InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity ❯ Kagome's Request ( Chapter 43 )

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

He cracked his knuckles, ready to do what sickened him, turned his stomach, made him want to die somewhere deep in his soul. Necessary or not, the idea of marring her, of cutting into her, of being the reason that she bled . . . He couldn't do it. `I . . . I can't . . . Fucking hell, I can't . . . !'

A growl of frustration turned into a whine of agony as InuYasha shook his head in defeat. He really couldn't do it. With a sigh that was a mix of self-disgust and worry, he carefully lifted her and carried her into the house.

He lay her down on the bed, her tiny form seeming lost in the huge thing. He stared at her for long moments, wondering, searching for answers in her serene face. Damn it, he had to mark her; he knew he did. But knowing something and being able to do it were two different things entirely, and InuYasha sighed. He sat on the edge of the bed, idly fingering the prayer bead necklace. It was so much more than simply his feelings for her that stopped him from putting his mark on her, he realized. `I promised I'd protect her from harm—any harm. To hurt her, even for this . . .'

Everything he'd ever believed, everything he'd ever fought for . . . All the things he did for her, they culminated in this. What he had to do . . . and what he couldn't do. `There's got to be another way . . . something that I've overlooked . . . I can't hurt her . . . She is my heart . . .'

No answers came to him, no sounds in the quiet house. As though his questions went unheeded, InuYasha sighed in defeat. He'd lay himself open on Tetsusaiga for her, he'd fight off a thousand youkai if she asked him, he'd wander the earth for five hundred years if he had to, he'd pluck the moon from the sky for her, but this . . . this he could not do.

The doorbell jarred him out of his reverie, and InuYasha kissed Kagome's cheek before he got up. She half-smiled. So did he.

He swung the door open and blinked in surprise to see Rin and one of her daughters—the oldest one, Nori—standing there. InuYasha stepped back, letting her in, and Rin smiled brightly. "Hi, InuYasha. Kagura asked me to swing by and drop off these since I had a few other errands to run." She handed him a manila envelope. InuYasha scowled at it. "Where's Kagome?"

Peeking inside the envelope but finding nothing but boring insurance forms to fill out, InuYasha dropped the envelope onto the hall table and closed the front door. "Sleeping," he replied, heading for the back door. In his hurry to get Kagome taken care of, he'd forgotten the Tetsusaiga. Nori ran outside with him. Rin followed.

"What happened out here?" Rin asked, surveying the gouges in the earth with unmasked surprise.

InuYasha retrieved Kagome's forgotten textbook and stalked over to the rusty Tetsusaiga. "Hyou showed up."

Nori knelt down next to Dammit. Dammit wagged her tail but still didn't get up.

"I see," Rin replied, careful of what she said within earshot of the little girl. "I trust everything was taken care of then?"

InuYasha nodded and brushed past Rin to put things away. "Nori, be a good girl and stay there with the dog, okay? I need to talk to InuYasha."

"Okay!"

Rin carefully closed the door behind herself, and InuYasha could feel her eyes on him. "I'm a good listener," Rin finally remarked.

"Keh! I'm fine," InuYasha growled as he wiped off Tetsusaiga's blade before hanging it back over the mantle.

Rin's chuckle was soft, husky, reassuring. "You are so much like Papa, it's uncanny."

He shot her a dark look for that. "I'm nothing like that bastard."

"You'd be surprised."

"You want something to drink?" InuYasha asked as he headed for the kitchen.

"Sure."

He grabbed a couple of bottles of water and returned. Rin was staring out the window at her daughter. InuYasha handed Rin a bottle and watched Nori, as well. With Shippou's bright copper locks and Rin's delicate features, the child was adorable. InuYasha grinned at the little fox ears that stuck out of the girl's hair.

For just a moment, he imagined what it would be like, to watch his own pups running through the yard, playing, happy, laughing. Kagome hid it well—her sadness—for his benefit, he was sure. Yet there were moments when he could almost see the melancholy the idea of never having children caused in her.

Just as suddenly, though, flashes of his childhood filtered through his mind, the sense of never belonging, of always being an outcast. Humans might not see hanyous or youkai for what they were now. But the youkai would know, and the youkai, he knew from experience, tended to be far crueler to those of mixed heritage than humans ever could be.

"Papa says you've yet to mark Kagome."

InuYasha flinched, brought rudely out of his glum thoughts by an even more troublesome one. He sighed. Then he stared at Rin. Maybe, if anyone could alleviate his fears, it would be her . . . "Did it hurt? When Shippou marked you?"

Rin made a face and grimaced. "Well . . . that's the thing. Shippou never did."

InuYasha frowned. "What do you mean, he never did? You'd be dead by now if he didn't."

"He never had to." She laughed softly at the confused look on InuYasha's face. "I lived with Papa so long that youkai knew I was under his protection, as a daughter, you see. When Shippou came around, it was just never necessary."

"But you're as old as he is. How can you still be alive?"

"Papa. Shippou and I haven't been married very long, you know. Six years, to be exact."

InuYasha shook his head. "I'm missing something."

"Papa gave me his Mokomoko-sama. That's why I've stayed alive."

InuYasha's eyes narrowed just before his eyebrows shot up. Sure, he'd realized that inu-youkai possessed a certain quality, and that the Mokomoko-sama of the more powerful of their line did hold special powers in and of themselves. But for Sesshoumaru to have given his to Rin? InuYasha hadn't realized that Sesshoumaru had ever cared so deeply for anyone else before. The Sesshoumaru he knew from five hundred years ago wouldn't have cared at all . . . or maybe he would have. InuYasha snorted out an incredulous laugh.

"You don't want to hurt her, do you?" Rin asked quietly, cutting to the crux of InuYasha's troublesome thoughts.

"It's more than that," he admitted slowly. "Even to protect her . . . I can't."

Rin sighed. "Maybe there's another way. Don't give up."

InuYasha stared hard at his claws. He'd used those claws hundreds—thousands—of times to defend Kagome. A vivid image of marking her, of what it would mean, of using the same claws to cut her wide open, to leave her bleeding . . . He shuddered against the mental image of it as his stomach lurched in protest. The spot where she would receive his mark was exactly where the Shikon no Tama had come from. What did it all mean?

Rin giggled as Nori and Dammit frolicked around, hopping over the remnants of the Wind Scar. InuYasha smiled despite his bleak thoughts as he watched the child, too. "When are you and Kagome going to start a family of your own?" Rin asked, having noticed the brightening in his expression as he watched Nori.

His smile disappeared as an immediate and intense flush broke over his features. "We're . . . uh . . . not."

Rin looked surprised. She nodded slowly and sighed. "Well, you can't tell me that Kagome doesn't want one. So I'll guess that you don't."

InuYasha scowled. "You make it sound worse than it is," he grumbled.

"Does Kagome know you feel this way?"

He wished the subject would drop. Judging by the way Rin was staring at him, however, he had a feeling that it wasn't to be. "Yeah, she does."

"Can I ask why?"

The genuine concern in her voice kept him from snapping at her. "How can I have pups when I know how hanyous are treated? It's not that I don't want a family, but—"

"InuYasha, the world has changed since you were a child. Hanyou aren't looked down on the way they were back then. Do you think I would have done that to my own kids?"

His look dared Rin to lie. She smiled compassionately. He wanted to believe her. He really did. He just couldn't.

Rin sighed and patted InuYasha's arm as she glanced back at the mantle clock. "Listen, I've got to go. Shippou's taking me to the opera tonight. But think about what I said? And if you need to talk . . .?"

He nodded. Rin leaned forward and kissed his cheek before slipping out the back door to round up her daughter. Nori waved happily at him. He waved back.

Rin's advice left him even more confused than he had been before. Shaking his head slowly, he pushed away from the door and headed off to check on Kagome again.

She was sitting up on the bed, with her hands over her face when he came in. "Kagome? Are you okay?"

Her hands fell away, and he saw, to his relief, that she looked calm, even rested, despite the marked bruising around the neck wounds. But she smiled at him and patted the bed beside her. "I thought I heard a voice."

He shrugged as he sat down. "Rin was here. She had to drop off some papers from Kagura."

Her expression darkened a little. "You killed Hyou, didn't you?"

The hint of subtle rebuke in her tone made his defenses rise. Kagome never had liked it when InuYasha would kill youkai for threatening her. "Damn right," he countered, his chin lifting in defiance.

She fell silent at that. InuYasha sighed and flopped down on the bed beside her. "And you're sure you're ok?" he finally asked.

"Yeah . . . it's just . . . I had a really weird dream. I'm not sure, though, because it almost seemed more like a memory than a dream."

He reached over to push her hair out of her face. "What about?"

She shook her head slowly, as though she was trying to put into words what her dream had been. "I was in the well-house at the shrine talking to her, Midoriko . . ." Kagome's eyes widened. "That's how it happened. . . It was Midoriko. She altered my memories because she knew they were painful to me . . ."

He digested that. It made sense. It was Midoriko . . .

He stared at her for long seconds. She looked confused, consternated. Finally she looked at him, a sudden determination making her eyes glow with an odd light. "Will you take me there?"

"To the shrine?"

Kagome shook her head slowly, methodically. "No . . . To Midoriko . . . to her cave . . . She is calling me."