Paradigm Shift

Chapter Thirteen: To Those Who Wait

… … …

There are, of course, many aspects of the universe that nobody can quite grasp. As we search and search to fill the void that aches inside ourselves, we are cheated by the universe. That something that we need… it likes to be free, you see. So we can only really catch it when we take it by surprise. But how do you catch something by surprise when it exists to understand you and know you?

You wait for it to come to you.

Sometimes, you have to stop looking and stop searching; just be patient and believe. When you stop trying so hard to find the important things- purpose, happiness, love… yourself… that's the moment when they start coming to you.

… … …

Something was poking her. Right in the middle of her back.

She wasn't ready to wake up yet. She was tired and it was early but the thing was hard and she couldn't seem to ignore it. So she rubbed her eyes, reached behind herself, and grabbed it. Her eyes flew open. Then she turned over to look at it.

Sitting innocently in her palm was a shard of the jewel. She didn't know how it got there but it was there. It was there and it was pink and she couldn't believe it.

"Sango! Miroku! Wake up!"

Kagome closed her fist around the little thing and scurried over to her friends, shaking them awake. Not something that she would typically dare to do. Sango wasn't exactly a morning person and she tended to be… grumpy. Yes. Grumpy. That includes minor violence, right? The last time that Kagome had woken Sango too early, she had gotten an elbow in the ribs. The bruise didn't go away for weeks.

So, of course, Kagome was reduced to placing her foot on Sango's hip and trying to stay as far away from Sango's range of destruction.

"Go away." The snarl was slurred from sleep, but it was still menacing. She pushed on Sango's hip a few more times, and when she heard the part whine, part groan noise that signaled that the other woman would be aware of her surroundings in just a few minutes, Kagome moved a few feet to the right and grabbed Miroku's shoulder.

Waking up Miroku was an altogether different sort of perilous. Kagome had only done it one other time in the two and a half years that she had known him. The experience still made her blush, and no one liked to mention it. Luckily, he was usually an early riser and no one had to bother him.

Under the circumstances, it could probably be excused that she had forgotten to be cautious.

That didn't help her as he sat up abruptly, probably still mostly asleep, with his eyes still closed, even. Two lean arms wrapped themselves around her midsection and his body twisted. She let out an undignified squeak as he dragged her over top of him and curled around her with a deep, soft, moan in her ear.

Then he pulled her back snug against his chest and there were hands. One wrapped under her ribs and splayed across her stomach. That wasn't so bad, honestly. A little bit overly affectionate, maybe and his rosary beads dug into her side uncomfortably, but it was rather tame compared to some of his normal antics.

It was what his other hand was doing in his sleep that had her sputtering in his embrace.

Long, agile fingers trailed down her side seductively. His palm was flattened against her, applying this soft sort of pressure that made her mind go blank. She gasped against his chest, which only made his mouth curve into a sleepy smile against the skin of her neck.

That evil, evil hand edged further along its desired path, over her hip, before it dipped down to her pelvis and pushed her bottom into him roughly.

His warm breath ghosted over her skin, raising the little hairs on the back of her neck.

Those warm, long fingers continued, sliding across her thigh and down as he curled around her, bending her, so his fingertips nearly came to her knee. And then, then those fingertips curled. They pressed roughly into the skin of her thigh as they were dragged back up her body, inching closer and closer and-

"Oh my god, Miroku! Wake UP!"

"Mmmm. Shh. Good dream."

She started wiggling around, trying to remover herself from that solid heat surrounding her. Which was most definitely a HUGE mistake, because he tightened his hold on her ribs and grasped her thigh and she felt his leg slip between hers as he lifted and pulled her thighs apart.

Even as her vision blurred when he started pressing that leg against her and rubbing, and the back of her head pushed against his collar bone. She was hyper-aware that something else that was very much not a jewel shard was pressing into her back.

She reached out her hand that wasn't holding onto the jewel shard for dear life and locked her hand around Sango's ankle and jerked on it as hard as she could.

"Sango! Heeeelp!"

The slayer turned bleary eyes to the two and blinked a few times. Miroku froze against her. She escaped.

Then she pulled her leg back and planted it with a thrust into his stomach, knocking the air from his lungs as she sat across from him with her chest heaving from the experience.

It really shouldn't have brought back that barely familiar fire and setting it to pool in her core when he wrapped those hands around her ankle and calf. His eyes though. He was looking into her reddened face with an expression that was so serious, and so unlike his normal countenance that it pinned her to the spot, making her feel like little flashes of lightning sparked between their skin.

Then Sango's fist connected with the top of his head and Kagome scooted out of his reach.

"I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that this is why you warned me to never try waking him up.

Kagome's voice was too low and too breathy as she answered.

"Yep. That's why. Yep." She tried to slowly and discretely close her legs together and hide the dampness that might have just been enough to soak through through the denim.

Miroku stood up between them and smoothed his hands- 'ohgodthosehands' She thought, -down the front of his robes to straighten them. Kagome was thankful that she wasn't confronted with any evidence of just how he had responded to his exploration of her.

He cleared his throat and looked around for his shakujo, really hoping that he wasn't about to be maimed for taking such liberties in his mostly asleep state.

"Forgive me, Kagome. I wasn't fully aware of my actions."

"Should have poked you awake with that staff." She grumbled at him.

His mouth cracked into a lopsided grin as he remembered exactly what kind of poking had actually woken him up.

"It's early,Kagome. The sun is barely out."

Kagome shook herself the rest of the way out of her stupor and held out her fist to them.

"I know, but look! A shard! It was just there next to me when I woke up."

But when she opened her hand it was empty. She didn't move for a moment or two, and then she was off in a flurry. She frantically searched the ground for the sliver, lifting the bunched up pile of sheets.

"No. No, it was here!"

She couldn't find it anywhere, though.

"I can feel it! It's here!"

They spent a while looking for it, but as the awareness of the shard faded into the very edges of her senses, they gave up and started to break camp.

"You must have been having a vivid dream, Kagome." Sango told her as they set back out toward the perimeter of where her energy had spread. It was still half a day's walk to the edge where their companions were waiting.

… … …

"What's that supposed to mean? How do you 'sort of' find a shard?"

"She thought she found one when we woke up, Inuyasha. It turned out to just be a dream though." Sango told him'

"I'm telling you! It was there!"

"It couldn't have been, Kagome! We looked! For a long time!"

"It was there, Sango! It was…" Kagome's anger fled and her voice tapered into a whisper.

This was so frustrating. She knew that she had felt it. She had been holding it right there in her hand. She had felt it on her back when she woke up. Her hand hurt and itched from where she had been holding it so tightly. It was real. It had been there. She knew it had been there.

She just didn't know what had happened to it.

… … …

The rest of the day passed uneventfully. They took to the air, staying just above the canopy of the trees, deciding that they should cover as much space as they could during the day. Staying low would ensure that Kagome was close enough to sense any stray shards. The sooner they could reach the next village, the sooner they could ask around for rumors of anything unusual.

Having Kouga around turned out to be more useful than any of them had thought. He was fast enough to stay on the ground and weave back and forth across the terrain in search of anyone that they could interrogate.

It was pretty boring, overall. Without any shards, now, they weren't encountering any youkai- not even weak ones- that were trying to steal the insidious little slivers away for themselves.

Meals were more exciting than ever, at least. Having two powerful, full-blooded youkai in their party who preferred to eat fresh- preferably very undercooked- meat, gone were the days of nothing but ramen and granola.

After a few days that held more of the same; boring, quiet, and frustrating- they agreed that in the two days they had spent caring for Kagome in her weakened state, the nearest shards most have been found, snatched up, and carried off by whatever random youkai had escaped and fled the vicinity as Kagome had her little… surge.

The first village hadn't yielded any strange talk that could lead them to a shard. Neither had the second village.

Having spent the last four or five days on their search, and with the beginning of summer upon them; with the temperature starting to rise, they were all ready to stop when they spotted a hot spring sitting so invitingly in their path.

… … …

Kagome knew that the guys of the group were waiting for her to finish up and let them have their turn in the water, but it was just so relaxing here.

There was a moderately sized waterfall nearby that fed into a little pond. Little but deep, they had discovered. The tiny pond looked like it could barely hold two people, and only if they were shoulder-to-shoulder. From the pond, the smallest flow of water had carved a torrential current that rushed through the foliage and downhill. Fast as it was, the thing was barely wider than her arm from wrist to elbow.

But Kagome had found a perfect little spot on the edge of the hot spring where the stream, if it could realistically be called a stream, had worn away the rock. In a blessedly Kagome-sized swirl where the chilly water invaded the spring, it felt heavenly.

The water was almost exactly the way she would have kept it if she was in her tub at home, and the swirling water around her form was calming and the fast-paced water on her back felt like she imagined the jets in one of those fancy jacuzzi pools would.

So with her wet hair piled on top of her head and secured with a green sprig of bamboo, She hummed in contentment, snuggled down into the water up to her nose.

She was more relaxed than she had been in what felt like years, but was really only about two months, when she felt it. A little tingling at the edge of her senses. Which was very quickly getting stronger. She pulled herself, internally weeping at the need to leave the water, over the smooth rocks and jogged over to her clothes.

"There's a shard coming! Fast!" She screamed out as she started throwing on her apparel over her soaked skin.

She was standing there, with her underwear astray, hopping on one foot with only one leg covered by her jeans, her damp shirt on backward, and her bra dangling by a strap from her teeth, when the tall foliage parted and Kouga stumbled out of the underbrush onto the bank of the spring with Miroku on one side of him and Inuyasha on the other. Sango, with Shippou on her shoulder and Kirara in her arms, nearly collided with Kouga's back as he came to a sudden stop.

As she did her best to impersonate a statue, a couple of ridiculous thoughts ran through her mind,-

'That was really fast.' and 'Oh. Huh. I've never seen Miroku in just his pants before.' and 'Hey. There's some silver in Inuyasha's hair now.' and 'Oh look, scandals too. SANDALS!'

-and several things happened in quick succession.

Shippou launched himself at Inuyasha and covered his face with his little body.

Sango dropped Kirara and reached her arm around Mirou, slapping her hand over his eyes.

Sesshomaru dropped out of somewhere above her, thankfully only giving her a very brief glance, and spread his hand over Kouga's face, pushing his head back as Kouga tried to take a step toward Kagome with a tortured "Nnggh."

And Rin ran toward her, throwing her arms wide in an attempt to shield her from view.

"Where is the shard coming from?"

After a lengthy pause as Kagome pulled herself out of her shock, Sesshomaru's question registered, and she pointed across the steamy air and in the direction of the waterfall.

As sweet as Rin was, Kagome was thankful when Kirara's large bulk hid her from view while she struggled into her pants.

She was fully clothed, minus the bra hanging from her back pocket and the sock-stuffed shoes in her hand, when Ah-Un meandered through the bushes and poked his heads through the leaves with Jaken on one neck, holding his reins.

"Har far is it?" Inuyasha demanded, pulling an uncompliant Shippou from his head.

"Not. It's coming fast. This way." She stepped over the miniature river and jogged alongside it toward the tug of the jewel, thankful for the soft, damp, soil and it's lack of sharp stones on her bare feet.

When Kagome skid to a halt and turned, stunned, and took off back the way they has come from, the others followed in confusion.

"Did it pass us!?" Inuyasha yelled.

"I didn't see any youkai."

"Maybe it's a water imp, Sango! Can you see anything?" Miroku suggested, peering into the stream as he ran.

"It's not deep enough for that.

Sesshomaru took to the sky in search of their foe.

When they reached the stream's ends where only a trickle of water dampened the surrounding earth, they saw it.

There was no youkai. It was just laying there, carried away with the current. Sitting malicious and black right there in the mud.

Kagome reached out, plucking it out of the muck, and wrapped her fingers around it with her eyes closed to purify it.

There was a sharp pinch and she gasped and opened her hand.

It wasn't there.