Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.
Chapter 20 – Impromptu Rescue
Sesshoumaru was working through some exercises and contemplating the progress made with Kagome. After all, they'd managed to have not one, but two entire conversations the previous night, without verbally or physically attacking each other. Progress indeed. Without realizing he had stopped, Sesshoumaru felt his right hand slightly graze the cheek where her lips had made contact last night.
He had been stunned by her actions. Less than a week ago she had deliberately poisoned him, only to kiss him four days later. It was not a romantic kiss, he reasoned, but still. Briefly he wondered whether or not he should go ahead with the plans he had to replace her entire apartment (excepting Shippou's room of course) with all bright pink decor. It would be a big blow and she was looking so exhausted that something like that just might finish her off.
"She deserves it," he muttered, remembering only too well the severe stomach cramps and indigestion he'd had for two days as a result of the chocolate, and the burns he'd gotten from entering her office. But then again…
All thoughts of revenge suddenly flew from his mind as a lightening-like sensation hit him. Every single hair on his body was on edge, a feeling he was sure whose source was none other than the person he'd just been thinking of. Another wave hit him, this time accompanied by an extreme sense of alarm.
"Something has happened," he growled in anger. The idea of sitting there and doing nothing did not even cross his mind. Anything that would terrify the miko this much had to be a threat to more than just herself; he was not sure how he knew she was terrified, he just did.
'I have an obligation to investigate,' he told himself as he ran for the elevators, intent on reaching the ground level and leaving immediately to find her.
As he moved through the hallways he noticed he was not the only one to pick up on the miko's distress. Several other were looking alarmed, and some even called out to him asking if he knew what was going on, but he ignored them.
Just as he reached the lobby, the receptionist called out to him. "Taisho-sama wait! Higurashi Mia is on the phone and she says…"
Sesshoumaru cut her off, wrenching the phone from her grasp. "Where is she?" he demanded.
"Sesshoumaru-sama, come to the shrine quickly please!" Mia begged, her tone desperate.
"I am on my way now," he assured her. He tossed the phone back to the receptionist and commanded her to have Ikeda and Watanabe report to the Higurashi shrine immediately as he raced through the front doors.
Summoning his cloud, he flew to the shrine, wondering what it was that could possibly put Kagome and her mother in such a state. The closer he got to the shrine, the more intense the feeling of alarm and desperation. He noted several youkai and people along the way who had stopped in their tracks and turned to face the direction of the Higurashi shrine, fear and apprehension rolling off of them.
'Her aura is truly remarkable if it can be felt by and influence this many at this distance,' he thought with something close to awe. 'She will not be able to hide who she is for much longer. Surely the change must soon begin to take place.'
When he approached, he sensed the two women out back, and a second later he saw them by the goshinboku. Kagome was doubled over and panting with one hand resting on the trunk for balance. Mia had her arms around her daughter's shoulders, trying to give some form of comfort or support.
"What has happened?" Sesshoumaru asked, his tone not necessarily cold but still commanding.
"I'm not sure," Mia said, her voice strained with worry. "We were in the kitchen talking when all of a sudden she screamed. When I asked what was wrong she just told me to call you, and then once I was off the phone she'd made her way out here."
"Hando," Sesshoumaru glared at the woman, "tell me what has happened."
She didn't respond.
"Now Hando!" he barked. He found himself hovering somewhere between anger and worry as she continued to just huddle against the tree, breathing in a way that made it seem as if someone was sitting on her chest. He knew his anger wasn't helping, so he switched tactics. Softening his voice to a tone he'd only ever used speaking to Rin he tried again. "Kagome, please, you need to tell us what has happened."
When she heard her name Kagome seemed to come out of a daze. She shrugged off her mother and stood, but still rested both palms against the ancient god tree. "Help me," she muttered as her forehead fell forward to rest against the tree's bark as well.
Sesshoumaru was about to ask how he was supposed to help if she wouldn't tell him what was wrong when he noticed the green glow surrounding her hands. She grunted from some invisible strain and the tree seemed to shiver as she withdrew power from it.
Her eyes shot open, revealing now white irises. Not only that, but the strain and fatigue were gone from her appearance. She looked nearly bursting with energy and power, and the scent of it was so strong it blocked all others from his senses for a few moments.
She jerked back from the tree and gasped, sucking down air as if she'd just surfaced from a long dive underwater. Turning to Sesshoumaru she spoke rapidly. "I need you to tell me where Kikyou is," she pleaded.
Sesshoumaru's eyes narrowed. "She is with Inuyasha." He had sent to couple on a short, but very important recon mission. They were due back sometime tomorrow morning.
"What? No! That's worse!" she hollered.
"Kagome dear, what is going…" Mia tried interject.
"Sesshoumaru, whatever they were doing something has gone horribly wrong," Kagome cried. "You have to tell me where to find them now!"
He hesitated. The success of the mission required that Kikyou and his brother remain unknown and unfound by their targets. If Kagome went charging in there when nothing was wrong in the first place, it could very well compromise two years of work against a threat that had been building for some time.
"NOW, TAISHO!" Kagome yelled with such a sense of authority that it would have any besides Sesshoumaru tremble. "If I don't get there soon, both of them will be worse than dead!" Her power sparked and crackled around her, seemingly barely contained in her small frame.
'Yes indeed, the change will begin soon. Surely no one can have that much power in them without enduring the effects,' he thought. "Very well," he conceded, "but I will accompany you."
"Fine then," she snapped. Turning to her mother she quickly added, "Pick up Shippou from school and both of you stay here okay?"
"Yes dear, of course, just go," Mia urged.
"I have also dispatched Ikeda and Watanabe. They will remain with you till we return."
"Thank you Sesshoumaru," Mia said with a little relief in her eyes. She was certainly capable of handling things on her own, but it would be a comfort to have them near, and no doubt Shippou would appreciate having Kohaku around.
Kagome turned back to Sesshoumaru. "Okay, we have to be fast, so how do we get there? Do you have a chopper on hand?"
Sesshoumaru held out his hand. "I do not need a helicopter to travel quickly." Kagome hesitated briefly, but then looked into his eyes and was reassured by the confidence therein. She took the proffered hand, and an instant later his cloud formed underneath him and they shot from the ground, soaring gracefully about a mile high in the air.
Well, at least they would have been soaring gracefully had Kagome not screamed bloody murder and began clawing her way onto his shoulders. "Hando what in the hell is wrong with you?" he bellowed. Her weight was not enough to throw him off, but her energy spikes were beyond distracting.
"Too high, too high!" she screeched, desperately clinging to him and shaking like a leaf in a storm. "Down! Too high! Down, down, DOWN!"
A memory surfaced in his mind from the night he had met her, and then it clicked, 'She's afraid of heights.' He descended to where he was just a few meters above the tree tops. He didn't like flying this low because he could not see as much and had to slow his pace, but if it kept her from having a heart attack, he'd do it. "Kagome," he said gently, "look, we're much closer to the ground now."
She opened her eyes briefly, but shut them tight gain and continued to cling to him, her nails digging through the fabric and nearly piercing his skin.
"Kagome, calm down; this Sesshoumaru will not let you fall," he admonished. "Now, tell me what is wrong with Kikyou and Inuyasha." He was trying to distract her, and bring her back into focus. If something was really wrong, then he did not want to walk into the situation blind.
Kagome quieted slightly, but she did not release her grip nor did she cease trembling. However, after several deep breaths she allowed Sesshoumaru to reposition her to where she was in front of him, facing his chest and hugging his waist as opposed to clamoring all over him from behind. Strangely, even through all of their clothes, he cold feel that her body temperature was higher than normal.
"Someone is trying to steal her miko powers," she whispered.
It was a good thing he could hear so well, or else he would not have caught the words in the gale of wind created by their pace. "Who is?"
"I don't know for sure, but it is a dark miko. She's using her own twisted abilities to try and assimilate Kikyou's," she replied. Her voice was quiet but he could hear the building wrath in her tone just the same.
"How can you tell?" he asked perplexedly. Kikyou was nearly three hundred miles away.
"Her powers are connected to my own through our blood bond, she can feel mine, and I can feel hers. Right now, I can feel someone foreign, someone dark and evil trying to call her powers away from her body. It was why I was weakened at the shrine, because I could feel the tug and my own instinctively began to pull back. Right now, I'm the only thing keeping this person at bay, but they're only trying harder." She shuddered even harder for a few seconds and then asked, "How long until we get there?"
"They are some distance away, so it will be about forty-five minutes or so. Can you hold on that long?" he questioned. His voice may have been even, but Kagome could tell he was still agitated.
"Yes, I tapped quite a bit of energy out of goshinboku, so I should be okay," she murmured.
"Have you figured out how to do that at will now?" Sesshoumaru did not wish to seem as though he were attempting to take advantage of her current state, but he thought if he could keep her talking it would help allay her fear of being up in the air.
"Almost," she replied. "I'm more and more aware of it, and it comes more easily to me now, but I still have to be either in real need of the extra energy or so tired that my system somehow triggers a draw on it itself. I can't consciously start the process on my own, but I can adjust the flow of transfer."
An idea came to Sesshoumaru, one he was not necessarily pleased with. "Is that why you have been so tired lately? Have you deliberately been weakening yourself in order to trigger it?"
Kagome glanced up for the briefest of moments, but shut her eyes once again when she saw the anger laden eyes of Sesshoumaru boring into her. In the tiniest of voices she mumbled something he was fairly sure was "maybe."
"That is both foolish and unnecessary," he growled, unconsciously tightening his hold on the small frame clinging to his own.
"Well, it's not as if I was completely exhausting myself to the point of being defenseless you know!" she retorted, her anger beginning to come into play. "And the things I've been doing to tire myself out weren't exactly a waste of time either."
"Oh and what might they be?" he sneered.
"None of your damn business!" she shot back.
"On the contrary, if you are too weak or tired to fight when we get there, I believe I deserve to know the reason I'm going to have to save your hide as well as our siblings'." He knew he was annoying her, but it had the desirable effect of making her less aware of her own fears.
"Weak! Tired! Do I look weak or tired at the moment!" she seethed. "You just wait till we get there, bucko, and I'll give you a show you won't soon forget!"
"Do not refer to this Sesshoumaru as bucko again or I shall…"
"Carve your real name into my flesh so I won't be tempted to forget it?" she said, her eyes suddenly alight with mischief.
"Talk to Peters often, do you?" he asked coolly.
"Yes, quite often," she smiled. But then suddenly she lurched in his arms and gasped in pain again. "Can't you go any faster?" she hissed.
In response, Sesshoumaru put on more speed which in turn caused Kagome to squeal and burry her head into his arm and shoulder. "How can you be frightened by this?" he asked calmly. "You've been in planes and helicopters on several previous occasions without this much trouble."
"Well, pardon me for pointing out your insufficiencies oh great Sesshoumaru-sama, but you don't exactly come equipped with seat belts, parachutes, flotation devices or emergency exit procedures," she grumbled. "And if you suddenly decide to up and die on me, there's no co-pilot here to back you up."
"I am much safer than any ridiculous machine some human designed and built!" he barked, scandalized by her comparison. "Kami, woman, even Rin enjoys flying with me."
She mumbled something in reply.
"What was that?"
"I don't like being so far from the earth," she murmured. "At least in a plane I am surrounded by other living things along with all the metals and such that make up the plane."
"Well, despite that, I am still significantly more adept at flying than anyone else," he said calmly.
Kagome once again grunted in pain. "How much longer?" she snapped.
"Well, at this pace, another twenty-five minutes," he replied. When she moaned he decided to make an offer. "I can get there in fifteen, but in order to increase my speed to that pace we'd have to go up higher. It's too risky to fly this low at that kind of velocity."
"Higher?" she whimpered. "Can't you just speed it up down here?"
Anger, hurt pride, and a sense of pain filled him. "Kagome, do you trust me?" he demanded.
"What?" she asked, startled.
"Our family's lives are at stake," he growled, though not threateningly. "I can get there faster, but you have to trust me. Can you do that?"
Kagome looked into his eyes and seemed to come to a decision. Kikyou and Inuyasha needed her, so she had no choice. She hated, absolutely loathed, being that far away from the ground, but there was no help for it. She jumped up, wrapping her legs around his waist and her arms about his neck and shoulders, gripping him so tightly that had he not been youkai he would have had several large, nasty bruises from it.
"Is that a yes?" he choked out from the death grip around him, though simultaneously he was wrapping his arms around her waist to secure her position.
She nodded.
He felt her sharp intake of breath as he both increased his speed and altitude, and her legs tightened to the point where he wondered if she was capable of snapping lesser beings in half. Other than that, she made no complaint except for the occasional shudder he felt sure was related to what was happening to Kikyou.
"Can you further explain what is happening?" he asked, trying to engage her focus once more.
"A dark miko is trying to steal Kikyou's ability to wield holy powers, no doubt to increase her own strength; but it also feels as if she is not trying to kill her," Kagome said bitterly.
"Why would she wish to leave Kikyou alive after such an ordeal?" he asked. "If I am not much mistaken, to rob a miko of their powers would drive them insane, would it not?"
"Yes, to take something as integral as magical ability will leave a hole so gaping in her mind that it would cave in on itself. Her body would longer fit her soul."
Sesshoumaru was unsure he completely comprehended that last sentence, but even still, he got the gist of the resulting madness Kikyou would suffer. "That again brings us to: why?"
"I can't say for sure but my guess is that she's going to try and put something else in its place. It seems as if this dark miko is attempting to alter my sister into something else," Kagome snarled. "And the fool is going about it in all the wrong way…she does not comprehend it correctly."
Once again Sesshoumaru felt the red flags being waved in his mind. 'She is referring to alchemy, and she has just as good as admitted to knowing how to engage in it! What in Kami's name has this girl gotten herself into!' He was about to start demanding answers when he felt her jerk against him and let out a string of some of the most innovative and colorful curses he'd heard. 'Perhaps now is not the time for an interrogation.'
He could have sworn he heard her mumble, "Gee ya think?" He wasn't sure, but given the incident last night he decided he'd better regulate his thoughts and not start a fight till after they and their sibling's were secure and back in Tokyo.
Ten minutes later as they neared their destination, he slowed and set down on the ground. He waited for her to release him and stand on her own but she didn't move. "You can let go now," he drawled, "we're on the ground."
Kagome raised her head ever so slightly and blinked, just barely taking in her surroundings. When she saw grass and trees all about her, she gingerly lowered one foot towards the ground and tested it's firmness a few times before placing any weight on it. When that leg failed to give out she slowly lowered the other, and then even more slowly released his neck and shoulders as all her weight came to rest on her own two feet. She blinked absently a few more times.
"See?" Sesshoumaru said, "I told you I was safer than any…" He didn't bother finishing his sentence as Kagome had made a mad dash to the nearest set of bushes and vomited. The smell disgusted him, but he got a sudden bolt of inspiration. He calmly walked up behind her, picked her up and carried her to a stream that was only about thirty feet away. As she rinsed her mouth and splashed water on her face, he made his move. "You do realize we're going to have to work on that, don't you?"
She nodded slowly, taking deep measured breaths.
'Gotchya!' he thought, filing that little moment away for future use. For a moment he realized she might have picked up on that thought, but luckily for him she still seemed too distracted to notice. "I assume you can feel your sister's and Inuyasha's aura from here?" he inquired, trying to divert her attention away from what had just happened, just in case.
"Hai," she said, her voice gaining strength as she continued. "They're about a mile north, but I think they're underground. It might be a cave, or it might be manmade, I'm not sure."
"Try and draw in that aura of yours, or they'll know we're here. That is, if they haven't noticed already," he admonished.
"I drew most of it in the minute we left the shrine, as I know, did you," she retorted, insulted by his lack of confidence in her skills. She knew better than to advertise her presence like that when on a mission. "Do not treat me like an amateur."
"Then why can I still sense it, miko?" he asked, annoyed himself that she seemed to toss away his experience-proven advice. 'Stupid girl, she still will not listen to me,' he growled internally.
"I am not stupid Taisho!" she snapped.
'Damn it, she has begun to hear my thoughts again!'
"I heard that too!" she chided. "Now please, can we not argue for five minutes while we discuss my plan for getting our family back?"
"Your plan?" Sesshoumaru snorted, his tone dripping with condescension.
"Yes! My plan! The plan we will be following!"
"Really, I look forward to being dazzled by your brilliance Hando."
"Glad to hear of your acquiescence. Now, here's what we're going to do…" She explained her idea before he had a chance to object, and amazingly enough, he actually agreed.
"Alright then," he conceded. "Let's go."
-x-X-x-X-x-X-x-
A/N: Betchya y'all weren't expectin' that were ya? Sorry it took so long to update, but there were extenuating circumstances beyond my control… ("I have no recollection, Senator…") But on the bright side, the long wait resulted in a longer chapter because my ever-helpful and insightful beta DarkCrystalis, a.k.a Angel, pointed out I needed to fill it out in a few places.
And now my dear, delightful, de-lovely readers/reviewers, I give you the spoilers for chapter 21: KAGOME!
-"Do you always refer to yourself in the third person when you're annoyed Taisho?" she snapped back.-
- Sesshoumaru was much more in favor of swooping in and eradicating the lot of them for daring to interfere with his second and third in command, but Kagome had convinced him to show restraint. He was tense, though. This 'no killing anybody' thing was really hard.-
-"Of course I can break it," she retorted. "The real question is can I not break it, but send a sleeping spell through it, knock out the miko on the other side, then break it, and then put it back up without anyone noticing."
"Well you are supposed to be good at this aren't you?" Sesshoumaru inquired with feigned innocence.-
-"Oh Kami," whispered Kikyou.
"Holy shit!" exclaimed Inuyasha.
"How…" Sesshoumaru questioned aloud.
"KAGOME!" all three yelled as they noticed the still form of the young woman between them.-
There… are you excited? I'm excited! Then again, maybe I'm more excited because I know exactly what I have hiding up my sleeve for the next chapter… but trust me, you should be excited. After all, I'm excited! Review and tell me if you're excited too!
( -starts singing: "I'm so excited! And I just can't hide it! I'm about to lose control and I think I like it!-)
Bruce here, I suggest you all run. If she has started singing oldies then dancing is sure to follow!
Della here (shoves Bruce away from keyboard) and I dance fine, thank you very much! Shark boy is just jealous.
Bruce here, a fight for the keyboard has just taken place. Obviously, I won. The little sheila is currently stomach down on her chair with me sitting on top of her. HA! She thinks she's so tough. CRIKEY! She just bit my leg! The little savage, and she calls me a shark? I ask you! Hmph, let's see how she'll react when I swat her one on her behind, hahaha. Anway, I'm gonna post this right quick because she's screaming bloody murder and I know if, correction - when,she wiggles out of her current prison she'll erase everything after her spoilers and that's not nearly as fun now is it? Aren't you all glad I was here helping her move when her beta sent this back to be posted? OOOUCH! She bit me again! The little beast! Better go, she's got her hand loosvmpevr mgpoe mgpee fdjfdnjv fvasxACSDCSDCSASXdZAsX