InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Lifetime Loving You Part 1; Seasons in Owari ❯ Christmas in Owari ( Chapter 25 )

Chapter 25; Christmas in Owari

(Inu-yasha's POV)

"Is it done? Is it done?" Aki asked, as he seemed to dance around me, and the cradle I was concentrating on and finish. I was working on the last carving as I attempted to carve Kagome's face into the picture I had made depicting me in the tree watching over her.

"My brethren are here and are awaiting the time to join in the rejoicing. You told us that this was a time of family, and all of the packs that descend from the dog demon line."

I snorted, "You mean those that are half wolf demon and dog."

Aki wrinkled his nose and shook it off. "This is my kin. It's all that was left after the males were killed. The females of the mid lands turned to the wolves to produce their numbers and bare sons."

I turned away and looked at my handy work to finish it. "The males in the mid lands were killed by disease, though...the western pack was killed by the dragon demon."

Aki bowed his head and said a small prayer. "To those who have gone before us! All of the fathers of the purest of dog demon blood are dead, and soon it will die when the females are wiped out by human hands or death."

I lowered my head and turned away to look at the barn wall. "My brother is the last of them...but hell knows he won't go looking for any average female mate. He'll be the death of us all."

Aki took my shoulder and I turned to him. "Inu-taisho wasn't stupid when he had you. You were born into that love and warmth that only a human female can offer her child. You knew the passion your father never understood, but loved to be apart of."

I smiled a little and then looked at the carving. "Kagome's child is the only one Sesshoumaru will have, and he'll never know about her."

Aki smirked and looked at me for a moment of time. "Is that the truth, or do you just want him never to know about 'her'?"

I looked at him and then at the cradle. "I want it to be a girl."

Aki shook his head. "Keep wishing...besides males are built to survive in these times. You'd be fortunate to wish for a son."

I closed my eyes and looked out in no particular direction. "Men maybe strong...but Kagome has always been stronger in my eyes. Any woman she gives life to, whether human...or half-breed, would be strong enough to fight the greatest of fears in these times."

~~~~

(Kagome's POV)

I had decided to go to bed early that day. My day of labor was coming at any moment and I knew it. It was my thirty-seventh week and my belly had finally grown to its full capacity. I felt like a balloon; a huge, fat, balloon with a head and limbs and the most humiliating feeling in my body. I felt ugly, and not just that but so utterly alone.

I had to face it. I was alone in this world now and that was the bottom line. I'd have this baby at least. Something to give my love to unconditionally without having to worry about it not loving me back later on in life. Truth was, even this baby would end up loving someone else eventually.

There really was no way out of this. No matter how things worked out and no matter how much I wanted to deny it, I was going to be alone and unhappy.

I sat in my room feeling the belly that had grown so large with the baby. I was ready to finally lie down for the night when the doors shifted and opened. I turned my head and body to see what was in the doorway to find a small flicker of golden candlelight and two soft eyes to match.

He snorted, "What are you still doing in bed? You've been here all day."

I glared at Inu-yasha trying to sit up with great difficulty. "What do you expect an over grown girl to be doing when she's going to be pushing out a rock the size of your head?"

My struggling to sit up brought him to my side quickly as he assisted me to my feet. The one thing about being pregnant though is that the blood can rush to your head a little quicker sometimes, and unfortunately the dizzies and weak knees didn't work in my favor. I fell into his chest and heard him chuckle for only a second as I looked up at him only to catch his golden gaze reflecting back in my eyes.

I hurried to get on my feet and put a little distance between his body and mine, and his warmth. He looked at me for a moment a little perplexed, and I found a strand of hair to fix.

Inu-yasha's brow arched on one side and he smirked. I knew his look. It either meant he was over confident about something, or he was keeping something from me. When his eyes looked at me, it confirmed a simple "I know something you don't know" tone of body language.

I narrowed my brow. "What are you thinking? You're up to something I can tell. What are you keeping from me, Inu-yasha?" I demanded with a slightly angry tone thinking he was going to pull of something stupid. I was obviously in the greatest of mood swings at the time.

Before I knew it Inu-yasha had approached me dangerously close and the look in his eyes scared me with the uncertainty. He had this sort of evil and yet funny look on his face as his eyes looked deep into mine. I was dependent on the distance I had put between us and found myself backing into a wall just to keep at least a foot between us.

Inu-yasha obviously didn't know any form of measurement, at least the kind that I did. I winced and felt the weight in his stare as I waited for him to do something. He closed the gap of air between us until the width of my pregnant body was really the only thing keeping him from getting close enough to feel the uncontrollable pounding in my chest.

How does he do this? How can he put me through this kind of torture when all I want to do is just-?

I screamed, and Inu-yasha pulled his ears back when I found myself being held in his arms bridal style. "Jeez, you act like I'm gonna kill you or something. Will you calm down?"

I narrowed my brow. "You're the one acting weird."

Inu-yasha smirked and began to carry out of the room and through the estate. I looked from him and to the walls as I tried to figure everything out. I opened my mouth to fight with him again, when the doors to the outdoors shifted and a bright golden light made my close my eyes to readjust them.

The sight I had to behold a second later made my eyes hurt, but this wasn't the cause for the tears. A large bond fire was in the middle of the grounds and high stone perches surrounded the flame. These large towers of stone held three or four creatures...dog demons? No, maybe wolf? Whoever they were they were all from the mountains and a majority looked like Aki. Each one had a pair of large eyes, all in a different color of pinks, yellows, etc. They were beautiful, but at the same time deformed with scars and a haggard wolf like hunches.

Yet despite their appearances, they were happy with joy to be together as young females danced with colorful scarves around the fire in beautiful motions like a ballet.

"This is the Mid Land tribe in its entirety. They've all come to meet you on this holiday," Inu-yasha said in a warm voice close to my ear.

"Holiday?" I said bright eyed with watery eyes.

In a moment, Polaris came to the fur booties and me with a skin robe to keep me warm. "Merry Christmas, Child! Come, come, you must meet my kith and kin."

She took my hand as I glanced back at Inu-yasha. "Christmas?"

He smiled as I was taken to the fire and he was sort of forgotten in the distance. Polaris broke the dancers and shooed them as she raised her hands, and then retorted with snowballs to the young male playing an odd shaped wooden fife finally gaining the attention of the demon clan. They all looked with wide eyes of amazement as Polaris captured them. I looked to my side to find bundle of tiny faces all whispering and staring curiously at Polaris and me.

"My kin, sisters, and children, I give you a visitor from a village unknown to you and me. The village of Tokyo!"

The pack looked at each other in awe as they glanced back at me. Polaris continued, "The woman, Kagome, whom taught us this day of gathering, has had to leave her family in order to give birth to a child of the phantom bloodline."

A moment later there was a round of gasps and whispers and I felt fear run through my body. Yet maybe, it was because of that feeling that Inu-yasha arrived at my side in a moments notice standing at my side looking like he was ready to take on any of them that even tried to make me feel any less.

However, there was something different in their eyes. These weren't eyes that judged or shamed, and in a moment a young child approached me. She was dirty and wore a kimono with fur coving the holes in it. I lowered to my knees and found the face was scarred with three red diagonal marks. Her hand reached out to me, and she whispered, "Are you a princess?"

I smiled a little and shook my head. "No, I'm sorry, but I'm not."

The pile of tiny faces all gasped and crawled up to me, and the faces looked to me. One boy asked, "Are you a queen?"

Another squealed, "Are you a high maiden?"

"Are you a sprit of the northern lights?"

Their questions persisted until their parents came to take them away and smiled. One of them, a female who looked about my age tipped her head to me. "Lady Kagome, shall I dance for a blessing for your child, and you? One so young should have strength when they are so close to giving birth."

I smiled and bowed my head to her as she smiled and gathered her youngest friends to join her. They tied their scarves to their wrists and began to dance with a grace and elegance I had never seen before. The swooping and circling motions made me dizzy, but at the same time the color of their brown, green, or orange hair, colored the golden light of the fire as the fife player played a joyful tune of happiness and cheer. The males were less than respectable; at least a group of them was, when it came to the beautiful pink haired one with a lame leg. My heart broke for her as she tried to keep up with her sisters.

When she lost her footing she fell and her short pink hair mixed with snow as she whimpered a cry back. I came to her side and placed my hand on her shoulder. She looked at me. "Lady Kagome," she said with a shock.

I sat down next to her. "How did your leg come to be that way?"

I lowered her head. "I was born lame, and the males in my clan think that it is ill fitting for a female to have a lame leg and dance. They say it brings bad luck, and that I will never bare a child of my own."

I lifted her chin and wiped a tear from her eye as she began to play with her scarves of white. I touched them and looked to her. " 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.' It's a saying from my, uh, village. It means that if you feel happy doing something, or you feel special when you dance. You shouldn't care about what others think. If you love to dance than you should dance. I'm sure a male in your kin will be happy to be the father of your child."

She looked at me with bright eyes. "You say it is so?"

I smiled and nodded, as the dog-wolf female sniffled. "Many blessings for you and your child, Lady Kagome, and for your mate, Inu-yasha."

My eyes widened and I looked away and began to play with the tiny gold heart locket. She looked at me a little perplexed.

'They think this is Inu-yasha's child. They think...I'm his mate.'

I jumped back into reality when I heard a voice. "Come, come, find a partner and dance," Polaris called. I smiled at the thought as I watched couples form before the fire and then watched as my female demon friend with a lame leg was asked to dance by one of the males that hung his head and felt pain for her because of how the others were treating her.

The couples's dance was beautiful, and I watched completely lost in the color of the dance as the males held on to the scarves instead of the females' hands. I felt the need to walk soon, and struggled to my feet as I made my way to the woods and passed through the trees silently.

To my surprise, the passage through the wood was only moments away from a large cliff that lead out to sea. The oceans waves pounded at the foot of the rock and made the ground tremble. I sat down again in the snow and looked up into the sky at the stars. I giggled to myself. "The seven stars of the big dipper, the first constellation Grandpa taught me."

'That's not right! The first one I learned was Orion in the winter when Sota was only a baby. I was five...and it was Daddy who taught me the story about the great warrior who fought along side his two dogs, Canis Major and Canis Minor.'

I smiled when my eyes fell on the three constellations. "Two dogs..."

"But he was killed by a scorpion, when struck in the heel during battle. Thus, he failed in his final battle."

That voice! I knew that voice, and it wasn't the kind that would bring me joy.

I turned around and held my breath as I sat in the cold snow. In the nearest trees branches sat a figure I wasn't entirely interested in seeing. "Ki-Kikyo?"

She sat in the branches of the tree with her soul collectors, each one howling and indulging their master in the lost souls. Kikyo was holding a tiny fruit in her hand and looking at it.

"I do not come for Inu-yasha. In fact I don't plan on having him know that I'm here." She turned to me with her cold blue eyes they were graying with death behind them and floated toward me. "They believe you are Inu-yasha's mate."

I winced a little not exactly sure what to say. I looked at the ground. "I'm not his mate...I'm still a virgin."

Kikyo chuckled as small laugh as she walked away and crossed her arms. "What Inu-yasha tells you is true, and that you are still a virgin free to choose a husband but I doubt that will ever come true with a hanyo child to care for. You really do plan on doing this alone, or does...your heart doubt you?"

I jumped a little at this. I narrowed my brow in anger. "Inu-yasha has promised to protect me, and that means he'll protect my child too. He couldn't possibly want to be the father of his brother's child. He hates Sesshoumaru. I know he won't want it calling him father. I know he won't want to be called that because...because he doesn't have the room for such a thing in his heart."

Kikyo turned to me and there was a look of doubt in her eyes that made me wonder. "Know this if your excuses waver. You are still a virgin and that gives you the freedom to share yourself however you wish."

I glared at her. "I plan on saving it for the man I spend on loving for the rest of my life. A lifetime of loving one man and sharing myself with one man is the way I want it to be, and having this baby won't change that. Inu-yasha told me so."

Kikyo smirked, "True...unless the man you love has given himself to a woman already."

My eyes softened as Kikyo looked into the distance. "A priestess must be a virgin in order to have such power, and it was because of my love for Inu- yasha that I became weak...but the night I lost my virginity was the night Naraku was born, and the night before Inu-yasha and I turned on each other."

My body shook and the baby suddenly began to move in my womb almost violently. "You mean--"

Kikyo smirked as she bowed her head. "I lost my virginity to Inu- yasha...and he lost his to me, which was the only reason I still had power to pin him to a tree in the end. In the world of demons, this sort of act is binding, making me his mate, and him mine."

I felt my chest sink and the baby now felt like it was trying to kill me. I hugged myself and shut my eyes tight and felt my whole body go into pain.

Was this labor...or was I dying? Was something trying to kill me?

In a moment that seemed like hours I felt someone grasp my hand and pull me toward them, and then next thing I knew I was looking into two amber eyes. "Kagome, what are you doing out here out in the cold like this? You're pregnant for crying out loud!"

Inu-yasha,

Is it true? Of course it is...there's no way he could love her this much and not. It's the reason for everything; why he goes after her, why he protects her, why he promised her, why he holds her, why he kisses her, why- -why I'll never have a father for my baby.

Inu-yasha...you gave yourself to her didn't you? Sure you did! It's the only reason why you don't love me. You...you have no room in your heart for a woman who's pregnant with your brother's child. A child he's shame when he finds out about it.

I deserve to be alone because of my foolishness. I don't deserve any of this. All these wounds...all this pain. No one deserves to live like this.

"Kagome?" his voice sounded desperate and he was looking at me like he was frightened. "Kagome, why are you crying?"

I was crying? Yes, I was. I was crying because I had realized I was going to be alone. I was going to be alone for the rest of this lifetime.

I swallowed hard to hold back the sobs and pain until I could unleash it in peace. "I think my eyes froze for a moment and they got all watery."

Inu-yasha narrowed his brow and pressed his forehead to mine. "You're lying to me."

I didn't even look at him when he said it and struggled to get to my feet again. I wrapped myself in the hide. "I don't want to talk about it now. Let's just go back!"

I could feel Inu-yasha's eyes staring into my back and I slowed down my paced walk as I came to a stop when his voice came to me again. "Wait! Kagome, wait!"

I turned around again and found him with the saddest look in his eyes. He looked like he was utterly alone and his whole body would fall in on itself. "Don't go just yet, please?"

Inu-yasha walked up to me and stopped when he came to about a breath away. He gave me a simple half smile and reached into the tree branch just above his head to grab hold of something and bring it back down. Before me, he held a large package wrapped in a white cloth.

I looked at him a little lost. Inu-yasha placed it in the snow and aided me back down to my knees. "It's my Christmas gift, for you and the baby."

I blinked a few times and looked down at the white package before finally getting the nerve to remove the white cloth. In the time it took to unwrap it, it took even more time to find the words to explain what I saw. With a gasp of air and eyes filled with awe and shock, I ran my fingers over the wooden carvings engraved into the sides of the wooden crib. It was that word you can't find to describe something when you're so taken by whatever that word is. "Where-where did you get this?"

Inu-yasha snorted, "I found the wood in the barn if that's what you're asking. I was the one who made the carvings on the sides. I made the futon and blanket with a little help from the sisters, but most of it I could do since I learned to sew repairing the fire-rat kimono."

I looked at him with my fingers still grazing over the carvings. I found them in the form of pictures not long after, and Inu-yasha would spend this night telling me about what he carved into the cradle. I looked at the picture of my baby and me with him watching me from the old dead tree he favored back home. He wasn't at my side he was watching me. Inu-yasha didn't want to be a father. There was no room in his heart to become a father. If anything he would have wanted to have children with Kikyo who was strong and died to be with him. He would have wanted children with her blue eyes and her beauty. He didn't want this sham of a girl who had a child and he thought wasn't even pretty. I didn't measure up to that.

I didn't deserve him.

That's when I made up my mind. There was no point in me keeping him like this. Inu-yasha deserved to be free to live out what he wanted. I couldn't live this make believe tale any more. He didn't love me and he would never want to stay beside me. Like he ever did.

I do it!

I'd break the bond that I believed was the only thing keeping him by me. I'd give him what he wanted most. I wouldn't let him live alone like this. I was the one who had to live this way.

There was no way out.

I was alone!