InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Seven Feudal Fairy Tales ❯ Exile ( Chapter 35 )

Disclaimer: These characters belong to Rumiko Takahashi and other associated companies.

 

 

Chapter Thirty-Five: Exile

 

 

With a cold demeanor and without restraint, Sesshoumaru struck out hard at the back of the nude goddess' knees with a silk wrapped foot. She collapsed to her shins under the rough blow before he slammed her body the rest of the way to the ground, using her pinned arm as leverage. The smooth, polished floor fractured in a web of cracks as she landed hard against it and a flash of blue sparks illuminated around the maiden as the barrier kept her from serious harm. The tai youkai swiftly ground his fabric bound knee into her caught forearm at her back, allowing him to free his hand from her wrist. Sure of her immobility, he reached for her unrestrained arm, the cloth protecting his hand from her skin absent at his fingers as he grasped it. He swallowed down at the renewed urge her exposed flesh inspired in him as he brought the newly snared wrist beside the other. The demon shifted slightly to anchor her dangerous hands together under the weight of his knee, minding the potential reach of her fingers so all that their questing would bring them would be nothing but silk.

 

Taking from his waistband the length of twisted fabric he had crafted while the distracted goddess spoke her tale, the youkai lord placed one end of the tether between his teeth. Next he leaned back cautiously, revealing her wrists and quickly wound the other end around them tightly, ever mindful to never let his fingers touch her flesh. The rope cut harshly into her skin as he yanked the ends, igniting more sparks of blue light at the pressure. With a curious juggling between his fangs and hand, the demon knotted her bindings securely. Satisfied with its effectiveness as he strummed the taut fabric with his fingers, he rose off her prone figure.

 

“You will tell me of the chest's location, hime,” Sesshoumaru commanded coldly, grasping her by the only place her shimmering salve did not touch, the tight bun of her hair. Slowly, he lifted her off of the ground, his nails entangled in her locks as he dangled her above the cracked floor. “I have no patience for games.”

 

“Patience?” she questioned haughtily in her sultry voice, the first sound it had made since he had caught her. “You have little notion of such a thing. Here time is my bedfellow and patience is its loving caress.”

 

“Give me the chest. You are caught,” he demanded again, glaring at the back of her head, warily avoiding the distraction of her stripped body.

 

“No, love. You are.”

 

Graceful and nimble, her smooth movements were unhurried to his swift eyes, yet as he moved forward to slam her down to the floor again, he rapidly realized that he was markedly slower than she. Tucking her thighs against her chest, the goddess scooped her fettered hands under her rounded butt and pointed toes. Completing the arc of motion, she brought them above her head, seeking the carved chopstick that bound her hair in place. In a cascade of unfurling locks, she fell from his tight grip, sending a smirking smile over her shoulder at his perplexed expression. She landed low on the cool, lustrous floor and pivoted onto her tethered palms as she brought a hard, sweeping kick against the youkai lord's legs. Unable to do more than watch as his feet gave out beneath him, he stumbled back towards her bed. Then she was upon him, her forceful spring onto his waist sending him into it in a splash of ivory pearls.

 

“I have you,” she purred contentedly as she rubbed against his naked, muscular torso, inviting an involuntary, shuddering breath from him as the glittering ointment of her warm skin found his flesh. “It seems you did not have enough time to protect your entire body from mine. Just the parts that you knew would touch.”

 

“How?” he growled behind grinding teeth, fighting the burning heat of desire her brushing skin cultured deep within him.

 

“Fifteen hundred years,” she answered easily, anticipating his question. “Fifteen hundred years of living in this deep sea. Did you believe that you would be as swift as you are on land here in the water? That in a few hours you would be as agile as me?” She snorted lightly before leaning close to his elfin ear in whisper. “You are not the only one who can feint, love. You are not the only one who knows how to deceive. I have learned from the best.”

 

Then her moist, violet lips dipped and she nibbled lightly on the sensitive skin of his ear. With a mix of an eager groan and a wrathful snarl, the demon growled again behind gritted fangs as her dull teeth teased the delicate cartilage and then the soft flesh of his lobe. Wrenching his hand into a fist out of frustration, his sharp nails pierced his skin, drawing rivulets of crimson where they punctured before grinding into the blue light of the barrier that protected him. Glaring in silence, he wished to crush her elegant neck in his clawed hand. He wished to rip out her delicate throat in a brilliant red spray of blood. He wished to boil away her wanton body in a wave of acidic poison. Yet as she dragged her wet tongue down the grooves of his throat, his wishes, like his strength faded before her skilled ministrations.

 

“Susanou tailored this tale to suit me,” she spoke in a husky voice in between tastes of his porcelain skin. “In the beginning, I was never destined to meet Urashima Taro and he crafted my prison without the fisher boy for a reason. You see, my anger with my husband was never about his roughness or his infidelity. It was being denied the treatment a woman of my status deserved. If I am to be a possession, then I ought to have the attentions that an object like me deserves. After all, does one let an enchanted sword rust, let precious jewelry tarnish or fine silk be soiled?”

 

Sesshoumaru's breath hitched as her long, loose locks of navy hair draped down to tickle his skin as she traced her tongue down the hard line of his collarbone and her painted nails found the fine and few silver hairs of his broad chest.

 

“Spite ruling his hand, here he put me,” she added as she set a searing kiss in the dip at the base of his throat, “It would seem he meant to give me all that I desired; a beautiful palace, bountiful feasts, dutiful servants and wondrous treasures. All of the gifts suited for a queen, for his wife and yet no one to share it with. There are no guests who come to my door. No family to be proud of what I have gained. No husband to share in my wealth. Only a fitting punishment for my ingratitude, as Susanou would say.”

 

Her nails slipped to the demon's sides, feeling the play of the fine, interwoven muscles that lay under her gentle caress. Her lips brushed against the smooth skin of his robust chest, seeking a tight nipple. He growled angrily as he groaned, her tongue washing over the hardened tip she had found. The resolve of his mind and the desire of his body in conflict, the tai youkai banged his head weakly against the soft layer of pearls under him, sending a few clattering to the floor. The discipline of his mind was weakening as the primal urges of his body slowly grew.

 

“Left in utter solitude,” she continued, her skillful fingers tracing their way down his long trunk with her tongue soon to follow as her mouth found the first of the rippled muscles of his taut stomach. “I waited futilely for someone to relieve me of my loneliness. There is no torture such as being deprived of companionship in the absolute darkness of the vast ocean. So imagine my fortune when one day, a fisher boy appeared at my steps. I could see his true form through the thin veil of magic, the pitiable, human monk that he was. Lost and confused, he told me of his plight. He told me of his entrapment within the scroll and of him and his comrade's continuing trek to escape it. That now he was meant to play the part of Urashima Taro. And that he needed the magical chest from me to finish his role so that he could return to his unfortunate friend who was waiting alone for him at the surface.

 

However, benevolence was not with me, but desperation instead. How could I surrender my chance to connect with another after hundreds of years of empty solitude? The chest would not be given to this pathetic man so easily for I needed him and I was willing to give him anything that he desired to keep him. And keep him I did.”

 

Oto-hime leaned away from the demon, resting to one side with her soft breasts still grazing the flesh of his torso. The nimble fingers of her free hand danced across his skin, leisurely meandering to the deep groove of his waist. She bit her lip in eagerness as she dangerously traced the silken waistband of his fundoshi with her nail.

 

“After three days he was forced by the nature of the scroll to leave,” she said as her lips found the youkai lord's stomach again, leaving open mouthed kisses as she trailed down the thin, groomed hair that filed down its center. “Strangely, I somehow knew he would not be the last and that is when I began my work to perfect my talents in seduction. It is amazing what secrets the ocean's depths hold and how fortunate time can be when one needs to tease them out. Aphrodisiacs abound if you know where to look and as the daughter of sake brewers, such potions are easily concocted. ” Her tender kisses stopped at the cool, silk fabric and she licked her lips as she prepared to breach the cloth border. “Perhaps you will find solace in that you are only one of many who have fallen to me. My fate has never been mine to control, but I will settle on commanding another's, if only for so brief a moment as three days.”

 

She slipped her fingers along the brim of his undergarment when a warm arm reached for her, snaking around her waist. The demon pulled her up the length of his body, embracing her fully against him. She shuddered in pleasure at the strength of his hold, feeling the unbridled desire that coursed through his muscles. Pressed hard against his chest, her violet eyes were soon staring into the cold fury of his amber orbs.

 

“Then you are no better than the one who imprisoned you here,” Sesshoumaru managed through ragged breaths as the lingering remnants of his resolve finally slid from his grasp. Then his eyes dulled as they lost their rage and he closed them to lean forward, seeking to kiss her soft lips. Unexpectedly, it was the emptiness of air that greeted him where the alluring seductress' mouth had once been. Blinking in puzzlement, he looked up to find her slipping out of his firm grip as she sat back, straddled around his stomach.

 

“No better than the one who imprisoned me here?” she repeated softly, her eyes growing glossy and reddening from tears that could never be seen in a world of water. “Somehow, in all this time, I have fallen further than I thought.”

 

Gracefully, Oto-hime leaned forward, taking an elegant hand to gently brush away the short, silver bangs that framed the youkai lord's face. “Your eyes were so much like my own. Filled with bitter anger and comfortable resentment as you lost your control to another, and yet somehow it seems that this was not the first time you have held such a look. You could only be another lonely son of the Clan of Shiro.”

 

“My fate within my clan is my own,” he spoke quietly, his strength growing slightly in her doubt. “I do not lay it on others.”

 

“No, you do not,” she smiled weakly, placing a nail to his lip, “But your isolation is by your own choice and one you could just as easily unmake.”

 

“Hn,” he snorted gently at the truth of her words, “Perhaps you are right, but in this moment it is you who has the choice, not I. Will you remain like the one which you hate for the momentary reprieve of loneliness?”

 

Sighing heavily, she laid her head against his chest, indulging her ears in the soothing beat of his heart, in the sound of another. She lingered there for a long, quiet moment, soaking up his feeling against her body before slipping away from him and off her jeweled bed.

 

Slowly he eased up to sit, his wary gaze following her and her soft, padding steps to a low dresser with a singular bottle upon its surface. Twisting her wrists, she expertly slipped out of the tight bindings he had tied, raising his brow with growing respect for her skills. She then slid open a black, lacquered drawer, her fingers finding a dark, fuchsia robe within it and she wrapped her nude body in the opaque garment. When she was finished, the goddess then took the lonely vial from atop of the dresser. The shimmering liquid within the clear, crystal bottle glowed pink in her hand and she returned to the demon, her sleeves fluttering in the currents as she strolled.

 

“Drink this, love,” she spoke sweetly, offering him the potion, “It will quell your nerves and relieve you of your unbidden desires.” He took it cautiously, eyeing her expression for the subtle signs of deceit, but sincerity was what he found and the slight knit of sorrow in her elegant brow. As he swallowed the concoction down, she whispered incantations under her breath. Then in her open hands, a small box with the sheen of mother-of-pearl faded into existence.

 

“The chest?” he asked finally, wiping away at any of the potion that had leaked from his lips with a gentle swipe of his fingers.

 

“Yes,” she answered, her violet sight finding his. “It is no ordinary chest and it is not necessarily your years that lay within it.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“You are fortunate compared to your predecessor who could not dissuade me from my intent with his brash foolishness. Only half the time he endured has come to be and simply a third of a day will have passed here once you return to the surface.”

 

“And for the miko who has awaited my return above?”

 

“Thirty-five years will have been taken from her.”

 

“Hn,” he murmured, a scowl of concern gracing his features.

 

“But, with your mercy, it can be undone. Open the chest when you return and the years she has lost will be stolen from you instead and given to her. However, if you leave the chest for her to unfasten, all that has passed will remain the same.”

 

With a nod, he slid off of the bed and took the box from the goddess' hands. Bowing solemnly in deference, he then pivoted away towards the waiting doorway beyond the flowing silks.

 

“Which will you choose, love?”

 

He paused in his step, coolly spying at her with his indifferent, golden stare.

 

“I vowed to return to her before she perished. I owe her nothing else.”

 

“Then you do not love her?”

 

“No,” he replied coldly. “She is only a human to me.”

 

Then he disappeared behind the billowing fabric, leaving the maiden again to her solitude beneath the waves.