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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
- 5
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- 7
Kagome awoke to the sound of muffled shuffling. She experimentally tried turning her head, only to meet with tense resistance from her neck muscles as well as a sharp pain in the back of her skull that left her nauseated. She attempted to open her eyes… only to see nothing.
Neurons snapped and popped to life, flooding her with a biting panic. A thousand words were whizzing around her head, but all that managed to tumble out of her dry lips was a weak "Hnnngh."
Heavy footsteps thumped toward her. "You're finally awake, child. The slayer has been worried." She felt old fingertips probing what she could only guess to be bandages covering her arms and shoulder. "Is there anything ye need, child?"
Trying to force her vocal chords to make sounds felt like trying to swallow a mouthful of sand and gravel. "W-water," she managed to rasp. Almost immediately, a wooden cup was gently pressed to her lips. She drank greedily, feeling the coolness dripping down her chin and onto her clothing. With a sputter, she gulped the last of the water, panting slightly from the effort. "Kaede-sama, my eyes… Why can't I see? Did the demon-" she halted abruptly, the memory from the previous night returning to flood her mind. "The demon, Kaede-sama! Where is it?!"
She heard a trickling sound and attempted to prop her body up onto her sore elbows only to be pushed down gently with a light sigh coming from the old priestess. "All in good time, child. As for your eyes, they remain undamaged. Rest has only made the lids stick together." Kagome felt a cool damp cloth laid across her closed eyes accompanied by a light rubbing. Her eyelids began loosening, and the cloth was removed. She cracked her eyes open only to jam them back shut to avoid the unforgivingly bright sunlight streaming through the open doorway. Kaede then smoothly guided the young woman into a sitting position, and Kagome clutched the yukata that had been draped over her unconscious form to her chest.
"How bad is it," Kagome asked tentatively, opening her eyes just enough that her eyelashes muted some of the light. She tamped down a squeak of pain as Kaede began unwinding the soiled bandages from her right shoulder, none-too-gently prying the crusted strips of cloth from the raw skin. Kagome's still bandaged left hand came up to hover around the burn she knew would be upon her neck from the demon's youki. A shudder ran down her spine as the backs of her knuckles gingerly ghosted over the raised mutilated flesh, feeling the rounded bubbles of fluid that rested under her skin.
"It could be much worse. You are lucky that Sesshomaru-sama saw fit to spare your life before he left for the west."
"Left?" Kagome's brow creased in confusion. "He just… left? That's it?"
"Aye, child, and I am in no shape to go up against such a deadly foe. It is better this way." Kagome yelped as Kaede probed the newly exposed shoulder. Mid-wince, Kagome saw Sango enter the hut looking tired, but otherwise no worse for the wear.
"Sango-chan, you're alive! I'm so glad. I thought that he had killed you. You fell, a-and there was so much blood-" Kagome gushed before Sango cut her off.
"Kagome, stop," Sango chuckled as she lowered herself to the floor to sit near the battered priestess. "It was only a cut on the back of my head. Kaede-sama fixed it with no problems." She finished with a reassuring smile and a gentle pat on Kagome's hand.
"Aye, she speaks the truth. Wounds to the head oft bleed deceptively much." The elder woman nodded sagely while tenderly rubbing a foul-smelling salve upon the weeping puncture wounds in Kagome's shoulder.
"Kagome," Sango started with a firm voice, causing the priestess to swing weary eyes in her direction. "What happened to the demon? Were you able to take care of it?"
Kagome cast her eyes down, running her fingers over the tight scabs covering the fingertips of her left hand.
"Kagome…" Sango trailed off questioningly, demanding an answer with her expectant gaze.
"… I couldn't kill it Sango." Kagome brought her eyes up to meet the slayer's. "I put the head on the shoulders-" She winced as Kaede patted her newly re-bandaged shoulder before continuing. "I put the head on the shoulders, and it came to life. The head attached, and the demon gained consciousness. Kaede-sama told me that it ran away after that. I'm sorry, Sango." Kagome hung her head in shame and guilt for letting Sango's vengeance and justice slip through her fingers.
The room fell silent as Sango sat still, trying to control her rage. In an attempt to regain an ounce of modesty, Kagome crossed her stiff arms across her chest, which was immodestly covered with only her sarashi binding.
It was Kaede herself, however, that broke the silence. "I suppose I should inform ye of this demon's past." Both pairs of eyes turned to the elderly woman, who had taken to grinding dried herbs in a pestle. With a sigh, she set her work in progress on the ground and poured two cups of green tea, which she pushed toward the girls.
"The creature, Sesshomaru, was once a great demon lord of the western lands. His father was lord before him, and so on, back countless generations. It was said that he was the strongest demon in all the land. I know that he was the strongest demon that I ever saw, and I have not seen the likes of it since then.
"It is said that when out patrolling his lands, he came across a priestess: the priestess of Edo before I. I know not the specifics of their relationship, but he was increasingly spending more and more time in Edo, despite the fact that it lay in the eastern lands.
"I know not the circumstances surrounding the happenings, but things between the miko and Sesshomaru's relationship began deteriorating rapidly. Rumor has it that the miko was being controlled by a dark sorcerer who wanted her for himself.
"The dark sorcerer, known as Naraku, planted the seeds of doubt in the miko's mind, and it grew and rotted within. Things between Onee-sama and the demon became volatile, and she sealed him and removed his head to ensure that he never awoke to terrorize again."
Sango's eyebrows screwed together, confused at Kaede's slip of either the mind or tongue. It was Kagome that spoke then.
"…Onee-sama?"
"Oh-" Kaede faltered as if it was information she was unwilling to divulge. After a brief inner battle, she seemed to calm. "Yes. The village miko was my elder sister. She was the one who cast the spell upon Sesshomaru."
Understanding dawned upon the younger priestess. "And your older sister was… Kikyou-sama?" She was rewarded with a single nod of Kaede's head.
Sango abruptly slammed her cup down upon the floor, spilling the remnants of her tea. "I don't care who this demon is or what his background is. I want him dead. I demand retribution for his actions against Kohaku!" Kaede made an effort to control the demon exterminator's rising anger as Kagome slipped behind a folding screen. When she reappeared, she was re-clothed in her usual miko attire with a new bow in hand. She walked slowly to Sango and laid a comforting hand upon the shaking woman's shoulder.
"It was due to my own mistake that this demon continues to roam the land, and so it is my duty to slay it. I promise you, Sango; I will avenge Kohaku and all of the people who have lost their lives to this demon.
Meanwhile, near the backwater town of Hachioji, a white figure darted between trees so quickly that the villagers noticed nothing but a light change in the breeze. It stopped behind a hut on the fringe of the small village and discreetly slipped through the doorway. A pale white hand shot out and landed upon the shoulder of a man, immediately turning him about-face. The man's red-brown eyes widened in surprise, but then quickly narrowed as a smirk carved its way into his features. A low, malicious voice filled the room.
"It has been quite a while, hasn't it, Onigumo? Or should I say… Naraku?"
Before the man could respond, his throat and torso were slashed to jagged ribbons with one flick of the demon's claws, sending a spray of blood to coat the nearby wall as well as the demon's clothing. His neck was gaping open and hanging at a horrifying angle before his assassin released him, the body hitting the floor with a splash as it landed in a growing puddle of blood.
Instead of quelling his anger and satiating his desire for revenge, Naraku's death seemed to awaken a fury, a hunger, a beast that yearned to be satisfied. He slipped into the next home undetected and swiftly dispatched the family within. His thirst for blood was still not slaked, and he gave in to the rage, to the feeling of warm flesh parting between his fingers, to the hunt. His vision went red, and he let go of the remains of his moral restraints.
Moving from hut to hut, the killings became more frenzied, more savage, and soon villagers were scrambling for their lives, running from the red-soaked butcher with raw wrath in its eyes and death upon its bloodstained claws. He tore them all down- every fleeing human- their bodies falling in the roads and turning them crimson.
Accompanied by a symphony of screams and cries, Sesshomaru slaughtered the village in its entirety and began his mindless bloody rampage across the countryside, leaving nothing but shredded flesh and destruction in his wake.
*** A sarashi is the long strip of cloth used to bind women's breasts as was common practice in that time to achieve the desired shape, as lumps and curves look odd and bulky in a kimono.
- 5
- 6
- 7
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Edge of Paradise