InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Becoming Sesshoumaru ❯ First Encounters ( Chapter 3 )

Disclaimer: I don’t own Inuyasha.


In this chapter, Sess is now around 120-years of age (ie, 70 yrs in chapter 2 + 50 years in this chapter) and appears as a boy of about 13 years of age. He is still pretty much a normal kid except that his killer instincts have been awakened and are now utilized in the service of his mother. He has never really met a human face-to-face up till now. However, chance and fate (aka ME… hee hee) now connive to bring the human world to the doorstep of his home.

Translations:

Youkai – demon
Kitsune – a type of fox demon, the same as Shippou in the original “Inuyasha”
Ningen - human


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Huge, slimy mandibles, like razor-sharp knives flashed in the afternoon sun as the gaping mouth of a giant demon centipede chomped downwards into the flinty earth. Its intended target, a small, slender boy with silvery hair, sensed the imminent danger and leapt aside onto a nearby rock with a grace and speed that surpassed even the most gifted human acrobat.

Enraged that a seemingly defenseless prey had slipped from its grasp, the centipede demon roared loudly and unfurled its many-legged body to make a lunge at the boy. Almost as though he anticipated this maneuver, the child rolled his eyes in scorn as he jumped and somersaulted upwards towards the shiny carapace of the creature's head.

In a mere second, the lad was on the armoured head and with a quick downward thrust of his clawed hand, broke through the tough carapace and pulled out the creature's brain. The motion caught the creature completely by surprise, and in it the shock of death, managed only a rattle in its giant throat before its body fell lifeless on the rocky ground.

Before the huge, many-legged body crushed him, the skinny boy sprung off the corpse and landed neatly on the stony ground nearby. As soon as the dust settled, the boy raised his right hand and a fine whip that seemed to be made of golden fairy-dust and moonlight sprang forth from his finger like a translucent snaking beam. Flicking his hand lightly, the boy made lashing motions at the centipede’s hard head. The ethereal whip cut clean, shallow slices around a certain segment of the carapace that caused a well-measured chunk of armour to fall off from the corpse.

Retracting his whip, the boy walked over to the hole he had made in the monster’s body, reached into the slimy flesh and pulled out a greenish gland that steamed with poisonous fumes. Nonchalantly and almost as a matter of routine, he pulled out an empty clay jar and dropped the gland into the jar before capping it with a stone plug.

Although he had done this many times before, the boy’s nose twitched uncomfortably as he carefully placed the jar into a small, leather cloth bag that he carried. Although water, a bit of oil, ash and some scented herbs would likely remove the slime and smell from his hands, he could at times still smell the fetid odour of dead demon on his fingers and claws. He particularly disliked the centipedes, spiders and crawly beasts. They seemed to have the foulest insides of all the many creatures he regularly hunted to supply his mother’s alchemy.

The thought of his mother caused him to sigh and head towards the nearest stream. It was almost 50 years since the night that he killed a menacing ogre to save his mother, and she gave him a proper name - Sesshoumaru. Now much taller and with a swathe of silky, silvery hair, he looked much like any other thirteen-year old boy, with the exception of his gracefully pointed ears and facial markings.

He remembered the night fondly and wore his name like a badge of honour. It was a turning point in their relationship. His mother seemed to regard him in a different light. She spoke to him a lot more and when she did, she didn’t call him a “mangy pup” or a “wild cur”, but maintained an air of politeness. However, it was a cold and formal politeness that more closely resembled a lord speaking to his trusted manservant than a mother to her son. In fact, after that night of motherly tenderness, she never smiled at him again or hugged him or showed him the affection that he craved.

Although there was a great desire in him to demand her affection, he was unable to express his need. Despite her flaws, and there were many, Sesshoumaru was awed by his mother’s impossible grace and agility, her boldness in the face of mortal danger and her strength. There was something vaguely untouchable about her. It was as though she lived on a plane of existence higher than his own and that he was somehow unworthy of equal adoration and attention from her.

As he stopped at the river to wash his grimy hands, he felt a deep longing to see his mother’s smile and have her hold him as she did when he was wounded. He had done much in the last 50 years to become the kind of son he thought she would be proud of. No longer did he take on his canine form and run meaninglessly from glen to glade chasing foxes or other small demons. Instead, he keenly felt the need to become more like his mother, and now preferred to wear the form of a slender boy with silvery hair and a distinct crescent moon on his forehead. Much like Leiko his mother, he wore dark clothes and frequently went around in silky black hakama pants and a kimono-like top of the same shade with discreet silver prints on the shoulders and sleeves.

Sesshoumaru reckoned that his silky hair, ivory skin, perfect eyebrows and moon-shaped birthmark was inherited from his mother, who herself had pale hair and a moon-shaped mark on her forehead. However, no amount of illusion magic would allow him to get rid of the funny stripes on his face or arms, which he assumed were from the father that he never knew.

It seemed that his effort paid off and his mother too was beginning to regard him with a certain respect, for she taught him how to use her famous whiplash attack among other things, and gave him certain responsibilities. He was now Leiko’s assistant, running around the countryside, collecting the ingredients she needed for making her poisons.

The weather was fair and a fresh breeze blew through the forest and river where Sesshoumaru stood. It carried the green smell of trees and blossoms that were now pushing their way upwards through the moist Spring soil. With the smell of the forest there also wafted a strange, new scent. Sesshoumaru’s nose wrinkled as he sniffed this new scent carefully. It was not from an animal or demon. In fact, the silver-haired Youkai had never smelt this odour before. His curiosity piqued, Sesshoumaru lightly ran through the forest, carefully following the scent to locate its origin.

He quickly covered a few miles and then came to the end, where the thick foliage vanished before a steep cliff that overlooked a wide plain. Squinting into the distance, he saw beside a river that ran through the plain, the small dark, thatched roofs of a village and smoke rising out of fires that burned in the shallow, sunken heaths in each home.

With light steps finding the slim footholds that dotted the almost vertical cliff, he made his way down towards the small clump of wood and straw huts. Speeding over the flat land like a silver streak, Sesshoumaru’s keen hearing led him to the first sounds that he picked up, a chorus of shrill, happy voices and pattering feet. He flattened himself against the ground, hiding his movements in the long grass when he drew close to the source of the sound. He glanced downwards from a low mound and saw a group of children playing in an empty field.

The scene was familiar enough for Sesshoumaru, for it reminded him of the Kitsune, but the individuals that made up the group were not. The demon lad sniffed the air. They didn’t smell anything like Kitsune or the other young demons that he occasionally came across. His nose wrinkled irritably as he whiffed the smell of bodies that only occasionally received a proper bath. Whatever these creatures were, they had a smell that reminded him of mildly rotten vegetation with a hint of pickled vegetables… or fish, he couldn’t really decide which.

Studying them closely, he noticed that their arms, legs and bodies in general seemed weaker than those of a demon. Absentmindedly he grinned, feeling an old desire to take on his canine form and scare these strange younglings. However, a carefully cultivated sense of caution and paranoia took over and warned him to stay and watch.

And watch he did. It was almost apparent to Sesshoumaru that these creatures did not have his sense of smell, otherwise they would have detected him straightaway since he made no attempts to mask his odour. They also didn’t seem to possess a keen sense of hearing or some other supernatural ability to detect unseen watchers. They also wore clothes that seemed raggedly and showed poor workmanship and mostly ran around barefoot.

Although the darkening sky forced him to return to his mountain cavern, he came back every day to spy on these strange creatures. He knew from his mother’s books and the accounts of her wide-ranging travels that they were Ningen… humans. A species of creature that resembled certain Youkai but had lifespans that were the Youkai equivalent of mayflies, possessing neither the strength, powers and magic of his race. Most Youkai, his mother included, saw them as animals, which could be trained for certain tasks but were mostly not worth the effort because when they did manage to achieve some learning or skill of significance, they would mostly be too old to be of any real use.

In addition, they had little wisdom and were barbaric in their ways. They had no real civilization to speak of, no great monuments or leaders and on many occasions, certain unruly members of their race would rampage through their lands killing their own and burning fertile fields, sometimes for no apparent reason or motive, no matter how twisted it might be.

“Perhaps they are prone to madness,” commented Leiko once, when Sesshoumaru asked her about them.

“I wish I could see some,” the boy remarked.

“You would do well to stay away from them,” his mother said. “Although they are little better than animals, they can be dangerous beasts when a lot of them get together … In time, you will be immune to their crude weapons, but not at this moment.” She glanced at Sesshoumaru’s slim stature.

Unfortunately for Leiko, her words regarding these Ningens went largely unheeded by her son. He was fascinated by them, and even wondered if he should just walk into the village and introduce himself politely just to see how they would react. He observed that they were able to communicate with each other verbally, and were not limited to grunts and noises like the other creatures of the forest.

One breezy day as he contemplated for the umpteenth from his usual watching post near the village, his ears picked up the hooves of a group of horses approaching the village. Quickly, he found the thick foliage of a nearby tree and stayed hidden in the branches. Soon, he saw a group of horsemen approach the village. They carried weapons and rode boldly in, seeking for the leader of this small community. As they drew near, Sesshoumaru could smell the stench that clung to them. It was a mixture of unwashed bodies with stale sweat and a lot of dried blood, but little of it their own.

They easily located the village headman, for he was a well-muscled, tall individual who did not try to hide like some of the other villagers. He held his hoe tightly in his hand and glared coldly at the leader of the riders, a gruff, scarred man with a large, black beard, who trotted up towards him. They exchanged a few words before the black-bearded man started demanding a tribute from the village, which practically consisted of a large percentage of their newly harvested crop. When the village headman screamed out his protest, an arrow from one of the riders caught him in the chest and he fell where he stood, his blood pooling on the dusty ground.