Trigger warning: Talk of attempted suicide, rape, and abuse
Present Day
"And did you find the truth?
He sighs and crouches down by the stone he'd carved Rin's name into. "Yes."
"Some truths are more difficult to face than others."
Sesshoumaru pauses at the sound of Kagome's voice and closes his eyes. He does not wish to have this conversation with her here in this hell of dreams and ghosts and memories. He wants the scent of her anger and the agony of her purification as she fights with him—not this empty tone echoing behind him. She is defeated and lost, and he does not like it.
When he stands and faces her, he finds that Izayoi has gone. Only the two of them remain. He recognizes the clearing they stand in as the same one he'd almost killed her in—the same one they'd both faced tragedy and loss in. She wears her miko robes, the fabrics torn and bloody as she stands across from him.
"Have you come to try to kill me again?" Though her lips voice the question, there is no true curiosity in the words—only vague wonder as she meets his eyes. "There is nothing you could try that I have not already tried myself."
He remembers the scars etched along the sparse lines of her ribs, the jagged marks that curve along her wrists. "How many times?"
"Does it matter? The jailers who kept me were very good healers. They always made sure I survived."
"I never meant for any of this to happen."
"You never trusted me, Sesshoumaru-sama. If you had, maybe we could have avoided all of this." She looks to the bloody grass that sprawls between them until her eyes land on the two small forms crumpled and broken on either side of them. "Why are you here, Sesshoumaru-sama? Can't you even allow me peace in death?"
"I cannot. I must bring you back with me." The way she stands so still and passive, so empty—it is one of the most disturbing things he has ever seen. To him, she has always been a pillar of jubilant and vibrant life, a human who burns so fiercely he is willing to shatter his heart on the ragged span of her brief existence over and over and over again. If only he'd realized it sooner. "I am selfish. You cannot leave yet. I will not allow it."
"You have always been selfish," she says finally.
"Yes."
"It isn't enough." She turns to leave but stops. "I don't blame you, Sesshoumaru-sama. You deserve to have a good life."
Sesshoumaru knows that if she leaves now, then all he has worked for in the past two days will be for naught. And so he prostrates himself before her. He forces his forehead into the bloodstained grass and pushes his fingers into the most supplicant position he can remember from his childhood lessons on etiquette. "Please," he rasps, "Please, do not leave. Come back with this Sesshoumaru."
He cannot hear her move and so he chances a glance up as blood drips down his brow. The uncertain set of her lips as she stares at him sends a thrill of ragged nerve through him. Sitting up, he begins to release the clasps and ties of his armor. "Higurashi Kagome, you will listen to me." His armor droops and he sets it to the side. His swords go next, laid carefully side by side as he keeps eye contact with her. "I am undone by you. I have been undone by you from that first moment in the forest when you tried to kill that oni youkai by yourself at nine years old. I am laid bare before the depth of your kindness and determination, decimated by your unending well of love for even the harshest of souls. Please, give me a chance to earn your forgiveness and love again."
The dam cracks as she stares at him. In this place she wants to remember only the violence in his claws and the promise of death as he lunges at her—but instead she relives the moment she first discovered her feelings for him, the tentative promise of a life together when she'd confessed. She remembers the way Rin would curl into his lap and mokomoko, the way his eyes would glow with warmth at their closeness. "I've been so lost," she whispers, and drops to her knees in front of him so they are eye-to-eye. "I don't know how to go back."
He raises his hands to her cheeks, the tips of his fingers curling into the soft wisps of hair that frame her face. "There is no path back." Leaning forward, he rubs his cheek in greeting against hers. "But we can go forward. Come back with me, Kagome. Please."
"I don't know if I can give you what you're looking for." Another whisper and he can finally scent the sorrow, and the guilt, at the depth of her soul. "I don't know if I can be that same girl anymore. So much has happened."
"This one is not the same male from all those years ago." He pulls back just far enough to meet her gaze again. "We cannot go back to the way it was. But we can see what paths still lay ahead of us. Come back."
Kagome sobs and nods—her neck bows under the weight of her sorrow until her chin touches her chest. "Okay. Okay. Take me home, Sesshoumaru-sama."
o.O.o
In the palace in the sky, a girl lays lost in death. A cloud of miasma is seeping into her skin, corrupting her body layer by layer so it can make her its new vessel.
No sooner has it covered that last vivid scar at the base of her neck than Sesshoumaru steps out of Hell and the Miko's body shudders beneath it. 'No!' it thinks—but is vanquished in a burst of purity so bright the entire palace glows like a pink flare in the dead of night.
Sesshoumaru approaches the bed, cautious of the energy still seeping out of her every pore. Even on the cusp of death she is formidable. "Priestess?"
Kagome opens her eyes and stares up at the delicate hangings decorating the top of the bed frame. "Still can't say my name," she mumbles. She tries to sit up and winces with the effort, but flinches away from Sesshoumaru when he reaches for her.
"Kagome." He curls his fingers into a fist, the only restraint he can form to keep from reaching for her a second time. "I thought I was forgiven."
"You are."
He is silent as they stare at each other. His instincts are a roar inside his heart, urging him to hold and comfort and heal. "Yet you flinch from this one's touch."
The miko swallows and finally drops his gaze. "Not just yours." Her hands clench in her lap, her fingers so tangled together her skin bleeds white from the pressure.
Red seeps into his eyes and his yōki billows out around him. "They touched you."
"They tried. The youkai couldn't get close enough and the humans were worried I would lose my spiritual powers and offend the gods." She continues to look away, unable or unwilling (she's not sure which), to meet his eyes. She can't bring herself to admit there was a part of her that thinks she deserves everything that was done to her.
Sesshoumaru is tempted to return to that dank, deep hole in the ground and slaughter all her jailers. The temptation is an ache in his nail beds, his poison sizzling inside him. In efforts to stifle his desires, he grits his teeth and says, "Tell This one what to do."
The sheer outlandishness of Sesshoumaru all but begging for orders finally breaks Kagome's intent will to keep her eyes from his. The sight of him standing there, waiting for judgement or orders, relieves some of her own guilt. "Let's go home."
o.O.o
Word Count - 1342