Nocturne - Chapter Twelve: Revenge, Served Cold
Rated - M (for suggestive adult themes, references to some violence, and coarse language)
o - o - o - o - o : Indicates scene or POV change
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.
o - o - o - o - o
Kagome nearly thought she saw a semblance of a smile on Sesshomaru's face, but the light must have been playing tricks on her eyes.
"Are you returning to my brother?" he asked.
"No, he is...he's away," Kagome responded, finding cause to look elsewhere. Inuyasha had stormed off after a fight they'd had several days ago and had yet to return. This was becoming a relatively common occurrence.
"I know," Sesshomaru stated.
Kagome's brow crinkled quizzically, "You know? But you just asked..."
"What you see in him, I will never comprehend," he said icily and flew away without another word or glance.
o - o - o - o - o
It was not challenging to locate the witch. The smell alone was a beacon for any who dared seek the oni out. Just as Jaken had said, Sesshomaru found the onibaba's domicile on the mountainside located within an abandoned shrine. While it was now dark, Sesshomaru could see the disheveled mess that lay before him. His nose wrinkled as another scent assaulted it. The smell of spellwork permeated the area, masking everything else.
He alighted upon the doorstep to the house and entered without waiting for a greeting from the witch. He, a daiyokai, had nothing to fear from the likes of an onibaba — even one as fabled as Yamauba. Still, upon entering, he was greeted with an odd sight.
A black cauldron lay on its side, a congealed mess spilling out onto the ground and adding to the horrendous odor of the area. He raised a sleeve to his nose to fend off the assault to his senses. Stepping carefully around the upended pot, he noticed a disemboweled horse laying off to the side. The sight did not bother Sesshomaru but was rather intriguing.
The animal seemed relatively fresh, judging from the blood that pooled around its carcass. The creature's presence indicated that someone else had been to visit the witch fairly recently. There was not a chance any animal would willingly come this far into the witch's territory. The harness was evidence enough that the horse had recently belonged to some unsuspecting mortal. Perhaps what remained of the mortal was now spilled upon the floor, cooked into a meal for the witch within her cauldron. That was likely, given the witch's penchant for eating any who were mad enough to come calling.
He glanced around the room, looking for the witch. There had been a scuffle here, as evident by the toppled pot and large hole in the wall. But the question was not why this had happened, but who had done it?
He stepped closer to inspect the hole in the wall and peered out into the darkness to see nothing. Yamauba was near. He could sense her.
Within an instant, the onibaba come flying in a rage towards him.
Sesshomaru side-stepped the attack and used a clawed hand to slice the witch down the middle. The witch cried in surprise and pain, falling to the floor in a heap and grabbing at the dark blood that spilled from the cut. Her wild eyes looked Sesshomaru up and down, and she began to laugh, sputtering blood.
"Ye look like him," she spat.
"Who is that, Onibaba?" he inquired.
"Inu….taisho…," she responded. She coughed and spat blood onto the floor through her broken teeth.
Sesshomaru walked over and knelt beside the tiny body of the haggard old woman, careful to avoid her mess of blood. "My father," he stated.
"Y-your father?" she asked, one hand moving towards his face.
Sesshomaru slapped her gnarled hand away as if slapping an annoying gnat. "Yes. He is dead."
She cackled again, and her hand fell limply to her side in dejection. "Then the bone was yours, careless boy?" She chuckled with realization.
"Bone?" he questioned, instead demanded.
"Aye. Tis the bone I used to create the spell," Yamauba chortled. She looked at her overturned cauldron and pouted a bit.
Her eyes slowly made their way back to rest upon Sesshomaru's face. "I required a piece of him to set him loose upon the human woman he desired. It t'was a summoning. And the call was answered." She saw that she was not getting a rise out of the yokai lord and merely cackled to herself and grabbed at the hole in her middle, seemingly pleased to waste out onto the ground of her abode.
Sesshomaru, disinterested and disgusted with all he could see, smell, and hear, stood and walked from the room but stopped before stepping outside. Something out of place caught his eye, and he turned his head. A large pack leaned against the wall with a bow and quiver of arrows propped behind. How he had missed it before, he did not know. Useless items for an onibaba, he established, and Sesshomaru moved with lightning speed over to the items and picked them up. He brought the pack to his nose and inhaled. A familiar sweet scent accosted him, his brow coming together in concern, marring his clear countenance.
He took the bag and snatched up the dying witch. Her head lolled to the side, dead already. He could see the small demons from hell dancing around her waiting to take her soul.
No, not yet, witch.
Sesshomaru threw her to the ground, her limp body landing in a heap of rags and gangly limbs. He pulled out Tensaiga with a flourish and sliced through those demons. After a few seconds, the onibaba drew in a shaky breath, and her sunken eyes blinked rapidly.
"Wh-where?" she asked with considerable confusion.
Sesshomaru reached down, grabbing Yamauba by the collar, and shook the hag, drawing her attention solely to him. He did not have time to answer where she was or why she was not dead. He brought the pack up, placing it in front of her eyes. "Where is the woman?" he asked icily.
She eyed the pack, and her eyes widened with recognition. "The mortal girl?" Yamauba asked incredulously.
"Where?!" he growled through clenched teeth. His eyes began to glow red, indicating the level of his fury.
Yamauba could tell she was finally getting a rise out of him and knew that her second death lurked near. "Gone," she answered with a smirk.
"You will tell me, witch! Or you will wish I had not revived you. I will ensure you live a long life the second time around, with each moment filled with pain and misery beyond your wildest dreams. Long have I awaited the opportunity to whet my claws upon the flesh of one who will not succumb easily to my sinister ministrations," he explained in a cold, quiet voice, "If you do not give me what I demand," he finished.
Yamauba cackled loud and incessantly. Her voice grated upon Sesshomaru, who snarled and elicited a backhanded smack to the witch's head, causing her entire body to turn from the force of the blow.
Still, she laughed, and more blood poured from her maw. "Son of the great Inu-Taisho. Infatuated with a mortal woman, no less! The pompous yokai who would not give me the time of day. Kukuku, how fitting."
"What have you done to her?" he demanded, holding the hag's throat in his hand and issuing a tiny squeeze for emphasis.
The witch's eyes lit up with amusement even as her hands scratched at his iron grip feebly. "The child...is...thine," she pieced together.
Sesshomaru's eyes went wide with shock. It could not possibly be. The thoughts of that night reverberated through him all of the time, haunting him night and day. Yet, he had denied the plausibility of sirring a...
"Of course, ye are too full of pride to admit ye have fathered a bastard half-breed," she spat, interrupting his thoughts. "Thy father was also arrogant. T'was my aim to bring him low. Seems instead, I have brought dishonor upon his name through his son."
He scowled and squeezed tighter, eliciting a satisfying gurgle from the witch. "Answer me, witch, while I am still feeling in a gracious mood." His words were clipped and spoken through clenched teeth. A snarl pulled up a lip to reveal long, sharp canines.
"Such a treat," Yamauba said, her eyes glazing over. "To have feasted upon the flesh of such a tender morsel," she gasped as her windpipe was crushed. Sesshomaru continued to squeeze until the skin beneath his grip ruptured, spilled out, muscle and sinew burst, and bone snapped. The dead oni's head and body fell to the ground in separate thuds. Satisfaction coursed through him with the oni's second death, but the feeling was short-lived and quickly replaced with another nearly unknown feeling: Dread.
Haste! the deep voice from inside urged him.
He acted on that urge immediately but paused when something else grabbed his attention. An image played out on the spilled contents of the cauldron. He stepped over and saw a glimpse of the woman, the miko. She was alive, and a small relief flooded through him. Her face, her kind, gentle features were skewed in pain, and she gave a soundless cry. He watched, transfixed for a second, as she reached out towards him as if seeing him through space. The voice called to him again, and the need to find her filled him.
He still could not smell her scent, masked by the oni as it was, and there was no sure way to know where she had gone, but there was no time to waste if the image was accurate.
Without a backward glance, he was off and out of the stinking hovel. He flew out the door and down the stone steps, noting the disturbance of leaves and skidmarks of a body crashing down the hillside. She had come this way, falling, but had made it down the hill nonetheless.
Reaching the bottom of the stone stairs, he looked both ways and continued, marking the slight footprints embedded within the ground leading away from the old shrine and following them as far as they would take him.
o - o - o - o - o
Kagome groaned weakly, wracked by pain. She never in her wildest dreams imagined she would go into labor alone. Even though she'd seen it happen to others and often assisted in the process, her mind was feverish and unreliable at present.
The warmth from between her legs had not stopped; instead, coming out in a steady flow. Amniotic fluid should not still be seeping out at this rate; she thought she remembered from the textbooks. Kagome reached down with a hand and brought the hand back to her face. In the darkness, she could even see the thick, dark substance staining her fingertips. "Shit," she said aloud.
Blood was not a good sign, but she did not have the time to think about it much before another contraction gripped her, and she cried, reaching a blood-soaked hand into the air.
o - o - o - o - o
Sango had busied herself from constant worry by completing katas in a field away from the village. She'd entrusted Rin with her children until she returned from releasing this pent-up tension.
Kagome had snuck off a day ago, secreting herself off to visit a witch who would supposedly give her answers to her nonsense questions. The kicker was that Kaede had not told them until this morning, giving Kagome nearly a full day's head start. The woman had fallen asleep waiting for Rin's return and ended up sleeping through the night, as she was oft to do. Of course, Rin would not attempt to wake the sleeping woman until the morning.
Sango cursed and stopped mid-form. She wanted to reach out and touch something or someone, but that particular person was off gallivanting around. Unfortunately, there was nothing she could do at the moment outside of what she had already done.
She had sent a messenger off to her brother first thing this morning, requesting aid. Sango hoped that she could use Kirara's speed and her brother as a babysitter so that she could search for her errant friend, but who knew how far away he was or how long it would take for him to receive the message. She took a deep breath and eased into another kata. The repetitive forms were enough to school her mind and empty her thoughts, allowing her to focus solely on her body's motions.
The forms carried her through an hour undisturbed. Winded, she sat down upon the grass and rested her chin on her hand.
The entire situation was ludicrous, and Sango could not wait for Miroku to return so she could have someone to vent to about all this nonsense to.
It was apparent to everyone except Kagome and Inuyasha that they had fallen out of love. Now they stayed together only because they felt they didn't have any other choice, and neither could admit it even to themselves. After all, Kagome had returned from another time to be with Inuyasha, leaving her family, friends, and all she had known behind. Where else could she go?
Inuyasha was in a similar situation. He had waited, sullenly, for years before Kagome finally came back. Sango had never seen such a love-sick man, but it was the years in between Kagome's disappearance and reemergence that had tempered his feelings. Neither had expected to see one another again, but fate had a way of twisting things beyond one's expectations.
For instance, Kagome and Inuyasha had expected to live happily ever after with one another but soon found that their newfound relationship was not the stuff of fairy tales. They fought and bickered, just as they had those years ago, and there was nowhere for either of them to go when trouble came knocking. And it came knocking often. The pair were both notoriously stubborn, something that had not diluted with time.
It would be a lie to say neither cared for nor loved one another. No, the fact of the matter was: these two people who had grown apart, despite their desire to stay true to one another.
As Sango sat speculating, she could hear in the distance the voices of men. Her head shot up. Could it be? It would be a happy coincidence.
She jumped to her feet and put a hand over her eyes to block the glare of the sun. It was! Miroku had finally returned with Inuyasha by his side. A grin broke on her face, and her heart swelled. Sango broke into a sprint to greet her husband.
"Miroku!" she shouted, taking in lungfuls of air as her legs pumped underneath her.
Miroku, who had been riding a cart laden with items and supplies, saw his wife running towards him. He jumped down and ran to meet her. They met, arms locked around one another, and Sango gave a joyful sob.
"It's been so long this time!" she cried. She pulled away quickly to give her husband a brief scan before burying her head in the crook of his neck.
He rubbed his hand up and down her back, attempting to console her. "I know, but I'm back now."
Sango pulled away and punched him square in the shoulder, "You idiot! Don't you go off again to fight another man's war!"
"Ouch!" he cried out at the force of the blow and rubbed his arm. "I did it so the chaos would not spread here, woman! You should be thanking me," he said.
She grabbed his face and pulled him close for a kiss, which he suddenly did not find cause for complaint. Sango broke their kiss only after hearing the clearing of someone's throat.
Inuyasha scoffed, "Save it for later, you two. I don't need to see you both swapping spit." He crossed his arms and looked relatively annoyed.
"I'm so glad you are both here. It's perfect timing!" Sango exclaimed. She looked at Inuyasha with a straight face. "It's Kagome."
His arms dropped to his sides, and he looked ready to run at a moment's notice, "Where is she? What's happened?"
A/N: You know, I thought this story might be full of fluff, but I was wrong, so wrong. My dark, twisted mind can only ever ravage my characters. I have this crazy need to throw these people into the grinders, beat them up, and tenderize them until they come out soft. Maybe then I pepper in some love spice. I don't know. So, if you are looking for a lot of fluff, you won't find it here. I'm not saying there will be no fluff, just not full of it. Will there be smut? Maybay. Will there be a happy ending? I believe that everyone can find their happy endings if they just work for it. Ambiguous enough for you? Good.
Alms for the poor (ting). Alms for the poor (ting). *Cough*Cough* please leave a review.