InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity ❯ Crash and Burn ( Chapter 33 )

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

InuYasha hissed in pain as the salt water of the ocean bit into the raw flesh wounds on his stomach. The sting subsided quickly enough, and he sank down in the water, letting his head fall back against the rocks behind him. He was so tired. `Bone weary would be a good way to describe it,' he thought with a grimace. It had been too long since he'd had a decent fight on this side of the well.

Kagome had fallen asleep. He hadn't had the heart to wake her when they'd arrived. He put her on the bed in the master suite and had decided he ought to clean himself up. Still covered in his own blood as well as that of the panther youkai, InuYasha hadn't taken the time to clean or dress his wounds. He'd been too worried about Kagome to even try. When she had asked him to take her away, he went straight to Sesshoumaru to ask to borrow this beach house. Then he'd gone straight back to get Kagome.

Why had he felt such urgency, such a strong desire to get her away from the shrine? Why had he nearly crumbled at the look of aching pleading, of unrequited yearning in the depths of her eyes? `Because,' he thought with a vague smile, "because she's stronger than I anyone I've ever known . . . because she is Kagome.' He sighed again. After spending so long protecting her from whatever would harm her, he couldn't protect her from the torrent of memories that made no sense to her.

InuYasha made a face as he glanced down at the torn skin. `Keh! Good thing my body's not weak like a human's,' he thought to himself. `These wounds will be gone by morning.' He got up slowly and waded toward the shore, making quick work of drying off and dressing before he sank back down on the rocks beside the water's edge.

His ears drooped slightly. Was he to blame for her discomfiting thoughts? With an inward sigh, he winced as he twisted to stretch his back and shook out his hair, letting the warm, salty air ripple through the damp strands to dry it. Glancing toward the house, he briefly wondered how long it would be before Kagome woke up. After spending the last five hours in the car with Sesshoumaru's chauffer, InuYasha was stiff and sore from inactivity. When Kagome had fallen into an exhausted sleep, he had held her close, smoothing away the lines of distress that had crossed her features.

What he really wanted was a good, long run, but he couldn't leave Kagome here alone, either. She'd surely worry if she woke up to find him gone. He really didn't like to be far from her, anyway. As if in answer to his musings, he saw her vague outline in the bedroom window. She disappeared, and he grinned.

She was watching him? How long? What had she seen? No time like the present to find out, he decided as he stood and stretched. Maybe, with a little gentle prodding, he could get her to go for a morning run with him . . .

InuYasha stopped in the kitchen long enough to grab a box of pastries the driver had brought back earlier. Having not thought to bring any sort of provisions, InuYasha had paid the man to drive into the nearest town and bring out food before he'd headed back to Tokyo.

Kagome was sitting up on the bed, her arms wrapped around her covered legs, her chin resting on her raised knees. He sank down beside her and held out the box. "Hungry?" She shook her head but wouldn't look him in the eye. Her skin was tinged with rosy color, and InuYasha had to school his expression lest she should glance at him. "You look better."

"Sesshoumaru called," she blurted quickly. "He said that he forgot to tell you that the water was shut off and that the company is closed until Monday."

InuYasha slowly smiled. "I thought as much," he remarked, setting the box down and reaching in for a pastry. "You need to eat something."

He could feel Kagome's eyes shift to peek at him even though she didn't move her head. "How's your stomach?"

"Keh! That was nothing." He set his pastry aside and gently took her hand. He glanced up at her before he unwrapped the bandage around her wrist to survey her wounds. The flesh was bruised and tender-looking around the puncture wounds. But they were clean and looked to be on the way to healing. He turned her hand in his and brushed his fingertips over the wounds. "I'm sorry, Kagome. I swore I'd protect you, and I didn't."

"It was my own fault," she argued but didn't try to draw her arm away, "and I'm fine."

Her pulse fluttered wildly under his fingertips, speeding up in an erratic pattern that seemed to be more like an awkward dance than the flow of blood inside her. InuYasha raised her wrist to his lips and was rewarded with the quickening under his touch. "Did you bring your first aid kit?"

Kagome nodded and pointed toward a chair near the door. Her backpack sat there where InuYasha had set it before heading outside for his bath. "You stay here," he remarked as she started to get up. He retrieved the bag and sat back down on the edge of the bed. She took the half of his pastry that he'd left sitting as he dug around for the white box. He pulled out a leather bound book and frowned. There weren't any markings on the cover, and the pages had gold gilt edges. "What's this?"

Kagome took the book and flipped open the cover as InuYasha resumed his search. He tugged out the small white box—her first aid kit—and dropped the bag onto the floor beside the bed.

With a confused frown, she stared at the first page thoughtfully. "It's my mother's," she said, holding out the bite of pastry toward InuYasha. He leaned over and let her feed it to him. She licked a bit of icing off her fingers before shooting him a quick glance. "It says that here that she kept this journal for me, but she can't have done that. The dates are from before I was born."

InuYasha swallowed and held out his hand. "Can I see it?"

Kagome let him take the book. As she dug into the first aid kit for antiseptic and bandages, he flipped through the pages. He stopped to skim a few paragraphs here and there as slow understanding dawned on him. `She told me this story. She asked me to remember it. It was the story of a hanyou named InuYasha, a miko named Kikyou . . . and my daughter . . .'

"She really did know," he mumbled then shook his head.

"She knew what? Who's she?"

InuYasha snapped the journal closed and dropped it on the bed. Taking the roll of gauze out of her hands, he didn't answer as he started carefully wrapping her wrist again. "Make sure you keep this clean, Kagome," he ordered gruffly, sternly.

With her uninjured hand, she reached over to stop him. "InuYasha, you can't always protect me, and I know you want to, but really, you can't. Tell me what you know?"

He stared at her for a long moment then sighed. "Your mom and I had a talk before," he admitted as he surveyed his bandaging job. "She said she remembered everything."

Kagome didn't answer right away. InuYasha put the first aid kit back into her bag and retrieved another pastry before commenting on her silence. "Why so quiet?"

Her tone was clipped, angry, almost petulant, and the look she shot him could have stopped any youkai dead in their tracks. "Why didn't anyone tell me all of this sooner? I'd expect this sort of thing from my mom or even from Sesshoumaru . . . but you?" Her eyes suddenly widened, and she gasped, hands flying up to cover her lips. "InuYasha? What happened . . .? Where's Shippou?"

InuYasha dropped the food back in the box, giving up on his attempt to eat for the moment. "Shippou's fine. You've seen him almost every day, in fact. You just never realized it."

An odd look passed over her face, and InuYasha smiled slightly. "Kissune-sensei. It's him?"

InuYasha nodded slowly. "Yeah."

Kagome sighed and flopped back against the headboard. "I never knew . . . Why?"

Her tone was devoid of anger, empty of everything, as though she had overtaxed her emotions enough in the last couple days. InuYasha flinched. "I couldn't tell you. Everyone was afraid what it would do to you, and . . . I couldn't hurt you." He couldn't meet her eyes as he shook his head slowly. "After seeing you like that . . . Kagome? Why? Why were you afraid? Of . . . me?"

Slowly, hesitantly, as though she expected him to push her away, he felt her body press against his back as her hands clutched his shoulders. When she sighed, her breath stirred the hair by his neck. The sensation was heady, sending shivers down his spine at the unintended caress. "I remembered you, and you were trying to . . ." She trailed off. InuYasha squeezed his eyes closed against her unspoken words. Kagome cleared her throat and said, in a much stronger voice, "You wanted the Shikon no Tama . . . but I realized . . . no matter what that memory was, it wasn't the truth, and it was only the once. You've never tried to hurt me again, have you?"

He reached up and covered her hands his with own. The warmth in his touch meshed with the cool skin under his fingers until they were one, the same. "You were never scared of me before, even then. I wouldn't . . . Don't you know that?"

"I do, now. That story you told me . . . I always wondered why I could see it in my head, why it seemed like you and I were the ones searching for the shards. The way you described it all . . . I could see it." She rested her cheek against his shoulder. "I don't know if there is any sort of order to the memories I've recovered. I just know that I am supposed to be here, with you."

InuYasha smiled. Why was it that, even when he was trying to comfort Kagome, it normally ended up with her doing that for him? He turned enough to pull her into his arms, cradling her against his chest as she sighed softly, as though there was no place she'd rather be. "I'll help you, if I can," he assured her, her warm scent washing over him, making him dizzy, overwhelming his senses. `If I can't, then at least I'll be beside her.'

"That's enough, maybe," she replied, her voice vague. She idly twisted his hair around her finger. The gentle tug sent another shiver straight down his spine. "Even if it never makes sense to me, at least I remember you."

His answer was a gentle tightening of his arms around her. Kagome snuggled closer. Did she realize that? Or had it been more of an involuntary reaction on her part? Either way, InuYasha couldn't help the overwhelming sense of peace that flowed over him, the complete awe that Kagome could inspire in him.

She reached up to wrap her arm around his neck but stopped when she brushed against his prayer bead necklace. Her hand fell away, and she gasped softly. "Why did you put those back on?" she asked.

InuYasha shrugged. "I was used to them."

Her response was a muffled snort that sounded suspiciously like one of his own. "Used to them?" she echoed, amazement in her tone. "You hated those. You always complained about them."

"I complained about a lot of things that I thought would always be there."

He grimaced. He hadn't meant it to sound like that. Kagome stiffened in his arms. "I see."

"I didn't mean it like that," he offered, feeling completely lame; as though he should have been able to say what he meant in a better way.

Kagome sat up and turned to look at him, a calculating expression on her face, as though she was considering something that she worried that he wouldn't like. His gaze narrowed. Why was she looking at him like that? "Kagome?"

Her eyes cleared, and she frowned as she let her gaze drop to his chest. Why did he feel such a terrible sense of trepidation? Kagome shook her head slowly, her fingers coming up to grasp the kotodama rosary tight. She started to lift them over his head. His hands shot up to stop her, grabbing her wrists, staying her movement. "No."

She blinked in surprise at the complete finality in his tone but her hands didn't drop the necklace. "InuYasha—"

"No!"

Her chin dropped as her eyes erupted with the flames of challenge brought on by the vehemence in his tone. "You don't need these anymore! You haven't needed them for a long time."

His irritation turned into a glower of defiance, and he refused to let go of her wrists. "It isn't about needing, Kagome. Just leave them!"

She fought against his grip, still trying to bring the beads over his head. To gain leverage, she rose up on her knees and tugged harder. InuYasha stubbornly refused to let go. "InuYasha! Let me take them off of you!"

InuYasha shot off the bed. Kagome's grip slackened, and before she could try again, he stalked away from her and leaned against the wall, arms crossed mulishly over his chest. Kagome, to her credit, was standing, glaring at him as though she thought he was being contradictory for the sake of it. "Come on, InuYasha! You've never liked those, I know you haven't. Now why won't you let me have them?"

"Because if I take them off, you won't trust me!"

"Do you think that's why I trusted you before?"

"Wasn't it?"

Kagome leveled a glare at him designed to tell him exactly what she thought of his assessment. "Of course not! Now will you let me take them off you?"

He shook his head stubbornly. "They're mine!"

"They're not!"

"Then whose are they?" he countered.

"Kikyou's!" she spat, eyes narrowing.

If she realized the implications of her answer, she didn't show it. InuYasha recoiled as though she had struck him. In a way, maybe she had. Didn't she realize by now that his heart had chosen her, that it had done so long ago? "Damn it!"

"You really don't understand a thing, do you? Do you honestly believe I want to keep these because of Kikyou? You're really not that stupid, are you, bitch?" he fumed, unable to keep his rising temper in check.

Kagome's expression turned murderous as she shot him an incredulous look. "I'm not a—"

With a snorted, "Keh!" he stalked out of the room.

`True enough,' his mind tried to console him as he stomped down the stairs and out of the house. Kikyou may have made those beads. But Kagome was the one who had needed them. The beads had offered her a semblance of security in the beginning. It was the one true defense she had that would have kept InuYasha at bay, had he had the desire to try to take the jewel from her again.

Still, why couldn't she just leave it alone? He had told her that he wanted to keep them. Why did she have to make it an issue, anyway?

He flopped down on a rock by the water's edge as Kikyou's cryptic words came back to haunt him, to make him flinch. "Honestly, InuYasha . . . Does she really appreciate being called that foul name?"

Damn. He was going to have to stop saying that, wasn't he?