InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Stealing Heaven ❯ Familiarity Breeds Contempt ( Chapter 15 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
Chapter Fifteen
Familiarity Breeds Contempt
Sango dropped the slide of stills she'd been pouring over and turned her head with little jerking motions to look at Kagome over her shoulder. “Are you friggin' kidding me?”
After a day or two of fighting with herself over the matter, Kagome had decided that she simply couldn't sweep aside the discrepancies. It was too confusing to be involved in this mess- this mess that should have nothing to do with her, and yet she currently appeared to be smack-dab in the center of- and begin discovering now that things might be even more warped than they'd already seemed.
But she couldn't go into this alone, either. She, still, had no clue what she was actually doing when it came to any sort of spiritual mumbo-jumbo, so the idea of having someone- even if that person was as clueless as herself about these things- watching her back, so to speak, was incredibly appealing.
Shrugging a bit, Kagome gave a thoughtful scowl. “Well . . . no. I think I may actually need to uh . . . 'talk' to her. What I know and what I've learned aren't adding up to the same thing when they should and I need to find out why,” she explained, tightly folding her arms around herself to keep from fidgeting in her agitation.
With a long, heavy sigh, Sango turned more fully toward her friend, resting her forearm over the back of her folding chair. “You said it yourself: Lyka is a deceitful bitch. How can you be sure that, even if you get her to 'talk' to you, she'll tell you what really happened?”
“Okay, you make a very good point,” Kagome granted through lightly clenched teeth, “but . . . what if I'm wrong about that? What if Lyka's a victim just . . . soured by time and a horrible death, or something?”
Sango quirked a brow. “And this would change the fact that she's now a deceitful bitch in what way, exactly?”
“I guess it wouldn't, but I don't see what else to do.”
“Why not just wait, then?” Sango asked reasonably.
Kagome wanted to be mad that this was even a thought in her friend's mind, but . . . she couldn't. Sango didn't understand what having another person in your head was like. She wasn't sure anyone that wasn't considered to be insane would know how it felt. This thought stuck in a corner of her mind- was it possible that something like this was really at fault for some people the world thought of as crazy?
Botched spirit possessions? Kagome shivered a little and shoved the notion aside; with everything else she'd been forced to accept in both her life and the world at large recently, she wasn't certain she should be dwelling on anything more broad-scope than that.
“Wait until when, exactly?”
Sango offered another shrug. “Until we get back home. Professor Taisho did say he was going to hook you up with a spiritualist. Maybe the old guy can help you.”
Sitting down heavily in another chair, Kagome rubbed her hands over her face. “I don't know that I want to wait . . . I don't think I can take waiting, Sans. Not on this.”
“It might be safer.”
Kagome couldn't help the mirthless, scoffing chuckle that escaped her at that. “Oh, I don't doubt that. I just . . . can't.”
Sango seemed to take a moment to mull this over, drumming two fingers against her chin. “You know what I think you should do?”
“Uh . . .” blue eyes darted about before replying, “what was it again? Oh, yeah, 'wait'.”
“Well, clearly you're not going to, so, let's work with the fact that you're going to completely ignore your best friend's wishes. We do . . . whatever it is so you can have a chat with Lyka . . . and then ask Nah Rah Ku for his version of events.”
Kagome's brow shot up. “There's not a whole lot of talking that gets done when he's around.”
“Okay, fine, but it's not like he just jumps you and goes away again, he's always spoken to you, both before and after, right?”
“Huh,” Kagome hadn't given that much thought before, but The Thief did seem to spend as much of his visits conversing with her as he did working to take his offerings from her. That realization felt . . . odd, somehow. “I guess you're right.”
Sango nodded, “I usually am; you just haven't fully accepted it, yet. The next time he . . .” Sango cleared her throat in mock-awkwardness as she made air quotes, “visits, use that time to ask him what happened and then we compare the stories and figure out which one seems more plausible. There's really only a few possibilities. One, Lyka is flat out lying- that's the one I'm leaning towards. Two, the scribe that recorded the story was misinformed and maybe they were messing around in secret. Three . . .” she gave yet another shrug, “the scribe was misinformed and it was someone else that tried to kill Lyka's father.”
Kagome rolled her eyes. She somehow hoped it was possibility number one, as well. That seemed like the easiest avenue to walk down. She almost voiced the idea that they could very well both lie to her, but then she'd already assessed the fact, more than once, that the demon- for all of his obvious and innumerable flaws- wasn't a liar. She'd rather be proven wrong than stick her foot in her mouth.
“So,” Sango leaned closer, dropping her already lowered voice to a whisper as one of the other interns came in and proceeded to retrieve something from one of the giant plastic storage crates, “how do we do this?”
For a person as intelligent as she, the look Kagome gave then was remarkably blank. “I'm open to suggestions.”
* * *
"I cannot believe I'm doing this again," Kagome muttered, attempting to let the scowl she'd been giving Sango fade as she closed her eyes and squared her shoulders.
Frowning lightly, Sango cast a glance around the greenery-obscured rock face. From their estimation, their current placement atop the low, flora-infested mountain was directly over Lyka's resting place. This had actually been mostly Kagome's idea, so Sango didn't quite understand why she was catching flack for the plan- all Sango had contributed to it, really, was the common sense to lightly dowse their clothes and shoes with some of the chemical repellent to keep animals a safe distance from them, since they were in an area not considered part of the working site.
In Kagome's words, the small vestige of Lyka might contain enough consciousness to retain the spirit's memories, but she thought she might need a stronger connection to accomplish some sort of discussion with her. While Sango was a little concerned that a stronger connection could open Kagome to the risk of allowing Lyka to possess her, she had faith in the girl's spiritual instincts and internal strength.
"Yeah, well, let's not dawdle, dinner break's over in about half an hour. If we don't haul ass back to camp by then, people will notice we're missing." Mostly, Sango just wanted to hit the shower and scrub any of excess repellent off of her skin and change into fresh clothes.
Kagome snickered somewhat humorlessly. "Uh-huh, 'cause this is a thing I can put a rush on."
"Shhhh," Sango admonished- she was there to do whatever necessary to snap Kagome out of her meditation if it seemed something was wrong. "Just concentrate, if you seem like you're taking too long I'll wake you up."
Giving a small nod, Kagome forced herself to relax and began slowing her breathing a bit. Immediately she started to visualize the inside of her own head as a series of rooms. In the furthest, Lyka was confined, shackled to a chair. She put as much detail into her representation of Lyka as she was able- recalling from her dreams those wide, deceptively innocent-looking black eyes, that wealth of gleaming black locks, the naturally bronze skin.
Almost before she realized it, Kagome found herself standing in the room, facing a young, vaguely surprised Mezzo American woman. For a long moment the two simply stared at each other before a cruel smirk began to curve the spirit's full lips.
"So," she began in a strangely syrupy tone, "you come to speak to your captive, do you?"
Kagome was almost startled that Lyka was speaking a language she could understand, but then she realized it must be like Nah Rah Ku and the professor- this was probably why she could understand the discussion taking place in her dreams, too. Lyka had most likely deciphered it from her time lurking about in the back of Kagome's head. Then again, she hadn't been certain of exactly how this discussion was supposed to happen, but clearly her expectation of transferring mental pictures that would tell the story had been wrong. She had evidently read way too many of her brother's manga.
"No one told you to try and take over my body," Kagome pointed out.
Dark eyes rolled. "If you had not moved so quickly, I would have been successful."
Keep telling yourself that, Kagome thought- barely restraining those words from being voiced by reminding herself that being snarky and getting into a proverbial pissing-contest would only make this take longer . . . even if she would win. "I want to know what really happened before you died."
Instantly Lyka's falsely sweet expression hardened into a scowl. "Why should you want to ask me this? Is the tale not, how do you say . . . 'plastered' all over our temple?"
"Well, yes, but . . . it's not the same as what you've shown me." Even as she said it, the moment caught Kagome's attention. "Wait . . . why don't you know what I know about what the temple's text reads?"
The medicine woman pointedly pulled against her bindings. "It is because of how you restrain me. I do not have access to such detailed thoughts in this state."
This announcement was very troubling to Kagome- how could Lyka be lying about her story if she didn't even know what was told in the text? She'd never asked The Thief for his version of things, either- she knew somehow, though, that he simply assumed that she just knew that things hadn't really happened exactly as the tale had related, so he didn't need to explain himself.
"The text says that you and Nah Rah Ku were only um . . . 'together' the night you both died."
After a few seconds of picking apart her host's delicate phrasing, Lyka grinned wickedly. "That is true, mostly. We did not truly . . . lay together until that day."
"So you've been lying to me?"
"No," Lyka said quickly, seeming genuinely thrilled for that moment. "My father was being difficult indeed about my wants, but he never could stop me from getting what I wanted. I offered myself to Nah Rah Ku a little at a time. Eventually I was caught and my father, again, sought to control my actions." She pouted, her huge black eyes glittering. "And Nah Rah Ku refused to take me if my father was against it. He forced my hand."
Kagome went wide-eyed at this, the implication rattling through her head again and again- she'd done that all . . . on her own? "So you . . . did . . . poison your father?"
"Yes."
She was so simple, so blatant about attempted patricide that it made Kagome feel that inching, creeping cold in the pit of her stomach. She forced herself not to wrap her arms around her body, even as the chill in emanating from her core began to raise her skin in goose bumps. Kagome reminded herself sternly that she needed to stay focused, and that- she hoped, anyway- Lyka was only trying to frighten her. She wasn't about to let the spirit realize that it was working.
Kagome's voice disobeyed her, eeking out of her in a hollow whisper against her will. "Why didn't you give him enough to kill him?"
Those dark eyes narrowed a bit, the delicate skin beneath them tightening in thought, but she didn't offer a response. She wasn't surprised. The frightened tremor inside Kagome grew deeper. Lyka hadn't given him the wrong dosage by accident? As she held the spirit's gaze she couldn't help trying to dissect the motives, the possibilities, on her own. Had she wanted him to suffer? Had she thought a lower dosage would kill him more slowly?
One of Lyka's brows twitched and then she was speaking suddenly in a low, rumbling growl of words, venom dripping from each syllable, "You have not earned such confidences from me. You are merely another who has-"
"KAGOME!"
Kagome's eyes snapped open, her gaze darting around frantically as Sango shook her for what was, apparently, the fourth or fifth time. "Sango, Sango- San-GO!" she yelped, clamping her hands over the other girls' fingers curled in a near-lethal grip around her upper arms.
A stammering breath rushed from between Sango's lips as she pulled Kagome into a hug. "Oh my gods!" Before Kagome could react, Sango was pushing her away to hold her at arms' length again, all but shouting at her, "Don't you ever do that again, you scared the shit out of me!"
Kagome gave a dazed nod as she asked slowly, "Do what?"
Scowling darkly, Sango relinquished her hold and tapped a finger against the middle of Kagome's forehead. "Whatever was going on in there that had you looking like you were going into a seizure!"
This made sense to Kagome somewhat- in her drive to not tremble in front of Lyka, she must have pushed the sensation outward, causing her physical body to shake . . . rather violently, if Sango wasn't exaggerating, and she was already well aware that Sango was not prone to exaggeration. "That," she said after mulling it over for a second, "was because of Lyka."
Sango's dark eyes lit with anger immediately. "Did that bitch do something to you?"
"No, no, not really. She's just . . . scary."
"Scary how?"
Kagome shrugged, giving a sharp shake of her head. "Like . . . looking into the eyes of a . . . baby-faced serial killer scary."
"Yikes," Sango said in a small voice before checking her watch and placing her hands on Kagome's shoulders once more to begin steering the girl back in the direction of the campsite. "This was definitely our worst plan, yet. Did you find out anything?"
As they carefully picked their way down the mountainside and traversed the thinly carved path Kagome recounted what had happened. She almost wanted to believe she'd imagined it all, but she didn't think she had a side dark enough to conjure up something like Lyka. What Kagome knew for certain was that Sango was right . . . about usually being right, oddly. She should have stowed away her agitation and confusion and waited until she had someone around her that knew about these things.
"What a whack-job," Sango uttered in a hushed breath of disbelief, wide-eyed and shaking her head as the reached camp and she'd had time to absorb- and mentally fiddle with- what Kagome had told her. "What do you think she was in the middle of saying to you?"
Kagome frowned deeply, closing her eyes as she took a moment to reinforce the mental barriers with which she kept Lyka subdued and silent. "I have no idea, and honestly," she opened her eyes and sighed quietly, "I don't think I want to know."
As they returned to their tent to retrieve their bath items Kagome told herself adamantly that the best thing she could do would be to let the matter rest until they were in Japan, and perhaps Professor Taisho's friend could help her safely get rid of Lyka.
* * *
Once again, Kagome found her mouth betraying her mind as Nah Rah Ku grinned down at her, pinning her body with his own against the back of one of the utility stations. Days had passed since her frightening encounter with Lyka and no matter how she tried to push aside the thoughts tumbling around in the back of her head about the whole thing, she simply couldn't. She needed to know what she'd gotten herself into.
Her heart skipped, that sweet, delicate warmth beginning to pulse between her thighs as he dragged his teeth and tongue down the side of her throat. "Wait," she heard herself saying as he nudged her legs apart with his knee. "I- I need to ask you something."
Pulling back just enough to meet her gaze, he slid a hand downward from the wall to knead her breasts playfully as he wedged his thigh firmly between hers. "Is it not something that can wait?"
Kagome choked back a gasp, unable to stop herself from moving against his motions instantly as he began rubbing his leg rhythmically against that delicate, sensitive spot between her thighs. "N-n . . . no, no. It . . . really can't wait." Despite her words, part of her was already screaming that it certainly could wait.
Much to her mixed feelings of frustration and relief, The Thief paused in his ministrations, but didn't move away from her. Icy gold eyes met hers as he breathed out, "What is it?"
She would have fidgeted if she wasn't pinned, she realized dully. "What really happened with Lyka?" she blurted out- rushing through it seemed to be the only way to get the words to leave her lips.
She let out a surprised little hiccup of sound at the fine, twisting veins of red that threaded through the gold of his irises, through the whites of his eyes, at the mention of that name. "Never speak of her to me again!" He hissed in a seething whisper.
Kagome forced a gulp down her throat. If she'd ever done anything that would make him angry enough to simply kill her, this was likely it. "I'm . . . I'm sorry, but I . . . I need to know what happened, it's driving me crazy!"
"You need to know?" He echoed. "That . . . bewitching little serpent orchestrated my death!"
Kagome's breath left her lungs in a sharp, stuttering rush of air. "I . . . I don't understand. Why would she want to kill you? Wasn't she in love with you?"
Nah Rah Ku pulled away from her so fast it was a wonder she didn't fall to the ground. "How naive you are," he muttered with a dark, utterly mirthless chuckle. "Love is not a word that can be applied to her. She wanted to be the last sacrifice I would ever take and for no reason so noble as one such as you would like to think. She did not wish to stop me . . . she wished to die with me."
A fierce shiver tumbled through her as the realization struck. It was her own father . . . she had probably predicted his reaction . . . had probably made him think The Thief had told her to do it. But then that had to mean . . . she knew what would become of her father at the hands of Nah Rah Ku's faithful. The image of those awful remains chained in that secret chamber beneath the temple flashed through Kagome's mind. She knew . . . . Each revelation was dizzying to her in its own right and she found herself blinking back tears as she pressed a hand to her forehead.
"How . . . how do you know all of this?" she managed in a trembling whisper.
"I know this because in our last moments as we lay dying . . . she told me," he spoke slowly, as though puzzling over something else, entirely in another corner of his mind. Leaning down suddenly to peer deeply into her eyes, he murmured in a lethal tone, "According to this Sesshomaru's recollections, that name is not found amongst your research. How do you come to know it?"
"I . . . I . . ." Kagome stammered, lowering her eyes from his.
Immediately he grasped her chin with his fingers, forcing her head up so that she could not escape his gaze. After a long moment of staring down into her eyes, Kagome felt Lyka being pulled against her restraints. "Why did you not tell me she entrenched herself within you?"
He was so very . . . very angry. Kagome didn't know if his skin was really becoming hotter because of his raging temper or if she was imagining it. "I was . . ." she forced a hard gulp down her throat and tried again, a trickle of frightened tears escaping her eyes, "I didn't know the truth. I . . . I thought you'd help her take me over."
The threading of crimson in his eyes bled out, blotting out the gold and white entirely. Suddenly his fingers curved upward from her chin to clamp over her mouth as he placed two fingers of his other hand to the center of her forehead. "Bite down if need be, but do not scream- this will hurt."
Before Kagome could react, Lyka was ripped entirely from the behind the barriers. The forced shredding of her mental barriers caused a searing pain in Kagome's head and she bit down into Nah Rah Ku's shielding fingers, her arms raising, hands blindly grasping at the hair until she was gripping his forearm with tightly clenched fingers. The pain followed Lyka's path in a bright, blistering trail as he continued to pull on the spirit's consciousness.
Kagome forced her eyes open, watching in an agony-hazed awe as The Thief tugged an ephemeral thread of rippling black and purple from the center of her forehead. In a detached corner of her mind, she recognized what he was doing. He was extracting Lyka's essence through her third eye. The spirit was scraping and scrambling, trying to stay inside of her host, causing more flashes of pain to rock through Kagome's skull and all she could do was sink her teeth in harder- unable to stop even at the copper-salt taste of blood on her tongue.
And then . . . the pain was gone. Nah Rah Ku had pulled the last of the thread from her and as Kagome watched, he released his hold on her face and pulled the thread taut between both hands. Giving it a single, strong yank the thread burst into glittering dust and fluttered to the ground. That was it, she acknowledged in a daze. Lyka was no more.
"I'm . . . I'm sorry," she said numbly, raising trembling fingers to her blood stained bottom lip as she nodded toward his wounded hand.
"Hmph," he breathed the sound. "I think I shall not fabricate a reason for this injury. Watching this Sesshomaru's confusion over the matter shall be your punishment for keeping this from me."
"I didn't . . ." she cleared her throat and started again, admitting, "I didn't expect you to help me."
The deep red was fading from his eyes, but there was no misinterpreting his extreme displeasure as he muttered evenly, "I would not have a creature such as she poisoning you, as well."
Something in that statement struck Kagome in the middle of her chest, but she couldn't understand why. She opened her mouth to ask, but already he was turning on his heel to stalk away from her. "I will return another evening for your offering. This incident has soured my appetite.”
After a long moment, Kagome edged her way to the end of the utility station and peeked around it, watching him stride back toward Professor Taisho's tent in the darkness. Letting out a heavy, trembling sigh, she slid down the wall and wrapped her arms around her legs. Lyka had been the monster in the tale all along. The Thief . . . the demon had just saved her.
Kagome let her head drop down against her knees as she turned over in her mind again and again the fact that she had no idea how to feel about that.
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