CG XII:
Kouga was pacing back and forth, unhappy that a certain dark haired teenager had dared to claim his tree. His pale, icy blue eyes narrowed as he frowned at the young man once more. He took deep breaths and calmed himself.
It was important that he keep his cool and concentrate on keeping the presence of Kagome's school friends unnoticed by the likes of Onigumo. He watched Miroku and Sango sitting comfortably in one another's arms with longing.
That's what Kouga had always wanted with his Kagome nearly two centuries prior. That's what he had with his Kagome two centuries ago. He could feel the steel vice of a hand clinching his heart at the painful reminder that he was robbed of a life of bliss with his lady love.
However, how could his heart ache any more? He wasn't alive to feel, right? So why was it that still hurt so damned much? Wearily, Kouga allowed himself to sit with a heavy thud at the base of his tree as he allowed the misery of his loss to overwhelm him once more.
From his high perch in the large tree over looking the creek, Inuyasha glanced down at the base of the tree's trunk. He had an odd feeling that someone was there, but when he searched the area, he could see nothing. Inuyasha scratched the back of his neck briefly before returning his gaze towards the direction of the driveway to await Kagome's return.
"So exactly what is the master plan for when Kagome actually returns home?" Sango inquired, poking her boyfriend sharply in the ribs when his hands began to wander without permission.
Miroku smirked, but put his hand back around Sango's shoulder where it was safe from damage. He had no intentions of losing any limbs no matter how brief the pleasure of his searching hands might find.
"Yeah, what exactly is this brilliant plan?" Inuyasha added from his height advantage of thirty feet in the air. He looked as relaxed as a jungle panther up in the boughs of the great oak.
"Well, we sneak into the house and find Kagome when she's alone. We offer her a ride back home with us so she can leave this throw back from the cotton gin behind her." Miroku replied smugly.
He glanced over at Sango but she was staring at him incredulously with wide brown eyes. "What?" Miroku demanded annoyed by her expression.
"That's your brilliant plan?" She snapped in shock.
Violet eyes blinked in confusion. "What's wrong with that plan?"
No one answered his question. However, Kouga groaned aloud, unheard by his human companions at the reply. Kagome was going to need more help than he originally thought if things kept at this rate.
Kagome would be eternally grateful to the medicinal skills of the old lady Kaede. It was amazing really that her leg didn't collapse from the stress of all the walking she'd been forced to endure. Granted, going to the French Quarters was her idea, but she honestly had no idea what she was getting herself into.
"Well?" Naraku asked expectantly as he sat beside Kagome inside the world famous Café Du Monde, a hotspot in New Orleans. She still eying the delicacy in front of her with a wary eye. He frowned, "It's not going to hurt you or anything." He was started to become annoyed with her hesitancy.
"If you don't want it, I'll be happy to relieve you of it," Kikyo suggested sitting across from the young adults with her husband. Everyone else had finished their snack and were still waiting for Kagome to either eat hers or give to them.
"No I want it," Kagome assured them as she finally allowed herself to sample the famous beignets that everyone in her group had been ranting about all afternoon. The taste was pleasant but she really didn't understand the obsession the rest of her companions felt for the food.
"What do you think?" Suikotsu inquired as Kagome took a sip of her water after sampling the beignets. Secretly he hoped she hated the food so that he would have an excuse to eat it for her.
No such luck as Kagome smiled sweetly across the table. "It was delicious," she confessed as she returned to her plate and finished off her beignet. There was noticeable disappointment around the table at the lost chance to eat another beignet.
"This is really rather pathetic." Sesshoumaru remarked, standing beside Kagome at her end of the table watching her eat. "They obviously desired that you not enjoy the food so that they would have an excuse to consume it."
Kagome glared at him briefly, careful not to draw any extra attention to the action since her eating companions were watching her beignet intently. She put the rest of her beignet aside, unruffled by the superior look Sesshoumaru was giving her.
"I'm not so hungry, you guys can have the rest," Kagome offered. Moments later, three hands had attacked the remains of her snack and consumed it. Sesshoumaru shook his head and allowed a small smile to lift the corners of his lips. Kagome looked at him curiously.
"I told you they wanted your food," Sesshoumaru shrugged. He seemed oddly distracted since their conversation in the restroom earlier. He only half-heartedly tagged along beside Kagome during the tours of the city. He would ask occasional historic questions that she would pass along to the guide. Other than that, this little event with the beignet was really the only time he had actually talked to her.
Naraku wrapped his arm gently around Kagome's shoulder and gave her a quick squeeze of a hug. "You okay?" He asked with concern evident in his cinnamon eyes as he searched her melancholy face.
Kagome mustered a smile for him. "Yeah, I guess I'm just tired," she confessed somewhat truthful.
"We should take you two back. I have to be at the hospital tomorrow pretty early to check up on your friend," Suikotsu commented as he looked at his expensive watch that he had purchased in Switzerland the previous month when he was enjoying a weekend of skiing.
Naraku quietly searched Kagome's face, seeking clues to her lack luster behavior. She was so excited earlier in the day. Perhaps she really was simply exhausted. "Yeah, I think that's a good idea," he agreed as he turned his attention back to the older couple across the table from him.
It wasn't long after the good doctor and his wife left that Kagome had ventured outside as if driven by some unseen force to the creek. Sesshoumaru moved alongside her, but neither exchanged any words with one another. Naraku had gone into the house without a backwards glance at his step sister. That was rather odd.
Kouga had taken up his pacing once more and watched with love radiating from every pore of his body as Kagome stepped into view. He and Sesshoumaru exchanged raised brows but neither acknowledged the other's presence.
"Kagome!" Sango ran out of the foliage and tackled her best friend in a hug. "I'm so glad you're okay!" She exclaimed as she held the younger girl out at arm's length to examine her.
"How come you aren't on crutches?" Miroku asked, coming up behind Sango and drapping his arm casually around Kagome's waist. He smiled teasingly at her.
"A Voodoo medicine woman fixed it," Kagome replied calmly taking her dear friend's arm off of her body. Sesshoumaru's possessive growls in her ear weren't helping her remain calm.
"Ah, a witch healed you!" Miroku replied with a grin as he placed his hands into his jeans pockets and lost the playful light behind his eyes. "Kagome why haven't you contacted us?" He asked quietly.
Inuyasha climbed out of the tree and joined the old friends. Kagome offered him a brief smile before answering while she shifted her feet. "I was busy," she replied offhandedly.
"Busy? Yeah right, were you out picking cotton?" Inuyasha demanded. He didn't really know Kagome very well, but he knew an evasive reply when he heard one.
"Look, my family wants to ensure that I can adjust to this sort of life. I can't very well cling to the past," she told them with an uncharacteristic icy waver to her voice.
Both Sesshoumaru and Kouga frowned at her choice or response. It felt like a personal attack to both of the men whom had loved her in former lives enough to die for her.
"We talked to Onigumo, Kagome. I don't trust him. Where's your mother?" Miroku demanded.
"And Souta?" Sango added, crossing her arms to intimidate her younger friend.
"Look, what happens with my family is really none of your concern." Kagome told them in a tone that left no room for argument.
"It is our concern. We're your friends," Sango replied softly, feeling hurt at the callous tone Kagome used.
"I think you should come back with us," Inuyasha offered, his violet eyes sought out her blue ones as he ran a nervous hand through his dark ebon locks.
"She should go with them," Kouga told Sesshoumaru.
"I think it would be in your best interests to leave with them," Sesshoumaru informed the girl he had been charged to watch over for the past couple of weeks. He agreed with Kouga whole-heartedly on this decision. If anything happened to Kagome, he simply would not be able to forgive himself.
"Fine," Kagome agreed looking tired and having no energy to argue with four persistent individuals. It would have been five if she could hear Kouga as well. "But I want to go to the hospital to see Sesshoumaru."
Everyone was surprised by the request, including Sesshoumaru. However, everyone did well to keep poker faces on and suppress their shock. "Alright," Miroku agreed with a peaceful grin. "We'll come and get you in the morning then. We'll just go to an inn for the night so you can have time to tell your family."
Kagome smiled at them, feeling a huge weight lifted off her chest that she wasn't even aware of carrying. "Alright," she smiled at them and went back towards the plantation house with Sesshoumaru trailing along behind her, he was in deep thought. She wanted to see him.
It was unfortunate that Onigumo had developed various tricks in his years of existence in his altered state. His mind locked with that of the raven that was resting upon his arm, sharing exactly what transpired near the creek.
Onigumo despised that creek, but knew that his son would hate him even more than he already did if he were to destroy it like he would like. He laughed to himself at the irony of the situation. He had learned the trick of speaking and manipulating creatures of the forest from the very same witch that had cursed his family.
But of course, he learned that right before he killed her with his own two hands. Soon he would rid himself of his hated existence so that life could break out of the standstill that it had been caught in thanks to a woman's scorn.
It wasn't long before Kagome had re-entered the house and joined in the evening meal. She would no doubt be curious about his docile treatment of her at the dinner table, but that was irrelevant.
Soon after Onigumo sent Naraku off to perform some meaningless task and leave Kagome's side, the drugs he had added to her meal took affect. The young woman was unconscious.
Onigumo pulled her limp body into his arms and traveled down the hidden tunnels into the bowels of the earth. Hundreds of years ago he once used the very room he was taking her to for educational purposes. If slaves misbehaved, he would have to educate them.
Sesshoumaru watched the proceedings in utter disbelief. He felt a strong pull towards his body back in the hospital, something was happening to his body. But he could not abandon Kagome to this madman! He shouted frantically for Kouga, but received no answer.
Sesshoumaru had been desperately fighting the pull to his body since the evening meal Kagome shared with her family. It was a battle he felt himself loosing, but he simply couldn't allow himself to abandon her now!
"Kagome!" Sesshoumaru pleaded trying to concentrate on shaking the girl's shoulders. "You must wake up!"
Groggy, sleep filled eyes opened lazily at him. "Sesshoumaru?" Kagome asked dizzily. The room was spinning and everything was so dark.
"Ah, I see you are awake," Onigumo remarked stepping inside the cellar he had dropped her off in. Naraku was at his side, looking very ruffled and confused as his eyes landed upon Kagome shackled to the stone wall.
"What is the meaning of this father?" Naraku demanded angrily whirling on his father.
Onigumo smirked before flinging his son towards Kagome's chained body. "I give you three days to make her yours or else you will die side-by-side. I grow weary of this type of life," Onigumo explained in a chilling voice as he slammed shut the heavy door leading into the room and an audible lock was heard.
Kagome locked a fearful gaze with Naraku. "What is he talking about?" She demanded quietly struggling with her bonds as Sesshoumaru was starting to shimmer in and out, causing fear to rise in her veins.
Naraku surveyed the make-shift dungeon with a critical eye; avoiding the accusing stare he knew Kagome would be gifting him. He noticed the non-perishable food supply in one corner along with bottles of water. Eventually he looked back at Kagome with sadness evident in his cinnamon gaze.
"I had hoped it wouldn't come to this," he told her quietly as he sat beside her. He cringed when she shifted as far away from him as the chains would allow.
"Kagome, don't let him touch you!" Sesshoumaru shouted in anger as he tried to push Naraku away from his charge. "Damn it!" He cursed in frustration as he felt the pull becoming too intense to ignore. He looked at Kagome with golden eyes bitter with sorrow. "I can't do anything Kagome."
"Wake up," Kagome begged him right before he disappeared from her line of sight. All that remained now was Naraku, whom she foolishly had begun to trust.
Naraku closed his eyes tightly. "I am awake, I'm afraid this nightmare is real Kagome." He looked back at her, his heart in his eyes. "Do you remember the story I told you of the young man and woman that met in the garden?"
Kagome nodded, already knowing the answer.
"I'm Kagewaki and you were the governor's daughter."