InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Evil in Men's Hearts ❯ Midnight Trysts ( Chapter 12 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha or any of the characters created by Rumiko Takahashi


The Evil in Men's Hearts


Chapter 12: Midnight Trysts

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How easy it is to see
the failings of others,
How hard it is to see
the failings of one's own heart.

One can winnow the faults of others
like chaff blown on a breeze.
One conceals one's own faults
Like a hunter who conceals himself in a blind,
camouflagingwith sticks and leaves

---from the Dhammapada (adapted slightly)

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Kagome sighed.

"You don't know how glad I am to get out of that room!" she said as they entered the bed chamber Hakuzo offered them for the night. "I kept expecting Sesshoumaru to challenge Teijo to a duel and Hakuzo to hit everybody with fox fire. What a horrid dinner. I kept expecting the youki flring by itself to be enough to bring the house down. I have no idea how Rin managed to fall asleep."

InuYasha grinned. "It's sure an odd group to be trying to work together. I mean I know my brother can be an arrogant ass, but did you notice Teijo? I didn't know that type of behavior was a family trait."

"Speak for yourself, InuYasha. There are times when you get angry you can look just like Sesshoumaru," Kagome said.

"I do not look ever look like that baka," he said, giving her a look very similar to Sesshoumaru's.
She suppressed a giggle while changing out of her day clothes into something to sleep in. "So tell me. Why were you in Hakuzo's house so long before Teijo came?"

"After we had looked at everything, we just started talking," he said, shrugging off his suikan. "Sesshoumaru wanted to know if we'd been having any problems. It's amazing, but ever since that bout with Magatsuhi, I think that cold heart of his finally realized that I'm the only family he's got. He told me he would help us is we ever needed it."

"So, Little Brother, I see you continue doing things the difficult way," Sesshoumaru said, as they left the library, filled with scrolls and papers scattered across the floor.

"And what is that supposed to mean. Baka?" InuYasha said, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"Let's see. Not only did you choose to mate with a human, you chose a miko. Did you not find this made your life more...complicated?"

"Keh," InuYasha said. "Not much more than it was before. People had been talking and whispering about us since the beginning. Once they assumed. Now, it's just the reality they expected.

"It's not so bad in our home village. We were married publicly, in the ningen way. We are accepted. Other places, well, it varies. It wasn't until this last trip out that we had any more than bad looks and gossip."

"Mated to a hanyou and still has her miko powers?" asked Matsuo, who had trailed behind them.

"That bothers some people. Fucking bastards," InuYasha said. "Tough. Her heart is still purer than anybody else's I've ever met. We faced down Naraku. We can face any thing those little bastards want to do. And that includes Jomei."

"You could come here," Matsuo suggested.

"What, and have to put up with all those Inu youkai stuffed shirts looking down their noses at me as not fit to live, and at Kagome for being ningen and a miko?" InuYasha shook his head. "No, we'll stay in Kaede's village."

"I will stand by you if you need me," Sesshoumaru said.

"Wow," said Kagome. "I'm impressed."

Having put on a light blue sleeping yukata, Kagome slipped into the bed while waiting for InuYasha to finish getting ready. He undressed, shrugging out of the and dropping his hakama which totally disguised the power of his runner’s legs. InuYasha, his back to her, rolled his shoulders, then bent over to fold his clothes. As he stood back up, Kagome watched his hair cascade down his back in a white river, the silver of it accented with warmth from the lamplight, like a white spectre touched with honey.

Kagome lay on her side on the futon, watching him through half shut eyes, not wanting him to notice her stare at him as he stood there and make a fuss. She wanted to indulge herself and just watch him as he moved with a sleekly controlled power, a feral grace that awoke something warm inside of her as she looked. His ears, twitching idly as he picked up on sounds of Hakuzo's house settling down for the night, just enhanced the sense of wildness that drew her to him. His beauty and difference were one of the first things that attracted him to her from the moment she saw him pinned to the Goshinboku, but he did not let her get away with watching nearly as much as she wished. He shrugged off his linen kosode, and stood there dressed only in his fundoshi It was perfect, the way his skin glowed and the muscles rolled when he moved as he prepared for bed. The lamplight merely added to the effect, highlighting his form. She didn't think she'd ever get enough of watching him.

"Oi, woman, don't pretend you're asleep," he said, sitting down on the bed. "I can tell, you know."

"I wasn't pretending. I was watching you," she said rolling over on her back.

"You like what you see?" he said, smirking while he slid under the covers.

"Oh yes, very much." She turned towards him, let him wrap his arms around her, snuggling her into his warmth while she rested her head against his chest.

He buried his face in her hair perfumed with the scent of sweet soap and spice and Kagome, and Kagome found his hand sliding up from her hip to cup her breast. His thumb brushed across her nipple, making it grow hard under the fabric. Her hand reached up towards his ear, rubbing the soft triangle in just that right way.

"Don't start something you can't finish, woman," he said, huskily, as the sensation that touch created washed over him from ear to groin.

"Who says I can't finish it?" she teased.

He grabbed her hand, rolling half on top of her, and pinned it to the bed. “Prove it.”

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Jomei slept uneasily beneath the full moon.

As he tossed and turned, a white fox, looking silver in the moonlight, lay near his head, its forepaws crossed as its eyes glowed watching him.

His breathing grew more agitated as he slipped back into a dream:
His sister's voice echoed out on the street, yelling for help. He and his mother ran outside, and saw the village elders standing before his sister. Her clothes had been ripped and torn, and she bore bruises that were already visible. A streak of blood trickled down her forehead. Cast to the ground, a young man pinned her there with his foot. She wept with great heaving sobs.

"Mareo-kun!" she screamed. "Mother! Help me!"

"We found her with this youkai!" the young man with his foot pinning her yelled. "She was pleasuring him in the forest!"

"Mareo-kun! Save yourself!" she sobbed, daring a glance at the youkai.

"Hoshiko!" the boy Jomei yelled, struggling in his mother's arms.

His father, stern faced, in the first flush of his reaction, pushed his way through the crowd. He saw the girl lying on the ground, beaten, wounded, sobbing. His face was incredibly angry.

"Run off and become a demon's whore? My flesh did this?" he yelled. He lifted up his axe and...

Jomei found himself in a different location.

He found himself unable to move. He felt heavy, frozen in place, as if his limbs were made out of concrete. It did not stop the heart pounding in his ears or the bile rising to his lips. He struggled invisibly though the entire time, unable to move at all, ever since the men had burst into the meadow where he and his beloved Hoshiko had laid there together. He had been so caught up in the magic of her smile, her smell, her voice, that he had not realized they were near. They had slapped the ofuda on him before he had had a chance to react.

Rough hands pulled him away from his beloved, dragged him across the ground, bound him with ropes.

"Mareo-kun!" she cried. "Help me!"

He was raging inside, ripped apart. Immobilized, he could not even turn his head. They forced him to watch as they grabbed her by her beautiful raven hair, hit her perfect skin with their fists and feet, made her crawl. He watched in horror as they used her. He couldn't even yell, for they had sealed his lips.

"Cover yourself up, whore," one of them ordered her when they were done. "You have shamed our whole village."

Jomei snapped awake. He had been dreaming. He had been dreaming he was a youkai? The youkai who had gotten his sister killed? Sitting up, he saw the fox slink off into the trees, turning once to look directly at him, then disappearing into the shadows.

He found himself praying.

"All things change, and are without self,
No more real than the moon on water,
No more lasting than lightning,
No more substantial than shadow,
No more permanent than dew.
Thus I prostrate myself before Amida Buddha.

"No words of evil are in his land;
No fear of evil doers, nor evil paths;
With sincere heart all beings worship him.
Thus I prostrate myself before Amida Buddha.

"I take refuge in the Buddha
I take refuge in the Dharma
I take refuge in the Sangha

"Namu Amida Butsu, Namu Amida Butsu, Namu Amida Butsu..."

He didn't think he'd get back to sleep.


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Teijowalked through the forest, surrounded by the darkness, needing to be away from the others.

Choosing a spot, a place where the moonlight cascaded down, he sat and took out the red stone that he guarded. Holding the small stone in his hands, he could feel the energy from the stone cascade around him, gentle in its touch but fierce in its demand that he acknowledge it. It glowed with a red light beyond any reflection from the moonlight that touched it. As it gathered strength, the light cascading off the stone pulsed, throbbing like a heartbeat.

As it pulsed, the light wrapped around him, touching the shadowed silver of his hair with red tint. The stone gave off a soft sound, almost a sigh. As the aura from the stone deepened and strengthened, Teijo could feel soft breath against his ear, tickling him. He could smell an essence that spoke of running through the woods, of moonlight, of water falling in the spring runoff, of jasmine. He closed his eyes.

He felt a warm hand enclose his, intertwining soft, graceful women's fingers around his calloused fingers.

"Nyoko..." he whispered. He knew if he opened his eyes to look, he would see nothing, the spell would be shattered. Yet he could hear the rustling of silk as she moved closer, the warmth of her, the contour of her shape, She leaned against him.

"Teijo," she said, in a voice just above a whisper, like the sigh of the wind in the pines. "You have been busy, Guardian."

"Not me. Benzaiten, maybe. She moves us like stones on a go board," he replied.

"You, then, are often the piece in her hand," Nyoko said.

"Perhaps. But you hold the game board."

"Perhaps," she said. "The Summoning has been made. The Journey begins. Next, then comes the Testing."

He shuddered, feeling her aura begin to fade."Nyoko--" he said

"Prepare," she whispered.

The stone in his hand pulsed one last time, then she was gone.