I am so sorry for the incredibly long delay. I know I probably scared many of you. Thank you so much for sticking with this fic and let me assure you again that I have no intention of abandoning this story.

Personally, I am relieved to finish this chapter which I've been putting together bit my bit for the past months wherever I could steal the time. Between a full time job and the process of getting my wedding together I've been reduced to working on this fic using Word on my phone when the boss wasn't looking. I apologize ahead of time for any mistakes since it's a whole different ball game to type on a phone versus a computer.

Usually I would list everyone who would review but I'll forgo it this time in favor of giving everyone a whole hearted "thank you" and a sincere wish that you'll enjoy this chapter, brief though it is.

Ties of Blood

Chapter 15

Miko

Sesshoumaru absently tapped his chopsticks against the porcelain dish upon which his meal lay. It had been relatively simple fare, a big heaping slab of meat from a lesser youkai - uncooked and marginally seasoned - that had been carefully sliced and artfully arranged on a plate. Some lords he knew would have turned their nose up at such a plain meal but he usually didn't care what he ate as long as it provided him with the boost he needed and didn't kill him - something that was extraordinarily hard due to the naturally flowing poison in his veins.

The good thing about the dish he'd been served was that it was an excellent source of energy. Cooking his food, particularly in the case of youkai meat, tended to break down the remaining youki which meant it wouldn't provide near as much energy when consumed. Fruits and vegetables were out of the question. Though he appeared human on the outside, his tastes in food ran purely to the canine side of his nature.

It was a luxury really for him to have time for himself but he couldn't really complain since he needed it to rest and recharge his body. He also liked that it allowed him to sit and think while doing something as mundane, for him, as eating a meal. The current object of his contemplation was the list Jaken had provided of all of the miko in the surrounding areas who might be able to train Rin.

He was perfectly capable of handling even the most zealous, youkai-hating miko - the two women who had captured him were the exception and even then it was partly because they caught him by surprise. Hence, he didn't foresee any problems with keeping the woman he selected under control. His capture had been a first for him and he had every intention of making sure it was his last.

As golden eyes perused the parchment, their owner had to admit that Jaken had his uses. Not only was the information up to date, it would seem that the tiny youkai had been keeping tabs on every miko in his territory for years. For once, he was grateful for the toad's paranoia since, in this case, it had saved him quite a bit of time.

He had decided that what he needed was a miko who was powerful enough to make Rin useful but not so old and set in her ways that she tried to purify every youkai on sight. Based on tat criteria alone, he had cut the list down to half. He also didn't want a miko so young that she had little to no experience and fainted at the sight of some of his more inhuman subjects. His second criterion effectively narrowed his list down to a quarter of its original size. It would seem that the type he wanted was in short supply due to the war.

He didn't know how long he sat there, eating his food almost absently as he read over the various histories of the miko on his list, but he eventually narrowed it down to three women.

The first two women were named Rei Kusanagi and Yuki Matsumoto - their profiles were pretty similar. Both were fairly young but not children and both were heavily relied upon by their respective villages. However, Rei was currently on very familiar terms with the son of a local lord which would make things annoying if she went missing. Yuki, on the other hand, had a reputation for being particularly vicious in dispatching youkai. Her profile indicated that her entire village had been razed to the ground by one of the Ookami clans and, knowing wolf youkai the way he did, he knew it would not have been pretty. Therefore, he mentally crossed her name off of the list. He did not need her filling Rin's head with anti-youkai sentiments.

Letting out a sigh after crossing off both names, he looked at the third and final woman. He had mixed feelings about the last miko. She had been categorized as one of the weaker ones and he would have ignored her if it weren't for the fact that Jaken seemed to have recently added new information, judging by the dark color and fresh scent of the ink.

Upon reading the tiny youkai's notations, he had felt his eyes widen. The woman, Tsubaki was her name, had apparently trained alongside Kikyo, the miko who had captured him and upset his plans of conquest - if the whispers he'd caught from the men outside of his cage were to be believed.

He might have had some reservations about their relationship if it wasn't for the fact that she had been banished to the shrine in the middle of nowhere and her powers sealed away. The reason for her punishment had been an attack on Kikyo's person. The details of the assault were vague but he didn't care about that, the woman was the enemy of his enemy and that was enough for him to give her a second look.

The fact that her powers had to be sealed told him that she had been formidable in her prime. In short, she was a skilled miko who had the knowledge he needed while lacking the power to be dangerous.

She was a good candidate…almost too good to be true.

He tapped a claw against the table and weighed the pros and cons of choosing Tsubaki. As a general rule, youkai and miko did not mix and he knew nothing about the woman's personality. Too, there was always the chance that the woman would refuse him, not that it mattered to him whether she was willing or not. The Lord of the West was not accustomed to being denied and he did not believe in bending for anyone.

'Except you bent for Rin,' a traitorous inner voice whispered and he briefly closed his eyes, fighting the curiosity that rose up whenever he thought about the girl. Now was hardly the time for him to be wondering if she had slept well or not. Nor was it time to give into the temptation to see what new and unusual thing she was going to do. He had stretched his senses earlier that morning just far enough to ascertain that she was awake before hastily pulling them away before he did something foolish and unbecoming of a lord of his stature.

'Like roll over on your back so she can scratch your belly,' this time it was his youki presenting ludicrous suggestions and he grimaced, knowing that yet again, his inmost thoughts were surfacing.

Highborn youkai were taught from birth to control their instinctual desires. The creed had always been: "Just because you feel like doing it, doesn't mean you should." Though they had animal characteristics, they were expected to rise above their baser inclinations and reason like intelligent beings. And right now, he was doing a poor job of it.

Shaking his head, he rose and set his chopsticks down. Jaken would send someone to collect the dishes after he left. For now, he had an outcast miko to track down and plans to make.

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1...

2...

3...

Breathe.

1...

2...

3...

Breathe.

He counted each heartbeat, spacing each three-second interval with a deep breath. It was a pattern that he had grown familiar with over the years of his imprisonment...and yes, he knew it had been years since he had been sealed there. Years since that...girl...pinned him to the wood of the tree like some sort of macabre decoration while the tree continued to grow and the roots rose above the ground to cradle his legs.

1...

2...

3...

Breathe.

His ritual gave him something to focus on, a way to nurture his sanity lest darkness rise up and choke out his existence once and for all.

It had always been there, on the fringes of his consciousness - the dark and untamed beast born of his youkai half. Keeping it in check had been simple when he was able to move about freely and could pick a fight to work off his aggression. However, even before he'd been sealed, he had never been a patient man and his captivity grated on both his human half and the half bestowed upon him by his youkai father.

1...

2...

3...

Breathe.

Even as his mind reached back with firm tendrils and brought forth the memory of that fateful day - the day he had been betrayed - he maintained the cadence of his mental chant. What had began as an exercise to pass the time has long since evolved into a necessity to his very existence and he counted even as he reflected on the past.

1...

The sun had been shining brightly that day, a vivid gem set in a clear azure sky. It had been the type of day that was perfect for meeting...her.

2...

He remembered seeing her as she hurried up the road towards him. Most youkai would have been nervous upon catching sight of a woman clad in miko robes with a bow and quiver full of arrows but, not him. No, he had leaned back against the tree and watched her with silent appreciation - enjoying the way her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkled.

3...

Burning, blistering pain as she drove the arrow into his shoulder. The purifying power of the missile was scorching his insides, seeking out and trying to destroy every shred of youki it could find while passing harmlessly over the human parts of his being.

It hurt....it hurt...it hurt...but he did not know which pained him more - his body, his pride, or his heart.

'Why is she doing this?' He'd wondered.

'Why is she telling me how sorry she is when she's hurting me?'

'Why is she crying?'

His eyes grew heavy and slowly...slowly...slowly, darkness poured in from the edges of his vision, swallowing up her image.

Breathe.

As he completed the last part of his ritual his lips twitched for the first time in years and though he didn't have the strength to utter the name out loud yet he mouthed it softly.

'Kagome'

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Tsubaki sighed as she slowly drew the broom back and forth. She had awakened to the sun streaming through the windows of her tiny shrine, which also doubled as her house, and felt a brief moment of panic.

Ever since her sealing and subsequent banishment from the capital, she had lived day by day with the fear that a strong enough youkai would drop by and break through the barrier that Kikyo had "kindly" set up around her shrine.

She could admit that her exile was her own fault, though it had taken a number of bitter years to reach that conclusion. However, she hated the fact that she had been reduced to nothing more than a low level miko - she who had once been called the strongest and a protégé.

Her vast powers were a thing of the past and now she was defenseless and reliant on nothing more than a mid-level barrier set up by a miko whose humanity was slowly draining away and her archery skills. Purifying anything more than the lowest-level vermin of the youkai world was beyond her now.

A not-so-tiny prickle at the base of her neck made her pause and she craned her head to the west - in the direction of the castle of the true ruler of the western lands. That same prickle of awareness was what had caused her to wake up in a panic that morning and had kept her on alert the previous afternoon.

Though she couldn't use her powers to fight, Kikyo had mercifully - or unmercifully - allowed her keen senses to remain. She could easily detect any youki within five miles of her home. However, even a miko less skilled at detection than her would have picked up on the massive youki that was destroying her peace of mind.

There had only ever been one creature she'd felt so much power from and the fact that he'd returned to his lands once more meant that she was in for plenty of sleepless nights.

'Why are you back now of all times Sesshoumaru?' Tsubaki wondered as she paused in her sweeping and checked the position of the sun.

It was late afternoon now and she sighed at how quickly the day had flown. She needed to get moving on making dinner and a bath would certainly be welcome. Walking over to the side of the shrine, she leaned the broom against the wall and stretched.

Sweeping was a pointless endeavor since she never had visitors and there was only the occasional leaf to get rid of. However, it was one of a number of different, albeit mundane, activities that she engaged in to keep herself occupied and sane - so perhaps it wasn't that pointless.

There wasn't a day that went by that she didn't miss what she had before. The honor and prestige that belonged to a powerful miko, especially during a war against youkai, was nothing to sneeze at but, even more than that, she missed being around her fellow miko. She hadn't been the most sociable of people but she had enjoyed watching the young girls come in - frightened and uncertain - then seeing them leave with skill and confidence.

It had always fascinated her how different each miko was. There were some who were powerful in one area but weaker in others, some had taken up the sword instead of the bow and could best any number of men, and still others could create barriers that were nearly impossible to break unless a youkai of Sesshoumaru's caliber came along.

Tsubaki had been a miko with a solid mixture of offensive and defensive talents. And, until Kikyo had come along, she had been considered by many to be the strongest. She hadn't considered herself to be overly prideful before but something about the eldest of the two Higurashi sisters rubbed her raw. In her foolish competitiveness, she'd discovered a side of herself that was ugly and she knew, especially after her banishment, that a part of her had been twisted beyond recovery.

There were many things about her situation that she could fault herself with but it didn't change the fact that she wanted nothing to do with Kikyo. Yes, she'd had a narrow miss and she shuddered to think about how easily it could have been herself in Kikyo's place. If having power meant that you had to give up your sanity, she'd gladly live out the rest of her life in a tiny shrine perched on the side of a mountain. Still, a part of her resented the fact that Kikyo was always ahead of her in everything and that resentment had festered into hate. In turn, that hate had moved her to do something exceedingly foolish.

'I was a fool,'' she thought to herself as she headed for the entrance to her shrine.

She was just reaching for the door when a distant surge in power stopped her in her tracks. Eyes widening, she felt her body begin to tremble as she slowly turned to look in the direction of Sesshoumaru's castle. The prickle was now a full-fledged stab of awareness that raised the hairs on the back of her neck and sent her scrambling to open her door.

Running past the main room with its tiny altar, she entered her sleeping room and snatched up her bow and arrows, fumbling to get the holder over her shoulders. Her heart was pounding in her ears and it felt as if that...that creature moved a mile closer with every heartbeat.

There were any number of questions she could have asked herself but the two that kept on repeating themselves in her mind were: Why is he coming here? Why now?

Dashing to the wall next to the door, she pressed herself flat against its cool surface and peered cautiously around the doorway, keen eyes scanning the skies. She knew exactly who was heading her way and she knew, in her heart of hearts, that he was coming for her.

The miko forced her hands to steady and drew an arrow from her quiver, bringing it up to her lips and saying tiny blessing over it that made the wood hum and vibrate as her power latched onto the smooth shaft. Nocking the arrow onto the bow, she pulled the string taut and waited.

Of course, she was not so foolish as to think that she had the power to wound, let alone kill, the monster heading for her - even at her prime she would have been no match for him. However, she still had her pride and she would make sure that she went down fighting.

A glimmer of light shone on the horizon and she squinted, trying to make him out against the backdrop of the late noon sun. The ball of light grew in size until it was equal in height to a man and she tried not to notice just how fast it was approaching.

Taking a deep breath and then another she watched as it slowed to a hover a hundred feet or so above her courtyard. Then, ever so slowly, it descended, the light gradually fading until her visitor was revealed in all of his terrible glory and she let go of the second breath she'd taken, having forgotten to let it out.

It was so hard to stare at him and know that she wasn't even powerful enough for him to consider her a mild annoyance. Almost as hard, was reminding herself that the most beautiful of youkai were often the deadliest. And Sesshoumaru - the lord of the west who was currently occupying her courtyard - was extraordinarily handsome which meant that killing her would take no more than a thought for him.

Tsubaki watched apprehensively as he scanned her building with cold amber eyes. She pulled her bow even tighter and took aim, ready to shoot at a moment's notice. He took his time bringing his gaze to the doorway where she hid, even though they both knew he had long since detected her hiding place.

His face was a perfect mask of calm indifference as he stared directly at her spot and opened his mouth to speak.

"I dislike games human...," he said in a voice that sent chills down her spine.

"...Don't make me kill you."

She swore that her heart stopped for a few moments after he spoke and her mind raced over possible ways to fend him off but she came up empty. At least she knew, thanks to his words, that he hadn't made a special trip out to the middle of nowhere in order to kill a disgraced miko.

There wasn't much of choice, it was either stand down or die, so she decided to come out of her house with her bow at the ready so she could hear what he had to say without feeling that she was showing him her throat.

Holding her head up high, she stepped out from the pitiful safely of her home and stared what was quite possibly her death in its frighteningly beautiful face.

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Finally finished this chapter! Please let me know what you think and how I can improve. Constructive criticism is always welcome.