Seeing Eye

VI

Egregious

.

Disclaimer

I do not own any of the publicly recognized figures in this Fanfiction. Inuyasha is owned by Rumiko Takahashi and Sunrise TV.

Content Warning

This fanfiction is filled with the fuckery of my mind. This fanfiction is explicit and M rated.

Chapter Warning

Injury to the eyes.

"Welcome back, Lord Sesshoumaru. To what do I owe this pleasant surprise?"

Bokuseno's voice was gruff and old. Older than the concept of war, older than when his ancestors crossed from the mainland, older than when humans and demons had begun to bear weapons-

Old. And wise. But had the tendency to be infuriating and redundant. The tree knew, he had to know.

"The girl, Bokuseno."

"Yes, yes. Kagome: Guardian of the Sacred Jewel." The tree chuckled, his eyes friendly but glistening in a mischievousness that made Sesshoumaru's head sore. "What would you like to know?"

"What is she?" Blunt and cold, he questioned the tree firmly. Held together by thread-thin patience. "No mere mortal-"

"Could harm you, yes?" The tree responded, almost lazily. Cutting him off as he did so. "Yet your Lord Father fell by human means."

Sesshoumaru was silent. His face was dispassionate, smooth, and his body unmoving. Yet, he was riled. A clear jab at a mockery of his heritage. A reminder to be humble, unacknowledged- His father was a dishonor-

"Did you know, Lord Sesshoumaru," Bokuseno mused, interrupting the stream of thoughts and feelings that the Lord had attempted to bury. "That she killed the dodder that puppetted my brother's corpse around? The one that trapped your Rin, Ah-Un, and Jaken in that endless maze of branches, you know the one. I owe her a great deal for her releasing my sibling to the afterlife."

Sesshoumaru was silent, still. He knew about that, of course. The mindless struggle to break through, to get through. An endless maze with no entrance, and the tinge of her soul as it splintered apart the parasitic illusionist, killing it. Sweeping its existence from miles of dried, dead forest.

"But yes, Lord Sesshoumaru. You are correct. No mere human could do much of what she does." There was a trailing fragility to the old tree's words, as if unable to place something. "It would be best to return her to her friends."

"And if I refuse?" Sesshoumaru was far too dignified to be called stubborn. Stubborn was a word used for the young or stupid. Inuyasha was stubborn, he was not. He was iron-willed. "I will not go out of my way to aid my half-brother."

Sesshoumaru could argue his case if he so wanted to. Spun something out about how the bastard-whelp needed to learn responsibility and strength over his motley pack, for whom he put half-claims on. The miko was not owed to Inuyasha; Sesshoumaru did not have to relinquish her.

But in all reality, for the same reason he had traveled to Bokuseno, he was curious. Curious was another word, like that of stubborn, that Sesshoumaru often latched onto someone like Rin. The young, but not the stupid.

Bokuseno blinked, before somewhat of a wry expression crossed his old features. And a bit of resignation.

"Interesting." The magnolia mused, his branches rustling. "So you will keep her close? Knowing that she fears you?"

Sesshoumaru couldn't hold back the flex in his lips, a flash of the teeth, in a soundless snarl. "She does not fear me."

Bokuseno gruffly laughed, leaves shaking. "No no, I suppose not. Fears your actions, but not you. Does that frustrate you, Lord Sesshoumaru?"

One could argue that an ant did not fear the boot. But Kagome knew him, if only briefly. Had seen his anger and had tasted his power. She feared his reaction, but not him. She was not an ant in this situation.

"In part, I do feel like you fear her though."

"I fear nothing," Sesshoumaru responded concisely and coldly. His bones hurt, and his body vibrated. "I want to know what and how."

"If you are talking about your instance against the Gecko, the answer is 'there is no answer'. Few can accomplish healing- but even you have the capability of rendering one's death undone. How was she able to kill the Gecko, maim you, and heal her child in one smooth stroke? Remarkable."

"My father's fang has that boon, not I." It was automatic, akin to an instinctual response. It spilled from Sesshoumaru's lips without control and offered a severe distraction from the true wonderment: how did Kagome do such a thing? She hadn't killed him, but he had felt how easily-

No. He wouldn't say it would be easy. Perhaps if he was as weak as the gecko, he would have turned into a smeared, translucent mess.

"Ah ah- you wield it. It is your birthright, is it not? Oh, my, old minds do wonder. Now, I am sure that you will refuse my advice on giving her back to her friends and your brother, stubborn as you are- And you will discover what I cannot. Now, Sesshoumaru, I would be getting back to your pack."

Something dire froze within Sesshoumaru. The tree had not answered him. Had not given him what he wanted-

Yet, he could not cut the wood that bore the yokai. Would not.

"A piece of advice, Lord Sesshoumaru," The tree tittered on, voice wayward and soft. "Don't treat her so poorly. She is not a game for you to ponder."

Sesshoumaru pretended not to hear as he bent back his existence, pealing until he was energy splitting the air. Flying soundlessly through the atmosphere like a snapshot.

But, even before he reached the camp, he knew she wasn't there. And the absence of scent, the absence of her heartbeat.

There were few things that truly enraged Sesshoumaru. Few things truly and explicitly enraged him.

Very, very few. And he was able to add one to the proverbial list.

The scope of his being, his immense power, and his dictation had been overthrown lawlessly. She was to stay with the group until Inuyasha retrieved her. And he knew for sure his brother hadn't come through unknowingly.

He trailed her quickly through the woods, following the pulse of her soul as it flared like a beacon ahead of him- not as a calling, but as a warning. Her soul was forcing smaller, lesser yokai away in swarms as it left a burning feeling to creep over his skin.

Yet he was powerful, and his pride curdled his patience smoldering-

And then she was there, ahead of him in a small clearing, her back to him as she wielded what looked like a broken arrow in her hand, the end glinting an aggressive pink that would have made a lesser creature's hair stand on end.

Below. There was something under her, swirling under the earth in aggravated shapes. And it only took a second before she was stricken out of sight as something lunged through the earth and smacked against her side.

There was a crack and a scream- and Sesshoumaru paused in his approach. The wet slap of the worm's prostomium against her flesh had sounded hearty, a blunt blow that would surely result in trauma. Perhaps, even, her end.

Yet, no, it was the beast who thrashed loudly as if in the throes of death, its long slime-soaked side, the only thing visible to Sesshoumaru, frothing with mucus as the body whipped and squirmed around the forest. Then there was the smell of something acrid, something between burning and a deeper fetidness that hurt the nose before the worm demon shimmered and fell to dust.

He could smell her blood.

Sesshoumaru didn't move, standing statuesque where he had witnessed the felling of the demon. His rage mixed with interest, crass and calculating. Churning in him like an ugly concoction.

The straw. The camel. HIs teeth grit together, his jaw tensing.

"Ow-" A gasp, and a hiss of pain. "Shit-"

Sesshoumaru blinked. A moment cut between him and the place he knew Kagome to be-

A moment cut between him and her.

Suddenly, to her at least, he was there. His own aura was plunged through the area; saturating her in her prone state on the forest floor-

Her top, heavy and too large for her frame, had ridden up and under her breast. There was a sizable mark of blunt trauma blossoming against her side and false ribs. There was blood on her lips, dripping against her collar bone…

There was a moment that he expected her to look at him, to see the flash of a wild blue and to sense her rising ire-

-her eye bandages stood firm. But behind the linen flickered a purplish glow. Discolored with old stains of blood. They had been tightened after he left, sweeping over her brow in practiced folds. Her kit.

Sesshoumaru watched every single one of her muscles tense, her arm coming up as an impromptu shield as something unseen was clenched to her chest in her other hand.

Then he was on her, his hand around both of her wrists and his knee pressing itself firmly against her soft stomach, forcing air from her lips. The scent of her fear coursed into the air, riding the smell of blood as he was absorbed into her own flaring aura.

It was a heat behind his sternum, in his throat like acid. A fit of painful anger that had him breathing in hot waves. Something shaken up and stirred in his chest, a beast in the shape of a man.

He wanted to crush her into the ground. Like a mortar and pestle, he wanted to thin her into dust.

The audacity she had shown when she ignored his orders was nowhere to be seen as she cowardly shied away. Her face grimaced and pained as she fought against his grip on her wrists, one of her legs trying to force itself before them to keep him at length.

A sound like grinding bones, Sesshoumaru snarled. Loudly, viciously, as he bore down on her harder.

Instead of going limp as he expected, she made a horrifying noise as she tried to curl in on her side, her arm wrenching as she moved, popping and grinding in its socket. It disturbed him-

It disturbed him until her soul flushed away and retracted into her body- then, he was simply left angry at another strike against his specific instruction. Sapped and deranged, he snapped his teeth like a wild dog. Of which he most assuredly was.

"Stop." His voice was hot and rough, a snarl forming an accent around the word.

Kagome shuddered under him, her mouth open as she panted. Trembling, but finally still.

"Explain to me," A pause as he sucked in a hissing breath. Seething, churning, his soul clamped down on her own. "Why you disobeyed my order."

He withheld the itch, sudden and rampant, to remove the bandages covering her eyes. To do something to assert himself above her without causing further bodily harm.

Perhaps, battling an aggressive blow of curiosity- he had the upper hand, didn't he? All he needed to do was rip and tear-

Against his hand, he felt her own hand open as her blunt nails tickled his wrist. There, resting against her bloody palm, was a thin pink shard. A jewel shard, glimmering with potential and promises and everything that Sesshoumaru didn't need.

Yet, there was a piece of him that reluctantly understood. She had her own trial, as well as killing the spider, and it all cycled around these little shards of glass.

Sesshoumaru licked his teeth again. The itch was crawling along his limbs, his back, his throat-

Were his eyes red? Had he sprouted fur?

"Next time, you will wait for my assistance." And permission. And his watchful eye, his curiosity.

The woman, Kagome, shuddered from beneath him. The smell of her fear coating his mouth, thick and sticky. Her soul felt like a bird, its soft and hollow wings fleeting against his own. But he knew better-

He knew better!

Sesshoumaru had witnessed it. Witnessed the expulsion of sickness and the explosion of death-bringing power. Something that seeded in his head, something that rolled around his consciousness in quickened concentric that told him that if he didn't-

What was he doing?

Sesshoumaru paused, his mouth fixed into an open-mouth snarl, drool pooling onto Kagome's ribcage, sliding in between the taut skin of her bones and skin. Her heart was a drum in his ears, her power was held back-

"Why-" His voice was not there. The human word on his flayed, palmately tongue melted into a shallow growl.

Her face twitched, her eyes brows knitting further as her sweat-drenched throat moved in a swallow. "I- I sensed the jewel-"

He had watched as she killed the gecko. He watched as she healed her son. He had felt her power, the bone-shaking power- if she had watched too, in that stroke, he would have been mist. Pink mist and ash; blowing through the air like pollen off a flower.

Sesshoumaru knew about the jewel. He didn't care about the jewel, but he knew she was tied to it. That did not need explaining.

And yet she was so brittle. Blind, too. He could feel her bones in her wrist, he could see the pulse of blood in her veins..

He could snap her in half with his single, remaining hand. Bleed her out, destroy her-

But he couldn't. Just like Bokuseno- he wouldn't.

"No." Sesshoumaru let the air out of his nose, deflating with it as he held himself over her still form, pressed into the dirt. "No. Why haven't you killed me?"

Authors Note

I rewrote this. It had a much different ending where Sesshoumaru simply drug her up and walked her to camp, but I tried to reassess his personality. I figured that, maybe, I would simply go the dog route. All dogs have a breaking point, no matter their training. OH OH, a big thing that I LOVE is that Sesshoumaru has a really fucked up tongue. I drew some fan art a year back or so of Sesshoumaru's dog form so I was referencing his image and when I was looking at his face I realized he has a split tongue. It's like a fucking maple leaf. I will reference this until I die.

Also: If you are sending me website links, please tell me why you are sending them. Because if I just see blog spots devoted to Rin and Sesshoumaru or Kagura and Sesshoumaru, I am not sure what to do with that. I haven't written anything to honor those ships (as I ship neither, and I am kinda really against the Rin one since that's really creepy), so it throws me off when they appear.