Juxtapose

In the days following their departure, Jaken learned quickly to not offend or upset his master's hanyou tag-along. It was Rin all over again, but this time, the annoyance had a sharp tongue. The sky was their home as Sesshoumaru insisted without words that she put eyes on all he owned. She was appropriately amazed.

"Even the borders of the General's territory were not so far-reaching," she breathed.

Jaken smacked the back of her head with the nintoujou. She yipped.

"How dare you speak of your master's honorable sire so casually!"

Sesshoumaru's response was immediate, his irritation flaring in the imp's head like a blazing migraine a moment before the daiyoukai sent him tumbling out of A-Un's saddle. Kintsuke blinked down after the falling Jaken, then looked at Sesshoumaru.

"Will he survive?"

Sesshoumaru seemed to shrug.

Then, as they walked the old border of recently united territories...

"The Warmaster- er, Rekkonji," she corrected herself, "said this area used to be under severe contention. How long did it take you to silence it?"

"Two days."

She rose a brow.

"And how many did you kill…?"

"Enough."

Sesshoumaru almost smiled, remembering that particular battle. The woman sighed and smirked wryly.

"Strangely different, and yet still the same."

They paused, exchanging glances that made Jaken uncomfortable. He waddled to put himself between them, waving the nintoujou at her.

"What gives you the right to be so familiar with your master?!"

Four eyes fixed him sharply to the spot from either side. The woman seethed at him.

"And how presumptuous of you, to speak on your lord's behalf? Understand me well, imp: no one owns me."

She turned away, and Jaken sputtered, torn between shame and anger with this shrew. Sesshoumaru's boot was especially vicious as he ground the imp's face into the ground before continuing on with the hanyou.

'This is so unfair!!'

***

For his part, Sesshoumaru was unwilling to let Jaken risk driving Kintsuke off, not after Sesshoumaru had been so patient and allowing to convince her to come at all. It took only a week for the imp to learn to hold his tongue, as he had with Rin. Even after he fell silent, however, Sesshoumaru continued to feel something was bothering Kintsuke. He saw it each time they paused to rest for a night in her distant stare and how she worried at the claw of her thumb. He managed to catch her gaze and questioned her with a silent tilt of his head.

She allowed her expression to speak for her. No, there was nothing wrong. …Well, yes, there was, but Jaken was around.

Sesshoumaru sent the imp off to fetch water from a distant river, then questioned her again. Kintsuke took a moment to put her words together, looking away from him.

"There's…something I need to know…"

"And what would that be?"

She rose slowly, brushing a bit of grass from her hakama before striding around the fire to stand near him. He felt himself sit just a touch straighter, looking up at her. Her lips worked silently. Then, she grew bold.

"Show me your poison."

Her determination made him curious, and he consented without hesitation. She stiffened slightly as he pulled back a sleeve and offered her a hand, glowing noxious green. Slowly, she did the same, hand hovering just above the radiating toxins.

She lowered her hand gradually, and Sesshoumaru gauged when she'd come too close. He turned his hand to the side, just out of reach, when her skin began turning red.

"Don't," she said quietly.

He did not move when she reached for his hand again. Red crept further across her palm and down her fingers. She showed no sign of pain.

"What are you doing?"

Kintsuke didn't answer. He watched the redness sneak down toward her wrist and crawl up the sides of her palm. Her youki thrummed between them, pushing back against his poison. Then, it ignited, blue and black, and crisp.

'The nullifying flames. I see, now. You seek to test their strength.'

Sesshoumaru spread his fingers wide and sent up a light spray of acid. It disappeared into the blue. Kintsuke smiled. She pushed farther with her blue and black, leaving his skin momentarily bare where the flames kissed. He prepared to show her a minor trick of his own, but she pulled her hand away, letting her fire die. He couldn't quite place the look in her eyes as she thanked him and returned to her place on the other side of the fire.

***

The uncertainty that had been eating away at her for days finally subsided. Kintsuke knew his poison signature now. If he turned on her, she wouldn't have to waste precious time in combat tweaking her blue fire. It put her at ease…for a time. After all, her fire was only usable when she was in her half-demon state.

Kintsuke was not ignorant of just how much faster the moon cycle seemed to pass as she traveled with Sesshoumaru. This wasn't like the castle, where even he couldn't interfere with her disappearing on the same day every month, and she didn't fancy having to contrive an excuse each time. Sesshoumaru was too keen. She was certain he would follow her at least once, and then he would know.

'I have to make it seem like something else,' she thought as they turned south to follow the coast of the bay. 'Something we can both profit from.'

The more she thought about it, though, the more she came to realize that any tale she spun would eventually be unraveled. There was no sense in trying to hide or lie about this. Doing so would only upset him, she was sure, exposing her, and possibly even Inuyasha, to the daiyoukai's violent scorn.

'If he truly wants me near, he'll find a way to deal with it. He traveled with Rin before, didn't he? And she was just a child. This wouldn't be much different from that. I can look after myself as a human far better than she could, so it shouldn't be more than a mild inconvenience.'

She was growing to trust Sesshoumaru, experiencing for herself the nuanced changes she felt even the Inu no Taishou would be proud of. With each passing day, the son was growing into the man his father wanted him to be. Still, her stomach turned at the thought of revealing her shame to this ever-dastardly demon.