Redemption

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, etc. This story is for entertainment purposes only.

REDEMPTION

Summary: Specters of the past bring forth questions for the future. Can she save his soul, or will he wander forever in darkness?

WORDS

hentai - pervert

WARNING! DARK IMAGERY AND ADULT TOPICS, ANGST, LIMES THAT START LOOKING LIKE LEMONS THOUGH REALLY ONLY BECOME LEMONADE, FLUFFY WAFF, RUN ON SENTENCES AND NAUGHTY POTTY MOUTHS, SPOILERS (EPISODE 122+)

A/N - I can’t believe how long it’s been! What a couple of months! Well, today is my birthday and I decided that I need to get this chapter out, come hell or high water. I want to thank my darling Aetos for her help and inspiration, and the wonderful reviews this story has received. Somebody threatened me with bad fan-art if I didn’t update fast enough, and I wanted to say I would love to have work drawn for this story, good, bad, whatever. Now THAT would be a birthday present! (Fate)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Dropping the filled bucket to the floor with a heavy thump, Sango wiped a tired hand across her sweaty brow, leaving her bangs in tangled disarray. With a resigned grimace, the taijiya fell to her hands and knees and reached for the scrub brush.

Kirara regarded her with wide-eyed bemusement from the safety of a low shelf built along one wall. Twin tails flicked from side to side as she watched the young slayer dip the brush into the sudsy water and slosh it around a few times before applying it briskly to the floor. Sango made her way around the small hut, whose floor seemed infinitely wider the more she scrubbed. Dirty water splashed across her kilted up skirt until the hem slapped and dragged around her bent knees. The humid heat of the sunny day was oppressive, even in the dim shade of the cot, and long black hairs kept escaping her loose ponytail to cling to her cheeks or arms with itchy irritation.

Sango took her frustrations out on the floor, scrubbing until the dull ache in her tight muscles turned to numb weariness, and only sat back on her heels when she nearly bumped her head on the bottom of the lower shelves. Wide red eyes stared down at her with whisker-twitching curiosity, and Sango smiled faintly as she surveyed her work with a tired sense of pleased accomplishment.

Tossing the brush back into the bucket with a splash of dirty water, Sango raked the sweaty tangles back off of her forehead and cheeks, leaving streaks of dusty grime in their wake. Her back ached from kneeling for so long, and so she arched her spine with one hand at the small of it until it popped as she got shakily to her feet. Her knees throbbed with returning sensation, and she shook her head ruefully. She felt like an old woman, and far worse than she ever had coming from a battle.

Whoever said housework was light work was an idiot.

Sango pulled the loosened white ribbon from her hair, which had mostly escaped from its captivity during her hard exertions. Gods, she could use a bath. The thought of the small, diverted river---whose splashing waters were mountain-fed and often cold---was one of pleasure instead of resignation. The day was unseasonably warm for this time of year, and the humidity was stifling under the sun’s basking gaze. Beads of sweat dripped down her back, and she wrinkled her nose at the dirty splashes across her yukata.

“I think I’ve done enough for now, eh, Kirara?” Sango scratched the lolling kitten behind her ears. Kirara batted at the trailing fingers with her little black paws, tails lashing as she purred and rubbed a cheek against Sango’s palm.

“Want to join me?” Sango invited with a little smile, already knowing the answer. It was Kirara’s turn to wrinkle her nose with distaste and slap the slayer’s petting fingers with an admonishing black paw. A paw the neko then started to clean with single-minded intensity, showing that she had better ways to bathe herself than immersing in icy-cold water pulled down from the mountains.

“I’ll take that as a no.” Sango gave the creamy kitten one last caress, which she submitted to with shameless abandon, before suddenly remembering her forsaken dignity and sitting back upright with a rather aloof expression.

Laughing for the first time in what felt like forever, Sango exited the dim interior of the hut. Mud squelched between her toes---the humidity kept the ground from drying completely, and as the rain would probably come again tonight as it had the last four, it was never given the chance. Sango nabbed her sandals and the clean, white yukata she usually kept for sleeping, and hurried through the tattered village, eager to wash the dirt and sweat from her skin.

The small river that ran down from the craggy mountain peaks just outside the village walls had been diverted to feed both village and fields. Irrigation ditches had been dug to help flood the rice paddies in the dry season, and a small stream hollowed out to flow through the village itself. Years of repeated spring flooding had worn the channel into a deeper rut than the clan had first constructed, and small areas had been sectioned off for various use.

Drinking water was fetched from atop a rocky rise that had been built for the purpose, in a small cistern at the end nearest the outer wall. Splashing down over the rocky lip of the cistern, the water pooled into a convenient spot for bathing, eventually eddying into a slower stream where the women used to kneel on the grassy bank to do their laundry. At one time, the splashing pool had been cut off from sight by a raised, wooden partition to shield those who were bathing. Demon slayers were more assiduous in their personal hygiene than most peasant villages, for they knew what dirt in a wound or a youkai’s insidious poison could do.

The partition was mere splinters now, but Sango paid it no mind. There was no one here to gawk, and so she shed her dirty clothes with relief, leaving them in a trailing pile as she crossed the grassy verge to the swirling pool’s bank. Easing herself into the deep pool, which came to her waist, she felt her muscles loosen and relax in the cold water, which felt heavenly on her sweaty, hot skin.

Ducking beneath the water’s surface, she felt the heavy tangles of her long black hair float free in the swirling current. She basked for a long moment of sheer bliss before the icy touch of the water got to her and she finally emerged with chattering teeth and goose-pimpled skin.

Shivering now, she made her way to the splashing, man-made waterfall, which acted much in the way Kagome had described as a shower would, back in her own time. The young miko had been delighted to find such a modern convenience in the feudal era, though she was more fond of taking long, luxuriant soaks in sulfurous hot springs. Kagome had made some rather interesting shrieks at the touch of that frigid water the first time she had tried it---causing an ever-anxious Inuyasha to come running to her rescue. Kagome’s shrieks as the hanyou burst in on them had achieved a rather piercingly unique volume of outrage, followed by a shouted ‘Sit!’ that had carved a decent-sized, hanyou-shaped hole in the ground.

Sango smiled softly at the memory even as her fingers combed though her tangled hair. That was one of the first times she had ever seen Kagome’s unique ability to subdue the silver-haired half-demon, and she could remember how pissed off Inuyasha had been about it. Fortunately, Miroku had chosen just that moment to try and catch a peep at the bathing girls himself, and so the hanyou’s anger had been diverted into trouncing the hentai houshi who had tried to shrug off his bad timing with a weak laugh.

She missed her friends. It would be good to leave the empty village and return to Lady Kaede’s. Sango wondered if Kagome had come back yet, and what they all might be doing. She had gathered enough of the herbs that the old priestess would be delighted with the harvested addition to her stores, and she had only been filling in the extra hours with busy-work to pass the time. The storehouse was secure, and she had even managed to rig shutters on the old healer’s hut she slept in. She would make sure to bar the windows and doorway so that the next time she returned she wouldn’t have to work so hard to have a ready place to sleep…

Funny how things had turned out between them all. When she had first met Inuyasha and Kagome, she had thought that they might never admit their true feelings for one another, though that had changed once both Kikyou and Naraku were gone. At one time, she herself had entertained dreams of being happy with Miroku---though rosy romance had changed over time and deepened into firm friendship, not love. She wouldn’t have been truly content with him, and had always worried about his comparative loyalty to any one woman. If nothing else, Miroku was true to his ancestors, for the tales of their lechery and idle flirtations were as profligate as his own…

No, she decided, she could never have been happy with Miroku. She needed a love that was for her alone, one that was as loyal and steadfast as her own heart would be. For once her love was given, she could not take it back, and the haunting pain of that realization still lurked inside of her, though she had tried to stave it off with hard work and grim distraction. For she had been foolish enough to finally give her heart to one who could not return it, and she now paid the price of that singular foolishness. She could try and distract herself all she wanted, but sill the denied longing for him lingered, and her smile faded as her thoughts grew lost and weary.

*Bankotsu…*

She blinked back the tears that were always so ready to fall, and shook herself. The chill of the icy water matched the chill certainty that hovered in her lonely heart, and she shivered with more than the eerie awareness of it. Distraction was the best way to ignore that ever-raw pain, and so she picked up the pungent soap made of flowers and herbs she had pounded out herself with pestle and mortar and ducked beneath the splashing falls to wash out her tangled hair.

But memories hovered too close to the surface, and she remembered another icy waterfall, where she had knelt before darkening cobalt eyes in blushing hesitation, embarrassed at the lurid thoughts that had circled through her mind even as her nipples had hardened, as now, and her breasts had felt oddly heavy. Her breath had come short, as it did now, and the tingling butterflies of desire had fluttered deep in her belly, awakening a strange ache of longing in her loins.

Then, as now, she stood in a strange dawning awareness of her body, muscles tensed and skin tingling with awakened sensation. Leaning her head into the splashing spray of falling water, she shuddered with silent longing, not knowing what caused it, but somehow feeling as if…

Back stiffening in alarm, Sango whirled around.

Her eyes widened in shock as her mouth fell open in astonishment.

*I must be dreaming. I have to be dreaming.*

For there he stood, eyes dark and shoulders tensed. His giant sword was slung negligently over one shoulder, propped casually with one hand as if it weighed nothing. The sun glittered off of his armor, shading the feathery swirls of his tabard into darker lines and glinting off the pristine white silks of his hakama and haori. Inky blue tints were brought out in the midnight fall of his tumbling bangs, and his tanned skin glowed like soft, golden leather.

Sango gasped, an opened palm covering the quickened beating of her heart as her other hand closed in a nervous fist of disbelief.

“Bankotsu…” She breathed his name, her brown eyes honeying into cinnamon at the wealth of emotion that welled up inside of her.

“Ninja.” He grinned at her, though it slowly faded as his blue eyes glided over the naked, water-beaded flesh revealed to him. His gaze darkened with desire, the intensity of his shadowed eyes making Sango’s chest heave as her breath came short.

“Bankotsu,” was all she said, the intensity of her sudden, awful longing making her whisper husky with long-denied emotion. Her curled fist slowly opened in a gesture of helpless need, and it was all the signal the mercenary needed to have him dropping his sword with uncaring disregard and striding to her side.

Careless of clothing or armor, he clambered over the bank with single-minded purpose. Wading through the swirling water, Sango shuddered as he took her into his strong arms, his hands curving over her shoulders to haul her to him, his head bending to capture her parted lips in a searing kiss that ravaged through her senses and left her gasping against him, helpless as the fires of fierce passion were lit within her.

His kiss, hard and demanding, claimed her to his keeping, and she could only lean into his strong embrace as passion ignited sensations long dormant within her. His mouth softened, coaxing and tender, begging entry, and she obliged, parting her lips and gasping anew as his tongue slid against hers, tasting her for the first time.

His raw hunger for her had him pressing her lithe body tight against him as Sango’s shaking fingers feathered across his wide shoulders and lightly touched his jaw, finally entwining at the nape of his neck as she deepened the kiss that had them both reeling with thundering desire. For long moments they were lost in one another, the sensations of the body overstepping the needs of the soul, but Bankotsu finally broke away with fierce necessity, and his strong hands clasped her damp cheeks, tangling in the midnight tendrils of her hair.

“Sango, sweet Sango…” He murmured, his eyes intense and wanting. “Gods, how I’ve wanted this, how I’ve wanted you. You can’t know how much---”

“Please,” was all she begged, her own need making her shiver as her heart clenched. Desire might be enough for now, though the love must remain hidden in her cinnamon eyes. He could never know how much she cared, how deeply she needed him, and for more than just this simple sharing of awakened passion. This could be nothing more to him than a need fulfilled---

“Sango, I…I love you.”

Her soul shuddered in dawning revelation, and the tears that blurred her eyes slowly fell as the world opened up around her. Her heart was freed, and her spirit sang in a joy so profound it shook her to the core even as it sent her soul soaring on wings of exquisite possibility.

“Bankotsu…” She choked, unbent emotion thickening her voice.

“Please…don’t say anything. I know that you could never love me, for I am dead and not really of this earth. I…I just needed to tell you, just needed to say it. You don’t…you don’t need to…” The flash of pain in his blue eyes was heart-wrenching, the emotional weakness laid bare for all the world to see in one who had always shunned weakness of any kind.

He could not know the gift he made to her, and the tears shining in her honey-warmed eyes made his own heart tighten with the false truth of despair. But the brilliance of her slowly dawning smile made him pause, his breath catching as his world stood still in breathless yearning.

“Bankotsu…Bankotsu, I love you. I love you so much it hurts me…” She sobbed aloud her glad cry of recognition. Bankotsu stared at her in stunned disbelief for a single moment before the world came crashing back in on him, and the knowledge of it had him crushing her to him, his lips seeking hers as their souls shuddered as one.

“Gods, Sango…I…” He gasped with hoarse awakening, and she pressed a slender finger to his lips.

“Say nothing for now…just…hold me. Please.” She said, the joy in her beautiful brown eyes speaking untold volumes.

And as their arms tightened and their bodies became one under the thundering spray of the baptism of new-found love, they both knew that it was enough for now.

Enough, perhaps, for all eternity.

1414141414141414

“Are you sore?” He asked, a finger gently tucking a long black strand of errant hair behind her ear.

Sango blushed under that earnest blue gaze, and dropped her eyes to her lap, where her fingers knitted together. “I’m fine,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

He laughed suddenly, and kissed her hard and quickly. “Why so formal, ninja-girl? After what we just did---”

Her blush turned hotter, and she punched him---hard---in the shoulder. He just laughed again, rubbing the sore spot with one hand and hauling her bodily across his lap with the other. Sango struggled for a brief moment, and then relaxed against his broad chest, the tanned skin warm and very much alive under her splayed fingers. He kissed the top of her tangled black head, his strong arms coming up to circle around her and hug her to him with light emphasis.

“Ah, ninja, you’ll get used to it.” He said with twinkling blue eyes. “I like to tease the blush from you…” A shadow flickered across his gaze for a moment, but she did not see it, and he ignored darker fate to embrace the here and now.

“Used to it?” Her own eyes flashed, and she had him toppled over with a dirty move that would have made her father beam. Bankotsu was not one to sit by and let her win---he soon had her shrieking with gasping laughter as his skilled fingers sought out the ticklish spots he well remembered from various contests in the past. It was no holds barred, and Sango finally grabbed one of his wrists, jerking his elbow up behind his back in a painful twist as she literally sat on him to keep him still beneath her, laughing down at him in triumph.

Blue eyes gleamed with knowing promise, and her victory was short-lived. Flipping out of her hold, and toppling her over in surprise, Bankotsu soon had her tumbled beneath him, where he pressed his advantage of weight, making sure to give a little added pressure to certain sensitive areas in a way that had her gasping in stunned awareness.

“Oh, holy heavens,” Sango breathed, her eyes wide.

“Like that, do you?” He leered down at her before claiming her soft mouth in a kiss that left no doubts in either mind where it would eventually lead…

He was gentle this time, slow and considerate. Passion came gently on whispered wings of promise, fulfillment a slow climb that built to a crescendo of shuddering pleasure that left them both dazed and gasping, desperately holding on to one another like a lifeline through the dizzying heights of unfledged fervor.

“I love you.” He whispered softly as her eyes closed in spent exhaustion until they finally slept entangled together in that grassy bed, the sun dappling warmth across their skin and the faint murmur of the bubbling pool a song to lull them…

1414141414141414

It was hunger of another kind that finally woke them, and Sango rolled out of his arms with a groan as her belly growled its complaint. His grumbled in answer, and she smiled at him, an open smile that took his breath away with just how damn beautiful she was. Automatically, he reached for her, but she slipped out of his arms with a blushing shake of her tousled black head.

“I should go and start dinner, and see if Kirara is okay.” She explained with a light kiss of apology. “I’m surprised she didn’t attack you, just showing up in the village like you did…”

Bankotsu scratched the back of his neck with a rueful flush of his own. “Ah, well, uh…she did. Almost scared the crap out of me, swooping down like that. But she…ah…well, just led me to where you were…ah…bathing…and, well…I was a little too busy then to see what became of her.”

Sango stared down at his flushing countenance and giggled. Scowling, Bankotsu grabbed a hold of one hand and pulled her back down to him with a tangled tumble of arms and legs and a loud “oof!” of protest. He then kissed her, hard and thoroughly, until she was dazed and sighing in his arms, looking up at him with dreamy brown eyes of aching hunger.

With a wicked smile, he asked with feigned innocence, “Didn’t you mention something about dinner? Gods, I’m about starved right now…”

“What?” She blinked, her eyes darkening dangerously.

His hearty guffaw made her scowl and punch his arm again. Struggling to rise and fending off his half-hearted attempts to keep her with him, she stalked over to where her crumpled white yukata lay forgotten on the bank. He pouted as she covered the enticing view of her naked flesh with the soft, white folds, his lips twisting in wry amusement as she double-knotted the obi into place.

Slipping her feet into woven sandals, she was about to say something when she paused, blushing.

Bankotsu whirled around, one hand unconsciously groping for the dagger never too far from his side. Half-crouching, he relaxed as the enlarged fire cat sat down on its haunches, its wide, glowing eyes staring at both of them with unwavering interest.

“Kirara,” Sango said faintly.

The neko blinked slowly, and the purr that came out of her could have been the earth trembling below them in quaking aftershocks, it was so loud. Sango’s laugh was one of unfettered joy, and Bankotsu felt his heart clench at the sound of it as the lithe taijiya ran to hug her dearest friend with unusual abandon. It was as if the freed spirit of a young child danced in those beautiful brown eyes, and he could not feel jealous as the neko butted her large head against the slayer, who scratched the black-tipped ears and hugged the giant cat with fierce gratitude.

Kirara made a low noise in the back of her throat, and lightly nudged Sango in the direction of the tumbled-down huts of the village. “You’re hungry too, eh?” The taijiya chucked the cat under the chin, who closed her eyes and purred. Sango turned to smile back at him. “I’ll go on to Naoru’s; I have to build up the fire and see if I have enough to feed all of us. Once you’re ready, Kirara can show you the way.”

He watched the sway of her hips as she walked away, the free-flowing length of her long black hair feathering slightly in the small breeze that had risen to play with it. He sat staring with the warmth in his eyes until the giant neko made a rude noise to catch his distracted attention.

Blinking, Bankotsu turned his head. The cat stared at him with unruffled calm, dignity personified. “Was that you?” He demanded.

She wrinkled her nose at him, showing long fangs capable of tearing a man from neck to thigh without much effort, and jagged teeth that would make a quick meal of him afterwards.

“Huh.” Scratching the back of his neck with the pommel of his dagger, he decided to ignore the large youkai to search out his clothes, which had been scattered here and there in the heat of passion. Hardly self-conscious, he stalked the grassy bank bare-assed until he found his wrinkled hakama, still somewhat damp, and stopped to pull them on. Knotting his obi with careless disdain, he located armor and tabard, as well as the black wrappings for both arm and leg. He was somewhat disgruntled to find his white haori floating inside-out in the swirling pool, where it had snagged on a bit of broken board. Thankfully, it hadn’t washed downstream. It would have been a big pain in the ass to go chasing it through the ruined village…

Still, he grimaced as he fished the sopping fabric out of the icy water and stood staring at it in disgust.

Kirara chuffed, almost as if she were laughing at him.

Bankotsu scowled. “Not funny, cat.”

She just raised a capable black paw, carefully cleaning her unsheathed claws with pointed emphasis.

“I love her, you know.” His fists, one hand still clutching his balled-up haori, came to rest on his hips, and he tried to glare at the damn cat, but the wet fabric slapped him smartly on the thigh, and he jumped, his nerves strung out and too much on edge.

Twin tails twitched with suppressed amusement.

Nostrils flaring, Bankotsu thought how good it would feel to chop those tails off with one solid swipe of Banryuu’s wide blade. Damn cat. Muttering to himself as he went to retrieve the various daggers that littered the grassy bank, he grumbled, “Stupid neko. Whoever fucking heard of a demon slayer keeping company with a demon?”

Kirara made a noise that had him whirling around in disbelief.

“Did you just blow me a raspberry, cat?” He demanded with incredulous astonishment.

Kirara just blew him another in answer.

He surprised them both by laughing. “Gods, cat, your as bad as your mistress.”

Kirara only purred, her tails curling round her paws with smug superiority.

1414141414141414

Sango wiggled her toes, her dangling legs slightly swinging as she leaned against him, her eyes on the widened panorama of a beautiful sunset. Clouds hazed the horizon, touched with gold, red and ocher splendor in fanning waves across the sky. A fat moon, nearly full, hung pale at the furthest edge, the blue sky around it shadowing as the sun sunk ever lower, bathing the craggy mountains with brilliant shades of purple indigo and lavender influence. She sighed, nestling against him, and the boards creaked as he changed his weight, drawing her closer with a draped arm across her shoulders.

She had taken him on an impromptu tour of the small village after he had inhaled his way through three bowls of stewed fish and rice, praising her cooking until she blushed, knowing that it wasn’t really worth that much approval. He happened to be a far better cook than she, and both of them knew it, but still he had declared the simple meal to be the best he had ever tasted. He had deftly dodged the mock-punch she gave him with a warm laugh, grabbing her for a kiss that left her breathless. Kirara had bestowed their antics with a rather sour look of disgust.

He had helped her clean up, and then asked after the small hut and the few repairs she had made. He was impressed with her industry, and she had been surprised by both his knowledge and his curiosity. He asked about the different buildings, their purpose and who it was that had lived there. She had told him; first with the acute pain of memory for the forever-silenced, but then with a growing sense of calm acceptance. It was as if something had been made free within her, and she spoke more casually, without the pain of loss, but rather with the warmth of recollection. It was as if talking about the past with him made her relive the good of it, and not the pain. She spoke of the people who had made this small village such an oasis of warmth and safety in a dark world of treachery, even recounting some of the stupid, tired-out jokes that only people who had lived here had known and relished the retelling.

“It will live again, Sango.” He had said quietly, his hand warm and strong as it clasped hers, the fingers entwined tightly between them.

“It can…” Sango had said, staring around her before looking up at him with open love in her deep brown eyes, “…now.”

He had abruptly looked away from her, and let go of her hand. Confused and slightly hurt by the abrupt motion, he had distracted her by vaulting to the lower roof of the pottery shed, the ancient structure moaning with complaint at his weight. He had grinned down at her like a mischievous child, looking around him with triumph lighting his dark blue eyes.

“C’mere,” he’d invited, and yanked her up beside him when she had frowned in bewilderment. “The view’s worth it!”

It had been, unparalleled as it was, facing just slightly to the left of the setting sun. And so they sat, legs dangling over the roof’s edge, side by side and content, for the moment, to be exactly where they were, and with each other.

They watched in silence for a time, as the sky slowly darkened into tints of indigo that rivaled Bankotsu’s eyes and the moon brightened into a silver piece among the feathery tendrils of wafting clouds. Sango suddenly turned to stare up at him, and she asked, a little afraid to break the calm quiet, but needing to know, “Why did you leave?”

He looked down at her, his eyes shadowed in the blue twilight. Sango felt her breath catch, and looked down at her folded hands. “It was because I am weak, isn’t it,” she whispered softly.

“Weak?”

The astonishment in his voice drew her head up to stare at him in confusion.

“You’re not weak,” he growled.

Sango shrugged, unbelieving.

“You’re not weak,” he insisted, leaning over so her could pull her chin up and stare into her eyes. “Where in all that’s stupid did you ever get that idea?”

“But…” Sango sputtered between warmth and outrage.

“Gods, you’re stubborn.” His sigh was gusty and impatient. Wooden shingles creaked in protest as he shifted his weight to stare at her fully, cradling the sides of her narrow face in both palms. A calloused thumb gently traced the outline of her lips, preventing her from protesting.

“You are the strongest person I have ever met, taijiya, but you can sure be a damn idiot sometimes.”

Her indignation was muffled as his thumb pressed lightly on her lips, keeping her silent.

“What could ever make you think that you are weak?” The disgust was plain in his voice, though she could not see his eyes as the night darkened from deep blue to purple velvet. “And I’m not talking about physical strength, because I got you there.” The arrogance was plain in his hard voice as he continued, “I am talking of strength of spirit and strength of will. Gods, Sango! How could you think you are weak? You are the strongest person I know, damn it. Can’t you even see it in yourself? You will fight for what you know is right until you can’t fight anymore, and even then you probably won’t give up. Because you can’t. Because you are who you are, and that is what makes me feel all stupid and humble and all messed up inside, because I know just how damn honorable you are, how proud and how strong in every damn thing that could ever make any damn difference---in faith and honor, love and trust. Gods, girl, can’t you see it?”

“But---”

He blocked her protest with a hard kiss, growling, “You are going to drive me crazy, you know that? Don’t you see that it is I who draw strength from you? Damn it, taijiya, you are as thick as a damn tree sometimes! So you might have a weak thought or a weak moment. Is that anything to beat yourself up over? Can’t you cut yourself some damn slack? Damn perfectionist. Well, everything isn’t always fucking perfect, and that’s the gods-honest truth of it. Even for you. So you slip up once in a while and feel damn sorry for yourself. So the fuck what? Like you don’t have a damn reason? You’ve lost your whole fucking family, you’re whole damn clan! That’s not something to cry about? To feel bitter and angry and damn pissed about? What are you, a fucking saint? To hell with that! You’re human, damn it, and it’s okay.”

He held her then, as she sobbed into his hard chest, his arms tight around her as her soul finally released all of its pain and its fears, and maybe, somehow, he also felt some lightening of the dark burdens that he had always carried, because he comforted her and said softly, “We are only human, and we must learn to forgive ourselves, even as we must find the strength within us to keep going. Because, in the end, there is nothing but the Fight, and what we do in this world, what choices we make and what honor we keep. If we have the chance to make some small difference, then…then we must take it, must chance it. You understand me?”

She nodded, her tears drying and her heart opening in that breath of inner knowledge. Because she understood what drove him, what drove her, and the fact that neither could have ever stood by and let others do what they should be doing themselves. To give up, to ever give up, was to accept defeat, and she might as well lay down and die right then and there, because that was all the damn difference she would ever make in this world, and it was unworthy of her, her clan or her calling.

“Thank you,” she told him, the gratitude for what he gave her matched only by the love shining in her eyes. Perhaps neither was strong enough alone---but then again, weren’t they? For each of them had fought and gone on before without the other. Their strengths complimented and fed the other‘s, but neither could ever be the lesser of the other, but would rather be the equal, just with different strengths and different gifts to give or to share.

“Damn you, ninja-girl. You know me, as I know you. You’ll be all right, in the end.” He held her close, his eyes hooded and dark as he gazed into the unseen distance as she snuggled against him, drawing from his strength even as he drew from hers for what he knew he must do, and the pain it would bring to them both…

1414141414141414

Even he, strong and determined as he was to do what had been laid on him by the gods to do, had his weak moments of doubt and whispered pain and regret, and it was then that he turned to her during that long, poignant night, shamelessly taking from her the comfort and love and assurance her generous soul was so ready to give. He loved her with a single-minded intensity that left her gasping, and a hungry desperation that sought to keep the heavy knowledge of bitter fate at bay for as long as humanly possible.

For just now that he had finally found a true love, a true companion and a true soul-mate to complete his own, he must abandon her to face the darkness alone. He tried to stave off the inevitable, but time slipped away, one grain of sand at time, until the night closed in around them to wait the breath of a dreary dawn. She finally slept, wrapped in dreams of hope and fulfillment, a small smile touching across her soft lips as he bent to kiss them for the last time, the pain heavy in his dark eyes.

“Sango…” He whispered, heart torn and bitter. The loneliness enclosed him once more in bitter irony, and it was the thought of her and what happiness she might be able to find one day in a world freed of the shadowed taint of the treacherous Jewel of Four Souls that allowed him to step away from her with firmed jaw and straightened shoulders.

Lifting the edge of the heavy bamboo curtain that covered the doorway, he glanced back, once and for the last time, trying to hold her beloved face forever in his memory. A soft echo of another spirit’s words whispered in the darkened shadows between them.

“Live strong, my ninja. Be happy.”

And with resolution hardening his heart, he turned away to step out into the weeping dawn.