InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Bloodlust ❯ Vengeance Unrequited ( Chapter 15 )

Sesshomaru snarled and drew Toukijin, and mocking laugher came at him from the deep shadows around them.

"Haven't you gotten your brother's sword yet, dog?"

Kagome focused on the place in the surrounding darkness that the voice was issuing from, and saw youkai upon youkai, similar in appearance to the one Sesshomaru had killed. She drew tetsusaiga, and felt the sudden increase in weight as the katana pulsed and transformed in her hands.

"Tetsusaiga is mine, dragon. It was made for the Lady of the West and I am she. Release my daughter."

A sibilant hissing laugh slithered across her skin.

"We do not want the girl, dog. We wanted your mate…and now we have him. Humans die too quickly."

Kagome growled, and the girl was shoved forward against her. Sesshomaru turned and shot a wave of power from Toukijin in a curving arc past Kagome and Rin.

"Kagome, take Rin and go."

"Sesshomaru you can't - "

"Go!"

She sheathed tetsusaiga and lifted Rin in her arms, moving with slashing claws through the group of youkai, and looked back over her shoulder to see him calmly standing in the pressing circle of dragon youkai, flashing Toukijin's blood-slick blade. Rin looked back over Kagome's shoulder at the fighting, and cried out loud, tugging on Kagome's kimono.

"'Kaasan! Lord Sesshomaru is hurt!"

The moment she said it Kagome smelled his blood, and she set Rin on the ground.

"Rin, you must stay here. You'll be safe. I must help your Otousan."

Desperation lent speed to her movements, and she crashed through the dragon clan until she came to Sesshomaru's side. Blood streamed freely down his back, soaking his haori, and she took out her anger on the youkai around her. Sesshomaru turned bloody eyes on her, growled though his exertion.

"I told you to go with Rin!"

She purified a pair of dragons with a blast of miko power, and laughed in wild abandon.

"Rin is safe…you are not!"

He grinned wickedly, and met the press of youkai with a matching burst from Toukijin.

"Together, then, my mate?"

Her smile turned grim.

"Together. But I have a few tricks yet. Stand close, Sess-chan."

She drew tetsusaiga, and the fang transformed once more, before she plunged it into the ground. She forced her miko through the still throbbing blade, and it exploded outwards from the blade of the sword in a magnified blast that turned the youkai it touched into purified dust. There was a harsh scream of rage at this new method of attack, and one of the lords of the dragon clan raised himself into the air with clawed wings and reached for Kagome. Sesshomaru turned in time to see the dragon lord moving towards her, and harsh light flashed from Toukijin to the dragon that descended on her, wounding the creature but not killing it. Kagome sank to her knees by tetsusaiga, exhausted by her effort, and watched Sesshomaru fight the dragon lord through flickering eyelids. She could feel in herself a growing tide of youkai power, and turned with bared fangs to face the remainder of the dragon youkai, who backed away from where their lord fought. Her claws bit deep, and the fight dragged on.

Sesshomaru began to feel the draining effects of the deep wounds on his back, unmarked otherwise but for that, the result of a luck blow by a now dead dragon youkai. He dodged a blow with blurred speed, drawing a deep score through the dragon lord's scales. It turned and slashed across Sesshomaru's chest, shredding his haori, and Sesshomaru felt a slow burning pain in the shallow wounds. The dragon pulled back, and its laughter was chill and cruel.

"Do you feel it, dog? The same poison that killed your father is running in your veins now, oh mighty Sesshomaru. It is so easy to destroy youkai who choose to care for humans…"

Kagome saw him stagger, and left the last of the dragon youkai to flee from her vicious assault. She pulled tetsusaiga from the ground, ignored by the dragon lord as he battered mercilessly against Sesshomaru. Twice more dragon claws slashed open Sesshomaru's body, and twice more Sesshomaru felt the same slow, burning pain. Slashes of his own dokkasou melted their way through the dragon's thick hide, but his vision was blurring and he could not force his claws deep enough through its scales to kill the beast. He saw Kagome standing behind the dragon lord then, poised with tetsusaiga. It turned to look at her, and bared its fangs.

"You wish to taste my poison too, dog?"

She smiled slowly, and her whisper was a seduction to death.

"I don't believe you've met my Kaze no Kizu…"

Tetsusaiga hit the wind scar, and the dragon lord screamed his pain and disintegrated in the blast of raw power that the sword produced. She turned to face the single youkai who had remained, and her eyes were lit with dark desires.

"Tell your other lords what happened here. Tell them this dog and his mate destroyed your clan and its lord. Tell them there will be vengeance."

The dragon turned and fled, and Kagome sheathed the sword, reaching for Sesshomaru as he staggered backwards and slid ungently down the bark of a tree. She could see the spreading bloodstains, and then she smelled the acid bitterness of poison. Her eyes went wide with horror.

"No, Sess-chan, no…"

His eyes dulled slowly, and she felt the breath leave his body, limp and unmoving. Her next gasp of air drove itself into her like a knife, and she howled the cry of a mate severed from her beloved. She threw herself across his body, and slow hours passed with her tormented sobs.

Shippou sat with Sango and Miroku in the castle gardens and wrinkled his face, rubbing at his nose.

"What is it Shippou?"

"Smells like youkai blood…lots of it. I caught it when the wind changed."

Sango and Miroku exchanged startled glances and leapt to their feet.

"Kagome!"

"Kirara! Can you find the blood scent Shippou smelled from the air?"

The fire-cat mewed assent and transformed to her large shape, and the humans and Shippou climbed onto her back. The scent of demon blood soon grew so strong that even Miroku could smell it, and they came to where Kagome and Sesshomaru had fought the dragon clan. Shippou's ears perked up at once, and he dashed off into the grass away from the battlefield.

"Shippou!"

He jumped up and waved at them.

"I found Rin!"

They rushed over to the shuddering girl, and Sango let out a sigh of relief.

"Shippou, stay with Rin. It doesn't look like any of these youkai are anywhere near alive…Sesshomaru and Kagome must have done a job on them. We're going to find Kagome and Sesshomaru."

Shippou nodded, and Rin watched Sango and Miroku surveying the battlefield from Kirara's back with wide eyes, and Shippou started to explain about the fire-cat in order to distract her from the scene of death.

Sango saw a blood stained pile of silver, and prayed silently, her heart clenching. She stepped lightly down from Kirara's back, and approached Kagome's heavily bloodstained form, lying across Sesshomaru.

"Kagome?"

She turned quickly and crouched over Sesshomaru's still form, baring her fangs under youkai-red eyes. Sango knelt in front of her and saw at once that Sesshomaru was dead.

"Oh…Kagome…"

Beneath Sango's calm scrutiny, the angry energy she had been depending on to control her grief faded away, and she crumpled to the blood-soaked ground at her feet, sobbing brokenly. Her breath rushed from her in a pained exhalation, and Sango pulled her gently into her arms, stroking her hair as she would have a child's. Kagome looked up at the Taijiya, and her soul spilled out of her eyes in racking tears. Her eyes were red and swollen, her cheeks raw and stained with tears and blood. Her hair hung limp and matted down her back, soaked in Sesshomaru's blood and the blood of the dragon youkai, as was her kimono. Her eyes were lifeless and brimmed with despair and rage.

"There were so many of them, Sango. He fought them so I could get Rin away, but I couldn't let him do it, I couldn't let him fight them alone. But there was a dragon lord with poison on his claws, Sango…he would be alive if it hadn't been for the poison. It was the same…the same as killed his father."

She dissolved into broken hearted sobs, and Sango clenched her fists and drove them against the ground. She looked at her friend with hot eyes that caught on the sparkling jewel around her neck.

"Use the jewel, Kagome. Bring him back."

Kagome tore the jewel from its fragile chain, and it shone pink in her palm, but she fisted her hand around it and all hope went out of her eyes.

"I can't. It's too selfish. The jewel was not made to soothe my heart…it is a last resort, it has to be, or the wish will be tainted with evil."

She cradled Sesshomaru's cold body against her, and her tears cut streaks through the bloodstains on his flawless face. Her fingertips glowed with the same shallow light that Sango had seen before InuYasha's body disappeared, and Kagome whispered through her tears.

"I'll follow, Sess-chan…"

But Miroku's staff moved between the tips of her fingers and Sesshomaru's bloodless cheek.

"No! Don't, Kagome!"

Her hand closed around the staff and her eyes were angry when she looked at him.

"Damn you, Miroku? Why!"

He pointed to a pulsing blue that lay attached to Sesshomaru's waist sash.

"Tensaiga."

{cries horribly} Sess-chan! No!! Awww…but I'll fix it, I promise! He's just too beautiful to die forever….{melt} Very mean place to end it, I know, but next chapter soon…Review! Pleeeease!