InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The 500 Year Engagement ❯ A Disaster and a Revelation ( Chapter 28 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
The 500-Year Engagement
A Disaster and a Revelation
By Majicman55

Disclaimer: The characters from “InuYasha” are not mine; they are the intellectual property of Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan, Yomiuri TV, and Viz. I do not benefit financially from these writings. I just like to play with the characters.

Again, I apologize for taking so long to get back to this.

This story was started before I saw the final season, so I guess it’s not really a continuation, anymore. I’ve decided not to re-categorize it, though. Please excuse me if I have to shed a bit of rust.

I would appreciate any reviews.


Even the finest-honed senses cannot help, sometimes.

All three of the boys were distracted. Miroku wouldn’t have felt the girls’ presence, anyway, and both Sesshoumaru and InuYasha’s keen sense of smell had been overwhelmed by the overly perfumed lingerie models who were presently trying to ensconce themselves in their respective laps. And while InuYasha normally would have detected Kagome’s presence through their shared mental connection, said miko was suppressing that connection so that she and the girls could surprise the boys at their private party.

It would be a surprise, alright.

“This was easier with the old locks,” she murmured as she manipulated the inner workings of the mechanism with a focused application of her reiki.

The statement confused the taijiya, who wondered just what her friend had been up to during all the years between her own era and this new, both frightening and exciting, time. “Kagome?”

“Yes, Sango?”

“I was wondering.” She paused a moment, imagining that Kagome and InuYasha had led some kind of double life as spies or, worse, burglars. How did you ask a friend about something like that? “Just why would a miko need to know how to pick locks?”

Kagome looked up and shrugged. “Five…hundred…years.” She sighed. “You can get bored. I got bored. So…the cure for boredom is new things and new ideas, like how to pick locks.” Kagome giggled at her friend’s worried expression.

“One day, I decided to see if I could do more with barriers. First, I learned how to manipulate barriers so that I could use them both defensively and offensively. Then I started teaching myself really fine manipulation.” She nodded towards the door. “As in opening locks.”

Sango watched over Kagome’s shoulder as the miko got back to work on the stubborn lock. “But why would you need to do this?”

“Oh.” Kagome hesitated. “Birthdays, I guess.”

“Birthdays?”

“And anniversaries,” put in Rin. “Kagome helped me out quite a few times with her lock-picking. I’m grateful, although it did upset Fluffy.”

“You’re quite welcome, Rin.” Kagome grinned and continued. “The boys would lock up our gifts to keep us from finding out what they were. It was a challenge. Rin and I became like kids trying to find out what their parents got them for Christmas.”

Sango looked puzzled again. Kagome realized that the taijiya hadn’t seen that particular holiday yet. “It’s a holiday Japan adopted from the West. Kids love it.” Kagome sighed. “I’ll explain it later.” Just then there was a soft click and Kagome pushed the door open.

All three girls stepped into the bar.


******************


Even without the superhuman abilities of the daiyoukai and the hanyou, Miroku was the first to sense disaster.

While most of the bar (except for the well-lit stage) was dark, one area that did have subdued lighting was right inside the front door. After long travels with the Inu-tachi during which he had been discovered (on more than one occasion) in teahouses, with geishas, the monk’s natural apprehension caused him to look anytime someone entered…especially if his sixth sense was screaming “disaster.”

And this one was bonafide. His eyes darted between the lingerie model (who was busy politicking for a big tip) and his fiancé (who was deciding whether to gut him or the lingerie model, first).

His attention became so focused on his fiancé that both Kagome and Rin effectively vanished from his perception. “Sango,” he pleaded. “It’s not what it seems!”

“MI-RO-KUUU!”

For the second time in one day, her Hiraikotsu became lodged in a wall.

The monk took solace in the fact that Sango hadn’t seriously tried to kill him…yet. But it was little comfort when her specter loomed over the bar with an aura more menacing than any he had ever encountered.

Her aura seemed to say “I love you, but I want to kill you.” Miroku took advantage of the low lighting by dropping to the floor and scurrying behind a table. There had been just enough light from the stage for Sango to see him (and, unfortunately, the other girl), but If he could only hide from his angry fiancé long enough for her to cool down, he could explain.

Although he had no idea how he was going to do that.

Despite being fortified with pre-party alcohol, the model (Sango thought of her, indeed, as a geisha) who Miroku had, perforce, dumped on the floor demonstrated enough sense to get scarce as soon as possible. The sight of a huge and dangerous-looking boomerang whooshing over her head and lodging in the wall behind her had proved inspirational.

The inebriated model giggled nervously. She was no stranger to cat fights with other guys’ girlfriends and wives, but she had no desire to tangle with this girl. She stopped her inane giggling, but then started to hiccough.

It didn’t stop her from crawling on hands and knees in the direction of the dressing room.

If memory served, there was a window big enough to crawl through.

Both InuYasha and Sesshoumaru, following the monk’s example, quickly stood up, dumping their girls unceremoniously. Both models realized that there would be no “big tips” on this night….and no protection from these angry girls who had just caught their philandering men in the act.

Worse, the one girl seemed to be surrounded by a strange combination of purples and black(?) light, and her eyes glowed like coals in the fires of...

The model who had been playing up to InuYasha decided that anywhere else was preferable to here. She seized the other lingerie model’s arm and dragged her to the dressing room.

It wasn’t an act of altruism. She was keeping the other girl between her and Kagome.

“And just what is going on here?” Rin might not ever have grown very tall, but she seemed to loom over the daiyoukai.

The Great Lord of the Western Lands tried to use his most authoritarian voice. “Th-This Sesshoumaru can explain.”

InuYasha looked in shock at his brother. The Great Lord of the Western Lands was stuttering? “Sesshoumaru?”

“Hn.” Sesshoumaru kept his full attention on the angry woman before him.

Unfortunately, InuYasha was so amused at the daiyoukai’s predicament that he completely lost sight of his own. He was just starting to smirk at the Great Lord when…

“OSUWARI!”

CRRRRASH!

Bac k in the dressing room, the lingerie models grabbed their things and squeezed out of the room’s sole window and into a back alley. They would have some bumps and scrapes, but it was safer than waiting for that creepy girl to remember they were here.

“What were you saying, dear brother?” The daiyoukai smirked at the hanyou, even though InuYasha couldn’t really see him…given that the force of Kagome’s subjugation command had driven his head clear through the floor. Conversely, the hanyou’s rear end was now sticking up into the air, pointing roughly at Sesshoumaru. “Hn. This is one side of you that this Sesshoumaru never wished to see.”

InuYasha’s answer was muffled, but plain. “Wise ass.”

“Don’t think you’re getting off easy, FLUFFY!”

The daiyoukai cringed. Although Rin couldn’t “sit” him the way Kagome could InuYasha, she had her own ways of keeping him in line.

InuYasha managed to pull his head out of the floorboards. “Kagome…”

“Osuwari!”

This time, InuYasha was lodged waist-deep through the floor. His legs kicked frantically as he fought to extricate himself from a mass of broken floorboards. “Damn it, Kagome!”

“Osuwari!”

InuYasha disappeared completely, followed quickly by the sound of breaking glass. Apparently the bar’s liquor collection was stored in the basement, below.

There was one blessed moment in which the hanyou might have demonstrated good judgment, but it was not to be. “Bitch.”

“OSUWARI! OSUWARI! OSUWARI!”

Many more bottles broke, followed by utter silence.

The miko looked down into the hole. “Are you happy? Now we’ll be paying for repairs at WacDonald’s and here!”

A pained whimper and the strong smell of alcohol were the only things that came from the basement.

“You’d better not be drinking that!” Kagome yelled into the darkness.

The only answer was a small groan.

“At least, not all of it,” Kagome muttered. She had decided a drink wouldn’t be a bad idea. She had stopped blocking the connection with InuYasha the moment she, Sango and Rin had walked in, but had only just calmed down enough to start picking up impressions from her mate.

And the (albeit) groggy message she was getting amounted to a sincere protestation of innocence combined with the lingering shock at what the lingerie model had been trying to do.

She smiled wryly. She had never really doubted InuYasha. Over the course of five centuries, many human and, surprisingly, youkai women had thrown themselves at her mate. He had never strayed.

What upset her was his stupidity in getting caught in this situation.

It was his shock at what the model had been trying to do that calmed the miko down. Obviously, the hanyou had been unaware of what was going to happen. Kagome was still angry with him, but her anger was fading.

Actually, all this might turn to her advantage.

While it was true that she might owe InuYasha an apology, at least he’d forget about having to pay the damages at WacDonald’s – so there was some benefit to putting the fear of Kagome in him.

She stared at the hole in the floor. Of course, that left the damage she had done to Midori’s son’s bar…

Rin had been about to read Sesshoumaru the riot act, but both she and the daiyoukai had gotten absorbed in Kagome’s assault on InuYasha. Kagome sighed. Although they would sort things out just fine on their own (like her, Rin couldn’t stay angry with her mate for very long), it seemed proper for her to serve as a peacemaker.

“Come on, Rin,” said the miko. “I…no, we…need a drink.” Rin was still glaring at “Fluffy,” but nodded her agreement. Kagome turned to look for Sango and invite her along. In truth, she was more worried about what the taijiya might do to the monk.

But the room was still dark. Nobody had bothered to turn up the house lights yet. Midori’s son and his employees were staying out of the fray, so the stage remained the only brightly-lit area. Miroku was probably grateful for that. He wouldn’t want his infuriated fiancé catching up with him quite yet. Hiraikotsu might be lodged in a wall, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t get a pounding.

Kagome spotted her friend just as she pounced. There was the sound of mad scurrying and chairs scraping along the floor, with the crash of one chair falling over as the monk made a last, vain attempt at flight.

“HA!”

There was a yelp. Then there were more protests as the taijiya dragged her quarry out from under a table in the corner.

“This is all a misunderstanding!” protested Miroku.

Kagome watched as the taijiya picked the monk up and suspended him by his ankle. It reminded the miko of nothing so much as a fisherman reeling in and holding up a prize catch. In this case, it was Sango holding up Miroku. Undoubtedly, it would be a difficult task for any other woman, but it was child’s play for a girl who could heave Hiraikotsu around.

The intensity of Sango’s gaze upon Miroku was intimidating. The miko had been about to invite her friend to join her and Rin in a drink (or two, come to think of it), but it didn’t seem like a good idea, now. Kagome remembered the time she had seen the taijiya drunk on an alcoholic mist and decided that calming her down over a few drinks might not work out all that well.

Sango’s voice dripped with false sweetness. “Oh, Kagome?”

“Y-yes?”

“Be so kind as to have InuYasha return Hiraikotsu to the shrine.”

“Hai. Of course.”

The taijiya slung the vociferous monk over her shoulder and headed to the exit. She paused and looked back, once. “And do you know where I might find some strong rope?

******************


Half an hour later, InuYasha and Kagome were in the chauffeured limo with Sesshoumaru and Rin. It had taken Rin that long to calm down enough (aided by more than two drinks shared with Kagome) to get her to share the same limousine with Sesshoumaru.

Jaken sat in the driver’s seat, rubbing his sore head. The girls’ sojourn had given the daiyoukai enough time to demonstrate his displeasure with the imp by adding several new bumps to his cranium.

Fortunately for Jaken, the diminutive and still-angry Rin had given Kagome a vivid (and lurid) anatomical description of what the Great Lord of the Western Lands could do with his mokomoko-sama . Both Sesshoumaru and his half-brother, had used their heightened youkai senses to listen in, and both had become morbidly fascinated…much to Jaken’s benefit.

InuYasha whispered to his half-brother, “Can you really do that?”

Kagome glanced over at the “thud,” but knew her mate probably deserved the lump he’d be getting.

She reminded Rin that both Sesshoumaru and InuYasha likely could hear her, but Rin’s only response was a much quieter, “I’m counting on it.”

Both girls laughed. With Kagome’s help, Rin had also realized that there really wasn’t anything to what had happened, but both girls weren’t about to let their mates off so easily.

At the very least, the boys needed to learn a lesson about not letting themselves get into such a position again.

Kagome winked at Rin and offered that she and InuYasha could walk back to the shrine as it was only a few blocks, but the Great Lord of the Western Lands had insisted that they all ride together.

Sesshoumaru was no fool. He knew that Kagome had a calming effect on Rin…and, in general, the longer he kept the two together, the better.

In fact, Rin was beginning to see the humor in the situation. She began to relent in her treatment of her mate. Sesshoumaru was so pleased that he insisted on paying for the damages to the bar. Kagome was sure Midori would appreciate that.

She knew she did. She and InuYasha were well off, but not nearly as well off as the Lord of Lingerie and Rin. She quickly thanked Sesshoumaru, relieved that she would not have to put up with the hanyou’s anger over how much they might have to pay in damages.

Fortunately, they wouldn’t have to worry about unwanted public attention. Having their private party at Midori’s son’s bar meant that all the staff on hand had been at least part youkai. The only persons they had to worry about blabbing were the models.

And they hadn’t looked like close friends of the police.

In the limousine, the daiyoukai looked to his retainer, now sitting in front and getting ready to drive them home. “Jaken?”

“M’lord?” The kappa cringed in his seat. He knew that tone in his master’s voice. The Great Lord of the Western Lands was being passive-aggressive again. This could be bad.

“Where did you find those models?”

“An agency c-called S-Sato, m’lord.”

Sesshourmaru sat back in his seat. “Sato.”

The daiyoukai was used to the incompetence of his retainer, but this was a new low. “The same Sato who is involved in the plot against your master and his family?” He rapidly thought of several ways to dispose of the imp.

But Sesshoumaru knew that Rin had a certain fondness for Jaken.

The kappa suddenly started whining. “M’lord! The usual booking agencies were too busy at such short notice! A human (Jaken still uttered the word with distaste) gave me the number to call! He told me the girls would make sure you had a good time…especially if they were well paid.” The little imp cringed, trying to make himself a smaller target. “I didn’t know it was Sato’s company until they answered the phone!”

“Hn.” Being the daiyoukai of the lingerie business, Sesshoumaru was well aware of what humans meant by “a good time.”

The mention of Sato’s name had not been missed by Kagome.

“That’s another one I owe him,” she muttered.

By this time, Rin was hiding her mouth with her hand and sniggering. “So that’s what happened.” She did her best not to laugh; then looked up at Sesshoumaru with puppy dog eyes. “Will you forgive me, Fluffy?”

The Great Lord of the Western Lands retained the urge to eviscerate the little toad, but decided…one more time…to let him live.

Jaken peeked nervously into the rear view mirror to find Rin holding his master in her arms. The Great Lord of the Western Lands couldn’t see her face, but Jaken could. Rin smiled over Sesshoumaru’s shoulder and winked at the retainer.

Jaken started the car, sighed and murmured, “Saved, again.”

“What was that, Jaken?”

“N-nothing, m’lord.” Jaken pulled the car out of the bar’s parking lot. “We will take InuYasha and Kagome back to the shrine now, m’lord!”


******************


The limo ride took only a few minutes before they pulled up at the base of the shrine steps.

Jaken hurried to open the door for InuYasha and Kagome, who got out and started up the steps. The miko tugged on her mate’s arm to get him to pause, then turned back. “Remember, the rehearsal’s tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll be…hmpf…there,” answered Rin, who had stuck her head and shoulders out the limo’s open window, only to be distracted by something going on behind her. The girl smiled coyly and ducked back into the car, only to reemerge a moment later. “We may be a little late.”

InuYasha jostled Jaken enough to get him out of his daze. “Hey, runt. Better get going while your master’s in a good mood.”

The kappa puffed himself up as he expressed his indignation. “How dare you address Lord Sesshoumaru’s loyal retainer with such insolence!”

The car’s rear window opened and a rock flew out, bouncing off Jaken’s head with a satisfying “thunk.”

The imp looked half over his shoulder, not daring to turn around fully. “I swear he keeps rocks in there just for that purpose.”

“This Sesshoumaru heard that.”

Rin’s started to stick her head and shoulders back out of window. “Jaken, get us home soon and he’ll be in a very good mood.” The girl’s face contorted and she squealed. “We’ll both be in a good mood.”

Jaken started to protest, but it was too late. The window was closed.

“Hnnnnnn.”

InuYasha’s ears perked up. Kagome wouldn’t have heard what was going on inside the limo, but he did. “Better get going, Jaken.”

The window rolled down a fraction. “The hanyou is right, Jaken.” The window rolled back up immediately.


******************


They watched the limo drive off.

The hanyou was the first to speak. “Never thought I’d hear that.”

“What?”

“Sesshoumaru said that I was right.”

Kagome giggled, then continued up the steps.

“Kuso!”

“Huh?” Kagome stopped and looked back at her mate.

“I forgot Hiraikotsu.” InuYasha turned to head back down the steps. “I’ll be right back!.”

“Don’t keep me waiting.” Kagome’s sultry smile let InuYasha know that he was in for the same kind of treatment Rin was assuredly giving his brother.

He bounded off towards the bar.

Kagome continued up the steps. ‘Still got it,” she thought to herself…and did a little dance as she reached the top. But before she turned for the house, she heard a disconcerting cry from Miroku and Sango’s hut.

“But, Sango!”

The monk did sound desperate.

Kagome knew she couldn’t approach the taijiya with InuYasha in tow, but she could visit briefly while the hanyou was racing back to get Hiraikotsu. She walked up to the hut and called out to her friend who, after a moment, pulled aside the tatami door covering and stuck out just her head.

“Kagome,” said the taijiya, her annoyance with the monk still plain on her face and in her voice. “I found some rope in the shrine’s storehouse.”

The miko decided she did not want to ask Sango if she could come in. “InuYasha went back to get Hiraikotsu. He’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Umm…Arigatou.”

“ Sango? You know InuYasha and I share a connection. I want you to know that InuYasha had no idea what was going on with those girls. No doubt Sesshoumaru and Miroku didn’t know, either.” Kagome frowned. “Sato was involved. Jaken got the models from that man.”

“Sato?” At the sound of the hated Sato’s name, she forgot much of her anger towards the monk. Hearing Miroku whimpering behind her, Sango felt a little sheepish and dropped the doorway mat enough to reveal that she was wearing some of the lingerie she and Kagome had picked out on one of their shopping expeditions.

“Yeah, Sato.” The miko nodded. “But why are you wearing that?”

A louder groan came from within the structure.

Sango winced. “I…I was showing him what he’d miss if he didn’t stop his constant flirting.”

“That’s why you tied him up?”

“Yeah.” The taijiya looked nervous. “Ka-Kagome?”

“Hmm?”

The taijiya leaned close to her friend and whispered. “Ithinkhelikesit.”

“Huh?”
< br> “He keeps getting… I mean, he…” Sango was blushing furiously.

Kagome leaned in, conspiratorially. “He keeps getting hard?”

The taijiya looked down, blushing even more, if that was possible.

The miko decided that this was too good to pass up without doing a little teasing. “And did you do anything about it?”

“Kagome!”

The miko just kept smiling until her friend got too flustered not to speak. “I am ashamed, but I gave in to my baser instincts.”

“I…see.” Kagome wasn’t doing a very good job of trying not to laugh.

“But I will not give in again!” Sango declared earnestly.

That did it. Kagome was just about to break out in loud guffaws when another, louder groan came from behind the taijiya, bringing another pained expression from her, this time tinged with guilt.

One small guffaw escaped while Sango looked behind her; but somehow the miko managed to pull herself together before the taijiya turned around.

Sango stepped out of the doorway and held the miko by her shoulders. “But I want to!” she whispered desperately. “So help me, I want to!”

Kagome snorted this time.

Her friend was so worked up that she didn’t even notice. Her whisper could no longer be called a whisper. “And the bastard keeps getting…hard!” The taijiya stopped, horrified by what she had just blurted out.

Having somehow managed to regain her composure one more time, Kagome began to muse. “Some guys are like that.”

“Ka-Kagome?”

“I’ve tied up InuYasha.”

“But he’s so strong…”

“Human nights. Remember?”

“Oh, yeah.” Sango pictured her friend tying up the hanyou, then blushed yet again when she thought about Kagome doing to InuYasha what she had been doing to Miroku only a few minutes before.

The miko seemed to be reliving a fond memory. “I subdued him just as the sun was going down, so the kotodama still worked Then, before he could recover, I tied him down, pulled off his hakama and his fundoshi…”

“Kagome…”

“ ;Teased him till he was…well…like Miroku, and then…”

“KAGOME!”

Kagome, looking at nothing in particular, continued. “Got a couple dozen of our kids that way.” Kagome finally registered that Sango was trying to get her attention. “Huh?”

The taijiya was still desperate, but this time she was desperate to change the subject. “You said that a lot of what happened was Sato’s doing.”

“Yeah, that’s right. We figured it out in the bar and in Fluffy’s limo.”

Kagome paused and looked around. “Better get inside. InuYasha’s here with Hiraikotsu.”

The taijiya ducked behind the mat and stuck only her head back out. “Tell InuYasha I’ll get it in the morning. I guess I’ve got some apologizing to do.”

“So you’re untying him?”

Sango smiled, again a little sheepishly. “Not yet.”


******************

InuYasha and Kagome went up to Kagome’s old room, where InuYasha slipped Sango’s Hiraikotsu under the bed for safe-keeping. He’d give it back to the taijiya in the morning.

“You didn’t have to tell her about tying me up, you know. It’s not something you should just blurt out.” InuYasha looked angry, but playfully so. “It kind o’ makes me sound weak.”

“I seem to recall you fighting pretty hard.”

“You’d want another baby. I didn’t think you were ready. Humans need more time to heal.”

“I’m not fully human, anymore.”

InuYasha looked around, concerned. “Now, that’s something you shouldn’t be saying where anyone could hear you.”

“I guess I’m still a bit tipsy, but you’re right.” The miko put one finger to her lips and made a loud “shh!”

InuYasha was amused, but it was still a serious matter. “Yeah, you’re not quite sober yet.” He decided not to make her slip into an argument. “But at least you didn’t sit me while I was up in Goshinboku.”

“I knew you were there.”

InuYasha smiled. “Now I know what the bouzu sees in her…”

The miko frowned. “Watch it, buster! I already considered having you neutered once, tonight.”

InuYasha recoiled in mock horror. “You wouldn’t!”

Kagome laughed quietly so as not to wake up her family. “No, I wouldn’t.” Besides,” she continued as she reached out and fondled a very delicate part of the hanyou’s anatomy, “I’ve got a lot more use for these.”

InuYasha gasped. “But we’ve already had hundreds of pups.”

Kagome giggled. “It’s a start.”

The hanyou sighed, but smiled as they got undressed for bed.


******************

Back at his office, Sato pounded his fist on the desk. “Kuso!”

Kano looked up as Sato placed the phone back in its cradle. “What is it now?” The shark youkai reconsidered eating Sato and just proceeding on his own. The other youkai had been trained and instructed on what they were to do at the wedding reception. What did he need this man for?

“When that idiot of Sesshoumaru’s called to book the girls, I was surprised, but it was an opportunity to gain valuable information. I had one of the girls bugged.”

“Bugged?” Kano had no idea why Sato would have insects placed on a girl. Did he hope to infest their opponents with creepy crawlies in time for their wedding night?

The thought was amusing, although it seemed extraneous given that they were going to kill them all in the process of obtaining the jewel. He, himself, was looking forward to eating the miko, jewel and all. If only he could catch her before she could put up that barrier.

That was the point of all this.

He decided he’d better let Sato live, at least until after getting the jewel.

“I had a man using the bug to listen in on their conversation at the bachelor party, but the whole thing fell apart before he could learn anything. Damn!” Sato pounded the desk one more time.

How could one listen through an insect? He didn’t get it at first, but then he remembered something about Naraku’s use of Saimyoushu, so it sort of made sense. “You didn’t learn anything?”

“Unless I can find out something from the girls, themselves.” Sato frowned. “But they’re not that smart and not reliable, either.”

“Tasty, though.”

Sato stared at the shark youkai. Why did the…creature…always have to remind him of his predilection for eating humans?


******************


Kagome lay in bed, considering all that had happened in the past few months. She and InuYasha had reacquainted themselves with her family, careful to do it only after her younger self had gone through the well for the last time.

She had returned to school, determined to bring honor upon her family. She smiled at the thought that she would certainly be the oldest student to ever graduate. And everything was going well until Sango and Miroku showed up.

Not that she minded, of course. She had been delighted. But then Sango had turned out to be pregnant. Somehow, she and Miroku had managed to achieve that during their trip through the well, and that worried Kagome a little. There might be consequences.

The important thing was that Miroku and Sango were getting married.

That was good. But then Kagome had decided that she and InuYasha should have a child born around the same time as Miroku and Sango’s. It didn’t make a lot of sense combined with the idea of bringing honor to her family by graduating from high school, but she had decided that some things were more important than others.

And at least she and InuYasha were getting married, too.

“Daijoubu?”

Kagome hadn’t realized it, but she had giggled at the thought that their hundreds of pups (as InuYasha called them) would now be “legitimate.” She turned towards her mate and whispered, “It’s nothing.”

“The alcohol still hasn’t worn off yet, huh?”

“No, I’m fine. And it has.” She placed one hand against InuYasha’s cheek. “I’m sorry about earlier. You’re right. I shouldn’t talk about not being fully human…not even here, in this house.”

“Keh. I’ll always protect you. You know that, Koibito.” InuYasha sighed. “And I guess if you want more pups, it’s okay.”

“Arigatou.” Kagome smiled in the darkness. “Mama needs grandbabies to spoil. All the ones we’ve had are too old since we agreed not to have any while my younger self was still around.”

“That’s your excuse, huh?”

“It’ll do.”

“Better get some rest, now. Tomorrow will be a busy day.”

The “rehearsal” would not be so much a rehearsal as a last-minute planning session. There was a lot to think about.

“Okay,” agreed Kagome. “But now I’m awake. You need to tire your mate out so she can sleep, mister.”

“Again?”

Kagome reached for her mate. “Again.”