InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Boyfriend ❯ Innocence Lost ( Chapter 14 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

By: Xakana

Disclaimer: InuYasha, Kagome and anyone else you saw in the manga or anime does not belong to me. Yukio does. If I saw so much as a shiny penny for this story, you think I'd be writing fanfiction still? Okay, I would… Damn other authors and their more interesting universes…

Genre: Angst, Romance

Rating: M
Codes: Inu/Kag
Feedback: Keeps my muse talking and the stories coming! Do tell. But if you have a flame, use it for something more productive, like setting your clothes on fire.

The Boyfriend
Chapter 14

Nearly seven months passed and a lot of things changed. Kikyo died, but InuYasha was still so heartbroken over losing Kagome that he barely felt it. There was only so much grief he could take and since he already felt as though he had lost Kikyo, truly losing her was no extra blow. He even had a coward's relief that he would never have to tell her that he had chosen Kagome over her, after all the times he had told Kagome the opposite. Koga had fought with InuYasha upon discovering that Kagome had been kidnapped, even after the hanyo saved his life of his own free will, and set out to find Kagome, abandoning his quest for vengeance. InuYasha looked for Kagome everywhere he went, but still sought Naraku, suspecting he had a hand in the whole kidnapping, even though he denied it when confronted on Mount Hakurei.

Miroku asked Sango to marry him, although he did it in private and only Shippo knew, since he had been eavesdropping. InuYasha made biweekly trips through the well to update Mrs. Higurashi, who never took the news well. The first trip he made, she had cried and begged him to find her. The second, she threw a glass at him and told him not to come back without her daughter. The third (which he made despite her previous demand) she cursed him, the well and fate. The next several times, she just looked sad and said nothing.

He wasn't sure how long he would try to find her, but something inside told him that she wasn't dead. When Kikyo died, he had felt it. When Kagome had been hurt, he felt it. But he hadn't felt anything that made him think she was dead, so he kept searching. He was at his wit's end when he ended up in a village and picked up her scent. It had been a long time since he smelled it on her, but he carried her bag around to occasionally sniff and remind himself. It was definitely Kagome.

“Kagome!” he shouted in the middle of the crowd and watched as many people turned around. He looked at all their faces, but didn't see her. He searched through several women until one gaunt, weary face stood out. “Kagome,” he whispered, horrified at the look of her. She was crouched over the ground, pulling weeds from a garden—or she was until she heard his voice.

“Inu… Yasha?” she whispered back. He watched her turn back to the task, then she pushed herself up from the ground, the kimono she was wearing flaring out around her. She stumbled forward and he ran to her. She turned around and he skidded to a halt, horrified. Her stomach protruded far in front of her in pregnancy, her skin was sallow and her hair ragged and dirty. There were bruises under her eyes and across her chin. She looked down at the ground, a blush spreading across her cheeks. “I must look awful,” she whispered again. He reached out and touched her arm and she looked up at him again. A moment later, she was embracing him, her hard stomach digging into his as she clutched him with all her strength.

He hugged her back, wondering what the hell was going on, but more worried than upset. Especially when her shoulders began shaking and sobs wracked her body. He held her more tightly, ignoring the stares and whispers of the villagers around them. She was trembling from head to toe and he knew it wasn't the weather—it was so hot he was sweating.

“Get your filthy hands off her, she's mine!” some man yelled and Kagome flinched. He felt her shrink in fear and a warning growl rose in him. He turned to the offending man and poured all his hatred into the glare he gave him. The man stepped back clutching a gardening instrument he had brought with him. “I bought her, fair and square and I haven't waited all this time for her to have that brat just so some disgusting demon could steal her away!” The growling increased in volume.

“You can't have bought her, she was never for sale,” InuYasha growled, trying very hard not to lose his temper.

“Yes, she was! I bought her from a slave trader that went through here last season with several beautiful women. I paid a good price for her, too, especially since she's used,” the man sneered. Kagome made a sound and InuYasha realized he'd accidentally dug his claws into her shoulder. He pulled them back quickly and stepped back, taking off Kagome's backpack from himself and putting it on her. She looked surprised, but took it quietly. He presented his back to her and crouched down. From what he understood, the man hadn't touched Kagome, so he didn't want to kill him. If she really had been carted around as a slave, she had been lucky to end up where she was. She climbed tentatively onto his back and he stood up, surprised by the amount of relief he felt just having her there again. It felt good; it felt right. “Did you hear me? I said you can't have her!”

“And I said you can't have her!” InuYasha growled, spinning to face the man. “She was mine to begin with and if I find out you so much as laid a finger on her, I'll be back,” he yelled. The man shrunk back, pale and frightened. He obviously didn't want to give her up, but at the same time, he knew he had no chance against InuYasha.

“We can't just let you leave with that man's property,” said another villager, lifting another gardening tool. Soon, other men began to surround them and InuYasha didn't waste another moment. He crouched and leapt into the air, as high and far as he could. He heard gasps from beneath him and saw a spear fly by, too close for comfort. Still, he kept moving forward, dodging the stones and weapons thrown his way. Then Kagome cried out.

InuYasha quickly looked for a safe place to land and set her down. Something warm spread across his back and he was afraid Kagome was bleeding. He kept running until he was certain no one would catch them, then let her down and turned around. She fell to the ground, crying and clutching her stomach. Fluid had pooled all around the lower front of her kimono and he wondered if she had wet herself, except that it didn't smell like urine.

“The baby's coming!” she shrieked, writhing on the ground. He grabbed her bag, slung it across his shoulder and then lifted her in his arms and started running as fast as he could towards the last village he had seen before the one he found her in. “It's too soon!”

“What do I do?” he yelled back, frantic.

“Take me home,” she gasped. Her voice was wrecked, like it had been worn out from a lot of screaming lately. He suddenly smelled her blood and his fingers grew warm. He glanced down and saw that some wound on her back had been reopened from the way he was carrying her and he cursed loudly. He ran the entire rest of the day and all night before he reached the well. He jumped in, and then leapt back out the second his feet touched the ground. He was exhausted and near to passing out; his legs and back burned and he ached all over. Kagome was unconscious in his arms and he ran to the shrine as fast as he was able.

“I have Kagome!” he yelled at the top of his voice as soon as he was close to the house. A light went on inside and he ran through the door, bouncing his passenger into a better position. Unfortunately, it was too much on his already exhausted legs and he went to his knees under Kagome's weight. Souta ran through the door first and gasped at the sight in front of him. Mrs. Higurashi and Jii-chan hit the doorway at the same time, but Kagome's mother pushed through first, nearly knocking Souta over. She apologized, and then went to her knees in front of InuYasha, who was holding the girl as tightly as his weary body would let him.

“Inu no nii-chan, you're bleeding!” Souta cried out.

“No, it's Kagome's,” InuYasha argued, then followed Souta's hand to his torn kimono. One of the spears managed to hit right at the break in the sleeve, tearing into his arm. He never even noticed. The spearhead was imbedded in the flesh. “Pull it out,” he told Souta, who went wide-eyed and stepped back.

“Me?” Souta asked. InuYasha nodded and the boy reached out tentatively.

“Quickly,” InuYasha said and Souta closed his eyes and ripped it out. He opened them to look at the piece of stone in his hand and gasped at all the blood. He looked back up, but InuYasha didn't look any different, so he clutched the souvenir in his palm and tried to stay out of the way as his mother attempted to wake his sister, who was now on the floor, and Jii-chan called for an ambulance. Souta quietly took the bag off of InuYasha's shoulders, the hanyo only noticing enough to let the straps slide off his arms. He dug around inside to find Kagome's first aid kit. He wasn't certain what he was doing, but he remembered Kagome said InuYasha healed fast, so he wanted to wrap the wounds to keep the doctors away from him, figuring it would also be difficult to explain a spear wound.

He pulled at the fire rat kimono and finally got InuYasha's attention. The hanyo noticed what he was doing and took it off. Relieved that he seemed to be doing the right thing, Souta pulled the off-white kimono off and used a cloth to wipe the blood away. Once he could see the injury, he began wrapping bandages, trying not to make them too tight.

“They're too loose,” InuYasha commented, never taking his eyes off Kagome. Souta apologized and rewrapped them, pulling tighter than he was comfortable with. But when InuYasha didn't complain, he relaxed. He lifted the torn and blood-soaked kimono and wondered what to do with it. His grandfather had obviously been paying attention, because he held out one of his own tops to Souta. The boy nodded thanks and put it on InuYasha, who was too distracted to dress himself until Souta started fumbling at the front. Then InuYasha took over and smiled up at him. “Thanks, kid,” he said. Souta beamed, delighted to be not only noticed, but also appreciated. `How could Kagome ever have cheated on him?' he wondered. Then he felt terrible as he remembered what had happened to her for it.

No one had realized that he was sitting outside her bedroom door, crying as he listened to her tell the police what had happened. They hadn't seen him when they came out, because he had been throwing up in the bathroom. He barely understood anything about sex and listening to his sister describe being raped was the most horrible experience of his life. He had been forgotten in the confusion and had snuck out of his room when he heard the police arrive. One cop, who kept saying things that made Souta want to hit him, was downstairs questioning his mother. He was too angry to handle that conversation, so he had gone upstairs to eavesdrop on his sister. He had listened for exactly four minutes before he had to spend the next half hour in the bathroom, being sick.

He saw InuYasha the night he came through the well as a human. He had peeked out from Kagome's window and tried to listen. He had waited with his mother, though she wasn't aware of it, until InuYasha came back, his hands covered in blood. He hadn't understood what happened, that he had attacked Yukio, until the next day in school when the kids were talking about a boy who was found beaten badly with `zainin' carved into his head by glass. Souta had found a newspaper with a picture of it and recognized Yukio immediately. That was the night the nightmares stopped.

They had been horrible dreams—haunting him and leaving him exhausted each day. In some of them, he was forced to sit and listen to his sister talking to the police again. In others, he found her while Yukio was hurting her and couldn't save her. In one horrible version, it had been InuYasha and not Yukio hurting Kagome. That one had happened after he heard his mother screaming at InuYasha about failing to protect Kagome and telling him to bring her home. It was the only one he had after finding out InuYasha had avenged Kagome. He had been so upset by it that he had to stay home sick from school the next day.

He tried not to let anyone know how worried he had been, how awful he felt. The last month he had had with his sister before the attack, he treated her horribly and he couldn't forgive himself when she was kidnapped. To see her now: passed out on the floor, her stomach moving with Yukio's child inside… Souta turned away to discreetly wipe his tears on his sleeve, hoping no one had seen. But why would they? After all, they hadn't noticed him all this time he had been grieving for his sister.

He kept his grades up, maintained a cheerful demeanor and even managed to keep Hitomi from it all. She had stayed his girlfriend this whole time and was the only one who even seemed to sense something was wrong. Whenever he was feeling particularly horrible, she showed up and held his hand, making it easier to bear. He wondered if she knew how much help she had been to him. His thoughts were broken by InuYasha when the hanyo's hand fell on his shoulder. He looked up at him, surprised.

“You've been a lot of help, Souta,” InuYasha said, turning to the door as the paramedics rushed in. Souta smiled a real smile then. InuYasha smiled back at him, squeezed his shoulder, and then chased off the poor people trying to do their job by putting Kagome on the gurney. He wouldn't have any of them lifting her, so he did it himself. Someone had retrieved his hat and he was wearing it as he followed behind them while they loaded Kagome on the ambulance. Mrs. Higurashi got in with her and InuYasha said he would follow.

“We'll take the bus,” Jii-chan told Souta, nudging him towards the stairs. “Go put some clothes on.”

To be continued…

A/N: Just so you know, no one is ignoring Souta, they've just all been worried sick about Kagome, including him, and he's trying not to bother anyone. It's not that anyone cares any less about him. He just got overlooked, poor kid, because he was pretending nothing was wrong. Thanks to everyone who's been reviewing, I really appreciate it! And yes, your reviews matter, you guys pointed stuff out that affected chapter 12 and is the reason it was so long, because I realized I skipped an entire rather important month in the story! So thanks, guys! I may not seem to be very affected, since I don't say something every chapter, but I read everything and take it all into consideration! -hugs-