Chapter 2
Reaching up, she took Naraku's face between her little hands; the shikon shards clutched possessively in her left one, and pulled him down to her. Taking a steadying breath and swallowing her revulsion, she pressed her lips to his. Naraku's look of triumph quickly turned to an expression of pure horror as he realized what she was doing. Kagome opened her mouth against his and poured all the purifying energy she had left in her into his mouth and down into his body.
An intense pink glow erupted between their mouths blinding streams of light cut the air as rays of the dawn cut twilight when the sun rises. He screamed in agony against her mouth, but she refused to let go of his face or release her hold on his lips. Pink purifying energy filled his body and he began to disintegrate from the inside out. Slowly his body turned to ash and floated away on the wind until she felt the horrible face under her hands finally lose its solidity and dissipate.
For a moment she continued to sit there with her hands in the air, looking up at the sky as her arch enemy was carried away as dust on the gently swirling breeze. It was so quiet now.
Clasped in her other hand was Naraku's large piece of the jewel. In shock she stared at it before placing her hands together, cupping the shards in her palms, a violet light escaped between her fingers before opening her hands to reveal the shikon, once again whole and purified. She stared at the round, perfect jewel glowing a contented pink against her hands still unable to cope with what just happened. The jewel glimmered benignly in her grasp and she could almost imagine none of it had just happened.
So much death for one tiny jewel.
When she finally managed to raise her head she found Sesshomaru had finally made it to his feet and was now standing a short distance away regarding her with his usual cool, emotionless façade. Suddenly, the weight of her friend's deaths and her injuries caught up as her adrenaline high faded and she wavered slightly, her vision clouded over and her body trembled in pain.
The Taiyoukai turned to leave as the human miko blacked out and slumped backward into unconsciousness, the jewel clutched possessively in her hands. Something stopped him and he turned back to look at the battered girl. No. Young woman.
He studied her for a moment, his gold eyes seeing through her as he contemplated her actions that day. She had withstood the battle with Naraku and when all was said and done, she alone had been the one strong enough to kill him. The woman had always been an enigma to the lord, ever since that fateful day when he lost his arm in his father's grave. The tiny, horribly dressed, indignant little miko always managed to surprise him with what she would do next, and Kami knows Sesshomaru hates surprises.
Still, as ningens go, she was almost tolerable. She was possessed of a power she had no idea how to control fully, though had vastly improved since their first meeting; of course he would never admit it to her face. Her smell was, he grudgingly admitted, not at all unpleasant when not tainted with blood as it was now. It bothered him however that even her blood smelled delicious. The woman always smelled clean, she never stank of sweat and body odor.
On a whim, he turned and scooped up the limp body with his one good arm, using his tail to nestle her against his now armorless chest. The movement seemed to rouse her and her unusual blue eyes opened slightly, staring up at the Taiyoukai in confusion.
"Where is your home?" he asked her monotone. Suddenly she seemed more awake and began to squirm in his arms, getting her blood all over his already soiled hakama.
"Please!" he raised one silver eyebrow at her sudden panic, "please! We can't leave until I can bury them!" she all but shouted at the taiyoukai, his wince at the loudness of her voice was lost on the frantic woman. He looked at her, his face his usual blank mask, but inside he was incredulous. "You can't just leave them here!" she begged him, her voice choked slightly. The demon breathed out slightly heavier than usual, but for someone else it would have been a huge sigh.
Setting her down carefully, he turned away. Kagome's panic rose, thinking he was going to leave her there for her impertinence, seeing as they weren't exactly on the best of terms and right before the battle had actually been considered enemies.
It shocked her then that Sesshomaru turned to a small copse of trees off to the side and began digging graves for her fallen comrades. She watched him work for a short while, overwhelmed with gratitude that he was bothering to do anything at all. Momentarily the pain from her injuries washed over her again and she slipped into blissful, dreamless unconsciousness, where the horror of the day couldn't bother her.
Sesshomaru looked over at her when he heard her breathing even out and deepen. Good, he thought, now not only will she not bother me, but she won't see the bodies of her comrades, since they're not in good condition. Especially the little one that she seemed to have adopted. Internally he chided himself. Concerned for a ningen's feelings? He must have suffered extreme bloodloss. To top it all off he was reduced to the menial task of digging graves for humans. Consoling himself with the thought that he only did it because she had killed Naraku when he'd failed to he continued to work.
The light of the setting sun warming his own battered body as he dragged the bodies to the holes he'd created and buried them, placing small, temporary markers on the fresh mounds and included one on unbroken ground for that houshi he had witnessed sucked into the hole in his hand.
Turning he picked up the slight woman and shook her gently to wake her. Wincing, her pain clouded eyes opened a slight bit.
"Where do you live?" he asked her again.
"InuYasha's Forest…." she said groggily, "the well…" before drifting back into unconsciousness. The well? he thought. Beautiful amber eyes slid closed in irritation. In resignation, he took off with demon speed in the direction of the forest named after his late brother.
The sun had set by the time he touched down, his entire body protested greatly at the treatment he was giving it. Shaking her gently again, he forced her back to consciousness.
"Where is your home?" he asked her again, but this time more forcefully, convinced she was being a stupid human and leading him on a wild goose chase.
Big blue eyes blinked once in confusion, before heat rose in her cheeks having realized she was nestled up against the hard chest of the Ice Demon of the West.
Shaking her head to clear it, she hissed sharply as shockwaves of white hot pain ran through her shoulder and into her head. The demon's grip on her tightened on her as his patience began to grow dangerously thin.
"I will not ask you again, woman," he threatened, his silky voice dropped a pitch and made shivers run down her spine, her mind registering the fact that the pin pricks she felt against her bare thigh were his exceedingly deadly and poisonous claws.
"Uh… I live in the well…" she began.
"Woman, I do not have time for games…" he cut in.
"No, really, I actually live on the other side of the well, five hundred years in the future to be exact," Kagome rushed on, raising her eyes to the perfect face of the man holding her, doubt clearly written across his pale features.
Kami, it's not fair how amazing looking he is… NO, BAD KAGOME!
"You reside in the future and this well is the portal?" came the steel edged question. Though he knew her powers had been completely drained by destroying Naraku, he still had the urge to tell her to heal herself and dump her down the well and leave her there.
Kagome winced, but she could feel unconsciousness beginning to overtake her again, forcing the ever surfacing thoughts of her deceased friends back, and choking down the despair that threatened to overwhelm her. She'd had enough of this pompous ass and his attitude. Honestly, now she really didn't have much to lose.
"I'd like to thank you greatly for what you did for my friends, Lord Sesshomaru, there's no way I could have buried them on my own and I probably would have died out there if you had left me. I suppose it would be only appropriate for me to rid your unblemished presence of my annoying self, so if you would just dump me down the well, I'll be on my way," black hemmed her vision from the energy it took to expel her monologue.
Kagome looked back up at the demon lord's face and nearly laughed out loud, wishing she had a camera on her at that moment. To say that Sesshomaru was shocked would be a perverse understatement. His usual mask had dropped and for once an emotion showed through his fathomless golden eyes, which were now wide in disbelief and his mouth was slightly open. Not wanting to end the moment, but obviously on the verge of blacking out again, the waves of pain made her eyes sting with unshed tears, she cut in before he could say anything.
"As much as I enjoy your company, my lord, either jump in the well and take me home or dump me down to go myself. Whichever you choose, please make it quick, I'm not going to be conscious long." As if in response to her last statement, her eyes began to droop and he noticed the lines of pain etching her young face.
"Do not presume to tell me what to do, woman," he said icily as he leapt easily and gracefully over the lip of the well and descended toward the bottom. The anticipated landing never happened; instead he was enveloped in a strange blue light and an intense feeling of vertigo and disorientation. Glancing down at his burden he noticed she had blacked out again and cursed himself for his curiosity.
After a few more moments of floating through the blue nothingness, he felt the world solidify around him and his feet touch down on soft earth once more. Suppressing a sigh of relief, he looked up expecting to see stars and was instead greeted with the sight of a roof over the well. Leaping silently out and landing on the lip of the well in a crouch, he surveyed his surroundings. He appeared to be in a small shed that had been built around the well, almost like a shrine in appearance but different from the ones he was used to.
Crossing cautiously to the door, he sniffed deeply to get his bearings and see if anything dangerous was nearby and sneezed sharply, his head swimming from the overpowering smell of everything around him. Sneezing sharply a few more times, Kagome was finally shaken awake from his sharp jerking.
"Why does this place smell so horrible?" he demanded of the groggy woman, instantly angry at the fact that made him lose his composure enough to do something so lowly as sneeze. He was sure it was all her fault.
"Oh, InuYasha hated the smell too. The modern world has a lot of things that generate smells that will hurt your nose, but the smell isn't nearly as bad inside my house," she said slurring her words slightly at the end as her eyes began to droop closed again.
Cursing mentally again, he slid the door open after taking a huge breath through his mouth, though that was just as bad as his sensitive senses were now on overdrive. He could actually taste that horrible stench. Humans are disgusting.
The smell did nothing to prepare him for what was next. Exiting the small shack, he couldn't help but stop and stare at all of Tokyo laid out before him. Small lights flickered on and off as traffic went by and street lights winked on and off. The sky was filled with tall rectangular monstrosities and the smells were infinitely worse out here in the open.
A small dwelling stood off to his right that he assumed was the girl's home because it gave off a faint scent similar to hers. Quickly approaching the building, he sniffed delicately to determine which part of the building she lived in and discovered her scent was strongest coming from the window on the top floor.
Effortlessly he jumped to the opening and fumbled with the glass for a moment before figuring out how to slide it open and slipped inside. The young woman's scent assaulted him when he entered, but surprisingly, he didn't mind much. Once again he was reminded of the fact that from the moment he first met her and she had stood against him in his father's grave, he had known she was a different sort of human. She had shown no fear when she should have been trembling in a sobbing heap in the corner. The miko didn't stink of human sweat and filth, she always smelled fresh, clean and with a hint of sakura blossoms and spring water. If he was to be honest with himself, he would have added that she smelled better than most demonesses he had met as well.
Now that he had brought her to her home, he was at a loss as to what to do with her. His first thought was to just drop her on that thing off to his left that looked sort of like a futon and leave her there to fend for herself. She was a miko after all, right? That got ruled out quickly though as he knew and could feel in her weak aura that she had been drained of most of her powers. Briefly glancing down at her face, he could see how pale she was from loss of blood and he knew that if he left her there she would not live the night through. Her wounds had completely soaked the sleeve of his hakama. Deciding there was nothing for it, he silently exited the room in order to find their place of bathing.