AN- now isn't this bloody amazing. I've actually started on the next chapter….HOLY F…ruitcake. With almonds. Yes dear readers, this is what happens when I have chocolate. Not pretty, is it? but what the hell. My very sincere thanks goes out to all of you who reviewed. And I just realized a very strange thing…this story has had no flames…whatsoever…well, apart from the complaints about the formatting, but hey, that was an honest mistake…… :-D really, it was…fine then don't believe me, but you shall feel my wrath….Dear God help me……^End Rant^

Chance Response

Dawn should have been a welcoming thing. Instead, it was quite the opposite. Oh, it wasn't because there were any demons lurking about, no, in fact Kagome wished that there were a few of the power hungry/mad buggers about just so she could kick their joint asses from here to kingdom come. Dawn was completely unwelcome because dawn was so goddamn early.

For the third time that morning Kagome raised a fist and shook it at the powers-that-were who resided in the sky. Nasty wee fuckers. They just had to go and make dawn this cursed early. Sighing, she dropped her fist and resumed her hole-boring in Sesshoumaru's back. The whole reason she was staring at his was because she couldn't sense Shippou. So he'd assumed the lead position, which he probably would've done anyway, but the contemptuous glance that he'd shot her way had kept her brush in the air all morning.

Sesshoumaru, meanwhile, was trying to ignore the malcontent behind him and actually locate the cursed kit that she seemed to be so attached to. Damn it all, he was growing a heart. He'd manage to stave off the emotion growing while he'd been around Rin, but this cursed miko was just screwing his balance. Which screwed in turn with his mind. Which in turn screwed up his heart banning process. And he hated that. That miko was really tweaking his internal system off balance. Which was a very disconcerting feeling, because it had never happened before. Never.

When the proverbial hole in his back had almost reached his heart, it suddenly disappeared, and Kagome let out a strangled squawk. Sesshoumaru turned, were the immediate question of what was wrong springing to his lips, but Kagome was already bounding over to a small patch of…mushrooms? Now just what was the significance of the mushrooms? He asked as much.

Kagome tilted her face up to him, her smoky eyes shinning. "They're Shippou's trail markers. When Kouga first kidnapped me, Shippou left a trail of these for the others to find us. Well, he would've succeeded, if the wolf pack hadn't tried to eat them as food." She snorted and reached out a delicate claw to stroke the silken dome. "Those fools always did think with their stomachs."

She rose from her haunches and threw him a light look, the first he had seen in the month she'd been with him. "You coming?"

With his nod, she stepped lightly over the first polka-dotted 'shroom and slipped through the bushes behind it. Sesshoumaru started to follow, but his foot didn't even pass the first magic mushroom before Kagome's howl of rage spun him off balance. Startled beyond belief, he burst through the bushes ahead, only to be confronted with the sight of Kagome's hunched form cradling something, with no demon in sight. Loosing the rein on his new found frustration with the woman he raked a hand through his hair, casting an annoyed glance over to the crouched hanyou. "There is nothing here. What is wrong with you woman?"

Kagome twisted to face him, and her enraged look hit him in the gut like a freight train, if he'd known what a freight train was, even though it was all too apparent the next second that her anger was not directed at him. Nestled brokenly in her arms was the kitsune's tiny form, beaten and bloodied beyond recognition. He wasn't moving either.

Sesshoumaru took his eyes off the furious miko and spread his senses out, searching for any remaining traces of youki. Naraku's stench was everywhere, saturating everything, all bar the place where Kagome was sitting. Her magic had purified the space around her, and scrapped a shallow hole in the ground, but they had not spread to the rest of the stink.  Sesshoumaru sneezed violently and absently rubbed at his nose as he knelt beside Kagome. He placed a hand on her trembling shoulder, reaching with the other to touch the kitsune's face. It was freezing. The child had been dead for a long time. Sesshoumaru stood drawing Tensaiga and motioning for Kagome to place Shippou's body on the ground where it had been. When she snarled at him, the rein on his already frayed patience snapped. "Do it woman. Now, before you lose his last chance at life altogether" he hissed.

Kagome's eyebrow's drew together in a frown, but she nevertheless complied, and moved back to stand beside him.

"What are you going to do?"

"Tensaiga is the sword of healing, the sword of life. I can try to bring him back. I doubt he will be able to be brought back though; we did not find him in time."

Kagome shuddered, and he spared her a fleeting look, but her bangs obscured her face completely. He took one last glance back at the small form on the ground, before putting Tensaiga back in it's sheathe. Kagome, started, and grabbed his arm. He shook off her hand, and picked up the lifeless body.

"There is nothing I can do for him. His soul has already gone, but it was not the reapers who took it."

Kagome crumpled on the ground, like the clichéd puppet with its strings cut. The liquid crystal of her tears once more tracked its way down her cheeks. She reached out a trembling finger and plucked the last mushroom, crushed and bloodstained, from where Shippou had thrown it. Twisting it in her fingers she looked up at him, her face hard.

"If it wasn't the reapers who took his soul, then what, or who, was it."

The quiet violence in her eyes made even him hesitate before answering. "Kikyo"

The stormy grey in Kagome's eyes darkened to a flat black. Gently, with a frightening calm, she picked up Shippou's body and placed it in the crack her powers had created. She placed a hand on the body and closed her eyes. In the blink of an eye, the hole looked no more different than any other patch of ground, and just as firm.

Kagome stood, Shippou's last mushroom still trapped in her fingers. Sesshoumaru watched her stare at it, like she was lost in her own world. Suddenly, she tucked it in a pocket of her haori, a miniature of Sesshoumaru's, only in a deep blue minus the flowers.

Her voice, gravelly and low, barely reached his ears. "She denies him his last chance at life…so I will take hers in exchange. But before I do, I will find out why she took his soul. No one, or nothing will stop me," and here she fixed Sesshoumaru with a piercing gaze, "not even you, Sesshoumaru, or by the gods, you will spend the rest of your days as a mindless, powerless shadow of what you were, I swear it."

Sesshoumaru's golden gaze narrowed and he studied her, long and hard. He had no doubt that she would make good on her threat, but then he had no intention of stopping her.  The kitsune had been her adopted son, that he had known, and he would not stand in the way of her revenge. That he would leave to her and her alone.

Kagome took his silence as his acquiescence, and lifted her nose, eyes closed. Blocking out Naraku's stench, she searched for the of Kikyo's soul stealers. It did not take her long to find it, and when she had it, all that signified her passing was the brush of the air she displaced on her death sprint towards Kikyo.

The bitch would die slowly, and painfully once again, of that, she would personally make sure.

AN-umm, don't kill me…please? *runs shrieking in fear*