InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Without Words ❯ Duty ( Chapter 3 )

A/N: Hello all! Yeah, this is a rough-ish version of the chapter. As soon as I get the revisions from Kendiefox, I'll repost this, but I thought I should put something up in the mean time. Seriously, this chapter was supposed to go up so long ago, it's not funny. Still, when you have three betas, you're bound to have scheduling conflicts. So there you have it.

Make sure you go visit the RKRC Awards site and participate in the nominations and voting for your favorite Rurouni Kenshin fanfiction from 2003. Here's the site address (take out the spaces) http:// tfme.net/ rkrc/ index.php. The nomination/seconding phase ends Aug 30, this Monday, and voting starts Sept. 1st. There are still categories that need a few more seconded stories to go to the voting round, so be sure to participate!

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Without Words: Duty

Kagome fiddled with the silver comb resting on the vanity with jeweled fingers. Through the mirror she watched Eri and Yuka fuss and giggle over Naoko and Ayumi. Tonight, they would be meeting with the men seeking to court them.

She ran her eyes over her elder sisters and tilted her head slightly. Would their suitors see them as she did?

"Watch them when they don't know you're looking," Yuka advised. "I almost told Mama to accept Lord Ito's petition except I saw him groping one of the servers while I was dancing with Souta." Her face was too round to be anything more than cute, but gentleness radiated from her smiles.

Naoko rolled her eyes. "We'll be fine. Besides, it's not like we have to pick tonight. Mama said there's no rush until we're twenty." She was fine-boned and petite, but had a stare that could intimidate any sea-demon and a stubbornly loyal heart.

"Which is fine for you, but I only have eight months until my birthday." Ayumi frowned and poked through her jewelry chest with long fingers. She was all angles, but beautiful in her austerity. Though she wasn't the eldest, her mind for politics favored her for the throne.

And then there was Eri. Quiet, conciliatory Eri. Without her soothing voice and soulful eyes, the palace would have lain in ruins years ago. Especially since the sisters shared both a common dressing room and black, flowing hair that reached past their hips. Preparing for a ball was like preparing for battle with all the quick tempers and pointy hair ornaments crowded in one room.

Her sisters chattered and a melancholy smile quirked Kagome's mouth. Nervous energy tingled through the water, but she couldn't make herself excited for her two older sisters. She stared at the dainty strings of pearls looped across her chest and felt bare. Three days since she'd lost the jewel and still no hope that it could be retrieved.

Two of her sisters were starting their courting interviews and all she could worry about was miko business.

"Did Mama say you could stay with the miko next week?"

Kagome stirred and turned to meet Naoko's neutral gaze. She nodded.

Ayumi paused in her rummaging and glanced at her younger sister over the rose-veined marble chest. "This is the court's busiest season, Kagome. You shouldn't be skipping out on so many obligations. Why does it have to be now?"

"You don't have to do any dangerous training, do you?" Yuka's hands fluttered around Yuka's twisted and braided hair. "I heard one of the guards saying the demons have been restless. They said they haven't seen them this active since, well…"

Kagome's shoulders stiffened as a beat of silence thrummed between them. Yuka swallowed heavily and forced her hands to her sides. "I mean, she won't make you help get rid of them, will she? I know you've been out with the Guard a few times, but you aren't really trained yet."

The tension eased a fraction and Kagome forced a reassuring smile to her lips. Her father's shadow weighed upon her shoulders like a chain.

"Only if the Guard can't handle it. And besides, she wouldn't let me go alone."

Ayumi hooked a pair of pearls into her ears. Eri said they softened her face. "Mama worries, you know. Even though she told Kaede that you could be trained, she doesn't like that a princess is mixed up in miko business. You have responsibilities in court, and the higher families are beginning to get upset."

"Who cares what those windbags think," Naoko snapped, "I'm a little more worried that my little sister is going to be bitten through by a shark demon." She winced as Eri dug a pin into hair and jerked away to glare at her over her shoulder. Eri bit her lip and shrugged.

"That's exactly what they're worried about," Ayumi insisted, twisting around on her stool to face the room. "They're worried what happened before will happen again. A member of the royal family has no business becoming a miko."

"I didn't choose this," Kagome said to herself quietly in the mirror.

Yuka laid soothing hands on Ayumi's shoulders. "Please, don't talk about that. Not tonight."

"Why not?" Naoko pulled away from Eri and tiny pearls rolled through the water. "We have every right to be worried. That hag is too old to keep anyone safe. How do we know she's really doing a good job training Kagome?" She flung a hand through the water angrily. "I mean, she did such a great job training father, right?"

Kagome shut her eyes. Yuka gasped and Ayumi slammed the lid of her jewelry chest shut. Eri let the pearls she'd collected sink from her hands.

The same argument. They knew exactly which buttons to push until it escalated and someone tore open the old wound.

"For a princess, you lack tact, sister." Ayumi abruptly turned from them to face her mirror and tucked her hands beneath the vanity dresser.

Naoko hissed a breath through her teeth and balled her hands into fists. "For a sister, you lack compassion, princess."

"Stop it, both of you," Eri pleaded, gripping one of Naoko's hands between her own. "Mother agreed that it was wrong of grandfather Hiroshi to forbid father from learning how to use his power. That's why Kagome goes to Kaede."

Yuka worried her lower lip with her teeth. "We're just worried about our little sister."

"Kagome knows what she's doing. If she didn't think she could handle something, she would tell Kaede." Eri turned to Naoko at the last.

Naoko glared for a moment, but was the first to look away. "Yeah, but would Kaede listen to her?"

Kagome clenched her hands in her lap. "She's the only one who does."

She hadn't meant it to sound so accusatory. Her older sisters stared at her with stricken expressions and she let her eyes slide to the bare spot on her chest. Honestly, if she wasn't so preoccupied she would have remembered to keep her temper in check. They bickered over her welfare so often that it was pointless to intrude.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything." She pushed away from the vanity and swam toward the door.

"Kagome."

She shook her head without looking back and fled into the hallway. Behind her she heard Ayumi murmur something and Naoko snap in reply. Probably wondering if she would show up to the ball, which was silly. She'd already given her mother her word.

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Peach shadows ghosted over Kagome's skin as Houjo, a minor Lord's son, moved her through the precise turns and dips of the dance. She tipped her face to the high-domed, coral ceiling of the ballroom and let out a small sigh. If she'd been any less conscience-driven, she would have used the excuse of sulking over the fight with her sisters to have skipped out of the ball three hours ago. Staring at the plankton floating through her room was more interesting than sharing dance after dance with Houjo.

"Are you having fun, Princess?" His eyes disappeared beneath the pleasant smile on his face. He asked after every dance and she always gave the same, polite answer.

"Of course, Lord Houjo." He never wondered why he was the only one to ask her to dance, or why they were never jostled by the rest of the crowd.

"I'm glad. I hear from my father that you're spending more and more time with the miko. You must be exhausted from all of your training."

Her eyebrow arched. Boring he could be, and he was certainly oblivious, but sometimes he surprised her with a bit of insight.

"Yes, I'm learning a lot of defensive spells right now." She warmed to the subject and a genuine smile lit her face. "I'm not very good yet, but my offense is improving. Kaede says I might be able to start helping the Guard within the next year."

He tilted his head to the side and grinned. "Why would you want to do that?"

She blinked and barely noticed when he began guiding her through the motions of the next dance. "Because I can. Mikos are very rare, only one or two every generation, so I have a responsibility."

His brows drew together in confusion. "But you don't have to be a miko, right? My father says if the miko hadn't forced the Queen to let you start training, you would have been a normal princess."

Pain clenched her chest and she had to fight to keep the smile on her face gentle. It wasn't his fault, after all. "No, Houjo. That's not now it works." She broke from their dance and offered him an apologetic smile. "Please excuse me, I need to go speak with my mother."

The good-natured grin resurfaced on his face and he waved cheerfully after her. "Are you going to sing for us tonight?"

Another wince. "No promises."

She turned and swam through the pathway that automatically cleared for her as she glided through the dancers. They did the same thing for her sisters whenever they moved. The disapproval and wariness that radiated from their eyes and mouths trailed after her like a murky cloud. Her sisters didn't share that privilege.

The throne was raised on an artful spill of coral and shells at the head of the ballroom. Sinuous curves of marble and whale bones rose from the heap and arched to frame the monarch's head like a crown. The Queen spent most of her time perched on the edge of the seat, entertaining well-wishers and friends in the court.

She looked up and extended a hand as Kagome approached. The young couple she had been talking to turned with their Queen's attention. Kagome ignored the veiled curiosity and wariness on their faces as they hastily excused themselves and melted back into the crowd. It wasn't who she was so much as what they thought she would become.

"I see you were dancing with that Houjo boy again," her mother greeted as she squeezed her hand and pulled her forward to settle on the small stool extending from the right of the throne.

"Yes," but only because he was the only noble clueless enough to her position that would.

Her mother beamed and smoothed a strand of hair from her face. "At this rate, you'll be married even before Yuka. Souta's parents are driving me insane with all their requests for 'urgent audiences' to plan the ceremony."

Kagome considered her mother for a moment. "You want me to get married?"

"Well, if you're taken with Houjo, why not? He seems very understanding about your business as a miko and I'm sure Kaede wouldn't object. He seems very amiable."

What he is, is very boring, Kagome mused as she favored her mother with a small smile. She had no intentions of marrying Houjo. Really, she had no intentions of marrying anyone. That her mother probably wouldn't object to that said a lot about her position in court.

"When are you going to Kaede's?"

"In the morning."

"You'll be back in exactly a week?" Her mother smiled brightly over the crowd as she murmured to her. Kagome didn't have to check to know she was smiling just as dazzlingly. The crowd of flirting nobles was a warm, glittering murmur before them, splashed across the combed sand of the ballroom.

"Most likely. We're doing some research on the Shikon no Tama." Her mother hadn't noticed the jewel's absence, but her sisters had. She'd counted on that and come up with a likely sounding excuse to keep their suspicions down. They wouldn't like knowing their baby sister was ghosting the Shihai no Inu kingdom's coastline to try and catch a glimpse of their prince. She'd already had one close call when she'd gotten close enough for one of the guards to smell her.

Her mother sighed. "Well, try to be back as soon as you can. I know how important the jewel is, or I wouldn't let you hide away for so long. You are a princess first, a miko second."

Kagome's smile thinned. According to Kaede, it was the opposite, and Kagome couldn't help but agree. And considering that her mother had already mentioned redecorating the miko's wing of the palace for her, the comment was rather hypocritical.

Guilt tugged at her and she swallowed her annoyance. Her mother's life hadn't been any easier than her own was shaping out to be. When grandfather Hiroshi had died, her parents had already been married for over a decade and her grandmother had passed the throne to her only son. Her mother hadn't had that option when her husband had lost himself in the demon raids ten years ago. With five children, the eldest barely ten, her mother had had the fate of the merkingdom placed upon her shoulders.

Kagome folded her fingers into her mother's hand. "When I get back, do you want to start drawing plans for the miko rooms?"

Her mother turned to her fully and a surprised smile tugged her lips. "That sounds wonderful. I can let Father and your grandmother deal with court business for a day without everything falling apart. I'm glad you'll want to stay in the palace. Those rooms haven't been used since before your late grandfather's time."

Kagome snorted. "Kaede enjoys her privacy and so did her mentor, from what she tells me. Of course, they didn't have their entire family living in the palace, either."

"I've always liked Kaede." Her mother sighed and her gaze turned inward. "If things had been different… maybe I would have been more persuasive about having her move into the palace." She stared blankly for a moment before focusing back on Kagome and smiling. "It would have saved you from having to swim so far every day."

She shrugged, feeling a little of her melancholy drift away. Her mother loved her, she knew, but saw a little too much of her husband in her youngest daughter for them to have an easy relationship. Kagome wondered if her mother had ever forgiven her husband for rushing to help the Guard when he'd never been allowed any combat training. Kaede had made her only visit to the palace shortly after that day.

"I told your mother that if she loved her family, she wouldn't let the same fate befall her daughter that had befallen her husband. I wanted to take you that very day and raise you as my apprentice, but she wouldn't completely give you up. So we compromised and that is how you are laden with two sets of responsibilities."

Kagome mused over memories and let the pleasant babble of the ball wash over her. From this distance, the court wasn't so bad. She could almost pretend that her isolation was temporary, that she was watching from the sidelines by choice.

Her mother hummed lightly under her breath and gave her hand a squeeze. "Since you're going to be gone, would you sing for us tonight?"

Kagome closed her eyes and let out an imperceptible sigh. She loved to sing, but… "For the court?" she asked quietly. Even singing in front of her family was awkward.

"Of course," she chuckled. "I keep telling you, it would be terrible of me to horde the sweetest voice in the kingdom only for the family."

"They don't want to hear me sing."

Her mother's laugh was like jewels tumbling over a reef. "Kagome, I can't count how many times people have asked me why you don't become a performer instead of a miko."

She fought to keep her hand in her mother's relaxed. "I'm a singer, not a performer."

"What's the difference?" She smoothed her hand down her arm. "Please, sweetheart? You're their princess."

Kagome clenched her jaw against the jellyfish wriggling up her throat and nodded jerkily.

The court fell into an expectant hush as she moved to the raised platform where the musicians played. She murmured her request to the conductor and he bowed. The face she turned to the audience was calm, but inside she quailed beneath so many sets of eyes. She could deal with their stares and whispers when they were reviling her training, but not when she sang.

She worked her tongue in her dry mouth and swallowed heavily. Since she'd turned eight and her mother had discovered she could carry a pleasant melody, she'd been thrust on this stage. Every time she vowed to tell her mother never again, and every time she bowed to the Queen's request.

The opening bars of the piece floated to her ears and she closed her eyes. She imagined the cold rush of air against her face and a warm weight pillowed on her chest. She laced her fingers before her and imagined they were tangled in thick, damp hair.

The notes drifted from her tongue and wove through the audience like a warm current. She watched their faces relax and the wariness seep from their eyes as they watched her sing. For the few minutes of a song, they would lay aside their distrust and suspicions and praise their luck at having such a princess.

She clenched her eyes shut and sang the rest of the song blind.

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Dawn stretched warm fingers over her back, warming skin chilled from a long night spent skulking. Kagome frowned at the term. It sounded oily. Still, she couldn't think of a more accurate description for her recent assignment. Given a choice, she would rather be helping the merkingdom's guards quell the recent restlessness in the demon community. Watching the same three mile coast line for hours on end, while marginally safer, was boring to the point of making her scales flake.

"Come on, little prince. You have to come out of there some time." She scowled at the upper stories of the castle that hunkered on the cliff above her. Since it was still early, she was perched atop one of the many rocks littering the cove's waters. A modest beach nestled at the base of the high, wind-blasted cliff that sported the Shihai no Inu kingdom's stronghold. Snaking up the side of the rock was a stone-carved staircase with a sturdy railing mounted into the cliff-side. Kagome would have found the landscape romantic if it weren't for her growing frustration with the hanyou prince that lived behind the narrow windows and thick walls of the castle.

She thumped her tail agitatedly against her rock and folded her arms beneath her breasts. "Coward. One little storm and you refuse to even look at the ocean. Your soldiers are starting rumors about it down at the docks, you know. If you're not careful, your reputation is going to get even worse." It probably wasn't a healthy occupation, spitting insults at a man hundreds of yards distant and cloaked in stone, but one that Kagome had taken up in the last few days. She needed to find him, to talk to him. Relaying a message to him through one of the guards that patrolled the coastline wasn't an option. The soldier who had scented her had gone stiff and immediately alerted his group. Luckily, she'd been low enough in the water to duck without being seen, because they hadn't looked like the type to ask questions first.

That brought her back to her second largest problem, the one beyond getting the prince close enough to talk to. What would she do when she had him? Over the days she'd rehearsed several speeches focused on appealing to their kindred alienation and the fact that she'd saved his life. She wondered which to favor. From the little she'd seen of him, he looked to have a lot of pride. Playing to either sympathy might put him off. It was that uncertainty more than anything that made her antsy.

"This isn't working and it's not going to work," she concluded to the quiet morning air. She needed a different plan, another way of getting close to him. More importantly, she needed to confront him in a form he wouldn't take a spear to.

Each time she returned empty handed, Kaede grew more agitated. Kagome knew she was hiding something from her, but not what. What was clear was that the situation was becoming more serious with each day. The jewel needed to be retrieved, and soon.

With a shake of her head, Kagome slid off the rock and began navigating through the shallow water out to sea. She wouldn't bother following the coast farther east where the cliffs sloped down into an older cove swollen with docks and a small village. He wouldn't be there, just as he hadn't been. The little bit of information she'd gleaned before almost being discovered told her that much. The prince was spooked and, short of going in after him, she wasn't going to be able to get the jewel back.

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"Any luck, child?" Kaede even had the grace to keep her face hopeful as she asked. The effort was wasted on Kagome. She simply shook her head and drifted toward the back wall of the miko's cave to run her eyes idly over her collection of medicines and potions.

"I see." Kagome didn't have to look at her to know she had closed her good eye and had thinned her lips. "I have dreaded a day that something like this would occur."

Kagome did look at her then. "What? Are you saying you knew I would lose the jewel?"

The older miko folded her hands on her lap and shook her head. "Not so specifically, no. The jewel is drawn to the land, though, back to its home. It is there that souls walk, after all. It must feel deserted residing so far below the waves among spirits that are mute and deaf to its powers."

Kagome's eyes narrowed. "So, what, the jewel hatched a diabolical scheme to get me to save the prince so it could escape back to land?"

Kaede stared at her for a beat before glaring. "The point is, I wasn't surprised when the jewel ended up back in the hands of the land-walkers. I just wasn't expecting it to happen at such a crucial time."

"What do you mean?"

Kaede sighed and gestured to her miko pool. Kagome drifted over and waited patiently for the image to shift into focus.

"This is an image I saved from earlier, but you could probably find him there even now. He has visited all the shrine libraries of his own country, now he moves on to his neighbor's."

Kagome dimly heard Kaede's words over the growing roar of panic building in her. It was the same man from before. His curly head was bent intently over crumbling scrolls that he leafed through with slender, pale fingers. She could feel the force of his power radiate from the glass.

"The picture," she whispered, staring at the book, "is that the jewel?"

"Yes."

The word settled between them as they watched the demon study the image of the armored, faceless miko holding a glowing jewel before the gaping hole in her chest.

"What does it say?" Kagome demanded. Her fingernails dug into the flesh of her palms.

"I should have started teaching you their written language earlier," the older miko groused.

"Kaede!"

"Peace, child. In this, at least, we are lucky. The text is very vague, not even naming Midoriko as the miko who gave her soul for her people. And, as far as how the jewel's powers are unlocked, they are as ignorant as we are. That is knowledge lost forever, I hope."

Kagome relaxed for a moment before sitting straight again. "But he might figure it out. If he finds the jewel, there's no guarantee he wouldn't."

"No, there isn't. But he is in a kingdom far from your hanyou prince. He is gaining power swiftly, but he is still no threat to the Shihai no Inu kingdom. The jewel is safe, for now." Kaede wiped the glass clean and sat back on her stool with a sigh.

Kagome stared at the clear pool and saw the miko bearing down on her with the bow and arrow once again. At the time, she had panicked, losing the jewel as surely as if she'd shattered it and scattered the pieces into a fathomless trench. Now, she was frighteningly clear-headed as her mind worked over the possibilities.

"Kaede," she called softly.

The elder miko roused from her own musings and fixed her one good eye on her.

"The prince can change shape and become human when the moon is dark." Her hands smoothed over the silvery scales of her hips.

Kaede stared at her hard and nodded.

"Is there some way that I could become human?" She met her mentor's gaze and held it. Her terror was a distant voice pounding against a door she'd firmly closed in the back of her mind. She had to ask. If there was a way to get the jewel back, she had to try. The choice had been made the moment she'd swum away and left her duty lying in the palm of a stranger.

Kaede's face darkened and the edges of her mouth sank until they were lost amid the creases of her cheeks.

"I forbid it."

Kagome blinked. "You mean there is a way?" Her fears wailed faintly, but she brushed them aside with the sweep of her hands across the scales of her lap.

"Not one that I will allow you to use," Kaede snapped and pushed away from the low stool with a furious swipe of her tail.

"Why not?" She forced her hands to her sides and flitted after Kaede.

"Because the price of doing such magic is too much." She pulled hunks of brightly colored seaweed from a basket and began bundling them together with sharp swipes of her hands.

Kagome studied her profile and found fear and sorrow lurking behind her mentor's schooled expression.

Her heart started beating too hard. "What price?"

"It is of no concern to you. Changing was forbidden when the jewel was handed to our care thousands of years ago. We were meant to fall into obscurity, and that is where we will stay."

Kagome's eyes widened and a bit of her terror moved aside to make room for curiosity. She crouched beside her mentor and covered her hands to still them.

"You mean we let the land-walkers forget about us? That's why they can't tell us from the other sea-demons anymore?"

Kaede glared at her for a moment before closing her eye and taking a soothing breath.

"Kaede, the prince won't come to me. Even if he did, he would probably try to kill me before I could ask him about the jewel. The only way to get the jewel back is to go in after him in a familiar form. That youkai knows about the jewel, and you've seen him several times in your pool. He's dangerous." She shrugged. "Even I can feel that, and I'm not fully trained. If the ancestors forbade us from changing to protect the jewel, then it must be alright to change if it's to keep it from him."

Kaede opened her eye and searched over her face. "Kagome, you do not know what you are asking of yourself."

She squeezed her hands lightly. "Then tell me. Whatever you say, it won't change my mind. I have to get the jewel back. It's my fault that it's up there, because I couldn't protect it."

Kaede searched her face before silently moving to the highest shelf on the back wall and pulling down a thin sheet of discolored silver. She returned to the stool and handed the sheet to Kagome.

She turned it over in her hand and found a spell neatly impressed into the metal in the mermaids' spidery script.

"Conversion of the spirit." She skimmed over the words and felt her throat tighten. "It would turn my spirit into a soul?"

Kaede nodded. "Though our physical forms are similar to the land-walkers, we differ in our spiritual. To sustain a human body, you would need to trade your spirit for a soul."

"But that's impossible," she protested as she reread the words and tried to make sense of them.

"No, it is quite possible if you have a blueprint. We live our three hundred years because our spirits constantly renew our life force with every breath. By bonding with a soul, and with this spell, that renewing energy can be turned to generating a soul by mimicking the pattern of the bonded soul."

"What kind of bond?"

"Love. A strong love that would turn the soul-bearer's eyes from all others and only to you." Kaede sighed and took the plate back from Kagome's limp fingers. "Which is a very rare occurrence. That is why there is a smaller spell that can sustain the spirit within in a human body when a mermaid takes that form."

"Then why did you show me this?" Kagome waved a hand at the spell in Kaede's hands.

"Because, child, the spell that lets us change freely between forms was destroyed. I can make you human, but human you would remain until death. And beyond the two months the charm would last, your only hope of living would be binding to a land-walker."

Kagome's chest began to ache and belatedly she remembered to suck in a new breath. She would pay dearly for her mistake, it seemed.

"Do you see why I am reluctant to agree with you?" Her mentor set the sheet of silver on the nearest shelf and tucked her hands over her arms. "You would be lost to us forever, Kagome. The jewel is important, but not worth your life."

She shook her head. "Kaede, I already told you I was going to do this. My life is important, but I cannot let my mistake create a war when I can prevent it." She forced a smile to her face. "Besides, you said I could live as a human if I fall in love. It's not a guarantee, but it's better than nothing."

Kaede scowled at her. "Have you no respect for your own life? Or at least for the feelings of your family and kingdom? Your mother could not stand losing another in such a way."

"I can't help being who I am." She sighed and favored her mentor with a tired smile. "You should know better than anyone why I have to do this. I am a princess, but I am also a miko. And, as far as princesses go, I'm not a very good one. I have a larger responsibility to the jewel."

"And where would that leave me?" Kaede thumped her tail angrily. "You are my only apprentice, Kagome, and I am an old woman."

"Hanako is four already, you could begin the basic teachings within a few years. She is from a family not tied to the court, so you would not have the same time limitations that you've had with me. She could learn everything I have and more before she is eleven. And you know you are too stubborn to let go when you still have work to do."

Kaede glared at her for a minute and then tucked her chin to her chest and began to meditate.

Kagome leaned back in surprise. Her mentor only meditated to balance her mood when Kagome really irritated her. Or when she accidentally broke priceless artifacts and jars of medicine. She'd gone through a lanky stage at thirteen.

Her tail had started to fall asleep when Kaede finally sighed and lifted her head.

"I do not agree with you, Kagome," she pronounced. "Let the land-walkers stew in whatever mess they create for themselves with the power of the jewel. You are too important to too many people to sacrifice for the sake of something so silly."

"Kaede," she began to protest, but shut her mouth when her mentor put up a hand.

"However," she said quietly, "As a miko, and your mentor, I realize that you are bound both by your responsibility to the jewel and your duty as a miko to take this task. The lives of thousands depend on the jewel returning to our hands where it will remain mute."

"Thank you, Kaede." She tucked her hands together in her lap and sternly ordered them to stop quivering.

"With that decided, there is one more thing I must tell you before you can make your choice."

She frowned. "I already have."

Kaede shushed her. "You do not know the price of the magic I must use to make you human."

The jellyfish had returned to her stomach and she squirmed impatiently on her seat. "Whatever it is, fine."

"Impetuous," Kaede snapped and then took a soothing breath. "To gain one thing, something else must be given up. That is the first rule of magic."

Kagome nodded and balled her hands into fists.

"A mermaid on land is a cripple. To gain legs means that the handicap must manifest in some other form. The old spell was able to sidestep this part, but we are not so lucky."

"So you mean I'd have to give up my arms, or something?" She could cheerfully throttle her ancestors for making this so difficult. Their caution for the jewel so long ago had made it nearly impossible to rescue it today.

"That is too simple. The price of gaining mobility on land is giving up a sense. Specifically, one of the three we use most to communicate: sight, speech, and sound." Kaede met her gaze and held it. "Regaining the jewel will still be a challenge. No matter what you decide to give up, you will be at a disadvantage. Are you sure you want to do this?"

Kagome turned the idea over in her head for a moment before shoving everything out of her mind and nodding sharply. If she thought about it too much, she would be paralyzed by the fear she could feel building at the edges of her consciousness. Once the jewel was safe, she could bemoan the colossal mess her life had turned into because of one good deed.

"I'm going to get the jewel back." A vision of the bedraggled prince as he lay on the beach filled her mind and a peculiar emotion welled within her. She tried to squash it, but it welled over her in waves of bitterness. If she hadn't saved his life, she could have kept hers.

"What are you thinking, child?" Kaede placed a hand on her shoulder and she jerked.

"Nothing, Kaede." She closed her eyes and worked to push the irrational emotions aside. It wasn't his fault. She had made the choice that night to save him, and she wouldn't trade his life for the jewel now even if she were handed the choice. How could she live with herself knowing she had put her life above another's? That empathy was what had driven her to this decision in the first place.

Still… even though she couldn't blame him, she didn't know how happy she would be to see his face again.

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Yikes, this doesn't sound so good for Inu-Yasha. And just what has that boy been up to this past week or so? We shall see. Remember, if you have any questions about the story, email me or leave them in a review and I'll try to answer them in updates and/or emails… that is, if they aren't answers that will ruin the plot for you ::laughs::