Author's Note: Hey everyone! I know, I haven't updated this in a while...I was really wrapped up around 'Eden!' This chapter goes through a lot of tangents...it's very unorganized, I know. If you have any questions, you know you can always ask in a review or you can send me a PM. I suppose this chapter is sort of a spoiler for 'Eden,' but bear with me. :)
Please excuse any errors you might find...I've been quite busy cursing and damning my fate and insomnia, respectively, and so I might have missed some things. Also, I don't have a beta. Sad Face. Well, hit me up if you're interested, I suppose.
Thank you to all my annonymous reviewers. They really do mean a lot of me.
So, Thank You to:p
violet, xxxVanstarxxx (sorry, I know you're not annon, but I literally just realized that. here's your update!), Kimi-chan, and kido.
I do hope it lives up to all of your expectations.
It was possibly the worst day of my life, and I do not state this lightly.
Things had changed. I almost don't like to admit it, because you were everything I was taught to hate, but it doesn't change the fact. You were no longer the same person you used to be, and honestly, I could hardly recognize myself in the mirror.
You used to be an outlet for me, just something for me to take out my anger and frustration and…carnal hunger on. It's not something that I intended, not really. It's just that you were always…there, around the corner, in the library, chatting with the cook. You were so available all the time, and whenever I looked into your eyes and saw the hurt and the anger and the fear, it set me off. By looking into your eyes, I could see the whys and it got me thinking and it always, always reminded me that it was your fault that she was dead. That Kikyou, a daughter, a lover and a sister, had lived and died. And no, it didn't really help that you looked almost exactly like her.
Maybe that was a deciding factor, that you looked like her. Maybe…no, it did make me think twice sometimes. It made me think that you were something…someone that maybe mattered to me.
When Kasu, or Kosu, whatever her name was, thrashed the shit out of you, I experienced panic, which was panicking in itself. It was more annoyance when I couldn't find you at Onigomu's….and when you weren't on the ground floor or the second floor, the emotion of confusion and worry first made its way into my heart. It confused me, because I was confused and worried for you, and this was perhaps the most foreign thing I had ever experienced in my life.
By the time I had raced to the third floor, my palms were sweaty and my tie askew and my heart was racing like mad, because where the fuck did she go?!
And then your voice. Strained and hurt and scared…and so strangely sweet to my ears. Help me, please! But you sounded so broken and I followed it, followed your voice and called out your name, hoping, and, indeed, praying that you would answer, and answer you did. The one word that scared you…the one word that stripped you of everything…and the one word you hated, and the one word that you needed.
Sesshoumaru!
And it was coming from the door and I chanted your name because I didn't know what was going on because something was very obviously wrong and I ran inside and found you like this.
Clothes ripped, skin open on your face, finger shaped bruises on your neck, one eye getting ready to swell shut, feet bare and your ankle….oh god, the sight of your ankle made my stomach turn. It was turned in the complete wrong direction. A lot things went through my mind at that moment…rage was definitely at the top of the list because someone…someone had dared to touch you, to hurt you…you, who belong to me. Pity was second, horror and sadness, but something else also pulled at my consciousness, something I was very much ashamed to admit at the time.
It was your name. It was everything that your name represented. It was love, hate, need, life and death, it was…my life.
And words tumbled out of my mouth, words that were meant only for my head…words that the likes of Hikari didn't deserve to hear. They were words of pity and worry. Oh my god, what the fuck, what happened, all words of pity. And I was shocked at the entire situation. I picked you up, and you screamed some nonsense about your ankle missing and that was when it hit me.
I was carrying you because someone hurt you and you called my name and I came, no, I ran like the devil was on my heels because I was worried because it was you…
And I experienced an unexpected, though not unfamiliar, prickling in my eyes. When I realized that it was the sight of you that was making tears form, the first one fell. Onto you, I think, and it made me cry even more that you tried to wipe them from me, your tormentor, and your hater.
And in that moment, the moment you tried to soothe me, I realized that you were my life.
My one, and my only.
But that didn't mean I had to accept it that easily. And I didn't. Kikyou was still there like a barrier between us. Every time I touched you, I thought of Kikyou…and the guilt fueled my hate and violence, as I'm sure it did to you. As I know it did to you as well.
My father, when he lived, was a brilliant bastard.
He was such a successful business tycoon; it runs in our family. However, in our family history, he was perhaps the most successful. It was hard to live up to him, and he knew, and used it to taunt me every chance he got.
He was a strict father, but whatever he did for Inuyasha and me, it was always for our good. Or so he told us.
My father's standards and values were puzzling to us as children, and because we could recognize them for what they were then, we thought it completely normal as we grew older.
I suppose I shouldn't include Inuyasha in this, because he was much younger than I, and was therefore much more easily influenced by your presence. Yes, I had Kikyou, but her ways were much more subtle than your outright brazen way of telling Inuyasha that he was a pompous prick. Honestly, at this point in our life, I think I can say that, despite everything, I am a little proud to call Inuyasha my little brother. Well, half-brother, really. He saw past the extraordinary picture our father painted for us; a portrait of supremacy, power, ego and success. Actually, now that I think about it, I do believe that Inuyasha was only able to see past this picture because you were there to pick out the shades of gray and show them to him.
I suppose it was the absence of Inuyasha's mother, along with your presence, that made him more rebellious and less likely to crave our father's attention. I suppose his degree in law proves that. He was just as interested in business as a toddler is to the vowels in the alphabet.
No…it was always I that was striving to Father that I was worth a second glance. You were right, when you shouted at me that I was just like Father. Father had such influence on my psyche that he actually convinced me that I hated my mother, that I was glad she was gone from our lives. He convinced me that it was her fault that our family was put to such a shame…that she wanted to leave Father and I.
And indeed, it was Father's hatred of you that led to my own hatred and disgust of you. That girl, he called you, with such a sneer on his face. Eventually, it came to the point that when Father looked disgusted, he was had either seen you, snapped at you, or was thinking of you. I do believe I adopted that look.
The Look was supposed to instill fear within you, and it did. It made both Father and I pleased, to a certain extent.
But I digress.
No matter how much I tried to be like him, Father would always be better than me. Mother once told me, when I was very young, that what parents want the most if for their children to surpass them in success.
I was not able to do so.
And because of this, I was forced to marry again. Hikari Onigomu, the niece and only heir to the Onigomu fortune, had a strange obsession with our entire family long before she ever stepped into this house as a bride. When my informants reported back to me, I was told that our family name is mentioned throughout her diary, and she also has her own copy of our family history, along with the myths that we descend from a clan of demon-lords. Her walls are white, our family color, and are adorned with portraits of myself, Father, and Grandfather.
To use your words, it was fucking creepy.
I suppose she convinced her uncle that I was the one for her. And her uncle gave me to her. I suppose I should have seen it coming when he approached me with the proposal for my hand, but, as people say, hindsight is twenty/twenty. My informants reported that she flew into a rage at my rejection.
Honestly, I made absolutely no connection to my multi-million dollar deal being broken to the rejection of Hikari Onigomu. She did not even exist in my mind anymore at that point.
To my own shame, I did not make the connection even when Onigomu offered his niece to me in exchange for him buying the deal. I was stresses and panicked, because if this didn't go through, then our everything, the Taisho family fortune would be lost forever. Generation of hard work would be gone in one signature.
In the end, I had no choice. It was either lose everything, or marry a pretty girl. I didn't think of the effect it would have on you. I didn't think about anything but millions, millions gone in the time it took to sign on the dotted line. I didn't actually think you'd care that much. It's not as if we married for love or anything. I knew you'd feel something….because things were beginning to change. Slowly. So slowly.
It was one week, maybe two, that Hikari began showing her true colors. Fuck me or I'll divorce you. And once again, the choice was between losing millions and fucking a pretty girl. So I fucked her, right there in my study. Yes, I did have to stroke myself into readiness…and pretend it was your eyes I was looking into, not the light blue that was Hikari's.
And it went on like that. Her threats against me always worked, because I had everything to lose and she had everything to gain. To make myself feel better, I told her little white lies. In addition to my own entertainment, I knew it pissed you off. I know you looked at her like a little sister. I know you thought you needed to protect you, and it made me so mad at myself that you did not realize that it was you who was in danger, that it was you who needed protecting.
And the worst part was that I couldn't even tell you so. It hurt my ego that Hikari had such a hold over me, and the only person I could take my frustration out on was you. So yes, I did mess with your mind and pretend it was your fault. And yes, it made me feel immensely better.
I'd always had a feeling that it was Hikari that ordered your attack, but I never had any proof, except for the fact that only a select few people knew about the third floor bathroom. But then, I convinced myself, Onigomu brought many women to his bed; it would not be surprising if he showed one of them it.
On and on it went, the same story each time. I'll divorce you if you don't…and etcetera. Once again, to use your terms, I had essentially become Hikari's bitch.
And so we arrived on the day that Hikari let me know that you were pregnant. By this time, everything between us had begun once again…a new start, if you will. I acknowledged that it wasn't your fault. You were not responsible for Kikyou's death. People die. It's a face of life, and one that I cannot change. It wasn't your fault, and I knew that and you knew that and somehow, it was beautiful. It felt as though years and years of blame, hate, guilt and anger were swept away in that one night, that one moment where everything came clear and straight and it was just me and you, and nothing, nothing, nothing mattered except that you were small and warm in my arms and your hair was tickling my chin.
Then, the worst day of my life.
Hikari stormed into my study and spat out She's fucking pregnant.
And I experienced such joy, such pleasure…it was like nothing I've ever felt. And also…and also that spasm of fear that raced up my spine because Hikari wanted me to father her child…and I hadn't.
And so I was silent.
Get rid of it.
And the world crashed down around my ears. The fierce roaring enveloped my being…so similar to when Father banished Mother from the house. You've been held by a group of men for five nights and six days. There is no way to prove that you are pure. You will not enter this house again. You will not see my sons. You will not receive any of your belongings. You are required to leave the property right away.
My hands, I didn't know what to do with myself and my hands lifted all by themselves and gripped my hair, pulling it from the roots.
I suspect I looked like the very picture of a tortured soul. Of course, that was before I saw you on the roof.
No. I…can't.
And her face twisted into a mask of fury. If you don't, I'll-
I don't care. And yes, it was the truth.
I'll kill her. I'll fucking kill her. Don't think I won't. And her disgusting brother entered my study as well, not bothering to knock, of course. He is such a brute. Insanely jealous of his sister…but unable to do anything.
Tell him what you'll do, brother.
And he smiled, showing all his disgusting pointy teeth. She's pretty, and he licked his lips, as if you were a cube of chocolate.
It was enough. But I wasn't going to take their bluff. If you touch her, I'll ruin you. And the bastard, the fucking bastard pulled out pictures. Of you. Naked. Some of them showed you stroking your stomach…and it made my own stomach turn.
Alright. I'll…I'll do it. And I condemned myself with those three words.
...sorry if I ruined anything for 'Eden' with this.