Pairing: Itachi/Sasuke/Kagome/Naruto

Warnings: Incest, Violence and Sexual Theme

Part III

The She-Wolf:

The Miko

Well, content loves the silence
It thrives in the dark
With fine winding tendrils
That strangle the heart
They say that promises sweeten the blow
But I don't need them, no
I don't need them

I'm the slow dying flower
In the frost killing hour
Sweet turning sour and untouchable

—My Skin

They regarded her differently now.

Settled in a candlelit portico, the siblings were huddled together on the porch's lip with dangling legs over undulating koi. They watched as the stars fell. Old bonds twisted once more and found familiarity in their scars and old poisons.

"Two years," Sasuke spat venom and his dead coal eyes burned with a kindled flame toward her and Itachi. "I told you the mission was too extended to leave her. Now look at her." Sasuke's eyes dipped down as if she were about to be smacked.

Kagome whined. A trickle of disgust pooled onto Sasuke's icy features.

Kagome hardly spoke to begin with.

"I had no idea our little imouto would be running amuck in the woods, otouto," Itachi remarked with sake glistening on his white lips as he patted her head affectionately.

Kagome squirmed. The fabric over her skin was too tight and made her skin itch and sweat. She felt as if she might suffocate and started to scratch at her reddening throat—

"Stop that," Sasuke reprimanded with a sharp movement. Kagome only knew that her hand was now lying in her lap with a redden welt coiled around her wrist.

"She will learn, otouto," Itachi promised and twirled a silken ringlet of his sister's hair.

Kagome watched her brothers and their bloodied eyes reminded her of vultures circling carrion.

They regarded her differently now.

"In fact, she will be even better than before."

. . . with a deep, dark hunger.

…

a brother means you love. only a brother can love you. you only love your brother.

…

Somehow they trapped her. Somehow her brothers' evil, tricky eyes pierced her. Somehow they bore witness to that gaping space, that humming void, that howling emptiness that brimmed amid oblivion. . .

It was a divine fixation for the both of them. And so, they stripped her down and burrowed into her.

Trapped beneath her silk-skin and between her bird-bones and sinew-threads was something so immeasurable and untainted by the cosmos that neither could truly fathom.

All they pondered and solved was that this precious godsend was theirs and theirs alone.

But soon they heard the whispers, a silent echo across the heavens . . .

Suspicion will always breed doubt and the brothers soon found another's footprint amongst the countless sands of infinity.

Her Demon Prince had left more than just bruises in his wake.

"Imouto," Itachi purred against her breasts. "Where has your heart gone?"

…

a brother means you love. only a brother can love you. you only love your brother.

…

Sasuke had always been the bitter one; Itachi the silent.

People rejoiced in her return and her brothers' as well. Soon relief and bliss ebbed away with Itachi's soft soundless whispers on her neck (as if she knew his dark secrets) and Sasuke's vise-like hold on her waist (as if she might break away and run into the woods).

She was pulled apart like a putrid piece of meat between her two wolf brothers.

And people seem to always stare and find disgust with carrion.

"Come, imouto," Itachi beckoned her down the dusty streets and back to the gates of their compound, to their den.

But Kagome hesitated and did not follow as she always did. "Why?"

Itachi blinked and she watched as those dark vultures circled in the red sky of his eyes. "Because I am your brother and you know what this means."

"Love," she said, her eyes clouded over.

Sasuke paused as well and coiled around her with his own hands, words and lips. A thick cord of refined muscle and white steel, made in Itachi's image, that formed, knotted and twisted until it threatened to strangle, throttle and asphyxiate. . . "Who loves you? Who do you love?"

And just like always, she said, "My brother."

But little did they know, they were squeezing her far too tight.

…

a brother means you love. only a brother can love you. you only love your brother.

…

And then, on one placid grey morning Kagome awoke to find herself shivering and alone amongst the shadows of her wolves' den.

He may not have leapt down from the forest's canopy, but her Demon Prince howled far off in the distance. She burst through the delicate shoji screens and zen gardens with naked feet.

And Kagome answered the call, running back to the forest in which she had been born and flourished.

She ventured out beyond the compound walls and into the depths of the forest; where trees gave way and collapsed into themselves with mossy pulp, rotten wood and fungi.

It was here that Kagome found her mind's horror: vacancy. Her bright, blond Devil was nowhere to be seen or heard.

"Imouto."

Kagome swiveled on her heels and a rush of cold swelled over her nude form.

"What is this place?" Sasuke's voice was a reserved and vicious thing as he gazed at this savage she-wolf.

It was a place where things died in nature's grip and bloomed in a corpse's shadow, her mind whispered.

Kagome hardly spoke to begin with.

Sunlight glittered in with silence and the prying eyes of a golden-haired sprite peered in.

"Come," Sasuke beckoned, with tomoe swirling in oceans of blood and an outstretched hand carved by Itachi's will.

She did not pause, but instead, scurried forth with a mad, gleeful smile and Sasuke did not refuse her or suspect the oncoming swell of doubt. But soon relief and bliss ebbed away with one solid footstep.

The Wild Demon Prince revealed himself in all his glory.

"Who is that?" Sasuke whispered with a vise-like grip on her as she might break away and run into the woods.

Kagome turned her head, her skull still cradled by Sasuke's sword-traipsing fingertips and saw the beast that had raised her, taught her and loved her.

His honeyed skin was the same pallor as hers, his eyes of the same pigment and his scent matching that achingly familiar earth and salt musk.

And the Black Fox shed her wolf-fleece with a soft, dark secret.

"My brother," she confessed to him before tearing out Sasuke's throat.

"Beautiful," the Wild Demon Prince rejoiced.

.

..

...

...

...

...

"I knew you were there," the Black Fox wiped her lips of the kill and looked to her sibling haloed by dewdrops and shimmering canopy.

"Hm, I never left," he told her and beckoned her with sun kissed, bloodless claws. "Now, come…."

And they never spoke of it again, letting their words and civility die away with the owl-song and the ever-searching torchlight on the horizon. . .

…

Imouto, where has your heart gone?

…

Author's Note: Loosely inspired by Brendan Kennelly's Dream of a Black Fox and Inception's concept of an idea being more infectious and destructive than a virus. Yes, Itachi and Sasuke had been brainwashing Kagome her entire life. Yes, it backfired with Kyuubi's influence and yes the title is symbolic of Kagome's eventual evolution and resolution. Now I would love someone to expand on this independently but alas, that is a dream. Thank you all for going along for the ride. Now I'm off to go camping for week with no internet... oh joy. ~KK