Fragile

Chapter 7: Nervous Actions

It was almost like an out of body experience. Kagome could feel what was going on, but she was watching herself as if it was a movie playing before her eyes. She saw herself back in those white clothes she had hoped to never see again. The Kagome donned in white was sitting on the floor in the middle of a completely white room. She had been blindfolded with a piece of black material and given a longer wooden pole. It was yet another experiment. Her captors seemed determined to find out every possible use of her powers; this test was supposed to be about sensing auras. She’d only just started to develop that use when they took her.

They were using those electric poles that they seemed so fond of. They explained that the goal of this experiment was to reach out with her pole and touch the person closest to her before they reached her with their pole. Once they were touched, they would back away again and another would step forward. They had learned soon after the first experiment that her untapped powers would only surfaced when she felt trapped or threatened. Now every experiment included something that could potentially hurt her unless she stopped it first.

The scene she was watching now was something from her first few days there at the facility. She could still feel the fear from that day. Being placed in a cold room and then having your sight taken from you would be enough to frighten most people. But to be put in that situation and then being told that you had to blindly defend yourself…that was enough to terrify. The small electric shocks were painful, but were at least tolerable through the cotton of her clothing. It was when they landed on the bare skin of her arms that she would occasionally find herself nursing small burns back in her room.

Kagome watched herself as the experiment began. She felt uncertain about where anything was. Her tense muscles made her moves with the pole jerky and sluggish. Out of the first five advances she’d only been able to stop two of them. Her breathing was becoming labored as tears started to saturate the black cloth covering her eyes. She could feel where the people around her were standing, but she would second guess herself and in that moment of hesitation the pain would come.

Kagome wanted to cry out at the pain she was feeling from her other self. She could hear her own thoughts from back then. ‘Please help me. Someone…anyone…save me. Please save me…’

That scene ended and another was brought to her mind’s eye. It started out very similar. She was sitting on the floor in clothes that looked the same. The room looked to be the same one from before. The only noticeable difference this time was that there was no fear coming from her. The fear was gone. The sadness was gone. And Kagome remembered that at one point she’d started pulling into herself during these experiments. This was many trials after the first one. Her response time was almost perfect now. Once she pulled into herself she allowed her instincts to take over and acted on impulse.

As Kagome watched herself this time she felt hollow and numb. This Kagome wouldn’t cry out. She wouldn’t feel the pain of an electric shock because now she was able to stop each attempt. But later a different kind of pain would consume her. ‘Please help me,’ she heard herself think again. ‘Someone…anyone…help me die. Please kill me…’ The pain of lost hope tore at her soul.

The scent changed yet again. She was now in her room. It was after Sesshoumaru had come to question her and then left her on the floor. When he had left the room she had lost her hope yet again. She would never want to admit it, but when Sesshoumaru had wrapped his hand around her throat and threatened her with death she had felt a morbid sense of hope and happiness. Perhaps Sesshoumaru would be her savior from this cold and sterile hell she’d found herself thrown into. ‘Sesshoumaru…’ she could hear herself calling out within her mind. ‘Don’t leave. Sesshoumaru…do what you promised. Sesshoumaru!!’

The demon lord had been outside when he heard his name being called. ‘That woman again,’ he thought. ‘What does she want now?’ Sesshoumaru made his way back indoors and down the hallway to Kagome’s room. He opened the door to see her tossing about in bed, tightly clutching her sheets, and calling his name. ‘What in the world?’

Making his way over to her bedside, he watched with curiosity as she continued to call his name. It was when she started to cry in her sleep that he decide that he’d had enough. “Higurashi, wake up.” He spoke to her sleeping form. This had absolutely no effect on the sleeping girl except that she let go of the sheets and brought her arms up as if she was guarding herself from something. With a slight sigh of frustration, Sesshoumaru reached out with his left hand and grabbed one of her arms as he said called her name again in a more authoritative tone.

He was completely caught off guard however when she bolted strait up with a jerk and screamed “NO!!” A small pink flash filled his vision and he let her go to step back a few paces. Sesshoumaru’s hand went to cover one side of his face that currently had smoke and the scent of singed flesh coming from it.

When Kagome opened her eyes she looked around in a dazed manor. She remembered becoming one with her dream self again as it took a different turn from reality. Sesshoumaru had left her and the men from the facility had come to drag her off to another experiment. She had struggled against them and tried to defend herself when they grabbed her arm. That’s when she woke up.

Her eyes landed on Sesshoumaru and immediately knew that something was wrong. He was standing a good distance away from her and was covering his face with his hands. “S-Sesshoumaru?” She ventured to ask in a timid and slightly fearful voice. He swiftly turned to her, one hand still covering the left side of his face, and the eye visible to her was flashing between the normal white and gold to a more demonic red and teal. She had seen it happen to Inuyasha enough times to know that he was struggling with that more primal side of himself, so she sat perfectly still and quiet.

Once he seemed to regain some of his composure, Sesshoumaru looked at her with an expression beyond anger. “It is clear now that even though those fools managed to pull your powers out of dormancy, they taught you nothing about how to control them. You will train until you are able to control those powers, conscious or otherwise. You are quite possibly one of the few, if not the only, creature left in existence that could do me bodily harm, and I will not have you living in my home with that amount of power and so little control. Do I make myself clear?” Sesshoumaru’s voice came out clearly showing his agitation and contempt for her at the moment.

Kagome watched at he proceeded to storm from the room and didn’t miss the small comment he made on his way out the door. “You are proving to be much more trouble than you are worth.”

Kagome now found herself walking down random hallways in the house. The ‘wake-up incident’ as she found herself calling it now, happened about two hours ago and she was trying to avoid Sesshoumaru at all costs. She had been living here in his home for about a week and was starting to catch onto his daily routine. He was always up before she was and was almost always outside no matter what the weather was like. He would stay outside until almost noon when he would come in to eat in his study/office.

Mana had explained that Sesshoumaru did a lot of business from home because it was difficult to personally make business deals and have discussions with constantly aging humans. They would of course notice his ever-youthful appearance and that would only cause problems. Because of this, he kept a personal assistant who dealt with the face-to-face business arrangements. Due to this, he spent a good deal of time by himself at home.

After he was through with his office work, he would usually spend the rest of the day reading. That was the tricky part for today. Kagome never knew where he would read. Sometimes he would stay in his personal library, which was of a ridiculously large size, and sometimes he would take up residence in another part of the house. He seemed to change location a few times each day because she had so far found him in the kitchen, living room, outside in the gardens, in the branches of a tree, his study, and once even just sitting in his car with his book like it was a normal place to read.

Kagome had been given the freedom to do as she wished. The day after their little talk by the fireplace, Sesshoumaru had informed her that he would allow her the time to cope with whatever had happened at the facility and she could come to him when she was ready to answer his questions.

During her week there she had been doing everything she could to keep her mind off of what had happened. She usually got up in the morning, brushed her hair, got dressed, and then followed Mana around the large house to help out where she could. She was able to really connect and talk to the older woman. It reminded her a lot of how she and Sango had been, even if Mana and Sango were two completely different people personality wise. The thought of her friend from her journey caused her chest to tighten and her eyes to water. It had been five years since her return and it still hurt to think about her lost friends. Even if her demonic companions managed to live to see the present, she knew her friends like Sango and Miroku were far out of her reach.

Lost in thought, Kagome wandered into the kitchen to get something to drink. She stopped short, however, when an almost electrical tension filled the air. Turning slowly, Kagome saw the person she’d been trying to avoid sitting at the small table in the kitchen.

Sesshoumaru sensed her presence immediately and was slightly on-edge himself. He knew that Kagome would never dare to intentionally hurt him, but that more animalistic side of him made him wary of potentially harmful things. The energy she had discharged earlier wasn’t enough to do any permanent damage, but it appeared as though he had second or possibly third degree burns on the left side of his face. He knew that they would be healed within a day or two, his healing process slowed by the purifying cause of the wound. But during those days he didn’t want to disturb his employees, so he had found some gauze and medical tape in a first aid kit and bandaged his face. The healing process itched terribly and the gauze wasn’t helping, but it was better than hearing the gasps and startled screams from some of his female employees.

The two just stared at each other in a heavy, awkward silence for a while. Sesshoumaru could hear her heartbeat pick up with fear induced adrenaline and her breaths were coming faster. Her body was going into that fight-or-flight mode that humans were supposed to enter when they felt threatened. Deciding to ease her fears before she tried to run away again, Sesshoumaru looked back to his book and said, “Don’t worry Higurashi. I’m no longer angry, but I meant what I said about you needing to learn control.”

For the few moments that they were staring at each other, Kagome felt as though she were looking at the Sesshoumaru from 500 years ago. He gave her the same feeling as the demon she faced at the beginning of her travels: uncertainty, fear, and the need to run. But as quickly as the tension had descended upon the two, it lifted. Sesshoumaru turned back to his book and spoke to her, breaking her out of her fear. That’s when she noticed the bandages that covered his face, and she instantly felt the heavy weight of guilt at knowing she’d caused that injury.

Kagome took a couple of hesitant steps toward the person that had rescued her from her tormentors and felt worse with each movement. When she was standing next to him she was unsure of what to do. She didn’t want to interrupt his reading and risk his anger if he was indeed still annoyed with her. So instead of making a move, she simply stood in a coy silence waiting for him to acknowledge her.

Sesshoumaru knew that she was waiting for his recognition of her presence, but he was silently hoping she would tire and leave him in peace. His frustrations grew when she made no movement to leave or do anything else. With this thought in mind, Sesshoumaru calmly marked his page and closed his book before picking it up with every intention of finding a new place to read. She only stood there as he left his seat and walked towards the door to leave. But just as he reached to push the door out of his way she called out to him.

Kagome watched as the tall demon lord turned to look at her boredly. She suddenly felt like an awkward child under the expectant gaze of a teacher or elder. A light blush stained her cheeks and she found herself no longer able to keep eye contact with his only good eye at the moment. Her hands alternated between a nervous wringing motion and pulling at the hems on the long sleeves of her shirt.

“Is there something you need?” Sesshoumaru asked in his normal, calm voice.

For some reason, unknown to Kagome, that deep voice that he possessed cause a light shiver to run up her spine. “Um…well, no…I-I just wanted to tell you that I’m…um, well…I’m really sorry about this morning. I’m sorry about what happened to your-your face.” She managed to stutter out as her blush increased.

“As I said before, work on your control and consider yourself forgiven.” And he turned to find his new reading area.

Kagome suddenly felt a little light-headed at his nonchalant brush-off of her apology which had cause all the blood to rush to her head. ‘I never imagined apologizing to Sesshoumaru could be so hard on someone. Then again, I don’t imagine that many people have lived to be given the chance.’

Just then Mana came into the kitchen, glancing behind her with a shocked and pale expression. When she noticed an exhausted looking Kagome she asked, “Kagome, what did you do to Lord Sesshoumaru??”

“Huh?” Was the only answer Kagome could muster at the moment.

“He…well he…Lord Sesshoumaru was smiling! It was a small smile, but a smile none-the-less. I…well I’ve never seen that expression on his face. And what about you? You look like you’re about to faint!”

“I’m okay…” Kagome wheezed. “I just need to sit down for a while.”