InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Future Beginnings ❯ Sesshomaru ( Chapter 15 )

Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi

 

Ch 15: Sesshomaru

 

 

Monday morning came around too fast. Kagome let Inuyasha sleep a little longer and decided to take the shuttle bus to her first class. “Remember, Noriko will be here around ten,” she told him as she was leaving.

 

The roommates were gone, so Inuyasha didn't bother covering his ears when Noriko arrived. She looked startled for a moment but she recovered quickly and sat down, spreading books and pictures all over the table in the little sitting area. Inuyasha was a quick learner and she had found that a mixture of visual cues and repetition worked best for him. It unnerved her a little to see his ears swiveling around in response to different stimuli.

 

“What?” he finally asked her, after noticing her staring at the top of his head.

 

“Your ears,” she replied weakly. “They keep moving.”

 

“That's how they work,” Inuyasha told her. “I thought we were past this. Are you still scared?”

 

“No, no, not really. It's just so different.”

 

Inuyasha wondered if it had been a good idea after all to tell Noriko the truth. “Yeah, story of my life,” he said. “I'm different. Everybody I met made me feel that `different' somehow meant `bad,' and for a long time I believed it. Then I met Kagome.”

 

“I—I—“ Noriko understood, she really did. Inuyasha wasn't a threat to her. She just couldn't get her body to agree with her brain.

 

Inuyasha grunted his trademark “Keh,” and went back to his book. He marked his place with a claw, causing Noriko to shudder just a little. He thought of Kagome, of what she'd said about his claws, and he smiled. Of course, the smile revealed the tips of his fangs and Noriko quickly looked away. Inuyasha smiled wider. In some ways, it was fun to tease her just to see her react. He might as well get some enjoyment out of her unease.

 

Just then the phone rang. Noriko jumped.

 

“What's the matter? Youkai on the phone too?” Inuyasha couldn't resist making fun of her. “No, don't get it. I was kidding, all right? It's either for Kagome or one of her roommates. Let them deal with it.”

 

They went back to work, and as the hour progressed, Noriko seemed to feel more at ease with Inuyasha. The phone rang twice more while they had their lesson, but they ignored it. Noriko left promising to return the next day with a better attitude.

 

“Just come back,” Inuyasha told her. “We'll work on the attitude.”

 

 

The phone rang again later that afternoon when Kagome was between classes. Inuyasha was watching public television. Every so often Kagome heard him repeat a word or phrase he heard on tv. She wasn't sure who was the better teacher, Noriko or the television set.

 

“Hello?”

 

Kagome listened for a while, then walked over and handed the phone to Inuyasha. “It's for you,” she said in surprise.

 

Inuyasha glanced up. For him? He took the phone and said cautiously in English, “Hello?”

 

A moment later he lapsed back into Japanese, but only with terse one word replies—yes, no, fine. He turned off the phone and handed it back to Kagome. “That was Sesshomaru,” he said. “He's coming here.”

 

“Sesshomaru! So he is still alive. I didn't think he would call you, though. You said he's coming here? When?”

 

Inuyasha looked at Kagome suspiciously. “Wait a minute. You aren't very surprised. What do you mean, you didn't think he would call me? What did you do?”

 

Kagome blushed. “I did a search on the computer and found a few possible websites that might have had some connection to Sesshomaru, so I asked Mama to research it for me. She must have found him.”

 

That answer went right over Inuyasha's head. “What?”

 

“Mama called him up and explained our situation.”

 

“WHAT?”

 

“Inuyasha, we need his help. You have no identity in this era, no papers, no way to get back home again. I honestly didn't think he would talk directly to you so quickly. I thought maybe Mama or I could talk with him. I mean, if he has lived up until now, he must know how the world works, and obviously he has set up an identity for himself in the human world, since we were able to find him on the internet—“

 

“You're losing me again,” he cautioned her.

 

“If he could fit in as a human, he might know how you can do it, too.”

 

“Who said I want to fit in as a human?”

 

“Inuyasha,” Kagome began, ready to give him the old explanation again.

 

“I know, I know, it's dangerous to reveal youkai actually exist.” Inuyasha said in a tired voice. “Truthfully, I think that's probably why Sesshomaru is coming to see me. He probably doesn't want me to give away his precious secret.”

 

Kagome came around the back of the sofa and put her arms around Inuyasha's neck. “Don't look at it like that. Maybe he has changed after all this time—“

 

“Keh.”

 

“Well, let's make the best of it now that he is actually coming here. When did he say he was coming?”

 

“Today. In about an hour.”

 

“Are you serious?” Kagome straightened up, putting her hands to her hair and smoothing it down. “But I have class!”

 

“Go. He said he wanted to see me, anyway.”

 

“I'm afraid you two will start fighting. No, I'd better stay.'

 

“Fine,” said Inuyasha. “Stay.” He pulled her over the back of the couch into his lap. “We have an hour.”

 

 

The doorbell rang precisely one hour later. “Stay there,” he told Kagome when she would have gone downstairs to answer the door. For once she listened to him and remained on the couch while he lightly jumped to the bottom of the stairs and pulled open the door.

 

It was unmistakably Sesshomaru, Inuyasha could smell him, but he looked nothing like the proud youkai Inuyasha remembered from a few short months—and five hundred years—ago. In fact, he didn't particularly look youkai at all. If Inuyasha's senses hadn't been screaming that not only did he smell like Sesshomaru, but he was also an extremely powerful entity, Inuyasha would have thought that he was human.

 

The being who stood before him had short, silvery white hair which swept back to cover his tell-tale ears. He wore comfortable looking modern clothes, a light blue sweatshirt with sweatpants of the same soft material, sneakers and a fluffy white vest that looked to be made of sheepskin, but Inuyasha's nose told him otherwise.

 

“What happened to your hair?” Inuyasha blurted out. All the things he had planned to say when confronted with his brother went right out of his head as he looked in horror at Sesshomaru's short hair.

 

“Nothing,” replied Sesshomaru succinctly. He glanced past Inuyasha. “May I come in?”

 

Kagome stood at the top of the stairs. Inuyasha looked back at her in annoyance before stepping aside and gesturing to Sesshomaru to go upstairs.

 

Sesshomaru glided up the stairs, his modern clothes not seeming to detract from his natural grace, more like a predator's grace, thought Inuyasha sourly as he followed his brother into Kagome's sitting area.

 

“I thought I told you to stay here,” Inuyasha murmured to Kagome as he sat back down on the couch, pulling her beside him.

 

Sesshomaru sank into the armchair by the window and regarded both Inuyasha and Kagome for a moment. “So you survived,” he commented. He regarded his half-brother without saying anything else as the seconds ticked by. He seemed to be waiting for an explosion, and for that reason Inuyasha wasn't going to give it to him. He stared straight back at Sesshomaru.

 

It was Kagome who broke the impasse. “Thank you so much for coming so quickly. So did my mother contact you? That is why you called, isn't it? Did she explain what happened? Are you here to help us?” She looked anxiously at Sesshomaru while keeping a firm grip on Inuyasha's hand. Belatedly she asked, “Would you like something to drink?”

 

Sesshomaru waved his hand to decline the drink offer and gravely replied, “You mother is a charming woman. Very persuasive.” He smiled, and Kagome had a moment's panic. This was Sesshomaru, no matter what he looked like now. She, too, could sense his considerable aura. Now, thanks to her, he knew about her family. She had counted on his sense of honor to keep them safe, but a lot could have changed over five hundred years. Had she done the right thing after all?

 

“Have you—did you see my mother?” asked Kagome. Inuyasha glanced at her curiously. What had her all upset, he wondered.

 

“No, unfortunately I have not had the pleasure. We corresponded by email,” Sesshomaru told her. “I was already in the United States, so I thought I would simplify matters and telephone Inuyasha directly.” He focused his gaze on Inuyasha. “We need to talk.”

 

Kagome felt somewhat relieved and a little embarassed that she had jumped to conclusions so quickly. She smiled shyly at Sesshomaru and disengaged her hand from Inuyasha's. “I'll just go into the kitchen,” she gestured to the other end of the open room. “I could use a cup of tea. Are you sure you won't have one? Inuyasha?”

 

They both shook their heads, still staring at one another.

 

“So talk,” said Inuyasha.

 

“Not here. Miko—“ Sesshomaru looked up to where Kagome was plugging in the electric kettle. “I need to borrow Inuyasha for a few days. I will have him back to you on . . . Friday.”

 

“Wait a minute,” began Inuyasha. After last weekend at Peter's house he didn't know if he wanted to be away from Kagome for even a few days. And he certainly didn't like being ordered around by Sesshomaru.

 

“It's important.”

 

Kagome looked at Inuyasha, silently asking if he was ok with it. He shrugged. He could stand it if she could. Might as well get this over with.

 

“Yeah, I'll go.” He got up to change into modern clothes.

 

“Miko?” Sesshomaru still waited for Kagome to agree. She nodded her head. Sesshomaru turned back to Inuyasha. “Keep your traditional clothes on. And bring Tetsusaiga.”

 

They left through the front door and Kagome wondered briefly how they were traveling. Did Sesshomaru have a car these days? She sipped her tea and contemplated going in to class a little bit late. There was nothing else to do. She'd have to wait until Friday to find out what their talk was all about. She also needed to let Noriko know she was off the hook for a few days, Inuyasha's words, not hers.

 

 

“Why did you cut your hair?” Inuyasha asked again when they were a little bit away from the school grounds. Sesshomaru set the pace and had them traveling both north and east, towards the airport, although it didn't seem like that was his destination. They traveled fast, moving in the trees or on the ground when it was necessary and there were no humans about. Inuyasha wondered where they were going, but so far Sesshomaru hadn't said a word.

 

“I didn't,” Sesshomaru answered. He reached around and tugged on the back of his hair, loosening a very long braid which he had doubled then tripled under itself and tied back so that it really did appear that his hair was short. He combed through the braid with his fingers until eventually his hair streamed out behind him in a soft white sheet.

 

Inuyasha breathed a sigh of relief. He had been worried that if even Sesshomaru had cut off his hair in this modern age, then he would have to do it too. Just the thought of cutting off his hair made him shudder. Although he couldn't transform completely, he still viewed his hair as the symbol of his youkai identity.

 

“Where are we going?”

 

“Be patient a little longer and I will explain,” Sesshomaru said. “Do you know this land?”

 

“Some. I went exploring a little to the north of here.” Inuyasha glanced sideways at Sesshomaru as they ran through the woods alongside a very wide gray road. “Why? Don't tell me this is your land too?”

 

Sesshomaru raised his eyebrows but didn't reply. The two continued on in almost companionable silence for another few hours, following the gray road on a more northerly course. It was amazing how just a few feet away the human world hummed and roared, oblivious to the fact that two spirit creatures inhabited the spaces right next to them. Humans were blind in that sense, luckily, thought Inuyasha.

 

Sesshomaru veered off suddenly and entered a heavily wooded area. The brush was so tangled here that Inuyasha doubted humans ever vistited this spot. It was pretty, though. Half the leaves were gone from the trees, blanketing the ground beneath them, but enough remained so that it was difficult to see more than a few feet in any direction. Of course, neither Inuyasha nor Sesshomaru needed to see as they could both hear and smell far better than any human and most animals.

 

Quicker than Inuyasha's eyes could follow, Sesshomaru swiped downward and snagged a furry gray animal which he handed to Inuyasha before snagging a second one for himself. Inuyasha accepted the offer of lunch and the unspoken offer of peace between them for the time being.

 

“Inuyasha,” began Sesshomaru. “I am glad you are here now, in this place.”

 

Inuyasha, who had been leaning against the trunk of a tree licking the blood off his claws, sat forward in shock. Sesshomaru was glad to see him?

 

“I don't claim to know everything that happened to you, but I have some small grasp of the matter thanks to the miko's mother.”

 

“Kagome,” Inuyasha mumbled. “Not `the miko.'”

 

Sesshomaru looked straight at Inuyasha. “I need you. You asked me if I owned these lands too. I do not, not in the sense that you mean. These lands are new to us, wilder in some ways. As you are wilder in some ways than I.”

 

Inuyasha bristled at that. “What do you mean—wild? Are you saying I'm an animal?”

 

“In some ways, more so than I, who can fully take on the aspect of our beast. Perhaps it is because you were raised in the forest—“

 

“I wasn't raised,” Inuyasha interrupted. “I grew up in the forest. I raised myself. There's a difference.”

 

“Yes, there is. And that difference is what I need from you now. Inuyasha, do you know that we youkai do not `own' land in the sense that humans own it? There are lands that belong to us, and those same lands can be `owned' by humans at the same time and have no effect on our claim to it. Do you understand?

 

“Yeah, I get it.” He thought of the land he had found where he wanted to build Kagome a house, and how she worried about who owned it. He knew she meant in the human sense. “So who do these lands belong to in youkai terms? I wasn't sure there are youkai in this place.”

 

“Why wouldn't there be? Of course there are spirits of the earth in this place as there are in all places.”

 

“So what's the problem? These youkai, or whatever they are, giving you trouble or something?”

 

“No, nothing like that. As I said, they are half wild—“

 

“Like me,” said Inuyasha bittely.

 

“—like you,” agreed Sesshomaru. “They are closer to nature, like you are.”

 

Inuyasha was surprised. He was only hanyou, half-youkai, not full youkai like Sesshomaru. How could he be closer to nature than Sessomaru? He folded his arms. “Explain.”

 

“I believe you can reach them where I cannot. They are loosely organized; for the most part they hold themselves apart from humans, with a few exceptions. They have higher and lower forms of—whaever they are—like youkai, but they rarely manifest. I don't know if they choose not to, or if they don't know how, or if they just don't care.”

 

“They don't care, if they're like I was.”

 

“But we both know that isn't true, Inuyasha.”

 

Inuyasha looked down. Maybe it wasn't true. He hadn't wanted to care. But he was different, he was hanyou. He couldn't disappear if he wanted to. “I still don't get how you think I'm like them.”

 

“Maybe that's not the right way to say this. You are closer to being a true youkai than I am,” Sesshomaru admitted, “despite your human taint.”

 

There it is, thought Inuyasha. The real Sesshomaru shows himself at last. Human taint, was it? He was what he was. He stood up, angry, and the waves of power that flowed from him were palpable.

 

Sesshomaru smiled, never a good sign. “Stand down, Inuyasha. I meant no insult. Your youkai strength comes from your connection to the land as much as it comes from our father. But you are able to express your strength because of your human side whereas a pure youkai such as myself cannot. You are the bridge between youkai and human.

 

“So?”

 

“So these new world youkai are so close to being pure spirit that they are losing their connection to these few forests and mountains that are left. They are slowly slipping away from the real world.”

 

“Again, so? Let `em go, if that's what they want. More space for me.”

 

“Ah, that is exactly my point!” said Sesshomaru.

 

“What is?”

 

“More space for you. I want you to become the Lord of these lands and thus take these creatures who are so like yet unlike us under your protection.”

 

`Us?' thought Inuyasha. Sesshomaru was including him in his definition of `us?' Something must have changed over the centuries. “Why?” he asked cautiously.

 

“We are not human, not even you although you are partly so, yet we must interact with humans in order to survive in this modern world. As youkai we are spirit manifest. We walk upon the land and it gives us definition to our long lives. Without definition, our corporeal selves would fade away.”

 

“I get all that,” said Inuyasha, losing patience. “I don't see that it really applies to me since my `corporeal self,' as you put it, is all I've got.”

 

“Don't be so sure,” replied Sesshomaru. “You are more powerful than you know.”

 

“Keh.”

 

“Inuyasha, we are the forces that sustain nature: the woods, the lakes and rivers, the mountains and sky. Humans may not know we exist, but without us this would be a bleak world indeed.”

 

It began to dawn on Inuyasha what Sesshomaru meant. He thought of his mountain, of the sunrise he had spent with Kagome in his arms as they watched the forest below them come alive. He thought of the bear in its cave, his neighbor. He remembered the faint presence both he and Kagome had felt. Was that presence what sustained his small woods? Without it, would the human `owner' of that piece of land rip it apart and put buildings or roads in its place? Since the Sengoku Jidai so much of the land had been drastically altered, even in Kagome's Tokyo. It was the same here, in Connecticut or wherever they were at the moment. “What happened to the youkai in Japan?” he asked in a low voice.

 

“Many are gone, disappeared as the wild places grew too civilized. Some assimilated. We realized a few hundred years ago that we needed to stay connected to nature in order to survive. But as we grew fewer and the humans increased and took over more and more of our spaces, it became harder to remain invisible and so we faded, becoming again just pure spirit. So those of us that were able blended in with the human world and made our mark there. We, too, `owned' land in the human sense and so we kept it safe. We joined with those humans who were aware of what we were and together we preserved the world for both humans and youkai. Eventually I came here, and I saw the same thing occurring with the youkai of this place. I tried to reach out to these new world youkai but they would not listen.”

 

“I wonder why.” Inuyasha muttered. “Did you tell them they were `tainted,' by any chance?”

 

Sesshomaru raised his brows. “Why would I say that? They were losing substance—they were not tainted.”

 

“Never mind,” said Inuyasha. “Go on.”

 

“There were some among them that took on the form of humans like we do, and occasionally I would see them moving among humans, existing on the edge of the human world. But they were isolated cases, and the ones I spoke to had no interest in becoming Lord of this land and leading the rest of their people into the real world.”

 

“And you think I do?”

 

“I think you do not want to see the wild places become lost. I think you are the strongest youkai in this area and you need to make it yours, for your own sake as well as for their protection.”

 

“How big of an area are we talking about?”

 

“Come.” Sesshomaru abruptly stood up, brushing leaves off his sweats. “I will show you.”

 

It took the whole four days to traverse what Inuyasha later learned was called New England. Every now and then they felt an unmistakable otherworldly presence that, for lack of a better word, they identified as youkai. When they did, Sesshomaru would proclaim in a loud voice that Inuyasha was now the youkai Lord of this land. He had Inuyasha draw Tetsusaiga and raise the transformed sword above his head to prove his claim.

 

“Are you sure they understand Japanese?” Inuyasha whispered once. “Maybe you should try English.”

 

“The words don't matter,” replied Sesshomaru. “They know.”

 

And it seemed that they did know. At least, Inuyasha didn't sense any negative auras when they performed their little rituals of introduction.

 

They approached the school from the north, stopping at Inuyasha's forest on the mountain. Inuyasha explained Kagome's concern about the human owner of this land.

 

“Is this where you wish to be?” asked Sesshomaru.

 

“Yeah. This place—it makes me feel good.”

 

“I'll see what I can find out about the owner,” promised Sesshomaru. It still amazed Inuyasha that his brother was being civil, even nice, to him.

 

Sesshomaru left Inuyasha at Kagome's dorm early Friday morning.

 

“I'm not saying I'll stay here forever,” warned Inuyasha. “Just while Kagome's in school. Then we'll see. “

 

Sesshomaru gave him his most enigmatic look. “We'll see,” he agreed. His form dissolved into a smoky great dog and he drifted out of sight, a wispy white cloud in the morning sky.

 

Inuyasha climbed in through the bedroom window, knowing Kagome would still be sleeping. Quietly, trying not to wake her, he undressed and crawled into bed beside her, burying his nose in her hair.

 

She shifted, opening her eyes. “Inuyasha,” she said sleepily. “You're back.” She snuggled closer to him and sighed in contentment. “What did Sesshomaru say about getting you an ID so you can go on the airplane?”

 

“ID? Oh, I forgot to ask.”

 

“What?”