A/N:. First things first. If you don't click on my profile and go read Part One and Part Two of this, you'll get confused. This is PART THREE!
I repeat, this is PART THREE.
Yes, that means I wrote TWO other stories Before This, almost, sort of like, Season Style, or maybe if you prefer a different term, 'arc' style. Whatever you want to call it, there's two other stories you should have read before you read this, and if you haven't, I urge you to go do that first. This one will sit here and wait patiently for you. :))
Okay, did you do that? Good. Now let's get to this part! Here it's been "months" since the last story. Non-specific. We don't care Exactly. Not right here. But it's been, let's say, the turn of perhaps the eleventh year since Naraku's defeat, or maybe something like half or almost a year since Kagura was brought back to life in the first story, or perhaps four to ten months since the end of the last story. No, that's not specific, not Really, but that's what I have for you.
Sesshoumaru and Kagura have been reunited, and Kagura often stays in the village at the moment, hanging out with her female friends presumably. Sesshoumaru does His Thing, much as he's accustomed to. Jaken gets away with stealing his jerky a lot more these days...that's to be expected. What you'd expect elsewhere is what has happened in those months from part two to part three here, blah blah blah that's why we skipped it. Now as a bit of a footnote, Shippou has been growing into his age just a little bit more over this time, getting a bit of maturity in his new look and size, and maybe an inch or two extra of height in his resting natural humanlike form. Nearly in his adult size in human form, still a little shorter than Inuyasha, but as a fox he would be a little short after all. And as I said before, Two Tails now. What else?
Mmmm, technical mumbo-jumbo. If you read the stories before you should be able to follow the bold and italics and other things well enough, if they're confusing please leave me a note in the reviews and I'll be sure to address it. Sometimes things will be for Emphasis and other times for Thoughts and to separate one set of thoughts from another or even indicate plurality in certain situations, things like flashbacks and starting author notes/chapter ends might be ^*^*^*^* separated ?-?-?-?-? with symbol barriers, etc etc...okay that's enough from me! Now enjoy :D
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Sou'unga chuckled darkly from the depths of his Hellspire castle. He would yet devise a new way to make Thanh Long return and release him, to make Sesshoumaru bring the Tenseiga back to destroy the chokuto that bound his soul. Now he had years and years to plan compared to the sparse months that passed in their time. Yes, the Nether has it's advantages, he laughed darkly, and burrowing himself into the deepest, the darkest, the furthest reaches of the Nether, the edge of time itself, he regressed so far from the world of mortals that for every minute of time in the mortal realm, many years passed in that part of the Netherworld.
And he plotted, and he schemed, and he thought, and he devised, oh yes, he devised most deviously...
Panting, eyes wide, Sesshoumaru ran through the darkness blindly, only a narrow path before him, a tiny strip of solid land forming under his feet. He felt the power behind him growing, pursuing him, and he tried to run faster, but he couldn't outpace it. A coldness enveloped him as nine glowing eyes opened, and Sou'unga laughed at him dementedly as the Soul-Flayer was raised high...
Sesshoumaru woke up with a start, and a gasp, and a swift twist this way and that to look around. He sighed at himself as he settled his hackles and shook his head; the nightmares still hadn't left him, even after many months of recuperation. Not that he'd really thought just those months could erase what had been, to him, several years of unnatural torture, in the deepest recesses of Hell, but...
He shook his head again with another heavy sigh.
"Lord Sesshoumaru?" a familiar, comforting voice spoke softly.
"Chief Minister Jaken," Sesshoumaru spoke in a tone one might call cordial, his voice equally soft, "you're awake at an odd hour."
"You as well, m'Lord," Jaken noted quietly. Though it wasn't necessarily true that Sesshoumaru was a nightly sleeper, it was still odd for the fact that he Had Been Trying to sleep.
Sesshoumaru blinked, glancing to the side uncomfortably.
"I had trouble sleeping. I have grown accustomed to this. Don't..." here he paused, about to have said 'worry', and instead, "Don't make a fuss of it, okay?"
"Okay," Jaken agreed with a gentle but solemn vow, and said nothing more of it.
Though Sesshoumaru had recovered much of his decorum as his mind and body had begun to heal, their experiences and the dog's changed heart had changed the tone of their private dialogue in a significant, but mostly comfortable way, although awkward at times.
Ah and Un sensed the other youkai were awake and roused both heads to look at the sky.
The moon is rather bright tonight, don't you think, Un?
Ah, it is. And a large moon tonight as well. Rather beautiful.
Indeed.
"The moon is rather bright tonight, don't you think, Jaken?" Sesshoumaru asked after a long pause.
"Yes, m'Lord. It's a large moon tonight as well. Rather beautiful."
"Indeed."
They stood in silence, looking at the moon for a while, and then Sesshoumaru huffed and shifted his posture.
"If neither of us can sleep, we may as well continue on our way."
"Of course," Jaken hopped onto the dragon's back, and they were off, headed to, well wherever it was they were going.
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Kagura paced about nervously, making Kaede sigh at her and move a kettle nearer the fireplace.
"I shall make ye some more tea."
"I don't like when he's gone on his own..."
"He is a wounded animal, and sometimes ye must give him space to heal," Kaede said wisely, her simple observations not without profundity.
"Kaede, what if it's because-"
"Are ye going to start on that again? Shippou already asked the foxes, ye are fertile. Sometimes these things just take time. Do not worry."
"But I have not yet been able to..." and Kagura rested her hands on her stomach, longingly, "I fear..."
"When ye find what ye are, then mayhap there will be more answers than questions. For now we know not what true form ye take," Kaede huffed at her, "so best ye not blame that. Lord Sesshoumaru is not accustomed to living a life other than that of a warrior," she added, shrugging.
"And I'm not used to living a life at all," Kagura huffed, a bittersweet acknowledgment of her confounded confusing conundrums.
"Ye will adjust," Kaede said comfortingly, and without anything better to do, Kagura sighed and settled herself down a bit forcefully, her hands slightly curled as she tried to will her anxiety to lessen.
"Every time he leaves, I want to go with him."
"Aye, but 'tis not always wise to crowd ye one another. Absence can create desire, and sometimes closeness breeds contempt. Ye have had nigh even a paltry two years of life 'twixt Naraku's amalgam and now this body ye inhabit. Ye are a Woman, an Adult, but ye have the living years of a toddler. Some things are only gained with time," the wise old woman said gently, "be ye not impatient, ye have much of that. For ye who have lived but a short few passings of seasons, this must seem an eternity. But Lord Sesshoumaru has lived near a thousand years. This time moves in but a blink for one such as he, accustomed to the passage of time."
Kagura hadn't thought of it that way before, and taking a few deep breaths, she eased herself more comfortably and drank some tea to settle her nerves, and relaxed, and fell into insignificant chatter with her wonderfully accomodating host, to take her mind off her separation woe.
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Ah, the fox approaches.
Yes, Un, he does. Shall we alert Lord Sesshoumaru?
Do you think he will fail to sense the kitsune?
Perhaps. Perhaps not.
If we must at the last second, we will.
Agreed.
About two more seconds passed before Sesshoumaru suddenly flipped in midair, narrowly dodging the streaking bolt of energy that had been aimed right at him, his Bakusaiga already drawn before anybody could identify the moment his hand went to his swords.
"Almost," he huffed after a tiny sniff, then smiled, sheathing Bakusaiga, "but not quite, Shippou."
A short pause followed that statement.
"You seem to be in a hurry," Shippou materialized from a previously unobtrusive cloud in the sky. "Mind if I tag along?"
"If you insist," Sesshoumaru shrugged, "but we're really not doing anything as interesting as you might hope. Rather mundane actually."
"Oh? The Great Lord Sesshoumaru doing something Mundane? Now That's interesting," Shippou laughed as he settled onto Ah-Un's back for the journey, which nobody minded, especially not Ah-Un, who got some lovely ear scratches from the fox when this happened.
"I have to ensure that my border towns are sufficiently supplied for the winter, lest any enemy tests my defenses when the food stores are expected to be low. If I don't make sure they have adequate reserves, any troops that might need to station there would eat everything up before more supplies could be sent. The first line travels light, you see, so as not to be overburdened; they don't carry enough food to sustain a seige. It's all about resource allocation. Troublesome details that are necessary but boring."
"But don't you have other people who do that for you?"
"Sure, but I have to do some of it myself too. Especially when others don't get it right the first time. Last winter they nearly depleted all the reserves on a southern border town because the census hadn't been updated after the migration of the survivors of the next town over, which had suffered a massive flood. All these things have to be accounted for, and when nobody else does it, that makes it My Job," he sighed, truly displeased at having to do So Much of This Part of the job lately.
"I see," Shippou nodded, folding his arms into his sleeves. "And what will you do after this menial mission? More of the same, I presume."
"Actually, this was my last scheduled stop. I have no more official business for at least another few weeks. Well, not that I Expect."
"Ooohhh?"
"You haven't found an adequate bribe yet, Shippou. I'm not going to the Maboroshi."
Shippou snickered devilishly, but that hadn't been his actual question. Though he Had asked that before, and it was a tease of the dog's now.
"No, no, I was wondering if you were going to visit everyone."
"Well of course I will. What a silly question," Sesshoumaru huffed, glancing back at the kitsune with a querulous look.
Something about the fox's demeanor just felt a little bit odd, and Sesshoumaru couldn't quite place it...but deciding against pursuing it just at the moment, he refocused on the managerial tasks he had to attend to and flew onwards past dawn until he landed in the aforementioned village.
If one were to be brief, the majority of the day was spent with inventory ledgers being reviewed and lists of supplies in stock and needed were made and double checked, then excess was accounted for in case of mishap, mold, rodents, or the like; all very real threats to life and livelihood, to be sure. It took most of the daylight and a few hours of the night to wrap up all those little messy details, but finally it was all done and neatly rewritten on a nice piece of scroll that was tucked into a saddlebag.
They spent the night in the rather nice Honored Guest house right next to the headman's house, intending to set out in the morning, knowing it would take awhile at an unhurried pace to reach the village of the Bone-Eater's Well, Inuyasha's village.
As they stopped that night, though, and Ah-Un went to rest on the patio, and Jaken went to lay himself against the dragon, and the door to the outside and windows were left open to let silver lances of soft moonlight fill the room, Sesshoumaru finally looked at Shippou with the same look he'd given him before, querulous, expectant.
"I've been having nightmares," Shippou said quietly, softly, and Sesshoumaru winced involuntarily as the fox continued, "Nightmares about a darkness creeping around every corner, laughing at me, telling me that...that it shall find you," Shippou whispered now, lest he dare speak loud enough to awaken the imp or dragon nearby. "It sounds like..." here he paused, pursing his lips, hesitant to speak the name.
"Like Sou'unga," Sesshoumaru quietly, darkly filled in that momentary silence.
"Yes," Shippou's voice grew very troubled now, "and just before I came to find you, the last nightmare was...it started with darkness at the edges of everything, the shadows behind trees and rocks starting to laugh, but then I saw...I shall have to just say it," Shippou huffed, almost apologetically, "I saw you running, and, and...you were afraid, and he laughed at you even more, and the darkness grew larger, and I tried to move but I couldn't reach you...I couldn't stop him from reaching out to catch you, and shadows wrapped around your body, and he..."
Shippou stopped himself, sharply clamping down on his words as he realized he'd gotten a bit louder and still didn't wish to stir the others.
Sesshoumaru was already pale, and in the moonlight he always looked paler; yet now he was near ghostly, and as one long shiver ran down his spine, he was forced to admit something he never thought he'd have to reveal.
"You saw my dreams, Shippou. I've been having those same nightmares, only...I'm not Watching it happen."
Shippou blinked, and suddenly two huge tears were in his eyes.
"Oh, Sesshoumaru, I-"
"Don't start, don't even," Sesshoumaru warned, shaking his head. "This is neither the time nor place for such pity and woeful embrace."
"Well, you're right," Shippou sniffed back the rest of his tears swiftly, "yeah, okay. So. Uhm."
There was an awkward pause before Shippou spoke again, asking one troublesome question he still didn't know the answer to.
"Why am I the one seeing your dreams?"
"Intriguing question. Perhaps we can see if the answer reveals more than just why it's you," Sesshoumaru said thoughtfully. Which clearly meant, by exclusion, that he didn't know yet either. But certainly, knowing that Shippou saw his dreams now, he intended to find out.
"Hmm," Shippou noised in agreement, and they fell silent for awhile, and neither slept; they headed off in the morning after Jaken and Ah-Un woke from their repose, towards the old village at last.
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Okay, here we are, straight to the riddle...but what is the answer? ;P
Again, if you haven't read the first two stories please do so. This whole thing progresses in a sort of season-by-season style but this picks up after that, certain things just won't make sense if you don't know what happened before this arc. Please. Really.