Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to own the characters they all belong to Rumiko Takahashi, not me.
A/N: Hohoho! Merry Christmas, everyone! Here is my gift to you! Read and review as a gift to me, too! Hohoho! LoL
A Gap Across Time
XI: Something's Amiss
"So, um, when does he begin?" Shippou looked from one youkai to the other. Inuyasha's first instructors didn't seem too commanding compared to Saiai or Tsume, but if they had to get the job done Shippou was sure they could. "Your names are Katari and Aizuna, right?"
The one with snow-flecked hair smiled and bowed politely. "I'm Katari and he is Aizuna. You must be Shippou?" The little fox pup nodded. "It's nice to see you and our Lord's brother, Inuyasha, again."
"All right, all right, enough with the formalities. Can't we just begin now?"
Inuyasha was lazily stretching and yawning at the same time. He couldn't understand why the training had to start so early in the morning - the sun had barely risen over the mountains and there were only, but a few select nightshift guards still standing around. The annoyed glare Shippou was giving him was not helping better his attitude towards the trio either. Inuyasha was put on a short fuse and the only way he thought he could be appeased was if he were released from his imprisonment here in the palace.
"Well, if you're that eager then I suppose we shall," Aizuna supplied. "First off, Katari and I are in the Minister of Support, which is literally the counselors that deal with medical supplies, and the handling of staff members who are available to tend to the wounded when it is necessary. There are actually one other counselor under our administration, but she is stuck with babysitting duties to the child, Lady Rin."
"What you will be learning today will be very important both to the soldiers, and to the whole of the inhabitants in the palace as well. It is crucial that our Lord understands the workings of the medical field. Coming up with new concoctions, healing brews, salvaging herbs, and preserving them for later use; such things like that." Katari stopped short of his explanation when he realized that Inuyasha was gone from his post. Somehow without the trio noticing it, he had slipped away off to some other part of the many hallways they were currently residing in. "Hm, I wonder how he sneaked past us without us knowing?"
"Inuyasha can be such an idiot!" Shippou shouted. "It's so typical of him to wander off when something doesn't interest him! I'm going to go find him!"
"Wait, before you . . ." He trailed off the sentence sluggishly without finishing it. Aizuna's voice proved ineffective because little Shippou did not stop from his rampaging through the hallways like a mad bull to bother listening to him.
"Oh, dear," Katari began, "what kind of mess did we get ourselves into?"
"We should search for him as well," Aizuna said. It's not a wonder why Lord Sesshoumaru despises his younger half-sibling so much. "Hopefully, either Tsume, Saiai, or Kikoku catch him because they'd know what to do if they found him out." Katari smiled up at him ruefully and clasped his hands together. The milky whiteness of his eyes held within them a strange appearance of longing - Aizuna couldn't quite understand the look. The wick that should not be lighted shall be lighted in the end no matter the outcome, huh? "Let's begin."
"All right."
Meanwhile, on some faraway hallway Shippou was so high-strung with anger that he hadn't nor needed the time to rest lest he found Inuyasha first. It was rather shameful that the stupid dog demon would act in such a way; it was a known fact that Inuyasha was not one to be lectured to, but for something as important as this Shippou found it utterly unacceptable as well as disrespectful to the counselors that were trying to school him. No matter where he looked he could not find Inuyasha; he even asked the guards standing around, but all of them replied with the same answer:
"We have not seen the person you speak of."
Geez, where could he have gone off to! I need to find him before he causes more trouble for the both of us! And I was asked to watch him for Miroku and Sango because they couldn't come along as well! I can't give up now! Not yet! Maybe even Kagome is counting on me . . .!
From behind a large marbled pillar Inuyasha was snickering to himself when he noticed that Shippou was looking for him fruitlessly. Keh, he can rue the day he'll ever catch me! Inuyasha let out a startled cry when he felt someone poke him in the back from behind - it wasn't too soft nor was it too hard. Afraid that he was found out he was hesitating on whether he should run or simply turn around. It became apparent that Shippou heard his voice because he was already making his way to where he was hiding. Crap, he's coming! His only solution was to run so that was what he did. He didn't even bother to look at the person who tapped him either as he made his getaway.
"Stop, Inuyasha!" Shippou called after him.
"Ah, wait you two!" a girl cried out. Yet, the two would not stop. "Hmph, and I wanted to talk to Lord Inuyasha, too. I wonder why they are in such a hurry?"
"Quit chasing me, you little brat! Don't you have better things to do?" Inuyasha called over his left shoulder. He was amazed that the little fox demon could keep up with him, when he was running so fast down the hallways that many soldiers standing on guard was surprised by the sudden blur of red and white zooming past them. Who'd have thought that the lesson would be so god damn boring! Of course I couldn't simply stay there and listen for a good couple of years of my life! Spotting a small opening to some unknown door he'd never seen Inuyasha made a quick dash towards it and went inside while closing the door silently behind him. He pressed one ear to the door and listened for the screaming of Shippou, and when he heard him go past the door he breathed out a sigh of relief. Shippou could really be a annoying handful when he wanted to be.
Given the time to relax a little, Inuyasha decided to look around his surrounding area to see where he had lead himself to. The room he was currently occupying was rather large for a closet storage room; the many mops and brooms that lined the wall were neatly kept free of dust and in order according to their height. A little ways to the far left of the clatter of cleaning sticks were a stack of hand towels that were a pristine white color. It made the hanyou wonder if they were even used before because they looked so spotless to begin with. He walked towards the pile of towels and grabbed one so he could dab his sweating face with it - something behind him moved which made him tense up in alarm. Turning around quickly he noticeably realized that the wall opposite him housed a large array of kitchen utensils that were old and dusty-looking. He found it strange that such items much like cooking and eating wares were stored together with the cleaning supplies; his brother's palace did not make much sense with the way he organized things.
Getting back to Aizuna and Katari, it seemed like they were uselessly searching for someone that had squarely disappeared without a hint of where he could have gone. It never crossed their minds that he was so close, and yet so far at the same time when they searched a certain hallway that contained the storage door he was residing behind. Katari did stop for a second to examine the door in a funny way, but he did not notice that Inuyasha was inside even though he smelled his scent all over the area. Aizuna, being a hedgehog youkai, did not have a good of a sense of smell as Katari did, and neither did he bother to stop until his companion did while sniffing the air at the same time.
"Have you caught onto his scent?" Aizuna asked. He, too, began to sniff. "I faintly smell him, but I'm not too sure where it's coming from."
"I'm not too sure myself," Katari replied. "His scent stops here, but I doubt he'd be in the cleaning storage room."
"We ought to check."
Inuyasha sweat dropped when he heard the door go click and the knob being turned - he needed to hide before they spotted him. Frantically looking to his left and right he leaped into a large bin of some cleaning solution he did not care to realize what it could be; a mop sloshed inside as well from his sudden plunge into the solution where its head fell across his stomach. Although he didn't notice the bin beforehand Inuyasha was graciously glad that something was there to hide him from view. Both Aizuna and Katari heard the loud splash even before the door was opened completely all the way.
"That splash . . ." Katari said, whilst walking into the storage room. He glanced down at the moving cleaning solution inside a large black bin to see that a mop fell in. "Hm, must have been caused by this mop." He lifted the poor soaking thing and rung it dry with his hands.
"Katari," Aizuna reprimanded, his opal-colored eyes becoming subtly angry looking, "you shouldn't touch that with your hands! That's a servant's job!"
Blushing, Katari automatically dropped the mop to let it fall back into the bin. A large amount of bubbles came to the surface of the solution after he did that. Inuyasha could see the horse youkai looking down into the liquid, but he did not seem to notice that it was him who had caused the bubbles and not the mop. He could only pray that they'd leave the room soon because he was starting to fight the urge to not go to the surface for air no matter how badly he needed it. Not being discovered was the only thing that was running through his mind as he tried to reason with his body as to why he didn't want to rise up from the solution and take in a gulp of air. His pride (or so he called it) was hanging in the balance.
"Strange, isn't it, that his scent ends here, but he's not inside . . ." Katari's brows furrowed together at such a thought. " . . . And I do hope we won't get into too much trouble with the other counselors over such a silly problem."
"Don't worry about it too much just yet, Katari, we still have time to search for him before the others would want us to report in," Aizuna supplied.
Hurry the hell up and leave already! Inuyasha was about to burst if they didn't close the door soon. By the time they left he came out in a coughing fit from being in there for so long - the stench of lemon was very strong on his skin, clothing, and hair. This is going to take weeks before the smell comes off . . .!
"Aha!" Inuyasha looked towards the door in mild surprise when Shippou was triumphantly standing there pointing an accusing finger at him. "I just knew you were in here! I should have back-tracked sooner!" Noticing the new smell Shippou wrinkled up his nose considerably before pinching his thumb and forefinger together over his nostrils. "And what's up with the lemony smell?"
"Don't even poke fun at me or I swear I will seriously kill you," Inuyasha warned. Shippou gulped and nodded his head. "Go tell a guard to get me a bath ready . . . God, I stink of lemon!"
"Well, duh, you dunked yourself into cleaning solution . . ."
"Are you asking for an early death sentence?" Inuyasha asked, eyes blazing like molten hot fire. "You'd better get moving before I change my mind and kill you."
"Ahhhh, don't kill me! I'm going!" Shippou cried as he ran towards the nearest guard who was only several hallways down.
"There he is!" Katari exclaimed. "Lord Inuyasha, we were looking all over the palace for you! What--" He stopped short of walking to Inuyasha's side when he got a whiff of the strong lemony smell. It wasn't that he was so startled that he dared not approach, but it was because the smell was so thick in its own glory that he feared if he went any closer he'd faint. "--are you all right, Lord Inuyasha?"
"Yeah, I'm fine . . . Am I in trouble now?" he asked.
"You could say that," Aizuna suffused, blanketing his own nose with a hand. If he could think of the citrus smell as horrid, then it'd probably affect everyone in the palace as well.
"Figured as much. I'm not cut out at being a Lord of a palace so it'd be better for me if you all got someone else to do it," Inuyasha told the two counselors. "Being cooped up here is driving me insane. And all these rules and laws that I need to learn is not going to be easy for a wild youkai like me."
"Did you not promise to do this for Lady Kikyou?" Aizuna made sure that Inuyasha heard him loud and clear. "Was it not you who declared in the first place that you were doing this for her sake?"
That's right. I did say that. "I remember." Inuyasha stood up on his own two feet when Shippou came bounding back to him. "Is the bath ready?" Shippou nodded. "All right." He looked to Katari and Aizuna while saying, "um . . . please excuse me . . ." he stopped for a moment and wondered what he should say next - he wasn't used to being polite to anyone, ". . . I'm going to take a bath so can our lesson continue on later?" Katari smiled while Aizuna nodded. He wasn't used to apologizing either, but he knew that when bitten, a mutter of 'I won't do it again' needed to be heard. "Thank you. And . . . err . . . I'm sorry for all the trouble I've caused."
"I'm sorry, too," Shippou added, "I didn't mean to cause a ruckus while I was running around looking for Inuyasha."
"Apologies accepted. We'll be waiting for you in the Minister's Office of Support, Lord Inuyasha," Aizuna said.
"Got it."
----------
"What was that just now?" Kagome asked. She looked up at the demon Lord helplessly as she sought out his eyes for some sort of comfort. He gave none to her and nor did he hope to receive any in return. "It was so hard to breathe."
"You're inconceivable - at one moment you wanted to die, and then in the next moment you prayed to live. Humans like you are dysfunctional creatures."
Those words stung at Kagome, although she knew his embellished ideals of a human were not in all it's entirety a wrong ideal either. No human was perfect and neither were humans so distorted in nature that they lacked the skills needed to survive. Human emotions - this was what sways the human heart and mind to jump from one idea to the next depending on their mood or sensuality. These were human traits that all who lived on Earth possessed, and Kagome knew as well as any other decent human being that without such notions the human race would have been extinct long ago.
"I have my regrets . . ." And here I was sure I wouldn't have any.
"You are much too soft," Sesshoumaru told her. "It's rather disgusting."
"Say, do you feel any better than before?" Sesshoumaru wasn't quite understanding her question so he remained tight-lipped about the sudden change in topic aimed towards him. "I mean, does your wounds still hurt a lot?"
"I have no answer for that."
"Well, you see, with your expressionless demeanor and all, I find it hard to figure out unless you tell me." Lifting her left hand she began to count up the days as to how long Sesshoumaru had stayed here in her house. "You've been here for roughly a week now, which makes it roughly two-and-a-half weeks since you were last seen in feudal Japan."
"Then I must return at once. I've been here long enough, and I wish to see no more of this unsightly world you belong to."
"The well is still broken, your wounds have not yet healed, there's conflicts between you and my family, and I worry about you . . ." Sesshoumaru snorted in distaste. "Really, I do." I think . . . In some ways, I've grown to like you a bit more despite the way you act towards me . . . I hope that someday your perception of me will change, so that we can get along better . . . Yeah, wouldn't that be nice?
"My wound should not concern you - you should be more worried about yourself," he told her. The sad smile she gave him then made his blood boil; it became evident that he disliked pity a whole lot. "I suffer for no one . . . And neither should you."
"I know that." Kagome took tentative steps towards the taiyoukai - she was very careful that she avoided the blood-stained spot on the carpet as she passed by it - she did not want to look down. "May I see your wounds again? Perhaps I might be able to do something for you."
"You, a human, observe me?" he asked in mockery.
"Yes, that's right, a human girl such as me just might be able to help." Kagome wasn't going to back down; she wasn't going to take her word back about him. She really was worried and wanted to see if any of her priestess powers could make a difference. Even if Sesshoumaru says he suffers for no one, that in itself makes it that he's suffered long enough for himself. The burden he feels must be really heavy. "Please, just this once. If I can't do anything, then I will try and get you back to feudal Japan for medicine or magic there that might be able to help."
"Hmph."
"Please . . . Lord Sesshoumaru . . ."
She makes requests like a beggar on a roadside asking for spare change. It's utterly despicable. "Do as you wish."
"Th-thank you!" For now, his concerns should come before mine. At least that's what I think is right . . .
Sesshoumaru eyed the bandages on her neck the whole time that she took to undo the front of his gi. She was so nervous that she took longer than necessary to peel it off from his chest, and down past his arms. The bandages wrapped around his torso and chest really needed to be changed - the one on his shoulder needed new bondages as well. They were soaked through with blood - Kagome hadn't realized that Sesshoumaru had been suffering all this time without her noticing a single thing. He kept things hidden well, and thus far, he had succeeded in putting up a strong front of appearing uninjured.
Her touch brings me relief.
Is he trembling or is it me?
"Stop now if you cannot go on," Sesshoumaru suddenly said.
Kagome looked down at her own hands and noticed that she was trembling, not the taiyoukai. Her hands were knotted onto the flaps of his flower-imprinted gi as she held onto it tightly. A uncontrollable desire told her that she should cry. A unshakable feeling whispered to her heart, her soul, and told her that she would cry. Cry she did; like small waterfalls they fell from her mountain-chiseled cheeks like they were not able to cling on for dear life. One lonely tear drop fell atop on Sesshoumaru's bare milky-white chest - it landed without a sound, and much like quicksilver, it ran down along the side of one of his ribcages.
"Why are you crying?"
"Seeing you this way makes me hurt here," she pointed to her own chest with one hand, "it's strange, but I feel pain here for you."
"Detestable."
"I'm sorry. I'll go get more bandages for you."
Kagome stood up quickly and left her mother's bedroom in hurried silence. When she was a little ways away from the bedroom she literally broke down and bawled like a newborn baby. This overwhelming feeling was flooding through her, and she couldn't quite get her bearings in order. She cried for a reason that she wanted to understand, or it was perhaps the answer was right there. It was only a matter of her wanting to grasp it or letting it remain as is - unknown and foreign to all.
Affection is not passed around cheaply like a cheeky smile.
To Be Continued!
