Dark Horizons

CHAPTER TWO: FLIGHT

Kagura had watched through slitted eyes the battle between Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru and its shocking aftermath. She wetted her lips and tightened her grip on her fan as Inuyasha ran past her hiding place and flew deeper into the woods. After what she had overheard, it didn’t surprise her when Sesshoumaru went after Inuyasha, his golden eyes blazing with … concern, love, and lust? All of them at once?

'So the two dog demons were joined. Naraku would be very interested in this information.'

That the stoic almost frigid Sesshoumaru and the wild, emotional Inuyasha were destined for each other might have seemed a cosmic joke to some, but Kagura understood balance. It was already clear that the bond between the two brothers was affecting each of them. That look in Sesshoumaru’s eyes so filled with … feelings. And the restraint Inuyasha had used to stop his friends from battling his brother … well, things were just getting more and more interesting. The suddenness of their awareness of their bond was curious, but the reality of it was without question. Kagura could sense the strands of light that connected the brothers as they had rushed past.

And as they accept the bond between them their power will grow. Each will reflect the other’s strengths and like a mirror catching the light of the sun and magnifying it many times, so will the joined brothers be able to capture and magnify each other’s powers on top of their own. Working together they would become … unstoppable.

Even if Naraku manages to obtain the entirety of the Shikon jewel and becomes a full-demon, he will not be strong enough to withstand them. They could defeat him easily and … ‘set me free.’ That last thought was intoxicating. Kagura shivered. ‘Maybe I will wait a little while to report this to Naraku, give the brothers time to accept each other and learn how to use their bond better, maybe I should even give them a push … ‘

Life suddenly seemed good again to the wind sorceress. With a wide smile she took flight.

<<>>

Back in the clearing, Kagome clutched the long grass around her as if to stop the world from physically turning upside down as it already had in her mind. She barely felt Sango’s arms around her, murmuring words of comfort that couldn’t reach her through the shock.

‘This is all wrong. Wrong. Inuyasha loves Kikyou!’ In Kagome’s mind, her competitor had now become almost a comfort, because if Inuyasha loved Kikyou then in some small way he loved Kagome. ‘Because I am she reincarnated. But if Inuyasha were to truly love Sesshoumaru … be joined to Sesshoumaru, his own brother, then … there’s no hope for me.’

Miroku gripped his staff so tightly that his knuckles turned white as he paced five steps west then paced back five steps east. The despair in Inuyasha’s eyes when he couldn’t deny the joining with Sesshoumaru had been awful. Miroku had felt his insides ice with it. To see Inuyasha in pain like that was shattering when his normal character was to brush things off, no big deal, at least pretend that whatever it was didn’t matter, wasn’t getting to him. But this time, Inuyasha looked … undone.

Miroku wondered about the pain Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru experienced when they joined, was that a normal thing to happen or was a spell of some sort placed upon them? The Tetsusaiga and the Tenseiga had given off a very strange pulse of power before the joining had occurred … maybe this joining wasn’t legitimate? He would have to question Shippou extensively, exhaust the fox demon’s knowledge of joining. He had to find a way to save Inuyasha. He said to the others, “We should follow them.”

Kagome’s head jerked up, “Yes! Yes, we shouldn’t give Sesshoumaru the chance to … to do something more to Inuyasha. To convince him that … yes, we must go after them.”

Sango helped Kagome to stand, but the demon slayer gave Miroku a dark look that Kagome didn’t see. Miroku narrowed his eyes, unsure of the reason for her displeasure. She would have to explain later, in private.

Sango understood Kagome’s pain, who wouldn’t? But she had also dealt with joined demons before when her family had taken on a pair that was plaguing a village. The bond between the two demons, Artemis and Laturin, had been an almost physical thing. Sango had cornered Laturin and was about to throw her weapon at the younger demon, a shot sure to decimate him, when she’d felt Artemis’ despair, like an arrow between her shoulder blades: ‘Don’t. Please.’ Sango had found herself listening and then … she purposefully missed her shot.
Artemis had smiled at her and the demon’s voice echoed in her mind again: ‘We’ll leave these people in peace … thank you.’

Sango never told any of her family members what she’d experienced and what she’d done because of it. She did not regret her decision. For a moment she had been in their bond, felt the love and trust and admiration the two demons held for each other flow through her. The experience had changed her. She knew in her heart that to destroy something that … precious … would have been wrong. ‘If that is what is between Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru, then it is also wrong to try and interfere even if it hurts Kagome, even if it hurts all of us.’

“Where is my Lord Sesshoumaru?” Jaken’s high-pitched cry startled all of them.

Behind him, struggling to catch up was Rin, holding onto Ah Un’s reins. The little girl’s eyes grew wide when she realized whom they were meeting up with. Jaken had been incoherent when he’d found her, just shouting that she needed to hurry up.

Miroku relaxed his grip on his staff, “Your lord has gone after Inuyasha. We intend to follow after them. You are welcome to travel with us.”

“Humph, we do not need your company!” Jaken’s eyes however scanned the tree line trying to determine which way his lord had gone.

“Jaken … perhaps we should go with them as it looks like they know the way Lord Sesshoumaru went,” Rin said quietly as Inuyasha’s companions began to walk away.

“Oh, tut, girl, I am perfectly capable of—hey, wait up!”

Rin had begun following Inuyasha’s companions with Ah Un in hand as they traveled into the forest. Jaken pumped his little legs furiously to catch up to them.

<<>>

Inuyasha could feel Sesshoumaru following him as he bounded through the forest blindly. He began to slow his pace so that Sesshoumaru could catch up to him more easily. ‘What am I doing? Wanting him to catch me? Wanting him to crush me to him when he does and … and kiss me with those soft full lips? Oh, gods, stop, stop, stop!’ But he couldn’t stop the thoughts or the desire that raged behind them. Inuyasha bit his lower lip until it bled, but he didn’t quicken his pace.

Sesshoumaru’s scent of cinnamon and sandalwood grew stronger until it tinged every single breath Inuyasha took. It was as if he were breathing in his brother’s essence just as he felt his brother’s gentle grip on his arm, slowing then stopping him from fleeing any further. Inuyasha let out a low moan at this restraining touch. The hanyou could not turn around to face Sesshoumaru, even as he felt the heat of his brother’s lean body against his back. Inuyasha concentrated on the sound of the brook that lay in front of them, that deepened into a pool before cutting a swath through the forest floor. Better to concentrate on that instead of the low exhale and inhale of his brother’s cool breath on his neck or his brother’s hand clutching his right forearm.

“Inuyasha?”

Inuyasha shivered at his name in his brother’s mouth, on his brother’s tongue, passing over his brother’s white teeth.

“Please face me, little brother.”

Inuyasha mutely shook his head. His hands bunched into fists at his sides as he tried to still the trembling that began to course through him. He couldn’t even snarl at Sesshoumaru that he wasn’t little anymore. ‘He is my brother. This longing I have for him is wrong. I love Kikyou … Kagome … oh, Sesshoumaru, I’m so lost.’

“You must face me sometime,” Sesshoumaru said.

Then Inuyasha felt Sesshoumaru move away from him and he gasped. The loss of that electric heat, the puff of air stirring his mane from his brother breath … it was like the world drained of life.

Sesshoumaru felt the loss of closeness as keenly as his younger brother, but he could be strong, must be strong. Wooing was as much about being chased as chasing. ‘Let him feel the loss of me, if only for a moment.’

Sesshoumaru wandered over to the pool. The water looked dark but refreshing in the moonlight. He felt sticky with drying sweat after his battle with Inuyasha and the chase. ‘Not to mention the heat from ardor that threatens my sanity. If I don’t cool off I will pounce on Inuyasha and ravish him where he stands.’

“So hot,” Sesshoumaru breathed, consciously not turning to face his brother, whom he knew stood rooted to the spot he’d left him in, drinking in Sesshoumaru with those wide gorgeous eyes. “I think I’ll bathe.”

Inuyasha stifled another groan as Sesshoumaru placed Tokijin and the Tenseiga on the ground, undid his armor, untied his robe and allowed both to drop down his shoulders, leaving only his pants on. The alabaster skin glowed softly in the moonlight. The lean muscles in Sesshoumaru’s back flexed as he rolled his shoulders to ease tension. The heat that seemed to be emanating from Inuyasha’s groin in waves chilled suddenly when he looked at where Sesshoumaru’s left arm should be. There was only a stump, a clean cut a few inches below the shoulder.

‘I did that. Marred that perfect body. I should be damned,’ Inuyasha thought.

Sesshoumaru heard Inuyasha’s low cry. He turned uncertain why Inuyasha was hurting from seeing him, but then he knew when he saw where Inuyasha’s eyes were fixed: his missing left arm. He reached with his one hand and touched the base of the amputated arm. He didn’t think of it much anymore and he did not blame Inuyasha. It had been his own arrogance, his failure to appreciate Inuyasha’s strength that had caused its loss.

Sesshoumaru tried to put these thoughts into words, “Precious one, I gave you no choice.”

Inuyasha felt warmth spread in his chest at Sesshoumaru’s pet name for him. ‘This is ridiculous. I am ridiculous to be so moved by so little. Besides to love him like this cannot be right.’

Sesshoumaru continued, “It was either take my arm or … I would have taken your life … and the lives of your friends. It was the right thing to do. I am to blame for it. Not you.”

Silent tears streamed down Inuyasha’s face. ‘I’m crying? I don’t cry! I feel like I’m going to break in two.’ Sesshoumaru’s kindness in saying he was not to blame made the wrongness of what Inuyasha had done all the worse. ‘Its more than just taking his arm … its that I ever thought I hated him, that I ever raised a hand against him in anger, even if he infuriated me. Although I didn’t know we were joined … I knew he was my brother all along and that demands some loyalty, some restraint. And I understood why he hurt, because Father gave me the one thing that Sesshoumaru had wanted: the Tetsusaiga.’

“I wish,” Inuyasha found himself saying out loud, “I wish I hadn’t hurt you … no matter what the price would have been.”

Sesshoumaru stilled and his eyes narrowed. The cold glare that had been absent since they joined came back into his golden eyes and pierced Inuyasha where he stood. “So my arm is worth your life?”

Inuyasha shook a little and hid his eyes behind his long bangs, staring resolutely at the ground.

Sesshoumaru continued in that same cold vein, “Losing you would have destroyed me. Even though I wasn’t consciously aware at that time of our bond, my soul was … has always been. I would have been broken, irretrievably broken, and I would have … ended myself.”

Inuyasha’s head jerked up as if it was tied to a marionette’s strings. Inuyasha took a step back from that vehemence.

Sesshoumaru’s voice was clipped and tinged with anger and sorrow, “Now you understand why you must never say or think anything like that again. Never. Don’t you see why Father gave you the Tetsusaiga? It was for you to protect yourself … from me! And maybe … to protect me from myself, as I know now that you are … you are … precious to me.”

Sesshoumaru gritted his teeth and clenched the still aching stump tighter. ‘Pain to clear my vision, to remind me of mistakes in the past I made with Inuyasha, how I almost … so many times … destroyed the one that completes me.’

“Don’t you see, Inuyasha, that if I’d had the killing sword and not the healing one that I would have slaughtered you long ago? Any feelings that I had for you I would have … ignored or worse I would have used them as an excuse to act against you, would have told myself that you were making me weak when … when quite the opposite was and is true. Think of what I’ve done since we’ve met … attacking you … hurting you … only your strength and my inability to wield the Tetsusaiga has saved you from me.”

Sesshoumaru sank down on his knees and that sight made Inuyasha come to him. His strong proud beautiful brother on his knees? Inuyasha hunkered down by Sesshoumaru’s side and, with his heart in his throat, touched Sesshoumaru’s face so that he would look up at him.

“Sesshoumaru … you could have killed me many times with or without the Tetsusaiga.” Inuyasha forced the words out, to admit the truth that galled him that pricked him at their every battle. Sesshoumaru was stronger and beat him each time, but chose not to kill him, because, Inuyasha always supposed, he was not worth the trouble. “You held back for … for whatever reason. In a way I was safer facing you than anyone else.”

Their gazes met just as Inuyasha finished speaking. It felt as if the air turned molten. Sesshoumaru licked his lips. A slight pink flush dusted both their faces.

“Thank you, Inuyasha. Maybe we can … forgive each other and forget the past. I want to go … forward … with you.” Sesshoumaru’s voice was husky, tinged with smoke. “Is it … do you want that too, Inuyasha?”

‘Just a few inches between our mouths.’ Inuyasha’s eyes fluttered closed as the brothers leaned towards each other about to have their first kiss.

“INUYASHA, SIT BOY!”