InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Wake Me Up Inside ❯ Chapter 10 ( Chapter 10 )

Wake Me Up Inside

Chapter 10

AN: Before I start this chapter, I want to take a moment to address one question that I have been getting over and over again. I've answered it before, both in review replies as well as author notes. But some people still seem to be missing my answer, so I'll say the answer again and why.

Q: When is Inuyasha going to wake?

A: Quite a few chapters. I know some of you hate waiting for that moment. I do too. But there is a reason why I've planned it this way. I've said this particular reasoning before in a reply to one person's review. Since it was worded exactly how I feel, I'll say it again just as I did before.

I want some other things to happen first. Things like what Inuyasha is going through tend to take time. If I rushed his waking then it would feel a little too unrealistic. One of my goals in this story is to keep it as real as possible without sacrificing the magic of Inuyasha's story. That's why it's taking so long. And too, the story isn't just about Inuyasha. It's also about the re-converging of the friends he'd surrounded himself with in the past. That's the part that I'm letting take center stage for most of the first half of the story. Great things often come at a price.

There are other reasons why it is taking Inuyasha so long to wake up. Some of those reasons will be discussed in this chapter. Some will come a little bit later. But I assure you, everything that happens in this story has a reason for happening the way it does.

That said, on with the story.

Oh and uh… there'll be one little paragraph containing a few spoilers for episodes 73 and 74. I was a good girl and only told as much as I needed to tell in order for Inuyasha's train of thought to make sense.

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Sherry happily rushed into the room ahead of Kagome and Beth. She dropped her school bag on the floor then hopped up onto the bedside to give Yue a hug as best she could. Kagome's eyes widened at the energetic show of affection to someone who'd never been able to speak a word to the little girl let alone return her gestures of friendship. Beth, however, just smiled knowingly, quite happy that Sherry was returning to her old self finally.

"Konnichiwa, Romeo-san!" Sherry greeted with unbridled cheer while trying to impress with a show of what small amount of Japanese vocabulary she possessed. Then, as she blinked, she noticed the new teddy bear that now accompanied her sleeping friend. "Huh? What.. where'd this come from?" the girl asked as she picked up the teddy bear and showed it to the two adults in hopes that they would have an answer.

"Me. I gave it to him last night. I saw it in a gift shop and just had to get it for him," Kagome told her.

"Oh! That's so nice!" Sherry grinned as she looked down at the bear in her hands. "It's so cute and fuzzy soft!" she cooed as she gave the bear a hug.

"His name is Yume, which is Japanese for `Dream'," Kagome informed the young girl. "Yume's job is to play companion for Romeo when I'm not able to be here. So, he'll never ever be alone."

Sherry gawked, surprisingly understanding the depth held in the young oriental woman's words, "Wow. That's.. very kind. I've heard people say that people like Yue are suppose to be able to hear you even though they're asleep. I try to spend as much time with him as I can. But, I'm only a little kid so that doesn't always amount to much. I know Beth spends a lot of time with him too, but.. I can imagine how lonely it must get when people aren't around. Especially at night. Who's to say that he can't feel emotion like the rest of us even though he's in a coma? Who's to say that he doesn't know everything that goes on around him? Who's to say that he's not completely aware, but just unable to tell us he's there?"

The two older girls listened to the girl speak as she looked at Yue with profound emotion in her eyes and a deep unexplainable bond of fondness that one could feel thickly in the air of the room. Beth and Kagome exchanged glances before returning their gazes to Sherry. Kagome walked over to sit beside Sherry while Beth shut the door and sat in the armchair.

"Though incredibly deep for one your age, I think you have a point. Especially for a guy like Romeo. When he was someone else fighting battles beside me, he was the kind of person who wouldn't stop fighting till he was rendered completely incapable of it. It made me mad at times, but I think.. no, I'm certain it was the one thing most responsible for keeping him and all he stood for alive in the face of the most overwhelming of odds," the miko said as she turned her eyes to her old friend. "He'll always remain a fighter who simply refuses to lose."

"Wow. So maybe he's still in there fighting something?" Sherry asked innocently. Kagome gasped at that proposal.

"You know what? I bet you're right! That's gotta be it. The question is, what is he fighting? If we answer that, I'm sure we'll be able to help him defeat it!" Kagome exclaimed with newfound hope shining brightly in her heart.

"Okay, so tell your story. Maybe we can help you figure it out after that," Sherry suggested. Kagome gave the child and the eagerly listening nurse a look of determination.

"Whatever it takes to get him back, I'll do it," the miko told them sternly. She took a deep breath then began with a preamble.

"Before I start this story, I want to point out that the events I will tell about will undoubtedly overlap with the life Yue has lead. Beth's already confirmed that. I know, based on how long Yue has laid here, and the fact that his blood is completely human, that he and the person I met years ago are technically two different lives. But the fact that he resembles the human form of the guy I knew, and the fact that he now wears the rosary that was forever bound to the other guy's very soul… even though Yue and Inuyasha lead two different lives, they are still somehow the same person. The question I have yet to answer is how? I have a feeling the answer to what is happening to Romeo has everything to do with the historical thread that connects Inuyasha to Yue."

Sherry blinked in confusion. Though Beth had already hear the first part of the story at dinner last night, she too was perplexed by the way the cards were stacked. However, Kagome's path of reasoning made some sense to her, even if she had only a vague understanding of the situation.

"My story begins on the morning of my fifteenth birthday. All my life, I had grown up living on the grounds of an ancient shrine. Part of my inherited list of chores was helping Ji-chan - err.. Grandfather - take care of the shrine the Higurashi family had been entrusted with."

"Call him Ji-chan if you want. I think it sounds cool," Sherry giggled. Beth smiled and nodded.

"Okay," Kagome agreed warmly. "Anyway, being a shrine maiden by birth, I also grew up hearing plenty of strange stories of demons and magic from deep in the past. Ji-chan has a passion for telling stories, even if they're not always entirely true," she laughed.

"Oh boy," Sherry commented with a sly expression.

"Being a girl who had been taught that everything should have a scientific explanation, I never believed a word of those stories Ji-chan always told. That is, till the day my story starts."

Indeed, Romeo was most certainly awake there inside the mind of the young man known as Yue. Sherry had been too wrapped up in Kagome's stories to notice the subtle shifting of life force within her silent friend. As always, Inuyasha had sensed her coming even before she entered the room. He could feel her childish exuberance flooding the world around her like a tidal wave.

`She must have had a really good day,' the hanyou mused as he braced himself for the glomp he knew was coming. Despite preparing for it, he was unable to keep from chuckling. Sherry's mood was always contagious.

As Kagome began her long tale about her adventures with the mighty hanyou known as Inuyasha, said individual felt the little girl kick off her shoes and settle in her usual place by his side. Her legs stretched out along the length of the bed while she scooted to let her back rest against the pillows and headboard. Though her mind was entranced by the miko's story, Sherry felt a familiar tingle course through her in response to Romeo's aura seeming to lightly mingle with her own. Softly smiling, the child moved a small hand to rest on Yue's shoulder.

`Sometimes I wonder exactly how much of this mess of mine you've managed to figure out on your own, Sherry,' Inuyasha thought as he picked up on the message belayed in the gesture.

"I chased after the jewel as it rolled onto the bridge. To my horror, I saw his fearsome form dropping out of the sky in the middle of the bridge with his silver hair flowing in his wake. The jewel kept rolling.. out of my range and towards him. All the while, Kaede kept telling me to speak a word to subdue him. But I was so tense, I couldn't think clearly enough to figure out what she meant."

"The jewel rolled and Inuyasha knelt down with his hands moving out to form a scoop. My heart thundered as the Shikon no Tama grew closer to him in a path that would lead it straight into his hands. Then, I saw the white fuzzy dog ears on the top of his head twitch. I said the first thing that came to mind. I spoke the Japanese word used when you tell a dog to sit. The moment it was out of my mouth, the rosary glowed pink and slammed him face first into the boards of the bridge!"

`I don't believe it. You actually managed to tell that story without saying it! You really have grown up, haven't you?' Inuyasha mused as he found himself picking up on part of her story.

Sherry blinked at the brutality of the action Kagome spoke of. Then she turned and looked at Yue's rosary as she imagined a bully dog demon halfling with cute doggy ears literally face vaulting into the ground. Try as she might, she couldn't help the laughter the mental movie inspired. "I hope it didn't hurt him too bad."

"No. Most of the time it made him either wet from falling in a stream or dirty after making a crater in the ground. As Inuyasha was always so fond of saying, demons and even hanyou are far more versatile than humans. It takes a lot to be able to do any real damage to them," Kagome smiled.

`Yeah. Most of the time. Let's not forget the times you used it repeatedly! Try repetitively body-slamming a hole into the ground yourself sometime and see out it feels, baka,' the hanyou complained.

"Oh! Okay. Good thing you didn't say the real word. Yue's human. I don't want him to get hurt," Sherry commented. Kagome and Beth blinked.

"Yes. That's one of the reasons why I've been reluctant to try that. And even if I manage to do it without hurting him, there's a good chance it'll break something," the miko bellyached.

"Ooooh, doubly good you didn't do it then," Sherry nodded emphatically. Her eyes trailed back to the rosary and her fingers reached out to toy with the beads. She could feel the power they held. Now that she knew what that power was and why it was there, she held a greater respect for the artifact.

"But, the rosary didn't just serve as a means of punishment. Many times, it became the thing that saved his life. In the beginning, Inuyasha hated it with a passion. In the end, he wouldn't let my take it off of him. So that's where it remained. Now I'm glad I left it," the miko elaborated.

Sherry gawked at her then the rosary. Some how, at it's deepest level, the rosary served as the ultimate embodiment of the bond between Inuyasha and Kagome. She felt tears well up at the sheer amount of love existing between these two people the rosary seemed to convey.

"I'm glad you did too. You two are lucky that you can love each other so much. And for so long," the little girl said softly as she wiped the happy tears from her eyes.

"I second that thought," Beth nodded. Kagome blushed as she found her eyes drawn to the face of her soul mate.

"I know. And I'm not quite sure what I did to deserve such a blessing," she admitted.

`You're not the only one,' the hanyou replied unbeknownst to them.

Kagome continued her tale, summarizing as much as she could for the sake of time. Mean while, Inuyasha basked in the attention he received. Tuning the story out for the sake of composure when she got to the part about Kikyou and Naraku's hideous trap, the hanyou instead trained his thoughts once more on the little girl beside him. He felt her squeeze his shoulder or play her fingers through his hair when Kagome told sad or scary parts. The more she reacted in tiny ways to him willing his aura to brush over hers as his only way of saying "it's okay", the more he wondered about her.

As days went by, the feeling that Inuyasha somehow had known Sherry before all of this grew stronger. So as Kagome told her tale, Inuyasha let his mind search through his own recollections for the memory that could tell him who this girl was. He pooled together facts on Sherry's personality to aid in his search. She was intelligent. She was optimistic. More so, she was strong in body, mind, and spiritual power. There was no doubt in his mind that Sherry was a potentially strong miko. That thought had crossed his mind many times before.

Sherry's spirit had a soothing quality to it. So did her voice. It could be soft and sweet. It could ring like a bell. Sometimes, it could do both. Sherry cared about everyone. Inuyasha had noticed how she would tend to treat people she didn't like just as well as everyone else. Those she could relate to, she grew a special attachment to. To those people she seemed to remain steadfastly loyal to. Nothing anyone could ever say would sway her from such endearments.

Inuyasha took these qualities and carried them with him as he searched the vast pool of memories in his mind. With over two hundred years of life to sort through, the task seemed daunting. Yet the feel of Sherry's aura filled him with inspiration that would drive him to search till an answer was found. The hanyou gasped when the thought of that reminded him of a quest that lead him to encounter another individual similar to himself.

Time seemed to totally stop for the hanyou as he recalled the young hanyou girl known as Shiori. He had been searching for a tool to help him defeat Naraku. This quest had lead him to a village by the sea and forced him to become involved in an effort to save a soft-spoken yet incredibly powerful hanyou child. He had been awed when the girl showed kindness to the human villagers even after they had been so cruel to her. The more Inuyasha remembered about Shiori, the more certain he became that she had been reincarnated into the ever lovable Sherry.

Inuyasha felt his heart grow warm. Once again, she was doing all in her power to help him. This time, he vowed not to simply walk away from her. This time, he would make certain to keep her as a member of his small yet growing circle of friends. He owed her that much and more for all she had ever done for him. So it was that when Kagome finished her tale, leaving Beth and Sherry in tears, Inuyasha gave his all to let his life force send comfort to hers as she had done so many times for him. The action did not go totally unnoticed, for the girl smiled and ceased her tears.

"That was a great story. I'm glad to get to be a part of the new chapters being written to it," Sherry said as she sniffled and wiped her tears away with her sleeve. Kagome smiled.

"I am too. I'm happy to have both of you as friends. I'm sure Inuyasha is too. Though, he might be inclined to be stubborn and say it in actions rather than words. He tended to have issues saying how he felt when it came to compliments," Kagome smiled, chuckling softly as she remembered the hanyou's habit of trying to mask his feelings for the sake of looking strong.

Said hanyou gave his inaudible input, `Keh!'

"So Inuyasha wound up with the Shikon no Tama. Maybe whatever happened to him had something to do with the wish he made," Sherry offered while nibbling on her bottom lip in thought.

"I was thinking that same thing the other day when I discovered Yue," Kagome responded. "But I haven't come up with any theories beyond that."

"If the rosary didn't appear till after you returned from the well for the last time, then maybe this coma was a way of preventing Yue from meeting Inuyasha during his many visits to your time," Beth volunteered.

"I've thought of that too. But if that's true, which it sounds pretty good to me, why didn't he wake up after that?" the miko asked.

"Good question," Beth nodded. Sherry screwed up her face as she thought hard on the matter. Her eyes fell on Yue and her fingers yet again played with his ebony hair that felt like the finest silk in her fingers.

"I said before that I could feel something around him. It wasn't always this strong. It appeared and grew slowly over time. Kinda like the effect of that Alieve stuff that works over time instead of all at once," Sherry thought aloud. The attention of the two older girls was once again glued to her as she mused.

"That.. makes sense," Kagome ventured.

"You said that the first time you met Inuyasha, he was sealed to a tree by a magic arrow. You said that he looked like he was asleep instead of dead. Like he does now. Asleep instead of in a coma for years. Maybe it's the same thing. Maybe something sealed him away while his past self was visiting your time," the girl elaborated.

"And Kagome said that when too much demon blood flows through Inuyasha's veins, it poisons him, in a way. Maybe that's the reason why it's taking so long. Maybe the seal was engineered so that any power carried over would be released slowly so that this body that had been human for so long could handle it," Beth said, picking up Sherry's train of thought and carrying the ball further.

"Yes, but why is he only now gaining that power? Why wasn't it with him from the start?" Kagome asked.

"That's a good question, but remember you said your own power didn't appear for you till your fifteenth birthday," Beth pointed out.

"You've got a point," the miko conceded.

"I don't know about this one. It seems like a long shot, but.. what if his parents know something? Since they don't come to see him very often, and yet the few times I've seen them they've seemed to cherish him. Before, I thought it was because it hurt too much to see him like this. Some people are like that," Sherry ventured.

"I had thought that too, Sherry. But now that you mention it, with this new idea on the nature of Romeo's problem, I'm not so sure. It's certainly something worth asking them about," Beth agreed.

"What if they really don't know anything? We'll look kind of silly asking these strange questions of ours," Kagome said with a worried look. Sherry smiled and reached out to give her hand a squeeze.

"I'll do it. I can use my allowance to get a phone card and give them a call," the young girl bravely offered.

"I don't want you to use up your allowance on something like this. If you want to do the honors, you can. But use mine or Beth's phone," Kagome objected.

"Hrmm, I think.. I have an idea," Beth interjected. Two pairs of eyes and three pairs of ears trained upon her. "If it's okay with your parents, would you like to join Kagome and I on a little slumber party tonight at my house?"

Sherry's eyes grew to the size of cantaloupes, "Really? You'd let me? I would love to!"

"That sounds like a good idea to me too," Kagome laughed.

"I had arranged it as a way to pick Kagome's spirits up. But you need it too. Since you've become so deeply involved in this story of Romeo's all on your own, I think it only fair that you get to join the party," Beth grinned as she watched the little girl overflow with excitement.

`I'm glad. Beth, you can be a real pain-in-the-ass bitch sometimes. But other times, like this, you find ways to make up for it ten-fold,' Inuyasha mentally praised. `Finally, they're starting to figure it out,' he thought with a sigh of relief. `So much is starting to come together,' he told himself. `Soon. Soon I'll be free to speak the words I've been waiting for ages to say.'

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