Adult-FanFiction.org : Inuyasha / Yashahime

Strength	By : inufan625 Category: InuYasha > Het - Male/Female > InuYasha/Kagome Views: 9998 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha and will make no money from this work of fiction. This will apply to all chapters contained within.

Chapter List
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Kagome was roused gently several hours later by her mother. She lifted her head from the bed and stretched her neck and back, trying to ease away some of the stiffness.
"Good afternoon, dear," her mother said quietly. "Lunch is ready. I can sit with him if you like, so you can go down and get something to eat."
"Would it be okay if I just ate up here?" Kagome asked.
Asami offered her an understanding smile and nodded. "Of course. I’ll bring you something right up."
Her mother left, and Kagome began to look over InuYasha’s injuries, gently peeling back his bandages to see how he was healing and to see if any of them needed to be replaced yet. She frowned as she noted that the wound in his stomach didn’t seem to have begun to heal at all, and she wondered just how much poison he must have absorbed to keep his blood from being able to start the process of healing him.
She reached out and brushed his damp bangs back from his brow and frowned. His fever was back. She would need to get some more medicine into him.
The door behind her opened and admitted her mother. Kagome smiled when she noticed that her mother had thought to bring her a small kettle of hot water and two cups, in addition to her meal. Now she wouldn’t have to leave InuYasha’s side.
"Thanks, Mama," she said.
"You’re very welcome," Asami replied. "Now, do you need anything else?"
Kagome shook her head. "I don’t think so."
"All right. In that case, don’t hesitate to call me if you should think of anything, and remember that I don’t mind sitting with him should you need a break or if you want to try and get any studying done," her mother finished.
Kagome nodded without looking away from the hanyou, and heard the door close softly. Studying. As if she could possibly concentrate on anything that seemed so trivial in comparison. Though, she supposed that there might come a time when she needed some sort of distraction just to keep from going crazy with worry.
A soft sigh escaped her as she turned from him and went to her desk to prepare the medicine for his fever. She hadn’t even been aware of the trembling of her hands until she tried to pour the water into the cup. The hot liquid spilled over the side, and she cursed quietly. How was she going to take care of him if she couldn’t even pull herself together enough to pour a cup of tea? But he’d never been hurt this badly before, and she couldn’t help but to be afraid.
She buried her head in her hands and took several deep breaths. He’s going to be all right. You are going to get a hold of yourself and take care of him, and in a few days he’ll be back to his old self. Come on, girl, falling apart isn’t going to help him. He’s still holding on, fighting, and you should be too.
"I will. I am," she said aloud, forcing conviction into her voice.
This time when she poured the steaming water into the cup her hands were steadier than they had been and steady enough for her purposes. It was a start.
She returned to her chair by the bed and set the cup on her nightstand. She then slipped her arm beneath his shoulders and lifted him slightly, positioning his head so that it rested against her upper arm and shoulder. Once she was satisfied with their position, she picked up the tea and slowly poured it into his mouth. It took time for him to drink it down, but she was patient and soon the cup was empty.
That done, she fell back in the chair. She glanced at the meal on her desk and debated as to whether or not she wanted to get up and get the food off the tray. Truthfully, she didn’t feel like eating. How could she after seeing his wounds, treating them, and making herself sick wondering if he was going to die without her ever even having had the chance to confess to him? No, eating was probably the furthest thing from her mind, along with studying,
However, the rational part of her mind told her that she was going to need her strength, especially now when she had to be strong for him. So following her head instead of her heart, she retrieved the bowl of rice and vegetables from her desk and forced herself to eat.
~ * ~
It wasn’t until after sunset that Kagome allowed herself to be convinced to leave InuYasha’s side. And even then it was only because her grandfather and brother were going to be washing the dried sweat and blood from InuYasha’s body.
She most definitely wanted to see InuYasha naked, so that wasn’t the problem. No, the problem was that when that happened she wanted them both to be fully conscious and not riddled with life threatening injuries, and so she headed out of the room to give them some privacy.
While that was going on, she went downstairs and ate a small dinner, even though she still wasn’t hungry. Then she took a quick shower of her own.
When she returned to her room, she decided that she could at least try to read from one of her text books to pass the time. She had two tests on Monday and so she pulled out her books in those subjects and placed them on the bedside table. Once she was seated she took one from the top of the small stack and began to read.
Her eyes traveled over the words, but none of it really made any sense. She just couldn’t seem to focus for any length of time, and her eyes kept wandering toward the hanyou in her bed. Deciding that trying to study was indeed an exercise in futility, she closed the book. A yawn escaped her and she cringed at the thought of falling asleep hunched over the bed as she had before. She didn’t know if her neck muscles could take another night like that.
She looked at the narrow section of bed unoccupied by InuYasha. If she was careful, she just knew that she could fit there beside him without disturbing him. She moved to the end of the bed and then crawled up from the foot until she was alongside him. Her back was touching the wall, and her stomach his side, but she wasn’t putting any pressure on his injuries and that was the important thing. With a sigh she rested her head on the outside of his uninjured shoulder and closed her eyes.
~ * ~
Kagome’s first instinct was to be irritated that someone was currently shaking her out of her sleep, but as she opened her eyes to tell them to go away she realized that it wasn’t someone waking her up after all. Her heart leapt into her throat, and she hurried to press her body over InuYasha as he convulsed. His skin was like fire against her own, and it took all of her willpower not to panic.
"Mama! Mama, I need help! Please!"
Kagome fought back her tears as the seconds ticked by. She felt so helpless just waiting for someone to come, but she couldn’t get up and risk InuYasha injuring himself. Time had never seemed to pass so slowly, and just when she began to think that her mother hadn’t heard her, the door to her room opened.
"Oh, my! What do you need me to do?" her mother asked as she took in the scene.
"He’s burning up, Mama. I need to get some medicine into him, but I also need some wet towels and some ice," Kagome replied.
Just then Souta peeked around from behind his mother. "I’ll go get the towels."
Asami turned and watched her son disappear down the hall and then looked back to her daughter. "I’ll go get some hot water and as much ice as we have."
Kagome could only nod since she couldn’t even seem to swallow around the lump in her throat. She kept her eyes on the door, willing her mother and brother to hurry.
Souta returned first, accompanied by her grandfather, the wet towels in their arms leaving a trail of water along the floor behind them. The two men began to drape the towels over InuYasha, and then they proceeded to take up positions that would allow them to gently restrain him.
Finally, Kagome found herself able to get up. Just as she managed to get to her feet, her mother returned with a bucket of ice water and a steaming cup of water. Kagome moved quickly to prepare the tea, while her mother began dip the towels in the cold water and reapply them to the hanyou’s body.
With a little help from Souta, she managed to get InuYasha in a position to drink the tea. Fortunately, the towels had begun to cool him down enough so that the convulsions were starting to slow, and she was able to get the liquid into him without spilling too much of it or choking him.
As she lowered InuYasha’s head back onto the bed, her heart ached. She didn’t know how much longer she could stand seeing him like this. He was so strong and for him to still be in such terrible condition after nearly a full day was almost unthinkable. A part of her began to wonder just how close to dying he had really come.
Kagome quickly squashed that voice. She was in no position to deal with that sort of question. Not now - maybe not ever, if she was being completely honest with herself. How would she have endured losing him, if even thinking about the possibility made her feel as if she was going to be sick? She shook her head. She could worry about that after InuYasha was better.
Her family remained in her room as they waited to see if their efforts had been successful. Kagome felt such a surge of great love for them that it filled her up and tears spilled from her eyes. Surely she had to be the luckiest girl in the world to have a family like hers.
Kagome looked up as her mother placed a warm hand on her shoulder. "It will be all right."
"I love you all, so much," she said. "I can’t say it enough - thank you for helping me, for helping him."
At this her brother looked embarrassed but smiled, and her grandfather snorted. "Family takes care of family, young lady, so you shouldn’t be so surprised." The old man paused and then added, "He’s a good man for all his bad manners, and will make a fine Higurashi one day."
A sound that was a mixture of both a laugh and a sob tore from her, and she rushed over to throw her arms around her grandfather.
Yep, she was definitely the luckiest girl in the whole world.
~ * ~
To the relief of the entire Higurashi family the rest of the night passed without incident. The wet towels were removed and put away and the sheets on the bed exchanged for dry ones. It had been a long night, and by the time it was all said and done the entire family was ready to head back to bed to see if they couldn’t get a few hours of sleep.
Kagome returned to her place beside InuYasha. She was exhausted both mentally and physically, and she was beginning to wonder if the persistent ache in her heart and the fluttering of worry in her stomach would ever go away.
She lifted herself on her elbow and looked down at him, one hand gently caressing his cheek. "You have to get better, okay. I need you so much. I don’t know what I would do if you died. I love you, you know, so please don’t give up."
She let herself watch him for a few more minutes and then laid back down. He had to survive. He just had to. Her eyes fell closed and she drifted off to sleep.
When she was finally roused later by her mother it was early afternoon. She forced herself to eat and then spent a few hours staring at the pages of her text books without really seeing them. Her friends called her around five, hoping to have her join them for a last minute cram session, but she outright refused. She knew that she had probably even hurt Ayumi’s feelings with her curtness, but she could apologize for that later when InuYasha wasn’t lying in her bed half dead.
The hours blurred together and before she knew it, darkness had fallen outside. With nothing but worry to occupy her mind, she decided to try and catch up some more on sleep. She dozed for several hours, sometimes sleeping, but more often half awake in that narrow space between sleep and wakefulness.
She was startled to alertness as her bedroom door opened unexpectedly. Kagome lifted her head as her brother came into her room. A look at the clock told her it was nearly two in the morning. "Souta?"
"Sis, do you feel it?" he asked quietly. "Something bad is coming."
Kagome felt her body shudder at his words and realized that she could feel it, dark and threatening, drawing closer. "Youkai..." she gasped. "Souta, go get Mama and Jii-chan up right now. Tell Jii-chan to bring some sutra paper."
The boy nodded and ran from the room. Kagome looked out the window and noted a flash of lightening in the distance. As soon as her family was in the room with her she took the scroll paper and quickly turned the blank paper into sealing sutra, just as Miroku had shown her.
She placed one on the window and one on the door and then grabbed her bow and quiver. "You three stay in this room, and don’t leave no matter what happens. The seals will protect you. Watch over him for me."
"Kagome..." her mother tried. "What is it? What’s going on?"
"There are youkai coming. They can probably sense the jewel," the young miko replied.
"Stay with us," Asami insisted.
Kagome shook her head. "I can’t, Mama. We can’t hide forever. If I wait it will only give more of them a chance to come. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be okay. I have to be. InuYasha needs me to be strong for him."
With that and despite the further protests from her mother and grandfather, Kagome closed the door behind her and headed down the stairs. She stepped out into the courtyard and as a flash of lightening illuminated the grounds she looked up and saw three concerned faces in the window. She quickly nocked an arrow as an unnatural wind picked up around her.
Asami watched in both horror and fascination as her daughter took up her bow and wind whipped her hair all around her. Lightening flashed and a clap of thunder rattled the windows. The sky which had been clear only moments before darkened into a sudden stifling blackness and torrents of rain fell.
Then seemingly out of nowhere three bright balls of light descended and reformed into men several meters in front of Kagome. They all possessed an other worldly sort of beauty, cruel in its perfection, and she knew that these were youkai.
Asami gasped as a flash of lightening struck the earth mere centimeters from Kagome. To her surprise her daughter did not so much as flinch. Asami wished she could hear them as their lips began to move.
"Leave," Kagome commanded. "There is nothing for you here."
The youkai in the center, the one that she knew to have called down the lightening, narrowed his steely blue eyes and laughed. "What can you hope to do, girl? You obviously know about youkai since we know that you are keeping The Dog Prince inside, and we also know that he has what we want. Stand aside, and we’ll let you live. Our business is not with you."
"I’ll say it again," Kagome said forcefully. "There is nothing for you here. I am the guardian, and if you value your lives then you will leave and never return."
"The guardian." The youkai snorted. "Foolish girl. You are no miko. They don’t exist anymore. The last great miko disappeared over five hundred years ago. I tire of this. Get rid of her."
Kagome had never been more glad that by in large she remained untrained, since it made her powers almost unnoticeable unless she chose to reveal them. The youkai on the left, who had no hair save a long braid going down his back and eyes of silver, took a step in her direction.
She focused her power and the youkai stepped back in surprise as she released her arrow. Too stunned to attempt to protect himself, the arrow pierced his chest and bright light engulfed him. When it dissipated nothing remained of her would be killer.
Their leader roared and threw out his hands. In one fluid motion Kagome spun her bow in front of her much like she had done against Tsubaki’s shikigami and sent the bolt of youki right back at her opponent. Not wasting a moment to watch the lightening wielding youkai turn to dust, she drew back another arrow.
Her final opposition was already up by her window and so she took aim. As he reached out attempting to break in his hand was thrown back, and she released the tension on her bow string. She hit the mark, and the youkai was no more. Her body sagged as the sky cleared, and she knew the danger was passed.
Kagome took a seat under the goshinboku and rested her head on her knees, trying to figure out what had happened. There weren’t any youkai in her world, or so she had thought. It didn’t make sense. What could have changed?
She was tired, so tired, and worried sick about her hanyou who was still doing little more than clinging onto life by a thin thread. She didn’t know if she had the strength to worry about defending her family from attacks as well. And on top of that she still had her exams to take.
The young miko didn’t look up as a pair of warm arms wrapped around her. The gentle nature of the touch and the warm aura told her that it was her mother holding her.
"Come on, darling," Asami said quietly. "You’ll catch a cold out here, dripping wet like this."
While the elder Higurashi female was in shock at what she had witnessed, knowing of her daughter’s powers but not having truly believed in them up until now, she was also a mother. She could tell that her daughter was stressed out and nearly exhausted and that would have to come first.
Kagome allowed herself to be helped to her feet and led inside. She didn’t notice the way her brother was looking at her as if she had taken up a place right beside InuYasha as his hero, or how her grandfather looked at her both proud and a bit disbelieving. Kagome, their little Kagome who had been smiling and filling all of their hearts with love since the day she was born, was so much more than they had ever dreamed, and it had finally become real to all of them in a way it hadn’t been before.
Of course they had known she was special, beyond the way all parents and grandparents are certain that their children are special. Everyone who came in contact with her recognized her pure spirit and uncommonly kind and giving nature, but this... She was a true miko, with powers only spoken of in legends. It was a lot to take in.
Kagome allowed herself to be led upstairs into the shower. The hot water felt wonderful against her chilled skin, and she felt herself beginning to relax. Her eyes were heavy, and she stepped out of the water before she fell asleep standing up. She slipped on the pajamas that her mother had laid out for her and went to her room.
Kagome curled up on the bed beside InuYasha and rested her head on his unmarred shoulder, careful not to press against any of his wounds. She held his hand. "You have to be okay. I-I-I never realized before, just how amazing you really are. I thought that I did but... It’s hard, so hard, being so strong all the time. I can’t do it without you... I need you. I love you…"
Her words faded as she fell asleep against him, and she was unaware as her mother tucked a blanket around her while she slept.
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Strength