KAWAAKARI

"The river that glows amidst the darkness"

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Part I

Chapter XI

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At first, Kagome thought that path was but a forest, in the middle of the night, where she could barely make up anything. That sensation, in addition to the geta she was wearing, gave her little confidence in her steps, and so her hand held InuYasha Taisho's tighter, after he offered it to her. She was unsure if that offer had been for just an instant, yet the fact was, that she wasn't in conditions to let go.

"Are you afraid?" His voice sounded amused, to her, which made her perceive it as slightly foreign. She had no way to distinguish the meaning behind his words, or maybe, she didn't wish to.

"No." She hoped to appear confident, but her voice betrayed her, albeit slightly.

"Truly?" He pressed her, and not only with words, but with the light yet firm pull of his hand, bringing her closer.

Kagome almost tripped then, her body moving with far more energy than she would have wished. Her fingers came to touch his chest, for an instant, just long enough to regain her balance before pulling them away, closing her hand into a fist.

"What are your intentions?" She complained, feeling she had reasons enough for it.

He heard him smile, and despite the penumbra and everything around them, his features was what Kagome could discern best. The golden of his eyes seemed to fulgurate amidst the darkness, and she felt her chest pound unbridled, a chain of heartbeats she could not hold back.

"It would help if we were to move further in." The sentence made sense. Even so, Kagome perceived there was something more, a sort of hidden side that scared her and attracted her at the same time. That contrasting sensation was pushing her to explore the unknown, to go on.

"And, what is out there that deserves such an effort?" Her words came with a hint of complaint, due to the difficulty Kagome noted in her steps. "I do not think anyone comes this way."

His hand became tighter around hers, which made her perceive, with increased intensity, the warmth emanating from InuYasha. Her shyness became a victim to the pleasure such a warmth brought her.

"You will soon know," he tempted her, his voice an exquisite cadence that Kagome could interpret as part of his seduction, and that she would be willing to accept if it weren't because of the lingering cold around her. "You just need to be confident about being able to see in the darkness," he added as a challenge.

"You seem quite used to it, Mr. Taisho." Kagome was now the one exposing a hidden side. For a moment, she wondered where was that urge coming from, that need of impressing a man who probably had no place in her life. She just couldn't see InuYasha Taisho becoming the caretaker of a temple.

Kagome had no time to even generate the image in her mind, of her last thought, noting the way in which InuYasha's hold grew more evident, stronger, to the point of feeling slightly captured by him. He pulled her to his side, and just an instant later, she felt his other hand holding her by her waist, lifting her in the air as he skipped many meters in just one blink of her eyes.

The thought of complaining crossed her mind, yet her amazement took her breath away.

When they came to a stop, InuYasha Taisho was surrounding her from behind. His warm breath was caressing her ear, making her skin stand on end. Her first thought addressed decorum, and the need she had of pulling away to honor decency. However, she remained still instead, experiencing that expectation fully, of being held and slightly embraced by a man who wasn't part of her family.

"Observe," He whispered, quite close to her ear. That lonely word was uttered with calculated cadence, so that each syllable may add to the resulting vibration, bristling her skin.

"What do you wish for me to observe?" The question that slipped past her lips, was made with that same cadence, but without that calculated knowledge of what it could arouse in the other. Hers was an innate thing, and InuYasha noted how her voice seemed to seethe in through the pores of his skin, installing an unsettling warmth.

He took in a lungful of air.

"Everything," he muttered as an answer, so close to Kagome that the soft curl hanging by her features was perturbed by his breath, "I want you to see everything that the darkness shows, against the light."

Kagome's inhalations and exhalations were short, her heart racing restlessly. The closeness of InuYasha Taisho was perturbing her, and despite it, she did not want to forgo of his voice, uttering indications to her ear, as the hand that delicately rested on her hips, guided the direction in which he wanted her attention to be focused on.

"Can you see them? The gentlemen who subtly observe the ladies as they pass?" InuYasha's voice was becoming intentionally deep. His gaze was resting on those who had a vice to show, even if small.

"I see them," Kagome muttered, ascertaining the veracity of what InuYasha Taisho was pointing out.

"And now," he guided the woman's body some thirty degrees to his right, "Can you see the lonely woman who looks at them as he passes right in front?"

"I see her." Kagome was holding her breath.

"Observe her gesture, tell me what you see." InuYasha kept his attention on the scene for an instant, yet the aroma Kagome was starting to give off, made him cast his gaze on the raw skin behind her ear, and on the curve of her neck.

"She gives them a soft bow, a very subtle one," Kagome explained.

"What else?" The air freed during that answer, made for a gentle caress against her skin; she panted, very slowly, yet not enough.

She had to make a pause before answering. It was disconcerting the way in which InuYasha Taisho held her, and his breath bathing her neck was filling her with a thick agitation.

"It is…" She hesitated, "It is an invitation."

"Yes, that it is," he whispered, almost imperceptibly so.

Kagome felt how his touch, on her hips, turned into a stronger hold, while something like a soft growl, a dark reverberation in his chest, entered through her ears.

"Do you know, Ms. Higurashi? Many times, I have wondered if, when touching through so many layers of fabric, there is any sensibility on the skin," he said, touching the obi of the clothes she was wearing.

Kagome managed to discern the yearning that circled around those words. She closed her eyes, before the sensations such a discovery was spreading through her body. A part of her, pleaded for her to escape from that imminent danger that her honor was in. However, another, darker part of herself was keeping her in place, absolutely unable to resist the call of the unknown.

Despite the whirlwind of emotions Kagome was going through, she found her voice giving a trembling answer, "that must mean you have never done it before."

InuYasha's surprise was so sudden and powerful, he lost his breath for an instant. He hid that reaction, however, and tried to recover his own composure by thinking that she was but another female human, one among many. Even so, the fortitude with which that woman was challenging him, disregarding her fragile situation, was picking his interest.

"Never," he admitted, still somehow perturbed.

"Do you want to know?" She inquired then, almost in a whisper. InuYasha did not wait for the offer to hang in the air, only adding to that foreign sensation filling the moment.

Words, then, lost their meaning. All that could be heard between them was their superficial breathing, and the grazing of the fabric of Kagome's komon, against the fabric of InuYasha's clothes. Her breath hitched when she noted his fingers ascending over the fabric of her obi. She heard him breathe heavily through his nose, and reminded herself that being there, had been her choice. She noted his fingers reaching the upper edge of her obi, not yet touching the fabric of the komon. Their ventures were slow, elegant, and torturous, from side to side, as she struggled to keep her breathing somewhat calm, holding back her sighs of yearning. She wasn't sure of what she hoped of this moment, yet even so, it excited her. And there, at the most luminous part of the park, life went on, ignorant to what was happening in the shadows.

Unknown to him, were the sensations he was experiencing; his own thing should be easy, he just needed to take what he desired. However, in that moment he seemed to want to prepare, to build the path he wanted to tread with Kagome. To feel the warmth of her body, close and docile, was stimulating him in a most peculiar way, his sex reacting by the mere fact of knowing her willing, despite having yet to touch one inch of her skin. The contact he was making with the fabric of her obi was delicate, and InuYasha saw in that act, a need of his own; he wanted to take his time to fully know, what he really wanted from this woman. He took a deep breath, then his caress trailed up to the komon, touching the right zone of her chest. Kagome trembled, albeit subtly, and he held her by the hips with a bit more yearning. He drew a circle on that zone, with a light touch, and she held her breath.

"What are you feeling?" InuYasha wondered, letting his words bathe Kagome's neck.

He saw her shaking her head. It seemed she didn't want to voice what she was experiencing.

InuYasha took his caress to the other side of her chest. He made it last with a parsimonious cadence, finding delight in the tension of that woman's body, forgetting for an instant, the moment and place where they were. His head leaned a bit closer to Kagome's neck, sighing but a few centimeters away from it, an urge of sinking his fangs on the pale, fragile, and marvelously perfumed skin, almost overwhelming him. His caress, then, felt like a weak appetizer for the hunger he was feeling, a conclusion that took him to feel her chest with his whole hand. He could barely make out the bulge under the clothes, yet in his mind, he recreated its volume and shape. Kagome tensed a bit further, and InuYasha noted how her hand seemed to desperately hold itself from the edge of his jacket. His fingers, that in their original form would end in long, white claws, touched the high slit of the komon, to try and slip beneath, in search of the skin. However, a hand, despite its small size in comparison, stopped him. It wasn't a dramatic gesture, her hand simply settled on his, and the mere touch told him her will.

"Are you afraid of feeling?" He wondered, letting his breath, once again, bathe Kagome's neck. In response, her shoulder recoiled slightly.

"I won't deny it," she sighed, and InuYasha noted his own desire switching direction. To possess her, wasn't enough; he wanted Kagome Higurashi to enjoy as well.

He wished then, to push his sex against her in a primitive act of ownership, so that Kagome could know how he felt, and how firm and big his own desire was. That thought set him in a state of unease that was not like him.

"We shall leave it here, then," InuYasha decided, to which Kagome gave a slow nod.

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The night was immersed in a silence that was unusual for that part of the city. The winter's cold was such, it made those wandering the streets seek refuge, hence leaving everything empty and muted. However, InuYasha managed to catch the screams and cries of a little girl, at a short distance. He could recognize pain when it was close, such suffering wasn't foreign to him, even if it were coming from a small human child who wouldn't live long enough to understand its own existence.

He jumped a couple of times, between the whiny and battered roofs of the old houses that once belonged to samurais, who had given up the sword, and their pride, a couple of decades ago. The voice and the wailing of the little girl was getting closer and closer, and InuYasha managed to find the exact direction it was coming from. Then, he narrowed it down to the exact house. The smell of rot and filth did not wait long to appear, it came to him like an unmistakable wave that spoke of the misery in which most humans lived in.

The girl screamed a "no" again. His sense of smell warned him of three people there. InuYasha pushed the fragile door open, as if it were a piece of paper. The human girl couldn't be more than ten years old, and was being threatened by a bunch of trash he would not even bother calling man. His pants were down, and his nudity was hidden beneath the skirt of a hitoe that had once been white. The girl was seeking refuge behind a wooden stool, whose height did not reach her knees. The one assaulting her had her pinned by the long sleeves of her worn-down yukata, which was noticeably bigger than her.

"Who are you?!" Came the shout, hardly thought of, from a darkened side of the interior. It had been said by a woman that, until then, had remained hidden in the shadows.

"Is she your daughter?" InuYasha asked calmly, "Is it alright with you that she suffers such violence?"

"Hey, you!" Was the short retort that trash managed to wield before a battle. InuYasha reached for his neck, and kept him in place by adding just enough strength to shut him up, without suffocating him.

"Answer me, woman," InuYasha urged her, his patience far less than what his words may show.

The girl, behind the stool, was still trembling.

The woman took a step towards him, and even though her breathing and heart only showed just how afraid she was, something in her brought her enough courage to stand up to him.

"Lords like you do not know what one has to live in the hungry streets. We do what we can to survive. They took from us our legacy, our identity, even our husbands. They left us to die just so their western world could arrive sooner." Her words were further highlighted by her gesture; a hand pointing to the clothes she was wearing.

The man, in the meantime, kept struggling against InuYasha's hold.

"And since nobody wants me anymore," she confessed, her teeth grinding, her hands into fists, "the girl must learn too what it takes to survive."

"And you?" He turned towards the grotesque representation of a man. "What is your reason?"

"As if I'd answer!" He shouted with ragged voice.

And from that moment on, he could answer no more.

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To be continued.

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A/N

I really wanted to write that scene in that small forest. The idea had been in my head for weeks, until I finally reached that part, and was able to create it. I hope you've enjoyed it, and that you could feel the tension and restlessness both characters experienced.

Thank you for joining me,

Anyara.

This text is possible thanks to the translation of: Dezart