Good afternoon, and welcome back!
Hey there, great to see you! I know, it's been quite a while. The truth is things have unbelievably gone further downhill in my life, and that's all I can honestly say to explain my absence. I, however, have finally written this chapter, but beware. It is much longer than my average chapter word count, and it will contain grief and child loss scenarios. I genuinely hope to hear about what you guys think about the story and can't wait to hear from you, so leave those reviews when you have the time. Until next time.
Please take great care, and I hope to see you again soon!
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Minutes passed. Minutes that felt like hours. Everyone remained unmoved, mourning still for quite some time. Sango, whose attention eventually turned to Kioko just as Miroku's had, thought she could practically feel Kioko's devastation. The now lone undead priestess left among the living had been through more this past day than most of them, and it finally showed as Kioko was kneeled in the dirt, barely holding herself up as she cried.
Looking over, Sango observed Kagome to see her making no moves to comfort Kioko. The younger girl's back faced Kioko's broken composure and held no hint of comfort for the crumbled priestess. It was telling. Just like when Kioko was traveling with them. Only this time, it seemed as if Kagome's expression showed that she simply couldn't face Kioko. An indication of conflict etched over her face.
It made sense. Even if Kagome wanted to attempt consoling Kioko, Kioko would be likely to reject it. The two hadn't been on good terms to start with. It was an indisputable fact, more so now given the situation at hand. Kagome was the one that shot Kikyo with the arrow. Despite it being by Kikyo's command or that Kikyo was already in dire condition, it was Kagome, and Kikyo was now gone.
Slowly, step after step, Sango began walking towards Kioko, tuning out Miroku's objections. Kioko was hurting. Disintegrating right before their eyes. How could she not go to her or ignore Kioko's pain? Kikyo had died, and Kioko learned the truth about her death. Someone had to be there for Kioko when Kagome, her own sister, would not budge to do so.
Inuyasha, hearing Miroku's attempts to stop Sango, peered over his shoulder to witness the demon slayer walking towards Kioko, who he noticed was practically falling apart. His eyes winced at the sight of her that way. Knowing Kioko loved Kikyo just as much as he had. So, he watched. Waiting to see how Kioko would react to Sango's approach. His heart almost breaking further at the soul collectors surrounding Kioko's form.
Sango stopped next to Kioko's right and, with tears of her own still falling down her face, crouched down. Now close enough to see Kioko's body was trembling, Sango pressed her lips together in an act to hold it together. Hesitantly, Sango reached out and placed a hand on Kioko's back and rubbed it slowly, hoping that it helped, unaware that Kioko could not feel it or even realized Sango was this close to her.
Lost in her grief, Kioko's few senses that she was left within her current body grew unfocused. Unguarded. Sango, not realizing this to be the case, also considered that Kioko's purification armor did not bite at her touch. She wasn't sure if she should have been endeared by it or not, but it wasn't important for the moment.
"Kioko, it'll be alright." Sango comforted softly and instantly realized it was a mistake to get this close to Kioko without the priestess being made aware. Kioko shot her head up and turned her gaze to Sango with such speed that it was evident to Sango that she had just caught Kioko off guard. Those pink eyes looking at her in shock. Slapping Sango's hand away, Kioko stood and took several slow steps back with tears still rolling down her face.
Inuyasha and the others noticing the reaction, turned their attention solely to the two women. Inuyasha and Kouga sensed Kioko's aura burst with malice into the air, practically threatening to bring them to their knees. Neither barely able to breathe, let alone move with Kioko's massive dominant aura. Her purification armor was enhanced when her darkened pink hues turned to Kagome while glaring hatefully.
"You did this. Yet again, you take from me, Kagome. I should kill you right here and watch you bleed out as massively as you have caused me to do repeatedly. It should have been you. IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN YOU!" Kioko began to shout at Kagome, who flinched and looked at Kioko with hurt. "You who should have received our mother's hatred. You who should have lost it all. You who should have died today!"
"Kioko!" Inuyasha yelled out, not wanting to hear Kioko say more. Not so much in Kagome's defense but to stop Kioko from saying anything she may regret later. The Kioko they knew would never speak such words. This was not their Kioko right now, and he didn't want her to regret more when the time hopefully came that she returned to the woman they knew her to be.
"You'd defend her?!" Kioko's confronts Inuyasha, turning her gaze onto the half-demon. His amber eyes flinch at their harsh and overpowered nature. "As if you hadn't hated Sesshoumaru for who knows how long for what he's done to you in the past. Don't you dare hypocritically chastise me." Kioko opposed with a tone of disdain and anger. Her pink eyes then returned to Kagome's brown hues. The color Kikyo also possessed. Clenching her eyes and gritting her fangs, Kioko turned her head away.
"I will never forgive you. This is an act you can not take back, and I will blame you until the day I am dead once again. Keep your distance. The next time I see you, I can't promise not to rip your throat out." Kioko warned with threat laced in every syllable. Kagome, unable to utter a word, was horrified.
Finally, turning her back to them, Kioko began to walk away. The soul collectors that now belonged to her followed, as silver-white hair swayed behind her. Many of them called out for her to turn around, to come back, but went ignored. Once out of sight into a forest not too far off, Kagome fell to her knees and stared at the place where Kioko had disappeared.
Kioko had condemned her, and worse, was now intending to shun her. Kioko finally looked at her with the most burning and genuine hatred, and it was devastating. The thing she feared and yet wanted, Kioko's blame, had finally come. All it took was her bringing Kikyo to her end. The sister Kioko accepted with pure love, just as she had with Kagome once. Burying her face into her hands, Kagome's dead eyes clenched, and she cried more harshly. Kioko's hatred suffocated her.
Kioko traveled alone throughout the night and into the next day. Unsure of what to do or where to go. She had been following Kikyo's decisions since her revival, and before her death, was committed to Kikyo's mission for her. So, Kioko wandered most of the day aimlessly, empty. Dead eyes looking ahead of her but not seeing a fragment of the image in front of her. Until finally, as she was passing through an overgrown field, Kioko's emotions caught up with her again.
Kioko fell to her knees in the dirt beneath her, and tears ran down her face. Placing her palms against her eyes as her tears flowed heavily down her arms. Kikyo's kindness and smile ran through Kioko's mind, and all Kioko could think to do was to release the pain. The utter gut-wrenching anguish.
That's when a high-pitched and bone-chilling scream ripped through the air with all the emotion she could muster for no one in particular to hear. Nothing but the tiny breeze that brushed passed causing the tall grass to sway around her. The world around her ceased into silence, startled by her outburst as it echoed through the empty space of grass and sky.
Removing her hands to limply land in her lap Kioko's head pulled back to face the sky, teeth gritted in her agony while her soul collectors circled above her in what seemed like panic and worry. She was alone again. Kikyo was gone for good. Sesshoumaru hadn't betrayed her, but instead, she was the one to betray him. She lost a child, not at the hands of its father, but by a monster who was bitter at not having her for himself. She lost her life to someone who played her like a puppet into madness. It was too much.
For a few hours, Kioko remained there unmoved, trying to calm down as the world eventually grew back to life from her silence. Birds chirping. Grass rustling from the breeze. Animals scurrying about nearby, but not too close. The world was moving on. Yet again, it didn't stop for her loss.
Kioko then resumed her travels. As time passed, she remained under the radar as much as she could while wandering from place to place. Every destination one she shared with Kikyo. For quite some time, this is all Kioko found she could do. In need of getting her thoughts in order, she ended up in the clearing of cherry blossoms colored in pure white. The place she wished to bring Kikyo.
No one could deny her devotion and loyalty to those close to her, for Kikyo had done the same when the time came. She tried to protect Kioko from a truth that would likely bring Kioko to ruin. Knowing Kikyo, Kioko was sure she must have felt hints of guilt for the decision, and somehow, Kioko couldn't hold that choice against her.
Pains of regret now ripped through Kioko for her actions against Sesshoumaru. All this time, she had loved him, even as her unforgiving hatred wrapped in her wrath seethed at him. Even when time for her had ceased upon her return. The end of time as she knew it. She has loved him. While her hatred crucified him for things he hadn't done.
Kioko always worried, in the back of her mind, what he would do to hurt her because she just knew there would be something. Her trust in love was something far more unstable than met the eye. She tried to keep her distance from him, to prevent the pain, and despite that, he still reached her. Enchanted her with who he was and what he became to her. Yet, she always subconsciously prepared for heartbreak because it was what she knew life to be. Nothing but heartbreak.
Kikyo's death was another paralyzing point to that fact. One Kioko was never able to prepare for, and when it came down to it, she was never able to prepare against the heartbreak she felt with Sesshoumaru either. Her love for him outshined most of the doubts and allowed her to follow her heart to be with him. A demon man who was once infamous for his hatred of humans.
Staring at the cherry blossoms that resembled snow, a lone tear fell down her face. After spending a short while merely watching petals fall, Kioko decided that the best way to clear her mind, to decide what steps she wished to take next, was to return to the beginning. To where her life in the feudal era began. Without a second thought, Kioko began her travels to the Bone-Eater's Well.
The soul collector's that she had inherited from Kikyo never left her side. Many humans who crossed her path ran in terror from the demoness in priestess attire. While demons kept their distance due to her oppressive aura. She was a paradox. Easily seen as a threat by both humans and demons alike. She wondered if it was at all like this for Inuyasha. Although, in his case, he was shunned through disgust rather than fear as she was.
Kioko also discovered that her visit to The Northern Castle became widespread knowledge. Only furthering other's fear of her. Demons whispering outside her vision, but daring to be sure she'd hear them. Their words about the demoness who massacred The Northern Castle and was the Lord of the Western Lands' discarded lover.
"Honestly, I never realized how much demons loved to gossip." Was all Kioko said coldly as she walked past, being sure that she in return was loud enough for them to hear as well. Sure enough, the whispers had silenced as she continued on her way. Unstopped by such meager nonsense. Kioko didn't understand her demonic nature or capabilities, but it was apparent that her emotions drove a surge of power that kept most living things at a distance.
Before long, days had passed, and Kioko had finally reached the well. Walking into the familiar clearing, Kioko looked at the lush green grass and the trees surrounding the area. Her eyes landing on the well in the end, standing beside it as sentiments of this area hit her. Memories of her arrival to this era and her younger years spent here or beneath Inuyasha's feet. How fresh and new this world was to her back then. How much freer she felt and easier she was able to breathe.
Then her times spent with Sesshoumaru entered her thoughts. The moment he proposed to her freshly came to her mind. She was so happy and felt so free yet again. Equal to him as he agreed to the rosary she placed on him. Claiming it and her to already be his. The way he kissed her. He relayed how he felt in those kisses, and she could not deny or refuse him any further after that.
Not until she threw it and him away in this very same spot. Rejecting him and pushing him away. Cruelly saying that she couldn't stay with him. That she would never return to his side, let alone this time again. She can still hear his voice soften in the hurt she saw, shining in his beautiful golden eyes. The fear that hinted on his face when she turned away to jump into the well to the modern era, for what she thought was the last time. She supposed, in a sense, it was.
Clenching her eyes shut as Sesshoumaru's golden eyes began to torment her. Kioko turned away, unable to face yet again her actions at this place where she stood. So, she started making her way to where she truly felt was calling out for her. The Sacred Tree. Home.
When entering its field, the emotions Kioko had experienced there struck her more profoundly than at the Bone-Eater's Well. How she requested Sesshoumaru take revenge against her on behalf of his pride for binding him to a rosary for no purpose. The time he came for her when she left the group and laid sick against the tree's strong trunk. When she made peace with leaving the Sacred Tree in this time for the one in the modern era with hopes of living a different life with Shiro.
This tree recorded many things, and not just for her. For Inuyasha. For Sesshoumaru. For Kikyo. Walking over and climbing up one of the large roots at the trunk's base, Kioko lifted her hand to place onto the scar etched on the rough bark her fingers could not feel but reminisced in what she remembered the feeling to be like. The place where Kikyo had bound Inuyasha. Kioko's soul collectors glided around her and the tree as she stood there.
Suddenly, the air in the field she and The Sacred Tree stood began to grow more intense, and though Kioko was aware, she ignored it. Ignored that, at last, the time had come.
[-]
He was aware of the news. Of Kikyo's passing. The very air of the world shifted when she had passed, and one such as Sesshoumaru easily noticed the change. Kioko. She must have been devestated. He was aware that she was traveling with the young priestess and upon taking in the undead wenches ward, he assumed her end was close at hand.
Currently he was in search of answers from his mother about Tenseiga and before he knew it, he was taking the path to the underworld. After jumping into this realm to save Rin and inevitably Kohaku, the only way to go was forward. However, he wasn't expecting for Kohaku to tell him, that Rin wasn't breathing.
Immediately, Sesshoumaru attempted to revive Rin with the use of Tenseiga, only to produce no results. Try as he may it remained the same. Rin's life was cut off. It was torture, for it reminded him of the same thing happening when he was unable to revive Kioko. Why? Why would it not do his bidding when he needed it to?
The image of Kioko's blood coated body in his arms and their unborn pup laying upon her chest. Now Rin, the child the two of them cherished, was laying at his feet. Unmoved, not a beat of her heart nor a breath from her lungs. Bringing him face to face with the reality once again that he could not save Kioko, and that now he could not save Rin.
The guardian of the underworld then took Rin, and while many of the dead were flowing into a hole further into the underworld, showed Sesshoumaru with images and scenes. Memories that were not his own, but Kioko's. Of her time spent in the underworld as her hatred nearly swept her into madness and in hearing the guardian laugh it was evident that it was taunting Sesshoumaru.
Angered, Sesshoumaru slaughtered the guardian and saved Rin before leaving the underworld on his own terms. He then questioned his mother about knowing whether this would happen to Rin. Only his mother to relay knowledge that shook him to his very core.
"Son, Tenseiga can only call a person back from the dead once."
The world seemed to freeze as it grew cold. It was why he couldn't revive her. Why Kioko would not revive again by his hand. It was not a fault of his, it was Tenseiga's limitation. Having revived Kioko once before when she sacrificed her life for him after Naraku took her. Making him uncapable of saving Kioko when the time called for it most. It wasn't his fault he couldn't revive her, and that fact gave him a sense of weight lifted.
"You needed to learn two things. The desire to save the life of a loved one taken by death, and the sorrow and fear which accompanies that loss" His mother than went on to tell him.
"Sorrow and fear." Sesshoumaru echoed with seething anger towards his mother who was heavily surprised. He recalled the day of Kioko's passing when he had brought her corpse to The Western Castle. Was that day and the seasons that followed not filled with enough sorrow and fear to bear for a lifetime?
[~~~~~~~~~~~~~]
Sesshoumaru stood there staring into the depths of the Bone-Eater's Well. She left him. Kioko left his side of her own accord and, to his face, told him that she no longer belonged to him. The beads to his rosary lay at his feet within the blades of grass, shining with the glimmers of sunlight bouncing off of them.
He couldn't move, just stare. As if the black depths would return Kioko any moment if he simply waited a bit. Of course, that wasn't the case. He stayed by that well for several days, and not once had Kioko returned. He jumped in a time or two, determined to get through to her, but all he was met with was the moist soil beneath his feet and the bright blue sky shining in through the opening of the well.
Despite the fact that they were mated, Kioko left him without so much as a murmur of why. He couldn't understand Kioko's behavior because no amount of racking his mind brought him solace or answers.
Sesshoumaru held a sense of anger at the scars that laid deeper within Kioko than even her endless love for him. He knew she loved him. She made it impossible for him to even doubt it, but she couldn't bring herself to fully believe in his love for her. This truth was the only reason he could sum up why Kioko abandoned him and his side where she belonged.
After Kioko's death, Sesshoumaru had, at one point, grew careless with his life, wanting nothing more than to follow Kioko in death. Wanting nothing more than to, at last, be once again where she was, but he had Rin to care for and responsibilities to maintain. Even then, he still received no answers, leaving him to continue wondering Kioko's reasons and angry with her for leaving him. First, to the era she came from, and again for the afterlife.
Sesshoumaru was confident that only Kioko's love for Rin and perhaps the dead priestess, Kikyo, could pin Kioko against him, or so he thought. Until he learned fragments of what Naraku had done. Hearing the pitiful half-demon taunt him with slivers of details after revealing he was the one to kill Kioko while using Sesshoumaru's form. Revealing the horrors of Kioko's final hour.
"It was delightful slicing through her body like cream. It was music to my ears when she called out your name in pain. Asking why, like the naive fool that she was. I can still remember her face when she learned she was with child while she laid soaking in her own blood." Naraku's voice echoed for months.
Sesshoumaru saw red that day. His rage and grief were incomprehensible and inconsolable at learning that Naraku's words rung true. He ordered Jaken and Rin away, needing to be left alone. In that time, he slaughtered many demons who crossed him, if for no other reason than the need for a killing spree. Yet, no amount of violence calmed his rage, and not even for a second did it lighten his pain. Angry that Tenseiga did not return Kioko to him and he could not save her.
To know Kioko and their child was killed while those pink eyes of her stared at the one who used his face to do it. The nausea in his stomach almost threatened to cause Sesshoumaru to retch right there in the nearby brush when remembering her body burning to ashes from start to finish. With their child burning right beside her. Her beautiful face disappearing behind those flames was the last he saw of it. For the last time.
She kept leaving him. Kioko left him many times, and he somehow always ended up waiting for her return, because she always had. The last breath escaping her chest and the fire that consumed her body was the last time she left him. He felt betrayed, but regardless still loved her. Kioko was irreplaceable even if his culture allowed him to find a new mate. He'd have never been able to.
It wasn't until Kioko was revived that his anger outgrew his grief. Furious with her, once again, believing he'd hurt her because it was all she knew. Unable to trust the intimate love he held for her to the point that she readily thought it truly was him who would do this to her. That he was the one to have done those things to their child.
After losing her over that cliff with her blunt declaration of hatred and revenge, Sesshoumaru was mixed with emotions. Anger at feeling betrayed. Hurt from her words and actions. Grief for the woman he still loved and had lost all over again. Relief, to have seen her, hear her voice, and know she was amongst them again.
Even if it pained him as well that she had become the same as Inuyasha's dead priestess and Kioko's unrested soul grew so malicious, she had become the demon he suspected her to be. This wasn't how he wanted the answers.
To find out what she was, or to hear her pain over what happened. To see it so profoundly etched on Kioko's face as blood sprayed and poured from her artificial body. Her agony from grief that was now fresher than his own. It was like reliving that day all over again, and the sick feeling in his stomach returned.
Upon returning to The Western Castle, he had to inform Rin of Kioko's return. He should have been angrier with Kioko than he was, but there was something that never escaped the back of his mind.
He wasn't there.
He didn't know the full detail or extent of what happened to Kioko, merely the main point. That Naraku used his face to kill her and the child she had been carrying. That Naraku played on Kioko's not so secret doubts in love somehow. That's all he knew. He wanted to ask her. Demand Kioko tell him, even if it meant forcing her to relive it and hurt her.
Not long after was when he learned of her being at The Western Castle. He rushed there, hoping to run into her within those walls they once called home together, with Jaken and Rin unable to keep up with him. However, by the time he arrived, she was gone, and the sun had already begun to rise. Listening to his guards and servants alike recount her visit there as he followed her scent all the way to their chambers.
Entering the room and closing the door behind him, Sesshoumaru could sense her presence had been there. He could feel it in his skin. Her scent in their shared chambers again, only now that of bones and graveyard soil. Looking around the room, he noted her pouch of cherry blossoms gone but her collar still where he left it. Yet another offense to his feelings.
He then went to Rin's garden, where Mikoto waited at the entrance with the twins. Revealing to him their encounters before he entered. Telling him of this new Kioko that wasn't the same. In approaching her grave marker, and their child's resting place, he could smell the scent of her tears so potently that his heart dropped. The dirt above her grave revealing a small spot of moistened earth. As Mikoto and the twins told him, she cried, laying here with their child.
Just the thought, almost seeing it with his mind's eye, had Sesshoumaru's eyes sting. They said she spoke words that they did not hear. Merely her voice. Sesshoumaru could guess what she had to say but still wondered the words she used. The things she may have offered the pup they missed the chance to raise. It was then a guard who came to report to him that Kioko had paid a visit to The Northern Castle as well, where she had committed a massacre.
Sesshoumaru didn't believe it at first. It couldn't have been right. Kioko wasn't prone to violence unless she had to be, but then he recalled the day of her revival. She was violent. Malevolent. So he decided to see for himself while he ordered Jaken to arrange with Kioko to meet Rin, who, since learning of Kioko's return, begged to see her. Asking for the woman daily and thinking of her twice as much throughout the day.
However, he grew uncertain of the decision when he arrived at The Northern Lands. Seeing the bloodshed and corpses while wandering into the castle and making his way to Lady Vinori's location when he was unable to sense Lord Kaiden. Upon finding the distraught Lady, he was faced with tales he could not fathom the idea of Kioko being involved in.
Rin's constant requests to see Kioko did not fall on deaf ears, but he now questioned Kioko's sanity. Was she the human woman who cried at the grave of their child within his castle walls, or was she the demoness that slaughtered a great deal of The Northern Castle's populace more ruthlessly than even he would? Was she still the same woman he was hopelessly devoted to?
So, while on guard, Sesshoumaru took Rin to meet with Kioko. Even after Jaken returned to tell him Kioko had agreed, but that she was indeed nothing of the woman he remembered her to be. Going so far as to suggest that perhaps it was unwise to take Rin to see her, but Sesshoumaru knew that for both Rin and Kioko, it was vital.
Sesshoumaru also needed to see who Kioko now was. He needed to know who she was. At that meeting, he finally got an answer and learned that she was both. Her humanity still reflected in her presence, but the demon in her was too volatile with what happened between them and Naraku. He knew he and Kioko had to confront each other, but he did not want it to grow violent.
Given Kioko's uncontrollable sense of rage in her twisted aura, Sesshoumaru was aware that Rin's time with Kioko was nowhere near the time. Neither he nor Kioko was ready to come face to face with one another. Dare he say, Sesshoumaru found himself, deep down, almost fearful to know the details of what happened to Kioko. To hear what Naraku had done to her while wearing his face. Using his voice. Imitating his body.
His imagination couldn't manifest what could have been done to Kioko to change her to such a degree that her return from the netherworld transformed her into the ferocious demon that now wandered the world. Before long, a majority of Sesshoumaru's anger had dissipated, leaving only the pain.
The pain that she hated him. That he could hardly recognize her. That they were still apart even after her revival. That this was what became of her. That the unanswered questions still remained. How had it come to this? How did it go from meeting her in that clearing filled with sunbeams as she smiled at him, to having to turn and walk away from her in that rainy field to await meeting again while she cried?
Sesshoumaru's heart broke for Kioko and because of her.
[~~~~~~~~~~~~~]
While Sesshoumaru recalled all these things, Jaken informed InuKimi of Sesshoumaru's pain over the loss of Rin. Hearing this, like any decent mother, InuKimi granted within her power a way to end her child's pain. At least, in this instance, by reviving Rin with her Meido Stone.
Sesshoumaru immediately went to Rin to observe her condition, surprising his mother yet again. Relief washed over him at seeing that Rin was alright and how he wouldn't have to go to Kioko and tell the love of his life that they had lost yet another child. Knowing it would push Kioko over the edge she was already standing on.
"Excuse me, my good lady. Please allow me to thank you on Lord Sesshoumaru's behalf."
"Is Sesshoumaru happy that I've brought her back?" InuKimi asked. Curious about the emotions she had never known her son to indicate having.
"Very happy, I presume." Jaken answers as he looks at Sesshoumaru, doting over Rin with a smile. His mother watched while finding the encounter strange. Her son, who had harbored such hatred for humans, was making so much fuss over such a small human child. Clearly obtaining one of his father's more unusual traits.
Of course, InuKimi was unaware that Sesshoumaru's mate and the woman who favored Rin as the child she and Sesshoumaru shared, was what changed Sesshoumaru with the beautiful human heart Kioko possessed. The one who changed his views and his heart whether he wanted to or not.
Upon ordering his wards that they were leaving, they made their way down the steps. Only for InuKimi to reveal she had been keeping a close and watchful eye on the woman Sesshoumaru bound himself to, catching him by surprise. Looking back at her, Sesshoumaru's golden hues glimmered with a sense of curiosity as well as warning.
"Do not gaze at your mother in that way, Sesshoumaru. I merely thought that you may find interest in knowing that your precious mate has learned the truth. The one known as Naraku has confessed as such to her." InuKimi informs Sesshoumaru while observing his reaction.
She wasn't disappointed when she saw Sesshoumaru's eyes wince wide and, in a flash, returned to a composed mask. He was shocked, and if she was right in catching it fast enough. Fearful. Sesshoumaru turned and continued to then walk down the steps, behaving as if he heard not a word.
"Will you be going to her, my son?" InuKimi asked with a more softened tone. Clearly, this woman she's observed struck nerves in her son that did not result in anger but in pain. So his answer only half surprised her when she heard it and didn't press the matter further as she watched him leave. Hoping that perhaps one day, she'd get to meet this woman that had captured her son.
"No." Was all Sesshoumaru replied with internal pain burning in his chest as he left. He still couldn't go to Kioko. He knew not still wasn't the time as the news and Kikyo's passing must have made the priestess incredibly vulnerable and quite possibly resulting in her becoming more volatile. In the back of Sesshoumaru's mind, however, he was conscious of the fact that he wasn't ready to see her either.
[-]
Sesshoumaru went on to learn the secrets about Tenseiga, enraged by the revelations. The audacity of it all. His rejection of Inuyasha had never vanished; after all, their sibling rivalry existed long before he met Kioko. Though she made Sesshoumaru more accepting of half-demons, when the child they shared most likely was one, never erased his grudges against his brother that he also cared for.
It was something he noted he and Kioko had in common. She understood that piece of his logic. Just as he knew Kioko was unable to erase her grudges against Kagome. Kioko, who loved Kagome, could not allow herself to love Kagome, even while protecting her. She couldn't forgive what that wretched little girl had done to her over the years. Sesshoumaru still recalled the stories he had compelled Kioko to share with him. He couldn't forgive the little vermin either, and he couldn't forgive Inuyasha.
The day, however, finally came when he could release that anger. Towards Inuyasha, towards his father, and towards Kioko. The day his fight with Magatsuhi took place. Taunted as being weak, he was trapped within the limbs of demons to be devoured and infused into Naraku's body. It was in that dark encasement that Sesshoumaru was taunted further, and to his horror, was finally shown what he had wanted to know but reluctant to ask. The entire truth of what had happened to Kioko.
Within his mind, voices laughed and mocked him while sharing the entire event from start to finish within his mind. Moving pictures flickering through his head, one after another, as all the information filled his consciousness and told the story of how everything started. Endless images, words, and screams echoing together loudly, clawing from the inside of his skull.
Kioko leaving The Western Castle only to come across him and Reika slaughtering a nearby village of humans before moving on to- "Let's continue the fun."
"Go Home!" Kioko leaving for the Bone-Eater's Well then the scene of her shoving him away, breaking his rosary. The heartbreak was written all over her face.
Kioko crossing paths with him and, when turning with the mating collar in her hand, watched as his claws sliced through her shoulders, causing her to hit the ground roughly. Her scream echoing in his mind. "Did you honestly believe that I, Lord Sesshoumaru, could ever love a human wench such as you?"
"I love you! Why are you doing this?! Sesshoumaru-" The scene of his form with his hand exiting Kioko's lower back as she was pressed against him. Appearing almost intimate if not for the bloody hand protruding from her body. The hand that was clutching the child that had been within her body.
"With this, I no longer have any business here."- Her back faced him, leaving him unable to see her face, but her blood running down both of their forms grew in quantity. The glint of pleasure etched in those golden eyes that stared ahead as if staring directly at Sesshoumaru while a smirk spread across his image's face. Then the imposter in his form retracted his arm from Kioko's body, moving out of the way for her to fall roughly to the dirt below her. Where he found her.
"I'd have thought even vermin like you were smart enough to know when they are with child." His clutched hand extended and dropped the child to fall in front of Kioko's face. Her face of pure terror and fear, more than he could bring into words, morphed into what made up her expression. This was the blow that killed her, and though he knew it not to be him, Sesshoumaru felt his stomach clench sickeningly. This is what Kioko thought to be true. This was her reality.
For so long, he'd wanted to see what happened. To have been there to witness what was done to the mate he could not save. However, he never expected this. He wasn't prepared to see this. Images moved on to her revival. All that he already knew to be true but now made far more sense than ever before.
The way her eyes looked when turning back to Kaiden after he had slapped her. A chill went up Sesshoumaru's back. The brutality of her slamming Kaiden's head to the floor, the way her purification armor mutilated the Nothern Lord's face.
"What kind of fool do you think I am? You're not sorry; you simply don't want to die." Kioko laying upon the earth above her grave in Rin's garden. Her tears soaking the ground beneath her as her hand laid upon the dirt above where their infant had been buried. Where he buried them side by side within The Western Castle's walls. Rage and heartbreak. These are what she became.
Her meeting Rin. Finding Kikyo with Inuyasha and the others. Crossing paths with Naraku. Kagome shooting Kikyo with an arrow. Kikyo's death. Kioko's mourning. Kioko leaving the others there to wander alone. Breaking down by herself in an overgrown field. Visiting a clearing surrounded by following white cherry blossom petals. This was the last image Sesshoumaru had saw before he'd had enough.
Sesshoumaru refused to accept it any longer. If he was weak, then he needed to move on to something stronger than Tessaiga and even more than his father. Become so powerful that he would never allow Kioko to get hurt again. Become so infinite that he can protect her from anything, even herself. Something no other has done for her, and who better than the one who mated her?
With his newfound conviction, Sesshoumaru broke free of the suffocating encasement. Painfully ignoring the arm that Kioko had gifted him had rotted from his body, only to grow anew on its own, with a new sword clutched in his grip from within his own body. A sword he came to learn was named, Bakusaiga. A sword whose power was as ruthless as Sesshoumaru himself.
When destroying Magatsuhi, Sesshoumaru finally felt lighter. Free. No longer held back by holding onto his father's inheritance or Inuyasha. No more comparing his worth to what he was owed or his supremacy by his pedigree. His pride as a demon lord was to stem from such things. Not his value. No, his value was measured by... an image of Kioko smiling as her beautiful black hair framed her face looked at him with eyes overwhelmed with love and warmth.
Closing his eyes with a furrowed brow at the image his mind presented to him, Sesshoumaru sighed. Ignoring those bickering and chatting around him after listening to Totosai tell him what he already came to realize on his own.
Confident that, at last, he could face her despite his being unready to do so before now. If he were to protect Kioko, to face her hatred towards him and the regrets or mistakes he has felt, he must confront her. Tell her his piece and hear hers. Even if it brought them both immeasurable pain.
Ordering Jaken and Rin to stay behind, Sesshoumaru took his leave by using a ball of light to fly off. Finally feeling ready to meet with Kioko again, was all Sesshoumaru needed to know where to go. To the one place he could always wait, where there was never any doubt she'd return to. The Sacred Tree.
After a bit of traveling, Sesshoumaru finally arrived and landed directly by the Bone-Eater's well. Seeing it brought back memories of when Kioko had left to visit her time and returned with the scent of that human male. How irritated he became at both that scent and the wounds that had been inflicted on her in his absence. It was perhaps the first time he could recall her being angry with him.
He had been confusing her, causing her to feel unsure of her standings with him. He knew what she wanted him to say, but he simply could not. It simply wasn't something he was capable of speaking at that time, but he could show her, and he did his best to tell her how he felt through his actions in that moment. Somehow, he felt older than the demon man he was that day. More aware.
His attempts must have been enough because the next thing Sesshoumaru knew, Kioko was accepting his mating proposal. His heart was overwhelmed, even if he couldn't show it. He didn't fully grasp how much he loved her then, but he knew enough to realize there was no doubt he loved her, and she felt, at the very least, the same when she agreed to be his, and his alone.
Only to end up leaving him in this same place where he stood now. The very spot where she declared her devotion to him was when she also vowed to abandon him. Deceived by someone other than him, which resulted in her leaving his side with words that etched as deeply as those promises of love on that proposal day.
He hadn't been to this well since the day Kioko returned to bid her farewells for good and died. Leaving him as absolute as she had when she went through that well. Sighing through his nose, Sesshoumaru cut the thoughts off, remembering why he was there in the first place. Calmly looking away, Sesshoumaru turned towards The Sacred Tree's direction and began making his way to it.
Knowing, sensing Kioko was there. He could smell her. Feel her. Hell, he could see her without her yet being in front of him. She was near. Her aura was dragging him in, just like the last time he saw her when arranging the meet with Rin. Her ever twisting and mutilated aura of both demonic and spiritual energy. How even he felt the tremors beneath his skin at its presence, and the thrill within his body at making it to her. His inner demon growing impatient to see their mate again.
Walking through that forest felt almost surreal. Many memories of times spent with Kioko in this area riddled through his mind with every step he took. So many memories he had spent with her. He hadn't realized until now that there were so many when compared to his life span, was for such a small echo in time. Despite that, every second with her was larger than life and spent more warmly than any sun.
The proud demon lord remained composed as he grew closer and finally making it into the clearing at last. Watching Kioko's hand brushing down the bark of The Sacred Tree directly in front of her while her back faced him. Soul collectors floated about more frantically in alert to his presence, sticking closer to her as they glided through the air between her and Sesshoumaru.
Sesshoumaru knew, however, that Kioko was fully aware of his presence. Mated as they were and as powerful as his demonic aura was, there was no way she didn't. More memories passed him by, and he closed his eyes for a moment. Her attempts to die by his hand and his fingers were once wrapped around her throat. The first kiss he ever shared with her after she called him beautiful. He could relive it all with her if it meant he'd be with her again.
Opening his eyes again, revealing etches of sadness within those orbs of gold. Kioko's back was still to him, and all he could think was to see those pink eyes of her focused on him. To look at him. See him there. Realize he wasn't who she had been deceived into believing he was. Yet, she remained unmoved. She didn't even care that he was there, and he wasn't sure if he should be relieved or maddened by that.
Her very being was a massive force of nature, and all Sesshoumaru could see was her. The rest of the world had zoned away to some other place, and all that was left were Kioko and him. Their demonic aura's by nature measuring one another in dominance, and his senses filled with only her. His tragic angel, whose human heart had been through things he wasn't made aware of until recently. She wasn't acknowledging him, so he'd make her face him as he came here to do.
So, he spoke first.
"Even after being brought back to life, you leave yourself wide open for attack." Sesshoumaru said with his composed demeanor in place, breaking the silence. Kioko felt his voice hit her with such force as if it cut through the sounds that the forest already provided.
"Perhaps I simply just don't care." Kioko responded with a monotone voice; her twisted core already writhing further in his presence was hopefully unnoticed by the demon lord behind her. The last thing she wanted to give him was an opening when she was still so unsure and unstable.
Had anyone else been present, they'd have been overwhelmed by the two pillars of power whose emotions were about to clash. Like titans growing closer to being face to face amongst the same plain. Massive and towering. Unmatched and unmistaken. Unchallenged.
Sesshoumaru scanned her frame. Her silvery-white hair bound in the same manner Kikyo wore hers. Kioko's priestess attire perfectly in place, and tied to her right hip was the pouch of cherry blossoms that once laid with her collar in their bed-chamber. Both items she had the day she died and Sesshoumaru picked up from the pool of her blood.
"You found your pouch, I see." Sesshoumaru mentioned next.
"Seeing how it belongs to me, I saw no need for permission to retrieve it." Kioko responded in a monotone fashion.
"I agree." Sesshoumaru replied, catching Kioko off guard. Her body stood more straightly as his words surprised her, and her eyes slightly widened. "After all, my Lady is permitted to do as she pleases in the home that belongs to us." He went on to say, and his eyes softened as he could sense the shift in her aura.
Kioko's emotions flew further into chaos as her eyes winced with turmoil. Heartfelt emotions and pangs of emotional pain caught her off guard. His Lady and what belonged to them. Not he. Them. Kioko gazed up towards the canopy of the tree before her. This was the time for them to gain answers. For no more lies.
"It wasn't you, was it, Lord Sesshoumaru?" Kioko inquired, and that single question brought a heaviness into the atmosphere. He knew exactly what she was asking.
"No." Sesshoumaru answered calmly while his heart hammered just slightly within his chest. "All I could do was watch you die without knowing why you left." A few minutes of silence passed, and Sesshoumaru almost wondered if she even heard him, until her voice spoke again.
"You know, in the time where I am from, they say it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." Kioko calmly began to say. As if she could care less about the situation at hand and hadn't heard what he just said. Until she spoke again with a hint of angered distaste in as she looked ahead of her again. "I find I do not agree. " Sesshoumaru's stomach dropped but listened on without a word.
"Deep down since long ago, I had been convinced that no one could sincerely want me. My past led me to accept it as fact; there was no opposing it." Kioko continued. Hesitant to say what she knew she must. To reveal all to him. Tell him the truth. "Then I met you, and I began to doubt that fact which became my law. My prison.
I loved you so much, and like that fact, I knew that to be just as true. You were a truth in the sea of lies I had known. Until that day came, where I saw you for what I thought you were. The most clever lie of them all. The lie that blinded me. I had been living in that ocean for too long, however, so there was always doubt because the lies were too real, for too long.
It is because of this, Naraku was able to manipulate me against you so freely and without difficulty." Kioko expressed, and Sesshoumaru's heart ached at hearing the words he already knew without her having to verify.
"I witnessed an interaction between you and Reika. I couldn't believe it, but there you were. Right in front of me amongst the bodies of humans, you had slain for sport, covered in blood, and her on her knees disrobing you. It was such a shock I almost couldn't believe my own sight and what was clearly before me." Sesshoumaru listening to her words, recalled the same scene Kioko was witnessing for the millionth time within her mind's eye.
However, when the smell of smoke and burning flesh filled that fiery air and the heat that I could feel even from my place among the trees threatened to scorch my skin. How could I deny it? I thought my being human truly didn't matter to you, but in that fiery nightmare, I was convinced otherwise, and it was too late to turn back after you had bedded me.
Part of me was so reluctant, but despite my feelings, I decided to leave. I felt my doubts had simply been proven right. That once again, someone I dared to treasure, had hurt me and possessed ill intentions. The day I died, I believed, as a result for loving you, I was paying a terrible price." Her voice further explained, but it cracked, causing her to silence herself for a moment to gain control of her emotions.
Sesshoumaru began to feel his stomach churn. Watching as souls, the color of purples and blues, began to fill the clearing. Kioko's soul collectors working diligently to provide her with the sustenance she needs to remain there with him. The sun beginning to fall, and the stars starting to shine. Those souls their only light.
"I vividly remember my demise. How I just couldn't understand. How could you say all those horrid things to me? To tell me that I was nothing more than a servant who would never be good enough for you to love and whose sole purpose to pleasure and amuse you? I can still hear your voice telling me that you had no further use of me and that you had thought vermin like me to be smart enough to know when they are with child.
I... I didn't even know until the hand I thought to be yours just dropped our dead baby right there in the dirt in front of my face." Kioko voiced, no longer able to contain her feelings, quivered with a heart-breaking tone as her eyes gleamed with unshed tears at the images that played with the memories she spoke of. Her aura began growing unstable and chaotic from the feelings of distress, filling the air for Sesshoumaru to sense easily.
"I find myself often wondering what that child would have been. A boy? A girl? A demon or perhaps a half-demon? What that small priceless face would have looked like as I held that child in my arms. Would it have resembled your face more, or mine?
Would you have been there if it was a half-demon? Would you have rejected us both instead? What would they have grown up to be like? How much would I have missed living a human's life span had I lived?" Kioko wondered aloud as she removed the binding that bound her hair and held it in front of her to stare at it, laying in her hand.
Sesshoumaru's jaw clenched at what he was hearing and, despite temptation, continued to stay silent. As hard as it was to hear, this was what Kioko needed to say, and this was what he needed to know. If he was to help her heal and for her to return to his side, this is what he must do. Endure, just as she had done all this time. Just as Kioko had done her entire life.
"Did you cry for me? For us? For the child we had lost? I can't help but question." Kioko inquired as she stared at the Sacred Tree with a look of heart-break and an expression of despair. Clutching the hair tie now at her side as her beautiful hair now flowed loosely down her back like elegant strands of silver purer than even Sesshoumaru's silver mane.
Sesshoumaru, not answering aloud after a few moments of silence, caused Kioko to, at last, turn to face him. Pink met gold. The world seemed to grow in color despite the sun now gone, replaced by glittering stars and the souls lighting the clearing brightly for the two to see the other. Her beautiful face still the best thing he'd ever see.
"You've no words for me? No answers?" Kioko inquired further her anger beginning to rise at his lack of responses to her. "My memories show me you taking my life and that of our child's and yet, you don't respond to what I'm asking you?" Kioko urged him to reply, but still he did not. Sesshoumaru desperately wished to, but he knew, if he spoke now, it would result in her hostility disputing him.
Lashing out in the rage and pain that was etched on her face and growing rapidly. He'd have been there for them both, felt pride in whatever the child would have been because it was their union. The result of him and Kioko that would live long beyond them. That would hold her heart and his strength to live on as his love for Kioko would always do.
His silence hurt Kioko further. After all this time, and now is when he decides to revert back to how they were when they first began? To respond to her inquiries with silence rather than with answers? She needed him to answer. Just like she needed many things from him in the past.
"I wanted..." Kioko spoke before fading out and trying again as her hurt and wrathful emotions began to bubble to the surface of her very being. "I wanted so desperately to be with you. I wanted a future by your side until the end of time, and I wanted to be your one and only. Yet when I chased after Naraku, who was playing the role of you after my body had been slashed at by your hands, I realized I have not once ever..." Kioko was shaking at this point.
Her rage growing infinite and filling the space with such extreme levels of malice and intimidation that her soul collectors backed out of the way to be out of range of her wrath. Kioko's pink hues that had darkened from her rage did something Sesshoumaru had heard before but had yet to witness until now.
Those pink hues that glowed in her hate morphed into the shade of bright jade green, and the pupils of her eyes became slits. The corneas of her eyes going from white to red. The fangs within her mouth, revealing that they were growing sharper as she spoke the words that would shake Sesshoumaru to the very core and rattle the essence of his being for years to come. ( Chap 40.1 )
"YOU NEVER ONCE TOLD ME THAT YOU LOVED ME!"
The clearing burst with her mutated aura of spiritual and demonic energy melding and suffocating the area. As if the very air became dense and heavy, with her being the center of its intensity and intimidation. Sesshoumaru's golden eyes widened with surprise at her image and power while glimmering with a hint of horror at her words.
Realization overcoming him that she was right. Never had he spoke the words she desperately wanted to hear him say. The words he wanted to say but unable to speak, only show, made her insecure. It provided Naraku the opening and Kioko's doubts more liable to manipulate for Naraku than he realized.
"Yet here we are. With my heart burning with hate-filled fury and love towards you." Kioko then spoke as her aura dropped somewhat as she blinked, and the green returned to their glowing dark pink hues. He never told her, and on her death bed, this is what she thought of. Their child, him slaughtering the two of them, and her feelings for him never being returned. That he never loved her.
"There were so many questions I had after I revived, and most had been answered. That you killed Reika. That you gave me a human funeral before burying our child and I. That Naraku was indeed the one to trick me from the start. It has been more and more confusing for me between what my memories show me and what I now know. Still, there are things unanswered. Tell me, for this is an answer I can only get from you."
Kioko's pink orbs that held their cold and vicious gaze gained a hint of desperation, and Sesshoumaru almost feared what she would ask. Something he was unsure he could answer but knew whatever she was to ask him next would be the thing he could finally respond to.
"With Tenseiga by your side, still you did not revive me. Can you or anyone dare deny to me that there are flaws in my thinking? In my belief of you wanting me gone?" She asked, and her eyes faded into pain and looked at him, urging an answer. Her eyes pleading for a response, and Sesshoumaru, feeling nauseated from such a sight on her face, couldn't deny her a reply this time.
"I tried. However, I recently learned that Tenseiga can not bring a person revived by it before back from the dead more than once." Sesshoumaru answered with a clear tone and a composed expression, but Kioko could see his eyes showing her more brightly than any sun-filled sky, a display of regret.
She hurt him. Again. It seemed to be the only thing she knew how to do, was hurt him. Push him away. Yet he stands there, and he... he tried to save her and was unable. He held her in her final moments, and when she departed from the living, he wanted to bring her back. Back to him.
Closing her eyes, Kioko's face turned to her right while her body continued to face Sesshoumaru. He didn't know everything that she was sure only she could answer for him. Things he didn't even know to ask about. She had to reveal everything to him. She owed him this even as her hatred felt he owed her far more.
"I had planned to take Rin from you. I fully intended to bring her back with me to my time so that she and I could escape to a place where you could never follow. To where I had decided to move on with Shiro." Kioko revealed coldly before facing him directly. "It was why I was headed towards The Western Castle, where I crossed paths with who I thought was you."
Stepping down calmly and slowly, Kioko left the root she had been standing upon, leaving the hair tie on the ground, and walked towards him coldly. Sesshoumaru's serious but softened expression watched her. The way she moved, the way the lights of the souls around them bounced off her hair and eyes wondrously as she grew closer, send his inner demon practically out of control.
"What do you think of that, Sesshoumaru?" Stopping in front of him, Kioko's cold mask cracked with an essence of sadness and pure love. Kioko's eyes glistened as she stared at his face before looking into his eyes. To be this close to him again had her emotions thrashing within her artificial body. It was almost overwhelming. Since his arrival, her subconscious has remained heavily aware of him.
Reaching her right hand up, Kioko almost felt the urge to cry when she couldn't feel his skin as her fingertips trace his demonic markings before cupping his cheek. Yet, a sense of tingling and warmth could be felt within her hand. He was here. The real him. Not the one that grinned in sickened amusement and tore through her body without reserve.
Sesshoumaru's golden orbs grew somber as he felt her freezing cold hand against his face. He was so tempted to gently grasp that hand and kiss it, but he knew not to move as it may trigger a different behavior from Kioko. She was too unstable. Bouncing back and forth between her feelings of love and hatred for him far too obvious to miss.
What she revealed only served to rile up his emotions yet again. She had intended to go to another and take their human child away from him. Hearing such things hurt him deeper than any sword. No, he'd have never allowed it. She was his, and only his. Even now, she solely belonged to him as his mate and no one else's. He'd have found a way to return her to his side. He'd have done better to ensure it.
"You didn't kill me when I asked you to in front of this tree that I hold very dear. I'm curious, could you do so now if I asked it of you again? After hearing what I intended to do? To take Rin away and be with another man? Knowing now that as a walking corpse, I can not bear you any more children? A celestial demon that was solely yours, no longer able to benefit you, is useless to you now. Am I right?"
Even with a body made of clay, she was standing before him, and it was all Sesshoumaru wanted. Kioko with him. That has not changed. This wasn't the Kioko he knew, but Sesshoumaru was aware that the Kioko he had always known before was still in front of him.
The beautiful angelic human whose heart and humanity could crumble the foundations of hate and prejudice in those around her. The one who managed to change even his point of view without a single ounce of force. The woman who died for him once.
This was still her, only now she had barriers of hate of her own. Hate that he was partly responsible for. He'd forever belong to this woman no matter who she became. His loyalty wouldn't waver, nor would his devotion. Because this was Kioko. His Kioko.
"You're wrong." Sesshoumaru spoke with a smooth voice but soft, lowered tone. Kioko's eyes widened in fear. She had expected him to lash out, grow angry. Push her away and reveal to her that indeed she was unforgivable. All the pain she's caused him and what she had cost them both. The image of his expression as he watched her pain in amusement rushed across her vision, causing Kioko to snap her head to face away from him, eyes filled with pain not only from her body but her heart as well.
Taking her hand back, Kioko returned the hand to her side and turned to walk away from him and return to her place by the tree. However, she only got a few steps away before suddenly being turned around and held tightly as a breeze from Sesshoumaru's speed surrounded them both, making their hair sway.
Kioko froze in place as she stared at the armor in front of her face that laid on Sesshoumaru's chest, and instantly her eyes grew in pure horror. The flash of memory from being in this same position against Sesshoumaru's body, but with her blood staining his clothes, zipped past her vision. The knowledge of what happened next struck Kioko intensely, leaving her to fight against his hold on her.
"What do you think you're doing? Get off of me! Release me, LET GO!" Kioko's voice began to scream with fear and panic pouring out of her voice that practically brought tears to Sesshoumaru's eyes, but he clenched them shut, holding them in as he held her closer.
The Kioko that had already been ripped from his arms by a trick pulled on them both to tear them apart from each other. Leaving her like this even when it was him that held her. She was scared of him. He could smell the tears and her panic, and still, he couldn't release her. Not again.
Sesshoumaru placed a hand on the back of her head and wrapped his other arm around her shoulders to hold her even closer. To feel her body pressing firmly against his armor.
Wincing as she pulled at his clothes, scratched at his arms where she could reach, and punched at his body, trying to pry away from him. This was done to the both of them, and only now realized that he had already forgiven her for everything long ago. Every bit, because she was right here, and he would not leave things unfinished.
"A smile." Sesshoumaru began to say as Kioko stopped moving and was currently digging her nails into his armor. His voice stopping her and grounding her to the present. "That's all you used." He went on to say as his cheek brushed against her temple before opening his eyes to reveal anguish and intense emotions as he saw the image of Kioko when he first met her and the genuine yet beautiful smile on her face.
"You had invited me into your life and granted me your presence with nothing more than a smile on your face." The memory of her inviting him to join her in traveling with Inuyasha buzzed through Sesshoumaru's mind. Kioko began melting after hearing his words while her will to hate him began to waver.
"Since then, before I was even aware of it, I began to l-" Instantly, Kioko slide her hand up between their two bodies as she pushed them apart and placed her fingers on his lips to silence him from speaking another word. Her pink eyes looked up at him, vulnerably with a purely somber expression.
"Don't. Do not say those words to me now when it's too late. I no longer wish to hear them." Kioko expressed with her voice trembling from her emotions and the desperation for him to stop. Why now? Now, when she couldn't be with him like they once were? When she did nothing but cause him harm?
Sesshoumaru's eyes shimmered with hurt at her stopping him and hearing that she no longer wished for him to tell her the words that he owed her. Clenching his jaw, Sesshoumaru removed his hand from her head and gripped her hand that silenced him. Pulling it away, he looked Kioko in the eyes, and with his heart aching fiercely, Sesshoumaru swore that just this once, he wouldn't do as she asked of him.
"I loved you, Kioko, and I love you now." He spoke with his teeth gritting after speaking as sincerely as he could muster. Her aura burst through the clearing, filling it with a loving warmth. Recalling that she had caused such a phenomenon before with Rin, as reported to him by Jaken. Back when Rin confessed that she loved Kioko as a mother and Kioko had reciprocated those feelings.
A sob broke through Kioko's lips before she gritted her teeth and clenched her eyes shut, causing a tear to run down her face before she laid her forehead against his chest. After Sesshoumaru already witness her mask crumble to reveal her tormented expression. Several minutes passed with them like that, unmoved. Neither daring to.
"Sesshoumaru." Kioko called out in a quiet voice. "My sister is dead." Kioko announced, and Sesshoumaru's eyes winced before placing her hand that he still held against his chest while his other arm remained around her shoulders.
"I know." He responded gently, not wanting to overwhelm her further. Pulling away from him again Kioko looked at him with a face that held no hate, and no malice. Only pain and agony. Her pink hues gazed into his melted gold orbs that looked at her with warth and love Kioko would have given anything to have seen again when she was back in her time after leaving Sesshoumaru.
"Our baby is gone." Kioko's voice broke through her pressed lips that attempted to hold herself together, and her tears rushed down her face like neverending rivers. Placing her palms over her eyes, Kioko cried out, no longer holding back her pain as her wails ripped through the forest's silence. Her bangs slipping free between her fingers as her body trembled in his hold. Sesshoumaru placed his free hand behind her head again and put her head over his shoulder, grazing his cheek against hers.
"I know." He said again, but this time Kioko could hear the traces of his own grief. Sesshoumaru listened to her grief-stricken sounds in his ear with an expression contorted in anguish. His mate was shattered at the loss of their child. The sight of him was a reminder to her. How she and their child died was all she could see when she looked at him. She was in despair, and he couldn't fix it for her.
It was their reality. The family of her own that she always wanted. The one she could love freely and be loved in return was once again ripped from her in the worst way. Killing her along with it. Then, Sesshoumaru was reminded of something he had heard Bokuseno tell him before. Something that hadn't crossed Sesshoumaru's mind once until now.
'...many tragedies were told to befall the Celestials in regards to children.'
Sesshoumaru held Kioko more while still being careful. Even with an artificial body, he feared to hurt her. Knowing she always had a sense of frailty that frailed to break if pressured with too much force. He was almost reduced to crying when Sesshoumaru etched the feel of her cold body through both of their clothes against his body.
Kioko, through her crying, could feel Sesshoumaru, but not by skin. Deeper. Further within. As if his incredibly powerful demonic soul was holding hers in its arms. That soul of his comforting her. Protectively grasping her unquestionably, not wanting to let go. The warmth of his body nothing compared to the warmth she was experiencing.
This was the power of a mated bond between demons? That their souls embedded into the others only to resonate when together again? Or was it love itself? How deeply he dug his way in didn't dawn on her until that moment. He buried that deeply into her and, in doing so, allowed her the same privilege. That was his devotion. His deep love for her.
This action... all of his actions, were screaming the words she longed to hear before she died. Why couldn't he just speak them back then? Just once rather than now, when it didn't matter. Her body wasn't even alive anymore. Simply animated by the power of her soul and the souls of demons. They've lost too much. Bared too much. It was too late to turn back.
Kioko, calming after some time, gently pulled away from Sesshoumaru and with tears still drying down her face, Sesshoumaru allowed her to pull away and simply looked at her face in confusion. Kioko's expression showed nothing but an emotionless facade as she pulled away from him completely, before turning away from him to walk back towards The Sacred Tree.
"You should go." Kioko uttered first, and Sesshoumaru's eyes widened, and a pang of hurt pierced his heart. "It is too late for us. This body is no longer that of a living woman's. Not to mention I still can't look at you and not remember that day. There is no repairing what we once had, but everything has now been laid out in the opening. There is nothing left for us to discuss." Kioko concluded as she stopped at the root she once stood on.
Watching her with a composed mask, Sesshoumaru winced at her words again. He knew they couldn't go back to how they were, but he still hadn't wanted her out of his sight again. Watching as she picked up her hair tie to stare at it, laying in her hand with an empty gaze and her soul collectors returning to surround her, a thought crossed Sesshoumaru's mind.
"Where will you go?" He inquired with a voice clear and composed as usual.
"I don't know. Perhaps simply wait here for a while before beginning my search for Naraku on my own." Kioko answered emotionlessly as she began placing the hair tie within one of her sleeves. Her answer was one Sesshoumaru could not stand to accept.
"Travel with me." He offered without hesitation, and Kioko's eyes widened before she turned to him with a gaze of confusion and light glare.
"What foolishness nonsense are you trying to pull, Sesshoumaru?" Kioko asked as she looked him in the eye.
"I promised the priestess I would care for you when her time had come. When we crossed paths with her during our travels. I am still looking for Naraku, as well." Sesshoumaru explained, and Kioko's eyes widened as emotions flashed within her gaze as she knew immediately who he was referring to. Kikyo.
Kikyo asked Sesshoumaru to care of her when she was gone? How did Sesshoumaru expect Kioko to just believe such words? After the past few hours, they have been nothing but truthful thus far, and it indeed sounds like something Kikyo would do. The two of them always thought of the other's well being even when apart.
"You promised her?" Kioko asked, wavering to the idea given it was a promise to Kikyo and one made by Sesshoumaru himself.
"I did." He confirmed. Waiting to see how she would respond to the idea of traveling with him yet again. Several moments went by, as reluctance and mistrust were distinctly written on Kioko's face as she stared at him before finally giving a reply.
"Fine." Kioko spoke with reluctance resounding in her tone and a sense of elation growing within Sesshoumaru's chest.
