Winter (Fuyu)

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha

:OoO:

"Had it been anyone but her…"

She choked on her sobs and rolled off him; when he tried to touch her, she slapped his hand away. He felt how the anger rose in him as well; how dared she to refuse his touch.

He started to pull her into his embrace forcefully. She kept pushing him away until they both lost their balance and fell to the ground. Still she fought him, and they began to roll on the ground. Each of them was battling over dominance; every time Inuyasha succeeded pinning her down, she would show inhuman strength and rolled him back down, but he wouldn't ease his grip. Their struggles made them aware of each other's bodies as they both started breathing hard. And when she was finally on top of him, he gripped the back of her neck and pulled her down towards him; his lips closing the small distance between them.

Gasping in shock, Kagome felt how his tongue plunged inside her mouth, forcing its way in hungrily. Inuyasha changed their position and rolled her over to her back. With his hip grinded against her soft abdomen, one hand was still holding her nape, but his other hand was free to roam over her curves. Each bruising grope left her aching for more. The heat of his hand burned against her covered skin; she felt as if he was molding her flesh to his desire, and when his thumb found her nipple, she moaned longingly against his lips.

His growing hardness was unbearable; he wanted to push into her depth and completely possessed her. The girl, who yesterday was still an adolescent in his eyes, was tempting his soul. He felt the hunger, that he might have felt before when he first saw her, pale, beautiful, and helpless, was stating its existence.

And now to touch her, to kiss her sweet warm lips, and to feel her young and firm body writhing underneath him was like the opening of the oracle. It would seal his fate; he would now want to give her the world, his world.

"Inuyasha…" She moaned his name into the stillness of the night. Again he felt the possessiveness was growing stronger; he would never allow her sweet lips form someone else's name. He tore his lips away from hers to gaze at her under the moonlight; she was everything, beauty and purity and perfection.

And youth, he mentally added as he cupped her firm breasts in his hands. Unlike other girls who would try to avert their eyes in shame, she watched him heatedly; her desire was making her blatantly fiery, and it was fanning his desire stronger than ever. He gave her clothed breasts a gentle squeeze; thumbs closing and rubbing over her nipples, and he relished her sweet whimpers.

He was straddling her still, rubbing his hardness against her soft belly; his sensitive nose breathing the sweet scent of her mixed with the perfume of her arousal oozing from her sweet center. If they were to strip out of their clothing he would loose it and pounded into her like a wild animal.

"Inuyasha!" She cried out desperately to him. He knew she needed release as much as he. He touched the rims of her kimono and delicately caressed the exposed skin with his claw when he suddenly heard a snap of a twig.

He stood up abruptly and pulled her up to him; his hands were holding her around the waist as he readied himself to leap his way out from the fortress' garden.

:OoOoOoO:

It felt as if Kagome hadn't been given a chance to think at all. One moment she had been filled with rage that had led to a homicidal attempt, and then she had found that she couldn't kill him. They had struggled on the ground of the garden; he had kissed her and groped her heatedly, and now she was abducted by him. And then she remembered that she was supposed to be mad at him. She grew cold when she thought that he was there on her father's territory to visit her step sister; he was, wasn't he?

And then she began to rethink her theory, and a surge of doubt was trying to reconstruct her sense of logic; had she really webbed her thought over his presence? Was he actually there because of her?

"Inuyasha, why did you enter the castle stealthily?"

Inuyasha was looking at her quizzically; he realized suddenly that not a while ago she was actually trying to kill him. He scratched his head in shame and confusion. He pondered over her question and decided to ask her later of her strange conduct.

"I missed your company." He answered in a soft tone of voice, and his cheeks were blushing slightly over his confession. Then he perked up. "And I have a surprise for you."

"You were there because of me?" Inuyasha nodded, confused over her question. "Of course, why else would I be there?" Kagome just smiled at him and hugged him fiercely. She blushed when she remembered what happened on her father's garden, but she could still feel the tingles his hands had caused when they had brushed all over her body.

"We're here." He whispered softly against her ear. She found herself in their cave; it was dark, and she couldn't see anything. Suddenly she felt his presence no more.

"Inuyasha?" She whispered, and when he didn't respond, she began to panic. Just when she was about to run out of the cave, a sudden swarm of light surrounded her. Small, glowing lights. The darkness of the cave and the luminosity combined produced an effect as if she was in the realm of a starry night-sky. The way the swarm flew around her as if they were little fairies teasing her; they lighted every little nook of the cave separately.

Kagome twirled her body spreading her arms wide around the cave and laughed happily, and then she spotted Inuyasha on the corner of the cave. He gave her a signal to wait and let out the rest of the swarm of the glowworms from a wooden box. Kagome clapped her hands and giggled giddily when she saw that the illumination was brighter than before.

Inuyasha laughed when he caught her reaction, and when she turned to face him, he had to catch his breath when he saw her features. Happiness was glowing radiantly from her face. Her cheeks were wonderfully flushed in striking contrast to her pale unblemished skin, and her eyes shone with their beautiful shade of unique hue. Her lips, the assessor of her body heat, was smoldering his senses with its flush. She was just beautiful, dramatically stunningly beautiful.

He rushed to seize her. Then she was his. Others might had seen her and desired her, but he had saved her, and he felt that it gave him every right to possess her even if it meant that he had to fight his brother.

That night they lay together on the ground watching the glowworms until they seemed to glow weaker, until the little creatures fell to the ground from exhaustion and died.

:OoOoOoO:

Naraku fingered the image of Kagome from the mirror of the soul. His eyes turned crimson when he saw the silver haired hanyou on her side and how they wrestled each other on the ground. And when the boy kissed her, he smelled a sudden breeze of strong acid odor; he realized that it was his blood from the claws that cut through his skin. Blood was flowing freely from his fisted hands. Something inside him constricted painfully, and as he watched him touching her as if staking claim on her, he threw back his head and let out a feral roar out of his lungs; that would be her first betrayal.

When had the hanyou lord fallen for her? Was it at the time when he saw her warming her mother's cold corpse with the desperation of a lover, caressing her mother's skin affectionately? Or was it when he glimpsed her haunted vengeful eyes as she spoke out her curse; her dramatic display of her attempted suicide? Or was it when she succumbed herself into his embrace, and for the first time he was surrounded by her sweet scent and was lost in it? He didn't remember. All he knew was when a day passed without him to have a glimpse on her image, he felt desolate, but when he did get a glimpse of her and not to be able to have her near, to touch her, to hear her voice, to fill his senses with her scent hurt unbearably, but everyday he continued to torture himself watching her.

The unrequited love of a lover was the monster inside him. Because he had fallen hard, he had lost his soul, but alas not his mind, which made it more dangerous than it seemed. He became the man without honor, treacherous to the depth.

:OoOoOoO:

Humiliation was the emotion Kikyou felt. The hanyou lord had turned her down and had demanded for the second daughter instead, but his father had added to her disgrace as he had declined the demand, as if Kagome was worthier than her.

When their plan to eliminate her had failed, it had changed their situation in the family radically. Her father decided to flaunt his affection to Kagome liberally just because she was warming towards him. The bitch was certainly cunning. But it had served its purpose; the people around her began to change their manners around her, showering her with false compliments and sickeningly false affection. But what stunned her most was the remarkable fact that her step sister knew how to see through the manipulations and conducted wisely over them.

They were all now tired planning plans to get rid of her. It was as simple as this; they had to abolish her protector first.

In the end she didn't feel any regret when she planned the daimyo's assassination, the father's murder.

:OoOoOoO:

OoOthe passing of one winter (after a year)OoO

The heavy snow had barricaded their exit outside the cave. Beside her lay the lifeless body of Inuyasha; in her hand rested his wrenched beating organ still in its freshness, but had forever given up its pounding strength.

Tonight was the night when he was to take her away. Kagome still remembered his heated whisper against her ear, the promise underneath his tone. He was going to make her his.

A claim; she always wondered what it actually meant. Weren't they together for the last three and a half year; was she not yet his? The intimate things they did in their secret cave; the way his hand worked its magic over the sensitive area of her nether part. She had ached, but he had helped her loosen it. But then again she wondered if he had not ached for her as she did for him. She remembered one night she had asked what he had meant by claiming her properly; he had answered that he would break her scent by mating her, that a part of him would embed itself deeply in her that other demons could have identified to whom she was belong, and then he would mark her a tattoo that imprinted his claim; it was a ceremony that extended her life-span. It was obviously marriage in demon's term.

A scent and a mark; how barbaric she thought, but in a way exciting. There was something deliciously primal about Inuyasha that she couldn't help but think he was in reality a beast, but when she looked into his soft eyes, all thought of estrangement banished itself from her mind. He was not delicate like the men in the court, nor was he elegant in his speech and movement; perhaps a little too hasty in his decisions, but those were flaws that she appreciated most from him. He was pure and natural; wickedness had not found its way to corrupt him yet. Let him stay that way; in the end she knew that she would be the one who had to stand guard; she who knew the way of evil.

But tonight… tonight she had failed, failed to protect him for all he was worth. She had giddily let her guard down; her mind was tiring out of its keenness. She should have seen what would happen; she should have known. And maybe she did, but there was something about promises and contend, that was slowly paralyzing the perceptive of one's brain. She was careless; her spirit was gay, and senses, which she had trained for the past three and a half years, were dulled.

And now he was dead.

She still could feel his warm embrace as he comforted her this morning. Her father, after suffering from a mysterious ailment for a whole year, had passed away in his bed this morning. Month after month priests had came and gone to chant their sutra casting away the spirit that possessed the daimyo's body, but all healing attempts availed not to his condition; an invisible hand had wrapped its grip around his soul and had taken him away.

She felt suddenly helpless; for the first time in her life she had to stand and watch as his life slowly ebbed away, wanting to help but yet restrained herself to do so. This was his karma she thought, vindicating her action. But what had he done really? Loving her mother and her faithfully? The morning before his soul departed, he turned his face to her and spoke with the last strength he could gather. Fighting his way to sanity, he had clearly called out her name, but the strength didn't last for the next sentence; he could only mouth the two words that shattered her heart to pieces. "Forgive me"

And she fell apart.

With desperation she tried to recall the old healing rite, anything to bring him back. She remembered a story that she heard once: in China a daughter, who was desperate to save her own mother, cut out a piece of her flesh and prepared it in a soup, she then presented the meal to her mother in a last attempt to save her.

But before she could do anything, the daimyo released his last breath and the soul freed itself from the body. The chanting of the priests stopped for a moment only to begin again with vigor. In panic she ran off to the one that she needed the most; the one she only had, passing the arms that was outstretched to comfort her. She barely noticed him, the hanyou daimyo, but he had waited for this moment, eager to feel her convulsed with grief body against him, cocooning her in his embrace.

But his warmth was forever disregarded.

In cold fury he realized that she was seeking comfort from the inu hanyou. He followed her trail closely and suppressed his aura so that she would not sense him.

She stomped her way in the thick intensity of whiteness. The chilliness bit through her skin; she felt raw inside as well as outside.

A few feet away from the cave's opening she could feel the warmth radiating from within, his warmth and everything that he was, everything that was hers.

She stepped closer towards him; he was sitting cross-legged in the near of the fire. When he felt her proximity he smiled softly. And when she got near, her knees felt suddenly weak and she fell down against him; she hugged him fiercely from behind, resting her frosted cheek against his hard back.

"Kagome?" Inuyasha turned to face her; confusion was written on his face. He captured her hands in his, and he winced when he felt their coldness. Immediately he opened the front of his kimono and put her icy hands inside his clothing, rubbing them against his heated skin.

All the while she watched his conduct acutely; it reminded her that she had once done this too, four years ago at her mother's deathbed, and something inside her snapped.

Inuyasha was suddenly taken aback from the sound of her broken wail. Kagome remembered once again all that she had lost, all that she had loved and lost; her grief was in tumult in her inside; the sound of her howl had pierced both their ears, but the hurt was minimal comparing to her aching soul.

Inuyasha pulled her violently in his arms as if he was trying to protect her from herself; he wanted to dispel her pain and the danger it would've done to her sanity even though he had not yet known the cause of her grief. As he buried his nose in her hair, he detected the faint reek of death in her scent; he finally grasped over the situation.

She was free, finally free; month after month he had waited to take her properly, but as long as she still had an attachment to her family, he couldn't claim her fully. Now her fate was in his hands; a delicious bliss of pleasure washed over him in waves. For a moment he had forgotten that she was in a state of mourning; all he knew was that he had to lure her away quick, giving her no time to think at all. There was no time to describe to her the splendor of the winter landscape in Echigo; he decided that he would show her instead.

And out of his lips flowed the sweetest promise of future she had never wished to hope before, but in a language of a lover his words had cleansed away the sorrowfulness of her soul. Overseeing the corruption, she decided that his aspiration was hers too.

The interaction was recorded in the mind of her unrequited lover, forever hiding in the shadow. Naraku watched acutely as Kagome made her way back to the palace possibly to collect her valuable possession to take with her for the journey.

Naraku made his way stealthily into the cave. Once he was inside, he stood still behind the oblivious to the situation hanyou. He waited until Inuyasha sensed his presence, and when Inuyasha finally did, he pushed his claws in. Breaking the skin of Inuyasha's chest and crushing the bones of the ribcage, he wrenched his heart out.

"Her." Naraku whispered to him as if justifying his own action with the single word. Incomprehensible as it might sound, Inuyasha had understood.

Tetsusaiga pulsed out his true strength a moment before Inuyasha died, startling both the murderer and the owner. But then again as Inuyasha's life faded away, the pulse was becoming weaker and weaker, and after a moment it returned to its previous state, lifeless.

:OoOoOoO:

When she entered the cave again that night, an angry color of liquid red greeted her. She saw him pale and lifeless on the ground with the dead organ lying on his side.

She stretched her body next to him, holding his heart near her heart, soaking her clothing with his blood.

In the Chinese calendar this time of the year was the coldest; it said, "We barricaded ourselves in, winter came."

:end of chapter:

AN: I actually anticipate writing the next chapter. Finally, Sesshoumaru. Missed writing about him. Hope you like the chapter; I know readers are loosing their interest reading this fiction, but please give it a try and do review. I thank you.