InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Bloodlust ❯ He Who Cries ( Chapter 35 )

The bubbling sleekness of Kasuka's laughter boiled louder against Sesshomaru's ears, and he narrowed his eyes at the sound, adding his anger upon itself. Gradually he felt a loosening at the edges of his power, enough to allow the movement of his soul within the spell, if not the movement of his body. His aura wrapped protection around Kagome's thoughts, pulling her free of the castigating illusions. Like a starving child reaching for sweet fruit, he could feel her grasping at his strength, and he opened the floodgates of his soul's power. The moment the torrent was unleashed, Kasuka flinched and whipped around to stare at Sesshomaru. Her eyes widened in terrified surprised, and she heard more than felt the crackling tug that signaled the strain being placed up on her binding spell.

Sesshomaru ignored her, concerned with the flickering ember that manifested itself against the backdrop of calm love in his heart. He could feel her presence strengthening, a wash of emotion upon emotion sweeping across twisted and chaotic movements, the paintbrush of some mad god. Landscapes were twisted over sunsets, and pummeled into a new meaning of pain without apology.

Infinite red crossed Sesshomaru's eyes in a moment when he felt Kagome's tears echo in his mind, the horror of illusions not forgotten, the clawing agony of a life that might have been, her life that almost was. But instantly on the heels of a moment of regret he felt her joy at the presence of him she could feel, and it eased the ache in his heart with the unadulterated warmth of her love. Carefully, he proved that spell that held him, and a surge of hot miko power flooded his youkai and crashed through the magic barrier. Limbs free, he tore his eyes from the suspended image in the mirror, and faced himself.

Kasuka's fateful laughter greeted him again, a trademark now, and in the few moments unobstructed view he had of Kagome's supine form, he almost dared to breathe easily, before the image stilled and melted, to match everything else around him. Sesshomaru stood alone in a true hall of mirrors, and the reflections of all them showed Kagome's face, drawn and in pain.

"Kasuka!"

But his roar of challenge was greeted only by silence, and the word was hurled back at him by a million sparkling surfaces of perfect glass.

Kagome awoke in pained silence, and experienced at once a claustrophobic's worst nightmare. She was trapped behind glass and could see through it to Kasuka's twisted features in front of her, but she could not move more than an inch in any direction. Her palms pressed flat against the glass, and Kagome shook with real terror. Her screams bounced back at her, echoing until her sensitive ears were pained with loudness, and the malice of the youkai woman in front of her fed her fear. It was then that she missed the shikon, and the constant presence of the jewel that she had so grown used to was so deeply missing that her soul felt empty.

Wide open eyes could see the glimmering sphere hovering centimeters above the mirror that had caused her so much pain. InuYasha's smiling face; the soft hot pressure of his lips on her mouth, the memory of an unlife haunted the old ache in her heart with penetrating fervency. Despite the false memories, she knew the truth that had shattered the illusion, and missed even more the hard comfort of Sesshomaru's arms. But Kasuka had done a terrible thing, and Kagome was haunted by the memory of red and the roughness of fire-rat fur against her cheek in dreams. In the back of her mind she felt the betrayal undone anew, and the sheer glass that was pressed around her body opalesced, reflecting in instead of out, responding to the spell-set timer of her thoughts. Over and over she watched a battle that her heart had once dreaded, over and over relived the memory of betrayal, but instead of InuYasha she heard Sesshomaru's voice, and the words sliced piece after piece of her serenity away.

"I don't care if you live or die, bitch…"

*No - no - Sess-chan! Don't say it - don't- the words - the words are burning my heart don't you see - don't you see - InuYasha! No! I loved - love - ? - InuYasha - don't say them, Sess-chan…*

Her thoughts flickered in the dark, and Kasuka stood watching outside the mirror, waiting for the flicker to go out.

The mirrors shimmered and danced, seemed to reflect more than light. With twisted fantasy intentions, they filled with silence and distress, and then flooded the room around them. Sesshomaru pressed the tips of his fingers against the glass of a single mirror, but it was just glass, cold and smooth to his touch. A sudden shock of remembrance narrowed his eyes as he recalled the words of the dragon he had resurrected, and felt for the first time a tinge of unease instead of anger. From the rage of the dead Tensaiga could protect, and he had dismissed the resurrected youkai's information and warnings as nonsense - but here he stood in a hall of mirrors, exactly as he had been told.

Among all the slaughtered, had he managed to find the one with the gift of prophecy? The odds against it forced the thought from his mind. The remaining implication was so large that he could not bear to think of it. If that one youkai had known what was coming, perhaps they all did - and that spoke of a plot so thick that he shied away from it, and then scolded himself for his submission to fear in the face of Kagome's distress. The prophecies of dead youkai counted for nothing in his thoughts, and he turned back to the mirror he had touched, seeking for some clue to hidden secrets.

Again he touched it, probing gently with youkai energy, and this time the glass rippled like thick water, glowing softly from where his fingers had touched. As the scrying mirror had in Kasuka's hands, the mirror in front of him expanded and pulled, drawing at his consciousness with slender and tingling claws, but he stepped away from the reflective surface by force of will, and watched as Kagome's form replaced his reflection in the opal clear glass.

Sesshomaru narrowed his eyes, and watched the reflection spill from mirror to mirror, until he was faced with Kagome's pale and tense face in every direction he turned. There was no turning away from the pain in her wide-eyed and terrified expression, and he shuddered with anger at whatever twisted and agonizing fantasy Kasuka was giving to her now, slipping tiny pieces of falseness through the web of mate-magic he had woven to protect Kagome.

Behind him came a humming, low and sensuous, and he felt again the probing fingers, real this time, Kasuka's scent and tapering claws drawn down his sleeves, and he met her palm with a thrust of his claws, dripping with bittersweet poison. A satisfied glint ravaged his eyes when the scent of her blood tore the air, and he turned with trademark swiftness and pinned her against the glimmering glass of a single mirror.

"Time is up, Kasuka. I will kill you now, and ask Kinawai's pardon later."

But she melted from his hold backwards into the glass, and her mocking smile seared his soul.

"Do you think I would make it that easy to catch me, mutt?"

The insults rolled off her tongue with liquid vulgarity.

"I work my spells to perfection, and though you were to kill me, still I would have my vengeance, for this illusion can be broken by no power I have ever met - the souls of the dead do not willingly release their captives."

Sesshomaru had gone beyond anger, beyond rage, to the quiet place of cold stillness that provides endless patience and a will of calm control, deeper than the foundations of the world.

"So you have dared used the Mirrors of Dessa."

And Kasuka shivered to hear his voice penetrate her hiding place, and wondered if perhaps she had made a fatal mistake. No living creature did she fear, but this demon lord spoke as though he were already dead.

Kagome swirled in dark voices that shimmered in the reflection of her eyes on the dark inside of the mirror. Beyond it outside she could see where Sesshomaru stood, facing with his back towards Kasuka's laughing face. To her eyes, unaffected by the force of Kasuka's illusory magic, it seemed that he stood with his hands inches from her throat, and Kagome could think only dismayed thoughts that he seemed so suddenly to be blind. Her voice was silent, though she could hear it echoing in her head, and the pressure of the scream she screamed pushed behind her eyes with intense pain, a burning throb that pulsed every time she blinked. Around her chest the tightness of a lead weighted band squeezed the breath from her longs in short gasps, and it was only when she stayed completely still and subdued her miko to the depths of her soul that the painful pressure eased its grip.

Sesshomaru's features tightened imperceptibly at the feel of Kagome's scream, beyond his hearing but not the nerve-presence of her that resonated within him. He could see all around him the reflection of her form, and the cry of pain in his thoughts dwindled to murmured shadows of tortured moans. At the edge of his awareness he recognized the shimmer of sunlight through a high window, and it was then that he knew he had found the flaw in Kasuka's plan. All around him and the variegated surfaces of illusory glass the sun shone, and straight through the lies of a thousand false mirrors, reflecting only from the surface of the Mirror of Dessa, that stood opposite him containing Kasuka's reflection.

The half-mocking smile that continued to twist her lips proved her unknowing of his discovery, and he walked past the mirrors that held Kagome's features, not seeing the look of new fear that intensified in her reflected eyes. Kagome watched unbelieving as he approached the opaque glass of her prison, the death in his eyes obvious and intense. One slow, deft motion drew Toukijin from its sheath at Sesshomaru's side, and her eyes did not register the shocking crash which was the demon energy of the sword smashing the mirror. Kagome tumbled free of shattering glass, towards the anguished comfort of Sesshomaru's arms, but the illusion lasted moments too long, and she saw too late for a cry of warning the flash of blood fury that sought her life as she was met on the point of his sword. The miko in her heart felt behind her the push of a thousand seared and weeping souls, and then she lived the dream.

The moment of the mirror's destruction annihilated the last few remnants of Kasuka's spell, twisted as they were by the sheer force of Sesshomaru's power. Behind his sword-thrust lay the weight of the swords own energy, the agony of his love for Kagome and the power of his own youkai blood, legacy of his father. Kasuka turned towards the shards of the mirror, listening to the cracking retort of splintered glass on marble. Her first lavish response of hidden dismay turned to manic glee as drops of Kagome's blood shimmered on the floor. The blood-mad tint of Sesshomaru's eyes faded from brilliance at the prodding of Kasuka's claws in his flesh. A single powerful sweep of his arm tossed her back away from him, and he knelt soundlessly at the slender-small body laying at his feet, seeming already swathed in a bloodstained shroud of silver hair.

Kagome's eyes were clear and misted over, close to death, unseeing even as they seemed to stare directly into his soul. Slowly, the hand she had returned to him crept over her silent flesh, passing over the rounded curve of her belly, swollen with life on the edge of death. Between the swell of her pregnancy and the curve of her breasts, his hand encountered the protruding hilt of his sword, and the touch of cold metal against the skin of his fingertips sent ice-cold shocks of swift and delicate despair down the center of his spine. His breath came like daggers, hidden knife-strokes in the deeps of his soul, and her name fell from his lips and shattered on the stone floor

"Kagome…"

He did not notice the dewdrop pattern of sparkling moisture that splashed softly on her still skin, or the fragile web of tender pain that spoke in the caressing motions of his hands on her cheek. But finally, slowly, with exquisite pinpricks of horrified loss, he noticed the shimmer of dampness, and then his tears fell swiftly like molten lead. Carefully, his hand tightened on the hilt of the sword, and he pulled it free from its grisly sheath, letting it clatter to quiet stillness beside her body. The scent of her blood was thick in the air, and he stood slowly and drew Tensaiga.

There was no pulsing flash of blue light, but when he held it in his hand he could see the soul stealers crawling closer and closer in all their gross transparency, drawing near to the white slickness of Kagome's skin. Three times he passed the life-giving blade through the bloody tear of Kagome's death, and three times it failed to restore the breath to her body. The mark she had given him seared `mate' into his soul, and a howl of helpless rage ripped free of his throat and rent the sky. Night crashed back over day in an eclipse of agony, and Sesshomaru wept, a prince of the god-kin demanding that the history of the moment be rewritten.

"Gods! Fiends! Whatever the price, give back her life! Give back her life!"

A flux of pallid light exhausted its brilliance in a single flash that numbed his eyes and pushed him back towards the wall. In his hands, Tensaiga dissolved into a perfect replica of itself, made of blue-sparkling dust motes that collapsed like pixie dust in a halo of light and thrust Sesshomaru into a nightmare of darkness.

From the moment the sword pierced her flesh, Kagome knew she was dead. The flame of her soul rushed along in a river, carried by a thousand other souls more full of pain than hers. The edges of her consciousness fluttered on the edge between waking and sleeping, and she saw around her the workings of an impossible dream. The air itself was a crystal shimmer, in which she could see the curling gusts of wind that tugged at the draw of her souls power towards an undefined destination of clear amber light. The color twisted in her soul - thoughts, and associated itself at once with emotions, her only expression of memory bound up in the silver shine of love, clear forgiveness swelling from her in an outpouring of pure miko. The continuing drag of soul light washed over her old body, on the edge of growing chill and pale, and she saw looking down at it the threads that still tethered her soul to the barest hope of life. The ash-motes of Tensaiga's will and the powerful push of a force of souls behind her latched onto the tendrils of emotion that linked her soul to her body and pulled.

The shock of parting from the perfect sky was a ground slamming ache that exerted the tug of a magical gravity on the substance of her soul, and she felt the sherry pain of her body around her for only a moment before youkai and miko shut down her consciousness, to heal her wound and save the tangled threads of her life.

Sesshomaru felt the shift from near-death to half-life, and new hope lived in a secret corner of his heart. He lifted her limp body and walked out of the hall, empty now but for the dark-light of a shadowy, battle promised dawn, and he did not notice the steadily continuing tracery of shining tears on his pale face.