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Edge of Paradise	By : QueenoftheDream Category: InuYasha > Het - Male/Female > Sessh?maru/Kagome > Sessh?maru/Kagome Views: 5324 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, nor the characters from it. I made no money in writing this fiction.

Chapter List
- 13
- 14
- 15
The trio walked in silence, and Kagome wondered how their relationship had reached that point. The demon she was supposed to eliminate had saved her from certain peril several times and was walking just in front of her like a fresh spring daisy. A daisy with fangs and claws and unending strength… Her face no longer felt like a hot, swollen disaster and was markedly less tender, so her mood was looking up.
The dense forest around them was buzzing with life, and it was a refreshing change from the turmoil of the past few days. Kagome inhaled deeply and fought to ignore the humidity pressing down on her like a weight. Nope. She wasn’t going to let something so trivial, sticky, uncomfort-trivial! affect her mood.
“So,” she started, “where are we going?” She was met with silence. Of course. Rin was flitting between and to the sides of them and examining every flower, prominent branch, patch of moss, or footprint that caught her attention. There was a light breeze that rustled the canopy, and Kagome found that the sound was brushing away the cobwebs and darkness in her mind, or at least sweeping it into a corner where she could deal with it later.
“If I might ask,” Kagome broached carefully as her curiosity finally got the best of her, “what was your relationship with the priestess Kikyou? What happened that made you want to actually kill me when you thought I was her?” Sesshomaru’s shoulders visibly tensed, and Kagome fell back for fear he’d throw his arm back and slice her head off for her impudence.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, quashing the nosy little voice in her head that urged her to probe further. “It was not my place. Please accept my apology.” Sesshomaru said nothing, and his shoulders kept a degree of tension. The mood quickly threatened to settle into discomfort and awkwardness, but Rin loudly interjected, startling Kagome out of her sinking attitude.
“Kagome-miko-sama! Look at this footprint! Come see, come see!” Kagome trudged through the foliage to Rin’s side, where she was crouched next to a bare patch of dirt. A large paw print was pressed into the soft earth. “What is it, Kagome-sama?”
“It looks like maybe a fox.” A huge fox. A fox the size of a horse. The thought made her hackles rise. “Yup,” she happily chirped, “just a fox, Rin-chan. We’d best get out of here soon because we don’t want to intrude upon its home, ne?” She said it loud enough that Sesshomaru could hear her, and she hoped he caught her message: We need to get out of here, preferably in a rapid fashion. He said nothing of course, as he kept walking, and Kagome took Rin’s hand to jog back up to the silent demon.
They caught back up with Sesshomaru’s unchanging stride, and light filtered through the canopy above to glint off of his spiked pauldrons. Kagome had to squint to keep the sharp points of light from burning out her retinas. The trees abruptly ended, and they continued into a valley, in which could be seen several huts and stalls.
“Wow, Kagome-miko-sama! It’s another village! Why is that strange man running so funny at us?” Rin’s voice lilted up at the end, and Kagome yanked her head to the sides to find Sesshomaru nowhere in sight as indeed a wide-eyed man wielding a hoe sprinted toward them. Kagome pushed Rin behind her back as the breathless man practically skidded to a halt before her.
“Miko-sama,” he howled, waving the farming tool around like a madman. Kagome took a cautious step backward, and he stopped his maniacal flailing with a nervous, sheepish chuckle. “Many apologies, miko-sama. We are all rather frazzled lately. There’s been a huge demon plaguing our village recently, and nothing we do seems to help. It’s been getting more and more aggressive. Please help us, miko-sama,” he gushed. The man fell to his knees in a low bow, and Kagome worried her bottom lip between her teeth. She doubted this town was a planned stop along Sesshomaru’s route. And how would he know where she was or what she was doing since he picked now of all times to disappear? What if he couldn’t find her- She cut that line of thought right off. He was a grown man who could probably track like a blood hound, and he was certainly not her keeper, so she certainly didn’t need his permission to do anything. If he needed her, he would undoubtedly find her.
The man kept his head bowed, and Kagome allowed herself a smile. “Of course we would be glad to assist your village.”
The man rocketed to his feet. “Thank you, miko-sama! Allow me to bring you to the headman for lodgings before your journey.”
“Journey?” Rin stepped out from behind Kagome to shyly look at the eccentric farmer.
“Oh yes. The demon is not in the village. It circles us and has been spotted most often about half a day’s journey north of the village. We will send you with food and a good night’s rest, of course. We’ve been waiting for someone to help. The headman will be so pleased!”
The headman was indeed pleased when Kagome and RIn were ushered through his door and given a room of their own. Their host was a rather plump man with such low-set brows and menacing jowls that it came as a pleasant surprise that he possessed a generous and congenial personality. He offered the girls everything they could possibly want and even suggested he send Kagome with an escort to scout out the area. Kagome respectfully declined. Really, she was just looking for an excuse to escape, to try to reconvene with Sesshomaru and update him on the current state of affairs. She made up a bogus excuse of needing to search for herbs and scope out the area, and by midday, she and Rin were outside of the village and walking back in the direction from whence they came. Once she was out of earshot of any villagers, she began softly calling for Sesshomaru.
They wove in and out of the trees for several minutes before she spotted a blob of white on the forest floor. Kagome darted forward, heart racing in fear that he had somehow been struck down. She approached and saw that he was simply seated at the base of a birch tree with his eyes closed and one arm draped over his knee. Through the pounding in her chest, she briefly thought that he almost looked peaceful while he was sleeping. What was up with that reaction? Really, if he had managed to get killed, it would make her life worlds less complicated. But the way his eyelashes brushed the top of his cheekbones was mesmerizing… until they were no longer doing so. He cracked one eye open to stare at her. She hopped back with a yelp as Rin came thundering over while gleefully shouting, “Sesshomaru-yokai-sama!”
“Are you ill?”
“Wha?” was her intelligent answer.
“Are you ill,” he repeated slowly as if speaking to a moron. “If your heart beats much faster, you will perish. I have no wish to mop up your foolish remains.”
Kagome’s brows sank upon her forehead as her cheeks flushed. “Wha- if this is what I get for worrying about you, then, g- gah!” she blustered. He continued to look at her, opting to purse his lips in what could only be described as condescending disbelief of her apparent lunacy. Kagome huffed and crossed her arms, and Rin copied the actions, pushing her lips out and giving her best glare to the demon.
“I’ve been commissioned to dispose of a demon around here that’s been terrorizing the village down there.” Sesshomaru blinked at her.
“Why?”
“Why?” she echoed. “Because I’m a miko. It’s my job. Look, I know it’s out of the way, but it’s not exactly going to win us any friends for our cause if we deny people the help they need.”
The demon switched his gaze to Rin, whose mask of false irritation was rapidly deteriorating as giggles leaked from her pursed lips. “The demon is kitsune. It has marked the entire area. Judging by the erratic pattern of the tracks and markings, it is crazed,” he stated, never breaking his eyes from Rin, who had dissolved into high-pitched laughter.
“Kitsune,” Kagome murmured. Kitsune were tricksters and notoriously difficult to catch if they did not want to be found. Given their predisposition to cruelty in their trickery, she almost shuddered to think what an insane kitsune was capable of.
“Why did you come back?” Sesshomaru swiveled his gaze to once more rest upon Kagome’s face, seeming to linger upon the fading bruises there.
“I… well, I’m not sure,” she admitted. “You disappeared, and I wanted to check in, I guess. Let you know where I went off to.” Her face was lined in puzzlement. He persisted in his stoic stare, so she continued. “Rin and I are staying in the village overnight, and then we’ll start out to find this thing in the morning. They said that they see it a ways north of the village most of the time, so it may take a while to find it.”
“It is close by,” Sesshomaru stated, and Kagome’s eyes widened. Before she could voice her concern, a loud scream like that of a woman echoed through the woods, and Kagome heard a rustling in the tall branches. She pivoted her head up to see a dark shadow plummeting toward her. She shrieked and strafed to the side as the corpse of a large deer landed with a cracking thud upon the ground where she stood. Blood was seeping from several mangled wounds in the creature’s hide. Rin screamed and darted behind Sesshomaru, grasping at the right sleeve of his hankimono. Kagome whipped her head around, trying to locate the source as she nocked an arrow. Sesshomaru, on the other hand, was looking vaguely horrified by the actions of the young girl openly weeping into his shoulder.
“What was that? What was that?!” were the only words that Kagome’s brain provided as her reiki unconsciously rose to the surface and bubbled in invisible waves upon her skin. Her fingers were wrapped white-knuckled around her weapon as she peered into the quiet forest for a malignant aura and came up with nothing.
“Miko,” Sesshomaru coldly bit out, and Kagome was snapped back into reality. Her muscles were screaming, the tight scar tissue across her hand was stinging, and Rin was uncontrollably sobbing behind a scowling daiyokai. Her bow arm relaxed and she approached Sesshomaru, behind whom Rin was hiding. Kagome crouched and awkwardly gathered the horrified child in her arms. Rin threw her thin arms around Kagome’s neck and Kagome whispered little reassurances in her ear while rubbing soothing circles on her back. Sesshomaru stood abruptly and took four neat strides to stand in front of the animal’s brutalized body.
Kagome watched him with a skeptical eye as he drew the thinner blade from his waist and poised the tip over the doe’s glassy eye. Kagome pressed Rin into her shoulder and willed her not to turn around and see Sesshomaru presumably begin hacking into the animal.
Sesshomaru’s eyes narrowed and the sword emanated a soft, pearly white light. Kagome sharply inhaled, and Sesshomaru swung the blade down over the body. The light grew harsh and filled the space around them, and Kagome shielded her eyes against the sight of the demon rending the flesh of the fresh carcass.
However, when no splattering noises filled her ears, she allowed one eye to crack open. A gasp of wonder fell from her lips, and she nudged Rin’s heaving shoulders.
“Rin-chan, look,” she gently commanded. The girl pulled away to face the fading light with an unbecoming hiccup.
Before their eyes the grievous wounds in the doe’s flesh mended, and the animal lifted its head, its ears swiveling in the silence around them. It deftly rolled off of its side and stood on steady legs. The three figures were standing stock-still, and when Kagome’s eye flitted over to Sesshomaru, his wide eyes and barely slack lips indicated that he was equally awe-struck with the recent development.
Rin reached one hand out with a breathless cry, and the deer jerked its head toward the slack-jawed girl with wide eyes and rapidly pivoting ears. When Rin took a tiny step forward, the deer bolted into the woods and left the dumbstruck humans behind. Sesshomaru returned his sword to its sheath with careful precision.
“What was that?” Kagome questioned lowly. Rin had turned to Sesshomaru and latched onto his leg and he was staring down at the beaming child blankly. He clearly had no intentions of reciprocating her open show of emotion.
“Tenseiga,” he replied without taking his blank gaze from the child. “It belonged to my father.” Rin mumbled something into his hakama, to which he replied, “Hnn.” Kagome thought she would have to pick her jaw up off of the ground.
“Um, the sun is setting, Rin-chan. We have to get back to the village. We’ll see Sesshomaru-sama in the morning, ne?” Rin gave one last squeeze to Sesshomaru’s leg before skipping straight through the trees, leaving Kagome to execute a hasty yet grateful bow to the demon before hurrying after the energetic girl.
That evening, they were treated to a lovely meal and an opportunity to bathe with some of the expensive scented soaps from the headman’s wife. Kagome jumped at the opportunity and scrubbed her and Rin’s skin free from the dirt and stains of travel until it glowed pink.
The two females dropped to the futon exhausted, and their minds wandered in the moments before sleep. Kagome worried about the nature of the wild and aggressive kitsune, and Rin fawned over her new silver-haired hero. Both of them marveled at the miraculous power that resided in the demon lord’s blade.
- 13
- 14
- 15
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Edge of Paradise