Chapter 1: Fight
It just hurt. There was nothing but the agony; why was this happening to her now? She was deaf to the world outside, she was blind to it all, she was numb to everything but the pain that racked through her. She had died yet this pain that plagued her in life refused to end, to allow her to be freed from its tight grip.
She should have been freed from her pain, she wanted to be freed from it so badly. She had given up everything to be free; her life and her children. Only to have the pain continue a thousandfold, it had not been worth the price she had paid.
Screaming in agony with a voice no one could hear; it just would not end for her. Was this what happened to everyone that killed themselves? If so then it was just too cruel; she had been a good person in life before she had been taken. She had helped so many people, doing everything she could to see that they survived the battles against Naraku. But it seems to have meant nothing.
Everything had turned to nothing in the wake of what she was being forced to endure.
She was a person; a person that was being crippled by what she had endured in life. Why would she be forced to continue enduring the same in death? No one deserved this but she was not the only person to commit suicide. Which meant that others could possibly be suffering like her.
That was so wrong.
They had killed themselves to get away from pain like her. they had killed themselves to uphold their honour. they had killed themselves to escape yet they were going to continue to suffer for it. It was just so wrong that it would be their fate.
She refused. She refused to allow this to continue to happen to her or others. She had been a warrior only a few short years ago and it was time to be one again. It was time for her to be who she had once been; to become a warrior again so that this pain would just end.
Kagome screamed this time was different though. This scream was made out of her outrage and pain that rippled through her soul. This time, those around her soul could hear her scream.
oOo
Enma turned in shock at the scream Kagome’s soul emitted so loudly. The power within her was beyond her years in mortal flesh; he had never seen it in a human before. The demons and mortal souls around him moved away from her, their fear heavy in the air.
He would not take a step back.
This was his realm and he was master over all within it. Unlike her, he had things in this realm of his that needed to be protected. At the moment she floated before him as a threat to all that. He would not allow her to become that.
He would not allow her wounds to harm others; there were enough mortals that did that. She was so much better than that; she was a warrior that he could admire. So much like his own beauty that was so beautifully broken within. He intended to stop that with both women. His own as well as Sesshomaru’s.
“Stop it,” he whispered softly.
But the screaming only grew louder and louder. His throne room was beginning to shake, it was something that he had only seen once before. It had been the day that he had killed his father and taking the name Enma. That day had been a battle of gods that shook their realm.
It had the same feel as that day.
It would be another fight for his life. The thought brought a smile to Enma’s face; it had been a long time since he had a fight like that.
“Stop it, Kagome.”
The soul never responded to his voice, just continued to scream. Yet the formless shape of her soul was beginning to change before his golden eyes; to take form. His eyes snapped to her body still within Saburo’s arms. Her blue eyes that had been closed before were now stared at him. There was no expression or emotion to be had within those eyes, they were the eyes of the dead even as the flesh continued to live.
It was so much more though than just living flesh. It was a garment that a soul wore, it was the earthly home of the souls but this body was different. For Kagome’s soul, her flesh was more than just a garment to be wore or a place to be lived in when in the mortal realm.
It was her cage and his salvation.
He knew what needed to be done at that moment. “Saburo, bring her here now.”
It was a struggle. He watched as Saburo struggled to bring the body to him. But still, his loyal friend and servant carried the body to him across the few steps that separated them. She was so light in his arms as light as a newborn would be to him. It was the same with his sweet beauty; no words needed to be spoken between them for Saburo to understand the next task that was to be given to him.
Enma would only one other with the task that was ordered unspoken between them.
As Saburo fled, Enma turned Kagome’s soul once more. The screaming only grew and grew; all others were forced to flee with Saburo as it all became too much. The golden pillars slowly began to crumble under the weight of her screams.
But it all stopped the moment he took a step toward Kagome’s soul with her flesh within his arms. It was when he took another step towards her that she attacked him.
Power burst from the soul as the flesh grabbed at his neck with a grip far stronger than that of any mortal. Those dead eyes stared at him as the power only continued to grow as the screams had. He still walked towards Kagome’s soul with the intention of reuniting the two halves to make her whole.
Staring into those eyes as he did, Enma wondered how his cousin could this beauty so much pain.
oOo
Her blood was still wet on the blade as he stared at it. He was careful as the tears fell to not allow any of them to fall on her blood. How he longed to end it with the tainted sword within his hands.
It would be another wrong against her. He needed to go and find her body, it needed to see that she was given a proper funeral as well as that their children were cared for. He would do that in time; right now he just needed to grieve. He needed to feel the crushing weight of her loss upon his soul, to know that she was lost to him by his own actions, and deeds. She had deserved so much yet he had crippled her in so many ways that he knew that he would never be forgiven.
It mattered not if the gods or Kagome herself gave him forgiveness; he knew the truth.
He was the monster that she could not live with. She had left everything that they had made together so that she could get away from him in the only way possible. He had given her everything that she could want in life or so he had thought.
He stared down at Bakusaiga, he could not help the longing that filled him to die. His hope that she would find happiness with him was gone along with all the dreams that he had over the last two years. How he had hoped that she would grow to love him as he loved her. That hope died inside him and made him want to die with her more than anything he had ever wanted.
But he would ensure that she survived before he did. Their children, her children would survive the loss of them and would not suffer as their mother had. They would live, grow, thrive despite the loss of their mother. They would live in this cruel world that made monsters like him and would be so much better than he had been. Their children would be better parents than them and his parents.
With his mind filled with those thoughts in his mind, Sesshomaru turned away from where he had found his sword. It was time to go and make sure that everything would be ready for when he was gone as well.
oOo
He could taste blood in his mouth as he took another step towards her soul. So much of him was being burned away by her powers, he knew not how he was still standing or how he was still carrying her body to her soul. Her body fought him every step he took towards her soul was something that he had never seen before. The blood in his mouth just reminded him that he was still alive and that this battle of the will was just beginning.
She hadn’t beaten him yet.
It was more thrilling than anything that he could remember. The battle against his father had not even been as thrilling as this though it had been just as tough a battle as this one. That battle had been one of the bodies where this one was a battle of both the soul as well as the mind. The strength of this one woman was so remarkable that he could not wait to meet her in the flesh.
His skin burned hot, telling him that her powers were slowly losing the battle between them. Enma refused to stop though; a battle was never lost until one of the fighters surrendered or died. It was clear to him that Kagome would not surrender and live again. He needed to force her to give in, to remind her that life was worth living beyond pain.
That she just needed to reach out for it, to remember that she had more out there that just the pain. She needed to move past it all to heal and that was what he wanted to help her with.
It was in that moment that he heard the screeching wails of a child.
He turned to see Saburo with a little silver-haired babe, crying her blue eyes out as she reached out. There was no question that the child in his friend’s arms was Kagome’s. The reaction from Kagome was instant.
Her power stopped it’ attack on him and her flesh released its death grip on him. He stared at the child for another moment before looking back at the soul that had held his attention beforehand. Her instincts as a mother reacted to her child even in the torment that she no doubt suffered in.
“Saburo, bring the child to me.”
Saburo didn’t question it at all. His friend simply walked to him, all the while carrying in his arms the key.
oOo
She could feel that it was close. Her body was so near and she wanted nothing to do with it. She wanted to be free from her life so much; it had been nothing but pain before. She had killed herself to so that she could be reborn yet she was kept in this painful limbo, and there was no answer to why.
She wanted to be the warrior that she had once been but not in the life that she had given up. She wanted to be someone new, someone, free from what she had endured; others wanted to take her choices away again.
Screaming with all her might one last time, Kagome released her power and slammed all of it into where her body was. She knew what she wanted out of life as well as death. So many had made her feel as if she was foolish for not wanting Sesshomaru. His mother had acted as if she had been ungrateful for being upset about being raped by him. But they had been in the wrong.
She had every right to feel as she had, she had every right to want out of it all. Still, they had treated her as if she was wrong for it all. Even Sesshomaru had thought she was over-reacting to everything but the truth was far from that simple. She had been raped and abused by the actions of others that refused that everything that she had gone through was that. They had believed that she was being respected, and honoured when it felt as if she had been covered in mud, and laughed at.
She had not been a woman to any of them.
Kagome had been a thing to them all. She refused to continue to anything less than human again. She refused to allow all this pain to continue, she would be human again and be a new human as well.
She deserved no less and would fight for it.
It was then that she felt it. She would know it dead or alive, in every life that she would live. She would always recognize one of her children but that begged the question why was one of her children there? The only reason that came to mind was that her child was being used against her. They had found her weakness and planned to use it against her.
She cursed Sesshomaru for not protecting their children as he should have.
He had failed to do the one thing that she had wanted him to do, which now had their child in danger. It forced her hand to do something that she had no desire to do but would. Because even now, she was a mother.
As a mother, she would fight for her children even from beyond the grave. They were all that mattered to her, more so now and then ever before.