This is the last chapter, and after this I'm taking a hiatus from writing fanfiction, because I want to devote more time and focus to the novels I want to get published. Anyway, there isn't really much to tell in this chapter, I'm afraid. Oh well, if you want me to PM you when i get news of when my own real original books will be in the stores, just say so in a review, and I'll do so with pleasure. (I do teen fantasy/ supernatural, mainly.)

Tessadragon

My thanks to: InuGoddess715, premierarchange, artgalgenius (you're right, there isn't much research on the net about japanese weddings, or at least it wasn't as in depth, though luckily there were a few pretty good ones), Sayuri-Chan 16 (ha ha, i post regularly cos the uni's projects are kinda dull and i do that work easily enough at night, leaving me day times to do what i like until i find a job), kon-chan (), Tifa L. Strife, shippousangoffe and Meatballheadedprincess14 for their reviews!

Chapter 6

I'm married, Kagome thought, a smile rising to her lips, her eyes flickering across Inuyasha…her husband. Joy uncoiled in her belly like a butterfly from its chrysalis. Then her husband took her hand, his claws digging into her hand ever so slightly, but she couldn't care.

"C'mon, Kagome," he ordered, a bead of sweat forming and his face was paling.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing!"

That wasn't the right answer. She reached up and lightly grabbed his ear, not to hurt him but so she could whisper into it, "What's wrong, Inuyasha?"

He grimaced, "C'mon. We have to go. Then I'll explain."

"Can I come?" Shippo demanded, bouncing up and down.

"Of course not!" Inuyasha yelled.

"Awww!" Shippo whined, "But I've never seen a demon marking his mate. Father was meant to tell me, but he's dead! How will I know what to do when I have a mate?"

Inuyasha's mouth opened a few times, but no sound came out. Finally, his eyes narrowed, but a surprisingly gentle answer came out, "I'll supervise you if I have to, Shippo. I'll teach you then. But this is our time." With that, he tugged Kagome's hand and led her deeper into the forest.

"Where will we go?" Kagome asked, her heart shivering in a thrill of trepidation. "Inuyasha? Where are we going?"

"Where my instincts tell me to," Inuyasha said shortly. "That's how it works with this ritual." He sighed and slowed down his pace, I'd better explain. That's only the proper thing to do. The reason he decided that, was because a distant memory told him of the tales Mother had told him of his father: how kind he had been, how determined and understanding. He had been a just man, noble and honourable, not impatient but regal. I can't always be like him, but I can try just this once.

"The demon takes his mate to a place where his heart tells him it is safe," he said quietly, his voice carrying to her ears. "Then he makes sure she feels safe, asks her if she will trust him to keep her safe. If she says yes, he will give her his mark. For dog demons like myself, it's a bite on the back of the neck, an ultimate symbol of trust, for the neck is the most vulnerable place."

Kagome nodded, strangely feeling confident. "Okay, I can cope with that."

His bare feet paced fluidly over the mud trails, his head raised high as he listened, trying to determine that place that he was meant to find. Desperation was inching its way to the surface of his conscious: he wanted to get on with this, but he couldn't really figure out this first stage of marking! How could he have Kagome's respect and trust if he couldn't even find that place where instinct was meant to lead him?

Then a pale flash of silver moved between the trees ahead of them. His head jerked up and he paused for a second, momentarily stunned.

The silver figure came to a halt and looked back at him, the ghost of a smile on his face: a warrior? He sniffed, but couldn't smell anything but the forest. The figure was hazy, and something inside told him that this demon couldn't—or wouldn't—harm him.

Then a second figure came to stand beside the demon, her hand on his arm in such a trusting implication.

Inuyasha almost whispered his name for her aloud, but she, with a warm smile, pressed a finger to her lips and turned and walked, her hand resting on her mate's arm.

Mother…

Inuyasha, almost trance-like, followed his mother and who he now knew with perfect certainty was his father, through the forest, barely ducking the scraping fingers of branches, his feet sliding across the muck with hardly a ripple of the puddles' surfaces. Kagome watched her husband and soon to be her mate, with entranced fascination: his eyes were distant, and there was a vestige of relief, peace, on his usually suspicious, angry features.

She didn't dare speak for fear of sending away this dream-like feeling as the darkness of the forest brushed against her like shadows of gossamer veils.

Finally Inuyasha slowed and looked around like he was only just waking from this ephemeral dream of reality. It was a grown-over clearing, trails of brambles criss-crossing the grass like a net. If he looked hard enough, did he see his father's footprint? Was this where once upon a time, he took his mate, Inuyasha's mother, to mark her? He kept his thoughts to himself as he walked with Kagome across the brambles, ignoring their pricking: the soles of his feet were tough with decades of hiking and fighting. The rough hewn boulders heaped on each other had been here centuries. Crisp, preserved skeletons of leaves had blown into the cave and rested there, crackling under Kagome and Inuyasha's feet as he led her to the heart of the cave. The ancient black ashes of a small long ago fire were still heaped against the wall, surrounded by small, round, blackened stones.

"Wait here," Inuyasha said quietly, and saw Kagome shiver in the cold of this cave, though she tried to suppress that. He took off his red haori jacket and draped it over her shoulders, "I'll be back in a moment." Then with light steps, he darted out into the clearing and hunted for dry branches. Tucked into the nooks of the trees, out of the path of the earlier rainfall, and then the dried husks of leaves, he collected them all and brought them in, laid them over the old ashes, with not the heart to take out the old ashes. They were like his father's reminder that he would be alright.

"I don't have any matches," Kagome reminded him, crestfallen.

"Keh," Inuyasha shook his head, "We don't rely on matches anyway."

Kagome smiled sheepishly and watched as her husband carefully notched a hole in one of the rounder short lengths of branch, then used another carefully chosen stick to create the friction that would result in heat, that sparked into a flame as the heat grew inside the first short length of branch. He fed the flame with a few leaves, then tucked it carefully into the nest of branches. When the fire was thriving, he turned back to Kagome, drew her closer. While he thought, their shadows danced to the firelight on the rounded walls surrounding them.

"I'm not afraid any more," Kagome whispered in Inuyasha's ear, and he kissed her. "Good." He asked her to lie down, then he carefully took away her shirt, warming her skin with his body, laying his haori jacket over her like a blanket. Then without warning her, for fear that she'd tense up, he sank his teeth gently into the back of her neck, his tongue rasped across the wound, and blood rose to the surface. He kissed it deeply, then sealed it with his saliva, cleaning the wound. Kagome shivered in pain, and Inuyasha asked if she was okay.

"Yes," she whispered.

He rolled her onto her front, so that the wound faced the ceiling, against the blood's route of flow. "It'll heal by morning," he told her confidently, then snuggled below her, "Now you have to do the same to me. Bite into the back of my neck."

Kagome made a small sound of fear.

"It'll be okay," he assured her, "I trust you."

"It's not that…it's just, I'm not used to biting people!"

He laughed, a mischievous light in his eyes. "I should hope not. Even I don't bite if I can help it. My claws are perfectly fine, so why use teeth? Now come on, don't be scared, Kagome."

She drew a deep breath, as he took off his creamy shirt. For a moment she was caught in the moment of eyeing his well-defined chest, which made him smirk, as he offered her the back of his neck.

Here goes…Kagome thought fearfully, then hesitantly pressed her teeth into Inuyasha's shoulder in the same place as where he'd bitten her.

"You have to taste my blood," Inuyasha said, trying to sound brave, though fear tinged his own consciousness. "Like I tasted yours. That way, our bodies recognise that they are paired with someone of a different kind…yin seeks to be opposite of yang, but they are twinned, pressed together, and thus seek to be exactly the same. Our bodies seek to be exactly the same, our blood seeks to be the same."

The same… Kagome drew back, "Does that mean my blood will want to be like yours…"

"A half demon, yes," he nodded, wary. "Will you be alright with that?"

"How much different will it make me?"

"Stronger. Mostly it's about sharing a lifespan, a lifetime. That's all it is."

Kagome nodded, and Inuyasha heard her heart flutter faster. "It'll be okay," he assured her, "We'll be together, I will always look after you."

"I know," she whispered, then tasted his blood, kissed his wound like he'd done hers, and drew back, wondering if she could feel the changes taking place inside her.

Inuyasha stretched his shoulders in a circular motion, wincing at how the wound smarted, though he knew he was healing, then he drew Kagome close, kissed her mouth. He saw her eyelids flutter: she was tired. Marking did take energy as their blood fought to be like that of their partner, to achieve a balance.

"I love you, Inuyasha," she whispered, falling asleep in his arms.

The campfire cast joyful light to the ceiling, just like it had done decades ago for Inuyasha's mother and father.

Inuyasha and Kagome. Forever.