Angelus

Chapter 2

The creature had been sleeping in the farthest corner of the cave for the last two days. Strangely, it had been difficult for Rin to leave her side, and it took more than a look from her master to make her obey and move outside. He rarely commanded her to do things, the girl being skilled at reading his moods and unspoken demands, but this time he had to ask her to leave before she complied.
His retainer however showed no surprising behavior; as always he ranted and grunted endlessly about the new filth his master had taken into their life. Not caring at all about the little Kappa since he actually was in agreement with him, Sesshomaru settled at the mouth of the cave, relaxing his posture as he sat against the wall. At this location, he could easily keep watch over the recovering Rin and the creature he brought there.
The more he looked at her, the less pleased he was with his decision. Tenseiga had yet to lead him into trouble, but this time he was far from convinced of the wisdom of the blade. The female’s small clawed hands were not too disturbing, but her sharp silvery teeth and long legs, ending in three-toed palmigrade feet sporting three inches claws and a spur at the end of her heels, made it very clear that he had taken a predator in his group.
She wore little clothing, if any. A golden tiara with three short spikes, a longer one in the center and two shorter ones over each eye, was posed on her brows and a similar golden collar with a black gem in its center was encircling her neck. It looked very much like the beginning of a pectoral plate, without the plate. Her hands and feet were also decorated with golden bracelets, coiled around the ankles and wrists in a way reminiscent of a snake ensnaring its prey. Around her waist was another gold band, with a small pouch attached, hanging just under her belly button. That is, it would be hanging under her belly button if she had one.
Her head was not simply tubular as he first thought. It was ending on three short spike-like structures, one at the very end of her cranium, and one on each side of it, looking a little like a ruff. Over all those details, what disturbed him the most was her skin. Dull black, flawless skin that absorbed the light, soft as velvet yet not feeling truly alive, it changed around the neck and her now almost closed wound to a more shiny black, showing strong muscles and ribbed flesh in the detail. How could her features be so detailed at some places and so plain everywhere else he didn’t know; she was a truly singular creature that he couldn’t relate to any kind of youkai he knew about. Now that he took her in, maybe to anger Naraku, maybe to calm down his Tenseiga, he would wait until he was sure that she could survive through this ordeal; but the faster he could be rid of her, the better.
SSSSS
Consciousness slowly crept back to her mind. Still foggy, her heightened senses began to inform her of her situation. Dead she was not, that was for sure, for she did not believe a pain so strong could have continued in the afterlife. Her right side was hurting so much, and her insides were in a very bad state. Doing her best to ignore her suffering until she knew more about the situation she was in, she concentrated on what her senses told her.
She could clearly detect a strong heat source in front of her, dancing in blue, yellow and red like only a bonfire could do; a second source of heat, shaped in a humanoid form, was sitting at the entrance of the place she was kept in. She was most likely inside a cave, if she could judge by the coolness and humidity of the walls surrounding her: it was too cold to be wood, or anything other than damp stone.
Turning toward her inner senses, she now was able to feel the energy of the humanoid being, an immensely strong energy. Its emotions were swirling and both concern and anger were coming from it in waves. Other tiny sources of energy were present outside of the cave, and as far as she could tell, she had already been in prolonged contact with one of them; she knew this energy signature. What was her name, again? In a flash it came back to her: Rin, that was it, the young one told her she was Rin. A beautiful soul, this young child who had fought a fierce battle alongside her against the disease that threatened to end her life. She remembered now when she first felt the brush of her energy against her own, when their souls came in contact with each other, calling her back from whatever unconscious plane of existence she was in. She had been able to sense deep concern for others in the girl’s mind, for a certain being in particular; white, a shiny pure white creature that the child revered as her lord. There was a grumpy little green thing also, that the child called master. This word chilled her out, but there was a genuine love laced with the thoughts of the child, no fear or pain. That was when she decided to help her, decided to pour her energy in the lithe body and convince it to fight back the invaders she could clearly feel. As the child healed, she felt the wounds of her own soul, of her own heart, stopping to bleed and starting to mend. And then came the brutal awakening.
Pain returned to her distracted mind with a vengeance and she let out a low hiss. Feeling with a hand, she found a fresh wound in her skin that had quickly mended itself to prevent more acid lost, but her internal organs still had a long way to go before being healed. The weapon, with its speed, had unfortunately penetrated very deep into her body before being destroyed by her acid.
Suddenly, the energy changed in the room, and she felt that the humanoid heat source had moved very fast and was now very close to her. She opened her eyes and as her slit pupils adjusted to the low level of light, she discovered she was face to face with the creature. Tall, white and powerful: recognition flashed in her eyes and a sad little smile came to the corners of her lips.
“Angelus” she whispered, trying to rise on her elbows; then she stilled, dizziness overcoming her senses.
Sesshomaru gazed at her from his height, with a bored look on his features.
“You are mistaken, woman. This Sesshomaru is certainly not an angel.”
She closed her eyes and fell back into sleep, adding to the growing irritation of the taiyoukai.
A couple of hours later, she arose again,. She was feeling a little better, but the coldness of the rock had crept inside her during her prolonged sleep. The stiffness of her muscles was another element that was difficult to ignore, as if she was awakening after sleeping in an awkward position for a long time. The burning fire was tempting her, but she was wary of the silver-haired male watching over her. After studying him more intensively, she recognized him for who he was: the lord of the young Rin, the one she called Sesshomaru-sama. During their days together, Rin had told her how he always protected her from any danger and apparently he was considering her a possible threat. But she couldn’t bear with the cold anymore; she rose slowly and approached the campfire, sitting cross-legged directly in front of Sesshomaru, trying to stay as far from him as she could while staying in the circle of heat emitted by the fire. His attention was now totally concentrated on her, and he failed to notice that they weren’t alone in the cave anymore.
“Sesshomaru-sama, Kitana-sama is awake!” said the child while running toward the woman.
His head swirled around and his gaze met with the brown eyes of the human girl. The movement stopped the girl as efficiently as a wall would have done; frozen in an immobile position, she still showed her mirth through the brilliant smile that adorned her face.
As Sesshomaru moved toward the fire to place himself between his ward and the creature, she did something unexpected. Raising her hand to the child, she whispered something that made him pause.
“Rin-chan, don’t come any closer to me. I am wounded, and I could hurt you if I bled again.”
With a toothy smile, the child bowed to the creature she called Kitana and went back to Jaken, who was standing at the entrance of the cave carrying skewers of fish and mushrooms. She took the food and placed it around the fire like nothing was out of the ordinary.
“What is the meaning of this? Woman, you will explain yourself to this Sesshomaru” said the confused, and still angry, taiyoukai. He was as always putting up a front of boredom and indifference, but his gaze was intense. How could she know of his ward’s name, he thought? Did the child invented a name to suit her savior, or was it truly how she was called?
The creature did not seem affected by his demand, nor by his height towering above her. She eyed him and moved a little closer to the fire; she was already growing weary of him, of his overbearing presence. As life came back to her body, as the fire warmed her up, she remembered the reasons why she crept away from life, from heat, and found solace in a dark, cold cave. Her wounded heart that had slowly started to heal under the touch of the child’s soul reacted to her memories by bleeding anew like it was never truly mended. And as it happened, she wished she was still sleeping in oblivion.
“You should have killed me, like I asked you”. Her voice was low and rich, her pronunciation very good, but tinted with the accent of a foreign origin.
Frowning, he added “answer This Sesshomaru, woman”. Once again, his demanding tone did not move her at all. She was still studying him, slowly and methodically as if trying to recall an ancient memory and compare it with what was before her. Memories were painful things though and soon she stopped musing and she started to consider him for what he was: the one who could, if she manipulated him correctly, send her to her true death.
Jaken, on the other hand, did not possess the patience of the creature or the self-control of his master. Waving his staff in her direction, he shouted with his high-pitched voice:
“You insufferable wench! How dare you ignore the questions of my Lord, the Great Lord Sesshomaru who saved you from the pits of Hell where you would surely be burning right now if it wasn’t from his - eeep! – ”
The rest of the phrase was told to the back wall of the cave, as a well-placed kick from his master embedded the kappa in the rocky structure.
“This Sesshomaru obeys no orders” he finally added, omitting the fact that he would have been glad to oblige if his damn sword hadn’t stopped him. His sight was glued to her strange black and golden eyes. “Beside, you healed my ward of her illness; honor asked that I repay you. Now that it is done, you will explain yourself. How come you know Rin by her given name?”
It was her turn now to gaze into his eyes. She clearly felt his growing anger, his intense irritation and his desire to kill something. Probably her, or maybe the toad. However, his concern for the child is what decided her to speak.
“Rin-chan and I have spent quite some time together recently, as you surely know. She told me of her, her Lord Sesshomaru and her, mmm, “master Jaken”… Isn’t it the thing stuck on the wall there, Rin?”
Smiling despite her mouth full of mushrooms, the child nodded her head quickly, her lopsided ponytail accentuating the movement.
“Why is Naraku interested in you?” Sesshomaru added. A bland look on her face followed his question.
“Naraku? I know of no Naraku. Is it a bad thing, to have caught his interest?”
“He would most likely kill you, as he clearly intended to do when he sent his puppet to open up your cocoon”.
“So, it is a good thing then. I don’t know why I caught his eye, but if you refuse to obey and kill me, I can still go to him and have him do what you should have done”.
Anger reached dangerous levels in the taiyoukai mind, and the kappa, just detached from his stony place, reacted accordingly.
“HOW DARE YOU! You should be punished for showing such level of disrespect toward my Lord! Your attitude is totally unacceptable, you wench! Your looks should already have warned us about your insolence, showing yourself in the nude like a whore in front of higher beings is totally disgusting and the dirty words that come out of your mouth are as - eeep! – ”
The kappa found himself unable to complete his phrase, as his throat was held tightly by a bony tail wrapped around it. The owner of the tail let him struggle a little before bringing him closer to her eyes, a tired look on her face.
“Master” Jaken. If you could refrain from interrupting, this discussion would already be done, and your Lord would be satisfied. But as your mouth is not able to stop blabbering insanities and your eyes are unable to see what is in front of them, I’m afraid we won’t be done until the night come. So let me explain. Once. Firstly, as Rin-chan said earlier my name is Kitana, not wench and I am certainly not a whore. Secondly, I am fully clothed; it is not my fault if your eyesight is so poor that you cannot differentiate my skin from my clothes. But if it could help you to be more at ease, I can modify them. Better?”
As she spoke, the duller part of her skin seemed to move and adopt a different form. The material that sculpted her body morphed into an elegant pair of flowing pants with slits along the sides up to the knees, combined with a silk-like diamond-shaped top attached to the neck collar and the waist band, and attaching in the back by cords coming from the sides. Her true skin did not appear though, with the exception of the area around the now closed wound and her neck and head, as if she wanted to keep it concealed from the view; the dull black material was still visible underneath the mock clothes. Stupefied, all Jaken could do was nod his head energetically and wish she would not harm him or threaten him anymore.
As was always the case when his retainer was being rightfully punished, Sesshomaru relaxed a little and even started to appreciate the situation. He bent his head in approval of her change of “clothes”, and sat down elegantly beside Rin. Kitana released the little demon who crawled to reach his master’s side of the fire, away from her grasp. She relaxed her posture a little more and covered her right side with her hand, hurting.
“I’m sorry, I forgot what we were talking about”, she said looking at Sesshomaru. She sensed that he was now calm enough to want to satiate his curiosity without beheading her before gaining the answers he sought. She fought back a smile when she felt the inquisitiveness of the taiyoukai’s mind, the confusion also and the underlying anger that fuelled him. He didn’t know what to ask anymore, too many questions were scrambling inside his head to be asked first.
“Who are you?”
“That, is a question I can answer. I am Kitana.” Irritation started to gnaw at his patience again…
“And exactly what kind of youkai are you, Kitana?”
She breathed slowly, taking her time, evaluating how she should answer that.
“Youkai?” It was definitively not his day. Frowning, she added “You will have to enlighten me about what is a youkai. All I can do is tell you how my kind is called, then you could tell me what type of “youkai” you think I am. That’s the best I can do.”
Sesshomaru was growing weary of this game. Questioning was not something he liked, usually the answers flowed before he had to ask for them, and he could quickly kill the source of answers when it had nothing more to say. This situation was unusual, to say the least, and his curiosity and misplaced sense of honour prevented him from dispatching the unnerving creature.
“So how is your kind called?”. She looked at him intently, her eyes challenging him, and she answered his question. A strange word left her lips, said in a foreign language, both with a high-pitched tone and her usual richer voice as if two different persons were combining their voices. Laced in the word where tremors and rattles, and the resulting sound produced a deep effect on almost everyone present. A very unpleasant effect, in fact, as Sesshomaru had not felt his hackles rise in fear since his childhood; the kappa gasped for air, and Ah-Un emitted a low growl from the entrance of the cave. The only one immune to the power of this word was Rin, who continued to eat happily far more than her share of fish.
“I hope you are satisfied. Now that we have established who and what I am and that I know nothing about your Naraku, can I retire?”
Shaking himself mentally, Sesshomaru asked “Retire?”
“Yes, retire” she sighed. “You obviously won’t kill me, which is regrettable. Since I am forced to stay alive, I cannot help but notice that there is some dried goo sticking on me; I would appreciate a bath. No, I need a bath. If I can tell by the sulphuric stench and the humidity that surrounds us, there should be a volcanic hot spring nearby. I think everybody here would benefit from it if I cleaned myself”.
“Oh, Sesshomaru-sama, can Rin go too? Rin looooves hot springs!” The sparkles in the child’s eyes made her plea difficult to resist, but as much as the Taiyoukai wanted to let her do as she pleased, the presence of the odd creature was too dangerous to ignore.
Kitana was already rising to her feet, clamping a hand on her waist. A limping on her right side signalled how much she still hurt despite the fact that her skin had mended, and her slightly shaking legs showed that her muscles were atrophied from her sleep in the cocoon.
“Sesshomaru” she waited for him to acknowledge her. “You can come along with Rin if you wish. I always bath with my clothes on. Beside, I think you are stuck with the same goo as I am”, she added pointing to his almost ruined fur pelt. He had yet to clean himself, for all he had done since he set foot in the gorge was keep a watchful eye on the newcomer.
Sesshomaru was irritated by her attitude; she was not afraid of him in the slightest and the kappa was right, she ordered him around shamelessly. If he trusted his instincts, he would say that she was actively trying to provoke his wrath. Nonetheless, he was not one who tolerated dirty smells and sights, so he nodded his approval to the creature and rose after her. His ward started to giggle, running circles around Kitana and him, while they made their way to the hot springs.
Rin discarded her clothes as soon as she reached the water. As she was about to jump in the small pool though, her waist was quickly encircled by Kitana’s tail, her small form being lifted in the air before being brought down to the ground. Sesshomaru immediately placed his hand threateningly on the said tail, with a look that screamed murder in his eyes, and the strong scent of his poison rose in the air.
“Wait, Rin-Chan. The water is deep in this part of the basin. It would be best if you entered it by the left side, the rocks seem to make a safe, shallow pool of water there.” While she spoke, her eyes never left the taiyoukai’s glare, his eyes reduced to mere slits. She deposited the giggling girl on the ground and Sesshomaru removed his grip from her tail, his features going back to the bored attitude that appeared to be his signature.
Kitana followed Rin in the hot water while Jaken silently took care of his master’s furs. Sesshomaru kept a watchful look over the basin, but his concern was soon relegated to second place in his mind. His ward was blatantly enamoured with Kitana, they shared a bond he couldn’t understand but he felt that the woman was honest in her interactions with the child. His curiosity about what was this creature, with the bone-chilling “name” of her species, was taking over his mind and he did not appreciate it at all. The woman was healing well, and he would let her on her own sooner than he first had thought, curiosity or not. Yes, much sooner.
Rin was playing in the water with the bliss only a child her age could exhibit and Kitana was doing her best to play along, while cleaning and resting her body under the hot water. Sesshomaru’s ward was laughing loudly while she was hauled around the pool by the same appendage that threatened the kappa earlier. Never had she had a bathing partner more fun than the woman. Even Jaken wouldn’t play with her, all he did was grumbling about how dirty she was, how long she was making their Lord wait, how wet he was becoming because of her. Then, he usually either slipped on a mossy rock and knocked himself out, or Sesshomaru would grow tired of his moaning and groaning and step on him, kick him away or throw a rock at his bald head. It was fun, really, but not as much.
The sun was beginning to set when the giggling Rin and a tired, but seemingly less depressed Kitana followed Sesshomaru back to the cave. Rin went ahead of them directly to Ah-Un; plunging her hands in the saddle bags, she extracted some blankets and entered the cave.
Kitana was much slower; her side was hurting a lot, even though the hot bath helped her to heal faster, and her weak muscles were giving her a hard time. She came to a stop close to the cave, wanting a small pause from all the walking, and she had something on her mind that she needed to consider.
“Sesshomaru. Do you know for how long I have been in a resting state?”
The youkai stared at her, determining if he should answer despite her being so impolite, never using his title or honorific.
“This Sesshomaru knows nothing of your early days in the cocoon. But for the last 700 years I lived, you have been lost to life, trapped inside it.”
Staring at him, she added “I… see. And… exactly how long is 700 years, if I may ask?”
Sesshomaru studied her features, not sure if she was mocking him or was just plain stupid. She seemed genuinely concerned though, and did not give him the impression of being dumb. Puzzled, he answered.
“This Sesshomaru was a mere child when he first saw your cocoon”.
Apparently relieved by his answer, she sighed and smiled. “So, not that long eh… Maybe there is still time…”
“But This Sesshomaru is youkai.”
With that blunt phrase, he started walking again, leaving her behind.
“Wait! What do you mean, you are youkai? What does it change?”
Smirking inside, Sesshomaru knew he could now pay her back for her disrespect.
“The superior beings that are youkai, as you should know, can live forever. Humans though, have a far shorter lifespan.”
With a soft, weak voice that could be qualified a murmur, she finally asked:
“Forever? And… how… short, exactly, is a human lifespan?”
Lifting his head to look at the fading sun, he took a very bored tone. “Their lives are insignificant. Most are graceful enough to die in their childhood or be killed in the feudal wars or by some disease or sickness. But some manage to grow old and live until they reach 50, maybe 60 years. At best.” With that, he left her behind, stunned by his words.
Kitana was speechless. Slowly kneeling on the ground, she felt a deep despair overcoming her. She thought about all the implications this revelation had. She still had no clue about what a youkai was, but a human she knew very well. How could it be possible for her to survive through all those centuries, she had no idea. What it meant though, was that everything she had left behind was truly forever gone. There was no coming back, and there never would be. He really should have killed her, she thought.
When she entered the cave, the night had already taken the place of the day and the only creature awake, beside her, was the youkai lord. She curled up in her faraway corner and let the sleep engulf her. Alive she was, but she surely didn’t feel that way inside.