Chapter Three
Kagome

My mouth felt weird.

Now wait, I know what you're thinking. This girl things of the strangest things at the strangest times. Something along those lines at least, right? I thought so. But honestly, it did. Very, very strange. It felt fuller then it normally was, if that makes sense. Unnatural, you know? And everything felt confused enough that this, somehow, was the point upon which I fixed. My mouth felt too full somehow, as though someone had figured out how to make my teeth a little thicker.

I ran my tongue over them, as I had so often once I'd finally gotten my braces off, and nearly managed to amputate the tip of my tongue.

Ok, fine, that's a bit of an exaggeration. But not much of one.

"Owowow!" I yelled, feeling blood begin to fill my mouth – great, it always seemed to take so long for your tongue or whatever to stop bleeding, and normally I hated the taste of blood. Things were not normal at the moment, however, as was evidenced by the fact that the blood… well, crazily, I almost enjoyed it. Me! (Still only 'almost' enjoyed it, as it kinda was my own blood and that was icky, but… even so.)

Color me slow, but I still hadn't figured it out.

I spat out the blood, poked my tongue out in an attempt to see it… and the bleeding had stopped. Right, well I hadn't healed too fast or anything. Nope.

I felt the tip of my tongue, but it was perfectly normal; you'd never have known it was bleeding if you hadn't seen it yourself. Still, I remained more cautious then I had been before. My teeth still felt weird, but I wasn't gonna risk slicing my tongue open again, that was for sure. I raised my hand to gently run a finger over my teeth instead before freezing at the sight of it.

Claws. There were claws, showing faintly pink in the dawn light, at the ends of my fingertips instead of fingernails.

No way.

My hands twitched automatically, and a few fine drops of poison (it smelled bright and toxic) drifted off and landed on the ground, where they sizzled and killed a few perfectly innocent plants. Now, under the circumstances, I don't find it all that unreasonable to have freaked out. In a big way, I mean. I threw my hands to my front, trying to figure out how to STOP whatever was going on (i.e. – sudden spraying of acidic poison) before I killed myself or Shippo or someone. And tried to figure out what was going on. Trying to figure out what was going on sounded good.

Super speed, super senses, poison fingertips and fangs. I think. I ran my tongue over my teeth again, very lightly this time, and yup. Fangs.

OMIGOSHWHATISGOINGON?

I couldn't be a youkai, I just couldn't. I was a miko. One thing miko did not do (one thing humans did not do) was turn into youkai. They just didn't.

I really was nuts, wasn't I? That had to be it; I'd known it all along. I never really went back in anything, let alone time, I was really locked up in a nice padded cell somewhere that I couldn't hurt myself.

It was actually quite a relief to think this. And then came a voice out of the blue.

"Where is your miko?" someone asked, voice cold and haughty. I looked over, even though they clearly weren't talking to me, and froze.

"Oh no." Except… wait. Something was wrong with this picture.

There was a man standing on the edge of the clearing; and while he was wearing Sesshoumaru's armor and clothing and swords and that pelt thing, while his hair was about the same length and his expression of cool distain was the same, it simply couldn't be Sesshoumaru and that was fact. Sesshoumaru, you see, had white hair and golden eyes and this stranger had black hair and eyes of a purple-gray, the same color Inuyasha's turned when he was huma-

No way.

"What the… it… I…" I said, intelligently. He glared over, eyes narrowed in a look that was classic Sesshoumaru no matter who he was.

"I don't believe I addressed you, youkai," he said.

Omigosh. No way. This was not Sesshoumaru. Only… only that was such a Sesshoumaru thing to say. And the look. The look that accompanied it was so classic Sesshoumaru that (given that this guy so very obviously wasn't him) Sesshoumaru himself must be dead, as random-stranger was channeling him. And he looked like him. Did I mention that he looked like him? Only without the stripes on his cheek or the moon on his forehead or the claws at the ends of his fingers or, oh yea, the right color hair or eyes.

Lock me up now, please.

"How do you keep sitting me?" Inuyasha burst in, his tone one of extreme frustration. "Kagome's the only one who can do that!"

"Duh, why do you think I can?" Possibly not the best thing to say, but I had claws and poison and Sesshoumaru's identical twin (human) brother was glaring at me and I was hoping that it

wasn't somehow my fault. Not that I could see why it would be, but… you know. Oh no. Ohnoohnoohno. Anyway, compared to all of this Inuyasha's questions as to how I could subdue him were… kinda pointless. Especially as my brain was already on overload. And that left me somewhat short with him. Fear can do that.

He growled, but managed to keep from moving this time. "Quit playing tricks, Kagome is human."

"I know!" I half-wailed.

Random-human seemed to loose his patience. "Who are you to ignore this Sesshoumaru?"

"Oh no oh no oh no!" And I was really wailing now, none of this half wailing nonsense. "No! You can't be Sesshoumaru! Oh, wake up Kagome, wake up wake up!" I used my forearm to hit myself on the forehead, still not much wanting those nails too close to my eyes. "Wake up, wake up…."

"Feh, don't be stupid," Inuyasha scoffed, voice scornful, and something in me just went SNAP! All right, normally I like him. I was a bit too stressed at the moment, however, to like anyone.

"SIT!" I shrieked. "SITSITSITSITSI-"

"Kagome!" shouted Shippo as Kirarra sat up and yowled. That snapped me out of it again.

I felt tears start to fill up my eyes – great, just perfect, I hate crying – and, at that, I honestly almost might have run away. I think I would have, but the Sesshoumaru who wasn't Sesshoumaru seemed to anticipate me.

"Don't."

I didn't.

"I'm not a demon, I'm not," I insisted as the world in front of me blurred. I sniffed. "I'm not one!" No one said anything for a second, then the stranger who said he was Sesshoumaru spoke.

"And what, then, are you?"

- - -
Sesshoumaru

The stranger youkai was babbling some kind of nonsense and Inuyasha was ignoring me. I sighed and wished to rub my temples. Still, I managed to restrain myself. It wasn't fitting that a lord should show such signs of distress at such petty provocation.

Things got interesting for a while (while they were ignoring me, of course, and who were they to dare ignoring this Sesshoumaru?) when the demon began screaming the command to 'sit' at

Inuyasha, and the mutt was pulled rather forcefully to the ground, if the size of the hole he made after so many repetitions was any indication.

Interesting, amusing – certainly. Another time I might have laughed. At the moment, however, I did not really care. I merely wished to know what had been done to me and how I might have the effects reversed. I was busy and had not the time to waste- a new thought suddenly occurred when I thought this, one that made it further imperative that this spell immediately be removed.

I was the Lord of Western Lands; one of the Lords of the lands ruled by the cardinal points of the compass – possibly the strongest, certainly the youngest. But those lands are mine only as far as I can defend them. And now I was weak. I could almost feel myself grow pale.

The West was the traditional home and holding of the greatest of the inu youkai. The West, which had been held by my family for time nearly out of mind. The West which my father had defended and almost lost for me. The West, which I had guarded and upheld for the past two hundred years, ever since Chichue had died. Been killed. Fallen.

He had been weak and he had fallen because of that and I was currently weak. Even after he had died, after I had seized control of the West, there had been many who tried to attack, thinking that I was as weak as my father had been, that I shared his weak blood. It had taken years and years for them to learn otherwise.

And now I was weak.

Youkai society was fairly simple; if you couldn't defend a thing, it was taken from you. It didn't matter what it was – a meal, a territory, a mate, your own life. If you could not defend it then someone would take it. Currently I couldn't even defend myself, let alone anything else. And the West was already being nibbled at by hungry neighbors. Where one is strong and one is weak, there is little room for argument. And now I was weak. I seemed to keep coming back to that.

The lands that my family had held for so long and protected so well were out of my control, and there was nothing I could do about it.

The stranger suddenly interrupted my thoughts. I was almost grateful to her.

"I'm not a demon, I'm not!"

I simply looked at her. How could she seem to care so much about something so petty as race when I had just effectively lost my family holdings and was now merely waiting for the details to be finalized- It did no good to dwell on it. Besides, this Sesshoumaru would not display that weakness even if it was now there. I made my voice appropriately bland to answer her. Normally, of course, I probably wouldn't have replied at all. At the moment, however, I wanted to avoid the knowledge of what I was thinking of.

Shock – but ridiculous, shock was for inferior beings.

Was I not now one of them?

"And what, then, are you?"

"And you're not Sesshoumaru, you can't be!"

I started to loose hold of my temper. "And who, in that case, would you suggest that I am?" I had neither the time nor the patience to deal with her at the moment, and I couldn't even hasten the conversation with her death any longer.

"Oh crap," she moaned, "this is all my fault…."

Finally I looked at her a little more closely. "Why?" I asked.

"Please, please wake up now, Kagome…."

My eyes narrowed slightly with suspicion. Could it be…. It if was, then she would deal with this or suffer the consequences.

Weak.

"Miko, what have you done to this Sesshoumaru?"

The demon looked up at me, azure-colored eyes wide. "Crap," she said eloquently.

- - -

Just so y'all known, Sesshoumaru is being a brat and this story is doing new and unexpected things and so I'm not quite sure when I'll be updating again. Soon, hopefully, but I can't tell you 'next week' or anything like that.

Because yea. Kagome is fine, but Sesshoumaru doesn't like playing nicely with the other children.