Post Tenebras: Lux by Aubrey Simone

II

Pre-Note:

I apologize for the lateness of this chapter, but I didn't want to risk uploading something badly written just to make a deadline. Also, a nod of credit goes to Rin-Rin for her Obscure Word Challenge, which helped me complete this chapter—I used the Fauvism prompt near the end (don't worry if you miss it, because it's very vague). Once again, please heed the warnings, and enjoy.

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[ II ]

WARNINGS: Implied Rape/Non-Con, Angst, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Dark!Kagome, Murderous!Sesshomaru, Traumatized!Kagura, Murderous Ideations

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There is space between them, and it is not enough, because the beast in Sesshomaru wants her gone, he wants her out of his sight and out of his life and out of his head and he can't stop thinking about the pressure of her aura and the smell of her arousal and dear gods, he just wants her to go away, he doesn't want to see her or smell her or feel her and he knows that he can't do anything to make that happen, not here, not now and probably not for quite some time. The knowledge eats away at him, burrows under his skin like an infection and swells until he feels like he might burst from it; until he wants to get it out some way, wants to get rid of it in some way before it destroys him completely.

And it's all because of her, all because of Kagome.

He can't even think her name without rage and spite and bitterness crowding in his throat, and he clenches his fists where they lay atop his thighs, knowing that she isn't looking at him and that he can afford to show such blatant emotion, but everything he does reminds him of what happened, and when the skin of his hands becomes too much (because he's naked, vulnerable, violated, humiliated and he wants his clothes, he wants his swords and his silks and he wants to bathe, to soak, to scrub, to forget) against the skin of his thighs, he places them instead on the stone at his sides. His hair brushes against his groin and oh that's much worse than his own hands and he can't do anything about anything because he can't move his hair, he can't let her see him again and when did he become so weak, when did he become so self-conscious about himself, why did this have to happen to him?

His eyes cut, involuntarily, to the youkai who sits no more than an arm's length away, and in that moment, he wants to hurt her. He wants to maim her and break her and kill her and he wants it so badly that he can taste it—the tang of her blood at the back of his throat as he strips her skin from her body, the sweet acridness of his poison eating away at her bones, the bitter agony of death as she bleeds all over the floor.

But he can't.

He can't, because he chose this no matter how badly he wishes to blame it on her, and because she is his mate, his Lady, his life—and he hates himself for it. He hates himself and he wants her dead and he can't kill her because of his own decision; because he was too stubborn to die, too stubborn to trust anyone with Rin's care but himself, too stubborn to pass his inheritance on to the half-breed who didn't even know that the Western Lands were his when Sesshomaru stepped down, too stubborn to let Naraku out-strategize him. Simply too stubborn by too much and because of his pride and his determination and his mercy (because even if she'd killed him, the once-human would have died soon after at the spider's hands), he's stuck with her for the rest of his life.

Stuck with the woman who had violated him. Whom he had allowed to violate him.

Sesshomaru can still feel her body heat against his, can still feel the scrape of her claws and the bite of her teeth and the wet heat of her passage and it makes his skin crawl to remember the pleasure she had wrung from him. He wants to move away from her, but the Bond is already swelling in his bones as it is—the space between them is too far for it, but not far enough for Sesshomaru because he wants her gone, and for the second time in his life, he can't have what he wants.

Thoughts running in ever tightening circles, Sesshomaru forces himself not to dwell on it any longer. He has no choice but to endure—and had had no plan butto endure when he'd made up his mind. The girl is not unbearable, he reminds himself, just as he'd reminded himself before she'd laid a hand on him. She is strong in her own way, and loyal, and learned. She will need to be taught our ways, but she is not hopeless. She is not.

He repeats that fact in his head, a mantra to stave off the maddening whirl of hatred and murderous intent that swirls in his chest every time he so much as catches a fresh whiff of her scent. He knows that it isn't her fault, and he's even reluctantly able to admit to himself that it isn't his fault either, but he can't help the rage—it builds and fades and rises again no matter how he tries to rationalize it, and he knows without having to ask that she feels horribly as well; that she's beginning to ache from her transformation and that there's guilt, so much guilt, gnawing away at her psyche like a rabid dog.

He almost wants to tell her that it isn't her fault, that her feelings are unnecessary, but he knows that she would say the same about his anger, and he doesn't want to talk about his anger. He doesn't want to talk about anything, not with her.

And so he shifts into a more comfortable position and, in silence, they wait.

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Of all the things Kagome doesn't like to do, waiting is at least in the top five, and waiting here, with Sesshomaru, is akin to torture. And considering where we are, she thinks wryly, casting a glance around their cell, that's almost poetic.

For the millionth time in thirty minutes, she resists the urge to sigh, choosing instead to shift just a little to take some of the pressure off of her rear. It doesn't get rid the low-grade pain that's throbbing in her muscles, but she likes to pretend that it does—it's a reprieve she's willing to fake, since she can't get away from what she really wants to get away from.

Or who I want to get away from, more like.

A quick glance from the corner of her eye shows that Sesshomaru hasn't moved since he'd shifted earlier. He's sitting casually, one leg pulled up and the other stretched out in front of him, one arm draped over his knee and the other across his lap, and if she didn't know what she'd done—if the she couldn't still smell and feel and see the evidence of it in the scent of his skin and the itching stretch of their dried fluids against her thighs and the fresh blood spread across his skin—she would think he was comfortable.

And if the Bond wasn't tearing away at her insides, she could pretend he was.

Her fingers shake and she twists them together to stave off the trembling, and then swallows the lump in her throat. It burns, and the Bond scrabbles at her emotions and her instincts with impatient fingers. Help him, it coaxes. You are his mate, you must help him, he is yours, you must take care of him.

And if these were any other circumstances, Kagome might have agreed, but they aren't and she doesn't, and she ignores the urge to reach out to him, to lay her hand against his thigh and her head against his shoulder. She can't touch him, especially without his permission, not after she's already taken so much away from him. Just the thought of breaching his personal space again makes her stomach roil uncomfortably, and despite the Bond's assurances that he would welcome her touch, her brain knows better.

He doesn't want me, and he doesn't want anything from me either, especially comfort.

When she flicks another glance at him, he isn't looking at her, and she swallows thickly, wanting to cry for what she's done and knowing that she can't, because if she starts crying now, she'll never stop. And she can't break down, she can't, because they have to get out of here, they have to survive this, and maybe afterward, when she has a moment to herself, she can mourn the loss of everything she used to be—human and pure and light.

But until then...

Drawing in a deep breath through her nose, she ignores the Bond's urgings and her own suffocating thoughts and turns her gaze back to her twirling fingers. There are black claws in place of her neatly trimmed nails and the markings on her arms have stretched down the backs of her hands and swirled around her middle fingers in a delicate design.

She can feel them now, the markings, as a separate entity, as though the darkness of her new youki couldn't fit in her body and had to be displayed on the outside to compensate. She knows without looking that they sweep over her shoulders and down her back and sides and legs, and she's discovered that she can make them shape themselves differently if she concentrates hard enough. It gives her something to do besides convince herself that talking to Sesshomaru is a good thing (because she knows that it's not) to pass the time.

She's in the middle of trying to force them across the palms of her hands when Sesshomaru goes utterly still—not that he was moving before, but something in the way he sits changes, and when she looks at him he's watching the door with a single-minded intensity that makes her wonder why the wood hasn't burst into flame yet.

The sound of footsteps break through her musings, and Kagome recognizes the dark taint of a shard in the same instant that Sesshomaru hefts himself to his feet in one smooth motion. She stares up at him, confused, but before she can ask what's going on, he begins to walk toward the door and she's forced to follow, lest the Bond rattle her insides more than it already is.

Confusion turns to surprise and then into tentative hope as the door unlocks and then opens, and she sees Kohaku, of all people, standing on the other side. He carries a bundle of clothing that looks like Sesshomaru's signature silks, the dog youkai's swords tucked under one arm and his boots dangling from one hand, and he looks like he's been in battle—his eyes are tired and his cheeks smeared with blood, as though he's wiped someone else's off of his face. His dark eyes flick first to Sesshomaru and then to her, and he steps aside without a word. He's letting them out.

The hope blooms into joy, and Kagome smiles at him, bright and grateful. Even though he doesn't return the gesture, she knows he sees it—something flickers in his dead eyes, behind the veneer of the shard's influence. "I'll tell Sango that you're okay," she whispers as Sesshomaru takes his effects.

Kohaku blinks, and some of the blankness leaves his eyes at the mention of his sister. He nods, just once, and then turns and begins to walk down the hallway, bare feet slapping quietly against the stone. She can still sense the shard at the base of his skull, but she feels it differently now, as a strange tickling sensation in her fingertips instead of a strong pulse of power in her chest. She doesn't want the shard, like she'd wanted it when she was human, and almost as though the realization was all she needed to recognize a problem, she wonders how they're going to collect the shards now.

I can't purify them, even though I can still sense them. The thought is uncomfortable, and the fact that they'll probably have to find a priestess strong enough to purify the shards for them rankles at her sense of duty. How is she supposed to complete her task when she can't perform the steps needed to do so? I can't even call myself a priestess anymore, she thinks bitterly, half-listening to the rustle of Sesshomaru's clothes and the steady beat of his heart. I'm not fit to touch the Jewel, much less search for the shards.

And without that right, she wonders, why should I stay here?

The urge to go home hits her suddenly and all at once, and she blinks back the sting of tears. She might not even be able to go through the Well anymore—she doesn't even know why she could go through in the first place, and except for the influence of the Jewel, she has no way of getting across. And even if I did, would my family be afraid of me?

"Come," Sesshomaru says, pulling her out of her thoughts, and she immediately stuffs every ounce of homesickness and sorrow down to a place where only she can see it, and she follows Sesshomaru as he begins to traverse the halls.

Moving, she quickly realizes, feels strange. Her legs are still her legs, she knows that, but they feel as though they should belong to someone else—she's never walked so smoothly in her life, and even though her right side had sometimes ached from the bend of her hip all the way down to her foot, it doesn't hurt now and she feels like it might never hurt again. Her limbs feel loose and strangely comfortable, and the echo of their footsteps sound almost too loud alongside the thud of their hearts and the rasp of their breaths.

She forces herself not to get lost in her new senses—she can hear Sesshomaru's blood pumping in his veins and smell the rotten stench of old blood and corpses—and keeps her eyes firmly on Sesshomaru's back even when they go past doors where she knowsthere are people inside. They don't have time to stop and rescue everyone, and the lack of auras means that the prisoners are human, and she can't help them anyway, not without medicine and bandages and a way to get them out.

They have to die, the darkness in her whispers, slinking in the back of her mind. And perhaps we ought to go help them along, hmm? Why let them suffer?

She swallows and fixes her eyes on Sesshomaru's swaying hair, dirty but still bright, and the strange scentless, lifeless non-entity fur that sweeps over his shoulder. She knows that she can't give in to that darkness, because the last time she did she took something from someone who didn't deserve it, and the least she can do, out of respect for the boundaries she's already crossed, is to ignore it.

She spends the rest of the winding walk up from the dungeons disregarding the whispering voice at the back of her mind, and she's so caught up in her own head that she doesn't notice the scent of blood until it smacks her in the face.

A combined urge to gag and inhale deeply leaves her struggling for air, and she presses one hand over her nose and breathes through her fingers, searching wildly for the source of the smell. The stone of the hallways is clean, but there's a door up ahead that's thrown wide open, light from inside spilling out into the hall, and she can only guess that the scent is coming from there.

Cautiously, she follows Sesshomaru closer, and when he pauses in the doorway she gets a wave of disgusted anger so intense across the Bond that she nearly steps away from him—curiosity pushes her closer instead, and she ducks past him without touching him.

Almost immediately her foot slides in blood, and even though she's never been squeamish she automatically backs away from it, eyes darting around the room.

Well, she thinks, that's where the blood on Kohaku's face came from.

There are three human men—or at least Kagome thinks they might have resembled human men at some point—scattered around the room, and the one closest to the door has had his throat slit from ear to ear, a grim grin in a place where it shouldn't be. His eyes are missing and his arms have been twisted behind him in a way that is far from natural, and the hilt of a dagger protrudes from his exposed groin—Kagome wonders, morbidly, if he was dead before the knife found its home, and then she shakes the thought off and turns her attention to the only living being in the room besides herself and Sesshomaru.

And then she realizes why Sesshomaru had reacted the way he had, because the woman laying bound and gagged on the ratty futon in the center of the room is Kagura, and Kagome feels instantly, completely enraged.

"I just want to be free," Kagura had told her once, when she'd stumbled across her one summer evening nearly a year ago. The witch hadn't attacked her then, and they'd spent almost ten minutes in each others presence—wary, tense minutes, but minutes just the same. Kagome had seen a different side of Kagura that evening, a side that was young and hopeful and independent, and even though she'd offered to help her, Kagura had only smiled bitterly and said that without her heart, living was bound to be a little complicated.

And now, standing here, listening to Kagura's heart thumping weakly in her chest, Kagome realizes that she can give Kagura the chance to live. She can give Kagura the freedom she's always wanted, and at the same time she can make up for what she's done. She can save Kagura's life, and, maybe, redeem her own.

When she approaches, Sesshomaru's boots clicking behind her, Kagura doesn't move, but when she reaches forward to touch her, the wind witch moans hoarsely and leans away, red eyes going feverish with fear. Kagome's throat aches, and she pulls her hand back, knowing that despite Kohaku's efforts to protect her, she had been violated.

"Kagu - " Her voice cracks, and she has to try again. "Kagura, I'm going to untie you, okay? I have to touch you, and I know you don't want me to, but I promise I'm only going to get you out, and then we're going to leave."

She reaches out again, and again, Kagura moans and flinches and leans away. Tears sting at Kagome's eyes. "Kagura…"

"She cannot hear you," Sesshomaru says, and the baritone timbre of his voice only makes Kagura moan louder, the sour scent of what Kagome can only categorize as fear wafting from the wind witch's bare and bloodied skin. "If you are going to free her, you must do it now—we do not have time to dawdle."

Kagome nods, and even though it hurts to ignore Kagura's needs so thoroughly, she reaches forward and cuts as quickly as she can through the ropes. She's careful not to touch her any more than is necessary, and she bites back a snarl at the state of Kagura's nether regions, torn and still bleeding. She tears off the sleeves of her yukata and ties a crude bandage around the witch's waist and between her legs, shushing her as she whimpers and cries and shakes, and as she cuts the rest of the ropes, Kagura continues to make noises, and Kagome can't help talking to her, telling her that everything will be alright now, that she isn't going to hurt her, that no one is ever going to hurt her again.

She sweeps the ropes away from the sorceress's skin and then grabs her hand and coaxes her into standing. Swaying, Kagura whimpers and shakes and absolutely reeks of fear, and the only reason Kagome doesn't release her entirely is because she thinks, on some subconscious level, that Kagura knows what's happening. Somewhere behind her wide, terrified eyes, Kagura knows that she's safe.

And Kagome isn't going to let her think anything differently.

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Sesshomaru's mother once told him that there are some things that never change, and as he watches his mate live up to the compassionate manner that precedes her, he feels that knowledge cement itself in his being.

He hadn't expected her to leave the wind witch there, no, but he also hadn't expected the determination to save her to nearly override the guilt that's been on the edge of his awareness since the Bond formed.

And yet, he thinks, watching her pull the battered youkai toward the door, the proof of it is before me.

He follows but is careful not to speak—the spike in Kagura's fear at the sound of his voice isn't something he can bear, because for all her arrogance, Kagura had been more to him than an incarnation of the spider, more than just another face, and he doesn't want to frighten her any more than he wants to frighten Rin. He's never seen her like this—determined, he's witnessed; anger, he's provoked; disgust, he's observed—but never has she been like this, broken and terrified and simply not herself.

He doesn't look at her as he passes them, and he ignores the gentle murmurings that croon from his mate's throat as they traverse the halls. He's been following the faint scent of clean air since the boy had released them, and with the smell growing steadily stronger, he knows that it's only a matter of time until they're free.

The thought of fleeing like this irritates what little of his pride still remains in his possession, but he knows full well the benefits of a strategic retreat—they need time to come up with a better plan of attack, and even though there's nothing he would love more than to tear Naraku and his bitch of a priestess apart, he can't. Not with an untrained mate and a battered prisoner and a weakly cemented Mate-Bond as his only allies, at any rate.

No, Naraku's time will come—he only has to be patient, and patient he will be. He has to.

It's only a handful of minutes later that his nose leads them to their chance at freedom—a heavy looking metal grate that shows a rocky mountain path on its other side. His mate makes a relieved noise in her throat, and as she promises Kagura, whose fear has faded into a blank sort of compliance, that they're almost out, Sesshomaru sprays a thin layer of poison across the bars, lifting a sleeve to ward off the sweetly bitter odor of corroding metal.

When the poison has done it's work, he steps through the gap left behind and listens as his companions follow, his mate's footsteps nearly as tentative as Kagura's, who has begun to smell of infection, which means that she's too weak to heal herself and that traveling in his orb is out of the question—he can't put more pressure on her, so they'll have to fly.

He takes a moment to gain his bearings—the sun is setting to their left and he knows that his half-brother's village is in the East, and so he points himself in that direction and gathers his youki at his feet, flicking his fingers in invitation at his mate's wide eyes.

She not-quite-scrambles to join him, keeping herself between he and Kagura as she sits at his feet. She squeaks quietly when he lifts them in the air, and Sesshomaru quietly prepares himself for a long flight.

Kagura falls asleep halfway through the journey, curled, surprisingly, in the once-priestess's lap, and when he glances down, his mate is staring straight ahead, one hand in Kagura's unbound hair and the other toying with the hem of her yukata, which is splattered with strangely shaped splashes of oranges and reds and yellows from the setting sun, bright against the paleness of her skin and the darkness of her hair.

"Do you think," she begins quietly, "that they'll recognize me?"

He looks away in the instant before she looks up at him. "Perhaps."

"Or perhaps not," she whispers, and he hums.

"Or perhaps not."

For a long time, she says nothing, and the sun sets, throwing them into dimly lit darkness. "Sesshomaru?" She shifts, and he senses her reach for the silk of his pant leg only to yank her hand back when he growls, however softly. "I know you don't want to hear this and I know you don't want to talk about, about it, and I promise that I won't say anything after this, but I just. I wanted to say that I'm sorry." Her voice is thick with guilt and the Bond scrambles in his chest, echoing her sorrow back into him. He ignores it.

"I'm sorry," she says again, softly and seriously, "and even though this isn't what either of us wanted, I know that it's permanent and I don't want for it to be...for it to be bad, you know?" Her gaze touches him now, laying so heavily on his face that he can't help but turn to her, can't help but watch as her eyes dance with tears and sincerity and hope. "So I'm going to do my best to learn whatever it is I have to learn, to be the"—she pales, just a little—"the Lady of the West so that you can be proud of your decision, and, well." Swiping at her eyes, she smiles shakily and looks away, suddenly shy. "I just wanted you to know that."

He has nothing to say, and so he says nothing, simply nodding when she glances up at him again. The Bond gives a strange lurch and settles just a little more in his chest, and he resists the immediate urge to rail against it.

The choice has been made, he reminds himself, and now I must live with it—with her.

And he forces himself to shift closer to her, to let the silk of his pant leg brush against her arm.

It's the first step of many small ones, he knows, to making this bearable; the first step for him, and the first step for her—for Kagome.

All will be well, he thinks firmly, and wills himself to believe it.

He has to believe it, or else this will be over before it even begins, and he isn't going to give Naraku the satisfaction of being the one to finally break him—not now, and not ever.

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End Note:

Ah, finally finished with this chapter—it took me three rewrites to get it to this point, and even though I'm not completely happy with it, I'm tired of looking at it and if I try to rewrite it again, I'll probably hate it more. Also, let me know if you see any italics that don't have a space after them, because for some reason, the spaces seem to disappear after I upload. I've gone through once already to be sure that I get all of them, but if you spot any that I missed, please let me know!

Thanks for reading (and for the reviews last chapter, you guys have no idea how much it means to me that my writing is well-received), and I hope you enjoyed!

~Aubrey

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Originally Posted: 10.26.13

Edited: 1.31.14