InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Aiji: A Blanket Fic ❯ The Birth ( Chapter 7 )

*Note* - According to "Buddhist Corner," Kappa smell like fish and are generally portrayed with the body of a tortoise, ape-like head, scaly limbs, long hair circling the skull, webbed feet and hands, and yellow-green skin. They are often depicted with a tortoise shell attached to their backs. To learn more about Kappa and their role in Japanese mythology, please visit http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/kappa.shtml

Part 7

She was burning. Later, if she somehow managed to get through this, she would tell anyone who would listen that it had felt like she was burning away from the bottom up. Not the all-consuming fire of a high fever, nor the sticky, oppressive heat of the city on an unbearably long afternoon in late summer, but rather like the glowing end of a cigarette, slowly smoldering its way up, leaving a short trail of ash in its wake. The blistering head of the cigarette was between her legs, and it burned steadily upward, creeping over her belly, slithering up between her breasts, wrapping around the back of her neck, all the way up to her scalp. From the roots of her hair to the tips of her fingers and toes, Kagome was burning.

She was burning because she was stretching. Her skin was stretching in ways it had never before attempted. It would be tempting to say later (if there ever was a later, and please gods, she hoped there was a later) that she had been stretched "further than the female body was ever intended to stretch," but she was still lucid enough to know that it simply wasn't true. She had been made for this, and not in the general way that a woman's body is made to propagate the species. This was her destiny. She had come to staunchly believe in the years that had passed since she and Inuyasha had met, that her birth, and every moment of her life afterward, had been leading up to him. Their souls were connected, had yearned for each other over the long centuries, and once reunited, had become unable and unwilling to separate again. They had suffered greatly to get here, through countless years of pain and uncertainty, but even if this moment was truly the sum of her lifetime, of their bond, she feared it. She was stuck, stretched thin, and unbelievably wide. It may have been her destiny, but it burned.

Inuyasha's solid, tangible presence had become her only faint reassurance. At present, she could feel his chest pressed against her back, their bare skin made slippery by her perspiration. She held tight to the same belief that had seen her through many hardships in the past; together, they could accomplish anything. Surely they'd made it through worse situations than the one they were in now, situations that made childbirth in a frozen hole-in-the-ground seem laughable. Even though she couldn't think of any offhand, she was sure there must have been at least one.

Inuyasha was burning; his fatigue making him sweat. His muscles ached and his knees were beginning to tremble. His stamina had run out hours ago, and he was now holding up Kagome through pure force of will alone. It was too hot to think, which was actually the first good sign they'd had since her labor had begun. The heat and the sweat meant that at some point over the last hour, Kagome's fever had broken. Granted, they were right back to where they had started, but it was an immeasurable relief to have one less thing to worry about. Unfortunately, just as her body temperature had begun to return to normal, there had been a new development. The momentary relief he had felt as her skin had cooled was replaced in a heartbeat by panic as her entire body clenched violently. Something had changed, he knew, and these fears were confirmed an instant later when the screeching began.

"I feel something! Reach down there now!" she screamed, before her words - and capacity for speech - were drowned in a tortured, wordless howl. The smoldering fire had erupted, and presently, something hard and solid was making its way out.

Inuyasha tightened his grip under her breasts, holding her up while the pains rendered her unable to do so herself. "Just wait, Kagome," he grunted, arm and neck muscles straining. "I don't want to-"

"Shut up and do it now!" she screamed, turning to shoot him murderous look over her shoulder.

"I don't want to do anything if I can't see where my claws are going!" he shouted back. "You're going to have to lay down!"

"Fine," Kagome grunted, doubling over in pain once more. "Just hurry!"

Carefully, Inuyasha lowered her down onto the blanket. As she settled onto her back, he quickly dipped his hands back into the kettle, scrubbing them up to the elbow. When he believed his hands to be relatively clean, he turned back to look at her. What he saw made the color drain from his face.

"Oh shit…" he mumbled, his jaw going slack. He held his dripping claws in front of him impotently, his palms turned up to the low mud ceiling. This couldn't be right. Swollen was one thing, bruised he could handle, could even understand, but no one had told him that there was going to be blood. While the sight of his own had never bothered him much, the sight of Kagome's gave him a sickening chill. There wasn't a lot, but he was beginning to understand why the humans in their village viewed whelps as such a mixed blessing. He'd never attended a birth - in fact, he hadn't planned to attend this one - but he couldn't help but feel as though something essential had been kept from him.

Had Kagome known going into this that there was going to be blood? She seemed to have had a general idea about everything else that had happened. How could she not have?

'She's right, I am a stubborn idiot. I should have watched those videos. I should listened when she read from that book. I should have worn the fucking hat and gone to those stupid breathing class.'

Awash in the scent of her blood, his stomach began to churn.

'I should have left her with her mother.'

"Keh," he muttered softly to himself. "Too late now." Breathing shallowly through his mouth, he took his position between her upright knees.

Stretched. Burning. She could do this. The nurses weren't there, so she became her own cheering section. Push, Kagome, push!

"Inuyashaaaaaaa!" she screamed, her face twisted and contorted as she bore down on the unbearable pressure between her legs. Her hands clenched, grabbing fistfuls of the blanket so that she'd have something to use as resistance. The entire process felt much more difficult on her back. From somewhere out in uncharted space, somewhere far-off around her knees, Kagome could hear an anxious voice calling to her. She had a vague realization that something important was happening.

"Kagome! Black hair! I see black hair!"

"Black hair," she breathed between heavy pants, then groaned as the overpowering urge to push flared back up. Kagome's eyes rolled to white as she threw back her head, bumping it hard against the frozen ground beneath the coarse edge of the blanket. Her body trembled violently, her knees knocking into Inuyasha's elbows, distracting him as he tried to make out what was happening in the poor light.

"Keep going!" he cried, placing a hand on either knee and pushing them gently, but firmly, apart. "Every time you stop, it slips back in." Kagome moaned wearily, lifting her head a few inches off the ground to look at her mate.

"I can't," she whimpered, her eyes sliding closed again as she lowered her head back to the ground. "I can't keep it up for very long, it's too much."

Inuyasha grimaced, his left eyelid squeezing shut against the sting as a bead of sweat rolled down his forehead and into his eye. Keeping his hands firmly planted on of the tops of her knees, he ducked his head to rub his face against his upper arm, hoping to clear it out. The skin of his arms felt greasy and unpleasant against his face, and he began to growl out of sheer frustration. She could not give up. He was no doctor, but judging by the amount of sticky redness that had seeped from her already, he feared that stopping now would only kill her and the pup, and that couldn't be allow to happen. He wouldn't allow it to happen. His eyes ran up her body to her face, pained, flushed and panting, as his mind raced to come up with a solution.

'She was doing fine until now. What's different?'

He was jarred from his thoughts as her flesh flexed and tensed beneath his palms. She was struggling against him, her knees fighting to push closed again. It was as he kneeled there, holding her knees apart as her heels made shallow trenches in the dirt floor, that it suddenly occurred to him what the problem might be. Kagome had insisted on remaining on her feet, squatting, since the need to push had first taken hold of her. He'd needed her to lie down, but being flat on her back was probably making things more difficult for her. She had nothing to brace herself against, no downward force. If this was the problem, or even part of the problem, he thought he knew how he could make things easier for her. Lifting her knees, he grabbed the instep of either foot and pushed her legs back until they were pressed tight against her body.

"I know you're tired, but you don't have a choice!" Inuyasha roared at her. "Push, Kagome! You're almost there!"

At the sound of his voice, tears began to seep from her eyes. Kagome squeezed them shut, and the hot pin-pricks of moisture ran out, melding with the thick sheen of perspiration on her face. "I am?" she asked. Her voice was thin and strained, but the question escaped from her lips on a breath of shaky laughter. She was almost there; he had said so. She could force herself to bear down once more. She could do this.

She pushed. She strained with every ounce of her strength, worked with every fiber of her being, and she didn't stop until she felt something suddenly give. All at once, the burning was gone, and she heard Inuyasha cry out excitedly, "There's a face! Kagome, I see a face!"

"Really?" she sobbed, relief flooding her every sense. "What does it look like?"

Inuyasha held his tongue. He knew he'd keep this particular opinion to himself for the remainder of his days, but from his perspective at that very moment, it looked remarkably like a Kappa. Instead, he placed a gentle kiss on the inside of her ankle.

"One more push, Kagome, and I think I can get the shoulders out."

Kagome groaned, but she grabbed onto the edge of the blanket once more and summoned everything she had left, focusing on the burning sensation as she felt herself begin to stretch once more.

Crouched between her knees, Inuyasha cupped his hands beneath the dark head of the infant. When a glistening, red shoulder peeked out, he began to tug ever so gently. With the sound of Kagome's grunts and screams ringing in his ears, he quickly freed the other shoulder from the birthing canal, and in another instant, the infant came free in a gush of light red fluid, soaking his forearms up to the elbow.

"It's out!" he cried. Fumbling, he clasped the slippery infant to his chest.

"It's out, " Kagome sighed, her shoulders slumping against the ground.

"Yeah," Inuyasha said softly as the infant drew its first breath, and a high, squalling sound filled the air of the nest, the shrillness of which effectively pinned his ears to the top of his head. 'What the hell do I do with it now?'

"Which is it?" Kagome asked, fighting against immense fatigue as she struggled to prop herself up on her elbows to see their child.

Inuyasha looked down at the squirming infant uncertainly. It was very red, though whether this was its natural color, or a result of not having been wiped clean yet, he didn't know. Its eyes were closed, but its hair was most definitely dark, and it sported its ears on the sides of its head, where Kagome kept hers. It was screaming in something akin to outrage, so he had a clear view into its tiny mouth. Not a fang in sight. His nose confirmed what his eyes could not; the child was his, no question of that. But he saw nothing of himself in this child.

"It looks human," he said finally, glancing back up at his mate, eyes filled with uncertainty. "You think that's possible?"

Despite her exhaustion, Kagome actually chuckled. Her relief was beginning to make her feel giddy. "No, Inuyasha. I meant which is it, a boy or a girl?"

"Oh…" Blushing, he moved aside the umbilical cord. Kagome watched his face as he looked, and felt a warm surge of love as he glanced back up at her, his lips turned up in a silly grin. "It's a boy."

There was a long silence during which they merely stared at one another stupidly, and then Kagome said, "Inuyasha?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I see him?" she asked expectantly, holding her arms out to receive the infant.

"Oh! Right." Holding the infant to his body as though he was afraid it might try to escape, Inuyasha handed his son to his mate. Kagome accepted him eagerly, and immediately began to rain feathery kisses upon his perfectly miniature features. Standing off to one side, Inuyasha found himself at a loss as to what to do with his hands for the first time in hours. Eventually, he decided to go with the old standby and folded them over his chest.

"Aiji…" Kagome cooed, holding the infant against her breast. Inuyasha blinked in surprise.

"Aiji?"

"Yes, I think so," Kagome sighed, her eyes never straying from the baby's angry, little red face. "It's what we've always called him until now. It feels wrong to start calling him something else. Besides," she added, her voice lilting with gentle amusement, "I wouldn't want to confuse the poor thing."

Inuyasha rolled his eyes in mock incredulity and huffed, "Women," under his breath, but with her attention focused entirely on little Aiji, Kagome missed the gesture completely. Still, she noticed that there had been a considerable lag in the conversation on his part, so she asked softly "Do you mind?" She was smiling so brilliantly that he let the façade drop.

Breathing out slowly through his nose, he sighed, "I guess not. As long as it's not 'Miroku' or 'Sesshoumaru,' I'll be happy." As a gesture of good faith, he offered her a small grin, but by that point Kagome was hardly paying attention.

"Inuyasha, can you…" she began, then trailed off as the baby began to squirm a bit, rubbing his tiny fists roughly against the sides of his face.

"Can I what?" Inuyasha insisted, eager to help. Having watching Kagome bond so instantly to their son, he was beginning to feel like part of the scenery.

"Can you cut the cord and tie it off?" she asked. "He needs to be cleaned."

His claws made quick work of the cord, and despite a weak-kneed moment after the placenta was delivered, Inuyasha cleaned and wrapped the baby in the last dry garment they had -- his white kimono. But before he was halfway through, the baby had begun to cry again, so as soon as Inuyasha was finished, he quickly handed the infant back to his mother. The shrill wail began to stave off almost immediately, and Inuyasha had an uncomfortable suspicion that, much like himself, Aiji preferred his mother.

Smiling, Kagome put the baby to her breast, and began the awkward task of trying to get him to suckle. She stroked his cheek with the side of her thumb to get his attention, then eased her nipple into his mouth when he began to root blindly for it. As he jawed furiously at her breast, Kagome leaned down and whispered into her son's perfect pink ear, "Welcome to the world, Aiji. I'm your mama."

Inuyasha peeked over her shoulder, peering down at the now-silent infant. Now that he was clean and looking much less...reptilian, he took his time to study the face that he'd supposedly helped create more carefully. He had no idea who this new person was, this boy named 'Aiji.'

He watched as Kagome curled soft wisps of fine, downy black hair playfully around her fingertips, a knot of confused, conflicting emotions winding tightly in his chest. He didn't feel right, not how he'd expected to feel at all. There was relief, and admittedly, that seemed like a correct feeling. Both Kagome and the baby appeared fine, despite what they'd just come through. But what he couldn't understand was why he didn't feel…better. Happy. Proud. Something other than the anxiety - and though he would never admit it, even to himself, the pangs of jealousy - that he was feeling. Watching Kagome instantly fall for the kid only further added to his fears that there was something fundamentally wrong with him. A grown man feeling threatened by his own baby. Hell, even he wanted to punch himself.

"And this guy over here, with the ears," Kagome continued, turning her face up to catch Inuyasha's eye. "That's your dad."

Feeling ashamed of himself, and more than a little guilty for where he'd been letting his thoughts wander, Inuyasha leaned forward to greet his son properly. As he bent down over Kagome's shoulder, a long strand of silver hair fell onto the baby's nose, startling him from his intent work at his mother's nipple. The infant shuddered, then yawned, stretching his little rosebud lips impossibly wide as a sweet, soft sigh escaped his tiny mouth.

"I'm sorry, Kagome, I didn't mean to distract him," Inuyasha muttered uncomfortably. Aiji turned immediately at the sound of his father's voice.

"Nonsense," Kagome whispered back. "He just wants to get a good look at his Daddy, that's all." Sure enough, as the words were leaving her lips, Aiji's eyes cracked open for the first time.

"Oh my…" Kagome gasped, then looked up at the hanyou, smiling so broadly he feared her face might split in two. Following her eyes, he gazed down at the infant, and was mesmerized by what he saw. The child and his father stared at each other silently, regarding one another intently, two pairs of warm, honey-colored eyes, glowing in the faint light from the hearth.

"Those…" he breathed inaudibly. Kagome squealed with joy.

"Everyone's going to know who your Daddy is, aren't they?" she sang gleefully, leaning in to rub Aiji's button nose against her own. The baby blinked his golden eyes in surprise at her sudden proximity and sneezed in agreement. Kagome pulled back and laughed, her voice cracking slightly from overuse.

"Right now he's thinking, 'Whoa! Too close Mom!'" she quipped, then smiling at the hanyou, she raised an speculative eyebrow. "Or maybe he's thinking, 'Dad, save me from this crazy lady!'"

'Dad, save me from this crazy lady…' Inuyasha blinked, feeling very suddenly as though he'd just been sucker-punched. 'Dad? Holy shit, that's me! I'm Dad!'

But before he could fully retreat into that far-off look in his eyes, Kagome asked pointedly "Do you want to hold him?"

"Me?" he asked, as though there were someone else she could possibly be talking to.

Kagome smiled reassuringly and nodded. "I could use the rest."

"Well if you're too tired, you'd better hand him over, then," he said brusquely, clearing his throat as his eyes darted off to a dark corner of the room. "Before you drop him or something."

"You're right, " Kagome said gravely, offering up Aiji. "I am a clumsy human, after all." She had to bite on her bottom lip. It kept the laughter safely contained inside and suppressed the enormity of her grin.

Being very aware of his own strength, Inuyasha carefully lifted the small bundle that was his son to his chest, then immediately sat down. He knew that as deeply as she professed to love him, breaking the baby would be an unforgivable offense. He'd never be able to forgive himself, either.

As his muscles began to let go of their pent-up tension, Inuyasha blew a short huff of exhaustion out through his mouth, disturbing Aiji's feathery shock of hair and sending strands flying in all directions, only to fall back and settle in a haphazard muss. As for the baby himself, he seemed largely unaffected. He'd fallen back asleep the moment his father had settled on the ground, and was happily suckling on the inside of his lip, no doubt dreaming about the breast.

'I wish I knew what a father's supposed to be like, kid,' he thought, gently brushing the inside edge of a finger across one of Aiji's soft, pink temples, mindful of his claws. This would become a steady, internal mantra in his new life as a father; Watch your claws, watch your claws, watch your claws…

'Tell you what, kid. I figure any dad has to be better than no dad at all, right? Even one who doesn't know what he's doing. Me and your Mom, see, we didn't have fathers, and we still turned out alright. So I figure as long as I protect you, teach you what you need to know, and keep you close, I can't mess you up that bad. So what do you say? I promise to watch out for you, and you promise to turn out alright, got that?'

As if he did indeed, Aiji yawned and his tiny yellow eyes fluttered open. He regarded his father very seriously for a moment or two, then his tiny lips parted slightly and he burped. Inuyasha's eyebrows flew up behind the fall of his bangs, disappearing from view.

"Not bad," he said softly, the corner of his mouth lifting in amusement. "Maybe I was wrong about you. I bet there's a lot more of me in there than you let on." He leaned closer, and as he did, Aiji grabbed a fistful of his father's snowy locks and seemed to tug experimentally.

"You know what I think?" Inuyasha whispered into his son's ear, his eyes darting to the side to twinkle wickedly as they glanced over at his sleeping mate. "I think you're mother's in for it now."

With Aiji now ignoring him and beginning to nod off once again, Inuyasha tucked the pup in the crook of his arm and slid in under the blanket, beside Kagome, back to back.

"And don't worry," he added as an afterthought to the sleeping infant, his eyelids already drooping as he watched the small bundle rise and fall with each strong breath his son took. "I'm gonna personally make sure that Kaede-baba never drops anything over your head."

Before too long, while the storm raged on outside, Inuyasha and his small family found deep, deserved sleep beneath the tattered folds of the gray blanket.

The End

*Authors note* First off, I'd like to thank Niamh. For her beta, of course, but mostly for her enthusiasm. I'd also like to thank Kira. For the beta, for going above and beyond, but more importantly, for being with me on this journey from beginning to end. Of course, I can't forget to thank Ithilwen for her beta as well, and for being her wonderful, nitpicky self and helping in ways that no one else could. Finally, I'd like to thank those of you who took the time to read, whether you've just stumbled upon this story, or have been following it for the better part of a year. Thank You. - Nanda