Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or anything © Rumiko Takahashi.

Chapter Nineteen

Of Dreams and Deceptions

"Well," Myoga said, sipping a warm cup of blood after Kagome had gathered them all to tell them of her dream. "That would explain why Sesshoumaru-sama does not remember Kano. It seems Naraku tried to get the last shot once again."

"Bastard," Kouga muttered. "Not you," he added in exasperation as the flea gave him an affronted look. "And Kano had to be stupid enough to fall for his tricks."

"I'm not even going to remind you of when you thought Inuyasha killed your clansmen instead of Kagura. You fell for the same damn trick," Shippo pointed out.

"I thought you said you weren't going to remind me," Kouga snapped back.

Kagome spoke up from her spot on the couch next to Sesshoumaru. "He wasn't stupid, Koga. He made a promise to the woman he loved."

"He made a promise to Naraku," Sesshoumaru said quietly. "The woman was already gone."

"Regardless, it's not something to make fun of. I was there, and I saw what happened. He was broken when she died. He loved her more than anything." Her voice was quiet and wistful. She felt Sesshoumaru's thumb rub gently back and forth over the inside of her wrist even though he didn't look at her, and she smiled a little.

"Don't tell me you're forgiving him?" Kouga asked incredulously.

"Yes, I am," she said bluntly. "He was deceived, just like we all have been at one time. It is not his fault."

"It may not be his fault that he wants vengeance on the wrong circumstances, and that may be forgivable. However, the fact that he chose to try and destroy me through you is not," Sesshoumaru said, and calmly faced her glare. She tried to take her hand away from his, but he effortlessly held on.

"I don't want you to kill him. He needs to know the truth."

"You don't always get what you want, Kagome."

"You can't blame him for what he did to me, Sesshoumaru! He's doing just what you would have done, what any of you would have done to someone you thought killed your mate."

"He does it without honor," Shippo said. "If he had any he would go after Sesshoumaru directly, not through his woman. Don't give me that look," he said, throwing his hands up. "I'm just saying how it is."

"We have to find a way to convince him that Naraku tricked him," she insisted.

"And what do you plan to do?" Kouga asked derisively. "Find him and have a little chat?"

Silence.

Kouga almost choked on his next breath. "You can't be serious! I knew you were a bit ditzy, but I never took you for stupid! Kano would chew you up and spit you out."

"Well I don't know what else to do!" she exploded.

"It is not your problem to try and solve," Sesshoumaru said, using his coldest voice. "Kano will be punished accordingly to his actions, and even you will not change that."

"Not to mention the fact that if you got him to listen to you, you have no proof of what Naraku did. He wouldn't believe you." Kouga said. "Even though he's the one who showed you the dream, you were the only one who saw Naraku and what he did."

"Why was that?" she wondered. "Why was I the only one who was able to see what happened even though it was Kano's vision?"

"You are a miko, Kagome-sama," Myoga said, standing up and hoping to her. "You automatically sense evil and can see what others can not."

"Can I enable others to see what I see, Myoga? Could I perhaps show Kano what I saw?"

Myoga paused, looking to the side. Before he could answer, Sesshoumaru broke in, his fingers tensing on her wrist.

"If it requires you to be anywhere near him, then no, you can't," he said in a low voice.

She ignored him pointedly and felt his silent growl. She knew she was pushing it with him, but she refused to back down. "Could I, Myoga?"

"To be quite honest, Kagome-sama, I don't know. Visions are tricky things, and if he's sharing them with you in your dreams, I don't see any reason why you wouldn't be able to reciprocate that using your miko powers…"

"I hear a 'but' coming up," she said.

"But," Myoga stressed, "It has been my knowledge that to share dreams, you have to enter the mind of who you are sharing with. Kano entered your mind to plant that vision, and to give a vision to him of what really happened you would have to enter his mind. We don't know how stable he is."

"Which is why you are not going to attempt to try," Sesshoumaru said. He stoically weathered the anger that had risen up when he heard that Kano had been in Kagome's mind. But his control was being pulled on, a steady stream of rage fraying away at the edges at the thought of Kagome going into Kano's mind. She made a little soft noise in the back of her throat that only he could hear, and he realized he was gripping her wrist unconsciously. Immediately he let go as if he had burned her, worried that he would snap her wrist with his strength, but she grabbed onto his hand and held on, placing their joined hands on her lap.

"It might be a good idea to let her try," Shippo said unexpectedly, causing even Kagome to gape at him. He scowled at them. "Well if you guys were thinking logically, you'd see I'm right. Out of any of us, Kagome is probably the most likely to settle this manner honorably. You have to admit that she's always had a certain...affinity for fixing broken spirits."

"But the danger to her," Myoga began.

"I'd have to go through while I'm asleep right?" Kagome asked. "If Kano is too unstable in his mind and tries to hurt me...can't someone just wake me up?"

"It's more like a trance than sleeping," the flea pointed out. "But, in a sense, yes, you could awaken before he could harm you."

"But he is not going to get the chance to try," Sesshoumaru said, a note of finality in his voice that had Kagome wincing internally. He stood up, the matter clearly over to him, and she knew he had been pushed too far. "She is not going to do what you suggest." With that he walked out of the room, leaving the occupants inside staring after him.

"He is the most pig-headed, stubborn, son of a bitch I have ever met," Kouga started. "It's easy to see where Inuyasha got it."

"He's just worried," Kagome murmured softly, still staring at the spot where he left. "I'll try and convince him to let me at least try."

"It's not going to be easy to convince Kano that Naraku deceived him. He has over five hundred years of hate coursing through him and that is not something to be taken lightly," Myoga said. "If indeed you do enter his mind, you must proceed with extreme caution."

"I will, Myoga. Thank you for your help. You are going to stick around, right?"

"He is," Shippo confirmed firmly, taking a hold of the flea and standing, Myoga protesting the whole way. Kagome led the group to the door while making her good-byes. Shippo leaned down and gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek, looking her in the eyes while he straightened. "Good luck."

"I'll need it," Kagome said, looking at the ceiling and knowing what awaited her upstairs. Closing the door behind them, she turned off all of the lights downstairs, the servants having been sent away after Kagome had been attacked. She came to the door of their room and took a deep breath before opening it.

Sesshoumaru stood by the window, silhouetted by the moonlight, staring at the grounds below. He looked so beautiful, so like something out of her dreams that for a moment, she couldn't breathe. His profile was to her, and the shadows played with his face, but she knew every beloved nuance, every mark. His stance was relaxed for a moment, his arms loosely at his sides, but she knew the strength behind what that stance belied. She knew him. Closing the door behind her, the thought flittered through her mind that she never thought love would leave a physical ache. But the way her heart was clenching in her chest proved her wrong.

He never glanced her way as she walked towards him, and she didn't want him to. This love thing was still so new to her that it made her more vulnerable than she ever thought. She knew he was probably feeling the same way, if not worse. Instead, she came up behind him and slowly slid her arms around his waist. Her forehead rested on his back and she inhaled the soft scent of him, totally male and hers, as his hair brushed against her cheeks. And she just stood there in silence.

After a moment, the arms that had remained at his sides at her touched slowly came up and his hands covered her. Not a word was spoken as they stood there, but a thousand things were communicated in the soft heartbeats that followed. His worry for her, her determination, their mutual love that was still blossoming under everything that had been happening, and a thousand other unnamed things that had her holding on tighter to him.

He shifted and she knew he was going to speak, so she spoke first. "I have to try, Sesshoumaru." It was said simply. No crying, no pleading, just that plain statement.

He was quiet as he gathered his thoughts. "You only think you need to try," he said finally, letting some of his frustration show. "You can't save everyone, Kagome, and not everyone wants to be saved."

"He loved her." Her arms tightened around him as she said that. "He loved her more than anything, and she was taken from him. You know what that's like, Sesshoumaru." He stiffened as memories assaulted him. The feeling of hopelessness after the well closed, the madness that threatened to overtake him as year after year passed. He knew all too well.

"But you got me back," she said, bringing her point home. "Kano doesn't have the same luxury."

Sesshoumaru rested his forehead on the cool glass in front of him. He didn't say anything.

Silence filled the room once more as the minutes ticked away. True, Sesshoumaru got what he wanted back. Kagome didn't die; he only had to wait for her. Before he could stop himself, he thought of what he would do if she had died. He almost stopped breathing, and his hands tightened over hers. He could feel her press closer to him, seeking comfort as well as giving comfort, as if she could read his thoughts.

"Would you give up honor for me, Sesshoumaru?" she asked softly, her voice whispering across his hair. "If the same thing had happened to us, would you give up everything to avenge me? Pride, unspoken rules, honor…would they all mean as much to you then? Would you forget about it?" It wasn't asked selfishly. She didn't want to know what he would or wouldn't do for her; she already knew. But he needed to realize it himself, that he and Kano were not so different. "The only thought on Kano's mind right now is to get his revenge in the quickest way possible, and at the time, it was going through me. Can you honestly say, if the situations were reversed, that you wouldn't do exactly the same thing. I know you would."

She suddenly stepped back and turned him around, grabbing his face and pulling him down to her so she could stare into his eyes, those golden pools of repressed emotion that never failed to stir her. "I know what I would do," she continued on relentlessly. "If you were taken from me, I would throw away everything I had ever known to be right and just. Honor wouldn't matter."

He closed his eyes then, and rested his forehead against hers. He knew she was right, he just wished he didn't see the logic in her words. He drew her close to him, knowing that he was giving his unspoken agreement as he did so. "Once," he said. "Just once."

She nodded against his chest, knowing that he was telling her that she was only going to be able to try one time. After that, it was out of her hands and into his, and he would not want to try and find mercy.

That night they slept completely wrapped around each other, both wondering what the dawn would bring.

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Late the next night, the group gathered at Sesshoumaru's house once more. Kagome lay on the sofa in the living room with Myoga at her side, ready to instruct her on what she was about to do. Shippo and Kouga sat on armchairs by the fireplace, both anxious and both trying to hide it. Sesshoumaru stood in the shadows by the doorway, watching the proceedings with an emotionless mask, but her eyes found and locked on his anyway. She knew he was wary.

"Now, Kagome," Myoga began. "You have to focus completely on finding Kano within the dreamworld. You are not going to be asleep or awake, but somewhere in between. Do you understand?"

"I think so," she said. "But it's going to be kind of hard to focus with all of you staring at me."

"Try anyway," Sesshoumaru said flatly, and felt his heart lighten as she glared at him. But he could see in her eyes that she wasn't angry at him.

Lying back, Kagome closed her eyes and tried to relax. At first, she thought that she wasn't going to be able to do it. It was hard to relax when so much was riding on this. She took a breath and blanked her mind. Her ears picked out the soft ticking of the clock on the mantle and she focused on that. Soon, she felt her body relaxing with the monotonous noise. She felt herself begin to drift in that strange world between sleep and wakefulness. Now she was going to go by instinct. She searched outside of herself, allowing her miko powers to flare to aid her. She focused on trying to find Kano, her consciousness trying to seek his. She focused on her energy on just him.

Sesshoumaru watched as her eyelids flickered and knew she was gone from him, and he tamped down the restlessness that surged through him. He would allow her this chance, and if she failed, he would gladly take pleasure in ripping Kano apart, limb from limb.

Kagome drifted farther, wondering if she was doing something wrong, when she felt something brush her mind, as delicate as a butterfly's wings. Reining in the urge to close her mind to it, she opened it instead, knowing that this was what she was searching for. Suddenly she was transported from blissful drifting into utter madness.

Gasping, a jumble of thoughts crashed in on her at once. Heartbreak, frustration, sorrow, rage, and the repeated thought of vengeance, vengeance, vengeance broke through her consciousness, and she could tell instinctively that she was in Kano's mind. She could have cried at the bleak darkness of it, a playground of broken thoughts that raced over and over in an unending circle. This was insanity.

"Kano." She said it softly, not wanting to alarm him and not knowing what to expect.

"…Akina…?" She felt the stirring awareness, the heartbreaking hope in his voice along with the hesitation that suggested that he had heard the voice of his beloved before, only to find out it was his own madness conjuring her up. Crushing that hope was going to be the hardest thing she thought she'd ever have to do.

She didn't have to. He must have sensed something was wrong because now she could feel the wariness in him. "No…not Akina." He paused as if searching. "Why have you ventured here, Miko? Are you not afraid you'll be corrupted?"

"I've come to help you," she said softly. She heard a derisive laugh that held a hint of grief.

"And why would you want to do that? I am trying to kill your mate. I have shown you what he did and you still want to save him?"

"You have been deceived, Kano."

This time she felt the stirring of anger. "I told you once before that you are lying, Miko."

"I am not lying," she said, honesty ringing throughout every nuance of her tone. She felt him give pause. "Kano, I have no reason to lie to you right now."

"You have every reason! To save your mate, the one that you love so much." Bitterness clouded every word.

She felt her temper spike. "I would save Sesshoumaru if he needed saving," she shot back before she could help herself. "As it happens, he can hold his own just fine without my help. But if you would open your eyes and just listen to me, you'll see that I want to help you, just you."

"I do not need your pity. I am going to kill your mate, and then take myself from this world once and for all and finally get rest. You can not stop me."

She could sense him trying to break his mind away from hers and held on with a tenacity that surprised even him, she could tell. "Damn it, you stubborn brute, can't you even tell when you're being duped?"

Her anger pricked his own. "Tread softly, Miko. While I am only after Sesshoumaru, I would not hesitate to take you out as well. It matters not to me."

"I know you loved Akina," she said desperately. The rush of pain from him at her name battered her but she pressed on. "You loved her so much that you waited all this time to avenge her, but Sesshoumaru did not kill her."

"Do not speak her name to me. You do not have the right to mention her." His voice was now quiet and deadly, and she knew she treaded on unstable ground.

"That day she died, there was another there with both of you. He had taken possession of Akina's body and used her to speak through her. He had a grudge against us, and wanted his revenge on Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha. He tricked you!"

"Liar!"

"I don't," she said, gaining momentum. "His name was Naraku, and he tricked everyone he came in contact with. My friends and I tried to stop him, to keep him from gaining more power, and he hated us. We were his greatest enemies. He caused us more grief than you could ever imagine."

"Naraku?" She knew he had heard of the name before and felt hope. He would start listening to her now. Her hopes crashed when another wave of anger hit. "No, no, no! You are trying to trick me!"

"No! Just look! Look at how deceitful he is, how he manipulates our emotions to turn us against each other." She filled his mind with her memories, each one more damning than the last. Naraku tricking Sango into attacking Inuyasha to get revenge for the slaughter of her village, Kagura using Naraku's orders to trick Kouga into thinking that Inuyasha had killed his comrades, every deception flashed into his mind until she finally came to the one that started it all. Inuyasha and Kikyo. How Naraku made Kikyo think that Inuyasha only loved her for the Shikon no Tama, how he made Inuyasha believe that no one could ever love him as a hanyou, including Kikyo. The fateful arrow flying through the air, pinning Inuyasha's heart to the Goshinboku, and Kikyo's final moments that made the betrayal complete. She let it all loose, her emotions giving the images more strength and clarity and chased away any doubt that any of it was false.

Finally she came to her last memory…Akina lying in the forest and Naraku's shadow. The final deception that caused Kano so much heartache. Spent, she let those last moments fade away, ending with the smile that was not Akina's, but Naraku's, as she died.

"Akina died before you got there, Kano," she ended tiredly. "Naraku got his final revenge."

She could hear his breath hitch, and her heart went out to him. He had been chasing a lie for all of this time, had to live with himself and his regret, and now it had all been torn away. She heard a low, keening cry in her head that gained slowly in intensity, and she realized it was him.

"Kano," she began, fear beginning to sift through at that sound. He wasn't stopping, and that cry only got louder and louder. "Kano!" she said sharply.

He didn't hear her. Inside his mind, she was battered by his thoughts once more, only this time they were splintering. Regret, disgust at himself, his anger now centered on Naraku, all the years of desolation, and the thought of his lost love all grew sharper and sharper until they threatened to explode and she knew that this was his final descent into madness.

"Kano, no!" she cried. "You have a chance to make it right!"

But he didn't hear her, and she cried out in alarm as another barrage of pain hit her.

She felt herself being pulled away from his conciousness, knowing that Sesshoumaru was trying to wake her, to get her out of there, but she couldn't just leave. She had to save him.

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"Kagome, come back," Sesshoumaru ordered, kneeling beside her and watching the pain float over her face.

"This is not good," Myoga moaned. "If Kano's mind breaks while she's inside, she will break as well."

Sesshoumaru didn't let the words distract him from trying to bring her back, but his heart lurched in his chest. His breath caught as Kagome screamed, and he grabbed her arms almost desperately, burying his face into her hair.

"Kagome…please," he said for her ears alone. "Please, you need to come back to me."

Her body stiffened like a board, the tension in her making him think she was going to snap in two. He held on for dear life, willing her back.

"Please," he whispered once more.

She went limp.

Drawing back slowly, expecting to see her eyes gaze on him, his blood froze at her face.

Her eyes were open, her face blank.

He shook her. "Kagome!" Her head lolled back, but her eyes stayed open, unseeing.

Where ever she was, he could not follow.

"This is really not good," Myoga whispered.

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(Okay, that's it for now. We are coming to the end of the story now. I'm sorry to leave everyone on a cliffhanger, but it seemed like a good place to stop. I've had limited access to a decent computer, so that's why this chapter was delayed. I apologize. I hope that you enjoyed it, however, and please review.

Until next chapter,

Mujitsu)