InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Price of Vengeance ❯ Chapter Nineteen: Surprises ( Chapter 20 )

Chapter Nineteen (Surprises)

A slight scratch at the door to his rooms alerted him that the girl had arrived. SesshouMaru stayed relaxed in his chair, eyes turned toward the fire that danced merrily on the hearth. At these heights, the night air grew chill, and although he did not need the fire's warmth, he liked the dance of flickering flames. It was soothing, and primal.

"My lord." The slight hiss of indrawn breath that accompanied the simple greeting from his discreet servant was the only sound that came from the girl. SesshouMaru allowed a mere flick of one claw to signal Suyo's departure. His staff were rigidly trained to follow his slightest movement as a command.

He could smell the faint hesitation from the ningen girl behind him. The soft thud of the closing door made her stir uneasily. The Lord mentally sighed. Humans were so trifling.

Without turning his head, he ordered. "You will sit."

A spurt of indignation had the Taiyoukai's eyes narrow slightly. He slowly turned his head to pierce the foolish miko with a cold look. The mark on her white neck was red and angry. He was unprepared for the powerful pulling he felt toward his mark. His eyes arrowed on it, and he could hear the slow pounding of the girl's heart as her blood coursed through her body, giving moving life to limbs and heat to the flush that stained her pale cheeks. The smell of her was almost intoxicating...the slight hint of fear and anger swirling together with the innocense of life...truly intoxicating.

His voice was icy. "Come."

The miko actually wrinkled her nose at him, and crossed her arms in front of her. Pale blue silk slithered seductively across white skin. A faint reddish glow flashed through the Taiyoukai's golden eyes, and was gone.

"You better not think you're gonna get me drunk again!"

The miko continually surprised him. Her foolhardy bravado was an act, he could smell the nervous fear on her. It amused him.

"Your intolerance for spirits has been well noted. There is only tea."

She actually grumbled under breath, thinking he would not hear. "Intolerance! Stupid youkai."

He should not allow her liberties.

The ice was back as his thin patience evaporated. "Sit and eat. I will not tell you again."

Brown eyes flashed defiantly, but the girl merely shrugged, trying to act nonchalant, and stepped around him to take the chair across from him. A small table, intricately carved, graced the area between them. A small tray of delicacies awaited the miko, the small cup with its steaming tea warmed gently golden in the firelight.

The girl sat with her small hands twisting in her lap, rucking the blue silk between nervous fingers. SesshouMaru waited, golden eyes hooded.

Her eyes were narrowed when she looked back up at him. A black tendril of hair framed her cheek and curled past the angry crescent mark on the curve of her neck.

"What is it with you and watching me eat?"

The Lord remained silent.

"You know, you can be really weird sometimes."

A faint growl escaped him. The miko could be unbelievably annoying at times.

"Drink."

The order was cold. As soon as the girl had fallen under the tea's honeyed warmth, he could pursue his revenge. His patience was incredibly thin this evening, the tight rein on his inu youkai blood was loosening.

The girl rolled her eyes even as one small hand grasped the smooth-sided porcelain. "At least it's not sake." She actually grumbled under her breath as she drew the cup closer to her flushed lips.

SesshouMaru's clawed fingers clenched on the wooden arm of his chair, the only outward sign of his sudden surprise. A faint, pinkish glow emanated from the girl's small hand as she bent her head to sip at the warmed tea, blissfully unaware of the aura of sacred power that flared and died around her hand.

She had purified the potion.

Golden eyes narrowed as momentary anger shot through the Taiyoukai. The girl, unknowingly, had cleared the tea of his carefully concocted spices, and with the mere touch of her ningen fingers. Her sacred energy, without training, had acted on its own in defense of the pitiful human. His carefully laid plans had depended on the girl's absolute compliance with his wishes, and the tea was supposed to have guaranteed her complacency. The girl's powers had denied him, the Taiyoukai of the Western Lands. Again.

Golden eyes glowed as a low growl escaped him.

*~*~*~*~*

Kagura could feel the breeze that touched her cheek in a gentle caress, lifting an escaping tendril of wavy black hair as it passed, fluttering the simple white yukata that cloaked her skin...and she was consumed with a longing for the winds. They called to her, she was of them.

A single tear stole down her pale cheek.

She had lost so much. Her control of the winds was broken. Naraku might have returned the heart that beat its life-force through her body, but her soul was gone forever.

The winds were her anchor, her power, her strength. She knew that she had been formed from Naraku---he had seperated some of the demons that made up his body and gave his angry soul the strength to live, and created her from them. Just as he had created her elder sister Kanna, the unfeeling ghost of the void. Just as he had created others, tools for his hate and dark lust for power.

Naraku had known what he was doing when he gave her back her heart. He had sentenced her to a living death.

Without the winds, she was powerless. Her weak body might heal, but she, who had known the strength of the winds, was but a shadow of her former self. The arrogant pride that had created the smouldering anger to bear the dark hanyou's many indignities over her body and mind had been snapped and broken into shattered pieces and lost longings.

A gentle breeze riffled through her long hair, unbound since she had woken from the pain, here in the wolf's den. The long tendrils, as wavy and black as her dark hanyou creator's, kissed her arms and back as the wind played with them, almost seeming to comfort her broken soul with its presence. Kagura closed her eyes as her heart---so long sought---beat with longing.

But she was stronger than Naraku.

Her back stiffened as the whisper of the wind called her. Red eyes rubied with steely determination.

She might not be half of what she had been, but it would have to be enough. She was the Wind, and what the wind could not knock down with force, it would twist around, finding the chink in the armor to howl its rage through.

She would kill Naraku, if it took the last breath in her weak body.

The faint hint of stinkweed made her delicate nose twitch. She had walked away from the wolf caverns, seeking peace from the noxious fumes. Ginta, one of the wolf-brothers, a young male youkai with grey hair and impossible innocent view of the world, had begged for him to escort her. Kagura had declined sharply, not wanting the company of those she feared.

The wolf clans had a blood debt against her, no matter if it had been Naraku who had controlled her. She had killed many of the wolf-brothers, most of them from the northern clans, but some from this tribe as well, and the dead bodies had danced to her fan's control of the winds. The wolves had come to Naraku's phantom castle, seeking the sacred jewel shards that gave demons power beyond their own desires. It was all a part of Naraku's twisted plot, to steal the shards from the young leader of the eastern clan.

Koga.

A slight shiver, her weak body's reaction to her new found fear of weakness, made her icy from the thought. Naraku's revenge on her failure was as twisted as any of the dark hanyou's schemes. Leaving her broken and helpless, at the mercy of the wolves who sought her blood....

She had been gifted by the spirits, that Koga had been away from the caverns his tribe called home. The wolf-brothers who had remained behind, not drawn in to Naraku's evil deceit at the castle, had not realized who she was. A small mercy. She had been allowed to recover...at least, recover as much as she may. Without the strength of the winds, she was nothing compared to her former self. And she had feared Koga's anger then.

It terrified her now.

But she was not one to give in to terror. She had survived. She would always survive.

She was the Wind.

*~*~*~*~*

Sango neatly braced herself against the hanyou's red-robed back, her small hands tightening on the wide shoulders at InuYasha's abrupt halt. She had seen Kagome's unbalanced jarring and indignant "oomphs!" of discomfort enough to know that InuYasha didn't always pay attention to the comfort of the people he carried---or how a sudden stop could send them smacking into it.

"What is it?" She asked, her eyes scanning the tree-darkened horizon. InuYasha's strong shoulders tensed under her hands, she could feel the wary stretch of taunt muscles under her fingers.

"We're at the border." The hanyou's harsh murmur was barely discernable. Sango remained silent. She could not know what was passing through InuYasha's mind, what ghosts plagued his memories of this land.

There was nothing to mark the boundary of SesshouMaru's lands. They stood deep in forest, the trees before and behind them blanketing the foothills as early evening purpled the sky. She could barely make out the darker edges of jagged mountains that lay misted in distance ahead of them.

"Do you know where his fortress is?" Sango asked tentatively. Since her rage at the forest's edge the day before, she had been quiet and pensive. Embarrassment at her lack of control still sent her cheeks flushing. She could not blame InuYasha for his interference, just like she could not blame Kohaku for his actions. If there was anyone to blame, it was herself. If she had not been so weak, if she had not allow Naraku to take her poor brother again, if she had been able to defend her father and the others from the vicious spider demon....

The thoughts twisted inside her, making her heart clench with grief, and then she neatly put them aside. She was not one to distract herself with her own shortcomings. She was here to rescue Kagome. Kagome, who had showed her how to open up, and actually feel again. Kagome's open acceptance and sisterly support had warmed Sango's lonely heart like nothing since her mother had died so many years ago. Kagome had shown her that it was all right to feel. Raised as a warrior since her mother's early death, Sango had deliberately set feelings aside as weak. It was bad enough that she had been a girl, desperately trying to win her father's approval and esteem.

Her father's heart had died at his wife's death in childbirth. Kohaku had been the sickly babe wrenched from her dying womb, and the midwives had cast doubt as to whether he would live. Kohaku did survive, but he was so weak and sickly as a young child, that no one hoped he would make it to manhood. Her father, headman of the village and clan leader of the slayers, had turned to Sango as his only progeny. Sango determined to win her father's honor, vowing to become the best, even if she was only a girl.

And she had.

*And it still wasn't enough.*

InuYasha let out an exasperated growl, distracting Sango from her dark thoughts. "I know where it is." His scowling reply made Sango dig for her question---she had asked him if he knew where the castle was.

"Well, no sense wasting time here." InuYasha shrugged distractedly. Sango's body easily adjusted to the abrupt movement, fluidly following the play of strong muscles underneath her. InuYasha gave her an amber glance out of the corner of his eye. "Sorry." He gruffly apologized for his inattention.

"Shall we go?" Sango asked quietly.

"Yeah." The hanyou tensed, legs bracing as his attention focused forward. The taijiya tightened her thighs around his hips, readying herself for the mighty leap that would take them over the trees and into the unknown lands beyond.

*~*~*~*~*

"The village! I see the village!"

Shippo nearly bounced off of the flying neko in his excitement. A warning growl from Kirara made him giggle unabashedly. Miroku shook his head at the little cub's enthusiasm. Shippo was convinced that they would find Kagome safe and sound in Lady Kaede's village.

The terrain before them was green and welcoming, the water-stretched fields before the village framed by the thick trees that surrounded it. Miroku winced as he spied the blackened swath where InuYasha's forest had stood. Only a few trees had survived the destruction of the fire. One, the mighty God's Tree, towered above the charred deadwood around it, like a symbol of defiance. A feeling of quiet reverence filled the monk as he gazed at the tree.

"There's Kaede's hut!" Shippo called out, diverting the houshi's attention. Kirara, feet flaming, roared a welcome to the figures that stopped in the fields. The villagers had become familiar with the neko youkai over the years. One or two of them waved before bending back to their labors. Shippo waved back, excitedly clutching Kirara's fur in one small paw, anxious for her to land so that he could see his Kagome again.

The thatched huts of the village proper grew larger as the neko angled down, looking for a spot to land. A gnarled form, swathed in the red and white robes of a miko, emerged from the hut. The priestess watched dispassionately as Kirara arced and landed smoothly, a slight puff of dust rising from the dirt as her paws sought balance on the firm ground.

Shippo bounced off the neko, green eyes dancing with expected joy. "Lady Kaede! Where's Kagome?"

The old miko blinked in surprise. "Kagome?"

Miroku's hand tightened on his staff, making the rings tingle in reaction. The neko rumbled a sad sound under him, red eyes glowing compassionately.

"Miroku!"

Miroku jerked his head around at the happy, feminine call. His blue eyes widened in shock at the girlish figure swathed in red and white to match Kaede. Long black hair, bound back with a simple white ribbon outlined warm brown eyes and a delighted smile. Miroku's throat worked convulsively, before his voice found sound in incredulity.

"Koharu?"