The True Measure of a Woman

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Inuyasha.

~oOo~

It had been two months since Sesshoumaru's shocking declaration of her place in his life, and since then she'd done everything she could to avoid being alone with him.

Much as she'd love to belong to him it was inappropriate – she was now damaged goods and the Western Lord could set his sights much, much higher than her.

But just as before he'd taken no note of her avoidance tactics, somehow always tracking her down and letting her know that her attempts were nothing more than amusing to him. He didn't seem to care that she was unworthy...

The first person to say those same words to him, "She's not worthy to be your lady!" found herself dead almost before the words were out of her mouth.

A frozen silence fell.

"The next person to make any negative statement about Kagome in any way will find death in the same manner – with shock writ large on their face for the suddenness of it," he said icily. "Is that clear?"

With that statement everyone knew to keep their opinions to themselves – at least if those opinions were negative. For the most part the members of the household kept to themselves, anyway, though there was one female that Kagome seemed to attach herself to and that quite openly returned the younger woman's interest.

Yorokobi was actually elderly for a youkai; she was the head of the healers he kept on his staff, and for some reason she seemed to be the only one capable of assisting in the healing of Kagome's soul.

Sesshoumaru, watching everything to do with Kagome closely, took note of that.

Pulling her aside one day, he asked, "Do you think it would do her good to get away from here for a time?"

Yorokobi eyed him thoughtfully. "Probably. But it would also depend on where you were planning to send her."

"I would have you take her to Antai."

Eyebrow shooting into her bangs, Yorokobi considered that. "Antai... you have not opened that place since the death of your father. But... it is aptly named – tranquility – it is a place that could, indeed, bring about the healing she so needs."

Sesshoumaru nodded. If it could in any way be something that even might benefit Kagome then it would be done, no matter what the cost. This, though... would not cost anything.

"Very well. Then be prepared to leave the day after tomorrow. I will notify the staff to prepare for visitors." Yorokobi nodded in reply as the daiyoukai turned on his heel and strode away, determination in the set of his shoulders and every step he took.

It is good... that determination will be needed for there is much damage to heal. But if there is anyplace on this earth that could cradle the girl's soul while it did, Antai would be it.

True to his word they left two days later, though he did not go with them.

Kagome didn't even think to ask why – she was certain it was because he'd come to his senses and had decided that she truly wasn't worthy.

She had no idea how wrong she was.

~oOo~

With Kagome out of the way and safe, Sesshoumaru decided it was time for revenge...

There were several beings that he would need to track down and make pay, so it would take a bit of time.

He had plenty of that, though, no thanks to those same beings because Kagome would not be ready to be his for some time.

He had to find something to occupy himself with in the meantime, and revenge was certainly something he could actually enjoy taking on her behalf.

He started with the few male youkai that had lived through the battle and assaulted her in such a dishonorable manner.

Most of them were still together, though a few had broken faith with their companions – they were, after all, no better than human bandits and deserters and with no honor to speak of. It was not surprising that they had also stabbed each other in the back.

He showed no mercy in his attacks – he literally ripped them apart piece by piece, and when they lay dying and begging to know what they had done to earn his ire, he told them.

Her name was always the last thing they heard before death came for them on wings they had spent hours wishing were swifter.

Kagura... Kagura was a different matter, however. She had deliberately lied to him in an attempt to keep them apart and he would not forgive her for it. He spent much time pondering on a fitting revenge for her.

Finally, a month after he'd sent Kagome to Antai he decided on an appropriate punishment for the wind witch – while nothing, as far as he was concerned, could make her suffer enough to take away Kagome's pain, still... she would learn what it was like to be at the mercy of many males.

Sesshoumaru wasn't just a powerful youkai lord. He was also a most puissant sorcerer. He knew much about magics of all kinds and he was about to bind Kagura's youki so that she would be literally as helpless as any human woman, while still remaining youkai.

Then he would sell her to one of the many lower Geisha houses in Gion, those who did not train their women to be true, much sought after Geisha, but merely wanted exotic looking whores to be used by any man who felt like paying her owner's fee. She would learn the hard way – her punishment lasting for two weeks, and then the binding would wear off and she would be able to free herself.

Some might wonder what strange mercy would cause Sesshoumaru to allow her to break free and regain her freedom after such a seemingly short time – but they would be surprised to find that it wasn't mercy at all. If he left her to such a fate forever she would eventually become inured to it, resigned, and would no longer suffer.

That was not what he wanted.

But if he let her get away at a certain carefully chosen point she would suffer the exact same thing that Kagome was suffering – and for a lot longer period of time, because she would know that at any time he could return and repeat the same kind of thing, damaging her psyche even further. She would learn just how vulnerable she truly was. It would teach her that her yearned for freedom was nothing more than an illusion which his hand could always dispel, and that toying with other's lives for petty jealousy was not a wise thing to do.

Pleased with his decision Sesshoumaru began tracking the wind witch, wanting to get her taken care of – it was time to once more confront Kagome. She'd had a certain amount of reprieve from his presence while healing in Antai's welcoming folds, and now it was time to once more press himself upon her.

She needed to know that he was not giving up on her, and what it was he'd been doing for the last month. That he had gained vengeance on her behalf. To know that most of those who had harmed her had been forced to pay for that, that they would no longer be able to bring harm on anyone again could only help her.

Sesshoumaru hummed with sinister amusement when he finally tracked Kagura down; she had approached a practitioner of the magic arts and was requesting a potion that would cause him to lose all sense to desire - for her. She apparently hoped that she could catch him off-guard and use it on him, getting him to mark her in the way of their kind, at which point she thought he would just accept the yoke she had placed upon him and she would finally have what she had desired so fiercely for so long.

He was, however, not so weak. First, a potion such as she was asking for would never be strong enough to overpower his almost invincible control over himself and his bodily functions. Second, even had such a thing worked and he'd taken her in a drug-induced haze, the moment he'd have woken up from it he would simply have killed her and had done with it – mated or not. No one would ever impose their will on him and succeed in such an endeavor.

Catching Kagura unprepared after leaving the witch's home was almost too easy.

With her held under his control, he waited for her anger to calm at her predicament and begin asking questions.

"What are you planning, Sesshoumaru?" she snapped, enraged at finding herself at the mercy of another person's will as she had been for so long under Naraku's thumb. "How dare you attack me out of nowhere and for no reason!"

At that Sesshoumaru actually chuckled, quite amused at her hypocrisy. "I know very well what you were visiting that witch for, Kagura, so play no games with me and drop the indignation. You thought to impose your will on me using some weak potion that you paid far too much for. I am merely turning the tables on you – placing you under my control, instead."

A seductive smirk lit the female's face. "Really, Sesshoumaru, there is no need for this. If you wished me to bow to your will, all you had to do was say so. There is very little-" she ran lascivious eyes over his beautiful form, "-that I wouldn't do for you if you but asked. Or even commanded it."

One brow disappeared into his bangs. "Think you that I wish such things from you? Rid your mind of that fallacy. You are beneath me and I would never sully myself by allowing any part of the abomination that is you to touch any part of me." He eyed her thoughtfully as she scowled angrily at his rejection and insult. "No... your fate is far different than you have any idea of. It is because of you that Kagome is suffering what she is at this time – because of your lies I did not know she was still in this era and so she was not with me and safe."

Kagura interrupted, and it became clear that she knew very well what had happened to Kagome with her words. "How is it my fault that wench got rutted by a bunch of demon males? She's a human, anyway – she should have been honored that anything with demon blood desired to touch her," she seethed, not noticing 'til too late the crimson eyes her words had brought forth.

"And you, as a mere cast-off of a created hanyou then should be grateful that even a human male would desire to touch you, Kagura," he snapped. Then his crimson eyes glowed sadistically. "Do you wish to know your fate? Your strength is bound, making you no stronger than a human female – and I am about to sell you to one of the less... reputable whorehouses in Gion. I am sure there will be plenty of human men who would pay a good price to get a chance at such an exotic-looking female." He did not mention the time limit; if she knew it would give her hope, something to look forward to, and he didn't want her to have any hope left.

He wanted her to be left in despair just as Kagome was. And while he would do everything in his power to heal Kagome from what had been done to her, he had no compunctions about doing what he was about to do to the now horrified and struggling Kagura. He was, after all, a dark-hearted youkai Lord with ice in his veins, and the wind witch had harmed terribly something that was his through her lies – had kept him apart from Kagome for several years because she had been jealous and wished him not to have what he wanted because he did not want her.

For all of that she would pay.

His dark voice froze her even as he lifted her struggling form onto his cloud with little effort. "And remember, Kagura... no matter what happens through the years, I will always be able to reach out and pluck you from your life and make you suffer more. It would be best for your own safety that you stay far away from me and mine and do everything in your power to stay out of my notice."

The now numbed female could do little but stare at him and deeply regret certain decisions she'd made in the recent past. It seemed she would be paying for her petty jealousies in spades.

~oOo~

Satisfaction thrummed through Sesshoumaru as he watched Kagome from afar; he had arrived in Antai yesterday and had since kept himself hidden as he watched her, wanting to see how she seemed to be handling things before he made himself known to her.

It was not so surprising to see her in a much calmer state than she had been since he'd found her again – that was the effect this place had on most people. It was what Antai had been created to do, after all.

His father had it built for his mother when her lover had been killed in a useless skirmish along the borders of the West; Satori had gone into an intense grief that was peculiar only to inuyoukai when losing the one they'd bonded their soul to.

Inuyoukai did not have to be mated to the one they bonded; matings were for politics and power, to combine strong blood with strong blood to beget even stronger blood, but once the needed heir was delivered the two were emotionally and spiritually free to seek love and warmth elsewhere. Such had been the case with his parents, and when his mother's bonded had died she'd grieved heavily for almost a century before finally coming out of it a cool, unhappy female simply waiting for death to take her to her bonded once more.

His father, on the other hand, hadn't had to wait; Izayoi had survived him, of course, though only for a few short years. What had angered him about the situation had not been that his father had taken a lover, but that the lover was human and so beneath them.

He'd since learned the fallacy of his beliefs back then; surprisingly, it was his mother who had started him on the right path though she seemed to be nothing but mocking him, and then Rin had opened him further.

He was glad that she had, because otherwise he would never have seen the glory that was a single human female named Kagome. And now, if he could only heal her broken spirit she would be his mate and his bonded, both. That rarely happened; those that found both in one were considered extremely lucky.

He, of course, was always lucky. And he would be even luckier when Kagome was finally healed.

With that thought in mind he finally allowed his youki to swell over the area she was in, and he enjoyed the startled inhale that caught her breath in her throat as he stepped out of the half open shoji that he had been watching her from.

She just stared at him as he moved towards her, her eyes wide as a doe's who had been startled by a predator and had frozen in fear. But that was not the expression he wanted to see on her face – and especially not towards him.

"Kagome," he murmured, not halting his implacable pace until he was mere inches from her. "You look better – your skin has obviously seen more sun." He slowly raised a hand and gently brushed the back of it over her cheek; her eyes widened even more and she gasped slightly at the feel of his silky skin – skin that covered such dangerous appendages.

"Do you fear me?" he asked suddenly, frowning.

She shook her head just slightly, still staring at him wide-eyed and mesmerized.

"Good, for I will never harm you, not in this form or my true form. It is not in me to do so, nor will I ever allow anyone else to do that which I will not – now that you are under my protection anything that would dare to lay an unkind hand on you would do it knowing death stared them in the eye for their actions," he said softly, still caressing her cheek.

After a moment he took his hand away and looked her over. "You look much better. How have you been?" he asked, motioning for her to walk with him, which she did – with her head down in a way it had never been held before. She still looked so beaten that it made his heart ache and his anger at those that had harmed her swell.

"Fine," she said quietly. "It's very beautiful here. Yorokobi told me what its name is... Antai. It's a perfect name." She eyed him sideways, her brow furrowed as if she were trying to figure something out. After a moment, she asked, "Have you come for a visit?"

He returned her sideways glance. "A visit? Is that what you still believe, miko? That I have changed my mind, decided against what I told you that day in your rooms at the main palace? Shake that thought from your mind, for I will never change mine. No. I am not here to visit. I am here to help you find your spirit, Kagome, and I will not leave here again until you do."

She came to a halt, shocked surprise on her face. She truly had thought that he'd come to his senses and turned away from her. She was not suitable for him. "Sesshoumaru-sama," she began hesitantly; he turned on her angrily at her address of him.

"Stop. The honorific changes nothing, Kagome. And I will not accept it from you, anyway. Do you think in your broken mind to tell me what is and is not acceptable for me to have or do? I decide that, and I will allow no one, not even you, to tell me otherwise. You will be mine, Kagome, when you can revive your spirit and quit allowing those bastards to win." He cast her another sidelong glance, taking note of the conflicting emotions on her face; anger at his arrogance and sad shadows. "Do you wish to know what I did to those who harmed you?" he asked suddenly.

She went white at his rather blunt mention of the attack on her and then flushed with humiliation, knowing that he had seen... had seen... She looked away. "Does it matter? It doesn't change what happened," she whispered, too ashamed to meet his eyes.

"No... perhaps not, but then, the revenge I took on them was more to soothe my hatred and rage than anything else. But it might also help you to note that they will never be able to harm another in any manner whatsoever." He picked a small flower from the hedge they were walking along and, brushing back a lock of ebony hair, he placed the flower behind her ear. "As for Kagura... she is experiencing exactly what it is like to be a helpless human woman, and I daresay she isn't enjoying the experience. Perhaps now she will understand that to interfere in my life in such a manner as she did with her lies as to your whereabouts was the biggest mistake she has ever made, and will do all she now can to avoid my wrath in the future."

Kagome blanched again at what his words implied. "You... you... didn't... you didn't do..." she stuttered to a halt, too horrified to finish the question.

He cast an insulted look in her direction. "As if I would ever touch any part of that pseudo-female, or any female in such a forced manner," he growled. "Or any female that is not you, period. No... but there are many that would not be bothered by touching one as low as she, and she will have many chances to understand what it is like to be helpless. You would have thought she'd have understood that from her forced service under Naraku, but apparently her arrogance convinced her that was not the same thing. She is now finding out that it is." He turned again and took her arm, gently tugging her around the corner of the hedge. "I will not apologize for my method of vengeance, Kagome."

Still pale, Kagome nodded. "I'm sure. 'Apology' is not a word that is really in your vocabulary."

"Hn." He stopped them both under a huge weeping willow; gesturing for her to sit he followed her down, relaxed and at ease beneath the trees as he sat near to the woman he wanted, the woman he wanted to bond.

"Tell me... what did you understand me to be saying that day in the rooms I deemed yours?" he asked, knowing full well she understood his question perfectly.

Kagome flinched just a little and gasped at his blunt question. She swallowed heavily and cleared her throat, fidgeting and unable to meet his eyes, but he refused to move on without an answer, and finally she spoke in a hesitant, fractured whisper. "I... I just thought you were being kind to one so far beneath you. I thought you were trying to shock me out of my... my..." she trailed off, unable to actually speak of what had happened to her.

She was in no way prepared for his response.

He laughed.

He actually laughed.

Though it wasn't with any form of amusement; it was a raw, sarcastic, angry laugh, and she flinched, fear invading her scent and making her even angrier.

"You know better than that, Kagome – I am not kind. I am dark, and I am murderous, and I am even more selfish - I am choosing to take care of you because I want you – which makes you mine. I meant every word I spoke to you in those rooms. And drop the fearful act, for it does not play with me." He eyed her, hoping to see anger; he smiled grimly, pleased when he got exactly that. "You have never feared me before and I refuse to allow you to do it now because of some few bastards that ended their pitiful lives begging and screaming for mercy I will never have, especially for them."

Eyes narrowing as her temper got the better of her for a moment or two, she snapped at him right back. "Who do you think you are to tell me who to fear and who not to fear, you pompous dog? And worse – you all of a sudden think you own me? No one owns me," she hissed.

And then he smiled, only this time the expression was one of approval and happiness, startling and confusing her shorting mind with his quick emotional turnaround. Whoever Sesshoumaru had been trying to convince with his old emotionless and blank face he was blatantly lying, because he switched emotions almost as quickly as she'd always been accused of.

"And that proves to me that while your spirit might be wounded, it is not dead. You are still alive in that tomb you are calling a body and I mean to bring you back to the land of the living, my fierce little kitten." His smile turned into a smirk. "And you can deny me all you want, but you are mine... because there is nothing that you can do to stop me claiming you as just that. And deep down where it counts, my Kagome," he said mockingly, "you do not even want to stop me."

Dumbfounded, Kagome just stared at him. "But why, Sesshoumaru? Why are you doing this? I'm not what I once was!" She looked away dejectedly, her temper dying just that fast and leaving her drained. "And I'm not even a miko anymore."

He snorted. "And who told you that? Think you that because you are no longer virgin that you cannot be miko? That is where you are wrong. There are temple miko that actually rut with the patrons at will, and it is not looked down on. They do not lose their reiki, either," he said, eyeing her shocked expression with interest. "Are they not aware of that particular behavior in your era? I assure you, it happens. There have even been kitsune that have disguised themselves with Inari's blessing and gone in to enjoy the female's consort."

Stunned, Kagome's brow furrowed and she called her reiki to her just as she would when shooting an arrow, not really expecting it to respond. She was left breathless when it did, and Sesshoumaru left her staring at her glowing hands as he moved into the palace to enjoy a relaxing bath. He'd just given her plenty to think of, as it was very apparent she'd thought her reiki gone and herself worthless and defenseless because of it.

Now she was finding she wasn't... meaning she had a great deal to rethink.

First step forward...

~oOo~

Kagome could not stop staring at her hands. Her hands encased by her pink reiki – the reiki she'd been so sure she no longer had. But... I thought that... Her mind, still blank, couldn't seem to come up with anything else and so she just continued to stare at her hands.

Finally, another thought broke through.

I'm not defenseless.

Without even having to think about it Kagome began running through different exercises, different applications of her reiki spinning from her fingers as she played with the power she'd thought she'd lost. It moved fluidly, answering her call easily just as it always had, and she couldn't stop the swell of gratitude and happiness that rushed through her at the realization that she was not just some weak female that would now be at the mercy of anyone that chose to confront her.

I can still defend myself!

She could feel something shift inside – something she'd thought broken beyond redemption... her spirit, and she realized in that moment as pink reiki spun around her in a halo of rosy fire that she was still alive, still in one piece, and still of some value.

Now she had to decide just how much.

The fact that it had been Sesshoumaru, the dark prince who was so deceptive with his angelic appearance, to return some sense of self-worth to her was a strange one to contemplate. Because there was no denying that he was a dark being – unapologetically dark. He offered no excuses for it, neither proud of nor ashamed of what he was inside. His pride he saved for his name and his abilities. And Kagome had to admit that those same things made him highly appealing. After all, were not light and dark drawn to each other? Had they not chased after each other endlessly since the dawn of creation? Perhaps when they finally managed to catch each other and day and night combined, time would end and eternity would begin.

It occurred to her in that moment as her pink reiki whirled around her that she was the light to his dark, and perhaps that same thing she found fascinating in him for its difference to herself was what called to him in her. And while the attacks on her had dimmed her light for a while, he had never been fooled, still able to see it shining inside her even when she had felt surrounded by the dark with no way out of it and no hope of ever finding that light that had lived inside her again.

Still, for all that she was now realizing she continued to feel dirty inside, and she could see the blight in her soul pulsing like a living thing, writhing and unclean and with a terrible malice just waiting to strike and tear her down again. And it occurred to her then that this evil in her soul was not truly a part of her, but the remnants of the attack on her – the energy left behind that attacked not her body but her psyche, damaging who she was inside even more than the physical attack had damaged her flesh. It was a realization she was just now coming to see – rape was not truly, at its heart, a physical domination. Rape was an attempt to strike at a woman's soul – to destroy that part of her that could not be touched physically but was all the more vulnerable for that fact. It was sheer cruelty wrapped up in sharp hatred that drove a spike through a woman's heart and soul.

It was spiritual warfare at its most extreme.

But the truth was... it was only a domination that could be achieved if she allowed it. They were actually attempting to break her soul when they attacked her, but... only she could really do such a thing. Only she could decide whether they would win this war or lose it. If she allowed that creeping blight in her soul to stay she was submitting herself to their hatred, their malice, and letting them have the victory over her.

In that peculiar moment of stillness, that moment that had so far stretched for an eternity, Kagome realized that each countering pulse of her reiki made that wallowing blackness flinch and the edges of it fade to gray. For once she reacted without thinking, allowing her reiki to flood her entire being rather than just a part of her as she always had before. She drenched herself in it, steeped herself in the god energies that her soul had always held and watched with interest as that foreign blackness began to be purified, slowly paling and fading away, leaving behind nothing more than a scar – a sign of the fire that she'd come through, and with help, managed to find and defeat.

She would wear that scar with pride, she decided in a moment of detached interest, before looking further even as her reiki finally died back down into the depths of her soul, once more hers to call and command. And what she saw calmed some of her disquiet, leaving her feeling tired yet triumphant – she had finally taken the leap and defeated the remaining psychic energy of the attack on her, and now the healing could finally begin.

This was the true measure of Kagome's spirit...

… and the second step forward.

~oOo~

A/N: As for what I had Sesshoumaru do to Kagura. Some might be upset and wonder how I could even write such a thing. My answer is this: in that era, many a woman was sold into the geisha houses. It was just a fact of life back then. Sesshoumaru was a Lord, who would have apportioned punishment as he saw fit for actions that he did not like. And so he sentenced Kagura to what he saw as simple justice.

The part about miko involving themselves in what might be called orgies is actually true. The Shrines at Ise held just such festivals where the miko would have sex with those there, and it was not considered anything out of the ordinary. However, that was back before the Warring States era. By that time, the practice had died down and the belief that a miko had to be physically pure had taken over.

For anyone who does wish to read the rest of this, there will be a sequel called The True Measure of a Heart.

Amber