Blades of grass shifted beneath her fingers; the movement near undetectable. Idly, she wondered what would happen if she crushed them. They would die, yes. But, would they remain in the memory of the wind? Change was much like the wind. Intangible and tangible became interchangeable. When did her feelings changed?
Not that it was a bad thing. No. Definitely not a bad thing.
Glancing down, she smiled gently and tangled her hands into locks of dusky red hair; combing out the tangles in them. At first, she looked upon him as a younger brother. Kind of like Souta but different. Gradually, she started to see him more as a son. Her heart ached when she spotted bruises and cuts incurred during play, pounded with terror when danger came their way. Her world shifted. It went from Inuyasha being the centre of the universe, to Shippo being the core of her very being – Not that Inuyasha was not important to her. But, Kagome realized that while Inuyasha's blind faith towards Kikyou had hurt her deeply, her love for Inuyasha diminished in the face of his trust in Kikyou blinding him to the danger she posed to her, to their friends and most critically, to Shippo.
'Is that how mom felt?' Kagome wondered to herself.
Shippo has so much so became her sole focus that soon she considered his safety, his comfort, his happiness to be paramount to everyone else. Sometimes, she feared Naraku would learn of how important the little kitsune youkai was to her. If he got hold of that, he would easily control her. She believed if he asked her to betray Inuyasha, she would. That terrifying thought had her gripping Shippo tightly, waking him up from his nap.
"Mama, are you alright?" Kagome inwardly cooed at the cute picture he made with his little fists rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as she was jolted out of her train of thoughts.
"Yes sweetheart, I'm fine. I'm sorry I woke you up. Go back to sleep now." Cuddling Shippo to her, Kagome rubbed his back soothingly and eased him back to dreamland.
Chuckling at how quickly he fell asleep, she nuzzled her nose into his hair in an affectionate gesture and placed a kiss on his forehead. Sighing contentedly, Kagome knew that she would never be able to return to her era if it meant leaving Shippo behind. She knew that would upset her family but she could not bring herself to leave her son without even knowing his safety would be ensured. Shippo had become so important in her life that she forced herself to master her miko powers in order to be able to better protect him. That was not an easy feat especially when Kaede told her that since she had not trained her miko powers since young, she would have to more than double her efforts to even achieve any control over her powers. Considering her mass untapped potential, the task was made even more daunting.
'But I will persevere and come out the victor' Kagome thought viciously as her hand glowed anew with her powers and an orb shot out, swerved and vaporized a neko youkai that was creeping behind her.
'I will do anything to protect my son. Anything.' Kagome thought as she clutched the shikon shard that flew into her hands from the remains of the dead youkai.
'Even if it means incurring the hate of Inuyasha.' With that, she stood up, carefully cradling Shippo and disappeared into Inuyasha's Forest after depositing the now purified shard with the one she previously retrieved from a now, very much dead Kikyou.