An: I'm sorry that it's been so long. I was not able to write. I will make up for that, I promise. If you have any questions about vocabulary, tell me and I will start adding in definitions. I think a bit of myself is going into this story now that I couldn't put in it before. Sometimes time is the perfect muse…I hope you enjoy it.

"And I find it kinda funny

I find it kind of sad

The dreams in which I'm dying

Are the best I've ever had

I find it hard to tell you

I find it hard to take

When people run in circles

It's a very, very

Mad world…"

Mad World-Tears For Fears

CHAPTER 2

The Ill Humor of Heaven

I lived the next two days of my life in a dream-like state of mind. Consciousness came and went, flickering in and out like the tuning of a broken radio. My mind was numb and I had the detached feeling as if I were dead and just hadn't left yet. I wished I was. The tuning of a broken radio that only played barely-audible commercials that meant nothing. Every time sleep crept up, the gray shadow seemed to bring the chance of death with it, the chance to leave it all. Leave what, I didn't know. I was only aware of my chest rising up and down because I could see it through half-closed eyes. Nothing else was revealed to me.

I was finally aware of another sensation besides that of sleep when I felt hands on me, perhaps washing my stomach. Funny, I had forgotten about it but thought about what it had meant, the injury, constantly, even in my foggy dreams.

The next time I decided to get up. I wanted the bed to swallow me whole, steal me from the world, but I knew it couldn't. I sat up, pushing back a sheet that had been tucked in around me. White. I stood up, not unstable at all, completely sound on my feet. It occurred to me that I should think that was odd, but it didn't really matter. Didn't make a difference.

The hallways were empty. There were no pictures, I counted only one window. My footsteps did not echo as they should have; they seemed to resonate as if muffled, then die on the still air. The air was cool but not nearly refreshing. I realized I was sweating lightly. I felt sticky and dirty and the urge to wash myself suddenly boiled in my blood. Yes, wash it all away.

There were no voices, or sounds of life, just the hollow shuffling of my feet across the wooden floor. I walked straight until I hit a dead end where hallways split to the left or right and suddenly felt all energy leave me. The question of why I was even walking in the first place arose and prodded the edges of my mind, but I just turned right, taking the closest direction. There were still no windows, but I could see light filtering through the right side of the corridor which was now made only of thick shoji screens. Suddenly I felt an unreasonable anger towards the sun which I knew was shining so brightly outside, and I threw open one of the shoji doors and tore outside, knowing that it would, but only more angered when the light blinded me for those few split seconds.

I crammed by eyes shut, not wanting to let the light in, it would only blind me more, as I faced off my opponent. I raised my right fist and covered my eyes with my left hand and screamed. Against every instinct I screamed with all my might.

"HOW COME?! TELL ME!! GIVE ME ONE GOOD REASON WHY!!" I felt something warm on my cheeks. "HUH?! CAN YOU GIVE ME A REASON?!! WHY ARE YOU SMILING LIKE THAT!!" I screamed at the sun. THERE IS NO REASON?!" I felt my face contort under my hands and felt my chest seize up. "WHAT DID WE DO? WHAT DID I DO?" I felt the warm, wet tracks slide from my eyes, under my hands and wondered quietly why my face was leaking. I was breathing slower and harder. "What did I do…?" I whispered quietly into my hands which were covering my entire face now. "There's nothing left for me to protect…"

I took my hands away and dried my face on my kimono. It was different from what I had been wearing before I had fallen asleep. Somehow this seemed completely rational to my irrational mind. Yes, fallen asleep. A sleep I longed for because it would numb the real world, but a sleep that I feared more than anything for it brought the past world. Which was worse, I didn't know.

"Are you done now?" It was the voice of the angelic devil. Smooth and cultured as silk but piercing, low, and cynical as steel. At least that was one thing they did not share in common. His voice had been lively and daring, but his elder brother's had been deep and challenging. I knew what would happen if I looked at him. I would see his younger brother.

"Where am-I guess it doesn't really matter, does it?" I felt myself smile crookedly. "But a good question, I guess, might not be where, but 'why am I here?', don't you think?"

"You show one sign of intelligence."

"I would also guess that you do not plan on telling me why."

"You would guess correctly."

"But what if I were to phrase the question differently?" I could feel myself laugh giddily and wondered what Inuyasha would think if he knew I were having a conversation like this with his hated half brother. I would tell him about it when I got home. He'd probably be very angry. But then I could just threaten to sit him.

"You may ask why not."

"Why not?"

"It doesn't mean I will answer you." he stated as if the very sound of my voice were the most boring thing on earth. I giggled again.

"Why not?"

Though I had made sure I could not see his face nor him see mine, I knew he was sighing.

"Because you are a human wench who belonged to my brother and I have just as many reasons to kill you as I do to keep you from killing yourself."

His words hit me with the force of a freight train and I could feel my self knocked back and pushed down. '…keep you from killing yourself.' I had tried to kill myself? I had tried to kill myself. I tried to kill myself. It was as if I had blocked that fact from my mind. It wasn't true. He was trying to play me. He was deceitful and conniving, I knew that from before as a fact. He had schemed even with the lowest and filthiest-Naraku.

"You're lying to me." In an instant, he had grabbed me and spun me around and both my hands were locked the steel grips of his right hand. A sharp pain flared up both of my arms. I looked, terrified, at my wrists as his grip lessened and allowed me to turn over my hands. I stared, shocked, then felt the oddest sensation rise from my stomach and bubble up my throat. I laughed. And laughed, horribly. I doubled over, clutching my stomach which ached in pain, but kept laughing. The black stitches had winked back at me from the cuts up my forearms as if saying 'Haha, gotcha! You're turn!'

"Yes, this is what you did to yourself. And let me make it perfectly clear that if you are ever to attempt anything like this again while in my care, you will have worse things to worry about than death."

Then I wasn't laughing anymore. My body stilled as I unconsciously turned to stone. For what seemed like an eternity, I wondered how I had become so weak as to take my own life. What was I thinking? Who had I become?

I turned to Sesshoumaru but kept my eyes focused on his armor. I felt an idiocy rise in me and heard myself ask a question I never would have dared in my life.

"Can I stay here a bit longer?"

He said nothing and turned, walking towards the shoji door where I had come from.

"I will have dinner sent to your room," and he left, sliding the door smoothly shut behind him.

I turned from where his figure had been and looked about me. There was a beautiful garden, more lovely than I had ever seen in my life, but there was something wrong with it, utterly wrong, which I could not place my finger on. Still, it was beautiful and so unexpected of Sesshoumaru, that it amazed me even more. I decided to explore it further at a later time and followed Sesshoumaru, the way he had left. As I walked to my room, I wondered aloud.

"What will Inuyasha think of Sesshoumaru's beautiful garden?"

It was not enough that the girl was haunted, but she had unconsciously taken on the task of haunting myself as well. At night as I slept, on the nights I did sleep, my sense of hearing was always acute. It is a simple survival instinct which allows myself to detect any approaching attackers. This is normally not a problem, except for the fact that the girl would not be still. She was continuously thrashing about as she slept, sometimes knocking over a lamp beside her bed or slamming a fist into the floor. It made my ability to sleep near nothing, for though I am usually able to block out whatever sounds I wish, I found myself unable to ignore her flailings. This alone put my nerves on edge. I had been traveling for two weeks without end before finding her and even youkai can not go for three weeks without sleep. It dulls the senses and makes for an easier target.

She took her meals in her bedroom which was, to say the least, perfectly fine with me. She was better left out of my thoughts, than to be a distraction to the list of things that I must achieve daily. Yet, I could not help but wonder about her isolation. Humans had always seemed to be weird creatures to me in that they preferred to be in large groups, yet this girl had isolated herself from the world. I wasn't even sure if she had bathed in the ten days she had been staying in my home.

No noises escaped from her room and I found myself wondering what exactly she could be doing. Much to my chagrin, I found myself pacing before her door at different intervals, reassuring myself that she was not making any further attempts at suicide. There were long intervals where only a muffled sound would escape under the door, and she would not see the servants who brought her meals.

The girl was not well, it did not take a genius to decipher this. From what I had learned of the ridiculous human emotions, I could understand her anger at what had happened. She was undoubtedly still cursing the fates under her breath. Perhaps I could understand that. I myself have been robbed of certain…things in my life, and it is frustrating, though easily seen past, but there was something beyond her anger which sparked like ice-blue fire in her eyes. There was a fogginess that I could barely detect. Something was not the same as the old companion of Inuyasha's. She was lacking something, though I did not yet perceive what it was. Perfect. I had a ghost of a woman whom I did not care for in the beginning, who was even less intriguing than the beginning as she was losing her one or two interesting traits, if there were any.

The fact that I was constantly wondering at what she was doing and why she was behaving as she was annoyed me more than I can possibly describe. The only person who has ever truly worried me has been Rin, and only at dire times. She even escaped my mind every so often. In Inuyasha's mate's case, 'out of sight, out of mind' was so mind-killingly false that I began to harbor an anger towards the girl. Why should I take her in? Why should I take the burden of my half-brother's wrong choices. I did not choose this burden to be placed on myself, yet here I was and I was growing more annoyed with every day that something that I did not even see except once in over a week could have such a negative effect on my mind. She was Inuyasha's choice, not my own.

I would not deal with this any longer. Yes, I had let her stay out of honor, and done what she asked-let her stay-and she was taking advantage of the situation. I did not say she could stay for a month, let along two weeks. The woman was intolerable and knew no decency.

I decided that from then on, if she wished for her meals, she would eat them in the dining room, not what had become the dark hole, I was sure, of her bedroom. If she wished to stay here, she would abide by the same rules and customs as all others in the house did. Yes, I decided, this would do. Why had I not enforced these rules earlier?

As I made my way to her bedroom, which was as far as possible from mine, what with all the rustling about during her sleep, I felt smug for the first time in a week. Kami knows what tricks this woman had been playing on my mind. I would 'explain' the rules of the house to her and tell her to abide by them or abide by my claw, but when I slid opened

her door, I found something that I had not been prepared for. The room, like I had expected for some reason, was completely dark. The two windows that it held were covered by an old yukata and the room was bathed in light that had become shades of gray and black. Lying on the futon that rested on the floor was her figure, wrapped in a folded, wrinkled kimono, her knees held to her chest, was the woman-child who I desperately wished to throttle. And yet, as I approached her, I sensed an aura about her that seemed to radiate something, which I could not decipher. But the fact that it was so strong bent some of my respect to her. Even in her state, she could still exude a comparable amount of power. I was even more amazed at the stark contrast that her pale, ivory skin and dark hair made against the gray of the bed. She seemed surreal and for a moment I thought she had perhaps died in her sleep until I detected her weak breathing.

In a second, my wonder was gone, replaced by my annoyance and anger at the woman and I reached down and pulled her up. Her head jolted up and two dark blue eyes that held raging storms glared up at me. I was almost shocked for a second, but narrowed my eyes at her in turn and let one of my fangs glint in the dark room.

"I will no longer allow you to take advantage of my hospitality. You will no longer take meals in your room, but eat in the dining room, or not eat at all. You will obey the orders that all others in this house must obey. However you were with Inuyasha, you are not an exception or special circumstance here. If you do not wish to follow these rules, the alternative is always an option. I do not believe I need to explain myself. You will also do something useful. Though I am not fond of a learned female, I will not tolerate an ignorant being in this household. So while you are here, you will be taught. Ignorance is not an option." I gazed at her and saw her anger flinch, but then flare up just as strong as her eyes glinted, steel blue.

"And what is Jaken?"

"Jaken is far more accomplished than you will ever be." I turned and left, her eyes burning into my back, closing the door behind me with a finality that even she could not question.

That night, her bothered sleep was worse than the three nights before, combined. It was more difficult than ever to sleep. Even Rin had never slept so unsoundly as this girl.

She did not eat the next day. Her sleep grew even worse. The next day I left, traveling to a meeting of negotiations with one of my feudal lords. The servants reported that she did not leave her room. They also reported that she slept better than she had in a week, though I did not know if they had been awake throughout the night. I did trust that they attempted to follow my orders to listen to the girl, but my servants are all older in years and could easily doze off. When I returned, she had not eaten breakfast that day either. The woman was sure to come looking for food before the day was done. Or perhaps she was attempting to starve herself to death. If that was what she should choose, so be it, I thought darkly. And yet I knew I could not allow her to do so, for I was bound by something she could not persuade me from.

Once again, I found myself infuriated at her ability to put me at such odds with my wishes to merely kill her. She was a pest and an inconvenience that I would happily be rid of. I spent no time getting to her room and tore the door back. I was at her bed in a flash and had her pinned with one hand by the neck, being that I was an arm short. I would take care of that tomorrow. My claws dug into her flesh and I let the slightest bit of poison leak out, so that red burn marks began to spread where my fingertips were.

"I have told you before that you will not attempt to kill yourself while under my eye, wench! If you wish to die so badly, I will gladly kill you, then resurrect you so that that I may kill you again and again. Do you wish that?" I spat out acidly. The low growling in my voice shocked me momentarily, but only momentarily. She gazed at me with dark, hardened eyes.

I constricted my grasp on her neck even further. "Well?"

She glared at me for a moment then reluctantly shook her head.

"Good. You will eat tonight with Rin, Jaken and Myself. If you do not come, I will see just how many times Tenseiga will let me resurrect you before I kill you for good." With that, I let go of her neck and left the dark room, sliding the door so that there was no mistaking it was closed.

In the garden I suddenly wondered what had come over me. Why did she infuriate me so? This girl, this woman, this….what was her name? Something pretty and strong and ridiculous…started with a 'K'. No matter, that was not the point. I, Sesshoumaru am the last youkai to easily be angered, and yet this girl…Katsuko?…could make my very blood boil in just seconds of thinking about her. Perhaps it was just because I did not ask for her to be placed on my hands. I would have taken Inuyasha's sword gladly before, but to take his…mate…now was not only preposterous, but insane. And she believed the fates were cruel to her? She had no concept.

She came to dinner. Albeit, late, but she came. It seems even a girl as unstable and stubborn as she cannot refuse a starving stomach. She came in her rumpled kimono which had not changed from our earlier encounter. Her hair, though thick and dark, was an absolute mess and hung about her everywhere. Her face was pale and gaunt and the dark circles around her eyes made her look like a skeleton. Her now light blue eyes shone dully from the middle of the shadows as she kneeled and crawled into the room, forgetting to close the shoji screen behind her. I did not wish to inflame another debate at the moment, so said nothing about it. A headache had been resting at my temples for almost the whole day and I was not in a particular mood for anything bothersome.

As soon as she took her place at the table, Rin began blurting out questions.

"Hello, pretty lady! I'm Rin! This is Sesshoumaru-sama and the stinky toad is Jaken-sama! He eats flies!"

"I most definitely do not!" Came the croak from his mouth which barely reached over the table.

"What's your name?" Rin twittered like an annoying baby bird, but I had grown accustomed to this. In addition, I would learn the girl's name without having to ask her myself. That is, if the girl answered Rin. To my surprise, the girl turned to Rin and I could see that her eyes had lit up.

"I'm Kagome. It's very nice to meet you, Rin-chan."

"Wow, Kagome-one-san! You have pretty eyes! Can I have pretty eyes like you?"

I watched, mildly interested as the girl showed the fist smile I had ever seen in my whole experience with her.

"We'll see. Oh, you can just call me Kagome, Rin-chan."

"OK, but the you have to call me just Rin."

"Ok. How old are you, Rin?"

Rin thought for a moment, then turned to me for help. I had never given the subject thought before. Obviously she wished to know now, so I used prior knowledge to approximate.

"She is roughly eight or nine in human years. Eat before the food is spoiled." Rin nodded enthusiastically and even the Kagome-girl seemed to eye the food with a want that was being tested. Finally, seeing as how everyone else busied themselves with food except for myself, she helped herself to rice and soup and some dried salmon that the servants had prepared. She said nothing else throughout the meal unless it was to answer one of Rin's questions. It was easy to see the difference in her when she ate quietly and talked to Rin. Her eyes became a softer, clearer blue when she conversed with Rin, then clouded over as she returned to her meal. Obviously the girl just had a liking for children, what with the kitsune that was always hanging on her, but that did not quite explain her behavior. But what did it matter?

When they were finished, Kagome and Rin said goodnight to each other. Rin asked if Kagome would read her a story, but Kagome declined, promising to on another night. Rin was already yawning as I instructed Jaken to take her to bed, at which he crinkled his already appalling nose, but obliged.

That left the girl and myself. I wondered silently if she would make the first strike or say anything at all. I waited in silence for quite some time, but she just stared at her hands.

After sitting quietly, staring at my hands for no less than five minutes, I made to get up from the table and go to my room, Sesshoumaru's eyes burning into my back. He must have thought I was crazy. Only earlier that day did I realize that I had been talking to Inuyasha. Inuyasha obviously wasn't there. Rin had helped wake me from my psychotic escapade, although I somewhat wished it still continued. It was nice and dulling for me to be able to imagine what he was doing or thinking and what he would say when I got home. I wondered if I was going crazy. And I thought about Rin and Shippou and Souta and…. No, I couldn't think about that. Not yet. It would drive me insane like I had been earlier. Insanity seemed to come to me in waves and go just the same. One minute I would see Inuyasha smirking in front of me, the next, realize I was talking to an old haori that had been thrown out of a chest, onto my bed in my insanity. I did not know what was better-to be completely insane, or to be slightly sane still and discover that you were going insane.

"Jaken will start teaching you, along with Rin, tomorrow afternoon. You will learn how to read. I can not stand women, let alone idiotic ones." he gazed at me piercingly and I turned back to him, anger suddenly flowing through my veins.

"I know how to read very well, thank you." I bit out as coldly as I could.

"It would not be obvious by observing your state of intellect from the outside." The words were sharp, but I was already hurt enough. He apparently didn't know that.

"While we're naming faults, with your social capabilities, it would seem you had never met a single living creature other than yourself." He sneered and his gaze hardened like golden ice.

"You are one to speak of social capabilities, arguing with myself who has taken your pathetic, human self in."

"I admit that I am not perfect temperamentally, I admit it, but if you weren't so impossible, half of our problems would never have happened in the first place."

"What are you aiming for, woman. What do you want known?" he sneered at me as if I were requesting him to kindly not kill a murderous wolf. Quite suddenly I seemed to lose steam and my body slacked. My eyes grew strained and a tiredness appeared that I had conquered for those few moments when I was angry. I looked down and saw that my skin paled visibly.

"I can read, and am educated beyond what you would ever expect," I stated simply, no rebelliousness in my voice left for me to scrounge up.

"If you are capable of reading, why didn't you accept Rin's request and read to her from a book," he snapped lowly.

"For one, do you read her a book every time she asks? Didn't think so. Two, the girl hardly knows me, what if I scare her? Three, every time I look at her it reminds me of what I could have-"

She stopped and blanched white. Her eyes darkened and she gazed at something that I knew only she could see. I could see that her body trembled slightly. Perhaps she had not been getting rest, just as I had not. Maybe she did not toss so much in her sleep, but out of it.

But she had made an awful mistake. In her eyes and my own, she had made herself vulnerable with her last words. Her whole body had weakened. I forced her to sit down at her spot and rest on the table. Her body was breaking down by the moment. I called for some tea and for one of the servants to see that a bath was readied if needed. After a moment, she grabbed my right arm and said one word.

"No."

The woman was stubborn and minded her pride more than her health condition. She grabbed my other arm and pulled herself up to a standing position. Her body still shook slightly, but was calming slowly. She glanced for a moment at my left arm, her expression completely devoid of surprise or wonder, and walked out of the room, supposedly to the isolation and darkness of her room. I did not follow her.

She didn't eat for two days. I had Jaken check that she had not died, but he reported that the "miserable human wench" was merely sleeping. On the third day, I decided that if the woman wished to kill herself, that was her choice and I could not be held responsible. I would not interfere as I had done before. As Jaken had said, she had become a miserable girl. If she wished to end that, I would not stop her.

When I heard the shoji door slide back, I knew who it was immediately, but was slightly intrigued to know why she had not died yet. She stepped into the garden and I knew that she had not seen me yet due to the blinding sun. She squinted her eyes and blinked slowly. She didn't turn away as I suspected she would when she saw me. Instead, she walked towards me and stood beside me, next to the koi pond which was near the center of the garden. For a long time, she said nothing.

"I want to apologize," she said slowly. The words were even and precise, but held a hidden instability in them that echoed like a shadow. I said nothing, knowing that if there was more she wished to say, she would.

"I know that I have been taking advantage of your hospitality and I'm very sorry for that. But I'd also like to thank you. Somehow, being here, away from my friends has given me an opportunity to deal with my problems. Which, as you probably guessed have been pretty…well, psychotic. It's not easy for me to say this, but I'm becoming weak. I'm not as strong as I was when I was with Inuyasha, and sometimes…I see him. Thank you for indirectly offering a place for me to work things out. I'm still a little crazy, but you probably think I've always been crazy, not that you know me much. Which makes me wonder why exactly you helped me." I was amazed that she was able to talk to freely and with such coherence after she had literally been talking to herself days before. Perhaps this was just a human thing.

"Is it not enough that I did so? Now I must explain myself to you?"

"No, of course not." she look at the ground and studied one particularly large fish in the pond. "I should be thankful that you just did. I'm sorry. How can I repay you?" She looked up at me, her liquid blue eyes sad, yet holding an amazing seriousness in them which I had not seen before. "I'm in your debt."

"If I had known you would make such a deal of it, I would have left you to die." I said, it coming out harsher than I had intended. But she merely looked at me again and smiled so slightly that I could almost not detect it. I wondered how on earth human emotions could change so quickly. She sighed and bowed slightly to me, her hand clutching the injury on her stomach I noticed, and left, most likely in search for food.

I wondered if her sanity would go just as quickly as it had come back.