Chapter Two
Kagome

When I woke up from this delightful little nap, the first thing that I thought was that I was freezing. The second thing was that I hurt all over. The third thing, which immediately jumped to the front of my mind and shoved the other two things to the side as soon as I opened my eyes, was the fact that there was a very large and very sharp sword about an inch away from my nose. I swallowed and tried to breathe very shallowly, eyes fixed on the metal point.

"Demon," I heard someone say. Now, it took some effort (I'm sure you understand, given the situation I was in) but I finally managed to tear my gaze away from the tip of the sword and look up the length then further, to the face of the person who was holding it in such a threatening position. It was very familiar.

"Wha-?" I began saying, but he didn't let me finish.

"Here, I'll make it simple. You just tell me where Kagome is and I won't kill you. Sound good?"

"Inuyasha!" I squeaked, my eyes automatically flowing back down the length of the blade to the business end, still hovering far too close to my face.

"What are you anyway, a kitsune?" He snorted as if to express his emotions about kitsune. "You almost smell human, but not enough to fool me."

"Inuyasha!" I squeaked again, "what, have you gone nuts?? Stop it!"

He growled. "Don't play dumb. What, you think you look like her or something?"

"You really have gone – Inuyasha!!!" This last word was a half scream as he began dropping a very large, very transformed Tetsusaiga on my head. And then I dodged. It was just that simple. I thought that I didn't want to be hit and my muscles tensed and moved as the world blurred and changed and I wasn't there anymore.

Ok, so apparently I went insane without noticing.

WHAAAAAAAAAT?

I froze, which seemed to me like a good idea. I mean, when the world blurs and just zings by when you try moving, staying still sounds like a good idea, don't you think? Yea, I do too. Just don't move and try to figure out what you're doing….

Maybe I wasn't nuts. Maybe I'd just hit my head when I fell down and all this was some really strange, concussed kinda hallucination. That could be. Or there was another, less attractive possibility now that I thought of it – that I was dead because Sesshoumaru had killed me after I fell over for… I dunno, infringing on his dignity or something when I tried purifying enough of his power to subdue him.

Now that I think of that, why in the name of cheese didn't I just try to purify him, hmm? What was all the crap with the 'without youki he'll go away! It will work, yea!' I think I was nuts even before the world started reacting the wrong way. Only… I dunno, I guess I don't really like the idea of killing him. Why this is I'm not quite sure, but some of it may stem from the fact that he himself is so sure that he is invincible, that it would be… well, it seems like it would be cruel to try disproving him. Unless, you know, he was trying to kill me at the time and I had no choice.

I really am nuts.

Or then there was, once again, the possibility that I was dead. I mean, I knew I had a fever when I hit the ground and my nose was running and now I didn't seem to have either of these problems. Only I still felt hot, kind of, but it wasn't an unnatural kind of hot. Except I was hot even though I was cold and- arg, this doesn't make any sense whatsoever. But, moving on from inexplicable body temperatures, I certainly didn't have a stuffed up nose. I can tell you this most assuredly – things actually… well, I don't want to say that they smelled more or whatever because they weren't stinky and that's generally what that phrase means. But… oh jeez, the smells. They seemed way more VIVID, way more THERE, if this makes any sense at all which it probably doesn't but I don't even know if there are words to describe it – they seemed more real then they had before, like a scent was suddenly something tangible – something you could see and taste and feel, something you could eat or drink.

My hearing was funny too, but not in that sounds were more real or anything. There were just so many more of them; I could hear what seemed to me to be everything.

Does hitting your head do this? Can a concussion augment the senses? Vision is supposed to go whacky, isn't it? My eyes had gone weird (I suppose to match everything else, haha) but not wavy or anything. I didn't feel dizzy or like I was going to throw up (as I believe generally happens to the concussed), things just looked a bit different. Like… I dunno, like someone had taken a television and adjusted the color just a bit sideways and sharpened the focus and it had been way off before, so suddenly you had this intense, strange sort of image that was an everyday thing. Or maybe that happens when you're dead.

"Am I a ghost?" I asked, not quite sure who I was talking to. Inuyasha growled and I squeaked and the world blurred again and I was standing in quite a different place, but this time Inuyasha didn't wait for me to stand and think. If that's what he did before, in a way it seemed like it took ages for me to work everything out, in another it seemed like it had only taken about a millisecond. He raised Tetsusaiga in a motion way too familiar and then swept it down, slicing through thin air. I yelled and was suddenly very glad that I had new, improved super-speed – it meant, after all, that I did not end up sliced'n'diced into lots of itty pieces by air, of all things.

"Stop it! Sit!" And that at least worked – Inuyasha crashed to the ground like a stone and left, (I'm sure) a nice Inuyasha-sized dent. Which was, you know, I'm sure not the most pleasant of experiences for him but it cheered me up considerably. Because here was one bit of the world that apparently hadn't gone mad. Or, at least, no madder then it had been back before because, honestly, calling any part of my life sane has got to be a kind of insanity in itself.

"Sit!" I said again, just because I could, and the Inuyasha-shaped dent got a little deeper and I brightened even more. I heard some growls and curses trying to come up through the muffling layer of soil and grass and rocks and leaves and spider-webby frost and it made me laugh. Not quite sure why, but it did.

This was, of course, when Shippo rode in with the cavalry. Or Kirarra at least – cavalry perhaps seemed a bit strong of a word for a single fire cat. She leapt in, Shippo clinging to her ruff, then opened her huge, fanged mouth and narrowed her red eyes and yowled.

"Inuyasha!" Shippo yelled sounding somewhat teary, then he'd jumped off Kirarra's back and run over to where Inuyasha lay and then positioned himself in front of him. Yes, let me repeat that, Shippo was apparently guarding Inuyasha from me.

Ok, so maybe I did go nuts. It seems the likely of the two explanations of either me or the entire world having lost its mind. And then (and I swear I'm not making this up) I smelled Kirarra get closer. Or maybe it wasn't all smelled, but I know that smell is one of the senses that helped me arrive at the conclusion that she was closing fast.

So I dodged. Again. She snapped those saber-tooth fangs right where my neck had been a few seconds (ha ha, did I say seconds? Make that milliseconds) ago, then when I wasn't there she screamed in frustration. Have I ever mentioned that there isn't much I've ever heard (if anything) that can compare with the sound of Kirarra screaming? It sounds like how I've been told a puma screams – like a woman. Only take that frightened scream of a woman and add in a whole new layer of bloodthirstiness and frustration. She looked stiff, but her back right leg looked the worst. This was when I remembered she was injured, but that didn't stop her trying to pounce again.

"Jeez, Kirarra, stop it! Don't move anymore!"

She bared her fangs and hissed, but she smelled tired and hurt and sick and I just couldn't take it anymore. Not just the fact that she was trying to kill me, just… everything. So I sat down and put my head in my hands. This seemed to confuse both of them. Not so much Inuyasha, who was struggling to his feet and yelling about how he would kill me, but at least Kirarra quietened down. Shippo, for his part, seemed kind of surprised. What, that he wasn't dead? Or at least really hurt? Honestly, what did they take me for?

"I should still be in bed," I moaned into my hands. "It's too early for this."

"Whatever, witch," ( this being Inuyasha – only he didn't say 'witch'), "now what did you do to me?"

"What do you mean what did I do to you?"

"Don't play dumb!"

"Jeez, can't you give things a rest?"

Apparently not, as I was forced to sit him again. Shippo and Kirarra stared. Kirarra, I think in confusion, turned back into a kitten and hut her paws on her nose then her face under one of her very busy tails. I think Shippo might have liked to do the same. Inuyasha, meanwhile, was peeling himself up on the dirt and swearing some more.

"How do you keep on doing that??"

I was so confused.

- - -
Sesshoumaru

When I woke up, I had a headache. I suppose it was understandable, but I was still disappointed. Sleep usually seems to help. I never seemed to get enough sleep – there was nearly always some pressing problem or another that I could have put off or ignored but which only would have bred trouble later on, then I'd have had to go and deal with that. Bred trouble is invariably larger then the sire, so it tends to make things less complicated to cut them off at the root rather then waiting. You can't ignore a trouble forever, as if you don't find it then it will end up finding you.

Chichue certainly taught me that with his death, if nothing else. Rumor had spread of his weakness – and he was weak, taking Izayoi to his bed as he had. That weakness had killed him in the end; though he was still an excellent general, though he was still a powerful demon, the taint of human association had spread throughout him in the rumors and once the belief is gone the battle is half lost already. Quite a bit to being in power and staying in power is no more complicated then convincing people that you are powerful, and Izayoi proved the opposite. Humans are weak little mortal things, their lives brief as a may flies; so easily broken; loyalties so easily and so often changed. To allow one to hold such power over you… for that you must be weak as well. Weak things never survived among the youkai, be they of the lowest or of the highest order. There is always someone waiting for weakness.

Weakness, as I had just shown. Weakness in allowing my power to be sapped by a mere chit of a girl, weakness in allowing her to bleed me so dry that I stumbled, that I fell, that consciousness deserted me. As I'd already shown by allowing the girl child Rin to accompany me.

Rin had made me neither weak nor soft as I had proven time and time again, but there were always more who foolishly believed that it had and tried to take what was mine from me; the Kitsune tribe of the North was only the latest of these. There was much more unrest, certainly, then there had been before I had somehow allowed this human girl to crawl into my life and my heart and rearrange everything until she had a space to settle comfortably into.

Of course, the fact that no one save Jaken knew just how indulgent I occasionally was of her did not stop the whisperings, the whisperers who said that I was treading in my father's footsteps. Naturally I'd shown them that they were wrong, but if this new story ever got out – if it was known that I had been subdued and brought to heel by a priestess, shown the same weakness that my cur of a half brother had….

Once they stop believing that you are immortal then no matter how strong you are, no matter how fast, no matter how skilled with blade or claw, they will come. No matter how many times you prove yourself, still they will come. Rumor is strong, and once it takes root it is next to impossible to dislodge from the minds of the people. I could prove that I cared nothing for Rin by killing her – a thing which would certainly silence the whisperers, but I do not wish to and I always do what I wish. The news of a miko subduing me, however, might prove more difficult to dispel. The miko herself wasn't the problem.

I clenched my teeth and cursed the girl. If it was ever known…. You may succeed in battle a thousand times, but you only need fail once. As I had.

Impossible, really. This Sesshoumaru did not fail. There were certain things that I Did Not Do and fail was the first of them. I Had Not. Of course. Impossible.

At least I was out among the trees, which was all well and good as evidently I needed more time to properly recover. Because I was among the trees perhaps they didn't know I had fallen. My limbs felt as slow and lethargic as though I were moving through honey, my senses of smell and hearing were pathetically dull. Scents, in particular, hardly seemed to exist anymore. Unless I'd been somehow pulled into a reality where they didn't, I couldn't quite make out how that could be. Then again, of course, I'd recently been quite effectively drained by a major magical attack. Knowing this, the fact that my senses were dull and my movements lethargic and heavy wasn't really worrisome. I was lucky to still be alive, all things told.

I hated having to rely on luck.

I pushed myself slowly up, feeling like my bones were rusted iron. The last time I could remember feeling this weak had been when Tetsusaiga had nearly killed me, when Rin had first found me. At least it was better this time. At least I could move. The entire wood – or, more likely, the entire world – seemed wrong, however, as though someone had tilted it a few degrees to the side. And then I opened my eyes and things became worse. My vision felt unfocused and fuzzy. It was a dizzying effect, and it was lucky that no one was there. The headache grew worse, amplified by nausea, and I allowed myself to sink back to the ground and close my eyes again.

That miko… it was amazing that she'd managed to leave me this weak. I couldn't be this weak. When you were weak then you were taken advantage of; that under your protection was taken or destroyed. I couldn't be weak. I forced myself to open my eyes again, forced my rusted joints to bend and push me to my feet. I leaned against a tree and felt the earth somehow pulling me closer, making me heavier, than it ever had before. I closed my eyes again.

Finally, somewhat adjusted (though I still felt as though my ears had been stopped up with wax and my nose with cotton – worse, as I'd still have been able to smell the cotton and smell past the cotton), I opened my eyes again to examine the forest. The colors were off – they were duller, there were less, things seemed less sharp then they normally were. What in the name of the Earth and Sky had she done to me? At least my bones didn't feel quite as rusted anymore, which was certainly an improvement. One thing of many…. I still didn't feel anything close to normal, so while there was improvement it was minimal.

I heard a yell that sounded like Inuyasha from the clearing behind me. I turned towards the movement, still feeling clumsy and heavy and dull, my bones dragging at the earth. It was strange that I felt so heavy, since I also managed to feel hollow to my core. The feeling was disorientating.

The tearing crash that was Tetsusaiga.

"Osowari!"

The scream of a fire cat.

I should just leave, but the question was how? Walk? At the rate that it felt like was the fastest I could walk, it should only take a few months. What had the priestess done to-

I had been pushing myself off the tree and my hand had scraped across the stump of a twig broken off next to the trunk, scraping jaggedly across my hand. I raised it in front of me and examined it. A thin line of blood was welling slowly from the broken skin. There were two things odd in that; the first was that such a little thing could have drawn blood from me at all, the second was that I could not smell my own blood. Even if I couldn't, however, there was doubtless someone that could. I raised my hand to lick the blood from my palm and then froze as my sleeve fell slightly down my arm.

The markings usually present on my wrists (or wrist, after Inuyasha had removed my other arm) were missing. I blinked and looked again. Gone. They were gone. Suddenly the blood seemed very unimportant. I looked at the rest of my hand then turned it over. Markings, gone. I had no claws to speak of, only soft blunted nails. It was only a side effect of the miko's power, surely.

I turned my hand back over to look at my palm again, and the thin line of blood was still there. The skin was still broken. I hadn't healed.

Surely. Surely it was simply her power, the fact that my own youki had not recovered yet.

I ran my tongue over my teeth, gently examining my canines. Blunt. Dull. I had lost my fangs.

The pathetic nails on my hand remained unchanged, did not begin growing longer and sharper.

I began slowly, almost fearfully (fearfully? Me?), to examine the rest of myself. There wasn't a mirror nearby, of course, or even a still pool so I could not examine my face, but as for the rest….

My clothing was the same, fine white silk and a pattern of flowers that was today in a deep red (normal enough) but the bone armor I wore and my keel seemed to have gained some substantial amount of weight. Perceptions. It was my hand that showed the difference, and my teeth.

My hair stirred in a slight breeze, and at that my blood truly froze. I thought I'd seen out of the corner of my eye – but no, it could not be. Gingerly, as though any sudden motion might break reality, I gently captured a silky strand of hair and drew it forward so that I could more fully examine it.

Inky black, as black as night, as black as a true human's hair. And the texture, while still silky and well maintained, was far coarser then it normally was.

Impossible. It was impossible.

My hand moved up to my ear, running over it. The familiar tip was gone, replaced by the smooth, curving shell that a human had. I ran my tongue over my fangs (teeth) again, far more roughly, almost hoping for my tongue to catch and tear on the point of a fang because it would prove that the world had not gone mad. But no. There was no taste of blood, there was no pain. I flexed my hand automatically, but I had no poison. I did not need to test anything to determine that – I would normally have been able to feel it singing through my veins. Poison should almost have been dripping from the tips of my claws at this point.

Somewhere, in the back of my head, I heard a scream.

I began moving, almost without knowing it. Once I stopped, however, I knew very well where I was.

There was the clearing in front of me, there was a kitsune child and a fire cat, there was Inuyasha climbing up slowly from the ground, there was a female demon sitting on the ground looking horrified and holding her hands away from her. I was instantly annoyed by her, for what reason had she to be wearing such an expression?

The miko! Where was the miko? What had she done to me? I was deaf, half blind, had no sense of smell to speak of, pathetic little blunted things at the tips of my fingers which could by no stretch of the imagination be called claws, rounded ears, no poison, black hair, and was pathetically weak. And had black, coarse hair. My mind seemed to keep traveling back to that. Not human, I was not human and would not elevate that idea by so much as thinking it. I was not human. I am Sesshoumaru, Taiyoukai of the West.

Inuyasha looked to me.

"Where is your miko?" I asked him. I didn't exactly enjoy talking to him under the best of circumstances (which these hardly were) but… well. This was information I needed.

It was, however, the stranger-youkai who spoke. "Oh no."