InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Because you asked me to ❯ Naraku ( Chapter 5 )

 

 

The woman gave a slight sound of surprise when he caught his armor in his hand by the shoulder ties and held it against her back as he descended from his perch in the tree quickly. They alighted on the ground; her feet inches above the earth as he slowly lowered her down, letting her bare feet touch the grass below. That was another thing, he thought, Rin was growing too quickly for shoes to be practical, but this woman was full grown. The ground was hard and in some places sharp and unforgiving, she would need foot coverings, especially in the coming winter months. It was the end of summer now and beginning to move into fall, the beautiful cool breezes lifting and playing with their hair.

 

“Something's coming,” the woman said quietly as she turned away from Sesshoumaru. “Put on your armor,” she said as she stepped away from the taiyoukai slightly.

 

“Do you know what it is?” Sesshoumaru asked her as he donned his armor and watched her as he lifted his head a bit and took in deep whiffs of the wind as he tried to smell out what she felt coming.

 

“No…it's there, but it's not…It feels the same as what came before.”

 

“Explain,” Sesshoumaru said as he took the hand that she reached out for him, needing his touch to assure herself that he was there and she was safe.

 

“Years ago a man came to me. He said he could give me back my sight.”

 

“You declined his offer,” he stated simply as she backed into him and held tighter to his hand as she stood against him.

 

“Yes…Something felt wrong about him - dark. He touched me…my face - his hand felt cold…he scared me. I didn't like him,” she said as she turned halfway, her hands loosing from his own as she grasped one hand on his armor the other had fisted in the sleeve of his haori. “He's coming closer. Please make him go away,” her voice sounded terribly frightened and young, childlike in her fear.

 

Sesshoumaru loosed her hands from his armor and clothing and pushed her behind him as he stood silently. It was then as the woman's hands trembled against his back as she grasped the back of haori that he picked up the scent on the breeze. Naraku.

 

Sesshoumaru felt the woman press her face into his back as she tried to hide behind him. She was so frightened, her fear palpable and for once he didn't ridicule someone for their fear. She couldn't see, she couldn't fight, and was too weak to even if she could. All she could feel was the darkness held inside the forged hanyou. Those with sight were fooled, deceived and drawn in by Naraku's beauty, a beauty that was not his own. It was true, that saying, the truth is blind. This woman knew the truth, and this woman was blind. She could not be fooled by illusion because of her sightlessness; it was perhaps her only saving grace against Naraku.

 

The baboon covered hanyou stopped in front of him and called out to the woman, but she remained behind Sesshoumaru, calming only when the taiyoukai's tail lifted off of his shoulder and wrapped around her waist and torso, soothing her with gentle pulsing constrictions.

 

“The woman is not your concern hanyou, leave us,” Sesshoumaru commanded.

 

“Ku ku ku Sesshoumaru. You overestimate her need of you. I think perhaps the woman would like to listen to what I have to offer her,” Naraku said his voice amused and confident.

 

“Make him go away,” she begged her voice a whisper that Sesshoumaru only barely heard.

 

“Leave us Naraku,” Sesshoumaru said his hand on the hilt of hi sword.

 

Naraku ignored Sesshoumaru his attention focused on the woman hiding behind the youkai. “Would you like your sight back now woman? It would be beneficial to see your attackers coming, don't you think?”

 

“My attack…” her voice trailed off as her blood grew cold and her head spun as she leaned heavily against Sesshoumaru, one hand clutching his tail.

 

“You sent the men after her,” Sesshoumaru stated, his voice cold and bored, a hint of anger that he was unable to completely hide.

 

“She needed to be…convinced.”

 

There was no tome for her to react as the tail wrapped around her lifted her and flung her through the air. She felt herself caught in flat toothed jaws, two sets of them, Ah-Un?

 

“Die,” Sesshoumaru said as he released his poison at Naraku, the hanyou unleashing his miasma at Sesshoumaru.

 

“She will be mine youkai,” Naraku said as he lifted into the air.

 

“What importance is one blind human woman to you hanyou?” Sesshoumaru growled as he leapt after the hanyou.

 

“It is not she I am interested in youkai. Just the power she holds.”

 

With those parting words Naraku disappeared in a dusty dark swirling cloud of his own miasma. Sesshoumaru gave a soft snort before turning and walking back to the woman who stood trembling against Ah-Un, her face buried in between the valley of their two necks as she silently cried her fear. Walking up behind her he touched her shoulder, the woman spinning and burying her face in his armor as she clung to him, her arms around his waist.

 

“Shh,” he whispered to her as he held her close and gave a nod of his head, signaling Jaken to take Rin away while he comforted the woman.

 

The toad youkai retainer led Rin away, telling her to pick flowers for the woman to make her smile and Sesshoumaru smiled inwardly at the child's enthusiasm for such a task. He held the woman in his arms, wondering what power it could be that she held that Naraku wanted to possess. Smelling blood he looked down, the woman had bitten through her lip as she clutched it between her teeth trying to stifle the sound of her tears.

 

His hand moved from her back to cup her cheek, his thumb resting under her bottom lip as he gently tugged the damaged flesh free of her teeth.

 

“Scream; cry out if you need to. I'll not think less of you for it,” he said his voice low and soothing.

 

He could hear her teeth chattering as she tried to keep the sobs at bay, sobs she had never felt so strongly before. It was moments later as her tears fell more rapidly that the first choked and broken sound was ripped from her throat. It must have hurt her to make the sound, he thought, as she clung to him more tightly, her body shaking and trembling with her tears.

 

Sesshoumaru lifted her in his arm and tail, carrying her as he settled himself on the ground, sitting in the grass as he leaned up against Ah-Un's side, the dragon looking at the woman in worry with both heads as Sesshoumaru sat her in his lap. The taiyoukai removed his hand from her, his tail untangling from around her knees to wrap around her middle and shoulders like a blanket or shall as he removed his armor.

 

He set the metal and bone armor aside as he cradled and gently rocked the woman in his embrace. He'd never seen someone so frightened before, not even Rin reacted as such when they had run into to Kouga and his tribe. But then again Rin had been with Sesshoumaru, had the completely and unfailing trust in him that only a child could possess. This woman, she had grown up and lived alone, all without her sight. She had been unwanted and ridiculed for her inability to see the world around her. This woman had only been with him for three short days, it hadn't been long enough for her to be certain, for her to trust that he wouldn't leave her.

 

How was she to have known that he wouldn't simply turn her over to Naraku? She shook in his hold as she sobbed, for once giving sound to her tears, to her pain. He watched, stroking her hair in an effort to calm and comfort her as she wrapped her arms around her middle and whimpered.

 

“I feel sick,” she said through her tears quietly.

 

“Shh, it is your tears making you feel so,” he said softly to her as he tucked her head into his shoulder, her brow resting against the side of his neck as he purred to her and growled low.

 

The rumbling soothing sound and the vibrations in his chest and throat calmed and soothed the distraught woman, the pulsing constrictions of his tail around her waist soothing her upset stomach. He felt her shift against him as she curled into a more comfortable position and yawned as she closed her eyes.

 

“No,” he said softly, his voice soothing though amused. “You can't sleep yet, you need to eat.”

 

“Eat what?” she mumbled sleepily, his purrs and growls acting a low lullaby soothing her into a much too comfortable state between sleep and wake.

 

“Rin,” he called out.

 

“You want me to eat the child?” she asked confused as she yawned again and she felt him jerk once as she heard a stifled chuckle come from him.

 

“No, most certainly not,” he said as he blinked his golden eyes rapidly and his lips twitched a bit as he tried to keep the laughter from coming out. The woman was far too amusing when sleepy. “Rin,” he said once again under control as the girl came up to his side. “Keep her awake while I hunt for you two.”

 

“Ok,” she said with a giggle and kissed his cheek.

 

The child had developed a habit of kissing his cheek and hugging him, his leg when standing or around his shoulders when he was sitting. She would often ask him to tell her a story when he put her to bed at night when they were in his castle or climb into his bed during nights when thunderstorms raged and lightning flashed across the sky. After the first time he had taken her to his castle, to her new home, he had grown used to her proclivity to climb into his bed when, the first week of the first month he stayed in the castle with her a storm raged through the lands. Each morning for six days straight he had awoken to her sleeping in his bed, curled up against his side, her face buried in his bare chest.

 

It was that first month that he had stayed in the castle with her that she had come to mean the world to him. That first week she had somehow changed in his mind from being `that human child' to being `his pup'. Perhaps it was Rin's influence, her love for him that had changed him and made him so willing to take this poor abandoned woman into his care. He sighed without sound and brushed his thoughts away. For the first time when she was awake, Sesshoumaru turned to Rin and kissed her forehead. He had done so many times before, but never while she had been awake. The child gasped in wonder and happily hugged him around his neck before moving aside as he stood up and rested the woman in his arm to sit against Ah-Un's side.

 

“Keep her awake Rin,” he said softly before moving off into the meadow around them. “Jaken, go to the river and gather water for them,” he said watching as the toad nodded before he moved off into the forest and began his hunt.

 

Two plump rabbits later, he returned to them with wood to form a spit and enough to burn to cook the meat. He skinned and cleaned the rabbits before returning to Rin and the woman and setting up the spit, the fire ready bodies of the rabbits already on a long stick. He handed the furs off to Jaken and told him to clean them in the river before returning. He would use them to make shoes for the woman, they wouldn't be much, but the fur against her feet would be soft and warm and the leather underside of the skin would create leather soles to give her purchase against the ground she walked on.

 

Sesshoumaru growled softly, the sound unheard by Rin and the woman. Without a second hand he could not use the flint rock to start the fire. Ah-Un turned one big head toward him and brought his muzzle to the wood sticks and blew breath out between his teeth and lips creating a fire and the wood cracked as it burned.

 

“What's that sound?” the woman asked as she turned her head toward the fire, her brows furrowed in confusion.

 

“It is the fire,” Sesshoumaru said simply as he set the sharpened stick with the rabbits onto the spit to cook.

 

“Fire?” she said in confusion.

 

There had never once been a fire in the woods where she lived otherwise she would have known the term and more than likely never have met Sesshoumaru, or even lived long enough to. Sesshoumaru moved and stood, walking over to where the woman sat beside Rin, the child braiding flowers into her hair. He sat down behind the woman, taking one of her hands in his, his palm resting against the back of her hand as his long fingers twined slightly with her own. He slowly lifted her hand and held it out toward the fire.

 

“Do you feel the warmth?” he asked his voice low and soft.

 

“Yes,” she breathed in wonder. “It's so hot, what is that?” she asked and he was leaning close enough to take in the scent of her hair, blinking slowly and breathing in deeply before he answered her question.

 

“That is the heat from the fire. A fire is beautiful but dangerous. You must not get too close to it,” he said to her softly as he looked at her face as she turned it to him and he was again intrigued by the way her pupils contracted and dilated to the difference in light, he would most definitely be talking to his healer when they arrived at the castle.

 

“How will I know if I'm too close?” she asked feeling helpless and stupid for her lack of sight.

 

“The heat will tell you…No,” he said as he pulled their joined hands back. “You must not touch the fire for it will burn you.”

 

“Burn me?” she asked and then remembered the days not too long ago as she was constructing her grass garment that she had gone without clothing, the heat of the sun making her skin extremely sensitive and painful for several days after. “Like when the daylight made my skin ache?” she asked.

 

A sunburn, he thought. “In a sense, but a fire will cause you much more damage,” he said and separated his hand from hers, reaching out to turn the rabbits to cook on the other side.

 

“Oh,” she said and leaned back against him as she listened to the crackling of the small fire and basked in its warmth as she yawned softly.

 

“Just a bit longer,” he said to her as he kept her from falling asleep, Rin braiding the last of the small blossoms into her long single braid. “Then after you eat, you may sleep.”

 

“Hmm…ok,” she said and yawned again.

 

They would stay here for the night, he thought as he watched the sun begin its slow descent into the horizon. The rabbits had finally finished cooking when he felt the woman nearing sleep and shook her lightly to awaken her as he passed half of one of the rabbits to Rin and held the other half in his hand. He had to bite his tongue to keep himself from chuckling when he found the woman too tired to feed herself, her hand lifting weakly to the food and plucking only strings of the meat away.

 

A rather undignified but highly amused snort sounded from him before he could stop it and Rin giggled and smiled up at him as he narrowed his eyes at her in a playful glare. He handed his half of the rabbit to Rin and turned the woman in his lap, cradling her against his armless shoulder as he had Rin tear off bits of the meat so that he could feed her. Once he was satisfied that she had eaten enough of the meat he took the container of water from where it sat in the grass and held it to her lips as she drank.

 

“Sleep,” he said as he laid her against Ah-Un's side and moved to take a perch in the tree from which he could guard them as they slept.

 

“Where are you going?” she asked quickly, becoming frightened by the fact that he was leaving her, her hand fisting in the edge of his sleeve.

 

“It is alright, you are safe,” he said to her as he knelt in front of her.

 

“Please where are you going?” she asked again her fear not abating.

 

Sesshoumaru looked to Rin and the young girl moved and curled up next to the woman, resting her head on the woman's thigh, her hand next to her face as she whispered to the woman that it was alright, that Lord Sesshoumaru would not leave them. The woman was calmed somewhat by the child's words, but not enough to be able to sleep. Lifting her hands, he brought them up to his neck and waited as she rested them on either side before he began purring. The effect of feeling the vibrations through her hands was the same as if she had been curled up against his chest and soon she was soothed and asleep.

 

His eyes smiled down softly on the sleeping woman and he knew that she would be just like Rin. Right now she needed to be near him to assure herself that he wouldn't leave her, but he knew that in time she would come to want to be near him just like Rin did. What was it that attracted these two to him so?

 

“Sesshoumaru-sama,” Rin's sleep heavy voice called out to him softly and he looked at her. “Would you stay with us, just for tonight?” she asked her words slurring in her sleepiness.

 

The child yawned and her eyes squeezed shut with the action. Would he ever be able to say no to her when she was like this? He looked over to find Jaken already snoring away, his staff hugged to him as he lay on his side on the ground by Ah-Un's tail. Turning his attention back to the females in front of him, Sesshoumaru lifted the sleepy child into his arm and moved to take her place next to the woman as Rin curled up in his lap in a small ball, her head pillowed on his thigh as he sat cross legged on the ground. With his arm now free, he gently brought the sleeping unnamed woman into his embrace leaning her head against his shoulder.

 

What was he doing, he asked himself. How could he let two females, human females at that, affect him so? What made them so special when it was a rarity that a youkai woman ever caught his eye or even his attention in such a manner? He had never before had the desire for a family in such a way, and now here he had a human child he considered his pup, and a human woman that his youkai blood was continually claiming was theirs. He knew without a doubt that he would give his life for them, duty and propriety be damned.

 

Three things for sure, he definitely needed to find a name for her, talk to his healer about her eyes, and discover what power she held that Naraku so desperately wanted. He was curious about the last thing. He had not felt any power from her, no youkai power, nor any witchery or sorcery, so what power could she hold? Every human, every being held some bit of spiritual power he knew; it was just a matter of how they used it, or if they were even aware of it. Could it be that Naraku wanted her spiritual power? But then how strong could she be?

 

He yawned suddenly, the warmth from the bodies curled up against his lulling him to sleep. He could think on this more in the morning, he decided and gave in to the slumber that beckoned and pulled at him.

 

Mine, he heard his youkai blood say to him as he fell nearer to sleep.

 

What is yours? He asked it in frustration.

 

The woman and child. They are ours. They belong to us and with us.

 

And just what makes the woman ours?

 

She is ours.

 

Our what?

 

She is ours.