Bound by Corruption by BelovedStranger

Contemplations

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Even though it's coming close to the deadline in just a few hours, yes, I did have this chapter edited by my wonderful beta Stella Mira :3 Thanks girl! You make my life oh so much easier.

This chapter is for all the people who dislike Kagome's character. She is a 15 year old girl, not some perfect innocent person who could do no wrong! She has faults just like the rest of us, especially considering her young age and how sheltered she had been up to this point, so for my readers who bash my characteriation of Kagome, I suggest you not continue reading if it's such a trial. To my faithful readers who understand everyone has faults and NO ONE is perfect, happy readings :3

Prompt: 'What is hard to bear is sweet to remember'

o

That night found Kagome in another room, lying down on a few blankets and covered with another, a makeshift bed she had constructed this night. The last two nights she had been too busy sitting beside Onigumo as she battled his fever to really have a sleeping pallet of her own. Not that it was very comfortable, but it would suffice for her weary body.

However, though she was exhausted, her mind refused to settle down and allow sleep to claim her. Her thoughts were too jumbled, racing through her mind, making sleep impossible.

Giving up, she lay there, and allowed her many thoughts to reign so that she could contemplate her predicament and everything she had learned in the past few days.

Her thoughts first drifted to all Onigumo had revealed to her yesterday, especially the heart wrenching tale of him as a child, his father’s abuse and neglect. No child should ever have to fear his own parent. Kagome didn’t really remember her own parents, but her Obaasan had taken very good care of her, even in her advanced age.

Kagome had never been struck out of anger, never been verbally abused or neglected in any way.

She felt somewhat guilty that her childhood was far better than Onigumo’s, even though she knew it wasn’t her fault their lives had been dealt the way they had been. She was only grateful she had a caring and loving Obaasan to look after her and shelter her.  

Onigumo, she though his name.

She should hate him for the things he had done, for destroying her village, and taking everything from her. Well, almost everything. Kikyo was still out there, somewhere.

She relived her villages destruction, saw the flames consume everything and everyone in its path. Smoke was everywhere, choking the very air she breathed. And her Obaasan, crushed beneath a wooden beam in their own home, blood pooling everywhere.

Screams echoed in her mind’s ear. She closed her eyes, but all she saw was blood.

Her breathing escalated, she was beginning to pant, and she belatedly recognized the signs of hyperventilating. But no one was here this time to help her.

Calm, she had to be calm.

Deep breaths. That’s what Sesshomaru had taught her.

Sesshomaru…

No! Not now. She wouldn’t think of the Inugami just yet.

She had been thinking about Onigumo, and how he had changed her life forever, and not for the better. She should despise the very air he breathed but surprisingly, she had learned a totally different side to him other than his sad childhood.

He was engaging, smiling, laughing, and acting like a man without a care in the world. He flirted outrageously with her, told her wild stories of his adventures without adding anything horrific and graphic. Not once since she had met him had he acted threatening towards her or said anything unkind.

This man who killed innocent people without remorse…

She felt a shiver of fear run down her spine. He was like a chameleon. If she had met him under any other circumstance, if he had shown her only his good side, she would never have guessed at the corruption that hid beneath the surface. The thought terrified her, for she now realized that there were people out there that could hide their wickedness with such ease, and no one would be the wiser.

How naïve she had been growing up! She had always thought, been sure without a questionable doubt that she would be able to spot a bad man when she saw one, and yet, the Onigumo that lay injured did not come across as an evil man.

He was surely a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The perfect enemy, able to dazzle and bewitch those around him without anyone being the wiser. Not even her.

Yes, she was afraid, not really of Onigumo per se, but the fact that the world hid such horrors. This was not the world she had grown up in, but her universe had been shattered…by none other than Onigumo. She must never forget his true nature.

She frowned as she gazed up at the ceiling.

Surely Onigumo was no threat to her. He lay injured, unable to stand, or care for himself. But then she recalled his strong grip on her wrist. She lifted said arm, held it into the light of the moon that filtered through her window, and rubbed the finger bruises that had formed there. It still ached.

No, he was still dangerous.

Thoughts of another man filtered through her mind, and this time she allowed herself to think about him—Sesshomaru.

He wasn’t truly a man, but an Inugami bent on her destruction.

She forced herself to remember every bad thing he had committed since she had met him not so long ago, every hurt, and every horror.

That first day, he had only agreed to save her for a price. She knew he would have allowed those bandits to do unimaginable deeds to her person, perhaps would have watched or merely walked away, uncaring how they would have hurt her. He wouldn’t, no, he didn’t care.

Then, after her village had been massacred, burned to the ground, he had forced her to relive the horror when she had not been ready to face it, had even taken her back to her destroyed village and forced her to look upon the embers. He had wanted, demanded her to remember, not to help her get over the pain, but to force her heart to feel the burning need of revenge. He had not done it for her, but for himself, to further his own agenda in regards to her. Again, he had shown how little he cared for her.

He wanted to have intimate relations with her, uncaring that neither liked the other, as if she were a body to satisfy his lusts. He didn’t see her, not the real her. She was nothing, inconsequential.

How that knowledge hurt, to be deemed unworthy of acknowledgement for who you were, and in fact, wishing to change her.

Tears welled in her eyes, and she did nothing to stop them as they fell from the corner of her eyes and into her hair. 

It was hard, but she forced herself to see the good he had done, to remember how he had helped her.

Though he had done it for the wrong reasons, he had saved her that first day from certain death and from the vile acts those men wished to do to her. Afterwards, when they had returned to her village, how did she repay him? By accusing him of interfering with her efforts in seeking the Inu no Kami’s aid, blamed him for everything that was going wrong, and none of that had been his doing. She still felt guilt over her childish actions, her need to put the blame on someone’s shoulders.

Even so, he had not allowed her to die in her own home when she had been trapped by the fire. However, again she had blamed him, accusing him of not saving her village. At first she had been unbelieving when he had claimed to have not been there when the bandits had first attacked.

How could she blame him for disliking her when all she had shown him thus far was how ungrateful she had been to his aid? 

When her village had been destroyed, he had comforted her, held her close to his chest, and allowed her to cry. He could have been callous and let her grieve alone, but he had not. But most importantly, he had agreed to help her find Kikyo, without asking anything in return. Why, she didn’t know, but she had been grateful.

She forced herself to relive the horror of witnessing a man raping a woman he had just killed, her corpse not yet cold. Sesshomaru had killed him when the wicked man had come after her, intending to rape her as well, possibly killing her afterwards…or during.

Sesshomaru had shown her, her own desire to witness that man paying for his crimes; however, it had only been when Sesshomaru had killed the ones who had destroyed her village that she realized it wasn’t their deaths she craved in retribution, but seeing them stand trial before the law, for an eye for an eye, death for death, was not what she wanted.

Yes, he had saved her many times over, but she could not get past the fact that he only had done so because he wanted to change her. He couldn’t fathom anyone capable of being caring, unselfish, and not self-serving.

No, she wasn’t perfect. She knew her faults. She was jealous and envious of Kikyo, had put the blame on Sesshomaru when it was not deserved. She could be naïve and clueless, but she was nothing like the man who shared this dilapidated hut with her; however, Sesshomaru thought otherwise, refused to think differently.

She wished she had had the chance to prove to him otherwise. She was more than a little sad that he thought goodness and kindness did not exist without an ulterior motive. How lonely he must be. What kind of past did he possess that would cause him to believe without a doubt that only evil reigned in this world? Had no one ever shown him kindness?

More tears fell, for Sesshomaru, and how he came to be the unfeeling being that he was.

If given the chance, she would like to prove him wrong only because his world was full of darkness. How anyone could survive in such beliefs without going mad, she did not know. But he was gone. He had abandoned her. And for some reason that devastated her.

Again she wondered why she cared so much about his opinion when he cared not at all for her own.

Just then, Onigumo’s words came back to her.

‘You’re not like other miko I have come across. You’re too outspoken and aggressive for the shrine maiden’s docile lifestyle.’

Maybe he was right. Maybe Sesshomaru saw her little faults as not being the actions of a miko, and so held doubt about her character.

Perhaps…perhaps she was not meant to be a miko?

She shook her head hard, and turned onto her side in the fetal position unconsciously as she thought.

No, she was a miko, and even though her powers were erratic, she did possess spiritual energy, so fate had decreed her calling, and truthfully, she enjoyed being a miko and helping others.

She may sometimes regret she may never get the opportunity to have a husband and children, for few miko ever were permitted to, but she had fulfillment in her calling—or so she told herself after such thoughts of having a family of her own.

She remembered when Sesshomaru asked her that second day on their journey towards her village if she had ever desired sexual gratification, and she had thought of Hojo, a young man around her own age, who had lived in the village, but had been one of the ones to leave when news of the bandits imminent arrival to their home was at hand.

She remembered seeing Hojo, thinking how kind and nice he was, and that he was very handsome, if a bit shy. She had sometimes had wistful thoughts concerning him. He would have made a great husband and father. But even then, she knew it was probably not meant to be.

However lately, it wasn’t Hojo she saw when she thought about carnal pleasures. She flushed as she admitted to herself it wasn’t Onigumo either—thank Kami—but the silver haired, amber eyed Sesshomaru—not like he was any better than the bandit.

But she couldn’t deny her attraction for him. It was purely physical, she was sure. What she had heard her Obaasan tell other village girls was lust, nothing more.

Even though she would never under any circumstance enter a purely sexual relationship, she allowed herself to dream, to think how it would feel being with Sesshomaru. Thoughts were harmless, right? It was what you did with such urges that counted, and she wouldn’t act upon them. Not like she could with the Inugami being gone…

I miss him, she thought forlornly, shifting to her other side to look out the window at the crescent moon that reminded her of the mark gracing his regal forehead.

Banishing her thoughts of his abandonment, she allowed herself to imagine herself in his arms as he touched her, whispered wicked things in her ear until her face burned scarlet from embarrassment and arousal.

She was ignorant of the subject, but her body burned, ached. Her nipples hardened and she felt her core weep with what she understood to be her own desire.

She shifted her thighs, trying to assuage the burn between her thighs, but that didn’t seem to work. She clenched her eyes shut, but the erotic image of Sesshomaru naked and reaching for her with lust in his eyes could not be banished.

Sleep finally claimed her not long after, but the Inugami followed her in her dreams.

She wasn’t even aware that she murmured his name as sleep claimed her.