Illusions.

"This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted."

- C.S. Lewis


"Hmm," Byakuya fixed the eyeball back into his socket and smiled. They had caught rumors of sightings of the fire-neko youkai in a deep unhabitated forest and Byakuya had been instructed to keep a lookout for them. He had no idea what Naraku wanted to do, but from the look of his face, he guessed that they would strike soon. Byakuya glanced to the side; Kanna was sitting silently at the far corner of the room not moving at all.

"Kanna, I've found them."

The nihility youkai looked up, though she did not turn her face to him. She wondered what Inuyasha's death would be like when Byakuya's words cut off her train of thoughts.

"Not Inuyasha, but Sesshoumaru, and that miko, what's her name? Ah, Kagome. She's with him, and they seemed to be particularly close," Byakuya stretched his arms lazily and scratched his chin, pondering over the oddities of life, such as a taiyoukai hugging a miko.

Kanna could not believe her ears, and her lifeless eyes widened just a fraction. She had personally witnessed Sesshoumaru's death, and it was impossible for him to bring himself back to life with Tenseiga. She did not know of anyone else who was able to wield that life-saving katana, which seemed to obey only its master. And, she thought that he despised humans.

"Omoshiroi ne, he looks pretty injured to me. And blind too," the illusionist-youkai continued on his own, knowing that Kanna seldom spoke nor responded. He regarded her as one of his 'kin', someone who would not kill nor use him, unlike Naraku. And he held respect towards her too, afterall, she was the first and only detachment alive till now, which in itself was an amazing feat. Naraku trusted her with important secrets and information, fully convinced that she would not betray him. Whereas he was being used like a soulless tool for his dirty work, never knowing the details of Naraku's plans, while Kanna remained in the shadows safely with him.

"Ne Kanna, what happened that day when Naraku and you left? I wasn't even allowed to tag alone," Byakuya propped his chin on his right hand and looked at her. Kanna closed her eyes, she was not sure whether Byakuya was on her side or on Naraku's, and she was not prepared to tell him anything, yet.

"We should go take a look and confirm it," her wispy quiet voice was almost drowned in the silence of the room. She needed to investigate into the matter, if what Byakuya said was true. It was simply too strange for the taiyoukai to be reconciled with a ningen, what more when the said human was under Inuyasha's care and protection. Byakuya rolled his eyes at her words; he had expected the evasive reply but was also dismayed that she had diverted the subject. Which meant that it was almost impossible for him to probe further, as always.

He got up and smoothened out his kimono, Kanna was right. There was no need to confirm the matter, but he was curious to what was happening between the taiyoukai and the miko. It was an opportunity for him to gather more information which might perhaps be useful in future.

"If you like. I would like to take a look at the snow too. This winter might not last long from the looks of it."


Kagome raised a hand to shelter her eyes from the glare of the snow under the afternoon sun. She could not help but to curse at her lack of luck, her eyes were swimming from the hurtful glare and it made her head spin. The whole place was blanketed in inches of snow, covering almost every visible landmark and rock. The only thing that she could feel grateful to Kami was that it had stopped snowing, and this lessened the frustration and irritation of brushing the snow off her eyelashes constantly.

Kagome was dying to break the stifling silence as she stared at his soft silver hair. She did not want his mind to remain on the issue of her bad dream and that she had looked towards him for comfort. And to which, he had actually allowed her to lie against his chest. She could feel her face getting uncomfortably hot at the thought of how comfortable his chest felt and rummaged through her mind, trying to come up with something.

"Are you still in pain?" It was not the best thing to say, but probably the most appropriate question to ask since she was on his back again. Sesshoumaru landed on a flattened boulder and lowered his stance a little, lest he lost his footing on the slippery snow. It took him a moment to catch his breath as he replied curtly, "hn."

Kagome did not miss the hint of irritation in his voice and felt worse than before. Sesshoumaru had not killed her, harmed her nor even threatened her, as per to what she had imagined initially. In fact, he had protected her from wild youkai, taken care of her during the night, offered his warmth and comfort, and piggy-backed her around even though he sustained terrible injuries. To top it off, he was blind with one arm, while she was merely running a slight fever.

"Sumimasen," she apologized softly into his ears as he took another leap high up into the air, "I really don't know where we are now."

Sesshoumaru could feel his head throbbing with a mild headache; they were truly lost in the wild woods and mountains. And there was truly nothing he could do since he was effectively a blind man. He lamented to himself for having such an ally like her.

"Kagome, can you see anything familiar at all?" he knelt down and allowed her to disengage herself from his hurting back. The miko turned her head around for a good long while, trying to see as far as she could. But nothing ever familiar or strange stood out. Everything looked the same to her as last night, as if the landscape had never changed at all.

"Strange... everything looks the same as just now. Not even a bird..." Kagome mused to herself out loud and wondered if heavy snow could alter their surroundings that much.

"Not even a bird..." Sesshoumaru straightened his back abruptly and turned his head to her direction. It was true that they had never even heard the early chirping of birds, nor the long screeches made by mountain eagles. It was too silent for him to feel comfortable; it bore into his ears. He concentrated, but yet he could not feel any threatening presence nor youki around them. The silence hung so thickly in the air that he could hear her laboured breathing and the noises that her stuffed nose made.

"Kagome, we are trapped. It's an illusion," his voice was ever calm, despite the headache he was nursing.

"Nani! Illusion?" Kagome freaked out, it had never occurred to her that they could be trapped in the same spot for hours.
"Doshiyoo..?" she could not help but to cover her eyes with the back of her hand and groan out loud at her misfortune.

Sesshoumaru ignored her pitiful groans and tried to spread his senses as far as he could. He smelt something familiar, but the scent was too faint and distant away for him to be sure. "Someone is creating this illusion, he is stalking us."

Kagome shivered a little at his voice, it was unusually low and cold. She tried to recall the words that Shippou had once told her on how to dispel illusions, but no matter how hard she tried, it just would not come to her mind.

"That bastard, Naraku. Does he work alone?" Sesshoumaru gritted his teeth. They were now facing an invisible enemy who was working from behind his own orchestrated illusions. It was indeed a tricky situation, and they could not afford to be less vigilant and alert. Just one wrong step and they would fall into the trap like defenceless prey.

"Iie, he has underlings working for him... chotto matte! One of them is an expert at illusions!" Kagome glanced around nervously. So far Byakuya had not harmed them, but she wondered whether he was the one who had attacked Sesshoumaru.

"Naru hodo, then it would be pointless for us to keep moving on," Sesshoumaru sat down on the snow and thought hard of the possible ways that they could break through this illusion. Kagome chewed on her lower lip hard and squeezed her eyes shut as she dug through her memories, there had to be something that they could do instead of walking around in circles.

Her deep molten irises snapped open and she cried out, "Ah! I remembered! We need to break his concentration!"

Sesshoumaru was jolted out from his own train of thoughts, and arched one eyebrow doubtfully, "and how do you propose we should go about doing it?"

Kagome smiled, "I travel with a kitsune remember? He taught me a few tricks lest I got lost on my own from harmless illusions. Byakuya probably cannot hear what we say since I can't feel his presence at all... Let me try."

Sesshoumaru was wondering what she was going to try when he was almost knocked out by what followed next. Kagome screamed at the top of her voice, as loud as she could, and extended it as long as her breath could hold.

"RINNNNNNNNN! JAAAAKEEEEEEEN! AHHHHHHH-UNNNNNNN!"

He instantly clapped his hand over his right ear but it did not help; he did not have his left arm to cover the other exposed ear-drum. "DAMARU!"

Kagome stopped and glanced to the taiyoukai nervously, her hands still cupped around her mouth. I must have made a fool of myself again, she sighed inwardly and dropped her hands when the corners of his mouth twitched.

"This is not going to break his concentration. Please do not make me a laughing stock"

"NANI! You arrogant son of a bastard! Why don't you try then!" Kagome fumed and crossed her arms angrily.

He let out a breath through his nostrils, suspecting that she was no longer ill if she could scream like that. Without a word, he commanded a string of bright green youki to his fingers and flung the whip across his front, effectively slicing trees and rocks into pieces and creating small snow avalanches. When the whip was retrieved, Kagome gave a strangled yelp and ducked to her side, the sizzling whip had almost touched her hair.

"You BAKA! I was almost hurt!"

"Hn, I am blind for now you know," his retort was instantaneous.

Kagome thought that she would go blind from her anger too. She had never expected this side of Sesshoumaru, to make such sarcastic and taunting remarks to her. He was worse than Inuyasha. The hanyou merely quarreled with her mindlessly, but with Sesshoumaru, Kagome had to think harder and be more careful lest he use her own words to turn the tables on her.

"Then think before you react!" Kagome jabbed her hands to her waist and shouted.

He arched his eyebrow and replied coolly, "I have at least created some damage, as compared to your useless shouting, to which neither Rin nor Jaken, or Ah-Un heard us."

Kagome thought that she was positively blind now, she could see nothing other than fires burning in her eyes. "You are behaving like a spoilt brat! Destroying everything and anything that lies in your way!"

Sesshoumaru flicked his hair gracefully behind his shoulder and replied nonchalantly, "and you are behaving like a pathetic flustered prey."

She wanted nothing more than to pull his big pointy ears, and she did.

Kagome leaned forward and with speed that he did not expect, she grabbed hold of his left earlobe and using all her strength, she tugged his ear down hard. A look of scowl possibly appeared on his face but it had disappeared too fast for Kagome to be sure and the next second, he had flicked his middle finger against her forehead hard, causing her to fall back, with her butt deep in the thick icy snow.

"Itai!" Kagome slapped her right palm against her forehead and scowled. Sesshoumaru caressed his bruised ear-lobe gingerly and glared as best as he could at her. Kagome flinched a bit at his charred eyes and the sharp edges of his sparkling white canine teeth. A sudden idea popped into her head when she was rubbing her bruised and painful forehead gently.

"I got it!" Kagome scrambled to her feet with some difficulty and tucked her hair behind her ears, as she tried to look for a long heavy twig. Sesshoumaru was feeling pissed and irritated, yet at the same time amused by her outburst of fiery temper. That was another side of her that he had witnessed today, albeit not so likable.

"Are you going to scream again?" he bit back the urge to laugh.

Kagome glared at him annoyingly and thrust the long thin branch into his hands, "urusai! Hold this, and when I give the signal, throw this high up into the air."

He arched his eyebrows up, wondering what sort of useless tricks she had up her sleeve again. But he obeyed nevertheless, not wanting to annoy her and getting a little exasperated at their situation. Kagome waited for a while, and when she was sure that he was not going to use the twig to hit her, she wrapped her right hand over the other end and concentrated.

A pink glow emananted from her right palm and began to travel down the twig. When Kagome was sure that she had channeled enough of her ki to the branch, she opened her eyes and shouted, "now!"

Sesshoumaru was snapped out from his trance but he had responded a tad too late. The glow touched his hand and he could feel a slight burning sensation against his palm and fingers. He dropped the twig instantly to which the pink glow vanished into the white snow and took a big step back.

"You are a miko," he frowned as he knelt and pressed his palm onto the snow to soothe the burn. Kagome widened her eyes at his wary tone and realized that he had forgotten about this too.

"Ah gomen ne! Demo I was not trying to hurt you, I just wanted to try another method to see if it will work..." Kagome tried to explain and laughed nervously, hoping that Sesshoumaru would not slice her into two pieces with his youki-whip. It was really awful and lonely to die in such a cold lifeless place, she thought to herself.

The taiyoukai pursed his lips a little, he could not sense deceit in her words and surmised that if she had wanted to hurt him, she would have done so in the beginning. Besides, she is too frank and innocent... He got to his feet and stretched out his hand, "mooichido."

Kagome smiled, and thought that their relationship was less of enemies, and more of friends now. "Hai, be careful!" she handed another long twig to him and repeated her action, silently hoping that this would work. If not, she had no idea whether they would starve or freeze to death first.

"Now!"

Sesshoumaru hurled the twig as high as he could above his head and Kagome squinted her eyes, watching the bright pink twig swooshing up to the white-gray skies.

"Mieta!" Kagome could see soft ripple-like waves from the spot where the twig had touched, as if they were trapped under a big round dome. "Sesshoumaru! I can see it, it's like a big invisible bell-jar over us. We'll have to see how wide it stretches!"

The couple threw several more twigs and found that the edge of the dome was actually marked by a low shrub in front of them. Kagome could not believe that it was right under their nose and they could see nothing. Byakuya is really an illusionist expert...

"Asoko," Kagome wrapped her cold hand over his big one and pulled him to where the shrub was. She knelt beside his right and lugging the heaviest branch that she could handle, she drove the end of it into the shrub and closed her eyes, focusing as hard as she could. Sesshoumaru could feel waves of her purifying energy ebbing out from her and winced a little, he had not known that she had possessed such strong purifying spiritual strength. He was sure that if she was properly trained, she would be a formidable enemy to tackle with, and mentally reassured himself that she was his... "ally."

Then he felt it, an opening, as if the silence was sucked out through it. Faint noises, sounds and scents began to seep into his ears and nose; and he smirked. "Kagome, continue. We are getting through soon."

She could only nod her head and pushed the branch as hard as she could against the resistance that she felt at the end of it. But it was strong, and she could feel it pushing back at her. "Dame yo... it's pushing me back.." she tried to speak between her breathless pants, knowing that her energy would soon be drained off. The next instant, she found herself crushed against his body and her hand wrapped in his clawed one tightly.

"Yame-" her eyes flew open in shock and she wanted to stop him before his palm got burnt by her purifying ki. But before she could finish her sentence, Sesshoumaru cut her off quickly, "damaru. Concentrate before I lose my only arm."

Kagome nodded and with whatever strength she had left, she channeled the rest of her ki to the branch and Sesshoumaru pushed as hard as he could, gritting his teeth from the pain, again hoping that she would be able to command as much of her spiritual ki as she could. With a final push from both, the branch slipped from their hands through the shrub and Kagome could see gigantic concentric translucent ripples first appearing, then dissipating into nothingness. It was not long before a huge mountain came into her shaky-view and a blast of cold air greeted their perspiring faces.

"Yatta!" Kagome turned her face excitedly to Sesshoumaru, who had also happened to turn his face at the same time to her. Their noses brushed against each other and both pairs of eyes widened in shock when their lips touched. Kagome blushed hard as she stared straight at the maroon stripes that adorned his cheek, her exhausted mind slowly registering that their lips were in contact, and that he had no made no move to slice open her throat.

Sesshoumaru in the meanwhile, thought that he had never felt softer and warmer lips before. He could feel the trembling pulse from her cold lips and her fresh-sweet scent made him a little more light-headed than he would care to admit. When she did not move, he relaxed his grip over her hand and pulled her shoulders to his chest a little. Kagome could not believe what was happening and parted her lips in utter shock, pushing her hand against his chest a little. But Sesshoumaru merely let out a soft growl and enveloped her bottom lip in his, reveling in the softness of it, like the petals of a flower...

He could smell and feel her warm breath, and it was deliciously soothing as he closed his eyes. Kagome's mind reeled from shock to surprise, then to horror as she realized that Sesshoumaru was sucking sensually on her bottom lip. Her heart was beating so hard that it drowned out the chirping of birds in her ears. Her legs went weak at her knees and it was as if there were a thousand butterflies swarming around in her belly. He isn't kissing me, is he?

He closed his eyes as he traced his tongue over her lower lip, the sensation was simply intoxicating and he doubted that he ever had such an experience in his memory. He tilted his face to gain more access to his mouth and pulled her closer, wanting to taste more of her lips. Kagome squeezed her eyes shut and froze, not knowing whether her futile struggle would end her life there and then, and at the same time wondering whether he had gone mad. Sesshoumaru could sense her going rigid and laughed out softly, it was obvious to him that she had no such experience in this area and this somehow endeared her to him. Upon the sound of his laughter, her eyes flew open in disbelief and he promptly moved his lips to her cold flushed cheek, giving it a light peck before releasing her from his tight hold.

She slumped onto the snow stupefied, not sure whether what had happened was a dream or another illusion. Sesshoumaru could not help but to smile, and asked again, "are you sure we are only allies?"

"Shiranai..." A thousand and one thoughts raced through her mind as she stared at his smile. It was oddly appealing. And her bottom lip tingled as never before.

His smile widened as he helped her up to her feet, "iku, before the sun sets."


A/N: Im not obesessed with his silver hair, its just something that I have too. Heh. I would also like to think of his current little attraction to Kagome as ... primal. I would also like to mention my thanks and heartfelt gratitude to Rainstorm & LtSonya. They are possibly the most delightful readers an author can get. )

miko - priestess
katana - sword
omoshiroi - interesting
sumimasen - sorry
nani - what
doshiyoo - what should I do?
chotto matte - wait for a while!
naru hodo - I see
damaru - be silent
baka - idiot
itai - pain (it hurts)
urusai - annoying/noisy (indirectly telling you to shut up)
demo - but
mooichido - again
mieta - found it!
asoko - over there
dame yo - it's no good!
yame - stop
yatta - yay! ( I did it)
shiranai - I don't know
iku - let's go.