With her reiki, Kagome burned away the spill of Sesshoumaru’s seed from her skin. She did this with the same habitual thoroughness she’d have used to burn it up inside her. As he’d told her, it was her prerogative to ‘see to it,’ and so she did. No risk of any lingering evidence of him ripening to disastrous conception. All damning trace of him purged away from her with a clinical detachment that left her chilled at her own callousness toward the act.
How long ago had it been since she’d been appalled at the mere suggestion that she’d prevented Inuyasha from impregnating her? Now she found herself consciously applying her spiritual powers toward this contraceptive end. In what seemed like no time at all, her heart had callused over, even to this.
Maybe there was no limit to what the heart could become inured to. To what the mind by slow degrees could warp it to accept. What frightened Kagome more than anything, even in her most jaded state, wasn’t what she’d done so much as what she feared she might do. She was beginning to fear more and more that she was capable of anything.
She got up and cleaned herself up. She tended to Shin. She holstered him in the carrier. Then she did something she hadn’t done in quite a while, even though she was at the temple more often than most of the villagers: she prayed. To the gods, to her ancestors. She prayed only one thing, but she prayed for it fervently—she prayed for there to be a limit to this madness, a bottom to the fathomless pit she felt swallowing her up inside.
She didn’t feel much better as she returned home. She didn’t feel much different at all. But the knowledge that she’d humbled herself to a higher authority sobered her somewhat. It was a sobriety she didn’t even know how desperately she was going to need until Inuyasha came swaggering through the door on one of his drunken tears again.
She’d just put Shin down to bed when she felt Inuyasha’s arms crush around her from behind. Kagome winced, tensing. The mixed stench of booze, smoke and perfume reeking from him made her nose wrinkle in disgust.
“Stop it, Inuyasha,” she said, pushing against him when he tried to kiss her. “Go take a bath.”
“Don’t needa,” he slurred into her hair.
“Yes, you do,” Kagome said sternly. “You stink like a brothel. I don’t know how you can stand it.” When he pulled her around and tried to kiss her again, she turned her face away. “It’s repulsive.”
Whether it was her gesture or her words, his ears flattened at the rebuff. Darkly, he scowled, releasing her.
“Fuck you,” he said, his anger at her searing through the haze. “Not everybody’s ‘repulsed’ by me, you know. Not by a long shot. I get looks from bitches all the time. Not just whores, either. There’s one who’s been wanting to jump my bones for a while now,” he added with an acrimonious half-smile. “Real horny and real pretty, and a helluva lot nicer to me than you.”
Kagome glared at him, stricken. “Well, if you like her so much, why not take her up on it, then?”
Apoplectic, Inuyasha stalked over to her, seizing her by the arms. “Why not?” he seethed, his claws biting into her. “Because I love you, you dumb bitch.”
Kagome could have blazed back at him. But in his impassioned hold, she wilted instead. Taking his fuming face in her hands, she met the wild flash of his eye with a look of remorse.
“Let’s go to bed.”
Her calm appeal in the face of his fury took all the wind out of Inuyasha’s sails. Visibly, he deflated.
“…Okay.”
They went to bed. In the morning when they woke Inuyasha was still in a lingering fog. Wrapped around her, he groaned. Kagome could feel through the heavy quilting the anguished stab of him against her. She twisted around under the sheets. She grasped him and stroked him until he came shuddering and gasping into the palm of her hand. Pityingly, she milked him of every drop of festering venom. As he murmured to her how much he loved her, how he couldn’t live without her, she felt herself sink to a new low.
Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi
Revised 12/19/23
Jesus Kagome…. That was rough… wait so Inuyasha is going to brothels and getting rubbed up on by sex workers and that’s fine and dandy to her? Like, in her mind he’s done nothing to help the rift between them? And I’m not sure Inuyasha knows if he loves her or not. He needs her. He’s alone without her. He’s more codependent than in love at this point.
None of each needs the other. They just grew accustomed to the other, and now that they grew apart and the relationship is no longer healthy (way too far in the Chernobyl end) they don’t know what to do without the other person.
They would do good having some time apart. Probably would realize their attachment is anything but love.
Yep could be the case, sadly…
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the scene, M-Yan! Love hearing your take <3
Damn. At this point they’ll do way better without each other.
Haha yeah, there’s certainly a case to be made…
Thanks for sharing, Warring Star! <3
Ouch…..that was a painful read🤕
Yeahhh pretty sure the angst is at 11 at this point XD…
Thanks for sharing, Maya! <3
Wooooof, hoping they both find some semblance of peace soon
Yeah it’s been rough…
Thanks for sharing, mim!! <3
Hoping they all find a semblance of peace soon, this is getting pathetic on Kagome’s part…well written as always and I look forward to each chapter to see if there is any growth, but the angst is just…overbearing…not even sure where this fanfic is going, but I can’t stop reading because I am entrapped by how you have bound the characters so seamlessly…feels like a never ending cycle of psychiatric trauma, self deprecation, and hot sex…
I know you made a blog that said you had an itinerary and the storyline drawn out….I sincerely look forward to seeing where you take this.
Thank you, Maiven! If I were reading this, I’d feel the same as you – that’s the trouble with WIPs I guess XD
All I can say is that there is an end to the story, and we’re working toward it 😉
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! <3
What the hell. I can’t wait till this blows up
Lol yeah I feel ya XD
Thanks for sharing, Katherine! <3
Ah it’s been awhile since I was able to follow this. Thank you tor the update char – hope everyone is put out of their misery soon!
Haha yeah they’ve all been through the wringer XD
Thanks for sharing, friend! <3
tbh i was hoping he would have said that he actually had snusnu with the courtesans at the brothels. then kagome could feel a little better about her cheating adventures and end the relationship lol.
but if she came out about her cheating with sesshoumaru, inuyasha just might kill her or try to kill both. i feel like sesshoumaru is waiting and counting on it. sesshoumaru is waiting for the big bang. sesshoumaru the sidehoe xD. this is funny and sad at the same time LOL.
i also feel like if inuyasha does find out he might kill kagome and sesshoumaru might have to revive her with tenseiga. she’ll be really free of the relationship then… and like i said on a previous chapter, i wish she would just stand at the top of the shrine and just shout wtf she did and leave the village for good.
“this is funny and sad at the same time ” – lol yeahhh it is….
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts, Kim! Hope you enjoy how things continue to unfold <3