Seeing Eye

V

To Smell Blood

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Disclaimer

I do not own any of the publicly recognized figures in this Fanfiction. Inuyasha is owned by Rumiko Takahashi and Sunrise TV.

Content Warning

This fanfiction is filled with the fuckery of my mind. This fanfiction is explicit and M rated.

Chapter Warning

Injury to the eyes.

Sesshoumaru contemplated the miko.

Perhaps if he had a second hand, he would steeple his fingers and watch her from across the camp. She was always strange and he was sure she always would be. He hesitated to call her exotic- since she had the manners of a gutter rat, but he did know what else to call her.

Still, she had his attention.

Her hair was tangled and wet from the river, draping limply over white bandages that hid her eyes. He could still smell blood, fresh and oozing, right behind that white scrap- and the underlying smell of pain and fear.

But, the fear wasn't of him. He wasn't even sure if the fear was for herself either-

The kit.

He smelt sick. Very sick.

And Sesshoumaru had watched her, in the face of his own threat, favor the young male kitsune. She mothered him, obviously, but she had never had offspring herself. Yet, she gave examples of almost explicit care and knowledge.

And, to be even more implicit with the oddness, she was a miko and the kit was a demon.

Strange. Ever so strange.

And that was the reason Sesshoumaru hadn't let her go. Hadn't let Ah-Un take her across the river and to the north where he knew the remaining throng of his brother's pack sat nestled. His brother would take time to find them and while Sesshoumaru wouldn't actively keep himself from being found, he was not going to seek them out.

And that left the miko, Kagome, with him.

Sesshoumaru had put his entire childhood and years after into being a cold, ruthless, killing machine. Born for war, born for winning.

And as a warlord, he liked to examine his enemies' weapons.

The miko he noted, as his missing arm throbbed under the smooth silk of his haori, was a weapon. Her soul too large for her body, and her seemingly new proficiency in linking that soul to the living things around them-

It made some basic part of his brain, instinctual and nasty, go on high alert. Making his fingers twitch and drag against his weapon, his tongue finding its way to his teeth.

He could kill her. Right now.

He could snap her in two and all he would have to deal with in Rin's hurt, which he was sure that he could remedy.

But-

Sesshoumaru held his hand as he watched the miko combed through her hair, her kit resting in her lap. His own charge spoke ecstatically to her, something that Rin hadn't done with him in the last year as if his silent nature had gotten to her.

It was animal of him. But the sting was a memory unmatched; his father's own fang splitting his arm to the shoulder after she pulled the sword free. Impossibly.

There were so many other little things, though they were massive in their implications, that made Kagome such a… commodity to learn about. The jewel. The power. The unbridled wildness that now no longer sat beneath the skin, but actively sought out things.

Sesshoumaru blinked and tilted his head.

It was a small movement, something an untrained eye wouldn't have truly noticed. But Jaken was almost always an exception.

"My Lord!" The smaller Imp crooned, his voice quiet but still harsh on the ears. "I say we kill her! Think of the anguish it would bring that bastard Inuyasha-"

Sesshoumaru dragged his eyes away from the females, sliding them fluidly to the simpering form of Jaken, who was hunched and had his hand cupped around his beak. How unfavorable that his retainer would speak to the killing part of him, the distinct animal side that called for blood.

"No." It was a flat tone, and he didn't try to hide it from the rest of the camp as he stood from his spot at the tree. He would remove himself from this place, to withhold his dislike from lashing out.

"But-I," The was a slight narrowing to the edges of Sesshoumaru's eyes, his mouth tensing to which Jaken responded in a softer, meeker; "Y-yes, my lord."

Sesshoumaru looked back at the miko and his ward, both of whom had finished their grooming. Rin was speaking exuberantly about the autumnal changes she had been looking forward to, a clear expression of his own physical wealth and care for.

It gave him a new breed of pride.

"Rin." One syllable and one command, to which his charge immediately and respectfully heeded as she began packing up her belongings into a saddlebag. It left Kagome alone on the ground, her legs crossed and her arms bundled around the kit.

Her bandage was slipping. He could see the stain of red adhering to the creases and folds of her eyes, a spider webbing over her thick eyelashes. There was something- foreboding and glowing, behind the rest of the cloth that caught his gaze.

His hand twitched, an uncalled-for itch to remove the bandages and see the damage for himself-

But she moved, her hand coming to tuck the cloth up and back as she stood up; one arm fixed around the kit and one shouldering her bag.

Sesshoumaru narrowed his eyes, his aura swelling up as if to sense her own invading soul. For how would she know they were moving on if not for her invasion of self?

But he felt it, untrained and wavering. Elastic in its being as it hovered outside of himself and seemed to flinch back at the aggression he exuded. She, herself, flinched back as her body turned so specifically to hide her kit from him.

Sesshoumaru pulled himself back, his eyes leaving the woman as she quickly moved to Ah-Un, on edge as the two-headed dragon guided her close.

Sparing her no further attention, the sun already high, the lord walked on. He geared himself to walk West, in the direct opposite of the still-burning wildfire. He could sense demons and humans alike scattering over the hills and into the river. And while he could decimate them, he was relenting in his viciousness.

Still, westward.

He paid little mind to the new addition, allowing her to be chaperoned by his steed as she trailed reluctantly behind him. The addition of footsteps being the only thing to stimulate him, a difference not met for years- since Rin.

The sun was already signally mid-noon when they had left the previous encampment and with the shortening days, Sesshoumaru pushed the group into a fast pace. And, for the most part, the journey went well.

Except for the irritating tingle of Kagome as she spanned out and retracted her soul over the area. Ducking and weaving, coming close to him several times before snapping back and away. He could feel it in the ground, in the trees, in the air-

A bird flew by and he could feel her soul in it too.

It was annoying. It rode against his senses and made it difficult, though he would never utter those words aloud, to keep his concentration. Despite his rather clinical desire to witness what she was capable of, his patience was thinning rapidly.

But then, like the snap of a bowstring, the presence of her was sucked away. Snapping past him and everything and everyone else until it sat within her again. HIs eyes narrowed and he was about to turn on her when it flushed out again- pulsing in tandem with her rapidly increasing heartbeat.

Fear.

Coming from her, it was an unpleasant spice that stroked the back of his throat.

Then, like a grueling mist, the area was flush with something else and Sesshoumaru did not hesitate in withdrawing his weapon.

The air shifted, the skyline twitching as a sharp presence overwhelmed the area, smoke and vapor stinging the inside of his nose as a great lizard demon baring six arms and a segmented razor's tail slid in the path. Its head arching high above Sesshoumaru and his group.

Had it been a passerby, had it ignored them and been on it's way, the Lord would have ignored it. Let it live.

But the way it angled its great, spined skull and shifted its lips-

It wasn't there for pleasantries.

But it's eye did not rest upon the daiyoukai, but on the bluntly crude form of the miko, her arms tightening around the kit.

Ah-Un had already shifted away- though having shown a great amount of favor for the strange woman, Rin was its true job. What they had been commanded to guard and acted upon in a snapshot moment as it rocketed up and away from the aggressive battlefield.

The eye of the lizard shifted, the pupil enlarging until it eclipsed the silver-red iris.

Sesshoumaru swung his blade out, using the lizard's distraction against it-

Ching!

The tail, unseen behind its long body, swayed up immediately to block the hit. The edge of it sparked against tokijin, but did not break.

"The jewel." The voice was long and feminine, making a statement rather than a question or command. The muscles of its throat bunched and quivered before a shot of gore and acid at the miko.

Unseeing.

Yet, as if the gods had told her, she lifted her arm and her mysterious powers swarmed in her hand for a moment, before exploding in acrid radiance. It exploded in her hand, pushing her back, spraying the attack in an arc of vileness, and singing him.

The skin of his chest sizzled and sparks of blue and pink flexed over his skin like an electrical charge. His muscles felt tight and his head throbbed- bile rising in his throat.

But the lizard looked worse for wear- that eye facing them from under the crook of a severe eye ridge had blossomed with white, the cornea filling with pus as the skin around it vaporized down into the jaw and teeth. A gruesome smell filled the air, likening to refute and burning hair.

It, too, did not blink. It did not even seem to react as it sparked and fizzed; just fixed its uninjured eye at the miko, who had been scattered against the ground. Dirty, and gasping as she struggled between holding her kit and getting up.

The lizard took a step and Sesshoumaru lifted his arm to swing, only for his blade to smack off its bladed tail once more. The one movement made the lord feel splintered. His very bones rattling- his own blood calling out to shed the humanoid facade and use his teeth as his weapons.

If he wasn't strong-in-mind, he would have fallen prey to himself. The feeling of Kagome's power riding against his skin and the threat loosened into his presence, he was actually surprised that he was able to hold himself back-

He remembered, suddenly as if struck, his time in his father's corpse, fighting his half-brother for the first time. And the miko. The first time he had tasted her presence, felt the undercurrents of scorn beneath her skin.

Now Sesshoumaru was here- feeling it for real. Feeling it as it was intended.

He was of perfect breeding. He was built for the ends of millions. Yet, here he was, rendered panicked. Instinct drawing lines where his logic would soon end.

The lizard took another step, its limbs slowed as its body shuddered. There was a sudden smell of ammonia-

Then a mist. Pink, shimmering. It exploded from the lizard as its skin peeled away into muscle and from muscle into bone. Bone to ash, ash to dust-

And then, it was no more. Sesshoumaru's weapon was still raised as if it was.

He turned on Kagome, standing blindly and awkwardly in an empty path. Her kit, to his next surprise, looked back at him from her arms. Green eyes, doe-like, meeting sharp and untrusting gold. Fear against irritation.

The smell of sickness no longer hung heavily around the whelp, and it left Sesshoumaru with far too many questions and a dangerous lack of answers.

He strode to her, ignoring the fading ache in his limbs and the pull of tight skin against his chest, his teeth bared and his mind unmade on whether to go back to ignoring her or killing her.

She had to know. There was no way that she didn't understand the extent of her own being- the level of her power and the potential she had. There was no way. He was hundreds of years old and never had he come across another being such as her, not in his father's court, nor his mother's. And certainly not his own.

So, she must have known.

"What do you play at, miko?" His voice was thick and unruly, the smoothness overturned by his anger and viciousness. What are you?

She started, her hand coming to grasp the back of her now-healthy kit's head to press him against her breast as she backed away from him. Sesshoumaru's patience did not allow for her to go far, his hand coming to wrap tightly around her wrist before pulling her back.

The sting of her presence licked at him, but his pride did not allow him to believe he was at true risk- discomfort could be ignored.

"I-I, I don't-"

"Lord Sesshoumaru!" The pitiful display of confusing and fear was cut as Ah-Un landed. Rin and the cowardly imp's and voice breaking the destructive, entrancing anger as he released Kagome's trembling arm."That was a magnificent show of power milord! How you killed that overgrown newt! I am-"

"Ah-Un." Sesshoumaru's voice was quiet as he stared into the face of the miko, unblinking as he cut off his foolish retainer's words. "Take them to the west and meet me at sundown."

He angled a sharp look at Kagome, his nerves spirally and shifting under his skin. Like an elastic band ready to break-

Yet he turned away, not trusting himself to keep his claws from her meat. He would consult Bokuseno, trusting that the eyes and ears of the forest could give him more direction.

Authors Note

I'm here. I'm alive, sorta. I'm in the last year of my Master's Degree and I am working hard on not being a corpse in the storm pipes of this University.

Fun fact. I rewrote this four times. Four. Times. Sesshoumaru is a difficult man, but I am going to make him a warlord. Because he was. Until the sequel killed him and replaced him with the sexual predator who married the girl he raised. : )

But let's not talk about it. I have the next chapter in the works.

ALSO no, Sesshoumaru doesn't know Shippou's name. that's why it isn't fucking mentioned in this chapter.