InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Cobalt Skies and Too Blue Eyes ❯ Interval Four: Higure ( Chapter 7 )

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

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, etc. This story is for entertainment purposes only.

COBALT SKIES AND TOO-BLUE EYES

Summary: A dream haunts Sango in the eyes of her newborn son. As the veils between this world and the next are drawn back on the night of seasonal equinox, she must consider that the ghost of the father might come seeking both her and her son… (“after Naraku” canon cont., SangoXBankotsu, some InuyashaXKagome)

WORDS

Higure - twilight, evening

A/N: I have argued with myself about including yet another interval, but the next chapter is too different for me to add these little scenes to, and as the intervening scenes between the last segment and this one waxed long, I found myself finally deciding to just go with the flow, LOL, and update as is. Hope this is as fun to read as it was to write…(Fate)

A/N 2: Ack! Forgot to add that Sangoskates2 has done two fanpics for this story. They can be found on deviantart, links are here: (take out spaces)

h t t p : / / s a n g o - s k a t e s 2 . d e v i a n t a r t . c o m / a r t / T o j i - 5 9 0 1 1 7 7 0

h t t p : / / s a n g o - s k a t e s 2 . d e v i a n t a r t . c o m / a r t / G e s h i - 5 9 0 1 3 0 4 9

Much gratitude for the fanart, it totally inspired me to finish this chapter. Thank you, Sangoskates! (Fate)

WARNING! ADULT SITUATIONS AND ISSUES, NO ONE UNDER 17, PLEASE!

INTERVAL IV (HIGURE)

She surprised the smack out of him by being the one to finally bring emotions to a head.

“Now that it is warmer and I’m not so sick, I think that it would be better if you moved into your own house.”

Bankotsu choked on a mouthful of savory rice and wild goat. Typical woman---she had taken him in a moment of weakness, when he was caught completely off-guard.

Sputtering, he used the stalling tactic all men used in such a situation. “Hh-huh?”

“I think you should move into your own---” she patiently repeated, hands folded in her lap and voice low, her eyes refusing to meet his.

“I heard you the first time!” he snarled, irritated that she dared to even think it.

In the past she might have bristled and snapped something like “Well, then why the hell did you just ask me?” or she might have, in the interests of keeping the peace, merely bristled, her eyes glaring daggers and her nostrils flaring that least little bit as she mentally counted to ten.

Now she just sat there refusing to meet his livid gaze, and his lip curled up in contempt. He deliberately misunderstood her and took it personally that she would ask such a thing of him. Him---who had stood by her side, holding her shaky ass over the chamber pot or wiping the snot from her reddened nose or forcing tea down her stubborn throat. Did she think he liked doing that kind of shit? That he got some type of weird thrill out of being helpful? He was a mercenary, damn it! He usually got paid for helping somebody’s dumb ass out!

“Are you fucking insane---” His grand sally, heightened by weeks of frustration and pent-up anger, fell fall short of its grand entrance for Mikomi chose that precise moment to wail at the raised voices in what was normally his too-quiet abode. Both of their attention was immediately turned to concern for their child.

Sango was faster than he in going to pick their son up. Cradling the little stage-hog to her shoulder, she tried to make soothing sounds to comfort the distraught little boy. Disgruntled, Bankotsu watched as the boy snuggled against his mother, face red and sniffling. He felt like an ass. Damn it, anyway. It was all her fault.

Mikomi didn’t like it when they both hovered. It confused the poor brat. Sango had the babe well in hand, and he was only going to get in the way. That irritated him, too---that she was comforting their son and not he---and so he got up and left to go outside and fume by himself. Blue eyes as stormy as his son’s, he stomped on out into the deepening dusk of the departing day.

Mikomi was upset and it took all her patience and calm to soothe the poor little boy back to sleep. Sango was tired, dog-tired, by the time she finally laid the babe back down in his pen. All her energy seemed drained right out of her---but that wasn’t anything new as of late. She never seemed to have energy for anything lately. It was just so hard to do the simple things---like chores---anymore. What was the point to it all? The daily struggle and the daily toll. The daily work and the daily drudge. There was just no point to it all.

There was Mikomi, of course, and it was he who allowed her to get up in the mornings and to smile those few rare times that she did smile, but it just seemed so same, so unending, and so same. Bless his little heart, he could sense her weary listlessness and tried to comfort her in his own little way. She knew she was affecting him, that the depression eating at her was also eating up her son, but she couldn’t seem to do anything about it. She felt helpless and weak, and it was just all so damn wearying to even think about.

Life had become one simple task after another and she kept trudging on, for she couldn’t not trudge on. That was unthinkable, now that there was Mikomi to think about. So she ghosted from one dull task to another, trudging on and not wanting to think too much about it. Now she had to go trudge outside and confront Bankotsu---yet another damn task for her to do.

She didn’t want to confront him. He was so vivid, so demanding, so frustratingly stubborn and unbending. Damn his calloused hide. Couldn’t he see that it would be smarter for him to take his own residence? Kami knew that there were plenty of empty homes in the village! It wasn’t like she was asking for him to leave altogether. He was still Mikomi’s father and she still believed wholeheartedly that her son needed him in his life. She wasn’t asking him anything she shouldn’t. It was ridiculous for them to keep sharing one small hut when there were plenty out there. Besides, they would both breathe a little easier when they weren’t always on top of one another, constantly getting in each other’s way and on each other’s nerves.

It wasn’t like they were married or ever would be. It wasn’t as if they needed to share the hut, as they had in the long winter. Spring had taken its time approaching but had finally arrived. New buds had formed and the constant rain had at least abated. The days were growing warmer, though the nights still stayed cold enough that she was glad of the fire kept burning in the central hearth.

If Bankotsu took his own hut than she might be freed of the constant reminder of her betrayal toward her beloved houshi. Not that she wouldn’t see him every day---it was a small village, after all, with only two people in it. But she might not have that constant awareness of the mercenary, that constant pain. Bankotsu had become more real to her than her lost Miroku and Sango was desperate to cling to anything that might stop that hideous insinuation of truth. Bankotsu was here, now, in the all-too-real flesh and Miroku was but a wisp of tender memory. She was so ashamed of that harsh truth and couldn’t, wouldn’t, let it continue.

Kirara wasn’t about to pass up the chance to watch them fight. Bankotsu scowled at the stupid cat who sat so serenely on the porch, patiently waiting for the explosion. She knew, damn youkai, that he wasn’t about to give in on this one and that the fireworks were about to fly.

If just a little quieter than before. He didn’t want to wake his son up, the guilt would eat him to hell and beyond. He wasn’t that much of an ass.

Though he sure felt like one.

It took forever for Sango to calm their son back to sleep. Or it seemed like forever. He spent the time glaring at the cat, who spent the time staring back at him with her two tails wrapped neatly around her front paws as she sat on her haunches, serenely waiting with an almost delighted look of anticipation in her bloody eyes.

“Stupid cat.”

“She’s not stupid.”

He looked up in surprise at that weary riposte. Sango stood in the doorway, absently wiping her hands across her green skirt. Clad in a lighter yukata for the warmer spring air, she was unaware of how the glow from the hearth backlit her womanly figure in a halo of orange and gold as the twilight deepened. Her eyes were dark and tired.

He liked that she had contradicted him. Crossing his arms and leaning against the porch-rail, he smirked with good cheer, “I say she’s stupid.”

A whisker twitched on the watching kitten but Sango seemed to deflate, her shoulders slumping slightly as she turned her eyes away.

“Don’t do that!” Bankotsu hissed, moving as fast as a snake to grip the taijiya’s shoulder and turn her back towards him. Gods, he hated how craven she had become.

“Please,” she whispered, the pain in her voice harsh.

“Damn you, taijiya! What the hell is wrong with you?” He kept his voice low, for his sleeping son’s sake, but he could not keep the bewildered anger from it.

“Nothing is wrong with me,” she said, though they both knew she lied.

“Damn that hentai monk to hell!” Bankotsu snarled in a whisper of pure rage and regret.

Her open palm cracked against his cheek, as stinging a blow as his bitter words were to her heart.

“How dare you!” Her whisper was as harsh as his, her eyes brimming over. She hated for him to see her weakness and hated him for the causing of it. Stepping back, she turned her head away again.

“No.” His voice was hard. “You won’t turn away from me like that. I don’t deserve it, not after you just slapped the shit out of me.”

“Why can’t you just leave me alone?” she sobbed, broken in spirit and battered by guilt.

“Is that what you want? That I leave you alone? That I leave you and Mikomi alone?” His voice was a whip’s crack of coarse demand. “He’s my son!”

“Don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think I know that only too well? Gods, Bankotsu! Can’t you understand that I can never forget that you are Mikomi’s father, and not Miroku? That I betrayed him? With you?”

“And that’s why I curse that stupid monk to the hottest hell and curse you, too, taijiya, because you won’t ever forget that fact, or forgive yourself, or me, for what was not even your fault, but mine!” Bankotsu shouted, uncaring now if he woke his son or not. His pain was too raw, his own regret too close to the surface. He felt like an ass. How could he have ever dreamed that they might find love between them with such a stark stain betwixt them?

Sango could only crumple with the sobs that wracked her thin frame. She couldn’t even rouse when Mikomi’s awakened squalls rose above her own. It was Bankotsu who stalked back inside the hut to comfort their son while she fell in a broken heap against the porch’s wall, Kirara mewing at her feet in anxious concern.

Sango felt like a pathetic weakling. She was a terrible mother. Mikomi needed her and she couldn’t even get up off the wall to go to him. It was Bankotsu who had the strength to go and comfort their son. She was such a weak, pathetic, horrible person. She had betrayed her beloved houshi with her weakness, and she was now betraying her beloved son with it.

A strong arm suddenly enfolded her in a tight hug and Sango stiffened at the abrupt intrusion. He held her tightly to him, though, and she slowly crumpled into his strength, burying her head in his shoulder as Mikomi sniffled in the crook of his other arm.

“Kaah!”

Sango smothered a choking laugh-sob as Mikomi hollered for her again. “Kaah! Kaah! Kaah!”

“He needs you, Sango,” Bankotsu said gently. “We both do.”

Sango shuddered against his shoulder at those simple words of truth. How, she could not know, but they did, and she needed them as well. She had been drowning in her own misery and pain for far too long and she had never realized that he understood it, that he felt it and shared it, no matter how indifferently he showed it.

“I’m sorry,” she offered lamely, feeling it was a poor gift for his.

“I’m sorry, too,” Bankotsu said roughly, hugging her tighter to him. He meant it, with all his soul. If he could take back that night he would---but then he would never had had his son, and her, to draw him back from the dead. For he realized suddenly, sharply, that it wasn’t Mikomi who had called him back on that cold winter’s night, but her, Sango. Mikomi had drawn him in his restlessness as a wandering spirit not of this earth, but it was Sango and Sango alone who had drawn him across the veils that separated this world and the next and willed life into his dead soul in order to save hers.

Mikomi could care less what revelations rocked his parents. He only cared that he was upset and needed comfort. “Kaah!”

Sango shook with a shaky laugh and withdrew enough to look up at her son’s tear-stained face. She touched his cheek gently and gave him a watery smile. “I’m sorry, little one.”

Mikomi’s mouth puckered. He looked ready to wail again, until Sango took him into her arms and cradled him against her shoulder. Rubbing his tensed little back, she rocked him gently, murmuring soothingly as she laid her black head against his. Mikomi hiccupped and sniffled, finally sticking a fat finger in his mouth as he sighed in sleepy contentment, “Kaah…”

The problems and issues between them were hardly solved by one night’s argument and forgiveness, no matter how illuminating. Sango still thought that Bankotsu should move into his own hut, and would bring the subject up from time to time. He would only glare and stalk out of the room, stubbornly refusing to say a word about the matter.

How could one argue with such blatant refusal to even discuss the possibility? She thought of moving his stuff out, of even putting it on the porch, but thought that was ill treatment after all he had done the winter past in caring for them. She pointedly cleaned out two of the huts, one right beside the storehouse and closest to hers, but Bankotsu only grunted when she told him and kept wolfing down his dinner as if he were starving.

Spring blossomed into flower, the monsoonal rains finally abating enough so that the muddy paths were allowed to dry and the young grass could rise untrammeled by the steady deluge. The pulse of life renewed and birds sang madly in the forest as the sun smiled across skies so blue it ached to look at them. Sango felt the pulse of life renewing in her weary soul as well, and her burdened heart slowly opened as she looked around her with eyes cleared of the haunting regret that had beheld her enthralled before.

Forgiveness was sweet to the savor, although she could not yet come to love the man who had caused it. She still felt the shadow of pain and guilt whenever she thought of her beloved Miroku, but she no longer let it claim her every moment and idle thought. She devoted herself to her son and took delight as he went from a stumbling walk to a sturdy run on his fat little legs as he chased his longer-legged father. Everything he put hand to promptly ended up in his mouth, and Sango had to snatch stuff from his tight grasp at every turn.

Sango felt a peace in her heart that she had not known since Bankotsu first came back into her life. The mercenary was hardly a peaceful man, and they disagreed quite often, though they were considerate---perhaps too much so---of each other’s feelings. They danced delicately around each other’s more passionate natures and their interactions were mild and friendly. It was a time of healing for both their wounded spirits, but Sango wondered sometimes if the contrary mercenary would put up with it for much longer. She had caught herself a time or two biting back a sarcastic comment and had seen the sour look in his own blue eyes from time to time as he did the same.

His chauvinistic opinions rankled her more often than not. She would never forget when he had caught sight of Mikomi playing with the little rag doll she had made for him. It was a simple thing---hardly a doll, really. A simple square, with a lumpy head tied off with a discarded ribbon at the neck. Bankotsu’s unholy horror of the toy was almost funny, though his manly outrage rubbed Sango’s womanly pride no end.

“What the hell is that?” The mercenary had stopped in the doorway upon seeing his son playing on the floor with the simple doll.

“It’s a toy,” Sango had said, amused at the mercenary’s rather curious expression.

“It’s a doll!” Bankotsu had sputtered in shock.

Sango said nothing, serenely separating the clean linens she was folding.

“My son has a doll.” Bankotsu looked horrified as he spoke that awful thought aloud. Sango smothered a smile and kept folding.

“A doll. My son has a doll.”

Emphasizing the point was not doing anything about that awful fact, so Bankotsu decided to take matters into his own hands and strode forward to take the abomination from his son’s company. Sango made to protest but Mikomi beat her to it. The boy set up such a loud fuss as his new toy was taken away that Bankotsu eventually had to give in to the inevitable and leave the beloved doll with his tearful son.

“It’s new; he’ll abandon it soon enough.” The mercenary comforted himself, but Mikomi refused to give it up, even sleeping with the thing, much to his father’s disgust and Sango’s secret glee.

Another disagreement---or discussion, as Sango was careful to label it in her mind---was the fact that Bankotsu refused to plant seedlings in the long-disused fields. “I am not a bloody farmer,” he pronounced when Sango broached the subject over dinner one night. “I’m not going to muddy my feet in the dirt for a few measly weeds.”

“Do you want to eat rice or not?” Sango had snapped at him, then thought better of it. Quieting her ire, she had said quietly, “This village has always provided for itself.”

“I’m not this village---” Bankotsu began with a snarl, then paused at the hurt look in the taijiya‘s brown eyes.

Rubbing the back of his head, he sighed long and gustily as he raised his blue eyes to heaven. “Gah. Forget I said that.”

Sango quickly nodded acceptance, keeping the peace, and Bankotsu qualified, “I’m not a farmer, and I’m not about to learn. It takes long hours and hard work to raise decent crops and I’m not about to struggle for a few measly grains. I’m a warrior and I’ll do what I know how to do. I can hunt for meat to trade for rice and whatever else you need. That, I can do. Understand?”

“Yes,” Sango agreed to keep the peace, though she thought he refused the idea too readily. But she was hardly qualified to tend more than a garden, and so let the matter lie. She didn’t want to admit that the mercenary had a point, too proud to want to admit her wrong, but she went hunting with him when Kirara was willing to watch over a sleeping Mikomi and was delighted when it was her arrow that took down the young buck they had been tracking for the past hour. Bankotsu had surprised her with a loud whoop at her clean kill and she had blushed like a maid as he abruptly picked her up and swung her around with a hearty yell of approval.

“Ha! That’s how you do it!” He’d grinned like a boy, and she had blushed harder. His blue eyes had darkened with admiration, and for a breathless second Sango had thought that he just might kiss her, but he had only set her gently to her feet and went to go clean their kill to haul it back home.

Sango felt strangely disappointed by his too-casual attitude as they tramped back to the village but she kept the banter light between them, as he did, and thought it was better that they were friends. It was far better.

It was.

Really.

Sleeping on the floor sucked.

Bankotsu shifted, trying to find a soft spot on the hard boards. No matter how many blankets he piled on the floor, it still felt like floor. He remembered sourly how Sango had reminded him oh-so-innocently just last night that there were pallets gone begging in some of the other huts of the village. It was yet another subtle reminder that he should move the fuck out, but he wasn’t about to do that.

He had thought of taking one of those stupid pallets and using it here on the floor---it would certainly make his nights better, to be lying on a softer bed---but then that hardly suited his adopted role of martyred man, forced to lie alone by the cold hearth. He kept hoping Sango would take pity on his poor, manly self and invite him to share her pallet.

Not going to happen. That wench was as pitiless as she was oblivious to all the broad hints he had been giving her the past few months.

Bankotsu sighed, absently scratching his aching balls as he turned over on his back. How long could one man survive without exploding from pure sexual frustration? Here he was, mere feet from a beautiful woman he loved with every fiber of his being, and he couldn’t even find solace in her welcoming arms. Beating off was a poor substitute to the taijiya’s remembered charms, and he was about ready to---

“Oh-Tou?”

Bankotsu rolled over, all sour thoughts dissolving as he felt a little, warm body tumble head-long across his shoulder. His raised head jerked back with a hard thump against the unforgiving floor as a little bare foot callously stepped on his long braid.

“Ow! Off my hair, brat.” Bankotsu swung an arm around his son and swooped him up off his hair and across his bare chest as the little monster giggled in delight at the new game.

“What’s the matter?” The concern in Sango’s sleepy voice was touching, even if he was a little busy at the moment tickling his son, who shrieked with laughter.

“The little monster woke up and came visiting again,” Bankotsu said, tickling a bare foot.

“Mikomi? It’s night time. Sleepy time. Did you need something? Is that why you woke up?” Ever seriously maternal, Sango’s concern threaded the darkness that enfolded the hut.

“Pee!” Mikomi answered with a gleeful laugh as his father tickled his other bare foot.

“Pee?” Bankotsu felt a chill of dread.

“Pee!” Mikomi shrieked in triumph as he did just that.

“Fuck!” Bankotsu howled. Mikomi laughed as his father rolled free of the sopping blankets and held his delighted son at arm’s length in frank disgust. “Ew. Gods, that’s gross.”

Sango was no help, overcome as she was by a fit of the giggles. Bankotsu wrinkled his nose at the warm, pungent aroma that rose from his sodden self. Gathering what dignity he could in such a situation, he tucked his son under one arm and stalked outside to go wash them both off in the stream that ran just past the storehouse.

The night was warm, the moon a brilliant white ball low on the western horizon. Dawn was still a few hours off, but Bankotsu did not feel at all sleepy as he stalked across the thick grass toward the burbling creek that meandered through the village. Mikomi babbled nonsense sounds, delighted at being outside under the stars. Ducking the brat in the chilly stream was quite a different matter. Mikomi’s angry yells were loud enough to wake the dead if Bankotsu were any judge---and he should be, if anyone was.

He didn’t like the cold water any more than his son and grimaced as he slid in with him. The stream was not deep here, barely coming to his thighs, but he held Mikomi up as he shucked off his soiled hakama and started grimly stripping the protesting boy as well. Using scouring sand from the stream’s bottom, he scrubbed both of them clean with a thorough hand. Mikomi hollered the whole time, and Bankotsu was ready to drown the boy by the time he was done.

“Look, brat, we’re done. You can quit your hollering. We’re getting out now. See?” Bankotsu strode through the splashing water and looked up as he felt a shadow loom out of the dark.

“Oh-Kaah!” Mikomi wailed for rescue from his barbarian of a father.

“I thought you might need a towel…” Sango fell silent as she stared at them. The moon silvered the bodies of father and son, shadows dipping across their grey flesh at crazy angles. Bankotsu was certain he could feel the heat from the taijiya’s blush even from several feet away.

“That’s good.” He kept his voice nonchalant, striding forward through the water to stand next to the bank.

“Um, yes.” Sango averted her eyes, extending the towel as Mikomi stretched his arms out toward his rescuer.

A wicked thought entered the mercenary’s mind, and it was too perfect a chance for him to pass up. Grabbing the towel, he jerked, and Sango fell forward with a startled shriek loud enough to kill the dead, if they weren’t dead already.

“Are you crazy!”

Sputtering in wet anger, Sango dragged the sopping bangs from her eyes with one hand while she punched the unrepentant mercenary with the other. Mikomi yelled, angry that her ungraceful fall into the water had gotten him wet again. Bankotsu was too busy laughing his ass off for him to care how upset the boy was, so Sango snatched the poor boy from his callous father’s arms. Gathering what dignity she could, she turned to march back out of the chilly stream, back stiff and teeth clenched, one completely pissed off taijiya.

Except a pair of strong arms wrapped themselves around her waist, halting her in her tracks as a wet head laid against her shoulder. The mercenary was still convulsing with silent laughter, his shaking frame causing her to shake as well as he leaned heavily on her for support. Eyes ablaze with indignation, Sango executed a complicated maneuver that freed herself from the unwanted burden. She sprang nimbly back up on the grassy bank, Mikomi snuffling in her protective embrace.

It was Bankotsu’s turn to fall face-first into the chilly water and he fell with a surprised yell louder even than hers had been. Frankly impressed by the sound, Mikomi quit sniffling to regard his father with dawning awe. Smirking, Sango hitched the boy higher on her hip and turned saucily away, though the wet hem of her yukata made her stumble slightly as the damp fabric wrapped itself stubbornly to her legs.

“Don’t think you can get away that easily, taijiya!” Bankotsu hollered behind her. Blinking, Sango turned enough to see the man jumping back up on the bank, his teeth flashing in the silvery moonlight as he smiled grim promise.

Sango’s sense of self-preservation was quite strong. Her feet were fast, and she was never one to sit on go when she had to get the hell out of danger. Fleeing was the best course of action right now, and so she put action to words and took off, her son held protectively to her breast as she ran pell-mell for the relative safety of the hut.

Bankotsu was not the best strategist, but he was fleet of foot and unburdened by the angry wiggling of an upset little toddler. Racing around the other side of the storehouse, he beat the taijiya to the dirt path between the buildings by mere seconds, grabbing her in his arms as she skidded on her muddy bare feet and collided headlong into him.

Swinging her up in his strong arms, he stopped her loud protest by claiming his prize and kissing her soundly. She was too surprised to respond by the time his mouth left hers, and he only grinned at her rather stunned expression. “I win!”

Her mouth fell open in shock as he gently set her back on her feet. She was still in shock as he plucked their confused son from her limp arms and sauntered back toward the hut, whistling tunelessly as he sauntered triumphantly up the steps and disappeared inside.