A/N: Here, have an extra chapter for two reasons: one being as an apology for my absence and the other as a celebration that my favourite fic of all time is updating again this week!
Toga had been comforting Kagome for some unknown amount of time before she promptly decided to just get the rest over with. Once she informed him of this, he explained exactly why they would have to wait, which would have made her cry if not for his and Amaterasu-Ō-Mi-Kami-sama's hopeful words about fixing some prior unfairness.
"I will not be able to immediately regenerate my humanoid form upon the absorption of my bones. I will be able to assume my natural form at any time I wish, both its full size and its smaller sizes, but when I try to take humanoid form I will still be see-through and only halfway there; considering that only when on shrine grounds and the direct surrounding area can I be felt, well… Yeah. The Kami are very unsure of how long it will take me to fully regenerate, but I managed to divine that it will take a minimum of six moons, which is the earliest you could possibly end Naraku's threat, despite our shameless cheating. You are stronger and more talented, not to mention you will have Sesshōmaru aiding you from the start, but even with these advantages, the shards are spread out all over Nihon, and Naraku can control a majority of the lesser yōkai that will end up finding around half of them."
Meaning absolutely nothing she tried could change this, and also meaning – it went unsaid, but Toga knew she would figure it out – that the reason he couldn't tell the exact amount of time was that the Shikon was arranging things in such a way that they could not mate at least until she got rid of it; assuming it wasn't able to get rid of her (not a chance) before then. Fate was not sentient, which was why it was so fickle; anything powerful enough could sway it towards their advantage. Which reminded her – she deserved to know what happened to her the last time around, so that she could have an idea of what kind of things the Shikon was willing to do to get revenge whenever it was thwarted. "Toga, tell me true, before I say anything about this. How bad was it? I'm pretty sure I know what happened; I stayed with him and he abandoned me. But what merited such interference from the Kami when this Kagome's body has been changed so that it is effectively immortal even without the Shikon still residing inside of it?"
He took her hand in his and held it gently, his voice so soft and filled with pain that it nearly broke her heart. "You felt your heart to be so broken that you willed yourself to death. You were only three decades old."
She didn't get a chance to respond, her love knew her well enough to know that she would be fully unable to comprehend why being left by a love could do that to her. She loved Toga desperately but if he loved someone else more she would want him to be happy with that person, not kill herself because of it! "You had never experienced romantic love in your life before then. The entire time he was with you he called you by pretty much anything except your name, constantly degraded you, compared you negatively with the woman he thought you to be the reincarnation of, repeatedly abandoned you for said resurrected woman, and generally made you feel like nobody could love you; he was an exception to this, of course. It is likely that this was to keep you from leaving him, and not actually done with the intent to hurt you for the sake of hurting you. That does not excuse it or make it better, but it explains it. He did not hate you, but he did not love you enough for yourself to keep you by his side without hurting you to do so."
Keeping in mind the fact that she would be inexperienced with danger, a life in the wild, physical pain, and emotional pain as well, it made a terrible, horrifying sort of sense that she would fall for someone in spite of such treatment; especially if any of his comparisons held the slightest sort of truth to them. She had seen such over and over again in some of the books she loved to read; people being verbally and emotionally abused generally had some small reason to believe their abuser in what that person said to them, and even if they thought it was an exaggeration, would eventually come to believe it fully, even if that thing became false over time. She was so blessed that she had felt acute emotional pain, mostly dealing with her father, and physical pain – Kagome had had several purposely broken bones, bone bokken hurt, and when dealing with live steel she often got cut in the beginning. Granted, all things were healed rapidly with her ki, but still, she could handle extreme pain incredibly well.
"Then this Kagome will feel incredibly lucky and blessed that you will be able to be fully corporeal whilst in your natural form, because even waiting to mate you is far preferable to undergoing a fate such as this Kagome suffered the first time around in this lifetime. Abuse such as that never ceases to affect someone; even had this Kagome lived once she was abandoned, her life would likely have been unpleasant."
Toga squeezed her hands; he knew that she still flinched whenever she initiated affection and it wasn't immediately returned if it was by someone she was used to affection from. Kagome had been very careful not to let Sesshōmaru-kun, her mama, or her grandpa know the real reason that her grief in regards to her father had been so subdued; half of her tears when not crying to Toga alone had been well-masked relief. It was completely destroying to have your own father cease returning your affection when you are only three, unless you're around others – especially when he knows how integral it is to your very being and is doing it purposely to punish and harm you for being different through something you could not control.
Kagome had eventually just stopped initiating affection to her father in private, and only doing so when she absolutely had to if other people were around. The coldness behind his actions had been even worse than his spurning her had been. And Kagome was an inu, they could not exist happily without affection. Half the reason for Sesshōmaru-kun's coldness and displeasure with his previous life had been due to the fact that he had no physical affection, a fact which Kagome would remedy; subtly, and over time.
Since it hadn't started until several months after first meeting Toga, the Shikon was almost certainly directly responsible for his actions. Kagome was already well-acquainted with the kind of damage she would have undergone at her eventual step-son's hands, and had been from a painfully young age. If her father had lived, he could have irreparably damaged Kagome to an extent that not even Toga could have prevented or remedied, considering that he had already begun limiting their visits to the shrine. Her eventual step-son would be unable to harm her now, though.
"The reason why Amaterasu-sama spoke to you, koishi, is sitting in this Toga's lap."
Kagome blinked at that; Raimei? What could a sword do to reward her in some manner that would fix an unfairness existing in her life currently?
Toga was obviously aware of her thoughts and chuckled, removing his hands from hers, sliding the sword into his obi-slash-sash (really, it was far too long to be an obi, beyond the just under four metres that most obi tended to be at their longest for adult men, but Kagome felt that it was slightly insulting to call it a sash, so she tilted back and forth – sometimes Toga deserved insulting, considering how arrogant he could be; "It isn't arrogance if it's true, dearest." puh-lease, it so was), and—oh Kami no wonder Amaterasu-Ō-Mi-Kami-sama had felt the need to reassure her personally because this was just way too much and Kagome didn't even realise that she was crying until she was in Toga's lap, her tears being licked off of her face as she sobbed, gasping and whimpering out her shock.
This was too good to be true, seriously, only it wasn't, he was solid, and without warning he was kissing her and she returned it with a desperation and need that she had never imagined she could feel in her life.
Kagome wasn't sure how long her first kiss lasted, but it was far too short, so all she did when it ended was take a much-needed breath and then yank her betrothed back in for another, and another, and another.
When they finally pulled away from each other, Kagome's cheeks weren't the only wet ones, so she pulled her alpha's head down and licked his cheeks clean before whimpering comfortingly and rubbing her face on the sleeve of his kimono before he could lick her cheeks dry – he deserved to be the only one having that done to him, for once. Kagome knew that the physical separation between them had been far harder on her love than it had been on her; he might have been able to touch her, but he couldn't feel her, a fact which nobody else knew about. He hadn't even told Kagome until she'd asked him four years ago what it felt like to be half-solid and touch something, at which point the look on his face rather prevented him from even attempting to lie to her because it had immediately given away the horrible truth.
Toga could see, hear, smell, and taste, but his sense of touch had been completely torn from him in his half-solid form. The mere idea of such a thing had given her several nights of nightmares which overtook the manipulation Toga used to keep her in his dream-world, and had her sobbing terribly whenever she awoke from them. It was so beyond cruel that Toga should have to suffer the machinations of that vile, terrible jewel residing inside of her, just because he was preventing Kagome from wishing it away and then willing herself to death.
Especially because if the Shikon only fucking paid attention to her thoughts like it very well should, seriously, it would realise that she wasn't planning to wish it away and that it would gain the immortality it so dreadfully wanted. Granted, it would be severely constrained and limited in extreme as to the power it could exert upon the world, but it would still be affecting things, changing the world, and living until the end of time.
And despite that the beings inside of the Shikon were very sentient, the jewel itself had no true sentience itself – a will, yes, to gain immortality, but not true sentience. It was blatantly clear that after a time even as short as half a century its will would begin to wane, it would cease caring so much about how it affected the changes that were happening, because without true sentience, immortality was frankly boring as hell. Toga had admitted to her that whilst he had in the end fallen for Izayoi to an extent, he hadn't intended for her to be more than a distraction to stave off boredom. And that most of his love for her had come upon him once he scented her pregnancy – she was no longer simply Izayoi, gentle princess, she was the mother of his second son, and that made all the difference.
He had loved even his arranged mate, Satori, whilst she was pregnant with his first son, although outside of it he'd found her utterly unbearable to be with. She was far too cold and held back, although he'd never let her see that he felt that way; she was far more pleasant when he flirted and teased and cajoled. But by the time he met Izayoi she'd found herself another male and so; there came about his second son.
Who had not only directly caused her death, but caused her beloved Toga to undergo nearly five hundred years of never being able to feel a thing. Oh Kagome had plans for that boy, and they included blatant, shameless manipulation of his prejudice about her, as well as making sure that her mask and reiki scent-dampening were so damn tight he would not be able to tell how she truly was until he got Tessaiga – and thus, would have been tricked into promising her that he would stay with her until her quest was finished; without specifying which quest she was talking about, and with a provision that she could send him away or leave his presence whenever she needed "female time", which was oh-so-delightfully vague.
Especially since Kagome was incredibly lucky because her manipulation of her reiki and miko-ki in the ways which she did so meant that she underwent very short, very light, and very easy monthly cycles. Although Toga was a bit sceptical; apparently when he observed her adventures the second time around he hadn't been able to tell when she was going through that excepting by the change in her scent to begin with, so it might just be that the Shikon-changed body of hers developed so.
This son of his would not know she was on her monthly cycle when she was, thanks to the yōkai-made camping clothes (really, travel-clothes, but since she never left the shrine grounds/forest in a way that would need them, they got called camping clothes for now) which naturally dampened certain scents in order so that those yōkai with sensitive noses did not have to bear up under them, and she could steal a few days up to a sennight away from his presence to be with Toga.
It was clear that Toga had known, when she informed him of her plans a few months ago, that he would largely still be not solid excepting in canine form.
Which brought her back to the present, and it was clear from the way she was being held that Toga was doing his own sort of heavy thinking. Not to mention probably simply enjoying being able to hold her and feel her. Kagome would take this one step further. She pulled away, growling enough to let him know that if he didn't let go she would use her reiki to magnify her miko-ki so that she could sting him, and despite his despondent whine, she slid over and patted the pillow at the head of the futon. Confused, he laid down like she was telling him to, and she promptly slid her body on top of his – chastely, but giving him the kind of full-body contact they usually had, only in a manner with which they could kiss more when he was less overwhelmed.
He choked and growled in thanks; Kagome could tell what Toga truly needed from her even when he didn't know it himself, most of the time, despite her keeping her empathy thoroughly shielded almost constantly. Right now he was still overwhelmed with being able to feel her, so she spoke softly, something he could listen to but would not distract him because what Kagome said, went, when it came to her revenge against the hanyō. "I think I'll create those subjugation beads myself, and place them on him before he wakes up – just not use them until after I ally us with Sesshōmaru-kun except maybe to test them or something. I'd rather not have the village miko in control of when they get removed; from what you told me she seems like the type to trust easily after a while of good behaviour and once he earns her trust she will likely become open to his asking for them to be removed after we defeat Naraku. I'd rather not lose the ability to punish him as I see fit until he's thoroughly been re-educated.
"And I talked to Sesshōmaru-kun, he gave me some really good tips on how to deal with his younger self; he said that early on into our acquaintance he was a bit more emotional – he attributed it to nearing the end of his second growth period into adulthood – and it wasn't until over the length of his acquaintance with us that he lost the emotionality once more. He believes that if I can capture his attention by offering him a secret – your existence, which I will be asking you to please keep secret until you are fully regenerated, towards your youngest, at least, not necessarily anybody else – then he will be open to listening to me, especially once I explain to him the workings of Tessaiga. I'm not sure when this will be happening, since even you aren't sure the timing, so I will be bringing Kodokuso with me the first time around and hiding it next to the well so that all I have to do is stop by and grab it for the village miko to give it to me—it will be wrapped up so it doesn't harm her—after I have secured the cooperation of your youngest."
Unsaid went the fact that she still didn't know his name – Toga said that was because he wasn't best pleased with the name; certainly, it was fitting, considering that his name was the name of the forest he currently resided in, and Izayoi must have been somewhat prescient in order to name him that, but even so… He'd prefer it to be something not so… Inelegant. Sesshōmaru-kun's name was accurately descriptive, but also very elegant and suitable for someone of royal birth. His youngest was of royal birth on both sides of his heritage, and yet Izayoi had given him such a stupid name. Kagome promised to take the most acceptable part of it and turn it into a nickname, which Toga had sincerely thanked her for.
"Also, there is going to be absolutely no mistake whatsoever that your youngest is not and will never be alpha of the pack he is in once it exists – having been raised ningen, he won't realise what the yōki in my energy means, or probably even notice it, so he won't know he already has an alpha male, but it will be made blatantly clear from the forming of my pack that any time he gets ideas about him being in charge of things, he will promptly get sat. And because I know you are looking forward to beating some lessons into him, I will ask Sesshōmaru-kun – by the way, I do genuinely understand why he's making me continue calling him that until I meet him again, but it is most unbefitting of him as an adult and I will be glad once I meet him there and can differentiate between the two of them by dropping the suffix for this Sesshōmaru – to only teach him the absolute basics, just enough so that he doesn't slaughter innocents or get himself killed."
Toga was doing much better now, stroking over her back and scratching gently over her scalp as she rested her cheek on his chest, growling in a manner she had never heard from him before; although, being raised inu, she instinctively understood it. This was a sound of the most contentment and happiness one could possibly experience. She knew she would be hearing it a lot when they did this for the first while; possibly even well into her quest. Kagome was acutely aware of the fact that not being able to feel the touch of someone you loved was intensely painful, especially for inu yōkai – hers had only been a very short period of time, when she was but a child, and she was still affected by it.
He, however, had been experiencing such a lack for not only the original span of her existence once falling into the well, but in addition to that, once he gained a body four months before her Mama became pregnant, he had been unable to touch anything and feel it – thus making him acutely aware that although his being able to touch her would be a blessing for Kagome, it would be a punishment for him. Considering that Grandpa had willingly paid the price for his new state of being, the Shikon could be the only reason for this, and so it was reaching back through time in order to punish him for interfering with its revenge against her.
She was going to beyond enjoy serving as the prison for that vile jewel – with her abilities sealed, it had complete control over what it did with its power, but once her abilities were unsealed and she had made her wish, it would find that it could no longer affect the world around it as it was used to doing, although she would not let it become aware of that until it had become bored with its existence; Kagome would make it feel indebted to her, so that in as little time as possible it sank into a sleep of sorts, a hibernation because it was bored and finding that its eternal life was actually not what it really wanted.
By then she would have had time to decide if she wanted the additional power it gave her or not, and if not, then she would wish it out of existence; not only would it not care, but it wouldn't even be aware of it happening, being asleep as it would be.
And Kagome promptly hid these thoughts (as she always did whenever she thought about these things) underneath a very well hidden and undetectable barrier in her mind – it would do no good for the Shikon to divine her plans before they could be implemented, or it would punish her even more severely rather than being so utterly pleased with its freedom from her body that it stopped actively focusing on Toga and her.
She sighed and growled back to him in as close a manner as she could achieve – being more spoiled and having been able to feel him, she would not be content in the same way he was until he was fully regenerated; possibly even until they were mated.
He pulled her into another kiss soon after that, and she spent the rest of the weekend in a haze of delight, not even caring that they could only be like this when he was wearing her Raimei. Because, in the end this actually solved a few problems, like how to avoid people demanding he just take control and end Naraku, how to avoid his son immediately resenting him for constantly siding with Kagome over him (by the time he came back in full, his youngest son would know that of course his father would side with the alpha of the pack, especially after finding out about their betrothal – plus Kikyō would be in existence by then, and Kagome would be growing into her own natural appearance), and how to calm Toga's temper down enough that he didn't beat his son to near-death every time he "taught" him how to defend himself with a sword; things would be developing so differently that he'd be more complacent and content that no matter what happened, the boy would not be able to kill Kagome again.
It spoke a lot that every time the Shikon made things worse for them, Toga managed to find a way around it. Or the Kami did, but it was rather clear that excepting the death of her father, they were just letting Kagome and her beloved take care of things in the ways they felt necessary and suitable.