Categories > Anime/Manga > Inuyasha > True Legends
AN: I’m so glad you guys like my story! I’m really excited about this. Sorry about the cliffhanger at the end of the last chapter, I hope this makes up for it!
Disclaimer: I don’t own, please don’t sue!
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True Legends
Chapter 2
“There is a legend. And to protest is daft.” -- Peter O’Toole
Kagome could feel her heart hammering inside her chest as that giant red and teal eye seemed to stare straight through to her very soul. ‘Sesshoumaru…what are you doing here?’ She thought.
Taking a slow, cautious step to the side but never taking her eyes off of him, Kagome tried to take a better look at the large dog demon. He was lying down but was still massive. She turned on the spotlight feature of her flashlight to get a better look at him, and what she saw both shocked and saddened. Not only was his coat dirty but he’d gotten dangerously thin and appeared malnourishment. “What happened to you??” She whispered more to herself than to him, but she certainly got an answer.
Kagome quickly pressed herself against the stone wall as a giant set of teeth snapped at her. But when she saw him lay his head on the ground after the quick movement she knew that at this point he was much more bark than bite even if he was still growling and snarling at her. He didn’t have the energy to do much more than growl, but she could see the killing intent in his eyes that followed her every movement. “Sesshoumaru…do you not remember me?” She asked softly.
He let out a snarl and swiped a giant paw at her as his eyes grew a deeper shade of crimson. Her presence was making him angrier with each passing moment, but he couldn’t rip her to pieces like he wished. Even if he did have the energy to fully attack her, he couldn’t do so in this form. As large as the cavern was, Sesshoumaru’s true form left little room for excessive movement.
Making sure that she was out of his range of movement, Kagome tried talking to him again. “Sesshoumaru, do you remember me? My name’s Kagome. I traveled with your brother five hundred years ago when we were searching for the jewel shards and Naraku.” When he lunged at her as much as he could while snapping at her once more, Kagome knew that he didn’t recognize her and she was going to have to try a different approach. “Look,” she said as she slowly pulled a small, pink jewel on the chain she wore out from under her shirt. “See? You may not remember me anymore, but you have to know what this is. After we killed Naraku we got all of the shards together and then the girl that fused them together disappeared from the field. I was that girl. Do you remember me now?”
She held her breath and waited for some kind of recognition. They may never have been terribly close in the past but there was no way that she could just leave him there in the condition that he was in. Slowly, his growling ceased but he was still glaring heatedly at her. ‘It’s a step,’ she thought.
Kagome quickly scanned the cavern again to see how much room he had to move and if there were any other exits when some of the light from her flashlight reflected back at her. She walked to the other side of the wide entrance she’d come through and found the source of the reflection. Sticking out of the ground with its sheath lying perpendicular to it on the ground was his father’s fang, the Tenseiga.
She reached out to pull it from the dirt, but a light rumbling began to echo from Sesshoumaru’s chest and she decided against removing it. ‘He must be using this as a ward so that nothing can find him…’
“Sesshoumaru,” she began softly so that she didn’t upset him. “Can I take a closer look at you now? I want to help you out of this cave.”
Sesshoumaru’s glare sharpened on her for a moment before he turned his gaze from her completely. Taking that as a reluctant “yes,” Kagome moved to his side once again and started taking note of just how bad of a condition he was in. She could now see that his ribcage was clearly visible as well as most of his vertebrae and joints. His coat wasn’t only dirty but had dulled due to poor health. She reached out to lightly touch the fur that she was sure had been like silk at one point, but she immediately cringed at the coarse, oily texture. Her eyes widened and she felt her stomach drop when her hand came back with a large portion of matted fur. She hadn’t even rubbed that hard!
Kagome felt a sense of panic set in when she realized that he was slowly dying. There was no way that he’d only been there a few decades; he was too far gone. He must have been there for at least a couple of centuries. To see Sesshoumaru, who was probably one of the most powerful demons in the world at one time, reduced to this made tears burn at the backs of Kagome’s eyes. It just wasn’t right.
Running back around to stand in front of him and taking in how sunken his eyes seemed now, Kagome tried talking to the great demon lord again. “I have to get you out of here, Sesshoumaru. I don’t see any other exits that you’ll fit through. Can you take your human form? I could help you move if you were smaller,” she explained as she walked over and pulled Tenseiga from the ground to sheath it. As soon as the sword was put away, Kagome was hit with what she recognized as Sesshoumaru’s demonic energy. She wasn’t the only one that felt it either, because she could hear the echo of Kouga’s wolves howling from the cave’s entrance.
She turned back around to see Sesshoumaru watching her with a wary eye. “Please Sesshoumaru…you have to try to get to a smaller form. If you stay here like this you’re going to die. It may not be for another few years, but I’m sure it will be sooner than you’d like.” She wanted to yell. She wanted to scream about what an idiot he was for staying there and letting himself get to this point. But that would probably only make things worse, so she kept her composure and tried her best to reason with him.
She watched as his body started to emit a dull glow and she was hopeful that she would be able to get him some help soon. But all hope died when the light gave a shudder and his energy fluctuated dangerously to the point of almost disappearing. She watched as his large eyes slowly closed before she ran up to him and patted his muzzle. “Sesshoumaru! No, don’t go to sleep. You have to stay awake so that we can figure this out!” There went that composure.
A soft growling was heard and she was truly worried that the sound was all he could do after trying to use that much energy. It must have been the reason he hadn’t left the cave in such a long time. He had unwittingly trapped himself within the caves after losing so much energy. Now he couldn’t get out and had no way to replenish the energy lost. Well she would fix that.
“Sesshoumaru, you just…just…” she wanted to say “stay here,” but what other choice did he have? “Look, I’ll be right back, okay??” And with that said she darted back to the cave’s entrance while sending a silent prayer that she hadn’t caused his premature death by asking him to expend what energy he had left.
As she ran from the cave and into the forest Kagome could hear Kouga’s wolves running beside and behind her. They guided her back to their campsite, and she began rummaging through her pack to see what she had with her. Turning to the black and grey canines she said, “I want you two to find something for him to eat. It needs to be something big; a deer maybe. If you absolutely have to, go to one of the farms near the village and get a cow or a couple of sheep. Bring whatever you find back to the cave, and we’ll meet you there.” Kagome then watched as the two ran into the darkness to carry out her orders.
She then set about disassembling her tent. Gathering up the poles, stakes, and rain tarp, she tied them in a bundle and slung it and everything else from the camp over her shoulder before grabbing the three buckets that she’d brought along. “Show me where the river is,” she said as the brown wolf left with her led the way. Once there, she filled all three buckets and handed one off to her companion before they started their way back towards the cave. It was still very dark and she was having trouble avoiding trees and rocks by the scattered moonlight alone. With both hands preoccupied with carrying the water, Kagome had been forced to put her flashlight away.
It wasn’t a surprise that the two carrying water made it back to the cave first. After a little coaxing and reassurance, Kagome was able to get the wolf to follow her into the cave where the giant dog demon lay. Sesshoumaru still had his eyes shut and appeared to be sleeping, but his shallow, ragged breathing had Kagome concerned. She set the buckets to the side and went about fixing a drinking pool. Tying the tent poles to the stakes and the corners of the rain tarp to the poles, she was able to make a giant water bowl once the stakes were firmly placed in the dirt.
Kagome realized that they had a long night ahead of them when she poured all three buckets of water into the tarp and they only made a small puddle in comparison. So, picking up the buckets again, she and the brown wolf made their way back to the river for more water. They had made three more trips when the other two wolves showed up at the caves with a large deer and wild boar in tow. With the other two wolves back, she was able to stay at the cave while they made the last couple of trips to the river for the last of the water they would need.
Her next step was to build a small fire so that her flashlight’s battery wouldn’t run down. She’d been using it since she set up the bowl, and she wasn’t sure how much longer it would last. She gathered wood from just outside the cave along with a few rocks for a small pit. It was easy to get things going with the lighter she carried around in her pocket. But now it was time for the really hard part: getting Sesshoumaru to eat and drink. Maybe if he got something in him, he’d have enough energy to reach a smaller form.
“Sesshoumaru,” she said gently as she approached his head. “I have some food and water for you, but you need to wake up.” One giant eye cracked open but soon closed as he remained still. “Come on, you have to work with me a little bit on this.” But he still didn’t move.
‘Fine…if you’re going to be that way,’ she thought before walking around to the right side of his head and bracing her back against his muzzle. She began to push hard with her legs hoping to get his face close enough to the water for him to only have to move a little bit. Only a small bit of progress had been made—about a foot or so—when the three wolves returned with their final buckets.
Kagome wasn’t sure if it was the presence of the wolves that caused him to stir or if he had just gotten fed up with her shoving his head, but Sesshoumaru finally moved on his own to drink the gathered water. This of course caused Kagome to fall backwards and flip over once before landing solidly on her back. She tried not to get annoyed and simply emptied the last few buckets into the growing pool.
Sitting down for a moment to catch her breath, Kagome thought about what was left and cringed. She definitely wasn’t looking forward to this. Unhooking the small ax from the side of her pack, she made her way over to the bodies of the animals that had been brought back for food. Kagome took a deep breath before lining up her swing, closing her eyes, and bringing the ax down with a heavy force to partially decapitate the deer. After another couple of swings and getting blood splatter on her arms and legs and clothes, she had the animal’s head separated from the body and continued the process until the creature was nothing more than four separate legs and two pieces of a torso.
She knew that Sesshoumaru could probably eat each animal in a single bite with those massive jaws, but she didn’t want to put too much strain on him. But on the other hand, there wasn’t any sense in cutting up smaller pieces of meat because then it would be too small and not worth chewing. So, ignoring the blood and the sickening feeling in her stomach, Kagome drug body parts over to Sesshoumaru a piece at a time and waited for him to open his mouth before throwing each bit inside. It was frightening to stand in front of all those teeth and fangs as she fed him, but it needed to be done.
She repeated the process with the boar and tried to ignore the dark red smears that seemed to now cover most of her body. She had seen Inuyasha clean and prepare animals that he’d caught before while they were traveling, but she had never taken part of it. It was an experience that made her stomach turn, and she decided that those would be some of the memories that she would have to repress at a later time.
Kagome was brought out of her thoughts as she felt long licks going up and down her legs. Kouga’s wolves were licking the blood off of her legs! ‘Okay,’ she thought. ‘It’s definitely time for a bath.’
Batting away her personal bath service Kagome announced, “I’m going to the river to wash up. One of you can come with me so that I know the way back, but I want the other two to stay here. If anything happens be sure to come get me immediately.” Picking up her flashlight and starting out of the cave Kagome caught a glimpse of brown by her side and briefly thought that this particular wolf must be getting attached to her after being with her on most of her little excursions that she only needed one companion for.
She was glad when they finally made it to the river and she could strip down and get the sticky, partially dried blood off of her skin. The water was frigid, but she didn’t have much choice in this situation. While she was watching the red water flow away from her, Kagome was finally able to take a moment and let everything absorb into her mind.
She had found Sesshoumaru. The great demon lord who had vanished centuries ago was lying in a cave a few hundred feet from where she was now. Inuyasha was going to flip.
“Oh God…Inuyasha…” She thought aloud. It was the first time she’d thought about her friend since her discovery. But in her defense she’d probably been in a mild state of shock.
Once her bath was finished she dressed in some clean clothes and made her way back to the cave thanks to the guidance of the brown wolf that had tagged along. Sesshoumaru had finished his food and water and apparently gone back to sleep by the time she returned. Opting for the less bloody side of the cave, Kagome settled down for the night against the stone wall and let her mind swarm with thoughts and ideas on how to get Sesshoumaru back to her Jeep after she got him out of the cave. The trees were too thick for her to drive to the cave and she was willing to bet that Sesshoumaru wouldn’t be able to walk that far.
Her mind continued to race until she eventually fell asleep sitting up with three wolves lounging around her.
She was awoken a few hours later by a wet nose nuzzling her neck and cheek. Blinking sleepily a few times, she was able to focus her vision and see what was going on. The black nose continued with its light pushes until she finally came around and noticed that Sesshoumaru’s giant body had been condensed to something much smaller but still not humanoid. He still looked like a dog, but he was now about the size of a young horse. It would have to do.
She walked over to kneel next to the unmoving demon and lay a hand on his side. She could feel a faint, fluttering heartbeat and his shallow breaths. Somehow he looked even thinner now that he was smaller despite having eaten the previous night. There was only one way that she was getting him out of the cave.
Disassembling the empty make-shift water bowl allowed Kagome to flip the rain tarp over so that the dry side was facing up. She put it as close to Sesshoumaru as she could and got ready to try to move his body. It took a few minutes of looking around his form, but she finally decided that the best course would be to work her hands under the front portion of his body and drag him onto the tarp. This of course elicited much growling and a weak snarl, but it was for his own good.
Kagome then tied the front corners of the tarp to two of the wolves’ necks using some rope and gathered her things along with the Tenseiga. When they made it out of the cave she could see that it was only an hour or so after dawn. Their pace was slow as they made their way back to the overgrown road and Kagome’s Jeep; she didn’t want Sesshoumaru to slide off of the tarp.
As they drew closer to the road Kagome noticed a small ledge probably caused by erosion not far from where her Jeep should have been parked. “Take him over there and I’ll drive up to meet you,” she directed to the wolves before taking off on her own. She slung her things into the passenger seat and quickly started the vehicle before taking off up the road another hundred feet or so. It took almost hitting a tree and a multi-point turn, but Kagome was finally able to line the back of her vehicle up with the ledge.
Laying her backseats down and opening the rear door as far as it would go, she carefully finished backing up until she was as close as she could get. It was a little bit of a drop, but she was able to finish pulling Sesshoumaru into the storage area before pulling forward again to shut the door and get the convertible top up and in place. “Alright guys,” she addressed her little helpers. “You can go back to Kouga now, but don’t tell him about any of this. I don’t want the others to know just yet, alright? If you keep this our little secret I promise to bring you some steaks later in the week for being good boys.” She knew that her deal had been accepted when she was tackled and assaulted with wet tongues. “Okay, okay! You get going. I really need to get him back to my house so I can take care of him better.”
She watched the three run off and disappear into the underbrush before starting her way back down the mountain and then to the highway. This trip definitely hadn’t gone the way she had been expecting…
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Using a back driveway usually only used for delivery trucks during festivals, Kagome pulled in behind the main buildings of the shrine and quickly parked. Sesshoumaru had been silent during the drive and she was starting to assume the worst. When she got around to the back and opened the door, her face instantly fell. He was asleep. His breathing was shallow but even and she could see his eyes moving beneath the lids. Looks like Sesshoumaru was like everyone else and fell asleep on long car rides.
The fresh air alone was probably helping his breathing. There was no telling what was in the stagnant air of that cave. Kagome grabbed a few boards out of the storage room and propped them against her bumper to act as a ramp before tugging on the tarp and sliding Sesshoumaru to the ground. He opened his eyes slightly and she noticed that they weren’t the red of earlier but a deep gold. “You’re at my house in the city now. I’m going to take care of you,” she said soothingly.
Sesshoumaru didn’t make any motion to acknowledge her, but still kept his eyes on her until she ran into the house. Kagome emerged a few minutes later with a dog brush she’d planned on giving Inuyasha as a gag-gift but decided to put to better use. She wanted to give him a bath a little later, but there was no sense in clogging up the drain when she could groom away the shedding fur now.
She sat down beside him and began to slowly and gently brush out his coat. There were several tangles and mats that she had to work through and things were going fairly well until she got up to his shoulder blades. She didn’t feel one knot until it was too late and it gave a sharp tug.
Kagome wasn’t aware of the tangle or the vicious snarl Sesshoumaru let out until a few moments later. What currently held her attention was her left arm which resided between Sesshoumaru’s jaws and was being pierced by his sharp fangs. He had moved much faster than she would have expected him to move and didn’t have time to pull away before he clamped down on her. There was a silent moment of shock before the pain set in. He was easily able to break skin and cause her blood to flow, but luckily he was still too weak to break the bone. She wanted to jerk her arm away, but knew that it would only tear her skin and possibly damage his teeth as well. So she fought through the pain and nausea of watching her blood fill his mouth before flowing down his chin and dripping to the ground. “S-Sesshoumaru,” she stuttered, “let go of my arm.” She wanted to cry due to the pain. It was getting harder for her to keep her breathing normal the longer that he held on.
He showed no signs of letting go and instead bit down a little harder as if to prove a point while growling and showing his teeth. So she reached out with a shaking hand and gripped down on either side of his jaw before squeezing lightly. His mouth reluctantly opened and she quickly pulled both of her hands away and scooted back a few feet. He was glaring at her as his eyes began to get a pink tint around the edges. The farther she pushed away from him, the calmer he became until she finally went inside the house.
She watched from the window above the kitchen sink as she rinsed her arm and quickly examined the deep puncture wounds left behind. Reaching into one of the top cabinets, Kagome pulled out a first-aid kit with bandages and proceeded to wrap the area. She frowned when small spots of red already began to show through the white gauze. Great, she was going to have to go to the emergency room for stitches.
But she couldn’t just leave Sesshoumaru lying outside. There was no telling what would happen if he was left alone in the middle of Tokyo.
Kagome watched for a few more minutes as he tried to stand on shaky legs but didn’t get far beyond a sitting position before falling back down. She walked back outside and watched him cautiously before slowly approaching him. He was still glaring at her, but he’d stopped growling. She reached down to grab the tarp as best as she could with an injured arm and began to drag him inside the house. It was moments like these that she was glad that she lived alone.
While she had been in college her grandfather had received a call and been asked to take over the shrine in another city since Kagome was now old enough to take over the duties at Sunset Shrine. From what she’d been told, the priest from the other shrine had died unexpectedly and there wasn’t anyone else in the area to care for it. Her mother and brother had moved with him so that they could help much like they did at their shrine in Tokyo. It also sounded like he would be taking on an apprentice to pass the shrine to one day.
But once Kagome had her new guest inside the house, she took him to one of the guest rooms on the first floor. She left him on the tarp for now, but she brought in a bowl of water and set it near him so that he wouldn’t be thirsty while she was gone. “I’ll be back soon, okay? Please don’t tear anything up.”
She walked out of the room and shut the door but thought better of the situation and headed to her office instead of the back door. She wrote up a few containment sutras before posting one on either side of the door and then on the door itself. She then went outside and stuck one on each of the windows to the room. Kagome wasn’t taking any chances at this point.
Driving to the hospital was an experience. Her bandages were a nice shade of crimson now and were becoming damp to the touch. She didn’t have to wait long when she stumbled through the emergency room doors. With the amount of blood that was on the ground at the shrine, down the sink, and now running down her arm again, Kagome was starting to get a little light-headed. The stitches had gone well as they closed up the holes in her arm, they’d given her something to drink to dispel the dizziness, and she was on her way back home within a couple of hours.
All was quiet when she stepped through the door and she was hoping that she could take that as a good sign. She slowly opened the guest room door and saw that Sesshoumaru was still lying on the tarp she’d left him on, wide awake and looking directly at her.
Not wanting to get too close this time, Kagome simply swung the bedroom door open and backed up until she came in contact with the hallway wall. She slid down until she was sitting on the floor with one leg extended straight out and the other pulled up against her. From there she proceeded to have a staring contest with the golden-eyed dog lying in front of her. His eyes no longer held the anger and contempt she’d seen for the past eighteen hours or so. In fact, they didn’t hold much of anything. His eyes reminded her of how he looked five centuries ago. It served as a clear reminder of who she was dealing with. This wasn’t some injured stray that she’d picked up. This was Lord Sesshoumaru of the West. At least that’s who he used to be.
Kagome realized for the first time just how much things had changed in the world since the last time that he’d seen it. There were so many things that he’d missed, so many things that he would need to learn or re-learn. She highly doubted that Inuyasha was going to be happy about his brother’s return, much less want to teach him. But Sesshoumaru didn’t really know anyone in this time except for herself and Inuyasha. He had met Shippou and Kouga a few times, but not enough to be willing to learn anything from them.
The weight of the act of taking Sesshoumaru from the cave in that mountain was finally setting in, and Kagome wasn’t sure if she could handle it. She placed her face in her hands trying to will away the coming headache. After a few deep breaths to clear her mind, Kagome drug her hands down her face and stared at the demon lord once again.
What had she gotten herself into?
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AN: I hope everyone liked this chapter and weren’t disappointed! Sesshoumaru was naughty biting Kagome like that. But I suppose it was more of an instinctual reaction than anything…Well, feedback is appreciated but otherwise I guess I’ll just see you guys next time around!!
Disclaimer: I don’t own, please don’t sue!
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True Legends
Chapter 2
“There is a legend. And to protest is daft.” -- Peter O’Toole
Kagome could feel her heart hammering inside her chest as that giant red and teal eye seemed to stare straight through to her very soul. ‘Sesshoumaru…what are you doing here?’ She thought.
Taking a slow, cautious step to the side but never taking her eyes off of him, Kagome tried to take a better look at the large dog demon. He was lying down but was still massive. She turned on the spotlight feature of her flashlight to get a better look at him, and what she saw both shocked and saddened. Not only was his coat dirty but he’d gotten dangerously thin and appeared malnourishment. “What happened to you??” She whispered more to herself than to him, but she certainly got an answer.
Kagome quickly pressed herself against the stone wall as a giant set of teeth snapped at her. But when she saw him lay his head on the ground after the quick movement she knew that at this point he was much more bark than bite even if he was still growling and snarling at her. He didn’t have the energy to do much more than growl, but she could see the killing intent in his eyes that followed her every movement. “Sesshoumaru…do you not remember me?” She asked softly.
He let out a snarl and swiped a giant paw at her as his eyes grew a deeper shade of crimson. Her presence was making him angrier with each passing moment, but he couldn’t rip her to pieces like he wished. Even if he did have the energy to fully attack her, he couldn’t do so in this form. As large as the cavern was, Sesshoumaru’s true form left little room for excessive movement.
Making sure that she was out of his range of movement, Kagome tried talking to him again. “Sesshoumaru, do you remember me? My name’s Kagome. I traveled with your brother five hundred years ago when we were searching for the jewel shards and Naraku.” When he lunged at her as much as he could while snapping at her once more, Kagome knew that he didn’t recognize her and she was going to have to try a different approach. “Look,” she said as she slowly pulled a small, pink jewel on the chain she wore out from under her shirt. “See? You may not remember me anymore, but you have to know what this is. After we killed Naraku we got all of the shards together and then the girl that fused them together disappeared from the field. I was that girl. Do you remember me now?”
She held her breath and waited for some kind of recognition. They may never have been terribly close in the past but there was no way that she could just leave him there in the condition that he was in. Slowly, his growling ceased but he was still glaring heatedly at her. ‘It’s a step,’ she thought.
Kagome quickly scanned the cavern again to see how much room he had to move and if there were any other exits when some of the light from her flashlight reflected back at her. She walked to the other side of the wide entrance she’d come through and found the source of the reflection. Sticking out of the ground with its sheath lying perpendicular to it on the ground was his father’s fang, the Tenseiga.
She reached out to pull it from the dirt, but a light rumbling began to echo from Sesshoumaru’s chest and she decided against removing it. ‘He must be using this as a ward so that nothing can find him…’
“Sesshoumaru,” she began softly so that she didn’t upset him. “Can I take a closer look at you now? I want to help you out of this cave.”
Sesshoumaru’s glare sharpened on her for a moment before he turned his gaze from her completely. Taking that as a reluctant “yes,” Kagome moved to his side once again and started taking note of just how bad of a condition he was in. She could now see that his ribcage was clearly visible as well as most of his vertebrae and joints. His coat wasn’t only dirty but had dulled due to poor health. She reached out to lightly touch the fur that she was sure had been like silk at one point, but she immediately cringed at the coarse, oily texture. Her eyes widened and she felt her stomach drop when her hand came back with a large portion of matted fur. She hadn’t even rubbed that hard!
Kagome felt a sense of panic set in when she realized that he was slowly dying. There was no way that he’d only been there a few decades; he was too far gone. He must have been there for at least a couple of centuries. To see Sesshoumaru, who was probably one of the most powerful demons in the world at one time, reduced to this made tears burn at the backs of Kagome’s eyes. It just wasn’t right.
Running back around to stand in front of him and taking in how sunken his eyes seemed now, Kagome tried talking to the great demon lord again. “I have to get you out of here, Sesshoumaru. I don’t see any other exits that you’ll fit through. Can you take your human form? I could help you move if you were smaller,” she explained as she walked over and pulled Tenseiga from the ground to sheath it. As soon as the sword was put away, Kagome was hit with what she recognized as Sesshoumaru’s demonic energy. She wasn’t the only one that felt it either, because she could hear the echo of Kouga’s wolves howling from the cave’s entrance.
She turned back around to see Sesshoumaru watching her with a wary eye. “Please Sesshoumaru…you have to try to get to a smaller form. If you stay here like this you’re going to die. It may not be for another few years, but I’m sure it will be sooner than you’d like.” She wanted to yell. She wanted to scream about what an idiot he was for staying there and letting himself get to this point. But that would probably only make things worse, so she kept her composure and tried her best to reason with him.
She watched as his body started to emit a dull glow and she was hopeful that she would be able to get him some help soon. But all hope died when the light gave a shudder and his energy fluctuated dangerously to the point of almost disappearing. She watched as his large eyes slowly closed before she ran up to him and patted his muzzle. “Sesshoumaru! No, don’t go to sleep. You have to stay awake so that we can figure this out!” There went that composure.
A soft growling was heard and she was truly worried that the sound was all he could do after trying to use that much energy. It must have been the reason he hadn’t left the cave in such a long time. He had unwittingly trapped himself within the caves after losing so much energy. Now he couldn’t get out and had no way to replenish the energy lost. Well she would fix that.
“Sesshoumaru, you just…just…” she wanted to say “stay here,” but what other choice did he have? “Look, I’ll be right back, okay??” And with that said she darted back to the cave’s entrance while sending a silent prayer that she hadn’t caused his premature death by asking him to expend what energy he had left.
As she ran from the cave and into the forest Kagome could hear Kouga’s wolves running beside and behind her. They guided her back to their campsite, and she began rummaging through her pack to see what she had with her. Turning to the black and grey canines she said, “I want you two to find something for him to eat. It needs to be something big; a deer maybe. If you absolutely have to, go to one of the farms near the village and get a cow or a couple of sheep. Bring whatever you find back to the cave, and we’ll meet you there.” Kagome then watched as the two ran into the darkness to carry out her orders.
She then set about disassembling her tent. Gathering up the poles, stakes, and rain tarp, she tied them in a bundle and slung it and everything else from the camp over her shoulder before grabbing the three buckets that she’d brought along. “Show me where the river is,” she said as the brown wolf left with her led the way. Once there, she filled all three buckets and handed one off to her companion before they started their way back towards the cave. It was still very dark and she was having trouble avoiding trees and rocks by the scattered moonlight alone. With both hands preoccupied with carrying the water, Kagome had been forced to put her flashlight away.
It wasn’t a surprise that the two carrying water made it back to the cave first. After a little coaxing and reassurance, Kagome was able to get the wolf to follow her into the cave where the giant dog demon lay. Sesshoumaru still had his eyes shut and appeared to be sleeping, but his shallow, ragged breathing had Kagome concerned. She set the buckets to the side and went about fixing a drinking pool. Tying the tent poles to the stakes and the corners of the rain tarp to the poles, she was able to make a giant water bowl once the stakes were firmly placed in the dirt.
Kagome realized that they had a long night ahead of them when she poured all three buckets of water into the tarp and they only made a small puddle in comparison. So, picking up the buckets again, she and the brown wolf made their way back to the river for more water. They had made three more trips when the other two wolves showed up at the caves with a large deer and wild boar in tow. With the other two wolves back, she was able to stay at the cave while they made the last couple of trips to the river for the last of the water they would need.
Her next step was to build a small fire so that her flashlight’s battery wouldn’t run down. She’d been using it since she set up the bowl, and she wasn’t sure how much longer it would last. She gathered wood from just outside the cave along with a few rocks for a small pit. It was easy to get things going with the lighter she carried around in her pocket. But now it was time for the really hard part: getting Sesshoumaru to eat and drink. Maybe if he got something in him, he’d have enough energy to reach a smaller form.
“Sesshoumaru,” she said gently as she approached his head. “I have some food and water for you, but you need to wake up.” One giant eye cracked open but soon closed as he remained still. “Come on, you have to work with me a little bit on this.” But he still didn’t move.
‘Fine…if you’re going to be that way,’ she thought before walking around to the right side of his head and bracing her back against his muzzle. She began to push hard with her legs hoping to get his face close enough to the water for him to only have to move a little bit. Only a small bit of progress had been made—about a foot or so—when the three wolves returned with their final buckets.
Kagome wasn’t sure if it was the presence of the wolves that caused him to stir or if he had just gotten fed up with her shoving his head, but Sesshoumaru finally moved on his own to drink the gathered water. This of course caused Kagome to fall backwards and flip over once before landing solidly on her back. She tried not to get annoyed and simply emptied the last few buckets into the growing pool.
Sitting down for a moment to catch her breath, Kagome thought about what was left and cringed. She definitely wasn’t looking forward to this. Unhooking the small ax from the side of her pack, she made her way over to the bodies of the animals that had been brought back for food. Kagome took a deep breath before lining up her swing, closing her eyes, and bringing the ax down with a heavy force to partially decapitate the deer. After another couple of swings and getting blood splatter on her arms and legs and clothes, she had the animal’s head separated from the body and continued the process until the creature was nothing more than four separate legs and two pieces of a torso.
She knew that Sesshoumaru could probably eat each animal in a single bite with those massive jaws, but she didn’t want to put too much strain on him. But on the other hand, there wasn’t any sense in cutting up smaller pieces of meat because then it would be too small and not worth chewing. So, ignoring the blood and the sickening feeling in her stomach, Kagome drug body parts over to Sesshoumaru a piece at a time and waited for him to open his mouth before throwing each bit inside. It was frightening to stand in front of all those teeth and fangs as she fed him, but it needed to be done.
She repeated the process with the boar and tried to ignore the dark red smears that seemed to now cover most of her body. She had seen Inuyasha clean and prepare animals that he’d caught before while they were traveling, but she had never taken part of it. It was an experience that made her stomach turn, and she decided that those would be some of the memories that she would have to repress at a later time.
Kagome was brought out of her thoughts as she felt long licks going up and down her legs. Kouga’s wolves were licking the blood off of her legs! ‘Okay,’ she thought. ‘It’s definitely time for a bath.’
Batting away her personal bath service Kagome announced, “I’m going to the river to wash up. One of you can come with me so that I know the way back, but I want the other two to stay here. If anything happens be sure to come get me immediately.” Picking up her flashlight and starting out of the cave Kagome caught a glimpse of brown by her side and briefly thought that this particular wolf must be getting attached to her after being with her on most of her little excursions that she only needed one companion for.
She was glad when they finally made it to the river and she could strip down and get the sticky, partially dried blood off of her skin. The water was frigid, but she didn’t have much choice in this situation. While she was watching the red water flow away from her, Kagome was finally able to take a moment and let everything absorb into her mind.
She had found Sesshoumaru. The great demon lord who had vanished centuries ago was lying in a cave a few hundred feet from where she was now. Inuyasha was going to flip.
“Oh God…Inuyasha…” She thought aloud. It was the first time she’d thought about her friend since her discovery. But in her defense she’d probably been in a mild state of shock.
Once her bath was finished she dressed in some clean clothes and made her way back to the cave thanks to the guidance of the brown wolf that had tagged along. Sesshoumaru had finished his food and water and apparently gone back to sleep by the time she returned. Opting for the less bloody side of the cave, Kagome settled down for the night against the stone wall and let her mind swarm with thoughts and ideas on how to get Sesshoumaru back to her Jeep after she got him out of the cave. The trees were too thick for her to drive to the cave and she was willing to bet that Sesshoumaru wouldn’t be able to walk that far.
Her mind continued to race until she eventually fell asleep sitting up with three wolves lounging around her.
She was awoken a few hours later by a wet nose nuzzling her neck and cheek. Blinking sleepily a few times, she was able to focus her vision and see what was going on. The black nose continued with its light pushes until she finally came around and noticed that Sesshoumaru’s giant body had been condensed to something much smaller but still not humanoid. He still looked like a dog, but he was now about the size of a young horse. It would have to do.
She walked over to kneel next to the unmoving demon and lay a hand on his side. She could feel a faint, fluttering heartbeat and his shallow breaths. Somehow he looked even thinner now that he was smaller despite having eaten the previous night. There was only one way that she was getting him out of the cave.
Disassembling the empty make-shift water bowl allowed Kagome to flip the rain tarp over so that the dry side was facing up. She put it as close to Sesshoumaru as she could and got ready to try to move his body. It took a few minutes of looking around his form, but she finally decided that the best course would be to work her hands under the front portion of his body and drag him onto the tarp. This of course elicited much growling and a weak snarl, but it was for his own good.
Kagome then tied the front corners of the tarp to two of the wolves’ necks using some rope and gathered her things along with the Tenseiga. When they made it out of the cave she could see that it was only an hour or so after dawn. Their pace was slow as they made their way back to the overgrown road and Kagome’s Jeep; she didn’t want Sesshoumaru to slide off of the tarp.
As they drew closer to the road Kagome noticed a small ledge probably caused by erosion not far from where her Jeep should have been parked. “Take him over there and I’ll drive up to meet you,” she directed to the wolves before taking off on her own. She slung her things into the passenger seat and quickly started the vehicle before taking off up the road another hundred feet or so. It took almost hitting a tree and a multi-point turn, but Kagome was finally able to line the back of her vehicle up with the ledge.
Laying her backseats down and opening the rear door as far as it would go, she carefully finished backing up until she was as close as she could get. It was a little bit of a drop, but she was able to finish pulling Sesshoumaru into the storage area before pulling forward again to shut the door and get the convertible top up and in place. “Alright guys,” she addressed her little helpers. “You can go back to Kouga now, but don’t tell him about any of this. I don’t want the others to know just yet, alright? If you keep this our little secret I promise to bring you some steaks later in the week for being good boys.” She knew that her deal had been accepted when she was tackled and assaulted with wet tongues. “Okay, okay! You get going. I really need to get him back to my house so I can take care of him better.”
She watched the three run off and disappear into the underbrush before starting her way back down the mountain and then to the highway. This trip definitely hadn’t gone the way she had been expecting…
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Using a back driveway usually only used for delivery trucks during festivals, Kagome pulled in behind the main buildings of the shrine and quickly parked. Sesshoumaru had been silent during the drive and she was starting to assume the worst. When she got around to the back and opened the door, her face instantly fell. He was asleep. His breathing was shallow but even and she could see his eyes moving beneath the lids. Looks like Sesshoumaru was like everyone else and fell asleep on long car rides.
The fresh air alone was probably helping his breathing. There was no telling what was in the stagnant air of that cave. Kagome grabbed a few boards out of the storage room and propped them against her bumper to act as a ramp before tugging on the tarp and sliding Sesshoumaru to the ground. He opened his eyes slightly and she noticed that they weren’t the red of earlier but a deep gold. “You’re at my house in the city now. I’m going to take care of you,” she said soothingly.
Sesshoumaru didn’t make any motion to acknowledge her, but still kept his eyes on her until she ran into the house. Kagome emerged a few minutes later with a dog brush she’d planned on giving Inuyasha as a gag-gift but decided to put to better use. She wanted to give him a bath a little later, but there was no sense in clogging up the drain when she could groom away the shedding fur now.
She sat down beside him and began to slowly and gently brush out his coat. There were several tangles and mats that she had to work through and things were going fairly well until she got up to his shoulder blades. She didn’t feel one knot until it was too late and it gave a sharp tug.
Kagome wasn’t aware of the tangle or the vicious snarl Sesshoumaru let out until a few moments later. What currently held her attention was her left arm which resided between Sesshoumaru’s jaws and was being pierced by his sharp fangs. He had moved much faster than she would have expected him to move and didn’t have time to pull away before he clamped down on her. There was a silent moment of shock before the pain set in. He was easily able to break skin and cause her blood to flow, but luckily he was still too weak to break the bone. She wanted to jerk her arm away, but knew that it would only tear her skin and possibly damage his teeth as well. So she fought through the pain and nausea of watching her blood fill his mouth before flowing down his chin and dripping to the ground. “S-Sesshoumaru,” she stuttered, “let go of my arm.” She wanted to cry due to the pain. It was getting harder for her to keep her breathing normal the longer that he held on.
He showed no signs of letting go and instead bit down a little harder as if to prove a point while growling and showing his teeth. So she reached out with a shaking hand and gripped down on either side of his jaw before squeezing lightly. His mouth reluctantly opened and she quickly pulled both of her hands away and scooted back a few feet. He was glaring at her as his eyes began to get a pink tint around the edges. The farther she pushed away from him, the calmer he became until she finally went inside the house.
She watched from the window above the kitchen sink as she rinsed her arm and quickly examined the deep puncture wounds left behind. Reaching into one of the top cabinets, Kagome pulled out a first-aid kit with bandages and proceeded to wrap the area. She frowned when small spots of red already began to show through the white gauze. Great, she was going to have to go to the emergency room for stitches.
But she couldn’t just leave Sesshoumaru lying outside. There was no telling what would happen if he was left alone in the middle of Tokyo.
Kagome watched for a few more minutes as he tried to stand on shaky legs but didn’t get far beyond a sitting position before falling back down. She walked back outside and watched him cautiously before slowly approaching him. He was still glaring at her, but he’d stopped growling. She reached down to grab the tarp as best as she could with an injured arm and began to drag him inside the house. It was moments like these that she was glad that she lived alone.
While she had been in college her grandfather had received a call and been asked to take over the shrine in another city since Kagome was now old enough to take over the duties at Sunset Shrine. From what she’d been told, the priest from the other shrine had died unexpectedly and there wasn’t anyone else in the area to care for it. Her mother and brother had moved with him so that they could help much like they did at their shrine in Tokyo. It also sounded like he would be taking on an apprentice to pass the shrine to one day.
But once Kagome had her new guest inside the house, she took him to one of the guest rooms on the first floor. She left him on the tarp for now, but she brought in a bowl of water and set it near him so that he wouldn’t be thirsty while she was gone. “I’ll be back soon, okay? Please don’t tear anything up.”
She walked out of the room and shut the door but thought better of the situation and headed to her office instead of the back door. She wrote up a few containment sutras before posting one on either side of the door and then on the door itself. She then went outside and stuck one on each of the windows to the room. Kagome wasn’t taking any chances at this point.
Driving to the hospital was an experience. Her bandages were a nice shade of crimson now and were becoming damp to the touch. She didn’t have to wait long when she stumbled through the emergency room doors. With the amount of blood that was on the ground at the shrine, down the sink, and now running down her arm again, Kagome was starting to get a little light-headed. The stitches had gone well as they closed up the holes in her arm, they’d given her something to drink to dispel the dizziness, and she was on her way back home within a couple of hours.
All was quiet when she stepped through the door and she was hoping that she could take that as a good sign. She slowly opened the guest room door and saw that Sesshoumaru was still lying on the tarp she’d left him on, wide awake and looking directly at her.
Not wanting to get too close this time, Kagome simply swung the bedroom door open and backed up until she came in contact with the hallway wall. She slid down until she was sitting on the floor with one leg extended straight out and the other pulled up against her. From there she proceeded to have a staring contest with the golden-eyed dog lying in front of her. His eyes no longer held the anger and contempt she’d seen for the past eighteen hours or so. In fact, they didn’t hold much of anything. His eyes reminded her of how he looked five centuries ago. It served as a clear reminder of who she was dealing with. This wasn’t some injured stray that she’d picked up. This was Lord Sesshoumaru of the West. At least that’s who he used to be.
Kagome realized for the first time just how much things had changed in the world since the last time that he’d seen it. There were so many things that he’d missed, so many things that he would need to learn or re-learn. She highly doubted that Inuyasha was going to be happy about his brother’s return, much less want to teach him. But Sesshoumaru didn’t really know anyone in this time except for herself and Inuyasha. He had met Shippou and Kouga a few times, but not enough to be willing to learn anything from them.
The weight of the act of taking Sesshoumaru from the cave in that mountain was finally setting in, and Kagome wasn’t sure if she could handle it. She placed her face in her hands trying to will away the coming headache. After a few deep breaths to clear her mind, Kagome drug her hands down her face and stared at the demon lord once again.
What had she gotten herself into?
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AN: I hope everyone liked this chapter and weren’t disappointed! Sesshoumaru was naughty biting Kagome like that. But I suppose it was more of an instinctual reaction than anything…Well, feedback is appreciated but otherwise I guess I’ll just see you guys next time around!!
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