InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Bloodlust ❯ Twice Destroyer ( Chapter 29 )

Kagome pressed her bare skin against Sesshomaru's chest, pulling him back against her when he tried to stand.

"Please Sess-chan…stay with me a little longer."

He lay back beside her and gathered her against his chest.

"I will stay the night, my Kagome, but I must leave at first light."

She turned into his arms and twined her legs through his.

"You will come see the children then?"

He nodded, a mischievous glitter in his eyes.

"I thought you wanted me all to yourself?"

The tone of his voice was teasing, gentle, and for no reason she could explain found she could not prevent hot tears from spilling over onto his pale skin. He pressed her tightly against his chest and stroked the smooth skin of her back with gentle hands. More quickly than she had before, she brought them under control, aware of how her tears disturbed him, and Sesshomaru nuzzled the pale length of her hair and kissed the back of her neck.

"I know it is difficult for you, my mate…it is not only your wish to come with me, it is instinct to protect your mate that I am making you ignore."

Kagome sat up slowly and reached for her kimono, brushing his bangs away from his face with her other hand.

"I know about that instinct, Sess-chan, and I know also why you don't want me fighting. I don't like it, but I do understand it."

Dressed and proper, Sesshomaru held open his arms for her, and swept her off her feet.

"When this war is over, my Kagome, nothing will keep us apart ever again."

A chill wind ruffled the turning leaves, and Kagome leaned into his chest, unembarrassed to let him carry her through the deep press of the forest towards the human village beyond its borders. The sunset closed onto the sky behind them, thick red and purple, and a shudder of ill omen tingled through Sesshomaru's nerves. Kagome, relaxed in his arms, appeared to have noticed nothing, and he showed no sign of the dusky brush at the edges of his heart. They were met at the edge of the village by a wary Sango, who brightened when she saw them, and bowed shortly to Sesshomaru.

"Lord Sesshomaru! We did not expect to see you for some time. How go things on the front?"

He shook his head grimly, and gestured East.

`There are…problems. As far as I know, no battle has been fought, but troops are scattered. The dragons must have been preparing for some time, in order to have assembled a coherent army this quickly. I stopped here only briefly to tell Kagome before I commit myself to leading an offensive maneuver."

Sango nodded, and she looked quizzically at Kagome, lounging in Sesshomaru's arms.

"Are you alright, Kagome?"

Kagome laughed and snuggled closer to Sesshomaru's body.

"I'm perfectly fine, just enjoying the ride."

Sesshomaru tapped her cheek gently with a finger, a low growl teasing her skin with the vibrations of his chest.

"I am not a method of transportation, Kagome. That is reserved for Ah-Un."

Miroku announced his presence with laughter, and slid his arm around his wife's waist.

"I am not certain you are entirely correct, Lord Sesshomaru. You seem to have developed into a method of transportation for Kagome at least….and of your own will."

Sesshomaru raised one eyebrow, and turned towards Miroku.

"Houshi-Miroku."

"Yes, Lord Sesshomaru?"

"Shut-up."

The words from the future rolled chilled from his lips, and Kagome and Sango dissolved in helpless laughter. Miroku crossed his arms in a dignified huff.

"I made a valid point."

Kagome calmed her giggles long enough to look across at Miroku in an attempt to mollify him, and failed miserably.

"Miroku, it's not you that's funny, its just…oh hell."

Even Sesshomaru's eyes glittered with amusement, and Miroku let out a long suffering sigh, folding his arms into the sleeves of his robe and adopting his most dignified and holy expression.

"I should not be surprised - holy men have always been persecuted…"

Sango poked his chest and tried to catch her breath.

"We aren't persecuting you, we're laughing at you…and I don't know why you're so surprised…we've been doing it for nearly five years…"

Miroku stomped off towards the village, muttering under his breath about ominous clouds and demon slaying wives, and Sango rolled her eyes.

"He is…sensitive. I `d better go after him."

Kagome patted Sesshomaru's chest and pointed towards the village.

"Lets go see if Kaede has returned to the village yet, and find Rin and Shippou. Kaede has started training my miko, Sess-chan…only, you interrupted us."

He pressed her closer against his body, and peered down at her curled up in his arms.

"If you expect me to apologize to the miko for `interrupting', you are quite mistaken, my mate. You are mine, not hers."

Kagome reached up and pulled his face close to her, pressing her forehead against his. Gold eyes flashed against silver, and Kagome let him read her through her eyes, deep thoughts on the surface.

"I am yours, my mate."

The words bore a feel of ritual, and he kissed her roughly, letting her slide out of his arms and wrap her small hands around his. He parted from her mouth with suddenness, heat straining in his eyes, and Kagome flushed, caught off guard by the tension of the situation. Suddenly a picture of her mother flashed into her thoughts, and Kagome giggled slightly, startling Sesshomaru with the sound.

"Kagome?"

"I all of a sudden thought of my `Kaasan, and what she would say if she heard me now."

"Why would you cause such an amusing reaction?"

"Mmm…I'm mated to the Taiyoukai half -brother of my betrayer, pregnant, youkai, and completely lacking in basic feminism."

Sesshomaru blinked thoughtfully.

"I suppose that could be surprising. What is feminism?"

Kagome erupted in singing laughter, and a twittering cacophony of birds leapt from the edge of the forest at the unexpected sound, and the edge of the falling sun was washed in feathers.

"In my time, women aren't possessions of men like they are here. Women can do all the things men can do; work, fight, travel…when I lived there, I thought that was a wonderful thing…but now I am happy to belong to you. My mother would be…surprised, I think, but perhaps not unhappy. She was more traditional than I ever was, even though I traveled to the past."

Sesshomaru looked down at her in surprise.

"The things you speak of are only restrictions for human women, Kagome. Youkai females do what they choose, when they choose. Does it...bother?...you to belong to me?"

She squeezed his fingers gently.

"Didn't I just say I am happy to belong to you? To be yours? I am not a slave, any more than you are, just bound by love."

He gave her one of his rare smiles, and the walked toward the village visible over a small rise in the land. Sesshomaru stiffened slightly, and his nostrils twitched, searching for the trace of a scent.

"Kagome do you sense the presence of another miko's spells?"

She close her eyes and her forehead tightened in concentration, as her miko probed the village and rebounded from unfamiliar magic that nevertheless seemed just beyond recognition.

"There is a presence, but it is unfamiliar, not like Kaede's at all. It is so misty…almost as though I am sensing one magic on top of another, but the first is preventing me from discovering what the other is."

A violent growl forced itself from Sesshomaru's throat, and she looked across at him in concern.

"Sess-chan?"

"Go into the village and find the children. Keep them safe. This presence you are feeling is that of a spell of masking. They must have sent more than one spy to watch and find where I was heading. I will have to kill them to prevent them from sending a messenger back to the clan leaders. I will take care of them."

Kagome nodded shortly, and twin blurs of silver sped towards the village. They were met by screams of fear and the scent of human blood. Miroku and Sango faced warily off with a hissing pair of youkai, fending them away from the villagers. A red-eyed woman ran across the open square, behind where Kirara stood guard over the fallen and bleeding form of Kaede.

"Kagome-Hime! Kagome-Hime! Save my baby, Lady, my only daughter, precious girl…'

She dissolved into love-names for her child, and fell on her knees at Kagome's feet, arm outflung and pointing towards a cowering child in a corner of the square between the battle-weary forms of her friends and the slathering fangs of the dragon youkai. Kagome's eyes burned a flaming red, and she heard the rush of blood in her ears as of the living force of rage. The youkai stood side by side, matched in black wings and ridged black tail against the sunset, a deranged landscape washed in blood scent and Kagome's fury. Sesshomaru heard the growl that spilled out of Kagome's throat, and heard in it the battle challenge he had so desperately hoped to avoid.

Kagome felt the wash of his concern through the battle haze that possessed t her senses, drowning her in pearl-toned orchestrations of bloodlust and anger. Expecting no battle with youkai, the dragon pair hissed in twin fury, their sport disrupted, and spoke as one, directed at Kagome's clenched claws from weaving heads and the hissing of demon-twain tongues.

"She-mutt, you challenge us? You hide in a village of humans while your mate fights, and you would challenge us?"

Kagome's eyes shatter-glinted, and air around her crackled tenseness of miko power. Sibilant laughter taunted her, and she cried out in burning pain as the charge of her own miko was tainted and turned back at her.

"You cannot harm us with your witch power, she-mutt. We are protected."

Sesshomaru stepped forward, a snarl forming on his lips, but Kagome caught his eyes and shook her head, and he withdrew back from the fighting ground.

"Miroku! Sango! Take that child and Kaede and get out of the way!"

The ran to do her bidding, and the prostrate woman behind Kagome accepted her child back into her arms with sobbing relief. Kagome turned back to face the two snarling youkai, and her voice hung thick in the air, dripping with sarcasm that neither her friends nor her mate had ever heard before.

"So you are protected from my miko…but I don't believe you are protected from my youkai. Didn't your mistress tell you I had both? OR did that particular bit of information not make its way through those plated skulls?"

Kagome glided towards them in a series of blurred, quick steps that made it impossible to trace her passage from one to the next. Sesshomaru grinned, exposing his fangs and slit red eyes to the two dragons, recognizing her movements as parts of an attack he had taught her. Her claws flashed with a steel tinted gleam, and she drew deep score marks through the flanks of both dragons, their defensive movements ridiculously slow compared to her fluid speed.

"You cannot protect yourselves even from my claws, and you would call me mutt? You attack children and humans to prove your prowess? You insult the Lady of the West, insult my mate through me, and expect to live? You will die…and you will die slowly."

A second series of slashing motions with her claws tore blood soaked flesh from thick hides, and ripped the edger of one of the youkais' wings. Inhuman shrieks of pain ripped waves in the air, and the less injured of the two leapt at her, and she missed the motion by a fraction, his claws drawing shallow blood down one arm. Kagome hissed in pain, and the last trace of sane color in her eyes faded into battle lusting red as she lapped at the shallow wounds. Her voice dropped in tone and reflected a dangerous glee.

"Enough. Time for an ending."

Her claws woke to the silver pulse of youkai energy being forced through them as she had previously used her miko. Glaring silver light extruded in glowing loops and fastened lightly around the fore limbs of the dragon who had injured her, and tightened just enough to burn when he struggled. Her eyes narrowed quietly as she pulled the loops tight with a burst of strength, and a howl sliced through the air, blood pouring from the stubs of severed and smoking limbs. Loops of power flashed out once more, and smoking gashes materialized along the underbellies of both youkai, and added to the streaming pool of blood that had collected around them.

Too dazed to attack, and in horrible pain, one of the dragons attempted flight, but a slashing cut beheaded the youkai, and the crackling touch of her youkai tore the dragon into shreds of burned flesh and the boiling hiss of black blood. She turned slowly, breathing lightly, and the flash of her eyes fixed on the hissing and circling form of the remaining youkai, and a wave of fear scent broke over her waiting senses. A cornered, desperate attack forced her to twist low to the ground in order to evade a slash of deadly claws aimed at her throat. She fastened her claws in the sides of the dragon's neck and strained to lift him, breathing hard and pale arms trembling.

"You cannot win without treachery…and treachery will not avail you in the dark places you are doomed to wander."

Her claws dragged downward and diagonally, severing head, shoulders, and wings from the main body of the dragon. She let blood drip from her claws onto the ground, and gestured tersely for Miroku and Sango to move the wounded. A terrified group of village men approached slowly, intending to clean up the mess of dead dragons and splashed blood, and they knelt on the ground, trembling at her feet.

"K…Kagome-Hime, please allow us to remove these bodies from your presence…"

For one remaining instant, her voice was hard as she looked on the dead face of her enemy.

"Burn them. Burn them and give the ashes to the well in the forest."

The man who had spoken bowed deeply and backed away on his knees, and Kagome whispered half to herself as he ran away.

"You need not fear me…"

The sun took them unawares and set completely, darkening the night into the solemn shine of moonlight and stars. Sesshomaru approached Kagome from behind, and slid his hands around her waist. She leaned back against him heavily, and her eyes closed unhurriedly as she was surrounded by his scent. She expected chastisement from him, but his voice when he spoke was uncharacteristically gentle, and she was grateful for it.

"I do not like you to fight, my Kagome, but it is good to know you can if it is necessary."

"I thought you would be angry…"

"He insulted your honor, and I knew you would have no problem defeating them. You have learned well, my mate."

He nuzzled her cheek and Kagome growled a soft purr, staring down at her bloodstained hands and wrinkling her nose slightly.

"I think I need a bath."

Sesshomaru's eyes glinted in a sliver of moonlight, and he nipped gently at the point of her ear.

"I believe…there is a hot spring very close to here, my mate. Bathing is a welcome…distraction."

Kagome grinned slightly and shook her head, laughing.

"It is night already, Sess-chan, you can wait a little longer while we go visit Rin and Shippou…and I need to have a look at Kaede's wounds and find out what exactly happened. I'm just going to wash the blood off my hands."

His growl was soft and slightly impatient, and Kagome pressed her warm mouth against his lips.

:Later, my mate. I promise."

His eyes raked her body and his hands drifted around her hips.

"Yes, you do."

Kagome's laughter went with them down into the village, and the blood of the two dragons was forgotten in the swiftly flowing river that ran near the village. Kagome found Kaede resting pale-faced in her house, Miroku sitting near her to apply pressure on a tourniquet. He looked up when she came in, and his expression was grave.

"She is seriously injured, Kagome. I am not certain she will live through this."

Kagome tore into the supplies of herbs and bandages that Kaede kept in her home, drawing on her memory of the four years of on the spot medical treatment she had learned form Kaede, and applied them to the old miko for the first time.

"Miroku, go find my old yellow bag, it should be in a corner somewhere…there are still medicines from the future in it. Sango, start a fire and get some water boiling, these wounds need to be cleaned.

In the midst of her preparations, Shippou burst in with Rin close behind and collided with Sesshomaru's legs. Rin's beaming smile dissolved into a shriek at the sight of Kaede covered in blood, and she hid her face in the leg of Sesshomaru's hakama.

"Otou-san! What happened to Kaede-san? Rin is glad to see you!"

Kagome looked from the girl to Sesshomaru, and he nodded in response to her unspoken request.

"I will tell you all about it Rin, and you as well, Shippou."

The kit looked up at his adopted mother, and understanding sparked in his eyes. Sesshomaru picked up Rin awkwardly, holding the girl for the second time, and Shippou followed the Taiyoukai out of the house. Kagome threw herself into saving the life of the woman who had become like family, and it was not until three hours later that she felt secure enough to take a break.

Two long white slash marks from near-deadly dragon claws had opened wide gashes across her abdomen, that had fortunately managed to keep from going deep enough to shatter organs. The bandages around her torso were slathered in antibiotic ointments and a mixture of healing herbs to prevent infection, and Kagome fed the old woman a simple decoction to deaden her pain and induce sleep. Kagome pushed her sweaty hair away from her face and shoved a pile of her old school text books and used medicines in to a corner away from Kaede.

"Sango? Will you watch Kaede? I have to get cleaned up…and she should be fine, but if she wakes, call for me. I'll hear."

Sango nodded and sat by Kaede's bedside, and Kagome staggered out of the small house wearily. She stood for a few moments in the cool breeze, and then followed Sesshomaru's scent and then her eyes to where he sat with a sleeping pair of children across his lap. A soft smile crossed her face, and he looked up at her, exhausted and bloody but still beautiful. He stood carefully, cradling one of them in each arm.

"Rin can speak very fast, you know. I was surprised her words did not trip over themselves. When she fell asleep, Shippou had nothing to amuse him, and he went with her. I think this is the only time when they are quiet."

"I think you are right about that, Sess-chan. Miroku has made up their beds, I think he's practicing for when Sango has children…and Kaede will be alright, I think. I had some old medicines from the future that will keep her wounds from infection."

"I will take them in and put them to bed. Take your bath, Koi."

She smiled her gratitude, and Sesshomaru brought the two sleeping children in and lay them on futon across the from where Kaede lay sleeping. His nostrils flared slightly, but he detected no scent of death on the old woman, and followed Kagome's swiftly drifting scent towards the hot spring, a wicked glint coming to life in his eyes in memory of her promise.

Wow! That was a really long time between updates…computer exploded everywhere and died (the sparks were pretty til the carpet almost got set on fire) BUT! I'm back…and that means so is naked Sess-chan…soon, I promise!!! Review, please!!!