Chapter 12: Darkness

The darkness was cold despite the blanket on her. Had it all been a dream? Kagome hoped that it all had just been a dream.

She was so tired and just wanted to stop. She thought that she was getting better; it was a lie though. So much was a lie, she could never get better. Never be healed from what happened to her. She was tainted with Sesshomaru’s poisonous touch. 

After all, it told only a few words to make her unstable again. 

No one had said them to hurt her. No one had even thought it would set her off. But those words were just like his. They had just been like him when he would take her.

She just snapped then, it only served to make it all the worse. The pain of that dagger that cut her throat had been sweet. It had whispered that death and pain could still take her. That they could still make her feel. It was purifying to the taint that Sesshomaru filled her with.

“Why couldn’t life be like this?” she muttered to no one. 

The silence was nice as it gave her time to think. To wonder what another life could have been…to wonder if she could have been stronger.

That felt like a lie though. She could never be the person that she was. That person had been broken beyond repair by that poisonous touch.

“Kagome?” Enma greeted softly as the darkness faded with an open door.

She turned away from the light, she wanted to stay in that darkness. The light was painful like his touch. The darkness had offered her pain as well but she wanted that pain. It was a pain that she could endure and survive.

She couldn’t survive the light. It would shatter her to dust.

“Kagome? Kagome, we must talk about what happened,” Enma told her calmly. She still gave him her back.

She didn’t want to turn to him, to admit that she was still alive. She wanted to be dead and in the darkness rather than be in the light. “Go away.”

“You were bleeding, Kagome…you would have died if you were mortal.”

“That’s not a bad thing if you ask me.” It sounded wonderful.

“You were doing better, you wanted to live. What changed that?” he asked.

She didn’t answer him, how could she? To tell him that just a simple sentence was all that was needed to set her off. It made her feel weaker than she was. Her body was filled with power yet she was so weak.

“You’re stronger than this. What changed, Kagome?”

So much had changed. The strength was there but gone at the same time. She was broken, the pieces sharp and small. She tried to put them back together but she was sliced each time. She was bleeding and raw from it, seeing the missing pieces in the cracks as she worked.

Those words had it send her hard work to the floor, breaking it all over again. “Get out before I make you.”

“Do it then. If you want to be alone so bad then make me leave, Kagome.”

She pulled her arm from the blanket and raised it above her. She never looked at her arm, or at him as she allowed her power began to filled the space. She heard him growl before she felt him grab her.

She closed her eyes then. “Stop this! What will it fix to release your power like that? All you are doing is isolating yourself from those that want to help.”

He was on top of her and she knew that he was burning from her power. “I want to be alone. I wanted to die and I want to be dead again, living is too much.”

“That’s childish and you know it. What would you do if one of your children said the same to you, Kagome?”

“I’m not your child and mine will never say it. They have their father’s will and will survive better than their mother ever had.” She didn’t quite believe those words though. Life was an unpredictable animal. One moment, it’s sweet and kind…the next it is killing you with it’s fangs.

She had felt those fangs sink into her skin. She had felt it’s claws sink into her back, branding her. Kagome knew that life would do the same to her children without a second thought. “Why did you rip his arm off?”

They both knew that she was talking about Sesshomaru.

“He needed to be punished,” was the simple answer. It gave her nothing and told him so.

“His kind are being punished for you and many other reasons…you don’t need to worry about it.” 

“So you’re going to dismiss it from my mind like it never happened then?” silence fell upon them with the only interruption their breathing. It made Kagome tempted to open her eyes.

Finally, Enma spoke once more. “Why would you care about him? He raped you, crippled you and yet you ask me why I ripped his arm off. IF I didn’t know better than I would think that you still love him.”

Kagome opened her eyes to glare at him. His skin was burning away, showing the muscle beneath. 

His eyes were calm and reflected none of the pain that he must have felt. She sent him flying into the wall with her outreached arm before she sat up. 

It just made Enma laugh as he sat there in the crumbling wall. It served to only enrage her.

She felt something for Sesshomaru but love had never been it. Enma knew that; he knew that and said it. It was like he wanted to fight her, to enrage her beyond what she wanted. All she wanted was death to take her. To end it all; Enma wanted to stand in the way of it.

“What’s the point of this? Why do you want to keep me alive?” she hissed at him.

“Why do you want to die? You have everything to live for yet you look to death for answers,” he retorted.

“Because life is an animal I can’t handle anymore.”

OoOo

Sesshomaru sat in front of the monk’s house. The moon gave a faint glow as if afraid to shine brightly. The demon slayer had left hours ago with all her children; she refused to have them near him.

She saw him as a danger, a threat that would strike at her. A good mother protected her young from a threat. 

His mind turned to Kagome. He had always thought that she was a good mother. He thought of when she had sung that song for Mizuki. 

Taking their daughter into her arms, it was then that Kagome noticed the toy on the ground. “Were you playing with her?” Kagome asked him. It was impossible, Sesshomaru wouldn’t do that. He would see it as beneath him and a waste of time; he cared about their child, but he wouldn’t play with her or take that kind of interest in her. “Yes, I was when you were asleep.” He told her.

Kagome stared at him for a moment, wondering if he was telling the truth before giving Mizuki back to her father and picking up the toy. With the toy in hand, Kagome went about calming her daughter. Putting the toy in front of her face, Kagome made the toy dance with her hands as she sang.

I’m a happy puppy, cute and sweet.

I’m a happy puppy that would like to play with you.

I’m a happy puppy that loves her daddy.

So, will you play with me?

So will you play with me?

So will you and your daddy play with me and mine today?

His arms felt so empty as he longed for the light weight of a baby. What had she been thinking when she had sung that song? Mizuki had been all smiles and he had been amazed that the tear vanished so easily.

Yet he found himself longing to hold a baby, to hear the cries of need.

“You alright, Sesshomaru?”

He jerked at the question to see a tired monk standing in his doorway. There were dark circles under his eyes like a man haunted by a nightmare. Sesshomaru just nodded in answer.

The two stared at one another in the dark. They were both fathers that were separated from their children. They were separated from the women that they loved. Neither had the answer to change things for the better at that moment.

“How long do you plan to stay?” the monk asked him.

Sesshomaru thought on it before he answered. “How long will it take your wife to be convinced to come to battle with us?”

“Decades.”

“Then you have your answer.” Sesshomaru closed his eyes then so he could lose himself in his memories. His mind showed him all the changes that he had seen in his children and all the changes that he was missing.

He wished to see them as soon as possible.

Sesshomaru’s Mate Chapter 11 Sesshomaru’s Mate Chapters Chapter 13