case.

He stared at the wrap in his hands and frowned before slowly raising his gaze to lock with hers. She forced a smile which only served to deepen his upset. "This may hurt some," he explained.

She nodded, her eyes clearing, and she stared at him. It was a look he remembered well—the one that said that she completely trusted him. When was the first time he'd seen that expression on her face? InuYasha concentrated as he gently wrapped the bandage around the swollen ankle. A slight grin turned the corners of his lips. It was the same one he first noticed in his father's tomb when she had given him Tetsusaiga . . . `Don't let me down!'

"You need to be more careful," he remarked as surveyed his handiwork.

"I was preoccupied," she admitted. "Anyway, I think that helps. Thanks."

He paused as he dug around for another roll of gauze. "Are you sure you don't want to go home? I'll be happy to take you back . . ."

Kagome made a face. "No, I like being out here. It's nice."

Glancing up at her, her gaze captured his, locking together two souls who knew each other. `If her mind forgot me, did her heart forget me, too?' Staring at each other, InuYasha saw it, deep in her eyes, the knowledge that somewhere inside, her heart did know him . . . If only her mind would remember, too.

"Do you feel up to going on the nature walk?"

InuYasha jumped. Kagura was talking to Kagome. Neither seemed to have noticed his reaction. Kagome assured Kagura that she wanted to go on the walk. InuYasha snorted in response to that. She couldn't walk, let alone hike. Both women turned to eye him. He caught the looks and flushed slightly as he slowly, deliberately, repacked the first aid kit.

"I, uh . . . I'll carry her," he offered, stubbornly willing his face to remain impassive.

Kagome was blushing. She also looked like she was going to argue. Kagura interrupted first. "All right, then. Let me gather everyone together then. Kagome, don't forget your flashlight."

"A-a-a-all right," Kagome stammered. She stared down at her hands, clasped tightly in her lap. InuYasha smiled despite himself. Kagome wasn't that easy to fluster. He got up and put away her first aid kit then retrieved her flashlight. He tossed the small device into the air and caught it as he wandered slowly back to Kagome.

With calculated slowness, InuYasha turned and knelt down before Kagome with his back toward her. "InuYasha?"

He chuckled softly and turned his head to stare over his shoulder at her. "Come on, Kagome. We don't have all day."

She looked as though she wanted to argue with him. Then she caught his teasing look and narrowed her eyes at his silent challenge. He caught her hand over his shoulder and helped her as she fell against him. The familiarity of her resting against his back was enough to send him into a state of near euphoria. It felt as though she had come home. InuYasha wanted to leap into the skies with her, to go without pause until she was laughing, breathless.

He'd done that before, just once. She'd been sad. He hadn't been able to get her to tell him why. But he had scooped her up, settled her on his back, and had raced through the trees and skies until she was in danger of falling off during fits of giggling.

Kagome's grip on him tightened when he started walking, and she gasped softly in his ear. "Don't let me down," she breathed in a whisper.

InuYasha closed his eyes, just for a moment before smiling gently. "I won't, Kagome. I won't."


InuYasha stepped through the thick trees, careful that none of the low-hanging branches struck Kagome, and smiled wanly at her sharply indrawn breath. It was a beautiful place, he had to admit. In five hundred years, it was hard to believe that this place hadn't seemed to have aged at all.

He walked slowly to the edge of the water and set her down on a large rock. The bittersweet memory of her sitting in the same spot shot through his mind. She was smiling, happy, with tiny Shippou bouncing around on her lap. In the memory, Sango rushed over to offer Kagome a hand up. Miroku grabbed her. In Sango's haste to put distance between the two of them, she had inadvertently knocked Kagome back, straight into the water.

InuYasha flinched and sank down on the riverbank not far from Kagome. The memory remained as hurtful to him now as it had been sweet to him then.

Kagome turned to stare at the horizon with a slight smile as the breeze ruffled her hair with invisible fingers. "I love to watch the sunset," she said quietly.

"I know."

Her head turned. He could feel her gaze on him. "How do you know?"

He shrugged. "I know you, Kagome."

She sighed as her smile widened. "I feel like I've watched a hundred of these with you."

InuYasha couldn't answer. His heart lodged in his throat, or so it seemed, and he felt as though he couldn't breathe. Slowly, he dragged the string of prayer beads out of his pocket and stared down at them.

"What's that?"

He didn't look at her. His heart hammered painfully in his chest as he stared down at the beads, winking in the moonlight, and tightened his grip on them. "It . . . it reminds me of a necklace I used to have."

"Was it special to you?" Kagome asked softly.

InuYasha nodded, his head jerking in time with the wildly unsteady beat of his heart. "It reminds me of . . . of something that I lost . . . something that I loved."

Kagome looked sad. She reached out and touched his hand, then drew back with a gasp. InuYasha caught the look of shock that nudged aside the sadness. It dissipated, leaving behind a scared expression. Her fingers shook as she pulled the beads out of his hand and clutched them to her chest. "They hurt you, didn't they?"

InuYasha blinked in surprise. "What?"

Kagome shook her head. "The beads . . . the ones you used to have . . . they hurt you."

Her intense brown eyes seemed to penetrate his skull as she silently dared him to lie. All the times that she had used the command on him flashed through his mind. Had it hurt? He snorted inwardly at his own thoughts. No, the annoyance of being forced into submission was nothing in comparison with the pain of loss he'd felt when he discovered that she had taken the necklace away. The pain came at him in a flood of waves, harsh as the tide, biting as the wind, as he watched her holding his beads to her chest.

And yet, staring into her face, InuYasha couldn't bring himself to tell her that. As desperately as he wanted her to remember him, to remember them, the very idea that it might hurt her . . . it was just too much for him to bear.

He stared at the beads as she clutched them tightly in her hands then forced a smile for her benefit as he reached down to pull her to her feet. She looked like she wanted to say something but remained silent. InuYasha helped her climb onto his back and wrapped his arms around her legs, careful not to jar her injured ankle.

More dear to him than anything in his life had ever been, she was the one person he'd move the heavens and earth for. Making her remember, though, was something that he could not do, not to her. Maybe the nights he spent cradled in the branches of Goshinboku, staring at the stars and reliving memories of days gone by were tempering him, changing him, making him realize and understand the man he was now as well as the boy he'd left in the past.  Many of the things he'd come to realize weren't things he was particularly proud of.  He'd made a lot of mistakes, hadn't he, but she never, ever was one.  She'd given him so much without asking for a single thing.  He knew that now.

If only he could find a way to show her . . .

`Kagome . . . only for you . . .'

"Are you comfortable enough?" he asked. He felt her nod as she seemed to snuggle closer to him. "Hold on, Kagome. I'll take you back to the camp."