Chapter 1: And that how was they met again.
Kagome rested her hands lightly on the ledge of the well and stared at the dry, bare mud-lined bottom.
She dimly noted the rough splintered texture of the wood, the scratchy sandy-dust collected under the ridges of her trembling fingers, and her insistent, murmuring heartbeats. The forced silence in her ears was so deafening and distant at the same time that it made her head spun like a pinwheel in a child's hand.
"What am I doing here?" She half-lifted her right hand, and placed it back on the ledge again. She was not sure whether she had wanted to calm her pounding heart, or to cover her face. She had forgotten; but it did not matter.
Kagome bit her lower lip because it was quivering, because she was afraid, because she was anxious and frustrated, because she felt lost and helpless, and because-
"Mou!" She let out a soft desperate cry. She had no idea why she was here; at the well that once transported her back to five hundred years in time, that Inuyasha and herself had once used it as a dimension-portal, that had once forcefully changed her past, present and future.
Tonight was a summer night like many others. The moon was high up, partially covered by some hazy red clouds. She was asleep as usual, on the same bed, in the same room, under the same old blanket that Inuyasha once used too. But something woke her up, as if ice-cold water was slowly drizzled down your back; cold, shocking, shivery and gradual. It was like a tug at her heart, persuading her, urging her, hurrying her, to run to the shrine house.
To the well. The damned well. Kagome squeezed her eyes shut as her blunt nails scraped on the wooden ledge a little. The tug had now become a pail of water splashed all over her head, pounding so hard that it was as if there was another smaller heart within her own one.
Kagome wondered whether the well had a spirit, and if it had, she wondered whether it had a kind heart. The erratic randomness of the well had caused her immense heartache fifteen years ago, when it suddenly stopped working. For reasons that she could never really fathom other than perhaps it had cranky moods, or perhaps she had grown up beyond what the well would accept anymore.
A thousand and one reasons would pass her by, seemingly logical, reasonable, plausible, and she would ponder hard over them. Yet she firmly rejected the one idea Souta had proposed many years ago. She would not believe the well had closed up for a reason; she could not. Because if she did, then the chances of the well re-opening up were there, and there would be hope, and disappointment, and grief and sickness and death to all possible things living in her body and soul now.
And to attribute that to Fate, "to such a whimsical thing called Fate", was naive. And she was no longer that, no matter how much she longed and pined for the once-naivety and innocence, the iron-willed optimism that she had so defiantly carried with her during her adventures in Sengoku Jidai.
Oh, the past glories. Crying and mocking at her now.
Kagome opened her eyes; the dried-out bottom was gaping back at her, like a dead old fish attempting to swallow her up whole if she dared to jump. If she dared; if she dared to revisit her old past, to go back in Time, to see herself young and gullible again, to cut down youkai and nurse sick people, to accept the impossibles determined by normalcy of her era, to bring justice and peace, to defy her own beliefs, to re-open the can of worms buried at the bottom of her heart-
And the tug came back again, along with unknown voices, whispering haunting words by her ear, pleading with her, moaning and sobbing and laughing-
She shakily lifted her right hand, and firmly pressed it against her left breast. Was it the jewel that was responding to the tug? Or was there something else calling out for the jewel? Or was it all just a hallucination?
Kagome smiled bitterly to herself; she had to accept Souta's idea, because if not that would mean she had went mad. To stand in front of an old, abandoned shrine-well in her miko garb, with the old-but-still-useful bow slung on her back, and a quiver with only five arrows that were questionably-sharp. She was thirty, not fifteen. She was no longer that scrawny girl with a bright yellow backpack; she was a woman now, with cynicism that could parallel a fairy-tale storyteller.
And she wanted to believe that she was indeed, mad. That all these; the tug, the memories, the jewel, the well, were all naught but a dream. She could be a ludicrous crazy old woman in her dream, and it would not matter, at all.
"I'll just have to jump in," she told herself calmly, "I just need to prove it."
And so she did.
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Kagome had hoped, and had prepared herself for a hard, bruise-inducing landing. But when she drifted through the familiar timeless tunnel, with the weightlessness of her body, the sheer space and volume of the seemingly never-ending stars-filled dimension overwhelmed her, so much so that she smiled and teared at the same time. But yet she told herself that it was a dream, and that the well would not choose to open up its portal at this weird time because she was no longer the Kagome of before.
The Kagome who once had a pure love for him, and was subsequently demolished down, brick by brick when it all ended.
"If it's a dream, then I'll just need to complete it before I can wake up," the half-smile disappeared and was replaced with a carefully extracted grim as the tears evaporated into the timeless skies. Kagome adjusted the bow on her shoulders and feeling a bit disorientated, looked around when her feet landed softly on the marshy-mud bottom. Unruly vines had grown all over the cobbled-stone walls of the well, but she could still see the thick, worn rope hiding somewhere beneath all those creepers.
She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. She thought that she had almost forgotten the scent of this era; the clear, clean, wild smells of Mother Nature arraying herself at the end of hot, humid summer days. She nodded to herself, in assurance that everything was alright, everything was a dream, everything was not real and that soon, it would end.
Just like the love between her and him, gradually lost to this thing called Age.
Everything had to end, because there was no such thing called Everlasting. Decay was rampant in her mind and soul.
Half-way up the torturous climb (because there was no one else to give her a helping hand anymore), she saw the moon.
The pale speckled planet was high up, partially covered by some hazy red clouds.
"The moon is the same everywhere," she mumbled to herself, "Tonight is a summer night just like the rest."
Three-quarters up the painful climb, the sickening persisting tug finally identified itself in the purest form.
Danger. Overwhelming danger up above her head. Right outside the cursed well.
Kagome contemplated for two good seconds, wondering whether she should back off and squat at the bottom of the well and count the number of vines while singing lullabies. And on the third and a half second, she decided that getting herself killed, head-on was the fastest way to end this dream.
"It's a dream," she repeated to herself and climbed harder, faster while she panted and inwardly cursed at her disobedient muscles.
When her fingers finally managed to grip onto the same-yet-not-same wooden ledge, she heard soft angry growls. They sounded animalistic, brutal and bone-crunching. Kagome shook her head a little, to dispel the notions that it might be real and heaved herself over the well.
"Yes, get killed. Game over. KO."
But all thoughts flew out of her head as a man turned around in shock to look at her.
That was how she found him.
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And that was how he found her.
Standing there silently, with her lips half-parted and her deep brown eyes searching his face. There were glistening beads of perspiration on her forehead, her long hair was pulled back messily into a ponytail, and one of her feet had not even touched the ground as she half-sat and half-crouched on the mouth of the Bone Eater's Well.
If it was not for the miko attire, he would not have been able to recognize her.
The moon was behind her head, and from his point of view, it was as if the cold moon was framing her face along with some sparse rainy-looking clouds. He thought it was rather comical for their first meeting after so many years; he sitting on the damp grassfield, surrounded by a pack of wild, hungry, low-class ookami-youkai, with a useless Tenseiga in his right hand and she preparing to get out, with a dazed expression on her young yet old face while she steadied the long bow on her shoulder.
But now was not an appropriate time to celebrate, nor did he want to. He was never such a person. She was just a human, nevertheless one to witness the death of the Great Taiyoukai of the West. The first born of Inu no Taisho, the legendary cold, ruthless killer who eventually eliminated Naraku, the scum of the earth, and his only hanyou brother, the scum of his line.
Sesshoumaru turned back to his attackers, and revealed a half-crazed smile as he struggled to stand to his feet by jabbing Tenseiga into the ground.
"Come!"
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Tonight was a summer night like many others, not.
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Kagome frowned a little, a headache was fast coming up and she stared at the man's clothing while he tried to support himself with his sword.
It was the exact same one as what Sesshoumaru had once worn. The sword looked very familiar too, the hilt that was. But the man limping before her was not youkai at all.
He had long, dark brown hair, there was no crescent moon on his forehead, no stripes adorning his cheeks, and she could not sense any youki around him at all. But if he was not Sesshoumaru, why was he wearing his clothes? And if he was indeed Sesshoumaru, was this a very bad, weird dream then?
She had no time to think further, because the wolves gave a synchronized howl and lunged for the poor man.
And with ease and agility that she did not think she still had, an arrow had struck itself on one of the wolf's head. Without another word, she swiftly pulled out another arrow from the quiver that Kaede had given her and took aim at the second wolf who was now growling loudly but not making any further advances.
After an intense staring battle between the miko and the second beastly youkai for a full minute, the wolves whimpered and ran away.
Oh, the present glories! Embracing her full-faced, along with dancing of the summer daffodils and daisies!
Kagome smirked to herself and took a step forward when the man abruptly turned around and fixed her with a very familiar, icy stare.
"Why did you save me?"
She was genuinely shocked at his words and sharp, harsh voice. It reminded her of Inuyasha, those angry eyes and lips.
"I... You couldn't fight! You're limping! What did you expect me to do? Watch you die!" She retorted angrily, and the notion that this might not be a dream noiselessly slid into a corner of her brain.
The man frowned hard at her but did not say more. He wanted to die honourably, he wanted to fight, to kill, and to pass away in peace. He had had enough time on this world, and he wanted to go into the next one. The regrets of his past weighed down on him like lead and the shame of his present self, the human body, burnt and ate away at his self-esteem and pride.
Sesshoumaru turned away from her, fully intending to walk away, to search for another way to leave this outer shell of his.
As if in slow motion, Kagome saw his tall back swayed a little, and promptly fell onto the grassfield face-on with a soft, grassy thud.
In the uninterrupted silence of the summer night, with a sudden night breeze that caressed her face, Kagome knew that this was not a dream. And that the man, whoever he was, needed her help before he really died. As she slowly walked towards him, she could feel the grass brushing past her cotton hakamas, she could smell the metallic scent of blood in the moisture-laden air, and the dawning facts slowly sinking into her mind the way she would drown in quicksand.
And when she knelt down beside him, the only intruders she had were the cicadas, crickets, grasshoppers and earthworms which quickly scrambled away from her towering gigantic feet. Kagome gently turned the man over, and the first thing she noticed was his long eyelashes covering his half-closed eyes. His facial features were delicate, a little feminine, and there were minor scratches on his cheekbones, his nose, his chin and his thin, bluish lips.
Kagome swallowed. It could not be. There was even a very, very faint mark on his forehead under the silver wisps of moonlight.
The silence in her ears had turned into a buzzing one, and she wanted to get rid of it. It was irritating, cluttering her haphazard thoughts, and it constricted her breathing a little.
So she asked. "Se-, Sesshoumaru?"
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He heard her voice. It was soft, concerned and full of that annoying curiousity.
But it sounded far off, as if his ears were filled with water. Or she was hidden away from him in a cloud.
Sesshoumaru looked around; he was standing at the edge of a plain wooden bridge, that arched over a calm, serene river. Light mist drifted all over the place, and he could see no fish or water-plants in the river. The blue waters were clear, so clear that he could see the bottom and yet he could not see the other end of the bridge.
A part of him wanted to cross the bridge, and a part of him did not want to. He deliberated over his decision for a while, and suddenly a butterfly came into his scope of vision. It was a small creature, with pure black wings, that hovered before his eyes and fluttered to the other end, disappearing into the silvery cool mist.
"A guide," he mused to himself and took a step forward.
Sesshoumaru felt incredibly light, and joyful and sorrowful at the same time. Was he leaving something behind? Had he left any unfinished business? Or was it simply not right of him to go forward? He felt as if his brain split into two, detached from each other as he tried to analyze.
But he longed for the other side, he wanted to see where the butterfly had went to, and whether the bridge would end. The river now looked so wide and endless to him, that he felt a smidgen of fear.
He took another two steps forward, and another two steps; his body was getting heavier and heavier, his feet seemed to be bound by iron chains and he was puzzled. Did it meant that he could not go, or he did not really wanted to go? He looked over his shoulder, as his long silver hair draped off his shoulders, the place was abnormally clear. He could see the start of the bridge, the place where he had once stood, but no one was there.
No one.
And he felt a little sad at that fact.
He resumed his steps, and soon he was standing at the center of the wooden bridge, at the highest point over the dead river.
"Sesshoumaru?"
He heard it; it was clear, urgent, and worrisome.
The taiyoukai looked over his shoulder again, he could see no one. But the feminine voice resounded in his ears again.
He frowned a little, and was going to head towards his destination when he heard it again.
"Baka! Come back!"
The voice was so loud and so desperate that echoes vibrated through his ethereal body and ripples occurred all over the surface of the river.
He wanted to smile, because someone asked for him. And he wanted to go back, because he wanted to rip off her throat, to stab her with Tenseiga, and to finish whatever Life had for him.
Sesshoumaru turned around, and with steps as light and as fast a bird, he ran, and ran.
Back to her.
Notes: In Japanese and Chinese myths, its believed that when a person dies, he/she needs to cross the bridge over a river, to the underworld, or to the next life. Butterflies are also often believed to be souls, or reincarnations of dead people. Or as messengers of Hell.
A/N: There will be other chapters, but this will not be a long fic. This ficlet was inspired by some pictures I saw at DeviantArt, and yes, Im writing a human Sesshoumaru. )