Chapter 5: Fools

Hotaka’s arms were wrapped around her as he tried to give her comfort. It was welcome though it did little help.

Her relationship with her older brothers had not been the best in the years since their parents’ deaths. They still blamed Goro for what had happened despite the fact that he had been a baby. Their little brother had just been a newborn, he had no control over anything at that terrible time.

It had always felt like her older brothers had been ashamed of their parents’ last symbol of love.

“Do you want me with you?” Hotaka asked softly.

“No.” She needed to do this on her own.

Though her older brothers had a better relationship with her mate, it was time. She was sick of them being children and refusing to knowledge Goro as their blood. It was time to channel some of their mother’s spirit and teach her brothers a lesson.

She had raised Goro as if he was her firstborn. Plagued by their parents’ death just as her brothers were, she never regretted what the outcome. If she did then she would be no different from them and it would only serve to hurt Goro.

“You all have trouble getting along, Rie…You almost ripped off Daichi’s leg last time,” Hotaka muttered.

She remembered that he had called Goro a filthy beast. As a mother, it was something that she could not allow to go unpunished. When she attacked him, Daiki and Daisuke had jumped in to help. It had ended badly for them just as it always had when they had been children. “Daichi deserved it, insulting Goro like that was unforgivable.”

“He’s still hurting, my love.”

“So am I! But that did not mean I will let myself filled with it! I was forced to move on and to live when I just wanted to cry!” She shouted at him before she broke out of his hold.

It hurt to remember how they had been before everything happened. They all had been so close before…it was like the lost had ripped holes in all of them. Her older brothers had been the kindest and caring males that she had ever known until they lost their parents. The loss had been too great for them and it so often felt as if they were twisted by those dark days.

They needlessly blamed a newborn for deaths there were out of his control. They were all orphans but they still had the memories to heal them by.

Goro did not even have those.

“Was mating me that hard for you?” There was such pain in his voice when he asked.

“Oh yes…but it was worth it in the end. After all, you made me fall in love with you, you arrogant ass.” She kissed him then, feeling that they both needed it.

“Please tell me that we won’t have to see you two start mating?”

Rie twisted to see her three oldest brothers, Daisuke, the twins Daiki and Daichi stood there. All three looked were the spitting image of their father. It almost hurt to look at them and see their father in them.

They stood there in the doorway to their home, looking cautious of entering. It only served to make her feel more in control since it was clear that her brothers remembered last time as well.

She went to them and gave each one a hug before guiding them to sit down. Daisuke, the eldest of all her siblings was the first to speak. “What do you want, Rie?”

“Going to be direct are we, Daisuke?” She asked as she motioned a servant to serve tea.

Hotaka stayed in the room with them, most likely to protect her brothers from her but did not sit with them. Her love probably did not want her rage redirected at him if he spoke.

“Yes since we barely talk unless you want something from us.”

“Or want to take something out on us,” Daichi mumbled. A glare in his direction had him shut his mouth and hide behind his older twin, Daiki. He had always been the first to run his mouth, something that had always reminded their mother of their father.

“I want to talk with you all about Nori’s son.”

“Sesshomaru? I have heard that he has surpassed his father already…it is true?” Daisuke asked.

She hadn’t expected her brothers to know about Sesshomaru since they had all abandoned their home in the mortal realm so long ago. All her brothers had left and gone to hell along with her to make a life there. Many of them served their lord, Enma as generals.

“It is but he’s still very young. He needs aid to protect his family,” Rie informed them.

“His family? I thought he was only 300 years old…that’s rather young to be starting a family.”

“The curse has made it hard if not impossible for those that live in the mortal realm to have children…Nori had hundreds of miscarriages and stillborns before Sesshomaru.” The memories of her friend suffering for countless years in the attempt to have a child of her own. It had been so hard to watch when she knew that she never suffered like that. “Daughters are rare among those children that have survived birth.”

“Sounds like a just punishment has been placed upon them then,” Daichi said.

Rie glared at her brother then. A just punishment? It was not a just punishment but rather a cruel one that no one truly deserved to suffer under. Especially not the children that were killed by it in their mother’s wombs. “You’re so wrong about that, brother.”

“Our mother cursed them for a reason, Rie.”

“Yes, I know but that does not mean that little children, little girls should be used as breeders. Because that’s what they do now…They use females like cattle in the hope of having more children. A young woman suffered even now for it!” She snarled at her brothers. How she wished that she had done more to help Kagome before.

But her words fell upon deaf ears as always.

“Our mother did what needed to be done,” Daiki said.

“So you think it’s alright for mothers to be weeping over their dead children? Because I do not remember our mother being cruel!”

“Enough!” Daisuke ordered.

Rie glared at all three of them for the stupidity that they were displaying to her. Their mother had not been in her right mind after losing her mate and done some terrible things in her grief.

Looking at her brothers…she knew that she couldn’t stay there anymore. They were so blind that nothing that she would say would reach them.

The servant came with their tea but Rie just stood and left. She couldn’t stand to be around them anymore.

OoOo

Enma stared out at the sea of faces that stared at him. This was a battle that he was all too familiar with; a battle that he had won countless times before. “I am disappointed in all of you.”

“Master Enma…what have we done to disappoint you?” A nameless face asked him.

Rage filled him at the question asked. It should have been clear to all what had him disappointed in them but then he was dealing with fools. He had been in power for one short century, the demons before him should have been aware that they did not know. It was his fault for not changing things sooner but then he had been changing a whole realm.

He had installed the council to make things easier for him. It was enraging that that had not been the case; he needed to be more hands on.

“I have heard tales of a priestess in Sesshomaru’s care. Is it true that all of you having been trying to use her and her children?” He questioned, dismissing the nameless face’s question.

The demons muttered around him, surprised by his question. They had not expected him to care about a simple human woman. They were fools to believe that, for he cared very much. They were no better than the monster that had almost destroyed his sweet Emma.

Flames burst into life around him at the thought. they danced violently with his rage, begging to kill those that surrounded him.

All reacted to the demons leaped away, afraid of what he could do to them. All but Sesshomaru, who stood there in defiance with his golden gaze blood red. It was almost as if Sesshomaru believed that he had a right to be angry with him when that was not the case.

Enma thought of Kagome, who looked almost lifeless and lost when she was alone. It was as if she knew not what she was any more like she was a shapeless being. She looked to regain her lost shape, her true self but he knew that it was lost forever. He would never understand how his own flesh and blood could do that to another.

“She is a powerful being that has been broken by all that are present before me,” he said calmly. “In punishment, you all must come to my realm and beg forgiveness on your knees to her.”

There was an outcry at his order but he would not be moved from it. They would all go or they would suffer death for their insolence. “I will not be moved from this decision.”

With those words spoken, his flames attacked. The demons went on the defence but it was no use as his flames consumed a few like a hungry beast. Their screams were sweet music in a symphony of agony; it made him wish that he had brought Kagome with him. Yet it would be ill-advised with her recovery to see his cousin.

“I will send messengers when it is time for you to come so that will be all.”

OoOo

Sesshomaru battled the flames to follow Enma out. He would not allow Enma to leave until he gave his family back to him. Escaping the burning room, he followed Enma into the hallway. “STOP!”

Enma ignored him and continued to walk down the hall as if nothing had been said at all. Anger filled every part of Sesshomaru as he moved swiftly to stand in Enma’s way.

Enma stopped with a look as if he was standing before something disgusting. But Sesshomaru could care less; he only cared to have his family returned to him. “Return them now.”

“I cannot,” Enma told him calmly.

“I think you mean that you will not rather than cannot,” Sesshomaru snarled like a feral beast. Gods, he felt as if he was becoming one. He needed Kagome so badly; he wanted to beg forgiveness for all that he had done to her.

He wanted to start anew with her and their children. He would do anything to have her back. He would make any promise, make any oath so long as she would stay near him so that he could protect them. He longed to prove that they were all that mattered to him.

“You’re right about that. I will not return them to you, this realm is too dangerous for them right now,” Enma informed. “And you are one of the biggest danger to them.”

“I WOULD NEVER HARM THEM!” Sesshomaru roared at that.

But Enma just stared at him as if he had just spoken a lie. His words confirmed that. “But you already have, Sesshomaru.”

Sesshomaru struck out at Enma but the blow never landed. Instead, a familiar pain bloomed in his still healing arm; a familiar sight greeted him when he looked.

His arm was gone and only a bloody mess remainder where his arm had been. He stared at it, his thoughts disappearing to when Inuyasha had done the same years before. But it was not long before Enma slammed Sesshomaru into a wall with a bloody hand crushing his throat.

“Listen to me, dog and listen well…Kagome has been scarred horribly by you. So much so that she does not know who she is, so, for now, she will heal under my care,” Enma growled, his red eyes turning black. “You may see her and your children only when I allow it, so be a good dog and wait, understood?”

Sesshomaru said nothing and silence fell upon them as tension saturated the air around them. Only when the grip on him threatened to end him did Sesshomaru nod in answer.

Enma threw him away like he was a broken toy. “Good dog.”

Chapter 4  Sesshomaru’s Mate Chapters  Chapter 6