Kagome smiled wearily, confused at the request of the young girl.
"You want me to what?" She asked, eyeing the vial of water that was held out to her, the shockingly pure glass winking at her in the dim sunlight.
"Drink it, please" She said, a small smile on her face, holding the bottle out to her, a vein twitching on the back of her neck.
Sesshomaru sighed, resisting the urge to roll his eyes at the two women who sat, chattering in circles like old ladies who had nothing better to do.
"And it will do what, again?" She asked, taking the bottle gingerly in her hands, looking at the liquid sloshing around inside. She sniffed the liquid, finding that it smelled of river water.
"Are you sure this is a potion? Are you trying to scam me out of payment? Cause I already told you that it doesn't really matter to me. .."
"Just drink it, Kagome-chan!" She breathed, looking up at the woman expectantly. Kagome tilted her head, confused at the use of honorific and her name. Before the girl had only wanted to use her title, Miko, and she was sure that she was only a couple years older than the little girl. Yes, san would make more sense. Although she wasn't one for any sort of title at all, this little bit of information confused her.
"Um… Well, okay, I guess. This isn't going to make me sick or anything, is it?"
Arisu waved her hand dismissively. "Don't be silly. What kind of healer would I be if I made you sick! It should only make you feel more energized." Arisu said, uncertainly.
"Well, okay then. I guess." She popped the cork off of the bottle and downed it, shivering in distaste. The taste of warm water that had been kept in a bottle for too long filled her mouth and she suddenly felt as though the entire world around her popped. It was as though the entire world was a gigantic pimple, and with a great rush of force, the whole thing popped, expending all of its everything.
She shuddered, a hand coming to her temple as she heard Arisu mutter quietly to herself:
"Emogak, emogak, emogak, emogak!" She whispered fiercely, her eyes alight as though she had just received the best gift ever on her birthday. She studied Kagome's demeanor, watching as the spell did its work. She hastily droned out an incantation to slow time to the point of nearly stopping, taking her time to look closer at Kagome.
Kagome, who was swiftly spinning out of control, was having a difficult time making the world stop shifting around her. Arisu looked on, delighted to be able to use her magic. She rarely got any practice, and most of her knowledge is research based, forced into her head at a young age, and she was ready at a seconds notice for any situation that one could dream up. The wind changed. The sent upon the air became muted, the world faded, and Kagome glowed in a light that was not light, with a sound that was not sound, in a place on every map that didn't exist.
Arisu's spells from her years, no, her lifetime of training, melted out of her mind as she stared into the eyes that were unseeing and yet all-knowing, from the face that was smooth as a pearl yet as jagged as the blade that several lower level oni carried at their waist pockets.
She stumbled back, watching as Kagome moved with a fluidity that was so strange because she moved just as swiftly as Arisu, and she felt the beginnings of true dread as the woman who was titled miko yet was so inexplicably not a miko turned her eyeless gaze to the girl. Kagome blinked several times, trying to blink away the painful clarity of it all. She could see the little veins pumping the girl's lifeblood throughout her body, could see through the skin and muscle culture and the vast array of molecules and atoms and electrons and all the other sub-subatomic structures that made up all things in the universe. She blinked and the world changed focus, and Kagome found herself staring at the little muscle called the heart beating frantically in the girl's chest.
But there was more than that. More than her eyesight had increased. She could hear everything. Everything. The blades of grass cutting through the wind in their slow motion state sounded like a train wreck, the beating of the girl's heart sounded like the breaking of a thousand slates of glass, a thousand girls screaming, a thousand mating cats… She felt as though her ears would burst, yet she wanted to hear more of it, to be one with the chaos that she never knew existed in the world she never saw through the proper eyes.
She blinked again, and the world changed once more. Everything settled back to how it was supposed to look only… Sharper. Clearer. Much better defined. She was terrified and yet, she wanted more.
She took a deep breath, and suddenly a world of flavors exploded on her tongue. She could taste the sharp tang of salt from the sweat on her face, the air near the hot spring, which was strong with the smell and taste of sulfur, and she could taste all of everything else. The ant crawling across the ground, herself, the boar yokai that were ten miles away, the leaf that billowed in the wind for an unusually long time before hitting the ground with a crash.
It was too much. Too soon. She could feel the world shimmer and shake and somehow there was a great release of energy. Too much energy. The world bounced back into the way it normally was with a snap, and she had to scream at every cell in her body to stay vertical. She wavered, sucked in a deep breath, and sighed. Arisu was prostrated before her, her eyes widened with awe and full of respect and remorse.
"Kagome-sama" she whispered, "You are not human. You are not a miko. I do not know what you are, for all of my years of research. All I know… is that you are not of this world, milady."
Kagome broke concentration, and before she knew what was happening, she was tumbling to the ground.
-;-
Inside Kagome's head was complete and utter chaos. The consoles had caught fire. The ground was littered with papers recording mundane things, like to make sure that she stepped around her desk to save her shins or that Souta was afraid of the dark and to remember that it was him who was sneaking into your bed, not some evil demon. Bossy hung her head, her eyes still bulging and she was fearful that they would remain that way for a long, long while. In the span of two minutes, the entire world as they knew it had cracked, shattered, and blew away in the wind like the crumbs from an empty bag of potato chips.
They had to fix it. But how do you fix what was not broken, but improved to the point that you could no longer control it? The power had ruined the consoles, and the brain had shifted, a new, totally unexplored room coming to light. When bossy had seen it, it felt as though it always existed. It was like seeing an old friend for the first time in ages. She wanted desperately to open the door, but she could sense that the second her hand came in contact with the door knob, the world would make a change, the meridians of power that had existed since time immemorial would skew and merge and the world would be forever different.
Arisu shivered as she was shoved roughly away from Kagome. Sesshomaru gathered the shimmering woman-child that was Kagome into his arms, looking over her, noting that her aura, although unchanged in the most basic ways was stronger, and it nearly choked him when he first breathed in the air around her. He composed himself, turning red rimmed eyes to the young girl.
"What did you do?" He growled out, anger bubbling through his veins in rivers of lava. But all the rage he dredged up was suddenly cooled and a strange and striking wave of calm pervaded all of his senses. He tried to bring back the white hot fury that had previously engulfed his entire being, but he found that he could not, no matter how hard he tried. He settled for glaring at her, calmly awaiting answers.
"Milord, it was a simple potion, meant to show me her true nature. I desired to see her, all of her, the way that the Kami view her. And if they truly view her as I have seen, I do not understand why she has not become the prized possession of one of them, for she was beautiful. Stunning. Terrifying. It is the rawest display of power I have ever witnessed, and I hope I am never subject to seeing something like that ever again. Or perhaps I do, for even though it was but a few seconds ago, I feel my blood singing and my body wanting to see her that way again. It was… Indescribable. My heart is torn askew by remembering her. It was like… It was like viewing nature personified. It was as though I was looking at all the Kami and the good things in the world and yet all the evils and the sins and the demons and the poisons of the world and yet she shimmered with a distinctly human power: She positively sparkled with hope. With life. "
Arisu shivered, her eyes rolling back in her head as Kagome's voice whispered through her head, her mind not being able to truly process all that was happening. She died. Then she felt life breathing back into her. She felt thousands of seasons pass her, yet no time passed at all. She felt aged a thousand years, yet she felt as though she was born over and over and over again. It hurt unbearably. It was euphoric. It was ripping her apart. It was holding her together. Words burned through her head, yet her head was as silent as space, a vacuum of nothingness.
Be silent, girl. You must speak no more of me. I was sealed away for a reason.
And Arisu was overcome, overloaded with feelings and emotions, and she crumpled to the ground, at the feet of a very confused and a very worried Sesshomaru. He gathered the girl, who he felt the answers to all of his questions, and he hurried along to his shiro, sure that the best that he could do for the miko was to let her rest in the lap of luxury.
After several hours of restless travel, he settled her down to his bed, and placed the girl in a guest room, under lock and key to keep her until he had all of his answers.
The waiting was unbearable for him. He prayed to the Kami, to his father, to his ancestors, to the spirits, to the animals, to anything that would cross his mind. He just wanted his mistress to be well. She had become part of his life. He wasn't ready to admit, even to himself, that he loved her more than life itself. He didn't need to.
-;-
Kagome wandered the room she had been trapped in, confused about what was happening. How did she get here? Something about water, that left an acrid taste in her mouth? Or perhaps she fell down a well? She couldn't recall. When she first came into being, she was alone. Surrounded by a darkness so impenetrable that she couldn't draw breath into her lungs. After a while, she realized that she didn't need the air. And gradually, her world was flooded with light. It started as a single pinpoint of light, so striking in contrast with the rest of her world. And then there were other pinpoints. And then there were vast streams of light that cast away all darkness, and after overcoming her awe at the stark juxtaposition of the two worlds, she turned to come face to face with herself. Herself who was not herself. She was truth, lies, darkness, light. She was youth, age, wisdom, ignorance, love, hate, indifference. She was everything and nothing at once. She was her inner being.
Kagome took in the sight before her, touching the being cautiously, desiring to be her. She needed to know her. To touch her. To become her.
Slowly she stopped being Kagome from the future. She merged with this other being, and felt an immense power flood her entire being. This was not miko power. This was not the power of nature. This was power in its purest and simplest form.
And then her eyes opened.
She flexed her fingers, finding that her skin was tight, as though there was someone else sharing the space, and there wasn't enough room for the both of them. She blinked, noting that the world was still so far beyond crystal clear. She sat up slowly, standing, the knowledge of how complex the motion of her muscles flooding her mind, then fading away as the movement became instinctual. As simple as a snap of the fingers, although the chemical reactions and the electric energy jumping through her nerves as an impulse was sent from her brain telling her to move her fingers was quite complex.
She turned her gaze to Sesshomaru, and before her mind could tell her to stop, she was before him. She noted how his expressions were so much more readable. She leaned up on the tips of her toes, and braced herself upon his forearms. She kissed him, felt the energy spark where their lips met, and that spurred her into motion. The very smallest movement felt like a lightning bolt. Her eyes closed as euphoria, ecstasy, heaven, and hell all crashed upon her shoulders.