Chapter Forty: Confessions
Quietly, Kagome opened her bedroom door and stepped out into the hallway. The gray light of early morning lit her way as she headed for the stairs. With tip-toed softness, she made her way down them, her feet gracefully dodging every creak, and when she reached the bottom, she walked towards the living room.
As she entered, she found Tora sprawled out in a jumble of futon. With her eyes pinned to his face and chest, she snuck towards him. Wearing an old tank top, his chest rose and fell in the steady rhythm of sound sleep. But it was when his hand absently scratched his stomach that she knew that he was fine. When the parking structure collapsed, the chunk of falling concrete that had grazed him had given him a serious concussion. That he'd been lucid enough to wake up in the stairwell had been in their favor. With her helping him, they'd converted their costumes to their civilian look and staggered away, leaving the bike behind. He hadn't been happy about it, but with the blood streaming from his scalp, they hadn't had much choice when emergency services arrived.
Her attention drifted from Tora to the living room table. With her upper half draped atop it, her mother was asleep too, loosely sitting on her knees. A thin tendril of drool seeped from her parted lips and Kagome smiled gently. She'd stayed up as late as she could, monitoring his vitals and helping her with what she asked for.
On the table beside her was a mess of medical supplies. Sterile gauze, wipes, bandages, and their empty wrappers. Latex gloves. Bottles of antiseptic and tubes of ointment. And a bloody rod of rebar. Laid across the floor was an old sheet drenched in dark red and the remains of a tourniquet.
In near silence, she approached the table and began to gather the medical supplies, separating the trash from what needed to be returned to the first aid kit. She looked at the heavy-duty toolbox beside the table. Well, it was more like a first aid chest now. Softly, she flipped its metal latches and lifted its lid. One-by-one, she put away the supplies, leaving the instruments that needed to be sterilized out. Then she piled all the waste onto the sheet.
But when she picked up the piece of rebar, she paused. Rotating it in her hand, she examined the bits of tissue that clung to its pattern of ridges. His agonized snarl when he ripped it out of his thigh echoed in her mind. Then she set it onto the sheet and rolled everything up.
As she hefted the bundle, she revealed a dark stain on the tatami mat floor beneath it. For a moment, she considered it. Then she slipped out of the living room and into the entryway. After stepping into her shoes, she toted the bundle out to the disposal bin for the incinerator and dropped it inside.
Inhaling deep through her nose, she let out a heavy sigh. The cool morning air felt refreshing and for a few long breaths, she reveled in it as it cleansed the milieu of antiseptics and blood from her nose. Then her sight gravitated towards a second story window. Barely visible in the dawn light, she could make out an incandescent glow.
She smiled to herself.
She went back inside. After making her way up the stairs, she headed down the hallway. And when she reached the sliding door at the end, she lightly rapped it.
"Sesshoumaru," she whispered, knowing that he could hear her no matter how softly she spoke. "May I come in?"
A long silence passed.
She waited.
"Yes," he replied.
The door glided down its track and she entered his bedroom.
With his back resting against the wall, Sesshoumaru sat under the covers of his bedding. Beside him and beneath the warmth of a nightlight, Souta lay snug in his futon. The soft glow of a tablet uplit the daiyoukai's face as he swiped its surface, his eyes moving rhythmically as he read. On the other side, several serving dishes sat stacked, the only evidence of their contents reduced to a reddish-brown residue. After they had pulled out the rebar, he had devoured every scrap of meat in the house, his finicky palette be damned. And when Mama couldn't cook it fast enough, he had wolfed it down raw. She smirked. While his feralness had been intimidating, the fact that he'd been unable to stand up and that his canines were missing undercut the effect to everyone's benefit.
"Feeling better?" she asked with a nod towards the bowls.
His glanced up at her. "Satisfactory."
"Did you sleep?"
His eyes fell back to the tablet and he shook his head. "No."
"Then is it okay if I check your injuries to make sure that they're healing well?"
His swiped the screen one last time before clicking the power button and setting the device aside.
Smiling gently, she approached his side and knelt onto her knees. She leaned in close to him until his breath warmed her cheeks, and with tender grace, she touched his face. He closed his eyes as her fingers glided over his nose and cheekbones.
"Seems like your nose is almost healed," she said, noting both the fading bruising and the slowly swirling youki. "When it's done, I don't think it'll look any different than before. How are your teeth?"
His cool eyes blinked open and from behind his lips, she could see him tonguing the gaps.
"They're nearly grown in," he replied.
"Good, because otherwise their absence was really going to undermine your condescending reputation at the fish market."
He gave her a slight smirk.
She flashed him a grin before scooting back until she was beside his forearm.
"What…" he began to ask, then paused before gesturing to his face. "What happened after this?"
Her expression turned bittersweet. "I shot at the oyabun with purification arrows and she took my power and absorbed it into her own. And when she had drained enough of it, she let it reveal what she really was."
He looked away, his gaze settling on the simple pattern on his bedding.
"At that point it was clear that she was going to kill you, if not all of us, so I took a gamble and wounded her lieutenant in a way that would be fatal if she didn't get him help immediately. We were lucky that his life was more valuable to her than ours were." Staring at her right hand, she sighed. "Well, at least I hope my gamble was right. That it wasn't fatal the instant I let the arrow go."
His attention returned to her, his eyes firm. "You're not at fault no matter what the outcome is revealed to be. I am the one who swore to protect you, both physically and morally. I will accept responsibility if he dies."
She met his eyes and the resolution behind them and replied with a weak smile. As much as she wanted to let him take the guilt that spoiled in her gut, she couldn't. Her actions were hers and hers alone.
His expression softened. "I apologize for failing to protect you."
"I understood the risks and I made my own decisions. And to be honest, my belief in you was rewarded. The plan worked." She felt her chest tighten as words formed on her tongue that she couldn't take back. "But if I'm angry at you for anything it's because you lied to me. About youkai."
The softness he displayed hardened. "I did not lie to you. I am the last youkai."
She scoffed softly. "You called the oyabun a hanyou."
"My aim was to distract her so that you both could escape."
"But she is one, isn't she?"
"In a manner."
"Then you're not the last one."
"I am."
She rubbed her face with both hands and grumbled. "You're going to kill me with semantics. I don't know if being taciturn and evasive is your personality or the nature of being a daiyoukai, but what I do know is that it's frustrating."
He frowned thoughtfully. "Likely both."
From behind her hands, she scowled at him.
He met her look, unperturbed. "I did not know what she was until confronting her at the parking garage, otherwise we wouldn't have carried out such a risky plan. I have never encountered a celestial beast before, so I didn't understand what my instincts were warning me from until it was too late."
"So, you know that she's a kirin?"
He nodded.
"In that case," she said before pointing at his chest where his loosened robe revealed a glimpse of his spider-shaped scar, "Why does she have the same scar? She called it a sign of a curse. What is it?"
He let out a soft sigh.
With her eyes fixed on him, she waited.
"Do you remember a few days ago," he asked, giving a subtle nod towards the window, "When you used the shrine bell steps to illustrate the status of our peoples in relation to each other?"
She nodded.
"At the time, I described youkai as being people of the earth, but since our world is divided by the powers of two realms, then it's only natural that there are people who are of the heavens as well."
"The celestial beasts."
He nodded. "Dragons. Phoenixes. Kirins. They exist on the highest tier, empowered by the gods and heavens. That's why she could manipulate and absorb your power. You both drink from the same well."
"And you've never encountered one before?" she asked.
"No, they're very rare. I'm certain that generations of my clan have come and gone without meeting one."
She frowned thoughtfully. "So, how did you know that she's a hanyou?"
"Because even though I have never dealt with a celestial beast, I know a hanyou when I meet one. Their nature is conflicted by a war of instincts between two disparate peoples." He shook his head. "And I cannot think of a more dividing combination than the divine righteousness of a kirin and the base vulgarity of a youkai."
She snorted. "Vulgarity? You do realize that you're describing yourself?"
"If that's so, then I would also say that the average vulgarity of a youkai has diminished quite a bit in recent years."
With care, she picked up his bound wrist. His improvised splint was gone, replaced by a piece of molded plastic and a fresh bandage. She examined the gentle contours of his arm. Now that the swelling had subsided, the fracture was barely noticeable. Beneath her fingers, she could feel the churn of youki knitting his bones back together. At the rate they were healing, it wouldn't be surprising if he had the splint off the next day.
"So, what does the spider mean?" she asked again as she carefully rotated and stretched his arm, checking his range of motion.
With his other hand, he rubbed his chest, his fingertips tracing the scar.
She waited, testing his fingers and feeling the warmth of his circulation.
"It's a reminder of my shame and my loss," he admitted at last, his voice turning hollow as his gaze drifted to his bedding once more. "It's what remains of the youkai plague that I was too proud to face on behalf of my people."
She paused, her hand holding his. "Youkai plague?"
"Anyone bearing youkai blood fell victim to it. The first sign was the illumination of their irises during moments of intense feeling or excitement. Not long later, a spider would appear on their chest, branding them. Slowly, its legs would wrap around their ribs, causing episodes of tremendous pain and seizing. And at the end in one last fit, their bodies would petrify into crystal."
Her free hand rose to cover her mouth. Familiar memories of a playful kitsune, a fiercely loyal cat, and a cocky wolf prince overwhelmed her, only now their vibrance was frozen, trapped within effigies of glass. Impending tears stung her eyes and she pushed it down. They were gone. She had made peace with that ever since the Bone-Eater Well had lost its magic. Then firerat fur ghosted through her mind and she nearly broke.
He inhaled softly and something akin to reassurance filled the emptiness in his voice. "Hanyous experienced a different fate than full-blooded youkai. During the routine occasions when their demon essences receded, their power simply never returned afterward. They remained human, or in the case of the oyabun, a kirin." His eyes met hers again. "So, do not despair for him. He survived."
She sighed shakily and gave him a nod.
Outside the window, the glass wind-chime rang, its song bright and delicate.
"Why…" she asked as she took a steadying breath, "Why didn't you tell me about this sooner?"
He squeezed her hand, gentleness and strength flowing into her from his touch. "Before I had yet to truly face my shame and so I hid from it, or rather, I let it hide me. I let it overcome and burden me. But now that I have confronted it, it no longer weighs me down. Instead, it pushes me forward. Lifts me up. Inspires me to be better. To honor those who have died. To be worthy of their sacrifice."
A blush warmed her cheeks.
"I need to, uh, check your thigh wound," she said, clearing her throat.
He let her go.
And for a moment, her hand missed his comfort.
Taking the edge of his blanket, he swept his covers back far enough to reveal his thighs wrapped in his robe. On the left side, he folded back the fabric until he exposed the raw wound that spoiled his inner thigh.
Leaning forward, she reached over him to touch it. With the swelling gone, healthy skin surrounded the injury and she could feel his youki at work, mending the vessels and muscles underneath. As she had nicked Ishida's femoral artery, so had the rebar done to Sesshoumaru when it had punctured his thigh. In all her time as a priestess, she'd never seen flesh weld itself to a foreign object the way his had the night before, but if it hadn't, she doubted that he would have made it home before bleeding out.
"There's one more reason why I didn't tell you sooner," he said.
With her hand warm against his thigh, she looked up at him.
"I'm not certain of my memories and their reliability. Whether my centuries adrift in the deep have confused reality, but I remember you being there at the end when the spider bit."
She blinked. "I was there? During the plague?"
He nodded. "It's muddled, and honestly prior to my unsealing, I never lent you much consideration. You were another human, albeit more useful than most. But I believe that it may be that you were there."
"I don't remember a plague…"
"I only have a rudimentary understanding of how you once transited through time, but perhaps that which is in the past for me still awaits you in your future."
The world slowed as the implication of his deduction hit her. "But the well doesn't work anymore…" She shook her head. "I don't understand."
"Neither do I and that's the other reason why I hesitated to share beyond my shame. I'm not in the habit of divulging that which cannot be proven or explained, especially when it has been filtered through five hundred years of emptiness."
She sighed. "It's all right. I forgive you for not saying anything. To be honest, I don't know if I would have if I'd been in your place."
He nodded a bow in her direction. Then his hand lightly clasped hers and suddenly she was hyperaware of how close he was to her.
"There's one last matter."
"Oh?"
"It's about a question that you often ask me. One that I've never had a good answer for."
Swallowing dryly, she nodded.
"When I was buried in the rubble of the parking structure, I realized that being here with this family and with you has become something more than a foundation of support upon which to rebuild my life. It has become the source of a feeling that I've rarely felt."
She looked at him quizzically. Then her eyes brightened, and a small smile formed on her lips. "Are you happy?"
In the soft morning light, his eyes glimmered gold. "Yes."
Her smile broadened into a grin.
Someone sniffled from the hallway.
Twisting to the side, she looked through the open doorway to discover her mother, her grandfather, and Tora huddled together.
There was another sniffle, and with a smirk, Mama surreptitiously pointed toward Tora.
"This kind of thing always &%$#ing gets to me, I swear," he admitted before rubbing his glossy eyes free of the wetness that threatened to turn into tears.
"How long have you guys been standing there?" Kagome asked, pink tinting her cheeks.
"Pretty much the whole time," Souta replied with a voice hoarse from sleep.
Her attention flew to him and she watched him as he stretched lazily in his futon.
"The real question…" he added with a yawn, "Is how long are you going to keep groping his leg?"
Her blush went nuclear. Quickly, she yanked her hand away before throwing Sesshoumaru's covers back over his lower body as if hiding the evidence.
Grandpa shook his head in disappointment. "Kagome, I never thought I'd have to say this to you, but please don't take advantage of the injured or the defenseless. It's not very becoming of a priestess in the Higurashi family."
"Grandpa!" she yelled. "I wasn't doing anything!"
He scoffed.
"Grandpa!"
Reaching over, Sesshoumaru picked up the tablet and clicked it back on.
She spun on him. "And you knew they were listening in on us the whole time?"
He shrugged noncommittally. "There was nothing expressed that wasn't for their ears as well and what does it matter if they were there or not? There's no such concept as privacy in this family."
They murmured in agreement.
With her words sputtering, Kagome wracked her brain for a defense that would restore her dignity. "It's not about privacy. No, wait it is about privacy—"
With a furrowed brow, Sesshoumaru held up a finger, interrupting her.
"What?"
He flipped the tablet towards her. Displayed on its screen was the publisher's page for an eBook.
"Why are you showing me this?" she asked.
"Look at the bottom," he said as he tapped the screen.
"It says that this Basic Guide was printed by the Bikini Girl Publishing Company. Are we really that surprised?"
He tapped the screen again. "The emblem. Does that design remind you of anything?"
Frowning, she looked closer. At the bottom and beside an address located in the Saitama prefecture was the stylized head of a three-eyed cow. Her eyes widened. "What the &%$#?"