Angelus

Author’s note: this chapter is the most violent until now, so I wanted to warn you. It's not that bad, there are many more gruesomes stories out there, but don't be sorry you continued reading. There are some songs that I was listening to when I wrote this chapter and the next one that add a whole new dimension to this story. If you like music, I suggest you seek these out and listen to them while you read:

Jason Mraz - Coyotes
Jason Mraz – Details in the fabric
Nightwish – The poet and the Pendulum
Blue October – Hate me
Blue October – Into the ocean

Chapter 10

Kitana was enraged.

She had stumbled upon this group of bandits about two days ago, just as she left Sesshomaru’s side to explore their surroundings. The taiyoukai usually travelled far from human settlings, but there was a road near their camp and it is where she found them. If she hadn’t been hungry, she would have killed them on the spot to make sure they wouldn’t terrorize Rin. On that particular night however, the simple brush of the bandits’ souls on her own was enough to trigger her predatory instincts. She needed the thrill of a hunt and the taste of a meal before calming down, and she had found the perfect preys.

As if they had sensed being stalked though, the bandits separated into smaller groups and scattered around the countryside, walking or riding horses to reach different villages. Some of them were lower youkai, boars, snakes, lizards and such, and they disappeared into the forest, fields and rivers. She kept track of most of them, following them amongst the trees or hidden underwater in a lake or river, and soon she understood; while the youkai hid, the humans were all living a normal life in the neighbouring towns and hamlets, where they were simple peasants tending to crops or smiths who forged farming tools; one of them was even some kind of a healer. Only in the shadows of the night did they gather to commit their crimes, removing the masks that hid their true nature to the eyes of their families, neighbours and friends.

She almost abandoned her quarry when nothing happened on the night of the first day. After all, Rin would miss her presence and she could always come back another night. But her instincts asked her to wait, to taste the putrid emotions that coursed through the veins of the men at work, emotions that she knew they couldn’t keep at bay much longer. Now that she had found them though, they would meet their end. Very rarely in her past life had she found such a group of dire monsters. Evil souls were present everywhere but they uncommonly, if ever, grouped together to commit their crimes as inconspicuously as these men were doing.

When they finally gathered in a clearing hidden in the deepest part of a forest, she was there and she chose their leader as her last, most important victim. As far as she could tell from her high-up perches he was youkai and powerful. Green-eyed, with white and black hairs cut short over his shoulders, he sat contentedly in the center of the place amongst his followers, completely drunk. His clothes, even though they were scattered on the grounds around him, were of the finest silk, a sword by his side seemed to be of the highest craftsmanship. His exposed body showed extremely well toned muscles and scars of diverse origins were triumphantly demonstrating his resilience in battle. His energy level rivalled in strength with Sesshomaru’s one; really, he would make a fine meal, satiating her for weeks to come.

The others were small fry, but nonetheless they would feel her wrath. She started with them. Stealthily moving across the branches of the trees, she eliminated them, one by one, beginning with the ones further from the clearing and slowly working her way toward the main gathering place. She took her time, appreciating every moment of her hunt, taking her victims when they wandered away from the group to relieve themselves or gather some wood for the bright, oversized campfire. Seizing them by the throat with her tail while she was standing amongst the foliage of the trees, they couldn’t utter a sound before facing their death. One by one they were decimated.

The white tiger youkai, even though he was strongly inebriated, noticed that some of his men were missing about half an hour later. As he tried to count them, to remember their faces and looks, he slowly emerged from his cloudy dreams. He looked closely at his surroundings, at the captive women and child that were helplessly attached on the ground, play toys for his men and him, at the drunken men and demons who were pleasuring themselves with the captives, and he clearly saw that at least half of his followers were missing, if not more. Were these fools trying to ambush him and steal from him? They were utterly foolish if that’s what they were up to.

That is when he noticed the stench. The area reeked of blood and unspeakable things, even stronger than the smells of sex and alcohol that were surrounding him. As he tried to rise to take a better look around, a singular woman appeared right in the center of the clearing, crouching as if she had fallen from the skies. Her body was as black as the night itself, and her elongated head ended upon a beautiful face with high cheekbones and attractive, deep black eyes with golden irises. She slowly rose to her feet, elegant legs unfurling gracefully below her, showing him a lean and toned body just as he appreciated them. Richly burnished golden plates graced her forearms and lower legs, and her forehead, neck and waist were also adorned with similar ornaments. The rest of her body was firmly clad in a leather-looking material, showing all of her curves and charms to the onlookers. The thought came to his fogged mind that at last his rivals were acknowledging his superiority by sending him a present, a new flower of the night to add to his multiple conquests.

But his fantasies were cut short when in a fast series of swipes from her slender, deadly-looking tail, she beheaded eight of the twelve men he had left. Those eight men had done nothing to provoke her, they were not even reaching for their weapons and yet she coldly murdered them. As shocked as their leader, the four bandits that were still occupied with the captives tried to grab their weapons but even for them it was too late; faster that his eyes clouded by the abuse of booze could follow, she moved to each of them and gutted them with her bare hands, ripping their abdomen apart with her claws, leaving them to die slowly in their own wastes.

The tiger was still half-sitting, half-rising, his weight on his hands behind his back, pushing himself away from the ground in a desperate attempt to regain his composure. His youki was flaring around him, trying to warn the insolent woman about the immense strength of the one she was challenging. However as his angered eyes met with the stranger’s singular ones, plunging into deep golden pools that were quickly turning into black bottomless holes, he found that he couldn’t move anymore. All he could do was stare wide-eyed at her approaching form, at her swift tongue that erotically licked the blood off of her slender, feminine fingers, at her clawed feet that slowly and languidly brought her close to him, at her thighs, abdomen and then chest as she kneeled, descending promisingly upon him. Her hypnotizing eyes, though, were far from amorous.

“Tell me, youkai. Do you think your men got what they deserved by swimming through their innards, or should I go back to them and complete the job? I would like to ask all those women and child that you tortured in the past hours, but they seem to have taken their leave already. What do you think?”

He was trembling under her body as he felt her strong legs firmly push his own against the dirt ground of the forest, her claws digging into his shins. A painful scream left his lips as her tail slowly wrapped around his torso, imprisoning his muscular arms in a solid grip, leaving bloody wounds were the sharp edges of the appendage met with his bare skin. Her hands then reached for his face and started caressing his neck and nape sensuously. Her head bent down to his own, her tiara brushing against his forehead, her lips whispering across his own. Her eyes that he found so endearing a few moments ago were now devoid of any sign of life, terrorizing black holes that threatened to aspirate his very soul into them. They showed nothing but the promise of a terrible death.

“By committing all these horrible acts, you made yourself the center of my attentions. Be honored, youkai, as your energy will become mine.”

With that she tightened her grip upon his head and she bended over his frozen form, biting deeply at his neck, sharply cutting through muscles and tendons, reaching for the artery pulsing underneath his skin. And she drank, eagerly swallowing each stream of blood that met her lips, and in the same gesture accepting all the terrible images his mind projected toward her.

The youkai’s face contorted and he screamed, flaring his youki in a desperate attempt at reaching his true form when he felt the intense pain of her bite. He found though that his energy was quickly depleting and he couldn’t find the strength needed to transform. His sensations became a blur, the pained moans of his agonizing troops appearing to come from very, very far away, and then disappeared. The smells of the massacre wane and were replaced by an omnipresent, endearing aroma of foreign spices that filled his nose. The pain of the bite soon morphed into a voluptuous pleasure unlike anything he ever felt. His uncovered sex swelled between his bare legs and before he knew it, disturbing flashes of completely strange scenes appeared before his very eyes. He grew highly uncomfortable under those images, all of them coming from the black female that was now the center of his universe, and the pleasure he felt was soon mixed up with the revolting scenes that unravelled before his very eyes.

--

Sesshomaru first contact with the carnage was when an offending drop of blood dared falling upon his armor plate. He had followed a path that penetrated in the deep forest, trying to distinguish Kitana’s smell from the pungent aromas that bathed the area, and as he advanced the smell of spilt blood became so strong that it entirely hid the presence of a body close to him. Looking at the blood stain and then raising his head, his brows went up under his bangs as a singular sight met his eyes.

Higher in the tree, a man was suspended on a tree branch. In fact, the branch was impaling him from side to side through his abdomen and his bowels were hanging freely below him. Something meaty was sticking from his mouth and when Sesshomaru looked more closely, he discovered that it was the man’s own penis. Worse, the bandit was still breathing, weakly and with great difficulties, but he was still alive.

His eyes now reduced to slits, he removed himself from underneath the corpse and directed his gaze to the surrounding trees, examining them more carefully. Partially hidden from view by the green foliage of the trees, more bodies were dangling amongst the trees, as terrible fruits sprouted from hell. At least half a dozen of them were now visible to his eyes. All had been impaled or hung on strong tree limbs, eviscerated one way or another and flayed alive, the muscles of their arms and legs hanging from their bones. Most of them have had their genitals torn or ripped from their natural place and forcefully shoved between their lips. None of the injuries they received were directly fatal; their aggressor had taken great care in ensuring they would meet their end after enduring long moments of agony. It was pure torture. His sensitive nose skimmed through the repulsive aromas that thickened the air, and he discovered that Kitana’s spicy scent was clearly upon the corpses, as difficult to detect as always but definitively present.

He did not know what to do with these findings. Sesshomaru did not care in the slightest for the men, they were as insignificant to him as insects, and if they chose to attack Kitana then they deserved to die. It was the savage brutality of the scene that confounded him. Torture was not uncommon in these warring years and it was a regular occurrence to stumble upon a battlefield or a raided village. He was not at all shocked by such sights, and at times he had been the perpetrator of such slaughters, when some impudent beings would not move themselves from his path. But this level of bestiality he had rarely met before and that was something to say for a seasoned warrior like him. If it was really Kitana who had gone berserk like this, he thought, she must have been completely infuriated at these men for whatever reason, or he was a really bad judge of character. He could not picture the being that played with Rin amongst flower fields slaying and torturing these men for fun. Or so he hoped.

Hearing the screams of panicked women and child that came running at him, he turned their way. The humans appeared unaware of his presence, fleeing with all they had got, and he fought against the desire to catch one and interrogate it when he saw what state they were in. Utterly terrified, naked and covered in filth, these pitiful creatures would not help him; their minds had been broken by captivity. Stealing his resolve, the taiyoukai steadily walked in the direction from where they came.

--

Kitana was almost done with the youkai, his heart having great difficulties now to pump the remaining blood into her mouth. He was weakly moaning against her neck, his eyes rolling upward, and his feeble hands now released from her grip were holding her by the waist. In a desperate attempt at getting a little more energy out of him she plunged her claws in the strong muscles of his arms, extorting a painful groan from his now white lips. Pleased by the way his heart reacted, pumping harder than ever, she did it again, this time embedding her feet’s claws inside the tiger’s thighs and violently jerking his body, tearing it apart. Her tail whipped from one side to another in a frenzied manner, opening long gashes in the youkai’s legs and sides. When nothing was left in him, she plunged a hand below his ribs, breaking the skin as easily as if it had been a thin sheet of paper. After rummaging inside his thorax, she pulled out a still weakly beating, bloody heart to suck up the last drops of life from it.

It had been a grand meal, the youkai was exceptionally powerful. Her contented body was now filtering his immense energies from the consumed blood, storing it for later use. The waste that was left after the blood was completely purged of its power would be efficiently transformed into the dangerous acid that ran underneath her skin. She had no need for his flesh.
As she slowly came out of her bloodlust, Kitana realized she was not alone in the clearing. The abused women and child had long ago freed themselves and fled to wherever they belonged to, and the disembowelled men were long dead. No, a new creature was present. Shaking the last remainder of her trance from her senses, she recognized the energy signature immediately. Rising from her place, she turned halfway and met none other than Sesshomaru, gazing at her with impassive eyes from the tree line.

He had seen everything. The cadavers laying in the middle of the place around an immense fire, the body of a male youkai writhing underneath her small frame, his arms lovingly encircling her slender waist, his face rubbing against her neck, his hardened sex shamelessly uncovered, everything. He was about to turn tail, absolutely disgusted but determined never to intrude upon Kitana in such a way again, when she did the unexpected. She reached for the male’s arms and made deep gashes in them with her sharp claws, opening up the strong muscles as if they were nothing but an exotic, ripened fruit. Flashes of a deer subjected to a similar treatment entered his mind and he paused, examining the scene with a new understanding in his eyes. She was not rutting: she was feeding.

A shiver ran down his spine at the realization, and then he recognized the particular hair of this youkai. A white tiger youkai, from the North. This clan had been allied with his father in the great war against the panther tribes of the East. The white tiger tribe was usually peaceful, leaving secluded in the most northern parts of Japan and on the continent, but their power rivalled with his own. Yet, Kitana had reduced one of them to an utter mess with no difficulty. How disturbing.

“Explain yourself, woman,” he calmly told her as she rose and turned to face him, his mind whirling with an infinity of hypothesis about her strength and her performance in the clearing.

Kitana was now defiantly facing him, positioning her body over the remainders of her meal, her chin up in the air. Her eyes were slowly regaining their golden irises, burning with indignation at his intrusion, but for a moment Sesshomaru peered into the void of her blackened eyes and it froze him to the core.

She had no idea how the youkai lord would react to her way to sustain herself, and she feared a reaction similar to what happened with the deer. She should have been more careful and scanned the area more thoroughly for intruders before engaging in her feast. She could have waited, come back to spend the day with Sesshomaru and Rin and attack her preys when they slept, unaware of her activities, unconcerned by her wanderings. She was mentally berating herself for acting so boldly and foolishly, underestimating Sesshomaru’s desire and ability to track her down. Now, she would probably loose whatever respect the taiyoukai had for her, a respect that she had worked so hard to obtain. Her world was once again crumbling away under her feet, once again from her own doing.

As Kitana did not answer him and still looked at him defiantly, Sesshomaru calmly reduced the distance between them, trying to filter the disturbing stench of the place by breathing through his teeth. It would not augur well to show his unease in front of her, not when he wanted to understand, maybe even to gain her thrust. His eyes left her own only to take a closer look at her victim. Yes, it was indeed a pure-blooded youkai from the Northern white tiger tribe.

She was scanning him quickly, in disbelief. For once, his calm demeanour matched with what he was feeling. She could feel very strong waves of disgust coming from him, and a curiosity that she did not expect to find there, but he was not about to behave angrily as was so often the case. Loosening up her stance a little, she spoke to him, bringing his full attention back to her.

“Why are you here?”

Tilting his head to the side, he said “This Sesshomaru could ask the same to you.”

“You followed me. You tracked me. Even though I told you I chose to stay with you; even though all I asked was for you not to try to control me.”

“Indeed.”

“Indeed what?” she asked, irked by his cool reactions when she would have expected him to be blatantly furious at her.

“Indeed I followed you. This Sesshomaru had no idea, however, of what was keeping you away for so long. I had to be sure Naraku hadn’t tricked you or captured you. You will explain your acts, now.”

He was cold toward her, as he always was, but she was puzzled as he seemed somewhat amused by her attitude. Could he be trying to provoke her? Impossible, she thought, the context was too awkward to allow such banter. Her eyes reduced to slits in her confusion, she retaliated.

“If my dear lord would graciously allow me to clean up first, and then to find a more pleasant area in which we could linger, I may be more willing to explain myself, as you ask. Maybe. But for now I am filthy, I reek, and this place is even worse. I want to be out of here.”

Raising an elegant eyebrow up in his bangs, Sesshomaru nodded while his eyes blatantly explored her body. He couldn’t agree more with her suggestion.

“Indeed. Some… things are easier to get off of one’s skin if one does not allow them to dry up before cleaning up.”

Wide-eyed at the audacity of his words and staring, she stayed frozen on the spot as he retreated out of the clearing. Slowly she shook herself out of the surprise she felt and she followed his lead, completely mystified by his attitude. How could he be so disgusted about her behavior, utter revulsion seeping from every pore of his skin when he looked at her, and then jest with her as if he never witnessed her meal? Her empathic abilities were put to the test with him, that was for sure. How she wished to know what thoughts triggered the emotions she could so easily feel.

Kitana was so deeply lost in her thoughts that she didn’t noticed that Sesshomaru had come to a stop. Sidestepping elegantly to avoid any contact with her disgusting self, he spoke calmly, making her jump.

“This river would probably suit you.”

He was right. They had left the deep forest to walk in-between two steep rocky cliffs, in the middle of which a large river flowed furiously. The turbulent waters had carved many small pools beside the rapids that were suitable as bathing areas. She would have fallen right into the rapid if he had not stopped. Smacking herself mentally for not even hearing the sounds of the rushing waters, let alone seeing them, she straightened her back and replied.

“Fine. Now why don’t you look for a nice spot to settle and wait for me? I would rather prefer bathing alone.”

Raising both brows, he gave her a side look. His answer was unexpected and incomprehensible to her.

“And This Sesshomaru would rather prefer keeping you under his sight. After all, who knows what activities you could engage yourself into when I am not present.”

Having said that, he gracefully sat upon a large boulder on the riverbank, his hairs and fur flowing around him regally. Shaking her head in disbelief, Kitana lost no time. She jumped right in the cold running waters, ignoring the more quiet pools, and disappeared under the surface, determined to find a way to annoy the arrogant taiyoukai and to show him that she could leave whenever she wanted to. He could never track her underwater.

It was not her intention to escape from him, but she deliberately took more time than needed to clean herself, planting her feet in the rocky riverbed to fight against the swift current, not wanting to drift too far away. She needed time to calm down her confused mind. When she emerged from the water, she found him still seated peacefully on his boulder, exuding a real boredom. At least, she thought, his disgust of her was not his strongest emotion anymore.

As he made no move to leave the riverside, she jumped on the rocky wall beside him and installed herself comfortably on her heels a couple of feet above Sesshomaru, her feet sticking to the stone as easily as if it was covered in glue. His golden gaze rose to her face.

“You slaughtered them. Savagely. And your treatment of the tiger youkai was even worse, unfathomable.”

His voice was steady and calm but she felt some confusion and the dreaded loathing feelings of earlier coming from him. She wouldn’t be the only one to be puzzled, she thought.

“I did.”

He bent his head again, as if trying hard to understand the reasons behind what she did without directly asking for them. Looking at the rushing waters below her, she continued.

“They were monsters. Every single one of them. They only got what they deserved. And yes, I fed upon their leader, with bliss. His heart was the darkest I ever destroyed.”

Frowning lightly, he pushed her further. He wanted to know; more, he needed to know. No matter if it alienated her to him. He had never once stumbled across such an infuriating, yet disconcerting creature. She was enraged now, and he would have his answers.

“So, you impose yourself as judge, jury and executioner of your own justice, putting out all that circus for the sake of getting a meal without feeling guilty of killing an innocent being? Do you base your judgement upon their looks, was it enough for you that they were poor human bandits and rogue youkai to warrant your attack?”

Seeing red, she jumped from her cliff and landed on his boulder, crouching menacingly beside him with her fangs bared. Her temper now was perfectly matched with the uncontrollable rapids rushing by their side, and as the rapids, she would destroy everything that stood in her path before calming down.

“You! You insufferable aristocratic snob! You know nothing about the reasons behind my decisions, and yet you are the one who judges me! Yes, I do feed upon higher beings, I need their energy to sustain myself, and yes I do my best to choose the scum amongst them, so I feel as if at least my murders have a purpose beyond my own survival. You have no right to pass judgment upon me, as you have your fair share of blood upon your very own hand.”

He blinked once, then twice, before answering coldly, his brows frowning further as he spoke.

“This Sesshomaru, as you pointed out, perpetrated a long list of what you would probably consider crimes, and will surely continue to do so in the years to come. Yet, you did not try to end my days. Are you so perverse that you would have continued to act like a faithful companion, letting Rin grow fond of you, only to try to slaughter me later on? This Sesshomaru has no need for traitors amongst his group, ready to stab him in the back when the occasion arises.”

That was it. He had done it. She couldn’t stand his accusations anymore, but she wouldn’t leave before showing him the truth. He would know everything before she would disappear from his life, for good.

With a low hiss, baring her fangs and showing him her inner set of jaws with her eyes now in their completely golden state, she raised both hands and placed them on his temples, forcefully turning his head toward hers. Mesmerized, he allowed her to do so, his gaze never faltering from her outraged eyes. With a low voice, little more than a whisper menacing to be blown away by the sounds of the rushing rapids, she warned him.

“You want me to explain myself? I disgust you, don’t I, Sesshomaru? Well, you will learn about beings even more horrible than I am. I’ll ask you one question, though: if a monster destroys worse monsters, can it transcend its nature and become something better?”

With that being said, she jumped and crouched low over him, one clawed feet set on the rock on each side of his thighs, her hands never leaving his temples. Their gazes locked into one another while their faces were mere inches away from each other. And it began.

When she first jumped beside her, Sesshomaru curiously found that he had no reason to react. For the first time in a long life, he discovered he had put his faith in a being other than himself, allowing this being to threaten him with dangerous weapons and powers without fear of being harmed. Not really because he was stronger or more powerful, which he was without doubt, but simply because he trusted her not to bring harm to him. However, when she reacted so aggressively to his provocations, he thought that maybe he had overdone it. But even if he had faith in her he still wanted answers. She was ashamed of her behavior, that was clear to him, and she would never speak about it if he did not cross the boundaries; so he did.

A flow of images assaulted his mind as she positioned himself over him. At first he understood nothing, it was going too fast, but as his vision of Kitana’s face blurred and blended with the images she sent him, he started feeling things and the meaning of what he saw became clear.
He was looking at a village in flames, with bodies and dying peasants scattered everywhere. He was happy, truly happy, as he observed a group of bandits assaulting a young woman. Laughing, he went to the screaming woman, tore her tongue out and slashed at her neck with his feline claws, and brutally raped her dying body.

Multiple similar scenes succeeded themselves, flooding his mind with atrocious tortures, rapes and unspeakable acts committed upon weak humans and youkai. The images superimposed upon one another, creating a never ending succession of atrocities and crimes far worse than what he could ever have imagined. However, at the same time a totally indecent and unwelcomed sexual pleasure started to grow into him, filling him up as he witnessed and committed these terrible deeds.

Then the scenery changed for the last time and he recognized the settings; he was now looking at the very clearing where he found Kitana earlier, consuming her meal. He was still amongst human and youkai bandits but this time they had taken prisoners, women and child of both sexes, and were torturing them. He was looking from a close to the ground point of view, seeing objects such as axe handles and sword scabbards used to violate the prisoners by every body openings, witnessing as the bandits forced the prisoners of every age to take their sexes in their mouth or receive their semen on them. Pure bliss was overcoming his senses as he looked to the vile profanations that were committed around him. He then turned his gaze on what was struggling and fighting under him, to the creature that he was actively penetrating, tearing out its flesh with his large, swollen member, and he climaxed violently as he peered into the panicked and teary eyes of a young girl who looked terribly similar to his Rin.

Kitana released Sesshomaru from the vision just as he stumbled forward down the boulder and spilled his stomach’s contents on the riverbank. He was still retching painfully when she approached him, a deep hurt clearly visible through the tears in her eyes.

“Now you know what I felt, what I saw when I came in contact with this creature. Did you enjoy it? Do you still think that I chose him upon a whim, to ease my mind? You have felt what I felt when I fed upon him, dishonouring and raping these women and children from his very own point of view, taking the same pleasure he had while he did so, and at the same time being so horrified by those unspeakable acts that I wanted to tear my own heart from my chest, to rip my skin from my very bones if it could erase all memories of my contacts with him. These things he and others like him have done will pursue me for the rest of my life, awakening me at night, troubling my vision in broad daylight. I would immensely prefer having visions of fluffy little bunnies playing in flower fields when I feed upon my preys, but then I would truly be a monster.”

Having said these words she left him, plunging in the violent waters. One could not feel its own tears underwater, she thought as she swam away from her humiliation.

Sesshomaru was at a lost. He was, for the first time ever, totally humiliated and feeling ashamed of himself. He tried to understand where exactly things became out of hand, but he couldn’t tell. The results were obvious though: he had been subjected to a terrible torture of the mind, was now drenched in his own vomit and, as if it was becoming a habit, semen was caking up along his thighs.

In the meanwhile, Kitana had left him there, kneeling in a puddle of vomit to flee gods knew where.
Steadying himself upon the boulder, he slowly rose. This girl really turned his entire world upside down when she awoke from her long sleep, shattering every certitude he had about himself and his world as easily as if they were made of a thin layer of glass, and then dancing upon the remains of his self-confidence. It would not do.