Chapter 19: Never Leave

Sesshoumaru pressed her not-so-gently to a hard tree bark, ignoring her grunts and locking eyes with her. He put up his arms to both sides of her head, serving as a wall for her attention to be solely on him. Kagome's shoulders were visibly tense but she never broke eye contact with him. She blushed at the realization of how close they were to each other.

"Stay away from him." He said simply. It was a simple command; she would surely have no trouble following it. But then again, Kagome was a troublesome woman after all.

"What!"

"You know exactly what this Sesshoumaru has just stated."

"No!"

Sesshoumaru nearly ripped his hair out if only he had no self control stronger than an oak and a mind cooler than an ice burg. "You will do what this Sesshoumaru tells you to do, woman."

"I will not!" she said, putting her hands on her hips.

That was when Sesshoumaru stepped back and crossed his arms, looking at her as if she was a stubborn child who wouldn't take her vitamins. "Why must you be so stubborn?" it was more of a statement to himself than a question to her.

"Sesshoumaru, you can't tell me who I'm gonna stay with or otherwise! If Inu-yasha needs me, I'll be there for him!" Kagome said, stepping forward with her head raised up high.

Sesshoumaru narrowed his eyes angrily, Inu-yasha, Inu-yasha, Inu-yasha. Always Inu-yasha. Inu-yasssshhhaaaa… His name was whispered like venom in his mind. "You know nothing, do you?" he said, turning his back on her.

Kagome simply crossed her arms across her chest, copying his actions. Her eyes softened though when he said nothing else for a long while. She was just about to speak when, "You cannot trust everyone so easily." She wasn't sure if he was saying that to her or to himself but either way, her heart ached for him.

"I pity you, Sesshoumaru." Sesshoumaru lifted his gaze when he heard her and turned his head to look at her. Pity? She pitied him? For what? There was nothing to pity! He had anything and everything he so desired. There was nothing to pity of him.

She had her head bowed, her bangs casting shadows over her eyes. Her hands lay at her sides, relaxed yet tense at the same time. "I pity you for becoming so cynical." His eyes widened a fraction. "Something…" she averted her gaze, trying not to imagine the many hardships he might have experienced. "Something horrible must have happened to you when you were a child. Someone you depended on…must have betrayed your trust. Someone you thought would always take care of you hurt you the most. I'm right, aren't I?" He looked on at her with disbelief. His mouth slightly opened, the memories flooding his already distraught mind.

A young Sesshoumaru knelt on the ground, nothing but darkness ensconced his being. Blood. Blood stained his small hands. Blood dripped from the ceiling and flooded the floor. Blood was rising to his knees. Blood. Where was his mother? Where was she? Was she alright? Where was his father? Where was everyone?

"But you can't be cynical about everyone, Seshoumaru!" Kagome exclaimed, looking him in the eyes. Exposing to him those beautiful sapphire eyes filled with sympathy and care. "What I told you last night, the things I said—everything was true! I wasn't lying to you when I said I was falling in love with you! So please don't think that I'll leave you or hurt you in the end. Because…because I won't!" tears were brimming in her eyes.

She did not have to say it, but she said it nonetheless. And she said enough to make Sesshoumaru feel more than he usually felt. He was disoriented and had the urge to push the strange emotion away. But he was too weakened by her and couldn't keep himself from saying the words that were about to escape his lips. She found the weakness he hid so well.

After all, without a weakness, The Great Lord of the West, Sesshoumaru, would doubtlessly be considered perfect. Sadly, in the world of reality, no one was perfect. There would always be a flaw, a mistake, a weakness in everyone. It simply so happened that Sesshoumaru's weakness was his past. And now that Kagome found it, she held his weakness. Should he take the risk? Why should he? Because she loves you. And you… love her…He decided to take her word for it and…trust her.

"My mother." Kagome looked up at him with surprise. He simply turned his head back on her, letting her have a full view of the hiss long, flowing hair. His head hung lower than usual, his bangs covering his bright gleaming eyes. He continued. "My mother betrayed me. She killed herself after descrying my Father's affair with Inu-yasha's mother. Leaving me—at the mercy of…everyone." His whole body tensed when he felt two warm arms wrap themselves around his armored torso, a soft scent tantalizing his sense of smell.

"I won't…" Kagome started softly, "I won't abandon you." Sesshoumaru's hands shook imperceptibly, hearing her sweet proclamation. He could practically feel his heart beating violently as it grew bigger and bigger, being filled by her—her kindness, her love. "I'll never…I'll never abandon you, Sesshoumaru." Slowly his clawed hand came up to hold the hand resting on his chest. He turned his head to look at her at the corner of his eye and a small smile filled his lips. A grateful small smile.

Darkness ensconced him, so did blood. He was in despair. But then he felt warmth streaking his back. He turned around and found a door held ajar. The door was opening and exposing light. The light grew as the door opened fully. Suddenly, the darkness vanished. The blood was no longer there. His eyes focused on the light and there he saw within the light, a smile; a welcoming smile with a euphonious promise. I'll never abandon you.

Kouga put down the food in front of her and she looked at it with disgust. Kouga raised a brow in question. "What's the matter? Don't tell me you're on a diet."

Haruko glared at him and rolled her eyes. "You stole this food, didn't you?"

Kouga grinned boyishly, "Well of course! Where else can we get luxurious food fit for an inu-hime?" Instead of telling him exactly what was on her mind, she just scoffed and looked away. After a while, she could hear Kouga sigh. "You won't eat it, will you?"

"Never in a million years." She hissed at him.

Kouga shook his head and sat on the floor in front of the food. "You inus and your 'pride'." He started eating the food with his hands and he saw her glaring at him again.

"At least we earn what we eat. We don't take from others who work hard for their living." Haruko defended sulkily. He had just challenged her race and she was not going to stand for it. "You wolves are so selfish, thinking only of yourselves. What about the other clans and families out there? They work hard to produce the food you so easily stole from them. Just think how hungry they are right now, the family you stole that from." She finished.

Kouga just looked at her, a piece of chicken in one hand, and his chin resting on the other. It was strange of her. Earlier that morning, she was complaining about her stomach growling and now she refuses to eat. But she was a strange kind of cute, the way she got angry. When she's angry, she doesn't shout. Her tone was still casual yet he could see in her face that she was very angry indeed.

"So what do you want to eat then, inu-hime?" he asked, as if she didn't just give that whole speech. He wasn't really the type to feel guilty, after all he had been stealing food almost his whole life. And besides, he wasn't doing it all for himself. He had a clan to take care of.

"You're not even listening to me, are you?" she said as if worn out.

"Ng. I was," he reassured with a nod. Then he grinned boyishly again, "but I'm just not guilty about it."

Haruko sighed, depressed by the selfishness and insensitivity of this wolf named Kouga. She shook her head and looked outside the window, pulling the sheets closer to herself.

"You really aren't gonna eat, are you?" Kouga said, finally getting exasperated.

Instead of speaking her mind, she decided to take the high road and simply be polite. There was no use talking to a person who refuses to listen with an open mind. "No, thank you." She meekly said, then laid herself back in bed. The bed had his smell. It wasn't repulsive and it wasn't driving her man either. She tried to remember what he smelled like. What was that? Crisp. Cool. Autumn. He smelled like Autumn.

The whole day, she didn't step out of the hut. She didn't get out of bed and she didn't say another word. "She's a strange one, Kouga." Arashi said, looking to Kouga's hut as he drank another stolen bottle of sake. "What made you take her?"

Kouga smiled boyishly, quickly thinking of a lie to his good friend and village doctor. "I don't know. I guess she just has that hold over me."

"What about that Kagome woman? Are you ditching her?" he asked on.

Kouga drank his sake then answered, "Yeah, I guess I just wanted her for the thrill of the competition." Arashi laughed, knowing exactly what his good friend and prince meant. "I mean, just seeing the hate in that baka inu, Inu-yasha's face really makes my day. But Kagome wasn't half-bad. Only, she's a little too loyal to a person. She's too good to that baka inu."

That was true. A lot of people thought that he merely wanted Kagome for either her looks, or her ability to see the shards. It was neither. He just wanted to piss Inu-yasha off. The other two reasons were merely consolation prizes. He didn't actually expect Kagome to go for him anyway. Kagome was beautiful, but he wasn't the one for her. He could feel it. He wasn't the one for her.

"Kouga, sometimes you're just too evil." Arashi joked, running his hand through his long red hair that reached past his shoulders. He drank another bottle of sake, "So what's the story on this one?" he nodded Haruko's way, but of course she wasn't aware of that.

Kouga shrugged, "She's an inu royalty. I just rescued her when Kagura attacked her near the village I was stealing from."

"So, she's not really your woman?" he asked with a raised brow.

"No, not really. Hep, hep, hep, hep!" Kouga wagged his finger in front of Arashi, "you swore military secrecy to me. None of this escapes your mouth, remember that."

"Of course, my lord." Arashi nodded well naturedly. A sly smile then came upon his lips, "So, was she good?"

"Huh?"

"Kouga, don't tell me you haven't left such beauty untouched when you had the chance! Inu or not, she's still quite enticing."

Kouga reached over and lightly pounded his fist on his friend's head. "Don't talk to me about that! Of course that's crossed my mind. She's more than enough to attract me. But she's—"

"She's what?"

"She's real feisty."

"You've handled feisty ones before." Arashi said, wondering what Kouga was talking about.

"She's a different kinda feisty. She's an icy feisty."

"A what?"

"I think it's called … an Ice Queen." Kouga looked thoughtful. Was that what it's called? His eyebrows knitted together. Yeah, he'd definitely call her an ice queen. She was too up tight about everything. She won't even eat the delicious food he gave her. So what if he stole it? At least she had something to eat. Well what can he do? He can't just let her starve herself to death. She had to eat something.

Arashi saw that Kouga's eyes stared off to his hut. He was in deep thought about the 'inu-hime' it seemed. He supposed he shouldn't disturb his lord's thoughts, so he smiled and stood. "Well, I guess I'm about to find that out for myself."

"Huh? Where're you going?" Kouga asked, snapping out of his thoughts. Arashi bowed to him then straightened his back.

The handsome doctor cocked his head to the side with a smile, "I'm going to check up on her. After all, what else should a doctor do?" Kouga gave his friend a smirk, making him look very, very handsome.

"Just make sure not to touch her in the wrong places. She's my woman after all." Kouga winked. Arashi flashed him a toothy grin, exposing yellowing fangs. Then he left, leaving Kouga to mule over the strange inu-hime while sitting under the comfortable shade of a tree. So what can he do to make her eat? He sighed; folding his arms behind his head and leaning back to rest on the bark of the tree. "What a troublesome girl you are, inu-hime."

They followed Haruko's scent fervently. A weak panic was starting to grow within the two inus. As the days went on, her scent was getting weaker and weaker. And if ever it rained again, her scent would surely be erased and they'd be left crawling in the dark.

Miroku looked around their group and noticed two changes. The first, no longer was Inu-yasha the one carrying Kagome on his back, instead it was Sesshoumaru carrying her bridal style. Inu-yasha looked very annoyed about that fact but he didn't say anything. Second, Shippou was sleeping soundly in Sango's arms.

"Sango-san, why is Shippou-chan sleeping?" Miroku asked.

Sango shushed him with a finger to her lips and said, "Shippou-chan's been training really hard these past two days."

"Training?"

"Hai. He says he wants to be stronger and he wanted us to start training as soon as possible. I've tried discouraging him but he persists, houshi-sama." Sango said, looking with pity at the frail form of the small kitsune.

"Shippou-chan seems to be taking things upon himself." Miroku concluded.

"I agree. I think he's blaming himself for Haruko's kidnapping." Seeing the caring look on Sango's face, a smile appeared on Miroku's own.

"Much like how you blame yourself for Kohaku?" Sango gasped at hearing this and she quickly turned to him only to falter at realizing just how close their faces became. She blushed when she found herself staring at his charming smile. She quickly looked away, finding Kirara's fur suddenly so very interesting.

The smile remained on Miroku's face, finding her adorable. It was moments like these, when the feminine, vulnerable Sango appears, that Miroku truly treasured. She was beautiful when she blushed; even more so when he sees the dainty woman inside the mask of strength. He only wished he could make that side of her come out more often. But this was not the time for his desires to be recognized. Sango had her own problems and he didn't plan on making her life any more complicated by suddenly declaring his love for her out of the blue. He'll simply wait for her.

Kagome looked up at Sesshoumaru who only had his sight straight ahead. So his mother killed herself. How alone he must've felt. No wonder he couldn't trust anyone. Well now he had her. And she would never leave him. Never. That moment she swore to herself that she would always stay with Sesshoumaru. She will never let him be left in the darkness again. She will always be…his light.

Sesshoumaru suddenly looked down at her, catching her staring at him. Her eyes widened in surprise and she blushed, looking away quickly. She bit her lower lip nervously, doing her best to ignore him when he raised a suspicious brow at her. Well that was embarrassing.

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