I don't own these characters.
11: Hang on to your love
Kikyo realized what she had done only after it was over and done with. She had just kissed a man that was not Sesshomaru. It was Inuyasha. She immediately felt horrible, guilty, and almost sick to her stomach for having done such a vile thing. And it was vile because it was so very wrong. It was vile because she had not only betrayed her love, but herself, too. Am I so easy?
"Goodnight, Inuyasha," the dark-haired priestess said rather curtly while climbing to her feet. She walked into her home as quickly as possible.
"Kikyo," Inuyasha called to her, but she did not answer him.
Inuyasha growled in fury, glaring at her house. Stupid, teasing bitch, he thought with a huff. He had half a mind to storm into her hut and drag her back outside to talk. And they would be talking if she was lucky! He did not follow through on that thought, though.
The half-demon took off into the forest, not trusting himself near Kikyo or Rin because of his anger. He really thought they connected and that they had a chance to be together, but she seemed hell bent on waiting for a guy that he was certain would never come back for her. He was upset with her for being so stupid. She's a fucking idiot!
He was willing to bet that the bastard that she waited for had probably shacked up with some other bitch somewhere else. He was probably not even thinking about Kikyo or Rin. He probably even had another family with his other bitch. Kikyo was probably pining over some loser, he figured. She wanted a guy that obviously would not be there for her because he was not there for her. The guy probably never cared for her. She's such a silly bitch, Inuyasha thought with a huff.
Kikyo could sense Inuyasha leaving, fleeing more than likely, she thought. She was both glad and sadden by the fact that he was gone. Temptation left with him, even though she obviously was not going to give into temptation… yet anyway. She could not help fearing she might actually give in one day. She longed for adult companionship, but then again just any male would not do. She wanted the father of her child, her lover in every sense of the word. She wanted Sesshomaru and no one else. She suspected Inuyasha would not take such news well and that was what saddened her.
"He doesn't even come close," she muttered, shaking her head. Inuyasha was a good friend, but he would never compare to her beloved.
The priestess doubted Inuyasha would return after being rejected. It did not seem like something he would be able to deal with, in her opinion. She preferred that he left anyway, so she could avoid the temptation his presence would continue to bring. She had enjoyed his company, but he obviously wanted more and she just could not give him. No, I am not that easy, she promised herself. Sesshomaru was the only man for her and he would always be the only man for her.
She sighed as she settled down onto her pallet, careful not to wake up her resting daughter. It is best that Inuyasha leave, anyway, Kikyo silently assured herself. Yes, it was best and then she noticed light snoring that wafted through the small house. The sounds made her think of the one big down side to Inuyasha not being around anymore.
"Rin will be upset that he's gone, though," Kikyo muttered. She was not sure how she would explain his departure to her daughter. She frowned. "What have I done, my angel?"
Rin liked having a friend so much, especially one that would talk with her. Rin considered the soul collectors like friends, even though they were more like pets. Inuyasha was just much better company than the supernatural creatures could be and Kikyo was a bit upset with herself for ruining that her daughter. She wished she could apologize, but she doubted that would ever earn her forgiveness from Rin for losing her only real friend.
The miko looked down at her child, who slept next to her. She reached down to caress Rin's hair for no reason other than to touch her little angel. How she hoped Sesshomaru would return to them soon. Their daughter deserved a father and he had wanted to be one rather badly. It would not be fair in denying them, she believed. They had not done anything so terrible. No one had been hurt and Rin had not even been alive.
"We merely loved each other, loved each other deeply," Kikyo sighed.
They had a child like any other couple in love and they just wanted to raise their child to be a productive member of the world. They had not done anything wrong that she could see, so why had he been taken from her? We did not do anything wrong, she silently lamented, doing her best to hold in tears. Yet, he had been taken from her and their child all the same. It was enough to lead her to believe that there was no justice in the world.
"Why is it always the worst?" she wondered. What had they done so wrong?
-8-8-8-8-
Kagura watched Kikyo as she slept. Kagura was still captivated by the priestess and her daughter because it that no matter what they did, their auras remained untainted. She watched them and they did not do anything that struck her as sinful, so she could understand why they were quite pure. She could not understand how Rin was just about the purest creature that she had ever witnessed. The girl had no maliciousness in her at all, even though she was rather rambunctious. Kagura could hardly believe the child was actually the offspring of an angel.
The ruby-eyed guardian angel figured maybe the sins of the parents did not fall onto the child because Rin was just like any other small child. Most children remained untainted until they were about five or six and then some of them started being devilish without the innocent nature that might have been behind their pranks. Some of them however could hold onto their innocence well into double digits. Rin seemed to be just any other small child. Any mischief she got into was due to being a child and not some monster.
Kagura had witnessed Kikyo's little slip with Inuyasha. She was not surprised Kikyo had given in. After all, she was all alone and hurting for her lover to be returned to her. She had to long for company. The angel noted long ago that humans wanted company almost more than anything else, even if they did not realize it. She had been surprised when Kikyo had pulled away from Inuyasha and allowed him to leave, not even trying to go after him. Apparently, any company would not do for the chocolate-eyed priestess.
"How long is she willing to wait for him, though?" Kagura could not help wondering. Was Kikyo really willing to sit and wait for five more years? Ten more years? Until she died? Would she hold on so long for Sesshomaru? Kagura almost found herself wondering why.
The lengths that Kikyo would go to repent for what she looked at as a betrayal surprised the guardian angel. The miko decided to go on a thirty day fast and she sat in a cold stream for a few hours every night while praying, mediating, and silently begging to be forgiven for her poor actions. The thing that caught Kagura's attention was that the act had not even been counted as a sin.
"Is this whole she's managed to hold onto her soul's purity for so long? She atones immediately she feels she'd done wrong?" Kagura shrugged, even though she barely had shoulders in her current form. "I suppose it makes sense. It's amazing she looks at this as a sin, though."
The act had merely been a mistake and a mistake was different from a sin. A sin was a calculated act of wrongdoing. Mistakes were not calculated, even though they could turn into sins if a person did not look to correct the mistake. Kikyo's mistake had not been transformed into a sin because she did penance for it, way more than necessary, and she had not clung to Inuyasha while knowing that she wanted Sesshomaru. It was interesting to Kagura to watch a human make a mistake that she looked at as a sin and trying to get forgiveness for that, but refusing to seek forgiveness for her actual sins, which she was very aware were sins, but refused to acknowledge them as sins.
"I'm never going to get this woman," Kagura sighed, referring to Kikyo. She shook her head. Kikyo just did not make any sense.
-8-8-8-8-
"Mommy, where's Inuyasha?" Rin asked innocently, looking up at her mother as she spoke. They were walking through the woods because Rin wanted to pick flowers.
It had been days since the incident between Inuyasha and Kikyo. As the miko suspected, he had run off and probably would never come back. He had not returned since then. She did not even sense him lurking around.
"He's gone, angel," Kikyo replied, feeling her stomach turn. The priestess felt horrible for her actions with Inuyasha because she felt that she had driven him away and her daughter really liked him. She wished he had remained and tried to deal with everything just for Rin's sake. She knew she would have definitely dealt with everything if it meant her daughter could keep a friend and be happy.
"When's he coming back?" Rin inquired with a bright smile.
"I don't think he is," Kikyo answered honestly, caressing the top of Rin's head. She could not lie to her baby, even if the truth might hurt her feelings somewhat.
"Why not? He's fun having around," the child declared as they got to their destination. She charged into the meadow and started scanning for flowers to pluck. She was very picky about the ones that she would gather.
Kikyo watched her daughter with a small smile on her face. "I know, angel." Rin was so small that she almost disappeared in patches of tall grass.
"Didn't he like it here?" the child asked as she found her first choice blossom. It was followed with a second pick right next to it.
"He did," Kikyo assured her daughter. He liked it a bit too much and maybe I liked him a bit too much.
Rin was puzzled by that answer and it showed in her deep brown eyes. Her little forehead wrinkled as her eyebrows drew closer together. "So, why he's not coming back?"
"That's something that you have to ask him," the priestess answered. She could only speculate. She was not completely sure why he had decided to not come back. They could have talked things out and worked out their friendship. Maybe he did not want to see her anymore because he was angry with her, maybe he could not deal with the rejection, or maybe he only wanted her and when he saw he could not have here, there was no reason to stay around. There were many possibilities.
Rin pouted and stopped her activity of flower picking. She ran over to her mother and hugged her around the legs, which was a sure sign that she was upset with the news. She silently cried into her mother's hakama. She was obviously crushed that Inuyasha had left, even though she did not say anything. Kikyo bent down and embraced her weeping child, hoping to bring her some comfort.
"He doesn't like us no more?" Rin asked through her tears. She sniffled a bit after the question.
"He still likes us," Kikyo replied sincerely. Well, she was not so sure that Inuyasha still liked her, but she was certain that he still liked Rin.
"Then why'd he leave? I didn't want him to go!" the child bawled, tears steadily streaming down her tanned, chubby cheek.
"I know, angel, but sometimes, people can't help leaving. Sometimes, they have other things they need to take care of. I know you feel bad, but you know that Inuyasha wouldn't leave unless it was important. Don't cry, okay, angel," Kikyo pled while gently rubbing the girl's back.
The priestess felt like her heart shattered in her chest. She could not stand to see her daughter in tears, especially since she believed it was all her fault. She had led Inuyasha on and then she had rejected him. She had driven him away and that act had made her child heartbroken. Perhaps, I am just a sinner, she considered. A filthy, heartless sinner.
"I want Inuyasha to come back!" Rin wailed. She hiccupped at the end of that proclamation.
"I know, angel. I know," Kikyo said in a low tone while pressing her little girl closer to her, trying to assure the child that everything would be all right. Rin rested her head on her mother's shoulder and continued to weep.
The miko considered for a moment that maybe she should have just given into Inuyasha. She liked him well enough and perhaps that could grow into love. It would have kept him around and Rin would not be so overwrought at the moment. But, she only considered such a thing for a brief second.
It would have been wrong had she given into Inuyasha for a number of reasons. The main reason was that she would have just been using Inuyasha and she just could not have done that the half-demon. She liked and respected him too much to do that. He deserved so much more than she could ever offer. She would have never grown to love him and he deserved someone that would truly love him. Her heart and soul belonged to only one person and she would wait for him always and forever if necessary. She just wished Rin was not hurt in the process.
-8-8-8-8-
Kikyo stood outside as the sun finished setting. Her daughter had already gone to sleep. Inuyasha had been gone for a couple of weeks already, but Rin was still distressed over his absence. The child had not been running around as much as she used to, preferring to sleep more than anything else now. The little girl sometimes just stared out into the woods as if she were waiting for him to run out of the trees and join them for breakfast or dinner as he used to do. He had not come back yet and Kikyo doubted that he ever would.
Part of her dared to wonder if she was foolish for waiting for Sesshomaru. It had been years, after all. She did not listen to that part of her because she knew he was the only man that would do for her Inuyasha had been the one that let her know with certainty that Sesshomaru was the only man for her because no matter how much she liked Inuyasha, she was aware that she could never love him. If she could never love Inuyasha, then she could not love any man, she reasoned, except for Sesshomaru and he was out here somewhere. She was sure of it.
"I miss you, Sesshomaru," Kikyo informed the night air.
Kagura watched the priestess from the sky. She could not believe the devotion of Kikyo to Sesshomaru. The same could be said of Sesshomaru now that she thought about it. She watched him, wanting to know what he was up to while Kikyo waited, and his determination was just as strange as Kikyo's devotion. Sesshomaru had been placed on the globe as far from Kikyo as possible without putting him in an ocean or on the top of a mountain. He could not even remember who she was to him, yet he marched on, going toward her, always going toward her. Kagura had never seen anything like it and she watched because she doubted she ever would witness something like it again.
Now, Kagura, who had dealt with humans more closely than most other angels, had seen a couple of humans seriously in love. She once had a charge that died trying to make it back to his lover after a war and his soul actually finished the journey, so it was not the determination that stunned her. It was the fact that Sesshomaru was the one with such emotional determination. That woman, that human, actually meant something to him, whether he knew it or not. She meant so much to him that he could not even remember who she was, but he was trying his best to get to her. His feelings were obviously beyond lust, which Kagura also did not understand.
Angels were not creatures built for emotions and when they began developing them, the emotions tended to be simple. It might have been a way to avoid driving angels stark, raving mad when they were going through the change. Angels did not usually evolve ambiguous emotions. It was not apart of their nature.
In fact, angels tended to succumb to the seven deadly sins and nothing more than that when it came to feelings. Kagura was not sure why that was, but from what she knew, angels just collapsed to the greed, lust, envy, wrathfulness, pride, and gluttony of existing. It was possibly due to the fact that they just did not know how to manage the feelings and did not know what to do when they appeared, but Sesshomaru had not faltered to his lust.
Sesshomaru kept moving to get back to Kikyo and it was not lust driving him. It was a want to be with her, near her, and to make sure that she was all right. He could not even recall her name, but he kept going toward her. He did not even know that was why he was moving. He just knew that he had to keep going. He was going somewhere important and he believed it he would know when he got there.
Sesshomaru never even asked himself where he was going. He asked where she was, but nothing beyond that as far as destinations went. He kept walking, changing direction whenever an instinct inside of him told him to do so. He trusted himself to get wherever he needed to be and he would get there eventually. The one bad thing was that he had no sense of time, so he had no clue as to how long he had been traveling and he did not care. It did not occur to him that the person that he was going to might care about the time, though.
Kagura wondered if Sesshomaru's sin had evolved into a virtue. Had his lust transformed into love? What if he had already been in love and that's why the human isn't tainted? She had never heard of an angel being in love, but the way that he was moving, she thought that he might be the first angel to fall in love. Was that it? If given enough time, would an angel be able to turn sin into virtue? Or had his sin actually already been a virtue? She was not sure.
The guardian angel liked to think that sins could not turn into virtues because if they could, she did not think angels that sinned got a fair deal. Angels that sinned were judged so quickly and harshly they usually did not get a chance to see if they were going to do something beyond their sins. From what she could tell with Sesshomaru, he was either a fluke or angels should be allowed more time to prove their intentions beyond the sins. She then shook those thoughts away, considering that they might be inappropriate.
-8-8-8-8-
Sighing, Kikyo's eyes went to the sky as sat outside the house, late at night. "Sesshomaru, I would wait for you forever if I could, but could you just give me some sign that you're out there?" she wondered, losing herself in that endless black sea sprinkled with bright diamonds. It was such a soothing sight.
Yes, it had been five years and she had no problem with the idea of waiting longer. She just hoped that he did not show up when she was an old woman. She hoped he showed up before their child was an adult. Most of all, she hoped that he showed up point blank. She was distracted from the sky as she sensed motion in the hut long before her daughter wandered out to join her.
Rin flopped down into her mother's lap and curled up against Kikyo's chest, holding onto her mother's arm with one hand and sucking the thumb of her free hand. Kikyo smiled a bit and pulled the digit from her child's mouth. Rin whined a bit, but she did not put the thumb back in her. This had been a little dance of theirs since Rin was about a year old. Kikyo hoped by the time her child turned five, then they would stop having this little contest. They were both quiet for a few long, almost tense seconds.
"Mommy," Rin whispered as if she was afraid speaking louder would chase the night away.
"Yes, baby?" Kikyo asked in a very low voice, in case her child fell asleep during the discussion.
"Tell me a story," the girl requested with a yawn. She rubbed her eye with her tiny fist before clutching her mother's collar.
"But, it's too dark to read," the priestess pointed out. She read her daughter stories, but she had no practice in telling tall tales.
"Tell me a story," Rin said again. Obviously, a person had to be four years old to know that a book was not necessary for a story, Kikyo thought.
Kikyo thought on it for a moment. How do stories typically start? Oh, right. "Once upon a time…" Kikyo began and wondered where she would go from there. "… there was an angel. He was a beautiful sight…"
"How can a man be beautiful?" Rin asked curiously. She was used to hearing females described as beautiful. All the men in stories, typically heroes, were called "handsome."
"Because he was an angel."
"Are all angels beautiful?" the child inquired.
"Well, I've only seen two, but the two I've seen are beautiful," Kikyo replied while caressing her daughter's head.
Rin was now very intrigued. "Am I one of the angels you've seen, Mommy?" she asked, pointing to herself, in case her mother did not know who she meant it seemed.
"Of course, angel," she answered and leaned down to kiss her child's forehead.
"And who was the other one?" Rin asked.
Kikyo would have thought that was obvious, even to a toddler. But, she guessed not. Aside from her baby, the only other angel she had seen was the child's father. She had not seen Kagura, even though she had looked directly at her as far as the guardian angel had been concerned. She had only sensed where Kagura was and knew to focus on that space. She knew what she was sensing, but still had not seen Kagura.
"Your father was an angel," Kikyo told her daughter.
"My father?" Rin echoed. She did not think too much about her father because he was not there. Much of the time, she just thought that her mother had her alone without any help. Like her mother laid an egg to have her or something else just as fantastic. She assumed it was possible since birds laid eggs, but still, thanks to lessons from her mother, she knew even birds had a mommy bird and a daddy bird.
"Yes, your father. He was a very beautiful angel," the priestess assured her child. She did not get to tell Rin about her father very often because the girl did not seem very curious about him, so he did not really come up in conversations. Rin usually asked about her father if such a parent was mentioned in a story that her mother was reading to her or if she saw a family of animals in the forest.
"Where's my father, Mommy?" the little girl asked.
Her mother was honest. "I don't know, angel."
"Huh?" Rin scrunched up her face, confused by that.
The child did not understand how her mother could not know something. Her mother was the omniscient presence in her life, so she thought that whenever she had a question, her mother would have the answer. Generally, Kikyo did have the answer, but her baby's questions were usually not so difficult.
"How come you dunno?" Rin asked.
"Well, he just disappeared one day," Kikyo answered.
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"Is he coming home one day?"
"I hope so," the miko answered honestly.
"What's he like?" the girl asked.
Kikyo thought on the question as she adjusted her daughter in her arms. "He was a very quiet angel. He enjoyed being around me. Sometimes, he spent the whole day just being around me."
"He liked you a lot, huh?"
"Yes," the dark-haired maiden confirmed. He had never said so, but he did like spending time around her. He enjoyed holding her, even when he could not truly hold her. There were times when she sensed him and it was like he was wrapped all around her. He spent as much time with her as possible whether he was visible or not, whether he could touch her or not, whether he could speak to her or not. He was just there.
"Why'd he leave you if he liked you?" Rin asked, sounding perplexed and a little sleepy.
"I don't think he had a choice," Kikyo answered, running her fingers through Rin's hair. The touch made Rin's eyes droop just a little more.
"If he comes home, will he play with me?"
"We'll have to wait and see."
"I'd like that," Rin admitted.
"I know, angel. I would, too," Kikyo said while hugging her daughter to her. The little girl sighed contently because of the contact.
Kikyo desperately wanted Rin to meet Sesshomaru. She wanted him to be a father to their child because she remembered how the notion of being such a thing fascinated him. Their daughter deserved a good father, too. She knew Sesshomaru would like to see that they produced such a darling and daring child without a malevolent bone in her entire make up. Rin was nothing like what the offspring of an angel. She was like an anti-monster and Sesshomaru deserved to see that.
-8-8-8-8-
Next time: Sesshomaru comes into a village that seems very familiar, even though he is certain that he has not been there. Kikyo fights a powerful demon and is critically injured. Will she survive? Will he make to her?
