Seconds to Immortality by kimbop

Chapter One

Seconds to Immortality

Disclaimer: Don't own so don't sue.

A/N: Thought I'll try a little angst.

White Walls. White tiled backsplash against a muted gray counter top.

"Room 345. It's on the third floor," an indistinguishable old woman read from a file placed within her wrinkled hands.

He moved swiftly through the hallways illuminated by harsh fluorescent lighting. Every second felt like a millennium. It shouldn't have but it did. Time for him had no meaning. Its movements failed to touch him physically while everything else around him wilted into death, back into mother earth, only to rise again into another form, a new body and a blank mind. Yet he was not part of this ecological cycle. He was superior to it. He stood still. He was stagnant. It would be his curse.

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"Ne Sesshoumaru?"

"Hn."

"How long do youkai live?"

"It depends."

"Why do you say that?"

"Youkai do not have normal existence."

"So are you saying that you are prehistoric?"

"..............."

"You're pretty fast for an old geezer!"

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He decided stairs would be the faster route rather than the elevator. From his estimation, it should take six seconds before he would reach his destination, his prize sprawled on a bed on the third floor. She was so far away and yet so close.

Six.

His surrounding blurred around him. He flowed like air, unforeseen to others but only to himself.

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"You know. I will always consider you my friend," she claimed, tears filling her eyes. Her large yellow book bag strapped on her back tilted her small frame toward the dilapidated and magical well in midst of a grassy clearing. "I don't know if I would see you again"

He merely stood dispassionately yards away, watching her watch him. It was time for her to go. He had known it from the moment he joined sides with her and her second-rate defenders. Yet after the battle with Naruku, she said her goodbyes each time she exited through the well. Previously, she could access the portal between her world and his, but this time would different. This time would be the last.

"Don't look so happy to see me go Sesshoumaru." Her accusation was light and cheery. She smiled, her face brightening like the sun. "I might just come back."

"Goodbye, .............Kagome."

She gasped in shock, her hands covering her mouth. "What did you say?" It was the first time he answered her goodbyes. It was the first time he called her by her name. Her eyes squinted, attempting to attain a clearer sight of him, hoping to dig through his bodily barrier and comprehend his mental thoughts.

He turned away from her silently and retreated back to his castle while ignoring her questions and demands. It was not his nature to explain or say beyond what was necessary. He neither liked nor disliked her, but he came to respect her. She deserved a farewell from him.

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The door to the stairway swung open, slamming against the wall as the hinges shook. Barely touching the steps beneath him, he started to glide swiftly to the next level.

Five.

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Relying on his bastard brother's information, he waited patiently for five hundred years to approach her again. And he waited some more until she ascended from the well for the final time.

Why the anxiety? Why the happiness? He questioned himself the first time he recognized her in her kindergarten outfit. She was carefree running around in the park under the watchful and loving gaze of an older man.

"Papa! Look at these flowers!" she gushed, her hands clutching wild flowers. Her hair was in disarray and smudges of dirt appeared on her cheek and dress.

He watched from a distant, a pang of longing urged him to make himself known to her then. But he waited until she grew up. He waited until her eyes would light up in recognition when she looked at him. A few more years meant nothing to him. Time meant nothing to him.

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He paused slightly before mounting the next level of stairs. The onslaught of images plagued his mind from the moment he entered the building. He whisked them aside. There was urgency for him to continue, to dwell with the present and not the past.

Four.

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She settled on a patch of grass near her shrine, her text books sprawled around her. Her face twisted in determination while she methodically perused the words written on the pages.

He stepped behind her and waited for her reaction. For him, it had taken an eternity to be at this time and at this place. For her, it had been only a year.

His tall form casted a shadow over her, blocking the sunlight. It was only momentary for her to notice the obstruction to her studies. She turned around and screamed.

He stood silently, his expressionless face watching her watching him. Her eyes widened with surprise, her mouth gapped open.

"Sess-sess-houmaru?" she stuttered. She launched herself toward his body forcing him to catch her in his arms. Never had he touched her like this, but she failed to recognize this fact. She laughed out loud as tears of joy ran down her face.

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He reached for the door. It would take not even a second to enter the third level. Blood pulsed inside his head. His heart beat accelerated.

Three

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She sat composed across from him on a leather seat, sipping her green tea in a delicate manner. The last few years had been good to her. Her long hair, no longer wild and wavy, was finally tamed to settle neatly down her back. Her body, elongated and filled out, reflected her maturity as an adult. Her sharp eyes glared at him, not in hate but with disapproval at his previous comment.

"It's been years Sesshoumaru. Stop insulting me like a child."

He scoffed at her familiar reprimand. "I do not insult. I am merely stating the truth."

She was poised and refined, but thankfully, she never lost her exuberance or righteousness. "At least, you stopped saying this Sesshoumaru this and this Sesshoumaru that."

His eyes narrowed. But she waved it off as if it was nothing.

"I'm graduating from the university in a week. So what present are you going to get for me?"

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The sign to her room pointed to his left, and he veered toward the direction.

Two

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"I love you."

She confessed her feelings in the summer rain. Her linen business suit was soaked and clung to her skin, generously revealing her lithe body. Her short elegant hairstyle hung like limp strands and plastered itself to her face. He watched her soulful eyes pleading for him to express his feelings for her.

He cared about her. Their years of friendship blossomed into something that reached his cold and warded heart. But he was a youkai. He does not love because he does not understand it.

"I can not return what you ask," he simply answered, his voice steady and strong without a hint of remorse.

Her eyes watered and the tears, intermingled with the rain, ran down her face. With a false wavering smile, she breathed in the damp air.

"I see." She nodded and her body shook. Her body quivered and shrank into itself, attempting to shield the physical pangs of rejection. She turned slowly and unhurriedly walked away.

He watched her form disappear into the distance. It may have been a moment of regret, but he did not see it as so. He cared about her – that, he would acknowledge. It was for the best. He was youkai, and she was human.

*********************************

The hallway blurred around him. People wandering the corridors failed to notice the inhuman being but felt the cold rush of air pass by them.

One

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Since the fateful summer night, he never approached her again. The seasons past, and the passage of time continued. He waited patiently outside the continuum. Time had no meaning to him.

He saw her again by accident this time in the same park. No longer was she a diminutive little girl with apple blossom cheeks and enthusiastic smiles. She appeared much older, dressed in a simple blouse and knee length skirt and her hair pulled back into a conservative bun. She sat peacefully on a bench, her hands laid neatly on her lap. She gazed serenely at a child who played with a toy truck nearby.

Her shoulders lifted in alertness, and she turned her head toward his directions. She watched him through his human façade as he watched her.

She appeared to have resumed a normal human life. She lifted her left hand and waved at him. The gold placed on her finger glistened in the sunlight.

She stood and rushed to the little boy with the truck. She soothed his protests with soft whispers and proceeded to come toward him with the boy's hand in hers.

"Ne Sesshoumaru. It's been a long time," she said happily. "How are you?"

He remained quiet. He was merely content in watching her. Wrinkles started to emerge from the ends of her smiling mouth and lively eyes. He became disgusted. Not at her. Never at her. But at her mortality.

"Quiet as always," she quipped, unaffected by his silence. She pushed the timid little boy toward him. "This is my son Shippou." She nudged her child. "Shippou, say hi to my friend Sesshoumaru."

He glanced down at the small human boy and briefly felt an unexplainable longing. Unreasonable thoughts drifted into his head. What if the child was a hanyou and a part of himself and her? This possibility pleased him, but he mentally shook the fantastical notion out of his head.

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He decelerated as he came near the room. A human family sat close to the entrance, huddled together in order to console each other. An old man seemed to be conducting a prayer, clutching on some symbolic rosary while a middle aged man stood close, grief stricken evident by the lines pressed firmly on his forehead. Other people closed in the little group with several children varying in age nestled within the group's embrace. The air around them was saturated with salt and a sense of incredible sadness. He cared not of human behavior usually, but for the first time in his long and tiring life, a new sensation rose inside of him. It was called sympathy.

He stepped silently toward them and waited for recognition.

It was the middle aged man who noticed him. "Who are you?"

"I have come to see her."

The human frowned believing that he intruded their private moment. Then angered, the human shook his head violently. "No. I don't know you."

He did not require this human's permission. He approached the doorway daring anyone to object. His youki flared a warning that even humans would understand.

Before the human responded in any manner, the old man silenced the younger human with a dignified glare, a look very reminiscent of Kagome, and signaled the newcomer to enter the guarded chamber. "She was expecting you."

The door closed behind him with a soft click.

An old woman, weathered in life and sickness, lay enclosed within the dark sterile environment. The only source of light rested near the metal contraption that the modern era labeled as a bed. It illuminated her - the artificial rays reflected off her thin silver strands and blanched her pale sickly skin. Deep wrinkles implanted itself across her face, the skin sunken down to the bone. She appeared dead. She appeared ethereal.

"Hello Sesshoumaru," she whispered faintly.

"Hello Kagome," he replied.

He positioned himself next to her elevated prone position, content to watch her as her shallow breathing caused the plastic tubes surrounding and injecting her body to flinch slightly. The room was eerily silent except for the rhythmic beeping of a machine in tempo to the rise and fall of her delicate and emaciated chest under a paper thin nightgown. The scent of engineered medicines and the wilting of flesh wafted under his nose.

Her clouded aged eyes followed his agile and hushed movements.

"When did you find out?"

"Just today."

The sense of camaraderie and comfort never dissipated even after the fifty year hiatus.

Her lips quirked up into a slight smile. "And here you are. You're still pretty fast for an old geezer." Her eyes sparkled in jovial amusement for a moment before it again faded behind the haze of age, indicative of deteriorating conditions.

His youthful and beautiful features remained impassive. However, his heart strained and thumped madly against its icy barrier, causing the blockade to form a slight crack. "How do you feel?"

She sighed, expelling out the pain of sustaining life in such a feeble body. "I'm tired."

He nodded.

She was at the cusp of death's doors. Her existence within the continuum would finally end, but unlike him, her existence in time equated to her mortality. Time meant nothing to him except it served as a hindrance. She was a key player in this contrived system. He was only a spectator. Although by human standards, she lived a full life. But by his, she existed for only a second. He was youkai. She was human. The two races were never meant to interact.

A companionable silence ensued. Her energy no longer bountiful to fill the stillness with inane chatter, it was up to him to act her role. "I would miss you." His tone was strong and commanding without a hint of emotion lacing the syllables spilling forth from his lips.

Although his feelings were translated into spoken words, it didn't matter. Between them, verbal communication was not necessary. There relationship transcended menial exchanges of affection, but he had said it. He had done it. Only for her.

She gazed at him with understanding. She was the only one to see through his impenetrable veneer. Yet she was so unlike him. She wore her heart on her sleeve and expressed herself openly. "You know that I never stopped loving you."

Her soft declaration caused the crack to deepen and his heartbeat to resound through the crevice. Time meant nothing to him, but it was a hindrance to him. He recognized it to be a painful encumbrance. Even he would be affected by it.

In honor of their relationship, he had accepted her mortality after struggling with it for the past fifty years. He had finally come to accept her humanity. He had finally come to accept her belief that the essence of youkai and human were indeed similar.

In a gesture that was foreign to him, he reached out to place her fragile skeletal hand within his own. Her blood pulsed through the dry cracked skin with an ebbing pace against his supple firm skin. Gingerly, he lifted her hand toward his lips. And as he conveyed the depths of his soul and his heart through his golden eyes, he whispered his surrender to her, releasing all of his prior convictions. "And I you."

As is her nature, she understood him and the underlying messages hidden beneath his actions. Her hand gripped his. She watched him through her soulful eyes.

In a hushed whisper that gently breezed through the air and attacked with such potency, she breathed out her final memorable words to him.

"It took you long enough." She gasped for breath, unable to speak a few words without physical strain. "It's okay. I'll wait for you." Her lids sagged, her tiredness beginning to consume her. "It's my turn now."

She closed her eyes, the lashes resting gently against her cheeks. With a smile plastered on her wrinkled features, she appeared to be sleeping peacefully. Her chest rose up and down in rhythm to the corresponding beeping of the machine, once again filling the silent room.

She failed to see the ends of his lips lift into his first genuine smile, but it mattered not. Such physical acts had no meaning between them. Now time would have no meaning between them. She would no longer be bound by the trivialities of mortality. She would be free from it.

As quietly as he entered the room, he exited in the same fashion, unnoticed by his surroundings.

She was human and he was youkai. Her life over in a second; his continuing for a millennium. They were never meant to interact, but by fate or destiny, they came together defying all odds. Her humanity demanded that she live life quickly and passionately, and his youkai sensibilities dictated a slower approach and a sedate pace. He would not have her within his world for the moment, but time had no meaning for him. He would continue as he had been until it was his turn to meet her again...... when they would both be the same. No longer human or youkai. But immortal in death.

Leaving the hospital, he tilted his face toward the sky. Birds flew across the horizon, fluttering across the landscape and escaping the boundaries of gravity. Her spirit will be released soon, and it will rise from the earth.

"Good bye my Kagome. Until we meet again."

END!!!

A/N:

I would like to thank Stacy Stwarts for her kind email. Although, I don't respond to reviews that often because it makes the chapter deceptively long, I truly acknowledge them and honor them. Thank you all for taking time out of your schedule to express your opinions.