Brothers in Arms, Longing, Diamond, Dearest. Should have listened to Ice by Lights from the start though, frickin' perfect song, but I stumbled across it only during the editing phase.

It's Monday, wut.

Yeah I know now shut up. I was up until six this morning reading fanfiction, and I want to frickin' update even if it IS late in the afternoon!

This is actually the second version of Chapter 10, the first one just didn't get done and I ended up skipping it to move on with the rest of the story. I actually went and finished all the way up to 19 before finally forcing this horrible thing to get done. It's not a bad chapter content-wise, it just sucked to write.

Originally this chapter picked up only a few seconds after the end of 9, but the interactions were just awkward and none of it worked smoothly. I like this a lot better. And it's a Monday update so you don't get to complain (much).

Restoring the Wind

To be Humbled

"I call it a shame."

"So you aren't going to help him?"

"I warned him from fighting and told him it would be his responsibiltiy. Let this be a lesson."

"You Easterners are cruel..."

Shut up, just shut up and go away. That was what she wanted to tell them, that she wanted them to go away and not talk about him like this where she could hear them.

"Kaze-yokai, are you coming or not?" And now Fujin wanted to talk to her again! Of course!

"No." There was sunlight shining on her back, crumbled stones making up an unstable ceiling over her head like the cave walls on either side of her. Only the floor was sound, made of living stone that had been rent by Boreas' winds when he sent the Demon Lord head-first through the side of the mountain. If there had been a proper crater with the impact it had been obscured and lost by the collapsing rock. Fate and the remaining pressure from the attack were the only reasons why there was a cave at all that led down to where Sesshoumaru was sealed.

Sealed. Him. How was that even possible?

"Hermes, give my regards to Zeus, along with my thanks that he honoured my request."

"Boreas and Notus had been causing a lot of problems before you took care of them, if not for the Maelstrom I don't think my lord would have let you just come in and take all the credit for the battle." Hermes, some idiot with a bowl on his head and wings on his ankles, a god who couldn't even fly on his own and needed stupid shoes to make himself airborne!

"I wish Zeus had acted sooner and not let it get this bad, I should never have had to travel so far to clean up this mess." She closed her eyes as the Wind God's youthful voice trailed down the cave, carried intentionally to her on the breeze along with every other word of their conversation. He was tormenting her, especially by wearing Hakudoshi's face like that.

She heard something disturb the gods but didn't look up, her arms wrapped around her knees, bare feet braced on the slanted rock and watching the glowing mound of ice that had anchored itself to the core of the mountain.

"Artemis?"

"I came to see the demon."

Sesshoumaru's limbs were spread just so, the ice frosted enough over his left side so that it was impossible to see the tension in his clawed fingers, or the way they'd been contorted by the impaling ice. With the blood wiped off his face he looked like he was sleeping, his hair tossed about and wild like it was still caught in some sort of swirling wind or vortex. Kagura knew he had been in agony, but now she could trick herself into saying he was peaceful.

"Kaze-yokai -?" Damn it-

"I am not leaving without him!" Jumping to her feet as he called her again, Kagura let a blast of air whoosh out of the cave and send a cloud of dust flying through the air at the god and his stupid bowl-wearing vassal. And that 'Artemis' person too, whoever that was!

Fujin had been calling her over and over and over again since his true form, a great and powerful dragon, had filled the sky and dispelled every gust, eddy and current that had made up the Kamikaze. He'd called the spirits from the storm up into him, borrowing their energy in a way Kagura had never seen done before he vanquished the god they called Boreas.

She'd refused to join him, too newly restored to consciousness and life, too keenly aware of the similarities between Fujin's borrowing and Naraku's taking. So what if Fujin truly had restored every spirit and sprite and ghost back to their fully conscious state after the battle was won? She'd stayed down here, stubborn and unmoving, until he'd actually shaved off a portion of the mountain to expose this narrow shaft of air that led to the Demon Lord's body.

And she was still sitting here- except that she jumped up and shouted at him. But she was still down here! And he was still up there, calling every god and demon in this forsaken place to him so they could chat and gossip about whatever inane subject crossed their mind. And he kept calling her.

"You should be more respectful, demon." Huh? Who the hell was this?

"And you should mind your own business!" Kagura had turned to sit down again, but now she straightened up and wheeled back around at the voice. It belonged to a woman, a goddess- Artemis? She didn't sound like Hermes.

Weren't all deities supposed to be marvellously beautiful? This one was plain and surprisingly thick in body, curves accentuated by the bulky, tangled nature of her outfit. It was a robe made of no more than one or two pieces of deep blue cloth, a thick belt of midnight blue cinching her waist as silver beads offered just a small taste of decoration. The robe was extremely short by the wind demon's standards: only coming down to the deity's knees like she'd seen one or two of Fujin's foreign cohorts wearing, but unlike the men the chest and shoulder area were more extensively covered. Her hair was a copper colour, braided around her head like a crown and yet still frizzy and wild despite that. The goddess was holding a short wooden bow decorated with silver and vines, but Kagura couldn't see any arrows.

"Fujin is taking your kind back home, that means you should go with him." Impudent creature, so what if she was some goddess! Her green eyes were haughty in a way that made Kagura want to slap her, an arrogant twist to the lips making her look far too much like Naraku.

"East, right?" Kagura answered bitterly, turning her back to the goddess now with her arms folded stiffly. She was looking at Sesshoumaru, but really not. "I'm sure it won't be hard to find all on my own then, thank you."

"Fujin says the demon won't wake up for many years." So what! ?

"Then I'll wait."

"Fine." Stupid goddess. "But when he wakes up he won't go home with you." Excuse me? "He'll choose to stay here with me, I just know it."

"Who the hell do you think you are! ?" Kagura shouted, tense and trying not to let her body shake with the sudden flood of hot anger surging through her blood. Her heart was beginning to ram in her chest, demanding violence before it burst. Her vision didn't feel quite right, heat surrounding her eyes as she looked over her shoulder and found the goddess's appearance stained red. It wasn't that the woman was bleeding- even the sky and sun-rays behind her bore the same crimson tint.

"My name is Artemis, goddess of the hunt." The woman answered smugly, that cruel twist on her lips still there as she seemed to bask in her own notions of greatness. Puh! That was sunlight, not divinity you stupid witch! "Tell me what his name is, he's simply exquisite..." Simply what! ?

"You have no idea who or what you're dealing with." She answered spitefully, watching the goddess' face contort with disgust.

"Silence, demon." This huntress had green eyes, like pine needles and frost, and she hooked the bow over her shoulder before folding her bare arms sternly over her wide chest. But as she spoke up, the Goddess' eyes were pulled back to the ice. "When he wakes up my pack will attend to all of his needs. I've seen Dog Demons before, but this one will father the most spectacular breed of-"

"He is not a hunting dog!" Kagura had not meant to shriek the words, it just came out that way. Still, the copper-haired woman just turned her nose up.

"He's still a dog, and all dogs hunt." So much arrogance! Goddess? This? Kagura would send her flying right over the next-

"Ladies! Ladies!" A swirling gust of wind whipped itself up in the narrow space between the two women, Hakudoshi forming until Kagura remembered that it was just the wretched form that Fujin admired. The child had his hands up between them like he could hold them apart if they moved, his eyes shut and head tilted back so his voice was strong and clear for their convenience. That conniving smile he wore was too much like her brother's. "Why don't we let the good general sleep for a few years and pick this up then? No sense arguing over a piece of ice, is there?"

"Fine." Kagura answered, folding her arms stiffly and turning away from the divine pair- gods! What a joke!

"No, not fine." And that irritating little- "Fujin, wake him up."

"Eh, no. I don't think I will..." The god's reply was lack-lustre, Kagura tempted to clap her hands over her ears just to shut out the stupid voices.

"Why not? If you killed Boreas then why can't you break the ice?"

"I didn't say I can't, I said I won't." But Kagura made herself pay attention, and had enough self-control not to try blasting them both out of the cave. Closing her red eyes and rubbing the side of her head with two fingertips, she was trying to counter her forming headache. The gods squabbled a bit more, Fujin repeating his earlier words to Hermes about Sesshoumaru disregarding some sort of order or set of rules he had been given. He was going to let the dog general get himself out of his own mess.

"If I call my father then-" A change overcame the god as the huntress made what sounded an awful lot like a threat.

"I do not answer to you, girl, I do not answer to your king." Kagura turned as she felt the air begin to pull and twist violently around the white-haired child, his mouth open and speaking with layers of voices, several different winds speaking through him. "I am a Kami of the Buddha, you are a Spirit of Olympus: leave this place, before I send you the way of the North Wind."

After that, spurned and angry, the goddess did leave. Kagura found herself braced against the cave wall waiting for the energy let loose by Fujin to calm itself down and dissipate into the air. He wasn't facing her, his several dozen white braids suspended in the air by his ambient power as he watched Artemis vanish through the cave mouth. The god's multi-coloured eyes watched the sun's progression against the white sky outside before he finally settled down.

The god sighed.

"Sit, kaze-yokai." She didn't move, not yet. "I will not harm you, not after everything, not with everything to come." Slowly, uneasily, Kagura made herself slide down the wall until she was seated as the god requested, her hips slanted to compensate for the angle of the cave floor, a few protruding rocks from the wall gouging her shoulders and back.

When Hakudoshi turned around with calm violet eyes, she blinked and watched him cross his ankles and sit facing the frozen Demon Lord. His child-like face looked tired, an expression she couldn't imagine her real brother ever wearing.

"...I underestimated him." Fujin said, sounding like a child admitting to some minor wrong. Looking between the god and the demon, Kagura said nothing and just watched the deity's eyes move over Sesshoumaru's suspended form. "Omnipotence grows boring, I could have simply read his heart in the beginning and known not to bring him into all of this, but I wanted to see how far his pride would take him before it broke." She didn't understand, not really, and watching Fujin grab his ankles and rock back and forth idly didn't help clear her mind.

"You were trying to humble him?" She mumbled the question because she wasn't sure if it was the right one or not. But Fujin just nodded absently, he tilting his head to the side.

"Mhmm... But I miscalculated. I thought it was pride because that was what he thought, so we were both fooled." Fooled by what? "I underestimated how deeply he wanted to succeed, and I don't think he knew how badly he wanted it either until he spoke to you." So, that time in the meadow? That moment between sleeping and waking, where she'd felt something come together...

Fujin was watching her with yellow eyes now, not the same pure gold as the Demon Lord's, but still captivating in their own way. The god looked like he was pondering something, neither of them speaking for a long while until Fujin broke the silence and looked back at Sesshoumaru.

"I hadn't understood what the heavens were talking about when they said that the westernmost Inu-daiyokai had surpassed his father. The Great General took over two millenia before his focus finally shifted from supreme power and perfection to compassion and the virtues of life, so to think that his son would mature in less than half that time seemed ludicrous to me." A coy smile crossed the god's lips, and then he shook his white head slowly, looking down at where the ice and stone met in front of him. "I was convinced that sending him to speak with you would only damage your recovery, that he had the potential to restore your life, but wasn't mature enough yet to handle that responsibility." Sesshoumaru, immature?

"...One hundred years." How did she know that?

"That was how long I thought he still needed to grow." So it hadn't been for the benefit of her spirit, spending so many years asleep...? "No- well... You needed time, yes, a few years, but you could have forgone even that if he had been capable of encouraging and protecting you." But he had been... "Yes, which is why I underestimated him. Between his inaction and his behaviour, I didn't think he would be able to compromise with his pride."

"It was only five years." She said the words softly, no longer adhered to the wall from fear and an awareness of the god's power, knees up and arms curled around them even though she was still slanted down. "Just five for me. How long will this...?" She was looking at the ice now, from the left where there were only frosted prisms coating the one side of his suspended body, the rest of it clear so he could actually be seen. It was almost beautiful, almost.

"His body is in agony." Kagura shut her eyes slowly, letting her head hang forward a little bit but not far enough to place her forehead on her knees. "For a mortal I'm impressed that he actually managed to seal himself to sleep."

"Fujin."

"He will recover, but it will be slow. You should consider returning home with us while he-"

"No." She was not leaving without him, she was not going to run away home and leave him here in this strange land with its arrogant gods. At least Fujin could acknowledge when he was wrong, that huntress wanted to breed the Demon Lord...

"This is not the same as the seal on his brother, or his father's rival." Fujin was explaining things to her in clear voice, but not answering her. He was speaking down to her by breaking things apart, but Kagura really didn't care so long as he actually addressed her question in the end. How long would he be like this? "He is in control of when he awakens, and he will be in no hurry to come out of his dreams." Just answer her: how long? "He knows the kind of pain that he'll have to go through to get out of the ice, so you'll have to wait until he's confident that he can endure it and-"

"Damn yourself, Fujin- how long! ?"

"I don't know!" The god spread his hands and shrugged his shoulders, but his answer was defensive, irritated. Just not enough to lash out at her like he had at Artemis- the two of them had bickered a bit before that point anyways. Still, when she looked at him Hakudoshi's face was twisted around sourly, his red eyes showing frustration.

"If I went back on my word then he could be out today. If you come home and fetch his brother here, then a year, maybe two, depending on how fast you can travel: a single kaze no kizu, one wind-scar, and he'd be free." Bring Inuyasha here? Was this god insane? "If you want me to guess, then on his own I say a hundred years, maybe a little bit less. If you want me to know, then no, I can't answer."

"You like that number." A century, Fujin seemed very fond of gauging things in centuries.

"It's a good number for your kind." But it was too long, it just sounded like far, far too long. "Now I'm only going to ask you one more time, Kagura: are you coming home with the rest of us, or are you not?" Kagura had her eyes closed again, this time with one hand clasped over them in-case she should do something foolish like start to cry. "Kagura."

"Stay." It wasn't a hard decision, it was a hard reality. "I'm staying." She shouldn't have woken up to find Sesshoumaru, of all people, trapped inside of a mountain, wrapped up in ice. "I will not leave without him." Why had he come all the way here? Ownership, he'd said something of it when she'd seen him, in the meadow, in that dream. He'd stood before her in pain but with too much pride to acknowledge it, his control fraying and falling to pieces by the time he kissed her. Sesshoumaru had screamed at her after that, he'd screamed and made a noise that made her think of a wounded animal, one that was lashing out because it didn't know what else to do before it died. It... it had been so wrong to witness that, to see him brought down and defeated. This was the Demon Lord who had calmly lost his own left arm in battle, to witness him thrashing and whining in the dark, speaking broken words to himself as fear brought on a terrible, short-lived fever... She shouldn't have woken up to find Sesshoumaru, of all people, experiencing something like that.

Silence. Silence and darkness for a long time, the sun had set and the air had begun to cool before she heard Fujin move and stand up. The child's bare feet scraped against the coarse stone before Kagura felt a touch on her shoulder: a small hand.

"Good luck." She looked up and hated that her skin felt hot, wetness clinging to her eyelashes. She didn't see Fujin's face, just a metal piece held in his other hand- part of a sword? He offered the scrap piece to her and she... Kagura recognized that blade...

'Tenseiga...?'

Wrapping her fingers around the dull edge, Kagura hooked her arms around her knees and set her forehead down so she could try and rest. She heard Fujin leave, felt the wind outside the cave rise up from a constant presence to a distinct moan and howl... Thousands upon thousands of spirits, demons, elementals, sprites, fairies, and demi-gods were drawn up into the swirling air... and left.

Now she was alone...

Hardest. Chapter. Ever.

But you wanna know what I love about big fandoms like this one? Combing through people's favourites lists and picking up stuff to read. I'd make recommendations here, but the 10 people in the Alerts column for this story have fairly similar taste. I swear I've read more fanfiction before and after my trip than I have in the last four years xD