Empathy and Epiphanies

She sat on the ground and settled herself there. The rain fell continuously - it was like the sky was crying with her. She sat beneath the dead branches of the Goshinbuko silently and stared ahead of her woodenly. Tears steadily fell from her anguished sapphire gaze.

The blackened limbs of the Goshinbuko and its bare branches stood out like an eyesore among the lush trees of the Sengoku Jidai. The miko's knees curled upwards to her chest as if to ward off the pain that was exploding in her heart. It was a futile attempt to keep herself together. Her hands held each other so tightly the knuckles were white. All the while water poured from her soaked hair into her eyes and mixed with her tears.

On the other side of the massive trunk of the time tree stood the daiyoukai. He glowed in the fog and darkness of the night rainfall like a glowing white beacon. He stared up at the sky dispassionately, his gold orbs regarding the crying Heavens impassively. It did not affect him that the tree was dead. But he knew that the priestess on the other side of it was destroyed by the discovery that it was. He could smell her tears even among the millions of rain drops.

He glanced behind his shoulder at the small figure that sat on the muddy ground. Her petite form shook and shivered from the cold and, from the sounds of it, her muffled cries.

"It's gone. Now... Now I have nothing. I have nothing left of him." Kagome whispered, her jaw trembling as she tried her best not to break down.

Sesshoumaru heard the girl's words and pondered them. The demon Lord then glanced at the tree. He could still see the imprint InuYasha's body had left after being pinned to it for fifty years. He had visited this spot only once after the moron had gotten himself impaled by an arrow. He had come to see if the rumors were true. He still remembered seeing the boy's face while he lay against the tree, the miko Kikyou's arrow jutting from his chest. At the time the demon Lord had brushed it off but he still remembered the look of serenity on InuYasha's face as he slept under the curse's spell.

The girl's sobs drew the dog demon from his musings. He turned his head slightly and watched her small body shake with her cries, his gold eyes frozen and unreadable. He made a small, almost inaudible noise in the back of his throat and turned away from the breaking miko.

"There is no reason to waste your tears, girl, over a tree." He stated, his deep voice monotone.

The miko's soft cries stopped. Sesshoumaru took her silence as a sign to proceed.

His cold eyes narrowing, he added coolly, "It was a plant - not your hanyou."

On the other side of the dead Goshinbuko, Kagome sat there, frozen as the dog demon's logical, insensitive words seemed to echo in her head. Memories, hundreds, that had been created and shared beneath the Goshinbuko played like a movie on fast forward in her mind in response to the daiyoukai's statements. Her hands fell down and gouged deep trenches in the mud. Her jaw clenched, she gritted her teeth, her head bowing forward to hide as much of her face as possible beneath her soaked bangs.

'InuYasha.' Her heart and mind cried in unison.

Gritting her teeth, the girl shook her head, her sapphire eyes flashing and she whispered back, "It wasn't just a tree, Sesshoumaru. You will never understand that. It's not the fact InuYasha once was pinned here or that we once shared memories here. This tree was our link. It was a place we called ours and you will never, as long as you continue to shield your heart, understand that."

Silence fell between the daiyoukai and miko. A roll of thunder boomed above them. Sesshoumaru glanced at the shivering girl from the corner of his eye before once again looking in front of him, his nose tilted upwards haughtily. She was right. He would never understand her pain for he was not interested in ever feeling anything. Seeing the girl and her weakened state during her distress reaffirmed his beliefs that emotions were for the weak. She was crippled from her bond to the hanyou. Sesshoumaru needed no dependents nor wanted to have a dependency on anything other than himself.

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Just a sketch I drew and this is a scene/part from my SessxKag fanfiction, Konagona Ni Natte Inai (Broken But Not Shattered). I'll one day outline/color this once I learn how to properly (and hopefully, well) use my tablet and Photoshop XD

NOTE: If you like my writing, please feel free to check out my SesshomaruxKagome fanfiction here: [link]

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