The Guise of Apathy
By: Rachel Elizabeth
"I will tell you one thing; however, my brother will no longer want you . . . like that." He looked at her through narrowed eyes; he assessed her, made her feel her worth to him. His look told her that the brief moments of banter and companionship had meant nothing to him. As if to drag her down into an endless pit he added, "You are marked—filthy. If you should belong to anyone or love anyone, it can be no one but me. You should feel honored that I have marked you so, lowly human." Without so much as a glance back towards her, he stormed from the room, his feet echoing loudly on the floor, his anger clear in his words and his steps. Kagome spoke no words, she felt angry and miserable in one breath. 'No longer want you' . . . 'no longer want you' . . . 'no longer' . . . 'want you—like that.'
—Escape is to contemplation as...—
It wasn't fair and that was all there was to it. That brute had completely ruined any rational thought that she could have possibly made to aide her escape. She had never truly intended on staying in this castle for longer than was necessary; her original plan had been to figure out what diabolical idea Sesshoumaru had had that involved her in some queer way. That reason, more than any other, she thought, was still the main reason that she was still residing in this castle. If she had put her mind to it, she didn't doubt that she could have gotten away from Sesshoumaru at any point and there were a number of reasons as to why. He never watched her himself; he always allowed his servants to do the arduous task of taking care of her personal needs, even forcing them to follow her around the castle if necessary. Kagome didn't think for a minute that she couldn't outwit some of his more dim-witted servants. Well, she had finally had it.
That was it; she had had enough of this castle and its weird ways and even more than enough of its awful prince. She hated thinking of Sesshoumaru in those terms, for what man—be it dog, or whatever—like him could possibly be something as important as a prince? However, everyone in the castle seemed to regard him as such. How disgusting. It really just meant that he had brain-washed so many poor, innocent servants into believing his rubbish that they actually took whatever he said to heart. Besides, what could the man actually be doing for these people? Probably little to nothing. Kagome rarely ever saw him go outside the castle unless it had something to do with Inu Yasha or Rin, and where, exactly, did that leave the village folk? He probably thought nothing of the poor, starving people in the village.
As much as he had frightened her the first time she had left the castle—no, she really hadn't forgotten about that—she wasn't going to be deterred this time. She could absolutely not stay in this suffocating castle any longer. The brute had made it appallingly clear that he wanted nothing to do with her and that no one would ever want anything to do with her, so why waste her time when she could be wasting it at school, in her own time, in her own bed, with her own lovable cat, Buyo? She could think of little else but of getting back to her mom and her friends in the twentieth century. It probably didn't help that she was going stir crazy. No one would want to be stuck in an over-bearing household like this one, so why should she have to endure it even if the brute did say that she had no choice? She always had a choice. She was Kagome; there was always an easy way out of everything, hadn't she learned that in school?
Now was definitely not the time to be contemplating school; she had a lot of work to do if she ever expected to escape this castle. It was also going to be a lot easier said than done.
Sesshoumaru barely managed to keep quiet in his study. He had found himself in the annoying habit of humming to himself. He had oftentimes heard the wench singing some silly little tune to herself and he had, recently, found himself to be doing the same. As if having to endure her presence wasn't enough of an annoyance, he was now picking up her habits. That was most assuredly the last time he would ever get near the girl again. He had become extremely too close to the girl and completely too intimate. Though the notion of intimacy with the girl was not as repugnant as he had originally thought it would be; he would still not allow himself to become entangled in such a relationship with a human as his father had. He would not turn out to be a failure.
He would just stop seeing the girl, for now, until Inu Yasha came to get her and then he would execute the plan as he saw fit. He planned on ripping out Inu Yasha's heart and eating it alive. His brother would face a reality so devastating he would be hard-pressed to give it up. Sesshoumaru thought about the current schedule. It was past time and Sesshoumaru had little time to contemplate how his brother would react if he knew the news. However, it didn't matter anymore. Sesshoumaru had no one else to rely on and he would not start relying on his brother now. His brother would accept the change or face the consequences; namely, Kagome's consequences. His refusal would be her death and Sesshoumaru cared little. This reason, more than any other, was why it was detrimental for him to be around the wench.
He heard a quiet rustle outside his door, but paid it little heed until he saw a little head sticking through his doorway. Leave it to Rin to pick the most inappropriate times to want to spend time with him. "Come," Sesshoumaru spoke with confidence.
However, Rin stopped two feet inside the doorway and looked up at him. Something in her features spoke volumes to him and his first thought was that perhaps she had eaten something that had not agreed with her, but after looking at her expression change to that of apprehension, Sesshoumaru decided that something was wrong. The next logical thought to follow the earlier was that something had happened with Kagome and Sesshoumaru raised his eyebrow. "Rin, there is no room for secrets in this house. Tell me what has happened."
Rin frantically looked around the room, as to avoid eye contact and spoke in a very mild voice, "Kagome-san has wandered outside the castle. Rin does not want anything to happen to her, since Rin remembers Sesshoumaru-sama speaking about how dangerous it is late at night."
Sesshoumaru's reaction was immediate. Instead of waiting to hear the rest of Rin's story, he flew outside, intent on finding the silly wench and teaching her a lesson once and for all. He had told her that she should not leave his castle and he had told her of the consequences. He had thought she had learned, but obviously, it was time for a re-education of the unpleasant things that happened when one disobeyed his orders. When he reached the outside of his castle, Sesshoumaru briefly paused to see if he could pick up the annoying girls scent, but she did not seem to be traceable at that point. The girl was either too far away from the castle or she had found a way to block her scent from him, and Sesshoumaru doubted the latter.
Very quickly Sesshoumaru started to walk again hoping that he would soon find the wench, for he had no want of being outside his castle this late at night when there were still things that needed to be done. Once he found the wench she would be sorry that she ever tried to escape, he had thought that after the first fiasco she had learned a valuable lesson but apparently the girl thought nothing of what had happened. Besides, how far could one human, especially one such as herself, get this late at night with prowlers about?
She had run over thirty minutes and had not stopped until she had heard running water. The closer she had come to the noise the louder it began and she found a small stream to rest by. She had also heard from somewhere—probably that impertinent dog—that water erased one's scent temporarily to be hidden behind the pure scent of water. Perhaps she could sleep here for the night and never have Sesshoumaru trace the steps that she had made, though she doubted otherwise. Figuring that she had run quite far enough, and that the water would cover her scent, Kagome leaned against a tree that was near and started to drift, thinking of her family's faces when she finally came back to them. She would be so happy to be back in her own bed, with her cat.
Sesshoumaru thought briefly of the things that he would tell the silly girl when he finally found her—for it was not a question of if he would find her, for there was no question that he would find her. The question became whether or not he would kill the insolent human for disregarding his rules and leaving the castle. This was not a game that could be played and won—this was a game of survival of the fittest and when it came down to it, the human had no knowledge of how to survive outside his castle. What did the girl think that she was accomplishing by her show of bravery?
Kagome woke with a start and realized that she had been asleep less than ten minutes. She didn't know what was wrong with her sense of time, but sleeping outside as she was, she realized that she missed the soft comfort of a bed that Sesshoumaru had provided. Perhaps she had been slightly rash running outside the castle, but she knew that there was no turning back now. She couldn't even contemplate the situation she would have entered in to if she returned to the castle. She could just see the smug look on Sesshoumaru's face when she returned, brow beaten and exhausted . . .
What was the matter with him? Even if the girl had somehow managed to find her companions it would be easy to take her again, as it had been the first time. The dense half-breed was too busy fawning over that corpse to notice when there was trouble in his own camp. And where exactly did that leave the simpering wench? Well, that was very apparent; it left her misguided and . . . alone. It didn't matter, however; because he, too, was only using her as the mutt had used her to find the jewel pieces. He briefly wondered at her worth before he realized that the contemplation of that human would end up being the death of him. Since when had he so much time to think about a silly human as he was currently?
Well, there was no way that she was going to go back to that castle unless she was hog-tied and beaten. First, she had had the injustice of being used to find the jewel shards, which she had eventually come to terms with because she had fallen in love with Inu Yasha. Then, she had had to compete with a corpse—a corpse, what sort of competition was that? However, to a misguided mutt that was dissuaded easily otherwise, she supposed that it wasn't too hard to make him stray from what was considered natural. And as if that wasn't bad enough, he had kissed her—when had she become so belligerent about that kiss?—and run back to the corpse once again. Furthermore, as if being snatched away from her group of friends wasn't bad enough, she had been taken away by a brute of a man that thought little to nothing of her feelings.
There were no redeeming qualities associated with that human. Ever since she had first stayed at his castle she had caused nothing but trouble and Sesshoumaru would admit—if only to himself—that he could fully understand why his brother was constantly yelling at the girl, even if he himself thought it asinine to waste so much energy. She was human, boisterous, opinionated, stubborn, disrespectful, disobedient, obnoxious, human . . . loyal to a fault, friendly, kind, and she kissed as if she was barely of age to produce heirs. Upon rumination, he thought of what he must do and stopped. He hadn't thought that he would grow—though unwillingly—attached to the girl. But of course he hadn't. Becoming attached to a girl like that at this point in his plans would only complicate matters and ruin his plans. Besides, what man—be it dog or otherwise—would fall for a human with so long a list of faults?
As a conclusion to everything that had happened with Inu Yasha, she now had to deal with the same injustices with his insufferable brother. Though neither would admit it; these two people were more alike than either of them would acknowledge. It was like déjà vu, everything that had happened with Inu Yasha was happening in an even more absurd way with his brother, Sesshoumaru. Now that she thought about it, that statement was truer than she'd like to admit. First, she had to deal with his terrible attitude, then she had to deal with his unfaithfulness—wait, did she just admit to herself that Sesshoumaru was unfaithful to her? Kami, what was wrong with her? How could Sesshoumaru be unfaithful to her? He hadn't even a lover; well, unless you called that . . . episode in the foyer being unfaithful. And now, after everything had happened that was positively crushing her positive nature, he had kissed her—Kagome snorted, let him call it a bite, that jerk. It was just like Inu Yasha, next he'd be running off with that—that woman again.
The smell hit him so hard he would have fallen over, if he had been anyone else. She thought that she could drown out her scent with water, but the girl didn't know that that was only a myth. Only low-leveled youkai wouldn't be able to smell the girl; once again, her luck was indefinite, however; with a dog's sense of smell she could be easily traced out not thirty or so meters from her hiding spot in the water. Sesshoumaru could just think of all the things that he was going to tell her when he finally saw her. If she thought that she would be able to try this little stunt again she was going to be sadly mistaken. Impudent wench. To think that she could escape so easily was almost laughable. No matter; he would force her to realize to whom it was she belonged.
Feh, stupid girl, it figures that she would have taken the comment he had made about water to heart. What had been meant only as a joke had ended up being ingrained in that silly girl's head. Well, that figured. He couldn't say anything without having to explain the true meaning behind his words. Shippou sniffled on his back. The little runt must have picked up her scent, too.
"Is something the matter, Shippou?" Sango asked, worry clear in her expression and in her body language.
"I think I smell her!"
"Inu Yasha?" Miroku hoped Shippou was not just on a loose trail once again. It had already occurred three times today and neither Sango nor he was in the mood to go chasing after dead ends.
"Yea, it's that dumb girl. She's near the stream," before anything else could be communicated to the monk and taiji-ya, they started running towards the small stream. "Wait!" Inu Yasha yelled at them, albeit to no avail, "Now's really not the time to be telling you this but—"
They all arrived at the scene at the precise moment when Sesshoumaru had, once again, ungracefully, picked up Kagome's kicking, and screaming, body. Inu Yasha slammed to a halt and muttered, "Sesshoumaru!"
Kagome stopped dead in her tracks and cringed. The first thought that ran through her mind was, Inu Yasha is going to die. Kagome's second reaction to Inu Yasha's voice was that of apprehension, what would he think of her now that she had the mark of his elder brother? She wondered idly if she had changed in the last couple of months, it had been so long since she had been able to spend time with her friends. True, she had thought of running away to go back to her world, but it would have been eventually thought of that she had perhaps returned to her own world. At one point or another she was going to have to face the consequences. She just hoped that Inu Yasha would be as understanding as she thought he was. There was no turning back now and she had a feeling that Sesshoumaru was not going to be so merciful.
Kagome didn't know exactly what his plans were, but she knew that they had something to do with Inu Yasha and that they excluded the Tetsusaiga. This thought lead to one obvious conclusion where Inu Yasha was concerned; his death. However, the fact that Sesshoumaru now was within meters of his brother, the stupid fool should have let her go immediately when he had smelled Inu Yasha. Nevertheless, Sesshoumaru had still grabbed her and threw her over his shoulders and turned his back on the smell. Even Kagome had heard the leaves rustling in the other direction and the blatant crunch of fallen branches—okay, that and she had heard Sango yelling "Kagome!"; but it was inevitable that Sesshoumaru had smelled his brother long ago before he had even found her. So what exactly were his plans?
Sesshoumaru barely turned around towards his brother when he had spoken. "Do not speak so casually to me, Inu Yasha." It was the first time that Kagome had ever heard Sesshoumaru speak in a civilized tone of voice when addressing his brother. At this comment, Sesshoumaru gently set Kagome on the ground, in front of him. Instead of the symphony that she thought would go through her head when Sesshoumaru finally allowed her to leave, however, Kagome stood, mute, stupid, her back not inches away from Sesshoumaru, her heart in absolute disarray; she stared at the ground unrecognizably. When she finally had enough courage to lift her eyes to her friends, a single thought went through her mind; Inu Yasha can smell him on me.
Kagome, however, did not notice the blatant possessiveness that was deep within Sesshoumaru's glance when he had set her down. The minute that Sango and Miroku had stepped forward to hug their friend, Sesshoumaru had uncharacteristically frowned in displeasure. Neither his frown, nor Kagome's aloofness disturbed either of these two friends, for both went after her immediately. Their first concern was Kagome's safety and it mattered little to either that Sesshoumaru had not, in fact, relinquished his control over her. However, the minute that the two friends had become inches away from grabbing her, Sesshoumaru let out a tiny growl for their benefit. Sango and Miroku both glanced up at Sesshoumaru.
"Kagome?" Miroku was worried; it was aberrant of her that she had not run towards them in the first place. It was even more abnormal when she took a step backwards, into Sesshoumaru's arms. When both the friends looked back towards Inu Yasha, he was snarling, his face so contorted that neither Sango nor Miroku dared utter another word.
"He's marked her," Inu Yasha growled out.
Miroku and Sango looked back at Kagome and at once saw the tiny cut along her lip. Kagome looked at Sango and Miroku and her eyes pleaded with them to understand, but neither of them knew what they could do.
"Inu Yasha, my dear brother," Sesshoumaru spoke carefully and scathingly. "It is time for truths. Our father has left you with a decision to make."
