– 2 –

Cathedral

A ramble through the old village cemetery seemed a fitting venture the next day, as Kagome departed zombie-like from the cottage. Shambling over to where her bike leaned against the hedgerow, she dragged herself up into the seat. Riding through the crisp morning air did something to revive her. Still raw-eyed and yawning, she dismounted and wandered along through the rows of moldering, ancient graves.

A few beady-eyed crows watched her warily as she went, dark sentinels roosting in a hawthorn tree whose roots had encroached upon the low wall of moss-covered rock. Overburdened, the chalky old mortar had cracked and guttered. The stacked stones had bowed in, yielding to the whims of nature and time.

Brooding upon this, Kagome tried to make out the faded names upon the markers. Etched in Gaelic or not, they might as well be, for all the sense she could make of them. Many of the headstones were weathered blank, smooth to the touch. Her fingertips trailed over the tottering Catholic crosses, pitted and crumbling as slowly and surely into dust as the bones beneath them.

But pretty white and blue flowers, the first issuances of spring, dotted the high green grass between the graves. A few bees and butterflies flitted over them. This melding together of life and death Kagome found strangely uplifting, as she left the graveyard behind her and made her way toward the old Catholic church.

Stepping inside the vestibule, she dropped a coin in the offering box and lit a candle to join the rest of the little flames flickering there together, glowing like a host of winking eyes in their red glass bowls.

From the dark musty foyer, she crossed into the slightly lighter cathedral. The large crucifix at the back gleamed dully from the rear of the pulpit. Kagome could imagine that when the candelabras were lit, it was an impressive sight. The old heavy pews with their worn velvet seats were empty. Apart from daily mass, Kagome could only assume the villagers rarely came here. Maybe not even then. People weren’t so religious anymore.

Kagome wasn’t herself. Even growing up at a shrine, even realizing she had latent spiritual powers, she’d never really contemplated a higher power or altered her behavior to fit certain precepts. Her reiki to her seemed natural; reincarnation, a given. Of course like all her other friends, she’d go to the Buddhist temple every now and then at holidays, give her offerings and make her prayers for an auspicious future.

But she’d never really believed in any of it. She still didn’t.

Maybe she believed even less now in such things than she ever had. Just the thought of believing in anything made her feel exhausted, and unaccountably bitter.

It was strange. She’d used to have such unshakable faith. In her family, her friends, herself…

Where had it gone?

Gazing around at the stained glass windows, which depicted the Fall of Man, among other things, Kagome heard the door groan open behind her. Expecting some old widow of a parishioner at this hour, she couldn’t have been more surprised to see Sesshoumaru walking soundlessly toward her down the aisle. His eyes gleamed with an even more demonic light in the cathedral’s somber gloom.

Kagome crooked a smile. “I would’ve thought you’d burst into flames, stepping foot into a place like this.”

Drawing up beside her, Sesshoumaru lifted his glinting eyes to the steeple above them. His gaze fell to the windows from there, tracing the patterns in the leaden panes for himself. “This is a human-made structure, the same as any other.”

But his voice was as low as hers, and Kagome couldn’t help but ask, “Why whisper here, then?”

Sesshoumaru’s lambent gaze rested upon her, and she felt a subtle stirring in her soul. “One needn’t have faith to feel reverence.”

“I suppose that’s true.” Kagome frowned away. “Maybe a little faith would do me good. Maybe I should’ve gotten married in a place like this.”

She could feel the weight of Sesshoumaru’s gaze lingering upon her. “You are married?” he asked.

Kagome glanced back at him. “I was.” Lips twisting, she shook her head. “Want to get out of here and grab a drink?”

Sesshoumaru arched a brow. “It’s morning.”

Kagome grinned. “It’s Ireland.”

…

Wheeling her bike along, she walked with Sesshoumaru over a stone bridge that led back into town.

A surreal feeling swept over her as they wended their way through a countryside that was green and hilly, untouched and primordial in a way that was so eerily reminiscent of Sengoku Jidai. Hadn’t they traveled together through vistas like this, five hundred years ago and worlds away?

Kagome felt giddy and light like she hadn’t since she was fifteen. Sidelong, she glanced at him. In his tailored clothes, he looked like a well-to-do gentleman. Really, it was no different from how he’d dressed back in the Feudal Era. Maybe these modern clothes were even of youkai-make as well.

A million questions rose again on her tongue. She felt herself clenching her teeth to keep them from all coming out in a tangled heap.

“It seems like there are less youkai now than there were before,” she remarked, once she felt like she had command of herself once again.

“We are relics of a bygone age,” Sesshoumaru said. “A fading breed. The world is more crowded now; we have been crowded out.”

Even looking out over this sparsely-populated landscape, she could see what he meant. It was no city, like London or Tokyo. But the fingerprints of humanity were still upon every acre, faint though they might be.

“Is that what drew you to this place,” she asked him, “the remoteness of it? At least there are still some open spaces here where you can roam free.”

“For now,” he agreed.

“I don’t want you to fade,” Kagome said suddenly. Sesshoumaru looked at her, and she flushed. “I don’t want all the magic and mystery to leave the world. It just seems too bleak to bear.”

“All things change in time,” he said, matter-of-factly. “There’s no preventing it. You humans have created your own brand of magic, surpassing mine by far.”

“Science?” Kagome guessed, as Sesshoumaru nodded. “But it all seems so clinical and cold, compared to flying around on youki clouds or piecing together magic jewels.” Shoulders slumping a little, she cast him a glance. “You don’t agree?”

“Things change,” he said again. “They must.”

Eyeing his face, which looked so strangely human without its stripes, Kagome wondered who he was trying to convince.

…

The village was all bright pastels. It was like a color block: two-story shops stacked up together, lining the flagstone square. A black fountain burbled in the center. At this time of morning, the square was mostly deserted. A flock of pigeons milled about, tossed seed every now and then by a pair of elderly women sitting on one of the benches. Through the salt-hazed windows, the shop signs read CLOSED.

The tavern, of course, was still open, however. In faded gilt letters it simply said PUB on a black sign above the door. The sign might have swung in the breeze, if it hadn’t clearly rusted into place some time ago.

Kagome and Sesshoumaru walked in through the chiming door. They entered into the close dark space. It smelled a bit musty like the cathedral, but warmer somehow. Maybe it was the lingering scents of tobacco and whiskey, leaving sultry notes hanging in the air.

They passed by the heavy dark bar, which seemed to have been carved out of the very earth itself. Only a solitary old man sat there now with a pint of Guinness before him. Cane resting against one side of his chair, he conversed with the bartender in a brogue so thick it might as well be an alien language. A leashed rat-terrier snoozed at his feet. The bartender spared Kagome a nod as she and Sesshoumaru edged past, headed toward the back room.

Here was a cozy lounging space full of small tables, booths and cushioned chairs. There was a low fire burning in the hearth. A battered piano stood against one wall. Kagome and Sesshoumaru slid into a booth. In a matter of seconds, the aproned bartender appeared to take their order. Sesshoumaru ordered whiskey, in smooth and perfect English. The sound of him speaking it startled Kagome briefly—and in a posh British accent no less! But then given his age, the accent made sense. And when had he ever done anything less than perfectly?

The bartender turned to her. “And for the missus?”

Kagome tensed, startled all over again. But really, why wouldn’t the bartender assume they were a married couple? They were both here together in a foreign land, both about the same age in appearance, and both clearly Asian. It was a fair assumption to make, so why was her heart hammering in her ears?

Lost in the intense absurdity of the past few moments, which only compounded the general absurdity of the past few days and the resurrected absurdity of her teenage years, Kagome stared at the man. She still hadn’t answered his question. Apologetically, he smiled, no doubt thinking she didn’t speak the language. In all honesty, for a second there, she’d forgotten her own name.

“She’ll have the same,” Sesshoumaru answered for her at last, and everyone else seemed to exhale in relief.

…

Two shots in, Kagome felt her tongue starting to loosen up.

“It’s good that you drink,” she said, skimming her finger along the scalloped rim of her glass. “When I invited you to come along, I didn’t even think about it—whether youkai drink or not.”

Obviously, he did. But she had to wonder whether he got anything out of it. With four empty glasses stacked beside him, Sesshoumaru didn’t seem any different to her.

“Why did you invite me?” he asked her dryly.

Good question.

Gazing down at the bead of amber swirling in her glass, Kagome half-smiled. Because I’m lonely, she thought. Because I’ve been lonely for so long I’d forgotten how it felt not to be, and it made me scared to be alone again.

But she hadn’t had enough shots yet to say all that.

“Because I wanted to,” she replied instead, her gaze touching his. “What other reason do I need?”

…

“What happened to Inuyasha?” she asked, sipping on a pint of ale for strength. “Did he stay in Edo? Did he get married, have a family…?”

Sesshoumaru was silent for a moment, as if the act of sifting back through ancient history required effort. Maybe it did. Kagome’s heart sank at the thought of Inuyasha being such a distant memory.

“He married some village woman,” Sesshoumaru replied, eventually. “I forget her name, if ever I knew it. But he had children with her, yes. I saw them all together once, long ago.”

Kagome was quiet for a while. Hiding her frown, she sipped on her ale.

“What happened to them?” she asked. “To him?”

Sesshoumaru’s eyes slid briefly shut as he downed another shot. “That was centuries ago, when I saw him last. Our paths haven’t crossed since then, nor will they, I expect. He was only half-demon.”

She fixed him with a sharp look. “That’s all you have to say? He was your brother!”

Sesshoumaru set down the glass with a click. “We were never close.”

“But you fought together to defeat Naraku,” she insisted, frowning outright. “We all did.”

“Yes,” he said, holding her glance, “we did.”

There was something pointed in this remark. Something almost like an accusation. Kagome pushed the half-empty glass away from her and slumped her elbows against the lacquered tabletop.

“I just don’t understand,” she said quietly, “how after all that, the two of you could just drift apart.”

“What was there to hold us together?” Sesshoumaru’s eyes glinted, light and gold—and only now did Kagome realize they’d been almost brown before. So he was concealing himself! “You should understand best of all, should you not?—the way you vanished without a trace.”

“That wasn’t by choice!” Kagome said, indignant. Her fist smacked the table, rattling the little stacks of glass. “I would’ve returned if I could. I tried to, so many times…” As her voice threatened to break, she looked at him in vague wonder. “Did you…look for me?”

Not quite meeting her eye, Sesshoumaru stilled the rattling glasses. “It was a mystery to me, your disappearance. I didn’t understand it, and Inuyasha,” he said, a curious bite of resentment in his tone, “would tell me nothing.”

Kagome felt a little guilty now—for shouting at him, among other things. Knowing his proud, determined nature, it must have seemed a terrible riddle to him. How long had he spent on his own, trying to solve it in vain?

“I should have told you I was from the future,” she said, her expression contrite. “We were allies by then. It would’ve behooved you to know.”

“Yes,” Sesshoumaru said, catching her eye, “you would have saved me a great deal of time.”

He was so deadpan, and she was so tipsy, it took her a second to pick up that he was just pulling her leg. Kagome laughed.

“I think that liquor is starting to hit you after all. I don’t remember you being so droll.”

“I’m not,” he said. As Kagome giggled again, he regarded her levelly. “Do you normally drink like this?”

“Well yeah,” she said, blushing, though her cheeks were already so red it didn’t matter. “It’s just a few shots.”

“You’ve had five.”

Kagome’s brows rose. “Oh shit…already? I’d better take it easy then.” She flashed him a smile. “Will you order ‘the missus’ a water, please?”

Sesshoumaru flagged down the bartender, who didn’t need to be told anything. He brought the water with him directly.

…

Sobered up a bit, Kagome mused aloud, “So you’re still something of a vagabond then?—a wandering lord?”

Draining the last of her abandoned ale, Sesshoumaru didn’t deign to answer. Kagome smiled wistfully at him, her chin propped in her hand.

“It’s kind of romantic. But didn’t you ever want to settle down? Get married, have kids of your own…?”

She was blatantly prying. It was so heavy-handed she didn’t even pretend to be subtle. She peered right at him instead, her line of sight a tractor-beam of personal invasion he could sense as surely as her reiki.

“What’s the rush,” he replied coolly, clearly only to infuriate her.

It worked. Kagome’s lips pursed.

“You’re like a closed book, you know. Five hundred years is a long time, even for you. I’m terribly curious about you. But you haven’t really told me anything.”

“Neither have you,” he returned. “All your answers have been deflections.”

Kagome bristled. “All right then, ask me something, and I’ll answer directly.”

“Why are you here and not in Japan?”

“I’m on holiday,” Kagome replied briskly, checking to see if there was anything remaining in that pint he’d drained. There wasn’t. “When I was at university, I studied abroad in England but never got the chance to visit here. Always regretted that. I had a break from work long overdue, so I thought, why not? Say,” she said sweetly, jiggling the empty stein, “how ’bout another round?”

“Not yet.” Ruthlessly shut down, Kagome started to pout, but Sesshoumaru was unfazed. “What sort of ‘work’ do you do?”

“I’m a criminal defense attorney.”

“You always did like arguing,” Sesshoumaru replied with a faint curve of lip, “and championing lost causes.” At her miffed look, he added, “No one could daunt you.”

“Oh?” Kagome flushed.

Sesshoumaru nodded, his gaze reflective. “To this day, you are the only opponent who has ever dared tell me to, ‘Look here, buster!’ in the face of sure defeat.”

Feeling miffed again, Kagome said, “You don’t even know what became of your own brother, or where you left your swords, but you remember silly things like that after all this time?”

“Some things,” he answered, then ordered them another round.

…

Kagome picked at the fish and chips Sesshoumaru had commanded her to eat, after bullying the bartender into fetching them from a restaurant nearby. By ‘bullying’ he had really just stared the poor guy down in that way that he had, until the man had paled and hurried off to figure it out.

Kagome had tried to pawn some of the dinner off on Sesshoumaru, but he’d refused, saying he didn’t eat that sort of thing.

“What do you eat?” she asked. “I’ve always wondered.”

“Women who pester me.”

Kagome glowered, plunking down a bit of crispy cod. “C’mon, be serious. I really want to know.”

Sesshoumaru’s eyes snapped to hers, his pupils thinning elliptically in a way that raised the hairs on her nape. “Flesh and blood and bone.”

Kagome’s smile was queasy as she popped in a fried chip and chewed. “…You really might eat me, then.”

“Finish up here, and we’ll see.”

Kagome nearly choked on her chip. Did he just make a pass at her? No way…

I’m just drunk, she told herself, but her thighs clenched together a little more tightly as she focused with renewed enthusiasm on the meal before her.

…

Woozy, Kagome gripped the iron railing outside the pub and drank down deep, bracing draughts of the chill evening air. “I…I don’t think I can bike back to the cottage like this.”

“You can barely stand,” Sesshoumaru observed.

“…Fuck me.” Kagome crushed the heel of her hand to her brow. “One shot too many…”

Sesshoumaru’s look was flat. She swooned somehow more when she felt his arm go around her waist. Despite her stumbling, he led them briskly around back, down a small alleyway choked with moss and ferns. Alone with him in this close, secluded space, Kagome’s pulse kicked up a notch. Her glazed eyes flitted around them. She swallowed shallowly when he pulled her to his chest.

“Hold on to me,” he said, as the air stirred with demonic power. “And your stomach,” he added darkly, with a hint of rumbling threat.

Kagome’s eyes were wide as she clung to him by the shoulders—rather awkwardly, since he was so much taller than she was. She tried not to think about how broad and strong he felt, or how masculine and faintly spicy he smelled, as they shot into the air in that orb of light she’d only ever witnessed from the outside.

Within it, she squeezed her eyes shut, unprepared for the disorienting, crushing sensation—or the blinding brightness that stabbed like needles right into her skull. But in what seemed like only a second, she saw through her closed lids the light dissipate with a shimmer. Cool darkness washed over her. Equilibrium returned.

Or as much equilibrium as a drunk person could have, anyway.

There was no need even to deliberate about inviting him in. Through an open window, she guessed, they’d arrived right inside the threshold of the cottage. Sesshoumaru’s arms were around her waist still. Her fingers curled into his sweater. Through the fine knit of it, she could feel with her nails the even finer smoothness of his collared shirt. Distantly, she was amazed at just how real and solid he felt.

How good he felt.

Kagome bit her lip. Her lashes lowered as she eyed the sliver of bare chest the top few open buttons of his shirt revealed. “Let’s have some wine.”

“Let’s not,” Sesshoumaru said curtly.

Before Kagome could protest, he gathered her up, bridal-style, and strode toward the stairs. She gasped belatedly as he ascended them, feeling herself on the verge of a conniption. Even for her, things were moving way too fast.

“S-Sesshoumaru, wait. I—”

Kagome grunted. Her breath rushed out of her as he dropped her on her back onto the bed. With surprising speed, he stripped off her boots and cast them aside. In a panic, she gazed up at him as he leaned over her, somewhere above her head, and wrenched back the quilt. When he started to undo her coat, her hands flew to his chest.

“L-listen, Sesshoumaru! I think you’re attractive and all, but I’ve had a lot to drink tonight a-and—”

She eeped when he dragged her up and stuffed her under the quilt, tucking it around her so tightly to the chin she felt practically cocooned. Her baffled eyes followed him hazily as he took up a cup from the bedside table. From the bathroom, she heard the sound of the running tap. He plinked the filled cup down beside her again.

“Go to sleep, Kagome,” he said.

Later, she would wonder if he’d cast some kind of spell on her, because the moment he turned toward the stairs, she was out like a light.

…

That night, she dreamed she was stuck at the bottom of the well. Through the tunneling darkness, she could see Sesshoumaru peering down from the other side. But though she shouted and waved, he didn’t seem to hear or see her.

After a while, he turned and walked away.

---

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi

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