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savethelastdan · 2 years

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SessKagu Week Day 1: Romance/Enemies to Lovers

“So you are the great Lord Sesshomaru.”

He half-turns from the table where his strategy is laid out in miniature form to face the giant double doors of his war-room. A woman stands in the shadows, fanning herself with a blood-stained tessen.

In the past ten years, many yokai have come to his fortress’ door. They beg for aid or to offer themselves up for conscription, all desperate to avoid the poison that comes from warring with Naraku. But as she enters armed and unannounced, she must have neither intention.

“I am Kagura of the wind.” She steps forward in bare feet. A pair of feathers adorn the hair coiled atop her head; she looks not much younger than himself, though no less battle-worn. “I figured you’d refuse my request for an audience, so I had to slip in quietly.”

Her scent is strangely bitter, though it only takes him a moment to decipher why. Sesshomaru unsheathes his sword. “A soldier of Naraku’s has no business here.”

The fan drops to her side; however, her eyes lock onto his grip on Bakusaiga and stay there. “Calm down, I didn’t come here to fight.”

“Whatever your reasons, I will not hear them.” He is glad now that Rin was sent to bed early, after refusing to accept that the wooden blocks he uses for plotting military tactics are not toys. Jaken will still be in her quarters, arguing over the semantics of a bedtime story. Sesshomaru’s child will remain safe. “Leave, or be sent back to your master in pieces.”

Frustration blooms scarlet across her face. “Look, I risked a lot coming here, the least you could do is hear me out! Look - “

The short movement of her arm is no match for his speed. Kagura grunts as they hit the wall; his arm presses hard across her chest.

Up close, Sesshomaru notes several details that generally would be dismissed as meaningless: Lips stained with red paint, like the dancers in tea-houses that his mother would take him to, before war consumed his life. Eyes in a matching color, hot with desperation and rimmed with dark lashes. The flutter of her throat, against the side of his wrist.

“Asshole,” she wheezes. Her hand pushes into the space between their lips. Something glitters between the press of her thumb and forefinger - a shard of the Shikon jewel. “If you’re so strong, take this and kill Naraku for good, won’t you?”

It appears that Lord Sesshomaru can still be surprised. It is only due to years of careful practice in controlling his own features that it does not show. A piece of the world’s most powerful force, glimmering in front of his very eyes…but it is a fact that there is something wrong, something evil, about the jewel’s aura. He cannot trust it. And he certainly cannot trust her.

“My enemy is indeed Naraku,” he growls finally, “but so are those who do his bidding. You, with the blood of my people on your hands, have no right to ask anything of me.”

With that, Sesshomaru pushes away from the wall. Kagura coughs and crosses her fan arm over her chest in what looks like a reflexive motion. He waits, expecting her to fall to her knees, or even faint, from the force of his demonic aura. Instead, she takes the effort to stand straighter.

“You useless coward,” she hisses with a poisonous glare. “I can’t be destroyed that easily.”

Sesshomaru rolls his eyes; she was caught easily enough off guard by his attack. But it is not he who will suffer, if Naraku’s soldiers have an inflated sense of self-importance. “Leave. I will not ask a third time.”

She does, though not before slamming the door so hard that it hangs off its hinges. He stares at it for a while, strangely discomfited, until he can finally turn back to work.

Naraku revives the Shichinintai, and takes control of Mount Hakurei. Before sunrise, Sesshomaru tasks Jaken with Rin’s care, and leaves for the battlefield.

Soldiers from either side clash at the mountain’s base. The overwhelming scent of blood and dust in the air stings the back of Sesshomaru’s throat, but he pushes through nonetheless. Something within the mountain roars. When he looks back to check for an avalanche, Inuyasha runs past with his wife, the raven-haired archer, on his back.

“Took you long enough, ya bastard!”

A crowd of half-merged yokai, some singed from purified arrows, follow his brother’s path. Sesshomaru strikes out to send a line of them collapsing to the ground in pain. Then, in the sea of bodies and clashing weapons, he spies her.

Kagura whips through the carnage like she is the air itself. With one arm, she puppeteers his own fallen men against one another. Rage burns through his heart to witness it; he races to stop the sweep of her fan by plunging his fist through her rib cage.

Kagura gasps sharply; the muscles in her neck go taut with pain. But there is no beating muscle beneath Sesshomaru’s fingers. He glances down to see that within the rush of blood erupting around his wrist, there is only a fine mist of miasma.

She has no heart. Yet she walks, and talks, and fights like a regular demon. It cannot be possible -

Kagura inhales again. But instead of the scream that Sesshomaru expects, a cackle of laughter bursts from her lips.

“Didn’t I warn you? I won’t be destroyed, unless he desires it!”

One of her lungs shudders against his thumb. Chilled to the bone, Sesshomaru rips his hand free from her body. Kagura is still laughing as she collapses.

The point of her fan stabs into his side; but Sesshomaru still catches her.

The battle ends when Naraku’s demons retreat into the fortress. Sesshomaru escorts the wounded to the nearest forest. If any of the soldiers question who the woman is, that their Lord carries back the whole way, none of them are brave enough to question it.

She regains consciousness on the second day. None of his healers will go near a being that smells so clearly of Naraku except for his brother’s wife, who has too many to tend to as it is. Thus, Sesshomaru spends more time in her tent than any other.

“I was created to serve him,” Kagura explains. With one finger, she prods the newly-regenerating flesh at the edge of her wound. “So long as he has my heart, I am forced to do his bidding.”

Sesshomaru watches her with clear annoyance. He does not like how slowly her body is healing; is it because she is too far from the remaining piece of her flesh? In comparison, the cut on his side, made by her own weapon, is practically invisible now.

The wind witch winces as her fingernail scrapes against a spot of dried blood and continues, “If he dies, then I can finally be free. Like the wind.”

Part of him wants to ask her why she couldn’t have mentioned this, before. But his ruthless reputation cannot be denied. No matter what painful truths she’d confessed, he probably would have rejected her, nonetheless.

It has been two days, and he can still smell her blood under his claws. Sharply, Sesshomaru grips her wrist and pulls it away from the wound.

“You will only make it worse.”

“It’s your fault in the first place!” Kagura snaps, yanking her arm free from his grasp. “Since we’re on opposite sides of a war, I won’t judge you this time. But if you try to kill me again, at least get Naraku first. He deserves to go to hell long before I do - ”

“How many times,” Sesshomaru interrupts, “have you attempted to seek aid from Naraku’s enemies?”

Kagura frowns. That hand returns to the same spot on her chest, but she jerks it away before he can touch her again. “I ran away probably half a dozen times. But you’re the only person I ever offered that shard to. Who else is powerful enough to defeat such a monster?”

He was afraid of that. But now that he has his answer, Sesshomaru feels there is no other choice.

It takes her two more days to heal completely. So, for a second time, Kagura returns to Naraku’s side. But it is not like before.

Sesshomaru informs her of a particular path deep within the forest. He refuses to let her leave until she has repeated the route over and over, to commit its exact location in her memory. It vexes her so much that she considers gouging his eyes out.

“We will meet there on the moonless night,” he finally explains. “The Shikon jewel is of no interest to me. I will only accept information about Naraku’s movements.”

Kagura stretches her face to the sky. Her eyes flutter shut, as the wind caresses her face. “So now you want me to be your spy?”

“Would you rather continue to be Naraku’s hostage?”

Her eyes snap open again. “Fair enough. But in return, you ensure I get the freedom that I’m owed. I won’t risk my life for nothing.”

Once, someone had told Sesshomaru that sharing secrets could tie a pair of souls together. He hadn’t understood at the time, as he’d been too young to build intimacy with anyone outside of his immediate family, and too proud to imagine why he might want to.

Each month, he and Kagura meet in the dark. Her reports on Naraku are straightforward and concise. Any information that he has for her - upcoming skirmishes to avoid, for example - is delivered the same way. Yet, with all the danger it must take to slip away, Kagura chooses to linger at his side as he paces around the forest for hours.

Your breathing is labored, he thinks but does not dare ask. Has he threatened you again?

What risks do you accept, to find out all the things that you whisper in my ears?

Where do you plan to go, once your master is dead?

“You should go. He will notice your absence.”

“Just a bit longer.” She takes his arm, so casually it escapes his notice for a moment. “It’s nice tonight. Better than inside that stupid mountain.”

They step through dead grass and crumbling leaves. The heat of her side pressed against his dregs up an unfamiliar emotion.

“When do you think,” she murmurs quietly, “this will all be over?”

“Soon.” He and Inuyasha have had frequent meetings over their next move. Every heated argument about the risks, and all their potential rewards, is progress. “Then, you will have your freedom.”

“Sesshomaru.” Though her features are barely visible in the dark, he knows that she is frowning. Exhaustion grays her words. “I have a favor to ask. There’s something I haven’t told you…”

At their next rendezvous, he meets the boy.

He’s young, merely a few years older than Rin. But the hazy look in his eyes speaks to many more years worth of horrors that he has suffered. Kagura steers him through the dark to where Sesshomaru stands with her folded fan pressed into the boy’s shoulder.

“Kohaku. This is Lord Sesshomaru.” She waits for the expected gasp and flinch. “He’ll take you to a safe place.”

“But…but I can’t leave, Kagura! What will Naraku do if he finds out?” The boy protests. Sesshomaru’s heart twists into an ugly shape within his chest.

“Quiet. Let me worry about Naraku.” She yanks a feather from her bun and folds it into the youth’s shaking hand. Red eyes turn to Sesshomaru. “You’ll try to find his sister, right?”

He wishes it wasn’t so easy for him to see the fear reflected in her gaze. “Yes.”

“Good.” She smiles, in spite of everything.

Kohaku makes a strangled noise, before throwing both arms around her. “Kagura!”

Sesshomaru turns his back, so as not to stare.

He has heard of this boy child, puppeteered by Naraku’s tricks to destroy entire villages. It is not his way to accept child soldiers and the dangers they carry into his ranks. But Kagura is the one who asked.

Kagura, whom he has started to wonder if he loves.

“I will lead a new siege on Naraku on the quarter-moon night,” he says, still facing the other direction. “You will stay alive until then.”

“Is that an order?” Kagura’s tone is teasing, but her glimmer of hope lights the night like a flame.

Sesshomaru risks a glance back. Kohaku is no longer embracing the wind demon; his face points down towards the ground. Because of this, Sesshomaru dares to step closer, until his fingers can brush hers.

“Yes.”

#sesskagu #sesskaguweek2022 #kagura #sesshomaru #inuyasha #fanfic #shespitsfire #savethelastdan

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