InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Bloodlust: Purity ❯ Breakable Air ( Chapter 23 )

Chapter 23

Breakable Air

 

From the first moment Sesshomaru had encountered the strangeness of that uncertain scent, his entire being had been lifted on edge. It was a gut-reaction disturbance, a channeling of these bizarre feelings that did not belong. On the way back, tasting it again, he was drawn after it. It was the scent of his girl, his Rin, the light on the long road. The wounded distance of blood had blossomed into Kinawai's claim, a flower of loss opening in him - the markings of desire, that melting of scents!

She would no longer have his protection, the mark of his possession. He had never thought to lose her in this way - she was still small, smiling and fragile, as though she had not grown taller than his knees…

And then bloody thoughts had come, and he had known that because Kinawai would die - because he himself would kill him, he was not strong enough, not worthy of his Rin.

He never stopped to think that she was human, did not believe weakness of her, or Kinawai - he just could not let go. He could never forget that she was mortal, could never, ever forget. Rather, it haunted him - but it had ceased to matter long ago.

Now, standing in front of the thief, watching the flickering movement of Kinawai's eyes and his steady face, Sesshomaru felt power gathering in his veins, leaping, pushing outward, reaching. He would not even need his sword - he needed nothing but anger. To dare take his Rin!

At the edge of his sight, battered by the wind-wash and the swell of overwhelming power, she was struggling to keep her feet and reaching out with both arms. Powerless, she still held power over Sesshomaru, even if she might never know it. He could read her, understand her, protect her better than anyone. When she spoke, the wind carried away the words from her lips, but he reached out and stole his own name from the sweeping, breathless grip.

“Sesshomaru-sama! Sesshomaru-sama!”

He remembered the depth of that plea, and did not understand it. Did she not want vengeance? How could she not?

For a moment, gathered power twisted for a moment in his grasp, and then was consumed by the fullness of his aura.

“Rin. This battlefield is not safe for you.”

Dragged forward against his words, against his will, he watched the first moment of her disobedience and still did not understand. When she stood between him and Kinawai, when she blocked his view, she spoke quietly.

“You must not heart him, Sesshomaru-sama. I was not taken - I gave myself. I thought it was right, but now I am sorry. I remember…what I am.”

She was swaying, had spent too much of her sickened strength to climb the long path, and come to them. The pale light that hounded Kinawai's vision of Sesshomaru faded as quickly as it had appeared, and Kinawai breathed deeply. He could see the thoughts moving in Sesshomaru's head - Rin had chosen him, so he would not be harmed. She was a protection better than many swords, as long as her heart stayed with him.

“You must never forget, Kinawai, that she will always be mine first. If she had not chosen you -“

The threat remained unspoken, did not need to be spoken. Sesshomaru steadied Rin then, and stared down into her face.

“And you, Rin? What is your intention, what do you think to accomplish, pulling away from his claim? You have done what you have done, you bear a mark that cannot be erased, except with time…that you do not have.”

A grimace lurched onto his face, and stayed there. Rin stared. Seldom had she seen such a thing, even in the old days of danger.

“It is dangerous, very dangerous, for youkai to mark claim on a human, and more dangerous for youkai to mate with a human. So dangerous…”

In the long silence that followed his words, Sesshomaru walked away down the hill and left them alone together. Rin turned to face Kinawai, surprised a strange, sad expression on his face, and questioned with his eyes.

“He is right, you know. I told you - “

He stopped, shook his head, reached for her.

“And you do not want my claim on you, do not want to be a mate for me, Rin? If those are your desires, you should not have stopped him.”

Kinawai smiled a skull-smile of fangs and sudden grief. The sunrise was scattering in her hair.

“I do not want to become like the woman who birthed his brother, Kinawai. I do not want to someone he looks at with dark eyes - I do not want to have children that he will seek out, and kill, because their veins are polluted and he cannot stand their scent.”

Suddenly aware of the depth of her unease, its source, he stared blindly at her.

“That is the reason for your pain? Have you lived with him so long, and yet been blind? In the world of his long travels, in many long years, he found nothing more precious than you to protect, and protect you he does - with his whole being.”

She shook her head at him.

“But Kagome - “

“Yes, Kagome, his mate. She is equally precious, but not more so. If not for you, do you think she would have lived through her first five minutes with him? The anger, and the power, and the strangeness all would have guaranteed her death.”

More gently than his voice promised, he touched her shoulders and seemed gratified that she did not pull away.

“It would not matter if children of yours were hanyou or human. They remain your children, and they, too, will be protected. You are the beginning of his light, the source of his first strength. Didn't you know?”

No one had ever said so much to her, so blatantly, but hearing it, she could not deny it. She remembered the first day, her first words, and the moment of re-opening eyes, held suddenly in an arm that promised strength, and gave her hope - an arm that reached for the small surety of her broken smile with wonder. And she knew he was right - and that Sesshomaru, also, spoke truth.

“I may become mate to you, Kinawai, and live the rest of my years in a shelter of desire - because you are strong, and I have strong beginnings of feelings for you. But I will always belong to him first. He gave me back….my life.”

Gravely, he nodded.

“I know - and I am grateful.”

 

~=~

 

Kouga stood outside, and kept the equal portions of his fear and inexplicable anger hidden well. He knew - and also remembered - that his father did not easily forgive. He had done nothing, and yet…And yet.

So he waited in the grass, stretching his eyes and ears, waiting to see who would return from the wind tangled woodland.

In the long minutes that followed, his nerves became tight as razors, and when he saw Sesshomaru, only Sesshomaru, striding back towards him, his own anger died and he was gripped with a visceral terror. It was almost instinctive. His father walked as he had walked in the Old Days - the days before his mother. He remembered them, though the idea and the memory no longer walked over him and pressed him down. The walk was the same, his father's face grim with unexpressed purpose.

Swift and sure, the footsteps moved towards him. There was no avoiding, no walking away.

“Kouga - you are here. Who are you now?”

His father's voice held testing intensity, a questioning disturbance that moved towards him like a dart.

“I…I'm myself, for now. I remember being Kouga, just like I remember last spring, or the winter before that. It is sharper…clearer. But I am myself, again.”

He was distracted into silence by the distance behind his father. Kagome was coming, revealed by her scent, and at the top of the hill in the east, Rin and Kinawai were turning toward them. Sesshomaru watched his son with cool appraisal, more easy now that he knew it was his son looking at him out of soul-touched eyes.

Kouga saw the coolness, and felt fear flood him like a cataract of darkness. His father scented it, scowled at him, stepped closer.

“What is it you are afraid of, Kouga?”

He could not confess the truth of his fear, as it became suddenly apparent to his frozen brain that his father had no violent intentions.

“I…mother is coming. I do not want to hurt her.”

Sesshomaru folded his arms and turned to watch his mate approaching.

“You do not wish to hurt her? Then be very careful, Kouga, and stop running away. Is that what I taught you? Have you lost all the strength of our House through the memories of the wolf?”

Anger flushed Kouga's face.

“No! And I it is not what you taught me - I know that. I do. But there was nothing else I could do. I reached a place where my thoughts were not my own, and being unable to go forward or backward, I turned….aside.”

His father was still looking at him critically. Kouga wondered if there was any way he could make him understand, the strangeness of it, the panic, the feeling that his essence had been invaded and changed in a way that could not be revoked.
”Do not turn aside so swiftly, next time. You misjudge your own strength - one way, and then another.”

“But I -“

“You are changed. Yes, I know.”

Sesshomaru faced down all Kouga's objections with eyes that glowed like twin flames of red gold.

“Do not fail at the test.”

Kouga breathed deeply, sorting through the great tumbled of feeling within him until he found his own feeling, like a solid rope, an anchor in the wildest of seas.

“I will not.”

 

I will not…I will not!

 

His eyes darted past his father, sought the pale figure approaching them slowly down the road.

“Tell me, father - what does it mean for the other Kouga in me that I do not relinquish my skin? Is he a memory, or a soul trapped in my flesh?”

“Do not think that way. Too much pity and you will lose your place in yourself - too much pity, and you will open dangerous gates. The dead must let the living have their own time of life.”

Kouga sensed a deep truth in this, and wondered why his father would feel so strongly about it. The thought of his father and death did not go well together. Panic did not touch him - he was the essence of violence, invulnerable.

He did not remember the days when pain and panic had touched his father, touched him so deeply that the memory remained in every waking moment when all other thoughts were lost - even now, when the silence was safety, even now, when the wind promised no danger. Even the spirit that infected him did not share the memories of those days, as though they did not serve the purpose the rest of the wolf's lifetime did.

 

Purpose. Purpose!

 

“Father, there is still something you do not know. It is important!”

Sesshomaru turned away, his face blank, watching Kagome's last hundred footsteps.

“Speak quickly, then.”

“This memory is not brought on me by the will of the wolf. It is an outsider's will….and I know it, because when I have been only an observer in my flesh, I have seen what he is thinking…”

Kouga paused for a moment, distracted. If he could feel the thoughts of the wolf - did the wolf then know his thoughts?

“But…the point is, he does not like this sharing of my flesh any more than I do. I do not think he wants me for himself.”

He grimaced, and Sesshomaru turned back quickly and grasped his shoulders firmly.

“You are my son. You will find the truth of it, if there is truth. Later, we must speak. For now, go to your mother. She will be glad you are safe - and then angry that you left. Say nothing of this to her - she has enough to worry over.”

Kouga wondered at that, but his father's face no longer permitted questions. His mother was too close to them, and she was coming straight for him with outstretched arms. Silently, Sesshomaru stepped away. His own thoughts were as disturbed as his son's. All the warnings he could give, and all the information they could gather would be for nothing, if the pup could not conquer in his own thoughts.

“…and never leave without a word like that again!”

Sesshomaru stepped away from them, and away from the green wilderness, and hid his smile. She was like no one else, full of worry and relief, anger and joy all at one time, and as she felt it, he felt it. He was distracted by the feeling, and did not notice when Kinawai stepped past him, escorting Rin into the house. Kinawai noticed, and stuck his head back outside.

“I meant what I said before, Sesshomaru. We must talk.”

Sesshomaru stepped forward swiftly, until they were eye to eye, and did not speak above his breath.

“Talk all you wish, Kinawai - later, when Kagome is occupied, and I have spoken with the miko who has care of Rin, when I have spoken with this…Murasaki. For now, be glad of your reprieve, and be silent!”

Kinawai slid back, away from the real anger that he could not understand. As he breathed, he had thought all was well between them - but that, he reflected, had been extremely foolish.

 

I am still the one who took his Rin, even if she truly gave herself…and he heard her speak with regret, even though he does not really know the reason. I cannot tell him. The heat of his anger will melt my words before they have time to reach his ears.

 

There was in him the awareness also that Sesshomaru had found Rin wounded and ill - certainly, it did not appear that he had been taking the best care of her. Darkly, Kinawai scowled, and ran his hands back through his hair. It was not as if he had had much choice in how things had turned out. It was not as if he had taken her blood with his own hands, or given her some infectious toxin.

 

~=~

 

“We should go back, Murasaki. There are friends come, and most of my family. I expect it is safe now, and Kinawai has somehow survived my father's wrath. No one is screaming.”

Shippou smiled faintly, and moved with sudden swiftness, standing and offering her his hand to help her from the ground.

“I will introduce you to them, and perhaps you will tell Kinawai what you will not tell me.”

“Tell Kinawai…what?”

His smile brightened, and he flashed it at her, stunned her breath.

“About the light, and the strange flow of your stories, and the name that is in them - the name that Kinawai mutters while he sits alone in the corner, and watches Rin.”

Murasaki caught her breath, but he had turned away from her and was walking down toward the village. She ran a few steps behind him to catch up, and caught at his arm.

“Why are you asking me those questions, Shippou? Have I not given you enough? Don't you know that these are all dangerous things?”

A gleam came into his eyes. He led her across the fields and back to Miroku's house.

“I have good ears, Murasaki - very good ears, especially when no one thinks I am listening. But right now, I am listening very closely, and not understanding you.”

The gleam intensified to a glitter, probed at her fiercely and would not go away. Deeply, resignedly, she sighed.

“I am not who or what you think, Shippou. How can you understand someone that…was never really there?”

For a moment he stumbled. Recovering, he peered at Murasaki intensely, studying her, remembering his own thought that her name did not fit. She did not react to it in a natural way, and she was always afraid, or maybe just on edge. Yes - on edge. What was the significance of that name?

 

Leiko…

 

Even the thought of the name hummed with violence.

“Shippou…Shippou…I am supposed to serve her.”

The thought of the name had moved across his face in a way that told her what he was thinking of. Startled suddenly by the thought of real violence, Shippou allowed his eyes to shift sideways at her. The wide softness of his smile still did not change; his step did not slacken.

“Does that mean you were sent to kill me, Murasaki?”

She looked at him wide-eyed, choked in silence by the shocking thought of blood spilled by her own hands, blood, any blood, but especially…Shippou's blood. He watched her face, and spoke softly.

“So. I did not think you would.”

They came quickly back to the house, and stepped inside without further words. Shippou's thoughts were explosive, and Murasaki felt the drawing of quietness around herself to be her last shield against the impossible questions. She had set herself up for them, because the task she had been sent for, stated baldly, was beyond her. To be what she was, and seek death for a living being? She could not. It was against reason!

Inside, Sesshomaru and Kagome, Miroku and Sango, Kouga, Teza, Kinawai and Rin knelt and sat close together, sharing a fire, a strange looking group. Shippou caught his father's eye, impressed on him the presence of his strange knowledge, and accepted the intensified moment that told him he would have to wait.