InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Midwinter Dream ❯ Finding Contentment ( Chapter 11 )

A/N: Hello! I've finally updated! Sorry, but I had gotten some bad writer's block. I started a different story just to try and get my mind kicked into action, and I may update it in the future.

 

Anyway, a lot of people have commented on how hilarious it is that Sesshomaru can't swim because he's an inu yÅkai and therefor should know how. Well, just to put it out there, if you meet an adult dog who's never been in anything deeper than a kiddy pool and throw it in the water, it'll barely stay afloat in one spot and move sloppily for something to cling to. Dogs do not have an innate knowledge of how to swim, it's actually the opposite, and it's quite entertaining to watch a newbie do it because it looks like their butts have thirty pounds of weight in them. They just hang downwards and their little paws paddle at the water uselessly with their noses sticking desperately out. And I've raised too many dogs to pity them over that stage of life, it's just funny now. I do pity people who can't swim though, such as a friend of mine. He could float and paddle along the surface, but he can't dive down three feet to save his life. It was quite entertaining, because I got to watch him from the bottom of a nine foot pool and he kept commenting that he thought I had drowned (which I exploited later on)

 

Alright, time to get to what everyone's here for:

 

Chapter 11

 

Finding Contentment

 

They had been walking along for about an hour, clambering over rocks and bending under ridges, until they reached a rude cliff where their seven foot wide stream was turned into a misty waterfall.

 

“Damn it!” Kagome yelled, stomping her feet. She couldn't even hear the water landing, which was less than promising. “How deep IS this place?!”

 

“This part is not too deep,” Sesshomaru commented, leaning slightly to peer over the edge.

 

She pouted, mostly because she felt like it. “I wish I could see in the dark.”

 

“How much can you see without your energy?” he asked her.

 

She snorted. “I can't even see my own nose, and with my energy it's only about eight feet. It's completely pitch black in here, like a great blindfold, and sight is the one sense humans rely on most.”

 

“You have not figured out yet how to maximize your senses?”

 

She looked at him, partially shocked and partially pissed that he didn't mention it sooner. “... I can?”

 

“M-hm,” he replied. “Would you rather climb down the cliff or free fall again?”

 

Her heart jumped, and although she wished that she could say 'I'll wait for you here' she knew that wasn't an option. So she bottled her energy to let the darkness swallow her and held out her arms like some toddler wanting 'up'. She didn't scream this time, although she really wanted to. In exchange, she gave Sesshomaru a death grip the entire way down, though knowing him he barely felt it. This fall was twice as far as the last one, which should have been impossible. She was actually getting used to the feeling of plummeting by the time they stopped, and when he let her down her legs were shaking.

 

“You truly hate falling,” Sesshomaru commented.

 

“No shit,” she replied, wiping the slight excess of water from her eyes and trying to calm her nerves. “It's the most uncomfortable feeling in the world, and one no human is supposed to survive. And what the hell is your limit on 'too deep'?! That was a LONG fall! I bet that fifty foot pines would have looked like toothpicks from the top of that!”

 

He chuckled as she summoned her luminous energy again, rubbing her arms. It was even colder down here, and it was snowing. ...

 

“It's not funny,” she snipped, watching small falling crystals waft in and out of her sight. Looking down, she automatically assumed she was standing on snow, but it crunched with every step. This waterfall was raining ice?? She began walking away from the odd mist, holding herself. It was really cold down there, which made the ice bit make some sense. It was still bizarre though. And here she thought the earth was always warmer than the air. “I guess to put it in terms you'd understand, it's like getting your throat slit, arteries and windpipe and all, and you're left to wonder if you can heal in time.”

 

He nodded. “That I can understand.”

 

The snow stuff stopped falling the further they got from the waterfall, and since their stream had narrowed to a mere four feet Kagome was left to assume that the waterfall was so high that half the water became crystallized vapor as it cascaded. The stream down here was more calm, but still had a decent current. Kagome's mind wandered, and she decided that she was too curious for her own good.

 

“How long would you have if your throat was slit?” She glanced at him a tad hesitantly, and pulled her hands from her sleeves and into the air in an innocent fashion when he gave her a suspicious look. “I'm just wondering! Go ahead and smell me, I'm not planning on anything! I'm not a yÅkai, I'd personally be more than dead within half a minute, so I was wondering how long an actual yÅkai would last. Besides, you've already been stabbed there and did just fine, like hell I'd ever try it!”

 

He watched her, and she watched back to see if that stoic eyebrow would lift at her again, then he shook his head. “Humans are peculiar beings.”

 

She was silent, thinking he'd answer if he wanted to, and huddled in on herself once more. Damn, did the waterfall cool this place down?? Oh, it was giving her goosebumps even without the breeze! Then again her hair had gotten damp from the mist.

 

“... It would depend on one's physical state and inherited power,” he began. “If it happened to a powerful yÅkai without intoxication, then death would come within half an hour.”

 

She stared at him. “... Wow... Is that with or without healing?”

 

“With,” he replied. “With very bad healing... Without, which is usually the case if the mind has been addled, then less than five minutes.”

 

Kagome was rubbing her neck. “Not a pleasant topic... At least you have more time. I hear some humans have survived having a slit throat, but the attacker probably had bad aim or didn't do it too deeply. Then there's hospital help to take into calculation.”

 

“Hm,” he hummed, thinking. “Is that a common act among humans?”

 

“... What, killing?” she asked. “I'm not too sure. Not really, no. Most deaths are from disease, age, or accidents, and probably in that order, too. But, there are some people sometimes...”

 

She paused, not really wanting to think about it.

 

“And that is why you dislike walking alone at night?”

 

She quirked her face at him, then remembered that the pompous lord had indeed carried groceries before. “Oh... Yeah, that's one of them. Some people don't mind dragging a dead body away to have 'fun' with it until sunrise...”

 

She couldn't really see it, but Kagome knew that somewhere inside Sesshomaru was gagging at the thought.

 

They decided to entertain themselves with talk of various ways of dying and comparing and contrasting humans to yÅkai when it came to endurance. The next subject was beheading, which had specific conditions, then it went to heart attacks, internal bleeding, removal of limbs, and by the end of it Sesshomaru seemed entertained by Kagome's green face.

 

“Humans die so easily,” he commented.

 

“YÅkai require precision to take down,” she countered, which wasn't actually an insult. “Unless, of course, you're spiritually well endowed.”

 

“Hn,” he chuckled once. They continued on in relative silence, walking side by side so Kagome could keep an eye on him.

 

“So, what happened to your armor?” What could she say, she enjoyed exploiting the usage of her voice.

 

“It became useless,” he stated.

 

“... Why's that?” she asked when he didn't feel it was necessary to continue.

 

“It is broken,” he replied nonchalantly, sounding like he was telling her about the stock market. “You had mentioned seeing a figure earlier. I had to dispatch it, but not before it made the first move.”

 

Kagome snorted, despite the memory of touching that long cut in the small of his back. Was that the attack? “It? You're so impersonal that it's almost hilarious.”

 

Sesshomaru thought on this a moment. “Impersonal. When one is devoid of human emotions, characteristics, and traits; or when one is detached from unnecessary connections with others.”

 

Kagome stared at him. “... Wow, it's perfect...” She let out a laugh then. “Your name should be in the thesaurus for that word...”

 

He laughed with her, briefly. “That would be interesting.”

 

“Are you kidding??” she asked, smiling. “That would either be a great feat, or a great joke! And you'd have to go down in history books just so people could read about the great impersonal person!”

 

The tunnel had to bear with the echoes of their mirth, and despite being in the great bowels of a cave she was really enjoying herself. ... “Hey, Sesshomaru. Do you think you'll change back to your withdrawn state when we get back to the o-shiro?”

 

“Yes.”

 

He didn't even have to think about it... “Why?”

 

“Does a Lord need to give reasons for his actions?”

 

She scoffed at him. “'Lord' my ass, you're bodily still a teenager.” He glanced at her, and she smirked. “Technically, I'm older than you!” she told him with a quirked grin.

 

He smiled. “Not many women would admit that.”

 

Said grin vanished. He was good... “Well, not to a love interest. To a friend, yes.”

 

“And you consider me to be your friend?” he asked skeptically.

 

“That depends,” she replied slowly, weighing her choice words. “Are you my enemy?”

 

He didn't answer.

 

“It's a rather simple question,” she commented. “Either you are, or you're not.”

 

“I can figure as much out,” he replied, thinking. “I am not your enemy.”

 

She smiled. “Then you're my friend.”

 

He glanced at her.

 

Her expression became a tad sarcastic. “Or, to be technical, a friend who I can barely tolerate and with whom I have a battle to finish.”

He averted his gaze for the path ahead. “That is a very black and white outlook on things.”

 

She shrugged. “I guess I'm too trusting, then.”

 

He raised an eyebrow at her.

 

“Heh,” she began. “In other words, there's not much gray zone to determine friends from enemies for me.” He still looked confused. “It's a very either/or thing. Unlike my levels of friendship, there's a lot of gray there.”

 

His brow knitted. “How so?”

 

“Oye,” she groaned. YÅkai... “It depends on how well I know someone, then on how I feel about them.” He was silent, so she took that as an invitation to continue. “Like, there's an obvious difference between an acquaintance and a best friend, but there's always a bit of gray in the transition, and sometimes that gray can be an odd thing to work out.”

 

He nodded. “Such as the gray between a friendly acquaintance and a romantic interest.”

 

“Exactly,” she replied. She went silent then, and found staring straight ahead to be quite interesting. It was just an example... Just a very bad example... Bad timing, too. “Anyway, aren't you supposed to be a lord?”

 

He frowned.

 

She shrugged. “You began talking about romantic interests, and so far I haven't seen you courting any inu.”

 

“There has been no arranged marriage,” he replied.

 

Now she was confused. “... Are arranged marriages common?”

 

“Very.”

 

“... And you need one to court someone?”

 

“No,” he answered, shrugging. “It is merely a good way to prompt such an action.”

 

“Enjoying the bachelor life?” she asked with a fat grin on her face.

 

“The what?”

 

“The bachelor life,” she repeated before taking into account that there was no way he didn't hear her the first time. “Oh, kami... Um... It's the phase between fleeing from your parents and getting married. You know, when you're single and out living your own life.”

 

“...”

 

“... You didn't really experience that, did you...” she stated more than asked.

 

“Not really,” he admitted. “Inheritance can be a burden.”

 

For some reason Tenseiga jostled slightly at Sesshomaru's hip, and although that seemed odd to her the inugami daiyÅkai appeared to block it out like it were second nature.

 

“That must have sucked,” she commented, minding what was underfoot. There were a lot of rocks in this present area. “To go jumping into your dad's shoes with the whole lordship thing.”

 

He didn't reply.

 

“... Hm.” She stepped high up onto an excessively large rock, walked three paces to its other end and hopped to the next. It jostled dangerously, and she flung her arms out to assume some funky position which would automatically grant her some form of balance. So, with her left arm down with sprawled fingers, her right arm up in a fist, her back bent, and left foot held up, she glanced sideways to see Sesshomaru staring with utter fascination at the position she could take, both eyebrows up and trying not to smile. “Hey, at least it works,” she defended herself, defiantly standing straight up and planting her fist on her hips. The rock shifted, naturally, deep down she must have known it would, and she fell backwards.

 

She looked at her outstretched hand, which was clasped in a different hand, and then up to see Sesshomaru holding her from the frigid waters not too far below.

 

“You invite trouble to yourself, do you not?” he asked wryly, pulling her up. The rock shifted, and although he seemed attached to it as securely as a barnacle she went flying forward and into his chest.

 

“...” She was blushing like mad. “I didn't ask for your help.”

 

“Your expression did.”

 

“Oh, come on!” she yelled, maneuvering away from yet close to him to not jostle the rock any further and jumping off it. “That's not fair, I'm not in control of my stronger expressions!”

 

“Nor of your mouth, at times.”

 

She glared over her shoulder, and he was grinning. Kami, he was being cute. This was not fair at ALL.

 

“Better than having the nickname Ice Queen,” was her retort, the rocks big enough to begin running across to get leaping starts for the next ones.

 

“My emotional withdraw is from training, not from simplemindedness,” he defended, very easily keeping up.

 

“Yeah, well,” she began, taking measured breaths as she ran, “you should consider, lowering your emotional walls, to people who wish to know you.”

 

“Is that a suggestion or a request?”

 

... Okay, he caught that one. “Both.”

 

“You wish to know me?”

 

“Merely to a better degree, than I do now,” she replied. Damn her needing to breathe differently while running!

 

“Not many know me that well,” he commented. “If you want to know me, you have to be with me. That is all.”

 

Kami, he was so straightforward sometimes. “If you weren't a stringent ass, then people would stick by your side.”

 

“I do not need people at my side. They are inconvenient.”

 

“You would rather have them, at your command then?” she asked, jumping to her height limit and landing a tad hard and awkwardly for it. She had to begin again from a crouched position, which was like expecting a runner to stop halfway and get back down to the metal starting brace.

 

“Things are considerably easier like that.”

 

“Well, yeah, because they have to obey, not respect.”

 

“How do you mean?” he inquired, sounding a tad confused.

 

“Oye,” she breathed, not having the air for a long explanation now. “In a minute. How much further?”

 

Two minutes of running later, they bypassed the rocks and landed near the stream, where she insisted on sitting for a minute. He didn't complain like Inuyasha would have over the break, and it was truly silly to think that he would.

 

“What I meant is,” she started her explanation, “that obeying someone does not always mean you respect them for their status or doings; although I'm sure you know that. Plenty of great rulers in the future will fall because of it. ... What year is it, 1502? Shit, I don't want to be here for Hitler... Of course that's a while off from now...”

 

Sesshomaru seemed to want to break her trend of thought. “Do you doubt my ability to rule?”

 

She looked up at him. He wasn't offended, but he was definitely going to ask something like that.

 

“No,” she replied. “I just question your manner of doing it. Everyone has their own way of doing it though, so I guess it's rather rude of me to second guess that. By the way, if you want to be entertained for the next five hundred years, I can make a pretty good hit list for your assassination delights.”

 

“History is not something to tamper with,” he commented.

 

“True,” she replied. So he knew the frail workings of time, did he? “But some of it is better changed than lived.”

 

She stood and they began to walk again. “Hey, Sesshomaru. Is the well by Kaede's village?”

 

“No. It has been moved to Edo, some distance from the castle Bashamon had ÅŒta DÅkan build.”

 

“The Tokyo Imperial Palace??” Kagome asked, stunned out of her original question. “Holy crap, it's not that old yet! ... Which means it's not destroyed at all!” She felt Sesshomaru studying her, and glanced at him. “Yes?”

 

He smirked, and looked away. “Your reaction.”

 

“What about it?”

 

“You want to see the castle.”

 

She blushed. He was rather perceptive for a jerk. A sexy jerk... “Well, yeah. I will before using the well again. Most of that place gets demolished by fires and wars, and in my time it's mostly ruins and the Palace was built on the grounds in its stead.”

 

“You wish to go home?”

 

... He cared more about her going home than the wars on the capital...? Odd man... “It's where I belong,” she told him. But he knew that. “It's not like...” A rude overview of pleasing memories with him flashed before her eyes, and had her suppressing a blush. “Well, not like I have a whole lot going for me in this time. I have friends here, but my actual life is in the future. The thing that kept me here before was my responsibility to the Jewel, and since it's with me forever now all I have is a responsibility to myself. I'm free again, and I can return to my own life.”

 

He nodded. “Your sole reasons for coming back were to reacquaint yourself with friends and to reclaim the Shikon?”

 

“Yeah,” she replied. Well, that was the gist of it. “My friends... They've all changed so much, and I guess I have too in some ways... You don't notice your own changes too easily. I was shocked when Inuyasha commented on my hair being so long.” She twiddled a lock of her bangs to amuse herself, and giggled with the next thought to hit her mind. “It's funny, how I came here to be with friends, and yet I get stuck here instead. I have your little council to thank for that one. It's as though they see my presence promising for entertainment or something, and now Sheng has be bonding with everyone else in the o-shiro by turning me into a soccer coach.”

 

“Is he?”

 

“You haven't heard?” Kagome asked. “Oh, kami, it's so annoying! I mean, it gives me something to do during the day, and the children there are so unforgivably adorable with their random puppy ears. ... And I've been meaning to ask, why do some have pointed ears like yours and some don't?”

 

He smirked, probably over her ignorance. “It is a sign of their heritage. Less powerful demons are more likely to show inu traits like a hanyÅ.”

 

Kagome couldn't suppress a giggle. “I love their fluffy ears, they're so damn cute. Inuyasha doesn't know this, but when I first saw him pinned to the tree I just had to go up and quirk his ears. He'd probably be annoyed.”

 

She was expecting sarcasm, and looking out of the corner of her eye she caught a warm smirk before he could hide it. “You're enjoying my reactions to things of late.”

 

He shrugged. “You are admittedly unique for this era.”

 

“Damn straight!” she replied, suddenly feeling boisterous. “I'm proud of it, too!” There was a pause, and then Kagome remembered her question. “Oh! Right, why was the well moved?”

 

“Bashamon figured that it would make a good trophy,” Sesshomaru replied. “He failed to notice its capabilities though, and in having it re-built in a guarded shrine he had given me access back to my time.” Well, that answered a few things... Five hundred years form Kagome's time, Edo was already a fairly big city ruled by lord samurai. “The well has been functioning irregularly though, hence our inabilities to use it.”

 

“Oh,” Kagome perked up. “That's because of the Goshinboku tree!”

 

Sesshomaru had that 'are you insane?' expression now.

 

“It's true!” she defended herself, so wrapped up that she tripped over a pebble. Righting herself, she continued. “Don't you know of it? It's also called the God Tree and the Tree of Ages!”

 

“Perhaps in the future it is,” he replied. “These days, it is mostly a tree.”

 

Well, Kagome knew people who knew of it, but she supposed not many yÅkai would familiarize themselves with it. For all she knew, it was a protected secret.

 

“Well,” she persisted, not discouraged, “back to what I was getting at. The Bone Eaters Well is made from the chopped limbs of that tree, and the actual tree is what gives it its power. ... Gee, no wonder it took four years to work again, that's a long commute for energy...”

 

“Do they ever say why such a well was created?”

 

“... You know, that is a very good question... Maybe by a miko or a monk? I've seen a tree grown by Kikyo before, fresh from a mere branch. Maybe someone made the tree and told them to make a well from it to help with a yÅkai problem...”

 

“They were probably mere demons,” Sesshomaru suggested. “Any mythical being persistent to bother an unimportant village must not have the brains to be considered yÅkai.”

 

“Is that the defining difference then?” Kagome asked. She had certainly seen a lot of demons, and heard Sango call them such, but was there a specific classification that not many humans knew of?

 

“It is a very valid one,” he replied. “We are getting closer.”

 

She found herself wondering what the hell he was talking about, then recalled the reason why they were walking all that way in the first place. It certainly wasn't to chat.

 

Their tunnel suddenly widened exponentially, which it had done irregularly on the way there, but this room was not filled with the sound of running water.

 

“What's in here?” she asked, the tunnel of the wall now gone and leaving her with only a floor. That eight foot visibility limit was certainly annoying.

 

“It is a lake.”

 

“... What??” That had to be a joke. She wouldn't be surprised if that lake was thirty feet deep and two degrees above freezing! Sesshomaru walked ahead, and she followed. Something crunched under her foot, and when she looked down to see a plate of flat ice she jumped back and looked ahead. He was walking on it?! “Sesshomaru, you DO know you're on thin ice, right?”

 

“Yes,” he replied, his footsteps making barely any noise. “It is not a problem for someone using very little energy though.”

 

She quirked an eyebrow at him, and watched as the darkness slowly swallowed his figure. “Yeah, okay, I'll just wait right here then.” She had herself a seat, and watched for him to come back. “Hey, why don't you ever use any energy?”

 

“You have already asked that question,” the darkness replied.

 

“Well, yeah, and got an extremely vague answer,” she retorted, huffing over the two week old memory. “I want to know some specifics though.”

 

There was a pause. “YÅkai energy gives off a very strong vibration. If used for too long, or too strongly, it can prompt the area to concave.”

 

“... My, what a pleasant thought,” she replied. “Would you mind getting off the ice then?”

 

“I am barely on it.”

 

“I know,” she stated. “I was referring to the energy you're using now.”

 

“This much will do nothing,” he replied. “At least not for a while.”

 

“What are you even doing?” she asked.

 

“Searching.”

 

“For the stake?”

 

“Obviously.”

 

She huffed again. His voice was a hard thing to read. “And how exactly do you plan to get it at the bottom or a frozen lake, oh one who cannot swim?”

 

He chuckled dryly. “I can always send someone who can in after it.”

 

“I'd die of hypothermia,” she replied. “And I can't see, remember?”

 

“Then we will improvise.”

 

She flinched horribly when a loud crack with minute splashes filled the room.

 

“What the hell was that??”

 

“That was me making a hole,” he supplied. She could feel his aura, and knew he was walking back.

 

“I'm staying here,” she informed him a tad bitterly, imagining being turned into the human harpoon and being thrown into said hole after a stick.

 

“Perhaps for another five seconds,” he agreed, now in her range of sight.

 

“U-uh,” she replied, shaking her head. “No way, I am NOT going out there.”

 

“Oh, but you are,” he replied, slightly humored.

 

She wished there was something she could do to resist being picked up and carried under one arm over to the hole, but considering the whole energy thing she didn't want to stress her luck, which was pretty bad to begin with.

 

“I still can't see anything,” she told him flatly, looking down at the black hole her face was held over. “Now take me back, and we'll try in the summer when things warm up.”

 

“By then the seal will have broken,” he replied. “We need to get it now.”

 

She huffed. “And what am I supposed to do about that?”

 

“Play fetch.”

 

“Drop me and I'll slaughter you.”

 

“Not like that,” he laughed. “You can grab things with your energy, and now you need to grab this.”

 

“Again, I can't see it,” she fired back. “And that would be using even more energy than you are now, and I've never grabbed something through the water. I might just get water!”

 

“It is like the air, only thicker,” he replied. “And I will provide the light, so long as you prepare for a fast retrieval.”

 

“...” She felt like a tool, especially being held at his side like that, but got ready nonetheless and stared downwards with determination. The sooner they got this over with, the less likely the ceiling and thousands of feet of earth would topple on top of them. “Alright, go for it.”

 

Kagome could easily say that she was scared when the room suddenly hummed and it looked like daylight had dawned on the area. ... This was a big place...

 

“Hurry.”

 

“Oh!” she flinched, looking back down. “Right! Sorry!”

 

Wow, that was clear water. But there was the staff, just laying there and twitching with the current. She reached her energy down and tried to grab it, then realized something very important.

 

“I can't see how deep it is!” she yelled, trying to even touch the stake by going deeper and deeper. And deeper. Where was it?!

 

“Five more feet,” he informed, his grip around her waist tightening for some reason. “Hurry.”

 

She stared desperately at the almost mocking little stake, and swishing her energy again it twitched. “There it is!” She tried to grab it, and lost her concentration when something crashed. Looking over, it was a large stalactite the size of three full grown men crumpling on the 'beach', and looking up...

 

“You are wasting time!” he growled.

 

“Okay, okay!” she replied, reaching out again. It took her a second to figure out the depth, flinching with every sound of something falling, and finally she had her energy around the object and made it fly for them.

 

Sesshomaru leaped aside when the stake barely cleared the hole, and the shift of their direction had the item flying when she lost her concentration again. She watched as a gigantic rock went plummeting into where they had been standing, creating a wave which broke the ice and drew near them.

 

“Ack!” she cried, the place going dark as Sesshomaru moved suddenly.

 

“Suppress your energy and stay still,” he told her. She obeyed, and felt the lurch of him running over, bending quickly to grab the stake, then leaping away when another object of mass mass pierced the lake nearby. Even without his energy Sesshomaru was quite fast, but Kagome could hear the dreadful cracking of ice reaching out for them, more snapping from above, and the remaining hum reverberating in the room. It made her worried. She didn't want to get wet, or stabbed, or to drown, or all three.

 

“You are moving to my back,” she heard, and a second later she was frantically grabbing for something to hold on to. She figured he couldn't move as well with someone tucked under his arm, so she held his shoulders tightly and clamped her legs around his waist since he didn't hold her up.

 

She thanked all that time she spent being jostled quickly on Inuyasha's back, and although it guaranteed a few won bets on machine bull backs it now let her stay on this crazy yÅkai who could lunge and leap like a squirrel with its tail on fire. It was so irregular wild that she wondered if he was running up tilted sheets of ice like you typically saw in cartoons, but that was literally impossible. Direction was a hard thing to figure out in the dark and when you weren't the one moving. They were in the air for a little while, and when he landed there was the distinct sound of foot contact with earth, and they were moving. Was he running back to where they came from?

 

“If we're off the lake, why are we still-” She hugged him tightly when he jumped aside to let a particularly loud and monstrous crash and grind of stone have its way with the nearby floor. She knew it was close, because one of the pebbles chipping off the splitting rock and hit her in the face. Kagome didn't let go to feel it though, she had no idea when he'd shift again. So she buckled down and hid the abused side of her face against his hair, which was quite soft.

 

They were leaping over the tipping rocks, zig zagging alongside the river, and Kagome was mentally blown away by the feeling of him jumping easily like some mountain goat up the cliff. The more he jostled, the further she slipped, so she was given ample opportunity to get twitter pated when his hands held the undersides of her legs.

 

“How are you doing?” she asked through a blush so hot that she could swear her breath steamed. She could still hear the falls of more rocks echoing after them, but they were fading.

 

“Fine.” He didn't sound tired at all. She supposed he really was using energy, but directing it to his body to max performance. She remembered trying it in some sports, such as track and volley ball. She had done fantastic, but the coaches could never figure out why she was shaking with muscle spasms afterwards, and she had to come up with one of her grandpa's ever so rare and tropical diseases. She wondered how long it would take until her body got used to excessively drawing on her powers.

 

She was amazed that climbing only took a little longer than the falling had, and they were off again through tunnels that her memory failed to give her a visual on.

 

“Why are you still running?” she asked, the crashing having ceased for at least two minutes.

 

“To get out of this place, of course,” he replied.

 

She was a tad uncertain, and would have looked to the ceiling for guidance if she could see it. “Well, I can run, too.”

 

“Not very well,” he replied.

 

“Can too!” she defended. “It just hurts afterwards, that's all!”

 

“I have plenty of energy for this, so do not fret about being carried.” She blushed. He was good at this. “And you are not a Viking prize.”

 

“I wasn't thinking that!” she defended herself. But now that she was... She smacked the top of his shoulder. “And stop pondering such things, it was only a kiss!”

 

He chuckled.

 

She melted.

 

“Besides,” she began, needing to back herself up. That, and to occupy her brain with speech rather than images. Fun images... “It's not like it could mean anything between us. People kiss, big deal.”

 

“Kissing is a frequent activity for you then?”

 

She blushed. “No, it's not, and because of that I'm considered an oddity in my time.”

 

“When was your last time?”

 

“Why should I tell?”

 

“Because I asked.”

 

That arrogant... “Why do you care to ask?”

 

“Because I am curious.”

 

She sighed. This man was simply impossible. “My last one, other then with you and Inuyasha, was a few months after you left, and it wasn't very good, either.”

 

“... That is it?”

 

Her eyes widened almost painfully. “YES that's IT! Don't tell me it's odd for yÅkai too!!”

 

He chuckled, and she felt like he was laughing at her. A tiny voice wanted to ask when his last time kissing someone was, but she didn't want to know. Such things were personal anyway, no matter how many other people pried into her life over it.

 

“By the way, I've been meaning to ask,” she began, heart laboring slightly with anxiety. “Why did you leave without saying hello when I saw Inuyasha in the clearing?”

 

She felt his grip on her tighten minutely. “You were obviously busy, so I merely left the Jewel with you.”

 

“... You lie.”

 

She was shocked that those words came out, but she knew he lied. She couldn't sense it, and definitely couldn't smell it, but something inside her said he was fibbing.

 

“I do not.”

 

“Then you're not telling me everything,” she replied, a tad offended.

 

“Not everything is your business.”

 

She was deeply offended, and turned his words back onto him. “It is my business if it has something to do with me!”

 

“Why do you believe it has something to do with you?”

 

Now she was mad, and a tad hurt. “Because when I saw you walking away I was scared, that's why!”

 

“Most are scared when I approach, not leave.”

 

“Oh, get over yourself!” she scolded him. “I felt like you were angry with me, that's why I was scared, you thick-headed... MALE!”

 

That was not one of her best insults in the world, but she stuck by it.

 

“You do not want me to be angry with you?”

 

“No,” she almost pouted. Especially if she didn't deserve his anger, then she wasn't going to accept it.

 

“Then I am not.”

 

She smacked his shoulder again, still fascinated that she was ever allowed to do that. “Well, I don't care anymore, it was a feeling I used to have.”

 

He was silent for a minute. “You are quite confusing.”

 

“So are you,” she defended herself. “It's not like I have a nose like yours.”

 

“Hm,” he hummed once. “You were mad at me then?”

 

“Then?”

 

“When I left.”

 

“Well, afterwards, yes,” she admitted. “I mean, it's been four years, and you can't even say 'hi'? Instead I get stabbed by a giddy Tenseiga.”

 

“... What?”

 

“You heard me,” she replied. “It's how I got the Jewel back. That damn blade has good aim for an object.”

 

He chuckled.

 

“NOT funny,” she snipped.

 

“To an outsider, it is hilarious.”

 

“... You are such a jerk...”

 

He accepted the name, since he didn't make a reply to it, and they were jumping upwards again, probably past their landing zone for the blast. He was a very fast runner go get them to that point so quickly. Within another five minutes they passed through the glowing red barrier, and it only took two seconds to get it in and out of sight.

 

She began asking him questions again, starting with how long it takes to get used to using energy in your muscles and eventually transforming to asking where they were. By the time it got to that part though she could look up and get the answer.

 

It was daylight. Bright, glistening, snow infested, strong, pupil shrinking daylight. She quickly hid her face into his hair to spare herself from the quick adjustment.

 

“Is something wrong?” he asked her.

 

“Too light,” she replied. “Give me a second.” Being against his hair wasn't a disappointment anyway.

 

She forced herself to get used to it, first by just keeping her eyes closed, then slowly opening them. She was at his side again on one of those energy clouds, and they were moving at a leisurely pace.

 

“Why are you crying?”

 

“Because my eyes hurt,” she replied, wiping the water away. It came right back though. “Going from 'cave' to 'brilliant winter glory' isn't the easiest of adjustments. ... For me.”

 

He chuckled, and she noted his hand rest against the dip of her hip as they sped up. She told herself that it was to make sure she wouldn't fall, but that didn't help to make it not feel good. She had fantasized about the day she could feel good held like that, and for some reason it really was a better feeling with Sesshomaru doing it. She leaned against him, head resting on his shoulder, and daring the sight she looked for the sun. It was at midday... They had been in there for over thirty hours...

 

She yawned strongly, which summoned more tears, and couldn't wait to fall into bed. For now though, this was a comfortable position... A very comfortable one. And she didn't feel ashamed at all in assuming it.

 

A/N: A shorter chapter, despite how long it took to update... I feel as though not much had happened, but a lot actually did.