Alive

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Inuyasha.

~s~

Cold golden eyes stared at the steps leading up to the shrine that had once been set above a small village. That small village had grown and become just another part of the great, living city of Tokyo, but to the empty daiyoukai that statement – one he commonly heard - was nothing more than human hubris.

This city was just as dead as he was, and it seemed as if the entire world would be soon, too.

Pressing forward with his youki, Sesshoumaru tested the shrine for any barriers or purifying magic that might have been left behind by miko or monk, and was surprised to find that while the shrine itself wasn't shielded, there was a true miko living on its grounds. He could feel her power from here, and he frowned, suddenly feeling something he hadn't felt in years – curiosity. This was the first real miko he'd sensed in almost two hundred years.

Flowing easily up the steps in a manner that would make most people jealous, the daiyoukai ascended as quickly as possible without giving away the truth of what he was. He was feeling something for the first time in centuries, and he was enjoying the sensation of feeling like he was alive again, even if it was only for the moment.

When he reached the top he stopped and looked around, wanting to know what this place, one that had once been so wild and free, now looked like. Surrounded by the death and destruction that humans carried with them wherever they went and that covered them almost like a miasma, this one place was like an oasis, instead. Perhaps I should look into buying this shrine so that I can be assured that it never gets swallowed by more endless fields of humans.

This was where she lived, after all... once upon an era. Perhaps the miko here now is a descendent.

The thought brought a hot tide of crimson jealousy.

She probably married that hanyou.

Sesshoumaru hadn't seen the halfling since the battle with Naraku. While his hatred had softened during the events of the search for the dark hanyou, he would never have been able to be around the boy on any kind of closer basis – they simply had nothing in common and too much bad history between them to ever be true family.

The shrine compound was neat, a quiet serenity permeating it that Sesshoumaru hadn't felt in centuries. It was the same effect that the miko's aura had once had on everything around her, and he became more convinced that whoever the girl was that carried such power now, she had to be related to the other one in some way.

His eyes eventually fell on the Goshinboku and he started towards it, feeling a surprising sense of nostalgia as he looked upon something he'd known all those centuries ago, even if only in passing. Almost everything that had connected him to that time had vanished into the intervening years and the human need to conquer and subdue everything around them – even nature.

The tree still carried the scar of his brother's sealing, and the disguised daiyoukai decided not to deny the impulse to touch the great tree. His eyes fell closed as his palm pressed to the great tree and the awareness within it touched back against him, recognizing something else that didn't belong to the world of men.

After a few moments he drew away and looked over in the direction of that odd well that his brother had been so protective of, wondering if it had survived the centuries, too. In the general vicinity of where it had stood from what his memories were telling him there was a small wooden building with unlocked shoji, and he was pretty certain that the well was inside that little shrine. Or what was left of it, anyway – there probably wasn't much, come to think of it. It had been a simple wooden structure facing down five hundred years, after all, and even the most impermeable beings suffered cracks in that amount of time.

Just like him.

"Can I help you?"

His thoughts were interrupted by a light voice with just a touch of suspicion in it, and he frowned – he was letting his past cloud his mind with the desire for things that he could never have. Face reality, damn you... the miko is long dead. Projecting her voice onto someone else will not change that.

Gathering his control he turned around to look at the owner of the voice...

And in that moment all his previous suppositions, everything he'd thought he'd known about the world around him and how it worked faded into dust and left him reeling as the ground disappeared from beneath his feet and he felt like he was drowning in time.

Because it was the same miko from five hundred years before, not a descendent – it was her. And even though he was being consumed by things he hadn't felt in so long that he couldn't remember when he had last felt them, the most damning and wonderful thing that welled up within him in that moment was hope.

It was clear from the look on the girl's face that she knew who he was. There was a sense of wonder there, a touch of fear, and the sudden breathless feel of meeting someone who knew who you really were – knew what lay behind the facade that everyone else saw.

"Kagome," he said, letting that name past his lips for the first time since he'd killed Magatsuhi and broken the dark spirit of the jewel's seal on her power.

"Sesshoumaru," she breathed in return, something in her voice welcoming despite her wary shock.

As his true name echoed once more where the ears of the living could hear it he felt his heart beating again, his blood flowing, and life returning the warmth to his body. It had been so long that it actually hurt... but it was a good hurt, a welcome hurt. As he stepped towards her he was already planning every step of the coming campaign, the war he would wage to gain her for himself.

"How are you still alive?"

She watched him approach her without even trying to move away, and when he was standing right before her in all his glory she said, "I moved through time. I'm immune to it, you see. I don't know why," simply and with no guile whatsoever.

"Immune to time?" he murmured, looking her over. She didn't look much different from the way she had then, just a little taller, more filled out, and more mature. She had been stunning back then, as he'd learned from watching her face Kaou, but now she was so much more...

And she was immune to time, which meant that she would be able to walk beside him through forever without fading away like all other humans did. He wouldn't have to be alone any longer.

His life would no longer be sterile.

~s~

A/N: A lot of people wanted me to make something more out of my one shot Sterile – and so here we are. I hadn't planned this, it just came out, so enjoy everyone. There will be another one or two parts to this to finish it out, but they'll be just as short as this, so don't get all excited, people – I'm too busy with Trading Yesterday and my own original fic that I'm not going to start yet another long chapter fic anytime soon.

Amber