InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Lifetime Loving You Part 2; The Path to Osaka ❯ Teaching an Old Dog a New Trick ( Chapter 13 )

Disclaimer; Inu-yasha is not mine!

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Chapter 13; Teaching an Old Dog a New Trick

(Rin)

It's hard to explain how it all began. Mari-na I guess just seemed to be the only one who brought a change around in Lord Sesshoumaru during those weeks in the village.

The first day, however, in the village I will never forget. I had awoken early that morning to the sounds of rustling and busy people chatting in the halls of Princess Mari-na's place. (Let me correct myself, “Lady” Mari-na.)

So, I got out of bed, put on the large robe that was three sizes too big for my young teenage body, and peaked out the door. I watched as the men of the village and some of the women were hurrying through the halls and out a door at the end of the long hall. I narrowed my brow and licked my top lip as curiosity took over my thoughts.

I dressed in what ever I could find and just as I opened the door to rush out after all the people, Lord Sesshoumaru was standing before me with a cane in his arm still in a bandage. Even though two weeks had passed, My Lord's arm had not yet healed. The injuries he received from Kaugra must have been serious, but I would have never thought of her trying to do any harm to us. I always thought that Kaugra loved Lord Sesshoumaru, and that he might have too in some awkward kind of way. Besides these questions in my head were the ones dealing with how Kaugra had gotten so powerful all of the sudden.

My Lord looked down at me and I looked up from his chest. “Rin?”

I gasped and took a few steps back as I bowed. “G'morning, Milord! You're looking much better today!”

He turned to look down the hall. “What are the servants of this palace up so early in the day for?”

I remembered my intentions and grabbed a rag carelessly left by one of the servants the other day and tied my hair back and squeezed passed him and down the hall. “I will be back later, Milord. Get well soon!”

He gave me an arched brow and a shake of his head as I rushed out the door and into hills covered in growth and crops. Herbs and spices and even a pond in the middle of it all were all that could be seen, than and many busy villagers and servants trying to take the left over melting snow and placing it into water buckets.

I hurried over to a young boy that seemed a few years older than me and tapped his shoulder. He turned and looked at me. “What are you all doing with the snow?”

The boy smiled and knelt down as he picked up a handful of the mushy white ice. “Mari-na is going to help us bring the planting season in a few weeks early so that we might have a good harvest this year. The snow is needed for watering the gardens and for drinking. Some of it will also be used for the rice pond.”

I looked at the snow in his hand and picked it up out of his hand before placing it into the bucket. I then turned back to the boy and smiled as I bowed my head. “My name in Rin!”

The boy got to his feet and did the same. “Welcome to our village, Rin. My name is Shinta.”

I blushed a little and tipped my head down to hide it. He grinned before turning back to pick up the buckets of snow, and I followed him.

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(Sesshoumaru)

I watched as Rin skipped off happily behind an older human boy, feeling slightly protective of this strange new behavior in her.

“Hmm” I heard a voice beside me beam. “They really do grow up quickly.”

I glanced to my side to see Mari-na with her blue mane tied back in a long hair band. She wore ragged clothing covered in what look like a weeks worth of filth. She cleaned her hands in her apron and walked out. “They don't grow up that quickly,” I told her sternly.

Mari-na looked at me for a mere moment before turning her face to the sky and then to watch the ground she stepped on as she headed into the fields. “Funny, it's been centuries since the last day we saw each other, and yet since the day you came here with Miss Rin, it feels like it has only been a week.”

I looked at her as she turned her attention to a tree getting ready to bud. I watched her as she examined it. “I don't recall ever meeting you.”

She laughed with a hint of sarcasm, “Of course you wouldn't…you never knew me as Lady Mari-na, Princess Mari-na, or even Mari-na for that matter.”

Mari-na took out a pouch from her apron and sprinkled it over the roots of the tree, and I continued to watch her.

“No, as I recall it, you and your dem demon brethren would pick on me and pull my hair and call me…what was it now…oh yes…” She turned and looked me dead in the face, her nose mere inches from my own. “`Mar-ni Kar-mi', because I always told you and the other boys, that you had bad Karma.”

My eyes widened as she watched me come to realize so many things all of the sudden. Her lips curled into a half smile. “That cold exterior of yours I for one certainly never saw coming.”

I snorted, “Time and eventsnge nge a person.”

Mari-na looked at me, completely un-phased by my comment and started to climb the tree as I looked away. “Really now? Never would have guessed. A half brother whose mother just happens to be a human really changes your world, huh? I doubt that was all of it.”

I looked at her. “He is the cause of all of this. Things could have been different if he had never come into my life…into our lives.”

Mari-na swung on a branch and looked at me with an unconvinced look on her face. “Whoever said it was his fault? Just what exactly is he guilty of?”

I looked at her and turned my back to her to look back out into the fields.

Mari-na groaned in annoyance and sat on the branch she was swinging from. “You're not the Sesshoumaru I remember, anymore, that's for sure. You may think that cold exterior of yours can hide you pretty well, but I know the real you. I still remember the young pup who thought he could do anything. You talked big, but you were always scared of snakes in the gardens outside your home.”

I closed my eyes and gripped my shoulder. “I'm not that little pup anymore, Mari-na. Things happen later on in life. Things you wish nehad had to happen. Things that didn't have to happen, but did.”

She looked down over her shoulder and lay back on the branch with her bare feet against the tree's trunk. “Really now, you don't say?”

“Stop toying with me.”

“I'm not…I'm just thinking that you might think you're the only one whose gone through these things, but you're not I'm sure.”

I growled, “You don't even know the half of what I've seen and been through.”

“Oh Aye,” Mari-na said, as she turned her head to look at me. “But I do know this. You've lost your family to dragons…and so have I…and now we are all that is left of our kind as we know it.”

I looked up at her over my shoulder with a cold stare. She sat up and humped down walking past me. “You may seem threatening, but you do have part of your father's soul in you whether you like it or not. You are still his son.”

I glared at her and growled as threatening as possible with a flash of red evident in my eyes, but with a huff I stormed back into the palace as Mari-na watched me un-phased by all of it.

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(Mari-na)

I watched at he stormed back into the hall and sighed as I sat on a rock and scratched my leg for a moment. Then I took a moment to look around before pulling out a small pressed flower from my kimono and looked at it. I smiled at I touched the dried petals.

“Oh little flower…I wonder if he has truorgoorgotten it all…even you.”

~~~

The next morning came rather quickly, and there was still much to be done out in the fields. With so little time to spare before planting season had to begin for the rice, I had to get every available hand out in the fields tok ask as hard as they could to start getting the earth ready for the early thaw. I knew my power tong ong out the sun early and warm the ground would help us all in the long run, but we also needed our provisions for the rest of the year before winter came to us again.

I was up earlier than normal that day and the servants were awoken by me instead. Dressed in my work kimono and my skirt and apron and with no need for anything to be on my feet since I would be working in the trees again, helping the first blooms to appear.

Everyone was gathered and put out into the fields to work. Everything had to get done today and we already were behind schedule. With this knowledge I was glad to see the villagers in the fields.

However…

There is always one person in the herd you can expect is never in the rhythm of this lifestyle. I snorted my nose and with a smirk marched into my castle and stood at the door of his chamber. `Aristocrat, my ass,' I thought to myself as I glared at the door.

I took a deep breath, and with both hands, flew the doors to Lord Sesshoumaru's chamber open with as much force as I could muster without breaking my doors. He snorted and sat up in bed rather quickly, red flashing in his eyes for merely a moment. I crossed my arms after the dust had settled and we were looking at each other face to face.

The only thing that could be heard for a long time was the cracking of the wood frames on the door that were cracking from the stress and force. Finally, Sesshoumaru glaat mat me and I smirked. “Time for work!” I said with all of the fake charm I could present by still showing my complete and utter sarcasm.

Sesshoumaru, however, continued to just look at me as if nothing had fazed him, and with a moment or twos passing, he pulled his blanket over his head and groaned. I rolled my eyes and marched up to his bed pulling the blanket off of him. “I said--”

And then there was a gasp, and I turnedy iny in complete embarrassment. Course he yelled as well and jumped out of his bed and with a hard thump on the wood floor pulled the blanket over certain areas to hide what he did not want me to see.

I tried to catch my breath and close my eyes and cover my face as I had my back to him. Sesshoumaru growled, “Your place…you've forgotten it again.”

I held my eyes shut as I screamed, “Me!” I threw my arms up in the air. “This is my home and you live under this roof.”

I finally turned not caring e wae was decent for me or not. I stomped over to him and gripped his hair as I pulled him toward me. His face still didn't change from its cold tone, and I growled in frustration. “Get out of bed and get out to the fields and help. That is how things are run around here and you are no exception to those rules. You and Miss Rin will earn your keep, and so far she has been working for the both of you for weeks. I won't allow this, and you will pull your own weight around here.”

Her glared at me, and gripped my wrist with the hand that had grasped his hair. “High class ns dns don't work among the low class, nor do they demote themselves to such things.”

I leaned in close to him. “You don't frighten me, Sesshoumaru. I know you're powerful and you have the power to take my life when you choose…but know this…” I leaned in close enough to whisper, “The times you speak of are dead, and the life you speak of died when your father swore to the new life. My father swore to his loyalty that he would follow that which he made for all dog demon likeness to follow. You cannot rebel against this forever…sooner or later…” I pulled my hand out of his grasp and took a step back. “…Sooner or later you will have to face the truth that you are bonded to his destiny, and you are no different.”

He stood firm and watched me like a hawk waiting for the right moment to strike. “I was born in his of of true immortality. I will not live the vows he made for me. I will be the Inu no Taisho he once was and the tribes will until in the old ways again.”

I nodded in disgust. “You saw with your own eyes what the old ways did to us…it separated us…broke us…killed us…and it took you're mother as proof.”

With that I stomped out of the room with one thing left to say, “Be outside in the hour…we've got work to do.”

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(Sesshoumaru)

Many men have said that women will drive you crazy…and for one thing, they are as true as the day the phrase was first said.

As soon as I had walked outside, Mari-na's men had me at their side digging up the earth as the sun warmed it. Mari-na and the other women were not far behind planning the seed for herbs. The men snorted as they looked at me lagging behind. ME…lagging behind a bunch of mortal farm men. What I wouldn't have done to have my full strength back. What did Kaugra do to me that has suddenly made me so weak?

Mari-na pushed me along, and had me work in wood collecting, telling me not to use any power to cut the trees down. She wanted me to be just as hard labored as the men around me. Cutting the trees down and soon the men began to cut the logs.

Mari-na came to me as I looked at the stack of wood before me. “You've hardly started cutting your field. What's holding you up?”

I growled at her as sweat poured down my face. “Look, hoeing a field is one thing. I have enough strength for that. I lack in labor that require both hands.”

She crossed her arms and smirked. I cocked my brow. “What?”

Mari-na snorted in laughter. “You actually got angry and showed with your face this time.”

I snorted, and cooled down as I wiped the sweat from my brow. “You're not the first to do that.”

“Oh,” shked ked surprised as I sat down to catch my breath, “you've been this way before?”

I closed my eyes. “When Rin was stolen from me…yes…”

Mari-na snorted as I felt her kneel behind me. “And you lecture me about caring for ns…”ns…”

She began to unravel her hair from a long hair band over her shoulder. I continued, “What's happened to me? I'm able to suppress my emotions, not show them so freely like this…I haven't been this way since…since…”

“We were children? When your tribe and your father were still alive? Yes?”

I closed my eyes and bowed my head. “I'm getting weaker…or is it that I need to find my strength of old again?”

I felt her hands in my long silver hair as she combed her claws through it and gather it at the nape of my neck. “Perhaps,” she told me almost sweetly, “or maybe it is a sign that you must discover a different kind of power now. One that works for you the way you are now.”

I looked over my shoulder. “I'm not my father. I won't become weakened by softness for mortals.”

“No,” Mari-na spoke without looking at me. “No, you can never be your father…but maybe you can survive this trial without it claming your life.”

I looked further over my shoulder. “What are you doing to my hair?”

llinlling it back for you, so that it won't get in your way anymore.”

I felt warm suddenly…like the feeling of Mari-na's presence seemed to sooth me. I…I had never felt this way before…this warmth was slightly familiar, but strange to me at the same time.

“It's finished,” she said suddenly and slowly moved away. “All I can tell you is to keep trying to regain your physical strength. Working in the fields like this will help, I assure you.”

I turned as she got to her feet to leave. “Mari-na?”

She stopped and looked over her shoulder. I thought for a moment. “I can't do much hard labor for you. I lost my left arm in battle and I can't do much of the labor as these other men can.”

Mari-na looked at me from the corner of her eye…and smirked. “We'll see…”

I raised a brow wondering for the rest of the long hot day what she had meant.


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A/N

Sorry this chapter is a little shorter than normal, but I have vacation coming up and I didn't want to leave you guys high and dry for another longer period of time.

Sorry if Sesshoumaru is a little OCC, but he's going through a lot of changes in this story. There are emotional things that happen, mostly because Sesshoumaru is going through an emotional break down. He's kind of lost himself is many ways. The loss of his strength, his dignity, his rank, and his honor all are having major effects on him at this point so it's kind of a really big deal. So a lot of this is him trying to find his place again. Sort of a death and rebirth of something he once was, only with the scars that won't ever disappear.

Next time, we return to Inu-yasha, Kagome, and Kitsumi as they face their first danger on the Path to Osaka…Demon Trees.