Don't Get Close
An Old Acquaintance
After driving in silence for about twenty minutes, Sesshomaru suddenly spoke. "Tomorrow, at school, attempt to keep yourself under complete control. We have no way of knowing how much of my power you now possess,and if you are even a have even a quarter of the power I wield, it would spell certain death for everybody around you."
Kagome nodded in understanding, but his words annoyed her slightly. Without stopping to think, she called him on the issue. "You know, everybody says you're so powerful, and you certainly don't deny it, but you've never really exhibited much power." He didn't even glance at her before responding.
"You'll soon see. The only way to test your true power is for you to be truly endangered." He let his words hang out in the air, open for interpretation. Kagome immediately knew that her upcoming training wouldn't be easy.
Sighing in resignation, she leaned back in her seat and remained silent for the rest of the ride. Luckily, it didn't take long. After another five minutes, Sesshomaru turned the car off of the road, onto a long driveway.
As Kagome looked out the window, the passed a large front lawn, littered with large trees. At the end of the driveway was a mansion, easily as large as Inuyasha's house. As she was taking in the sight of the house, Sesshomaru stopped the car in front of a large garage and quickly got out, closely followed by Kagome.
As she followed him to the front door, Kagome looked up at the mansion. It was immensely tall, with many windows. Caught up in her studying, she only realized that Sesshomaru had halted when she ran into his back.
After a mumbled apology, to which there was no reply, Kagome resumed following Sesshomaru through the front door and into the house. The door opened up into a large room, with many doors branching off on both sides, and a large staircase on the wall opposite to the door.
Sesshomaru continued on, straight up the stairs, with Kagome following closely behind him. At the top of the stairs was a hallway, with more doors leading off into more rooms. All the doors were closed, preventing Kagome from seeing what was in each room.
Finally, after a lengthy walk, Sesshomaru came to a stop in front of a closed door. Motioning with his arm, he indicated that she should enter the room. After a moment of slight hesitation, she slowly turned the doorknob and entered the room, followed closely Sesshomaru.
Upon entering the room, the first thing Kagome noticed was a large closet full of clothes. When she turned to Sesshomaru with a questioning look in her eyes, he was silent for a minute, before responding with a simple explanation.
"For your training, you might find some of these clothes more suitable. When I first had this house built, my father insisted that I get someone plan out each room decor. Unfortunately, the person I hired was under the impression that I had a girlfriend, and he designed a room specifically for female clothing. You might as well use it." With that said, he fell silent again, allowing Kagome time to look around the room. After a few moments, he spoke again.
"We will begin your training in two hours. First, you must eat. The process of testing your power for the first will be immensely draining for you, and you will need to have a lot of energy. I will return for you in thirty minutes." With that, he turned and exited the room, closing the door behind him.
Kagome was left staring at all of the different clothes that were just sitting there, as if waiting to be tried on by her. Smiling happily to herself, she went about looking for suitable attire with a passion.
After trying on more than a few outfits, she finally settled on some black nylon-like material pants that allowed for a lot of movement, and black t-shirt that fit her perfectly. With that settled, she turned and started walking towards the door, intending to go and find Sesshomaru.
However, before she even made it halfway across the room, the door was suddenly opened from the outside, and Sesshomaru calmly strolled into the room. His eyes appraised Kagome's new clothing and after a minute, he nodded in approval.
"Follow me. You can eat before we begin." Turning, he exited the room once again, and Kagome followed him silently. He led her down the stairs, back into the main room. Turning to the left, he led her over to the left side of the room and through a set of double doors that housed the largest kitchen Kagome had ever seen
Once they were both in the kitchen, Sesshomaru pointed to a large table that had a large metal bowl sitting on it. Curious as to what she would be eating, she cautiously peered into the bowl. After seeing it's contents, her eues widened and she drew back to look at Sesshomaru incredulously.
"That's raw meat. It still has blood in it." He merely nodded. Seeing her horrified expression, he smirked slightly. He had been about to warn her as to what she would be eating, but after seeing her amusing reaction, he was glad that he hadn't.
"We Inuyoukai eat raw meat. Although it may seem disgusting to you now, soon your instincts will overwhelm you and you will eat it, regardless of how little you want it." Still quite disgusted at the thought of consuming raw, bloody meat, Kagome sighed heavily. Silently, she resolved herself to eating it, knowing that Sesshomaru was right and she would end up eating it anyways.
Noticing her continued reluctance to touch the meat, Sesshomaru attempted to alleviate her worries. "After your training is complete, you will not need to eat very often. Youkai have a much slower metabolism than humans. We do not need to eat as much. I, for example, have not eaten in nearly three months." At this, Kagome's head shot up and she levelled a disbelieving gaze at the demon.
"What? Aren't you hungry? Maybe you should eat this meat." Sesshomaru smirked again at her weak attempt to avoid eating.
"I do not need to eat very often. I am not hungry. Besides, if I was hungry, I would have my own food to consume. I would not need yours." He pointed this out as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, making her feel foolish for her pathetic attempt to pawn off her food on him.
With a grimace, she picked up a spoon and dug into the bowl. When she put the meat in her mouth, she attempted to swallow it quickly, hoping to avoid prolonged contact with her taste buds. However, she could only swallow so much before she gagged.
At that moment, however, she finally tasted the food, and came to the quick realization that it wasn't that bad. In fact, she liked the taste. The only unpleasant part was the feeling of warm blood trickling down her throat. With that resolved, she started eating quickly, wanting to start her training as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, Sesshomaru looked on with growing amusement as he watched her try to force the food down, then her expression change as she realized that it wasn't as horrible as she thought. Now, he watched silently as she wolfed down the meat. He knew that she was curious to see exactly what she could do.
Less than a minute later, Kagome sat back and looked up at Sesshomaru, waiting for him to lead her to the training place. He stared back at her silently for a moment, and she began to grow uncomfortable. Just as she was about to ask what he was staring at, he brought his hand up and brushed it along her chin.
At first, she was confused, and pulled away, looking at him in confusion. When he saw her expression, he smirked and held up his hand, revealing the excess blood he had just wiped off of her face.
Kagome immediately blushed, cursing herself for jumping to conclusions. As soon as he had touched her, her head had became filled with inappropriate thoughts about her and him. She only now realized just how good-looking he was up close.
Now, she was really embarrassed, knowing that he had only been wiping leftover blood from her food off of her face. Still blushing, embarrassed even more by his knowing smirk, she quickly got up from the table and walked out of the kitchen, back into the main room.
Sesshomaru left the kitchen as well and walked right by her, indicating for her to follow him. Together, they walked out the door, into the front yard. However, Sesshomaru didn't stop there. Instead, he led Kagome around the side of the house, and towards the backyard.
Once there, Kagome's jaw dropped. The backyard was completely enclosed by trees, and in the middle of the yard was another building, equally as large as Sesshomaru's house.
Walking over to it, Sesshomaru pulled open the huge door and the two demons entered. Kagome looked around with curiosity. Inside was completely empty, except that all four walls were covered with every type of weapon imaginable. Going over to the wall, she studied some swords with interest, eventually reaching out to touch one. However, she was unable to touch the sword. About an inch away from it, her hand just came to a dead stop.
Sesshomaru smirked once again and started to explain. "There is a barrier on the walls. It serves twp purposes. It protects them from thieves, and it protects them damage I'm training." Kagome nodded in understanding. Then, Sesshomaru spoke again.
"After, I can train you in the use of a weapon, if you want. However, for now, I will just teach you to use you natural abilities." Once again, Kagome nodded her understanding. Sesshomaru stared at her silently for another moment before turning and walking towards the middle of the room.
"Judging by your elimination of the wolf, Kouga, you obviously already know how to summon your poison to your claws." Kagome nodded at this and held up her clawed hand. After a few seconds concentration, her hand glowed green and an acidic substance started dripping from her claws. Sesshomaru nodded his approval.
"Another available weapon is a whip. It is an extension of your demonic aura that you can call on to slice through most things. It will grow longer or shorter depending on what your are using it for. You can direct it through two fingers, from either hand. To call it forth, hold your index and middle finger together and focus your aura. Force it out of your fingers. Try now."
Holding out her hand in front of her, Kagome pressed her two fingers together and focussed. After a moment, she could feel her own demon aura pulsing inside of her entire body. Focussing her mind, she started to force a piece of it through her arm, into her hand, and out of her fingers. To her immense delight, her fingers started to glow, and a thin, blue whip materialised in front of her.
Withdrawing it back into her body, Kagome tried again, and was delighted once again when it reappeared in mere seconds this time. Smiling widely, she looked up to see Sesshomaru's reaction to her success. His unreadable mask kept his thoughts hidden from her, but Kagome instinctively knew that he was actually surprised.
At first, she wondered how she knew that, but after a moment, she remembered the bond they shared. He had said that they would be able to feel each other's emotions. Suddenly, he spoke, disturbing her from her train of thought.
"I'm surprised. It normally takes demons weeks of training to be able to fully utilize their abilities, yet you have already mastered two in virtually no time." He fell silent again, apparently pondering her. After a minute of silence, he spoke again.
"Another ability you can call on is a cloud of demonic energy. Once summoned, you can carry yourself and anybody with you through the air. The amount of weight that can be carried varies on the power of the demon. To summon this, you gather your aura around your feet until it solidifies. Then, you can force it to carry you in which ever direction you desire."
Concentrating once again, Kagome gathered her demonic aura around her and did as Sesshomaru directed. After a few moments, Kagome looked down, only to see her feet completely surrounded by a light blue cloud-like thing. Concentrating again, she commanded it to rise, and it did, carrying her upwards, towards the roof. After havering a few feet off of the ground for a few moments, she commanded it to go back down, and it disappeared as soon as she contected the ground.
Once again, she could feel surprise from Sesshomaru. This caused her to smile widely. For some reason, it pleased her greatly to be so puzzling to the powerful demon. Her thoughts were disturbed once again by Sesshomaru speaking.
"Another ability you can call upon is a sphere of transportation. This is normally only used when you are too injured to do anything else. All you have to do is picture a place in your head and concentrate on going there. You will be encased in a glowing sphere, which will fly you to your intended destination. This works well if your injured, because it requires very little effort and it is quick. However, you can use it whenever you wish. Try it."
Closing her eyes, Kagome pictured the front yard of Sesshomaru's house and concentrated hard on going there. At first, she couldn't feel if it was working or not, so she opened to her. To her amazement, all she could see was a bright blue light. An instant later, the light disappeared, leaving her standing in the front yard, right beside Sesshomaru's car.
Smiling in triumph, she concentrated on returning to the dojo, and an instant later, she was once again standing beside Sesshomaru. He looked down at her for a moment, before backing away and speaking again.
"The final, and most physically draining ability is creating and sustaining a barrier. To do this, focus your demonic aura around you. It will repel physical and spiritual attack. A powerful demon or miko could break through it, but it depends on the power of the creator of the barrier. The hard part is actually keeping the barrier up. You must not be distracted or else you will drop the barrier. Only a handful of demons can keep a barrier up at all times. It takes immense concentration and power to live a normal life and keep up a barrier at the same time. I know of only three demons who can do it."
Kagome looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to reveal who could do it. He was silent for a moment before answering her unspoken question.
"I can do it, my father can do it, and another demon, Naraku." He fell silent again after that, prompting Kagome to ask her own questions.
"Who is Naraku? I've never heard of him before." Sesshomaru remained silent. Looking at him closely, Kagome could tell he was pondering something. Finally, however, he spoke.
"Naraku is a powerful demon. We have encountered each other in the past. He's not evil, but he desires power above all else. He had run afoul of some powerful demons from America and he came to me for assistance. Together, we destroyed his enemies, but he remains a hunted creature. Every once in a while, he comes to me, asking for help in remaining hidden. He continues to grow in power, and eventually, he will overcome his enemies. Then, he will claim lordship over them. On that day, he has sworn an alliance with me."
Kagome spoke up at that point. "Why would he form an alliance with you?" Sesshomaru smirked at that.
"Think about it. The two most powerful demons alive, forming an official alliance. There would be none to stand against us. He wishes for nothing less than complete control over all. He knows that regardless of our past, I would not allow him to take over my lands. If we form an alliance, he will rule his lands, and still have some influence over the rest. I have agreed to this. Now, we help each other if we have any problems, and he waits for the day to rise up and take what he believes to be rightfully his."
Kagome listened to this story with amazement. From what she could tell, this Naraku character seemed to be powerhungry and quite ruthless. However, she figured that when you were as powerful as Sesshomaru, you tended to attract people who want power.
She was disturbed once again when Sesshomaru started to speak. "Unless I am much mistaken, Naraku will turn up again very soon. For the last two years, around the same time each year, the Americans who are after him seem to suddenly get very close to getting him. At that time, he shows up at my house, and we deal with his pursuers. It is usually around this time of year." Suddenly, Sesshomaru's head shot up.
"Right you are, Sesshomaru. And once again, they have almost caught me. However, I believe that this year, it will end. We will destroy them once and for all."
Turning around, Kagome was greeted by the sight of a demon, tall, with long black hair and red eyes, framed by the doorway. From his odd greeting, Kagome deduced this new arrival to be the power-hungry Naraku.
Glancing out of the corner of her eye at Sesshomaru, Kagome was startled to seesmile on his normally blank face. Then, he spoke.
"When will they be here?"
"Next week. I have left an obvious trail to this city. They will find me, and we will kill them all. Then, we will go to America and I will conquer what is rightfully mine."
Looking back and forth from the smiling face of Sesshomaru, to the look of longing and bloodthirstiness on Naraku's face, Kagome shuddered involuntarily. Silently, she wondered exactly what kind of demons she was getting involved with.
In this story, Naraku isn't evil, he just wants power and will do whatever it takes to get it. Also, although Sesshomaru had no friends, Naraku was about the closest anybody ever came.
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