InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Bloodlust ❯ Symphony: Death ( Chapter 45 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Sesshomaru moved, swifter than nightfall as Kasuka approached Kagome, and the kuromiko was suddenly aware of a sharply clawed hand protruding from her shoulder. He could feel the dark energies of her purification magic begin their work, the power in her blood burning at the flesh of his wrist. He tugged his arm out of her body and watched with satisfaction as all color drained out of her face as the blood drained out of her open wound.
He could not count them, but he knew her ribs were broken, alongside the gaping wound he had punched through her shoulder. Blood stained her kimono, slashes visible in her skin that Kouga had inflicted, bleeding onto the silk. It was this scene of controlled chaos that met Kinawai's eyes when he stepped off the long stairs and into the hallway that contained the otherworld chamber. Kasuka saw him first, standing alone and unmoving, and called out to him.
“Mate! Defend me!”
Kinawai deliberately ignored her words and stepped around and past her to stand beside Sesshomaru. There was an instant lull that imprinted shock onto Kasuka's face.
“You have not killed her yet, Sesshomaru?”
“That is a task for you, Kinawai. You know well that unless you are the one to take her life, you will attack whoever kills her. I would not want to hurt you, old friend.”
Kinawai raised an eyebrow but did not speak any words of denial. There was no gleam of particular pleasure in his eyes, but there was also no look of distaste, and Kasuka faced for the first time the real possibility of her own death. She pressed her back flat against the wall, feeling a total panic rise in her - and then her senses returned with the memory of her miko power, and she dove deep within herself, gathering the core of her purifying magic. Kagome felt it, all her miko senses alive to the growing power around Kasuka, and she pulled the sapphire-glowing dagger from where it had been stowed in her obi.
“Lord Kinawai! You must kill her with this blade! It carries the power of Eldest's blood and enchantment!”
She held it up, sparkling in the shifting light, and Kasuka let loose a scream that fractured thought. Smoothly, she dodged around Kinawai and made straight for Kagome, throwing miko power behind the movement of her feet. Kagome clutched the bundle of her son to her breast and ran, down the hall and up the stairs, away from her mother-sense of danger. Behind her came Kasuka's panting footsteps, neither growing or slacking, and Kagome clutched the dagger tighter in her hand. Her rush was so great that she didn't notice when the tightness of her hold forced a slit in her palm, or the sudden glowing shift of the sapphire blade to a raw and pulsating violet.
Kagome could not run far. Her legs began to tremble even with every walking step, and she ducked into the great hall, searching for a way to escape her tormentor and find Kinawai again. Down along the great table and into the kitchens she ran, and there was not motion or sound as she passed through, though usually there was invisible busy noise. In the end of her need, she clutched her son against her breast and forced herself flush against the wall, gathering her strength into herself, wishing she could fade into the stones themselves. Kasuka approached her slowly, followed by the spreading scent of her mate and Kagome's, but she did not stop until she was so close that Kagome could feel the chill of her breath wash over her skin.
“Goodbye, Kagome.”
“Goodbye…”
And she thrust the dagger in her hand deep into Kasuka's heart. There was a peal of noise like the raging of a fiber deep bell. From the blade of the dagger came a supernova shock-wave of brilliant light, that flooded over Kagome's skin like a whisper and a release. There was a sigh of blank forgetfulness in the air, a dispersal of mist and vengeance and the scent of the sea, and Kagome was alone. The dagger in her hand cracked, the blade shivering into pieces of blood tainted glass. Sesshomaru ran in ahead of Kinawai and found her still against the wall, sunk down to the floor. There was panic and relief in her eyes when she saw him, and she held up the broken hilt of Eldest's enchanted dagger.
“Kasuka is dead. What do we do?”
“We -“
“Sesshomaru! You killed my mate!”
A fire of blood fury consumed Kinawai's normally placid features, and he stalked back and forth in the doorway. Still the tiger on the prowl, even in humanoid form, Kinawai glanced at the one circumstance had made his new enemy, who had been his ally and his friend. He followed the scent of Kasuka to the lingering drops of her blood on the tips of Kagome's claws and the glittering blade-shard that she held in her hand.
“You! You! YOU!”
He reached for her in desperate agony, his mind and soul answering to the blood call, and in his eyes she took on the graven image of obscenity, lurid and thoughtless, evil in the very breath she stole from the air. The power of the writhing blood that pounded through his body passed new anger into the fleeing river of his severed connection with Kasuka. In a rush of mother instinct, half-mad with terror and pain, Kagome growled and slashed at Kinawai with one hand, and watched with feral joy as slow-motion droplets of his blood sprayed through the air and landed with abstract design on the pale skin of her forearms. Both their eyes turned to where the drops had fallen, and Kinawai rushed when she blinked.
He was not like Kasuka - he was a Lord, and a true one, trained in all the skill of leadership, and all the skills of death. Glinting steel flashed into his hand from the sheath at his waist, and she dropped flat to the floor, palms pressed flat against the stone and poised painful still on the balls of her feet. The first swing of his sword passed over her head with a shallow wash of wind-noise, and Kagome pushed off the ground, spinning flat in the air at least two meters in the air. The speed of her reactions was blindingly fast, and she allowed lightening hot touches of miko power to burn at the edges of Kinawai's patience, tempting him into haste and into error.
Sesshomaru could see the raging pulse of youkai energy wave back and forth between the two combatants, and the intent to hurt was just as bright in Kagome's eyes as it was in Kinawai's, lit by the fear in the wailing cry of the pup she protected. He made up his mind with eye-blinking quickness, and thrust a surprised Kinawai out of the way with one hand as he pushed Kagome and his son towards the door with the other.
“Kagome! Go!”
She blinked, stalled out of her snapping rage, and held her pup with suddenly terrified hands.
“Where - “
“It doesn't matter! Just go!”
He touched her check with one pale, deadly finger, a gesture of sweet and silent affection. Kagome ran, and Sesshomaru blocked the door and faced his ally.
“Kinawai. Why do you wish to harm my mate. You were on her way to kill Kasuka yourself.”
Kinawai tossed his head, endless rushes of desire to kill running in his veins. He looked at Sesshomaru, and his pupils dilated, expanding around the image of the one who stood between him and the end of that desire.
“Sesshomaru…you of all people know the value of vengeance. Will you really come between me and mine?”
“She is my mate, Kinawai! I will let you do no harm to her.”
Kinawai bared his fangs.
“A mate for a mate. It is fitting justice.”
There was a ring of drawn steel as Sesshomaru pulled tetsusaiga from its sheath, and he blocked Kinawai's path with no apprehension of gentleness.
“I do not wish to fight you, Kinawai. I would consider you a friend…but I will not let you harm my Kagome.”
The liquid depth of a tiger's snarl echoed off the walls, and Kinawai lifted his sword to catch the light, swinging his blade for Sesshomaru's throat. Tetsusaiga parried easily, and steel flashed eagerly in unwanting hands.
Rather than use the strength of his father's sword and destroy the one who threatened him, Sesshomaru parried and backed, leading Kinawai away from the lingering softness of Kagome's scent. It took more skill than he had used in battle for a long while. The Lord of the North was no easy prey, and Sesshomaru found himself bleeding more than once, shallow cuts plaguing his arm, weakened by the wrath of Kasuka's arrow. The Taiyoukai's trained eyes detected the pattern of Kinawai's attack, but he could do nothing to change it without killing one he had named friend. The careful calculations of his rational mind fell again to the insistent hammer-strokes of his emotion.
One glancing blow to the inside of his wrist sent tetsusaiga spinning out of his hands, and his eyes narrowed tightly as he looked at Kinawai, wondering for the first time if he would have to kill him after all. On the edge of ruin, Kinawai's face glinted in the dusty light, and he dodged around Sesshomaru's weaker side, taking a screaming gash down his side and ignoring it completely. He had found the scent he wanted, and he followed it at a reckless run. Sesshomaru followed him, and stopped at the entrance to the labyrinth of passages that honeycombed the castle. In this place, he knew where Kagome would go by instinct for safety and comfort, and he moved as fast as he was able to stairs that would take him nearest to their bedchamber.
 
Kinawai was on the hunt. He stalked, feline - stealthy through the dark mazed corridors, tasting the mixed scents of Kagome and her son in the still air, possessing the traces of her flight. He felt no hurry but the desire in his blood, and he flexed his claws, hearing knuckles pop and joints settle into place, strong enough to tear out a still-beating heart. He came to the base of a shallow-stepped spiral staircase, and found ten steps up a splash of cool blood on the carven stone, sticky with Kagome's scent. The higher he went, the more frequent the splashes, and he ceased following his nose when he stepped off the stairs, and followed instead the deep crimson stain of Kagome's passage. There were bloody handprints on the wall, blood footsteps on the floor, and there in the corner he saw his prey, only half-conscious and spilling already so much of the blood that he ached to feel rush free under his fangs.
 
Kagome was just as gone as Kinawai, half-dead, half-conscious, and with only the thought in her head to protect her son. Despite her injuries and her birthing, she had made it this far, and the call of her instincts kept her awake enough to protect her son. She narrowed her eyes to half breathing slits, composing her muscles in a state of waiting, following Kinawai's slowed footsteps down the hall way toward her with grateful anticipation. The line of muscles along her jaw tightened with the sound of every step, and she clenched her teeth. A single drop of blood pearled at her lip where a fang had pierced it, and she licked it away, preparing her tongue for the taste it longed for.
Kinawai stood over her finally, watching the looseness of her muscles for trickery as he raised his sword, and he was completely unexpecting of the sharp knife-pricks of pain that accompanied the force of her claw thrust into his belly. He staggered back away from her, and she stumbled up, dragging herself up the rough stone of the wall. There was a burning light in her eyes, so darkly red that they were almost black. It shone beyond the afflicted need of lost youkai control, and a field of hot miko sparks erupted around her, shining with a transparent violet radiance.
A few shot off from the main group that sparkled around her body and landed on Kinawai's skin, smoking and burning. They were not like normal sparks to be smothered with a hand, but rather they lit into his flesh and began to work in, seeking to do as much damage as possible. Kinawai roared, a terrifying sound in the hallway where they stood, that echoed backward and forward, rebounding off the walls. Rather than terror, Kagome's scent darkened with deeper rage, and she reached once more, meeting his hands and pushing back against them.
In this contest of brute strength, Kagome was destined to lose. No half-trained miko-youkai could possibly hope to have a chance against a fully grown tiger lord in the prime of his rule. Even in the depths of her mother-madness she knew this, and surrendered too it as Kinawai forced her smoothly backwards until she was standing over the son she had birthed. He flung one of her hands away, and it hit against the wall, bruising her wrist. She pulled her arm back away from the stone and shook her wrist, flinging away the pain like droplets of water. She stood over her son, wrapped in his father's sash against the wall, and when she saw a single moment of opportunity, she leapt. It was not a fighting style or discipline that she used, but rather the most simple of techniques in the instinctual repertoire of any dog.
Kinawai's nerves awoke to the feel of her teeth in his throat, the piercing grip of her fangs as the blood rose through his arteries to caress her tongue. From his own instinct, he pulled away from her teeth, but she wrapped her body around him in an embrace of death, and the hard points of her fangs tore the soft thickness of his jugular from his throat.
Open mouthed and open throated, Kinawai stumbled away from her and collapsed in a thick pool of his own blood at Sesshomaru's feet. Sesshomaru stood in silence, sword in hand a moment too late, left to stare in shock at Kinawai's torn throat and Kagome's bloody mouth.
“Kagome…”
Kagome sank to her knees by Kinawai's side, eyes clearing with the awakening of her mind.
“What…did I do? What did I do!”
Her hands went to her mouth and came away bloodstained, and the taste of Kinawai's blood was heavy on her tongue. Her hands shook and she reached, halfway to hot tears that hovered in her eyes, and then she felt for the second time a wash of tremendous power in her blood. She looked down at Kinawai's body, empty eyes, and a single word exploded from her throat.
“No!”
There was a new sun of pure light, violent blue where her hands touched Kinawai's skin, and it wrapped around them and concealed them from sight.
 
 
 
 
Don't worry! This may not be the end - the end of this fic, but not the end of the story. After all, youkai don't age….and Kagome misses her mother. Mwahahaha! If you'd like to see some kind of sequel, please let me know in a review. I have other ideas for fics not related to this plotline, and if not too many people want to know what comes after, I may start on one of those instead.