Minna, thank you for all the wonderful feedback I have gotten on this story. As you see, Laz here has to go through many revisions, as is her nature to do so. Thank you for your patience and seeing new jumps in the story line. I thought it needed to be expanded more, and well…don’t get Laz bored at work. Her mind starts to spit out new story ideas. ^__^ As always, Rumiko Takahashi owns Inuyasha, and Viz now owns the rights, not I. Thank you~

 

Legend

Chapter One

By: Lazuli

lazulidreamer@yahoo.com

 

              

               Kagome bit her lip as she regarded her room. Her friends would be over in a few moments, and they would finally see her for what she was. Would they understand? It had only been a few days, and Inuyasha had quite plainly told her that she was going to tell her family and friends, and then he was going to make sure she knew how to survive in her new form.

               “You can’t stay in that form, and not know how to move, wench. You’re going to have to get used to increased speed, and other things…” Inuyasha paused for a moment, his eyes glaring at the ground. “Ke. I don’t know how to describe it. You will learn, though.” Another glare and then he let her go through the well.

              

               “Kagome! Hikari and Emi are here!” Kagome’s sensitive ears caught her mother’s light words, and she quietly went down the stairs, hoping that her friends wouldn’t gasp in shock or faint when they saw her. Emi’s eyes caught hers first, and her friend made a slight choking sound, and she tugged on Hikari’s sleeve, trying to get her attention.

               “Hikari-chan…. there’s a …monster…” Hikari’s eyes swiveled towards the staircase, and the frozen Kagome. Kagome wanted to turn around, but she remembered the hurt look in Inuyasha’s eyes when she said she was worried what her friends would think. As if she herself was ashamed over her appearance. She knew what she must look like to them. A monster wearing their friend’s clothing, who had the basic set of their friend’s features. The normally black hair was now silvery white, and the hazel brown eyes were a golden color, no humanity peering out of them. Her fists were clenched at this time, and so they couldn’t see the claws, and she had her mouth firmly closed so that no hint of a fang showed through. Maybe it was the dog ears….

               “Hikari-chan, Emi-chan! I’m so glad that you could come…” Kagome pasted on a bright smile as she made her way to her two friends, trying to ignore their initial reaction of her. After all, it must be a bit startling, although she wasn’t as concerned when she first saw Inuyasha, and her family wasn’t either. Except Jii-chan.

               “Who are you, and why do you look like Kagome?” Emi was the first to demand an answer, and Kagome bit back the tears. She couldn’t show that this bothered her.

               “Emi-chan…I am Kagome. What, you don’t recognize me?” Kagome forced a small laugh, feeling as if she was going to crack in two with the strain of trying not to cry.

               Two heads shaking no, and very frightened looks in her ‘friends’ eyes. She smelled something strange, and she realized that it had to be their fear. He eyes widened in realization, and she backed up a pace, her sensitive ears catching the hushed words between Emi and Hikari.

               “She’s probably eaten Kagome or something! Poor Kagome! After being sick all this time, she’s been possessed by a monster! What has her family thought of this?”

               Kagome shook her head once, not strong enough to face such strong rejection, fear, and the waves of hatred that were now coming towards her. She bolted for the door, running past the startled Emi and Hikari, her mother the only one catching the tears that gathered in the corners of her eyes. Her white hair streamed out behind her, and she ran towards her only haven. She wanted to go back to the Sengoku Jidai.

               She was feared there, but people respected that type of fear. No one would think that she ‘ate’ someone to take on their appearance. Youkai and humans would hate her, but at least…she had friends there that understood. Sango and Miroku, Kaede and Shippou. There was, of course, Inuyasha…he would be the one to teach her how to survive. No one taught him, he had had to learn it by himself.

               Kagome leaned against the rough edge of the dry well, feeling the rough bark dig into the palms of her hands, letting the dank smell of the well house overwhelm her. A few more tears slipped out of her eyes, and her ears twitched toward every small sound. She felt overwhelmed by her own senses, and she hoped that this would be one of the things that settled down in time. Like how a deaf man reacted when he could hear for the first time. It was simply a blow to the mind, being overwhelmed by a new strength.

               The door of the shrine slid open, and she didn’t turn at the sound. She just wanted to go back to Inuyasha…a hand on her shoulder though made her whirl around. She knew that touch, and most of her friends didn’t have claws.

               “Ke. I’m going to have to teach you how to recognize scents, wench.” Kagome looked up at Inuyasha, and sighed, wiping her tears away. “I have a lot to learn, Inuyasha. Were you here the whole time?”

               He nodded. “I saw…your friends reaction, Kagome.” His eyes regarded her sad ones, and he was grateful to see anger mixed in with the hurt. 

               “Damn it, Kagome! You should be angry…” His voice trailed off as Kagome turned around, wiping at her eyes again, trying to stem the seemingly never-ending flow of tears.

               “Demo, Inuyasha…they’re my friends…I’ve known them for such a long time, and they were concerned over me. They thought I was a monster that killed their best friend.”

               Inuyasha rolled his eyes. “Of course they did. You show up, looking like a youkai, and they’re going to think that. Kagome was never a youkai. She was just always sick. Now you have to tell them different, instead of just running off. Now, wait a minute. Do you smell anything familiar?”

               Kagome stared at him, wondering what brought about the abrupt change in the subject when she realized it was dealing with Emi and Hikari. Sniffing delicately, she caught the scents that her nose told her were Hikari and Emi. There was the faint stench of fear overlaid on their scents, and Kagome held back the whimper lodged in her throat. The friends she had grown up with now feared her. 

               “Ka…Kagome?”  Hikari poked her head in the shrine door, and stiffened when she saw both Inuyasha and Kagome standing there. 

               “There’s two of you, now?” Emi’s voice rose when she peered into the room, and she looked as if she wanted to run, but something kept her there. Hikari’s hands around the collar of her shirt.

               “Kagome, we’re sorry.” Hikari’s face was slightly pale, but she stepped forward. “We didn’t realize that it was you. What happened?”

               Kagome sighed, wishing that she could lean against Inuyasha for support at this time, but didn’t want to seem weak in front of the dog demon. He probably saw her useless as a hanyou…

               She raised her chin proudly. “I became a hanyou, that’s all.” She was happy that her voice didn’t tremble, but she couldn’t help the one hand from running nervously through her hair, pausing over the section that still retained most of her old color.

               “What happened? How did it happen? Was it because you were so sick?” Kagome shook her head. “No, I was never sick. I was…” She paused, and sighed again.

               “As for the part how I turned hanyou…” There was a shadow falling over the door, and Kagome turned to see her mother there.

               “Yes, Kagome…how did you become a hanyou? You said the Shikon no Tama did it…” Her mothers voice trailed off, and she heard the question clearly in her voice. Inuyasha turned to observe her, too.

               “Ya, Kagome. How did the Shikon no Tama make you into a hanyou?” His glare was penetrating, and Kagome’s expression turned inward.

               “Well, I…I wanted to stay with Inuyasha…” Her cheeks tinted with a dark blush, and she wished that she could rush through the explanation.

               “And, I was thinking how Inuyasha…doesn’t like…his other side…that it made him weak, like he couldn’t protect anybody. And I didn’t want to leave him. I guess the jewel took my wish and made me into something that wasn’t weak.”

               She glared at the floor. “It made me useless. A human becoming a hanyou. I can’t even fight. I don’t know anything.”

               Kagome shook her head, annoyed at herself. She pushed past the shocked Emi and Hikari, ignoring Inuyasha completely. She could just see the aggravated expression on his face. What was she thinking, spilling out that she wanted to stay with him? Kagome wasn’t an idiot…gods knew that he cared for her, but still, she wondered if it was too soon after laying Kikyo to rest.

               He would never be able to see her as Kikyo any longer, but was another version of him any better? It was a reversal of what he had originally planned with the jewel. He had wanted to use the jewel to become human and live with Kikyo…and now she had used the jewel to turn into a hanyou so that she could stay with Inuyasha. She didn’t want to hear any commentary and made her way to her room as fast as she could.

 

Her gaze shifting to the girl that ran out of the room, Emi rubbed her eyes as her form blurred before her eyes. Was Kagome that monster? There was a faint resemblance to the girl that she had grown up with, but Kagome was always sick, and never in school. This couldn’t be the reason why. If it wasn’t sickness, it was that jealous two-timer boyfriend of hers. Turning her eyes to the other monster, she debated whether or not to say anything to him.

               Before she could even open her mouth, though, he walked towards the door. “Don’t even start accusin’ me of anything.” Too quick for her eyes to see, he had left as well.

               Kagome felt the wind rush across her face as she ran towards her home…in seconds she was there. She made a leap towards the window of her room, wondering if she could make it up to the ledge by her window as she had seen Inuyasha do so many times before. She bunched her muscles underneath her for the leap, conscious that she was still in a running position, and let go, flying upwards. One clawed hand reached for the ledge as her body felt short, and she hung to the edge for a precious second, before someone dragged her upwards to safety.

               She sensed Inuyasha near her, and she turned her head, looking into the concerned eyes of the boy sitting next to her.

               “Ah, Kagome…you have a lot to learn, ne?” His voice was soft, unlike him, and Kagome stared at him in puzzlement.

               “Inuyasha…do you think that there is any way to reverse this? To take the jewel back out of me? I never meant to use it, I meant to give it to you.”

               She smiled at his startled expression. “Is that so hard to believe, Inuyasha? You wanted the Shikon no Tama from the very first time I saw you. You can…I don’t know…’open me up’ like the centipede mononoke did that time…you can take the jewel back and the transformation will be undone.”

               He glared at her, and she backed away from the anger is his eyes…. anger that she would dare to assume that he could so casually injure her to get a piece of glass.

                “Kagome no baka! Why would you think such a thing? Do you think that that jewel means that much to me? What kind of animal do you think I am?”

               She shook her head, white locks flying around her face. “I don’t think that, Inuyasha. Its just…look at me now. I’m no longer the Kagome that you knew. In a way, I’m weaker than before. I don’t know how to use any of my youkai powers… and you saw me just now. I tried to take a flying leap and nearly killed myself.”

               He sighed, one clawed hand going to the streak of black in her white hair. “Well, ya might not have killed yerself, but you might’ve been stunned. This type of fall isn’t that bad…remember me falling from that hermit’s house? Ya thought I was dead.”

               Narrowing her eyes, Kagome regarded him. “You were also human when you fell, had a massively overweight cannibal falling with you, and you had a broken arm. There was good reason why I thought you were dead!”

               He grinned at her. “Yeah, but I was a hanyou by the time I hit that tree…and I survived…” He took his hand away from her hair, and ran it through his own.

               “What I’m trying to get at here, Kagome is…well, you aren’t weaker than before, but we’ve gotta make ya stronger.” He tapped one of her hands with a claw, pointing out the fact that she no longer had human hands, that she had weapons on her hands that she would need to use.

               “Your speed…Kagome…it’s already there…” Kagome turned her head away from him, not wanting to listen. He grabbed her face, forcing her to look at him.

               “Listen, Kagome…you don’t know how lucky ya are to be taught how to make yourself better. I had fuckin’ nobody, ya understand?”

               She forced the tears rising in her eyes down, and met his gaze. “I know you were alone, Inuyasha. At least you have instincts.”

               Rolling his eyes, Inuyasha released his strong grip on her chin. “You’re an idiot, Kagome. You have those same instincts. Anyone can have ‘em. Ya just got to practice with them, or else you’ll fail.”

               Sighing, Kagome looked out on the temple grounds. She couldn’t practice here, ‘honing’ her instincts. How long did it take Inuyasha to get as good as he did? She recalled how impressed she was when she met him, how quickly he had finished off the centipede mononoke.

               Another thought occurred to her, one more important than anything else bothering her right now.

               “Inuyasha…what about Tetsusaiga?” Judging by Inuyasha’s startled expression, he hadn’t thought of that either.

               “Shikuso…”