Miroku handed her the clay teacup, which she held carefully in her hands. Her strength was much improved, and no longer did Miroku worry whether she would spill the tea and burn herself. She thanked him quietly as he sat across from her, holding his cup in one hand and idly studying it as he spoke.
"Several months after you were struck down, Naraku's flight of jaki ceased somewhere on the island of Hokkaido. Kagome, Inuyasha, and I came to the conclusion that Naraku had fortified himself for battle and would come to us if we did not strike first. I was torn, unable to decide whether I should fight alongside them and risk leaving you alone and undefended, or staying by your side while allowing Inuyasha and Kagome to fight alone. I'm sorry to say, I did the latter. Through Hatchi, I have come to learn that Naraku murdered them both."
Sango's heart sank at knowing Kagome and Inuyasha's fate, but the pain was tempered by the fact she had suspected this ever since she had awoken. She knew Kagome would never have left her alone for this long. Realizing Miroku had paused to allow this to sink in, she nodded for him to continue.
"I realized then that Kaede's village was not safe, and rather than risk the lives of the villagers should Naraku come after us, I brought us here to Mushin's temple. Sadly, my master passed away only a year ago, but in dying he erected a powerful barrier around this place. Naraku has attempted several attacks, but mostly they have been merely a test of this barrier, or perhaps Naraku's curiosity at whether or not we are still alive. In any case, it seems he no longer considers us a threat to him. I begin to fear that he may be right."
He shook his head.
"Still, there is hope. Kohaku still lives, though he remains under Naraku's control, and now that you are well we might be able to fight again to save him. And Kouga fights on, battling Naraku's detatchments and defeating them time and time again. Even Sesshoumaru finds himself filled with resolve –a need to revenge both the child Rin who was stolen from him, and the brother who he reviled, and yet was still his brother. I feel certain it is only a matter of time before those two youkai team up and destroy him once and for all. At very least, Naraku has not gained much strength in the past year, no doubt due to the fact he must escape Kouga and Sesshoumaru each time they locate his castle and penetrate his defenses. Due to all this, Naraku is continually distracted, and unable to do much more to us than send a swarm of youkai now and again, just to remind us that he hates us."
He sipped his tea.
"It seems we are in an odd place," she said. "Temporarily safe from Naraku, and with several strong youkai on our side. Can you guess how long we can rely on them to keep Naraku at bay?"
"Years, I should hope," Miroku said. "Naraku's greatest strength has always been his very nature. Being an aggregate of youkai, it is nearly impossible to locate a vital point. Until that time, however, it is not difficult for youkai as strong as Kouga and Sesshoumaru to keep him weak and running until they tire of doing so. And youkai like them never tire of revenge."
"Then it needn't be just us," Sango said. "We could bring in villagers, strong men and women, and train them to be taiji-ya."
"I think you overestimate the will and strength of those outside your village, Sango. The taiji-ya were not so feared simply because of their techniques. The bloodline you come from is well-renowned, and rather highly sought after. The only taiji-ya you could train would be the sons and daughters of whoever escaped your village."
"I see," she said.
Sango sipped her tea thoughtfully.
Fingers gripping his robes, she relaxed her arms and brought her legs into a kneel on the soft ground. He kneeled beside her, fingers gripping her obi.
Her breath caught.
He paused, and jerked his hands away.
"Forgive me, Sango. I'm not used to asking permission for this."
She blushed, and shook her head.
"It's alright, Houshi-sama."
The obi came loose, the yukata slid from her shoulders, and Miroku pulled the material free from beneath her knees. Naked she sat before him, one hand tight on his shoulder to keep her balance.
"May I?" she asked.
"Of course."
Her fingers untied his kesa, slid into the seam of his long robe and pulled it free. She unfastened his white inner kimono as well, and pushed both garments from his shoulders. They pooled around him, leaving him clothed in only a fundoshi.
Her breathing quickened. Though she was still weak, barely able to stand, she had persuaded Miroku to bring her here to bathe.
"Houshi-sama," she said quietly. "You should know . . . my flow is regular again." She averted his eyes from him, clearly embarrassed, even though she knew he had seen that and worse while caring for her. "If I were to become pregnant, I could, and now is the best time in my cycle to try."
"Sango," he said softly. "Sango, it's far too soon to consider that."
"Why?"
"When you gain back your strength . . ."
"I'm strong enough to lay with you, Houshi-sama. I'll be plenty strong enough to bear a child when that time comes. The women of my village were very resilient, and death by childbirth was always very rare. I have no doubt I can deliver as many children as you can make me."
"There is no one here who can properly deliver or care for them. No village women. No nurse-maids. No one but a tanuki and a kitsune, and a houshi who might not live that long."
"I can teach them how to help the delivery, and I can care for as many babies as I can fit in my arms." She cupped a breast in her hand. "These aren't just for you to grab, you know. I can feed a half-dozen at a time, if needed."
"Sango . . ."
"Why hesitate?" she asked, urgently. "You've groped me incessantly since I met you. You've tried to get me to bathe with you. And now, I'm asking you – I'm telling you – to lay with me, here. What's wrong?"
"You are a taiji-ya," he said sternly. "A fighter. You are not a breeder. You are not a patch of dirt for me to bury my seed in. You are not a garden in which to grow an army to fight Naraku."
"And I am not a person to be told what to do," she hissed. "We're hopeless here, Houshi-sama. Don't think I haven't noticed the way you, Hatchi, and Shippou carry on. You've already given up." She shook her head. "Years ago, I hoped that we could give up, that we could just forget Naraku and settle down. I am a fighter, but am I not also a woman, Houshi-sama? Are you blind to that? Don't you think I have instincts? A need to nest? A need to bear children, feed them, and hold them? A need to love?"
She pounded the ground with her fists.
"For god's sake, Houshi-sama, I don't want you to die and leave me alone!"
He lowered his head.
"I'm sorry, but that will have to be."
She began to cry at that.
"I disgust you, don't I? You've bathed me, changed me, wiped my ass and worse, and now I absolutely disgust you. That's it, isn't it? I'm like an infant to you now, aren't I? Something that could never arouse you. Something that you could never desire."
She turned away.
"Not like you desired Koharu."
She meant that one to sting. Perhaps Shippou had mentioned it to her. Miroku brought a hand to his face.
"You could never disgust me, Sango. I love you, as a husband loves a wife, and there is nothing I desire more than to give you my children."
"Then why?"
"That same night Koharu was killed, I was injured."
"What – what do you mean? Houshi-sama?"
He took her hand and pressed it softly against the folds of his loincloth, allowing her fingers to trace over the flaxen material and feel the flesh beneath, the flesh that did not respond to her touch.
She drew in a sharp breath. Her face turned white.
"Castrated," he said flatly. "An amazing joke played upon me, and sadly, one I have not yet found a means to laugh at yet."
She pulled her hand away, making a fist, fingernails biting into her palms.
"H-houshi-sama . . ."
"The young lord, Kuranosuke Takeda," he said. "He is a most kind ruler, and of high class. If you wanted –"
She deftly struck him across the face.
"Never," she hissed. "No one else. Only you."
She pulled herself into his arms and cried.
It had to happen this way.
Naraku was quick, so amazingly quick, that neither of them had more than a few moments notice before the demon was upon them. He was strong, so much stronger than before, so much stronger than they could have imagined.
It took no more than a wave of his awful hand for the barrier around the monastery to shatter.
The two of them raced outside, and there they were struck by the heart-stopping evil aura of a demon, a full demon.
He stood smugly in the field, with waving tentacles like spider's legs sprouting from his back and clawing at the dirt about them. His eyes were wide and red, his teeth sharp. Violet waves of poisonous shouki began to spill from the forest behind him, shouki from which ten thousand demons began to spawn, surrounding the two of them and cutting off any means of escape.
Inside one hand he held the sacred jewel, tainted a sickening black.
Sango nearly dropped Hiraikotsu in shock.
"The . . . the Shikon no Tama!"
"Is mine," Naraku bellowed. The demon outstretched his left hand, a vague gesture to the minions behind him.
"You have been most enjoyable prey, Taiji-ya and Houshi, and as such it saddens me that you are only the third and fourth creatures to feel the glory of my fully demon form."
With a flick of his index finger, a series of grunts came from the hellspawn around them. Two objects the size of melons flew, landing mere meters from Sango and Miroku.
Even with most of the hair torn out, noses smashed, jawbones shattered, both could easily recognize the recently-decapitated heads of Sesshoumaru and Kouga.
Both Taiji-ya and Houshi turned white.
"I had expected to absorb them, you see, but as it turns out, they are simply too weak. In my present form, they would simply dilute my power. A pity they could not gain the honor of being part of this Naraku."
He shook his head.
"Still," Naraku mused, "they had a better ending than your friends." He smiled, one eyebrow raised, a damning smile. "Now, whatever happened to Inuyasha and his friend Kagome? Aren't you the least bit curious?"
At the mention of Kagome's name, Sango stumbled on her feet. Miroku growled under his breath, willing himself to not be distracted, to not allow himself to be rattled, but already he knew the battle was lost.
Naraku noted her reaction and chuckled under his breath.
"You see, both of them fell easily into one of my traps, as they always do. The miko was separated from her hanyou protector, and fell into a bit of ill fortune – raped by a youkai, in fact. Impregnated."
"You lie," Sango hissed.
"You disbelieve me, Taiji-ya? I'm quite surprised – when those thousand snake demons burst from her womb, I would have thought her screams would travel as far as China."
Screaming, tears streaming, all reason gone, Sango raced at Naraku, her Hiraikotsu thrown mid-stride, her short sword drawn. The huge boomerang struck Naraku broadside and splintered into a thousand pieces. Naraku did not so much as flinch.
Her sword came down, striking Naraku at the center of his forehead. The blade shattered, and as her arms went downward with the swing, Naraku's hand shot forward, tearing a ragged hole in her chest, burying his hand and wrist inside her.
Blood sprayed around his forearm. Her eyes went wide, her face white.
"Hm," Naraku remarked. "Though women are so very boring, there is something exciting about the look on their faces when you squeeze their hearts."
Withdrawing his hand, allowing the girl to fall lifeless to his feet, Naraku turned.
Miroku sat there, on his knees, his lips mumbling prayers. His eyes remained transfixed upon the dead girl, his shakujou and a wad of sealing scrolls forgotten at his side.
"If I had pity," Naraku murmured, "I should kill you now."
Naraku turned, bringing the demon horde with him.
After what might have been hours, Miroku crawled to Sango, hands shaking. He kissed the cold lips, caressed the matted hair, the blood-encrusted cheek. He sat beside her and pulled her into his lap, cradling her like a child, and when she became stiff in his arms he tore loose the rosary on his right hand and buried them both in the endless void of Naraku's curse.
Arms flailing, Miroku pushed himself through the inky black darkness that enveloped him. With a cry he pierced the barrier, and there was starlight and cold sweat.
Gasping, he turned to survey his surroundings.
There was Inuyasha curled up in a tree, one foot swaying lazily in the breeze. His ears twitched, and Miroku knew he had heard him awake, though such an event might not be enough to rouse him from his sleep.
Kagome was nearby, rolled tightly in her sleeping bag. Shippou shared this arrangement and smiled peacefully in his sleep. Beside them lay Sango. She too slept peacefully, though her eyes were clenched shut.
Dare I?
He had to. He had to know.
Softly, he kneeled before her, and with nimble fingers pushed aside her bangs. There he saw Kagome's bandage, the tiny piece of cloth that stuck to wounds and was inexplicably decorated with colorful characters of animals. There was no bruise, only the slightest cut covered entirely by a bandage no larger than his thumb.
He remembered.
He remembered the fight, the numbing, paralyzing fear as he saw the sharp fragment of the broken naginata slashing down to Sango's face. He remembered how powerless he was, and how she leaned backwards to escape the blow, receiving only the slightest gash from a wayward splinter. He remembered how distraught he had been for the remainder of the evening as his mind worked furiously and without intention in cataloguing every possible harm that could have been done to the taiji-ya.
It was unlike him to be so rattled, but rattled he was, and even seeing the proof that he had imagined her coma, and the deaths of all of them, his mind was not at peace.
Quietly but deliberately he left the camp, the rings of his shakujou held tightly in one hand to keep from rousing his friends. He made his way for the hill just east of them, where he and Sango had sipped tea and watched the sunset only hours ago.
A pair of amber eyes, eyes beneath soft coral eyeshadow and brows furrowed with concern, watched him go.
The sky was especially clear this evening, and it was on the nearest hillside she found him, sitting crosslegged, arms at his sides, in a rather uncharacteristically lax position. His face was pained, his eyes wide, looking at the night sky, though she could tell his mind was not on the stars.
He said nothing as she approached.
She sat beside him, her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms around them, her eyes straight ahead to the starry sky, as if she was only here for the view, and that it was only coincidence that they should awake so late at night and choose the same spot for stargazing.
She smelled something upon him, not sweat but something different, a bitter, acrid scent. A scent she recalled from animals she once hunted as a child. A smell that heightened her predatory nature when she found it on enemies. A smell she had never before detected on Houshi-sama.
Fear. He reeked of it.
Some time passed, and she waited patiently. If all he wanted was for her to sit here, silently, she would do so. If he asked her to leave, she would do so. But she knew his inner demons, knew how strong his fears could grip him, and would not want him to bear them alone.
When he finally spoke, she listened.
"I lost you."
His voice wavered.
"Everyone died, Naraku defeated us, and I lost you."
He turned to her.
"And even though I knew it was all a nightmare, and holds no substance, I can't stop myself from dwelling upon it."
He shook his head.
"I apologize, Sango, for waking you. You needn't stay here. I deserve no comfort from a bad dream, when we all have enough hardships in the waking world."
"If it upsets you, that is reason enough for me to comfort you," she said softly. "When my thoughts turn to Kohaku, and I dwell on him, it is no more useful than you dwelling on a dream. And yet, always I can count on you sitting beside me, to coax me from my sadness."
She smiled.
"I think my Houshi-sama keeps to himself too much, and tries to bear his pain along with mine, when he should instead share that burden between the both of us."
She moved toward him, pressing her face against his shoulder.
"Sango," he said softly. "I want you to know this, now, in case something happens to you, or to me."
He gripped her hand with his own. His jaw quivered, finding it so hard to expose himself, to speak the words that have never been said, and perhaps never needed to be said. But what if she didn't know? He couldn't risk it, and even though it was foolish to speak of such things, still the words came.
"Sango, you are everything to me. Absolutely everything."
For a moment, there was nothing, no sound but the rhythm of her breath.
"Baka," she whispered. "You think the way you act hides something like that?"
She snuggled closer to him.
"You think I would agree to your proposal if I did not know that Houshi-sama loves me as I love him?"
She shook her head.
"Baka," she said again, burying her face in the shoulder of his robe, hiding her silent tears in the dark material.
He pulled her towards him, kissing her lightly on the forehead, leaning backward so that he was lying on his back and she beside him.
She moved against him, finding a comfortable spot, using his chest as a pillow, and soon she was silent.
He would make sure to awake before sunup, so that they could return to camp before the others awoke and thought the worst, but until then he lay with her, and the stars were indescribably beautiful.
Whatever dreams may come, let them come. Whatever hardships and terrors might come at me, I shall bear them. This girl is my strength. My hope. My future.
My fiancée.
"Houshi-sama . . ."
He started. The tone of his voice was dangerous. She only spoke that way when . . .
He looked down. Yes, indeed, his left hand had somehow wandered from her shoulders down to her bottom, and there it lay, fingers splayed around the gentle curve.
She didn't move, and her voice was muffled as she spoke mostly into his kesa.
"When I wake up, that hand better be someplace else."
So saying, she buried her hands in his robe and slept.
Miroku, cautiously letting out a breath, realizing his anticipation of a strike across the face was not to be met, smiled slyly.
Not being one to pass up an opportunity, he squeezed her bottom lightly.
Mine.
Written from February 2003 to May 2004