InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Metamorphosis. ❯ Rise and Fall ( Chapter 52 )

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

InuYasha tugged the hat down a little lower over his face as Kagome chattered about the weather.

"It looks like it's going to rain, doesn't it?"

With a snort, InuYasha shrugged.  "Keh.  Maybe.  Thought you wanted to go back today."

She grinned.  "I do . . ."  Her smile faded as she shook her head and peeked up at him.  "Do you think Kaede or Miroku will have any other ideas on how to counter the toxin?"

Considering it was the question he'd been thinking about all last night as well as today and still had yet to come up with any real ideas, his tone was clipped, irritated, when he answered her.  "No, Kagome, I really don't.  I don't think there's a damn thing they can tell us that they ain't already said."

She sighed.  "I thought that, too.  I just hoped . . ."

InuYasha was about to respond when he frowned.  Glancing out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the shiny black car that had been following behind them all morning.  "Oi, wench . . . you know them?"

"Who?"

He jerked his head, indicating the car that was slowly creeping up beside them.  Unable to see through the smoked glass windows, she shook her head and edged closer to InuYasha's side.

The car stopped, and the window slowly slipped open, revealing a bug-eyed, big nosed, very short, very bald man.  InuYasha scowled as he slowly shook his head.  "I know your stench," he growled.

"It's been awhile, yes," the driver commented with a wrinkling of his nose designed to let InuYasha know that he wasn't any more pleased about the forced encounter than the hanyou was.

Kagome shook her head.  "You're . . . youkai," she murmured, glancing around to make sure that they weren't being overheard.

"I was instructed to pick you up."

"Keh.  I don't think so, Jaken," InuYasha answered tightly, crossing his arms over his chest stubbornly.

"Jaken?" Kagome echoed as her eyes widened.  The being in the car didn't look like Jaken, really.  It had to be some sort of concealment, she supposed, since he actually looked very, very human.  "Then that means—"

"Just tell me what the fuck that bastard wants.  Why the hell is he still alive, anyway?"

Jaken puffed up his chest indignantly as blotches of outraged color blossomed in his face.  "Sesshoumaru-sama did not tell me why he wants to meet with the likes of you, but he said that if you do not agree to come willingly that I should tell you that he owns the shrine, and that if you want the well left intact, you'd better come along," the imp grumbled.

Kagome gasped at the threat.  "Get in the car, InuYasha . . ." she whispered urgently.

InuYasha narrowed his glower as his lips drew back in a fierce snarl.  "Damn you, Jaken . . ."

The hanyou didn't look like he was going to comply.  Kagome tugged at his arm.  "Come on, InuYasha . . . please!"

Opening his mouth to argue, InuYasha took one look at Kagome's ashen face, her stricken expression, and with a loud curse, he let her jerk open the car's door and climbed inside.  Kagome slid onto the seat next to him and pulled the door closed.  

A dull 'snick-snick' made his ears twitch under the baseball cap as she instinctively reached over and took his hand.  Whether she wanted his reassurance or knew that he was struggling not to reach over the seat to strangle the imp, he wasn't sure.  "You didn't have to lock us in," Kagome pointed out.

"I was told not to take any chances," Jaken huffed.

He winced and grimaced as the car started moving, digging the claws on his free hand into the leather covered elbow rest.  Kagome squeezed his hand.

He hated the feeling of being completely helpless in the vehicle, despised the complete dread that welled up inside him.  He felt like he was absolutely at the mercy of the foreign beast, and it was a feeling that he didn't like, at all.

Kagome gnawed on her lower lip, worry creasing the corners of her eyes as her gaze darted out the window then back to meet his glower.  As much as he wanted to let her know that he would protect her, he couldn't.  It was all he could do to keep himself from smashing through the window and dragging Kagome onto the safety of the sidewalk, not to mention that he was having marked trouble remembering to breathe.

Dizziness licked at the edges of his mind as bile rose to choke him.  A sudden and irrational sense of panic squeezed his chest, constricting his breathing.  Kagome let go of his hand and leaned over him, fumbling with the little silver switches that were only inches away from his claws.  She pushed one.  Nothing happened.  Pushing it repeatedly yielded her nothing, and when she glanced up at him again, he could see the alarm in her expression.

"Open the window, Jaken!" Kagome hollered.

"Sesshoumaru-sama said—"

"Do it!" she interrupted.  "You've got to!"

Jaken's cold stare flashed in the rearview mirror.  "I was told not to," Jaken insisted.

"And I'm saying do it or I'll purify you!" Kagome yelled.  "He's never been in a car before, and if you don't open a window, he's either going to pass out or throw up, and if he throws up, I'll make sure he aims for you!"

If she wasn't so damn accurate with her predictions, InuYasha might have been able to muster the strength to clout the imp as they pulled to a stop at a red light.  As it was, it took all his concentration to keep himself from doing both of the things that Kagome had so eloquently stated.

Jaken muttered something that InuYasha didn't hear as the window beside him slid open a few inches.

The car started moving again, and with the movement came the flow of air.  The tightness around his chest loosened, and slowly his breathing returned to normal.  He could feel Kagome relax beside him though when he glanced over at her, she was glaring murderously at the stupid imp without so much as blinking.  InuYasha almost felt sorry for Jaken . . . almost.

Grinding his teeth together as the car sped around a corner and through the imposing gates that swung closed after the car passed through them, InuYasha sank his claws deeper into the elbow rest as he pondered whether or not he could get Kagome out of the car safely if he lopped Jaken's head off.

Before he could make up his mind, the car stopped in front of a huge house, and the same 'snick snick' he'd heard before sounded again.  Kagome had her door open and darted out of the car before InuYasha could figure out how to open his side.  The miko slammed her balled up fist against Jaken's window as InuYasha hid his smirk and tried in vain to find a way out of the damn beast.

"Make her stop," Jaken whined as he leaned away from his door.

InuYasha snorted.  "Fat fucking chance, imp.  Thought you'd be smart enough not to piss people off."

Jaken scooted across the front seat as Kagome jerked open InuYasha's door.

"I'm not finished with you!" Kagome stormed as she glowered at the imp.

InuYasha staggered out of the car as Kagome slammed the door as hard as she could.  The window shook precariously, and Jaken stayed put.  "You want to borrow Tetsusaiga?" InuYasha offered, only half-joking.

Kagome actually seemed to be considering it when the front door of the house opened and Sesshoumaru stepped out onto the porch.  "InuYasha.  Miko."

Wheeling around on her heel, Kagome jerked her arm away from InuYasha's grasp as she stomped over to glare up at Sesshoumaru's stoic countenance.  "How dare you!  You don't have the right to order us around!  Bad enough you threaten my home, but then you have the gall to have your stupid little toad lock us into a car knowing that InuYasha has never been in one!  You're such a jerk!"

Her tone and volume was enough to make InuYasha's ears smash down against his head.  That she was bellowing at his brother . . . InuYasha strode over to them and pulled Kagome back, planting himself between Sesshoumaru and her before the bastard got any stupid ideas.  

"Just what the hell do you want?" InuYasha snarled, hand itching to draw Tetsusaiga.

"My apologies, Miko . . . baka . . . I instructed Jaken to make sure you came.  If you would have simply accepted the invitation, then there would have been no need to . . . persuade you."

InuYasha's brows drew together even more.  'Did he just . . . apologize?  Sesshoumaru?  What the . . . ?'  "What do you want?" he repeated.

Sesshoumaru shrugged as he turned back toward the door.  "Come inside, and I'll tell you . . . oh, and one thing.  I wouldn't draw that, if I were you," he remarked, nodding at Tetsusaiga.  "Kagura still has her fans."

InuYasha slowly followed him into the house with Kagome close behind him.  Sesshoumaru led the way into a very opulent living room.  Kagura stood at the far end of the room arranging flowers in a crystal vase.  She smiled demurely and swept over to hug Kagome, who stared in absolute shock at the wind sorceress.  InuYasha growled as Kagura stepped back.  She bowed to InuYasha, still with the friendly smile on her face.  

"What's . . . going on here?" Kagome asked, breaking the strange silence.

Kagura chuckled as Sesshoumaru left the room.  "It's been a long time, Kagome.  We wanted to see you sooner, but thought perhaps it wouldn't be wise."

Kagome shook her head as InuYasha crossed his arms over his chest.  "I don't understand . . ."

"Save it, wench.  As soon as that bastard of a brother of mine says what he wants, we're leaving," InuYasha cut in.

"Ma-a-a-a-ama-a-a-a-a!"

Kagome and InuYasha both turned to see a streak of silver shoot through the room.  Skidding to a halt just behind Kagura, the child peeked around her as a second silver haired child ran in, brandishing a wooden sword.

Kagura shot them an apologetic smile before she intercepted the shorter child.  "Kei, what have I told you about playing with that inside?"

Kei made a face.  "Sorry, Mama."

"Kei, Isamu, this is your uncle, InuYasha, and Kagome."

Both silvery heads bowed.

Kei stared at InuYasha and Kagome, his little face puzzled.  "Papa says you're a miko," he remarked.

Kagome nodded, enchanted by the boy.  His golden gaze brightened, and he grinned as he turned toward InuYasha.  "Papa says I can have a sword like Tokijin when I get older!  He says that you can do the Kaze no Kizu with yours!  Can I see?"

"Baka!" the older boy said, nudging his brother with his shoulder.  "They just got here. Don't be stupid!"

"I'm not stupid, bastard!" Kei yelled back.

"Kei!" Kagura gasped.  "Where did you learn that word?"

Kei shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest as his face screwed up into an all-too-familiar expression that Kagome instantly recognized.

"He heard Uncle say it," Isamu supplied with a condescending smirk.

Sesshoumaru strode back into the room with a toddler cradled in his arm.  He handed the child to Kagura and nodded at his sons.  The two boys ran out of the room once more.  Moments later, the slamming of a door echoed through the house as Kagura heaved a sigh.  "I can't get them to stop doing that," she commented.

Kagome stared at the baby.   Raven black hair and sweet golden eyes peeked out of the tiny face.  "This is Chiasa," Kagura said.  The little girl giggled and squirmed to get down.

Sesshoumaru watched as Kagura set the girl on her feet.  "I wondered if you have had any luck finding Hisadaicho in the past."

InuYasha frowned.  "You brought me here to ask me that?"

Sesshoumaru nodded as he leaned forward, narrowing his gaze as he stared at InuYasha's chest.  His hand flashed out in a blur of movement as he pulled the talisman out of InuYasha's haori.  "So you've not broken the toxin yet.  Can you fight a hanyou who hides behind your miko's face?"

That Sesshoumaru, of all people, had stated it so matter-of-factly was enough to make InuYasha's temper soar as Kagome gasped softly behind him.  Kagura cleared her throat and stepped forward, taking her daughter's hand in one hand and propelling Kagome toward the doorway with her other one.

"I think the temperature just dropped in here . . . why don't you come with me to check that thermostat?"

Kagome shot InuYasha a quick glance as Kagura dragged her out of the room.

"Oi!  Where do you think you're taking her?" InuYasha snarled.

Kagura smiled.  "She's perfectly safe here, InuYasha . . . and so are you."

"Keh!"

Sesshoumaru waited until the women were gone before turning his gaze back onto his brother.  "You can't, can you?"

"What do you care?  I'll take care of it."

"Why would I care?  Frankly, I don't, though it would behoove you to claim her before she realized what a baka you really are . . . and I honestly can't see any other female—human, youkai, or hanyou, putting up with you and your foul disposition."

"I'll show you how foul my disposition can be," InuYasha growled as he drew Tetsusaiga and leveled it at his brother's chest.

Sesshoumaru rolled his eyes and shook his head.  "Put that away, baka.  I simply thought you ought to know, for every day that her toxin is in your system, the harder it will be to destroy Hisadaicho's evil."

InuYasha snorted.  "So why didn't you tell me this when I came to the fucking castle, bastard?"

A quick flash of a dark emotion flickered in Sesshoumaru's gaze before he hid it behind his stoic indifference.  "Back then there were things I didn't know.  Things change in five hundred years.  What would be more disturbing is if I had remained the same."

InuYasha dropped Tetsusaiga into the scabbard but continued to glower at his brother.  "Keh.  Whatever.  You're still a bastard."

A hint of humor lit Sesshoumaru's gaze, a marked brightness in the swirling gold.  "And you, InuYasha, are still a baka."


"Every thing is coming together as planned," Hisadaicho mused as she stroked the urn, as she ran her fingertips through the rising mist.  'A shame,' she thought as a lazy smile surfaced on her face, 'InuYasha is such a delicious little bit . . . so much passion wrapped up in such a pretty package . . .'

Turning away from the urn, Hisadaicho let her kimono fall around her feet, pooling silk whispering against the cold stone floor.  The paradox of the brothers intrigued her.  One so fiery, so passionate while the other seemed to be chiseled from ice . . .

'Kagura . . . you will not fail me . . .'

As if in answer, the silvery scar on her wrist throbbed to a heartbeat that was not her own.

Aki stepped into the chamber with one of the nearby village's peasant girls.  Hisadaicho eyed her as she stepped closer.  Reaching out, she lifted the girl's chin, smiled at the fear in the depths of her midnight gaze.  "Are you frightened?"

The girl nodded once as tears glittered in her eyes like stars in the night heavens.

Staring into her eyes for long moments, Hisadaicho saw the fear spike, intensify.

With a single look from his mistress, Aki tore off his clothing.  The girl whimpered as he reached for her.  Hisadaicho stepped forward, held the girl against her breasts as she stroked her back to soothe her.   The girl's fear subsided.  Hisadaicho pushed her back and stroked the young body as she pushed away the rough peasant clothing.

"Does she please you, Aki?" Hisadaicho asked quietly.

The servant grunted in reply.

Hisadaicho stepped back, smiling at the girl.  "You may have her."

Aki didn't wait.  Bending the girl with a hand on the back of her neck, he licked his fingers, rubbed them against her.  She gasped, arched her back as Aki's skilled fingers worked her body, readying her for him.  Hisadaicho knelt on the floor beside her, manipulated the swelling flesh of the girl's nipples as she moaned, as she rocked back against Aki's hand, as her body shuddered.

He entered her roughly, using his hands to yank back on her hips, embedding himself in her as she cried out.  Hisadaicho stood up slowly, stepped back with a smile as anticipation roiled inside her belly.

The girl gasped, growled, figured out quickly, how to slam herself back against her lover as broke into a fine sheen of perspiration.  The innocence of the maiden was a delicious thing, and Hisadaicho wanted to possess her soul . . . As the girl lifted her head, a cry of release welling up inside her, Hisadaicho swooped forward, dropped her mouth over the girl's slack jaw as she delved her tongue inside, tasted the maiden, and then sucked out her soul.

The girl's empty body went limp.  Aki shoved her away, and she fell in a dull thump on the floor.  Hisadaicho's smile widened as the servant lifted her, carried her over to the futon, and entered her before they fell together.  The combination of his body and the newly acquired soul sent Hisadaicho into spasms of pleasure, and she unleashed an unearthly scream as repletion came upon her.

The urn on the table throbbed, pulsed, ebbed with a resonance that matched Hisadaicho's heart.


"I wish I could touch them," Kagura murmured as she stared at the stars suspended so low over the earth but ever remaining just out of her reach.

Sesshoumaru nearly smiled at the whimsical thought.  The comfortable silence that had fallen between them since they took leave of his father's tomb was peaceful.  Perhaps Kagura didn't need words to express her thoughts.  Perhaps neither of them really did.  Stopping on the outskirts of his land when Kagura asked if they might walk, he complied with her wish.  In the low dip between hills, she sat down then lay back to stare at the night sky.  He could discern the lingering sadness in her gaze, and as he sat beside her, he could tell there was something on her mind.

"Tell me what troubles you, Kagura."

She shook her head, flashing him a quick smile though she couldn't mask the lingering sorrow in her gaze.  "Nothing.  Why should there be?"

The thin moonlight pooled in her eyes, lent her skin a luminous glow.  A goddess in the darkness, a shining entity that lured him, she captivated him, made him want things that he didn't dare dream of without her.  Hadn't he sensed it early on, that she was the one he sought?  The one who understood him without having to be told, the one he knew to be his equal in every sense of the word.

He leaned over her, resting his weight on his one arm.  Staring down at her as a primitive passion curled around the edges of his being, he memorized the contours of her face, staring at her with his question in his gaze.  She didn't look away as she nodded.

Her lips opened, as though she were having trouble breathing.  Her skin took on a hint of pink as a shift in her scent lingered in the air.  He had come to understand many things since the day he'd been helpless to save Kagura.  He'd been too proud, too arrogant, too unwilling to admit that he wanted her, and now . . . now there was no hesitation.

Dropping his lips over hers, the heat of her mouth invited him.  A violent explosion of fire that raged through him, a force that he'd never felt before.  Need and desire merged together to create a burn that centered deep down in him.  Her aggression rose as his kiss deepened.  The same ardor that she used to summon in battle burgeoned around him, and her kiss grew more daring as she flicked out her tongue to taste him.

Spirals of heat, tendrils of flames, a vortex of sensation that threatened to overwhelm his senses shot to life, lifted and surged as Kagura tugged at his armor.

Pulling away from her to discard the protective gear, Sesshoumaru dropped it on the grass.  She wasn't content to sit and watch as he worked the ties of his hakama.  Sitting up to push his hand away, Kagura tugged off his haori and undershirt first before she slid off his shoes. As she untied his hakama, he tugged at the bow that held her kimono closed.  He watched in mute fascination as her nipples contracted, hardened the instant the air hit her flushed skin.  Something between a moan and a low growl escaped her but whether it was because of his stare on her or because she had managed to release him from his pants, he wasn't sure.

He stood slowly, eyes on her face, to discard his hakama.  She gazed at him, her eyes darkened nearly black, her scent intoxicating in the night.  The rush of her blood racing through her was like claps of thunder in a storm.  Shockingly loud, wholly invigorating, when she stood, when she pressed her body against his in complete and total submission, it was almost his undoing.

Her lips, her breath fanned the torrid flames that tormented his body, her tongue tracing along his teeth, running up the length of his fangs as she teased him.  He held her flush against him as she raked her nails over his back, up his sides, along the ridges and hollows of his body.  Dragging his mouth away from hers, Sesshoumaru let his head fall back, dragging in ragged lungfuls of air as he willed his body to calm.  "Kagura," he rasped out, the smooth quality of his voice torn and jagged, "lie down."

She did as he ordered, her bed the soft spring grass.  Knees bent, feet flat, she dug her toes into the grass, stared up at him through half-closed eyes.  His gaze raked over her, appreciated her pride, her unwillingness to hide herself from him.  Dropping to his knees at her feet, he nudged her legs apart as he leaned over her.  Lips opening as he closed his mouth over one of her engorged breasts, he steadied himself, felt her body react as liquid heat seared the skin of his stomach.

She hissed out a breath, arched her body to meet his.  "Sesshoumaru . . ." she whispered, her hands sinking into his hair as she pressed against him, her body willing his to listen to her silent entreaty.

His hand brushed against something warm, something soft, and he dragged it closer, breaking the contact of his lips on her skin as he pulled Mokomoko-sama over her rioting flesh.  She cried out his name as he taunted her with the fur, ran it over the darkened flesh of her nipples as she shuddered, as she tilted her head back, as her back arched further off the ground.  He pulled Mokomoko-sama under her back, under her thighs, capturing both ends of the fur in his hand.  When he leaned over her, his hand next to her head, the Mokomoko-sama lifted her legs, spread them apart.  She gasped softly at the complete vulnerability he'd discovered.

"Open your eyes."

It took several moments for her to comply.  The torrent of passion in her gaze made him catch his breath.  "You're . . . my equal, Kagura . . . my mate."

"Yes," she murmured as her eyes closed once more.  She forced them open.  "Yes . . ."

With deliberate slowness, his body pressed into hers, leisurely, cautiously, careful not to hurt her.  She gasped, she writhed, and she tried to lift her hips to meet him.  He growled low as her body constricted around him, the liquid heat that surrounded him was almost too much to bear.  Time and space, a converging sense of complete sensation enveloped him as he surged against her.  To have her returned to him was enough of a gift.  In those moments, he showed her what she meant to him.  Slowly he moved with her, spasms clenched and loosened.  A coil wrapped tighter and tighter inside him as the will to snap it was tempered only by his need to hear her call out his name.

Everything about her seemed to be magnified in him.  His body glided over hers as a fine sheen of sweat broke out on his skin.  The understanding that flowed from his soul to hers and back was a breathtaking thing.  A rhythm in the rise and fall, in the plunder and retreat, a simple yet heady sensation of time standing still gave way to a burgeoning blossom, a beam of moonlight on the blackest night . . . A shocking thunderclap as their bodies met, joined, melding two beings into one, the hammering of his heart beating out an erratic cadence, tattooed on the wind and returned in an earthquake that rumbled through them both as shocking waves of pleasure moved them both toward the intangible horizon.

Torturous lethargy in his movements contradicted the savage need that twisted itself around his youki.  Her body grew tenser under his, her muscles straining to keep the temerarious hold on sanity.  The years of recrimination and sadness dissipated as her body arched and trusted against his, and somehow in the splendor of the night, as she cried out when the silvery spiral of need exploded, Sesshoumaru felt the coil snap.  Throwing his head back, howling the call of the victorious inu-youkai, he claimed her, his reason, his equal, his mate . . .

Collapsing against her as the cool night air feathered over his damp skin as moments ticked away, a hotness against his shoulder made him lean up.  Gazing down at Kagura, he frowned at the silent tears that coursed from her.  "Kagura?"

She shook her head, blinked to stop the tears.  She whimpered softly, such a foreign sound from her . . . "This . . . is what I've wanted," she whispered.  "Just you . . . the only thing I've ever wanted . . ."

"You wanted to be free," he reminded her gently.

"I wanted to be free so that I could be with you."

"And now you are."

She nodded, her gaze slipping away from his, her tone sad, pensive. " . . . So I am."