Adult-FanFiction.org : Inuyasha / Yashahime

Dissident Hope	By : inufan625 Category: InuYasha > Het - Male/Female > InuYasha/Kagome Views: 7761 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha and will make no money from this work of fiction. This will apply to all chapters contained within.

Chapter List
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InuYasha found himself in a straight backed chair that was actually far more comfortable than it looked, sitting across a desk from the Great Miko. Her expression was hopeful as she gathered her thoughts. It was clear that this meant a great deal to her. And he found himself wanting to help her, to believe if only because she seemed so certain, so sincere about everything.
"I guess I should start at the beginning," she said. "You probably already know that The Great Miko makes her home on the same shrine that Kikyou lived on when the war began. What you probably aren't aware of is that there was a small fire in one of the oldest buildings around the time my mother took ill. Of course, at the time I was worried about her and only made sure the remaining structure was cleared away to avoid accidents, but after... after she died, when I arranged to have the building rebuilt, they found something.
"Beneath the old floor there was a small box protected by several strong sutra, and once I managed to open it, I found that it contained many scrolls, which have been dated to Kikyou's era. They are remarkably well preserved but still in very delicate condition."
At this point InuYasha couldn't hold back any longer. "Why haven't you done anything with them then? You could have ended this shit a long time ago, if you really wanted too."
Her cheeks flushed and her scent grew hot. She was angry, really angry. InuYasha watched her take several deep breaths and heard her counting quietly. Then when she spoke her voice was carefully controlled, "Would you or your brother have believed me had I simply presented you with scrolls and claimed they were authentic, especially if they proved our side to be the right one?"
She was right and InuYasha knew it. They would have told her to go to hell, said that she could have fabricated it all, and he had insulted her deeply by insinuating that she held back because she didn't want to stop the war.
He inclined his head slightly and said, "I apologize for my rash judgment of your motives. I‘m just not used to agreeing with miko or thinking of them in a positive light."
InuYasha watched her reaction closely, and he could tell that she very much wanted to remain angry, but instead she sighed and nodded her acceptance of his apology. However, he did note that her scent still remained distractingly heated. She was definitely a woman with a formidable temper, and he would have been willing to bet that if she didn't need his help, he would have been hit with the full force of her fury.
"I understand," she said at last. "It's hard to let go of what you've been told your whole life and start thinking in a new way about someone you were taught to hate."
He winced, feeling even more guilty about having insulted her, since she had been nothing but gracious and respectful towards him in spite of the fact that she had been trained to hate his kind, just as he had been trained to hate hers.
"Anyway. As I said previously my original intent was to use you as a bargaining chip to gain a truce and perhaps a youkai to oversee my work with the scrolls so that there would be no dispute. But since I have given my word that you'll be free to leave once we have finished talking, my plans have changed." She paused and studied him for a moment before continuing, "I will now rely on you to see the value in what I am asking for and that you will choose to convey it to your brother."
To say her words caught him off guard would be an understatement, and further served to strengthen his feeling that the woman before him was an honorable one, perhaps even more honorable than he. He couldn't say whether or not he would have trusted her had the situations been reversed. What's more is that he knew his brother would not have released such an important prisoner if he thought holding her could end the fighting.
"And I know I'm asking too much of you, but I had also hoped we could talk about the children," she finished.
InuYasha nodded and said, "What about them?"
"It's not that I mind having them or that they cause any trouble because they don't. And I do love playing with them when I have the time. However, we are running out of space and more than that, what do I know of being a youkai?" she posed to him. "I can't teach them what they need to know about where they come from and who they are. I was hoping that it might be possible to arrange some sort of transfer of them into your care."
Again InuYasha was struck by just how thoughtful the woman before him was and the apparent respect she held for his kind. It was made more remarkable by the fact that it was technically her job to kill youkai, not to take care of them.
"I'll have to speak to my brother and see what he wants to do," InuYasha replied. "But I'm sure he'll want to work something out for the kids at least, if not for anything else."
"Then, if there isn't anything else, I'll see you out," she told him. "We wouldn't want there to be any... misunderstandings as you leave."
InuYasha snorted at the term misunderstanding, but didn't comment. He figured he could at least give her that one after having insulted her only moments before. She rose from the desk and he followed, joining her at the door.
As they made their way through the corridors towards the front of the building he could not ignore all of the softly spoken conversations taking place around them, most of which were not flattering to either himself or to Kagome. He glanced at her, wondering if she could hear them.
She walked purposefully, her back straight and her head held high. Perhaps had that been the only thing he saw, he would have believed that she was unable to hear them, but there was more that said otherwise. There was something about the conspicuously blank look she had adopted and a certain edge of both sadness and frustration in her scent that told him that she was hearing every word.
In that moment he was forced to realize just what she was risking, what she was willing to sacrifice, and a single thought sprang to his mind to the exclusion of all else that this Great Miko, this Kagome, was no ordinary woman.
She relaxed slightly as they made it through the front doors without incident. "I'll wait here for a moment just to make sure you are safely away, and I look forward to hearing from you or your brother."
InuYasha heard much more than her words as she spoke and he knew that he had to help her, this woman who had taken such a chance and put all her faith, and all of her hopes squarely in his hands. He didn't understand it, but he found himself compelled to reassure her. "I'll make him understand."
For a moment Kagome's eyes took on a slight shine, but she blinked it away. "Thank you."
InuYasha nodded and then took off, headed towards the home he and his brother shared.
InuYasha found himself met by a full guard just a few short kilometers from the main gate. As if it wasn't already his intention they informed him that they were under orders to bring him straight to Sesshomaru. He didn't know why a part of him was surprised. After all, he should have been home or at least reported in hours ago, so it was only natural that someone had been sent to look for him.
The guard which escorted him back to the main house broke off, and only the unit commander followed him in through front door. He was a bit irritated, but didn't take it out on the poor soldier, who was no doubt only following orders.
He entered his brother's office without knocking and shut the door behind him, making it clear that his escort was no longer wanted or needed.
"Where have you been?" his brother demanded. "Tsubaki called in with a report that a hanyou thought to be of some importance by the Great Miko herself had been captured."
"And you trusted her? I thought I was tailing her because you suspected her of feeding us false information on purpose," InuYasha replied.
"That is neither here nor there, little brother," Sesshomaru said. "I was prepared to wait but a few moments more before ordering an assault to attempt to free you, causing what would likely have been a battle with a great number of casualties as well as one that would have marked the return to open warfare. Now, I find that I nearly began what would likely have been the destruction of our kind for nothing more than your careless disregard for standard operating protocol."
"Oi, it ain't like that," InuYasha cut in with a frown. "I mean, yeah, I think a lot of this protocol stuff is bullshit, but when have I ever failed to report in? It just turns out that Tsubaki was telling the truth, this time. I spent most of the night as a prisoner of the Great Miko."
There was slight shift in the expression that on his brother's face was meant to convey surprise. "Then you escaped?"
InuYasha shook his head and looked at his brother seriously. "I have to tell you that she is nothing like what we have been led to believe, aside from the strength of her power, that is. No, I never would have been able to escape. She let me go."
At this Sesshomaru frowned deeply. "You expect me to believe that she just let you go out of the goodness of her heart, I suppose? Or perhaps you charmed her with your winning personality? I think not, and I do not appreciate your poor attempt at humor in such a dire situation."
"Damn it, I am not fucking with you," InuYasha growled. "She really did let me go, and honestly I think that part of it really was out of the goodness of her heart. I told you, that our information about her has been wrong. And when I say wrong, I don't mean that maybe the reports were exaggerated. I mean that they were dead wrong."
"What have they done to you?" Sesshomaru asked, reaching for his phone. "The Great Miko must be powerful indeed to have spelled you like this."
InuYasha jumped to his feet and snatched the phone from his brother. He threw it across the room, destroying it and making a rather large hole in the wall. "Will you give it a fucking rest and just listen to me for one minute? She didn't spell me. You think it was easy for me to accept everything I saw, to find myself questioning everything I've been taught, everything I've believed?"
A long moment of silence passed and then Sesshomaru said, "Explain."
InuYasha fell back into his chair and let the air rush from his lungs. Sesshomaru was finally ready to listen. It wasn't a truce, but it was a start. "So I was tailing Tsubaki. I don't know if she knew and led me into a trap or if we just ended up in the right place at the right time, but suddenly it wasn't just her but seven other spiritual humans. I took out four of them before they managed to get those damn subjugation beads around me. They took me to headquarters and as soon as this one Monk saw me, he ordered that I be taken to the Great Miko's office instead of to the holding cells."
"So you were recognized?" Sesshomaru asked.
"Keh, not exactly. All they knew was that I had the right coloring to be of the White Dog Clan, not who I was specifically," InuYasha replied. "It turns out that they've been trying to catch somebody important for a while now, and they didn't want to take any chances, just in case I fit the bill.
"So anyway, I'm waiting in this room, and she shows up. And this is going to be hard for you to believe but, from the moment she entered the room a part of me knew that we were wrong about her. I cursed her, threatened to kill her, and in return she smiled at me and offered me a bargain. If I would give her a chance to prove that her side wasn't torturing youkai and found her truthful, then she would release me. The only thing I had to do in return was to tell my name and listen to what she had to say, before I left."
His older brother scoffed. "And you believed her."
"Hell no, I didn't believe her," InuYasha said with a snort. "What kind of idiot do you take me for? I thought it was a load of bullshit... until she released me from the subjugation spell, only leaving the one on my hands."
Sesshomaru's eyebrows lifted and his eyes widened noticeably. "I do not believe it. Is that what you meant when you said that she let you go? Surely it must be."
InuYasha shook his head. "I thought about trying to escape then. Hell, my youkai was practically screaming at me to take the chance, but I found myself wondering that if we had been so wrong about her, what else might we be wrong about? I had to see for myself, so I accepted her offer.
"She took me down to the lower levels where the holding cells were, and damned if they weren't better accommodations than we give our servants. Most of the youkai I saw down there were as content as it is possible for a prisoner to be. I didn't scent any pain or fear, or blood of any kind. Even those who attempt to escape aren't punished in any way. And before you ask, I saw this with my own eyes. That bastard Kouga was tearing his cell apart trying to get out, and he wasn't so much as getting a minor jolt of spiritual power for it."
"How is this possible?" Sesshomaru wondered aloud. "It contradicts everything we have been told. How could our intelligence have been so wrong?"
"Keh, it's obvious ain't it? Someone's been lying to us. And I think the real question here is why," InuYasha said. "That isn't all, either. They've got kids, our kids, those that have been orphaned or abandoned. Why the hell didn't we think of that Sesshomaru? We never once thought of checking to see if there were any children left behind alone after a youkai was killed. We never thought of it, but she did. And you know what else, those kids love her. They were so happy to see her, and I think she loves them, too. Hell, I know she does because it‘s why she asked me to see if we couldn‘t arrange to have them transferred into our care. She‘s worried about them growing up not knowing who and what they are. She wants them to learn to be youkai, and knows she can‘t teach them about that."
InuYasha waited for Sesshomaru to say something. His brother had always been a man of few words, but in the past that had always been by choice. Never before had he seen him at such a loss for words when it was because he simply did not know what to say.
When Sesshomaru finally spoke, he sound far more weary than InuYasha could ever remember, "You said she wished to speak to you about something, was it the children or was there more."
"She wants a temporary truce," InuYasha replied. "She says she found some scrolls that she is certain date back to the beginning of the war. She knew that we would never believe her should they absolve her side of guilt rather than ours, unless there was a youkai overseeing the translation and authentification."
"And you think we should agree?" Sesshomaru posed.
InuYasha took a deep breath and nodded. Then because he had given his word to Kagome, he said, "I believe her. I know that this seems crazy, but what could it hurt, even if it doesn't turn out to be anything significant. We lose nothing and gain at least a short time where no one is getting killed."
"You realize there will be much opposition to a truce of any kind?" Sesshomaru questioned.
"No more than she is facing, without anyone to support her as we have each other," InuYasha replied. "Those around her didn't even attempt to keep from being over heard as she escorted me safely out of the building. If nothing comes of this, she'll lose everything, and she knows it."
"If I agree, are you willing to oversee this venture personally? No other I can trust will agree to work with a miko, even should I command it upon penalty of death." Sesshomaru told him.
Without hesitation InuYasha nodded his head and replied, "I will."
Sesshomaru gave his younger brother a long hard look, taking measure of his certainty and then inclined his head slightly. "Then so be it. I do this on your word, little brother. Do not forget that. Now, how do I contact The Miko?"
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Dissident Hope