Hiiiii, minna-san! n.n There's a bit of emotional confrontation/angst in this chapter, so I'm not sure how much humor and fluff I'll be able to manage without making the flow get all strange. Stick with me pleasee! :3 (I'm not doing anything to cover up the fact that haven't been on in so long except for one word: school. It really, truly, does suck.)
Disclaimer: Same as every other day, I own nothing, including "I Dare You To Move" which belongs to Switchfoot.
oOo
A shiver raced down the western lord's spine as a chilling breeze blew in from the East. The man was nervous, apprehensive. His instincts were screaming at him to do something, but what? Something didn't feel right. The smell of the air was wrong. The gossamer-headed man was suddenly overcome with a strange sense of foreboding. Something was very, very wrong and Sesshomaru had a feeling that it had something to do with a certain ebony-haired, violet-eyed girl.
He leapt off the third floor balcony that he had been stationed on, trying to stave off the raging sense of claustrophobia that had been plaguing him indoors. Landing lightly on the balls of his feet, his pale hair settled about his lithe form. He took off like a shot, streaking through the trees like a bullet, racing to save the girl he now knew he couldn't live without.
oOo
In her adrenaline induced haze, things seemed to move in slow motion for the doomed girl. She watched an old-fashioned movie slide by slide as the poisonous stinger got closer and closer to her fair skin. When the tip was no more that a hairsbreadth away from her, her legs abruptly buckled and she slid gracefully to the ground, easily evading the projectile.
"Haha, bug-brain! Fooled you! No way would I ever let myself get killed by something like you!" the tricky girl cackled.
The scorpion hissed in outrage, hurling gallons of corrosive spit at her. In the blink of an eye, she had her snowy white wings extended and was soaring high above the beast's head.
"Even if my legs are useless, I still have wings!" She stuck her tongue out at it. "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, baka!"
With that, she put her hands out in front of her, as if to accept a hug. Sparkles of golden energy began to gather in her outstretched arms. After a few seconds, the ball of golden light was about the size of Shippou when he transforms into that big, pink, blob-like…thing. She then flashed the creature an evil smirk before releasing the orb.
The moment after she let the ball of energy go, she noticed a sliver of white among the trees. Her eyes widened, Sesshomaru was here! And not only that, but he was heading right towards the impact point of her miniature bomb! She gave one flap of her powerful wings before whipping through the trees towards him. She darted through the dense foliage like a dragonfly, not giving it any notice when a particularly malicious branch scratched her fair skin. In mere seconds, she was beside him, but it was simply not fast enough. The ochre ball was about a foot away from the treetops, where it would explode, vaporizing anything but her in the vicinity. She knelt over the man she had just run into and gathered him into her arms.
"Sesshomaru," she said, tears rolling down her cheeks yet again. "I…I love you… please be happy."
The prince was confused, why was she speaking as if she wouldn't be around to make him happy? He had no time to voice his inquiries, however, as there was a deafening explosion at that point.
The orb of seemingly harmless golden light was actually a ball of compressed energy with the destructive force of a nuclear bomb. Kagome knew that even Sesshomaru, in all his glory, would be turned to dust by this attack. So, wrapping her thin arms even tighter around him, she began to sing.
Welcome to the
planet
Welcome to existence
Everyone's here
Everyone's
here
Everybody's watching you now
Everybody waits for you
now
What happens next
What happens next
The golden ball grew ever bigger, sucking in air and bits of debris like a miniature black hole. The scorpion demon was staring on in shock, befuddled as to how his weak human (albeit a very strange human) prey managed to not only escape his death shot, but also form a rather terrifying attack. After processing this thought for a few seconds it summarized its thoughts quite nicely. "Crap."
I dare you to move
I
dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I
dare you to move
I dare you to move
Like today never
happened
Today never happened before
Sesshomaru's eyes widened as he realized the danger he was in. His brain was working overtime, trying to devise a way out of the situation and calculate the exact moment the ball would stop expanding and burst. And all without killing wither himself or Kagome.
Welcome to the
fallout
Welcome to resistance
The tension is here
Tension is
here
Between who you are and who you could be
Between how it is
and how it should be
Between trying to consider a way out of their conundrum and trying to take what could feasibly be his last moments to inhale his angel's scent, Sesshomaru was a fairly bust demon at the moment. He didn't even register the soft music pouring from the girl's plump lips directly into his elegantly pointed ear until a line of it caught his attention.
I dare you to move
I
dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I
dare you to move
I dare you to move
Like today never
happened
Today never happened before
She was telling him, challenging him, in fact, to live and to forget about this. She was telling him to hightail it out of there and forget about all of it. She was telling him to forget her.
Maybe redemption has
stories to tell
Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell
Where
can you run to escape from yourself?
Where you gonna go?
Where
you gonna go?
Salvation is here
She was forgiving him for running, and telling him that she had nowhere else to go, that she was expendable, whereas he was not.
I dare you to move
I
dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I
dare you to move
I dare you to move
Like today never
happened
Today never happened
Today never happened
Today
never happened before
Insisting, threatening, daring him to go. He would go! He would live! She would make sure of it. Even if it cost her life, she would be at peace.
"But," he leaned in and whispered in her ear, "what if this Sesshomaru has already found his salvation in you?"
Kagome smiled and released him. She then turned and faced her creation. It was now about the size of a mid-sized minivan and the golden sparks were charged with black around the edges, signaling all of the negativity it had sucked in. There was no way to stop it now. Steeling herself, Kagome used one of her newly-formed fangs to cut a gash in her left palm. Then with her blood, she started writing an inscription on the air in front of her. When she was done, a crimson barrier-shield had formed that was rather reminiscent of aquarium glass with its thickness and seeming durability. The shield covered both her and Sesshomaru with a little room to spare. She had no time to recite the strengthening spell she had started in on, though, as the orb suddenly stopped gathering material and came barreling at her with the force of twenty stampeding elephants.
She swiftly placed her hands on the barrier in front of her to reinforce it and prepared herself for contact. As soon as the ball of energy touched the shield the top layer or nullified and absorbed, but it couldn't process all of the energy fast enough and soon the barrier shattered from the strain. By thin point, the deadly projectile was only about the size of a mailbox, but that was still big enough to crash into Kagome with a sickening 'thud'. Thankfully, she had thrown up a small barrier around her body, so that her skin didn't melt off, but that didn't stop her ribs from shattering or her hands to become blistered and bloody. She then quickly sucked the power back into her, where it belonged, so that it couldn't do any more damage. As she was falling to the ground, trailing wisps of tattered silk and smelling of burnt flesh, she saw horrified amber eyes lock with her own. She smiled before shutting her own eyes and sinking into oblivion.
oOo
Shaking himself out of the stupor he was in, Sesshomaru became a silver blur as he leapt towards the broken angel's prone form. Catching her and cradling her gently in his arms, he wasted no time in assessing the damage. He soon reached his conclusion: It would not be fatal, provided she got medical attention soon enough.
But first— in the blink of an eye, the Lord of the West was standing before a petrified scorpion. With a flick of his wrist, he extended his acid whip and sliced off the lower half of its body. As it shrieked and writhed in pain, he spoke very clearly.
"That was for her."
Then he used his claws and cleanly decapitated it.
"And that, well, that was for me."
oOo
After quickly deciding that the small town that the inu-tachi used as their home base was his only option for healers, he brought her there as quickly as he could manage. After dropping her off in the capable hands of the old miko and refusing to answer any questions in regards to the reason the angel got to be in that state, she took up his silent vigil at the foot of the futon she was lying on. The treatment was started and finished almost in the time it took him to blink.
"She needs to rest." Were the words the old miko had left him with.
Sesshomaru sighed. Why oh why did he even let her leave his side?
It was obvious that she would be pissed and all bets were off as soon as she woke up. And judging from her violent thrashing, that moment was now.
oOo
Kagome was having the nicest dream, Sesshomaru said such nice things to her and held her close to his body. She remembered every moment up until the orb struck her, and from then on, she only remembered snatches of being carried with the utmost care through the high branches of a forest. Then she thought a little more and remembered why she had been fighting and needed to protect him in the first place.
'That bastard!'
She remembered all he had said to her and how her heart had broken. The fondness of her former thoughts was forgotten. Now she was pissed.
oOo
Furious eyes snapped open and immediately gravitated up to the male leaning against the wall across from her.
"Why did you save me?!" she screamed, fat angry tears streaming down her pale face.
"You don't care, right? It'd be better if I just died!!"
He shook his head, denying her words.
"Then why? Why would you save me?...why?" she hiccupped, raising a clenched fist to her watery orbs and wiping away the moisture only to have more take its place almost immediately.
"Because you're precious to me."
She glared at him and spat "If I was that precious you would have never let me go in the first place, you dirty liar."
His eyes betrayed him, showing shock and hurt even though he tried to look unaffected.
"…I just realized—"
"That you love me?" she hissed, her voice full of venom. "What a load of bull. You just want to use me for my powers. I will not be used again. Do you hear me? Never again."
"No, it's not what you think!"
"InuYasha said the same thing when I walked in on him and Kikyo screwing." She uttered a short, bitter laugh. "It's not like I didn't know they were going at it behind my back, I just hoped he would eventually see me for, well, me eventually. And look at where that dream got me."
She mistook his bewildered silence for a confirmation.
"Sayonara, baka. I hope I never have to lay eyes on your stinking ass ever again. Oh and I have something for you." She crossed the three feet of space separating them in the small hut. She then raised her hand and connected the palm of her hand with his cheek in a loud 'SLAP'.
"That was for kissing me, bastard. I belong to no one."
And with that, she walked out of the tiny building and left the man staring after her, wondering how that had just happened.
oOo
Heheh, ANGST! :D AND FLUFF! I rock! XD …Anyway, here are some questions that came up (and the answers):
Question 1: Earlier you made it seem as if Kagome is much stronger than Sesshomaru, and also Sesshomaru doesn't have the curse anymore, and though I'm sure he'd be confused and the like, he seems a bit off.
Well, I'm sorry that I confused you, but hopefully I can explain it better now. Kagome IS as strong as, if not stronger than, Sesshomaru. But she's also a girl and he hurt her already broken heart a lot by telling her to go away. She was also still confused by Midoriko telling her that whole story about the Princess thing, so her emotions are all out of wack at the moment. That's why she randomly runs into the scorpion and gets beaten, her mind is really muddled up and not working correctly. And Sess does not have the curse anymore (so he doesn't proclaim his feelings) but he still has the feelings that the curse amplified. He is confused by the spell, frightened by the strength of his feelings, angry that he's feeling that way, and happy because he really does love her. And on top of that, add the fact that his youkai said wants her and is pressuring him and you've got one hell of a migraine. Hopefully that cleared it up a bit, but you may be right, he could be a bit off. I'm certainly not perfect. (:
Question 2: Why wasn't the scorpion surprised that kagome could speak and What ever happened to shippo and rin?
Sorry I didn't clear this up, but the scorpion is a (to put it bluntly) lower life form than the taiyoukai. AKA, it's pretty stupid. It wasn't surprised because it was too dumb to be surprised. It only recognized that she wasn't a scorpion, it didn't realize that there were other languages except scorpion, so she's speaking normally to it. About Rin and Shippou, I wanted Kagome and Seshomaru to become used to each other before introducing too many other characters, so I made Rin and Shippou wait for a while with only tiny appearances. Rin is basically doing her normal thing, annoying Jakken and playing around with Shippou. Shippou does appear occasionally, but he will more (probably) in chapter...22 or 23, I'm not quite sure yet, but I'll add them in again and explain why they've been absent (so that it fits in with the plot). Sorry I confused you, but I hope that clears things up! :D
And I'd like you to forgive Sess and Kags for random OOC blurting; when you think you're gonna die, you just start saying stuff. Try to keep that in mind, please. ;D
Also—I'm going to go back and fix up the first few chapters because they bother me now, so I can't tell you guys when to expect another update, but don't be alarmed if chapters start coming and disappearing magically. I love you guys! Review please!!
-Inu