Higurashi Kagome was frustrated. She was trying and trying and trying but none of the exercises her grandpa had given her worked! Her energy just wouldn't come when she called on it unless she was meditating or had a mood swing. It was so aggravating!

It was, in fact, so aggravating that she was shocked out of her concentration when a yōkai – more specifically a powerful young daiyōkai – walked over to her and clucked his tongue at her, crouching down to examine her as he shook his head. "That is all wrong. Your ki channels are not shaped like those normal ningen have, so exercises like that won't work for you. You need to learn how to access your ki like a yōkai would. I could teach you, if you want."

Vivid cerulean eyes blinked, and then the ten year old smiled brightly. No wonder the exercises her grandpa taught her wouldn't work for her! It actually wasn't that surprising, what the silver haired teen (he looked to be about fourteen or so) said to her, since she didn't have reiryoku like Grandpa had. She just called it miko-ki, because she couldn't think of a better name for it at the time. "Would you teach me then? Pretty please daiyōkai-sama?"

The teen sat down gracefully and chuckled softly. "Call me Sesshōmaru, and yes I will be your sensei and teach you how to access your ki properly. It is an unusual colour; did you get your ki from something rather than being born with it?"

She nodded and shook her head simultaneously, although that made her dizzy. "I was born with it but it is from something. Grandpa says that I was born with the Shikon no Tama inside of me and that's why my ki is different to his. Grandpa has reiryoku, being a Shinto priest. Thank you very much, Sesshōmaru-sensei!"

The first thing Sesshōmaru-sensei taught Kagome was that her ki needed to be channelled through her body instead of pushed through it. It was hard, but within two weeks she had gotten the hang of channelling her miko-ki through her bones, then her muscles, then mixing it with her blood, then – and only then – pushing it up through her skin. By then, he explained, her miko-ki was enhanced and mixed with her reiki, which would strengthen it.

Then he taught her how to make all sorts of barriers, how to project her ki outside of her body, how to channel it through objects, and oh, all sorts of other neat things that she'd had no idea she could do! Her grandpa certainly couldn't do even half as many things with his reiryoku as she could do with her miko-ki.

By the end of the year Kagome was getting very adept with using her miko-ki, and Sesshōmaru-sensei took her out for sushi as a treat for being such a hard-working and diligent student. Her grandpa was pleased too, no longer fearing that she would be unable to protect herself from unscrupulous people who wanted to use her or or from dangerous yōkai who would want to harm her. He was very happy as well that her sensei was a powerful daiyōkai – that friendship would also help protect her, he said.

Fifteen year old Higurashi Kagome smiled as she ran through the trees beside her sensei. Sesshōmaru-sensei was always coming up with new things for her to learn, new training exercises, and new ways for her to use her ability. Just this year he'd taught her how to use her reiki to enhance her senses and physical abilities enough to match his own; which was quite a feat considering how strong and powerful the nineteen year old daiyōkai was. He'd also taught her how to shape her miko-ki – now Kagome didn't even need a bow to be able to shoot purification arrows; she could create a bow, staff, or sword straight out of her miko-ki.

Of course he taught her far more than just things relating to the usage of her miko-ki. By now Kagome was a beyond competent herbalist – capable of healing ningen, hanyō, and yōkai all three – was capable of using a longbow, a hunting bow, a quarterstaff, a katana, and a wakizashi; the last two in the traditional samurai manner.

She wasn't a master of anything excepting her bow usage yet, but mastery would come with time and more practise; Sesshōmaru-sensei was a hard and strict teacher, but she appreciated the understated praise he gave her whenever she did something well far more than the exclamations of delight her family gave her. Because it was so rare, it simply meant more to her.

She had to admit – if only to herself in the deepest depths of her mind – that she was very smitten with Sesshōmaru-sensei. Kagome knew better than to get her hopes up though; while he never treated her like a child (even when she had been a child), she was still his student, and he her sensei. There was a formal relationship between them that placed him a step above her, and that gap couldn't be crossed easily. Yes, they were friends as well, but it was very unlikely that that friendship would ever become more.

"Well done, Kagome!"

The twenty year old smiled happily at her sensei – she had managed to hit him eight times with her quarterstaff today, cut him six times with her wakizashi and katana, and done three tricks with her bows (shooting three arrows at once, firing off five arrows with less than a second between them, and changing the shape of her arrows mid-flight – all of which happened with her hitting her targets precisely where she stated she would) that had all thoroughly impressed him. She had been working extra hard as of late, since her sensei had announced that she was close to mastering all he had to teach her. It wasn't that she wanted the lessons to end – in fact she rather dreaded them ending – but that she wished to do her sensei proud.

He smiled down at her and placed a hand atop her head, solemnly stating, "I do believe I have nothing left to teach you, Kagome."

She couldn't help her eyes watering as she nodded. "Thank you for your instruction, Sesshōmaru-sensei."

"No more -sensei, Kagome. Just call me Sesshōmaru, and do not cry; do you really think someone as possessive as I am is really going to just let you get away, simply because you have learned all I can teach you?"

What? He can't – there's no way that means what I think it means, there's never once been a sign that he could ever feel the same way about me as I feel abou-

Her internal rambling was cut off by a kiss – soft lips, hot breath, pressure, stinging pleasure as his yōki caressed her miko-ki.

"It is inappropriate for a teacher to date their student, unless the teaching began after they were already together. Now, however, there is nothing to keep me from claiming you as my own – that is, if you approve?"

Kagome did the only thing she could think of at his words, which was to drag him into another kiss, whimpering and gasping as tears born from happiness streamed down her face.

He loved her back. Kagome had never been happier in her life.