InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Sachi ❯ Deflection ( Chapter 14 )

Chapter 14: Deflection

Miroku was of the opinion that a contented InuYasha was much easier to manage than a miserable InuYasha. To be precise: a contented InuYasha required less effort to manipulate, and paid less attention to little details that Miroku would prefer he didn't even notice. Details like more-frequent-than-normal trips into town on silly pretexts, and any strange-woman scents that might or might not linger afterward. InuYasha had the irritating tendency to display an uncanny perception when it came to Miroku's sex life.

So when things at the Sachi settled into a pleasant (With maybe a more subtle sexual charge than of late, but who said that was a bad thing? Subtle, after all, was harder to resist than overt.) atmosphere of peace after the attic incident, he was quite honestly delighted. InuYasha and Kagome seemed to be getting along so well that he didn’t even feel the need to stick around in fear of missing fireworks. And with every day that passed, he had more and more confidence that nature was running its course, and that those two were bound to find themselves in a position of delightfully irreversible compromise at any moment.

Not to say that that was an incident he wanted to miss—but it did mean that InuYasha's attention was taken up by someone other than Miroku.

He felt perfectly safe, therefore, in taking a little time to pursue those more personal little details that he didn’t want InuYasha noticing. He waited a few days after the attic incident (and how utterly charming that he could now count time in terms of “incidents”, thanks to Kagome's arrival at Sachi) to make sure everyone was settled, then started with a trip into Sonkyou. He found his lady of choice with little problem, sitting in her chair with her two-tailed companion this time draped across a span of tabletop, an in-play shogi board spread out between them.

He came up behind her silently and studied her for a moment. Her hair was up in a high ponytail, but it still drifted against her lower back. His eyes noted the dark, silky brown mass of it with greedy appreciation. “Shogi again? You seem to have a fondness for the game.”

She didn't flinch or start, or even look up, and once again he realized she'd known he was standing there. He couldn't see her face, but he heard the inviting curve to her mouth when she spoke. “It's a way to pass the time.”

He was instantly delighted at the opening, his own mouth curling into a lazy grin. “If it's a way to pass the time you're looking for, I may have a few suggestions.” Far too early for her to give him what he wanted yet, of course, but it never hurt to plant the idea. “I know the area quite well.”

She turned and gave him a sultry, heavy-lidded glance from the corner of her eye. “I'm sure you do.”

Hm. Maybe not so early? “Starting with a tour, perhaps?”

This time she gave him the full impact of her brown eyes. “Perhaps—if you think you can win my name.” A pause, then a wry, “Without cheating.”

He studied her for a moment before it dawned on him that she was testing him. Miroku's eyes narrowed, and his chest tightened with the long-forgotten exhilaration of challenge. He took the seat across from her, carefully respectful of her youkai friend, and lifted a brow. “Perhaps if we could start fresh?”

Her lips twitched, sparking an idle trail through his male brain that debated how skilled they would be when put to other uses. “We could. Or, perhaps, if you can win this one as is, I'll not only tell you my name, but I'll let you choose our next activity, Mr. Tour Guide.” Another pause as she appraised him. “Within reason, of course.”

He was too pleased by her offer to let her qualification faze him. “Of course,” he murmured, studying the in-progress game with interest. After a moment, he looked up, a humorous glint in his eye. He extended his hand over the board. “Shall we make it official, then?”

Amusement sparkled in her gaze. She eyed his hand before she offered her own to clasp firmly with his.

Hot electricity hummed in the air at the first touch of their skin. Lust coiled up lazily in his gut, content for the moment with the implicit probability of future fun and the immediate array of possibilities that flooded his brain – most of them centering around her perfect derriere. Miroku had to check himself to keep his surprise from showing on his face. It had been ages since he'd had such a strong physical reaction to a woman. And if he recalled, the last time had been quite memorable.

From the way she sucked in a tiny breath, she'd felt it, too. And from the way the glint in her eyes went from amused to interested, it hadn't scared her in the least.

He smiled. This “personal detail” was looking to be more rewarding than even he'd thought it would be. He let his thumb drift suggestively over her knuckles. “Deal?”

She hesitated, then nodded. “Deal. Your win gets you my name and my...time.”

Satisfied, Miroku dragged his palm away from hers and sat back. He surveyed the board again, then tossed a wry glance at her two-tailed youkai companion, who picked herself up and went to go groom off to the side of the board now that it was clear he was staying. “I don't suppose you have any suggestions?”

His answer was an indifferent “mew.”

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

He lost again—but this time it was so close that she took pity on him.

Her name was Sango. She'd traveled all around the world. And once their game was over, she smiled and gave him the walk back to her hotel to sell her on some of his other suggestions about Sonkyou. By the time they'd reached the building, one of the nicer ones that hovered on the edge of the national park, he'd convinced her to let him treat her to her choice from the best warm snack shop in Sonkyou, with the possibility of lunch a little later in the day.

Miroku had always maintained a healthy appreciation for pity.

Also? She was a fantastic kisser—as he found out as soon as they got to her room. At the door, she pulled out her key-card, hesitated in front of the slider, then turned, grabbed him by the front of his sweater and jerked him straight into a rough, open-mouthed kiss. She tasted of mocha and a hint of minty chap-stick, plus some other essential her flavor that was warm and seductive and infinitely heady. The lust coiled in his gut abandoned the moniker “lazy” with gusto.

Hot damn. Pity was his new best friend.

Sango was a woman who knew exactly what she wanted and how to get it. Her tongue was in his mouth, teasing, aggressive. One of her legs had hooked around the back of his knee, pulling him off balance and into her. They hit the door with a soft thud, and he was suddenly feeling every soft curve in her body: generous breasts, strong, sleek thighs, and the honed perfection of the lovely derriere that filled his palms. The only discordant notes were the multiple layers of clothes and the fact that they were still out in the hallway instead of in her room where she surely had some privacy and a bed (though the latter was optional). What he really wanted was those generous breasts rubbing over his bare skin, that lovely derriere on display for the adoration of his mouth.

She let loose an impatient, sensual moan and swept her fingers beneath the collar of his shirt.

He didn't mind her being dominant (there were so many fun and interesting things you could do with a dominant woman), but he was fairly certain that if he didn't demonstrate that he was strong enough to wriggle out of her control if he wanted to, she'd lose respect for him—and he had a sneaking suspicion that some of her pleasure in their little tryst would go as well. The woman in his arms exuded both strength and femininity, and from the way she'd been testing him for the duration of their brief acquaintance, she wanted a partner who was at least her equal.

Well, his father had always said that it was a man's greatest sin to disappoint a woman in the throes of anything that started with a “P”: pain, panic, pleasure, and—most especially—promiscuity. Miroku busied himself not disappointing her.

He curled his tongue around hers and reluctantly pulled one of his hands away from her butt to wrap his hand around the side of her neck, to tip her chin up with his thumb so that he could push back against her aggressiveness. She fought him, trying to jerk away from his guiding thumb, but he pressed his mouth against hers harder, until it was almost bruising, and she relented with another moan.

Her hand swept around his neck, her nails through the tie at his nape, freeing his hair so that it fell around his face. She tangled both hands in his hair and yanked sharply until their kiss was a clashing tango of nips and licks and harsh, urgent need.

Kissing her was like the best kind of sugar high: his blood sang with adrenaline, rushed and pooled while his heart jumped into strenuous activity mode. Heat worked its way through his body in a powerful wave. The hand he still had on her firmly muscled backside, his damaged hand, pushed at the edge of her thick jacket, trying to get at her skin. Silently, he cursed the hallway, the injury that had rendered his nimble fingers so awkward.

Somehow, she'd worked her other knee between his thighs so that with each squeeze of her legs she rubbed against him. A rough grunt worked its way up his throat and responded by pulling her into another tongue battle. She was damn good at those, and he needed her to focus on something a little farther away from his groin while they were still in public. Much of his reasoning had deserted him beneath the onslaught of all that hardworking lust, but he still had enough to realize that embarrassing himself in the hallway would not leave a good impression.

She shifted her knee upward, nudging against the ache of an erection that had come on startlingly fast. “I think,” she whispered against his mouth, her voice sultry and naughty and breathless, “that you have a problem here.”

At the teasing touch, fireworks sparked a trail through every blood-filled passage in his body, and all his careful plans about what he was going to do with her once they got behind the damned hotel room door went all jumbled and nonsensical. He pulled his lips away from her luscious ones.

“I think,” he urged, nipping at her jaw, then laving his tongue over her ear to a gratifying hitch in her throat, “that it would be a very good idea for you to open the door now.”

Sango tilted her head, murmuring a wordless bit of pleasure while he nibbled at her lobe. “I need the key-card,” she breathed.

“Excellent idea. Get it.” Sango had a charming neck, ivory skin over slender strength. “Quickly, if you have any mercy.”

She let out a breathless laugh— “If you insist,” —then slid from his grasp, dropping to the floor.

Miroku found himself suddenly bereft of the body he'd been so enjoying exploring, his empty arms braced against the door to keep himself from falling forward. He blinked down...and lost every last bit of mental capacity at the sight of Sango in a delicate squat, balanced on her toes, her face turned up at him while her fingers groped the carpet for the plastic card that had fallen there. Her other hand she'd placed against his thigh, her dark eyes gleamed with amusement, and her mouth—her taunting, wickedly curved mouth—hovered a scant inch from the bulge beneath his zipper. The tip of her tongue flicked out to swipe at her upper lip.

A tremble pulsed through him; an InuYasha-like curse whispered past his lips.

And a cell phone rang. It was a simple, inconspicuous pop song, but it was jarring—and it was coming from her jacket. Sango's smile faded. They stared at each other. Miroku lifted a brow, silently urging her to ignore it. Her eyes said she was considering it.

Kirara gave a loud meowl and sprang from her bored sprawl across the hallway to twine around their feet, surprising them. A strange look crossed Sango's face; she ducked her face to look at Kirara, who gave another, quieter mew. Miroku saw Sango's shoulder's slump just a bit before she inhaled and surged to her feet.

He stepped back and watched in dismay as she dug around in her jacket pocket and came out with a high-end business model in coral pink. She stared at it, her breathing still in the fast and shallow tempo of excitement, and a dark pink flush highlighting her cheeks. Her eyes slid up to his; he glanced askance at her phone, which still tingled with that vaguely familiar song—something overly dramatic and hyper. Whatever it was, it didn't suit her personality at all, in his opinion.

She shrugged. “I hate this song,” she said, as if that explained everything.

The song suddenly stopped, and the phone remained quiet.

He didn't have much hope, but he asked anyway. “I don't suppose that was you ignoring it?”

She sucked in another deep breath and looked regretful. “No. They'll call back and keep calling back until I answer.”

Miroku nodded, putting a severe, restraining check on his vexation. The mood was gone anyway; he'd lost her almost the moment that cursed phone had rung. They'd shot right past that sizzling eroticism and straight into the awkward discomfiture of passion thwarted, but not entirely abated. “I thought you were on vacation?”

Her eyes flicked away. “I am, but—”

He paused in the midst of pulling his hair back into its short tail and studied her, trying to shake the physical side effects that were just catching on to the fact that he wasn't getting laid after all and were giving him hell for it. Beneath her flush, Sango was pale and anxious, though he was sure she hadn't meant for him to notice. Her fingers had a tight grip around the slim rectangle.

He frowned.

Something was very much troubling the woman in front of him. And whatever that something was, the person on the other end of that phone call was part of it.

“But?” he prompted.

“But you know how big business is. You're never really free.” A half-hearted smile, but she still didn't meet his eyes. She turned and swiped the card. “I'm sorry, but I'll have try those fantastic snacks of yours another time.”

Miroku's eyes glued themselves to the curved backside that his hands still itched to touch. “And when would this other time be? Shall I special deliver some choice snacks to your room tomorrow?”

She paused with her hands on the open door of her room and gave him a surprised look. Beneath her, Kirara slipped through the crack.

He quirked a brow. “You didn't think I was going to give up and go away so easily?”

Her dark brown eyes blinked, hiding her thoughts. “Of course not,” she said, surprising him in turn. “I just didn't expect you to be so...direct.”

He smiled and answered bluntness with bluntness because he knew she would appreciate it. “If you were anyone else, perhaps not. But I believe we've just amply demonstrated,” he glanced down, bringing unabashed attention to the fact that he was still ready, willing, and more than able to follow her into her room should she change her mind, “that our particular brand of mutual interest is worth a little more directness.”

She lifted a brow back at him. “Sex?”

“That,” he conceded with an easy nod and a step closer, “and you enjoy my company as much as I enjoy yours.” He swept up a lock of her bangs, rubbed the silky bit between his thumb and finger. “With this kind of compatibility, don't you think it would be a waste to delay the fun for the duration of your stay?”

Besides, she was in his mind in a way he hadn't experienced before, an enticing knot of femininity and strength with the sharp spice of mystery. Affection was nothing new to Miroku (he felt affection for all women, with a special fondness reserved for those with whom he'd been intimate), but never had it been accompanied by such a distracting, tenacious prominence in his thoughts. To be frank, even if they had made it into her room that morning and had all the hot, indulgent sex he was determined they would eventually get around to, he would have attempted to see her again.

Her eyes followed his hand for a moment before she let a slow smile curve her lips. It was a promise, that smile, wholly feminine—reminiscent of the control-shattering one she'd given him before. Miroku wondered if trying to kiss her again would get him punched. The pain might be worth it.

She pulled her hair away from his grasp by pushing her way into the room. She turned and looked at him as her hand hovered on the handle. “All right. Tomorrow night. Kirara and I will be having an early dinner in that cafe. Don't wait too long, though. We'll be gone by the time the sun sets.”

Miroku leaned a shoulder against the wall, not even bothering to hide his grin. “I would never dream of leaving such a lovely woman waiting.”

Her last glance was skeptical and dry, and then the door clicked shut. He stayed put for a moment, savoring both the disappointment and the satisfaction. That had gone better than expected, all things considered, and now he was virtually assured access to the delectable body that had so caught his attention the first time he'd seen it, and to the stimulating woman within it. It was an all-around win for him.

His grin slowly faded into a contemplative frown.

That blasted phone call had been odd. Her reaction to it had struck him as not right. He was very curious about who had made it and what that person's relationship with her was. She'd acted almost...afraid. It bothered him to see the woman who had played and teased with him with such attractive confidence reduced to such skittishness and vulnerability, made him want to dig until he found exactly what it was that held her. Ah, but then, perhaps she was just one of those ridiculous workaholics who let every little thing about their job stress them to the very core?

Well that was an interesting possibility. If that was the case, then she was in desperate need of her vacation, and some serious diversion to go along with it. He pushed away from the wall and headed for the exit, happy with the idea. He had a few tricks up his sleeve to help her relax.

The carpeted hallway absorbed his chuckle. Of course, he would have to think of a good excuse to feed InuYasha. “I'm off to pay respects to a tourist's bed,” would get his ass kicked. Especially by a sexually frustrated, masochistic half-youkai who was slowly losing an unnecessary battle with himself. Of course, once said half-youkai lost said battle, excuses would be a lot easier to make. He should probably see about speeding things up there.

But first, the hotel was bound to have a guest toilet somewhere around here, and Miroku had never been one to ignore his own discomfort. He pushed away from the wall and wandered toward the front desk, eyes keen for the appropriate sign.

Waste not, want not.

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The next day proved to be quite hectic, with one couple leaving and two more arriving early in the morning and all the busywork that went along with getting them settled and acquainting them with their rooms, the staff, rules, and generally getting them comfortable enough to leave them on their own to explore. Almost all of which fell under his jurisdiction as manager. Good as he was at it, that day he was grateful to have Kagome and Shippou to help. Both woman and kitsune were good with people, and the distractions and delays had started to irritate Miroku. He even counted InuYasha's day-long absorption in his roof tiles project a blessing.

Around lunchtime, finally free and wandering around in search of an excuse to go into Sonkyou, he found Kagome in the kitchen.

Pacing.

On the kitchen table, several trays were laid out with the different dishes she'd made for lunch, all portioned appropriately and waiting to be carried to the guest dining area. The kitchen smelled heavenly, a warm mix of fried vegetables, rice, and cooked meat. Miroku paused just in front of the open door, eyeing first the food, then Kagome as she trekked again from one countertop to the other on the appliance side of the kitchen. She wore a bright green handkerchief on her head to keep her hair back, and her head was bent to watch the floor as she muttered quietly to herself, twisting her fingers together while she paced.

An anxious Kagome was always an interesting sight, because it had the potential to be either very bad or very good, depending on the reason for her anxiety. Come to think of it, she'd been acting quite odd since breakfast. He allowed himself a passing frown before he stepped into the kitchen. “What has our illustrious owner done this time?”

Kagome's pacing jerked to a stop; her head came up to give him a startled look. “What?”

Miroku sighed and gestured. “The guests are gathered in the dining room. The food is ready and waiting to be served. I'm asking what's happened to cause you such uncharacteristic distraction.”

Her eyes flew to the table and widened. “Oh! Right, I'm sorry, I was just....” She hesitated, an odd look and a hint of color crossing her face. “What makes you think InuYasha's done something?”

“An educated guess?” He suggested dryly, staring at her blush. Then he frowned again. “Is it not?” He couldn't think of anything else that would be bothering Kagome.

Unless it has something to do with how she ended up near death in the middle of the Daisetsuzan.

Miroku blinked for moment, shocked to find that he'd had to remind himself of the circumstances of her arrival at the Sachi—a testament to how entangled she'd become with them all. Then he tensed in concern, because if it was that, it couldn't be good.

But Kagome was shaking her head. “No. No, it's not his—” She stopped. Gave a soft, genuine laugh, the tension visibly seeping from her shoulders. She sighed. “You and Kaede both. It's not that he's done anything.”

Miroku's eyebrows shot up at the amused warmth in her gaze. “I see.” Something he hadn't done, then? Something she wanted (or didn't want) him to do? And what was that about Kaede and him? At least it had nothing to do with her past—a past he was more and more convinced should just stay lost. He relaxed a bit. “Is there something I can help you with?”

She pursed her lips. “Maybe....” She trailed off, and stared him up and down, a contemplative wrinkle forming between her brows.

Miroku didn't like the feeling that he was missing something important. He rarely missed important things. Missing important things happened to InuYasha, not to him. He frowned, his third in as many minutes. “Kagome, if there's a problem, you should tell one of us. Even if it's about InuYasha, we can offer some good advice if it's troubling you.”

Her eyes widened and she stared at him a moment longer before she seemed to reach a decision. Her chin firmed and she shook her head with a stubborn smile. “Thank you, Miroku, but I have something else I should do first. I promise to keep it in mind.”

He studied her posture, lingering on that smile before he shrugged. Being left in the dark irked him, but he was also confident a little side investigating would reveal the source of her worry; nothing went on long within the Sachi's walls without his knowing. “All right. Then, perhaps you'll allow me to assist you with getting the lunch into the dining room where everyone awaits?” He gestured pointedly to the table and the array of bowls and plates.

Kagome's eyes followed his gesture. She gasped and rushed over to pick up one of the large trays. “Oh no! It's cooling! I was supposed to get it into the dining room before—” She turned, froze. “Did you say the guests are already there?”

Wary of her expression, he nodded.

“Everyone?”

Miroku wrinkled his brow, once again bemused by the turn in the conversation. “Both the Yabukis and Kawasaki-chan and her boyfriend are there, and Hidaka-san is waiting for his wife in their usual corner. Why?”

Kagome sucked in a sharp breath, eyes narrowing. “Oh, is that so?” Her shoulders went stiff again. “Well, then, yes, Miroku, I'd like your help with the trays.” And she brushed past him, down the hallway towards the dining room.

Miroku stared after her for a long moment before he quietly and obediently picked up the second tray from the table, wondering what in the world had caused the anger flashing in her eyes, and immensely glad it hadn't been directed at him.

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

He helped her distribute the food to their guests, then joined the staff in the kitchen for their own lunch. InuYasha remained on the roof, patching and pounding away while Shippou chattered happily with a still-distracted Kagome. Kaede was unusually quiet and grave, watching Kagome with peculiar caution. After lunch, Kagome shooed Kaede out of the kitchen, asked Miroku to help her collect the dishes from the dining room, and set to her afternoon cleaning with Shippou.

Miroku grabbed the keys and meant to leave right away (before InuYasha came down from the roof), but found himself held up in the front living room, chatting amiably with the elderly Yabukis and the VIP Hidakas. It was his first time really talking with Hidaka-san, and something about the man's manner made him check. The older man's attitude when he complimented the Sachi and its staff didn't sit right, and a vague, undefined suspicion bloomed in his brain. He extracted himself from the guests and went in search of Kaede.

Kagome was still in the kitchen with Shippou, making what looked like finger sandwiches. They blinked up from the counter at his inquiry. “Kaede?” Kagome asked. “I'm not sure. I haven't seen her since lunch.”

Shippou sprang up, his auburn ponytail bouncing. “I know! She said she needed to sort and mix some of the dried herbs in the cabin.” He put a finger to his chin. “Uh-oh. I think I was supposed to go help her.”

“Shippou!” Kagome chided. “You should have said something sooner. I would have sent you with her after lunch.”

Miroku shook his head and sighed. “Never mind. I'll walk him over.”

Kagome blinked at him, her eyes going to the keys inconspicuously hanging from his finger. “To the cabin? I thought you were leaving?”

Miroku shook his head and let Shippou scamper up his arm to hang from his shoulder. “I have something to ask Kaede, I think.” Such as, what might be bothering Kagome. He glanced at the clock in the kitchen and winced. “I'll go after that.”

“Oh.” Kagome looked down, a frown wrinkling her brow. “Good. I'll...let InuYasha know.”

Miroku paused halfway out the outside door, studying her a moment. Then he sighed. “Do me a favor? Don't tell him I'm leaving until after I'm gone.”

Kagome gave him a confused look, but merely nodded. As far as Miroku could tell, he was lucky that she'd responded at all.

“You gonna ask Kaede what's wrong with Kagome?”

Miroku stepped out onto the path and tossed a raised brow back at the kitsune. “You noticed it, too?”

Shippou returned him a superior look. “I'm a kid, not stupid.”

Miroku couldn't help his smile. “Do you know what's bothering her?”

Shippou's face fell. “No. I can't figure it out. She's just all fidgety.” He brightened. “Hey! You think it's because of InuYasha?”

He frowned. “No. Whatever this is, it isn't a good kind of wrong.” The feeling in his mind was nothing more than that—an unease that he couldn't pin down. Perhaps talking to Kaede would help him solidify it into actionable thought.

Shippou looked confused, but he only nodded.

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They found Kaede sitting calmly on her knees in the middle of her cabin, various leaves and berries in piles on the floor in front of her; the displeased eye she cast over Shippou had him cowering behind Miroku, then scampering off to find a particular bowl from the small storage room at the back of the well-constructed wooden structure. Miroku smiled pleasantly at her inquiring glance, and spent a few minutes chatting about the Sachi and its guests, feeling for something strange. The more he asked, the more he felt Kaede's answers were suspicious.

It wasn't until Shippou was back and doing something messy with a pestle that Miroku finally got around to being blunt. “You know what's bothering Kagome, don't you?”

Shippou's movements paused, but Kaede continued to pull and separate leaves at her serene pace. “I have promised Kagome not to discuss the matter before she can bring it to InuYasha's attention.”

Shippou whirled around. “Ha! I knew it was InuYasha's fault!”

Miroku frowned. “Kaede, is this something I should know about? I don't believe I need to remind you how much is at stake here. Our lives, our freedom. If she's remembered something....”

Kaede's black eyes closed on a heavy sigh. “No. This is nothing that would threaten us in that way. In its own way, the matter is far more mundane than what you imagine.” Her eyes opened again, and a faint smile curled her dry lips. “Under the correct circumstances, I suspect it could even benefit you and Shippou in your machinations concerning InuYasha and Kagome.”

Miroku's brows crept upward. “Is that so? It's nothing serious, then?”

Kaede's contemplative frown unsettled him a bit, but she finally shook her head. “I cannot discuss it. I have promised Kagome to keep her trouble to my own council for the time being.”

Miroku fell silent, musing over the best rhetorical options for pursuing the matter with the particularly stubborn Kaede—something he most certainly would have done, had it not been for the sudden explosion of spiritual energy that overwhelmed him. It was nearby, close enough and powerful enough that it caused frissons of reaction along his spine. He turned wide eyes to the two other equally shocked figures in the room.

Kaede struggle to rise from her knees, while Shippou sat frozen with the bowl in his lap, expression fearful. The kitsune had a tremor in his voice when he spoke. “W-what was that?”

“I take it that wasn't merely my imagination, then?” he asked dryly, helping Kaede to her feet.

“We must hurry. Regardless of the source, such power cannot bode well for any of us.”

Miroku paused a moment to study Kaede's grave expression, foreboding twisting his gut. “Recognize it?”

She hesitated. “No. However....”

“Yes. It feels like we should, doesn't it?”

Her black eyes speared him. “We must hurry.”

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

“Fine. Contact him. Maybe he can tell us who the fuck she really is.”

Miroku watched with sinking dismay as InuYasha, jaw tight and back stiff, visibly drew back into his own personal shell—the one which had become nearly impenetrable five years ago—before he turned and walked away. Kagome remained in the kitchen, smiling down at Shippou while he quizzed her about the youkai attack.

She has no idea, he thought, feeling quiet, anxious, off balance, what this means to him.

Or did she? Miroku had never heard of any human being able to suppress their own spiritual essence to the point where others with attuned senses were fooled. And yet, that was the only explanation. Oh, he'd felt the odd twinge from her here and there, but those he'd attributed to the natural ebb and flow of a human with borderline spiritual abilities. Nothing on the scale of what he could sense from her now. So either it was a deliberate and incredibly skilled deception, or it was a natural consequence of the traumatic injury that had brought her into the Sachi (a trauma which was suspicious in and of itself).

Watching her, frowning, trying to get a grasp on his own sense of reluctant confusion, he desperately wanted to believe that the woman sitting in their kitchen smiling with such affection at their resident little genius was genuine, and not some kind of trap.

A trap made sense...and it didn't. If it was some kind of trap, then what were the supposed hunters waiting for? Why hadn't they sprung it after more than a month? If it was a trap, then the prey should already be dead, captured, or perhaps running once again. Instead, they remained quiet and as harmonious as they ever got with a quick-tempered hanyou boss and their eclectic mix of staffing. If it wasn't for her face, he would be convinced of her innocence....

He hesitated, brow quirking as he wondered if the similar features made such a difference. If she'd looked like someone—anyone—else, would they have been as suspicious? No, he had to admit. They would have been suspicious of her, certainly, but not to the degree that they had initially been and remained now after the most recent incident. It was her face that put the majority of them on such a sharp edge—because coincidences like that simply didn't happen. Not without some kind of help.

The question was the nature of the help.

Only Shippou, he thought, his eyes fixing on the kitsune's adoring features, never met that woman. Only Shippou had no reason to distrust her because of her looks, and the little youkai trusted her unquestioningly. Her using purifying power hadn't even fazed him.

“Remarkable, is it not?” Kaede spoke up from behind him. “Shippou cares so much for her without any trace of fear or caution.”

“Yes,” he murmured. “But is it because he knows better, or because he doesn't know enough?” When Kaede didn't answer, he cocked an inquiring brow over his shoulder. “And you? After this, can you say you trust her?”

Kaede's dark gaze was trained past him, through the door to the pair in the kitchen. To his surprise, her mouth had a soft curve to it. “I've never had reason to fear or despise my sister. Only to pity her.”

Unlike InuYasha.

Miroku followed her gaze and shook his head. “This is bad.”

“Yes.”

Only a month, and Kagome had become a friend, an ally. It would be quite devastating at this point to find out she was neither. So where did that leave them with their lovely housekeeper? Either she was an enemy, or she was a friend. If she was an enemy, they needed to deal with it immediately; if she was a friend, then her powers would be a useful coincidence. His gut told him she wasn't an enemy, but his mind told him there was something off about the situation in front of him, something of which he needed to be wary.

The key was in her identity. It had always been in her identity, and it was something they could no longer ignore. Miroku sighed. He kept his most sensitive and expensive equipment where no one would just casually come across it. Given the delicacy of his task, he would need it to ask for help. “I'll be in my room.”

It wasn't until much later that night, during a random glance at the clock in the corner of his computer screen, that he realized he'd missed his oh-so-important evening appointment.

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

Kagome looked up from Shippou's excited face as Kaede shuffled into the kitchen. The older woman was wearing a peculiar smile, as if she'd witnessed something remarkable and unexpected.

Kagome wryly acknowledged the sentiment. Barely an hour earlier, she'd been certain she was going to die. The clarity of the whole thing was so fresh, a reel of passing impressions playing in her mind: the feel of the bark digging into her back, the numbing cold of the snow against her suddenly slipper-less feet, the oddly familiar acceptance that came in the face of death, the sudden shock of energy as it burst from a place inside her she hadn't known existed, and the stunned realization that she was still alive.

And that flash. That oh-so-brief, tantalizing flash of...something important.

“How are you feeling, child?” Kaede's dark eyes regarded her kindly.

Kagome grimaced. “I feel...tired.” And weak. Every muscle in her body trembled with fatigue. Her mind felt vaguely numb, but her hands shook as if she were shocked and in need of sugar. She brought her hands together in her lap and folded them tightly. “Is InuYasha all right? Did you look at his side?”

He'd had his tongue in her mouth, his hands on parts of her bare skin she usually kept covered—and then they'd both been scrambling for their lives. It had happened so quickly that parts of her were still warm and humming and achingly aware of what they'd almost done out there in the forest, against a tree. She could still feel the urgency like a subtle thrum in her blood.

Her fingers twisted together.

But the look on InuYasha's face right after the attack, across the carnage of the landscape....

Disbelief. Dismay. His expression had left her with the most terrible, sinking sensation.

And then, when Miroku and the others had come running up, InuYasha had stopped looking at her; he hadn't glanced her way since. He'd actually volunteered to help Miroku with the guests while Kaede sat her down in the kitchen and examined her, and he hadn't made an appearance even when Miroku joined them and contributed a few questions of his own. In the meantime, no one had paid any attention to her protests that the bloody patch in his side be looked at.

Kaede sighed. “InuYasha refused to allow me to tend to him in any way. He insists he's fine.”

Kagome's lips thinned. “I knew it. That idiot.” She started to stand, only to be brought up short by Kaede's gnarled hand on her shoulder.

“His wounds are already healing, and they are not serious. I believe the best course of action is to leave him be for the moment.”

In other words, it would he didn't want to see anyone? Or he just didn't want to see her?

Kagome stared up at her, hurt and not sure why. She swallowed around the knot of confusion in her throat, struggling against the equally strong impulses to storm off, find him, and demand that he at least let Kaede help him, or go to her room and give in to tears—and neither reaction made much sense. Instead, she let her tired body relax into the kitchen chair and focused on her hands. “Really? That's...good, I guess.”

Even though she had the sneaking suspicion that it actually wasn't.

Kaede's smile returned and, much to Kagome's dismay, she insisted that Kagome rest while Kaede and Shippou commandeered the kitchen for the rest of the day's chores.

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

Kagome was right, as she found out later that evening during dinner when InuYasha remained conspicuously absent during all parts of the meal.

It wasn't good. Nothing was good.

Kaede was acting strangely now, too, looking almost pleased and insisting that the daily schedule be rearranged to accommodate “further testing of Kagome's abilities”. Miroku sat quiet through the meal, watching her calmly, but not so calmly that she couldn't detect the underlying caution and wariness in his dark violet gaze. From both of them, she sensed a curiosity and a hesitance that hadn't been there before. Only Shippou seemed unaffected. The rest of them had reverted to treating her as if she were the stranger she'd been when she'd first woken up. It hurt her. It confused her. It was as if she'd done something wrong, and she couldn't figure out what, exactly, that wrong thing was.

They hadn't let her help with cooking and guests during dinner, but she'd felt recovered enough after the meal (no more shaky limbs, her mind clearer, less numb) that she'd insisted on them letting her help with the cleanup. As Shippou and Miroku slowly ferried dishes from the deserted dining room to the kitchen where Kaede was washing, Kagome started wiping down tabletops, and wondered what had happened.

Her new-found powers were the source of it, she was sure. Deep inside, Kagome knew what she'd done to defend herself against the attacking youkai was something as natural to her as breathing—so much so that she hadn't even realized she'd done anything special until, a few moments after the youkai had vanished, she'd found herself still alive. When she tried to reach inside her brain and take it apart step by step, she ran up against the same blank, empty space that had been plaguing her since her awakening; but Kaede's questions had brought out automatic responses, as if her mouth had just been waiting for the right words to which to respond. Kagome didn't understand how she could know something and not know it at the same time; she understood even less why any of it would produce such an odd reaction from the people she trusted, relied on, and...more. But she had the queasy feeling she did, and it had.

All she'd done was defend herself—and InuYasha. Was that really so horrible? Was it enough to make her less trustworthy than she had been before?

Mid-swipe, her hand wavered, and a chill bristled the hairs along her arm.

There was something else. One more thing that she couldn't bring herself to tell anyone because she didn't know if it would make things better or worse. It was a spark, just a fragment of something that had come to her in that moment of automatic power: a face.

It was less actual details than it was shadows and feelings. She didn't know what anyone would be able to glean from it if she did mention it, because the image in her mind was so piecemeal and ethereal: some kind of mask, eyes obscured by shade, a sense of deep respect, admiration, a little healthy fear. She wasn't even sure she'd be able to recognize this face if it were to appear in front of her now. What she was sure of was this snippet, this foreign-but-familiar presence in her mind represented knowledge completely apart from anything she'd encountered at the Sachi. Her brief power flux had stirred up something from before, something she knew was important—but with the way everyone was reacting, she wasn't sure what to do with it.

Shippou, Miroku, Kaede...InuYasha. She valued them, cherished them for giving her a home and a family when she'd had nothing at all, not even a name. What if mentioning this weird—Memory? Vision? Hallucination?—pushed them further away?

She finished wiping down the last table and stopped, kneeling on an end cushion and staring blankly at the hand-painted screens decorating the walls. Cranes, dragons and youkai danced enchantingly among the forested mountains of the Daisetsuzan, but she didn't actually see them. The guest dining room was peaceful and warm, a comforting contrast to the excitement of the day and the guests during the meal. Kagome's head drooped, and she let it rest on the cushion of one arm while she idly picked at the smooth tabletop with a finger.

Worry for InuYasha sat like a stone in her stomach, wearing her down, wearing her out. She hadn't seen InuYasha since the battle in the woods, but she wanted to. She wanted to see him, touch him, make sure with her own five senses that he was all right. With all of her five senses.

Her heart thumped, and she curled her fingers into a fist against the table.

What they'd done in the woods...that hadn't been some small, meaningless kiss, not some accidental contact cause by early morning drowsiness. She'd been arched against him, ready and willing to have him inside her; he'd been fumbling at her clothes like some eager teenager—he'd had his fingers inside her body. The thought, the memory, caused a delicious little shiver to throb low in her belly, and that pleasant, hungry ache to settle deep between her thighs, the corresponding wetness to dampen them. They'd both known exactly what they were doing, and even if they might not have been thinking with particular clarity, they'd both been more than willing to do it.

And, she thought with another shiver, I think I'm willing to do it again.

But he'd shut down so fast. Had her little display ruined it for them, or was he just surprised that she had this power inside her and unsure how to handle it? But then, why give her that almost haunted look? Why show her such a face if it didn't mean more than she knew?

That was what it came down to, she suspected. The things she didn't know—why they'd come here, what their lives had been like, what had bound such different people so tightly together. None of them had ever actually come out and said as much, but Kagome suspected that it had been something traumatic. She wished they trusted her enough to tell her what it was so she could stop stepping on land mines she didn't know were there.

More than anything, she wished InuYasha trusted her enough. Enough for what, she wasn't entirely sure yet, but if he didn't start trusting her, they'd never find out. Depressed at the thought, she adjusted her head on her arm and sighed.

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

InuYasha peered across the room at her from just outside the door, baffled by how small and comfortable and harmless she looked, curled against the table like that, when after the afternoon's battle he knew she was anything but. She didn't know he was there, so he felt safe for the moment in his lookout position in the hallway.

He didn't know what he was doing here anyway. He should stay away from her. He knew he should stay away from her, especially after what had almost happened—and then what had happened—earlier just inside the treeline. It was just that he'd been so desperate. Desperate to have her. Desperate to save her, and then desperate to get away from her. And now desperate to see her, to make sure she was still all right.

He'd been doing so well all afternoon, secluded in his room where no one could see his thoughts, the turmoil that old memories brought him when he was forced to dwell on them. To his way of thinking, the emergence of her powers was a mind-bogglingly Bad Thing. It raised un-ignorable questions about her past, stuff he seriously didn't want to go digging for, questions everything inside of him constricted at the thought of answering. It was yet another connection to her, another potential link to the problems that had brought them to the Sachi, another danger to them all. Another reason to avoid her and the strange connection he felt with her. And yet, it hadn't escaped his notice that her powers were also the reason she was still alive.

He'd failed to protect her from the youkai. Categorically, unequivocally failed. If she hadn't been able to purify them, he would have been too late to save her. And that, more than anything on this earth could have, tortured him.

So he'd spent hours alone, brooding over the past, over mistakes and stupid decisions he'd made before and events and memories he'd thought he'd successfully managed to push into the corner of his life with all the other Things That Didn't Matter. And then, when the guilt was thick, after dinner was surely over and everyone off in pursuit of their own little interests, the solitude had finally gotten to him, and he'd gone for a walk—not outside, where he normally walked or ran (where no one bothered him and he could continue his seclusion without the confinement) but inside. Where the people were. Where he would normally never wander while his thoughts harassed him. In the general direction of the kitchen—but only because he'd missed dinner and was hungry. Not because worry beat at him with greater urgency than the agony of his own past. There had been no release of tension, no silent sigh of relief when he'd followed a stray whiff of her scent to find her whole and healthy in the guest dining room.

He gritted his teeth in frustration as he watched her pointlessly pick at the table with a finger, and flexed his fingers, his claws at his side.

He didn't understand it. He was used to the solitude, the quiet, the living with his own thoughts apart from the eyes of prying strangers and the distraction of busy places. He didn't mind the company of his friends, but he'd never really needed it. So why was he struggling with the wayward urge to go in there and just sit with her—no words, no sounds or contact necessary, just going in and sitting near her on one of the cushions that served as seats? He couldn't possibly be forgetting already that she could very well be an enemy. Her face, her powers, the bullet wound that had left her for dead in the middle of an icy river, everything pointed to a wrongness about her presence here.

Maybe he just needed to keep an eye on her. Yeah, that was it. He needed to keep an eye on her in case something really was off, so he would know if she tried anything to sabotage them.

She sighed and shifted her head against her arm. He drew in a deep breath...and froze, all thoughts in limbo, because her scent was heavy with the same thick lust that had blown his brain cells outside in the treeline, and his gut clenched in immediate response. His flexing fingers curled and stayed there, digging into his palms as he fought the urge to step inside, to follow the delicious smell to its source. His muscles trembled with the effort, because he wanted it, just as strongly as before, regardless of what she was or whom she might be.

Really, did it matter all that much? When all he had to do was scent her, and he was just as hard and aching and ready as he had been in the woods, against that tree, when the only thing that had stopped them from being joined completely was a few moments and a zipper. A second or two longer and he'd have been slipping inside her, gripped tight by the heated slickness that had coated his fingers—and far too distracted to notice the youkai bearing down on their next meal. A soft growl rumbled in his chest, too low and subtle for her to have possibly caught it, but she lifted her head anyway.

Before he could step back, out of her line of sight, her head had turned, and her wide, stunned eyes had caught his. She gasped and surged to her feet, one smooth, fluid motion of unfolding limbs and swishing hair. InuYasha froze, panicked, unable to step back, unable to move forward, unable to say anything.

Behind her, in the opposite doorway, one of the guests—a tall, skinny guy with glasses whose name InuYasha couldn't remember, but whose vaguely pungent scent he recognized—came into view. He saw Kagome and a weird smile twisted his lips and he stepped forward, mouth opening as if to say something only to stop when he noticed InuYasha. He hesitated and closed his mouth, his eyes moving keenly from Kagome to InuYasha and back again, before he abruptly turned on his heel and left. Kagome, still staring at him, hadn't even notice the human. InuYasha frowned.

“InuYasha?”

He blinked, a little surprised by her voice even though he'd been expecting her to say something. “What?” he asked, gruff, his surprise lending his voice normalcy even while his body still thrummed with more-than-normal hunger.

Kagome hesitated, looking unsure. “You're...all right? I was worried about you. You didn't even come to dinner.”

He grunted. “I wasn't hungry.”

“Oh.” She paused, pressing her lips together for a moment. “Your side. You were bleeding pretty bad earlier. Is it—”

“I'm fine,” he said, cutting her off because he was afraid if she asked to look at it, he'd let her. The anticipation that rolled through his gut at the thought told him that would be a bad idea. “It's almost healed now.”

“Oh.”

She seemed disappointed, and he hated that she looked so awkward and unsure. He stepped forward, forcing his hands to unclench, his body to relax. He should be clipped and distant with her, but he couldn't force it when she looked like that. His voice was gruff, grudging. “What about you? You're the one whose body is so weak. Kaede said that you'd be tired for a while.” Kaede had also said that her power would rival a certain someone else's, which made her infinitely more dangerous to him than many of his enemies over the years could ever have been, but he wasn't about to volunteer that information to her.

Kagome smiled—just a small one, but her face lost most of its tension in the doing. “I'm fine. They didn't let me help with dinner or the clean-up, so I've been resting most of the day.” She took another step forward, and InuYasha suddenly realized with an internal start that they were quite close. Another frown flitted across his features. How had he gotten so far into the dining room?

Kagome reached out and brushed her fingers along the back of his hand, a simple gesture that sent slow, electric heat licking to life just beneath the surface of his skin. He stiffened. Awareness flickered into the gray darkness of her eyes, but she didn't moved away. She just sounded breathless when she spoke. “I wanted to thank you. This is the second time that you've saved me.”

He scowled, and immediately stepped back, away from the burn of her skin. “I didn't save you. You saved yourself with that power that none of us knew anything about,” he snapped (or maybe accused?) her, himself, the Sachi itself. “It's stupid to thank me.”

For a second, she looked like he'd slapped her. Then—hot damn, but he wanted to pounce on her when she did that—she lifted her chin and straightened her spine until her chest thrust proudly in front of her. “Fine. I won't thank you for saving me. I'll thank you for trying.” Her eyes snapped with the smallest hint of the temper he knew she had and for which he had a healthy respect. “Not many people would have gone that far, you know.”

He snorted. “I'm not like 'many people'.”

Her lips twitched, sudden humor sparkling in her eyes. “I already know that.”

He blinked at her, suspicious. “What the hell's that supposed to mean?”

Kagome's only answer was another smile, hesitant, shy. “Do you want...some dinner? I'm pretty sure there are leftovers in the fridge.”

InuYasha paused. He was hungry, of course, but her question felt like it had more to it than simple food. She was asking about something else, too, and while he wasn't very good with subtle, he could guess it had something to do with the brief, addictive moment of insanity they'd shared earlier, before she'd complicated everything by saving herself and making herself suspect and untrustworthy all at the same time. Just like her.

No, that wasn't true either, because he'd actually trusted her. And look where it had gotten him.

But you didn't really, did you?

He wanted to snarl at it, that damn voice.

Maybe this time you should try really trusting. If you did that, finishing what you started in the woods wouldn't be a problem, would it?

That scared him, because of how much he actually wanted to follow that damn insidious voice in his head and just give in. Grab her arm and lead her off to his room. It would be so easy, and oh, how he wanted it. But it wasn't just him, and he couldn't risk putting everyone he was responsible for protecting in danger.

Yeah, sure. Tell yourself that's the only reason.

And because he couldn't answer, because he was suddenly too frustrated to even look hard at what she really meant, he practically snarled at her. “Stop worrying about me! I was just making sure you were okay, since it was my fault in the first place. Just...go rest and be ready to get back to work tomorrow.”

She inhaled sharply, then came the familiar lift and stiffen. “Sorry for caring.” Her voice was quiet, angry, with a layer of hurt that made him wince. “Good night, then.”

Thankfully, she didn't give him any time to regret or make an idiot of himself by trying to make it right. She just swept right past him, leaving her rich scent right in his face and all around him, leaving the smooth sensation of her arm brushing against his, and the heat of wanting her deep in his gut, trembling in fury that he was just letting her walk away. But his feet stayed glued to the floor, because she was a miko, because her face was familiar (and why the hell did he have to keep reminding himself of that – as if it wasn't smack dab in front of him every moment he looked at her?), because they had no idea if she was here to hurt them or help them, and because he knew that he was in another situation where if he went after her, he probably wouldn't stop with just making sure she was okay. They'd end up secluded, together, behind a closed door somewhere. Probably naked.

And he couldn't let that happen, could he?

So he waited, ears pricked and body quivering on a precarious edge, until he heard the faint thump that meant her door had slammed safely shut, and then he headed for the bracing cold outside, because he sure as hell wasn't going to get any sleep tonight. Again.

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

Tokyo

It was a late night, part of the usual routine for the past few years, and the vast majority of the underground offices were quiet. This late, most of the office personnel had gone home; but in order to maintain the cover of their everyday lives, the largest part of his agents reported in at odd hours, so he expected the activity levels to rise at some point before he left for the evening. For the moment they had a rare instance of calm.

He was secluded in the luxury of his office, blinds covering over the front wall of windows so that he didn't have to see what little bustling went on in the main room while he reviewed (mostly just signed without reading) the backlog of various release and requisition forms that had been building up over the past month. His personal assistant had been hiding them from him out of pure fear of his reaction—wisely—but the stack had finally grown too big to ignore. Paperwork was the bane of his existence, as it had been his fathers' before him, and on the rare occasion that he was forced to deal with it, his mood became dangerous for those foolish enough to antagonize him. Or look at him.

Which was why he was surprised to hear the knock on his door, though he schooled the emotion deep so it didn't show on his face. His fingers hesitated mid-page-flip over the file in front of him. “Come.”

His nose told him who was knocking, so looking up was unnecessary but he did it anyway since it afforded him the opportunity to glare at the small, intensely green head (at a maximum height that barely reached the top of his desk)that poked cautiously around the side of the solid oak door. The glare was highly effective, if the sweat-sheen that formed on the hairless dome was any indication, a fact which served to sooth the general irritation that had afflicted him since he'd found the mountain of papers waiting on his desk earlier that afternoon.

The reptilian head bobbed in deference. “My lord, forgive my intrusion, but a matter has just come up.” He hesitated, waited, fidgeted, then cleared his throat. “It is...somewhat delicate.”

He narrowed his eyes, considering the implicit request. After a moment of letting the little youkai stew in his increasing sweat, he flipped the file closed with quiet relish and sat back into the cushions of his chair, focusing his attention on his assistant. “Close the door.”

The imp stepped into his office and shut the door with his back, head still bowed and body still fidgeting. The silence stretched out, and his eyes narrowed further, a displeased rumble brewing in his chest. His claws tapped at the pile of papers in front of him, and he had to make a conscious effort to keep his more poisonous impulses in check. As satisfying as turning the red tape nuisance into insignificant vapor would be, he refused to put himself through the inconvenience of having to go through them all again after they'd been reprinted.

Another nervous throat-clear finally broke the silence. “There's been a communication.”

He let his brow quirk, a miniscule hitch that—for him—spoke volumes. “Communication.”

“From Hokkaido. A highly encrypted e-mail via the back-door security channels. The sender used classified codes to bypass all the usual checks and send it straight through to your personal account.”

The brow hitched a little higher at the unexpected response. That fool of a hanyou had been sulking and uncommunicative from his imposed seclusion for the past five years. That any of that group had reached out now was certain to mean nothing but trouble for all of them. “Concerning?”

Another hesitation. “There's been some unusual activity at the Sachi.”

He was losing patience with his assistant's dodging. He sat forward, steepling his fingers so that he could angle his golden eyes over the deadly corrosive weapons at their tips, and sighed. “Unusual.”

The little green imp knew his moods well. He straightened his back and stepped forward. “Suspicious, my lord. According to the monk, InuYasha found and rescued a young woman last month who had been shot in the head and left for dead in the forest. Apparently, she's been staying with them since then, but only recently has InuYasha consented to requesting an information search.” He swept a low bow and indicated the computer screen on his desk. “I've transferred the decrypted contents for your review. Forgive me, my lord, but I think you'd prefer to read the details for yourself.”

“Only recently,” he murmured with contempt, shoving papers aside and tapping out a few commands on his keyboard to call up the specific document. Anything as suspicious as the circumstances described should have been reported immediately, regardless of InuYasha's idiotic pride. The kitsune he dismissed, but the monk and the elder priestess should have known better. Any potential compromise would have to be dealt with.

The fools think they're on an extended vacation.

The monk's report was, as his had always been, well-constructed and highly detailed, which plunged his mood even further downward. He hated reading detailed reports; like his father, he'd always preferred to review the initial oral report and send the written one off to those nearly worthless beings who were most suited to wasting their time reading them. But this one....

His hand curled up into a loose fist as he read:

Disturbing circumstances...amnesia...unable to track origin or travel points...suspicious features...(suspicious features?)...Spiritual powers to ward off attack...deemed by Kaede to match or surpass the power attributed to...

They should have made contact weeks ago.

A quiet growl made it past his throat. He didn't take his eyes from the screen. “Jaken. Find out who this human is. All resources. Contact the monk and tell him to send a pict—”

He stopped as the slow scroll of the screen reached the bottom of the page, and an image came into view. InuYasha, on the floor in some kind of storage room with what he assumed to be the human female in question in his lap. That idiot hanyou had his arms wrapped around her in a manner that could only be described as cuddling. They both slept, but the female's profile struck a disturbingly familiar chord.

He'd only met that woman once, but her face was not something he would forget, not after the damage a mere human had managed to do to their name and family. Fury and disbelief had him digging his claws into the buttery leather of his office chair; hissing smoke-streams curled into the air, and he ingored Jaken's stifled groan at the destruction.

In his sleep, InuYasha held the woman with the same human affection that had cursed their father. The same human affection that had recently blinded and cursed his half-brother; the human affection for which he'd sacrificed everything, and gotten nothing in return. Did he honestly not understand why he'd found himself banished to Hokkaido?

Beneath the photo, a caption, because the monk had always had an unfathomably inappropriate sense of humor:

Cute, aren't they?

That weak fool.

“Jaken,” he bit out. Quiet. Soft. Outwardly calm.

Jaken squawked and bowed low, his voice squeaking. “Yes, Sesshoumaru-sama?”

“Get a different picture.”

“Yes, Sesshoumaru-sama.”

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

A/N: ~echo~ Hello! ~echo~ Quill here, updating from a mini-vacation, and happy the chapter is done. It's long, and hopefully satisfying, and hopefully not abandoned by those who've already invested time in reading it?

Ah, well. I'm mostly satisfied with this chapter (as, ideally, is everyone who came back to read it?), and I'm very happy to finally be graduated with my English degree (which is where dear Quill disappeared to for so long this most recent time around. Yea, me! A four-year degree in six(-ish). Whoo-hoo. ^_^) . I'm also quite satisfied with the way the next chapter is going so far, so we'll have to see how that goes in the next few weeks, right?

Anyway, thanks so much for sticking with it, and let me know if I've still got it after so long. And, I supposed I should thank dear JMaxwell, for giving me a place to write that really kick-started the block that I was dealing with. ^_~ So, there you go. I won't admit that you're a muse, but you're darn close. XD (ETA: I take it back! Stay away from my computer, you freaking story saboteur!)

For my own selfish pleasure, please enjoy!

~Quill