InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Bloodlust ❯ Threads ( Chapter 31 )

Shippou was not pleased with his mothers sudden disappearance, and while Kaede was busy trying to calm Rin, he crept outside and tested the air for Kagome's scent, intending to run and follow it, but the wind had already erased most of that lingering sweetness from the air, and he flopped against a tree, disheartened. He was joined shortly by Rin, who sat next to him with a similar sigh, and Shippou looked across at her.

"What should we do, Rin? Otou-san is fighting, and Okaa-san had to leave now too…"

The little girl crossed her arms defiantly and stood up in front of him.

"Everyone is learning how to fight, even you, and Rin is not learning. Shippou will teach Rin how to fight while `Kaa-san is gone."

Shippou grinned.

"Okay! We can really surprise her!"

Twin in spirit if not in form, the two ran together away from the village towards the Goshinboku, slipping and laughing in new-fallen snow. Miroku watched them go, envying the lighthearted freedom of children, even when the unexpected saddened them. He was more concerned with Kagome's absence than any of the others, and with good reason - he had met Kasuka, and they had not. The Lady of the North exuded a calculating chill that he had accorded an extra measure of respectful behavior during his brief encounter with her, but even then he had sensed that there was venom behind her words. There was unease thick in the air around the monk, and his wife poked his arm as she came up behind him.

"Kagome can take care of herself now, Miroku, and all your jittering isn't going to do a thing but worry the children."

He pulled her close into his arms, and sighed with a mixture of concern and contentment.

"I am glad that you are not required to make visits of state, Sango."

She grinned.

"Why? Are you sure you would miss me all that much?"

"At least at night…"

Sango punched him in the head, and Kaede, watching from the door of her hut, accepted with merriment a return to normality after their time of post-marital bliss.

Kagome gradually noticed that the youkai servant who had come to collect her was falling farther and farther behind; indeed, he could hardly be said to be leading the way any longer. She stopped completely, searching with her miko, and fastened on the greatest projection of youkai energy she could sense to the north of her. The forced hyperawareness of her senses also picked up an even larger consolidation of youkai to the west, defining the singular foolishness of warfare.

The air for miles around carried the tinge of blood, and the gathering of carrion feeders hovering in the air far in the distance was as tell-tale as her miko. She hesitated on the point of turning from her `visit' and following the tug of her heart, but common sense spoke better to her of appearing in the midst of a battle she knew nothing of, and she turned back to the north. Fixed and certain of her direction, Kagome started off again and nearly doubled her speed, running through the reasons she had come up with as to why Kasuka desired this meeting. She was so intent on her running and her thoughts that she did not notice when the servant behind her disappeared into a breath of mist and laughter on the breeze.

Sesshomaru's warning reverberated strongly within her, and she moved inside a cloud that was halfway suspicious - the Lady of the North was not likely to be as easy to defeat as the two youkai she had dispatched, and the political complications could be severe - though perhaps Kinawai would not protest overly much. Kagome held onto the thought of her miko as reserve; in close quarters, she could purify nearly any youkai out of existence. Even Naraku had not been immune to that, and she had trained since then. Her hands wrapped protectively around the protruding curve of her belly, and she recognized parts of her suspicions as mother-instinct protecting the unborn pup still growing in her womb. Slowly, she decided that even if the youkai lady's intentions were not the most pure, she would not dare an open, direct attack.

The castle of the north was as much of a fortress as the one in the west that she called home, but the presence of guards on the battlements and walls, and the lack of protective and dangerous power that she had grown used to was distracting. When she approached the gates, she slowed in preparation to call to the guards, but the doors opened for her, and she saw as she walked slowly through them the heavy iron bars that held them shut, weighing down the straining arms of youkai guards.

The grounds of the castle were opulently appointed, and she noticed more than one branching path that seemed to lead to more secluded gardens. A tall guard bearing a long sword in a sheath across his back gestured towards one of the paths to her right, and Kagome stepped questioningly towards it.

"The Lady Kasuka awaits you in her private garden, Lady. This path leads to it, at its end. I would lead you, but none but my Lady are allowed into that garden without her express permission."

The honor, if honor it was, was not lost on Kagome, but it increased her sense of unease, and her steps down the garden path were halting and watchful. The range of her youkai senses responded to the need of her miko, and the world opened around her as it had the first time she tried to use her increased senses. The leaves moved each with their own breath, a sound of harp strings tuned and broken matched with the falling water in fountains close and distant.

The vibrant song of hidden birds mingled with a chanting strangeness of drifting music, tugging with magic-soft fingers at Kagome's thoughts, bringing her into a muddled, half-sleeping range of senselessness. She stumbled upon the garden at the end of the path in a sound induced haze, and discovered that the odd singing was Kasuka's. The youkai Lady's voice kept her from noticing her surroundings for a few seconds, and she stepped over aura-blue lightening and into a clear swell of wind and power. It seemed to her as if Kasuka did not even notice her presence at first, distracted by something in the distance beyond a sparkling fountain, but then she nodded pleasantly and stood to welcome her.

"Please forgive me for this informal reception Lady Kagome, but you did not strike me as the type to stand on pointless ceremony."

Kagome matched her smile and tone, and the suspicious reserve she had maintained on her journey drifted unwillingly to the back of her mind.

"Ceremony can be useful, but you are correct - it is often unnecessary."

"Of course."

Kagome noticed the quiet aura of the place in which they sat, so quiet and so peaceful as to seem almost artificial. The ground was carpeted with soft moss and low-growing wildflowers, brilliantly colored but somehow not as beautiful as they appeared in patches of forest sunlight. It was then that Kagome recognized the tingle of magic. The air outside the castle walls was frigid with the promise of snow, but in these gardens flowers still bloomed and the running water of fountains did not freeze in the chill air. It caused her to wonder if a similar thing was possible at the castle in the west, but surprised herself by missing the stark outlines of dormant, leafless trees and the shimmering of winter sunlight through frost-patterned ice. She probed at the magic-born tingle with her miko, and opened her mouth to question a deeper, darker aura that grew around her with every second, but Kasuka noticed the flickering emotions on her face and guessed its direction.

"A modest spell of my own working, to keep the flowers alive through the year. It centers here, but the other gardens are affected as well. I find the death and dearth of winter to be a damper on my mood."

A shudder ran through Kagome's body deeper than the chill of the air, and she felt that Kasuka's words were icily smooth, despite the living blooms around them. Kasuka stood with a smile and gestured for Kagome to follow her, and Kagome moved slowly after the other youkai, probing at Kasuka with her miko for the first time. Her attempts were rebuffed, and Kagome could sense no youkai in her, in the same way that she had been unable to detect the youkai of the dragons she had killed and the servant who had come to collect her. A waxy apprehension gripped her spine, and Sesshomaru's words replayed themselves in her thoughts.

*Masking of scent and aura is a miko spell, not youkai…*

She stared at Kasuka in complete shock, and the words were forced from her mouth before she could think about them, before she could comprehend their meaning and keep the secret they revealed to herself, her low whisper quite loud enough for Kasuka to hear.

"Miko!"

Kasuka turned slowly and a deadly cold smile trapped her lips.

"Not quite."

Kagome breathed out swiftly, as though she had been punched, and the absorbing dullness of thought that had pulled on her since she stepped into a circle of magic she could not sense drifted more tightly around her.

"Kuromiko….pretender to youkai…kuro…miko?"

Kasuka laughed, and with her laughter a screen was ripped away from Kagome's vision and she saw for an instant a dark and furious rage burning in the eyes of the Lady across from her.

"Your lovely mate did something I could never forgive and so I return the favor…but it is beautiful that he has given me a way to experience sweetness all over again."

The words were cryptic and meaningless in Kagome's current state, and she was frozen in place by shock, as a series of tiny clues pulled themselves together in her mind, and she saw at once why her miko was useless against the youkai she had fought - why this youkai Lady covered her presence so thoroughly that it caused suspicion even in her own mate, but a swathe of black storm magic tumbled her over into unconsciousness with her deductions, and a wordless cry ripped from her soul along her mating bond as she tumbled into the abyss.

Kasuka pulled Kagome deeper into a web of power as she carried the unconscious miko down the path towards the castle, the lights in her eyes switching from laughter to malice in the realization of her plotting.

Kagome drifted in fog, ethereal and melody bound. Her eyes were not open, she knew they were shut, but the visual imprint of blue upon blue remained suspended behind her eyelids. A quiet, shallow dreamscape rush of mist was interrupted occasionally but ringing, familiar laughter that pushed her deeper and deeper into an unwilling trance, while a heavy softness filled her senses. A voice of emotions that seemed to offer comfort enveloped her and filled her with pain, and her confusion was such that Sesshomaru's frantic bonded tug was nearly silent, and she could not bring herself to remember a name for the longing for his aid that formed in her soul.

In a dark room in the deeps of the castle of the north, Kasuka lay Kagome's prostrate body on the ground and drew a circle around her with fragrant sake, and the alcohol thickness of the rice wine filled the room. Her voice was low, but her chanted spell forced Kagome's ears into consciousness, letting her hear the words of the vengeful youkai lady who held her immobilized with magic.

"Miko Kagome, Lady of the Western Lands, know that in years past it was I who destroyed your predecessor, the mother of your mate. The Lord InuTaisho refused me as his son has done, choosing you over me - half trained miko mutt who had no idea what she was. I have been practicing my magic for a long time, mutt. A very, very long time. Once before there was a war like this, that created enmity between South and West. The miko who created invisible soldiers, who incited the Lord of the South to horrible insults? I. The miko who made those same soldiers unable to carry weapons? I. They tried to destroy me when they learned what I had done, but I escaped them, and hid in a village of miko-youkai to regain my strength. Any kuromiko can feed from the energies of war, but when battle ceased, I destroyed the village and all their kin, added their power to my own. But you…you come from nowhere, little sister. How did you escape?"

The words rolled slowly through Kagome's thoughts and created subtle pressure that released her into wine-fumes and memories.

"Es….cape?"

A clawed slap reverberated off the walls, and Kasuka withdrew her hand from Kagome's face with bloody fingers and claws.

"You should not resist my spell, little sister. It will make your pain a thousand times worse."

As though to prove it, violent convulsions spread from the claw marks in Kagome's face through her body, shivering horrible pain that burst into stars at the touch of air on her skin, the breath of the fumes in the room into her mouth through shuddering gasps. Kasuka laughed, watching pain build, and a culmination of agony forced screams from Kagome's lips that should have deafened the gods. With a suddenness that could not be natural, the screams stopped as Kagome slipped into unconsciousness, and Kasuka growled at the empty air, feeling mate-magic slip between the cracks of her spell.

"He protects you even in trance…but he cannot hold you so forever."

She stalked out of the room, leaving Kagome alone in black silence.