Into Hell by StormieLikeWeather

Chapter 1

Into Hell

For VS, you are a gem. Hope this tears you apart.

And for SessKag Week 2020 Day 5 - Horror/Ghost Story/Disaster/Gothic

Sesshomaru waded through souls. 

Hollow eyes peered at him from all directions. Hopeless. Lifeless and sunken.

Most knew that they had passed on, but many simply wandered for who knew how long. Aimlessly searching for something.

The desert of Hell paved a road lined with red plumes flowers, guiding the dead to reincarnation. The ones that realized.

The ones that didn't... They were fodder.

White horns jutted up like cone flowers amidst the red spider lilies. Oni. They waited in the field of blood colored flowers that edged the endless path. Taking advantage of the weak souls.

He watched as oni littered the path in promises, scattering the pleasantries of the living.

Of sweets. 

Of warmth. 

Of hope.

Once taken, no chance of reincarnation remained.

Ragged humans and demons alike, easily tricked.

Foolish creatures.

He turned his back, only to see a little girl dart out from the throng of dead souls.

She ran for a pastel blanket. A child. As small as Rin. As lost and lonely as his Rin. Brown hair weighed down in mats. 

For a moment the image flickered, and he saw her there. Rin. Orange checkered kimono. Matted side ponytail. Missing one tooth. As soon as he registered it as his little ward, reality returned.

The little stranger returned. 

The lost soul of a small girl in the tattered remains of a yellow yukata. Her little fingers reached out for the blanket’s pink ruffled edge. 

Clawed hands jutted from the bright red flowers, snatching, and the shrill cry of the girl, sounding so much like Rin, pierced Sesshomaru’s heart. The light of her soul disappeared down it's throat.

The fury that boiled his blood did not care whether in Hell or on Earth. Without much thought to repercussions, Sesshomaru retaliated. One swipe of his claws, his poison, he cut the oni down. 

The body fell forward, ugly red face rolling to his boot. 

His trembling fist bled his palm. Outrage brought down his heel onto the oni’s head. With a pop, the skull crushed and revealed the puffy pink center. It stuck to the bottom of his boot as he continued forward. 

Searching. 

Hot bleary orange light bounced off tan sand, painting the area in a hazy orange glow.

His superior sense of smell counted for nothing in the land of the dead. He could barely smell the brains on the bottom of his boot, and so, instead, he used the bonds he had formed with the members of his pack. 

His lover in particular. 

Whispers of her soul danced around him. Sang to him the same lullaby she so softly rocked Rin’s newborn baby to sleep with. The sound he fell in love with. It stole all sense of direction. 

He focused on it. 

It guided like a compass. Urged him on.

In his mind, he could see her. Petting the baby’s fine black hair with a look of both adoration and awe.

The sweet melody drowned out the moans of the dead, until all he could hear was her voice in his ears. Her breath on his skin. 

He clenched his jaw. Anger biting. The desert of Hell surrounded him. His mind on nothing but the woman that belonged in his arms. How absolutely wrong he had been to go when he had. And for what? Conquest? 

He replayed the memory of their last night in his head. The memory of her kiss touching his lips. Her fingers grazing his skin. The soft scrape of her nails on his back. She asked for him to stay another night, through plucks of her lips on his neck. The ones that gave him chills and left him near squirming. He had declined. The urgency of a war front took his protection from her. 

And in all the haste of life, she died. 

He couldn't feel the promise he had made to her any longer. He knew, they were no longer on the same plane. Not just her, but his brother and the kit as well. They were one unit. One pack. The ties that bound them were severed.

In a daze, the realm of Hell appeared before him. As if he'd conquered another portal from sheer willpower.

Guilt continued to bleed his palm. Blood trickled along as he followed the precious sound of her voice.

Coming upon a mountain of bones. Claws extended. He put his anger into a strike.

The mountain remained. 

Again. 

The mountain remained. 

His whip fizzled as it met the skeletons. 

Poison puddled like water.

The sound of his growl echoed through the rocky landscape. He took a femur and tossed it aside. Ribs. Skulls. Bones. They clattered behind him as he dug through the mountain by hand.

Suddenly it shuddered. Her voice grew loud in his head as bright pink light engulfed the massive pile of bones and shook them asunder. 

Silence.

A mirage.   

She appeared between piles of ash. Green skirt covered in corpse dust. Wild, her hair billowed all around her. Fire blue eyes pinned him. Lowering her bow, her voice cracked and her feet picked up. 

Kagome!

“Sesshomaru!” She ran to him, bow falling from her fingertips along the way. 

“Sesshomaru!” Tears fell from her eyes as she fought to reach him.

As she ran, he breathed in deeply. 

She captured him, and warmth met his skin, and he knew with the heat of her embrace and the heartbroken shouting in his ear, and the smell, the scent of her, as it overpowered everything in the forsaken realm, he knew she was real. “Miko.”

“Oh God!” Her broken voice rang against his chest, “I’m so glad!” She grabbed at him. Pulling on his clothes and hair, his shoulders. Clutching him as close to her as she could manage. “I’m so glad we found you! And you’re real! You’re really you! Oh God, I was so worried we'd be too late!” 

As she went on he felt the hammer in his chest. The pounding. He couldn’t breathe through the tightness of his chest. 

“I couldn't bear it!” She cried against his shoulder. "I can't bear it!" Her tears soaked through the silk, burning his skin. 

Suddenly he realized just how cold he felt.

“How could you let this happen!?” Fists hit his chest. "How could you leave me?!" One hit after another, and he held her through each one, tucking his nose against her hair and breathing in the smell of her. The scent that made him feel alive whether in Hell or on Earth. “How could you die!?” 

Die?

The memory of searing pain flashed in an instant. 

He clenched his eyes shut. His claws pricked her skin as he held her tighter. Her sobs grew ever louder. 

“I beg your forgiveness.” Guttural. Pained. Unfamiliar. The sound of his own voice came with a shudder of his shoulders as he realized the truth. 

She had not died. 

His brother had not died. 

It had been him.

He died.

He died.

His portal to Hell had been brought by death.

Pulling back, he stared down at Kagome with panic widened eyes. She looked whole. Herself. “How?” He demanded, grabbing her shoulders when she didn’t answer quick enough, “Answer me! How are you here!?”

“About damn time we found your sorry ass!” 

 Inuyasha. 

Relief poured over him like a bucket of cold water. Too quickly.

The ashes around them quivered.

"What the Hell I'd going on?!" Inuyasha shouted, and Sesshomaru held in a sigh at the irony of such a statement. 

He held Kagome tight against his side. Where his armor had gone, he wasn't sure. He had not been aware of it missing until she had crashed against his chest. 

"We will have to fight our way out." Steady and confident, she pressed her palm flat against the space above his heart and looked him in the eyes, "You will need to let go for awhile, but I promise, I'm never letting you go again after we get through this." Leaning up, she fisted his haori for support, bunching the fabric tight in her hand, and kissed the underside of his jaw. I love you.

As the ashes doubled in size, rising up into the shapes of thickly muscled oni, fear bound his hands.

He squeezed her tighter to him. His mouth found her ear. If this could be their last moment... "I love you." His mouth never left her skin as he found her lips.

Every bit of himself poured through his kiss. Deep and full. His palm held the side of her face. His touches both desperate and hopeful. 

Pulling back, the tips their noses met. 

Thick dark lashes, wet with tears, opened over blue seas of emotion, "How could you wait until a time like this to say it?" 

"Quit your damn sucking face and fight, dammit!" Inuyasha flicked his sword through the air in exasperation. As if he were dealing with children who had misbehaved.

Enemies snarled all around them. Sesshomaru petted her cheek with the rough pad of his thumb, "I shall never let you forget it now that I have."

"Careful, I'm going to hold you to it." Amidst a hoard of Oni in the depths of Hell, she smiled. 

Stepping back with her bow and arrow raised, she obliterated a line of the creatures. With determination, she skillfully purified one line after another. The tips of her curls floated in the reiki around her. Pink and powerful. Buzzing. 

As Sesshomaru fought his own share, he couldn't help but watch Kagome stand proud and strong. A beautiful goddess in a pit of death.

"The area needs to be clear for this to work!" Inuyasha growled. 

No matter how many they defeated, "They just keep coming!" Kagome shouted over the roar of the beasts.

Searching the hoard, Sesshomaru spotted the source.

Larger, a pale shade of red with overgrown fangs and yellowed horns, the general of the oni army. 

Its beady black eyes stared at Kagome with purpose as it brought a large bugle to it's purple lips and a high pitch screech resounded.

In an instant the hoard doubled and Sesshomaru could no longer see Kagome nor Inuyasha. 

He could make out the tips of its yellow horns. They moved toward where he had last seen her.

Heart pounding with anger. With dread. 

Sesshomaru zeroed in on the beast. Using his speed, he fought to clear a path. The hoard bulged and the forming aisle narrowed with more bodies. The instant it cleared, he took the opportunity. 

The oni roared. Snapping jaws. 

As Sesshomaru sunk his claws into its thick red hide, he saw Kagome from the corner of his eyes. Falling. Surrounded.

Quick breaths. Pain welled up inside. Not fast enough.

He ignored the spears jabbing into his arms and legs as he rushed to her side. Her body lifeless and bloody in the desert sand. 

Tenseiga. On reflex, his hand went to his side for the heavenly fang and grasped air. 

No!

His swords were not with him.

“Over here!” Inuyasha shouted over the thunderous snarls. Sesshomaru’s sword in his hand. He threw it over the heads of the oni hoard. 

Sesshomaru caught it and stilled. 

Beating... 

Her heart beat.

The world moved in slow motion as he turned his head. He stared into blue blinking eyes. They were wide and fearful. Her hand moved over her heart, feeling the steady beat that he could hear clearly in his ears. A beat that had not been there only a moment ago. 

“I guess you can’t die in Hell...” She whispered from her place on the ground. 

Chaos surrounded them, and yet he took her hand like she were the only thing that mattered. He wrapped his arms around her small frame, holding her tight against him as enemies cut into his back. 

“What are you, fucking stupid!?” Inuyasha barked out. “Dammit Kagome! This is why I didn’t want you to come!” He cut down the group of oni that threatened them. His brother unwilling to let Kagome go. 

“Fuck.” He shouted as a new oni general appeared in the distance. A mass of smaller, redder oni flocked around it. A new hoard. “We gotta go!” He growled, tugging at Kagome’s white sleeve. 

Throwing a stone fruit that they had been given by Bokuseno, Inuyasha watched as a portal erupted and he shoved the couple through before following himself. 

He could see the whites of the oni general’s eyes as the portal popped out of existence. 

They landed near the bone eater’s well. Kagome ran to the lifeless body beside the timeless well. 

Sesshomaru. 

He had yet to move. She rubbed her arms. The warmth of his embrace slowly dissipated. Moments passed and she could barely breathe. 

Staring down at him, she couldn’t blink. Tears welled up as the seconds ticked by. She dropped to her knees beside his corpse.

“Come on dammit.” Inuyasha hissed, kicking his brother’s boot. “He’s not going to leave you, Kagome. We didn’t go through Hell for nuthin.” As sure as he sounded, he couldn’t look away either. 

Afraid to touch. Afraid somehow she would break whatever magic they were waiting for. She sat beside him and cried. 

He coughed. 

“About damn time!” Inuyasha growled, kicking the dirt as he left to tell the others.

Blood speckled Sesshomaru’s lips, but he breathed!

He’s alive! She flung her arms around him, touching and kissing his still cold face. 

His claws slipped through her hair. “Kagome...” He rasped, more blood speckling his lips.

“Tell me later,” Looking into warm amber eyes, she petted his cheek, “You are never leaving me again.” 

His breath touched her skin. Warm. Full of life. 

She pulled his head into her lap, looking into his face as his body began to heal. Unable to find the right words, neither spoke.

Her hair fell over her shoulders as she bowed her head. Noses bushed. The petting of her fingers replaced by featherly caresses of her soft lips.