Never Forget to be Appreciative (Kansha No Kimochi O Wasurenai Koto)

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha

:OoO:

A hysteric sound broke the silence in the open field. Kagome turned to look at the youkai who had actually cheered on her; it was the angelic face female youkai who had asked for her name before.

"That was amazing!" The youkai yelled at her. Her face was flushed with excitement.

"Fujita! That's enough!" Sesshoumaru warned her.

Kagome turned to her, but the youkai already ran to her and clasped both of her hands in hers. "Where did you learn to fight like that? I've never seen human with such skilled swordsmanship before! You did really great! You didn't give him any chance to attack first or counter your attack."

"Fujita!" Sesshoumaru roared impatiently. He marched towards them and disengaged her hands from Kagome's. Kagome watched silently as he pulled the youkai's hands away from hers, and she found that her hands were now clasped by one of his. She blinked and looked up at Sesshoumaru in question.

Sesshoumaru lifted his brow and then he realized that he was still holding her hands; he let them go slowly, so as not to give the impression he had done it reflexively.

"Come with me." He gestured her to follow him back inside the castle.

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They were once again inside the small room adjacent to the manor; he motioned her to sit down.

Sesshoumaru let out a tiring sigh as he began his speech. "It seemed we have started out our acquaintance in an unpleasant way, and that will no doubt affect the relationship between a soldier and his leader. I will not have you despise me, Kagome."

"You will see that I keep my promise; the position of the foremost rank of the samurai belongs to you. Many had to work and train hard for this position, and I had never dreamed that I would give it to a human someday." He paused; in his eyes flickered something that Kagome could only detect as an ironic amusement.

"However, you are indeed talented; with more training your skill might have over-passed the most skilled swordsman in my army, and that's why I think that you are indeed worthy of the position that I've granted you."

And suddenly in a flash of a moment he was lifting her by her neck.

"But I will not have a retainer who disobeys me. You will never again question me of my family and touch me in an offensive act. Do you understand me, retainer Higurashi?" His voice was harsh and authoritative as he added pressure into her neck.

She choked out her acquiescence. He released his grip immediately and caught her body as she sagged down.

He waited until she calmed down, and when her breath finally steadied to its normal rhythm, he loosened his hold over her a bit. She looked up at him with confusion in her eyes, but his eyes betrayed him nothing now; they returned to its previous indifferent manner. As she tried to step away from him, his hand went around her neck; his clawed fingers were gently massaging the bruises on her neck.

She winced, and Sesshoumaru discovered the break of her skin. He licked the pad of his thumb and gently rubbed the moistened pad against her wound. Strangely his gentle administration did help; she didn't feel the sting anymore.

Kagome shivered; she felt a surge of fear and excitement swirl inside her body. His changing moods puzzled her; first he was cruel and then he was being tender.

Sesshoumaru smiled mentally over her confusion. He could also smell her fear and excitement; he had not expected this blend of feelings from her. He had imagined that she would shrink away from his touch, not to give in to it. But still her compliance excited him, and something dark and perverse crept inside him.

She watched as his eyes darkened and suddenly she felt vulnerable. She wanted to go home. Here with strangers and an unpredictable dictator was not where she longed to be. She slowly disentangled herself from him, bowed and quickly made her escape.

But his hand gripped her wrist; she turned her head and looked at him questioningly. Her expression was slightly contorted, filled with panic.

"You will like Echigo, your new home." He forcefully emphasized his words, printing their meaning into her mind. It was not a welcoming suggestion, it was merely a statement.

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The female youkai, whom Sesshoumaru had called Fujita, had listened to the whole conversation behind the door, and when Sesshoumaru exited the room, she smirked at him as she kept her pace at his side, flippantly touching his arm to stop him.

"Playing with your prey again, Sesshoumaru?" Fujita lightly asked him

Sesshoumaru growled. "Stay out of this, Fujita."

Her smirk was wider than before. With her hand still against his arm, she dropped her gaze and teasingly traced small phantom circles over his arm. "I'm just trying to warn you, Sesshoumaru-sama. I'm very jealous and do not share quite well with other kids."

Sesshoumaru ignored her and continued to walk away from her. He suddenly stopped as he warned out his next words. "And one more thing, you will stay out of her way, Fujita."

"Are you trying to warn me not to manipulate her? But she is so young and pure. Really, Sesshoumaru, can't you ask me to do something less strenuous?"

Sesshoumaru turned to face her. For a moment Fujita caught a flicker of vulnerability passing in his eyes, but as soon as it was there, it was gone in a second. Maybe it was a moment of weakness; maybe it was a warning, but she somehow now understood the significance of the situation. It was as it lay, vulnerable.

:OoOoOoO:

Kagome was finding a hard time adjusting herself to the life in her new home. Demons, which she hadn't expected at all, held great resentment against humans, and they openly demonstrated their antipathy against her in anyway that was possible, and she was getting sick of that.

And this didn't seem to bother Sesshoumaru; she even thought that he might've been encouraging this as well. It was hard to be reserve and polite when she was provoked for about hundred times in a day.

The only friend she had found in the palace was the female youkai, who had suggested that they ignored all formalities and called each other by their given names without titles. Kagome had happily agreed, adding the informal suffix –san to her name as she felt that the youkai was older than her.

She tried to question Fujita her actual position in the palace, but until now the demon had managed to evade answering her elegantly. Not only she was curious, she was also slightly troubled. The intimacy that Fujita seemed to share with Sesshoumaru was actually implicating the only direction she could think of; they were lovers, or so she thought, but then again when she watched carefully she found that Sesshoumaru's manners around the youkai didn't hold the warmth in return to the emotion that Fujita was giving to him, and sometimes she would caught the strayed longing eyes of Fujita directed discreetly to Sesshoumaru as he refused to look her way coldly.

And times such as that made her think that the youkai loved the daimyo unrequited. Even though she was a bit saddened over her friend's dilemma, she also felt a bit relieved; she bit her lip when she realized how despicable that seemed to make her.

She was not supposed to like him. Not after what he had done to her on the night after the fight. Everything about the incident was just wrong and perverse, but her mind seemed to play tricks on her every time she tried to evaluate the event again; her mind seemed to be more forgiving and placatory. It was almost like self-denial; maybe it was because he was the daimyo and she was his retainer that she needed these false blanketing securities that she had built around herself. But the most frightening thought was that she might actually felt attracted to him, that she was enjoying her submission against him and his cruelty against her; just how deep could she sink?

But he hated her; she could feel that. He hated her the way his soldiers hated her. Simply because she was a human; he hated her before he ever had the chance to know her. But when she had saved him back then he hadn't seem to mind that she was human. But the fact that he despised her now, she had to admit, hurt. When she entered the hall, and some of the youkai covered their noses and muttered hatefully about the sudden stench of a human, she always watched his reaction over this. Although he always stared coldly ahead of him, but his eyes held the same contempt over her the way the soldiers expressed theirs through their demeaning actions.

Every night and every morning she scrubbed her skin raw to get rid off the vile stench they said she had. She was probably the only one who occupied the furo twice a day. In the human world she had to be the cleanest person in the country, but to the demons she reeked of dirt.

She wondered what it was that made her stubbornly stay. He had of course kept his promise, but her position was only a title to her name, nothing more and even less than it meant. But she stuck to this future she had chosen and felt how everyday her spirit was crushed little by little.

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Sesshoumaru watched Kagome unnoticeably as she entered the hall dispirited, and the same ritual that his soldiers had taken from the first day of the beginning of her duty began to take place, affronting her.

He would then feel the anger surge inside him over his soldiers' pettiness, in which they had to lie in order to bully her, and then he caught her eyes; the wench was expecting him to do something about it. That was when he came to resent her. She was tearing him apart. One side of him was telling him to liquefy all his soldiers, and the other side of him, the side that had waged many wars side by side with his soldiers, was telling him to stick to their side.

But as the days passed he found that she was no longer expecting him to side her. She had stopped to expect anything at all. He felt as if she was more vulnerable to the cold as she used to be. As she held a strict vegetarian zen diet, she never ate meat, which made her especially susceptible to the cold. Her skin broke more easily than it was used to. And her scent was impeccable; not even demons smelled that clean; it was sanitarily clean to the point of unhealthiness.

His heart was wrenched with guilt as he could think of what reason led to her manic habit of bathing. But then again he quenched down his remorse. What had she expected from demons anyway? She had broken to their boundary to fight with them; therefore she had to have known before of demons' traits, especially the traits of his soldiers. Demons hated humans; it was just as simple as that. She had to have prepared herself before.

It never registered through his mind that Kagome had never known demons before; that those she became acquainted with was hanyous who were in love with her. She only knew the legend of demons from the folktales, description of their power, beauties, warring abilities, faithful and honorable trait as soldiers. Never was mentioned that demons despised humans.

And so he decided against helping her; he was sure that Fujita was enough for her mental support. She would have to make do. But when murmurs began to impregnate the field, he turned and found that she had fainted.

His heart clenched painfully as he made his way to her, and he remembered when he had picked her body from the snow the second time he met her; her health had been almost critical, but aside from that she had looked livelier before than she did now.

He gently carried her inside. His fingers brushed against her cold and clammy cheek; he had almost forgotten that she was a woman after giving his mental problem the name he despised, a human. And now as he held her close to him; her face not far apart from his fixed inspection; he found that he had forgotten how movingly beautiful she was.

:OoOoOoO:

Sesshoumaru refused to budge from her side. No matter how many times Fujita had promised him that she would take good care of Kagome, he silently ignored her and continued to watch Kagome at the side of her bed.

Sometime in a late afternoon he could hear a sudden commotion coming from the manor. He growled in annoyance; had he not strictly commanded his entire retainers to be quiet for the rest of the day?

Before he left the room, he brushed her temple lightly; his gaze seemed reluctant to leave her as he tore it away with effort.

"I demand to see the human girl who had humiliated my brother!" A shout broke through the commotion. Sesshoumaru had to fight the sudden urge to shush the voice, and then he realized to whom the tone belonged to as he inwardly groaned his despair.

Standing in the middle of the manor, holding her katana ready was Chisato hime, the daughter of the daimyo of Kuzo, Murakami Yoshifumi, and her brother was the retainer whom Kagome had defeated in her battle gaining the samurai position.

Sesshoumaru was about to throw the insolent youkai out when a sudden voice caught his ears.

"You wish to see me?"

This time he was annoyed at himself; why had he not sensed her before? She had apparently awakened from her slumber due to the tumult in the manor. But she supposed to go back to sleep; she was in no condition to accept a challenge.

"Human, I challenge you into a fight!" The brown hair youkai princess spun around to face Kagome

"Why? I didn't kill your brother; I didn't even hurt him. If I had humiliated him then it was his own fault that he was incapable." Kagome replied as she stood before her in youthful arrogance.

"How dare you talk to me in such fashion! Do you have any idea who I am?" Chisato unsheathed her katana while Kagome was holding nothing but her wakizashi as she was still inside the castle.

"Chisato!" Sesshoumaru snarled. "How dare you to unsheathe your weapon of war inside my fortress? Are you truly ignorant? Do you understand the consequence of your impudent act?"

The youkai princess immediately dropped her katana. Kagome winced over the careless treatment of the weapon; the girl was certainly not a fighter.

"Sesshoumaru-sama, forgive me for my behavior."

"Chisato, you will leave my castle immediately. You've acted dishonorably against your brother's defeat. This will not go unpunished." Sesshoumaru coldly warned her.

"Yes, Sesshoumaru-sama." Chisato left the castle but not before she threw Kagome the most hateful glare she could muster.

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After the uproar Sesshoumaru went and searched for Kagome, and that was when he spotted her practicing with her sword by herself. The moon illuminated her agile and elegant movement as she slashed her sword through the bamboo pieces tied together to use for practice.

"The sword is meant to cut flesh." Sesshoumaru commented coldly.

"Should I slaughter my own comrade, milord?" Kagome answered him without turning to him. She had detected his presence; a demon would have to use his acute sense of smell to feel the presence of another, but for human it was the training of the eyes, ears and awareness of the aura.

"Why are you not resting inside?"

"I can't sleep." She finally turned to face him. Her face was dark in the shadow but he could feel that her eyes weren't on him; she was gazing past him into the darkness, and her voice was tired and forlorn.

He knew this feeling of solitary all too well. Many nights this torture had kept him awake as well. So he stepped closer to her, offering her his companion. For a moment something caught his eyes; it was the unity of their shadows. He instantly jerked back, turned away, and left her.

That night his old nightmare came back to haunt him, but this time as he felt the maneuver of her wrist against his neck, he understood his placid manner over the incident. He had wished for it.

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Kagome was awakened by the feel of danger; a surge of power pulsed in the immensity of her room. For a moment she was frightened by the sheer strength of the energy, but the power also felt familiar. She pushed down her blanket and reached out for her sword, only then she realized that her nemaki was pushed aside exposing her bare left shoulder.

She covered herself immediately with the thick blanket; her eyes scanning the dark room frantically. There was nothing to be found, but she could still feel the fear, her fear. Her heartbeat pulsated fast as if it was striking its way out of her breast cage. She couldn't stop the sudden shudder that ran over her body.

Suddenly she heard rushed footsteps before her door, and she watched in terror as her door was torn open.

"Fujita-san," Kagome rushed forward and desperately clutched her arm.

"Kagome, what is it? I could smell your fear from my room, Kagome…" she paused; her voice wavered. She seemed to be embarrassed by something. Kagome looked up and found that she was trying hard not to look at her.

"Fujita?" Kagome was puzzled; for a moment she forgot that she was upset.

"Your robe…"

Kagome looked down; her nemaki was hanging open at the side, leaving her left breast nearly exposed. She wrapped the nemaki tighter around her as Fujita tried to control her blushing.

"I'm sorry about that Kagome; I got… distracted." She smiled nervously as Kagome kept looking at her with big exposed eyes. "What's been bothering you? Did you have a nightmare?"

"A ghost," Kagome whispered; her lips were trembling; her skin was pale and cold to the touch. "A ghost follows me here; something terrible is going to happen."

"Kagome," Fujita smiled kindly and patted her arm. "You just have an aftereffect from a nightmare; nothing terrible is going to happen to a sweet girl like you. And I don't think that one could actually predict things that would happen to them in the future."

"But they do happen; because terrible things always happen to me. I have no control over my own karma or the karma of others that I've cared about, and that's why I couldn't save them when they needed me the most. I have let them all down; I was becoming easy and let my guard-"

"Silence!" Fujita gripped her tightly and held her finger before her lips to shush her. Her face was grave as she searched Kagome's gaze. She led her back to the bed and forced her to lie down; when Kagome finally submitted, Fujita's fingers found their way to her hair and started to stroke it comfortingly.

"You were ranting." The youkai explained. "Tell me this, Kagome; you were certainly loved before, weren't you? I'm sure you were, then everything about you was made to be loved, your beauty, gentleness, pride, frailty-" Kagome started, but the youkai held her down. "Yes, your frailty, your mental frailty, your proneness to break seems to bring out the protective feeling out of every man, even the most indifferent and coldest one."

Fujita smiled warmly at her. "You might think that that's a bad karma indeed, to be loved and to be deprived of that love, but one day you will realize that the greatest luck in your life would be to experience those emotions at all. Some of us, especially demons, were given eternity but never to have experienced the essence of life at all. You, in your young years, were gifted with love and the tragedy of its lost. Your existence is probably the most significant from all other creatures, because you are loved."

Fujita continued to stroke her hair even after she found that she was already fallen asleep. The youkai bent her head closer towards her, stopped before Kagome's slightly exposed neck, and inhaled her essence deep; her voice was full of sorrow when she whispered to her longingly. "How could one not be in love with you?"

:end of chapter:

Furo: traditional japanese bad

Nemaki: sleeping robe

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AN: hopefully you like it. Please don't forget to review, thanks a lot!