Chapter 26

Sesshoumaru woke up the next morning before all others, going through the paperwork set out in front of him. He could feel that Satoru and Kagome are both just beginning to wake up, albeit sluggishly. He continued on with his paper work, not paying much attention to the other sounds in his home. Feeling a familiar aura waiting for him outside, he got up and left through the window, heading to the edge of the forest, stopping under a tree where the other figure lounged.

"Did you find out the information I requested from that whore?" He questioned. Seeing the figure look at him with a raised brow, both seemingly surprised by the language that had come from his mouth.

"Yes, probably the only good thing from her existence. She has after all, been sleeping with one of them." Hearing commotion from inside, they both trained their ears to hear the kitsunes bickering over who won.

"Staring contest. Neither won, they both passed out at the same time." Youko's fists unclenched, pissed that he could not do something about their closeness. Sesshoumaru's eyes caught this action, actually feeling sorry for the kitsune, being that it is his fault that Kagome is upset with Youko and ended the claim. "I will speak to her Youko."

Youko looked down at him, a small relief lifting from his shoulders at hearing that statement. Backtracking his mind for the other reason that he is here, he continued on where he left off. "The supposed war gods need to feed off energy from a priestess, not set timing, it depends on how much energy they use. In this case they had an object to contain the power that they steal and feed off of that until they need to refill it."

"Then that is why Ryura attacked Kagome and pressed that jewel to her forehead and stole some of her power." Sesshoumaru murmured. Youko hearing this, jumped down from the branch he was in and leveled a glare on Sesshoumaru.

"Why was I not made aware that she had been attacked?" His gold eyes as cold as they usually are.

"We were being distracted by Kyora. Kuronue, Satoru, InuYasha and Shiori were the only ones who had not been distracted. That is why Kuronue and Satoru had reacted the way they did. They were unaware of the plan I had set in motion seeing as how Satoru had seen Ryura drag Kagome out the door, Kuronue had seen Satoru heading outside and was planning on confronting him until he realized that Kagome was in danger." They both sensed Kuronue also waking up from the room he had stayed in. "I already explained what you were really doing but it doesn't change things with Kagome, she still needs to learn to be a kitsune, not remain a human with kitsune powers. That is why she is to leave still and train under Satoru's eyes."

Hearing the air shift they glanced over at Kuronue who had landed a few feet from them, stepping up closer to partake in the conversation. "You two are not to disrupt her training. She will be spending much of it alone after Satoru teaches her the basics. He will check up on her often, though she won't know it, and then appear to test her abilities. If she passes then he will send her on something different, possibly even a few missions to put her in situations that she is to learn from."

Their irritated growls did not cease, even if they understood. "You didn't answer me last night. How long will she be gone?" Kuronue pressed.

"As long as need but probably quite a few decades, not like no one will be visiting her from time to time when we grant her a break but she needs to catch up. She has been here a few years, sparring with me and the others but it isn't enough. Her kitsune abilities are lacking and she can't improve in the areas I have trained her in if she doesn't get the training needed. Even Shippo and Daichi had tried to help her but they are not the same type of kitsune as her, and neither are you Youko. That is why Satoru needs to take over. He knows of other ebony kitsunes out there and will be introducing her to them, giving her a good feel as to who she really is. This will have her kitsune side coming out and reacting to situations instead of just letting her humanity make all the decisions." Hearing Satoru coming he looked at the ebony, his hope diminishing of seeing him haggard, instead the damn kitsune acted like he never drank a single drop of sake.

Satoru sent him a questioning glance, "what did I do to deserve that look?"

"I see that you are feeling fine." Sesshoumaru stated.

A grin hit his features, "yeah, that trip to the Ethiopian highlands had done me wonders. They have bushes there that grow these berries that have energizing properties. Kagome said that it is very common in her time and sold world wide. It sure can defeat hangovers!" His alertness knew no bounds, the other three demons almost wondered if he would jump out of his skin.

"I see." Sesshoumaru stated, disappointed that the damn kitsunes had taken his entertainment.

Kuronue looked at the seemingly disappointed features on Sesshoumaru. Glancing over at Youko he found the silver kitsune also scrutinizing the reaction Sesshoumaru had. A cruel smirk found it's place on his lips, "you sadistic dog. You were hoping to hear their moans of displeasure from drinking all that sake."

"Kagome attempted to find my sake so she can steal it from me again, it would serve her right." He stated, refusing to show just how upset he was. If he was any less of who he is then he assumed that he would be pouting, much like the damn kitsunes and Rin like to do, plus the monk. Come to think of it, he is most likely the only demon that doesn't succumb to such a display of displeasure.

"So that is why she came back to the party to steal their sake last night." They heard Satoru mumble in thought. "I wonder if she remembers anything that she could have possibly learned from our little mission. Hey, Sesshoumaru, how many bottles did you find empty on the floor?"

Raising a brow as he recalled what he had seen, "Only one."

His smirk almost split his face in half, "just one, wow our illusions are strong. She did very good for her first lesson!"

"First lesson?" They all questioned.

"Well yes. I had noticed that she was sneaking around the castle, trying to be stealthy so deciding that this would be a great time to teach her something, I used my stealth to sneak up on her in the sake cellar. We have grabbed about, twelve bottles of sake, then hid it in the forest and came back, grabbing more. After we secured it, we headed back here and resumed my teaching, but this time in illusions. We used illusions to hide the bottles and probably drank a few of them." He explained, recalling the fun time they had with making illusions.

Sesshoumaru's annoyed growl sounded out. "So, I presume, you used me to see if she had mastered her lessons from last night," he stated.

"Don't take it the wrong way, Lord Sesshoumaru, but you are a very skilled demon so if you had only seen one bottle, that means the rest remained disguised even though we were quite intoxicated. I just hope we didn't drink all of it, seeing as how she seems to have plans for the rest of it."

Sesshoumaru's brow began to twitch once again, catching the attention of all three demons as he glared back at his home, a growl threatening to escape as he realized that Kagome is up to no good once again. Giving them all a quick glare, he took off back into his home and went into hot pursuit of Kagome, knowing that whatever it is, it dealt with sake and most likely, his sake.

Amusement danced in their orbs as they followed after the demon lord, knowing that a twitching brow meant entertainment for them at the expense of the demon lord. Not getting very many shots of ever getting to see the lord be their source of entertainment, they picked up their pace, not wishing to miss a second.

Kagome, tore through her room, realizing that they drank too much of the sake for their to be enough for tonight. She panicked, not wanting to try and sneak back into that castle again to get more, until an idea hit her as she decided to look for Sesshoumaru's sake once again. On top of that, she needed to inform Sango of her plans.

Running out of her room, she could smell Sesshoumaru's sake, much to her surprise. Tearing down the hall, eyes closed as she followed the scent, stopping outside of a door, she whipped open the shoji, nearly falling backward in shock at the scene.

Sango sat on her futon with bottles of Sesshoumaru's sake all around her as she counted them, making marks on them all. Looking up she smiled at Kagome's shocked face. "Wait – but, what the- how did you-" she continued to sputter, unable to form a sentence.

"What are you talking about Kagome?" She looked up at her friend questioningly. "It was so easy to find, I just couldn't not take the opportunity to swipe them from Sesshoumaru. Sorry that I didn't grab you to come join me, I was afraid he would get back before I could get it all." She explained, not knowing of Kagome's search last night.

"Yeah but-" she sighed, taking a breath she calmed her sputtering. "I tore through the whole castle last night, while everyone was still at the ball, looking for his damn sake! I had to resort to going back to that castle to steal their sake."

"Really, but it was so easy to find all of it. I mean, Sesshoumaru is usually very good at hiding it but this was practically out in the open!" She exclaimed, remembering how easy it was to find, and she hadn't even been trying to find it. She sat quietly, thinking. "Wait, you mean to tell me that YOU couldn't find his sake!" Sango exploded in laughter. "This is just too good! Sesshoumaru could hide his sake from a kitsune but not a neko!" She rolled over laughing, clutching her stomach. "I wasn't even looking for it and I practically stumbled upon all of it!"

Kagome was just about to throttle her friend until she realized that Sesshoumaru had come back into the fortress. "Hurry Sango! Sesshoumaru is back inside!" They both scrammed, picking it all up. Kagome hopped from one foot to another, trying to find a place to hid the bottles. Seeing Sango tug at the floor boards she looked down at her anxiously. "Hurry Sango!"

Sango finally got the boards open and dumped her stash in there, signaling for Kagome to do the same. Kagome quickly dumped hers into it to, letting Sango press the floor board into place while she worked on a concealing spell to hide it from Sesshoumaru's sensitive nose. The spell finally in place she wiped the sweat from her brow.

Sango searched for the demon lord's aura, she fell on her back laughing as she registered the shock in his aura, pin pointing it to the location that the sake had been in. "Sesshoumaru is at the place where has been keeping his sake, he just now realized that it's gone!" She fell back into laughter.

Kagome searched it out too, surprised at the area in which he had been hiding it from her. Grinning she looked at Sango before skipping out the door, telling Sango to come join her in the hot springs immediately. Sango calmed her self the quickly collected her stuff and raced after Kagome, knowing that they both needed to form a quick plan before Sesshoumaru can come after them.

Upon seeing Sango, she place a concealing spell on them before they raced off to the hot springs, being as quiet as possible so they are not discovered before they reach their destination. Finally reaching the hot springs, they both quickly stripped and climbed into the water, sighing before she let the spell drop. "He can't come after us while we're in here." She grinned. "So now, what should we plan for tonight?" Her eyes glittering with a mischievous sparkle known to kitsune while Sango's eyes took on a similar appearance, both grinning as ideas popped into their minds.

Sesshoumaru looked in shock at the nearly empty cabinet that he had for his sake, irked that somehow, Kagome, he wanted to assume, had found it. "Damn kitsune," he muttered, wondering if it is such a good idea to have her learning more about her own kind knowing it would give him a headache with just how much trickery she could cause. He turned around and glared at the other two kitsunes, glad that at least one of the three demons is not a trickster. "If I were to rule Makai then I would damn all of you kitsune to hell," he growled, pissed at himself for knowing that he wouldn't do such a thing but wishing he could teach all those damn tricksters a lesson.

He rubbed his temples as he walked off hunting down the kitsune that he assumed to be the reason as to why his sake is missing. Stalking down the halls, he tried to ignored the chuckles he passed and the ones that followed, searching for the aura he wished to torture. Coming to the front of the castle, he finally sensed it at the hot springs, where it just suddenly appeared, along with Sango's. Growling in agitation, he weighed his options on if he should interrupt them or not.

So yeah, I definitely have more chapters to type up than I had assumed, so I guess we should be counting on 35-40 or more chapters from this story. I just couldn't stop myself from adding some comic relief in here. So how many of you want Sesshoumaru to invade their bath time?