Nocturne - Chapter Twenty-Eight: Mayhem
Rated - M (for suggestive adult themes, references to some violence, and coarse language)
o - o - o - o - o : Indicates scene or POV change
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.
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Kagome, incredulous, gasped, "What?" Her head swiveled to look at Sesshomaru. He looked...bored?! He didn't seem perturbed at all. Perhaps he knew something that Kagome did not. 'How could he do or say nothing?!' she wondered.
Tsering stepped away from Sesshomaru in outrage. "Brother! What ludicrousy is this?"
"I am merely curious," he chuckled.
"Then conduct your experiment on someone else," she responded acidly.
"No, I want to see," Fan said. He made a waiting gesture to Kagome, and the look he gave his sister was sinister, yet admonishing one indeed. One that quieted her and caused her to step back.
Fan waited as Kagome held the bow and arrow in her hands. "My promise to you still stands," he reminded her.
He marked her hesitation, "You hesitate, yet he would not do the same for you. We are not human, but more and above the trivial and feeble emotions you mortals are subjected to. He could care for you no more than a pet, which you practically are in comparison to my sister, a daiyokai."
Kagome glared at Fan and looked at Sesshomaru from the corner of her eyes. He was infuriatingly silent. How could he be so unmoved?! Fan was probably right; even Sesshomaru had said she was just a good time the last time she'd seen him. How could she have such complex, complicated feelings for someone who would not or could not have them in return?
She mentally berated herself for thinking he could love her, which she had allowed herself to believe for just a moment. After he had come back, she thought it was because he felt...something.
Still, she couldn't bring herself to kill him if even her power could do that. Kagome looked into his golden eyes and then saw something, a trick of the light, she wasn't sure.
It seemed a perfect opportunity as any, and she placed the arrow against the string, taking in a breath and pulling it taunt.
She aimed the arrow at its target and noticed that Tsering had fled to another corner of the room, abandoning her intended to Kagome's spiritual power.
Kagome felt fury well up inside her and channeled that emotion into her arrow. She could feel her righteous anger leave her into the shaft, leaving her steady and calm.
If her first shot had impressed Fan Tsenpo, then this one would blow him away. The arrow already shone with a blinding light and would purify anything within its vicinity. At the last second, she moved her aim and loosed the arrow.
o - o - o - o - o
It was no task to keep his face schooled into a semblance of aloof arrogance. Sesshomaru had long ago mastered the art of a stoic face, and the practice served him well throughout the centuries. Though, he seldom had a reason for his facade to break from his uncaring expression.
The miko had blown into his world and unsettled his spectrum of life; first, by releasing his idiot brother and then by unleashing a pandemonium of events that ultimately led them here.
His skill of maintaining himself and his semblance was being utilized to its greatest potential at the moment. Tsering hung off him like a lamprey sucking at its host like a parasite. Currently, she had laid her head on his shoulder in a pathetic display of affection that he fought the urge to shove off. That would do him no good at the moment.
As Sesshomaru looked around, feigning a bored sense of interest, he found the contents of the room he had been brought to be a little macabre, but he was not surprised given the collector of the items. Fan Tsenpo was an oddity, and Sesshomaru had seen it all. It would seem that a pang of insatiable hunger for power and knowledge did not age well.
Weapons of all kinds were hung upon the walls. Sesshomaru even noticed items of considerable renown from Edo had been enshrined as well. What a waste. Fan may be a warrior, but he was also careless and arrogant, which was showcased throughout the estate.
The man had only just arrived inside the room and had taken a sword from the wall sheathed inside an ornate hilt. Fan pulled the weapon a quarter of the way outside of its hilt to show a beautiful bronze blade. Fan smiled at the sword and looked over at Sesshomaru. "Beautiful, is it not? Yokai-made, though humans pretend that they can craft something so perfect. The blade is older even than I and still brilliant and sharp."
Fan sheathed the blade and placed it back up on its wall mount. "No, blades like that are just not cast any longer."
"I do not think Sesshomaru is interested in your playthings, brother," Tsering said with annoyance. Even as she clung to him, her arms wrapped tight around his own and a smile plastered on her face, she was ready to be done with the charade Fan was putting on.
Fan shrugged and put his arms across his chest. "No matter, our guest is on her way as we speak."
Sesshomaru could hear the steps of two larger-bodied figures and the fainter sound of footsteps that must be the miko. He watched as she stepped hesitantly into the room, her eyes settling upon him but not before narrowing at Tsering's embrace.
Strangely, she did not display surprise at what she saw. Though it must have distracted her, despite the lack of surprise, for she was visibly stricken when Fan came up from behind.
The man taunted her and paraded his boorish collection for his hidden purposes. Fan's intentions were glaringly obvious by orchestrating this meeting, but the fool was all over the place, and it was hard to put a thumb on precisely what he planned.
Sesshomaru had asked for proof that the woman was alive and unharmed. He had been given that proof, yet Fan continued to dangle the woman in front of him like some scintillating treat. Rubbing his nose in it seemed more likely. Sesshomaru figured he would have to endure this torment to assure the woman's life.
Fan's little show culminated in a finale where he demanded a demonstration of the woman's powers. Now Fan was showing his hand. He was pushing the miko into place.
She balked at the suggestion, unsurprisingly.
It wasn't until the crazy yokai threatened the child that she broke and gave in, extinguishing the yokai in front of her with a subliminal show of power.
Now, just as Sesshomaru expected, Fan ordered the woman to use her powers upon him. Both Tsering and the woman looked to the sneering Fan incredulously. Tsering even went so far as to question her brother, to no avail.
Again, Fan threatened the life of their mutual child. Even so, the woman looked piteously upon him, at war with herself. She must choose the life of her child or his own.
Fan pushed the woman, suggesting that Sesshomaru would not hesitate to kill her if their situations were reversed. Her eyes began to well up with unshed tears, and she bit her lip.
Sesshomaru felt his brows knit with concern. Not for himself, but for her. He was the reason she was here, being pushed to commit heinous acts that may be nothing for him, but taxed her spirit much. She suffered, though she put on a strong face.
Slowly, the miko raised her weapon and aimed at his chest. It would be a fatal blow, he knew.
He watched her eyes, and their gaze locked on one another. Sesshomaru heard her draw in a breath, meaning she was to loose the arrow.
As the miko exhaled, she turned her aim towards Fan in the final second. If Fan had not expected this, he gave no tell. His smile never left his face, even as Tsering gasped.
Much to Sesshomaru's annoyance, Fan had caught the arrow midair. The glowing light of condensed spiritual power seemed minuscule, and he even had the audacity to laugh. But, the light grew larger and larger until Fan's laugh dissipated, and his smile turned into a grimace.
The miko took a step forward and held out a hand where more blinding light shone. Her face was one of concentration and determination.
The spiritual power began to grow and envelope Fan, who still held the arrow aloft in his hand and grunted to be free of purification. The fool had bitten off more than he could chew. The spiritual blast would not kill him, but it would disorient the man at the very least.
Sesshomaru took the opportunity to dislodge himself from Tsering, who stood transfixed to the unfolding events befalling her brother.
Fan roared with anger, and likely pain, before he freed himself from his grip of the arrow. The light fizzled out once it hit the ground, looking harmless and unassuming.
Once the light had dissipated some, Sesshomaru noticed Fan's right half was burned beyond recognition, and his face now bore a gruesome and permanent smirk quite befitting him. His eye shone pale in comparison to the other, which began to glow a dull red.
Sesshomaru stepped in front of the miko and pulled free his sword. "It would seem you placed a wager you could not pay, Fan Tsenpo. Now you shall reap the reward."
Fan did not respond with words but grew in size of monstrous proportions. Fur spread over his body, and his limbs contorted as he grew to take on his true form.
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Kagome watched as Fan continued to grow in size. Were they to die? Cut down by a ferocious daiyokai in its massive true form? A yokai in its TRUE form was immensely more powerful than the one contained in the smaller human-sized vessel.
She'd recalled when Sesshomaru took his form, but Fan was much more significant in comparison. The room they were in was large, but already Fan had burst through the ceiling, allowing him to grow larger still. Every part of the building shook and crumbled down.
Kagome raised her hands in a vain attempt to stop from being pummeled with shards of wood and bits of mortar and stone. She squeezed her eyes shut in reflex, but when nothing pelted her, she peeked to see Sesshomaru in front of her. He blocked all falling debris quickly, waiting solemnly with his blade drawn. Would he transform, too?
Fan snarled and growled in his monstrous form, making incoherent moves and swatting at where he must have thought they would be. He continued to attack anything and everything in his path, destroying much of his palace.
The screams and shouts of the unseen castle residents could be heard from varying parts of the palace grounds, and mortals and yokai alike fled from the destruction.
Kagome looked at the large daiyokai with confusion. Why was he not attacking them?
"He has been blinded," Sesshomaru provided an answer to her unspoken question. He looked over his shoulder at her. "I shall end this," he told her and quickly launched up toward the rampaging Fan.
In a brilliant moment, Sesshomaru took Bakusaiga and easily cut the beast down. It was not a fair fight. Fan lashed out wildly, relying on his remaining senses to aid him but to no avail. It was child's play for Sesshomaru to avoid the large paws and the huge gnashing teeth.
Fan fell to the ground in slow motion, landing with a resonant thud. His enormous chest heaved up and down until the movements became shallow and eventually stopped.
It seemed all too anticlimactic as Sesshomaru turned his back on his opponent and walked calmly back towards her. He sheathed his sword and held out a hand to her.
Kagome gave a start, "Wait, where's Tsering?!" She had failed to notice the woman's absence and immediately grew concerned.
Sesshomaru did not seem to share her worry. "She fled after you fired upon her brother," he answered.
"Oh. Should we be worried?" Kagome asked, looking around. The last thing she needed was to be attacked by Sesshomaru's former fiancee.
"No," he responded and extended his hand again to her, urging her to take it. "Let us be away from here."
Kagome could not agree more and took his hand. He pulled her close and wrapped his arm around her waist before they rose into the air, up and away from the destruction below.
o - o - o - o - o
It had taken days to arrive back to Kagome's village. Sesshomaru had delivered her wordlessly upon the doorstep of her home outside the town.
The journey home had been immensely awkward for her. It would have likely taken only half the time for Sesshomaru to travel independently, but he was laden down with a mortal woman who needed to eat, sleep and do other human things.
While the entire trip was not completely silent, the words they exchanged held no value. Sesshomaru had offered no excuses nor explanations to any of the events transpired and Kagome was not inclined to ask, still sulking from the experience.
Kagome knew she was being stubborn, but she assured herself that she was not wrong for feeling the way she did. It wasn't her fault that Sesshomaru could be likened to a cantankerous old man. She glowered at him more often than not during their pauses on the journey. She was confident that he noticed, but he made no mention of her irritable mood.
Upon arriving home, Kagome rushed inside only to find the house empty. She was unsure why she expected anyone to be here, but she deflated inside nonetheless. It was like all of her expectations were always set to high, and she could not place a finger on what she should settle for. It was as if she continuously set her sights too high.
Kagome scoffed when it dawned on her that Sesshomaru must have known that no one was here. She crossed her arms beneath her breasts and spun around. Kagome stood inside, looking around for a moment, and Sesshomaru stepped in.
"There is no one here," he stated.
"I've gathered," she said testily. "Why would you bring me here, then?"
A/N: Has anyone noticed that Sesshomaru has not yet called Kagome by name? But he does for Rin and every once in awhile, Inuyasha?
Reasons behind that could be that he legitimately loves Rin in his own way, and he cares enough about his brother in some weird way. Methinks he is getting much closer to using her name.