I don't own Inuyasha. If I did there would be a whole lot more InuKag. Darn you, Takahashi.

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Chapter 15: Transfer

Inuyasha was ignorant of everything as the group walked back to Kaede's hut. He didn't care that Koga, Ginta, Hakkaku, and Sango had finished off the last of the demons without any major injuries on their part. He didn't care that every one of the others was staring blatantly at his crying form with worried expressions.

The only thing the hanyou was aware of was the lifeless body in his arms. The body of his favorite person--his savior, his best friend, his love...

Koga had tried to take Kagome from Inuyasha's arms for fear that he wouldn't be able to handle carrying her all the way back to Kaede's, but the hanyou had growled at the wolf and proceded to clutch the miko closer to his blood-stained kimono.

When they first came in sight of the village, Inuyasha finally seemed to wake up a little bit. Though his steps were still just as slow as before, he seemed to have stood up straighter, and tears had stopped trickling down his cheeks.

At last, the group came upon the hut, each and every one of them bracing themselves for the kitsune's reaction as Sango pulled back the flap and walked inside.

Inuyasha watched the other four walk into Kaede's hut in front of him and paused for a second. "Sango!" the hanyou heard Shippo shout in delight, no doubt jumping up and hugging the woman. "Where are Inuyasha and Ka--"

Shippo immediately stopped talking as Inuyasha walked into the hut. The grin on the kitsune's face faded instantly as he ran over to the hanyou and jumped up onto Kagome's lap. "Kagome...got hurt?" he asked, looking up at Inuyasha. He shook his head.

"No, Shippo," he answered quietly, barely above a whisper. "Kagome's...not alive...anymore..." Inuyasha choked on the last word, but no tears came. I must have cried out all of my tears, he thought as he watched the kitsune bawling his eyes out.

"How?" a voice asked, and Inuyasha looked up, surprised.

"Miroku!" Sango shouted, running over to where the monk was now sitting up. He didn't seem to notice the demon slayer, though, and kept on looking at Inuyasha. The hanyou hadn't even realized that Miroku was awake; Shippo had been enough of a distraction.

Inuyasha shook his head again and looked down at Kagome's face. "It was all my fault," he muttered. "I wasn't...paying any attention to her during the battle. A demon...started chasing her through the woods, and I...I didn't get there in time." He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see Koga standing next to him, a serious look on his face.

"It wasn't just the mutt's fault," he said, looking around at the others. "We all should have known that she wouldn't be able to defend herself very well." His eyes made contact with Inuyasha's, and the hanyou nodded before looking down at the miko again.

Damn it, Kagome...I wasn't there to protect you...I'm so sorry, he thought as he gently stroked her cheek with his thumb. I'll never forgive myself...

"Inuyasha," another voice said. The hanyou looked up again and saw the elderly miko's head turned towards him and her sad gaze meeting his. "Tell me...do ye have the Sacred Jewel?"

Inuyasha narrowed his eyes for a moment in confusion before gasping and looking down at Kagome. He could see the small lump above her chest where the pouch was...I can use it to wish for Kagome to live...he thought as he eagerly pulled the small drawstring bag out from beneath the cloth of Kagome's school outfit.

The hanyou could barely contain his excitement and relief as he quickly--but gently--placed the miko's body on the floor in front of him. He knelt down beside her, and, after carefully kissing her forehead, opened the pouch.

The single content rolled out on his hand, and Inuyasha held his breath as he looked at it. This jewel has caused us so much trouble, and yet...now it's going to save Kagome's life...he thought, staring at the the purplish pink ball that appeared to be swirling around inside itself and yet remained a solid object.

He closed the jewel tightly in his fist and held it up to his chest, where his heart was beating faster and faster in anticipation.

"I wish...that Kagome was still alive," he whispered so quietly that he could barely hear himself say it.

The whole room had gone completely silent while everyone subconsciously leaned towards the miko and hanyou to see what was happening.

But nothing was happening. Inuyasha blinked a few times before opening his hand up to see the jewel still resting on his palm in the same state it had been before. "What the hell?" he muttered. The very irritated hanyou looked up at Kaede, frustration written across his face. "Why didn't it work?" he practically yelled at the old woman.

Kaede just gaped at him. "I...don't know, child," she said as she slowly shook her head. "It should have...but perhaps I could..."

Inuyasha couldn't take it anymore. "Kagome's dead," he said with finality, cutting off the elder. "And there's nothing anyone can do about it." He threw the jewel down on top of the corpse in front of him and stormed past everyone, dashing out the door.

As tears started to fill his eyes again, Inuyasha ran to the one place he knew he might be able to feel at peace: his favorite spot in the forest, up in the Sacred Tree.

Everyone watched Inuyasha leave with distress.

"Should someone go after him?" Sango asked, looking at the door with her arms crossed.

"Nah," Koga replied, sounding more like himself than he had in the past few hours. "He'll just bite the head off whoever goes to talk to him."

"Koga's right," Shippo said, shuddering. "We should leave Inuyasha alone."

The group shared a collective sigh, each one of them secretly glad that the hanyou had left. If he was still there now, it would make this situation a thousand times worse than it already was.

"Koga," Kaede said, waiting for the wolf to look up at her before she continued. "Could ye bring Kagome and the Sacred Jewel over to me?"

Koga's eyebrows came together in confusion but he did as she asked, placing Kagome's body next to the elderly miko's still laying form and handed the bright jewel to her. What is the old hag planning to do now? he thought as he backed away to where his comrades stood.

"Perhaps, if I...it should work..." she muttered to herself as she looked back and forth between the jewel and the body laying next to her. Kaede could feel her head throbbing but she took a deep breath and proceded with what she was going to do. Closing her eyes, the miko slowly pulled herself up into a sitting position, trying vainly to ignore the pain shooting throughout her old body.

After panting for a moment because of the work it had taken to sit up, she slowly opened her eyes. Every eye in the hut was on her own (except for the dead one's eyes, of course) as she carefully placed her hand on the spot where Kagome's heart would normally be beating in her chest. With her other hand, Kaede held the Sacred Jewel tightly in her fist.

Everyone else in the hut watched with amazement as the elder uttered what appeared to be an incantation to herself, causing the hand that held the jewel to have streaks of pinkish light peeking out through the cracks between her fingers. The light seemed to travel from that hand to her heart, where it stopped for a moment and became bright red, and then kept travelling to her other shoulder and down to the hand that was still on Kagome.

The red glow seemed to surround the younger miko's body as it slowly drained from Kaede's hand, causing the elder to smile faintly at her success. As the glow disappeared, Kaede fell back onto her bed again, the smiled still plastered onto her face.

Everyone watched with disbelief as Kaede's fisted hand opened up to reveal that it was empty, and the other miko's eyes slowly opened.

"Kagome!" everyone shouted at the same time, rushing over to stand by her now sitting up form.

She looked around at all the faces around her before frowning. "What happened?" Kagome asked, completely confused. "I thought...that demon...I survived?" I was sure I was going to die, she thought, completely baffled by her grinning friends.

"Kagome." The soft voice came from Kagome's other side, and she turned to see Kaede laying beside her, the elder's eyes closed and her breath coming slowly. "Inu...yasha was unable to bring you--a pure miko--back to life because...he's half demon. A wish so...pure would not be granted to someone impure as him. I...transferred my life into you," she whispered, her breathing labored and shallow. "Ye have to...take care...of yourself, child."

Kagome's frown deepened as what Kaede said sank into her mind. "Kaede, no!" she murmured, grabbing the old woman's hand. "Why would you--"

"Ye are young, and I am old," was the elder's simple reply as she cut Kagome off. "I am going...to be with my sister, now...goodbye..."

Kagome felt a singer tear fall down her cheek as Kaede's fell for the last time and didn't rise, her breathing halted completely. "Thank you, Kaede," she whispered, releasing the woman's hand and wiping the tear from her face.

Kagome turned to face her friends and found that their faces were wiped clean of their grins, and she noticed for the first time that one face was missing from the crowd. "Where's Inuyasha?" she asked, causing everyone to sigh.

"He was...upset when his attempt to bring you back didn't work," Sango said. "He rushed off...and we don't know where."

The miko knew where he would have gone, though. She stood up, despite protests from everyone else that she was wounded, and stretched like she had just woken up from a long sleep. As she stretched, everyone gaped in wonder at her back, where there were no cuts--there weren't even scars from where the evil demon had sliced her. Blood was still on her shirt, but the gaps in her torn shirt were the only indication that she had been wounded.

Everyone watched as Kagome slowly walked over to the door, nearly tripping over her backpack on the way. It had been sitting there since Koga and Inuyasha had gone off to fight Naraku, and the pile of pictures she had printed were still sitting next to the yellow bag. Kagome smiled as she looked at the top picture--the one of the sunset. She didn't notice that a certain monk was also looking at the pictures, getting an evil idea into his head...

She looked at the picture for one more long moment before walking out into the bright sunlight of the morning. It was only a few hours ago when I...died...she thought as she walked towards the spot she knew she would find the hanyou at. I hope Inuyasha's okay.

Kagome walked briskly through the forest outside Kaede's hut, trying hard not to think about the miko who was now gone. We'll have to bury her later, she thought, failing at her attempt. I'm sure Inuyasha will want to.

The young miko walked into small clearing and looked up to see the familiar red-clad figure sitting in the Sacred Tree, right where she knew he would. She gasped silently as she saw tears streaming down the hanyou's handsome face, and she fought the urge to cry as well.

"Inuyasha!" she called up to him as she took a few tentative steps toward the tree. He was staring straight at her, obviously thinking that he was either dreaming or mentally unstable.

Kagome heard him mutter something to himself, and she walked up to the base of the tree, still watching his face. He rubbed his eyes and looked at her again, his eyes now narrowed. "Great, now I'm going crazy..." he said quietly as he shook his head.

Kagome smiled and giggled softly despite the fact that she knew he was really hurt at the moment. "You're not going crazy," she said. "Come down here."

"Yeah, right," Inuyasha answered, deciding that if he was, indeed, crazy, then he would accept it. Kagome's dead...nothing else matters any more...

The hanyou's eyes relaxed as he stared at the miko. "Even if I am insane, at least you look real," he said, taking in her very alive appearance. And she smells like Kagome.

Kagome was slowly losing patience. "Inuyasha, Kaede used the Sacred Jewel to bring me back," she said, keeping her frustration in check by talking slower than normal.

"Feh, if it didn't work for me then why the hell would it work for that old hag?"

After reminding herself that he didn't know about Kaede's current state and therefore didn't mean what he said, she continued. "Because you're impure," she answered, receiving a completely lost look from the hanyou.

"Impure?"

"You're half demon, Inuyasha. Apparently, bringing a miko back to life is a pure wish that can only be granted by someone equally as pure."

Inuyasha jumped down from the tree then, landing right next to Kagome. He wasn't smiling; on the contrary, he was scowling at the girl in annoyance. "Whatever you say. But I'm not buying it."

Kagome sighed, releasing some--but not nearly enough--of her stress in the long, slow exhale. Obviously, explanations weren't going to work on the dense hanyou.

"If I was dead, could I do this?" she asked before she shifted her weight onto her toes and stretched to press her lips against his shocked ones.

Inuyasha barely had time to register that she was kissing him before she pulled away, her chocolate eyes burning into his own golden ones. "Kagome..." he whispered before pulling her into a tight hug. "I thought...for sure...but you're alive." He hugged her even closer, and Kagome could feel his tears dropping onto her back as he stroked her hair.

Kagome wrapped her arms around the hanyou's waist, never wanting to let him go. She didn't know how long they stayed in that position, but when her shoulders were starting to ache from being stiff for so long, she relaxed her grip on him a bit. Inuyasha muttered something into her hair, but she couldn't hear him, so she broke the embrace.

Looking up at his face, she saw that he had his eyes closed and a scowl on his face. "What?" she asked, worried.

Inuyasha shook his head and opened his eyes. Kagome almost flinched at how forcefully his gorgeous golden eyes were staring into her own. "I said I'm never going to let anything like that happen to you again, Kagome," he said firmly, grabbing one of her hands in his own and using the other to cup her cheek in his palm.

"I love you," he whispered before he bent his face down and kissed her gently on the lips. Kagome smiled under his lips before wrapping her arms around his neck and deepening the kiss, her lips molding themselves to the shape of his.

Neither one of them noticed the presence of two people standing on the edge of the clearing, smiling at the couple. One of the people had a camera in his hand that was now free of the painful and problematic Wind Tunnel, and was holding the silver box up to his face. The other was simply smiling at the couple, standing beside her fiance.

The camera clicked, and Sango leaned over to look on the screen at the picture Miroku had taken. It was perfect, of course, and the woman was about to ask how he took such amazing pictures when she felt a hand on her butt.

"You lecher!" she shouted, slapping the monk across the face before turning to walk away. Miroku was so distracted with the demon slayer that he didn't notice the pair under the Sacred Tree was no longer a pair, and that the other member of the couple was now standing beside him, cracking his knuckles.

"Miroku..." Inuyasha growled threateningly, causing the monk to turn around and face him, cowering in fear.

"Have mercy on me!" he shouted pathetically before dropping the camera and running away in the direction of the village, chased by the pissed hanyou.

Kagome, meanwhile, was just shaking her head without sympathy at the man. She began to walk to where the others had left, nearly stepping on her camera on the way. Bending down, she picked up the camera that was still on, with the picture Miroku had taken frozen on the screen. She smiled at the picture of her and her love kissing on the camera, and laughed out loud at how Miroku seemed to take pictures at the worst and yet the best times.

Kagome kept walking, knowing for sure now that she was definitely glad about her decision to bring her camera back to the Feudal Era.

As she walked, Kagome could hear Miroku and Inuyasha's yelling, and her smile widened. They'll never change, she thought. And I'm glad.

Oh, crap. I didn't intend for that to be the end of this fanfic (sorry...), but...it kinda ended well. I'm almost positive there's gonna be an epilogue to this, so that'll probably be up sometime soon.

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