It is I, Jjah-Jjah! And two days till I get shipped off to college-land... Once I get there I figure I won't be able to write for about a week and a half. I'm trying really hard to make this a double posting for you, but I don't have a lot of time. We'll see how it goes.

Diatos: Thank you! Well known? This story's well known? Oooh! Thanks for thinking so. It would be weird if Inuyasha came back... Probably won't do it though. Then again...

UltaAnimeFangurl2004: I LOVE Kirara! She's one of my fav characters. I know that Yuka is the one with short hair that doesn't wear a hair band...

JSR: Thanks! Actually this is that chapter where you basically see what's wrong with Sess. As for which familiar face we meet next... Muahahaha!

SilverHooves: Thank you! I just couldn't help putting Hojo in there. (teehee)

girltype: Thanks! This chapter is pretty much mostly Sess' perspective, so enjoy!

The Honest Reader: Thanks! I've read waaay too many stories in which Kagome becomes a bitter nasty, un-Kagomeish person... I like her the way she is!

Kariisme: Thank you! You're wonderful and I LOVE that thing you wrote about Sess swimming. It's lovely! :D

DarkAngelB: Thank you, I'm flattered! I'm trying to be original, and I've never read a fic where Kirara survives to modern times, so I thought I'd try it!

SkyBlueSunShine: Thanks for the review! The slivers of green refer to places that are still living and green in a modern industrialized world where there's not as much nature as there was in the Feudal Era.. Whew. That was long winded...

DevilDo1169: Thank you! I do like YYH crossovers, but I have a separate idea for that... Ah well.

urban-angel007: Thanks! As for Kirara surviving... I mean, we know that Kirara was a companion to Midoriko, and in the Feudal Era Midoriko was supposed to have lived a long time ago... So if Kirara hasn't really aged from Midoriko's time to the Feudal Era, it makes sense she would have aged from Feudal Era to modern times... Does that make sense?

DarkRoseBlood: Thank you! I'm really trying to keep Sess in character, but it's gonna get harder...

ponchita: Thank you! Sorry it's a bit slow. It'll pickup in the next few chapters, though.

Mirokou Sempai-Crazy: Thank you! I'm glad you liked that line!

PrecariousPersonata: Wow. Thanks, I'm glad I'm keeping you entertained! Thanks again!

DemonWicca: Thank you! I'm glad you like.

Defafaeth Mechqua, EndlessThyme, Mary773, busoshwe, Comechatcha, Hanyou and her Yami, hibi, soul, Sukera, atashi-wa-Yume, artemis347, Zero-no-uta, Crimson Colored Cloaked Figure, Tsuki Yume, drow goddess, dancing-by-moonlight, Yami Emmy, Culebra: Thank you for reviewing you guys! I realy appreciate it and I hope you like this chapter!

Disclaimer: I have a headache. I don't have Inuyasha...

Chapter Seven: Estuary

It was dark, it was dark, it was so dark...

He could never recall ever being afraid of the dark before. He couldn't recall ever being afraid of anything; the emotion was foreign to him. Yet now, at this very moment, he could think of no other explanation for his reaction. The stone beneath his palms was smooth, worn by centuries of weather, and it was cold... It was almost as if it was made of a solid sheet of ice. The cold soaked through the clothing on his sprawled form, flowing into him more potent than any poison... For a moment he forgot where he was and what was happening and he entertained the idea of simply allowing himself to fall into the abyss and sleep, but then the insidious stinging of the wounds on his right arm brought him back.

He was not alone.

Slowly, he dragged his hands up to the sides of his head and began to push himself up. He missed the stability of the stone. He was shaking... He was actually trembling... That realization alone nearly made the blood stop running in his veins. He had lost. He had really, completely, lost and there was no way to salvage the situation. Now all there was left to do was await death and woe be it, it was a horrendously dishonorable way to die...

Curse them! Curse those wretched betrayers!!

The fog was thick and dampening to the sense of smell, but he could feel what was coming with no problem... It was close; he could hear the hiss of scales against stone. He stared straight ahead and watched without reaction as the huge snake-like silhouette began to take form. The red soulless gleam of insect-like eyes caught and held him. As it drew closer he could see his own reflection in them and was appalled at how helpless he looked. The round gaping maw filled with teeth emitted a haunting screech. Prehensile tongues shot out and raced towards him.
There was a flash in his mind of electric blue eyes. They were laughing; he could hear them; those who would deny him an honorable death...

They were laughing, he was dying, and he was all alone...

Everything worth living for was gone...

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Golden eyes snapped open in an instant and the Taiyoukai inhaled a jagged breath.
In a moment he had shot off the decimated futon he had been sleeping on and was crouching at the foot of it breathing heavily and looking in near disbelief at the perspiration he had wiped off his brow. Why that particular memory? Why now? He placed both hands on the floor, reveling in its stability. Why did these dreams continue to plague him? Slowly, as he concentrated, he regulated his breathing back to normal; the mask slipped back in place. It was actually kind of ironic. He had always kept the mask in order to keep people from reading him, knowing him... But now was it possible that he had somehow blocked his own knowledge of self? Just who was he anyway? He had always spent so much time and effort in keeping others from finding the answer to that question, that he had never asked himself what the answer actually was...

And what now?

He certainly wasn't the same youkai he had been... What had happened?

He stood. That was simple. They had happened. Those three whom he had actually put his trust in. On that night, sixty some-odd years ago, with the fog everywhere...

He shook his head in an attempt to fling the unwelcome thoughts away. He would not be trapped within them again... Not at the moment, at least...

Silently, he treaded down the hallway towards the place he knew his strange, but refreshing hostess would be. He stood in the doorway to the kitchen and watched her. What on earth was she doing anyway?

"Gah!" The aforementioned miko exclaimed. "Where the hell are the rest of the strawberries?!"
The small firecat perched on her shoulder let out an innocent mew.
Kagome looked sharply at the little beast and raised a brow. "Now just what is that supposed to mean?"

Kirara blinked as if she had no idea what was being referred to and then leaned over and licked Kagome's cheek.

"You have strawberry breath!!!" Kagome accused.

"Mew!" Kirara answered.

The miko was silent for a moment and then said, "Well, I guess if you put it that way..."

The two nodded to each other as if in agreement and then went back to what they were originally doing.

"I think some peaches would be nice to add, don't you?"

Sesshoumaru opened up his mouth to answer, but the neko beat him to it...

"Mew!!" Kirara said excitedly.

"Alright then!" Kagome, smiling, went on to peel and slice up a few peaches. Once she was finished, she put them into the blender he had failed to notice before along with some ice, juice, and other previously prepared fruits. She put the top on and pressed the button. Instantly the room was filled with the nearly deafening sound of the motor and the smell of burning plastic. Sesshoumaru growled slightly in distaste and left the room, heading outside, unaware of the ruby-like gaze following him.

Slipping on his sandals, the fallen lord stood still for a moment, considering his situation. He could hardly believe he felt as concerned as he did over what had happened only a moment ago. He had become used to being the only person that Kagome talked to and spent time with. Now, she suddenly had another... One who was much closer to her than he.

But why? He wondered, as his feet began moving of their own volition. What was it about this human that she seemed to shun the company of her own species in favor of his? She had friends, this she knew from their unorthodox appearance, but she did not seem to be that close to them. What was it that made her feel the need to forsake all others in favor of the hidden world he lived in? He did not understand...

And even as the thought blossomed in his mind he found himself at the Goshinboku staring up into its hoary branches.

He stood and as he looked at it, awareness of the world around him seemed to melt away. Only he, the tree, and the wind, forever swirling misplaced greenery still existed. The wind seemed to tug at him like a child trying to gain attention. It pulled and skipped and lifted his hair so that it silently danced around his still form. If only time could be turned back... But it could not and he was the proof. He would have died a thousand times to change the past... But he had not and there was no reason why. He could think of no reason why he had waited so long, leading all to believe that he was dead. He was good as dead, but that was not the point. The point was a very simple question...

Why was he still hiding?

And that brought a bitter smile to his lips.

The inu youkai slowly looked down at his left hand, the newer of the two. He examined, detached, his claws, which had steadily grown back and then traced the path of the two stripes that coiled around his wrist. He had once had such confidence in his hands, such arrogance... He looked back on it now and felt sick, nearly nauseous. He had always implicitly known that he would eventually succeed in all his endeavors. That was all there was to it; there was no other option. And yet...

He remembered a trick he had seen once in an old movie a long time ago. That had been back when movies were just starting to be made with sound. It had been a comedy and when the actor had found himself in need of a cloth, he had simply ripped it off a set table, doing it so rapidly that none of the dishes were disturbed. A few moments later the actor's companion had tried to mimic the trick and all the dishes on the table flew everywhere and shattered.
What an analogy... He had had the ground ripped right out from under him. He had thought himself invincible all the while unknowing of the depth of the tides against him. Kagome. Kagome had told him that he would eventually get his lands back; that he would always be Lord Sesshoumaru.

She did not understand.

He was hiding; this he had come to accept. And eventually he would have to face them again.

Also, he had come to accept this... But the one thing that he had accepted from the very beginning was that when he did finally face them, he would not live to tell about it...

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"Who wants a smoothie??!!" Kagome yelled.

"Purrr!" Answered Kirara.

Kagome smiled at her friend and poured a small amount of the mixture into a saucer and placed it on the counter. The firecat immediately abandoned her shoulder and buried her face in the treat. Kagome chuckled softly and divided the rest into two glasses. Today was a record high; it was boiling hot. Hopefully Sesshoumaru could appreciate a smoothie without too much fuss.
Something had been off with him for the past few days. She had first started to notice it right after she had bought him all those clothes that it didn't look like he was ever going to wear, but it had only begun to concern her after she had been reunited with Kirara. He was much quieter... Not that he wasn't normally quiet, but now it was different kind of quiet. Before, his silence had been...full. There was meaning in it, enigmatic, menacing, icy, suppressing, raging, tranquil, and predatory. It was easy to see that there was something going on beneath that mask of his. But now... Now, it seemed that there was nothing there; just a gaping maw of nothingness not unlike Miroku's air void. What had happened in so short a time to make him change?

Or had he always been so?

No. He had been different back in the Feudal Era. Different even than when she had first found him. He had had an aura of confidence back then that was now completely gone.
She froze at that revelation... It was plain common sense to assume that Sesshoumaru wouldn't come out of being defeated and usurped mentally unscathed. Something like that has to do something nasty to your self-image, but... The Taiyoukai had always seemed so untouchable, so immune to pain. It seemed impossible that he could be hurting because of anything.
'And yet you saw him..' Her mind whispered insidiously, 'You saw him when he first fell out of that alley, pale and sick and starving, wounded as he was... Can you really look at him, remembering what shape he was in then, and tell yourself that nothing is wrong?'

Kagome shook her head in spite of herself. Something was most definitely wrong. She had thought that when she first laid eyes on him and since then she had allowed the conviction to fade, yet now in light of his behavior it was becoming all the more obvious.

It was not just the situation, as she had first assumed. Originally she had been swayed by the oddness of the situation, Sesshoumaru poor and homeless, and had not thought about how he had changed as a person. But apparently it was something she should have paid attention to. There were so many hints that now seemed so obvious she felt like kicking herself. Hard.
There was something missing.

She had noticed that before. In those times that he stared at her as if trying to figure her out, there was a vacancy in his eyes. The eyes of the Taiyoukai of the Western Lands of the Feudal Era looked the same as the eyes of this Sesshoumaru, yet they were different. For a moment a memory played out like a vision in her mind. She saw one of Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru's many notorious fights and for once she paid attention to the movements of the elder brother. The fire, the ice... He was amazing, if only in her memory. And there was something there that her Sesshoumaru did not possess...

A purpose to his movements; a reason. He had fought for a reason, to regain the Tetsusuiga, to defend his honor, to take back what he considered rightly his. And now he didn't have a reason anymore. Absently, Kagome noticed how her fingers were going numb from holding the cold glass for so long. Whatever that meant for Sesshoumaru, it couldn't be good.
Kirara, finished with her smoothie, sat and looked at the miko from her position on the counter. Something was going down and by golly; she was going to find out what it was... After all, wasn't curiosity supposed to be some sort of cat-like trait? Yes, yes indeed. Curiosity, next to consumption of catnip, was the most cat-like attribute one could have. She would just see what was going on between her friend and former enemy...

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"Sesshoumaru."

The silence was broken, his thoughts were shattered, and the wind that had been tossing his hair about abruptly ceased. He turned and looked at the miko as she stood there holding two glasses.

"What?" He asked coldly. He was not in the mood to speak with her.

Kagome raised an eyebrow at his tone. "I just made some smoothies and thought you might like one. Please excuse me if I've committed some horrible crime!"

The youkai gave a delicate snort and turned his back on the miko.

Kagome took in a deep breath and then released it. "What happened?" She said, barely audible. Sesshoumaru turned back around and looked at her again.

"I believe we have had this discussion."

"Yes. We have. Now I want to know more."

The former lord sighed. "There is nothing more..."

"I don't believe you."

"That's your prerogative." He walked over to the Goshinboku and sat at its base, leaning back against the trunk.

Kagome looked at him. Really looked at him. He was slumped back against the tree as if he had no backbone. One of his legs was drawn up against him and his left hand rested limply on his knee. His hair was gleaming and white and made him look deathly pale in the old tree's shade. His head was tilted slightly and he watched her, still as a china doll, out from under drooping crimson lids. His bangs moved lightly in some soft breeze calling attention to that blue crescent moon on his forehead. He looked exhausted. So tired that he might not ever move again.

"Fine then." Kagome said, as she walked over and plopped down beside him. "We'll just have to see, but you know talking about things helps..."

Sesshoumaru said nothing and merely continued staring straight ahead. Kagome started sipping on her smoothie, setting the other by the youkai, though she guessed he wouldn't drink it.

"Something's wrong." She finally said.

"Is there?" He barely seemed to be paying attention.

She looked at him, concern in her eyes. "Yes, I've noticed it from the moment I first saw you. There's something wrong inside of you Sesshoumaru."

The fallen youkai turned his head, acknowledging her for the first time. There was nothing in his eyes...

"That would be the most correct assumption you have made during our time together." He blinked and then looked away.

Kagome stared at him feeling all together helpless.

What could she do?

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Alright. I probably won't get the next chapter anytime soon.. Oh well. Wait for me everybody!!!! R&R!

Tata, JJ