The raven-haired woman threw her head back to laugh, a pure, joyous sound. On either side of her, a kitsune kit and a human girl-child giggled with her. The sounds tapered off after a moment, but the smiles remained as the woman leaned over the kit and pointed to the bound paper in his lap.
“I don’t think that’s the character you want to use, here, Shippō.” She giggled again. “With the others, it says something completely different. Try again. What else could you use?”
High in a tree to one side of the clearing they sat in, unseen, unheard, entirely undetected, a silent watcher brooded.
She made no sense. A priestess with respectable power but no training to speak of, she had what appeared an extensive education that she continued to pursue in spite of the trials of her quest for the Jewel shards and Inuyasha’s sometimes aggressive opposition to the “waste” of her time. The boy was clearly a fool, yet she persisted in calling him “friend” while also desiring a closer, romantic relationship with him. She seemed to alternate between the roles of elder sister and mother to the kitsune kit, a yōkai that even most other yōkai would not take in, apparently as the situation dictated. She and the yōkai slayer behaved as siblings who actually held affection for each other. She even treated the monk as a wayward elder brother, scolding him affectionately for his wandering hand.
“Lady Kagome? Rin doesn’t understand this one.” The little girl at her side pointed to the book in her lap.
The woman leaned over to see. “Ah. Remember how we figure things out?”
“From the con…text, right? Rin thinks she knows what it should be, but these don’t quite match.”
She treated the little human girl exactly the same as she treated the kitsune kit, as if there were no difference between them at all. Evidence gleaned from long hours of observation suggested that she truly did not see any difference. As if only their disparate personalities mattered at all.
Even after the end of the Jewel quest and Naraku’s defeat, though the end of their quest should logically have led to the odd little group’s dissolution, she spent a great deal of time with her companions. While they clearly lived in the little village of Edo and she could most often be found among them, the home she mentioned so frequently did not seem to lie within the village confines. She had worn a path between the village and the clearing she currently sat in with the pups. It contained at its center a dry, magic-saturated well that gave no clues to what sort of home she could have that required such a portal to access.
“I think that’s enough for now.” The priestess clapped her hands together sharply and then reached for the cloth-wrapped bundle at her side. “You guys are doing great. Let’s have some lunch!”
All of these things, contradictions and anomalies at every turn, had served to foster a fascination in him for the strange human woman. It seemed he found a new question about her every time he came into contact with her group. Over time, she gained the distinction of a puzzle he wished to solve. When they defeated Naraku and new details came to his attention, he devised a plan to observe her. Occasional opposition had not served to satisfy his curiosity, nor had the occasional alliance.
His ward required education and exposure to humans who were not abusive as those of her old village had been. Fostering her to Edo’s elder miko answered that need and provided him reason to “visit” the village on a regular basis. Two proverbial birds, one metaphorical stone.
Months later, however, he still had not made any real progress at understanding the infuriating female. His questions and confusions not only remained unanswered, they continued to increase as he watched her. Items she brought from her home, mostly to entertain or educate the pups, often appeared entirely outside his centuries of knowledge and experience.
Far below, the pups cheered as the priestess revealed the contents of her cloth-wrapped box with a flourish. “Okay, okay, sit down, you two!” The woman giggled. “No jumping around the food, you’ll spill it. If you were that hungry, you could have said so!”
“Did you make it?” the kit asked with excitement.
“Well, my mother made the dumplings.” She handed chopsticks out. “I made the rest, though. Hey, now, there’s plenty for all of us! One thing at a time, Shippō.”
Not to mention the woman’s very strange, inexplicably well-made clothing. While no longer the ridiculously short, ineffective outfits he had first seen her wear, her clothing provided a whole host of additional questions nearly every time he saw her. Especially since Naraku’s defeat, what she wore looked very like the clothing he expected of the daughter of a wealthy shrine, but upon closer inspection had clearly not been created using the techniques – and often the cloth – that he considered familiar.
He had taken the opportunity, on one of his regular visits to Rin, to examine her strange items up close and still could neither explain nor imagine where the priestess could have obtained them. At least, nothing more specific than “from home”, which is all she said – nervously – when he actually inquired. If any of the group ever spoke more specifically of this vague “home”, they never did so within his hearing. Not even when they had no idea he stood within hearing distance.
Briefly, he considered merely coming out and asking his questions plainly and directly. In theory, he would have his answers immediately and be freed of this perplexing fascination. He could then turn his attention to other things.
He quickly found that he had no real desire to do so. Her tense discomfort when he spoke of the things he found strange, even if he did not ask any questions, made him suspect she would not necessarily provide entirely forthcoming answers. Yet he could think of no subject he particularly wished to turn his attention to other than the priestess known as Kagome. She occupied his mind, engaged his intellect in many more ways than one, and there truly seemed no reason to rush his answers. Given sufficient time and investigation, he felt confident he would have them within his grasp. With Naraku dead, he felt no urgency to move on to anything else.
Sesshōmaru, Lord of the Western Lands, was content to spend his time on his intriguing little human puzzle.
“Lady Kagome?” Rin sounded perplexed as she clutched a rice ball in her hand.
“Shippō, you’ve got rice on your face.” The priestess chuckled. She handed the kit a cloth before turning her attention to the girl. “Yes, Rin?”
“Rin…heard the ladies say something to each other that Rin wants to ask you about, but Rin is afraid it will make you angry at Rin.”
The woman let her hands, occupied with another rice ball, rest in her lap. “I would never get angry at you for something someone else said, honey. You can’t control what other people say.”
“But Rin does not want to make you sad, either.”
She reached out with one hand to gently tap the little girl on the nose. “Well, I don’t know what you heard them say, but I can’t think of anything they’d say that could really make me sad. So go ahead and ask your question, sweetie. What they said is not your fault, no matter what.”
The little girl hesitated. “Um… Are you…going to marry Master Inuyasha?”
“Oh dear, are they still talking about that?” The woman’s laugh sounded easy, open, with none of the tense upset their hidden watcher had expected. “No, sweetie, I’m not. He’s my good friend, but we’ve never worked very well as anything more than that.”
“Does that mean you won’t be coming to spend time with us anymore?”
“What? No, of course not!” She sounded truly startled, even concerned. “Rin, honey, what did you hear the ladies saying?”
“They… They said that they are glad that you still come to the village, because Lady Kaede does not move very fast anymore, but they are afraid that you will stop coming if Master Inuyasha does not hurry up and marry you soon.” The little girl sounded devastated and on the verge of tears.
“Oh, for—Rin, honey, come here.” Kagome set her food down and shifted around, pulling the little girl into her lap when she approached. The kit must have looked worried as well, because she beckoned to him. “You too, Shippō.”
She took several moments to settle the pups in her lap. “Now listen up, because I’m going to say something very important, and I want you both to remember it.” Her words sounded stern, but her tone seemed warm, even comforting. When both pups nodded, she continued.
“Inuyasha and I decided a long time ago that we’re better as good friends than anything else. At least two winters ago, even before we got rid of Naraku. I kept coming back to help fight Naraku after that, right?”
Both pups nodded again. She nodded with them. “Yes, I did. And I’ve kept coming back for visits every chance I get ever since we got rid of him, too, haven’t I?”
Another round of nods. “Yes, I have. Do either of you know why I kept coming back to fight Naraku? I’ll give you a hint. It’s the same reason I keep coming back to visit even now. Do you know?”
After a pause, the pups shook their heads. She chuckled and appeared to squeeze them, one with each arm. “This is the important part I want you to remember. I came back to fight Naraku, I come back to visit, and I will always come back for as long as I can…because I love.”
Sesshōmaru quirked one eyebrow upward in surprise.
Unaware of his reaction, she continued. “I love both of you. I love Inuyasha as a very good friend. I love Sango like my sister. I love Miroku like my brother. And I love Kaede like my grandmother.”
She squeezed the pups again. “I love the people in the village, and I love this land. I love helping when I can, and I love learning what this place has to teach me.”
Love? Surely the woman merely told the pups a comforting tale to reassure them. He could, perhaps and just barely, see so ridiculous an emotion as motivation for her continued visits after the spider hanyō’s defeat. It certainly matched much of the rest of her behavior, in his opinion. But during her quest to collect the Jewel shards, opposing a being that had wrought destruction the length and breadth of the lands?
Evidently, the kit shared his confusion. “But Kagome,” he ventured slowly, “I thought fighting’s supposed to be for honor and glory, or vengeance, or duty. And Naraku was really scary!”
She sighed. “I suppose some people do fight for those reasons. Vengeance, honor, and glory are probably the worst reasons to fight, at least in my opinion. Especially vengeance. To me, they just seem like excuses to be a bully, to hurt others as much as you’ve been hurt, and where’s the point in that? Duty seems slightly better, but I think even that depends on the situation and whether there’s any other way to do what needs doing.”
Pausing thoughtfully, she tilted her face toward the sky. “I think that’s true of any situation, really. If there’s another way to solve it, it’s better to try that, first. Anybody can pick a fight, and we can pick fights any time, but the very best fight is the one you never have to fight at all.”
Nonsense. She filled the pups’ heads with absolute nonsense.
“If you really, truly cannot avoid a fight through talking things out and looking for other ways to solve the problem, then I think the best reason to have for going into a fight is love.” She looked back down at the pups with a smile. “I was able to fight Naraku every day, to keep looking for all those Jewel shards, because I didn’t want them to do anything to hurt the people I love. I knew that if I left the shards free in the world, they would be used to do things that might hurt my friends, or this village, or these lands. And I knew that if we didn’t get rid of Naraku, he would go on hurting innocent people and collecting shards to do things that would hurt my friends and maybe even my family. It’s the love I feel for my friends and family, and for this place, that gave me the strength to keep fighting even when things got scary.”
Ridiculous! Strength from emotion? From so weak an emotion as love? Preposterous!
Irritated, Sesshōmaru turned on his branch and dropped to the ground away from the clearing. He moved easily into the long, ground-eating stride he used when not being immediately followed by a small human girl or an even shorter-legged gami retainer. The foolish words of a silly slip of a woman should not have any power to affect a daiyōkai, much less a Lord such as himself, yet as he walked he found that they…did. Irritation, restlessness, even frustration plagued him, but none of the disgust or dismissive disregard he thought he should feel.
He slowed to an unhurried amble as it occurred to him to wonder why her tale to the pups had affected him so, and whether what she’d said was truly ‘merely’ a tale. Based on the small pieces of her story he’d gleaned over time, he’d always believed that she sought the Jewel shards and fought Naraku out of a sense of duty. Casting his thoughts back over the course of his knowledge and direct observations of the woman, he began comparing what he’d believed with what she’d just revealed, attempting to decide which fit her behavior best.
Much of his observation of her performance in battle had come from battles in which he had been her opponent, but he had participated in a few as her ally. By necessity, much of his attention had been directed elsewhere, but he had noted a great deal more in retrospect than he had consciously recognized each time. Considering what he could recall…
Disturbed, he went completely still as his memories realigned into a new configuration the moment he applied her interpretation of ‘love’ to them.
He had never understood her propensity to throw herself between a disabled friend and whatever foe they faced. He’d seen her do so several times, and she’d faced a battle-maddened, yōki-overcome Inuyasha at least twice in much the same way. Even when the group had opposed him, she’d faced him fearlessly. Or…no. She had scented of fear, but her actions had contradicted it. Another contradiction, and what he’d never understood. Before now.
If he read her fear-scent not as fear of a foe but as fear for an imperiled companion…
She threw herself into danger over and over without concern for herself, he thought, stunned. She did so to protect others. For ‘love’.
Outwardly, he must have appeared very much like a stone carving, immobile and expressionless, unseeing. Inside, however, his mind whirled at first through shock and outraged confusion. After a long moment, he set these aside as unproductive wastes of time and focused instead on applying this new insight to everything he knew of the little priestess.
It made sense.
The evidence of her behavior bore it out.
Things he’d puzzled over after hearing her say them suddenly became clear.
But how could this be? Love was a foolish emotion that created a weakness exploitable by enemies! As witness his mother, who had allowed her affection for his father to leave her open to devastation she would nurse for centuries when he forsook her for the arms of a mere, powerless human woman. Or his father, whose professed love for that human woman caused him to make the foolish decision to go into battle already gravely injured. He’d killed his opponent at the cost of following him into death immediately after. Immeasurable power, centuries of life, wasted to stretch out the meager human span afforded a single weak human!
Yet somehow, an impertinent slip of a human priestess had discovered a way to turn that weakness to strength, something the Great and Terrible Dog General had not found even with all his power, cunning, and centuries of life! It made no sense!
Suddenly enraged, he resumed moving among the trees, going at a much faster rate than before. He wished to move, to find something to kill, rend, tear asunder. Away from the village, where his rampage would not upset his ward or the priestess.
As the thought flitted through his mind, he broke into a clearing he had never noticed before and came to an abrupt halt once more. The sight before him arrested his attention, killing his anger as if it had never existed.
The early afternoon sun refracted through the mist thrown from the base of a long, narrow waterfall. Rainbows scattered across the small pool at its foot and over the grassy banks to either side. A colorful array of wildflowers nearly carpeted both sides of the pool and the grassy meadow beyond, complementing the rainbows until the whole area lay awash in color.
I will bring Rin here on my next ‘visit’, he thought as a sense of peace washed through him. She will enjoy the flowers. And she should see the waterfall just like this. It will please her greatly.
For a moment it seemed foolish, a daiyōkai of his stature wishing to please a tiny human girl-child. He shook the feeling away, though. He was Lord of the West, and if he chose to do something to please his ward, then he would do so and let no one question him over it. There was very little, he realized, that he would not do for the little girl who had first chosen him. He did not care who knew it, either.
That thought even stopped his breath for a moment as it settled gently into place beside his afternoon’s preoccupation.
It…fit. He would step between Rin and any danger she might face. Had, many times. He had, in fact, taken notice of Naraku at all merely on Rin’s behalf. Before he’d kidnapped Rin, the spider hanyō had been a mere nuisance, beneath Sesshōmaru’s notice once he had failed as an ally to wrest Tessaiga from Inuyasha.
In truth, very little existed that could offer true threat to Sesshōmaru. Particularly after he produced Bakusaiga from his own yōki and surpassed his great father, he had nothing left to prove to any living being. Yet he realized as he stood there, awash in peace and color, that he would easily risk himself to protect Rin. To see her safe and happy, no matter what.
Just as the priestess Kagome, admittedly much more fragile than he, had done for her companions during their quest for the Jewel shards.
She had called it ‘love’.
Apparently, he also possessed within himself the capacity for this strange, weak emotion. The emotion that had led to his parents’ downfall and his father’s death. The emotion the priestess had somehow turned into enough strength to repeatedly defy not only the spider hanyō Naraku but the most powerful living daiyōkai. Successfully.
He settled at the base of a tree at the edge of the new meadow. The only being he knew of to turn this weakness he had discovered within himself into acceptable strength also happened to be the object of his continued fascination. His imperfect understanding must be remedied immediately. He must revise his plans.
The priestess Kagome had what he needed, and he would have it from her as soon as possible.