InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Fuyu no Shimekiri ❯ Plots and Plans ( Chapter 19 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Chapter 19: Plots and Plans

As they entered the tent, Kagome noted that the back had been partitioned off, and caught Kanaye's eye with a questioning glance.

"Ah, my Lady - you will find that your personal possessions have been brought in, and some warm water so that you can at least freshen up," he said, as he gestured vaguely at her blood-spattered appearance. "I thought that you might like to do so before speaking to the prisoners."

Kagome beamed at him, clapping her hands together, she said, "Oh, you have no idea, Kanaye, thank you!" She moved eagerly to the partition and walked behind it, more than ready to get the blood off.

Seshoumaru nodded approvingly at the General. "This Sesshoumaru thanks you, Kanaye, for seeing to the comfort of his Lady. She will be much more pleasant to be around if she is at least semi-clean."

Shippo laughed. "Yeah, you have no idea how much she hates being dirty. She used to give Inuyasha kitty-fits back when we were chasing the Tama when she was always wanting to stop and bathe. He always swore that it would have only taken one year instead of three if she'd just avoided a few baths along the way."

Kagome huffed from behind the screen. "I spent less time bathing than he did sneaking off to chase Kikyou, I'll have you know. And he always stunk like dead woman when he came back... at least I smelled good when I came back from bathing."

Several chuckles were heard at that statement, and inwardly, Sesshoumaru felt a small part of himself ease at the casual way she'd mentioned her history with his brother. He admitted to himself that there was still a part of him that was afraid that this was all a dream - that she would, in the end, be unable to let the half-breed go.

Moments like that helped to convince him that she was not missing Inuyasha.

Lowering himself to one of the cushions scattered around the tent, he motioned for the others to join him as they waited for Kagome to finish before bringing in the prisoners. When she finally came back out, she looked much refreshed, and moving over to Sesshoumaru's side, she sat down, and sighed.

"What a day. I feel much more relaxed Kanaye, thank you for your thoughtfulness in providing me the chance to clean up." She smiled at him as he nodded to her.

"If you are ready, my Lord, my Lady? I will have the prisoners brought in," he said, gesturing for a soldier to do so as Sesshoumaru nodded.

Kagome watched as the two male youkai were escorted into the tent. They appeared to be the same age as Sesshoumaru, and held themselves professionally, even in these circumstances. Both were extremely handsome, wearing long, silky dark hair in topknots, one yellow-eyed, and one with emerald orbs, although neither carried the facial markings that her daiyoukai did, and she wondered if there was such a thing as an ugly youkai. She'd never seen one.

Of course, it went without saying that Sesshoumaru himself was the most handsome, even amongst a beautiful race.

Shaking her head to clear it of those thoughts, she stayed silent as Sesshoumaru considered the two sitting before him.

"Your names and ranks - you will give them to me."

She could tell they were both angry at their defeat, but both knew not to challenge the obviously alpha male - his aura was huge, and even ningens could sense his immense power - so the two knew to cooperate.

"I am General Seiichi, and this is my Second, Takai. We were told you had questions, my Lord?" he asked, with a polite but strained, bow.

"My Lady is the one who has the questions," he said, as the two turned their gazes on her, and she shook her head with a sigh as she noted the suddenly offended looks on their faces.

"My Lord!" Seiichi protested. "Surely you do not expect us to answer the questions of a female, and a ningen at that!"

Sesshoumaru's eyes flashed red, and his aura flared, as he snapped out, "You will answer whatever she asks, neko, and you will give her the respect she is due as the Shikon no miko and Lady of the West, or I will simply eliminate you and move on to the next in line, do you understand?"

Both males shrank back, and nodded quickly. General Seiichi apologized to Kagome, saying, "I am most sorry, my Lady. I did not know you were the Shikon no Miko." He made a sour face. "Had I known such, I would have made sure that Hikari was stopped before he could take on this foolish exercise."

Kagome tilted her head in acknowledgement of his apology, then frowned. "I know he is the one that sent that assassin after me, and I think we all know why...." she trailed off as Seiichi shook his head.

"Actually, my Lady, you probably don't know all of it. I am sure you realize that a part of it was because of his humiliation at your Lord's hands, but that was only part of it." He sighed. "You see, Hikari has been allied with Hebikuro for months - and getting your Lord to mate his daughter was all part and parcel of both of their desires to destroy his house and take over the West."

Sesshoumaru frowned. "What do you mean? How would his daughter being made Lady of the West have destroyed my house?"

The two males looked at each other, and then Takai shrugged. "You see, his daughter is an accomplished assassin herself. That is not commonly known. She might seem like a silly little bitch but she is not."

Kagome had hissed, and eyes narrowed with anger, she nodded. "I see it now. She was to kill him on the night of the mating, thus leaving the Western Lands in chaos, and rendering it ripe for the picking. That's why he was hoping that by offing me, he might still be able to get Sesshoumaru with that plan." She clenched her hand. "Bastard!"

She flicked a glance at an amused Sesshoumaru. "Are you sure you don't want to use Tensaiga and bring him back so I can kill him?"

He placed a hand atop hers as it lay on her knee, and squeezed. "It is alright, koi. It would not have succeeded, no matter the circumstances. There is no need to be angered."

She glared at him. "Of course I'm pissed, Maru-chan! They tried to take you from me! What do you expect - that I would be happy about it?"

She turned back to the two rather surprised youkai and huffed. "So, then, once the West was in upheaval, Hebikuro and Hikari would have marched in and plundered it easily." She glanced at a quiet Shippo, then frowned. "And what about the East?"

"Lord Hikari was of the opinion that the Eastern Lands would be easily wiped out, seeing as how the ookami are more of a tribal-based society, and really have no central authority. Of course, we know they all answer to Lord Koga as Cardinal Lord, but they do not have trained warriors and a regimented army as do all the other lands. He felt that we would simply march through, taking on each tribe as we came across them and destroying them."

Sesshoumaru exchanged troubled glances with Kagome and frowned. "In that, he was correct. That probably would have worked... if Koga had not been smarter than Hikari and Hebikuro, and suspicious of the snakes' actions and spied on him. This is something I will discuss with Lord Koga." He nodded at Kagome, silently telling her to continue.

She turned back to the two prisoners. "The one thing that really has me confused is this: why did your Lord have you march all the way here, only to be expecting to turn around and march all the way back? It makes no tactical sense, when he could have just met Hebikuro on a field of battle in the West."

Seiichi glanced at Takai and sighed, then looked back over at Kagome and her Lord. "The truth was, Hikari was absolutely obsessed with destroying you, Lord Sesshoumaru... and he didn't want to wait the two months before meeting the Snake Lord somewhere in your lands. Instead, he decided that we would spend the time marching, rather than waiting." Shrugging, he said, "Truly, Hikari was an idiot, and it's a good thing he's gone, my Lord," he bowed his head to Sesshoumaru, "because, if he'd stayed around much longer, he would have weakened us beyond recovery."

As the others in the tent all nodded, Takai added, "It's going to take enough to recover from this whole mess as it is, but at least we will recover someday."

"Hn." Sesshoumaru raised a brow questioningly. "I do require an answer to a question of my own. How is it that you made it here with no one the wiser? I am aware that neko pride themselves on their stealth, however, I find it difficult to believe that even neko could sneak an entire army across Nippon without being seen."

Seiichi chuckled at that. "We did not attempt to sneak at all, my Lord. We followed along the border between the East and West, keeping mostly on the Eastern side. When Lord Koga calls the tribes to war, he orders that all tribes gather in one place, so that the females and older males may guard the young. That practice leaves no one along the borders, letting anyone who chooses to have free run of the entire length of the lands from north to south."

Kagome sighed, closing her eyes, she rubbed the bridge of her nose. "I think we need to have a long talk with Koga, Maru-chan. This kind of thing could obviously cause way too many problems. We're just lucky it didn't this time."

Sesshoumaru nodded. "I agree, koi." He turned to Kanaye, Hiro, and Taro. "Where is Lord Koga?"

Taro spoke up. "I think he is out with his ookami hunting down any... strays, so to speak, my Lord," with a sly glance at the two neko, who hissed in response.

"Very well. Instruct the perimeter guards that he is to be sent here as soon as he returns - it seems we have much to discuss with him."
He turned to Kagome. "Did you have any more questions for the prisoners, koi?"

She shook her head. "Not that I can think of right now, Maru-chan. If I think of anything else, I will be sure to let you know." She looked at her son. "What about you, Shippo? You've been awefully quiet. Can you think of anything I've missed?"

"Only one thing, momma." He turned to the two neko, who were showing surprise to hear a fox youkai calling a ningen miko 'momma'. "How were the two going to split the spoils? I mean, it seems that I'm missing something here. What did Hikari get out of this alliance? It was his daughter that was supposed to take out Sesshoumaru, thereby leaving the West helpless to resist an invasion, and he had his own army obviously - so why did he need the snake?"

Kagome's eyes widened as Sesshoumaru nodded thoughtfully.

Seiichi looked at the kitsune with a bit more respect at that. "I wondered if anyone would ask that question," he murmered. "I told you Hikari was obsessed with Sesshoumaru's destruction, did I not?" As the others all nodded, he continued.

"It unbalanced him. He made a deal with the snake that, frankly, sickened us. Most of us don't care for snakes much, but he would have had us in bed with them - literally for his own daughter. It was his plan to mate his daughter to Hebikuro once the Lands were under their control - that way, one day, it would be his descendants that would rule a united Nippon."

Softly, Takai spoke. "He wanted his blood to rule as Overlord of all the Lands. It did not matter that the child would carry snake blood as well to him, only that it have his own. Needless to say, while Hebikuro was quite pleased with the idea, Hikari's daughter, Kita, did not know her fate. She would not have agreed."

The tent was silent for a little while as everyone took in what had been said.

Finally, Sesshoumaru spoke. "You may escort the prisoners to their tent, General Kanaye, and then you all may tend to your other duties. If I have need of you again this night I will send for you."

They nodded and bowed as they filed out of the tent, guiding the neko's back to their temporary prison.

"It's lucky Hikari and Hebikuro were such fools - if this had been one of Naraku's plots, we'd have had much more trouble. This was actually easy compared to what we dealt with back then." Kagome let her shoulders slump tiredly.

Sesshoumaru and Shippo nodded silently. After all, what could they say?

It was merely the truth. Naraku had been a much more dangerous opponent, and that was something they could all agree on.