Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Inuyasha or any of the other characters that may be used throughout the duration of the fan-fiction. Be advised this is a world created for the sole purpose of entertainment and would expect you to respect my work of fantasy as you would have me respect yours. This is rated mature for further chapters that may be controversial in subject matter. Please do not report me as you have been warned.

Thank-you and please review!

Your Lady Fractured Moonlight

Summary: Sesshomaru has lived centuries without the one thing he desires the most only to have her return with no memory of him or the life they had known. Can he accept her as he had once or will everything be lost to time once more? Will she love the beast within the man as she once had in a time lost to her? Will they learn to love or will their love vanish as though it had never been? Read and discover the untold story between Sesshomaru and Kagome and you might discover a love that can span the centuries!

-oOo-

Moonlight's Embrace

Chapter 21

For longer then she could remember darkness had been the only thing that had graced them save for the occasional torch left by one of the guards just within the entrance. She knew Ayumu wouldn't last long in his current state. The wound he had suffered at Naraku's treacherous hands still bled down the planes of his bare chest. She knew much to her own horror that a wound that deep, even without further examination on her part, was always more susceptible to infection then others even to their kind. And judging from the thin layer of sweat she saw adorning his brow, even in this faint light, was more then ample cause for concern.

"Hana you do not have to scrutinize me so?" he admonished softly his blood coloured eyes opening slowly turning towards her and rattling the chain that still held his neck.

"You don't have to keep doing that." she stated her voice laced with a concern she didn't even bother trying to hide for what was the point in doing so now.

"Doing what?" he coughed a crocked smile stretching across his now thin pale lips.

"You know very well what." she glared at him her amethyst eyes darkening and not just form the lack of light. Turning away from her he allowed his eyes to close and his heartbeat to even.

"Yes I do."

"No you don't." she snarled defiantly.

"You don't understand." he sighed wincing at the pain that stretched upwards.

"Then explain it to me." she snapped.

"Hana, I-" he growled sharply wanting nothing more then to drop the subject before they continued down that particular path. A path that she would not allow him to abruptly turn away from without sufficient explanation. An explanation that he had to admit she deserved and far more if he ever got of of these chains. "You must know that you were the last person in the world I wanted to hurt." he said softly. "Kagome and I grew close after, after his death. She knew that he could never be replaced, just as I did and yet I wanted to be there for her. To help her heart heal in whatever way I could. I loved her yes but in the way cousins do and then she introduced me to you." his eyes slowly opened then but still didn't turn her way. "I fell so hard so fast for you were unlike anything I had ever seen with a heart just as rare in this world as Kagome's. I knew then in that one instant that I had been made for you and you for me. But then you took sick shortly after we had mated and I went to look for a herb that Kagome had told me would help. I didn't sense him until it was to late and by the time I woke up my life was no longer mine."

"Ayumu." she gasped tears brimming in the corners of her eyes.

"I wanted to return to you, to fight him but he warped things. He warped the feelings I felt towards you and Kagome. He turned my love for you into hate and the adoration I felt towards Kagome into infatuation only ten times worse." he looked at her then. "Hana for nearly three hundred years now I have served him and in doing so have hurt the only person who had ever accepted me as I am. I hurt the woman whose heart fuels my very existence."

"But you don't-"

"I do." he cut her off. "I won't let him hurt you Hana. Not again not ever."

"But the wound, you could die from the infection that spreads through your body now." she nearly yelled in her panic and her desperation to convey to him something he did not yet understand. "Don't you think that would hurt me more then the years we've been apart." she watched his eyes turn her way wide with an emotion she couldn't pin point while under her own torrent. "I would rather die then be forced to live my life without you." it was her turn to look away from his expressive eyes. "When you left they took it as you abandoning Lady Mikazuki, Kagome, her mission along with me." she heard his chains rattle softly. "After that the yokai and humans that lined the halls looked at me differently as if I had knowingly lain with the enemy and in doing so betrayed them. They couldn't understand why I had refused their offers to mate another never seeing that I carried hope that you would find me. That you would come back to me somehow."

They stared at each other for long moments as if they were no longer confined to the moss covered walls that surrounded them from every side. As if they were free to roam the land and act on the love charged air that surrounded them. It was not to be as the stone door slid open and a guard entered disrupting the private moment between them and the flow of the words that neither had wanted to admit too.

"How touching." a voice spat. "Take that one." he ordered allowing a lean yokai to enter that appeared to be under the others command. "Leave this one to me." he stated with perverse pleasure upon hearing Ayumu's objection as the guard turned towards his love.

"HANA!" he called growling viciously at the guards intent.

"AYUMU!" she screamed before falling unconscious.

As the others busied themselves with the prospect of what Kagome assumed was to be a ten minute rest she couldn't help but be drawn towards the woods to her right. Something within them drew her focus . Perhaps it had to do with the knowledge that Hana and Ayumu were still held captive in the heart of her father's stolen half of the east. The knowledge weighed heavy but this was different, something else. Something that forced the hairs on the back of her neck to stand on end. Something she didn't understand nor did it appear that she need to as her muscles tensed abnormally for her.

It disturbed the man standing behind her who already had his his trained on her but this had his eyes transfixed. He knew that the lacking presence of the lady Hana and Ayumu disturbed her greatly. He knew it pulled at her heart more then what she was willing to admit but this was something else. Something that only she it seemed could feel.

"Kagome," he asked. "What is it?"

"I-I don't know." she answered honestly. "But I can't stop this feeling that something's wrong."

A pained cry tore through the trees forcing the birds to flee from their nests as the echoes it created reached the occupants of the clearing. He watched as her eyes closed against it. He saw the pain flash across her features noticeably but it was the sadness that glazed over their surface when she opened them that stilled the breath in his lungs.

For one fleeting moment her eyes had lightened to the silver that had once adorned their surface. For one fleeting moment the features Sesshomaru remembered all to clearly appeared before him. 'Kagome' his heart ached with the knowledge that the season wasn't that far off and once again she would be tortured by the flame that only he could end.

"Mom." she uttered so softly Sesshomaru had almost missed it before she spun towards him eyes locking on his before she tore through the woods to her right. She didn't wait to see if he had chosen to follow nor at the moment did she care. Her panic was all that she knew for someone she knew was hurting not really caring who the cry belonged to but needing to find out just the same. Her heart contorted painfully as the second cry filled the air with as much pain as the first driving her forward.

"KAGOME." she heard growled behind her before familiar arms snaked behind her and pulled her off to the side with her thrashing against him like he expected her too.

"Let me go," she cursed arms and legs flailing hitting what she hoped were vital spots. "She needs me, I have to go."

"Something's off."

"W-what do you mean off. We are in Miwako aren't we?"

"Yes we are near the palace but that's not what disturbs me." he listened his arms loosening slightly now that she had calmed but not by much. She watched him as his face hardened and his eyes turned towards the source of the third blood curdling cry. She saw the pain that shone briefly before being concealed again behind the layer of ice she had seen to many times to count.

"Sesshomaru."

"Quiet." he said barely audible to his ears much less hers to which he was glad to hear her breathing slow and her heart beat even. He forced his senses to extend past that of their immediate vicinity and towards the sound that echoed within his eardrums trying to split his head open.

"What?" Kagome asked startling Sesshomaru out of his task. "You were growling." he stared at her in disbelief finding it hard to accept that he had growled without being aware of it seeing as the last time that happened he had been but a pup himself.

"Nothing." he dismissed her.

"It's not-" again her words were cut off and she pushed away from him rather successfully he had to admit to tear off down the trail towards the cry that tortured them both. But she wouldn't get far. The girl had once again neglected her weapons back at camp but as he followed her he saw her hands begin to take on the faintest pink luminescent light. He watched further still as her progression slowed and her fingers instinctively made the movements to fire her battered weapon never realizing that as her hands went about their instinctive task the weapons that she sought but did not bring materialized in her hands as if they had never been a part. He doubted Kagome noticed what she had done at the moment but knew that once her panic had abated she would once again turn to him and demand answers about her demonic attributes.

He watched her as she forced her body against the nearest tree while he placed his body against the other allowing for his gaze to hold hers. As if his eyes could possibly convey the need he felt for her to remain as she was. She knew he wouldn't head it long before their words began to drift towards them, long before her grip on her weapon of choice began to tighten. He knew her almost as well as he knew himself and for that she would always hold his admiration and respect it was just at some points he wished she could listen to reason.

"You don't seem to look too afraid even with my claws digging into your back." he cackled loudly enough for both of them to hear. "Mikazuki," he breathed softly with a harshness that did not betray his malicious intent. "By giving yourself so freely to me you save no one."

"Kagome, forgive me." a feminine voice uttered with a familiarity that brought an image of a woman to mind. The lines of her face were softly drawn as a warm smile graced her lips and a deep chuckle filled the air. She knew the voice, she knew the face, just as she knew her heart as if she were as vital to her as her own heart and lungs. She didn't think before she acted which was something Sesshomaru detested greatly.

"Let her go!" Kagome growled subconsciously drawing her bow with such force he thought the well worn wood would snap before the arrow left the string.

"Look what we have here?" the male taunted turning their forms to face her while taking great pleasure in the way her eyes widened with sheer undeniable recognition. "How nice of you to join us Kagome." he sneered.

"Naraku." she breathed with the hatred she felt lacing her voice and in effect warping her vocal cords forcing Sesshomaru to embed his claws in the bark of the tree behind him uncertain as to how much longer Naraku would be unaware of his presence.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." he taunted shoving his fingers further into his preys spine relishing in the cry that escaped his willing victims rose hued lips.

Kagome knew she should be more proactive but there was something about the way his eyes flickered in between the cold glass plates of crimson she had come to know to an almost mudded crimson with an almost caring atmosphere under it's surface. One that pulled at her heart in the same way the woman's pained face had.

"Wench." he growled as the bloodied crimson returned tossing the form he had held so closely aside as if she were nothing.

"Don't," she shrieked in horror as her body hit the ground mercilessly watching as he moved towards the girls whose bow seemed to be going slack with every second that passed.

"You've changed, you're powers are awakening," he taunted a smirk stretching across his lips. "And I shall relish tormenting you with the memories that this body holds." he said cryptically with a voice that was distant. With a voice that seemed to separate itself from his being forcing her vision to fade to white and a memory to surface. A memory that brought tears to her eyes and pain to sear her heart the moment that it hit.

"Hurry up or were going to be late." a boy called in annoyance as he stopped in front of a large oak with his arms crossed trying to look less then pleased while his eyes betrayed him even if they happened to be closed.

"I'm coming." she called back her own annoyance lacing her words. "You know you don't have to be so rude about it. You weren't the one that had to hold you're own against that-that wolf pup." she glowered stumbling over her feet due to her distracting thoughts.

"Yes that was something wasn't it," he smiled in agreement helping her to her feet. "I've never seen anyone of the Koga's quite like that before." he laughed forcing her cheeks to heat as she blushed. "The way he landed in the river with that lily pad on his head and grass in his mouth was too funny for words."

"Ya it was rather funny." she concluded studying his face and the way his raven hair danced over his shoulders with each laugh that escaped him matching the warmth that seemed to sparkle within his deep warm crimson depths.

"Minoru." she whispered earning a serious expression.

"Ya."

"Do-do you think," she started looking away from him. "Do you think Sesshomaru will be there." she asked while he smiled softly.

"If you are little sister I'm certain he will be." he stated taking her hand as they continued to walk towards whatever destination that was currently lost her. "You know he's rather taken with you."

"Don't say such things." she chastised. "He has many followers who are far better looking then I will ever be." she sighed as his fingers curled harder around her own.

"More like many stalkers," he laughed. "But he doesn't take the time to talk with them much less walk with them around the courtyard in full view of others now does he?"

"No," she admitted with a smile suddenly taking the lead. "That he doesn't." she smiled twirling a lock of hair absentmindedly.

As the memory faded Kagome stood there allowing the images to sink in or rather waiting for her heartbeat to even it's pace. She didn't understand it. She didn't understand why her body seemed to be so riddled with indecision at the moment. Why? Why had the memory effected the way in which her fingers clasped her bow and arrow? Why had it surfaced when Naraku's voice had sounded distant? Why?

"Minoru?" she asked her voice sounding hollow and empty.

"Yes dear sister." he sneered stepping closer. "All though you are the reason that your brother no longer occupies this body."

"Don't listen Kagome," the injured demoness called out. "He knows not of what he speaks." she shrieked as Naraku dashed across the clearing to slash his claws along her gut.

"I know of what I speak." he growled upon hearing the bow Kagome had neglected draw back. "That will serve no purpose." he snapped.

"No but this will." Sesshomaru growled charging forward Tokijin drawn.

"Sesshomaru don't, you'll harm what's left of Minoru please." Kagome called watching as his form began to fade the moment the blade sliced through him fading from view until nothing remained of him. Seshomaru sheathed the sword that had proved itself to be useless against his opponent before turning his attention towards Kagome whose fingers grew slack and the weapon she held fell from her grip.

"Kagome." he called not particularly worried about concealing the concern that laced his voice as he watched her slump towards the forest floor beneath her feet. He watched her skin grow paler still even as he approached her.

"If only my memories would reconnect then I could find a way to figure this whole mess out." she growled slamming her fists into the earth before her.

"It is not your fault that things have turned out the way that they have." the woman spoke earning her attention and for the first time she realized that she shared her eyes and the soft curl of her raven hair as it fell over her shoulders and down her back. She looked like she could have been her twin although the added laugh lines around her eyes gave a hint towards her true age without giving too much away.

"M-mom." she uttered softly as Sesshomaru supported her from behind. Her body was trembling and she knew it. She knew it from the way the cool metal of Sesshomaru's armor seemed to come into contact with her back at the oddest of intervals.

"Yes Kagome, I am she." she said softly struggling to stand while not having much luck. "It seems that I've become rather slow in my old age." she laughed watching Sesshomaru's form come around from the side. "That is not necessary." she tried to dismiss him but knew she had failed the moment her eyes had met his.

"I assure you it is." he growled softly leaving Kagome to wonder where she had been when Sesshomaru had developed this sense of compassion before she remembered that she had been that very reason and what avenues that connection had led them down.

"Thank-you." her mother's voice chimed softly as her silver eyes locked onto her's with a kindness that warmed the sudden chill from her skin. They stared at each other for what seemed like eternities neither wanting to speak for fear that the vision before them would fade and they would wake from whatever dream they had been given before she smiled warmly once more."It appears we are no longer alone."

As Kagome turned she was faced with her second family. A second family that looked as though they would collapse where they stood not thanks to her. She thought with despair. She had forced them to further exert themselves by taking off they way that she had but before her heart could load on another brick to the pity pile Miroku had to step forward looking as though he were held by some spell.

"Will you bring me the honor of-" Miroku had begun much to Kagome's personal chagrin. Must he do that with everyone regardless of whose mother it may have been. She nearly smacked him unconscious herself but was more then a little thankful to hear Sango's usual utterance of 'pervert' before her trusty Hirakotsu embedded itself temporarily in his skull.

'Lady Mikazuki' Kage cut in drawing her focus as she bowed softly stepping in front of her.

"That's Kagome's mother." the other conscious members of their ragtag band cried in astonished unity that didn't seem to phase the demoness that stood before them.

"I am she, the Lady of the Eastern Lands and thus the protectress of the the city of Miwako. Come," she smiled warmly. "You must be hungry from your journey and in need of some restful slumber while such things could be had."

They knew the truth that laced her words and thus they followed unaware that they were being watched from afar.

"Damn." he cursed watching the images among the waters surface fade within the ripples allowing them to disappear from view.

"I have failed you father." Naraku's voice echoed within the tiny chamber.

"That you have although it seems that your failure could prove to be rather beneficial." he stated his face gleaming with the malicious air that tainted everything about him not that it took much effort to do so.

"In what way my Lord?" Narkau asked his dark curiosity peaked.

"Mating season fast approaches and the dog demon will be helpless to stop himself from mating with the filth that spawned from bloodline. Unless he wishes to watch her wither and die due to his refusal." he smirked at the prospect of her death. "No he will mate with her and once that happens she will undoubtedly conceive."

"Making her weak and susceptible to manipulation." Naraku deduced.

"That will be the moment to attack." he stated turning back to the water bowl in front of him that reflected an image of his latest toys. One that he watched with interest as his clawed fingers slid around hers. "Enjoy her while you can Sesshomaru for the one you love the most will be the one to bring about your end." he cackled viciously not caring who hear the words that carried throughout the palace.

Authour's Note: First I must appologise for the lengthly wait in regards to updating. I hate it when it happens but life certainly does through you a lot of troublesome curve balls that you have to address. Anyway enough of that and on with the chapter. I realized after I had written it that the beggining seemed a little off along with the end and then I remember that somewhere along the line Hana and Ayumu had dropped off the planet. So here they are alive and as well as could be expected under the circumstances though if the guard thinks he can get away with whatever he wants he's grosly misstaken. lol

as always tell me what ya think,

Your Lady Fractured Moonlight