I Fell for Myself by Stella Mira

Do Not Talk to Me of Honor

Six months later

Naraku couldn't tell what month it was, what day, what hour. Perception of time, awareness of oneself, were fragile concepts in this confinement. There was the cave, the shrieks, the pain – and the chains. Searing bonds around his limbs, his neck, his waist, tightening with each passing day, shredding the fleshly layers of his body and his endurance. Power, sable, like melted blood, licked at earth-made walls, flesh flayed, blood gorged, bones gnawed, his reality. Screams, pleas, ear-splitting suffering, the only sounds that touched this place. His. Long-lasting torture, tangible, strident agony, the hanyō writhed, undulated, mid blood and poison, anguish-laden moans on his lips, sweat on stripped skin – but his eyes were lucid, held another kind of delirium, not born of pain, pleasure-born, self-inflicted.

"Are you going to kill me?" Naraku tilted his chin back, smiled at the figure standing above him, but it was not really a smile. Daring lacquered on words, taunt stretched across blood-slathered lips. The rattling of chains, shackles around his wrists, his ankles, anchoring him to his knees, accompanied his question.

"Yes."

The hanyō stared at Sesshōmaru, at his black-slit eyes – eyes born of this dark, of this heat – and laughed, the sound sinking into the night, merging with the fires. Sesshōmaru's features did not change, not even a spasm of muscles, nothing to indicate a sliver of emotion, yet Naraku heard the distaste in his tone, a scintilla of rage under layers of indifference. Naraku laughed, reveled in the thinning of Sesshōmaru's lips, the faint signs of wrath beneath the ice. The daiyōkai's touch was as cold as it was hot, numbed him as much as it ravished him.

"But not yet. Is that what you're saying?" Naraku's grin morphed into a smirk, a licking of lips, venom on his tongue when he spoke. "I thought you valued honor, Sesshōmaru-sama."

Sesshōmaru's brows knitted, filaments of silver sewn together, and Naraku knew his next words would amuse him.

"Do not talk to me of honor. You do not know the meaning of the word."

Finally, a reaction – admonition above a gnashing of teeth, naked disgust in the gold of Sesshōmaru's irises. Naraku chuckled, toxic mellifluence, a baneful sound. Indeed, highly entertaining – then he threw his neck back, howled with laughter. It was almost too much.

"And you do? Is this your way of showing your honor then?"

Yōki lashed, ripped through tissue and viscera, shattered bone and tendons, a slow, beating pulse, alive with sinuous quietism, sinking into him. Naraku was drenched in copper – in his eyes, in his hair, on his skin, everywhere. Power uncoiled, undulated, hums of lethality, heat slinking, encircling Naraku's calves, trying to devour him. It was dark, spoke of torment, sought to feast on the senses, another kind of fire. The flames of yōki snaked higher, tightened around the back of Naraku's knees, the arc of his neck.

"Silence. I have heard enough of your mockery."

Naraku smiled, decided to humor the daiyōkai for the time being. Sesshōmaru would kill him either way, but there was still some gratification to be gained. Smooth, forked-tongued seduction, Naraku laid his bait.

"But I have information that is of interest to you."

Sesshōmaru stared at the hanyō for a long, silent moment. The more he held Naraku's eyes, the more his anger spiked – such treachery embedded in dark garnet, slithery deception.

"Then speak while you are able to do so – but make no mistake. You shall perish when I deem it is time."

Yōki melted, sinewy, gripping, like liquid metal, stretched in carmine rows. It responded to Sesshōmaru's emotions, his disrelish, clutched Naraku's body – ruthless, penetrating. Naraku understood he had unraveled the last thread of the daiyōkai's patience, the last shred of his capacity to strive for forestallment. He laughed, mellisonant derision, a pleasing tenor, the baneful cerise of his irises darkened with contempt.

"I think I shall keep my silence then."

Laughter overlay the acridness in Naraku's voice, spoke of victory, well-earned, despite Naraku being the one on his knees, the one whose neck was strained, tightened between wisps of yōki, slender, white fingers. The flames changed, reddened, adopted visceral qualities as they engulfed him. Close, much too close, Sesshōmaru's anger gilded over Naraku's skin, burned, extinguished his life. Little by little. Breath by breath. Husky, filled with cynicism and satiation, Naraku's last words incited Sesshōmaru, dragged him into the same fires.

"There will come a day when you will regret this, Sesshōmaru."