Chapter 8

Her eyes followed him in increasing aggravation. The wolf demon scurried anxiously from one side of the feather to another, peeking down, ahead, sideways… He sniffed the air repeatedly and slapped the fibers with his hands.

Kouga was worse than a damn puppy.

"Would you be still already?" Kagura finally snapped. "You're the most skittish creature I have ever seen!"

He stiffened mid-scramble, and glared at her in offended dignity. "My legs want to run," he countered. "I'm not used to being carried places."

"Use the lull to conserve your energy," she insisted, and held his gaze until he huffed and squirmed into a cross-legged position beside her. The unnatural posture did little to keep his knees from bouncing, or his hands from clenching and unclenching into fists.

She shook her head. "Good hell. Are you always like this?"

He tossed her a guarded look. "Like what?" he asked defensively.

She looked away. "Oh, never mind." Kagura kept her focus ahead, her nerves abruptly relaxing. Who would have thought Kouga had so many facets to him? She found it strangely intriguing that for all his bravado and passion, the seasoned pack leader could turn right around and act as impatient, and rambunctious as a child.

Unaware of her analysis, Kouga inched forward again, his eyes taking in the entire landscape with jerky glances. She peeked at him while his attention was diverted. Even through the darkness of the night, the wolf prince was still vibrant - radiating colorful auras that she'd have to be blind not to see. Compared to her porcelain femininity, his skin was bronzed, and his body strong. He probably spent most of his time running about in the daylight, doing whatever pack leaders do. And the fur skins he wore, mixed with that long, thick hair made him look wild. Untamable.

Savage, she thought instinctively. But instead of the standard repulsion, Kagura was washed in an entirely opposite sensation. She gulped.

It was THE sensation. That confusing, overwhelming one she'd felt on that rainy day under the heat of his gaze.

Kagura's face and neck suddenly felt hot. Her palms tingled, and feet itched. From there, the odd, spontaneous feeling centralized in her gut, giving her the ridiculous urge to lean up next to him. Look away girl, she reprimanded herself in rising panic, and blinked down to stare wide-eyed at her toes.

"Hn. There's the ocean."

His voice jerked her face upwards to see a barely repressed smile tweak the corners of his lips. He was excited.

"You…" she cleared her throat. And her head. "You've never been beyond the boundaries of the mainland before, have you?"

He shook his head once and stared back down at the waves. Kagura was relieved he was too distracted to notice her lack of composure. Then she noticed how firmly his hands gripped the fibers of her feather.

"I hadn't pegged you for one to get nervous." She goaded.

"Eh?" his face scrunched as he tried to project incredulity. "Keh! I don't get nervous."

"Oh no?" She'd always loved teasing him, but now that her thirst for blood had dissipated, Kagura was quickly realizing that her inherent meanness had chosen another, more playful venue to express itself.

Her foot lanced out and slammed into his ribs. Kouga yelped surprise as he was pitched over the side of the feather, his hands scrambling in comical fashion for purchase. They caught - she knew they would - on the very edge of the feather, dangling him like a spider monkey from its perch.

Inarticulate curses frothed on his tongue as he gaped, bug-eyed, at the thunderous waves below. Kagura leaned forward on all fours and smirked down at him. "I don't know. You look pretty intimidated to me," she said silkily.

With a hiss, he jerked his chin up to give her a look of death. Then, with no more warning than a strained grunt, Kouga brought his knees up, and kicked the bottom of the feather with such ferocity that it succeeded in dismounting her completely.

Kagura yelped as she was launched up, and over. She went rigid with panic - the free fall instantly lodging her intestines in her throat. And just as she wondered how much the watery impact would hurt from this high up, a powerful arm hooked around her waist and reeled her in.

She was braced against a long, warm torso, while her breaths came and went in startled gasps as she gawked at the depths below. Then she felt the wind of his exhale on her ear - a self-satisfied 'Hn', followed by damn smug words.

"Who's nervous now?" he whispered.

Kagura went completely rigid, her voice catching as he dug his fingers deliberately into her ribs.

"And I still owe you from earlier…"

Shit… She looked over her shoulder at his gleaming, mischievous eyes. "We're hanging here by your one arm, Kouga. Now is not the time for retributionnnnyah! Gah! You….b-b-b…BASTARD!"

She squirmed spastically, and he laughed outright as his fingers continuing to rub invasively across her ribs in one of the most ludicrous tortures imaginable. "Careful now," he said in a strained chuckle as he tried to keep hold of her writhing body. "If you squirm too much, then I'll have to drop you--"

"E-enough already!" she squeaked, clawing at his forearm. "St…STOP!"

"You should have known better than to play with me like that."

He was relentless. Kagura kicked, screamed, threw her head back trying to smash his nose, but he kept on, his obvious delight at exacting this lesser form of revenge infuriating her.

Through her scattered coherence, she came up with a plan - a plan that immediately manifested itself into a reality as her arm snaked up, brushed the feather with a choked incantation, making it shrink into her fingers.

Kouga gasped. His fingers froze against her side. And they fell.

The force of their weight yanked them down through the air with a dizzying speed. Disoriented though she was, Kagura couldn't help but to smirk at the inarticulate protests sputtering behind her. He was flapping his free arm against the wind as though he expected it to grow feathers and fly.

The humungous waves rolling below were getting closer. Alarmingly closer. She had to do something fast before her joke made a big, soaking wet fool of both of them. At the last possible minute, Kagura reconstructed her feather, sweeping the fluttering thing beneath them.

Kouga 'umfed' as she crashed on top of him, caging him to her feather. With his next breath, he uttered a foul curse and rolled his head to the side to see just how close they'd come to the monstrous ocean.

His neck was glistening from the mist, and she could feel his heart thumping rapidly under her palms on his chest. With a weak excuse for a derisive, 'Keh!', he tilted his chin back to glare at her in bewildered exasperation. "Not...funny..." he managed through heaving breaths.

She might have responded, but she suddenly realized how awkwardly close their faces were. It was only compounded by the fact that their limbs were tangled together in no innocent manner.

Kagura would have raised herself off him, but his arm was still circled around her with a forceful tenacity. Reflex, maybe. She watched with growing apprehension as his expression seemed to freeze, those hypnotic cerulean eyes fogging over.

It wasn't the first time he'd looked at her like that. She blinked. Wanted to look away, but couldn't. Wanted to push off him, but couldn't. This unspoken power he had over her wasn't just unnerving. It was terrifying.

Panic started to seep in - not because she was afraid of what he might do to her, but because of what she might do to him if this impasse didn't stop. Sneer at me, call me names, threaten my life, she plead silently. Just stop looking at me like that! "Kouga," she breathed. "Let me go…"

His eyes widened just a fraction. Did he really not know? The heavy arm that encompassed her waist uncurled from around her, and she quickly scrambled backwards, brushing his thighs, his knees, his calves with her arms as she went. She hissed softly at her abrupt embarrassment. Why the hell would any self-respecting prince wear so few clothes?

Her accidental touches made him equally skittish, and he jerkily scooted back until they were at opposite ends of the feather. Whatever it was, had almost happened again. Had it not been for the intimidating ocean, she imagined he might have just lunged in the water and swam to shore just to get away from her.

She stared out. He stared out, their gazes landing on anything but each other. The feather carried them upwards, back in the direction they were headed. Kagura was silently grateful that they were nearly to the small island that would be their destination. The silence was so strained, it was nearly unbearable. She tried to focus on the splash of the waves, the howl of the wind, the distant caw of a seagull…

"So are they his memories?"

She startled at the sound of his voice, and turned to face him. "Hm?"

Kouga's head turned slowly…tensely…his eyes locking on her face. "The ones that tell you where this island is, and how to remake your weapon. Are they Naraku's memories?"

"Ah…" Good subject change, Kouga, she conceded. "Knowledge. I was born with knowledge. Not memories."

Contemplative pause. "That's impossible."

She frowned, quickly forgetting their awkward moment. "Pardon?"

"How can you make your own decisions if you have no life experience to base them on?"

"I…" she had no ready answers for this. It was something she'd been struggling with since the day she was born. "I have instincts…"

"Which you've been denying."

"How would you know?"

His lips curled in a humorless smirk, and an uncharacteristic concession fell off his lips. "I'm still alive, aren't I?"

"I…" she pursed her lips. "It's not that simple…"

"You have memories."

"I don't!" she spat defensively. "I am severed from him, you arrogant jerk. Completely. Nothing of Naraku remains…" Oh, he'd struck a nerve. And by the cocky smirk on his face, the bastard was enjoying it. She found herself preferring his awkward silence. It seemed that every time he opened his mouth, the demon managed to piss her off.

His eyes trailed her body from head to toe in scrutiny, and he quirked a brow. "Sure, you've changed. Even your scent has altered itself to be less like his. But you're full of shit if you think-"

"Fine!" she snapped. "They're phantom memories, okay? Little moments of déjà vu. But that's all." Kagura crossed her arms and looked out over the ocean. "It's not like I had a choice over how I was brought into this life, you know."

"I know."

"But I'm not about to let that determine who I am."

"Obviously."

"And it's not like I was pampered with love and affection by a tribal clan," she glared at him pointedly, "or a nurturing mother."

His flippant answers stopped. Something crossed his face. Something dark. "Count your blessings, Kagura," he said soberly after a long pause. "One's actions have greater consequences--" his voice faltered, and he scowled, looking away, "…when they are tied by blood to loved ones…"

He said it in a way that made her wonder exactly which tomb she'd just scratched the surface of. What dark secrets ail your soul, Kouga? Can they even compare to my own?

A big part of her insisted that she didn't pry. But there was a need in her that wanted to know. Did he have regrets, too? Ones that made him cringe when he thought about them?

"Can the actions of your past even hold a flame to the circumstance of my creation?" she asked, not quite meaning it as a jab.

A small scoffing exhale. "You have no idea."

Another pause. "So tell me."

His head swiveled on his neck, his eyes pained, searching her face for…something. She held her breath.

After a long silence, Kouga exhaled heavily and redirected his gaze at some distant point on the horizon. "Tell you what?"

"Your story," she breathed, stunned by the poignancy of her own curiosity. Had he at some point successfully defied his own destiny? Like she was trying so desperately to do? "The past that shaped who you became…"

He winced, refusing to meet her eyes. "There isn't time for that."

Her shoulders sank. Damn. But I really wanted to know--

"The mountain was ours to begin with, you know." His soft spoken words startled her. She held her breath, staring at his back with wide, curious eyes.

"They say I bullied all other resident clans off it, but in truth I was just taking back what was rightfully ours."

"How…" she swallowed, hoping to get more information, "How did you lose it?"

He snorted. "Territorial skirmish. How else? To those damned…ugly…tiger beasts," his voice nearly dropped into a growl at their mention, evidencing that the psychological wounds still ran deep.

Kagura knew of the tiger youkai - inherent berserkers with enough intelligence to organize and really be dangerous. She cringed internally as he continued.

"Wasteful scum," he spat. "They didn't even inhabit our lands a full year after they slew my father and scattered my people. Got bored, and headed north."

Kagura considered it. "The tiger youkai are a breed that seeks war for sport. Not spoils."

"Mm."

She could see the tense knots in his arms and back, despite the darkness of the night. Even sitting still, he continued to radiate energy like a caged ferret.

"At least you were able to return home right after they moved on," she said warily, testing the waters.

He winced. Was quiet. She waited.

"Not…right after," he finally conceded.

"What…" she swallowed. "What do you mean?"

He brought his knees up to his chest, and rested his elbows on them, hanging his head in between. His next words were barely a whisper. "It was decades."

That surprised her. "Why…why would you wait so long? Were you too small?"

"No."

"Were there too few of you to reclaim your lands after the threat had gone?"

"No."

"That doesn't…" she paused, not wholly comfortable with how well she knew him, "That doesn't sound like you, Kouga."

His ears twitched when she said his name, and he turned his head enough to give her a black-shadowed profile of his face. "Oh no?" His tone was broken, and his expression, hidden. She couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or sincere, so she said nothing.

He explained, but only after a long moment of uncomfortable scrutiny. "The wolf youkai," he explained quietly. Humbly, "are bound together on every level. Heart. Spirit. Mind. Blood," he uttered like a mantra. "No sacrifice is too great for our people. No price is too high for loyalty."

A great watery splash of a massive fish sounded from below, and the wind tugged viciously at the wolf prince's hair and clothes. His hands clenched into fists, and he bowed his head. "So you can imagine, Kagura, how bad it is when the Lord's own son kills his only living brother."

Her jaw dropped. She forgot to blink. She opened her mouth, managing in a choked whisper, "You…what?"

He snorted - more of a cover up for his emotion than anything derisive. "In a desperate moment, when one sees the strongest of their people fall under tooth and claw of the enemy, they can be moved to transform. Despite the warnings…"

He faced her. Dim starlight reflected in those glistening blue eyes, and his lip lifted in a self-deprecating smirk. "But like I said, the Wolf is difficult to control."

He left it at that. Kagura couldn't stop staring at him. So you pulled out of it to see your enemy still alive, and your brother mangled by your own jaws…

She should have been inoculated to the angst of such a retelling. After all, she'd secretly rejoiced at the demise of some of her own siblings. But something about this…it made her soul ache. She shuddered at the visuals of a much younger Kouga - with his bright eyes, and vibrant mannerisms, wailing over the corpse of his dead brother.

He looked away, his gaze fixing on the dark canopy above them. Even the shadows couldn't hide the pain in his face. "So you see, Wind User, unintentional fratricide tends to take the intensity out of one's personality for a while. Even mine."

Questions burned in Kagura's mind - all too unsettling to ask out loud. Why did you share this with me? she wondered, absently clutching at her heart. Did you know how it would make me feel?

"Kouga…"

He shook himself, obviously done with reliving in that part of his past. "After time, I came back to myself, and became a vigilante. Started rallying a gang. We were mischievous…troublesome. Went about mindlessly strong-arming the imposter clans off our old home." He shrugged. "Word spread that the prince had return. More wolf youkai gathered. Next thing I knew, I had an entire tribe looking up to me, so I began to take my role of leadership more seriously. We started to flourish again," he turned and locked stares with her, his expression rueful, but surprisingly not bitter. "And then you came along."

She bowed her head, wincing internally. "Kouga…I…you know I…" she paused, and tried again. "Sesshoumaru's sword…"

"So are we almost there yet?" he asked mercifully. She lifted her head, narrowed her eyes at him in perplexed gratitude, and looked over the edge of her feather. A lush, hilly piece of land poked through the waves below, beckoning for them to descend.

She knew the island, and she knew its deep, deep cavern on the south side. "Yes. We're here."

* * *

Kagura hovered in the top of the magically lit cave, gripping her feather in nervous anticipation. A couple of the lesser demons had eyed her, but their attention was inevitably drawn to the spastic wolf youkai zigzagging about their home.

He made it to the web cache, and she held her breath as he snatched up several tarantula trapdoors from the speckled ground. "These!?" he held his fist up.

She motioned frantically. "Yes YES! Now hurry back!

Not wasting any time, Kouga hopped and dodged like a flea on fire as the spider youkai spat their sticky webbing at him. The things were monstrous, with gnarly, bristly legs the size of trees. And they moved fast.

Too fast. She hadn't been paying attention. One of the nasty creatures had scrambled the wall behind her. She heard it, but it was too late. Kagura stiffened as its clicking mandibles closed down towards her. There was a shout. A grunt. The thing was jolted forward, knocking her off her feather.

Its fang grazed her as she fell, eliciting a scream - a scream that halted when she was caught by none other than Kouga, himself.

She gasped as he lunged them to the side. Mid-leap, Kagura instinctively reissued her feather. He rolled them on it, and held tight as it carried them up.

She was still disoriented, her heart leaping in her throat every time Kouga would yank a side of their airborn transit in an effort to dodge the numerous web lassos spat at them. But soon enough, they broke out into the open - now early morning - air, leaving the cavern and the island behind them.

Flat on her back as she was, Kagura started to raise herself up on her elbows, when Kouga got in her face. He didn't scorn her for nearly getting killed, or insult her for not paying attention. Instead, his brow was drawn tight in the center, and his worried eyes bounced over her form and fixed on her waist where she'd been nicked by the spider youkai.

"Gods… it got you, didn't it," he muttered, his face twisting in unease.

Before she could answer, he slipped his fingers through the rip in her kimono and lifted it enough to see the skin underneath. She froze at the contact. He angled his head, frowning.

"I'm…fine, Kouga. Really. It didn't-"

"Not even a scratch," he muttered and his face relaxed. He patted the ripped material and eyed her seriously. "You know, if you weren't wearing this ugly, thick-knit dress from those villagers, it would have broken your skin…"

His hand was warm. His expression was sincere. She found herself staring, at a loss of words.

"…and the poison from one of those creatures is potent enough to kill…you…" he stopped as he realized she was gawking. "What?"

"You," she breathed. "You were really worried about me…"

His eyes widened marginally, and he leaned back, withdrawing his hand. A flush tinged his cheeks. Several seconds passed before he regained control of his expression, at which point his eyes crinkled in an apprehensive shyness. Holding her gaze, he tossed her the collected webbing.

"I think you have a fan to make."

* * *

They didn't speak after that. Kagura insisted that she needed silence so that she could concentrate on the weaving, and he obliged. Her fingers had tapped at the air as though playing some invisible instrument, and the wind wove the threads until they were ready to be set against a wooden framing.

She focused on the task at hand, but some enigmatic ache probed at her lungs, making it hard to breathe. It only got worse when she looked at him, like some indefinable sadness that was eating a hole in her spirit.

It didn't help her melancholy mood to notice that he seemed to be suffering from the same symptoms. The wolf boy was actually able to sit stationary the entire way back. No fidgeting. No annoying her with spastic movements. His shoulders sagged with some invisible weight, and his gaze fixed on nothing at all.

What's happening to us, Kouga? she thought wildly. And why is it that I don't want this trip to end? The feather touched down in her valley all too soon, and they both dismounted without looking at each other.

The ache became damn near unbearable.

"So…you'll be able to finish your weapon before nightfall?" he asked, sparing a quick, jerky glance up at her.

She nodded. He toed a pebble on the ground, and looked towards the direction of his home.

"Then it's time for me to go."

Agh… Kagura clenched her hands into fists. This was it. Erased from mind and thought, like he said. Never to see each other again. It seemed surreal. Impossible, especially considering that this last trip had only made her cognizance of him worse. If only the damn boy could…

"Kouga," she breathed, her lips trembling. "Take it with you."

He stiffened, and looked at her over his shoulder. "What?"

She bit her bottom lip as her stomach suddenly lurched up in her throat. She was becoming increasingly desperate. "Whatever it is that you leave behind when you go... Take it with you."

Understanding crossed his face right then - which amongst other things, frustrated her. He seemed to know what she was going through better than she did. "You feel something…" he said quietly, "when you think of me."

He stated it. Just like that. With utmost confidence. Kagura sucked in her breath and stomped her foot in the ground, losing her hold on her composure. "I feel that sparing your life was the biggest mistake of mine!"

He faced her, his wild eyes anxious. Conflicted. "You're lying."

Her jaw dropped in reflexive indigniation. "How…? I…I am not!"

His hesitant demeanor shifted to something more aggressive, and the wolf prince suddenly marched over and got in her face, his hair flopping about his shoulders with the halting stop. "Dammit Kagura, I can smell it on you..."

No… She took a step back, her heartbeat thrumming so loudly in her ears that it was a miracle she'd even heard him. "You…I don't know what you're--" She gasped as he grabbed her betraying hand, and held it up between them. It was shaking. Her whole body was shaking.

"You want me…"

She choked at his audacity. "You conceited…vulgar-" she turned his head with an open-handed slap on the face. He growled and grabbed her offending wrist, pinning both hands behind her.

She hissed, and swore and squirmed in his ungiving hold. "Let GO!"

"No!" His heart was racing. She could hear it. Feel it. He shook her forcefully. "Look at me…!"

Gods. Anything but that. He was already wrapped around her like a blanket, throwing her body into a torturous, sensory overload. "No…"

"LOOK at me, Kagura!"

Her limbs had gone from trembling to oscillating, but it wasn't long before her body betrayed her, relaxing in his forced embrace.

"Curse you, Kouga. Why can't you just leave it alone?" she choked, very aware of the affect his nearness was having on her. She wiped her eyes on his chest, batting away an invasive wonderment of what it would feel like to rest her cheek against his armorless skin. "I hate this. I don't understand it."

With a pulsing exhale, he loosened his hold enough to leave her with the sensation of being in his arms of her own free will, pressing his hands gently against her lower back. "I know…"

She nearly scoffed, tilting her head back to glare defiantly back at those fierce blue orbs. "Do you?"

"Yes," he whispered intensely, all traces of his earlier aggression gone. "But I grow weary…" He slid his hand up her back, and dropped his head to hers. The next words were muffled against her lips.

"…of fighting it…"


Leave a Review

Next Chapter

1 ~ 2 ~ 3 ~ 4 ~ 5 ~ 6 ~ 7 ~ 8 ~ 9 ~ 10 ~ 11 ~ 12 ~ 13 ~ 14