Still not mine, but I keep wishing.

Fifty reviews! I'm so excited! Thank you everyone for taking the time -- you're the only reason I do this.

ooooo

"Sesshoumaru!"

Judgment's effects hadn't entirely disappeared when the demon chose to rise, and willpower alone kept him on his feet. Holden, damn her, saw his weakness.

"We're going," he said, waving off Holden's concern. A hand gripped his shoulder firmly.

"Not yet, brother," Six corrected, tightening his grip. "You still haven't shaken off all Judgment's after-effects. You should rest."

A snarl formed in Sesshoumaru's throat – really, who was the half-demon to mother him? But when he whirled on Six to respond, he was taken aback by the clone's expression, and his anger faded as quickly as it had flared. Placid and unassuming, but oddly tender, an affectionate smile touched the corners of Six's mouth. He plainly expected Sesshoumaru to capitulate – and, also plainly, saw nothing demeaning or unworthy in the surrender.

Six dipped his head to one side and dropped his hand, smiling. "It's important to get Kagome and Inuyasha back safely, I know. And you've been waiting a long time. But if you'll wait a little longer, things will go much more smoothly in the end. I'm sure you know that." The kitsune, for once, wisely held his tongue, though he watched the exchange with interest.

Once again, Sesshoumaru was forcefully reminded that Six was not Inuyasha, was nothing at all like Inuyasha. Because Six had been, for the most part, protected from the things that made Inuyasha act cocky and proud and rash and altogether aggravating, because Six didn't have 'the progenitor's' hang-ups. Because Sesshoumaru had been there for the clone in a way he had never been there for his half-brother.

"You should definitely rest a little longer, Sesshu," One agreed enthusiastically. "You'll feel a lot better if you do."

If you would truly serve me, allow yourself to be loved by those who would love you.

The memory of his beloved wife's words, whether they had been dreamed or imagined or actually spoken, dissolved his will to resist.

"Soon, then," he answered quietly, and retreated from the room with as much dignity as he could muster. If he were going to stay home a little longer, he was going to do it in his study, by his fire, sitting in his chair.

As the door swung closed behind him, he heard the kitsune mock his parting words. He almost made it back into infirmary to mete out an appropriate chastisement to the infuriating little rodent – preferably something involving a great deal of blood – but paused as he heard the sound of several fists crashing into the witless fox's skull. Six sighed a long-suffering "Shippo…" and One put his two cents in with, "Kagome said it wasn't nice to make fun of people! Aren't you a grown-up? Shouldn't you know better?" Holden said nothing, but delivered a second blow to register her discontent with Shippo's antics.

Aren't you a grown-up? Shouldn't you know better?

His mockery of Inuyasha had been a good deal more sophisticated than the kitsune's ill-fated joke at his expense, but it amounted to the same thing.

You have all the makings of a real family, of true happiness, just within your grasp – only be strong enough to build it.

Rin, Rin, I'm trying.

Oh, my love. Be happy.

As he slowly made his way down the corridor, feeling like he was going to collapse but refusing to brace himself against the wall, he was astonished to realize that, despite everything having gone to hell, despite the girl being kidnapped, despite the danger that had threatened One and Six, and even his own brief brush with death, there was a part of him that was perfectly at ease. The encounter with Rin strengthened him like no personal resolve ever could have done. They would get the girl back – and Inuyasha with her. That alone had been a stroke of good luck, that the kitsune had been able to locate the half-demon and his human lover. The clones had pulled through, and he could feel his own strength rapidly returning to him. After five hundred years of waiting, his ancient vendetta was finally coming to a head.

And he wasn't going to face it alone.

ooooo

"Higurashi." No, no, hush, let me sleep, it hurts.

"Oi, Higurashi, wake up already." No.

"Geez, woman, don't you want to live?" Pain… does living mean continuing this pain?

"Or are you okay with that guy dying?" That guy… That guy? Inu… Inuyasha? Are you dying, Inuyasha? No, no, why?

Stupid, you're dying. He's sealed to you, remember?

I can't die. I can't die.

I can't die! Inuyasha... I want you to live!

Kagome forced her eyes open.

"Finally," Hannibal remarked snidely. But Kagome wasn't looking at Hannibal.

Staring down at her was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. His flesh was like finely carved marble, pale, flawless but for a strange, silver star-burst marking in the very center of his forehead. Deep violet eyes, wet with tears, regarded her with great tenderness. Perfectly curled hair tumbled elegantly over his shoulders, and the barest hint of a gentle smile graced his generous mouth. He was slender, very slender, and to Kagome, seemed to be made of fine porcelain, something precious and irreplaceable that would break if mishandled.

Her first thought was that he was so beautiful, he made Sesshoumaru look positively butch. Her second was an attempt to discern why on earth this beautiful person was looking at her with such a sweetly sad expression.

"This is Caradoc, Higurashi," Hannibal said shortly. "You're both in a position to do the other a favor."

Her mind must have been foggy with pain, because she didn't understand. Certainly she couldn't respond; her throat was filled with sickeningly warm, metallic blood.

"He's a unicorn."

She blinked. Unicorn? He was a man, wasn't he? Or a demon? Not a horse with a horn.

And suddenly she realized what Hannibal was trying to do. She couldn't speak, but her horror didn't need words; she writhed and thrashed madly, mindless of the pain and the blood, desperate to be understood.

Tears slipped from the beautiful man's eyes, and he gently restrained her.

Hannibal watched her intently, and she thought for a moment that he seemed very sad. But when he spoke, his tone was brusque.

"Caradoc has lived his whole life here, Higurashi. Like his father, and his father's father, and his father's father's father, he has spent his entire life waiting to be destroyed by the next worthy Hand member. And when that happens, his son will be imprisoned in this godforsaken place to suffer the same fate."

He looked away from her. "Do you know that unicorns only come to virgins in the myths? It's because there are only males… they procreate with human women. But they pass on the whole of their essence their unborn child when they mate – and after the mating, the unicorn dies, leaving the woman alone to care for and protect a demon's child."

She shook her head frantically, urgently, fighting to remain conscious, terrified of what might happen if she didn't. She didn't want to know; she didn't want to hear it. Six had told her enough, she wanted nothing to do with it, nothing.

He heartlessly continued. "Problem is, unicorns are born in their natural form, hoofed and horned. Any normal human woman would die in childbirth trying to bear such a thing. Which is why the bearers of single-sex demons don't remain normal human women. Why they become guardians, possessing, among other things, supernatural healing abilities."

He looked at her again. She shook her head slowly, horrified, but couldn't take her eyes off of Hannibal's burning green orbs.

"Caradoc's life has been one of terrible loneliness and endless fear. He is content to let it go – if doing so meant that his son could be born of a woman worthy to be a guardian. If his son could have a better life."

The beautiful man… the unicorn… Caradoc… turned infinitely sad eyes on her, tears streaming along his perfect face.

"He can save you, Higurashi," Hannibal pressed mercilessly, and bitter tears escaped Kagome's eyes even as she anticipated Hannibal's next words. "And letting him save you is the only way you can save Inuyasha."

ooooo

Silvery blond hair swept across black leather, and Shippo took a moment to admireHolden's shapely body – after first making certain that Sesshoumaru was nowhere to be seen, of course. He toyed with the idea of slipping into Sesshoumaru's form for a moment, but decided against it. His head still hurt where she'd depreciated his humor earlier.

It was easy to forget just who Anastasia Holden-Truelove was, from time to time. She wore so many faces that Shippo could never be certain of an appropriate approach to her. Her most frequently donned mask, at least since the arrival of the clones, had been clipped and cool and professional, but there was a lot more to her than that. She had begun her adult life as a vigilante demon-slayer, and though she wore lab coats and slacks more often than not nowadays, the leather-clad, armed-to-the-teeth soldier that had taken the doctor's place was testament to the depth of reality behind that first persona.

Sesshoumaru entered just then, and looked the woman up and down before asking indifferently if she was ready to leave. Six followed him in and leaned against the wall, arms crossed, waiting for Holden's response.

"I'm ready," she told them shortly. She tightened the strap of her shoulder-holster forcefully, and Shippo could feel the aggression seething under her skin radiating like a furnace.

A sudden insight about the confusing woman occurred to him, and he wondered why he hadn't seen it before. Humans weren't really meant to live as long as she had; they changed as the years passed. Usually they judged their world as complex, and spent their lives examining its convolutions. Demons were precisely the opposite; they tended to oversimplify complex principles. Primitive urges and desire drove them: this is mine, this is good, that is wrong, this benefits me, this does not, this wounds me, this brings me pleasure. This almost infantile understanding of his or her experiences dominated the thinking of a demon – and ultimately, the vision of humanity had proven to be much greater. A search for the minutia, a deep curiosity to delve into the complexities of life and nature and the mind – that was part of what had come to constitute human greatness.

Unless, of course, like Holden, a human saw so many things and felt so many things and did so many things that they could recognize patterns, and learned to simplify his or her experiences, even as demons did. Then they stopped caring about the intricacies of life, and spent their time and energy pursuing simple, primitive wants and needs, and identifying the necessary actions that must be taken to acquire them. That was the secret behind Holden-Truelove: in the end, she thought and acted more like a demon than a human being.

And when he understood that, a lot of other things fell into place for Shippo. For Holden, the strange relationship she shared with Sesshoumaru was not strange at all. For two human beings, it could only have been miserable and awkward – had been, in fact, for Kagome and Inuyasha. They fought and suffered and struggled right up until the day Kikyo died. To wait for Sesshoumaru to complete his quest for Rin's vengeance, however, was simply a necessity for Holden and the dog, and they neither resented it nor questioned it. They would be together, eventually. It might not have been enough, but they were content to wait.

Her demon-like perception of the world also explained her attachment to Inuyasha's clones, and to the half-demon she had never met. Demons were possessive creatures, and One, Six, and Inuyasha were Sesshoumaru's brothers. Sesshoumaru belonged to her – or would, at any rate – therefore, his brothers were hers as well. Hell, she probably thought Kagome belonged to her, too, come to think of it.

So putting herself at risk for the girl she'd only just met and the half-demon she'd protected most of her life was a perfectly natural thing to do.

"Are you coming, Shippo?" Six asked, a quirk of a smile on his lips.

"Yeah, just thinking. Bandiagara's one of the Hand's trump cards – there's always been extra security because of the cloning and guardian experiments that take place there. I brought more of the Judgment antibody, but it would be pretty stupid to think that Judgment is the only thing they'll have to throw at us. I know there are at least six pseudo-guardians there, and maybe as many as a dozen, and there could be some genetic freaks out there as well. Although that's pure rumor. None of my guys actually got close enough to verify the rumors; the perimeter defenses were too good."

He frowned, thinking. "I'm almost willing to bet that there'll be a purification barrier around the facility, or at least the most sensitive parts of it. If that's the case, Holden, we're really going to be counting on you and your men." As soon as Holden had gotten the antibody into her boys, she'd immediately phoned her people in Paris and ordered them to Mali. With any luck they wouldn't be far behind Sesshoumaru and Shippo.

"We can take out any purification barriers," Holden told him with confidence. "They don't have all that many holy men that are willing to work with them, after all. And those that will are mostly corrupted priests anyway. They won't present much of a problem." A bloodthirsty gleam hit her eyes, and Shippo had to force himself to keep from looking away. "No problem at all."

Sesshoumaru laid a calm gaze on each of them, and Shippo was reminded why he had chosen to work with the arrogant bastard, despite all the troubles he'd caused for them in the past. Whatever else he was or wasn't, Sesshoumaru was one hell of a leader – and Shippo was a good enough leader himself to recognize it. He closed his mouth and waited for Sesshoumaru to speak.

"We're leaving." He grasped Holden's arm and sped out of the window and into the skies, leaving Shippo cursing under his breath. He transformed into the massive fox from that kitsune took when they reached adulthood, and waited impatiently for Six to climb on. Then he took off after Sesshoumaru, south and eastward, and within minutes they had left jolly old London behind.