InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Sesshoumaru's Baby ❯ Chapter Five: A Sister's Duty ( Chapter 5 )

Sesshoumaru's Baby

 

Chapter 5: A Sister's Duty

 

If Inu-Yasha had ever had the guts to tell anybody something quite so intimate, he would have told them that he feared few things in the world. A lifetime of being treated like dirt had taught him that the people who had seemed big and scary in his childhood were only medium-sized bullies in search of an ego trip, and about as dangerous to him as a cat with its back arched and its fur puffed up; all he had to do to defeat them was become an even bigger cat. Scream loudest, stamp hardest, stare longest, and they ran away in terror. But there was a person that he feared terribly, and it was Kagome.

 

Deep down, he felt his soul quail when she began to glow with anger, because she didn't react in the way he had come to expect people to. Demons didn't run from him; they simply charged in for the fight, aflame with their bloodlust, and got slaughtered when they underestimated his powers just because he was hanyou.

 

Humans tended to overestimate his powers, and his inclination to fight - they always assumed the worst of him, cowering or fleeing in abject terror because they felt that his demon side meant he had natural desires to trample their crops, chew up their livestock, flatten their homes and boil their children. In his face, as he sometimes saw in Sesshoumaru's eyes, they saw ruin: the destruction of everything and anything that possessed any value to them.

 

And if he was honest with himself, the only fear he had of Sesshoumaru was his ruthlessness. Even now, when they had been more intimate with each other than he could have conceived - and not in the way he wanted - he feared the vindictiveness of his half-brother. He saw that squirmy toad Jaken quivering whenever Sesshoumaru looked his way, and understood the violent whimsy that brought maiming or death from those long claws without provocation. If he was crossed, Sesshoumaru was capable of acting in the same way that Naraku did - targeting the loved ones, the precious things, to cause pain in his enemies, to subjugate them before he killed them.

 

“People seek to control others in everything they do, and eventually they'll seek to master you, one after another.” Something his mother had said, a long time ago. “They'll do it through lose you love and those you hate; they will find the bit and bridle that fits your mouth and make you yield. And they won't stop, not until you or they are dead. In the end, life is a struggle of slaves against masters.”

 

Even Kikyo had reacted predictably. In the end, she fell back on her human distrust of him, her willingness to believe he had succumbed to his dark side overtaking her. She had believed too easily and too willingly that he would harm her, even after the love they had shared, the snatched moments on the edges of the village when they could be alone to talk, to argue, or just to hold each other. Their love had weighed little against that inbred overestimation of the power of his demon heritage over his soul.

 

But Kagome was different. Inu-Yasha knew she feared him sometimes, rarely now, when he lost control and morphed into that bastardized form that wasn't quite pure demon, not fully rid of its humanity; rather, he became a corrupted human without values, and with a higher level of demon powers. The “sit” necklace had become more of a slap than a shield, no longer a tool to protect herself but a way to strike at him in a way she couldn't physically, as she was weaker and slower than he was. And she loved him. She had said so. And unlike Kikyo, she had thrown off the chains of human prejudices.

 

He didn't want to lose her. She alone had trusted him. And now, as he looked down at her upturned face from the top of his tree - as Miroku skedaddled into the middle distance - he felt a cold tremble begin in his limbs. There wasn't going to be any “sits”. Whatever torment she'd inflict on him would be more gutwrenching and long-lasting than that, because the steely look in her eyes told him she'd finally had it.

 

“I was curious as to why you were still here,” she said at last, and he flinched. Her voice was low, steady, uninflected, a monotone that would have seemed bored; except for her fingers clenched into fists, and the blood oozing up in beads from the half-moon shapes sliced into her palms. “I believed you'd gone searching for shards, as you always do when you can't handle a situation. I wondered if you had finally summoned up the guts to face the music this time.”

 

“Kagome,” he started. His mouth tasted vile, like nausea in the back of the throat, and his tongue had dried out like a desert.

 

“I guess not,” she said, and his toes curled against the branch in some kind of presentiment. “I should have known, shouldn't I? Perhaps I should have told you about the conversations I had with my friends in my world, when I told them about you. They said you wouldn't change. You'd always treat me like dirt, you'd always chase after other women as if it was your right to, you'd never stop and think what all your delinquency was doing to me. And they were right.”

 

“Let me explain.” It came out croaky, rough, but it was said. Kagome's eyes flickered towards his face - glazed, they had been staring stolidly at his middle without interest up until that point - and he felt as if he'd been doused in cold water. And wasn't it just like looking at Kikyo, after she attacked him in the village when they had both been betrayed? Hadn't it been the exact same coolness, the terrible peace of decision, of judgement, in her bloodstreaked face?

 

“Explain what, Inu-Yasha? What do you plan to explain?”

 

“Everything,” he said, clasping onto the tree for support. “I want to explain everything to you.”

 

“I was talking to your brother,” she said, in a conversational tone. “He said he couldn't explain what had happened with you. And if he can't, I don't think you can - I mean, I don't like him, but I credit him with more intelligence than you.”

 

“This isn't about him!” Inu-Yasha said sharply. “This is about us!”

 

Kagome's fists tightened. “I see. This was just your way of proving my friends right, I suppose, that you could do what you want and fuck my opinion on the matter.” Kagome didn't swear. That was a very, very bad sign. “If you wanted to go off and liaise with Kikyo, you'd bloody well do it even if it made me miserable. If you wanted to screw your half-brother, you'd do it, and expect me to try and carry on with life as normal and help you solve your problem.” She pointed a finger at him, stabbing the air as if she wanted to pierce him through. “I think this is about him, Inu-Yasha. It's about you, and me, Sesshoumaru, Kikyo, Miroku, Sango, Shippo, everybody. We're all bit players in your pity play, aren't we? You use us all, one way or another.”

 

“What do you want me to say?” Inu-Yasha demanded. “You won't let me speak! You won't hear my side of the story!”

 

“Then you know how I feel,” she said, cutting him off. “It's my turn to talk, Inu-Yasha. Lap it up. Drink down this poisoned cup of my hatred, of my pain, my suffering, my indignation and humiliation. If you entertain even a sliver of hope that we might work this out, that we might still have a chance, then you had better swallow every last bitter drop. And when you're done tasting the fruit that you sowed with your thoughtlessness and utterly fucking selfish self-indulgence, you're going to do what I want for once. And you will not argue.”

 

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Sango came back with weary arms, and purpose in her breast as she did in everything. She walked into life with decisions made, challenges decided, and clawed her fingernails raw and bloody to defeat all that life threw at her. She'd watched Kagome walk stiff-legged out of the village in the direction of Inu-Yasha's tree from the hill where she'd been turning the forest into sawdust, and saw her go to demand what she wanted at long last or break Inu-Yasha's back if he failed to agree. And Sango, with the wisdom of her love for Kagome, went to go and play her part to end this drama.

 

Understand, she hadn't been told to do it, or asked to. But she felt inside that she must, and that only she of all the people around was going to be able to do it. Kagome, too soft-hearted and forgiving at the best of times, had finally discovered her steel core - and was about to show Inu-Yasha her mettle at last. But she would wear herself out, sobbing and ranting by turns, on the ungrateful hanyou, and she would be soft and yielding again to everyone else by the time she came back. It fell to Sango to do the rest.

 

Kaede's was quiet. As she ducked under the door, pushing aside the cloth screen, she closed out the warm air of the village and the rising dust. She propped Hiraikotsu against the wall with elaborate care, and took off her sandals with ceremony. She was in no hurry. Her quarry was inside, anyway. She could see his bent shape silhouetted against the screen door, spine curved in pain or weariness.

 

“If you've come to shout at me as well, I'm not in the mood for it,” Sesshoumaru said quietly, low enough that nobody outside could have heard him, but clear enough for Sango's ears. “And I don't think Inu-Yasha values you enough to kill me over the loss of your life.”

 

“Probably not,” Sango said. She left the door closed. “I've caused him more trouble than any of the others in the past. Kagome fought with him from day one. Miroku worked with him first as an ally, and then as a friend. Shippo has always been loyal, though he does squabble with Inu-Yasha something chronic. But I - my loyalties have always been uncertain. He still thinks, at the back of his mind, that I'd sacrifice him for Kohaku's life, because I don't love him like I do Kagome, my sister, and Miroku.”

 

“I'm sure your honesty on the matter is appreciated. But I believe you've come with more reason than to just explain the balance of power in your little group, exterminator. As I said to the miko earlier, you should just come out with what you want. Your human evasiveness on the matter is tiresome.”

 

“I suppose youkai are always straightforward when they talk.”

 

“We appreciate the clarity of as few words as necessary.”

 

Sango sat down, and propped her feet up against the fire-pit. A few embers burned softly in a nest of feathery charcoal. “Then let me make my ultimatum brief to you - either you go, or I kill you.”

 

There was a pause. And then Sesshoumaru laughed, softly; a vaguely sinister sound, limned with disbelief. “I assure you, I've no intention of staying. But I don't believe you could kill me, either.”

 

“Ordinarily, I'd agree with you,” Sango said, tapping a birch twig from the edge of the fire-pit against her ankle. “I know what you're capable of. I've seen how fast and strong you are, and how great your stamina is. I know fully my limitations as a human being. But I believe Kaede is right when she says she thinks you're pregnant with Inu-Yasha's child, and I think that will be the factor that makes all the difference. It's weakened you, sickened you, and I think I can take you now. It might kill me in the process, but I'd take you with me.”

 

“So if I understand you correctly, you would go to kill me even though you believe Inu-Yasha's child - or the beginnings of one - are resident in my body at the moment? No - that's not it. You want to kill me because of it, and you'd take advantage of that it's creating weakness in me, a vulnerability I wouldn't otherwise have.”

 

“That's about the size of it,” Sango agreed. “I knew you were astute, I was sure you'd figure it out eventually.”

 

“A curious position for you to take, isn't it?”

 

“Not really. Kagome loves Inu-Yasha, as I'm sure you know, and she's going to make some demands on him - that he cease his little affair with Kikyo, and also with you, whatever you had. But Inu-Yasha as I know him is a guilt-ridden creature. He still trysts with Kikyo out of a mistaken sense that he owes her, because she died and he lived all those years ago. And he will still want to keep you here, even though it hurts Kagome, because of that child, though he won't go back to that strange relationship you seemed to have.”

 

Sango raised a finger in the air as if instructing. “If you go, as I know you want to, I'm sure you'll go to someone who'll confirm this pregnancy thing. And I'm sure, if my reading of you is correct, that the first question you'll ask is how to remove it from your person. You'll do whatever you need to in order to abort it, and there will be no baby for Inu-Yasha to feel obligations towards. He will go back to hating you partly because of Kagome's directive, and partly because he hates you for killing the child. If you choose to stay, I'll kill you anyway, and the child will die with you, so the outcome is the same.”

 

“Clearly thought through, and I commend you on your insights,” came the soft, snide reply. “But you seem to be forgetting one thing, exterminator - exactly how do you plan for me to leave, with Inu-Yasha so hell-bent on me staying against my will?”

 

Sango dipped a hand into her kimono, and pulled out a small, cloth-wrapped package from an inside pocket. “That I've also worked out.”

 

A/N: The speech attributed to Izayoi is borrowed from Holly Black's “Ironside,” because I couldn't find a way to replicate the meaning of the speech without transmitting the exact wording. Next chapter: Kagome's demands, and Sango's plan.