S t a s i s by wonderbug

the color green

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.

Author's note: Sorry for the lateness. Family stuff plus work overload hasn't left me much time for fanfiction the past few weeks. Anyway, thanks so much for all your feedback last chapter!! Loved reading your reactions to the (nonliteral) cliffhanger there at the end, haha. :)

Without further ado...

– 17 –

.the color green.

A shout fades in the shape of her name.

She pitches forward, throws herself toward the edge as far as the arm about her waist will let her. Her eyes scan the grey-blue water, the knifepoints of rock. At first there is nothing.

Then, the waves recede.

Something black and broken drags over a stump of stone. Blood smears the pitted surface. Raven hair lists toward the sea.

As the surf sweeps back in to bury the dead, another sound rings along the cliff side, high and keening. It lances her ears and sours her stomach. It is a moment before she understands—

The source of that sound is her.

“No…” she sobs, tears coursing down her face. They mix with the blood at her mouth and splatter rosily upon the crag.

She sags against the arm restraining her. When he begins to draw her back, she whirls, striking him hard as she turns.

“You monster,” she seethes, her palm throbbing where it met his stony cheek. She balls her hands to fists and attacks his chest. “I hate you—I hate you!”

Reiki scalds her insides. Her knuckles split against the ruined surface of his armor. When he reaches for her, she claws at him, blunt nails breaking against his skin.

He is impenetrable, and she is weak. So disgustingly weak.

“…Why?” she grits out, fingers still poised to strike even as she falls against him. “Why are you so cruel?”

“Cruel,” he muses, gathering her up. “Did you not beg me to release him?”

What blood she has left is boiling beneath her skin. The tears on her face burn away, as if she had never shed them.

She smothers the mad impulse to laugh.

Her chest shivers as her head lolls back, dim eyes rolling toward the empty sky.

Where is the crow? she asks herself, knowing the answer.

It lies only in her dreams.

…

Through the dark corridors, she wanders. Searching, ever searching…

…

The tunnels of her nightmare give way to another darkened place. Its familiar walls are wreathed in shadow. Through gaps in the shuttered window, light seeps in like pus from an opened wound.

She raises herself up from the loathsome futon. Her yukata is torn and stiff with blood.

Beside her rests a basin of water, a film of dust griming the surface. Her hand alone turns the contents a murky red. She pushes to her feet and staggers toward the door.

The flimsy screen is locked against her. She tries the window, but it too is sealed by his youki. The malevolent aura sickens her. Pale faced and trembling, she reels, kicking out at the basin in impotent fury.

Redness spills across the busted floorboards, bleeds through the tatami and the rumpled bedding. Crashing against the wall, the basin explodes in a spray of shards.

It is not enough.

With a cry she rips at the bloodied sheets, tears her nails through the painted screens, smashes her fists and heels through the inlaid chests, the ornate vases, the lacquered tables, and all the other finery. Loose beads of jade skitter across the floor. Silk fans and kimonos flutter down in shreds.

All of it is rotten, all of it is diseased. Nothing pure remains in this place. Everything bears the taint of him.

She braces her forearm against the wall, lungs heaving in the dirty air.

“Why have you done this to me?” she whispers, sinking. “ Sesshoumaru…” She slams her fist against the wood. “What do you want from me?”

Shoulders shaking, she leans her brow against her sleeve. For a while she remains this way, until a shock of color draws her attention.

The cracked bottom of a chest proves false. She pulls away the pieces to reveal a hidden cache of letters, resting on a bed of green silk.

The paper is worn and fragile with age. Carefully, she unfolds the topmost note. It is written in a masculine hand, the ink smudged and blotted, as though by tears.

My dearest Izayoi, the letter reads, I am grieved I cannot be with you to welcome our son into this world. An old enemy has arisen to challenge my rule, and I must answer. Do not fear for me, my love; I promise I shall return to you soon.

I have thought of a name, at last. If it please you, I would like for our son to be called—

“Inuyasha,” she breathes.

Heart pounding, she snatches up the second note, tearing it a little in her haste. Her eyes scan the fading characters, but Inuyasha’s name is not among them. Nor does she find it in any of the other notes to Izayoi.

At the bottom of the stack lies a letter of a different sort, afloat on a sea of emerald green. The rice paper is a paler shade. She unfolds it partway, and discovers that the author is not the same. The ink strokes are delicate and thin, yet so haphazard she can scarcely read them.

My lord, it begins.

I know this letter can never reach you. Yet I must confess. I must tell you why I have failed you. I do not expect your forgiveness, but perhaps you may understand.

Please know that I have tried. I have endeavored to forget that night, what he did to me. The pain was immense, yet I told myself I could bear it. What I could not endure were the words he inflicted upon me. Long after the pain, they lingered, like a poison in my mind. I cannot think even of you now, my love, without recalling his terrible face…

The next few lines are indecipherable. She skips to the end.

…This sickness will take me. I do not have the will to live on in this corrupted state. I am not fit to be a mother, when I look at our son and all I see are yellow eyes, full of hate. Burning into me, burning—

The brush stroke descends in a crooked line, disappearing beneath the last fold of the note. With numb fingers, she pulls back the flap of paper, her muscles taut with dread.

There, below, the black line curves, tracing again and again the shape of a sinister crescent moon…

At the window, a dark presence appears.

She lowers Izayoi’s letter, unable to breathe as she looks across all the pretty rubble, to where Sesshoumaru is regarding her in silence.  

In the dingy light, crimson gleams across the front of his haori. She knows the blood is not his own.

“So you’ve killed him, too,” she says, meeting his gaze. “…Toutousai.”

“The old swordsmith betrayed me. Each breath he drew was an insult to my honor.”

Slowly she stands. Izayoi’s letter crumples in her grip.

“Honor. How can you even say it? Was it here in this room that you raped Inuyasha’s mother? Was it on that bed over there?” She casts a vicious glance at the mangled futon. “Is that why you brought me to this place—so that I could be your Izayoi?” She steps toward him, eyes flashing. “Is that what you want, Sesshoumaru-sama?”

There is no change in his expression. His features are inscrutable.

“No more than you wanted Kohaku to be your lover,” he replies, “when you had him take you. Your use of him was no different from my use of Izayoi.”

Her lips thin as she continues to advance upon him, pieces of the letter trailing from her grasp. The moon drawing stains her clammy fingers. Her heart weighs heavy in her chest.

“I wasn’t thinking of Kohaku when I slept with him, it’s true,” she confesses, her tone sharpening with defiance, “but I wasn’t thinking of you, either.”

His gaze flickers, and suddenly she can see it—all the ugliness, all the rancor. All that festers beneath his marble façade. The sight fills her with sadistic pleasure. She cannot help but drive a wedge into the crack.

“So that’s it,” she declares, her mouth twisting in triumph. “You’re still jealous of your dead, ‘half-breed’ brother—”

Her spine slams against the wall as he pins her there, yellow eyes glaring into her own. Hatefully, she glares back. After a moment, he relaxes.

“Why should I envy Inuyasha?” he asks her lowly, slitting the obi around her waist. “How can I covet what was never his?”

Her yukata parts sluggishly. Claws trail between the valley of her breasts, cutting paths through the scaled and flaking blood, leaving gooseflesh in the wake of their descent.

“Go on then,” she tells him in a harsh whisper. “You think I care anymore what you do to me? You’ve chained me body and soul, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll never truly be yours, and you know it. My heart will always belong to Inuyasha. If you take me now, it’ll only prove how pathetic you really are.”

His eyes narrow. “Don’t be absurd.”

She gasps as her back slides up the wall, one set of claws holding her suspended.

“If I wanted your heart,” he says, curling the points of the other against her breast, “I would carve it from your chest.” She grimaces, her hands flying to his shoulders as he lowers her just upon him. “If I wanted your love,” he sneers, making her cry out when he breaches her completely, “I would not be fit to call myself ‘Lord of the Western Lands.’”

Her fingers are clenched in his sleeves, her breathing rapid as she struggles not to faint. Tears leak from the corners of her shuttered eyes, her torn flesh striving to mend itself around him.

“Look at me,” he orders, her lashes fluttering open as he grips her under the jaw. “I am not the taijiya. I will not permit you to substitute that bastard’s face for mine.”

She exhales in a shaky laugh, her eyes locked with his. “…Like I said, pathetic.”

Her vindication fades as he begins to move against her. Sweat slickens the blood between them. The wall groans beneath the impact of his thrusts, each one more grating than the last.

A sword hilt jabs her naked thigh. She swears she can hear Tessaiga screaming.

“Do not,” he growls, “mistake me.”

Both hands grip her underneath, crushing her hips to his in heightened urgency. His brow is braced against her own, his eyes as raw as she feels on the inside.

“I care only…for your submission.”

He shifts within her, inflicting a new brand of torture upon her with every angled stroke. Low in her throat, she whimpers, tightening around him even as her head shakes in denial.

“Open your eyes,” he demands, his voice rumbling through them both. “Open your eyes and look at me, Kagome. Look only at me…”

She stares into his splintered gaze, assures herself that this is her victory. Yet, why…

Why does it feel so much like defeat?