Chapter 12 – Great!
Finally, a bright day was going to be nice for a change. Birds were singing even louder than the ordinary. Rin was playing outside with Inuyasha and Chikara was taking her nap in her bedroom.
She woke up from her short sleep, slowly opening her eyes to take in her surroundings. She smiled when she saw her son in her arms. She felt someone beside her; Sesshoumaru was sitting on the bed near her. He was smiling.
Chikara lifted an eyebrow, surprised to see that wide smile on her husband's face. "Why are you smiling like that, dear?" she asked, too curious.
"What?" he said, slightly amused, "Can't I be happy to see my mate waking up?" he answered.
Chikara laughed. Sesshoumaru made a surprised look. "Why are you laughing, my dear?" he asked.
She stopped, and looked at him in the eyes; she could see that he was really happy. It was strange because normally he wouldn't reveal most of his feelings even to her. "I'm glad you've finally decided to open up to me. You don't even know how I'm happy." She gave him a wide smile.
She sat from her sleeping position and that woke up Takato. The baby yawned and looked at his parents and closed his eyes again. Both of the adults looked at their child and smiled. "He's adorable", Chikara said.
Sesshoumaru nodded and leaned in to close the distance between himself and his mate. Chikara took the hint and gave him a quick kiss, which was full of emotions.
Sesshoumaru blushed a bit and said: "Chikara, from now on, I promise to be more open with you. I swear I'll make our relationship work. I… love you and I don't want to lose you. Can you promise me that you'll never pull a stunt on me again, like the one you did a few days ago?"
She took his hand in hers and nodded: "I promise." She chuckled. "It's strange to hear you saying things like that; it's even stranger to see you blush" she smiled. "But don't worry, I love it." She winked at him.
Sesshoumaru continued his little speech: "Chikara, I will always be there for you, and I'd appreciate you'd do the same." She nodded and he continued. "Now I'll leave you, I have to catch up with some things that I was supposed to do in the last days."
Chikara made some puppy eyes, pleading him to stay a bit more; he smiled and shook his head in a negative sign; he was sad that he couldn't stay with her. So he got up and gave her a kiss on the forehead. He then smiled at her and called: "Jaken!"
Then out of nowhere the toad demon appeared. "Yes milord!"
"I want you to go get Inuyasha and Rin and bring them here."
The toad nodded and left.
The goddess blinked: "Inuyasha! What do you mean? He's alive?" she asked, shocked.
"Yes, when you left, it took a few minutes, but he…changed back to his demon form…" he said, hating to lie to his mate. He didn't want to admit that the half-demon was dead for a small amount of time and that he had revived him with Tenseiga.
She smiled: "I'm glad he's okay, I wouldn't have wanted to explain that to Kagome and the others." She felt relieved to hear such good news.
°°°
Sesshoumaru left as Inuyasha and Rin came inside the bedroom.
As Inuyasha walked slowly, entering the room, Rin ran beside him to launch herself on the bed. "Mama!" Chikara laughed and returned the hug the small girl gave her. "I'm happy to see you, I missed you a lot, but it's okay because uncle Inuyasha played with me and my dolls", Rin said with a playful voice; she was ecstatic to see the goddess.
Chikara smiled. "I missed you too. It's a luck you had someone to play with you," she looked at Inuyasha, "I'm sure you had a lot of fun, huh?"
The half-demon nodded and returned her smile. He turned to look at Rin: "Look Rin, Chikara and I have to talk; I would like you to go play outside" he said, with a gentle voice but at the same time, being firm on what he wanted.
Rin was about to protest when she looked at the goddess.
Chikara gave Rin a serious look and said: "Look dear, if Inuyasha wants to talk to me, I'd prefer you would go now. Don't protest, little one… and don't worry, we'll see each other a bit later and you'll have a lot of time to talk about your day."
The little girl pouted, but did as her 'mother' asked her. She got down from the bed, walking toward the door, gliding her feet on the ground; finally she reached the door and waved goodbye to the occupants of the room.
As soon as she left, Inuyasha turned to Chikara. He started right off to the point: "Look, I wanted to tell you that we should be going to join the others. They must be worried about us and Kagome must be growing impatient, so the sooner the better. What do ya think?"
Chikara looked a bit sad. "You're right. I guess we've been missing for a while…" She bit her lower lip and Inuyasha knew she wanted to add something, but didn't say it.
"…and?" he added, to make her spill.
"And nothing" she said, to convince him. "Listen Inuyasha, before we continue our journey, I want to tell you something: if ever I am much wounded like I was yesterday… I want to die."
Inuyasha looked horrified at her request. "But you said you were immortal and that couldn't be killed" he blurted out. In his head, what she said didn't make much sense.
She looked aside: "I know, but I still can feel the pain. But I have a weak spot. You just have to aim there and I'll die." She looked into his eyes: "But I must warn you, if I die, I can't be brought back to life, even with Tenseiga. My goddess soul will leave me and take over the next one that if from my skin, which would be Takato in this case."
The half-demon's heart skipped a beat; her soul would leave her? 'Which means that… oh shit. She can't be brought back…so that's what she meant.' Inuyasha looked at his hands, to evade her look: "Well I'm not the one that's going to kill you, even if you're badly wounded; you can always heal… even if it takes a hell lot of time."
Chikara frowned; she tried to reason him, but each time she tried to say something, he was interrupting her, just like a small child would. She finally got his attention: "Listen to me: I'll show you my weak point; because if I say it, someone else will probably hear it and I don't want everyone to know about it."
"Does Sesshoumaru know about your weak point?"
With a strange look on her face she answered: "No. No one knows about it yet. Here, take a look." She gave him Takato and brought her hands together, near her chest, like she was praying. Suddenly, a light radiated from her. Close to her hands, a small red light, the size of her fist, was glowing and beating.
Inuyasha looked at the scene, but didn't understand much about it.
"Inuyasha, what do you think the red light is?" the goddess asked.
"Well, I'd say that… it's your heart?"
"Correct, but isn't something special with it?" She didn't want him to answer so she took one of her hands and touched the right side of her chest, where the red light was emanating. She then took her other hand and touched Inuyasha's left side where now a red light emanated from under her hand.
Inuyasha observed what she was doing. It took him a minute or two, but he finally caught the point; Chikara's heart was on her right side, while everyone else's was on the left. In the half-demon's head a link was made: Chikara didn't die from the old witch's attack because she received the energy blade on her left side, so the heart was intact. He pointed her and blurted out: "Your heart-"
"Shh! I told you not to say it" she cut in. Now that Inuyasha knew of her secret, she wouldn't have to suffer next time and with that, she felt a bit relieved.
She motioned him to lie beside her, so he approached her and lean backward, being careful with the baby in his arms. His head on her lap, she was playing with his hair while he was holding Takato.
She then decided to let go of the subject of her death to bring another one on the table. But this one was a bit more personal: "Huh, you know, Inuyasha…" she blushed a bit and tried to hide it by looking away.
He lifted his head from her lap: "What?" he simply answered and as he took a glance at her expression, he put down his head back.
She looked around to evade his look being a bit shy about her request: "Well I would like it if we'd stay for maybe an additional day here."
"But why?" he asked rapidly, still lying on his back.
"Maybe because I'd like to…" she tried to say something without actually saying it, "have a bit of time with Sesshoumaru?" she said with a shy voice.
Inuyasha blinked and guessed by her looks what she wanted: "Heh heh, you want some time alone with him, huh?" he said, closing his eyes and getting sleepy with the treatment Chikara was doing with his silver hair.
"Uh-huh" she answered, untying the knots in his hair.
The half-demon gave her a wide smile, still having his eyes closed. "And you would prefer not having the kids in your way." He paused. "Well if you want to, I can bring Takato with me, because I would prefer to go back to the others as soon as possible."
Chikara's eyes got wide and she smiled wildly: "Really? It doesn't bother you to bring him with you? That would be great Inuyasha!" She leaned over his head, a slightly worried look on her face: "But what about Rin? You can't take her with you" she asked.
Inuyasha opened his eyes and thought quickly: "Well you just have to ask Jaken to take her with that dragon demon Ah-Un to take a long stride. Anyways, with the dragon, she won't be in danger. As for Jaken, well that's another story, I can't guaranty that she'll be safe with him… but at least he won't be there to annoy you at the castle." He laughed at that. "Seriously Chikara, do you think anyway that Jaken would hurt Rin or put her in a dangerous situation? You don't have to worry."
"Yeah, you're right" she said.
Chikara smiled and Inuyasha sat up from his lying position: "You know, we should get to the dinning room, since it's time for lunch." He got off the occidental bed.
Her eyes widened as she followed Inuyasha with them: "Already? I didn't notice; I guess I slept more than an hour." She threw the bed sheets at the end of the bed. "I can take back Takato now" she said.
He gave back his nephew to the mother and added: "Come on, you can't stay in bed all day, ya know!" Inuyasha said as a joke, offering her a hand to get up.
"Thank you."
°°°
When Chikara and Inuyasha entered the dining room, Sesshoumaru was already there, while Rin was talking about her morning activities. The Lord's face illuminated when his mate entered the room with their son. He simply ignored Inuyasha; anyways, the half-demon did the same.
Chikara then sat on the floor beside her mate. She gave the demon lord a quick kiss on the lips: "Good morning, darling."
He simply returned the greeting with a nod.
Inuyasha sat by the goddess. Sesshoumaru felt a pang of jealousy, even though Chikara had told him that she didn't love Inuyasha as a mate. He tried to suppress that emotion, not to worry her.
The servants arrived with the mid-day meal. Everything was settled; after a while, seeing that the tension was rising between the dog brothers, Chikara decided to break the ice: "You know, dear, after lunch, Inuyasha decided to go back to the others."
"Hn." He didn't bother to answer more.
'Okay, that was a great line' she thought.
Takato was squealing and playing with his fists, trying to fit them one at a time in his mouth. Chikara looked at her son and chuckled at his actions.
The meal continued without any incident and Chikara was a bit relieved that the two brothers didn't jump at each other's throat.
°°°
Outside the castle, there was Inuyasha, Chikara, Takato, Sesshoumaru and Rin.
"Take this with you," Chikara handed Inuyasha a long red tissue belt that looked almost like hers. "It can always come in handy, you may never know" she smiled.
The half-demon looked at her confused, but still he took it, rolled it and attached it to his own belt that held his clothes together.
Sesshoumaru looked at his mate and brother; the way she was acting, it was a bit weird in his opinion, but he didn't comment.
Chikara then gave a small peck on her son's forehead: "Now be a good boy Takato, don't make your uncle go all crazy, okay?" She talked to Takato with babyish talk. She smiled and then gave Inuyasha the baby. Chikara stroke her son's cheek one last time and asked: "Inuyasha, could you bend forward a bit?"
The half-demon found that request very strange, but he did as asked.
Chikara got on her toes and gave also a peck on Inuyasha's forehead. The hanyou looked surprised, but sent her a smile.
"Now, you won't have to feed him until a few hours, I fed him an hour ago, so you should be good to go" the goddess told him.
She turned to face Sesshoumaru; the demon was almost sure that she was going to say good-bye, but he was surprise to hear what she said: "Sesshoumaru, dear, can't you at least be polite and tell your good-byes to Inuyasha and your son?"
The demon lord looked a bit shocked, but finally slightly bowed his head, in sign of respect. He looked at his mate to see a wide smile on her face, showing her appreciation of the gesture.
"Well we'll see each other in a while, right Chikara?" Inuyasha said. The goddess nodded. He continued, facing Rin this time: "As for you, young lady, I hope you'll be nice with everyone, 'kay?"
Rin nodded and approached Inuyasha to hug his leg, since she didn't want him to bend with her 'little brother' in his arms. He simply patted her head.
"Well, I'll be going" Inuyasha finally said.
He looked like he hesitated a bit, but in the end he turned and started to run. Everyone waved at Inuyasha.
Rin ran toward the castle, probably going to see her plants in the gardens, leaving the lord and the goddess. Sesshoumaru turned to face his mate, and with a strange look, he asked: "Why are you still here?"
"Isn't it obvious?"
Sesshoumaru didn't answer and that made Chikara laugh because he didn't understand: "What's so funny?" he said as calmly as possible; it was getting a bit on his nerves.
Chikara regain her composure to say with a seductive voice: "Well, I just wanted to pass some quality time with my mate…what do you think about that?"
Sesshoumaru blushed slightly, while the Lady of the Western Lands added: "So? What do you think about sending Rin with Ah-Un and Jaken on a long stride?"
Sesshoumaru chuckled and took Chikara with his only arm as they went in the castle's direction.
Okay... I know, I know. School has eated most of my time since March, but now, I'M FREEEEEE! Yee-ah!... Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I'll try to post the next chapter (which is already written) tomorrow or the day after, since it's been a while since I've written it. Ta ta for now! AND DON'T FORGET TO COMMENT! Hee hee, and thanks for those who reviewed!
