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▌Chapter Ten
When Sesshoumaru came back the next day as he promised, it took all of her will not to pounce and demand answers. He seemed to already know what she was preparing to get into with im and held up his hand to stop her before she even started.
"It didn't work," he stated.
"You knew it wouldn't work, didn't you?"
He passed over the threshold and into her home as though he owned the place. Kagome carefully shut the door to avoid having to repair and replace it again. Being a demon was wrecking havoc on the house. She'd destroyed her cellphone when she had been trying to call one of her classmates for notes around the time she had missed school.
"I suspected the well wouldn't work. The last time anyone saw you, you had told them you were returning in a couple of days. When you had not returned as promised, Inuyasha attempted to venture to your era and was unable to. No one could understand the cause for the well to cease working and so I was requested to seek you out in the future around the time of your disappearance. However, you were taken before I could contact you since it is hard to translate an exact time and date of when you returned from the past. I could only estimate the event."
"So, you're saying you knew about me this entire time and where I lived? Everything?"
"Essentially."
"Then why didn't you ever try to stop me from being taken into the past in the first place? I mean, you lost your arm when we first met! You could have changed everything if you wanted to! You could have warned me about all the troubles in the past, the things with Naraku and Kikyo. I would have loved to avoid having half of my soul taken from me!"
"I am not one who is foolish enough to change the timeline of events. Surely you must have sought out to understand the effects of time travel, such as the butterfly effect. The smallest change affects everything from that point of disturbance. If you had never returned to the past, the current present may not have ever existed. I actively avoided interfering in your life."
"So then why bother interfering now? You used the word request, who asked you to find me?"
Sesshoumaru didn't immediately answer her. The pause in the conversation and momentary silence sent an uncomfortable shiver of fear down her spine, a sense of something foreboding. His expression faintly changed and looked darkened and and weary.
"Inuyasha asked this of me with his final request," he admitted.
"W-What do you mean his 'final request?'" she struggled to ask.
"Do not ask questions to which you know the answer to," he growled.
"H-H died? When did he die?! What happened?!" she sobbed. She had seen him only a couple of weeks ago and now Sesshoumaru was telling her he was gone. Not just in her era, but in the past as well. She had left and he had died.
"He died from a plague that swept through the country," he stated impassively.
"But, he was half-demon. He wouldn't have been affected by something like that," she sobbed trying to shake the dark thoughts coursing through her mind.
"It was an evolutionary jump basically. A human plague had begun to spread and we believed in our immunity, so we weren't cautious in avoiding the infected as we should have been. I theorized that a half-demon must have become infected which allowed the plague to mutate and infect demons," Sesshoumaru explained.
It took Kagome a long, silent moment to process what he had told her. She blinked back tears as she began to begin to feel her heart ache with emotional anguish. She was terrified to ask about the others; Sango, Miroku, Shippou, even Rin, Kohaku, and Kaede. If a plague had affected demons, how badly did it spread through the human population?
"It can't be true," Kagome denied, shaking her head.
"Girl, despite what you choose to believe, the truth shall always remain the truth."
Usually Kagome would have snapped angrily at being called 'girl' instead of her actual name, but her mind was a swirling mess and she was emotionally shattered at now having to face the harsh truth of why her era was the way it was.
"What about Shippou?" she whispered mournfully, feeling as if she already knew the answer.
"He did not survive."
Kagome's tears breached and escaped her eyes and dripped down her cheeks as she released a painful sob. Shippou had only been a child!
"Almost the entire village was infected by the plague. Your friend Miroku was the only one of your group to survive and became the caretaker of what is now your shrine. The old priestess - Kaede - died of old age before the plague. The demon slayer was impressively strong after becoming ill, but still did not survive. Soon after her death did it also spirit away Rin and Kohaku."
Each death was a stab into Kagome's heart. If could return to the past, could she stop them from suffering so? Could she protect them from a plague that killed so many? The pain began to transform into anger as she looked in Sesshoumaru's calm eyes. He didn't seem the slightest bit bothered by the event of Rin dying. He had mourned her loss before and had even ventured into the land of the dead! Now he seemed unaffected by the loss of losing her once again.
"If you had just presented yourself to me sooner, this could have been avoided," Kagome lashed out.
Sesshoumaru seemed unmoved by her rage and pain.
"I had considered it. However, it became clear that doing so would not change the result."
"How do you know?! How could you possibly know that it wouldn't have worked?!"
"Calm yourself before you destroy your home," he commanded in a stern voice.
Kagome glared at him before she realized she had clenched her fists so hard her nails has punctured her palms. Fresh, bright red blood, dripped down her closed fists and onto the floor. She hadn't even felt the pain from the wounds. She slowly released her grasp and looked at the angry marks as they wept blood. She looked up into a mirror that hung on one of the walls and saw the glamour around her shimmer in its struggle to keep her appearance hidden. As it flickered she saw her eyes were black around the edges, similar to the red that happened with Inuyasha or Sesshoumaru when a great deal of demonic power was flowing through their bodies.
It was then she felt the room spin and all the energy drain from her body. She would have fallen onto the floor if Sesshoumaru hadn't caught her. He moved her body to rest on the sofa before moving to sit across from her prone body.
"Allowing yourself to become so enraged in your current state is dangerous to yourself and everyone around you. I was unsure you would even be able to access your demonic energy since you were created rather than born. I suggest that you remove yourself from school and your family for their safety, unless you wish to risk losing control and harming them."
Kagome stared at Sesshoumaru as she heard her mother enter the house with her brother and grandpa following after her. She could hear their bodies stiffen based on the rustling of their clothes and smell the worry as they began to perspire. Her mother knelt down beside the sofa and asked Kagome if she was alright, while Kagome's grandpa verbally attacked Sesshoumaru before throwing a pointless talismans at him, which only proved to irritate the demon.
"She was unable to control her demonic energy and and temporarily weak. It will pass. Will you cease plastering these things all over my person incompetent priest?" Sesshoumaru nearly growled out as Kagome's grandpa tried to slap a talisman on the demon's face.
It took Kagome's mother an hour to console her father after Sesshoumaru's insult and manage to distract him into tending to the shrine grounds. Souta ensured he was always within eyesight of Kagome and would periodically glance over and Sesshoumaru with a fearful curiosity. By the time everyone had settled down Kagome had recovered enough to sit up and talk.
"Kagome, are you certain you are alright?"
"I'm fine mom. I was just a bit tired afterwards, but I promise I am fine now," Kagome tried to soothe her mother.
Sesshoumaru said nothing, but looked directly at Kagome and his words played back in her mind. She didn't want to admit it to anyone, least of all herself, but she was unable to cope with being a demon and all that it came with; the strength, increased senses, instincts, and now her anger had almost caused her to go beserk.
"You suggested I should leave, but where would I go?"
The question was directed at Sesshoumaru and caused her mother and to gasp at the question. They had been tolerating so much from all the trouble she had been causing them recently. Her family had done their best in trying to help her, but Kagome was now realizing the danger she was putting everyone in. She'd witnessed Inuyasha lose control and being overpowered by his father's demon blood. She didn't want to end up like that; so if she had to remove herself, she would.
"I would house you where you would be unable to harm others and ensure your safety."
"And where exactly is that?"
"My home."