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Divided Loyalty, Demonic Love	By : c2t2 Category: InuYasha > General Views: 3544 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha, nor make money from this story.

Chapter List
- 4
- 5
Divided Loyalty, Divided Love

By c2t2

Part: 5/(?)

Disclaimer: Inuyasha aint mine and I make no money from it

Last time:

Lost in her memories and petting Kirara, Kagome paid no attention to the direction they were heading.

Chapter five: Of Exposition

Kirara landed in front of a waterfall and Kagome slid off. “Where are we?” she asked, confused, “I thought you were going to take me back to the well!”

Kirara slurped her rough tongue over the side of Kagome’s face before turning tails and launching herself back into the sky. “Hey wait! Kirara! ...aw, shoot,” Kagome groaned as she tried to figure out where she was and find a way out of this new predicament.

She didn’t have to wait long.

“Sister Kagome!” came a familiar voice from the rock outcropping over her head. “Welcome back, Nee-san!”

“Oh hey Hakkaku.” So I guess I’m back at the wolf den, she thought to herself. Oh, of course! I said ‘take me back, Kirara’; not ‘take me home’. Kagome no baka! she silently cursed herself.

Or maybe Kirara hadn’t made a mistake. Just how intelligent was the demon cat, anyway? She seemed to have a perfect understanding of human speech, but it was hard to take her too seriously with her playful kitten-form. And how seriously could you take a cat named ‘bling-bling’?

Aloud she said, “How’s Kouga doing?”

“He’ll live, but did you want to take a look at him? You might be able to help, being a priestess and all.”

Might as well…

After a moment Kagome nodded and climbed up the ridge, Hakkaku giving her a hand up the last few feet. She hesitated a moment before walking behind the waterfall and into the caves. She saw Ginta almost immediately on the far side of the main cavern, and he waved her over.

“Wow Nee-san, I didn’t expect you to come back with us. That’s great!” he beamed.

“I’m not...” not knowing how to sort out the misunderstanding, Kagome sighed before she knelt next to Kouga. His right arm was virtually shredded, and the fall had probably done some damage to the rest of him.

Kagome cringed involuntarily when she looked closely at Kouga’s right arm. From elbow to wrist it had been torn open straight to the bone where the Gokurakuchou king’s teeth had closed on his flesh. For a moment she just stared, having no idea where to even begin without her backpack and bandages. I could use the jewel! Kagome hurriedly drew the glass jar from around her neck. She pulled out the two shards she had retrieved from the battlefield, placing one back in the open wound where it had been torn out. Nothing happened, and Kagome almost panicked. Her thoughts raced and, with only a vague notion of what she was actually doing, she instinctively put her hands over it and prayed, willing it to heal. There was a sudden rush of warmth, and a blue light limned her body, spreading to surround Kouga as well. Her hair floated as if weightless, and she could hear every demon in the room murmuring apprehensively. The only sensation to reach Kagome was the strangely-distant gasps of amazement when Kouga’s wound closed over the shard. In moments, the flesh had returned to its previous unmarred bronze, causing her to sigh in relief.

Kagome examined the second shard - the one that had come from the Gokurakuchou - for a moment. Inuyasha had dealt the final blow to the previous owner, but was this one really hers to keep? Kouga had led them to it, had fought the creature, killed half of it, and had suffered from the influence of this particular shard far beyond any of her group. No, she figured, this shard also belonged to the Yourouzoku.

...Inuyasha was going to be pissed.

She shrugged and pressed it into Kouga’s left arm, where it absorbed into the flesh and vanished to all but Kagome’s eyes.

Wait a minute... what had she just done? Kagome had only destroyed demons before, never healed anyone. She sat back on her heels, bemused. It was lucky she hadn’t accidentally purified him.

Well, now the only thing she could do was wait for Kouga to wake up.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

With nothing better to do, Kagome walked across the cavern to Ginta and Hakkaku, who had just gotten back from guard duty, and easily drew them into conversation. The topic quickly turned to none other than their leader, Kouga.

“He has this... Thing, see. He’s always right. He always knows what the smartest thing to do is.”

“I have trouble believing he’s that smart.”

“He’s not! He’s-” Hakkaku cut himself off and glanced at Kouga’s still form, giving a cautious sniff in that direction before starting more quietly, “Actually, the Thing has made him immensely stupid. He never has to think about anything because he always knows the right thing to do. He never understands why.”

“So how does he know?”

He shrugged “Kouga isn’t pure Yourouzoku. Who knows what kind of crazy is tied up in there?”

Ginta butted in, “His father was one of the strongest Yourouzoku to ever exist, but he wasn’t interested in being our king. Anyway, he just brought Kouga back one day – you know how it is with daiyoukai, ‘I need a mate who’s my equal, and MY crossbreed won’t go bad!’”

“Shut up, I’m the one telling Nee-san! Anyway, Kouga knows things... Like, we always take the shortest trail up the mountain, but last month Kouga decides to take the long way around after we’d spent a week away from the tribe and were almost dead on our feet. We went along with it because, well, he’s Kouga, and halfway there we hear the mountain roaring and our usual path was crushed under a landslide! The hill was unstable and we’d had heavy rain, but Kouga never thought of that. He just knew that we should go the other way. A week before the Gokurakuchou showed up he also said we should leave. The problem was, we really had nowhere to go, and he didn’t know where to go, he just knew we should leave, and look what happened when we didn’t!” Ginta elbowed him but Hakkaku brushed him off. “Yeah, yeah, well he decided that you being his woman is the best thing for him, and for the rest of us, including you.

Hakkaku was silenced by the crack of a fist across his skull. “Why are the two of you sitting here gossiping like old biddies?” Kouga growled, “Take the others and go hunt something to eat tonight.”

Ginta hesitated to leave them, but a swift kick in the rear, too fast to be seen, launched him through the waterfall and into the departing group of hunters. Watching him pick himself off the dazed warriors, Kagome wondered if Kouga had aimed his kick for them, and mentally wished them luck. With the Gokurakuchou gone, the wolves soon caught the scent of boar, and the chase was on.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Now that she had nothing urgent to do, Kagome turned her eyes to his face and stared at Kouga as he barked orders at the Yourouzoku that had been left behind.

‘The Son of the Yourouzoku,’ he had called himself; leader of the demon wolves. Now that she wasn’t terrified of being eaten or killed, she could see that he was truly handsome. Bronze skin, coal-black hair, and eyes that seemed too blue to be real...

Eyes?

“Kouga!” the fact that he had regained consciousness finally registered.

He turned back to her and grinned, “Kagome, either I’m dreaming or you’ve decided to come back and be my woman.”

She blushed and stumbled back, babbling. “What? Oh no. NO! Nonono that’s not it at all.”

He let out a disappointed sigh, “Oh what brought you back then?”

“Um, it was actually a total accident.” I think. “Kirara misunderstood me when I said ‘take me back...’ I meant back home.”

“Oh,” his face fell, “So I don’t even get a chance, then?” He looked crushed. Come on, stupid, you just met me!

“I already told you, I’m taken!” Stop talking, Kagome.

Of course, her mouth kept babbling, “-and for one thing, even if I did agree, the first thing you’d do is run off and tell Inuyasha.”

He smirked, “Well, that’s not the FIRST thing I’d do.”

Kagome felt her cheeks heat. He doesn’t hold back does he? Well, this is the guy who literally shouted his love from the mountaintops - she could feel herself blush even harder - not the type to hold back at all, it seems.

“Does that mean you’d consider it?”

Ah, crud.

Kagome, you talk too much. “No,” okay, stop talking! “I’m just saying that you don’t see me as a person at all. If I would be your woman you would think you owned me!”

“Er, yeah?” Kouga actually seemed confused.

All Kagome could do was stare. Was this guy for real? “You’re an even bigger jerk than I thought to just say it out loud like that!”

“Wha?” now he looked utterly baffled.

“Who would want a relationship like that?”

“...Who wouldn’t?” Now Kagome was confused, until he continued, “I thought humans only take one mate. So do wolves. It’s dogs that don’t.”

So that’s what he was thinking. “No no. what if it was you being owned?”

Kouga looked even more confused for a moment, until slow understanding spread over his face. “Oh... I get it.”

“You see? You wouldn’t-”

“Kagome, you’ve got it all wrong.” She had a sudden flashback to Inuyasha saying exactly that, right before he almost kissed her. She couldn’t let herself get distracted though...

“...What?” was the only thing she could think to say. Brilliant, Kagome.

Kouga laughed. “Kagome, the ownership goes both ways. You will own me as much as I own you!”

“Relationships should be about love, not ownership.”

“Didn’t I already say I’m in love with you?”

She was again shocked at his bluntness. He could just say things like that? No uncertainty? No insecurity?

“You say that, but you obviously don’t. If you really loved me, you would care about the way I felt. First of all, I’m certainly not in love with you, and secondly, if you care about me, you wouldn’t want to make my life miserable, and believe me, telling Inuyasha would accomplish exactly that. You’ve just proven that it’s about Inuyasha, not me. You’re just doing it to annoy him.”

Kouga’s mouth opened and closed, and Kagome was sure she’d finally gotten through to him, but then he stood up from the straw and raked his claws through his hair in frustration before glancing around at the rest of the pack, who were listening in rapt attention. “Let’s go somewhere else.” Without waiting for her reply he had swept her into his arms and bounded through the waterfall at breathtaking speed, turning his back to the falls at the last moment. He was moving so quickly that she stayed dry, and in a few dizzying moments they were far away. He placed her back on her feet in a beautiful mountain meadow, holding her steady until she found her balance.

“Jeez, warn me before you do that.”

“We can talk here, away from my pack.”

“Um, yeah.” What had they been talking about again?

“You think I’m only after you to annoy Inukkoro?”

“Inuyasha, yes. If you cared at all about me you wouldn’t be so eager to tell him if I would agree to become ‘your woman’.”

Kouga gave a gusty sigh, “And here we find one of the reasons humans and youkai don’t mix. Kagome, we’re not like humans.”

“What?”

“You got it all wrong again.”

She’d been hearing that a lot lately, “How so?”

“It’s got nothing to do with your mutt. The first thing any couple does when they decide to get together is run off all potential rivals. That part goes both ways too.”

Kagome thought for a moment, “Really? It seems like a technicality to me. I’m not seeing any youkai women around that I would have to ‘run off’.”

Kouga looked away, a scowl marring his features, “That’s because the Gokurakuchou finished them off for you. If I’d managed to protect any of them, then you would have had to go bragging.”

Oh. That had been really insensitive of her. You should think before you speak! But why were they talking like she was actually considering this? Somehow the conversation had gotten completely out of hand. She decided to change the subject.

“You said ‘one’ of the reasons humans and youkai don’t mix.”

His expression became guarded. “Um, I did?”

“What are the others?” After a moment of no answer, she repeated the question, this time it was she who was on guard, “What are the others, Kouga?” A horrible suspicion began to rise.

He looked away, “Well, mostly hanyou...” Kagome felt her temper immediately snap, her anger at everything Inuyasha had to put up with finally boiling over.

“Okay, that does it! I can’t believe how horrible all of you are! For once I thought I had found somebody different, since you only insulted his dog heritage, instead of his being a hanyou, but you’re just as bad as everybody else!” now she was really getting riled up. “You listen to me, Kouga, because I am only going to say this once: There is nothing, nothing, wrong with hanyou. They are every bit as good as you or me, and I am sick and tired of everyone, human or youkai, abusing Inuyasha just because his blood isn’t ‘pure’, whatever the heck that’s supposed to mean!” she was screaming by the time she finished.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Kagome realized she felt a lot better. That had been building up for a while. But for the love of heaven, even Shippo had immediately declared Inuyasha’s inferiority upon meeting him. She had really, really hoped she finally found someone who didn’t judge based solely on bloodline...

Kouga continued to stare at her in shock. He also looked like he really wanted to say something, but didn’t want to set her off again. Kagome slowly became wary.

“There’s something you’re not telling me, isn’t there?”

“Um… I didn’t think it was possible that anyone - human or youkai - wouldn’t know certain things, especially a miko!”

“Yeah? Well, I’m not a normal miko.” Kagome determinedly stamped down her irritation and waited for him to continue.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Kouga did not like the way she was glaring at him.

It’s not what you think, Kagome...

But she just kept staring at him. “Shit Kagome, I don’t...”

I don’t want to be the one telling her this.

Kagome sighed and appeared to change tactics. “Explain the other reasons why humans and youkai can’t coexist. Pretend I just dropped in from a completely different world. A world without youkai.”

Well that would explain a lot.

If all the women in her hypothetical world wore such revealing clothing, his pack would probably defect en masse, what awesome luck that he’d already found the best woman of them all...

Right, explaining about youkai. Where to start? “Well, have you ever seen a human-looking youkai turn into their full demon form?”

“Yes.”

What... seriously? And she survived? Well that’s my woman for you! “Well, the youkai loses control whenever they get a large jump in power, like transforming. If they get something like a jewel shard, then they lose control and... change.”

Kagome looked thoughtful, “Most of the demons we found who had jewel shards were warped and monstrous... actually, the only ones who weren’t were you and Yura of the Hair. But she was only a puppet... and not actually using the power of her shard. Why?”

“The demons who appear human are the most powerful. And even a good number of them would be corrupted by a jewel shard. The shards are that overwhelming.”

“Many of the strongest demons would be corrupted… But not you?”

“I’m... not your average demon.” Let’s not get into that right now. “Anyway, the youkai who lose control of their demonic nature will fight and kill indiscriminately - or occasionally act out other impulses - until the youkai’s mind regains control. Sometimes he is killed before he does, since the demon has no mind directing the body, and so for a while, he cannot feel fear, pain, or much of anything, really.”

“Oh, okay, but...”

“Let me finish.” Kagome’s expression showed a brief flash of annoyance at being interrupted, but for now she seemed willing to comply. “I told you that massive jumps in power reach the demon’s instinct first, and takes control. If the youkai is with his own kind, they can hold him back until he regains control. If there are humans around, they don’t stand a chance.”

For some reason Kagome looked incredibly guilty, “So the broken Shikon jewel means rampaging demons will kill a lot of people.”

“Well, it’s better than the whole thing being out there. I imagine any demon – no matter how strong - who absorbed the entire jewel would transform into a monster, and I don’t know if the youkai would be able to...” he made a vague hand gesture.

Kagome didn’t seem satisfied. “Why does that mean humans and demons shouldn’t associate in general, though? I mean, just always mingle in groups! Then there would always be a few other youkai around. If it became common knowledge among humans-”

“They would hunt us even more than they already do,” Kouga finished. Although it’s mostly for the other reason...

“... Oh... and if they knew youkai can lose control and go on killing sprees, anyone with youkai blood will be seen as a loose cannon.” She looked like she was finally starting to understand.

A loose what? Eh, whatever. “Well, that’s not the only reason. But it’s one of the main ones.” Whoops, shouldn’t have said that. Now she’ll ask…

“What are the others?”

Shit. “Um, mostly the one I said earlier... You know, the one about humans being so different from us.”

“You mean the one about hanyou,” her voice turned icy at the term. Kouga knew she was thinking about the dog-turd again. Jeez, she sure was grumpy a lot when it came to him.

Kagome, suffering another seemingly random mood swing, snapped out of her sulk and went straight to curious. Females must be universally confusing.

“Wait, you said that a demon who absorbed the complete jewel couldn’t regain control. But the demon never takes over permanently or anything... right?”

Kouga chose his next words carefully, “It’s basically impossible. Like I said, the mind catches up. A corrupted shard would take a lot longer to overpower, but it always would be. Eventually.”

“So you’re saying...”

“You don’t have to worry. Demon instincts never take permanent control over a youkai.” He tried to sound nonchalant.

Hanyou, on the other hand, have a tendency to permanently berserk, and even if they’re not killed, end up destroying themselves.

But, Kagome, you’re not going to hear it from me.

“Come on, the sun is setting.”

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Next time: an awkward night, and the yourouzoku get visitors from the north!
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Divided Loyalty, Demonic Love