Title: Cocoon Crash

Author: Serra-Winter

Disclaimer: I don't own anything except for a pack of cigarettes and my trusty ol' lighter.

A/N: My first attempt at writing a fanfiction. Be gent-eel

He harms himself who does harm to another, and the evil plan is most harmful to the planner.- Hesiod

1.
Fading out

It was night when their little party arrived at the palace, a cheesy full moon hanging in the sky, which only fed the idea that her life had just been one very bad horror movie since yesterday morning.

She felt bloodless, lifeless, like she was dead but still being, and her mind barely registered the hands that were on her, crude and uncaring. They dragged her behind them, these not-so-immortal immortals, but she felt too weak to struggle, too numb to really care. There were no wounds to flaw her pale skin that would explain her state of mind, but then again, physical injury hadn't been necessary. She had lost her family and it felt like someone had plunked a bucket of ice water into her scalp, and total brain freeze had ensued.

And when she realized this, the only thought that came to her was: 'This won't do. This just won't do at all.' , because she had never accepted things just like that, and she had never been dragged through the dust like this, like a rag doll, worthless. Her pride, which had, until now, only given silent yelps of protest, was composing itself and became steadfastly louder by the second. 'Not like this', she thought, kind of broken, kind of desperate, but fierce as ever. 'I am the granddaughter of the great Midoriko. I will not be manhandled in such a way.'

When she found her voice, she said exactly this, while trying to regain her footing. The soldiers that had been dragging her on released her and looked a bit surprised for a moment, but one of them regained his composure first, and laughed even though she could see nothing to laugh about.

When his amusement finally faded, the other youkai spoke. "You've got a lot of nerve, half-breed. It would be wise if you'd keep that tongue of yours while you are in Lord Sesshoumaru's presence", he commented. "He wouldn't hesitate to slaughter you, and that would be such a waste. I, personally, think that such a beauty would be of far more use in one of the brothels in town." He licked his lips suggestively, which made Kagome want to heave. "I might even come to visit you myself."

Thoroughly appalled, and to her own annoyance, kind of flustered, she straightened her backpack and took a step forward. Which had been a really big mistake, because the guy who had just grossed her out on several levels was also infected with a severe case of bad breath. "Then I think I'd rather be slaughtered, but thanks for the offer", she replied hotly, knowing she shouldn't be saying this but unable to help herself. On the bright side, it was highly amusing to see the man sputter indignantly. 'Really', she thought, 'he could at least try to come up with some sort of witty reply. Loser.' And somewhere in the privacy of her head, she stuck her tongue out at him and used her thumb and index finger to resemble an 'L' planted on her forehead.

Okay, so maybe not the most mature of ideas, but it did make her feel a little bit more like herself again.

But now, the problem with people who lacked in brains was that they generally tried to make up for it in strength. This usually wasn't a problem, really, except for now. It didn't take as long as she hoped for Mr. Bad Breath to realize that the only way he could make her pay was by the use of violence. She swallowed when he advanced upon her, but didn't move an inch.

She had full confidence that she wouldn't be harmed. Much.

Then suddenly, the soldier stopped moving, and started to look pretty scared. She entertained herself for a brief second with the idea that he was intimidated by her, but quickly discarded it, seeing as how the guy seemed to be fixed on a spot somewhere around her shoulder.

'Great', she thought sarcastically,'now there's probably someone pretty nasty standing behind me. The bad horror movie that is my life continues.

She was lost in these thoughts just a second to long, and so when Mr Unidentified started to snarl at the two who were standing before her, her body reacted on its own. The fact that the man had his mouth very close to her ear, and was barking his orders very loudly, hadn't made things better either. Surprised, she yelped, and jumped a little bit backwards, straight into the person behind her. 'Just my luck', she thought,'to offend one of the probably most important persons in this whole castle without even seeing him.'

At least she didn't have to go through the indignity of falling all over the guy, because he grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her around harshly before any real damage had been done. "And you, wench," he said, in a tone not loud but icy and unpleasant to the bone, "you will obey my men and pay me the proper respect, or I will not be merciful. I might need your services for the time being, but that doesn't mean that you will live when I am done with you." Flashing over her with his eyes, he was slightly startled by the extremely revealing costume she was wearing. Really, his father's concubines had worn more clothing.

It seemed she really was out of luck, because if the markings on the face before her were any indication, she had just angered the Lord of the Western Lands, and this was commonly known not to be a good thing. Stepping down a notch or two would be a good idea right now, but she really didn't feel like it, and this man was, noble or not, the reason for all her misery right now.

"Well, my Lord", she spat with a tone that suggested anything but respect, "I am not at all inclined to 'service' you. After all, our good Lord and the man who ripped my family apart just to ensure that he will keep his petty title are one and the same," she concluded, fiercely looking him in the eyes –which were quite pretty- and standing on her toes to make herself just a little more impressive. She still came no further than his shoulder, but he was staring down at her, and she could feel his breath on her lips. The shiver that ran through her was wholly without her consent, and she hated herself five seconds later for the action, because a considerably creepy and knowing grin had planted itself firmly upon his face.

He suddenly seemed to realize that they were being watched by half of the household, and that they were standing inappropriately close. The grin vanished and he pushed her away, making her stumble over the first steps of a staircase. "Be glad I let you keep your life. You would do well to show some more respect the next time we meet," he told her in the same icy voice that seemed to be a standard for him.

Sesshoumaru commanded his guards to bring her to her chambers, with the 'friendly' advice to refrain from touching her any further, and stomped off. This human woman really wasn't good for his mood, but he would just have to endure her presence until his lands were out of danger. 'Not human,' he reminded himself. 'Hanyou. She looks like a human, but her scent is disturbed by inuyoukai blood.' He didn't like her already, so training her would be a bitch.. Well, he would make sure kill her when she had done what she came for.

Ah, yes, with a little bit of imagination he could already feel the satisfaction killing her would bring him.

He really would have to make sure that some proper garments were sent up to her room, because she would most likely shock his servants dressed like this. Just now, she had been wearing some very tight kind of black pants that he hadn't seen before, and a flimsy bit of fabric in the most disgusting and bright colour of pink to cover her chest. All in all, it would've been quite effective in hiding her more… interesting aspects, if only it wouldn't have had the plunging neckline that made everything really visible if you were, let's say, towering above her. Not that he was talking from experience, of course.

He had the slight feeling that this girl was going to be more trouble than she was worth.

Kagome had deflated again, the fire replaced by fatigue, because she knew that she had nothing left to say and that screaming all the time was just very tiring. So she was grateful when she was led into her chambers without any further incidents. Taking her backpack off and plopping down on the bed, she thought of her family, and wondered how they were doing.

They were probably still alive, safely on the other side of the well, where she so desperately wanted to join them. But she knew that her chances at being with her family had passed, or at least for now. All this time they had tried to escape the prophecy by making sure Kagome staying in the Modern Era as much as possible, but it just hadn't been enough. Sesshoumaru had been looking for her since the day he knew of it, but of course he had never found a trace of her or her family except for a lingering smell in the shrine of a human priestess. The priestess had been Kikyou, her half-sister, though Sesshoumaru wasn't aware of the bond.

His men had found her in the Feudal Era when she'd come through the well to ensure the safety of her half-sister. In the Modern Age, she had accidentally stumbled across the legend of Inuyasha, who fell in love with the Shikon-miko. According to the story, the hanyou betrayed her, and the miko was forced to seal him to a tree. The events that followed weren't described, but Kagome just had a gut feeling that they couldn't be any good. Also, Kikyou was the Shikon-miko, and she didn't want her to suffer like that. She had to warn her.

So she had jumped through the ages without telling her mother, who surely would've forbid her to go, and had, of course, run straight into a trap. Apparently, Sesshoumaru knew that she'd been at the temple a few times, and his men had been waiting for her to come back.

And now she was here. 'Just great Kagome,' her inner voice told her, 'how are you gonna get out of this one? Didn't okaa-san tell you time and time again that when the wheels of fate started turning there was no going back? But did you listen? Nooo, of course not, and the whole being in Sesshoumaru's castle certainly seems like a turning little wheel!'

'Hey,' she argued back, 'if it really was fate, then no one could have stopped it! And at least he doesn't know the whole prophecy, because his ancestors just weren't really good copycats. I just need to make the best of it and make sure that he gets what he wants from me as soon as possible. I'll probably die in the process, but hey, I didn't exactly ask for this!'

"Great," she sighed into the dimly lit room," now I'm arguing with myself."

Ah well, at least she hadn't been put into some dank little hole, she noted with some weird form of relief. Her chamber was fairly big or at least, way bigger then what she was used to at home. There, they lived in a little flat in the middle of Tokyo, which couldn't have been a sharper contrast to their former life in the Feudal Era, but they had always managed. Through some illegal ways, they'd gotten an identity, work, and she had been able to go to school. She'd happily lived there for about six years, and then, there was this. She felt tears rise up at the idea of not celebrating her eighteenth birthday with her friends and family, but she quickly repressed them. This wasn't the time to go bawling like a baby over something so insignificant, because chances were that she wasn't going to see her family for another decade. Or ever. She might as well make the best of it.

She sat up, determined to get this over with as soon as possible, but also in real need of some sleep. Which was why she went straight to her backpack and rummaged through it until she'd found the artefacts that she had been looking for: Pink pyjama bottoms with ducks on it, a purple spaghetti top, a toothbrush, and some toothpaste. Thank Kami that she'd packed loads of shampoo and toothpaste for Kikyou, because being here would be hard enough without being smelly, and she really hoped that she would be allowed to go home every once in a while to get new supplies. Not to mention that she would have a freak-a-thon if she would run out of tampons.

Yes, she would go home to get new things. There was only the iny tiny problem of Sesshoumaru. The chances that he would let her go home were already next to nothing, and the fact that he would have to let her go without knowing where she went made the situation all the worse. There was no way Sesshoumaru could know about the well.

She brushed her teeth quickly in the little space that went for a bathroom in these ages, put one her pyjama, carefully, as to not rip it with her claws, and crawled into bed. Tomorrow she would have to accept her fate, and she wasn't really looking forward to it, but exhaustion soon took over and sleep claimed her.

While answering the heaps of letters on his desk was not exactly the most exiting thing to do, he really didn't have to let his mind wander so much. Not that he had any control over it, he admitted begrudgingly, but these things just needed to be done.

After another hour of this little struggle with himself, he decided to give up and just LET his mind wander. It would at least give him the feeling that he had some semblance of control again, which was a really important factor in Sesshoumaru's life.

He opened one of the drawers in his desk, and pulled the ancient parchment that was so carefully laid inside, out. He had read and reread it more than a thousand times since he had found it fifteen years ago, and it still managed to captivate him. The tale it told had been written down by one of his ancestors, and it referred to the future. The future that was about to become present time. He hated to call it a prophecy, because he'd never really believed in such things. Nah, not a prophecy. The things his ancestors had written down just had the annoying habit of actually coming to pass.

The first mistake in ignoring the tales had led to no other event than the death of his father. Blurry old words were not something he had been interested in at the time, and neither was the great Inu no Taisho. But in hindsight, those blurry old words could've saved him. They described the end of his father's life down to the freaky little details.

Well, they could've saved him, but Seshoumaru was under the distinct impression that his father wouldn't have done it any other way even if he had known.

'The fool'

But it didn't matter, because his father was dead now, and he was still alive to learn from past mistakes.

The tale was clearly about him,

In the era of the Second great Demon Lord of the west,

And clearly about her, but

From the bloodline of the Shikon no Tama, a female halfling will be born,

there were just some problems that were still unsettling him, because so far, he hadn't been able to find a solution to them.

inexperienced, untrained, but with great a potential in the conflicting bloods that bind her to weakness.

And it was that, right there, the weakness part. He had done some research and had come to the conclusion that the blood of a miko and that of a demon could not co-exist in the same body. Either, the demon blood would sully the holy blood, or the holy blood would purify that of the demon. Both of these things would kill her.

So, it seemed that she was a miracle.

He had ordered Toutousai to make her a bow and a katana with a magic somewhat like Inuyasha's Tetsusaiga. The bow would suppress her demon blood and would make her miko power flare, and the katana would do exactly the opposite. He had no idea if this little idea of his would work, but it had cost him two very nice fangs and a painful jaw. But if it did work, it would only be a small price to pay, because he needed her in this fight. If they would lose, his lands would be under the mercy of 'the greatest of all evil'. He couldn't really care if the lands were ruled by an evil individual or not, because he wasn't exactly all that was good and pure either. That didn't matter anyway; These lands were his, and it would remain so until he perished. The evil in the prophecy –not that it really was a prophecy or anything- would probably turn out to be a formidable foe, but no one would take what was rightfully his. He would make sure of that.

That's why he now had one hanyou female under his roof, who was very unwilling and very untrained.

This whole thing would certainly come and bite him in the ass sometime in the near future.

Of course, he really had no idea how right he was.

tbc..

A/N

I would really love it if I got some reviews. Opinions that aren't on the bright side but useful are great, but no real flames please.