Hola boys and girls of the Fanfiction sphere! Here's another fanfic...
WOOHOO! Me wuffies Sesshoumaru to DEATH, so it's only right to let Kagome
have the honor of snagging him. Narf!
Happy reading!
Prologue: Erasing Colors
They had come in the dark, when the night would shield them and the moon would balefully cast her watchful eye elsewhere. When the witnesses couldn't see past their dreams far enough.
Kagome, even at the tender age of five, had known of her father's problems with the Mob, as they were commonly called. Their official name was unknown and struck much controversy, to their delight. It was Kagome's understanding that her father owed quite a large sum of money to them, but she had failed to notice the importance of money then. She hadn't noticed, until afterwards when she had time to analyze all the weeks prior to the incident, of her father's increasing agitation, or of her mother's worried glances she cast frequently out the window.
The incident was a rather sudden one, when they came by night. Her infant brother, Souta, lay asleep in the nursery, her mother had long since retired to bed, and Kagome was watching a late movie on TV with her father, a treat seldom offered and enthusiastically received.
It was a romantic comedy, and Kagome didn't get much of it, but there was no way that she was going to give away her ignorance by doing something so moronic as asking a question. Unbeknownst to her, her father sent her amused glances whenever the male star gave way to sexual innuendo.
The movie ended with the couple embracing, and by then Kagome was very, very bored. She preferred the scary movies (at least they made some semblance of sense) but it had been either watch the soppy romance or go to bed, the latter of which was abhorred.
"Papa, do I have to go to bed now? Can I have some ice cream?" she begged, her bottom lip poking out just enough to be considered and adorable pout.
Her father smiled indulgently and waved her to the kitchen. "Just one bowl, and then it's off to bed, okay?"
Kagome bit her lip in delight and nodded before rocketing into the kitchen to scoop her own ice cream. She considered herself far too mature to have it dished up for her.
Her father peeked in to smile softly at the sight of his daughter kneeling on the counter and leaning over to the freezer to get out the ice cream. "Kagome-chan," he called softly to her, leaning against the doorframe lazily as she looked up, "I'm going to bed. I want you in bed in fifteen minutes, all right? Put your bowl in the sink when you're done."
Kagome nodded frantically. "Yes, Papa!"
He walked over and ruffled her hair, grinning at the squeal that emerged when, the Lord forbid, he messed up her hair. "You're such a grown-up, Kagome. I'm so proud." Kissing her forehead, he left the kitchen.
She listened to his heavy footsteps go up the stairs, then returned her attention to the task of scooping up the mint chocolate chip ice cream. Looking around to make sure she was alone, she dug her spoon into the carton and stuffed it into her mouth before putting the spoon back into the carton and using that spoonful to fill her bowl up. She paused when she heard it---a small creak at the head of the stairs. Probably her mom checking to make sure she wasn't filling up the bowl too much.
She made sure the amount of ice cream was small enough to be considered "okay" by her mom, then put the ice cream away and slid off the counter, her bare feet padding softly against the tile as she brought the bowl to the breakfast table. She climbed into the chair and turned in it, kneeling, so she could see the door, waiting for her mom to enter and check up on her.
She waited.
And waited.
A sense of foreboding made the hairs on her arms stand on end. Instinct warned her to get out of sight---and to do so quickly. Abandoning her ice cream, she tiptoed as quietly as she could to the pantry. Pulling it open slowly so the hinges wouldn't squeak, she crouched among the potatoes and the canned vegetables. Pulling it closed with an excruciating slowness, she peeked out the slats to watch the still lit kitchen beyond.
She saw a nice, black pair of baggy pants with soft black kid slippers step into the kitchen, then walk around as if curiously. She couldn't see above the person's waist, and wasn't going to risk making noise to stand.
The pants paused at the breakfast table, which held the puzzle of the melting ice cream, before meandering over to the door again. It turned off the light---a strange thing to do, she mused---and was gone.
Shortly after, she heard Souta start up a good wail. But he had barely gotten to the first scream when he was cut off---abruptly. The suddenness at which Souta stopped caused Kagome to flinch. And then she heard her parents stirring above her, the footsteps quickened, panicked. Her father yelled something loudly, although she couldn't tell if it was "Kagome" or "Don't hurt me." She looked around the pantry and leaned against a wall. The wall offered nothing except a muffled scream.
Her mother's scream.
It was cut off with the same sickening brevity as Souta's wail. Her father started to yell something frantically, almost pleadingly, as her mother's voice picked up again as an agony-filled wail. Her father started to yell something again---Kagome distinctly caught the word "hospital"---before he was silenced with a loud gunshot.
There was a thud.
Her mother's gurgling, pain-filled wail continued, and harsh voices said something curtly before her voice, too, was stifled.
Kagome bit back a whimper, shutting her eyes tight before opening them again quickly. Shutting her eyes only amplified the hush over the house. A horde of footsteps thundered down the stairs and out the door, the thunder filling up the empty house.
Strengthened by the sound of the front door slamming, and reassured by the growing tranquility of the house, Kagome straightened, and slowly pulled the pantry door open. It squeaked; she didn't care. She passed the untouched dish of ice cream without so much as a second glance, and stepped bravely into the living room. She hadn't expected anyone to be there, and no one was. Her eyes focused on the darkness of the stairs, and her feet seemed to follow of their own accord, carrying her up the stairs swiftly, pass the wreck they made of her room as they looked for her, and past the cradle with fresh blood still dripping into the new white carpet. She reached the end of the hall, standing before the closet.
Kagome turned slowly on her heel until her nose pointed into the gathering shadows of her parents' room. The door had been closed slightly. She pressed her palm above the doorknob, pushing the door open silently. A strong scent of incense still hung in the air since they had been burned on her grandmother's death-day. Overlapping it was a strong metallic smell, one that brought to mind festering innards, maggots. Swallowing the rising bile in her throat, ignoring the protesting burn of it, Kagome crossed the threshold of the doorway, her blue eyes seeing little beyond the grays and blacks.
She moved forward, a step at a time, each step lasting for an eon and a breath at the same time. The path to the door stretched behind her like a distant memory, and her mind was blank, the thoughts fleeting and too disturbing to analyze. Feeling her eyes glaze over, she stepped until her foot encountered a wetness---not just a wetness, a living, thriving, warm wetness.
At the contact with the wetness, the smell of blood swamped her utterly and totally, forcing her to take a stumbling step back. Her eyes closed briefly; when they reopened, she was surprised to realize that they had adjusted to the darkness.
Before her they lay. Her father's torso and head was hidden behind the bed, and the legs sprawled awkwardly over her mother's foot. There was a bloody trail leading towards the foot to suggest that his legs had, indeed, fallen over her, but she had dragged herself away. There was a hole in her shin that had been bleeding profusely. As her throat had been sliced, cleanly and efficiently, she had fallen so her cut neck had been exposed. Her eyes were open, only the white visible. Wisps of hair had escaped the bun and matted themselves to the blood all over her neck, and her mouth was wide open as if even in death she was taking a last attempt to scream.
Kagome walked forward hesitantly. "Mama?" she called ever so softly. She didn't want to wake her father. "Mama? Souta is upset, Mama." They were sleeping; only sleeping. Her mother would smile at her any minute know, tell her it was an act, a joke.
Kagome felt her eyes tear, but couldn't for the life of her think of why she would be crying. She dropped to her hands and knees and crawled over to her mother. Smoothing the hair away from her neck, Kagome whispered to her mother reassuringly. "It's just a joke, Mama. A joke you played. And when you wake up, I'll share my ice cream with you. Mama?"
Awareness caused the hair on the back of her neck to prick up. She turned to see a person standing in the light of the doorway, the silhouette revealing long, tumbling hair and a tall, lean body. It stepped forward, the eyes glinting strangely at her.
Kagome gazed at it helplessly, then looked at her mother. "She can't move. She needs her masseuse to help her back," she whispered.
The figure kneeled next to her, but still between her and the door. "I rather thought they had missed one," he murmured. It was a man. "They shall, of course, be punished," he continued as if amused.
Kagome couldn't focus on his face, she couldn't see him. She recognized the pants from the ones that had looked around the kitchen. She walked on her knees a little closer, and put a pudgy hand on his knee. "You can have my ice cream," she informed him. Kagome lay her head on his lap, close to his stomach. "You sound like you like ice cream. Mama needs her masseuse."
A hand came to rest on her hair, smoothing it and stroking it. "Of course she does. Rest; the masseuse will be here in a little while."
Kagome gazed at his shadowed face, her eyes glazed with tears and completely blank. They were an extraordinary shade of blue-gray, he realized.
She swallowed, and his eyes were immediately attracted to the neck movement. "Why am I crying?" she whispered beseechingly.
It was a cruel act of fate that she had lived long enough to see this, to have her mind completely shattered. His men would be punished, and severely. For now, he put a clawed finger to her forehead, smoothing away the bangs from her eyes. "Sleep," he commanded gently.
Kagome felt the darkness rise in a wave to overcome her. Digging her face into his stomach, she surrendered to sleep. To the dreams.
And that was all she knew.
The next morning, she awoke in a strange bed, with many people standing over her wearing pitying expressions. You are at an Orphanage, they told her, your family is dead.
All her Mama needed was a masseuse. She told them so. They wouldn't believe her.
END OF PROLOGUE
Okay, a bit depressing, sorry! Ja ne! Happy reading! Next chappy up soon!
Prologue: Erasing Colors
They had come in the dark, when the night would shield them and the moon would balefully cast her watchful eye elsewhere. When the witnesses couldn't see past their dreams far enough.
Kagome, even at the tender age of five, had known of her father's problems with the Mob, as they were commonly called. Their official name was unknown and struck much controversy, to their delight. It was Kagome's understanding that her father owed quite a large sum of money to them, but she had failed to notice the importance of money then. She hadn't noticed, until afterwards when she had time to analyze all the weeks prior to the incident, of her father's increasing agitation, or of her mother's worried glances she cast frequently out the window.
The incident was a rather sudden one, when they came by night. Her infant brother, Souta, lay asleep in the nursery, her mother had long since retired to bed, and Kagome was watching a late movie on TV with her father, a treat seldom offered and enthusiastically received.
It was a romantic comedy, and Kagome didn't get much of it, but there was no way that she was going to give away her ignorance by doing something so moronic as asking a question. Unbeknownst to her, her father sent her amused glances whenever the male star gave way to sexual innuendo.
The movie ended with the couple embracing, and by then Kagome was very, very bored. She preferred the scary movies (at least they made some semblance of sense) but it had been either watch the soppy romance or go to bed, the latter of which was abhorred.
"Papa, do I have to go to bed now? Can I have some ice cream?" she begged, her bottom lip poking out just enough to be considered and adorable pout.
Her father smiled indulgently and waved her to the kitchen. "Just one bowl, and then it's off to bed, okay?"
Kagome bit her lip in delight and nodded before rocketing into the kitchen to scoop her own ice cream. She considered herself far too mature to have it dished up for her.
Her father peeked in to smile softly at the sight of his daughter kneeling on the counter and leaning over to the freezer to get out the ice cream. "Kagome-chan," he called softly to her, leaning against the doorframe lazily as she looked up, "I'm going to bed. I want you in bed in fifteen minutes, all right? Put your bowl in the sink when you're done."
Kagome nodded frantically. "Yes, Papa!"
He walked over and ruffled her hair, grinning at the squeal that emerged when, the Lord forbid, he messed up her hair. "You're such a grown-up, Kagome. I'm so proud." Kissing her forehead, he left the kitchen.
She listened to his heavy footsteps go up the stairs, then returned her attention to the task of scooping up the mint chocolate chip ice cream. Looking around to make sure she was alone, she dug her spoon into the carton and stuffed it into her mouth before putting the spoon back into the carton and using that spoonful to fill her bowl up. She paused when she heard it---a small creak at the head of the stairs. Probably her mom checking to make sure she wasn't filling up the bowl too much.
She made sure the amount of ice cream was small enough to be considered "okay" by her mom, then put the ice cream away and slid off the counter, her bare feet padding softly against the tile as she brought the bowl to the breakfast table. She climbed into the chair and turned in it, kneeling, so she could see the door, waiting for her mom to enter and check up on her.
She waited.
And waited.
A sense of foreboding made the hairs on her arms stand on end. Instinct warned her to get out of sight---and to do so quickly. Abandoning her ice cream, she tiptoed as quietly as she could to the pantry. Pulling it open slowly so the hinges wouldn't squeak, she crouched among the potatoes and the canned vegetables. Pulling it closed with an excruciating slowness, she peeked out the slats to watch the still lit kitchen beyond.
She saw a nice, black pair of baggy pants with soft black kid slippers step into the kitchen, then walk around as if curiously. She couldn't see above the person's waist, and wasn't going to risk making noise to stand.
The pants paused at the breakfast table, which held the puzzle of the melting ice cream, before meandering over to the door again. It turned off the light---a strange thing to do, she mused---and was gone.
Shortly after, she heard Souta start up a good wail. But he had barely gotten to the first scream when he was cut off---abruptly. The suddenness at which Souta stopped caused Kagome to flinch. And then she heard her parents stirring above her, the footsteps quickened, panicked. Her father yelled something loudly, although she couldn't tell if it was "Kagome" or "Don't hurt me." She looked around the pantry and leaned against a wall. The wall offered nothing except a muffled scream.
Her mother's scream.
It was cut off with the same sickening brevity as Souta's wail. Her father started to yell something frantically, almost pleadingly, as her mother's voice picked up again as an agony-filled wail. Her father started to yell something again---Kagome distinctly caught the word "hospital"---before he was silenced with a loud gunshot.
There was a thud.
Her mother's gurgling, pain-filled wail continued, and harsh voices said something curtly before her voice, too, was stifled.
Kagome bit back a whimper, shutting her eyes tight before opening them again quickly. Shutting her eyes only amplified the hush over the house. A horde of footsteps thundered down the stairs and out the door, the thunder filling up the empty house.
Strengthened by the sound of the front door slamming, and reassured by the growing tranquility of the house, Kagome straightened, and slowly pulled the pantry door open. It squeaked; she didn't care. She passed the untouched dish of ice cream without so much as a second glance, and stepped bravely into the living room. She hadn't expected anyone to be there, and no one was. Her eyes focused on the darkness of the stairs, and her feet seemed to follow of their own accord, carrying her up the stairs swiftly, pass the wreck they made of her room as they looked for her, and past the cradle with fresh blood still dripping into the new white carpet. She reached the end of the hall, standing before the closet.
Kagome turned slowly on her heel until her nose pointed into the gathering shadows of her parents' room. The door had been closed slightly. She pressed her palm above the doorknob, pushing the door open silently. A strong scent of incense still hung in the air since they had been burned on her grandmother's death-day. Overlapping it was a strong metallic smell, one that brought to mind festering innards, maggots. Swallowing the rising bile in her throat, ignoring the protesting burn of it, Kagome crossed the threshold of the doorway, her blue eyes seeing little beyond the grays and blacks.
She moved forward, a step at a time, each step lasting for an eon and a breath at the same time. The path to the door stretched behind her like a distant memory, and her mind was blank, the thoughts fleeting and too disturbing to analyze. Feeling her eyes glaze over, she stepped until her foot encountered a wetness---not just a wetness, a living, thriving, warm wetness.
At the contact with the wetness, the smell of blood swamped her utterly and totally, forcing her to take a stumbling step back. Her eyes closed briefly; when they reopened, she was surprised to realize that they had adjusted to the darkness.
Before her they lay. Her father's torso and head was hidden behind the bed, and the legs sprawled awkwardly over her mother's foot. There was a bloody trail leading towards the foot to suggest that his legs had, indeed, fallen over her, but she had dragged herself away. There was a hole in her shin that had been bleeding profusely. As her throat had been sliced, cleanly and efficiently, she had fallen so her cut neck had been exposed. Her eyes were open, only the white visible. Wisps of hair had escaped the bun and matted themselves to the blood all over her neck, and her mouth was wide open as if even in death she was taking a last attempt to scream.
Kagome walked forward hesitantly. "Mama?" she called ever so softly. She didn't want to wake her father. "Mama? Souta is upset, Mama." They were sleeping; only sleeping. Her mother would smile at her any minute know, tell her it was an act, a joke.
Kagome felt her eyes tear, but couldn't for the life of her think of why she would be crying. She dropped to her hands and knees and crawled over to her mother. Smoothing the hair away from her neck, Kagome whispered to her mother reassuringly. "It's just a joke, Mama. A joke you played. And when you wake up, I'll share my ice cream with you. Mama?"
Awareness caused the hair on the back of her neck to prick up. She turned to see a person standing in the light of the doorway, the silhouette revealing long, tumbling hair and a tall, lean body. It stepped forward, the eyes glinting strangely at her.
Kagome gazed at it helplessly, then looked at her mother. "She can't move. She needs her masseuse to help her back," she whispered.
The figure kneeled next to her, but still between her and the door. "I rather thought they had missed one," he murmured. It was a man. "They shall, of course, be punished," he continued as if amused.
Kagome couldn't focus on his face, she couldn't see him. She recognized the pants from the ones that had looked around the kitchen. She walked on her knees a little closer, and put a pudgy hand on his knee. "You can have my ice cream," she informed him. Kagome lay her head on his lap, close to his stomach. "You sound like you like ice cream. Mama needs her masseuse."
A hand came to rest on her hair, smoothing it and stroking it. "Of course she does. Rest; the masseuse will be here in a little while."
Kagome gazed at his shadowed face, her eyes glazed with tears and completely blank. They were an extraordinary shade of blue-gray, he realized.
She swallowed, and his eyes were immediately attracted to the neck movement. "Why am I crying?" she whispered beseechingly.
It was a cruel act of fate that she had lived long enough to see this, to have her mind completely shattered. His men would be punished, and severely. For now, he put a clawed finger to her forehead, smoothing away the bangs from her eyes. "Sleep," he commanded gently.
Kagome felt the darkness rise in a wave to overcome her. Digging her face into his stomach, she surrendered to sleep. To the dreams.
And that was all she knew.
The next morning, she awoke in a strange bed, with many people standing over her wearing pitying expressions. You are at an Orphanage, they told her, your family is dead.
All her Mama needed was a masseuse. She told them so. They wouldn't believe her.
END OF PROLOGUE
Okay, a bit depressing, sorry! Ja ne! Happy reading! Next chappy up soon!