Connections

Why he continued to return here, to this place, Sesshoumaru did not know. He had tried to stay away, but now the damned well loomed before him once more, shadowed by the stars and illuminated by the full moon above.

Moving closer, Sesshoumaru swept the clearing with his eyes. The grasses were taller now and the vines more entwining around the cursed structure before him. Tonight there was a chill in the air, telling of the approaching autumn and future snows. The leaves of the trees surrounding the clearing were in the process of their slow change. Some had already given up their fight with life and fallen to the ground in defeat of the coming chills.

The grasses around the clearing were slightly flattened from the obvious treading of feet and the well carried the residual scent of one he knew well. Inuyasha, Sesshoumaru thought, his mind absent of malice towards his brother for once. While he would never like his brother, while he would never embrace him for the kin he was, Inuyasha had more than proven himself in the fight against Naraku. He had earned some manner of…respect, perhaps? Though where the miko was concerned, Sesshoumaru was not sure if that respect would save the hanyou in the end. It would lay upon his honor—and the high esteem with which he beheld his great and terrible father—to not cleave his brother in two if the half-breed found his way to the miko before him.

Moving up to the well, Sesshoumaru peered down into its mockingly empty depths. As tempted as he was to jump down into its darkness again, he would resist. His efforts had proved futile before and there had been no signs that doing so over and over again would negate a different response. Hadn’t the half-breed been coming here regularly since the miko’s disappearance? And the miko had far stronger ties to his brother than to him.

Sesshoumaru straightened, sensing a familiar presence in the air, and turned to face her. It took Rin not long at all to reach him. She stood on the outskirts, her face smiling and happy as it had always been when he’d come to see her. Why she had such an attachment to him after all this time, Sesshoumaru still failed to understand. But he allowed it…because it pleased him. “Rin.”

“Lord Sesshoumaru,” Rin answered with a deep bow.

“Why are you out in the darkness, Rin?”

“I have come to see you, Lord Sesshoumaru. I missed you.”

Sesshoumaru looked away, to the night sky. “You are well,” he stated. It wasn’t a question. He could tell from her appearance and scent that she was happy and healthy.

“Yes, my Lord. Lady Kaede has been teaching me many things and she says I have a natural talent for helping people, but I do miss you and Master Jaken.”

Rin took a step forward, relieving herself of the shadows that were of no hindrance to his sight. She was dressed in the kimono he had last given her and Sesshoumaru made note to purchase another. Rin was growing still, it seemed. “Return home, Rin. It is not safe for you to wander.”

“Of course, my Lord. I am only awake because I sensed that you were nearby…and I had a dream.”

While he was never one to question Rin too thoroughly, keeping his own council and coming to his own conclusions, Sesshoumaru blamed his asking after her dream upon the fact that his own thoughts were centered on the well and not on his normal process with her. “A dream?” he said as she turned to go.

Rin stopped her ordered retreat and looked over her shoulder, smiling at him again. Her pleasure in having him question her on something she’d said was more than obvious. Rin had always asked for so little when she traveled with him. She’d been pleased to be near him and that had seemed to be enough, but she was older now and her eyes kept betraying her thoughts. They were straying from him to the well he stood so near to. “Yes, my Lord. I dreamed Lady Kagome was coming back to us. I wanted to see if my dream was true.”

“Hn,” Sesshoumaru answered, as he always had at her thoughts before.

Rin began back towards the village once more, but stopped and turned to face him again. “My Lord?”

Sesshoumaru angled his head so that Rin would be aware he was listening without him having to vocalize. This was the way it had always been with them and she fell easily into the pattern. “Do you think that there is a chance Lady Kagome might return to us? I miss her.”

He turned away from her then, without comment, and listened as Rin walked back to the human fold that had accepted her. He stood still, silent. When he was sure that Rin was once more within as safe a place as she could be—considering—he turned back to face the well.

Rin misses her, he thought to himself before jumping within its inky depths.

**

Kagome lay in her bed, wide awake and waiting. As soon as the noises of the house settled down and she was sure her family was asleep, she crept out of bed and pulled her clothing back on. As she had nearly every night since that night, she snuck out of her house and made her way to the well. While she hated sneaking around and not telling her mother and grandfather exactly what had happened, she didn’t think they would understand and she didn’t think she could take their looks of disbelief and their sadness that she was still clinging to the hope of returning to an era not her own.

Stepping into the darkness, she made her way to the rope ladder by way of the flashlight she’d hidden and descended into the darkness below. Automatically, her eyes sought out the claw markings in the rock wall.

Every time she came down she looked to them. Half of her expected the deep scoring to be gone one night, as if the incident of their creation hadn’t ever occurred, and she found it comforting and reassuring to see them still there. While the fact that they were from Sesshoumaru still sent chills up her spine, the proof that something had happened within the once magical well was undeniable with those on the wall and it boosted her confidence that another occurrence was likely.

Settling down on the opposite side of the markings, Kagome aimed the flashlight, studying them. She had intimate knowledge of exactly what Sesshoumaru’s claws could do, having seen them in action many times, but for some reason Kagome found she couldn’t be afraid of them now. No. She longed to see them again.

A shiver ran up her spine at the thought of that happening and she couldn’t help the nervous laugh that came to her lips. What would she say? “Hello!” she said half-jokingly.

Closing her eyes, Kagome leaned her head back against the cool stone. In her mind she could still picture their faces, her other family who in this time were no more. They were crystal clear still, despite the passage of time, and Kagome swore even the air around her seemed sweeter and cleaner than it had a moment before.

Opening her eyes because she realized her mind wasn’t playing tricks on her and the air did seem different, she looked towards the markings on the wall. “Hello?” she called out, softly this time and with all joking aside.

A feeling came over her and Kagome stood, moving towards the claw marks. She ran her fingers over them; once and then again. “Hello?” she said again. “Inuyasha?” she whispered tentatively before switching names. It still felt odd of to her to be calling out his name. “Sesshoumaru?”

A heat she couldn’t deny as a figment seemed to blossom from within the very stones of the well as she spoke the youkai lord’s name. A tingling sensation—one she associated with movement between the eras that she’d experienced dozens of times before—seemed to rise up all around her. The sensation was weak, though. It wasn’t strong enough to pull her entirely through. “Sesshoumaru!” she called again, her voice louder and a bit more desperate as her fingers curled into the gouges he’d left behind.

**

Sesshoumaru came to rest at the bottom of the well; the very place he said he would not go. Moving past that, as the decision was exactly that, he looked around him. Nothing had seemed to change from the last time he was here. What could he possibly do?

His fingers reached out, brushing against the gouges that marked his last visitation to this site. Was it him or was there heat coming from them now? Pressing his hand harder against the warming stone, he waited, holding even his own breath in case some minute sound came that would be overshadowed.

After a minute, he was sure. The miko was there. She was standing where he was. Her hand was pressed against the stone as his was—only centuries in the future. The miko, his ultimate goal now, was so close. So…near. He could taste her on his tongue, feel her with his body.

Sesshoumaru wanted to call out to her, but, as strong as the desire was, he found he could not. It would make him appear weak, to say her name. Still, the female’s presence pressed on. And then Bokusensou’s words echoed in his mind. Taking a chance…that is what the tree youkai had been speaking of. Taking a chance without weighing out every outcome.

Sesshoumaru parted his lips, resigning himself. “Kagome,” he finally breathed, almost too soft for his own sensitive hearing to pick up.

To say her name aloud filled him with an almost profound relief. He had gone for so long only thinking her name, that to say it broke through a great pressure within. An unseen warmth enveloped him and Sesshoumaru was forced to close his eyes against the pleasure of it. Then his ears caught the sweetest of sounds. It was his name…coming from one he hadn’t heard in years. And his name was not said in anger or fear, as it had been before. “Kagome,” he said again, stronger this time.

His youki, stirred by the call of the female, rose and pressed against his surroundings. A breeze that should not have been rushed up from the very earth, it seemed, and brought with it a wave of her scent. The warmth of the stone intensified underneath his hand until he had to move away.

She’d heard him, he knew…

**

The feeling of no longer being alone intensified. Kagome could feel Sesshoumaru’s youki pressing down around her. She spun around, feeling as if there were eyes behind her. As she did, the flashlight fell from her fingers to land soundlessly against the packed earthen floor. She no longer needed it, anyway, as a hazy image she recognized filled the space before her and created its own light.

It was him.

Tall and imposing, his impossibly long silver hair reflected moonlight that didn’t reach the well’s floor here in her time. His attire had not changed in the passing years; armor as pristine as it had always been and his mokomoko still firmly attached to his shoulder. Unable to stop her gut reaction, Kagome tried to take a step back, bumping into the wall of the well as there was no room to retreat. His golden eyes widened, as if they saw her too, and his hand rose. The tips of his claws reflected the moonlight, sending scatters of light around the dark where she dwelled.

But it was her name he’d said. And the word had been distinct, said without malice or hatred. There even seemed to be a sense of longing there, buried deep within. Tentatively, Kagome pushed away from her cowering position against the wall.

**

Her image was unclear and she was dressed far differently than Sesshoumaru had seen before, but it most definitely the miko standing before him. She looked slightly older, aging as human’s did, but there still existed that spark in her eyes that had attracted his attention the first time. Then those eyes had connected with his, widening with instinctive fear, and the miko had tried to take a step back. Sesshoumaru raised his hand. Intending what, he knew not, but he did not want her afraid of him.

Her eyes had followed his movements, confusion clouding over the fear. And then she’d stepped forward, curiosity lighting her gaze now. The miko was unsure as to why he was there, but she was willing to trust him. As she had done before…

Her own ghostly hand rose, intentions clear.