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The Diary	By : Tomosaho Category: InuYasha > Het - Male/Female > Sessh?maru/Kagome > Sessh?maru/Kagome Views: 15843 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
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Chapter List
- 10
- 11
- 12
Another
chapter, and this one is going to have a slightly different voice to it� in
that for once it�s in an entirely different person�s perspective...

////////////////////////////////

Tedium

Silence
hung heavy in the hot summer night.� The
air was filled with the pungent, cloying aroma of blooming azaleas and
villagers tossed under their mosquito nets as they tried to ease themselves
into sleep.� The days had grown more and
more humid, but everyone knew that the oppressive summer heat had only just begun
to build.� It had been particularly humid
the day before, ceasing much of the toil and fuss and throwing everyone into a
malaise.� The air had been so thick that
people drank it, drinking in the heavy perfumes of the flowers and the lack of
rain.� Rain was on everyone�s mind as the
world entered the fifth month Satsuki, and it wasn�t so peculiar to see someone
staring mournfully at the empty, blue sky.�
Everyone in the small village
of Edo yearned for rain
so that their seedlings could grow, but one person in particular wanted it
desperately.

Higurashi
Kagome hoped and prayed for rain with far more intensity than anyone else in
the village.� It wasn�t because the lack
of rain was ruining her garden, killing the herbs she needed in the forest, or
making her days rather miserable.� Those
were only minor reasons.� Kagome prayed
for rain for one very good reason, and that was because the village priestess
was expected to pray.

Kagome
knew how very important it was that she be seen praying� all the time.� The young time traveler no longer garbled her
prayers, as she once did embarrassingly years ago.� She no longer tripped over her hakama, or
forgot the proper order of events.� She
could be seen at all hours of the day and night, moving with just the right solemnity
and pace during the rituals that would appease the gods.� Her voice was at just the right pitch, and
anyone watching was certain that the village would be granted rain this time.�

Of
course, Kagome didn�t believe any of this, but she prayed anyway.� Kagome knew that the East Asian rainy season
was caused by differing air currents, moist air from the Pacific and cooler air
from the continent that met over Japan during the sixth month of June, not the fifth month
of Satsuki.� Not the gods who, as she had
learned from personal experience, really didn�t give a damn whether there was
enough rain for the lowly villagers of Edo.� Considering the humidity, it seemed the moist
Pacific currents had arrived but the cooler currents hadn�t come yet, perhaps
because of a pressure system getting in the way.� Which meant there wasn�t a damn thing she
could do about it, but explaining this to the villagers wouldn�t help as Kagome
learned many years ago.� The future
girl�s strange reasons and theories were cute when she was young (and they had
Kaede to pray for them), but they weren�t so cute now.� So Kagome prayed. *

That
was the only reason why the woman would get up an hour before dawn in the
godforsaken night, don her sweaty ritual raiment, and walk all those damn
stairs in the middle of a year-long heat wave.�

�It�s
probably those stupid Sun-spots, I bet that�s why it�s been so bloody hot for
the last year.� She grumbled as she
made her way to the base of the stairs.�
She cursed beautifully as she climbed the steps, giving signature curses
to certain steps that always gave her trouble.�
There was the twelfth step that had that horrible crack in it that she
needed to fix, and thirty-sixth that had holes in it, and the ninety-ninth that
was impossible to remove all the dirt and leaves from.� God, Kagome hated those stairs.�

The
twenty-year-old Shinto priestess yearned for her home the most in these small moments.� She yearned for her home�s skepticism and
understanding of science and the world.�
She yearned for flushing toilets and running water.� Kagome wished for air conditioning and refrigerators.� She missed repair men who fixed the cracks in
the stairs.� Kagome missed weather
reports, school reports, any kind of report really.� Kagome missed her mother and grandfather, who
handled all of the tedious shrine duties.

Kagome
missed the well.

Everyday
she wondered why it was gone.� The fierce
battle with Naraku had taken place in the field the well had resided in.� Everyone had been there, fighting it out,
barely able to keep to the strategy.�
Lots of people had died that Kagome had only sort of known, but she had
felt each death keenly.� After all, she
was the one who broke the jewel into tiny shards, which Naraku was able to
amass, which eventually lead to the battle, and therefore the deaths.� Kagome gave her real prayers to them.

Kagome
wondered, though, just why Inuyasha�s attack had to destroy the well.� Why not just glance it, nick it even?� Why did it have to be a direct hit?� The well could take a glancing blow.� The outer frame would have been gone, but
everyone would just gather up the sacred wood and repair it in no time
flat.� Under the full brunt of the Kaze
no Kizu, the well had been annihilated.�
There had been nothing left but a few splinters, pebbles, and a giant,
gaping tear in the ground.� That repair
was going to take a little longer.� The
stones had to be carefully selected, and each one blessed separately at just
the right time of the year.� The mortar
must be mixed according to ritual, with the ingredients left under moonlight,
sunlight, starlight, under a certain tree, rock, or some other odd spiritual
essence.�

Kagome
couldn�t get around it.� She was stuck�
for a long time.��

Knowing
this just made Kagome depressed.� She
didn�t like thinking about the well.�
Then again, she also shouldn�t have placed her house right next to it,
but hindsight is 20/20 as they�re going to say.�
The woman just didn�t want to live with the villagers, though.� They bothered her enough as it was, she
couldn�t imagine being on call all the time.�
Call her a modern girl, but Kagome liked having a few moments to herself
during the day.� Besides, she prayed for
them, didn�t she?�

Kagome
reached the shrine and after placing an offering of rice cakes on the altar she
rang the large bells that would grab whatever local god�s attention.� She bowed twice, clapped twice, and gave a
short prayer before bowing again.� Then
sitting blasphemously upon the altar next to her cakes, Kagome pulled her
shinobue flute out of her belt and began to play a small ditty.�

When
she had been a child growing up on the shrine, she had been taught how to play
the shinobue so that she could play music for the Kagura-den performances
during festivals.� She had dropped her
flute lessons during her middle school years, but two months into her exile in
the past she had decided that proper entertainment was in order.� For a girl who had been raised on television,
video games, and movie theaters, the surprising lack of moving pictures in the
past had made it hard for her to adapt.� And
surprisingly, Inuyasha and the villagers did not make for the most engaging
company.� There was suddenly very little
besides work to keep her mind entertained and off of depressing subjects like the
well.� She had already read her textbooks
three times over by the time she had found her cheap little flute at the market
the next village over.� The task of
returning to her former glory with shinobue was remarkably consuming, and she
was often able to while away the empty hours as she played.� She vaguely thought it was odd how much she
now loved to play the flute, when as a child she couldn�t stand practicing it
for more than fifteen minutes. **

As
her song pierced through the heavy silence, she let her mind drift into
daydreams and the day she had experienced earlier.� She had awoken at dawn� to pray.� The view from the shrine at dawn was rather
spectacular.� The light breaking over the
lush forest was mesmerizing in the warm, rising air.� The village had been serene and quiet, sleeping
away its woes as the roofs were painted in many shades of blue.� A small breeze had combed through her loose
hair and cooled her skin for a moment.�
It was like a photograph of a time held in suspension, a time that would
come to the village and had already come to Kagome.� It was almost magical.

Then
Inuyasha awoke promptly 30 minutes after dawn and Kagome officially checked
into work.� Kagome had to clean the
shrine� which she should have done before her morning rituals, but no power on
earth was going to make her wake before dawn just to sweep those damn
stairs.� She always hoped she finished
before the first set of villagers found her, seeking her help, otherwise the
shrine was never fully cleaned.� Of
course, she didn�t finish in time, because old Takeo�s son just had to fall out
of tree trying to impress Chiyo, and she had to spend most of her morning
realigning his damn fibula.�

She
then ventured alone into the forest to collect fortifying herbs she would need
for heatstroke and dinner.� It had been
years since Inuyasha insisted upon escorting her through the wilderness, and
Kagome was amused at the thought of his odd chivalry.� He always said what a pain it was protecting
her, how she couldn�t do a damn thing herself, and that she was weak even for a
human.� Oh, how Inuyasha cared.

Kagome
had dawdled intentionally while she was there.�
The forest provided excellent shade, and was quite a few degrees cooler
than the village.� There was also a
stream full of cool water that was surely a godsend.� The village children liked to sneak away to
bathe there, but Kagome was well upstream of them.� Besides, Kagome deserved somewhere between
five minutes to� an hour in that wonderfully cool water.

�So
maybe she had spent too much time at the stream, now that Kagome thought about
it.� But she got distracted.� Any woman would�� He had been so handsome�

�A
traveling samurai had come across the stream.�
Kagome had been shocked to see him, since warriors rarely found anything
worthwhile in Edo, and had hidden herself demurely� for a while.� The warrior had a rugged, sexy air about him
that made the woman�s breath short.� His
eyes were dark, teasing, and wild, and he wore a grin that was supremely
arrogant and male.� He wore family crests
that Kagome didn�t recognize, and that just made everything all the
better.� Kagome could easily imagine a
chance encounter, the dark, mysterious ronin, because ronin were much sexier
than samurai, and the bathing priestess, full of touching, rubbing, and
nibbling.� She had been halfway into it
when Inuyasha found them. ***�

Okay,
so maybe her day hadn�t been that good.�
For one thing, Kagome had to find a new place to bathe in since that
section of the stream was gone.� She also
nearly had to bury a body, and that was never fun.� Kagome supposed a part of that whole fiasco
was her fault, but mostly she just wanted to blame Inuyasha.� Inuyasha was her dearest friend, and nothing
would ever change that� but he really needed to let her have sex.�

The
half-demon�s chivalry hadn�t gone away, it had merely changed.� He was fine letting her venture off on her
own and protect the village when he wasn�t around, but god save her if she got
some booty every once in a while.� Every
man in the village kept her at arms length, sometimes literally, and most of
the recurring merchants knew the rules too.�
They didn�t avoid her or anything, but they didn�t look at her,
either.� No one flirted with Kagome
anymore, whether secretly or openly.�

Kagome
truly hated, loathed, and appalled thinking about it, but she had to face the
facts that she was probably going to die a virgin.�

The
twenty-year old hated to think about her celibacy.� It depressed her even more than the well,
because at least the well was a temporary situation.� Kagome probably only had a year or two left
in which she could potentially convince someone to marry her� if she ever found
someone she could stand marrying. While Inuyasha had always scared the men
away, some of them used to sneak her gifts and soft touches.� They would whisper sweetly to her, warm
breath gliding dreamily over her cheeks.�
No one tried now.�

Kagome
was getting to old to be married.� In a
land where the average life expectancy was 40, Kagome was already getting close
to her middle years.� Time had begun to
pass her by and now she was really too old.�
In fact, she had been too old two years ago, but she had the well then,
so it hadn�t mattered.� She had barely
noticed the loss of interest feudal men had in her back then, because she had
been beginning her prime back in the future.�
At home, Kagome was gearing up for the best dating decade of her
life.� But now, in the Warring States period,
she had already missed it.� Kagome
counted the years it would take before the well was completed again, and
gritted her teeth when she realized that she was going to have her first real date
when she was forty-seven.

So,
protector of the Shikon no Tama, Earth� savior, and priestess extraordinaire�
was an old maid.

And
the village girls never let her hear the end of it, either!� That Harue was always needling Kagome about
how she was to be married in two months, and the little bitch was only
twelve!� Let�s see how proud she is when
she�s screaming her bastards into the world.

But
there was nothing to be done about it.� A
woman had a hard time negotiating a marriage with no one to back her, and
Inuyasha certainly wouldn�t.� He was
doing everything in his power to make sure that she didn�t get married off, and
without anyone else to help, it looked like Kagome was going to be stuck as the
village priestess for a long time.� She remembered
Kaede, who had lived her life with no male relatives that could have negotiated
her out of sacred duties.� Without anyone
to save her, she had spent her entire life serving the community and saving
their daughters from donning the sacred red and white.� And before her, Kikyou had done just the
same.� Kagome had come to realize long
ago that the villagers were perfectly happy to let history repeat itself.�

Kagome
sighed into her flute before beginning her piece once again.� Though she hated to admit it, Inuyasha was
the source of all her woes.� She was
starting to notice her temper was much shorter with him these days, she was
much more irritable, and found it harder to forgive him, but she knew she
always would forgive him.� He was her
best friend, and the only friend she had in the village left from her
adventures.� Miroku-sama and Sango-chan
had moved to the remains of the Demon Slayer�s Village a few months after their
marriage to rebuild.� They visited often,
but it wasn�t the same.� Shippou-chan
would stop by occasionally, missing Kagome desperately.� He had found a fox demon of superb skill who
had generously agreed to take him on.�
While the young fox had cried and wailed about leaving Kagome, the boy
just couldn�t resist his own kind.� The
priestess could see how much he enjoyed being with other foxes, and had let him
leave.� So Kagome only had Inuyasha with
her, and she cherished their time together, despite her woes.

Although,
Kagome supposed her woes did bring her one good thing, despite how pathetic
that thing was.� Kagome had wonderful
dreams.� Beautiful dreams.� Dreams of her demon lover.

The
woman had never grown out of her dreams, as she used to hope she would.� Now she often looked forward to them at night
when her day had been particularly stressful.�
Sometimes this made her feel sad and pitiable, but mostly she found
solace in them.� At least Kagome knew
that she wouldn�t die a complete virgin�. Although now Kagome felt sad again
when she thought about it that way.

And
really, she wasn�t all that happy about them at the moment.� She was still mad at Sesshoumaru for beating
Inuyasha up like that.� For no good
reason!� The fact that she thought
Inuyasha secretly deserved having his ass kicked because he was being pissy was
completely ignored.� Inuyasha had been
seriously injured, and to have learned that it had been done by Sesshoumaru of
all people had been shocking and, dare she say it, disappointing.� After their truce, which she had so carefully
orchestrated, she had somehow gotten it in mind that Sesshoumaru would back off
from Inuyasha.� It had seemed like he had
been doing that, considering he had been given a couple opportunities
beforehand to fight with his brother yet abstained.� To just suddenly hear about how he had
savagely attacked Inuyasha when she had been thinking kind thoughts about the
demon lord had completely shattered her ability to have solace in thoughts and
dreams of him.� They were once more
shameful to her again, and so she continued to be quite angry� at times�
occasionally� Kagome sighed again, wondering why she wasn�t able to stay mad at
him for more than a few minutes.� It was
those stupid dreams, they were giving her a false impression of him.� She was sure the real Sesshoumaru was still
an asshole.

Still,
Kagome couldn�t help but think of him sometimes, and wonder about him and her
dreams.� She had never truly deduced why
she dreamt of Sesshoumaru in such an� interesting way, but she had her
theories.� Maybe it was because Kagome
knew that the only man she could ever be with had to be stronger than Inuyasha,
and Sesshoumaru was the only man she had ever seen who not only left a fight
with the half-demon with his life, but instead had left Inuyasha seriously
injured.� Kagome fumed over that thought,
but let it go as she continued to think about her theories.� She wasn�t sure if that was the right reason
because she couldn�t have known that when she was a fifteen year old girl, with
an open well and a line of boys on the other side.� Maybe it was her instincts telling her that
she wanted the strongest male she could find to breed with, or maybe she was
secretly a pervert�or maybe she just secretly hated that prick, Inuyasha.�

Kagome
was starting to feel that maybe she had been thinking about dicks for way too
many years.

But despite
all of her efforts to erase him from her thoughts, Sesshoumaru was just never
far from her mind.� What woman could
dream about a man so intimately for five years and not have a passing thought
or two about him?� Kagome remembered she
used to write about him in her diary, putting down her thoughts about him and
her dreams, the details and the reactions, and that would always make her feel
better.� But paper was expensive now so
Kagome didn�t bother.� She wished she had
a diary, though.� Her dreams were always
much easier to handle when she had written them down.�

And
she could certainly use that help at the moment!� Ever since the well was destroyed, her dreams
had become almost more than she can bear.�
There was a good reason that Kagome had chosen a home away from the ears
of the village.� Kagome no longer trusted
herself to sleep around others.� It had
been incredibly embarrassing to sleep around her friends after that incident
during the battle, in which Sesshoumaru had grabbed her from the air.�

Kagome
shuddered from memory as her breath failed her and the flute�s sound faltered.� Damn her body!� But she could still remember the feeling of
his arm sliding around her as he pulled her down. �He had touched so much of her, the friction of
their clothing, his skin so warm, heating her up�. She definitely had to sleep
alone after that!

Another
flute joined hers in her song and Kagome looked up to find a pair of chocolate
eyes that could have been her own.�

Kikyou�s
smooth white hands held a shinobue much like Kagome�s and continued to play the
song she had chosen.� She played with a
somberness that suited her nicely, and Kagome found it easy to fall back into
the rhythm with her.� The two played
together in unison under the stars, their movements in such perfect accord that
one would think they were looking in a mirror.�
The two priestesses continued for sometime as the moon slowly sank
towards the horizon before let the high ending note taper off into the night.� Kagome looked over at her fellow priestess
and took in her current state.� Kikyou
was just as Kagome had last seen her, prim and pristine as alabaster.� She stood tall and alert, her hair strait and
modestly coiffed.� Her raiment was hardly
dirty or smelly at all, but then again, Kikyou didn�t sweat.� All in all, the priestess looked just as
otherworldly as before.��

�Kikyou-sama,
I didn�t know you played.� Kagome stated. �We were evenly matched, don�t you
think?�

�Hmmm��
She hummed as she looked upon her flute with a wry look. �It seems we were in
accord.� She replied, giving Kagome deep look that was slightly warmed by a
funny little secret.� Kagome smiled and
Kikyou�s lips lifted upwards in their secret knowledge, one of the few little
laughs either seemed to get anymore.� The
two discovered this secret just a few weeks after the well was destroyed,
although they felt they had known it for much longer.� It came from the tedium of spiritual duty.�

Kikyou�s
dying wish, held secret in her heart, was to live her life as a normal woman.� Kikyou had wanted the big fat babies and the
big fat hubby, and all the little things that she had seen normal women
enjoy.� She had yearned for this wish for
years, ever since the men stopped flirting with her, too.� Then came Inuyasha.�

Inuyasha�
who didn�t flirt but didn�t turn away.�
Who touched her hands or shoulders at the most unexpected times, then
walked away with a wicked blush.�
Inuyasha with his gentle, awkward kisses.�� Inuyasha had been Kikyou�s last hope and
Kagome�s first.

Kikyou
hadn�t loved Inuyasha� she had needed him.�
Kikyou had needed him if she was ever going to feel passion, feel
another�s presence echo within her, feel her body swell with love, and empty
with bliss.� Inuyasha had been the only
man willing to take Kikyou, and thus he had been her only ticket out of her
duties, out of priestess work and into a normal life� the life Kagome
desperately wished for now.��

But
now they were both stuck.� Kikyou was
static and dead, unable to move past her last moments in life.� Kikyou didn�t know how to live the life of a
normal woman for she had never experienced it once when she was alive, nor did
she know how to not blame Inuyasha.�
Kagome had no escape.� She
couldn�t leave her life as a priestess, and couldn�t let herself blame Inuyasha
for it.� Both knew this, about themselves
and the other, and that�s what they found so funny.

I
know you better than Inuyasha does.

�When
was the last time you left Edo?� Kikyou asked,
her eyes losing their small amount of warmth at the joke, turning inert
again.� To say that she had left Edo was
a bit of a misnomer, for quite a few of the villages in the area liked to call
themselves Edo.� Perhaps it was foreshadowing for when they
all truly would be, Kagome thought vaguely.�
Nonetheless, she understood what Kikyou meant.� When was the last time you left this dump?

�Four
months�why?� Kikyou never could just explain her odd, out-of-the-blue
questions, but Kagome expected them.� The
two rarely met, and in fact Kagome last talked to Kikyou the four months ago
when she received the blessed mission to retrieve necessary medicines from a
nearby village� where Kikyou just happened to live.� Inuyasha didn�t know.

�Have
you been talking to travelers?� The old priestess asked cryptically, content to
reveal nothing.� The question instantly
brought a flush to Kagome�s face, as she remembered her talk with a traveler the
day before.� It had certainly been a
fascinating talk, full of numerous monosyllables and double entendres, but
Kagome highly doubted this was the center of Kikyou�s train of thought.

��no�?� Are you going somewhere with this?�� Kagome asked before giving Kikyou the weird
look that always made the priestess talk.

�So
you don�t know what rumors have been floating about?� I suggest you remedy this.� It concerns you.�� Kikyou said, turning her head away from the
stupid face Kagome always made to get her to fess up.�

�A
lot of rumors concern me.� This isn�t
that stupid gossip that Harue�s spreading, is it?� Because that�s a lie.� I�m not even remotely interested in Takeo-san�s
b-�

�-While
that one was amusing, that�s not why I traveled so far in the night to talk to
you.� Kikyou interjected, noting the look of rage upon the woman�s features at
the knowledge that numerous villages were aware of what she may or may not have
done with a seventy-year old man and his� person. �There is a rumor of a
demon.� No one knows his name, face, or
abilities, only that his skills are �beyond measure�.�

�What
does this have to do with me?� Kagome asked, dreading the answer she could feel
coming.

�This
demon seems particularly interested in priestesses.� Many have been reported missing, including
the Emperor�s sister, slated to become the next high priestess at Ise.� No one knows the cause for this
fascination.� Some say he eats them,
others that he collects them� and others say that he is searching.� Kikyou
replied, leveling Kagome with a heavy look.

�Searching?� What for�?� Kagome questioned, knowing what
Kikyou was going to say.

�Most
say it is an amulet.� Those few who do know
of it say that it is the Shikon no Tama.��
A heavy sigh escaped them both at this fact.� Everyone had worked desperately to erase all
proof of the jewel�s existence.� After
the completion of the jewel, everyone had asked what wish Kagome would
make.� The girl had been thinking about
it for some time, until she realized that there was no wish she could
make.� There was no wish that was pure
and selfless, because any wish Kagome made would, in some way, be
self-serving.� Even if it was the most
self-sacrificing and self-deprecating wish Kagome ever made, it would mean that
the jewel would then disappear, which would be helpful to Kagome.� Pure wishes didn�t exist, so the Shikon no
Tama still did.� Because of this, the
best solution was to erase all proof that such a thing as the Jewel of Four
Souls ever existed in the first place.�
It explained why Kagome had never found much information about the subject
at home, and why their great adventures never received even a passing glance in
the history books.� The plan had been
working superbly� until now.

�What
should we do?� Kagome asked, suddenly very tired and exhausted.� Great, she thought.� Just fucking great�

�Keep
your eyes and ears open.�

�And
my arrows nearby.�

�That
would be helpful.� Kikyou stated as she turned around and returned to the wilderness
surrounding them.� In moments, she was
gone, without a farewell yet Kagome could still see the link between them
glowing in the twilight.

Kagome
shuffled a few meters to the stairs, but then sat wearily on the top step.� She felt completely drained, and she hadn�t
even done anything.� Great, just great,
she thought again.� Some other big, bad
boss wants to come in and kill everything and take over the world, and I bet
I�m the one who has to fucking stop him.�
She turned her eyes skyward, taking in the large fading crescent moon in
the grey sky.� The sight was relaxing,
and Kagome could feel the stiffness in her shoulders ease.� Her shoulders were always knotted up nowadays,
but little things that reminded her of him always helped ease the stress.� Her shoulders were always completely relaxed
when she woke up in the morning.� Now she
was wondering what new part of her was going to start tensing once she started
dealing with this new guy.�

She
sat there on the steps staring at the village below her, just as she had done
the morning before.� Day in, day out, it
was all the same in the little village
of Edo.� But now danger seemed to be creeping towards
her once again and Kagome didn�t know what to make of it.� One would think such news would be exciting,
but Kagome was becoming tired of excitement.�
She didn�t need excitement.� She
needed a life.

Sounds
were stirring below and a few early risers could be seen exiting their homes
and checking their equipment.� Soon
Inuyasha would wake.� She sighed at the
thought.� How would he take the news, and
how would she lie to him about her source?�
So many things to think about.�
The knot in her shoulder wound itself tighter and Kagome winced.� Minutes passes as Kagome continued to sit
there, neglecting to clean the perpetually dirty steps.� Soon there was a whoosh of air and Inuyasha
was standing above her, looking quizzically down upon his companion.

�Plan
on doing anything today?� He asked. �Or just sitting there?�

�Sitting
is nice.� He grimaced at her and she laughed.�
This only caused him to grimace even more, but on his boyish features he
couldn�t help but look like he was pouting.�
As Kagome laughed at him then, she decided that she would tell him about
her news a little later.� Inuyasha then
gave her a mysterious look, somewhat hard but sad and full of confusion.

�Kagome��
He stated, his tone questioning and the priestess knew he wanted to ask her
about the incident yesterday with the man at the stream.

�Inuyasha.�
She replied in a negative tone, shaking her head slightly.� She did not want to talk about this
again.� He humphed and moved to sit in
one of the trees nearby, still seemingly mad at her.� �I�ll see you later.� She stated softly
before making her way down the steps, once more cursing the same ones.� As she made her way to her hut, crossing the
village and pathways that would soon compose the entirety of Kagome�s future
shrine home, she thought of Inuyasha�s sad look and sighed.� He was so against her being with anyone else,
yet he didn�t have the courage to say he wanted to be with her.� He couldn�t choose, despite the fact that
Kagome had chosen for him.� She wished he
could just make a decision on something so that they could come to terms.� If he rejected her that would be great, if he
proposed to her then she could refuse him and they could all put the matter
behind them.� But Inuyasha still fumbled
about, trying to decide, and Kagome was getting tired of it.� She wished he would just let go.

When
she made it to her little hut in the clearing she put her flute aside and
looked over her sad collection of things.�
She had very little that was truly her own, not herbs and implements to
be used for the villagers.� There was her
flute, her textbooks, her clothing, her bow and arrows, and the few books she
had been able to buy with the spare cash Inuyasha brought in every now and
then.� Next to her music, reading was the
only other diversion she had from the monotony of her sacred duties.� When she had finished pouring over her math
book for the second time, Kagome had realized that she needed something new to
read and had scrimped and saved to buy a copy of the Tale of Genji.�
Unfortunately, she had read most of it in middle school and decided that
more books needed to be added to her collection despite the cost of paper.� Soon Sei Shonagon�s Pillow Book had followed and a volume of waka poetry.� Kagome was already in the process of saving
up for one of the twenty volumes of the Kokinshu
and she wondered if she would have the whole thing by the time the well was
finished. After changing into a fresher set of clothing and slinging her bow
and arrows over her shoulder, she grabbed her copy of poetry and dumped it into
a basket before making her way into the forest towards the spot where she could
dig up some kudzu roots for dinner. **** ��

The
air was humid and Kagome enjoyed the temperature drop within the forest.� She walked slowly, dragging out her solitude
for as long as possible.� She laughed at
that, remembering the days when she would have been too scared to walk through
the wilderness on her own.� She
remembered her first few weeks in the past, how useless she really had been
back then.� She hadn�t even been able to
do anything in that first fight against Sesshoumaru�

�She
really needed to stop thinking about him.�
It wasn�t healthy.� She sighed,
wishing her thoughts could be centered on a person who cared.� When she was feeling bitter, she would think
that it was that demon�s fault that she had fallen out of love with
Inuyasha.� If she still loved him, she
would be fighting for Inuyasha�s affections and surely she would have won.� She would be married now, with the big fat
babies and the big fat hubby.� But when
she tried to picture that perfect image of domestic bliss with the half demon,
it just couldn�t form in her mind.� She
couldn�t even form it with an ordinary man.�
She couldn�t see herself living in perfect domestic bliss despite how
much she wanted it, and it was all that demon�s fault.� He had ruined her, and he wasn�t even going
to do anything about it.

Not
that she�d let him do anything about it.�
Even if Sesshoumaru did a 180 and decided that humans were a-okay, she�d
definitely refuse him.� Kagome may not
want to marry Inuyasha, but she didn�t want to hurt him either.� She could never ever betray Inuyasha that way.

But
just because she wasn�t going to bang his brother didn�t mean she had to live
like a nun!� Why couldn�t she get a little something every now and
then?� Who cared about that whole sacred virgin thing anyway, it�s not like it
mattered.� The shrine was totally empty
of any sacred spirit who demanded a �pure� vessel, so it really didn�t matter
if Kagome was a virgin.� Kaede hadn�t
been one either, so why was it so important for Kagome?� She fumed, wishing she had an outlet for all
of her pent-up rage.�

�Help!�
Someone screamed, and Kagome looked behind her to see a young lady was running
her way.� �Miko-sama!�

�Yes?� What�s wrong?� She asked, concern lacing her
voice.� She eyed the girl wearily, for
she did not recognize the young woman and it seemed rather suspicious for such
a well-dressed lady to be wandering around in these backwoods.

�My
comrades Jaken and Ah-Un are down, please help them!�

�Jaken�
Ah-Un� what� Oh, Rin-chan!� Kagome
exclaimed, startled at the girl before her.�
She didn�t look like little Rin at all, she looked like a young lady of
standing.�

�Eh?� Ah, Kagome-sama!� Thank goodness, please help us!�

�Where
is your lord?� He can handle this, I�m
sure.� She asked, suddenly feeling uncomfortable.� Speak of the devil and he shall come, she
thought, wondering why fate arranged such coincidences for her.

�Fighting.� Please help!� Rin pleaded, and Kagome
couldn�t resist her.� She headed in the
direction Rin had indicated and soon she felt a familiar demonic aura sizzling
in the air.� Sesshoumaru seemed angry�

She
broke through the trees and slightly below in the middle of a lowered field was
the object of her thoughts, Lord Sesshoumaru of the Western Lands.� For a moment she was struck dumb by the way
he moved in battle.� She hadn�t seen his
full capabilities in a year, and she had thought she would never see it again,
so to suddenly view him fighting so fiercely struck a deep chord in her.� Kagome didn�t notice the knots in back
untying themselves.

She
knew where his lands were, and that he rarely left them.� The five years he had spent in the east had
been an aberration for him as he searched for Naraku.� The search for the jewel shards had rarely
left the Kanto region, so Sesshoumaru had spent a lot of time there in his
search, but now that Naraku was dead she was sure Sesshoumaru would return to west
for good and she would never have seen him again.� Her heart was beating at the sight of him,
but she tempered it when she saw his opponent punch him in the chest.� It reminded her of when he impaled Inuyasha
in their fight, and suddenly she was angry again.� What nerve he had to just come here, start up
a fight, and then expect help from her of all people.� She was going to give him a piece of her
mind!

She
knocked an arrow and aimed for the demon�s opponent.� At first the warrior confused her, for he
gave off no demonic aura at all and look just a normal human.� But no human could move that quickly, and
they certainly could keep fighting with Tokijin in their gut, so she had to
assume he was some sort of demon.� She
waited until he had stopped moving and fired.�
When she saw that her arrow would hit, she became excited, but it turned
to horror when she saw the explosion that ripped through the air.�

�What
the hell�� She whispered, wondering what had just happened.� Demons didn�t explode when they were hit with
her arrows.� This was strange, Kagome
didn�t like the looks of this at all.� She
felt the earth shake, and she suddenly was quite glad she had decided to stay a
safe distance away.� Kagome looked at the
dust beneath her and readied another arrow incase the first one didn�t finish
the job.� This opponent was strange, she
wasn�t sure how her arrow would have effected it.� When air settled she saw nothing left of the
warrior save� tree limbs?� Why was her
arrow sticking out of a tree branch?� This
was getting stranger and stranger.� Why
did this all have to happen in neck of the woods?� Sesshoumaru was standing some distance away
and the sight of him reminded her of her anger.�
He looked at her, and suddenly she was furious.� How kind of him to travel all this way just
to bring exploding demons into her backyard.

�You�re a far way from home.�
Kagome stated as she aimed her arrow for his heart. �And fighting too.� Was this another
unprovoked attack?� Going to puncture
one of his lungs too?�

She thought that if the look on
Sesshoumaru�s face could be described with an emotion, it would be�
annoyance.� That seemed about right, but
it was so hard to tell because the man never moved his facial muscles at all
unless it was to bark orders or dish out insults.� His brows furrowed just a bit as he stared at
her and he began to open his mouth to speak when a sound came out from the
forest.� Kagome gave a fleeting thought
for what he was going to say as she turned her head to the noise, wondering
what it was.� Ah-Un had stood groggily,
carrying a still disposed Jaken on his back� it�s back� their back.� Kagome still didn�t know how to refer them�
it� whatever.� But that hadn�t been the
noise she had heard.� It had been faint
but it hadn�t been that.� She supposed
Sesshoumaru had heard it clearly.� She
turned to him to see that he was glaring into the distance, and now she really
wanted to know what it had been.� Was
there another enemy about to attack?

�Ah-Un, go fetch Rin and follow
me.� He commanded as the sound was heard again.�
It was much closer, and Kagome could just make out that it was her name
being shouted by none other than Inuyasha.�
She was about to call out when suddenly the earth tipped above her.� Everything was moving, and she was completely
disoriented.� It took her a moment to
figure out what had happened, only to grit her teeth when she did.� She had just been slung over Sesshoumaru�s
shoulder like a sack and he was currently carrying her away from her companion.

�What the hell are you doing?�
She screamed at him.� �Why are you
kidnapping me?�

�Because I like simple plans.�

The answer struck Kagome dumb for
a moment.� What did that have to do with
anything?� She then raised her fist and
brought it down on his armor with a resounding thud as she screamed at him.

�What kind of answer is that?!� Let me go!�
Let me go!� She commanded, hitting his armor over and over again.� She didn�t particularly care that her fist
was going to start hurting, she was just so angry at him. Who did he think he
was!� She hadn�t seen him in a year and
all of a sudden he beats Inuyasha up with no reason and kidnaps her!� Kagome had been right all along, Sesshoumaru
really was an asshole!

/////////////////////////////////////////////

Sesshoumaru:
What was that� thing between you and Kikyou?

Kagome:
Wouldn�t you like to know.

Inuyasha: Yeah, I would actually.

Some notes�

*Tsuyu or Baiyu translate as Plum Rain or Mold Rain, and
this is the Japanese rainy season.�
Depending on where you are, it can start in May and end in July, but
most commonly lasts the month of June.� This
month characterizes the month of June in Japan, and in the old calendar the
month of Satsuki.� It�s a long, endless
rain that generally puts everyone there into a mild state of depression.� This is not a good time to visit Japan, as the weather
is very consistently bad this time of year.�
If you do visit Japan this time of year, visit Hokkaido (the
northern-most main island with the smallest population of the four), as they
have the lightest rainy season (this is generally considered one of the times to visit Hokkaido, as the
weather is nice and the tourism rates are low).

** The proper way to pray at the altar of a Shinto shrine is
to first offer a five yen coin, because five yen is �go en� in Japanese which
when different kanji is used means something along the lines of honorable
destiny.� It�s like putting destiny in
the gods� hands� then you bow twice, clap twice, make your prayer, and then bow
again.� Members of the shrine will
usually do more extensive rituals in their prayer, but I don�t think Kagome�s
in the mood�

A Shinobue is a traverse bamboo flute that is characterized
by its high pitch.� It�s an important
instrument in Noh and Kabuki, but it�s also used in Kagura-den, or Shinto
theatrical dances.� For a music sample,
go here http://www.kotosandmore.com/Sounds/flute.MP3
.

***For the few people who may not know, Ronin are lord-less
samurai.� Their lord may have been
dispatched, or they were fired, or whatever, but these samurai have no one to
protect and no one to pay them.� During
the Muromachi period (when all of this is taking place), this wasn�t that big
of a problem, as there was always another lord who needed samurai.� During the Edo period, though, peace reigned
over Japan
and samurai became useless.� Lords no
longer needed new samurai, so if a samurai lost his master, he was out of
luck.� At that point in time, they usually
gave up their samurai status to take on work as artisans, farmers, or merchants.� The modern usage of the word ronin means a
student who failed their college entrance exams the first time and is taking
the year off to study in cram school for the next round of entrance exams.��

**** I�ve mentioned the Tale of Genji written by Murasaki
Shikibu in the mid-Heian Period.� Well, a
generation before her was Sei Shonagon�s Pillow Book� which isn�t what you
might think it is.� A pillow book in Japan is not a
pillow book of the west.� It�s really
just the woman�s journal, full mostly of lists (she was an endless list-taker),
anecdotes, personal experiences, and little made-up stories.� Like the Tale of Genji, it is an incredible
tool in understanding the time period, but unlike the Tale of Genji it isn�t a
laborious read or so serious.� People who
prefer the Tale of Genji call the Pillow Book frivolous, but personally I love
it.� What both authoresses would have
known and used was the Kokinshu, a twenty volume collection of waka
poetry.� Waka used to just mean poetry, and
the new term tanka has come to replace the specific type of poetry that was
used in the Heian period and afterwards before it was replaced by the haiku
form.� Tanka is essentially what haiku
derives from, as it is a 31 syllable poem written in the 5-7-5-7-7 format.� It�s a little more descriptive and flowery
than haiku.��

Well, that�s it.�
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