Adult-FanFiction.org : Inuyasha / Yashahime

Castaways	By : SplendentGoddess Category: InuYasha AU/AR > Het - Male/Female Views: 8564 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: Inuyasha, and the characters therein, are the property of Rumiko Takahashi. I am in no way affiliated with Takahashi or VIZ Productions, and I do not gain financially from my fanfic in any way.

Chapter List
- 4
- 5
Chapter 5 - Happily Ever After
After a playful skinny dip in the ocean that eventually led to them getting clean after first getting dirty a third time, Kagome and Inuyasha returned to camp both still deliriously happy over the unexpected but wholly welcomed turn of events that had led to their bonding. Inuyasha was still in shock that their auras had been compatible with each other, considering her powers were designed to neutralize his, but the way she'd explained it, if youkai and humans were compatible physically, able to crossbreed and produce hybrid offspring, then why wouldn't their energies be compatible on a spiritual level? He hadn't had an answer for that one, and had finally decided to stop worrying about it. It was also possible, Kagome had speculated, that the reason they were able to bond was actually because he was a hanyou, meaning a part of his soul was already human to begin with, and therefore probably more able to handle bonding with a human spirit. Hanyou were more resilient against reiki than pureblooded youkai, after all, considering if he got purified it would only turn him human instead of otherwise injuring him physically. It was almost like a safety mechanism in a way, and she hypothesized that the reason his body could house her reiki without harm was maybe because it had somehow managed to partition itself so that his youki was being kept separately from his new reiki. Of course, she wasn't part youkai, or at least she hadn't been, and it was also true that her body was safely housing his youki without her own reiki attacking it, but even if she was a little confused regarding all of the hows behind it, the why was obvious; because they'd wanted it.
Because the very nature of the spell guaranteed that both parties truly wanted the merger with their entire being or else it simply wouldn't work, there was zero doubt in either of their minds that the other wanted them as fully and as deeply as they did, and neither of them bothered questioning how such strong feelings could develop in such a short period of time. Inuyasha did believe now that he and Kagome were truly meant for one another. He hadn't just been put on her flight to save her life because the gods hadn't wanted her to die yet. Fate had basically been shouting in his ear, 'Go get your mate, stupid, before it's too late!' In fact, he wouldn't put it past somehow sensing Kagome's eventual arrival in Los Angeles as having had something to do with why he'd originally chosen that city instead of New York to house his American branch of TaiCorp. Fate had been steering them towards one another for years, decades even. It was why he'd given up on consciously trying to find love a second time, just going with the flow while telling himself that if it was meant to be then it'd happen. It was why Kagome was so freakin' powerful, since her miko powers had been needed to complete the bond; it was very true that youkai could not bond with normal humans because if the magic was only one sided then there was simply nothing for their youki to grab a hold of on the other side. A youkai could possess a human, but doing so would suppress if not completely destroy the human's soul in the process. To complete the bond, both parties had to equally possess each other at the same time, while simultaneously opening themselves up to being possessed, so that they were each a part of each other. It was something done very rarely, because it required such a deep, profound level of fondness and desire for the other person. Unlike a one-sided possession, which could usually be reversed fairly easily by simply drawing out the invading spirit, during this type of a bond it really was more like the two souls had become one, and he had never heard of a way to successfully undo a soul-bond, not that anybody who'd actually gone through with it in the first place would ever want to undo it.
He certainly had no desire to undo his bond with Kagome, even hypothetically assuming there were actually a way; he smiled as a wave of emotion from the girl in question assured him she felt the same.
They spent the rest of the day continuing to get to know each other, stupid little things that you usually learned about a potential mate throughout the dating process. Kagome was surprised to learn that his favorite food was ramen noodles, having figured he'd have a more sophisticated palate than that. While he didn't strike her as the hoity-toity type, she'd figured his favorite food would've at least been something like stake or pork.
"I've never met a food group I didn't like..." he teased, amending, "As long as it's not too spicy." She could see how he'd be sensitive to heavily spiced foods. "But yeah, my absolute favorite is just your cheap, grocery store cup noodle. I could live off that stuff forever."
"Well then you're in luck, because there's an abundance of that stuff back at my apartment." Kagome laughed.
"That'll be the first thing to go."
She quirked a brow. "The ramen?"
"The apartment."
Shaking her head, she insisted, "I didn't want you for your money, remember."
"I know," he assured her, adding, "And that's why I'll buy you whatever you want."
Shaking her head, despite herself a little part of Kagome couldn't help doing a mental happy dance, which he of course sensed as he chuckled slightly. But Inuyasha's love for Kagome only continued to grow as she insisted she didn't need, or even want anything too over the top. It was definitely nice to know that she'd never have to worry about money, but she didn't need diamonds and furs and cars and custom made dresses by Italian designers. If he wanted to rescue her from her crap hole apartment she would welcome it with open arms, but that didn't mean she wanted to be moved to one of the multi-million dollar mansions that the movie stars lived in. Fortunately, Inuyasha had never much cared for all that flashy stuff, either, and he would be perfectly content with buying the two of them a normal penthouse apartment in a decent high-rise building.
Kagome conceded to the penthouse as long as there weren't too many servants to go along with it. Granted, it'd actually be nice to have somebody else clean the place for her, he chuckled a bit at that, but Kagome told him in that moment that she actually liked cooking at had no problem sharing the normal marriage duties between the two of them such as dishes and laundry. She still wanted to become a doctor, but a pediatrician wasn't the same as a surgeon and she was sure she'd be working fairly normal hours and would be able to fix dinner most nights. If not, well then that's where it came in handy not having to worry about wasting money on restaurants or store-bought meals.
"I'm sure you'll make a wonderful pediatrician." he told her then, earning a huge smile from the girl when she realized he had no intention of arguing with her about her dream. It wasn't about the money, it was about what she wanted to do with herself, and especially now that she wouldn't have to worry about the money then she could focus more fully on the career itself, on helping children and families. Hell, maybe she'd open her own practice for youkai, hanyou, spiritual humans and normies in the know. A free clinic open for everyone and anyone in the magical community.
"That's an excellent idea." he praised, having picked up on the sudden thought. "There are very few youkai run clinics that know all that much about humans, and so the occasional normal human that's married to a youkai still has to go to their own human doctor for some things, and sometimes it can get complicated when a baby is involved. There are other openly human and hanyou accepting youkai clinics in existence, but they're certainly rare in Japan and probably not all that common in America, either. Yours would be a welcome addition. Especially in America where free clinics are few and far between and most of the time you have to pay through the nose for medical insurance. Most demon clinics in America are no exception to that rule, they just have separate payment plans."
"The trick then becomes how to go about it without the normies hearing about it." she said. "We couldn't let a bunch of random people not in the know just walk in off the street."
"Oh that's easy, you just set up shop in a dreary office building where nobody would suspect from its outward appearance that it was a medical facility of any kind, and you station a youkai security guard in the lobby to screen everyone coming and going. Normies would just think the building was full of boring accountants in cubicles or something." he explained.
With the beginning stages of that plan set into motion at least in her mind, Kagome knew that in reality she still had to finish medical school, first. One step at a time.
They continued to pass the time the rest of the day getting to know each other even further, as they lounged by the fire on Kagome's 'nest', Inuyasha holding her in his arms tenderly. Evening came and went, and this time when Inuyasha left to fetch dinner Kagome went with him back to the shoreline, openly enjoying the ride on his back. She teased him good-naturedly as he stripped, and when he reemerged from the water bearing dinner, she made him buy his clothes back from her hostage grip with a kiss. After returning to camp, upon her insistence Inuyasha finally relented and allowed Kagome to prepare the fish herself, under accusation of him doubting her ability to do so. Thanks to their mental link, she was able to share with him her past camping adventures, including several times she and her friends had stayed near a lake where they'd caught their aquatic dinners, so despite her general lack of knowledge when it came to what species of fish was what, she did in fact know what she was doing when it came to scaling and gutting one.
That night, even though he was his hanyou self he still stayed down on the ground, sleeping with Kagome again in her nest of leaves. As distracted as he was by the presence of the woman in his arms, he did remember to cut another notch in their tree. Four nights...this was their forth night on the island. If Sesshoumaru didn't come for them in the next few days he'd have to think of something. Even though they could theoretically remain there indefinitely, so long as it rained frequently enough to maintain their water supply, he knew that the longer they were 'missing' the harder it was going to get for them and everybody working with them to hide the truth of their survival from the public eye. But the problem with trying to make a trip to land under his own power, regardless of whether he aimed for Hawaii or went back to Japan, was that with modern-day technology the normies were sure to spot him at some point, and that would only add fuel to the fire once they realized who he was, and how he was supposed to have died in that crash.
That thought had him remembering again that regardless of whether or not his district manager had called yet, Sesshoumaru really should have been notified by the airline by now. Weren't there people that handled that sort of thing? Maybe they couldn't reach him...? Maybe he really had had a last minute meeting with one of their human business partners, and so he was holed up with his staff under direct orders to not disturb him no matter what. Snorting, Inuyasha hoped at least somebody in their pack would have the balls to approach Sesshoumaru, even during one of his meetings, for something like this. Though then again, maybe the message hadn't gotten passed along to anybody else. Inuyasha did have it in his records that for any and all 'issues', his emergency contact was Sesshoumaru and nobody else. As much as he hated the asshole at times, there was really nobody else he trusted more than his half-brother if it were a legitimate life or death situation. So maybe the person calling on behalf of the airline hadn't left the details of the message with anybody else, asking only that Sesshoumaru contact them, and therefore nobody else had any idea how important it was for them to interrupt the daiyoukai's meeting. Hopefully, if the human authorities had yet to be able to reach Sesshoumaru, then his name had been kept out of the media. They usually did that, didn't they? Not releasing the names of all the victims until the families had been notified? He honestly didn't know, because of who he was, if it would make it a media craze or if they would actually go out of their way to keep it quiet. Sighing, the whole thing was starting to give him a headache.
Whatever happens, I'm with you 100%... Kagome stated softly in her mind, earning a smile from her mate as he wrapped his arms around her tighter.
Even if it had spread all over the news that he had died in that crash, Kagome had come up with the perfect excuse for why they'd been MIA after 'missing' their flight. It was fortunate that he hadn't dated anyone in over three months, because now it could later be 'leaked' that he had been having a secret affair with Kagome for a while now, an affair that up until now he'd miraculously managed to keep out of the public eye. Bumping into Kagome at the airport could have either been a genuine coincidence, or they had previously arranged to go to Los Angeles together - probably the latter since their seats were next to each other - and had simply changed their minds regarding destination at the last possible minute. Supposing they had suddenly, on a whim, decided to go to Hawaii instead, but it had been far too last minute to change their tickets and the flight they wanted to Hawaii was already sold out, then Inuyasha, in his awesome billionaire-ness, could have bribed two people on the flight to sell them their tickets. He'd never done such a thing before in real life, but he imagined that tossing a few extra thousand dollars per ticket at somebody would make most people willing to take a later flight, at least if there were enough time to stop their luggage from going on the wrong plane. He'd have to work out the details of their plan, but Sesshoumaru could help him with that, double-checking the records to ensure there actually had been a flight to Hawaii scheduled for only a few short hours after their flight to LA. If they'd bought the tickets off of somebody else then that would explain why there was no record in the computer system of them having changed flights, and even if their luggage had already gone onto the Los Angeles plane Inuyasha was so rich that that wouldn't have mattered, promising Kagome a whole new wardrobe when they got to Hawaii. A horrible fiery crash wasn't something you'd want to spread around at an airport immediately after it happened with no word yet on what details had contributed to the disaster, so it definitely stood to reason that they wouldn't have known anything about it upon arriving in Honolulu...or wherever, and assuming the two of them had stayed holed up in their hotel suite then it made sense that they wouldn't have found out about it yet in order to contact their loved ones and assure them they were all right. Since Inuyasha already had somewhat of a party-boy reputation down at the LA office, the guys would probably find the most unbelievable part of the story being that he had actually gotten married, in a 'Dude, no way!' sort of mentality. He could apologize sheepishly to his manager for not calling, saying that at the very last minute, while already having the affair with Kagome, they had decided to actually tie the knot, which had meant having to miss his meeting, but being with the woman of his dreams had kind of not really allowed him to think of business all that much at the time. His manager would laugh and congratulate him.
True, they didn't really have to toss the marriage bit into it, but if it had only been a romantic tryst that went according to plan then he wouldn't have missed his meeting, so it was necessary to say that things had gotten a little carried away to explain why he hadn't shown up, or at the very leased called. Sesshoumaru could easily acquire a marriage certificate for the necessary date. He felt a little bad that it would mean screwing Kagome out of an actual wedding, but supposing they really had eloped last minute, then it didn't really seem too unreasonable that she'd still want to have a flashy ceremony later on.
Kagome's friends and coworkers would all just be jealous once they found out she had secretly been dating a billionaire, and they would be extremely happy for her that the gods had apparently blessed her romance by enabling it to save her life. If suddenly running away together with the man you love turned out to be directly responsible for preventing your death didn't just scream destiny, then he didn't know what did. Her parents they could tell the truth, so then that way when the media came by they could feign mild knowledge of the affair, stating that they'd know Kagome had been seeing somebody for the last couple of months, but that they'd yet to meet the man or find out who he was because Kagome hadn't yet been ready to tell them for fear of their reaction.
That part's true... Kagome snickered in her mind then, just imagining the way her grandfather was going to flip out when he found out she was actually spiritually mated to a hanyou. Hopefully, the fact that she was mated to Kenji Taisho would soften the blow. She knew her mother and father would just be happy for her, not to mention happy that she was still alive, and Souta would probably blow a gasket in his excitement.
His spiritual powers aren't as strong as mine, but he absolutely adores anything and everything that has to do with youkai, finding the whole thing 'totally awesome'... Kagome told her mate in her mind, sharing with him how her little brother didn't harbor any more ill will towards youkai than she did, and how during junior high he had actually been friends with a kitsune boy named Shippou that had been in one of his classes before the kit's family had moved away.
I can't wait to meet your family... Inuyasha replied with a mental chuckle, unsure if he was being sarcastic or not. She laughed aloud before snuggling closer into his embrace.
Closing the mental link between them, Inuyasha figured it would probably get too distracting trying to fall asleep if they each became privy to the other's wayward half-dreams as slumber started to consume them. Whispering his goodnights, Kagome murmured her reply before allowing her mind to drift away.
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They didn't know what time it was, although the night sky was still pitch black, when the sudden scream of youki crashing down all around them ripped them both from their slumber. Inuyasha suddenly knew how it'd felt for Kagome the previous morning when the return of his own youkai powers after the moonless night had startled her awake. Bolting to his feet and instinctively reaching for the sword that wasn't there, he mentally swore while taking a few calming breaths, while Kagome frantically knocked on the mental link in desperation to be let into his brain as she reached for a branch and charged it with her powers while taking a defensive stance.
"It's all right..." he assured her after a second, opening the link. "That's Sesshoumaru."
Kagome immediately relaxed while letting her powers deflate, taking a step back on instinct though not recharging her reiki as a bright white ball of energy around the height of a person suddenly descended from the sky, transforming in a blinding blast of power into a rather stunning, though also incredibly intimidating looking man. A man with waist-length silver hair and pointed ears, with duel magenta stripes on each cheek and a blue crescent moon on his forehead. His youki was so unbelievably powerful that Kagome found she actually had to concentrate in order to see his glamour, that of your average Japanese businessman, though the waist-length hair was still there, only black. She knew she knew absolutely nothing about this man, but she couldn't help noticing the rather unkempt quality to his hair, not to mention his business attire, his light gray Gucci suit sporting more than a few wrinkles, his necktie hanging precariously loose. Inuyasha had described his elder brother as pompous and pristine, but under the circumstances, Kagome supposed his current appearance was understandable. He completely ignored her presence, at least at first, and even though his expression did not visibly change, she somehow got the distinct impression that his golden eyes looked relieved as they gazed Inuyasha's way.
Inuyasha had a thousand and one snarky remarks on the tip of his tongue, everything from 'It's about damn time' to 'You look like hell', but he also hadn't missed the noticeable relief in Sesshoumaru's gaze, and in that moment he decided to check his attitude at the door.
"Aniki..." he greeted quietly, allowing his own relief to show through. "It's good to see you."
"Likewise." Sesshoumaru replied in his usual monotone, though the single word to Inuyasha's ears was like his brother shouting his joy from the rooftops.
It was then that Sesshoumaru inhaled, his eyes going noticeably wider. Finally taking a moment to glance Kagome's way, his eyes immediately narrowed into dangerous slits, and snapping his gaze back to his younger brother, the daiyoukai demanded, in French, "Explain."
Taken aback, Inuyasha figured Sesshoumaru wanted theirs to be a private conversation. Apologizing to Kagome in his mind for seeming rude, he knew not to defy his brother in this and closed the link before replying in French, "You might want to have a seat, this is going to take a while."
Remaining silent and motionless, Inuyasha rolled his eyes, realizing his brother intended to stay standing right where he was, so he launched into a somewhat edited version of everything that had happened both before and after the crash. There was no point in trying to pretend that nothing had happened between he and Kagome since Sesshoumaru could obviously both smell their intimacy as well as sense their bonded auras, but he quickly decided that an unspoken truth was not a lie, leaving mention of exactly how they'd ended up having sex out of the picture. He did admit that the bond had originally begun by surprise, from both of their auras rising up on their own from their unknowingly shared desire to be together, neither of them aware on a conscious level that the bond would even be possible. He then admitted that, as soon as it'd dawned him what was happening, he had immediately gone forward with it, temporarily only thinking with his emotions, consequences be damned.
"I apologize as your beta for making such a drastic alteration to the foundation of our pack without your foreknowledge or consent." Inuyasha stated formally, having learned long ago that there was a time and a place to drop the spoiled brat routine and concede to his elder brother as alpha. "But..." he added then, asserting just a tiny bit of dominance to show that he wouldn't be pushed around when it came to his private life. "What's done is done, and I do not nor will I ever regret my decision to mate Kagome. She is my chosen."
Kagome had no idea what Inuyasha was saying; any hope of actually, neatly getting to backhandedly learn French from reading his mind during his speech had been taken away by him closing the link between them after a brief apology, not that she blamed him, figuring that Sesshoumaru would have probably been able to sense it if the link had remained open. The reason for the language switch was obvious, though Kagome had to admit, even knowing already that her mate and for all intents and purposes husband was fluent in multiple languages, it was still rather impressive to hear him speak French so flawlessly. The only word she recognized so far was her own name, though it didn't take a genius to figure out what Inuyasha was telling his brother, even if he hadn't addressed her by name during his explanation. She waited with bated breath for the daiyoukai's reaction.
Gazing Kagome's way after Inuyasha's final statement, Sesshoumaru remained silent a moment longer, his eyes seemingly piercing her very soul as he apparently took a moment to assess the girl. Recognizing this, Kagome squared her shoulders, refusing to back down in the face of his obvious scrutiny, raising a single eyebrow in silent challenge after his gaze lingered much longer than what she personally felt was necessary. Was he trying to wear her down by making her sweat it out? She might not be able to beat him in a blinking contest, but aside from that minor detail she could hold her own in a staring contest without difficulty. He wouldn't intimidate her. If she could handle Inuyasha she could handle his brother.
Finally, after what seemed like forever, though it had probably been less than a minute, the daiyoukai spoke, in Japanese.
"You do not fear me." It was stated as fact.
Kagome smiled, immediately relaxing her posture.
"I do not." she replied honestly before bowing respectfully. She didn't fear him, but that didn't mean she didn't or wouldn't respect him. He was Inuyasha's elder brother, after all.
He turned back to Inuyasha.
"This complicates matters."
"We've already got our story all figured out, I just need your help with the details." Inuyasha said then.
After explaining, in Japanese, the story that he and Kagome had come up with, Sesshoumaru did have to admit that it was a plausible scenario. Fortunately, Inuyasha's supposed presence onboard that airplane had not been leaked to the media. He had been contacted by the human authorities earlier that morning, informing him of the tragedy they had been trying to reach him about for the last three days while he had been unattainable while playing host to one of their more important human business partners. Immediately operating under the presumption that his younger brother, half human though he may be, would not have died in such a crash, he had prevented the complication of the media's hunger for such a story before it had even begun by informing the authorities and the airline that there had been a mistake, and that while his brother had purchased a ticket under his own name it had been on behalf of an unfortunate acquaintance whose identity would remain anonymous, and that the airlines were not to release that his brother had been on board, because he had not been, and that the second in command of TaiCorp was in fact alive and well.
His second order of business had been to call their Los Angeles district manager, who had immediately asked Sesshoumaru upon receiving the late evening call if Inuyasha was all right before the daiyoukai had even had to worry about how to dance around inquiring whether or not the hanyou had made his meeting. He'd immediately assured his employee that everything was fine, and that Inuyasha had had other matters he'd needed to attend to last minute and would reschedule their meeting as soon as possible. Having left it so vague, the story he and his...wife...had come up with would fit perfectly. It stood to reason that he would've needed to go to the airport to collect the ticket that he had purchased in his own name on behalf of their 'anonymous companion' who had unfortunately perished in the crash, so to keep their stories straight with what he had already told the authorities, Inuyasha could state that while at the airport and also secretly seeing Kagome off, having known she was on that flight, he had then at the last minute convinced her to delay her departure and go with him to Hawaii. The excuse the hanyou and miko had come up with for why there was no computer records of them purchasing those tickets was plausible enough, and Sesshoumaru knew they had enough friends in the hotel industry to verify the 'rumor' that Inuyasha and Kagome had spent the last four nights at whichever hotel they decided to go with.
Glancing Kagome's way again, Sesshoumaru did something he never did in that moment, he sighed.
"I could spend the next five centuries lecturing you about how irresponsible your decision to mate a miko had been, but that would not alter the fact that your bonding was successful. I must say, I was unaware such a thing could be accomplished."
"So were we." Inuyasha admitted.
"Until you sensed its beginning and decided to go through with it." Sesshoumaru added dryly.
"Look," Inuyasha stated in a surprisingly soft tone of voice. "You can blame it on my human emotions all you want, and hell, you're probably right, but what's done is done."
"Indeed."
"I love Kagome." he insisted, receiving a stern glare from slightly narrowed eyes.
"A fleeting sentiment I have heard before."
It was Inuyasha's turn to narrow his eyes.
"Leave Kikyou out of this. I know you didn't like her, but she never did anything to you or the family. She was loyal till the day she died."
Sesshoumaru was mildly surprised by Inuyasha's words, once again shifting his gaze Kagome's way for a split second.
"What?" the miko chimed sarcastically. "Were you expecting me to go all human-emotional and ask 'Who's Kikyou' or something? I know all about Inuyasha's late wife from last century. Believe it or not, your brother actually told me a lot about himself, so my feelings aren't shallow or misguided. I know very well the man I've fallen in love with."
"Half-brother." Sesshoumaru corrected.
Kagome rolled her eyes. "Whatever."
Smirking, Sesshoumaru turned back to the hanyou and admitted, "Perhaps you two are perfect for each other, after all. She certainly seems to share some of your...less desirable qualities."
Kagome quirked a brow Inuyasha's way at that.
"He means we're both overly emotional and quick to have sharp tongues." he translated, chuckling a bit despite himself.
Sesshoumaru didn't need to add that after he'd gotten off the phone with Los Angeles and made a couple of other calls he had immediately fled in an attempt to retrace the plane's flight, finding first the scene of the crash and spending some time scouring the ocean before expanding his search and finally locating them on the tiny island. From his rumpled business attire, it was obvious to Inuyasha that Sesshoumaru had left straight from work, and hadn't been back since. He found it a tremendous compliment, in a way, that the daiyoukai had immediately believed that he must have survived the crash, giving testament to his strength as a daiyoukai, himself, despite being half human. The truth was Inuyasha was fairly fire resistant, and while blunt force trauma could theoretically render him unconscious, had he been injured in the crash and perhaps in danger of drowning, it was much more likely that he would have transformed, especially since he didn't have Tetsusaiga, which would have immediately reawakened him and healed any injuries he could have possibly sustained. The only way he really could have died in the crash would be if he had been decapitated. He had been both stabbed and shot before, including being run clean through the middle and shot in the heart. While it took him longer to heal from more severe injuries because of his human blood, he really did seem to be nearly as indestructible as a full-blooded youkai when it came to surviving bodily injury. If he could survive being thrown into the side of a mountain so hard that his body indented the earth in an Inuyasha-shaped crater over one foot deep, then he could survive a plane crash in the ocean, and that had just been during one of their arguments back when he'd been a snot-nosed, bratty adolescent.
Yes, Sesshoumaru had been fairly certain that his half-brother had survived the crash, and presuming he was conscious and relatively unharmed, he had also believed that the hanyou would successfully remain hidden from any and all human rescue crews that had been scouring the area to recover bodies. He hadn't been careless enough to dismiss the possibility altogether of Inuyasha having died in the crash, though, as unlikely a scenario as it was, and just on the off-chance he'd planted some trusted youkai officials to examine the remains of everybody recovered from the flight, though he had not told them whom they were looking for. Telling them only that he suspected a hanyou might have possibly been on board from an anonymous tip - a physical necessity for any hanyou that needed to fly out of the country - they were told only to double-check that all of the deceased were human. They were under direct orders to immediately send somebody to his location to inform him of the news if a non-human were found, merely under the pretence of needing to keep their secret under wraps as a united species in hiding, but as time had ticked by and he'd yet to hear from anyone or find his brother, alive or otherwise, Sesshoumaru had grown contradictively more relieved and worried with every passing minute. He would probably not be able to keep it a secret from the rest of the inu clan that Inuyasha had been the hanyou in question, but so long as their story was convincing enough for the human world he presently didn't care if word got out within youkai society. In the grand scale of things, from a youkai's point of view, this was truly no more catastrophic than Inuyasha's car having broken down and him having to go and retrieve him. Yes, it was tragic that all of those humans had lost their lives, but that had not been Inuyasha's doing, and besides, they were mortal; it had only been a matter of time before they all would have died anyway by some other means.
When upon expanding his search he had finally located his brother's aura coming from the tiny island, an energy signature that had been weaker in power than during full wakefulness because Inuyasha had been asleep at the time, Sesshoumaru had been so overcome with relief that he hadn't honestly given much thought to the miko's presence. He had been fully aware of the human woman standing beside his brother, of course, but easily sensing her reiki he had brushed off her presence as somebody his brother must have rescued during the crash. It honestly didn't surprise him that Inuyasha would do such a thing, considering his general compassion for humans as a whole, and despite their instinctual unease when it came to reiki users, the fact that she was a spiritualist definitely meant that Inuyasha had been able to rescue her without the added repercussions of the act having caused him to reveal himself to somebody not previously in the know. He had thought it a kind gesture, an act of a Good Samaritan; not something most pureblooded youkai would have probably bothered to do, although he couldn't even say with conviction that he himself would have allowed a miko to die in the crash if he'd had the opportunity to save her. Good deeds paved the way to good public relations, after all. But upon finally catching a whiff of their combined scents, of the lingering pungent twang of his brother's seed coming from within the miko's body, not to mention the unmistakable mixing of their auras, Sesshoumaru had, for the first time, been at a complete loss.
Demanding an explanation had been the only thing he could think of to say, initially, and when he had stated that her presence complicated matters, he couldn't even be sure if he'd been referring to her presence in general, in that it would be inconvenient to have to come up with a way to explain her disappearance while reassuring the public that she had not actually died in that crash, or if he'd been referring to her bonding with Inuyasha. After all, they were two rather separate issues. 'Leaking' a story to the media that Inuyasha had whisked his secret lover away for a few days, unknowingly saving her life in the process, and coming forward and announcing their relationship as a means of clearing the mistaken record of her death was a perfectly plausible scenario for the human world. They would eat it hook, line and sinker, and spout nonsense of fairytales and destiny. He would've been faced with having to create a similar story regardless of her true relationship with Inuyasha in order for her to reenter the human world, so the fact that their romance was actually real, now, didn't really hurt anything and probably actually helped matters, from that side of things at least. But how was he supposed to go on as the head of the inu clan as if nothing had happened with a miko as a permanent, bonded soul-mate to his second in command? There would have to be public introductions, most of which would probably feel more like interrogations; he would let his brother handle the honors of digging himself out of his own hole, in that regard.
Still, despite everything, he was glad to see Inuyasha alive. Though he was loath to admit it, the hanyou was family. The only direct family he had...though he supposed as he thought about it that that wasn't true any longer. The miko was family as well, now. Her offspring, even if they should be purely human, would be related to him by blood. That change would either help bring the youkai and spiritualists closer together, or act as a giant slap in the face to both sides with the youkai considering Inuyasha a traitor and likewise the spiritualists disowning Kagome. He honestly didn't care what the spiritualists thought of the girl, though any potential troublemakers on his side would have to be dealt with quickly to reassert their family dominance. Not a task he was looking forward to.
"Sesshoumaru-sama..." said miko spoke up in that moment, pulling the daiyoukai from his thoughts while earning a frown from her mate, who didn't like the idea of her sucking up to his brother. But Kagome had easily been able to sense the troubled thoughts running through her brother-in-law's mind, and her ability to sense them had nothing to do with her bond with Inuyasha or her powers as a miko. Sesshoumaru might usually act all tough and emotionless, but in that moment, at least to her, the worry and stress he was feeling was as plain to her as the moon on his face.
Clearing her throat, she glanced Inuyasha's way for a moment with a loving smile before focusing her gaze on the daiyoukai once more. "I mean no disrespect to you or your family." she began, wanting to be as respectful as possible. "I truly do have feelings for Inuyasha, and as his bonded mate, I have every intention of remaining loyal to him and your people for the rest of my newly extended life. I am sure you must know that in order for the bond to form the feelings of both people have to be genuine, and the spiritualists know this as well. You can rest assured that I am not a double agent, and they will not think me kidnapped, not that I was even theirs to steal in the first place. I may be a miko, but I'm an independent. My life belongs to me. I don't work for the spiritual sect and I never have, and if they don't like me being mated to your brother then quite frankly they can kiss my ass. I love Inuyasha and that's all there is to it. " she finished, smirking her mate's way as he laughed.
"Hn." Sesshoumaru murmured noncommittally.
Turning back to his brother, he said in Japanese, so as not to hide his words from the girl, "I do not approve of your tendency to act without thinking, but your transgression in this matter is forgiven. Your actions cannot be undone, so there is little to accomplish by scolding your lack of judgment. Whether or not you have chosen wisely is yet to be seen, but it is true that she is your mate regardless of my personal feelings on the matter. She will be protected by the pack."
Inuyasha sighed, visibly relieved. "Thank you."
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The trio wasted no time getting down to business. Sesshoumaru could expand his youki and carry others with him, though to do so in that instance would be dangerous as they would be risking the detection of Kagome and Inuyasha as they approached land, the pair obviously not able to transform themselves into balls of energy as he could, so the daiyoukai left his younger sibling and his new bride on the tiny unnamed island while he went to Hawaii to begin preparations. Since that was where their story was going to state that Inuyasha had taken Kagome, then that needed to be where they would be found.
Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha were well known among the Japanese youkai in Hawaii, and he had a few trusted individuals in mind that owed him some favors. The elder Taisho brother returned for the hanyou and miko around midday with a set of borrowed concealment charms that produced invisibility cloaks, allowing the two corporeal beings to fly with him without being spotted. With the glare of the sun and dismissals of tricks of the light as his cover, Sesshoumaru flew them all the way into the open balcony window of a high-rise penthouse hotel suite that, according to the computer system, had been reserved by Kenji Taisho around five minutes before takeoff of a flight to Hawaii that had been scheduled for departure a mere half hour after their Los Angeles flight. Kagome immediately contacted her family via Sesshoumaru's secure cell phone, informing her tearful mother that she was still alive and that she had a lot that she needed to tell them and would be calling back shortly. The second thing she did was jump in the shower, grateful that her new brother-in-law had provided modest clothing for her to wear. Kagome wasn't going to change who she was or how she dressed just because she was married to a billionaire. Or would be...though she supposed the story would have to state that they were already married as of that date. Sesshoumaru had said the backdated marriage license would be arriving for them to sign shortly.
The story played out pretty much according to plan. Inuyasha did a very convincing job on the phone when he finally spoke with his Los Angeles manager himself, pretending that he had asked his brother 'Kenichi' to call the previous day in apology for having missed the meeting. He told him the story as rehearsed, dropping the bomb that he and his secret girlfriend had gotten carried away during their rendezvous, actually tying the knot, and that he couldn't be happier. His manager had been disbelieving, but in that friendly, good buddy, 'Dude, no way!' type of way that Inuyasha had known would be his reaction, congratulating his CEO before telling him that everything was running smoothly at the company and to enjoy his honeymoon before worrying about business.
Fortunately, not every one of Kagome's friends in LA paid all that much attention to the news, and those who had heard about the tragedy of the plane crash had not immediately put two and two together because nobody had known exactly when Kagome's flight home had been. They'd known only that she was on vacation back in Japan, and since that day was actually the last scheduled day of her vacation she had not yet been 'missing' for those who hadn't been privy to a list of the people on board the doomed flight. A few of her coworkers had begun to worry in the back of their minds if she could have possibly been on board, a concern that had grown when calls to her cell had repeatedly gone straight to voicemail, but Kagome put everyone's minds at ease when she called into work to apologize that she wasn't going to be back to work on time the next day because her vacation plans had changed. Kagome had more honor than to simply quit her job outright and did plan on giving her official two-week notice so that they could find a replacement, but that wasn't something she felt needed to be discussed over the phone, merely calling out for the next day without concern of the tiny ding on her attendance record. Getting back on the phone with her family next, she filled them in as much as she felt she could over the phone, wanting to leave certain things for when she could see them in person, though for the sake of her family possibly getting hounded by the media she did have to come clean with regard to most of what had happened, in a highly edited manner, of course. She told her mother that there had been a 'special' person on board who had saved her life, confessing with a cringe while pulling the phone away from her ear that that special person was the second in command of TaiCorp. After her mother was done squealing like a little girl, the elder Higurashi woman calmed down enough for Kagome to explain how, in order to explain her 'disappearance' presuming she'd missed her flight, that the story had to go that she and Kenji were in a secret relationship.
"That's not really a lie, though...at least not any more. I promise I'll explain more as soon as I can come back out there again, but Mama...we're married." she told her mom briefly, warning her that they were bound to get hounded by the media because of it, while also assuring her briefly that their feelings were real and that it wasn't a sham marriage.
While the news hadn't been as big about it in Los Angeles as far as who, specifically, had died in that crash, the names - all but one - had by that time been released and available on the Internet for anyone who cared to look it up. Her family had been officially contacted about her demise later the same morning of the crash, and all of her friends and extended family back in Tokyo had all thought that she'd perished. It was necessary to get the rumor mill turning as quickly as possible. Her family was instructed to feign only a faint knowledge of the fact that she'd been dating somebody whom they'd been yet to meet or learn much about, Kagome admittedly keeping her blossoming romance a secret from her family for fear of their reactions. It would have been too unbelievable to assume they had suspected nothing if she'd tried to keep it a secret from them entirely, so it was better and more convincing all the way around for her family to instead 'admit' they'd known there'd been a boyfriend. She did live in Los Angeles, after all, so it stood to reason that they wouldn't have ever met the guy, assuming from her lack of details that he lived there too instead of actually traveling back and forth. She supposedly had also not told them that at the last minute she'd ended up going with him to Hawaii instead of back to Los Angeles, to keep her parents' reactions genuine when they had first been informed of her presumed death, and so only now hearing about the crash after finally crawling out of their hotel room Kagome had called home in a panic to inform her family that she was in fact still alive and well. Inuyasha, or 'Kenji' as she was practicing getting in the habit of calling him for fear of having a slipup while out in public, knew that word of his new wife's tragic death had to be corrected, so he made a personal call to the people in charge of such things to inform them of the error and to void the file of her death certificate, knowing full well that that alone was all that was needed to get the stories flying.
Kagome and Inuyasha left their hotel the following morning with a decent sized group of reporters and photographers in their faces. Kagome's reaction was fairly genuine, since she'd never before experienced such a thing, so her shock and disorientation were not faked. No matter how much she'd thought she'd prepared herself, there was truly no way to know what that sort of thing was like until you experienced it for yourself. The only part of her reaction she had to cover up was the secret relief she felt that their plan had been successful. Over and over again in countless interviews she told the same story, that she'd had no idea her plane had gone down, and how shocked she'd felt when she'd found out, immediately knowing that she had to call home to let her family know she was all right. She 'hadn't meant' for her relationship with Kenji Taisho to explode to such proportions, media wise, but the fact that him whisking her away had coincidentally ended up saving her life just screamed destiny as far as she was concerned. For Inuyasha's side of things, he stated in an official interview that he and Kagome had been dating for the last two months, and that he had wanted to shield her from the spotlight solely for the simple fact that she was a normal girl, and he hadn't wanted to frighten her away. You can't control who you fall in love with, and the fact that she was nobody famous didn't matter to him. They'd met purely by chance...part of the story they had worked out in their spare time, each telling the same tale of how he'd gone into the store she worked at in LA and she'd helped him. He'd realized she had no idea who he was, and it was so refreshing getting treated like a normal man that he'd had to go back and see her again. He'd ended up asking her out on a date, which led to two and three, and she didn't find out who he was until after the third date, when she'd expressed more amazement that he was interested in her, not suddenly turning into a gold digger. He'd known he'd found a keeper then, and so he'd continued to see her every time he was in LA.
Fortunately, because he usually took his private jet, there were no public records to forge for how often he'd truly traveled back and forth or how long he'd stayed during each visit.
The story continued to go that they had been together in Japan during her recent return home, and he had intended to see her off at the airport but at the last minute had decided to whisk her away to Hawaii to enjoy the last few days of her vacation alone together in paradise. Getting married had happened quite at the last minute, quite unexpectedly, but he did not regret his decision. It was a fairytale come true as far as the human media was concerned, and Kagome quickly became dubbed a modern-day princess, her Prince Charming having come in to sweep her off her feet. The fact that he'd unknowingly at the time also ended up saving her life just made it that much more of a fairytale, the prince saving his true love from certain doom, and because Kagome was from a shrine family, she commented in a public statement that she believed the kami had had a hand in it, both wishing to save her from death as well as blessing their union.
The possible inconsistent curiosity that was Kenji Taisho purchasing a ticket for that flight himself was swept under the rug by law enforcement as an unrelated incident that the Taisho family did not wish to discuss out of respect for the individual who had perished, and it was never brought up again and remained completely out of the media. It was declared, however, that after realizing how close he'd come to losing Kagome, Kenji's heart went out to the families of everyone else who had not been so lucky, and TaiCorp made official donations to the survivors of everyone who had died. Secretly, Inuyasha felt guilty that he had not been able to save them, but since there was no way he was responsible for their deaths, either in reality or in the public eye, Sesshoumaru did not discourage Inuyasha from going forward with the small donations that were not only tax deductible but would ultimately improve their image in the public eye.
Inuyasha stayed with Kagome for the two weeks she wanted to finish up work at her job, which primarily consisted of training her replacement; another girl they just transferred from within. Everyone was far too giddy asking Kagome countless questions about her exposed love life to focus on work, but the miko had insisted on doing things by the book, as far as leaving her place of employment only after proper notice had been given, and Inuyasha respected that about her. He spent the time apartment shopping and ended up finding the perfect place to buy for he and Kagome to make their new home since the girl still wanted to live in LA. It really was more convenient for him to be in the states, anyway, since that was where his office was located.
Going back to Tokyo after she was through with her job, Kagome had a tearful reunion with her family. Up until that moment they'd known only that Kenji Taisho was apparently a youkai - not necessarily surprising when they considered the family history of that company and how far back the Taisho name truly dated - but they had not known that Inuyasha was actually a hanyou, or that he and Kagome were soul-bonded. As predicted, Souta completely flipped out, in a good way, asking Kagome if she could do any cool youkai magic tricks now, while her mother and father primarily expressed their relief that she was alive and well. Her grandfather eyed Inuyasha skeptically, the hanyou having removed his concealment charm while in their home so as not to seem as though he was hiding anything, and finally the old man told him that even he knew his feelings for Kagome had to be real in order for the bond to have taken.
"Don't you dare ever even think about hurting my grandbaby's feelings or you won't need to wear a concealment charm any more, you got that?" her Jii-chan threatened...an empty threat since Inuyasha could easily sense that he had nowhere near the amount of power necessary to turn him human, even temporarily, though he nodded his consent nonetheless.
Of course, it wasn't surprising that Kagome's family wanted her to have an official Shinto wedding, but with only a small amount of persuasion on Inuyasha's part they were convinced to wait a few months. The negative gossip was already starting to circulate that Kagome must have gotten pregnant, that she must just have been after him for his money even if she was pretending otherwise, so the easiest way to clear up that tabloid rumor was to wait until more than enough time had passed to reveal that she was still just as skinny as ever before going forward with a public wedding ceremony in Japan. There would always be negative media whenever a story such as theirs first breaks out, but Kagome could handle it, and she spent the next week in Japan meeting with youkai officials. There was a whole other world besides the human story of the modern-day princess, after all, and so it was finally time for introductions to be made on Inuyasha's side of the family.
The pack had already known, thanks to the human media, that Inuyasha had gotten married, and presumably to a human miko considering she was reportedly from a shrine family, but it was not until she actually stepped foot in the same room as the youkai elders that they realized the girl was soul-bonded to Inuyasha. That immediately caused an entirely different type of stir. Fortunately, nobody was foolish enough to chastise Inuyasha on his choice of mate; he was certainly not the first hanyou to have ever married a human. It was the simple fact that they were bonded that caused the most stir, nobody having realized that youki and reiki would or could be compatible in such a way. The discovery unfortunately did not open any doors for youkai married to normal humans who longed to bond with them because reiki was something you simply had to be born with, and normal humans could not acquire the force needed to bond with their youkai partners, but it did look as though her union with Inuyasha would pave the way towards more compliance between the races rather than labeling each of them a traitor to their own kind.
Kagome also complied with meeting with the top officials of the local spiritual sect, allowing them to 'scan' her - not with any type of machine, but with their minds - confirming for themselves that she did possess youki within her system that was not affected in any way by her natural reiki. She could still bring her reiki forward, charging an object with her power. Having her fire a bow in demonstration, Kagome missed the target a few times, and never got near the bull's-eye, but there was little doubt as to the strength of her purifying arrows. The greater shock came to everyone when she next tried to bring up her youki and found that she could do that as well, though she couldn't use it to the same extent that her husband and mate could, expelling blades of energy from his very fingertips. Perhaps with practice. Inuyasha, who had voluntarily gone with her for fear of what the spirituals might want Kagome to do, also demonstrated his own ability to channel reiki, not to the same levels that Kagome could, but strong enough that they could sense it within him. There was speculation that during his next human cycle, his reiki would remain and therefore turn him into a spiritual human himself, able to see through concealment charms and utilize other reiki abilities without his youki functioning as a hindrance. It could be a safety mechanism within his body of not wanting to risk harming his youki that prevented the reiki within him from rising to full strength while in his hanyou form. He refused to let them know when his human time was, but did concede to reporting back at a later date with whatever information he'd discovered at that time. So far the sect had nothing but theories, they would require further testing to make any kind of determinations, but Kagome actually liked the idea of being a trail blazer in this regard and complied with their request to meet once a year for monitoring.
Once rumors of her pregnancy died down and would not taint her wedding day, Inuyasha began working with her family to plan the perfect wedding. It would be a traditional Shinto ceremony, but they would spare no expense when it came to their robes, her wig and accessories, the sake or the food. He did agree to have the wedding at her family shrine, not wanting to take any of Kagome's childhood dreams away from her. Security was tight but with some strategically placed holes, so a few photos of the wedding were leaked to the media. It was another first in the youkai underground, since no youkai or hanyou until Inuyasha had ever participated in a Shinto wedding ceremony, considering part of the ceremony involved being spiritually purified by a houshi, but under the circumstances, the houshi who performed the ceremony simply held back use of any of his actual powers, going through the motions for the sake of the ceremony without risk of injuring the groom. Nobody believed the kami would be angered by their union, because if that were true then the bond should not have been permitted to form in the first place. Even the purist of the spiritualists had to admit that Inuyasha had not 'corrupted' Kagome. Back a few hundred years ago they might have believed that she had somehow or another been manipulated or possessed by him, but in today's world there was a combination of spirituality and science at work in their philosophy, and the science end of things simply dictated that Kagome had to have been a willing participant. If it were not for Inuyasha, Kagome would be dead. That was a truth no matter which version of the story they were aware of, so it was clear in everyone's minds that the kami had indeed blessed their union.
Deciding to wait a few years before having children, so that she could more fully focus on her career, Kagome went back with Inuyasha to their new penthouse in Los Angeles and immediately hit the books to finish medical school. After acquiring her license, she got hired on as a normal pediatrician at a normal human clinic, and decided to work there for a few years to pick up some experience while working in secret with her husband to get her own facility commissioned. That would take time, because whenever it came to anything in the youkai underground, slow and steady won the race. They couldn't risk tipping off the human media that Kenji Taisho himself was somehow involved, so it required going through some backward channels to get other youkai owned and operated companies on board to help out. Eventually, though, Kagome saw her plan start to come to fruition. Slipping out of the public eye under the ruse of becoming a private doctor for the wealthy, Kagome kept her guise for the human world honest by indeed making the occasional house call to families so 'important' the doctor was hired to go to them instead of them bringing their children to the doctor. It wasn't as if she were going to become racist against 'normal' humans, after all, and being the wife of a billionaire did sort of put her at a higher level in the medical world than the nurses and doctors working fourteen-hour shifts in overcrowded hospitals. Her new career style left her open with plenty of time to work in her secret clinic which got set up in a smaller town within LA County.
It was true that hers wasn't the only secret youkai clinic in Southern California, but it was also true that hers was the only free youkai clinic in Southern California. It was quite the switch off to go from treating spoiled rich human children in their own bedrooms in their families' multi-million dollar mansions to treating youkai and hanyou children whose families were on welfare, but she was happy with her career choice. Being a private doctor was what she did on occasion so that the public eye wouldn't wonder where she'd disappeared to or what she was doing with herself, but her secret free clinic was truly her passion. While she couldn't be there personally every single day of the week, she hired herself a staff of competent youkai, hanyou and normie-in-the-know doctors whose respect for her as their boss was as strong as their desire to help less fortunate families who could not, for obvious reasons, go to the human free clinics. While no youkai hospital would turn somebody away, just like in the human world the families would receive a medical bill afterwards, but such was not the case with Kagome's clinic. They accepted donations, not that they truly needed anyway, but families who could not afford to pay were never issued a bill.
They weren't really a hospital, and they couldn't perform more intricate surgical procedures, but it was also true that in the case of pureblooded youkai, and in most cases with hanyou as well, surgery was not even needed to treat most injuries because their bodies would eventually heal themselves, so in addition to normal check-ups and issuing out youkai-grade prescriptions, Kagome's clinic also provided hospital beds for the injured to rest until fully recovered if they had nowhere else to go.
Though it was rare, they also received the occasional spiritualist patient, if it were the same type of situation where the miko or houshi's family was poor and could not afford medical insurance or a payment plan at any of the spiritual-run clinics. Kagome's was open to everybody 'in the know' regardless to their personal species, and being a miko herself she had more than a fair share of knowledge when it came to dealing with what it meant to grow up different from everybody else. She would always make sure to be there to personally see the spiritual children as they came in for anything as routine as a chickenpox vaccination to as serious as a broken bone, knowing the kids found comfort in having someone they could openly talk to about the world they lived in. Especially if being a spiritualist were somehow related to their accident, like a fight at school with a youkai child. They could actually tell her the truth when she asked what'd happened.
The world didn't change overnight, not that Kagome had expected it to, with regard to the views youkai and spiritualists had for each other, but as she and Inuyasha continued to check in with both the American and Japanese branches of the spiritual sect on an annual basis so that their soul-bond could be examined, the proof was in the pudding, as the saying went, as to the continual compatibility the couple shared both on a spiritual as well as physical level. They really were more alike than different, fundamentally. Two sides of the same coin, as Inuyasha had thought about it that day on the airplane that seemed so far away now. Word had eventually spread throughout the inu clan of Sesshoumaru having been frantically looking for a hanyou survivor from that crash, and so just about everyone in the Japanese youkai underground new the truth of Inuyasha's relationship with Kagome, at least to a point, in that they had in fact been on board that flight and that he had saved her life during the crash itself, but most of them did not know that he had actually met the girl on that flight. Most believed the story that they had already been dating, believing the cover of going to Hawaii had only been fabricated to prevent the human world from learning of how they had actually survived the crash. Most also believed that the bonding had taken place on the island, thus requiring the necessity of saying they had eloped, but that the strong feelings that had arisen between them to trigger the bond had been brought on by sharing together such a tragic experience in which he had almost lost her due to her mortality. It wasn't really anybody's business that they hadn't known each other at all and had fallen in love so quickly, and in the years that followed their love for one another stayed genuine.
When it finally came time to start a family of their own Kagome didn't hesitate to make love to her husband in his full-youkai form to produce a hanyou child, and that, they believed, would be the bond that forever united their peoples. A hanyou child, multiple hanyou children, born from a miko mother, would not be something the world could ignore forever. Kagome just hoped they would all have their father's ears.

~ Fin ~
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