Inuyasha 1. Chapter 1

* * *

_Fish Don't Sleep_

**Chapter One**

* * *

Sometimes she wondered what the _point _was. After all, she had defeated a demon. She had saved the world. She was a hero! She was alive but, the God's being the Indian Givers that they were, had seen it fit to make her spend the rest of her life in the purgatory that was monotony.

"If you carry the two, the answer should be obvious." At least, it was to her math professor.

Kagome Higurashi sighed as she stared at the complicated equation written on the black board. She didn't know why she had bothered to try to finish off the last year of high school after she had completely the jewel of four souls and left behind her life in the past; she knew all to well what a hopeless cause it was. She didn't understand a single equation that was written on the board. It may have well been written in English – another class she was failing dismally.

She had completed the jewel almost two years prior, certainly long enough to gather her bearings and get better at math, but where she had once struggled and fought to get good grades, to beat the rest of her classmates and get in to a good college, she simply didn't see the point in straining herself anymore.

It didn't matter if she went to a good college and got a good job and married a good husband and had good kids - when her grandfather died, she would inherit the shrine, which didn't bother her as much as it should have. Her future was sealed, set in stone; what was the point of struggling to better herself if it was only going to bring her around again anyways? There was no need to suffer that same fate twice. . .

Kagome thought back – she often did – to the times when her problems had been so much greater than equations. In the feudal era of Japan, it had been life or death every day. She had often come home to see her mother crying, and she knew that she had been afraid for her as well. It had been more than a girl could bear!

Her thoughts drifted to Sango. Now, there was a girl who would have done well - probably much better then she had done - to transcend time. Her beauty was certainly timeless, and her courage and strength had made her a deadly foe. She certainly wasn't clumsy like Kagome, and some how she doubted that Sango would ever be so careless as to let a stray arrow strike her charge.

Then there was Miroku, the man that Sango had chosen to spend the rest of her life with. He had survived. . . a miracle in itself. The look on his face when they had killed Naraku – this time for sure, she thought with a grimace, remembering the time Naraku had gone in to a coma. The look on his face when they killed Naraku was enough to make her, if not glad, then grateful that she had trusted her instincts the first time and had gone back to the past.

Despite the dangers she knew about.

Despite the dangers that she knew would come.

But Inuyasha had always protected her. Kagome smiled as she cupped her chin in the palm of her hand, staring wistfully out the window and remembered.

He was dead now, though he hadn't been when she left him. Half demon, he had informed her, full power. He had the power of a full demon, and after he had slaughtered Naraku, his brother had made sure that everyone knew it. But despite his unsurpassed strength and honor, he still only had the lifespan of a human – minus, of course, any time he might have spent pinned to a certain ancient god tree. Never the less, his prestige had been raised to that of a Lord, and Kagome left knowing that Inuyasha would never have to worry about being left out for his human heritage again.

The humans had adored him now, too. He had been treated as a hero by demons and humans alike, a God on earth. Well known, handsome, courageous (if not a bit short tempered) Inuyasha was the greatest catch anyone could have.

All because of the brother that had hated him.

It made a girl wonder about what went on inside the head of a certain stoic demon lord. . .

"Higurashi, answer the following question." Her teacher commanded of her when he caught her staring out the window.

Kagome sighed. "I'm sorry, sir. I don't understand the question." She replied lazily, not even bothering to look at the board. She knew she wouldn't get it right anyways, and it wasn't worth the effort to only end up giving herself a headache.

Her teacher inhaled an indignant breath. "Well, maybe if you weren't day dreaming, you would have a chance to pass this class, Higurashi!" He informed her primly.

She was surprised that she had been tempted. A very Inuyasha – like phrase had ridden to the tip of her tongue, before she settled instead on doing a very Sesshoumaru–like thing. Kagome turned and gave him an even look, telling him with the one glance what she wasn't allowed to utter on school grounds.

The teacher fumed but didn't say anything – instead, he called on some boy that had, soon after he transferred, asked Kagome out on a date. She had promptly shot him down, something that she never would have done before she had been spoiled by the past - he was cute, charming, and nice - all the things that she had thought she wanted until she learned better.

With her teacher back to teaching the class and leaving his worst student – her – alone, Kagome allowed her thoughts to stray once more to Inuyasha and her time in the past. However, when she tried to summon her beloved's face to mind, all she could see was white hair and golden eyes – a gold that hinted at amber, rather than Inuyasha's bright eyes of crisp gold, making her aware that the person she was thinking of wasn't Inuyasha – it was Sesshoumaru.

Kagome shrugged. None the less, Sesshoumaru definitely provided food for thought. A – _seemingly _– impassive demon, he sure had been awfully quick to leap to his half brother's aid – something odd for some one who claimed to hate him. Kagome knew that he must have had his reasons - he often had. Perhaps he was trying to earn some prestige; maybe he felt the need to include Inuyasha's forest in his domain. Maybe he was afraid of his half brother, now that he had beaten Naraku, or maybe he was trying to fill the void that had been formed between them the day Inuyasha took his first breath.

Kagome scoffed at that thought. Though it was a pleasant one, it would be too far out of character for Sesshoumaru to have honestly cared about forming a bond with his sibling.

The bell rang and her teacher started, shocked. He had obviously been as blissfully unaware of the passage of time as Kagome had been painfully attuned to it.

Oh well. It meant that he didn't have time to assign homework over Sunday, and that was always a plus. . .

"Miss Higurashi!" He tried to get her attention as she was leaving the classroom, but she just ignored him. It was probably about something she had no interest in anyway.

* * *

"Careful with this! It's heavy!" Grandfather Higurashi screamed at the movers as they carried an ancient statue of a demon caught in a vicious battle up the stairs of the shrine.

The movers grumbled a bit, and muttered a few choice words, but got the artifact up the stairs despite it's weight. Finally at the top, one of the movers stepped forward. "Where do you want this hunk of junk?" He asked callously.

Grandfather Higurashi gasped. "Hunk of junk! Hunk of junk! Why, I'll have you know that this _particular_ statue comes from ancient times! It's been around for more than half a millennia, maybe even longer! It's priceless! And you call it a _hunk of junk!_"

The other mover laughed. "Oh, c'mon old man! He was just teasing you a little bit! It's a fine piece of art! Really!" He said, leaning against said piece. He knocked on the face, of the demon, who seemed to be a single figure in stark white marble. The setting on the ground was done in a soft, dark, malleable stone, making him seem the only thing that would last forever.

Grandfather Higurashi inhaled a quick breath when the statue tilted and rushed towards the earth, it's balance thrown off by the mover's weight when he leaned against it.

Both movers made a grab for it, and between the two of them, they managed to manipulate it to the grass where they laid it down carefully, as if the worst of the danger was in putting the heavy work on the ground.

Grandfather Higurashi let out a deep breath. "You need to be more careful! You have no idea what it would have meant if that statue were to break! It's an important piece of our heritage! It's probably a new artist, one who probably worked mainly in war inkings." He guessed. "You can't even begin to conceive of the problems it would make if you were to break this thing!"

The workers sighed at his chastening and rolled their eyes, unaware of the true dangers of breaking the statue. If they had known, they would have rewrapped the damnable thing and buried it - as it's last owner had - for good measure.

* * *

Kagome scaled the stairs to the shrine with a sigh. Why, after five hundred years, no one had bothered to install an elevator system was beyond her. 133 steps – not that she was _counting_ or anything – was far too many steps for a high school student to have to climb.

Kagome grinned wryly. She was getting out of shape. It used to be that she could back pack across the country side with her friends, fight the strongest of demons, and _still_ have the strength to argue with a certain hanyou.

But that, she reminded herself, was a long, long time ago. Kagome looked towards the well house – something she hadn't done in a while, and took one step towards it, then another, before she stopped herself with a shake of her head. She couldn't go back there. She shouldn't have gone back there in the first place. Her existing in the past had very nearly changed history. . . if Naraku had succeeded, then it would have. She had been lucky that she hadn't changed the world once, but it wasn't safe to see if she could do it a second time.

But...

She walked up to the well house and touched her palm to the sealed doors. Kaede and Miroku had worked hard on these seals. . . it made it so that no demon could ever get past. It had made it so that no demon could ever repeat what Mistress Centipede had managed – to drag a frightened teenager in to a land that hadn't existed in half a millennia.

She missed it there.

It was something that she could easily admit to herself, but she would rather die than to admit it to her family, who had been so happy to find out that she could come home. The jewel of four souls was right back where it belonged – housed beneath her rib cage. She touched it. It was her one link to the life she had left behind. . . her own link to the life she should have never had in the first place.

She turned and walked away, back towards the main house, feeling proud of herself.

She hadn't even cried this time.

* * *

"Grandfather! Grandfather! I'm home!" Kagome cried out the customary greeting. Her mother was tending to the shrine store when Kagome got home, and she got out of school before her younger brother, Souta, so it was only her grandfather and her for at least an hour.

"I'm in the storage room, Kagome!" came her grandfather's distant cry. Kagome tried to remember why he was back there – there must have been some reason, but it couldn't have been that he was cleaning. . . he did that last week. She kicked off her shoes and donned a pair of slippers and went back to the porch, curling around the house to the storage rooms.

"Grandfather?" Kagome called out once more as she turned the last corner. "What are you doing in the storage room?"

Her grandfather – a young eighty seven – turned and gave her a smiling hello. "We had a delivery today. The Tokyo Museum had selected our shrine to house one of their statues until they had another display for it. I'm sure I told you about it - it is an honor to be protecting a display piece for such a prestigious museum."

Kagome didn't doubt that he had told her. . . she just doubted that she had been listening. Her grandfather had a tendency to ramble on about myth and legends, most of which had very little fact inside of them, and though she loved him dearly, she very rarely paid his speeches any heed.

He had probably told her after he had finished one of said speeches.

And though Kagome had no recollection of him ever mentioning a new statue, she smiled and nodded. "Oh yeah, I remember now." She said, wishing that a sheet hadn't been thrown over the sculpture so that she could form a good fabrication. As it was, she had no idea what the sculpture was of – and if he asked her questions about it, she would have to admit that she hadn't been listening when he told her.

Luckily, any questions that he may have had were put on hold when the phone rang and her grandfather waddled out of the storage room to go and answer it.

_Now was her chance_. Kagome thought as she peeked outside of the door to be sure he was gone before heading back in to the storage room. As soon as her Grandfather had circled the first corner she hurried back inside the waiting sculpture.

She looked up at it, still covered by the sheet. It was large – a foot or more taller than her 5' 4'' stature. She grabbed the bottom of the sheet – she was just going to roll it up, so that she could drop it just as quickly when her grandfather came back.

Pulling the sheet up the sculpture, she mused that the feet and _hakama_ on the sculpture looked vaguely familiar – but that couldn't be right. She had only ever been to the Tokyo Museum once, and it hadn't been in years. She rolled the sheet up higher, and caught sight of the tip of a sword – one that she _knew_ she had seen before.

_But it can't be. . ._

Suddenly desperate, Kagome gave up trying to roll the sheet up neatly – she simply ripped it off of the sculpture in one swift movement. She stared up in to the eyes of some one that she had once known – in a life that she hadn't really lived. She fell silently to her knees – she couldn't have made a sound if she had wanted to – and stared up in to the eyes of some one that she had never thought she would see again.

_Sesshoumaru_.

"Kagome, I'm back. It was your mother on the phone, says she needs some help up at the store." Her grandfather said as he entered the storage room, only to see his grand daughter on her knees before the statue, wide eyed with shock. He looked from his granddaughter to the sculpture, then back to his granddaughter. "Kagome? What is it?" He knealed down next to her and tried to help her stand up.

But she couldn't.

Kagome's hand slowly raised to her mouth, and covered a smile, just before she did what would have made any girl worth her weight in lipstick proud – she fell silently to the floor in a dead faint.


	2. Chapter 2

_

* * *

Fish Don't Sleep_

**Chapter Two**

* * *

"_I don't know why she fainted!"_

"_You say that it had something to do with that new sculpture?"_

"_I got a good look at it. It's creepy."_

Kagome heard her family's voices drifting gently in and out of her head as she slowly realized that she wasn't in the storage room any more that somehow, someone must have gotten her up to her bedroom.

She tried to open her eyes, but when she felt her eyelids resisting, she gave up. She didn't really care that much about seeing much of anything at that moment.

"So, do you think she's okay?" Souta asked. Kagome was vaguely aware that she felt his breath on her neck and knew that he had leaned in.

Someone's hand touched her forehead soft and gentle, well cared for, and hummed. "She has a slight fever. But she should be waking up anytime now." Her mother told the other two. "We should leave her alone so that she can get some rest."

There was a slight pause and her grandfather answered. "Yes . . . and tomorrow I think I'll lock that sculpture up. Causing problems already - the damnable thing is probably cursed."

Kagome heard the shuffle of feet and her door open and close quietly. Muffled shuffling alerted her to the fact that they were going down the stairs and when she heard only silence, she slowly opened her eyes.

It was already dark out. Kagome tilted her head to the side and saw the numbers 10:47 blinking in green numbers besides her bed. She sat up slowly, but still felt a wave of vertigo.

"_I'll lock it up tomorrow." _Her grandfather had said. Kagome put one leg over the side of her bed and then another. She had to see it again. _No, _she corrected herself. _Not it. I have to see him again._

She opened her door a crack, and heard her family talking downstairs. _Can't go that way. . . _She turned to her window and walked towards it, estimating how hard it would be to climb down the neighboring tree. _Inuyasha's done it hundreds of times. . . it can't be that hard!_

She opened her window and sighed. Yes, it would be that hard. The tree was a good three feet away from her window. She couldn't make that jump.

She looked down her roof tilted at an angle and she levered herself out of the window, feet first, and took the small drop to the roof of the first story. There was a slight thump and Kagome glanced worriedly towards the front door, afraid her family had heard the noise on the roof.

After a few minutes of waiting, Kagome walked carefully, her arms out like a tight rope walker. She came to the edge of the roof and frowned. She still had to get down from there. . .

It wasn't that long of a jump, really. If she were to dangle herself over the edge and slowly lower her self till she was hanging to the roof only by her arms, she would only be three feet above the ground. Not a long drop.

She curled around the house and stopped above the laundry room. It had no windows, and she didn't have to worry about being seen by her family. Carefully, so that she didn't break the rain gutter, she lowered herself to the ground and landed with a dull thud in the grass. She hissed in pain when she felt her ankle twist, but it didn't deter her.

She was determined to see him again.

She wondered why she was so determined to see him. . . after all; he had tried to kill her many times. They hadn't really traveled in the same circles and neither of them had really cared for each other. . . actually, they had both tried to kill each other on a number of occasions.

She supposed it was because he was the only link left to a past that she had left far behind. . . and had always secretly longed to return to. Her family had tried to make her feel better when she came home. She had retold her adventures with a bitter sweet feeling she had always cursed the past and her lack of a life in the future, but now that she had a life in the future and nothing in the past, she wanted her adventures back. Life had been so boring with out Inuyasha and the others. And, if just for tonight, she wanted to see someone that she had thought she had left behind and if he was just a statue, well, that didn't bother her.

It was just nice to finally have a familiar face around.

Not to mention that she had the curiousity of a cat, and it wouldn't be appeased until she made sure that she actually saw what she thought she saw.

She cracked the door to the storage room open and the soft hiss of rollers made her throw a quick, guilty glance towards the house.

Of course they hadn't heard it.

She hurried inside and shut the door, her back pressed against the cold wood as her eyes settled on the still uncovered Sesshoumaru statue. She walked over to it, slowly, and kneeled.

It only seemed appropriate that she pray for the thing before she touched it.

She finished with a slight bow of her head, and she looked up into the unseeing eyes of her would be enemy.

Oh how she missed them all, friends and enemies. She thought as she knelt down and lay against the hard stone that should have been warmed silk. She gripped Sesshoumaru's leg hard, and cried in to the stone. "Why did I ever go_" _She sobbed. "Why had the Gods seen it fit for me to go if I couldn't stay?"

She hadn't deserved to be pulled down there in the first place. But to have her grow to love a place that she knew she didn't belong, only to have her ripped and isolated from everything she had grown to care for. . .

_I must have done something horrible in a past life. _She grinned at the masochistic thought and looked back up at the towering Sesshoumaru.

He was as beautiful as she remembered. He had two arms in the sculpture; a possible mistake on the artist's behalf, maybe? Other than that everything else was the same. The clothes, the weapons, the eyes . . .

Which were currently focused on her.

Kagome jumped and then shivered when the eyes followed her movement. She shook her head and briskly rubbed her arms. It was an artist's trick. . . one she had seen in the Mona Lisa duplicate in her schools art gallery. _It's just a trick. . . just a trick. . ._

Kagome slowly approached the statue again and stood on her tip toes to see his eyes better, bracing her body with her hands against his chest. Her brow briefly brushed his nose, and Kagome stared, bewitched by what was at her eye level.

His lips.

Tears began to form in her eyes as she remembered kissing everyone's cheeks good bye. And just as she was about to jump down the well, Inuyasha had spun her in his arms and kissed her soundly.

Kagome leaned forward and kissed the statue at the corners of his mouth, blinded by her tears, and wondered if his mouth was just as cold and hard in real life as the statue that depicted him.

"Why?" She cried out in utter anguish, forgetting for the moment that her family, who were only a few rooms away, had no idea where she was and weren't supposed to find out. All she knew was that she had waited for forever to have someone share her pain and now, seeing a sculpture in the likeness of Sesshoumaru, she knew for certain that she would always be alone.

Alone and trapped in a time that would no longer have her.

"Why in the world would the Gods take me away? Why did they bring me there in the first place if I couldn't stay,_" _She punched the sculpture lightly, but didn't lift her head. "_Why?"_

When two strong arms wrapped around her, she didn't react.

"Poor little miko. Still thinking that the gods rule your life." Kagome froze. Sculptures didn't talk. But this one did. She felt him shake his head, his chin atop her own, and while she was frozen with shock, two hands soft as silk and old as time ran over her shoulder. He made a chastising click with his tongue. "You put an awful lot of faith in the free time of all unnamed deities," was his soft reprimand.

Kagome tried to hurl herself out of the would be statues arms, to see his face more clearly in the dim lighting. But Sesshoumaru's, who was transforming from cold stone to colder demon, grip remained as strong as it had always been. Apparently, demons suffered from no decrepity.

"Sess- Sesshoumaru!" Kagome cried, suddenly fearful. "But. . . but you're a statue!"

"Hm." Was the only answer she received.

"You were a statue." Kagome amended her breath short and fast. "You are a statue." She couldn't seem to make up her mind. She had wished for this. Kagome realized. She had wished for this nearly every night since she had come home to have someone, anyone, who had been there. . . who could understand. But Kagome, being reincarnated time traveling shrine maiden, knew better than most the unluckily hood of wishes coming true. Sesshoumaru couldn't be here. . . the odds were a million to one!

"Indeed." Another one word answer. He hugged her close to his body, and Kagome felt warmth spark up from him, beginning in his heart. A direct contrast to his legs, which were still petrified as stone. Kagome was far too surprised to object to his affections. But she wasn't so shocked that she couldn't manage to utter a single, one syllable word in to his collar. "Why?"

He was silent for a moment, and for another moment, Kagome was afraid he wasn't going to answer. But then, he surprised her. He seemed to be making a habit of it. "Do you know," he began slowly, "how very, very long it's been since I've touched anyone, miko?" His voice was rough and deep, like glass and gravel, completely unlike the whiskey and ice she was used to hearing from him. She shook her head in response to his question, and his arms tightened yet again around her body. "Let me touch you."

How could she possibly say no to that?

He pressed her to him as if he could draw any comfort she had in her body into his own and Kagome felt her breath shorten to quick gasps. Like a child who had had a bad dream. . . the thought seemed accurate. It had all been a bad dream, that they were alone, and they were finally waking up. She buried her face into his neck and his grip loosened lightly when hers tightened around him. She felt his pulse beat once, then twice, and she knew without a doubt, that he was alive.

"I haven't seen any of you." It came out of her mouth as a sob. "I haven't seen_ any of you_ in five hundred years." More or less.

It went unspoken that the same could have been said for him.

She inhaled a breath on her next sob and was struck by the familiarity of it all. He smelled of mists, fog and fire. How she already knew the smell was beyond her. All she knew was that she had always known his smell.

Like a demon she had never even met.

"I am so glad." Kagome admitted quietly, as if omitting it was a sin. "I am so glad that you are here."

Even he wasn't sure if she had been even a little bit aware of her admission.

And if he had cared, he didn't show it.

He was the same as he had been long before. Always the same.

However strongly they were loathed to part, the oddity of this situation struck them - a demon clinging like a child to a miko and when they slowly pulled away, a deep, unexplainable regret filling them that the moment had passed. A moment where it hadn't mattered that at one point, they were bitter enemies and when it came down to it, she still hated him, and he was just far too jaded to care. They stared at each other for a long moment without speaking. Her, because she wasn't sure how you greet an enemy like him after so long. Because her loneliness was so great that she wasn't even sure he was still her enemy.

He didn't speak because he didn't need to. He was fine in his isolation.

But that fact didn't stop him from reaching forward, reaching for her body once again, with a frantic sort of manic desperation on his face. He took a step towards her and his legs stopped supporting his weight.

He pitched forward and Kagome caught him.

"Sesshoumaru!" She cried out, nearly collapsing under his weight. "Sesshoumaru! Are you alright?" She knelt down to her knees slowly, taking him down with her. "what happened?" She asked, leaning him against the storage room wall.

Sesshoumaru shook his head, as if to clear it. Then, to Kagome's immense surprise, he smiled faintly, as if absorbing the irony of the whole case. "I suppose it only makes since that I should be a bit weak in the knees."

She had the distinct feeling that he was speaking in riddles, and that there had been an inside joke there that she was not privy to. As quickly as the smile had appeared it vanished. "A side effect, I am certian, of being petrified for five hundred years."

_And countless centuries of being made of ice before that. . . _Kagome kept the comment to herself. But then the weight of his words – and the significance of the years – struck her. "Five hundred years. . ." She left the question unfinished, mainly because she wasn't sure it _was_ a question. "I was _there_ five hundred years then. You weren't made of stone while _I _was there!" And after the kindness he had shown Inuyasha, she had begun to wonder whether or not he was made of ice.

Sesshoumaru nodded, and Kagome was almost positive that his eyes held sadness. "It would seem," He began slowly, for it seemed that was the only way to go. "there are many things you are unaware of." Sesshoumaru shook his head again, and tried to sit up higher on the wall, only to wince in pain. He settled for his uncomfortable locale.

Realization struck her - perhaps Sesshoumaru knew what had happened to her friends. Perhaps he could give her the closure she so desperately needed after all this time. "Do you know what happened to my friends? Are they all okay? I mean, I'm not too worried about Sango or Inuyasha, but Shippo's just a boy and Miroku just lost the Kazaana and they might be hurt or –"

"Miko, try to remember that they are all dead." Sesshoumaru reminded her softly. She didn't speak again. He looked over her disheveled features, and groaned in pain when his eyes glazed over. His breaths were shallow, and he leaned in close to her, resting his head on her shoulders. For a moment or two, Kagome was afraid that he might pass out again. But then he lifted his head so that his forehead rested against her own, and his breath on her face tasted old and hot.

"I'm so tired. . ." He admitted, and Kagome paid attention to his forehead. He was burning up with a fever.

"Here, Sesshoumaru." Kagome said, burying her arms beneath his and twisting her body so that he lay leaning against her back. "I'll help you to my room. You can sleep in my bed." She turned around, knelling, and anchored herself underneath the slope of his arm. His armor bit angerily in to her skin, but Kagome ignored it, biting her bottom lip as she helped him stand up.

Sesshoumaru nodded against the smooth silk of her hair, and then he did something that shook her so deeply she thought for sure that she must have been dreaming.

He _thanked _her.

Kagome froze midstep, nearly falling once again in her dazed state. She wanted to ask him _something¸_ but he had once again drifted out of conciousness, his feet moving slowly in time with hers, as though he was in a trance.

The side door to the kitchen had been open, and her family had gone to bed sometime during the time when Kagome had been in the storage room. She thanked god for little miracles, and began the ascent up the staircase.

It was a hard trek, to be sure, but in nearly no time at all, Kagome was panting and leaning against her door jamb, the injured demon lord barely supported by her tiny stature. She turned her door knob and half pulled him in to her room, kicking the door shut behind her. She helped him to the bed, and, with much less grace than she would have cared to have, he flopped unceremoniously on to the bed.

He grimaced in his sleep, and rolled over, revealing the blades to her. Kagome smacked her forehead and cursed her own idiocy. Carefully, as not to distrub him, Kagome untied his sash and gathered the swords with the gentle respect that they deserved, and laid them gently down on her dresser.

She went back to him then, and examined his shoulder armor for long moments before she finally found the hidden latch that held it to him and released it. She carried the surprisingly light metal to the foot of her bed, examining it for a moment. No longer was it the shining metal that had served him well in many a battle – it was old and dull and a little rusted, with deep engravings and scars that showed it's use. Kagome ran her hands over it, and smiled when she saw that one scar – a deeper, but tinier one than most of the others – was shaped rather like that of an arrow head.

It was the scar she had left when she struck him.

She stood then, and went to face him. Leaning down, she brushed his bangs aside. "Goodnight, Sesshoumaru-sama." She whispered respectfully. She was about to turn away when his left hand shot out to her, and made her topple atop him. Kagome blushed, and tried to get up with out waking him. But when his grip didn't loosen, she tried stirring him from his sleep.

He didn't wake up, either.

Sighing, Kagome gave in to the inevitable. She would be embarrassed about it in the morning, she was sure, but it was futile to fight it. She had had a long day, and the scent of smoke was lolling her in to repose. She curled in to the fur on his shoulder, and that night she slept carefully wrapped in the arms of a demon warlord from long ago.

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

_Fish Don't Sleep_

**Chapter 3**

* * *

"Kagome?" She awoke to the slow curiosity of her mother's voice. "Who is that and please tell me _why _you are sleeping with him."

Kagome opened her eyes, and made a move to get up - only to be stopped by the arms that belonged to Sesshoumaru.

In an instant, Kagome recalled the events of the night before and struggled to free herself while explaining the situation to her mother.

"He was the statue we got yesterday from the museum," Kagome began, pulling at Sesshoumaru's arm, "Also, he's Inuyasha's older brother." Simplifying the situation seemed to be the best way to diffuse it.

Mrs. Higurashi examined him, and her still struggling daughter, and her eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, he _was _the statue we got from the museum yesterday?" She asked warily.

Kagome managed to wrench one arm out of his grasp. "I mean exactly what it sounds like I mean. He _was_ the statue, and now he's. . . well, he's not."

"Well the Museum isn't going to like this," Mrs. Higurashi sighed heavily, "I'll go make him some breakfast too." She walked out of the room, and Kagome heard her muttering from the hallway.

"Why can't life just be _normal _around here?"

Kagome continued to struggled, and wondered for a moment the exact same thing. She managed to pull the upper part of her body out of Sesshoumaru's grasp, and just when she was about to rely on gravity's pull to help her the rest of the way out by simply falling out of bed, Sesshoumaru's arms tightened around her waist and he rolled over, this time, sprawled out on top of _her. _

"Sesshoumaru!" Kagome screamed loudly and arched underneath him, trying to push him off of her. "Sess..._shou..._maru!"

She was panting by the time her brother walked in to see what all the noise was about.

Kagome barely caught sight of him out of the corner of her eye – his toothbrush hanging out of his mouth and his eyes staring in slight horror at what must have looked like something completely inappropriate.

"No!" Kagome cried, reaching for him, for the moment forgetting the sleeping demon on top of her. "Souta! It's not what it looks like!"

"Really? 'Cuz it looks pretty interesting to me." Was Souta's cocky response. He smirked – a half grin she supposed all teenage boys eventually picked up – and turned with a wink. "Don't let me stop your. . . fun."

Kagome rolled her eyes, and swore that this day couldn't get any worse.

"Mom! Kagome's getting it on with some old guy in her bed!"

But then again. . .

* * *

It took her forty seven minutes.

Forty seven minutes of pulling and pushing and prying to get Sesshoumaru to roll over again.

It took another ten to manage to grab a large plushy from in between her bed and her desk and have _it _replace _her_.

And it took far longer than she cared to remember to explain the whole situation to her mother and grandfather.

Her mother, looking skeptical, had believed her. Her grandfather, being her grandfather, was assured Kagome that things like this only happened in the Higurashi shrine before sauntering away with a smile on his face.

As if Kagome had any doubts about that.

Kagome ate her breakfast – it was cold at that point – and with one glance and two sighs at the clock, decided that she was staying home from school that day.

Mrs. Higurashi handed her daughter a plate of food. "Go take this to your friend. . . Sesshowari."

Kagome felt a sweat drop roll down her neck. "Sesshoumaru."

Mrs. Higurashi shuddered. "Is it _really?" _she asked a bit skeptically. "I mean, who in the world would name their child _inner circle of death?_"

Kagome shuddered slightly at the cryptic translation of the name she knew all too well.

"It's not an entirely accurate name." Grandfather Higurashi said as he walked slowly in to the kitchen, nose in a book and guiding himself only by memory. "Take a look at this."

Kagome took the book from his hands and read the passage out loud for her mother to hear. "The statue, _Lord of Dogs_, was sculpted in the mid 1500s by an unknown artist. The only one of it's kind, _Lord of Dogs _was thought to have been a sculpture of a god, and it was rumored for a time to bring back the dead. . ." Kagome's voice trailed off, and she examined the picture on the next page. It was drawn in quick, amateur sketches, but it was drawn horribly accurately. Sesshoumaru, in all his glory, holding Tensuiga above the body of a dead man laying on a sacrificial alter. Her eyes darted to the caption, and she read it aloud. "_Lord of Dogs _resurrecting the dead. Painted by Chiin Mei, 1647."

Kagome spared a glance at the cover. _Mythology in Art_ it claimed proudly, and was written by no one author.

"I wanted to look up some information on the statue. I mean, after you told me what you knew about our _Lord of Dogs, _I wanted to see what other information there was." Grandfather Higurashi explained. "You know. . . in case there was any information as to why Lord Sesshoumaru was turned in to a sculpture in the first place."

_In case he had done something unforgivable to deserve it._

Her grandfather didn't say it, and she didn't allow herself to think on it for longer than she had too.

"But it says in all the texts I can find that it was done in the mid 1500s." Grandfather Higurashi continued. "No name of the artist, no exact date, and no name of the person who originally owned him."

Kagome bit back the urge to say that no one could _own_ Sesshoumaru. She knew she was being ridiculous and was grateful that she had stopped herself.

"He must have been. . . sculpted. . . about the same time that you came back here then." Mrs. Higurashi said, shivering on the word sculpted. When Kagome thought about it, it _was _a bit distressing. And very, very disturbing.

Kagome gave a single glance at the ceiling, where a certain _Lord of Dogs_ was sleeping. Preparing a plate of food – cold, of course – Kagome trekked back up the stairs and in to the den of the dog himself.

He was still sleeping.

With only one backwards glance to be sure that her mother or grandfather hadn't followed her up the stairs, she lay the platter of food on her desk, and rolled her chair out from under it and gave in to the impulse to watch him sleep.

He was white, and solitary, just like she had always remembered him. He as as he always would be, a figure untouched by time.

And, though she wouldn't dare say it outloud, he was _hauntingly _beautiful.

It wasn't that his features were particularly effeminate, but the high arches of his face – marred only by four, thin pink scars – certainly didn't belong on a man. He's brow wasn't flat, like a woman's, nor was it very pronounced. It was a subtle blending of bone and skin, and it suited him perfectly. His eyes – which were, at the moment, closed – held no trace of the pink eyeliner that he had once wore to mark him as a member of the royal family. But above his eyes, beneath hair that was in sore need of a trim, lay a single crescent moon the color of an iris.

Kagome had always wondered about it. . . Inuyasha bore no marking like that, so perhaps it wasn't a mark of breeding. But the Inu no taisho, Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha's father, had bore a similar one to his. She made a mental note to ask him, and turned her attention to his hair.

It was silver, as was Inuyasha's, but it shone like a pearl in the dim lighting of her room. Carefully and slowly, as not to wake him, Kagome opened her blinds and let the light flood the room.

His hair lite up like thousands of shining stars, and Kagome's hands fell quietly to her dresser, where it picked up a soft bristle hair brush. She stalked over to him and maneuvered him slowly, so that he lay against her knees. Only once she was sure he slept on did she begin to brush his hair.

It was soft, and it clung like spider webs to her fingertips. There were no knots – but she would have been surprised if Sesshoumaru would have allowed his hair to tangle, even if he had spent half a millenia frozen in time. She took her time brushing his hair, and revealed in the softness of it.

"It's like rabbit fur. . ." Kagome vaguely recalled feeling a similar texture in a fur coat her grandmother used to wear. Kagome took a handful of hair and lifted it to her nose with her eyes closed, and half expected it to smell like the old woman too.

But there was nothing womanly about this scent. Rich and heady, it was the amplified scent of him – and it was not in the least bit comforting. It made Kagome think of fire and fog and the unknown, and it caused her stomach to twist and wretch in peculiar knots.

Kagome dropped the brush and stood quickly, inhaling a breath with a hiss when Sesshoumaru's head plopped against the head board with a thunk. She didn't wait to see if he had awakened. She simply turned and fled the room, back to the safety of her mother's arms.

* * *

Kagome growled in frustration as she placed her pointer finger against Sesshoumaru's throat for the thousandth time to be sure he still had a pulse. It was slow, and it was low, but it was there.

Of course he hadn't woken up when Kagome had dropped him against the headboard. . . that would have been far too easy.

No - it had been nearly two weeks; two weeks of her fretting that he would die, two weeks of her being confined to the living room couch – and he still had slept.

Kagome grumbled as she sat down at her desk to do her homework. "You would think that after getting five hundred years of sleep you wouldn't need anymore now, wouldn't you?"

She looked over at him, and wouldn't be surprised if he had been sitting there, staring at her, watching her not do her homework with those deep, amber eyes of his. She would have welcomed it.

But no; he wasn't awake, and her homework was in sore need of attention.

She didn't care.

Standing quietly – though she wasn't sure why. . . _he _certainly wasn't going to wake up any time soon – she took the few steps it took to get to her bed before she sat down on the edge of it.

She didn't bother to resist the urge to stroke his face. . . she didn't care that it seemed more informal than she would have liked. He was her link. . . her link to her memories. . . and for the moment, she was grateful for his company.

However much unconscious he may have been.

"Sesshoumaru. . ." Kagome began, laying down next to him, so that she lay mere inches away his ear. "Sesshoumaru. . . I need you to wake up now."

And just to surprise her – and thinking back on it much later, she was sure that was the reason he did it – he turned his face towards her and opened his eyes.

His eyes were dilated and wide, and Kagome's breath caught in her throat. He wasn't berating her for being so close to his personage, as she thought he might have done, nor was he making any effort to get up. Instead, his gaze fell to her mouth and caught there, his own tongue darting out to lick his lips in timeless invitation. Kagome was so startled that she had no idea what to think of it - perhaps he was still in a dreamlike stupor? Regardless, she had _no _intention of leaning in and stealing the mouth that he had just so graciously offered.

However, Sesshoumaru hadn't really been asking her.

After a moment of her hesitation, and the confusion that he could clearly see in her eyes, he leaned in and stole a kiss from her.

To say that Kagome was shocked would have been an understatement. Here was Sesshoumaru, Lord of Dogs, Lord of the West, and Lord of whatever he claimed was his, kissing her in to a stupor.

It was then, weighed down by problems and worries that no high school student should have had to worry about, that Kagome finally gave up and gave in. And without thinking of the consequences of her actions, Kagome kissed him back.

Sesshoumaru was a bit disoriented about his whereabouts. . . he vaguely recalled a once – hated enemy awakening him from his self imposed prison – but other than that, everything was like a dream.

Her lips were soft and pliant, and tasted as though they had been brushed with just a hint of peppermint._  
_

He groaned and leaned up on his elbows, knocking her on her back and climbed on top of her, careful to keep his weight from crushing her frail, all–too–human form.

He kissed her like a man dying of thirst.

He took long, slow sips of _her_ in to him, savoring each drop. She was a poison. . . and she was the only antidote. . . and every taste of her needed another long, cool swallow.

"Kago_me_. . ."

Something about the way he whispered her name. . . something in the husky, unusual drawl made her shiver and remember. They weren't lovers, no matter how much her body begged to differ. They were enemies, and it wasn't too many years ago that he had tried to kill her.

Kagome shot out of his arms – out of her bed – like a bullet and made a move to fix her clothes. "I'm sorry!" She exclaimed quickly, though that reason she was so sorry was beyond her. It just seemed like the right thing to say at that particular moment. "I'm sorry! You were sleeping, and I was trying to wake you, and-"

"How long?" Sesshoumaru asked, his voice soft and calm and deep once more. He sat up and stared out of her window, fascinated with the movements of a turtle dove that was chirping merrily on a tree branch.

He was beautiful. . . Kagome knew she had thought it before, when he had been sleeping. . . but this. . .

He was pondering; thinking about something. Perhaps, she mused, he was remembering. Remembering something that she couldn't have possibly understood. Remembering something that was pointless to remember at this point. Remembering something that would never be pointless to him.

He could have been a model. He _should_ have been a model. His features were perfect for it, if he was not a bit on the skinny side. For all his strength and muscles, Kagome couldn't believe how very thin he actually was. . . most of his power came from his massive height, and not from girth. In fact, if she were to try, she was sure that she could wrap her hands around his upper arms.

He was waiting for her to answer.

"How long what, Sesshoumaru?" Was her rather belated response.

But if he had noticed her inattention, he made no mention of it. "How long was I asleep?" Sesshoumaru asked again.

Kagome studied him very carefully. Perhaps it was just her. . . perhaps. . . but he seemed to be holding his breath for some reason.

"You've been out for nearly two weeks." Kagome informed him, picking up her pencil and staring at her unmarred homework sheet. Not that she planned on working on it or anything. . . "I've watched over you most of the time." She continued, trying to solve the complicated math problem in her head. "But I had to go to school, and while I was gone, my mother and my grandfather took turns checking up on you. You had a terribly fever most of the time, and –"

"So. . . you didn't go anywhere?" Sesshoumaru asked. Kagome looked up and was a bit startled to see that he was no longer studying the bird.

It was her those deep gold eyes were focused on.

Kagome shuddered, nodded. "Yes."

"You. . . didn't see anyone of importance, did you?"

Kagome thought on his meaning, but shook her head. "Not particularly. . . why? Is someone after you?"

Sesshoumaru shook his head, and turned to look back out the window. "No." He said, a bit morbidly. "No one even knows that I'm gone."

He leaned back against the head rest, and his eyes drifted slowly shut.

"Wait." Kagome whispered hesitantly.

Sesshoumaru didn't wait. . . but he didn't fall asleep, either.

"If you go back to sleep, you'll wake up again, right?" Kagome asked him nervously, moving from her soft roller chair to the softer comforter that lay on her matress. She lay a single hand on his leg and didn't take her eyes off of his face – a face which could have already been asleep. "I mean. . . you won't turn back in to stone, will you?" Her hand sought his desperately atop the covers. "You'll wake up if I need you, right?"

"And why would you need me, Kagome?"

The way he said her name sent shivers like pinpricks up her back. She shook away the feeling and stood abruptly, not bothering to explain herself.

She paused in her doorway, and, leaning against the jamb, she turned back to him. "Just in case. . ." She told him, and walked out with out bothering to shut the door behind her.

He waited until she had walked down the stairs and out the side door of the kitchen before he replied back with a oracular grin. "As you wish, _milady_."

Oh, how he had missed her. Missed her warmth against his body.

Soon, she would be his once more, and this time, he wasn't going to let time steal her away.

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

_Fish Don't Sleep_

**Chapter Four**

* * *

Sesshoumaru had followed Kagome out of her room nearly immediately, and, much to Kagome's extreme irritation, had appointed himself her silent guardian. He had accompanied her around the house as she did her Sunday chores as silently as possibly for her – she had a feeling that even _this_ level of quietness that she had obtained would go unappreciated by the demon, who only made his presence known when he occasionally opted to help her lift a particularly heavy basket of clothes, hand her a dust pan, or move furniture out of the way so that she could vacuum behind it - he had hated the vacuum cleaner, and had spared her a rare word to tell her so. And yet, in spite of all of these things, his presence hadn't disturbed her; rather, it had given her a quiet sort of comfort. But the silence that come with that comfort was grating enough to force her to grind up the courage to ask him how he came to be made of plaster and stone. Her question, however, had been answered with a rather cryptic _hmm, _and then more silence, far heavier than before she had asked.

"Kagome! I need you to run down to the market and pick us up something for dinner!" her mother called from the kitchen, not bothering to look to see if Kagome had even heard her.

Kagome sighed, and walked in to the kitchen obligingly. "What do you want?"

Her mother, the indecisive being that she was, tapped her finger against her bottom lip rhythmically. "Hmm. . . fish sounds good, but. . . Why don't you ask our guest what he would like to have for dinner?"

Kagome was about to turn around and yell for Sesshoumaru, when his voice answered from right behind her. "Fish will be fine." He assured her mother.

Her mother smiled and handed Kagome a few paper bills. "Be safe."

Kagome nodded put the money in to her wallet, then pocketed that. "Okay. I shouldn't be gone more than an hour or so." Kagome assured her mother. She opened the door and let it fall behind her, and it hit a rather irate looking demon lord on the forehead. Kagome blinked twice. "You want to come?"

Sesshoumaru _hmmed _again, and moved past her. Kagome felt a whisper of a breeze lift her hair when he walked past her, and she sighed. "I'll take that as a yes, then." She whispered sarcastically, and moved to lead him. Kagome didn't bother to turn around. She didn't need to look back now to know that he was following her.

As they walked, their shadows walked besides them, flung out over the pavement like rippling fabric. They were dull an gray, in stark contrast to the brightly colored human and the unmistakably stark white demon. The shadows were a reflection of the people themselves, twisted in to a generic shape, only slightly recognizable as human – or humanoid, as the case would be for Sesshoumaru. They blurred with the colors of their surroundings, distorting Sesshoumaru and Kagome's beauty with their own unique styles. Occasionally, one shadow disappeared in to the other, only to reappear on the other side, whole and unchanged.

They maneuvered through the crowds easily, perhaps because of Sesshoumaru. Men saw him, and made way, made an effort to steer clear of him. Women, on the other hand, seemed to flock closely to him, brushing themselves against him any time they could. A few even had the gall to shoulder Kagome once. Kagome had been about to open her mouth to give one of those women a piece of her mind, when Sesshoumaru shocked her in to silence by catching her hand as it swung slowly past him and holding it in his own. Kagome blushed, and neither made a sound as they finished their walk to the market place.

If the hustle and bustle of the city effected him, Sesshoumaru didn't show it. But then, she hadn't really expected him too. However, she hadn't expected him to hold her hand, and she had certainly been wrong about that point. It was rather unnerving, really, the fierceness with which he tried to keep her pinned to his side. Once during their trip, she had tried to use the ruse of reaching for a particularly fresh looking fish to remove her hand from his, but if anything, his grip had only become tighter as she tried to pull away. She had sighed, and simply asked the fish dealer to wrap it up for her with out inspecting it. The merchant had shrugged and done as she requested, murmuring quietly about how cute young love was. Kagome had blushed, and almost corrected him, but a sidelong glance at Sesshoumaru showed her that he would be object to explain the oddity of their situation to anyone. In the end, she had paid the merchant and walked away with Sesshoumaru, more than a little distraught.

They had walked in silence again for some time – for them, it seemed to be the best form of communication – when Sesshoumaru shocked her by giving her small talk. "You shouldn't let people bother you like that." He told her, releasing her hand only when there were few people around and little place for her to hide.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Kagome lied, and feigned innocence poorly.

"Liar." The simple word should have insulted her, but the tone behind it had seemed a bit endearing, for lack of a better word, and it made her stomach unfurl a tiny warmth that made her skin erupt with tiny goose pimples.

"Well. . . I guess it did bother me a little bit." Kagome admitted, and realized with a disconcerting feeling that Sesshoumaru had been leading her for quite some time. "I mean. . ."

Sesshoumaru stopped suddenly, and Kagome rolled back on the heel of her foot to stop herself from plowing in to him. "What is it? Is something wrong?"

"If you have something to say, you should say it." An odd piece of advice, coming from him.

"What are you talking about?" Kagome asked, walking past him with a flick of her hair. "Of course I have nothing else to say."

One strong hand gripped her arm like a vice and forced her to half turn back to him. Her gaze meet his with a bit of wariness in them, that only increased ten fold when she saw the anger that alighted his otherwise pacify face. "Lying doesn't become you. What is it?"

Kagome blushed and looked down at her arm. "Why do you keep touching me?" She asked a bit sheepishly.

Sesshoumaru's face softened, but by no means did he smile. "Is that all?" He asked, a whisper of humor in his voice.

Kagome nodded. "If you hadn't been holding my hand, that merchant wouldn't have even thought twice about whether or not we were a couple! I mean, why would you do something like that if you're just going to make people think that –"

"Let people think what they want to think." Sesshoumaru told her, and released her arm.

He was about to walk away, when Kagome grabbed the hem of his sleeve. "What about you?" She demanded more than she asked. "You always are quiet. Don't you have anything to say?" She fisted his sleeve with greater force in her hand and pulled him closer to her. "Why do you not question any of this?" Kagome asked, all her questions blooming out of her at once. "What happened in the past? Why were you a statue?" Her voice got stronger and louder with each question. "What are _you_ thinking!"

Sesshoumaru's head tilted only slightly to the side, to examine the now crushed sleeve that lay limp and crushed and deteriorating in her fist. "You ruined it." He observed, only inciting Kagome's fury more.

"And then there's that! You never use to talk if it wasn't absolutely necessary! What in the world happened to change you?" Kagome released the sleeve, and was a little surprised that tiny fibers still clung to her hands, ripped from the soft silk shirt.

"Maybe it is time that you learn a little more of what happened. . ." He seemed to be speaking more to himself than to her, so Kagome didn't interrupt him. "You see. . ." He was quiet again, but this time, Kagome had the feeling that he was trying to find the right words to tell her exactly what had happened. "Maybe I shouldn't tell you. . . It might change something."

Kagome shook her head and laughed a little. "No. If you tell me then it was meant to happen. If you don't, then I guess that was meant to happen too."

Sesshoumaru gave her a sideways look. "Still putting your faith in unnamed deities?"

Kagome nodded, and smiled. "I need to have some place to put all this faith, don't I?"

Sesshoumaru and Kagome walked for a little while more, and soon they reached the shrine. Kagome had been about to begin the ascent when Sesshoumaru grabbed her arm once more.

"Put your faith in me, okay?" Kagome wasn't sure whether or not he was telling her or asking her. Since asking her seemed too far out of his character, she opted that it was the first of the two.

"What do you mean?" She asked, confused.

"I mean, quit putting all your faith in the gods. Put it in me." Sesshoumaru turned her slowly, to face him. "I'll protect you."

Suddenly, the world didn't seem black and white any longer. Hues of color became darker, more distorted, and it seemed that the world was very gray. The white of his kimono became obscured, and for a moment, Kagome would have sworn that it was a vivid red. . . and that atop his head was two tiny appendages.

_I'll protect you. _Inuyasha had said it too. Surprisingly, he had held true to his word.

The world slid back in to focus, and Kagome shook her head as if to clear the thoughts that had settled there. This was _Sesshoumaru, _not Inuyasha.

This was her world, the safe world of Tokyo, not the choatic ever – changing world of the fifteenth century. Sesshoumaru did not care for her the way that Inuyasha had. But most importantly, she didn't need anyone to protect her any longer.

Kagome smiled lightly. "What on earth would you have to protect me from?" She asked gently, soothing him with the sound of her voice.

If it was possible for him, he looked a bit bashful. Kagome removed herself gently from his grip – it seemed that gently was the only way to tread around him when he was like this – and continued up the stairs.

"Me." His voice was low and dangerous, and sounded more like the Sesshoumaru she had known in the past than the Sesshoumaru that was with her.

Kagome turned slowly and faced him, and was surprised to see that his eyes had hardened to that of the warrior that she had known nearly half a millennia earlier. "Sesshou-"

She hadn't blinked – but she still missed the movement. All she knew was that one second she had been on the stairs, facing him, and the next, she was being crushed painfully against the grass beneath his body, his claws at her throat and his lips at her own.

"Are you afraid of me, Kagome?" The movement caused her lips to part erotically, and her breath began to come out in short, quick spurts.

"Should I be?" Was her defiant answer. Her eyes held his – a feat, to be sure – and slowly he removed himself from her, and picked up the fish, not bothering to look back at her, let alone help her up.

He had barely made it a few steps before he stopped again, and paused. "Yes." He whispered quietly, and continued up the stairs, leaving Kagome shaking and cold on the dewy grass.

* * *


	5. Chapter 5

* * *

_Fish Don't Sleep_

**Chapter Five**

* * *

_Yes. _

It seemed to him that his entire existence was bared in that tiny utterance, because it was so very honest that Sesshoumaru knew, the second that it escaped him, that events beyond him, beyond her, were set in motion. He knew, the second he uttered it, that he had sealed their fate.

And the knowledge made him feel very old, and very, very tired indeed.

He noticed that she didn't eat her fish that night. She pushed it around mixing it with her broccoli so until the fish had taken on the vegetable's green hue. Whenever her cat would walk by, she would slip a little bit in to a napkin and then slid it off the table, and the cat would obligingly rush over to take the bit of food away.

No wonder the poor thing was so dreadfully obese.

If she didn't eat anything, then he certainly didn't either. But he didn't even bother pushing the food around. Rather, he sat there, still as the statue he had once been, and stared off at the wall behind Kagome's head, letting the poor fish grow cold and still.

When Mrs. Higurashi picked up his plate to wash it, she was a bit disconcerted when it had, quite simply, not been touched.

It seemed that since he had said that _one little word, _he hadn't touched much of anything.

But he had especially not touched _her_.

And while he would have been mildly content to simply float aimlessly besides Kagome, a silent specter that had no right being in her life, it wasn't in her nature to be submissive and accepting.

No, she was the pushier kind of woman.

"What are you hiding from me?" She whispered quietly from far behind him, where he knew she thought he couldn't hear her. "What wont you say?"

But that was it exactly – he would never, ever admit to her that maybe, just maybe, he had done everything wrong . . .

Kagome didn't mention the sleeping arrangements, and when she went to leave the room, opting for another restless night on the couch, Sesshoumaru reached out and grabbed her arm.

She looked back at him, and his eyes were so imploring that Kagome sighed. "You aren't going to do anything perverted if I sleep in here, will you?"

Sesshoumaru didn't smile, but Kagome was sure he _almost _did.

She went about her business, drifting through her chores in silence, with him at her side. _Like a dog, _Kagome thought with a smile as she swiped the hard bristles of her toothbrush over her teeth. She dared to glance at him, sitting in her bed in the room behind her, watching her. _He follows me around like a dog. _

Which was more than a little true, when she thought about it really hard.

Sesshoumaru had been frozen in time, but the more she thought about it, the more Kagome was beginning to realize that maybe that was a good thing. Immortality, from what she could understand, was a cruel thing, and five hundered years could dull even the sharpest of minds. At least, as a statue, he didn't have to see the world pass him by. He could remain immortal with out having to worry about the pesky business of living.

Which was fine, if you were all alone.

Kagome tied her hair back, and decided against mentioning it. Instead, she crawled in to the bed and pretended not to notice when he wrapped his arms around her.

She also pretended not to notice when he whispered ten mono-syllabalic word in to her ears.

"_I think I'm ready to go back to sleep now." _

* * *

The business of sending a demon in to a comatose state was an easier one than she would have expected, and, since Sesshoumaru had been through it a number of times before, he guided her through it flawlessly.

Still, as she painted alchemic symbols in to the hard wood floors of the attic, she couldn't stop the trembling of her hands.

"You're doing fine." Sesshoumaru insisted, and knelt down besides her. "Here." He said, taking the brush from her. "You must be precise."

He drew the brush across the floor with wide, sweeping motions, and if calligraphy could be called arrogant, he's would have undoubtedly been so. Clean and precise, his hand was still as stone while Kagome's, in stark contrast, trembled and quivered.

She had missed them, she knew, all of them. And he, her last link to the past, had made his visit so brief. Not to mention that he had slept through most of it.

"_Why now?"_ She wanted to ask him. "_Why would you decide to leave me just after you came?" _

But Kagome was not stupid, and she knew that even if she asked, he would never answer. It was just his way to be silent, and Kagome completely accepted that.

But, as sunset drew nearer, and thus, the time of the spell, Kagome reached for Sesshoumaru and embraced him silently, not making a single effort to hide the tears that dampened his precious silk kimono.

He didn't use words to soothe her, but he did allow himself to run his clawed fingers through her hair.

"It's _supposed _to be like this." Sesshoumaru told her, cryptically, of course.

Kagome laughed quietly. "What's it supposed to be like?" She asked, cynicism slipping in to her voice with inflections. "You are supposed to gather dust while I am supposed to just forget?" It was a statement, not a question.

Sesshoumaru didn't speak, and didn't nod.

Which was more affirmation than she needed.

"It's not fair." Kagome insisted, and gave him a tight squeeze.

"Life rarely is." Was his quiet response. He tilted his head towards the window, and frowned. "It's time."

Kagome took a deep breath and stepped out of the circle that surrounded to dusty old mattress. And Sesshoumaru sank in, causing the air around him to become disturbed and warmed.

"Does it have to be now?" She asked. And he doesn't answer, because _that _is a stupid question.

Shivering a bit, Kagome took a needle and pierced her thumb, and tipped it lightly to the ground, forming the last symbol of the incarnation just as the room grew dark.

And, as the sun faded along with his warmth, Sesshoumaru gave her a soft smile.

"Promise me you'll do what's right?" He asked her then, as the shadows passed over his feet and turned them to stone.

Kagome smiled. _Such an odd request, from him. _"I promise." She said. And she meant it.

Sesshoumaru settled back against the pillow. "Then everything will be alright." He said as he let his eyes drift shut.

And as soon as the sun light left him, he turned back to stone.

And Kagome did her best to not feel uncomfortable with him.

* * *

"_Kagome-san." Miroku had whispered sadly as he wrapped his arms around her, and Kagome tried not to start at the absence of pain that was normally caused by the press of his sutra beads against her spine. _

_Kagome smiled, because if she didn't she would cry, and returned the hug. "We knew it would come to this." She told him, holding him at arms length so that she could get a good look at him. His face – which was normally so weighted from the constant threat of death – was finally lighter, even if it was dimmed with the pain of loss. The loss of one of his dearest friends. _

_Sango was next, though Kagome could hear Shippo whimper weakly on Inuyasha's shoulder. "You were always the strongest of us." Sango told her, close enough to her ear that Kagome could feel her breath. _

_Kagome didn't agree, because Sango was standing there with the best poker face she had ever seen, and when she flashed her a smile, Kagome almost believed that this wasn't the last time she would ever get to see her. _

_Shippo obviously couldn't wait anymore, and when he jumped at her, and wrapped his delicate little claws around her neck, Kagome fell to her knees and began to sob along with him. _

"_Kagome!" He wailed, burying his face in the dip of her neck. "Please don't go! You don't have to, now that Naraku is dead!" _

"_Yes, Shippo, I do." Kagome conceded, quietly. "With the jewel back inside of my body, it's only a matter of time before some one else comes and does the same thing that Naraku did." _

"_I could protect you." It was the first thing that Inuyasha had said all day. _

_Kagome gave him a sad smile. "But. . . I'm tired of fighting." Her entire demeanor slumped a bit, and Kagome sighed. "Aren't you all, too?" _

_They didn't answer. Which was more of an answer than she needed. _

_Kouga, who had never really given up on her, was the last of them. He made for her a bit, and then stopped, his hands tracing the air above her skin, but not touching her. Never touching her. _

"_You would have made me a fine woman." He told her. _

_Kagome smiled. "And you will make someone else a fine mate." And she closed to gap between them, and placed a kiss on his cheek. "Just. . . not me." _

_Then Kagome stepped back, and took a good look at all of them. "This is it then, isn't it?" She didn't require an answer. But, smiling sadly, she pulled out a Polaroid camera. "Well, everyone together then." Setting it against the well, she turned the timer for 15 seconds and ran out in the center, grabbing at Inuyasha's arm as she did so. "Everyone look at the camera, and smile." _

_The camera flashed. . . _

. . . and Kagome woke up with a gasp.

Sitting up with a moan, she stretched out and cast a glance at the ceiling, where above her, Sesshoumaru was stuck in his statue form. Kagome knew that the museum that had loaned Sesshoumaru – The King of the Dogs – to her grandfather had owed them more than a few favors, and it would only take a bit of bartering and dealing for her grandpa to make a proper trade. Kagome felt a bit sick at the thought – after all, Sesshoumaru was not one that she would have ever thought of as being bartered over. It made her think about how wrong the world was, and how disappointed Sesshoumaru would have been of it.

Just like they were all so disappointed at her for choosing to never have to fight again.

It had been a while, since she had thought about that day – the day that she had bid them all farewell. It had been longer still since she had dreamed about it. And despite the fact that she knew that they all thought that she had taken the easy way out, she knew that she had made the best decision. After all, they couldn't defend her _all _the time. . .

Reaching in to her bed side table drawer, Kagome pulled out a snap shot. The picture was wearing a bit, because it was looked at so often, and Kagome had never dared to show it to anyone else. But she studied it for hours sometimes, memorizing the planes of their faces.

She had asked them to smile. So why was it, despite the fact that everyone was doing as she requested, the picture looked so somber?

She glanced at the tree line, where she had long ago discovered another person lurking in the picture. Sesshoumaru stood there, half hidden in the trees, silently taking part in the farewell ceremony. Kagome had always wondered about that, but she had long since stopped trying to figure out what went on in Sesshoumaru's head.

It was probably no more than a quiet sense of justice, and a determination to do the right thing, even if it was as simple as bidding a comrade farewell.

"_Promise me you'll do what's right?" _He had asked her, not once, but twice.

"_What do you mean?" Kagome had asked as she stood on the battle grounds. _

_Sesshoumaru reached out a single clawed hand, and dropped the crystal in hers. _

"_The Shikon no Tama!" Kagome had exclaimed, and clasped it against her chest. "Where did you –"_

"_Naraku was strong." Sesshoumaru said simply_, _and turned away from her, his hand retreating in to his sleeve. "Even in his death." _

_Kagome looked down on the crystal, and saw traces of blood. "Let me see your hand." Kagome demanded, her voice meek and timid. _

_Sesshoumaru jerked back and glowered at her, offended that she would even ask such a thing. _

_Kagome shook her head, and tried to appear unintimadating. "I just want to make sure you're alright." _

_Sesshoumaru sneered a bit at this, and then his face looked a bit indecisive. "I will show you my hand, miko, if you will promise to never come back." _

"_Kagome." She told him. "Hard on the second syllable. Ka – GO – me." _

"_Miko." He said deftly, and thrust his hand forward for her examination. _

It had been Sesshoumaru who had told her that perhaps their would be another like Naraku. It had been Sesshoumaru who made her promise to always do what's right.

And it had been Sesshoumaru who was making her question her own beliefs.

Kagome crawled out of the bed and went up to the attic, and stood just outside of the circle. _What do you want me to do? _Kagome wondered, feeling the bitter burn of tears just behind her eyes. _Whatever it is, you only have to ask! _

"_Promise me you'll do what's right?"_ His voice seemed to ring in her ears, melodic and haunting.

Kagome sneered. as she stepped in to the circle. She felt the magic catch, and waver, as if unsure whether or not to trap her in it as well. Kagome fell a bit, and then crawled in to the bed next to him.

His body, though it was supposed to be cold, was warm to the touch. And his clothing, which was supposed to be stone, was still soft and silky.

Kagome cast a nervous glance up at him, to be sure the magic still held. His eyes were closed, but there was a color to the skin a shade darker than pale.

Reaching up, Kagome stroked his cheeks. They were high and intimidating, and the bright markings on the side only gave him more character. She touched, and she couldn't help but wonder. "What if I don't know what's right anymore?" She asked him quietly, playing with the ends of his hair.

He didn't answer, and she was a little disappointed.

* * *

Kagome didn't tell her family that she was going back.

In fact, she barely even registered the fact herself as she stood before the well, the doors still open behind her as if she was giving herself an out if she wanted.

The last time that she was there, she had promised Sesshoumaru that she would do the right thing, no matter what it was.

It was certainly a shame that she wasn't entirely positive of what it was anymore.

She clambered up on to the lip of the well, and she saw the sun creeping in through the tiny windows of the well house. It was morning, and in an hour or so, her mom would come in to her room to make sure she was feeling well. And then her mother would find the note, with only three words written on it, laying on her pillow where her head should have been.

_I went back. _

Taking a deep breath, Kagome imagined for a moment that she had wings.

And then, she fell.


	6. Chapter 6

* * *

_Fish Don't Sleep_

**Chapter Six**

* * *

Kagome landed gracefully, her legs tipping just so in a long practiced way. Dawn was rising over the tip of the well, and she inhaled the new, fresh air with the intimacy of a chain smoker gone too long with out a cigarette.

She let her eyes travel up the side of the well, and sighed. Above her head was a ceiling, meaning that the villagers had finally taken Keade's advice and built a house around the well. A house that would one day be a shrine.

Also, a ladder.

The ivy branches that had caused the skin on her hands to callous so painfully had been torn away, leaving no sign that they had once helped a young miko to climb in to the past.

Laying down her back pack with a sigh, Kagome found familiar notches in the wood – clumsy footholds, from where her shoes had worn down the wood in the past. Pressing her hands against the walls, feeling for the light indents, she began to slowly scale it. To avoid getting a heavy dose of vertigo, she remembered.

It had been over a year since she had left this place forever.

_Step, feel, grab, pull!_

Sixteen months, three weeks, and two days.

_Again, again, can't afford to fall! _

She had bid them all farewell, and swore to never return.

_Don't look down, don't look down; pay attention to the wood here, it seems to have been polished a bit. _

But she had never stopped wishing that things could have been different. Never stopped wishing that they would have been different.

_Success! _

She tossed her arms over the edges of the well and heaved a deep breath.

And flinched when she heard the click of arrows slipping in to place.

"What do you there?" A young priestess, the only one who was not carrying a weapon, asked her in a quite, comforting voice, not unlike Keade's at all. "This well is forbidden." Her brows creased gently, and she frowned, as if trying to remember something. "Be you a stranger?"

"No." Kagome said with a smile and a sigh, and finished hoisting herself over the edge of the well. "It's Kagome."

When no one's face softened, Kagome froze, and glanced quickly around. _None of them even had a hint of recognition in their eyes! _

"This is the priestess Keade's village, isn't it?" Kagome asked quietly.

The priestess shook her head, sadly. "Kaede has sadly left this world for the next, and I am her successor." With an elegant, deep bow, the Priestess smile. "And I think I may know who you are, Kagome-from-the-land-beyond-the-well. Perhaps you have heard of my husband?"

Kagome shrugged. "Maybe."

"Inuyasha?"

Her world tilted on axis. And then, she fell in to a dead faint.

* * *

"Yup, that's her alright." A man's voice growled from high above her. "But what's she do'n here? Thought she told us she wasn't com'n back ever."

Kagome blinked twice, trying to ignore the blur on the edges of her eyes. She could smell a fire burning, and could make out the worn and heavily patched ceiling of Keade's hut. Stretching out her fingers, she fiddled with the hem of the old blanket that had been laid across her so many times when she had rested here, tired and battle weary, and she felt a warm nostalgia sweep over her. She let her eyes drift shut again, and savored the moment.

_I'm home. . . _

"You're up." The man's voice pointed out, and Kagome heard the _click click _of toe nails in desperate need of a trimming tap against the floor.

"Inuyasha." Kagome said, opening her eyes with a smile. "You look. . ."

The same. He wore the same haori, the same hairstyle, and the same pretty scowl that told her she was in for a verbal bashing if she didn't explain herself quick.

". . .different." She lied, because it wouldn't have been right to say the same.

Nothing was the same.

"So do you." There was no hesitation in his voice, but a soft resignation from a person strong willed and bone weary. He slumped down on the hard wood floor beside her mat, Indian-style, and tapped his foot erratically.

"I hear you're married." Kagome said, sitting up slowly.

"I see you're not." He nodded towards her hand.

Kagome smiled, and tugged her school girl uniform over her wrist. "I told you, it's not the same where I come from."

"And just where is that?" The Priestess asked.

Inuyasha turned, and gave her a flat look. "Anza. . ." He gave her a warning tone.

The Priestess – Anza – glowered a bit, but continued to work with the fire.

"Forgive my wife. . . she forgets sometimes that there was a world before she was in it." Inuyasha sighed.

Kagome frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Inuyasha sighed, and looked out the window –_ when had they installed a proper window? –_ in a manner that was quite unlike him. "These. . . are not the times you remember." He said slowly, choosing his words carefully.

Kagome laughed uneasily. "Obviously: look at you, being all careful about what you say."

Inuyasha gave her a fierce growl, and Kagome brought one finger in to the air. "Ah-ah-ah, don't start or I'll say it."

Out of instinct, his hand flew to his collar bone, where the necklace still lay, heavily misused. "Damn." He growled. "Should've known to have you take them off when I had the chance!"

Kagome remembered. . . it had been about a week after the battle with Naraku. Kagome had approached him, her plans to leave in mind, and offered to remove it. He had clung to it, and looked at her with distrusting eyes.

"_Why would you do that?" _

"Why would you come back?" Inuyasha asked. "You were right to leave – things changed so much! It could have been so much worse!"

"Why?" Kagome asked, leaning forward a bit. "What exactly happened? Did Naraku come back?"

Anza made a coughing noise from over by the fire, by Inuyasha paid her no heed, so Kagome followed in the like. "No one remembers who Naraku is anymore."

"What!?!" Kagome exclaimed, lurching out of the mat. "It hasn't even been two years! He slaughtered half the country side! _How could no one remember?!" _

"Well, not _no one._" Inuyasha said, obviously uneasy. "Anyone who had come in contact with a shikon shard remembers, and the more contact they had, the more they remember."

"And, Anza?" Kagome asked, blushing at bringing up the subject.

"I met her a little while after you left." Inuyasha said. "She's the old hag's grand niece. . . her mom had a half-sister, her sister had a kid, and that kid had Anza."

"I'm right here." Anza said, giving the two a dead pan look.

"It's only been a year!" Kagome exclaimed.

Inuyasha smirked. "As you said: it's not the same here. Kaede married us two months ago, right before she died."

"How. . . how did she die?" Kagome asked, clenching the blankets in her fist.

"In her sleep, like she should have." Inuyasha said, and stood. "Well, I would love to stay and chat, but I am already running late, thanks to you."

"What? Wait! Inuyasha!" She screamed after him, watching the door close behind him. She turned to Anza. "Where is he going?"

Anza reached for a bowl, and poured a bit of stew in to it. "To survey the village, make sure no one has breached our borders, see if anyone needs help, maybe kill something for dinner." She smiled warmly at Kagome. "Please, come over. Break your fast with me."

Kagome went over to her, and sat down elegantly, sweeping her skirt beneath her. She didn't know why, but she felt the immediate desire to impress this girl who had won over her first love. And as she accepted the bowl of stew, Kagome took her first real good look at her.

And the first thing that she noticed was that there was nothing to notice. She had no real distinguishable features – she was pretty, sure, but she was pretty the way a doll was pretty; simple, clean, with all the right bits in all the right places. Her skin was neither too fair or too dark, her hair was neither too long or too short, her breast were neither too large or too small, her eyes were neither too soft or too harsh, and she didn't show any signs of developing laugh lines or frown creases.

"So, what Inuyasha and the other have been saying all this time is true, then?" Anza asked excitedly. "There really was a Naraku? You really do come from the future!"

"Others?" Kagome asked, sipping the soup and resisting a moan of pleasure. It was delicious! Just the way that Kaede had made it – and Kagome was equally sure that she _still_ didn't want to know what was in it.

"Sure – Miroku, Sango, Shippo – they all live a few villages away, so you should go to see them if you are staying for any amount of time – Kouga, of course - and Sesshoumaru! You'll see him later this week, no doubt."

Kagome felt the heat rising in her face. "Sess. . . Sesshoumaru?" She asked, her voice breaking a bit. "Why would I see him?"

Anza laughed lightly. "Because silly! These are Western lands! It's his job to look after his villages! Not to mention his younger brother. . . And since your being here is _proof _that Naraku was alive, and everyone forgot, then he will definitely need to take you to the high council as evidence."

Kagome stifled the urge to gag at being labeled 'evidence,' and tried to figure something out. . . "People. . . accept Sesshoumaru?" She asked, wondering if that sounded as bad out loud as it did in her head.

"Of course they do, silly." Anza said. "He's our lord!"

"He's a demon." Kagome said, since there was no way to be subtle about it. "Did people forget that?"

Anza shrugged. "Doesn't matter. His longevity makes him an outstanding leader, because we don't have to worry about him dying on us!"

Kagome smiled, and nodded. _Except for you have to worry about him being turned in to stone. . ._

"Gracious!" Anza said, standing. "Look at the sun! I must be getting to work – there are a lot of sick children this time of year, you see, and I have to care for them all." She gave Kagome a final, fleeting smile as she left. "Feel free to show yourself around the village. Inuyasha would have told everyone by now to let you be, and a few people here have touched the Shikon Jewel, so they'll remember you."

She left suddenly, and Kagome felt the room chill and darken a bit. It was then that Kagome realized why Inuyasha had married this girl.

"She's a half demon."


	7. Chapter 7

* * *

_Fish Don't Sleep_

**Chapter Seven**

* * *

"She's _who_?"

Kagome tried to ignore the painful, all too familiar stares as she walked through the village, looking for Inuyasha. She had called out to him once, but that had been what had caught everyone's attention in the first place, and all the familiar faces that looked at her as if she was foreign disconcerted her, so she didn't ask anyone if they knew where to find him.

Still, it was unsettling how similar this was to the first time that she ever came to the past. . .

"Looking for someone?" Inuyasha called, from up the road ahead of her, where he was carrying four buckets of water.

Kagome looked up, happy to see someone who knew who she was, and rushed ahead. "Yeah, you." She said, taking two of the buckets from him. "So, how is it that you have a half demon priestess wife?"

Inuyasha blinked at her. "Who told you she was a priestess?"

Kagome blinked. "Well, no one _had _to tell me, it was pretty obvious from her robes..." At Inuyasha's flat stare, Kagome gasped. "But. . . the robes! And she went to heal people! And. . . and she's related to Kaede!" Kagome stammered, and then sighed. "I suppose I just assumed. . ."

Inuyasha laughed. "No, she's not a priestess. Quite frankly, you don't see too many of them around now days. Plus, they aren't really needed that much any more."

"What do you mean?" Kagome asked, and sighed happily when Inuyasha came to a stop, and put her buckets down none-too-gently, sloshing water over the rims.

"Well," Inuyasha began, hauling the water in to a horse trough. "You don't have to be a priestess to know your way around medicine, and demons are better suited for it, don't you think?" He reached for another bucket, and Kagome stood aside. "I mean, we're less susceptible to catching the illness, and we can endure more to get the patient well. The robes are just a formality nowadays, really, and no one seems to care."

Kagome handed Inuyasha the next bucket. "But, I don't get it." Kagome said, her voice a notch below whining. "Not that it's a bad thing, but the priestesses are all gone? Demons are accepted? When did this all happen!?"

Inuyasha shrugged. "You weren't here, but when everyone started to forget about Naraku, everyone sort of. . . began to get along. It was like something had finally been taken out of the equation." He reached for the next bucket. "Sesshoumaru has a theory on the whole thing."

"What's that?" Kagome asked.

"Well, I told him how there aren't any demons in the future, and he got all huffy about it."

"Sesshoumaru?" Kagome asked. "Huffy?"

Inuyasha blushed a bit. "Well, maybe not huffy. He got quieter, and you could just see his mind trying to figure it out. It's creepy the way that guy goes around analyzing things all the time." He shook his head lightly, and reached for the fourth bucket.

"So, are you guys on speaking terms?" Kagome asked. She wouldn't be surprised if they were, what with all the other major changes that she had seen in this morning with him being asleep in her attic and all.

He laughed. "No, but we aren't at each other's throats. Sesshoumaru gave me this land to watch after, and he comes by every few weeks to check things out. He's due any day now, and you'll probably want to get out of here by by then. You were always a pretty touchy subject with him. He doesn't like things that he doesn't understand, and _you, _Kagome, are a walking anomaly."

Kagome shook her head. As much as she wanted to avoid confronting him, she knew that she had to prevent what ever terrible thing that had happened to him from happening, so she had to start following him as soon as possible.

"So, what's he's theory, then?"

"Well, all the humans and the demons started getting along alright, pretty soon after you left. His first theory is that with the jewel of four souls gone, no one is particularly swayed to be good or bad, so it's getting all peaceful around here." Inuyasha reached for the last bucket, and Kagome caught sight of his soft smile. "Time's are changing, Kagome. It's not Feudal Japan anymore. No more fighting over land. . . heck, the high council is even trying to find an 'emperor' to rule over everyone, so that we aren't divided anymore."

Kagome tried to imagine the other lords trying to take Sesshoumaru's land from him, and had to stifle a laugh. "How's Sesshoumaru on that plan?"

Inuyasha shrugged. "He likes it. The guy they've got picked out is pretty swell. . . I met him once, you know."

_Wow! _Kagome thought, with a bit of dry humor. _All this time I've been learning this in school, and it's been happening back here! _Suddenly, a thought struck Kagome so hard that she froze. "It's not. . ."

"Jimmu." Inuyasha told her. "He's not human – he's a direct descendant of the sun goddess, and he's pretty cool. It's the sixteenth century, you know; we have to get with the times."

Kagome smiled. "No, I didn't know that." Wow. She couldn't help but think _I'm watching history!_ She knew from a test she had to take last week that Jimmu was the first Emperor of Japan, and he was rumored to not be human. He took his rule in 1660 – merely sixty years in the future! "Anyways, you were talking about Sesshoumaru's theory? What's the other bit?"

"Well, with the humans and the demons getting along so well, he figures that there will be so many half demons that eventually, demon blood will be so diluted you can't make it out anymore."

Kagome shook her head. All this time, she had wondered why there were demons here, and not there. Why they were now, and not then. She had always thought that the Shikon Jewel would wipe them out, but it was really just something as simple as they began to fit in. "So, tell me about your wife."

Inuyasha shrugged. "Nothing much to tell. You already figured out she's a half demon. . ."

"It's like pulling teeth!" Kagome exclaimed, with an overly dramatic roll of her eyes. "What sort of demon is she?"

They began to walk side by side through the village, and Inuyasha explained that Anza was snow leopard demon, and since her species pelts were one of the most highly sought after, they had evolved to be plain and indistinguishable.

"Wait." Kagome had interrupted there. "That doesn't make sense! How does a species evolve to be indistinguishable?"

Inuyasha shrugged. "The prettiest ones get killed off before they have a chance to mate. The plain ones blend in and teach their children to be as ordinary as possible."

_Plain and ordinary. _Kagome thought. _All that they ever wanted was to just blend in with the crowds. _Which reminded her so much of Inuyasha, she stopped in her tracks."Is that why you married her?" Kagome asked, more than a touch snidely. "Did you want to fit in so badly?"

Inuyasha bared his teeth at Kagome's tone. "You don't understand! You weren't here!"

"What wasn't I here for, Inuyasha?" Kagome screamed. "What could have possibly been so terrible?"

"No one believed us, Kagome." Inuyasha said, his eyes suddenly looking so tired. "We did so much for them, and they just forgot. I wasn't exactly expecting a huge thank you from anyone, but dammit, so many people died, and no one remembered." Inuyasha shoved his fist through a tree they happened to be passing by, and it fell slowly away from the village. "Do you know what it's like, Kagome, to have spent almost two years trying to protect something, and then suddenly no one knows?"

Kagome knew. She knew everyday that she walked in to her home room, feeling dejected and alone. She knew every time some one asked her how one of her diseases were coming along, and each time she answered a question wrong in History class because the history books were _wrong_.

"No, Inuyasha," She lied, "I don't."

He looked her in the eye, and Kagome saw a dead man in them. But then he smiled, although it didn't quite reach his eyes anymore. "Liar."

And then, by the stump of the fallen tree, Kagome fell to her knees, and wept in Inuyasha's arms for the first time in years.

Nothing had every felt better.

"Am I interrupting anything?" Kagome heard Anza's sardonic voice ask from above her. Turning her head, she smiled up at Anza, with swollen eyes and a sore heart.

"Anza. . ." Inuyasha whispered, and released Kagome reluctantly, his claws dragging against her bare wrists as if they were savoring the feel of her flesh. "No, no. We were just catching up on old times, and it got to be too much for Kagome." He stood and brushed off his haori with a look of careful indifference on his face. "Now, you'll have to excuse is a buck in sore need of capture in the woods, and it'll be at the river around this time." He said, and walked away, leaving Kagome to explain everything to Anza.

So Kagome continued to smile at her, a bit wanly, and rubbed her eyes briskly. "You know," she said, with a light laugh, "he didn't used to act like that."

"I know." Said Anza simply, and reached out her hand to help Kagome up.

They met each other's eyes for a moment, and in Anza's, Kagome saw fear. _Fear of me. _Kagome realized, and she frowned at the thought. _She's afraid that she's going to lose Inuyasha to me._

"It's okay." Kagome assured Anza, holding her hands in front of he to show she meant no ill will. "To me, he's nothing more than an old, dear friend." she insisted, trying to soothe the woman scorned

Anza frowned, and cast a long look at the ground. "That doesn't mean that he doesn't want you. . ." she whispered so quietly that Kagome almost didn't catch it. So quietly, it probably wasn't meant for Kagome to hear.

So when Anza lifted her head, and smiled so half-heartedly at Kagome, she thought it best to pretend that she hadn't heard anything at all. "So, how did you know?" Anza asked. "Am I that easy to read?"

_How did she know_? Kagome wondered for only a moment, because the answer was an easy one.

_Because once upon a time, it was me that had been so afraid of losing him. . . to Kikyo._

It was then that Kagome realized exactly what Inuyasha wanted; what he couldn't ever have. He wanted Kikyo first, because she was so perfect, and then Anza, because she would help him to blend, and now, apparently, her. Because she had given up on him a long, long time ago.

"Call it woman's intuition." Kagome offered, and grabbed one of Anza's hands in her own.

Anza shook her head, and Kagome could have sworn that she saw tears welling in the dark brown depths. "You must think me so silly, to love someone so much." She shook her head, and Kagome brought one of her hands up to cup her face. "Someone who so obviously couldn't care less."

But Kagome didn't think it was silly at all. Because Kagome knew what loving someone could do to you. "Love is. . . difficult." She settled, for lack of a better word. "You can love someone with all your heart, and bare it for them, day after day, and they would be none the wiser." She remembered doing likewise for Inuyasha, a long time ago, when she agreed to be with him forever. "And then, when the time comes that you finally have to quit, they don't even realize you were trying all along."

"_I could protect you." It was the first thing that Inuyasha had said all day._

_Kagome gave him a sad smile. "But. . . I'm tired of fighting."_

"You loved him too, didn't you?" Anza said, with a quiet sort of acceptance that Kagome had seen once before – in herself, on the day that Kikyo left the world for the last time.

"_You love him too, didn't you?" Kagome had asked Kikyo, as she lay bleeding to death in her arms._

_The others were far behind them, still fighting off the hordes of demons that Naraku had sent to kill the undead miko._

_When Kikyo looked up at Kagome, and their eyes met, Kagome saw for the first time what everyone else insisted was there all along – a similarity. A bittersweet longing, buried deep in their eyes. Because they both knew what they wanted._

_And they both knew what they could never have._

_Kikyo winced in pain, smiled, and answered her in the softest, kindest voice that Kagome had ever heard._

"How could I not?" Kagome asked, shrugging.

Anza's entire demeanor changed, and the bittersweet longing that Kagome had once seen in Kikyo's eyes, had felt herself, she saw again.

_"But you're the one he loves." Kagome had assured Kikyo all those years ago. _

_"I'm glad. . ." Kikyo said, coughing weakly. Kagome blinked in the darkness, and saw that the spit that had landed on Kikyo's cheek  
wasn't spit at all. . . it was blood. "I'm glad that someone will love him so much after I am gone."_

_With that she sighed, closed her eyes, and died with a smile on her face._

"I'm glad that someone could love him so much after I left." Kagome confided in her. "I was always so worried for him. He had never really been accepted, and even with all of Sesshoumaru's help, I hadn't really expected him to fit in so quickly.

"But. . . he married you, and now he's happy." Kagome said, smiling to reassure Anza.

The look Anza gave her then was long and deep, and Kagome knew that the hanyou was staring right down into her soul.

"But. . ._ you're_ the one he loves."

Anza left her then, walking away silently, prepared to hold her chin high as she performed the duties as the village healer. Like Kagome, she was too proud to cry in front of the 'other woman.'

Kagome saw then what might have happened had she decided to stay in the past; to stay with Inuyasha. She saw that she would have probably ended up exactly where Anza was, never quite living up to a woman who he could never have; always knowing that she was his second choice.

Kagome didn't follow her, because there was nothing left to be said.

* * *

When Inuyasha came back from hunting, Kagome – and all her belongings – were gone.

"Where is she, Anza?" He demanded nearly frantic, "Did she go back to her own time?"

Anza shrugged, delicately. "Who knows." She said, and proceeded to skin the slabs of buck meat that Inuyasha had presented her with.

Inuyasha looked towards the doorway desperately, and from the tension in his body, Anza knew he was about to dart. The look she gave him was full of a quiet acceptance.

"You're going after her." A statement, not a question.

Inuyasha turned his head and really looked at her, and saw what had first attracted him to her in the first place.

A poorly disguised distress; a hidden longing for something she could never hold.

He had wanted her, because she looked at him the same way Kagome used to look at him.

"No." He said, and sat down to help his wife skin the buck. He had made the same mistake twice already – and he was not going to make it again.

* * *

Kagome lay her mat out under the stars, and then placed her bag upon the mat.

The villagers – the few that remembered her, that is – had gifted her with various produce items. . . much more, in fact, than the last time.

But last time, things had been hard. This time, the demons were on their side, rather than against them.

As Kagome ate the rice that the villagers had been kind enough to give her, she mused on her situation. She had been a bit frightened at first, she supposed - not that she'd ever admit it to anyone, of course - at the prospect of sleeping out in the forest alone. After all, she had never slept without someone across the fire, or someone in a tree. Not in this era. She had never slept without someone watching over her.

But then she remembered that times were different. Demons were no longer a threat.

Which was why she packed the weapon that one villager had given her, a sorely neglected archery set, away in her bag. Because she thought that she would be safe.

Which was why she didn't have it out when she heard the twig snap behind her, and felt the press of claws against her throat.

Which reminded her that there were much, much scarier things in the night than shapeless bogeymen.

Which was why she screamed.


	8. Chapter 8

* * *

_Fish Don't Sleep_

**Chapter Eight**

* * *

Sesshoumaru winced, only slightly, at her shrill, piercing scream. He had broken the twig behind him in an attempt to alert the girl – but obviously, it had failed in it's purpose.

Apparently, the miko was more of a fool than he had originally surveyed.

Maybe after feeling his claws against her throat, she wouldn't be so foolish in the future.

"Would you hold your tongue, Miko, or would you prefer that I cut it out?" He asked her, using the sharpest reprimand he could muster.

And then again, perhaps she didn't care how much of a fool she really was.

Kagome stopped screaming, and tilted her head back against his claws. They scraped the flesh harder, and obviously caused her pain, but she looked as though she simply had to see it to believe it.

"Sesshoumaru!" She exclaimed, inhaling sharply. He felt his nails pierce her flesh, and he pulled them a little ways away from it.

Which gave her the opportunity to turn.

"Oh, thank god it's you!" She said, looking the world as though she was going to assualt his personage with a _hug_, though he hadn't the scarcest idea as to _why_, and continued to ramble on about something odd or another.

"Cease your prattling, mink." Sesshoumaru bit out sharply, expecting her to act as she had the last time she had been there.

His efforts, sadly, were lost on her, because she smiled and walked over to her strange sleeping roll and began to dig in her hideously yellow satchel. "I was just making some rice, would you like any?" She pulled out a bowl and went back to the pot on the fire, obviously having no intention of expecting a 'no' from him. Which, to his dismay, he realized he didn't want to give.

Her food smelt simply _mouth watering._

Kagome worried herself with the preparations, and tried not to think too hard on the demon who was drilling holes in to her back with his eyes.

When she had first heard his voice, she had been struck dumb – and, for the first time in her life, she finally understood how a deer in the headlights felt. What should she say? She had thought frantically._ Hi, I'm here to stop you from being turned to stone? I'm here to find out why everyone forgot?_

_I'm here to save the world again?_

Instead, she had began to 'prattle on,' as he had so eloquently put it, about something along the lines of 'Fancy meeting you here! Do you often travel alone at night?' She couldn't quite remember. She just knew that she needed to keep talking, or else they would fall in to a long, uncomfortable silence that she had no idea of how to break.

Sort of like the one they were in now.

Dipping a wooden spoon in to the rice, she turned it over. Good, good. She thought. Not burnt, and probably cooked all the way through. She prayed it was.

She served a bit in to a plastic bowl that she had pilfered from her cabinets and put a spoon full of sugar in it. Handing it to Sesshoumaru, she made an effort to appear friendly. It wouldn't do to have it show on her face that her heart was beating a mile a minute, or that she was so inexplicably happy that she didn't have to spend this night alone.

Sesshoumaru accepted her bowl quietly, and sniffed it once, causing Kagome to blush. "I would have put some milk in it, but I don't have any, because it perishes so quickly." She mumbled, and quickly began to worry herself with her own bowl, not giving him the opportunity to make a cutting remark about her cooking, which had in no way improved since the last time she had been there, and had lived for months off of instant Ramen noodles, much to Inuyasha's pleasure.

But Sesshoumaru, in a completely undignified way, began to clink his chop sticks against the plastic bowl. "What is this metal, miko?" He asked her, eying it intensely. "It's soft. . . malleable. Like the sap from a tree."

Kagome shrugged. "It's called plastic. I don't really remember what it's made from." She said with a shrug.

"Did you make this?" He asked, turning his attention to her.

Kagome shook her head. "No, no. You'll remember, of course, that my time is much different from this one. We don't have to make our own cutlery; which just go to the supermarket and buy what we want."

Sesshoumaru nodded, and took his first bite of her rice. "Fascinating." He had muttered, and rolled the rice around in his mouth a bit before swallowing.

Dinner was a relatively quiet affair, and it disturbed Kagome to think that the last time that they had shared a meal together had been two separate occasions. His, with a brother, a slayer, a child, a wolf, a cat, and a monk all congregating to partake in the grand feast of Instant Noodles. Her, at a family dinner, where she had quietly pushed around her fish.

He hadn't even bothered to do that.

Over the rim of her bowl, Kagome looked at him then, long and hard, and knew that her first impression of him had been correct.

Well, not the_ first_ impression. But close enough.

"Miko," Sesshoumaru put his bowl down, chopsticks resting neatly on the top. Kagome was surprised to see that not a grain of rice remained. "Why have you returned?"

Kagome looked at him then, really looked at him, over the rim of her bowl. He was so quiet, and so bright, and for some reason she was struck with the sudden notion that some where, he must have had a mother that was very proud of him.

She chewed her next words over carefully.

"Because I think that I'm done putting faith in unnamed deities." She said with an omnipotent smile, and Sesshoumaru had the impression that she had just given away some vital piece of information; a piece of a puzzle that he hadn't known he was meant to solve.

"You were _supposed_ to do the right thing." Sesshoumaru reminded her, scowling.

Kagome's smile softened, and this time Sesshoumaru _knew _that she knew more than she was letting on.

"Maybe I am, Sesshoumaru," she responded softly, smiling, and gathered his bowl with hers.

Sesshoumaru watched her methodically clean the bowls with a bit of cynicism. _What was that girl really playing at, coming back here? _He already knew that she knew as well, if not better than he, that since she came back to this time that she had no right to be in, demons would begin to crave the sacred jewel again. Her very being here was disrupting the natural order, and if she didn't know it, then more the fool was she. Sesshoumaru had thought her, apparently unwisely, to not be a fool.

And the only thing that annoyed Sesshoumaru more than being right all the time was being proven wrong.

But when he had pressed her for an answer, she had just smiled at him, as if she knew something that he didn't, as if she had a childish little secret that she wouldn't share with him unless he asked her _really _nicely.

"Are you. . . are you going to be leaving in the morning?" She gave him a look that told him that she would accept no other answer.

He nodded once, curtly, hoping to discourage her from asking too many more questions. She was _such_ a talkative female. . .

She accepted this answer with a bit of a gleam in her eyes – odd, if he didn't know any better, he would have sworn that the girl was getting _friendly _with him - but that couldn't be right. Unlike his brother, he had never given the girl any reason to believe that she was anything more than an ally in a treacherous battle.

Which didn't explain why she kept looking at him as though she was finally in company with someone that she -

"And you?" He asked, unwilling to finish the train of thought. It simply made him far too uneasy to think that the girl felt anything for him. She did have _such _a way with getting under his skin.

Kagome gave him a confused look, obviously not understanding what he was asking. Sesshoumaru sighed quietly, so quietly that Kagome couldn't hear him, couldn't detect any changes in his face. "Are you going to be leaving in the morning?" He pressed.

Kagome waved her hand, and laughed. "Of course I am!" She said it as if _he _had been the foolish one – as if the answer had already been obvious.

And she said it so easily that it him he falter. Another word game. Very well; he was extremely well versed in the ways of word play as well. "Shall I escort you to the well then?" He asked, because he had a sickening feeling about what she meant when she said that she was leaving in the morning, too.

Kagome shrugged. "Only if that's where you're going." She said, and set the blue, plastic bowls beside the fire to dry. "Darn, the fire's starting to cool down. I'm going to go gather some more wood, 'kay?"

Sesshoumaru passed a glance by the fire, his eyes narrowing on the decent sized pile of tree branches that sat there. _She's so obviously avoiding something it's frightening. . . _Sesshoumaru noted, and called out to her. "Miko." He stated calmly. She stopped at the tree line, but didn't turn around. It may have been because it was so dark, but for an instant, Sesshoumaru would have sworn he saw her tremble. "You will be traveling with me." It was supposed to be a question, but it came out more as a statement.

If it was a question, Kagome didn't know it. But she turned then, and gave him a small, polite bow. "Yes, Lord Sesshoumaru." She said, and hurried off in to the foliage.

Sesshoumaru watched the fire for a bit, before he allowed himself to fall in to a light slumber.

When Kagome was a few hundred yards away, she stopped and leaned against a tree, letting out a breath that she had barely been aware she was even holding. She tipped her head skyward and sighed deeply, clutching a fist over her racing heart, attempting to still it.

She knew what he was doing - he was testing her. It was in his nature to test things, to analyze them. Which was why he hadn't asked her straight out why she had been looking for him, and why she was going to be traveling with him. He did so enjoy a challenge, and, as Inuyasha had said, Kagome was nothing short of an anomaly.

It was obvious that he knew that had been her intention. She had seen it in the way his eyes narrowed when she answered that she was leaving in the morning as well. It was an entirely disconcerting feeling when someone was like that – when they knew everything that went on around them, simply from paying attention.

Kagome knew that she could do to learn some of those skills.

After allowing her heart beat to settle a bit, she walked quietly back to camp.

Which was where she found Sesshoumaru sitting before the fire, still as a statue, his eyes closed.

It made her heart stop and it made her lurch forward.

"Sesshoumaru!" She exclaimed, rushing forward. He cracked an eye and gave her a flat look, making her stop as suddenly as she had just rushed.

"What is it?" He demanded coldly, so unlike the Sesshoumaru that she had some to know in her own time. His eyes were cold fire as they scrutinized her, trying to decide what he should do with her.

"Umm. . . I. . ." What was she supposed to say? That she was worried that she had just jeopardized her mission to save him from a fate of becoming the '_Lord of Dogs'_ by leaving him alone for only a few moments? That she was scared, because he had looked _exactly _as he had the day that she found him, covered with the white sheet? That in the firelight, he almost looked. . .

. . .dead.

Sesshoumaru didn't make her say anything. But Kagome would have been very surprised if he did.

What he did do, though, surprised her even more than if he had pressed her for information. "Where's the firewood?" his tone was arrogant, and almost mocking. Because she had spent so much time with him back in her own time, she knew not to take _that _tone seriously. That _that _tone was probably as close to a joke as she was going to get out of him.

And, because Sesshoumaru was _teasing _her, probably in an attempt to make her feel more comfortable.

She shook her head as she walked over to her sleeping bag – an annoying shade of hot pink that she had only brought because she couldn't find her nice navy blue one, and she wasn't about to wake her mother up to ask her where it was – and tied up her hair. "Couldn't find any." She joked right back, before lying down in the sleeping bag. "Good night. . . Sesshoumaru."

Sesshoumaru didn't say anything. But then, Kagome would have been very surprised if he did.

* * *


	9. Chapter 9

* * *

_Fish Don't Sleep_

**Chapter Nine**

* * *

Kagome was roused, slowly, to the rhythmic sounds of shuffling silk and leaves. She blinked slowly, and opened her eyes to the dying embers of the peat. The hot peat sparked merrily, and for an instant Kagome was inexplicably proud of herself of doing such a good job on building the fire. But then the sound returned, and Kagome looked to see what was causing the noise.

Sesshoumaru sat sleeping, his legs crossed and his arms resting on his swords. Kagome sat up slowly, careful to monitor how much noise she was making, and saw him.

Gone was the icy lord that she felt lucky if all he gave her was a cold shoulder instead of a broken neck. Nor was he quite the Lord of Dogs that would someday lie, comatose, in her bed, only to pull her into his arms while he slept.

_No_, Kagome mused, this _is Sesshoumaru.  
_  
His eyelids were closed, but his eyes raced beneath them, flashing back and forth. She watched their movements, and how it pulled at the marked lids. On Tokijiin, his claws tensed and released, tensed and released, and his lips twitched, occasionally gracing her with a flash of fangs.

He reminded her of battles. . . of battles and blood and war. Sesshoumaru was a warrior – both literally and metaphorically. He was the perfect image of a battle-worn man, bone weary but still fighting. Kagome painted a picture in her head of him, Screaming out as he swung his sword and slaughtered his enemies.

She could imagine that he had a wife at home, in a quite cottage in the woods, with a screaming baby in the cradle and another on the way. The wife would be pretty, but homely as well – a strong wife for the strong warrior. She would be fiery, and passionate, but also able to soothe him when he returned from the battlefield. Her hair would be long, and unbound, because Sesshoumaru did so loathe the requirements of society, and her hips would be wide enough to carry his children. She would be pale, foreign –

Kagome flinched, and decided that maybe she was getting a little too off topic, even in her own head. So she turned back to him and watched him dream – dreams of the battles he had won, and the ones he had lost, and the ones he was still fighting.

But the one dream she knew he would never have was the one when the battles _ended_.

* * *

The second time Kagome woke up was to a cold boot pressed against the back of her neck.

"Ouch!" She exclaimed, wincing, as she turned to glare at the offending thing. "That's really cold, you know!"

Sesshoumaru merely scowled, and turned away. "Hurry then." He commanded, and stood facing the sun rise.

Kagome yawned, stretched, and winced again as she felt the beginnings of a kinked neck. She rubbed a hand over the sore spot, briskly, and glowered at him. "You could have at least waited until the sun came up. . ." she muttered under her breath as she pulled her hair back in to a ponytail, fully aware that he could hear her. The flesh of his ears twitched, once, but Kagome's eyesight wasn't good enough to see it.

Sesshoumaru cast a glance over his shoulder at her, a slight expression on his face that Kagome misinterpreted as annoyance. She frowned at him, and hurried rolling up her hideously hot pink sleeping bag and shoving it unceremoniously in to her hideously yellow backpack.

Kagome scuttled quickly about the camp, picking up anything that she deemed useful, and tossing aside a few things that she saw as not. She was about to kick up some dirt in to the glowing peat moss when Sesshoumaru grabbed at her arm, his claws digging in to her skin.

"Hey." Kagome said, glancing down at the offending appendage. "That hurts."

"You will decease this asininity immediately. There is much traveling to be done today." Then his hand was off her so fast she wondered for a moment if she had imagined the brief contact.

The throbbing pain in her arm told her that she most definitely did not.

She grimaced as she rubbed her arm, and wondered how much more pain would be inflicted on her before the days trials were through. "But I have to put out the fire!" She insisted when he began to walk away.

Something in her tone must have interested him, because he stopped and looked at the sad excuse for the fire pit with a look of carefully blank confusion on his face. The scrutiny was lost on the fire, but it was not lost on Kagome.

"You know, only we can prevent forest fires." She nodded, certain that if Smokey the Bear could see her standing up to the Lord of the Western Lands, he would be quite pleased with her. Sesshoumaru, however, was not.

Kagome had to hurry to catch up with him. "Wait, Lord Sesshoumaru!" She pleaded, struggling in to her loafers as she shrugged on the back pack. "I'm coming!"

Sesshoumaru seemed to flinch for a moment, and Kagome almost missed it. "Sesshoumaru?" She asked, pausing by his side. "Are you okay?"

Sesshoumaru's face didn't give anything away, but he also didn't move. Kagome stood beside him, patiently, waiting for him to speak.

An eternity seemed to drag on between them in silence, and Kagome was about to give up hope when he finally spoke. "She was the same way." Sesshoumaru whispered, and Kagome had to strain her ears to catch it. He whispered more, but the silence of the forest was deafening in comparison. Then his eyes narrowed on the ponytail that she wore.

Without warning, his claws flashed out and slice the rubber band from her hair, send it ricocheting off in to the woods, and a few stray strands of hair that he had managed to catch in his attack fell, severed, to the forest floor. Shaking his head and continued to walk, leaving a flustered and highly annoyed Kagome to catch up to him.

_She was the same way._ . . he had said, almost sadly. _Who was 'she?'_ Kagome wondered. _And is he. . . upset?_

She had a bit of trouble finding her pace after that. She wasn't sure where she belonged. To walk behind him would to be declare her submission, and she didn't want that, and to walk in front of him would be declaring her independance, and probably cause some problems. Next to him seemed to be the best, although it did mean that she was declaring herself his equal. Kagome scoffed. Why shouldn't she?

It wasn't until she began to scrounge for berries that she noticed that the silent little girl in the orange kimono that he used to keep so close to him wasn't there.

* * *

In Kagome's defense, she had never really been properly introduced to the silent girl who had lingered like a ghost near Sesshoumaru's side. She had only seen her briefly in passing, in the time when she and Sesshoumaru had still been enemies. In a time when she still thought that she knew the difference between right and wrong. She had noted, at the time, that it was so odd to see Sesshoumaru, who claimed to only loathe Inuyasha for his human heritage, traveling with a frail, little human girl. The little girl herself was an oddity – so silent, so. . . _staring_, not completely unlike Kanna. Both children stared in to you, in to your soul. Where they were different, though, was that Kanna lacked any sort of emotion.

The little girl who traveled with Sesshoumaru, however, did not. Her eyes were a kalediscope of emotions, and Kagome had seen her stare at her once with such an unnerving need to understand that Kagome had gotten more than a bit uneasy under her intense scrutiny. She had chastised herself for it at the time, telling herself that she had nothing to prove to a child, but she still couldn't shake the feeling that the little girl had been disappointed in her. When Inuyasha had first seen her, he pointed out to Kagome that she was covered in bite scars, and he surmised that she had probably been brutally attacked. This only served to confuse the group more, and they never did figure out who she was or why Sesshoumaru tolerated her.

On the same note, Kagome realized that the annoying, green Water Kappa wasn't there, either. Not that this fact particularly bothered her, she just hadn't noticed his absence until after she had noted the girl's absence. His presence was a nuisance at best, and Kagome wouldn't have been surprised in the slightest if Sesshoumaru had kicked him into a ditch and left him there to rot. Or at least, she wouldn't have been, if she hadn't seen him in a way that no one would see him for at least five hundred years.

"You shouldn't let people bother you like that." He had told her when one woman had the nerve to shoulder her, just so that she could walk nearer to Sesshoumaru. Then he had grabbed her hand in his own, hers dwarfed by not only the size, but the enormity of the gesture, and it showed the world just where his loyalties lay.

She had thought it strange when he first held her hand. Now, though, in the time when holding hands held absolutely no meaning (and really, Sesshoumaru had better things to occupy himself with than simply holding her hand) she found herself staring with an acute fascination at his. Her eyes followed its movements, swinging back and forth beneath the silken sleeve like a pendulum. She watched it, more than a little entranced, and wished that she were a brave enough person to just reach forward and hold his single, swinging hand in one of her own.

To Kagome's immense surprise, Sesshoumaru stopped and stared at her, searchingly. She froze up, stunned, and wondered in horror if he had the ability to read minds as well as bring back the dead. "You're being quiet." He noted, with a gleam in his eyes that she thought may have been suspicion. She let out a breath when she realized that no, he had no idea that her thoughts had been focused on him. "Plotting something?" he asked, his tone only a little joking.

Kagome blushed, and looked down at her small hand full of berries, unsure of how to tell him that she had been thinking about him, and about the way that he had grabbed her hand in the crowd. She nearly laughed, knowing that even if she could summon the courage to tell him about his behavior in the future, it would be wrong. Not only would she give away her secret, that she was trying to stop him from a fate of comatose consciousness, but she would also reveal that maybe she was beginning to feel more than just duty-bound to help him. "No. . . no. . . I just don't feel like talking right now." She lied through her teeth.

"Indeed." Sesshoumaru didn't look in the least bit satisfied with her answer, but he began to walk again, completely ignoring her presence once more.

Her thoughts traveled back to where they had started, and she wondered how to broach the topic of where the little girl had run off to, or if she was even still alive. She cared decidedly less for the Kappa. "So. . ." she asked, popping a wildberry into her mouth. The tangy juices squirted, and she licked her teeth before she spoke again to make sure that they weren't stained dark blue. "Where are we going?"

"East."

Kagome sighed. Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru were like night and day, except for one thing that they both shared – trying to get information out of either of them was like pulling teeth. "Where in the East?" She pressed.

"Far."

She thought she heard an ounce of humor, and she narrowed her eyes. _Was he toying with her?_ Well, two could play at that game. What was it she had said before, that had reminded him of the little girl? Ah, yes –

"Lord Sesshoumaru?"

He didn't stop walking, didn't flinch, but Kagome instinctively felt that his attention was all on her. Goosebumps raced over her arms, and the hairs on the back of her neck rose. She had heard somewhere that hair does that because humans were descended from apes, and that the tiger was right behind you. She had doubted it, until that moment, when she felt that he was hunting her without even looking at her. It was a painfully uncomfortable feeling, and even though he wasn't looking at her, she straightened her clothes and hair to make herself look more presentable. _Now was her chance!_ She had his attention; she could press him about the girl-child, and where she was – or what had happened to her. At the last moment, though, she chickened out. Sighing, she conceded. "Do you have a hair band? I seem to have misplaced mine." Not the question that she had meant to ask, but at least she was breaching that penetrating silence.

This caught his attention in the worst way.

"Do you think to play with this Sesshoumaru, miko?" His eyes flashed dangerously red, and she felt his kii rise. With it, her own miko–powers responded, instinctively trying to protect herself from the attack that she knew wouldn't come.

She took a deep breath, and assured herself that Sesshoumaru wasn't going to hurt her. "Ka_GO_me." She corrected him, pronouncing her name hard on the second syllable. "And I wasn't –"

"Then what _is_ it that you are doing?" He interrupted her, which seemed to be entirely out of his character to her. He was more the type of person to beat around the subject, finding answers without ever asking questions; but now, though, it seemed that his patience had run out. He was talking about more than just now, and Kagome knew it. She knew that he didn't want to push her, because he did so love the challenge that she presented him with, but she also knew that he would have answers, and he would have them now, whether he had to pull them from her or not.

The entire world seemed to be holding its breath, as if waiting for her to answer him. She thought for a moment that she was being extremely self-centered, thinking that the world – no, not the world, the very universe – was waiting for her to answer him. Waiting for her to give everything away, or to keep him guessing. Wondering if she even could, if she had it in her to. Pick the right answer, something bigger than her, bigger than him, seemed to whisper in her mind's inner ear. Seal your fate, one way or another. She chewed her words over carefully, making sure that each one of them had the right meaning.

"Do you have faith in me?" She asked quietly, timidly, because it seemed that it was the only answer that she could give. She looked up at him from underneath her dark lashes, and she felt the world tremble. It was a careful game of tennis, in which the words were the ball. Any second now, she was sure, someone was going to drop it.

"I do not have faith in anyone." Sesshoumaru told her, and there was finality in his voice that sounded so forced it made Kagome a little bit nauseous.

Kagome hid her fear with arrogance, not completely unlike him. "Then are you afraid of me?" She asked, taking a step forward. She doubted that Sesshoumaru noticed it, but his booted foot slid back an inch, and his only hand tensed a bit at his sword, as if ready to fight.

"Should I be?" His answer was cocky, defiant, and she couldn't help but feel a strong sense of déjà vu. Had they ever had this conversation before? Kagome didn't think so. She had only ever really had conversations with the Sesshoumaru in the future.

She remembered then, that they had stood on a hilltop at sunset, and his lips had brushed against hers for a moment, as if he were Pandora and she was the box. Since she was so sure of what his response would be, she stepped forward, flicking her hair with a false air of self possession as she stalked past him. She uttered one, tiny word.

"Yes."

The world started again, and Kagome felt as though nature released a breath that it had been holding. Once more, the birds began to sing, and the brook began to bubble. And just as Kagome had suspected, Sesshoumaru was silent. Well, more silent than usual.

The silence that Sesshoumaru adopted seemed to dampen the rest of the sounds of the world. They walked on, and Kagome didn't complain, not even when the mosquitoes came out and began to make a feast of her body. She wanted to swat them, to kill the offending creatures, but each time she raised her hand to take their lives, she saw big, buggy eyes and an old man that seemed to smile.

In the end, she always ended up just waving her hand over them until they flew away, each time hoping that one of them would be Myoga. Each time hoping that one of them would give her better company than Sesshoumaru, who was proving to be the most uninteresting person she had ever met.

More than once, Kagome had tried to speak to him. More than once, she stopped herself, with the words on the tip of her tongue. She realized that they were foolish words, useless really. That they didn't mean anything to her, so they certainly wouldn't mean anything to him. She reminded herself that she didn't particularly care, that it was him that chose each word carefully. She reminded herself that she was a confident, empowered woman of the twenty first century, and she'd be damned if a domineering male like him was going to keep her from speaking her mind if she felt like speaking her mind.

Reaching forward, she was going to tap his arm to grab his attention when he suddenly stopped, whirled around, and grabbed both of her hands in his one. She opened her mouth to yell at him, to tell him that he had no right to grab at her, but something in his gaze suddenly became wickedly desperate, and Kagome silenced herself. Sesshoumaru did something then that was so unusual that she almost gasped.

Pulling her off of the path, he went in to the forest with her and he hid.

"Sesshou –" Kagome was about to ask him what was the matter, why were they hiding, when his hand clamped over her mouth. Just above the sounds of the forest, she was beginning to make out the merry sounds of a tune.

_"Kagome Kagome Kago no naku notori……_


	10. Chapter 10

Fish Dont Sleep

Chapter 10

* * *

_At dawns and evenings.  
Who is in front of the back,  
where a crane and turtle slipped and fell?_

* * *

"_Kagome Kagome Kago no naku notori wa Itsu Itsu deyaru yoake tobani suru to kami ga subetta ushiro no shomen dare? Kagome Kagome Kago no naku notori wa Itsu Itsu deyaru yoake tobani suru to kami ga subetta ushiro no shomen dare?"_ A girl walked on the path beside a two headed dragon who looked painfully familiar. Kagome searched her memory of where she could have seen such an unusual creature before, but for the life of her, Kagome couldn't place where she had seen it.

The girl was. . . odd. She was in her mid teens, and her hair was braided and bound in silver threads and flowers that seemed to match her very aura. They were orange and yellow and pink, tiny little moss roses, wound in to her abundant dark brown hair. Her kimono was long and made of a creamy colored silk, with the scene of tenshi singing in a hot springs woven elegantly in to the bottom. It was a kimono that probably would have cost more than most houses in her time, but the girl obviously didn't know this, because she had tied it up in a bit of twine so that it hung above her ankles, giving her free movement of her legs. She was bare footed, but silver sandals hung loosely around one of the dragon's necks, tied there with the same thin twine that held her lovely kimono in place.

She walked past their hiding place, clapping her hands in time with the song, and Kagome saw a flash of pale skin, marred only by dog bites.

"RIN!" Kagome flinched when she heard the piercing cry break the silence of the late afternoon. It was a shrill squawk that Kagome couldn't forget if she wanted to (and believe her, she did) and she threw Sesshoumaru a look of astonishment as she realized who the little girl was that had caused him to flee in to the foliage of the forest.

The little girl. . .

Rin, as Kagome now knew her name was, flinched and looked desperately to the two headed dragon, one of which promptly lowered it's neck so that the dainty silver sandals slipped off and out of it's bindings. She ripped at the twine around her calves, trying to remove it quickly, before her retainer arrived. She managed (barely) to take it off, obviously uncaring of the condition of the precious silk, and threw the bits of twine – the only discriminating evidence – in to the forest where she and Sesshoumaru crouched, hiding.

Sesshoumaru's grip on her arm clenched painfully, but Kagome did not make a sound. His eyes followed the lithe form of the little girl and she tilted her head, shaking out all of the colorful moss roses. She kicked them, too, in to the forest and gathered up the two headed dragon's reins, trying to look as demure as was possible. Kagome wanted to tell her that her braid, which had obviously been wrapped so carefully as to match her charming kimono, was slipping out of its bindings, but that would have given them away, so Kagome wisely chose to keep her mouth shut.

After sparing a glance to Sesshoumaru, she was certain that it was the right choice.

In that moment, he was the demon from the past only in appearance – his clothes, his attributes. Everything else about him, though, was the man she had known in the future. His expressions, normally so carefully modified, were frantic and wide, and Kagome could read them as easily as if it were a book. She supposed that she should have thought it strange that the Ice Prince, the Lord of Dogs, would finally show his emotions, but then she remembered that everyone has a breaking point.

His breaking point was, oddly enough, a teenager who played children's games alone.

"Jaken-sama?" Rin asked, adding a quiver to her voice that was so obviously false that Kagome nearly snorted. "Jaken-sama, is that you?"

"Of course it's me, you twit!" He wailed in a high pitched screech that was shrill enough to pierce glass. "What are you doing so far from the village!?"

Rin looked down, her eyelashes fluttering so femininely that Kagome nearly gagged. "I thought. . . I thought that it would be safe, Jaken-sama." Tears began to well up in her eyes, and Kagome wanted to applaud her acting skills. If she had gone to her school, she would have easily gotten any role in any play that she wanted. "There are no more demons to worry about, so. . ."

Jaken snorted, his beak-like upper lip curling in distaste. "Of course there are still demons to worry about! They may not kill you for your human blood, but you are Sesshoumaru-sama's charge and that will be enough reason! Not to mention the recent uprising. . ." His voice trailed off, and Kagome made a note to ask Sesshoumaru about it later. "It isn't safe for you to be wandering around alone!"

"But, Jaken-sama, Ah-chan and Un-chan were with me, so I wasn't really alone, was I?

She asked, adding a note of sweetness to her already sing song voice.

Obviously, Jaken didn't know how to handle feminine wiles much better than Sesshoumaru because his green skin tinted pink and he sighed. "Rin, just come back to the village." Jaken said, a pleading tone in his voice. A single, scale-coated finger pointed in the direction that Jaken had just come charging out of. Kagome assumed that was where the village lay.

Rin nodded and clambered most unladylike on to Ah-Un's back, and the twin headed dragon sauntered off a light trot back down the road, leaving Jaken alone on the forest path.

Well, not alone, but he didn't know that.

"Oh, Sesshoumaru-sama. . ." Jaken tilted his head skywards, in an exasperated fashion. "If you could only see her now. . ."

When he walked away, Kagome tried not to dwell on the irony of the situation.

"So. . ." Kagome began, patting off some dirt that was on her school girl outfit, which she was beginning to think was entirely impractical, "Want to tell me about that."

Sesshoumaru's face, which had been a kaleidoscope of emotions only a few minutes prior, was carefully blank again as he rose from his hiding place, looking the world as though he had no idea what she was talking about.

So Kagome pressed. "She used to travel with you. So did Jaken, and that – those – dragon thing." She paused here, waiting to see if he would start talking so that she could stop. "What happened?" She stared at him, planting her feet in the ground and crossing her arms over her chest, making a show that she wouldn't move until she had at least some of her answers.

For a moment, Sesshoumaru looked uneasy. Kagome was beginning to rationalize, though, that he didn't really look uneasy, she was just getting better at reading his expressions.

He used expressions with inflections.

"Sesshoumaru?" She asked. "I'll wait."

He turned on his heel to leave, and Kagome stood there, waiting. He walked away from her, moving silently through the forest. For an instant, Kagome was scared_. He's really going to leave me here, isn't he? _She thought. _He's going to leave me here because I was defiant, and I wanted him to do something that he didn't want to! This must be what happened. That little girl – Rin – must have wanted more than he was willing to give, so he left her, probably in this forest, alone. _It didn't explain how Jaken and Ah-Un got with her, but Kagome would figure that out later.

She wasn't about to move, but she was about to cry. Then she saw him do something that made her heart soft and fluttery, and it gave her hope that she hadn't misjudged him after all.

He didn't stop walking, but each step took a longer time. It was an exaggerated bluff, a short stride taking a million years. Kagome smiled a bit, and walked towards him. When he heard her foot steps, he stopped walking entirely, waiting for her to catch up with him. He didn't turn, but Kagome could sense the relief rolling off of him in waves.

When she caught up with him, they began walking in silence once again. The more and more time she spent with him, the more and more she was beginning to realize that she didn't need to speak to be heard – and she hoped that maybe, he was beginning to realize that he did.

"She was. . . getting older." Sesshoumaru confided, after they had long since passed the village that protected his child.

"Sesshoumaru?" Kagome asked, shocked that he had spoken up.

Sesshoumaru stopped, and looked towards the setting sun with an empty space in his eyes that saddened Kagome more than frightened her. "I looked at her. . . and I saw death."

Kagome smiled uneasily, because she couldn't think of what else to do. Anything else, she decided, would have been rude or useless. And she was beginning to not see the difference between the two. _You saw. . . death?_ She wanted to repeat his words, to be sure that she had heard the odd statement correctly, but something in his far away gazing warned her that unnecessary questions would only drive him to be less inclined to share such intimate details with her – for that matter, she wasn't all that sure why he was doing it now. She had given him no real reason – she was obnoxious, and confusing, and she knew things that he didn't and she knew that he knew she did. She knew that he didn't like it. Whatever his reasons, though, he had decided that she was trustworthy enough to keep as a confident and Kagome decided that the less she spoke, the lower the odds were of him coming to his senses and shutting up.

"I saw what happened to Father." His voice dropped lower, so that if anyone else was listening, they wouldn't have heard. As it was, Kagome could barely hear him. She figured that she had just been spending so much time in the presence of the soft-spoken that she was beginning to get used to their silent ways. Hell, she was almost afraid that she was becoming _one _of them. Heaven forbid. "_I didn't want it to happen to me._"

The admission was more than she had ever thought that she would hear from him, from anyone _like _him, and it was open and innocent that she could scarcely believe that this was _Sesshoumaru _speaking to her, telling her that yes, he _was _afraid of somethings, and no, they didn't go bump in the night. Not intentionally, at least, and probably not unless they were seeking a glass of water.

Kagome had asked Inuyasha about his father before; who he was, how he died. Inuyasha, though, had only just been born hours before the death of the Inu no Taisho, _the Lord of the Dogs, _the Prince to half a Kingdom that would be torn between war and deceit. He had no idea what the Inu no Taisho had been like, but Inuyasha had known that it would have taken a great and powerful man – much, much more powerful than even Sesshoumaru – to take control of the Western Lands. His reach, though, had stretched far beyond the borders of the western lands. After a while, even the ocean couldn't stop him. She knew from reading textbooks and piecing various bits of fact and fiction together that the Inu no Taisho, along with the help of the Sounga, had begun even to civilize the lands to the east, China, before he had died.

Sesshoumaru, though, _had _known him. He had known what his favorite food was, when he liked to go on walks, what words to use to get the King of half of Japan to give him _anything _that he wanted. All he had to do was ask, and it was his. He knew what his favorite color was, and what things annoyed him most. But most of all, he _knew _him. Personally. Not like all the courtiers and the diplomats of the courts. He knew him in the way that only a son could know a father.

She wanted to know. She _had _to know. The compulsion was one that she had felt years ago, when she had first been dropped in to the stomach of the tomb. _Who was this great King who had held her inside of his belly? _She had thought then, and had thought that she was been poetic. Now, though, she thought that she had been being just a bit cynical. "What. . . What was your father like?" she asked timidly, pushing him just a bit to finish, but not enough to make him standoffish once again. She was pushing him to tell her who the Inu no Taisho was, behind the closed silk screens that he had put up for society to gaze upon, and behind the lies and deceit and treachery of propaganda and verbal warfare.

Sesshoumaru almost didn't answer, because words are worthless, it's _actions _that speak volumes, and words cost precious air. Kagome understood that now, the same way he had always had. So she didn't expect him to respond. If someone had posed her the question, she wouldn't have either. But then, to Kagome's surprise, he _did. _

"He loved her." Sesshoumaru said the three words with a flippant shrug that belied his obvious hurt over it. "He loved her more than _anyone." _It was a simple statement, obviously meant to tell her all that she needed to know so that she would refrain from asking anymore questions.

She got the hint, she just didn't pay attention to it. "Even you?"She hadn't meant to ask. Really. The words hadn't even gone through her mind, just out of her mouth. Sesshoumaru looked shocked for a moment, and Kagome wished that she could physically retract her words. Then, though, Sesshoumaru gave a single, curt nod.

"_Anyone._" Sesshoumaru restated. "He _died_ for her." The emphasis was final, and low, and it was far less of a hint than his first statement, but this time, Kagome remained silent. For a moment, she would have sworn that Sesshoumaru looked a bit disappointed.

She hadn't asked, though, because Kagome had known the story. Not particularly well; only from what she had overhead Myoga telling Inuyasha. Kagome sighed. It had been so long ago, that night on the hill by the dying embers, tucked cozily inside of her hideously pink sleeping bag. She had overheard, when Inuyasha and Myoga both thought that they were safe from droppers of eaves, that Takemaru had been terribly smitten with Izayoi, and had wanted to make her his bride before the Inu no Taisho claimed her 'womanhood' and she gave him a child.

That was the night that Inuyasha had died.

The Inu no Taisho had resurrected Inuyasha and Izayoi, and then had presumably died in the burning building, holding off Takemaru so that Izayoi and Inuyasha could escape.

Kagome had dreamed, once, that she had been Izayoi – holding half a screaming child in her arms, dressed only in the white birthing gowns which were soaked in blood. . . Inuyasha's and her own. She dreamed that she had stood on the hill outside of the palace walls, trying very hard not to cry as the cold winter evening bit in to her back and the firey inferno that had been her home scalded her face. The extreme cold and the extreme heat hadn't been enough to deter her, though. Because in her dream, she was waiting.

After all, the Inu no Taisho was so strong. . . with one swing of his sword, he could kill a thousand and one enemies, and with a swing of another, he could bring them all back to life. He could instill honesty in the deceitful, trust in the hopeless, and pride in the lawless, all with a single glance. The Inu no Taisho could not, however, be killed in a simple fire caused by a tiny _human. _

_Could he? _

"Who told you?" He wasn't looking at her, thank god, but she could feel all of his attention on her. It wasn't entirely comfortable.

"No one told me." She answered, honestly. "Myoga and Inuyasha are just very loud is all."

Sesshoumaru almost smiled, and Kagome barely saw it. It was enough to give her strength to give _him _strength.

Reaching forward, she holding his larger, pale hand in her own small, dark one. "Let's just. . . start from here." She said, certain that she had pulled the line from somewhere, but she couldn't recall where.

She took a step forward, not intending to go on clasping his hand as she pulled him along after her at a pace that she wouldn't be able to keep up comfortably for more than a few minutes. Sesshoumaru, though, to her surprise, wouldn't move. She stopped and turned, a curious tilt of her head.  
"Sesshoumaru?" She asked, not recognizing the impatient look in his eyes, much like a child about to confess that they had done something wrong.

Sesshoumaru used her momentum to pull her back and hold her close to his chest. Kagome braced herself, and narrowly avoided being impaled on his stiff armor. Looking up at him, she almost spoke. She was about to speak.

But then he stole her words with a kiss.

It was a careful kiss, a butterfly-winged brushing of lips that left her weak in the knees and short of breath. And just as quickly as he was there, he was gone, leaving Kagome stiff and hot and uncomfortable. By the time she recollected herself, he was already walking again, and obviously not willing to share his reasons with anyone.

Especially her.

"What was _that?_" She wondered. This time though, he really didn't answer.


	11. Chapter 11

Fish Dont Sleep

Chapter 11

* * *

Kagome twisted her fingers in the cloth of her shirt, bunching and releasing the fabric. The white cotton was horribly wrinkled now, and worn thin in some places. She couldn't stop the nervous habit – didn't particularly want to – and she certainly couldn't talk about what she was feeling out loud. Not to Sesshoumaru.

Now, more than ever, she wished that Sango was here to talk with. Even Eiri, Yuka, or Ayumi, with their constant insistence that she needed a man in her life would have sufficed.

He had kissed her.

Kissed. Her.

Sure, it had only lasted a second, and it was probably to stop her prying.

No, she thought, chewing on her bottom lip. That didn't even that didn't make much sense to her. She had stopped prying, already agreed to just let the matter rest, because she would have found out eventually from someone else. She had been encouraging, and then he . . .

Sesshoumaru's head tilted a bit, and she quickly averted her eyes, convinced that he had heard her thoughts. She smiled and reminded herself that it wasn't possible, not even for Sesshoumaru.

"What is it?" He asked in his normal, Sesshoumaru-stoic voice. As if nothing had happened. As if he hadn't given her a butterfly winged kiss, and left those wings fluttering in her stomach.

As if he hadn't made her question everything she had decided about him.

"Nothing." Kagome muttered, for once opting to be silent instead of pressing. Even if she did wonder . . .

"Why did you kiss me?" She hadn't intended on asking it. She had decided that she wouldn't ask it. But the words came rushing out of her mouth like so many other words did these days, whenever she was around him. She suppressed a groan and wished that she could retract the words, wished that he hadn't heard them.

Sesshoumaru didn't stop walking, didn't look back, but she knew that he had heard her. She hadn't asked him particularly quietly, and if she had it wouldn't have mattered – his demonic hearing would have caught her mumblings. What she didn't know, though, was whether or not he would answer her.

She sighed deeply, positive that his opinion of her had dropped. Sure he kissed her – but it could barely be called a kiss. It wasn't as though he had ever shown any interest in her before, and she had only admired him as a specimen, not as a person. They were wrong for each other. It was a passing whim. She came up with all sorts of different excuses, but she couldn't find a reason. He was regretting it now, she was sure, and she wished that she hadn't brought it up, immensely grateful that he hadn't answered her.

His reasoning was his own, and she wouldn't pry. She wouldn't.

"I do as I please."

She stared at him. Surely he hadn't just answered her. Surely he hadn't given her that answer. Surely she had imagined it, and yet. . .

That was so wrong.

Sesshoumaru cocked his head back to look at her, a flat look that was free of all emotion – bad or good. She knew that it was his way of assessing her, she had seen him do it so many times. His way of being carefully detached while he waited to see how things would settle. He was waiting to see what she would think.

He was scared.

Kagome didn't know how she knew – it was a flash of insight that may or may not have been accurate. She knew that she had no reason to think that, but it made sense to her. He would detach himself, wouldn't he, if he didn't want to get hurt It made her wonder where he had learned such a technique, and it made her wonder how many times he had used it before.

It made her wonder why he was using it now.

Her chin coming down sharply and awkwardly when she realized that he was still looking back at her, trying to avoid his gaze. She was just grateful that she hadn't tripped over her own feet when she did. She dared a glance up and was doubly grateful she hadn't tripped when his eyes softened just a bit before he turned away from her.

She reached forward to grab his sleeve, to grab his attention, when a high-pitched scream of a child made them both look back to the village.

"What was –" She didn't have time to finish her sentence, because Sesshoumaru had picked her up, throwing her over one shoulder as he took off at a dead run.

Kagome struggled on his shoulder, fixating her attention on it rather than on the landscape that was speeding by her. He was going fast – faster than anything she had ever experienced. Inuyasha had nothing on him, and Inuyasha had been faster than some of the trains in her time. She was nauseous and terrified that any second he was going to loose his grip, or crash into something. She didn't even have time to worry about the stop before he had, stepping lightly on one foot. She whipped backwards, and would have gone flying if it hadn't been for his hand at the small of her back, pressing her into his shoulder. Her back cracked ominously, and Kagome was afraid for a moment that he had broken it. She knew that he had bruised it, at least. Still, she was grateful that he hadn't thrown her over his other shoulder, least she would have had some matching incisions to go with those bruises. That armor was looking dangerously sharp from this particular angle.

"Hey, looky here. Another demon coming to protect this little village." Kagome was facing away from the speaker, but a few men came out of the houses. Looking around, Kagome saw that the families that were still outside were huddled together in corners, the young hidden by the old. They looked just like sheep, trembling and fearful, and these men were the big bad wolves.

She hated to think what that made her.

"That's a pretty girly you got there, pretty boy." Kagome felt her lips twitch at the name, but the humor – along with the blood in her face – was gone when she saw the speaker. He was circling, trying to intimidate Sesshoumaru. He obviously didn't know who he was. "Let me have her, and we'll let this little village go."

Sesshoumaru's body tensed underneath Kagome's. She hated to think what he was planning on doing. She figured that it would involve a lot of blood, and that it would be gruesome, graphic, and horrifying. Try as she might, she couldn't help but imagine him, standing in the center of the carnage, a light smile toying with the tips of his lips.

"Jaken." The name was a summoning, and Kagome realized why he had been tensed – he had been looking for someone. They _had_ said another demon . . .

Kagome tried to hold back the sob, tried not to struggle, tried to remember that she didn't actually like the little toad that much anyway. She couldn't stop the tingling sensation that shot up her spine. It was worry, and fear, for the kappa and the girl.

_Nothing too bad could have happened, though,_ she reasoned with herself. She pretended that the tiny, comforting voice inside of her head didn't sound as skeptical as she felt. _After all, we had gotten here so fast, they didn't have time to really hurt anyone._ She hoped.

Kagome pressed her hand against Sesshoumaru's back, trying to get out of his grip. She could roll off of his shoulder to the ground if he would just move his hand. For a moment, she imagined him dressed in a disgustingly red jumpsuit a fire around them and white, reflective strips instead of steel and iron armor. The image was a humorous one, even if she didn't feel the need to laugh right at that moment, and she didn't know how Sesshoumaru would feel about being compared to a fireman. She managed to turn herself a bit, a feat with his grip on her, and she could see that there were at least three men, and more were coming out of the huts.

The whole scene reminded her of a school fight. No one had said anything particularly aggressive yet, but everyone sensed the confrontation brewing and was coming out to watch the show.

Sesshoumaru didn't turn his head, but his eyes flashed menacingly to her. _Knock it off, _they said, but that wasn't all that they hid. Kagome could read them, barely, and this time she knew it wasn't just her imagination working overtime, _I'm worried for you._

"You can't fight them if you have me on your shoulder." Kagome whispered. Sesshoumaru looked a bit taken back, as taken back as someone like him could look, and more than a little indecisive. Finally, logic won and Sesshoumaru loosened his grip on her so that she slid down the length of his body, trying to hold her skirt down but failing anyways.

_Alright_, Kagome thought, _The first thing that we do when these idiots are taken care of is get me a pair of pants! _

"Stand close." Sesshoumaru commanded, cracking his knuckles. He didn't have to tell her that.

The smell of acid permeated the air, turning it in to something thick and making it almost impossible to breath. Kagome had to hold both of her hands over her nose to stop from taking it in. She wished that she was brave enough to gather up Sesshoumaru's sleeve to hold to her face, because it would free one hand and would make it that much easier to breathe, but she didn't dare. Not only because that was far too close for her to venture to him but because she wouldn't dream of limiting his movement once the first metaphorical punch was thrown. From that nasty looking sword at the man's hips, though, she could assume what sort of fight this was going to be.

"What'cha gonna do then?" The man asked, smirking. "Slap me with your pretty nails, girly boy?" The man was, quite obviously, insane. Either that, or just stupid. His jibes didn't get to Sesshoumaru, as they may have to some lesser demon who relished their vanity. Sesshoumaru was different than most other demons, though.

Sesshoumaru didn't care.

He didn't mince words with them like Inuyasha may have. He didn't reason with them like Miroku would have. He was silent and he attacked without warning – without mercy.

His whip curled around him first, in a perfect arch. It slid easily, like a hot knife through butter, into the man who had been standing right behind them, waiting for the signal from his boss to attack. Kagome watched, eyes wide with horror, as he fell to the ground in two pieces.

_I didn't know people had that much blood to lose,_ Kagome thought, watching with a sick fascination as one after another, the men were cut down as easily as the first. Brain there, a bit of bone here – the carnage was more than she could bear. Despite her previous worries of incapacitating him, she buried her face in Sesshoumaru's sleeves, desperate to escape the blood bath before her.

She couldn't.

Even when she closed her eyes, she could still see it – the empty, glassy-eyed look of the dead soldiers, their bodies dismantled and their heads neatly removed. There was a splash of warm blood on her bare arm, and Kagome tried very hard not to scream. She couldn't stop the sobs.

She had seen death before. She had seen massacres. She had seen miles and miles of dead bodies, decayed and deteriorating.

She had never seen anything like this.

It was over as quickly as it had started, though Kagome didn't know it. She kept on shaking, clinging to Sesshoumaru's sleeve and trying to look as impassive as Sesshoumaru as the rest of the villagers stood and thanked their lord for his help. Mothers hugged children, kissed their hair and thanked God for their lives, even as the blood squished between their toes.

Sesshoumaru's hand touched Kagome's hair, a quite, comforting gesture. The only sort of comfort that dogs knew how to give. She turned her head in to it, shivering and shaking, and even though she didn't want to, she looked around.

There were ten men at least, though there may have been more. That was just how many heads she could count. Intestines and bone ran together, washed in a river of blood.

"They were human." Kagome realized finally. "They were human and you. . . you. . ."

"Kagome." Sesshoumaru's voice was patient, quiet. "Haven't you figured it out, _yet_?" He ran a hand through her hair, careful to keep his nails out of it for fear of severing it. "There are worse things out there than _demons_."

Kagome froze as the statement struck home. It was true. What was a demon but a human with an animalistic side? They couldn't help who they were, what they were. They had to listen to the animal in them from time to time, because it gave them no other choice. But if you were to hold a hand out to an animal, chances are it would flee.

Humans, though, didn't have that excuse.

"I'm not even sure who the real monsters are anymore." Kagome spoke honestly, her voice shaking.

"Sess-sesshoumaru-sama?"

Sesshoumaru flinched, but didn't turn around. He didn't need to know who stood right behind him.

"Is it really you?"


	12. Chapter 12

Fish Don't Sleep

Chapter 12

* * *

"Sesshoumaru-sama?" Rin's hand was against her throat, and Kagome knew that her pulse was racing beneath it. "Is it really you?"

Kagome kept her eyes carefully averted from the prying eyes of the villagers who stared at them as if they were so foreign. In a sense, Kagome supposed she must have looked very odd with her short green skirt and feminists values - and Sesshoumaru didn't need to behave oddly to appear foreign and dangerous. She knew that if you spoke with just one of them, they would demand to pay you back, which required too much formality, time, and patience – none of which Kagome had on her hands at the moment.

What she wasn't used to was a tiny girl child with her heart on her sleeve, and Kagome wanted to warn Rin about the world, what a horrid place it really was, how it isn't all the roses and flowers that she was so very fond of. Wisely, though, Kagome opted to remain quiet and tried not to feel uncomfortable or awkward, not only for herself, but for Sesshoumaru as well.

He turned to face the girl slowly, as though he was tensed for another surprise attack, with his face carefully – too carefully, if you asked her – blank. He showed no emotion in it: no joy, no compassion, no recognition, as Rin approached him with shaking knees and hero worship shining blatantly in her eyes.

Sesshoumaru cautioned a glance down, a peek at the child, the daughter, that he had left behind. Kagome knew that this was the first time in a few years that Rin had seen him, although she had no doubt that Sesshoumaru had stopped by here many times in the past, if only to dare a glance at his little girl when he knew no one was looking, so no one would care.

He looked perplexed, although no one else seemed to notice it. He was obviously torn between doing the right thing and walking away from her, drawing the danger to him instead of lingering and giving danger the opportunity to strike at Rin again. Leaving her once more to go and fight the battles that he didn't ask for in the first place, or staying. Staying to sit and reminisce, listen to the child prattle on about useless, meaningless things that wouldn't hold his interests anyway.

Rin wasn't moving, wasn't shaking. She was standing there, waiting for something, any indication that the time had finally come for her to pack up her bags and travel with him again, barefooted on the back of Ah Un.

All of her hopes, though, were silenced when Sesshoumaru turned to walk away. "Kagome, come." Sesshoumaru commanded her curtly, and chanced a second glance at the child from the corner of his eye. Goodbye, his eyes were saying. This time, Kagome wasn't the only one who saw it.

"Sesshoumaru-sama." The girl gave a tiny formal bow. Sesshoumaru's footsteps nearly faltered, but continued on. Kagome would ask him about it later, but at that moment, she was filled with such rage on behalf of Rin that she couldn't even think about asking him anything except for maybe what the hell his problem was.

She was planning on waiting until they had left the village to bring up the domestics. She had grown out of telling the whole world how she felt. Sesshoumaru had noted the change in her; the slight stiffening of her spine, the chip on her shoulder. He would not allow her to give him the graceful exit that she had wrongly thought he deserved.

"You are angry with me." He didn't ask her, because he knew. The simple fact that he voiced it was a sign that he was changing, just like she was changing. That was enough to nearly make her forgive him. Until she remembered the look of absolute acceptance on his little girl's face. Until she remembered that it wasn't even her place to forgive, so much as it was her place to guide.

Until she remembered that she wasn't even supposed to be there, and that her simple presence was enough to change the entire course of history.

"No." She responded quietly, honestly, keeping an easy pace with his fast walk. She realized that they lived easiest this way, in the silence, living from moment to moment with a quiet sense of urgency. Although she wasn't too sure what they were being urgent about, she wasn't too sure that he was either. All she knew was that if they kept living this way, living quickly, from moment to dangerous moment, it was easy to forget that living hurt because you didn't notice the pain between the adrenaline and the speed.

You did, however, notice the parallels and the little details that were only important if you didn't have anything else to care about. In Kagome's case, she would rather dwell on the deadly than Sesshoumaru, because at least with matters of death and destruction, she knew where she stood. She had battled with evil and won, restoring peace to the land. Heroism she could do.

It was a certain demon that left her in a befuddled state of mind all that time.

"Whose soldiers were those?" Kagome asked, because she knew now that the first step to beating your enemy was to know them. If, for example, she had known from the first the relationship between Naraku and Kikyou, her former incarnation, she would have known what his weakness was and used it against him. She was never going to wait to subtly catch the information again.

Obviously, it was something that Sesshoumaru respected because he answered her question without her having to bother to pull teeth. "Anti Imperialist swine." His sharp intake of breath was practically a hiss, a humorous image in Kagome's head. _The dog demon who fights like a cat. . _. She could practically feel his hackles rising, even though his voice remained impassive and his gaze remained distant. "They wish to overthrow Lord Jimmu before he comes in to power. They fear that their denizens will seek retributions for some of the things done to them."

Kagome shivered and tried not to think too hard about what he was implying. "And you?" She asked timidly, uncomfortable speaking so openly about politics. Her mother had always taught her that you should never discuss religion or politics if you wanted to maintain the peace, and Kagome didn't much care to go against what he mother taught . But then again, her mother probably wouldn't have been too fond of her traveling with a man – alone, no less – sleeping and dressing and bathing with only him as a constant.

_Ah, well._ "Aren't you afraid that your denizens will be upset with you?" She winced when she realized how rude that sounded. "Not that I'm saying that they don't like you – I'm sure that you're a great leader. Fantastic leader. I'll bet you're the best leader that a farmer could ask for. It's just that usually people don't care for strong personalities and. . . and authority figures! And let's face it, you're an awfully strong character and you do like to autho. . . authorit. . . _tell other people what to do _and I can't imagine that that goes over so well with everybody. . . Not that it doesn't go over well with me! I love it when I don't have to lead! Dominate me! That should be my motto! It should!" Sesshoumaru turned and gave her a flat look that shut her – thankfully – right up. She sighed blushingly, wishing that she hadn't inherited her Grandfather's gift for gab.

Sesshoumaru, though, seemed to find it more amusing than anything else. "No, Kagome. I am not worried about anyone trying to overthrow me."

It was such an open ended remark, especially for Sesshoumaru. Kagome turned it over in her mind, chewing and examining each word with care. She was beginning to think that maybe she was more comfortable with Inuyasha's brash, open way of communicating; it hurt most of the time, but at least she knew where she stood with him at all times and she didn't feel as though she was constantly groping about in the dark, as she felt with Sesshoumaru.

Even as she thought this, a thought formed in her mind that left her so dumbstruck that she simply had to have it confirmed or denied. "Sesshoumaru – sama. . ." She could practically feel him wincing – the fact that she was using the proper suffix on his name was not something to be taken lightly, obviously, or he was learning to read her tones so well that he knew she had heavy thoughts on her mind. "Don't you rule the Western lands?"

Sesshoumaru shrugged lightly. "My father did, once, but I don't personally oversee much of anything."

Kagome stared at the back of his head, utterly bewildered. Why had she always been so sure that he ruled the Western lands, she wondered. And why the West? What was wrong with the North? Or the South? Even the East would have been adequate . She had been so sure that someone, somewhere along the line had mentioned that Sesshoumaru was the Lord of the Western Lands that she had never even bothered to question why he wasn't in a citadel, signing treaties or doing something else that was equally influential.

"So. . . you're _nomadic _then." Kagome surmised, a tiny smile forming on her mouth as she struggled to not burst out with hysterical – and completely inappropriate – laughter.

"You could say that, yes." His tone was even, flat, and Kagome had a feeling that she wasn't the first - nor the last - to joke around about Sesshoumaru's choice of lifestyles.

Kagome pressed the back of her hand against her mouth, trying in vain to hold back the tiny giggles that escaped. "I suppose that you could also say that you're a bit of a bum, huh? A hobo?" She pressed, and felt a giggle form in the back of her throat. "A vagabond? Mister will o' the wisps?" Not surprisingly, Sesshoumaru didn't grace her with an answer.

Until he did. "I may have a. . . _small _plot of land." Sesshoumaru practically whispered.

Kagome narrowed one eye on his boa. He certainly wasn't a man who believed in saying much, but he did believe in getting an impression across with appearances and stares. He was not the sort of person who would have just one small plot of land, no matter how modest he was.

And because she was only along for the ride anyway with no time frame in mind, because she didn't really have a destination anyway, she asked him.

"Show me?"

_**

* * *

**_

_**Ah, I do so love a bit of poking fun at Sesshoumaru's expense. Something about his character just makes me want to ruffle his feathers a bit, wouldn't you agree?  
**_


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

**Ah, yeah... I never finished reposting this did I? Ok, well, from this chapter on it IS original content from first posting, but I am consolidating chapters. They really should be at least 5k, dont you? BTW, thank Arashii for reminding me that I didn't finish the job and guilting me in to using my precious baby-sleeping time to divide this story up some more. **

* * *

Of course he would have been oversimplifying. This was Sesshoumaru. He didn't do anything small. She supposed that she only had herself to blame, though, for being shocked. She knew that he was oversimplifying. She did. Really. She just didn't know how much.

"So. . ." Kagome nodded her head slightly, fighting off the smile that threatened to play on her lips. "When you said small, I suppose you meant small like the country of Japan."

Her humor was lost on the demon, who, despite his obvious nomadic behaviors, had probably never been outside of the country, and if he had, it was probably only to China. "I don't understand you." His voice was dripping with innocence, and it would have had her tricked if she didn't have a little brother who did the exact same thing.

"Oh, forgive me lord Sesshoumaru. I meant small like a portion of China." She shook her head as though that would shake off the laughter that bubbled up in her throat.

"It may be a. . . bit larger than I suggested." Sesshoumaru seemed to be cleaning his dangling sleeve of some sort of invisible dust, but she couldn't be sure. He also may have been brandishing his claws at her in an attempt to shut her up.

"Just a bit. . ." Kagome ceaded and surveyed the sweeping estate that stretched on and on before her.

Pillars, high and decrepit, loomed in front of her, half hidden in the wide branches of twin oak trees that were in desperate need of a good pruning. Fallen limbs littered the path, that was barely distinguishable as such anyway, what with all the weeds peeking through cracks in the unprofessionally laid brick lined drive. The courtyard, at least, looked as though it had some kind of care in the last century, although for the life of her Kagome couldn't tell where the manor's weed choked garden ended and the forest and fields beyond began.

As they walked closer, Kagome was silent, taking in all of the dilapidated grounds with immense pleasure. Casements – which were, in retrospect, probably cutting edge in this time period, even for a manor of this. . . manor – dangled off of walls, leaving openings barren and ominous as they approached.

She stumbled over another tree limb, but it didn't dampen her mood in the slightest. She even managed a smile when Sesshoumaru sent her a stupid-human-watch-where-you're-stepping look.  
The entry way, dusty, dark, and positively reeking of moss and mold, was empty. There were no children's footprints skimming across the dusty floors, no scent of crushed heather. No life.  
It was all so depressing and him that she giggled. He shot her a glare that seemed more like a plea to shut it than anything else, and it only made her laugh harder. "If I don't laugh. . ." she managed in between gasps for breaths. I might cry.

A creak in the patio alerted her to someone else's presence, and Sesshoumaru's lightening speed kept her from being decapitated. His arm shot out, so fast she didn't see it coming anymore than she saw the weapon coming, and pulled her tight against him. She didn't have to remind him that they had been over this before – that he couldn't hold her and defend her at the same time – because he just as soon realized it himself.

Although, looking back, she supposed that it could have been because he had only released her after quickly assessing the situation and deeming it perfectly safe.

"Kagome?" Her spine stiffened and she gasped, quickly gripping and releasing the silk on Sesshoumaru's chest, before she spun to face the familiar voice.

"Sango?" She tried not to wince when her voice came out more accusing than pleased. Questions ran through her mind questions question questions, why not find the answer out for yourself but she couldn't make herself voice any of them. "How. . . when. . . what!"

"The slayer and the monk have been keeping my estate in order for me while I was. . . wandering." Sesshoumaru, at least, seemed to understand her current state of befuddlement.

Kagome turned her head, appraising him. "What?" It seemed to be the only question she could manage.

Sango blushed, obviously mistaking the cause of Kagome's utter shock from being for her's and Miroku new, rather intimate, relationship. "Listen, Kagome, it's not like he just asked me to bear his children or anything… he actually kinda just grew on me, and by the way, why are you traveling with Sesshoumaru?"

Kagome deftly ignored her in favor of gapping at Sesshoumaru, who wouldn't even grace her with a downwards glance.

"What?"

Sesshoumaru closed his eyes and presumably counted to ten. That's what she would have been doing, if she had that expression on her face. "Close your mouth miko. You'll choke on a fly."  
Taking deep and steady breaths, Kagome calmed herself by looking at the facts. Fact: Sango and Miroku were taking care of Sesshoumaru's rather decimated manor. Fact: They seemed to be in a relationship. Fact: Miroku was no where to be found.

"Where is he?" Kagome finally asked, stepping away from Sesshoumaru and to her old friend. Her friend that was once her only ally against not only the world, but the boys that they traveled with. There was something about female companionship that ran so much deeper than first loves.

It didn't explain why Kagome felt so shaken to leave Sesshoumaru's side.

"Probably out hunting." Sango said with a shrug and a glance behind her to the woods. Kagome stifled an inapproperiate giggle. When they were traveling, hunting generally meant going to con someone from a village which always lead to the ultimate question: will you bear my children? Kagome reminded herself that Sango and Miroku were in a relationship, something that Miroku had always been so dead set against, and ignored the death glare that Sango sent her. They had been closer than sisters, and so it was no surprise that Sango knew what she was thinking.

"Aren't you even a little worried?" Kagome asked, a bit unnerved by the steadiness of Sango's gaze.

"Not even a little." Her tone was as steady as her eyes, and her gaze remained unshaken. "Besides, we're too far out in the woods for him to find any women, so he can't pick them up." Giggling suddenly, frantically, Sango wrapped her arms around Kagome, nearly bringing them both to the ground. "I've missed you." She whispered in to her friends hair, her face in her neck as she tried not to cry. "It's been so long, and I didn't think. . . didn't think. . . that you would ever come back."

She wasn't going to. She had every intention of letting sleeping dogs lie, no matter how much it hurt all parties involved, because she had been so sure that it was the right thing to do: leave the past, take the jewel with her, wait for the demons to fade away before resurfacing.

Sesshoumaru had a funny way of changing her mind about things.

Gripping Sango's hands in her own, Kagome gave Sesshoumaru a nod and a smile. "Show me around?" She asked Sango. Sesshoumaru stepped forward, ready to take on the task, obviously thinking that she had been addressing him. "Sango?" She clarified, and tried to ignore the way Sesshoumaru's expression faded away in to a blank nothing, the emotion in his eyes retreating in to uncaring. Kagome realized then, in that moment of standing between her friend in the past and her. . . her. . . Sesshoumaru, that she held a power over him. Nothnig that could be used to sway or change him, but a double edged sword that she wasn't quite sure how to wield, because she wasn't even sure what exactly it was. She was only sure that if she kept making a muck of things like just then, she was likely to get hurt too.

She released Sango's hands and stepped towards him, back in to his shadow. It was comfortable there, standing so close to him, and she felt like she had slipped out of her jeans and under her covers, snuggled deep and warm and safe, wrapped not in blankets but in scents. "I'll be back soon." She said, and wrung her hands like an old victorian maid, unsure of what to do next. She wanted to breach the space between them, afraid it was growing too fast, that soon she would lose him. It scared her to think that she might, and it hadn't really even occurred to her, when she jumped down the well, that she would want something more than just to see a wrong righted.

A kiss at sunset, the pounding of his heart her heart _their hearts. _. .

Kagome blushed when Sesshoumaru reached out and touched her shoulder, sure that he had heard her thoughts, certain that he knew what he was going to do before it happened. His eyes were steady, but there was an amusement in them that nearly made her smile. It's okay, his eyes told her what he would not, go spend some time with your friend. He sent her spinning back to Sango with a flick of his wrist. "Watch her." He commanded the slayer, and then sauntered off at his usual pace, looking the world like he was off to do something important and was not to be bothered. Kagome had no doubt that he would wander aimlessly about until she was ready to go, and then they would be off to the battlefields to fight someone else's war. That was just who Sesshoumaru was.

"The garden is lovely." Sango told her, taking her hand with a smile.

Kagome snorted. "That weed choked mess?" She asked, thinking back to the long walk up the drive to the manor.

Sango gasped. "You think that I have the strength to tackle his lawn! I'm only one person!" They walked around to the back. Kagome sucked in a deep breath when she saw just what exactly Sango had been taking care of.

"One person?" She asked, taking in the gardens. Lovely, the word that Sango had used, wasn't appropriate. Lovely indicated grace and poise, and made her think of a dainty garden lined with roses and ferns. Lovely was understandable, comprehensible.

Lovely was not the word to use for this garden.

It was large, not so large as the front of the manor, but certainly nothing to scoff at. They stood atop a wooden landing, just overlooking the sweeping gardens. Mazes and walk abouts and fountains. . . all of them comfortable sizes, all of them spaced apart. All of them perfectly trimmed and paved to perfection.

"Sango." Kagome couldn't stop her voice from coming out more breathy than usual. "It's beautif-"

"Damn." Sango murmured, giving Kagome a slight push as she shot down the stairs, taking two at a time, to a small pond near the landing. A fish too large to be a koi and the color of the moon lay just beneath the surface, still and alone. "Damn!" She repeated the curse, and Kagome blinked, stunned. Had she ever heard Sango curse in all the time that she had known her?

"What?" Kagome asked, not sure what was so special about a sleeping fish that Sango would scream obsinities. "It's just a fish."  
Sango laughed without humor. "Just a fish. . . this just a fish is a very, very temperamental descendant of a fish demon, and it is breeding and it is so hard to get a boy so it's really, really hard to get them to have more children."

Kagome watched, unsure of what to do, as Sango dipped her hands in to the water, soothing and comforting and cursing. I had no idea that Sango liked breeding. . . Actually, the more Kagome thought about it, the more she realized that this woman, who just moments before she had been thought of as closer than a sister, was a complete stranger. As much a stranger, in fact, as the day that they had meet. She had no idea what her hobbies were, her goals, her dreams.

For that matter, she didn't think she knew any of theirs. . . except for maybe Inuyasha, but she knew how that turned out.

"Maybe it's just. . . asleep?" Kagome tried to comfort, leaing forward to touch her friend's shoulder.

Sango recoiled violently, nearly dropping the fish back in to the water. "Fish don't sleep, Kagome." She barked, pulling him out of the water. "Fish don't sleep."

Kagome stared at him, still and pale, and remembered something else. . .

His skin should have been cold, his clothes should have been stone. He shouldn't have looked so damned peaceful. . .

She skimmed the pads of her fingertips over the scales of the dead fish, the same way that she had skimmed the pads of her fingertips over his face, and wondered why it was so different. Why was he cold, he should have been warm, only really it was supposed to be the other way around.

She didn't know what she was expecting. Some sign of life, some assurance, something.  
What she got was a familiar sound that did nothing to comfort her. The twang of a bow, multiplied hundred fold, before she and Sango hit the ground, curled in tight balls with their soft spots unexposed, pelted by a rain of wooden arrows.

"Sesshoumaru!"

* * *

Autumn was nearly there, and even the demon lord could appreciate the warm breeze that filtered through his home, this place that he left to protect. This place that hadn't belonged to his father, but his mother. The place where she reared him while father was away at war, fighting for something Sesshoumaru didn't understand then but did now. She kept him here when father met Izayoi, when he betrayed her, when he took solace in the confines of another woman's body. She held him here so that he wouldn't have to know the world around him, so that he may become something more than just his father's son. She held him here until Inuyasha was born – then she could hold him no more. Sesshoumaru's head was turned towards the wind, towards the sky, his eyes closed and lost in a place of remembering when it happened.  
It wasn't a sound, and it wasn't a sight. It was a feeling. Not in words or thought or colors because it wasn't a memory. . . because it hadn't happened yet.

Her body was warm, and he needed it because he hadn't felt warmth in so, so long. She leaned in towards him, asking why why why like she always did, and he smirked and teased and taunted, and she smiled right before she turned to leave him. Frantic, he was frantic, she couldn't leave him, not yet not YET, and he reached for her, and stumbled on muscles weak with disuse. Carry you, carry him, up the stairs in a house he didn't recognize but didn't care because she was against him, soft and warm and he was so cold.

It would have been a dream, except he was awake.

He didn't like surprises, and he didn't like the unbalanced state of not knowing that Kagome left him in. Everyone, everything, around him was placed safely, tucked in to little nooks and crannies that he had made for them where they could be safe from harm. Where he could control what happened to them. Except for her. There was no place for her, because she didn't belong here. There was no nook, no corner, no pedestal. He was looking desperately to find a place, because the more time he spent with her the more he was beginning to realize that he probably wanted her safe most of all.

And the only hole that was even remotely her size seemed to be with him.

Sesshoumaru shook his head, scowling. That was ridiculous, and he knew it. That's why he had brought her here. Her friends were here, safe, and so she would be safe here to. Happy, when it came down to it, inside the safe place he had devised for her. And he would come and watch her, the same way that he came to see Rin. . .

Only that wasn't right, and a part of him knew it. Only that part was quiet, and the other part, the part that was probably afraid of what was going on, was louder. The part of him that was afraid roared.  
"She'll be safe here." It was less of a reason and more of a poor excuse than anything else; a soft comfort to himself that was the truth but shouldn't have mattered anyway. His eyes widened a fraction when he realized he spoke aloud about her, betraying himself, and he scowled fiercely. "She's just baggage." He lied to make up for the truth, even though he was appalled to do so. Lying was the human way of accepting a truth; it was for the weak, and Sesshoumaru was not weak. Really. "She's. . . fragile baggage." He was whispering now, even though no one was around to hear him. He was whispering, hoping that he wouldn't hear him. She's. . .

His sensitive ears picked up the soft twang of the arrows, and he was running for her before he even heard his own name called out to, running towards her before he even knew where she was.  
He didn't even take the time to wonder, as he was running, why.

* * *

Arrows fell from the sky like lightening, pelting and striking and digging deep in to the hard muscles of her back and arms, all the exposed parts that she left open to cover the soft ones. She couldn't scream – didn't even think to scream – as they buried themselves inside of her, wooden shafts splintering off and infecting her with splinters and poisons.  
It didn't hurt as much as it could have. It didn't hurt as much as it would.

Curled in a ball on the ground, defenseless, Kagome spared a glance at Sango, who was still cradling the white fish in her arms. She was in a similar position, her head tucked beneath her body, her arms curled around her stomach rather than her neck. Arrows were buried in shallow wounds along her back and body, giving her the appearance of a frighting hedgehog. Looking, Kagome assumed, like she felt.  
A flash of white, streamline and bright, shot past her and toward the enemies that had fired on them. Sesshoumaru. . . she spoke his name in her mind like a protection charm as her vision swam. She felt her mind tingle, as though it was an arm or a leg that had fallen asleep, all pins and needles, and she thought for a moment that since he was here, she was safe. He would fight her battle, and it was alright to slip in to the blissful state of unconsciousness that she was tittering on anyway.

"Don't close your eyes!" Kagome was startled when Miroku's voice came from somewhere far away, somewhere so close to her head. She looked up and saw not a familiar face, but one that had aged so much more than it should have. Gone were the purple robes of a monk, and in their place was the white, tattered clothe of a farmer's tunic. Laugh lines and crows feet were there, yes, but so worry scowl marks left from too many frowns. His skin was darker now, tanned by hard labor in the sun, and his hands, when the slapped her face to help her regain consciousness, were rough and calloused from leading horses in the fields. He looked as different as Sango was, but the sound of his voice rolled the same way it used to, smooth even when laced with worry. It made her smile; or at least, she tried to smile. The tiny effort took so much effort that she stopped half way, and just giggled.

"You have wrinkles." She pointed out, and her voice sounded slurred and drunken.

The singing of metal against metal rang out; the screams of fallen warriors the days only song. Birds, frightened by the arrows, had fled; a few of them, though, lay still and dead on the ground. For a minute, Kagome thought that they almost looked as though they were asleep. . .

"Kagome?" Sango was walking, even though she still had the arrows embedded in her. "You need to get. Up. Now."

Sango was always right before, she knew, so she slid her legs out from underneath her, and appreciated for a moment the cracking sound her shoes made on the gravel. She appreciated it until she felt the blood.  
Miroku had taken the opportunity to pluck a few of the more dangerously placed arrows from her back and rib cage, leaving open wounds that spurted blood like pus. She drew in a sharp breath, but didn't scream – something deep in her subconscious knew that if she screamed, Sesshoumaru would come running.

It was probably why he came running before.

The knowledge embedded in her subconscious, left there for her to analyze at another time, gave her the strength to finish rising – at least to her knees, where she tottered dangerously for a moment before her friends were at her side, helping her and raising her to her feet, keeping her cradled in between them and holding her close. They gave her comfort in the smallest way they could, because now was not the time for pretty words or familiar touches. It was time for action, but for right now, they would hold her up as long as she needed them too.

Which was why she pushed them away.

With their support gone, her vision darkened and she swayed for a moment, but with a shake of her head she gave them a soft smile that to them she was fine. It was a smile that lied, but they believed it so she got away with it. As they ran from her, Sango looking like the Goddess she was as she lost the arrows in the dust behind her, Miroku at her side should she need him, Kagome realized how utterly defenseless and alone she was. In the past, it would have given her reason to stay out of the way, to help afterwards by healing and comforting. In the past, though, she hadn't ever had a shooting star rush by to help her, to save her, to act without questioning and offer no excuses for the behavior.

There would be weapons, bows, from the men that Sesshoumaru had surely cut down. She had ammo all about her, so she gathered her arrows – gathered her strength – and prepared for battle.

The battle was a dance; it had it's own rhythm that everyone followed without even thinking about it. He swung his sword, followed by a flick of his wrists, and they bowed before him, dead on their knees. He was God here, on the battle grounds – he was the bringer of death and should he so choose it, life as well.

Only he wouldn't chose it, because whenever on of them screamed, or dropped their weapon in the show of absolute surrender, all he could think of was Kagome's body curled up in a little ball, buried beneath the shafts of arrows. He didn't know if she was alive or dead – he secretly hoped it was the later, because then she wouldn't have had to suffered while he killed her enemies, his enemies, for her, and he would simply resurrect her when the battle was over and it was safe.

If she was alive though, and suffering while these boys who thought themselves warriors breathed. . .

"Sesshoumaru!" Nearly dually, Sango and Miroku called out to him. Allies, he knew, but they had left Kagome. They left Kagome, then she is either fine or dead. He preferred the later of the two, but he wouldn't tell them that.

Sesshoumaru sneered at the still wounded Sango, and turned to address Miroku. "You left your woman unprotected." He didn't accuse, he simply named. "Tend to her before you make her do battle."  
Miroku didn't bother to explain to Sesshoumaru that it wasn't his choice whether or not Sango did battle – she was a warrior, and it wasn't even her choice. She didn't appear very wounded; only a few superficial wounds and a few scattered arrows, the deepest dug in to her shoulder.

He hadn't realized it immediately, but now that Sesshoumaru was there to protect them and he could take the time to examine her, he realized that the one in her shoulder was the worst. It would come out, yes, but infection was obviously taken it's hold and the splinters that would no doubt break off in her skin would be too deep for him to extract.

Miroku pulled a superficial arrow from her arm and handed it to her. "Grit the shaft, not your teeth," was his only warning before he yanked the one in her shoulder. It began to bleed freely, and Miroku worried that she would faint on the field. He ripped at his robes, tearing off white clothe and wrapping it around her shoulder in a make shift sling that would have to do for now.

Sango drew her katana, her weapon of choice in the place of her harikoutsu now that demon slaying wasn't a very high-paying occupation now. "Ready." Miroku pilfered a sword, dull with disuse, from a fallen soldier's waist. It wasn't great, but it would do in a pinch. "Ready." He agreed.

Sesshoumaru was about to bark at them to quite their foolish talking and kill them, but then he smelled her blood. . .

Kagome hobbled to the battle, fighting with nausea and consciousness as she did so. She had been right about finding a bow quickly; the front lines must have been entirely made of archers, and the front lines were the first to go. Sesshoumaru had probably killed them all before Sango and Miroku even got there. She fired arrows, each one true to it's mark, and Sesshoumaru appreciated her good aim even if he faulted her for her idiocy. The battle field, he decided, was no place for her; it was too bad that she had decided that this was exactly where she belonged, back on the front lines fighting with her friends.  
Blood lust kept her conscious and alert, and she didn't question it, didn't will it away. She revealed in the spray of blood that each of her arrows they in their wake, wanted to sing with each twang of her string.

And then she saw him.

She didn't know why Sesshoumaru didn't. He was right there, right behind him. She supposed later that his sense must have been drowning in blood and sweat and death, just like hers, so one more person was just one more statistic – except this statistic had his arms raised, sword clenched, in the line of Sesshoumaru's neck; a wound she knew he could not survive.

She reached for another arrow before she even registered him as a threat, only to reach for empty air. Bodies on the field beneath her vantage point lay struck with arrows, and she had none left to strike this one last blow. She balled a fist in her hair and nearly screamed when an arrow, buried in her arm, caused her muscles to quiver in agony.

She didn't give herself the time to realize how much it would hurt, and the penalty if she missed. In one swift motion, she ripped the arrow from her arm and cocked it – it's tip dipped in her flesh and blood. She fired, mounting it with miko energy, and it hit his shoulder and exploded on impact in a flash of pink light. Sesshoumaru, who had not being expecting her to launch the attack, recoiled viciously and reared his head, the demon in him reacting to the priestess in her in the worst way possible. His eyes bleed the same color as the blood on the ground and his incisors began to lengthen.

Free of arrows, Kagome rushed down the hill, only tripping a handful of times as she made a beeline through soldiers and allies for Sesshoumaru. She latched on to his arm and felt the fur ripple beneath the flesh as he began to transform. He curled down, making sounds that weren't human, weren't canine, but something frighteningly in-between, and ripped through his clothing as he expanded and grew.  
Kagome buried her hands in his fur, dug her nails deep in to his flesh, and held on tightly to his back and he launched skywards to finish the transformation away from the biting stings of the swords at his paws.  
Gone was everything that had been remotely human about him – all that was left was tearing and screaming and pounding, the crunch of human bones beneath his paws, the taste of blood clinging to the back of his throat, the red that stained his muzzle and sprayed her like an ocean of death.

When there was no one left to kill, he howled.

The sound reverberated through her body, making her shiver in a way that an arrow being ripped from her body never could. She remembered that humans were over sixty percent water, so if you rounded up, they really were just water with little murky bits thrown in. The pond behind her was splashing viciously from the vibrations in his howl, and she imagined that she, a human, only water and mud, was doing that too. It made her want to scream out in agony, even long after he stopped.

She forgave him, though, because it wasn't his fault, it was hers. She was the one that had forced the change, and now that he wasn't changing back, she would force it again.

"Sesshoumaru. . ." She whispered in the fur behind his ears, where she knew he could make out the soft tones of her voice, no matter his form. "Help me."  
She released her grip on his fur and fell.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

* * *

They say that just before you die, your life flashes before your eyes. That might be true for people who are terminally ill, or are in bank robberies, or caught in the train tracks for hours before one finally comes along to do the deed. Kagome, though, was not in any of those situations – she was free falling through the air, spiraling much slower than she thought she would, watching the ground rush up to greet here.  
It was as though it was ready to bury her before she even died.

Kagome didn't see her life flash before her eyes, but for some reason, she did remember her first time in the well house. Her cat had been screaming, her brother scared, so she went down to for the comfort of both, even though she didn't like it down there either. Curiosity had gotten the better of her, just like her cat, and she had been pulled in to a place outside of time and space, a place where she and everything else she had ever known didn't exist, held tightly in the many arms of a centipide.

It's you. . . she whispered, and licked her face as though it assured her of it. It's back.

And then she existed again, in another place altogether.

There was no comforting blue light here, no catch of magic to hold her and spin her right; there was no fading, and everything – including her – remained painfully lodged in existence. The scent of blood and acid stuck in her nose like something metallic, and clung to the back of her throat as though it had crawled inside with the intent to live there. And when canine jaws – powerful enough to crush her entire body – caught her gently between there teeth, she thought for sure that Mistress Centipede was back, and that this was the day it had all began, rather than the day her foolishness would cause it to end.  
Cradled between gums and teeth, she regained her sense of self. Sesshoumaru, in the body of the dog, turned and leapt off of three paws, carrying her through the air in the opposite direction. She was fighting gravity, fighting the pull of the Earth by using the pull of the moon, and she knew it. She loved it.

She had failed in her mission to turn him back to normal, but that was okay. He wasn't hurting her, so he probably wouldn't hurt anyone else.

Sesshoumaru ran on padded paws across the sky, and the bright orange sun bite in to her eyes and forced her to look away. Caught between his teeth, she was careful not to move around too much – one way, she could fall forward to the Earth, and lose this precious high that she had when she stole the moon; the other, back in to the throat of the beast, devoured unnoticed in his belly.  
She squirmed lightly, trying to make the ride more comfortable, and her skirt and shirt tore neatly on the sharp planes of his teeth. Covered in tattered; blood stained clothing, she laughed, because she was afraid that if she didn't, she would cry.

Sesshoumaru's breathing, lightly and undetected, became a heavy panting that reminded her of her own laughter. The laughter of the dogs! She decided, and reached up to stroke the fur beneath his nose. His pupils, perfectly identifable from her vantage point, dropped down to her and dilated as he inhaled her scent through his nose, memorizing it. She wondered what she smelt like to him, and she wondered what it must be like to be in the mind set of the dog. She had never thought to ask him before; never thought it important, never thought he could remember the difference between canine and human, but now. . .  
Could he see in color, she wondered. Could he identify her as more than just a scent? Did he remember that her name was Ka-Go-Me, and did he remember that she wasn't always his ally, but once an enemy? Or was she. . . pack?

They settled in the mountains, far away from the citadel that he had taken her to that first day. They weren't at the top, but the were close enough to see it. Sesshoumaru didn't drop her until he had kicked away a few of the trees with his paws and then circled, paw over paw over tail, and settled.

Kagome climbed out from between his teeth and gums and he snorted lightly, covering her in warm air and the scent of dog. Giggling, she tucked her hair back behind her ears and climbed up his muzzle to the spot that she had stood before she fell. "You saved me." She reminded him as she scratched the place behind his ears where the fur was the softest. Sesshoumaru snorted again and tipped his head so that she toppled over, rolling down the curve of his chest to the nook that would serve as her bed for the night. He gave her a hard, slanted look, as if to tell her to not leave that spot, before he dropped his head to the ground, enclosing her in a circle between his paw and his muzzle.

Kagome stayed awake for a long time after he had dismissed her, playing idly with the short fur on his paw. His nails, so potent and powerful, were tinted green in the moonlight, and were practically glowing.  
It was just one more thing that she wondered about.

She knew that he had fallen asleep when the muscles of his face and chest began to spasm, and she settled back against him, burying herself in the thick fur of his chest, lifted up and down by the rhymatic rise and fall of his chest. Her lack of resistance seemed to soothe him, even in his sleep, and he settled even deeper. The spasm stopped racking his body, and Kagome, too, fell in to the reprieve of slumber.

* * *

She awoke to the cold.

She was barely covered as it was, clad only in tattered clothing, and she reached blindly about for the warm fur that Sesshoumaru had sheltered her with the night before, only to come in contact with a bare chest. In her exhaustion, she accepted it as something warm and clambered against it, and returned to sleep.

He awoke to movement against him.

Uncomfortable and unaware of where he was, he scanned the area with his nose rather than his eyes. Trees, fur, her. It took him only a moment to recall the previous night's battle, the twang of her arrow, the scent of her blood before her miko energy swamped him and his demon had reacted. Blood, death, carnage. . . the army that the anti imperialist leader had sent had been easy prey for the dog, and it wanted more even when there was no more life to be taken. He had howled to the setting sun, a warning to the animals around to flee, and she had taken it in to her hands to settle him.

Help me. . . she had pleaded before she fell.

It had been a bargain, a bad bet. He wasn't sure why the dog had snapped her up – the dog didn't know her, didn't know that she was an ally that he just couldn't shake. But it hadn't stopped the dog from naming her pack.

He had taken them here, in his dog haze, to the place he had retreated to as a child. Far enough away from the citadel that his mother wouldn't bother to chase him, close enough that it was still considered territory.

His den. Their den.

She was laying against him, cradled in to his naked chest, and he wondered mildly what had happened to his clothes. He wondered more, though, what had happened to her clothes; indecent as they had been before, he had not expected what they hid beneath. Harlot's garments, the same lovely shade of blue as he eyes, cupped pale breast and bared them to him, offering on silken platters. He didn't take, didn't taste, even though every instinct in his body sang out, wanting to give in to the harlot's temptations. He didn't, however, avert his eyes. Not even when hers creaked open, staring up at him staring at her.

"You're okay." Her voice was meek, quiet from disuse over the night. "I'm glad. . ." Perhaps she hadn't noticed their state of undress; perhaps she didn't care. She wrapped her arms around him, obviously forgetting for a moment exactly who she was accosting, and Sesshoumaru did himself proud by not flushing and glupping when those soft breast wrapped in silk and bows pressed against his chest.

"Your. . . garments." If it came out more breathless than he intended, she didn't notice. Probably.

Kagome looked down and sighed – her top, already blood stained, had in fact been ripped, just above her chest and at her belly, where she had squirmed in his mouth the night before in attempts to make herself comfortable in his jaws. It wasn't particularly indecent, though she could scarcely make out the blue of her bra. If it made her uncomfortable, she shrugged it off. This was Sesshoumaru, he didn't think of her like that and he certainly wouldn't do anything about it. Besides, it was no different than when she wore bathing suits around Inuyasha. . .

The topic of her clothing, though, circled back around to his. As though coming out of a trance, she slowly tore her gaze away from her own chest and down, gasping with what she saw and jerking away, pointedly fixating her gaze on a tree that he had kicked down the night before. "Your garments." She hissed in shock, amazed. That was the first time I ever saw one. . . in real life! It was. . . larger than she had imagined, and only a little flaccid. Was Sesshoumaru? She didn't think so. . . maybe halfway, but not. . . No, she wouldn't allow herself to continue that particular line of thought.

She recoiled from that particular thought, because she wasn't ready to go down that particular path. She was a virgin, for crissakes. She wasn't supposed to think about things like that!

"They are torn in the transformation." His voice held no self consciousness, and she vaguely remembered that male nudity wasn't frowned upon in this day and age. . . only female. But girls weren't supposed to see, weren't supposed to think, and weren't supposed to be entirely aware of how the male body worked.

Kagome didn't fit the criteria for a fifteen hundreds girl in any way, shape, or form.

And he KNOWs that. . .

"Sesshoumaru. . ." She clenched her eyes tight shut when she heard him move behind her. Her entire body was on alert, screaming for his touch, reminding her that he had kissed her in the past, and that he would kiss her again in the future. If she wanted his touch, she had a sneaking suspicion that all she had to do was ask. "I don't feel entirely comfortable right now."

Her arms were wrapped around her chest, trying to hide as much of herself from view as she could. She kept her eyes and legs clamped shut tight, because she didn't trust herself to not do anything, even if she trusted him.

"There is clothing at the manor." He said the same way most people say 'yummy, vegetables.'

"How far away is that?" Kagome questioned. There was a rippling noise behind her, a sound she recognized as flesh and fur, and she turned to see Sesshoumaru, in all his glory, transforming in to an equally glorious - and, quite possibly, randy - dog.

"Not again. . ." she grumbled just before she was gathered bodily between his teeth.

At least this time he isn't in a blood rage. . . she comforted herself.

Too bad she didn't find it comforting in the slightest.

* * *

Sango and Miroku weren't waiting for them when they returned to the manor, as Sesshoumaru had predicted they might be, nor were they on the battlefield, giving rites to the dead as Kagome had thought. Kagome wasn't sure why she had been so positive that that was where Miroku would be - after all, it had been a few years since he had been a monk; he was just a farmer now. He had moved on, much like the rest of the world, adapting and surviving because really, there was nothing else left for him to do. There was no room for lecherous monks, just as there was no room for demon slayers or hanyous or priestesses.  
Just as there was no room for her.

She tried not to be saddened by the fact that if she wasn't here, no one would notice, but it was difficult. It was easy to see the way that she and her friends had changed the world around them, made it a safe place for everyone else to live in. It was easy to see the scars in the ground that Sesshoumaru had carried her over, lines caused by Inuyasha's blade, huge boulders tossed aside like toys at the hand's of Naraku's tentacles.

An acidic river of miasma that still wasn't drinkable, and a tree that would remained scarred long in to the future. A well, that for all other purposes, was useless. A well that could allow her to transcend time.  
But no one remembered. There were no stories, no ballads, no great epic tales that honored the service they had performed. Lives had been lost by the thousands and then simply forgotten. Her life had been lost in ways unimaginable. Children dead, children orphaned. Children left alone in villages with strangers while their parents went off to war. It wasn't fair, it wasn't right. . .

She almost felt guilty when she looked at the crumbled forms of the soldiers that they had fallen. People, she knew, flesh and blood with families and friends and children and mothers and fathers that they would never see again, would never hold again. Wives waiting tirelessly by front doors, with anxious glances out the windows, wondering. Is today the day? Is today the day that someone will come to tell me my husband has died? Children in cradles, children toddling about, carrying wooden swords and proclaiming that one day, they too would be just like daddy, and run off to war to fight for country and rights. Some of the bodies she saw couldn't have belonged to anyone older than her - thirteen year olds, younger, slain. For what? Because they had believed in something that the rest of them had not? Because they thought that they were doing the right thing? Because someone else told them that becoming a soldier meant that you were going to be strong, and since no one else had ever told them that, they needed the assurance? They all had reasons, they all had lives. And they had all died, because even if they were human, even if they had mothers and wives and children, they were all still just enemies. Statistics, she thought she heard Sesshoumaru mutter emotionlessly, and she entertained the thought for a moment that he was the one that came up with that saying. She was sure that he wasn't, but it gave her pause to think about paradoxes.

She was here, in the past, to try and stop him from becoming stone in the future. But she was only here in the past because she had seen him as a statue in the future. She was only here because she had seen him cold, and she had felt him warm, and because she couldn't forget the way he stared at her for so many long seconds when she pulled her lips away from his. Do you know how very, very long it's been since I've touched anyone? He had asked her before he gave her the command. Let me touch you. . . And he had. . . in so many ways. How long has it been? A month? Two? Those first two agonizing weeks of him slipping in between comas, becoming cold stone and warm human as the days passed. The next week, the decision. Her transcending the time. Added all up, it had been nearly two months. . . and half of that, she realized, had been spent here. Her chances of graduating high school had narrowed - as it was, her grandfather would probably have to say she was in a coma just so that she could have the opportunity just to repeat the stupid grade! If she hadn't met him in the future, she would be nearly done with her senior year - a feat, considering that she barely made it in to the ninth grade at all, let alone through to the twelfth.

She remembered a time, not very long ago, when she had sat in a class room and wondered about all of them; what had happened after she left, what sort of people they had become. How they had gone on without her. How almost two years had passed and she hadn't heard from one of them. If her grandfather hadn't gotten his hands on the Lord of Dogs, she would still be there, in that seat by the window that got too hot in the afternoon, wondering, wondering. . . Maybe if you stopped daydreaming you might have a chance, her teacher had chastised.

It made her wonder if her entire mission was pointless; of course she wouldn't succeed, otherwise she wouldn't have been able to come back in the first place! You can't change the future. . . her time in the past, nearly three years ago, was proof of that, for certain. So she should just go home. She was wasting her time here. She was. . .

Sesshoumaru dropped her to the ground, and because of her musings, she hadn't been ready. She hadn't positioned herself for the fall and the wound on her arm reopened and began to bleed anew. The jostling, too, shook her, and she could feel a tingling sensation in her spine. She would have turned around to curse Sesshoumaru, except she could already hear his soft grunts of pain; canine, human, and something dangerous that lay between. He would be naked, she knew, and the thought made her blush. She was grateful that he couldn't see her, couldn't see the reddening of her cheeks.

He turned her around, too quickly, and examined her arm with a scowl of disapproval. "Apologies." He muttered, and applied pressure around the wound. The bleeding thickened and pussed, but slowed and stopped. "I didn't warn you."

She knew then, what exactly is was she was doing here. She was making a difference. She was changing the way the world worked, even if no one would remember that it was her that did it. She was the one that had taken the Shikon Jewel to the future - a place that no one else could hide it - and in doing so, she made everyone forget their animosity towards each other. It was because of her that demons and humans would live in harmony, until one day the line between the two breeds would be undecipherable. Until one day everyone was judged not by their parents, but by their character.

No one would write her name in history books, and their would be no holiday to celebrate what she had done. But she had done it, so perhaps that was all that mattered. She knew that her teacher had been right. If she stopped daydreaming, and started acting, she might have a chance to do something fantastic again. If she actually did something, then maybe she just might change the world.

"It's okay," she told Sesshoumaru, "it doesn't hurt at all."

A lie. But as long as she was getting away with it. . .

They found Miroku before they found Sango. Out in the fields, dragging the cows and plows behind him even with his injuries. Kagome could see the red stains on his shirt where the blood had seeped through, she could see the beading of sweat on his brow. He trudged on, though, because here there was no supermarket. A day off to heal could mean a bad harvest, a hard winter. Death, perhaps, should worst come to worse. The knowledge was the only thing that stopped her from cupping her hands and hollering out to him - if he could do it, if he could push through the pain and blood and sweat so that he could keep living, then she wasn't going to stop him. She couldn't provide for him any longer, couldn't carry packs of packaged food through the well to feed his belly. He had survived with out her well enough before, and had surely had worse cut ups than this.

She stopped for a moment while she worried about him, but Sesshoumaru walked on, in front of her now, probably as a punishment for her stopping. At her request, he had walked behind her to save her humiliation. It must have been a huge blow to his pride, and he hadn't commented when she asked, he had simply let her take the lead. But she had stopped, and he kept walking, and Kagome wasn't about to ask him again. She looked around - at the trees, and the plants, and at the weeds that threatened to kill them all - anywhere, but at Sesshoumaru.

The manor loomed in front of them, and Sesshoumaru gave her the swift command to wait outside for him before leaving her on the porch. She sighed, sitting, mindful of her wounds and bruises. It was a nice day, she supposed - she certainly couldn't believe what the day before had brought them. Arrow shafts lay broken on the ground, buried in mud and trees. She wondered what would come of the bodies that they had left on the battlefields, and vaguely recalled eating instant ramen with Inuyasha in a place not completely unlike it. The meat would deteriorate, the clothing as well, but the grinning skeletons would serve as a warning to all that threatened this place that Sesshoumaru didn't like to call home.

She never did find Sango. For a nice change of pace, Sango found her.

"Kagome!" She cried out from a window above her, startling her out of her musings and reminding her that even though demons weren't really a threat anymore, it was a time of war and she needed to be on guard.

"Kagome! You're alright!" She said it as though she cared, and Kagome remembered a time when she really did. When they would gather after a battle and tend to each others wounds in silence, like a pack of dogs that were just grateful that they had made it through another day. Back when they fought so often, when they thought that the fighting may never end. Back when they were closer than family, because families needed to speak to reassure each other of safety. They simply knew.

Kagome looked up, wincing in agony as the muscles in her neck tried to deny her the motion, and gave Sango a reassuring smile that felt more like a grimace than anything else. "What'dya think? That Sesshoumaru would eat me?" She didn't add on that she had thought that for a moment, when she was crushed between teeth and gums and sticky with his saliva. She realized then what her brother and Inuyasha had always seemed to know - that sarcasm was probably the best way to hide the truth.

"Hold on, I'll be down in a minute." She sounded excited, like a child at Christmas. Was it because she hadn't had a good battle in so long? Killing people, slaughtering, fighting, surviving; it was a drug, addictive and inexcapable. Even Kagome, in her own time, had felt the call for blood when someone wronged her, because she had been in a time when sitting down and 'talking things out' had been unheard of - if someone stole something of yours here, they lost a hand. If someone insulted you, you took away their honor.

If someone struck you, you struck them down.

The times of war had been over, though, and Sango, Miroku; Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru - yes, even she - had been forced to lay down their weapons. They had been the victors - they had succeeded, and there were no more battles to be fought.

There was no sanctuary for warriors with no battles to be fought, because that would make them Kings without Kingdoms, or beggars that didn't know how to beg.

It took Sango, who was probably more injured than Kagome but better at hiding it, at least five to stumble down the stairs. Kagome noted the heavy limp in her step, the way that her left foot dragged and her right hit the ground so much harder than the other, but didn't say anything - it wasn't as though Sango wasn't aware that she was injured, after all. What would be the point of the wasted words?  
The next time she grimaced, it wasn't in pain. It was because she was beginning to sound an awful lot like him.

Sango rushed the last two steps and ran to keep herself from falling, right in to Kagome's injured arm. The wound broke open again, but she didn't grimace, didn't grumble; she accepted it as a necessary side effect to being this close to something she couldn't hold on to ever again. It was worth the pain to have her friend, her ally, her closer than a sister confident back. "When Sesshoumaru took you, we thought for sure he would kill you." She whispered in the same worried tone that she had always used before. Her 'mommy' voice, overprotective and scared. It made Kagome think for a minute that she might have been wrong - maybe in all this time, nothing had changed. "And when I saw him naked in the hallway just now, I had no idea what to think." Kagome nearly giggled as she remembered all the times that they had stressed each other for information about the boys, why and how they had behaved a certain way, comforting and consoling but never actually admitting to anything. It had landed Sango in a marriage. It had left Kagome stranded in the future. Sango pushed Kagome away, holding her at arms length, so that she could better see her face, and Kagome didn't even grimace when Sango's hand lay flat on her wound. She didn't need Sango to worry, because she certainly didn't. "What should I think about that, Kagome?"

Her eyes were narrowed on her, and Kagome blushed. She felt like the school girl she had once been, before battles and blood shed, and she was determined not to let Sango know what even Kagome wasn't yet sure of. "You shouldn't think what you're thinking right now." She prided herself on how well the lie slide off of her tongue. "His clothes tore in the transformation; that's all. We didn't. . . I mean, he would never. . ." Would he? Kagome decided it would be best for her sanity if she didn't dwell too long on that particular thought. Even if it didn't mess up her mind, she had a sneaking suspicion that Sango would read it on her face.  
She didn't know if she was telling the truth about Sesshoumaru or not, because no matter how good she was getting at reading his face, she had a sneaking suspicion that he would only let her read what he cared to let her know. Whether she was being honest or not, though, her answer seemed to soothe Sango so she did her best to look as confident in her answer as she could.

"He would never." Sango agreed a bit sarcastically, and Kagome felt for an instant that maybe she had betrayed herself. "But would you?" She was certain now that she had.

Kagome blanched at the implication and did her best not to smack her friend. "Of course not!" She insisted quickly - too quickly, if the delicate uplifting of her eyebrow was any standard to judge by. "Why would you even say such a thing?" Another question, to turn the tables on Sango.

"Well, Kagome, you're clothes are torn in. . . interesting places." She pointed out, and Kagome quickly wrapped her arms around her chest again to hide herself from view. The next thing that she knew, Sango might be making implications that the bruises from the battle looked an awful lot like hickeys.

"You don't know what you're talking about." She barked out defensively, rudely, to let Sango know that she didn't like where this conversation was going and that it was going to stop right now. She didn't have the energy or the desire to consider what Sango was implying because she had a mission, however pointless and self-motivated it was, and fornicating was did not play a part in it. No matter how nice Sesshoumaru happened to look naked and half aroused, hair tangled from sleep. . .

"You're thinking about it, aren't you?" Sango said, leaning down to catch Kagome's down casted eyes. "Admit it. You were thinking about something, and I'd be willing to bet my right arm that it was him." She laughed at her own joke, even though it wasn't all that funny. Kagome blushed, but let her get away with it because it must have been an eternity since Sango had had any female companions, and she remembered what a pain it had been to pull the woman out of the demon slayer in the first place. Still, she had thought she had gotten better at hiding her emotions than that, had thought that her time in Sesshoumaru's presence had taught her how to openly lie with her eyes. Luckily, she was saved from answering Sango, who raised her eyebrows as if to say I'm waiting when Sesshoumaru - fully clothed - came back down the steps carrying a rather expensive looking kimono.

"Where's the cub?" he asked, because he didn't get too much of a chance to ask before. He tossed the fabric at Kagome, and reacting without thinking she reached out and held it to her. In the process she dropped her hold on her shirt, and for a second she thought she found herself the focal point of Sesshoumaru's attentions before he collected himself and returned it to the ex demon slayer.  
Sango shrugged. "Shippo travels a lot," she told Kagome to ease her worries before they began. "He's fine, of course. He turns up every few months, but if you guys are heading out again soon then you're bound to encounter him."

"Oh, that's good." Kagome sighed, fumbling with the soft silk of the fabric. She didn't need to ask Sesshoumaru what it was for - but she would need to ask someone for help. As appealing as the thought of Sesshoumaru helping her to dress (or undress, she wasn't really all that picky) was, she knew she was going to ask Sango. Quite frankly, she didn't have the balls to ask Sesshoumaru for help with her clothing, whether it be dressing or undressing. "What direction did he head out last?" She asked to distract herself, because she excelled at avoiding the subject of matters. "Does he have a favorite place? Where would we most likely find him?"

Sango didn't get a chance to speak, or even open her mouth for that matter, because Sesshoumaru found the opportunity he had been waiting for to tell her his plans, his real reason for bringing her here. "You are most likely to find him here, miko." Sesshoumaru's voice was steady and masked, as he obviously intended it to be, and it sent shivers up and down her spine. "For you will not be traveling with me any longer."


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

* * *

Kagome smiled prettily at him as the magnitude of his words began to sink in, and her plans – her world – began to fall apart around her. You will no be traveling with me any longer. He said it as if it was his choice. As if she were just a companion that he kept by his side for amusement, as if nothing that they had done thus far had mattered to him.

She wasn't just there for his amusement, though. As impractical as she might be, she did have a job to do. Even if it was impossible. Even if it hardly made sense. Even if she had no idea how she was going to do it, she still had to save him from whatever twisted fate lied in the near future. And she couldn't save him if she 'was not going to be traveling with him any longer.'

As angry as his words made her, no matter how well intended they might have been, they still hurt. She tried to ignore it, tried to push them aside, because not only were they painful, but they were familiar as well. It felt surprisingly like the first time that Inuyasha had said something similar to her, just before he pushed her down a well. Her world dimmed for a moment, both times, only the first time it had been by the bright blue light. This time, it had been by the sound of her own heartbeat.

Luckily for her, she was getting used to having people toss her around like a ragdoll and was getting better at hiding her claws.

If he thought that she was just going to stay here, quiet and demure like a little lady while he traveled, stay here while he fought, he had another thing coming. She was no lady; she was scrappy and out of practice, but she had still done her part in ridding the world of an evil before, and by God she could do it again. She was a fighter, dammit, a warrior. Just like Sango, just like Miroku, just like Inuyasha and Shippo and him. Her place was on the battlefield – she had already tasted blood, had grown used to the sight of her arrows buried deep in her enemies chest, and she wanted more. More than that, she wanted the thrill of the battle, of knowning that yes, she could die out there. Of knowing, but not particularly caring.

She was going to travel with him, whether he liked it or not. She was going to be a permanent fixture in his life – like he even knew what that was. She had already forced herself in to his life, found a cramped place that she could almost fit in to, but not quite, and wedged herself there. She was attached, goddammit, and there was no way he could shake her now.

First thing's first, though, she had to get him to let his guard down just enough so that she could slip past his defenses and back to his side.

Doing her best to appear the demure lady that she sickeningly wondered if he saw her as, Kagome let tears that she told herself were fake seep to the surface. Bitterly, she blinked them away. She knew he could smell the salt of her tears, she knew he would think that he had really beaten her.

He didn't know anything. She was just getting started.

"You mean. . ." she was quite proud of the way her voice broke a little here, and the way that her lips quivered in remorse, ". . . that you don't want me anymore?"

She ignored the way Sango's eyebrows shot up her face, ignored how very interested her companion seemed to be in the whole affair. She nearly broke character, to lash out at her and tell her to shut up, she didn't know what was going on and quite frankly, it was none of her business, but she refrained. Not only because it would have broken the cover of the quietly subdued lady, but also because she didn't like this – she didn't like the way that Sesshoumaru was changing her, didn't like that she had no control over her thoughts anymore.

She didn't like that she didn't actually think that it was his fault.

She had always thought these things, she had just never acknowledged them before. She had always thought wicked and terrible thoughts about her friends in the future, how they complained about only a little bit of labor and how they thought that they had it bad when they got an eighty six on a test. They had no right to think that their lives were tough, not when their ancestors had to struggle to feed themselves and their families, not when grades and boys and clothes were the most important things in their lives.

She had never raged, though, and never mentioned it. Not to them, at least. If she thought terrible things, she kept them to herself, and everything else she let spew out. Now, with him, she realized that maybe that wasn't the best way to act. At first, she had thought that he was so cool, keeping all of his emotions locked inside and hidden from anyone that might try to use them against him. But now she saw what it was really doing to him, and she knew what a whirlpool he must have raging inside of him all the time and it frightened her.

People needed to talk – she had thought so at the first, and doubted it for a while, but now she was sure. They needed to let their feelings out, needed to let the world know what they thought, otherwise everything would stay the same as it always had been. Women needed to rage against men, needed to let them know what they thought, or else the future she lived in wouldn't exist. If they didn't, if someone didn't break the chain, then men like him would forever type-cast women like her as weak and compliant, willing to do whatever he said just because he said it, therefore he must be right.  
Some of what she was thinking must have shown on her face, because an eyebrow crept it's way up Sesshoumaru's face and she was reminded that she had an audience.

Stay focused otherwise he'll win. She chastised herself, and let all thoughts other than the fact that he was leaving her slip away.

Sesshoumaru didn't answer, because there was no answer that would please both of themand they both knew it. What exactly did she expect him to say? That the implications of her question hit far too close to home? That yes, maybe he did want her, and that was why he wanted her to stay where it was safe, from both him and the anti imperialists? That maybe if he had to watch her sleep one. More. Night. While he watched on in agony, hating the very air that seperated them, he might go mad? No. He had no reason that would satisfy both of them, so she would have to be satisfied with his silence. There was no way that he was ever going to admit to any of that.

"Dress, miko." He commanded her, any amusement that she had seen in his face now vanished. He turned, and then adressed Sango. "See to her wounds, and then your own." He knew that Kagome's silence, however blessed it may be, was only a fluke and that soon she would start raging once again, so he took his leave. Good memories. . . he told himself. Good memories to keep him going.

Sango tugged a little at Kagome's torn clothes, and drew her attention away from the back of the quickly retreating Sesshoumaru. Her friend was in turmoil, she knew. She just didn't know how much turmoil, otherwise she would have probably gone with Sesshoumaru. "He's probably just going to check on Miroku right now." She soothed, and was a bit unnerved by the fact that the calm note of her voice that had always consoled Kagome before wasn't working now. None the less, she had a job as a friend to do. "Come on, I'll help you get in to that thing." She tried smiling, because Kagome had always insisted that smiles were contagious, but to no avail. The fierce scowl that Kagome adopted lingered before she finally sighed, and complied.

A nearby shoji screen sufficed as a dressing room. Kagome tried to remove her own clothes, certain that her wounds couldn't be so bad; after all, the mind numbing pain had faded away in to a dull throb. Kagome was shocked and appaled, however, to see the hideous shade of green that the wound in her arm had turned.

From the quick inhale of Sango's breath, she must have been just as surprised.

"I look like the wicked witch of the west!" Kagome exclaimed, twisting her arm to try to see if the color stretched all the way around to the underside of her arm.

Having no idea what Oz was, Sango didn't pay the comment any mind. Even if she did know that Kagome had just tried to make a joke to laugh away her horror, she probably wouldn't have laughed. "Kagome. . ." Sango whispered as she looked over it. "How many times have you reopened this? Did Sesshoumaru even bother to remove the splinters?"

Kagome blanched. "Splinters!" She asked frantically. She didn't see any, but she remembered the one that Miroku had plucked from Sango in the midst of the battle. The way Sango had to bite down on an arrow to stop herself from biting through her tongue or worse, biting down on her teeth so hard that they shattered.

Sango pressed the wound for a bit, and her administrations were rewarded with moans of agony from Kagome, pus, and a few shattered bits of splintered wood. "The wood was flimsy, probably designed to shatter on impact. You're lucky that there were only a few smaller splinters in your skin, it could have caused some real damage." Sango sounded grateful for her, which was great as far as Kagome was concerned. She certainly didn't feel very grateful, and somebody had to.

Kagome looked down at the wound, which had, not surprisingly, began to bleed again, and she wondered what sort of damage she would have to take in order for it to be considered 'real.'  
"Doesn't hurt at all." Kagome agreed with her, forcing a smile to the surface. Same as the smile that she suspected Sango was forcing.

* * *

Sweat glistened on Miroku's back as he tried to coax the cows to pull the plow along – he had long ago shed his thick clothing in the hot summer sun. He crooned at the cows, pleading and pushing, but to no avail. He wasn't paying attention, and when he turned and found himself to not be alone as he had thought, he started.

"Monk." It hadn't been Sesshoumaru's intention to startle Miroku, and it was obvious from Sesshoumaru's scowl that it did not reflect well on him.

Miroku leaned against the plow and wiped the sweat off of his brow. He gave him a shy smile; whether it be an apology for not being up to Sesshoumaru's rigid standards or a thank you for giving him a well-deserved break from plowing the fields, it didn't matter. Sesshoumaru didn't change his opinion of the monk simply because he could smile where others scowled. That had impressed him long ago. "What canI do for you on this lovely afternoon, Sesshoumaru-sama?"

His cheerful demeanor, much like his cheerful expression, had no effect on the stoic demon"I will be leaving the girl here. You will watch her." The command was curt, direct, and left no room for Miroku to argue. It did, however, make him all the more curious. . . and he wasn't entirely sure, but he thought that Sesshoumaru seemed a bitter about about the whole thing.

"If I may be so bold, Lord Sesshoumaru, why are you leaving her here? For that matter, why was she traveling with you in the first place?"

Sesshoumaru's glare was lightening fast. "You are too bold, monk."

Brows drawn tightly together, Miroku worked out how best to get the information out of Sesshoumaru. "She was gone for an awfully long time. . ." Miroku pretended to only just now notice the oddity of her presence here again, even though it had been plaguing his mind since the moment he saw her. Why would she come back, when she was so vehemently against it before? In fact, wasn't it she that had suggested it in the first place? Or had it been Sesshoumaru?It couldn't have been Sesshoumaru, though. . . if it had been Sesshoumaru who had told Kagome to go home in the first place, then wouldn't he have simply pushed her back down the well and insisted that she stay there from the first moment he saw her? And why was he traveling with the girl? Certainly he knew what the reprications may be!

But what if he doesn't care? Since he would get no answers if he asked questions like that, Miroku decided to be more vague – and he would probably get more answers if he questioned himself instead of Sesshoumaru. Nonchalantly, he began to try to get the cows to move again. "I wonder why she decided to come back? Surely she must know that the shikon no tama in this world will cause chaos and disturbance." He struggled a bit with the livestock now, and Sesshoumaru, who seemingly took pity on him, let out a breath.

"Idiot." He muttered before cracking his acidic whip at the cow's feet. The cows balked, frightened, and began to amble along at a faster pace than they had gone all day.

"Thank you, Lord Sesshoumaru." Miroku wasn't about to let the small act of kindness go unremarked upon. The last time that Sesshoumaru had been there, it had simply been to drop them off, and to tell them to tidy the place up a bit. Certainly, something had changed, and Miroku had no doubt that whatever magic Kagome had, whatever strange and wonderful abilities she possed before and had used to pull them all together and make their rag-tag group a family, she was using on him now.

Miroku wondered if Sesshoumaru even noticed, and even still, if he cared.

"She says that she isn't sure what is right anymore." Sesshoumaru admitted after long moments of silence, strolling along with his single clawed hand on the base of the cow's ears.

Cryptic. . . Miroku thought as he tried to make sense of it. "What's that supposed to mean?" The monk finally asked after not being able to unriddle Sesshoumaru's rendition of Kagome's words.

"You know what, monk?" Sesshoumaru turned back towards the manor to hide the smile that was creeping on to his face from his companion. "I haven't the slightest idea."  
Cryptic indeed.

* * *

Kagome watched with interest as Sesshoumaru idled about for the next few days, lending a hand where there was help to be had, pitching in in silence. She had no idea that he was willing to work with other people – it always seemed to her that he preferred to do things on his own. Maybe he does prefer it that way, she thought. Maybe he prefers it that way but is willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done.  
The days passed seamlessly and Sesshoumaru and Kagome reached an unspoken agreement that they would not approach each other. If she saw him coming in the hallway, she would turn and walk past him with out saying a word. And if he saw her in the garden's with Sango, tending to this or that, then he wouldn't approach her and give her the help that he was perfectly fine with giving everyone else. They avoided each other like the plague, which seemed fine to him so she pretended that it was fine with her too.

On the third day of his stay in his own castle, he left without even saying goodbye.

She watched him as he left, as the dawn faded in to the morning light and he became a distant silhouette back-lit only by the rising sun. She stood on the porch, arms crossed under one of the thick kimono that he had left for her and wondered what on Earth she was going to do now. Now that he had left her. Now that she failed. Now that there was nothing left to do but wonder where she went wrong and how she was going to fix this.

She supposed that her first mistake had been a terrible incorrect assumption; that he never actually had any intention of leaving her here. She had just thought that he had either spoken too soon (impossible, she knew. He never spoke without being absolutely sure of what he was saying). After that idea fell through, she had thought maybe that at some point over the last three days, he would have changed his mind and deemed her as a neccessity, even if only for his own sanity. She supposed that was a silly thought too, though. Of course he didn't need her. He didn't need her because he was strong – much stronger than she could ever be. He could kill a thousand and one soldiers with a crack of his whip or the pads of his paws, and then bring them back to life. Just like his father.

She wondered if his father would have been proud of him, for leaving everything that gave him pleasure behind to go off and fight for it.

She wondered if he wondered it too.

She didn't even necessarily think of herself as someone that he cared for, either, although she did have her hopes. She remembered the way that he had left Rin, whom she never had any doubt that he loved, standing in the village. She remembered the meek and quiet way that Rin had accepted it, because Rin trusted him, and Rin knew he would come back. He always came back.

Kagome wasn't sure though. Kagome didn't know if he loved her, not like the way she knew he loved Rin. Kagome had no promises, no lies, no pretty words to help her sleep at night. She had no idea if he was coming back for her and worse, she had no idea if, as he was walking away without leaving her even so much as a fare thee well, if he was thinking about her at all. She had no idea, because she wasn't Rin – it wasn't in her to sit idly by, to be put on a pedestal like a delicate porceilan doll. That's probably how he thought of her as, Kagome thought, and it made her angry. She wasn't delicate or fragile, no matter how much she might wish sometimes that she was. She was so inexplicably angry, in fact, that she nearly started to storm after him to give him a piece of her mind.

Until Sango's hand latched on her arm, holding her in to place.

"What?" Kagome barked, and angrily bite back her tears. She shouldn't be sad, she WON'T be sad. . . he didn't deserve it. . . why didn't he even say goodbye!

Sango, the dear, understood that Kagome wasn't angry with her, but that she needed to be angry at something otherwise what was the point of feeling this much? "I want to show you something." She whispered to her friend, as if she was afraid that Sesshoumaru, even with his distance, would hear her. She whispered it, because the best way to keep someone calm is to use hushed tones.

Sango lead Kagome around the circle-porch of the manor, past pillar after broken pillar, until the pillars, brown from dust and debris became the white pillars that Sango had spent so many painstaking hours cleaning, scrubbing away at the dirt until everything shone like it was new. Until weed choked grounds became dew-covered gardens, and a fountain pond that should have been empty but wasn't.

Kagome smiled as she watched the pale fish that she had so aptly related to Sesshoumaru circle in the early morning sun. "I told you he was just asleep." The smile, it seemed, could not be confined to her face. It seeped in to her voice, and she laughed; first a giggle, then and chuckle, then something so manic that it became tears.

She fell to her knees and let Sango rub her shoulders as she wept, until the tears stopped flowing. Her eyes still burned, but she wasn't crying – her wounds still hurt, but at least they weren't bleeding. "He. . ." she couldn't bring herself to say his name, and that hurt more than him leaving her. "He resurrected it, didn't he?"

Sango nodded and hugged her, pressing her nose to Kagome's neck. "He'll come back for you." She promised her, because she could see the doubt that clouded her eyes, the absolute loneliness that had seeped in a settled inside of her. She saw it, and recognized it, because she had seen it in herself when her brother died – twice.

He'll come back for me. . . Kagome repeated Sango's words to herself, trying to figure out why it seemed to blasphemous that she could so easily accept that as an answer.

Because I already came back for him.

"I have to go after him." Kagome whispered, the thought passing straight through her mind and out of her lips before she had the chance to think on it.

Sango back pedaled, as shocked by the absolution of the statement as Kagome was. "You. . . you can't be serious, right?" She asked, breathless. Obviously, she had thought that this would help to comfort Kagome, to help her see that it wouldn't be so bad here, because Sesshoumaru would take care of them and when he was done, he would come back and they could all live together. "He makes sure that we are safe, Kagome. That's why he left you here – so you can be safe."

Anger, the likes of which Kagome hadn't felt since she last battled Naraku, welled up inside of her and threatened to overflow. "But who's going to take care of him!" She demanded, standing up quickly and pointing in the direction that he had left. "Who's going to make sure that he's safe? You and Miroku, Rin and Jaken. . . you guys are so worried about doing what he thinks will keep you safe. I want to listen to him because I think he cares about me. But if I do, then who's going to be there to care about him!" She hadn't meant to admit that much to them, or to herself, but she felt a weight lifting off her shoulder.

Sango remained on the ground, looking hurt and confused. "Kagome, he doesn't need someone to help him. He'll be fine by himself. Just look at him! He's a powerful demon! He can take care of himself."

It was true. Sesshoumaru was strong – far stronger than any of them could ever hope to be. Strong enough to lead a revolution, and wise enough to hand the power over to someone else because quite frankly, he didn't want it. He didn't need it. Should someone challenge him, Sesshoumaru would come out unscathed. The only marks on his body were wounds from his brother, whom Kagome had no doubt Sesshoumaru never really wanted to fight in the first place. He was too clever to want a sword that he couldn't touch.

Sango was right. Sesshoumaru didn't need any of them.

It was why she had to be there.

"Just because someone can handle themselves doesn't mean they should have to." Kagome chastised, giving Sango her hand to help her up. "Just because someone doesn't need anyone to love them doesn't mean that no one should." Sango looked as shocked as Kagome felt, having uttered a word as powerful as love. But Kagome quickly collected herself and nodded, trying to give off the air of someone who knew what she was talking about even if she hadn't the slightest idea. "All the more reason, I say!"

Sango took her hand, but her head remained bowed. "Don't you want to stay with Miroku and I?" She asked meekly, in a voice that Kagome rarely ever heard pass her lips. "We missed you, Kagome. Why won't you stay?"

Kagome chewed her words over carefully. Even in her own time, as she wondered about what had happened to everyone, Sango and Miroku were always the first two that she thought about. Sango and Miroku had always been there for her, when Inuyasha couldn't be and Shippo was too young to understand. Sango and Miroku; whom she had always thought would fit together so perfectly if they ever gave the other the chance.

Sango and Miroku, who had yet to fail her.

Kagome didn't like feeling like the third wheel. "You and Miroku have each other, Sango." She hadn't meant to say the next part. "Who does he have?"

Sango was quiet, and finally lifted her gaze to meet Kagome's.

"I thought you might feel that way, Kagome-san." Miroku stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame. A bag, not yellow or to be carried on her back, but painfully overstuffed anyway, dangled from his fingers. "So I took the liberty of packing you some food items, some extra clothes – a dagger, for worst case scenarios."

Kagome looked between her two friends and smiled. "You guys don't mind if I. . . leave you, do you?"

Miroku shook his head. "We would, like Sesshoumaru, preferred if you stayed, of course." He gave her the bag anyways. "This isn't like the battle with Naraku, Kagome. Naraku was but one, and while he was dangerous, we were close. The anti imperalists army is strong – there are eyes everywhere. You must stay focused, you must stay strong. There will be enemies, but you must defeat them. Trust no one, because you don't know who is looking out for you and who is looking out for them.

"Stay off the main roads as much as possible. Not only do you have to worry about soldiers, but bandits as well. They will see someone pretty as you and they will make to harm you. Until you find Sesshoumaru, and until he lets you travel with him again, you are in danger. Even with him you are in danger."

Miroku reached in to the bag and pulled out the sheathed dagger that it hid. "This dagger is very sharp, and it will cut those who try to hurt you. Arrows run out of ammo, and with this your arms may run out of strength. Don't be afraid to use it, though, and do not take pity on those who would seek to harm you."

Kagome smiled tentatively and took the dagger from him. "When have I ever done that?" She asked, only to be met with the scowls of Sango and Miroku.

"I can't believe we're letting her do this," Sango murmured angrily, her hand finding it's way to her temple. "She is going to die out there."

"Easy Sango. He isn't too far ahead." Miroku's hand went to Sango's shoulder and rested there. Sango's tension rolled away a little bit, and Miroku returned his attention to Kagome.

"But he moves fast." Kagome reminded them, reminded herself. He moves very, VERY fast, faster still than when he travelled with her, and now he knows where he is going and she's just going to be trying to keep up. "And he doesn't need to sleep." He's not human. His stamina is much higher than hers – not only is she human, but she is female and out of practice. "And it will take me a while to catch up."

"Well, it would." Miroku conceded. "If I didn't happen to have one of your old bikes here."

Kagome looked up at her old friend, and they shared a moment that none of the others would ever understand. Their eyes caught, and mischievousness and plots danced between them, and for a minute, it was almost as if everything was back to the way they were before.

Sango crossed her arms and tapped her feet, and the moment was gone.

"It's hidden in a shed that I doubt Sesshoumaru even remembers exists." Miroku grinned. "And I may have done some. . . adjustments to it to fix the damage that Inuyasha caused."

Kagome laughed, because she recognized the same playful light in Miroku's eyes that Sesshoumaru had when he consistantly insisted what a 'small' plot of land he owned. She laughed until she thought that her sides would split and she had to hold them together. She laughed, and she meant it. And when she was finished laughing, she didn't cry.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

* * *

Kagome eyed the bike with more than just a little appreciation for the ex-monk's craftsmanship. "Nice. . ." She whispered in awe, half under her breath, and drew her hand along the shiny silver metal.  
He had stripped away the paint that had already began to chip and rubbed the metal clean, giving it a polished silver look that was rustic and nice. The wheels – the thick rubber kind, not the inflatible kind – were cleaned as well, and polished to boot. The handles had been straightened and the breaks looked fine; all in all, she wouldn't have recognized it from any of the bikes that Inuyasha had destroyed.  
"So. . ." Kagome asked, adjusting the seat down from Miroku's height to her own. "Where'd you find it?"

Miroku lifted a shoulder. "It was the one that he had destroyed in the village – Keade saved it because she had no idea what to do with it." Kagome nearly giggled – it sounded like something she would have done. Her heart hurt for a moment, and Kagome bit her lip. The first time around, whenever topics turned to Keade, they would all think of home – however far away it may be. Home and roofs and meals that they didn't have to hunt for.

And now Keade was dead.

"She wanted me to find a use for the parts, at first, but I figured I could make it work again and someday sell it, but it's been so useful over these past few years I never parted with it."

Sango shook her head. "The stubborn man got it in to his head that if he fixed it, it might actually be of some real use someday."

Miroku scowled at her, childishly, and Kagome nearly told them that they were bickering like siblings. Only even she didn't like the implications of that particular thought. Instead, she sought to sooth.

"It will be of some use, Sango." She swung the bag around her neck and grinned as she clambered awkwardly in the lovely kimono on to the bike. However she was going to properly pedal this thing without ruining the lovely dress was beyond her, but by God she would catch up with Sesshoumaru. "It will be of use to me."

It was her farewell. As she pedalled away, not bothering to look back at the twin hands that waved her off, she wondered absentmindly why no one ever said goodbye anymore.  
She decided it was because the people who didn't had every intention of coming back.

Sesshoumaru. . . she thought of the way he left her that morning, while he thought she still slept. She thought of the way that the sun had risen in front of him but he hadn't looked back. If he had, he would have seen her on the front porch, staring at him, waiting. She doubted that it would have made a difference, though.

She tossed her hair a little as she got to the top of the hill that he had climbed that morning and with a smile, she flew downhill.

* * *

She rode the day long, stopping only once before nightfall, when her body demanded nutrition. She had made her stop in a village, and had vaguely mentioned that there was a powerful demon lord passing through, either today or tomorrow, and a small child that happened to be near by unknowingly gave her the direction she needed to follow in her pursuit.

Inuyasha and Kouga always said what a pain it was to track someone down. . . yeah right! She thought, mildly amused by the whole thing. She had grinningly bought an apple with some gold that Miroku had slipped in to her bag.

She rode her bike hard the rest of the afternoon, certain with each curve of the beaten off-road that she was getting closer to him. She rode until she began to trip – continually, painfully – her tire catching on the thick roots of the forest floor.

Setting up camp was a lonely affair, and gathering sticks for a fire wasn't as important now that she was the only one that she had to keep warm. She shirked from the duty, gathering only enough for the first few hours and morning, and simply pulled out all of her lovely kimono and laid them, one on top of the other, near enough to the fire that Kagome could draw warmth from the embers but far enoug away that she didn't have to worry about the kimono catching fire.

Ten kimono in all – she buried herself beneath seven of them, and slept curled parallel to the fire, and fell asleep thinking of dog demons and what she was going to do when she saw him again.  
In her dreams, she kissed him.

In reality, she doubted it would go so well.

She awoke hours before she intended to to the sound of hushed tones debating nearby. At first, as she pushed her sleepy way through the mists of dreaming, she thought that it was the men of her old camp, Miroku, Inuyasha, Kouga. . . Sesshoumaru.

She thought it was the night before the final battle, when she and Sango pretended to rest for the sanity of the rest of the men - none of whom wanted the women to go in to battle unrested.  
At first she couldn't make out the tones - the were gruff and unfamiliar, but Inuyasha would never allow someone dangerous in to her camp. "Listen, we don't know where he is. . . if we just move to attack, we'll be vulnerable." Kagome smiled. That was most definitely Miroku. Only Miroku would think so far ahead, so logically. She was almost certain that Sesshoumaru did too, but he didn't speak his mind so freely as the extraverted monk.

"He was spotted in this area – if we just move out, and look like we're making an attack, he should come to us! We can trap him, and that girl that he travels with."

Girl? Kagome wondered, brows furrowing. Kagura or Kanna? Probably Kagura, she decided, because no one in the group would use Kikyo's name in vulgarity after her death, and they hadn't had enough time with the girl child-incarnation to really despise her like they did Kagura. Besides. . . there wasn't that much to hate about Kanna.

Heavy hands pounded on something heavier, and the resulting thump nearly gave her a start. But she was safe, safe and protected and watched by all of her friends.

"Sesshoumaru is becoming a real menace! If we don't kill him, then Ho-ori will have our heads!"

Kagome's head had snapped up at the sound of Sesshoumaru's name, and her attention was enraptured by Ho-ori.

God of. . . God of. . . She really wished that she had paid more attention in class. Slipping quietly from beneath the impromptu silk covers of the kimono, she took quiet steps, being sure to stay low to the ground. A

firelight was visible through the tree line, barely, and she was immensly grateful for her lazy attitude earlier. If there had been a fire to give off her presence, then surely she would be dead now, killed in her sleep.

"Ho-ori-sama. . ." She saw a gruff man, a stranger, grit his eyes and teeth. She thought for a moment that he might start crying, from the way that he shook so, but instead he began laughing maniacly. "Ho-ori-sama will pull us out of these dark ages once again!"

Ho-ori. . . The name did sound familiar, and she knew that it was a God. . . she just couldn't remember who.

"Hey, boss." A slightly smaller man flicked his knife along a bit of wood, whiddling and grinning. "That bastard Jimmu is supposed to be building an army, you know? Shouldn't we have someone report back to Lord Ho-ori, you know, to get instructions on what our next plan of attack should be, you know?"

The large, gruff man, obviously the boss that he was referring to, smiled warmly.

Just before he flung a knife in to his companion's throat.

Slapping a hand over her mouth to keep sound from escaping, Kagome fell back a little bit more in to the shadows, fearing in earnest now for her life. I should have listened to Sesshoumaru. . . she thought as she watched him walk over to his companion's body –which was too close to her hiding place for comfort – and pluck the knife from his neck, licking it clean.

Demon! She was her first intial thought. He had no markings, no pointed ears, no tell-tale signs, but he was evil. His aura washed over her and she nearly fainted – it was the same sick feeling she had ever gotten when she was near Naraku; and she was struck with the same urge to turn herself inside out and give herself a good scrubbing.

The Boss looked down on his men. "Anyone else want to question my plan of action?" There was a quiet mumbling through the camp, but the other men – twelve now, by her count – made no move to contradict him.

The Boss smirked. "Good. Because if you did," he kicked the man's body and it came toppling down to the little crevice that Kagome had found to hide herself in, nearly crushing her beneath it's weight.  
"I would have to send you to Lord Ho-ori in spirit."

Lord Ho-ori. . . the celestial Uncle of Jimmu.

* * *

Sesshoumaru had rested that first night out of habit. He had been so spoiled by the miko's presence that he continued to pamper her even when she wasn't there, meaning, of course, that the only person he was pampering was himself. He was a man driven by instincts and reason, which were constantly raging a battle within him, and he knew, logically, that it was best if he left Kagome behind no matter how you looked at it. She was safer there, she wasn't a distraction if she wasn't right next to him, and she could be happy there.

Logic, though, was naturally to be defied by his instincts.

Can't see her. .. can't see her. . . out of sight, out of mind wasn't something that his instincts understood. She wasn't right in front of him, wasn't by his side, and so he could only wait for the other shoe to drop.  
Only there was no shoe. He had tucked it away safely, too.

Of course she would still be a distraction, he thought as he tucked his arms beneath him. The infuriating child refused to stop lolligagging in his thoughts, which was as bad – worse, even – than if she was with him.  
Sometime near morning, he made his decision. "I will not go back for her." He steeled himself for the howling rage that he knew would come. It overtook him, and he grimaced but fought it. He refused to be ruled by his basic instincts when logically he was making the right choice.

He stood, paced. How dare she leave him in such a turmoil! His logic demanded. How dare you leave her somewhere where you have no gurantee of her safety? His instincts countered right back.

His thoughts played a game of tennis, leaving him with a headache and the innate desire to go and kill something.

He had wandered for a bit, and only pretended that he didn't notice that it was back the way he had came. I have to get to Lord Jimmu's ensettlement soon, he reminded himself, and nearly turned back.  
Until he heard quiet sobbing coming from just to his right.

Sesshoumaru didn't like to investigate female crying – in the past, it had only given him extra luggage that quiet frankly, he didn't need right now. If he had any desire for companionship, he wouldn't have left Kagome back at the manor. Still, his curiosity was something fierce and had to be sated.

The camp was empty – obviously having been abandoned a few hours prior, if the glow of the embers was anything to judge by. A score of humans, give or take, that smelled to very familiar. . .  
There was a crunch in the twigs, and a double-hitch of sobs.

Sesshoumaru approached quietly, cursing the dry leaves that crunched beneath his boots. Hand on the hilt of the Tokijiin, his kicked a small pile of leaves in to the bushes from wence the girl's crying was coming from.

Movement, lightening fast, left him floored by the smell of rotting flesh. He even had to take a quick step back to avoid the dagger that shot out of the bush like a snake, followed by a pale arm that had such a familiar looking wound.

Mildly annoyed, he reached down and lifted a body – and, to his horror, it wasn't breathing.

She had heard him approaching but didn't know who he was.

She had thought that they left hours ago, and finally succumbed to the soft sobbing that she had been denying herself. Pinned in the crevice by the dead body, she didn't dare try to move for at least a few hours, until she was absolutely certain that they were gone and could do her no harm.

When a stick broke, finally, her breathing hitched and she cursed herself, but drew the dagger that Miroku had given her. Be quick. . . she told herself. You will only get this one chance. . .

A small pile of leaves was kicked in to her face and she reacted, blindly stabbing upwards from where the leaves had come from.

His reaction had been quick, seamless, and the body atop her was hauled out of the ditch and she gasped in shock when she saw Sesshoumaru part the leaves and peer down at her.

"Under different circumstances I would ask you to explain to this Sesshoumaru why you are not where I left you." He informed her regally, staring down his nose at her.

Kagome paid his gruff attitude no mind, though. Smiling, crying, and reeking of death, she kicked out of the ditch and plastered herself against him, too tired and scared to worry about propriety. She clung to him, both hands fisted around his haori, and wept.

If she thought in technecalities, it was technically the first time that she had cried in to him. If you didn't count that she had done so once before, in the years that were to come. For her, the first time that she had cried on him hadn't happened yet; it had been on the floor of the storage room in the shrine, surrounded by trinkets both familiar and foreign. She had clung to his legs then, not his chest, and wept openly for the injustices that had befallen not only him, but her as well. Mostly her, as a matter of fact.

She wept for injustices once more, but this time not so selfishly, this time not so childishly. She wept for solider boys who just wanted to make their fathers proud and people who didn't deserve to die and that the people who did deserve to die and didn't.

And she wept only harder still because she could tell from the tension in Sesshoumaru's arm that was wrapped around her, holding her to him so that she couldn't escape even if she wanted to, oh God, she never ever wanted to. . . that he was about to send her away again.

"You were to stay with the monk and the slayer." Sesshoumaru told her, as though she was a child and unaware of why she was going to be punished. As though he was the parent who was disappointed, and this is going to hurt you a lot more than it is going to hurt me.

She smirked as she remembered the pleasing tone in her mother's voice – it was the same, she realized, as the tone that he had now. It amused her only a little more than it disturbed her, so she supposed it was alright that she found a sick humor in it.

She could have told him that she knew, that there was no doubt in her mind that he had wanted to send her away. She could have told him that it wasn't his decision, and that she'd be damned if he thought that she would sit idly by while he took all the glory. Instead, she smiled up at him through red puffy eyes.

"They aren't a monk or a slayer anymore."

This answer only seemed to enrage Sesshoumaru, for his eyes narrowed to slits and he bared his teeth a bit. "Are you not still a miko?" He asked her, giving her a little jostle. "Am I not still a demon?"

"Are we not still fighting?" She answered his question with another.

He seemed to accept this answer, and accept her, and he let her go. Walking stiffly, he didn't invite her to join him, but since he didn't send her away, she toddled along briskly at his side.

* * *

Pale hair was plastered to alabaster skin, it's banding long since shed. Sweat was promeniate, and blood that was not his own. He didn't pant as he lowered his sword, didn't slump, but let out one, long breath, satisfied with a job well done.

A woman and child, both innocent, lay in crumbled heaps at his feet. Every limb had been shed, slowly, accurately, so that they would live through the blood loss. Drugs, made by his personal pharmacists, had insured that they had been conscious enough to feel everything without being so accutely aware of their senses that they would faint.

He turned his silver blade, sharp and thin, on the man who stood tethered to a pole, eyes dilated with fear, fixated on his wife and child.

"Lord Ho-ori doesn't take fondly to traitors, Ikaku." A twist of his sword and it sang. "I will cut your gag, but only if you give me the names." Eyes softened and became something friendly and fake. "I didn't want to kill you wife and daughter, Ikaku!" He grinned at him, manically. "You're like a brother to me, and it pains me to say, but I have no limbs left to sever but yours. If I don't get a name, then I shall be forced to begin cutting off yours." The blade went to the gag. "Just keep that in mind."

Sharp and precise, the blade cute through the soft clothe and Ikaku gasped for breath. "Tekikaku-san. . ." Ikaku whispered hoarsely. "Has Akuhei's power grown so much. . . so much that you would do this to your brother? Your sister in law? Your niece?"

Tekikaku's eyes softened, and he gave his uninjured brother a soft, apologetic smile. Normally, he would have corrected him on the name – it was Lord Akuhei, or Boss. Never so informal as simply Akuhei. But since it was his brother, he supposed that he would let the insult slide. "A name, please?"

Ikaku spit on Tekikaku's robes, the foamy white of it standing out against the black. "I have nothing left to lose."

Tekikaku gave his blade a tenative lick. "Oh, but brother, I'm afraid you do a quite a few things to lose. Quite a few." He drew the blade across his sleeve, watching his own reflection with only mildly interest in his appearance. "I believe that we shall start with a leg, and then go from there, yes?"

* * *

They stopped only once, for Kagome's sake, at the edge of a river where she could catch herself some lunch and he could speculate more on the scene that he had found her at. She had spent the night, perhaps longer, hidden beneath a corpse. Why? It wasn't in him to ask her, and the last thing that he wanted on his hands was a weepy woman, so he wasn't going to be the one who brought it up. He could tell, though, from the shifting of her eyes beneath the play of her hair that she had something that she wanted to ask, too.

Knowing that his ability to hold his tongue was far more adept then her own, he decided that he could wait for her to speak.  
It didn't take long. As she was rummaging, trying (and failing) to catch a fish, her kimono tied with twine about her knees, she slowed and turned to him, chewing delicately on her lower lip. "Lord Sesshoumaru . . ."

The formality in her tone caught him off guard and he stared, blatantly, in mock awe.

"Do you know the name of a Lord Ho-ori?"

The name shot through his mind and sent shivers racing along his skin. Every instinct in him demanded him to take up arms and defend himself, and he cursed the power that the simple name had over him. He had obviously waited a moment too long, because Kagome's brows furrowed together in confusion and he forced himself to give her an answer, any answer, so long as she stopped questioning.

"He is Jimmu's uncle." Sesshoumaru gave the information willingly, and even elaborated, as so she would not make efforts to pry more information out of him. "He goes by many names; Ho-ori is just one of them. Hikohohodemi no Mikoto, Hohodemi, Yamasachihiko. . . the prince of the mountain of fortune." Sesshoumaru sneered, and Kagome bite the inside of her cheek in fear. She had never seen Sesshoumaru like this, and even the air that hovered between them was charged and shivering. His anger was something physical, and it frightened her more than the Prince of the Mountain of Fortune. Trembling, she drew her shoulders inwards and made efforts to make herself smaller – body language, she knew, for forgive me, please, stop.

Sesshoumaru was well versed in the ways of body language, and nodded.

She didn't catch a fish that day. Something about the water. . . something about Ho-ori. . . something that she should have remembered but couldn't made her sick of the feeling – more sick, perhaps, than when she had been crushed beneath the soldier's body.

She had scarcely clambered out of the river before Sesshoumaru had prepared his assault of questions. "Why did you ask after him?" he demanded, standing to his full height.  
He towered a good few feet over Kagome and, in worry, she trembled and sat at the base of a tree, her legs stretched out in the sun to dry off. "At the camp, where you found me; The leader spoke of a man named

Ho-Ori as though he was the leader, and he also said. . ." she paused here as she remembered the loathing that dripped from his voice as the leader demanded Sesshoumaru's head.

A rage burned inside him; no one should have the power to make him feel this helpless, he knew; but the God's always did have powers like no other. "If Ho-ori is in fact the leader, then I am. . . grateful that you didn't stay at the manor." He stumbled over the word grateful; actually, the entire sentence seemed a bit forced. "Ho-ori is a powerful God; he will not hesitate to kill you, especially since you are a miko."

Kagome looked a bit confused. "Why would he not hesitate to kill me because I am a miko? Aren't God's supposed to favor mikos?"

Sesshoumaru sneered. "Not this God. This God favors. . . mermaids." He spit the word out, as though it was poisoned and couldn't stay long on his tongue.

Her dead pan stare told him exactly what she thought of that. "Mermaids?" She repeated. The image that was immediately brought to mind was that red-headed twit, bellowing from atop a rock in the ocean in a skimpy shell-outfit.

"Don't be so quick, girl." Sesshoumaru barked. "Whatever you are thinking of, I'm certain you are wrong; Mermaids are sirens, vicious and deadly, and they sing to attract men to their graves. Mermen, even, use their song to lure in women before they take them in the ocean itself, letting the water muffle their cries." Kagome didn't quite understand the magnitude of his statement, so Sesshoumaru clarified. "Rape."

Her eyes widened and Sesshoumaru nearly sighed. The girl needed practice reading between the lines.

While she stood there, eyes wide and mouth ajar, he decided that she didn't know what she was up against, that she couldn't possibly understand, and it scared him. Ho-ori's part with miko's had been a violent one; that he knew of, none had survived. He took them, and did things so terrible that the soul continued to weep long after the body was gone.

And the body was always gone.

"Rape is the least of your worries with Ho-ori." Sesshoumaru hissed. "He would take away every one of your limbs, one at a time, at the joints. He will stop the bleeding and leave the pain, he will make you tell him secrets. He would have you kill every one you love. He would take you, as punishment, and then, once he ran out of ideas of what to do to you, he would leave you alone to your pain and let you starve to death, or suffocate, or drown. If he really hates you – and don't think that he wont, he would very much loath you – then he would pass you on; to his commander, his general, his wife."

The way he said 'wife' worried her, and even though she had no desire to learn any more about this terrible man, she found herself asking anyways. "His wife?"

"A mermaid; the daughter of Triton." His face was set in a sneer and she was almost positive that it couldn't wear off of his face. "Perhaps more sadistic than he is."

"Why? What would she do that could be so much worse than all that?" She found herself enraptured, as though they were sitting around a camp fire telling ghost tales.

"She doesn't get bored."

Kagome paled and looked down; Sesshoumaru's stare was powerful, and she wondered what he was thinking about. Her safety, although he would never say; the thought of what Ho-ori would do to her if he caught her shook him down to the core. She was precious, this miko-girl; and though he would tell everyone otherwise, he didn't want to see her go. He certainly didn't want to see her go that way.

"Shouldn't you be more frightened?" Kagome asked, even though Sesshoumaru was thinking of asking her the same thing. A puff of air escaping him as he snorted in amusement.

"They were after you." For some reason, this shook her. She knew her purpose, and certainly a God could have the power to turn Sesshoumaru to stone. She should have been happy that she was that much closer to preventing it, that much closer to being able to return home, but she found that she couldn't muster up even a little bit of happiness – it seemed her emotions had been maxed out, on worry.

"You worry over me." Sesshoumaru guessed, poising the question as a statement because he already knew the answer.

Kagome gave him a light nod, yes, and he nearly smiled. Nearly, but not quite.

"You waste your worries, girl." The foolish girl was going to spend all of her worries on him, and then she wouldn't have any left over for herself.

If she wasn't going to worry for herself, then he supposed that he would have to.

Her lips trembled from barely repressed tears, and the words that she wanted to say but wouldn't were stuck in her throat, choking her. She was scared; but she was scared for him, which defeated the purpose. Which made him want to keep her alive and safe all the more.

He was going to kiss her. He didn't particularly know the why of it; all he knew was that she looked so regal there, in the kimono that had once been worn by great ladies of the western lands, so regal and so perfectly mussed, her hair in tangles and her lips in an eternal pout. Worry was in her eyes, around her eyes, creasing them so delicately that he wasgoing to kiss them, propreity be damned.

His intent must have shown in his eyes, because as he strode to her, and knelt on bended knee, her eyes widened a fraction and the blood pinkened her cheeks. He used his only hand to brush back her hair, and barely managed to keep his claws from getting tangled as he tucked a stray lock behind her ear. "You should have stayed with the monk and the slayer." Worry wasn't a pleasant feeling; he didn't care at all for the fact that the miko seemed to be making him feel more than he thought someone could. Any second, now, he was certain that the force of trying to hold it all in, of trying to not tie her up and put her some place safe, some place that she couldn't get away from, was getting too much to bear. Trying not to pull her even closer and take more than either of them were ready for. . .

Breathless, close, Kagome leaned in. "They aren't a monk and a slayer anymore." She reiterated, a breath away from his lips. "And I won't leave you. I'm not scared. I've been to battle before; I won't break."

Sesshoumaru shook his head and, his lips against hers, he smiled where she couldn't see it. "I'll break you." He promised before he captured her lips, working out all of his frustrations on her. Ho-ori, meaning to attack – it meant the war was almost done; Ho-ori was the leader and if only he could come out of hiding, Sesshoumaru could cut him down and the senseless fighting would end. Jimmu could take over the country and Sesshoumaru would be free to. . .

The girl beneath him arched, and not for the first time, he missed his second arm. Oh, the havoc he could wreak on her senses if he had both. There were things he knew how to do, things that would leave her burning and aching for his touch, even long after he had sated them both. Things that he had no excuse for doing save his own personal want, because for some unexplainable reason, he found that he needed her, even though really, she wasn't going to be able to survive without him.

It didn't escape his attention that he was walking the same dangerous path that his father had chosen to take, because there was no way to bind her to him – she would die, she would leave him, and he would be left wanting, yearning, for someone who couldn't come back.

Her lips pressed hard, bruising him, and he found that he didn't particularly care.

A cry, a whimper, soft and distant, reminded him that they were at war and despite whatever she may think, she had only ever battled demons – not God's with vendettas. The sooner the war was over, the sooner he didn't have to overtly worry about his decisions.

The sooner, he recognized subconsciously, that the miko would return home.

She must have been there for the war – there was no other explanation! Do what was right. . . even he didn't understand that. What could she possibly seek to do other than bring about a new empire? Surely that must be her reasoning for being here! She must have known something that he didn't and had come to set history back on track. . . it all made sense now to Sesshoumaru!

For some reason, the new-found knowledge of her purpose there saddened him; it gave him a deadline of how much time he had with her, and he knew that he couldn't be like his brother. He couldn't let himself forget that the girl wasn't a permenant thing, even for a human. He couldn't let himself forget that she would have to go somewhere that he could never reach her, and she would have to go alone. Gods, demons, humans – all real threats; they were things that he couldn't protect her from there, things that no one could, because she was all by herself in the future, alone with no guardian. It was appalling to know how little she worried for herself here, in a warring state, and he knew that in the future, no matter how much she said it was different, that there was no more wars in Japan and hadn't been in almost a century, he knew that she was still a lovely girl and that there would be men who would seek to take that away from her. It was in their nature, in their genes, and no matter how much chastising he did, even he wanted to take more than she would offer him.

Had she ever even offered him a kiss?

The thought was vicious, and it set him back on is heels. He pulled away from her, leaving them both wanting. Her lips were swollen and bruised – had he really done that – and her eyes were heavy lidded and soft. She wetted her lips again, the eternal invitation for take me, I'm yours.

Sesshoumaru forced himself to stand, before he did something stupid, like take her up on her offer. Before she had time to gather her bearings, he was already walking. "Let us continue our journey."  
Her muffled, under-breath mutterings did not go unnoticed. Neither, however, did the blush on her cheeks that simply refused to fade away. . .

* * *

By nightfall, Tekikaku caught up with the rest of the soldiers. While most would tremble in fear of their leader, who was second only to Lord Ho-ori, Tekikaku only had to grin merrily to be back in Lord Akuhei's good graces.

Tekikaku raced along side the soldiers who trotted along like cattle behind Lord Akuhei's horse, a skip in his step and blood on his hands. "Lord Aku-hei!" He called out, sing-song, and skip-stepped when he reached the horse's flanks. "The traitor refused to speak the names of the other men who are rallying against Lord Ho-ori; do not fret, though, he is dead now."  
Akuhei's eyes narrowed to slits on Tekikaku – his favorite warrior, by far, with that frighteningly merry smile that refused to leave his face. "You did everything possible to make him talk before you killed him, I presume?"

"You assume correctly, my Lord." The pale man's expression didn't faulter as he began to explain, in horrific detail, every attrocity that he had bestowed upon Ikaku. The limbs he had shed, the blood that had been spilled; how long before he began to scream for death and how finally, after he grew weary of he howls and cutting out his tongue didn't seem to do the trick, he had finally slit his throat in an attempt – successful – to silence him.

Akuhei couldn't help but feel his own mood lighten as Tekikaku wove him tales of the torture, beginning of course with the wife. Rape had come first, a warning to Ikaku, before Tekikaku had began to remove limbs. He hadn't bothered to gag the child; her screams had been the night's song, and Ikaku had only been able to sit and watch.

"You're a terrible man. . ." Akuhei gave him a pat on the shoulder, obviously pleased with him.

Tekikaku raised a single eyebrow. "I haven't told you about the child yet."

As though it had only just occurred to him, Akuhei cocked his head and frowned. "Was Ikaku not your brother?" He asked, unsure of the answer himself.

"He was." Tekikaku acknowledged.

"Very good, then."

The procession continued in silence, small but deadly. With Tekikaku added to their ranks, Akuhei had no doubt that their next battle with Jimmu's army would no doubt end in their favor.

"Boss?" Some one questioned from behind him.

"Yes, what is it?" Akuhei asked, his tone tempered and his manner fair.

"When will we see battle? The soldiers are growing weary of this endless marching."

"Soon." Akuhei promised, and clipped the horse with the reins. "Very soon now."


	17. Interlude: The Legend of Hoori

**Interlude : The Legend of Ho-ori**

"It was a fish hook." Ho-ori was a God, and as God's weren't ruled by time, there was no scale to judge his age by. He was young, though, young enough to still be known as the third son of Ninigi no Mikoto and the Blossom Princess Konohanasakuya. He name had not circulated through the mortal realm, like his older brother, Hoderi.

Hoderi rubbed his temple and closed his eyes – if his youngest brother failed to see that it was his fault, and refused to feel any remorse, then there wasn't much that could be done. Still. . . "It was a special fish hook, Otoho-ori. It had the power to feed the hungry, and you gave it back to the sea."

The fish hook in question was indeed a special one; forged by the Ryujin, the God of the sea, himself. It's hook was never empty – no matter the body of water, if you put it in to it, the hook would pull out with a fish.

And now it was gone.

In a fit of anger, the brothers began to fight. With their great power, neither noticed that they were quacking the ocean itself. Hosuseri, the eldest of the three brothers, and by far the wisest, came down from

heaven to stop their quarling. He demanded to know what had happened, and, to their shame, the two younger brothers found themselves confessing.

Hosuseri was indeed wise, and he came up with a solution. Lightening-fast, he grabbed Ho-ori's hunting knife from it's sheath and tucked it in to his own pocket.

"What are you doing?" Ho-ori screamed, making a mad grab for his knife. "Give that back!"

"Give me back my hook!" Hoderi demanded.

"Quiet, both of you." Hosuseri's voice held magic, and, enraptured, the brothers were forced to comply. "I have taken Otoho-ori's hunting knife, to be returned to him when he returns your fishing hook."

"But the hook fell in to the ocean!" Ho-ori cried. "You know I can't swim!"

But Hosuseri had already made his decision; Ho-ori was to retrieve the hook or else never see his beloved hunting knife, which had the power to cut whatever it hit, again.

Grumbling, Ho-ori made his way down to the beach, mindful to step over the debris that he and his brother had created in their arguments. At the place where the sand met the waves, though, he stopped, angry. He had never learned how to swim, and while he was a God, he could still be killed. And as a Fire-fade, the water was a major weakness for him . . .

There was a humming, and he felt his feet drag along the wet sand. Horrified for a moment, Ho-ori stumbled, breaking the mermaid's spell long enough for him to catch sight of her, dancing among the waves. Her eyes, which would have been beautiful, were sadistic – they shone like glass and stared right through him. Entranced and, ever the hunter, Ho-ori grabbed at the kelp in the water and wove a net with the precision and speed of a hunting God. By the time her song-spell caught hold of him again, the net was finished.

He held his breath for a long time, only vaguely conscious of why he should hold his breath as he floated along the ocean ream. A glint of silver caught his eye, and he saw that the fish hook, which would always catch a fish, was caught in the mermaid's tail. The hook reminded him of why he was there and helped to keep the mermaid's song from making him try to breath.

After a while, it became obvious that he couldn't swim, and the mermaid dared to get closer and closer to him. Her eyes, which from a distance he had thought were like glass marbles, were actually quite bright, if not sad. Bravely, she brandished her tail, showing of the fish hook. There was a plea in her eyes, and Ho-ori used her trust to get her to come closer. . . closer. . . with the promise in his eyes that he would remove it for her.

As soon as she was within reach, Ho-ori let loose his net of kelp. The mermaid, frantic, tried desperately to ripe through the bindings of the net, but alas! The hook in her fin had caught on to the kelp and she remained there, stuck.

Using the mermaid's own strugglings as power, Ho-ori held the net just so, so that she pushed them along through the ocean bream. Her struggling, when properly ruttered, got them all the way to shore.  
Ho-ori, using both hands, hauled the mermaid out of the sea.

"Please!" The mermaid cried, ripping at the kelp. "Please let me go! My name is Toyotamabime, and I am the daughter of Ryujin, and I'm sure that he would reward you handsomely for returning me to him."  
Ho-ori, who had never much seen the purpose of women in the first place, found himself utterly enchanted by the curve of her hips and the swell of her breasts. "Quiet, woman." He commanded.

He watched, bewitched, as the sun dried out her scales and scales became legs.

And then, despite her tears and cries and screams, he took her on the beach.

When Ho-ori returned to heaven, the hook still caught in Toyotamabime's leg. He dragged her up to heaven with him and presented her to Hosuseri.

"This mermaid has the hook caught in her leg," he explained. Toyotamabime couldn't speak, for Ho-ori, having grown weary of hearing her cries to return home- her oh god, please, don't! – had gaged her. Hosuseri, being the wise brother that he was, knew that in a fight, Ho-ori would win, and sought to destroy him with other methods.

"Well, Otoho-ori, if you were to bring her to Ryujin, I'm sure that he would grant you his kingdom in return for the mermaid." He said, knowing fully well that no matter how long Ho-ori could hold his breath, he would never be able to get to the under sea kingdom with out assitance; the sort of assitance that he was sure Toyotamabime would never offer. Ho-ori would drown, and Toyotamabime could return home and Hoderi, who was a God of the Sea anyways, could descend and find his hook on his own. As payment, Hosuseri would even give Hoderi Ho-ori's hunting ear for being so patient.

Ho-ori, though, was growing older and wiser, and saw past his older brother's tricks. Perhaps it was because he was such a paranoid person that he thought his brother would betray him; nonetheless, though, he pretended that he agreed with him.

In secret, Ho-ori went to visit Hoderi, taking Toyotamabime with him. He told him of how he had found Toyotamabime on the beach, and of how soft the folds of the mermaid was, and he told his brother that he, too, may have a try if he were to lend Ho-ori the Two-Tide Jewels, which had the power to control the ebb and the flow of the ocean. They, too, had been forged by Ryujin and had been gifts to their great-grandmother,

Amaterasu, whom Ryujin had loved. Unable to resist the mermaid, he accepted and removed the gag.

Toyotamabime's screams echoed through the hallways and down to Earth, where the fish heard her crying and ran ahead to warn Ryujin.

By this time, though, Ho-ori had already left, leaving Toyotamabime to be Hoderi's slave while he was gone. At the place where he had first met Toyotamabime, where the sand met the surf, he used the Two-Tide Jewels to drain the ocean.

The walk to the Palace of Ryujin was an easy one, and he tramped through the corpses of the fish. Ryujin, along with the other mermaids, though, had the same magic power as Toyotamabime to have their fins turn in to legs. They were ready for battle when Ho-ori got there, weaponless.

"Your youngest daughter, Toyotamabime, is in heaven, guarded by my Older brother Hoderi. We will kill her if you do not give us half of your kingdom and allow her to remain on land if she so choses." Ho-ori had not yet grown tired of Toyotamabime, and was not by any means ready to give her back yet.

Ryujin, having heard the fish talk of her screams, agreed, certain that his daughter would want to return home.

But Ho-ori was sneaky, and had already instructed Hoderi to feed Toyotamabime Dragon cakes, which, while irresistible to scent, was highly potent and known for causing deleria. When Ho-ori went back to heavn to retrieve Toyotamabime, he convinced her that she had been dreaming, and was actually in her undersea kingdom, and that he was her father, coming to take her to heaven to be Ho-ori's bride.

Confused as to where she was and where she was going, she kicked and screamed all the way to her palace, which Ho-ori had yet to restore.

Saddened by his daughter's pleas to not return, he let Ho-ori have her. A wedding ceremony was performed, binding the contract and giving Ho-ori and Hoderi half of the undersea kingdom. It wasn't until after the ceremony, when the Dragon cake had begun to wear off, that Toyotamabime realized where she was and explained to her father that Ho-ori was a monster, brutally raping her and giving her away to other people as he pleased.

But it was too late – the contract was forged and if Ryujin were to retract his end of the bargain, then war would break out among the Gods and kill all life on Earth.

Saddened, but understanding, Toyotamabime returned to heaven with Ho-ori. Once they were at heaven's gates, Ho-ori threw the Two-tide jewels back in to the sea, returning the water but not the lives of the fish that had been killed.

Ho-ori's trickery was not done yet. He didn't want to share Toyotamabime or half of the undersea kingdom with Hoderi; instead, he hatched a plan to kill his older brother.

So happy was Hoderi when Ho-ori and Toyotamabime returned home safely, that he allowed his brother to keep the fish hook, so that Toyotamabime would be unable to run away from them. The bargain made, Hosuseri had no choice but to return to Ho-ori his magic Hunting Knife that could cut anything that it hit.

Toyotamabime was shared equally between the two brothers for a while, and Hoderi had grown comfortable in Ho-ori's presence.

One day, though, while Ho-ori was at Toyotamabime's front and Hoderi at her back, he swung his knife up over her head and brought it down on Hoderi's. Head severed, Toyotamabime and her half of the kingdom belonged solely to Ho-ori.

Angered that Ho-ori had killed Hoderi, Hosuseri banished his brother and his wife to Earth, where he would rule as Lord in Takachiho, Hyuga Province for the next five hundred and sixty years.

Before she had left, though, Toyotamabime confided in Hosuseri that she had become pregnant, and would soon be heavy with child. She was frightened for her child, unsure of how Ho-ori would treat it, and she pleaded with Hosuseri, who was by far the gentlest of the brothers and her secret lover to take the baby from her the moment it was born and raise it as his own.

"Never let the child know who his real father is." She pleaded as she said farewell to her lover. "Never speak the monster's name in front of him."

Hosuseri, who had fallen in love with Toyotamabime, quickly agreed.

Ho-ori had looked forward to the child, though; he had decided that he would trait the son to Ryujin for the second half of the undersea kingdom.

Fearing for her father and her son alike, Toyotamabime counted the days until the birth and tried to think of an excuse to get Ho-ori to leave her long enough for Hosuseri to sneak in a steal the child. She begged him not to peak, lieing and saying that this was not her true form; she was truly a monster and in the throes of child labor, her carefully maintained spell would break and her true form would be revealed. Hosuseri, who had been eaves dropping, heard this and went directly to Ryujin to tell him of the plan.

"Your daughter, Princess Toyotamabime, is to have a child," he informed Ryujin. "Ho-ori will try to trade him, your grandson for the second half of the sea, if I can not steal the child. Toyotamabime lies, and says that she will turn in to a monster in child birth, and is trying to convince Ho-ori to not look on. Ho-ori doesn't believe her, though, and if he will not leave, then I can not steal the child away from him. Won't you help me, Sea Lord? Won't you help me save your grandson?"

Ryujin, who had been in love with Amaterasu, saw the same kindness in Hosuseri's eyes that had once been in Amaterasu's, and agreed to help him. He gave him the Two-tide jewels and told him to call up the sea while she was in child birth; unable to reach it, Toyotamabime would in fact become a monster that would sicken Ho-ori. "If you truly love Toyotamabime, you will not be disgusted by her form. She is the same, and once she has given birth to the child and can return to water, you must stop calling the sea. She will return to her human form, and you will have the time to take the child. Tell Toyotamabime to tell Ho-ori that she ate the baby in her monster form; he will believe her, for how horrible her visage will become."

Grateful, Hosuseri took the Two-tide jewels and waited for Toyotamabime to go in to labor.

He didn't have to wait long; within days, Toyotamabime began to give birth to a child. Ho-ori, certain that Toyotamabime was lying about turning in to a monster, watched smugly on. Hosuseri arrived and called the sea, as Ryujin instructed, and indeed, Toyotamabime did in fact turn in to a sea monster! Her face and body was that of a crocodile, with the density of a jelly fish and the texture of a sea cucumber. So horrifying was she to look upon that Ho-ori left, and Hosuseri was able to sneak in and take the child.

"Tell Ho-ori that you ate him." Hosuseri told the monster, although he wasn't sure that Toyotamabime was even in there to understand.

Hosuseri made his escape, back to heaven, and never heard from Toyotamabime again. In his rage, Ho-ori locked her up in a tower where she could see the ocean but could never reach it.

Hosuseri, at Ryujin's request, named the boy-child Ugaya-Hukiaezu, after two great heroes in Mermaid folklore. Prophets from under sea foretold that Ugaya-Hukiaezu would one day unwittingly marry his aunt Tamayori, who had yet to be born, and father Jimmu, who would one day unify Japan and bring about the end of Ho-ori's reign on Earth.

Ryujin had at first tried to keep the prophecies a secret, but it only fueled wagging tongues. In a few short years, Ho-ori had learned of his wife's betrayal and moved her from her tower to the sea, where he chained her to a rock with magic chains that were unbreakable. At high tide, the ocean just barely touched her feet, and not even long enough to turn her legs back in to fins.

Ryujin looked for the child, Ugaya-Hukiaezu, but was unable to locate him any where on Earth. Prophets, near and far, would not betray Hosuseri, who was a kind God, and simply said that Ugaya-Hukiaezu had already gone to heaven; was not in this world. Tamayori, who had already been born at this time, was sent to live with Hosuseri, who raised the two children, never telling them of the prophecies or of Ugaya-Hukiaezu's real father, Ho-ori.

They married and, for the longest while, it seemed the Ugaya-Hukiaezu and Tamayori would be unable to have any children. The sea and the Earth wept, and Ho-ori heard rumors of Ugaya-Hukiaezu's impotency, and rested, sure that Jimmu would never be born, and therefore the prophecy could never be fulfilled.

However, Hosuseri slipped them special herbs that increased their potency, and in no time at all, the hallways of the palace in heaven were filled with the cries of a little baby boy.  
Ugaya-Hukiaezu and Tamayori, who had never been to Earth anyway and therefor had no one to tell of the child, rejoiced, and there were good harvests on Earth for the decades to come.

Five hundred and sixty years, the Ryujin's Prophets had predicted; and by the fifth hundredth year, Hosuseri told Jimmu, though not his parents, of his destiny. To go to Earth, to kill his Ho-ori, whom Hosuseri told him was his Great-Uncle, and restore peace to the Earth and the sea by unifying Japan under his rule.

Jimmu gathered followers, including the Inu no Taisho of the Western lands and then his son; the thunder clan and the Wolves in the mountains. The Panthers and the humans, too, agreed to help aid him in his cause.

Naraku had been a problem, supplying Ho-ori with plans for battle and allies, though a human girl and her traveling party had taken care of him neatly.

Jimmu awoke, stirred by the lights of the morning. The battle, the prophets said, would be fought soon and the outcome was uncertain. It was wavering, pulsing; one moment, there was light, the next, there was nothing. But through it all, a single, shining pink orb shone clearly; the much coveted Shikon no tama, they presumed. It was carried by the girl-child, he knew, and she was traveling with the Inu no Taisho's son, Sesshoumaru. Allies, he knew, which was magnificent for him.

He would really have to meet her soon. . .


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

* * *

Fists pounded on the shoji screen, and Jimmu could almost see the delicate paper wrinkle and break beneath the abuse. Curious, he thought, I thought that I specified that I wasn't to be bothered in here. . . No matter, though. His men were kind, and would not seek to draw him out of his self induced seclution if it was not a matter of the gravest importance. Or if his favorite bard had returned to town, but that was a different story entirely.

"Yes?" He beckoned. "Do come in."

The intruder was not one that he recognized immediately; a hired guard that he had yet to be formally introduced to. "Lord Jimmu; you asked us to notify you with word of the miko."

Jimmu nodded, smiling. He had been looking for her, keeping an eye out to see if he could get to meet the girl who, with little to no battle experience, still managed to be Sesshoumaru's only ally, his only companion. "Yes, yes; of course. What news do you have of her?"

"The girl and her traveling party were caught in a battle near where Akuhei was last spotted."

Akuhei. . . Ho-ori's second in command, his uncle's personal guard dog.

"And the battle? Was it against Akuhei?" Jimmu worried; if Akuhei had gotten to the first, then there was the chance that there wasn't much left of either of them to get himself acquainted with.

"No; anti imperialist foot soldiers. Probably out scouting for signs of you."

And they found them. Jimmu's brows drew together and he wondered what would become of the two if word got around to Ho-ori of their area. No matter; he would simply have to find them first.

"Prepare a traveling bag for me." Jimmu commanded, standing to see out the window to judge the time of day. "I will leave when the sun is no longer overhead."

"Shall I have a horse prepared as well, my lord?"

Jimmu stifled the urge to laugh. "I'm a God, boy; surely you don't believe traveling by steed is the most economical way for me to get around?"

* * *

White hair bounced along in time with his steady one-two-one step, and Kagome found herself hypnotized by the swaying in the motion. She was trying to understand it, trying to get it, but every idea she had about him and why he behaved the way he did she immediately crushed. He kissed her, he sent her away; he kissed her again, and then he ignored her. She wondered if Rin ever felt like this, like she was on an emotional teeter-totter with him, and she decided that the answer was probably no. Somehow, she doubted that Sesshoumaru had ever had romantic feelings for the child.

But then what about me? She couldn't be sure if Sesshoumaru had romantic interest in her; he was quiet, and when he wasn't being quite he was usually being sarcastic. He kept her on an emotional chain, usually a hair breadth away from the answers she sought and always in turmoil.

"You're staring." He said it as though he was shocked, and she narrowed her eyes. "What troubles you so?"

She almost snapped at him, almost demanded what he cared about it. After all, he shouldn't have aske unless he actually cared to know, but then she remembered something. . .

This was Sesshoumaru, not Inuyasha. Sesshoumaru, while not entirely silent, never wasted words. Sesshoumaru who didn't know what the word rhetorical meant, let alone how to form a question out of it.

He wasn't going to ask her twice, and he had already shifted his gaze off of her and back to the path. "You're actually quite snarky." She blurted out before she bothered to think about the repercussions of calling Sesshoumaru such. She giggled lightly behind one hand when she noticed the stiffening of Sesshoumaru's back.

"Snarky?" From his tone, she could tell that he had no idea what the term meant. Obviously, five hundred years was enough time for someone to become lost in translation; sometimes people here used phrases that she couldn't even begin to comprehend, so she would just smile and nod like she knew what they were talking about.

She tried to think of an appropriate synonym that he could understand. "You're very. . . sarcastic." Kagome decided on, and he stopped to look at her, raising a single eyebrow.

"Am I? I wasn't aware." Her eyes narrowed. How did he manage to say that without even having a smile in his voice? None the less. . .

"I didn't necessarily mean it like that." She said, and punched him playfully in the shoulder. He stared at her, shocked for lack of a better word, but she didn't notice. "You're. . . saucy. You use biting words to try and get your enemies to get angry. You don't necessarily use sarcasm on them, but you mock them and ridicule them to the point that they are too angry to think straight."

"You are being foolish. I have never done anything of the sort." There was a sneer set upon his lips, and Kagome laughed.

"You're doing it right now!" She insisted, and kicked the dirt at his feet.

Sesshoumaru watched her antics and frowned. "Why are you doing that?" He asked quietly, as if he hadn't meant to ask her at all.

Kagome blinked and followed his gaze downwards. "Oh. . ." She said, and realized that she had just done the same thing to him that she always did to her baby brother. Only her brother never wore white pants, and she certainly never wore such a lovely kimono. "I guess I was just playing." She whispered bashfully, unsure of what else she could say in her defense.

"And the violence? What of that?"

She actually racked her brain to figure out what he was talking about. "I punched you. . ." She sounded more shocked than he felt. "I. . . I always do it with my brother, when he acts like you."

His eyebrows remained in place, but for some reason Kagome felt that they should have shot up his face. "Brotherly affection for me, then?" He sounded a hint offended.

She knew what he was doing, and she wasn't about to fall victim to it. "Friendly comradere." She countered, and spun around him to take the lead on the path. "I apologize if my antics disturbed you in any way, my lord –"

His arm was around her waste and pulling her back, so fast she was sure he crushed her rib cage. She barely had a moment to wonder why before there was a crash and the explosion of rock at her back.

She blinked, opening and closing her eyes in rapid succession, trying to figure out what was going on. She didn't even have time to vocalize her thoughts before she heard unfamiliar coughing coming from the direction of the crash.

"Well, I suppose I could have used more practice landing, but then again I don't really get out often enough to even have to fly. Cripes."

Kagome turned in Sesshoumaru's arm, pulling against him, and stared.

And stared.

The stranger was tall – not so tall as Sesshoumaru, but certainly nothing to scoff at. Thick, black hair was matted with sweat and debris to his forehead and it seemed to wrap around his entire face. While Sesshoumaru was model-esque and feminine in appearance, the stranger was gruff and manly and Kagome half expected him to be the model for a romance novel, while she expected Sesshoumaru to be the model for fall's latest line ups.

A bow, at least two feet taller than her and still taller than him was held on his shoulder by fastenings and a sword that seemed to have Arabic designs hung low on his waist, nearly dragging on the ground. He was dressed fancily, in silks and slippers, and from the stiffening of Sesshoumaru behind her, from the way his hand went back to her waist, she knew that he was someone to be reckoned with, despite his boorish behavior.

"I say, you wouldn't happen to be Sesshoumaru Taisho, son of the Inu no Taisho and heir to the Western Lands, would you?"

Sesshoumaru sneered and Kagome prided herself on not pointing out that he was doing it again. "I am afraid you are mistaken." He told the stranger. "I am in fact Sesshoumaru Taisho, and I am the eldest son of the Inu no Taisho, but I am by no means the heir to the Western Lands."

The man stroked his beard thoughtfully and Kagome tugged on Sesshoumaru's sleeve, wordlessly asking who the man was.

"Jimmu Tenno, what brings you to this part of Japan? I was under the impression that it would take hellfire and brimstone to drag you off of the throne."

Kagome felt her jaw drop. Jimmu Tenno? Jimmu Tenno! The first emperor of Japan! She knew that Sesshoumaru had involvement with him, and was perfectly aware that the war that was going on right now wasso that he could legally take control of all of Japan, but she had no idea that she would actually get to meet him!

She burst forth from Sesshoumaru's grasp and opened her backpack, pulling out a pad of paper and a pen. "Oh my God!" She exclaimed, laughing. "Well, you! I mean, wow! It's a huge honor!" She exclaimed. "May I shake your hand!"

Jimmu laughed. "I can say the same my dear! You were the one who defeated Naraku, yes?"

Kagome blushed and shook his hand more rigorously. "Well, it wasn't just me, but. . ."

"Nonsense! Don't be foolish girl! If you couldn't sense the shards, Naraku would have found them long before you! And who purified the jewel, anyway?"

"I did!" Kagome felt like a high school student again, and she had just met her favorite pop idol. "But wow! The Jimmu Tenno! I have to have your signature!" She thrust the pad and pen under his nose. "Just sign it to Kagome. Ka Go Me, hard on the second syllable and. . ."

She finally heard Sesshoumaru's growling a moment before he pushed her behind him, blocking Jimmu from sight.

"What brings you here?" Sesshoumaru asked again, his voice hard and his eyes harder. Kagome winced and shut up, wondering why Sesshoumaru was acting this way towards someone who was supposed to be his ally.

Jimmu smiled merrily and patted Sesshoumaru on the back. "Why, my Lord! Can I not visit some of my favorite denizens? Is there something wrong with wanting to meet the great Higurashi Kagome? And it's been so many years since we have last spoken, you were but a child!"

Kagome tried not to feel too flattered when she realized that oh my God, Emperor Jimmu Tenno knows my name!

"You are supposed to be protecting your strong hold, my Lord." Kagome spent a long moment trying to figure out why her heart had down a double patter before she realized that this was the first time that she had ever heard Sesshoumaru refer to someone else as Lord. It was unnerving to think that there was someone in the world that Sesshoumaru reverred enough to refer to by such an important title, and the magnitude of it hadn't been lost on her – nor had it been lost on Jimmu, if the widening of his eyes was anything to judge by.

"More important matters have been brought to my attention, Lord Sesshoumaru." Jimmu said. For a moment, his eyes looked hard and red and –

Naraku's eyes gleamed in the darkness, and Kagome fought the urge to close her own in terror. But she wasn't a little girl, and she knew now that covers, no matter how thick, weren't going to be able to sheild her from the boogie man this time.

- she forced herself to look away.

"Seems that the prophets have turned their attention to you." Kagome jumped when she realized that Jimmu was talking to her. "You wouldn't happen to know why, would you?" She made to shake her head, but Sesshoumaru interjected on her behalf.

"The same prophets that can't predict the outcome?" Sesshoumaru asked. "They sound like they're just waiting to pin their beliefs on the victor."

Jimmu shrugged. "Yes, well, that may be the case, but this prophet in particular seems to be focusing on something much more physical than mumbo jumbo and hocus pocus. Something about this big," he made a ring with his fingers, his pointer and thumb barely touching, "and shining. Pink."

Out of habit, Kagome's hand flew to her collar bone to where the shikon no tama lay beneath it. It pulsed, a second heart, as though it sensed her fear and sought to comfort her. Sesshoumaru saw the movement out of the corner of his eye and Kagome felt his exhasperation rolling off of him from her telling movements.

"I am afraid that I am not sure of what you speak of." Kagome was shocked that Sesshoumaru could lie so easily, but she hoped that she had been able to keep her amazement out of her face.  
Jimmu looked a bit perplexed, and then shrugged. "Whether or not you know about it isn't the case; Ho-ori has been made aware that your miko is the very same that killed Naraku and he is aware that she still houses the sacred jewel inside of her body. He wants the jewel for himself."

She was having flashbacks, remembering sitting inside of a little hut with Keade and Inuyasha over firelight, listening to tales of the sacred jewel. Only if the two of you work together . . .  
Except that they had already done that part. Shouldn't there be some reprieve?

Both Jimmu and Sesshoumaru's eyes turned to the forest, locking on with deadly intent, and Kagome shirked subconsciously. A fawn, who had probably never seen a human before in its life and was likely to never see one again, munched on green grass and stared curiously at them.

"Kagome, come." Sesshoumaru commanded, and began to walk at a quick pace that he hadn't tormented her with yet.

She nodded and hoped that he didn't think that just because she was acquiescentin this, that she was anything like Rin. She just knew when he could be trifled with and when it was better to just shut up and listen to him.

I'll protect you.

"The battle is coming!" Jimmu predicted, yelling at their retreating backs. "And when it does, I will not consider this a slight! I will be by your side, fighting!" He promised and cracked his staff against the ground, indicating the finality of his statement.

They were a good distance away when Kagome saw the tension leave his shoulders and she decided that now would be as good a time as ever to begin badgering him. "Why. . ." no, that wasn't important. "Do you trust Jimmu?"

Sesshoumaru was quiet for a long moment, but instead of being afraid that he wasn't going to answer, as she once had been, she was patient. She knew he was picking his next words carefully. "Jimmu is. . . destined for great things. I am destined to help him get there." She didn't see a problem with it so far, didn't see why Sesshoumaru had been so put off by Jimmu' prescence. "You aren't supposed to be here."

Realization struck so hard she nearly stopped walking. He's scared. . . for me? "Sesshoumaru, I will be fine. I can –"

"No." His eyes looked as mean as she had ever seen them, and she remembered staring him down the business end of a sword.

You really tried to kill me, didn't you? As though he wouldn't try again.

"You will be fine, because you will not see battle." He stopped and turned, his hand resting on his sword. "There is a human village down the road. You will stay there until this issue with Ho-ori is sorted out, and then I will return for you."

Kagome smirked, remembering the last time that he had tried to leave her some where. "What makes you think that I wont follow you?" She asked with more arrogance in her voice than there should have been when dealing with Sesshoumaru.

His eyes narrowed, and his lips curled up in what only a fool would call a smile. He almost looked as though he was hoping that she would have said that. . .

She was so busy staring at his face that she forgot to watch his hand and with a flash of movement, too quick for her eyes to catch, a rope was pressed against the underside of her breasts and he was behind her, breathing down her neck. "You will stay where I put you, my dear girl, or else I will be forced to make you stay where I put you." He pulled tighter and her breath hitched. Her hands, pinned behind her by the ropes, made grabs at his haori. Her resistance against him only fueled him, and he flipped the rope around her one more time, hooking it under her chin and pulling so that her gaze was forced skywards. He went down on one knee, forcing her to go down as well.

They stayed that way, her tied up and on her knees, him pressed against her, until all of the tension left her body and she was reduced to tears. "Sesshoumaru. . ." He was winning; he was really going to leave her, in a strange place, while he went off to fight in a war that she wasn't sure he would come back from in flesh and bone. In the future, he was lying asleep in her attic. He should have been warm. . . he should have been soft. . . and now there was nothing that she could do about it.

"I don't want you to die."

Her eyes widened, just a hint of a fraction. She had thought that she had said it, thought that it was only her own weepy voice make the quiet, innocent confession. There had been a tenor in it, though, a tenor that belonged strictly to him, and she realized with a sardonic giggle and a shake of her head that they had both spoken at the same time. How unusual. . . and here she had been beginning to think that they had never been on the same page – perhaps they had been thinking along the same lines all along and she just never knew it.

The movement that her laugh caused jostled her and caused the rope to bite in to her throat, burning the skin that covered it, and she slackened full body so that he would let up a little on the rope.  
Her aquistance was rewarded with a bit of slack, and she took a deep breath with out pain.

"You know, Sesshoumaru." She told him when he began to stand, tugging her with such a complete lack of finess that she nearly stumbled again, "I think that you might be being a little extreme, here."

The narrowing of his eyes told her exactly what he thought of that. "You would seek to escape the village, just as you escaped the manor." She didn't bother to tell him that she hadn't escaped, she had been helped out, thank you very much, and seen to with provisions. She decided, though, that it was probably in her best interest – if by interest she meant health - if she remained quiet. "Just as you have escaped Inuyasha's hold many a time, so I've been told. I am merely seeing to it that what's mine remains safe; that is all."

What's. . . mine. The gravity of the statement had not been missed by either of them. In fact, Sesshoumaru looked just about as shocked as she felt – in his own, mono-expressioned sort of way. After a moment of wavering certainty, though, his expressions steadied; steadied on her. The possessiveness that lurked within them was something powerful and it rocked her on her heals.

He bent his head and returned to the crouching position, hovering inches – closer, closer still – above her.

Is he. . . is he going to kiss me again? Kagome wondered hopefully. She wet her lips in timeless invitation and his eyes focused there and stuck, as though he was distracted from some greater purpose.

"Kagome." He had said her name before, but there was something about the way he held her, the way he whispered it, that reminded her that no matter what she told herself and him otherwise, when it got right down to it she was helpless to do anything against him.

Even if she could, she wouldn't.

She leaned up another inch, grazing his chin with her lips – barely, almost there – and Sesshoumaru continued going down.

Going down?

Kagome started fierecly, cocking her hip against his torso. "What are you doing!" She demanded, and suddenly, desperately, wished her arms weren't pinned behind her.

He didn't speak, but his breathing became muffled as he took the rope in to his mouth. He's only tieing the rope. . . the emphasis was on tying, and not only, and she wasn't sure why she was vaguely disappointed.

Of course he wouldn't – we're in public. She smothered a giggle in her mouth. He wouldn't. Period. No not because they were in public about it. She couldn't blame herself for thinking that, though – after all, he had looked as though he was going to. . . going to. . . do that! Never the less...

He only has one arm. . . she couldn't remember why that seemed wrong, why it seemed he should have two, even though she had been there the day that he had lost his left one.

A mistake on the artists behalf, perhaps?

She stared over her shoulder at him, where he was struggling to tie the rope with his only hand and his teeth. She had never really imagined him struggling with anything – he was Sesshoumaru, of course he could do anything, and he could do it better than she could. He struggled with this, though, and a tell tale bead of sweat gathered at the furrows of his brows.

It shouldn't be this way, she thought, and the anxiety that welled up inside of her, not so different from the swelling of a tide, threatened to drown her. It was something physical, this feeling, and she wished that it hadn't been this way – she wished that family and inheritance and silly sibling disputes over silly things like birth hadn't lead up to this.

It wouldn't have been so bad, an arm for a sword, because the Tetsugia was an extension of an arm, so it just about evened out. However, not only had he lost so much in a foolish pursuit of it to someone who hadn't drawn it in years, he had quit trying. It seemed like all of his sacrifices were in vain. Everything that he had done – everything that he had worked so hard for – he still had nothing to show for it.

"Sesshoumaru. . ." she whispered his name like a spell.

He looked up at her from beneath arched brows, the rope between his teeth, and pulled. The ropes lost their slack, but he loosed his hold with his teeth.

He is a good man. He deserves better than this.

She closed her eyes and on a breath, she wished with everything she had.

"Kagome," he sounded reprimanding, in an awe sort of way.

She didn't open her eyes – she wasn't ready to. She wanted to stay here, in this place that she had created for herself in her mind's eye, where good people got what they deserved. A place where he had two arms. A place where it was something more than ropes that bound them.

"You're glowing."

Startled, she opened her eyes and gasped. He was right – he always was. I always thought that the seeing the world through rose colored glasses was an expression. She was glowing a burning, familiar shade of pink. It was coming from her chest, glowing straight out of what seemed to be her heart.

Her heart beat once, and the shikon jewel beat to the same drum. It created a double – pulsation that revibrated in the air between them and she knew that she could do it. All she had to do was know that it was real, and it would be. He would get what he deserved, and she would get nothing; the jewel would be nullified, it's powers rendered useless, because it was an unselfish thing to wish.  
She reached within herself, reached for that painful ache that was vibrating from somewhere deep inside of her belly. If she climbed inside of that empty place, crawled inside of that hollow region that she could never seem to fill, then. . .

But his growl echoed and she lost it, lost her concentration. Her eyes snapped open, confused and a little disoriented. She had been so close – his arm had been something real, something solid, all she had to to was reach out and touch it.

Her fingertips had grazed on the edge of something powerful and she had failed him.

Sesshoumaru looked more than a little concerned. "What's that look for?" He looked as though he was angry with her, as if she had done something terribly wrong and needed to be punished for it.

"You foolish girl." He whispered in a voice too calm to not be angry. "Do you have a death wish?"

Kagome's mouth dropped open and she did a rather good impression of a fish. How. . . how dare he! She had almost been able to use the shikon jewel for his gain, and now he was reprimending her! "Excuse me?" She asked carefully because she didn't trust herself not to scream. It was a good thing that he already had her tied up, or else she would be tempted to haul off and punch him, and this time it most certainly wouldn't be because of friendly comraderie.

"If you activate the power of the shikon jewel, demons and gods and humans who seek to use it for their own selfish gain will feel it."

Oh. "Well, it didn't do that the first time!" she countered neatly. She prided herself on not succumbing to the childish urge to stick her tongue out at him.

He looked mildly surprised. "Didn't it?"

Had it? Well, Kaede and Inuaysha had both told her that when the jewel had left their world, those who sought to use it's powers for evil had practically vanished overnight. That had never been true for Kagome – ever since she had arrived, life had been daily struggles with the selfish, the powerful, and the greedy. Perhaps that was only because she carried the jewel?

"Mistress Centipede wished on the jewel. . ." she muttered out loud in awe, wondering why it had never occurred to her before. That was what had sent the whole messy business in to motion; not her shattering the damnable thing with her stray arrow.

"You wished on the jewel." Sesshoumaru shook his head and hauled her up to her feet. "Foolish girl."

She was tied up, being carried round the belly by his only arm. The tears that welled in her eyes were inescapable, and her hands flew to them of their own accord in an attempt to hide them. Sesshoumaru slowed his steps and looked down at her – his own special way of asking what was wrong.

"I'm sorry." She whispered, rubbing furiously at her eyes. "I'm so pathetic, I'm so weak, it's no wonder you don't want me to go to battle with you."

Sesshoumaru didn't make a sound and that worried Kagome most of all.

She stared at the ground for a long while, and she knew that they were getting nearer to the town because of the way that the grass and moss that coated the ground was worn thin in some places from crushing steps, and only through extreme efforts did she keep herself from crying again. It was silly, crying like this. Sesshoumaru was only trying to protect her – he was being sweet, really, making such efforts on her account. She certainly wouldn't take them for herself, and he knew it. He was keeping her safe by insuring that she would stay away from the battle grounds, but at the same time. . .

What if this is when it happens? She wondered fearfully. What if Ho-ori uses some attack that petrifies him and I'm not there to stop it!

"Kagome?"

Her thoughts screamed to a halt and her head snapped up at the familiar voice.

An orange haired brat, who appeared to be no older than fourteen, was twirling a sickled between his fingers. By all accounts, he looked human, but the merry gleam in his eyes was something that she could never forget, the light belt that wrapped around his belly twitched in a tell tale sign and she knew what secrets that long cap he wore on his head hid. . .

"Shippo?" She asked, struggling against Sesshoumaru and the ropes. "Is that you?"

Shippo ignored her though, opting instead to shoot a glare at Sesshoumaru. "I hope that you have a good reason for tying her up like this." His tone was accusatory and his eyes full of hate.

Sesshoumaru right Kagome and held her in front of him like an offering to the young demon. "You know that Ho-ori's men are getting closer." He said, and gave Kagome a little push on the back with the heel of his palms, sending her forward a tripped step. "You know that she can't stay out of trouble."

Shippo arched an eyebrow and the grin that played on his face reminded her more than a little of an errant monk that she knew. . . "I see; so you want me to play babysitter?"

Kagome nearly sweat dropped. Not only was her young kit all grown up, he was ignoring her and treating her like she was the child, not him.

Teenagers.

She hoped she hadn't been that bad.

"Keep a close eye on her." Sesshoumaru demanded primly. "She does so enjoy to stick her nose where it doesn't belong."

She turned to glare at him, to tell her that it was her nose and it was her business where she stuck it, not his, but the angry words caught in her throat.

He's smiling.

It wasn't a full blown smile, nor was it a sadistic prelude to war. It was something different, a curious curve of his lips that softened his eyes. He was warmer, and for a moment Kagome thought that maybe he was less untouchable than he let the world think he was.

Feelings, strange and new, welled up inside of Kagome so powerful she almost opened her mouth to let them escape.

I love you.

She started, and his smile only softened that much more. She supposed that he thought that her gasp of shock was because he had blessed her with a grin; he had no idea what was going on inside of her, what was raging and begging to be let out.

I love you, Sesshoumaru.

Shippo, who was no stranger to Kagome's almost bipolar extremeties, balanced the sickle on his shoulders and turned pointedly away. "Drop her off at my hut when you are ready to leave; I'll take care of her." He left in an attempt to cow Kagome in to speaking her mind, she knew, and it left her red in the face.

"If I untie you, you will stay here with Shippo."

For a change, it sounded more like a request than a demand.

For a change, Kagome told him the truth.

"I won't."

Sesshoumaru's brows drew together in confusion, and then in anger.

"If I untie you, you will stay away from the battle."

She wanted to tell him.

"I won't."

A muscle leaped in Sesshoumaru's jaw, and she could practically hear his jaw cracking from clenching it so tightly.

"If I untie you, you will wait for me."

A stray tear found it's way down Kagome's cheek, and she smiled up at him sadly, taking a step towards him. "I won't."

She needed to tell him.

She leaned in to him, though, and placed her cheek against his chest, her chin resting painfully where his armor met the silk of his haori. Her ear was pressed against his clavicle and if she held her breath and listened, she could hear his heart pounding to the same fast drum as her own.

His arm wrapped fiercely around her and his chin rested on the top of her head.

If she ever told him, would he ever hold her like this again?

"Sesshoumaru. . ."

She could never tell him.

His arms tightened painfully around her and she squinted and clenched her jaw, trying very hard not to scream out in pain.

"You will stay here." It would have been comical, how very forced his words sounded, except that it shook her beliefs and made her quiver.

I love you so much and you don't even know.

"I can almost assure you that I wont." She promised him with a secretive smile reserved only for his chest.

He held her like that for a long time; longer than necessary, and Kagome hadn't even been sure when he first took hold of her that forever would be long enough. Despite his efforts to drag a promise out of her and failing, he sighed, beaten, and sliced his claws neatly through the ropes. They fell to the ground with soft thuds and Kagome, who's arms were free once again, wrapped them around his waist.  
They must have looked the world like the lovers she knew that they could never be, savoring the last moments that they had together.

This was different than the last time that he had left her – the last time he had left her with no fare the well, no empty words, no stolen touches. He had left her in the morning and she had watched him disappear in the distance, silhouetted by the rising sun.

As a traveler, she knew the dangers of being cluttered with baggage – it could slow you down and it could attract bandits and highwaymen. Their baggage wasn't physical, though, and there was a greater threat of being smothered by it than by it being stolen, and it was certainly slowing them down.

Sesshoumaru clung to her like a child, the same way she clung to him. She wondered if the thoughts that were running through his head were the same as the ones that were in her own, but she knew that if they were he would never utter them. She would ever utter them, and she had never really had a problem speaking her mind before.

He is worried, she knew. He is worried for more than just me. . . he was going to war, going to fight a God with no allies save for a carefree descendant of the same God. He might not make it back this time, and they both knew it. They both knew the dangers of fighting someone who was so greedy, who didn't care what they lost as long as they gained.

Unfortunately, the two of them both had very, very important things to lose.

"Would you stay where it is safe. . ." Sesshoumaru's voice was quiet, muffled against the soft ebony silk of her hair. "Please?"

He had asked her so nicely that she felt her fingers begin to tingle. She pressed them in to his back, reminding herself that he was real, and this was real, and that they were living now but there was going to be no happily ever after for either of them.

"I promise."

What other choice did she have?


End file.
