A/N: This will be the last chapter for this portion of the Sesshoumaru story. I will continue it on from here because obviously there's still a few things that need to be wrapped up!
I hope you enjoy this last installment of Fated to the End and please look for the sequel For Better of for Worse!
Sesshoumaru stared at me as I spoke to the group. "You don't have to tell them…" He murmured quietly into my hair just soft enough that his brother couldn't hear.
I smiled at him and leaned my face into his fur. "They have a right to know…" I whispered back just as soft.
"InuYasha was right…" I said as I turned my face back to the group. "I'm not human… Nor am I a demon… I am an in-between…"
"An in-between…?" Sango asked.
"That's right…" I struggled to stand; Sesshoumaru lifted me gently to my feet. I closed my eyes and tore away the magic that hid my true form; there were gasps from the crowd. I opened my eyes, blinking a few times to adjust my still fuzzy vision.
"You're missing a halo…" Sango murmured as she stared at me with wide eyes.
I cocked my head to one side. "You know what I am…?"
"Sure…" She said as she finally composed herself. "I can't think of a person who doesn't know the stories."
I smiled at her. "Why don't you enlighten your friends? I think they are still a little confused by what I really am."
"You're a Haibane, the Charcoal Feather, if they still lived you'd be part of the Haibane Renmei, the Charcoal Feather Federation. The Haibane were distinguished from humans and demons by their wings and halos. They're hair and eye color ranged the entire spectrum; usually the colors would indicate what their abilities were predominate in. It was said that they were sent here to help humans and demons a like."
"Yes… The Haibane were here to help those in need… But demons are greedy and soon the Haibane were sought after for their power not their kindness… And humans began to fear us when they found out what the demons wanted and they began to slaughter the Haibane…"
"But you're still here, you're not dead."
I smiled sadly at Sango. "I am not a real Haibane… My mother was the last of her kind. She fell in love with my father and stayed here in this hidden village helping the people who loved her until the day she died. My mother was the true Haibane… I am but half of what she was."
InuYasha was still eyeing Sesshoumaru venomously. "Why would Naraku want you?"
"Were you not listening InuYasha…? The Haibane are extremely powerful. Even half Haibane wields power than you could ever dream of. She could destroy all of Japan if she wanted to." Sango was angry.
"Possibly…" I murmured. "But my mother died before I grew into my… abilities… right now I am no stronger than Naraku with as much of the jewel as he has."
Kagome's eyes widened. "That's pretty powerful…" She whispered.
"Yes… I suppose it is…" I laid my head against Sesshoumaru, my eyes closed. I felt his arm tighten around me.
"That's enough for today…" I heard him say as I struggled to stay standing. "I believe Kaori needs to rest…" His other arm knocked my knees out as he lifted me into his arms.
InuYasha growled. "How'd you get your arm back?"
"I did it…" I mumbled as I pulled myself into the warmth that had wrapped around me. I assumed that InuYasha would reply but nothing was said.
"Seiji." Sesshoumaru summoned. "I'm taking Kaori to her room, if you could take care of her guests and send Mai to her room, she's been hurt."
I could almost imagine Seiji's eyes widening at what Sesshoumaru said about me. "Are…" He paused, probably to look at the group and moved closer. "Are you sure they're still guests…?" He whispered quietly.
"They're guests…" I answered dully. "It was my fault…" I knew what Sesshoumaru's face looked like without even looking up, but he didn't say anything, just turned and walked out the door that was behind us.
"You know you don't have to treat them like guests…" He murmured as walked me back to the room.
"They didn't do anything wrong… I knew there was animosity between you and your… half brother… I was prepared for that… I guess I should have worn body armor." I giggled, a sure sign I was loosing it.
Sesshoumaru smiled slightly. "You're getting lightheaded. I don't think I've ever heard you… giggle…"
I stuck my tongue out at him and he laughed.
Suddenly all the humor was sucked out of me as I scrunched my face up.
"What is it…?" He asked concerned.
"Your brother thinks that you're cruel for lying to me…" I murmured softly.
"Lying to you?"
"He says that you are incapable of loving anything especially anything that's only half something… He thinks it's unfair to treat me with such blatant disrespect by lying that you love me… He also thinks I'm blind if I can't see that you don't love me… He feels you're only marrying me for the power I posses…"
"Do you believe that I have lied to you…?"
I gazed up into his face. "No…" I murmured as I ran my fingers lightly against his cheek. "No I'm sure that you love me…"
"That's because I do…" He lifted me up higher and pressed his lips softly against mine. "I love you Kaori…" He whispered against my lips.
"I love you too…" I sighed back.
He lowered me against as we approached our room; Mai was there waiting.
"Well at least you're materialistic to save the silk from damage." Mai said as she pretended to be angry. "Wish you'd thought about the nagajugan as well."
"It's only wool. It's not as expensive as silk." I replied with mock authority.
Mai laughed. "Very funny… Now what did you do?"
"I put one my guests in a headlock since he thought he could attack my husband while inside my village."
"Well…" Mai blinked. "Did you at least teach him a lesson?"
"I threw him into a wall." I was glad it sounded so blasé.
Mai laughed. "You must be proud of your wife Sesshoumaru-sama. She can beat up men."
"Well since you say it that way. Yes, I suppose I am proud that she beat him up." Sesshoumaru laughed right along with her.
Mai slid open my door. "Well let me see the damage."
Sesshoumaru sat me down and carefully undid the blood soaked wraps Kagome and placed on me.
"It looks like you agitated the wound…" Mai mused as she examined the long claw marks.
"He attacked again…" I mumbled as I tried to lean back into Sesshoumaru.
Mai snapped her fingers in my face. "Stay awake Kaori-dono… Can't have you falling asleep until I've assessed how much blood you've lost… Don't want you slipping into a coma on us."
I smacked her hand away from my face weakly. "But I'm tired…"
She grabbed my cheek and pulled.
"Ow ow! Okay OKAY!!" I cried as I sat up. "That HURTS!"
Mai let go and looked at my cheek. "Well you have enough blood to fill your cheek." She redressed my arm and wrapped a clean bandage around it. "If you could step out of the room Sesshoumaru-dono… I need to dress her in something else…"
Sesshoumaru left quietly and stood in front of the door after he closed it.
Mai dressed me in a plain nagajugan and black kimono. "That's good enough." She said at last as she pulled the comb from my hair. "You're not meeting with anyone else today."
I smiled at her. "Thank you Mai…"
"Of course Kaori-dono." She walked to the door.
"Oh Mai…?"
"Yes…?"
"Where's Rin…?"
"She's outside by the lake."
I smiled and nodded. "Thank you."
She smiled back and slid out of the door; Sesshoumaru walked in right after her.
"Does it hurt…?"
"It's numb now." I answered as I stood slowly. "Let's go see Rin… She's probably lonely."
Sesshoumaru walked over to my hidden panel slid it open, walked in, and held out his hand for me.
I smiled at him. "Such a gentleman…" I murmured as I took his hand.
We walked in silence as we headed over to the lake; Sesshoumaru had his hand pressed lightly to the small of my back.
"Kaori-sama! Sesshoumaru-sama!!" Rin called as she spotted us approaching.
I smiled at her as she ran over.
"Have you come to play?"
I nodded. "Of course Rin-chan."
"YAY!!" She cried as she grabbed my bad arm, I winced.
"Rin." Sesshoumaru commanded; she stopped. "Don't grab that arm, Kaori has been hurt."
Her large eyes grew wide. "You're hurt Kaori-sama??" She questioned as she turned to face me.
I smiled at her. "I'm alright." I shot Sesshoumaru a dark look. "Just a scratch."
She switched to my other hand and began to drag me over to the water. She let go of my hand when she reached the water's edge and splashed into the lake. "Come on Kaori-sama!!" She cried as she turned to face me.
I laughed and twisted up my kimono so that it stayed out of the water and ran in after her. "You better look out!" I called as I splashed water in her direction.
She laughed and ran around, splashing me back from time to time.
Sesshoumaru watched Kaori and Rin playing in the water from a safe distance, hoping to avoid getting wet from any stray jets of water; He smiled at the sight.
"You know it's not very nice… letting people think things that will make them happy…"
His mood soured instantly. "I could say the same to you…" He growled.
"I'm not giving anyone the wrong idea." InuYasha snapped back.
"And what about Kagome? Letting her think you might actually care about her? That's not letting her think the wrong things? You're weak."
"I have done nothing to make her think that way!"
"Oh you have… You're so blinded by the fact that she looks like Kikyo that you only think that that is who she is. You let her believe you love her when you only love who she once was."
"And what about you?! You've let Kaori think that YOU love her when you only love her for her power!"
"Kaori knows who I really feel and if you cannot see that then you are truly blind…" Kaori's sudden movement caught his attention and he clamped a hand over InuYasha's mouth. "Shut up… Something's coming…"
"How do you know?" InuYasha mumbled against the retraining hand.
"Kaori can see it…"
"Rin-chan…" I murmured quietly. "Get inside quickly…"
She stared at me for a moment then ran into the house through the open door. Sesshoumaru was at my side when I ran out of the water.
"What did you see?"
"He's come early…"
Sesshoumaru stiffened beside me. "Naraku…? He's come here…?"
I nodded as I ran past the stunned InuYasha. I squeezed through the crack in the hidden panel and bounded up the stairs that led into my room.
"Where's he coming in from?" Sesshoumaru asked as he kept up with me easily.
"The back gate…" I answered as I scooped up the objects I had made in my mother's room along with my katana. "I want you to take your brother to the front gate… He may suck at fighting but he has brute strength and his sword can take care of the demons that will try to get in from there; you can meet me at the back gate once you've helped the villagers." I turned to him and pressed a bottle into his hand. "Don't use it unless you have to…" I gazed into his face. "You'll know when…"
He scooped me up and kissed me hard. "Don't die…" He whispered.
"I won't if you don't…" I murmured back; I kissed him again. "I love you…" I ran out of the room.
Running through the halls to the door made me remember the last time I had taken off like this… but the last time it wasn't to face my maybe death… it was to escape my prison.
"Kaage!" I called as I ran through the door that led to the stairs.
Kagome and Miroku stood on the ledge; their eyes were wide when I burst through the door.
"Protect my people…" I said to them then leapt off the cliff. I think Kagome screamed but the air whistled past me and drowned out any sound. I plunged head long towards the fast approaching ground and I reached out with my left arm. Fur brushed my fingertips and I grasped it tightly, swinging myself onto the back of my faithful helper. "To the back gate Kaage…" I murmured into his ear and we flew off into the direction I needed.
"Here." I told him as we neared the forbidden entrance, he dropped low into the trees and landed softly on the ground a few feet from were I was going to be. I dropped the empty glass bottle on the ground and turned to look up at the sky. "Perfect…" I murmured.
The air above my village shimmered and twisted, the spell I had used was working perfectly… a barrier to hide my village from the sky when the gates were broken down. I grabbed my second bottle and pour some of the contents into my hand. I smeared the gel against a tree near me then ran to the wall and smeared it against the wall on the right side of the door then on the left.
"Please work…" I murmured as I watched it shimmer then extend to the point I had made in the woods. "Just enough…" I told myself. Just enough space to fight in…
Banging on the gate brought my attention back to what was at hand.
"Knock knock…" a voice hissed from the other side of the door.
"No one's home." I answered as I drew my sword.
Someone laughed as they smashed against the door. A tentacle broke through the weak wooden door. "I see you…"
I growled under my breath as I stared at the thing, knowing who was on the other end of it.
The door shattered into a million wooden shards, I braced myself with the barrier I had created the first day our village was attacked; I had practiced until I could make one without even thinking about it.
"A welcome home party… How nice…" Naraku walked into my village, Seiko was behind him at a distance.
"Seiko…" My heart twisted in a painful way as I saw my brother behind Naraku. Even though I knew what had happened I just couldn't believe it until I saw it; it broke my heart. "How could you…?" Tears stung my eyes.
Seiko looked from Naraku to me and back to Naraku. "You promised…" He squealed.
My eyes hardened as I moved my gaze back to the monster in front of me. "Naraku doesn't make promises… He does whatever helps him… He'll kill Sesshoumaru just because he's a thorn in his side… not because you asked him to… He's not going to spare our village… He's going to burn it to the ground if he can… He'll kill everyone to get to me just because I'm what he wants… The treasure he's been searching for…" My voice dropped as I turned my whole body to face the man that lied to my brother. "The nearly unlimited power he craves…"
Naraku laughed. "Good guess…"
"It's not a guess…" I retorted coldly. "I can hear your thoughts… You're planning your next move. Kill the boy or hurt the girl? Hm… Which one Naraku… Which one will help you get the prize you want…" I smiled darkly. "If I attack the boy that will leave me vulnerable for an attack from the girl… But if I attack the girl, will the boy attack me?" I quoted him straight from his mind. I was egging him on hoping he would attack me instead. "It'll be easy to harm her… Like attacking a fly… She doesn't know how to use her powers yet… she can only hear thoughts…" I slid my legs apart, crouching slightly into an attack position. "If I'm so easy Naraku why don't you come and get me…"
And he did. I had angered him just enough for him to attack me.
It was easy to dodge his first few attacks, he wasn't thinking straight enough to really plant something that would actually do some damage; then it became a dance. He would move to attack and I would move just a little before him as I caught the stray thought in his mind. Around and around we went until I had myself exactly where I wanted to be, between him and his only escape route.
"I've got you…" I chided as I danced back and forth in front of his only escape route. "You can't get away now…"
His body language changed once he realized I had the gate blocked. "You'd think that…" He jumped into the sky but I was prepared for that. I threw my hand up into the air, the one with the gel on it.
Globs of the liquid I had created flung off my hand and soared into the air faster than Naraku could move and the shield that protected my city now blocked the sky from Naraku's escape plans.
"You're trapped Naraku… You're little dance won't work anymore…" My lip twitched on one side as I sneered at him.
Suddenly something broke in his mind and I finally saw the truth. I felt my eyes widen in shock then turn into slits as the anger boiled quickly in my body.
"Are you so weak Naraku that you can't even come yourself to gain your treasure…?" I snarled. "Are you so scared that you send this… thing…?"
"Why get my hands dirty when I already know I'm going to win…" He retorted
I threw my head back and laughed then turned my attention back to the creature in front of me. "Puppets shouldn't talk!!" I charged him and ripped my sword through his neck cutting the wooden sculpture in half. I stared coldly at the soulless puppet as it fell to the ground. "You're nothing but a scared half breed… I swear on my life that I will remove you from this world…" I turned around to face the gate behind me and my heart fell.
"Seiko…?" I whispered as I stared at the empty space behind me. Tears filled up in my eyes and began to quickly spill down my cheeks.
"Kaori…?" The husky voice that I had always loved to hear questioned.
"He's gone…" I murmured as tears streamed faster down my cheeks.
Warm hands rested gently on my shoulders. "He'll come back…"
I shook my head. "Not as long as I am here… I have to leave…" my heart broke as the words slipped from between my lips.
The warmth wrapped around me as I was pulled back into a comforting embrace. "We don't have to leave if it hurts you so much…"
I turned and wrapped my arms around his waist, burying my head into his fur. "I have to…"
He held me in silence as the broken piece inside me cried itself out. As the tears slowed and the sobbing quieted he touched my face. "We can leave whenever you're ready…"
I nodded. "I love you Sesshoumaru…"
He smiled at me and brushed his lips against mine. "I love you too Kaori…"
I turned around, still keeping his arms tightly around me and stared sadly out the gaping hole before I closed it up. "There won't be a door here anymore… This will be closed off from the villagers and those who try to come from the outside… Forever sealing the forbidden forest out of the hidden village…" I murmured the words at the walls closed themselves over the gap. "So it is said…"
"So it shall be…" the words were whispered back to me as if the walls itself were answering me.
Sesshoumaru scooped me up and carried me back to the village, the protective seal I had put up dissolving as he walked me through. "I'll be by your side as long as you want me there…"
"I know…" I leaned my head back into his fur, closing my eyes. I heard whispers suddenly and I knew I was back in the village; I just didn't want to open my eyes.
"Is Kaori…?" Suzuki whispered as we approached her.
"No…" I answered as I opened my puffy eyelids. "No I'm alive… Mostly…"
Sesshoumaru set me on the ground and stepped back as I straightened myself up.
"I wish to make an announcement to all of you…" I started as I moved up the stairs a little ways so that everyone could see me. I smiled weakly at my sister and her husband; I bowed my head slightly to InuYasha. "As all of you know Seiko disappeared months ago…" My voice cracked and I closed my eyes to force back the wave of sadness that threatened to over take me. "What you don't know is why he left…" I took a deep breath as I watched the faces of the people I had grown up with. "Seiko left the village because he thought I had made a poor choice in a husband… He came to me the day after the marriage to tell me that I should not have married a demon. Though he respected Sesshoumaru for saving his life and saving mine as many times as he had he had wanted me to marry a human…" my lip quivered and Sesshoumaru's hand grasped mine tightly, I smiled tentatively. "I know it sounds shocking… since Seiko and I grew up around demons and half demons… I know that he loved everyone in the village like family; I do too… But I think that he had wanted me to be human again… and that just can't happen…" I opened my eyes and stared at the shocked faces below me. "Seiko left in hopes he could find someone that would… remove… Sesshoumaru from my side… and he did… He found a man that was all too willing to help my brother for his own personal gain… Naraku was the man that he found… And now he knows exactly where I am hiding…" gasps and cries broke out in the villagers below me. "Please…" I started as I tried to calm everyone down. "I have decided that, for the safety of everyone, that I have to leave the village…"
"We don't want you to go!" I heard someone shout below me; agreements erupted through the gathered crowd.
"Please don't make this any harder for me…" I whispered as smiled sadly at the villagers. "It's hard enough for me to leave my home that I've grown to love so much in the time that I have been here… But I won't put any of your lives at risk ever again… That is why I have decided to step down as the Lady of this village… And besides…" I smiled at them as brightly as I could. "I'm going to leave all of you in good hands."
There were confused and curious whispers in the crowd as I told them my plan.
I looked over at Suzuki and Makoto. "I know that I haven't asked you two personally… but I was hoping that you would step into the role of rulers of our village…" They were shocked. "Makoto-san… you have always been so level headed… You were always able to plan ahead and make sure that the plan worked, and if they didn't, you always have a back up plan… And Suzuki-san… You were always able to make everyone around feel at ease when they speak to you… No one ever worried about anything with you around… That is why I think you both would be better fitted in taking care of our village then I ever was…"
Protests erupted in the crowd; I raised my hand to quiet them. "I know you don't want me to make this decision… but I've made up my mind… By tomorrow I will no longer be Lady Kaori of the Shenkin village… I will be Kaori Ogensai…"