A.N Hmm, not many people remarked on Sesshoumaru's declaration, even if it were only to himself. It leads me to assume I timed it about right, so the self acknowledgment was neither too early nor too late.
Speaking about lateness, I think I shall stop apologizing about the tardiness of my chapters, since it gets a little repetitive after a while. And since I'm consistent in my lateness, wouldn't I also be on time? Hmm, something to think about.
Ah well, on with the show!
Kagome Hurt: Chapter 17
The next two weeks were trying on those close to rapidly chilling miko. At first, Sesshoumaru expected the ningen to collapse on herself in her grief like any other woman would in the same situation.
He was both surprised and curiously disquieted by the fact that she did neither of the above. Kagome took to wearing her icy calm expression and mentality to mask her roiling emotions inside.
Marisa and Asoiharu were taken aback at this abrupt change in their warm-hearted friend, and after the first week of constant worry, the new friends took to plotting ways of dragging their mutual friend out of her shell.
Only Rin was allowed admittance beyond Kagome's suddenly stilled world, and could bring back a faint resemblance of her previous nee-chan and somewhat kaa-san every once in a while.
During Rin's continued education, Kagome would unbend enough to finally laugh. If not the whole-hearted one from before, it was still more than the silence that rang when in her presence. Rin responded and subconsciously encouraged the miko's lightening up by doing very well in her lessons.
The child learned a good chunk of primary school lessons in those short weeks, so that she now could do simple arithmetic, sound out words and recognize quite a lot of kanji.
The only problem was that as soon as Kagome walked out of the schoolrooms, she would revert to her present facade.
While her mental behavior disturbed her circle of friends, Sesshoumaru and Hitori could not complain on several of the results this period of calm wrought on the miko. Her concentration levels soared in her lessons, and soon the aging teacher had to do more dodging and blocking than was comfortable.
Sesshoumaru also made it a point to include the raven tressed girl's presence during the Demon Court parties, meetings, etc. Apparently, she had found a place there as something of a hostess, which took quite a load off the Western Lord's mind. All of the little but important details were taken care of, and all he had to do was give tacit approval. Several of the noble youkai found that many of their issues or details could be handled easier if they were polite to the human and went to her for resolving. Asoiharu's family greatly benefitted from his connection as a friend, and others of the nobility saw this and acted accordingly.
Marissa eventually had the rest of the servants approach the miko when decisions had to be made, and Kagome rose to the occasion with solutions that were simple, elegant, and very effective. When she suggested alternate ways of running tasks, they would be attempted, and if they worked, then implemented. More changes occurred during that time than were rejected. As the solutions she suggested were pulled from her experiences in the future, Kagome told none of how she came to think of them. No one would truly believe her if she did, and she risked her seemingly precarious position if the nobles thought that their liaison became unstable.
No one asked either.
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Kagome's mind was thinly divided into two parts after Inuyasha's devastating declaration.
The main one that others saw was calm, cool unto icy fridgidness, and completely focused on what had to be done. The other part, underneath this protective shell, was awhirl with conflicting emotions, doubts, and rages.
However, as the first month of the Demon court drew to a close, the whirling slowed as the ningen thought things through.
Summed up, her conclusions are as follows: She has been left by her first love, and her so called friends have left her to Sesshoumaru's grasp. But then, maybe things weren't so bad. Maybe things are better here, at the castle. She has a place here, helping Rin, and finding her place in the castle's running. Even Sesshoumaru has been kind in his own way.
The Western Lord respects her skills, if not her humanity, and he hasn't thrown her over for an already dead ex.
In an effort to foster the demon lord's goodwill - er, tolerance, Kagome decided to explore a bit more of the palace and get some of the hidden wings and rooms back into working order.
It was her belief that the reason why the castle 'eats' so many guests is because parts of it were so neglected that they become hazards even to demons.
To this extent, we find our calmly determined miko wandering a dark hall with a torch in one hand, and the other trailing along a wall, searching for discrepancies that would indicate a door. Several times before such a manner had netted her entrance to secret passageways or hidden rooms, all filled with dust and other nasty remains from past digested guests.
The icy demon lord had felt a brush of some odd warm emotion when during one of Kagome's excursions, she had asked him to accompany her. Of course he squashed the feeling, but he did deign to walk with her. Nothing was really spoken, but then, nothing had to be said.
That beginning stroll spawned a hidden need in the Taiyoukai. Lately the similarly reserved figure found an urge to absorb some minute portion of the miko's presence and time each day.
That evening was one of the increasingly rarer strolls where she was unaccompanied. A silken handkerchief was tied across her lower face to protect her nose from the prevalent dust that could be found in the nether portions of the castle, and her clothes were a derivative of her exercise kimonos. Made of lesser quality cloth than those battle garments, they still shamed the mass produced clothes found in her century, as these too were silks and gorgeously patterned cottons.
Her trailing hand was gloved with a thin leather, as previous experience taught her that in these neglected corridors, an unguarded hand would pick up splinters from the walls quicker than pissing off a youkai would get one killed.
It was through these thin gloves that Kagome's fingers caught on a latch, at waist height, which was not visible to her human eyes in the torchlight. Bringing her light source closer, she was barely able to make out the outline of a door.
The miko extended her rapidly developing aural senses outward to detect any onlookers, and when she found none, tripped the catch to open a panel in the wall.
What opened in the wainscotting was a dark passageway draped in ethereal silk spiderwebs wafting gently in a draft as the path depressurized.
A faint floral scent met Kagome's nose embedded in the musty breeze.
Intrigued, she stepped forward with her gloved hand in front to ward off the webs. Turning to look back at the corridor she just left, Kagome got a faint niggling sense that she might be forgetting something.
With her eyes still on the open doorway, her suspicion was confirmed as the panel began swinging closed behind her as its counterweight lowered after its mechanized timer expired. Kagome swiftly interposed her foot in the door with halted the closing process abruptly. Only a slight pressure hindered her foot, and Kagome was smart enough to not let all her escape routes be closed before she found another.
Her solution to the automatically closing door was to leave her slipper propping it open. And since she absolutely refused to walk around a darkened hidden passage with no protection on her foot, she stepped out of her outer kimono and ripped a hands width strip of cloth from the hem and wrapped it around her exposed foot and toes. She wriggled them a time or two to make sure her circulation was not cut off before declaring herself fit to explore again.
Kagome turned back to the beckoning darkness beyond her circle of light. Behind her iced over eyes, a faint flame of excitement of discovery burned, hidden to all except those who knew her the best.
As she moved through the twisting passages, her sense of direction calmly told her she was making her way somewhat back to where her rooms were situated in the castle. Along the way, her torch revealed little spyholes in the walls as well as secret doors, but they were always to empty or unused rooms filled with signs neglect and aged decay.
When she finally arrived at what seemed like a fork with two dead ends, Kagome felt something of a shiver run up her spine. Not quite sure what it all meant, the miko nonetheless felt something of a surety that she was meant to be there, and was on the verge of discovering something great.
'Right or left?' she thought to herself.
Both passages were equally dark but something caught her interest. The miko knelt down to run her gloved hand along the floor. No dust was revealed on the leather.
Looking back a few feet, she saw a clear demarcation between a recently swept and dusted floor and what she had previously walked through.
A puff of air blew her handkerchief away from her face momentarily as she sighed. This was just getting more and more confusing. She rose to her feet again and caught herself before she started with 'eeny meeny miney moe'.
Out loud, she murmured, "Oh forget it, I choose left."
And left she went.
It was not a long passage. The left hand fork ended in another door with a knob in plain sight, since there was no reason to hide it in an already hidden passageway.
Kagome narrowed her eyes at the door mechanism. Curious. Why was a doorknob found in the feudal era? Wasn't technology only progressed so far as to shogi doors and weighted panels for smooth closings?
Shifting the torch to her other hand, the wary miko reached out with her ungloved one and rested her fingers lightly on the polished metal. Yes, it was real and not just an illusion. She extended her senses once again, trying to get a feel of the room beyond where she was standing.
Nothing registered to her tingling senses other than a vague sense that she should go in. Almost like it was whispering, 'discover me!'
Just as she gripped the knob and turned, her eyes caught a plaque just above the door. Her mind barely registered the kanji for what seemed like 'temporal grains of silica' before her eyes fell on something centered on an altar-like table.
Kagome gasped.