Con Te Partiro
(I Will Go With You)
Changes In The Wind
A cold wind calmly blew through the leaves of the Goshinboku, barely disrupting the early evening calm of the Higurashi Shrine. It was an unusually cool night with a clear view of the stars. Despite the evening chill, the family cat was lolling around on the ground looking up at the Goshinboku. Inuyasha sat in its branches feeling the coolness of the wind softly brush over his skin and hair.
"That breeze suits my mood," he muttured as he looked away from the house where the Higurashi's were celebrating. He should have been ecstatic as the jewel had finally been completed and whole once again one week prior, roughly three years after it was shattered. Naraku had been destroyed two years prior, but the evil demon knew that his demise was evident and split his large piece of the jewel into several large pieces that took two years to collect. The end of the journey left him somber and feeling alone again.
Kagome was inside celebrating with the rest of her family. She had just been accepted to a university nearby and was ecstatic about several other inquiries from other universities, some of them in Europe. An essay she wrote about wishing on the Shikon no Tama that was published in an internationally renowned journal had help to ensure that. She had also muttered something about plans for the shrine and her future. Being a powerful miko, she was to protect its mysterious artifacts, many of which possessed strange powers and auras. But her mention of the future did not mention one thing…
"Inuyasha!"
"Oh, Kagome," Inuyasha replied, hiding the anguish in his voice. "What do you want?" He smiled at her from the branch he was perched on, the soft breeze carrying a few silky tendrils of white hair about his face.
"You've been awfully quiet since dinner. Are you okay?" She frowned at his somber form on the limb. Inuyasha leapt from the tree and landed next to Kagome.
"Hmph, I'm fine! I'm a hanyou after all." Kagome squinted at him, disbelieving him all the same but saying nothing. She would press the matter later.
"Then lets go inside," she smiled grasping his hand and leading him to the house. She paused as she reached the door as she felt a strange aura. She felt it earlier that day as she got home from school, but shook it off as paranoia. But sensing it again made her curious.
"Do you feel that Inuyasha?"
"Feel what?" Inuyasha asked. She looked in his eyes, startled to see how lifeless they were.
"C'mon, lets go inside," she said again tightening her grip on his hand, looking over the grounds as she closed the door behind her. Buyo, tiring of the Goshinboku, followed the pair inside.
Inuyasha found himself in the kitchen once again with a steaming cup of hot chocolate shoved in his hand and Mrs. Higurashi offering him a large piece of cake, which he absentmindedly accepted and watched as Kagome open up a box with printouts of her published essay.
"We can sell these to visitors!" Jii-chan was saying holding the paper up causing Inuyasha to smirk. The old man sure liked money.
"And who would want to buy that? Why can't we just give them out for free?" Kagome argued back. The hanyou just sat at the table, ignoring the dessert before him as he watched the two of them argue.
"Inuyasha!" Mrs. Higurashi said, lulling Inuyasha out of his stupor.
"Yes," he replied softly.
"I need to talk to you," she said. Inuyasha was puzzled. She had never needed to talk to him about anything before, except for one embarrassing conversation he had spent the greater part of two years trying to forget. He nodded and followed her upstairs to her bedroom.
"I got a little something for you the other day," she said handing him a shopping bag as she sat on the edge of her bed. Inuyasha curiously took the bag and sat next to her and looked into its depths.
"Clothes? What for?"
"Well I figured you and Kagome might want to go out together sometime," she began with a mischievous look in her eye that startled Inuyasha, causing him to blush slightly. "And I figured you might want some modern clothes to wear."
Is she setting us up or something? Inuyasha's mind thought stammering. The thought was enticing.
"Do you not like them?" she asked with a hint of disappointment in her voice. Inuyasha did not mind the clothes at all. They were just jeans and simple shirts much like the ones he had seen in his visits to Kagome's time. He was for all points and purposes literally stunned that someone other than Kagome would go out of their way to help him, especially with the subject of love.
"No, they're fine," he stammered. "Th-thank you." Mrs. Higurashi smiled, but Inuyasha could tell that she did not just want to give him a present. He just hoped it wasn't another embarrassing conversation about birth control methods in detail, which left the hanyou several shades of red and unable to look at Mrs. Higurashi or Kagome without considerable discomfort for a month after. He gazed at a worn corner of tatami mat, dreading her next choice of words.
"Inuyasha, there is something else we need to talk about." Inuyasha nodded, diverting his eyes from the tatami mat to his claws as he shifted uncomfortably. "As you know, I worry about Kagome a lot. I understand that she is a miko with considerable power. But I'm worried that even here she could be a target for anyone to make use of her gift." The hanyou let out a breath of air in relief.
Good! I don't want to talk about condoms again, Inuyasha thought. Slaying demons was easy. Talking about human biology had made him ill.
"Are you sure?" Inuyasha asked, trying to convince himself that Kagome was safe in her era.
"A mother always knows."
"Yeah right," Inuyasha scoffed.
"Don't knock it," Mrs. Higurashi said tugging on Inuyasha's ear, causing him to blush, amazed at how this woman was so much like his own mother. "But seriously, I've been sensing something strange around the shrine lately. And today, I felt some ominous presence. I can't help but feel that Kagome may be connected to it." Inuyasha looked up, recalling Kagome's premonition earlier. He did not say anything, however, not wanting to worry the woman.
"So what do you want me to do?"
"Of course, I want you to help keep an eye on Kagome. This shrine holds some powerful objects and I would hate to see them fall into the wrong hands. Just watch over her as much as you can. That's all I ask."
"You don't need to ask. I'll always look over her," Inuyasha earnestly said. "And fighting off demons is my specialty!"
"I know dear," she calmly said patting him on the back. "C'mon, Kagome is probably looking for you, but don't let her know about our conversation. She's got enough to worry about." Inuyasha understood and nodded. The miko was carrying enough on her plate as it was. And just as the woman predicted, Kagome was trudging up the stairs looking for him, carrying the hot chocolate and cake he had abandoned with her.
"So what did my mom want?" she cheerfully asked, deftly dodging Buyo as he ran under her feet.
"Not much," he lied, not wanting to make her worry. "Just wanted to give me some clothes she got."
"Cool," she shrieked as she set the dessert on her desk and began to dig through the bag, pulling out several garments. "Wow, these are really nice! She must really like you."
Inuyasha took a seat on the floor against the wall inhaling the cake as if it were the last piece of food on the planet watching Kagome hold up a pair of jeans.
"Hey, Kagome," he called between bites. "What the hell is this?" Inuyasha held up a wooden massager that resembled a bug he found on the floor.
"That is, um, for your pressure points I think," Kagome explained as she contorted her face in concentration. Inuyasha frowned looking at the bizarre object.
"Is this another one of that Hojo's stupid remedies?" Inuyasha was familiar with the teenager and his 'remedies' and never considered him much of a threat other than to his sensitive nose.
"Yeah," Kagome sighed.
"I can't believe that moron managed to reproduce," the hanyou smirked referring this opinion of Akitoki Hojo, ancestor of present day Hojo.
"Inuyasha!"
"I still haven't forgiven him for that foul smelling thing he brought you!" Kagome smiled, recalling the pungent mixture of herbs meant to help ease the pain of neuralgia. Inuyasha had entered the kitchen, took one sniff of the air, and quickly ran into the bathroom. Only to return moments later looking rather pale.
Kagome watched as Inuyasha frowned, suspecting that he was thinking of those foul smelling herbs again.
"So can I kill him?" he eagerly asked.
"No!" Kagome retorted back almost laughing. Inuyasha smiled, listening to the wind as it blew through the branches of the trees just outside the window feeling apprehensive about what was to come.
