Sango sat in the trees, waiting for Kimi's signal. She'd been told that they needed healthy, burly men for the broth to be its best. If the demoness smelled sickness or injury on them, they would pass. If she did not, Sango was to render him unconscious and add him to the pot.
When she argued that boiling anything alive was cruel and unusual, Kimi insisted that humans did it to lobsters all the time and their being alive was an unfortunate necessity.
No matter how her stomach soured at the idea of such torment she didn't speak out again. Sango wasn't a moral being when she'd stolen Tessaiga for Kohaku's sake or when she'd tried to kill Rin for Miroku, for the people she loved there was no line she would not cross, but she'd offer a prayer for their quick demise.
"Him."
Sango didn't hesitate. She fell on his back, wrapping her arms around his neck and locking her grip. He garbled as he struggled against his assailant and she shushed him gently as he fell to his knees.
"Please."
Her grip loosened and her resolve wavered, but the thought of Sesshomaru lying motionless, dependent upon her, spurred her on.
"I'm sorry. I'll pray for you." She covered his mouth and nose, surprised when he collapsed instantly.
InuKimi dropped from the trees, checking him over with her critical eye, "I'll put him by the pot, keep your eyes out for any others." Sango was staring at her hand, curious about what new power she seemed to have unlocked.
"Oh!" Even while dragging the man's body, Kimi was graceful. She held him by his wrist, surely trying to avoid dirtying her beautiful kimono, "try to avoid using those spores on your victims. Sesshomaru doesn't very much like mushrooms of any sort."
XxXxXxXxXx
When the men were all round up, Sango settled down beside the ginger, dicing the root as finely as her shaking hand could manage.
"Knocking those men out did something to you." Kimi watched her as she set to hoisting the men up and into the pot.
"I'm not really in the business of hurting innocent people." Sango dumped the handfuls of diced ginger into the pot, "it just felt really bad hurting them."
"Does it hurt you to kill fish? Boars?" She slid the man into the water, quickly shutting the lid as the desperate thumping and thrashing began.
"Well, no. They're animals and it's sad, but it's the food chain." She quickly caught herself, "but it's not natural for me to kill other humans."
The trashing stopped, the garbling had ceased.
"That may be so, if you were still human. There was once a human that allowed hundreds of demons to feed upon his body in exchange for power." InuKimi dunked the second man in the broth, holding the top steady, "a human does not always stay a human."
"That's a different scenario. He sold his soul for power. He hurt people, hated people. I just," she tried to close her ears to the noises coming from the pot, "fell in love with a powerful demon."
"No." Kimi inspected her markings closer, "I don't believe that's entirely true. Yes, you fell for him and he for you, but even Touga's human mate did not turn how you did. You were never good to begin with, your spirit I mean."
"That's not true!"
"Hear me out." There was a wicked glint in the elder woman's eye, "I'm not saying that you haven't turned into a kind and selfless person. I'm saying that if you were naturally this way, you would have never loved my darling boy. Your body would not have transformed so completely."
"Why are you telling me this?" Sango stared at the edge of the blade. Had she always known this? Yes. She'd spent her life combatting her base desires. She didn't want to be a monster.
"Because I feel you need to hear it." Kimi dumped the last man, "you've committed yourself to this farce, you've pushed yourself to be overly empathetic, but when it really mattered you were willing to kill and be killed in order to survive and save your friends. That requires a special kind of spirit."
"So what, I'm willing to hurt people to save the people I love, that doesn't make you a monster."
"No," Kimi wiggled her fingers for the large spoon she'd brought, "but it makes you honest and detached from the obsession humans have with purity. It makes you more demon than human." The demoness paused again, adding another log to the fire, "it also means that I won't be eating you once Sesshomaru is well."
XxXxXxXxXx
Sango hoisted Sesshomaru onto her lap. Holding his lolling head in her arms, "this had better work." She worked her finger between his lips, "and if it doesn't, you owe those men an apology."
Kimi helped her to pour the broth down his throat, "he can't hear you dear."
"I know, but, it feels good to talk to him." Sango rubbed his hair as his mother fed him spoonful after spoonful of human juices.
"I'll never understand bonded pairs."
Sango's ears pricked up at that, "have you not met your mate?" She ran her thumb along his elven ear, he hated it, but it always made her smile. When he woke she knew he'd give her grief, but she wasn't concerned with his likes and dislikes at the moment.
"I like to think she lives in another world. Brilliant and cut throat, not bound by the ideals of others." Kimi shrugged as she refilled her ladle.
Sango didn't say that she knew a girl like that, not interested in getting the woman's hopes up.
Sesshomaru grunted, moving his head away from the spoon, "mu...shrooms." He stuck his pointed tongue out, just a bit.
"I didn't help kill three men for your first word to be mushrooms."
He let his head bounce against her chest, his eyes were still closed and the sleepiness he felt weighed on her like bricks.
"Love you, yome."
Kimi put her hands on her hips.
"And what about your own mother." She was ready to launch herself into a rant. He was always so stubborn about her.
His fingers twitched and his brow furrowed, "love you, mom."
XxXxXxXxXx
Sesshomaru opened his eyes well into the night. His stomach rumbled with indignation. Sango was asleep at his side, but his mother sat against the wall, eyes glowing as she watched him.
"I imagine you're hungry." She stood to spoon more of the broth into a bowl, "I also imagine if you don't finish this pot she will be quite angry with you. It wasn't easy for her to hurt these men for you."
He eyed the finger that floated in his bowl dubiously.
"The taste of humans is already clinging to the back of my throat. I think I'll go and find something solid."
He took a moment to realize that the world he'd been living in for the past several months, had gone.
"I find that I like your mate. I ridiculed you and your father for choosing human mates, but now that I've met her I can't say I object."
He rolled the bowl in his hand, "oh?"
"She's loyal and she loves you more than anything. Isn't that all a mother could want?"
The broth was better than he cared to admit, but he'd have to wash out his mouth before he kissed Sango. Y
"Mother, I know you're up to something."
She took a sip of her own concoction, "me? Inconceivable."
"Mother."
"I have a feeling that your dearest Sango has information that she is withholding." She stood from her place on the ground, "and I intend to squeeze it out of her."
"You may have more luck early in the morning. She's far more helpful when she's groggy."
He was stroking her hair absently, entranced by the way she snuggled closer to him.
"And where would I stay? Here? On a futon. Absolutely not, not even if you promised to come by for a portrait soon." She crossed her arms over her chest, nose in the air.
"Mother. You're being impossible again. If you want answers about your soulmate, Sango will be most cooperative in the morning."
She stared at him pointedly, "not EVEN if you promise to stop by for another portrait."
He groaned, "mother, you have hundreds."
She graced him with one of her rare smiles, "yes, darling, I know, but your eyes are different. Like honey instead of gold and your demeanor," she held up her hands, entrapping him in a makeshift canvas, "is like when you were young."
"I'm an adult now. I'm not going to be the same person I was when I was seven."
She seemed to ignore him, how she always did and, in a show of rare silliness, she stood on her toes to blow a raspberry into his cheek.
He couldn't help the small chuckle that bubbled forth, "mother, please. I'll lay out a futon for you. Stay the night and talk to Sango tomorrow."
She pretended to be severely put out.
"Fine, I'll just get Sango to bring you by."
XxXxXxXxXx Modern XxXxXxXxXx
The city was all but overrun with monsters from their time. Shippo pulled his sword from his hip.
He, Miroku, and Yuka were fighting their way to the well, hoping that the answers to their questions were within reach.
"Miroku, protect Yuka! I'll lead them away from here."
His cotton ball tail twitched nervously as he brought his sword down along a demon's neck. Miroku did as he was asked, dragging the woman through the infested streets.
She pulled kunai from her hip pouches, throwing them with a deadly kind of precision.
"Try and keep up, monk." She was pulling her weapons free of their skulls when Shippo trotted over.
"We have to help the people in your time. We can't run away." His ginger eyebrows were knitted with a shakeable determination, but Yuka rejected it.
"Getting through the well and finding Akutoki is the best way to help everyone." She led them towards a grocery store just outside of the shrine, "now listen up. Bandages, aspirin, disinfectant. Spray, ointment, liquid. It doesn't matter, but grab as much as you can." She handed Shippo a backpack and sent him inside.
She sent Miroku inside for dehydrated foods and canned goods. The history books always made it seem as though food was a scarce and precious commodity in those times and she would not take the chance.
Demons were flooding the sidewalk and she pulled out her knives again, "I'll hold them off." Ayumi's death had sent her into a self destructive spiral. If she wasn't working out or practicing her marksmanship, she was carb loading and stewing on her failures.
She missed her childhood friend more and more everyday, but her death was the catalyst that spurred her on and for that she was grateful.
Miroku returned quickly, just as much of a master thief as everyone claimed he was. His aid in holding off the demons was invaluable and when Shippo returned, the shopkeep on his heels and his bag and arms full, they ran.
"Consider our extermination of the demons our payment!" She called over her shoulder.
They ran until they were in the shrine, Miroku and Shippo set to digging nearest to the collapsed shed and Yuka held her knives up and out, scanning for threats.
"What are these?" Shippo held up two spherical gems, offering them up to Yuka when she extended her hand. She'd read about these. In the eighteen hundreds men wanted to resurrect demonkind and use them to fight God.
Their attempts to recreate the sacred jewel, however, had more or less failed. They'd been able to summon more cooperative demons, but greater demons usually refused to be called upon.
She didn't know where anyone had found these ancient marvels in this day and age, but whoever had uncovered and used them, had to be desperate.
"They're replicas of the Sacred Jewel. They aren't nearly as powerful, but if we keep digging I guarantee that we'll hit the other side."
With the pearls in her hand she dug her hands deep in the soil, "Kannon, Goddess of Mercy, guide us to the other side." The jewels glowed in her hand and the world that was being torn apart, faded away.
A.N./ OKAY I HAVE QUESTIONS. This story is only about halfway done. But there's a bit of a skip between these next few parts and the rest of my ideas. Should I make a sequel or just keep going ?