This chapter turned out a little more serious than I had planned. But this is the way it wanted to go, and I am nothing but its bitch. ^.~
So sorry for the wait. I'm learning there is only so much of me, and only so much that I can do. I am also learning who my friends really are. Never a fun lesson.
Disclaimer: not mine!
Anyway, thanks to all who have reviewed. At least, those who have sent me encouragement and/or constructive criticism. There was one person who, it appears, only reviewed to insult me. But I'm not letting it get to me. It seems there's always someone now. In the words of zen-master Hyde, "Whatever." ;-D
Thanks everybody for answering my question! I still don't know what that fluffy thing on Sesshoumaru's shoulder is, since there were so many different responses, but not knowing no longer bothers me. I'm kind of leaning toward the idea that it's just something Takahashi added for appearance, and well, to utterly mystify people like me. :-D What a clever girl she is! ^.~
Also, I want to insist that you read "Three Times A Lady", before you read this fic. If you have questions, it may answer a few of them. Any other questions I will work on answering here as the story moves along.
Golly, I hope that's everything. Anyway, onward march! And feedback is always appreciated! ^_^
It Changes Everything
Chapter Five:
The Dance
Inuyasha's Forest was a place of deep woods and even deeper shadows. But there were breaks in the trees where flowers grew, and small streams that trickled through with life-giving water. For, after all, it was just a forest. Somewhere on its eastern side was a meadow, one full of sweet-smelling herbs and bright splashes of wildflowers.
Having landed seconds before, Sesshoumaru carried the struggling girl a few more feet, then nonchalantly dropped her in a patch of weeds.
"What the hell are you doing?!"
Sesshoumaru did not respond. He leaned forward and reached out a clawed hand. The girl instantly drew back, her eyes wide. "Now...now...listen here...I don't know what---"
Sesshoumaru stopped, sniffed at the air. His eyes fell down the length of the girl's body as she half-lay on the ground before him.
A gasp of indignation instantly spilled out of her throat, as she noticed the path of his attention. "Hentai!" she cried, tugging at the hem of her short kimono, pulling it as best she could over her exposed legs. Which was when she noticed two green eyes staring up at her. They blinked.
"KYYAAA...ah?"
Sesshoumaru lifted the kitsune up by his tail, shaking him free of his death-grip on the miko's leg. The youkai child swiped harmlessly at the bigger youkai, twisting in his grip and kicking his little paws.
"You leave Kagome alone!"
Sesshoumaru stared blankly at the little kit. "You are not wanted here," he stated. And with that he tossed the fox, without hesitation or silly fanfare. Shippou screamed as he went flying, streaking over the highest branches and stirring birds from their roost. The miko watched fretfully as he transformed, bouncing along the tops of the trees, and then out of sight.
Kagome jumped to her feet, "Hey! You can't---"
"So you don't want to bear my child."
Kagome promptly forgot about Shippou as the demon lord turned back to her. She swallowed, her hands falling down to her sides. They started to shake.
Sesshoumaru calmly reached up and lifted Tenseiga, sheath and all, and laid the powerful sword aside. Toukijin quickly followed suit. He grasped one end of his obi and started to pull it free. "Allow me to change your mind."
Kagome's eyes widened. She spun around. Eh hehe, this isn't happening...She started rubbing her palms against her skirt. She took one step, and then another. She was walking stiffly across the meadow, towards the trees. Her arms held straight down her sides and a small, confused smile curving her lips. She had no idea where she was going, her mind was blessedly empty. The fact that Inuyasha's cold-hearted half-brother was undressing behind her swiftly exiting back didn't really make sense. Hell, it didn't even register. The voice in her head was going, 'wow, what a pretty sky! It never looks like this in Tokyo'.
She froze, her wide and unseeing eyes blinking as Sesshoumaru appeared on her path, completely stopping her in her tense steps. Her eyes seemed frozen in a moment of shock, wide and blue and not fully aware of what was going on. Her empty gaze slid down his bare shoulder, and for one second she wondered where that puff of fur he always wore had gone, but then her stare widened. She spun around again, and started walking the other way. The polite expression her face had fallen into when the shock had gripped her crumbled a little. There was a panic starting to shine out of her thawing eyes.
Get away. Gotta get away!
Sesshoumaru stepped into her path again. Kagome jumped, a startled sound ripped from her throat. It was as if he had just appeared, as if she had just suddenly come upon him in the woods. But that wasn't right, and she knew it. She instantly began backing away, studiously throwing her eyes anywhere but on the powerful inuyoukai that was pacing her step for step.
Her heel banged against something and she had a split-second to think, I'm falling, before she truly was falling. She had stepped back into Sesshoumaru's armor as it rested innocently against his pile of discarded clothes.
She closed her eyes, only to open them once more as she felt the impact from an entirely different angle. Her arm was stretched taut, muscles tense, and her fingernails biting crescent marks into Sesshoumaru's wrist. His hand was wrapped tightly around her wrist, keeping her balanced precariously on one heel and his hold on her. Her long dark hair layered upon the ground, moving from time to time with the wind.
He stared at her, and she stared at him, and had he been wearing clothes the scene might have resembled the climax to some passionate dance. Incidentally, it just looked odd, and somewhat disturbing.
Kagome was frozen in surprise long enough to see that Sesshoumaru's eyes had widened slightly. Had the surprise left her that moment she might have marveled. But leave it did not. The fact that he was completely and utterly nude had finally worked its way back into her awareness. She started to squirm, pull, she no longer cared for the pain of falling, so long as it took her away from him!
"Shh-shh-shh," he admonished, very quietly. His fingers tightened and she was just then noticing the tiny trickle of blood that tickled along the underside of her arm. One of his claws had pierced her skin. Not deep, or even on purpose, but in response to his grip tightening. Or maybe in response to her pulling at it.
She wanted to strike out, wrench herself free, but she didn't. She found herself obeying the softness in his voice, calming, relaxing in his hold. She blinked up at him and wondered numbly if he had cast some spell on her.
More time passed. Neither of them were really aware of how much.
"Well," she whispered.
"Stop struggling, and I will set you on your feet."
The problem with this pose was that she couldn't exactly pull herself out of it. She had no balance, no leverage or anchor, just Sesshoumaru's grip on her wrist. So it all rested on him, and they both knew it. It was a new sensation for her, relying on the 'dreaded Sesshoumaru' to keep her safe. But oddly she knew he would, even if it was just to keep himself safe.
She nodded.
He very slowly drew her up, stepping back as he did so. She had one foot flat beneathe her, and then the other. And then she was standing. Entirely too close to him, but that didn't quite make sense to her at the moment...
Not only had she tripped over his armor, but she had been en route to impaling herself on it. A half-ring of spikes glinted dully in the last light of evening, and two thicker and closer to her.
She was panting. "I almost...and you..." He what? Kept you from a senseless death? Protected himself, is more like it. We wouldn't even be here if he had kept his damn clothes on.
She paused at the bitterness in her thoughts, thinking they hadn't been so mean or dark before she came to the Sengoku Jidai. Sometimes she mourned more for the pieces of herself that kept changing than the ones that just disappeared. She didn't want to become as jaded and cynical as most of those who walked the world, but sometimes she wondered if it was an inevitable part of growing up. Shaking her head, she quickly bit down on the path of her thoughts. She could live with his selfishness if it kept her safe.
She turned, ready to thank him, because that's what you did when someone saved your life...but she found herself rooted to the spot, her mouth open, but the words dying before they passed her lips.
He was still holding her wrist, and he lifted it up slightly, bringing it closer to his own. There was a line of wounds on his forearm, looking oddly like a trail of tiny moons set in a milk-white sky. They slowly began to fill with blood. Her own wrist bore similar markings, though they looked less like crescent moons and more like the sizzling arc of power that followed one of her arrows. One had not only filled with blood, but spilled over with it.
Time spent in the past had prepared her for the sight of blood, even her own, but it had not prepared her for the sight that followed. Sesshoumaru, very precisely, bought her wrist to his lips, and licked the wounds clean.
But not that swiftly, oh no. He ran his tongue lightly up the underside of her arm, then turned it and licked at the small scratches with long, slow strokes. He stared at her as he did so.
Kagome realized two things in that moment. That Sesshoumaru could be seductive when he wanted to be.
And that she was in big trouble.
He lowered her wrist, but not to her side. He placed her open palm on the upper swell of his chest, over the scar she had left on him, and urged her to feel it.
Kagome gulped, her fingers curling into a fist over his heart. She was beginning to wonder if falling to her death was such a bad thing. It was certainly more simple.
He just stood there, holding her hand in place, and she realized he was inviting her. To look, to touch.
To change her mind.
She couldn't really think enough to change a damn thing.
An image of him lying unconscious in the well came to her buzzing mind. She was leaning over him, his collar spread back and her fingers tracing curiously over the scar her arrow had left him. Some kind of reminder, she thought, a brand pressed into his flesh by her still untrained magic. She remembered staring down at him, thinking that no one that beautiful could be real.
He was moving, stepping into the line of her body, and it took Kagome a moment to separate the two versions of him. He was still holding her hand captive, and she gasped as her forearm pressed in a warm line against his naked chest. She jerked away, throwing her arm out as if to push him back.
She yelped as her own fury sent her off-balance. She was falling again, except this time Sesshoumaru caught her around the waist, and her hand was gripping tight onto his shoulder, her fingers digging in. She couldn't breathe for a moment, the action was so sudden. She leaned weakly against his one arm and tried to realize what had happened.
It didn't take her long; a lock of his silver hair had fluttered close to the red tie of her school uniform, then lay innocently across her heaving breast. Her eyes fell on it, then widened considerably. Her breath began to hitch even more.
She was effectively trapped, with no possible avenue of escape, and she watched the thought flit across his gold eyes. Had he been given to such expressions, she imagined he would have smirked. As it was, he tightened his hold on her and leaned forward so that she had to trust even more of her balance to him. Kagome, having read many books, and seen twice as many movies, knew what was coming.
"Now—now..." she gulped, waving her free hand uselessly at her side. As usual, Sesshoumaru couldn't be bothered to listen to her.
But he did pause. In fact, he swept her back on her feet and gripped her tightly against him, the long line of her clothed body pressing hard into the length of his naked one. She yipped, a sound she wasn't aware she was capable of making, and tried to hold him off with both hands.
But he didn't seem aware of her pushing at him, or the fingers she had wrapped in his hair with every intent to pull. He turned her more into him, and growled.
She stopped at the growl.
She was suddenly so afraid that, had he not been holding onto her, she would have slid to her knees.
But he wasn't growling at her, it took her awhile to figure that out. Inuyasha now stood at the edge of trees, his face was blushing-red and she didn't think it had anything to do with his run. No, probably had everything to do with Sesshoumaru's not quite clothed embraces.
Inuyasha said nothing, drew Tetsusaiga from his side, and pointed the transformed fang at Sesshoumaru.
Sesshoumaru not only set her on her feet, but shoved her away. He walked calmly to his pile of clothes but did not put any of them on. Instead he lifted Toukijin and turned back to Inuyasha, the sword held innocently at his side, point toward the earth.
He's going to fight like that? Like...Her stare started sliding down his naked chest, as if pulled by gravity, or weighted by her thoughts.
Ahh! She covered her eyes like the innocent schoolgirl she was, and quickly spun around. She did NOT have to see this. If he and Inuyasha were determined to hack pieces off each other, that didn't mean she had to stand around and witness it. She was sick of playing referee and buffer to their never-ending sibling feud. She suddenly realized exactly how annoyed she was---nay, tired.
I'm going back to the village so these two can kill each other in peace. And if, by some chance, one of them makes it back...I'll get my bow and shoot them---I'm sure the world will thank me!
And with that pleasant, and completely untrue thought, the faintly twitching miko started back toward Kaede's village.
TBC...
This story is taking a more serious turn in my writing, but I guess, for the sake of the plot, that is to be expected.
Next Chapter...Will Inuyasha kill Sesshoumaru? Will Sesshoumaru kill Inuyasha? And does our favourite pure-bred puppy *ever* put his clothes back on? ^_^
How about a reviewer poll? Is Kagome going to have a nervous breakdown in the course of this fic? My magic eight ball points to 'definitely', but what do YOU think? :-D
*shakes head* Sorry people, I've been drinking too much mountain dew again. I'm kind of not happy with this chapter, but I hope you like it? I put a lot of work into it, I'm just sorry it's not as funny as some of the other chapters. Or even funny at all, really. Eh, well, review and tell me how much you hate it! ^_^