SCROLL EIGHTEEN

Babies: The Devil's Advocates

(Hikari: "Now THAT'S the title I've wanted to see!"

Reiki: "I know… I'm sure you're not the only one.")

"Oh, GOD!! I HATE you!!! HATE YOU HATE YOU HATE YOU!!!!"

"Silence yourself!" Sesshomaru actually roared at her in frustration. Helping to birth pups was NOT in the job description of his species, and her yelling at him with such baffling ideas such as 'never touch me again, you regal son of a bitch' and 'if I live through this you're going to live to regret it' (the last part he had no disagreement with) did not help the situation anymore. "Perhaps I should commit sepuku to spare myself the indignity and torment..."

He was saved, however, when a shrill voice rang down from the sky like that of a dark angel, "I'm here!!! Don't let it come out yet!!!!"

"Oh, thank GOD!!! What the hell TOOK you so long?!" Hikari snarled as Reiki merrily landed with a bounce.

"Okay Sesshy! I've got it from here!" the dragon halfling guaranteed. He began to turn heel, if not for a certain something...

"YOU... are STAYING... for your FUCKING HEIR'S BIRTH!!"

And, thusly, it was decided that he sit at her side, begrudgingly holding her hand, as Reiki finished the job with inborn womanly knowledge.

(About three hours later)

"Damn, I thought guys were bad with this sort of thing," Reiki commented. "But really, did he HAVE to pass out??"

"LOOK at my precious little cherubs!!!"

Hikari walked with Reiki towards a stream, exhausted and quite dirtier than need be, with one baby in each arm and looked down at them lovingly as they snuggled into their mother. It would have been the perfect picture had you not known her character. "It's going to be SO much fun naming them!!"

"I'll have Miroku pray for them then..." Reiki joked, not expecting Hikari to actually bare her teeth at that with a vicious snarl.

"Not even the GODS are getting MY babies!!!"

"... Change of subject!" Reiki beamed with delight as the stream came into view, carefully taking the babies. "Once you're done bathing, I think you should wrap yourself in Sesshomaru's haori. Most of your clothes need to be burned they're so ruined..."

"Oh, I'm going to wear it," Hikari giggled, marching into the water. "AFTER I'm done with the bastard who hasn't satisfied me for over a month! Oh, DAMN, it's COLD!!!"

Reiki blinked at the unicorn-halfling with something similar to shock. "Are you sure sex is such a good idea?" she questioned, "I mean... You just GAVE BIRTH!!"

Hikari looked at her with a flat stare, not ceasing her scrubbing, before answering, "I'm half unicorn, I heal fast. Okay, give me my daughter!"

"A-hah-ha-ha..." Reiki laughed half heartedly, thinking of a way to make light of her discomfort while handing over the girl. "I suppose he's big enough anyway?"

"Was there ever a doubt?" Hikari asked honestly, cooing soothingly to the little baby as she began to cry over the cooler-than-need-be water.

"I try not to think of the once great Sesshomaru in that manner..." Reiki jested, taking the initiative to wash Hikari's son for her.

"You better not!" Hikari agreed, anger flaring into her purple eyes. "He's MINE, BITCH! Oh! I'm sorry my little darling angel, mommy isn't yelling at you!"

When the babies were done being washed Hikari coddled them closely as they walked back to Sesshomaru.

"Have fun with him," Reiki wished. And just like that Hikari handed over the babies and left with her mate in tow (literally), and Reiki finally got a good look at her new niece and nephew.

Both of them had a half moon marking on their foreheads, the same color as their renowned father, as were the single stripes adorning each cheek and the solid line of color above their eyelids. However, the crescent moons gracing their brows was weighed down, tips pointing up, and on the little girl there was a small bump forming just within that encircling. Reiki smiled, knowing what that meant, and sat down to look them over more comfortably.

Laying the shivering boy in her warm lap she held the girl, favoring her at the moment for her puppy ears, which lay flat over her short silver hair, having yet to pop up.

Reiki, with a smile, tried to lift one of those little weak flaps of skin, hoping it would flap a few times like Inu-Yasha's always would, but the girl's little fingers grabbed her own. Reiki looked to see little richly purpled eyes look sleepily at her clawed hand, pupils slitted with the first drink of sunlight.

"Hi little angle!" Reiki cooed, completely enthralled with the whole situation.

She could have sworn that the girl glowered at her before digging her sharp little claws into her flesh, and Reiki bit her lip.

"Yep..." she growled, holding back the yelp. "You're your mother's kid..."

Reiki shifted the pup to disentangle from her flesh, noticing as she supported her rump the absence of a tail, and once successful she grabbed Hikari's shirt (which had been discarded to spare it from the mess) and wrapped the little demon securely in its dark fabrics before switching the pups positions.

"I thought you two were twins..." Reiki mumbled, smirking around the finger she sucked sorely as she saw his pointy ears laying against his silvery hair.

As though knowing he were being addressed, the boy slit open his very Sesshomaru-like eyes, and the only difference Reiki could spot was that his pupils bore the circle of a human's.

"So... Are you two hanyous or demons or what?" Reiki asked, not expecting an answer and actually getting more when they both gave her a flat stare. "... Well, I ask because, ah, well, because there's a fifty percent chance of each..."

Reiki flinched when something wiggled against her palm, and holding the boy aloft by the pits of his arms she looked at his backside and saw the short fluffy stub of a growing silver tail swishing merrily. "Ah... Are you a full demon then?"

The little boy let out the barest of growls as his answer and his sister responded in kind, defending her sibling. "Okay then..." Reiki said, grabbing Hikari's clean black hoodie and wrapping up the boy and placing the two down next to each other.

"I guess that's answer enough."

She continued to watch the two newborns as they snuggled against each other and began to fall asleep in the warm sunlight.

"Aren't they adorable?"

"GYEAH!!!" Reiki screamed, startled by Hikari appearing behind her without any warning.

Before anything else could be said, the wailing of two irritated, sleepy demons broke into their eardrums. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!!!!" Hikari screeched while shoving Reiki out of the way and picking up her babies. "It's okay... Mommy's here and she won't let the evil lizard-lady disturb you again..." Hikari, wrapped in Sesshomaru's haori and coddling her offspring yet again, left a very shaken Reiki sitting in the dirt. "Oh! I guess you're hungry! ... HEY!!! NO CLAWS!! ... There we go-OW!! Fucking fangs!!"

"Well..." Reiki muttered, eyes narrowing. "THAT was rude..." She sensed something coming from behind and turned, on guard. There before her stood a most disturbed, messed up, half naked and weary Sesshomaru, and he gave her a flat, impatient look.

"..."

"..."

"You look like hell," Reiki commented, not falling out of her defenses.

"Tell me, hanyou," Sesshomaru sneered in his usual tone. "How would YOU expect to feel upon seeing birthed from that woman the spitting image of yourself?"

Reiki faltered, landing on her ass, and laughed. "Oh!! That's right! Your son was born first!! He looks exactly like you too, save for the pupils! Oh, gawd, no WONDER you passed out!"

"This Sesshomaru," he growled, closing off her laughs effectively. "Did NOT pass out."

"Oh, but I saw it!" Reiki jested as he continued to walk after Hikari.

"Those who live to see such a thing," he informed calmly, "do not live to speak of it."

"I see," Reiki mumbled "happy bunch here...".

"Then start praying that you did not."

Reiki just rolled her eyes and said, "The ego of that man can't even be POKED without him thinking it's going to go avalanching down hill..."

"It's the forces of natural selection..."

"... Wait," Reiki gasped, "was that a JOKE?!"

His glare proved her otherwise, and she swallowed once he turned his bare back to her again, revealing a few sex-scars from Hikari which were too deep to heal properly.

"Well, I guess that collar counters you PERFECTLY then!"

"That infernal woman did not order me to spare your snide remarks, lizard."

"I AM NOT A LIZARD!! God..." Reiki mumbled, sitting down again and letting him walk away. "I wonder how many Sisyphus' he has trying to roll their rocks up that mountainous ego..."

A shout from deep in the words could be heard screaming, "Kill her and I'll CASTRATE you!!!!! And I'm nursing, go away!! HEY!! GIVE HER BACK!!!!"

"This Sesshomaru is not the one killing her if she just so happens to land uncomfortably within a tree..."

"SIT!!"

And thusly, the chillins of Hikari learn that men are indeed below women, and her daughter gave her first sinister giggle over which Hikari cooed and awed for a grand total of ten minutes whilst encouraging her to do it again for everyone to hear.

Of course, Sesshomaru had listening placed last on his agenda, and Reiki got bored waiting, and it was then that Hikari was struck with a rather shockingly belated thought.

In five second flat, a very frightened Rin, Jaken and Ah-Un were granted their first sights of their Lord's heritage.

"RIN!!!" Hikari greeted all too merrily to her adopted daughter. "I want you to meet your new brother and sister!"

Rins's squeal of delight completely overshadowed Jaken's stuttering shock and Ah-Un's snort of lacked interest, and the child began to jump around with her fists balled in excitement.

"I'm so happy!" she cheered. "What are their names mommy!"

Hikari opened her mouth to reply proudly, and her jaw dropped when she drew a blank. "I don't know," she muttered to herself, staring up at the sky as though seeing the face of the gods laughing at her. "I... I can't decide..."

"Here," Reiki offered, handing over a English-to-Japanese translator dictionary. "I'm sure this will he-"

She couldn't continue though, as her windpipes were finding it hard to stay open under the crushing embrace, the pups dangling by the napes of their necks in their mother's grasp against Reiki's back and looking curiously at the wings which were shivering and slowly turning from a healthy reddish brown to a bluish gray...

Hikari finally let go or Reiki (and without noticing, the pups) and continued to tap her finger against her chin while skimming through the dictionary. "Hmmm... There's no doubt that my little girl is going to be named Kari... As for the boy..." She glanced over her shoulder to see said child hanging on for dear life to a crying and dancing in pain Reiki's hair while Kari was attached to one wing. "I think Shitau would be perfect for him!!" Shutting the book closed with a snap Hikari turned to Rin, who was waiting patiently with a few worried glances toward Reiki, and announced, "The girl is Kari and the boy is Shitau!"

"Oh, great!" Reiki laughed, sitting down to concentrate on very sharp little claws, "I have the PERFECT nickname for him then... Little Shit!"

"Do and I will hurt you," Hikari barked as Reiki tried to pry the children from her hair and out of her wings.

"Are they full demon?" Rin asked spontaneously, and again Hikari opened her mouth proudly only to find she had no words to fill it. Although, that didn't long.

"SESSHY!! Come here!" And just like that the proud demon lord found himself at heel and attentive, and he snarled for it. "Sesshy, are they full demons?" Hikari asked delightedly.

Sesshomaru gave a sidelong scowl at his offspring, watching as they twirled lazily from random parts of the hanyou, ensnared. His nose wrinkled slightly before answering, "More or less..."

Hikari glared at him. "Well? Which is it??"

Letting out a deep sigh, Sesshomaru replied, "They're full blooded demons..."

A sudden smile spread across her face as she snatched both children from Reiki's person (with a few shouts on her part) and snuggled them with motherly affection.

"This is PERFECT!" Hikari said happily while approaching Sesshomaru. "Now you don't have to worry about a half-demon becoming your heir!"

"These THINGS are NOT going to inherit the Western Lands."

Hikari froze her ministrations as the words hit her.

"Not the best of decisions there Sesshy-boy," Reiki commented lazily from the tree line. Before he could cease that hanyou's always correct blathering once and for all, he found himself kissing the earth before Hikari's feet once more. And to say the least, he didn't like it...

"I!" Hikari began, actually sitting on his bent back, "am YOUR mate! Therefore, everything you have is half mine, if not more, and that means your fucking lands! From WHATEVER direction they may be! And being the Lady of these lands which I haven't seen, that means I may deem your son the heir! Got it!!"

"Rin! Honey!" Reiki laughed in a very fake manner as she scooped up the dumbfounded girl. "Come over hear, there's a field a few miles away I'd like to show you!" And with that, they just barely escaped the flare of Sesshomaru's demonic aura as it drowned the area in chilled darkness.

"... Nighttime already?" Hikari pondered aloud, looking curiously at their surroundings. "Hey, where is everyo-" She stiffened on her fleshy seat as it began to move. "Humph! Sit boy!"

Nothing happened.

"... Sesshy?"

"My name," Sesshomaru bit out, actually rising a few inches and making Hikari yelp in surprise. "Is NOT Sesshy!"

Hikari turned to catch a glimpse of his face, but she suddenly found her neck gripped in a prison of talons. He held her aloft, eyes glowing reflectively within the darkness of his aura.

"S-" she gasped, legs kicking. "Sit!"

The beads around his person glowed a fiery blood color in response, and his joints buckled slightly, but he remained standing, and tightened his grip.

"Oh... S-Shit!"

His eyes narrowed even more, and his grip shifted to limit her speech capabilities.

"You," he growled, "should not have revoked your command." He studied the slight widening of her eyes, and smirked ever so slightly. "I shall enjoy hearing you scream in pain as you near but not cross the brink of death."

He let go, her flesh and hair slipping past his glowing claws, and as she gasped for breath on the ground he sent her sprawling away with a precise kick, and formed his acid whip while staring icily at her back, shrouded in his haori.

"WHY did I have to tell him he could hurt me all that time ago during that fantastic rut?!" Hikari screamed in her head as her lungs yet screamed for air. She didn't even take into account being on the ground until a searing slash lanced across her back.

Her entire body went hot, and from the cut the icy needles of agony shot to the tips of her body and back, settling to burn in the parted flesh, all in the time it took for her to breath in to scream out in pain.

"You call yourself," he addressed, striking her again and watching her entire body spasm, "the mate of this Sesshomaru," SNAP "when you have not even received" CRACK "the mating mark!" He was considering cutting off a limb, since that was a survivable injury, but decided her body was more pleasing with all limbs in tack, so he merely parted her pale skin with his acid whips to add the emphasis to his words. "You are not noticed... In these lands... What value do you hold... To actually prove beneficial... To me! ... You bear my first pups... Without being a legitimate mate! ... And furthermore, this Se-!" He couldn't continue when a drop of her blood hit his lip upon his recoiling of the whip, and without even a second thought his tongue darted out to take in the small morsel of heaven. "God dammit!"

Sesshomaru was rudely reminded of the effects of the girls blood when his member sprang into life, nothing else needed but a drop of blood and a bit of dominance. "This female will surely be the death of this Sesshomaru, but not until she serves her purpose to the fullest."

Hikari, on the other hand, was all but writhing and rolling around with the pain as her skin began to seal. "God DAMMIT!! That son of a bitch knows where to hit!!"

Avoiding having grit catch into her flesh, she remained on her stomach, cursing him for doing this and cursing herself for finding some pleasure in it, and was rather shocked when a warm hand sneaked against her abdomen and pulled her out of his tattered and bloodied haori.

"Sesshomaru?"

He grabbed with his free hand a fistful of her purple-silver hair and arced her back into a lavishing kiss, which included a bite on the lip for his pleasure alone...

"Mother fucker!" Hikari cursed against his lips.

Sesshomaru's eyes narrowed at the bitter statement from the unicorn and replied flatly, "So it would seem..." He watched in dark pleasure as the one eyebrow rose in confusion on the girls face. That is, until he placed her on all fours...

"Wait a second!" Hikari shouted back at him as much as she could without further tearing open her injuries. "You beat me, then you fuck me?? This is a SICK case of spouse abuse!!"

"Good thing that you are not my spouse then?" he asked, voice dripping with sarcasm, and he pulled her hair yet again to expose her neck. There was ample blood on her back, but it already lay drying and exposed to the air. Just millimeters under her skin and he could smell it, fresh from the source, calling him in the way only it could. "But, I'll let you be my bitch."

Hikari growled low in her throat at the statement. "I am NOT somebody's sex toy, no matter WHO they think they are!!" Eyes narrowed with resolve, she waited until she could feel breath on her neck to make her move.

As soon as Sesshomaru's face was close enough, Hikari snapped her head back, smashing it into Sesshomaru's nose. A sickening crack was heard and she could feel warm moister splatter her back, but she didn't wait for him to come to his senses.

Spinning around from her dominated position, Hikari then proceeded to beat Sesshomaru repeatedly on his already broken nose. "You arrogant, selfish, spoiled-rotten, PUPPY!!!! Don't ever think that just because I love you that I'll take THIS kind of treatment!!!"

Sesshomaru, not able to see her for the blood in his eyes, began to collect his demonic aura from around them to throw it down upon her, hopefully enough to render her unconscious. He saw with his senses the darkness of his power surrounding them, and the gray target of her being over him. Gathering enough, he began to send it down, but she disappeared.

"What is this?" he thought, another fist smashing into his face. "She can't have transformed!"

His aura struck, and he felt her body weigh down upon his own with the force, and took another punch.

"You cocky bastard!" she snarled, her figure turning gray again. To his shock though, it got more gray, and grayer, and it started to get lighter. "How DARE you use such a sneaky attack on ME!" She was a glowing figure, blinding him from where she sat on his chest, still beating his face.

Speaking of, he caught her clawed fists in his own, and her figure flashed even brighter. When it seemed her body couldn't hold it anymore, it shot in a thin beam into the sky.

"I'm going to show you," she began, and he could tell without seeing that she was smiling, "why my name means LIGHT!!!"

For being so small, that beam of light seared his own dark essence as it darted up into the air, battling and leaving a gray void between the two. He sensed as it broke through this own, half a mile in the air, and it took him a moment to put a mental image to what it did next, in part because Hikari felt like drawing her knee quickly into this chin. That light 'burst' above his aura, and it began to ripple down the outside of his own.

"Useless," he scoffed to himself, seeing sparks scatter across this battle of auras. Then Hikari did the damnest thing... She giggled. And for some reason, that invoked fear which he didn't let show.

Hikari's maleficent giggle turned into out right wicked laughter as Sesshomaru's scent reached her nose. "Now, puppy," she said while turning her now rich scarlet gaze upon his form, "we shall see who truly is the dominant one..."

Sesshomaru's eyes narrowed at the challenge and he attempted to forcefully expand his aura even further. You could only imagine his horror as he felt it retract instead... He snarled fiercely and continually attempted to flare his aura in vain.

Hikari continued to contract his aura with her own and was positively delighted with the stench of fear from his person. The sight of his blood splattered on his face and chest filled her with joy, but it wasn't enough. She needed to see ALL of his blood... Grabbing a fistful of his hair, she tugged his head to one side, forcefully exposing his neck in submission. "This is the end for you, mutt." But just as her teeth grazed his neck, something made her hesitate.

Hikari shivered, feeling odd. "I'm hot..." she pondered to herself. "And... I'm restraining Sesshy in more ways than one?" Although this was awesome beyond belief, she instinctively pulled back, resulting in a complete disappearance of her light and letting him go. However, his own aura, having fought against her own, now exploded beyond it's normal capacity and beyond his reach, basically leaving him without energy as it all went flying to be absorbed by lesser demons. "Damn it," he thought before a new kind of darkness swam in.

"Wow," Hikari sighed, staring at a bloody, broken, and now unconscious Sesshomaru. "Either this is just sad or I really AM kick ass!!" She looked around to find someone to gloat to, and found the perfect audience...

Kari and Shitau...

(Hikari: "Yes, my babies, you shall learn from the best! And the best are your mommy and aunt! ... Where ARE you in this?"

Reiki: "I don't know... Let's find out...")

(End of chapter!)

Hikari: "I'm hating your cliffies!"

Reiki: "Just read on then! Please tell us how you're liking it so far!"