A/N: You may have noticed my strange way of picking and choosing which names I put "u" in…I seem to always pick my favorite spelling. Thus I write "Sesshoumaru" instead of "Sesshomaru" but I write "Shippo" instead of "Shippou". Then there's ones like "Kikyou/Kikyo" where I can't make up my mind which I like better, but I try to always keep it consistent within one story, though in a completely different story I might change it. Sorry if this bugs anyone, I'm thinking I'll eventually start writing all the names with the "u".

InuYasha pushed aside the curtained door to Kagura's room and gaped at the sight of his brother sitting on the edge of her bed pulling on his boots. Kagura was still asleep by the looks of it. InuYasha's eyebrow twitched.

"Ah, man, Sesshoumaru! You didn't…you…her…in my house?!"

"Silence yourself, InuYasha. I merely shared the bed with her, nothing more. Your sense of smell should tell you that. Not that it's any of your business."

"Humph. My house, my business. Anyway, sorry to intrude, but I thought Kagura'd wanna see the baby."

"Yes, I suppose she will. I'll wake her in a moment. But first…" Sesshoumaru rose and approached his brother. Without warning, he punched InuYasha, who flew back across the hall, hit the wall and slumped down, wiping at his bleeding mouth and nose and spluttering curses. "You will remember in future not to touch my mate in violence, even in play. You will also not enter her bedroom without knocking or otherwise announcing your presence first."

InuYasha went silent, realizing that, at least by the standards of their tribe, he deserved to be reprimanded. For once, he accepted the rebuke without a fight. He was beyond surprised and into the realm of stunned, however, when Sesshoumaru offered a hand and pulled him to his feet, and then embraced him in a formal, forced way.

"Congratulations on the birth of your pup, brother."

InuYasha awkwardly returned the forced hug, which he knew was nothing more than a traditional ritual of congratulations among their family. Both brothers hurried to pull away then, and suddenly InuYasha couldn't help but laugh at the ridiculousness of it. Even Sesshoumaru couldn't help but to smile slightly. Kagura, disheveled and sleepy looking, suddenly appeared at the doorway behind Sesshoumaru, rubbing her eyes as if to clear them.

"I really shouldn't drink. It makes for very odd dreams. So clear…but this couldn't be reality, surely? I could swear I just saw you two hug."

InuYasha laughed and walked away, thinking it best not to risk being punched again, considering Kagura appeared to be clothed in only a robe. Sesshoumaru hugged Kagura briefly and then gently pushed her back into her room.

"Get dressed and we'll go meet our niece."

"Niece…Hey, I'm an aunt!"

He smiled at her childish excitement and hovered around outside her room, listening to her move around, resisting the temptation to peek through the slightly see-through cloth that served as a door.

"You can come in Sesshoumaru. I'm covered, though it hardly matters either way if we're going to be mates."

He reentered the room and found her wearing a thin, formfitting white garment that practically made his mouth water, her beauty amplified by the contrast of the white with her black hair and red eyes. She shot him a coy look over one shoulder from where she stood facing her wardrobe with her back to him, and it took a great deal of restraint to keep from pouncing on her. Laughing at the expression on his face, she pulled out a blue kimono and put it on, not bothering to add her customary top layer. She took out a red sash and cocked her head towards him.

"Help me tie this, would you?"

He narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously but approached her nonetheless. Somehow he wasn't surprised when she swung the strip of cloth around the back of his neck and pulled him to her. What did surprise him was that this morning she'd somehow managed to replace the sake and medicine taste from last night with a sweet taste he couldn't quite describe, but couldn't get enough of. He felt the jolt when her back hit the wall and just kept going until he was pressed as close to her as he could possibly get, exploring every corner of her mouth. He was in completely humanoid form; he usually retracted the fur when he wasn't wearing his armor, because he found that one looked uneven without the other. Without the fur, he found he enjoyed the sensation of her hands moving up his shoulders, and then locking behind his neck as she returned his kiss.

Her untied kimono had fallen open and he could feel every curve of her wonderful body through the thin shift she wore beneath. He was beginning to wish he had put his armor on; the need to take her was almost overwhelming with this much contact between their bodies. Suddenly she pulled just the slightest bit away, tilting her head back against the wall as she sought to catch her breath. She was doing it on purpose, no doubt, exposing her neck like that, with her chest heaving against his. He growled lowly and saw a smile flit across her slightly swollen lips. He bent to nip and lick at the exposed column of her neck, thrilling at the tiny moan the fell from her mouth. His vision went red at the edges, and he took her mouth again, his hands moving from her waist upwards to brush just briefly against the sides of her breasts before he wrapped one hand around the side of her neck and cupped her face with the other one, kissing her as deeply and thoroughly as he possibly could. He was fighting that old familiar battle between his body and mind again, rather unsure of which side he was on, when suddenly InuYasha's loud, obnoxious voice rang through the house from down the hall.

"Sesshoumaru, whatever the heck you're doing, cut it out! You're making the whole house reek like d-mn pheromones!"

"InuYasha, what are you shouting for?! You'll wake the baby! Sit!"

There was a resounding crash followed by the sound of the baby making her complaints at her parents' loudness well known. She had a good set of lungs. Not unlike her mother and father, Sesshoumaru thought wryly. Though he was rather inclined to hit InuYasha again later, he was relieved to some degree for the interruption. Now was certainly not the time…and more importantly not the place, to take his mate for the first time. He pulled her kimono closed and smiled at her, kissing the tip of her nose as he tied her sash and grabbed the two pearl combs he'd given her off the top of the wardrobe, using them to pull her hair away from her face, leaving it down the rest of the way.

He couldn't seem to stop himself from swooping in to claim one more brief kiss.

"I love you, Kagura."

……..

Kagura stared down at the tiny bundle in her arms and felt both delighted and somehow afraid. This little…creature…was so tiny, so helpless, so weak. And she had never before held a baby this young. She'd held Miroku and Sango's youngest on occasion, and long ago there'd been that, that thing of Naraku's, the Infant; but never had she felt such a responsibility; the responsibility of holding something precious beyond belief completely powerless in her grasp, knowing she could break it without even meaning to, with a careless move.

Still, despite Kagura's fear…the baby was adorable. She looked completely human, and had her mother's coloring, the only signs of her demon heritage being her tiny claws and the fact that she already had two teeth; her fangs. She was going to be a tough little brat, Kagura thought affectionately. Carefully, Kagura passed the baby to Rin, who was sitting with her on the side of Kagome's bed. InuYasha suddenly spoke up from where he was sitting cross legged on the floor in the corner.

"Hey, Sesshoumaru?"

Sesshoumaru tore his gaze from Kagura and Rin and tore his mind from the precious hope that one day it would be his child they took turns holding.

"What is it?"

"Will she be likely to have…you know, a problem with her demon blood, like me? Do I need to find some way to bind her, like Tessaiga binds me?"

"I hadn't thought of that. She's much less likely to be in a position of having her life threatened, of course, than you have been. And being only quarter-Youkai, she's less likely to have a transformed state anyway. Still, just to be certain, I suppose I might be convinced to donate something to the cause of her wellbeing."

"Whatcha mean?"

"The simplest way to prevent any possibility of such a transformation occurring would be to do what Father did with you. Simply having the fang of a Dai-Youkai placed within her body somewhere should be enough; no need to go through all that nonsense with making a sword and paths to the other world or anything like that. My power will easily seal hers."

"You mean, you're actually gonna let somebody pull out one of your teeth? Wow, you must really care."

"Ridiculous. No one would dare touch this Sesshoumaru in such a way."

Everyone in the room fought smiles at Sesshoumaru's way of referencing himself; something which had become a fairly rare occurrence of late. Then they all went wide eyed as he lifted one hand, his pointer finger glowing as poison was gathered there, and touched the finger to his gum above his left fang. He pulled the tooth out without so much as a wince, closed his mouth momentarily, and when he spoke again, he already had a new one in place. No one could quite decide whether to be shocked or simply impressed. After all, if InuYasha's fang could grow back in half a day, it really wasn't that surprising that his more powerful older brother could grow a fang back almost instantly.

"This should do it. Where do you want it?"

Kagome spoke now, from where she was comfortably propped up in bed; her bed was a larger replica of the one she'd had in her own birth-time, rather than a mat or futon, and she seemed very comfortable.

"Sesshoumaru, will it….hurt her?"

"Not at all. I will simply use my power to insert it into her body. You only need to tell me where. I could easily place it inside her eye, where InuYasha's pearl was. It will become simply a place of power; it will not be physical, so she will feel nothing. The only way to make it physical again would be if someone with the same amount or close to the same amount of power as I have pulls it out, as I did with InuYasha's pearl. It is unlikely she will ever run across someone of such power, and even if she did, it is unlikely that person would have any cause to remove the seal."

Kagome nodded in understanding.

"You may as well put it where InuYasha's pearl was, then."

Sesshoumaru approached the bed and motioned for Rin to hand him the baby. Had anybody been looking, they might have noted the irritation on InuYasha's face at the graceful ease with which his older brother took the child. He himself had nearly dropped her the first time he'd held her, and it was beyond annoying how Sesshoumaru managed to do nearly everything perfectly.

Sesshoumaru placed his hand, holding his fang, over the baby's right eye, and a whitish light flowed from around the area. The baby squirmed slightly, but showed no signs of pain. Kagura was the only one who noticed the way Sesshoumaru's jaw tightened, and his brows furrowed slightly. After a moment, he gave the baby to Kagome, touching his nieces head in a more affectionate way than was the norm for him, a slight smile at the corners of his mouth.

"She should be fine now. Miko, within our family it has always been the tradition for the mother to name her daughters, and the father to name his sons. What will you call your daughter?"

Kagome looked down at the baby in her arms, and felt a tinge of pain at the little brown eyes looking back at her. Those eyes were not her own eyes, nor InuYasha's. They were reminders of another person…A person she had long ago stopped feeling bitter towards and instead had simply pitied and mourned.

"Kikyo. Her name is Kikyo."

InuYasha looked at her with wide eyes, a strange mixture of old sorrow and joy in his eyes. He'd long ago given up any lingering romantic feelings for Kikyo, but her memory; the memory of the first woman who had reached out to him, the memory of the woman he'd been unable to protect, was still bittersweet. Kagome could think of no better way to commemorate her predecessor than to name their first daughter after her.

Sesshoumaru nodded once, a strange understanding and approval in his eyes. Shippo, who had been sitting at the foot of the bed, unusually silent, opened his mouth, probably to remind Kagome of past hurts in his tactless way, but Sesshoumaru glared at him and he snapped his mouth shut. Feeling that it might be best to allow Kagome and InuYasha some time alone with their daughter, the Dai-Youkai spoke.

"Kagura, Rin, would you care to go for a walk with me? Bring the fox along too."

Sesshoumaru was the last one out the door. He chose not to say anything about the scent of his brother's tears.