Chapter 8

"The Worried Do Strange Things"

Dante griped the shirt of the little man lifting Akino to eye level, his own emerald orbs burrowing in to the rat youkai. He was not impressed with Akino, he didn't know where the girl had gone, and it was important that he knew her where abouts at all times. Now that he knew the connection between the Inu clan and her, it wasn't that hard to figure out. The woman looked like the girl whom had been companion to that pain in the ass Inu hanyou five hundred years ago. The problem was that she was human, how the hell had she survived five hundred years but never to be seen for that entire time in between then and now. He had thought of a reincarnation but she didn't look different, older yes but not different. That was the crux of the problem, it was the same girl with the same name there was no doubt about it.

"I told you I didn't want her hurt"

"It was the only way, there was no way she would have gotten the message any other way, besides it was a superficial wound" Akino gulped around hand around his neck.

"You cannot even follow orders properly, I have no use for you any more" he said snapping the neck of the little creepy rat youkai with little effort.

Throwing the body to the ground, Dante straightened the sea blue silk shirt he wore before placing the black suit jacket that matched the well tailored slacks, over his shoulders. His raven hair was caught up in a low ponytail. He oozed danger, and sexuality two things that kept most people off balance when around him. He was pissed at events so far, infiltrating Sesshomaru's house had been easy, and he wanted more personal information about the lord, the problem was he had to take down the Inu Taiyoukai and all his allies at the same time or he would face much more opposition than he planed. But the feed from the office and both his houses and stopped it had to be that woman investigator. The thought just made Dante even more angry about the whole situation.

Akino had been perfectly placed to feed the woman false information, to lead her into a trap, a trap he needed to bring the youkai lord down. Dante knew he himself was very powerful but to take the Taiyoukai down by him self was folly, he knew that he would have to weaken Sesshomaru first before he could bring him down.

For years Dante had been doing small things to the youkai completely unnoticed by Sesshomaru, for a short time. Succeeding with a complicated insidious spell designed to take small bits of memory from him. The idea had been to slowly drive the Taiyoukai lord mad enough that his fellow cardinal lords would take him out, thus insuring that Dante him self would never have to get his hands dirty. though it had taken a few months for the youkai to catch on that he was being messed with and destroyed the spell. The memories that had been taken might eventually return though it was imposable to know which ones had been tampered with.

It had been a worth while attempt four hundred years ago it had shown Dante that the slow spells had worked though he figured they had to be slower now due to the fact that Sesshomaru had gained much power. It was unfortunate that he now didn't have time for long drawn out plans that take years for fruition and though he was sadistic enough to enjoy his enemies suffering over long periods, the situation called for a speedy execution of this plan. Wishing that he had been able to take Sesshomaru when he was but a pup would have helped, however with his father in the way just long enough for Sesshomaru to reach maturity, before he was able to conveniently dispose of the Great Dog Demon. Only succeeding though Ryukotsusei and then later with Takemaru, however by then Sesshomaru had grown to strong to just kill.

Things needed to go according to plan now but at a much swifter pace than he preferred, and he was going to use that woman to do it.

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Kagome had taken a brief rest before getting her self settled and ready for her training. Looking around at the renovated head man's house and it's modern necessities remembering how she had the entire town rebuilt from it's crumbling ruins, well the town hadn't been in that bad of condition. The walls around the village had been rebuilt long ago with stone, the village it self had been in poor condition but now that it was rebuilt to it's former glory with a few modern touches. Modern touches such as a power generator and a mini fridge and a cook top. Ah yes the modern age was wonderful.

Taking some time to clean up Sango and Miroku's graves, that lay in the far corner of the village. She had found them when she first found the place, their names carved into the stone markers declaring that they died defending there village and their family. Laying some wild flowers on top of the mossy head stones and saying a prayer to Kami, Kagome went to work. The preparations for her training didn't take long but it was almost sun set when she finally finished. Crawling into her bed after a small supper of rice and fried vegetables she drifted into a deep sleep.

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The following day had passed swiftly and Kagome soon had her powers under control, she was satisfied with the way the day had went. Her reaction's with her powers had been immediate after a few hours of working with them, she could keep up with the swiftness of battle no problem, she had even tried to empower her gun and bullets with holy energy with much success.

She had done her self a disservice in not constantly training her powers, it was foolish not to, just look where it had gotten her, a new scar and an unseen enemy. Things just were not what they used to be, as much as she longed for the days where she was traipsing around with that handsome red clad hanyou, a demon slayer, a perverted monk, and a young kitsune. She also missed the days where she had to worry about nothing more than her homework for the next day.

Shaking her self out of her thoughts, she needed rest, she had spent the entire day training with her bow and arrows, they were modern and extremely powerful; designed to take down a fully grown grizzly bear with a single shot. She had purchased the set years ago while she was still traveling in the feudal era thinking to get a leg up for the final battle. Not expecting for it to come as quickly as it did she had left it behind, not that she needed it anyway.

Part of the day had been spent in meditation learning to form different things like a barrier, it was necessary that she learn things like that though she should have learned these things long ago under the tutelage of Kaede. Having to create a way in her mind to form these things had taken a lot of work a lot of creativity on her part she only hope that it would hold up under battle.

Now however Kagome needed some rest, tomorrow she was going to head back to Tokyo and the hike down the mountain was tiring and add to that a four hour drive it would be supper time before she got home. Happy with her progress she turned back inside, and turned her thoughts as well to Sesshomaru.

The not so stoic Inu lord was probably livid when he went to the house yesterday. Oh poor Kai, he probably got the worst of it, though it wouldn't surprise her if he saved it all for her. It was going to be an interesting day when she returned she was sure that she would get at the very least a smack upside the head.

Kagome really wanted to know what had happened for Sesshomaru to change so much. Was it just because he had been forced to be around humans so much? was it because of Rin? that cute little girl that followed him around all the time. Perhaps she had helped melt the ice around his heart, but who was to say for sure, she wondered how she herself fit in with the demon lords machinations the only one who knew for sure was Sesshomaru himself.

Sighing Kagome changed from her jeans and tee shirt to an over sized light blue men's button down that had once belonged to her father, the shirt hit her at mid thigh. No bra and only a pair of emerald green boy cut panties as her only other clothing. Kagome climbed into bed and drifted to sleep.

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InuYasha looked around the hotel room making sure he didn't forget any thing he was going to be back early instead of Friday he was going to be back Thursday night he would have a chance to see Sesshomaru before the share holders meeting.

Currently dressed casually in a pair of blue jeans and a black tee shirt and black runners, Hand running though his untied hair his ears twitching as his thoughts ran between the past and the present. Things had changed drastically for the hanyou with the realization about Kagome and he had made his decision and was going to visit the Higarashi shrine as soon as he got back he was going to apologise to Kagome's mother for waiting so long to come to talk with her.

He had never gone back because the memory had hurt too much, he didn't know what to say to the woman who let her daughter go back in time to help them defeat an evil hanyou. What did one say to a grieving mother, and her son? He didn't know, he could only hope that she would understand that he hadn't meant for her to not know the fate of her daughter. He hadn't meant for any of this to happen his only excuse was, that despite the fact that he had lived for over five hundred years he was a coward. He was too afraid of what Mrs Higarashi would say to him about it. Afraid of facing her anger, her sorrow, her hate that he had survived and Kagome hadn't.

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It had taken Sesshomaru a full day and a half to get all the facts from Mrs. Higarashi, and now he was on his way to the mountain where Kagome was hiding, he was really hoping she was okay that nothing had happened to her due to her own stupidity. Though things were complicated and he was unsure of where things were going to go between Kagome and himself, he didn't want to push her but he wanted to be with her in the most intimate of ways. Pushing that thought away took more will power than he cared to admit.

It was almost full dark when he pulled his car into the large field near the mountain, on the far side he saw the small blue Toyota truck, getting out of his vehicle he could smell Kagome all over the truck. Intent on finding the woman he headed in the direction of her scent, though faded he could tell she went up the path alone.

Using his demonic speed Sesshomaru raced up the path. The stone walled village came into view, swiftly jumping over the wall, he looked around, hackles rising Sesshomaru narrowly dodged a flying arrow. Looking to where the arrow had come from he saw, his mind paused as an image of the miko that his brother had traveled with was the one shooting at him except that she was wearing a over sized blue button down. But that couldn't be she couldn't be the miko she didn't have any powers as far as he could tell and besides she would be a reincarnation she wouldn't be the same as the original.

"I missed on purpose" she said loudly into the dark "Now who are you?"

Shaking himself out of the vision he calmly walked forward into the waning light of the quarter moon.

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Watching as a silver haired figure moved out of the deep shadows, surprised to see it was Sesshomaru who was quietly stalked towards her. Her night vision was terrible but with her miko powers easily at her call she was able to see his youki like an aura around him held tight to his body, which gave her some thing to aim at.

"Sesshomaru?" She whispered as her bow dropped to her side "what are you doing here? how did you find me?"

"This Sesshomaru told you he would protect you?"

"Huh so you did" She said standing and turning towards the door of the house knowing he would follow.

It looked like she was going to have to deal with Sesshomaru sooner than expected, she really hoped that he wasn't going to get too up set. Acting as nonchalant as possible Kagome put a kettle on needing to calm her nerves down. She had almost shot Sesshomaru, even though she had in the past but that was when he was the enemy, now he was a client and hopefully after all this was over a friend, hell maybe even a romantic interest, though she doubted the last one. Though there was that kiss, but it was best not to think about that one.

"Tea?" she asked getting out two cups and a small tin of loose tea.

"No thank you" he said closing the door behind him, glancing around at the sparsely furnished place, at the table and chairs in the kitchenette, the small love seat by the fireplace.

"So" she said nervously "How did you find me" her back was to him she could only feel as he moved around the small cabin.

"Your mother was of great help, though it took her a while before she would tell me where you could possibly be" He leaned against the counter top facing her as she watched the kettle heat.

Glancing out of the corner of her eye at the gorgeous man in black, black jeans and boots and a black corded sweater making him even more pale than he already was. Sesshomaru was a gorgeous man in black, the contrast suited him well, but then again so did his old outfit.

"She stalled to give me time didn't she?" Kagome knew her mother well enough that she would do something like this. Sumi also knew that Sesshomaru was a client and wanted to give her daughter time to do what ever it was she had to before the youkai was given the information to find her.

"Yes, it was most annoying, I did not like being led around by that woman" he growled in remembered annoyance.

Pulling the now boiling water off the burner and turning off the heat, Kagome fixed her tea before looking at Sesshomaru.

"Why are you here" he demanded, eyes narrowing at her relative calmness.

"I came up here to think. I do that sometimes on cases when my thinking becomes blocked or there are too many things going on at once for me to decided which route to take in my investigation. It helps me clear my thinking to take a different point of view, even though we haven't come up with much at this point"

"How did you get up here if you were two injured to walk not two days ago?" Sesshomaru growled.

Uh-Oh not good, this is not good how the hell was she going to explain how she did this with out telling him who and what she was. Luck was not with her, she was really hoping that she would get back into town with out Sesshomaru knowing where she had gone, that he wouldn't have gone to the house the other day. There was no way she could tell him just yet, no not yet, she was just starting to feeling things for the Inu lord that she had never felt for anyone before. Kagome wanted desperately to discover what these feelings meant and if Sesshomaru felt the same way, she needed to know.

Getting older was supposed to mean getting wiser but this was certainly not the case with Kagome, she was becoming tired with the way her life was empty of male attention. Her body was starved from lack of an intimate touch, and right now Sesshomaru was so close to her all she could think about was his body touching hers. He towered over her his body inches from her, a deep breath on her part would bring them into contact. It was amazing how quickly her mind tuned out her worry and Sesshomaru's demands and focused on base matters.

How her body ached to be touched by his large hands, how she wanted him to slowly unbutton her shirt and caress her breasts. She wanted his lips on her in the most intimate of ways, she wanted him, wanted him with such power that it striped her of her cognitive abilities. She wasn't stupid she knew what sex entailed, had explored her body and knew what it felt like to touch herself down there what her arousal felt like and what a release by her own hand felt like. But now, right this minute, she wanted to finally loose her virginity to some one who was worthy. She knew Sesshomaru was not the kind of guy to go and boast about his sexual conquests to the guys. He was not the kind of guy to just use her and toss her away to be forgotten. As much as she never wanted a one night stand, tonight, just tonight she would give her self the opportunity to feel. To have some one touch her, to have HIM touch her.

Parting her lips and softly running her tong over the lush pink folds, her small hand coming to rest on his chest before making it's way up to his neck and entwining her fingers in the mass of slivery hair that lay on his back.

"Sesshomaru" she whispered standing up on tip toe and bringing his lips down to her own.

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Kouga stood before the grave site on his estate, and once again remembered how his mate Ayame, died. He had told her to leave Japan and let the humans fight their war, he had left and wanted her to do the same but she wouldn't leave, stubborn when pregnant she had gotten it in to her head to stay and that nothing was going to happen. With her stayed most of their children. All but two died in the bomb that hit Hiroshima, Kouga's second son and his second youngest daughter.

Relaxed in a dark Kimono his long dark wavy hair unbound around his shoulders his ocean blue eyes stared past the graves as his memory flitted around the last conversation he had with Ayame. The argument had been a bad one and had ended with him leaving with Jomei and Mitsu. Jomei looked so much like his mother yet had Kouga's personality where as Mitsu looked like her father but her personality was that of her mother. He had really loved Ayame, that love had grown from getting to know each other after Kagome had died. He had gone in to a deep depression, but Ayame had never given up and she pulled Kouga out of his small pit of despair.

Turning to go in side, the large house, Kouga wished not for the first time that he could redo his life over, or rather certain parts of it. The one thing he would never change was his children, because with out them he was nothing. Knowing that he could change nothing he switched his thoughts to more pleasant one's, such as Mitsu's mating ceremony, it was only two weeks away. Kouga sighed and wondered how he had turned into such an introspective old man.

AN: Review please.