Hello everyone! I am so sorry about the long wait. But! This chapter is really long! Just for you! This is actually the longest chapter I ever wrote. In. My. Life. (personal accomplishment! Woohoo!) I also had to stop and rethink about the way the story was unfolding, so that's partly why it took me so long. That and all the craziness of college. I'm actually on my last stretch of exams right now before winter break. #procrastination

To everyone who reviewed, thank you so much and keep it up! You guys give me the strength to continue posting. Much thanks! And I apologize for any and all spelling or grammar mistakes. This is beta'd. Hope you enjoy!

...but before we jump right into the new chapter, here is what we had previously:

More questions and still no real answers. He would need to seek the wisdom of someone else.

"Come."

Kagome peeked up at him. Her eyes slightly red and puffy from all the crying she had done. He stared steadily into those eyes. She shivered as a large, brown tail popped up behind her and curled at the end.

"Where are we going?" she asked. She sniveled and wiped her cheeks of dried tears.

He did not answer, but resolutely stared at her new squirrely tail. A frown threatened to show itself on his face.

"Will we be going out?" Kagome changed her question as she followed his gaze to her new tail. She gripped it and brought it to the front to look at it better with a frown.

"Hm."

She took that as a yes and got to her feet a little unsteadily.

And now on to the next chapter:

"So where are we going?" Kagome asked again as they passed the castle gates.

Sesshomaru spared a glance behind him. The beginnings of a grimace was etched on her face along with watchful eyes—her muscles stiff and coiled. This distrust of him was…annoying, but not unfounded.

"To figure out why you hold both youki and reiki." He answered. Perhaps answering a few of her questions would put her mind at more ease.

Her tail twitched to attention. "What? I have youki inside me?!"

Sesshomaru frowned, stopped, and turned to look at her. "You didn't notice?"

Was this ningen so blind to not notice what had been going on with her own body? Surely, the change between her forms were noted. His eyes narrowed.

"Of course, I noticed!" She snapped, offended. "Stop looking at me like I'm stupid! I'm just surprised is all."

He turned back around and continued to walk.

"Youki…that actually explains a lot." She looked back at her tail. "Right. I can't believe I didn't figure it out myself."

After a long silence, his curiosity got the better of him. "How else could you have turned into a youkai?"

"I-, "Kagome started to say, but the words left her.

Sesshomaru continued walking, waiting to hear her answer. Instead, he got another question.

"What's it like to have youki?" she blurted. At his continued silence, she continued. "Is your beast and you two different beings? Because…I…I think there's a voice in my head that keeps making me forget. Or convinces me that all this is normal. Or…I don't know. I just…"

Kagome shook her head. Tears of confusion started welling up inside her. Why couldn't she remember thinking that being a demon was weird? That it wasn't what she was supposed to be? Unless she never actually did.

Did it feel…natural to me? But why? Kagome thought, chewing her lips to worry.

She walked straight into Sesshomaru's back.

"Cease your worries. We both will have answers soon enough." He didn't look back at all. He merely started walking again, leaving Kagome to rubbing her nose and staring at him in surprise.

The rest of the day went by fairly quietly. Sesshomaru's mere scent kept all demons from approaching too closely. He didn't use his youki to keep them away in case it triggered something in Kagome's fluctuating aura. His mind wandered to Rin and wondered if Jaken knew better than to allow any harm to come onto her. He had no real reason to worry, however. The castle was well protected and his servants wouldn't dare betray him. Jaken would certainly make sure of that. Though the imp was useless in many things, he was quite observant when it came to matters dealing with other creatures.

They were outside the far boundaries of his castle now.

"Hey look! My tail disappeared!"

Sesshomaru looked from the corners of his eye to see Kagome waving her hand through the empty air behind her. Curious, he tasted the aura around her. Indeed, her youki seemed to have quieted down again. Now it was equal to her reiki.

"Hm." He replied, a little distracted by this new tidbit of information.

She seemed to cheer up a bit more now that her youki and reiki were quiet. The human wouldn't stop smiling. He didn't even need to look at her to know that she was beaming. And she continued to beam well past sunset.

Once night finally took over the sky, Sesshomaru settled down beneath a tree.

"What are you doing?" Kagome asked, standing in front of him. She kept a respectful distance away.

"You require rest." He stated, thinking it was obvious.

"No, I'm fine. I don't feel tired at all. Let's keep on walking."

Sesshomaru let his gaze roam over her. She kept shifting her weight from left to right and her fingers were reaching towards something or trying to feel something that wasn't there, but her eyes were slightly glazed with sleep. She was unnaturally tense.

"Try to rest." He finally said.

Kagome frowned, but complied. She went towards a tree opposite of Sesshomaru and stared at the cold, dirt ground. Thinking for a moment, she decided Sesshomaru wouldn't mind her ruining the rich kimono. She shed her clothes until she was left with a reasonable three layers, then she used the other layers as a makeshift bed. Crawling into the pile of kimono, she settled down facing Sesshomaru. His eyes were already closed. Kagome stared at the curves of his face until sleep took over.

Night time was when the more malicious youkai liked to roam and it seemed that Kagome's odd aura was attractive to them, so Sesshomaru took to walking around the borders of their "campsite." He made sure to direct his youki outwards, so that Kagome's sleeping area remained neutral. However, some of the demons were stupidly bold enough to confront the taiyoukai. When dawn came and Sesshomaru returned to Kagome, he found her already awake. Anxiety lined her face and sharp claws had shredded her makeshift bed into mere threads. When she opened her mouth to speak, he caught sight of glinting fangs.

"H-How was your night?" Kagome asked.

Sesshomaru watched a shiver run through her form. No doubt her youki had sensed the bloodshed.

"Come." He said and she quickly got up. She didn't want to remain in that area any longer.

That was the first and last night they stopped for rest. For the rest of the week, the two travelled through the day and through the night. Meals were consumed as they walked or during a short break. Sesshomaru did not eat often, but would not fail to hunt stray animals for her every couple of hours. Baths were when they swam across rivers. Kagome was exhausted. Her soul was strong enough to keep up with this method of travel, but her body was still human. Her shoulders slumped, her feet dragged, her eyes carries bags, and her skin was pale. The forest seemed to stretch on forever with no hint of a nearby village. But perhaps that was because Sesshomaru was avoiding them.

Kagome shivered and drew her thoughts back to watching her feet shuffle step by step over dirt and grass. She didn't like thinking beyond the bubble of their present space, because at the edge of her senses, she knew the violence that awaited her. It was like being back shard hunting with Inuyasha again—when the demons lurked around her, trying to get to the shikon jewel shards. Shivers wrecked though her spine.

"We are close."

Sesshomaru's words jolted her awake and she looked around. They were still in a forest. The scenery had not changed. But just as she opened her mouth to ask, she felt the difference. The trees were still the same, but the very air had calmed to an almost uncomfortable peace.

"Where are we?" she asked her eyes growing wide.

Sesshomaru glanced behind him at Kagome. Her heart rate had picked up and her aura was humming to an almost audible buzz. He could feel her youki jumping. Did it know?

The two stopped in front of a particularly old-looking tree.

"Bokuseno." Sesshomaru greeted. "I have come looking for answers."

A face appeared in the tree's trunk and Kagome startled with a yelp.

"You should not have brought her here, Sesshomaru-sama. My youki is not one to contain or be contained." Bokuseno spoke, his voice ringing around the clearing, pouring from every leaf and branch.

Sesshomaru glanced back at Kagome again. "She is not a youkai." He pointed out.

"Her youki is still tasting." The tree answered.

Kagome blinked owl-eyed at the face in the tree. "A-Are you a youkai?"

"Yes, lost one. I am a youkai." He answered.

Kagome looked at Sesshomaru. "Do you know what's happening to me? Is this why Sesshomaru-sama brought me here?"

Both the taiyoukai and ningen turned to look expectantly at the tree youkai.

"You should not have brought her here," Bokuseno said again.

"Well it's not like I could stay in his castle!" Kagome spat, frustration reddening her face. "I was going to go insane if I stayed there any longer!"

Suddenly, the ground shook as Bokuseno's roots shook. Kagome's youki reacted in return, speckling her face with little white dots and growing fawn ears in place of human ones.

"Bokuseno." Sesshomaru growled lowly in warning, casting Kagome several looks.

"Sesshomaru-sama, I suggest you return to the castle. I fear a rebellion may be brewing in your absence." The tree youkai's voice was grave and Sesshomaru did not doubt him.

An uprising in his own castle? It appeared he was too lax in his control. He shall remedy this immediately. But this did not explain what led Bokuseno to believe this or how it connected with Kagome. Sesshomaru glanced at the trembling girl. He need to return to his castle, but he couldn't take her back. Her youki did not settle well in his castle.

Bokuseno seemed to recognize his dilemma.

"I shall watch her here until you return." He offered the taiyoukai. Then, with continued hesitation from the dog demon, "I shall tell you all I know about her condition once you return."

Sesshomaru dipped his head in acceptance and turned into his youki ball, speeding back towards the castle.

Once he was gone for sure, Bokuseno turned back to Kagome, who was still staring at him with startled eyes and trembling form.

"Let it take over you, lost one. The days will pass by more easily with you in that state." Bokuseno coaxed, thickening his forest with his youki more than usual.

The action had its desired effect and Kagome's form shifted to that of a young, grey doe with glowing blue eyes and white spots on her back. She blinked once before prancing off into the woods. Bokuseno did not worry for he knew she would remain under his presence.

As it turned out, an uprising had been forming within the castle. Nothing too big. One of the generals was getting antsy with the lack of battles and had been poisoning others into thinking it would be a good idea to attack him. A swift and public execution stopped the whole thing. Well, not exactly. Sesshomaru surveyed the crowd as servants rushed about cleaning the blood and the body, as scholars looked on with detached interest, and as the other warriors watched his movements stoically. He could sense it in every single one of them—the craving for more bloodshed, more violence. More death. Such was the nature of a youkai. And as a youkai lord, Sesshomaru was to satisfy their needs. But bloodshed was always tricky business. He couldn't just let them run rampant. He couldn't just decide to declare war on one of the other lands. Though youkai were beasts at heart, there were still political boundaries. The other way to satisfy a craving for violence was to set them upon ningens.

Hesitation.

Sesshomaru frowned as his mind faltered at the thought of dead ningens. This new chain of hesitations was unbecoming for a taiyoukai as himself.

More so for his own nature. For centuries, he had prided in himself for being a constantly steady sword, cutting cleanly through the obstacles in his path. Even with Rin, he had made and executed his decisions precisely. A sharp blade set on a straight path.

That is, until he had come across the unusual miko.

So unlike him, she was full of curved paths and stained with contrasting decisions. And more recently, her soul itself bore that battlefield of divergences.

Sesshomaru wandered back to his desk and scanned through the documents there. His eyes settled on one report stating that a ningen village in the Western lands was raided by rogue youkai. Usually, he would turn a blind eye to these things. After all, what did it matter to him if a ningen village suffered? However, he was looking for a reason to kill and this was a good opportunity. Yes, to settle the need to kill, he would allow his servants to feast on the rogue youkai roaming the Western lands. Never mind that they only bothered ningen villages.

He felt his beast stir agitatedly. He couldn't leave the castle until after the bloodlust had settled. They needed his youki to keep them from rampaging beyond the rogues. Kagome will have to wait.

Kagome was grazing in a meadow at the very edges of Bokuseno's forest. She likened this spot the most, because the daffodils were especially delicious here. But she was quite lonely. She wanted to find a herd to play with, but hardly any animals or other youkai dared to enter Bokuseno's forest. His youki was always present as if it was the air itself, spreading that uncomfortable peace around. In his forest, you always felt wary—your senses told you it was safe, but you still anticipated chaos—you still felt like something was about to kill you. However, her senses also told her that death was much more imminent out of Bokuseno's domain. So Kagome chose the lesser evil and remained with Bokuseno, but did her best to escape his unnerving calm at the same time.

But that was just the beast talking.

Kagome herself—her human self—very much just wanted to leave. Leave everything. Go back home to the future. This feeling lurked behind the beast's more dominating state of mind. It took a while to notice it, her human self that is. It was difficult to think humanly with her youki stomping on her reiki, but easier now that she realized she had both youki and reiki inside of her.

It's an odd feeling. She finally concluded. Like having multiple personalities or something. I feel like a part of both, but neither at the same time. Like there's demon me, me, and then miko me. And I can't exactly talk to them.

For the most part, Kagome watched as her deer-youkai spent the days in Bokuseno's forest. Sometimes, she tried to fight for control and become human again. But that was unlikely. More than her own youki, Bokuseno's youki kept her in demon form. His unsettling peace kept her soul in that same state of lurking violence.

Sound of voices caught her attention and her head snapped up to look.

"We're getting too close to the Demon Tree. We should change direction." Someone said.

"Don't worry about it. We're just walking near the edge of it. We're not going to it." Someone else said. "Besides, it's the demons at the edge of this place that we need to deal with. No one said anything about taking down the Demon Tree."

Curious, Kagome stalked nearer to the voices. Moving away from the open field and into the trees, she tracked down the source of the voices to a little road path just beyond Bokuseno's youki. It was a trio of a monk, a miko, and another woman.

Kagome's reiki stirred.

"Do you feel that? There's a second youki coming from the direction of the Demon Tree." The monk said.

The trio stopped and quickly turned their backs to each other, standing in a defensive triangle formation. Kagome held her breath and froze. For a tense moment, no one moved. Then suddenly, the miko strung her bow and arrow and aimed. She released her arrow just as a rat youkai burst out from a clump of huge bushes. The youkai disintegrated in mid-air.

Long after the pink light of the reiki-filled arrow disappeared, Kagome stared. Her reiki hummed and she could feel her youki retreating. The holy energy from the monk and miko was thrumming with a warm sense of familiarity. And though Bokuseno's youki was stronger than them, it was too far to be effective on her at this distance. Her youki wanted to back away, return to Bokuseno, but Kagome forced her legs to move forward.

The monk and miko aimed their weapons at her as she stepped out of the trees. They were more than ready to shoot, but an odd sight made them hesitate. Before them, a demon deer was changing before their eyes. As Kagome approached, she transformed back into her human body slowly. By the time she stood within three feet from them, she was back to normal.

"Oh." Kagome's eyes widened as her youki completely retreated to a low hum at the bottom of her soul and her reiki regained control. Days after being a deer-youkai and suddenly she was feeling like her regular self. "Hi."

The monk and miko's jaws almost dropped in shock. It was the human woman who returned her greeting first.

"Hello," she squeaked.

Another pause.

"What are you?!" the monk demanded with wide eyes.

Kagome opened her mouth to answer, but then closed it when she couldn't come up with a good answer. What was she? Sesshomaru had said she had youki within her. She could feel it. And after she had become aware of this fact, she had maintained more of her own consciousness during her time as a youkai. But here she was in her regular, human body with the familiar tingle of reiki at her fingertips. What was she? She didn't know.

"I'm not sure yet." Kagome finally answered. Her eyes were distant, not exactly looking at the trio before her. She was too busy thinking. Now that the…her…youki had retreated, she was more in control of her thoughts. The youkai within her didn't care to think about her situation, but now that she was in control…

The miko, on the other hand, did not like her answer. In response, her reiki rose, preparing for attack. But before she could release her arrow, she watched in surprise as an answering reiki rose within the girl before her. Kagome sighed in pleasure and closed her eyes to feel it better.

"You have reiki. Are you a miko?" the monk asked with calculating eyes.

"I…was. Before this happened. Whatever this is." Kagome said, her eyes still closed. Their reiki was so soothing, so familiar.

Finally, the monk and miko put down their weapons. They would not attack a fellow sister. Instead, they approached her gently took her hand, reaching out with their reiki. If she was truly a miko, then her soul would respond to their touch. The moment their hands touched, Kagome's eyes flew open as her reiki sang loudly. As they let go, her reiki swirled within her and settled down. She felt revived like she had slept restlessly through hundreds of nights and was kicked awake with a cup of coffee. For the first time in awhile, she felt like herself. Before Sesshomaru picked her up from the woods, before the wish, before…

Her mind was kicked into overdrive. Before the wish…she had felt…and then after? Did her weird soul situation have something to do with the Shikon Jewel? Now that her mind wasn't cluttered with baser thoughts, she could actually feel her thoughts soaring around her brain. But if this feeling of normalcy was last felt before the wish upon the Shikon Jewel, then this was a big clue to how her soul got to this state. Right? Kagome frowned in concentration. Something was off and she would not rest until she figured it out.

"Hey, you!" The monk shouted, snapping Kagome away from her thoughts. "We have to leave! The Demon Tree is angry!"

Kagome looked back towards Bokuseno. His youki was aggressively swinging tree branches at the trio.

Before she could even make a move, the monk had grabbed her wrist and was running away from the angry tree-youkai. Helplessly, Kagome followed. As they ran, she felt Bokuseno's youki shout at her. The wave of youki momentarily caused her eyes to glow blue like they had when she was a deer.

Curious. Kagome thought.

The trio had taken Kagome back to their hometown, a rather large village a few miles from Bokuseno's forest. It was now dusk and they were all sitting comfortably in a rather nice house set near the middle of the village.

"Kagome-sama," Yuka, the miko, said in a breathless sigh. "You were the Shikon Miko who defeated Naraku. I didn't know you were so young!"

Kagome blushed. "Well, I wasn't alone."

"Still. To have such a powerful miko in our home, we are honored." Daisuke, the monk, nodded his head towards her. "But how did you end up near the Demon Tree's forest?"

The question about her weird reiki-youki soul was added silently in the pause that followed.

Kagome didn't want to tell them about her involvement with Sesshomaru. It was obvious that the trio were one of those anti-demon people, devoted to extinction of youkai everywhere. Though they accepted her status as the Shikon Miko, she doubted they would approve her relationship with the taiyoukai, especially with her youki "staining" her "holy" soul.

She shrugged away the question.

They let her get away with the lack of answer and took a moment to just enjoy their tea.

"So what happened to the Shikon Jewel? Do you have it with you?" Yuka asked.

"No, it disappeared after I made a wish on it." Kagome paused a moment to gather her thoughts. "I think…I think it's the Shikon Jewel's fault that I'm like this right now."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Well, you know that the Shikon Jewel will only disappear with a pure wish? Maybe…my wish wasn't as pure as I had thought." Kagome's face twisted in bitterness. "I should've just wished for the jewel to disappear."

Yuka look at her critically. "Are you sure the Jewel disappeared?"

"Of course! I saw it vanish right before me!" Kagome said.

"It just…vanished?"

"Well…it separated into light…" Kagome frowned. She could tell Yuka's thoughts were leading somewhere, dropping bread crumbs for her.

"It doesn't make sense. The Shikon Jewel has never disappeared after a wish, pure intention or not."

"What are you talking about?"

"Kagome-sama, I don't know what led you to think the Shikon Jewel will disappear after a pure wish, but history has proved that this is not true." Daisuke spoke up. "There were mikos from before who had tried to wish the Shikon Jewel away from existence. You didn't think that the past Shikon Mikos were actually happy with the burden of protecting it, did you?"

"I…" Kagome blushed. The thought hadn't crossed her mind. "But if the Shikon Jewel never disappeared, then what made it disappear now?"

"In the past, whenever a miko tried to wish it away, it simply relocated. It is possible that the Shikon Jewel still exists." Yuka said thoughtfully.

Kagome groaned. Maybe she should have researched the Shikon Jewel's history more before making that stupid wish. She cursed her own stupidity. But…

If the Shikon Jewel still exists, then it's possible for me to go back home…Kagome thought.

"But it could be anywhere!" Kagome groaned, throwing her head back in frustration.

"Not exactly," Daisuke said. "The Shikon Jewel is both attractive and attracted. It's likely near a strong source…"

"A strong source? A strong source of what?" Kagome asked.

"Just a strong source. It could be emotions or a soul—anything it deems promising. No one really knows what the Jewel wants."

Kagome huffed. "Oh. Well. Where should I even start then?"

"It might help to start from where you made the wish." Yuka suggested.

Kagome's frown deepened.

"I suppose you're right." Kagome said. Though I'm not happy with it.

Sesshomaru looked through the reports on the elimination of rogues. The extermination was going well and was doing well to settle the bloodlust of his people. That was when he saw the little leaf scroll. The material indicated that it was from Bokuseno.

He opened the scroll and scanned its contents. His eyes sharped and he let out a rippling growl as he shred the scroll. He wrapped his youki into a ball and shot out of his castle.

It was hardly challenging to find her. Kagome's soul sang out to him across the miles between them. It eventually led him towards Inuyasha's forest. Why would she be here? According to Bokuseno's scroll, she had been taken by ningens. Were they from Inuyasha's village then?

Sesshomaru landed on the outskirts of the village. With his youki extended out like this, he could easily feel Kagome's youki-reiki brush up against his. It didn't take her long to appear before him as if he had summoned her. But she was not alone.

"Sesshomaru! What are you doing here?!"

Sesshomaru glared at his brother. He had not missed that voice at all.

Behind Kagome was Inuyasha, his undead miko wench, and three other ningens. Sesshomaru glared harder as he focused on Kikyo.

No, not dead. Not anymore. He corrected his own thoughts. The once dead miko was whole and healthy. Sesshomaru's eyes shot towards Kagome. As if reading his thoughts, Kagome grimaced.

"Sesshomaru," Kagome greeted. "Why are you here?"

"I'm here for you," he answered.

Kagome's companions all shot her a look of surprise and confrontation.

"Kagome? What's he want with you?" Inuyasha demanded.

"He took care of me all this time before I met Yuka, Daisuke, and Haine." As she said their names, she gestured towards the other three ningens.

Inuyasha looked back at Sesshomaru suspiciously. "There's no way the bastard did that for you. What do you want with Kagome?"

Sesshomaru remained silent.

"Stop it, Inuyasha." Kagome scolded.

Sesshomaru ran a critical eye over Kagome. She looked well. Better than ever, actually. She practically radiated health, but with a closer look, he could see that her health was not hers. Not exactly. He could almost taste the flowing reiki between Kagome and her new companions. They were feeding her their holy power and Kagome's reiki responded by dominating over her soul, pushing down her youki. Kagome's soul was almost divine like this—so far from the blood of youkai souls. And when he looked at her eyes, they were so blue—focused, determined, strong, steady. It made him wonder if he should have fed her reiki instead of youki.

"Lord Sesshomaru," Kagome said, "I was told that the Shikon Jewel has not disappeared after I made my wish on it."

He blinked and he understood. She wanted to find the jewel again. He remembered that she needed it to go home to her future. But how curious. Why would the jewel grant her wish if it wasn't going to disappear anyways? His eyes wondered back to the once dead miko. Inuyasha saw this and moved protectively in front of Kikyo.

"Do you feel as if you have wasted your wish?" he asked.

Kagome startled in surprise and followed his gaze to Kikyo. Of course he would figure it out after just looking at her. For a moment, she allowed herself to observe Inuyasha's protective stand by Kikyo and the miko's returning protective hand on his shoulder. The weight of it bowed her head and she was left staring at the ground.

Inuyasha blinked and looked back and forth between Kagome and Sesshomaru in confusion. On the other hand, Kikyo's eyes widened as she finally figured out Kagome's wish. She supposed she should have noticed earlier, but she had been too happy to really think about it earlier.

"I thought we could try to find the Shikon Jewel around here, but I guess not." Kagome changed the subject. "We're going to go to the Demon Village next."

For a moment, Kagome wondered why she was even informing Sesshomaru about her plans. But then she looked at him and the question flew away.

"I still have unfinished business." Sesshomaru said.

Kagome nodded, waiting for Sesshomaru to fly away as fast as he had come. She understood how important his castle and Ren was to him. The fact that he even came here was…interesting.

But she didn't hear the whoosh of sifting air or feel the collection of youki. Instead, she felt his hand lifting her chin up so that she was looking up into his face. She was surprised and confused. He was neutral—everything about him was a void, unreadable. But his hand was gentle and his claws barely touching her skin. Despite the lack of youki coming from his being and the abundance of reiki coming from Yuka and Daisuke, her youki stirred, trying to balance with her reiki.

And then he was speeding away.

"What is your relationship with that beast?" Yuka asked with a deep frown.

"Like I said, he helped me before." She answered. Kagome could see the disapproval in her new friends' faces. "Let's go."

The group started to walk off without a word of goodbye to either Inuyasha or Kikyo. Inuyasha made a move to stop them, but Kikyo's gentle hand kept him back.

In the Western Castle, Sesshomaru prowled through the halls. The bloodlust had passed and he had successfully re-rounded all loyalties back to himself. For days now, however, his own power was not at the front of his mind. For days, his mind was working on the curiosity of Kagome's circumstances. There was something that was not quite fitting together in his mind though he believed all the pieces were there.

And more and more it seemed that that something was the Shikon Jewel. He realized that he could always go back to Bokuseno for answers. The tree seemed to know what was going on. But a part of him wanted to figure out the answer himself. Before, he had been so focused on poking at Kagome's new youki that he had not acknowledged her reiki. But after seeing the way her reiki interacted with others' reiki, he realized that her old reiki had undergone some change as well… When he first found her in the forest that day, she had believed herself soulless. And all his senses had told him that was untrue.

Sesshomaru halted in the middle of a particular junction where multiple hallways crossed paths. Servants scrambled out of the way just to avoid accidentally brushing against their lord.

I got distracted from the main puzzle. He realized. The discovery of her youki had distracted me and then the changes to her reiki. It appears that I forgot what attracted me to her in the first place—her soul. That loud roaring cry like a mountain asking to be found, not just seen.

Sesshomaru hurried outside and took off into the air in his beast form. The warriors looked up towards their great dog lord and the servants stopped to gawk. It was rare to see their lord unleash his youki in this way. The sight was terrifying. The air around him even more so, but in a different way. So silent was his youki that it felt like it could choke one to death—a poisonous silence. It was incredibly unnerving. One was too afraid to even make a sound in the presence of that silent youki.

For Sesshomaru, this was to be expected. His youki was never like any other youki. It didn't cackle like a fire storm or screech like the wind or shriek like lightning. It didn't rile others to battle or muddle them with dread. His youki was a silent dog. It stole breaths and life with its silence. And in this silent world, there was the hum of a mountain melody somewhere in the distance. The same melody that drew him to Kagome the first time. It would surely lead him to her again.

Her soul called to him. And this time, Sesshomaru was better prepared to answer it. The next time he left Kagome, Sesshomaru was going to have solved the puzzle surrounding her state. The puzzle had distracted him from his conquest long enough. Kagome had distracted him long enough.

It was time to end things.

As the title of chapter shows, this chapter was mostly figuring out Kagome's whole youki-reiki situation. Sesshomaru continues to maintain an outwardly appearance of a cold analyzer, but will he do so when he finds out the whole truth?

And yes, I am tweaking Sesshomaru's youki/beast for my story. It's all part of the plan.