Kagome stared. Sesshoumaru as well. Trembling like mad, Kanako continued to pad toward them from the doorway. Her normally braided hair streamed limp and free down her shoulders. Between this and her quivering lower lip, there was something decidedly suggestive about her approach, even before she began fumbling at the knot of her obi.

Kagome’s lips parted in disbelief. But something in her scent or manner must have given away her less-than-total surprise at Kanako’s behavior, as Sesshoumaru’s eyes cut from the waif back to her.

“No,” he said, coldly and distinctly.

Kagome’s spine went rigid. If Sesshoumaru had shown so much as the faintest interest, she would have sent Kanako running back out into the night—with a few lumps of pelted coal between the shoulder blades for good measure. But the cold disdain in his voice made her smile purely out of spite.

“What’s wrong, Sesshoumaru?” she said, his eyes narrowing at the taunt in her tone. “You were the one who said I wasn’t giving you enough. That you needed more.” The iron poker hit the floorboards with a nasty clang as she glanced sharply toward Kanako. “Well, here’s ‘more’ for you.”

Sesshoumaru glared. Wrathfully, Kagome held it, as the long tense seconds ticked by, and Kanako wavered at the periphery of her burning gaze.

“No,” he said again.

“No?” The miko’s smile curdled, sugared and envenomed. “I thought we had an agreement.”

To this the daiyoukai said nothing, though to Kagome’s ears it may as well have been an admission of defeat. Calmly, she walked up to him, and with a deft and gentle touch extracted the rosary hidden beneath the silken layers of his haori. Slow and indulgent, her fingers bumped over the skin-warmed beads.

“But it doesn’t matter,” she murmured, “even if we did.” Her eyes flicked up to his, and his pupils constricted at the reiki that scorched her irises white with holy fire. “Because you were never going to do anything except what I permit you to do.”

Sesshoumaru’s features twisted as the rosary exploded in pale, pinkish flame. When his eyes flashed red through the blaze, Kagome stoked the flames hotter still.

“You should be so lucky to feel anything but pain in my presence,” she hissed, his armor splintering beneath the fiery brand of her projected aura. “You look down on Kanako, you look down on humankind, but you’re lower than the dirt beneath my feet.” Into the loathsome red gaze transfixed upon her, Kagome’s eyes pierced with the rage of a thousand sainted dead. “Isn’t that right?”

Sesshoumaru’s armor fell in brittle smoking chunks. Singed fragments of his demonic clothing fluttered feather-like through the churning, hazy air.

“You are above me,” he bit out, the gnash of his fangs riling her that much further.

“You had no intentions of seeking out another woman. Admit it.”

“I seek only you,” he said, as his flesh began to sear. “You must trust me.”

Kagome’s blood scalded, the thunderous beating of her heart audible to them both. He reached for her, though it blackened his skin with a layer of ash. His charred claws gripped her by the upper arms, and her reiki flames subsided as she sagged in his hold, her dubious ‘triumph’ over him seeming more like a draw at best.

“…Kanako-chan, you can go now,” she said.

But as her eyes strayed aside, she found Kanako lying stripped and prostrate on the floor instead.

“Please, Kagome-sama…let me do this for you.”

“Absolutely not!” the miko was crying out. “Where is your kimono?! Get up from there!”

“You mustn’t allow this vile, unworthy demon to desecrate you!” Kanako wailed. “You cannot consent to it! You cannot trust such a creature!”

Kagome’s jaw clenched, her eyes stinging. “Of course I don’t, but—”

The pressure at her arms suddenly abated. In the blink of an eye, Sesshoumaru knelt naked and seething on the wooden planks, his fair skin healed except for the shadow of black that ringed his throat and chest. Kanako shrilled as he hauled her up by the hips, and thrust into her with a brusqueness that smacked of resentful urgency.

“Sesshoumaru!” Kagome shrieked as she hurried over, horrified. Absurdly, she seized him by the hair, blurting out just as absurdly, “You brute!—you didn’t even prepare her!”

Sesshoumaru’s look was flinty. “No need,” he growled out, his lusterless gaze trained upon her still. “…Remember what I said.”

It was a bitter pill that passed between them. Kagome swallowed, stumbling back.

Surely enough, Kanako’s entrance was as ready as it could be for a cock like his. Around him her flesh stretched rosy and thin—brightly glistening as the tears that streamed down her thin, ruddy cheeks. She hardly even seemed to notice the demon pounding away at her from behind, as she craned up her spindly neck to gaze at Kagome in total, senseless captivation.

This was madness…

The miko’s chest was so tight she could scarcely breathe, her ears damnably hot as she continued to stare numbly back. There wasn’t enough time for her to fear for Kanako’s safety. There wasn’t enough time for Kagome to really even process what was happening before her—for her—before Sesshoumaru was cursing her name as he wrenched out of Kanako, and spilled himself out onto her bent, bony back with an expression of intense distaste.

Abruptly released, the waif gasped, flopping wetly to the floor. Kagome rushed in to gather her up as Sesshoumaru rose, and sparing her the briefest and most withering of glances, vanished from Edo in a ball of golden light.

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi