InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Appetizers? On Me! ❯ Useless ( Chapter 17 )

He despised the boy at first. Useless, clumsy and slow - that was his first impression. The boy, Kohaku, tried to protect Rin, but his efforts were weak and ineffective. He was far more trouble than he was worth. This is what he thought.

Rin enjoyed his company, so he permitted the boy stay.

As time passed, contempt faded into distaste. The boy grew taller, and stronger. He was less clumsy and slow, but he would never be strong enough to protect Rin without help. He fought hard, with everything in him, but what good was trying when she could end up dead at any moment? The boy's skills were ineffective and he remained utterly useless. This is what he thought.

Rin smiled when she spoke to him, so he permitted the boy to stay.

More time passed and his distaste faded into tolerance. The boy became a young man. He grew into the body of a fighter, strong and agile. He was quick with his hands and light on his feet, and far better with his weapons than any human he had seen before. The boy Kohaku was more than adept at killing demons, perhaps even an expert, but it was irrelevant. Skill alone wasn't enough. In the end, he was nothing more than a human. All it would take was one misstep, one swing of his sickle that was too slow because of his inferior human reflexes and Rin would be dead. What purpose did he serve? This is what he thought.

Rin's cheeks turned pink when she watched him train, so he permitted the young man to stay.

Rin was in her sixteenth year when the boy Kohaku had become a man. His shoulders were broad and muscular, the shoulders of one who has trained with swords his entire life. His calves were strong, hard like iron after years spent fighting demons. There was confidence in his footsteps when he entered a room, and he stood taller then before. The hesitation and self doubt that had dogged his every expression and movement in his early years was gone. But when he spoke to Rin all traces of that hard earned confidence vanished. He stooped, stuttered and kept his eyes low, barely able to meet her gaze. They hardly talked, just watched one another from a distance. He saw no reason to keep the boy around any longer, but the expression in Rin's eyes when she looked at him was intriguing.

He appointed the boy second in command of his army. Rin was not pleased.

“How dare you!” she'd shouted at him, the quiet girl who never raised her voice except in laughter or song. “How dare you.”

It was many weeks before she spoke to him again after that.

It was winter when his tolerance finally warmed to acceptance. Rin left the castle to visit a friend in a nearby village. An unwelcome storm blanketed the ground with layers and layers of pristine white snow, and the wind made it difficult for even his eyes to see through the wall of white. When Rin didn't return by dark they searched for her, he and the demon slayer Kohaku.

The blinding snow and cold obliterated all of his senses, smell, touch, and sight. Even his hearing was dulled by the insulating wall of white. It was hours before he made it to the village. Rin's friend said she'd left hours ago when the snow first started to fall. Panic set in. He had no faith that the boy would find her and his skills were of no use in the storm. What would happen to Rin if they failed?

He'd trudged back through the forest, his every sense straining. A heavy sigh of relief escaped from his lungs when he saw Kohaku carrying her steadily through the snow as though she weighed nothing at all.

“Where did you find her?” he'd asked quietly, while watching the reassuring puffs of misty air leaving her nose with each breath.

“There's this tree she likes to sit under sometimes to watch the stars or...so I thought...,” he answered and then trailed off. His cheeks darkened, but not from the wind or the cold.

“She's fine. She's safe,” Kohaku concluded, and he nodded in agreement because he knew it was so.

It was spring when he saw them, under that same tree, talking close. They spoke in quiet tones, their eyes no longer looking nervously at the ground. Kohaku's larger calloused hand lightly held hers, their fingers entwined. He found it strange that hands designed to hold weapons could have such gentleness in them. His demon hands did not possess the ability to bestow such feather light touches on her cheeks, or along the underside of her jaw. A mouth full of fangs could never place such delicate, reverent kisses against her lips. And what he felt in his heart...such emotions would never burn in his demon eyes with the intensity she deserved, because it was simply not in his nature to do so.

Compared to that boy, that man, that demon slayer, what was he, Sesshomaru, but a monster?

It was late in spring when she asked to leave. She looked radiant sitting atop Ah-Un with Kohaku's arm wrapped securely around her waist, protecting her from all harm. How the tables had turned. It was he who had become useless and obsolete. All he could offer her was protection, but that boy held the promise of so much more - love, companionship, and a family - all things he could never give her. She deserved those things. This is what he thought and watched her go without uttering a single objection.

He despised the boy in the end. Not for what he lacked, but for what he possessed; all the things he would never have and the one he truly wanted.