CHAPTER 9: The Woman, Kagome Higurashi
Breakfast was a small affair. When Kagome reached the kitchen, Seiichi had laid out a light meal consisting of oatmeal, toast, scrambled eggs and orange juice at the breakfast nook, an informal area. He wanted this to be a relaxing apology breakfast as was apparent by the way he sat waiting for her in khaki pants and a white button up shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbow and top button undone. His newspaper was open across the table where he sat, eyes skimming over the small print as only demon eyes could.
"Good morning, Kagome."
His voice, only slightly higher than his father's, startled her. He hadn't even bothered to turn his head when he called her name. It must be an inuyoukai thing.
"Good morning to you too, Seiichi." Kagome waltzed in with her steaming mug in hand, one that the maid left in her room when she came to wake her this morning. "Did you make this yourself?"
"Yes."
"It looks delicious," Kagome sat across him with a smile. "Maybe we should get in fights more often." When she received no answer from him, not even a friendly glare she continued in a way he might recognize, her voice losing all tone. "Your apology breakfast is acceptable but next time I will require bacon as well."
Though Seiichi looked exactly like his father his reaction clearly stated that he was not. With a heavy sigh the newspaper was discarded and he flashed Kagome a look that said, 'are you kidding?' making her feel rather immature. Kagome looked at him with an uninterested look but he could see the way her face twitched, she wouldn't be able to hold that look much longer. "Your attempts to mimic my father are less than comical."
Kagome laughed. "I dunno, I thought it was pretty funny." She took another sip of her drink as Seiichi removed the lids from the food. A look of deep thought crossed her face. "Of course your father never thought it was funny either."
Seiichi's hand stilled. "And you're still alive? Interesting."
"You wouldn't believe the crap I tried to pull on him when we were younger."
There was a pause. "Tell me."
To anyone else it would have sounded like an order, but Kagome knew that tone too well. It was the same tone Inuyasha used when he was sick and needed some comfort. Stories, he always wanted stories.
"Did you father ever tell you how we met?"
"My father left all storytelling to his brother."
Kagome helped herself to a bowl full of steaming oatmeal, eggs and toast. "Yeah, I can just imagine what crap Inuyasha filled your head with when you were little." She smiled in memory of her brash and relatively young friend, fully knowing he would have elaborated on a few details that Sesshoumaru no doubt would have disagreed with.
It was nice-their conversation could have even been called pleasant. It appeared that the photo album did the trick to ease the tension that had festered between them since their first meeting at the museum and Seiichi had many questions to ask about his favorite and only uncle.
"You did not!"
"Well, I didn't know we were on a cliff. I was at the bottom of the hill and he was at the top or what I thought was the top of a hill." It was one of the funniest things in retrospect but of course Inuyasha didn't appreciate being sat from the top of a thousand-foot high cliff. "I'm pretty sure that if Inuyasha had been any less than half-demon I would have inadvertently killed him several times over."
Seiichi could not help the curiosity that bubbled over when Rin explained the necklace that Inuyasha always wore, the necklace that Seiichi now kept under a glass case in his room. That side, the more immature side of his uncle, Seiichi had not known. The Inuyasha that watched over him and was his companion and mentor was more serious than what Kagome made him out to be.
Seiichi was aware of the sadness that would never quite leave his uncle's eyes. There were a few nights every year when Inuyasha's sadness was too much for him to bear and it was on those nights, those human nights that Seiichi would sit at his uncle's side and listen to tales of a special warrior miko who came from a far away land. Seiichi had a knack for hand art and painted pictures and with direction from his uncle he was able to give those memories form through parchment, brush, and charcoal.
From his side, Seiichi lifted a binder full of drawings in plastic sheet protectors and as he opened it, Kagome gasped in wonder. "These are really good! Did you do these?"
"I did. Inuyasha could not even draw stick figures," the young demon smirked.
"How old were you when you drew these?"
"Around a century or two."
Kagome eyed the first depiction of a television set, a car, what she guessed was supposed to be Buyo, and a house plan? "I didn't know Inuyasha actually paid attention."
The young demon snorted. "Uncle Yasha did not want to forget. He told me to always remember the stories and wait for the day when I would see these items. Then I would know the time was coming that the Shikon Miko would be born."
Kagome flipped the page and saw a crude map of the area around her family's shrine that included the rail line, the mall and her school. The more pictures she flipped through, the more detailed the drawings became. "This is really good for someone who's never seen a car before."
"Thank you."
The next page was the beginning of a series of portraits Seiichi had drawn of Inuyasha. The first few were done by a child's untrained hand and eventually the sketches evolved into the Inuyasha that she remembered. Her finger lovingly traced the fluffy two-dimensional ears at the top of the hanyou's head and her eyes watered.
"Uncle said he could never get you to leave his ears alone."
"I couldn't help myself."
The last pages started out as a blob and with each turn the blob turned into something she recognized with an aching heart. There, on the last page of the binder was a mirror image of her face, a younger face, with the title: Inuyasha's Warrior Miko.
"When I first saw you get out of your taxi, I knew you looked familiar. I could not place the memory of your face so I followed you to see if I could work it out in my mind. Well, you remember the rest."
Kagome's emotions were caught in her throat. "You are a very talented young man, Seiichi."
Seiichi scoffed. "Kagome, I am older than you, yet you call me young?"
She smiled. "Technically I was around centuries before you so we'll just say that you're younger. Sound good?" Kagome only received a raised brow for a response.
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Laughter, her laughter, echoed through the halls and to his study. His briefcase was packed and it was off to the kitchen to grab something to eat. Every step taking him there was a step closer to the sweet sound he had waited centuries, nearly an eternity, to hear again.
There she was sitting at the breakfast nook with her head thrown back, that joyous sound escaping her lips again. The other sound that warmed his heart was his son's laughter, something he hadn't heard for a long time, the last time being right before Inuyasha's death.
"You should have seen your dad's face!" Kagome told Seiichi. She'd been laughing for the last fifteen minutes, telling Seiichi stories of the various encounters she'd had with the ferocious lord of the West. But she stopped when she saw Seiichi stiffen and as she opened her mouth to ask if he was okay, she felt it, that heavy youki, rush through her and over her skin like a desert summer air, stinging her, making her skin feel raw.
"What about my face should he have seen?"
Seiichi cringed at his father's irritated energy. Usually it was directed at him when he talked back to his father or did something the old dog didn't approve of, things that his uncle had encouraged him to do. But today he had simply been sitting in the company of an old family friend he'd been doing his best to apologize to.
After taking a good look at the unaffected Kagome, the young demon wondered if she was immune to the oppressive youki that filled the dining area.
Kagome's smile grew larger as Sesshoumaru came closer to them. "Are you hungry?" Not bothering to wait for an answer, Kagome started filling a plate for him. "Here, why don't you join us."
"No thank you, I-"
"Sit."
The way she spoke that single word indicated it was a natural command from her lips. Seiichi's eyes went wide at hearing that word and Sesshoumaru tensed where he stood. He realized too late that the woman had actually invited him to join her at the nook and had not meant to slam him into the ground but brought up his first thought. "You think to subdue me as you did my brother, miko?"
"Huh?" Kagome looked up from stacking more food on the plate she'd put together for Sesshoumaru. "Subdue?" After taking a few seconds to recall what she'd said, Kagome's eyes dimmed but she smiled regardless. "Oh, I didn't mean, I wasn't-"
"Hn."
It was that sparkle in his amber eyes and the slight lifting of his cheek that told of his amusement. Kagome narrowed her eyes playfully. "Still getting kicks out of picking on humans, huh?"
"Hardly. However, you neglected to tell me that your species would come to infest the world like rats. I would have rid Japan of its pests centuries ago if it weren't for you."
Kagome pretended offense and showed a smirk of her own. "Well, you can't blame me for not saying anything. I thought Inuyasha would have knocked you off one day so what would have been the point?"
No one had ever spoken to his father that way, of that Seiichi was sure. No one dared to utter such ridiculous words to such a powerful demon except his uncle and now Kagome.
Surely Kagome would be punished for speaking to her father that way and Seiichi felt bad because he was coming to appreciate her strange humor. In fact, after having talked to her but an hour this morning, Seiichi felt like he was seeing his uncle in a new light.
"Father, please-"
"Silence." Sesshoumaru turned his irritated gaze on the woman. "Knocked me off?"
Growing up, Seiichi knew that there was something different about the way his uncle spoke, about the knowledge behind his guarded amber eyes that was unlike anything else around him. Inuyasha had frequently called his visions of the future a curse. Seiichi could never figure out why his uncle didn't embrace the gift of the gods and now he understood as he looked across the table at the woman who smiled at his father, the only woman, no-the only being with whom his father felt at ease with other than Rin.
There was a playful glint in Sesshoumaru's eyes as they rolled at her comment. "As if he could. The whelp could not even wield his sword correctly until after this Sesshoumaru's instruction." Sesshoumaru looked at the food and pushed the plate away but held the cup of orange juice in his hand. "Now what were you telling my son earlier?"
Kagome put her fork down and tilted her head in question, eyes aimed at Seiichi. "What were we talking about earlier?"
Seiichi was so confused. Here, Kagome had insulted his father and in the worst way-through Inuyasha and yet several seconds had passed and she was still breathing and unharmed. Hell must have frozen over. When he came out of his thoughts, two pairs of eyes were on him, waiting for his answer. Seiichi gulped. "You were just about to tell me how you attempted to shoot an arrow at my father."
"Ah yes." Kagome chuckled at the memory, "I think we were both lucky that day. I had only used my bow a handful of times before your father came after us and somehow scored a shot on his armor. He wasn't too happy when I broke it but even back then your father was a softy."
Sesshoumaru scoffed at the insinuation. "Human memories are far more inferior than that of a demon's. You shot at me a total of three times that night. I am lucky I did not lose an eye."
Kagome gave a nervous chuckle. "Let's face it," then looked at Seiichi, "I was lucky I didn't shoot myself in the eye back then. The bow was definitely not my friend when I first crossed over."
To appease the woman at his side, Sesshoumaru picked at the eggs on his plate. Kagome figured that he probably wouldn't eat the oatmeal or the toast. It was disgusting-how did he manage to look so regal just eating eggs?
Sesshoumaru caught her staring and trapped her gaze in his. "Like what you see, Miko?" He slowly lifted a forkful of eggs to his mouth.
Kagome flushed a violent red but did her best to change the topic. "Seiichi, tell me about your mother. Does she live here too?" Sesshoumaru growled and Kagome nudged him with her shoulder. "Oh shush. So I take it you don't like her then?"
With her head resting atop her hands, Kagome waited for Seiichi's answer. The boy looked to his father and then back to the miko again. His father growled in warning, he never did like his mother much. But with Kagome here he was sure his father would not make a big deal out of it.
"I did not know her growing up. We had no contact after my birth."
That threw Kagome for a loop. What mother would not want to see her child? She turned to Sesshoumaru, assuming it was his fault. "Why not?"
Sesshoumaru took a slow sip of his drink as he tried to find a fitting answer. "When an inu youkai bitch is not mated and is pregnant, she will kill her litter." At Kagome's look of horror he continued, "it is survival of the fittest. Surely you have not forgotten what it was like."
"No but-" her chest hurt, thinking that Seiichi's mom tried to kill him as a newborn. "Why?"
"Simple nature. I required an heir and the arrangements were made. The bitch was compensated for her services."
The facts of Seiichi's parentage didn't sit well with Kagome but she did remember, after countless history lessons and seeing life back then first hand; she kept her comments to herself. "So you never had a mother growing up?"
Seiichi squirmed under her sad gaze and thought to pacify her. "Rin and Inuyasha were enough of a mother for me." Yes, Rin made an excellent care-giver; she would have made sure the pup did not want for love or attention. And Inuyasha? Kagome could only imagine what kind of trouble those two would have found themselves in.
It was an awkward ending of a rather awkward conversation. That was when Kagome noticed Sesshoumaru's briefcase. "Are you going to work? But it's Saturday!"
"I have a meeting at the hospital." And then after a small pause, Sesshoumaru turned a curious look on the woman beside him. "Would you care to join me?"
"It depends. Are you gonna be stuck with a bunch of old men or are you going to be with the children?"
"I will be with the children. I have had enough dealings with humans. Seiichi has long since been directing the company."
Kagome grinned, excited to see the children that waited in Sesshoumaru's special hospital. "Well in that case, I would love to join you. Thank you, Seiichi. Breakfast was wonderful!"
"You are welcome, Kagome. I apologize for my behavior towards you-"
Kagome waved him off. "Never mind about that." He saw the miko roll her eyes at his father. "Making attempts at my life is kind of a family tradition at this point. For what it's worth, I'm sorry for mistaking you for your father. I know what it's like to be mistaken for someone else."
Seiichi nodded his head. The looks his father gave Kagome startled him a bit. Those looks were natural between males and females but coming from his father? He remembered seeing that look on his father's face as he hunted down his uncle's killers. Pleasure never looked as frightfully terrible as when it appeared on his father's face.
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Once again Sesshoumaru found himself reveling in the miko's presence. She wasn't aware of it but he had been paying so much attention to the story she told him in the car that he almost veered onto the sidewalk a few times in the city. It was a good thing there were no police around because that would have been above humiliating. Currently the woman was telling him about one of her stranger cases, something about a hanyou but he wasn't listening. He was distracted by her lovely voice.
"Sesshoumaru, I don't know if you noticed but Seiichi was acting a little strange when you came to breakfast this morning. Is your son always that nervous around you?"
The demon lord quickly glanced at the woman beside him and saw the concern she held for his son. How Seiichi managed to find the woman he'd been searching for his whole life threw him quite the curve ball. But no one would know of the lord's jealousy except himself. Sesshoumaru smirked.
"He was not nervous because of my presence. He was nervous because he thought I would punish you."
"Punish me?" Kagome's head was cocked and she showed a mix of amusement and confusion. "For what?"
"I keep communication with others to a minimum and you are the only person that dares to speak to me in such a tone as you do."
The woman was obviously confused. "I speak to you in a tone?"
"My son is not used to hearing people tease me. The last person to successfully tease me and live was my brother."
Kagome was silent for a while. Sesshoumaru wasn't used to such long periods of silence when it came to this woman and it pushed him to ask her, "what are you thinking?" When he smelled the beginning of tears, something moved inside him, something old, something familiar. "Kagome?"
A small hand slid over his on the gearshift and Sesshoumaru looked down at it before forcing his eyes back to the road. He slid his thumb up to catch the tips of her fingers and rub them. The woman smiled.
"You can't even understand my relief, Sesshoumaru."
"You are happy my son is not being an arrogant fool any longer?"
Kagome shook her head. If it wasn't that, what could have her so happy she was crying? "I'm so happy that I'm not alone anymore." More tears streamed down her face. "I feel whole again, the two lives I once lived is one life. I found my family."
Sesshoumaru sighed when the miko leaned on his shoulder and slid her hand up his arm to grip it tighter. "As am I. We have waited so long for you. A decade ago I was beginning to lose hope that we had somehow missed you."
The admission caught Kagome breathless. They thought they'd lost her? It wouldn't have been hard, Tokyo was so big and there were so many places she could have been.
"How did you know when to start looking?"
"My son told me." Kagome stared up at him when he said that. "As I told you Inuyasha cared for my son as I took care of security in my lands. My brother told Seiichi the signs that told of your coming. I saw the book he had at the table this morning."
"Your son draws well," Kagome said, her hand absently stroked the lord demon's arm. "I can't believe he drew me that well, that was almost photographic."
Sesshoumaru smirked. "He did not draw that picture."
"Who did?"
The car stopped and Sesshoumaru turned off the engine. Kagome looked around at the darkness that surrounded them. "Where are we?"
"We are at my personal driveway in the hospital. Come. I have an appointment I must keep."
Kagome exited the car and jogged to catch up with Sesshoumaru. "But you never told me who drew that picture."
"I'll answer your questions later." Sesshoumaru held open the elevator door for Kagome and slid a card key through the inner reader. "Welcome Lord Sesshoumaru."
He pushed the button that would take them to the children's wing, ready for the sideways movement of the elevator and ready to catch Kagome when she realized they weren't moving up.
"Whoa," the miko fell forward, right into his waiting arms. "Sorry," she muttered as she straightened herself. Kagome moved to step out of his arms but Sesshoumaru's hands were locked around her. "Umm..."
Sesshoumaru towered over and did not look down when he told her, "you are the safest right where you are."
Kagome lifted a brow and looked up at him. "In your arms?" she said jokingly.
"Always," was his only reply. Kagome flushed, daydreaming about what Sesshoumaru meant by that statement. Since she wasn't allowed to move anywhere else in the large elevator, she relaxed against the steel warmth at her front and she noticed how Sesshoumaru's arms tightened around her. The elevator continued zipping around horizontally before finally stopping and taking them up.
When the doors finally opened, Sesshoumaru hesitated to release her from her delicious imprisonment. "Is this where we get off?"
The dog demon just huffed and let his arms slide down her back before letting go completely. He bent slightly to pick up his briefcase and then met Kagome outside the doors, placing his hand on the small of her back to lead her where they were to go.
It was to a room full of children that Sesshoumaru led her. These children looked healthy but she could read their weak auras and saw how some of them flickered at the imbalance the powerful lord caused just by being with them. None of them showed the pain on their face that they must have felt at his arrival. Instead the children circled him like hyenas and pounced on his legs and waist, encircling them in their tiny arms.
"We missed you, sir!" they squealed, not too high though, something they'd been warned against from the beginning.
"I missed you too. How have you all been faring?"
The oldest of the group stood tall to report how the children were doing. Two nurses stood off to the side and smiled at their boss who was serious at all times except when with the children in this wing of their special hospital.
"We been good but Mariko was sick this morning. She went upstairs to heaven for a little while and she's good now."
"Mariko." The timid little wisp of a girl came forward and stood with a large grin on her face. Sesshoumaru placed a hand on her shoulder and knelt down on one knee. "Are you feeling better now?"
The girl nodded as a bright smile lit her face.
"I know what would make you feel even better," Sesshoumaru said as he lifted his briefcase and handed it to the tiny child. Mariko dragged the expensive looking briefcase to the largest beanbag chair and squatted next to it. It was then that Kagome noticed the scratch marks that lined the face of the black monstrosity, no doubt from his many visits to see the children.
Like an expert, Mariko's fingers flipped the coded dials and popped the latches open to reveal children's books. She carefully looked over each one until she found the perfect one.
Mariko held the book high in her hands and waited for Sesshoumaru to take it and sit in the beanbag chair. She snuggled up in his lap and the other children gathered around, some in his lap, some at his sides, a couple leaning over his shoulders and the rest in front of him.
Words could not describe the emotional weight that bombarded Kagome as she sat against the wall, watching and listening to the most powerful being on the entire earth read children's stories while sitting on an over sized bean bag. The little patients who had lived in this hospital longer than not sat around him, the two smallest in his lap.
"I only have time for one story and after this one I must check on our other friends."
"Can we come this time, sir?" a girl asked.
"Not this time. I must visit the top floor and their energy is very unstable." All the children in the reading room knew what that meant. There were only a handful of people allowed in that room who weren't patients. They had to undergo months to years of training and were chosen only when they had enough control over their reiki or youki that it would not disturb the careful balance created by Tessaiga.
The little girl who had asked the question frowned. She lifted her big brown eyes to the white angel in whose lap she sat and asked, "are they ever gonna get better so they can play with us?"
Sesshoumaru sighed. Of all his centuries on earth, the children in this place created the most uncertain feelings regarding his and their future but he was addicted to them, to their mortality. The peace that existed in the twenty-first century drove him looking for balance and he found it in his granddaughter, the first of her kind who had perished under his watch.
"I am not sure, Keiko, but we can all hope and do our best in our training so we do not find ourselves in a similar situation."
"Yes sir." Keiko was born in this hospital and had rarely left. She had the most control over her battling powers and it was due to the bond her parents shared. Kenji and Emiko Mizuno were the foundation of the solution to this dire problem. Emiko was a fire cat demon, a rare and powerful breed and Kenji came from a strong line of houshi. They weren't able to have children for years and their bond was one that bordered on a taiyoukai-strength mating. They had grown up together and knew they were destined for each other since they were young, despite their parents' attempts to keep them apart. That bond was something the younger couples and parents of the other patients lacked in various degrees.
Sesshoumaru did not want to be in a darker mindset when he went to the top floor so he changed the subject back to books. "Now where were we? Oh yes," he said as he flipped open the cover of the requested story book. "A told B and B told C I'll meet you at the top of the pineapple tree..."
He was cut off by raucous laughter.
"Mr. Sesshou! It's not a pineapple tree."
"Yeah!" another child piped up. "It's a coconut tree!" Light hearted laughter filled the room and filled the hearts of the two adults and the nurses that accompanied them.
"Are you sure? I'm positive it's a pineapple tree." There was a light in Sesshoumaru's eyes that Kagome recognized as his teasing and it made her breath catch. This man, no this demon was the same she'd known as a teenager but he was so much more than that now and she was afraid to admit what it was doing to her.
"No! Pineapples grow on the ground, silly!"
"Hmm..." Sesshoumaru twisted the book around, to look at the words from different angles. "You could be right, I don't have my glasses today. Have any of you seen my glasses?"
Some of the children frowned, they hadn't seen any glasses here. One child, a labeled mute, smiled up at him after tugging the collar of his shirt. When Sesshoumaru looked down at her she lifted two hands with fingers curled to form circles and carefully placed the imaginary glasses on his face.
"Ah, Mariko found my glasses." Sesshoumaru smiled as a memory of a Rin from long ago came to his mind. "I can see the coconut tree now; let's finish the story shall we?" The children settled in around him again with giggles escaping into the large room. "Whee said D to E, F, G. I'll beat you to the top of the coconut tree, Chicka chicka boom boom will there be enough room? Here comes H up the coconut tree..."
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Sesshoumaru didn't know what he had done in a past life to deserve this but the smell of Kagome's arousal tickled his nose. He knew that he was pleasant by human standards, it was a part of the daiyoukai package. Power equaled beauty.
"Tell me something, Kagome."
"Hmm?" Kagome's eyes were glazed over, she'd been in deep thought about something that had kept her quiet during the short trip to the top level of the children's wing.
The elevator that took them up two floors did not move side to side as well but Kagome stood close to Sesshoumaru anyway. The book reading downstairs wouldn't allow her anything else. He was saying something to her but she couldn't understand. The images of him nestled under a pile of children while reading stories fired her motherly instincts and built an attraction for the demon lord stronger than anything she'd felt in her life. It was hard for her to remain still as they waited for the elevator to ding.
Ding it did and Sesshoumaru led Kagome out in the way he always did except this time he used his hand to pull her closer towards him. The scent of her arousal called to a more primal place in him and he was afraid that if she were to disappear from his sight for even a moment, things might turn out ugly on the floor.
The nurses had nothing new to report. The children showed no signs of recession in their health, all looked good. Sesshoumaru's Head Researcher for this issue was on the floor tonight and Sesshoumaru asked her for an update.
"We have looked into the matter you alerted us to and found an aura therapist. She actually works here at Tokyo Memorial, she's the best in her field."
Tokyo Memorial, the best in her field? That sounded an awful lot like-
"Her name is Muri Mai. She comes from a strong line of priestesses and is the head of the LAP or Life Assistant Program at Tokyo Memorial. Her twin sister Mari Mai is the director of Tokyo Memorial."
Sesshoumaru looked over to his guest and wasn't surprised that she knew who they were talking about. "You know who these sisters are?"
"I do." Kagome blinked the memories into focus. "Mari Mai is the sister who gave me the job and the shrine that I...studied at, Muri Mai was famous there for her forward thinking. She worked together with her sister to create LAP. I was a second generation student at the shrine."
The Head Researcher looked Kagome over once to size her up and then turned her attention back to Sesshoumaru.
"Both sisters are incredibly busy sir-"
"Did you tell them I would double their current salary-"
"I took the liberty sir, but they both refused the position. Actually," the researcher looked down to her planner, "Muri Mai referred another woman a-" she flipped a page and scanned down towards the bottom, "Kagome Higurashi. Ms. Mai informed me that this Kagome was the top student at the shrine. She studied for one year and at the end trials was at a teacher status. Muri and Mari alerted me that she is the most powerful they have come across in all their years of study. Confidentially sir, it was said that Higurashi was so advanced and so powerful that they had to give her a powerful charm to keep her reiki at bay in fear that she might accidentally demolish the current demonic population here in Japan."
"Hm," Sesshoumaru looked thoughtful but what Kagome knew was he was aiming to tease his researcher, probably to further strengthen his facade of ultimate awesomeness. "Do you have any other information on the woman, what was her name again-"
"Kagome Higurashi," the woman finished.
"Ah yes, Higurashi.
"She currently works in the ancient history department at the museum, just opened a new showcase of the Sengoku Jidai weaponry and holy artifacts and is a part time/on call Life Assistant at Tokyo Memorial. She has no pets, a mother and a brother whom she has very limited contact with. Father died when she was very young. Her junior high report shows she was absent a lot due to many strange illnesses but when she reached high school all signs of illness faded and she was an honor student. There was a time of questionable mental status-"
Sesshoumaru raised an eyebrow and looked down at his companion.
"before she studied at the shrine under Muri Mai's top pupil. Kagome has advanced weaponry skills, the bow being her main focus. She has mediocre skills with a sword, excelled in shielding, purification, energy sensitivity, herbology & natural medicine."
"How come this woman is not a permanent fixture in my hospital?"
The woman had the familiar lack of emotion on her face. "I'm not sure sir, I am not in the HR department."
"Hm," Sesshoumaru pretended to deliberate on the topic. "Can we buy her off?"
Kagome bristled but Sesshoumaru squeezed her hip telling her to keep quiet. "I'm not sure, sir. She does make a very comfortable salary at the museum."
Kagome cleared her throat. "I didn't hear you mention anything about aura therapy in her description. It doesn't sound like she's familiar with the technique."
The woman gave Kagome a cool look. "Muri Mai informed me she would be willing to train Kagome in the art of Aura Therapy. As much as Muri loves the challenge, she fears in the most humble way that she is not as...accepting of demons as Kagome was. Kagome had claimed to live with demons and half demons for much of her life and had very close pack bonds with those she was with. Kagome was referred because she is very open-minded and unbiased when it come to the difference in race and species."
"Email me a fact sheet on this woman. I will speak with her and see if I can't," Sesshoumaru squeezed her hip again, "convince her to our cause."
"Yes sir."
The woman turned and left, leaving a smirking boss and a confused woman.
"Convince me to your cause?"
"Can I?" Sesshoumaru focused his heated gaze on the woman at his side. "Is there anything I can do to convince-" Sesshoumaru slid his hand up her waist and leaned closer to her ears "you to my cause?"
Kagome shivered at the sensation of his breath on her neck. So close, so damn close. "Sesshoumaru," she said rolling out of his arms with a grin on her face. "You may be a lot of things," she said pointing at the demon who advanced on her, "but suave is not one of them."
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Author's Note:
Sorry it took me a year to update as was pointed out by moonlightshadow123 a year ago :D I would like to end by answering a few questions.
This is listed as a Kagome & Sesshoumaru fic so sorry Seiichi lovers. No one can replace the original. In the last chapter, Kagome did have copies for herself but they're not as well organized. The pictures represented an old life and she wanted a new start with new meanings. She will make others.
Kuronueslover – you had it right, Rin working on him for 500 years would definitely soften that rock up.
For photo-ninja, oldestmaiden, moonlightshadow123, I hope this chapter answered your questions about Seiichi's mother. It was definitely not Kagome and she will appear from time to time. Maybe not the literal character so much as questions & answers regarding her.
Moonlightshadow123 – because I am the author, I could not stand the thought of Sesshoumaru having many girlfriends over the centuries. Not all people know that demons exist. Sesshoumaru and Seiichi have been running most of the businesses with the help of Shippo, Rin and their children. It will all come into play later but Shippo is a Grand Master Fox/Kitsune magic, which helps with his demonic concealment business. All this will be folded into the story over time though.
I hope that the next chapter will not take so long to come out but thanks for trudging along with me.
A special thanks to all those who reviewed chapter 8. It's because of you that this chapter came out as quickly as it did: angel19872006, duo_s_luvergurl, OoOLady_IndigoOoO, Midnight weasel, Sakura-Biyori,katdemon18, photo-ninja, Sugar0o, shadow_zombie, oldestmaiden, moonlightshadow123, Kuronueslover, Silly_Smiles, .Color, Foxluna, Tearainy, JC1988, kagome_past_and_present, tili19, COAIM, TheSlashBunny, llebreknit, IceLiith, Jazz, tsukiko94, disneyrulz23, Amputation, Cosmic-lover, sweetest_angel, annabella, femininemarauder, and kouga's_older_woman.
EchoHunter