At eight months Inuyasha began to walk, he was stronger and bigger then most eight month old children either of the women had ever seen. Kagome and Kikyou laughed loudly as he began to run soon after and they made a game of chasing him around the hut and yard while he laughed just as hard.
"Ma" he yelled as he tripped and fell onto his knees. Both women rushed over to him and met his big tears. Kikyou grabbed him and Kagome checked out his knee while he soaked up the attention like a dry sponge in water.
Kagome laughed when he reached forward and grabbed her robe and yanked trying to get her to play some more. Half way through Kagome's examination Inuyasha broke loose of Kikyou's arms and began to run around the yard yelling and making the girls chase after him, worried now that he pass through the barrier and into the demons hands.
Kagome felt for where Sesshomaru was and knew that he had his eyes open and alert for the moment when Inuyasha would deliver himself into his hands. Inuyasha looked over his shoulder at his guardians, he was having fun and could not understand why they're scents changed to have a tint of fear as they chased him. Brushing the barrier with his hands he saw a pretty flower and went under.
Sesshomaru dropped down in front of the tiny inu male. Inuyasha looked up at Sesshomaru with a sense of wonder. He noticed that his hair was shiny and the markings on his face were pretty and he wanted to touch them, throwing his arms up as a sign to be picked up by the male demon he waited.
Sesshomaru didn't know how he felt about the boy wanting to be held by him. It was his only opportunity so far and he could take it... Kagome rushed through the bushes and stopped behind Inuyasha, staring with curiosity as Sesshomaru stared down at him.
"Ma," he said and raised his hands up again, thinking he hadn't been understood.
Finally broken from his trance Sesshomaru growled and sent the boy running back to Kagome. He whimpered and looked at him over Kagome's shoulder when she picked him up and he growled again to establish his dominance.
Kagome looked at him and he could see a small smile playing across her lips. " Kagome! Do you have him!" Kikyou ran up behind Kagome and sighed relieved to see that the boy was safe in her arms. " you will never have him demon." she glared and earned a growl from the demon.
Kikyou took Inuyasha back into the tent and was talking to him about running away from them. He sniffled and Kagome let Kikyou dole out discipline. Kagome looked at Sesshomaru with pride. " you didn't hurt him?" she asked and he turned his back on her not wanting to be questioned.
He remembered looking down at Inuyasha and thinking about himself at that age. He had come face to face with his father, very much like Inuyasha had just run into his clutches, but, his father had kicked him across the tent and demanded he never run from his mother again.
He had thought about that, looking down at the little inu, and he felt his stomach turn at the thought of continuing to be like his father. Two months ago he realized how he had become like the man he hated. And for two months he has questioned all of his actions as to whether they are what he wanted or what his father had wanted for him.
He dreamt every night in riddles, his father appeared as the object of his hatred, he would demand that he declare him his true heir but his father would refuse saying that he needed to become Sesshomaru, a man of his own honor.
Honor? His father had no honor, the man had beaten his child and mate until he was hated, then he made his child into his own mirror image of rage and bitterness. These were the things he remembered about his father.
This day, Kagome walked behind him, prancing and singing as she always did when he heard the sound of a bear. There were three of them, he felt his heart rate accelerate at the thought of all of that meat and he felt the blood lust, but it was doused when Kagome cooed at the mamma bear and her cubs and talked of them as being a family.
" Kagome. I cannot eat when you insist on making everything, your pet along the way." he snapped.
"Oh... well that makes sense... sorry." she said and he looked over his shoulder at her. She smiled apologetically and they left the cubs in the forest behind them as they walked. " your feeling better aren't you?" she asked.
It had been a few weeks since the last tantrum and he no longer, only , shouted at her for communication. He acted as though he were brooding constantly and daydreaming. He was daydreaming now. " Sesshomaru?" she called and ran up to walk beside him, he grunted, trying to warn her from approaching him from behind. She ignored him.
"This one is thinking," he said and tried to walk ahead of her once more. She ran to catch up.
"About what?" she asked, she was feeling talkative, wanting to explore this new side of him that dared to daydream. He had been acting differently, and she had to wonder if it was his way of accepting this situation and trying to make friends.
"Not what who, stupid woman." he snarled and glared at her.
" Sesshomaru... who are you thinking about." she asked slightly angered at his tone. She tried to let it slide.
he growled and thought about telling her that it was her, that he was imagining every scenario to how she could be murdered in the forest with no way for Kikyou to find her. He stopped himself and answered. " my father." he said and she got a thoughtful look on her face.
"He wasn't a good man was he?" she asked and earned his snort.
"No, no inu is good as you think of it, but my father was great." he said suddenly wanting to defend his way of life.
"Did you love him?" she asked
"No." he snapped feeling the rage in him from that question.
"He was your father, you never wanted him to smile at you and tell you that you had done a good job or that he loved you?" she said thinking about her own father before he died.
"My father hated me, as I hated him. There were no words of comfort. Only war." he said and broke ahead of her to walk on his own. Kagome stopped.
"That explains so much." she shouted after him and he growled. " are you and he alike?"
"... no, he would have killed Inuyasha two days ago when given the chance." he said thinking about how he had said Inuyasha's name in place of his own. His father had tried to kill him, in his raging fits, in his harsh training and the starvation, for one hundred and fifty years his father tried to kill him. But Inuyasha was what he had died for, a son born weak, who would never amount to the power of his elder child, no matter what happened to strengthen him.
"Why didn't you?" she asked and made him stop misstep.
"Because I am not my father." he turned.
"No, you are Sesshomaru, you are your own man." she said and smiled warmly Letting her pleasure with him touch her eyes.
The sight of her warm smile made his heart leap. He took a breath and turned on his heel. "Idiot." he snarled and walked away.
He wanted to change but the force of habit had him making the same choices until he was so depressed that he did not want to come down from his tree at all. He glanced to the side to see Kagome and the healer sitting quietly under a small sapling in the yard.
He had been ignoring the ache in his chest from watching the two grow more close with each visit. The man was resilient, though Kagome had never accepted his advances, he did not understanding why she turned him away except for the slightest amount of affection.
He could feel the man's frustration, and see his anxiety when they talked.
Hojo could feel the warmth of Kagome's heart through her words about Inuyasha walking and the things she had trained for in the last few weeks since Hojo's last visit. Hojo was trying to get Kagome to stop talking long enough for him to tell her something. " Kagome." he tried again.
"Oh sorry I was rambling again." she giggled and he blushed at the sound of her laughter.
"That's okay, I like hearing you talk, but there is something that I wanted to ask you, you have never given me an answer about our relationship, I teeter between thinking of you as my friend and my girlfriend, I really like you Kagome, I have to know how you feel about me." he said and Kagome blushed red, she thought she had already made her situation known.
" Hojo, you have seen the demon, I am bound to him, I like you, I do, but I don't think it's fair to bring you into this. You may not take the demon seriously, but for me this is real." she bowed her head apologetically and Hojo looked into the trees to where the demon had appeared to him before.
"What would he care if you had a lover, and Inuyasha does need a male figure in his life. I think I could care for him as much as you do. Please don't turn me away because of the demon." he begged her and Kagome was taken aback.
Sesshomaru was standing on the other side of the barrier from where the man stood. He could not help it. He had heard the direction the conversation was leading to and jumped down to squash the next show of affection with good old fashioned intimidation.
Hojo went to the barrier and put his hands out to grasp it. "Don't" Kagome said trying to stop him."
"Do you know that the demon would hurt me?" he asked and Kagome could not answer him.
" I guess it depends- no I'm sure, he will kill you, please don't go past the barrier. why are you even trying?" she asked.
Hojo turned to her and frowned. " I want to show you that I can be around demons too."
"Not this demon, please Hojo." she went to him and tried to wrestle him back but the healer was stronger then her physically and they ended up breaking through the barrier and landing on the dirt behind it.
Kagome looked down at Sesshomaru's black boots and she swallowed down the dread she felt. " uh, hi demon. How are you today?" she tried to play off the situation, but Sesshomaru ignored her.
Hojo looked up at angry amber eyes and sat up pushing Kagome off his back and sending her tumbling to the ground, he stood without helping her up. Kagome scrambled up and stepped between the men. Sesshomaru looked down at her with boredom but smirked when the man stepped around her. "Demon, I am Kagome's lover, do you have a problem with that." Hojo asked not backing down from the angry stare.
Sesshomaru was on him in a moment with his hands around the man's neck strangling him with his bare hands. Kagome began to panic, she watched hojos face begin to turn blue and his struggling limbs began to slow. kagome did the only thing she knew and understood how futile it was before she tried."Please don't kill him." she cried and threw her arms around his neck, hugging him and burying her face in his shoulder.
A thousand emotions flooded sesshomaru when her arms came around him. she was warm, her embrace was filled with passion, though tainted with fear and unconsiously he began to loosen his hold on the mans neck. she sobbed, into his neck holding on to him with the knowlege that sesshomaru held hojos life in his hands. suddenly the mans life meant nothing to him. there was something else happening that oershadowed his loathing for the healer. He growled, but stepped back, she still had her arms around his middle and he scented her tears like acid burning his resolve.
The healer struggled from the ground and looked on at the two. Mostly at the embrace she held him in while murderous eyes challenged him. Hojo looked at Kagome's arms that still wrapped around the demon's neck and felt the betrayal like a whip striking him on the back. " Hojo, run." she gasped.
He ran. Hojo was gone and Kagome felt relief like a wave through her that he escaped with his life. Her eyes were disappointed and sesshomaru felt angry that he was able to throttle the healer and still did not feel better about her feelings toward him
"do not mistake this for weakness, i would have killed him. even with you crying like a child." he snarled looking down on her sadness with loathing.
" why what did he do to you?" she challenged him and he felt his anger beggining to spike.
" he challenged me. he tried to take you from my clutches and it will never happen." he said with a lttle more feeling than he even realized.
kagome groaned and sat back against a tree. " your mad about the kiss? and about him asking to be my lover? what does that solve, you make it impossible to have one any way!" she yelled angry at him.
" you could have beded him and been done with it, but no i would not have let him live." he growled angered beyond what he had anticipated. just the thought of that healer consumating a relationship with kagome set him into a spirol of fury.
" it doesnt work that way. you should understand, he wanted to eventually become my husband. that is more commitment than a one night bedding." she shook her head.
"But you want him." he said punching a tree and breaking it where his fist collided.
"How would you know? You've never asked me whether I was interested in him or not." she asked offended.
"when he is around I can scent your arousal-" he started
"What!... no... stop!" she said and stood wiping the grime from her face.
" I can sense your arousal for the healer... you want him. Admit it." he snarled and dug his claws into the tree he had just smashed. Kagome shook her head.
"You can't just invade someone's privacy like that, or assume that because I am attracted to a man that I'd jump into bed with him for nothing- I am a respectable woman... Sesshomaru are you mad?" she said seeing that as she spoke he became more enraged.
Was he mad? Damn right he was mad. She was defending her scent, the same one that enraptured him and distracted him from his goal of vengeance. She said that she would not bed him and so far she had not, but he could not get the image of her kissing that human fool, out of his head. Sesshomaru tried to stop the emotion in him. He wanted to hurt her for making him feel this way.
"I am enraged." he spat and punched another tree to the ground. Kagome sighed and sat down on the fallen log she patted the spot next to her. He looked at it and remained standing.
"Why?" she asked.
"The healer is a fool." he snapped
"Is that all?" she pressed and he growled " could you possibly be angry at me for responding to the fools attention?" she asked and he leveled three trees around him for the rage that her statement caused. Kagome stood up and looked him square on. " are you jealous?" she asked now making him crazy with anger. She stepped back and watched him destroy things out of rage. She waited until he calmed down and went to him
"Do not touch me, wench." he growled. "To be jealous would be a joke. I do not want you human." he seethed and felt the lie in his heart. Her smile was warm and he nodded accepting his feelings.
"Don't worry, I would never assume such a thing," she said and he growled. " I am proud of you for not killing Hojo. I could have sworn that he was walking to his death when he went to confront you." she smiled
"Why would the human do that?" he said not making it a question but she answered anyway.
"I've noticed that when a man is interested in a woman he does some pretty stupid things to get her attention and show her that he is a man, I believe he was intimidated by you. because you are around me all of the time. he doent understand the whole, you want me dead thing, he thinks you are my lover"she shrugged and looked after him.
" he is a fool." sesshomaru growled.
He thought about how it had felt when she had thrown her arms around him, trying to stop him from killing the healer. Kagome had touched him, and he had allowed it. It was the first time that he was not enraged at the touch of others. he could remember the feel of her arms and the scent of her tears on his neck and touched the place her lips had brushed when she hd begged him to stop.
She was allowing him the respect of a man and did not do things for him, only aided him on doing them himself. She was trying to make him trust her and he felt the response that was beginning to feel natural to him. He scented her near the barrier with Inuyasha, she was singing softly, rocking him in her arms-The boy was sleeping, snuggled into the chest with his hand wrapped up in a clump of hair That he had been pulling on. Kagome looked up at him and he knew that she saw him though he was camouflaged. She smiled.
Sesshomaru felt his heart race, he felt the responding warmth that spread through him and he took the moment for himself. But only a moment. Move forward with your life... your father is dead." his mother had said.
what did that mean to move forard with your life? he had been angry for so long he didnt even remember what it felt like to keep the taint of his rage at bey. he had tried to make descisions for himself, for what he wanted, and was still finding himself measuring everything by the bitterness of his past. " there will be no more looking into the past. father is dead, he cannot tourture me any more and there is no one but myself to take his place. i will not." he descided.
this had been comming for a while. he had meditated on it more often then anything he had ever thought about and was at the brink of even giving up on his vengeance, taking inuyashas life for the pain his father caused. he had spared the childs life already, looked into his young eyes and seen a mirror of himself, somehow it had begun to wear on his heart, he didnt even remember that he had a heart.
He had been a pup the last time he remembered feeling happy, three winters old and his mother was walking with him in the forest. She let him play in the snow and climb the trees that framed their pathway. He was smiling and laughing and throwing snow up into the air to catch it in his claws. He had been elated, Filled with the wonder of playing for the first time in the snow. Her smile, he remembered the warmth of his mother's smile and felt his chest tighten, from the pain of being so far away from her, of having not seen her for almost a year and not knowing if she was being taken care of. He sat up and felt rage at the invasion of another inu in his territory.
There was another inu in the forest and his scent was familiar. He did not have time to jump down before he was assaulted from the side and he turned in ready stance for battle to the death. Sesshomaru looked on at a face that he hated. " Takeda. You are here? Why" he growled and watched the smug look cross the older demons face. Sesshomaru was no longer afraid of the wrath of his rival. There was a century between them in power and he, Sesshomaru, was the more dominant of the two.
Takeda laughed and motioned to the familial scene not far from where they were. Takeda could not pass the barrier any more than he could and yet he acted as though it were a child's defense. " I see you have been busy with this human whore." he snapped and looked down on Sesshomaru.
sesshomaru could scent the arousal of the other demon at the sight of kagome. rage welled inside him, and he did not stop his claws from shooting forward to catch his enemy. "Get out of my territory, I have business here." he growled and reclused into the natural cold stare his father had given him. It seemed to work and Takeda backpedaled remembering the look of feral amber eyes. But looking at him now, the edge seemed to have dulled and so he pressed on.
"What? Isn't that half demon yours. I scent the blood ties. I must say that the woman smells a delicious. I see why you took her. She will be a fine breeding bitch when I take her for myself." he barked a laugh that made Sesshomaru see red.
"Do not touch her." he seethed and felt the squeezing in his chest again. Takeda smirked at the flash of anger and emitted a scent to draw in females. sesshomaru hoped that Kagome's human nose would not scent the draw of the inu male but Kagome looked up and called for him. She did not understand why but she had begun to feel anxiety from the place where Sesshomaru was.
"Demon?" she asked, she hadn't used his name in front of even her sister and now she felt as though she were in danger from more than just the silent rage of her demon companion.
"Kagome stay back." he snarled and she felt the rage and heard the crash of battle. He was fighting, she could hear the trees and rocks and feel the surge of power that told her he was not alone.
Kagome went to the hut and placed Inuyasha on the mat ensuring that he was asleep and then went to her bow. Kikyou watched her movements with curiosity. "What is going on?" she asked.
"I don't know, the demon is fighting something in the woods." she said and ran out to the place where she felt him rage. She crossed the barrier and was grabbed up by a pair of clawed hands. She tried to curse when those same hands brought her to a solid surface and covered her mouth so she could not scream. She looked wide eyed at Sesshomaru's feral anger and realized that it was another demon that held her.
Looking up she saw another inu demon. This one was smiling smugly and looked on at Sesshomaru with malice. " put her down, Takeda." Sesshomaru growled.
"Oh is this your human?" he growled and leaned down to sniff her neck he groaned and licked his lips. "Yes, this is a good one. I can scent her innocence like a precious gift from the kami, this is not your bitch then, cur?" he asked and saw the rage flicker like an inferno inside of sesshaomru. Takeda smirked.
"Put her down." he said. Fighting him with the woman in his hands risked that Takeda would snap her neck before he took the first step. He waited for her, willed her to distract Takada enough for him to get the killing blow.
Takeda turned the woman to face him and dodged the spit that she spat in his face. " oh feisty. I've always enjoyed a fight before breeding. Wouldn't you agree. Shinta. I see you have left her unspoiled but I... I want to taste her... you don't mind do you?" he growled and pulled Kagome forward and kissed her roughly. Sesshomaru scented when Takeda's fang sliced her bottom lip and felt her anger and fear as fuel to the fire of his rage at te scent of her blood, she belonged to him!
"Unhand her." he growled and lunged forward to bury his fist in the side of Takeda's face. He missed when Takeda dodged and he heard the sound of tearing cloth.
" I don't think so, I think, I like this human, she tastes like power. I want her." he said and cupped her breast through the torn cloth of her robe. She tried to scream but he clasped his hand over her mouth again and pulled her back into a raging erection excited by the value sesshomaru had obviously placed on her.
Sesshomaru sented the arousal of his enemy and Kagome's dread. He had no choice but to summon the other priestess " Kikyou." he yelled and was almost relieved to see the woman run to them. She looked at the demon and then searched for her sister. Kagome struggled against the inu demons hold. Ruby eyes stared into the other priestess and he grinned an evil smirk that made Kikyou's blood run cold.
She began a chant and summoned the power to her hands and drew the string of her spiritual bow and shot the demon passing through Kagome's body and striking him with the energy of it. He yelled his agony and released Kagome enough that Sesshomaru lunged for him and the fight became a brawl of tearing claws and biting until the intruder, now bloodied, took off into the distance.
"It serves your mother right to be enslaved by that black inu chief. She is a whore anyway." he snapped and Sesshomaru felt his world shatter.
" mother?" he whispered and roared into the night. Turning on the two women he seethed. " I have to go to her." he said.
