An InuYasha alternate fanwork by Wolfye Productions.
All InuYasha characters are © Rumiko Takahashi, Viz Communications, Inc., Shonen Sunday, Sunrise and Nihon TV. Characters are used without the express prior permission of the aforementioned. Story concept, other characters and original situations are © Wolfye Productions; this fanfic is written for entertainment purposes only.
Part 06: Forebodings
Tiny tendrils of gold snuck their way through the minuscule crack left open between the two thick curtains draping the front of the dorm window. Overjoyed at their own stealthiness, they danced victoriously across the deep red bedspread, their sole mission that morning to wake the room's inhabitant. Their gleeful rejoicing was cut short, however, when they discovered that the bed was empty. The morning sun shifted across the clear azure sky, and the tiny golden figures disappeared, leaving nothing behind in their wake.
The sounds of falling water permeated the empty room as wafts of steam drifted from the crack beneath the door leading to the bathroom. Five minutes transgressed and the sounds ceased, only to be replaced with a soft humming sound.
The door opened and Kagome stepped forth wrapped in naught but a cream-coloured bath towel, her slender fingers dragging themselves through her long ebony locks.
Kagome glanced over at the alarm clock resting on her nightstand. Atomic green numbers glared accusingly back at her. 7:50. Gah! She was running late!
Panic flooded through her body, her brain launching into overdrive as it supplied her with a generous amount of adrenaline. She scampered about the tiny room, putting her clothes on while putting various textbooks and notebooks into her backpack simultaneously. She had only ten minutes to get to class, which meant no time to grab breakfast beforehand. A wet lock of hair plastered itself across her vision, temporarily blinding her. She pushed the stray lock out of her eyes with an annoyed sound. She would have to let her hair air-dry today; there was no time left to dry it with her hairdryer. Kagome silently prayed to whichever gods were listening at that moment that she wouldn't end up with flat hair.
Satisfied that she had everything, Kagome quickly stepped into her sneakers and rushed out the door, making it to the elevator just as the twin doors were about to close.
"Thanks," Kagome breathed to the girl who had held the doors open for her. She gave her a grateful smile while she attempted to catch her breath.
"No prob," the other girl said, flashing a winning smile back at her. "Name's Yura, by the way," she said, slightly bowing in the cramped elevator.
"Oh, I'm Kagome," Kagome replied, also bowing. "Pleased to meet you, Yura."
"Same here," Yura said, her strangely brown eyes looking Kagome up and down. "Ya new here?" she asked nonchalantly.
Kagome blinked a little at the question. Was she really that obvious? She glanced at the other girl's outfit, suddenly feeling ridiculously overdressed. Yura was wearing pajamas and pink fuzzy slippers; in her arms she carried a red notebook, a matching red pen sticking out of the spiral binding. Was she going to class like that?
"Yeah," was all Kagome managed to say.
"Oh wow, that's cool!" Yura squeaked, making Kagome wince a little at her high-pitched voice. "Usually this dorm's reserved for upper classmen only. How'd you manage to get in? I'm a junior myself," the girl gushed, looking expectantly at her, as though she knew the answer to some terrible secret.
Kagome gave the girl a wan smile. "Um, I don't know," she replied, and honestly, she didn't. "Got lucky, I guess?"
Yura huffed at her, obviously displeased with her answer. The elevator chimed, indicating they had reached the ground floor, thus putting an end of the impromptu interrogation, much to Kagome's relief.
"Well, it was nice meeting you," Kagome said before sprinting forth from the cramped space, not bothering to wait for the girl's reply. In her haste to exit the elevator, she almost ended up running into someone standing just outside the doors, managing to avoid hitting them only at the last possible second. Muttering an apology, she made a mad dash for the doors.
"Hey Kagome," a voice called out from behind her.
Kagome paused at the front doors, looking over her shoulder to see who was calling her. Miromaru was standing inside the elevator waving to her, an easy smile gracing his handsome face and a blueberry muffin in his other hand. He, too, was dressed in pajamas.
"Hi!" she called out, flashing the upper classman a dazzling smile before rushing out of the brick building. On her way out, she flew past two more people coming in, both also dressed in nothing more than sleeping attire. A stray thought crossed her mind as she ran towards the middle of the campus - did everyone living in that dorm not wear regular clothes?
So engrossed in her thoughts was she that she failed to notice the dark pair of eyes that watched her from across the way, nor did she bear witness to the malicious grin that accompanied it.
"Ugh, I'm starving!" Kagome gutted out, plopping her tray down across from Hojo. Collapsing in her chair, she eagerly began scarfing down her wide assortment of food.
"Hey Kagome," Hojo said in greeting, watching her amusedly as she did her best impression of a vacuum cleaner. "I almost thought you wouldn't make it."
"Yeah, well," Kagome said between mouthfuls. "My professor had me stay after class."
Hojo raised his eyebrows at her statement. "Really? What for?" he asked. "You didn't fall asleep in class, did you?"
He laughed when Kagome threw him an annoyed glare.
"Nope," she said, pausing to take a sip of her soda. "The proff wants me to take up an internship. He says I'm doing so well right now that I'd might as well start my career early."
"Whoa, no way," Hojo breathed, completely taken by surprise. "You mean Hammerhead Meguro?" he asked just to clarify. Kagome nodded, stuffing her cute little face with a chicken nugget.
Hojo gave a low whistle of appreciation. He had heard the many rumours flying around campus about the infamous professor. Not only was the man reputed to bear an eerie resemblance to the archaic sea creature, but he was also said to dislike his students just as much as his students tended to dislike him. His classes were hard and his tests nearly impossible; hardly anyone made it out of that class with anything above a "B-". The unfortunate thing was that his class was mandatory for anyone wishing to go into business; "Business Principles and Applications" was a prerequisite for all of the business classes.
"So I take it you did well on the midterm?" Hojo asked, although he already knew the answer.
Kagome didn't disappoint. Pausing in her inhalation of her gigantic burger, she fished out a blue book from her backpack and tossed it at him, flashing him a heartbreaking smile.
Hojo glanced down at the blue book, smiling at her ravenous antics. That girl sure loved to eat. His hazel eyes opened wide in amazement.
"An 'A'?" he said, almost not believing his eyes. He blinked and looked again. Sure enough, on the front cover, the letter "A" was drawn out in thick red marker, a symbol sure to catch anyone's attention.
"Mmhm," Kagome mumbled from around the breaded meat. She made a big show of swallowing the huge bite in her mouth while slurping up her soda.
"Professor Meguro told me I was the first person in his class to ever get an 'A'!" she exclaimed happily, her chest puffing up with pride.
"Really?" Hojo replied, giving his favourite girl a huge grin. "Kagome, that's great! You probably just made the Guiness Book of World Records™!" he exclaimed.
Kagome laughed joyfully behind her burger, somewhat muffled by the large quantity of beef and bread stuffed once again into her mouth.
"So, would you like to go celebrate?" Hojo asked. It had been well over a week since he had taken her out to Le Mon Amie, and he was itching for some more quality time with the love of his life. The two hadn't been able to spend much time together outside of their lunches since midterms had hit. But now that they were over, he figured that this would be a great opportunity to do a double celebration - the end of midterms and Kagome's miraculous "A". Unfortunately, the Fates didn't agree.
Kagome's face fell at his suggestion, and Hojo suddenly felt his heart go in the same direction.
"I can't Hojo, I'm sorry," Kagome said, looking sadly at her best friend. "After work today I plan to go drop off my resumé at this one place Professor Meguro recommended me to."
"Oh, okay," Hojo said, but he wasn't ready to throw in the towel just yet. He quickly rallied the troops back together. "How about tomorrow then? After work?" he asked as nonchalantly as possible. He didn't want to come across as begging, of course.
Kagome sat there in thought for a moment, idly munching on a fry. Hojo studied her face while she thought, no doubt going over her calendar in her mind. Her milk chocolate gaze was turned inward, and one of her delicate eyebrows was raised in contemplation. By the gods, the woman was gorgeous, Hojo thought as his heart clenched in his chest, his mind drifting off to scenes of them walking hand in hand along a beach, or dancing together to one of their favourite songs at their wedding...
"Okay," Kagome said, snapping him abruptly out of the vision of her playing happily with their three kids.
Hojo blinked. What? She said yes, his mind told him. I know that, he bit back, effectively shutting himself up. He gave Kagome a winning smile.
"That's great!" Hojo replied, glancing briefly at his watch. He had fifteen minutes to get to class. "I'll meet you at the store then," he confirmed, already knowing her work schedule by heart. Standing up, he quickly gathered his backpack and empty lunch tray together.
He glanced over at her one last time before turning and leaving, strongly resisting the urge to kiss her goodbye like he used to do back when they were dating. Instead, he offered her his usual verbal one.
"See ya later Kagome."
Kagome managed a muffled goodbye around the last remnants of her burger, making him smile in amusement as he walked over to the trashcan to dispose of his tray's contents.
Hojo kept the easy smile plastered on his face until he was a good distance away from the university commons, after which he allowed his face to drop into an uncharacteristic frown.
The time spent away from her during the past week-and-a-half had nearly driven him insane. Sure, there were always their shared lunches three times a week, but they only lasted an hour at the most and did nothing to quench this burning need within him that ached to have her near him at all times.
He did not, could not, understand or explain in the least why he felt this way about Kagome, this raging possessiveness that flooded his veins whenever he simply thought about her. He only knew that he did, ever since that fateful day back in ninth grade when he had gone down to check out the rumours floating around the school about a really hot girl that would get sick all the time. His parents were both doctors and owned their own highly successful practice, as well as a very profitable herbal shop, so naturally he had been concerned for the girl's well-being.
All of that had changed, however, the moment he laid eyes on her.
He remembered that moment clearly, simply because it had been the single, most strangest thing that had ever happened to him.
As he had stood there staring at her, it was as though the world around him had begun to bleed. Everything around him - the classroom, the desks, the chairs; even the other students around him - seemed to suddenly drain themselves of all of their colour. All except Kagome. This bleeding effect continued until nothing remained except her, a vibrant and abstractly colourful being amidst a backwash of muted greys.
In that moment, something inside of him had lurched. It had been a violent act, and an extremely powerful one at that, and had left him completely staggering for breath. If it had been anyone else, he was sure the pain would have dropped them to their knees. But he wasn't just anyone, and he had remained standing.
The pain he had felt had been immense, and he likened it to the feeling as though something had just been ripped out from inside of him. But it hadn't been the pain that had truly frightened him then, it was what had happened afterwards that had made his blood freeze in his veins. To this day, years later, he still got the chills whenever he thought about it.
Without warning, everything in his sight had suddenly turned red, almost as if he was in a darkroom processing black and white film. Everything around him took on a varying hue of crimson; even that which was supposed to have been black appeared as though it was dark red in his eyes.
He remembered going into shock over what was happening to him. His senses had sharpened suddenly to an impossible degree. His eyes swiveled wildly in their sockets until they locked on Kagome's unsuspecting form, at which point they seemed to focus and magnify her image, just as one would looking through a telephoto lens. His sense of smell had heightened too, it would seem, as he suddenly realized that he could easily smell her intoxicating scent despite the fact that she stood with her friends on the other side of the classroom. And his hearing! It sounded as though she were standing right next to him.
That was when he had heard it. The sound started off as some sort of low rumbling noise, and at first he had though they were having another earthquake, but the ground hadn't been moving. It hadn't been until the sound increased in pitch that he realized that it was coming from inside his own head!
Then, just as suddenly as it had started, the sound stopped, only to be replaced by the most frightening and hellish roar he had ever heard in his entire life, accompanied by a powerful wave of rage and possessiveness as he stared wide-eyed at the girl in front of him.
- MINE! -
That single word reverberated loudly across his consciousness, the sound of it nearly deafening within his head. The sheer ferocity with which that word was uttered very nearly incapacitated him with fear, leaving him trembling to his very core.
- MINE! -
The voice ground out again, as if attempting to point out a life-threatening fact to him. An intense wave of pure jealous rage flooded all of his senses suddenly, as his eyes flitted to the other teenage boys scattered across the room, all offering appreciative glances to an oblivious Kagome. If even possible, the red in his infuriated gaze deepened even more, and a snarl passed over his lips.
- KILL! -
A strong chill crept up and down his spine as he entered the noisy classroom. Although, whether the action resulted from the frigid temperature that the school insisted on maintaining in their classrooms, or from his terrifying memory, he would never truly know. But what he did know was that after that, the frightening incident had never happened again, for which he was glad. A huge part of him hoped that it would never happen again.
But despite all of his hopes against the possibility, there was always that tiny one percent, that insignificant one percent of himself, that continuously shouted at him that it would happen again, and whatever it was, it had something to do with Kagome.
And it was that one tiny thought that made the blood in his veins run cold.
Kagome glanced at her watch as she munched slowly on her last fry. She still had about twenty minutes left before she had to leave to go to work. She really didn't want to do any of her insane amounts of homework, so instead she just sat there bored out of her mind, half-listening to the random conversations going on around her. Her attention was diverted to the conversation behind her, however, when one of the girls sitting there squealed loudly in her ear.
"Oh my god, you guys!" the loud girl squeaked in her high-pitched voice. Kagome grimaced at the annoying inflection in the girl's tone. "I saw him again!" she shouted, placing an uncalled-for emphasis on the last word. A slight breeze rustled the hair on the back of her head, and she knew that the girl was most likely waving her arms about behind her.
"Oh, no way!" a different girl squealed with the same annoying inflection in her voice. Why do girls insist on talking like that? Kagome idly wondered. Didn't they know that it made them sound stupid?
"You mean, the one who could give Gackt a run for his money?"
Apparently not.
"Mmhm," the first girl replied almost dreamily.
Kagome almost gagged. Why was she even listening to this? Because, a part of her mind said, you're bored and you don't want to do your homework like a good girl, remember? Oh yeah.
"Whoa, a real guy that's as good-looking as Gackt?" a third girl gushed. "I totally missed this!"
"That's because you weren't here last week, Aya," the second girl reprimanded. "You were too busy making out with Keiichi."
"Well, excuse me for having a boyfriend, Riko," the girl now known as Aya retorted, obviously annoyed with the other girl's statement.
"Whatever," the girl called Riko bit back, also highly annoyed.
"You guys, will you quit it already?" the first girl said, apparently annoyed as well.
"Oh yeah!" Aya exclaimed, as if just remembering something extremely important. Maybe she was, Kagome's brain sarcastically supplied. "What did he look like, Kiki? Did you take any pictures?"
"No, I didn't have my camera with me," whined the one now identified as Kiki. "But the guy's totally gorgeous!" she gushed out.
"Details, details!" Aya squealed.
"Well, he's really tall, at least six feet," Kiki started, her voice gaining that dreamy tone once again. "He's got really long white hair and these gorgeous golden-coloured eyes. And he's built to boot! I wonder if he's in one of those visikei bands..." Her voice drifted off, probably to La La Land, Kagome surmised.
"Oh please, Kiki, you know they're probably contacts, and I bet he's either wearing a wig or bleached it or something," Aya scoffed.
"Yeah, well," Kiki sighed, "he's still really hot!"
"I wanna see him myself," Riko admitted softly.
Something about this odd conversation poked angrily at the back of Kagome's mind. She blinked.
"Well, I think he's taken Riko," Kiki said sadly.
"Why's that?" the girl asked in kind.
"I overheard him talking about some girl called 'Kagome'. I think she's his girlfriend," Kiki confessed.
Kagome visibly started like someone had just slapped her across the face. Waitaminute! A really tall guy with white hair and gold eyes? Talking about a girl with her name? The last time she checked, there weren't a lot of girls out there with her same name, and there were only two people she knew of that fit that description, and only one of them was over six feet tall.
Her brain nearly shorted.
Kagome whirled around in her chair, eyes wide, nearly scaring the girls behind her. But she didn't care. She needed confirmation; she needed to know if her suspicions were correct. But why would he be looking for you? her brain whispered. It doesn't matter! she bit back in a desperate tone.
"Excuse me," she said, giving the girl she assumed was Kiki what she hoped was a reassuring smile. She was rewarded for her efforts when the girl smiled back.
"Hi," Kagome continued, "I couldn't help but overhear your conversation, and I was wondering if you could tell me if the guy you saw had any facial markings and a big white fluffy thing on his shoulder?"
The girl's eyes suddenly narrowed a bit, and she stared back at her suspiciously. She wasn't smiling anymore.
After a moment, though, the girl started shaking her head. Kagome felt her hopes slowly sink with each shake of the other girl's head.
"No, he didn't have anything on his face," Kiki replied, "but now that you mention it, he was wearing some kind of a furry boa."
Kagome's head shot up at the last remark, hope resurfacing once again inside of her. If it really was him, maybe he would know what had happened to InuYasha. After all, he had been there at the last battle with Naraku.
"Really Kiki?" Riko asked.
"Why would he be wearing fur in the middle of spring?" Aya remarked, wrinkling her nose in distaste.
Kagome almost smiled at that.
"I don't know," Kiki replied, shrugging her slim shoulders. "But it kind of made him look like a girl," she added with a mischievous smirk. Kiki turned her attention back to Kagome.
"So, do you know him?"
Kagome blushed a little. "I- I think so."
What do you mean "you think so"? her mind screamed. It's got to be him!
I don't really know that for sure, she replied back, silencing the voice in her head once again.
Kiki and Riko squealed in delight, oblivious to the conversation taking place within her head. Aya merely huffed and rolled her eyes.
"Ooh, what's his name?"
"How old is he?"
"Is he single?"
"Is he in a band?"
The multiple questions spewed out from the two girls' mouths before Kagome could even blink, but the last one caught her by surprise. A mental image of Sesshoumaru standing on a brightly coloured stage, microphone in one hand and an electric guitar in the other, suddenly flashed across her inner vision. Without warning, Kagome broke out in a fit of laughter, much to the other girls' confusion.
"No," Kagome managed to get out, idly wiping away the tears that had leaked out during her mirth. "He's not in a band." Kiki and Riko looked disappointed.
"But I bet he's rich," Kiki said slyly.
"Why do you say that?" Riko asked.
"Cause this other guy with him kept calling him 'Lord'," Kiki replied, a smug look on her face. "And both times the guy was wearing Armani!"
Armani? Kagome blinked, drowning out the other girls' drabble. She tried picturing Sesshoumaru in one of those highly expensive designer suits, but somehow the image just seemed so... wrong.
"Hey."
Kagome refocused on Kiki's face when she realized that the girl was talking to her. The hand waving in front of her face was one clue.
"What?" she asked.
"You didn't tell us what his name was," Kiki stated, staring curiously back at her.
Kagome sweatdropped. "Uh, I didn't?" she asked innocently.
All three girls shook their heads no, Kiki's expression changing from curiosity to suspicion in the process, as though she knew she was trying to hide something. The girl's eyes narrowed, and Kagome suddenly had the distinct feeling that she was being interrogated.
"Uh, it's Sesshoumaru," Kagome said a bit softly, unsure of how anyone else would take to his strange name. As though to prove her point, the girls' faces screwed up into half-laughable expressions of confusion and disbelief.
"Sesshoumaru?" Kiki repeated slowly, as though tasting the name on her tongue. "What the heck kind of name is that?"
Kagome merely shook her head and shrugged. She had no idea why their father had given them such strange names, but at least InuYasha's was kind of cute.
"What does it mean?" Riko asked out loud.
Kagome opened her mouth to answer when Aya beat her to it.
"It means 'Killing Perfection'," the girl answered, looking dubiously at Kagome.
Kagome smiled and nodded at the translation, an image of the apathetic demon lord fighting against his hanyou brother crossing over her inner eye. Yep, that name really suited the guy, she thought to herself.
"That sounds like a gangster name," Riko said, distaste clear in her voice.
"Yeah, well, he totally doesn't look like one," Kiki defended. She turned back to Kagome. "Sounds like you know him," she stated, her voice making her sound confident in her assumption. "How'd you meet him, anyway?"
Kagome paused for a moment. Well, she couldn't really tell them the truth, that she had met him about five-hundred years in the past when he'd almost tried to kill her, so what could she say without revealing anything? A quick solution presented itself and she pounced on it.
"He's my ex-boyfriend's older brother," she said, trying to sound casual about it. It wasn't like a lie or anything, and she'd managed to leave out all the important details. She congratulated herself on her quick thinking.
She stopped, however, when she noticed two huge grins plastering themselves over Kiki and Riko's faces. Crap, she spoke too soon.
"Oh my god, no way!" they both squealed out loud, making Kagome wince at the sound.
"Can you introduce me?" both girls asked simultaneously.
Double crap, Kagome thought. Now what do I do?
As if on cue, her watch suddenly beeped the time.
Triple crap! she thought frantically. I've got to get to work!
Kagome quickly stood up, gathering her bag and tray together.
"Uh, sorry girls," she said hurriedly, "but I've got to go now. It was nice talking to you!"
She quickly hurried off before the girls could say anything more, dumping her tray on the way out the door.
Kagome didn't bother slowing her pace until she was well off campus grounds, and she turned back to make sure that none of the girls were following her. Man, were those girls scary or what?
Her thoughts turned back to the topic of their mutual conversation as she made her way to the used bookstore.
Sesshoumaru was still alive in modern times! It had never occurred to her before on how long demons were able to live, and until now, she had never even thought any of them still existed in her time era. Sure, there had been the Noh mask incident, but that had been an extremely isolated one, thus leading her to believe that it had been a fluke shot created by the Shikon jewel. After all, she had been carrying the jewel with her for more than four years now in modern times, and she had yet to be attacked by another demon for it. And nothing out of the ordinary ever happened anymore. That is, unless you counted the tabloids.
The movie Men In Black© flashed briefly through her mind at that thought, making her laugh. But, of course, those were aliens, not demons. But then again, what if? There had been some demons she had come across in Sengoku Jidai that could surely pass for being aliens...
Kagome shook her head slightly as she walked into the small shop, the smell of aging paper and musty tomes assaulting her nostrils. She was about to call out to announce her arrival when she spotted the old shopkeeper towards the back talking with a customer. The customer's back was turned to her as she made her way to the backroom to drop off her bag, but judging by the long white hair pulled back into a low ponytail, the guy was also pretty old.
The two of them were chatting like old friends as she made her way past them, Kagome trying very carefully not to disturb their conversation. Her thoughts instead turned to other things, like what the cafeteria would offer for dinner that night, and whether or not she should grab take-out on her way home instead. She was so absorbed in her own thoughts that she failed to notice that the other conversation had abruptly stopped the moment she walked past, and that the figure of the stranger had suddenly tensed.
In fact, she remained blissfully unaware of everything around her until her hand was almost to the doorknob that led to the shop's backroom. That is, until a deep voice boomed from within the shop's interior, effectively cutting through her random thoughts like a sharp knife cleaving through butter.
"Miko."
Kagome paused in mid-action, her fingers mere inches away from the brass doorknob. Her heart began pounding erratically in her chest at the sound of the simple word, her breath suddenly coming out in ragged bursts. Her eyes widened to an impossible degree.
Oh my god, oh my god... her mind repeated over and over again as she slowly turned around, half-hoping to herself that she had heard wrong. That she was simply hallucinating once again.
She turned around to face him - HIM! - and she gasped, her hand flying to her chest to keep her heart from bursting forth. He stood before her, tall and regal-looking as ever. His thick silver hair was a bit shorter than she remembered, now only reaching to his buttocks, but it was still abnormally long for a guy in this day and age.
He was dressed in a dark navy pinstripe suit and cream-coloured button-down shirt. From the look and the cut of the suit, Kagome could tell that it was designer and expensive; but how the other girl could tell whether he was wearing Armani or not without looking at the tag was beyond her. His shoes were made of black leather and were highly polished, and she already knew that they were probably just as expensive as the suit itself. Over the entire ensemble he wore a plain black trenchcoat, which had been the reason she had mistaken him for an older man not two minutes ago. If she had seen his suit beforehand, she was certain she would have known better.
Kagome's eyes roved over his figure, amazed at what she was looking at. Sesshoumaru - in a suit! A human-made suit nonetheless. This was definitely one for Ripleys™.
Adorning his right shoulder was that same fluffy furry thing that she was so familiar with, thereby removing any last remaining doubts she may have had regarding this man's identity. Besides, she told herself, no one else knows that I'm a miko other than my own family, and she highly doubted that they would go around blabbing it to every stranger they ran into.
Her eyes flitted up to his face, and her face took on a look of wonder and curiosity. Gone were his demonic markings, true to the other girl's words, and his ears were no longer pointed, but rounded like that of a human. If Kagome didn't know him as she did, she would have simply thought that he was just another human being, despite his abnormal hair and eye colours.
Oh, his eyes!
Kagome felt her breath hitch in her throat as she gazed into those tawny depths. Never before had she ever seen so much emotion swirling through those crystal clear amber pools of both light and darkness. it made her wonder just what had happened to him after all these years that he would allow such a public display of anything besides anger and annoyance.
His face remained as passive as ever, but his eyes spoke volumes to her. They betrayed his surprise, confusion, frustration, relief... and something else she couldn't quite identify. What was it?
Her lips parted, and her breath came forth as a ragged whisper, as she continued to stare up at him.
"Ses... Sesshoumaru?"
A/N:
Okay, so this is where I apologize for taking a whole week longer than promised to post this. But here's my excuse, and it's a good one, I swear! Thursday and Friday I ended up working a total of 36 hours straight from my two part-time jobs, and I ended up sleeping the entire weekend to make up for it. (I had also only gotten maybe 4 hours of sleep a night the week before Thursday too) And then, when it came to typing out my chapter, it ended up being a LOT longer than I had originally thought, and it actually aggravated me to have to type it all up. And to think I like to type normally... weird.
And I must say, this chapter didn't end up the way I had originally wanted it to go. In fact, my stories have recently begun to write themselves, and as I was writing this chapter, it would seem that Sesshoumaru decided that he had waited long enough to meet up with Kags again and took it upon himself to grab the end of my pencil while I was writing to suit his own purposes. Kukuku... So thank Sesshy for the pushed-up meeting!
Hmm... Hold on just a moment...
Holy Geez! This chapter is 11 pages long, and over 5200 words! I hope for the people who like long chapters that this satiates their cravings until the next posting. Wowza...
Anyways, I need to go re-edit and proofread this puppy before I upload it. So, yeah, please review to let me know how this chapter is to your liking. And when you do, I'll be responding to them all on my livejournal, where I also give story updates and possible sneak previews... Just check out my profile for the link! Thanks all for sticking it out with me!
P.S. About my whole Gackt insertion... Yeah, please don't misunderstand; it's not a blow on him or anything. He's actually my most favourite artist. I just couldn't resist the pull, and if Sesshy WERE in fact real, I'd have to imagine that he'd be a lot like Gackt, only a bit more apathetic in expression. But the body, the height (okay, so maybe Sesshy would be a few inches taller), and the overly effeminate look but with a hard-core masculine overtone... Gah! They'd be best friends! Anyways, just my little runaway train of thought. Don't mind me. Yeah. See ya next time!