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

taijiya - demon slayer; I looked this up on the online Japanese to English dictionary and could not find it, but I find it often in fanfiction. I referenced the syllables and found “taiji” to mean “extermination”, so I have used the loose rules of fanfiction to steal this word to use as a reference to Sango’s clan as a whole. This is probably a total improper disregard for the Japanese language and I apologize to any who are offended, but I am using that oblique word ‘artist’s license’ to go ahead and do whatever the hell I please. If anyone knows the true way to refer to multiple slayers as a group please let me know and much appreciation for any clarification on the subject!
ojii-san - grandpa
Seiryoku - strength, vigor, vitality
Bankotsu - brute courage, recklessness; thousands of lives (how apt!)
Sango - coral

WARNING! DARK IMAGERY AND ADULT TOPICS, BAD WORDS AND SPOILERS (EPISODE 122+)

A/N - Haven’t I said more than enough in the word definitions? (grin)

CHAPTER SEVEN

His hands, twined round her neck, slowly loosened and rose until he was almost cupping her face. She blinked convulsively in shock as a sword-calloused thumb traced the track of a single tear down her cheek and gently wiped it away. Sango shuddered, but could not tear her dark eyes from his. She could detect---could it be? But how was it possible? But it was THERE---compassion and…and understanding…in that dark-eyed gaze.

She tore her eyes away, the riot of emotions within her too stark for her liking. He nudged her set chin back so that she was forced reluctantly to look up at him. His gaze was intense as he whispered, “I know.”

“How?” She whispered back, shivering at the emotive armor he pulled from her so easily.

He grinned slightly, incongruous with the darkness that hovered in tethered shadows behind both their eyes. He said nothing, but abruptly withdrew his weight from atop her. Sango was pulled up to a sitting position as he tugged on her right elbow to haul her upright. He slowly stood, scratching the back of his neck and staring down at her with some chagrin.

His question was not what she was expecting.

“Hungry?”

She blinked. He was as unpredictable as Kagome, with lightening-fast shifts of topic and mood. But that something that had knitted itself between them was still there, he was just ignoring it for the moment to worry over the mundane.

Shaking her head, she stared down at her hands, held limply in her lap. She would have thought herself mad, if not for the crazy reality that surrounded her. Had this madman not just had his hands wrapped around her throat, threatening her with quick death, and had she not welcomed it as if there was nothing else left her in this empty, lonely world? Was she broken so easily, her will to live, which had always seemed so strong, so weak indeed? Her emotions were raw, and her awareness of what now motivated her wrenched into something utterly unrecognized.

“Well, I am, if you aren’t.” Moving to the packs lumped beyond the flickering campfire, Bankotsu rummaged through them, coming back with some incongruous bundles. She ignored him, wrapped in her own dark thoughts of startling revelation, as he moved about the camp, setting something to steep in a makeshift pot above the fire, freeing the horse so that he could water it and then repositioning the sway-backed nag so that it could continue to graze, undisturbed and unaffected by the silent tension that now hung heavy and ponderous in the air around them.

Sango roused as Bankotsu slowly circled the boundaries of their camp, his stride measuring the oblong length between the leaf-borne trees. There was a faint, fuchsian glow as he concentrated on the opposite, polar ends, roughly east and west, distinguishing the barrier that kept her prisoner and hid their temporary camp from the inquisitive.

How could she possibly hope her friends might find her? But maybe, just maybe, Bankotsu had forgotten that Kagome could sense the broken fragments of the Shikon no Tama, and trace their current location through the shards’ tainted aura. Still, it did little to cheer her dark thoughts, which were turned too much inward to be truly worried over her own fate right now.

A warmed bowl was thrust into her lowered vision, and Sango’s left hand automatically curved around it as a savory aroma tickled her nose and awakened the hunger she had earlier denied. The dirt-smeared bandages that swathed her left palm had been loosened since Bankotsu had first bound them, and the movement of her fingers was now unrestricted. Sprawling knees out in a rather unladylike position, in a style more reminiscent of Inuyasha than of her own, Sango was too hungry to care. Setting the warmed bowl in her lap, she used the chopsticks with her left hand---not as gracefully as she would have with her right, truth be told, but still able---to spear an unidentifiable blob of mixed meat and vegetable to her lips.

Blowing on the morsel to cool it, her eyes blinked up to see Bankotsu intently watching her. She paused, her brown gaze cautious.

He made a short gesture with his own chopsticks for her to continue with her dinner. Turning his gaze, he stared broodingly into the sullen orange glow of the fire, which spat occasionally as the thick sap of the pinewood piled therein melted with angry hisses of displeasure. They ate in silence, both doing full justice to their portions if deriving no enjoyment from their repast. There was an unsettled tension between them, and it was Bankotsu who abruptly thrust his unfinished dinner to one side and finally stood up, pacing to and fro so that it got on Sango’s edgy nerves and she finally laid her own aside in uncomfortable silence.

Bankotsu suddenly paused, his back slightly to her, his face in shadows, though it was angled to the side to glace back in her direction. The pale shadow of his armor was blurred into tones of orange and rust, grayed shadow and cream by the fitful light of their fire, the slight whirls of embroidery stark black outlines against the silken cloth of kimono and tabard. The inky length of his single long braid trailed down his back, and his question made Sango jump, surprised at the harshness in his voice.

“You claim to be a demon slayer. I thought them all gone. Where then, did you come from? What place, what village?”

Startled, Sango actually told him, naming the rocky valley that had sheltered them in the mountainous folds that also hid the stony tomb of Midoriko. Of what use it was to him, she knew not, but he seemed almost anxious to know.

“I have never heard of your clan.” He said, as if that satisfied his denial of her assertion.

“What of it? We have always hid ourselves deep in the mountains, lest youkai learn of our secrets and seek us out in revenge.” She did not tell him of the other, darker reason, that they had always guarded the miko’s tomb, and thus secrecy had become habit and then tradition as the long years of their custody and safeguarding had continued.

“Why did you leave them then? Your family, your clan? Demon slayers are as loyal to their clan as ninja.”

Expression tightening, Sango said slowly, “They are gone.”

Bankotsu turned his head to regard her fully, his blue eyes narrowed. “Gone?”

“Dead.” It was Sango’s turn to stare broodingly into the mesmerizing flames. It was as if she spoke from a distance, her words halting and soft, but firming into hard release as she retold the tale of treachery and betrayal, of Naraku’s insidious plot to steal the five Jewel shards the slayers had painstakingly gathered and kept housed in the village’s shrine. Of the death and destruction of all she had held dear and close to her, and of that final, bitter betrayal of Naraku’s, when he had used her poor brother to slaughter her father and the other demon slayers summoned to a lord’s castle, to chase the specter of a spider demon that was merely another insidious plot laid by Naraku to steal the body of Lord Kagewaki and use her own angry thirst for revenge to attack Inuyasha, who she had mistakenly believed was the cause of her clan’s annihilation.

She continued, telling of how she had finally learned the truth, and had journeyed forth with the hanyou and the monk, the miko and the little kitsune, ever seeking salvation for her brother and vengeance on the dark hanyou who had failed in the end, though not without finally taking Kohaku from her. Revenge had not brought the ease of pain and sorrow within her, and she had not realized how deeply she still felt his loss, or how keen her loneliness was, last of her clan, and now alone in this world, even surrounded as she was by the strong bulwark of trust and friendship that had grown slowly between the Inu-gumi as they once again journeyed forth, seeking the far-flung shards scattered in a final gesture of spite upon Naraku’s death.

Tears brightened her eyes but did not fall, and she didn’t even notice them as her sad tale finally slowed and died into silence, heavy with the darkness that now swirled through her soul. She had thought she had put the past behind her with Naraku‘s death, that she could ignore and deny the raw sorrow that edged her every step as she continued her journey, her hazy goal one to make right the Shikon no Tama, a misty dream that gave her an excuse to keep going, to keep existing, if not truly living. Long had she denied the dark anger that still hid sullenly in her heart. Naraku’s death had not banished it, and even the comfort of her friends could not totally reassure her that she had not somehow failed them all in the end…

Why she spoke of such things to such a one as Bankotsu, she knew not. But it had been the first time she had ever truly bared her past, and something held tight within her chest seemed somehow to ease even as bitter reflection slowed her into dark silence.

For a long time, Bankotsu said nothing, and she was mildly grateful for that, though she was too lost in her own dark thoughts to really heed his presence on any true level of awareness, though his gaze rested on her for a long time without comment.

Abruptly breaking the silence, he turned away from her with a sharp movement. Sango’s head whipped up and she frowned in self-derision at her foolish weakness in revealing to him her own internal darkness. *Stupid! Should he care how sad a tale I tell?*

This was Bankotsu, after all.

Stalking over to his Banryuu, he touched the silk-wrapped blade with near reverence. His voice was low and harsh in the close-knit clearing, as if he did not like what he would admit to her and was as reluctant to speak as she had been. “You are not the only one who has lost all in this world.”

Sango ventured a tentative question. “You speak of your brothers? The Shichinintai?”

“My brothers.” His words were dry, tinged with sweet irony. He seemed lost in thought for a moment, to the point where Sango decided he would say nothing more, but then his hand dropped from the broad blade of his halberd and he asked harshly, “What would you think, taijiya, if I told you that I myself had come from a clan who were honored for their ability to slay demons?”

Sango could say nothing, too shocked into surprise at his astonishing query. She could not resolve the two…merciless mercenary, self-proclaimed killer of a thousand men---

*And demons.*

She blinked at the sudden intrusion of that startling remembrance.

His back to her, he raised his head to stare up at the half-mooned hilt of his giant sword. “This sword…it was a treasured blade passed down from father to eldest son. It should have gone to my older brother, Seiryoku.”

Sango stirred slightly, wondering what tale he would tell to equal hers.

“My clan was taiji, much as yours. But we did not hide ourselves in the mountains.” There was a slight scorn to his voice that made her stiffen in stung pride, but he continued unheeding, “I thought we were the only ones.”

He cast her a somewhat rueful glance, shaking his head slightly. “What think you of that, taijiya? Does it startle you to learn that you and I were much the same once?”

What could she say? Sango could only stare at him.

“Speechless, eh? Never thought I’d see a woman with nothing at all to say.” His attempt at humor was pretty flat.

“What…” Sango paused, swallowing against the dryness in her throat, her voice a hoarse whisper in the fire-split night. “What made you…” Her words trailed off, helpless to define what he was to her now…bandit, mercenary, cold-blooded killer.

“Heh.” A cocky grin was gone as quickly as it had been summoned, and he turned his back to her, regarding the giant halberd wrapped in silk that rested so innocently against the tall, wide-branching tree that seemed much smaller by its leaning weight.

For long moments, there was nothing but drawn silence, broken only by the fitful crackling of the fire between them and the fainter rustling movements of the horse as it grazed in the shadows beyond. Finally, Bankotsu spoke, and his words were low, more to himself than to her.

“My clan, as yours, was destroyed, my village razed and my people hunted down and slaughtered, one by one, from littlest babe to oldest wife.” His right hand was clenched into a fist as his head bowed, the dark and helpless rage boiling up inside of him as it had her not but moments before. “But not by youkai or hanyou…”

He finally turned to look at her, and the pure hatred that glittered in his blue-black eyes made Sango’s breath catch. “But by men.”

Chilled by the cold fury in the mercenary’s voice, Sango could only stare at him.

Each word was bit out through clenched teeth and old rage. “We were strong and our rice fields rich. The other villages, drained by the daimyo’s constant wars, were jealous of us and wanted our land. So they claimed that it was US, the taiji, who made the demons angry, that WE were the reason the youkai attacked so much, and not the bloody clan-wars. So they betrayed us for their own greed, coming at night, in the dark, to kill us all and steal our land and our fields for themselves.”

Eyes glittering, he continued, “My father, the headman of our clan, knew that we could not win against so many of them, and that he and all the others would die. He made my brother Seiryoku take me and his sword, Banryuu, into the forest to hide. But the filthy traitors followed us, and Seiryoku was killed when he drew them away from where I hid in the bushes with our family’s sword.”

He became silent, lost in embittered memories. The stirring of old anger and utter loss and betrayal hung over his soul like a dark cloud of menace. Sango shivered, caught up in that web of bitter rage, and understanding too well the darkness that fueled it. She had thought Naraku’s treachery could not be equaled, but Naraku had never been once hailed friend and neighbor, defended and succored by kin and clan. To have the very people you defended and protected as slayer and sworn warrior turn on you---was that not worse? So very, very much worse? Naraku had only been true to his nature, done what he had always done to ferment the darkness and malice his evil soul took such delight in. It was so easy to understand what drove the dark hanyou, so easy to hate and despise him.

But to find such evil, such dark betrayal and stark greed in the hand of a friend? Was not the knife stabbed in the back by the friend who would welcome you with a clasp and knife kept hidden behind a false smile, was that not so much worse?

What would that have done to HER? To find her world, not only gone and empty, with all that held and loved and supported destroyed, but to find that very world turned so that she could not know friend from foe, enemy from ally? How could she have ever been able to trust anyone, ever, again? How could she have not turned that bitter knowledge into hatred for all mankind, who could be so easily swayed by greed and envy, so that they could betray the very ones who they had always turned to for protection against the dark terrors of the night?

It was a betrayal of all she had been taught to believe…that it was the duty---no, the honor---of the taiji, the demon slayers, to stand between man and youkai, defending those less skilled against those who would prey so readily upon them…

“I killed them, you know. I killed them ALL. I could not use my father’s sword; I was not strong enough yet. But I learned all that I could as quickly as I could, and I built up my strength so that I could go back and raise Banryuu over their heads in revenge. I hunted them down, one by one, village by village, as they had hunted my clan down, and I killed every single last one of them, so that their blood stained itself upon my sword and I made my wish upon Banryuu, that once I had killed a thousand men and a thousand demons I would gain the strength denied me by weakness.”

She could only shiver, wondering how Bankotsu could have survived that betrayal long enough to even gain what few friends he had had, and understanding, perhaps, what forces might have motivated him in the choices he had made in his short, brutal life.

“You have nothing to say, taijiya?” Bankotsu’s voice came out of the darkness, cold as ice and just as biting.

“How old were you when…?” Sango whispered to her knees, which she had drawn up as he spoke of his dark past, hugged tight to her chest with bowed head, unable to meet his angry gaze.

“Does it matter?” He began to taunt, but then abruptly fell silent. Staring at the fire, which smoldered and danced with its own burning concerns, he finally said, “I was seven.”

*Seven.*

So young. So very, very young to have lost all that he had. He had been younger, far younger, than even Kohaku.

A single tear slipped down her pale cheek, an accord she had not been able to shed even for her own loss. Her eyes burned, and a second tear fell. Her heart was tight with the bitter darkness and pain that surrounded him, so much more than hers, so very much more…

The sneering scorn crept back as he suddenly noticed her tears. “Did I frighten you then, taijiya, with what I just told you?”

“No.” She said, wiping at her wet eyes with a grubby sleeve, and finding that she could not keep them from falling, and did not want to. He stared at her with glittering black eyes, his contempt plain, and she finally explained softly, “I cry for you, for your loss and your pain.”

“Don’t bother. I don’t need a woman’s tears.”

“No.” She agreed, but could not stop. Perhaps it was the final relinquishing of her own dark pain in the stark face of his that was so much more, but she could not stop the wetness that crept down her cheeks in a slow, unyielding flow. Bending her head back down to her knees, she made no sound, not desiring his continued contempt of such a womanly weakness, but too worn and tired to do naught more but than to let them fall, saddened at the betrayal of innocence, hers or his, it did not truly matter.

7777777777777777

He could not bear to watch her. For some ungodly reason, her silence struck him more poignant than if she had seeped and sobbed and decried his past with loud exclamations of pity and remorse or raging remonstrance. Setting his jaw, he turned his back on her, stalking over to his giant sword and staring at it, though not truly seeing it before him. He was a bit surprised at the deep darkness that had lain dormant inside of him, the bitterness and anger tasting as fresh as it had that dark night, long ago, when the villagers had come armed with scythe and torch to lay waste his childhood. His emotions were too raw, and he did not like it.

The anger, now---the anger was something he could understand and something that he could use, energy to draw on to strengthen and aid him in battle joined. But this pain…it did not sit well with him, and he did not like how her silent tears were calling it up inside of him, though he could feel the dark tide that swathed his soul slowly eddying away as he stood there in stubborn silence and she wept just as quietly for his pain.

Closing his eyes, he sighed gustily.

Would she keep this up all night?

And with that selfishly bitchy thought, he felt shamed for once, and grimaced at the strange emotion. But then he excused it, by coming up with idle concerns for her welfare to deny what her tears were doing to him and just how much they were affecting him.

*She’ll cry herself sick, and then where will I be? Damn it all.*

He better make her stop, then, or she would, and then where would he be? She was wounded enough already, without making herself sick…

Gah. What a bother it all was!

Shrugging with irritation, he fetched two seemingly similar wooden flasks from the packs piled to one side of the clearing and then stalked back over to stand and glare down at her.

“Are you done yet?”

There was a muffled sound, he wasn’t quite sure what it was, but it sounded almost like a laugh, and he frowned, and poked her bowed form with a toe.

“Taijiya?”

She sighed, and finally looked up at him. She looked like hell, her eyes red and her nose kind of runny. But the black hair tangled around her face was artlessly curled around shoulders and cheek, and the orange-tinged shadows cast by the glowering fire brought out the delicate high bones of her cheeks and the softness of her lips, giving her a beauty that not many could achieve, even with the dubious benefit of conscientiously applied cosmetics.

Her honey-browned eyes were dewy and wide, and she was giving him that look again, the one that said ‘I think you’re crazy.’ Boy, did that one get on his nerves, but it was ten times better than her sniffling up at him like he had half-expected she would.

“Water?” He offered the first flask, and waggled it at her when she didn’t immediately take it from him. “You probably need it, you’ve spilled enough water already tonight to dry up a river.”

There was a flicker of a smile and she finally took the proffered flask. As she drank quite greedily from the rim, he hauled the horse-blanket over and absently draped it across her shoulders. Pulling the second flask open, he flopped on the grass beside her and took a long, much needed, drink. The sake burned down his throat, making his eyes nearly cross. Kyoukotsu’s old grandfather must have been downright batty when he made this stuff. The raw alcohol in the rice wine was potent enough for old Renkotsu to have used it as fuel for his special fire-spewing brew.

Thinking about it, Kyoukotsu’s ojii-san had probably been drunk off the fumes and not known what he was doing when he mixed this swill up. Still, he couldn’t be too choosy with his poison when this was all there was, and he thought they both might need a good kick of it after all that disruptive emotional business of earlier.

Hell, whatever worked, would.

She had drained the first flask, which held only water, and didn’t think twice about taking a good quaff of the second one he offered her. Her eyes widened substantially though as the raw spirits hit her belly, and she nearly choked. Bankotsu helpfully pounded her back, which only made her cough and gasp as she waved a distracted hand at him to stop. He tried to take the flask back from her, but she silently shook her head, and took a second, longer pull from the flask before finally relinquishing it.

Grinning, he matched her pull for pull. The spirits were working, even for a connoisseur of sake such as himself. He felt a bit light-headed after the fourth swig, and the raw-edged wounds of his soul were comfortably muzzled by alcoholic beguilement. She didn’t seem quite so affected, but she had to be. She was a good couple of stones lighter than he, and probably didn’t have his familiarity for the stuff. Eying her, he waited, and was finally rewarded for his vigil.

Hiccup.

Her hand flew to her mouth in surprise, and she giggled, her cheeks flushed.

He grinned. The sake was working wonders on her, she was truly relaxing for the first time he had ever seen her, hugging the blanket around her thin shoulders and twining a long black curl around her fingers before discarding it for another turn at the flask.

“You confuse me, you know.” She finally spoke, her voice husky and words slightly slurred. He didn’t want her toppling over on him, so he kept the flask when it was his turn to take it back. His aim had been to relax her, not make her stupid drunk so that all she could do was pass out and wake up with an aching head and noxious hangover.

“I confuse a lot of people.” He replied with a cocky grin. She smiled back, for the first time a real smile, and it made her quite pretty. “I like confusing people, keeps ’em on their toes. Never know what to expect.”

“Never know what to expect.” She agreed, still smiling. “Like you being the leader of the Band of Seven.”

“What do you mean?” Bankotsu was truly surprised by her comment.

“You’re so…” She waved her hand, at a loss of words, and abruptly changed the subject by turning it into a question. “How did you meet them? The band?”

“Here and there, I guess. I was already shield-brothers with Jakotsu, you know. We met fighting against a couple of daimyo, and he told me I had a really big sword. Heh.” He grinned at the memory of his best friend.

“He would.” She replied with an edgy irony he rather liked about her. He liked the fact that she didn’t make any snide comments about Jakotsu’s particular habits, just saying, “He didn’t like women much.”

“Nope.” Bankotsu agreed with a fond smile for his long-departed friend. He missed him, at times. Jakotsu had been one of the few on this earth that he had been able to trust completely.

“How did you come up with the idea? For a mercenary band?” She asked, resting her head on her bent knees and looking at him with curiosity.

“Dunno. Came to me, suddenly, after I first met Naraku.” She didn’t flinch from the dark hanyou’s name, and so he went on to tell her of his initial meeting with the strange youkai wrapped in the fur of a white baboon. Perhaps it was the influence of strong sake that loosened his tongue, or maybe it was the fact that he had already revealed the darkest part of his past to her. Maybe it was just the soft curiosity in her dark brown eyes, or the fact that he was feeling a bit melancholy for the past and missed the friends who could never now be revived and he felt the need to relive some of the good times amid so much of the bad, but he saw no reason to hide anything from her, which should have surprised the hell out of him but did not…

He had a lot of his own curiosity to satisfy, and asked her idle questions in turn, passing the flask of sake whenever she thought to hesitate. She told him of her father, who she still honored and deeply loved, and of her brother before he was corrupted by Naraku’s influence. Her voice warmed when she spoke of her friends, and of her youkai companion, the fire-neko. Both of them avoided speaking too much of subjects that made the other uncomfortable; Bankotsu forbore mentioning Naraku so much, and she passed over the Inu-gumi with light reference, though he could tell how important they were to her.

“And the monk?” Bankotsu asked her, unable to resist the need to know. “What is he to you?”

“Miroku?” Her smile was soft and her expressive eyes seemed suddenly full of memories. Hiding a scowl, Bankotsu passed her the flask, which she held but did not drink. “I loved him once.”

Bankotsu didn’t particularly like that statement, and took the flask back to suck down a good amount so she wouldn’t see his expression. But she smiled, idly propping her head on her hand and saying softly, “We promised ourselves once, that we would eventually be together. But…I don’t know…feelings change, I guess. We decided to leave things be, and he is too good a friend to ever pretend to something that doesn’t exist anymore.”

“So, you don’t love him?” Bankotsu pressed.

“I do.” She said with a silly smile he didn’t like, though her next words calmed his growing ire. “But as a friend, and only as a friend.”

“Do you love someone else, then?” He recklessly pursued the subject, surprised at how much he wanted to know.

She gave him a lop-sided smile. “I once had a daimyo ask for my hand, but he was only in love with what he thought I was, and not who I was.” And she told him of Lord Kuranosuke of the Takeda clan, and of the lord’s determination to wait for her, no matter how long it took. She laughed. “I hope he hasn’t; it has been over three years since last I saw him and I have no wish to become the pampered wife of a noble house. I will be the first to admit I could never be pretty or docile enough to make a good ornament for such a lord, and could never tolerate being imprisoned to the house as a noble lady is.”

He could have argued her prettiness, but left it alone for now. Instead, he changed the subject and told her of his various teachers in the art of war, and asked after the giant boomerang she usually carried.

Their conversation enlivened on the subject, and he had to respect her knowledge of demon-made weaponry, knowing quite a bit of it himself. They compared their clans, the pain of the long-departed not touching them as they casually spoke of training and technique, from their first youkai killed to their different styles of fighting. His respect and admiration grew, as she recounted the hardships of being a slayer and also a girl, of how her clan had not supported the idea of the headman’s daughter taking up steel at first, and how her father had given in to her wishes only after he had found her awkwardly trying to teach herself when no one was around to see…

He spoke of his brother Seiryoku, and of his own father and mother, who he could recall only dimly. He told her of meeting the various brothers of his band, and how each had been a resentful misfit on the edge of a strict society who despised or embittered them. He told her of Kyoukotsu’s family, and that the hostel they had stopped at had been theirs.

“I could not understand them.” She admitted. “I wondered if perhaps they came from the mainland.”

“They do. They fled the wars there, only to find more here, finally settling in a place too remote for war to follow…” He continued, talking about their son, the one member of the Shichinintai that she had never met. The night stretched on, and the fire slowly died, but both of them were too distracted to notice, and he was far too comfortable laying on his side next to where she sat, head resting on her bent knees, to want to get up and add more wood to the waning flames.

Their subjects ranged far and wide, and she finally asked him, “The tattoo you bear…where did you get it and what does it mean?”

He grinned. “It’s my Banryuu, though the artist was a bit drunk and didn’t get the portions just right.”

She laughed softly, and he raised a hand to gently touch the reddened lines he knew where hidden behind the thick feathers of long, sooty lashes. “And these? Did you lose a bet or something?”

Biting her lip, she replied, “It was the mark in my clan of my finally becoming a true slayer. I survived my first battle alone, and my father traced it himself.”

“How old were you?” He asked curiously.

“Thirteen…” She then told him of that battle, and the ogre she had slain, earning her place among the warriors of her clan, which led to a story of her brother and how weak and sickly he was as a child, how much he had always wanted to impress their father, and how sweet he had been. By now she felt free enough to speak of her fears for him, and of the darkness that later surrounded them and of her own feelings of failure in not having saved him.

“There was nothing you could have done.” Bankotsu told her fiercely, and went on to speak of his own bitterness at Jakotsu’s death and of Renkotsu’s betrayal after they had all been given a second chance at life, and the recall of treachery and darkness it had been for him, almost a re-living of the night his clan had been betrayed…

The shadows of the night deepened as the fire finally died, and perhaps it was because the darkness hid their expressions from one another or the easy acceptance that they had fallen into over a shared bottle of sake and the sharing of easier memories, but both of them began to speak of the darker whispers of their heart, the pain-filled treachery and the anger that had burned within, touching freely on subjects they had carefully avoided before. The curious understanding between them sprang up anew as they purged their souls into the darkness, as if seeking comfort and confession in the night, two lonely, scarred souls seeking solace in the understanding of one another, accepting the darkness and perhaps finding forgiveness if they had been strong enough yet to find it…

But eventually the night grew too long and the girl’s weariness too much, and she blinked at him sleepily, unable to fight the needs of her exhaustion any longer. She was all but slumped over, and would have toppled if Bankotsu had not been quick enough to steady her. She apologized, too tired to even blush, and Bankotsu only grinned understanding that she could not see in the black shadows of the unlit night. He gathered her unresisting body up, blanket and all, and thought of leaving her to lie at the base of her chosen tree, but thought better of it, not wanting to be alone.

And so he set himself down, his back to the firm trunk, with the girl curled around him, nestled into the blanket and the warmth of his arms. She murmured sleepily, and a sudden thought made him ask quietly, with surprise at not having asked before, “What is your name, taijiya?”

“Sango.” She barely breathed a reply into his shoulder as her eyes finally closed and she drifted into slumber.

“Sango…” He muttered to himself, liking the sound of it. Coral, both strong and beautiful. It suited her.

And as she slept held in his arms, he thought that, like a prized piece of fine coral that had just happened to fall into his keeping, he might never want to let this one go...