Pre-Note: I'm fairly sure I'm late with realizing this, but this story won First Place Best Alternate Universe/Reality and First Place Best Lemon in the 2012 Semi-Annual Dokuga Awards. I don't remember seeing anything about those awards, but I was apparently nominated and won, so thanks!
On another note, yes, this is an update, and believe me, I'm probably more surprised about it that you guys are lol. At any rate, here it is, and I hope you enjoy!
Chapter Thirty-Nine—Premonitions
"Kagome-sama. Kagome-sama, Kotono-sama needs you." At first, Yun-Qi's voice hardly slipped beneath the fog of sleep that clouded Kagome's mind, but the longer he shook her, the more awake she felt, until his tone and his words registered, and she sat up, frowning at the softly lit planes of his face. "What...? Why, what happened?" Shaking his head, Yun-Qi took a moment to put down the candle he'd been holding and fold back the covers of her bed. "She is with Sesshomaru-sama, and she said that she needed you." He sounded apologetic, even though he had no right to be if he was doing as Kotono had asked, and Kagome pursed her lips, ignoring his tone in favor of pondering his words. What could Kotono need with her? They'd just seen each other before Kagome had retired to bed—the dragoness had been her usual teasing self all through dinner, telling Kagome stories of the youkai she'd just spent the day greeting, and Kagome couldn't think of anything that would have changed her mentor's mood since then. 'Unless...' Unless she'd had a vision. Sucking in a breath that was much tighter than Kagome would've admitted, the miko turned to her manservant and pinned him with a searching look. He kept his eyes averted, pretending to be busy smoothing the collar of the coat he'd maneuvered her into, but Kagome knew him well enough to see the faint way his brow pulled downward—he knew more than he was telling. "What did she See?" she asked, and Yun-Qi flushed, yellow eyes flicking to hers and then away again. "I do not know, Kagome-sama," he answered, keeping himself from having to look at her by bending to collect the candle. "She only asked that I get you." When he turned around again, his eyes were soft, pleading, and Kagome obligingly dropped the subject—antagonizing him was hardly going to get her any answers, after all, especially if he didn't actually know anything. Jiao-Long was waiting in the hall, and he gave her a friendly grin before leading her out of the building. Instinctively, Kagome pulled her aura tight around her body so as not to disturb the visiting youkai, and spent the walk to the main building wondering and worrying. Kotono wasn't one to wake her in the middle of the night—that was usually Lord Sesshomaru's mode of operation—and that the dragoness had sent for her, and was apparently in Lord Sesshomaru's company, spoke of something far more important than a bad dream or a mildly disturbing Sight. No, whatever Kotono had to tell her was something far more urgent, and probably had to do with the visiting youkai. She was taken deep into the main building, down two staircases and three long hallways. Having never been this far into the building, Kagome couldn't help but notice that the wood became warmer in color and the shoji screens were painted with family scenes and frolicking dogs. "This is the family wing, Kagome-sama," Yun-Qi said when they came to a massive shoji painted with the largest dog youkai Kagome had ever seen curled around his mate and pups. Even though he wasn't whispering, there was unmistakable reverence in Yun-Qi's tone, and Kagome couldn't help but feel the same awe when he continued, "It is a place so well protected that none who are uninvited can see the halls we've just gone through, much less walk them." Feeling, very suddenly, as though she were being given a luxurious gift, Kagome stepped forward at Jiao-Long's amused urging and touched the handle of the screen. A foreign aura crackled against her fingertips, old and knowing, and then it faded, and the screen was swept aside to reveal a relieved Rin. Surprised, Kagome didn't resist when the young woman tugged her into the room and threw her arms around her neck, whispering incoherently into her shoulder. Looking over Rin's head, Kagome caught sight of Inuyasha, Miroku, whom she'd only met once despite his having been on the grounds for weeks, Lord Naraku, Lady Kagura, Lord Sesshomaru, Mei, Isamu, Kotono, whose back was to her, Aoi, Lady Asoka and Lady Chiyoko, and stiffened. Something was wrong, and whatever it was, it was worse than she'd thought. "Rin, let the miko sit." The sound of Lord Sesshomaru's voice drew Kagome's gaze to him, and as Rin led her to a cushion beside him and across from Kotono, she realized that he was angry. 'No, not just angry,' she amended, sitting without taking her eyes from him, 'he's livid. But...why?' "Sesshomaru-sama—" "Kotono will explain," he interrupted, nothing but the tightening of the skin around his eyes giving away just how upset he was. Accepting his deflection as the indication of his mood that it was, Kagome turned to Kotono, who, now that Kagome could see her properly, looked as though she hadn't slept for days. She was staring at the table between them, long fingers laced on the surface and unbound hair cascading down her shoulders. Her skin looked a little paler than Kagome remembered it, and her knuckles whitened further in rhythmic pulses as she squeezed her fingers. That sight alone was enough to set Kagome's nerves on edge, but the longer Kotono went without speaking, the more Kagome realized that the dragoness was afraid. "Kotono..." She hadn't meant to say anything, but the sound of her name brought Kotono out of whatever daze she'd fallen into, and she looked up from the table so quickly that even her aura snapped. "K-Kagome," she breathed, almost as though she hadn't noticed that the miko was there. Her eyes were darker than Kagome had ever seen them, shadowed with a burden Kagome didn't think she would ever understand. "You're still here...?" Kagome frowned, but before she could ask what Kotono meant—was she supposed to be somewhere else?—the dragoness gave a full-body shudder and slumped all of a sudden and all at once. Her head fell onto her forearms with a rustle of cloth and hair, and she made a sound as though she were in pain, low and long. Kagome didn't realize that she was getting up until a hand on her wrist stopped her, and when she whipped around to look at Lord Sesshomaru, he shook his head. "The Sight has taken her again," he said, and Kagome swallowed. "Again?" His nod was short and tight, but it was Chiyoko who answered the question Kagome hadn't exactly asked. "This is the sixth time tonight," she said, her voice layered with what sounded suspiciously like hopelessness. "She called for us first, and then you, when she was lucid." "Is she..." Her throat tightened, and Kagome had to swallow and try again, unable to look away from Kotono's deathly still body. "Is she going to be alright?" "She'll be fine, Kagome-sama," Miroku said, and Kagome looked to see him sitting beside Inuyasha with a bead from his rosary caught between his fingers. He rolled it over and over again, but despite the anxious movement, his smile was easy and reassuring. "You'll see." Kagome shifted and nodded, and didn't take her eyes off of Kotono.
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The dragoness snapped back into herself with a gasp some long handful of minutes later, and before Sesshomaru could think stop her again, Kagome was around the table and firmly in Kotono's lap, face buried in the female's shoulder. Kotono made a noise in the back of her throat, and then closed her arms around Kagome's shoulders and breathed out a breath that shuddered. "You scared me," Kagome whispered, pulling back long enough to wipe her eyes and slide out of the dragoness' lap. "I apologize, little one," Kotono responded, and reached to push the miko's unbound hair behind her ear. "I didn't know that the Sight would take me so strongly, or else I would never have called for you." Kagome felt her brow gather. "You would've kept me in the dark, like you did about me being destined to be the twelfth?" Kotono immediately shook her head, and the anxiety that had been building in Kagome's belly melted and faded away. "No, no of course not, Kagome," the dragoness said, fingers closing around Kagome's own cold hands. "I told you that I would tell you everything, and I will. I am." She looked around the room. "And what I'm about to say cannot leave this room, is that understood? You must tell no one." Kagome frowned at the forbidding tone of the dragoness' voice, and when Kotono looked back at her, her eyes were far more serious than Kagome had ever seen them. Squeezing her fingers, Kotono took a deep breath. "There are two things that can happen before the Solstice," she began, "and which one comes to pass rests entirely on your ability to befriend an enemy." Kagome's heart skipped a beat. "Enemy? What enemy?" "A woman named Sango. Kawasaki Sango." Someone sucked in a breath, and Kagome turned just in time to see Rin's eyes widen, and Miroku's rosary hit the tatami with a dull thump. Sesshomaru's youki flared, and even though Kagome could feel his power like a caress against her skin, she was caught in the slowly dawning horror in Rin's eyes. "My lord," the young woman whispered, "my lord, she's the slayer I told you about, the one who was with Miroku when Aoi and I went there." Miroku shook his head. "I found her in the forest, beaten and naked—I couldn't leave her there, she would've died." His violet eyes locked onto Kotono's grave face. "You're certain it's her? She wasn't necessarily pleasant, but she wasn't hostile either." "I'm certain; the Sight doesn't lie." Kotono's voice was strange, almost strangled, and Kagome wondered what else the Sight had shown her. 'What isn't she telling us? And why?' She didn't get to ask; Chiyoko leaned forward, her golden eyes sharp. "And what of these two possible outcomes, Kotono? What are they?" For a moment, Kotono's jaw worked, as though she didn't want to respond, and then she sighed. "The first is that Kagome is taken, and the second…" Her fingers tightened. "The second is that Kagome dies."
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The room went from tense to explosive in less than three seconds, and with Inuyasha's mouth open in what would no doubt be an impressive tirade, Naraku decided that perhaps it was best to curb the problem before it began. Deftly, he snagged the emotions of everyone in the room and bent them to his will, and held on until Inuyasha had closed his mouth and the monk's shoulders had relaxed. "I think," he said calmly, "that it would be best to allow Kotono-ue to explain what she means before we go prematurely to arms, yes?" He slowly released his hold, and even though Lord Sesshomaru was eyeing him in a way that clearly spoke of his displeasure with being manipulated, he ignored it and nodded to Kotono. "Continue, please." The dragoness inclined her head, and then turned back to Kagome, whose face had gone a startling shade of white. "If you can befriend her," she said, "then she will take you out of the shiro before the Solstice. I cannot tell you where she will take you, only that she will, and that you will be saved after a time." "How long is 'a time'?" Inuyasha asked, gruff voice tighter than usual. "I don't know," Kotono responded. "It could be anywhere from a matter of hours to a handful of months." Kagome swallowed audibly, and, whether she noticed it or not, her aura reached gently for Lord Sesshomaru. So attuned to the emotions of others, Naraku felt the warmth of love between them, a spark so small that he doubted they knew it was there. The urge to pull at it, to raise it full to bursting in their hearts suddenly flared up in him, and he shoved it deep down into himself to examine it at a later time, when things weren't quite so pressing. "And the second outcome?" he asked, only for Lord Sesshomaru's aura to surge aggressively against his own. "The second outcome shall not come to pass," the inu lord growled, and despite the fairly even tone of his voice, Naraku could see how his fist clenched. Discreetly, so softly that not even a youkai of Sesshomaru's caliber would notice, Naraku leeched the ire from his aura. "Then you must befriend her, Higurashi, and quickly," Lady Chiyoko commanded, her fan swishing lazily through the air in a direct opposite of the way her youki swirled in agitation around her. "Your life depends on it." Kagome's face went, somehow, whiter, and while her manservant fetched her a cup of water and Kotono stroked soothingly at her hands, she shook her head and looked desperately around the room. "How am I supposed to do that? We leave for the Solstice in two days, how…?" Her voice was high and thin, and she sipped at her water with shaking hands. "How am I supposed to ignore that she's—that she's my enemy; that she wants to, to kill—" Her breath caught, and Naraku felt her anguish as though it were his own. Clenching a hand in his lap, the hanyou felt the part of him that admired the miko for her tenacity and warm personality rise up in her defense. "If you would allow it, my lady," he said, meeting her eyes boldly when she looked at him, "I can accompany you when you are with her. She will never feel anything but triumph and camaraderie in your presence." He flicked a glance to Sesshomaru, but the youkai wasn't looking at him. "And if it pleases my lord, I am fully capable of offering my services as spymaster of the South. The woman's every move will be known." The gratitude in Kagome's eyes was more than enough to risk the wrath of Lord Sesshomaru for offering to spend time with his concubine without his express permission, and Naraku reached into the frigid waves of her reiki and siphoned every ounce of tension away from her. 'She does not deserve these emotions,' he thought, taking her anguish and her apprehension and the deeply coiling terror of dying into himself until he felt them as though they had always been his. 'She does not deserve any of this.' And as the youkai around him concocted a plan to keep Kagome relatively safe, Naraku made up a plan of his own. 'That woman will not get away with this,' he vowed to himself, still feeling Kagome's negative emotions swirl in his soul. 'And before she dies, she will feel everything the miko has felt, a hundred times over.' Because no one, no one, threatened the well-being of his family, or his friends, or those under his protection. No one.
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Author's Note: Uh oh, somebody made Naraku mad. Now I get to play at making him scary as hell, which will most definitely be a lot of fun. Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope you all enjoyed this chapter!
~Aubrey
