“I’ve decided to stay.”

Sesshoumaru’s gaze slanted from the heavens down to her. “Stay?”

“That’s right,” Kagome said, her lips quirking up at the corners. The doggish pun in all this clearly wasn’t lost on either of them. “Bye-bye, college education. Hello, miko arts.”

“So,” he said dryly, “you’re opting for the path of least resistance.”

Kagome was miffed. “Excuse me,” she said, brandishing the rice straw she was fiddling with at him, “but explain to me how choosing to stay in an era riddled with bloodthirsty youkai and deprived of all modern conveniences is ‘the path of least resistance’?”

“Perhaps you are failing to note the compliment I was paying you.”

The miko flushed. “…You really think I’m that skilled as a priestess?”

“You have natural talent, from what I’ve observed.” Sesshoumaru’s look was wry. “How else would you have survived our first few encounters?”

Kagome laughed. “Well now I see how far to take your compliments.” Shaking her head, she smiled over at him from the other side of the fencing. “But just so you know, this wasn’t an easy choice. My studies have always been very important to me—to Mama, too. She teared up when I told her what I’d decided, but then I explained to her that I’m not really giving them up so much as taking them in a new direction. And I reminded her…well…”

“What?” Sesshoumaru pressed her.

Looking down at the straw again, Kagome began to twist it around her finger. “Something my dad used to say. He used to tell me, ‘Follow your heart, Kagome—follow your heart, and you’ll always find your way.’ And well…this place, this era—this is where I feel like I belong. There isn’t any real reason to it, I know. But this is where my heart keeps leading me…” Her lips twisted as she glanced up at him. “It sounds kind of silly, doesn’t it?”

“No,” he said, holding her gaze. “It does not.”

Kagome’s blush deepened. At times, the intensity of his presence still caught her off-guard. Most men didn’t possess the singularity of focus, the sheer command of self, that he did. Then again, most demons didn’t, either. There was only one exception that came to mind, and she hadn’t seen him in quite some time.

The thought made her feel strangely guilty, as she stole another glance at Sesshoumaru.

At first, she’d simply been glad that they were on amiable terms. She’d considered it a breakthrough of sorts, and was cheered by it. Operation ‘Befriend the Former Enemy’ had been, by all accounts, a runaway success.

But she couldn’t deny that she was drawn to him on a more basic level. Maybe she could have dealt with it better, if her subconscious would stop sending up glaring reminders. How many nights now had she jolted awake in bed, wresting herself from dreams she most certainly should not be having? Dreams where it was Sesshoumaru she was naked and striving against, dreams where it was his fangs setting themselves into the junction of her neck and shoulder, as he growled into her with pleasure…

Something in her sleeping mind kept splicing the two demons together, and it was making her uncomfortable and confused. It was making her read into things—making her see something rather bedroom in the way he was looking at her presently.

Kagome’s pulse thrummed. Ridiculous as it was, she hadn’t realized how desperately she was relying on some sort of physical separation to keep her tumultuous thoughts in check, until he cleared the fence between them in a flicker. The miko yelped as she stumbled back, throwing up her hands in alarm.

“I’m seeing someone,” she blurted, “sort of!”

Sesshoumaru arched a brow, his expression cool. There was no trace of that heavy-lidded look now—had there ever been? Kagome gave herself a mental shake. Of course not—this was Sesshoumaru she was talking about here! There was a perfectly rational explanation for all of this, and grimacing, Kagome berated herself with it as she lowered her trembling hands and fought to settle her breathing.

She was, quite simply, going out of her freaking mind.

It was a theory that only gained more ground as she heard a tell-tale creaking behind her, accompanied by a flurry of footsteps. Weakly, Kagome turned to find Rin sprinting toward them across the long rope-bridge. The miko’s eyes strayed to Sesshoumaru’s, whose own gaze was trained upon his ward. So, that was why he’d leapt the fence…

Kagome heaved an embarrassed sigh.

“Sesshoumaru-sama!” the girl exclaimed breathlessly, skidding to a halt before them.

As he met Rin’s gaze in reply, she directed her beaming smile at Kagome. “Kikyou-onee-sama is feeling well today! She sent me to fetch you—she’s going to show us how to make her special fever rub. Won’t you come, Kagome-chan?”

Leaning heavily against the fence post, Kagome managed to smile back. “O-of course, Rin-chan. Sure thing…”

Rin beamed again, before rubbing a knuckle between her brows. Kagome felt rather than saw Sesshoumaru frown, as he stepped forward and prised Rin’s hand gently from her face.

“Another headache?” the daiyoukai asked, crouching to her level.

“Ah,” the girl said, her smile turning sheepish as she peered up at him. “…Hai, Sesshoumaru-sama.”

Forgetting her embarrassment, Kagome peeled herself off the post and wandered over. “Does this happen often?”

Rin nodded, thinking. “When I try to look at things that are too far away, or when Kaede-baa-chan is teaching me letters.”

Kagome frowned. “I see…”

The girl’s furrowed brow smoothed as Sesshoumaru pressed his thumbs to her temples, and circled slowly. After a moment of this, Rin sighed in relief, and Kagome’s eyes went wide.

“Thank you, Sesshoumaru-sama—I feel much better now.” Tossing the stunned miko a wave, the girl turned and scampered back across the creaking bridge. “See you soon, Kagome-chan!”

The miko stared after her. “Well, that was something,” she said slowly, turning toward Sesshoumaru. “Where did you—”

“You know,” he interrupted her, his gaze sharp.

“Know what?” she echoed, genuinely befuddled.

“You know what is afflicting Rin.”

Kagome blanched. “Uh…well, it seems to me that she’s suffering from some sort of eye trouble. Nearsightedness, most likely. It’s a pretty common condition. In my time, we have treatments for it, but you have to go to a specialist.”

Sesshoumaru’s look was heavy. “This ‘condition’ is getting worse.”

“Yeah…that’s not uncommon, either.” The miko pursed her lips. “I’ll talk to Kikyou about it. Eyes are tricky to heal—but there must be something we can do.”

Sesshoumaru glanced away, his voice falling to a rumble. “I have never understood it, why humans are so helpless to heal themselves.”

Kagome blinked, taken aback. He sounded almost…brooding.

“It’s just part of being mortal, I guess,” she said mildly. “But that doesn’t mean we’re doomed to suffer for it. Sometimes we just need a little help from others. Like how you helped Rin-chan just now.”

“There is a limit to what I can do for her.” His glinting eyes cut back to Kagome’s, and now there was no mistaking the bitterness that edged his tone. “There is always a limit. Even for Father, this was so.”

Kagome faltered. Somehow, she had the impression that they were no longer talking just about Rin…

“But you’re in her life,” she said quietly after a moment, “and she’s in yours. You love her, and she loves you back, and that’s not something that sickens or dies or goes away with time. That love is forever, and there’s no limit to it, as far as I can see.”

Sesshoumaru said nothing to this, though his features seemed to lose their flintiness. It was as though he was thawing before her eyes, no longer icy and remote, no longer seeming carved from stone. His gaze was smoldering, and Kagome sweltered beneath it, her chest so tight she could scarcely breathe.

“W-well, I’d better get going,” she croaked out, backing away. “Don’t want to hold up that lesson…”

It was a hasty retreat if she’d ever made one. Turning on her heel, she all but fled for the bridge.

Maybe it was her furious pace, or her larger weight, or just plain bad luck—but the planks that had creaked so innocuously when Rin had trundled over them now gave an ominous, keening moan. Stranded out in the middle of the span, Kagome had a split-second to process the change in sound, before the bridge gave way beneath her with a whip-crack, and she was hurtling toward the bottom of the ravine.

Her mouth opened to scream—the air slamming back into her lungs as she was snatched from her free-fall and hauled up against an armored chest.

Wild with panic, Kagome’s eyes shot to Sesshoumaru’s, her fingers snagging in his fur and sleeves. Lightly, he landed with her on the far side of the gully, still holding her to him as the fallen bridge smashed dully against the rocks far below. Her heart hammered against him all the while, her head faint and spinning.

Reeling as she was in the wake of this near-death experience, Kagome at last managed to register a second—and even greater—shock.

It wasn’t so much the fact that he was still touching her as the way he was touching her—one clawed hand at her jacketed shoulder, the other at her waist. There was a warmth and intent in this contact that carried down to her bones, that clicked into place in her mind in vivid relief—in instant and total recognition.

Kagome’s mouth ran dry. Her eyes lit with the spark of this awareness as they snapped to his again. Mirrored, his gaze returned it, as he held her to him still.

He handled her with the familiarity and ease of someone who had done so a dozen times before—because he had. There wasn’t a part of her he hadn’t touched, and a trapdoor seemed to open in the pit of her stomach as the full weight of this realization came crashing down upon her.

A sound of raw emotion strangled in her throat. Sesshoumaru’s grip on her tightened, his claw points pricking her through the heavy cloth of her coat.

“Kagome…”

Abruptly, she shoved herself out of his hold. Through a sheen of tears, her eyes flashed to his once more, before she staggered back and away from him. Whirling around on unsteady feet, she stumbled her way back to the village, blindly and alone.

---

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi

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