Sesshoumaru felt himself emerging as if from a long, slow thaw.

For the first time in many months, he saw the signs of promise, like a thinning in the gloom. A much needed and welcome reprieve, in the climate of rising tension and hostility that surrounded him. With each passing day, Kagome grew stronger, healed further. All his free hours were spent by her side—though they were far too few—his eyes trained upon her as he watched the subtle mending of her skin and bones.

He would have spent every hour beside her, if he could. But his kingdom demanded his attention, now more than ever. He attended to it with an iron hand—the same iron hand he had been ruling with for centuries. The consistency, if nothing else, worked in his favor, and he had managed to quell the initial wave of panic and dissent. Still, he knew better than to become complacent, though it rankled him to be long separated from her.

Inuyasha, thankfully, kept him well apprised of Kagome’s progress. Daily, if not more often, he would seek out Sesshoumaru on his falcon Korin, and launch into a diatribe on her current state—the fading of a stubborn scar, the sprouting of a nail on a regrown finger, the smoothing of a gouge in her flesh. Sesshoumaru listened avidly—greedily—to these reports, gleaning bits of Hikari’s rehashed prognosis from his brother’s own often colorful and gross exaggerations.

It was a mixed feeling the demon lord experienced upon hearing these accounts. Part excitement and gratification, part impatience and sullen envy. In truth, no pace but the instantaneous could have been swift enough to satisfy him. He wanted her restored at once—a burning desire which the Jewel at his chest would never allow him to forget. With great difficulty, he contented himself with the knowledge that she would heal—in her own time—and that she would do so even in his absence.

More and more, she began to resemble herself, and Sesshoumaru realized with a pang that the visions of her which the enchanted fruit had conjured were truer even than his own recollections. She was more than lovely—she was radiant. As the weeks passed, and the glow of health steadily suffused her, it became increasingly a test of his restraint to leave her side.

Despite Hikari’s assurances, Sesshoumaru remained convinced that Kagome mended more quickly when he was near. A fierce certainty which had him seizing Inuyasha by the throat as he’d scoffed at it. It had taken Ryouken, who was now stationed permanently at the lone castle for Kagome’s protection—and to Hikari’s chagrin—and three other guards to free the suffocating half-demon.

Ironically, as Kagome’s condition improved, Sesshoumaru’s attitude worsened. With the gravest of her scars and deformities healed, he found himself now obsessing over the slightest imperfections. And of course, there was the nagging state of her missing eye, which had reformed much more slowly than the rest. Long after the last of her facial blemishes had disappeared, he made the mistake of lifting the delicate lid and confronting the lingering horror of the dark, bloody orb beneath it. The Shikon no Tama had simmered in unmistakable derision as Sesshoumaru had cursed and reeled.

In retrospect, he had reacted poorly. Dispatching a few frightened servants to see to the blasted, smoking wall of the antechamber, Hikari had softly explained that the blood was good and necessary for nourishing the new eye, and that it would drain, in time. Sesshoumaru was mollified only slightly.

The image of that eye would haunt him forever.

Yet when Hikari had at last pronounced Kagome fully recovered, Sesshoumaru had conceded to it. Inuyasha was ecstatic—too ecstatic. Had he been less absorbed with mastering his own reservations, Sesshoumaru would have thought to rein him in. But as it was, Hikari had scarcely ceased from administering the daily sedative, when the hanyou burst triumphantly into the chamber, with Miroku, Kirara, and even the heavily pregnant Sango close upon his heels.

At Sesshoumaru’s sharp glance, Inuyasha merely grinned and shrugged.

“When I told ’em the good news, they just had to come.”

“Gods,” the taijiya softly exclaimed, her hand fluttering to her lips as she padded over to Kagome’s bedside, lowering herself even now with a warrior’s unconscious grace. “How…?”

“Forgive the intrusion, Sesshoumaru-sama,” the monk said with a smile and a bow, Kirara bristling from her perch on his shoulder. “We were very excited to hear that Kagome-sama is to awaken today.”

“You are always welcome here,” the demon lord replied stiffly, his gaze cutting back to his preening idiot of a brother.

“Truly, this is miraculous,” Miroku murmured as he approached, though Kirara’s deep red eyes glared at Sesshoumaru still.

It was a knowing look—and far from friendly. Leaping down from Miroku’s shoulder, her aura shifted with a blaze. Her bestial form growled, low and menacing, her wicked claws gouging into the tatami as she occupied the full space between the demon lord and the sleeping priestess. Hurt and anger flared from her in searing waves. As Ryouken took up a defensive stance at Sesshoumaru’s shoulder, Inuyasha’s face fell grimly. Miroku’s brows knit in wary confusion as he glanced toward his frozen wife.

“This isn’t a miracle,” Sango said to him, her voice faintly shaking as she pulled back Kagome’s collar to reveal the mating mark. “This is a curse.”

The word pierced Sesshoumaru like a blade. Seizing upon it, the Jewel twisted gleefully in.

Inuyasha’s hackles rose. “Just a minute, Sango—”

“Was it you?” she shot back at him in accusation, before following the tense line of Kirara’s form to Sesshoumaru. Her face paled, tears bleeding from her eyes. “No…”

Somehow, this reaction scored him deeper still.

Crouching at her side, Miroku took his sobbing wife by the shoulders as he glanced heatedly between Inuyasha and his brother. “What is she saying?—what has happened to Kagome-sama?”

“I have mated her,” Sesshoumaru answered stonily. “It was the only way to restore her to full health.”

For a time, the monk stared at him. “You mean, you…” Swallowing in disgust, he whirled upon Inuyasha, seething. “You consented to this? She is unconscious, Inuyasha! This is violation.”

“Like Sesshoumaru said, it was the only way,” Inuyasha grit out, his ears flat against his skull. “And I’d consent to it again—look at her! She’s well now, because of what he did. That’s all that fucking matters.”

“Well?” Sango echoed tearfully, bitterly. “Oh, Inuyasha…she is far from ‘well’. What will you say to her, when she wakes? You were the one she trusted most to protect her, and you…” Her eyes squeezed shut as she hissed in a breath, clutching at her stomach. “After all that Kagome-chan has suffered…how could you—how could you, Inuyasha!”

As Miroku attempted to calm her, Hikari stepped forward in concern, her own lilac eyes glistening. “Sango-chan, please…”

Sango’s eyes flashed at her as she slapped the demoness’s outstretched hand away. “You were in on this too, weren’t you?” Wretchedly, the taijiya looked around at them all, mingled sweat and tears streaming down her flushed face. “You’re monsters, all of you.”

Hikari shrank back, wounded. Grabbing her by the shoulder, Inuyasha shoved the healer behind him. “Stop it, Sango—she didn’t do anything.”

“No,” the taijiya seethed, a strangled gasp of laughter breaking from her lips. “She stood by…just like you did, while Kagome-chan’s life was stolen from her. Her choices, her future.” Sango’s white fingers tightened on her seizing stomach. “Her children…”

Inuyasha frowned. “…What?”

Eyes glazed with pain, Sango glared up at him. “You didn’t know?—she can only have his now.” Her eyes flicked to Sesshoumaru briefly in disdain. “What did you think…the point of a youkai mating bond was?”

Inuyasha’s jaw went slack with shock. In the pit of Sesshoumaru’s stomach, a lead weight seemed to settle. In desperation, the hanyou looked to Hikari.

Faintly glowing tears trickled down her cheeks as she looked back at him in anguish. “I…I thought you knew…”

“I didn’t know a goddamned thing about it!” Inuyasha shouted, digging his claws into his hair as he glared at Sesshoumaru. “You…” More accustomed now to the hanyou’s sudden bursts of speed, Ryouken still barely managed to seize him as he flew at the demon lord. “You fucking LIED to me!”

“Control yourself, gods damn you!” the Captain of the Guard bellowed as he wrenched Inuyasha’s arms behind his back, dislocating one in the process.

The hanyou howled. Hikari cried out as Sesshoumaru clenched his fangs.

“Please, Ryouken-sama—do not hurt him!”

“Quiet, girl,” the captain snapped, spitting out blood as Inuyasha’s head smashed his chin. “The wretch deserves far worse—were he not my own kin, I would bash in his half-breed skull.”

Inuyasha snarled, thrashing. “Just you fucking try it, you stupid old boozer!”

Eyes flashing red, Ryouken growled back.

“Enough,” Sesshoumaru said coldly to his cousin. “Take him outside.”

As Ryouken wrestled Inuyasha through the door, Sesshoumaru’s attention returned to Kagome and her friends. No longer glaring venomously at him, Sango sat huddled. Her features were contorted in agony, little whimpers escaping her as she periodically shuddered. At her side, Miroku was urging her to stand, yet she clung to Kagome’s listless fingers. Piteously, Kirara mewed as Hikari hurried over.

“The child is coming, Sango-chan,” the demoness said to her quietly but firmly, the soft glow of her power enfolding the pain-wracked woman. “You must go with me now.”

“No…I can’t leave her,” Sango moaned, even as her hold on Kagome weakened. “I never should have…I never should have left…Kagome-chan, forgive me…”

“It’s not your fault,” Miroku said to her gently, another ragged sob breaking from her as he pulled her to his chest. “It’s not your fault, my love. Come, now.”

Sango sagged against him as Hikari levitated her up from the floor. The monk’s eyes slid coolly past Sesshoumaru as they moved toward the door, but the taijiya’s feverish gaze fixed upon him.

“…You’re worse than Naraku,” she said.

Sesshoumaru bore the insult in suffering silence. As the screen shut behind her, he snatched the roiling purple Jewel from his haori. It ground in his fist as he stared at Kagome’s sleeping form. Resisting the urge to dash the Shikon no Tama into a thousand pieces once again, he turned upon his heel and went out in search of his younger brother.

He found Inuyasha in the courtyard under heavy guard—and no less agitated than before, despite his terse, outward semblance of composure.

“You lied to me,” the hanyou said balefully as the ring of guards parted before Sesshoumaru’s advance.

“I did not ‘lie to you’,” the Western Lord returned chillingly, drawing to a halt. “Do not lie to me, that even had you known, you would not have made the same decision.”

“That’s not the point. You kept the truth from me—that’s the same fucking thing as lying.”

“Do not blame me for your own ignorance, Inuyasha.”

“That’s pretty fucking rich,” the hanyou said with a humorless laugh. “If I’m ignorant, you’re entirely to blame! How was I ever supposed to know anything? Father died right after I was born, and my mother was a human. The only one I ever had to teach me about being a demon was you, and you didn’t want a damned thing to do with me!”

Sesshoumaru glanced darkly at Ryouken. Catching the meaning of his look, the captain straightened, the pewter train of his fur banding imperiously around his muscled torso.

“Out with you lot,” he rumbled at the guards, who dispersed at once.

As they left, Sesshoumaru strode toward his fuming half-brother. “Enough of your whining. I have been far more tolerant of you than any other lord would be of his late father’s bastard.”

“Tolerant, huh? So that’s all it is. That’s all it’s ever been, hasn’t it?” Inuyasha’s gaze was as hard and cold as his own. “Nothing’s changed.”

Everything had changed, but Sesshoumaru was too furious to say it. “You disgrace me.”

“You disgrace yourself,” the hanyou retorted. “You think you’re some kind of hero? Some kind of ‘honorable’ lord? You’re nothing more than a hypocrite and a rapist.”

The demon lord’s blood ran to ice in his veins. “And you are nothing more than a moment’s mistake.”

A deeply stricken look slashed across Inuyasha’s features before they froze. “…Fuck you, Sesshoumaru.”

Frowning heavily, Ryouken stepped aside as the hanyou turned and stalked past him. At the edge of the courtyard, Korin alighted as if by some wordless summons, Inuyasha vaulting atop the falconess’s back and taking at once to the sky.

“Not a word,” Sesshoumaru said to Ryouken as they set off toward the castle, his cousin’s unhinging jaw snapping shut with a sullen click of fang.

Relieved to find Kagome sleeping still, Sesshoumaru knelt at her side. All through the long night, he waited for her to awaken, plagued by the sound of Sango’s distant, anguished screams.

Hikari had said that it might take hours for the effects of the sedative to wear off. Hours…

But Kagome did not wake that night. Nor the next.

Nor the next…

---

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi

Series Navigation

<< SessKag Series: Absolution, Part 19SessKag Series: Absolution, Part 21 >>