Disclaimer: Tomorrow, or Friday, all things going well, I'll be handing in my PhD. I'm just waiting on my supervisor to finish reading though it for last minute errors. In the mean time, and to prevent myself from hovering before his office with my nose pressed against the glass, I am working on Benten's Lesson - which makes all my peers think I am frantically typing away on my exegesis still - all virtue and diligence, but the reality is far far different.

And Wholy Smoke! (as in throw a bucket of water on me I'm entirely self-combusting) Suddenly we are on Chapter Fifty?!
A shout out of thanks to those who have stuck with me so far - We're not far off the end. It won't be more than another ten or so chapters... I think...But then Baba Yaga may disagree...

~Chapter 50 - An Exas-perspirating~

Sesshoumaru was mildly impressed. He had felt the first jolt of reiki and had caught himself almost flinching. It had been a abrupt and powerful burst that had rolled over the forest, snuffing out the trail of youki he had scattered behind him His immediate thought was that Higurashi Kagome had been accosted by something that had triggered of a protective barrier but the flavour of the aura was her own. He had also all but combed this wood over the last three days. There was nothing here but game. What had caused it?! A second, smaller pulse of reiki, one which did not dissipate but broadcast its presence, flared. Sesshoumaru efficiently stashed the body of the deer into a tree, wondering if the foolish cub had injured herself and was seeking his attention.

Curiosity piqued and senses in full focus he made straight for the source of the energy and, reaching a safe distance to identify it, found that was not Higurashi Kagome after all. It was a blind, rather clever given Higurashi Kagome had not, to his knowledge, ever used her power in this way before. It had succeeded in distracting him, though briefly, from his own plans. Sesshoumaru turned and sprinted through the treetops back to the deer in time to see the miko-lioness reach up for the deer.

He judged she had won her prey, he would not take if from her again but he also decided that they weren't done for the day either. Adrenaline still tingling from the chase, and unconsciously in reaction to the earlier surge of reiki, Sesshoumaru allowed himself to abandon his usual detached and remote complacency. He shed his usual jaded dismissal of all beings as beneath his notice, well aware that there was no one to see him. Digging his booted toes hard into the soil, dropped his shoulder Sesshoumaru launched himself at the giant, predatorial form of the lioness, knocking her over and tumbling them both out into the clearing in a sprawling wrestling tangle.

~o0o~

Kagome staggered to her feet expecting to be dazed. She had tumbled over twenty meters and should have been, if not actually damaged, at least in some minor pain from bruising. However, her furred hide had absorbed the impacts as though the ground were a futon*. She rose easily to her feet to find Sesshoumaru circling She was not given the opportunity to decline from what rapidly became apparent as a impromptu bout of sparring as Sesshoumaru rolled nimbly to his feet, circled and launched himself at her again, attempting to flip her onto her back.

At first, confused, she had tried to apologise, to evade his attack and run away. But Sesshoumaru had, somehow, gotten her in a headlock and when she went limp and submissive, he had told her succinctly "Protect yourself." And *Then*, when she had remained limp, he had forced her to furiously writhe out of his grip by plugging her nostrils with a finger. She'd gotten free and attempted to flee again, only to be caught again and this time he tugged her eyebrow whiskers and when she ignored it (loosing three in the process) attempted to get a hold of her tongue. Small dirty, taunting moves calculated to infuriate rather than harm. Far from what she would have expected from the icy taiyoukai.

When Kagome found herself squeaking "Hey! Quit it!" at Sesshoumaru as if he were her younger brother Souta, as she trying to get one of her massive paws between his digging fingers and her ear whiskers, Kagome realised that this was exactly what it was - The same sort of rough and tumble-sibling jostling she and her brother often indulged in - only this time it was on a youkai scale and while she wasn't the one with the advantage of experience and strength she wasn't helpless either. This was play - pure and simple puppy-play that Sesshoumaru had instigated - for gods knows what reason. The twisted in his grip and hooked her hind toenails into his tunic to kick at him like a cat. As Sesshoumaru twisted aside to evade her claws she caught the his pleased "Hnn" he uttered. As soon as she started fighting back rather than simply trying to escape the dirty tricks ceased and the sparring began.

This was not like the circling, death intent blows that she had seen between Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha or either of them and Naraku - This was a case of "stacks-on", "tippy-go" and "tag-the-tail" and all manner of other games rolled into one. Sesshoumaru darted past cuffing her by the ear but while it was a solid tap there was no malice. There was also no tit-for-tat. They didn't take it in turns to chase or be chased, but changed-out the game as they went. If one had advantage (usually Sesshoumaru) they used it, if one spotted a weak spot or opening they took advantage of it (again usually Sesshoumaru) but, as the meadow turf began to churn under boot and claw Kagome began to, occasionally recognise opportunities of her own. She didn't care if they were carefully place there by the taiyoukai, she didn't read them as pity-openings, as Inuyasha might have, but as encouragement and when she saw them she damn well went for them.

~o0o~

Kagome Higurashi slammed into a tree with more force than he'd intended to exert, knocking loose branches down from above. Sesshomaru hesitated a fraction of a second, a briefly and unfamiliar pang of concern that his 'lesson' had become too rough. But she was back on her feet in an instant, not only back on her feet but digging her toes into the ground, circling him, intent on counter attack. She wasn't hurt, she wasn't frightened, she was barely out of breath. Sesshoumaru narrowed his eyes, lips quirking into the slightest smile. He would have to try throwing her further next time. But Kagome didn't make it absolutely easy, she was thinking as she fought, something his half brother had yet to learn.

Sesshoumaru flexed his claws and realised that he was playing, had been playing whole-heartedly for the last half hour without putting a name to it! He hadn't played in centuries. This really was a game, one without malice, without a prize, without any competition but exploring the capabilities of his opponent, of helping them discover their abilities. Unable to help himself Sesshoumaru let out the second barking shout of true laughter he had made in centuries as he evaded Kagome Higurashi's attack. He sank his feet into the soft loam and he launched himself back into the fray.

~o0o~

The odd sound made Kagome hesitate, even as she realised that it was a laugh, and that it had come from Sesshoumaru. He tackled her, taking advantage of her distraction. She was bowled over, loosing most of her breath in a whoosh. Instinctively she twisted, getting her hind legs against his torso and shoving hard. Her newly trimmed claws caught in the fabric of his clothing, snagging it and tearing slightly, but she could control their pressure despite the speed with which she moved. She wrenched her head around as she did so, a tactic he apparently hadn't expected because she managed to catch his wrist in her mouth even as she writhed upright again.

"Un! Tsu! Tsr.." Kagome began to count around his forearm, focused on keeping control over how hard she clamped her teeth down and vocalising the count around his arm. Sesshoumaru snorted and stuck his fingers up her nose. She let go, sneezing.

"This Sesshoumaru is not ready to be caught yet." He stated arrogantly as he wiped his fingers on her tail tuft. His face then, amazingly, split into a grin "Try harder"

"Gods forsaken…" Kagome sneezed again violently and saw, through watering eyes, Sesshoumaru's actual real-honest-to-crazed-goddess-smile before he sprang out of reach of her swiping paw and circled towards her undefended flank. Passing a paw over her snout she huffed a disbelieving laugh of her own and twisted back onto her feet ready to meet his next attack. Crazily, she realised, she was having fun! She was fighting with Sesshoumaru and it was a ball!

~o0o~

Higurashi Kagome was learning. Every time he tried to repeat a trick on her or a piece of tactics she caught on faster, she was beginning to develop her own ways to evade and counter his simpler attacks. Despite himself he found himself mildly impressed. It was a shame she would not remain so interesting. Of that he had no doubt - she would return to a weak human form soon enough but for the moment he eyed her, trying to decide how to get her off balance for another attempt to throw her out of the glade.

And then, somehow and without his intent, she got under his guard and he found himself slammed backward onto the broken turf, her broad paws pinning his shoulders down, teeth to throat, weight squarely on his chest preventing him from rising without exerting some effort. For a brief moment his pulse beat calmly beneath her lolling tongue, canines resting on either side and her breath hot on his throat. He was about to counter her attack, a chuckle just beginning to reverberate in his ribcage, when her confident stance seemed to shatter. She all but threw herself sideways in her haste to disengaged, ears low, tail tucked, body hunched in apology.

Sesshoumaru sat up, perplexed and more than a little irate at the lion shaped figure. "You give away an advantage like That?! What foolishness is this?!"

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I promised I wouldn't! I forgot." The foolish words tumbled stupidly off her tongue.

"What promise?"

Kagome Higurashi sank lower, trying to be a small, harmless creature, as she had when he first found her in this form. The behaviour irritated him immensely. How dare she try to reduce herself to nothing when he had put effort into drawing out and identifying her strength and abilities these last two days, when she had been so pleased at learning to fit in her larger skin. He glowered at her and she stammered, trying to explain.

Her words were garbled but he picked out the gist of her apology: "…when you were a swan… when I pulled out that arrow… I promised I wouldn't use strength against you ever again. I forgot! I'm sorry!"

Sesshoumaru snorted, a full and undisguised noise of derision as he stood and dusted the two huge paw prints from his front.

"You belittle me to think I would I ask for such a promise. Challenge me Higurashi Kagome - I demand it. You have proven I need not go easy on you any longer." With that Sesshoumaru's hands tensed into claws with a crackle of the joints and launched himself at her.

~o0o~

Kagome resisted the urge to flee in the way she had when Sesshoumaru had instigated this bout of sparring. Instead she half-heartedly dodged and swiped at the taiyoukai with a large paw but no enthusiasm. He huffed irritably and physically picked her up by the forearm and flung her across the glade. Kagome actually found herself appreciating his action as she struck the ground and lightly tumbled back to all fours, slashing grooves across the sward with her claws as she slid to a stop. He had given her a bit of distance, a few breaths to think, a chance to re-find her headspace. She recognised, and acknowledged, in herself the fear that had sprung from her sudden realisation of the capacity she had for destruction in this form. She also acknowledged that Sesshoumaru didn't care - didn't fear her, wouldn't be broken by her, wanted to her try her hardest - to challenge him. To challenge HIM. He was far more destructive but she realised that she didn't fear injury at his hands.

Kagome turned to face him across the glade. He stood poised, ready, waiting for her to reengage. There was something in his stance that she could almost read - she didn't think he would chase her if she did decide to turn-tail into the forest - but she could almost feel the disappointment that would absolutely not be visible on his face. And she found she didn't want to disappoint him - this demon who had gone from an awkward ally to someone who challenged her to expand beyond what she had thought she was… a friend?

He evidently believed in her even if she didn't entirely herself. It felt odd, frightening, horizon breaking. To have Sesshoumaru know and expect her to be more than she had thought she could be. A shiver ran over her fur and she drew in a deep breath, standing up tall in her black fur, feeling the strength of her four muscled legs, the weight of her jaws, breathing in to the bottom of her lungs and feeling herself fit into and fill her huge body. She was capable, and strong and Sesshoumaru had just voiced something akin to respect. She breathed out as she crouched and then launched herself back towards the taiyoukai.

~o0o~

The morning sun had brightened into midday and the sparring went on.

In her first reengaging bout when Kagome, swatting with full force at Sesshoumaru's head with her claws fully extended had, when she thought she was actually going to hit him, pulled her blow he had looked at her with such contempt that Kagome been taken aback. He had immediately bopped her on the nose. "Whelp." At some point in the tussle that followed Kagome stopped holding back altogether. She threw herself into the challenge determined to remove that look of distain from his face .

"I swear!" She thought to herself, "I am going to keep at him until he raises a sweat or I dropped down dead!"

A rare smirk touched the the taiyoukai's lips as if he could hear her promise to herself and she gave it her all, testing her strength, her speed, her flexibility against him, learning to fall and return with more efficiency each time he flung her across the glade. His blows rocked her but did not harm her. She wondered, in a corner of her mind, if this is what immortals felt like. When Sesshoumaru realised she was immune to his claws he did not stint on trying to use them. Only her own claws, it appeared, were capable of breaking her flesh but they could cut other things. She had caught Sesshoumaru with them twice, slicing through his sleeve and lightly scoring his skin. She would have stopped then and there but he visibly he noted the marks, caught her eye, smiled very slightly, his own eyes narrowing as he doubled his attacks. After the second slice she was more careful of her claws and Sesshoumaru more careful with his evasions.

~o0o~

Sesshoumaru had become complacent he realised, as he glanced at the raw welts on his forearm where Kagome Higurashi's claws had caught and raked cross the skin. He hadn't had the opportunity to spar in too long and because his claws made no impact on her he had foolishly assumed hers would be the same. He had become soft, in this story-place. Higurashi Kagome had now marked him twice, shallow scratches as they were, and she was barely a novice. Even as he dove for her foreleg with the intent of flipping her across the glade again as far as he could he savoured the spice of risk.

Some time later, as the sun was beginning to sink towards the forested horizon, Sesshoumaru drew himself up and glanced at the sky. Despite his own healthy surplus of ki Sesshoumaru noted the fatigue that had increasingly hampering Higurashi Kagome's attacks. He also noted the slight hollowing of her gut behind the ribs. She had not yet eaten today and, though she had gained weight since he had arrived at this place she was still underweight, as his flinging of her about all morning had highlighted. Regretfully it was time to stop, with a sharp hand gesture he stated "Enough."

Kagome relaxed out of the crouch she had just begun and sagged to her haunches with, he was smugly pleased to note, both gratitude and disappointment. In the forest shadows, the abandoned deer carcass would be half frozen in the snow.

"You will eat now. A fire will be needed to thaw your prey. Whether you wish to wait for it to cook or not is your decision."

Kagome began to open her mouth to ask if he would build the fire and then remembered using her reiki to create the small bonfire for the swan-maidens. She glanced at Sesshoumaru- he had not forgotten, possibly reminded by her display of reiki earlier.

~o0o~

Kagome flopped down onto a carpet of pine needles not far from the dead deer, intent on a breather before worrying about her dinner, though her stomach was beginning to make itself audible. The pads of her feet and underside of her claws felt raw from all of the twisting, sliding and running she had done. She could feel them tingle as the accelerated healing of this form took charge, aided by her now fizzling reiki. Her coat was rank with sweat and snow-slush now, her mane a tangle of small branches, dirt and bark from impacts with trees. There was not the slightest hint of rosemary around her any longer.

Sesshoumaru hadn't broken so much as a faint sheen of sweat though he was still, ever so slightly, out of breath. Her own sides were bellowing as she lay, eyes half shut keeping watch on the Taiyoukai in case he decided to break their truce and start the melee again. To her surprise he blew lightly on the palms of his hands and sank with a very slight sigh into his signature sitting posture at the base of a nearby tree.

"You are more capable than I had initially expected." He allowed, directing a second breath across his palms.

Kagome covered her surprise at this unexpected praise by rolling onto her back, scratching her shoulders on the gnarled roots that jutted from the carpet of pine needles, and shedding clumps of damp fur. "Damn it. I was sure I could get you raise at least a little bit of a sweat"

"This Sesshoumaru does not sweat."

Kagome's eyes flicked to his hands, now palm down and at rest, his forearms resting on his knees and a piece of trivia popped into her mind, explaining that slight saline aroma that had mingled with his usual scents.

"Dogs and cats only sweat through their paws… but I'm a cat and I certainly sweat."

Sesshoumaru crinkled his nose very slightly and Kagome was about to pull a face when he surprised her by saying, "You look like a feline but you are not one. This form you wear Higurashi Kagome, is a part of this place-story. I begin to wonder if you wish to leave it."

"I did! I mean I do! I.. I've just never been this… capable before. Not having to be protected, or at fault, or being a burden of some sort… it's not something familiar…" She said, recognising this as a truth even as it rolled off her tongue. "I… I kind of like being capable…"

"Hnn." Sesshoumaru rose. Kagome realised he would never do anything so graceless as pant but, in his way, he had just subtly indicated not once, but twice, that she had pushed him to exert himself in their sparring. "Perhaps you are expected to make it familiar. Eat and we will discuss methods of escaping this story-place as we return to the keep. I think there is no longer purpose in remaining here."

Kagome blinked at his distinct omission of referring to himself in the third person. Awkwardly, proudly, she offered him a share of her kill and was stupidly elated when he inclined his head, passing one final subtle breath over his palms.

~o0o~

It was strangely exciting to be the one drawing out these abilities in another. To watch what was almost unformed clay take form, and through his intervention. Sesshoumaru wondered if his own father had felt the same way about his childish achievements. The incongrous thought of the human child Rinn suddenly popped into his thoughts. She too was growing and changing… how long since he had thought of his own responsibilities…. He began to the count the days he had seen end and realising how many there had been. Sesshoumaru rose to his feet as Kagome finished her last piece of semi-cooked venison, holding the large wooden spit it had cooked upon between her forepaws in a very doggish fashion.

"Come. We have tarried too long."

Kagome whuffed an agreement and then groaned as she rose, abandoning the remnants of her dinner, belly lightly bulging. Sesshoumaru eyed this with a degree of satisfaction and set a slightly slower than usual pace back.

~o0o~

Kagome walked alongside Sesshoumaru in lazy long strides as they headed back to the keep. She hoped Sesshoumaru would agree to help her break up the worst of the snarls when they returned to the keep and was trying to think of a way to broach the subject before she opened her mouth when a glint of light from the rank long grass that hedged the deer-path they followed caught her attention. Sesshoumaru had already noticed it. He glanced at her once and caught her eye, then they both approached the object, moving apart to flank it as though it were prey.

~o0o~

*Futon - a folding mattress used in smaller Japanese houses and at ryokan (traditional hotels) - these are laid out each night to sleep on and then folded away during the day. They get aired out in the sun to reduce the chance of mildew.

I do love characters that ensure their friends are kept fed.

And I can recommend Shamelessliar's Avatar ffics as ones I've recently stumbled on and enjoyed immensely.