Inu Yasha shared hot pot with his new employer and wondered what he’d gotten himself into. Would working for Sesshomaru be just as bad as working for Hisui or her son? Worse? Maybe it would actually be a good experience, he thought on a lark. After all, this older Sesshomaru did seem different than the younger one he knew in the past. He didn’t want the Tetsusaiga anymore (at least, that’s what he claimed) and didn’t even seem especially inclined to kill his little brother, something that had been a bit of an obsession for him four hundred years ago. Inu Yasha observed Sesshomaru’s elegant table manners, his clothes that didn’t have a wrinkle in them, his perfect hair…and found himself feeling rather self-conscious. His own clothes still had sand on them, since he’d come directly from the beach, and his hair was its usual ruffled mop (also a bit sandy). As for his table manners, he was having trouble keeping sauce off his shirt.
        "So…" Sesshomaru said to fill the uncomfortable silence.
        Inu Yasha paused with a soy sauce-drenched piece of octopus halfway to his mouth and gave his brother a suspicious look. "So what?"
        That made the older demon smile, which didn’t help Inu Yasha’s appetite any. "So what are you going to do about tomorrow night?"
        Inu Yasha gagged on his food and had to chug down half his beer before his throat was clear enough to breathe through again. "To—tomorrow night?" He stammered. "What’s tomorrow night?" He decided to play dumb. "I thought since I was working for you I didn’t have to worry about Hisui and Mikoto anymore!"
        Sesshomaru sighed and rolled his eyes. He plucked a nice, fat shrimp from the pot and ate it before replying coolly: "You have nothing more to worry about from those two. That’s not what I meant, and you know it."
        Inu Yasha’s heart pounded. Did he know? It was possible, since he’d presumably lived through the completion of Inu Yasha’s quest for the jewel. Maybe at some point in Sesshomaru’s past, he’d revealed his half-blood’s secret by accident! Inu Yasha forced his hands not to tremble as he picked some fish out of the pot and forced it down. "No, I don’t know what you mean. What else is there that makes tomorrow night so special?"
        His brother glared at him in exasperation. "The Mermaid Ball, you git! It’s only the biggest event of the season at this resort, and Kagome is surely expecting you to escort her!"
        Inu Yasha hesitated, then grabbed another chunk of fish. "So I’m taking Kagome to another dance. What of it?" He washed down the fish with a mouthful of beer, all the while keeping his eyes on Sesshomaru and wondering in gut wrenching terror if the man knew the real significance of the following night. Was Sesshomaru concerned that Inu Yasha would go to the dance as a human, revealing his secret to Hisui and Mikoto?
        A pained expression crossed Sesshomaru’s face. "You can’t tell me you own a tuxedo."
        Eh? "A…what?"
        "I didn’t think so," Sesshomaru heaved a weary sigh. "What did you think you would wear to a formal dance? Your filthy old kimono?"
        "It’s not filthy—" Inu Yasha thought he’d die with relief. So Sesshomaru didn’t know. That still left him with the problem of what to do about the following night. He couldn’t very well let himself be seen as a human! Yet…if he really did stay in Sesshomaru’s employ, Inu Yasha imagined he’d have to tell him his secret, if Sesshomaru didn’t discover it on his own.
        Sesshomaru looked his brother over with a disdainful eye and thought aloud: "You’re about my height, though slightly smaller in build. Hmmm…I could have Jaken take in one of mine. You certainly don’t have time to get fitted at a shop for one of your own." He took a sip from his drink and added: "Not a good one. You can try it on after we’ve talked to Hisui and Mikoto—and speaking of Asanos…"
        Inu Yasha followed his brother’s casual gesture to find Shunusuke just entering the pub. Sesshomaru flagged him down, and Shunusuke wove his way around the busy tables to seat himself between the brothers with his back to the wall.
        "Sesshomaru," he nodded to the demon lord, then smiled at Inu Yasha. "So! Got a job, did you?"
        Inu Yasha could only nod stupidly and wonder what Shunusuke thought of his choice of employers. He hadn’t favored Sesshomaru when Inu Yasha brought it up on the beach before. Was the young Asano secretly pitying him right then?
        Shunusuke’s smile broadened as Inu Yasha’s thoughts came to him. Poor guy. In his place, Shunusuke decided he’d be a little uncertain, too. Even if one was blood related, one didn’t enter into the service of a Great Demon lightly. "Well, I guess you chose the lesser of three evils," he joked, getting a chuckle out of Sesshomaru, and an embarrassed look from Inu Yasha. Shunusuke nudged his arm with a companionable smirk. "I mean it, Inu Yasha. I think you did the right thing under the circumstances. Beats working for Hisui Oukami, doesn’t it? No offense…" He added to Sesshomaru, who shrugged.
        "We should get down to business before Hisui and your father arrive," the demon lord suggested firmly. He took his Palm Pilot from his jacket pocket and switched it on. "I’d like to start you at ¥5.3 million per year. I feel that’s a fair sum because of the amount of training you’ll require to acclimate you to current culture and to my organization. Also, it will allow you enough money to improve your wardrobe." As he spoke, he made entries into the little computer by writing on its small screen with a tiny stylus.
        Inu Yasha snorted his opinion of that and earned himself a raised eyebrow from Sesshomaru.
        "You need to blend, Inu Yasha," Sesshomaru explained in a tight voice, "and you certainly can’t do that in your usual pink ensemble."
        "It’s armor," Inu Yasha countered under his breath. He slouched in his chair and picked at the hot pot with his chopsticks. "And it’s not filthy, either."
        Sesshomaru chose to ignore all that. "I assume someone bought those for you?" He pointed at the shorts and T-shirt Inu Yasha was wearing.
        Inu Yasha continued to pout and poke at the hot pot. "Yuki bought me clothes for this week," he smirked up at his brother as he added, "nice clothes. Expensive."
        "One could never tell…" Sesshomaru muttered as he made entries into the Palm Pilot.
        Inu Yasha sat up with huff and threw down his chopsticks. "You expect me to dress like you?!"
"I have taste."
        "You look like a girl!"
        Sesshomaru sighed and patiently rubbed his forehead. "Asano? I’m offering him what I believe to be a fair starting salary. He has asked you here to advise him," he looked at Shunusuke with cold eyes. "What do you advise?"
        Shunusuke ignored the chill he got from those eyes and thought about the demon’s question for a moment. "What will his training entail? How many hours are you planning to devote to it? What do you estimate it will cost him to accumulate a suitable wardrobe? What will his responsibilities be? Will he live with you when he’s here? Or will he need his own place?"
        "I’ll stay with Kagome."
        Sesshomaru nodded. "When I don’t need you to be at the castle or one of my offices, that will be acceptable. As for his training schedule," he turned the Palm Pilot so Shunusuke could read the screen, "that’s what I’m working on now." He turned the machine back to himself. "I realize he still needs to split his time between here and…his other responsibility. So I don’t plan to keep him here more than ten days, total, out of any given month and no more than three days at a time. When he’s here, his work days will be no longer than 12 hours until he’s fully trained and/or I feel he’s ready to go full-staff. At that time, he’ll be on call when not on assignment."
        Inu Yasha had no idea what half of that meant. "What do you mean, ‘on call’?"
        "I mean," Sesshomaru explained, "when I need you to do a job, day or night, you will be called, and you will drop everything to do that job."
        Inu Yasha bit his lip and looked to Shunusuke for guidance. "Do your father’s people work like that?"
        Shunusuke nodded. "It’s normal for this business."
        "What is ‘this business’, exactly," Inu Yasha demanded. "What am I being hired to do? Bodyguard? Assassin?"
        Sesshomaru leaned back in his chair to regard his brother with a thoughtful expression, his golden eyes glowing in the dim light of the pub. "A bit of both. I believe your best talents will reveal themselves as you train. I’ll be able to tell you what the specifics of you job will be after that. And of course, I’ll reevaluate your salary at that time, as well." He picked up his chopsticks and fished out bit of fish and a big mushroom and devoured them with a contented smile. Then he fixed his brother with an amused look and quipped: "You’ll need a hair cut."
        Inu Yasha turned a shade paler and grabbed at his hair as if Sesshomaru would come over the table with a pair of shears and whack it all off, right then and there. "No cutting my hair! I’ll wear your poofy clothes and be on call but I won’t cut my hair!"
        Sesshomaru and Shunusuke chuckled. "He was joking, Inu Yasha," Shunusuke reassured his friend.
        "I don’t care!" Inu Yasha scooted his chair away from the table to put a little more distance between himself and his brother.
        "Just a trim," Sesshomaru persisted, barely able to keep from laughing at the terror in Inu Yasha’s eyes at the thought of an innocent hair cut. He pulled at his own bangs. "Just to get rid of the split ends, tidy it up a bit."
        "No."
        "I can’t believe you’re so obsessive about your hair, little brother," Sesshomaru chuckled and shook his head. "Of course I wouldn’t make you cut it off, but a few centimeters off the ends won’t hurt the length any."
        "What are centimeters?" Inu Yasha demanded suspiciously.
        Shunusuke illustrated with his finger and thumb. Inu Yasha studied the distance for a while, then decided centimeters weren’t big enough to be noticeable if they were taken off his ‘do. "Ok, but just ‘a few centimeters’."
        "And you better have it done today, so you’ll look nice for the ball tomorrow," Sesshomaru told him pointedly, making it an order.
        His tone raised Inu Yasha’s hackles, but he let it go. He didn’t plan on going to that ball, it was just a matter now of finding a really plausible excuse for running back to the past to get out of going. That was the only solution to his predicament, as far as Inu Yasha could see. The real trick would be preventing Kagome from going back with him and ruining her big night. Inu Yasha groaned silently. He’d never hear the end of it if he spoiled this for Kagome. He’d already screwed up her "peaceful" vacation. At least that shindig thing had gone reasonably well until Sango had gotten drunk, and he’d had to take her home. A terrific night that had ended in a great, big SIT. He just couldn’t win.
        Shunusuke tapped his hand, and Inu Yasha realized Sesshomaru had been trying to get his attention for some time. He blushed a little and took a gulp of beer to cover for it. "Sorry. I was thinking about how I’d deal with dressing like a girl."
        Sesshomaru didn’t buy that but said nothing about it. "I asked you if an annual starting salary of - 5.3 million is acceptable."
        That sounded like a helluva lot of money to Inu Yasha but when looked at Shunusuke, the man seemed to be debating it. Maybe the figure just sounded big. "How much is that in gold Ryu?" Inu Yasha asked.
        Sesshomaru thought about it. "Thirty, maybe. It’s been a long time since I dealt in the old currency."
        Inu Yasha turned to Shunusuke again. "Can I live on that in this world? And support Kagome when the time comes?"
        Shunusuke nodded slowly. "It’s fair. I’d take it, if I were you."
        If he agreed to it, he’d be officially working for the brother he’d hated all his life. Well, as Shunusuke had said, it beat hell out of working for Hisui or any of her family. Inu Yasha’s fists clenched as he pondered the sparkling, golden depths of his beer. Finally, he took a deep breath, looked Sesshomaru straight in the eye and said: "I’ll take it. Now what?"
        Sesshomaru grinned. "Now we break it to Hisui and Mikoto when they arrive. Meanwhile, that beer looks like it could use topping off."

        Mikoto accepted Inu Yasha’s employment arrangement gracefully and even congratulated him. Hisui, on the other hand, threw a bit of a temper tantrum, accusing Sesshomaru of betraying her, and Mikoto of being in a conspiracy with him against her.
        "You never let me have my fun!" She complained petulantly and stabbed things in the hot pot with a chopstick. "Furthermore, I think Inu Yasha should at least be allowed to hear my counter offer before making a final decision!"
        "I’ve made my final decision," Inu Yasha growled. "You’ll only make more threats, which isn’t in my best interest."
        "Actually," Hisui pouted and put her chopstick straight through a piece of fish, "I’m willing to withdraw my threats and offer you monetary compensation instead."
        "It’s a done deal," Inu Yasha retorted.
        "But—" Hisui began, but Inu Yasha cut her off sharply.
        "My decision is made!" He twisted his glass on its little paper coaster and watched it turn instead of looking at Hisui. "You can’t always get your way, no matter how many people you kill or threaten to kill. The way I see it is this: You have a decision to make. Me, or Sesshomaru. Who’s it gonna be?"
        Over a low growl in her chest, Hisui told him in a cold voice: "Sesshomaru, of course. I don’t care about you. I just want the Jewel. Don’t overestimate your own importance, little pup."
        Inu Yasha smirked. "As long as I have what you want, I don’t think I can overestimate my importance to you." He looked up, not at Hisui, but at his brother. He hated the idea of seeking support from Sesshomaru, but in this case it looked like the only way to force Hisui to back off was to gang up on her. It occurred to him then that Sesshomaru might want the Jewel, too, despite what he’d said the other day. It would multiply a Great Demon’s power exponentially, and personal power was a great motivator for a youkai. That’s why Inu Yasha didn’t believe either Hisui or Sesshomaru when they claimed to love each other—that just wasn’t a youkai thing to do. Each one probably figured they were benefiting from the other and when one or the other stopped being useful, that would be the end of the relationship. That’s how it worked in youkai circles. Humans, now…humans were another kind of animal, entirely. Humans loved. Even half-humans like him loved, but not full-blooded demons. He wondered what Hisui and Sesshomaru thought they were gaining from each other, then remembered what Sesshomaru had told him about how he’d wanted Hisui for centuries. "Probably bullshit," Inu Yasha thought sourly.
        "Hisui," Sesshomaru said coolly, "leave him be. He’s made his decision, and that’s the end of it. If you still want the Jewel, I’m afraid you’ll have to go through me, as well as Inu Yasha."
        Hisui looked like she’d just been struck. "Wh-what?! You would fight me, Sesshomaru? I thought you—you said you—" She looked nervously around the table, unwilling to show any kind of weakness in front of them, even her own kin.
        Sesshomaru’s face softened. "Love you? Of course I do," he assured her quietly and reached over to caress her hand. "The story of the Jewel of Four Souls has already been written, Hisui, and it doesn’t include you. Change the past and you’ll change our present and future. Please think about what you’re proposing to do."
        "Are you insinuating that I don’t think before I act?" Hisui snarled back, snatching her hand out from under his. His pained expression doused her anger as quickly as dropping a torch into a lake. He started to move his hand away, but she quickly wrapped hers around it with an apologetic look. "No, of course you weren’t. Why don’t you and I discuss this someplace else, Darling?"
        "Oh great," thought Inu Yasha, "we’re back to ‘darling’." Hisui only seemed to call people "darling" when she felt she had the upper hand. What in the hell was she scheming now?
        Mikoto sighed, apparently thinking the same thing Inu Yasha was. "Mother, Sesshomaru’s right: The Jewel’s history doesn’t include you. It’s pointless for you to try to change it, so find some other toy to play with."
        That might not have been the best thing he could’ve said to his mother, considering her habit of doing away with children who displeased her. Still, Mikoto stood his ground when the Great Demon of the Northern Lands bared her fangs at him and gave him her meanest look of doom. "Don’t antagonize me, Darling. You know what I can do."
        "Throw a temper tantrum," Mikoto retorted dryly, "then call your broker to attempt a hostile take over of my business? My name has entirely too much clout in the industry for that to hurt my reputation. I’ll just start a new company, outsell your company, then buy back the firm. I play this game every day, Mother. You don’t."
        Sputter.
        "You’re an old dog in a young dog’s world," Mikoto continued, staring down his mother with sharp eyes.
        Three sets of eyes bugged at him in shock, and Inu Yasha wondered if Mikoto had suddenly developed a death wish.
        Hisui’s growl got louder as Mikoto continued talking in a calm voice. "You see, Mother, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking this week…about you and me and our relationship. And I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t need you. Furthermore, I refuse to be intimidated by you any longer. I’m a very powerful man, with influence reaching around the globe—"
        "With humans!" Hisui spat.
        Mikoto was unaffected. "Humans own this world, Mother. Look at Sesshomaru. He’s a full-blooded demon lord, yet his power in this day and age rests in his business interests, not his teeth and claws, as was the norm in your heyday. Even you are deeply involved with stock trading and dabble in the occasional corporate acquisition for me when you get bored." He leaned forward and steepled his fingers between himself and his mother with an icy smile. "On the playing field of international business, you’re no match for me. Play games with mortals, as our ancestors once did, I’ll do business with them, instead." He chuckled a little at her flabbergasted expression and added: "If you can’t play the game, Mother, get off the field."
        Hisui’s and Sesshomaru’s jaws hung open in shock. Hisui trembled and sputtered, unable to put her rage in to words that could even begin to describe her feelings. "You—you—TRAITOR!"
        "Not so," Mikoto replied coolly. "It’s you who are the traitor to your family, Mother—threatening to buy me out, trying to take the Jewel for yourself when I had specifically come here with the intention of taking it, interfering with my plans and my business when I’m the real bread-winner in this family. I could go on. But the most important consideration in the long run is the Jewel. That’s the other thing I was thinking about the past few days."
        "Thinking about it won’t get you the—" Hisui began, but Mikoto cut her off.
        "I don’t want it anymore, and neither should you." He leaned back in his chair and sipped his tea. "I really do agree with Sesshomaru: We must abandon our desire to posses the Jewel of Four Souls. Though to Inu Yasha and his friends the quest is still happening, to us who have lived through the last few centuries, it’s already finished." He grinned at Inu Yasha, anticipating the question: "And, no, we won’t tell you how it came out. At least," he pierced the two demon lords with a cold glare, "I won’t be so unscrupulous."
        "Can’t you at least tell me if we succeed, or not?" Inu Yasha pleaded, then bit his tongue against such a pathetic tone of voice. Of course they succeeded! The world was still filled with light and happy people, so Naraku couldn’t possibly have won. Surely the world would be a wasteland if he had. But what had become of those who had fought Naraku? And if they had won and survived… Inu Yasha remembered what Sesshomaru had said about Kagome being pregnant the last time he’d seen her. Whose child was it? And what choice had he, Inu Yasha, made about using the Jewel to become human or demon? If the child was his, was it part demon? Or had he used the Jewel to become human, so the child was pure human? Or had he chosen to become a full demon, making the child a half-blood? What if Kagome’s child wasn’t his at all? But who else could possibly be the father? Of course, the whole thing could just be more of Sesshomaru’s bullshit.
        "I’ll tell you nothing," Mikoto replied while Inu Yasha’s thoughts chewed on the possibilities, "and that’s final." He shrugged. "You work for your brother now, maybe he’ll tell you something."
        Inu Yasha looked expectantly across the table at his brother, but Sesshomaru slowly shook his head. "No."
        Hisui impatiently tapped her claws on the tabletop. Something in Mikoto’s story didn’t ring quite true. She could feel it. The fact that he was trying to guard his thoughts from her was incredibly suspicious, as well, indicating he was definitely hiding something. But what? She almost wished they hadn’t kicked Shunusuke out when they arrived. With a little telepathic coercion the boy might have been useful in getting past his father’s barriers. What was the real reason Mikoto was giving up on the Jewel and was now so adamant about her not having it, either? She decided to confront him directly, since her efforts to break his barriers weren’t working.
        "Mikoto-darling," she purred dangerously, and all other activity at the table abruptly stopped. "I don’t think you’re being entirely honest with us about the Jewel. This is all just a bluff, isn’t it? You want us to think you’ve given, but I think you haven’t given up at all."
        Mikoto sighed in exasperation and ran his fingers through his hair with a growl. "I am giving up, Mother. Alright, let me put it another way: If I got the Jewel, I’d be the one to face Naraku. Me, a half-blood. Even with my resources, I don’t think I could destroy such a creature."
        "I’d help you, Darling!"
        He shook his head. "And demand what to show my gratitude? The Jewel? My holdings? My fortune? You’d kill me next, Mother, and you know it."
        Hisui performed an exaggerated pout which only served to make Mikoto’s point in everyone else’s mind.
        "If you got the Jewel," Mikoto continued, "You’d have to fight him, probably with help from Sesshomaru and me and everyone working for us. Well and good. Perhaps we could destroy him, but he will have had four hundred years of free-reign in this world. Maybe by now there’d be no world left. And surely during that time, he’d challenge the four Great Demons of four hundred years ago, including you. I don’t think you could’ve beaten him four hundred years ago, Mother. I know Sesshomaru couldn’t have done it—he couldn’t even beat his own half-blood brother, much less a legion creature like Naraku."
        Sesshomaru ruffled at that but said nothing. Much as it rankled, what Mikoto said was true: In all of their battles, he had never scored a victory over Inu Yasha and had usually been forced to retreat. He unconsciously rubbed his left arm, which Inu Yasha had cut off with the Tetsusaiga in their first fight and which had only just finished growing back in the last century.
        Hisui tossed her head and said with a smirk: "Sesshomaru has admired me for centuries. We would’ve teamed up against Naraku!"
        "No we wouldn’t have," Sesshomaru sighed. "You hardly knew I was alive and probably didn’t view me as worthy of your notice, much less as a strong ally. Even if you did, you would have just used me, then killed me when I’d outlived my usefulness. That would have left my father’s territory in your hands, making you Great Demon over half of Japan. The other Great Demons would certainly not have tolerated that and would have challenged you." He shook his head. "No, I don’t even want to think about that scenario."
        Hisui’s smug smile drooped a bit as she thought about that. As she sat beside him now, she couldn’t imagine herself ever harming Sesshomaru, but he was right: Things had been different back then. But what if they hadn’t been? What if she had noticed him in his youth? Would she feel as she did now? She imagined falling in love with Sesshomaru four hundred years ago and realized something: None of her half-blood children would ever have been born, including the one sitting at the table with her, claiming he didn’t need her anymore. Ah-ha! So that was it! Mikoto was just protecting himself! Her face lit up and she giggled at her son.
        "If I had met and loved Sesshomaru back then," she grinned wickedly, "I wouldn’t have had those human lovers, and you would never have been born. That’s it, isn’t it, Darling?"
        All eyes turned to Mikoto, who seemed a bit too interested in his tea. After a few moments in which nobody so much as twitched, he looked up and into his mother’s eager eyes. "That is a major consideration, yes."
        Hisui giggled and turned her maniacal gaze on Inu Yasha, delighted by how quickly he recovered from that initial look of abject panic he’d just shown. "And you and your cute, little girlfriend travel freely between this time and that one!"
        "Don’t go there, Hisui," Sesshomaru warned in a low, dangerous tone. "You can’t change the past."
        Hisui turned very slowly to face him, a deadly gleam in her glowing eyes and two of her sharp fangs showing through her tight smile. "Why not? Don’t you want me to have returned your love for the last four hundred years? Be your mate? Bear your pups? It would be a powerful merger of North and West—even Naraku couldn’t have stood against us. No one could have stood against us, even your stubborn little brother."
        Inu Yasha looked anxiously at Sesshomaru to see his reaction. The demon lord sat back in his chair and looked out into the pub, rather than meet Hisui’s eyes. "You already exist in the past, Hisui," he said quietly. A pained expression crossed his face but only for an instant, then it was gone, replaced by his usual bored look. "Anyway, I’m a different man than I was then. I don’t think you would’ve wanted the young Sesshomaru."
        "Nor would you have wanted the young Hisui," Mikoto interjected quietly with a dark look for his mother.
        Hisui growled at him. "You didn’t know me then!"
        Mikoto didn’t reply.
        Inu Yasha shifted uncomfortably in his chair and looked from one demon to the other, winding up with Hisui. "Nothing you can say or do will convince Kagome or me to take you into the past, so forget about it."
        Sesshomaru ran a gentle claw along Hisui’s cheek, startling her out of replying to Inu Yasha. "Modern physics theorizes that two versions of you can’t exist in the same space and time without negating your own existence. Would you want to take that risk? Just to be with me for a few centuries more? We have the future, Hisui, be content with that. If you destroy yourself…" he let the thought trail off unfinished.
        "Is that your only reason to go back in time?" Mikoto asked and pointed at Sesshomaru. "For him?"
        Hisui looked away and replied in and awkward voice: "I—I want the power, of course. The power that would come from combining the North and West," she twisted her napkin in her hands. "And—and my children wouldn’t be—" she glared up at Mikoto suddenly, "and I wouldn’t have had to endure the humiliation of …" she looked away again at the pain in her son’s eyes.
        "Demons wouldn’t have you, would they?" The ever-tactful Inu Yasha snorted. "I’ve heard that rum—"
        "They were all afraid of me!" Hisui shot back and threw her napkin in his face.
        Inu Yasha pulled the napkin away. "And humans weren’t? I’d think humans would be more afraid of you than demons would be."
        She growled. He did his impression of Shippo’s innocent look. Mikoto sighed. Sesshomaru got up to leave, taking hold of Hisui’s wrist as he rose. "Your past means nothing to me. Let’s go. I need to arrange a tux for Inu Yasha so he won’t embarrass me at the Mermaid Ball. Your advice would be invaluable."
        Hisui looked angry, then confused, then she lowered her eyes with a flirty little smile. "Shouldn’t Inu Yasha come along to try it on, Darling?"
        Sesshomaru let his hand slip from her wrist into her hand and looked over his shoulder at his brother. "Inu Yasha, go have a bath and come back in two hours. Have the lobby ring me before you come up."
        Inu Yasha was staring at their linked hands when he nodded. Then Sesshomaru led Hisui out of the pub, leaving Inu Yasha alone with Mikoto Asano. A few awkward moments passed, then Mikoto cleared his throat and said: "So, you’re working for Sesshomaru now. If you change your mind, here’s my card. Call me, and we’ll talk." He slid a small, parchment-colored card across the table. "By no means should you ever consider working for Hisui Oukami, no matter what her threats or offers of reimbursement."
        With that, he got up and left. Inu Yasha sat and contemplated his card, not really seeing the characters, both familiar and strange, that were printed on it. He would never let Hisui get through the well, no matter what threats she made, and neither would Kagome. He’d warn her when he got back to the condo. Did Hisui really want to go back just to meet Sesshomaru and avoid ever breeding with humans? He thought the power-grab thing sounded more plausible, and yet… the look on her face and the tone of her voice had been so painful. Was his big brother really such a godsend that Hisui was willing to mess with the order of time to include him in more of her life? How much had Sesshomaru changed, anyway?
        After a while, Inu Yasha realized the waiter was standing at his elbow, waiting to be noticed. When Inu Yasha looked up at him, the young man smiled and asked politely: "Who’s account shall I charge this to, Sir?"
        Inu Yasha tucked Mikoto’s card into his pocket and rose to leave. As he passed the waiter on the way out, he said with an evil grin: "Charge it to Hisui Oukami."