InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Prisoner, My Prisoner ❯ Seeking Resolutions ( Chapter 14 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Author: profiler120
Email: profiler120@hotmail.com
Rating: PG/PG-13
Genre: Romance/General [AU]

Author's Notes: And here I said "In Terms of a Shadow 7" was going to be my next post. *sighs*

Thanks for reading, 15 will be the final chapter. I appreciate the support and the questions, that was fun.





Just as she was beginning to mentally prepare herself there came a heavy set of footfalls. The old door was unlatched and thrown open and two men stepped in. Kagome watched as the females around her cowered back against the wall.
The heavily armored men came in bearing two huge bowls. They sat them down, almost spilling half the contents of both before stomping back out, their footsteps receding down the hall.
Before view of the two bowls was blocked by the women all struggling to get to them she could see the contents clearly. One had been full of rice and the other had water.
She sat down back against the wall recalling something curious. The evening previous with Kouga she'd been seated by the fire when someone had brought her something in a cup.
She hadn't thought it odd that she was drinking and the others were not. Nor had she thought it unusual the man who had given her a cup had watched her avidly all night, merely thinking him to be suspicious she might run.
She could only imagine why her clothes had been changed. She glanced over noting the females were still fighting over the food. There was a small girl to one side, young, perhaps twelve or so. Younger than the others, it seemed.
"Who are you?"
She gazed up with luminous brown eyes and Kagome immediately knew she would have to rescue the girl.
"Kia."
"I'm Kagome."
The girl didn't seem particularly interesting in either talking or eating. Several minutes later the commotion over the food died down and the girls settled down. Kagome watched them with a strange sense of disconnect. Maybe she could rest a bit and then break them out?
She was really so tired.
Not ten minutes later the room was heavy with silence. All the girls had fallen over, dead asleep.
"They drug the food."
"Hm?" Kagome looked over to see Kia staring at the fallen girls.
"They drug the food to get the girls asleep. It's how the kidnap them from villages. Then they take their clothes and change them into these white yukata. My mother says its to cause terror in the families when they find the discarded clothes of their beloved daughters."
"So it's like a way to ensure obedience in Onigumo's providences. If you know this, how did you get here? Shouldn't you have been extra careful?"
She shook her head. "My village was attacked. I had been hiding, but the hut was set on fire and I was grabbed when I ran out."
Kagome sat for several minutes before something alarmed her. The girls had been drugged.
She shot to her feet. If they had drugged the girls there was likely a good chance they were coming back.
She pulled her hands together trying to focus her energy. Now if she could just break this wall.
She saw more than felt her energy as it formed into her bow. Kia watched in amazement as she strung through a single purple beam of energy releasing the small projectile.
It impacted and shattered.
Despite the weakness of the attack the entire building trembled.
The sleeping girls didn't even stir.
Kagome motioned to Kia. "Go!"
The girl wasted no time and quickly ran out the gaping hole, never looking back. Kago me prayed the girl knew her way home.
She was just about to turn to think out a plan for the women when she heard shouts and horses.
The clanging of metal and wails of pain caused her to pause.
There was a battle.
. . .
Sesshoumaru stared at the monk. Not one, but two red hand prints graced his face - one on each cheek. He assumed that meant he was suitably recovered.
Miya - the young miko - had been held back from traveling after Kagome. Although there was hesitation, the decision not to help Kagome was unanimous. Her name, foolishly pranced into the open by Ayame, hung like a specter over the village.
He turned, casting his eyes toward the tree line as though expecting her to appear at any moment, but she did not. His mind drifted to her; like that tiny glimmer at the bottom of the pond where he'd dropped her bracelet. Her face seemed to sparkle in his mind.
He moved away, not liking the atmosphere. Just as he was about to mount his horse and head out a messenger called shrilly for him.
"Sesshoumaru-sama! Urgent message!"
Sesshoumaru took the tightly wrapped scroll, unwinding it as it read along.
A battle had been forged between Onigumo and some lord along his eastern border. The fighting had escalated and all the villages in the path of the battle were being destroyed and the people being killed in the chaos.
He considered going, it might be a good idea to demoralize Onigumo's men. He decided, they would go. Even if only to pick off a few, maybe take out a commander or so, every little bit helped in a war.
Especially when you nixed the commanders, if they fell, and then their leader, the war was over.
* * * *
Kagome panted, she could feel her body already beginning to slump. Her bow, a pure energy weapon, shattered into a thousands tiny points of light before they were swept away in the breeze.
Fires curled and swept around the area, trees smoking, the air thick. This was battle.
The shrill cries of horses and men pierced the air as they were cut down by the sword. Women's voices joined the echoing, haunting chorus as they too were not spared the blade. She looked around, knees weakening. This was battle, she thought again.
Raw battle.
The thing had made and destroyed men's lives.
Her vision began to darken when a hand roughly snagged the back of her white linen kimono. She was hauled, literally hauled, onto the back of a horse. The pure, unadulterated strength of a man, she thought absently, quietly in awe. She felt nauseous suddenly and lightheaded.
She, with a sense of dread and panic, turned to view her 'rescuer' or her 'captor' whichever one he would be.
Gleaming cold eyes and flying silver hair caused her relief, but only briefly.
"Inutaisho... she murmured.
His arms fastened securely around her, holding her firmly against him.
"It's long time you started acting like a proper Japanese miss and resigned yourself to your fate."
He didn't once glance at her as he steered the horse away from the battle, keeping her eyes from viewing anymore of the disaster unfolding. Arrows flying, swords slicing, blood spattering... it was all too much.
"Fate?" She heard herself ask. "What fate is that?"
She was bitter, rightly so. Her life had been hell these last months. Absolute and perfect hell - she was well within her rights to be angry, upset, bitter and cynical.
It just didn't suit her.
"The fate assigned to you the moment you came to the Citadel. To marry my son, Sesshoumaru. You've certainly given him enough trouble for it."
Her head was swimming. She could barely think let alone process the entirety of what he was saying. Her body ached and hungered for food. Her vision blurred once more.
She didn't fight the coming blackness. She welcomed it, falling into oblivion just wanting to disappear. She'd deal with everything when she woke up. If she woke up, of course. But even that, she didn't want to think about.
* * * *
"Oh my!" Nijiko exclaimed taking a good look at the pale, drawn figure in her husband's arms. "What happened to the poor thing, she looks half dead? "
"Probably is, Inutaisho replied.
He handed the unconscious girl over to a servant with orders to place her in a bed and to feed her the moment she woke.
They both watched as she was scurried away in the male servant's arms.
"Where is Sesshoumaru? Has he returned yet?"
"No," Nijiko replied. "Neither he nor Inuyasha has come back yet."
"I see. I expect them soon - notify me at once when Sesshoumaru returns. We have much to discuss."
Nijiko stared at her husband's back as he stalked off into the compound. What was bothering him so? He had not even greeted her. She frowned. Things didn't look good for Sesshoumaru when he got back.
* * * *
The Citadel loomed on the horizon eerily like some daunting guardian over the land. It was his father's castle, his proudest achievement. His father, the great Inutaisho, was a man renowned for his battle achievements.
He'd won scores of battles and conquered land after land to build this empire. He was awed and respected no matter where he went.
He always remembered his father being looked up to. The most powerful man he'd ever known. That could be a hard thing on a person - having to live up to such high standards. The eldest son of Inutaisho would never be allowed to fail at anything, and anything less than greatness would be a disappointment.
Inuyasha was expected to do nothing, from the moment of his birth the burden had been born by Sesshoumaru alone. The expectations, the hopes and futures of the Masaharu were passed onto him.
"Oi!"
Sesshoumaru peered over a shoulder just in time to see Inuyasha stomp past him, riding wildly on the back of a black stallion. Following along behind him was the monk in hot pursuit.
Must be nice to be a slacker, he thought, if one could bear the shame of it all. He shook off the thoughts and urged the horse forward.
Home, sweet, home had never felt gloomier . Within, Rin, no doubt waited for him, ready to pounce on him the moment he was in sight.
He did not expect to see the outlined form of his father just inside the doorway with Nijiko by his side. It had only been two days; surely disaster hadn't befallen them yet.
With the way things seemed to be going with Onigumo perhaps though it was possible. The man seemed to have lost his mind. There was no telling what could go wrong with him. He was a complete and utter calamity.
"I have something of yours."
The smooth, deep voice of his father pervaded his ears. His tone was normal but the words, they were odd. His father had something of his? Something of his?
"Such as?"
Inutaisho's mouth quirked up in one corner and Sesshoumaru felt himself pause. A battle smirk? He had been on the receiving end of his father's smirks very few times in his life and none of them had ever left him feeling good.
"But I'm not giving it back to you yet. Come, we have much to discuss."
Sesshoumaru watched his father walk off, tossing an uncertain glance at Nijiko. The woman was silent, she too watching his father as he stalked away.
A heavy, foreboding feeling fell over him. What did he have? What was this about? He felt like he'd been caught doing something illicit and was about to be scolded and he hadn't felt that way in a long, long time.
Without a word he took to following his father down the corridor becoming more and more uneasy but not daring to look the slightest bit phased . Inutaisho was a man of battle and manipulation; at the slightest sign of weakness he destroyed you. He'd learned that lesson very young from his father and would never forget it.
His father's office was neat and clean, the same as it always was. The man himself sat down quietly at his table, looking relaxed and untroubled.
"Sit." He curtly directed his son and Sesshoumaru, though cursing the order, obeyed.
"Yes?" He clipped his tone shortly, showing his annoyance with his father's vagueness.
"This is not a game." The growl of a statement was the last thing Sesshoumaru expected. "We are not babysitters. I do not like rumors, especially when I have not started them. I will not tolerate the servants whispering about our family business and spreading tales through the villages understand? Didn't we have the conversation before?"
Sesshoumaru barely repressed his own growl. How dare he try to scold him? Did he think he was a mere child?
Sesshoumaru inclined his head, but barely.
Inutaisho seemed to narrow his eyes. "Good. I've made some decisions for you given your inability to do so. You are going to be married, two weeks exactly from today."
"I absolutely refuse." Sesshoumaru snapped.
"The decision is made; the arrangements are being put into place as we speak. The woman is chosen and is also being prepared."
They stared, silently, at one another for a few uncomfortable minutes.
"You've told this woman already?"
"No, I believe the girl is still unconscious . She's not well at the moment."
"Who is this woman?"
Inutaisho's mouth quirked up again. "Don't look so appalled, my decision should delight you. You certainly know her well enough. She's upstairs, probably sleeping still, but it's about time she woke up."
That was a clear dismissal as his father turned his attention to the papers on his desk.
"Tell Nijiko I want to see her on your way."
Sesshoumaru snapped the door closed behind him, temper simmering. He glided toward the stairs, a glower etched across his face. Along the way he snagged a servant to summon Nijiko. He'd be damned if he was playing errand-boy for his meddling father.
How the hell was he supposed to find this woman?
"Ah, Sesshoumaru-sama!"
He glanced down sharply to find Jaken at his feet. "You wish to see the girl?"
"Where is she?"
"This way." Jaken skipped along ahead of him and Sesshoumaru found himself all the more irritable at the servant's cheerfulness. "She doesn't look well at all, half dead."
Sesshoumaru felt his frown deepen. What the hell was going on here?
He threw open the door. Upon sight of the pale faced, dark haired maiden his temper boiled over.
"Damn it!" He roared.
He snapped the doors closed and stalked off the opposite direction.
* * * *