Chapter 13

Tethered Nerves, And The Hunt Is On Again!

It had been about a week and Miroku and Sango were beginning to really worry for their friend. They had first thought that her new way of accepting everything was partly because of the demon lord, after all, they had also not wanted to anger him, or of both fear and respect for what he had done for her, and even them, he didn't have to bring her to them after all, or even let them come back with her. But as the days went on, they started to notice that her fiery attitude was still subdued. She was still accepting of everything, not once did she raise her voice to anyone about anything. She seemed to still only be a shell of what she once was, going thought the days on auto-polite. She would come home every day from trainer, tired and sometimes even limping. And after a couple days Sango had seen welts on her back when they went to the hot spring together.

She had asked her friend what had happened and was informed that when someone did something wrong, the old miko would use the cane pole she was always seen with as a punishment. One whack to the back. Trainer like that wasn't unheard of really, but it was rare and didn't stop her from offering her friend to find another miko that she could train under. After all, she was sure her friend didn't mess up as much as the welts would suggest she did. And she knew that the old miko had made it clear that she cared nothing for her because of the fact she was friends with demons and had even taken a fox kit as her own child, and was never one to keep quiet about it so everyone knew it.

But her friend had insisted that she had messed up in one way or another and wasn't being singled out by the old miko, and besides, Sesshomaru had paid good money for her to train under her. And since they both knew that the lord was the embodiment of protection, this miko had to be rather good for him to have chosen her. She had later told Miroku of this after Kagome had gone to bed and was glad to hear that she was not the only one worried for their friend and sister.

As the two sat outside they was surprised to see Kagome coming back with a little smile. It was still very early, she had only been gone a little over an hour. But she didn't seem worse off then when she had left at least. "Lady Kagome, what has you back so soon?" Miroku asked her with a smile from where he sat. He had been meditating till he sensed her coming.

"There was a woman in the village that went into labor, so training for the rest of the day has been canceled." She told them, leaving out the fact that she had offered to help the old miko and even telling her about how she had helped with such things before only to be leveled with a glare and told that she didn't want her tainted energy near the babe in fear that it would taint it as well.

"That is good. We was actually wanting to talk to you about something." Said Miroku before glancing to Sango who nodded to him with a little smile. He looked back to her as she sat down in a position much like his own in her miko clothing, the pants being blue instead of red. And when she nodded to him with a smile he started. "Well, while you are training we thought that it would be a good idea for the two of us to look for shards. While it would be much easier with you, we can go to near by villages and ask if any need help. That way even if we don't get a shard it would give us a little more money so that we can't get different things." They had come up with this idea awhile ago, but had wanted to wait till Kagome was settled into the new place. All he said had been the reasons behind it, but he did leave out the part about how it would be best of they got shards before Inuyasha and his undead miko could, but also because they hoped she would whine about having to stay much like she used to.

It was just to bad she didn't. She smiled wider at him before looking to Sango. "That sounds like a great idea! No need in you two sitting here with nothing to do, we do still need to get shards anyway. I'm sorry I didn't think about it before." She told them, happy at first then turning a little sheepish at the end. Miroku blinked his Violet eyes at her a couple times before closing them and nodding his head once.

"Very well, we will leave in the morning. We will try to come back by night fall but you know how things like that can go. But we promise not to try and stay gone more then two days at a time." At her nod her and Sango fell into pleasant conversation for the rest of the day while Miroku mostly listened, while he pretended to meditate so that he could think. Maybe their ex-friend had done more damage to the miko then ether of them thought. Of course they knew it had hurt her, but she never brought it up and she seemed rather happy, though she seemed more happy while in the western palace then she did now but it still hadn't been complete.

He was learning now that she was simply withdrawn and he wasn't sure if she even noticed it herself. There was always the chance that maybe the situation had caused her to grow up more and that was why she wasn't as tempered as she had been. But had that been it, there still would have been things that would set her off. Even him, the calm and thoughtful one, had things that would set him off. But with her it was as if things that should have her yelling and raging wasn't filtered though, or maybe was just filtered to strongly.

As sun started it decent it seemed that she was the first to feel the coming demons. She jumped up right away, a big smile on her face as she looked into the distance into the sky to see the little spec that would soon become Ah-Un with her little Shippo. She had a paper in her hand that she had sealed with wax to be given to Sesshomaru informing him of the fact that Miroku and Sango may not be home in the evenings when Shippo would come back and asking that Ah-Un stay with the kit if she too was still training when he would get back. And ask the two headed beast landed she caught the kit that jumped into her arms with a laugh and a kiss to his forehead. This was when she was really happen, she she was with her kit and even her friends could see it.

Before the kit could start telling her about his day in excited tones she used her free hand to pat the dragon's noses, cooing them softly her thanks. As the kit hopped down and bounded into the hut to get a apple that had already been sliced in half, one half for each head she showed them the paper. "Ah-Un, I need you to give this to lord Sesshomaru. And if he's fine with it, do you mind staying here and watching over Shippo if no one is here when you bring him back?" The two heads looked to each other, one snorted in what was clearly a resounding no, it was Un, he was never one to like to do things for people but as Ah make some grumbling and clicking sounds before headbutting his other half he seemed to heave a sigh and nodded his head and ah looked at her, a happy sparkle in its eyes as it also nodded, more entrusted then his other half to the point of almost knocking heads with the laughing miko who had to lean to the side so that it wouldn't happen.

As Shippo came running out and she had just tucked the paper into one of the saddle bags and reached down to take one of the halfs of the apple before also picking up her kit as as she walked back in front of the dragon she noticed there was a couple of village women watching from afar and gave them a smile before her and Shippo each gave one of the heads a apple. Once they finished their treat she pet them both, giving them a scratch behind the ears before backing away and letting them take to the sky's to head back home. And as she looked back to where the women was before they was gone so she simply shrugged and head inside to listen to Shippo tell her about what Shoji had taught him that day, get a letter that she would get every other day from said fox demon, and tell Shippo of how Sango and Miroku was going to be helping other villages and How he would have to have Ah-Un watch him on the days that she came back late from training if Sesshomaru allowed it.

The night was finally on them and after making sure Shippo was fast asleep beside her she got up carefully, thankful that the separate rooms kept her from worrying about waking her friends as well. She picked up the letter and a pen and paper of her own before heading out of the room and outside, not even bothering to put her shoes on. The crisp green grass was cool on the bottom of her feel from the damp night air, it would rain soon, she could tell, no more then a couple of days from now. She made her way to the side of the hut where there was a little bench and the light from the moon shown down on her so that she could read the letter from her friend. Sitting down she placed all but the letter beside her before opening it to read. They had kept in touch, the first letter had come with her kit about three days after she left, it was mostly his saying he was sorry again for what happened before she left and that he hoped she forgave him enough to write back to him at least. She of course informed him that it was okay, he hadn't really done anything wrong after all, in fact, even now as she thought about it she blushed deeply.

It had gone on as the past couple of days they had been sending letters with Shippo every day. This time the letter was mostly about what he had been teaching her kit, clearly he didn't know she had heard most of it from him already, but also about what he planed to teach him. Missed in there was a little about what he had been doing outside of training him, and at the end was three little words... 'I miss you.' She smileed sadly at the paper. She missed her dear friend as well. They had gotten close in the short time she had been there. Once she re read it she picked up her notebook and pen and started to write to him. She had told him many things, but there was some things she did leave out. She didn't want him to feel even worse about her being here, just as she didn't want things getting back the Sesshomaru. So she left out any real detail about her training, simply saying that it was rather boring but she was getting better every day. And it was true, she did feel that she was getting better, even with the lashing she would get for messing up little things.

As she finished her letter she folded it before heading back inside where she put her things away before yawning silently and laying back with her kit, the minute her hand rested on him his big green eyes opened a little to look at her before giving her a sleepy smile and snuggling close to her as she wrapped her arms around him and she soon driffed off to sleep with him.

~~~~~~House of the West~~~~~

Shoji couldn't sleep, as per usual. He hadn't been able to sleep much until exhaustion took him since his little Miko had left. Her scent was fading from the guest room she had been in and he knew it would only be there for another week at most as it was covered by the servants who would go in and out of there cleaning it every day along with the other rooms. But he had found another source of her scent. He moved his hand on his chest with the paper in it to his nose and breathed in deeply. It wasn't as fresh and pure as if she was actually there. But it was the closest he could get as of now. As he pulled it away and opened his eyes to look at the writing he smiled a little.

He was at least happy that her training was going well, he had been worried. She was the only miko he had ever seen that didn't only not hate demons, but didn't see humans who didn't hold that hate to be demons themselves. Granted she never really said much about her training, she would only give vague information and then ask about himself, and to his dislike, his lord. But thankfully there wasn't much to tell about him. He hadn't seen his friend in a few days, he didn't come out of his study often and he hadn't been to see him ether. After all, it was his fault that he didn't have his miko, and from what he had heard, he was in a bad mood anyway, he had scared the poor little mouse demon who had been her personal servant half to death when she had brought him his tea.

He did inform her that many people there actually missed her. She seemed to make friends with almost everyone, though there was still many who he had heard saying terrible things about her and saying how glad they was she was gone. Though they seemed to think twice now before saying such things after he had actually almost killed one who had happened to over hear talking about how he didn't see how a whore could be a miko. Ever since then he had only heard of what people had said, and not coming from them.

He placed the paper back onto his chest and sighed, demons tended to be a little nicer about a human who befriended demons, so he figured it was the same even with her being a miko, so he feared to find out what the humans would say about her. He feared that if he was to hear someone in the village she had gone to talking about her even half as bad as the poor soul had, he would wipe out the whole damn thing before calming. As he thought about defending his miko from the simple words of other and not even daring to think of what if it was more then just words in fear of going into a blood rage, exhaustion finally gripped him with it's dark nothing-ness and pulled him gently down into a dreamless sleep.

~~~~~~~Sesshomaru~~~~~~~

Sesshomaru wasn't having any better luck, if anything he was having a worse time. He paced in his study, his cold mask of indifference only slightly changed to one of rage. The first couple of days after taking the miko to the village she would be training in wasen't bad, but it didn't give him the feeling he had hoped for. He had not been happy to leave her there, but he had been happy to get her away from Shoji. But as they days went on, his beast constant howling and slamming against the sides of his mental cage was making him second guess himself yet again. He did not second guess himself! Anything he did he did it perfectly! But with the little miko he had done it twice already. First was when he had tried to get her and Shoji to become close so that he could have a reason to keep her there even after he was healed enough to leave, and it had been working, then he couldn't stop the idea of it from angering him and causing him to become possessive of her.

To counter his last plan and to get her away from himself as well so that those thoughts could go to hell where they belonged, he had set her up in the village she was now in. And even this he was second guessing! At first he thought that his beast protest was loud, but he soon found that was quiet compared to now. It was working on his nerves to the point that only the day before he had almost attacked one of his servants who had only mentioned the miko, saying that she didn't understand who others was upset about the girl because she had rather liked her. Now he didn't dare leave his study but to sleep and bath. He even had his meals in there, brought in by the shy mouse demon who had learned not to say anything to him, much less about the miko.

He plopped down onto the seat at his desk in a rather un-Sesshomaru like way with a sigh and closed his eyes to try and calm himself and his beast. This was stupid! He understood what his beast wanted, in the back of his mind he always had, even before any of this came to pass, maybe that was why he had never been able to kill her, or even his half brother at the time knowing that would upset her. But he would not follow in his father paw prints! He would not mate a filthy human girl, no matter how different or strong she was. No matter how much the scent coming from the paper on his desk calmed him slightly and yet enraged him.

When he had first gotten the letter it hadn't really effected him at all, he had simply read it and gave the dragon the okay to stay with the kit should his mother or her friends not be there. But as time went on, he found himself looking at it more and more, and not from the words on it, but because of her smell. And while part of him, even now, wanted to melt the paper down his his poison claws, the other part of him that wanted it to say so that he had her scent, was winning. He knew he would be getting no sleep that night.

A/N:::

While I had the time I figured I would give you guys one more! Let me know what you think! :3