A/N: So sick, you guys…all I want to do is sleep. Hopefully this will go away soon, and the next installment won't be too long. But if it is, well, it's because I was sick and fell behind schedule, so be warned. Ah, and speaking of schedules….
THE END IS NEAR: We are now at Chpt Fifteen, which means Dead is almost done. Seriously, the end is coming within ten chapters. So there's that. Just so you guys know. The closer to the end we get, the better I will be able to predict the actual end. Okay, I'm going to go die now….
Disclaimer: see Chpts One thru Nine
Words To Know:
No vocab this week that I could find. Yay! (coughs up lung) Oh crap...
Chapter Fifteen: Foolish Redeemer
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Delusional
I believe I can cure it all for you, dear—
Coax or trick or drive or
Drag the demons from you.
"Sleeping Beauty"/ A Perfect Circle
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It happened that Kagome's first full day in Sesshoumaru's shiro started out rather ordinarily—well, "ordinarily" within the contexts of her completely unordinary life, anyway.
She was sound asleep when a rush of cold air had her senses groggily demanding to know just what in the hell was going on, and what jackass was disturbing her rest. The answer to both questions came a moment later when a clawed hand roughly grabbed her shoulder and began to shake her in earnest:
"Wake up you useless wench," Sesshoumaru ordered, voice loud after the silence of sleep.
"Go to hell," Kagome slurred, trying to jerk away from him.
He was having none of that; his hand stayed firmly clamped over her shoulder, and the shaking grew far more jarring.
"Wake up Miko," the demon lord said, voice impatient.
"Not until you go to hell," she snapped back, frowning with her eyes closed.
He then did something new: he grabbed her by the hair and dragged her out of bed, leading Kagome to fall rather gracelessly to the floor with a yelp of pain. The miko's eyes snapped open, bleary at first, but the tugging at her scalp did wonders to clear that up quite quickly.
"What is your problem!" she thundered, her hands beginning to glow.
"I refuse to repeat myself three times," Sesshoumaru snapped back.
"You bastard!" she shrieked and grabbed the wrist holding her hair.
Servants in every corner of the house, and several soldiers around the shiro, stopped what they were doing and listened, stunned, to the sound of the miko yelling at their lord like she had a right to, and—gods above—their lord bellowing back as good he got. Everyone who heard the exchange—complete with the sounds of things crashing—thought it was most the horrific thing to happen at the shiro for some time.
For Kagome and Sesshoumaru, however, it was just a regular day.
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"You are to spend the day learning to manipulate your powers," Sesshoumaru informed Kagome at the breakfast table.
As usual, he hadn't eaten. Instead, he had nursed a cup of tea. Kagome had been fed by Sesshoumaru's staff, many of whom were giving her mixed looks: horror and anger and awe. She was starting to think maybe she was growing a second head.
"What about my kenjutsu?" she asked.
"During the day, the dojo is utilizied by my men. I prefer not to disrupt their practice any more than it already has been for the past eight years. Therefore, your kenjutsu lessons will be moved."
"To?" Kagome prompted, chopsticks poised over her rice.
"After bangohan."
Kagome frowned.
"Fighting on a full stomach?" she asked, wrinkling her nose.
His left eyelid twitched ever so slightly; if she hadn't looked at him just then, she would have missed it. Outwardly, she didn't react. Inside, however, she was dancing with sadistic glee—it served that asshole right for trying to drag her out of her room and to the bath house so early this morning! She didn't think the rather impressive scorch marks on either of his wrists were enough punishment for that abuse.
"You do not find this change acceptable?" he inquired, voice bored. Mild, even.
That really should have tipped her off:
"As a matter of fact, I don't."
"Too bad."
She glared at him, a look he pointedly ignored.
"You are not to disturb me during the day for any reason," he said.
"What if I'm dying?" Kagome inquired.
"Then, of course, I should be immediately informed of such a fortuitous event."
Kagome's glare deepened.
"There's a name for people like you."
"I would advise against uttering it, unless you like the idea of spending eternity separated from your vocal cords."
The miko muttered something unintelligible under her breath that Sesshoumaru decided wasn't worth pursuing; his wrists were still throbbing painfully from their earlier encounter, and he had no desire to repeat the experience any time soon, if he could help it.
"What if I need to find you?" Kagome asked after a moment.
"For?" Sesshoumaru inquired, eyebrow raised.
"For whatever."
"No Miko—there is no 'for whatever'. I refuse to be disturbed unless there is a legitimate reason."
"Okay, fine," she said, enunciating carefully. "Let's say I have a legitimate reason to go and find you—where are you going to be?"
"You may send me a message through Yuki or Jaken."
"Why?" she asked, staring at him as if he'd suddenly turned into his toad-like retainer.
Sesshoumaru sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes closed.
"Because, stupid woman," he said slowly, as if speaking to an idiot (and in his mind, he was), "that is how it is done."
"Are you telling me that I have to send a message to you if I need your help?" she demanded. "What if I'm laying in a hole somewhere, bleeding to death?"
"That, I believe, would be a gift from the gods."
"Insufferable man!" she shouted, tossing her chopsticks to the table.
Sesshoumaru rolled his eyes, picked up the chopsticks and used them to pick up a few grains of rice that had joined the chopsticks in their short, vicious flight across the table. He then expertly flicked the rice at Kagome, who sat, speechless, as he tossed the chopsticks back to her. They skidded to a stop in front of her bowls.
"You should learn some manners, Miko," he said, picking up his tea cup and sipping.
Kagome sat as if rooted to the spot, eyes wide with surprise. Had she imagined it? Or had the taiyoukai Sesshoumaru, Lord of the Western Lands and all-around cold-hearted son of a bitch…flicked rice at her? She moved her gaze to her bangs, and sure enough, there were two little white grains of rice sticking to her hair. Well holy hells—he really had!
Sesshoumaru caught the soft clink of porcelain on wood and glanced over at Kagome. His eyes widened when he saw she had picked up her bowl of rice as if she meant to throw it at him, which he quickly learned was indeed her intent when the mad woman did exactly that. He ducked out of the way and the bowl and its contents flew harmlessly past his head to hit the wall behind him, rice exploding all over the floor and the bowl hitting the wood boards in several sharp pieces with many tinny little porcelain rings. Sesshoumaru looked over his shoulder at the mess, blinked, then turned his incredulous gaze back to Kagome. She was watching him with a dark glare gracing her features.
"What in the seven hells is wrong with you?" he finally demanded when he found his voice; he hadn't been this surprised by anything in a very long time.
"You started it," she immediately returned.
"I didn't fling a bowl at your head, you baka wench!"
Kagome shrugged. "Not my fault you didn't think of it first, Sesshoumaru."
He let out a strangled breath as he fought the urge to leap over the table after her and throttle her. Not only would it have left him without a miko, it wouldn't have been dignified—hell, he would have been acting like her.
"Humans," he muttered. "Such irrational, illogical creatures."
Kagome sent him an ovely saccharine smile that made his teeth ache, and he glared at her and decided that staying as far away from her as possible was a very good thing indeed if he wanted her to live long enough to purify his enemy.
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Kagome spent the day in the garden, Yuki with her, as she meditated and tried to manipulate her power as Sesshoumaru had asked. Or rather, as Sesshoumaru had commanded, since the conceited bastard would have rather choked to death than ask for anything.
But her mind wasn't on what she was supposed to be doing, instead going over and over and over the revelations of last night's weird encounter on the dream plain. Specifically, what Kagome had learned about the demon lord's father.
It was hard to imagine that a demon who had fallen in love with a human woman had raised a son like Sesshoumaru, and Kagome was of the opinion that there was more to the story than what had been revealed so far. There were still pieces missing to the puzzle that was Sesshoumaru. And gods above, was it an exasperating, uncooperative puzzle.
"Yuki-san?" Kagome called, opening her eyes and deciding she needed to take a break from doing nothing.
"Yes Kagome-sama?" the shika youkai immediately responded, coming to stand by her side.
Kagome patted the grass beside her.
"Please join me for a minute."
Yuki sent her a dubious look, and Kagome laughed.
"Don't worry, I'm not gonna use you for practice or anything. I just want to ask you some things."
"Oh," Yuki returned. After a pause, she settled herself down next to Kagome carefully, leaving a good three feet of space between them. "What did you wish to ask me, Kagome-sama?" she politely inquired.
"You said you've been working here a while, right?"
Yuki nodded. "Thirty years, give or take. Among youkai, it's really nothing, but I suppose to a human it seems like a long time."
"A good part of a human's lifetime," Kagome agreed. She paused. "So I guess you wouldn't have known Sesshoumaru's father?"
"Taisho-sama?" Yuki asked. "Oh no, Kagome-sama. Sesshoumaru-sama's honorable father has been dead for nearly three centuries. I was very very young when he died."
Kagome took a moment to gape at the demoness before she remembered she'd been asking about Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha's father; she'd ask Yuki exactly how old she was later.
"So you heard about him?" Kagome asked instead.
"Certainly," Yuki replied. "Taisho-sama was one of the Four Lords. All youkai know of him—there are many who say that he was the most powerful of the Four. There are also many who say…." Yuki trailed off, looking about her uneasily.
Kagome watched her expectantly, wondering what was wrong, before it occurred to her that what Yuki was saying probably wasn't of a complimentary nature toward the fallen lord. She slapped her forehead.
"Stupid me," she muttered. She pursed her lips, then snapped her fingers as an idea struck.
Because she still didn't have complete control over her ki, Kagome had kept her sword with her pretty much at all times. She was afraid that the sword, powered by her unstable energy, might perceive all the youkai walking around Sesshoumaru's shiro as threats, and the young woman was in no way eagar to explain to the demon lord why all his people were little smoking piles of ash.
So, Kagome unsheathed her sword, which began glowing pink. Yuki took one look at the glowing weapon and shot to her feet.
"No, it's okay!" Kagome hurried to explain, "I'm just going to put up a barrier!"
Yuki eyed the sword and the woman suspiciously.
"Please, it's okay, I promise it won't hurt you," Kagome pledged. "Honestly. I just thought you might feel more comfortable saying whatever you were going to say if no one could hear you."
The demoness wasn't completely convinced, but there was something about the human before her that inspired trust. So, against her instincts, Yuki once more settled down beside the miko, who beamed at her.
"Doumo arigatou gozaimasu, Yuki-san," Kagome said, bowing her head. "If you could just move in a little closer?"
Yuki cautiously inched over until she was two feet away from Kagome, who nodded and said,
"Okay, that's good." She sent the demoness a reassuring smile. "I promise, this won't hurt you a bit—I did it to Toutousai-ojii-san, and he was just fine. A little startled, since I didn't warn him, but it didn't hurt him at all."
And so saying, she plunged the blade into the grass before the two of them.
Yuki felt the miko's energy envelope them. It was an odd but not uncomfortable sensation. It was even a little soothing, like a hug from her mother.
"See?" Kagome asked cheerfully, plopping down next to her, still smiling. "Isn't this just the coolest katana on the planet? Well, I guess Tenseiga is pretty cool—bringing people back to life and all," she allowed thoughtfully, "but my katana is like an extention of my ki. I think that's pretty neat, don't you?"
Yuki looked all around her, unable to see the barrier even though she could feel it. She looked at Kagome, green eyes questioning, and Kagome's smile stretched even further.
"I figured out how to make the barrier invisble," she said proudly. "It's different than casting a barrier with an incantation, you know, or using ofuda. Any barrier my katana puts up depends on me and how well I can manipulate it. Since I've gotten so much better at controlling my ki, I can control my katana a lot better now."
"Oh?" Yuki asked.
Kagome nodded.
"I couldn't quite figure out how to at first, but Ojii-san explained to me that since my katana housed a controlled amount of my ki, my making contact with it linked it to me and made it possible for me to manipulate it through the katana," Kagome confided. "The better I get at controlling my ki, the more powerful my katana. At least, that's the way Ojii-san explained it. If I get really proficient, I'll be able to purify hundreds of youkai with one swing."
"How, exactly?" Yuki asked.
"Ojii-san didn't tell me, he said I had to figure it out myself," Kagome said, sounding somewhat disgruntled. "But I'm guessing it's like Inuyasha's Kaze no Kizu, which can take down a hundred youkai with one swing. I just have to get stronger so I can figure out how to draw it out."
"H'm," was all Yuki seemed able to come up with in reply.
Kagome shrugged, then brightened. "I'll have to ask Ojii-san for a hint next time I see him if I haven't figured it out by then. Anyway, enough about my absolutely fabulous katana—back to Taisho-sama. You were saying about how some people said he was the most powerful of the Four Lords?"
Yuki nodded.
"Hai, it was rather widely acknowledged that of the Four, Taisho-sama was the most powerful. His grandfather had died having fully conquered the Western Lands, and his father had made a reputation for being a ruthless and fierce leader. But Taisho-sama, he was something else altogether. He was different from his father and grandfather, both of whom had scoffed at ever joining forces with the other three lords. The other lords, you see, have traditionally been rather…less thoroughly informed, shall we say, with the ruling of their respective domains."
"They didn't know their asses from holes in the ground," Kagome translated, and Yuki sent her a startled look before smiling.
"That's an interesting way of putting things, Kagome-sama," she remarked.
"Oh, according to you lord and master, I'm a very interesting creature all right." Kagome snorted and shot the palace a dark look. "That jerk."
Yuki decided to ignore the last comment since the miko had afforded Sesshoumaru the courtesy of acknowledging his station, however indirectly.
"In any case," she said, getting back to the task at hand, "Taisho-sama came to the conclusion that having allies would better serve his purposes, and it is through his efforts that the Four Lords came together as a true ruling body. He was an excellent statesman, they say."
"I get the feeling he was nothing like Sesshoumaru," Kagome commented.
"Sesshoumaru-sama," Yuki corrected out of habit, even though she knew the miko wasn't going to use the honorific. "And you're right, they are very different. Sesshoumaru-sama…is irritated by the minutiae inherent to politics. My lord prefers to examine the situation and then use the most efficient course of action to produce the desired results, as he deems it, and with minimal input from his advisors, all of whom he inherited from his father and none of whom he likes. Taisho-sama was more accommodating, more apt to listen to his advisers before he made a decision. He was an excellent speaker," the shika added as an after-thought.
"Charismatic, I'd assume."
"Very much so."
"Yeah, that doesn't sound like his son at all—Sesshoumaru's got all the charm of a pit viper." Kagome observed thoughtfully.
Yuki's lips pursed, torn between censuring the miko for her rudeness and laughing at the opinion. The woman really was too immpolite for her own good, even if it was disrespect of an amusing nature.
In the end, the shika decided not to say anything or laugh; the miko wasn't going to change her perception of Sesshoumaru just because Yuki said anything…and it was best not to encourage the woman's disrespect of Yuki's lord and master, no matter how amusing.
"Was he kind?" Kagome asked, thinking back to her only glimpse of the fallen Western Lord after the brothers had defeated Sou'unga, and her impression of him.
Yuki pursed her lips thoughtfully.
"Hai," she said at long last, "though it isn't a trait common to youkai. In fact, it's treated as an affliction."
Kagome tilted her head to one side.
"H'm," she returned absently.
"Taisho-sama was a powerful youkai, Kagome-sama, make no mistake of that," Yuki said. "He simply…well, it was whispered among the other youkai that he had certain traits that weakened him, in the end."
"Like his kindness," Kagome murmured, and Yuki nodded.
"And compassion for humans," the shika said softly.
"A compassion Sesshoumaru didn't inherit," the miko quietly concluded, but she remembered a sunny grin and a lopsided ponytail and a pain that went too deep to describe.
Yuki nodded, and they lapsed into quiet.
"Well," Yuki said at long last, "perhaps you should return to your meditation, Kagome-sama."
"Right," Kagome said, reaching forward and tugging her sword out of the grass. The barrier around the women immediately dissipated, and Kagome sheathed her sword after rising and dusting her hakama off. Yuki rose with her and stood patiently by while Kagome stretched hugely.
The young miko turned to the shika with a smile and bowed lowly to her.
"Doumo arigatou gozaimasu, Yuki-san, for trusting me even though your instincts were probably screaming "Danger." I really can't tell you how much I appreciate that trust."
Yuki smiled at Kagome.
"You're welcome, Kagome-sama," she said quietly.
Kagome returned it and then, with a sigh, settled herself back down to meditate some more. Yuki stood nearby the rest of the afternoon.
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Kagome ate her dinner alone, not that she minded particularly. Sesshoumaru was off somewhere, being himself no doubt—And gods help whoever he's with, Kagome thought to herself—and Yuki was off attending to her other duties. It was the first time all day that she had been more or less by herself, and she had forgotten what that felt like.
After dinner, she left the dining hall and wandered outside and stood on the porch and looked out over the garden, her thoughts wandering to Kohaku. She wondered if she had enough time to visit him before Sesshoumaru appeared to drag her off to the dojo for her kenjutsu lessons, then decided she probably didn't. Today had been relatively quiet between the demon lord and the miko, if only because they had had no contact with each other after that morning's debacle at breakfast, and Kagome thought it would probably be best to try and keep things that way for as long as possible, not that she held out much hope that it would continue for long. It was a little depressing that they could annoy each other so quickly and thoroughly.
The young woman sighed quietly and closed her eyes.
"Kohaku-kun," she murmured sadly. "Sango-chan must be weeping for you." She opened her eyes and looked up at the stars. Tonight, she resolved, if Miroku decided to show up, she was going to ask him about dreaming with Sango. She was sure that her friend would want to know about her brother. Especially since she had never been able to see him again after Sesshoumaru had taken him away from her.
Kagome's brow wrinkled. Why would he do that? What could he have possibly gained from taking Kohaku from his kin? She knew Rin's death had had something to do with it, but what? It seemed like such a useless thing for him to do, which was completely at odds with what Kagome knew about the taiyoukai. He never did anything that wouldn't somehow benefit him in the long run. So where was the benefit in keeping Kohaku, whom he obviously loathed, at his shiro?
"Kagome-sama?" Yuki's voice came from the doorway, and Kagome looked over her shoulder.
"Sesshoumaru-sama requests that you go to the dojo."
Kagome raised an eyebrow at the shika's wording.
"'Requests'?" she asked sardonically. "I didn't know Sesshoumaru had it in him to make requests."
Yuki sent her a censuring look and Kagome sighed and left the subject alone:
"Where's the dojo, Yuki-san?"
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Jaken ended up showing Kagome to the dojo, and the young woman quietly followed the toad to the large building with the low, sloping roof that lay just beyond the garden.
When they arrived, Kagome stepped up onto the porch, then turned to Jaken and bowed.
"Arigatou Jaken-sama," she said politely.
Jaken sent her a cross look and merely turned and walked away. Kagome watched him go with a faintly amused expression.
"Well, not quite what I was going for, but I'm not surprised," she murmured, turning and removing her zori to place them beside Sesshoumaru's boots before stepping into the dojo.
She immediately felt Sesshoumaru's youki, and she followed it to a large practice hall, where she found the demon lord waiting, arms crossed over his chest and a scowl on his face. Kagome pursed her lips as she slipped into the room and slid the shoji shut; he seemed a lot more irritable being in his home, which she thought was a little odd. After all, shouldn't someone be happy in his own home? Then again, Sesshoumaru did seem to be the exception to a lot of rules usually governing normal interactions, so maybe it wasn't quite so odd.
"You're late," he told her, voice cold.
"I wasn't aware that I was supposed to be here at a particular time," she said mildly, folding her hands behind her back.
His eyes narrowed.
"I said after bangohan, woman. And what I say, I mean."
She nodded. "My mistake," she said easily. She inclined her head. "So…you gonna glare at me all night, or are we going to spar?"
In answer, he turned, grabbed two bokken and turned. He threw one at her, which she caught just in time to avoid a very painful and bloody broken nose, then came at her without preamble, and Kagome was barely able to block his attack. Her grip was awkward and she didn't quite deflect the blow, but she managed to get away without any damage to her person.
It went on like that for three hours, no stopping. He never gave her an opportunity to stop defending herself and start attacking him, which Kagome thought was very rude of him but knew better than to say so.
When he finally called a halt to the session, Kagome sat down on the floor, panting, and stared at the floor boards for a moment before slumping forward and laying her forehead against the gleaming wood. She lay like that for what felt like an eternity, before she heard Sesshoumaru sigh in that special, irritated way of his:
"Get up, you stupid bitch."
"Go to hell, you fucking bastard," was her muffled reply.
His rejoiner to that statement was to grab her by the obi and lift her up off the floor, grab the bokken from her hand and then drop her. She hit the floor boards with enough force to make them shake, and with a howl of shocked and furious pain.
"You son of a bitch!" she shouted. "Why did you do that!"
"Because you wouldn't get up," he returned as if that should have been obvious.
"I hate you," she growled under her breath as she got to her feet slowly.
He didn't reply, he simply turned away from the rack where he'd replaced the bokken they'd used and fixed her with a measuring look.
Kagome tilted her head back and stared at him, mentally killing him every way her brain could come up with. She very quickly ran out of original ideas—she wasn't really the blood-thirsty sort—but luckily, she had plenty of fodder from the American cartoons her brother liked so much.
A violent lot, those Americans, she mused as she dropped several Acme anvils on the cartoon Sesshoumaru in her head.
"You've gotten marginally better," he told her, and she rolled her eyes.
"How generous of you," she muttered, and his eyes narrowed.
"Your defense is still pathetic, Miko," he said, voice sharp. "You might try less sarcastic remarks and more application of what I've so graciously been teaching you, not that I'm seeing any reason to continue."
She glared at him.
"Look here you, I've managed to stay alive this long against you," she pointed out.
"Only because I hold back, woman," he returned tightly.
Her glare deepened, and she crossed her arms over her chest.
"I'm not weak," she said stubbornly. "You shouldn't hold back."
He let out a derisive snort.
"You wouldn't last a second against me if I didn't hold back, human," he sneered. "Your kind is far too fragile for the likes of this Sesshoumaru."
"I can hold my own," she snapped. "You never held back before and I'm still here."
"Yes well, you had your precious hanyou to protect you before, didn't you?" he threw back, and Kagome flinched at the venom in his voice. "All I had to do was look at you and he'd jump right in like an imbecile, swinging Tessaiga about like a blunt slab of wood."
Kagome drew in a deep breath and fought down the urge to slap him. That would only lead to pain and blood-shed. She now regretted ever having answered his question about why getting back to Inuyasha had been so important. She wished she could take back everything she'd told him. And she realized, once again, that Fate loved kicking her in the teeth when she was already on her knees.
"Regardless," she said slowly, willing herself to not rise to his baiting, "I can hold my own."
He sent her a cool, dismissive look.
"Keep telling yourself that human."
"My name is not human!" Kagome yelled, tired of his superiority and furious with him for being there. "My name isn't "Woman" or "Stupid woman" or "Miko"! My name is Kagome, goddamn it!"
They stared at each other in silence, his eyes flat and cold, hers flashing and livid.
"I don't care what your name is, Miko—I only care what you can do for me," he said finally, voice quiet but so nasty that she was offended more by it than by what he said.
He turned and began walking for the shoji. He paused halfway there.
"Come along, Miko—I'm sure you'll get lost and I have no desire to spend half the night searching for one incredibly stupid human."
She bristled but did as he bid, pausing long enough to blow out the lamps in the practice hall before following him out. She slid on her zori and he laced his boots up, and then they began for the house, Kagome walking in Sesshoumaru's wake.
She really didn't have any trouble thinking about killing him now, and at that moment, if she'd been given the opportunity, she would have cheerfully taken it and sent him straight to hell without a second thought. The gall of the man, the absolute nerve! For all the times she'd said she hated him, she'd never really meant it until now.
They were walking by the garden when Kagome spotted the cherry blossom trees and stopped. Sesshoumaru, hearing her, paused and glanced over his shoulder.
"Miko…."
"I'm going to sit in the garden for a while," she told him. "Don't worry, I won't get lost in them and keep you up," she added sarcastically, then stepped onto the little stone path and walked toward the trees. The demon lord watched her go, then rolled his eyes and sighed wearily and turned around to follow her—the hell he was going to depend on her horrible sense of direction to guide her.
Kagome made it to the cherry blossom trees and plopped down under them. They looked more like weeping willows than cherry blossoms, but the fact that there were little white flowers still blooming on the branches saved Kagome from mistaking them for the drooping arbors.
The miko breathed in the scent of the blossoms and her eyes slid shut and she sat quietly, feeling all her resentment and anger at Sesshoumaru melt away. Which was probably a good thing too, because she could feel his youki drawing nearer and nearer. A few moments ago, she might have resented his intrusion on her solitude, but there was a peace about the cherry blossoms trees that made her capable of ignoring him.
The demon lord stopped a few feet away from her, hands folded into his kimono sleeves. He watched her for a moment, then turned his gaze up to the sky and watched the waning moon. After a few minutes, Kagome opened her eyes and looked up at the moon through the drooping branches of the cherry blossom tree she was under. Human and demon watched the moon in silence for nearly an hour before Kagome began to feel the chill of night through her robes and stood with a sigh, absently dusting her hakama off. Sesshoumaru's eyes flickered to her, and Kagome met his gaze. He looked eerie in the blue light of the moon, even more unreal and other-worldly than he usually did. Maybe it was the way the moonlight seemed to make him glow. To anyone else, he might have looked beautiful. To Kagome, he looked more alone, more wretched, than any creature deserved to be.
"Arigatou, Sesshoumaru," she said quietly, "for indulging me. I'm ready to go inside now."
They watched each other for several moments, and the the demon lord inclined his head ever so slightly—if Kagome had blinked, she would have missed it—then turned smoothly and began gliding back to the palace. Kagome followed behind him quietly.
She was healing; now, it was his turn.
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They fell into a routine: after dinner, for three hours usually, Sesshoumaru and Kagome sparred in the dojo. Sesshoumaru would call a halt to the match, and then they'd settle into the garden in absolute silence until Kagome rose and told him she was ready to go back in. If it irritated the demon lord to indulge her in this, he did not speak of his annoyance or show it in any manner, and in fact, Kagome began to notice as the nights wore on that Sesshoumaru seemed to enjoy the peace inherent to moon-watching, despite the fact that he had her for company.
She was also allowed use of the bath house upon returning to the palace, a priviledge Kagome quickly learned to love dearly. It was really the only time she was away from the suspicious looks of Sesshoumaru's staff, Yuki's ever-present gaze, and Sesshoumaru's animosity. She usually spent two hours using the bath house every evening after her sessions with Sesshoumaru, sessions that never failed to leave her sore and sweaty. Lucky for Kagome, Yuki had provided her with several hakama and gi to use during the grueling practices, so that her miko robes were spared the constant need for washing, because Sesshoumaru almost never called a halt to the sparring until Kagome was drenched and out of breath and aching all over.
Sesshoumaru still came into her room every morning and awakened her in the same manner he had since their stay at Toutousai's forge, nearly two weeks prior, something that mystified Kagome. He could probably have assigned the duty of awakening the miko to Yuki, thus greatly reducing the amount of contact he had with her, but so far as Kagome could tell, the thought didn't appear to have occurred to him. And oddly enough, Kagome found that on further reflection, she was happy that the taiyoukai hadn't given the duty to the demoness. So much about her life was uncertain now that she was glad for one constant, even if it was something she hated.
She also still ate breakfast with him. Or rather, she ate and he sat at the table with her and nursed a cup of tea. Usually, they sat in silence, and once Kagome had finished eating, they parted ways and didn't see each other again until after dinner, which Kagome almost always ate either alone or with Yuki at her side.
The longer she stayed, the more Kagome began to feel that a large part of the reason gloom and despair seemed to cling to the demon lord was due to the place in which he lived. Or rather, the atmosphere of the place. Sesshoumaru's shiro was, without a doubt, the most depressing place Kagome had ever set foot in, which was a real shame, because it was really a very beautiful example of a fine Japanese castle. Yes, these people were embroiled in a war and that was apt to dampen things considerably, because war was never a cheerful or in any way merry affair (and Kagome knew this, unfortunately, from first-hand experience), but the gloom that hovered over the mountain stronghold was old and well-established, a gloom that had seeped into the the very rock and mortar of the place, a gloom that had attached itself to everything, living and not, and held on ferociously, tenaciously.
The scent of old pain and tragedy and betrayal, the bitter ache of old loss, still held the shiro in its grip, and as the days passed and Kagome became more aware of its enveloping presence, the essence of the poison slowly rotting away the demon lord's soul, she began to realize that, just like the defeat of Sesshoumaru's enemy, the defeat of this less tangible one would not be so easily accomplished.
If she could accomplish it at all, that is.
