InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Beside You in Time ❯ 1812: Moscow ( Chapter 13 )

A/N: Awards time has come and gone again (awhile ago, actually, since they're starting up for the 3rd quarter - I was stuck on this chapter for too long)! This story had more nominations between Dokuga and the IYFG than any other time for any other of my fics that I can recall in recent history, and it actually picked up a few awards against some stiff competition.

At Dokuga, it won 2nd place for Best Romance.

Over at the IYFG, this story won a whole slew of awards:
1st Place - Best Romance: Other
1st Place (tied) - Best Characterization (Sesshoumaru)
2nd Place - Best AU/AR
2nd Place - Best Action/Adventure

Yay! BIG hugs go to everyone that nominated, seconded and voted! :D

Also, I'm so very, very fortunate to have some more fanart for "The Once and Future Taiyoukai". Janey-jane did this fabulous piece called "Touch: SessxKags" - http :// janey-jane . deviantart . com/art/ Touch-SessxKags-139919689 (make sure you remove the spaces). Thank you again, chica! ;)

And thanks to Ijin for looking this over!

He was smeared with soot and sweat, looking more like a blacksmith than an officer of the Imperial Guard. Thirty other men worked with him, made identical by the ash sticking to their skin. They were all coughing up black, slimy mucus - it was the only thing that seemed to stay in their lungs. The air was sucked from their chests by the fire, just as the moisture was leeched from their flesh. The smell of blood filled Sesshoumaru's nose as his men's skin cracked in the dry heat, but no one had the energy to complain.

Kitai-gorod district was burning. Shops, homes, ale-houses - it was all crumbling into ash as the air grew thick with smoke. Sesshoumaru had lost count of how many times he had been fighting fires in this campaign. All across Russia, every time the French Army had come close to regaining its footing, the Russian infantry had set fires to throw them back off again. The earth was scorched, and the French troops were denied food, shelter and clean water. Coming to Moscow had been a relief after all their losses to starvation and disease - they were so much farther than they were ever supposed to have gone, and no one but the Emperor cared that the city had emptied before they arrived.

And then, the fires had started once again. Sesshoumaru had never been so willing to let humans fend for themselves.

Most said that it was the Russian Army again - they had even captured a few supposed saboteurs - but he wasn't so convinced. He had seen his own men setting carelessly contained fires to cook and to aid in the looting that they saw as their right after such a long march. And there were the scraps of the population that hadn't evacuated with the rest of the city - like ghostly wraiths, they moved from house to house in order to escape the French, and a glimpse of them was always startling.

The simple fact was that this city was no longer a prize to be won, whatever Napoleon thought as he sat in the Kremlin, as flames licked its walls. Sesshoumaru knew, even as he fought it, that the fire would consume everything. Rain was coming, but it was too far away to make much of a difference. Moscow would burn. All this work - this entire empire - might come down to a simple war of attrition.

"Captain!"

The taiyoukai turned at the call. Four, relatively clean men approached the line of firefighters, trying to shy away from the threatening heat. "What is it?" he barked.

"We have come to relieve you, sir," said the lieutenant at the front. "You are to appear before the emperor immediately."

Besides an arch of his brow, there was no indication that a lowly captain being called to the presence of the Emperor of the French was anything but an everyday occurrence. "Is there a reason you aren't coming to replace three other of my men as well? Why are there four of you?" he asked, handing off his water bucket.

The lieutenant shook his head. "I think she suggested it, sir."

"She?"

"The woman who came to see you, sir."

Sesshoumaru glanced up at the towers of the Kremlin, visible from its place just a few streets away. The fires had clogged his senses - he heard only the roar of the flames and the crumbling of buildings; he smelled only smoke; he tasted only ash, and even in the pit of his stomach, he felt only the dull pain of knowing that he was on a losing campaign. Still, for all that, he knew he would have felt her presence. It couldn't be Kagome, which left only one other possibility. He wondered how the countess had found him.

He sighed and began the short trek to the tsar's former palace, trying to wipe some of the soot from his face with his sleeve before realizing the fabric was smoking. A quick assessment revealed that his leather boots were crisp and flaking off to the touch and his hair was singed in several places. His skin healed too quickly to be scorched, but he almost hoped that he looked frightful. Napoleon wouldn't be moved to see him, but perhaps some of his more nervous generals would realize that staying in the Kremlin was a fool's errand.

He knew that he was tiring of the Grande Armée if he was hoping to convince others to give up on a battle.

Finding a gap in the red brick ramparts, he passed the guards and entered the Kremlin. He had been here two days ago to prepare security measures for Napoleon's arrival, but he hadn't taken the time to appreciate the scope of the tsars' vision of what the seat of an empire should look like. The Kremlin was a complex - palaces, cathedrals and an entire arsenal - for the comfort and power of the tsar. Awash in white and red, with fields of golden, Orthodox crosses jutting up into the sky, it was meant to awe and humble. However, the orange glow of the inferno beyond the Kremlin walls was far more terrible and once again, the home of the tsars was dwarfed by his other concerns.

He mounted the stairs to the Terem Palace, not bothering to ask where Napoleon was. The tsar's chambers would have been at the top, and so that was where the emperor would go too. As he climbed higher, he could see the fires of Kitai-gorod as well as a half dozen others spread out across the city, all converging in on the Kremlin. The firelight pierced the windows, making the gilded ceilings glow and flicker. His long shadow quivered and danced as he moved into the center of the palace.

"There you are," said a familiar voice once Sesshoumaru had arrived in the antechamber to the Gold Room. "I was starting to wonder. You look like a mess, you know that?"

"Brandt," greeted Sesshoumaru flatly, deciding not to give an answer to the insult. The guards at the door fidgeted as he paused beside the fire demon instead of going inside immediately. "What does the countess want with me?"

The other demon grinned. "The countess? Well, I know things didn't exactly go well at our last parting..."

"They went perfectly well," snapped the taiyoukai.

"Right. Of course." His smile spread further. "Why don't you stop stalling, go in and find out what she wants, then?"

Sesshoumaru looked at the two sentries, both of whom had their hands on the doorhandles. "You should go in, Captain," said one with a pleading smile. "They're waiting."

They opened the doors for him without waiting for an answer, and he obligingly stepped through with Brandt on his heels. The Gold Room covered with gilt lions and eagles that posed on the walls amid sprawling, shining vines, while saints surrounded by golden halos looked down from their places between the triangular arches of the ceiling. Everything was set against a vivid red, matching the velvet that covered every chair. High-ranking officers were in every corner of the room, and Napoleon Bonaparte was sitting in the grandest of the chairs - the one meant for the tsar. But it was the woman that stood beside him that caught Sesshoumaru's attention.

He remembered her pseudonym just in time. "Aurelie?"

Kagome gave him a ghost of a smile and a bow of the head in return as Napoleon got to his feet, sending a glare in Sesshoumaru's direction. "Forgive me, General," said the taiyoukai, bowing deeply to his commander and emperor. "I was surprised to see my cousin so far from France."

"So was I," muttered Napoleon. "I didn't know that you were related to the Baroness Girard de Chevalier, Captain."

Sesshoumaru blinked at the title bestowed upon his long-time companion. "I suppose I did not have the chance, General," he said slowly, glancing at the rigid form of Kagome out of the corner of his eye. She looked no more like a baroness than she usually did - worse, in fact, with her windburned cheeks and somber dress of black. She must have just arrived on horseback, although he still did not know why he could not sense her presence, even when she stood so close.

His mind skittered to a halt as realization broke. It didn't matter that she hadn't said a word yet - he knew why she had come. Her black silk dress trimmed in crepe had told him everything he needed to know. Women only wore black for one reason in these times, as a visible mark of their quiet pain and their forced withdrawal from society. A widow's weeds were all the more conspicuous if she was the only one wearing the color.

It surprised him how fervently he hoped that he was wrong - that she had arrived in the few months that it was required to wear black for the death of a relative, instead of the year that was required for a husband's passing. Even if Sesshoumaru had never completely warmed to him, Kagome didn't deserve to suffer through the early death of her husband. Not after everything else she had survived. But another look at her face extinguished his wish as soon as it began to burn. If he didn't know that the curse had made it impossible, he would have thought she was paler and thinner than when he had seen her last, two years before.

Her eyes met his, and it might as well have been said aloud - Bastien was dead.

"Your Imperial Majesty," Kagome began, looking to Napoleon, "we should begin. I am certain that you have other things you wish to deal with today."

The French emperor's eyes flashed, but he acquiesced readily enough. "Gentlemen," he called, garnering the attention of his commanders, "step out of the room for a minute. I have personal matters to discuss with the baroness and her cousin and ah..." He glowered at Brandt, who had not even glanced in his direction.

"Her escort," Brandt supplied with an easy grin.

He eyed the fire demon suspiciously. "Leave us, gentlemen. I will tell you when our business has concluded," murmured Napoleon as the assorted generals of his cavalry, infantry and artillery began to file out, taking maps and plans along with them. Brandt closed the doors behind them, turned the lock and slid into the nearest velvet chair.

"Your Imperial Majesty," Kagome started again.

"You said that you would never use this against me," muttered Napoleon, cutting her off. "My distrust was not misplaced, Baroness."

Napoleon was not so short as the English liked to believe - although full foot shorter than Sesshoumaru, he still could look down on the miko. But Kagome didn't quail under his glare. "I said that I would never use it for my own, personal gain," she corrected primly. "And I'm not. I'm here to save my cousin's life."

The taiyoukai's brow ticked upwards. "Aurelie?" he murmured, barely audible to anyone but her. She caught his eye and shook her head - a silent plea for him to keep his questions to himself.

The emperor's eyes were slanted towards Sesshoumaru. "His life?" he echoed, taking in the taiyoukai's stature. "I am no fool, Baroness. I have always known what the captain is. I never thought of a demon as needing the protection a human girl could provide."

If Sesshoumaru was surprised that the Frenchmen knew of demons, Kagome was decidedly not. "The Order does not know everything about demons, Emperor," she said without missing a beat. "Nor do they know everything about humans. Particularly this one. You shouldn't let them give you so much counsel."

"He's in my army, isn't he?" replied Napoleon. "I am sure there are others. What general in his right mind would relinquish a demon? The Order does not command me. I allow the demons in my army to fight below their ability in return for all those privileges any man who serves me would have. I know the Order would not approve of that."

"But you are Emperor of the French because they approve of you," said Brandt from his place near the doors. "Imagine what would happen if you suddenly lost their favor. Harboring a demon alone would do that, so what do you think they'll do to you if they know your real secret?"

Sesshoumaru watched guilt flash across Kagome's features as she snapped, "Brandt!"

Bonaparte's face darkened. "You used my secret to gain an audience with me. Why should I be surprised that you are using it to extort me as well?" he asked.

"I have no wish to do that," Kagome muttered, glaring at the fire demon. "I am here to ask a favor of you. You will lose him." She pointed to Sesshoumaru. "I am asking that you let him go willingly, instead of forcing him to start a new battle in this war. Brandt has no tact, but he is right. If the Order finds out that you've used a demon for your own purposes, they will withdraw their silent support of your rule."

"But, if I refuse, you will expose me to the Order," replied Napoleon flatly. He shook his head as she opened her mouth to respond. "Do not lie to me, Baroness."

Brandt sat up and grinned. "The Alliance has given us permission to convey the particulars of your past to the Order," he affirmed, "which the baroness is well aware of."

The French emperor fixed his stare on Sesshoumaru. "And you? You have been silent, but I must know if you condone what your Alliance is doing to me. You have served under me for seven years. Is the Order correct? Do the demons wish for the downfall of mankind?" He paused and squared his jaw. "Am I to be forced to stand up against the Alliance at the cost of everything?"

The taiyoukai frowned deeply. "I believe that you have the frailties of most humans in your vanity and self-importance, but you also have admirable conviction. I would not have served under a man - human or demon - for whom I lacked all respect. However, I do not know this secret with which the Alliance threatens you," he said, "and so, I cannot answer whether the choice they present you with is worth the cost."

For the first time, Napoleon appeared surprised. He glanced at Kagome and Brandt in turn. "I would have thought one of your cohorts would have told you," he said.

"If Aurelie vowed to keep your secret, she would not have told me," Sesshoumaru replied. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flutter of a smile on Kagome's face. "You should have had faith in her." He hesitated. "And the Order is incorrect. Aurelie alone proves that not all humans should be destroyed."

The emperor's sharp eyes took in the soft blush on Kagome's cheeks. "I see why they're after you," he murmured.

"And you," she replied quickly, "if they ever find out. We're both traitors to our kind, in the eyes of the Order, or rather, you would be, if they knew. Armand is honorable, but Brandt will not hesitate in revealing you to them."

Brandt nodded once, not bothered by the insult. "The Alliance has decided that the death of a demoness that has willingly slept with someone so close to the Order is an acceptable loss, if you do not give us what we want. We will not mourn the loss of your mistress."

Sesshoumaru's eyes widened slightly, but Napoleon spoke first. "And my child? He is only two years old."

The fire demon leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and his eyes narrowed. "Well, he isn't really your child, is he? You never accepted him as yours. You're married to someone else. You have another son by this wife of yours, and you don't need two, do you?" His eyes flickered to Sesshoumaru. "The bastard child might as well not have a father."

"That's not how it works for humans," Kagome jumped in. She looked at the emperor, who was almost trembling in fury, and her expression softened. "I know you didn't know what she was. I know you had to make a choice for their safety and yours when you decided to hide your mistress and the half-demon child. I'm sorry we're coming to you with the threat of undoing that, Your Imperial Majesty."

Napoleon clenched his teeth. "What, exactly, do you want? For me to release him? Fine, he is discharged from my service," he ground out.

"It's not as easy as that," Brandt drawled, standing up at last. "Hell, we could have convinced him to leave with us, if that's what we wanted."

"We need the Order to hear from someone they trust that Armand is dead," whispered Kagome. "We need them to call off their hunt for him."

Brandt hissed at her unnecessary sharing of information, but there was no chance to berate her. A frenzied knock rattled the doors to the anteroom, and one of the generals called, "Your Imperial Majesty! The fire has reached the walls! We must leave. It is too close to the black powder stores!"

"That's them," Kagome murmured. "The Order set fire to Moscow and encouraged the Russians to flee, so that they would have a clear path to Armand. They are ready to destroy you and so many others, all for their mindless ambition to wipe the earth clean of demons. Armand has done nothing to deserve that," she said, the lie rolling from her tongue with ease.

"Telling them that he is dead could endanger me just as much as refusing your demand," he said.

"The Alliance would not act against you. You would have made a friend in a very powerful group." She stared at Napoleon. "So, will you tell them?"

The Emperor of the French hesitated only a moment. "If I have the opportunity, yes," he said. He glanced over at the fire demon. "You cannot destroy my son's life if I have no chance to say anything."

Kagome gave him a thin smile. "You will," she assured. She sent him a shrewd look. "I believe your refusal to give up will become legendary, Your Imperial Majesty."

Napoleon blinked at her. "Very well," he agreed as another frantic knock echoed through the room. "I suppose that I must take my leave of you." He bowed to Kagome and Sesshoumaru in turn.

The fire demon threw open the doors, letting the emperor pass into the phalanx of generals. "You'd think they'd never seen a few flames before," he said with a venomous grin.

"Brandt." Sesshoumaru's warning was frigid with contempt, and Kagome let out a small bark of a laugh at the contortions of the other male's face.

"This is not your rescue mission," Brandt said.

Kagome watched Sesshoumaru shed his military jacket. Half it had been burned away already, and his white waistcoat and shirt underneath were blackened. "And now, he's rescued from the failures of the French Army," she said dryly. "A job well done, since I did most of the work. In case you hadn't noticed, most humans don't respond very well to threats. Certainly not Napoleon. He stuck it out here for far longer than he should have, didn't he?"

Sesshoumaru nodded in answer to the rhetorical question. "Will this campaign of his be a failure?" he asked, pausing before he laid the jacket across the back of a velvet chair.

"The beginning of the end, at least. He'll leave Moscow soon enough, but the army is nearly gone. Unfortunately, Napoleon committed one of the classic blunders," Kagome replied. "'Never get involved in a land war in Asia.'"

"Moscow is in Europe," he replied flatly.

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, I know, but it's still true."

"Are there many of these geographically misleading 'classic blunders'?"

"Well, you should never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line," she rattled off, the corner of her mouth twitching with amusement.

He searched his mind for a long-forgotten word - one that she uttered often when he did not or could not understand what she was talking about. "Movie?"

She laughed again, and this time, it was bright and warm. For the first time since he had come into the room, she looked like she had had life breathed into her body. "Yeah. I can't believe you remembered that."

There was a loud clearing of the the throat, and Brandt reasserted himself. "I would hesitate to break up this touching reunion, except that I don't care," growled Brandt. "We probably do want to get away from any possible explosions involving gunpowder, however. Just a thought."

Sesshoumaru wanted to throttle the fire demon for the way that the smile dropped from her face. "I thought it was just a few flames," she said, brushing past him into the now deserted antechamber.

"Stay if you'd like," scoffed Brandt. "I'd do just fine. I don't know how far your gift goes. Would you survive?"

He strode on ahead, and Kagome waited for Sesshoumaru to come up beside her before setting off after him. "We've gotten to the point where we'd be slightly put out if the other one was blown to bits," she muttered, gesturing towards the fire demon's figure in front of them, "but that's where the concern for each other starts and ends. Actually, it's progress from what it was."

Sesshoumaru wasn't sure if she was trying to assure him. Her expression was a a mask of indifference once again. "Did you travel with him from France?"

"His idea," Kagome replied. "I was going to wait until you came home from Christmas."

"I haven't been to your home in more than two years," he said. He paused and glanced down at her widow's weeds. "But I would have returned, if you had asked."

"I know," she said quickly, obviously unwilling to let him continue on that train of thought. "Anyway, I'm here. When Brandt said that you were being hunted by the Order again, that kind of made the decision for me. He couldn't find you on his own, but he could find me. And when he found out what I knew about Napoleon's mistress and child, he insisted. He said you haven't talked to anyone from the Alliance in ages."

He shrugged. "It has been some time," he said.

"I wouldn't imagine the countess is happy about that," she murmured.

"If she was so displeased, she would have accompanied her cousin here," he said. "Or to your home."

Kagome glanced at him. "She wasn't there."

Sesshoumaru shrugged his shoulders again. "How did you find me? Did one of my letters actually reach you?"

She lit up once more. "You've been writing? I thought you'd stopped," she said.

"Mail is unreliable in a war," he muttered, "but I never have revealed troop movements to you or anyone."

"Of course." They followed Brandt out of the palace and into the smoky haze of the Kremlin courtyard. "But I followed you the same way we've always found one another. I sensed you. Just your general direction, but this," she said, waving her arm towards the conflagration pressing up against the walls, "isn't exactly forgotten. Tchaikovsky writes an overture about it. Somehow, I had a feeling you'd be right in the thick of it."

She wasn't smiling, but he could feel the dark amusement rippling through her. "I cannot sense you in return," he murmured. "Not in any way beyond what I sense from any other human."

Kagome nodded. "That's good," she said. "It means it worked."

Brandt stopped at the bottom of the stairs. "Hey, Armand."

"What is it?" Sesshoumaru snapped, forced to turn away from the miko.

"Those yours?" drawled the fire demon, nodding towards the gate.

The taiyoukai looked up to see several men fanning out across the courtyard. "Those are not French uniforms. They aren't Russian either," he added. "Do you have horses nearby? Or are you willing to go with a more conspicuous exit?"

"I can't leap tall buildings in a single bound, Sesshoumaru," said Kagome.

He stepped towards her. "I can carry you," he said, frowning as she edged away from him.

"The reason you can't sense me is the reason that's not going to work," she whispered, lifting her hand. Her fingers glowed a soft pink.

"Excuse me!" Brandt started.

"Is this permanent?" Sesshoumaru asked, ignoring the fire demon.

A gentle smile passed over her lips. "No."

"Hey!" They turned to Brandt, who was scowling at them. "For the sake of all non-immortals present, can we get the horses and leave? Fire, I can deal with. The Order? Well, that's why we need you to take care of them." He pointed at Sesshoumaru.

The taiyoukai looked back over his shoulder. "They do seem to have swelled in number," he commented.

"This is just the advance guard," muttered Brandt as he hurried off, with Sesshoumaru and Kagome trailing after him. "We're going to be seen, no matter how we leave."

"Then, we just have to ensure that any Order member that sees us does not survive to tell the others," Sesshoumaru replied. He glanced at the woman beside him - the urge to touch her was still strong, despite her warnings. "Kagome?"

"I couldn't exactly bring my rifles in while meeting Napoleon," she said, "but if no one has stolen them, they should be with the horses. And I have one pistol under my skirts."

"Of course she does," muttered Brandt, prompting a sneer from the miko.

The horses and the guns had not been stolen, although the animals were wild-eyed and nervous. Kagome mounted up, soothing her mare with a steady hand, and handed each male demon a loaded rifle. Sesshoumaru looked at it with interest. "British," she supplied. "Muskets are going the way of the dinosaurs."

"Perhaps I trained with the wrong army for weapons," murmured Sesshoumaru.

"These load slower, so don't use it unless you have to. But they're more accurate." Kagome shrugged at his dubious expression. "Invent the revolver, and we'll have some real fire power. Until then, you're still a demon, and they know you're a demon, so you might as well use those skills while you can."

Brandt finally calmed his horse and swung himself up into the saddle. "For God's sake, you talk like two, old women!" he muttered. "Let's go already."

Sesshoumaru urged his horse forward, frowning at the fire demon as he passed. "This is not the best tactical position. We must go quickly and not be drawn into a prolonged fight. Kill everyone you see, or Napoleon's message will mean nothing."

There was a quick agreement, and they spurred the horses into the open. It was not far to the gate, but six men already stood in their path. One of them shouted a warning before Sesshoumaru bore down on him, picking him up by the throat and snapping his neck as he threw him over the head of the horse and into the wall of a cathedral. Kagome fired her pistol three feet from another's heart, and he fell to the ground. The smell of burning flesh told them what the fire demon had done to his first victim.

A tall human with sandy blond hair shot at Kagome, grazing her horse's flank. "Kagome!" called Sesshoumaru as her mare reared up in pain. The dog demon swerved, planting the butt of his rifle into the blond man's temple.

The noise was already drawing the rest of the Order members to the small maze of paths winding through the Kremlin. Kagome managed to control her horse just as another twenty men arrived. Sesshoumaru heard her swear and understood - the fire was approaching at their back, and the only way out was towards the river, where the Order assassins had entered the complex.

Kagome fired again from another pistol, and the closest man went down. Brandt had let his concealment spell slip, and the pale-eyed demon was drawing the most attention as he let small fireballs explode from his fingertips. Sesshoumaru's horse fell to its knees beneath him - he didn't need to look to see that it had been shot. He rolled to the ground.

It was the miko's turn to call for him. "You're a demon!" she shouted. "Act like it!"

He stood, buoyed by her voice, and let his own concealment spell slip away. Soot and filth still covered him, but the blaze of his red eyes attracted the notice of every human in the alley. They all took an unconscious step back, and he had to hold in the temptation to smirk. Kagome shouldn't have worried, he realized. He could so easily cut every one of them down.

His hands glowed green, and his poison whip snaked out from the ends of his fingers, following the arc of his arm. The hiss of acid filled the air, overwhelming the crackle of the inferno. Brandt and Kagome kept a careful distance, incinerating or shooting anyone that managed to escape Sesshoumaru's reach.

A bullet tore through the sleeve of his shirt, hitting the ground in front of him with a hollow thud. Kagome answered it once before yelling at him to move. "They have marksmen!" She sounded as if she could hardly believe it.

"We must leave!" Brandt shouted. He was holding his arm, and blood seeped from between his fingers. "This wasn't the purpose of my mission!"

"But it was! We can't let them get back to their leaders," Kagome argued, putting her rifle to her shoulder and shooting. The ricochet of the bullet off the white stone echoed down the alley. "Damn! Sesshoumaru, they're too far up!"

He turned his face up to the golden domes atop the cathedral towers. "Take cover," he growled.

"And then what?" Brandt snapped, moving to the wall directly beneath the sharpshooters.

"Make sure none of them come down alive," he replied. He smiled, startling them both, and jumped up to the nearest ledge. His claws buried into the stone as he climbed, moving as fast as he could.

The first one was easy - he was leaning out to see his prey, unaware that it was coming to meet him. If he saw the white, blurred form of the dog demon, he did not realize its danger until Sesshoumaru was on the window ledge, dragging him forward over it and letting him drop. The scream that he let out as he hurtled towards the pavement was enough to alert the two other marksmen, but the second didn't have the chance to think about retreat before he joined his friend on the street below.

The third gave him pause. He had left his perch - probably before the second sniper hit the ground. Sesshoumaru leaped across the gap between towers and swung himself through the window. The smell of gunpowder filled his nose, and he saw the signs of hasty loading of ammunition.

Certain that the sharpshooter could identify him, Sesshoumaru sped down the winding staircase, his senses flaring. He could smell the human's terror and sweat. Beneath his feet, he felt the powder that had been spilled as the marksmen tried to load his weapon once more.

He was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, his rifle pointed up to where the dog demon must descend. The distance was too short, and the human's reaction was too slow - his gun was clattering at the other end of the cathedral's transept before he thought to pull the trigger. Sesshoumaru's claws dug into the loose skin around his neck and pressed him into the tiles, letting droplets of blood pool onto the marble. Still, he managed a raspy, "Devil!"

"If you believe that I am the Devil, you are about to be surprised," snarled Sesshoumaru. "How many of you are there in Moscow?"

"Enough to take care of you and your Lilith," the human growled back.

"She is no demon."

The sharpshooter smiled, and Sesshoumaru saw blood on his teeth. He had hit him harder than he intended. "We know. She'll still suffer for going against the natural order."

His vision glowed red, and, with a hand under the human's chin, he snapped his neck. "She already has," he muttered, standing up.

"Sesshoumaru?" Kagome stood at the end of the nave, her pistol in hand. She didn't spare a glance for the dead man on the cathedral floor. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"Humans," he answered. "They are deceptively simple to kill."

"So you say," Brandt grumped, emerging from the shadows. "There are a lot more outside. This is how they win, you know. Superiority in numbers alone. Obviously, it's not skill." He gestured towards Sesshoumaru's kill.

The dog demon scowled at the implied slight. "If any one of them has seen us and survives, Napoleon's message will not only fail to help us but will doom him, as well."

Kagome pursed her lips. "They won't trust him if they know he's lied," she said.

"Perhaps we can lend credibility to his message," Sesshoumaru suggested. His eyes swept over the miko. "But you will have to end the spell that prevents you from touching youkai for it to work."

Brandt snorted. "Oh, I'm sure that's..."

"Shut up, Brandt," Kagome interrupted. She looked back at the dog demon and stretched out her hands, letting them flare pink for a moment. "It's a barrier. Because our immortality is a result of a wish on the Jewel, I thought that I could manipulate its effects, just like I could for the Jewel itself. I never learned how to protect the Jewel from detection - I never had the chance - but it seems to have worked. I wasn't sure until you confirmed it though." She sighed. "But there's a catch. It's exhausting enough to hold this barrier up, but releasing it leeches all that energy away. It's held so close to the surface for so long that it's like a dam bursting when I let go of the barrier."

"You don't want to be close either," said the fire demon.

Kagome rolled her eyes and muttered something that sounded like 'barely singed' as Sesshoumaru shook his head. "It must be done. I will carry you," he said.

She nodded. "Alright. Go to the other end of the church." She pointed to the entrance. "That should be far enough."

The two males, not wanting to be touched by her miko energy, followed instructions and walked down the center aisle towards the back of the cathedral. Brandt's steps were quick, and his face was flushed. "She will not intentionally harm you," Sesshoumaru said, when they had reached the last pew.

"Right," he said, so blandly that the dog demon wasn't certain if Brandt was being sarcastic or not. His fidgeting calmed down, however. "Listen. There's a small village about two day's ride from here that Kagome and I stayed at. She knows where it is. The farm where we stayed has a large barn. I left your orders there, tied to a rafter, just in case. There is a spell that makes it impossible for anyone else to read them aside from you, but I think you're heading back to Europe."

"And where are you going?" Sesshoumaru asked. He looked back and Kagome, who had tucked herself into the east end of the cathedral and behind the altar in her attempt to distance herself as much as possible. Women were not supposed to cross that boundary in an Orthodox church. She would be aware of that, he knew. Her sense of decorum had been overwhelmed by her wish for their safety. Or perhaps she thought that the dead body had already tainted the sanctity of the place.

"Your plan has some merit," grumbled Brandt, "but it won't work without some sort of distraction."

Kagome radiated a soft aura of pink light as Sesshoumaru asked, "And you intend to be that distraction?"

"I thought I made it clear," said the fire demon. "I'm supposed to get you out of Moscow safely. If something happens to me, that's an acceptable loss for the Alliance as long as you survive and agree to what we ask of you."

"You are second in command," said Sesshoumaru. "In what way is that an acceptable loss? You are exchanging yourself for someone that has not been in contact with the Alliance for years. Why didn't the countess send someone else?"

"Because there is no one else."

Sesshoumaru turned, missing the burst of light at the other end of the cathedral. They felt the sizzle of the power, like stepping out into the midday sun after a morning in the cool shade. "Everyone is dead?" he asked.

"Not dead. Not everyone," he muttered. "But we're losing. Most of the survivors have gone into hiding. They don't even tell us where they are." He heaved a sigh. "There's talk of a traitor. It's the only way they could know where we are and how many assassins to bring. They're too efficient."

The taiyoukai clenched his teeth. "And what is the Alliance's plan for me?"

"Last strike of the sword before the end," Brandt said with a shrug that belied the gravity of his words. "The countess has held on longer than she should have, but she's finally agreed to go underground like the rest. But you don't have to worry about that, do you? Even the priestess could hurt them, if she could stand to kill her own kind."

"She has done so this very night."

"They were shooting at her. That's different than what you have done for us in the past," he said. "And what we want you to do for us again."

"I will do what is necessary. So will she."

"Who gets to decide what is necessary?" Brandt asked.

Sesshoumaru's eyes flashed. "You are being deliberately difficult. You traveled with her," he said, barely holding back his disdain. "I am sure it was not without incident. You must know what she is capable of."

The fire demon met his eyes. "Mostly? She cried."

"She lost her husband. It is expected. She is still human, after all." He paused for a moment. "This is not the worst to befall her."

"In your mind," replied Brandt. "I might not know a lot about humans, but it's easy to see that she's trying to be strong in front of you. She doesn't care enough about me to have done the same while we were together."

The dog demon looked again to see Kagome slowly coming towards them, clearly unsteady on her feet. "Do you know what happened to him?" he asked. "He was young, even for a human."

"I asked," he murmured, following Sesshoumaru as he strode towards Kagome's figure. "She said that it was a stroke. Do me a favor and don't mention it to her." He caught the dog demon's appraising stare and rearranged his face into a smile. "Unless you like crying women."

The taiyoukai reached Kagome just before she fell to her knees, wrapping his arms around her frame without a second thought. "Are you alright?" he asked, ignoring the way the residual spiritual energy made his nose burn and his hands hot where they touched her.

"Mmhmm." She closed her eyes and rested her head on his shoulder as he lifted her up. "I feel like I've gone twenty rounds with Naraku," she murmured.

"Can you remain awake for a few minutes more?"

Brown eyes blinked up at him. "Yeah," she slurred. "Just remind me that I should never do this again."

He nodded. "Willingly," he answered. His thumbs moved in circles against her skin as he looked back at Brandt. "We must go."

"So I've been saying," said the fire youkai, moving towards the double doors at the end of the aisle. "What do you think? I'll go out the front, and you can leave the way you came in? There'll be enough of them by the river to carry off your ruse."

Kagome sucked in a breath, twisting in Sesshoumaru's arms. "They'll kill you," she protested. "We're the ones they can't hurt."

Brandt gave her a wide grin, and his eyes shifted to the taiyoukai. "What's necessary, huh?" He put his hand on the door. Both demons could hear the two dozen humans on the other side - they could smell the tension as they waited for their quarry to reappear. "By the time you get up there, I should have them distracted."

Sesshoumaru nodded once and turned, holding Kagome tightly as he sprinted back to the tower stairs. Her arms went around his neck, and he could feel her mouth pressed into the curve of his neck as she turned to watch the cathedral doors open. The reports of rifles echoed through the building as Sesshoumaru began to climb the spiral staircase, taking two at a time.

He didn't pause at the top of the stairs. The sounds of the fight down below had grown more frantic in the few moments it had taken to scale the tower, and he launched himself through the window at an angle where he was sure to be seen. Shouts floated up to them as they skimmed overhead, and they caught a glimpse of how brightly Brandt burned as he cut a swath through the mob. Sesshoumaru heard Kagome's soft prayer for the fire demon's safety next to his ear just before a few bullets whizzed around them.

Her fingers tightened around his shoulders. "Are we going to have to let ourselves get shot for this to work?" Her voice was soft with fear.

"They cannot hurt us, remember?" He landed in the middle of the cobblestone road and glanced back to see several men pursuing on foot.

"Of course they can!" she cried as Sesshoumaru cut left, propelling himself into the air again. "It might not kill us, but it still hurts like hell!"

The wall that ringed the Kremlin came into view. "I thought you were supposed to be physically exhausted," he muttered.

"Well, I'm sorry. Visceral horror seems to have crowded it out."

He snorted. "Prepare yourself to be wide awake, then," he said, rising over the Kremlin rampart.

Between the Kremlin and the Moskva River sat a strip of land about several hundred feet wide. Thirty men stood in the brown grass within rifle range of where Sesshoumaru left the wall. Unlike the sluggish despondency descending upon the French troops still in Moscow, these men had been primed for battle, raising their guns within a second of spotting the taiyoukai. A bullet screamed its way over his shoulder. Another whipped through Kagome's hair, slicing off strands as it went.

"Him!" Kagome cried, pointing towards a man that had them in his sights.

Sesshoumaru understood and veered towards the assassin, trusting the miko's judgment of his skill. The man stood steady as the taiyoukai came towards him, aiming carefully, instead of rushing through the shot as his comrades had done with the first volley. The genius of Kagome's choice struck Sesshoumaru as he approached. This man was careful - his claim to the kill would be trusted - but he was also overconfident in his abilities. His cocky grin reminded him of Naraku in the moments before his destruction.

The gun went off, and it was perfect. A spray of blood shot up, silhouetted against the fiery sky, and Kagome let out a sharp scream. Sesshoumaru's body hovered for one, breathless second before he began to fall in a downward arc. A shout of triumph rose from the men just before the demon and miko plunged into the center of the icy Moskva River.

Their heavy footsteps as they ran to the riverbank were muffled by the water rushing into Sesshoumaru's ears. He still held Kagome - her dress drifted freely around his hands. She didn't seem to notice that they were submerged. Her grasp had shifted to the theatrical graze on his shoulder. Bubbles escaped her lips in an unmistakable sigh of relief when she realized what he had done, and his certainty in the plan was bolstered.

Wrapping one arm around her waist, he began to swim downstream. They would search for the bodies, of course, but the river was swift - sooner or later, they would come to the conclusion that it had swept the corpses away. It was uncomfortable to deny his natural inclination to breathe, but as long as he could resist the needless urge for air, the Order would mark him down as dead.

They made it to the outermost tip of the river's right-angle curve and slowly lifted themselves from the water, wary of the torches in the distance. Kagome sank into the mud and retched, bits of the Moskva spilling out of her mouth. "Add that to the list of things I'm never doing again," she croaked.

"Willingly," he breathed. "We need to keep moving. I swam downriver for the distance we could cover, but this is where they will look for our bodies."

He knew that she must be exhausted - the adrenalin was wearing off, and she began to regain that hollow, haunted look. Still, she pushed herself to stand and teetered only once. "Do you think he's alright?" she asked, looking back at the fiery city.

From the distance, it was almost beautiful - the sparks rising and the soft glow of the homes, stores and lives burning to the ground. "Brandt is more concerned with self-preservation than most," he answered.

"We shouldn't have let him stay behind," she murmured, turning to him and lifting her sodden dress as she climbed up the embankment.

"It was necessary."

"We were forced into it because of Napoleon. We should have just come in and gotten you out of the city." She huffed. "Hindsight and all that though, I suppose."

Sesshoumaru nodded. "But I am now a ghost. As are you."

"Not for long, if we're going to start killing off members of the Order. We'll be visible again soon."

"I will take the advantages that we have," replied the taiyoukai. "We will go after the head of the snake first."

"After a nice, long nap?" asked Kagome. She stepped closer to him and brushed the torn edge of his sleeve. The cold river water had washed away the blood, leaving only a pink smear. "How's your arm?"

He moved the cloth out of the way, showing her how his skin was already knitting itself together again. "I will be whole again shortly." He stooped and wrapped both arms around her frame, lifting her once more. "You are not well, however," he said, glancing down at the thick, black circles under her eyes.

"I can walk," she protested half-heartedly.

"Not if we want to cross any measurable distance," Sesshoumaru replied.

She let her head rest against his shoulder, her easy surrender revealing her exhaustion. "Fine. Be that way," she murmured, shutting her eyes.

Sesshoumaru turned away from the river and the city, ignoring the drag of his soaked clothing, and began walking west. Brandt had underestimated the power of a dog demon's nose - he didn't need to ask Kagome for the location of the village where she had stayed with the fire demon. He would keep to the shadows and the forests, and by the time they reached the place, the miko would feel well again. Then, they would continue going west, back towards France and the first of their targets. And it was 'theirs' - Sesshoumaru knew that Kagome would not allow him to fight the Order alone, even if he wanted her to remain behind.

He was doing this for her, if he was honest with himself. Brandt and the Alliance had given him Kagome and gained an assassin in return. He hadn't even argued with the demands of the Alliance or with Brandt's assumptions that he would be glad to take on this futile, last play. Kagome had told him many times that there were no demons in her future - Sesshoumaru had accepted it, just as he had accepted all of her other accurate prophecies. Time, he found, was a stronger opponent than any he had fought before. For the first time in his life, Sesshoumaru had willingly given up the battle, and under normal circumstances, he would have fought Brandt's insistence that he take it up once more.

But the Alliance had brought Kagome back to him, and he found renewed purpose burning within his chest. The shape-shifters would come to them eventually, but they needed more than that to overcome the past one hundred and twenty years of near-constant separation. One hundred and twenty years! Her absence from his side was longer than her presence before that. Still, with her weight in his arms, he felt at peace for the first time in an age. The continual ache of his body had ebbed away when she had let down that barrier in the cathedral. He knew it was the curse, but the comfort of her proximity was too satisfying to dwell on the reasons for it.

Just as she began to relax in his arms, she said without opening her eyes, "Sesshoumaru."

"Yes?"

"I don't want to repeat what happened in Salem," she said with a sigh.

"Or Tortuga," he replied, wondering if she had read his thoughts.

"I don't want to go through..." She paused and looked down at her lap for a moment before trying again. "I'm not leaving you again for any human. Too painful."

He nodded, squeezing where he held her at the waist. "Kagome," he began.

"Don't say you're sorry," she interrupted. "I knew what I was getting into." Her eyes filled with the frantic tears that came from utter exhaustion.

"Rest," Sesshoumaru said, before she could start sobbing. "I will wake you when we reach the village."

He felt a few, hot tears seep through his shirt sleeve. "Sesshoumaru," she said again. Her body was becoming pliant with approaching sleep again, and he had to strain to listen to her mumbled words. "I think we might be friends."

Sesshoumaru looked down at her and saw the large, ruby ring that glittered on her left hand as she clutched weakly at his waistcoat. "Yes," he murmured, "I believe we are."

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