Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha. Props to Rumiko Takahashi for literally changing my life with her wonderful stories.

Chapter 6

"Stop watching me, Sesshoumaru."

"Hn. This Sesshoumaru does as he pleases."

"I'm trying to study and your glare is distracting me,"

"Hn."

"Get off of my bed! That's where I sleep."

"I'm serious Sesshoumaru, move or I will get on anyways and cuddle with your pelt. Try me, I don't care how scary that glare you're giving me is."

"Oww, did you just shove me off my own bed? Move over or go home you big, grouchy dog!"

"I will purify you, all jokes aside."

"Shut your mouth and sleep, miko. You are disturbing me."

"YOU KNOW WHAT YOU OVERGROWN PUPPY-"

"Kagome, dear, why are you shouting this late at night?"

Stomping her way towards the well-shrine with a blank faced taiyoukai in tow, Kagome could barely hold in the grunts caused by her lack of sleep and the fall from her bed to the floor of her bedroom. She spent a total of an hour studying before giving up under his scrutinizing stare and decided to go to sleep. That had been a good idea, until she realized that he was taking up nearly her whole bed. And he didn't even sleep! Then, when she was packing her bag in the morning, he kept asking about stuff. She was tired, grumpy and her nerves were frayed. Coupled with her mother's encouraging words that morning, she felt like crawling in a hole and staying there for weeks.

"You'll be fine dear. Maybe all you need is to get to know him. Get him to open up and everything will sort itself out." That was a joke. Getting that stubbornly passive youkai to open up and show emotion was as impossible as breathing under water for her. Totally not going to happen.

"Never again. Nope. No more time travelling for the puppy dog. Too much stress." She mumbled to herself, aware on the perimeter of her mind only that he could hear her with those demon ears of his. But she didn't care one bit as she threw herself over the lip of the well with her heavy backpack on her shoulders and her most comfortable jeans and t-shirt on.

She cared even less when she surfaced in the Sengoku Jidai and he'd beat her there, even if he had been behind her. Her caring for the matter dissipated even more when they found Inuyasha standing there waiting for them with a bloodied pelt, not unlike Sesshoumaru's, in his clenched fist. The hanyou was panting, covered in sweat and blood. He also had tears in his eyes. Kagome forgot everything as she took a step towards her best friend. He threw the crimson covered white pelt to the ground and faced his brother instead.

"Guess who else just became an orphan." He stated more than asked in a defeated tone before falling to hi knees. She ran to him under the dark clouds of what promised to be a rainy day and knelt also, wrapping her arm's around the half-demon's waist.

"Inuyasha, what did you do?" She stressed as she felt him shaking in her embrace. With the amount of blood soaking his haori and hakama, her comfortable clothes were damned. She mourned them in a silent corner of her mind as she concentrated on the current situation at hand.

"I killed the bitch. I went to her palace with the intent of talkin' to her but it just," his voice cracked here, proof of his emotional distress. "It got out of hand. She told me things, bad things." With a shudder, he wrapped his own arms around the priestess' shoulders. In reaction to the returned embrace, Kagome tightened her hold, only for the tips of her fingers to graze an object protruding from his back. She felt around with a frown in her brow until morbid realization hit her. The hilt of a knife. Her best friend had a knife in his back!

"Inuyasha-" She panicked, her hands flying away from the penetrating weapon.

"I know. But it doesn't matter." He insisted, tightening his hold on her.

"Yes it does! There's a knife in your back! Let me get it out!" She exclaimed in horror, trying to push back from his embrace. Her efforts were in vain, only causing him to bury his face into her shoulder. There, she felt his tears and stopped her struggles.

"I deserve it, Kagome. But she deserved it too. It was her; she was the one who murdered my mother. She killed my mother, she cursed my best friend, she insulted our worth and then spat at the name of her own son. So I killed her, but only after she attacked first." He tried to explain as best he could with as little words as possible, aware that his full-fledged brother was approaching slowly with death in his eyes. The promise of certain death at a slow and torturous pace. The hanyou shuddered, burying his face right back into Kagome's hair.

"Get away from him, miko." The murderous taiyoukai warned as he stalked closer and closer, stopping when the toe of his boot connected with her heel. She shook her head desperately.

"I won't let you hurt him. I can't. I'd rather you kill me than him." Her defiance broke out through her fog of worry and grump, aware that he'd kill his own brother in a second if she stepped back. She couldn't let that happen, not to Inuyasha. After all those years of solitude, rejection and pain, he deserved to live a better life, not die.

"Don't be so foolish, little miko. The half-breed has clouded your judgement by affecting your human emotions. Move. Now." The threat was clear, his menacing voice deeper than usual. The half-breed had actually managed to kill his lady mother; the psychotic bitch that had killed Rin once before. If anything, he was glad she was dead. He would never admit it but he was angry with himself. The hanyou had ended her life, a feat he'd failed to do multiple times throughout his lifetime. The bond between mother and pup, though faint, had prevented him from succeeding. Yet the whelp had done it in his place. It was supposed to be him, not Inuyasha.

"She told me why she cursed you, Kagome." The sentence that escaped Inuyasha's lips gave Sesshoumaru pause. So the whelp hadn't left without getting information. How unusually practical of him…

"She's an unworthy ningen, too weak to be in my foolish son's company. If I'd had it my way, all of you would have come and all of you would be suffering the same fate. Hopefully with this curse Sesshoumaru will realize just how useless and unconventional humans are and stop holding company with them. It's really a disgrace. In the end, he'll either abandon her or kill her. I know my son and he is not one to endure such inconveniences." She had said to him when they'd faced off in her throne room. "He's making the same mistake Touga made," Here she referenced the Inu no Taisho to drive the nail in the coffin. "I don't need any more half-breeds running around with his blood in their veins. Your pathetic, weak self is enough, hanyou."

"Petty words coming from a hypocrite, no?" Sesshoumaru's voice broke through the long silence that had followed Inuyasha's recap of his dead mother's words. A female inuyoukai who'd been pushed aside for a human woman and a hanyou child had been visited in her own bed by a human male. A human male who'd…

"She was pregnant. I didn't know until it was too late. If I'd had a sharper nose, better ears, I could have figured it out. But I didn't. Her layers were so thick, it was impossible to know." The half-demon admitted his fault. "If I'd been a full-fledged inu, I'd have known on the spot. Right, Sesshoumaru? Ya knew already, huh?" There was a note of defeat, a sort of regret. Not for his actions but for his weaker blood. His weaker senses.

"Inuyasha, shut up! Don't you dare go into that whole demon phase again! You're perfect the way you are. I love you as a half-demon, okay? I don't want you to change. I don't even want you to want to change, got it?" Kagome's words, as always, made him feel guilty. He didn't want to upset his best friend. He loved her and he wanted her to be proud of him. He wanted to forget his fantasy of ever becoming a full-fledged youkai but he just couldn't. Kami know he tried…

"Inuyasha, I will tell you something that may hold importance to you and you will listen closely because this Sesshoumaru does not repeat himself. However, you will let the miko take you to Kaede's and heal you first."

At the quiet yet firm command, the three picked themselves up and headed to their temporary home in Edo. Upon the initial panic at the sighting of their hanyou friend stumbling around with a knife in his back, he was escorted inside Kaede's hut and laid on his stomach, the knife pulled out and his wound bandaged. The pain didn't stop though, the reason becoming evident to the two priestesses and the two inu.

"Poison; should'a known the bitch wouldn't just go down like that." He chuckled darkly, his ears flat against his silver hair as he let Kagome fret over it. She could do a lot of things with her miko powers but removing that sort of poison? She'd never managed it before. It wouldn't stop her from trying though while Sesshoumaru reluctantly explained some things to his little brother.

An inuyoukai, a pure-blooded one, falls in love only once in their lifetime. For father, that was your human mother. Like all other inu that are born for political reasons, I received no affection from mother or father while I was young. I was trained to be a strong warrior and a cunning tactician. I was told that when I took over as lord, I'd mate a pretty inu female that had whichever quality I lacked more of, whether it be strength, speed, agility, intelligence, leadership, elegance. You are free of these expectations and have been since birth. You have the freedom to mate who you please and live the life you wish to lead. Father loved you and mother so much that he threw his life away for you both. Mother was jealous of the importance he placed upon you when it was I that was to be his heir. I am pure-blooded, I am strong, I am intelligent and I can control my beast on a level most inu cannot. I was meant to be the priority, like she was for having birthed me. But father did not care; he chose you. He saw something in Izayoi that he did not find in any of the inu bitches that surrounded him in his everyday life. And when I met her, I understood it. It was the passion, the warmth, the understanding that only a human woman could give. In a way, your mother became the mother every pup deserved yet only you would get. She became the mother I never had and the woman my mother could never be. With little to no guidance and training, you grew to be strong. You have the brashness father had and the heart your mother had; the brute strength and the raw emotion. You, Inuyasha, are the perfect mix. When Izayoi was pregnant, you were all father spoke of. "The babe, our pup, I cannot wait to see him grow," He'd say. He was so certain that you'd be a boy, too. "With a mother like he will have, he will be the perfect man one day. He will be able to protect, provide and love. He will be named Inuyasha, and he will be your little brother, Sesshoumaru. He'll make you proud, you shall see."

"But I've failed him. I've failed them both. Hell, I failed you too, ya bastard. It took me a year to accomplish what you did with the Tetsusaiga in one swing and the sword ain't even yours; ain't meant to be held by you. How many people've died because I wasn't strong enough? I'm easily fooled and I can't even read people well enough to give 'em the support they need. Kagome is a perfect example of how much of a disappointment I am." The hanyou was trying to hold in his emotions when he spoke but the new moon was to be upon them that night and his human half was taking over. Or maybe that was just him being his weak self? He could only lie to himself so much when it came to his own strength of heart and mind.

"Hey, what do you mean I'm a perfect example?!" The young miko tugged on a strand of his knotted silver hair, irritated at his own self-evaluation. He was one of the strongest people she'd ever met! How had she never noticed how much he hated himself? He was always so cocky and stubborn and steady as a rock. The rock that held her steady through all of their adventures, the rock that taught her about heartbreak and friendship and self-importance. The rock that taught her that with just a little bit of selfless compassion, you could do just about anything you put your mind to. Where was her best friend and who was this man controlling his body and words?

"You almost died so many times because I couldn't even protect you! I've made you cry more times than I can count and I've seen you walk away so many times that I almost thought you'd never come back each and every one of 'em!" Still lying on his stomach, the white hot pain spreading steadily through his veins, the inuhanyou gave up on his vain attempts at holding it back and let his tears come out. If he was going to die, he was going to get it all off of his chest. Screw honourable deaths!

"But you came through every time! I'm here, I'm alive and I'm whole! Besides, as much as it hurt back then, I needed all of that heartbreak and pain! It made me stronger, made me who I am today. I have more control because of it." She was crying now too, her brown eyes a reflection of his golden ones. He was dying and admitting all of his negative views of himself and she couldn't do anything to stop him. "And you always came back to get me, always apologized, even if it wasn't with your words. You're such an idiot, Inuyasha." She finally blubbered as she took hold of his clawed hand. With his humanity taking over in less than twelve hours, there was no way his demonic healing would have time to do anything to prevent hi death.

"And you're my idiot, stupid." He finally conceded, seeing the pain his words were causing her. If he could do anything to make her happy, he'd do it; even if it meant shutting his big mouth and accepting her words for what they were.

The two best friends fell silent, their hands clasped together for what felt like dear life. Finally, when the sun had started setting and Inuyasha had lost consciousness from the pain, Kaede and Sesshoumaru had managed to convince Kagome into a breath of fresh air. Then she'd realized that there was no sun setting this day because the sky was covered in clouds and crying with her. She hadn't known because she was too focused on her soul mate's impending death, cooped up inside Kaede's small hut all morning and afternoon. So now Sesshoumaru walked with her, always a step behind her and to her left. Silent support, it seemed. By morning, the hanyou would be dead.

"Tell me, miko," The taiyoukai held a stony expression that for some reason seemed even more blank than usual, if that was even possible. She slightly pivoted her head to glance at him and waited for his next words. "Were you ever in love with him?"

She had been expecting many things to come out of his mouth…except for that. Sesshoumaru asking about an emotion he'd viewed as weakness and idiocy his whole life? No way.

"I…I thought I was. I thought he was the only one I'd ever feel that way for and that we'd spend our lives together." She admitted quietly, turning back to face the deserted path they were walking. All of the villagers were inside their homes, keeping warm and dry on such a wet day, leaving them to be the only two roaming souls. Rin and Shippou were no doubt at Miroku and Sango's hut, the small one they'd live in until their bigger one was built. They were planning on having a big family. And Sesshoumaru, with his regal attire, his perfect features, his last blood relative dying and the necklace hidden under his kimono, he distantly hoped that Rin wouldn't choose to stay here when she was grown. And if she did, he'd leave without a word. Oh, how he suddenly felt the impending loss in his chest. "He's my soul mate." She finished in a whisper, giving the great demon pause.

"Are soul mates not the ones you do spend your life with; the ones who give you a family and make you happy?" The question came out with uncertainty. Kami, Kagome thought to herself, you really don't know anything when it comes to what a soul feels, do you Sesshoumaru?

"Well, it's like a best friend, but more. It's the one person in the world that knows you better than anyone else. It's someone who makes you a better person. Actually, they don't make you a better person, you do that to yourself because they inspire you. A soul mate is someone you carry with you forever. It's the one person who knew you and accepted you and believed in you before anyone else did or when no one else would. And no matter what happens, you'll always love them. Nothing can change that. Make sense?" She tried her best to explain to this man who refused to love that love came in many different forms. It was up to him to decide if he understood or even believed her but she knew she was right and that's all that mattered.

Sesshoumaru contemplated her words as they resumed their slow walk under the rain. They were both soaked and she'd probably catch a cold but he couldn't find it in himself to force her back inside. She needed the fresh air; she needed to be away from that hut for a little. She was loosing one of the most important people that had a place in her heart. If she spoke the truth before, did he really have a place in her heart too? And did he actually want to have a place in her heart? Did he care to have one?

"With everything happening, I'd think you'd have tracked me down by now, young lord of the west." A voice stilled the duo from their gentle march, a voice Sesshoumaru had not heard in over a century. The voice of a witch, a good one, who dug only the best out of people. She was the one people went to when they needed favours; he one who demanded specific good deeds in exchange for her services. The fact that she had went to them instead of the other way around spoke volumes for she never left her sanctuary. Rarely taken seriously for resembling a young, teenage human girl, she kept to herself in her natural meadow.

"Masuyo, what bring you out of your usual environment?" The question was cautious, unusually cautious for a powerful demon such as Sesshoumaru, the killing perfection. He was cautious around none, always straight forward about his lack of caring. Kagome was instantly wary.

"What if," The witch revealed herself then. She looked no older than 14 with her slightly rounded face, shoulder length brown hair and striking orange eyes. Only the ones who knew better were aware that her age ranged around the millennia and not the dozen as she appeared. "I cured the hanyou, broke the curse that is subtly eating away at dear Kagome's sanity and even…what if I fixed the problem the taijiya is having with her pregnancy?" A sly smile spread on her pretty pink lips. Kagome took a step back, though it was hope and not wariness that had pushed her body to budge.

"Sango is having problems with her pregnancy?" The modern miko asked then, not having known that her friend was suffering.

"The slayer is having twins but one of them is very active in the womb and has managed to entangle their umbilical cords around their necks. If nothing is done, both of them will be born dead." Masuyo explained, glad that the abilities of the oracle had been passed down to her along with sorcery. Her parents really did make a strange pair; a powerful oracle and a wise wizard. She'd inherited both traits, luckily.

"Is there…Is there something I can do to save my friends?" Sesshoumaru glared at Kagome but she ignored him. He seemed to not want to make a deal with the witch but Kagome was a selfless being with a big heart. She almost hadn't heard the part about breaking her curse, focused on the well-being of the ones she truly cared for.

"The pup…the one who was barely through half of its term that got its promise of life taken away…"

"You mean my mother's pup? The half-breed?" Sesshoumaru cut in sharply, aware that she could be talking of no other pup that they would have possibly known about. Kagome perked up at the idea of also being able to save the baby who'd done nothing to merit it's death.

"My negotiations are mainly with Kagome, young lord. Priestess, in exchange for Inuyasha's life, the lives of your 'sister's twins and for your own curse to be broken, would you be willing to carry Kimiko's pup the rest of it's term, birth it and raise it as your own? You would be saving four lives and restoring your sanity permanently." The proposition was crazy, one Kagome and Sesshoumaru had never thought to hear in their lifetimes. But the young miko hesitated all of two seconds.

"Yes, of course. I'd do anything for them, all of them. Please."

"Then it is decided. All of your friends will be fine, their children perfectly healthy, and you will have a wonderful pup of your own. The dna will be changed so that the pup, though still an inuhanyou, will be compatible with you in blood. It will be your child, as if you'd conceived it yourself, and the father shall be none other than…" Kagome held her breath, having a gut feeling of what was to come next. If she was the human parent, then the father would have to be a full-fledged inuyoukai. She only knew one of those and he was standing petrified only two feet away from her. Sorry, my overgrown puppy, she thought with little to no actual regret.

"Sesshoumaru."

Author's note:

So, uhh, yeah. That's what it is, folks. Don't worry, whenever this story comes to its end, (which is in a long while, I promise) I'll go back and tweak it to make it much less…I don't know…rushed and botched? Whatever, I know what I mean! Haha leave a review if you feel so inclined and stick around for following drama! I hope this year brings all of you happiness, health and good fortune! Until next time, -Nat :)