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Edge of Paradise	By : QueenoftheDream Category: InuYasha > Het - Male/Female > Sessh?maru/Kagome > Sessh?maru/Kagome Views: 5325 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, nor the characters from it. I made no money in writing this fiction.

Chapter List
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After retrieving the body, Kagome peeled off her destroyed tabi and was directed by Kaede to a small, dusty futon tucked into the corner of the hut, upon which she promptly collapsed and fell into a deep sleep.
Upon waking the following morning, Kagome ravenously devoured the small bowl of rice offered to her by Kaede, having taken no supper the night before, and then sat in silence while the elder priestess sent for Sango. She noticed with a note of embarrassment that it must have been several hours past daybreak and made a mental note to apologize to Kaede for her rudeness. Kagome was combing her fingers through her tangled hair when Sango entered the hut, dressed in tidy common clothing instead of her demon hunting gear. Her hair was tied loosely between her shoulder blades, falling along the sides of her face and lending softness to the battle-hardened visage.
Kagome bowed before Sango as the slayer took a seat on the opposite side of the cooking fire. "I am deeply sorry for the loss of Kohaku." Her forehead almost touched the ground, and it hit her for the first time that the demon exterminator was in grieving for her younger brother. The enormity of the situation fell heavily upon Kagome's shoulders.
"I don't want your pity," the slayer said coldly, but without malice. Kagome saw a brief flicker of sorrow in Sango's eyes, but it was quickly concealed by a perfectly unreadable mask of stone. "What I want now is revenge. This demon has brought grief, unhappiness, and death to too many people, to too many families. It must be stopped. No quarter will be given." Her tone brooked no argument, and she stared piercingly into Kagome's eyes, nostrils flaring in a small show of the deep well of ire she housed.
"What is known of this demon's background? Does anybody know how it got into such a condition that it is cursed to roam headless, raiding village to village until it finds a suitable replacement?" Kagome looked from Sango to Kaede. Kaede in turn shook her head slowly and rose to her feet, wobbling slightly on arthritic knees.
"I must leave for the day to collect herbs. My store is low, and much of what is left has decayed over the winter. I have a feeling that you, Kagome, will be needing many of them to defeat the demon that has been plaguing this village for so long." Kagome's eyes followed the old woman out the door until Sango cut in.
"I was informed that the village priestess before Kaede-sama was the one who vanquished the demon. I believe that it is indeed a curse, for I know that the demon has a corporeal body. It is living, yet it is dead. Koh- my brother and I were able to inflict wounds upon the creature. The night before you arrived, I sliced it cleanly in half with my Hiraikotsu." She absently patted the enormous demon bone that she apparently carried with her at all times. "It did not bleed." Kagome's eyebrows disappeared into her bangs. "I watched its flesh knit itself back together as if it was nothing," the young woman concluded, wringing her hands with unassumingly entreating eyes seemingly searching for some solution in Kagome's face.
Kagome attempted to fix her features into a look of understanding and helpfulness, but the evidences that Sango had just given put a damper upon Kagome's confidence in her ability to defeat the specter. "Have any miko or holy men attempted to eliminate this demon?" In the back of her mind, she was praying to every benevolent spirit she could name that the answer was no.
A look of perceptive sympathy crossed Sango's face much to Kagome's surprise. "Unfortunately, a miko and several monks have tried to rid this village of the menace from what I've heard. They were unable to do so, as the demon remains, but their heads do not." Kagome tried not to wince at the grim frankness with which Sango was speaking.
With a sigh, Kagome rose, stretching out her tense back muscles. "I suppose I should make myself useful until dusk." With a slight smile, she chirped, "Are there any villagers in need of a miko?"
Rising to her feet as well, Sango's brows furrowed as if in confusion. "When are there not people that need aid?"
A wide smile split Kagome's face as she let out a quiet, breathy giggle. "Never, Sango-chan." She walked out of the hut, leaving Sango standing behind, too stunned at the casual informality with which the miko had addressed her to be particularly angry about it.
Kagome spent the rest of the day in a hut on the eastern edge of Edo making a poultice for a young boy with a badly sprained knee. As she was looking out the doorway and politely sipping the plain stew provided by the child's mother, she faintly acknowledged the tiny sliver of sunlight resting upon the horizon whilst brainstorming potential methods to eliminate the demon and put an end to its chilling acts.
Mere seconds after she once more ensured the injured child's comfort and gave humble thanks for the meal, a man stumbled headlong into the hut with a loud and unintelligible screech of alarm. Amidst the frantic shouts of the man and the panicked cries of the hut's inhabitants, Kagome was able to make out the words "demon" and "just outside." Without thinking, she snatched up her bow and quiver and bolted out the door.
She promptly discovered that "just outside" meant just that: the demon was standing not but twenty feet from where she stood. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end as a light breeze brushed her face. Just under a sleeve of its fluttering hankimono, she could see the imposing creature's long fingers twitching grotesquely. The long claws reflected tiny muted points of moonlight.
Nerves frayed and brain unable to come up with a better idea, Kagome slowly reached over her shoulder to grab an arrow from the quiver… only to find none there. She could feel the blood draining from her face, causing her to become slightly dizzy. She realized that in her haste to exit the hut, she had inadvertently spilled all of her arrows upon the floor. The tension and fear in the air was nearly palpable, and she could feel her palms begin to sweat.
Without warning, the demon darted forward, the fingers on its right hand radiating sickening green light as it prepared to deliver the fatal strike.
The droning of cicadas matched the pace of her racing heart, and as she crashed down to her knees, she threw her hands out in an instinctual last-ditch effort to save her life. A hot searing pain surged across the fingers and palm of her left hand, and she squeezed her eyes shut. A shrill cry of pain flew from her suddenly dry lips before she could stifle it.
After taking a few seconds to fully understand that she was indeed still alive, Kagome gathered enough courage to crack one eye open to look at her assailant.
She almost jumped backward. Not three inches from her still-upraised left hand was the glowing index finger of the demon, which looked as if frozen in place. Even its clothes were suspended in midair, completely unmoving. She looked up and saw that the demon had turned a luminous pink color. She vaguely heard the inhabitants of the hut behind her gasp; whether it was in horror, awe, or in the final desperate throes of suicide, she did not know. Then, it dawned upon her: the demon was not mysteriously pink; it was her, or rather a crackling pink bubble around her crouched form.
At that moment, the magic seemed to disappear. The mysterious casing of energy dissolved, leaving nothing but exquisite silence, the atmosphere hovering around them utterly purified. The air smelled sharp and clear, and it was comfortingly warm, like a light dusting of velvety soot of burned juniper wood. In that all-encompassing silence, Kagome, for a split second, fancied that she could hear the moon-kissed water rippling in the rice paddies outside the far edge of the village.
The moment was shattered, however, when the demon's feet touched back down upon the ground, the soft fluttering of its delicate kimono sleeves contrasting with the loud crack of a large twig snapping underfoot.
The fear returned as fiercely and suddenly as a slap to the face. Eyes fixed upon the specter, Kagome dug her fingers into the dirt before her, trying frantically to come up with an alternate escape plan. Her fear was unfounded, however, for the demon swiftly turned on its heel and shot into the dark thicket behind it.
Sitting in a stupor, she distantly heard the door hanging of the hut flop closed behind her. She pulled her fingertips out of the earth. An intense stinging had taken root in the pads of her fingers as well as the expanse of the palm of her left hand. She looked down to see that the layer of damp earth and broken-down plant matter was matted to her fingers by means of the blood and clear fluids that were oozing from them. It felt as if she had bathed her left hand in fire while the rest of her body was cold as ice. In the back of her mind, Kagome recognized the burns as those caused by youki, but she had slipped too far into a daze to respond.
A light crunching was progressively growing louder to her right as she was picking the debris from the red, skinless surface that was once her palm, and she saw Sango's waraji sandals come into view from her right side. Her eyes travelled up Sango's form to meet gaze. She had apparently seen the entire incident judging by the astounded look written upon her face. "What was that?"
"…I don't know, Sango." It wasn't until after she said it that she realized that Sango's question could apply to several events that had happened that night. It was after she had tenderly dressed her wounds and lay down upon the dusty futon that she realized that her answer applied to so many more things.
***As for Sesshomaru's clothing, I don't believe he wears a haori, but his top cannot be a true kimono either, for it would have had to be folded and tucked beneath his hakama, which would have been unfeasible and caused unsightly lumps in his clothing. Thus, a hankimono (lit. "half kimono"), or a shortened or tailored kimono top makes the most sense. I used the same reference as the one in Chapter 1 for Kagome's miko garb.
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Edge of Paradise