Author's Note: Thank you to those who reviewed and voted for my first chapter. I just wanted to mention some things before I continued. Although I don't really consider this story alternate universe, a lot of things will, naturally, be much different than the series chronologically and plot wise. I don't want this to be just a re-telling from a slightly different angle; I want this to really be something unique. If you have questions, please don't be afraid to ask them.
As always, I will ask you to please review. Even just one word can mean the world to me when I'm in a slump. Your words of encouragement mean a lot!
I hope you enjoy this chapter .
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To Coexist
Chapter
2 – To Explain
What defined humanity?
Where was the line that separated fiction from reality?
For centuries, thousands had sought it – laying down their lives, sacrificing families, unions, and even themselves in order to find the answer to that mystery.
What made a human?
Was it the body's mortality? Was it the soul that resided within? Was it greed, selfishness, lust for power, gluttony, compassion, sympathy, mercy, or the ability to love? Was it about the skin that made it so prone to damage? Did the definition of being human reside in the weakness of the body to diseases, illnesses, injuries, and emotional trauma? Or was it all about anatomy? About having five fingers on each hand, two eyes, one head, and a brain that could destroy as it could create? Wherever the true definition lay, Kagome was very sure that the creature standing before her now did not fit into it at all…
The wind rustling through the trees whispered it to her. The light that filtered through thick branches and settled like fairy dust upon his face and shoulders showed it to her. The heat that radiated from him like a furnace branded it into her memory, and the eyes that scrutinized her every feature seemed to condemn her for even daring to hypothesize that something so insulting could be true. He was a vision of terror, of beauty, of a merciless lack of kindness, and an almost saddening loneliness. She knew that he was a man, but somehow thinking him as merely a man seemed to ridicule and negate all the effort nature must have put into the creation of such a being as he. He was God and Lucifer; Apollo and Poseidon. He looked mortal, yet was not. There were no signs of aging on his skin, although his eyes shone with the frightening intellect of someone who had been alive for several lifetimes. His hair – glaring white and wispy silver – was too thick to belong to any mortal, and the claws on his hands were too long and perfect to belong to anything except a vicious carnivore. She couldn't stop herself from voicing the words that mirrored her utter disbelief at seeing such a creature standing over her now, yet she regretted saying them as soon as they escaped her mouth.
"You're…a demon…"
He didn't move, didn't react to her in any way. In fact, nothing save for the sizzling blade that rested poised against her throat served to show any sort of agitation. Silence would have envied him. Such a being had to have a voice as frightening and intimidating as he was. But when he spoke, his baritone seemed to rumble through her lungs as if it had been her voice and not his that had filled the empty gap between them.
"Stand."
Yes, she thought. Silence would have envied him, but Sound would have strangled Silence to possess him. She did as he bid without a second thought, almost certain that she would have done so even if his blade hadn't been so close to slitting her throat. She had awakened to the sight of him towering above her, his mere presence powerful enough to awaken her from whatever state of slumber she had fallen into. As soon as she was on her feet, a pressing problem became very much apparent. Her shoulder muscles gave a savage jerk as the wound she vaguely remembered receiving seemed to tear open like a baked potato under a steak knife. It was a mixture of crusted blood, dirt, pine needles, and matted hair that had mostly served to seal up the injury, but apparently, her movements had been too swift. But there was one thing she just couldn't understand.
I was supposed to wake up…
So why, then, did she feel that with every breath she took and with every second that passed she slipped farther and farther into this nightmarish fantasy? He moved. Spoke again.
"You will explain, woman."
Apparently, she thought with a slight pang of dizziness, he was a man who was used to giving orders, however vague they may be. And the order was vague – impossibly so. There were thousands of things she could tried explaining to him – "tried", of course, being the key word. If he wanted to know where she was from, who she was, or what she was doing here, then she would be at a loss.
Then again, she told herself as she watched his stoic face, he doesn't seem like the type to care about something like that…
Once again, she spoke without thinking.
"Explain what?"
The change in him was immediate. This time, she felt the quiet yet deadly rage that consumed his aura. As the blade cut painfully into her neck, she wondered if he would kill her right then and there, and suddenly found that she wouldn't mind. Perhaps this time, she would succeed in waking up from this insanity. A hesitation. An almost unrecognizable pause. Only in this position could she fully appreciate anything she felt from someone so seemingly indifferent. Every breath he took, every movement that would have otherwise gone unnoticed was visible and tangible to her. Twin stones of citrine narrowed. It was almost as if he sensed the crucial moment in which she lost her fear of death. This new discovery seemed to displease him. She waited for the blade to finish her but instead of inflicting pain, it drew back.
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The human female had eyes that reminded him of a doe's. Large, wide, fearful. He had to wonder if she was not hanyou, though. Those enormous orbs were like lakes, like cups filled with the bluest water. From his personal experience, he had never met a human that had eyes like hers, and found himself trying to remember if he had ever really bothered with looking at eye color before killing someone. Setting such sentimental thoughts aside, he recalled how he'd found her, lying lifelessly on the forest floor, her shoulder bleeding. It looked as though something demonic had tried to strike her down – the claw marks on her skin were enough to attest to that. She had been terrified when she had spotted him over her – a reaction that he was now used to. There was no creature in existence that should be foolish enough to feel no fear upon the sight of him. Yet.
The moment she stopped giving off the scent of fear was reflected in her stance. She even seemed to lean against the edge of his blade, Tokijin, of her own free will. Did she honestly want to die? The softening of her features, the almost imperceptible dip of her lips into a half-smile, told him that that was exactly what she was after. He, The Great Sesshoumaru Taisho of the Western Lands, did no favors for anyone. He was a ruler, a sovereign, a daiyoukai meant to govern others that were beneath him in both status and power. With his own claws he had taken the reigns of these wild lands into his hands after his father's death and had carved an image of an untouchable potentate, governed by no laws other than his own. All creatures in his domain who were sensible had learned to bow down to him without question, for going against him in the slightest meant a sure death.
Yet.
Now.
Almost impaled on his blade was a weak, human, woman – miko by appearance – did no such thing. She did not bow to him, did not fear him, and was patiently waiting for him to end her life. Was she simply being stubborn and refusing to submit? He hadn't necessarily demanded that she do any such thing. He had simply asked her to explain herself, and to explain the reason why an explosion from this part of the forest had purified a large number of youkai in the surrounding area. Surely this request did not serve to make her feel that she had to give her life to keep her silence.
Unless…he thought dangerously…there is more to this situation that is readily apparent…
When he moved back slightly to give her more room to breathe, she had the gall to look disappointed. For the first time since he'd seen her, he took the time to truly examine her. Hair like the depths of the blackest onyx, eyes as deep as the most fathomless river, and lips that were too large yet full and delicately shaped – she was the embodiment of the word "unordinary". Though she wore traditional miko garb, he sensed no edges of threat or malice in her aura. Purity. That was the word that came to him. And immediately angered him to no end. They stood in silence for eternity, each examining the other, and each unsure of what to say. He almost felt that she wasn't of this world. Narrowing his eyes in suspicion, he decided to repeat his previous order to her.
"Explain."
She dared to arch a delicate eyebrow and look at him without a trace of understanding. He thought of threatening her but suddenly remembered that she would welcome death and felt an the unfamiliar feeling of not quite knowing what to do. Stealing a glace at skin that looked as fragile as porcelain, he remembered that there were things worse than death. Throwing his momentary uncertainty aside, he decided that carving the answers out of her would be more enjoyable than simply killing her where she stood. She deserved a much harsher punishment than a slit throat for making him repeat himself. If it was possible, her eyes grew even larger as he stepped forward, reached out his hand and grasped her throat none too gently. She still didn't move, reminding him of a frightened deer whose body refused to move from the depth of the fear that it felt. At last, the terror was back in her strangely clean scent. This woman, he thought, was ordinary after all. At last she made as if to speak, and he allowed her the opportunity, saving her pain for later.
"Are you really going to kill me?"
She seemed to honestly wonder about that, and he found his inner self smiling a twisted smile.
"Slowly and painfully," he replied. Apparently, that finally broke whatever trance she had been in, for she began to struggle in earnest. Not expecting this sudden development, he released her, wanting to see what she would do. She ran. He had her pinned to the ground, his knee pressing into her spine forcefully, in less time than it took for her to make one step. Noting the wounds on her shoulder once again, he dug his claws into her raw flesh and released several drops of his deadly poison. No pleasure did he receive when she refused to scream, simply letting out a strangled moan of agony as he continued his torture.
"Let me go!"
"Not before you explain."
"What the hell do you want me to explain?" she asked through gritted teeth, her voice hoarse. He found her defiance even now to be displeasing and more aggravating than it should have been and released more acid into her skin. She did scream this time. Rather loudly. Her voice echoed through his diaphragm, an unpleasant sensation that made him feel as though his very lungs tensed up.
"The explosion," he continued calmly. She resumed her struggling anew, arching her back at an impossible angle to try and avoid what he was doing to her. He stopped the flow of poison but dug his claws deep into the gashes. Head shaking from side to side in obvious suffering, her thrashing increased until he had trouble holding her down with just his knees. His claws retracted a bit, her display of torment touching a part of him that he hadn't known existed. Using his naturally superior strength to flip her onto her back, he used one hand to pin her wrists above her head while the other settled tightly on her throat. He used one leg to hold both of hers down, and noted just how small she was. It was as though he was holding down a child, and not a woman. Tears had gathered in her eyes, he noticed. Once again, he gleaned no pleasure from her suffering. Angry with himself for starting to feel any sort of mercy towards this human, he dug his claws into her wrists this time. She cried out and arched violently even though he knew her struggles would get her absolutely nowhere.
"Let me go…let me go…please…" she ground out, and to his surprise found that she wasn't crying. "I don't know how I got here…it was supposed to be a dream…just a dream…" A dream? Was she delirious from the poison, or was she simply demented?
"You are saying you were not responsible for the explosion," he offered.
"I don't know what the hell you're talking about!" He didn't like the tone she was using and told her so by taking his free hand and burying his claws into her side. Her scream pierced his hearing almost painfully. He should have known not to underestimate her. Although he had thought he'd sensed that her miko power was weak, he should have known that it grew stronger with emotions. Apparently, her current emotion was enough to set something off, for a blinding light filled his vision a split second before enveloping him completely. His right shoulder began to throb, then his abdomen, and finally his forearms. Thoughts began to drift – would this slip of a woman have enough power to actually hurt him?
Ridiculous! his pride shouted. Yet the pain that pricked at his skin told him otherwise. Just when he began to suspect that his pride might be mistaken this once, the light faded away as quickly as it came and he opened his eyes to find the woman beneath him once more. The discomfort of his body increased tremendously, and although he smelled none of his own blood, he smelled plenty of hers. Strange, for he hadn't really taken much notice prior to this moment. And then he saw it – something so unexpected and unbelievable that he would have thought it impossible had he not been within a hair's breath of what he was looking at.
The woman – the pathetic, human, woman – bore the mark of the moon upon her forehead.
There was no mistaking it. It was identical to his own.
Instincts told him to kill her now, that she was casting some sort of spell upon him, and that he had to hurry and terminate her life before the situation became more complicated. But it was too late, he realized, for when his claws sought to tear into her flesh, he felt the pain of it inflicted in the same spot upon his own skin. There was no blood – just a raw pain. Her eyes were filled with so many things at once that he could hardly read if what she had done had been intentional or not. Confusion, horror, uncertainty, and bewilderment – all were written there upon her fragile face. Then –
"What have you done, woman?"
If he expected some sort of explanation from her, he was sorely disappointed. She lost consciousness before he could even finish his question…
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To be continued…
(If I get reviews :P)
