InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Sesshoumaru's Baby ❯ Chapter Nine: Due Payment ( Chapter 9 )

Sesshoumaru's Baby

 

Nine: Due Payment

 

“I think you had better tell me the truth, Sango.” The demon slayer was sitting on an old tree stump at the edge of the forest; a clay jar of goose grease sat on her lap, and she applied it slowly to the surface and the edges of Hiraikotsu, her eyes on the monk. For his part, Miroku was squatting at the treeline, stirring the small, smouldering hole in the ground with the end of a twig snapped off a nearby pine. This close, it was obvious where the smell had stemmed from; in the remains of the small fire were the curling edges of dried leaves and the striped strips of Kagome's note-paper, soiled by rubbed out pencil lines and crumpled calculations. There was also a lump of meat, burnt and blistered on the outside, brittle as a seashell.

 

“I did what I thought was right.” Sango was surprised at how hollow her voice was; she laid a hand against her chest to feel where the sound had come from, and her heart pulsed unpleasantly beneath her palm. The familiar sick feeling of wrongdoing was welling up inside her like tears. But was she wrong? Had she done anything so terrible? She had been relieved when Miroku told her there had been no human fatalities. As she had theorized, the demons would only be after the people who were associated with the burning heart: some of Inu-Yasha's hair, the scent of Kagome's paper, a corner of one of the monk's sutras, all carefully concealed in the heart of the tinder.

 

“Perhaps I should start again,” she said lamely, and Miroku nodded. “I did what I thought Kagome would want me to do. I thought I was doing what was needed to solve everybody's problems - because nobody else would.”

 

“I don't want to criticise you, Sango.” Miroku put the twig down, and began to scoop earth onto the embers of the fire with his hands. “You know I love you - I don't want to act in a way that doesn't express the way I feel about you. I know how sensitive you are to the things I do and say. But I don't think you thought this through very well. You allowed your prejudices to colour your judgement.”

 

Sango frowned. “I don't understand you, monk. What do you mean, my prejudices?”

 

Miroku shrugged, smoothing the mound of soil. “You're a demon slayer,” he said, by way of explanation. “You grew up to kill demons when they impinged on human lives. You kill them for destroying villages, kidnapping children, spoiling crops and attacking samurai. To you, youkai are like bandits - when they get in the way, you kill them. When they cause trouble, you remove the source of the trouble. And that's what you did here: a demon caused problems, and you removed it.”

 

There was an uncomfortable silence. Sango stared down at the Hiraikotsu, and said, “You mean Sesshoumaru?”

 

“I mean Sesshoumaru, yes.”

 

“You're saying I acted to get rid of him because I'm prejudiced towards demons?”

 

“It looks that way to me.”

 

Sango tipped the Hiraikotsu off her lap with a bang. “That wasn't why I did it at all! Don't you understand? This was the last thing Kagome needed. Stupid Inu-Yasha, taking off with somebody else who tried to kill her in the past, and not giving a damn who got hurt! All he thought about was what he wanted! What choice did we have, Miroku? He had to go, one way or another. Otherwise Inu-Yasha would have refused to let him leave or get rid of the baby out of some odd sense of duty to them, whatever that cost Kagome.” She turned her face away, towards the village; there was an ache in her breast she didn't want to register. “She's like a sister to me, Miroku; it hurts me to see her in pain.”

 

“You think I don't feel the same? My protective instincts towards Kagome are as strong as yours, or Inu-Yasha's. She isn't as strong as you are, or as steeled to hardship. Unlike the rest of us, she still has her family; she has a home to return to - mine is filled with dark memories, yours was destroyed by Naraku, Shippo's by the Thunder Brothers, and Inu-Yasha has never had one; or at least, not one he can remember. How many loved ones has she lost? How many family members have died unnatural early deaths, because of evils she couldn't face? How many things have been denied her, in the course of her life?”

 

“I know what you're saying, monk.”

 

“Kagome can't make a decision like you or I,” Miroku said quietly. “She has never been pressed into the situation where she might be forced to decide whether somebody else lives or dies. Has she ever had to say, leave the wounded one behind for the demons, so everyone else can escape? Has she ever asked herself, can I give my enemy the one weapon he fears on the off-chance it might save my loved one's life?”

 

Sango stood up sharply. “Monk, it wasn't an off-chance, it was - ”

 

“You really thought Naraku would return Kohaku to you, after he got what he wanted?” The monk gave her a shrewd look from beneath his lashes. “Be honest for us both, Sango; you really believed your mortal enemy would surrender his leverage over you, just for the sword he couldn't use? Why wouldn't he just take it and kill him anyway, to prove to you he could never be trusted to keep his word? Naraku's promises aren't worth shit, Sango. You know that.”

 

Tears glistened along the rims of her eyes. “I know.”

 

“Don't think for a minute I don't understand what you did,” Miroku said, brushing dirt off his fingers. “But this isn't as much about Kagome as you've made it; nor does the life or death decision of the baby rest solely in Sesshoumaru's hands. You've given him responsibility for its life, when it took two to make that spark of existence - why can't Inu-Yasha say whether his child lives or dies? Is it just because Sesshoumaru will be carrying the baby that you made it his choice?”

 

He raised a finger to stop her speaking. “You did, Sango; you made the assumption of every woman in this situation. You gave Sesshoumaru the choice because he's the `mother', and because the mother is always the woman - and you are a woman, and you sympathise. Inu-Yasha won't have to carry the baby: he won't suffer the tiredness, or the pain of birth. So automatically he's the father, and you made it his fault that all this happened. The father's the bad guy - so he doesn't get a say.”

 

“Look around you, Miroku,” Sango said bitterly. “What choices do women have in our world? Noble women stay at home under the rule of their fathers, then get married to be under the thumb of a husband; they stay home, look pretty, have babies, and turn a blind eye over the years as he screws younger women because their wives are ageing. A peasant woman gets married, works her fingers to the bone, and has a child every year. She risks her life in childbed so her husband will have another son to till his fields and spread his work-load, and her girls are dumped at the edge of the wood to die. Even I was expected one day to marry, and have babies, and be a wife; no longer a slayer, just a wife.” She wiped her face with the back of a grubby hand. “Not every woman wants to be a mother - but they never have the choice.”

 

“I understand, Sango. That is why you want Sesshoumaru to have a choice about the baby, because it will weigh heavier on his shoulders than anybody else's.”

 

“That's right.”

 

Miroku met her hot eyes with his even stare: he looked tired, as if everything was rubbing the flesh from his bones. “So a woman should be allowed to refuse to have a baby, even if her husband is desperate for a child?”

 

“If he wants one so much, he should go find somebody who will.”

 

“But what if he loves her? What if he loves only her, and he wants it to be their child - not just his, but hers too?”

 

“Then he's out of luck.”

 

“I think you must have some serious issues about parenthood, Sango.” She flinched. “When you're ready, I'd like to hear about it.”

 

“Sango?”

 

The demon slayer jumped. Kagome appeared from between the houses, and slid down the grassy slope to the tree stump. “I've been looking for you. You didn't seem okay earlier.”

 

“She's not,” said Miroku. “I don't think anybody is at this stage. Are you going to explain, Sango, or shall I?”

 

“Do what you like.” The slayer shouldered Hiraikotsu and turned back towards the village. “I'm going back to Kaede's house. I don't want to try and justify myself anymore.”

 

Kagome frowned. “Justify yourself? For what?”

 

“Sango caused the demons to attack the village,” Miroku said quietly.

 

Kagome's frown deepened. “I'm sure it was an accident.”

 

Miroku uncovered the fire-pit by way of an answer. “Youkai are extraordinarily touchy creatures,” he mused, staring down at the swell of burnt muscle, now covered with dirt and ash. “They object most to the killing of their own, and revenge themselves upon the perpetrators, even if they didn't know the dead. That's why they attacked Sango's village, you know, because they killed demons and kept bits of their bodies in the houses and the forges. In larger towns, and in cities like the capital, there's a black-market trade in the parts of lesser youkai for medicine - to protect homes in charms, to heal plagues and sicknesses, or childhood ailments, or to heal the wounds of demon attacks. These demons are all killed by trappers hired by samurai, often near villages like this one.”

 

“What's your point?”

 

“This is a demon's heart. Sango burned it deliberately to attract the demons. They attacked us, thinking we were trappers.”

 

Kagome felt her stomach squeeze uncomfortably. “I don't understand. Why would she do that?”

 

He shrugged. “To distract us, of course; from what was going on elsewhere in the village.”

 

A wordless cry of rage and fear split the uneasy silence that had settled over the village in the aftermath of the demons' attack. Kagome started like a deer at the crack of a twig; Miroku, expecting it, merely raised his head in the direction of the shrine and prepared himself for the worst news. Unsure of what had transpired, he chose to assume Sango had bloodied her hands over a demon who was more valuable than she had realised, and no longer knew if he could protect her from the consequences of her actions.

 

And Inu-Yasha, in possession of the knowledge Miroku didn't have, found speech had deserted him in the wake of a nameless terror that he didn't know his brother, his brief lover, as well as he'd assumed he did.

 

A/N: Chapter ten coming soon…Sango and Inu-Yasha face-off, the Inu-Tachi regroup to decide whether to pursue or come apart at the seams as the weaknesses of their friendships are exposed.