'WAKE UP! IT'S MORNING! WAKE UP!'
Groaning, Kagome swatted at the rooster-alarm clock her brother had given her when she moved out. It was gaudy and made a racket that would wake the dead, but he'd joked that a normal alarm wouldn't be able to overpower her snoring. Her hand finally connected with its head, silencing the mechanic bird. She rolled over, blearily staring out the window.
Yesterday had been a bad day. She didn't know what had set her off this time, but she'd felt herself regressing over the last week. She'd come home, opted out of the diner waiting for her on the counter, instead grabbing the bottle of sake and going out onto her balcony. Despite downing a few more glasses than she'd normally be comfortable with, she'd been able to deny the call of the void. This time.
She hadn't been able to avoid the hangover, however. Cursing as she took in the time, she got up and rushed through her morning routine. As she dashed outside, she realized she'd forgotten to check the weather. The sudden deluge, courtesy of Japan's rainy season, cemented this as another bad day in her book. She took off for the train station at a trot, promptly barreling into a man exiting the apartment building across the street.
Time seemed to slow down around her. Electricity coursed through her body as instincts long dormant rose to the surface, her reiki responding to the youki that had burst forth on impact. Eyes widened as she and this mysterious stranger stumbled to the ground. He found his equilibrium before she did, quickly righting himself as she crashed onto her hands and knees beside him. Panting, more from panic than exertion, it took Kagome a few seconds to realize he was speaking to her. Staring at the hand he held out to her, she tried to regain her senses. Her gaze traveled up his arm and into his face. What she saw belied the sensation she had gotten just moments before, nothing about him seemed out of the ordinary. Brown eyes, dark brown hair in a short cut, blunt nails and normal, human ears. As the shock wore down, Kagome convinced herself she had imagined the feeling of oppressive, demon energy and shook her head sharply.
'Are you not alright, then?' the man spoke, and she realized just what he had been asking her. She also realized she was still sitting on all fours, gaping up at a stranger she had just practically body checked.
'Ah! No, no, ah, I mean, yes, I'm fine!' she sputtered, searching for words that would not seem too mentally deranged. Feeling dark energy? He'd call the cops for sure. 'I was just uhm, startled!'
She rolled back onto her feet, dusting her knees off before finally taking his proffered hand and letting him help her up. His reply was drowned out by her renewed shock as brown hair gave way to silver, dark eyes suddenly golden. She felt her own blue gaze widening to new proportions as she took in the familiar markings on his face.
'Sesshoumaru,' she breathed.
'Hello, miko,' he murmered.
'What, I mean, how- no, when-' she spluttered, realizing she was still holding his hand. She let go, and as soon as she did, his appearance reverted back to that of the indistinct salary-man it had been just seconds ago.
'Hn,' he intoned, sending her reeling in remembrance, before gesturing back to the highrise he had just left. 'Coffee?'
Dumbfounded, she couldn't do anything but nod and silently followed him into the elevator. She stood beside him as they rode up to the seventh floor and kept sneaking glances from the corner of her eye. He glanced back as the elevator chimed their arrival.
'It appears this illusion is not infallible when spiritual beings are involved,' he said and guided her towards one of only two doors in the hallway.
'It disappears when I touch you,' she answered, surprising herself by her ability to form a coherent thought, let alone sentence.
The man she knew to be youkai opened the door and went inside, leaving her standing at the entrance. Kagome briefly deliberated just turning around, going back to the life she had built for herself and pretending this day to be a figment of her alcohol-addled imagination. She knew it would save her a lot of heartache to leave the past in the past and ignore all the questions that were tumbling over themselves in her head. She also knew there was no turning back for her, and quietly closed the door behind her.
She found herself in a spacious apartment, overlooking the city. She took off her shoes at the genkan and padded inside in search of her host. He stood in the kitchen, calmly pushing buttons on a coffeemaker that looked like it needed a masters degree to use. Kagome sat down at one of the barstools at the counter and stared in silence. Finally, as he turned towards her with a steaming cup of perfectly brewed cappuccino, she couldn't take it anymore. In rapid succession, she demanded to know how he had gotten here, why he looked like that, were there any other survivors or youkai for that matter, how was it that she didn't sense any of them, when had he learned to brew coffee and who had told him about her, because he didn't seem surprised to be running into her.
Sesshoumaru took all her questions in stride as he leaned against the island behind him, his eyebrow raised in his trademark look, a bemused quirk to his lips.
'First of all, miko, I do believe you ran into me,' he intoned blandly, 'and before I answer the rest of your inquiries, maybe you should call your supervisor that you will be absent today.'
Kagome let out an expletive and hurriedly sent a text that she was feeling sick and hoped to be better before the weekend. When she put her phone away, Sesshoumaru had moved to the living room and motioned for her to take a seat across from him. She walked over to the couch, sitting down on the corner closest to the windows. Absently, she noted she could see her own balcony some floors below, just across the street. He was still calmly sipping his coffee and was in no hurry to start talking. Just before Kagome was ready to hurl her cup at him, delicious beverage be damned, he set his cup down and leveled her with a stare that seemed to tell her he knew exactly what she was deliberating.
'I got here,' he began, 'by living through the years you skipped.' He went on to explain that to his knowledge, he was amongst the precious few youkai living in the world and that the illusion she saw was a clever use of fox-magic that had been bestowed on him by her kit.
'Shippou?' she whispered. His look conveyed pity before he glanced away.
'Hiroshima,' he said quietly.
It was all she could do not to burst into tears. She took a couple of deep breaths to compose herself. She'd always known none of her friends had made it to her time, they would have come for her years ago. But to know how gruesomely her little boy had met his end wounded her greatly. After some time, she felt stable enough to pose the next logical question.
'And… InuYasha?'
He was still not looking at her as he told her of the sickness that had come over her first love some twenty years after she had left. At the time, no one knew what caused it or how to cure it, and the hanyou had wasted away. 'In retrospect, it must have been some form of cancer,' he told her, finally meeting her gaze again.
Tears were streaming down her face, unable to staunch the grief ripped open by his words. He silently offered her some tissues and waited for her to compose herself. When her crying had subsided to the occasional sniffle, he continued.
'The slayer and the monk lived happily, the kit told me. They had many children and died peacefully of old age, shortly after each other.'
Kagome produced a watery smile at that. 'And what of your companions?'
'Jaken and Rin stayed in the village. She eventually married Kohaku.'
'Did they have any children?'
He looked away again, a look of angry regret coming over him. Kagome wondered at the expressiveness of his human face. She was just about to apologize for her line of questioning, when he heaved a sigh and continued. 'No, they did not. Rin could never conceive, possibly from having been resurrected twice. It pained her greatly, but she dedicated her time to help rear her nieces and nephews.'
Kagome nodded lightly and sipped her cappuccino. She didn't want to continue prying, for both their sakes, so she switched to a different subject.
'So how does the illusion work, exactly?'
He held up his wrist, where a small rosary appeared from under his suit. As he took it off, color drained from his hair and face, to be replaced by the pale strands and skin, enhanced by the stark markings she remembered. Suddenly, his youki was all around her, no longer suppressed by the magic of the bracelet.
'You cut your hair,' she observed. He replied with a shrug.
'The charm only alters coloring. To walk around without adjusting the length, would defeat the purpose.'
She regarded him, sitting in his armchair, dressed in his moderately expensive suit, in his reasonably extravagant apartment. He stared right back, eyebrow raised and the same bemused smirk on his mouth.
'You've changed,' she concluded.
'Hn,' he all but snorted, 'the years tend to do that, miko.'
She smirked right back. 'It's Kagome.'