Some People Change

*This is a piece of fanfiction containing characters from Rumiko Takahashi's InuYasha and CLAMP's xxxHolic. I own none of the characters or their situations.*

When she woke up, Kagome didn't know where she was. It wasn't Kaede's hut, she knew that. Nor was it her own house. It was a room covered with tatami mats and the only light filtered in through a shoji screen just beyond the futon she was laying on.

Plus, she hurt everywhere; what on earth - ?

Kagome gasped and sat straight up. Pain shot up her abdomen and she cried out, but she didn't care about the pain; she had to find Sango, Rin…

"I wouldn't move." Kagome turned to the shoji screen, and saw a tall woman standing in front of it. She was pale, with black hair that hung to a point just below her waist, and she was wearing a kimono with intricate butterfly designs.

"Who are you?" Kagome said. "Where am I? Where're Sango and Rin?"

"Your friends are fine. Injured, as you are, but fine. You three have had quite the ordeal." The woman sat next to Kagome. "A demon attack, was it?"

"Yes. Sango, Shippo and I were alone at camp, and this bat demon flew over carrying Rin, and she was hurt, and Sango and I tried to kill him and Sango knocked him down, and Shippo ran off for help and -" Kagome stopped and tried to think. "It all happened so fast, I can't really remember."

"That bat demon had friends. They got you and your demon slayer friend from behind. The three of them would have bled the life from all of you if your other friends hadn't come when they did. As it was, they were almost too late."

Kagome winced. In her worry over the other girls, she'd forgotten. "Inuyasha, Miroku. Were they -?"

"Badly shaken, but unharmed. The same goes for young Rin's lord, Sesshomaru. He didn't show it, but he was just as desperate as the other two." The woman looked over at two other futons – Kagome supposed they were where Rin and Sango slept – before continuing. "By the time they got to my shop, they were all wrecks."

Kagome nodded. Miroku would crack if anything happened to Sango, and Sesshomaru refused to let anyone hurt Rin. Inuyasha, though…

She pushed the thought away. She didn't want to go there.

"So, this is a store?" she said.

"Indeed. This is a shop that grants wishes," the woman said. "It is fortunate those young men had been here before; else they may not have been able to come."

Kagome's eyes widened. "They'd been here before?"

"Yes, they did." The woman looked back towards the shoji screen, remembering. "Then, their wishes were impossible to grant. The only payments they could give were not enough. Now, however…"

"They could pay?"

"Their payments were enough to grant their wishes, yes. The payment must be equal to the service or services rendered; no more, no less. Do you understand?"

Kagome nodded. She understood. It made sense.

"Good. Now, lie down and go back to sleep. Those three paid quite a bit for their wishes, and I don't want to see it go to waste."

"W-wait, what do you mean 'quite a bit?'" Kagome said. Her mind conjured up images of Inuyasha giving away his soul, just for the sake of…

"Nothing that would cause them injury," the woman said. "As I've told you, they are unharmed. They just paid enough to save your lives."

Kagome blinked. "To save our lives?"

"Yes, that was their wish, silly girl. What did you think they asked for?"

I thought he became a full demon…Kagome looked up the woman. "I-I thought they asked for what they wanted last time."

The woman nodded, and gave her a small, warm smile. "Your half-demon is far too selfish, and loves you far too much, to let you die for that. Give him that much credit."

Kagome's brow crinkled. But he doesn't love me; he loves Kikyo. What is she talking about? She opened her mouth to ask, but the woman placed a finger over her mouth and gently pushed her back down onto the futon.

"Hush, child. That's enough questions. Go to sleep now."

Kagome tried to protest, but a surge of fatigue overtook her, and she was only able to say one thing before she lost consciousness:

"He didn't have to…"

…

"Perhaps," Yuuko said to the sleeping girl, "but he chose to." She looked at the three sleeping girls, sighed, stood up and strode out of the room. This wasn't the first time she'd granted this kind of wish, and it wouldn't be the last.

Speaking of which, she should check on Watanuki before she went to bed.

Yuuko heard voices in the main room of the shop as she approached.

"…I told you two, I'm not hungry." This was the voice of one of her current clients, the half-demon Inuyasha.

"Mistress said to eat," said Maru.

"Mistress said you should eat," said Moro.

"Shaddup! I don't wanna, so lemme alone!"

Yuuko slid the shoji screen to the main room open. Inuyasha was sitting on one side of the room, trying to shoo away a food-tray-holding Maru and Moro. Next to him, the monk Miroku sat, over his hysterics but still pale and drawn. Inuyasha's older brother, the daiyokai Sesshomaru, paced the other side of the room, occasionally shooting his brother a cold stare. The imp, Jaken, was twitching in a corner and the kitsune Shippo had fallen asleep, Sango's demon cat Kirara sitting on his lap.

The instant he saw Yuuko, Inuyasha jumped up and pushed past Maru and Moro to the Dimensional Witch. "Well?" he said.

Yuuko sighed. "You and your brother need to eat something."

"Again, I'm not hungry!"

"And I don't care; you're supposed to eat something after having blood taken, and if you don't, I'll tell that nice young lady of yours. She worries, you know. And somehow I don't think you want her to worry."

Inuyasha looked down at his feet, growled something along the lines of "should worry more about herself," stalked over to Maru and Moro, grabbed a bowl of rice off the food tray, sat down, and started scarfing the food with a 'There, happy?' look on his face.

Okay, there's one down.

"You too," Yuuko said, giving Sesshomaru a pointed look. "You should eat too."

"I do not have my brother's human weaknesses," said Sesshomaru. "A little blood loss does not bother me."

"Young man, I take care of my clients, and daiyokai or not, I don't care to have my clients fainting from low blood sugar. It's bad for business."

Sesshomaru's eyebrow twitched; it must've been a while since someone called him "young man." Considering Yuuko and his father had drunk saké3 together while he was still in nappies, however, she was entitled to do so.

"And it's not bad for business to have assistants called Maru-dashi and Moro-dashi?!" said Jaken. "What on earth possessed you?!"

"Oh come now, Jaken," said Yuuko, "they're such cute names!"

Sesshomaru's eyebrow twitched again. "They are not."

Like yours is any better, Yuuko thought. "That is beside the point. You need to eat."

"I refuse."

Okay, different tactic. "If you don't, I'll tell that sweet little girl of yours that you're risking death for stupid reasons," Yuuko said sweetly.

Sesshomaru gave her the 'if-looks-could-kill' face. "You will not tell Rin anything that will cause her fear."

"Wonderful!" Yuuko grabbed another bowl of rice off of the food dish and shoved it into the daiyokai's one hand. "Eat up and enjoy!"

Sesshomaru glared at the bowl for a bit, then sat down, placed the rice in front of him, and started eating, glowering at Yuuko the while.

"Here, monk," said Maru, proffering a bowl to Miroku, "you should eat too."

"Eat, eat," said Moro.

Unlike his compatriots, Miroku took the bowl without complaint. "Thank you; you're too kind."

Yuuko watched the three men eat in silence. As she'd told Kagome, she'd had appointments with these men before, years earlier. Back then, Inuyasha and Miroku had scarfed the offered food immediately and Sesshomaru had accepted it. Now, Inuyasha and Sesshomaru were too wound up to have an appetite and the only reason Miroku accepted was because he was too tired to argue. Back then, they had come alone, either estranged from one another or not knowing each other yet. Now, they had come together, unified by one single purpose. Back then, they'd come into the shop calmly asking for selfish impossibilities. Now, they'd barged in in a state of distress asking for their friends's lives.

They've changed since then, thought Yuuko. Strange, how people change when another person steals their hearts.

"They'll be all right," she said. "They just need some rest."

Miroku, pale and weary, trying not to fear for his love, looked up at her and mouthed 'thank you,' before going back to his rice. Sesshomaru, looking as though every decade of his still-short demon life was weighing him down, closed his eyes and bowed his head, thanking her for the life of the girl who had become like a daughter to him. Inuyasha, looking at the world through his bangs so that no-one could see his eyes as he thought of his precious person, let slip one gruff but relieved word:

"Good."

And she couldn't help herself. Yuuko went around to each young man and patted their head. After all, good children should have pats on the head.

…

I shouldn't have left her alone, Inuyasha thought. I should have been there, damn it.

It was late now, and he, his brother, and Miroku were trying to find their room. Inuyasha was too restless to sleep, and he wasn't sure Sesshomaru even needed sleep, but it looked like some shut-eye would do Miroku some good. It hadn't been one of his good days.

"Maybe this room?" the monk said, sliding a shoji screen aside.

The only thing in the room was a large bed surrounded by a transparent curtain and spotlighted by a strange, silvery glow. Otherwise, it was empty and obviously not the room they wanted. Just as they were about to leave, however, Sesshomaru strode to the bed. He gave it a once over, then looked up and beckoned the other two over.

In the bed was a pale, bespectacled boy in his late teens, covered head-to-toe in bandages.

"Who's he?" said Inuyasha. "Another client?"

"No," said Miroku. "When I came here, she told me that this is where the twins usually sleep, and I don't imagine she'd throw her assistants out of their bed just for a client. Her son, maybe?"

"The Witch never mentioned any offspring," said Sesshomaru.

Inuyasha looked down at the kid, trying to figure out what happened to get him in such a bad way. He's lucky to be alive, he thought, and suddenly the gut-wrenching sight of Kagome bleeding out onto the ground flashed through his mind.

"Whoever he is, and whatever happened to him," said Inuyasha, "it won't happen to Kagome. I'll die before it does."

"Don't."

The three men started. The boy was looking up at them through half-lidded eyes, hovering between the waking world and the dream world.

"Oh!" Miroku said. "We're sorry; we didn't mean to wake you, please forgive our intrusion- "

"Don't die saving her," said the boy. "She wouldn't like it."

"Ha! What would you know, kid? You don't even know me and Kagome," said Inuyasha.

The boy gave him a wan smile and brushed a hand over his right eye. "It took losing this eye for me to realize. Self-sacrifice for the sake of your friends only hurts them. Hurting your friends to save them injures you both. If you both are injured, then no one is saved."

"How does self-sacrifice do anyone else any harm?" said Sesshomaru.

"Friends don't like friends being hurt," the boy said. "It causes them pain." He turned over on his side. "Please…don't cause your friends…any pain…"

The boy's eyes closed.

…

"Your friends should be well enough to leave in two days," Yuuko said. "They all ate today, and are recovering nicely."

All three of the young men nodded, understanding.

"Now, if there is nothing else," said Yuuko, "I have some business to take care of."

"Madam," said Miroku.

"Yes?"

"I apologize. Last night, while we were trying to find our room, we woke your son. I am sure it was not a kindness, as he is recovering from injuries. We beg your pardon."

She begged his pardon; what son? She had no son. In fact, the only other person besides herself, the twins, the three girls, and her clients in the shop was –

Oh.

"It's fine. I'm sure he didn't mind." Yuuko said. She stepped out of the room and slid the screen closed.

As she walked to Watanuki's room, Yuuko contemplated correcting her client the next time she saw him, but decided against it. Watanuki spent all his time in the shop, did the chores, cooked the food, and more and more he spent the night and she saw him off to school. He almost was her son these days.

As she entered Watanuki's room, Yuuko thought about how things changed between people. A rival became a companion; a companion became a friend; a friend became something more. An adversary became an ally; an ally became a friend; a friend became a lover. A stranger became a tagalong; a tagalong became a ward; a ward became a daughter. Likewise, a client became an assistant; an assistant became an apprentice; an apprentice became a son.

Yuuko watched Watanuki sleep, and knew that none of these meetings – or these changes – were coincidence. After all, there is no coincidence in this world. There is only hitsuzen.