Noriko opened her eyes. It took a moment for her vision to clear. The disorientation she used to have upon waking from her dreams was no longer prevalent. She knew where she was. She was in Edo, in the old Miko Kaede's hut, and she was dying.

She was thirsty and had to put forth a substantial amount of effort to turn her head to ask Kaede for a cup of water which was odd because Kirara usually got the Miko's attention for her without pause. Noriko felt her heart stutter in her chest the moment her eyes met the blazing red fire rat robes of InuTaishio's youngest son.

"Keh. You're awake. Took you damn long enough." The brash hanyou said with a sneer.

She remained silent her tongue trying to wet her chaffed lips, but the dry appendage just upset the cracked flesh further.

"Thirsty, wench?" He asked displaying a cup of water in front of her face, but made no move to actually assist her.

She turned her face back to the thatched ceiling. She didn't have the strength to even lift her hand much less rise to take the cup and she refused to ask for his assistance. Much to her surprise, a calloused clawed hand lifted her grey head and pushed the wooden cup to her lips. She downed the cool fluid slowly and relished the feeling of the water soothing the grit in her throat. He let her finish before taking the cup away and replacing her head upon the futon.

"Thank you." She said honestly watching the hanyou fumble around in his billowing sleeve.

"Don't. You see this?" He asked holding up a small golden band. "You know who this belongs to?"

"Kagome." Noriko answered and InuYasha's lip curled.

"Her name just sounds wrong coming from your lips. Don't say it again." He growled placing the ring on his pinky, the band so small that it barely made it past his first knuckle.

He placed his hands on his knees, his father's fang resting against his shoulder as if he were displaying both items purposefully.

"I went to visit Bokuseno." He said and she felt like laughing.

Of course he did. The damn tree knew everything.

"Wanna guess what he told me or should I just tell you?" InuYasha asked.

He didn't give her a chance to speak this time.

"He told me that you killed two demons for their power on top of the youki my Gramps gave you. He said that you were going to attack my father, but didn't get to him in time and that Sesshomaru's mother helped you by giving you some of her youki."

He was partially right, but she let him finish. She was in no condition to argue.

"He also told me that the spell you cast was never meant to be wielded by a mortal. Did you ever stop and think that there would be adverse effects to your greed? That someone would get hurt? Do you even fucking care?"

She watched his lip curl again and his fingers flex on his knees. He wasn't finished and she knew it.

"Your reiki caused that spell to go wrong. It was Kagome you cursed not Sesshomaru. You hear me, bitch? Kagome's powers are gone because of you."

Now, that she hadn't expected. She had followed the proper process to the letter. The herbs had been tended and cultivated properly, her ingredients were perfectly measured. Even if the young priestess had involved herself, her reiki should have been safe.

"No." Her voice was unbelieving. No, this couldn't be true.

"Yes and you're going to fix it. How hard or easy it can be is up to you, but first I want to know why. So get to talking, wench."

Sesshomaru didn't want to see the little Miko today or any day for that matter. He did just fine without her around. His mind was clear, focused, and in perfect order, but just the sight of her standing in the doorway, visibly nervous and unsure had his mind in disarray all over again. He suppressed the urge to growl and held strong to his resolve.

He would not falter. She was nothing. Why did he have to keep reminding himself of these things?

Words were exchanged, words meaningless and forgotten the moment they were spoken. He let her in, it was her room after all, and prepared to continue his work.

She would not distract him. She was not worth his time. Yet another forced reminder.

Still, her very presence, her scent, even with his weaker senses, pervaded the room causing him to inhale the sweetness that was her with every breath and he found that he had lost his train of thought. So he held his breath and spoke. If she had nothing useful to say then she needed to go, simple as that, and he fully prepared himself to dive back into his research.

"…can't keep me in the dark."

He could and had been doing just that. Why was it so difficult to hear those words from her lips now? Why did it give him pause and why did his chest hurt?

The swiveling chair moved seemingly of its own accord and the ink pen fell from his fingers, its landing stifled by the smooth paper he had been writing on. His toes gripped the carpet pulling him around as if they were possessed and when he faced her, all aggravation faded. He found himself at the losing end of yet another battle of instinct verses conscious intelligence.

Her head was lowered, her chin resting in the hollow between her collar bones, her bangs hiding her delicate features from him…She wore her long hair in a high ponytail today. He shook his head at the absurdity of himself.

He didn't need her to look at him for him to know she was nervous. The way her hands crinkled and uncrinkled the hem of her short skirt showed that particular emotion. Nor did he need a vocal affirmation to know that she was intimidated to question him. The bandages on her slender, creamy neck were all the evidence they both needed to prove what he was capable of.

It was suddenly hard to breath and his throat burned. The brown fabric against that pale flesh of hers was ugly, but not as ugly as the marks his claws had left behind.

He had to make a pointed effort to remind himself, once again, that his actions had been justified. She had screamed in his face, had insulted him. He had done it to scare her away. It obviously hadn't worked.

Now the guilt was a stone weighing heavily on his shoulders making it difficult to ignore the facts. He should have never touched her. She had been in the right, all undignified yelling aside. He had been shutting her out, but he needed to.

"Please, Sesshomaru. I want to go back, too, and I promise to do whatever necessary to stay out of your way, just please tell me what you know. I know you don't want to be around me, but we have to work together on this."

She was human, just like the countless others he had feasted upon with his mother in his youth. Their screams and pleadings had fallen on deaf ears, but hers wouldn't. No, she was a different creature, mortal or not.

He had cursed her very existence, had retreated from her fully, and had meditated fervently on his teachings, but for some reason she was always there, just on the very cusp of every thought he had. There was no escape from this little onna and he cared not the reason why. He just wanted it to end, for everything to be as it was before…safe, calm, simple.

Her fingers, blunt nails tipping slender, delicious digits, continued pulling at that course blue material exposing her thighs and giving him a tiny glimpse of what he had truly caused by his savage behavior. His scrutiny must have gotten to her because her knees began to tremble and one of the knee length stockings she wore sagged to her ankle. He had the sudden urge to smooth it back into place.

Sesshomaru slapped himself mentally and focused his attention on the moon outside the window. This is why he didn't want her around. This is why he had tried so hard to keep her away, to ward her off in the cruelest way he could think of. Gods, he was losing his mind.

"Please…"

Pitiful, anxious…

"Sesshomaru…."

Thick and sweet…

"I need…"

"Enough, Miko." He said stopping her pleadings.

Begging did not suit her. She was stronger than this. It was his reflexive miscalculation that was the cause for these timid fumblings and he would not have it.

He met her searching eyes with his own and felt more tired than he ever had in all the centuries since his birth. It was a mental exhaustion spawned from his internal indecision. He had battled himself for over a week, had avoided her, and her family like they truly did carry a plague. He had tried to hold true to his beliefs. They were valid. They held merit and they had been proven time and again, but why…

Why couldn't he stay strong against this one ningen female? Why did she affect him so?

It was a maddening process and one he could not sustain any longer. She had come here for an alliance, a truce, and he could see no reason, outside of his own selfish turmoil, to not oblige her. She was right and, as much as he loathed admitting it, they needed each other.

He simply turned back to the desk and pulled out several sheets of paper that detailed his latest, most promising theory. It had been Rin's blessed memory that set him on the right track. It had been an ancient scroll in his library, something that had belonged to his father that had piqued the girl's curiosity. The text was about a spirit demon named Taiki who had supposedly found a way to turn a demon mortal.

At the time he had dismissed it as legend, not giving it much thought. If he remembered correctly, that was during the drought in the southernmost parts of his lands. There had been so many missives to go through that he had to stack the majority of them on the floor next to his heaping desk just to have room to write. He had left the mystery up to his ever inquisitive ward to ponder on her own time.

Kagome's fingers abandoned their fidgeting to grasp the papers from him. He waited as she read over his findings. Her brow furrowed almost immediately and he knew why. What he had been able to uncover about this particular ritual did not entirely make sense. For one thing, he was still a demon even if his youki was suppressed. For another, it was Kagome, a human priestess that seemed to have been affected on a more permanent level.

The way her eyes flew wide and her mouth gaped slightly in a silent gasp told him that she had just read that part of his summery. She flipped to the last page that had only one word scribbled on it and her hand fisted over her heart.

"Blood?" She asked looking at him warily.

"Yes, Miko. From what I have been able to gather from the books you have brought me and from my memories on Rin's find, the spell had been some form of blood ritual. I deduce that it may very well be blood that will open the well, but I am uncertain as to whose." He explained watching her features relax a little.

"You wrote that it was my spiritual powers that were affected not your own?" It was a question, one that had caused many a sleepless night.

"There are several ways to look at this, Miko. The most basic being that the spell did not work properly. Obviously, I am not completely mortal. If the spell had done its job, then I would be human and would not be having my powers surge back to life every time I taste you." He stated making her blush and look away.

Sesshomaru ignored her discomfort and barreled on with his vexing synopsis.

"You, however, have no reaction to my blood and have done the proper mental exercises as well as coming into direct contact with a youki blade. Something should have happened by now, but hasn't. I deduce that your powers were the ones taken because it was a Miko that conjured the spell."

"Why would her being a priestess have anything to do with the spell? It was meant to cure demons." Kagome asked not fully understanding.

"The cure, as you so call it, was created by a demon. Its purpose was to seek out a demon's youki and destroy it leaving behind a mortal shell. A Miko does the very same thing with their reiki only the demon is completely purified and turned into ash. This spell does not hold such properties from what I can tell because there is no holy energy in it. Normally, a priestess should not be able to harness a youkai tactic of any kind, but… "

He raked his hands through his hair and cleared his throat. It was beyond shameful what he was about to say, but the moment he looked at her battered neck he stuffed his pride down. She deserved the truth at the very least.

"I knew Noriko. She was my father's advisor and my grandfather gave her the last bit of his youki on his deathbed. I was but an infant then. That is what allowed her to wield this power."

"Is that what happened in the store? You remembered?" She asked quietly.

"Yes. My mother commanded I stay away from her at an early age. She said that humans were filthy, disgusting, stupid creatures and that my father was too compassionate for his own good. She was right though I did not believe it at the time."

"Was she?" Her voice was challenging and irritated.

It stirred his own ire and he had to force the turbulent emotion into submission. He had never felt so out of control around anyone. This girl was slow torture of the worst kind.

"She was and still is. This Sesshomaru will not debate the right or wrongs of 587 years' worth of beliefs and youkai pride. I am a Taiyoukai and the pureblood son of the late InuTaishio. My pedigree alone is enough to command the respect of any youkai regardless their station or loyalties. Every time a human mixes with our kind, disaster follows. It has been proven by our current predicament and by my father's miserable death among other things. We are from two worlds, Miko. They should never mesh." He stated with authority.

"Fair enough, I guess…You said that priestesses were not supposed to be able to use youki. How could your grandfather have given her such power? I would think that the contradiction alone would have killed her." Kagome conceded keeping her focus on the task at hand.

"Normally such a process would be done between two demons, but only if the recipient were powerful enough to harness the invading youki. Noriko was the liaison between the youkai and ningen worlds and had negotiated multiple treaties. My grandfather was attacked because of this when his back was turned by the Northern Lord and suffered a fatal wound that robbed him of his life slowly. It was then that he granted Noriko the remainder of his power and left this world. I do not know how it was that she lived afterwards. Perhaps it was because my grandfather's youki had significantly diminished." Sesshomaru explained grateful for the compromise.

"I take it your grandfather's death started a war." She said wisely and he nodded.

"Indeed. The West was victorious of course; our troops being led by my father, but the human settlements abandoned their promises and most fled. There were several renegotiation attempts, but all failed. My father kept Noriko around as his personal advisor, though I know not what she actually advised him on. I do remember that most of our domain had been devastated by the fighting and that it took several centuries for the West to regain its strength. Only one human village remains loyal to the West from those times." He continued.

"So what happened to make her want revenge against your father? To make her attack you and InuYasha?" She asked getting down to the most infuriating part of the entire ordeal, a part that he refused to speak in detail about.

"She was a human given a gift that she squandered for whatever selfish reason. She was a fool to think that she could harm this Sesshomaru and will pay for her misdeeds when we return." He growled.

Kagome was looking at her feet rubbing the bandages on her neck idly.

"Okay, let me get this straight. Noriko was using your grandfather's youki to cast the spell that was supposed to rob you of your powers. Instead, it focused on me because of my interference and…" She said slowly, her face hidden by an ebony curtain.

"It is my belief that you would have been affected without the interference, Miko. You were able to sense the dark energy much more acutely than I, remember. It had targeted you the moment she conjured the spell. I do not believe Noriko had the proper control needed even with her additional abilities." He corrected.

"Is there a cure or some kind of antidote?" She asked her voice barely above a whisper.

"No." There was no point in denying the facts.

"You said that this was only one way to look at it. What's the other?" She asked finally raising her head to look at him.

Her sapphire eyes sparkled with unshed tears and he felt his gut flip sickeningly.

"That this Sesshomaru is entirely wrong. I am working with texts that have the small truths shrouded in fanatical imaginings and lies. My memories of this woman are few and far between. The only real piece of evidence I have is the scroll Rin found and even then I had been too busy to devote much attention to it. There is still the question of how we were transported through the well to begin with and there is nothing in these books or even in my knowledge that can explain it. There may be a connection that is being missed. It is likely that I have followed the wrong thread, though I do not believe it likely."

"No, I don't think you're wrong either. It makes the most sense. If she was your father's personal advisor then I'm sure she had access to your libraries or archives or whatever it is you have…She would have been able to find that scroll the same way Rin did…You said this was a blood ritual. Does that mean Noriko would've had to use her own blood to create the spell?" She contemplated her voice soft and gloomy.

He didn't like it, not at all, but she was battling through her personal feelings to stay grounded enough to get the raw basic facts. He respected that. If it wasn't for the annoying desire to comfort the distraught onna, he would say that she was a complete asset.

"That is what I recall from the scroll. The caster would have to imbue their own energy into the elixir granting them access to the spell's powers." He answered.

"I'm guessing that you think since the blood of a Miko was used to cast the spell, then the same would have to be used to get us back." She surmised and he nodded.

"That was my line of thought, yes."

"But I'm not a Miko anymore and the well hasn't responded to anything so far." She hung her head again, her voice tiny and trembling.

She was losing her composure and his instincts were trying to claw their way out of their carefully established prison.

"Your blood has the ability to give this Sesshomaru his youki back. All is not lost, Miko." He said trying to keep the inevitable from happening.

He heard a sniffle and her hand came up to wipe at her face under the concealment of her bangs.

"Don't call me that, okay. Just…just Kagome." She said sadly.

His heart clenched in his chest and he felt his insides begin to tremble with the effort to keep his sensibilities in check. Her silent tears were turning into frame racking sobs and he felt the instinctual need to dispel her melancholy bash against the mental cell door, placing well defined cracks in its formidable hinges.

"Ex…cuse…m-me…" She apologized brokenly and ran from the room.

A/N: Thank you to Miss Undo, GiggleboxGirlie, LoveInTheBattleField, Silent Lyoness, laa-Lii1, HalfBlackWolfDemon, & Guest for their reviews.

Also a thank you to the readers & megankim, MoukoToradoshi1986, & Ashlyn Braere for their follows and fave.

I'm sorry everyone got upset when Sesshomaru jerked up Kagome, but hey…it's not a Sess/Kag fic until he grabs her by the throat. LOL Besides there's a rhyme and reason behind everything he does and I hope I portrayed that in this chapter.

If I offended anyone, it was not my intent. Sess is an emotionally stunted demon and he's responding in the only way he knows how while trying to cling to a lifetime of rigorous teachings and hard learned lessons. I don't think Kagome is pining over him. I think she's realizing that she actually cares for him on a deeper level outside of him being a living person...er, youkai. You know what they say, absence makes a heart grow fonder...

Anyways, she needs his help to get back through the well and she couldn't continue to slink around the shadows at night out of fear or curiosity (though her spying did show her some of his endearing qualities). She approached him diplomatically even if she was a little nervous in doing so.

I hope everyone enjoyed this update. Once again a thousand apologies to those who were upset by the last chapter. It will get better, I promise.

~scattered-dimensions~