InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Blood & Tears ❯ End Notes ( EndNotes )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Blood & Tears

EndNotes by doggieearlover^~^

This piece started out as a scene that played out so violently in my mind that I had to write it down. It was originally only meant to be somewhere from seven to nine chapters, but was finally completed with an even forty.

There were two things I knew for certain when I started Blood & Tears: One, that it would start with the scene where Kouga and his pack brutally attack Kagome and Inuyasha and the wolf-prince rapes Kagome. He knows he will never have her heart, so he will make it so that no other will ever want to touch her. The second, that it would end with InuYasha asking Sesshomaru to tell him about their father. I just did not originally envision taking forty chapters to get there.

I know that some think Kouga is totally OOC, but the truth is, he and his wolves slaughtered humans and ate them before he grabbed Kagome. In fact, her kidnapping happened just after the wolves had killed everyone in the village where they first met, including little Rin. I did not think it would take all that much for him to revert back to the way he had lived his entire life up until he met Kagome. I also did not think he would take rejection very well when it came down to it. After all, he keeps bringing up that InuYasha is just a half-breed mutt. Kouga doesn't think any better of a hanyou than the next pure-bred youkai does. Also, I started this story before the manga reached the point where Kouga had joined the group. He and InuYasha were not the best of friends even if InuYasha had saved him several times already.

I also knew before I started writing that Sesshomaru was going to come to the rescue as the couple was being attacked. Some have accused me of having Sesshomaru as OOC, but I don't really see him the way that he was early on in the series any more. I think the Taiyoukai was always a being of great honor, even if he had been cold and often cruel. Once Rin entered his life he started to subtlety change. I think he was surprised that a human child would try to aid him when he was injured, even though he tried to frighten her away. I think he even surprised himself when he drew Tenseiga when it pulsed, and brought her back to life. And while he could have insisted she not follow, he did no such thing.

Also, maybe it was just born out of his curiosity, but I found it interesting that Sesshomaru went to the trouble to visit with Bokusenou in order to find out more about Tessaiga after he smelled the change in InuYasha's blood. Even if in his head if he was still jealous that his father had bequeathed the sword to InuYasha, in his heart he now understood that InuYasha truly needed it. The fact that he came and stopped InuYasha when he was in his full blood-lust demon and then told Kagome to return the sword to him seems to bare this out. If he were really a cold, vicious killer with no sense of honor that wanted his half-brother dead, he would have killed them all on the spot.

Throughout the series Inuyasha and Sesshomaru start to have more civil encounters from time to time (even if they still trade insults). While the anime seems to have them still fight most of the time (probably for the entertainment value), their encounters are not always so violent in the manga. Whether intentional or not, they have managed to aid each other as they battle with Naraku.

Sesshomaru shows the largest shift in his character when he actually feels anger at Kagura's death because he considered it pointless. He sought her out and saw Kagura right before she died. In fact, he seemed disappointed that Tenseiga did not ask to be drawn. He surmised it was probably because of the way she was brought into the world and did not truly have a soul of her own to revive. It was at that point that the shift was great enough for Tenseiga to call Totosai in order to reforge it as a weapon. It was then that the Meidou Zangetsu Ha was created so that Sesshomaru could send his enemies directly to the underworld. This would not have happened if there had not been a shift within his heart.

Also, InuYasha does not hate his brother as much as he professes to. In the manga, Totosai pushes him after the fight with Sesshomaru where he used the Wind Scar against him (and actually understood what he was doing) until InuYasha admits that he could not use the Wind Scar to its full effect against his only brother. And the fact is, that if he had, Totosai would have taken Tessaiga from him and smashed it. The master sword smith states that he could only allow a “softy” like InuYasha to keep a weapon of that much destructive power.

I can't even begin to tell you where all of my different ideas that were incorporated into the story came from. I thought of a lot of things while driving to and from work. They could come from a song on the radio, or a television commercial. Truthfully, many (if not most) came from sources that had nothing to do with InuYasha at all. One of the flashes I do remember actually came from a combination of the fifth Harry Potter, a car insurance commercial, and the fact I had sushi for lunch sometime that week. The lobby scene where Mama goes to the hospital when Kagome is in labor was actually inspired by a combination of the hospital lobby scene when the Weasleys, Harry, and Hermione went to see Arthur after he had been bitten by the snake, and the gecko on the Geico insurance commercials. That combination added to the sushi lunch resulted in me creating the gecko youkai attempting to eat the very large live squid, which in turn ended up being squid sushi by the time all was said and done. While the scenes I wrote don't resemble any of them, that is in fact where the idea originated from.

I really don't read very many fics when I'm writing. However, I do observe everything going on in the world around me for inspiration. Sometimes, things just pop into my head. Others, I have to really think about what I want to try to accomplish, and then try to put it down on paper. Not always as easily done as said. However, I feel compelled to write until the story is complete. I write for myself, and hope that others will enjoy it. I want my story finished, and post as often as I feel a chapter is ready, and not only often enough to string it out and qualify for one award or another. And while I would like to think that I was totally original and creative in all of my ideas, I am not arrogant enough to think that no one, ever, in the whole wide world, never ever had the same idea I did before I wrote it down. It may already exist out there somewhere where I have not seen it, or it may have not been published until after I had posted a particular chapter. Even then, I am adult enough to realize that it is possible for more than one person to have the same train of thought about something. It also means that someone out there must agree with how I see some things, so I'm not totally out in left field all by myself.

I do read every review, and have used some to know what to include as part of the story. While I almost always have a reason behind everything lurking somewhere in my head, I don't know what my readers are just really curious to have an answer for. What I may think was an unimportant detail, someone may be just dying to know the answer to. An example of this was Mai's (the housekeeper) mother. I always knew that she was suffering from severe depression due to her husband leaving her after her battle with breast cancer (this happened to someone I know after many years of marriage). However, I did not realize that people would really want to know why Kagome did not offer to cure her as she had others like Kaede and Sesshomaru, and even herself. So, I wrote the explanation in. As a result, I came out with one of my favorite lines spoken by Kagome:

“I'm sorry, InuYasha. I wish I could help her. I'm afraid the only broken heart I had the ability to heal was yours.”

Another thing that surprised me was the number of people early on asking for it to be a Sesshomaru/InuYasha/Kagome fic all the way through. However, when I started, I had never really intended to go that way. Truthfully, I don't know that I could. While I could see the two males putting up with each other when they had to, I think the first time Kagome was fertile they'd kill each other over who would impregnate her first. Also, while it is possible to have sex with someone you respect, and with someone you love, after a while it does start to wear on you and you almost always have to make a choice. This was one of the reasons that I never had Kagome actually kiss Sesshomaru - it was one of my ways of differentiating the two relationships. While hers with InuYasha was not just in body, but from her very soul; what she experienced with Sesshomaru was born of her gratitude and respect for what he had done for both her and InuYasha. And she always made sure that InuYasha was okay with it. She would have never just gone off with Sesshomaru without his knowledge and consent.

I also had a lot of people (mostly guys, I noticed) who either wanted me to have the two couples swap partners, or to have Kichou and Kagome interact sexually together. I tried to make it clear by restating at different times that both females were far too possessive to do any swapping. While they were comfortable enough together to have sex in the same room, they weren't going to be doing any trading, ever. That was just never part of the big picture. And the two girls together? Sorry, but that just isn't my fantasy.

I also had some misconceptions that InuYasha lost his alpha status, and was now a beta to Sesshomaru. This was not the case at all, and if you read Chapter 11, “The Strength Within” very carefully, I try to explain it through Sesshomaru's words to his brother. Anyone who has had a LOT of experience with canines understands there is more than one type of alpha. Most people assume the dog that is always snarling, always fighting, is an alpha male. In truth, that is the insecure or wanna-be alpha male. The true alpha male rarely has to make such a display. He (or she - this can also apply to a bitch) exudes such power and strength that the others know simply not to fuck with him. Often all you will hear is a single low growl of warning that makes the challenger back down. If the challenger continues to push, it usually results in his clock being cleaned. I know with my own male, he usually just turns his head and pretends the other dog is not there. He is not weak or afraid, but the other is simply not worth the bother. It's very fortunate to the dogs that have been stupid enough to try and challenge him - they are often some form of toy or terrier that wouldn't even make a good snack if he so chose to take them up on it, because my male is a 70 lb. chow. A wanna-be alpha male would take on the challenge of the smaller dog, and end up with one, if not both, injured. Also, if the true alpha feels the need to put another in his place, it is often without violence. Prime example? The 70 lb dog simply sitting on the other one and holding him down until he gave up. No harm, no blood, just a clear message, “Don't fuck with me.”

Other than that, Blood & Tears took me on a ride for four months that I never expected. I kept having ideas that popped into my head that I just had to include, and ended up with forty chapters by the time all was said and done. And while there were requests that people wrote to me to continue on, like writing about raising the pups and the rest of their lives, I ended it how I always wanted to with these final lines from the last scene:

“Sesshomaru, would you…would you tell me about our father? Tell me what he was like?”

Sesshomaru looked at the hanyou pups before him, and turned to look at his own pups sleeping peacefully before he replied, “Yes, InuYasha. I will tell you about Father, and just how much like him you are.”

I hope these endnotes have answered some of your questions, or maybe cleared up some misconceptions. If you have others, do not hesitate to either email me or leave a review and ask. I can always update these endnotes with more answers - I just need to know the questions.

Once again, thank you to everyone who took the whole ride from beginning to end. I appreciate that you took the time to read Blood & Tears, and especially if you took the time to leave a review. I also wish to thank any and all who were involved in nominating, seconding, thirding, and voting for Blood & Tears so that it placed 2nd as Best Drama by the InuYasha Fanfiction Guild voting for the fourth quarter of 2005.