Three Months Later:

Kagura batted her eyelashes as she peered over her fan at the simpleton standing a few feet away. She held out her hand.

"Payment in advance." He tossed her a small cloth sack full of money. She grinned. "See ya!"

He gaped as she flew away, and she laughed aloud. Fool. She flopped down on her feather and dug through the bag, counting. Poor thing had been too honest for his own good; he could have given her a sack of junk, yet he'd paid just the agreed upon amount.

She wasn't sure what had made her decide to get rich. Maybe it was a desire for security and the power to choose her own path. She was determined to never again be an underling to anybody. And she had realized quickly that having money was one way to ensure that it never happened again. She'd considered becoming a mercenary; but that would mean answering to whoever hired her, and she hated that idea. She'd quickly discovered that with her looks, and a little flirting, she could easily sell anything, even if it wasn't something she actually had to sell. That last fellow had thought he was buying an ornamental dagger. Fool hadn't even asked to see the wares before he paid. No matter that she'd hated him, she was still Naraku's offspring, and as such had no qualms about a little lying and stealing.

She was considering settling somewhere. It would be nice to have a home. She wasn't sure where she could find such a place, however. She'd heard of settlements of youkai, towns where the more civilized demons could live in relative peace, but for some reason the idea of living in one of those places was not appealing to her. She would likely end up wandering for the rest of her days, she supposed.

She touched down on the sharp face of a cliff, where a large house was built into the side of the mountain. One of Naraku's many hideouts; she would never even think of living within this place. But it was as good a place as any to hide the money she'd been storing up. She tossed the sack into the basement where Mouryoumaru had once been locked up, still in Goryoumaru's form. She had been reduced to nothing more than a jailer then. She frowned at the memories.

Standing on the balcony, she looked out over the valley and sighed. Where was Sesshoumaru now? She had not seen him since the day she had returned to the world of the living. The memory of his kiss, of the fire behind the ice, was still fresh in her mind. She brought her fingertips to her lips and smiled at the memory. Her return seemed to have shocked him out of his normal coldness. She wondered if she would ever see that fiery side of him again. It was certainly something to hope for.

……..

Rin was sitting in a tree, too high up for Sesshoumaru's protective instincts to be happy with, swinging her legs and singing happily. He couldn't help but smile just slightly as he approached, pleased that the little girl he had first seen in her was still there, despite that she was already beginning to seem more and more like a young woman, even at her tender age. He stood at the base of the tree and looked up.

"Rin."

She started and squeaked in surprise, then scrambled down the tree with surprising agility and grinned at him. She was the picture of health and happiness, her hair a messy jumble and her clothing rumpled and torn in a few places. He supposed it was an old outfit kept merely for the purpose of playing in.

"Oh, Sesshoumaru-sama! You've come back again! Will you come and see this Rin's new pet?"

He felt again the once unfamiliar, and yet lately rather common, desire to smile at the way she referred to herself. He followed her, curious. He had left Jaken and Ah-Un here with her, at least for the moment, and could hardly understand why she would need anything else; Jaken and the humans provided companionship enough for her, surely, and Ah-Un ought to satisfy any desire she had for a pet. Yet he had come to some degree of understanding of the ways of humans, and he had a suspicion that he was about to be introduced to something small and furry.

He wasn't particularly surprised, then, when she called out and a black ball of fluff went hurtling into her arms. She held it up to him proudly, and he was both amused by the creature and almost ashamed that it could possibly be considered a distantly related member of his species. Its little pink tongue lolled out and it seemed to grin at him, its brown eyes sparkling. It squirmed away from Rin's grasp suddenly and lowered onto its belly on the ground, resting its little chin on its paws and looking up at him. Acknowledging its instinctual gesture of respect towards him, he reached down to rub its furry ears, suddenly wondering if he looked that undignified and ungraceful and, most disturbingly of all, adorable, when in his natural form. It was a profoundly troubling thought.

"Hey, Sesshoumaru! Don't let that thing get near you! It's a monster!"

Sesshoumaru tilted his head slightly in acknowledgment of his brother's presence, and also as a query. He quickly saw what InuYasha meant; the puppy had recognized Sesshoumaru's power among their connected species, and so had been quiet and respectful in his presence: however, when it caught sight of InuYasha, the small dog immediately launched into action, bounding as quickly as possible on its short legs towards the hanyou, pouncing on him, licking and pawing at him in extreme, overdone adoration.

While InuYasha struggled to remove the creature from his person and Rin danced around him laughing and occasionally reminding him not to hurt her pet, Sesshoumaru turned to greet his sister-in-law, who he could sense coming up behind him. Her adopted fox kit sat on her shoulder, and he resisted the urge to wrinkle his nose in distaste; he'd always hated the scent of foxes, for no particular reason he could think of. He was distracted from the unpleasant odor quickly, however, by the sudden realization that his brother's scent hung around the miko in a different way than it normally did. He stepped closer to the priestess and breathed in, confirming what he suspected. He waited for the kitsune to jump away from her and join in the frolic with the puppy before he glanced at Kagome's stomach, then back up to her eyes, raising his brows in question.

"Yes, it's true; but don't say it aloud; I haven't told InuYasha yet. I'm waiting for the right moment."

"He has not found the change in your scent? He truly is a fool then, and his instincts are even more inferior than I'd thought."

"Who are you talking about? Who's a fool?"

Sesshoumaru gave his brother a cool glance, despite his internal amusement, as the hanyou approached him; kit on one shoulder, Rin on his back, and puppy in his arms.

"Who else but you, little brother?"

InuYasha growled and rolled his eyes, but took no further action. Sesshoumaru was slightly surprised by that. Normally InuYasha would at least threaten to battle him, even if neither of them had any intention of killing each other any more. Perhaps his foolish little brother had finally begun to mature, Sesshoumaru thought; and it was a good thing too, with a pup on the way. InuYasha was hardly the fatherly type; but with a little more maturing and instinct on his side; and of course Kagome to act as a shield; the child would hopefully not suffer too much.

The group walked back towards the village from the meadow they'd been standing in, and Sesshoumaru was suddenly filled with a strange, very unfamiliar sense of wellbeing…of happiness. The world had been restored to its rightful state. Naraku and the Jewel were gone for good, as was the woman who had in some ways been the beginning of all the trouble; the woman who had prompted Onigumo's transformation into Naraku. The houshi and the exterminator were wed, with children. Sesshoumaru didn't have any particular interest in those two; but Rin's stories of them and their children had brought a certain sort of fondness for them into his heart. Then there were InuYasha and Kagome, with Kaede as a sort of mother to them both; the kitsune as their adopted child; and now a pup growing within Kagome's womb. He was more certain than ever that he had made the right decision in leaving Rin here, no matter how it had saddened him. Here, she had, in a sense, a real family; Kaede may as well have been her grandmother; InuYasha and Kagome surrogate parents, and now, with Shippo and the new pup, she would have siblings again. Perhaps, someday, she would accompany him again, if it was her wish. But for the moment, he was very pleased to see her living here, in this village where she was so loved.

Yet these things, despite that they pleased him very much, were not the main source of his happiness. His heart had been freed from years of sorrow, and after being so weighed down, it felt lighter than it had felt even before the sorrow had settled in. No longer did he dread the touch of the wind. Now, it never failed to bring the urge to smile; the memory of his favorite scent and the taste of warm, soft lips. He hadn't seen Kagura since the day she returned, three months back, yet he did not need to see her to be made happy by her presence. Just the knowledge that she was out there somewhere, alive and well, was enough to ease all the pain.