Reincarnation.

A/N: Just to warn you, I have been rereading the Weather Warden series by Rachel Caine, and the rest of the story will be greatly influenced by her writing. Some terrible things happen in those books, and also some wonderful things, too… as a forewarning to anyone who reads after this note: *MAIN CHARACTERS WILL BEGIN DYING AS OF THIS CHAPTER.*

The site won't let me change the cautionary stuff, so i'll go ahead and caution you right now. The chapters lying ahead will contain violence, submission, death, and rape. Enjoy.
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Chapter Eleven: Disenchanted.

She felt his sharp nose rubbing the insides of her thighs, sniffing lightly at the sharp scent of her arousal. She breathed heavily, staring up at the ceiling. Nervously, he ran his tongue along her nether lips and traced it lightly on her clitoris. She gasped at the sensation, and she looked at him. His green eyes glinted in the dim light, and she realized then that she could not only see his anxiety, but she could also smell it.

He sat up beside her on the bed and didn’t look at her. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, shame evident in his voice. She ran a hand through his short, red hair. “Moriko, you must think I’m pathetic.”

She smiled at him brightly. “It’s your first time, Shippo,” she said quietly. “I understand. You know that it’s my first time, too.”

He nodded, but she knew it didn’t make him feel much better. He was so nervous about pleasing her, about making her want him…

“Hey,” she said. “Look at me.”

He turned his head, looking into her eyes. Her violet eyes were glowing a little, and he knew what that meant. “You want me to…” he asked, his voice trailing off. He really had no idea what the Kami called it, but he knew what happened to Inuyasha whenever he had let Kimiko do it to him. Inuyasha seemed to sleep for days, and he still didn’t regain his full strength for a couple weeks afterward. It was a very draining experience, from what he had seen.

Moriko chuckled lightly and rolled her eyes. “Don’t judge it by how it affects Yash,” she told him. “He’s half human; he doesn’t sustain the same kind of energy that youkai and Kami do. Also, I’m only half Kami; I can’t take as much energy as my mom can.”

Shippo laughed nervously at that. “So I guess we’re all a little mismatched when it comes to… that.”

“When it comes to bonding, yes,” Moriko agreed, smiling.

Shippo nodded. “Bonding.” ‘So that’s what they call it,’ he thought.

Right then, when he wasn’t expecting it, Moriko pounced on to him. He blinked up at her, noticing the mischievous look in her glowing, amethyst eyes. He grinned and grasped her hips in his hands.

Suddenly, the door slammed open, and Yash came storming in. “What the hell?” he roared when he saw the two on the bed. He glared at Shippo, who was staring, wide-eyed, at the hanyou, shocked and horrified. Moriko also looked quite horrified that her father had walked in on them about to do something naughty. “Kagome! I mean, Kimiko! Get in here and look at what your daughter and Shippo were about to do!”

“I don’t wanna see! Inuyasha, get your ass out of that room this instant and leave them to it!”

He stared out the open door, looking crestfallen. “But… Kimiko…”

“No but’s!” she cried out. They heard her stomp her foot. “You knew this would happen, because Shippo’s youkai and Moriko’s half youkai! It’s their first season! Leave them to it!”

Inuyasha bristled, but he ceased arguing. He glared at his two kids, and silently left the room, closing the door behind him.

Somehow, this interruption hadn’t managed to ruin their mood; as soon as Inuyasha was gone, Moriko blinked in surprise, finding herself on bottom. She pouted at Shippo. “Hey, that’s no-” She stopped short, her sentence ending in a moan of surprise when she felt the kitsune’s manhood sink into her. She shivered from the feeling, and Shippo grinned at her from above. “That’s no fair,” she whispered in a breathy voice. Shippo slowly pressed onward, stealing a kiss from his new lover as he did.

Shippo’s pace quickened when he realized Moriko was experiencing no pain, and her toes curled from the quick, solid wave of pleasure that spread through her entire body. She bucked her hips and curled her back, moaning loudly. Shippo licked his lips and began to kiss her neck and her ears. He felt her short fingernails scrape against his back painlessly. It was good for Moriko to know that her meager claws would do her kitsune lover no harm.

After her next orgasm, Shippo cried out. Moriko came with him, and the two saw the dark purple light build up around them, surrounding them. There was cracking noise as Moriko gave one last cry of ecstasy. Slowly, the purple light disappeared, and Shippo pulled out and rolled onto his back. He was panting and sweating, but he felt better than he had since mating season had begun. He looked at Moriko, who smiled brightly at him.

All of a sudden, he filled up a little with fear. ‘What if she rejects me right now?’ he wondered, panicked. ‘I’ll be mateless once again. And in mating season!’

But his worry was for nothing. Moriko wrapped her arm around his chest and swung her leg over his. She kissed his cheek and his shoulder. “That was amazing!” she breathed, still smiling brilliantly. “I feel so… energetic!”

The kitsune made an attempt to laugh but found he was too tired. “That makes one of us.”

She giggled a little. “I’m sorry.”

“So am I.” He looked at her, a smile evident on his lips and another in his amazing green eyes. “I can’t wait to make love to you again.”

Moriko watched him seriously. They had been seeing each other for nearly eight years now, but not once had either one of them dared to mention the L word. And here Shippo was, the male, referencing their first time as “making love.” It seemed strange to Moriko… but, deep down, something about it made it feel just right, whether it was her youthful ignorance of love or something else.

She kissed him again.
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Moriko remembered their first time as she stared down at the small stone on the ground in front of her. It had been shined and polished, and tears filled her violet eyes as she read the engraved name of her mate, Higuarshi Shippo, in the gravestone. She barely felt her stepfather wrap one arm around her shoulders and hug her. She looked up at her father, into his understanding and caring golden eyes. Shippo and Kimiko had been the only two poisoned when they discovered Naraku’s hideaway, and Kimiko, as a full Kami, was still recovering. Shippo, only a youkai, hadn’t been able to make it.

The young half-Kami turned her head and looked at her father. “Dad, there’s something I hadn’t told you and Mom yet,” she told him in a small voice. She fiddled with her fingers nervously for a minute, then looked him right in the eye and blurted out, “I’m pregnant.”

Yash stepped back, surprised. He glanced down at her stomach. “How far along are you?” he asked her.

She shrugged. “I quit keeping track of the years. It’s been about a century, I think.”

He stared at his daughter. “You’ve been pregnant for a century?”

“It’s a Kami,” she told him quietly. “We didn’t have permission… I didn’t think we’d need it for a child who will only be a quarter Kami. But I guess the same rules apply.”

He sighed. “You know, I don’t really know much about what to do in this situation. You’re mother would be more equipped to handle this… but she’s still…” He sighed and squeezed his eyes shut. It hurt him to see Kimiko in the state she was in currently, always shivering and convulsing. Her skin had given him a second degree burn the last time he had touched her. Of course, she didn’t know about anything that had been going on; she’d confined herself to their bedroom, and she was in and out of consciousness. She didn’t even know that their adopted son had died.

He shook his head and led his grieving daughter from the cemetery.
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He walked in and shut the door behind him. Kimi was laying still and silent under the blankets. He took a cautious step forward. ‘Shippo had become so violent toward the end,’ he thought, ‘I don’t know what’ll happen to Kim. And I sure don’t want a pissed off spirit coming after me!’ She rolled over, and he blinked, stunned. Her eyes were her usual blue… but there was something missing. There was everything missing… “Kim,” he breathed, standing right where he was. Her soft face was blank, her expression stolen, and her eyes were dead, devoid of that brilliant life he normally saw in them. They were just a dull, light blue.

“You don’t need to be here,” she told him, her dead eyes locked with his. He blinked and licked his lips nervously, taking another step forward. Kimi didn’t move. She didn’t blink. She just stared at him, her expression still missing.

Finally, Yash reached the bed. He trembled as he slowly reached his hand out to her.

Her eyes filled with blue fire suddenly, blazing to life, and her expression became angry. “I said, don’t do that!” Yash pulled away, a little startled and intimidated by his lover’s reaction. When she was satisfied that he was a good distance away [and that she had thoroughly scared the piss out of him], she relaxed a little.

Then her eyes filled with pain as her body convulsed, and she spit blood on her soft, white pillow. Yash growled, and, in an instant, he was by her side, clutching her hand and glaring into her eyes. His fire matched hers. She snarled at him and pulled back when he refused to shy away. “Stop this,” she told him in a low voice. “You know I won’t let you take it.”

He leaned forward anyway, ignoring her warnings, and, before she could react, he had his lips pressed firmly against hers. In her surprise, her eyes widened, and she accidentally let her lips part.

It hit Yash like a stab through the heart with a sharp piece of ice. He went reeling, falling flat on his ass on their bedroom floor, panting heavily as the icy feeling that had gripped his chest faded away. He stared at her; she was shaking and staring at him in horror. Then her blue eyes went blank again, and her face once again became expressionless. The only sign of emotion Kimi could show her lover was a single tear slipping down her cheek. “You don’t want it anyway.” She rolled back over, her back facing him.

He was trembling, not out of fear or pain, but because he could feel his lover now. Some strange connection had been formed between them just now, and he could feel her pain, the inner battle she fought… he could feel her screaming in agony. But all he saw with his eyes was her still form lying on their bed, her side barely rising and falling.

Yash couldn’t stand it. He thought back to the times he had spent protecting her when they were both younger, when they were Kagome and Inuyasha… when Shippo was a playful kid, not Kami girl’s deceased lover. He remembered when Miroku was an actual pervert, and when Sango smacked him for the slightest hint of hentai-ism. He remembered when he protected Kagome… with his life.

That was still him.

And this was still Kagome. His Kagome, who he honored, cherished… and protected.

He stood.
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Inside, Kimi was surrounded by complete blackness. It was invading her, violating her… consuming her. ‘Whatever Naraku used, it was damn powerful to keep me caged in my own body like this,’ she thought. She had had to reach inside and bury her heart, her soul, her very core… in doing so, she had shut herself off from her body in more ways than one. Oh, Gods, was it painful for her to feel this thing eating her purity and her power from the inside out, and it would be so easy to let it consume her heart. She would die, and the pain would disappear.

But Yash helped her recover her will to live. He made her want to fight.

Enveloped in the blackness of her Second Sight, she looked up. Reaching through the choking black was a pair of shining hands. They tugged at her. Opening her physical eyes, she stared, blinking into gold like liquid fire. She could feel their link, and she knew what Yash was doing. But she couldn’t fight him anymore. Her physical body shook and went cold as his body stiffened against hers. Slowly, the pain began to ebb away, and, slowly, Yash’s fire began to disappear.

Finally, Kimi grabbed hold of her senses and pulled the darkness back in. The fire returned to her lover’s eyes, and when she had the poison contained once again, she shoved him across the room. She did this with such force that she didn’t even see Yash moving through the air; he was just suddenly collapsing against the wall.

The poison began to try to invade her again. But Yash had brought her spirit back out, and, frustrated, Kimi reached deep down into herself and choked the darkness, shoving it down and letting it know that she was the boss. She stood. No more pain, no more cold. No more hiding. She smiled at Yash, who looked defeated, and helped him to his feet.

‘He saved me once again,’ she thought as they left their bedroom side by side for the first time in a week. She smiled up at him, and she saw a flash of the old fighting hanyou Inuyasha. When he looked down and saw her smile, he saw his bright, cheerful Kagome. ‘I wonder if she’ll ever know how often that smile has brought me back from the brink of death,’ he thought with a small grin of his own. But he had a feeling that she already did.

When they were sitting at the dining room table just a few hours later, enjoying the grand meal Suzume had fixed for them, Kimiko looked around in realization. “Where’s Shippo?” she asked.

Yash looked at Moriko, who managed to hold back her tears. He sighed. ‘I guess I’ll be the one to tell her of our adopted son’s untimely demise.’
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A/N: the poison that I’m working on with Kimiko and Shippo is like a cross between the Demon Mark and the Ifrit, both from Rachel Caine’s Weather Warden series. I figure I’ll give her credit for those both, because it is technically her idea, and, although mine is technically different, those both were the inspiration, and they pretty much match in description. I just figured I’d be honorable about the whole thing. Already have the next chapter written up, but I need to type it. It’ll probably be up tomorrow. And, hell, I’m not even sure I’m finished with it… Anywho. Tomorrow, folks!