DISCLAIMER: Inuyasha is property of Rumiko Takahashi.
Onmyoji
3. Hierarchy
Kagome came to surrounded by soft warmth, her nostrils filled with the smell of sweetness, and her ears ringing with the sound of Inuyasha's yelling. Her head felt light, her eyes were heavy, and the contrast made her groan, burrow deeper into the welcoming softness and take a lungful of the strange scent. It reminded her of fruit, but also flowers, and just a little bit of danger.
"Oi, wench!" Inuyasha hollered. "Fix your mess!"
Kagome frowned and contemplated fixing his attitude via a rough sitting when a familiar, yet unfamiliar voice scolded him instead.
"Mind your tone, half-breed."
"You shut up! I wasn't talking to you!"
"Inuyasha!" Kagome snapped, unusually bothered by his rudeness to the voice's owner. She sat up and blinked but didn't fully register what her eyes were seeing until the words had already spilled out of her mouth. "Watch it and shut it! Nobody's wants to listen to your hissy fit - oh."
Inuyasha stood in front of… of her. But it wasn't her. It was the puppet made of clay, but it's eyes were open, and it watched her with something - something not welcomed. There was reiki in it, Kagome could sense it before she even saw it, and the feeling was accompanied by a painful tug in her innermost parts, an echo of something lost.
"Oh," she repeated and sagged in on herself, acutely feeling the wrong that was done to her.
Miroku and Sango each took a step in her direction and Shippo ran over, a distressed cry bubbling out of his mouth, but someone else reached her first. A soft hand brushed the hair out of her face, something ran along her scalp not unlike the soothing touch of a comb, and the sweet smell intensified.
"Breathe through it, child, and the pain shall pass."
"I don't want to be in pain," Kagome whimpered and leaned into the touch, so much like a mother's. She missed such touches. "It's not fair. I shouldn't be in pain."
It wasn't like her to complain as openly as this, but she couldn't help it. The hand moved to her shoulder and pulled her, settled her onto a lap and then she was even warmer, wrapped in a pair of arms and her head resting against an unmistakeably female chest. Beneath her ear beat a strong, slow heart, and her eyes were filled with colorful wilk and extravagant white fur. It was an entirely new experience, this embrace, but something about it felt like home and Kagome melted, settled into it willingly and wholeheartedly.
"It is blasphemous," the familiar voice soothed. "It is not to be borne."
"Don't even try it, bitch!" Inuyasha growled. "No one touches Kikyo!"
"You would defend a fake husk over a living body?" the voice took on a dangerous edge though the soft tone didn't change, not once.
'A fake husk over a living body,' Kagome thought, still a little dazed, and finally lifted her head to look up at this stranger who felt so right.
A pair of sharp golden eyes set in an alarmingly familiar face looked down at her. The features were the epitome of femininity, the lips painted red, but the magenta stripes and purple moon on the forehead were a dead giveaway that this person - creature? Being? -was the kin of Sesshomaru.
Kagome's bottom lip began to tremble as her confusion simmered and the woman's gaze turned into a mix of soft and solemn. She patted Kagome's cheek and tutted. The white fur shifted, moved and wrapped tighter around Kagome's body.
She suddenly realised that she was naked, just as she was in the hag's concoction, and the white fur was the only thing protecting her modesty.
"Let Kagome go!" Inuyasha demanded suddenly, as if he only just now realised their proximity.
"How arrogant you are," the woman huffed condescendingly. "So much like your sire. But unlike him you cannot have both, half-breed."
'So much like his sire,' Kagome's head repeated at her. 'That means dad.'
"You… knew Inuyasha's father?" Kagome frowned. "But you look - wait. What do you mean have both?!"
The woman's golden eyes flashed very briefly with something that was closer to mischievousness than amusement as Kagome wiggled her way onto her feet, still wrapped shoulder to knee in thick white fur. She didn't know where the strength or anger came from, but Kagome stomped over to Inuyasha, got right in his personal face and slapped him straight over his heart.
He palm sparked against his clothed chest, he hissed and dropped Tessaiga, but Kagome didn't stop. Instead, she curled her hand into a fist and struck again - on his shoulder, his collarbone, his arm - anywhere she could reach.
"Oi! Lay off, wench! Stop it!"
"You - you pig!" Kagome screamed. "How dare you, how could you? She stole from me! She steals from me even now! You're killing me! You want me dead!"
"Kagome!" Sango gasped.
"Kagome-sama," Miroku said a little softer and made to pry her away from Inuyasha but the woman - Sesshomaru's mother - got between them before he managed to close the distance.
"She speaks the truth." Sesshomaru's mother said flatly. "Every breath the creature takes is on the expense of this child's light and life. To defend it is to condemn her."
"I protect Kagome, I don't - I would never!" Inuyasha spluttered.
Sesshomaru's mother laughed - cold, hard and sharper than even her son's countenance. Then she pulled Kagome back, back towards the stone perch where they'd sat before, back onto her safe lap, and wrapped her in her arms again.
"You? Oh no, half-breed, this is where you're wrong."
Her smirk was all teeth, all bite and all venom.
"This O-Gin protects her now."