Decisions of the Difficult Kind by Lady Nya

Chapter One

'thoughts'

"talking"

Chapter One

'Four years. It has been four long years, and I, the Great Lord Sesshoumaru, am no closer to understanding this human wench' the demon mused as his golden gaze settled once again on the young girl making her way to the dry well in his half-brother's forest wearing that silly green fuku. A flash of red to the side diverted his attention momentarily.

"KAGOME!!!"

"Inuyasha, I told you, if you want anymore ramen, then you have to let me go back home so that I can gather more supplies." Kagome sighed exasperated for what seemed like the millionth time that morning.

"Feh," Inuyasha spat as he shoved his hands into the sleeves of his fire rat haori, "I just wanted to make sure you got there safe and all." After seeing her smile when he chanced to glance in her direction he blushed and quickly added, "Not that I care or nuthin'. You just always seem to get in trouble, and I don't wanna have to wait a week until you're recovered before I can have my ramen."

Kagome just continued to smile at Inuyasha. Sure, he acted brashly and was even down right rude sometimes, but under his rough persona, she could tell he was slowly becoming more open with his feelings. Kagome felt like they were having a real breakthrough. There had been times recently when she was sure he was just about to confess his true feelings to her, but, inopportunely, Sango, Miroku, Shippo, Koga, or the occasional lesser youkai would ruin the moment and dash her hopes away.

"Kagome? Hey, Kagome, are you even listening to me?" The irritated hanyou asked.

"Huh?" Realizing she had once again been caught daydreaming Kagome shook her head to try to concentrate on what Inuyasha had been saying. "Oh, sorry Inuyasha. I guess I just zoned out there for a second. What were you saying?"

"I said, I feel a strong demonic aura nearby and you should either snap your ass back to reality and be some help, or go home."

"Hey! You don't have to get all rude about it! Of course I'll help you. What kind of question is that?" Kagome inquired indignantly at Inuyasha's suggestion that she should go home. "I mean, why wouldn't I help you?"

"Because it's Sesshoumaru." Kagome hushed as Inuyasha moved protectively in front of her.

'Ah, so the half-breed has finally sensed me. I was beginning to wonder if he was denser that I had originally thought. Perhaps I should toy with them for awhile. I may be able to get some of my questions about the girl answered. For example, if her home is not indeed that rotting excuse for a village as the hanyou so kindly informed me, albeit unknowingly, then where is her home?' Sesshoumaru gracefully descended from his perch in the tree directly across from the old well effectively blocking Kagome's way home. "Half-breed." He uttered in his cool, collected tone that sent shivers up Kagome's spine.

"Keh, you bastard, whadda you want!" Inuyasha yelled making Sesshoumaru's ears sting with pain, not that he let it show.

"Answers."

"Huh?" Not expecting such a vague answer even from Sesshoumaru, Inuyasha let the tetsuiga, which he had been brandishing wildly, drop to his side.

"What kind of answers?" Kagome, who had thus been standing quietly behind Inuyasha, piped out.

"Answers as to why you, a human of inferior birth, have become my most formidable opponent surpassing even Inuyasha." Sesshoumaru said in that same cold demeaning tone.

"Kagome?! More powerful than me?" Sesshoumaru's declaration had snapped Inuyasha right out of his stupor. "Are you retarded or something? She can't even shoot an arrow straight half the time."

"While you cannot wield a sword properly all the time." She really shouldn't be smirking, but Sesshoumaru's reply was just so perfect. Inuyasha was still sputtering!

"Oh, yeah?! I'll show you how to wield a sword!" With that, Inuyasha charged wildly at his brother.

'Oh, no. Not again. He's always starting fights. Now I'm going to have to delay my trip home even further because I'm going to have to stay and bandage Inuyasha up once he loses to Sesshoumaru, AGAIN. You would think that some common sense would permeate his thick skull, and he would stop starting fights. Grrr! I mean, hasn't he realized by now that whenever he initiates the fight, he loses?! Oh, well. I guess I'll just have to wait it out.' With an affirmative nod of her head, Kagome sat at the base of the tree that Sesshoumaru had earlier occupied while watching the brothers go at it again.

Swing for swing, Sesshoumaru continued to block Inuyasha's attacks. He wasn't even putting up a fight. The only emotion that a random person would imagine to be going through his mind right now was complete boredom though that was most certainly not the case. Sesshoumaru was going through a torrent of emotions right now, and all of them centered around the little miko sitting at the base of a tree. It had all started when she and his half-wit half-brother had started arguing. He had started thinking more intently about her. More intimately. 'She looks beautiful when she's angry. WAIT! Beautiful?! Where the fuck did that come from?! Oh, well. I already said it. I wondered what she would look like while screaming my name as I pound into her just before she.....HOLD IT! Where am I coming up with these things?! I am a demon lord for Kami's sake, not a mere ningen such as she. I have got to get laid.' This was his last thought before his breastplate was sliced in half as Inuyasha managed to get a swing at him in his distracted state of mind.

'What's that noise? Oh, it's just Inuyasha' tetsuiga destroying Sesshoumaru's armor. WAIT! Inuyasha actually hit Sesshoumaru?! Not that I doubt in his abilities or anything, but, come on, this is Sesshoumaru we're talking about!'

'I hit him? I actually hit him?!' "Hey, who's the better swordsman now, heh Sesshoumaru?!" In his triumph over actually landing an attack on his older brother, Inuyasha let his defenses down and failed to see that Sesshoumaru was no longer twenty feet ahead of him until their faces were mere inches apart.

Placing his hand around Inuyasha's throat, Sesshoumaru lifted him up until Inuyasha was at eye level. "Do not mistake sheer luck as an imaginative weakness in this Sesshoumaru. You were lucky, and it will never happen again. Besides, you are not my focus. The miko is." That said, Sesshoumaru tossed Inuyasha against the tree next to Kagome's rendering him unconscious. "Miko."

She should have been scared shitless, but she wasn't. Somehow she knew that Sesshoumaru wouldn't harm her until he got his "answers." So, her nonexistent fear was replaced by resentment. "I have a name! It' Kagome! KA-GO-ME! Use it!" As soon as the words left her mouth it occurred to Kagome that perhaps she shouldn't play with the fates because Sesshoumaru might decided that killing her was a better plan than getting answers from her. A sudden movement caught her eye, and, sure enough, there was the ice prince ready to kill her. 'I'm sure the only reason I'm still alive is because he's trying to decide which way would be more painful and agonizingly slow to kill me. Yep, sounds like Sesshoumaru. Wow, his eyes sparkle like honey when he's angry. HUH? Did I just think that? Eh, well, it's true. It must be some unwritten rule that all villains have to be drop dead gorgeous. Oh, I think he's talking to me.'

"Are you going to answer this Sesshoumaru, miko KA-GO-ME?"

"Huh, oh,...um...well, could you repeat that?" Kagome was positive that he was asking her how she wished to die, but, since it was highly unlikely that he would abide to her final wishes, she had no qualms of being a major pain in the ass in her final moments of life.

"I said, why on earth would you choose to live at the bottom of a dry well?" Sesshoumaru repeated, his voice dripping with more venom than curiosity.

"Um..." 'Think Kagome, you can't just tell him you're from the future and the well is the portal.' "...it's breezy in the summer?" 'Great, you are so dead. Don't laugh, don't laugh, don't....' She couldn't help it. The prospect of someone living at the bottom of a dry well was just too much. She burst out laughing.

"You dare to laugh at this Sesshoumaru?"

Clutching her sides in a futile attempt to stifle her giggles she replied, "Um,...no, it' just......why on earth would someone live in a well?"

"So, the well is merely a gateway to your home." Sesshoumaru stated more to himself than asking of her.

Kagome's laughter immediately subsided. 'He knows. What am I going to do? I can't put my family in danger.'

Sensing the girl's fear and unease made Sesshoumaru unexpectedly wish to offer her some form of comfort. "Rest assured miko, since you have not used this Sesshoumaru's place of residence against him, then he shall not do so of you unless you break our unspoken truce." 'Why did I comfort her? I should just kill her now. But then I would never find out what it would be like to have her withering under me as I....Aargh! Why do I keep thinking this way?!'

"Um,...Sesshoumaru? I might be more cooperative if you would tell me why you want to know about me."

"This Sesshoumaru is curious as to your origins due to the fact that it is always you the ends any fight that the half-breed and this Sesshoumaru are in. It is also you that has come the closest to fatally wounding the vile hanyou, Naraku. This both intrigues and angers this Sesshoumaru. Intriguing because a mere human possesses so much power. Angers because a mere human has achieved what this Sesshoumaru could not."

Kagome just gaped at Sesshoumaru because not only was that the most words she'd heard him speak in their entire acquaintance, but he also COMPLIMENTED her. The Great Lord Sesshoumaru, ice prince of Japan, who fears and respects no one, with the exception of his deceased father, complimented her, a mere ningen. Kagome was sure that she was dead, and it just hadn't registered with her mind yet.

"Shut your mouth else you will catch flies."

Nope, she wasn't dead. If his retort that reversed his compliment wasn't a clue, then the death glare he was sending her way for not following proper etiquette was. "Um,...thank you, I guess." The continuation of his glare showed that he was less than pleased with her reaction to the honor of the Great Lord Sesshoumaru bestowing a compliment upon her. Quickly she grasped for a way to change the subject and his anger. "So, what exactly is it that you want to know since we have a, um,...truce." 'A truce with Sesshoumaru? First, Inuyasha is nice to me, then Inuyasha actually hits Sesshoumaru, and now a truce with the ice prince? This day just keeps getting weirder.' Movement to the side disengaged her thoughts as Inuyasha began to return to the world of reality.

"We shall continue this conversation on the night of the new moon. You shall tell your friends that you are returning home in order to keep the shards safe since the half-breed will not be able to protect you. I shall meet you in this exact spot when the moon reaches its highest point. Should you neglect our meeting, the truce between us shall be terminated and this Sesshoumaru will have no choice but to end your life." Sesshoumaru told Kagome in complete seriousness.

'He would too. I guess I don't have a choice. Inuyasha can't help because he'll be human that night.' "I'll be here." Kagome stated after quickly arriving to her decision.

"Do not tell a soul of our engagement."

"Yes Lord Sesshoumaru." 'Did I just call him Lord?'

"Hn." 'Hmm, I like it when she calls me Lord. Her obedience is pleasing. Perhaps she is more worthy of this Sesshoumaru's attentions than previously thought.' With that, the demon lord disappeared to the West leaving Kagome alone with the irate hanyou that was slowly regaining consciousness.

"Where is he?! I'm gonna kill him!" Said hanyou glanced at Kagome and took in her pale form. "Kagome? Did he do something to you?"

"No, Inuyasha. After he knocked you unconscious he just left." She felt bad for lying, but the consequences would be far worse if she told him all they had spoken of.

"Left?"

"Yeah. He called you pathetic and said he had more important things to worry about, like Naraku." 'Yep, that sounds convincing enough.'

"Feh, sounds just like the bastard. Well, are you going to get me my ramen or what?!" The brazen hanyou screeched.

'Good ole Inuyasha.' "Yeah, I'll be back in a week!" After Kagome jumped down the well, Inuyasha made his way back to the village to take his frustration on a poor, unsuspecting kitsune.