InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Moonlight Shadow ❯ Water ( Chapter 8 )

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Chapter 8: Water

Series: Inuyasha

Universe: Ninja AU (NOT Naruto-verse, mind you! Sorry! Traditional ninjas only).

Pairing: Eventual SessKag

Rating: PG-13 ( For now, suscepticble to change).

Disclaimer: Inuyasha and its characters are the intellectual property of one Rumiko Takahashi. I only make bad fanfiction about it.

Author's notes: So I was going to write out a training montage scene, a la "Mulan" with coursing rivers and force of great typhoons. BUt I was honestly not feeling up to it, and felt it derailed from the story too much. So instead, you get a quick summary. Enjoy!

Water

Kagome wondered if Sesshoumaru was angry because he had been defeated by a girl, or because he had been defeated by her.

'Probably both.'

It was questions like these that kept Kagome's mind occupied from thinking of her present predicament, like the excruciating pain running up her arms, tendons pulled like a shamisen(1) string about to snap. The handles of the water buckets were cutting into her fingers, her wrists shaking as she tried to keep the heavy objects raised, arms extended to the sides at shoulder level. Her breath came out in short, ragged pants, teeth bared with the effort of keeping both buckets elevated. If she could just lower her arms for a few seconds-

"Wench, if that bucket falls anywhere bellow your sternum, I shall fill it to the brim with more water and make you stand there an extra hour."

Kagome's arm snapped at attention, her breath doubling. 'An extra hour?! ' The female ninja paled visibly. She couldn't do an extra hour! She wasn't sure if she could even finish the last twenty minutes left of her two-hour torture.

'Just a few more minutes!' she chanted shrilly in her head for the millionth time, her arms quaking under the weight of the water buckets.

Sesshoumaru had said that all good ninja needed strength in their arms, be it for fighting enemies or scaling walls. That had been his reason for putting her through this particular exercise of endurance, that all ninja in his clan were expected to perform with ease.

Kagome knew for a fact that was bullshit. He just hated her guts.

After pulling that trick and managing to one-up Sesshoumaru at the dojo, the man had taken the hit to his ego rather badly. Sure it had been sneaky of Kagome to do that, but ninja often resorted to underhanded methods to win a battle. He should have praised her for it, commended her even! Instead, Sesshoumaru took it as an insubordinate act from the young woman, as if she were trying to emasculate his authority. If Sesshoumaru had been bad before, he was completely tyrannical in his teaching methods now. For the past two days he had been squeezing the life out of the pretty raven, making her go through a ridiculous and rigorous training montage that no normal human being could ever possibly complete (except for him, of course, because apparently he was a demigod or something. Prick.) It was a miracle he didn't have her fighting mountain bears bare-handed!

Kagome glared at said prick between puffs of breath, hoping to scorch his pretty hair with the sheer force of her fury.

Unperturbed by the dark looks thrown his way, and hair remaining annoyingly intact and smooth and pretty, Sesshoumaru continued examining the scrolls laid out before him. He had opted to sit in the cool shade offered by the roof of the halls while he supervised Kagome's "endurance training" in the garden. After giving his pupil the instructions, he had promptly proceeded to ignore her as he read scroll after scroll, occasionally signing here and there. Kagome surmised that they must be accords or official documents of some kind, though what exactly escaped her. They seemed to be serious enough that the man had remained completely silent throughout the two hours - except for the occasional threat whenever slacking off even crossed her mind. That he could always tell she was thinking it when he wasn't even looking at her was both impressive and scary.

Kagome licked her dry lips, panting harshly. She was so tired. It didn't help that she had overslept that morning and had only managed to scrounge up enough time to get ready and bolt for the dojo, so breakfast had been skipped. And the night before that she had been so tired she had not even had the energy to eat her dinner, instead passing out on her sleeping mat. As if on cue, her stomach clenched down on nothing, furious at the abuse. Panting, she focused on finishing this task. Then she could have lunch. Yes…that sounded nice.

Her arms were past the point of agony, unpleasantly numb now, like a million needles had been stuck to it. It didn't help that the sun was bearing down upon her painfully, making her body and hands slick with sweat. She clasped her fingers even harder around the metal handle, sure that she was drawing blood.

Her vision began to blur at the edges. 'Just a few more minutes…'

Kagome's arms didn't want to wait a few more minutes to stop. They wanted to stop now. A short gasp escaped her, and she bit down hard on her lip to halt the weep that followed. 'Just a few more minutes!'

Sesshoumaru glanced up briefly. His yellow eyes fell upon the lines drawn in the dirt in front of a small slab of dark rock, which they were using to measure how much time the young ninja had been holding the buckets. The shadows were reaching the final line. It would only be a few minutes now…

"You are almost done." He informed the kunoichi in a bored tone. "One more line to go."

Kagome nearly cried with relief, except she was too focused on keeping her arms at a proper upraised angle like Sesshoumaru demanded.

Some might've deemed the exercise a bit extreme, and Sesshoumaru would've called them idiots and cut off whatever appropriate limb was closest for daring to speak against him and his methods. Unruly ninjas needed to be taught to respect their clan leaders or be killed, and since he had already promised that insufferable old woman, Kaede, that he would not kill her beloved pupil, he was definitely going to do his best to break her.

Still, Sesshoumaru found himself squashing that damnable side of him that felt a stab of guilt at the sound of the woman gasping for air. 'Well,' he reasoned, 'of course she would be panting like a dog, it meant that she was properly feeling the brunt of his training.' It would truly surprise him if she wasn't exhausted at the end of this, as she well should be. No one, no one dared to make a fool of Lord Sesshoumaru. And despite the occasional grumbling, the girl had accomplished every task given by him with flying colors, much to Sesshoumaru's pleasant surprise. She wasn't completely useless after all; just incredibly brazen. The young clan leader was sure that after this the spirited raven would give him the proper respect he deserved. If not, then at least think twice before giving him attitude.

'She does look rather fetching when she is angry though…'

Annoyed at his thoughts, his yellow eyes returned to a particularly boring treaty - regarding territory guidelines between his neighboring clans - and called out loudly to the kunoichi. "Your arms are slacking, girl. Maintain your stance or you shall have the pleasure of starting over again."

Kagome's heart momentarily faltered.

Again?

She couldn't do this again. She couldn't!

What little she had learned about Sesshoumaru these past two days was that he was a man of his word. She wouldn't doubt for a second that he would make her start the exercise right there and then, without even a minute of rest.

Sesshoumaru resumed his reading as he saw from the corner of his periphery the girl straighten. Satisfied, he immersed himself in the dreary technicalities of state affairs. One of the many tedious tasks of being a leader; it was not all glamour and blood after all, and taking care of the legal affairs was as much his responsibility as was disposing of enemy targets.

The lord of the House of the Moon continued working in silence until he noticed something was off. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but something in the background noise had shifted abruptly. Eyes glazing over the words before him, he focused his hearing and listened intently. Trees rustled the nearby leaves of the flower shrubs in the garden, and in the distance he could hear the soft chirping of birds. All right, that was all perfectly normal. Something in the back of his brain prodded him insistently. Listen closer!, it seemed to say, and Sesshoumaru, never one to ignore his instincts, did as instructed.

He frowned, as he was prone to do when something escaped his notice and he couldn't decipher it immediately. There did not seem to be any threat nearby from what he could hear, and other than the girl before him there was no one else around. Besides his scribbling on parchment and the girl a few feet in front of him, no one else was making noise -

The girl…

Sesshoumaru's eyes widened and he looked up as in that moment he realized what was different.

The sound of panting had stopped.

His eyes fixed on the woman scant feet before him. The kunoichi was still standing there, admirably holding on to the buckets for dear life. Sesshoumaru would expect that she would be sucking oxygen through her mouth like she had never inhaled air before in the past twenty years. But she wasn't; she was eerily quiet, and Sesshoumaru realized with a skip of his heart-

She wasn't breathing.

She wasn't. Breathing.

Sesshoumaru stood up, knocking some scrolls to the ground in his haste. He saw her arms falter, eyes roll back to the inside of her head, and still she wasn't breathing -

"KAGOME!"

Someone was shouting at her. But that didn't matter. She had finished her exercise and now could rest for a bit. Maybe get some food right after. Yes. That would be nice. She had finished the exercise, right? Oh Kami, if not Sesshoumaru would make her do it all over again.

She hoped he wouldn't be too upset with her. He'd never grow to like her if that trend continued.

The last thing Kagome saw was bright yellow eyes, before her world sank into darkness.

(1) Shamisen: a traditional Japanese three-stringed lute with a square body, played with a large plectrum.

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