InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Cobalt Skies and Too Blue Eyes ❯ Chapter Four: Shunbun ( Chapter 8 )

[ 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

Gaki - hungry ghost
Shunbun - vernal equinox, celebrated March 20th on the Gregorian calendar

A/N: I apologize for the long wait---my muse was on hiatus. She returned last night with a vengeance, when I got a sudden fit of inspiration and sat down to pound this chapter out all in one night. I finished editing today, and couldn't wait to post. I think parts of it are rushed---there are others where I think that Sango is acting a little OOC, but I might be able to chalk it up to the fact that Bankotsu might have worn off on her a bit, considering how much time they have spent together over the past few months. LOL. Tell me what you think. Is she OOC? Is the chapter rushed, and did her reasoning come out sound? I have a terrible time with love triangles---mostly because I can't stand a woman who can't make up her damn mind, and leaves two (or more, leer!) perfectly awesome guys waiting on her damn whim for one of them to get his heart broken. Now, love triangles where all three sides are equally loved, that's a different story. Yum! Gawd, I love those! FMM, baby, all the way! I love reading a good story about a woman being the center of a man-wich. Gets me dreamy-eyed...but anyway! Enough babbling. Hope you enjoy! (Fate)

WARNING! ADULT SITUATIONS AND ISSUES, NO ONE UNDER 17, PLEASE! LEMONS SERVED (LIME ON FFNET)

CHAPTER FOUR (SHUNBUN)

~Sango…~

Dreams stirred her sleepy mind, troubling the calm waters of her stilled thoughts as a single voice whispered to her from the darkness.

~Sango…~

She rolled over, restless as her mind sought to burrow further into the blackness of utter oblivion, where sorrowful dreams could not follow. It had been a long day, and the weariness lay across her shoulders like a shroud. “Mhmmmm….”

A black ear twitched in rapid flicks, as if something ghosted along the fine hairs of the delicate triangle. Kirara blinked grumpily as she raised her head to stare around the quiet hut with glowing eyes. The light snores coming from the pile of blankets on the floor by the hearth were interrupted by a louder snort from the boy’s father, who held the sleeping toddler across his bare chest anchored by one arm.

Twitching her whiskers in disgust at the noise, Kirara wrapped her twins tails more firmly around her rear haunches. Lowering her head to her front paws, she closed her red eyes to add her own faint sigh to the somnolent hut as she settled back down to sleep.

~Sango…~

The cat jerked back awake, hissing slightly, her ears twitching again to lie back along her skull as the lumpy blankets abruptly moved under her as her mistress sat up. Sensing something troubling on the spring night air, Kirara started to get up when a voluminous shadow loomed out of the dark to envelop her in trapping layers of confinement. Spitting and yowling her displeasure, the cat fought the blankets Sango had just casually flung over her to finally win free by worming her way out the far end. By the time she released herself, Sango was already gone.


Half-aware, and yet so unaware, she slipped outside into the night. The wet grass tickled her bare feet as her steps whispered lightly over them. Murky shadows surrounded her on all sides, the empty buildings of the village muffled by the grey fog that rolled toward her, a fog that glowed with a strange, ethereal light as its wispy tendrils wound themselves around her path, encircling her as if to encourage her on. She was drawn, her heart beating fast like a bird’s wings trapped inside a cage. Ghosts of the past stirred on the air, urging her on as she quickened her pace.

~Sango…~

“Who are you?” she asked, her heart yearning even as fear nipped its icy way down her spine. Her words made no stir in the foggy shadows that surrounded her, the abandoned huts of the village obscured into large lumps within the darker gloom. “Why are you calling me? Who are you?”

~Sango…~

It was such a familiar voice, such an achingly familiar voice.

“Father?”

No…that wasn’t it…who was it? “Who are you? Tell me, please!”

There was nothing but the sense that she should hurry, that she should come quickly, that she was needed…wanted…desired…only her…only her…

~Help me…Sango…~

“I’m coming! I’m coming, hold on!”

Her fingers fumbled on the dewy chill of the side-gate’s lock. The bar was heavy, she grunted while lifting it, tossing it aside and wincing as a splinter from the rough plank dug itself into her thumb. It hit the ground with a dull thud, but she was already creaking open the gate, shoving it aside so she could squeeze past it.

The abandoned fields rolled toward the dark forest beyond, a forest that seemed brooding and withdrawn, menacing in its very shadows. Fog wisped its way between the trees, roiling tendrils working themselves among the skeletal outlines of the dense brush beneath. She hesitated, uncertain, still feeling as if she slept, dreaming, but the call was stronger, the need to come, come help, all but screaming itself along her spine and making her teeth ache with the urgency of it.

~Sango…please…help me…Sango…~

*Who are you?* She cried in her mind even as her feet stumbled into a run. “I’m coming…I’m coming…hold on…just hold on…”

Eyes closed, hands outstretched, the taijiya sped toward the beckoning trees.


Scooting over to the sleeping man, Kirara plaintively meowed in mounting worry as she batted at one bare shoulder.

“Mmphmm…” The shoulder only shrugged as the mercenary turned his head away from the disturbance. “Go ’way…”

Disgusted, Kirara scratched him---lightly---trying to get his attention.

A hand batted her half-heartedly away. “Damn ’squitos…”

Jumping back, Kirara growled impatiently as the mercenary turned half on his side, curling around his son, who continued to snore on, as oblivious as his father.

The dull thump of the gate-bar hitting the ground and the squeak of the gate being pushed open lent urgency to the neko youkai’s growing fright. Yowling her alarm, Kirara sprang at the mercenary with all claws out, knowing it was the easiest way to wake the damn dunce up.

A pained howl split the night as Kirara sprang neatly away as the pile of blankets on the floor erupted into a tornado of struggling limbs and wailing child. Mikomi’s outraged cry filled the hut, his volume making the fire-cat’s ears flatten to her head in distinct discomfort even as the orange flames surrounded her as she transformed into her larger form.

“What the fuck? Mikomi---ow---Mikomi---quit hollering, brat! What the hell is going on? Kirara!” Bankotsu fronted her with wild eyes, his son tucked under one arm like a sack, a bared knife held fisted in the other.

Kirara reowled, hopping on Sango’s empty pallet and then leaping over to the bamboo curtain that hung in the doorway, pawing at it to show him the problem.

“Sango? Where’s Sango, Kirara?” There was a fear in the mercenary’s blue eyes to matched the neko’s own. She hissed, and pawed at the door, darting outside.

The mercenary followed, absently hitching at the loose hakama that hung around his hips as Mikomi screamed in a full-blown temper at having been awoken so abruptly. Kirara darted up the dirt path, the fire in her paws trailing wispy sparks in the air as she leaped for the opened gate.

The mercenary stilled, as if sensing something in the heavy spring air, something not wrong, precisely, but something definitely not right. It was an eerie presence, a sensation that made the thick hair on the back of Kirara’s neck stand up. Mikomi sniffled, abruptly quieting himself as if he, too, could sense the strangeness of it.

It wasn’t totally unexpected---this was the night of vernal equinox, when the veils between worlds slipped, and restless ghosts stirred themselves in the long hours until dawn. Specters moved on the wind, their presence an eerie undertone to the vague wrongness that plagued all of them with uneasy premonition.

“Kirara, I need you to guard Mikomi. I need you to stay here and watch over him. I gotta go after her. I gotta go find her. I---now. I gotta go now.” Bankotsu’s eyes were dark pools, his teeth bared in a cattish snarl.

Kirara rowled her agreement, eyes glowing crimson. She followed him back inside the hut as he spun back around and summarily tumbled the child into his pen. Mikomi wailed, fisting tears from his eyes as he grabbed onto the bars of his cage and bounced up and down in angry bewilderment at being left behind.

Kirara picked the doubled-sheath of the mercenary’s dao swords up in her mouth from where it hung on a peg beside the door. Bankotsu nodded a terse thanks as took the blades and slung them across his shoulder and back. “Take care of the brat,” he said, and Kirara butted her thick head against his hip, urging him out the door. Mikomi was fine; Sango was not.

“Otou!” Mikomi hiccupped on a sob.

Bankotsu paused in the door, looking back at his son. “Be back, kid.”

And then he was gone, the bamboo curtain slapping the door-frame loudly in his wake.


The white cloth of her yukata caught on a stubborn branch and reluctantly tore free as Sango lurched her way past the clawing tree. Her bare feet and legs were numb to the chill and scratches that covered her skin, and broken leaves and twigs were tangled in the heavy length of her black hair. She stumbled on into the enshrouding fog that rolled around her, an ethereal glow adding to the ghostly feeling of otherness that exuded from it. Her fingers extended, reaching for something just ahead of her as her steps faltered over an exposed tree root. She tripped, and fell to her knees, the jarring shock of it abruptly waking her up as she shivered in her thin night clothes, her eyes widening as she took in the small enclosure that opened before her.

“What?” she blinked, her thoughts feeling sluggish, as if she still walked in a dream. “Where…?”

She stared around her, icy dread itching its way down her spine as she realized that the dream-fog was real, that it was here, surrounding her in wispy wraiths of chilling dampness. The greenly yellow glow that exuded from it intensified, and she shivered, terror waking itself inside of her. A form moved inside that fog, a form that slowly materialized itself into the height and build of an achingly familiar figure she thought lost forever.

Her breath hitched, her throat going dry as she raised one hand to her chest to still the rapid beating of her heart. The pain was so intense, the burn of the feelings she had thought buried forever so stark it made tears spring to her eyes as she whispered hoarsely, “Miroku.”


“Sango!” His voice shook as he ran after her, his heart in his mouth as his lungs gasped for air in the tightness of his chest, where stark dread lay like a thick shroud over his heart. He followed the broken path of her steps across the overgrown fields, where the damp grass had been carelessly trampled in a direct line to the forest. He plunged unhesitatingly into the dark woods, though the eerie fog that swirled between the trees tried to swallow him, as if blocking his path. Snarling, he drew his short-swords and struck out at the fog, which cringed back, as if unwilling to make contact with the bared steel.

It was otherworld, then, the fog. It was true, then, as the granny folklore told, that spirits of the other plain could not stand the touch of live steel. He had never known the touch of it in his own ghostly wanderings, so hadn’t been certain if it would do any good. Putting it to use now, he cut a swath through the dense mist, his voice growing hoarse as he shouted for her, desperation lending strength to his call.

“Sango! Where are you? Answer me, damn you! Sango!”


He was there---there in front of her, his very face and form almost half-way forgotten by her treacherous heart, and she could only stare at him, the tears falling down her cheeks as her heart broke, for he was here, here now, in front of her, and she, gods, she could only sit on her knees, trembling before him in dread and longing, her love an overwhelming joy that left bitter ashes in her dry mouth as her heart thudded loud in her ears.

He was---beautiful. The green light glowed around him in a soft aura, his purple-midnight robes a darker shadow that stirred not so much as a whisper around him. His lightly tanned skin was a stark contrast to the inky darkness of his hair, to the wrapped beads that covered his right hand. He grasped his tall staff in the left, the brass rings stilled around the circle on top of the worn wood. He wore a faint smile, a tender smile, and his eyes, his beautifully blue eyes, so dark a twilight they seemed almost black in the unnaturally thick bed of his lashes…

~Sango.~

His voice was so achingly familiar, the sound of it inside her head so warm and tender and loving. The very timbre of it set her to trembling, for it was his, and gods, how she had missed it, she had missed it so much.

“Miroku…Miroku…how?” she breathed, her heart lurching into her tear-filled eyes.

~I came for you, Sango. I could not leave you alone. Not again. I---love you. I---could not go on without seeing you once more. I have missed you, taijiya.~

“Miroku, my god, Miroku…is it really you?”

His eyes were warm, the gentle humor in them an aching reminder as he smiled. ~Yes, Sango. It is I, your Houshi-sama.~

Her hand reached out to him, afraid lest it all be a dream, an impossible dream. She could not stand that, she could not. “Miroku, I can’t believe it. You’re here.”

~Yes, Sango.~ His voice was like a warm spring breeze whispering across her senses, his presence so overwhelmingly real. He held his arms open, and she stumbled up to her feet and into them, circling her arms around his waist and burying her head into his chest as she felt his arms wrap around her, his robes rustling and his staff jangling discordantly as he let it go to fall unheeded to the earth. She felt the beat of his heart beneath her cheek, the warmth of the living in the solid feel of his strong flesh around her. She could feel the rise of his chest in breath as her heart broke open and she sobbed, all the pent up pain of her sorrow and loss bleeding out of her, as raw as the day it first came.

“Miroku, it’s really you…Miroku!”

~Shhh, now, my sweet Sango. Just cry, just let it out, all the pain and hurt and sorrow and anguish. I am so sorry, Sango. I am so very sorry. Let go, let all your feelings go. I am here for you…I am here now for you…just let it all go…~


He broke through the tangling underbrush with a snarl and a curse, fighting the thorny branches that rose to stop him. He stumbled upon the clearing, his eyes blinking painfully at the sudden light that flared up around him. His arm rose to shield his blurred sight from the shining glare, and he instinctively moved into a defensive crouch until his eyes could adjust to the change in light.

The man who held Sango to him looked up, his dark eyes narrowing as Bankotsu stared in open-mouthed shock at the scene before him. The ghost---for it was a ghost, his senses told him, the eerie feeling of the otherworld wrapping itself around him just as the fog did, circling behind him but not touching him, fearful of the steel blades he still bore in his white-knuckled hands.

It was him, the houshi, the hentai Miroku, and Sango was held cradled in his arms, as if he would never let go, as if she would never let go. Bankotsu’s heart stopped and an icy feeling stole down his chest.

*By all the gods, not him. No…please…not him. Anyone but him, please…she loves him…she loves him…and I…*

He snuffed that line of selfish pain out like a candle. He loved her too much to do differently. Curling the sharp pain into a small, icy lump, he dropped it somewhere in the back of his mind, when he might deal with the utter pain and loss of it later, when he had some quiet time to snarl and rage over the unfairness of it all. *Damn him…*

Drawing himself up, his lips curled with a sour smile. “Well, well. Isn’t this a sweet surprise.”


Sango stiffened, her heart cracking in two at the mercenary’s sharp words. She raised her head, her brown eyes wide as she turned to look behind her. There he was, naked to the waist, his dirtied hakama and bare feet at odds with the swords gripped tightly in his palms. His black hair was sleep-rumpled, part of it mashed to the side of his head, the other rising up in a tangled cowlick to fall carelessly across his forehead. His loosened braid hung down his back, snarled by twigs and broken leaves.

*Bankotsu…* Her heart leapt at the sight of him, and she suddenly felt hollow and craven, for here she was, in the arms of her true love, her houshi-sama, her gentle-eyed Miroku, and she was betraying him now as she had then, for the feelings that leapt inside of her at sight of the blue-eyed mercenary were too much like the ones she held for the man in whose arms she was.

She shuddered, tears forming as she realized with a dawning sick feeling inside of her that she loved him as she loved the houshi who held her. She loved them both, loved them each equally and unstintingly and so much so that it hurt. So much so that it twisted inside of her, for it was so wrong, so terribly, utterly, horribly wrong to love them both so damn much. It was so craven, so awful, such a stark betrayal to both of them that she could not stand it, how stupid she was, how terrible and awful a person it made her, and yet she could not deny it, could never deny it. Oh, gods, how could it be true and how could she be so immoral and shameful as to be so caught within the terrible truth of her indecisive, selfish heart?

~Sango?~ His voice was so soft, so questioning---so broken, as if he knew the treacherous feelings that welled up inside her.

“Miroku…” Her voice broke, and she wanted to crawl inside herself and die at the stark pain in his compelling midnight gaze.

~You love him. How could you love him? How could you betray me like that, Sango? How?~ His arms tightened around her, the pain in his voice catching her heart on a sob at the utter desolation of it.

“Miroku, I…” Her breath shuddered, and she felt so hopelessly torn, so terrible in the grief and pain she had caused him. The memories broke over her in a wash of shame as she relived them…all the terrible past betrayals she had made of him…that night where she lay in a stranger’s arms, the child born of that night, and the ghost who came to save her in a howling winter storm, the ghost who became a man who became the support she needed to go on, to continue on in the wake of such terrible loss and desolation as when she felt herself alone without her dearest heart’s dream, her houshi, her beloved…

~A child? You have a child?~ The pain in his voice made her shudder again, for it struck sharply home that that is what he had always wanted and never had---a son to carry on his name and blood.

She nodded, her eyes dropping from his, unable to meet the stark agony in his. “I’m sorry, Miroku. I’m so very sorry…”

~How could you, Sango? How could you do that to me? Of all your betrayals, of all you have done to me, how could you do that as well? How?~ The whisper of his voice split her in two, howled its pain across her heart and seared itself inside her very soul. She shook with it, her breath coming ragged on the sobs that could not break free. It was all of her most horrible nightmares come true…

“Excuse me? Hello? Anybody see me standing here?” Bankotsu shouted, his belligerence sharp in the anguished tension of the mist-wrapped clearing.

~You betrayed me. Feel the anguish of it…feel the pain of it…how could you…Sango, how could you…~

Sango wanted to step away from the stark pain in Miroku’s words, but his grip tightened on her shoulders. ~No, Sango. Don’t leave me, don’t leave me for him, not again, not again…~

“Again? Are you fucking kidding me?” Bankotsu glared. “You stupid hentai, Sango never stopped loving you---she couldn’t stop loving you---and look what it’s cost her. How the hell can you stand there telling her she betrayed you? Are you that selfish?”

~You betrayed me…how could you? Feel the anguish of it…the pain…Sango…I loved you…how could you?~ His arms tightened around her, his eyes filled with such agony she could not look away, and the sorrow and anguish seemed to rise up, as if he compelled those feelings to come forth within her. She felt her heart tugging, the beat quickening as a numbness started to spread through her body. Her arms fell from around him, and yet he continued to hold her to him, his midnight eyes boring into hers, as if he would brand the fire of his pain right onto her very soul, and use it to swallow her whole…

“HELLO!?”

~Feel the pain…burn with it…burn with the betrayal and pain and anguish…feel it as I feel it…feel it as I die with it…as you die with it…~

Sango felt disoriented and sick, her body weakening and growing numb as Miroku continued to hold her to him, his essence drawing on hers, calling up all the terrible feelings as if savoring them like a fine wine. She felt as if she were being drained, as if he were consuming her, and icy terror sprang through her mind as she realized that he was.

“Okay, that’s fucking enough. Let her go. I’ve had about enough of your shit.” Bankotsu’s snarl seemed distant, fading, as her awareness grew dim.

~Feel the pain, Sango…feel it, feel it for me…give it to me…yes, that‘s it…~

She felt herself fading into it, drowning within the pain, her soul being sucked down into the whirlpool of agonized anguish as he drew it into him, and her along with it. She knew the end, saw it, felt it, and the stark terror she had of it only fed him more.

Yes, Sango…feed me…

“LET HER GO, PERVERT!”

There was a scream, a high-pitched wailing that seared itself into Sango’s brain as she screamed herself at the raw echo of it, her ears bleeding as her mind shattered, and suddenly the awful draw that wrapped itself around her and fed on her despair was swept away with a howl as clean steel sliced through the mental fog of it. The miasma of pain and anguish and greedy hunger snapped away from her as she fell to the ground, chest heaving and heart thudding as she drew in great, lungful breaths of welcome air.

Bankotsu was there, grabbing on to her arm and forcing her up to her wobbly feet. She fell against him, shuddering, as she turned to look at what she thought was her houshi, and saw a being so disgusting it made her gasp.

All pretense and illusion was gone. The being who stood there, wreathed in a diseased-looking yellow-green foggy glow was something straight out of a nightmare. He bore a faint resemblance to humanity, though it was a skeletal, emaciated form with every bone clearly showing through the papery stretch of his sickly green skin. His face was odd, the forehead broad with wisps of lank gray hair, the eyes deep hollows that glowed a hungry, vicious yellow. His lipless mouth and chin disappeared into his overlong neck, as if he had no lower jaw there to hold it, and his belly stuck out over the torn rag he wore as a scant loincloth.

~Damn you!~ His voice was like claws on glass, and his knobby fingers curled into fists that he shook in impotent rage at them, like an angry child.

Sango felt as if the world had dropped out from under her. Her mouth fell open, and she stared at the maddened creature who cursed them with unholy rage, shaking its fists and beating its hands on the ground. This---thing---that she had thought Miroku, her lost beloved, it was but a gaki, one of the greedy undead who fed on the living, forever hungering for what it could never have enough of in life. Only once before had she been confronted with one of their ilk---back in the illusionary castle of Kaguya, the pretend moon-maiden of ancient legend. She had been but a gaki, one who fed on the souls of others, taking their powers and bodies for her own as she devoured them. Her true form, a roiling black cloud of howling smoke, had been swallowed by Miroku’s Wind Tunnel, but Sango knew from her father that gaki could take other forms, and that this one was considered a lesser one when compared to the powerful Kaguya. Whereas Kaguya fed on the souls of others, this one fed on their pain, using the same false illusions the other had in order to lure their prey and feed.

She had almost succumbed to it, believing this thing her beloved houshi returned, and she felt an icy rage build up inside of her at the disgusting horror of it. *How dare he take my feelings and use them like that! I should have known---Miroku would never, could never, do that---he loved me too much, loved me enough to only want what would make me happy, and here I have been allowing grief to lessen the true gift of his sacrifice---what a fool I have been, what a stupid fool!*

There was time to make up for that, and she felt a sudden, inner peace and rightness inside her doubting heart. Miroku was gone---his spirit rested, content, in the otherworld, as did the spirits of her forefathers. It was only she who had hung on to his memory, cheapening the sweet gift of his love and sacrifice by not using his gift to her of life by not living it.

*I’m sorry, Miroku. I love you…*

Her hand tightened over Bankotsu’s on the hilt of one sword, and he looked down at her, his blue eyes narrowing as he suddenly grinned, his white teeth flashing in his tan face. Nodding slightly, he let her take his sword and stepped back away so she could do what she must to finally bury the past.

The gaki, snarling its rage, taunted her. ~Stupid human, stupid whore! You betray one who loved you for another…I saw it in your mind…I saw it!~

“You’re in for it now, ugly. You should have run while you had the chance.” Bankotsu’s smile was a bloodthirsty as Sango’s narrowed gaze. She stalked the spindly green creature, who whined and blubbered in terror at the look in her dark gaze. Stumbling over his own feet, he back-pedaled, holding his knobby hands up in a gibbering plea for mercy as she followed after him. He screeched obscenities, snarling at her as he suddenly jumped forward into a last, desperate attack, his hands reaching for her throat. Sango stood her ground, swinging the sword in a two-handed grip, and his despairing wail of angry denial abruptly cut off, leaving only empty silence as the sickly green glow dissolved, the darkness of night descending once more.


He could not see her in the sudden darkness, but he heard her take a deep, shuddering breath and felt her turning towards him. He reached out for her, cupping her face in one calloused palm as he brought her to him. He meant only to hug her to him, thinking that was all she would want from him right now, but he felt her chin rise up to his, and he welcomed her kiss, his heart swelling as her lips moved over his with a sudden, hungry need.

Her tongue swept into his mouth, her lips greedily feasting on his as he groaned at the sweet surprise of it. His fingers trailed across her cheek, burying themselves into the tangled tendrils at the base of her neck as he drew her closer to him. Dropping his sword to the dirt, he used both hands to enfold her to him, pressing his kiss deeper as he curled his larger frame around hers. They broke apart, breathless and panting, the whispers of her name on his lips heavy in the warm air between them. “Sango…Sango…”

“Bankotsu…Banko tsu, I…”

“Don’t say anything, Sango---not yet. I know this must have been hard for you. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, just shut up and kiss me again, idiot. Don’t you know how much I love you? It took a damn demon to show me just how much. Gods, I feel so stupid for hanging on to the past for so long.”

“Wait---what?” He didn’t know what surprised him more---her words or the boldness that sounded so much more like him than her.

“Are you going to kiss me or not?” She tugged on the back of his neck, where the fingers of her left hand had curled into his braid.

Well, what the hell. Bending his head back down, he gave himself up to it. What else was a poor mercenary to do?


They stumbled their way back out of the woods, leaning on each other like a pair of drunks as they stopped to kiss occasionally, their motions tentative and wondering even as they grew in need and intensity. He had managed to sheath one of his swords, but she still held the other in her hand, only stopping to wipe the gore form it once they reached the grassy, overgrown fields. The moon was a half-crescent in the clear night’s sky, and there was no sense of the divine or otherworldly within the empty silence.

He took her short-sword then, sheathing it with the other, and swung her up in his arms. She shrieked at the sudden move, and he was bounding off with a laugh as he carried her at a run across the fields. She hung on to his wide shoulders, barely gasping out, “You’re crazy! What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m carrying you home, taijiya, and I’m going to fuck the shit out of you. Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for this moment? My god, I thought my poor balls were going to fall off!” His voice was muffled by his hard breaths as he quickened his pace into a ground-eating sprint.

“But---Mikomi---Kirara---wait---” Her protest was broken by the jarring pace he set, her words nearly lost in the wind of his passage.

There was a muffled oath, and he abruptly stopped, right in the middle of the grassy field closest to the palisade, which rose before them in a shadowy wooden barrier. The side-gate, still open, was just to their right, but neither of them cared. Sango stared up at him, her mouth open as his dark eyes looked into hers and he said with such seriousness it made her heart tighten in her chest, “Do you know how much I love you? Can you know? Stupid woman, I can’t---”

Her gasp was muffled as his mouth claimed hers in hot passion. Desire shot through her like lightning, sending electric sensations coursing through her body as they tumbled down to the grass right there in the middle of the deserted field. She twisted her mouth away from his, gasping out, “Bankotsu! What are you doing---”

“I’m fucking you, taijiya, right here, right now, in this damn field. I can’t wait any longer---”

“But---”

“Gods, you’re stubborn. I don’t know why I love you---you drive me stark raving crazy---by the Boils, I love it…”

His hands were shoving apart her simple yukata, his mouth descending on her breast to suckle even as she pushed at his shoulders, flushed with the sudden, heady shock of it. She moaned, the need burning itself inside of her, the need to know and touch and feel and burn, know again that passion he had evoked within her so long ago. She punched his shoulder, growling her wane protest even as she succumbed to his desire. “I drive you crazy? You’re the one who drives me cr---”

Her words broke into a sharp gasp as he used his teeth to tease her nipple to aching awareness. His mouth dipped across the valley between her breasts, leaving a trail of tender kisses as he moved to the peak of the other, sucking it into the heat of his mouth as she arched against him, crying her passion in a despairing moan as his fingers busied themselves at the knot of her sash. It wouldn’t give, no matter how he tugged at it, and he finally gave up, parting the bunched cloth below so that he could tease her thighs open.

“You’re impossible, you know that?” she spat at him, even as her hands desperately shoved at the waistband of his hakama.

He kissed her, long and hard, drawing her tongue inside his mouth to play before breaking apart to gasp out on shuddering breaths, “You talk too damn much.”

“Wha---” He kissed her again, breaking off her indignation as her searching fingers finally found him. Grasping the heavy length of him, she wondered anew at the feel of it, the softness of his skin sheathing the hard steel of his desire. He shuddered at her touch, groaning into her shoulder with an almost dying sound of harsh need as his hips bucked lightly against her fingers.

“Gods---I need in. Now.” He thrust her thighs apart, and she flinched as she felt the powerful muscles in his buttocks bunch as her hands swept around his hips to cradle them. He moistened a calloused finger with his tongue, testing her readiness and letting his thumb slide over the nubbin of her desire. She rocked lightly against him, gasping at the raw sensation, and he parted her folds to make room for him.

He hissed, as if in pain, and the first probe of his heavy manhood at her entrance had her mewling with the need for him to be inside her. She urged him on, tugging at his hips with both hands, and he gathered himself and thrust home, burying himself to the hilt within her hot, aching depths as she trembled in gasping ecstasy at the very feel of it.

“Gods…so tight…damn, taijiya…” he gasped hoarsely in her ear, his mouth trailing kisses down her cheek to meet her lips as they struggled to breathe while clashing tongues and tasting the heady hunger of fierce desire mutually felt. The press of his chest against hers, the feel of him sheathed below---she wanted to move, and wiggled her hips back and forth, rocking against him. He moaned, and drew out, slowly sinking himself back inside.

Her gasped murmur was lost against his shoulder as he kissed her ear again, nibbling on the lobe. She mewled as his tongue thrust inside as did his body down below, and her hips rose to meet him.

“What?” he asked, his thumb and fingers playing with a nipple as his body thrust home again.

“F…Faster…” she ordered, her hands tugging at his buttocks as he groaned.

“Gods, I love you,” he groaned, complying. His fingers trailed down between them as hers rove over his back, sweeping the tips over the bunched muscles that tensed and shuddered under her light caress. Her legs came up to wrap around his hips as he bucked in to her with a staccato rhythm that had her head lolling back as she moaned and thrust up to meet him.

His thumb seared across the nubbin of flesh just above her womanhood, rubbing gently one moment and then pressing slightly harder the next. She greeted his heady motions with arched spine and gasping moans, her choked cries and clutching hands ordering him to finish her, and quickly. His tongue lathed her breasts, flicking the tips as she rocked against him in a rising frenzy of need.

“Bankotsu…” she wailed, her crisis nearing. Her thighs tightened around him in anticipation, her muscles convulsing in belly and lower as he hissed at the powerful feel of it along his heavy length. He stepped up the pace, plundering her depths again and again, forcing his way deeper as he lost himself to the sensations around him. She clutched and cried, he dove and hollered as they leapt together off the final peak, his body burying itself deep inside of her as if he would crawl in and never come back out. She felt the muscles in his buttocks flex and tighten as his seed shot deep within her, the heat of it swamping over her as hot as the sensations of her tightening muscles and honeyed response.

They fell in a lax heap of tangled limbs, their breaths shuddering as she felt his heart thudding against hers. His body continued to jerk a few times, as did hers, the spiral down a slow one. She nuzzled his chin where it rested against her shoulder, and he turned to kiss her, his tongue slowly delving inside to twine with hers. It was a sweet kiss, slow and exploring, and his whispers against her bruised lips made her hug him to her, never, ever, wanting to let go.

“Love you, slayer…love you…gods, I love you…”

Never, ever, wanting to let go.


Curling herself around the exhausted toddler, who now slept, albeit reluctantly, Kirara let out a wide yawn, her tongue curling out as her eyes slitted nearly closed. Her ears flicked toward the distant silence that had finally descended on the village and fields, and she purred with drowsy contentment as she laid her head on her black paws. Assured all was well and good between Sango and her mate, she contemplated that it was good that they had finally found each other. Kirara, for one, didn’t mind babysitting now and then, if they needed some privacy. She could hardly blame them. She might just have to go hunting herself someday…now that was a sweet thought…one worth dreaming of…