Chapter Text
Artwork commission by kaorimizunya
To live a life of virtue, a woman must guard her virginity at all costs. Women who shirked this tenet and gave their “flower” away freely would bring shame to their family.
This lesson had been drilled into Sango since she was a child, alongside the proper way to wield the hiraikotsu and the administration of a poison to fell a flying demon. She was the virgin warrior, powerful and pure. Her status brought adulation, and sometimes unwanted advances, but Sango never paid it any more attention than required. She had no need for the affairs of the heart, not when demons roamed the land and brought hurt to innocents.
Then along came the spider, whose machinations destroyed her village, killed her father, and enslaved her brother. When she crawled out of the grave with the scar of Kohaku’s scythe still bleeding, to exact revenge on the ones who did this to her and her family, something about her was no longer the same.
It did not matter that her body had remained untouched: Sango was sullied now. Dirty. So, so dirty. She would never be clean again.
Revenge would be her penance; she could pay for her sin of falling for Naraku’s trap by living purely, ready to trade her ruin for a chance at redemption. It was all she deserved, it was all she—
“Sango…”
She wasn’t supposed to meet someone like Miroku. A warrior monk without an ounce of virtue, who claimed his hand had a mind of its own, who introduced himself to women with the simple question: “Will you bear my children?”
Miroku had never asked Sango that question.
Even when his roving hand found its way to her posterior.
Even when he snuck peeks at her while she bathed.
It took her a long time to admit that she wanted him to ask.
Then, Miroku did ask, and she didn’t feel dirty.
Then, Sango said yes, and it didn’t feel dirty.
How was it that the lecherous monk, the epitome of all things sinful, filled Sango with such warmth?
Why was it, when her hand was in his and they walked together, that Sango’s heart noticeably lightened? When had looking upon Miroku’s comely face and lean form started to fill her with fire?
“Your look is far away again…” Miroku’s hand found Sango’s, pulling her away from her thoughts. Back to that room, back to the futon on which they were both sitting, back to him.
“Just… thinking…” Sango replied, taking in the pools of indigo that studied her so closely.
“You have been doing that a lot.” Miroku’s chuckle was light, but Sango could hear the concerned undertone to it. “Would you like some privacy?”
Miroku backed away from his bride-to-be. They had but three days until their wedding, and it was becoming harder and harder to part from her. Not only because she was the most beautiful woman he had ever set eyes on, but also because it was a miracle that they had come out the other end of such trials intact, able to be together. Every time she looked at him, he swore that he could see her soul lighten, just as his did.
But they were not yet married, and to take Sango—the last woman he would ever want—before their union had been ordained would just prove that Miroku had not changed.
But he had.
Sango made him want a life, want a wife, want not just the pleasures of the flesh, but also the family and love that it all entailed. And he could wait for her.
He began to push himself up when a hand came to his shoulder.
“Hōshi-sama.” Sango said it softly, invitingly (could that be so?). “Maybe you could… stay.” She tugged Miroku closer. “Maybe we could… use some privacy.” Closer she came, so close he could feel her breath graze his cheek. “I—I don’t want you to leave.”
Miroku did a double-take. Sango had never been so forward before.
Yes, late at night, when she thought that they all were sleeping, Sango would whisper a prayer to the kami, offering herself as a sacrifice to redeem her shame. She cloaked herself in a veil of modesty and repentance, as if the sin of being tricked by Naraku lay squarely on her shoulders. And of those times that Miroku snuck a peek of her naked flesh, it stabbed at his heart to watch the way Sango fingered the angry scar on her back. The one placed there unwillingly by her brother.
He stopped trying to sneak glimpses at her after that, not because he didn’t want to, but because he wanted Sango’s nakedness to come from a place of trust, one that ran down into her soul, into her bones.
Was… was it finally to be?
“Are… you sure?” Miroku asked, because Sango had begun to tug on his robes, and if this continued, he was not sure he could resist the call to be one with her much longer.
Sango leaned forward, and she kissed him with all the desire that she possessed, a luminous smile lighting her face when he, too, leaned into the kiss.
“When I’m with you,” Sango explained, “the weight is gone. It’s like… I feel forgiven.” Miroku’s robe dropped to his waist, leaving his torso bare. “Feeling like that, like this—” Sango brought Miroku’s hand to her heart, letting it settle over her glorious breast. “Well. I can’t imagine feeling that way is anything less than blessed.” Suddenly, her hand was unwrapping her own yukata, a look of determination in her eyes. “I don’t want to wait anymore.”
“Sango…” Miroku leaned forward, reclaimed her lips, and pulled her into a tight embrace.
That night, Sango emerged a virgin warrior no more.
Yet there, laying in Miroku’s arms, feeling the power of his sated breaths against her bare skin, bathed in their love for one another, Sango’s sins had washed away, and she could finally really live again.