I do not own Inuyasha or its characters.
I know that this story-line is cliche... but nothing is as it appears... This is an Inu/Kag pairing.
Watching Her: His choice
Summary: When the line between love and honor is blurred, it takes an outsider to put one's choices into perspective...
"Please, don't go!" Kagome pleaded, tears dripping down her cheeks, a sob squeezing through her chest.
The weight of Inuyasha's sword was heavy in her hands; his fire rat was warm, hanging protectively from her shoulders. "Take care of Tetsusaiga for me. I won't need it where I'm going. It was meant to protect you, anyway." His hands released her shoulders and she choked on her breath. "Keep it close to your heart, Kagome, and I'll always be with you."
"You can't leave me, Inuyasha!"
Inuyasha backed away slowly, eyes glistening with unshed tears, ears lying dejectedly atop his head. "I have to, Kagome. I vowed to follow her, and I don't have anything without my honor."
Kagome shook her head, tears flying every which way, denying his words. "You have me! You have a life here, with Sango and Miroku, Kirara and Shippo!" Kagome paused, her heart splintering with each move he made toward Kikyo. Each step tore away another piece of her soul. "You have me, Inuyasha. "
"My life is Kikyo's. I gave it to her years ago, before all the bloodshed, before the nightmare," Inuyasha whispered, his hand resting over his heart.
"No! Inuyasha, please. Please!"
He stopped his movement when Kikyo's arms wrapped gently around him, her deep brown eyes shining with the love she held for him.
"Thank you, Kagome: for being my friend, for showing me that I was more than just a half-breed. I'll always remember you, Kagome – always love you."
Her knees hit the ground then, too weak to support her weight. After all the years, the pain, the bloodshed… he'd finally said those three words.
And now he was leaving her.
She stared at him in disbelief, but in his eyes Kagome saw the truth: the absolute love held in them as he gazed back at her. The look in Kikyo's eyes – that emotion was in his, but directed toward her. She could see his regret, sorrow. He didn't want to leave her, didn't want to leave the family he'd found in their mismatched little group.
"I love you, Kagome," he mouthed, his voice as silent as the lonely tear slipping down his cheek.
In a flash of light and heat, he was gone, the earth smooth over the ground on which they'd stood. The tree behind it trembled overhead, leaves raining down around her as her tears continued to fall.
She shattered, her fingers clinging to the pink orb that had started it all; the pale sphere that had taken it all away. There was no wish to be made; no love, no life, only the searing pain that ripped through her heart, leaving ashes in its wake.
Kagome didn't hear Sesshomaru move up behind her, never felt her aura crackle wickedly against his in warning. She never saw the pain that radiated behind his eyes, or the look of failure that crossed his pale face.
"I would have stopped him. I was too late. "
"Why? Why didn't you come sooner?" Kagome stood and turned to face him. Her face was drawn in silent agony, bloodshot eyes blinking through the sorrow paving its way over her flushed cheeks. For the first time since his Father's death, Sesshomaru felt sorrow.
He should have stopped her when she raised her fist, should have severed her hand at the wrist the moment it connected with his chest for even daring to touch his person. Instead he stood motionless beneath the onslaught as her distress turned to anger, then to fury. She beat him mercilessly; over and over her fists pounded his chest, and still he waited.
Then she fell against him, her tears wetting the front of his haori, burning his skin with the depth of her sorrow; her tiny hands twisted in the cloth of his clothing as she gripped him like she had nothing else to hold her to this realm.
How long had he watched her watching him? How long had he known she'd lost her heart to his brother? Sesshomaru had known the half-breed would break it, unintentional as it had been. Inuyasha was loyal to a fault and Sesshomaru had known he would honor the promise given the dead priestess. The half-demon may have been rash, but he was his Father's son. All Inu were bound by their word, by their honor.
But the knowledge did little to curb the fact that he'd failed, too. Sesshomaru had failed his Father in protecting the half human sibling Inutaisho had given his life to protect. 'This Sesshomaru has failed,' he thought, and the idea burned through his veins distastefully.
Honor surged beneath his skin, his inner demon rioting inside, fighting to make its presence felt. He'd failed to protect the hanyou, but he wouldn't fail in protecting Inuyasha's miko. Right or not, human or not, Kagome was as loyal as any Inu. Not only that, but she carried great power within herself; that was made completely obvious the day she'd killed Naraku.
No demon had walked away from Kagome's power unscathed. Any lingering too close the moment her aura exploded had left with singed skin and hair, flesh humming for days from the onslaught of her purification. Had Kagome not warned them away, not taken the risk of losing her own life to secure the demons' safety before her aura exploded, none would have lived to tell the tale.
Something silky brushed through Sesshomaru's fingers, and he was stunned to realize that he held her to him, brushing his claws through her hair in a soothing gesture he'd never known himself to possess.
Long hours later when her body pressed intimately against his, sleep overtaking her, Sesshomaru laid her on the ground before moving toward the shadows. For reasons unknown to him, he stayed; a protector to the miko his younger sibling would have died to protect.
He watched as she woke several hours later. Disoriented, her eyes fell to the place forever marking his brother's choice. Her tears came again, sobs wracking her body and grating against his ears as she mourned the half-breed all over again.
The others of her pack came and went, their attempts to convince her to return to the village unheard. The kit curled protectively in her lap for a time, eyes on him all the while as her fingers combed shakily through his fur, though her attention was elsewhere. The slayer sat with her too, and the monk, all in silence, all sharing her pain with tears of their own. But Kagome refused to leave, so therefore Sesshomaru would stay.
There came a time when the Monk confronted him, asking why he stayed. His response? "This Sesshomaru will do as he pleases."
Sesshomaru watched the spark in Kagome wither away. What was once a brilliant display in her aura was fading; she was getting thinner by the day, her sorrow so tangible that he could feel it as if she stood beside him. Her smile crumpled until she could not even force one for her pack, as though she had lost the will to even try.
Turning his gaze from the silvery face of the moon, Sesshomaru glanced toward the miko. Kagome's movements were hesitant, hands rising to finger the odd closures adorning her top. Inuyasha's sword rested in its sheath on her lap, the glow of the jewel they'd fought for lying untouched beside it.
She loosened the first few closures finishing the task a few moments later. Her top fell open, the moonlight glinting off her pale skin and the strange contraption beneath it. The material covered her breasts, though she didn't reach to remove it.
Sesshomaru watched her reach for Inuyasha's sword. She slid it from its sheath, the dull blade barely reflecting the light cast by the sphere in the night sky. He watched her trace the small white scar above her hip, a jagged line that stood out against the pale tone of her skin. Once, twice she caressed the puckered flesh, her hand once again straying to the weapon he'd coveted for years.
He watched her bring the blade to her skin, pressing the edge against the scar – soft, like a lover's first touch. Kagome's eyes fell closed. Her breath shuttered uneasily from pale, pink lips left partially open to expose straight, white teeth.
His breath left his lungs as she swiftly pulled the blunt edge across her skin. He expected to see the shimmer of her blood coating the sword's edge once the motion was complete, but there was nothing: no tearing of her skin, no cry of pain filling the night. The blade didn't harm her, had left nothing more than a reddened welt upon her skin. It was then he realized why the sword had worked for Inuyasha: it protected her… even against herself, it seemed!
Kagome tossed the blade from her lap, anger and frustration lacing her words. "Worthless, rusted piece of shit!" she hissed, her eyes flashing with more spark than he'd seen in the weeks that had passed. Her anger was tempered immediately by something Sesshomaru placed as human regret, her hand reaching to pick the sword up off the ground, her fingers brushing the dirt from the blade with loving reverence, her choked apology filtering softly to him on the breeze.
Turning his head to watch the stars, Sesshomaru was brought from his thoughts by the utterance of his name.
He hadn't thought she'd known he was there. Three weeks he'd waited, staying just out of her sight. Three weeks he'd heard her mourn as he watched her slowly fold into herself.
Kagome's voice cracked, hoarse from lack of use. He wondered how much longer she'd last. How much more of herself would she give to the barren patch of land that was Inuyasha's grave?
"I know you're there," Kagome whispered, her eyes never moving from her lap. The jewel hung over her finger by the chain, no longer the bright pink it had once been. Over the course of the last three weeks, its color had muted with the spark in Kagome's aura. "I wish to bargain with you."
He hadn't wished to speak, hadn't wanted her to know he was there. He'd noticed when her aura had accepted him; it didn't spark wickedly against his in warning, didn't flare around her as it once had, but he'd dismissed it as if it were nothing more than a passing breeze.
"This Sesshomaru does not bargain with humans," he replied, resting his hand on the hilt of Tenseiga.
"You wish for the Tetsusaiga, yes?"
"I will not take the sword from you, girl. But… at your death, I will claim it as my own, as it should be."
Kagome snorted, her mouth peeling back in the closest thing to a smile she'd given in more than two weeks, a sardonic half-smile that never met her eyes. "Help me restore the jewel to its rightful place, and I will give you Tetsusaiga."
"Restore the jewel to its rightful place? And where might that be? I have no wish to stay any longer than necessary in your presence. "
Kagome's eyes met his through the dense tree line. She shouldn't be able to see him, shouldn't be able to sense him, yet she met his eyes through the dense cover of the forest.
"It belongs here," Kagome moved to trace the scar on her abdomen once again. "Tetsusaiga cannot aid me in this, and I have no wish to return to the village for something else sharp enough."
Sesshomaru moved forward curiosity swimming through his mind, though he'd never admit to such nonsense. "You wish me to open you?"
"Yes, here," she confirmed, her fingers tracing the location again, eyes rising to meet his as she stood slowly and silently before him.
"And you will trade the sword for what could be a mortal wound?"
"The jewel was torn from my flesh when I first arrived here. This is where it belongs, whether the action of returning it to my body is life-threatening or not. "
"You will not wish upon it?" Sesshomaru studied her. She stood proud before him, a look of determination bright in her eyes. Respect for the woman sparked to life beneath his chest. He willed it away before she could see the answering flicker deep in his eyes.
"No. There is nothing left to wish for," Kagome replied, the softness of her voice reflecting the pain she was trying in vain to conceal from him.
"Not even Inuyasha's return to your side?" It was a harsh question, but one that needed voiced. Sesshomaru would not pity her. His younger sibling had honored the family name by standing by his vow, and Sesshomaru would recognize the courage it had taken Inuyasha to forfeit his own life to honor it; he wished to see whether she recognized it as well.
Kagome dropped her gaze, a single tear falling from her lashes. "No. He made his choice. If I'd have been more like her..."
"You are not that miko. You could have mimicked her every action, her every word and it still would have left you as you are," Sesshomaru murmured coming to stand in front of her.
"You don't think I know that?!" With a sigh, Kagome looked up. Her heart twisted painfully when she met the deep gold of Sesshomaru's eyes, the striking silver of his hair… 'So much like Inuyasha, yet so different.'
"You are not from this era, are you?" Sesshomaru inquired. He'd seen her disappear through the well more than once. She'd always returned a day or two later, carrying fresh supplies for her pack's travels.
"No. The well leads to my home." Her voice cracked, but she continued on, her eyes never leaving the stony expression on his face. "Inuyasha traveled with me, but he was the only person the well ever accepted."
"How far do you travel, Miko?"
Five hundred years," she paused, the deep brown of her gaze searching his. "In the future."
Sesshomaru studied the woman before him. It made sense: her strange clothing, the strange food she brought with her. "And the jewel allows this?"
"Yes. Without it, I would be stuck here or there. "
Sesshomaru considered her words, a decision beginning to form in the back of his mind. There would be no going back should he heed the miko's request, no guarantee that she'd live through the act she bargained for. "And if returning the jewel to your flesh locks you in this time? What then?"
"I will be stuck where the jewel intends. It makes no difference where I remain. Either way, I'm lost."
Kagome took a deep breath, her determination beginning to wane under Sesshomaru's scrutiny. One way or another, this had to be done. The jewel needed to be protected, and if housing the sphere inside her body was the only logical recourse, then so be it.
Kagome lowered her gaze, her mouth forming into a tight frown at the position she'd placed Sesshomaru in. But cutting into her own flesh was something she wasn't sure she could try again… and something he'd seemed not to have a problem with upon their first meeting. It had taken every ounce of will power to try the first time. Without Sesshomaru's help, she wasn't sure there would be a second. Blackmailing Inuyasha's brother was wrong; she knew that. But her determination to seal the jewel beneath her flesh for the safety of the others- that was something she had to do.
"Will you accept the bargain, Sesshomaru? Or shall I do this on my own, and keep the sword with me? You'd have to wait another five hundred years to regain it, and even then I will live another eighty or so years beyond that. Do you wish to wait that long to gain your precious sword?"
In a move faster than she could see, his hand snaked forward, the searing pain that erupted moments later confirmation that he had indeed accepted her bargain.
Her blood spilled fresh; its innocent scent clogged his nostrils, so sweet he could nearly taste it. Kagome fell to her knees, then to her back as pain engulfed her. She could feel his poison moving through her, her eyes closing in response. She wouldn't cry, wouldn't belittle herself before a demon who prided himself in having no weakness.
Pressing the jewel into her flesh, she nearly screamed when her body absorbed the sphere. Her eyes shot open when something moist soothed the wound, roughened strokes pulling her gaze down to the demon Lord bent over her abdomen.
Sesshomaru was shocked to find her taste almost pleasant; she was untouched, which in this era was uncommon for a woman her age, and her blood held none of the taint he'd expected to find.
The world went hazy, her eyes unfocused as currents of heat curled around her middle. She screamed when he nipped her, the sensation arching her back off the ground as she pressed closer to the demon she had no business bargaining with. And in the black void that consumed her, she wondered if she'd ever have the chance to see her friends alive and well again.
Sesshomaru cleaned the wound he'd made, his tongue curling around the jewel she'd pressed into her flesh. A thought rambled through his mind, then transcended beyond reality, the jewel sparking in answer, before fading completely from sight.
Five hundred years was a long time. But in five hundred years, she'd have her friends back, though he couldn't give her Inuyasha's love. He'd bitten her; the scent mark guaranteed he would find the miko in the future.
Sesshomaru would find the others first and, once gathered, would return for the miko to give her the wish she hadn't had the courage to make. He owed her that much for the care she'd given his brother over the years. Kagome didn't deserve to be left with nothing after so many years of giving herself so selflessly. In destroying Naraku, she'd saved them all. She was due her just reward.
Satisfied the wound was healed, Sesshomaru bent to pick up the unconscious Miko, still clutching Tetsusaiga with a death-grip, and carried her to the lip of the well. He could see the swirling blue power in its depths, knew that she would be accepted within it one last time.
Sesshomaru studied the miko's face, and sighed at the sadness still burning beneath her skin. Lifting the woman and the sword over the center of the well, Sesshomaru dropped them both inside.
In a flash of blue, she was gone.
A/N:
This story is finished. I plan to post about every three days... unless you all want it faster-- you'd have to let me know (hint... hint). There are five chapters for this fic, typed, edited, and ready to read. I do hope you all will enjoy this, though it will be a drama-filled ride.
Please let me know what you think... I will get to work on Deserted now that this is out of my system. I will post for it as soon as I can get the next chapter written. Thank you all for your wonderful reviews. I haven't replied, and I apologize for that. But I have loved all the comments, and smiled as I read each one. The response to the last chapter was wonderful, and I am still amazed (and grateful) that so many of you take the time to let me know what you think. THANK YOU ALL!!
A big thanks to psycochick32 for her encouragement, her wonderful beta-ing skills and her friendship. I can't thank you enough!
I would also like to thank psychochick32, Ai Kisugi, and Kinky-Hoe for their nominations and seconds at the Inuyasha Fanguild for my story Voyeur. I am deeply honored. There are no words that could portray my gratitude!
Neisha