Her Own Eudaemon by kaoruhana
Dr. Taisho
Prompt: Cacodemon
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Sesshomaru regarded the woman sitting across from him. The scent of her fear pooled off her in waves and he narrowed his eyes distastefully. The scent was putrid to his nose, sweat coupled with salt from tears with a sour edge to it. He balanced his chin on his hands as he tried to determine the best way to go about this predicament. It wasn’t every day that he got a special case as a psychologist. Finally, he came to a course of action and told the woman about it.
“What your daughter suffers from Mrs. Higurashi is cacodemomania. She fears she is being possessed by an evil spirit that does not exist.” Mrs. Higurashi sighed as the doctor in front of her confirmed her guesses. She calmed down some but worry now laced her scent and it grated on Sesshomaru’s nerves.
“What can be done about it?” Mrs. Higurashi asked. She loved Kagome but it had hurt her to see her daughter struggle for the past few months. She wanted nothing more than to chase the evil thoughts away much as she had when Kagome was a little girl. But she was grown now and there was nothing she could do about it.
“There are generally three courses of action I take in these cases.” Sesshomaru answered looking down at the woman from the bridge of his glasses. They were for show and honestly he wondered why he still put up with them. “I can talk of her out of it, which at this stage seems pointless. I can pretend to exorcise the demon out of her but you have told me that doesn’t work. So all I have left is to convince her that someone good can take care of her and eradicate the evil spirit within her.”
“Eradicate?” Sesshomaru nodded glancing down at the information he had jotted down on his notepad.
This new case was much too important to pass up and if his guesses were correct then Kagome Higurashi was plagued by something he had only ever heard about but never seen. Considering that he was a centuries old youkai this was unnerving to him. His gaze shifted back to the woman in front of him deciding to lie so that she wouldn’t excessively worry.
“Mrs. Higurashi, I believe your daughter is caught in her own mind. She fears for something that she does not know and the mere fact that she does not know what is in her mind is causing her to react in this way. It is my job to convince her to fight it.”
Mrs. Higurashi sighed- a little in relief and a little in resignation. She didn’t want to resort to this- this expensive treatment that she could barely afford- but she had no choice. She had attempted to console Kagome when her daughter told her about the spirit within her. She had guided Kagome, a miko by birth, to try to purify the demon from her mind when it seemed Kagome might have some truth to her words. The results had been catastrophic. Instead of purging the demon, Kagome had instead harmed herself with burns. Left with no other option, Mrs. Higurashi had gone to the one psychologist who came recommended by most of his peers- the youkai Sesshomaru Taisho.
“Dr. Taisho, I trust you with her.” She finally stated before hesitating. “What do you want to do for now?”
“I will monitor her and get to the root of the problem. In order to do this Mrs. Higurashi I ask that your daughter stay with me. I do not trust her around society at the moment.” The words hurt and Mrs. Higurashi hastily stifled the tears that wanted to come out. Her daughter- the little girl who wouldn’t have harmed anyone or anything- had threatened to kill her a few days ago. She was a threat to people and it took everything in Mrs. Higurashi to have to admit it.
“I see. What do I do now?” Sesshomaru reached behind him and grabbed a bottle of pills from a nearby shelf.
“For now, since you told me that she does not sense this evil spirit when she is asleep, I advise you to take her home. Give her these- mix them in with her dinner or place them in her tea- they dissolve in water. They will make her sleep. Drop by my address in the morning.”
Mrs. Higurashi nodded taking the bottle along with the prescription and address that Sesshomaru had provided for her. She stood, thanking him for taking care of her daughter and left the room. Kagome sat outside glazing at her with hurt eyes. Her daughter was dying day by day, lost in her own mental hell and she would do whatever she could to help her. The shrine debts be damned, her daughter was more important.
“Come Kagome, let’s go home.” Kagome stood following her mother and tried not to listen to the voice inside her head.
When they arrived home, Kagome was told to go sit in the living room which she did silently. She wasn’t allowed in the kitchen again, not after the incident a few days ago. Her brother and her grandfather both avoided her after that and it hurt. The voice inside her head kept telling her to hate them, to kill them, to hurt them, for this betrayal and she just wanted it gone. She wanted to be alone- somewhere where the voice would disappear and where she didn’t have the chance of hurting anyone. It was only in sleep that she was spared from the taunts and the torture.
“Kagome?” The teenager glanced up at her mother from her curled position on the couch. “Dinner’s ready. Will you eat at the table tonight?” Kagome shook her head. She couldn’t eat with the others, not anymore.
Mrs. Higurashi tried to hide her feelings behind her usual smile. “I see, I’ll bring it here then.”
She turned to go to the kitchen the tears falling from her eyes and being wiped away discreetly. Still, her son and father in-law noticed them and they too ignored them resigning themselves to this fate. Souta was scared of his sister. He didn’t want to be- he wanted to protect her but he didn’t know how. It was her mind that was causing this problem. He couldn’t do anything about it. So he let it go praying that his mother knew what to do.
Dinner was silent and uneasy. A telling chill had descended on the Higurashi house. Shortly after dinner, Kagome had left to sleep- the effect of the pills that Mrs. Higurashi had reluctantly placed into her daughter’s dinner. It was then that Mrs. Higurashi addressed the remaining members of her family. They knew about her visit to the psychologist today, they had been the ones to urge her to go after the incident.
“Kagome is going to stay with Dr. Taisho.” She announced pretending to busy herself with the task of washing dishes. “He told me that she believes she is weak compared to the evil spirit within her- if there is one- and that he is going to teach her to eradicate it.”
Grandpa Higurashi gently walked towards his daughter in-law. She had suffered so much in her life. First, losing her husband when pregnant with their second child and now, losing her daughter to her own mind. She didn’t deserve this pain. He silently asked the kami why they were doing this. Hadn’t the Higurashi family suffered enough? First his son, then the shrine debts, and now this. Whatever the outcome he only asked that his family be spared more misery.
* * * * *
Sesshomaru regarded the female teenager in front of him and tried to assess the situation. In all his history, he had only ever heard- and even then only in passing- of a demon with no aura but scent who could invade the minds of his victims. Last he knew however, this demon was sealed. And did Kagome Higurashi even have this demon inside her?
“Kagome,” he addressed his patient, “I would like for you to tell me everything you remember from before this spirit inhabited you.” If his guess was correct, and he was sure it was, then she had to have encountered the seal shortly before the possession. But was it broken before she touched it? Or was she the one to inadvertently break it?
Kagome opened her mouth to speak pushing back the voice in her mind that was telling her to shut up. Sometimes, she was able to overpower this demon and she was going to have to try now to make sure this doctor took care of it. She wanted the voice gone and he was giving her a way out. Mustering all her willpower, she finally spoke.
“In Kaede’s shop there was a sealed box-“She trailed off and her hands flew to her head. Sesshomaru watched in fascination to see what she would do.
Kagome shook her head from side to side mumbling something and telling whatever it was inside of her to go away. He knew it was a demon now, possibly the very one he had been dreading, but he had to make sure. He had to check. When she glanced back up at him, her blue eyes were tinged violet and were remorseful, almost as if she was going to do something she would regret. His eyes narrowed marginally before he smelt the first stings of purity. Barely able to throw up a barrier in time he deflected her attack and dodged the next few his hand automatically reaching for the tranquilizer gun kept in his pocket.
Sesshomaru waited until she sagged from the use of her energy before attacking forward and pinning her with the tranquilizer. As she collapsed in his arms, he snapped his aura out to check his home. All of the house servants- the cook, the butler, and his retainer, were fine and accounted for. The blast of holy energies however did nothing to settle him and had ruined the walls of his study with scorch marks. Carrying her in his arms, he placed her in the guest bedroom reserved for her and sealed the room with his aura as he left. If she woke and stepped even a foot outside the room he would know.
Now that he found himself calmed, he walked to his library bypassing the books on psychology and literature before reaching his father’s old journals. Plucking scrolls down from shelves, he perused them until he found the one that he wanted. Satisfied, he sat down in a nearby chair and opened it reading the contents slowly.
The piece of his father’s journal that he found depicted a scene with the priestess Midoriko. Midoriko had heard rumors of a man turned youkai who was plaguing the countryside. Being the lord of the lands his father followed Midoriko as she rid the lands of this demon. She had found him and been the one to seal him.
According to his father’s account, the priestess had chanted an old spell that separated the youkai from the man. The thought brought out a feeling of foreboding; to be seperated from one's youki was unthinkable. She then sealed the youkai in an old chest where it was to be guarded in her brother’s household. If his father’s account was correct, then that same house was where it was still held.
Tucking the scroll back where he found it he made his way to his study and made quick work of his contacts to find the house where the supposed chest was guarded. Either the guardians had slacked or there was someone within the ranks who had betrayed the family. He dialed the number of the Tachibana family- the direct descendants of the original guardians and waited for someone to answer.
“Hello?” It was a young female who spoke.
“Is this the Tachibana residence? This is Sesshomaru Taisho speaking.” Sango quickly answered him back wondering why he called her.
“Yes this is them. How may I help you Dr. Taisho?” Sango knew better than to refuse anything that Dr. Taisho asked of her. She was used to having odd people call her residence but she had never heard of a youkai of his standing call the Tachibana’s before.
“My newest client, I believe she is possessed by the demon you are guarding.”
Sango’s breath hitched and she nervously glanced around the house. The Tachibana family- really a clan- still lived within their huge courtyard confines. It was large and comprised three small neutral families. Since she could remember, she had been told that in a back room there was an important box and that the box was never to leave that room or be touched. If Dr. Taisho suspected someone of having accessed it-, the implications were obvious. There was a traitor in the Tachibana house.
“Dr. Taisho,” she started slowly noticing her father arrive out of the corner of her eye, “are you sure that the Tachibana house has not guarded the chest properly? This isn’t a simple claim you can lay on us.”
“No it isn’t.” Sesshomaru answered back hearing a flurry of movement on the other side of the phone- it paid to have his superhuman hearing at times. “But I need answers. My client needs help and I need to know how to offer it. If it is what I suspect, I would need your help in fixing the problem.”
“I see,” Sango stated thankful that her father had quickly rushed down to the backroom to see to the chest, “do you mind waiting a moment? We are checking the room as we speak.”
“Hn.” Sango waited patiently for her father to arrive, the feeling of trepidation growing with every second that her father was away. Finally, her father came back with a grave expression on his face. He shook his head slowly and the dread from that one statement made her cringe.
“Dr. Taisho,” She whispered slowly into the phone, “the chest- it’s gone.”
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A/N: So I suck at writing dark-fics and I tended to stay away from all the medical classes in school. There's bound to be a flaw somewhere and really I'll be beyond glad if people point them out to me. This is only part one of the story. The rest will be updated according to Stella's prompts. Let's see how this turns out!