Paradigm Shift

Chapter 16: Storms

… … …

Kagome's training had gone easily after the initial struggle. For the most part. There had been rocky patches here and there over the next week. The biggest frustration for Kagome and Miroku was that she seemed unable to reach a full meditative state without her reiki spilling over and across her skin. Without the natural calm that came from being encased in the energy, she didn't seem able to slow the ebb and flow of her thoughts and her emotions.

While frustrating, Miroku had told her that it wasn't unusual. There were some people who just weren't suited to meditation. He just hadn't met many people who couldn't, that also possessed the amount of reiki that she did.

Then, of course, there had been the third night of their travels, the night that a poor little rabbit had jumped out of the brush and startled Kagome during a session; which is how Sesshomaru had ended up with only one eyebrow for a few days. The youkai lord had not been terribly impressed. Somehow, his ire just wasn't communicated as well without the eyebrow.

Kagome found it endearing that he had picked up a habit of running his fingers over the now-regrown hair whenever he thought he wasn't being watched.

After the first week, things had settled into a routine. They would wake up and Kagome would meditate with Miroku while Sesshomaru watched on. They would eat as they flew, pushing as far as they could before nightfall when they would land to cook whatever they could hunt or forage. There was more meditating, and then sleep; with hygiene mixed in whenever they found somewhere suitable.

Neither Miroku or Sesshomaru had mentioned her refusal to go for a visit with her family when Miroku has suggested it as they had skirted around the edges of Edo's protected land.

So it was, that nearly three weeks after the large group had split into three, Kagome, Miroku, and Sesshomaru found themselves at the base of the mountain trail that would lead them to Atsuta Shrine.

… … …

"This path will take you to the shrine. There is a split in it, nearly a day's walk from here. You will take the western side." Sesshomaru told them, facing the trail and gesturing as he gave Kagome and Miroku the directions.

"You won't be accompanying us, Lord Sesshomaru?" Miroku asked.

"I shall attend to my business in the Western Hall. I will return to you both, here at the shrine when it is completed."

The cold look in Sesshomaru's eyes worried Kagome, but she could imagine the cause. There was still upheaval in his territory, after all. Her cheeks reddened as she realized that Sesshomaru had been kept away from his duties to watch after her for so long.

His hand rested on her cheek, drawing her out of her embarrassment as she looked into his face.

"Train well, Kagome. I expect you to learn control, and to learn it quickly. You will bring respect to my house."

Kagome's eyes widened at his words.

"Your house?"

"Yes. You are part of my house, of course, being under my personal protection. It is not simply the west that guards you now, I do that of my own choice."

Miroku watched on in amusement as the taiyoukai suddenly found himself with an armful of teary miko.

Kagome didn't know what to say to Sesshomaru. The thought that he considered her family,in the same way that he had claimed Rin, floored her. So she clung to him as tears of happiness escaped her. Sesshomaru detangled her from himself and held her at arm's length.

"This should not surprise you, Kagome."

She just shook her head and smiled.

Sesshomaru wiped the tears from her cheeks and bent down to her ear.

"You have a bad habit of not seeing the things that are right before you." He told her. "You should concern yourself less with trying to be what you think those around you want and look at how they already see you."

Kagome wasn't quite sure to make of the words, but she would think on them later. Right now he had just told her that she was important to him in a way that she didn't realize she could be. And he was leaving right after dropping that bombshell on her; going off to deal with an upheaval in his lands that could potentially be very dangerous for him.

Sesshomaru sighed at her emotional outburst over the whole thing. Being used to her open displays did not make him entirely comfortable when they happened, but he knew what to do when they were directed at him by now.

He scooped her up and let her wrap her arms around his neck as she settled down.

Kagome's heart soared at the thought of belonging with a real family here in the past. It was so much different than the tenuous strands that had tied her to Inuyasha, Sango, and Miroku for so long. It was a promise of something that wouldn't fall apart after the journey was over. Something she could hang on to and fight for.

Her fingers embedded themselves in his hair as she clung to him at the feeling of being there and knowing that she would have a place in the west if she chose to stay once the jewel and Naraku were gone for good.

Kagome had always wondered what would happen to her if the well closed to her after her tasks were finished. What she could have to return to if it stayed open and she wanted to travel back and forth through the times. Where she would go if she decided to stay here in the past even if the well would allow her to pass through.

Now she knew that no matter the outcome at the end, there would be someone who would welcome her. She felt like her heart would burst as the feelings coursed through her.

Miroku took a step forward as ribbons of pink reiki wrapped around Kagome and Sesshomaru. He met the surprised golden eyes of the taiyoukai, and called out as they began to tighten.

"Kagome!"

But she just pressed herself closer to Sesshomaru's chest and neck where he held her aloft. The strands passed through her and settled into Sesshomaru's skin, leaving behind a trail of eight-point hope stars around his covered left bicep.

Once the reiki had settled, leaving behind the unseen mark, and Sesshomaru had deposited Kagome on her feet, Miroku approached them.

"Kagome?" He reached his hand out to her, settling it on her shoulder lightly. "What was that?"

She looked at Miroku in confusion.

"I'm going to miss him. I'm not allowed to give him a hug now?"

"Not that… you didn't use your reiki intentionally?"

She looked back and forth between Sesshomaru's questioning eyes and Miroku's concerned expression.

"My reiki? …no…?"

She gasped and inspected Sesshomaru, pulling down the collar of his hankimono and running her eyes over the flesh, reaching her hands up and pulling his face down to her level; lifting his hair away from his neck and ears.

Sesshomaru tugged her hand away from his hair and straightened himself up.

"If you are finished assaulting my person, I assure you that I was not harmed."

"But…" She went back to looking between the two of them. "What…?"

"You did not intend to release your reiki, then?" Miroku asked.

"No. I…uh… I didn't."

"As I am unharmed and I seem to be unaffected, I suggest that we continue as planned. You may ask about the occurrence when you meet the residents of the shrine."

Kagome and Miroku nodded at the suggestion, saying their goodbyes before watching Sesshomaru leap into the air and condense into an orb of light as he sped off deeper into the west.

"Shall we?" Miroku swept an arm toward the mountain path.

"Yeah. Yeah, let's go."

So they began to make their way toward Atsuta Shrine, hoping for answers.

… … …

Kagome had done her fair share of hiking and walking and running and climbing over the years, but this was killing her.

"Does it have to be uphill the whole way?" She complained, grasping onto Miroku's sleeve as she bent over to catch her breath for the dozenth time.

"That's usually how mountains work, Kagome." He pressed his lips together and determinedly looked away from her to keep from laughing.

"My legs are burning and my sides are cramping. Can't we just stop for a minute?"

"You were the one who insisted on making it to the western path that Sesshomaru told us of."

"Uggggh."

"It's not so bad. Look at the view."

Miroku pointed his shakujo to their right. Which happened to be a wide view of the green hills that surrounded the mountain's base. Animals could be seen in the distance, grazing over the lush hills and valleys. Dotted, far-off villages looked serene and multitudes of fragrant, colorful flowed swept over the cliffside of the trail. The very steep, very long drop off of the trail beside them.

Kagome inched away from the cliff as she looked, backing away until she was pressed up to the wall of dirt on the other side of the path.

"Uh-huh. Yep. It's very pretty. Why don't you come over here, Miroku? It's nice over here. Away from impending death."

He did laugh, then. He went to her side though, and they kept climbing.

Eventually, they came to the split in the road.

"Ah! See. It wasn't too far away after all."

"It had to be over an hour." Kagome responded as she let herself fall to the dirt, in the shade of an overhanging tree.

"No matter." He said, walking along the stone that rose up on one side of the western path. "Look here. It's not much but this outcropping will shield us from the worst of the rain for the night."

A large tablet of blue-grey stone jutted out from the cliff face above a hollow crevice, tilted at an angle that should keep them dry. It would be a tight squeeze, but they could both fit into the little space if they stood with their shoulders pressed together when they sat.

"Rain?" Sure enough, when Kagome crawled out from under her tree and looked at the sky, the lack of daylight was not indicative of the approaching night, but due to the presence of dark rain clouds blotting out the sun's rays. "Great. Rain." She said grumpily.

Miroku handed her his Shakujo as he began lifting moderate-sized fallen rocks to place on the dirt of the crevice. She took it and watched him as he did so.

"What are you doing?" She asked.

"Well." He lifted and carried another heavy stone. "Rain means water."

"Okay.." It seemed pretty obvious to her.

"If we're going to wait here during the night," He moved a couple more stones to sit on top of his pile, these ones were smooth. "I'd rather not sit on the dirt, which will quickly turn to mud."

"Oh! That's a good idea."

"All done!" Miroku exclaimed, clapping his hands together to rid them of dust.

He took his Shakujo from Kagome's hands and they tested the stability of the makeshift seat together as the first drops of rain began to fall.

It wasn't long before the water was coming down in sheets around them, and they soon discovered that while the overhanging slab kept them from being drenched in one direction, it was narrower than it had looked at first glance and their shoulders and sides were unprotected.

Kagome looked over her shoulder curiously as Miroku's hands grasped her upper arms and moved her in from of himself. She instinctively leaned into him to keep the water pouring off of the overhead rock from soaking her front.

"What are you doing?"

"We will eventually have to sit down, Kagome. Unless you've developed a talent for sleeping while you stand?"

"No…" She drew out the word, not liking where this was going.

"Then we should sleep. It's late and the rain isn't showing any signs of letting up. I imagine we have a long way to go before we get to the shrine tomorrow."

Kagome smacked repeatedly at Miroku's hands as they moved to her hips.

"Miroku!"

And then she couldn't keep her balance as Miroku lowered himself to the rocks, pressing his fingers harder into her hips and pulling her with him.

She landed hard in his lap and sat stiffly as he wrapped his arms around her waist.

"Is this really necessary…?"

"If you don't want to get wet." He told her. "Although…" His hands left her waist to creep along her folded legs.

"Miroku!" She threw her elbow into his chest.

"Ow." The complaint was laced with silent laughter, and he stilled his hands on her knees. "Do you have to hit me all the time?"

"When you don't keep your hands to yourself, I do!"

"Mhm." His breath on her neck as he shook with humor made her shiver. "I'll behave." But his voice was deep and throaty and she could feel the sound, through his chest, on her back as he laid his forehead on the junction of her neck and shoulder.

Kagome stilled rigidly at the combination of Miroku's words and actions. 'No. He couldn't.' She thought.

But as she thought about the little differences in his playful flirting when they stopped in villages and he would accost any pretty woman he saw, going on in his typical way. Except… remembering it now, looking back on it… she had just taken it with a grain of salt, he was just teasing, of course.

Since they had left Lord Kuranosuke's compound… he would wink at her over another random woman's shoulder as he would plead in false desperation for an heir. His eyes would meet hers across the distance when he gave compliments out like candy to the village women.

She could see the casual and unassuming touches on her hair or her shoulder or her foot as they practiced her meditation.

She could the hesitation and the strain in his voice when she would hug him after she had done well and received his praise.

'It's just Miroku." She told herself, still locked in that unmoving stance, uncertain. 'That's just how … he… is…'

""…not seeing the things that are right before you.""

""… look at how they already see you.""

Kagome had brushed Sesshomaru's words away, assuming that he was telling her she shouldn't have been surprised that he would include her in his little family the way he had expressed.

But what if he was hinting at something else. Someone else?

"Miroku…?" Her voice was soft, low, and her uncertainty bled into her tone, questioning.

She knew that he could feel her heart speed up, and suddenly the hands that found their way to her shoulders, rubbing the tension away from her in a way that had become commonplace, suggested something more. Under the compassion, the loyalty, the playful teasing, the intensity that she had found when she finally peeled away the aloof mystery that had surrounded him; she saw that it was possible.

She wondered if she was jumping to conclusions, wondered if she was just adding meaning to all of his words and actions; meaning that couldn't really be what she was considering.

"Hmm?" The noise of acknowledgment was unusually clear, the rain and wind and rushing of her heart were all beyond her focus now.

"…nevermind." She couldn't ask him if what she was thinking was true. How could it be, after all? He hadn't changed his attitude to her in any obvious ways. She had to be reading too much into the winks and glances and touches… it was just because Sango wasn't around right now and he only had her to tease.

He must have caught the tremor in her voice, because his hands stilled on her shoulders and then moved away, hovering at her elbows.

"Kagome?"

'She knows.' Miroku thought, and it sent adrenaline rushing through his body.

She barely heard his whisper but she could feel his heart speed up to match her own. She cleared her throat and made a show of watching the rain fall and splash into the puddles around them.

"We… We should sleep!" She said a little too enthusiastically. She couldn't see or feel Miroku's jerky nod behind her, or when he leaned the back of his head against the cliff face behind them. She couldn't tell that he swallowed heavily around the thickness in his throat, or that he closed his eyes and a pained look crossed his face.

She did see his hands tighten into fists before settling on her knees again, out of the rain. She did see the tremble in his hands that matched her own as their hearts slowed and breaths deepened as they fell asleep.