InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Sesshoumaru's Baby ❯ Chapter Ten: Stay or Go ( Chapter 10 )

A/N: I've always liked Kagome, but wished she'd just stop sitting demurely around for Inu-Yasha when he bunks off to tryst with Kikyo (who I detest) - instead, I've always wanted her to get after him and punch him on the jaw, because he's obviously so emotionally stunted that he doesn't have any empathy with what it might be doing to her: for him to profess love to both, and be unable to decide. A difficult situation for him to be in, but his actions are usually inexcusable. So Kagome will be slightly OOC for this story - namely, she'll actually express herself; Sesshoumaru will be off with his own, inscrutable motives; Inu-Yasha will meekly agree when the heat's on and argue vociferously when it isn't over absolutely nothing; Sango will continue to show the darker side of her determination; Miroku will play pacifier - for now.

 

This chapter will be about Inu-Yasha's plans after Sesshoumaru's departure - leaving everybody behind, to decide to do things on their own…

 

Sesshoumaru's Baby

 

Ten: Stay or Go

 

The sunlight fading through the leaves had cast shadows all around them, in the hollows of their limbs and through the tangled snarl of blankets covering their bodies, but a stray stripe of light had slanted directly onto the back of Sesshoumaru's neck: a pale yellow bar over the translucent skin, making the shorter hairs at the base of his skull glow. Idly, Inu-Yasha rested his fingertips in that mark of sunset, not sure or caring if the heat against his palm was from his brother's skin or the sun, and laid his head against Sesshoumaru's shoulder. There was a mark there he hadn't seen before - like a scar. But that was ludicrous. Youkai didn't scar. But there it was, a pink puckering of flesh with jagged edges, almost like the shape of ragged fingernails.

 

And when he whispered, “I love you,” into the curve of his brother's spine, lips moist against the bumps of vertebrae, he didn't get a response - as always. Or maybe he was sleeping this time. He wasn't sure he wanted to ask.

 

The scar was gone next time. Inu-Yasha didn't know if he'd imagined it after all.

 

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Kaede had stayed in the room only long enough to set a pot of rice boiling, and instruct Shippo to stir the stew she'd set cooking; after that was done, she left the poisonous atmosphere to attend to the needs of the village, with the wisdom of adulthood and the knowledge that the conflict arising was none of her business.

 

Inside, Inu-Yasha sat by the door. Kagome sat in the corner, chivvying Shippo to the cooking occasionally with listless gestures. Miroku, out of loyalty to the woman he had declared his proposal to those months ago, sat on Sango's side of the fire; she had moved away from him, isolating herself, fingers trembling as they passed over Kirara's back.

 

Sesshoumaru's companions were absent - on learning Sesshoumaru had up and left while he slept, Jaken had taken the dragon on an attempt to locate his liege, and Rin had taken up the offer of a village mother to stay and play with her children. The calmest of any of them, she took Sesshoumaru's absence in her stride. Then again, she didn't know why he had left, and didn't seem to care. Her little world revolved around the unexplained absences of her guardian: this was ordinary.

 

Inu-Yasha sat in his customary cross-legged posture; the Tessaiga lay to one side, forgotten, and he rested his hands, fisted tightly, on his knees. He kept his eyes down, on the ground in front of his crossed ankles, because he didn't want to look at anybody else. His throat was stoppered up like a bottleneck jammed by a stone - an unwelcome blockage, but one he couldn't take out. It might even be safer to say nothing.

 

The betrayal, he felt, was not merely Sango's. Sesshoumaru had collaborated with her scheme, as she had admitted telling him her intentions. He could have ignored her and stayed, yet he took it as an opportunity to leave. His will be done - bugger Inu-Yasha's opinions on the matter.

 

“I don't get it, Sango,” Kagome said softly.

 

The slayer flinched. “You don't get what, Kagome?” she said. Her voice was brittle as autumn leaves. “I explained.”

 

The young priestess picked at the folds of her skirt, settling them in a green fan-shape across her knees. “I don't get why you put so many people at risk. Or why you thought Sesshoumaru should just leave us. It isn't just his decision.”

 

Sango gave her an angry look. “So I've been told. Miroku has already gone on about that. But I don't believe that's right.”

 

“It doesn't matter what you believe,” Inu-Yasha barked sharply. She jumped guiltily, and looked away. “This isn't about you - you can just go in and selfishly think what you want is what should happen. It may be Sesshoumaru's decision, but it's mine too: not yours, not Miroku's…” He hesitated, throat convulsing. “And not Kagome's either, not really. This is about me and my brother, and our child.”

 

Kagome's fingers clenched. “We've discussed this, Inu-Yasha.”

 

“Yeah, I know you have. That was about us. This is about him and me.”

 

“Which also concerns me, Inu-Yasha.”

 

“And we've fucking talked about it, woman. But you're only a kid, and this baby isn't your responsibility. I don't have to do what you want regarding my own child - not unless it's yours.” Kagome blushed furiously, and ducked her head. “And it isn't.”

 

Miroku cut in smoothly with a wave of his hand, rosary beads clinking. “Perhaps we can put this element of the discussion aside for now. At the moment, the situation stands thus - Sesshoumaru has left us, taking the baby with him.”

 

He leaned back to check Kaede wasn't anywhere in earshot, then said, “We're not even completely sure there is a baby. We're just assuming so. Of all of us, Sesshoumaru was the most convinced the baby wasn't really there, so the first thing he will do is check the veracity of Kaede-sama's story before he does anything else. Shippo, the stew is burning.”

 

The fox kit yelped and scrambled off Kagome's pack to deal with the pot. “What do we want to do now?” Miroku continued, looking at Inu-Yasha. “Do you want to go after him and see if you can catch up, persuade him not to do anything foolish?”

 

“Of course I am,” Inu-Yasha said angrily. “And I'm going alone.”

 

“Inu-Yasha…” Kagome started. Miroku cut her off.

 

“I think it's best if Inu-Yasha goes alone, actually. I think we need to talk - you and me…” He paused. “Sango and I, too…we have issues to thrash out. Inu-Yasha can concentrate on the problem at hand, and we can examine our own problems here while we wait for Inu-Yasha to come back.”

 

Kagome raised an eyebrow. “Problems?”

 

Miroku gestured to Inu-Yasha. “You go. The sooner you leave, the sooner you'll be able to catch up with him. You know how fast he is.”

 

When the door fluttered close, the monk turned back to Kagome. “We're not really a close-knit group, you know. We barely know each other. What unites us is a common desire to collect the Shikon Jewel and destroy Naraku, for our own personal reasons; we may like each other, but the bonds of friendship are actually pretty strained here.”

 

He nodded at Sango, then pointed at himself. “Do you know Sango's last name, or my mother's name? Do you know where I was born, what temple I served in, and who educated me? Does anybody here even know the breadth of my classical education?” Kagome shook her head solemnly. “No, I didn't think so.”

 

“Monk, why is that important?”

 

He turned to Sango. “Why isn't it? Friends are supposed to know each other's darkest secrets, as well as the common knowledge things that anybody could tell you.” Miroku dusted off the soles of his sandals, and looked sharply at each of the girls in turn. “I think this situation has turned up a lot of things I didn't know about the both of you. Some of them I'm happy to continue, and others I think I'll find difficult to live with.”

 

“I can understand that about Sango,” Shippo piped up, waving his candy in the air. “But what did Kagome do that was so bad?”

 

In turn, the young priestess raised an eyebrow at him.

 

“I'll tell you. But first, I think we should eat. Long day tomorrow, and we'll have to keep our wits about us now Inu-Yasha's left us.”

 

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He would have to make this difficult, Inu-Yasha thought, squatting on the forest floor a few yards away from the village temple. Sesshoumaru's scent ended abruptly right where he stood, presumably straight up through the gaping canopy into the sky. He couldn't fly, so he couldn't follow that way. And he didn't have a full youkai's ability to trail someone by their jaki, either, so even if he could do the levitating thing, it wouldn't have been any use. He stared blindly up at the pale puffs of cloud slurred across the swathe of endless, eye-aching blue, and felt a well of anger spill over in him.

 

He wanted to blame Sango for everything, but he suspected Sesshoumaru had leapt at the chance to leave while nobody was around to stop him. Certainly his own companions - travel-sized for convenience - wouldn't have done so; they were used to him upping and leaving periodically, not explaining when he was going, or why, or when he might return. He'd already questioned Rin when he found her, feeding a handful of scrawny chickens scratching away in the dirt. The little girl didn't have anything useful to add, sat in the middle of a pile of fluffy bodies, only that her precious Sesshoumaru-sama would “come back in a few days.” She raised one fist of chubby fingers at him to show what she meant by a few days.

 

“What if he doesn't?” Inu-Yasha had said irritably. He'd half-hoped she'd do a Shippo and scream, but she merely shrugged in that infuriating presence of calm and suggested he'd be a few more days. He always came back in the end, at the termination of his strange business.

 

By the time he comes back to us, he'll have killed the baby. I can't let him do that. I can't give him the opportunity of my absence to do it.

 

Time for some serious thinking. Sesshoumaru would have probably gone into the West out of Musashi, curving round at the coastline in the general direction of the ancestral home (Inu-Yasha had never been there, or couldn't remember if he had, but Myoga had told him where it could be found.) There might be healers there that could tell him about the baby, and get rid of it. So Inu-Yasha decided to go that way in the hopes someone would have spotted him further down the line that he could bully into telling him about.

 

Emerging from the temple, Sango paused in the shadows to watch him as he darted away, fingers rested thoughtfully on the Hiraikotsu.

 

A/N: Next time - where is Sesshoumaru going?