InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Forgotten ❯ Blossoming Woman ( Chapter 3 )

Disclaimer: I do not own Sesshomaru or anyone from the hit anime/manga series “Inuyasha”. Rumiko Takahashi does. I do own all OC's in this story.

 

647 years Before the Search for the Jewel Shards

 

Chapter Three: Blossoming Woman

 

I don't know if either of us knew what we were really feeling at that time for each other. I only know that seeing Kaiyoshinju's transformation was a terror matched only by the fear I felt when I saw Inuyasha fighting Sagara amid the flowing lava. The helpless terror of being able to do nothing.

-Sesshomaru

 

Sesshomaru traded blows with Yoshiro. It was a rather one sided match and Sesshomaru was getting frustrated. Yoshiro could barely keep up with the young dog prince and retreated across the mat. With a sharp kick to the chest, Sesshomaru sent his partner flying.

 

“Come on, Yoshiro! You have to be better than that! You spend more time in here than this Sesshomaru does,” he shouted, crossing his arms as he glared at the boy.

 

Yoshiro painfully climbed to his knees and said, “I may spend more time here, but you are the Dog General's son and you have the better sparring partner.” He gave a weak grin and looked past him to where the said partner was entering the dojo.

 

Sesshomaru looked over his shoulder and his insides went cold. Kaiyoshinju walked through the door, finishing the last part of her braid. She seemed distracted and irritated.

 

He wondered about it for a moment before she spun around and shouted, “Come on, Sesshomaru, it's time for another ass whooping!”

 

`This was not the day to show up at the dojo,' thought Sesshomaru. The young half-dragon's usual mirth was nowhere to be found and the dog prince knew he was heading back to the infirmary. The look in her eye made him wonder if he was going to go back in one piece or in a box.

 

“Maybe you should pound the straw dummies until you are feeling better,” said Sesshomaru. He didn't move or change his expression, but he was fighting the strong impulse to run.

 

“Are you afraid, girly-boy?” she sneered, her violet eyes sparkling with lethal energy.

 

“Yes,” he said, he was tired of denying the truth to this girl. Tired of forever trying to come up with feeble excuses to why he didn't want to fight her. From the deafening silence he realized just how surprising his admission was. Kaiyoshinju lost her angry glare in her shock.

 

“There is no denying that you are the better fighter. Every time we battle, I end up out of action for a few days and as soon as I reappear here we battle again. My combat training has been interrupted and thus is less complete. You, on the other hand, have had a continuous flow. There is no arguing with the obvious conclusion. I can't ever win if I can't improve. I can't improve if I can't train in the same uninterrupted manner as you. Isn't it natural to fear a battle you have no hope of winning?”

 

Kaiyoshiju had the grace to blush and seemed about to change her mind when another voice intruded. “Lord Seshomaru, there you are!”

 

He looked in the direction of the voice just in time to see a fair haired bitch come skipping over to him. She wrapped herself around the dog prince and rubbed her cheek against his bare chest. Sesshomaru felt the blood rush to his face. He glanced back and was horrified to discover the lethal glitter was back.

 

`So it was Noriko who got her in a bad mood,' he thought, wondering how he was going to defuse the situation before things got out of control.

 

Unwrapping Noriko's arms from around him, he said, “Noriko this is hardly the place for this. Why are you here, anyway?” He felt Kaiyoshinju's hate-filled glare burning a hole through him. Whatever he had said had only made her angrier.

 

“I just couldn't bear the thought of you being hurt by that female!” she wailed, blue eyes wide in an overdramatic display of concern. Sesshomaru's eyebrow twitched in annoyance.

 

“What were you going to do about it?” he asked, his tone neutral.

 

“What I am doing now,” she replied; she smiled and the dog prince shuddered. There was something very dark in that smile. “I am going to fight her and punish her for daring to think herself the equal of full-demons.”

 

Sesshomaru looked at the girl in her sky blue kimono and dark blue obi. He glanced at the seething Kaiyoshinju in her white kimono and hakama. Noriko hardly looked a match for Kaiyoshinju. Anger built within him at her presumption she could do what he could not.

 

“You think yourself greater than this Sesshomaru?” he growled, golden eyes flashing.

 

Noriko gasped and said, “No, my lord!”

 

“Yet you declare that you can defeat Kaiyoshinju when this Sesshomaru cannot, why is that?” He gripped her shoulders and Noriko flinched in pain.

 

“I thought you were unconsciously holding back because she's female and a half-breed. I thought you had a sense of honor that shackled your ability to fight someone like her,” she whispered, her eyes now wide in honest terror.

 

He shoved her away and the girl sprawled on the mat as he shouted in outrage, “As if this Sesshomaru would do something as foolish as holding back on an opponent to the point of defeat!”

 

“Forgive me!” she cried, raising her arms.

 

Sesshomaru blinked and thought in confusion, `Why am I feeling like this? I was annoyed before, but I'm ready to kill her for thinking this way, why?' He closed his eyes and felt the anger coming from outside himself. An energy filled with darkness was pulsing through the air. His noise picked up the scent of five dogs and a dragon - a full dragon, the human blood was gone.

 

Eyes snapping open, he looked at Kaiyoshinju. She stood at the edge of the mat, fists clenched so tight her claws drew blood, but her eyes were what terrified him. They were a solid blood red. Her youki throbbed, growing stronger with ever passing second.

 

Not knowing what was happening only that it had to stop, Sesshomaru ran to her. “Kaiyoshinju, calm down! Please, don't do this!” he called, but she remained deaf to his cries. He grabbed her shoulders and cried again, “Kaiyoshinju, return to your senses!”

 

Every instinct clamored for him to run, but he ignored them all. He had to get her to listen! “Kaiyo-kcargh!” He gasped, pain exploding throughout his chest.

 

“Lord Sesshomaru!” shouted Yoshiro, his horror ringing clear to the dog prince. Noriko screamed.

 

Sesshomaru didn't take his eyes off Kaiyoshinju's face. Her mouth split into a feral grin. Her fangs were twice as long as they had been before and now turquoise irises peered back from her red eyes. Her demon power continued to intensify and the ground began to shake.

 

“Kai-kaiyo…” he gasped. She pulled her hand from his chest. Only then did he realize the source of the crippling pain as air and blood exploded from the fist size tunnel in his upper torso. Without the support of her arm, he collapsed to the ground. He gazed up at her even as his vision blurred.

 

“Kai-kaiyo.”

 

*************

 

Kenhoshi and Ginhana jerked in surprise, glancing in the direction of the dojo. “That youki is powerful, what is causing it?” asked Ginhana, her face knotted in worry.

 

“Something tells me we better investigate,” said the Dog General as he rose, his mate following and they both headed toward the dojo at a trot. Then they caught the scent of blood, a lot of blood.

 

“Sesshomaru!” gasped Ginhana recognizing his scent; she bolted down the hallway even as Kenhoshi called to her to stop. A blood-curdling scream pierced the air and the ground shook violently beneath them. Kenhoshi was brought to his knees, but Ginhana maintained her balance and pushed forward. Soon after, a girl and four boys came barreling down the hall.

 

“What the fuck's going on?” shouted one.

 

“She's gone mad,” cried another as they rushed past Ginhana, seemingly oblivious to her presence. Another tremor shook the palace and she could hear a distant, continuous roar, but she had no time to ponder its source. Her maternal instincts were screaming at her to find her son.

 

She froze at what appeared in the hall before her. Kaiyoshinju, eyes red with turquoise irises, stood before her. Blood soaked her white kimono front and her right forearm and hand. All of it belonged to Sesshomaru.

 

“Kaiyoshinju?” she gasped, retreating a step. The girl strode forward, a malevolent grin splitting her face. Another tremor, stronger than before, took hold but Kaiyoshinju didn't shift once as Ginhana clung to the wall. She stared in horror at the girl she had cared for the past few years; she could see that Kaiyoshinju was going to kill her. Her human blood was gone and her youki radiated from her like heat from a fire.

 

Kenhoshi surged past his petrified mate and drove Kaiyoshinju to the ground. Struggling to hold her, he shouted to his mate, “Get Sesshomaru and get to the higher levels; there's a tsunami!”

 

She rushed past the two combatants and into the dojo without a second thought. She could only trust her mate's strength would hold the girl. A reptilian roar shook the walls followed by a howl of battle. She scanned the room and saw her beloved son lying lifeless on the mat in a pool of his own blood. She was by his side within moments and, with the strength that only a mother could know, lifted him off the floor. With him in her arms she whirled and ran back out.

 

She slid to a stop when she saw the hallway had been destroyed. A gaping hole was all that remained of that part of the castle; roars and howls coming from above. She gazed into the sky and saw Kenhoshi in his true form, the great dog of incomprehensible stature, in battle with a violet sea dragon.

 

While Kenhoshi's fangs remained occupied with Kaiyoshinju's fangs and front claws, her body wrapped snake-like around his. Her rear claws dug into his hind legs as her tail whipped through the air, crashing into his head. She glanced down and saw through the gaps in the forest humans and demons fleeing the beaches. She turned her gaze to the sea and went white.

 

A wall of water filled her view; the ocean had come to claim the land.

 

Turning her attention to the palace ruins, she adjusted her hold on her nearly grown son then snapped an energy whip at the boards above her. The wood tumbled and she leapt through the hole to the floor above. That was all she could do before the roar of the sea alerted her to her imminent peril. She ducked against the wall, holding Sesshomaru between her and the structure.

 

The palace shuddered; much of its structure collapsed and was swept away by the torrent of water. Ginhana and Sesshomaru were engulfed by the sea and vanished into the waves.

 

***************

 

`I never anticipated this,' thought Kenhoshi, gasping for breath despite his protesting ribs while he looked at the sleeping half-dragon. `Ironic, she exhausted herself by calling the ocean to her. If she hadn't done that she would have killed me and then no one could have stood against her.'

 

A clever vassal had found some sleeping incense and was burning it near her to keep Kaiyoshinju from waking. How he had found it, Kenhoshi didn't know nor was he going to question it. Everyone had fled when they saw the size of tsunami approaching; now they returned in small groups in the hours after the disaster.

 

Still no one had seen or heard from Ginhana and Sesshomaru and the passing time had become torture for him. `How could I have known she would lose control of her demonic power?'

 

“My lord, several tenko have come, they have a healer with them,” said a guard from the other side of the shoji. His own healers had done everything they could to tend his wounds, but even Kenhoshi understood how serious they were. He knew the odds were against his surviving the night. A tenko healer might improve them.

 

“Let them enter,” he whispered. He was stunned by who appeared. A fire, two waters, an earth, three winds, five metals and a wood, all were from the lording Kanzaki family. The wood tenko, the healer, came forward without a word and began to use her power to amplify his regenerative powers and the healing ability of the applied herbs. The two waters, both men, approached the dragon from upwind of the incense.

 

“Her demon power has overwhelmed her human half, how unfortunate,” said one.

 

“I have never heard of a hanyou losing control before,” said the other.

 

“It must be the strength of her demon parent; the human half simply wasn't strong enough to counterbalance the mature demon power.”

 

“Is there anything you can do to save her?” asked Kenhoshi, his voice the barest of whispers. He hadn't allowed himself to think about the alternative. Now he had to know if killing her was the only way to protect her and everyone else from her demon half.

 

“We can,” assured the female fire tenko with a smile. “We can shackle her demon power artificially, but it must be tied to an item that can contain that power.”

 

“We already have such an item in mind and we will begin construction on the spell immediately. We only wanted to be reassured that you desired her salvation,” said one of the metals, a young man fresh from the training grounds.

 

“She will need to train her human half to become stronger as well, though; her power is too great for any spell to suppress for longer than a century without support,” said a wind tenko, a woman who was beginning to show signs of the many decades she had lived.

 

A young wind female added, “The Temple of Tenshi will accept and train her in their ways.”

 

He nodded. `That's one worry removed my soul, but my family...' All the tenko but the wood left to begin work on the suppression spell. He closed his eyes as the healer moved from wound to wound.

 

Then he heard his guard gasp and the shoji open without announcement. He opened his eyes and stood in surprise at what he saw. Or tried to, the weakness of blood loss and the firm hands of the wood tenko kept him from moving. Ginhana stood in the doorway, pale and only in her kimono, her robes gone. She was supported by another water tenko, a woman. The two entered and Ginhana was lowered to the floor next to him. Then he saw Sesshomaru being carried by four human men, his bare chest wrapped in bandages. Another healer, a rare male wood, walked in behind them and examined the wrappings when they placed the young dog prince on the floor. Neither tenko were from the Kanzaki family, the water's clothing named her a member of the Ishida family, the second strongest in the clan.

 

The water tenko bowed to Kenhoshi and said, “I thought you might have been worried about them. We healed them and brought them back as fast as they were able.”

 

“You have my gratitude,” said Kenhoshi, relief flooding his being and he started to relax. She bowed once more then she, the wood, and the men departed.

 

“Kenhoshi,” whispered Ginhana as she touched the blood stained bandages.

 

“He'll live, now,” said the female wood tenko as she stood. “He - all of you - just need some rest then everything will be alright.”

 

She departed as several of Kenhoshi's maids entered to attend to the royal family. The Dog General smiled, tenko had a tendency to take over any place they entered. He wasn't arguing in this case; right then he needed the help and he trusted them.

 

“Everything will be alright again,” he whispered to Ginhana as he laid down next to her. Ginhana snuggled into his shoulder and closed her eyes. He fell asleep with that thought in mind. `Soon everything will be alright.'

 

*******************************

 

Youki: Demon aura

Hanyou: Half-demon

Shoji: Paper sliding door.

 

You people are so disappointing. Can't I have one review or do all hate this so much you can't stand it?

 

We will be shooting forward to Inuyasha in the next chapter and it is only going to get messier.