Disclaimer: Inuyasha not mine. Me talk in English good. I is special.

To Yukino: If you read my author bio, Wolfshade22x is my cousin Catharine, who quit and granted me permission to use her fics. Sorry about the confusion...

Oh, yes, I almost forgot. In this story, Sesshoumaru has both arms, because...because otherwise the story wouldn't work. So there. -.-


Involuntary Connections

Last Chapter:

They all froze on the threshold, staring in disbelief at the scene before them. Kagome was wrapped securely in Sesshoumaru's arms, and she looked strangely...flushed...

Inuyasha's golden eyes blazed with anger. Without remembering his decision, he screamed the first thing that came to his mind...


Chapter Two – The Command

"What the hell are you doing?"

"It's not what it looks like!" Kagome wriggled out from between Sesshoumaru's arms with absolute disregard as to how many times she accidentally kicked the youkai lord.

"Were you..." The hanyou's hands gestured wildly in a series of mildly obscene hand signals that would have perplexed Shippou and disgusted everyone else.

"NO! For Kami-sama's sake, Inuyasha, your brother isn't even awake!"

Naturally, Sesshoumaru blinked open his eyes at this point, startled by all the yelling. It was, of course, the most opportune time to wake up.

"Yes he is!" The hanyou pointed, looking extremely annoyed.

"What?" Having just woken up, the taiyoukai was understandably a little disorientated. Obviously, he was having trouble with his eyes. It looked like there was a rosary around his wrist that was binding him to the miko that Inuyasha traveled with. But that, of course, was purely absurd. Wasn't it?

He blinked. Somehow, the apparitions weren't disappearing. That was strange. He lifted his hands to rub his eyes and heard the girl yelp next to him. The rosary cut slightly into his wrist.

Inuyasha was yelling now, but Sesshoumaru wasn't listening very clearly. The hanyou was saying something along the lines of, "I want to know what's going on!" That was interesting; he wanted to know that too.

"Are you two...in love with each other?"

Well, that certainly woke up Sesshoumaru. The youkai sat completely up just to witness the brilliant flashes of light emanating from the rosary.

Amethyst streaks lit up the room for a fleeting minute before fading into a dull glow which ebbed into nothingness. Sesshoumaru winced – the light stung his eyes – and then froze. His gaze turned to the girl beside him.

Extremely surprised, Inuyasha tried to figure out what had triggered the rosary. His last sentences had been 'Are', which obviously did nothing, 'You', which also wouldn't have had any effect, 'Two', which wasn't a verb, 'In', which would have done nothing, and...and...

"Love?"

Shit.
Kaede wasn't pleased.

For one thing, the rosary was not meant to be on two people. Bad, bad things could happen. And for another, it just had to be connecting the miko at the youkai lord, didn't it?

But now Kagome and Sesshoumaru had been forced into some sort of crazed love, all due to that hanyou's idiocy.

"What were ye thinking, Inuyasha?" The ancient priestess glared at him, although that was a bit hard to do, due to the fact that he was basically sticking out of the floor like some obscene ornament. For some reason, Kagome hadn't seemed too pleased with her new feelings.

Not that the rest of the people in the room were any more comfortably situated. Certainly, Sesshoumaru was supposedly 'in love' with Kagome, but that hardly endeared him towards his half-brother. Sango and Miroku were holding on to Kagome's free arm, which in turn suppressed Sesshoumaru from leaping at the feet waving in the air.

"You can't take it off?" Kagome was sounding mildly panicked, due to the fact that Sesshoumaru was very very close to killing everyone in the room (including her) just to get away from them all. Youkai love probably didn't count for much.

Kaede shook her head. "I warned Inuyasha," she replied dryly. A muffled protest issued from the crater; everyone ignored it.

Sesshoumaru stood, his usual half-bored, half-mocking expression back on his face. He yanked Kagome up beside him and walked towards the door without a word.

"What are you doing?" Trying to stop the youkai lord – although it was like a butterfly battling a blizzard – Kagome dug her heels into the floor and thus ended up demolishing a bit more of Kaede's home. "Stop!"

He plowed easily through the door, slashing it aside with claws that dripped with poison. "I'm not staying a moment longer with my bastard brother!" he yelled, finally dropping the calm façade.

She was about to protest further, but he leapt into the air, pulling her along.

'Kami-sama, he doesn't seem to have changed at all,' Kagome thought.

It wasn't until later that she'd remember those words...and their meaning.
"Is there any way to break the damn rosary?" Inuyasha was pacing, having extracted himself from the floor.

Kaede shrugged. "Yes, there is one way. She has to prove that she loves someone more than she loves Sesshoumaru."

"And how can she do that? I was under the impression that the feelings the rosary gave were singular and unconditional." Miroku, rubbing his sore hand – the result of having tried approaching Sango – blinked at the priestess.

"Not exactly." Kaede focused her eyes on Inuyasha. "If she feels strongly enough for a certain hanyou – who, I might add, would do good to encourage her in this aspect – the rosary will shatter, and both of them will be released from their foolish infatuations. If, on the other hand, she cannot confess her feelings for another person within the span of one year, the rosary is permanent."

"Permanent?"

"It means forever," Shippou explained, lying on the floor next to Kirara.

"I know what it means!" he snapped at the kitsune.

Shippou countered, "Then what was the point of repeating the word?" He was rather annoyed at having lost his surrogate mother due to Inuyasha's mistake, and was being none too pleasant about it.

"Argh!" Stepping on Shippou's fluffy tail, Inuyasha stalked outside. "Well, what are we waiting for?" He turned towards the rest of his companions. "Let's go win Kagome back."
"Where are we going?" Kagome's arm was getting rather sore; Sesshoumaru didn't seem to care that the only reason she was half-flying was because her wrist was connected to his.

He merely cast her a rather annoyed glare. "We're going," he explained, "to my...home."

"Oh." That was hardly a sufficient explanation, but she'd deal with it.

Were taiyoukai always like this? She glanced up at him warily, but her mind was replaying her memories. She remembered that Inuyasha had once mentioned how Sesshoumaru had loved his mother...loved her beyond words, and that in essence, his heart had turned to ice when she died.

Glancing up at him, she wondered if the rosary's effect had melted the ice...or whether this was merely temporary, and...

He turned to look down at her, and she found herself drowning in those golden eyes.

Suddenly, it didn't matter that she was dangling a thousand feet above the ground; it didn't matter that the rosary was the only reason for her feelings; it didn't matter that Inuyasha's eyes were exactly the same shade...the only thing that mattered was that he was looking at her...

Bliss.
It was rather interesting that after all these years, the source of relief for him was this mistake of his half-brother's. Sesshoumaru let his gaze wander down her slender wrist to thos dark eyes, sparkling with the general light of innocence.

When had he first realized? Perhaps it was because of his naturally competitive nature. Even as children, before his mother's death, he'd often fought viciously for the possession of a new game, a new toy. They'd battled over their father's affections, too; but that was one fight strength couldn't win.

He remembered his vow to hate all ningen after his mother was cast aside for the hanyou's.

And then, of course, she had to come...

That girl, Inuyasha's companion, who seemed to follow him everywhere, the reincarnation of Inuyasha's first love.

Well, it was too late for the hanyou.

Kagome was his.
I know this chapter was really short and...well...probably didn't make a lot of sense. Sorry! R&R, please! -FlamingDrake