Falling Together 2/30

Title: Falling Together (2/30)
Theme(s): 2 - The subconscious ; Bury
Pairing/Characters: Inuyasha/Kagome
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Inuyasha is owned by Rumiko Takahashi and associates.
Info: Written for 30_romances; 30 short romances between Inuyasha and Kagome

Inuyasha couldn't keep his eyes off of her. He had only known her for five days now and he could all ready feel himself drawn to her. He couldn't explain it, but something told him he had to be there with her. Sure, the baba was there, but that wasn't nearly enough.

She wasn't smart, not by any means. She wasn't very strong with a weapon or physically capable of fighting youkai. The problem with Sesshoumaru had proven that quite nicely. She was loud and her weird clothing was going to attract some unwanted attention when they started on the road. She also had this thing for trying to be nice to him, and that really irked him.

But, none the less, he sat up on the cliff and watched her as she bathed. He knew that the old woman (he still had problems believing she was an old woman and not a dead woman) Kaede was there, but that wasn't enough. There were too many youkai for him to just let her go off and do what she wanted.

She could very well get herself killed, and then loose the Shikon no Tama...or what little bit they had of it.

Inuyasha growled as she stepped into the water and shivered. It was then that he realized what he was looking at exactly. He blushed and quickly looked away. He had looked before, that one time before, but that was more from surprise than anything. He'd never seen anyone who would bathe naked like she did. Let alone a woman.

His eyes went back to the water where he saw she was thankfully covered by now. He let out a breath and tried to calm down. It was a little difficult to say the least.

"Stupid woman," he grumbled. This was exactly it! She was bathing, completely nude as it were, in the middle of the day with only an old woman as her protection. She was going to get the Shikon no Tama taken from her and get killed! And probably not in that order.

He shifted his weight and felt something he wasn't familiar with. His hand automatically went to his side and he was reassured with Tetsusaiga's presence. It was strange, but he was dead determined to learn how to master this sword and now, as he thought about it, that girl was the only way he would ever learn.

She hadn't told him yet and as his thoughts traveled back to that recent fight...he was ready to kill her himself! He growled. Then sitting him like she had. A smile curled at his lips. She should really count herself lucky that he didn't make a habit of killing humans.

Or...ever killing humans.

He looked over his shoulder and had to sigh. He couldn't really blame her; he probably would have done the same thing to piss her off. So now, he was stuck with her not only because of the shards, which was her fault anyway, but also to figure out what she was hiding from him.

Yeah, stuck with her. He kept telling himself that and tried to ignore that voice in his head; the one that sounded so much like his mother. He was staying with her for another reason, something else that was just nagging at him. Like his mother...

He quickly squashed those thoughts and picked up the sword at his side. He drew it and examined the blade to keep his mind off of the strange girl from her strange world. The future. 'Hell, if that's the future I'm gonna die in the next twenty years just so I can miss it.'

He swung the blade a few times and growled, desperately wanting to kick something. Nothing, not even a glimmer of that power he had seen in it before. He stuck it in the ground and folded his arms. The sword wasn't useless, but it was sure as hell useless to him now.

Below him, he could hear Kagome splashing in the water and her voice was raised a bit while she spoke to Kaede. He flattened his ears; he didn't want to listen to her babbling.

Tetsusaiga pulsed.

Inuyasha couldn't stop the gasp and he almost threw the sword down in shock. But instead, he gripped it tighter and brought it up to his eyes, studying it.

It pulsed again.

Frowning, Inuyasha tried to understand what was going on. The sword has pulsed before, when he had been fighting Sesshoumaru. But why now? Inuyasha looked around, some what in a panic, fearing that there might be a youkai, or worse Sesshoumaru himself, around and it was warning him of danger.

It was strange, but he could almost hear something, or someone, whispering in his ears. It was loud enough to drown out the woman's incessant chatter. There were no words just...an awareness, and he had felt it once before. Only once before.

"Oyaji," the young boy growled out, "you had better not be suggesting what I think you are. Cause if you are..." Tetsusaiga pulsed again and he looked out the corner of his eye and saw her still down there, completely exposed and so naive. "Oyaji," he growled again. "I'm not doing this again. Not after what she did last time."

This time, the meaning was clear: Different woman, different outcome.

And Inuyasha didn't want to admit it. It wasn't that his father was right, cause he'd never admit that either. It was that he knew that...he knew they weren't the same, because if Kagome was anything like her, he wouldn't have bothered protecting her.

He couldn't explain the reasons - just that it was true. He had to protect her.

'It's okay,' he told himself. 'I'll just turn around and keep an eye out...make sure nothing's coming to get her. That doesn't require me to look at her! Not like I want to look at her. She looks like Kikyou. That's right...she just looks like Kikyou. Well, I think...'

He turned around and just in time, too, because Kagome took that moment, as she had days before, to stand from the water and face where Inuyasha was perched from. The two stared at each other, this time Inuyasha was unblinking as he looked at the young woman before him. However, he didn't have long to look because Kagome had, somehow, been expecting this.

"HENTAI! OSUWARI!"

And as Inuyasha began his fall to the earth, for the second time in as many days, he had one thought. 'Hell if I'm ever telling that stupid woman that I'll protect her again!'