Tokijin lay abandoned in the grass and her scent lead in all directions; entering the trees, hiking along either side of the mountain, and every direction in between. She had spent a significant amount of time leaving false trails and trying to confuse him.
He snarled and picked up the discarded sword, but black power welled up around the handle and hissed against his skin. It had found a new master. His anger mounting, he sheathed the sword at his hip where it pulsed unhappily. He searched for the most recent scent, but the smell of her was everywhere making the trails intertwine and almost indistinguishable from each other.
He first chose the path leading the way they'd come, assuming she'd had enough with feeling like her body was on fire and tried to escape. There was blood on the leaves of low branches, solidifying his theory until the trail abruptly ended. He searched for her scent, trying nearby trees for traces, but there was nothing. He cursed himself for giving her those boots, which were designed to not leave even the faintest footprint when worn by someone who knew how to walk stealthily.
He glared at the end of the trail, before following it back to the two sections of padded down grass where the two had slept. The next path he chose wound around the edge of the mountain for a ways before it too ended. His golden eyes were the only things expressing his mounting fury. He didn't even bother to search for a continuation of the trail, just whipped around and started over. Two more trails yielded the same fruitless conclusions, the purity around him buzzing as his rage called forth his demonic blood.
'I will wring her neck when I find her, sealed power or not,' he promised himself.
When he returned again, he scrutinized the remaining paths carefully. A few of them meandered off aimlessly, and he immediately decided against them until he took a closer sniff at one. It was the faintest of all of them leading in a straight line towards the barrier. The tall grass that had parted to let her through hardly even looked disturbed compared to the other trails. Satisfaction coursed through him, knowing this was the real one; the others had stronger scents haven been traversed twice.
This one had only been navigated once.
He knew she couldn't have moved very fast with the way the barrier affected her, and having wasted so much time walking in circles, she definitely had not gotten far. He sauntered after her, taking his time and giving his body time to adjust to the power grating against him with every step. This trail did not end, deepening his satisfaction, but soon it was clear something was amiss. The closer he got to the mountain, the stranger the power emanating from it felt.
It seemed to be coming in intermittent surges, sizzling over his skin, and sending the dull ache of his side into a fiery torment before once again subsiding. It was becoming increasingly annoying, and he moved faster towards the source of the sweet, metallic scent of the girl's blood. His acute hearing picked up a small cry coming from ahead as another, larger wave of power swept over him. He gritted his teeth and pressed forward with a bust of speed that nearly sapped all his strength from him this close to the barrier.
'Not only does the damn thing burn me, but it weakens me too.' He seriously considered destroying the damn thing and leaving her to do as she pleased, but something kept him moving forward.
Her scent was becoming more and more potent until he found her among the tall grass. She lay a few feet from the barrier, scooting closer on her back every few minutes. With every move she made the barrier hissed in protest, surging over her in pure retaliation, forcing her to stop to let the pain subside before inching closer again. Her chest was heaving, probably from that last wave of power he felt and sweat glistened on her forehead. Her azure eyes opened, looking slightly delirious and she half grinned half grimaced at him.
"Oh hey. Fancy meeting you here." She panted, raising her knees to push herself closer.
"Stupid girl." He growled, still angry that she led him in circles. She let out a breathy laugh that became a whimper as she propelled herself closer with her legs. The barrier's power hissed around her furiously. He watched her agony with a satisfied smirk on his face. As it waned, the half-smile returned to her face utterly confusing him.
"Guess you're angry, huh?" She gasped, turning her head to peer at his side. "My present to you looks better today. Now we match." She giggled frenetically, lifting her hand and letting it flop against her chest.
"You're insane. In this condition how did you possibly judge yourself fit to be unsupervised?"
"I knew you could find me." Her breathing was starting to slow down, but her eyes glowed with a strange elation he couldn't understand.
"Then what was the use in attempting to mislead me?" She laughed again, raising her knees and readying herself for another wave of pain.
"I wanted to see how far you'd go to follow me." She smirked, launching herself backwards. She slid farther than she had before and shrieked as a huge wave of power rolled over her. Sesshomaru's knees almost buckled underneath him at the strength of the upsurge.
"Fuck this thing." She hissed through clenched teeth, only inches from the barrier. It took longer for the glow of euphoria to return to her face, the pain causing a sickly pallor to cover her cheeks. Her eyes met his. "Why did you follow me?" She examined his face for any hints of his reasoning and then met his molten gaze steadily, waiting for an answer.
"I made you a blood bound promise. 'A life for a life.' I intend to keep it." She grinned.
"Ah. And here I thought you were worried about my well being. How foolish of me." She smirked at him wickedly with a teasing glint in her eyes.
He glared at her, resisting the urge to growl and analyzed the barrier for a moment before crossing it in a few long strides. It felt like walking through a waterfall so cold that it burned while being dipped in acid with a thousand tiny cuts. The instant subduing of his youkai blood took all the strength from him and he half sat, half collapsed on the other side, trying to make it look like he was simply waiting for her. His body felt like molten lead, lighting his blood on fire but he made no complaint.
She titled her head backwards so she could look at him with a sneer of satisfaction.
"Sucks, doesn't it?" She cackled, throwing herself backwards again. He remained silent with stone cold eyes as he watched her slowly work her way through the barrier, each scream and flush of rapture becoming subsequently louder and more apparent. With one final, weak shove she made it through, curling up into a ball on her side, facing him and hyperventilating.
"God this shit is worse than miasma." He agreed, but he made no motion to let her know that. His silence made her look up at him. "So you gunna tell me why that comment pissed you off? Don't deny it; I saw it in your face." He tried to contain his shock, but she noticed even the slightest change in his eyes.
"And there, you were surprised I knew I pissed you off. And now you're angry. It's so much easier to read you now." She giggled, and he stared at her, trying to see a change in the deep pools of blue other than the color and the feverish delight making her look mildly demented.
Irritation spiked through him as he realized she must have been gradually learning to do this for some time now as her eyesight improved. It only mounted when he realized she was still waiting for an explanation for her question, and he didn't have one.
"This Sesshomaru does not have to explain himself to you, girl." She rolled her eyes.
"Oh, were back to that, are we? Let's get two things straight. Speaking in third person is not attractive, and my name is Kagome. KA-GO-ME. I know you can say it. So say it with me. KA-GO…oh now you're REALLY mad." Her eyes were glinting with a playful mischievousness. He was ready to fulfill his promise of wringing her neck when he remembered how agonizingly slow and heavy his body felt. Clenching his fists he decided it was time to get answers from her.
"Are you delirious? Why are you so happy when you're in so much pain?"
"Because it feels so GOOD." She almost purred at him. He couldn't help it. He arched an eyebrow and gave her a disturbed look.
"Excuse me?"
"No, I mean…well I don't know what I mean. But when I first left the place where we sort of crash landed, the pain was so bad I was leaving. That trail wasn't meant to confuse you. I was really trying to get out of this god awful place. But every step made it grow stronger, and I knew I didn't have a choice. All the other trails were meant to confuse you, but I was just trying to give myself more time to get under control so I wouldn't freak out and hurt you again." A flicker of sadness and regret crossed her face. "I thought if I got closer to the mountain, the more control I'd have, or at least the more pain I'd be in, so I literally couldn't hurt you."
"Do not think so highly of yourself, girl. This is merely an inconvenience. Do not presume to think you could severely damage my person." She gave him a dubious look and raised an eyebrow. He stared at her in what he hoped was his most stoic, serious face, concentrating on not letting even the slightest hint of emotion get through. She still didn't buy it.
"Yeah. Whatever you say. Anyway, once I got close to the barrier I almost couldn't move with how bad it hurt, hence why you found me rolling around in the dirt. But after a while of doing that I noticed I felt a little more in control after every wave of pain. And then my hearing and my eyesight began to get better too. Well, it's been getting better this entire time, but noticeably better right now. It felt like my body was getting stronger, and for the first time since the last battle with Naraku, I felt clean. Not physically, I mean my soul. I don't feel like I'm a monster anymore. And it hurts like hell even now, but I can't even concentrate on that with how good it feels to have some quiet in my mind."
She rolled onto her back among the flowers of Mount Hakurei and stretched out, her raven hair fanned out underneath her. She heaved a huge sigh and closed her eyes, the dance of pink sparks across her body slowly disappearing as she relaxed. He stared at her in disbelief at the strength in the face of adversity this girl had shown.
Despite all the horrible things he had done to her, she risked herself to make sure that she could not harm him again. It disturbed her to know she had hurt him, even though they were nothing but traveling acquaintances, held together by a blood bond she had called for half mad to save his half-brother from herself. When she realized that the darkness within her could be spread, she would have gone charging after her friends to rescue them, even if that meant forfeiting her body to the creatures that lived inside of her again.
"You look like you're thinking about something." Her voice was soft and sleepy and she looked at him with hooded eyes. He met her gaze, but didn't speak. He felt like her peaceful azure pools were pulling him in, washing over him in calming waves. Suddenly, the purity of the barrier didn't grate against his aura so painfully. He traced the contours of her cheeks with his gaze, down the curve of her neck and across the slim frame garbed in his mother's battle kimono from long before she had met father, and in that moment, it seemed she belonged in it. The only thing missing was her armor.
His eyes returned to her face and she smiled drowsily, pushing herself up onto one arm.
"Let's seal this bitch up and go home." One side of his mouth curved in an involuntary, lopsided smile that he quickly tried to hide, but he knew she had seen. She didn't mention it, but that wicked glint sparkling in her sapphire eyes said enough. He took a clawed finger and put it on the curve of her stomach, right below her ribs.
"Concentrate your power here encircling everything evil and sealing it there." A softness had crept into his deep voice, and he felt a shiver run through her.
Her power welled up and washed over him in calm, warming ripples. Her eyes glowed with her energy as she bit her bottom lip in concentration. She tried again and again, her seal always breaking when she stopped concentrating on it, but each subsequent one formed stronger and held longer. He watched her, the wind whispering through her hair as she tried again without wavering or complaining, her eyes burning with an iron determination.
'I think I understand now, father. The strength of humans comes not from their bodies and their power. It comes from their hearts. That is what you cherished in them.'