InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Shrine Prostitute ❯ Instigation ( Chapter 26 )

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

Shrine Prostitute by FlameTwirler

~ ~ ~

Chapter 26: Instigation
----- an incentive
----- to bring about, as by incitement or urging
----- to urge on to some drastic or inadvisable action

~ ~ ~

The next few days were like something neither of them had experienced before; they passed in their own little bubble of happiness where the two of them were able to forget the outside world entirely, a little bit of paradise in what Inuyasha normally referred to as his own little slice of hell. Aside from their normal activities they took more time to simply enjoy each other’s company. They lounged on the bed and told each other silly stories. He let her braid his hair and con him into playing childish little games. She acted out charades to see how she could make him smile, how she could tease the rare genuine laugh from him.

And then there were the kisses. After they’d crossed that barrier it seemed they couldn’t get enough. Their kisses were long and short, playful or passionate, and those they even eventually used as wagers. Inuyasha seemed a lot more interested in the games after that little addition, which just amused her all the more, because it wasn’t like she would ever really turn down a request of his even without the guise of a game – not that he ever really made any.

It was perfect.

Too bad it only made their two weeks together pass all the more quickly.

~ ~ ~

Inuyasha stomped irritably back into his room, none too thrilled at having to leave Kagome and go get his checkup done. Kicking the door shut he deposited his cargo in the corner before glancing up and noticing Kagome was actually still in bed. Immediately, he felt a little guilty, not having known she’d still be sleeping after so long.

He crossed the room to her with much more grace than he’d just been implementing but the damage was done and she was waking – not that he was complaining, really. An awake Kagome was always more entertaining to him. She was slow in regaining full consciousness though, but the show she was inadvertently giving him was worth the wait. Yawning, she stretched her arms over her head, arching her back, and he was fascinated by the play of skin and muscle, the way her ribs expanded as she took a deep breath. He wanted to touch, and before he realized it, he had, his finger tracing one rib inward to lay his hand flat on her stomach, feeling the muscles beneath clench slightly at the contact. She smiled winningly up at him. “Well, I’ve certainly woken up to worse things.”

She stretched one more time, trying to flex every overtaxed muscle in her body, before pushing herself into a sitting position. “What’s that?” she asked curiously, nodding toward the container half-hidden behind the closet.

He glanced over at it. “Blood.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Whose blood - yours?” He nodded to confirm. “Why?”

He looked at her as if she were stupid. “For you of course, stupid.” Well, at least that reaffirmed his thought of her mental capacities at the moment. “Unless you’re done with all your studying and research and stuff?”

She stared dumbly at him. “No, I- we’re not done, but I didn’t even ask you for any.”

He shrugged. “Didn’t know if you were gonna, so I figured I’d just as well get it now, because I sure as hell ain’t going back to that stupid clinic tomorrow.” Especially considering the next day was her last full day with him.

She was struck mute a moment before she grasped his face gently between her hands. “You’re amazing, you know that?”

“Keh. Only a fool of a woman would say something like that,” he scoffed, even as his eyes warmed.

“Then I’ll happily be the biggest fool on the planet.”

He scowled in the face of her optimistic attitude but she didn’t care. “What?” he demanded suddenly.

She jerked back to him, unaware her mind had wandered and her worry had shown on her face. “Nothing,” she replied airily, unwilling to damper his grand gesture with practicalities.

He wasn’t having it, however, and grabbed her shoulders. The look on his face said he meant business and she sighed. “I- it’s just that I worry how the blood will hold up being in the cooler for that long. I know I leave soon, but after the travel and finally getting it to a place where it can be properly refrigerated… I’d just hate it if you gave all this up just to have it go to waste.”

He smiled a secret, smug little smile and tapped her on the forehead. “I know that dummy, but there was no way I was going back there on a day when I don’t have to. Since they don’t want my blood stored there someone came up with another solution.”

Her eyes widened in interest and she craned her neck around him. With her view still half blocked by the closet she growled slightly in irritation, then bounded out of the bed to get a better look. It was a fridge, one of those little miniature types that some of her friends kept in their dorm rooms. She gaped. “How on earth did you manage to get that?!”

He actually managed to look embarrassed. “It’s nothing.”

“Nothing?” she asked skeptically. She wanted to push more but what could she say? Hey, nobody here likes you much so who would actually go out of their way to help you and give you something? Yeah, not so much.

He mumbled something but she couldn’t make it out.

“What was that?”

With a put upon sigh he repeated himself. “Only way I could get ‘em to draw the extra blood was to promise not to contaminate the rest of their samples.”

He glowered and she understood. Couldn’t have extra hanyou blood sitting in the cooling system next to clean (well, maybe), pure youkai or ningen blood. “But then why-?” She cut herself off before finishing the question. Only one shrine maiden Inuyasha had mentioned appeared to have any affection for him, and she had to stifle a jealous pang at the thought of Inuyasha seeing Kikyou, perhaps regularly every time he had his bloodwork done. Instead, she focused on something else, letting her frustration out on a different point.

“But, but these are shrine maidens! They’re healers and holy people! They can’t really be all that bigoted, can they?”

“In case you hadn’t noticed this here’s a shrine too, so technically all the workers here are holy people as well.”

She glowered. She really had forgotten that. Suddenly desirous of lightening the mood Kagome walked over to the mini-fridge and took a peek inside.

“Oh my goodness. Inuyasha! This is an absurd amount of blood!” she said, looking at the number of bags inside. “How are you even still walking? You should be anemic, at least.”

He sniffed. “I ain’t as weak as all that, woman. I just generate it faster.”

She wondered if he knew that for a fact or was just blustering, but figured it must be true given that he looked perfectly fine, if maybe just a bit fatigued. But then again, it seemed like he usually was – but perhaps that was due to the fact they didn’t tend to sleep much. “So how do I get all this home? I certainly can’t carry a fridge.”

“Keh, I got you the damn blood, can’t you figure that out at least? I did my part already.”

She glared at him but then started mumbling to herself as she contemplated the possibilities. “I’m sure I could ask Ryu, or if nothing else I can sneak out to buy a cooler at some point…”

She smiled a bit when Inuyasha stiffened at the mention of her leaving, even just for a bit. She could tell he wanted to forbid her, but how could he when he’d just dumped the problem onto her shoulders? She’d offer to bring him with her but knew that one town outing had been enough for her visit. Besides, one look at him and she knew that, despite his declaration, he’d probably scour every bit of the Shrine looking for an ice chest before letting her skip out on their time together.

Glancing over her shoulder at him, though, reminded her that there were other things she’d rather be doing now that he was back, so they put it out of their minds for the duration of the night.

Luckily, the next morning right before the Shrine closed up for the day, she was able to phone over and snag one from Ryu. It was a small one that would just fit what she needed, plus some ice packs he had that fit neatly in a top compartment. She insisted on paying him for it and, though he initially refused payment, she went on about how much he’d gone out of his way for her, time and time again, and how she’d feel guilty if she took anything else from him.

He caved.

So, feeling much better about her newly acquired cooler, she set it next to the mini-fridge in preparation for her leaving. The past day and a half had passed in a blur, going entirely too quickly for her taste, as they always did when she was there. She couldn’t manage to shake the dread welling up in her gut at just the thought of having to leave in the next hour.

Glancing back to see what Inuyasha was doing, she found him sitting awkwardly on the bed, holding himself stiffly and glaring at an innocuous spot on the wall. Despite knowing she shouldn’t take pleasure in his discomfiture, she was somewhat mollified to know she wasn’t the only one made tense by her departure.

Taking a deep breath she turned to face him fully, stood up straight, and pulled her shoulders back. She’d been trying all week to pluck up the courage to ask him something and now that she was faced with doing it she had to do it quickly or she never would. So stalking up to him she ignored the startled, almost suspicious reaction he had in the face of her determination.

“I, uh, I-I, erm…” Irritated at her inability to put voice to her thoughts she just blurted them out. “Look, is there any chance you want to come home with me now?”

Taken aback by her request he paused a moment before asking, “What do you mean? You want another couple weeks or something?”

She glared, confusing him even further, but she was having enough trouble with this conversation as it was. “No, I mean do you want to come home with me, and…stay there and stuff,” she finished lamely. “Oh, you know what I mean.”

Inuyasha went from perplexed to outright panicked in less than a second. “What happened to five years? Was that just a lie then?”

“What?! No!” she countered immediately, incensed at the accusation. She knew she’d just pushed him beyond where he was comfortable and he was being defensive. Still, she was already on edge enough from having to bring up the subject and her nerves weren’t up to handling any more stress. Sarcastically, she amended, “Actually yes, of course, I was stringing you along all the time by letting you believe I was willing to wait and that I don’t have trouble with this separation and everything. How could you stand to be around such a deceitful person!”

She stopped, breathing heavily. She really hadn’t meant to say that, she hadn’t, but she supposed some of her insecurities were bubbling too close to the surface and the realities of their situation were weighing on her mind.

“Well, if that’s how you’re going to be about it…” he muttered darkly under his breath, but Kagome cut him off before he could say anything further.

“Look, that’s not what I meant.” Sighing in defeat she slumped onto the bed. “I know you don’t trust me yet, that you don’t believe I won’t change my mind about this.”

He looked like he was going to argue the point, and she raised an eyebrow in skepticism, but when he couldn’t say anything that either of them wouldn’t be able to pick out instantly as a lie, he shut his mouth.

“I know you’ve got your reasons,” she continued. “I don’t like it, not a bit, but I respect it. Still, I just didn’t know if things might’ve changed considering, well, all things considered.”

“Meaning…” he prompted, not completely seeing where she was going, and she glowered at him for making her spell it out.

“Since things…happened.” She couldn’t put it into words, it made it seem so childish, but as she gestured at the closet where they’d had their recent encounter, she saw a look of dawning comprehension wash over his features.

“Oh, yeah. I mean, no.” He shook his head as if to clear it. “Things…haven’t changed,” he stated, cringing even as he said it. He glanced at her from the corner of his eye and she couldn’t help but smile ruefully, just a bit, knowing that he was worried about her reaction to his words.

“I figured as much.” She shrugged, as if it was no big deal. “But hey, I had to try, right?” Her voice rang falsely cheerily even to her own ears, so she got up from the bed to busy her hands with her pack or something, anything to keep from having to face Inuyasha. He forestalled her though with a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s not that…I-I…damn,” he said finally, not knowing what else to say.

She chuckled at the invective, the tension relieved with the sound. “I already know,” she said, placing her hand over his. “Like I said, I don’t like it, but I do understand. I just…I had to check, just in case.”

She gave him a smile, tiny but real this time, and he relaxed marginally, pulling her to him. “You still worry me, though,” she said into his chest.

“Yeah, I know,” he replied gruffly.

“No, I mean it.” She pushed back slightly to stare up at him, then rested her forehead heavily against the hard bone of his sternum. “All this really scares me sometimes. No, more than sometimes. On occasion I wonder if it would really be that awful of me to somehow con you into going back home with me now, guilting you into it or something. Even if you came to hate me for it at least you’d be safer and more alive than you are here.”

He really didn’t know what to say to that so he stayed quiet.

“Inuyasha, you do know I just want you to be happy, right?” she said in a small voice.

“Yeah,” he whispered back. The small hesitation before he spoke meant he might not believe it entirely but he was working on it, so at least she had that much.

“Then you need to stand up for yourself some more, you know?” She wished against reason that she could tell him he now technically had human legal rights, but knew that would only work against his state of mind right now. Damn him for being so stubborn.

“If the Shrine prizes you as much as they say they do, then they owe you a whole lot more. I know you think you can handle everything, but they’re running you ragged and you deserve better. Remember that, all right? You promised me you’ll take better care of yourself, but that means you need to try to be happy too. Do whatever it takes because it’s your life. You can’t let the people here dictate it to you forever.”

His face was very carefully blank, which made her wonder whether he was pondering her words or had closed off because she’d gone too far, but she couldn’t regret what she’d said. He would have to learn to take more for himself sooner or later, despite the fact that she was sure the will had been ground out of him more times than he could count. It was the only way he could continue to stand. She only hoped she was able to get him out of here, and the sooner the better, to help facilitate that.

“Look, you need to take care of yourself, but why bother keeping yourself safer if you’re still miserable? Promise me you’ll try to find your own happiness.”

He chuckled. “What does that even mean?”

“Whatever you want it to mean. You deserve joy in your life as much as anyone else – no, more than everyone else considering all you’ve had to endure so far.” What scared her was that, when she really sat and thought about it, she wasn’t sure there was anything inspiring him to keep living other than his stubborn pride and simple survival instinct. What was life without at least even the occasional joy?

He snorted. “You mean coming home with you?”

She smacked him on the arm. “You know that’s not what I’m trying to say. Of course you know you’re always welcome, always, but I’m talking about you finding your own happiness. And if, in the end, it happens to lead to my doorstep, well all the better.” She grinned mischievously.

“Even if my choice isn’t something you would pick? What if I decide it’ll make me happy to dance on the top of Mt. Fuji every afternoon for the rest of my life?”

“Then I’ll come watch with popcorn and a camcorder.” She nudged him in the ribs. “So…promise?”

“Keh, fine.” His look turned calculating. “As long as we’re talking about my happiness then…”

He bent his head toward hers, stopping when there was a sudden knock on the door and Kagome started, both of them turning to stare at the door in open curiosity. When no one spoke up through the intercom, Inuyasha barked out a gruff, “Yeah? What’dya want?”

“It’s Miroku.”

‘Miroku?’ Kagome mouthed silently, quirking a brow at Inuyasha. “What are you doing here?” she asked aloud.

“Ryu asked me to help you carry your things to the train station. Isn’t it about time you’re leaving?”

She glanced to the clock with a heavy heart. Sure enough, he was right. “Oh, well, thank you,” she called, alternately pleased for the help but irritated at being interrupted. “Just wait for me at Ryu’s desk – I’ll be out in a couple minutes.”

“All right.” Despite his voice being muddled by the electronics, she could detect traces of humor in his words. “Don’t take too long though,” he warned, “and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Inuyasha snorted. “Like that rules out much,” he ribbed, even as his arms wound their way tightly around Kagome’s middle.

Kagome waited for a retort but it sounded like he’d already gone. She spun in Inuyasha’s arms to find him smirking down at her. “Well, why don’t we take the buozo’s advice then?”

Raising her eyebrows, she inquired coyly, “And what advice was that?”

He chuckled, already lowering his face to hers. “To not do anything he wouldn’t do…and to not take too long about it.”

~ ~ ~

A few minutes later a very flushed and breathless Kagome made her way into the large foyer of the building, dragging along her backpack and cooler. Miroku swooped down on her instantly, asking solicitously, “Which of those two are the heavier?”

When she indicated the cooler he graciously picked up her backpack, shouldering it easily. She simply stared at him, mouth agape at his gall. “You seriously asked so you could take the lighter one?”

He affected a look of mock hurt. “Of course. I had a very strenuous night at work and am giving up my daylight hours to assist you. Could you really expect me to do more than this?”

Despite the fact that she knew he was twisting things around she couldn’t help but admit, if only to herself, that he did have a bit of a point. She hadn’t expected him to help her out at all and now she was grousing that he was only doing so much. Still… “Some kind of gentleman you are,” she grumbled under her breath.

When he heard her mutinous mutterings he didn’t act offended, as she’d suspected he would, but instead burst into laughter. “Better,” he praised, “much, much better.”

He slipped the pack off his shoulders and settled it around hers, leaning close enough that she felt his breath on her ear. “Try not to look so cheerless about your departure. There are far too many eyes here. And while most anyone would of course feel bereft when leaving our company, the air around you speaks of something much different.”

Blushing fiercely, she nodded as he took the cooler from her hands.

“Now,” he continued amiably, “shall we be off?”

They ambled their way down the road toward the train station, Kagome having bought a ticket for later than necessary since she had suspected her goodbyes might be delayed. Of course, as luck would have it they hadn’t been, but at least now she had Miroku to keep her company. It wasn’t like she was in any particular rush to get home anyhow, as she would be diving quickly back into school work, tutoring Josef along with the others that occasionally showed up as well, and helping out at the Tanaka’s clinic if she had any time left over.

“Why don’t you tell me about your family, Kagome?”

She glanced over at him, taken aback by the sudden request, but easily obliged. She told him about Souta, her mother, and grandfather, and quickly devolved into discussing how readily they’d adapted to having their home invaded by her hanyou and youkai friends.

Miroku chuckled at that. “Youkai on holy grounds, eh?”

“I know. Unusual, right?” For all that the Bacana Shrine used youkai as Tetsudai, they were a singular case. “My grandfather certainly wasn’t happy about it in the beginning, even with my mother’s arguments about this being more useful than selling cheap trinkets to visitors and pilgrims. Still, there have been no problems so either my grandfather’s powers have lapsed or our ancestors were some of the many who amended their shrine’s holy ordinances after the youkai wars were settled.”

“You think so?”

She shrugged. “What else?”

“Or perhaps,” he began slyly, “every holy barrier has always been the same and we simply never realized it. Perhaps all it ever took was trust on the side of the shrine’s keepers, or intentions on the side of the youkai, to allow for such unity.” From the widening of her eyes he knew she’d considered the theory but had never been willing to put it into words. After all, it was almost tantamount to blasphemy.

“T-that doesn’t make sense though. After all, there has to have been some partnership between races throughout our history at some point. If nothing else there have always been hanyou.”

“Ah, but I bet shrine maidens and monks were seldom those who entered such relationships. Besides, even if there were trust between two individuals I would gather they typically still carried something of a general distrust for the other’s race as a whole. Not to mention, one person's intentions can't direct the intentions of the entire shrine; I'm sure everyone working there would have to agree for anything to change in the way of leniency.”

Kagome shook her head and laughed as her train pulled into the station. “Tell me why we’re talking about this again?”

“If you prefer, I could always just ply you with more questions about Sango.”

“You’re incorrigible; you know that, right?”

“I try my very best,” he replied with his most disarming smile.

The announcement for her departure rang out over head and Kagome took the cooler back. “Thanks for seeing me off, Miroku,” she said as she boarded the train.

“Not at all, it was my pleasure. By the way,” he added off-handedly, “it’s the Sunset Shrine, right?”

She grinned. “Good memory.”

“Well then, I suppose I’ll be seeing you soon.”

“Yes, soo- Wait, what do you mean, ‘soon’?”

Miroku just waved his hand, the doors sliding closed between them, a look of smug satisfaction spread across his face. “Goodbye, Kagome,” he yelled through the glass separating them.

“Miroku? Miroku!” Kagome called after him but it was no good, and then the train was speeding away and she was left with no idea what he’d meant by that purposefully vague statement.

~ ~ ~

Kagome hefted her pack and grabbed the cooler in both hands as she stepped down from the platform, breathing in the deeply. City air was city air, but somehow it always smelled unique in this part of town; it smelled like home.

At the thought she couldn’t push down a surge of homesickness. Glancing down at the cooler she grinned, deciding the blood would keep for another hour – ‘It’s just one more hour, right?’ – and started walking to her family’s shrine.

She heaved a sigh as soon as she sighted the bright red torii. She didn’t even care that she still had to lug her stuff up all those steps – she was just glad to be home.

Managing her way up to the front door she was surprised by the amount of noise she heard coming from inside and, when she pushed the door open, was startled to see Jinenji there waiting for her. She didn’t even get a word out before he’d taken the cooler from her and ushered her inside to where he could stand more comfortably.

“What’s in here?” he asked in that slow, rumbling voice of his as he gave the chest a small shake.

He can probably hear the contents sloshing about, she thought. Swallowing on a dry mouth, wondering how to explain it without seeming creepy, she answered, “Blood.”

He didn’t ask anything further though, just looked down at his burden with no little amount of interest. “Where do you want it?”

“The kitchen. Ah, you better let me get that.” Jinenji was too large to fit through many of the doorways in the house, which made her mind burn with the question of why he was there. They generally tried to meet somewhere more accommodating when he was going to be with them. After depositing the blood in the kitchen, grabbing some extra cold packs out of the freezer and stuffing them in the cooler, and then leaving a note lest anyone else – human, hanyou, or youkai – should happen across it, she asked him.

“Your mother asked me to come since she doesn’t know much about medicine, let alone how to tend a hanyou.”

Kagome’s eyes widened. “What happened?” Scenarios flashed through her mind of one of their friends being attacked and she had to squelch a momentary burst of panic.

Jinenji obviously sensed it – if by no other means than her elevated heart rate – and turned her what she interpreted to be a soothing smile. It was still a bit difficult to read his unique features sometimes. “He’s sick.” He was about to explain further but Mrs. Higurashi bustled in at that moment.

“Kagome!” she cried happily, putting her hands on her daughter’s cheeks and examining her fully. “You had a good trip back?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you must be famished. Everybody else has already eaten but come into the kitchen and I’ll get you some food.”

Turning back to Jinenji she sighed. “Shinichi’s fever seems to have spiked again. Would you mind checking on him?”

“Of course.”

Mrs. Higurashi steered her daughter into the kitchen but Kagome stopped as soon as she was inside. “Who’s everybody?”

“What dear?”

“You said ‘everyone else’ had already eaten – who all is here? What’s going on?”

Mrs. Higurashi smiled tiredly as she sorted through the fridge, paused as she saw the cooler and accompanying note set down beside it, then pulled out some food and set it on the stove. “Shinichi was so sick that he was needing nearly ‘round the clock care. You know how his family is.”

Kagome nodded. Shinichi was the most recent one to join their little group. He was so isolated he never would have heard about them, but rumour traveled and one of the family’s many servants had decided to check it out. The servant held no love for the little hanyou but had thought that getting him out of the house and out from under the family’s feet would be beneficial for everyone. This arrangement had gone unchallenged because apparently the head of the house cared less for his reputation – and the possibility of letting it be widely known that his disreputable sister had given birth to a bastard hanyou – than for just getting the child away from them.

Just to hammer the point home, as soon as the servant had left, the boy had rather defiantly announced he was not ‘Kegaro,’ as he had been introduced, but ‘Shinichi’. It was a testament to just how much his youkai family disliked his presence, foisting such a name upon him, indicating what a thorn he was in their collective side with every mention of it. The spirit he showed was admirable, considering the circumstances, and Kagome took to him immediately.

She had learned, from the little he had revealed during their time together, that he was allowed to stay at the family’s manor with his mother only on account of his making himself invisible and never making his presence felt at their home. Taking care of him when he was ill was not something they would find acceptable, and frankly Kagome was surprised they appeared to have actually done just that – for a little while at least.

“He was sick enough that he was only semi-conscious, moaning and calling out in his sleep,” her mother explained further.

She wasn’t terribly familiar with hanyou sickness, but considering their healing abilities, those symptoms sounded unsettling. Her stomach lurched. “Is he all right?”

“That’s why Jinenji’s here. I wasn’t sure what to do with him when he was dropped off, so I contacted him. He’s been a real blessing.” Mrs. Higurashi smiled fondly as she looked out the kitchen door. “If not for him I’m not sure how Shinichi would be faring, but as it is he’s mending – slowly, but mending.”

Kagome smiled as well, gratitude welling up inside her, but she was still confused on a couple points.

“Who dropped him off?”

“One of the family’s servants.”

One of Kagome’s eyebrows quirked upward in question and her mother seemed to know what she wanted to ask.

“It was a different servant than the first – someone I’ve never seen before. She only made sure we were okay with taking him in before she left.”

Kagome was silent as moment, contemplating. “Did she come on her own?” she asked slowly.

Mrs. Higurashi shook her head. “I’m not sure. She didn’t stay very long so I wonder if she was just like the first, bringing him on her own initiative simply to get him out of the way.”

“Is it possible his mother sent them?” Kagome had heard only little snippets about Shinichi’s mother and wondered if that meant she separated herself – or was separated – from him, and what that said about their relationship. Mrs. Higurashi obviously had some of the same concerns.

“It’s possible. I get the impression she’s rather distant from her son. Perhaps she simply cannot safely or easily show those feelings and sent him here in hopes he’d be better cared for than he would at home. Perhaps she doesn’t concern herself with him at all, trying to earn her way back into her family’s esteem instead, and her one act of motherly love was to refrain from killing him at birth.” She sighed heavily. “Unfortunately, I believe it more likely the latter is true.”

“Not necessarily the only thing,” Kagome countered. “She also gave him his name.”

Mrs. Higurashi smiled. “That’s true, at least.”

It had taken Shinichi a couple days to fully explain the origins of his name, which only gave further insight into the rigid structure of his family. When he was born, his mother had given him the name Shinichi, which must have been a slap in the face to her family to declare him the true first born son, as was his birthright. It was fact, but Kagome didn’t doubt for a minute that they didn’t consider him family, more just a pest to be borne – as evidenced by the name they referred to him by – and doubted if he was even in the family register. If he was, she was sure it was under the name Kegaro instead.

Still, it was hard to know anything about the motives of anyone in that family. Had his mother given him that name to honor him, just to spite her family, or to dangle in front of him something that would never be his?

Kagome sat down at the table heavily, rubbing her hands over her face. “Do you think they meant the drop off to be permanent?”

Mrs. Higurashi mused over the idea for a moment. “I don’t think they’d be averse to such an arrangement, but from what I gather the family holds honor in highest regard. Granted, it’s a twisted, warped sense of honor that the birth of a hanyou can tarnish it, but honor nonetheless. I believe if we were to give any indication of wanting to return him they would take him back.”

Kagome laid her head on the table, suddenly drained. Did they really want to send him back to such a cold, heartless place? But could they do anything else?

“I’ve asked him to stay with us,” her mother said softly.

Kagome’s head jerked up and she gaped at her. “What?”

“We’re not going to be getting much business for a while anyhow, at least not until people become more used to the idea of us having hanyou here. So really it shouldn’t really matter whether they’re here periodically or permanently.”

Kagome cursed herself. Why hadn’t she thought of that? Without offerings from the visitors, or the ability to sell their charms and trinkets, she was putting her family in a financial bind. Especially if they took in more mouths to feed.

Her mother continued on blithely, either not noticing or ignoring Kagome’s private meltdown. “Since we won’t be needing all that room for storing the charms anymore I asked grandpa to clear it out so we can convert it just like the other storage room.”

“Like our room?” Kagome choked.

Mrs. Higurashi smiled in understanding. “Don’t worry, we haven’t touched it; we never would. After all, it’s Inuyasha’s first real room. We’re saving it for whenever he decides he’s finally ready to come back home.”

Kagome hated herself for caring, for that selfish urge in the midst of all her family was doing and all her friends needed, but she couldn’t deny it. Unable to help herself, she got up and hugged her mom. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, “but thank you.”

Mrs. Higurashi snorted but hugged her daughter back just as tightly. “What on earth are you going on about?”

“I didn’t mean to destroy the family’s business. If people already think youkai aren’t pure what are they going to think of a shrine that houses hanyou?”

“That we’re following our own teachings by showing compassion to those who need it,” she replied.

Kagome didn’t respond but huffed irritably. They both knew things wouldn’t happen like that. If only people would see it that way. “I didn’t mean for my plan to come so far as to permanently invade your house either.”

To her surprise her mother laughed, pushing her away to look her full in the face. “Kagome, love, I hate to tell you but this has nothing to do with you. You really think I could’ve turned that boy away?”

Kagome grumbled. “No, but if I hadn’t been bringing them all here already then you wouldn’t be in this position.”

It was an almost surreal situation for her, as she’d actually been considering doing something like this all along, but that was for years down the road still. Plus she’d figured she would have to move further out to the countryside to have enough room and not be imposing on anyone. She was grateful for how things had turned out but felt guilty for dragging her family so far into things. She knew well enough that they’d never be able to turn away anyone in need.

“If you hadn’t been teaching them then his family wouldn’t have known they could bring him here. He’d have been stuck there with nowhere else to go, maybe not even getting the care he needed. We’d be ignorant, free of responsibility, and living the same shackled lives our predecessors have lived the last hundred years as shrines have slowly lapsed into little more than landmarks. Kagome, shrines exist to serve and protect, to absolve and heal. We’re finally getting to do that again and live up to our potential, to make a real, meaningful difference. I should be thanking you for opening our eyes and bringing us out of the rut most of our shrines have fallen into.”

Tears leaked from Kagome’s eyes as she gave a watery chuckle. “That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. Has anyone ever told you that you are one strange parent?” She laughed again, because she was glad for it. “What about jii-chan though?” she asked, instantly sobered.

“He’s a complicated man, your grandfather. Growing up in the shrine he’d always been taught that youkai are evil, that there is nothing good or redeemable in them. I think relearning his stance on that – or at least that half-demons aren’t evil – will take him longer than anything else, but he’ll come around. He’s surrounded by examples of it all the time. And I know he’d say otherwise, but Inuyasha probably made the biggest impact on him.”

“Inuyasha?” Kagome repeated disbelievingly. “But they fought constantly.”

Mrs. Higurashi chuckled ruefully. “That’s because they’re both too stubborn to back down. He saw the way Inuyasha looked at you, though, and nothing that’s inherently evil could show that much care and concern.”

Kagome considered that but still looked dubious, so Mrs. Higurashi leaned in and whispered to her. “In the middle of the night, if no one else is out in the living room, I’ve caught him watching over Shinichi.”

Kagome’s eyes widened and Mrs. Higurashi grinned. “He doesn’t know I’m aware of it though, and will likely deny it vehemently if it’s brought up, so make sure not to say anything about it. As for the rest, you should see him bustling around the shrine; he’s so happy to have something to do. I know he feels the same as I do, having the shrine starting to live up to its potential again.”

“And Souta?” Kagome pushed, needing to know how this was affecting all her family, but she didn’t expect her mother’s exasperated sigh.

“I swear, I need to keep him tied down. He’s bouncing off the walls with excitement and keeps pestering poor Shinichi when the boy needs to rest.”

Mrs. Higurashi saw the confusion on her daughter’s face and laughed at her own vagueness. “Souta wants to move out to the shed with Shinichi and says Shiori can have his room.”

“Shiori?!”

Mrs. Higurashi clucked her tongue. “It’s been so long I’d forgotten you didn’t know – it must’ve happened the day after you left. Her mother died, poor thing, and her family situation was so unstable, what with both the youkai and the ningen sides fighting about her – or truthfully just the power she holds – so she came here. She’s been staying with us ever since. So I’d already been working on renovating the second store room for her when Shinichi was brought here; he’s only been here about three days.”

Kagome’s mind was reeling. “I can’t believe all this has happened in only two weeks!”

Mrs. Higurashi chuckled wryly. “You, of all people, should know how quickly things can change. Wasn’t it only a couple years ago you didn’t even know hanyou existed? And now look at us.” She spread her arms wide and Kagome looked at her in awe.

Shaking her head, she said, “I just never would have imagined my life going down this path.”

Her mother snorted. “Few of us do, especially not those who make any sort of difference. I’d guess those who don’t have at least a few major deviations from their life plans lead exceedingly boring lives.” She laid her hand on Kagome’s shoulder. “We all have our parts to play, dear. Mine is here, helping all these lovely children who need some good care, and I think yours has something to do with getting that blood out of my kitchen.”

Kagome started then gave her mother an embarrassed grin. Mrs. Higurashi just laughed.

“You know I love Inuyasha but having bits of him around my food makes me a bit squeamish.”

Kagome joined her mother in her laughter and, after Mrs. Higurashi shoved some food in her and she took just enough time to say hi to everyone, she was bustled out the door, cooler in hand.

~ ~ ~

Kagome was glad that Professor Hirohito’s eccentric demeanor and near obsession with his research meant he spent almost all of his non-teaching hours in his lab. She certainly wouldn’t have liked trying to track him down, what with the cargo she carried. Still, he was so engrossed in what he was doing that she had to knock three times before he noticed she was at the door and let her in.

She didn’t get even a word of greeting out before he honed in on her burden, taking it from her and cataloguing the contents with an almost manic glee.

“Magnificent, simply magnificent! Oh you wonderful girl you.” He pulled the packets of blood out, putting one aside before carefully placing the rest in his high-grade medical refrigerating unit. He handled each with such care and precision it made her feel sheepish about how she’d been hauling them around.

Then, withdrawing some of the thick red liquid from the first bag he set to work, putting two vials through the centrifuge, one through another processor she vaguely recognized but couldn’t name, and put two drops on a glass slide for use with a microscope.

After a mad dash for those five minutes, throughout which Kagome just watched him bemusedly, he finally turned back to her. “Roll up your sleeve,” he ordered her, already grabbing a syringe and tubing.

She rolled her eyes but did as she was told. Sure, it’d be great if he actually asked her, but she was used to it by now. Every so often he asked – well, demanded – a blood sample, and since she was the one who’d sort of instigated all this research about hanyou physiology, she couldn’t see any reason to resist. Wondering why he didn’t just use the bagged blood readily at his disposal, she’d asked him, only to find out that he was held accountable for its use by both the school, his donors, and his sponsors.

The school was typically fine with a simple overview of his recent activities, but some donors – seeing as they gave monetarily to support the school and/or his research – would want to know the particulars of not only his activities they were backing, but also an accounting of the supplies they funded him with. Surprisingly enough, he didn’t think too many of them would be pleased with the idea of its use in hanyou research. Besides, this was an untapped field, and he wanted to be far entrenched in the research, having made considerable headway before the subject ever had the chance to become public. That way if anyone else wanted to start their own research he’d still be far enough ahead to be the forerunner and first in most new discoveries.

Then she’d asked why he didn’t just use his own blood, and he’d just sniffed at the suggestion. “I can barely remember to make my classes on time, and that’s only because the administration finally wised up and gets someone to remind me. Sleep and food aren’t exactly high priorities when I’m caught up in something exciting either.” He didn’t have to spell out the rest since she could imagine it well enough. It was certainly likely enough that if he did use his own blood and got so focused on whatever he was working on he forgot to eat or overexerted himself, he could very easily collapse and take days to recover. Not the type of scenario he’d want any possibility of coming to pass.

With a sigh Kagome sat on one of the stools scattered around his work area and held out her arm, already making a fist. When he sat in front of her he was so excited his hands were shaking. Hastily she pulled back her arm. “Hey now, I don’t mind you jabbing me with that thing but I’d like it in my vein only, thank you very much.”

He grinned up at her, a cocky type of look she never saw on him, which piqued her interest. “I know, I know. Look,” he said, holding out his hands. “Calm, see?” Indeed, his hands were steady now, though she could tell it was only through sheer will power as the rest of him seemed to almost vibrate with repressed excitement.

“Okay, okay,” she said, hiding a laugh in her words.

He wasted no more time, drawing out a single vial – enough to show her the true nature of his impatience, and that she’d likely be donating again very soon, if not on her way out.

A dollop went right on the glass with Inuyasha’s blood and he stuck in underneath a high-powered microscope, beckoning her over to look. Holding back her hair she bent over the machine, amazed at the power of magnification. She swore she could see the actual blood cells! Sure, she’d seen pictures in her textbooks but none of her labs had yet progressed this far.

“Well, what do you see?” he asked eagerly. He wasn’t right behind her, as she’d expected, but clinking around at another table.

“Um, I see the cells.”

A short pause followed her answer. “What are the cells doing?” he asked slowly, speaking as if to a fifth grader.

She glared at his back. She wanted to remind him that, despite having been in school for a couple years now, she was only going part-time and so was still in far more basic classes than he seemed to expect her to be in. Still, she worried that’d only make him talk down to her even more, or perhaps stop his explanation altogether if he thought her too remedial to understand it, so instead she stared through the microscope, willing an answer to form somewhere in the midst of the smeary red substance.

“Well…um…” She couldn’t even tell the difference between her blood cells and Inuyasha’s, though she supposed there had to be some difference, since when she moved the slide around there were some cells grouping together on the left side, some on the right, but none in the middle. “Nothing’s happening in the middle. Wait, didn’t you say the blood is incompatible?”

“Right, right, exactly right!” he declared. “They aren’t mixing!” He marched triumphantly over to her, another slide held in his hand. “The two are actually fighting against each other – you see?”

She hadn’t really but saw no need to tell him that. It was good enough that he was explaining it.

Then switching the two slides, replacing the one she’d been looking at with the new one he’d prepared, he pushed her out of the way so he could focus the microscope and see for himself the result of his newest trial. “This is it,” he whispered, then more excitedly, “This is it!”

He slid back and pushed her back toward the scope, all but shoving her face down to the eyepiece. “Er, what exactly am I looking at?”

“They’re mixing! Your blood and Inuyasha’s,” he’d finally put the name to memory for the sake of keeping accurate records, “they’re compatible, a match.”

Agog, she stared back down at the slide, trying to see what he saw. It did look different from before, the only definable thing she was able to pinpoint though was the color. “Why’s it lighter – almost pinkish in parts?”

“It was so simple I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. I simply broke down the components and tried to do a combination of only the basest elements.”

“Huh?” she asked smartly.

“Plasma, I only used your hanyou’s plasma.”

“Ahhh.” The word dragged out her understanding. She remembered that when humans did blood transfers it all depended on blood type and rh factors, that what type of transfusion a person could accept depended on their own blood type. However, plasma used only the parts of the blood that didn’t have type carriers, so plasma from one person could go to any other, regardless of blood type. However, since it only used a small portion of the blood and had to go through the separation process, most blood donations still took whole blood instead.

“So you’re saying that by simply using part of Inuyasha’s blood it’s now compatible with human blood? That it’s almost like he has ‘youkai-type’ blood, and that by only using the plasma it took the youkai factor out of it?”

“That would be an oversimplification, but yes, at least in theory. This is only the first test.”

She was puzzled, wondering why this, of all things, was what he’d spent so much time trying to achieve. “But what’s the point?” Did proving the compatibility increase their humanity?

Dr. Hirohito stared at her in outright shock before giving in to laughter. “My dear child, can you even comprehend what this could mean for the world of medicine? They heal and regenerate at a phenomenal rate. Such a thing has always been impossible between humans and youkai, they are too entirely different, but imagine humanity being able to gain those abilities through something as simple as a transfusion?”

He wore such an innocent, delighted smile, but Kagome’s mind quickly descended into horror at his words. This was all so that humans could gain hanyou-like abilities? Sure, she could see how that would be appealing to the medical world at large, but what did that mean for the hanyou, who had no rights to speak of? Would they be bred simply for their blood? Or what if there were further compatibilities…

“What about other things, like tissue samples, or…or…organ transplants? Could that ever be possible?”

His eyebrows scrunched as he looked at her quizzically, either exasperated she wasn’t sharing in his enthusiasm or picking up on her altered mood. “I doubt it,” he said slowly, unsure. “It would require extensive research and testing to see if tissue were ever compatible, and as for organs…” He shrugged. “I think that's impossible. Even if it were, it would be nothing more than a death sentence for the person receiving it.”

“R-really? How’s that?”

“Part of the reason that a youkai’s body heals and regenerates so quickly is because their bodies function at such a high capacity. Not to mention their impressively long lifespans.” He waved that second thought aside loftily. “The main reason we humans grow old is simply because our bodies cease to function as they once did, losing their efficiency with time.

“If, for the sake or argument, we were able to take a youkai heart and put it into a human body, the result would be disastrous. That heart would be built for the high efficiency of the youkai body, and our piddly little human ones would have no chance of keeping up. If it didn’t cause an almost immediate death through a stroke or aneurism, or even internal bleeding from any number of blood vessels bursting from the sheer force of the heart’s pumping, then it would cause death soon after. High blood pressure would be the least of the problems.

“And since hanyou seem to have similar abilities to those of their youkai parents, it stands to reason that the result would be the same. Even if their hanyou bodies only work at a fraction of the level of a normal youkai’s, it would still be disastrous trying to have it work inside the fragile state of a human’s physiology.”

Kagome heaved a sigh of relief, some of her fears alleviated. At least hanyou wouldn’t be brought up, farmed as it were, simply for their organs, their deaths coming at the whim of whatever rich ningen needed a replacement. But still… “What about the blood? What would prevent someone from deciding they like the speedy healing offered by hanyou plasma and insist on having daily transfusions?”

He ‘tsk’ed at her but his eyes sobered, as if finally catching onto the source of her discomfiture. “That would fail for much the same reason. Any prolonged transfusion – if the transfusions do work, which isn’t for sure, mind you – would actually have the opposite effect. The reason you’re so fatigued when you’re sick, for instance, is because that is when your body is working its hardest, fighting the infection or disease or whatever else is battling against the normal homeostasis of your body.

“If these transfusions work, and if the plasma brings along with it the heightened healing rates, it would in fact overtax the body, working it beyond what it’s accustomed to enduring. It could even go so far as to put the receiver in a semi-comatose state for the duration of the healing. I can’t conceive of anyone wanting to live like that everyday. And if, for some reason, some idiotic person did, it would likely push their body past endurance, just like a too-efficient hanyou organ, and they would push themselves to an early death.

“As for the rest, your body is constantly using and creating blood, so any transfusion of hanyou blood would likely be out of the system within days. If the transfusion is for the sake of a particularly heinous injury or something of the sort, I could foresee possibly doing multiple transfusions, but still only in the severest of cases because of how taxing it would theoretically be on the body. For the most part I would say only one would be sufficient, and even then only for those things in need of accelerated healing.”

Kagome understood what he was trying to say, but still the idea of it sat like a lump in her throat.

“Do you understand why I’m taking such detailed notes?” he asked, lowering himself to look her straight in the face, suddenly unusually somber.  

She shrugged. “So that when it proves a success you can publish a book and make bank?”

He didn’t even crack a smile, which made her sit up and take notice. “You’re right in part – I do this because I want credit for what I’ve achieved. However, I also don’t know if I’ll even be alive by the time I’m able to take credit, and there must be something that proves my achievements.”

“What do you mean about not being alive?” She stood suddenly, accusingly, almost causing him to topple over. “You’re not dying are you?!” she yelled, angry that he could deceive her, leave her, leave all this work behind. Yet that would account for the motive behind this type of research.

He scoffed at her. “Of course not. But do you think I haven’t thought through all the scenarios running through your head right now? I may be a bit obsessive with my research, but that includes all parts of it, including those impacted by its results. You think I haven’t considered what would happen to these hanyou of yours if I published these results now?”

Kagome could only manage a sheepish smile that was all the answer he needed.

Rolling his eyes, he continued, “So naturally there’s no way that any of my work can be published or put into daily application until hanyou have full rights of their own and can decide, in their own full capacity, whether they want to aid in the well-being of the humans who have so-long feared and dehumanized them.”

She could only stare at him, mouth agape.

“You know what this means then, don’t you?” he asked, getting into her face again.

“W-what?”

He smiled brilliantly. “You need to get a move on it, and get these hanyou their rights before I pass on into the hereafter.”

A beat of silence passed before she dissolved into breathless laughter. “Of course,” she gasped, clutching at her stomach, “I need to stop dragging my feet. Whatever was I thinking?” She knew it wasn’t really that funny, that she was overdoing it, but she couldn’t help the surge of adrenaline that flooded through her at the relief she felt, making everything so much lighter. When finally she petered to a stop she looked up at him, taking a moment to just examine his face.

“Are you sure you’re all right with this?” His research was everything to him.

He shrugged. “Making the discoveries is most of the fun, knowing I’ve seen or created something that no one else ever has. The credit is secondary. Necessary,” he ribbed, “but secondary. That’s why if I die before hanyou are societal equals, it’s your job to protect my files and documentation, and see that they’re published as soon as possible to prevent anyone else from swiping the title of first. Whether it’s now or in a hundred years, I will be known as the forefather of this branch of medicine,” he answered with a wink.

“And if I die before it’s realized?”

He slapped her on the shoulder. “That’s your problem, kiddo. I just do the research; everything outside those doors,” he pointed toward his lab’s exit, “is your arena.”

She crossed her arms. “So basically you’re passing the buck to me.”

“Of course!” he grinned. “Besides, I’m only going to be able to get so far in my research with only one hanyou to base all my findings on. Youkai species vary so much from each other, it’s impossible to guess all the different variables their hanyou offspring might have. Just simple genetics show us that the same human/youkai pairing could produce a gaggle of drastically different children. Even were your Inuyasha to have a hanyou sibling they could have remarkably different traits, so it’s impossible to tell how broad the compatibility might be between our two species. Whether Inuyasha is the norm or the exception in his blood’s ability to mix with yours, I have no idea.”

Kagome felt the faintest inklings of guilt at keeping her other friends secret all this time, especially considering what she needed to ask next. “So, what’s the possibility of your writing me a prescription for antibiotics, no questions asked?”

“I’d say slim to none.” And she knew it wasn’t because he didn’t trust her, but that he suspected where she was going with this, especially considering the topics they’d just been discussing.

“But it’s outside these doors!” she said innocently. “Isn’t that all my arena?”

“Ha ha,” he laughed sarcastically. “Now what could you possibly want to keep secret from your dear old teacher who’s going out of his way to help you with hanyou research?” he shot back with equally false innocence.

“Yeah, I’m sure the research is really all for my sake. What was that you were saying about my ensuring your credit if you die first?”

He glared at her. Still, he did have a point. Besides, she’d known she wouldn’t be able to keep it secret from him forever. Perhaps she even owed it to him, but she worried for the sanity of the hanyou back home if he got overly-excited about the information. Still, with Shinichi as sick as he was she knew she had to spill.

“Promise you won’t get carried away.” She couldn’t believe she was talking this way to a teacher.

“Define ‘carried away’?”

She sighed, knowing a lost cause when she saw one. “There’s a hanyou I know who’s rather sick and we’d like some more antibiotics as a backup, just in case.”

“A hanyou you know? Does this hanyou have any relation to you and your Inuyasha?” He raised his eyebrows expectantly and, for the life of her, she couldn’t tell if he was serious or not.

“W-what? No! Of course not! We…I…no, no children.”

“Why are you the one in charge of his medical care then?”

“His family doesn’t exactly like the bother of taking care of him.”

The professor nodded. “What makes you think antibiotics will do him any good? Their physiology is so different it could actually do him harm instead.”

Oh boy, it was just going to snowball from here. “There’s another hanyou who’s a bit of an herbalist, and he’s the closest thing we have to an expert in hanyou medicine. He’s been coming over to look at him as well and started him on some old antibiotics we had leftover, but we’re running out.”

“’Coming over’? The boy is staying at your house?”

She bit her lip; she hadn’t meant to divulge that much. There’d be no keeping him away now. In that case she may as well just come clean about the whole thing. She’d been lucky up to now in that he didn’t care for local news, unless it pertained to medicine, and so had missed her shrine’s shift in legal status. “My family and I run something of a safehouse for hanyou.”

She winced at the look of delight that stole over his features.

“Really now,” he all but purred. “In that case why don’t I come over? After all, as a doctor I am supposed to examine any patients I’m giving a prescription to.”

She knew he didn’t care that deeply about the supposed ethics of writing the script, but that he was reaching for any excuse to come over and see them for himself.

“The thing is, these hanyou haven’t exactly had the most pleasant lives, as you might imagine. Most of them are rather uncomfortable around strangers. And you, you come across a bit…,” she hesitated, searching for an appropriate term, finally settling on, “strongly. Especially concerning anything about your research.”

“You think I would frighten them?”

Most definitely. She couldn’t tell whether the offense in his tone was playful banter or not though, and so chose to tread carefully.

“Look, the only ones they ever see there are my family, the other hanyou that come and go, and those related to them that come or go with them. We’ve never had any complete outsiders come over, and I wouldn’t want to risk making them feel uncomfortable in the only place they might be able to feel any sort of safety. You have to know that’s my primary concern, right?”

He didn’t say anything but she could see the answer in his eyes, begrudging though it was.

“I’ll ask though, see if there are any willing to meet with you. I think there’s a good chance at least one would; there aren’t many people who are curious about them for reasons beyond how to get rid of them. That’s all I can promise though.”

Her words held a tinge of regret and perhaps that’s what softened him in the end, or maybe he could just imagine their plight, but either way the tension left him. There was still a spark of mischief left in his gaze, though, and she wondered what he could still be thinking of. “Yeah, yeah, I understand,” was all he said.

“So, the script?” she asked hopefully.

He walked back to one of his many cluttered desks and started rummaging through the drawers. While he was searching, he called over his shoulder, “That herbalist you mentioned, does he use known youkai remedies or things he’s come up with on his own that are unique to hanyou?”

Kagome thought about it and realized she didn’t know for sure. “All I know is that he’s said that herbs are one of nature’s great equalizers. In many cases they apply the same across species, whether human, hanyou, or youkai.” She shrugged. “More than that, I couldn’t tell you.”

His eyes gleamed as he turned around, prescription pad in hand. “He sounds a most interesting individual. Perhaps you could impress upon him, especially, that I’d like a meeting?”

She nodded. Jinenji was the most likely to agree in any case.

“And,” he added, as he signed the script with a flourish and handed it over, “if that fails, perhaps he’d still be open to written correspondence?”

Kagome couldn’t stop the chortle that escaped her. “You mean, like a pen pal?”

Dr. Hirohito gave a one-shouldered shrug of nonchalance but an impish grin hid behind his eyes. “It’s very common in the medical community when two researchers share a common interest or pursuit but have labs in different parts of the world.”

“All right then. I’ll be sure to pass along the information.” Grinning she stood to leave, almost making it to grab the empty ice chest before he halted her.

“Whoa, just where do you think you’re going?”

She turned back to look at him, rolling her eyes when she saw the length of tubing in his hand. “I knew it,” she grumbled mutinously, just loud enough for him to hear of course, before she sat back down and gave him a cheeky grin. “Are you at least going to give me some juice this time? Last time you nearly drained me dry and I need something to balance me out.”

He leaned in and examined her closely. “Hmm, you do look rather pale.”

“Hey now, no insulting the donor.”

“Well then, my lady,” he said sarcastically, bowing deeply, “one juice coming right up.” He crossed to the well stocked mini-fridge in the corner of his lab and tossed her a pouch. “All right now?”

“Just peachy,” she replied, smiling the most sickly sweet smile she could.

“Good, now hold out your arm.”

~ ~ ~

A/N:  Many thanks to Aki Hana for Kegaro’s name. Kega is wound, whether physical or to one's honor or spirit, and ro is a masculine ending, whereas Shinichi (Shin’ichi) means true first son.

As always, additional thanks to Aki Hana for her mad beta skills, and a very special thank you to kokoronagomu for kicking my rear into gear, helping me with research for that medical section and telling me when my first draft of it sucked (no, it really did. Plot holes anyone?) and doing another once-over for me. Yay help!

Next chapter should actually be out pretty quickly. I’ve just got to get the edits done on it, well that and pick a chapter title. I don’t know why but that is one of the hardest things for me to get down. Argh! (Seriously, this chapter just about killed me. I finally settled on this, and I’m not sure if it’ll even make sense until the next chapter is posted – or even later. Foreshadowing anyone?)

Anyhow, hope you enjoyed.