InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Crescent Moon On The Brow Of The Sky ❯ Dead ( Chapter 3 )

DON'T GET MAD, I WILL ONLY UPDATE ON WEEKENDS! I DO HAVE SOME GRADE TEN TO DO! Ahem. Now that I've got your attention...

Helloos, people! Back with another chapter! YAY!

We're back with Sesshoumaru. Sessy lovers, rejoice! *does a little dance*

Oh, I'm sorry to those that reviewed for chapter 1 the first day it was posted. When I was uploading the second chapter I didn't read all the "fine print" and it turns out I deleted your wonderful reviews. I reposted my story because I freaked, and they all went, as was expected. *sniff* I am so stupid and sad. I'm stupid sad. In the last chapter, I gave you recognition for your reviews, and when it shows up on the site you will be thanked. Aw, I'm all teary-eyed!

This story came from a strong inspiration received a week ago. It was so strong I couldn't stop thinking about it. I COULDN'T SLEEP! And when I did sleep, I had Inu Yasha dreams! GAH! In them, Sessy had a pony tail and wore a while business suit... yeah. I have creative dreams. Once I had a dream that we all worshipped a giant blue play-dough wave with a face that ate people- it was also a radio station that played THE HOTTEST HITS ALL DAY EVERY DAY! Ignore me. I'm strange.

Oh, yay! Reviews! I love you all!

Kagamoesiun: Maybe.. hehehe. Thanks for reviewing! Here's a fortune cookie!

VanaelAndVanwaelMordae: Don't worry! I will post! I'm evil, but not THAT evil. Here's your fortune cookie! Yeah, I'm weird. I listen to German music! (It's good! You should listen to Rammstein. *sings* We are all living in Amerika! Amerika, ist wunderbar!)

KawaiiDemons: I know, so sad... *cries* but she dies. Aws wells! We have to go on! Thanx for reviewing! Here's a fortune cookie!!! Yeah. Ignore me. Oh, I'm on your favorite author list! Oh, I'm happy! Happy, happy! You are so good to me!

lady-sesshoumaru41: THANK YOU OH SO MUCH! I LOVE YA! KISSES! He he he. Ignore me. Turns out I didn't do anything wrong, I just didn't read all the `fine print' and freaked when it didn't turn up on the site right away. Thankyou for helping and for the compliments! I do get practice! I write my own novel and plan to get it published. I don't send it `out there in the wide blue' cause that's just a bad idea. Here's your *special* fortune cookie!!! With a face! (^_^)

Guardian-of-the-night: I know, I'm the evil overlord of cliffies! I can't wait to see what happens next too! It is just building itself as it goes along! It's taking over! Its alive! Save me!*ahem*yes. I'm strange, eh? (whoops! Canadian lingo. GET. BACK. IN. THERE! Hah. That's better.)

Oh, your fortune cookie! Arigatou!

Stacerue: Thanks! I'm glad you enjoy it! Now, where did I put my fortune cookies... Oh, here they are! ONE FOR YOU!!

HERE WE GO! BUCKLE YER SEAT BELTS! KEEP ALL ARMS INSIDE THE CONTRAPTION AND... HEY, YOU! YES YOU! I SAID KEEP ALL YOUR ARMS INSIDE THE CONTRAPTION! YEESH! *mutters* some people...

Anyhoo, back to the story.

DISCLAIMER! (sorry I feel like yelling):i do not own Inu Yasha. If I did, I'd teach Miroku to keep his little lecherous hands to himself.

Miroku: WHAT!? WATCH WHAT YOU'RE SAYING!

Kermit: BACK IN THE PILE!!!!!.... enjoy, and remember to ignore me.

Dead...

"The human miko."

A flurry of snow whipped around him as he stood contemplating the dead miko before him, cold, motionless, and singing of death.The fire flickered behind him, like something alive, and threw a light across the curves of her human face- she seemed asleep, not dead, not empty. Yet, there she lay, a hollow lifeless husk, wrapped in her strange bloody clothes and tears. She stank of emptiness.

As he stared at this human shell he contemplated chasing after its rescuer, running him through with his Toukijin, and ending his groveling piece of a life. Yet, something stayed his hand, if only for a moment. The moon sailed high upon the sky, causing the icy canopy to glow a new silver, and he smelled a change in the air: a disappearance of the stink of the hanyou's blood, the disappearance of the smoke, until of the stink ofher death remained. The death and night smells lingered with the smell of the snow, and turned both night and death to ice.

This same lifeless shell was the one who had pulled the Tetsusaiga from its stone confines, when a full youkai -himself- and a hanyou -his half-brother- was unable to move it from the place. He had been about to tear out his brother's throat with his green, venomous claws- and then there came her soft exclamation of surprise.

She, there, with the Tetsusaiga clenched in her hands. He had approached her, and had demanded what she was- and then had tried to kill her. It had not worked, due to the protection that the Tetsusaiga had given her. She had proved to be nothing. She was a mere human.

"Lord...lord Sesshoumaru?" came the quavering voice of his servant, Jaken, as the tiny youkai surveyed the corpse, Nintoujou raised and clenched firmly in hand. "What are we to do?"

Sesshoumaru's eyes closed, and then opened, swiftly turning towards Rin, a catch in his throat. The moon was a silver eye in the face of the sky, staring down and watching them all as the child's laboring breathing rose...and stopped completely, cut off by her sudden death. It seemed as if the inu youkai's breath and heart stopped as well, for the fear running through him. He forced the fear to disappear, slowly drawing out the Tenseiga as his steps were directed to her side. With his long-nailed hand, he felt her skin. There lingered the dying heat and sweat of a fever, and underneath that the coolness of death. He gathered up her form, and as her head lolled back and her dead arms dropped past his embrace, one tear fell unwanted and crystal past his eye.

He brought the Tenseiga down across her, killing all those who were there pulling out the strings of her soul- cut their throats in a blinding flash of magic and steel. Her soft big eyes opened, afraid, and then she put her little arms around his neck in thanks. Whatever tears that had been standing in his eyes disappeared, and he let the little girl hold him as his eyes traveled past her to the hanyou's wrapped wench, seeing one dead blue hand poking out upon the frozen earth.

He had decided. He would leave the corpse behind, let it get eaten by every kind of hungry creature. She did not matter to him. She was nothing, nothing but Inu Yasha's wench. He nearly smiled at the thought that this dead miko was somehow precious to his half-brother- the hanyou had followed in father's footsteps as easily as if they were his own.

Rin's hands clenched on his collar, her eyes drifting closed. The moonlight played across her childish face. "Wake, Rin," said Sesshoumaru softly, "we are going to leave." Her eyes opened excitedly, meeting his cool composure with eagerness. But then her gaze followed his, and she stifled back a tiny scream, her voice filled with the airs of a nightmare.

"Sesshoumaru-sama!!! There is a dead lady! Sesshoumaru-sama! Do you see?"

"Lord Sesshoumaru sees thehuman. He is not blind," shrieked Jaken squeakily, his voice barely disguising his hatred for the girl. The Nintoujou was clenched all the harder in his hands, the wooden humanoid heads grinning like dolls. The faint yet still audible growl that rumbled in his master was what silenced him and quelled his rage. He stood, dropping Rin to her feet, and lifted the white pelt off of the slumbering Ah Un, who opened four eyes sleepily before rising to its clawed feet. Rin ran up to Ah Un, caressed it briefly before scaling its slippery hide to the dip in its back. Her tiny bare heels -white and red with frostbite- gently nudged its sides. Ah Un obediently swung into its gentle, graceful walk.

The fire was doused, stopped out by a cursing, singed Jaken. Sesshoumaru looked at the dead miko one last time before walking as graceful as a shadow into the forest, Ah Un, Rin, and a burned Jaken following closely behind.

Sesshoumaru did not know how long he walked- he never tired, never slept. Though, Rin shivered, even after the white pelt was again draped across her shoulders. Upon Ah Un, she was barely conscious, barely spoke. She was summer, and loved warmth- winter was her enemy.

Rin complained, a little later, of hunger- which forced them to stop while Sesshoumaru hunted and Jaken awkwardly kindled a flame. The youkai lord opened his senses, taking in the icy winter world around him- there, tiny mouse tracks in the snow; here, the musky scent of a fox. And beside him, the new tracks of a fleeing rabbit. The boughs of the trees rocked above him sleepily as snow drifted down, slow and dancing. The snow speckled his face, and he barely felt their water as he caught himself in the hunt. The night was dark, but it was lightening with dawn.

He cornered the tiny animal a little way from their makeshift campsite, and broke its neck so to not poison it with the poison in his hand. Briefly, blood fell sanguine upon the deep sharp cushion of snow- he watched it, exquisite boredom spreading across his features like a stain. And then, a new scent past the fresh blood caught his nose, one that he was all too familiar with. He followed the scent, prey trapped in his lax hand. Upon seeing the sight before him, the prey dropped cold into the snow.

The hanyou.

Inu Yasha.

Dead, and the beautiful sword clenched firmly in his dead pale hands. Snow and blood was speckled across his red kimono, and his eyes were open wide and watching, full of emptiness. His dead, cold cheeks were streaked with dry and ancient tears; his silver hair, tinted pink with blood, was drifting about his ears with brief bouts of wind. In a dark wide circle, his blood polluted the virgin snow- proof of a slow and painful death. Sesshoumaru looked on at him with no interest; the hanyou had not been strong enough to withstand the wounds inflicted upon him. It was to be expected. What attracted his sun-coloured gaze was the blessed Sword, held in his hated brother's hands. The Tetsusaiga pulsed energy, almost in anger, singing his reaching hand. He nodded, regarding his dead brother with loathing and jealousy as he picked his prey from the snow, and left him there to rot and wither and be forgotten.

When he had returned to Rin and had thrown the prey at Jaken to cook, he sat down in the snow in silent contemplation. His thoughts were filled with the sword, again, like it had been filled for years. Rin relentless chattering to Ah Un was just a blur to him; the fire just a faint bright smudge. In his eyes, only the Tetsusaiga gleamed, bright with power. There, it had been in his mind like a star. It annoyed him, and peaked his ire to no end. Jaken gave him a wide and noticeable berth.

He was filled with the greed, and frustration- so close to his prize, and unable to touch it! Rin... "Rin," he said softly, to which the girl's chatter stopped, and the chewing of her meal stopped, focused solely on her parent. "Will you come with me?"

When Rin rose, so did Ah Un and Jaken- the last with a slivering annoyance across his green features- and followed him to where the hanyou lay, his stink muffled by the falling snow. Rin cried out, a groan in her throat, and hid behind him. The stink of her fear nearly blocked out the smell of the hanyou's death. Jaken muttered something insensible, a laugh of triumph in his throat at seeing the Tetsusaiga

"Rin?" He asked softly, "do you see that sword of his? Get it." Rin moved obediently, however hesitantly, towards where the sword was clenched in Inu Yasha's hands. Her eyes flashed over him once-there was some sympathy in her gaze, something that had once fallen upon him- and she came closer. A tears drifted down her cheek before she let her tiny palms fluttered towards it, making their shivering contact.

"AHHHHHHH!"she let out a gasping, cloying scream, one that stung his ears- one that was sticky with pain. He reached out to her as she ran back to him, touching his clothes and staining the white red with blood. Sesshoumaru was filled with thick confusion- she was human- only humans could touch it. Then Sesshoumaru lost his patience- simply, as if it was something that could be so misplaced.

He approached the dead body of the hanyou, seeing something in his dead face that appeared smug- something he was infamous for in his life. He approached the corpse, with all the intention of ripping his dead heavy body to shreds- killing him and reviving him just to slaughter him again. The lord's eyes flashed, once, with hatred; that Inu Yasha would suffer far more than any other. His claws on his hand dripped with anticipation, throwing the snow around them into a green glow. Behind him, Rin stood and clutched her hands against themselves, watching on in fear, and whimpering with pain.

Something strange stopped him, made him drop his venomous hand to his side, letting the poison drip onto the surface of the snow. Upon it, his poison burned and sizzled, throwing vapour into the air. Before him, his own breath came out thick and agitated, throwing their mist over the snow and over Inu Yasha. His feet stopped; the wind tossed his long hair about him in a twirl as his amber eyes narrowed and changed.

"You despicable hanyou," he hissed, filled with anger, filled with unsatisfied blood lust. Rin let out a cry behind him as his eyes filled with red. Jaken cowered, hugging the Nintoujou close to him, which began to laugh.

For there, close to the dead smiling hanyou was written in the snow:

ONLY KAGOME CAN