Hey there friends! Sorry it took a little longer to get this chapter out… (work, you know) anyway, I got it done, so here it is: chapter 7 of One More Chance!

Disclaimer: don't own it.

Chapter 7: Questions and Answers

Kagome followed Sesshomaru through the halls of his home. It was quite beautiful, though it didn't look like it belonged to a powerful Taiyoukai. As she was admiring the dark blue walls and golden brown doors they passed, she was also sending her thoughts ahead of her toward the inuyoukai that walked gracefully before her. She could feel that he was annoyed, but also slightly confused. She could understand the annoyance, after all she was a human, and at this point he didn't really have a soft spot for her race. But the confusion, she had no idea what was causing that.

Sesshomaru slowed down outside one door that looked exactly like all the others they had passed already. She stopped a few paces away from him, looking at him quizzically.

I am stopping here because this is where we are going to train. His voice rang in her head. She nodded, knowing that he would understand, even if he wasn't looking at her.

He opened the door and motioned for her to proceed into the room ahead of him. She walked past him, brushing his tail with her arm as she did.

When she was fully inside the room, Sesshomaru followed her inside and closed the door. Kagome looked around the room. It was completely empty except for the two of them. She looked back at the tall inuyoukai and raised an eyebrow at him. His face gave no indication of what he was thinking, and he had shields up to keep her from reading his thoughts. Something occurred to her then.

I don't know why my shields don't keep your thoughts out of my head, woman. They should, but they do not. Since this is so, you must learn to keep your thoughts within your head by yourself. Well, that answered that.

"Okay, so how do I do that?" She asked aloud, not wanting to yell at him mentally, as she was sure she had been, any time she intentionally talked to him using her thoughts.

"I show you how, then you train until it becomes second nature." He replied. She had forgotten the ice that was in his voice at the beginning, it made tears sting at the back of her eyes but she wouldn't let them come to the front.

"Now, we begin." He said, motioning for her to sit on the floor as he did the same.

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Inuyasha stared at Myoga. "Well? Where is it?" He demanded of the flea. "I need to know so that I can get that wench back, so I can get the Shikon no Tama!"

Myoga looked at his lord calmly. "Don't you mean that you want to know so that you can the Tetsusaiga, Inuyasha-sama?"

Inuyasha's eyes widened. The Tetsusaiga. That's what the girl had called the powerful sword she claimed he had in the future. I guess she was really telling the truth.

"Yeah, I guess I want the sword too, but I need to know where the grave is so that I can get Sesshomaru to give Kagome back. Apparently she can find the shards of the jewel that my brother so carelessly shattered." Inuyasha said, growling at the mention of his brother, and spitting Kagome's name.

"Well, Inuyasha-sama, the grave is in your eye." Myoga replied matter-of-factly. Inuyasha just stared at me. Then he started laughing.

"So, you really don't know where it, huh? Some guardian you are!" Inuyasha continued laughing for a bit, ignoring Myoga's assurances of the veracity of his claim.

Inuyasha stopped laughing and looked at his tiny vassal. "You're serious, aren't you? You really believe that the grave is in my eye…" Myoga nodded. "Great, so I have to rip my eye out to get the sword, and the jewel, just wonderful!"

"I guess I should go find Sesshomaru now and let him have a good laugh as well, before we debate over who gets to rip my eye out…" Inuyasha muttered sarcastically.

"But my lord, we don't even know where Sesshomaru would be right now." Myoga complained, obviously trying desperately to avoid a confrontation with the older of the two inu brothers.

"Well, he's probably at one of the houses, so I guess we'll just have to go to all of them until we find him." Inuyasha replied, actually coming up with a logical sounding plan.

"Do you even know where all of Sesshomaru's houses are, Inuyasha?" Myoga asked.

"No. But I'll find them!"

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Sesshomaru looked at the girl sitting across from him on the wooden floor. She seemed tired, but she refused to give in to the exhaustion that was obviously trying to take over her mind and body. He respected her for that. She had also started to grasp the basics of thought shields. This was startling as well, it usually took a telepath at least a few days to raise even a thin veil of a shield. He had been the first to learn the art of shielding within a matter of hours. This human girl had made her first shield six hours after they started to practice, only one hour more than it had taken him.

"Very well done." He said to her. The startled look in her eyes, even through her exhaustion, showed that she had not been expecting any kind of praise from him. He was actually much more pleased with her progress than he would ever let on. "That is enough for today, you need to rest."

She nodded and began to get up. She wobbled on her feet for a few moments, and he thought that she would fall, but she steadied herself and she looked up at him. He had risen quickly and easily and was moving toward the door. She walked unsteadily to his side, and waited for him to indicate where she should go next.

He looked down at the human female standing beside him, he didn't feel any fear in her from standing so close to him. In fact, he felt that she was happy and seemed to feel safe in his presence. It had been a very long time since anyone had felt safe in his presence, and never a human. Either she is very brave, or very stupid. He decided.

I heard that! Came a slightly sleepy, mostly amused voice.

Instead of replying, he looked down the hall, back the way they had come. He had decided to put her in, what he called, the sunrise room.

He started off down the hall, the girl trailing a few paces behind him. She was so tired that she wasn't really watching where she was going and she caught her foot on the corner of a door jam. She gave a small cry of pain as she fell forward. Out of instinct, Sesshomaru whirled toward the cry and caught the girl before she hit the floor.

When he caught her, Kagome's face connected, once again, with his tail. She pulled away from it almost immediately, and he felt the embarrassment radiating through her at the contact. Obviously she did not know what she had been doing while sleeping earlier. He was happy to know that she felt shame at such and intimate touch, he had come to think that humans did not understand about such things. He remembered a few times when he was younger and humans would think nothing of touching his tail or his ears. That was when his father had let humans have full reign of the castle. He nearly growled at the memories.

But this miko seemed to know exactly what ear and tail touching meant for a youkai, and he was glad that she knew to keep he distance as much as possible, at least while she was awake.

"Ummmm….. Sesshomaru-sama?" He looked at her, realizing that he had been holding her longer than was really necessary. He let go of her, making sure that she was steady on her feet, before he began walking down the hall once again.

She followed him.

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Kagome watched Sesshomaru pass many of the doors, then he stopped in front of one that was, seemingly, just like all the rest. She walked up to him, careful not to touch him in any way. He opened the door and she gasped when she saw the room beyond the door. It was a gorgeous room, done in the colours of a sunrise in the winter. The bed was curtained with a sheer white material that reminded her of clouds. The carpet was a beautiful pale green, and the closet that she could just see was full of beautiful kimonos. Sesshomaru apparently saw her looking at the closet. "There is a spell on the closet that causes anything that you take from it to automatically alter to your frame." He told her.

Kagome turned to tell him that she knew that, when she remembered that there was no reason for her to know that, and therefore Sesshomaru was trying to be helpful. That would seem weird to most people, but Kagome knew that there were parts of Sesshomaru that no one saw, except those that he let inside his armour.

Instead she just smiled. "Arigato, Sesshomaru-sama!" she cried, then she went into the room to look at the bed. Of course, it wasn't a frame bed, but it was a canopy futon of sorts. Much better than the ground.

She turned back toward Sesshomaru. She had a few questions that she wanted to ask him. He didn't look like he was going anywhere at the moment, so she decided this was as good a time as any. "Sesshomaru-sama, why have you been watching me?" She asked. She wished she hadn't asked when his face went colder than she had ever seen it, but then his face thawed a bit, and he answered her.

"My servant, Jaken, had been making a routine check on my hanyou half-brother, Inuyasha, when he saw that you had freed the halfbreed. He reported to me what had happened, and I decided to come and see for myself, I wanted to know what you were that you could break the spell done by the miko Kikyo. A spell that was meant to hold for all eternity. Then I discovered that you had the ability to speak mind-to-mind, and so I stayed to discover more about you." He finished, obviously unwilling to tell her anything more.

"Oh." Was all Kagome could think of in response. Then Sesshomaru turned to go, leaving the rest of her questions unanswered.

He was nearly out her door when he turned to ask a question of his own. "What is your name girl? I would hate to keep calling you woman, or girl."

Kagome was startled at his question. "I-it's Higurashi Kagome." She answered.

He nodded. "Good-night Higurashi-san. We will resume training in the morning.

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Inuyasha sniffed the air around the ancestral home that he and Myouga had come to in search of Sesshomaru, but he wasn't there. "Where are they?" Inuyasha growled to the wind.

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Well, that's it for now! R&R people!!

Reviewer Response:

Seida02: Thanks again for the support! hope you like this one too!

Mrryl: Thanks, glad you like it, no problem about having no time to read, I completely understand!

Inu-fanforever: did I update quick enough? Glad you like the changes!

All right, I'm gone for now, see you next chap! Ja!