InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Seven Feudal Fairy Tales ❯ Momotaro ( Chapter 42 )

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

 

 

Chapter Forty-Two: Momotaro

 

 

“A song?” Kagome repeated in question, straining her dull ears as she listened for the elusive tune. However even while she held her breath, the alluded music was too faint for her to hear behind the thick walls of pulp and pit. With a sigh, she gave up and pouted grumpily in her disappointment. “What can you hear?”

 

“It is a woman's voice,” the tai youkai replied after a moment with a furrowed brow, his usually acute hearing also hindered by the insulating fruit.

 

“It must be the old woman. Can you hear the lyrics?”

 

“Distant water is bitter,” he answered flatly as the words slowly revealed themselves to his ears, their sweet melody lost in the monotonous baritone of his voice. “The near water is sweet. Pass by the distant water. And come into the sweet.”

 

Her stomach rising to meet her throat, the school girl felt the comfort of the demon drop away from her in the pitch black before it returned abruptly and slammed her weightless figure into the hard spikes and leather of his armor. She groaned achingly as her probing fingers reached for the tender spots on her chest, the thin silk of the undercoat having protected her little from the pointed curves of metal.

 

“Are you injured, miko?” Sesshoumaru asked, his clawed hand rising above to brace against the low ceiling as gentler tremors rolled through the peach.

 

“I think… I'm okay,” Kagome answered weakly as she coughed back her breath stolen by the blow. Then the lasting daze still clouding her mind quickly dissipated as the violent lurch returned. Frantically, she felt for the edges of the demon's armor, gripping it roughly while she pressed her body against him. Prepared now for the churn, the next swell of motion passed benignly unlike the last, rocking the fruit back and forth in its wake. “What's going on?”

 

“The woman's song is attracting the peach to her,” he explained coolly, easily steadying himself against the constant sway with his extended arm. “We are no longer flowing with the current.”

 

“How long will--”

 

“She has caught us,” he interrupted, incidentally answering the miko's question before she could finish asking it. Following his words, the pitching of the fruit upon the water ceased and a strange stillness enveloped their dark world. Kagome shifted restlessly against the demon, the soft rhythms of her heavy breaths and rapid pulse drowned out by the stark calm around them.

 

Then with a startled squeak and a jarring blow, the school girl fell back hard, her spine meeting the wooden ceiling now turned floor. Lacking options, Sesshoumaru followed her as their vessel turned over, collapsing onto his forearm as he hovered over her. Loosened from their place by the jolt, long, delicate strands of his hair cascaded over the prone miko, bathing her skin with their tickling lengths. Mingling with the pendulous locks, the contrasting sensations of rough armor and smooth silk brushed through her flimsy garment and against her flesh as the careful demon lightly pressed against her.

 

A hot blush warmed Kagome's cheeks as in turn the tai youkai's steady breaths warmed the crown of her head, reminding her without fail of his strangely intimate presence. Their unavoidable closeness within the pit had been easy to ignore when she sat astride him. Now though, she lay pinned beneath his weight and every grazing touch reminded her of their suggestive positions. It wasn't just that. Somewhere beneath the thin surface of embarrassment hid another emotion that disturbed her further, drying her throat and glossing her eyes with its empty feeling. The foreign ache of solitude and the sinking dread she harbored in her heart for when the comfort of the demon would leave her side.

 

“How much longer do you think we'll be in here?” she asked quietly, the unusual hesitation in her voice quirking the youkai lord's brow.

 

“If one can expect this tale to follow its origin, then we will not be able to free ourselves until the elderly husband chooses to eat the fruit.”

 

“I suppose you're right,” she agreed timidly, a growing unease seeping into her tone as contemplations on loneliness absently drifted her thoughts back to the puzzling beach and its secrets.

 

“We are being carried to her house,” the demon elaborated on the rhythmic sway of the gently swinging peach, guessing at the nature of her concern. “We will escape soon enough.” Despite feeling her fragile figure fixed beneath his body, the distance in her silence remained after he finished, perplexing him further. “What is troubling you, miko?”

 

“It doesn't matter.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because, even though you're asking what's troubling me, I know you're not willing to answer any of the questions that are troubling me.”

 

“Then ask one that I will be willing to answer.”

 

“Ugh,” she groaned in frustration, her familiar fury igniting at the nonchalance of his remark. “You are so aggravating, did you know that?”

 

“Yes, I did,” Sesshoumaru replied thoughtfully. “Are you contented now or do you have any other queries that concern you?”

 

“No, I have more,” she quickly spoke up with a myriad of questions pressing behind her lips, all demanding to be asked and none she knew he would answer. What happened on the beach? What was that camp and why did it feel both foreign and oddly familiar? Why were his clothes in boxes and why were hers lost? Did he meet the Oto-hime and did she give him the box of time? And finally, how did a warrior like him get so grievously injured in a world where neither of them could die? Mysterious and tempting, they all floated through the forefront of her mind. Yet despite their appeal, according to the tai youkai's earlier and absolute stance, they were all completely and disappointingly unanswerable.

 

“Ask,” he ordered brusquely when her indecision persisted.

 

“I know you won't tell me about what happened on the beach, but can you at least tell me why you won't tell me? I need a reason. Any reason.”

 

“Hn,” he snorted softly at her request, pausing for a long moment as he mulled over his reply. “There are times when the past is best left to be forgotten by more than those who cannot remember it.”

 

“But--”

 

“That is all I will say on that subject.”

 

“Then can I ask one more question?”

 

“If you wish.”

 

“Why am I afraid of being alone?”

 

“It will pass.”

 

“How do you know?”

 

“It is simple. How can you be alone if you are here with this Sesshoumaru?” Unusually wordless, Kagome opened her mouth to speak, but her voice failed her as she was snared by the baffling significance of his words. That is until she realized how inadequately it had answered her question.

 

“You are not a lord of youkai, but of vague and unfulfilling answers.”

 

“An uncommon compliment, but I will accept it.”

 

With a sudden and harsh jolt, the easy rocking of their unseen world ended with a nausea inducing wobble before it finally settled. Gulping down her queasiness, the school girl shifted slightly as she sought a comfortable spot to waylay her stomach in the cramped space. It was the softness of her cheek that found it as she stirred; the trembling arm of the youkai lord.

 

“Are you all right?” Kagome asked worriedly into the darkness. “You're shaking.”

 

“I do not feel well.”

 

“Wha-what? Like throw up not well? Are you going to throw up on me?”

 

“No,” he corrected in mild disgust at the humiliating content of her presumption. “I am merely tired.”

 

“Oh,” she realized with an audible sigh of relief. “Is it still from what happened earlier? From your wounds on the beach? You weren't completely healed?”

 

“What ails me is deeper than superficial injuries of the flesh,” he remarked, reminded of the healing duties of priestesses by her rapt interest, “So do not concern yourself. Simple rest is the best and only remedy.”

 

“Then you should rest.”

 

“That is easier said than done.”

 

“You can if you want,” she offered nervously, the silk of her coat rustling while she slid as far as she could to the side of the narrow pit. “Now there's a little room. That is if you want it.”

 

“There is less than you believe. I will be atop you regardless of how much you sidle.”

 

“It's fine,” the school girl admitted timidly, convincing herself while she attempted to convince him, “As long as your armor and swords don't hurt me. It's fine.”

 

A long quiet passed uneventfully while the demon continued to hold himself above her, propped in place by his straining arm. She had begun to believe that he had silently refused her offer, the indignity of using her like a pillow being figuratively beneath him. Then the sound of metal softly scraping against the smooth floor met her ears as he lowered himself beside her. Falling to his left side, the unforgiving, jutting curve of his shoulder armor pushed him forward while he maneuvered for the least imposing position. Finally in blending swirls of silk, hair and fur, he blanketed her body as he had settled.

 

“Miko,” he whispered into her ear, his head nestled on the floor and neatly in the gap above her shoulder.

 

“Ye-Yeah?”

 

“It would be preferable if you would relax. Your excited heartbeat is proving difficult to sleep through.”

 

“Oh, sorry… Uh, I'll try.”

 

“Good.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Heavy, muffled voices found their way into the school girl's shadowy dreams of empty ocean waves, stirring her from her fitful slumber. Her rest had been a sleep of boredom, because as she swiftly discovered, there was little else to do in a peach pit while draped with an unconscious demon lord. The expected perennial darkness greeted her as she opened her eyes, but it was the unexpected sight amid the black that elicited the smile that graced her lips. Brilliant even though it was faint, a line of light followed the seam of the pit she had felt earlier.

 

“Sesshoumaru-sama,” Kagome called out to the demon when the offer of escape cemented itself in her mind. His shallow breaths of sleep persisted through her attempts to wake him, furrowing her brow. “He taught me a lesson on how to be stronger for a reason,” she reminded herself, bolstering her confidence. “Imagine my success, right?”

 

Slipping carefully out from beneath the tai youkai and the clawed hand that had come to rest securely at her waist, the school girl freed her legs from under his weight. Blushing slightly, her hands felt for the tails of the coat that clothed her nudity, gathering them protectively around her nether regions as she prepared to kick the lid of their prison.

 

“I imagine that the top will go flying and hit that old lady in the face for jostling us around so much,” Kagome spoke her annoyance in a hushed voice while she bent her legs above her stomach. Then with a hard blow, the bottoms of her bare feet struck the ceiling with a loud crack. No splashes of dazzling sparks radiated from her kick and to her relative disappointment it did not soar up in the air to hit the unsuspecting elderly woman she had hoped was nearby. Instead it brightened the glowing fissure of the seam, promising her with a little more effort a refuge from the darkness. After several more well placed strikes, the lid of the pit slid away, falling unmomentously onto the table outside.

 

“I did it,” she gasped breathlessly, a grin spreading across her cheeks. “I did it!” Her glee was brief as a shadow fell over her and the enormous, silhouetted head of a wrinkled old man appeared at her cheers.

 

“There's a little boy inside of this peach, woman,” the man called out, his voice loud and raspy with age. “Where did you get it again?”

 

“It was in the river, dear,” a rough and easygoing feminine voice answered from afar.

 

“I suppose that makes some sense,” he remarked thoughtfully, his brow creasing as he sorted through the mystery out loud. “If a peach is floating by in the river as opposed to being in a tree, it might have to have something confounding like a little boy inside of it.”

 

“If you say so, dear.”

 

“Well, little man,” the old husband asked of the tiny child staring up at him with his mouth agape. “Do you have a name or is it just peach boy?”

 

“Uh,” Kagome managed inelegantly in her lingering shock.

 

“I think I like Momotaro better than Uh.”

 

“It is not much more imaginative, dear,” the old woman remarked.

 

“No one was asking you. I'm having a moment with the son you finally bore me and you're interrupting us.”

 

“My mistake, dear,” the woman replied as she came into view behind her husband. Dark and warm, her gaze fell to the child. “Are you hungry, young man? We have some rice for your supper if you are.”

 

“Go away, you old bat!”

 

“I'm sorry,” she apologized sweetly, gently kissing the irritated man atop his bald head before disappearing from the school girl's sight. “Please forgive me and continue with your deep and meaningful conversation with the boy.”

 

“Your dowry was far too small to compensate for all of your meddling,” he grumbled under his breath. Then his scowl lightened into pride as he looked down again on the child. “Now, what's your name, my son?”

 

“My name…” Kagome answered quietly. “My name is Momotaro.”

 

 

A/N: A fanclub has arisen for this fanfiction over on deviantART. For those of you who wish to join it and want to participate in an upcoming fanart contest, you are welcome. The link is this: http://7feudalfairytales.deviantart.com/