Kagome sat on the edge of a cliff watching the sun set in the horizon. They only had one more shard to find and then the battle with Naraku to get the shards he has. She was torn about the whole situation. On one hand the jewel was almost complete, on the other once it’s complete, she dies and will take many lives with her. Of course she would do the right thing and be rid of Naraku and his evil once and for all. Yet, she couldn’t stop the silent tears from falling at the thought of what was going to happen to all the hanyous and youkais of the world. Especially a certain four that have grown close to her heart.
This brought her to think about a stoic demon lord that was currently standing behind her leaning against a tree. They had spent many quiet and not so quiet times alone together. They would either talk about trivial stuff or have deep debates about who she was and her feelings or his lack of feelings. He avoided questions about his past, but would insist that she share hers with him. Then sometimes they would just sit there in silence.
Granted his desire for wanting her dead never changed, but she could tell that his reasons for wanting her dead have changed, along with her feelings for him. She first regarded him as an enemy, then an acquaintance, a companion, a friend, a crush, and now her heart told her it loved him.
How she could love someone who lusts for her death was beyond her, but she did. It wasn’t something that happened overnight, but something that was two years in the making. Two years he had been with her, following her, watching her, conversing with her, and even the occasional protection of her. She had come to terms with her love for Inuyasha. She would always love him, but the heart can only take unrequited love for so long, before it moves on.
Boy did it ever move on, right on to the elder brother of her first love. Of course, he would never return her love, just as Inuyasha never did. Why did she seem to fall in love with those who would never love her back? As if he was reading her mind Sesshoumaru answered her question.
“You are truly weak.”
Kagome didn’t turn to face the man behind her. “That I am.”
He walked over and stood next to her. “You talk bravely of your fate, but you fear it.”
Kagome sighed, he would never understand. “I am not like you Sesshoumaru. Yes I know what is to be my fate, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Although my heart beats the same as yours does, it doesn’t mean its surrounded in ice like yours. Mine feels. It feels pain, happiness, anger, jealousy, desire, hatred, and love.”
Sesshoumaru gave a snort at her weakness. “You assume that I feel nothing, which means you know nothing.”
“I never said you feel nothing, you just hide your feelings behind a block of ice. You fear that your heart will make you weak, but if you remove the ice that surrounds it you will find it actually makes you stronger.”
“Your heart is not what makes you strong, power does.”
Now it was Kagome’s turn to snort at his weakness. “Let me ask you this then. What do you suppose makes Inuyasha overcome all those that try to hold him down or kill him? What is it that makes Naraku desire so much power? What is it inside you that make you want my death so badly?”
Sesshoumaru looked down at the girl at his feet.
“Inuyasha overcomes because of the pain that being a hanyou has caused him. Naraku desires power because of his anger. And you Sesshoumaru, want my death because of your hatred of me. Pain, desire, and hate. All three of those things come from the heart. It just all depends on which emotion you tap into the most that dictates who and what you are.”
“Tell me miko who and what are you?”
Kagome looked up at the man her heart cried for. “I am someone who loves what I shouldn’t, but gains happiness knowing that even though that love will never be returned, I will at least have memories of the time I spent with the one I love.”
She stood up and left before he could question her further. She didn’t want to hear his rejection were he to pry into her heart.
Sesshoumaru stood there looking up at the night sky. He knew whom she loved and despised her for it. She should hate him not love him. He wanted her dead, yet she loved him. Why? Silly humans and their emotions, this is why they die so easily.
‘Miko your love for me is wasted. I want nothing from you but your death.’ He thought as he stared up into the sky.
~
Kagome walked to the well; excited about the much-needed break she was about to get. It had been almost two months since she was home last, and couldn’t wait to see her family.
Her trip to the well wasn’t made alone, she had her never-ending shadow behind her. Inuyasha had accepted Sesshoumaru’s need to follow her around about six months after Sesshoumaru joined their little group. In a way, he seemed almost relieved that he no longer needed to worry about her going off by herself and being attacked. He didn’t know that she couldn’t die, the only one who knew that was Sesshoumaru, and it would stay that way.
She walked up to the well and ran her hand across the warped wood. “Would you like to come with me?”
Sesshoumaru’s eyes widened a fraction. Was she really asking him to go to the future with her? Did she not worry that he might kill her family were he to actually go?
“I guess not. You know I’m not worried about you doing anything were you to go. It’s only me and my death that concerns you.” She turned and looked up at the demon standing next to her. “Besides your honor wouldn’t let you harm my family.”
Sesshoumaru looked at her impassively. “What makes you so certain?”
Giving him what she had deemed her Sesshoumaru smile, actually it was more of a slight smirk. “What would you have to gain from killing them? Nothing. You want my death, not my pain.”
Sesshoumaru just stood there. Again, she was right, which drove him mad. Why was she always right in her assumptions of him? Plus he was rather curious as to what the future was like, but he would never say it.
Kagome sat on the well with her legs dangling over the edge. “Last chance. If you want to go you better come on now.”
Sesshoumaru regarded her for a moment, then took a step towards her. His curiosity was driving him mad, he just had to see where she was from.
Kagome grinned widely and held out her hand to him. “You have to hold my hand, otherwise you won’t be able to pass.”
Sesshoumaru cringed on the inside but reached out and grabbed her hand anyway. He felt himself being surrounded by a blue white light and then the hard ground beneath his feet.
No longer was he standing in a hole open to a blue sky above, but a hole surrounded by darkness. He looked up only to see a roof covering the well.
“Well here we are.” Kagome said while looking up at the dazed demon. “Come on.” She began to climb up the ladder.
Sesshoumaru leapt out of the well and looked around the darkened building. There was nothing on the inside except a few steps leading up to a sliding door, and the well in the center of the room. He waited for the girl to climb out of the well, while wondering if this was really where she lived.
Kagome climbed out of the well and could tell by the look on his face that he thought that she lived inside the well house. She shook her head and headed for the doors to the well house. “Come on.” She said as she opened to the doors lighting up the dark room.
Sesshoumaru was bombarded with so many different scents that he felt as if his nose had been overloaded. He looked around and the only thing familiar to his eyes was the great tree that Inuyasha had been pinned too. He followed her out the door, amazed at all the buildings and the strange beasts that flew by on what looked to be a black road.
“Well come on.” Kagome called back to the demon standing there in a trance. When she noticed that he wasn’t making a move to follow she ran up and grabbed him by the hand pulling him towards the house.
~
“So what do you think?”
Kagome and Sesshoumaru were sitting on a bench in the park looking out over the pond that Kagome had bathed in more times than she could remember 500 years ago.
“Why do I sense no youkai or hanyous around?”
Kagome tried really hard not to respond physically to that question. She knew why there were none around, but she couldn’t tell him, and no matter what she said he would know that she was lying. Therefore, she just settled for a shrug of her shoulders in a manner saying that she didn’t know.
“Do not presume to play dumb with me. You know why there are none around and you will tell me.”
Kagome sighed and looked up at the demon sitting next to her. It took several hours of arguing to get him to change into more modern clothes, and even more hours in trying to get him to leave his swords at the house. When she first showed him around the house, she could tell that his curiosity was trying to get the better of him. She would see his fingers twitch to touch something that caught his attention, but he never did. She knew that he liked to know about everyone and everything, and here he was in a place where he knew practically nothing. She offered to take him back if it was too much for him, but he insisted on staying.
“Sesshoumaru I can’t tell you. I have been forbidden to do so.”
He turned his hard glare on her. “It matters not. You will tell me.”
“Do you honestly expect me to betray my honor bound pact? You wouldn’t were it you, so why should I?”
Sesshoumaru was impressed that she held an honor bound pact to be so important to her. Moreover, there she was again being ‘all’ right about what he would do. “Very well. Then tell me this. If you know what is to be your fate, why do you not stay here in your time and avoid it?”
Kagome turned to face the pond. “If I don’t accept my fate and follow through with it Naraku wins. He will use what shards he does have to become more powerful. He will devastate the world and plunge it into darkness. None can stop him, even you. My death is the only way to rid the world of the jewel and to be rid of Naraku.”
Sesshoumaru watched the girl intently. As much as she tried to be brave about the whole situation, he could see that she was afraid and hurt. Yet, he knew that when the time came she would face her destiny proudly as a strong warrior should. She had just gained another notch in his respect-o-meter. She needed to die.
~
Sesshoumaru sat on the strange high off the ground bed covered in, of all things pink linen. He watched the girl as she went through books and papers to study for a test she had to take the next day at some place called school.
“Why do you waste your time, when you know your death is to come?”
Kagome shrugged a shoulder at him. “I guess because even though I will die for the shikon no tama, I am still alive right now. So long as I am still alive now I might as well hold to my responsibilities.”
Sesshoumaru snorted at this. “What you are saying make no sense. Knowing of your death, you shouldn’t worry about things that will bare no consequence to your future. By doing so only indicates that there is a possibility that you will survive.”
Kagome laughed at that. “You have made it perfectly clear that were I to survive you would kill me anyway.”
“You are correct. So tell me why you waste your time with these trivial matters with nothing to gain from them.”
Kagome turned around to look at the demon sitting on her bed. “You know Sesshoumaru I could ask you the same thing.”
Sesshoumaru raised an eyebrow in question.
“Knowing that I am to die, why do you waste your time following me around? Do you not have lands that need tending, a home to maintain, subjects to order around? So tell me what do you gain from my death?”
Sesshoumaru stared at the girl. He knew what he would gain from her death. The one ningen that had bested him by not dying as she should have, would ease his own discontent at not being able to kill a simple ningen. “Satisfaction.”
“And what are you going to do when you find out that you won’t be the one to kill me?”
“I will be the one to destroy you.”
Kagome smiled at his determination. “But what if, just what if I die before you get to kill me. Then what?” She really hated having these morbid conversations with him, but it seemed that discussing her death was the only way to get him to open up.
“Then I will revive you with the tenseiga then kill you again.”
“You say that as if it were really that simple.” She chuckled. “What if tenseiga doesn’t work?”
“It will work, it will be my desire and nothing goes against what I desire.”
Kagome looked up at him with a giant grin on her face. “I love a man who is so passionate.” She was received with a low growl that made her squeal in delight.
“Well I know one thing for sure.”
He squinted his eyes at her. He did not like where this was going.
“It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside knowing how passionate you are about me.” She then turned around and went back to work studying for her test, ignoring the growling lord behind her.
~
Sesshoumaru sat atop the roof of the house waiting for the girl to return from her school place. Why I am I so intent on constantly being by her side? Of course, I want her death, but that doesn’t explain why I continue to stay with her. Am I nothing more than a puppy on a leash? She my master and me waiting for some kind of reward for staying so faithfully by her?
I seek her death that is all. There is no need for me to stay by her side. She says that I have been with her for almost 3 years now, and that to her I have become her friend, a friend that she loves; though she won’t say it aloud. She has become attached to me, were I to leave her she would surely break on the inside and become emotionless as I am. That is something I would not like to see…but why? Shouldn’t her pain and suffering bring me great relief?
Why is it when I think of her soul suffering does it bother me? I feel nothing for the girl, so then why am I even here? Here in her world, watching her, conversing with her, getting to know her family? Why have I spent everyday for the last three years with her? I could have just as easily watched her from afar, waiting for the opportunity to destroy her, yet I didn’t why?
She couldn’t possibly be bewitching me, being she doesn’t contain the power to do so. So is there something within myself that I am unaware of that needs to be by her side? Does my soul call to hers, without my knowledge and hers is responding with the love she feels for me? Impossible. Yet, she seems to know my soul better than even I do, but how?
Everything she says about me and accuses me of is too close to the truth to be anything but. She asked me what I would do were she to die before I could kill her, and I still have no answer. Yet the more I think of her death the more I feel like her death shouldn’t happen. Not by my hand, or the jewels, or anyone else’s. It’s almost as if something within me doesn’t want to see her die. But why?
He let off another growl of irritation. That’s another thing ever since I have been with her that’s all I seem to do when it comes to her… think and growl. Yes she needs to die, and for so many reasons that I almost forget the original reason for seeking her death.
Suspension by Keva