InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Spring Fever ❯ Did You Catch That? ( Chapter 11 )

Chapter 11

 

Did You Catch That?

 

And there it was.

 

Finally, after three hours of instructing a groggy miko who almost had to be dragged from her bed, the sun came up.

 

That, and she finally got what Sesshomaru had been trying to show her.

 

“... What is that?” she asked slowly, looking at the pinprick of blue light hovering above her out held palms. It winked out, and she blinked. “Well, damn.”

 

Okay, maybe she didn't get it, but at least she accomplished something. This was probably going to take longer than he thought, he could tell by how easily his muscles settled into his seated stance across from her, in front of the dysfunctional well. They needed to do this in a place that would always be shadowed, so she could see the auras more easily.

 

“It is a start,” he uttered, holding out his own hand and bringing into his palm some special energy. He wasn't about ready to tell her what they were 'messing around' with, because he knew that the knowledge would scare her half to death. Literally. The energy seeped from his skin and turned into red ball the size of a man's fist within his palm, and quickly forming into a flame it hovered in the air. “This is what we need to see though.”

 

“Sesshomaru, you know my energy's low,” the miko stated. Again. Her excuses were tiring. “And I'm hungry, you almost dragged me out of the kitchen by my hair. If you waited all night, or most of it, then you could have waited two more minutes for the toaster... Now it's probably cold-”

 

“Miko,” he addressed her, making her look up and stop her ramblings.

 

“It's Kagome, you thick-headed prick!” she growled.

 

Whatever. At least he had her attention. “I said you could eat your fill as soon as you fully understood this.”

 

She sighed and closed her eyes. “I understand the concept.” Her fiery spirit shone through the shadows when she opened them again, staring him down with glimmering blue orbs. Did she even realize all the body language she gave off daily?

 

“Understanding a concept is not the same as understanding the process,” he informed her in a neutral tone, a tad affronted by her visual challenge. “Your performance here is not entirely based off of your energy levels. You would have to be dead to not be able to do this, miko.”

 

She wrinkled her nose at him, a step down from sticking out her tongue like she had been doing earlier. He figured that such an expression was a stubborn denial of her confusion. “That's nothing practice can't handle…”

 

“From the beginning again.”

 

Grumbling, she shifted to get comfortable, and holding her hands out she closed her eyes and stilled. She never meditated before today, but she got it quickly enough.

 

“Stop cursing me under your breath and focus,” he ordered as her lips began to shift ever so slightly.

 

About seven minutes of this passed, and then Sesshomaru sensed her spiritual powers flowing in a different direction. It was calm, controlled, alive, and it made his own energy roil in reply.

 

“Good,” he encouraged, stomping his power into submission. A few seconds later the darkness was pierced again, an infinitely small yet brilliant light source hovering in her hand.

 

The miko slowly opened one eye, the second opening when the pinprick in space didn't immediately die in horror of seeing her looking at it.

 

It didn't go out yet, so she experimentally jostled her palms. It stayed in its place in the air, undisturbed and flickering brightly. It was then that she gave Sesshomaru a brilliant smile, which made him blink. “It's like magic!” She went back to staring at her tiny creation, absolutely thrilled.

 

A smirk was tugging at his lips, but he suppressed it. She was so happy over so little, even though said little was very important. He was ready to comment on its size, but of late the one thing to make the miko's accomplishments wink out was his disturbing her.

 

“So, I can make this bigger?” she asked, glancing at him past her little light. He nodded. Her eyes were almost unnerving when they shone like that, flickering wildly with her spirit and its raw energy held in her hand, making her skin glow a faint blue. She almost didn't look real. His own energy, the demon, knew she was very real though, and it wanted to kill her and be done with this threat.

 

And her smile was real as she focused on the little dot in the air, her hands rubbing around it like they were stroking an invisible barrier ball.

 

“How do I make it grow?”

 

“You know how,” he stated. He already repeated the facts more times than necessary.

 

“Yeah, but I'm not feeling what you told me to sense.”

 

“What do you feel now then?”

 

“Warm,” she smiled. She was too damn happy. “Excited. It feels like it's a little sun, radiating.”

 

“And you don't feel that radiating sensation anywhere else?” he asked experimentally. “Inside, not outside.”

 

“Well, yeah, I always do,” she stated sarcastically with a smirk.

 

His energy was itching under his skin now, trying to ghost her. This was becoming annoying. “Then draw it out.”

 

“I don't know how,” she fell back into her common statement, the smile gone.

 

“Guide it, move it,” he suggested. This was tiring, as a pup he got this within ten minutes. “Take control of it and shift it to your liking.”

 

“I like it right where it is, thank you,” she replied.

 

“Alright, then move it to where I like it so we can move on with this.”

 

She pouted her lower lip slightly, probably not noticing it, and shifting she focused sternly on the tiny spot.

 

He could almost hear her bargaining with it now. 'You know you want to,' and 'if you don't you're going to die because I'll starve to death right here on the spot,' and let's not forget her favorite, 'work, damn you, work!'. And yes, she did just yell that one to herself, because her lips pursed and she was glaring.

 

“Do you have an item you usually concentrate on?”

 

Poof. It was gone. She turned that glare onto him.

 

“A what?” she snapped.

 

“Something you channel your powers through,” he reiterated.

 

“Yeah, but that's not here right now,” she replied.

 

He frowned. Was it in the past? “What would that be?”

 

“The Shikon no Tama,” she replied. “It took me a while, but I realized it harnessed my energy for me. That's why the shards automatically purified for me, along with other things.”

 

A very familiar 'Find the Jewel' started running laps in Sesshomaru's mind, his energy trying to lash out at the miko while his concentration was divided.

 

“Have you found anything else then?” he asked, beating his enraged heritage into submission.

 

“Well, Miroku would sometimes make us hold hands and practice with my energy channeling, although I thought he was trying something else at first... I don't have too good of control over my powers, and he'd sometimes pull away and start cursing rather colorfully for a monk. He always said he was fine, but after the first week he stopped trying and just said I was powerful enough without training.”

 

So, it was the monk who was going to pay for Sesshomaru's wasted time? That was something to look forward to upon returning.

 

“Not that I'm suggesting holding hands or anything,” the miko continued, filling her uncomfortable silence. “I mean, that would just be wrong in more ways than I can count.”

 

“Indeed,” he agreed. She looked affronted then, but that wasn't important. “Try again.”

 

This lasted for another hour, until the miko began storming away to make her stomach stop growling. But time was not wasted.

 

“Miko, where do you draw the line between spiritual and demon powers?” They were still in the kitchen, and she leaning against the long table top that coupled the wall.

 

“M!” was her first reply to the question, around a bite and a half of bread stuffed with cold meat and cheese and lettuce, some sauces included. She bounded her butt off the counter and began to walk around a little, masticating. “They feel different. One's good, one's evil.”

 

“Wrong.”

 

She looked at him, annoyed. Good, that made two of them. “Care to explain then?”

 

It was very hard resisting rolling his eyes with a sigh and surrendered shoulders. This was impossible. A miko with her potential couldn't possibly be this ignorant, correct? Surely she had been informed on the qualities of each power?

 

“Merely different forms of energy,” he supplied. “Opposites. Counterparts. But they are complimentary.”

 

“I don't need a thesaurus,” she stated around a small smirk, which shifted loose some crumbs.

 

“No, more of a definition,” he clarified. A sudden example hit him then, though she needed provoking. “I am going to grab your throat and kill you now.”

 

Her eyes widened when he appeared before her and his hand lifted, and his thrust out fingers met a barrier.

 

“See this?” he asked her, sparing very little energy to crackle against her own, hand slowly passing through to make more energy contact across his palm, down his wrist, auras battling. Her petrifaction was amusing. He wasn't going to do anything bad, he just needed her personal barrier up. “It's like the magnets. They can be the same material in every way possible, but when turned at opposing angles their energies are opposites.”

 

Her brows were knitted with concentration, his fingers mere inches from her neck, and adding more power she sent his hand shooting back and over his shoulder.

 

“You don't have to risk my life to explain polar energies!” she yelled, holding her throat now with worry.

 

“You would be the one risking your own life here, miko,” he stated, smelling fresh blood coming from her shoulder wound. She looked so confused, and it was such a simple concept already to him. “Have you seen a demon consume the soul of a spiritual being?” Her eyes opened slightly more, a sign of recognition. “How do you suppose that soul can be consumed without purifying the consumer?”

 

She began looking from side to side. No, the answer was not going to be found there.

 

“I don't understand. They just eat it, right?”

 

“To add to their demonic powers, yes,” he supplied, slumping his shoulders ever so slightly. “It is basically asking if a poisonous snake will eat a poisonous toad?”

 

“N-no?” she asked. “They're not the same.”

 

Good.

 

“So if the energies are like two poisons... ... Why then?” the miko pursued the topic, finally ignoring her threatened neck and hand fondling her sandwich again. “Aren't they too different?”

 

“No.”

 

She was befuddled by such a blunt answer. “So, where do you draw the line?”

 

Oye... Where? That was an easier answer for the ignorant.

 

“Demon power, -youki, bad vibes, dangerous auras, however you wish to identify it- is an inherited manifestation of a soul. That is the simplistic definition of it. Spiritual power is also an alteration, but rather than passing though generations, it passes through karma from host to host. The better of a person you were in a past life, the stronger it is in the next; if unharnessed.”

 

He paused. She looked like she was staring at something on the other side of his head.

 

“... Alright, I'm lost,” she sighed, taking another bite. “Mind if I ponder that info during a bath?”

 

He gave the barest of nods and she hurried off, stuffing the rest of her little meal into her mouth.

 

“Oh! I'm still mad you for that slap from before!”

 

… Hm? Oh, that. Funny, but not. There was a long story ahead, and this gave Sesshomaru time to sort out the facts he had learned as a child...

 

“Alright,” the miko sighed, putting a peculiar device at her side as she joined him outside. She had found him at his favorite little wall for morning basking. “This is a tape recorder. I think you don't want to repeat yourself, so just tell me what you need to and I can listen to it again on the tape.”

 

She had to spend five minutes showing him how the device worked, her not letting him touch it until he took it. The device was defective; his voice wasn't that high pitched… He began the lecture anew.

 

“What do you remember?” he asked, watching as she hit the red button and the little gears spun slowly.

 

“Thaaaaaaaaat...” she looked at the sky as though her eyes could roll back and search her brain for the answer. “Demon and spiritual energies are the same, but come to their bearers in different manners. I still don't get the soul eating bit though... And why you related energies to poison...”

 

He nodded minutely. “The poisons were to further demonstrate that the same thing can be very different depending on the host.”

 

“Got it,” she affirmed, glancing up as the sun beamed for the first time over the tree tops. “And the soul eating?”

 

“Soul consumption has its limits. A demons can absorb souls, but monks and priestesses may not. Neutral souls, which every other living being has, are an energy source which can tilt to either side; or polarity, as you called it.”

 

She looked to be thinking, and when she glanced up from the silence to see him staring she gave a start. “I was just thinking about Naraku. He use to be human.”

 

That was a bit off the beaten path... “No weak, neutral soul could fully consume a demonic or spiritual essence into itself. Rather, it becomes possessed. Naraku was a collaboration of weak demons, which needed a mortal to chain them together, and would never become a full demon by absorbing more demons into a human heart. His efforts were futile.”

 

The miko nodded, Tenseiga hummed happily. It enjoyed this.

 

“Alright, I understand that,” she confirmed.

 

“Summarize,” he ordered.

 

“EH??” she asked, completely caught off guard. “W-what?? But-”

 

“Summarize.”

 

She looked flustered, and refused to meet his eyes. A cricket was chirping the day a greeting. “Um... Demons can eat souls, huma- I mean, neutral souls can try, but won't do it completely, and spiritual people can't at all?” She looked at him for confirmation, and his silence seemed to do. “So, is there a trade off for mikos and monks not absorbing souls?”

 

What a displeasing topic… “Whereas demons may devour a soul and let the spirit pass, your kind has the power to utterly destroy both,” he replied. She gave a horrible flinch and blinked at him a lot, disbelief practically waving flags across her young features. “That links back to power inheritance.” He swore that cricket chirp was suddenly coming from her head...

 

“... And?” she asked.

 

He really did sigh then.

 

“HEY!!” she yelled, shooting onto one knee on the wall. “In case you're wondering, I'm NOT an idiot!! Sure I may be human, but considering you have all the time in the world compared to me then I'd say we're making progress by my even being here!”

 

“Hn,” he scoffed. “Your shortened life is your choice.”

 

She flinched with a hand warily before her. “Is that a threat, buddy?”

 

He blinked at the peculiar ring on the last word. “Was that a challenge?”

 

“It was a question, you ass!” she yelled, planting her tiny fists on her still swelling hips. Puberty was an odd thing to go through, and he was glad to already be over his. Actually, that may describe her mood swings... “And stop staring at me like I'm a puzzle!”

 

“This Sesshomaru can not help but to puzzle out what is confusing.”

 

She quirked an eyebrow at him. “Oh, so I'm confusing?!”

 

“Indeed.”

 

“How?” she demanded, leaning at him and glaring right into his eyes. “You're the one who's wrapped himself in mystery! You're standoffish, arrogant, self righteous, egotistical, pompous, emotionless, boring, too self-reliant and just plain rude!”

 

He smirked, and she gave a start. “A fitting way to counter your downfalls.”

 

She seriously paled. “You- ... You indignant... MUTT!!!”

 

Anger burst to life in him and began consuming all sense in rapid procession, the demon leaping to action. When he blinked again he saw through blood-flushed eyes that he had the miko by her skinny throat, her flesh flexing tenderly against his grip, and he was growling mere inches from her face.

 

“-ARU!” he heard the end of her yell. “Let me go!! SESSHOMARU!!”

 

A MUTT!! She called him, the Lord of the Western Lands a meager mutt!! Was he as low as Inuyasha in her opinion? This was intolera-!

 

A very odd sensation ignited in his cheek and spread across his face, and when he blinked a few times the red was gone and he wasn't looking directly at the miko. In fact, his gaze was interrupted and turned ever so slightly off.

 

“Let me go,” she warned, only one hand holding his wrist now. The other was still hanging in the air.

 

She did do that, didn't she? Sesshomaru hadn't been slapped in the face for... ... He couldn't recall the last time. He expected to be roiling mad over this indignation. She should be dead, and bleeding, and dead, and possibly decapitated, but most importantly, dead.

 

Instead, she was rubbing her non severed neck as he sat back into his seated position, thinking.

 

“You deserved it,” she stated, some energy unconsciously flowing into the nail wounds he left in her flesh.

 

Yeah. He could think of a couple of things that he deserved that for, but to have her actually come out and attack him, and succeed... Well, he'd admit it to himself, that was pretty damn good for her.

 

“Next time, expect to not keep the hand,” he warned her.

 

“Next time, don't throw a tantrum!” she fired back.

 

He gave up with the regal appeal and rolled his eyes at her. “Is this a general female issue?”

 

Her eyes bugged. “And are you just an issue that happens to be a male?! I must say that for all the shit you've pulled, I'm a rather damn good 'female' who is NOT one of your meager subjects and who should be treated better than one!”

 

... There she was, getting clever again. Sesshomaru wasn't going to argue over the blatantly obvious, no matter how much it tainted his pride. Not that it did...

 

“And I may be a human,” she continued, becoming the stubborn embodiment of determination itself, “but from what you've said so far, even though we're opposites, we're equals, just different.”

 

“There is the potential,” he agreed, wanting oh so much to destroy her and any woman like her. “Being equals, however, is far out of your reach, little miko.”

 

She leveled a very perturbed look at him. “It's Kagome.”

 

“Summarize.”

 

“Ga?” she asked intellectually. “Wh- Y- GAAAAAAAAAH!! You son of a bitch, we were just talking about something else!”

 

He smirked.

 

“FINE!!” she yelled, crossing her arms. The air was thick with how deeply she stared at it. “... We didn't establish anything aside from you being a complete jerk! And you still have yet to answer two questions of mine!”

 

“Oh?” he asked.

 

“Yeah!” she informed, sounding like she just scored a point in something. “First, is there a trade off for the lack of soul absorption? I understand how each power is used differently, and it's rather sad and shocking, but I want to know why it's like that.”

 

Ah. That one. “Mm. Demons are capable of converting energy, and because of this we can utilize it for anything we choose, at the cost of vague mutations. Humans like you cannot absorb souls, but recycle your energy by either gathering loose particles from your surroundings or training. Because there is no full absorption for your kind, there is no bodily effect, and the spirit is left to harbor this energy until the next capable host it is transferred to.”

 

She stared at him. “THAT'S suppose to be an answer?? And would you please stop saying `your kind', it's annoying. I'm not one of them by choice.”

 

He stared back, continuing his thoughts on whether this was really possible, or even happening.

 

“So, what kind of mutations are there for demons? There's loose energy? How do I gather it more quickly?”

 

He was also reminiscing his decisive dislike for questions.

 

Tenseiga hummed at him to be patient. Oh yes, his father left him a fine nanny.

 

“Do you believe I choose the shape of my ears right now?” he asked. “The color of my eyes? My markings? Everything physical and alters from your average appear human is a trade-off for power channeling capabilities, determined in the adolescent stage of life.”

 

“Why then?” she asked, looking quite interested.

 

Was the well sure it didn't want to work again?

 

“That is when a demon's life is matured enough in its body to be drawn out,” he stated. “When it comes to age differences, I have changed in two hundred years as much as you would within one year. And you are suppose to be learning how to collect energy from your surroundings as we speak, not about this.”

 

She gapped. “You've aged that little?! How?!”

 

“I stated that answer already,” he found himself nearly growling. “Listen to the recorder.”

 

She shifted. “I forgot about that...”

 

“You brought it out here,” he mentioned, voice deadpanned.

 

“I know that!” she snapped, taking a breath. “Alright, that leaves my other question.”

 

“It's been answered,” he informed, confused. She certainly brought up a few questions, but he answered those.

 

“No, about the longevity thing. What did you mean by mentioning it the first time?”

 

Their conversation painfully looped in his head. “Your shortened life is your choice,” he repeated himself. Repetition was quickly taking the lead with the list of things that annoyed him. The miko was still at the top though.

 

“How is it my choice?” she asked.

 

“You can lengthen your time,” he said, intrigued that she didn't already assume as much. Her expression revealed that she hadn't expected as much either. “When you gather all your strength again, that is. You have enough power to outlive me if you so chose.”

 

She blinked at him as though his lips were suddenly replaced with flapping tentacles. “Really?”

 

“Yes,” he gave an honest answer. “Not at the rate of your training though... You'll be dead before you can focus yours spirit into your hand.”

 

“... My what?” she asked, still shocked.

 

“Your power,” he clarified, wincing inside at his slip. That was easy to cover though. “Spiritual source, miko supplies, energy well...”

 

“I know already you walking dictionary!” she yelled.

 

“Thesaurus.”

 

She boiled over, and he soon found himself back next to the broken well, into which she had to jump for the experiment. It still didn't work, but she had her personal time at the bottom to curse him and the beings who created him out. In other words, she was completely fine and acting according to her nature, as far as he could see.

 

Only five minutes after clambering out she was able to summon the spark into her hands, which brought them back to the dilemma of her not knowing what to do next.

 

“How is THIS going to help?!” she demanded, running out of the house with bow and arrow in hand.

 

“We'll see,” was his reply. She had a few problems with using her house and the shrines as targets.

 

“My aim is better than that, I don't need the side of a barn,” she stated, confusing him again. They weren't barns… “how about the fence? I can hit the wood stakes.”

 

Sesshomaru glanced over at the shabby structure which she called a fence, its wood as separated as it was wide. There was a bit of a forest behind it though, so he supposed it would be fine.

 

Her pose was struck and her weapon lifted. Sesshomaru watched as she summoned her powers in a very foreign way, pulling it from her actual body rather than from her surroundings, like her kind usually did.

 

“And I hold it like this?” she asked, shaded by the tree of ages in the morning light. It wasn't long before her arm began to waver from the long drawing of the bow. “Um, what am I suppose to see?”

 

Sesshomaru was smitten with the desire to slap himself in the forehead as he stood a ways to her side to watch.

 

“Hey sis!”

 

“Not now Sota!” she yelled, her little brother running up the shrine steps and staying only five feet away from the arrow's path. He was in a uniform with a white ball in hand, precisely placed black shapes on it. “And get out of the way, won't you!?”

 

“Close your eyes,” Sesshomaru told her. She needed to feel this, not see it, she was missing the point. She looked at him with a muddled expression, shoulders moving slightly as she turned her head, and that expression soon turned to shock when her fingers slipped.

 

Sesshomaru saw the slip, and a split second later seized the arrow in mid air. A wave of spiritual power came crashing after it, and it was rather annoying how much it stung even while being deflected.

 

The little boy was horrified when he blinked to see an arrow held a foot away from his chest.

 

“W-!” he whined, falling to his bottom and the ball rolling away. “What just happened…?”

 

“Sota!!” the miko wailed, dropping her weapon and rushing to her brother. She skid to her knees and embraced his now shaking self, tears in both their eyes. “Oh, kami, Sota!! I'm so sorry!!”

 

Sesshomaru tossed the arrow aside and examined his palm, the wooden shaft having left its imprint. It was rather deep, and still stinging with the purification energy. Damn. That would take a few days to heal…

 

“Thank you.”

 

He turned and regarded the miko, her face shadowed by her bangs as the boy stared in shock over her shoulder, moisture beading from his eyes. Her hands were knotted in the jersey top, its fabric odd and catching the light like dull metal. Her shoulders shook, and fear was wafting from her.

 

“Thank you,” she repeated herself, hugging the boy tighter.

 

Sesshomaru watched this for a moment, and left. The training could wait a little while.