A Dream Come True by alakeshadow

Hot Spring Blues Part 1

A Dream Come True

by alakeshadow

Disclaimer - I don't own Inuyasha but I do own the song "Love Has Left Me" that Kagome sings. That is from my own genius.

Dedication - Dedicated 2 my dear friend Rissa-chan who introduced me to the wonders of Inuyasha and the yummyness of Sesshomaru. I love you lil' sis.

Translation Box:

Kuriketto - crickets

onna - woman

Tsuki-Yomi - Japanese God of the Moon

Shika - deer

Jaki - devils or evil spirits

Shoujo - virgin

Shimatta - damn it

Naze? - why?

Ningen - human

Chapter 1: Hot Spring Blues Part 1

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond the place of wrath and tears

Looms but the horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.

-William Ernest Henley (Excerpt from "Invictus")

The moon was full, but slowly, it was starting to become black as the earths shadow moved across its glassy blue surface.

A blue lunar eclipse was forming over feudal day Musashi, Japan.

As a blue moon in itself had only happened at least twice during earth's entire existence, it happening now, boded well for some. Indeed it seemed that Tsuki-Yomi, god of the moon, was in good spirits to allow such a magnificent sight.

What light remained from the unhidden part of the shinning globe illuminated the lush green hills and mighty waterfalls that crashed and rolled in the distance. The kuriketto chirped loudly, as the sounds of rushing water echoed throughout the valley.

It was peaceful.

The black sky was like a stretch of ebony canvas pinpointed with tiny stars that twinkled merrily, determined to show their tiny light despite the consuming darkness. In the distance, mountain peaks poked their heads just above the low-lying clouds; Mount Fuji being one of them, it's proud white head standing high above all else.

The night was warm. Apple blossoms in full bloom were everywhere, their pink and white petals falling and swirling in the soft breeze that whispered its way along the valley. And on top of but one of the many hills, stood the lone figure of an onna. A lone woman. Her back straight, her head held high as if daring the world to come at her with everything it had. And in some ways she was.

She was the priestess Kagome Higurashi; known only as Kagome to the villagers and visitors that came to the small village she resided in with her traveling companions.

But at this moment they were not important.

Nothing was, except purifying herself of the evil aura that constantly surrounded her.

Her yukata was made of yellow silk with small, ornate stitching along the hem and neckline of red and black tora jumping along silvery gray clouds. If one were to look upon her, they would see how it brought out the glimmering gold highlights in her waist length dark brown hair. It flowed around her voluptuous figure hiding her curves and softening the bulge of her full breasts. Long, black sleeves intricately stitched with black and silver flowers; fell to just below her thighs, where they flowed out in a slanted bell-like shape. A small sapphire obi wrapped securely around her narrow waist, it edges trimmed in silver held the robes beneath it together.

She lifted her face to the partially hidden moon, another gust of wind blowing the garment against her. That same soft gust sent blossom petals fluttering around her, bathing her in their pinkish light as they swirled in a cyclone around her prone form. She smiled at it and made a polite bow to the moon, honoring her favorite god Tsuki-Yomi. For he was in a word, her world. He gave her the moons splendor and beauty.

He gave her the night...her most treasured worldly item. But most important; he gave her this night.

She was as silent as the shika that wandered the fields. The faint swishing of the fabric of her yukata the only indication that she was even there. But that was how she liked it. She liked the calm peace around her. It helped with so many things...mainly with helping her bring together her bruised and beaten soul.

The tortures of her life constantly haunted her...stalking her without ever a hint of reprieve.

She was safe in no place upon the earth since they never failed to come to her...the fiery demons of anger and blood, robbing her of her happiness and forcing her to relive memories she didn't want to remember. But that was by day, and this was night...oh the joyous and absolute night in which she could lose herself and the jaki that followed after her.

She turned her head to the side displaying the profile of her face. Her hair swayed slightly as it lifted briefly from her shoulders and back. All in all she was a truly stunning creature...almost to the point where men saw her as a fallen angel...a goddess upon this earth. But none could have her. She had pledged herself to no man and had been that way for many years; or at least ever since that night three years ago when she allowed her heart free rein and was crushed beneath the heel of the man she had pledged herself to.

The hanyou, Inuyasha.

The hanyou's rejection of her for her former being, the clay priestess Kikyo, had embittered her only towards the likes of love. She had promised herself never to fall again. She feared that if she did, then she would not be able to catch herself as she had once before. It was better to never love again...every risk was only playing with fire after all. And she had already been burned. But she did not allow her sadness to show; she knew that besides...there were many ways to love.

Before that she had worshipped Hiruko, the god of the sun. He had brought to her the sunny days in which she loved freely...but now she hated him because he was the one who helped the demons find her...find her...and never let her go.

The night cloaked her...protected her from the hell that followed her endlessly.

Nearby the large falls crashed down, filling the air with it's rumbling amidst the slightly foggy air. The water swirled and poured into a small pond that branched out into several small hot springs that she visited constantly, which was where she was heading now.

Lifting her kimono up a few inches to show her bare feet, she slowly walked towards one of the larger hot springs surrounded by smooth gray and white stones. Unbeknown to her however, two pairs of amber eyes were watching her silently, each facing her, but on opposite sides of the clearing. One from the west, the other from the east.

Slowly, almost seductively, she walked towards her destination, her hips swaying as she placed one foot delicately in front of the othere. She had decided that even though she had barred herself from love, that she was still allowed the comforts of her womanly attributes. They gave her...her own strength. One can take a lover and not love them, it is no different then that of a man taking a mistress. The only difference was that she didn't pay, and the men she chose were wise not to give or ask. She was selective and knit picky about the men she chose to bed. After all, there were still diseases and sickness that could be passed on...and pregnancy. She stopped short and tipped her face back up to the moon.

To be pregnant was to have children...to have children was to have a family. A family that she could never have. Or...was it something she would not allow herself to have?

She blinked. What was she thinking? What she wanted didn't matter. It never had, so why should it now?

"To have possibly had Inuyasha's children..." Her husky voice was tinged with distaste and what could have bridged on horror as she started walking again.

She did not hear or see it, but one of the watchers let out a growl so soft one might have thought it was a humming insect. Its eyes flashing in barely concealed resentment as he watched her, their amber and golden glow becoming brighter as the eclipsing moon grew darker, blocking out the moons meager light.

It looked up at the moon but did not show any of his thoughts, not being sure what the outcome of the night would be. The other watcher was becoming impatient but held back from showing himself. He knew the onna would not like to know that he was there and so, wisely remained hidden.

When she reached her destination, she stopped and for a second looked out over the water as if thinking. She was no longer a shoujo. Her purity had been taken by the hanyou long ago in a heat of the moment ordeal. And then after that...she had tried to escape him...to flee somewhere...anywhere; but he wouldn't let her go. He had taken her against her will. Calmly, she wondered now if he had been possessed but no - he couldn't have been. He had acted just as Inuyasha always had...until that one moment.

She shook herself. She didn't regret her actions...only wished they could have been different. There had been a time...a time that seemed so long ago, she didn't know if it was months or years, that she had wanted to save her innocence for the man she would fall in love with and marry.

It wasn't to be.

Upon their joining he had called out the name 'Kikyo' and then found his fulfillment within her. Then - he had raped her.

It had both broken and hardened her heart. She had been careful to purify her womb of his seed afterwards, knowing that she could not... would not, have the child of a traitor. She just wished that she had known then what she knew now. If that had been the case then her life would have been completely different then what it was now. What she was now. And what was that?

"I am...alone." She sighed deeply, the bitter memories only reminded her that the thing that hurt the most, was that the hanyou...the man she had loved, had used her...broken her to some degree...and afterwards hadn't cared.

She pushed her sadness away, her guarded walls going up instantly in order to protect herself against the emotions that lay there just beneath the surface. Besides...demons were nearby. She could feel their aura. How close she did not know, but one aura seemed to be quite powerful.

Yet both were familiar. One more so then the other.

She blinked, taking herself from her inspection to smile slightly.

She was somewhat addicted to power. It seemed to bring something out within her...something primitive and dangerous; a tigress searching for a suitable father for its young; a wasp searching for a victim to sting and destroy. And it called to her...called to her as a flame calls to a moth.

When she had been little, she remembered the movies and cartoons on television that portrayed the hero, the woman in distress, the villain...and what attracted her most, the badboy everyone thought was the enemy...and then turned out to have been lonely and abused earlier on in his life...a man that you found was actually a good, sweet guy...the guy who needed the heroin (in her opinion) more then the hero. "The badass" as some preferred to call it.

The term made her smile. She didn't know why...it just did. And she didn't know why this sort of character attracted her; she just never much cared for the hero. Actually she found them more annoying then anything else for the most part. She felt the knot in her back pulse and groaned softly as she pressed against it hard with her hand, her fingers pushing and kneading the spot. When it had lessened she found herself pondering again, her wandering mind thinking of a story she had been reading that had vampires, goules and other such frivolous things in it.

'Though I shouldn't think them frivolous...I'm in the feudal era after all. Demons and priestesses and dragons and all such ilk being here...why not vampires as well? Such fairytale nonsense...all of this. This whole fucking journey has been one long story of fairytale nonsense I can't escape.'

Willingly, she did recognize that she dreamed things that would never happen. Then again she was sure that if she told James Marsters or some such beloved actor that she could travel 500 years in the past and prove it...no. No, no, no and no again. God...she was impossible. Simply and undeniably impossible down to her strangely shaped toes.

She dreamed of Dragonball Z's Vegeta, The Phantom of the Opera's Phantom Erik, and then one of the characters named Spike in an American TV series that was called Buffy the Vampire Slayer as the kind of men she longed for, for gods sake! She thought of them as the kind of men who could spark the flame of desire that Inuyasha had unknowingly awakened within her during his blundering endeavor on her body. God she was a fool. Nineteen years old and still a fool. A little fool.

She smiled crookedly at that.

'A little fool...but an informed one if that is even possible. I think that's an oxymoron but I'm not sure...'

She smiled again even though it made her sad at the same time. Though she might dream and dream and be a fool about dreaming such things, there was no such man. Such men existed only on paper and in pictures and so she had all but given up hope in finding him. But still it remained...the longing ache she felt for her fairytale man; because to her, he was the one she needed...he was the man she needed both to heal and to take care of and yet be taken care of herself. Because with power came protection, and anyone that could offer her protection was worthy of being by her side. Who knew...she had not resigned herself to marriage, just love. Many matches were made that way anyway. Companionship and protection were all she needed from a husband.

Slowly, she brought her hands to her obi and untied it. As she did so, the robes slid down her shoulders, and then down to hang off of her elbows. The fabric stopped then. Glancing over her shoulder, her eyes half lidded, she shrugged slightly and the robes fell to the ground. From there, she slowly peeled off the under robes beneath it and let them fall in a rustle of sheer, multicolored silk to the ground until she stood naked upon the pebble-strewn beach.

Done, she carefully picked the robes up and for a second ran her fingers through the fine silk.

'Such splendid quality...and so old.' An antique that could go for thousands back in the present time...and yet she would not ever sell it. It had been a gift to her from someone she had known long ago...an acquaintance within this feudal era. A lover she had taken as a spur of the moment fancy. But he was the best she had ever had...the gentlest and sweetest of the few men she had accepted...and he had protected her for however short a time. Perhaps...if it had not been for him her whole view on sexuality would be the complete opposite of what it was now. Granted she didn't crave sex but she didn't deny herself it either. If not for that certain someone...she might have been afraid of the whole concept for the rest of her life.

Faintly she wondered if she could have found it within herself to join a religious practice of some sort.

'Do they have nuns in feudal Japan?' For a moment she stared at a large rabbit hole at the base of a nearby log.

Nuns? No way in hell. She needed to snap out of this...and now by god or she really would drive herself insane!

'It seems like an eternity since I have seen him though...' She thought with a bitter smile. His beauty and strength would forever haunt her senses and her body.

She shook herself again, chastising herself for ever allowing him back into her mind.

She began to carefully place the layers of clothing over the lower branches of a sweet gum tree, pausing as her eyes skimmed over her right arm. There, right on her upper forearm was a small scar in the shape of a crescent moon with a line of some sort jaggedly ribboned through it. It looked like nothing more then an ugly scar she might have gotten from falling off her bike...if it hadn't had the two small green holes on the tips of the moon. It made her remember all too much that which she had tried so hard to forget. It stood there with a stubbornness that belied her own.

Yet it also made her smile as she slid her fingertips over it, a caress for the memory that would be forever there.

'It was almost a year ago now that I think of it... But the past remains in the past as it is was meant to. What happened then is none of my concern now... and yet...I still can't stop myself from thinking about him. He was so good to me...' She smiled and before she could stop herself, brought the silk cloth up to cover one white breast. A soft sigh escaped her lips as she brushed the fabric back and forth across her skin, feeling the rippling sensation that made her body melt. He had done this to her in a dream she had once had a few weeks ago after they had parted but it had been the only one.

She slid the fabric up to her neck and across her chin, the silk whispering against her cheek. He had done this as well. She let out a small moan and suddenly directly above her, a branch snapped as a squirrel scurried up the tree.

Her head shot up and she hissed softly as she dropped the long silk uchikake. Reaching down quickly, she was careful to gently dust off the dirt and quickly hung the robe upon a branch. Done, she stepped away quickly shaking her head as she sent a silent prayer of thanks up to the fuzzy beast. Those robes were a metaphor to her...a metaphor that was anything but of innocence.

*****

On the other side of the clearing, the Western Lord, Sesshomaru laid completely at ease in a large magnolia tree as he watched the onna undress. Every now and then his eyes would flash crimson, releasing the desire he felt within his loins. She was amazing in his opinion, the fact that she was only a human disappointing him slightly even if she had caught his favor. He had not seen her for almost a year now.

'Humans are worth nothing. Your father taking a ningen bitch was not acceptable in the least.' The words cut through him like a sickle through wheat. He remembered them vividly as they had come to him from his mother, Tasankowaku. The cold words made him feel suddenly tired although he didn't know why.

What did it matter after all? His bitch of a mother was finally dead, his brother -stepbrother - he quickly amended, was a lost cause, and his father was with both of his wives in hell - probably hiding knowing the way women were- and he had no children to speak of except Rin who legally could not become his heir even though he wished it.

He growled, in his fathers day's, laws were changed as easily as shoes. He was Tai Youkai of the Western Lands now! He could do what he wanted and kill whatever he wished...and yet he had been brought low. Just once was what it had been...and in the hundreds of millennia that he had lived, he had allowed himself the sensual pleasures of woman before him, her body that of perfection so complete...so utterly divine, that truly Benzaiten herself must have envied her.

He snorted.

Perfection...it went along almost identically with honor. Those two words were enough to make him want to growl. By Inu custom he was not supposed to have any woman except for his mate. And because many didn't follow the custom, in order to make sure of his elder son, his father had made him swear on his honor that he would follow the original custom to mate only the women who was to be his. He had all but forgotten it during the time and now he had to pay the price of his negligence. It had been after their first meeting that one of his advisors had discovered it and reminded him of his promise to his long departed father.

Now, he was cemented by his pride and honorary status to this female.

Sitting back so that he was even further hidden in the shadows, he looked away with what could have been a sulky expression on his perfect face.

'What is the point?' He groused with himself defiantly. He guessed that it didn't matter since onna youkai were forced under the same rule. Women...their only purposes in life were to birth babies and tend to their husbands household and needs. Onna were useless and weak, but this one...this Kagome...she was somehow different.

And that aggravated him to no end. And it was because he didn't know why. He didn't know why in the seven gates of hell, her smell...her warmth followed him wherever he journeyed.

'Interesting...now that I am with her again memories come flooding back...this is new to me. It changes everything though that she is not a virgin or was when I had her. Shimatta...Father never expected this, did he? Or maybe he did. The old bastard.'

He sighed, his chest barely moving with the action. Had it really only been a year at the most? It seemed longer. And she still kept his gift, he noticed as he saw her caress the silk fabric.

A traditional courtship rule practiced between male and female Inu youkai was that an interested male was to give the chosen female a gift and if she kept it with her then she had accepted him as her own. This was to prove loyalty and willingness to be attached to one man and one alone. The procedure also indicated that once given, the male and female could not meet until the year was complete. Tonight at midnight would be exactly a year that he had been gone: one hour from now.

'But still...naze? Why was she the one who awakened me? The little miko it is told, who has shun away all those who came to call on her for her hand...but would warm the bed of men who appeal to her? Naze?'

He knew that whatever it was, it was instinct...it was custom...it was duty. And it was honor god damn it!

As much as he had claimed to hate ningen, she had shown him that it did not matter. Kagome was perfect. All of nineteen summers, signaling to youkai men that she and her body were at their peak of sexual maturity. He knew she was a wildcat in bed. After all this time he could still hear her screams...still feel her come as he found his first release. He wasn't angry or jealous that she had other men but he knew that when she was his that the practice would stop. He had heard all the rumors about the miko who would give her heart to no one. She was smart to be so cautious. He knew of her and his brother and it only added to his list of reasons to kill the bastard that wretchedly, was related to him.

He found this smart streak within her another favorable trait. He hated the air-headed women who wanted servants to cater to their every need and faint every time something they found difficult of "uncouth" came up. And yet that was what his mother had wanted.

The thought almost made him want to roll his eyes.

'Mother...now there was a woman who had only to glance at you and you'd think you were on top of mount Fuji in the middle of winter.'

To think of mating a woman who wanted to do nothing more then gossip and talk about such things as makeup and jewelry thoroughly aggravated him to no end! But Kagome...she talked of herbs and animals and music.

But she was strong willed. He growled at that thought. He'd always admired strength, but he wasn't sure if a woman having it was attracting or not.

Plastering a blank look on his face, he looked at the girl he had known so long ago.

As she turned away from the silken kimono, he felt the coils of anger begin to wrap around him like that of a venomous snake waiting to lash out, before he could rein them under control. Damn her...she had always been able to get under his skin and make him show his inner self to her. He had seen the way she flinched away from his gift. Was it because of him? Did she not want him? Did he...had he bored her?

The more he thought, the more angry he became.

His eyes flashed a brilliant red within the shadowy darkness.

'Damn her...we should never have met! She has plagued my mind ever since that day and I have tried everything to try and rid myself of her but still her ghost remains to haunt me! Her scent drifts around me wherever I go...her moans keep me awake when I am alone at night...and remembering how good she felt next to me stays in my dreams! Why? WHY?'

*Inuyasha...come on!* He almost growled as her voice...her sweet voice came into his head. And at its heels finally came the raw emotion of jealousy. The emotion he had just thought he did not feel. It angered and frustrated him. But what enraged him more was that it was he...his bastard brother who she called for, a sweet, forgiving smile on her face as she welcomed him into her arms. Damn her to hell...and him...the half-breed son-of-a-bitch who held her heart in the palm of his filthy hand!

*You're a sociopath Sesshomaru! You'll never be worth anything to her...your cold, emotionless heart will not allow you to. Ironic is it not ...she doesn't want you like she does me. Love does not seem to suit a pokerfaced bastard like you.*

He leaned his chin into the palm of his right hand offhandedly and agitatedly tapped his claws against his lips as in her naked glory she began to stretch her arms above her head, displaying the ripple of muscles in her back and stomach. Her thick, almost thigh length brown hair shone in the glowing shafts of moonlight that floated around her and it reminded him of a cloud. She had had black hair when she had first come here, but then she had suddenly changed it. No doubt to change her appearance from that of the priestess.

But he wasn't complaining. He liked it more then the black.

'I do not love her.' He thought darkly as he watched her. Love was for the foolish and weak and he was Tai Youkai! He was superior! Youkai or ningen for that matter. He was never foolish and was certainly not weak! His bastard half-brother didn't know what he was talking about. It was not that he could not feel love, it was that he chose not to.

Just as she did.

'You cannot choose love...'

*Sociopath...Hypocrite...Stoic bastard!*

'Inuyasha, come on!'

*You are not allowed to show emotion Sesshomaru...*

'You'll never be worth anything...!'

*Make me proud my son...*

'Sesshomaru...I can't...'

*Sociopath!*

'Do not smile Sesshomaru, it shows that you are weak to your enemies!'

*Sesshomaru...Inuyasha won't let me...*

'Worthless, pathetic, ungrateful whelp!'

*I do not have a son!*

The voices all seemed to meld into one and he closed his eyes in a small act of defense as the pain from all of the voices' words sunk a hot knife deep into his constricted heart. This was why he had strived to never feel emotion. Not just because of what he had been taught but from past experience.

He couldn't afford to feel like this.

All of those voices...his mother...father...his brother and Kagome... He almost clutched his head in agony before he heard just her voice. The voice that made him calm and chased away all of the evils that plagued him.

'You'll find that I am different Sesshomaru...come to me when you need someone...I'll always be here for you.'

The world became still in that moment. And as if to ease the tenseness, a soft breeze blew through the trees and then was gone. As if in slow motion, he watched as she twirled suddenly and looked at her long, firm legs, and the V-shaped juncture of her thighs, then up, to her narrow waist, wide hips, and breasts. He looked at her slender neck and stubborn chin, full lips, large hazel eyes that were closed, her long, sinfully black lashes a harsh contrast to her creamy skin. And he looked at her hair...hair that drove him wild with its lusciousness and wavy chestnut color. As the moon shined down upon her hair they saw a flicker of gold and red highlights causing Sesshomaru to sigh inwardly.

'Ah yes...I remember her hair...it was all around us...melding with mine...connecting us together even further then just our bodies...' He breathed in deeply, discovering the scents of summer nights and ginger lilies that was her scent and sighed as it flowed like a gentle breeze over him, calming his nerves.

She was an onna forced to grow up before her time.

'Forced just like I was...'

An onna of pure and unbroken spirit, who had defeated countless demons, and purified countless shards during her quest to complete the Shikon No Tama, she had somehow managed to keep her soul pure. She was the reincarnate of a woman who wanted her dead...and a hanyou who chose her past life as his own even when he knew how it would hurt her.

He had be able to be with her...and soon.

*****

On the eastern side, the other watched observed her, his eyes not really seeing as his mind once again raced with thoughts. Damn it...why couldn't he just go out and see her...tell her that she had been tricked? No wait he knew why...because he had already told her and she had told him some outrageous story in return!

Well...more like screamed at him while crying madly.

The only thing he could think of was that she thought he was someone else. But who? He hadn't ever touched her! He had left that night for Totosai's without telling anyone and had been gone for all of two days and when he had gotten back, Kagome had all but attacked him, screaming and carrying on about how he had tricked her and how she would never forgive him.

'What did I do? I couldn't have done anything! There weren't any other scents when I came back to camp. She has to have mistaken someone else for me...but why? If Naraku wasn't dead I would think it was him but...god damn it! Whenever I get too close she has to hold herself back from killing me!"

Wrinkling his nose, he crossed his arms over one another and shifted himself to a more comfortable position.

He had no idea what to do. Nothing he said made it any better - hell she wouldn't even believe Totosai! Sango had been to her village to check up on things, and Miroku and Shippo had said that Kagome had left for a little while to go wash and collect food.

She had disappeared for almost a month.

Then one day, she had suddenly appeared, walking unsteadily into the camp and then screamed at him to leave! Sango and Miroku and said that she claimed that he had raped her.

Rape.

But how? There was no way he could have...have...! But she swore up and down he had done it to her - but how? He couldn't remember anything about that night...only that he had gone to see Totosai and spent the night. One night. Two days. She was the one who had suddenly disappeared off the face of the earth for a month! He figured she must have gone home or something!

What could have happened during that time to damage his Kagome so?

He had vowed to find out and he would. He had come tonight to face her again but his courage he was chagrined to say, had left him when he had finally arrived and saw her looking up at the sky.

Oh Kagome...his Kagome...where had she gone? Not her mind but her spirit because it no longer resided in her body. He could no longer feel her warmth...her heart seemed lost from her body. He felt memories of him and Kikyo come flooding back.

Kagome might as well have been dead for all that happened between them.

*****

Kagome, unaware of her audience began her routine stretches.

'Now that Naraku's gone, I would have thought that everything would be more peaceful and yet it still isn't.' She thought with a dry smile, brushing her fingers through her shinning hair.

She brushed a strand over her bottom lip agitatedly as she thought and Sesshomaru found himself sitting forward almost instantly, his entire body tightening like a metal coil, as if he were about to chase after his prey. Honestly...her hair drove him wild. Wild beyond conscious thought.

Blessedly oblivious of what she was doing to her ex-lover, she continued to ponder.

'Not that it matters. Either way I'm remaining here. There is more for me here then in the future. I know that it's selfish...but it's just so much nicer here...so free and spacious and quiet instead of Tokyo's noise and constant hustle and bustle.'

She sighed softly and closing her eyes, tilted her head back as she placed her arms out in front of her in a greeting - like position. Then, without warning, she twirled on one foot, her back arching slightly as she moved with ballerina like precision.

And she sang, the sound stunning, toned by years of experienced training and lessons.

They both found themselves closing their eyes as the soft melody flowed over them like warm honey.

"Love, has left me...

And I have nothing left...

Love, has hated me...

Why can't I seem to catch my breath?

It seems that all those days we had as one...

Now are over...they are so over-

AND!

What is it that you try to say to me?

You ask and plead and cry over some strange empty scene!

You ripped me apart and left me to bleed!

Why won't you just leave me alone...?

Because love has left me.

Yes...because love has left me...

You ask and plead and cry over some strange empty case!

Why won't you just leave me alone...?

You seem to torment and capture me!

My body's frozen cold...

Yes why do you ask all this of me?

I'll tell you-

Because love has left me.

Hate, has captured me...

And I have nothing now to lose...

Hate, has loved me for so long...

Why am I starting to let it take me?

Like I said it seems like all those days we had as one...

Screw you all, you fucking killed me!

AND!

What is it that you try to say to me?

I said that we were over!

You ask and plead and cry over some strange empty case!

Why won't you just leave me alone...?

You seem to torment and capture me!

My body's frozen cold...

Yes why do you ask all of this of me?

I'll tell you-

Because love has left me.

Yes...because love has left me...

Oh...love has left me...

Yeaaaah...

Love...

Has, left me..."

With that, she stopped and turned suddenly, her hair swirling around her in a curtain of fiery chestnut silk as she turned to where Inuyasha sat behind a large clump of thick bushes.

Lucky for all of You that with this story at least, I already have most of it written. It will just take a while to post because I have to work out a bunch of plot issues.

alakeshadow