Reconciliation
By Miss Kagura
Chapter Twelve — Sacrifice

Ah-Un circled the freezing lake with a grunt, as if warning Kagome that what she was thinking about doing was stupid. The water was much colder than it needed to be to make her sick, so when the dragon landed, the two heads grabbed onto her clothing with two sets of teeth and held her in place when she got closer to the water. They loudly bellowed, as if calling someone, and watched Kagome take off her outer kimono and slip out of their grasp.

"I have to do this. They're going to die down there," Kagome said, trying to explain what she was doing to the sulking dragon.

Kagome felt a mouth gently clamp down on her wrist and pulled on it. "That's enough! I have to do this!" She lightly pushed on Ah's nose until he sneezed and let go of her arm, and then took her shoes off, ignoring how painfully cold her feet felt in the snow. Nothing else mattered except getting Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha out of the water. She believed she couldn't handle life without her beloved dogs, however violent, stupid, and stubborn they happened to be.

She walked out onto the slippery, broken ice, and tested the water. Just as she was withdrawing her toe from the water, the chunk of ice she was standing on broke and caused her to fall in.

For a few seconds, Kagome's entire body seemingly stopped working. She couldn't breathe, her limbs felt frozen in place, and even her brain didn't want to work. She summoned her willpower and kicked to the surface, gasping for air. She wasn't sure if it was the most painful thing she had ever experienced, but being submerged in water that cold was definitely one of the worst things she could imagine. Her disobedient limbs finally began to move when she told them to, but she hated every movement of her legs and arms because it sent shockwaves of pain through her body.

Kagome pushed as much of it out of her mind as she could and focused on how much worse it would hurt to wake up the next day and know Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha were gone forever. Even worse that it would be due to the fact she couldn't handle a little cold. When was angry enough at herself, Kagome dove into the frigid water and swam toward the bottom of the lake.

She was relieved when she saw something red, and kicked her aching legs to Inuyasha. She grabbed his left hand, since the right was still clutched around Tessaiga, and tried to pull him up. When Kagome was unable to swim while holding onto him, she realized he had become tangle in some sort of algae, and tried to pull it off him.

The tendril released Inuyasha and moved like a snake, wrapping around her instead; its owner found the miko to be a much warmer and much more appetizing treat. It squeezed her abdomen and chest, and Kagome choked out whatever air she had saved up in her lungs. Her nails cut at the tentacle, with no success. She held out one hand, and her Tonbogiri materialized in spear form. She easily severed the appendage and swam toward Inuyasha was falling — right into the beak of a giant squid youkai!

The glint of Bakusaiga caught her eye, and she saw Sesshoumaru being carried toward the creature's beak as well.

The question was posed: white or red? Lover or friend?

There were so many things that remained unanswered about what had happened. How had the strained peace broken into such violence? Who started it? Who attacked first? She couldn't bear to see either of them die, but she knew that losing Sesshoumaru would hurt more than she could possibly imagine. He had become a part of who she was, as had the former hanyou.

She had also spent enough time with Inuyasha to know that Sesshoumaru was probably responsible for the violence. She loved the jerk to death, but it didn't make him any less of a jerk, did it? Never once had Kagome wanted him to change; she loved him like he was just as she had loved Inuyasha as a hanyou.

Kagome continued to sink, weighed down by her weapon. She could give life to only one.

She put her selfish fears of loss aside and tried to decide which one deserved life most. Only one of them was merciful, loyal, and possessed any true semblance of kindness toward others in general. Sesshoumaru, for all of her love, was still Sesshoumaru. Merciless. Cruel. Selfish. Whether or not she was an exception to the rule didn't make her assessment any less correct. If she imagined what both of them would do in the future, it wasn't hard to see Inuyasha having a positive impact on the lives of others. With Sesshoumaru, if that happened at all, it was usually unintentional.

I'm sorry, Sesshoumaru.

The spear in her hands started to vibrate and glow as soon as she had made her decision. It transformed into a bow on its own, and Kagome instinctively reached for the quiver that wasn't there and produced an arrow made completely of spiritual energy. The bow string glowed when it came into contact with the chi arrow, and Kagome aimed it for the mouth of the monster, which was wide open in anticipation for dinner.

The arrow sailed through the water as easily as it would have in air and discharged purification power as an explosion that blew the youkai's head to pieces.

Kagome grabbed Inuyasha's red haori and kicked to the surface as quickly as she could. When she got to what should have been oxygen, there was a giant piece of ice, and as she swam under it in search of a place that wasn't frozen, she could feel her body starting to give in. Bright flashes of light, aching lungs, and frozen limbs could barely handle her, much less the one she had chosen over Sesshoumaru.

Everything went black.

Two Days Later…

Jaken held a cloth to Kagome's feverish forehead and listened to the ominous gurgle in her chest.

Ah-Un's bellowing had eventually been carried by the wind to Abi, who arrived in time to get Kagome out of the water, as well as the former hanyou her frozen fingers were clutching for dear life. She also got Sesshoumaru from the bottom of the lake, although he wasn't faring so well, having been partially purified by Kikyou and then crushed by the tentacle.

When the dragon returned home, Kagome was full of cold water and suffering from terrible hypothermia, which neither of the youkai understood. Youkai flesh wasn't usually hurt by exposure, as long as it was warmed back up. In Kagome's case though, her fingers, ears, toes, and nose were all seemingly dead, as if the cold had killed the tissue. On the second day, the skin covering those parts of her body turned black and Jaken was sent to a human village to learn about the strange human condition known as 'frostbite.'

Other than that, Kagome was also suffering from pneumonia and fever. Jaken gathered herbs for her, hoping that she wouldn't be lost because she had chosen to save the feuding brothers. He lightly cleaned the places where the frostbitten skin was detaching itself from her body, knowing if any of it got infected, she might end up losing fingers and toes.

Inuyasha had been easy enough to treat, and had only required a few decent blows to the chest, which loosened up the chunks of jagged ice that had formed in his lungs. Sesshoumaru, on the other hand, was recovering from having his rib cage crushed into the delicate organs it usually protected. Neither had been awake since Abi brought them home, but Jaken suspected the cat was either sedating them to keep them from fighting or poisoning them as vengeance for making her violate her feline nature and take a swim in the cold lake.

The smell of blood hit his nose and he scanned the miko carefully. The frostbitten areas weren't bleeding, and the smell wasn't coming from her breathing, which ruled out her respiratory sickness. There was something strange about it, something…demonic.

The door flew open when the smell of blood hit the cat's nose and she threw the covers off Kagome, revealing a pool of blood forming in between her legs. Her sharper nose picked through the smells; there was Kagome's scent, Sesshoumaru's, and a male hanyou's.

Kagome was having a miscarriage.

Abi sat down on the floor next to the bed and sighed. "Idiots," she said.

She cleaned up the mess in silence and put a hand on her forehead. Kagome's fever was out of control to the point that even the youkai understood her life was in danger. "Jaken, get her cooled off again," she ordered.

Abi pulled Inuyasha's haori off, and used it to roll Tessaiga and Bakusaiga into a bundle. The fire rat cloth blocked the warding spell on the swords, which she carried through the woods to the lake they had fought in. She knocked a hole in the ice with her naginata and shook the haori. The two swords fell on the ice and the cat knelt next to them.

She saw something move, and waited as the brightly-colored piece of fabric surfaced. The yellow and orange checkered kimono smelled of Sesshoumaru and a young female scent she was unfamiliar with. Her nose sniffed the water, which was still tainted by anger, rage, and pain, despite the fact that it had already been two days since the incident. The only reason those feelings would have lingered in the lake was if something anchored them.

In extremely rare cases, high amounts of emotion spawned youkai like the Unmother. Whatever was in the lake had been created from the emotions that the brothers threw around. It was a physical manifestation of two hundred years of strife.

And, in order to get their weapons back someday, they'd have to face it.

"They're brothers," she whispered to the winter as she used the red haori to push Tessaiga into the water. The Bakusaiga followed, glimmering as it disappeared in the icy depths. She saw one of the blades glimmer as it sank to the bottom of the cold lake, as if showing off one last time before going to rest in the darkness below. Two pieces of steel became a sacrifice to any god that would listen in hopes that their fragmented, broken home might be fixable.

It was sickly ironic that the sons the Inu No Taisho gave to other women had come into her care, since Touga refused to impregnate her. It was the only thing she ever asked him for, and he denied her again and again. "You're hands are meant for killing, not taking care of pups," he would say.

A bitter smirk formed on the cat's lips as she stood up and went home to care for the pups he never gave her. She had given them a home, safety, training, and now, she was the one who would strip them of their pride and fix the shattered family Touga left behind.

The sound of hooves walking on the slippery ice jerked her out of her thoughts, and she turned see Toutousai, who was wearing the most forlorn expression she had ever seen on him. The old youkai jumped off Momo the Bull and walked to the jagged hole Abi had made in the ice. "I warned them. They knew their swords were not made for this. I told Inuyasha I would smash Tessaiga if he ever raised Tessaiga to kill his brother," he said.

Abi merely nodded and said, "It's not like they fought just because they hate each other. Right after it happened, this whole area was tainted by the hurt they both felt."

"For them to truly become brothers, they have to not only learn how to forgive, but how to let go of the hurt. The hate is there because of the pain, so telling them to stop hating each other is useless," Toutousai explained.

Dog demons never did anything in moderation. Everything had to be taken to the extreme whether it was eating, loving, fucking, fighting, or hating. They were also the undisputed most powerful species alive, often exhibiting strength that no one else could even dream about. To be born Inu Taiyoukai was to have the power and drive to force the rest of the world to capitulate to whatever will, whim, or dream that was had.

Toutousai held out a pair of metal shackles and a key saying, "I'm not ready to give up on them."

She took them and sighed, "I think they're ready to give up on them. We have more faith in them now than they do in themselves."

Abi returned to the miko's side and inspected her wounds again.

One of her fingers smelled gangrenous, which meant it had to be severed before the infection spread to the rest of her fingers and her hand. It was the fourth finger on her left hand, and when a claw pulled back flayed skin, dead, rotting flesh was revealed. Her nose crinkled; she knew the scent well. Human battlefields smelled of gangrene in the hours after battle. Their wars always seemed so senseless, and only resulted in the loss of life for power. Since humans only lived a short time and were incredibly fragile, youkai were quite puzzled at their warmongering. Abi had passed by bloody battlefields where thousands of humans lay dead, dying, and suffering. For what? Land? No, the land would still be there regardless of who won the war. All war did for the land was soak it in blood and liter it with countless, nameless corpses.

That attitude, those wars, and the scent coming from Kagome's finger reminded the cat of the senseless things people did. Ten thousand deaths for ten kilometers of rice, five thousand for the honor of the warlord's daughter, and a firstborn child for Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha's bitter hate. The scent of Kagome's miscarried hanyou still hung on the air, and the cat's stomach turned as she checked to make sure the miko was completely unconscious.

Razor sharp claws severed the damaged, black finger from Kagome's hand. She threw the window open to cool off the still-feverish miko, and then walked to the next house, where the dogs slept. A quick breath blew out the burning oil that kept them asleep, and as they slowly returned to consciousness, the only thing either of them heard was the damning click of the shackles.

Inuyasha opened his eyes and sat up, and then immediately reached for Tessaiga when he realized his brother was so close to him. Sesshoumaru was equally appalled and his hand grasped for Bakusaiga. "What have you done with my Tessaiga, you bastard?" Inuyasha asked.

"I won the duel. Stealing your weapon would be pointless," Sesshoumaru hissed.

Whatever thought either of them had about their weapons was forgotten when they realized their feet had been shackled together. Sesshoumaru jerked his foot, and Inuyasha pulled on his, but the chain showed no signs of weakening. Sesshoumaru's claws tugged at the links, searching for a weak point.

Sesshoumaru craned his head to the cat, who was staring out the window, and asked, "What kind of trick is this? Where is my Bakusaiga?"

"Do you know you impregnated Kagome?" she asked.

Inuyasha felt hate bubbling deep in his gut, and he took a single swing at his brother. Since Sesshoumaru was too stunned to breathe, much less dodge Inuyasha's fist, his nose cracked on contact. "You bastard! Are you going to hate your own kid as much as you hate me?"

"She's…I…I'm going to have a pup?" Sesshoumaru asked.

The cat hesitated, realizing she was about to deal massive amounts of pain out to the two brothers. It wasn't in her nature to relish in such things, even with her enemies. Unfortunately, in order for them to rebuild themselves, they had to be broken first and broken completely.

She pushed the window open, and the smells of Kagome's illness and miscarriage wafted into the room. "You would be if she hadn't had to drag you two out of the freezing lake. I sincerely hope the fact that you won a duel with your brother is worth the loss of your first pup," One bound from the windowsill sent her flying through the trees. Whatever happened from that point on would be up to them.

Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha sat in silence next to each other while they digested the fact that by lashing out against each other, they had done irreparable damage to Kagome, the only person either of them loved. It wasn't even that there had been a purpose other than killing each other, and neither thought taking the other's life was even remotely as important as protecting Kagome.

The older brother felt the chain tug as Inuyasha practically dragged him out of the bed. "I want to go see Kagome," he said.

Sesshoumaru, who also wanted to see her, didn't reply, but walked carefully behind his brother. The chain that linked them together was remarkably short, so he was forced to walk in rhythm with Inuyasha or be dragged. None of that mattered to him though. All he could think about was the bitter chill of the winter and the thing it had taken from him.

No, it wasn't the winter, he realized. It wasn't the freezing water Kagome inhaled, or the way it bit at her body.

The door opened and nothing could have prepared either of them for what they saw. Black, flayed skin covered her lovely fingers, and her firm breasts rose and fell erratically, trying to provide enough oxygen to her feverish body to keep going. She was so weak. The men who loved her wanted to punish the one who had caused this, but the finger inevitably pointed back at them.

Inuyasha watched her, trying to remember how many times he'd promised to protect her. He had always feared that he couldn't save her from himself, but his mind pictured his youki raging out of control. Never once did he consider the hate he held so close to his heart to be dangerous to her. She was Kagome…hate didn't affect her.

The pain carved into Sesshoumaru's face was unforgettable. When he looked at Inuyasha, something in his eyes seemed both devastated and old. Inuyasha looked away, but the corner of his eye could still see the intimate way his fingers tangled with Kagome's. For the first time, Inuyasha saw how much his brother loved Kagome. He had never seen Sesshoumaru adore something so completely, or seem so filled with regret.

A clawed hand rested briefly over Kagome's stomach as Sesshoumaru considered the consequences of the choices he and his brother made. He had gambled his life, and had he died, he would have left her alone with a pup. The thought of leaving her defenseless and pregnant nearly made him nervous enough to vomit, but he calmed briefly when he realized that hadn't happened. He was alive, because she put her own life on the line for him at the expense of their firstborn. Would Kagome have done it had she known?

In all of their hate, and all of their anger, Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha had practically destroyed the most beautiful thing in their world.

Sesshoumaru whispered an apology into Kagome's hair and promised her he wouldn't let the sacrifice made be in vain.

Please Review!

Chapter Thirteen — The Long Winter
They have no privacy, they're allowed no peace, and the person each hates worse is never more than an arm's length away. Some things weren't meant to be left unsaid.

Special thanks to musicallady1, Lola161ut, Foxfire Inari, no life king, darknessofmyheart, Mia, Kiki.s2, TAJE, kitty, tajia, Kat57, Inuforlyf, BlazingMidnightRain, llebreknit, ArizonaBay, S.T. Nickolian, supersillee06, Dragoness Fohama, Dominik Journot, The Tragic Pixie, flirtymiyu, sayuri-girl, shadowblade-tata, mangadreams, Laina Aurelius, Solaira, Lady Safire, bloodymoonwitch, Amadoni, TheMikoShivae, and kittyb78!