Chapter 10

Kagome finished her shower, dried off and got dressed. Her mind kept replaying her practice session with the demon lord, but not a single thought rested on the demon himself. Stopping her movements briefly, she stared at her palm, recalling the weird sensations she had occasionally felt. They almost felt like they were coming from the sword itself. At first she had ignored them in favor of paying attention to the deadly man in front of her lunging at her with his equally deadly sword, but then the sensations had become more insistent.

In the beginning it started out as a soft pulsing right underneath her palm, along the hilt, but as they practiced it became stronger and colder feeling, as if the sword was trying to tell her something. But that's impossible, right? Not so much, Tenseiga, Tetusaiga and Tōkijin were all sentient blades, was it possible this one was too? Kagome didn't think so. But still, it had been really weird.

Shrugging it off as her hands overreacting to the rigorous swordsmanship training, she quickly finished getting dressed and joined the others downstairs for dinner.

The dinner table was very quiet with only small conversation spattered throughout. Sesshomaru was completely silent through the meal, again settling for only coffee, until Mrs. Higurashi respectfully inquired about his day at which time he gave a short yet polite response then fell silent again. Most of the conversation was soaked up by her grandfather regaling them all with legends and stories that he had discovered that day.

Kagome's thoughts were still very much wrapped around the blade that now sat in her room leaned against the wall near her bed. Sesshomaru noticed the normally bubbly girl's preoccupation and misinterpreted it, though he determined he would get answers out of her later.

After dinner, Kagome excused herself and ran upstairs to work on some homework. The stoic demon politely refused Souta's offer of video games and headed to his own room to meditate and think to himself. He sat cross legged on the floor next to his neatly rolled up futon and closed his eyes, mulling over everything that had happened and coming to terms with his experiences.

The lord knew he would have to return sometime in the near future, and he wasn't sure what he would do with the new into events yet to come that he'd been given. It was definitely something he could take great advantage of, however he did not want to tip the balances of time. True, he was upset that demons had lost their dominance on the world, but there must have been a very good reason for the switch of power. He determined he must find out the cause of the reversal of roles.

Golden eyes opened slightly to stare straight ahead of him, deeply lost in thought. On second thought, what if knowing meant he could do something to change it? What if something really bad happens and almost all demons are eradicated, including himself. The thought hadn't occurred to him that he might run into himself here in the future, but ticking off the numbers in his head, that would put him at around a thousand years old. Not unheard of for such a strong demon like himself. Yet, he had felt no powerful auras, no sign that anything other than base level demons had made it into the future.

Now he was in a quandary. Changing the future could be a serious thing, however he didn't want to die either. Or be changed in such a way that he no longer held power, which would be equivalent to dying in his mind. That must be it, he must be dead in this future, because he could see no reason why he would give up his power willingly and let mere ningens rule in dominance. The thought didn't sit well with him, but he didn't know what he could or should do about it.

About an hour had passed during his musings and he was brought out of his thoughts by the soft, but unmistakable music of a blade being sliding free of its sheath. The sound came from Kagome's room.

Rising to his feet in one graceful movement, he padded silently to the door of Kagome's room and pushed it open slightly. Kagome was sitting on her bed with her back to her door; in her hands was her new blade, not completely unsheathed, but enough to get a good look at the forte of the blade. She appeared completely lost in thought, absorbed in staring at the foreign metal before her. Even now, she felt soft pulses from within the sword, fainter now, yes, but now there was no mistaking it.

A presence behind her suddenly startled her and her head snapped around at the same time as she shoved the blade back into the scabbard with a metallic shik sound. She wasn't entirely sure she was relieved to see Sesshomaru behind her or not, but he was there and there wasn't much she could do about it.

He noticed the look of confusion and apprehension that crossed her face and couldn't determine the cause, so he simply asked her.

"What are your thoughts?" her heartbeat sped up slightly and she turned away from him to regard the sword still clutched in her small hands. She stared down at it for a few moments more, a wayward thought pointed out that even the wording he chose was graceful. Damn aristocratic demon.

"It's just that… well, I… it… oh, nothing, nevermind," her shoulders sagged slightly as if in defeat and she thrust the sword away from her and against the wall to let it resume its position by her bed.

"So, what's up?" she asked turning back to the demon lord and looking up at him from her seat on her bed. A small look of confusion crossed his perfect features.

"What is up?" he repeated questioningly and she stared at him for a second before dissolving into giggles. Sesshomaru glowered at her, not happy at all that she was laughing at him.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Sesshomaru, I forgot you don't understand the lingo of today," he stared at her, patiently waiting for her to continue, though that patience was beginning to run dangerously thin. "'What's up' is a term we use when we're asking someone why they've come to see us or what's going on with that person," she explained. "You came into my room for a reason, so I asked you in those friendly terms why you came in."

"Hnh," was all he responded with for quite a few moments. Instead he stared down at her with those unnerving, piercing gold eyes until she started to squirm uncomfortably. "I came in to discuss with you why you would not tell me the truth about this 'dance' that the whelp Hojo was talking about." Kagome shifted nervously and twiddled her thumbs.

"Would you like to sit?" she asked motioning toward her desk chair. Sesshomaru ignored her and continued boring into her as if he could see her very soul if he tried hard enough. "Oook, guess not…" Kagome cleared her throat, "Um, the dance… Hojo mentioned… well, there's this night club that's opened up in town recently and in a few nights is the grand opening… all of my friends insist that I go with them…" she looked up at him nervously then looked at anything else she could in her room and said softly, "and bring you." Sesshomaru stood there for a few moments staring at her.

"I fail to understand why this has you so nervous," he finally said, not releasing her from his piercing stare. Kagome ran her fingers through her bangs and sighed, nibbling on her bottom lip, trying to think of a good way of explaining what a 'night club' was.

Unbeknownst to Kagome, Sesshomaru was having some difficulty maintaining his disturbing glare as his eyes kept getting drawn to the soft lip she was abusing with her small white teeth. It was such a small gesture and he grew angry at himself for being so distracted by it, but for some reason that little movement sent a strange heat rushing through his stomach. Shoving it to the side and disregarding it for later, he pointedly ignored her mouth and returned his eyes to her own deep blue eyes.

"Well," she began, "the thing is, I'm not entirely sure you'd…enjoy a night club," she continued chewing her lip, "They do a lot of things there that… you would find… almost promiscuous," she was having trouble finding the right words.

Suddenly she found herself slapped hard on the back and almost fell off the bed. Catching herself, she snapped her head to look over at the demon who was now standing off to her side and was the cause of the sudden movement.

"What on earth was that for?" she demanded of him and he shrugged elegantly.

"You seemed like you were choking on it, so I was trying to see if I could get you to spit it out," he said staring at her as if it was the most normal thing in the world. Kagome stared at him for a few moments in shock. Did he just tell a JOKE! She couldn't help it, she burst out laughing. Sesshomaru just stared at her, though he secretly enjoyed making her laugh, almost as much as he secretly enjoyed pissing her off.

The demon lord never let anyone close enough to him to find out, but the ice prince really did have quite a sense of humor buried under all that stoic hostility and for reasons unknown to himself, he didn't seem to mind sharing it occasionally with the odd miko. Once Kagome's laughter died down, she sat up straight and looked up at him again, ready to continue, but not so nervous about it this time.

"A night club is a place that people around my age and older go to dance and spend an enjoyable evening," she began. "Unfortunately, times have changed since the feudal era and 'dances' have a slightly different meaning. Here in my time, music has changed completely, so therefore the styles of dancing are different. At night clubs, there's mostly only one kind of dancing and it's very sexual. Most of the time people go there to meet up with someone to spend the evening with." Though Kagome was using nicer terms, he understood her meaning. People went there to find someone to have sex with.

Sesshomaru was slightly confused, he knew by her scent that the miko was pure, so why would she desire to go to a place in order to find a mate. And bring him as well, he had no desire for a mate, especially not a human. Kagome ran her fingers through her bangs again in her unconscious gesture of nervousness.

"I do enjoy going to night clubs, because the dancing is a lot of fun, but I don't go there with the intent that some other people do. They can be fun without the whole… going to find someone part." Sesshomaru began to understand.

"So you enjoy dancing," he stated and Kagome nodded.

"The problem is, I don't think it's such a good environment for you," she said looking up at him and knew she needed to explain. "The music is very very loud and would hurt your ears for one thing. For another, people there are a lot freer than they would be in public and it's not unusual for you to get groped," she said pointedly looking at the demon, "and it's against the law here to kill someone, even if they grope you." A strange light entered the demon's eyes and she knew she needed to clarify, "It's also illegal to maim someone who gropes you." The demon stared at her. Since when did she begin to understand him? Kagome turned away with a sigh.

"I've already told my friends and Hojo that I would be going, but I suppose I can tell them at school tomorrow that I won't be able to make it. Maybe I can feign another sickness…" he understood now, it was socially expected. And because he was witnessed with her, he was expected as well.

"No," Kagome was startled by the interruption, "you will go to the dance and I will come with you. It is expected," he said with finality. Kagome wanted to argue with him and tell him it wasn't a good idea, but the look on his face told her that no matter what she said, it wouldn't matter. She had insinuated that the stoic demon could not handle a certain situation and now he wanted to prove that he could. Stupid male egos.

"By the way," he said pulling her out of her internal rant, "I'm coming with you to this 'school' tomorrow," he said as if it was a final thing. Kagome threw up her hands as if to ward him off.

"Now wait a second, first of all you're much too old looking to be able to come visit my school and fit in. Not that I think you look 'old' per se, but InuYasha looked my age. You look like an adult. Secondly why on earth would you want to?" he studied her for a moment, accepting her 'age' explanation before responding.

"You are much more highly educated that I had originally thought you to be and I want to see this area of learning that you refer to on a constant basis. To answer your first point, of course I am too old, I am over five hundred human years old," Kagome's jaw dropped. She had known he was older than InuYasha, but not that much older! "I fail to see how my age will present a problem," he finished. Kagome resumed chewing on her lip.

"Well, the thing is, you would only visit my school if you were thinking of transferring to there as a student, which you look much too old to be. Honestly you almost look too old to even be a college student, except maybe if you were doing your masters…." she trailed off suddenly deep in thought. Sesshomaru watched her in interest as her eyes darted back and forth, signaling that she mentally wasn't even in the room anymore, she was off somewhere else, lost in her own thoughts.

"Yea, that might work…" she said softly to herself before turning back to the demon still standing above her. "If we had you pose as a psychology major doing his masters seminar for college it might work. You could just follow me around all day under the pretense that part of your seminar was to follow a current day high schooler and study how current day education has an effect on the teen age mind, or something else complicated like that, maybe adding in a few societary statistics," Kagome said, trailing off again. "Yes, that might work…" considering he only understood part of what she said she was in for some work if this was to succeed.

The next morning found Kagome and Sesshomaru walking onto the school grounds side by side. Kagome wore her typical school uniform, but Sesshomaru was dressed in a burgundy button down shirt, black dress pants, a black tie and dress shoes. His hair was tied back in a loose ponytail at the nape of his long neck and his ears were tucked into the hair to hide the tips. His facial markings they left out seeing as most people had seen them already anyways. He carried a shoulder bag to further emphasize the college adult look and Kagome steered him quickly to the front office, ignoring all the weird stares they got from her friends and classmates.

After a few minutes of convincing, they finally got permission from the lady at the front office that Taisho Sesshomaru was a masters student in good standing and his teacher had sprung on him last moment that this be included in part of his seminar. Fortunately for him, his younger brother's former girlfriend was still in high school in town and he had asked her for help. They were handed a paper stating approval and hurried off to class.

Kagome sighed in relief as she slid into her desk chair and Sesshomaru settled into the one next to her. She turned to him with a look of complete seriousness.

"You know, you'll have to take notes to make this look good, though I have no idea what you would write…" she began, speaking softly. Sesshomaru looked at her boredly.

"I will simply write in ancient demon. No one here can read that so there is no way any of them can refute my notes," he said with an air of supreme confidence. Kagome sighed.

"Ok, that sounds good, just claim it's your own version of short hand," his head cocked to the side slightly and she sighed again, "I'll explain it later," just then her friends decided to pounce on her and her unsuspecting 'college friend.'

"Kagome! What's Sesshomaru doing here in school?" Eri asked excitedly, ecstatic that the sexy man would be sharing class with them, "Isn't he a little too old for high school?" Sesshomaru leveled the girl with a piercing glare and Kagome jumped in quickly.

"Oh! I didn't tell you did I? He's just finishing his masters in psychology and his seminar professor sprung on him last minute that he wanted a short case study on high schoolers," she said, pleased with herself for thinking up such a brilliant plan. Eri and her friends then proceeded to bombard the 'cool college student' with questions about his college career. Sesshomaru repeated everything Kagome had told him to tell anyone who asked questions and glanced over at Kagome in irritation. Fortunately for them, the bell rang to herald the start of class, so Kagome and Sesshomaru were granted a reprieve.

The first part of the day went by fairly smoothly with Sesshomaru acting the part of the college student much better than she had hoped. He took his strange scrawling notes at the perfect times and put up with her classmates incessant questioning with much more patience than she had thought he would have. To her surprise he growled once when a male student got too familiar with her, and ignored the mass of females clamoring for his attention.

Lunch finally came, much to Kagome's relief and she, Sesshomaru and her three friends traipsed off to the cafeteria to get lunch. Entering the large room, she was tempted to take him outside to eat instead because she saw his nose crinkle slightly in disgust from out of the corner of her eye, but her friends had already picked out a table and settled down, so they grabbed seats as well and joined them. Sesshomaru surprised her friends by simply taking out a thermos of coffee and drinking that instead of eating, but Kagome made a comment about college students living off of coffee and they paid it no mind.

Lunch was most of the way done when Kagome looked up to see Eri staring behind her with a look of disgust on her face. Before she had the chance to ask her friend what was wrong a shadow fell over her.

"Well, well, if it isn't the girl who's never here anymore. Looks like you actually decided to come to school for once and stop pretending to be sick. If you had half a spine, you'd be like the rest of us and just put up with it instead of running away," Kagome suppressed a grimace at the voice behind her before turning slightly.

"I don't recall inviting you and your friends to join us, Hanako," Kagome began, but the girl in question interrupted her.

"And look at this, you've brought a friend with you. How cute. You know there's a rule against bringing gangsters to school, though a slut like you wouldn't care about that now, would you? Because only a slut would leave their first boyfriend and start sleeping with his older brother. What, was your first boyfriend not good enough for you?" the pompous female was about to continue, but Sesshomaru had heard enough. Rising to his feet in a movement that would make a dancer jealous, he growled loud enough for most of the room to hear him. Towering above the offending female and her entourage of friends, his voice dropped a pitch and washed over her as cold as ice, freezing the blood in her veins. Hanako had never seen anyone look so deadly in her entire life.

"You will refrain from speaking of my deceased brother in anything but a respectful tone ever again. Also if I ever catch you speaking to the Lady Higurashi in such a manner ever again, you, your entire family, and your ancestors will regret your having ever been born," at this point the girls knees were shaking alarmingly and her friends had already abandoned her in favor of watching from a safer distance.

The entire cafeteria had gone silent at the beginning of the confrontation. Hanako was the most popular girl in school. She was the captain of the cheerleading squad, a member of student council and almost every guy in school wanted to date her. She had always been jealous of Kagome for holding Hojo's attention even though the comely girl didn't seem to even want it, which made the school heartthrob even more contemptuous.

Her painted face creased slightly as her mouth hung open in shock before clamping it shut, turning on her heel and stalking off to the bathroom to rant in private. She had never been talked down to like that before, but that man was downright scary!

Sesshomaru growled deep in his chest one last time before pivoting in place and sitting back down, his silver hair accentuated his movement and held everyone around spellbound before resuming their conversations and continuing eating. Gossip flew back and forth regarding the tall, strange man.

Kagome felt sick and elated at the same time. She hadn't expected Sesshomaru to come to her rescue, but now she and the demon were the center of attention even more than they had been before.

Covering her face with a hand, she willed herself to sink into the floor and disappear. Unfortunately, miko powers did nothing for mortification. One thought kept her aloft and she took a cautious glance at the demon at her side who was pointedly ignoring the rest of the room with an icy expression plastered on his handsome face.

He called me 'Lady Higurashi,' she thought, I wonder why he did that? For someone like him, one of the most powerful youkai lords of feudal Japan to refer to a mere ningen like me as a noble lady worthy of respect and to do so in front of all of my peers, that must mean SOMETHING. Tuning her friends out who were excitedly chatting about Hanako being put down so thoroughly and by such an attractive man, Kagome mulled over her relationship with the demon lord and tried to figure out exactly where she stood.

Finally the bell sounded to proclaim the end of the school day and Kagome stepped outside into the sunshine with Sesshomaru in tow, taking a deep sigh of relief before heading home. Fortunately, no one felt like bothering the odd couple, so they made it out of the school courtyard without being detained. They fell into step beside one another silently at first and considered their day each in the privacy of their own minds.

"So, what did you think of modern high school?" Kagome asked, breaking the silence and looking up at the demon walking beside her. Sesshomaru's head cocked to the side ever so slightly as he considered his answer. Kagome almost smiled. She was happy that the demon was beginning to show outward signs of what he was feeling inside. These were small steps, but she was thrilled to see them, never the less.

"To be perfectly honest, I had no idea the young of your age were required to be so highly educated. Obviously some of the subject matter has been created between your time and mine, but some of it seems difficult to learn, especially at a young age. For example the cal-cu-lus," he said sounding the foreign word out. Kagome nodded.

"The world is more highly advanced in this era, so we're required to know a lot more in order to get anywhere in life. The more you know, the better job you can get and that means achieving a higher position in society," Sesshomaru nodded in approval.

The little miko fell into silence for a few minutes before a question began nagging at her mind. Glancing at the demon out of the corner of her eyes, she debated whether or not to ask him. Steeling up her courage, she decided just to spit it out.

"Sesshomaru-sama, why did you refer to me as 'Lady Higurashi' at lunch today? When you called me that, you named me an equal, just below you. I was just wondering why you would do that, it seemed out of place for you," she finished looking up at him. Sesshomaru slanted a look at her before turning forward again.

"You are a miko of high repute in my era. You destroyed a great evil almost completely on your own, and you have been traveling Japan helping others, regardless of who they might be or if they were human or demon. Most of all, you act with respect toward my superior station when the need calls for it. In my era, you would now be seen as a little lower in station than myself," he said glancing at her before looking forward again.

"That painted whore was impugning your honor and you did not seem inclined to defend yourself, so I stepped in," Kagome looked away blushing slightly.

"Well, she's the most popular girl in school and standing up against her would really be rather pointless," Sesshomaru nodded.

"That is what I thought and that is why I decided to do it for you," Kagome walked in silence for a few moments considering his words.

"You scared the living daylights out of her though, that was pretty funny," she interjected grinning slightly. Sesshomaru harrumphed and Kagome giggled.

"I do seem to have that effect on people," he stated nonchalantly and Kagome dissolved into laughter.

"I'm just glad it wasn't me you were looking at like that for once!" he glowered at her and she laughed again.