She looked like a fat bloody rag doll, but sure enough Kagome was running through the dense forest trying to get as far away the western lands as she could. Kagome was still clueless to everything she was doing. The safest place for her to go was home. Naraku wasn't there and couldn't steal away her child, but yet her family would want to know where the child came from. Sesshoumaru's castle was no longer safe and she wouldn't be able to explain her situation to Sesshoumaru, not that he would listen. She was running out of options and energy. She needed to rest.

Kagome leaned up against a huge rock. She was panting and had nothing to drink. She used her hand to rub her stomach which had gotten fatter since yesterday. It seemed as though it was going to be shorter then a month. Probably because the jewel shard was absorbing so many damn mixed up emotions from her.

"I am sorry little one," she told her stomach, "I have nothing to feed you nor do I know what to do with you. I can't take you home and even if I could explain this to my parents I can't imagine sending a hanyou to school. I can't imagine doing anything...I might kill you thanks to this curse. And if I give you to your father then Naraku will attack. I wish that jewel shard could easily come out of you."

"A jewel shard you say," growled a deep husky voice.

Kagome turned around and quickly screamed. Behind her was a lizard type looking youkai. It started to flick its tongue in all directions. It touched her a few times and her body ended up stiffing. It was trying to see whether or not she had a jewel shard.

"Leave me!" Kagome shouted once she gathered her courage.

"I don't think so," hissed the lizard, "I must have that jewel shard."

Kagome's yell didn't work and there was nothing she could do. She was asleep when Sesshoumaru first took her so of course she didn't have any of her weapons with her. And she couldn't just create miko energy out of thin air without channeling it through something. It let out another hiss as it flung it's tongue at her once more. This time it wrapped all the way around her. She could hear a chuckle as he brought her up towards his face.

"I am sure you taste as good as you scream."

Kagome closed her eyes. She never thought her journey would end like this. She always thought if she was going to die it would be in a fight with Naraku or of old age in her own world. She never thought she would be eaten alive by a weakling lizard youkai while being pregnant with the son of Sesshoumaru.

"Well too bad you will never be able to find out!" Kagome heard a voice yell.

Once she opened her eyes she found herself falling to the ground wrapped in a tongue that was now detached from the monster. While she was on the ground Kagome looked up to see who was the one that cut off the tongue. The sun's glare was in her eyes, but she seen someone with silver hair. Her first thought right away was that Sesshoumaru had finally caught up to her, but she was proven wrong when she seen whoever her hero was wield a giant demon sword to kill the lizard youkai. It was the last person she would expect at this moment to save her. It was Inuyasha. He turned his golden gaze to her once he sheathed his sword.

"Kagome what happened?" he asked right a way, "that kimono...it is all bloody, but your arm isn't broken anymore."

"Its a long story Inuyasha," Kagome replied as she uncoiled the tongue and freed herself. She wanted to tell him all about her injuries but she was afraid Naraku would attack even if she told Inuyasha instead of Sesshoumaru.

"Well then start telling it," demanded Inuyasha, "is that baby in your stomach really Sesshoumaru's?"

"Yes Inuyasha it is...I am sorry but its his son. Please don't get mad at me."

"Why would I be mad at you? None of this is your fault."

"I thought you were mad. You never came for me."

"What do you think I am doing all the way out here? Kagome I haven't stopped running for a second since Sesshoumaru took you from me. I just think someone rigged my trail her because everywhere I went there was a delay. Why would you think I wouldn't come for you?"

"Because..." She was going to kill Kouga. Kouga had been just trying to trick her into hating Inuyasha. How could she hate Inuyasha? Why in the hell did she expect Sesshoumaru to save her before Inuyasha?

"Because what?"

"Sorry. I didn't think you could get delayed." She wanted to wait til the mangy wolf was around before revealing Kouga's trickery to Inuyasha. It would be much more enjoyable then.

"Come on Kagome lets get you out of her," Inuyasha announced, "you need some clothes. Speaking of which why are you wearing that thing. That kind of material doesn't just grow on trees and it has my family crest on it."

"Like I said it is a long story, but can we get me out of this clothes like you promised first. Then I will explain."

"Well first before we move anymore out of the area tell me now if it was Sesshoumaru that had anything to do with whatever caused those blood stains. I want to kill him."

"No it wasn't him. It was Sesshoumaru who used the Tensagia to heal the injuries and in doing so he repaired my arm. I owe him more then anything."

"Feh, you don't owe him shit he kidnapped you. I don't care if it his child or not you belong with me, Miroku, Sango, and that whiney animal of yours who are all waiting for us."

Inuyasha handed her the big yellow backpack she was always carrying around and told her where the nearest hot spring was. She nodded and left him. Now she knew what she was going to do. She would return to Kaede's village and be with her friends. Her friends that would help her fight Naraku when he came to take her child, and if Sesshoumaru attacked her plan would be to simply just hand his son over. She would always be worried to be around her son in case of that curse. How could ever have doubted Inuyasha?

Inuyasha breathed a sigh of relief when Kagome left to clean up. Normally he would have demanded the answers out of her right then and there, but he needed to have an excuse to send her away. He could smell death in the air. Kikyo was going to come. This would be the day that he told Kikyo he would rather be with Kagome. He didn't want Kagome to witness the converstation though.

---------------

It was nightfall. If Sesshoumaru wanted too he would have been able to find her within a mere half an hour and bring her back, but he was purposely going slow. Hopefully she would get attacked by some kind of youkai. He planned to save her before anything could happen that would cause anything to happen to his son, but Kagome needed to be punished. She was crazy if she actually thought she could survive the Western Lands in the condition she was in.

He was loosing track of her scent so he took a big whiff of the air to try and find her. He could smell her scent, but something was wrong. It was the same scent as he had smelled the day he found her in the garden after speaking with Kouga. She was crying. Had he been too late and already she was attacked and injured by a youkai? What if she lost the baby? He needed to find out. In the blink of an eye he used his youkai speed to run to where he could smell Kagome's tears.

He found her and she looked better then she did when he had last seen her. She was once again wearing that strange outfit of hers that revealed too much of her legs. The outfit was very tight on her though considering she had gotten fatter. Once he brought her back he would quickly remove that. The conferences were still going on and he wouldn't have anyone see his 'so-called mate' wearing something like that. He wanted to come up closer and say she deserved getting attacked, but when he sniffed her one more time he could only smell a few things. Just a trace of lizard youkai, his hanyou brother, death, and blood. All Sesshoumaru could do was plainly walk in front of her and look at her.

"He..." she cried, "he attacked me."

Sesshoumaru even in the dark could see where blood was leaking out just a little from her throat. It wasn't that deep at all, but it was close to almost killing her.

"Who did it," Sesshoumaru demanded in a harsh tone.

He assumed it was the lizard youkai he could smell on her.

"Inuyasha," she answered.

That was one answer he had never been expecting. He always thought that this was his woman and that the wolf made up the story about him not coming for her, but he had attacked her. He could tell from the thick smell of death that Kikyo was involved. Normally he would have just grabbed the girl and taken her back, but this made him curious.

"Why?"

"He rescued me from a demon and then told me to take a bath and get dressed," she said sadly, "when I came back he was talking with Kikyo. I seen Kikyo with her arrow aimed at him so I took out my own bow and arrow from my bag and fired at her. I missed, but Inuyasha quickly charged at me and made that cut thinking I was a threat. He tried to apologize, but I left. I knew if he was so quick to save Kikyo they must have made up. They also left together."

As much as Sesshoumaru hated humans he couldn't help but feel pity for her. From what he had seen she loved the hanyou so much, but always managed to hurt her. And this time it was physically. There was nothing anyone could do though, Sesshoumaru knew what Kagome meant when she said 'left together'. It was though he could read her mind and tell that Inuyasha finally went to hell with Kikyo. He took in Kagome's appearance one more time. Once again she couldn't escape with just one injury. The palm of her hand looked bloody.

"What became of your hand."

"I had two jewel shards and once I touched them they went into my body. Now it will be quicker for the birth to happen, but I think it will still only be one jewel shard that will stay in our son."

"So now your saying our son?"

"There is something we need to talk about Sesshoumaru."

"I will allow you when we return to the castle. It looks like you have already been punished enough for leaving."

"Do I still have to be your mate?"

"Yes, that is the only thing that keeps me from locking you in the dungeon."

She then heard a light chuckle from him.

"What’s so funny?"

"Nothing. I was just thinking that you have got to be the only one who has ever said 'Do I still have to be your mate?'."

"Well what if a youkai doesn't want to be a mate anymore. Can't they just ask that and leave."

Kagome was already up and following Sesshoumaru. It seemed as though they were going to be walking normal pace so it was best they had a converstation going.

"Youkai aren't like humans it is kind of sad though I will admit, but woman youkai have no say in anything. Once they are bitten they forever belong to the male. Even if the male has bitten another’s."

"Wow your a male youkai and you actually feel sorry for the females because of this?"

"My mother was one of those females. Once my father bit Inuyasha's human mother mine kept trying to leave, but my father wouldn't let her. And it wasn't because my father loved her, he just didn't want to loose something that was his. Eventually she made a deal with Ryoketsei and it resulted in my father and her getting killed."

"I am sorry," said Kagome.

She never thought of Inuyasha's father to be like that. He always thought of him being like a normal human going through divorce that just ended up finding someone else, but then it all made sense. Like Inuyasha, Inutasha had a weakness for humans, but like Sesshoumaru Inutasha could never let go of something that was his because of pride. She could see who inherited what.

"I told you something," noted Sesshoumaru, "now you must tell me about future if that is where you really come from."

"Well here right now I believe the capital for humans is Kyoto, but in my time thanks to a revolution of some sort it becomes Tokyo, but when I mentioned my home town no one knew what I was talking about. So it must not even exist."

"I have only been to Kyoto once. And that was to try and find out the location of the Tetsusagia."

Kagome understood what was going on. They were going to play a answer game. When she told him something about her he would tell her something about him. Sesshoumaru couldn't have been all that bad. He was just trying to get her mind off of Inuyasha.

"Instead of cooking our food over fire we stick them in a box called a microwave. Then we tell it how long we want it to cook and then after whatever amount of minutes we told it we just open it and our food is cooked."

"A box that obeys your every command? I don't even allow servants to prepare my food. I have always liked to cook it myself. I didn't even eat anything that night of the first conference here."

"At school they have food you can buy, but it is never wise to eat it. It always taste horrible so I bring lunch that my mom packs for me. By the way I heard from Rin that you don't eat human food. The meals I have seen you eat look edible to me."

"When I eat cooked food I prefer not to eat it if it was human prepared, but when it comes to other things that humans eat if they cook it like some fish Rin tried to give me I usually eat it raw."

"Oh I see. Speaking of food you don't mind if I eat some do you?" asked Kagome as she removed the backpack from her shoulder and started to dig through it.

"I don't care."

Kagome finally located a chocolate bar. All the ramen noodles were gone, probably thanks to Inuyasha. All that she had left were her school books, clothes, candy bars, and some cheetos.

"Since you are so curious about the future Sesshoumaru then try one of these chocolate bars."

"You have told me that there are no youkai in the future so I know that it is human made."

"Actually its not. It isn't cooked and it was made by machines."

"Machines?"

"There kind of like monsters that are all made of metal."

"Fine throw me one."

Kagome smiled as she took out a second chocolate bar and threw it towards Sesshoumaru. Kind of like Inuyasha had done once he grabbed it without even turning around. He mimicked what Kagome had done and removed the strange cover from the square shaped food. It was pure brown as though it had been overcooked, but it did not feel warm and he believed her. Swallowing up all of his pride he bit into the strange bar. It was the best thing he ever tasted. It was so sweet and it was kind of milky.

"So what do you think?" asked Kagome.

"Its not bad," replied Sesshoumaru trying to hide his new love which was the candy bar, "it appears these machine beat know how to prepare food."

"Not as good as some of us humans though," said Kagome with a lot more cheer in her voice, "I wish you could try my ramen noodles, but your half brother ate them all."

"I would rather stick with this bar thing. When will these machine things start to appear?"

"Well there ancestors are already here. Soon one day nobody will see the need for swords anymore and they will all be melted down and become machines."

"I am a strong warrior, but I still feel insecure without a sword. Thats why I went through hell to get the Tokijin and I am still fighting for the Tetsusagia."

Kagome couldn't believe it. Sesshoumaru had just revealed that he felt weak without a sword. That was more then she ever expected to get out of him. It was like working with Inuyasha all over again.

"Well unfortunately most of the swords were used to become another weapon. We have guns that shoot out pieces of metal at a very high speed which makes it so its not hard to pierce right through the body of somebody and kill them."

"So it seems humans have become the strongest species. How exactly do you get to your time again? You mentioned a well."

Now Kagome really didn't want to talk to Sesshoumaru. He was trying to find a way into her world. He probably didn't like the fact that there were no youkai at all in her world. She wasn't afraid of her world as much as she was worried about him. She didn't know how strong a youkai body could really be, but if she could hurt many of them with an arrow it wouldn't take many bullets to kill him.

"Through the bone eater's well on the outside of Inuyasha's forest, but only I can pass through to my time and once I am in my time the only way to get back to this era is if I have a jewel shard."

"I can tell your lying. Inuyasha is able to go through the well after you. I have heard many rumors before killing injured soldiers."

"Well yeah Inuyasha can, but I am telling the truth when I say no one else can. Shippou couldn't and either could my human brother Souta."

"Of course Inuyasha is able to travel through. That well is called the bone eater's well because the bones of many youkai are thrown in there and dogs like bones. Both Inuyasha and me have dog youkai blood."

Was that really the answer? Kagome never thought of that being a possibility. The animal form a youkai took determined what they could do or not.

"Don't worry though I have no interest going into your time," Sesshoumaru quickly announced, "there are already to many humans in this time that I need to destroy. Now before I forget what was it that Naraku wanted from you?"

"You know that thing I wanted to discuss with you? It can't wait til we arrive at the castle."

"Fine then tell your story."

"Well you see the real reason why I easily gave my baby up to you was because I thought that part of the curse was that when I was the happiest the baby would die. Naraku knew that I wouldn't take my own child so he tried to convince me to give our son to him so he could have the jewel shard. I was so confused so I left."

"So this is one of those curses that kills your child once you have your happiest moment? Now I understand."

"But Thats what I wanted to talk to you about. After getting attacked by Inuyasha I learned that its not true. Kikyo just said that to scare me."

"I understand where you are getting at. And its my son."

"I am the mother. I have the right to be with my son."

"We have already decided on this before, I don't care whether you have known about this fake curse or not."

"Thats not fair though!"

"And tell me Kagome what are you going to do about it? I don't think Inuyasha can help you out anymore."

What could she do? She did have her bow and arrow now, but Sesshoumaru could quickly stop her before she even withdrew it. She ran thoughts through her mind as quick as she could.

"In order to have a child you need to have a mate," said Kagome confidently, "too bad everyone from the eastern lands thinks you have a mate. Maybe I should brake the news to them."

Sesshoumaru let out his usual warning growl.

"Maybe a few nights in the prison will do you some good," he hissed, "seems you haven't been punished enough."

"You have no right to punish me. Its my son and if I have to I will reveal your secret."

"I will not easily give him up. I will just explain this situation to the others and they will understand even though it is farfetched."

"Listen Sesshoumaru I can make this easy. I have noticed you leave home a lot and your plan was too probably have some servant take care of the baby. Well there are many humans who have children, but are not mates and usually when the parent who the child lives with isn't around the other parent takes care of it."

"Tell me more."

"Well I can always stay in Kaede's village outside of Inuyasha's forest and if you are going to leave for awhile I could always take care of our son. I could even take care of Rin too."

"Aren't you going back to your world?"

"There’s no point now. Please Sesshoumaru I want to be in my son's life."

"Fine. We will try this child share thing and see how it works out, but if my son ever becomes in danger we will end it. I am pretty sure Naraku will chose to attack him while you are in charge."

"I am not sure. I almost killed Naraku with my sacred arrow once. Ever since then he has been trying to be careful when it comes too attacking me. Thats why he went through so much trouble just to attack me before at your castle."

"Fine I will take your word for it. I might as well give him to you for a few days to hunt down Naraku some day."

"Hold on...I was only doing stuff for you because you were so afraid of Koji who Naraku killed without any trouble at all. I don't think you will stand a chance."

"Then I will train."

"And when your not training and raising our son I myself will. Kikyo and Inuyasha wasted everything by dying together, only I can avenge the deaths of those lost thanks to Naraku."

"Fine then it's decided. I will write up another contract for you."

"Um I know I am going to sound like someone who calls in a lot of favors, but do you think you could still do something about Kouga?"

"Do you have anymore of those brown bar things?"

"There called candy bars and yeah I do."

"I will make the wolf go away."

"Well then here you go," said Kagome as she through another candy bar towards him.

It was nice to know that chocolate could really change a person's mind.

"How is it that you and Inuyasha are always in that village, but all the other times I run into you all it could be a few towns away. I didn't know humans could move that fast."

"Sango, Shippou, and Miroku ride on Sango's demon cat Kirara while Inuyasha carries me."

"Well were going to need to go faster."

"I am walking as fast as I can."

"I mean I am going to carry you. I need to get back before Rose destroys everything."

"Just hold on. I need to do something with this bag. I don't want to take the whole thing with me."

Sesshoumaru nodded as she stopped and went through it. She was sure Sesshoumaru would supply her with clothes again since she was still pretending to be his mate. So she didn't remove them. Of course she took all the candy bars. They could come in good use for later. There was a photo of her family which she would need so incase she wasn't going home anytime soon she could at least remember what they looked like. There was also Souta's Game boy SP that was she was going to let Shippou play with. Usually she didn't like video games, but it got so boring around Sesshoumaru's castle. She stuck all of her items in her pocket and walked to Sesshoumaru.

"Are you ready?" asked Sesshoumaru.

"Yes," answered Kagome.

Without warning Sesshoumaru picked her up and had her in his arms as though she was a small child. She held onto his sleeve so she wouldn't fall when he took off, but then she felt something. This feeling was familiar. She could see a pink light. It was the same as when Sesshoumaru touched her before the curse was in effect. Kagome looked at her stomach. She was fatter then she was a few hours ago. It had to be her two jewel shards that were sucked into her body.

"Sesshoumaru stop!" Kagome shouted.

Sesshoumaru did and looked at her with a puzzled look.

"Sesshoumaru its happening...our son is coming."