InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Strictly Taboo ❯ Lose the Feeling ( Chapter 40 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Inuyasha, incredibly tense and impatient, finally let the words burst through and sneered, “Out with it, you old bitch, am I her father or not?!”

Stiffly, her neck creaking as she did so, Kaede nodded.

Kagome let out a scream that turned into a sob and covered her mouth, her other hand clenched into a fist on top of the table. Her eyes were closed, but a few tears still escaped and rushed down her cheeks and neck. Inuyasha reached out to touch her and she jerked away, stumbling to her feet.

“Sit back down, Kagome,” Kaede said heavily. “That’s not all.”

She didn’t seem to hear, so he stood and pressed down on her shoulders until she finally wobbled and sat. The old woman’s words had him curious and he was now as impatient as Kagome had been at the start of things. Kaede cleared her throat and continued, still not looking at either of them.

“There haven’t been any recorded fruitful couplings of a priestess and a half-demon in all of history,” she explained, her voice dry and in a monotone, like a professor discussing a topic they had grown bored with thirty years before. “There were a couple priestesses and full demons who produced offspring, and their cases were almost exactly the same. You see, from the moment the egg is fertilized, the priestess’s spiritual powers see it as a threat and attempt to purify it. However, their instincts will not allow them to personally destroy the life inside them. This leads to them only purifying the DNA of their demon partner. When the child is born, she, and it is always a she, is an exact replica of her mother, even down to the personality. All this is done without the woman even realizing it.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Inuyasha protested. “Kagome isn’t anything like Kikyo.”

“That is because Kagome was born prematurely. She was almost a full month earlier than she was supposed to be. Had her mother carried her to term, Kagome would both look and act differently. As it is, your DNA still remains in her.”

“So am I her father or not?!”

Kagome looked catatonic, just staring ahead out the window, and they both glanced worriedly at her.

“Technically, yes,” Kaede said regretfully. “But not really.”

“What in the fuck does that even mean?” If this continued, he was going to snap.

“Well, if, for example, you had sired a child in your youth some five hundred years ago or more, and that child had children and their children had children and so on and so on into the modern day, that person would be more closely genetically related to you than Kagome is.”

“What the fuck?” He was now beyond confused.

Kaede sighed in exasperation. “Let me put it in simple terms for simple people. Say you threw a snow ball at Kikyo. Kikyo then used part of the snow from that snowball to build a snowman. Did you build the snowman?”

They stared at each other, and finally he answered, “Uh… no?”

The elderly priestess applauded sarcastically.

“So I’m her father, but I’m not?” He didn’t know how he felt about that.

“Precisely.”

Kagome abruptly got up and left the table. Inuyasha heard her vomiting in the bathroom.

Kaede finally centered her eye on him with disgust. “Apparently, that’s not good enough for Kagome. Nor should it be. I must add, however, that if you two have managed to conceive and she is with child, the fact that she still shares a shred of your demonic DNA will prevent her spiritual powers from purifying the child’s non-human traits.”

Not even considering that worthy of a reply, he ran to the bathroom door, opening it in a hurry. Kagome was crying into the toilet, her fists pressed hard against her eyes. Concerned, he wondered if she was hurting herself on purpose. Inuyasha leaned against the door, wanting to go to her but afraid of what she’d do or say.

“Fuck, angel, it’s not so bad. Did you even hear what she said?”

She just turned and stared at him with hollow eyes. “You’re my father. I thought I knew for sure it wasn’t true, but it is. You are.”

“But not really,” he said urgently, moving closer to her. “Like, we could have a baby and there wouldn’t be anything weird about it.”

“I am not procreating with my fucking parent!” Kagome screamed as she rose to her feet. Her face was pink from crying and anger.

Hurt, Inuyasha shouted back, “Oh, so it’s okay to lie to yourself and hang all over me, but the minute things get real it’s over? What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

“What’s wrong with me? With me?! My mother tried to murder me last night and then my,” she spat out the word, having trouble saying it, “my father killed her and her boyfriend. Now he’s mad because I don’t know what to do?! What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

Kaede opened the door and entered, making Inuyasha wish he had thought ahead and locked it or something. “I think it would be best if you left, Mr. Taisho.”

Inuyasha growled at the intruder dangerously, warning her not to involve herself. “There’s no fucking way I’m leaving Kagome! I am her mate and her legal guardian and yeah, I’m her dad. That’s a little fucked up, but I’ve got every law on my side.”

“I need to be alone to think, Inuyasha. Just please, let me think. I can’t think when you’re around,” she begged in a high whisper that went straight to his heart.

“…You want me to leave?”

Kagome nodded firmly. “Yes.”

“N-now?”

“Yes,” ; she sighed. “I have a lot to think about. You—you think of me like some perfect little doll, like I’m your everything, and that’s too much. I’m not that great. I’m not that pretty, I’m not that good, I’m not that interesting. It’s like you don’t know who I am, you just see what you want me to be. You put me on a pedestal, and you’re obsessed with this idea you’ve projected onto me, and I can’t take it anymore. Not now.”

Inuyasha turned to go, his throat tight and burning. For her to say something like that showed that she had been thinking for a while, even before last night’s events, mulling over the good and bad and finding him lacking. How could he have missed that she wasn’t as happy as he was? He paused in the doorway, bitter and hurt when she didn’t try to stop him.

“I’ll be back in a week. That’s enough time to think. After that, you’re coming back with me, no matter what. We’ll put this behind us and start over,” he said, his tone brooking no argument.

“Just go,” she whispered.

And he did.

A week passed by. A week of reporters crowding outside his house, yelling things he tried to tune out, the name of his late wife always making him flinch. He suspected the pizza boy of telling them where he lived and vowed he would no longer continue to order from them. As it was, there was no food in the house, apart from ramen, which he was beginning to detest. The clean-up crew had done a good job. All of Kikyo’s things were boxed away in her old room and the door was locked. He couldn’t even smell her now. The one time he had found it in himself to go to the basement, a faint whiff of blood remained and he hightailed it out of there, gagging along the way. Human blood always lingered. He spent the days watching television and trying not to remain so hurt by Kagome’s words.

She had wanted him to leave. He loved her, so he did, even though it tore him up inside. The fact that they were mates made it worse. Every cell in him craved her, her scent, her nearness. He knew she could not feel the way he did, her being almost 99.9999999% human and all, but sometimes he thought he heard her crying, felt her pain. The pain of loss that he was feeling as well, all for his mate.

The night before the week was up, he was busily preparing ramen and ignoring the sounds of reporters outside his curtained windows when he felt a sharp pain in his chest, spreading from his solar plexus to the ends of his body. It was agony, like a thousand knives of purification in each pore. He collapsed, the abrupt movement sending the pot of boiling water tumbling down onto him, though he hardly felt it. Inuyasha couldn’t breathe, could hardly see, and he wondered if this was something like what Kikyo had felt before she died. It continued for an eternity, until it abruptly stopped. Weak, he raised his wrist to eye level. It had been about twenty minutes. There was only one explanation for the pain, the pain he had only ever heard about.

Kagome, his mate, his one love, was fucking someone else.

Shakily, he got to his feet, determined to go back to the old woman’s house and kill whoever had caused their bond to be played with. They would pay in their blood and flesh, and Kagome would come home with him. The old bitch would die too. His eyes flashed red and he left, disregarding his car in favor of running. He ignored the crowd of people surrounding him and flashing cameras. Inuyasha let out a purely demonic roar as he left, and it was the scream of a broken, violent man.