---

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Loose Lips

---

The incident of the night earlier stole away countless hours that Sesshomaru could barely account for. The transformation only leaves him with memories of emotions. Usually rage is the most prominent and this event was no different. And similar to the handful of times that he transformed against his will, the demon was drained of energy. It was only the goal of rescuing his child that drove his muscles to continue. But even this might not be enough. The feeling of exhaustion was all too foreign to Sesshomaru. It rarely ever happens to him. He hated the strain of his starving lungs and the ache of his screaming limbs, begging for him to stop. What he hated most, though, was that he found himself at such a helpless state in the presence of the wretched woman who spat at his company and attention. Was it not sufficient that he showed a shadow of kindness towards her? Was he so terribly insufferable that she must run into the lips of another man?

Sesshomaru scowled. It aggravated him that he blamed himself for her disloyalty. It was nonsensical that he would shoulder responsibility for her actions. Besides, she should be honoured to have come into such close proximity of one such as him. Admittedly, she had no solid ties with him—a conversation or two, nothing greater than that. There was nothing that occurred between them that would justify the resentment that he felt due to her fraternizing with the monk. A jolt of pure hatred shot through his body at the thought of the bastard. Sesshomaru found himself uncharacteristically angry for no rhyme or reason and he despised the feeling nearly as much as he hated to admit that—when it's all said and done—the anger was only a result of the fact that he was hurt by what occurred.

He had caught feelings for the taijiya. He was a man—and a true man must never be ashamed. It is dishonourable to find faults in oneself, especially for one as flawless as the Demon Lord of West. A growl rumbled deep in his chest. Even though he admitted it to himself now, he remained uncomfortable with the idea. These feelings were not strong, of course—certainly not love—he was almost enraged once again at the thought. He did not believe in falling love. It was childish. One has love of things—he had accepted that he loved Rin—however he was sceptical of the idea of finding another to fall in love with.

How absolutely ridiculous it is! To believe in a phenomenon that cannot be truly explained is ignorant, and Sesshomaru is not an ignorant man. The very mention of the word is enough to elicit a strong negative response from him. He was so adamantly against the idea of that "special someone" and he was more disapproving of those to genuinely believe in true love. There is no emotion that is "true" for such things are so fickle. Any event could alter them completely that any reasonable person would deem them to be unreliable. This fact goes especially for "love".

Such things are a creation of lonely hearts.

---

The sun had positioned itself high in the clear skies. The animals had returned to the area and the forest was again teeming with sounds. Such sounds, however, were effectively drowned out by the string of colourful words emanating from a very dirty mouth.

The miko had planned to let him get all the swearing out of him before trying to reason but that plan failed in epically. Her ears were practically bleeding. Never had she heard such foul language—and she came from a time when rap music was popular. She had to put an end to this. It's surprising that he hadn't run out of saliva already.

"Inuyasha," she yelled over his rant. "SIT!"

Thud.

The crater that formed around the hanyou muffled the new batch of words from the recent attack.

She shrugged as her second plan did not work as well as she thought. "I guess you can't win 'em all." Kagome sighed, "Oh well, I'd rather have you being incoherent than have to listen to you swearing like a sailor, anyways."

After a few precious moments of relative silence, a pair of clawed hands reached over the lip of the crater, pulling a rather angry inuyoukai after it.

"Oi, bitch, what the hell was that for?" his nostrils flared.

"What did you just call me?"

"I said you're a bit—" in a rare moment of observation, Inuyasha saw the warning in Kagome's eyes and stopped his big mouth from completing the phrase as originally intended, "hasty." He finished lamely. It seemed to calm her enough for her to forget about sitting him again. Thank goodness for that. He was still battered from the fight with Naraku and he wasn't too keen to having all his bruising and cuts pummelled to the ground, again, in a painful explosion of pain all over his body.

It was a poor attempt at side stepping potentially painful repercussions but Kagome accepted it. At least he tried. She moved back to give him enough room to get out of the ground.

"You deserved it!" she crossed her arms across her chest. "You need to calm down and quit swearing at the air. They're gone—they've been gone for a long time—they can't hear you. Sheesh!"

He mirrored her pose and huffed. "Keh, what ever."

Kagome saw this and rolled her eyes, training them elsewhere. Elsewhere happens to be to the place where the other remain unconscious. Her heart sent a little prayer that none of them are truly in any danger from the miasma. Miroku was still out his body is not used to the poison—unlike Sango who had been trained to withstand such demonic attacks. As for the littler people, she could only assume that their small bodies are affected more strongly than those of full grown individual. Hopefully they would wake soon. She looked over everyone, checking again that it was only Rin that was unaccounted for—Miroku, Shippou, Jaken, Kilala.

"Wait a second," the miko's eyes grew wide. "Kilala's here."

The hanyou looked over, "Yeah, so?"

"So, Sango was supposed to have placed a spell so that she and Kilala would not be able to be separated." Her voice was rising.

"She told you that?"

"Well not exactly that they would never be separated, per say. But it makes a lot of sense that that's what the spell was supposed to be for. Don't you think?"

The hanyou did not follow, "No."

She gave an exasperated sigh. Sometimes, he is just so slow, "Sesshomaru is here because of Sango. She's always with him. Something is definitely going on. What if that something is that she accidentally cast a spell on him and they need to find a way to break it?"

The gears were moving, she could see it in his expression.

"OH!" his face finally lit up with understanding, "And she wanted to go on this mission alone—with him." She nodded eagerly, "That does make a lot of sense."

They looked at one another for a while pride clearly shown in their expressions, pleased that they had figured out what they had been trying to piece together ever since the addition of the taiyoukai and his wards to their little group.

The victory was short lived, however, as Inuyasha commented, "So…what now?"

Kagome looked at him in confusion and realization. He makes a good point. What does it matter that they know about the spell? It's not as if this would solve the sudden infestation of unwanted company in the group. Besides, that was partly solved by the kidnap of Rin and Sesshomaru's leap into action. Which only leaves Jaken and he is the greatest nuisance of the three.

Hmm…perhaps their excitement was a tad exaggerated.

---

The sun was beating down on him, or so it seemed. His head was beginning to spin from exhaustion. This feeling is beneath him. How weak it was to tire. His breaths were coming in shorter and at a higher cost. It was progressively becoming more difficult to fill his lungs.

He had no choice. The demon lord halted his steps, stunning Au-Un and his rider. They stopped a few steps ahead. Sango turned back to him with concern in her eyes. He ignored this and made his way over under a large tree, sitting himself with his back on the trunk and his face away from the taijiya.

Why did he stop? Could it be that he was actually tired?

Sango hopped off Au-Un's saddle and walked over slowly to settle herself a little more than a polite distance from Sesshomaru. The concern in her eyes remained as she observed his demeanour. He was definitely sweating as well as trying to catch his breath—both very uncharacteristic for a youkai, especially a taiyoukai.

He could feel her watching him. He could sense the worry that clouded her. But none of that matter to him, for it is only in her nature to be caring. Who the recipient is of this care is irrelevant.

If she didn't know any better, Sango would've guessed that Sesshomaru was ignoring her. But she did know better—ignoring someone because you are angry is juvenile, completely beneath the demon lord. Her hand lifted, meaning to reach for his shoulder, though she dropped it as soon she realized what she was doing. Perhaps now is not the proper time to be so cordial with him.

Instead, she settled for asking, "Are you ill?"

No answer.

"Do you need anything?" she pressed.

Again, nothing.

He was testing her patience. Now she was sure that he was ignoring her. The taijiya's brows furrowed in frustration as she raised her voice to say, "You can't pretend that I don't exist, Sesshomaru!"

She saw him turn slowly to face, her wearing more emotion than she thought he would. His eyes were wide in a show of mock surprise.

"Your tone, human, is most unfitting to address me with." He said this slowly, dangerously. "Besides, in my opinion, an unworthy being such as you, does not exist." He smirked, his eyes narrowing now, "And you know as well as I do that the only thing that matters is my opinion."

Her jaw dropped. Why the nerve of this man! "No, I don't know that!" she spat back at him. "It's a wonder that you can fit into doorways with that over-inflated head of yours!"

"Not nearly as awe-inspiring as how eyes and a nose can fit on your face with your mouth already being so big." His evil smirk grew wider.

"You… you're… an asshole!" she shrieked.

Sesshomaru shrugged his broad shoulders and replied, "And you are a whore."

---