InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Sesshoumaru's Baby ❯ Chapter Seven: Sango's Mistake ( Chapter 7 )

A/N: This was never meant to be an easy story after I decided what direction I would take it. In the series, characters are never shown actually confronting their problems; instead, they stay stuck in repetitive patterns of behaviour that solve nothing. I wondered why Kagome, such a strong person when fighting with Inu-Yasha over going home for school or exams, was too weak to confront him over Kikyo. I wanted to know why Miroku and Sango, evidently aware of Inu-Yasha's failings to decide, never stepped in to support the others - too wrapped up in their own personal problems, the group seems hinged on the goal of killing Naraku only.

 

So, to show more clearly where I'm headed: this story is to explore the fractures that haven't been examined in these relationships. How well do they really know each other, and how far can they judge how the others would react, or what decision they want to make? (And don't assume Inu-Yasha will just obey Kagome on this - it would be out of character for him to do anything but force emotional wrangling on this for quite some time.) And Kagome is in the end a teenage girl, and like all people selfish about what she wants; she sees the world through her eyes, and with difficulty through other people's. She has an agenda; Inu-Yasha has an agenda. Sango, meanwhile, has chosen to follow what she thinks Kagome would want. Miroku has yet to decide where he stands. And Sesshoumaru has his own ideas of what he's planning to do…as you will find out in chapter 8…

 

Sesshoumaru's Baby

 

Seven: Sango's Mistake

 

Father gave it to me a long time ago, Sango thought as she went to the edge of the forest and began digging a hole with her fingers. The cloth ball rested comfortably on the ground beside her as she shredded some of Kagome's old notepaper into the hole, followed by twigs and dried bark. He said it was dishonest to use it because it put people's lives in danger unnecessarily, but sometimes commissions to deal with small-fry youkai on an irregular basis during the winter months weren't enough to see the village through.

 

So when that happened, they brought this out of the village's small shrine, where it was stored under the floorboards. Wrapped in the cloth of a monk's robe, it was a demon's heart. Rough and dry to the touch, old blood flaked off against her gloved fingers as she buried it in the soft pile of tinder she'd built up of thin wood and old rubbish. To the pile she added a generous quantity of the fuel stuff Kagome used on the little portable fire she carried with her, and lit the whole with a lighter filched from the enormous bag her friend lugged everywhere. It caught; a sharp, greasy smell began to rise from the hole like burning fat, drifting on the wind into the forest. Sango went to wash her hands with herbs and soap, and returned to the village for Hiraikotsu.

 

The plan was simple. Inu-Yasha and Kagome were talking on the other side of the village. When the demons started coming to the village in answer to the smell of the burning heart, stirring up their anger towards the humans, the villagers would start screaming out and Inu-Yasha would hear it. He'd come haring down to finish off the demons, both out of a sense of obligation to the villagers and because he worried about Sesshoumaru. Meanwhile, the older youkai would simply leave the village in the middle of the fuss. By the time the dust settled, he could have been gone by up to an hour or so, enough to get a good head start on the hanyou. Kagome, she reasoned, wouldn't let him give chase.

 

And that, as they say, would be the end of it.

 

I don't know what the cost of my actions is going to be. If I'm right in my reading of Kagome, then once Sesshoumaru is gone she won't let Inu-Yasha follow; when the baby is dead, he will want Sesshoumaru dead again, and things will go back to the way they were. But people may still be killed. I can't afford to lay traps or start the deterring smoke, because Inu-Yasha will wonder how I knew the demons were coming. Can I keep it on my conscience, that people may die just to end my friends' problems?

 

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“What happened?” Inu-Yasha demanded as he skidded breathless into the village. Kagome tumbled off his back with a yelp and scrambled back up to her feet, dusting her skirt off as she headed for Kaede's house in search of her bow.

 

Kaede shrugged. “I don't know. Perhaps Naraku is behind it.” The villagers had clustered nervously nearby; some clasped small children to their hips in preparation for flight, and others held weapons.

 

There was a glow of demonic aura from the edge of the forest; beyond it, glowing eyes and long, bared teeth. Inu-Yasha jumped up to the top of the torii at the bottom of the hill for a better look - and then he noticed something strange. There was a sweet smell in the air, almost fatty, like deer flesh spitting over a fire. What was that?

 

“It couldn't have come at a worse time,” Kagome said, stringing her bow with trembling fingers. “We've got enough issues to deal with at the moment without Naraku interfering. If he shows up, so much the better - I'm really going to let him have it.”

 

“You can barely shoot,” Inu-Yasha scoffed. “The only person with a chance of creaming that bastard is me, and I'm going to finish him.” He craned over his shoulder as Miroku jogged down the steps towards Kagome and the villagers, Shippo clinging on to his shoulder like a burr to a shoe. “Hey monk, where's Sango?”

 

“I've no idea.” Miroku gave an approximation of a shrug - as much as he could do with Shippo weighing him down - and rested both hands on top of his staff. “I hate to raise unpleasant issues once again, seeing as you both seemed to have reach some state of calm, but what about Sesshoumaru?”

 

“He's in Kaede's house,” Inu-Yasha replied promptly. Not that he could be sure, though; but the last time he'd seen his brother, that's where he was. He couldn't see the shrine at the top of the hill where the group had taken to meeting from his vantage point. And the surge of jaki from the demons readying themselves to attack at the edge of the village had blanked out the little mystical senses he had, so he couldn't sense Sesshoumaru's presence either.

 

Inu-Yasha reckoned to himself the matter wasn't going to rest as it was. He had lied to Kagome, as he had lied to everybody, because he wasn't clear on what he was being asked about. How could a person measure feeling? You couldn't just weigh out your emotions like sand, and sift through it to note the different colours and depths and textures of those feelings. Sure - he understood part of the truth. He didn't believe he loved Sesshoumaru in the way Kagome had been asking him about, but then he couldn't be sure that he didn't. He'd never been tested on it. He hadn't known how much he loved Kagome until he was in danger of losing her, and only then had he begun to appreciate her.

 

The trouble was, he couldn't speak when it involved Kagome. Her hurt had been too palpable, her rage too in evidence, for him to attempt a defence of his actions. As she had quite clearly said, how could he? He had nothing to say that would sound plausible. He hadn't gone off to Sesshoumaru for anything he could talk about that would make it sound right. He wanted answers. But he hadn't…he hadn't done what he did for them. That had been something else entirely.

 

“What do you want to do, Inu-Yasha?” Miroku's voice cut into his reverie and he started, glaring over his shoulder.

 

“I'm going to waste those demons, of course.”

 

“That wasn't what I meant, actually.” The monk's brown eyes narrowed, and the staff jingled quietly as he shifted his feet, tipping a stone out of one of his sandals. “I was wondering if you wanted to make sure Sesshoumaru was all right before we get stuck into the demons.”

 

Inu-Yasha twitched. “I don't see why. Bastard can take care of himself.”

 

He noticed Kagome watching him out of the corner of her eye. “I don't think you should be so sure of that,” she said evenly. “It wouldn't be difficult to send somebody up to check. Shippo could go - he's small and quick, and he could be back in five minutes.”

 

Miroku raised an eyebrow at his hesitation.

 

“Fine,” Inu-Yasha snapped. “Brat, go make sure my brother stays up there, will you?”

 

Shippo stuck his tongue out at him. “I don't have to do what you say.”

 

Kagome twanged the bowstring between her fingers, and laid it on the ground so she could settle the quiver on her back. “I have some candy in my backpack in the temple, Shippo. Why don't you go and get it to share with Rin, and check on Sesshoumaru at the same time?”

 

Sango appeared around the corner; Inu-Yasha's ear flicked towards her as he became aware of her. And there was that smell again. Close to, it clung to her skin like dust, and was sweetly coppery. It was like blood, but it wasn't - the smell was too old for that, dry like accumulated dust and debris over decades in a dark, musty corner, but also a damp sour odour like something spoiled. The closest he could come to describing it was that it was similar to the smell of the rubbish tips outside the tanner's house, the leavings scraped from the skins of animals - flesh and fat, tissue and stringy muscle.

 

She looked nervous, too. Her dark eyes were wider than they should be, almost as if she was afraid - ludicrous. She was a demon slayer. She'd faced more powerful youkai than these bottom-feeders a thousand times, and only ever with a look of sheer boredom. The closer she got, the more suspicious Inu-Yasha became: the dilated pupils of her eyes, the light sheen of sweat on her tea-coloured skin, the messy array of her hair, as if she'd scraped it back into its customary ponytail in extreme hurry. The tying of the various plates of armour over her bodysuit was sloppy, too. Underneath that odd, pungent reek of mouldering flesh, her own scent was sour with fear and upset.

 

“You seem funny, Sango,” Miroku said. He was looking at her oddly too, as if he could see the things askew that Inu-Yasha could with his superior senses. But perhaps he was just better versed in the symbols of shiftiness, being such a shyster himself. “Did something happen?”

 

“You smell like demons,” Inu-Yasha added decisively. That was it. She had a faint smell of necrotic youkai corpses. When he was young, he'd come across the bodies of the small-fry all the time at the edges of villages that had been razed by angry swarms. “Like dead ones.”

 

Sango's hand slipped on the sash of Hiraikotsu. “I was attacked on the edge of the village,” she said, trying to steady herself. Inu-Yasha wasn't stupid; if she wasn't careful, he'd be able to tell from her demeanour that something was up. “Some of those demons don't look quite right, Inu-Yasha. The one that came at me looked as if it had been buried in the dirt some time. Perhaps Kagura reanimated it for something.”

 

“How curious,” Miroku said, still looking at her. She didn't like his expression. He had always been able to read her so well. Even his idiocy with the constant petting and his inability to understand “what women really wanted” had never prevented him from perceiving the incipient qualities of others. She was nervous, on edge, even afraid of discovery, and he seemed to know it. Sango wondered if he would comment; but he didn't. Instead, he turned his scrutiny from her and said, “I didn't know she could do it to demons as well as humans. I suppose we must keep an eye out for it from now.”

 

Shippo climbed off his shoulder. “I'm going go do this checking thing before you start fighting, okay?”

 

Sango flinched. “Where are you going? It's safer to stay here.”

 

The kit pouted. “Inu-Yasha wants me to check on Sesshoumaru. And Kagome said I could have some of her special candy from her bag.”

 

“Surely it can wait.” Miroku's eyes shifted back to Sango again; Inu-Yasha kept his face towards the forest, but she felt sure - swallowing as discreetly as she could - that he was watching her too beneath his lashes, out of the corner of one topaz-coloured eye. Damn him! Damn these men, stupid when it didn't matter, razor sharp when it did! “And I think the demons are coming that way as well. Kaede-sama, the villagers should go south into the fields.”

 

“I will take them away.” The old priestess beckoned to some of the men, who began to herd their wives and neighbours down the path towards the paddies. Those with weapons, spears, swords, or makeshift armaments from farming tools, surrounded the women and children on the inside. “We should be harvesting, so you need to deal with them quickly.”

 

“Maybe Shippo should stay here,” Kagome said worriedly, with a look back towards the temple. “But if the demons are coming that way - what about Sesshoumaru and Rin? They're up there all by themselves.”

 

“Sango can go,” Inu-Yasha said dismissively. “We'll spread out, take 'em as they come.” He shot a glance at Sango through his hair, and was rewarded with the subtle changes in her expression as she turned away. Relief - but what about? Why was she calmer going back the way she came?

 

Something odd about these demons, too, Inu-Yasha felt. There were no Saimyousho, and they always came when Naraku ordered demons against them. It made things harder, so Miroku couldn't just suck them up and be done with it. And whatever Sango had said, the only smell of rot was on her. The demons coming at them were all too living.

 

I think she's done something, Miroku thought as he folded a handful of sutras into his fist in preparation. And I don't think Inu-Yasha is going to like it when he finds out what it is. Am I going to be able to support this action - or must I condemn it? Is this a repeat of the stealing of Tessaiga all over again?

 

A/N: Next chapter - Sesshoumaru's decision, and Sango exposed…