VI: A Mother Through a Son's Eyes
Author: Nefertili
Fandom: Inuyasha
Rating: PG13
Pairing(s): Sesshoumaru/Kikyou
Genre(s): Romance, Angst, AU, Action
Warning(s): More battle scenes, some violence, fluff... What more can I say?
Disclaimer: None of the characters, except perhaps some, are mine. They are owned by Rumiko Takahashi.
Summary: Two years after IMotC, Sess is challenged to surpass an enemy in recovering a mysterious relic left behind by his mother. But can he protect Kikyou, who now carries his child, at the same time?
A/N: I am glad many of my readers liked the last chapter even if it's rather bloody. It took me heck of a time to imagine Sesshy as a child. /Collapses on bed due to exhaustion/ Anyway, let's get back to our cute couple and see what's happening to them. Ahem, there's a very little 'sexy' scene in here... -.-"
...o0o...
She thought the entire world had turned red. Around her, death and destruction prevailed. Bodies so twisted and malformed they were barely recognizable were littered throughout the barren land. Thick clouds of smoke made her choke, and they rose at great heights into the sky, turning day into night. Winds ripped and screamed at her; she could barely stand. She fell on her knees, but she clawed in desperation at the rocks which crumbled to dust between her fingers. He needed her; he is in grave danger...
Then she saw them, the two forms of equally different youkai. One was fair, and the other had a form too evil, too twisted and too hellish to describe. The devil-like entity lunged at the other demon, and Kikyou heard the dreadful sound of breaking metal as his sword failed to withstand the blow. She opened her mouth as though to scream, but no sound came out of her throat out of pure horror to see the enemy strike at him on his chest.
A snarl left his throat as his fangs were bared in pain. Spurts of blood came out of his mouth, and torrents more spilled out of the open wound. Still, the other youkai refused to show any form of mercy. It grabbed him by his silvery tresses and threw him against a rock wall which crumbled due to the extreme force of the blow. His body convulsed once and then became still, his amber eyes blankly open.
Her desire to reach her beloved gave her a burst of energy, and she was able to fight off the wind and smoke as she stumbled to bridge the distance between them. His adversary saw her, and swiped with its long claws at the ground beneath her feet, sending her up in the air.
Kikyou grunted in pain as she landed on some sharp rocks, making her skin bleed in many places. The youkai was going for her, raising its clawed limbs to finish her off just as it had finished off her mate...
A burst of neon green made her flinch. The hellish demon let out an inhuman scream as its back was seared by a poison which made skin and flesh burn off. He had heard her; he struggled to rise with what meager strength he had left, but he could hardly make it to his feet because of all the blood he had lost. Kikyou cried out to him to save his strength, but he paid no heed to her pleas. He would die protecting her...
To her dismay, their adversary managed to heal itself of the attack, healthy tissues growing over the body parts rotted by the toxic substance. It turned away from her and once more focused its attention on her lover.
"No! No! NO!" she screamed, struggling to get back on her feet and divert their enemy's attention, but the ground shook so hard that she no longer had any sense of balance. The youkai went for him in a steady pace, and he did not even make a move to escape.
"NO! DON'T!"
Her voice was drowned by screeching winds. A cloud of smoke obscured her view, but her ears nearly split when a cry which sounded almost canine reverberated throughout the scene of destruction. Blood splashed on her face, and she nearly fell into a swoon to see his body, broken and wounded, fall near her feet.
Like a crazed soul, she flung her arms around him and held him close. She ran her hand over his blood-drained cheeks, and his beautiful golden eyes blinked open weakly to feel her cold tears wetting his face. She had followed him to this place; she refused to abandon him until the very end. He smiled, knowing how much she loved him. He exerted a great effort to raise his hand and touch her tear-streaked face for one last time.
He would die, but he would not be alone...it would be in her arms...exactly the way he would have wanted it to be.
"Don't leave me, Sesshoumaru!" she half-sobbed, half-screamed, grabbing hold of his limp hand and pressing it against her lips, against her cheeks, as though by doing it she would transfer some of her own meager energy to him.
But she only received silence in return. She felt his body sink against her as his eyes finally assumed a glassy luster, but his lips still remained as they were, smiling. Sobbing, Kikyou rubbed her cheek against his deathly pale forehead, kissing the mark of the crescent moon located at its very center. She had lost him...
The ground beneath her opened with a roar. Flames erupted out of the fissure, and she could make out the demonic face of his murderer through the smoke. It struck at her, ripping her from her hold on the body of her beloved and throwing her into the fire. She felt the cold touch of metal as shackles clamped themselves around her ankles, wrists and neck, dragging her into the furnace.
Strangely, Kikyou thought she heard the cry of a newborn child through the loud crackling of the flames, and those were the last sounds that came to her ears before she was consumed by the fire in her unexpected pyre.
...o0o...
"Kikyou-sama!"
"Wake up, Kikyou-sama!"
"It was a nightmare, Kikyou-sama!"
Kikyou's mahogany eyes opened wide, and she sat up on the futon, rigid and breathing heavily as though she had battled youkai for seven days straight. Jaken and Rin were beside her, the latter nearly in tears as she clutched on to the older woman's arm.
Kikyou's other hand clasped at her chest, but she barely felt her heart thudding in a fast pace within her. She did not appear to see her companions as she muttered Sesshoumaru's name over and over. She looked as though she had gone out of her mind; nothing could seem to get her out of her dazed state.
"Sesshoumaru-sama just went out for a walk, Kikyou-sama!" Rin pleaded, her tears making wet circles on Kikyou's sleeve. Kikyou shuddered and fell back on the futon. She covered her face with her other sleeve, her body convulsing as her tears spilled unchecked out of her eyes.
Jaken was also close to a state of panic. "By the...she has gone out of her rocker!" he half-screamed. "We have to calm her down, Rin, or she might lose the child!" The toady demon attempted to nudge Kikyou's sleeve away from her face, but Kikyou swatted him right on the nose, making him fall over on his back.
"Kikyou-sama!" Rin cried, nearly screaming now. Where had Sesshoumaru-sama gone? Only he can be able to calm her down now. What could Kikyou-sama had seen in her nightmare? It must be really terrifying; why else would she be driven close to madness by it?
"What's going on here?"
The even tones of the taiyoukai's voice sounded so out of place in the scene of panic. He had returned to his fortress after taking a hopefully mind-clarifying stroll, but he was alarmed to see that Jaken and Rin had lit a lamp in the quarters he shared with Kikyou. Even the dead can hear their crying and screams; what had gone wrong now?
His amber eyes narrowing, he bypassed the stairs and verandah and leaped straight into the room, impatiently pushing apart the screens which sought to hide what lay within. Kikyou was twisting and writhing on their futon, warding off the hands of Rin and Jaken as they tried to calm her. She cried out his name as though in possession of an evil spirit; her long raven hair lay in complete disarray and her dark eyes were out of focus. Sesshoumaru's normally emotionless face immediately took on an expression of alarm and concern to see his mate in such a pitiful state.
"Sesshoumaru-sama!" Jaken cried; spreading himself at his lord's feet. "We tried our best, but we couldn't calm her–"
"Any fool can see that," Sesshoumaru snapped, impatience slowly adding fuel to the fire of his temper. So many unpleasant events had happened in a single day, and even his own wife wasn't spared from misfortune. "Now tell me what troubles Kikyou so."
"We don't know; we don't know, Sesshoumaru-sama!" Rin said, nearly choking on her words. The little girl looked more frightened and weary than his toady retainer. "We stayed away from Kikyou-sama as Sesshoumaru-sama told us to do, but we suddenly heard her cry out as though in pain. We immediately rushed here, and we found out that Kikyou-sama was having some sort of nightmare. It took us long to wake her, and when she did, she was like this!"
Rin wasn't even close to finishing her narrative when Sesshoumaru knelt close to his mate's restless form. One of his hands reached out to touch her, but Kikyou appeared to be too detached from her conscious self to be able to recognize friend and foe. Whatever it was that troubled her, Sesshoumaru had a great feeling that it would be connected to the day's events, when she and Rin were attacked by the dragon out in the forest...when Kikyou spoke of his mother whom he never mentioned to anyone for a great many centuries now.
Her slender hand struck out as though to slap her own husband's hand, but Sesshoumaru caught it in a strong but gentle grip whilst whispering her name.
"Kikyou..."
That single word broke through all the turmoil that erupted in Kikyou's mind. At once, as though by some divine grace, her strangled thoughts cleared and became focused on the voice that stood out from the blackness like a dazzling star.
Sesshoumaru didn't realize that he had been holding his breath for such a long time. He stayed perfectly still to anticipate Kikyou's reaction; Jaken and Rin were doing the same, the former with a rather sore spot on the nose. The silver-haired youkai sighed softly in relief to feel Kikyou's formerly rigid hand relax in his hold, and she stopped thrashing about like an animal in pain. The entire room fell silent; even Kikyou's sobbing ceased as her beloved gently rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb.
Gradually, Kikyou opened her eyes, fervently wishing that his voice wasn't an illusion, that it was he who now held on to her hand like a comforting presence. When her mahogany orbs met Sesshoumaru's golden oculars, her tears came anew and she threw herself in his arms, frightened and urgent. Kikyou's grip was very tight, painful even, but Sesshoumaru put the pain on the back of his mind and ran his hands over her back to steady her.
"Sesshoumaru-sama...?" Rin silently inquired of her lord, her young face dripping with sweat due to the tension.
"I can handle this," Sesshoumaru said softly, his fingers running through the soft strands of his wife's long hair. "Go to bed now."
"But Sesshoumaru-sama..." Jaken tried to protest, but the Demon Lord's dangerous glare prevented any more words from coming out of his mouth. He and the little girl bowed to acknowledge the order and left the room, Jaken rubbing at his nose which was still aching due to Kikyou's swipe.
Now that he was alone with his raven-haired mate, Sesshoumaru let her cry against him. He said nothing, but he continued to hold her close, to tell Kikyou that he was there...that she was not alone. For a long while, they lay unmoving in each other's arms. The lamp burning on the floor a few feet from them had died before any of them said a word.
Sesshoumaru felt Kikyou's previously erratic and hurried breathing even out, and her grip slackened. He loosened his embrace slightly to feel her stir in his arms. Kikyou looked up at him, her sweaty features illuminated only by the moonlight which entered through the wide open door. Sesshoumaru tenderly brushed aside the few stray hairs which had fallen over her face.
"Tell me that it is you, Sesshoumaru," she said in a whisper, gingerly reaching out to touch his face, fearing that he might disappear the moment her fingers made contact with his skin. "Tell me that you are not a spirit, and that you live yet still."
"It is me, Kikyou," Sesshoumaru replied, wondering deep inside why she said those sorts of things. He closed his eyes briefly when he felt her caress his cheek. Oh, how his body yearned for her touch! "I am here..."
Kikyou said nothing, but she slowly inched her face closer to his, and for a fleeting moment, she looked deeply into his eyes before capturing his lips in a kiss. Her hands made their way to his spiked armor, and Sesshoumaru got her silent message. He complied with her plea, and they pulled apart for a brief moment so he can remove that part of his garments.
Once he had discarded his armor and his two swords, Kikyou immediately assaulted his lips. She loosened her lover's haori around the neck, her fingers tracing a path down to the warm, bare skin below his neck. Likewise, Sesshoumaru's hands were busy, gently pulling open the white blouse she wore underneath the silken blue robe and exposing a thin strip of pale skin running down the center of her chest.
Kikyou moaned slightly as Sesshoumaru licked the side of her neck where he had left his mark years before, when they first sealed their love in a firefly-illuminated glade. The bellflower-patterned robe she wore over her other garments slipped a little below her shoulders, but Kikyou didn't mind. She closed her eyes, reliving the memory. How long ago was it? How many more years will pass before a far greater authority will separate them from each other...?
She was driven from the reverie of her mate's passionate caresses by the tiny bit of life in her womb. Their child seemed to admonish them in its own little way, giving her such a strong kick that even Sesshoumaru felt it. At once, Kikyou recalled the now eminent danger her husband unknowingly faced, and she was deeply thankful to the unborn child for reminding her that they had so little time.
Sesshoumaru frowned slightly when Kikyou pushed him away rather strongly. The soft pelt of fur which he usually slung over his right shoulder had fallen off. What he had done wrong now? He was surprised at the sudden arousing of her passion after a rather unstable state, and he chose to follow her along. But now, Kikyou's face was hidden in the shadow, and her hands were clenched in fists. Sesshoumaru thought she was crying again, but when she raised her eyes, her face was steady and serious.
She took his hands in hers, and Sesshoumaru felt that as though Kikyou's hands had turned to ice. Though she may look calm on the exterior, she was afraid; he knew her enough to understand that.
"What frightens you so, Kikyou?" he asked, squeezing her hands affectionately.
"I found out certain things," she replied, urgency lacing her tone. "Someone...someone desires to kill you, Sesshoumaru."
Sesshoumaru nearly let out a laugh. No one can kill him; many have tried, and all of them had failed miserably. Surely, Kikyou understands that? But Kikyou read what he was thinking, and she tightened her hold on his hands to the point of pain. Frustration at his arrogance almost broke her calm mask.
"You may take it lightly, Sesshoumaru," she said, her eyes narrowing slightly. "Even I find it hard to believe, but this will not be like anything that had happened before. You have a very dangerous enemy, and...and..." She broke off, not wishing to tell the dreaded words the second time. However, Kikyou steadied herself and met him in the eye. "You know I can't lose you, Sesshoumaru..."
"Is this what you saw in your nightmare?" Sesshoumaru asked softly, though without a trace of jest. By now he realized that Kikyou was very serious with the matter, and it meant that he had to take it seriously too.
Kikyou took in her breath rather sharply as she shook her head, recalling the very horror and pain she felt in the vision. Sesshoumaru read her reaction, and he immediately said, "Let's not speak of it if it will cause more pain on your part..."
"No; you have to know," Kikyou broke him off immediately, cupping his cheek with her delicate hand. "I have to get it out of my conscience before it consumes me. I dreamt that you fought with another youkai... I can't acutely describe your opponent's face, but he looked like a perfect embodiment of evil, and...and you lost to him. I tried to help you, but I could not even get close... You tried to protect me...but it cost you your life... You died in my arms..."
Kikyou's voice faltered. Sesshoumaru thought she might not be able to continue, but she set her jaw and loosened her painful hold on her husband's hands. "Then the ground opened up beneath me. Fire came out, and I was thrown into it. But before the fire could fully consume me, I heard a cry...a baby's cry. I am positive I heard our own child, Sesshoumaru."
Silence came between them both. A cloud passed over the moon, and they were robed in darkness for a few minutes. When light came out again, Sesshoumaru looked away and fixed his gaze at the newly uncloaked half moon, whispering, "It is only a dream, Kikyou." But she can see that he was rather troubled by it.
"You may say that it is only a dream," Kikyou pressed on, "but the dragon that attacked Rin and I earlier revealed some alarming things. Please listen to me, beloved." She reached out and touched his cheek. Sesshoumaru turned away his line of vision from the moon and once again looked at his wife. They were both serious, and not a trace of a smile could be found on their faces.
"The dragon was a minion of a certain being it called 'the Master,'" Kikyou explained, speaking slowly so as to give him the time to take her words in. "It said something about your bloodline. That, I could not fully understand. It mentioned someone by the name of Lady of the Tsukisawa, and judging by what I have heard, she was an enemy of the Master. She sealed the Master before she died, the dragon said, but her seal is now beginning to lose its power. In a week, he will break free, and he will seek you out, Sesshoumaru. He will seek you out to kill you."
Sesshoumaru was deep in thought, and Kikyou could not read his expression. "Why would that despicable 'Master' as he calls himself want to destroy me?"
"I could not quite understand it myself," Kikyou replied thoughtfully. "The dragon said that you are the only descendant of the Lady of the Tsukisawa, and in order for them to have their revenge against her, they would have to make her bloodline fail once and for all." Sesshoumaru noted that her choice of words avoided mentioning anything that will speak directly of him dying. She seemed to be more perturbed about it than he was.
"I dispatched of the dragon, Sesshoumaru, but it left me weakened. I passed out, and when I awoke, I didn't know where I was." Her tone became more bitter, more reproaching. "Why did you not try to find me, Sesshoumaru?"
"Kikyou!" Sesshoumaru found himself retorting. "Don't think I did not try to seek for you. I spent the whole half of the day searching for you in the forest, but for some reason, the trail of your scent was weak and I could hardly sense your aura at all. When I found you, night had fallen, and..."
"And?" Kikyou asked, listening carefully to his explanation with a frown.
"Never mind," Sesshoumaru said, choosing to not tell her about his encounter with the white miasma. "But I found you indeed, and I took you here. I went out for a stroll under the moonlight, and when I came back, I found out that you were tormented by the nightmare you spoke of. You know perfectly well what happened afterwards."
Kikyou pondered silently on his words, but she was a little bit angered because she can tell that he was hiding something from her.
"Well, that wasn't all that happened!" she said. "When I awoke, I saw a demoness...you may not believe me, Sesshoumaru, but she looked so like you! She also had a moon mark on her forehead, but her hair was a dark violet, and her eyes were like silver. What's more, she also had shinidamachuu, but hers were more warlike than mine. She said she knew you, and that you would come for me. She also said something rather perturbing, that our bond has something to do with fulfilling a hidden vow; I don't know! But she was so motherly, and she lulled me to sleep..." Kikyou stopped, noticing that Sesshoumaru had on an expression rather unusual for him. His amber eyes were wide open, and she saw something like surprise written in them.
"Did I say something...?" Kikyou muttered, but out of the blue, Sesshoumaru took her by the shoulder and forced her to meet his eye.
"Did you not know who she was?" he asked with a sense of urgency that was so unlike him.
"She said her name was Hanazuki..." Kikyou said immediately, rather frightened by the look in his golden orbs.
Sesshoumaru let go of her then, and he looked away, his expression unchanged. Kikyou watched him cautiously when he moved away from her slightly. But when he closed his eyes and clenched his hands, his claws drawing blood from his own palm, she shed her paralysis. Kikyou moved behind him and embraced him around his shoulders. Sesshoumaru leaned against her, taking in her fragrant scent. She whispered loving words into his ears, and he let her soothe him.
"I am sorry..." she tried to say, but he shook his head firmly in a gesture that meant she had nothing to apologize about. He cupped her cheeks and kissed her, but after a few moments, Kikyou broke off from the kiss, determined to know what caused him to act like the way he did earlier. "What is it about Lady Hanazuki that affects you so, Sesshoumaru?"
Sesshoumaru's hands left her face, and he once more turned to look at the moon. In the silvery light, Kikyou discerned a rather sad look in his eyes. What he said later shocked Kikyou entirely.
"She is my mother."
Kikyou, at first, simply knelt there, too lost for words. It occurred to her that Sesshoumaru never openly talked about his mother, his parents in general, except for a few tidbits about his father, the great Inu no Taishou, whose fame was spread even beyond the Western Lands. But it all fell into place, why Hanazuki so resembled Sesshoumaru, why she said that she was extremely worried for him, why Hanazuki addressed her as her daughter... Sesshoumaru was her son, then could it be...?
"She is the Lady of the Tsukisawa, after the place where she was conceived," Sesshoumaru's words made Kikyou's thoughts clear. "But what I could not understand, beloved, is why she chose this time to reveal her presence to us. I saw her too, Kikyou. She led me to you when you were lost, but I refused to believe that it was her until now."
"She probably understood the danger that we are now in," Kikyou said. "She could not bear to watch you die no more than I do."
"I know, Kikyou. But one thing contradicts all these. Mother had died when I was a child."
This new face of the mystery did not ease Kikyou's troubles one bit. She then recalled that she did not feel any kind of mortal aura coming from the Demon Lady. But she did smell a fragrance she could not recognize...
"How was she like to you, Sesshoumaru?"
Sesshoumaru sighed; he laid himself down and rested his head on Kikyou's lap, looking at the half-moon. Kikyou ran her hands through his silvery hair.
"Those events are better left in the past," he said softly. "Besides, you know that I am not fond of telling long stories."
"But will you tell me about her?" Kikyou asked in an equally soft, slightly pleading tone. "Will you choose to retrieve those memories from the past, for me?"
Sesshoumaru smiled slightly. Clever of Kikyou; she knew that he can hardly refuse such a thing to her. He lovingly patted her cheek with his finger before his face turned serious once again. As the story behind the demoness of the silvery eyes unfolded, Kikyou realized that it had a far greater depth than what she originally thought.
"I was very close to Mother when she was still alive, closer than I ever was with my father. She recognized my potential even as a child, and she would devote her time in coaching me so I will be able to grow up into a proper taiyoukai when time comes."
"What kind of coaching did you mean?" Kikyou interrogated when he paused slightly in his narrative.
"She encouraged me to hone my powers even at a tender age, and she strove to help me whenever she could. She would not compliment me openly, but she showed me in one way or another that she was pleased with me. Mother was also known to be Father's equal, the only youkai to match him in power. But unlike Father, she kept to herself often and rarely used her powers unless it was absolutely necessary. She was silent for most of the time, to the point of coldness."
'So like her son,' Kikyou thought to herself, but she said nothing and continued stroking his platinum mane.
"She died when I was still in the very young, not of a natural illness whatsoever, but killed. We were alone, Mother and I, when an army of undead human corpses came upon us. Now listen closely: our enemies also made mention of a certain 'Master' who demanded something from Mother. What it was, I don't know. He must be the same person the dragon was talking about, but Okaa-sama called him by something like his true name. That, I could not remember.
Since she refused to give in to our enemy, a fight ensued. She was wounded mortally on her side protecting me, but we managed to escape with those hateful beings on our trail. Mother then hid me in the forest while she went away. To distract the undead away from me, I guess. I never saw her again; the moment I could no longer feel her aura, I know that she had died."
He was silent for a time. Kikyou squeezed his shoulder gently, and she sought to imagine how he must have felt at that time. A young Sesshoumaru in Hanazuki's arms...it must have been a poignant scene, but to lose one's mother while young... Kikyou marveled anew at her husband's strength; she extremely admired those who managed to live through such suffering.
"...Word got to Father about what happened to us, and he immediately searched for us in the forest. He found me, and together, we searched in vain for my mother. We never found her, and from that time on, my relationship with my father had been prickly. I set my goals to becoming powerful, and defeat Father when time comes, my mother's words ringing in my ears."
"But there came Inuyasha's mother," Kikyou whispered. How painful it must be for him! His mother's death must have steeled his heart so much that he grew up to be a rather power-hungry and indifferent individual. Did Hanazuki shed tears to realize what person her son had become? Or would have she allowed him to be that way? After all, the way of the youkai differed from how humans saw life.
"That wench," Sesshoumaru muttered, distaste clear in his voice. "Apart from being the cause of my father's death, I felt that she took away my mother's place, a place that was hers alone. Throughout these years, Okaa-sama's shadow still haunts me. I presume that was why I felt so incomplete before you came to my life, my love. I considered her to be the most important figure of my youth, but because her passing made a far greater scar on my being than the passing of my father, I never spoke of her to anyone again, except to you."
"Have I been a good wife to you, darling?" Kikyou asked uncertainly. Now that Sesshoumaru told her about Hanazuki, she felt that she lived in the shadow of her mother-in-law. She wondered if she had any influence over her husband as lasting as his mother's teachings which molded him into the person he was at present.
Sesshoumaru knew what she was thinking of, for he raised his head and touched her cheek with one of his hands. "I loved you two, Mother and you, in two equally different ways," he said to ease her spirit. "Don't consider yourself to be a replacement of her, Kikyou. No one can replace you in my heart, the way no one can replace her as my mother. You touched my life in ways different from her, and I value your love as much as I value hers." His hand roamed to her belly, and the child within stirred, as though recognizing its father's caress.
Kikyou smiled slightly but said not a word. She continued to run her hands through her husband's silvery tresses and they both looked up at the moon, thinking about how things had begun to unravel the way they had.
...o0o...
The shallow waters stirred as golden talons dipped themselves into the crystalline liquid. As every ripple shimmered beneath the light of the moon, sapphire eyes raised themselves up and gazed at the waning orb in the heavens.
"Lady Suien, he will come to me soon..."
...o0o...
SecretAgentX: Wee! Thanks for the email! I am touched that some people really liked Kikumo. Don't worry, as a little bit of her past and her other encounters with Sesshoumaru in the Western Lands will be revealed as the chapters come by.
Cold Kikyo: Thank you, thank you, thank you for reviewing even if I seem to update once in a blue moon! ;p
Angel: I am glad you like my story... Is that what you were trying to say? O.o
ninalee-chan: Aaaw, I know I kinda got sentimental over there. I had absolutely NO idea on how Sesshy behaved as a child, so I had to rely on my imagination for most of the chapter. :D
Absent of Grace: Yeah, it's a tragedy. I don't like killing off my original characters, but for the sake of the series, one has to do so sometimes. See ya! ;)
Whoever you are, thank you for the little review!
The East Wind Melts the Ice: Yay! Thanks for the compliment! Honestly, didn't know how I was going to write the last chapter... At least it didn't turn out horrible or anything... -.-
Gossamer Wind: Yep, since vacation is near, I presume I can write more often now. ;)
Well, how was it? Will Sesshy and Kiky be able to stop disaster before it will strike them? And who is the new mystery character at the end of the chapter? ;p See you in Chapter seven!
