InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Winds ❯ Red Summer Rain ( Chapter 6 )

 

At the edge of a small, clear stream with a slow current, Inuyasha stopped to drink and duck his head under the water. The moment of coolness was a welcome relief, and while he crouched and shook water from his ears, a split line of thought rattled inside his head.

I do not like to have left Kagome alone for this long. Sango is no help - Sango is danger! She smells of blood…

Kagome had pled with him to search for Miroku, but he had refused to leave her until another night had passed, and there was no sign of the Houshi returning. He was first of all angry with himself that Miroku had escaped notice when he left - but many nights lately Miroku had wandered away from the campsite, sleepless, and there had been that night…and so he waited. And now he had waited too long. Kagome would be angry, and say that he had not listened.

I should not have left my mate.

He lifted his head, searching with delicate nostrils, tuned to their task. For a while, he had hoped, but now there was nothing to remind him of the monk who might have passed. Inuyasha could not even find the direction Miroku had traveled. While the summer air had grown steadily thicker, moving slower under the sun, at night it was still whipped into brisk travels across the land.

The current wind brought many scent-trails to him - Kouga had approached, and then retreated. The awakened burn of youkai printed a rakish grin dark with fangs across his face. Mating-scent was in these woods still, twisting through the wind that he tasted. Kagome was in that scent - he was in that scent, and he knew why Kouga had left without coming to them, and was glad.

The voice was laughing for him, though his smile had not changed, and his thoughts were turned inward to the presence that tetsusaiga no longer seemed to contain. Instead of a desperate death, instead of rage, it was a sound that clung to the edges of his thoughts, whispering in caressing tones.

Because I have claimed my mate, and she is…Kagome.

Kagome knew. Before he had touched her, the red had come for him, covering his senses in a thick cloak, and the first kiss had broken him, breaking her. At the first taste of her blood, the first pulse that brought him the scent of her desire, he felt the risking of youkai and could not contain it.

He had seen for the first time in both the red-vision of the Beast and the clear world of his usual view. The voice was dark, a growl in the tones of the faded thought of `father' that lingered near the memory of his birth.

The longer he was away from Kagome, the more the voice of the beast grew. He sympathized with it, understood it, but mate required the return of their companion. Said companion should not have left in the darkness, should not have gone without a word, should not have made it necessary to search. If Sango were to wake, and Miroku were not there - what then?

Soon Inuyasha would have to return with empty words and no Miroku. He did not know what words or actions would be of use to comfort Kagome, except that there was also no smell of blood or death.

He allowed his nose to twitch, sorting through the scents around him one last time as he leapt forward another mile or so with light, bounding steps. He caught on Kouga's fading scent, biting back laughter from his youkai self. Beneath it, there was another, darker smell that he barely dared to contemplate.

Kikyou

His youkai rose in fury with the thought. That was a name that brought hurt to mate. The cold scent was only an underlay, a taste like cemetery soil that hugged all the places where Kouga's scent lingered.

Kouga - Kikyou. An odd presence. Could the wolf have seen Miroku? Perhaps Kouga had crossed a fresher current of scent farther away. The trail of Kouga's scent led off between the trees, looping over itself and then burning a path in a wide southward arc. While he thought of this, a thick, clean scent rushed over him in the next breeze, and he cursed silently.

Rain was coming, heavy summer rain, and Kagome was alone in the village with Sango and Shippou. With a snarl, he turned away from the tempting scents, and ran back towards the campsite he had left, seeking the swiftest way. As fast as he ran, the rain was faster, and his ears flattened under the onslaught while he berated himself.

I should not have left her alone…she is so fragile, so human! What if she is caught outside in this rain? She will catch a sickness; she could die of the summer sickness!

When he reached the village, his fears died. Kagome's scent was strong and vital, reaching him through the rain. He was still outside when she came to the door, alerted by new senses that were related only to him, and he was content with her warm, snuggling desires, the shy squeeze of her arms.

She was his mate, now. He had no need to be shy. His growl was low enough not to reprimand, but still strong enough to reach her ears. This one sound she had learned quickly, the instruction that it gave bringing a warm thrill to dark places, and his smile of awareness was rough. Kagome tilted her head back, offering her throat, a mate's act of trusting submission, and he gentled her with his teeth, pressing his fangs lightly where he knew they would elicit a pleasing gasp.

When she relaxed into his arms, and pressed her ear against his heartbeat the way she liked to do, he murmured into her hair, soothing with a growl even as he spoke.

“I did not find Miroku. Not a scent or sight or sound of him, not a campsite or wind-rumor.”

He paused, and closed his eyes. She reached up with one hand to touch his cheek, and turn his face towards her.

“It is not your fault, Inuyasha. I knew before I asked that you would not leave us, and I knew…he did not want to be found. If he did, why leave without telling us?”

They sat in silence for a while, Kagome staring into space, Inuyasha staring at her.

“He has been silent, and restless lately, Inuyasha. Do you know why?”

“No. But the other night, before I came to you, before I…it was Miroku who helped me find the right words to say. I wanted to thank him…I…ran off before.”

Kagome laughed, and ran her fingers through his hair, brushing it out of his face.

“You always do, Inuyasha. You always do.”

 

Miroku returned to Kouga empty - handed, and stood in silence, waiting. When Kouga did not give him words or fists to deal with, he sighed, and pressed his fingers to his temples.

“You intended to travel with me, Kouga. I am not averse to company - I understand that vengeance pulls you, but she is the only one who knows where I must go.”

Kouga snarled, clenching and unclenching his fingers. The gaze that filtered down through red desires to land on Miroku cleansed itself by inches.

“You need her alive? I will make you a trade then, Houshi. Tell me about my spirit woman, and I will let her live until you no longer have a use for her.”

Miroku caught him on the edge of his glance, and probed to the fullest of all his senses for the truth.

“You swear this? You will not attack her, will not harm her, will not kill her?”

Kouga's smile was all teeth.

“I swear it. But when you are through with her - her life is mine.”

 

 

When she woke, he was gone. The drifting tide of clouds across the sky broke onto Kagura's eyes through the spaces in the slats of the small shrine's roof. She allowed herself to blink slowly, acknowledging that while her entire body ached as though she had been flung into a pit of knives, blinking did not hurt. That was good. That was very good.

One at a time, she lifted her fingers, and decided that they, too, did not really hurt. Toes? Hands? Feet? Satisfied that her extremities were in working order, she decided to attempt standing, or perhaps just sitting up.

Pain shot fiery tendrils from across her chest and abdomen down through her legs. Despite it, she forced her waist to bend, stretching her legs out in front of her and pushing herself up on her left arm. Now that she was sitting and could see herself, the pains redoubled with the press of knowledge on her senses.

The wounds were like knife wounds, but the curve of the slashes and the depth of their penetration reminded her that it had been claws. Her right arm and shoulder was a blaze of blood and pain; she could barely bend her elbow, though her fingers and wrist were fine

Why was she alive? The wolf had been certain of killing her, so intent on his vengeance that he did not care she was not fighting - that would not matter to him, not as long as she still bore the scent of her own flesh. Why, then, would he stop so close to finishing the job, and then bring her here? She did not know the deity which the figure in this shrine commemorated, but it wouldn't have mattered.

Youkai did not frequent shrines, no matter the god they honored. She was surrounded by the windy scent that followed her everywhere, the smell of her own blood and the smell of the wolf, but something else lingered in the odors around her body. It was specific, a person that she knew, but it was so light after the passage of time she could not immediately define it.

A picture flashed into her mind, a moment suspended - she saw dimly a man's mouth moving, and the a blur of face up to eyes, such odd eyes, violet-brown. After the motion came the sound, words that she remembered again from the moment before the black surrounded her memory -

Death is death, not freedom.

Freedom, so often suspended before her on a wire of Naraku's sadistic devising, was the ambrosia which her soul craved, the sweet paradise of her only dream.

The Houshi!

Who else would bring her to a shrine, and save her from the wolf? The hanyou and the women were not near them. Had he come alone? How wise, and how foolish! A single human alone in the wide wilderness of demons would not last long. Where she had sent him, the hanyou could not have gone. Perhaps even the slayer-woman could not have entered, so stained with blood was she.

The miko, and the Houshi, then - but an Inu would not allow his mate to go without him into danger.

Perhaps he had been less foolish than she thought, but not for reasons that he would know about. She had not given him enough information for him to come to such conclusions. If the Houshi could get to the mountain, he would be safe even from Naraku. She knew his evil could never enter there - and so did he.

The Houshi must have kept her alive for information. If he had come alone, he would be in sore need of something to assuage his suspicions that he had come out on a pointless endeavor, but the knowledge that his own death was fast approaching would act as a more terrible goad than he could ever accuse her of being.

Nervous fingers encountered something hard on the stone floor beside her. The shape was instantly familiar, a lean and obnoxious mystery that spread like a fog before her other thoughts.

My fan…

He had left her the weapon with which she had so often attacked him, and now that she pressed her memory, seeking reason, she knew with undeniable certainty that his was the face that had given her those precious words, the link to life that she had lost on the way to choice.

Death is death, not freedom.

Could he possibly understand? Did he know the meaning of the word that haunted her, day and night, waking and dreaming?

Freedom.

Naraku did not yet call her - so she would not return. She would follow the Houshi, and learn what he knew, and make him tell her - make him teach her - the meaning of free.