{|Red Rise|}
x. The quiet before the storm…
Harsh pellets of water raged down upon the battered body, a sharply clawed hand was left palm open, silver bands covered his heavy lidded liquid amber eyes. Crimson tainted the clear dripping raindrops until the dirt turned mud covered it up.
A bare gash covered chest weakly lifted with each breath, if not for the cold tattered rock the figure would not be sitting but passed out in the muck.
The will that used to keep him strong in moments like this had left… he had nothing to return to. No one because… he had ruined it all… the one he thought he could never hurt—physically, at least—he left damaged far back in the dark woods.
x. What had started all this misery?
"Inuyasha," the onyx waved maiden whispered, a clawless hand lifted to whip away the final tear, her hazels met his bleak eyes. Warn, they were both weary after all that had passed. An oversized, unfit blue shirt clothed her petite physic from his eyes. Battle had ruined his wardrobe, he merely had his red hakama in tacked still. His arms propped himself up so he was half-sitting, half-lying on her bed from behind, she knelt beside him, their eyes intimately locked.
Fornication was not on their mind, authentication was. He was alive, she was alive. They needed to know that. Somehow, they survived. A foul attack, an unprepared group, a horde of demons, another incarnation with a suicidal task—kills himself, kill them. He succeeded halfway; he got the kitsune, the neko, the monk, and the slayer in his vicinity before… self-destruction.
Explosion, flying rock, shock wave, ear piercing screams, blood, unidentifiable bodies, bone fragments, vanished faces…
Nothing was left to fight, shock took the two remaining… the new moon was soon, they couldn't think, they hadn't understood what occurred, how it could, they buried the corpses at the fallen demon village far away. The next night, the black veiled night, they were in her era. Hiding, morning?
"Kagome," he muttered back as she leaned forward to place her hand gingerly upon the beads that bond him to her, that gave her power, which he hated to love. Hazels left him for the beads that lightly glowed as she fiddled with them, only she could do that, only her powers…
Only her, that was all he had left. No one that mattered existed anymore. Add four more to avenge on his list, a monk, slayer, kistune, neko, and miko… he could not lose another, not her, never her. He swallowed when she closed the gap between her lips and his neck. He shut his eyes, was this real?
He felt his hair shift, her hands rise above his head, and opened his lids to see the necklace in her hands… off of him.
"I love you," she confessed in a lull of a hush, her eyes wondering over the beads that would no longer work when she said one simple word, "I want to tell you that now in case…"
"I'll never let anything happen to you," he reassured but his voice was weak, his mind was still muddled with what she just declared—love, she… him? Someone like her with someone like him? The way her shirt slid down her shoulder to expose bare skin caught his attention fully. The air was too thick.
"I know, but still, I wanted to tell you and…" she whispered as she raised the necklace to her lips, "I want us to be bound not by something you dislike so much but just… by us."
She loved him… it made his feeble human heart flutter, he could hear the heightened throb in his head, but he could not say it back. Was it true, did he? No, he knew the answer, but he let her move so their lips united instead of speaking.
He kissed her back, that's all that mattered.
Shortened breaths, heated bodies, minute moans, fuddled feels, whispered nonsense, promises to always stay, to never be apart, tangled tongues, wondering trails of warm kisses, flesh to flesh…
Stopped, innocence was not broken, not pierced, not taken, not that night. He was alive, she was alive, that was good enough. Sheets covered their numbed nude bodies, arms wrapped about the other, legs intertwined, a cute face upon a firm chest, and happy sighs before slumber.
…the first night of horror absent dreams.
x. Good does not last, terror took hold.
New incarnation, new reasons to hate, to loath a part of a monster he lusted to kill, to rip apart, to shred piece by piece methodically, so many scenarios seeped in his head.
Sword stolen by a little nymph he didn't notice, sheath cast aside, a familiar scream that triggered a rush, a need to protect what was precious, all tainted with red as a growl broke out.
Power, he hadn't had anything like that when his mixed blood took over, when his youkai had so much power. It filled him, coaxed him to do this instead of that, he was awake while he tore apart the demons but not. He had control but none.
Still, the wide-eyed awe of the girl that he cared for gave him pause. Stay away, he meant to growl, stay away. She stepped closer and closer, her hands out as if to tell him to settle down, he couldn't, she was so close.
Her scent filled his senses, his bloodlust was through with the youkai needed another fix, a different fix.
He knew what he was doing when he grabbed her wrists and pushed her to the ground, he knew what he was doing when he encompassed her mouth with his own to bit and prod at her lips without the tender care he had only a few nights prior.
She couldn't save herself because she had taken her only guard.
He relished in the feeling of her bare thighs against his grand hands as he rubbed her skin until he hiked her green skirt up and tore her underwear away. The same went for her shirt, over her face, the strange fabric that hid her chest was gone with a flick of his nail. Love was absent in his assault.
Screams took the place of what should have been moans.
Tears of terror trickled down instead of joy, love, or fleeting pain… constant agony replaced that.
She hadn't a say in the way he marked her, it was a horror show he didn't want to watch but couldn't look away. The rough ground bashed against her skin with each of his thrusts instead of the soft bed that it should have been. His pronounced fangs sank into her below, her nether regions, she was his, she could be no one else's.
His youkai was cocky, his youkai didn't care if she wanted to be or not, his youkai… was this what he wanted to become?
x. Physical pain passes but scars will always remain
Their rump cooled his youkai, settled his blood, he faded back to normal but… she had fallen unconscious, she looked so tattered, too beaten—had he done that to her? Yes. He knew he had. He only fixed his hakama, he didn't bother to pick up the top that Kaede had mended, he just ran.
Ran… coward his mind whispered. Coward, how could you leave her there? Coward, what if someone sees her like that? C-o-w-a-r-d.
Bastard, the monster that he had been aiming for instigated their last battle. Alone, just the weak hanyou, that must have been why he assumed he could take him, that he could kill him and then have the pretty, no-so-pure maiden to himself and the jewels she carried around her neck. He didn't want to let his youkai out again, but he didn't want to be in one piece either. If he had broken her body, his should be too… he barely won, he barely kept his eyes from fuming red, but in the end he was pummeled and pressed against a rock for support, then he slipped down it to sit, claw gashes across his chest.
The cold rain started, the gray clouds had been there all along, now they were weeping down upon him.
Moron, fool, idiot, bastard, demon, monster—none of these words did him justice, how could he?
He loved her.
x. Sometimes, that's enough
Shuffled footsteps caught his twitching ear's attention, a breath in told him who it was, the air was filled with her blood, her scent, her fluids, his fluids… their aromas were interlinked. Coward, the voices whispered again, look at her. He couldn't. He knew she was there well before she appeared, did he mentioned how he won? With the aid of a bright burst of light from an arrow… together, they defeated the demon.
He barely opened his mouth; 'sorry' just wouldn't cut it. She fell to her knees beside him, still he couldn't look at her, she wrapped her arms around his neck and cried into his shoulder, sobbing how it was 'over, finally, over, over'.
Why was she holding him?
Why wasn't he holding her?
Gradually he did just that, meekly he pulled her close. He wanted to say sorry, he wanted the sobs to stop, he wanted to take back what he had done, he wanted… her not to leave.
"I love you," she choked as she buried her head into where his neck met his shoulders, "I love you. It's OK. It was you… that's why it's OK."
She was lying, probably, but he'd take that, it gave him enough strength to mumble an, "I love you."
Slowly, she pulled away to look him in the eyes, hers still soaked with tears that merged with the rain that wouldn't cease, then her lips crashed with his.
Passion was fully behind her efforts; did that mean she was really 'OK'?
He didn't know… guilt would always stick with him for what he had done, he was sure, but if she'd let him, if she'd grace him with the gift to, he'd spend forever making it up to her. He did not want her to go, to leave back to her world…
x. Love transcends his faux pas and her future
Disgust didn't take her dainty face like he expected when he explained with reddened cheeks and constantly dodging gaze what it meant when he bit her.
"Mates?" She had whispered and he had nodded.
A smile cascaded across her lips instead; her hands cupped his face to force him to look at her before she kissed him once more. She'd let him have forever to make up for what happened, their lives were interlinked, he'd only shortly outlive her or vice versa. It was perfect, for both of them. The jewel was wished away, he was fine with the way he was, better yet, she was, too. With his sword back, he would never let his youkai out.
Three weeks passed between her leaving through the well and returning to say she'd stay there with him, that they'd make a life together in Kaede's village, she'd become a miko there and tend to the orphaned children, ill citizens, and hone her archery skills all the more. He'd protect their new home, protect her.
Her, the girl he loved. It seemed like time barely passed before she fell ill, fatigue and nauseas consumed her often, awful fits of both, worry struck him deep. He could not lose her, not so soon after all was finally done…
Instead, that worry dripped away when he found out the truth from the giddy girl he cherished. His wife, his mate, the woman that held his child in her womb… any regret either had of the 'incident' faded then, she was more excited than he would have ever thought to be young, his, and to have a child on the way.
x. Laughter was the cure for aching hearts
Twins, who would have thought? From one incident could come two so precious? He had never ever known such a love, never felt such an instant attachment, never felt such an intense needed to protect anyone as he did for them, and his feelings for his wife, his mate, his lover only grew after seeing her tired smile as she held the girl and asked Kaede to give the new father the boy.
"Sango and Miroku," she had suggested when they figured out two were to come instead of one.
So those were the names he called out more often than naught, who would have thought such small things could have been so much trouble? Always rushing here and there, back and forth, one up a tree, the other around a field, it was exhausting. The odd thing was, the boy resembled his mother, the girl her father, and that was how it was. Miroku was mommy's little boy, Sango was daddy's princess.
"Finally," he groaned, two overactive toddlers made it a rarity for the husband and wife to sleep alone in the same futon.
A small smile curved her lips as he wrapped his arms around her, it only grew when she felt his hand wonder to her growing gut. A third on the way, if a boy Shippou, they hadn't thought of a girl's name yet since the mother was fervent that she knew it would be a boy. He wouldn't argue with her, he learned long ago to give up on that field. She was almost always right unless she was very wrong, otherwise he'd let her have victory just as she would him.
Somehow, through darkness came the brightest light.