You know, one thing I've learned from fan fiction is to never look at or trust the traffic polls because all they do is bring you down, not to mention they don't really accurately graph stuff in my opinion. CONGRATS 60th REVIEWER: arrowheadhunter. Okay, I'm done babbling.
Okay, I lied. I'm not. WARNING: This chapter will be explicit and is above the rating. There are some graphic details but I'm sure it's nothing you haven't ever heard of on the news or in other stories. Also, this will partly be in italics. I am aware that this will bother and annoy some of you greatly… you will just have to grin and bare as I am not in the mood to accommodate everyone at the moment.
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Again for those who don't read authors notes: WARNING: THIS CHAPTER WILL BE EXPLICIT AND IS PROBABLY ABOVE THE CURRENT RATING OF THE STORY.
Let the gruesome begin.
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Kagome woke to the sounds of glass shattering and screaming. Men were yelling, yelling, and yelling. She cowered in her bed, a four year old Souta staring at her wide eyed from beneath his spaceship covers, clutching a small blue bear. He knew. Seven years of age Kagome knew as well, they were being attacked. She quickly scurried out of bed, trying to reach him and protect him. Their door burst open with a thundering crack and a stocky man stomped in. He blocked some of the door but not all of it.
Behind him Kagome could see men dragging her mother by her hair, down the hallway and the stairs, Kagome could hear her screams.
"My babies! Don't touch my babies!"
Her father followed after, bloodied and blackened by multiple beatings. Two more men had dragged him down the stairs into the living room. Another dark shadow followed them. Barking at the man in the children's room to gather the brats and bring them down stairs.
The big man nodded, grabbing Kagome's small wrist roughly and yanking Souta out of bed. The bright lights of the hall stunned the small children and Souta let out a noise of surprise as they were practically thrown down the stairs. Mrs. Higurashi was crying heavily, her hair continually yanked by hooded men. Her father was on the other side of the room a gun to his temple and a knife to his throat.
Kagome and Souta whimpered in bright fear. They held onto each other tightly, Souta's small bear squished in between them.
"Don't touch the kids," the leader ordered. "Especially the girl. She's for the boss." Kagome's mother screamed in outrage and fear for her children, earning her a strong slap in the face from on of the men holding her. Their father struggled against the men holding him, trying to get to his family.
The man holding Mr. Higurashi lifted the knife from his exposed neck, moving it to below his ear, slowly dragging it across his cheek. A bright red line following its path as Mr. Higurashi struggled further, this time in pain. Kagome and Souta were forced to watch them slowly torture their father. They cut his shirt away exposing his clean skin, slowly crisscrossing red lines over his chest and his back, going deeper and deeper each time.
"Hey boss, what about the woman?" one man grin suggestively, his disgusting toad like face broke into a repulsive and outright foul grin. Even at age seven Kagome wanted to kill these people, unprepared and too young to see what would happen yet. "Can we have her now?" he sounded eager is the most horrid way.
A man to Kagome's left nodded once, and with that Kagome and Souta watched their mother raped. Violated in every way possible, they ripped her clothes away like dogs and meat. Across the room Kagome's father screamed in pain, anger, and helplessness. Souta began to cry, sobbing into Kagome's side, only to be ripped away and forced to watch. Kagome struggled to get away from the men holding her, but she was nothing compared to their unhinging strength.
She screamed and screamed, not afraid of them stopping her. Hoping someone, anyone would come and save them. But no one came.
Kagome screamed in her sleep and Sesshoumaru shot up, smacking his head on the wood of the bed above him. Something was terribly, terribly wrong. He hopped out of bed quickly as she kept on screaming and screaming. He stood quickly and glared at her, but stopped when he saw that she writhed in her sleep, tears streaming down her face. He looked at her, unsure what to do.
At least he's stopped screaming, Sesshoumaru thought with a grudging worry. He sat there for a long time, watching her.
The whole time, her mother stared at her, Kagome wished she could look away, wished her mother would look the other way while she was raped repeatedly. But the dead in her eyes and face never turned away, always staring at her children. The men one by one had their way with her, making horrible remarks, loud noises of pure pleasure at the rape of a defenseless woman, driving in and out of her not stopping and not caring if small children were watching. Each one calling their mother a whore or a bitch as they violated her and molested her. Beating her, cutting her, some even trying to choke her. They enjoyed it immensely and forcing the small children to watch the defiling act made it all the better for them. Desensitizing them slowly.
"We need the codes Higurashi." Kagome heard a man growl out to her father. "Where are they?' he barked, slicing his skin roughly. By now Mr. Higurashi was covered in the red lines of blood trails left in the wake of the sharp blade.
Mr. Higurashi yelled in pain. Glaring at the men, "You'll never get them," he ground out, receiving a heavy punch to his face. He spit blood onto their once pristine white carpet. It no long was white where he kneeled now, spattered with red blood and tattered clothing. Kagome looked at her father, noticing how white he was becoming.
"Well if you won't tell us, we have no further use for you, now do we?" he laughed bitterly, like a mad man, like someone who enjoyed watching death. "End him." He snapped, handing the man the knife.
Nothing can prepare a person for watching the death of a loved one, no amount of torture or preparation or goodbyes ever fully shut the doors on feeling the powerful loss. And thus it was that Kagome and Souta watched the hooded man with the knife drag it across her fathers once stubble covered neck, a solid stream of blood spurted from his neck, as if the heart had decided it was tainted and was pushing it out. With a gurgling sound her fathers head lolled to the side, staring with a ghostly white open mouthed expression of death at Kagome and Souta. Kagome watched in horror as they dropped his limp body to the floor, moving to her mother.
"DAD!" Kagome screamed into the dark night, waking Sesshoumaru with a start, he'd been leaning against the bed and must have dozed off. It was late, probably around two in the morning. Kagome screamed and cried again, this time her face in a pillow. But it was still loud on Sesshoumaru's sharp ears. He'd just about had enough of this kid tonight, but as he moved to quiet Kagome again she seemed to still into a harsh but silent sobbing.
He laid his hand on her trying to calm the continuous shaking. Kagome seemed to stop, but the minuter he removed his hand she seemed to pick up where she left off; thrashing about, shaking the bed with a bout of fitful hiccups and sobs.
Pity filled Sesshoumaru's heart and he silently cursed for feeling like this. Higurashi was turning him too damn soft, he wouldn't let these feelings tie him down. He had to cut the strings binding him to Kagome Higurashi. He had too much to lose.
They tied her mother to the pole in their house, her fathers dead body tied next to her, turning stiff with the loss of a heart beat. Then they shot her, not to kill her, but to injure her so that she wouldn't struggle, couldn't focus, Kagome wished they would just get it over with and kill her too. She wanted to lay down and cry herself to death somewhere. But she had to fight, for Souta if only to make sure he got somewhere safe.
"Get the brats out and torch this place," the leader snapped sharply at his gang of monsters. "and the bitch with it." he laughed, like this was one of the funniest things he'd ever said. The others laughed too, with the same cruelty that the words had.
As Kagome and Souta were shuffled out cans of gasoline were shuffled in, they drove away just in time to watch the house explode with bright orange flames meant to kill. Black smoke curling up and meshing with the black night smothering all of the stars and all of the innocence of Kagome and Souta. The blaze leapt towards the black, it too wanting to swallow the sky. Kagome cried harder, hearing the sirens pierce the night with their threatening wail, if only they'd been sooner, if only she'd been louder. And then she screamed, if only to fill the emptiness she now felt.
Sesshoumaru couldn't take it anymore, her screaming was tearing him apart in more way than one. She was thrashing even more violently than before. He wrapped his firm hands around her but the harsh jerking around wouldn't stop. Sesshoumaru worried that she was having a seizure for a moment but quickly tried to shake her awake.
Kagome's eyes snapped open in what could only be described as unadulterated fear, she recoiled so fast it was hard for Sesshoumaru to get a grip on the situation. Watered down by salty tears, her eyes quickly searched his face in sheer terror, obviously expecting a predator.
"Higurashi." Sesshoumaru said clearly, his voice slightly scratchy from lack of sleep. She made a sound of deep lament, pressing against the wall of which the bed was pushed against. "Kagome," he started again in an easier voice.
"They killed them!" She wailed, jumping towards him and latching herself firmly around his strong shoulders. She continued to babble on and on, not making any sense. Sobs bubbled up from deep within her fragile chest, escaping her lips which were pressed against Sesshoumaru's neck. She whispered fearsome details of her nightmares into his smooth skin, wet trails falling onto his bare back. Slowly he began to console her, lifting an elegant hand onto her back and rubbing a few tentative circles. Soon enough Kagome had fallen into a dreamless sleep on his shoulder and with no other option than to stand there all night, Sesshoumaru pulled Kagome down from her bunk and laid her in his. He made a move to go and sleep in a chair but a disagreeing noise from Kagome pulled him too into his bed with her.
He held her, like a gentle but somewhat distanced protector, keeping the nightmares at bay. Until he too, grew too tired to stay awake. Something in the back of his head whispered that this was right, that this was exactly where he should be. But an even smaller part told him to stay away, because this… small, innocent looking person was not all they appeared to be. There was something more to Kagome Higurashi, something that drew him in and pushed him away at the same time, he… or she was like no one Sesshoumaru had ever met.
He wanted more.
This was actually a hard chapter to write, very strenuous. But maybe that's just because I was trying to post very fast, trying to make up for six months of… absence. This is only one of several similar chapters, I think I'll take my time diving into Kagome's past though, I'm totally winging it, writing what I think would continue to make a good plot. Though I do have a general idea of what I want. Here comes the plug:
R&R if you liked or didn't like this chapter.