See notes in First Chapter.
III
Sesshoumaru's eyes narrowed at the clean bland steps that lead up into the Sunset Shrine in Tokyo. He shouldn't have to approach the shrine so early in his investigative efforts. Shrines were not repositories for official documents and records.
Hearing that his younger sibling had attacked someone hadn't surprised him. Inuyasha was always undisciplined and regularly exhibited reckless, wild behavior unseemly for a youkai participating in government. Sesshoumaru's disdain for the hanyou brat had only heightened with the younger inu's increasing age. As the beleaguered ex-girlfriend of his half brother had stated, it was inexcusable for someone capable of so much damage to throw a fit because he didn't get his way. Sesshoumaru had long witnessed Inuyasha's violent reactions to any situation that didn't progress the way he wanted. Disappointment and frustration were the brat's greatest triggers.
No, Sesshoumaru hadn't been surprised that the female had received damage at his half brother's hands. The surprise had been that the woman pursued legal recourse to address it. He had never heard his father make a single complaint about it, whether to resolve the charges through litigation or to punish Inuyasha's foolishness out of the public eye. Masashi may coddle his younger son, but Sesshoumaru was certain this type of behavior would induce the inu omo to hand down some punishment.
His curiosity had induced him to look into what had happened with the report Higurashi Kagome had filed with both the police and youkai enforcers. Sesshoumaru's inquiry should have been answered easily with a single visit to the youkai enforcement agency. Records showed a complaint was made and a formal investigation conducted around the time of the woman's injury. The files had then disappeared for all that anyone could find them. There wasn't even a document itemizing what had been collected and should be in the missing files.
More infuriating than the incompetency of the first agency was the seeming proof of mutual collusion when the file regarding her human police report also came up missing. Both agencies had no reason to cover for the other and even less reason to cover for a hanyou. At least, that was Sesshoumaru's opinion. He'd been at a dead end until one of the human officers had covertly communicated to him that there was a copy off site where he would likely find it.
The Higurashi family were more versed in the politics of law enforcement than Sesshoumaru seemed to be, because they held the only copy in existence now. They were civilians. They were a shrine family who should not be required to enforce governmental laws. Their place was to be negotiators and peace keepers.
He could admit that knowing how some youkai behaved made for better communication and understanding, but this wasn't in the public record. They should not have better record keeping skills than the organizations employed to do it for all of society. Sesshoumaru let loose a sub-vocal growl. There was so much wrong with how Higurashi Kagome's attack had been handled. It went against everything he knew about honor, integrity, and his government. Justice should not be excluded from reaching the very top of society. Allowing this travesty to exist shook the confidence of all who rely on the current peace.
Sesshoumaru would get to the bottom of this. He would see how far up the rot went and he would fix it.
First step, to find the damn file that addressed Higurashi Kagome's attack.
One booted foot rose to settle on the low stone firmly planted at the foot of the Sunset shrine. The first of many.
Sesshoumaru's senses lit up with the awareness of the Seishin-tekina shouheki registering his presence. It always made him tense as memories flooded his mind. He remembered when the barrier didn't just announce his presence, but burned and repelled him as well. Sesshoumaru remembered the time when the announcement to the shrine keeper brought an onslaught of holy arrows raining down on his head.
He continued up the stair. Memory could assault his mind, but it would not stall his progress. Sesshoumaru did not live by the past so that it obscured the present. He learned from all that had come before so that he might survive the now.
Eventually the tall inu made it to the last torii to be greeted with the sights of the shrine and its caretakers waiting for him.
"Sesshoumaru-dono," the old priest greeted him respectfully.
"Sesshoumaru-sama," the woman who bore a resemblance to the reason for his search bowed lower and greeted even more respectfully.
She was obviously not born to the shrine family and had married into it instead. It wasn't hard to tell. Shrine families offered equal respect to all who visited. Government officials received a slightly higher level of respect based on service rather than species. If a human governor appeared, the address would be the same. Adopted shrine family, through marriage or other means, were generally overly respectful to youkai officials.
"Hn," Sesshoumaru acknowledged the greeting, golden eyes measuring the pair of humans before him.
"This old one wonders what matter of great importance could bring the attention of the great Masashi's eldest to our little shrine," the old man continued. "We are but a humble shinto shrine among many in our fair city. We offer little to draw youkai to our grounds."
Sesshoumaru nodded in agreement. Youkai did not have much need for ritual or religion. Shinto was respected because the old ways respected youkai and always had. It hadn't always been a peaceful respect, but no shrine had ever underestimated or denigrated a species of youkai either.
"Ji-chan!" the woman sounded scandalized by the old man's sly prying.
"This Sesshoumaru is seeking a report concerning the attack and injury of one Higurashi Kagome," he declared bluntly. "It was suggested a copy might be found here."
"That is an old problem," the priest observed. "Some would say the time for resolution is long past."
"Justice can never expire," Sesshoumaru returned shortly.
"The complaint never should have been made," Kagome's mother asserted. "I was against it. Inuyasha didn't mean to hurt her so badly-"
Narrow golden eyes pierced the woman's words. "Perhaps," Sesshoumaru dismissed the notion. "If Inuyasha were a toddler and unaware of his own strength, it would be excusable. But Inuyasha is far beyond childhood and his intentions did not keep him from causing the injury. Children learn what behavior is acceptable through consequences. Adults who act out in unacceptable ways require sterner punishment to learn the same lessons."
"If she had just - " the woman tried to protest.
"What is it you think Kagome could have done to prevent Inuyasha's fit?" the old man demanded. "He dumped her. She was with her study group in a public place. She was unaware he was present until the boy snatched her wrist and dragged her away from her friends." The priest was beginning to turn red in anger. "Inuyasha put your daughter in the hospital because she wasn't depressed enough from his deplorable behavior for his tastes."
"He would have come back to her," the mother insisted. "Inuyasha loved her."
"Not enough to forgo all other females," Sesshoumaru cut into their argument. "one would think a mother would want more for her honorable daughter than to reduce her to a place as a hanyou's mistress."
"Kagome certainly did," the gruff man added. "Face it Akina, Inuyasha wasn't the catch you thought he was."
"Inuyasha wouldn't have done that to Kagome," Higurashi Akina insisted. "He just needs to outgrow - "
"His personality?" The priest interjected. "His belief that he can act however he wants? The only way to out grow that is to have it shoved down his throat."
"You and Kagome were always too hard on that boy," Akina sounded annoyed by her father-in-law's refusal to accept her judgment. "He's simply young."
"He's older than me," the grandfather informed her abruptly. "Inuyasha was born before my father's father."
"Higurashi Genkei, you -"
"Indeed," Sesshoumaru agreed. "That one is fully matured." Else Inuyasha would not be so very sexually active and hunting down prospective mates. "This Sesshoumaru fully agrees with the younger Higurashi female and her grandfather in this case. Inuyasha should face full punishment for this incident and it will be brought up with this one's father. Provided the file can be produced."
Higurashi Akina's mouth hung open in shock before her jaw snapped closed and she angrily walked away. Clearly she hadn't expected real opposition of her opinion from Inuyasha's own family. Sesshoumaru wasn't surprised by her opinion though he didn't agree. His father often tried to excuse Inuyasha's behavior and blame a multitude of other sources. It didn't even surprise him that it was the victim's mother espousing such an opinion. Many women saw the sons of Masashi as great catches and coached their daughters to allow far too much to slide. Sesshoumaru chose to ignore the females thrown at him. Alternatively, Inuyasha took advantage of everything girls were willing to give up in hope of something permanent.
It wasn't old-fashioned to worry more about financial stability in marriage than connubial bliss. There were still some families that followed the traditional ways of arranging marriages for their children rather than allowing them to choose.
"Kagome didn't send you," Genkei declared firmly, conviction shining in his gaze. The old man stared up at the tall youkai intently, his rough, scarred hands clasped behind his back.
"Hn," Sesshoumaru studied the bent figure of the priest in return.
"She wouldn't try to reopen this wound," Genkei continued, certain of his granddaughter's views. "Inuyasha found her, didn't he?"
"Indeed," Sesshoumaru held very still. Sometimes the greatest pieces of information could be harvested from the moments when people were allowed to ramble in the silence.
"Even still Kagome wouldn't want to go down this road," the words slid into the relative quiet of the shrine grounds. A pair of high school students pulled the bell and clapped their hands before bowing their heads towards the haiden. An elementary aged student struggled to return the dipper to its assigned place after rinsing her hands. The sun drenched the scene in watery winter light as a chill breeze rustled through branches over head and along the shrine edges. "You asked her about their relationship," the old man concluded.
"Hn," Sesshoumaru could allow the supposition. It was a valid conclusion as the female being discussed had been reluctant to impart the information. "Is the file here?"
"Indeed it is," the old man nodded. "It occurs to me to wonder how you came by the information that it was. Only the shrine families were informed so that we would know how to handle the volatile second son of the great Masashi. To know how far the boy will act out is valuable information ."
"This one visited the police station," Sesshoumaru felt comfortable divulging the information. It wouldn't be hard to find that out. The gossip mongers and celebrity stalkers were fond of following every member of his family. He could not escape them in the city or even much of the rest of the country. Not that Sesshoumaru often attempted to move in secret.
"Ah," the old man nodded his understanding. "Miroku." The elderly priest shuffled his feet to turn and lead the way deeper into the shrine environs. "Tanaka Miroku is the younger son of a prolific shrine family. There are not so many shrines as respectable caretakers in need of a place. Many of our younger heirs choose other careers rather than compete for the shrines that come up without family to inherit a position. That one chose law enforcement and uses his Buddhist houriki training to assist in calming victims to help ensure coherent reports and accurate testimony. He was exceptionally helpful in Kagome's time of need."
"Explain." Sesshoumaru demanded as he followed Genkei's bent figure.
"They weren't going to do an investigation of any kind," the priest informed him shortly. "They filled out the forms and promptly tossed them in the closed pile. We collected all the evidence. We canvased for witnesses of the situation. We were the ones to procure the security footage from the establishment every thing took place at. Miroku handled our every effort to insure it was unbiased and indisputably official. He was also the one to handle our interviews with the youkai enforcers."
Sesshoumaru waited as the old man pulled a portable DVD player from a small cabinet inside the door of the caretaker's house before stepping back outside and heading slowly towards an outlier building used for storage. "How did you know the official agencies could not be trusted?" the inu demanded gently. He wasn't certain he wanted to know. Surely this was an isolated problem, something that didn't crop up routinely and was widely accepted as reality.
"We didn't, though Kagome suspected her complaint wouldn't lead to much," the grandfather replied just as quietly. "She had no plans to stay in the city once her doctor diagnosed the nerve damage was permanent. It ended her dreams of the future and the risk of encountering Inuyasha again wasn't worth it if she couldn't finish school." The old man sighed before letting them both into the claustrophobic confines of the storage room.
Sun lanced the darkness wherever cracks in the walls provided enough room for entry. Dust piled up in corners and atop boxes that rested against the walls or on shelves. Most everything was bleached a dirty tan color. Neglect stained everything with the exception of a single file box next to the door.
"You don't mind if we keep the box in here," the Higurashi patriarch bent to pick the mostly white box off the floor. "Akina doesn't know where it is and I move it regularly to keep it that way." Sesshoumaru didn't comment on the domestic subterfuge the old man perpetuated against his housemate. Family was complicated whatever the species. It was worse when it wasn't so homogeneous. With a hanyou brother, Sesshoumaru knew this very well. He also didn't care that the Higurashi family was divided in its secrets. Sesshoumaru didn't tell his family everything he did either.
The old man finally popped the lid off the box to reveal a lot more than the single file Sesshoumaru was expecting. "We documented everything we could in case anyone tried to dispute it. Nothing like specifics to support the truth," the priest declared smugly.
Sesshoumaru wondered how the police and youkai enforcers could have misplaced such a massive file. "As this is all outside the chain of custody, one could argue the evidence has been compromised," the taller male pointed out. He was curious as to what could be raised to counter that truth.
"This is merely an official copy," Kagome's grandfather craftily replied. "But it does contain contact information for all the witnesses. Copies of the security footage as well as information on where to find the originals. Copies of medical files along with the necessary release forms to have the originals copied again. The depositions were presided over by legally certified personnel who kept the originals and made copies for the police files and us."
In other words, the original file could be reassembled from scratch if necessary. "Your Tanaka Miroku is very meticulous," Sesshoumaru allowed. "Or was it your granddaughter who insisted on being so thorough, Higurashi-san?"
"Call me Genkei," the old man settled the DVD player on top of a handy shelf kept clear of debris. "If you run this case down as your reputation suggests, you will be practically family, Sesshoumaru-dono."
"As you will, Genkei-san," Sesshoumaru replied stiffly. It was not often he was invited to drop formalities with humans. Youkai of significance did not have the dual names most humans did and most were considered under Sesshoumaru in rank and therefore were so far beneath his rule as to make friendship inadvisable or so close in rank as to make their overtures of friendship suspicious. Humans existed in faceless masses for the most part. It was easier to keep track of family names as most held a singular scent note along bloodlines that he could remember. He rarely spent enough time around individual humans to affix their individual scent mixtures to memory. They hardly lived long enough to make it worth his while.
Shrine families tended to live longer but still far shorter than any youkai.
Sesshoumaru began sifting through the contents of the box until he found a paper file. Flipping it open, he found pictures of Kagome's injuries. It was worse than she had told him. Forty two stitches were required to seal the wounds dug into her wrists initially. Two separate surgeries were performed in hopes of correcting the nerve damage. The skin of her face had swelled up and broken along her cheek in line with her bloodied ear. The damage to the soft tissue was extensive. He hadn't even looked at the medical files yet.
He found her transcripts to Tokyo Medical University. She'd been an exemplary student working through her fourth year. She would have needed two more years before she could take the government licensing exam and start her rounds and residency. Higurashi Kagome was aiming to be a trauma surgeon.
The nerve damage and tremors in her hand ended any chance of achieving that eventual goal. Inuyasha had stolen her future. Sesshoumaru closed his eyes as proof of the great dishonor brought down on his family mounted.
Amber eyes reopened and hardened with determination. He would know the full extent of the damage his family had caused Higurashi Kagome. Justice would be meted out and reparations would be made.
"It's a lot to take in," Genkei observed, pointedly refusing to look at the pictures filed at the beginning of the report.
"You are not required to observe this Sesshoumaru," the inu offered the old man a more comfortable option for spending his time. "You are obviously quite familiar with the contents."
Genkei stiffened and narrowed his brown eyes, achieving a squint only humans who have seen most of their allotted decades can produce. Sesshoumaru received the impression he was being weighed and measured. "That file is the only official copy left," the priest finally pointed out. "We didn't expect the authorities of two species to lose everything concerning the incident, but they did. We only kept a copy so that if someone else found themselves in a similar situation they could use the previous report to add weight to their case."
Such was very likely given Inuyasha's continued selfishness and immaturity and Sesshoumaru really couldn't blame Higurashi Genkei for insuring the continued integrity of the box and it's contents. There was no doubt viewing any part of the file was emotionally distressing for the old man, but Genkei was made of stern stuff. The trust between granddaughter and grandparent was strong enough to keep him in the store room and watching as Sesshoumaru went through it. It was hard to take insult at the slight to his own integrity. For those who had proof of a conscious breach of trust in the agencies charged with pursuing justice, it was hard to accept an individual could be more trustworthy.
Sesshoumaru wondered if Inuyasha had seen first hand what damage he had wrought. Surely, the hanyou would be able to accept why Kagome wanted nothing to do with him if he had. The inu youkai shook his head as he remembered that sometimes the abusers continued long term relationships with the ones they abused. Such callousness to injury was far too common.
Flipping through the pages he read the specifics of location, date, time of ambulance pickup, the duration Kagome spent bleeding out until she was assessed and stitched up. He read how long it took for her to wake up, what visitors she had in hospital, how long each one stayed and how they were received. There were transcripts for every interview and there were several. All of Kagome's companions had been questioned. Their waitstaff, the business owner, the bus boy, and Inuyasha's companion had all given statements. The medical staff and EMTs were all contacted, twice. Every possible witness had been run down and their words carefully typed out as a script for the videos burned onto disc.
The security footage captured every minute, every second of the incident from when Inuyasha grabbed his ex-girlfriend to when he back handed her in the ally and left her on the ground. In all, there were only eight seconds when the puppy eared misanthrope wasn't caught by the cameras. The reasons for such tight security were given also, upholding the integrity of the bar owner and his staff.
The medical records gave more details on the damage suffered. There were the obvious wounds, blood loss and the nerve damage, but there was also strained muscles, a minor concussion, and emotional trauma. She'd refused pain killers until they could determine the state of her hand. The police were called to Kagome's room to ask questions. They did nothing. Tanaka Miroku contacted the youkai enforcement officers who also did nothing.
Sesshoumaru snarled at the paperwork. The only thing they did right by Higurashi Kagome was accepting that it happened and that it wasn't her fault. This was wrong. This went against everything Sesshoumaru's instincts and sensibilities insisted should have happened.
The report should have been looked into regardless of who had brought it to the authorities or who it was made against. Inuyasha was not above the laws of either species because he was Masashi's youngest son. If this had happened in Sesshoumaru's territory, it would have been investigated thoroughly. Perhaps not as thoroughly as this file had been, but his enforcers wouldn't have been required to work against a system inclined to sweep the case under a rug. If anyone involved was as high profile as Inuyasha, the case would have been brought to Sesshoumaru's personal attention to head off media speculation and vilification of either the victim or the aggressor.
Hours passed as he delved deeper into the file. Genkei stood leaning against the wall as the sun slanted further across the floor refusing to give in to the fatigue his age threw over him around mid afternoon. Ultimately the aged human lost the battle and dozed against the wooden wall. Sesshoumaru became aware of the passing time after a soft snore broke into his thoughts.
The inu's amber eyes softened at the image of human frailty overtaking stubborn loyalty. A sharp knock sounded against the door to the outside and Sesshoumaru rose swiftly to answer it before the priest could wake.
"I brought some tea," Higurashi Akina lifted a thermos into his line of sight. "The store room is dusty."
"Hn," Sesshoumaru acknowledged before dismissing her presence and turning back to the papers neatly set out beside the open box.
"You've been here for hours," Akina pointed out. "Surely you've satisfied your curiosity enough to drop this whole thing."
"Curiosity?" Sesshoumaru questioned. "Injustice is not the draw of mere curiosity," his tone was flat and his features stoic, but inside his instincts raged at this woman and a world that would ignore the truth of this situation. "Inuyasha should be held accountable for his behavior."
"He was just angry!" Akina protested. "Kagome was acting like the relationship meant less than her classes!"
"The relationship had ended and was not of long duration to start with. It was ended because Inuyasha failed to understand monogamy is the common practice of humans," Sesshoumaru returned. "Higurashi Kagome has already indicated she would have dumped him upon learning Inuyasha was in a relationship with someone else at the same time." Sesshoumaru could respect that. As the female had said, the pair obviously failed to hold the same values and principles on very important issues. Such usually spelled disaster for any intimate relationship.
"She's just bitter," Akina insisted. "If she'd given him a real effort to make it work, Inuyasha wouldn't have needed to find someone else."
"Hn," Sesshoumaru narrowed his eyes at the woman. Now he knew why Kagome hadn't felt safe at home. He knew why the mother had refused to bar Inuyasha from the shrine her daughter had called home and looked to for safe refuge and comfort. "Inuyasha was aware she was a dedicated student at the time the relationship began."
Akina rolled her eyes. "She was wasting her time. It would have been better for Kagome to cultivate what Inuyasha offered her instead." Clearly the woman never believed Kagome would succeed in her efforts to become a surgeon. Sesshoumaru found it difficult to believe that the female hidden up north could have come from such a person.
"Hn, this Sesshoumaru understands what you say," and he did. There were many women who attended higher education to catch more affluent husbands. He doubted that was Kagome's aim, but her mother's goals were clearly not the same.
"You never did support her enough," Genkei broke in, voice gruff with his struggle to shed the sands of sleep. "Kagome went to school to achieve her dream, not to catch a rich husband."
"I think I know my daughter better than you," Akina scoffed. And there it was. A parent who had superimposed her own views and ambitions on her child. "Kagome would have outgrown that childish dream and woken to reality sooner if you hadn't encouraged her so much."
"I wanted her to inherit the shrine," Genkei declared hotly. "That much reiki was meant to protect a shrine and promote peace between peoples. She wanted to be a surgeon since her father died, Akina. Surely even you knew that much. Kagome's dream was to be a surgeon and save some other child's father. It was what drove her. She wanted to be something this country needs more than another scheming housewife or run of the mill shrine keeper."
"Damn that criminal," Akina's voice shook. "Damn your refusal to let it go. And Damn Kagome for being so stuck on that one event. He was my husband and I had to watch him die."
"He was her father and she watched him die too," Genkei shook his head sadly. "He was my son and I lost him as well. Your pain is not more than mine or hers. At least Kagome turned it into something positive instead of trying to force everyone around her into the mold of what you believed was normal."
Sesshoumaru sat silently through their family drama, learning more about where Higurashi Kagome had come from than the file had so far given him. Every family dynamic had its hidden faults. Trauma caused the most erratic behaviors and often changed people forever. Sesshoumaru didn't know what event the arguing pair spoke of beyond the fact that one event had cost them a family member and jarred all their lives onto different tracks.
Then another traumatic event jarred them again.
"Well you got your wish!" Akina huffed. "She's a shrine keeper like you wanted!"
"It's not what she wanted!" Genkei growled. "Kagome wanted to be a surgeon! Inuyasha stole that, and then he harassed her into leaving us altogether."
"He wasn't harassing her, he was trying to apologize. Kagome was just too stubborn to listen," Akina insisted.
"This Sesshoumaru doubts very much that Inuyasha was trying to apologize to anyone about anything," the inu scoffed. Inuyasha wasn't capable of admitting his own errors let alone acknowledging it to anyone else.
"And it's very unlikely he dumped the other girl considering Inuyasha is still dating her even now," Genkei added. "It was harassment, the type stalkers perpetuate against ex girlfriends."
"You're impossible!" Akina threw the thermos of tea into the shed and spun around to walk away. The canister knocked into a stack of boxes throwing up a cloud of dust as the stack creaked and swayed, threatening to topple over.
Sesshoumaru caught the bulk of stored artifacts and prevented it from falling. The thermos landed on the floor with a noisy clatter before rolling to stop against Genkei's foot. "She wasn't always like that," the old man commented quietly. "She used to be so accepting and tolerant. Then the terrorist strikes happened a block over when Kagome was six and...They used the shrine to stage their triage. Kamin was one of the first injured people brought here after the first explosion but before the second and third. He'd gone to the market to pick up some things for dinner. Akina was pregnant, just barely but it was certain. Kagome used to follow me around asking all kinds of questions." The old man lapsed into quiet nostalgia. "We were happy and it all disappeared." Genkei didn't delve into who the terrorist was or the why behind the attack. It didn't really matter. Whether it was a political agenda or a single deranged individual didn't matter. People were hurt.
"The first three victims were set out in front of the haiden. The streets were closed down. Ambulances came in and out through the back drive way. They set up a surgery unit under a tent. Kamin, a teenager and a ten year old boy were the first to arrive. A trauma surgeon came in and promptly set to making the tough choices," Genkei's eyes were weak as he blinked in the dusty light. "The ten year old had a single shrapnel wound. The teenager had a punctured lung and Kamin...Kamin had so many holes in him it was hard to tell what color his skin used to be." He sighed and hunched down slightly, clutching his arms tight against himself as if suddenly cold. "Akina held him in her arms, begging him to hold on. Kagome just stood there solemnly at her side and watched things. Watched as the doctors took care of the teenager and the ten year old. Watched as newly arrived victims were looked to before her father who struggled to gasp in every breath."
The priest smiled ruefully, "Finally she asked the question. Our Kagome asked why her father hadn't been taken to be fixed. A nurse told her that there were only so many surgeons and that one complicated surgery would require more time than two other patients had to live." Sesshoumaru's nodded as he turned back to the box. He well remembered the round of terrorist attacks on Tokyo nearly two decades ago. He recalled the casualty counts his father had not reacted well to. Masashi had been furious that someone had dared to bomb any part of his territory. The lives lost were important to remember.
"Kagome learned the parts of triage that weren't explained to her that day as she got older, but I don't think she ever gave up that first simple and blunt explanation," Genkei sighed.
"It wasn't wrong," Sesshoumaru shrugged. Surgeons were in high demand because there was a serious shortage of them in Japan. There weren't many who were both smart and diligent enough to succeed in that area who were also willing to sacrifice so much of their personal lives.
"No, but it was simplistic," Genkei smiled wearily. "Akina's changes weren't immediately apparent then. She was sad for a long time, we all were. Kagome's sudden onset ambition was easy to humor as she was still very young and most kids change their goals from one week to the next. It's actually rather admirable how steadfast she was."
"Hn," Sesshoumaru pondered the sentiment. He wasn't so sure that Kagome's ambition was any more estimable for being adopted so young or if she was just incredibly stubborn and unwilling to consider any other options.
"The tremors that started as a result of her injuries put an end to that," Kagome's grandfather sighed.
"Could she not have continued her medical training to become a general practitioner instead of a surgeon?" Sesshoumaru inquired evenly.
Genkei shook his head. "Wasn't there a log of all the contact Kagome had in the hospital? Inuyasha was refused access to her room, but that didn't stop him from constantly calling. There was also a copy of her cell phone records too. We left her in the hospital as long as they would let us because we knew there would be no rest once she was out." The old man shifted his gaze to stare back into the darker areas of the shed. "Akina wouldn't let us bar Inuyasha from the shrine for Kagome's protection."
"That one has no reiki to speak of how could she prevent it if you and your granddaughter did block the hanyou from the grounds?" Sesshoumaru felt the need to ask. He didn't really care, but it did seem the most simple solution. His father was always encouraging Sesshoumaru to learn more about human thought processes and motivations. Governing youkai occasionally required negotiating with disgruntled humans. Normally negotiations went through shrine families. Therefore, learning why the decision to block Inuyasha from a shrine he wasn't welcome in hadn't been made despite minor dissent was helpful.
"Kagome insisted it went against the shrine practices," Genkei answered. "Respect is meant for everyone at the shrine, including mothers who can't seem to respect and support the decisions of her children." The old man sighed. "Kagome wasn't safe here. If she went to another medical school in Japan, she would easily be found by Inuyasha." Sesshoumaru agreed with that logic. There were only so many certified medical programs in the country. Even if Higurashi Kagome went to a school in Sesshoumaru's territory, it wouldn't have protected her from Inuyasha's harassment. "Besides, her dreams of being a surgeon were over. Being a regular doctor would be torture when she came up against situations where a surgeon would be needed..." the priest trailed off.
Genkei didn't need to explain further. Sesshoumaru knew what it was like to be confronted with a situation he wasn't allowed to handle himself. He knew what his legal limits were and often they chaffed. It wasn't difficult to extrapolate from there what it would feel like to be faced with a situation he could have dealt with if not for the intervention of others.
"So the shrine?" Sesshoumaru prompted.
"Kagome had already taken classes at the Shrine school when she began to exhibit her reiki as an adolescent," Genkei explained. "She grew up on a shrine and I had family up north in need of an heir for his shrine. The location was ideal because Masashi had already confirmed the south was going to Inuyasha and it is well known in Shrine circles that you do not particularly tolerate your younger sibling's interference in your territories." The thermos of tea was set beside the DVD player without being opened. "It put her as far out of Inuyasha's reach as we could get without making it obvious." Trying to leave the country legally as a member of a shrine family and a powerful reiki user, Kagome's movements would have been tracked and announced to the ruling youkai. Inevitably, Inuyasha would have known where Kagome had gone.
The Higurashi had used the cloak of Sesshoumaru's name. They hadn't asked for his protection, which he wouldn't have offered, and they didn't impose on his rule. Kagome had desired anonymity from Inuyasha and achieved it for almost a decade. If not for her saving the shimarisu siblings, Inuyasha would never have looked to the north and never have found her. Kagome knew this and did her duty anyway.
Sesshoumaru found new respect for the female who had offered his charges succor. She risked more than he'd taken into account to do what she felt was right. In return he would insure she received real justice for what Inuyasha had done to her.