Feeling by anthro_chick3

Chapter 1

Disclaimer:  I do NOT own InuYasha or anything associated with the series.

Please enjoy and I do NOT advocate harming yourself or others, it is just a story.  Please constructive criticism if you would like to criticize my work.  And thank you to Kawa-Misuterii for the helpful advice.  I hope this makes it a little bit more real for you all.

‘Take her….take her…’

Loud growling could be heard from the normally stoic demon lord, but his traveling companions were not sure why he was growling.  No one had approached their camp and they hadn’t been talking amongst themselves.  Rin and Jaken glanced at each other and shrugged it off, both concluding that the most likely reason Lord Sesshoumaru was growling was that he had sensed a faroff demon approaching.  After all his senses were far superior to their own and any other demon that they knew of.

Why?  Why was his beast demanding that of all things from him?!  It should know better!!  Not only was it talking about a human female, it was talking about a miko!  And not just any miko, but the Shikon Miko!  Sesshoumaru could not understand why, never before had his beast demanded a woman before.  Whenever he had been with a female it was always because of his interest, not the beast’s interest; even then his interest was just for a quick release.  But this felt…different.

‘She is not weak….she is strong….beautiful…lively…’  Sesshoumaru inwardly cringed, that last trait was said with the beast grinning madly.  He was sure his beast would enjoy arguing with the Shikon Miko.

But why?  It had been going on for the past five years, ever since he had first seen her with his pathetic half-breed half-brother InuYasha.   And why did it bother him so much that she depended on InuYasha for protection?  It’s not like he wanted her to come to him for protection!  Never!

‘You lie….’

With that thought lingering, Sesshoumaru snarled and snapped out something about Jaken watching over Rin while he was gone; he left camp heading to where he knew Kagome was camped.  Deep in thought, trying to figure out what his beast actually wanted from the young miko, he realized he was walking towards her camp and abruptly turned towards a hot spring he knew was around.  He was so focused on avoiding Kagome’s camp that he was not paying attention to his surroundings because if he had been he would have noticed that when he arrived at the hot spring and sat on the boulder to grumble about his persistent beast, Kagome was relaxing in the hot spring.  Though now she was watching him with wide eyes afraid to make any movement and silently cursing her soft gasp at his sudden appearance.

Sesshoumaru’s head snapped up and turned to Kagome, he had heard her slight gasp of breath.  She was intoxicating…her long black unruly hair clinging to her shoulders and chest, her blue eyes wide and mouth slightly open in shock.

‘Take her!  Take her now!’  With those five words his beast was in control and was stalking towards her frozen in shock body.

He reached her in seconds and took a deep breath of her scent, “Kagome you smell….injured.” The red in his eyes receded as that thought permeated through the fog to the rational Sesshoumaru and allowed him to restrain his beast.

“S-Sess-Sesshoumaru?  What are you doing here?” 

He ignored her comment as he took a more in-depth breath to try to pinpoint her injury, “What is wrong with you, Miko?”

“N-nothing…just a minor run in with an out of control InuYasha…,” Kagome whispered as she rubbed the claw marks that marred her upper arm.

Sesshoumaru growled to himself as he carefully extracted her arm from her grasp and inspected her wound for signs of infection. 

“I’m fine, Sesshoumaru…it was an accident.  He didn’t mean to hurt me.”

“How did this happen?”

“Why do you care?”

Sesshoumaru growled, “Just answer the question.”

Kagome rolled her eyes, “He was extremely injuried after a battle with Kagura and I approached him, but I was unaware that his beast had taken over.  It deemed me a threat since I was approaching him and lashed out.”

“Hn. You are lucky his claws cannot produce poison.  You will come with me to my home.”

“What?  No I will not!” 

“Yes. You. Are.  If you are not still here and dressed by the time I come back you will not like the consequences.”  Sesshoumaru snarled out and then ran to her camp.

He could hear InuYasha pull his sword to the ready as he entered the clearing of their camp.

“I have come for the miko's belongings.”

“What?  No fucking way you are getting her stuff!  Why would you want it anyway?”

“She is coming to my home with me.”

“No fucking way!  She stays right here with me so she can look for the shikon shards!  You can’t have my shard detector!”  InuYasha snarled at Sesshoumaru and then noticed the small figure right behind him, it was Kagome and she had heard everything. 

“Sit boy!  Is that all I am to you?  A shard detector?  Not even a friend?  Well then forget it, I am going with Sesshoumaru and you can just get Kikyo to find your dumb shards!  And don’t bother coming to get me!”  She grabbed her bag and walked to the Demon Lord, “I’m ready.”

“I thought I told you to stay at the hot springs.”

“You did and I didn’t listen.  Are we going or what?”

“Hn.”  Without saying anything else Sesshoumaru wrapped his arm around her waist and flew to his campsite that still held Rin and Jaken.  Once they got to the campsite he immediately ordered Jaken to clean up the site, collect all of their belongings and then head to the Western Castle.  And with that Sesshoumaru was off with Kagome and Rin.

Drip.

Drip.

Kagome sighed.  It was such a lovely sound, and the sight was even better.  Kagome hungrily watched her arm as blood oozed sluggishly out of the wounds on her inner arm; the blood was comforting, it looked like it was hugging her, reassuring her.  As her blood fell to the floor that she was sitting on she closed her eyes and just reveled in the feeling of, of well being able to feel anything. 

Kagome had been living at the Western Lord’s castle for about two months now, and she still had no idea as to why she was here.  It was so sudden too, Sesshoumaru just showed up one day saying the she was going to be staying at his castle for an indefinite amount of time.  She had argued, of course, but one can’t argue too successfully against a Demon Lord that had already made a decision and so here she was.

She opened her eyes and looked for the small knife that she had taken from the kitchen; it was so easy, because everyone who worked in the kitchen had claws, so they never even noticed when a knife went missing.  She had the knife poised over her skin, this patch of skin was unmarred from previous encounters, it was smooth and unblemished; it was also begging for release.  Kagome hissed as she drew the knife across her skin, never deep, it was just enough to bleed a little.  She knew what she was doing was wrong and that she should get some help, but she just couldn’t bring herself to care, this made her feel again.

The first week of living at the castle had been a hard one, all the demons that Sesshoumaru employed didn’t not think to highly of humans and most especially of mikos.  They did everything they could think of to make sure she knew that she was unwelcome here, without physically harming her.  They had no desire to be punished by Lord Sesshoumaru, though why he would punish them was still beyond her.  The effect this had on her very soon became apparent; she never smiled, or laughed anymore.  She was just there.  Only a body that was taking up space, but never interacting with the others in the castle, not even Rin. 

Even that started slowly to her, she noticed odd changes, like when she knew she should laugh at something, she could only bring herself to smile.  Then she couldn’t even bring herself to smile anymore, she could only stare at whatever scene was before her.   She knew that the people around her noticed a change but that didn’t help her to care more.  Even Sesshoumaru noticed, if the slightly more pronounced frown on his face whenever she was around was any indication; and Kagome was pretty sure it was.  But when she realized that she didn’t want to smile anymore she started to pay attention to how she felt during various times of day and she came to a conclusion that scared her; she never felt anything.  Since that first week in the castle she had stopped feeling, not just happy but she had stopped feeling anything.  Kagome didn’t know what to do and since she didn’t have another female adult to talk to about it, she really missed Sango.  Kagome just tried not to think too much about. 

Then one afternoon she was bored sitting in her room and she was playing with an arrow she had made before Sesshoumaru took her to live at the castle.  She knew it was stupid to be playing with something sharp but she was bored and she couldn’t make herself care enough about whether it would injure her or not.  So she just twirled it around and even practiced moving it around with her miko power, but then it slipped and it made a shallow cut on her arm, it bleed a little, barely enough to warrant a bandage.  But Kagome had been transfixed with this cut.  It was amazing, yeah it hurt a little but she could actually feel something.  As she had watched the cut try to bleed so much she could imagine her blood whispering to her, begging.

Let me out….let me comfort you….I can allow you to feel again

From that day forward Kagome had obeyed the whispered pleading of her blood, and she always felt alive while cutting herself.

So today was like any other, Kagome was hiding in her room, cutting, and suppressing her scent so Sesshoumaru wouldn’t come and investigate.  Unfortunately today was also the day that Sesshoumaru decided to confront the miko Kagome, he had enough of her stoic expression to last him a lifetime, and he lifetime was a very long time.  And so as Sesshoumaru walked into her room he faltered in his step.  He was so very confused he actually just stood there and watched as Kagome brought the knife to her inner arm and cut across it, he heard her hiss, not of pain but of contentment, and he saw her blood drip onto the floor.

Suddenly she stopped.  She had finally noticed his presence and she turned her head slowly and just stared at him with the knife still in her hand and poised over her inner arm, where she would have made the next cut if he hadn’t been there.

Kagome cleared her throat, “Sesshoumaru?”

He snapped out of his stupor and his eyes began to bleed red, “Just what do you think you are doing?!”

She stared at him and smiled her first smile in two months; it was a slow and sly smirk, almost like she was challenging him with a look.  The knife that had been poised over her arm moved, it made another thin and shallow cut, and Sesshoumaru shook in barely restrained rage.  The look she gave him changed a bit, the smile was the same but her eyelids had lowered into a look normally described as “bedroom eyes” this look was so completely out of place Sesshoumaru hesitated.

And in that hesitation of movement Kagome said one word.

“Feeling.”

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