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Sesshomaru rushed to Kagome's defense but was blocked by eight council members.
"You cannot interfere my lord, the female that issued the challenge stated that she is your intended…And neither you nor the the priestess have denied the claim that both of you have shared a bed last night." The statement by lord Aburame stopped him in his tracks, because it was true, but in spite of that Kagome was human and ignorant of their ways. His hands were tied to his dismay, and he could only hope that she would survive the attack.
The deadly claws aiming for her throat was almost upon her, but she knew with surety that she could not use her powers of purification to maim the woman, it would not be welcomed, and she did not want to cause more problems for herself and Sesshomaru. There were too much distrust among her kind as a human and worse because she was a priestess, and demon kind.
She enabled her body and limbs with her reiki making herself stronger as she breathed deeply and caught the demoness's hands as it hovered inches from their mark. The females hands locked holding each other firmly pushing against each other trying to overpower and cause damage.
The chair behind Kagome made her trip and fall as the demoness pushed harder and lunged for her throat once more, quickly she rolled out of the way as razor sharp claws impacted with the hard wood floor cutting into them. Gasps echoed around the room at the vicious display of power, while Sesshomaru watched his mother carefully as she moved around the space stealthily like a cat ready to strike. He would kill her this day if she tried to harm Kagome.
Kagome's lungs were on fire as she breathed harshly, she never had any reasons to defend herself quite like this before. The demoness was trying to kill her to claim a right to become Sesshomaru's mate, and by the looks of it she was on her own. She remembered her old friend Sango telling her that demons will issue a challenge to fight to the death to claim a mate.
"I will not let you kill me bitch," she spat out her fury as the demoness attacked once again.
The rushing of the demoness's feet on the floor was quick and she swiped at Kagome's face cutting in her cheek deeply. It stung and burned, she winced in discomfort and fell to floor quite unexpectedly and wrapped her hands around the female's ankles and yanked them apart.
She fell with a horrible thud on her stomach, knocking the air right out of her and could not react swiftly enough to avoid the viciousness of Kagome's counter. She pounced on her with all the aggression inside of her, she never knew that she could feel so much hate. She grapped the demoness's head while sitting on her back and smashed it into the floor over and over, and each time that she repeated the action, a disturbing crunching sound met her ears but she was too far gone to notice. The demoness screamed as her nose broke and some of her teeth dislodged and scattered on the floor.
She was wild and abandoned lost to the carnage that she created, that when the strong arms of Sesshomaru held her she fought him not realizing who it was, until he drew her in his embrace and whispered calming words of comfort to her.
The demoness lie unconscious on the ground bloody and bleeding, two of the elders removed her from the floor and took her elsewhere for treatment; she would heal and get better in a matter of days.
When Kagome was calm and her breathing even, Sesshomaru pulled her away from himself and turned her head to the side and inspected the nasty gashes she received courtesy of the demoness's three claws. They were quite deep and jagged, and he was regretful because she would be scarred, but to his astonishment the wounds stopped bleeding and started to knit shut right in front of his eyes. The wide eyed expression on his face caused Kagome to react in alarm.
"Sesshomaru what is wrong, you are scaring me?"
He continued to watch without responding, and when the wounds healed and not a scar was left behind, he led her outside and into the bathroom in front of a mirror.
"Look," he instructed and she did just that, her mouth opened and closed in bewilderment, and then she turned away from the mirror and looked at him and asked.
"How?"
He shook his head then answered, "I do not know."
She fixed her clothes as best as she could considering that it was torn and bloody, and he assisted her.
She sighed. "Sesshomaru why didn't you help me?" she asked, and started to cry.
He hugged her close and replied. "I would have if I could, and I am regretful that this has happened."
Now she understood clearly what Sango had said to her so long ago.
He raised her chin up and gazed into her eyes, then brushed the remaining tears away and spoke.
"You have earned respect and loyalty here today, and not even my mother can deny that fact…Let us go back to the meeting and tell them of our plans for the future."
They walked back silently; they were gone for some time and when they entered all were seated and waiting on them. Sesshomaru led Kagome to the head of the table and stood beside her; she took a deep breath, and then begun to speak shakily.
"I am grateful for the opportunity to be in your midst today to help on this noble quest. I would love to live to see a future where demons and humans live in harmony."
The members listened with interest, but what she was saying was not going to be an easy task to accomplish, regardless, hearing her out was their best option.
"It will be a long and hard road to travel, because the distrust and prejudices on both sides needs vast improvements, and the only way to do that is to change our way of thinking so as to foster better relationships between our kinds."
The chatter started again and it was like the buzzing of a hive of bees, only they were not agreeing on the objectives, some opposing and some agreeing while she and Sesshomaru waited patiently for the bickering to stop, and the pertinent questions asked.
"We can never live together in peace with humans, they hate and fear our kind," said the elder from the south.
Sesshomaru took up the challenge of answering his statement. "Then we will have to change their way of thinking and how they see us," he responded, and continued to wait.
It was not at all surprising when then the loud mouthed lord Miffoon got up and addressed him.
"How do you suppose we make this change?" he asked in malice, for he was a known human hater.
Sesshomaru knew that this demon was trying to trap him and to make him look foolish, and also he was an old friend and follower of his mother. So before he answered he thought carefully.
"We will try for one system of government, or a joint effort pooling our resources together, facilitating better social policies that includes all races."
He sat back down crossly when he realized that he could not corner and trap the Daiyoukai with treason.
Laughing scornfully his mother remarked. "So you are going to form an alliance of humans and demons under one government," she hissed and got up from her chair. "It will never work we are too different, and we definitely do not think alike."
The council room erupted in a racket from the cheers of those demons who agreed with her.
Kagome tried to calm them down but they would not listen to her, but she continued to speak nonetheless.
"We don't have to think or even believe the same things to respect each other and to live in peace, what we need to do is to let go of some of our prejudices and give it a chance before we say that it will never work."
"You are naïve if you think that it will be so simple," lord Hitoshi said passionately, "fear and hatred was cultivated a very long time ago, and it will not just disappear."
Kagome made a face of pure exasperation and then continued. "Okay, maybe you are right, but remember this, while you may have memories of a time long past and can live a very long time, humans breed and die quickly, if we can change the mind-set of human children now, fifty years down the road things will be a lot better…please think about what I have suggested."
Sesshomaru was very pleased by Kagome's reasoning because what she said made sense, for if they could change the children's mind now on how they view demons, then their offspring would also be more comfortable with them being around, and the generation after that, and so forth.
But the burning question was how were they going to do it? Forming a human/demon alliance would mean that they would have to get the human emperor of Japan involved, the highest form of government, and from the little conversation he and Kagome has had on the subject, it was going to take some skill and manipulations.
Kagome had information on the future and she'd suggested that they use some of it to gain his favor and win him over. He was a young hero amongst his people, and if they could get him to sanction and form the alliance, then they could say that the road to success seemed plausible.
Educating young minds of each race's cultures and habits would be the best place to start, and Kagome was a teacher.