Author: Nefertili
Fandom: Inuyasha
Rating: PG13
Pairing(s): Sesshoumaru/Kikyou, Sesshoumaru/OC
Genre(s): Romance, Angst, Adventure, AU
Warning(s): Battle scenes, betrayal, over-anger (if there is such a word), fluff... What more can I say?
Disclaimer: None of the characters, except perhaps some, are mine. They are owned by Rumiko Takahashi.
Summary: Kikyou, being saved from peril by Sesshoumaru, joins him in a quest against Naraku and one of his allies, who happened to share a past one-sided relationship with the Demon Lord. SesshKik!
A/N: /Bars the doors to keep out people carrying pitchforks and shouting, "Kill Kikumo! Kill Kikumo!"/ Whew, the last chapter sort of destroyed whatever pity my reviewers had for the ex-Princess of the Deer Clan, eh? /Eyes the sobbing figure of Kikumo in the corner/
Me: Come on, we've got this story to finish. We're off to have some action in this chapter!
Kikumo: (Takes out Hiroko Kama) Why did you make all those people hate me? I don't wanna be a meanie!
Me: (Takes out a badminton racket and slaps her on the head with it) Because that's how things are supposed to be!
Kikumo: ...Ouch. T.T
...o0o...
Naraku's lips curved up in an evil grin to feel the auras of Sesshoumaru and Kikyou. The Deer Demoness was certainly not fabricating things when she told him that his hated Priestess had allied herself with the Lord of the Western Lands. It would be a perfect time to see how those two were getting along.
And Kikumo? A flicker of amusement went across the evil hanyou's eyes. He was a master of seeing hate and how it devours one's being, and something had obviously changed in Kikumo. She, however, was an elusive one, and though she carried out his bidding that she disables Sesshoumaru from the protection of the Tenseiga and to lure both the Priestess and the taiyoukai into his castle by kidnapping that little girl, she had become more wary of his presence since Kikyou injured her.
She spoke in riddles, and she hardly made use of her powers before his eyes. Naraku, proud as he was, had also become suspicious of Kikumo. She was clearly hiding something, and that would be her undoing.
'Your powers, my dear, will soon be mine,' Naraku thought to himself as he stood up to meet his two challengers.
...o0o...
"Naraku's scent is killing my nose!" Jaken complained, wrinkling his face in disgust. He had dismounted from Ah-Un at a safe distance from the dark castle and had trotted beside the watchful figures of the Demon Prince and the Priestess for the rest of the suspense-laden journey.
"He had meant us to come here," Sesshoumaru muttered back. His hand had roamed to the red handle of the Toukijin and had assumed his fighting stance. Beside him, Kikyou was no less vigilant, her arrow positioned in a perfect angle on her bow. "He had even let down his barrier to let us pass."
"Do you think they know about...about our..." Kikyou asked Sesshoumaru uncertainly, hoping that he will get what she's trying to say.
"It does not make any difference now," was Sesshoumaru's reply. He got her message, all right. Does he presume that Naraku and Kikumo knew about their secret relationship? Kikumo had probably been spying on them all the time; she would have told their fiend whatever information she had managed to procure.
Jaken opened his mouth to ask his Lord as to what the miko meant, but the words became stuck to his throat when the figure of Naraku, clad in robes of dark violet and black, emerged at the door of the fortress, looking down at them from where he stood at the very top of the flight of stairs that led to the entrance of the castle.
Kikyou's eyes hardened upon seeing Naraku, he who was her most hated enemy and whom she had longed to kill since she was resurrected. All traces of emotion left her face, and the only thoughts that echoed in her mind at that moment were those of the hanyou being banished to Hell, where he belonged.
Naraku smirked to see the three figures at the foot of the stairs. That little toad cowering behind Sesshoumaru's heels, he could take care of easily. That is, if the scaly demon would muster enough courage to face him. His eyes roamed towards the cold amber eyes of the Demon Lord. Kikumo was really useful to him in her own way. Without the Tenseiga, the platinum-haired youkai will surely be a lot more vulnerable to his attacks. Naraku, however, spared himself a word of caution. Even he had to admit that Sesshoumaru's Demon Powers were still far superior to his at that moment.
A mixture of hate and lust passed over the half-demon's dark eyes when he beheld the last figure of all, the one he loved and hated most. Kikyou. Even the thought of that bitter name was enough to make him flinch. As long as that Priestess lives, his victory will never be secured. She will stop at nothing to ensure that he will not get away with the Shikon no Tama, and how was he to kill her when the heart of that wretched thief still resides inside him?
An uncanny silence reigned for a long time. Naraku went over his planned steps in his mind for one last time before he spoke, an evil smile twisting his features.
"If you came for the little girl, worry not Sesshoumaru-sama, for she still yet lives," his hissing voice echoed throughout the barren landscape, dark eyes narrowing to anticipate Sesshoumaru's reaction. "And she's safe where she is now."
Kikyou was about to reply, but Sesshoumaru was the one who spoke ahead of her.
"Don't assume that I am here to save her," his cold, condescending voice said, successfully rendering Naraku speechless.
Naraku's little smirk widened. So, the Demon Lord did not wish to become a pawn in his games, eh? Naraku should have known better; Sesshoumaru had added himself to the hanyou's long list of enemies since Naraku gave him that despicable human arm.
This time, Kikyou stepped forward and drew her bow taut. Naraku better not spend his time in worthless conversations.
"You made a mistake of trying to lure us to your filthy domain," Kikyou said, her mahogany eyes flashing menacingly. "It's a coward of you to make use of other beings to protect your own skin."
Every word that left Kikyou's mouth had a far greater effect on their enemy than Sesshoumaru's own haughty words. Kikyou smirked in satisfaction at the ugly frown that crossed Naraku's face and at his hands clenching in utter annoyance.
"I will destroy you in your fake body soon enough," he hissed at her. "No amount of alliance shall save you now, Kikyou." The human form of his hands began to melt and elongate into tentacles. The long tendrils that were once Naraku's fingers shot out at the company, but Jaken was the only one who had a change in facial expression. He cowered behind Sesshoumaru and Kikyou, fearful of Naraku's attack.
Kikyou calmly observed Naraku's little metamorphosis. Taking this as her signal, the Priestess aimed the arrow at the figure at the top of the stairs and let go of the bowstring.
A cloud of dust puffed up from the dirty ground as the arrow glowed white in its holy powers. A trail of white followed it like the dust tail of a comet as the arrow neared its target. Sesshoumaru unflinchingly watched as she delivered the first move, and beneath his cold exterior, he was deeply impressed and proud of his beloved.
"You should have allowed me to attack him first," Sesshoumaru whispered, letting his silvery hair fly back from his face at the force of Kikyou's flying arrow. Kikyou's eyes darted in his direction, and she caught his little smirk. She let a corner of her lips curve up, for she knew that Sesshoumaru was only teasing her. Kikyou was grateful to her beloved for giving her a reason to smile amidst the stickiness of their situation.
"You'll have your shot at him," Kikyou whispered back, drawing out another of her purity arrows from her quiver and poised it on her bow. A dust cloud still obscured their visions as to what became of Naraku, but both of them knew that Naraku won't allow himself to be defeated easily. "This is only the beginning."
Gradually, the dark bands of dust began to settle once more on the ground, and they beheld the body of their fiend in pieces, suspended in the foul air of the fortress. But his head, floating on a fragment of his shoulders, was still grinning evilly, indicating that he was not finished yet.
Sesshoumaru could only grunt to show his apparent boredom as he finally whipped out his sword and dashed up the stairs in quick leaps, Kikyou following closely behind, her bow on the alert once more. Jaken, realizing that his master and the miko had left him vulnerable at the foot of the flight of stairs, darted up after them as fast as his short legs could carry him, putting his confidence in the power of the taiyoukai and his ally.
...o0o...
"Naraku's in there!" Kagome screamed out to her companions, pointing at the dark castle up ahead.
"Let's go and get him!" Inuyasha growled, taking hold of the hilt of a battered-looking sword on his side. Drawing it from its dark sheath, he transformed the Tessaiga into its true fang form and went off in a quicker pace towards the forbidding fortress.
...o0o...
"Don't hide from me, Naraku," Sesshoumaru's deep voice echoed in the torch-lit chamber spreading before them. He and Kikyou had pursued the flying bits and pieces of Naraku deeper into his fortress. The Priestess' holy arrows were flying one after the other as she sought to target the evil hanyou where he kept his heart, but Naraku was conceivably cunning and had evaded much of Toukijin's blows and the white spirits of the arrows.
Seeing the enclosed chamber up ahead, Kikyou stopped in her tracks and pulled her bow taut before her. There was only one entrance to the dark room, and she knew that Naraku might intend to trap them into the chamber.
"Don't follow him, Sesshoumaru," she counseled him. "He'll trap us in there."
Sesshoumaru, being the skilled fighter that he was, knew of such tactics even before Kikyou told him about it. He had slowed his steps to see the floating remains of their enemy enter the suspicious-looking chamber, and his sword gleamed dully in the flickering light of the torches placed at regular intervals in the walls. His ears gave a little twitch and his amber eyes flashed with anger to hear Naraku taunt them in his nearly decapitated head, his coal black eyes dancing with malice and amusement in the faint light.
"Ever the clever one, Kikyou, eh?" Naraku sneered, his body pieces floating farther into the chamber, as though compelling them to run after him. "Then I trust that you will let me escape again, my friends?"
"Shut that mouth of yours and do some real business, pathetic one," Sesshoumaru said in evenly measured tones. He took a step forward and assumed an offensive stance with the Toukijin. "Running away will do you no good."
Naraku's twisted lips further twisted into yet another malicious grin. "Why don't you come in? I will grant you all the combat you wish for, then."
"You must have gone twisted, indeed, to think that we will yield to you," Kikyou countered the evil fiend, and she was about to release the arrow targeted at Naraku's head when Sesshoumaru's blurry figure darted past her, making locks of her raven hair fly. She looked up at shock to see the Demon Lord sprint up and slash at Naraku's grinning face with his sword, further dividing the hanyou into more pieces. "What have you done, Sesshoumaru?"
"Getting his true intentions out," Sesshoumaru said flatly. Naraku's flying body pieces were circling him now, and were coming closer and closer as each moment passes. It was only now that they understood Naraku's reasons. He intends to absorb Sesshoumaru's full-demon powers for his own. Alarmed by this, Kikyou took several steps forward, her bow drawn. Sesshoumaru, however, halted her.
"Stay where you are, Kikyou," he commanded, not reacting to the apparent danger Naraku's bits and pieces pose for him. "Let him do as he pleases, and we will finish him off."
"But at what price?" Kikyou answered back, making a great effort to hide the concerned edge in her voice. She could not bear to lose Sesshoumaru. "I did not offer my allegiance to you to watch you become Naraku! Get out of that place, now!"
"How touching," the disembodied voice of Naraku echoed in the chamber. "I did not expect you, dear Kikyou, would actually go so far as to ally yourself with Lord Sesshoumaru to defeat me. And you two are doing well for a team, I have to admit." Kikyou noted that he showed much disinterest in the topic.
'Does this mean that he does not know about what's happening between me and Sesshoumaru or is he simply hiding this knowledge?' Kikyou thought to herself. But her thoughts were interrupted sharply when a numerous pieces of Naraku's body began to converge and metamorphose to reform his evil face framed by curling tresses. Just then, she saw a large chunk hovering just above that hateful face. Naraku's telltale spider scar was imprinted on that large mass.
Sesshoumaru followed Kikyou's line of sight, and he knew what she was thinking of. Target Naraku's heart. Target the spider scar.
Unfortunately, Naraku seemed to have read Kikyou's intentions, and just when the arrow was released from the bow, a huge vine broke out from the stone ground and swiftly wrapped its spiny tendrils around the arrow's shaft, thus splitting it neatly in two even before it could reach its target.
Kikyou kept back her amazement at this as she tried to pull another arrow from her quiver, but the vines won't let her have it. They shot at her with their long arms and knocked the bow from her hands. Before Kikyou could recover her senses, the large plant had lifted her off from the ground and moved her to an inconspicuous corner of the chamber, numerous tendrils wrapping themselves around her wrists, ankles and neck, rendering her immobile. The feel of the cold plant pressing against her neck felt rather familiar...
"This is Kikumo's doing!" she managed to choke out, the vine further tightening its hold on her.
"Exactly," Naraku said, amused at her trouble. "Her little plants do not seem to like you, do they?"
Sesshoumaru's amber eyes narrowed into thin slits to see Kikyou's difficult situation. He was about to dash towards her and sever the plant's tendrils from their strong hold on Kikyou, but the pieces of Naraku that were hovering around him had sprung down and began to encase him in a black muck of demon parts, purposing to suck out his powers.
"I would have allowed you to come to her aid, but I chose not to," Naraku told Sesshoumaru idly, his bodiless head turning to face the full demon. "I have some other business with you, Sesshoumaru-sama. How does it feel to not have the Tenseiga with you?"
"That is none of your business, Naraku," Sesshoumaru said, casting a vile glare at the hanyou as he was rooted on the spot by the sticky youkai parts that are slowly engulfing him.
Naraku smirked. "Pity, then. Kikumo hasn't allowed herself to be parted from that useless weapon of yours since she managed to get it. What have you to say about this behavior of hers?"
Sesshoumaru's lips remained shut.
Naraku sighed, rolling his eyes slightly to the left. "And, little toad," Naraku's evil eyes darted towards Jaken's direction. After hiding behind a pillar for most of the time, the taiyoukai's retainer had broken free of his hiding place and had tried to come to Sesshoumaru's assistance. A vine tendril, however, overtook him and was now holding him upside-down above the ground by one of his feet. "You'd better just stay there."
Sesshoumaru chose to keep his silence, and the look in his eyes was unreadable as he calmly stood, wrapped around in Naraku's filthy parts as though it meant nothing to him. Kikyou's concerned eyes met his impassive-looking amber ones, and Sesshoumaru nodded slightly in a rough assurance that he was still fine.
Suddenly, a bright flash coming from the outside of the fortress diverted Naraku's attention, and the surprised look in his dark eyes were evident to realize that his barrier had been broken. Sesshoumaru's nose immediately caught an all-too-familiar scent that he so despised. His half-brother...he was there.
"Kikumo, stop the intruders!" Naraku yelled out in his loudest.
But Kikyou had chosen that very moment to call forth her miko powers, and blue holy flame shot out of her hands and engulfed the vines where they touched her. Dropping down rather unsteadily on the cold floor, Kikyou ran and picked up her bow where it lay discarded among the dark wooden boards. At once, she fished out an arrow from her quiver - one of her last ones - and aimed it at Naraku where his body parts had enfolded Sesshoumaru.
In a flash of sacred light, Sesshoumaru was free, Naraku's jumble of demon parts flying apart into smaller shapeless chunks. Placing her own safety at the back of her mind, Kikyou ran past the random floating pieces and flung her arms around her beloved's neck.
"Sesshoumaru!" two voices shouted out as one.
At that moment, the fortress shook as clashing auras fought their way into Naraku's lair.
...o0o...
Rin was jolted awake from her sleep by Kikumo. The Demoness had on her hand a naginata, but what caught Rin's eye was a familiar sword that now hung from the woman's waist. Why, isn't this...?
"No time to explain, Rin," Kikumo's hurried voice said. "We have to go now." Before Rin could react, the Deer youkai had lifted her up in one arm and dashed out of the room with such speed that the little girl tightened her hold around Kikumo's neck for fear that she will be ripped from the Demoness.
...o0o...
One blow from the Tessaiga was all it took for the barrier wound around the dark fortress to disappear.
"How did you trace the barrier's edge?" Miroku queried.
Inuyasha's nose wrinkled. "Feh, my brother's scent was here...and strangely, I smell Kikyou as well." His companions' eyes widened at this last piece of information.
"What could they be doing here?" Kagome remarked, getting hold of her bow for some action.
"It's going to be quite a reunion for us," Sango added. Suddenly, their little conversation was interrupted by a swift-moving figure that broke its way into their circle. Out of the blue, Kagome grunted in pain. An invisible blade had cut her right arm.
"Kagome!" Shippou, who was clinging on to the girl's shoulder's gasped in alarm to see blood flowing freely from the wound.
"What's that?" was the only statement that reverberated in their heads for that moment. The figure ran around a bend of rock before lashing at them again, this time cutting a gash through Sango's right cheek.
They all stood on alert now. Inuyasha lashed out many times with his Tessaiga, but the nearly invisible figure dodged his blows effortlessly, and had even managed to land several hard blows on him.
"It's no use!" Kagome said, fitting an arrow on her bow amidst her bleeding arm. But how could she shoot a target she can't even see? "Whatever this thing is, it's too fast for us!"
"The Wind Tunnel, Miroku!" Sango exclaimed. "It might slow this thing down!"
Taking the demon exterminator's suggestion, the young monk untied the beads that kept the blue cloth on his right hand in place. Shouting Inuyasha a brief warning to stand out of the way, Miroku unleashed the Kazaana on his hand. Sango was correct. The speedy figure began to take a definite form as the Wind Tunnel threatened to take her into its infinite depths.
Suddenly, Miroku recoiled in pain and he instinctively tied the cloth around his right had again. Sango dashed to his side, wanting to know what ailed him.
"Saimyoushou," was the only word that came from the pained monk's lips. The eyes of his companions then darted towards the now visible figure of a green-eyed Demoness that had long braided hair. In her right hand, she held an ebony black naginata, from her obi belt hung a rather familiar-looking sword, and her left hand cradled the dazed figure of a little girl who could not have been older than nine years. Around her, a swarm of Naraku's hell's insects began to appear, apparently to aid the cold-looking she-youkai.
"Who are you? Why are you here?" Inuyasha demanded of the woman, standing alert with his Tessaiga.
"Sesshoumaru's little brother," the woman muttered, an evil smile breaking on her lips. "I would ask the same question to you."
"I am not little," Inuyasha grumbled. "But if you are on Naraku's side, I find no reason to let you live any longer." With those words, he launched an attack of Kaze no Kizu at the anonymous woman. She managed to evade the attack, as Kagome had distracted him by saying that he ought to be considerate of the dazed-looking little girl that the woman was holding.
"You shouldn't have distracted me!" Inuyasha scolded the girl.
"You should not include that little girl in your attack!" Kagome answered back.
Taking the momentary argument as a cue, Kikumo sprang up the stairs of the fortress and cradled the head of Rin against her shoulder. It seems her speed was too much for the little girl, as she still looked disoriented and her eyes were unfocused. But she doesn't have much time for that. Inuyasha's company was now pursuing her.
...o0o...
Kikumo's eyes widened to catch a glimpse of Sesshoumaru encased in Naraku's body parts. What was Naraku doing? Was he absorbing Sesshoumaru? He never told her about this...his name left her throat in an anxious scream before she could get a good hold of herself.
She was not alone. Kikyou had called out to him as soon as her arrow had shattered Naraku into little pieces, and she had ran towards Sesshoumaru and embraced him, obviously thankful that he was alive. Kikumo knew about their relationship because she had seen them kiss through her koto's visions, but she had kept this knowledge to herself. She knew that Sesshoumaru would now protect Kikyou and not her, and that Kikyou does love him in return. Kikumo had realized that she still somehow loves Sesshoumaru, and seeing them together with her own eyes was enough to make her heart break.
Out of a sudden, the Demoness reeled out to feel something hard and flying hit her back. Grunting in pain, her eyes took on an angry shade of red to see that Sango had aimed the hiraikotsu at her. Kikumo unconsciously dropped Rin and the Hiroko Kama.
Throughout all the confusion, Rin felt her body drop to the ground and finally got her eyes focused after all the fast-speed dashes in Kikumo's arms. The little girl first saw Jaken as he was dangling hopelessly from a large vine's tendrils, and realizing that she was unguarded for the time being, had come to her master's retainer's rescue, kicking at the plant until it finally dropped Jaken to the ground.
"Jaken-sama!" She glanced around and her chocolate brown eyes widened to see Sesshoumaru-sama and Kikyou-sama embracing at the center of the dark chamber.
"REVEAL YOURSELF, NARAKU!" Inuyasha's loud yell nearly made the fortress shake in its fundaments, but as he fought his way into the room, he nearly dropped the Tessaiga, too lost for words.
His other companions, too, stopped with their mouths open. Sesshoumaru, the cold Demon Lord who will stop at nothing to gain his younger brother's Tessaiga, and Kikyou, the Tragic Priestess, were there, embracing.
Sesshoumaru immediately pulled apart from Kikyou to feel the foreign auras assaulting the chamber, and his eyes briefly met with his half-brother's furious ones in the process. No words were enough to express the anger, the surprise, the hurt, the confusion...all mixed up in the younger silver-haired one's eyes.
Naraku, however, jolted them from their thoughts as he gave the order for Kikumo to dispatch of Rin, who was still trying to waken an unconscious Jaken.
At this, Kikyou ran into action and got hold of Kikumo's fawn locks before she could make any further move. Kikumo, with an angry screech, managed to fight the Priestess off and she got hold of her Hiroko Kama. With a flick of her fingers, she gathered and locked Naraku's formless parts into an energy shield and proceeded to sprint away in a black cloud.
"I still have got your sword, Sesshoumaru," she said as she went. "And I am not giving it up just yet."
Before she could be fully gone, however, Sesshoumaru had sent an energy blast at her with the Toukijin. It hit her clean on her left arm, staining her sleeve with crimson blood upon contact. Before she could help it, Kikumo looked back at him, and there was no mistaking all the hurt and sadness imprinted on her deep green eyes as she disappeared with Naraku.
...o0o...
Okay...we're off to a little confrontation next chapter. It seems the two inu siblings will have to fight over more than just swords now... ;)