InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Bloodlust: Purity ❯ The Name of the Night ( Chapter 13 )

Confrontation roared and crackled silently in the air between Kouga and Shippou, growing and rolling like a horizontal tornado of will and power. They met eyes, and the violence crested, resolving itself like a battle fought in the between-moment, while neither of them had moved.

“Did you think I was still a pup, Kouga? Did you think I would turn tail and run, because you showed yourself to me?”

He was Kitsune; he could not resist the taunt he knew would tear the most.

“Even Inuyasha was stronger than you, but Kagome didn't even choose Inuyasha - she chose his brother, who was more powerful still. What are you here for, Kouga?”

Kouga took one growling step forward, pressing against the energy-presence until the screech of grinding youki was a whine that twisted both of their ears.

“Perhaps you should be running, Shippou. I do not remember your tongue carrying barbs when you were a kit.”

Shippou's smile was hard and harsh.

“Then perhaps you do not remember very well, friend.”

Kouga flung a scathing twist of laughter at him, and dragged words across his ears.

“Friend, now? Not brother?”

A new layer of snarl brought itself forth in Shippou's voice, and a pale blue gleam gathered at the ends of his claws.

“You have not been my brother for some time, I am guessing. So tell me, when was it?”

The grin that had encroached on Kouga's face shook itself off by degrees, and he lifted his eyebrows, surprised by the question.

“Do you think I could tell you? In some ways I have always been with this pup - when he Awakened, so did I.”

Shippou's eyes closed, and he ran down the old paths and tuned the limits of memory.

“Why did you die for her, and then come back and hurt her? Is Kagome's name hate for you now, Kouga?”

His voice had been dropping - now it sank almost to nothing, and despite the bloom of anger that flushed his cheeks, Kouga could not help leaning in to listen.

“If that is so, than I have finally learned the reason humans fear death. It changes you. Light to dark, it changes you.”

With a sigh softer than his words, he stopped, and then turned the bright, hard eyes of one who has made a difficult decision on the friend who trespassed in his brother's flesh.

“Shippou, if you think that even the afterlife could change my feelings for Kagome, you do not know me.”

But it was still Kouga who turned away, and the electric pressure of power that had swollen up between them swooped up into the air like a golden bird, and dispersed.

“Then tell me why you are here! What do you expect to accomplish?

A new and different anger lit Kouga's face, and he turned his back on Shippou, scouring the hilltop with a scowl.

“It is not my choice! I know only that, and nothing else. When I touched real consciousness in this flesh -“

He stopped, and pulled on the skin of his forearm.
”It was like waking from a long and dreamless sleep, and yet I knew instantly that my whole awareness was wrong. I do not…have all of myself.”

Shippou's continuing glare forced more explanation past Kouga's lips.

“Do you know how long it took for me to remember I had died, to explain to myself whose flesh I held under my soul? It's been like eating one grain of rice at a time, and the bowl is my whole life, my whole memory.”

The smirk that touched his face then laughed only at himself, but Shippou remembered it laughing at Inuyasha, laughing at Kagura, laughing at Naraku. He realized then that this was the look that must have met Kasuka, that Kagome had seen in the moment before Kouga died; how much more painful it must be for her now, to see that glittering expression overwrite the features of her son?

“Shippou, when the pieces come, it is as though they have always been there, but before - before, I can feel the empty place, the space waiting to be filled. My life's only true enemy was Naraku, and yet…the touch of something evil is on this return to life.”

Darkness sprouted in the lines on Kouga's forehead, and drew down his face.

“There is something you can tell me, Shippou. This son of Sesshomaru - not all his thoughts are mine. When we move past each other, I can touch some, but not all. How did I die?”

White shock drained all other colors and thoughts from Shippou's face.

“You said you remembered that you died. How can you not know how?”

A grimace of frozen effort catapulted itself onto Kouga's face, and hovered there. His eyes grew wide and dark, peering inside, sorting through fullness and emptiness.

“I remember…flames, purple flames like ice inside my blood - and I remember Kagome's face. Kagome's face, so terrified it hurt me.”

His grimace became a rough smile.

“You know I could not bear to see her hurt. I turned - and then nothing. Whatever came after, I have lost it.”

Kouga looked down at the young fingers of his reborn flesh, and flexed them, watching youth move among the tendons.

“It is more than strange to be in this skin. I have my own power, my old skills, but this body does not know them and sometimes I can feel him resisting me.”

He looked up at Shippou with clear, bright eyes, thoroughly questioning.

“So tell me, kit - why did Sesshomaru give his son my name? I know it was not because of Kagome. The name of a son belongs to the father.”

Shippou drew in a deep breath, and pushed both hands back through his hair. Why was this so difficult?

“Father…father gave Kouga your name because you died saving mama, and their son. You were fighting Kasuka, while she was in labor; you, Histaru, Sesshomaru, and Kinawai came…I was not there.”

“Kasuka…”

Kouga's eyes were glazed over, as he reached back for memories.

“I remember that name - Kasuka. But she is…a child!”

Shippou shook his head, and filled in the name.

“Kinawai's mate, lady of northlands, kuromiko, dark and passionate with fury against Sesshomaru, against the Lords of the West, against the House of the Moon. She was Eldest's daughter.”

The glaze dissipated - fully aware, Kouga struck at Shippou with a sharp glance.

“Eldest? She is legend!”

Shippou's smile was wan.

“She is a friend of the family, or at least she is now. These last twenty years she has been mama's teacher, and Kinawai's advisor. Her long solitude is ending. She could not leave her daughter's end to the world, without at least looking in.”

Kouga shook his head, trying to clear it.

“Kasuka…I remember that name, but I have no face for it! This is insane…Kinawai's mate! I knew her!...”

The struggle for memories that had not been granted to him brought beads of sweat out on his forehead and a trickle of red across each eye, building from the corners. His claws tensed and grappled with something invisible in the air, and then balled into tight fists that leaked blood down his knuckles and onto the grass.

“Kouga!”

His breaths became pants, and his eyes disappeared behind the haze of red. With a yowl that sounded somewhere been a wail and a roar, his cheek met the grass.

 

 

In the northernmost corner of the western lands, Kagome sped behind Sesshomaru, watching the fifth village of the night move closer. They were the wind over the grass, but they moved in silence; despite this, each village they passed through sent a chill up her spine. The houses were quite, the curtains still, the breath sounds pale in the darkness. Not a creak of wood, or the trill of a bird, or a sound other than their own footsteps stood out to her ears, and even the scents seemed dulled.

Sesshomaru did not pay attention - he was searching for something, an aura of evil or the scent of darkness, a light that shone blackly, or screams that were worthy. His focus was so intense his eyes gleamed red through the night.

This newest village was more disturbing that all the rest. Kagome shuddered even as she ran - Sesshomaru passed around houses, and through gardens, and up the long paths between a few fields that lined the village's eastern edge. She waited on the edge from which they would leave - her skin tingled, as though under the pressure of many stares, and she looked around convulsively.

With a gasp, she took a step backward, and blinked quickly. It didn't help. From behind every window, she saw eyes, gleaming, bright youkai eyes, and she did not know why her heart was suddenly pounding.

 

I am youkai…how ridiculous to feel afraid…or almost. Why has he never taken me to one of these villages - why have I met only Lords, Ladies…servants?

 

Her thoughts ran on, as her eyes darted around to each house, each window, the slit in every curtain and around every door. She was looked back at - she knew they saw her, and they knew she was watching them. The gleam intensified, and then there was a low, snuffling bark. Behind her, she felt Sesshomaru return, and she looked back to greet him with a smile. When she turned around again, the eye-lights had gone out, but there was no time to think. Sesshomaru was pulling her, and they were running again, always north.

Before long, they came to a place where there were no villages, only a long, narrow strip of forest. Kagome tried to turn aside, to run the whole length, but Sesshomaru still held her wrist and he would not go.

“Later.”

It was barely a growl, the only word he gave her, and they passed through the trees and soon her feet were caught up in sand They ventured across the flat, bare beaches that opened before them The waves broke with brave white foam over the sand, cloudy with coldness, and not a strand of seaweed or a single mollusk was left behind by the sucking tide.

They passed along the wet edge of sand, leaving a blur of ruffled tracks on the ground behind them. With a suddenness she was not accustomed to, Sesshomaru stopped, and turned to look at the water. Without the sound of their running feet, without the rush of wind in her ears, the roar of crashing waves and rolling water only added to the silence. The moment remained both utterly calm, and unnervingly tense.

“Sesshomaru?”

He turned away from the waves with dark eyes, but gave Kagome a smile to ease her worries.

“I will swim, here.”

With blinking amazement, Kagome stared out across the rolling dark sea. When the whitecaps disappeared, the surface of the water looked flat and black, its secrets hidden.

“You want to swim…in that? It's freezing, and the waves are so high!”

Neither his eyes, nor his smile changed.

“I am youkai - did you forget? The cold will not freeze my blood, and the waves cannot turn me.”

Without another word, he began to unbuckle his armor, and lay it carefully on the sand. He covered it with his robes, to keep off the salt and the damp, and lay both swords carefully alongside. His steps down to the water were unhurried, and the first surge had barely risen to his knees before he dove straight down into the trough of the next wave.

The water was black with coldness, and his keen vision peered toward the horizon, and saw floating ice. The chill did not bother his skin, and he laid back against the surf and stared straight into the sky.

 

This was the place. And afterwards, I came here too. Why do I always seek the sea when I am troubled - even Kagome, I do not tell. What am I missing…where should I look? Perhaps trouble will come to us…

 

Kagome watched nervously from the shore, and took a few steps forward, peering so far ahead that the hem of her kimono was drenched. She stepped back as the water rushed over her feet, and then stared down in surprise.

The water that she knew must be freezing felt no colder than the mist of a spring rain. When she looked up, Sesshomaru's head was bobbing in the distance, white against the dark surf.

“Sess-chan! I'm coming in after you!”

She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, but he would have heard her anyway. His eyes were still focused on her, even while he floated out in the cool caress of sea. Kagome was careful with her clothes as she took them off, and slow. She folded her obi, and then each layer of robes. There were only three - despite the demands of tradition, she refused to wear more - and while he watched her silhouette become more clear as the layers of silk dropped off, he dropped back underwater and stalked toward the shore.

If she had turned, she would have seen the red sheen in his eyes, glinting over the water under dripping hair, but she was distracted by the ties of her undergarments and did not notice him. Silent, waiting, he stood behind her and dripped seawater onto the sand until she had dropped the last bit of silk on the sand. He did not wait for her to fold it, whatever it was.

“Sessho-“

She would have shrieked as she turned, except that he kissed her almost at once, and whatever noise she wanted to make, it came out as a moan. Before she wanted, Sesshomaru pulled away, and the rakish grin that she had only rarely been treated to moved across his face like a wraith.

“You have not done this before. Try underwater, Kagome.”

Without further ado, he let her go. With a squeal and a splash, she tumbled into the water, arms and legs flailing, and almost as quickly she stopped. From trips to the seashore she had taken as a child, she remembered the burn of salt in her eyes, the uncomfortable feeling that water was about to rush up her nose - and felt none of it. She saw as clearly beneath the water as she did above, and the sand on the bottom shone white and clear as crystal.

Dark patches moved through the water, and solidified into a few cold-climate fish, swimming lazily through the bright patches where the sun reached down with folded bands and ribbons of light to touch the seabed. Tiny shells glittered on the sand, which swirled up in the passage of the fish into miniature typhoons, that fell quickly back to rest or moved on currents of bubbles as a cloud of gritty, sparkling silica, twinkling in the light-waves.

Eyes still wide, Kagome surfaced and sucked in a crisp breath. Sesshomaru was laughing beside her, pulling her up to him and kissing the breath back out of her until her fingers were pressed against his shoulders, demanding. She was not like him, she could not hide her desires, her wants, and he knew them all.

In the water, everything was smoother, softer; he slid inside her and her sigh of completion filtered down to him through the tight sensation of her body, the pull of warmth inside and the cool rush of water. Her legs wrapped around his waist, and he held her close, letting the waves rock them, moving not at all except for the push and shudder of the tide.

Sesshomaru slid one hand between them, reaching with long and delicate fingers. Gently, he touched her, and she sank forward, curling over his right shoulder. His claws nicked her soft flesh, and Kagome let out a hiss as the salt stung the fresh cuts and then soothed as they healed. She turned her head, and dipped her teeth into the mate-mark on his throat. He growled, but the beast would not let him shake her off; it whispered to him of the pleasure, and he succumbed.