Alright, before I get started, there are a few things I must include. Ahem
1: Do not, and will never claim to own Inuyasha. Not that stupid.
2: My first attempt at a Sess/Kag fic. Please, if the characters seem a bit OOC, that is merely for the purpose of the storyline. I try to keep them in character as much as I can.
3: If you don't like it, don't read it. Simple as that. I don't want flames about how much this sucks, or how much you hate it. It is amusing, but gets really old and annoying after a while. Please, respect me.
4: This is an AU fic. The characters are the same, with the exception of a few tweaks here and there, but the storyline is completely different. Please, no stealing the story. I worked to hard on it!
5: I do mention martial arts in here. I don't know a lot, only what I know from watching my brother practice karate. So if I seem a bit naïve, that's why.
Take This to Your Grave
CHAPTER ONE
Sesshoumaru absolutely loathed social gatherings. They were doting, annoying, and altogether unnecessary. Demons of all kinds, ranging from foxes to bears to wolves, had gathered to celebrate the birth of Princess Kagome, new heir to the Southern lands. His golden eyes rose to watch as his father held the child, barley three weeks old, a small bundle of blankets. His 'mother' was beside him, an infant Inuyasha perched on her hip. The great InuTashio was making eyes at the pup, acting like a woman seeing her child for the first time. Suddenly, he looked up, apparently feeling Sesshoumaru's gaze, and beckoned him to his side while still managing to keep hold of the infant.
Pushing his way though the crowd, he reached his father, albeit begrudgingly. "And I'm sure you'll remember my young son, Sesshoumaru. He is ten summers old this Autumn." Sesshoumaru hated being reminded of his young age. In his opinion, he was old enough to do anything he wanted. The fact that he was only ten had nothing to do with it.
Lord Jiro spoke, his naturally cheerful voice ringing around the hall like a great bell. "Ah yes, young Lord Sesshoumaru. I remember when you were as small as Kagome." Eyeing the small bundle uneasily, he wondered. Had he really been that tiny? It didn't seem possible.
"Here, son. Hold her for me. Jiro and I have much to discuss." Before he could protest, the mall bundle was placed, lightly, in his arms. She weighed close to nothing, compared to some of the other things he had been required to lift.
Looking down at his little burden, he saw that she was looking back up at him with big blue eyes. Her tiny face was framed with a tuft of black hair. She was so fragile, so innocent looking. It wasn't possible that she could grow up to be as large as a normal demon, was it? He reached up one of his hands lowered a clawed finger to touch her. Before he could make contact with the soft looking skin, a miniature hand reached out from the midst of the blankets, and latched onto the offending appendage. Furrowing his brow, Sesshoumaru made to pull away from the girl, but she held fast, sticking his knuckle into her rosebud mouth an suckling softly.
He wasn't too sure what he felt about the tiny demon. Part of him was fighting the urge to rip the child to shreds. The other part of him wanted to clutch the child to his chest and never let her go. The second part of him seemed to be winning, and it annoyed him. His father had returned and was chuckling at the new growth attached to his finger. "Take her, father."
"Now, now, Sesshoumaru. The young princess seems to like you." His father's mate smiled, placing Inuyasha onto her other hip.
The young girl looked perplexed for a moment, then looked as if she were thinking very hard about something. Then, very decidedly, she took Sesshoumaru's finger from her mouth, and cooed the word, "Sesshou!" Sesshoumaru blinked at the small pup, who was currently reaching her free hand up to grasp at his snowy locks.
The girl's mother, Kasumi, seemed especially pleased, grinning at Sesshoumaru with the strangest gleam in her eyes that he thought she might have gone mad. "What?" He finally questioned, removing the girl's hand away from his hair.
"Congratulations. You've just been graced with her first word." Sesshoumaru snorted and looked down at the pup, whose eyes were watering at the removal of her hand from her new object of fascination.
"Sesshou!" The pup gurgled again, reaching up to curl her fingers around his silky tresses. Growling at the look his father gave him, he let the infant tug happily at his hair. It didn't really hurt, just annoyed him to no end. Gradually, her grip on his hair lessened, and her tugs less energetic. Large eyelashes flirted with each other at they blinked over large blue eyes, until they closed. Sighing and curling against his chest, the pup sighed her gargled version of his name before falling into the oblivion of sleep.
Letting a small smirk cross his emotionless features, Sesshoumaru brushed a few stray strands of black hair out of her cherub face. "Kagome." This would, however, be one of the last tender moments between the pair for a very long time.
"Bastard."
"Whore."
"Jerk."
"Bitch."
"Conceited, self-centered, arrogant, asshole."
Their faces were so close together that Sesshoumaru could smell her breath, see every individual detail on her face, from the blue stripes on her cheeks to the five point star on her forehead. She was so irritating, she drove him insane. There should be laws against someone that young to be that annoying. She was short that he had to bend over to see eye to eye with her, and only eight summers old.
They had gotten into an argument about who had won a spar after Sesshoumaru had 'cheated'. "Just get out. You disgust me. It's bad enough I have to put up with you every summer. We've interacted, now leave me be." In a huff, Kagome whirled around, her plume of black hair surrounding her like a curtain, and left the dojo, and one fuming inuyoukai.
Feeling the need to let off some access steam before the midday meal was served, Sesshoumaru took up his bow staff. Trying to focus on his staff and nothing else, he swung it around a few times, taking out imaginary opponents left and right. It had become a particularly useful training method to imagine the Princess Kagome as his opponent, defeating her over and over, if only in his mind. He knew that his father had made a deal with Kagome's father; that they would mate someday. But she was so infuriating that he would probably kill her before they had spent more than a day together.
She was so different from the females he was used to around the palace. All of his servants were quiet, dutiful, and would do whatever he asked of them without question. But Kagome, Kagome was different. She refused to take orders from anyone, especially from himself. As she was stubborn, perhaps more so than Sesshoumaru, meaning that the arguments they would get in could last for hours simply because neither wanted to be the one to admit defeat and end it. More than once one of their parents had to separate the two, and multiple times they had gone without supper.
He grunted and leapt into the air, his right leg horizontal, parallel to his bow staff as he jabbed another imaginary opponent who just happened to have Kagome's constant, annoyingly cheerful face. That was another thing he hated about her. She was always so happy, all the time. Unless she was arguing with him, there was always a smile plastered across her face. Everyone loved Kagome, sweet, caring, selfless Kagome. Even his father seemed to have a soft spot for the tiny slip of a girl, letting her get away with mischief in the palace that he would have been whipped for.
"Lord Sesshoumaru!" The voice of a creature possibly more annoying than Kagome came wafting towards him though the sliding dojo doors, it was Jaken, his father's toad servant. He sighed, placing the bow back onto its rack.
"What is it, Jaken?" The toad demon struggled to slide open the dojo door, but did so and clamored into the room, bowing respectfully.
"The lord requests that you join him for the midday meal, if you please, Lord Sesshoumaru." He squeaked, his nose still practically scraping the floor in a bow.
"Hn," was his only, sneering response as he swept out of the room, leaving Jaken behind, still bowing.
His father, Izayoi, Inuyasha, and the brat were already seated when Sesshoumaru entered, taking his usual seat to the left of his father. Lunch was a quiet affair, with only the occasional glair across the table, and Inuyasha getting scolded for flicking rice into Sesshoumaru's hair. He couldn't wait to get away, the socialization he had to endure was killing him. Once he finished his meal, he thanked his father and rose, leaving the room without another word, as he always did.
Sesshoumaru couldn't believe how much time could change people. It seemed as if it were only yesterday that Kagome was eight years old, tugging at his hair and yelling childish insults in his ear. Ten years later she had grown into a-he hated admitting it-beautiful demoness. She no longer argued like a child, either. Whenever she was cross with him, her tongue was sharp, lashing out stinging comments almost as fast as himself. She was still maddening, however; still ever happy and cheerful, ever aggravating.
She was currently in the sitting room, half sitting in a chair, head resting on one arm, legs slung over the other, and a small book clutched in her delicate hand. Her face was calm, relaxed, and it was clear that she was so absorbed in her book that she had yet to notice he was there. Smirking to himself, he strode over to her, relishing the fact that he could still sneak up on her. "I'm so glad you find yourself sneaky, Sesshoumaru." The girl commented, never looking up from her book. The demon slumped slightly. She had simply been ignoring him. Swiftly, he snatched the book from her hands, sun kissed eyes scanning the crisp white pages.
"Give that back, ja-ku."
"Calm down, ritoru baka, I'm just looking." He loved the look on her face, complete and utter fury. After a few drawn out moments of pretending to read her book, Sesshoumaru tossed it back to her, a smirk playing across his cold features. "I don't know how you can keep yourself entertained with such," her searched around for the right word, "rubbish."
"It is not rubbish, it's fascinating. And if you care for it so little then leave. No one asked you to be here."
"This is my home. I can be wherever I wish, when I wish it. And no impudent little girl an stop me." Kagome slammed the book shut and set it on the chair, rising to look him as square in the eye as she could, given their considerable height distance. She opened her moth to say something, then closed it again, apparently thinking better of it. Sesshoumaru reading himself to taunt her when a small hand flew across his cheek, catching him off guard for once. A growl reverberated from his chest, and he grabbed her wrist as she moved to hit him again. "Touch me again and your life will be forfeit." He released her wrist and swept out of the room, not looking back.
Both of them knew it was an empty threat. He couldn't have killed her, even if he wanted to. And if he did, his father would kill him before he could say a word in his own defense. That was how everyone in his family was. Take action now, ask questions later.
"Lord Sesshoumaru." With a growl, Sesshoumaru stopped in his tracks, waiting impatiently for the little toad demon to reach him. This day was just not going how he had planned it.
"Yes, Jaken?" The small green demon slumped over, huffing and clutching his staff.
"Your fat-father wants you in hi-his study, immed-immediately." The larger demon set off directly, wondering what his father could possibly want with him now.
"Enter, son." A voice echoed from inside the room, his father had obviously smelt him thorough the door. Pushing the door open, Sesshoumaru entered the dimly lit room.
"You sent for me, father?"
"Sit down, son." He did so, taking a seat in the chair across from his father with only desk, which was littered with scrolls, quills and empty inkwells, between them. He took a moment to scoff at the disorganization of his father. He had always been picky about things like that, everything being exactly where it was supposed to be, and in the correct order. "In one week's time, your mother and I will be throwing a ball celebrating your engagement to the Lady Kagome. Two days following this, you two are to be wed." His father's cool gold eyes scanned his face for any signs of a reaction which he would not let slip.
In all honesty he had not expected that their bonding would come this soon. Both he and the wench had known that it would come eventually, but eventually had always meant sometime in the distant future. Not now. Not next week. But it was, and he would handle it like he did everything. Calm, cool, and completely professional. Thoughtfully, he pondered the girl's reaction when she found out. No doubt she would throw a temper tantrum, and the entire occupants of the castle would turn up to coddle and comfort her. "Is that all, father?"
"No, son. There are matters I must discuss with you on how you must conduct yourself from now on when you are around her." Sesshoumaru nearly blanched. Here he was getting lesions on proper manners from a demon who talked with him mouth full at dinner, not caring weather or not he spayed the entire company with food in the process. "I have noticed that you and her have not been, getting along as of late," and there was the understatement of his lifetime, "and I feel there are many things that you must know before the two of you are bonded. Walk with me, son. We have much to discuss."
Kagome slumped with her back against the door, silent tears coursing down her cheeks. She wasn't sure why it had to be here. Just minutes after he fight with Sesshoumaru, her mother and entered the library and informed her that she was to marry Sesshoumaru in little over a week. Had it been anyone else, she would have accepted it for the sake of her family, but this was Sesshoumaru. Cold, distant, icicle-so-far-up-the-ass-it's-coming-out-of-his-mouth, Sesshoumaru. She had known since before she could remember that she and the older demon were to be married, but to have it thrust upon her like this, well, it was a shock.
Raising shakily to her feet, Kagome made her slow way over to her dresser, thinking that she might as well look presentable for dinner. And, of course, for her future mate.
A/N: Well, the scene is set, and now the curtain closes. Good? Bad? Hate it? Love it? Please, review and I hope to bring you the next chapter soon. I am also in need of a BETA, because I am currently doing it myself, and I suck at editing my own work. I tend to skip over a lot of it because I already know what happens, so I miss a lot of stuff. Thank you all, I love you, and without further adieu, adieu.