"So," Kagome began awkwardly as they flew on his cloud through the sky. "What did you want to talk about?"
She wasn't sure where he was taking her—if he even had a specific destination in mind—but the sooner they talked about whatever he wanted to talk to her about, the sooner she could return to her friends.
Not that you're in any hurry, the annoying voice in her head reminded her. This is the most excitement you've had in weeks.
Sesshomaru looked down at her and if she didn't know any better, she'd have said he hesitated. But hesitation was an odd word to associate with someone whose name literally invoked images of murder and who had a long history of demonstrating a desire for quick action, so she dismissed the idea as soon as it appeared in her mind.
"Tell this one of the female yokai you are," he paused to lick his lower lip but he spoke confidently as he continued, "friends with."
Kagome stared at him but she sensed he wasn't in the mood for questions, no matter how much his questioning took her aback.
"Well," she began, hoping Sesshomaru would explain himself at some point but doubting he actually would, "there's Ayame."
At his blank expression, she realized that names would mean nothing to him and rushed to explain, "She's the wolf yokai who recently mated Koga. You may remember him; he had shards in his legs and—"
"This one is not interested in the wolf."
Ooookay... Kagome was even more curious now. Why has he asked her about her friends if he wasn't interested?
Kagome tried again. "Well, there's Shiori. Technically, she's a young bat hanyo, but—"
"This one is not interested in this bat hanyo, either," Sesshomaru was quick to interrupt.
Kagome struggled to think of another female yokai she was on good terms with that Sesshomaru wouldn't already know.
"It might help if I knew what you were interested in," she told him, pushing aside her frustration. She finally gave into the urge and asked, "Why do you want to know who my yokai friends are, Sesshomaru?"
He landed his cloud beside a small river and she noticed that he didn't meet her gaze.
Sighing, she figured that meant be wasn't inclined to answer her question.
"I'm only asking so I can help," she explained when he remained silent. "I'm sorry, Sesshomaru, but I don't know a lot of female yokai. But if you tell me why, I'll try and think of everyone I met to see who could help."
Sesshomaru seemed to mull over her words. After a moment, he took to the air on his cloud again, leaving her alone by the river and quite bemused.
.
Why had his mother suggested Kagome? The question continued to reverberate through his mind as he left InuYasha's woman behind, but no answer came forth.
His half-brother's woman knew of no suitable females for mating. It had been clear that the only two she'd suggested were unsuitable for mating and she'd failed to produce any other suggestions after he'd immediately disregarded those two.
Though he wasn't sure any friends of hers would be worthy of mating him, it was a possibility he couldn't ignore outright when options were so limited for viable partners who met his standards.
Yet it had turned out to be naught but a loose end.
So why had his mother mentioned her? Try as he might, he could not get the question out of his mind. He continued to puzzle over it, scarcely paying attention to the passage of time as he flew across Nippon and finally settled into a hot spring deep within the mountains. It was a place inaccessible to humans, which made it the perfect place for him to sit and reflect on the puzzling matter until he could confidently reach some sort of conclusion.
He disrobed, neatly setting aside his armor, clothing, and sword before wading into the water and stretching out.
He ran his fingers through his hair, still absently taken aback by the feeling of two hands sifting through the strands when he'd been accustomed to one for so long following his ill-fated battle with InuYasha.
It wasn't likely his mother had suggested the girl as his mate, not when he'd dismissed humans as soon as she'd mentioned them as a possibility, so he didn't even bother to consider that avenue. He'd assumed his mother had meant that the girl would know of a viable mate for him, but that had turned out to be incorrect as well.
He thought back to the little he knew of the priestess who followed his brother around. He knew she was foreign from the odd comments he'd heard over the years and had assumed initially that she'd come from the continent. Later, he'd learned she had ties to the Bone Eater's well and assumed it was due to her priestess heritage or reiki. He had also learned that the woman was supposed to be the reincarnation of the first priestess InuYasha had loved, the one for whom he'd turned his back on his family and his honor. That had seemed odd, but Sesshomaru had little interest in reincarnation itself so he'd paid it little attention and the time and wasn't concerned about it now.
She cared for everyone she came across, regardless of their blood or power. A kit, he recalled, had regularly traveled with her and she'd seemed to have some familial affection for the boy, taking on the role of perhaps an older sister. She had done the same with Rin, he realized. She'd even loved InuYasha, doing everything she could to protect him even when his yokai blood had taken over.
It was odd, he mused to himself, that InuYasha had not yet formally tied himself to the girl. When she'd first reappeared, he'd assumed it was a forgone conclusion, but he had scented no mingling of their scents and their behavior had not appeared in any way loverlike.
Not that InuYasha was likely to act differently, as ill-mannered as the hanyo had grown to be, but he suspected the priestess would have changed demeanor if that had been indeed the case.
She had also developed remarkably good aim with her bow, though she remained useless with other weaponry—a pitiful oversight InuYasha had not seen fit to correct. If Kagome had been his mate, the girl would never have been allowed to be so lacking in her own protection, but evidently InuYasha could not have been bothered.
The thought of mating the girl went as quickly as it'd come, never fully settling long enough for him to reflect on. Instead, he thought of the few instances he'd seen the girl in battle and the powerful strength in her frail body—and then remembered she'd once housed the timeless Shikon jewel within her body, an accidental slip he'd once overheard from InuYasha's pack when he'd been passing the girl.
It was strange, he thought to himself, thinking back to the days of Naraku, the jewel's obsession with the girl. She was just a priestess, yet it feared her more than any other. But why?
It had even feared the priestess over Sesshomaru himself. But why would it fear a human girl doomed to die within such a short period of time? Why had it listened to her command and no other? Why had she been the one able to rid the world of it when all else had failed?
He circled back to a question he'd once asked her long ago: what, exactly, was Kagome Higurashi?
Try as he might, it was a question he still could not ascertain the answer to.
.
It had taken InuYasha until the following morning to locate her by the river, but by then, the worst of his injuries had long since healed.
To Kagome's surprise, Jaken came with her friends. Having been abandoned by his lord, he'd decided to follow InuYasha and visit with Rin until Sesshomaru reappeared—and Jaken was confident that he would. Eventually.
Evidently, Sesshomaru regularly abandoned the toad, leaving Jaken to make his own way until the inuyokai finally returned.
Kagome felt a little bad for the abandoned toad, though he'd made it clear he neither wanted nor needed her pity.
Since the river had been in the opposite direction of the village by the well, it had taken them even longer to get home and Jaken spent most of that time talking about the greatness of Sesshomaru.
Jaken did, however, let it drop that his lord was on a quest of the utmost importance, but even the toad seemed to know better than to voice what that quest was—even in Sesshomaru's absence.
"What did the bastard want, anyway?" InuYasha groused as she clambered off of Kirara's back at the sight of the village before them.
It was the seventh time he'd asked the question since he'd found her so Kagome took a deep breath before answering. You're an adult, Kagome. Adults don't yell or roll their eyes at their friends—even if they really deserve it. "I don't know, InuYasha," she told him for the seventh time. "He didn't really say much."
Miroku stepped off of Kirara's back behind her. Jaken had refused to ride on the fire cat's back, so he'd been left running after Kirara and InuYasha. "The whole situation was rather odd," he admitted, looking as perplexed as Kagome felt. "Sesshomaru-sama does not strike me as someone who seeks people out."
"Keh." InuYasha tucked his hands into his sleeves. "He sought me out."
Kagome shook her head. "No, Miroku has a point. He didn't seek you out, InuYasha. He was just looking for the sword." She looked down at Tessaiga with a thoughtful expression. Sesshomaru had long since given up on the sword, especially now that he'd had his own, and since his own sword had appeared, he'd stopped directly looking for InuYasha. Once Naraku had been defeated, they hardly saw Sesshomaru, and only in passing when he was visiting Rin.
So what had changed?
It didn't occur to Kagome that Sesshomaru might be seeking a mate—the thought never entered her mind. She'd never seen Sesshomaru pursue a woman. She wasn't even sure Sesshomaru liked women. The only women who had liked him that she knew of—Sara and Kagura—had both died without a hint that Sesshomaru ever held them in the same regard. Kagome had never even pictured him in a romantic light. Sure, Sesshomaru was undeniably attractive, but his personality almost countered it. His beauty was akin in her eyes to the statutes in a museum... Beautiful, but not a beauty she could hope to obtain herself. A statute couldn't love you back and neither would Sesshomaru.
He was beautiful, but completely untouchable.
"Perhaps he was seeking something this time as well." Miroku walked alongside Kagome as they headed into the village.
"Hah! As if the great Sesshomaru-sama needed to seek out a filthy human woman." Jaken stamped the Staff of Two Heads on the ground aggressively.
"Well," Kagome allowed, "that's probably true." She couldn't think of any other occasion he'd sought out a human, woman or otherwise, with the exception of Rin. And Rin was a very special case.
Miroku opened his mouth to reply but his twin toddlers suddenly charged at him, effectively disrupting the conversation but not Kagome's obsession with revisiting why Sesshomaru had sought her out in the first place.
Kagome continued to ponder Sesshomaru's mysterious appearance and equally odd exit to herself as she headed into the hut she shared with Kaede and InuYasha on the occasion he felt like sleeping indoors. Her entire interaction with the inuyokai had lasted less than five minutes, but she thought about it over the next few weeks without success.
Whatever Sesshomaru had wanted, she had the feeling he hadn't gotten it. And as she recalled the fervor he'd pursued InuYasha's sword with, she had the feeling that Jaken was right: Sesshomaru would be back.
