Chapter 36: Monster
“Come, let’s go and find your father.” His mother informed him as she released him from the hug.
He nodded and followed his mother out of the gardens but he could not help but look back where he had seen Kagome. The poor woman had seemed to worried and scared when he had approached her daughter. What could make such a woman so worried?
She had been happy one minute and then so hostile to him in the next as if she saw all men as her enemies. What could make a woman like that? It made him want to go to her, to hug her and tell her all would be alright but there was no such guarantee in life so it would be wrong of him to say so to her.
It was a pity that no one until now had been there to help her. “Have you known her long, mother?”
“Known who?” She questioned back.
“Kagome, mother. I’m trying to understand how a person can become so hostile like she was…she was so gentle and loving to her kids then she was like a beast from hell when she saw me near her kid.”
It was abnormal in his opinion. Sure, he had been around hostile women before but usually took a word or two before they started snarling at him. It was not something that made him wonder how bad it was in the world of the mortals.
“She’s a mother and you are a stranger, Saburo. Strangers are everywhere in her home and they are all threats to her and children…I would have done the same if you were still just a little baby in her place.” Rie informed him.
But he knew that it was more than just that. It felt as if his mother knew nothing about the woman and didn’t know how to say so. Yet he knew that could not be the case since his mother had always been a strong supporter of protecting priests and priestesses.
He saw something though, a hesitation that he had never seen before when he looked at his mother and talked with her about Kagome. Saburo wondered if his mother was unintentionally distancing herself from the situation but he could not understand why she would do that.
“What do you know about her, mother?” He questioned when they reached the palace gates.
Taking his mother into his arms, Saburo took off into the sky at his mother’s directions. He questioned her again when she had avoided his question the first time but she remained silent on the matter. It was her way of telling him to drop the subject.
Rie had done it to him for as long as he could remember. If she did not wish to talk about something that she would stay quiet it about it as if that would make it disappear. It was something that he had always hated as a child and he had always seemed to be the only one that noticed besides his father.
“Why do you always do that?” He muttered when she still say nothing on the subject.
“Do what?”
“Go quiet when you don’t want to talk about something with me or the others. You have been doing it since I was a kid.” He grumbled at her, which had his mother staring at him for minutes after he had spoken to her.
“You just answered your own question, Saburo. You were a kid and somethings should not be discussed with or around kids.” She informed him calmly.
He frowned at that. He had not been a kid in years and didn’t really enjoy being called one now even if it was in an indirect manner. He even told her so and she just laughed at him before stroking his cheek as she liked to do now and then.
“You are not a parent yet, Saburo. To a parent, their kids never really grow up. They stay the same adorable babies that they had once been even when its clear to all that they are adults.”
“I’m not a kid, mother.”
“True but you’re always been my poopy bottomed baby boy.”
How he didn’t let his mother go at that was beyond him. He growled at her in outrage at the baby nickname that he so hated. “You promised to never say that again.”
But she just gave him an innocent look as she informed him. “But I never broke the promise. We’re not in hell, Saburo and turn here.”
“That promise applies here too but we have gotten off topic, mother.” He said in frustration. “What do you know about Kagome?”
Rie fell silent again but it was not something that Saburo was going to let his mother do. Frustrated and annoyed, he did something that was otherwise harmless but an effective method with getting information out of his mother…though he would surely suffer for it later.
He let go of her.
Letting her scream for a few feet before Saburo was quick to regain his grip on his mother. Rie glared daggers at him and was also as quick to slap the back of his head. Which, he agreed was well deserved for what he had done to her.
“I’ll do it again, mother if you don’t answer the question.”
“You would not dare!”
“I take after father, mother.” He said and watched as her eyes widened at his words.
“I haven’t talked to her.” She snarled at him as she dug her claws into his shoulders.
“Mother, that hurts.” But his words only seemed to make her dig her claws deeper into his flesh.
Yet he barely noticed the pain at her words. His mother had done nothing with Kagome; hadn’t talked with her in anyway and had mostly assumed that her best friend was doing right by the poor woman. It was so unlike his mother, and filled him with shame that she would be such a hypocrite.
“I want to drop you.” He mumbled.
“I‘m going to have your father spank you!” She screeched at him.
“I have done nothing to be ashamed of unlike you, mother.” He replied to her threat.
“Your father had been talking to her and was helping her-”
“Until he left and she has only gotten worse for it. But besides that, she needs a woman’s hand instead of a man’s right now and you know that!”
Gods, he was disgusted by his mother in that moment. She had always been someone he had admired as a kid but this just disgusting to him for it was a betrayal of everything that his mother had been before this moment. She had never turned her back on someone in need before and yet she was doing it now with someone that truly needed it.
“Sabu-”
“Please mother…this is a lot to think about. I don’t really want to talk with you about it anymore.”
She said nothing and just nodded to his request.
It hurt to know that she would do that and betray the admiration that he had carried for her all these years but it did not stop him from loving her all the time. She was his mother after all and it was hard to kill one’s love for one’s mother. It was too hard for him to do it.
Hurt as he was by her actions and deeds, he still loved his mother.
But it would take time for him to forgive her for it. She had wounded the image of her that she had always been in his mind as well as betrayed his belief that his mother was a defender of those in need of protection. Where she had once been a divine defender of what was right and justice had been replaced with the image of a mortal being that was flawed.
It did not take long for them to reach his father’s dwelling which turned out to be a cave.
Putting his mother down, Saburo stared at the cave and felt a shock touch him at the sight before him. Hotaka had never been one for living in nature and was a demon that enjoyed living with comforts.
“I’m dreaming…when I slap myself, I will find myself in bed with my males all around me and begging for pleasure before I go off to war.” He mumbled to himself before slapping himself.
Blinking from the sharp pain of his cheek, Saburo found himself still there in the forest with the cave waiting for him to enter instead of being home and in bed with his cock being sucked. He was sure that the gods wanted to screw with him for his mother’s misdeeds. That had to be it, there was no other explanation to be had for otherwise.
“SABURO! GET IN HERE NOW!” Hotaka shouted out from within the cave where his mother had disappeared into.
“I should have never left hell.”
oOo
“That is really good, moon flower.” Sesshomaru said as Mizuki thrust a hand covered in paint down on the paper.
He felt such pride as he watched her paint on the paper before her. It was childish but beautiful to him all the same for it was clear that she was painting one of the many gardens that she loved to play in. It would have to be put up in his study when Mizuki was done and it had dried. Though childish as it was, it was a delight to see his child grow, learn, and gain ability with age.
It was almost bittersweet to see his moon flower growing up so quickly but it was what he wanted. He wanted her and her siblings to grow up well, especially when he may not be able to see it as it happened.
“Are you having fun, sweetie?” Kagome asked their daughter.
Mizuki giggled in reply and got up from his lap as she had seen fit to be when she had started her but now she was quick to leave him, and her work to go to Kagome. He could not stop himself from allowing his eyes to follow their child so that he could look upon Kagome. He loved watching as she nursed another of their children, though he would not lie, and say that he was not worry about her.
She was becoming too thin; something that Sesshomaru was sure was because she insisted on nursing all their children. It was likely too much for her to nurse six children all the time, he would have insisted that she be aided by a wet nurse full time but she had rejected it for she would feel like less of a mother if she allowed it.
It was hard to not give her everything that she wanted, especially since she wanted so little from him. But he could see that her desire would soon start to affect her in negative ways and that was something that he could not allow.
“Kagome, how are you feeling?” He questioned softly.
She looked away from Mizuki and looked at him for a long moment. “I’m fine.”
It was a lie. He could see it in her eyes and face. She really was losing too much weight; Sesshomaru cursed himself for not noticing before now. He should have been paying more attention to her needs but clearly been to focus on the war.
His soldiers were ready for battle and stationed in just the right places for the war to come; now all he had to do was wait for his new allies to come which would be in the next few days. There was also the threat of suitors for his children as well that had him so guarded and focus on keep many of them away from his children. Kagome had even told him about the stranger that had approached Mizuki only a few hours before.
He had been too focused and his family suffered for it.
“Kagome, tell me the truth please.” He requested.
She looked at him in annoyance and told him once more. “I’m fine.”
“You are thin, Kagome.” He informed her, hoping that it would be all that needed to be said.
But the look in her ocean blue eyes that were so light did something so odd. They darkened, blackening into the ocean reflecting the night sky with endless stars dancing in the blue. He wondered what it meant but she was quick to tell him what it meant.
“I just had six children, Sesshomaru. I’m going to be thin after giving birth to so many babies…what does it matter anyway? Men like thin women after all so you should be happy!” She snapped at him.
“I like you healthy, Kagome. But you are too thin and likely to become sickly if you do not work to regain the weight that you have lost…I think that it is time for a wet nurse to be on hand for you full time has come.”
The outrage he knew would come flared in her darkened eyes. It was almost like she thought he had insulted her and her skills as a mother to which he knew her skills were unequaled. She was a great and loving mother; their children thrived under her care that he wanted them to continue to experience as the years go. Though she would live as long as he was alive, it did not mean she would be immune to pain or illness.
Injuries would heal but that would be slow and Kagome would be forced to endure the pain of those slow healing injuries. It was not something he wanted to ever happen to her and he had no desire for her to be ill, to suffer through her body going through that.
“I am healthy so stop worrying about me. I am none of your concern, Sesshomaru and I’m tired of fighting with you.”
There was such defeat in her words. It was so unlike her that he knew that something was wrong and she was hiding it from him. He would not allow that to continue at all; he would force it from her if he needed to because he would not allow anything to harm Kagome. Not even her emotions.
“I am tired as well, Kagome. I am tired of us fighting! I want us to move pass the past and just be together but you hide. You hide like a coward like you are doing right now.” The words had been so calm and quiet. But they still carried a truth that ring like crystal between them.
It was then that tears came to her eyes. Those eyes were the greatest weapon that she had against him and yet, he knew that she had not known the power of her years had upon him. She did not know that each drop of salty water was another slice on his heart. A heart that belonged to her alone even if she refused to take it from him.
“You can’t understand.”
It was the tremble of her broken voice that begged him to go to her and sooth her of her pain. But he could not give into it like he wanted to. It would be hard to resist the next time.
“How can I understand why we do not talk?” He questioned.
Hurt filled her expression and body. She trembled so hard that she held Emiko tighter as if she was afraid of dropping their daughter. “I tried that! YOU were the one that ran away when I did…I’m done with all of this, Sesshomaru.”
Everything came alive within him at those words and he suddenly found himself standing in front of her. He towered over her, and knew his eyes were red from the emotions that roared to live in him. Fear and rage burned through his blood as if his body was violently rejected the defeat in her voice and the way her body hinted at loss.
Kagome simply stared up at him, the look in her eyes whispered that she wanted nothing more than to dead. It was then that something truly snapped in him.
His mind was a flog as if he was watching another as he fell upon Kagome and moved over her, removing the layers of cloth that shielded her body from his eyes. He wanted to see her so bad, wanted to take her as she feed their child at her breast but the sight before him stopped him from continuing when he had freed her from kimono.
She was so thin.
Lying there naked with tears in her eyes and begging him to stop with their daughter still at her breast, Sesshomaru saw how thin she had become. He felt sick at the sight of her ribs sticking out and her arms looking little more than bone covered in skin. How had she gotten like this? How had he allowed her to get like this?
He got up and moved away, covering his mouth as he hoped the bile would not escape his throat. He should have watched her better, seen to her care more but instead he had allowed this to happen. He had hoped to that allowing her some distance would bring them closer in the end but this was so wrong.
He was a monster.
Why had not he noticed when he held her? Why had not he watched her closer? What had he allowed her to become so thin that it had to be affecting her health. Yet, she still produced milk for their children.
“My lord…a guest has come to speak with you.”
“GET. OUT. NOW!” He roared loudly at the servant.
Instantly all of their children began to cry and Sesshomaru felt hallow from all that had happened.
He really was a monster.