InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ What Are You? ❯ Chapter 30 Alternate ( Chapter 35 )

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

Chapter Thirty Alternate

Yield

I heard the door open. It was Chiyuota. I did my best to ignore her, pretending that I was still asleep. Maybe she would go away and not try to make me drink something disgusting.

She opened the other door, letting in the light. I squinted and buried my face against Naraku's chest.

“Mm… Go away,” he muttered.

“Sesshomaru needs her medicine.”

“Stop calling me a girl,” I moaned.

“You are a girl!”

“No…”

Chiyuota suddenly seemed to appear at the side of the futon, glaring down at me. I closed my eyes and ignored her. She thrust a cup at me. “Drink this and I'll leave.”

I opened one eye. I hadn't slept much the previous night, or then night before—or the night before that. Come to think of it, since Naraku had came here, neither of us slept much at all at night. The only time when we finally fell asleep was when we were both too exhausted to move. I just wanted to go back to sleep. I reached up and took the cup. I sat up to drink it. It smelled like a medicinal tea.

Chiyuota was glaring at me again. I glanced at her, then back at the tea. I took a sip. At least it didn't taste like something that shouldn't be consumed. “I wish you would start sleeping in clothing.”

“It's more like stop fucking,” Naraku muttered, eyes closed.

“You shouldn't be doing that anyway. Sesshomaru-sama, you are two months in to your pregnancy. You just shouldn't…”

“You said that I could do anything I normally did if I wasn't pregnant—aside from killing people, as my power is null,” I pointed out, then took another long sip of the tea.

She fumed. “Naraku-san, you should leave Sesshomaru alone… She needs her rest—“

“Tell her that.” He lifted a finger to point at me, then dropped it. “And tell her to stop molesting me too.”

I scowled. “Naraku…”

“It's not like it's my idea. She raped me,” he said flatly. Chiyuota raised an eyebrow.

“You seem pretty compliant, considering that you're being raped,” I muttered, sipping at the tea again.

“I've turned you into a nymph, and now I regret it.” I raked my claws casually over his exposed chest with my free hand. He flinched, pulling away from me. He rolled over onto his other side. “Damn bitch.” Naraku really wasn't much of a morning person.

I ignored him, finishing the tea. I handed the cup to Chiyuota and laid back down. I heard her leave, shutting the other door as well. I pulled up to Naraku, resting my forehead on his back. “You still haven't apologized to Rin.”

“I never have time,” he muttered. “I sleep during the day, and the second I lie down at night, you attack me.”

Actually, it was probably about 60/40—so he wants sex 40% of the time. I wondered if we would ever experience an uneventful night. I hoped not. “Hm.” I pulled him onto his back. The wound I had inflicted had already healed. I laid my head down on his chest. “I'm not going to be your uke, you know.”

It was an old argument—one neither of us ever wanted to lose. The loser would be… Well, do I have to explain it? “You are right now.”

I laughed. “Hardly.”

“I'm the one doing everything,” he muttered, draping an arm across me.

I sunk my claws into his torso. “You are not.”

“All you have to do is lie there… And occasionally just keep a position.”

My claws sunk in deeper. His face twisted into that of discomfort, but it didn't really seem to bother him. Truthfully, it didn't surprise me. He could withstand his body being torn completely apart and still laugh mockingly afterwards. “That's not true either.” I thought back to last night, for an example. All he had done was lie there—and occasionally moan.

“When?”

I slid on top of him, pulling out my claws. I sat up, right over his hips. He partially opened one eye, then closed it again. “Last night, for an example.”

“You're insatiable,” he muttered, making a feeble attempt to push me off. That didn't work, so he grabbed my hips and rolled over. “You're so strange when you're pregnant.”

“It's all the drugs,” I insisted. (The 21st century knows that it is also hormones!) Besides, Naraku really couldn't talk. It was like he had a split personality when he was tired, as he was always too exhausted to really be an asshole like he usually is. I sighed and laid down. “You're going to apologize to Rin today.”

“Fine. Just shut up and leave me alone…”

The tea was making me sleepy anyway. I stretched out on the futon and slowly closed my eyes, letting sleep consume me.

*****

When I awoke, I was more myself, as I no longer had any weird medications in my system. I glanced at Naraku, who was still asleep. I pondered waking him up, then arose. I slipped on a kimono and went off to the bath. I sniffed the air suspiciously and took an alternate route. Chiyuota was waiting for me. She probably wanted to get to me while I was away from Naraku.

“Sesshomaru-sama!”

I hurried my pace, hoping to get there before she got to me, but I didn't want to make it look obvious. I had already tried outright dodging her. Not only did it not work in my weakened state, it earned me a long lecture and more medication. The best I could do was stay away.

I felt her hand on my shoulder. How had she gotten so close? I turned around. Ah. Naraku had taught her how to make puppets. I would have to hurt him for that—once I could anyway. What I had smelled earlier had been a puppet. Damn!

She handed me a packet. “Put this in the bathwater. I've already prepared it for you.”

I frowned. The healer had anticipated me too well. She had known when I would wake up. Probably something to do with the tea. I sniffed it experimentally. “A mineral bath?” I wondered suspiciously.

“You could use it.”

More things to keep me relaxed. At least she wasn't trying to sedate me yet. She turned and left me. Sure enough, the bath was still steaming when I got there. I opened the package and poured out its contents. I pulled off my clothes and slipped in to the water, trying to enjoy it.

I heard Naraku arguing with Chiyuota. I tried to ignore them and sunk down lower into the water until the water blurred out their voices. She was probably keeping him from coming in. Probably for the best. The bath was meant to relax me—not so we could fuck in it. Still, it would be satisfying to annoy the old healer by doing that.

I closed my eyes. I was totally safe right now. No one I didn't want around could get to me, and everyone who knew about my “problem” was right here, under my tight control.

My eyes suddenly snapped open. No, they weren't. There were three more who knew. I once again had my father to blame.

Myoga, Totosai, and a demon tree. Did the tree know? That one, I wasn't so certain about. Less likely than the other two, but there was that probability. I wondered if I should convince Naraku to go kill them for me, but they had kept silent for this long. The odds of any of them saying anything now was unlikely. Besides… If Naraku was with me, I wouldn't have any problems anyway.

Damn it, why weren't more youkai afraid of me like they were afraid of him? I was much stronger than him—he just had his barrier and his ability to absorb them. Of course, he ran around making his presence known—sort of akin to walking around with a sign that said “look at me!” I, on the other hand, was not so ostentatious. I realized that I was sulking.

I tried to brush it off and began to wash. When the water drained from my ears and I could hear properly again, it seemed as though Naraku had either given up, or they had taken the argument elsewhere so as not to disturb me further.

Naraku… He was being very patient with me. But, Naraku had a lot of patience, actually—when he needs to have it. He waited for fifty years for the Shikon Jewel. That was a long time to wait—even for someone who is immortal. I frowned at that thought. Was Naraku immortal? He was a hanyou, so would he die one day? For some reason, I kind of doubted it. He could just continuously keep altering his body.

Perhaps… I should tell him about how long it would take before our children were old enough to fend for themselves. I suppressed a smile as I imagined what he would do and say. No, I should wait until he asks me.

After the first year, and they're still infants, I'm sure he'll ask.

Speaking of which, I should tell Jaken to have a wet nurse lately. There was no way that I was going to breast feed them. I crossed my hands over my relatively small breasts at the thought. Disgusting. I hated the female body. Naraku seemed to like it, but he would have to deal with my male body.

I looked at my hands. He really was being patient with me. He was letting me have my way in so many ways. He had even agreed to stay a hanyou—for me. At that, I smiled warmly. Maybe, he really did love me. If he was willing to do that for me, he had to, considering all the trials he had gone through to collect the whole thing. I should really thank him for that—a real thank you. He was giving up a lot to satisfy me. Maybe it was because he knew that I would push him away if he didn't.

I sighed. Maybe I should yield a little to him—just a little. I wouldn't stay female, but I could at least… I sunk lower into the water, scowling. I could at least be uke. But I wanted to be seme once in a while too. Fine. I knew that I could still be completely in control like that though. So… Fine. If he wanted to do all the work, then he could.

I would yield to him that much. I knew he probably deserved it. I had put him through so much, made him give up so much—just because I'm being selfish.

All right, Naraku. You win—a little.

*****

The next bit of this is originally from Original Chapter 24: Time and Death. I had to alter it a bit to suit the Alternate Version, so here it is!

I heard little footsteps approaching, and a tentative hand touch the screen. I looked up from the scroll I had been reading to glance at the door. Naraku was asleep in our room. I had refused to sleep and gotten up to wander to my study. I could see Rin's dark silhouette through the screen. She hesitated, then opened it, just enough to peek inside. She looked at me, then came in and slid the door shut behind her.

“I can't sleep,” she confessed. It didn't surprise me. I had been expecting this, after all. A girl like her, so used to sleeping out-of-doors, could probably never become used to sleeping in the lavish room provided for her, no matter how long I chose to stay here. As soon as the children were born, though, I would find a wet nurse and return to my wanderings, coming back only to check on it. Maybe Naraku would come with me? I could claim the mother died in childbirth. It was a common enough death, even for demons. Birth was dangerous.

I wondered how Naraku would take that. He would definitely point out all the flaws in that—such as how we would explain to them how they have two fathers. But I didn't want to think about that right now.

I stood up. I had been reading over a few scrolls. A breeze blew in from the open screen, combing its chilly fingers through my silver locks and making the single lit candle in the room flicker. “Neither can I.” I moved to look out the screen. There was no moon tonight, but the stars were shining brightly over the world, enwrapping it in a diamond canopy.

Rin stood beside me. “Sesshomaru-sama, are you really a girl?” she asked me, looking up at me with her big, innocent eyes. Her young eyes had seen too much, I realized. Her family's deaths, her own death… Her life seemed riddled with death around every corner. Her biggest fear must be… my death. She should never worry about that, though. So, even after the past two very weird months, she didn't entirely believe that I was female. It wasn't like I could blame her. She had known me for a long time in her world, and had always thought of me as being a man. And I had never really clarified it with her.

I remained staring out at the stars, looking at the way the land curved like the elegant sweeps of a paintbrush of a skilled painter, the way the growth covered the world like a cloak. There was movement in the night. Night animals were going about their routine lives—bats, owls, fireflies, and other manner of creatures. Somewhere far away, I could see the faint aura of weak demons past the barrier. I could make out the sounds of a river rushing, and the sound of the night wind murmuring through the complaining branches. The fireflies danced amidst the forest like sprites, disappearing and reappearing betwixt the trees. Distantly, I heard an owl's latest victim utter its last despairing cry. Wolves were howling, singing a requiem to the sun.

“Sesshomaru-sama…” the girl prodded, bringing me back to reality. A reality where I very much existed, and there was more to life than the simplicity and poetry of the forest.

“Yes,” I answered finally, my eyes locked on the orange tiger that was silently stalking its prey. It was too dark for Rin to see it from this distance, but I could. Its form faded in and out of the dark trees, then moved away from the palace as it followed its intended prey.

Lord Sesshomaru being female didn't seem to bother her at all, like I knew it wouldn't. She had not been afraid of my true form. Learning that I was female compared to learning that I was really a gigantic dog was nothing in comparison, and that hadn't bothered her either. “And we came here because you're going to have a baby?” Had I never bothered to clarify that, either? I guess I had been so caught up in myself and Naraku that I've really been neglecting a very important aspect of my life. I would have to remedy that. Rin was used to seeing little of me, and she had a lot of room to roam around safely now, but I knew that she had to miss me.

The tiger had caught its prey. I listened to the struggle as the tiger sought and won the advantage and ended a life to prolong its own. One must kill in order to survive. It was the law of nature. The tiger kills to keep itself from dying of starvation, but the chosen victim doesn't want to die; it wants to live. One of them must die, though. It was like that for humans and demons too. There was no place in the world for both of them. Demons eat humans, and humans, in turn, despise and kill demons to try to preserve themselves. The demons were like that tiger—the humans the prey. But the humans were slowly reversing that role, as they retaliated and killed oppressing demons—or tried to and died trying, making more humans see those humans as being valiant and encouraging them to kill demons. It was an endless cycle thus far. “Yes, Rin.”

She smiled. “So, I'm going to have a baby brother or sister?”

One day, this child was going to die, and I was going to have to watch her die. She would grow old, withered, and bedridden. I wouldn't change. In her short lifespan, I would remain the same. It would be as though not even a day has passed before she dies. If I stopped paying attention, the passage of time would whisk by me. I could but blink, and Rin would be gone. Humans rode the river of time, flowing with it. Time was their fate, and they were forever bound to it. Demons were not. We are rooted in place like stones, unmoving, only aging with wear. The humans, so like the creatures whisked away in rapids, only passed us by fleetingly. Their time was so short. How did they even know what it means to live? Perhaps, though, that was why they treasured life. “Yes, Rin.”

She yawned, rubbing her eyes. “Rin is sleepy.”

I had known that already. “Then sleep.”

She looked up at me hopefully. “Can I sleep with you tonight? Just tonight?”

I looked down at her. “If you wish.” I looked back outside. The study had an adjoining guestroom, which I had used years previously when I had stayed up late into the night reading, and found myself too tired to make it back to my quarters. I had left the door in there open, and Rin let herself inside. I heard her moving to the large futon, covering herself in the blankets. I listened to her fragile heart slow with the rhythm of sleep. Death clings to humans. It knows they do not have very long until their souls return to hell. Reincarnation was almost pointless. Death waits for humans. I could smell it on some of them, regardless of their age. But perhaps, for mortals, death and time were one of the same.

The wolves had found their prey.

*****

Author's Note: Yeah, the beginning of this chapter is a bit weird, but I wanted to add some humor to the story, and with as much medication as Sesshomaru is on right now, s/he would be a bit loopy.