InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Love of her Master ❯ Separation ( Chapter 7 )

Disclaimer: `Inuyasha' belongs to Rumiko Takahashi. While this plot and any additional characters belong to me, everything else is hers. I make no profit off this story, and am writing it only for my own enjoyment.

 

CHAPTER 7 - SEPARATION

 

Another month had passed since Lady Izayoi's birthday party, a month which was both very good and horribly bad for Kagome.

 

Ever since the night of the party, Kagome had begun to see Inuyasha in a new light. Looking back on when he first brought her, Kagome could now see that he had looked at him with a kind of hero worship. That she would have a master who would be so kind to her was beyond anything she would have imagined could happen to her, and she was so relieved that it had. Kagome was so grateful that Inuyasha had brought her that she had somehow pictured him in this heavenly aura where he could do no wrong and no wrong could happen to him. Kagome knew that he had flaws, had seen some of them such as his temper with her own eyes, but she had chosen to ignore them. As far as Kagome had been concerned back then, he had been perfect. Perfect and unattainable, a god among mortals who she was fortunate enough to serve. Okay, maybe she hadn't seen him as being quite that wonderful, but at times it had been close.

 

Ever since the party though, when Inuyasha's painful past with Kikyo had been revealed, Kagome's vision had cleared slightly, and she began to see in truth that Inuyasha wasn't a god but just a man. A kind, good man who had saved her from life of pure misery, but a man none the less, who despite being a Hanyou and lord was in many ways not so different from the men from her old village. In some ways though, he was also very different. She was sure that none of those men would pay exceedingly high prices from a slave they had never even meet just to save her from someone they knew would be cruel to her, even if they had the money. None of them would be friends with the obvious outcasts of the area, who Kagome was now able to see that many of Inuyasha's friends in truth were. The taijiya were not the most highly respected group living in the castle, despite their obvious role in the castle security, let alone the few females in what many believed to be a male profession. Monks weren't generally valued in castle were the Lord and lesser nobles were usually Youkai, either, let alone one who before he was married was a known letch. Kagome was surprised she had never seen this before when it was pretty public what most people in the castle thought of Sango and Miroku, but Kagome guessed some of Inuyasha's hero worship had rubbed off on his friends, and besides they had always been nice to Kagome too.

 

When it came right down to it though, the biggest difference Kagome could see between Inuyasha and the men from her old village was the view they had on the role women should play. The night of the party, Inuyasha had drunk far more than he should have; most liking to help him forget about Kikyo, was the opinion Miroku had shared with Kagome. As a result, Inuyasha needed Kagome's help to find his way back to his room that night, and the whole way there he had frankly babbled on about why he had fallen for Kikyo in the first place and his views on women in general. Every word that he had said, Kagome was pretty sure was engraved permanently in her brain, she was so shocked to hear views that were so different that everything she had been told growing up.

 

***Flashback***

 

“So many women out there bore me, ya know?” Inuyasha slurred as he leaned heavily on Kagome's shoulder as she helped the drunken Hanyou lord back to his room. “They're all the same, so quiet and boring, never saying anything original or doing anything that they their not supposed to do. Especially the noble bitches that my parents and nearby lords keep trying to set me up with. Brain dead twits who haven't had an original though in their lives and are so concerned about what's `proper' that they never do anything fun. Boring. I know my parents want me and my brother ta choose mates, but I'd go mad trying to put with someone like that. What I want is someone strong, who's not afraid to stand up for what they want instead of what society thinks they should want. And smart, I want someone smart. Not another of those bloody airheads.

 

“I thought Kikyo was like that at first. She's not exactly scholar material or anything, but she's got more brains than most girls I've met. And she can stand up for herself too, and doesn't automatically bow down to everyone who tells her to do stuff. She even fought with me a few times, and I loved her spunk. I thought she was perfect for me.” Inuyasha laughed bitterly at that point, leaning more heavily on Kagome so that she almost fell over before Inuyasha regained his footing slightly. “Damn I was a fool. I can see that now. She stood up to demons, and to humans who were below her in rank. Those who she thought weren't good enough for her to listen to in her mind, me included. And she was smart all right, smart enough to manipulate us all so that she could get what she wanted. Damn her. At least I learnt the truth before I mated her. God only knows what could have happened otherwise.”

 

Inuyasha paused in his travels, and squinted at Kagome as if just seeing her for the first time. “Actually, what I thought Kikyo was is kind of like what you are, Kagome. Smart, spirited, strong willed. You try to hide it, but I know that's what you're like under that submissive slave manner you've got. I like that about you, your fun to be around when you let loose. I'd like to see you let loose more, Kagome.”

 

Kagome started at that, surprised by her master's words, something that he instantly picked up on. “Your scared of me, aren't ya Kagome? Ya always scared, specially when I get to see the real you. Why? Don't ya know by now I don't want to ever hurt you? You're too pretty to hurt.”

 

Before Kagome could think of anything to say or do after that, Inuyasha's eyes closed and he collapsed completely, slipping out of Kagome's grasp. The Hanyou fell to the floor and started snoring, resulting in Kagome having find some help among the castle servants to get her unconscious master back to his room, her mind filled to overflowing from everything Inuyasha had said.

 

***Flashback***

 

When Inuyasha woke up late the next morning with a killer hangover, he acted like he couldn't remember anything he had said the night before, which he quite possibly didn't. Although Kagome wanted to just forget everything that Inuyasha had said and simply put it aside as drunken ramblings, she found herself remembering her grandfather saying more than once in the past `what a man says drunk he has thought sober', and couldn't. Nor could she bring it up, as it would no doubt embarrass them both. The result was that there were many nights that Kagome found herself lying awake at night thinking about everything Inuyasha had said that night.

 

Other than that, Kagome continued to fit in fairly well with her new life. By now that Kagome had learnt where everything in the castle was and had picked up many of the tricks the other slaves and servants used to speed up their work. Because of this, and because Kagome was only responsible for looking after Inuyasha's room and possessions, Kagome was by now managing to finish most of her usual chores in far less time that they had taken when she first arrived at the castle, leaving Kagome with a surprisingly large amount of free time most days. For a while Kagome had been unsure of what she should do with her free time, or even if she should use it at all or if that would upset Inuyasha somehow.

 

The first day Kagome had found the courage to do something with her free time, Inuyasha had been out practicing for the afternoon with the taijiya and she had the suite to herself. Bored out of her mind, having run out of chores an hour ago, Kagome decided to look through Inuyasha's small collect of book to find something to read. Kagome had been one of the few in her old village who could read, and the only girl who could do so. It had labelled her even stranger than she was already considered and was often made fun of when she was younger for her habit of having her head stuck in a book while the other village children played. But Kagome loved to read, fondly remembering her father reading her to her in bed late at night, and him teaching her to read herself when she grew slightly older. When he's died when she was eleven, reading and reading the few books and scrolls her father had owned had made her feel closer to him. Inuyasha's own collection wasn't huge but it was far larger than her father's had ever been and consisted mostly of tomes on war-craft and/or weaponry. After scanning through a number of volumes, Kagome eventually decided on book about the history of the Western Lands, from when Inuyasha's ancestors first conquered the land and onwards. It was surprisingly fascinating, and Kagome soon found herself lost in it, so much so that she failed to notice when Inuyasha returned. When Kagome finally did notice that her master had returned, at first she feared that he would be angry at her for slacking off and for messing with his obviously expensive books. Before she could find the words to apologise though, Inuyasha had calmly remarked that he didn't know she could read and suggested that if she ever got tired of his books, she might want to try something from his parent's library, which was much larger and covered a lot more topics. He added that she could always just say she was getting something for him if anyone there gave her trouble when he saw she was dismayed at the idea of borrowing a book from the lord and lady of the castle.

 

Since that day, Kagome had been spending her free time happily reading away at Inuyasha's books, relieved to know that she had his permission to do so. In fact, from the looks she had spotted Inuyasha giving her across the rooms at times when he saw her reading, she suspected he even approved, which judging from his obvious distaste for stupid women wasn't too hard to understand. Of course, there was no way that Inuyasha would ever consider her as a potential mate of course, that idea was ludicrous, but it was still nice to know he approved of the things she did. Kagome had yet to gather the courage to borrow anything from Lord Inutaisho and Lady Izayoi's library, but she figured that she should read the books in Inuyasha's own room and then maybe reconsider that option.

 

Kagome was also finding it easier to handle the other castle staff as well. Most of the castle staff had by now gotten bored with tormenting her, or maybe it was they were sick of the tongue lashings from Kaede who was still standing up for her along with several other older members of the castle staff. Either way, most were now leaving her alone. They weren't exactly friendly with her, but at least they didn't seem to be going out of their way to make things difficult for her anymore. There were still a few members of staff that were doing everything they could to make her miserable, but Kagome found them easier to deal with when there were just a few as compared to the majority of staff.

 

In all, Kagome felt that she had life pretty good. Or she would if it wasn't for one very big problem who refused to leave her alone. Koga was still lusting after her, and as of late was once again becoming more insistent. Inuyasha's obi may of scared Koga away for a while, but it didn't seem to be having the same effect anymore and Koga was quickly becoming more adamant about his desires to bed Kagome. The last time had been two days ago, and Kagome still got a chill thinking about it. Koga had grabbed Kagome by the arm so hard that he caused bruises while he urged her to follow him to his room. If he hadn't been spooked of by a group of lesser noble women coming by at that moment, Kagome wasn't sure she wanted to know what could have happened. It was that occurrence that made up Kagome's mind. If Koga tried anything on her again, she would go straight to Inuyasha and tell him about it immediately. She was sure that her master would have something to say to the wolf captain if he knew. She was still scared of telling Inuyasha about Koga's advances, hence the reason she hadn't already told him, but she had decided that if Koga kept this up she had no choice. In the meantime she would avoid isolated areas so as not to give Koga a chance to get her alone.

 

***

 

It was exactly one month and three days after Lady Izayoi's birthday party, when Kagome came back from dropping some of Inuyasha's dirty clothes off with the laundry maids to discover that Inuyasha was busy stuffing various clothes and tools into a bag in his room. Kagome didn't even need to ask Inuyasha what he was doing, as he instantly sensed her presence when she entered the room, and spoke up without prompting.

 

“Taijiya's got a report of a nest of peculiarly nasty serpent Youkai moving in on of the more isolated villages to the north of here. A team's been sent out to take care of the problem, and I'm going with them.”

 

Kagome nodded. While she knew that many would be surprised that a lord would go with a group of common taijiya to take care of what many would consider a minor problem like this, Kagome was not. Kagome knew that Inuyasha spent most of his free time training and socialising with the taijiya and that he felt far more at home with them than with those from his father's court. She also knew from her many talks with Kaede that Inuyasha often went on such trips and was considered as good if not better than most of the elite taijiya. In fact, Kaede had expressed surprise that since Kagome had arrived at the castle that Inuyasha hadn't gone on any such trips, though she would admit that it seemed to be a slow time of year for the taijiya for some reason.

 

“How long will you be gone, my lord?” Kagome asked calmly, as she watched with something like dismay at the chaos Inuyasha's bag was becoming.

 

Inuyasha shrugged, concentrating mostly at getting everything to fit. “Three, four days, maybe more if the weather's bad. Probably not more than a week at the absolute most.”

 

Kagome nodded again, wincing when Inuyasha tried to stuff yet another item into the bag with no consideration to ordering. “My lord, with all due respect you're never going to fit everything in there that way. You should probably let me handle packing and see if I can salvage something out of this situation before you rip that poor bag. Whatever other skills you might have, packing is not one of them.”

 

Inuyasha raised an eyebrow and Kagome's slight cheek, but nevertheless backed away with a small smile to let her handle the packing. He loved the fact that Kagome had been gradually showing more spunk the last few weeks and seemed to be finally coming out of her shell. He had just known that the girl had some real fire in her soul and had been delighted that she had been showing it more and more. He knew she was still holding back quite a bit, but what she had been showing the last few months was very encouraging.

 

Inuyasha knew that Kagome most likely thought that he had forgotten everything that he had said when she helped him back from his mother's party, but the truth was he remembered all of it. Sure some parts were fuzzy, but it was all there. Everything he had said was true, and he was glad to see that Kagome seemed to be taking at least some of it to heart. He was also glad to see that his final comment about her being pretty hadn't seemed to have scared her again. Kagome would still wince at times when people mentioned her and sex in the same sentence in her hearing. Inuyasha guessed that the trauma Kagome had gone through at the hand of those damn slavers still had it's mark on her and likely would for quite some time to come. And the worst part was, she had no doubt suffered far less than most of the girls with her.

 

Inuyasha watched Kagome pack for a minute more before moving to collect his personnel sword, the Tetsusaiga. His father had given him the legendary sword for his sixth birthday, and he had not gone on a single trip without since. Once the sword was strapped onto his waist, Inuyasha turned around to discover that Kagome had somehow managed to fit everything ha had been trying to pack into that bag, a feat he had previously thought impossible. Hum, another thing he should leave to her in the future it seemed.

 

“You might as well that a bit of a holiday while I'm gone.” Inuyasha said taking the bag off her. “Sleep in, read some more if you want, go for a walk. Just have some fun, you deserve it. I'll be back in a few days, take care until then.” With a final smile at the slave who was quickly becoming one of his closest friends, Inuyasha turned and left the room.

 

AUTHOR'S NOTE

 

Ya, new chapter, finally. Coming up next, what happens to Kagome while Inuyasha's gone.