In Time, Death

By Alesyira

Summary: Old stories, current worries, and a bit of new stuff.

The Pair

"I hope you don't mind, Mama, but Shippo's going to be staying a while."

Shippo's mouth fell open in mild horror. "Uh, what she means is that, with your permission, I'd like to stay and help keep the shrine and your daughter safe."

"Oh, continue doing what you've already been doing?" Aiko asked, one eyebrow raised. "Everyone in the household could hear you speaking with someone at night, Kagome. It wasn't a very well kept secret with these paper-thin walls."

The two exchanged a glance.

"I'm a little disappointed it took this long to be mentioned," she murmured, peering down into her empty cup with a little frown.

Kagome glared at Shippo, who ducked his head in mild embarrassment.

"And I now know why it took so long. Kagome, you know where the extra bedding is kept." Her mother left the room to start another kettle for tea.

"Thank you, Aiko-chan!" Shippo called after her.

"It's so strange that you call her that," Kagome whispered.

He whispered back, "You want me to start calling her Mama, too?"

Kagome thought about it for a moment before shaking her head. "That might give her the wrong impression."

It was a little weird to head to her room that night with Shippo walking up the stairs behind her. She reminded herself that they weren't doing anything, but it didn't help ease the sudden tension creeping along her shoulders.

He leaned closer and spoke very quietly. "I can sneak in the window if it'll make you feel better."

"Am I being that obvious?"

He laughed lightly. "Only to me. No one else can see you hunching your shoulders like you're trying to collapse your head into your neck." He opened her door and slipped in first. "Here's your pajamas. Go get ready for sleep."

She came back to find he'd already changed and lounged along the far edge of her bed. He held his little booklet between three fingers as the tiny pencil flew quietly across the paper. He'd materialized a completely unnecessary pair of reading glasses to perch at the end of his nose, which he peered over with a critical look as she hesitated in the doorway.

"You act like something has changed when everything is still the same. You need your sleep. I will wake you before any nightmares arrive. There will be cuddling once you stop over-thinking."

"Shippo," she said, feeling suddenly awkward. "Don't you have," she paused, collecting her thoughts. "Don't you have a life? Someone to go home to?" She bit her lip and looked to the side. "Your boyfriend?"

He smiled and tucked the pencil inside the book before putting it on her bedside table. "Kagome, I've lived many lives and had many adventures between then and now. Now is for you. This is what I consider my home until you tell me to go away."

He rolled over onto his stomach and propped his head on his palm with a little grin. "My boyfriend was one of many relationships I've enjoyed over the years. It's in my nature to be affectionate, and you are my current target for affection."

"What happens when I find someone?" She whispered as her hands clasped in front of her chest, and she wasn't sure why she suddenly felt like crying.

"Well, if it's not me, then I suppose that person's gonna have to get used to me being around until you need me to go away." He held his arms out and she shuffled slowly to bed. He rolled his eyes. "I'm not gonna abandon you if you find some hottie you like more than me. Although I'm not sure how that would be possible," he sniffed, flicking his bangs casually.

She giggled, her tears held barely in check as she slid under her covers and he curled his warmth around her.

"Get some sleep already. It's way too late for you to be getting all emotional over maybes."

She rubbed her face in her pillow. "You still have a ton of explaining to do. I've never seen Mama hit someone."

"Alright," he huffed. "I'll start when you're getting tired so that you sleep through most of it."

She sighed. She had too many questions and not enough time to unload them all. "Why couldn't you stay? Did you have feelings for her?"

He twisted his fingers in her hair and nuzzled his face against the strands. "I did love her. I still do, but long before we met, her scent had been firmly embedded in my memories as your mother and your safety. I thought about it sometimes, that maybe she could be someone I might want to play with, but I could never overcome that scent memory, not to mention she and Toshi were so devoted to each other. There would have never been room for a third." He closed his eyes against old, painful memories. He missed Toshi.

"Aiko definitely thought I was cute, and maybe when we first became friends she had been interested in me, but as she understood I couldn't like her back, she could only see me as a friend." He snorted in amusement. "I once told Toshi and Aiko that I didn't like girls at all to avoid having to further explain why I wouldn't interfere in their relationship. It ended up working out in my favor at that time, I think. I'm not so sure it's going to work well in my favor now."

Kagome laughed as she hugged her pillow to her face. "With the way you act, I bet you'd probably roll around in the hay with anything."

He grumbled underneath her hair. "I have standards, thank you very much. Anyways, I couldn't stay because the older you got, the more you'd remember. And I think having a friend that could do things like literally kiss away the boo-boos might have raised some red flags once you got old enough to understand that's not how things are supposed to be. We've worked hard to keep magic nothing more than a myth to the regular folk."

"I don't understand why you all want to hide."

"The Great War between the humans and magical folk is a good reason why, but you fell asleep the last time I tried telling you about it."

Kagome yawned, right on schedule. "I imagine it was a terrible thing."

"Quite terrible. Lots of people died."

"How did your magic heal my arm that day? Is this just a kitsune thing?"

He chuckled and she felt him shaking his head. "Nice change of subject. No interest in history, eh?"

"I've lived enough history and seen enough people die to last a lifetime, I think."

He smiled a bit ruefully. "Y'know, with your luck, you're gonna get dropped right into the middle of that mess with no idea what's going on." He sighed and tucked himself closer to her hair. "But I'll give you an out this time."

He ran his fingers along the skin of her forearm where the break had been so many years ago. "As a human, kitsune magic normally works like hypnosis. What lots of people call kitsune seduction is really just kitsune suggestion. When you were very young and got a little bump on your head, I thought by using my magic, I could at least convince you that it didn't really hurt so you'd stop crying. I was a little surprised when the bump went away."

She smiled and closed her eyes against the next yawn. "Maybe you should pursue therapy for real if you can hypnotize people into thinking their problems aren't problems."

He shook his head. "No way. It's like lying. Anyways, I've had many discussions with others about this. It is suspected that sharing magic works with you because you're a magical creature like the rest of us. Just like when you learned how to use your ki more effectively, you could heal faster than normal humans because you had extra energy sitting around not being used. I bet if you knew how to direct it better, you might have been able to heal as fast as one of us. And now with the jewel able to hand over enough energy to power a small city, it's probably why you can heal ridiculously fast. I might be wrong. Hopefully it's not just that your cells are working at an advanced rate and you're gonna be an old lady by the end of next year."

The thought of her energy going so wrong made her nervous. "You're going off topic a bit, there," she said quietly, trying to force away the sudden ripple of apprehension.

"Hmm, a bit."

"Do you think that's why Kurama was able to help heal me with his magic?"

She felt him shrug. "Probably. It might mean you're just meant to live amongst our kind forever."

She hummed in thought. Kurama's magic didn't just heal her that day. It felt good. She pressed her lips together in concern, wondering if all kitsune magic worked the same way for her, now. Maybe there should be no more kissing injuries away. She felt her face getting hot and pressed her cool hands to her cheeks, willing her thoughts away from nice things.

Shippo cleared his throat. "What the heck are you thinking of now?"

Her face burned. "Nothing, never mind."

"Are you thinking of my cousin again? He's such a troublesome male."

She snorted. "No, I wasn't. Not really."

He made a sound of disbelief but didn't press her for more information.

There were a few minutes of silence. Kagome started feeling a little bit sleepy, but one last concern wedged its way into her thoughts before she could drift off.

"I'm a little bit worried about going back. We had such trouble getting the well to open one last time to let me come home. What if the well won't open again?"

"I guess as long as you leave and come back within the next few years, you should still be able to get everyone together to do the same thing as last time to let you through. Kikyo was there for a while before she vanished and took Inuyasha with her, wherever that ended up being," he trailed off with a mutter.

"I guess I have some time to plan, then."

"We have time to plan," he clarified. Then a new thought crossed his mind and he leaned over to look down into her face with concern. "Please do not leave us for a few years. I don't want to do that again."

In the silence that followed, she felt a little chill as she stared up into his serious green eyes, illuminated only by the little bit of moonlight that slipped through her curtains. She really hoped she didn't get stuck in the past on another ridiculous quest for years.

He flopped back behind her and curled an arm around her waist. "Don't worry about it too much. I don't think you'll get trapped there. I never heard any talk of you reappearing, so either anyone who knew kept damned good secrets or you just weren't there long enough for anyone to notice."

It was a nice thought that her errand might be so short. It helped ease her worries just enough to fall asleep.

She woke before dawn to discover he'd disappeared. The spot where he usually curled up at her side was still warm, so he hadn't been gone long. She pulled his pillow to her face and closed her eyes, wondering how the heck she was going to sleep during her time away without him. With luck, she wouldn't be gone long enough to find out.

He showed up at their front door a few hours later that morning with a large box balanced on one arm. "Ready to get started?"

Grouchy from the lack of sleep, she might have glared just a little bit. "What did you do?"

He flashed a toothy smile. "Planned ahead and hoarded stuff just in case." She let him inside with a wave of her hand before trudging into the kitchen for some caffeine.

After she'd had breakfast and two cups of tea, she followed him upstairs to see what the fuss was all about. He opened the box in the middle of her bedroom floor and rummaged for a moment before pulling out a familiar outfit.

"That looks fancier than I recall."

He shrugged, brushing off a speck of dust from the material before handing it to her. It appeared to be classic miko attire but made with a shimmery fabric that didn't look like anything she'd seen before.

"I knew we'd find some use for this eventually. It's great for keeping body temperature regulated under reasonable conditions, but don't go falling into a fire."

She raised an eyebrow.

"It's waterproof, too! You can get rained on and stay totally dry. There's also a bodysuit somewhere in here that's cut resistant. You'll be pretty safe from glancing strikes with claws or knives, but it's not very effective against stabbing." He sighed. "I really hope you keep yourself out of trouble. There's only so much we can do with magic, and if I put you in enough armor to protect against every scenario, you won't be able to walk."

She laughed at the thought of being bundled in that much protection. She poked around in the box until she found what looked like the bodysuit he'd mentioned. She ran her fingers along the strange weave of its material and wondered aloud, "How much did all of this cost?"

"Eh? Nothing. I'm really good friends with one of the community tailors."

Kagome glanced at him with a little bit of a smirk. "Really good friends, eh?"

"Yep! They've heard all your stories." He looked thoughtful for a moment. "Oh, the number of people that are just dying to meet you…"

She paused and stared at him. "That sounds ominous."

He nudged her in the side with a knuckle and a wink. "I kid! There's only a few, and they aren't dying."

She frowned anyways. "I wonder though… how many are still around? That knew me?"

He looked up at the ceiling overhead and ticked off names of people she'd encountered during their lengthy adventures, adding random tidbits about their current lives. She laughed until her sides hurt, worries briefly forgotten.

It took some time for him to show off the entire contents of his box. "We will pack soon. In case something happens, you should have your stuff ready to go."
She nodded in agreement. Worrying about troubles that might be coming but not knowing what they were or when they'd happen was starting to be an irritating point of tension. Maybe she should just collect her gear and try jumping into the well to get it over with.

He sensed her growing unease and pulled her outside. "As you probably aren't leaving for a bit," he gave her a look as though he knew exactly where her thoughts were heading, "you should practice what you know and learn a few new things."

She was a little suspicious when he pulled out an ancient tape deck, popped in a somewhat warped cassette and hit the scuffed play button. The strained notes that warbled forth were immediately recognizable as training-montage music from an old boxing film that her brother had watched at least a dozen times the previous summer. She pushed him over with a groan of disgust. "No. Just, no. We will practice in silence."

He whined in remorse. "No flair for the dramatic! I had saved this just for you."

Five hundred years and countless adventures both on his own and with allies had given him a wealth of experience, not only with his own magic but with hers. "My only regret, aside from your refusal of an appropriate soundtrack, is that Angara* won't be available for a few weeks."

"Angara?"

"Oh yes. You'll love her. Anything you can demonstrate, she can take a tiny thread of it and twist it into shapes you never dreamed possible. It took us a while to dare testing her abilities with my holy magic—"

The strangeness of that statement snagged her immediate attention and she interrupted him. "Your… Oh! That reminds me. What is that?" She waved a hand in the vague direction of his chest.

"Hmm?" He glanced down, not sure what she was asking about.

"When you asked me to reach out and get a feel for the others before our lunch, I saw…" she waved again at his heart.

"Ah." He paused, considering his words. "Here, sit." They settled on the stone paving across from each other. "Close your eyes," he instructed. "Look for my energy again. Tell me what you see. Describe it."

She relaxed and reached out with her senses. "Can I hold your hand? It's easier through touch."

"Easier, sure. But you need the practice. No touching."

She frowned and tilted her head. She understood how to seek out and understand someone's whole, but she'd never tried to pick out the nuances that made them what they were.

She described what she could see of his nature: the glowing blue fire that traced through his body from his fingertips and his toes to his heart. As she stared and examined, she could eventually see that most of his energy had twisting facets of color, and she marveled at the barely discernible rainbow of shades flowing easily throughout his body.

The color became noticeably strange the closer it was to his core. It grew brighter, most of the colors drained away into a pale pink brightness, and it called to her with its familiarity. Was this brightness, this strange aberration in his spirit, the thing he was trying to tell her about that day in the Makai? The energy he'd learned to live with, which makes him sick if he tries to take energy from others?

He broke through her concentration with his quiet whisper, "Do you see it?"

She fisted her hands against the desire to reach out and touch, but her magic went where her hands could not and brushed against the glowing shimmer. It brightened and pulsed within his chest, and her eyes flew open at his shocked gasp. He had leaned forward to wrap protective arms around his chest.

She reached for him with fluttering hands, afraid to touch but worried he'd been harmed. "Oh, no! Are you okay?"

He blinked a few times, staring at nothing as his face turned scarlet, and then he peered at her with dark eyes, his pupils so wide she could barely see any of the green. "That…" he swallowed. "Kagome, that's the part of you that I have carried with me for nearly my entire life."

"Did I hurt you?" she asked, her eyes wide with concern.

He shook his head. "I'm alright." He shook his head again as though he was trying to shake something from his thoughts. "A long time ago, I thought it was just a piece of your magic. But it never seems to run out, and it has only gotten stronger over time. Then, when Botan complained that it had been your spirit preventing her from taking my soul, I had to rethink what I'd believed to be true all this time."

Kagome turned her attention to the familiar swirl of energy only vaguely detectable while her eyes were open.

"You know, technically I've owned this magic longer than you have, so I get to call it my holy magic."

She rolled her eyes.

"The day I discovered I had your magic, a very good friend was teaching me how to play."

Kagome tilted her head in confusion. "I'm getting the impression that this doesn't involve dice or a board game."

He laughed. "It can, but no, I mean something more along the lines of a cat playing with its food. A common method kitsune use for feeding is accompanied with physical distractions like kissing or sex. With my weird upbringing, I never learned how to do it, and I was nearly starving due to some unforeseen conditions. My friend tried to teach me how to feed from her by demonstrating and took some of your magic with mine. Her reactions were pretty scary and I had to learn real fast how to take it back."

Kagome's eyes widened. "This is what you were talking about at lunch?"

He nodded and laughed ruefully. "A normal kitsune can feed off of energy stolen from their lovers. Because of this part of you, I can't. Remember what it felt like?"

She did, a little too clearly. She shuddered in revulsion.

He smiled. "The same goes in reverse. Because of this part of you, others cannot take from me. It was a very rough morning. Lessons learned."

Kagome cringed. Taking energy had made her violently ill and that was bad enough, but she would probably never forget how much it hurt to have the fires of purification ripping through every fiber of her being.

He snickered. "Maybe we should let Kurama take his taste. He'd probably regret ever meeting you."

She gasped. "You must not know how much that hurts to wish it on someone else."

He shrugged. "You're right. I've lucked out, there. I have no regrets if it keeps him from bothering you."

"Wait," she stared at him. "I've felt what purification does to a youkai, firsthand, and it's an awful experience. Are you telling me that because you have some of my magic,"

"My magic, now," he interrupted.

"Are you saying that because you own holy magic, purification doesn't hurt you anymore? At all?"

"Like I keep saying—"

"Yeah, you're special," she finished for him. Her hand lit with pink. "But if I did this," and she leaned forward to reach out for him. He dodged faster than the day that she had thrown up at his feet. "What are you running from?"

He laughed nervously. "It doesn't hurt, but it does affect me. I really must insist on limiting my exposure for the sake of my sanity."

"My magic makes you crazy?"

"Er, yes. Something like that. It'll be a good reason for me to avoid it during practice, but you can rest assured you won't kill either of us on accident."

She peered at him a bit suspiciously. She was glad she couldn't kill him with her magic, but how could it affect his sanity? And what the heck did he think they'd be doing for practice?

He grinned and stretched from a safe distance away. "Before we practice the stuff you know, let's look at something new: Anchored barriers!"

She frowned and waved her hand around her. "Aren't I already doing that with the shrine?"

Shippo nodded. "Yes, but I mean on a smaller scale. You protect the shrine because it's the land and the people that you love, so it's like an extension of yourself, lasting as long as the power you've dumped into it can be maintained."

"Right," Kagome agreed.

He held out a pebble. "Can you put a little barrier around something like this?"

She frowned. "That seems wasteful."

"Yeah, but can you do it?" She made a face and plucked it from his fingers as he continued. "You don't really care about the rock, but if you can put a barrier around it, or around a statue, or around the clearing like I did in the Makai, then it's not an extension of your love, just your will."

"Makes sense."

"I'm sure you can think of a few reasons why having a barrier stay put in a strange place while you go running around to be a hero might be useful."

She nodded, thoughtful. The only time she'd had to maintain a barrier around a fixed position during battle was when others were fighting and she was protecting. She might not always have backup.

"And then, there are new and exciting ways you can make use of such a thing, like this." He dropped a tiny blue barrier around another pebble and flicked the glowing bubble across the courtyard. She watched with wide eyes as it bounced along the stones, emitting tiny flashes of light before it disappeared into some grass. "It can be a terrible waste of power when you're learning how to do it, but knowing how to bend the rules might one day save your life, which is never wasteful."

She worked on the technique for a while, tweaking how she'd apply her magic and concentration to encourage barriers around less significant things. Because much of her abilities were based around feelings rather than understanding how they worked, it was difficult to stop doing things the way that made sense to her heart. Shippo was a passable teacher, though, and she got the first flickerings of a tiny bubble to appear before lunch. "You'll definitely need more practice, but this concept leads into one more that I'll show you before we move on to reviewing everything you already know how to do."

He had her sit across from him as though they were going to meditate. "Now, close your eyes, and feel."

She hummed, "This again?"

"I want you to reach for anything that has your magic." He paused for a moment before clarifying. "Not me. Don't reach for me for this exercise."

She laughed. He almost sounded nervous. "The barrier around the shrine?" she suggested with a smile.

"Yes, that'll be perfect. You can feel it?"

She nodded. She frequently did this, reaching out for the barrier while she was at home, testing its strength, feeding more magic into the land to reinforce her protections in case something happened and she had to leave quickly.

"If you can feel something, you are connected to it. You have a direct metaphysical line between whatever it is that makes you magical to the energy at the other end. You can feel the warmth of a campfire by sitting close to it, right?. You don't have to stick your hand in to warm up. I've seen you touch the ground to use the earth as a conduit to replenish your barrier, but that's not necessary. You can send more magic into anything within range of your senses. A hama-no-ya in flight toward a target? You should be able to suck your magic back from the arrow after it has loosed, or dump even more power into it before it strikes its target."

The barrier thrummed with strength, so there wasn't much more she could send out to test his concept. She drew back her focus to their friend sitting before her and watched the gently swirling light of her magic around his heart. There was so much. She didn't think it was possible for her magic to happily coexist within a creature so vastly different from herself. "So," she murmured, "I could take my magic back from you, and you could be normal again?"

There was a long silence. She opened one eye to peek at him. "Maybe," he admitted quietly, his hand resting protectively over his heart. "But I hope you never find a reason."

They stared at each other for a few moments before he glanced away, clearly uncomfortable with the direction their conversation had gone. "Think about how your connection works with everything around you. We can practice that technique tomorrow when you've had some rest." He stood and offered her a hand up. "Let's take a short break and then we can work on more practical stuff you're already familiar with."

She had a hard time invoking her magic to use against him. He might believe he couldn't be purified by her magic, but actually testing his resistance to a direct strike was proving impossible. Some part of her mind was still quite convinced that she might accidentally kill him.

After a few false starts where her magic sputtered out as soon as she tried swinging her bow in his direction, he got a brilliant (in Kagome's opinion, awful) idea. He waggled his eyebrows at her and did a little flourishing spin, and as his hair settled she took two steps back in shock. Their long-dead arch-nemesis, Naraku, stood casually across the short distance.

"I know you can tell it's still me," he said, and Kagome shuddered at the sound of his dark voice. "But I bet this will help." He grinned in a very unsettling way, his red eyes glowing with anticipation. She didn't even have time to ready her stance again before he flew in her direction, claws outstretched.

Less than an hour later, Shippo had to call the session short to mentally recuperate. He lounged on the roof, his hands plastered to his face as he quietly groaned at his idiocy of suggesting she practice with magic. Of course her magic couldn't hurt him, but he knew what would happen if she got in a lucky hit. Assuming he'd be fast enough to dodge everything she could throw at him had been his folly. He should have remembered that she'd been dealing with youkai long enough that he wouldn't be able to evade her forever. She'd had enough blind luck on her side to beat some surprising odds more than once in the past.

Shifting into someone she despised and feared had been the key to getting her to let loose. He might have underestimated her just a bit. She hadn't been able to bring her weapon up quickly enough to block his sudden strike, and with his attention on her bow he definitely didn't spot her swinging hand glowing bright with magic. He didn't have a chance to dodge the palm that caught him in the arm.

The punch of her magic had literally knocked the breath right out of him as he slid to a stop, and he'd leaned over, wheezing as he tried to control (and hide) the very physical reaction he'd had to an unrestrained strike of her magic. It was almost funny how she hovered over him, worried she had hurt him as he tried to wave her off. She'd probably beat a hasty retreat if she knew what it really did to him.

He sighed and stared up at the darkening sky. She had offered to try taking back her magic so he could be normal.

What made anyone normal?

Who wanted to be like all the others?

He didn't want to give up this part of him. He'd had that piece of her for nearly his entire life. The magic was at odds with his nature, but it hadn't killed him. It had even saved his life more than a few times. He might be a broken kitsune, but it was a pleasant kind of broken that he'd learned to live with. He loved living with the warmth at his core, knowing he would always have this piece of his favorite person. He shook his head to break free from his fuzzy happy thoughts. He sounded like an obsessed stalker.

From the poking around he'd done, there were no other examples of a miko's magic being incorporated into a full-blooded youkai like hers was in him. No known matings, no magical adoptions, nothing. It just hadn't been done. They were too biased with centuries of learned hatred. Their Community, tucked away in hidden corners of the world, had mortals living in harmony with the magical folk, but the lack of holy creatures hadn't gone unnoticed. Her kind of magic had been steadily fading from existence, making even their mixed society a poor source of examples.

Luck had brought together the innocence of youth that allowed their natural bond to form. And now Shippo wondered if something he'd done, something she'd done, had changed what would have been the normal progression in their lives.

He slid from the roof to land in an easy crouch on the pavement in front of Kagome's front door. It didn't matter what they should have been if they had never met one another in the past.

It had happened, and now they were as they were. He wanted it no other way.

He walked through the front door with an easy smile.

AN: Angara was introduced in book 2 ch12 the agreement. Youngest child and only daughter of Baikal Khan (water dragon and lord of one of the mixed communities on the mainland), her skills helped Shippo figure out a few new things.