Priceless (an InuYasha FanFic)

Final Explinations and Looking Forward

Inuyasha was waiting at the mansion when Sesshomaru and Kagome arrived. Apparently, he had been trying to get hold of Kikyo for the past several months and just now decided to ask his parents about her. In a truly unfortunate turn of events, Sesshomaru and Kagome arrived just in time for him to fly into a despirate, demonic, rage. Screaming, growling, and out for the blood of the one who killed his woman.

Right there in the front yard.

5 feet away from where a now terrified Rin had been playing in the grass.

Immediately Kagome scrambled off of Sesshomaru's back and ran to place herself between the cowering 8-year-old and the raging, red-eyed, hanyo. Sesshomaru on the other hand was royally pissed off that his idiot of a brother would lose his cool like that around a child, especially his child. 

Without bothering to transform back, Sesshomaru pinned the half demon to the ground under one massive paw and proceeded to snarl a deadly warning in the hanyo's face.

Just then the air turned electric, crackling with furious energy. Suddenly, both demons stopped cold, shocked by the now chilly air. They both looked at Kagome simultaneously, somehow instinctively knowing that the Miko was angry and should not be ignored.

To anyone but Sesshomaru, the sight of his mate just then would have been bone-chillingly terrifying. She knelt on the ground with the little girl's face pressed into her chest, covering the child's ears, but that wasn't the scary part. Her face held an expression of deadly calm, but her eyes glowed with holy fury. She slowly raised one hand towards the two demons and tendrils of purple-pink light seeped from her fingertips, slithering towards the men. Sesshomaru wisely stepped away from the target of her wrath and transformed. He knew her power could not hurt him, but the pure concentration of holy power coming off of her still set his fur on end...

The hanyo quickly reigned in his inner beast and scrambled away from his approaching doom.

"Calm the fuck down Inuyasha. You don't EVER bring your beast to the surface in front of MY child." She growled softly, her voice sounding as though there were 20 of her speaking at once. "Give me one good reason not to kill you."

"Because we're family?" he answered shakily.

"Not good enough."

She would have killed him, had her Mate not placed his hand on her shoulder and whispered in her ear "He just learned of Kikyo's demise. Imagine your reaction if you learned I was dead."

She paused...

"This is your only warning pup. Frighten or hurt my child again and I will kill you."

Inuyasha nodded slowly, warily standing and inching towards the front door. Meanwhile Kagome took deep breaths and attempted to calm her enraged Reiki.

After everyone had calmed down, and Rin was contentedly working her way through a plate of fresh cookies with a glass of milk in the kitchen, everyone else sat in the living room to figure out the whole situation.

When Sesshomaru and Kagome finally got through their retelling of events up until now, Inuyasha looked entirely shell shocked.

"... So you're telling me that Kikyo was a clone of an ancient priestess?"

"Yes." Replied Kagome.

"And you are the reincarnation of the same priestess?"

"Yes."

"Which explains your spooky, death, light, tentacles?"

"Reiki. Yes."

"And she was working with a creepy, demon absorbing, spider?"

"Yes"

"To kill you and steal your soul?"

"...Yes"

"My girlfriend was a soulless clone-zombie person?"

"... yes..."

"That's..."

"Wierd. I know. I had a hard time wrapping my mind around it too." Kagome said, still pissed at him for scaring Rin, but sympathetic to the fact that he had really liked the soulless Zombie-Bitch.

"I am sorry for your loss brother." Sesshomaru intoned. 

"Yeah, well, none of my friends ever really liked her much anyway. Said she gave 'em the creeps. Guess now I know why..."

Kagome sighed, then gently put a hand on the kid's shoulder, her nurturing tendencies coming back to the surface. "There is a girl out there for you." She said gently. "One with an actual soul, and a heart that will only love you. For now, though, focus on growing up a little more, and hone those superhuman senses so you can avoid crazy bitches."

Inuyasha shrugged off her hand. "Shaddup! I'm older than you are!"

Kagome smirked, "You're also half-demon and mature more slowly. You need to wait about 150 more years before you'll actually be ready for a real woman."

He growled under his breath in annoyance. "Since when are you an expert on Demon child development?"

"Since your brother is such a great teacher." She retorted.

He stuck his tongue out at her petulantly.

She stuck hers back out at him, and pretty quickly the fight devolved into childish insults and blowing raspberries at each other, and Kagome telling him to sit, like a dog, any time he looked like he might get physical. 

At any rate, Kagome, Sesshomaru, and Rin did all head home eventually, and left Inuyasha to mourn by himself for a while.

The drive home was quiet. The silence laced with a melancholic feeling of regret on behalf of Inuyasha. Kagome admitted to herself that, while they had both been absolutely abusive assholes to her in high school, it did suck pretty bad that circumstances were the way they were. And Kagome really did hope there was a good girl out there for Inuyasha somewhere. Preferably one who had a soul and an actual conscience.

On a more positive note; Kagome was excited to get back to her life with Sesshomaru and Rin. She couldn't wait to be back in the apartment which had slowly become her home. And she had plans to seek out an active shrine near their home where she could pursue a traditional training. After all, now that she was officially a TaiYoukai's mate, she had all the time in the world to explore and figure out her true purpose.

Kagome felt a surge of confidence that she had never felt before, as she thought of all the possibilities layed out before her. She had a life and people in her life that were worth living for. And she had a new sense of self worth that her beloved had helped her find. She knew there would be hard days ahead of her, but she finally felt like she had the strength to face whatever the world had in store. She was powerful, and she was bonded to a powerful man, and she had a strong, beautiful daughter.

Kagome fell asleep in the passenger seat of Sesshomaru's car with a smile on her lips, and her hand held securely in her lover's grasp. She wasn't alone anymore.

FIN

A. N. I gave it a lot of thought, and I think that this is where I want to end this story for now. The main conflict has been resolved, and I always knew that the end goal of the story was for these two to be fully mated. I might come back later with some epilogue chapters, but for now I'm happy with where it is. I'm sorry if it's not all that you hoped for, but I hope that this was as enjoyable a story for you to read as it was for me to write. This isn't the end for our couple, but for now, it is the end of this story. Thank you all so much for sticking with me through this whole messy beautiful story.