Title: Kagome and Sesshoumaru starring in…
Author: Tsubasa Kya
Disclaimer: I do not own "Inuyasha".

Chapter eleven:
What wakes with salt

Kagome groaned as salt invaded her sleep and carried her on false wings back to the realm of consciousness. And she had been so happy without being awake too. It was just unfair. Her first break in a long time, and salt was what disturbed it.

"Kagome," Shippou was calling her. She sighed and gave in to waking up. She opened her eyes, blinking multiple times as light she wasn't used to invaded her sight. Shippou called out loudly, "She's awake!" There was a tumult of noise as Shippou helped Kagome stand, although it was so hard while wearing her stupid dress.

People were clapping because she was in pain. Or were they really? What if they were simply clapping because they thought something good had happened? Why had she fallen asleep? She tried to remember, but all that came to mind was the tightness of the dress she was wearing.

Maybe she passed out from lack of oxygen to the brain? With the tight dress, she supposed it might be a possibility that she shouldn't immediately rule out. A glance around her told her that she wasn't the only one suffering in fancy clothes.

Then it hit her, almost in the same fashion as a brick to the face. "Oh goodness…" she sighed as Shippou urged her forward, walking with her toward where Injyouko-sama was standing at a podium. 'They kept smelling salts for this purpose,' she thought miserably. 'I hate them…' she decided abruptly.

Shippou whispered in her ear, his voice almost drowned out by the sound of cameras clicking and loud clapping and cheering and 'congratulations'. "There's a small party tonight at Sesshoumaru's place. Only a select few are invited."

"That's nice," Kagome sighed and glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. "I'd rather just go home. I've had enough for one night."

"Too bad," Shippou smirked. "You have to rely on me, and I'm going right to Sesshoumaru's place. You're coming." She felt a smile force its way onto her face but it was definitely not an 'I'm so happy' smile. It was more of an 'I'd like to strangle you but people are watching' smile. He hardly looked worried.

She lifted the hem of her dress as she attempted to mount each stair up onto the podium. Oh, she was definitely not made for dresses, heels, or podiums.

Injyouko-sama said into the microphone what everyone already knew, "Ladies and gentlemen, our winner, Higurashi, Kagome!" If it was even possible, the noise became so loud that thinking was not the only impossible thing to happen in that room.

Kagome's eyes searched the crowd from the height of the podium. In the back of the room, standing by a visibly upset Yora-san, was the modern version of Sesshoumaru. But it was Yora-san that Kagome wanted to see. And that brought a genuine satisfied smile to her face to see Yora-san so disturbed.

Injyouko-sama asked Kagome, "Is there anything you would like to say to the world, Miss Higurashi?"

For a few seconds, the world held its breath and Kagome couldn't stop herself from accepting the chance to speak. She would do this, but only because of the look on Yora-san's face. She could quit tomorrow, but tonight, she would do this. She would speak to the world. Because Yora-san would never, ever accept the part now, not since Kagome won first.

She walked the two feet to the microphone, locking eyes with Yora-san. That smirk held a place on her face and Kagome knew that if her mother were watching, she too would be gloating at the success the Higurashi family had over the Yora family. "Thank you."

Yora-san was clenching her fists as Kagome stepped back. Those present seemed surprised at her short speech. Most of them thought it would be a lengthy, airy speech incorporating many 'oh my gosh' and 'like'.

But when was Kagome ever accused of being normal? She hopped in a magical well and traveled to another world; normalcy officially ended at fourteen and three-hundred eighty-four days, because fifteen—nothing was normal after that.

Yora-san knew what was left unsaid. 'Thank you for losing'. Yora-san had said that to Kagome so many times, it was about time Kagome returned it. And it was even funnier to Kagome because Yora-san had warned her ahead of time that Kagome would be going home a loser.

It really did feel good to be the winner. The Higurashi family was back on track.

"Long winded, aren't you?" Injyouko-sama laughed and his joke extracted laughter from those present. Kagome smiled but her eyes remained on Yora-san. Her fingers fiddled with the strange bracelet she'd found in the feudal era. She didn't hear anything that Injyouko-sama said after that. She was too busy smirking at Yora-san.

Finally everyone seemed to flutter away from the party and the press began to disperse after the famous actors and actresses. Kagome climbed down from the podium with help from Shippou. Without a ladder, it was actually hard work. Again she cursed the creator of heels.

"You're really beautiful in pink, you know," Shippou approved. He held her hand as she used her free hand to lift the front hem of her dress and carefully walk down the steps. She made it down to flat ground again and flashed him a smile induced by the high of winning against Yora-san.

"Thank you, Shippou," she said, acknowledging the compliment. "Although I'm not really certain black is your color." She said the tease in a quiet voice. She watched as he grinned and gently pulled her hand away from his. Perhaps tonight wasn't so bad after all, but she was getting tired and she did want to go home.

They walked by a few members of the press who were milling about waiting for a chance to talk to those who had remained behind (such as Injyouko-sama) and left the building. Once outside, she shivered in the cool night air. Shippou instantly gave her his jacket.

She was surprised to find it draping on her, almost dwarfing her small form. It was almost strange to have him all grown up. She almost wished it hadn't happened, or she hadn't met him in this world. It was hard to tell if he was the same Shippou she knew and loved.

Plus, there was a strangeness to this new version that she couldn't identify.

Shippou held his passenger seat door open for her and she got into the flashy red car. Her bag was in the backseat and her purse was underneath the front seat. They drove off, the press following them every mile of the way.

"I'm not going to take you home just yet," Shippou admitted. "The press are like tether balls; you bounce them away and they just swing back around the other way. At this point, I'm not sure if you really want them knowing where you live."

She felt a sigh burble out of her throat. "They're going to find out anyway," she pointed out. "Would you rather they start rumors?"

"Oh, it's not a big secret about the party. The press knows, they're just not invited. Why don't you want to go?" He looked thoroughly confused. She supposed having lived a life as long as his, he had no use for menial tasks such as 'school'.

"I really need to get home, Shippou," she told him. "I'm tired, and my family is waiting for me. I have school work to do, and not only that but I'm still working with Inuyasha to piece the jewel back together."

"All the more reason to enjoy life while you can!" Shippou pointed out. "I mean, school sucks monkey balls, your family could use the break to know you're not off gallivanting with potentially homicidal demons chasing you around, and Inuyasha shouldn't always get what he wants! Why can't you live your life a little?"

"You pointedly ignored the fact that I'm tired," she yawned, proving her point.

"Sesshoumaru has plenty of beds!" Shippou continued to insist, and she gave up her attempts. She fell asleep right in the car as they drove, and it was two hours before they made it to Sesshoumaru's mansion. At three AM they were exiting the vehicle and Kagome barely registered the fact that Sasuke's parents' rickety old car was in a corner of the long turnabout driveway.

They walked (she stumbled) to the front door and knocked. They were admitted by a tall, blocky man wearing a French maid's outfit. If anything woke Kagome up, it was that sight. She actually shrieked. "Oh my god!" she yelped, latching onto Shippou's arm. It was not right, and her befuddled mind screamed the wrongness.

The man really was a man; flat chest, scruffy chin, thick mustache, and hairy legs included. He wore fishnet stockings and as he greeted them, his voice was incredibly pitchy. "Hellooo!" He sang cheerfully, swaying his hips almost as though he would grab them up and hug them to death.

She'd faced down demons that were less scary! And she was pretty positive that was a human. Shippou laughed at her. "Myron, this is our winner! Kagome, this is Myron. He's Sesshoumaru's butle—er, maid."

"Dear heavens above," Kagome prayed, "let me go home."

Shippou continued, "Myron only works on days that Sesshoumaru has people coming over."

"I will never, ever be bad again," Kagome continued praying. "I will never 'sit' Inuyasha again. I will never tease Shippou with promises of crayons again. I will let Miroku grope my bottom if that's what it takes."

Shippou burst into laughter and led her into the house past the very scary cross-dresser. Semi-normalcy returned once they were inside the house. As Shippou had said, it was a small group of people. She counted perhaps fifteen people. Kouga was easy to recognize, but she hoped he wouldn't remember her.

To be frank, she did not need him to suddenly see her, scoop her up, and declare she was his woman. She had to deal with that enough in the feudal era.

And after a short nap, she did feel a little more ready even if her hair was a little mussed and her dress was slightly wrinkled from sitting in the car. She was introduced formally to the people in the room; Kouga showed no sign of acknowledgement when Shippou introduced her. He simply greeted her and was then called away by a female actress.

Mostly the actors and actresses asked her questions on what she thought of the audition process. She was surrounded by five people including Shippou when one asked her what she thought about the raffle in itself. They'd heard she didn't really want to win to begin with.

She told them, "I'm rather annoyed on a deeply personal level mostly due to the fact that my friends were the ones to sign me up for the raffle, but also because professionalism has seemed to be completely thrown out the window for a raffle." They shared a laugh over that and asked her if she would do the movie or decide to give it up.

Her answer for that question was, "I'm quite positive Shippou is intent on convincing me around, but my intentions are hopefully as clear as window pane."

Eventually after an hour or so, most of them went about to do whatever it was they wanted to do. Some people left, and some people milled about talking to one another about this or that. It was at that time that Sesshoumaru approached Kagome. Shippou left almost immediately on seeing that Sesshoumaru was coming over, and left Kagome to her own devices.

She wondered again if she was supposed to be feeling rather nervous. Surely he wouldn't kill her in front of all these people? But at that point, she realized that Myron had come and was telling everyone the small greeting party was over. It was four thirty in the morning.

Before Sesshoumaru could even say anything, Kagome said, "That kit better not have left me here!"

Sesshoumaru simply smiled that strangely befitting smile of his. How did he do that and not kill people of heart attacks at the same time? It was considerably confusing. "Would you like to see the rest of the jewelry set?" he asked her.

She glanced at him. Most prominent in her mind was whether or not she should trust him to keep her alive in the meantime. He seemed to recognize her train of thought because he added, "You have my word. You will remain unharmed while in that decidedly expensive gown."

She felt a blush come to her face. "I'll make sure to keep it on for the rest of my life then," she mumbled. He laughed and waved for her to precede him out of the room. "Why are you being nice to me?" she asked in a low voice as they walked down an empty hall.

"Because you were kind to me," he shrugged, one hand flicking his long free hair over his shoulder. To her, that said a hundred things. Most of it she did not like.

"You do remember me…" she gulped. The last thing she could remember saying to him at their last meeting was that he was a hard-headed, stubborn, arrogant youkai who really needed to be taken down a peg or two. Then, to spite him and his attempts to kill Inuyasha, she'd called Sesshoumaru a girl-wannabe. In fact, she could never really remember a time when she had ever said something nice about Sesshoumaru considering he was always trying to kill her best friend.

So that basically meant that sometime in the future she would meet Sesshoumaru… but they were going to meet on far different terms than usual. She felt a shiver go down her spine. She didn't think she liked that.

And yet there she was, walking with him to who-knew-where. Her heels clicked noisily on the stone flooring, and his dangerous hands were dangerously close to her. Everyone seemed to have left… she didn't think anyone was around anymore…

She was quite possibly alone with him… He was going to show her the jewelry set that the one she wore matched… Where was Shippou?

End.