Title: The Past, the Present, the Future

Author: Mai Sensei

Prompt: N/A

Word Count: 1471

A/N: THIS TAKES PLACE IN 2010, THE PRESENT

Summary:In the present, Motsushi has left Sesshoumaru with a simple task: delay Kagome from going back to the past. He finds a way and Kagome finds answers.

Without thought, Kagome threw her arms around Sesshoumaru's waist. She buried her face in his silken shirt and breathed deeply. Her throat tightened as a small sob escaped her mouth.

"Y-you're o-okay," Kagome let out between small sobs.

A hand tentatively reached up and gave her hair a stroke while the other moved to stretch around her back. The kind gesture only made Kagome want to cry harder, and for a moment she did. Finally, she stifled her tears and gently released Sesshoumaru's shirt from her tight grip.

"I'm so glad..." Kagome squeezed her eyes shut tightly and took a deep breath. "I thought...and the wounds were so bad—"

"Kagome," his soft call made her look up. He looked almost pitying, "do you realize who I am?"

With a sniff, she nodded.

"I know exactly who you are," she whispered and boldly reached up to lightly brush her fingers across the markings on his cheek. "You're so different from him, and yet you're exactly the same. You're him, but you're not my Sesshoumaru. Not yet. But it's good to know that you made it through and that you're alive," Kagome gave him a watery smile. "That's why I'm so happy."
Sesshoumaru felt a heavy weight within him ease. It would have been very hard to explain that he wasn't the Sesshoumaru from the past, to see the hope on her face crumble to disappointment, but she seemed to grasp the situation immediately and was merely crying because she knew he lived to see the present.

"Foolish miko," he murmured. "This Sesshoumaru would not be so easily defeated."

Kagome giggled, then sighed.

"Okay, tell me why you're here." When he raised a brow at her, she rolled her eyes. "I know when Motsushi is up to something and this definitely has his name written all over it. Why are you in this time? What's going to happen that you need to tell me about?"

Sesshoumaru allowed himself a small smile. Kagome was indeed a perceptive person. He wasn't entirely sure why he was so surprised by this, and could only think that it might be because this was a Kagome that he never knew. He wasn't due to meet her for a while yet. A person can change in three years, after all.

"Perhaps we should take this downstairs," he suggested. When she opened her mouth to protest—Sesshoumaru of the past couldn't be forgotten after all, and she needed to move fast if she wanted to help him—he merely shook his head. "I will be fine. Trust me. I will explain everything and Ayako will want to know as well."

"Ayako?"

Sesshoumaru looked down at Kagome who had raised a brow in question.

"At one point, your mother and I will be on good terms," he said, trying not to give away too much.

"I bet she tries to fatten you up whenever you come over," she teased, grinning when the daiyoukai wrinkled his nose slightly.

"This one doesn't require 'fattening up'," he winced slightly, "no matter what Ayako insists. She has a tendency to stuff me to capacity when we attend dinners here."

Kagome shot him a look when he said "we", but he chose to ignore it. He gestured for her to precede him down the hall and she turned around to retrace her steps back downstairs. When she found her mother, she was in the kitchen making food. Kagome cleared her throat and her mother looked over her shoulder.

"I thought you might find some time to give your poor mother an explanation," she greeted with a bright smile. She pulled Kagome into a tight hug then shooed her towards the table. When Sesshoumaru appeared moments later she engulfed him in a hug as well. He obviously wasn't expecting it, as his eyes widened slightly in surprise. Kagome chuckled at the sight then patted the seat next to hers, indicating that he should sit down next to her. As soon as he did her mother placed a bowl of rice, miso soup, and some fried mackerel in front of her place. A quick glance to the side confirmed that Sesshoumaru had bigger bowls of rice and soup, and at least four more pieces of mackerel than she did. Despite his whines (because honestly, what else could they have been, though she wouldn't tell him that) Kagome noticed he ate every bit of food on his plate. After they finished, Sesshoumaru began to talk.

"Three years from now, Kagome and I were visited by someone who told us we had to help our selves of another time."

"Motsushi," Kagome interrupted and he nodded.

"Yes, Motsushi. He told us that, in order to achieve what we had, there was something we had to fix in the past. That would be now. There are some youkai who have been particularly active as of late, and the sudden rise in murders have not gone unnoticed. Fortunately, they all seem to be converging in a solitary area, here in Minato, which make them easier to hunt. All these youkai have something in common. They seemed to be controlled by a solitary being; I have sensed the same parasite within the aura of each youkai we have fought. The other pattern is the victims they attack. They have been, in some way, attacked and affected by miasma, and—"

"—the words 'He Rises' are somewhere nearby," Kagome finished quietly.

Sesshoumaru gave her a grim look. "Indeed. Unfortunately there's nothing Kagome and I can do about this youkai. He is not controlling the lesser youkai from the present, he is influencing them from the past."

"How is that possible?" Kagome asked. "Unless..."

"There are certain rituals; ones that have lain forgotten over time, that make such a thing possible. The ability to put someone in an induced sleep of sorts with an order previously placed in one's mind. The mind becomes the order and nothing else, and when the allotted time to sleep expires, the person will wake with a solitary goal: to fulfill the order. It was useful for Seers who could reach into the far future. Wars could be prepared for ahead of time, and the element of surprise was always great. The practice died out after the downfall of the House of the Sun during the Wado Era and has not been seen since."

Kagome bit her lip as she thought all of this new information over. Her adversary was obviously much more powerful than she had first perceived. But who was he?

"Alright, let me see if I'm getting this straight," Ayako interjected and Sesshoumaru suppressed a smile. Like mother, like daughter. "There's a fifteen year old Kagome wandering the past with Inuyasha while the present Kagome is going around with the past Sesshoumaru. Now there's a Kagome and Sesshoumaru of the future which is you," she gestured to him, "and you're both here in the present, which is your past. Correct?" When he nodded she continued. "My question is where are you right now?"

"Motsushi has assured me that, for the time being, my self of this time is also assisting with the situation at hand," Sesshoumaru told her. "He has been given specific instruction where to be and when, just as Kagome and myself have been."

"Wait, what do you mean? Shouldn't you already know, since you're from the future?" Kagome asked.

"No," Sesshoumaru answered. "This adversary is only just now affecting Time. Even I am not entirely sure how this process works, but as each day goes by I gain new memories of past events of the past. When I return the future, there's a chance it will not be exactly the same as when I left."

There was a moment of silence, but this one was heavy. Sesshoumaru's words hit Kagome especially hard, who momentarily wondered if their future together—future Kagome and future Sesshoumaru—might be changed because of their enemy.

"Do you know who's doing all of this?"

Kagome gave him a worried look when he didn't answer. "You do, don't you?"

"I do," he shook his head, "but I cannot tell you. At least, I cannot tell you right now."

Kagome understood. Telling her might be detrimental, but he did know. From what he was implying, her Sesshoumaru, the one in the past, knew as well and he would tell her.

"So what happens now?"

"I have to go—"

"Stay."

Kagome frowned at Sesshoumaru.

"You told me to wait while you explained and I did," she said. "What more do you want? I can't just leave you to die!"

"But you will have to. Do not worry; this one will not perish."

"Why? How do you know I wasn't there to help you if things are different now?"

"Because of Rin."