A/N: Warning: the scene in italics circles back to her assault and has a violent moment. If this bothers you, please skip ahead past the italics.
The rest of the day passed by in a relative haze. Kagome hardly paid attention to anyone or anything and if anyone noticed or commented about that, it simply didn't register.
Lunch and dinner must have been uneventful because she hardly remembered eating, let alone what she ate or what happened during the meal.
InuYasha was quiet—or if he wasn't, she simply didn't notice—but she doubted that would last long. He was never one for keeping his thoughts to himself.
Unless, of course, those thoughts involved his past or Kikyo.
Still, she was grateful for the silence.
She'd eaten because Sesshomaru had led her to the meal and placed food before her, but she hadn't paid attention beyond that.
Hadn't wanted to.
She didn't want to do anything at all that involved thinking.
She still felt too exposed, too raw, after her bath, and she wasn't ready to face those feelings yet.
Kagome was grateful when dinner was over and she was led to her room. She'd wanted to lie back down ever since her bath, but Sesshomaru had insisted on accompanying her to—well, do something. She didn't remember what.
Not that it mattered, anyway.
Relieved, she collapsed onto her bed, uncaring that she was probably crumpling her clothing. Who did she have to impress, anyway?
She couldn't even bring herself to cover herself with the blanket. Instead, she just remained when she'd sprawled on the bed and didn't move until at last sleep finally claimed her.
.
.
Her attackers stood around her, forming a circle she couldn't escape from.
She tried to back away, tried to protect herself, pleaded with them to stop, but the men only laughed at her attempts to avoid what they all knew was going to happen anyway.
"What a weak attempt," one mocked her. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you wanted this."
One of the other men laughed as his hands reached for her. "I bet she does," he said, leering as he pawed at her. "She doesn't even know how good she has it right now."
She closed her eyes and felt like vomiting but that only made them laugh harder. They were enjoying her pain and she knew without seeing that they were touching themselves as much as they were touching her.
When she opened her eyes again, she screamed. Her attackers, all mutilated and bloody, touching her with their bloodied and flayed flesh, covering her with their own fluids.
They laughed as she screamed in horror, trying to pull back from their mutilated bodies. The men were falling apart around her and still they reached for her.
One of their hands suddenly was sliced clean off by an invisible weapon and fell onto her bare breast, cupping her flesh with bloodied fingers.
She screeched in horror.
.
.
Kagome jolted awake, her voice hoarse.
She blinked in the dark room but she couldn't unsee the hand at her breast. Shivering with revulsion, she threw off her clothes, desperate to stop the sensation of anything at her breast.
I can still feel it touching me!
Even naked, the sensation didn't dissipate. The air was too much on her bare flesh and she screamed again in frustration and horror.
All she saw was blood and body parts everywhere.
Without thinking, she reached for the first thing she felt and threw it, barely noting as the pillow bounced harmlessly off the wall.
It wasn't enough.
She groped mindlessly and her fingers found her blankets, which she threw, and then the futon itself. Her clothes were after that, thrown one by one with all the strength she possessed.
All tumbled to the ground, unharmed.
She needed to feel in control of the chaos around her, needed something loud to shatter the men's voices she could still hear in her head, their groans—
Her fingers found a vase and she threw it.
There was a satisfying sound as it smashed into a wooden post and exploded into shards.
But when the sound stopped, she could hear their voices again.
She thundered around her room, throwing everything she could find to try and shut out the sound and find some semblance of peace.
Throwing things took some of the fevered energy from her, hid some of the sounds—however temporarily.
She threw her tansu, threw the clothes in them, uncaring of any collateral damage in the process. Anything at all she could find in the room, she threw, until there was nothing left to throw.
It was only then, as she sagged to the ground, that she was aware of two things.
Sesshomaru was standing silently in her doorway, watching her.
And she'd been wailing and crying the entire time and hadn't realized it.
"It hurts," she wailed plaintively as he slowly approached her.
"I know," he answered her quietly, pulling her into his arms and rocking her.
She clung to him, needing the comfort he offered, but hating that she needed it at the same time. Her hands alternated between grabbing at him and pounding at his back in misery as she cried.
He simply held her in silence until she finally sagged against him, spent.
"All I seem to be doing is falling apart, Sesshomaru," she said in a quiet, broken voice.
"You are not falling apart," he corrected her gently, pulling her closer so that she sat in his lap, her legs to one side and her upper body to the other. "You are healing."
His words made her cry all over again but this time he simply rocked her as she cried. "What if anyone else sees me like this? What if InuYasha saw?"
She couldn't bear the thought of InuYasha witnessing her breakdown. She already felt too exposed as it was, but at least until now, it was only Sesshomaru who had seen her at her worst each time.
Sesshomaru was silent for a moment. "He is not here," he admitted slowly, tensing. "He went out to hunt. Everyone else is in bed."
She didn't know if InuYasha had heard her rage or not. She began shaking at the thought he might have witnessed her outburst and fled from her again as he'd done before, the night of the attack.
"Would you like me to seek him out for you?" Sesshomaru offered suddenly.
"No!" She winced at her own volume even as she dug her fingers in tighter to his clothing. "No, Sesshomaru. Please don't. Don't leave me."
He seemed to relax. "If that is what you wish, Kagome."
She nodded her agreement.
"But you cannot sleep here. I will summon the servants to—"
"No!" She shook her head. "It's too late, Sesshomaru, and besides, it's my fault. I'll clean it up." She pulled away just enough to survey the destruction of her room and winced. It would easily take her all day to restore her room to rights and she wasn't entirely sure everything could be salvaged, either.
"It is late," he said, standing up and carrying her in his arms as he rose. "Your room will wait. For now, you need sleep."
Instead of righting her own bedding as she'd thought he'd do, he carried her out of the room and into another, setting her down on the futon there before moving away.
Her fingers clung onto him, preventing him from moving too far away. "Don't go."
He glanced down at her and, after a moment, nodded, stretching out beside her without touching her directly.
Her grip, however, didn't slack as she curled against him, needing the comfort he so easily offered her, but though she thought she couldn't sleep again after her nightmare, she'd exhausted herself out and within minutes, she dozed off.