Warnings: None

Daughters of Destiny

Chapter 16:

"So What Happens Now?"

As soon as I stepped into the shadow of the crimson tori, a hush fell over the world as if I had dived beneath deep waters.

The Higurashi shrine lay still and quiet beneath the Sunday morning sunshine. Little road noise, if any, filtered through the tall row of trees blocking the shrine from the street beyond, and although it was already midmorning that Sunday, no one walked the temple grounds. They lay empty and serene—as serene, in fact, as the night Kagome and I had travelled to and spent in the past two weeks prior.

The morning we'd returned from the past, however, had been another thing entirely. We'd emerged from the Bone-Eater's Well to the sound of Kagome's name called loud and desperate above the temple grounds, her family searching for her in the early morning darkness. Flashlight beams pierced the cracks in the wellhouse's wooden walls, and when Kagome and I emerged, they surrounded us with so much light it was as if day had broken. Kagome had babbled something about how we must have fallen asleep in the wellhouse and not heard them calling, and before I could say a word, her mother whisked her away into the pre-dawn dark while Jii-chan escorted me with uncharacteristic chill toward the temple gates.

The gates I once more stood before, wondering if they'd let me in to see Kagome so soon after our ordeal.

Taking a deep breath, I passed below the tori and headed toward the Higurashi's private home.

Her mother answered the door when I knocked, but her polite smile cooled when she saw me. Still, she was polite enough as she gestured for me to step inside, standing a few uncertain feet away while I took off my outdoor shoes.

"Kagome is upstairs," she said, voice pitched to a mere whisper. Stern stone backed her gaze. "Please keep noise to a minimum, if possible. We have a guest."

"Oh?"

"A lawyer. Did Kagome tell you that we've been under pressure to sell the shrine?"

I shook my head, unease churning my gut. "No, ma'am."

"Well, we have been, but not anymore." Finally she smiled, eyes darting down the hall toward a sliding paper door I knew concealed a dining room. "A very important lawyer said he'll help us keep the shrine in our name, all free of charge." And then the stony gaze returned, aimed once more at me. "We do not want to lose him, do you understand?"

Time to play the role of the responsible and obedient Keiko. "Yes, ma'am. We'll keep it down," I said with a polite, if unnecessary, bow.

She looked me over with a disapproving frown, but soon she sniffed, smiled, and walked away. I followed her, but only so I could get to the staircase at the hall's far end. I had to pass the dining room along the way, and as Kagome's mother let herself inside, I glimpsed two people kneeling upon the tatami mats on opposite sides of a small, short table. Jii-chan sat facing the door, but across from him with his back to me sat a man in a black suit, shoulders broad and spine straight beneath its tailored panels. Couldn't tell much else about him, and since it hardly mattered anyway, I walked past as quietly as I could and picked my way upstairs.

Kagome didn't say anything when I knocked on her door, but when I opened it to find her sitting on her bed wearing sakura-patterned pajamas and clutching a blue pillow, hair damp from a bath, her expression morphed into a smile. I wasn't sure what it had looked like before I opened the door, but the fact that she didn't move to hug me or chirp some bright quip was telling, indeed.

"Hey." I shut the door behind me, leaning on it with uncertain awkwardness. "How are you holding up?"

"Oh. Y'know. Like a palm tree in a hurricane, I guess." Her tone was breezy, but her voice sounded… thin, somehow. Almost brittle. "You get grounded for as long as I did?"

"Nah. Mom knew I'd be here all night, so as far as she was concerned, I never went missing. And your family never called mine to complain, so…" I trailed off; swallowed; tried not to look even more awkward. "Your family take your excused OK?"

Her head tilted first right, then left. "Ish? I'm only grounded for a month, which doesn't seem like a lot for disappearing all night." She shrugged and sighed, a flicker of Kagome's usual insouciance shining through. "But there are only so many privileges you can take from a ten-year-old in 1991, so…"

"It's not like they have a smartphone to confiscate."

"Yeah. Exactly." Fiddling with the edge of the pillowcase with forefinger and thumb, Kagome ducked her head, eyes disappearing underneath damp bangs. "I have a favor to ask."

Truth be told, I'd been expecting her to ask me for something, or to at least want to talk about something serious. Her phone call requesting my presence, made in secret while her mother went out for groceries, hadn't sounded like a purely social obligation. Not to mention the look on her face, so pinched and pale compared to her normally vivacious brilliance, spoke of dire things indeed. But it wouldn't do to upset her, so I just laughed and gave her a wink.

"That was quick," I joked. "I only just got here, and you're asking for favors."

Her chin turned up, lip jutting in a pout. "Oh, shut up. I'm allowed one measly favor, aren't I?"

"To be honest, you can ask for a million and I won't complain. What do you want me to do?"

Her smile thinned. "The next time you see Hiruko, don't make him answer for what he's done to my sister."

It took me a moment to process her words—because they made no sense whatsoever, to be completely blunt. After everything we'd seen in the past, the request wouldn't compute. I stared at her for what must've been an entire minute in silence, mouth agape, eventually recovering my wits to stammer an affronted, "I'm sorry. What?"

Her dark eyes dropped to the pillow on her lap. "You're the only one of us he's contacted so far. Which means the next time he shows up, you'll no doubt try and rip him a new one." From beneath her bangs, she shot me an annoyed look. "But you shouldn't. You shouldn't rip him anything."

"But—but why?"

Annoyance turned to steel, at odds with the smallness of her form and the sweetness of her face. "Because that's my job," she said, voice unnervingly adult in her child's mouth. "Because Abbot is my sister, and nobody fucks with my family. Nobody." She smiled, but it didn't touch her eyes—a look I had never seen on Kagome's face before, and I wasn't sure if I liked it. "Truthfully, I don't know what I'll say to him yet. I don't know what to make of all of this. I don't know how this will work out, or what I can do for my sister." Luckily, she didn't smile for much longer. "All I know is that when I see Hiruko again, he'll have a lot to answer for."

Maybe it was her expression, or perhaps the steely way she spoke. But it felt like Kagome had changed, if only for a moment. Like something in her had stilled, quieting and focusing to a sharp point—one I feared might turn upon its wielder if misapplied, or fumbled, or not employed with just the right twist and turn. Not that the blade of her anger had been aimed at an undeserving foe, or brandished without reason. She was right that I could not fight her battles for her on her.

I just hoped that when the time came, she would not choose to fight that battle alone.

"OK, then," I said, swallowing down the apprehension in my throat. "I'll bite my tongue—as much as I can, that is. Because you're right. If you want vengeance, that's your vengeance to take, not mine."

The blade in her voice faded. "I knew you'd get it," she said, eyes warm again. "Thanks, Eeyore."

"You're welcome." I took a deep breath, door creaking as my weight against it shifted. "So what happens now?"

"Now we wait, I guess," she said with a noncommittal shrug. "I've got a good four years before I turn 15. That's when canon starts for me. And that's when I'll get to see her again."

There was no questioning who she meant, and although the set of her jaw spoke of certainty, I was not so sure. "Do you think you'll see her?" I asked, hesitating the smallest bit. "You don't think we banished her for good?"

"No," Kagome said at once. "I know we didn't." Her eyes drifted toward the window above her bed. "And I know she's still waiting for me just on the other side of that well."

She still sounded certain. Again, I was not so sure. "But how do you know that?" I asked when her eyes remained distant. "What makes you think—"

"I just do," she said, words curt.

"But—"

"I can't explain." Finally her eyes softened again, the light of hope inside them burning like a steady flame. "Just trust me. She's out there. And someday, I'll find her again. And I'll make this right." Her breathing hitched. "I promise that I'll save her, or else—or else—"

Watching someone's heart break in a matter of stolen moments is a gut-wrenching experience. Like a stone shattering beneath a heavy weight, the steel in her gaze went soft, melting under the great heat of grief in the time it takes to shed a tear. I streaked across the room and knelt beside her on the bed before I could even think, murmuring into her hair as her arms wound tight around my neck, tears cold and smelling of salt as she wet the collar of my shirt. Kagome clung to me like a drowning person clings to the shore, body as heavy as it had been when I pulled her comatose form from the river 500 years in the past.

But like the passage of time heals all wounds, so too did time eventually calm the churning waters of Kagome's grief-stricken heart. Eyes swollen, cheeks wet with tears, Kagome sat up and pushed away. She scrubbed her sleeve across her face and said, "You're meeting Kurama for lunch later, right?

"Yeah," I said, easing down beside her. "Why?"

"So what's the plan for the worst case scenario, huh? Y'know." She snuffled, trying to dry her running nose. "If I run into the two of you and he recognizes me?"

I didn't say anything for a minute, leaning back against the headboard of Kagome's twin bed. She sat with her mouth pressed to her knees at my side, eyes distant and unfocused. She wore pajamas too big for her tiny frame, long black hair hanging in clumping mats around her heart-shaped face, arms clutching her legs to her chest. Looking at her forlorn face, I had to wonder: How many times had she cried since she scrubbed away the dust of the previous century, preoccupied by the horrible truth she had learned in the distant Feudal Era? And was it any wonder she didn't want to talk about her sister anymore? I didn't envy her situation one bit, even if she'd finally found some of the answers she'd been searching for since Hiruko put her in the body of an anime character.

Sometimes, ignorance really is bliss.

"Good question," I said. "Here's another: What are the odds he'll recognize you at all?"

She stirred, eyes focusing again. "I mean. High, right? He's Kurama." She put a knuckle to her temple and turned her hand as if twisting the shaft of a key. "Mind like a steel trap."

"That's true. But would even he remember you after 500 years?" I reasoned. "That's a long time to remember a face you only saw once, and only for half an hour."

Her head lifted off her knees, rising higher with confidence. "Good point," Kagome said. "And he didn't seem to remember you when you met in this era, right?"

"Right. But I was a lot less interesting than you were during the incident in the past. You were the one who interacted with him most—and shot energy out of your hands, as you may recall." But that wouldn't comfort Kagome, who clearly needed comfort more than hard truth. Donning a warm smile, I said, "Even so, I doubt he remembers much about you. It was just for an hour, and 500 years ago. I really doubt his memory of you is razor sharp."

She nodded—and then she managed to smile, even if the expression trembled at the corners. "And you know what? Youko Kurama didn't give much of a crap about humans, back in the day. Why would he commit a little human girl to memory when he only met her once?"

Once—that we know of, I wanted to say, but I didn't.

Comfort, even at the expense of truth.

We'd have to let this sleeping dog lie until she was ready to wake it from its slumber.

"Whatever the case," I said with breezy artifice, "here's hoping we weren't impressive or memorable enough for Kurama to recall after 500 years."

She listed to one side, head pillowing on my shoulder. "Say it again."

I grinned. "500 years."

Kagome hummed, appreciative. "Once more time."

"500 years."

"Ooh, nice. Very comforting." She affected a delighted shiver, a la the hyenas from Lion King, although the moment of levity wasn't meant to last. Head on my shoulder again, Kagome murmured, "But if I do ever run into him, we'll use the codename again."

"Different from the one we used in the past, though," I said. "Throw him off the scent even more. How about, um… Mitsuki or something?"

I half expected Kagome to argue, tell me to pick a prettier name, or perhaps another flower-name to go with her previous floral alias. I expected her to bring up the names of other anime characters and make a joke about impersonating one, one anime character inhabiting the name of another like a Russian nesting doll of meta entertainment references.

She did not do any of that, however.

Kagome only nodded and murmured the word, "Sure."

I changed the subject again, because that's what Kagome needed—and soon Kagome was her chattering, sunny self once more.

I had to hope—or else despair—that maybe she'd be OK, in spite of everything.

"Aw, shit." I sat up, looking at the clock on the wall in mild alarm. "Is that the time?"

Kagome continued to lie on the floor, earbud blaring in her ear. "You gotta go?" she said as I tugged the other half of our shared headphones from my ear.

"Yeah." I reached for the cassette player and hit the stop button. "Kurama is annoyingly punctual, so I gotta be, too. Will you be OK if I jet?"

"I'll only die a little on the inside, trapped in my room with no TV as I am." She threw an arm over her face with a dramatic sigh—but then she shot me wink from under her elbow, grin sly. "But it's no biggie. I'll just call Minato and bug him if I get bored. He can sneak in here pretty easy if I'm desperate for company."

"Right." I grinned as I wound the earbuds around and around the cassette player. "Just try not to go gallivanting anywhere else in space and time." A beat, and then I asked, "Think I'll see you at Hideki's this week?"

"Probably not, considering how fucking grounded I am."

"Ah, right." Shoving the cassette player in my pocket, I stood up. "Well, keep in touch, OK?"

She saluted from her spot on the floor, not bothering to move. "Roger that, captain," she said. "See you later."

"See you."

The sight of her smiling, upside-down face was the last thing I saw when I closed the door behind me. Hopefully she kept that smile in place even after I left, but it wasn't like I could live at her house to ensure she continued to grin. She'd have to learn to be OK on her own eventually, so although it pained me to leave, I steeled myself and headed downstairs, creeping softly past the dining room on socked feet. The door was shut, voices hushing through it; Kagome's mother waited just outside it with her ear pressed to the crack. She pulled away and pasted on a hasty smile when I drew close, bowing back as I mouthed a silent farewell. She was in a better mood than before, and I wouldn't wear out my welcome by staying to chat.

But once I reached the front door and put my shoes on, I realized I wasn't going to get far. Rain poured down past the window in the front door, drops heavy and thick and splattering wherever they hit the pavement. It must've only just started to rain, because I hadn't heard thunder from Kagome's room, and the day's earlier skies had been too clear to warrant bringing an umbrella. Unsure of what to do, I just stood there in the foyer, watched the rain fall and biting my lower lip. What should I do? Should I just run for the train station and hope I didn't look like a drowned rat by the time I got there? How rude would it be to ask to borrow an umbrella from a family that was already mad at me?

A rattle from down the hall made me jump, and then Jii-chan's creaky old voice echoed down the corridor after it. "—can't thank you enough, of course," he was saying with a cheery lilt, "so stop by any time for a blessing, a good luck charm, or—ah, Keiko." He stopped just outside the dining room, lawyer following him like a ghost, old man blinking at me from a distance. His cheeky grin was infectious, even if it made Kagome's mother shoot him a peeved glare. "Good to see you again, even if you did get my granddaughter into a world of trouble the last time you were here."

Ironic, since that had all been Kagome's idea, but I wasn't about to say so. Instead I bowed low. "I am exceedingly sorry to have caused you any inconvenience, and—"

"Oh, pish posh, pish posh! Water under the bridge, haven't you heard?" Boards creaked as he tromped my way. "And what's this? Raining already?"

I rose from my bow with a sheepish cough. "And I didn't think to bring an umbrella, unfortunately."

"What an oversight!" Jii-chan lamented. "Well, how about we go get you—"

"I brought a large umbrella and can walk her to the train station, if need be."

The lawyer's voice cut the quiet of the house like the blunt end of a warmed butter knife—soft and velvety, but piercing, matched by the subtle glitter of his coal-black eyes and the impeccable tailoring of his expensive charcoal suit. He wore his black hair pushed back off of his forehead, features lean and… well, pretty damn cute, actually, if we want to get specific. I'd assumed he'd be some middle-aged businessman with a receding hairline, but this guy couldn't have been much older than 30, and he had the chiseled and aristocratic face of a popular actor, or maybe a retired J-pop idol. I found myself looking at him in shocked silence until Jii-chan cleared his throat (and threw me a knowing wink, too).

"Oh, but where are my manners," he said. "Keiko, this is our lawyer, Takahashi-san—"

(I almost snorted at the name, coincidentally identical to the Inuyasha mangaka's, and only barely held it together.)

"—and Takahashi-san, this is…" He trailed off with an awkward laugh. "Somehow I never thought to get your surname. Oh, well. Hardly matters." Once more Jii-chan gestured at me. "This is Keiko, my granddaughter's close friend. They met—well, come to think of it, I don't know how they met, either. But they're always getting into trouble together, which should tell you everything you need to know." His smile grew wistful, then, eyes ever so slightly watery. "Ah, keeps me young…

Takahashi bowed back. "Pleased to meet you," he said, words little more than perfunctory.

"Likewise." I hesitated for a second. "And you're sure about the offer?"

"Yes. But it's a limited-time offer, as it were." He nodded toward the door. "May we get going? I have a meeting to attend in an hour or so."

"Oh. Sure." I bowed again. "Thank you very much."

Jii-chan opened the door, escorting us onto the porch. "Bye bye, Keiko!" he said as Takahashi opened his umbrella with a pop. "Try not to fall down any wells this time, eh?"

"I'll do my best!"

Takahashi offered me his arm, which I took with another small nod of thanks. Although he stood much taller than me, he somehow made the act of bending over to offer his arm look slightly graceful. His steps remained light and sure on the slick pavement, too; when I nearly slipped on the cobblestones beneath the temple's tori, it was thanks to him that I regained my balance and didn't go crashing to the earth. He helped me regain my footing with a hand on my elbow and a murmur of warning, walking on without making a big deal of the matter. Like he cared about offending my pride and did not want to wound it. When his shadow fell across my face, I caught the scent of an expensive cologne—and beneath it, a hint of jasmine and sandalwood, touched by the scent of ozone that didn't quite match the odor of the rain on the air.

It was a familiar scent, although it took me a moment to place it—but place it I did, and soon.

We left the temple grounds shortly thereafter, turning down the sidewalk that would lead us to the train station. I waited until we were a few blocks from Kagome's temple grounds to speak, heart a hummingbird beating swiftly in my nervous neck.

As softly as the rain pattered to the pavement, I said, "Been a while, huh?"

He didn't react right away. Takahashi stared straight ahead, footsteps never faltering, expression as perfectly neutral as a mask carved of white jade—but that control was telling indeed, and when he murmured a mild "Beg pardon?" without once looking at me, I knew that I was right.

"I'm saying that it's been a while since we saw each other," I said—and when he still did not react, I couldn't help but roll my eyes. "I'm not stupid, Sesshomaru."

At last he acknowledged that I spoke, dark eyes flickering to the side and down, eyeing me askance with distant scrutiny. For a second I second-guessed myself, but I did not let this show on my face. But soon his face tilted in my direction, and his eyes flashed molten gold.

"Your eyes are sharp," said Sesshomaru, first son of the Inu no Taisho. A violet moon appeared on his forehead, crimson lines like war paint on his cheeks, but both faded again so quickly, I might have imagined them. Still, his golden gaze remained as his chin lifted, bearing as imperious then as it had been 500 years before. In an air of hard command, claws suddenly pricking at my wrist, Sesshomaru told me in speech archaic: "Do not tell her you know who this Sesshomaru is."

Although I knew who 'her' must mean, I did not understand. "Why?"

He looked ahead, mouth almost as hard as his eyes. "It is not yet time," he said. And then, almost as an afterthought: "She does not know this Sesshomaru the way this Sesshomaru knows her."

"But she will," I said.

"But she will," he said. "Eventually."

He spoke that last word as a command, one I had no intention of disobeying. "And you'll watch over her in the meantime, I suspect," I said. Before he could say nothing, or tell me to mind my own business, I sighed. "I won't ask your reasons. I know better than to tangle with fate."

A satisfied chuckle. "As well you should, seer," said Sesshomaru—and at last the gold drained from his eyes entirely.

We walked the rest of the way in silence, but it wasn't tense, or heavy. It was simply… quiet. Like the conversation held an air of inevitability, much the way the air held the scent of rain. Both of us knew better than to question a word of it. This was fate, after all—or something like it. And although we were each a being of pride, neither of us was so arrogant as to tangle with the threads of destiny.

And besides. If Sesshomaru intended Kagome ill, he would've acted by now. I wasn't overly worried about his intentions. The past mattered more, in my estimations.

Still, though… as he watched over her, so too would I watch over him. Because "nobody fucks with my family," as Kagome might've said.

When we reached the station, we ducked below the awning beside the tracks, where Sesshomaru—Takahashi, I reminded myself—closed his umbrella and shook the water onto the pavement below. A train rumbled not far away, rattling down the track and getting closer by the second. I bowed when he finished putting away his umbrella, hoping he was as impressed by good manners in this time period as he had been in the last.

"Thank you very much for your help this afternoon." I clutched the strap of my bag when I straightened up, smiling with sudden reticence. "See you around?"

"The odds of that are favorable." He bowed back. "Goodbye, Keiko. It was nice to meet you again, after so long."

"You, too." I couldn't keep a grin off my face. "And to think, you said you wouldn't be magnanimous the next time we met."

His brow furrowed. "Beg pardon?"

"Nothing." The train had screeched to a halt beside us; I lifted a hand in farewell. "Till we meet again."

"Yes," he said as I boarded the train. "Until then." The doors began to shut. Between them slipped the words, "Whenever that may be."

The doors closed too quickly for me to ask if I should read into his phrasing—but something told me he wouldn't tell me even if I demanded to know precisely what he meant. Still, I mulled the wording over as the train carried me to uptown, turning the words around my head like a record player with a skipping track. What had he meant, exactly?

Only time would tell. Or at least that was my hunch.

The rain had stopped by I found myself disembarking the train and walking across wet pavement, out of the station and down the street. I kept my eyes on the glistening concrete, so I didn't noticed Kurama sitting outside our meeting place—a quiet little café we liked to frequent—until he called my name. He sat at an outdoor table below a bright yellow umbrella, book in his hand and a slight smile on his face.

"Hey!" I said, breaking into a trot on reflex. "Sorry I'm late!"

"Late?" he repeated as I skidded to a halt. "But you're right on time."

"Then boo on you for being early."

"I suppose that was a tactical error on my part," Kurama admitted.

He stopped talking to draw a breath.

He did not release it.

And he didn't use it to keep talking, either. Kurama held both his breath and very still as he stared at me, the oddest look etched across his features—like he had seen something long forgotten, or had been caught whistling a tune he didn't remember learning. My head tilted to one side on reflex, cheeks heating the smallest bit under the pressure of that gaze.

"What?" I said, tucking hair behind my ear. "Something on my face?"

The breath rushed out at last, though he drew in another straight away. "Kei. Do you—?" But he stopped, holding another breath for a moment before letting it hiss free. "No," he said, shaking his head. "No. Never mind."

"… what?"

"It's nothing." Kurama hesitated beneath my stare, but soon he begrudgingly admitted: "Just a bit of déjà vu. A memory from long ago. But it matters not."

I rolled my eyes. "OK, grandpa," I said—and although I acted like this was all beyond my paygrade, I had a feeling I knew exactly what Kurama had been reacting to.

Or what he'd been smelling, to be precise.

As we entered the café, I resolved that the next time I visited Kagome, I'd have to remember not to get too close to 'Takahashi-san'—because while he did not look like Sesshomaru these days, Kurama's reaction told me he most certainly still smelled like him.

NOTES

SURPRISE, LAWYER MAN FROM THE PROLOGUE WAS SESSHOMARU ALL ALONG. A few people guessed that might be the case, which made me very happy.

One (small) chapter to go. Back to Kagome's POV. Saying goodbye will be bittersweet, but I'm overall quite happy with how this fic turned out. Did y'all spot the recycled text from chapter 57 of LC? It's the intersection point of that fic and this one.

Huge thanks to all of you who came out to support chapter 15. Lost half of the readers between 14 and 15 (people seem to be pretty hot and cold on this story overall ), but that just means that those who have stuck with this fic have my unending gratitude, so my biggest thanks EVER go out to: Kaiya Azure, kitty-ryn, cestlavie, buzzk97, Sorlian, IronDBZ, Viviene001, and smilesey!