Guys! I'm sorry I'm such a pissant! Life has been beyond crazy for me lately, between getting a job, and actually getting a relationship with my little brother, and things happening with the rest of my family, and finally putting some actual effort into my art, I haven't had the time to wipe my own arse, let alone sit down and bang out five thousand words a week for this.

I have a day off work today, though, and people are out of the house. I decided to try and get this chapter written before I did my daily drawings. I'll be trying hard now to make some time for writing. I've started rereading InuYasha to build my love again and its getting me pumped to carry on. We're very very close to a very big bit of development! Since I've only written a couple hundred words of this chapter so far, I can't tell you whether the development will happen this chapter, or the next or even the one after, but it'll be soon!

I'm sorry again for the ridiculous wait, and I hope you guys forgive me and enjoy this chapter.

Kagome Kagome

Scroll Twenty

The day was beatiful, yet I couldn't find it in myself to truly enjoy it like I usually could. The faint wisps of clouds in the brilliant blue sky didn't make me feel tranquil; the cool breeze on an uncharacteristically warm winter morning didn't comfort me; Rin giggling as she occupied herself with flowers didn't bring a smile to my lips.

My mind was too overtaken by far more unpleasant thoughts than a happy winter's morning.

Lord Sesshomaru was absent again. It wasn't an uncommon occurrence recently, but his lack of presence still played heavily on my mind. His lack of presence made all of us a little edgy.

Master Jaken was unhappy with the role of constant protector that he bore. Before now Lord Sesshomaru woud still spend plenty of time with our band, so Master Jaken could bask in the Demon's presence. Recently, with Lord Sesshomaru's constant absence, Master Jaken hadn't been able to do that. He'd been constantly in our presence, which made for a grumpy imp. His bad mood got worse by the day.

Rin didn't feel as safe without Lord Sesshomaru by her side. Her love for our protector only grew every time she laid eyes on him, and her pain at the loss of his presence was tangible at this point. She masked the pain with her bright smiles, or little huffs of being bored without him, but it was plain to see. Master Jaken was taking time to engage with her more, even with his growing bad mood, in hopes that she would be content with us.

Rin's edginess had always put my own mind on edge, so Rin despairing at Lord Sesshomaru's absence was playing on my mind, but that wasn't all. His absence made me feel guilty. I believed that he was avoiding me, and I couldn't blame him for it. The guilt stemmed from knowing that I was the cause of Master Jaken's bad mood and Rin's unhappiness.

Goose bumps appeared on my arms and my head snapped up. "Rin, come over here," I called out, keeping my eyes to the rolling hills before us. I had come to trust these gut instincts without question now. Something dangerous was coming.

I wasn't wrong. Just a few seconds later a breeze picked up, and just beyond Rin landed a tall, beautiful and familiar visage. Her deep red eyes turned over the area, searching for something. I pushed myself to my feet as Rin scurried to hide behind Master Jaken for protection. Master Jaken lifted his staff in defense and squawked at the woman. "So! You've come to kidnap Rin again?!"

Her gaze flickered down to Master Jaken in disinterest. "What? When did I ever do that?" Though she sounded bored, there was a dull note in her voice, like she was speaking without truly thinking about what she was saying, her mind focussed on something of far more importance.

My brows drew together when her eyes turned back to searching for something. That wasn't right. The few times I had seen the woman, she was focussed and calm. Confident. There was a franticness to her now, and despite my inclination to dislike her, for she had kidnapped Rin and put her in a lot of danger, I felt worry for her. For what she'd done to Rin, it still stood that there were times where she had helped us; given us information that was important. She was working for Naraku, yes, but she wasn't doing it willingly, that was for sure.

Her hand, holding tight to her fan, came to her face and an almost vulnerable look entered her eyes. "Sesshomaru isn't here?"

"Fool!" Master Jaken screeched. "If Lord Seshomaru were here, your head would be rolling on the ground by now."

The vulnerability in her gaze heightened for a moment before they clenched shut. When they opened again, there was a blankness to her; a morbid sort of acceptance of something. "True enough," she sighed, plucking a feather from her bun.

I chewed thoughtfully on the inside of my lip as I watched her fly. That look in her eye unsettled me. I knew it well. For a long time that had been the look I sported when I looked back at myself in the mirror. What trouble was Kagura in so deeply, that she felt so worried about that she came to Lord Sesshomaru for help?

"Why did she come?" Master Jaken asked, also watching her figure in the distance.

"She's looking for Lord Sesshomaru," I answered, dropping my eyes to the two huddled together. "We'll probably see her again soon." I hoped we saw her again soon. No one deserved to have that look in their eyes. I truly hoped she tried to find Lord Sesshomaru again. She deserved help. "Rin, why don't we make A-Un flower crowns? I bet they feel left out. You've never made any for the two of them."

That prompt was enough to set Rin into action, gasping in horror and jumping up to collect together as many flowers as possible.

I rubbed at my calf as A-Un moved steadily underneath me.

As a shock to all of us, Lord Sesshomaru had appeared not long after Kagura had left, demanding movement from us all. Naturally we'd all jumped as soon as he had spoken and was on the road in minutes, following behind him loyally. It hadn't taken long for me to give up on walking besides A-Un, after stumbling over a rock and feeling a merciless throb in my foot.

My gaze turned from staring at Lord Sesshomaru's back, and dropped to my foot, dangling off the edge of A-Un's saddle. It seemed now that I had a theory about what the pain could be, I noticed the pain that much more. What a wonderful thing the mind was.

My fingers ran over the side of my calf again, dipping as close to my foot as I could in this position. I had tried not to think too hard on what having a shard of the Jewel of Four Souls meant, but every now and then I'd find my mind wandering back to the subject. They were coveted, that much I knew. Kagura had tried bartering them for Lord Sesshomaru's help once. My gaze flickered back up to the man my thoughts were on. He'd said no to them, though. Were they not so coveted then? Or did Lord Sesshomaru just not want them? Kagome had certainly seemed excited about the prospect of getting her hands on this one in my foot.

If they took it, would I stop feeling all this pain? Would I be able to walk normally again? I'd gotten used to walking with a limp, but I certainly wouldn't mind being able to walk without pain.

But then, how would they remove it? This place was five hundred years in my past. Proper medicine was a thing of myth and dream here. I could get an infection as easily as breathing here if they just cut my foot open for the shard. Did I want to risk dying of an infection to be pain free when I walked? It was a very real possibility here. The medicine was mediocre and I had built up no natural resistance to the bacteria of this time. I could get really sick. Really, it was a miracle that I hadn't gotten sick yet already.

There was very litle way to get around that, either. There were likely no such things as sterile rooms here, and no amount of honey or alcohol was going to help if I did get an infection from this time.

"You're thinking awfully hard about something, Lady Mio," Rin's sweet voice uttered from behind me.

"It's nothing important, Rin." And it wasn't. Not really. No matter how much I thought on the issue, my self preservation would take control. I'd deal with the pain before courting getting an infection that I couldn't fight off. I turned a smile over my shoulder to her, assuring her that I was okay.

I opened my mouth again to start a little conversation, but Rin got to it first, giving a high-pitched gasp. "What's that, Lady Mio? It's massive!"

The sight that graced me when I turned my gaze back over my shoulder had me staring with the same wide-eyed wonder as Rin. "I-I don't know." I knew what it looked like, but that couldn't be right. There was no way that a bird could ever grow to be that large. Even the one demon bird I had seen, the one that had carried Lady Sara, wasn't even approaching the size of the headless corpse of what looked like a mountain sized bird in front of me.

"It looks like you were too late, Sesshomaru. The entrance as closed up already." Kagura. She was stood on a rocky outcrop, looking down at Lord Sesshomaru from her perch. She had come back looking for Lord Sesshomaru. That made me smile. She was still looking for help.

Master Jaken waved his staff. "What do you want?!" he demanded. "You seem to be hanging around Lord Sesshomaru quite a bit lately!"

"Master Jaken," I shushed him. It was clear that Kagura was here for help and from what I had seen of her personality she was a proud woman. Any pushing like that might make her stop trying, and I didn't want to see anyone with those eyes again.

Lord Sesshomaru's eyes flickered over me as he approached the woman. Betrayed, Master Jaken whimpered our Lord's name when Lord Sesshomaru jumped up onto the rock Kagura was stood on. He stood proud, taller than Kagura by half a head, though with the proud way Kagura held herself, it was hard to believe that she wasn't much taller than I was. "What do you mean... this entrance?" Lord Sesshomaru demanded.

"This route to the borderland," Kagura explained. "Naraku and InuYasha have already passed through." That was clever. Knowing that both Naraku and InuYasha were there, Lord Sesshomaru would do just about anything to get there and attempt to kill the two of them. "I know of one other. Although... you might not be able to pass through it alive."

Worry pierced me. He might not be able to pass alive? "What do you mean not alive?" I couldn't help myself asking.

Kagura's deep red eyes turned to me, appraising me for a long moment before sweeping back to Lord Sesshomaru. "Well?"

A golden set of eyes turned to me now, appraising me in a similar manner. "Take me there."

"Be safe," I ordered Master Jaken, laying a hand on his shoulder. I had decided that it wasn't safe for Rin and I to venture through the borderland between worlds, and it hadn't taken much for Lord Sesshomaru to agree to leave the two of us behind in a safe-ish place with A-Un. We'd found a little cave that the four of us could stay in while we waited for Lord Sesshomaru to return.

"I'll be with Lord Sesshomaru," Master Jaken assured. Master Jaken put so much faith in Lord Sesshomaru.

A smiled, squeezing his shoulder before standing up. "Just be safe. You too, Lord Sesshomaru." The demon didn't even spare me a glance in response to my wishes. I quashed down the hurt. "You, too Kagura. Be safe."

The woman just huffed and flicked her fan at me. A little trail of dust blew up between us.

"Let's get going." Kagura flicked her fan again and pushed from leaning against the mouth of the cave. "We're losing daylight."

A little hand grasped mine as we watched the three of them leave.

"They'll be back soon, sweetheart," I promised, squeezing Rin's hand.

Information Time!

Illness - one of the biggest issues with going places that you haven't gone before (including back and forward in time, in theory) is that the diseases and bacteria are different. You need to build up a natural resistance to illnesses in the area, and if you're dumped right into a new area, you have no resistence to the bacteria there. Its a very real possibility that you can get an illness and it'll rage through your body because you have no resistence to it like the locals. So, like the flu, it could only give you a little fever and the sniffles, but in someone that has no resistence to it like you would have, it could rage through them and kill them easily. Realistically, Mio would have probably left bacteria behind her and killed a lot of people with illnesses that she's resistent to but people five hundred years ago aren't. Morbid, but true.

Honey and Alcohol - both are well-known for their medicinal properties. Alcohol sterilises things, while honey is an anti-microbial, used to help heal wounds for thousands and thousands of years.

Review corner

TheOpheliac - Wow, crazy long review this time around! I love it! It's been lovely meeting you, too. Bee comes from my middle name/ my mothers name. My nan and grandad always had a thing with calling me my mother's name by accident (because we both looked almost identical when we were really young), and I got so tired correcting them that I just sorta went 'Yknow what? Fine. I am Debi!' But my friends hated the name, so they started calling me the meaning of the name instead. The story of how I became Bee. God, they really do. Hospitals are the worst sometimes. I dont know whether I should say that its really cool that you can tolerate hospital food, or question your sanity :p I'm lucky to have not had to suffer any terrible hospital cuisine in the past couple years and touch wood it stays like that. I have an unhealthy obsession with vampire romance books at the moment. My dirty little pleasure :'D I think I own like two hundred vampire books, not including the Anita Blake comics I own. I havent watched 13 going on 30 in years. Spanish is my second language. I was born and bred in England, but my grandad on my stepdads side moved to Spain when I was twelve, and a few family members followed him. I go over and visit regularly, so I decided that instead of relying on my cousin to be around constantly to translate for me (cause they live in an area of Spain that isnt too frequented by English tourists) that I would learn the language myself. I've been buying manga in Spanish to try and help myself learn it quicker. I do have to say, listening to Disney songs in Spanish is fun. I adore the Spanish soundtrack for Treasure Planet. I can belt out Sigo Aqui all day if it didnt piss off everyone else in the house. Yeahh, I got that too when I started learning languages. I find I'm the worst with numbers. I am abolutely terrible with learning numbers. I'll start off in Spanish, then visit every country in Europe while I'm counting, then find myself counting in Japanese OTL I definitely need to work more on my numbers. I own too many books OTL I have two bookcases full of manga, two full of novels, then two bookcases worth of novels manga and American comics in storage. Then I have another bookcase full of films and anime. I took film studies while I was doing my A-Levels and fell in love with cinema. I have all together too many films. Ohdear, I wasn't much of an L fan. I was always a Light kind of guy. And Mello, because he was adorable in an angry sort of way. Aye, I'm FtM. Came out to the world just over two years ago. Ehh, the only douchebags that have said anything so far are two of my ex partners and my mother and brother. I've had a wonderful response to it otherwise. I know a lot of very wonderful and accepting people. I certainly knew when I saw the email subject! For someone that people says is constantly upbeat (if a little too sarcastic) I seem to be really good with keeping the closed off grumpy characters in character. I hope I can keep on doing a good job! She certainly has a long way to go in the strength department. But you'll get to see just how she's changed since the first chapters soon. Especially when she runs into Tahei and his gang again, and then something closer to the end. Im an author; my writing process is supposed to hurt you inside :p Ohh there'll be some interesting things going on with Mio and Sesshomaru's mother. Ohh same. I adore Sesshomaru showing emotion. He's the sort that's actually really expressive when he feels enough, and I love writing him reacting to certain things. We still haven't had any snow whatsoever. Aye, the beaches in my area are pretty nice. The salt air actually really helps with my lung condition, so I've never complained about it. Ohh man, five years is a long time, but we beat you. Its gotta to have been a decade give or take since we've had snow that actually took here. A whole decade without snow TT^TT We dont get too much crazy weather. Lots of clouds and sometimes we'll get enough raining for little floods (that mostly effect the trainlines in the area) but otherwise we're pretty much one of the sunniest areas in England. Urgh, he's being bad enough for me to want to beat my head against the wall at the moment. After telling me that he doesnt want to date a trans man because he's straght and it'd be weird, every breath he's breathed to me has been flirty. Petnames, comments on how awesome I am and how difficult it was to tell me that he didn't wnat to date me and I've been really ughh with it all. One thing I hate more than anything else is being jerked around by assholes like that. Do you have any specific pronouns you want me to use? I'm a very affectionate person so not having a partner is kinda uncomfortable for me. The longer I go without a partner, the more down adn lonely I feel. I'm hoping that I do meet a nice person soon though. Oh shush, call me great again and you'll get me to blush! Health and happiness to you too! See you next episode! (And I'm beyond sorry that it took four months to get this out OTL)

I think I rewrote the first few chapters of this about four times before I decided fuck it, that'll do and carried on to more interesting things (like setting up the importance of Kagura). So the first bit is a bit bleh, but hopefully it gets better!

More compassionate Mio! Really, Kagura is such a wonderful character and I think Sesshomaru/Kagura is one of the very few canon character pairings I genuinely ship. She's my favourite female character in InuYasha and if I can't have lots of Bankotsu in this fic, then I'm gonna make sure there's a fair amount of Kagura from now on! Kagura actually becomes rather important soon. I have big plans!

This was a little torturous for me. Its been so long since I've written anything that I felt so rusty. Hopefully the next chapter will be better now I've warmed up with this chapter.