What marriage?

The ladle slipped in Kagome’s bloodless hold. “Why? Why would Sesshoumaru say such a thing?”

There was no keeping the quaver from her voice. When Inuyasha’s glare snapped from his claws to her, her breath froze in her chest.

“I didn’t know what to make of it back then,” he said lowly, rising to his feet, “but I do now.”

As he stalked toward her across the creaking floorboards, she fought the impulse to bolt for the door. It wouldn’t do her any good anyway, she knew. Curling her nails into her clammy palms, she braced herself instead.

Inuyasha drew to a stop before her, looming. As his glinting claws reached for her, Kagome’s eyes clenched shut—

Only for them to fly open again, when he pulled her into his arms.

“Because I have something he doesn’t,” Inuyasha murmured into her hair, “and he can’t stand it. He can’t do anything about it, either. He can’t take it from me. All he can do is try to diminish it. That’s always been his tactic. First my existence. Then my marriage, now my kid. Everything that relates to me is illegitimate, worthless. The more obvious that it’s not, the more he doubles down to belittle it. To put me in my place.”

Kagome clutched at him, her heart hammering as she whispered out, “You can’t really think he’s that spiteful.”

“I don’t just think it, I know it,” Inuyasha said, drawing back from her with a frown. “He’s a demon, Kagome. They’re ruthless like that. He may not always look it, but you’ve seen what he is.”

Kagome’s brow knit. In her mind’s eye she saw Sesshoumaru in his beast form, towering and menacing with his fanged maw dripping acidic sludge and his black claws scoring trenches into the sheer rock. The cold intelligence in those searing red eyes of his, so savage and utterly inhuman. 

This was his true form, she knew. There was no mistaking it. No romanticizing it, either. Still, she didn’t want to believe that the glimpses of sentiment she’d seen in him were nothing more than her own projections. She’d been paranoid about this very possibility before and fought it down. Of course Sesshoumaru’s own testimony had been crucial on that front…

What he’d said to Inuyasha disturbed her for other reasons, closer to the chest. Not least of all because he’d said something similarly foreboding to her, on her wedding day. Lying down for bed that night, she heard his words replay in her head, dark and edged.

I am not your brother.

Words of clear refutation. A line drawn in the sand. Despite drinking from her cup, he’d gone on to reconsider his seeming acceptance of her wishes. Back then, he’d been as good as telling them both he hadn’t conceded after all. Now for him to be saying these sorts of things again…

If he hadn’t conceded back then, what did this speak to his intentions now?

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi

Revised 1/26/22