InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Bloodlust: Purity ❯ The Name of the Son ( Chapter 2 )

Chapter 2

For the Name of a Son

 

For the second time in twenty years Sesshomaru's fortress was playing host to the Council of Lords, though the reason was ceremony, not victory. When the feast had been called and was ended, when the dancers had returned to their seats and the musicians were silent, the circle of visitors arose as one, and began a slow procession out towards the courtyards. Lord after lord, friends and enemies, moved close to each other and passed by without a word. If it had been a dance, the choreographer would have wept with pride; if it had been an occasion less serious, such intentness of movement and glance could have been amusing. Still, they all knew what they had come for, answering a call to instincts in the blood when they were not answerable even to the Gods. The call of youkai blood was lord of lords.

Aware of this, feeling the quicksilver tug of awakening power, Kouga knelt alone in the center of the garden, in the center of the circle that was forming, his mother and her altar, her unsheathed knife, behind him. Over his bowed head, the drops of the fountain dropped with a silver plink, the water warm in the cold air, brought from beneath the castle. More delicate, more subtle than the rush of dark light that was his father's presence, he could feel the presence of newness within him, an aching will to destruction - the remorseless will to power. Beneath it there was quiet inside him, a waiting silence. Answers had been promised that filled his soul with wide wonder, and even under the pressure of his Awakening youki he wondered: was there power in dreams, or in a name?

His father didn't understand, and he knew this, had known it...as long as he could remember. It was the reason he had never shared the dreams of his childhood, the reason why these new visions, these dreams of wickedness, ate his heart. Lusting for his mother through someone else's eyes - what was wrong with him? Was there a flaw in his heart, some shine of darkness in his mind? He knew the eyes did not belong to him, had not belonged to him even when they were alive, but everything he saw through them was disturbing. Every nightmare he woke from halted him in distress. How many mornings did he ache to wash the night from his flesh with more than water and herbs? He had seen his own father in bloody battle; he had seen his mother's eyes flash with concern and passion for someone who was not his father - a hanyou, someone he knew by story if not by face.

Inuyasha. My father's brother; and mother walked with him. But - she was not my mother.

He did not know that the black-haired woman-child with the shining eyes in his dreams had become the demon-lady who was his mother; he did not know anything of that past. His thoughts roused the Awakening within, pushing at barriers of knowledge and pain. Into the silence around him he sent a charged aura of confusion. When he thought those thoughts, the sleeping presence of his dreams was roused alongside his own youki; he could feel it, like burning in his veins. Finally, his father came, wearing black and blood-red; he had that glinting depth in his eyes that always came with the presence of his mate.

“Kouga!"

His eyes met his father's, tempered with his short-created thoughts, and he stood, smiling without eyes, to step towards the altar, the shining knife.

“Father.”

Sesshomaru took even steps backwards from his son and took the knife out of Kagome's hands. Her eyes narrowed a little, in fear or concern, he could not tell which. After so long, it was hard to remind himself of the reason she would feel that way, of what she still did not know, had not experienced. This would be the first awakening she had seen.

The stone blade of the knife shone in the starlight, dark with old bloodstains. Without another word or a change of expression, he reached down and took Kouga's hands, forced them open, the fingers wide and splayed. Quickly, he passed the knife across the smooth skin. Without effort or pressure, it cut Kouga's palms to the bone. Blood splashed in thick streams down the blade of the knife, and the shifting youkai presence in Kouga's blood rose even closer to the surface under the swift sting and the layered scent of blood. Red clung to the edges of his vision, tainting the showing white of his eyes around the gilded silver. Sesshomaru's fangs glimmered in a half-smile of satisfaction, that Kouga saw through suddenly blurred vision.

Kagome took a step from behind them and took the knife from her mate. There was a frown in her eyes now, but she knew her duty; Sesshomaru had instructed her well. Carefully, she dragged the wet red edge of the blade against Sesshomaru's hands; his blood glowed red and then yellow; there was a similar flicker in his eyes, and then he forced the open wounds against his son's bleeding palms.

Kouga's eyes went wide, instantly and totally red. Dark hands closed off his throat and somehow he still screamed, howling a new meaning for fear into the night. His skin shivered, rose against the chill though his nerves trembled with burning. Hot violet lightening ran a marathon in his veins. His limbs shook with seizure and all his strength succumbed to the burst of his father's blood, its power. Power flashed, faster and slower, and then he went stiff as a violent shock of radiant energy flowed loose from his blood and poured in a golden-tinged violet blaze from every pore in his body. His howl became a wider, deeper call, and from behind him

Vaguely, hazily, Kouga felt the energy ride free from him in a layer of sparkling warmth, full of glitter and comfort. He could not see through the tingle of light and night. Pinpricks became needles that stabbed past his eyelids and into his thoughts. The sky of his thoughts was blue and red, reversed colors that did not seem wrong, a collusion of noon and sunset. There was a voice, a murmur of darkness that told him to remember, but he knew his own life. He knew, too, what was in the memory, and what was left of his thoughts beneath the burn of awakening youki cried out against the past. It was not his! But shadows invaded the shallow planes of his soul, fumbling for history. It was - a vision.

 

**The leaves on all the trees seemed unaware of winter's wanton approach, and shone with an extra layer of green. He could smell the familiar ahead - food, fire, bed. Clan and cave, the safety and sanctity of the tribe.

Despite the dead he refused to leave behind, he was still a lord, still fighting for new honor for the wolf tribe, still fighting for the bloody glory due all youkai. But defeat! The thought brought a shine of anger to his eyes and the trembling of a halved growl to his lips. All spoke of the prowess of the Inu-no-Taisho, but he had fathered a half blood child! What weakness of the blood gave him desire for a human, and forced his seed into tainted hanyou blood? All spoke of the prowess of the Inu Lord, but he, Kouga, Prince of Wolves, had not truly believed his father would fall.

Still, the blood of his line was strong blood, the strongest. Perhaps it was time that Son challenged Son, as Father had once challenged Father.

He ignored the welcome of his warriors and his females, did not stop at the den where his favorite, Mesera, had given him pups. He favored many with his lust, but none with his bond - the Prince of Wolves took no mate.

As he entered, the sounds of the outside were lost in the swish of the fur cover of his den behind him, and he let a quick, tight smile cross his face. Only now did he think again of his plan, and he realized then, three steps into his home, that he did not have a plan. He had no idea where the hanyou son of the dead Inu Lord was, or even if the bastard was alive. No one had seen or heard from him in all the years since his birth- but that at least was assured.

It was known to him that the Elder son, the new Inu Lord, had become famous for the ice in his eyes, for the rule that he maintained with cold and careful pride. It was said that he hated all humans, that he despised them more than anything else. It was as if he thought that this way, he could make up for his father's breach of conduct. He resided in the great castle of marble and stone at the far edge of his southern lands, and was said to live by his powerful blade. He wore two swords; it was rumored that one could resurrect the dead.

Kouga had no intention of confronting the elder son. He was headstrong; pride burned in his heart, but he had no desire for an early death. The dark hand of the void did not beckon him with so much as a single finger.

Success came to him in small ways. The battles he was leading his tribe through now were not going well. When he ventured out among those who lived on his lands, rumor reached his ears of an interesting series of events. It seemed that a miko was traveling with protection, trying to rejoin the many shattered pieces of the shikon no tama. What made it interesting was that the closest guardian of the priestess was a hanyou, half Inu youkai, half human, of just the right appearance to be the one he was searching for.

As though there was nothing to fear, though rumor spoke otherwise, Kouga journeyed with an ardent purpose, following the whispers and the stories. Good deeds and fearful villagers, temples protected and torn down - and there was only a name left behind, not the miko, but her hanyou. Inuyasha, they said - Inuyasha.

What kind of leash did the witch have to tame the half-breed beast? Didn't she fear him? Didn't she fear a demon? What kind of miko would travel with a demon - with a hanyou?

At the end of his sixth day's traveling, Kouga came to a place that was both fraught with peril and full of a dead silence. He had come to the border that joined his land to that of the Inu. It was not definable by sight - only magic instinct and sometimes scent. There was no scent he could find that alerted him to wariness, but he had never met this new Inu Lord and could not fix a scent he had never encountered before. Still, it was unnecessary. The aura of the air was choked with youkai energy, dripping thick, and he nearly shied away from it.

*But my father.*

It forced him on.

He was roused early the next morning by a rustle of voices, too far away for the ones speaking to know he even existed, but too close for his liking. Guard patrols did not listen well to excuses, and that was the first thought that came to him. He had no desire to get on the wrong side of the elder brother of his prey; canine muscles stretched and he leapt into a thicket of branches high over the half-path that wound through the trees. A youkai presence moved into his awareness then, so similar to the one around him, pulsing in the earth, that his claws shivered. He leapt from one thick-barked limb to another, away from the presence that could only be the Lord he wished so much to avoid.

*And I am only a day past the border! Bad luck…very, very bad!*

Far enough away that the aura-presence diminished to a shallow reminder, he dropped nimbly to the ground, and sought a farther aspect of the path he had been traveling. Lost in thought, mostly oblivious, he went fifty steps closer to a second youkai presence than his heartbeat was comfortable with. With narrow eyes, he wondered less in fear and more in annoyance at the possibilities confronting him. The same person could not be in front of him and behind him at the same time. There was only one Lord of the West, and he could not be in two places at once.

Realization was swift in coming.

*The brother! But which is hunting the other? They cannot possibly be companions.*

Thoughts shook him.

*The hanyou is coming; the hanyou, and the miko who is gathering the shikon no tama. This should be fun to watch.*

All the startling tricks given to the wolf Kouga had in abundance, heightened by a healthy dose of deep magic, and the earth magic knowledge given to his tribe. He was aided too by the slivers of gem that were embedded in the flesh of his legs. Its power allowed him to gather his energy, to use it to hide his motions and his scent from casual detection.

In utter silence, he perched in thick branches above the path, and waited carefully, ears open, eyes shut. When they came to each other, he was sure he would not need much energy to recognize it. In a few moments time, he felt a wave of power wash over and through him, and he wallowed in it with silent agony, leaving clawed scars in the branches he sat on. Leaves rustled against the wood with his shudders.

The Inu Lord looked up. Kouga was still, as unmoving as the earth itself. Discovery was avoided, barely, and Kouga wondered why he dared flirt with death. He remembered suddenly that there were pups in the den he had left behind, pups he had not even seen. As he was thinking these things, destruction came in the form of a sudden shout of challenge.

Steel rang twice, the glittering sound of a keen blade slipping form its sheath with bloody desires in its blade. The pressure of youkai energy intensified, and he peered down carefully between the leaves, surprised at what he saw.

The Inu Lord stood silent, his features a cold mask, his sword plain and long, glinting blue even in sunlight, carved in its hilt with the blue crescent mark of the House of the Moon. The hanyou carried a lighter sword, but longer, shaped like the fang of a giant predator, and the edge held a magic of blood and wildness that moved in slow swirls through the metal of the blade. Kouga did not pay much attention to their hating words, waiting for a harsher battle to begin, but he heard a woman's voice, saw a flash of violet light, and then the tree he sat in shuddered with the force of something crashing into its base. Metal hit metal, and he worried less about the sounds he might make then, creeping closer to the ground to see what had hit his tree.

It was - a woman. He knew immediately, despite her outlandish dress, that she was the miko; there were shikon shards in a vial at her throat, for one thing - her bow and her shining, dangerous blood betrayed her, for another. But all he could see was a cloud of dark hair and the line of an ivory profile. Her eyes were fluttering, shining a ring of violet power, and he fell instantly and totally in love.

When she moved out of his vision he watched distractedly the rest of the battle, and did not especially care or regard it when the hanyou lit the edge of his sword and blades of shrieking, lightening colored wind took the Inu Lord down. Perhaps considering his intentions, what had been his fears, he should have paid more attention, but the woman had distracted him; her beauty, her obvious power. He heard her words, after she made her concern known to the hanyou - "I feel shikon shards, very close. Very close, Inuyasha!" And the thought froze him. If she could feel them, find them - of course. He had to have her!

He followed them back to their camp, heard their plans, and turned for home smiling. She would come to him eventually - she had to, it was her quest. Gingerly, he reached down and touched the pulsing skin that covered his implanted shards, smiled. He would take her away, and make her his woman; the half-blood would never touch her or look at her again. What was it he called her, what was her name? Kagome - yes...Kagome.**

Kouga's eyes opened with a start, and he found himself on the ground, staring up into the violent black of the night's winter sky, and at his father, standing over him. Sesshomaru's eyes glinted with questions and with concerns. Somewhere in the face of his soul-awakened son was a flicker of fearful hate, and no one knew better than he all the portents of rage. Here was one he could not understand.

At the edge of Kouga's vision was an ivory profile in the moonlight, and he shuddered with memory and pain.

*What life do I remember, what eyes that are not my own? The one I was named for? What bond - what kind of curse was I given with my name?!*

 

After he had regained some control of himself, after he had forced himself to his feet, there was a second, less solemn procession. When the guests had left, or retired to castle chambers to await the next days feast, his father returned to him and handed him a sheathed sword, familiar to his eyes, and painfully so.

“This is Tetsusaiga, Kouga. I have talked with your mother, and she agreed it was time you had a proper sword. She has never been one for blade work.”

Kouga forced a smile out of himself. His mother's skill with the bow was legend, and it had always been her weapon of choice. He had heard tales of her wielding a sword - probably this sword - but she was miko and it was not her preference. He drew the sword from its sheath, and the smile fell off his face. The magic of the blade was unmistakable, and when he focused his power on the sword it rushed a shock through him like wildfire and gained suddenly a swirling, wind tinged edge.

“I see. I had a vision in the ceremony, father. You lost you arm to this sword - and your pride - and then you give it to me? That is not a good record, father."

They were stinging words, taunting, deliberately so. There was something of the *other* in him, the memory-presence, and Kouga closed his mouth abruptly, sensing that this was so and trying to make it *not*.

His father's face suddenly wore a mask Kouga had only ever seen on it in dreams...or in a vision.

“I do not recall telling you that story.”

“You didn't. I was - he was - I heard it in a dream, once. Inuya - a person was bragging. And - in my vision…in my Awakening, I was in a different place, and I saw. I was - I was Kouga!”

He saw his father's eyes widen out of his control, pupils darkening; it was only a moment, but it terrified him. It was fear, in his fathers face, and in no lifetime did he ever remember seeing that. It was fear...so what did that mean for him?

“Father - father help me, please. Help me...”

He was crouched at his father's feet, with his hands in his hair; Sesshomaru could barely see his eyes, but they were wide and dark. There was madness there, a madness of fear and sudden hopelessness and something else he could not define.

“Kouga! You are my son. As long as *you* remember that, I will do everything I can. Did you expect anything less?”
“No! I- father, what do I do?”

Sesshomaru was relieved to see that Kouga's trembling had stopped.

“Tomorrow is the full moon; tomorrow, your mother will see Eldest. I will tell her what you have told me, and she will tell Eldest.”

Kouga stood and straightened himself out, pushed back the hair he had disarranged with his panicked grip.

“Do you trust Eldest, father?'
“No. But she has never lied to me.”

For a long while, Kouga was distracted by those words. He could not understand - if she had never lied, why his father would not trust her. How else could you judge trust; how else could you give it meaning, except by the truth?