InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Gisei ❯ Geisi ( Chapter 1 )

 

 

Gisei

 

 

When she was eight, she gave him food.

When she was ten, she gave him flowers.

When she was sixteen, she ran away.

 

 

 

Part One: Abandonment

 

 

So dark.

 

Always, so dark.

 

The stench that creeps into her nose, refusing to wash away with the last breath of air… it sticks to her lungs, eating into her flesh and beginning to rot her from the inside...

 

This is death.

 

Rin does not believe that death stalks her, but that she stalks death; having caught it twice, that part of her that never sleeps seeks it still.

 

It terrifies her.

 

The darkness. The stink.

 

When her nightmares take her back to that rotting mountain of corpses beyond the Meidou, she stops breathing - out of fear until she remembers... Humans do not breathe in hell. Humans can only be dead in hell. And living humans only live in fear of the Meidou. That is when the Meidou starts to reclaim her.

 

Please. Don't let me return here… The next time I return, there will be no way back…

 

++++++++++++++

 

Rin shuddered awake, her damp skin meeting the early morning frost to chill her; the nightmare's icy fingers boring into her soul, leaving her body cold and motionless in the shadow of the ghostly Meidou that followed her through the dream, and hung unseen near her even now. It was always there with her, a wisp of memory haunting her step, fueling her fears that someday she would trip over a twig and fall through it again.

 

Opening her eyes, she saw the tree she'd huddled up against, and she focused on a small ant crawling up the hoary bark of a large root. Blinking, she noticed that something had changed in the night and she groaned silently at the dull ache below her belly that she did not understand. She was careful not to move or flinch as the pain moved through her. Others in the camp were moving about and she heard Jaken's shuffling behind her.

 

“What is it?” Sesshoumaru was alert.

 

“It's Rin, lord.” Jaken's nasal voice was suppressed into a whisper. “She bleeds again.”

 

“I know, Jaken.” Her lord's voice sounded deep and measured, as though each word received consideration while he spoke to his retainer.

 

Rin heard this and cringed, recognizing now the pain in her abdomen as the same horrible cramps that had accosted her only last month when she'd bled uncontrollably for days, disgusting Sesshoumaru-sama and making Jaken frantic. When it had stopped, she'd hoped that things would be `normal' again and they could go on about their usual travels, chasing after Naraku and whatever horrible monstrosities he'd unleashed. But the pain in her belly meant that things really weren't `normal', and it was her fault.

 

As she laid in the morning chill, moving her hand down to her stomach and cradling herself in the hopes that she could warm the pain away, Rin felt very alone; an orphan without a home or clan; a human in the company of youkai; an eleven year old child in the company of beings who'd lived for centuries; a girl in the company of men - well, a man, a boy and a `little youkai' - Jaken didn't really qualify as a man…. And now, to make matters worse, she was wounded and would be a liability to Sesshoumaru-sama again. Will my bleeding be worse this time? Will I die? Squeezing her eyes shut, she held back a sob.

 

“Rin.” Sesshoumaru's voice was not harsh, but it was also not gentle, betraying the slightest frustration that his plans would be affected this day. “Get up. We're leaving.”

 

“Yes, Sesshoumaru-sama.” Rin pushed herself up and felt the blood trickle into her clothes. Looking up at him, the girl caught the slightest grimace as the muscles around his sensitive nose pinched slightly and knew he smelled her blood. “I'll go wash up and be right back.” She ran past Kohaku, who sat against another tree and silently tossed a stick in the air, to the nearby stream. Shivering uncontrollably she waded into the water, trying to wash away the stain and search for some kind of moss or other plant she might use to absorb the blood.

 

When she returned, she found Sesshoumaru standing waiting for her, his white pelt already beginning to flutter at his feet atop the wind he carried within him. Taking her place next to him as Jaken and Kohaku mounted Au-Un, she instinctively snuggled back into his large white pelt and leaned into his hip, afraid of losing her balance and falling to the ground, which rapidly receded below them. She felt safe next to him and was glad to feel his hand move around to rest on her shoulder, the intense heat burning inside him warming her as his hand touched her. It was a gesture he's used more frequently ever since she'd been returned from the Meidou by his mother, and this day it let her know he was not angry with her.

 

“Where are we going, Sesshoumaru-sama?” Rin was curious and nervous about what kind of people she might meet in her current messy state.

 

“We are going to Haha-ue's domain.” Sesshoumaru sounded resigned, as though this was a trip he did not anticipate with pleasure. Despite his lack of outward emotion, Rin felt his youki thrum and snap around them, exciting a bit of adrenaline into her heart.

 

“Gobodou-sama!” Jaken could not contain his excitement, almost hopping off Au-un's back. “I have not seen your honored mother in so long! I am so glad!”

 

Sesshoumaru ignored him and Rin felt a new level of anxiety and excitement. Asai Gobodou-sama had always been cordial to her, ever since the beautiful and deadly inuyoukai woman had saved Rin's life by bringing her soul back from the Meidou after Sesshoumaru had retrieved her body; but as much as she was grateful to her for saving her life, Rin did not understand the mysterious taiyoukai and found her sometimes frightening. Where Sesshoumaru was ice, frequently choosing not to act when faced with uncertainty; his mother was fire, smoldering behind a cool exterior until flaring unpredictably into motion.

 

The ground passed quickly beneath them for some time until a cloudy disturbance in the air became visible and they passed through a barrier, its spell sensing Sesshoumaru's youki and parting before them. Soon the air cleared to reveal a palace compound of elegant, polished wooden buildings arranged precisely on the mountainside. Rin looked down at the clusters of various sized dwellings, topped by elegantly sloped roofs and connected by open-air walkways that guided the inhabitants through carefully tended gardens. They began to descend, heading towards the top of a giant stairway, wide enough for five warriors to stand abreast, and consisting of hundreds of steps linking the main house with the forest below. The landing at the stairway's pinnacle served as a wide veranda for the castle's main hall, perched on the mountainside overlooking the magnificent staircase, allowing those who exited the hall to survey the lands below.

 

A slender figure, clothed in white, emerged from the hall and walked out to meet them on the veranda. As they dropped nearer the ground, Rin recognized the fine, pale features of Asai Gobodou-sama, so like her son with the long white hair, perfectly blushed facial scarring and pelted robes. Like her son, and yet not, for Asai Gobodou-sama possessed a smaller and more delicate frame that spoke of her femininity. Rin thought she was beautiful. They alighted on the ground and Rin, Kohaku and Jaken bowed low to Asai Gobodou-sama as Sesshoumaru stood still, his golden eyes meeting her deep amber ones. When Rin rose, she caught the flick of the woman's wrist and felt the hand of a servant grip her shoulder, guiding her away.

 

++++++++

 

Rin relaxed in the bath. She'd only had one warm bath in her life, the last time they visited Asai Gobodou-sama's castle. She'd hated the bath then, but this time the hot water felt good, relaxing the aching muscles deep inside her. After the chilly wade into the stream this morning, she wondered whether she would trade her life of travel with Sesshoumaru for this warm luxury. She surprised herself by thinking at that particular moment, perhaps she would.

 

“Rin-chan.” A growly old voice rumbled from the doorway, causing Rin to sit up in the water and turn to the speaker. “I've instructions to clean you up and take you to Gobodou-sama.” A burly inuyoukai entered the room, her brown hair streaked with grey. She brought strong forearms covered in a fine dark fur into view as she rolled up her sleeves.

 

“Hello, Michiyou-san!” Rin was glad to see the woman who tended to her when they visited last.

 

“Ah!” Michiyou wrinkled her nose. “That smell! Human blood is so disgusting.”

 

“You can smell it?” Rin's face flushed in embarrassment as the woman dumped a bucket of water over her head and began to massage herbal soaps into her hair, pulling through the tangles so that stinging tears rose in Rin's eyes.

 

“Of course I can.” The voice behind the strong hands on her scalp sounded as though her nose was still wrinkled. “The whole castle can smell it.”

 

“Oh, no!” Rin was mortified until she heard a soft chuckle.

 

“Don't you fret, Rin-chan,” the woman's voice softened, “you're not likely to know it traveling with the men, but we all carry that smell with us every so often.”

 

“Really?” Rin felt some relief creep in, keeping her from wanting to sink completely below the surface of the water in embarrassment. Even though she didn't fully understand the woman's words, the assurance that she might not be the only one that bled was comforting. Perhaps I won't die after all…

 

“Really. I'll tell you all about it while you get dressed.” The servant poured another warm bucket of water over her, running her long claws smoothly through Rin's untangled and fresh smelling hair. “Now, get out. I'm to deliver you before the midday meal.”

 

Rin smiled, enjoying the attention of the older woman. Is this what it's like to have a mother?

 

+++++++++++++

 

Rin walked carefully in the many layered kimono Michiyou had wrapped around her. The fine silk obi was tight around her waist, its petal pink shimmer holding in the lush green fabric of the main robe, too long for her and folded under the obi wrap. She was glad at least that Michiyou hasn't insisted that she wear the geta sandals, having allowed her the simple flat footwear she had worn before in the palace. As the servant woman had dressed her, she'd explained to Rin about her bleeding and showed her how to use cloth to contain it. Then she'd told her that she would be presented today `at court' in Asai Gobodou-sama's main hall, and that this meant she needed to be especially careful to display fine manners. Rin had panicked, not really knowing what manners were appropriate in the castle hall, until the woman explained exactly what she was to do, where and how she was to sit and that she should not speak until asked a direct question, even then using as few words as necessary in her reply.

 

Now, as she approached the shoji screened entry to the hall, regally flanked by two warriors, each firmly gripping a sharp bladed nodatchi, Rin felt her heart flutter in fear. After she had removed her sandals, the doors were pulled silently aside and she entered a large room, floored in soft tatami mats. Asai Gobodou-sama sat at the back of the room on her one-sided throne, the other side left empty from the day Sesshoumaru's father had died. The throne seat itself was beautiful, carved of a rich brown teak and framing its occupant's lovely features in an elegant but simply scrolled circular back. Sesshoumaru stood to his mother's left side, a small table with a cup of untouched tea near his foot. Jaken was not present and several other small tables were set up as though guests were expected soon. This was a very private conversation she'd interrupted.

 

Sesshoumaru glanced at her, as though barely planning to acknowledge her presence, but his eyes widened slightly as he took in her rich clothing. Rin surpressed a smile, glad that he had noticed. Asai Gobodou-sama pointed at a small zabuton on her right and Rin walked carefully over to it, stopping to bow to the woman on the throne and then to Sesshoumaru as she had been instructed before kneeling on the small soft cushion.

 

“Sesshoumaru,” his mother's tone betrayed the slightest annoyance, “I agree that Naraku must be stopped, but you must get on with it! Things are happening elsewhere that require your attention. We are becoming too vulnerable to shifting alliances in the human world.” Rin saw Sesshoumaru's eyes blink in the way she knew meant he was annoyed as well, “When will you stop wandering the wilds and master the Tenseiga to ensure our protection?”

 

“The circle is almost complete and we are-“ he didn't look at Rin, but she knew he'd hesitated, thinking about how they'd had to leave the hunt to come here because of her, “we are on Naraku's trail.” Disdain dripped from his voice now, “Human maneuverings do not concern us.” Sesshoumaru repeated a phrase they had all heard often. Except for his mysterious protection of her and Kohaku, he did not typically tolerate humans. He'd never explained himself to his mother on this point, though Rin knew she had asked.

 

Rin watched Sesshoumaru's face; his features were motionless but his thin eyebrows cinched forward in a slight scowl and Rin sensed his agitation while he considered his mother. Jaken had told her of how, while protecting InuYasha's human mother, their father, Inu no Taishou, had fallen and Asai Gobodou-sama had claimed his father's lands and possessions, including the Meidou medallion. Jaken had shuddered when recalling how Sesshoumaru had fought to control himself when his mother confronted him with her boldness. Then, in hushed tones, Jaken had whispered to Rin that even Sesshoumaru was forced to admit that until he mastered his father's sword he was not fit to lead the Asai clan's armies. He'd originally searched for the other sword, the one InuYasha carried, but finally he'd admitted that it was the Tenseiga that he must conquer. And since Rin had known him he had made great progress in tapping into its power, almost fully opening the Meidou. He just hadn't made enough progress to wrest the Meidou medallion - and control of his father's domain - from his mother. Remembering all this as she watched the mother and son stare at each other with an intensity that she could feel in the room around her, Rin's attention was drawn to the beautiful woman again as Asai Gobodou-sama shifted on her throne.

 

“You're `on Naraku's trail'?” Asai Gobodou-sama sounded doubtful. “Then get on with it and kill the bastard!” Her eyes flashed a dangerous color and then calmed as she arranged her robes across her knees. In a measured voice she said, “Human maneuverings do concern us. With the introduction of gun powder and their new abilities to erect unseen barriers to us, they are a threat even though they themselves are not yet fully aware of it.” She sat back and considered her son, standing so rigidly stubborn before her. “Did you know?” She flicked her fan aside with a limp wrist, considering it for a moment before continuing. “Oda Nobunaga is moving to consolidate alliances and military strength in Kyoto?” Rin noted Sesshoumaru's surprise as his gaze sharpened. “What?” Asai Gobodou-sama had noticed his reaction as well. “You wonder how I know this?” She shook her head and fanned herself lazily. “Tsk. Tsk. Spies, my son.” Her patronization darkened her son's expression even more and the taiyoukai lady looked pleased as she turned to Rin and smiled a cold smile that, while not unkind, hid none of the calculation going on behind those deep, burnt orange eyes.

 

“Now,” Asai Gobodou-sama rose and stepped towards Rin, whose heart picked up speed under her gaze, “stand, Rin-chan. Let's take a look at you.” Rin stood obediently and turned at the flick of Asai Gobodou-sama's poisoned talons, indicating she should show off her kimono. “Beautiful!” She turned to look at Sesshoumaru, who still looked annoyed. “Don't you think she's beautiful?”

 

“Haha-ue.” Sesshoumaru didn't even look at Rin, despite his mother's prompting. “Do not become focused on abstractions. I brought Rin here to be cleaned and - educated. Yet you've had her dressed in silks. We're leaving, Rin. Put on your traveling clothes and come back here. Until she returns, Haha-ue, tell me more of Nobunaga's movements. Are the Matsunaga forces moving to respond?”

 

“Ah… my goodness.” The beautiful youkai flicked her fan again, refusing to be distracted from her newest plot, she turned to speak to Rin. “Dear Rin-chan, men simply don't understand these things. You see, these things we speak of - you and Matsunaga - are related.” Both Sesshoumaru and Rin were surprised at her words, implying that Rin had anything to do with a human warlord. Their shocked faces seemed to please Asai Gobodou-sama, who smiled and strolled around behind Rin, her white fur-trimmed robes sliding along behind her. Rin felt as though a predator stalked her and she tried to stifle a shiver that twitched at the nape of her neck.

 

“Sesshoumaru, I know that since I brought Rin-chan back through the Meidou you have been careful in your pursuit of Naraku because you had,” she paused dramatically, “someone to protect.” The emphasis she gave the words sounded sarcastic to Rin and she noticed anger flare in Sesshoumaru's eyes. “I fear this is a lesson from your father you may have learned too well, and it is an excuse I will no longer accept. Our dear Rin-chan has become a liability in your task, so I am going to relieve you of her burden.” Rin felt a wave of fear join the shivering twitch on her skin, wondering if Asai Gobodou-sama planned to kill her.

 

“This is none of your business.” Cold fury built in Sesshoumaru's eyes and Rin felt a new chill as she experienced the youki waves of power clash as they emanated off Sesshoumaru before her and Asai Gobodou-sama behind her. She was caught between them and began to feel the urge to run quickly away, as though she were a frightened rabbit between two wild dogs. She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself.

 

“Oh, yes it is my business.” Asai Gobodou-sama carefully lowered her clawed fingers onto Rin's shoulder as she stepped up next to the girl, both females now facing the taller, more powerful figure of her son. “For her life, that was once yours, has been mine since I brought her soul back from beyond the Meidou.” Sesshoumaru's face relaxed in shock at her words. “You retrieved her body, my son, but I retrieved her soul. And now I claim what is mine and release you from your vow to protect her. You will leave her to me or you will forfeit her life.”

 

Rin reacted instinctively with fright to Asai Gobodou-sama's words and her heart exploded, words flooding into her brain unable to be released. No! Her eyes sought and found Sesshoumaru's, who met her gaze with similar surprise and shock. Don't let her do this! She saw him blink, and believed she saw the same anguish there she felt. Sesshoumaru-sama, you are my world…

 

“Do not worry for her life,” Asai Gobodou-sama said, tightening her grip on Rin's shoulder as though she expected her to bolt across the room into his arms. “Out of necessity I have been studying humans and believe I will have no trouble keeping her alive. In order to secure your undivided heart in building our army and alliances again once you dispatch Naraku, I will assume the burden of her protection. You have my word. She will be safe here.”

 

Sesshoumaru did not look at Rin again, now focused solely on his mother while his eyes seethed with crimson as though he would release the beast within. Asai Gobodou-sama shifted at her side, accepting Sesshoumaru's wrathful energy without comment and the silence was punctuated only by a small sizzle, as though their youki battled unseen in the space between them. Finally, Asai Gobodou-sama spoke again, a slightly patronizing tone now entering her voice.

 

“You seem to think that dragging a budding flower through the mud is somehow doing her a service, my son.” Asai Gobodou-sama's voice lowered and became almost threatening. “She is now of an age where you have not the experience to prepare her for all the dangers she will encounter when she is a grown woman. I can do this while you cannot. Leave her here, Sesshoumaru. When you have mastered the Tenseiga and claimed this back,” she fingered the Meidou pendant on its long string of peals at her neck, “then you may rule your father's lands, and then - if you still want her, and if she has earned the protection of the clan - then maybe Rin can be yours again.” She paused to let these words sink in, and then spoke her final words with finality. “Now, she is mine.”

 

Without a word, still not meeting Rin's frantic eyes, Sesshoumaru spun on his heel and left with a speed that whipped his fur pelt into wild flight after him. Rin heard a low growl in his wake.

 

She felt a single tear slip down her cheek.

 

He's gone.

 

+++++++++++++

 

Wandering the wilds behind Sesshoumaru, Rin had admired the youkai woman who called her soul back from the Meidou, saving her from the depths of hell. She'd worshiped Asai Gobodou-sama's memory in that time away from her - until now, when she'd become her prisoner. Only a day after Sesshoumaru had left her alone in his mother's castle, Rin sat in her new room, luxuriously appointed with silken drapery and bedding, wiping the tears from her cheeks for the hundredth time. Her sadness threatened to overwhelm her, and as it always did when she was frightened, the shadow of the Meidou hung close to her and she felt its nearness in the room with her, like a ghost she couldn't see. Before, when she was frightened and felt it near, Sesshoumaru's presence always had the power to drive it away. But now he was far away and she felt it hovering close, hunting her through her sadness.

 

She thought back on Sesshoumaru's face as he'd absorbed his mother's claim on her life, and she thought she'd seen a quick flash of fear in his eyes. Maybe this hurt him as much as me? She almost felt sorry for her protector with this memory, but then ungrateful anger welled up in her heart. Why did you leave me? She couldn't help the unkind thoughts that swept into her, thinking about her adopted father, the one who had always saved her, protected her and cared for her. Her unmerciful memory remembered him whirling to leave again and again, forcing fresh tears into her eyes to spill down her cheeks, and the small sob that escaped her had so many more behind it… He didn't even look at me. He just left me… abandoned.

 

“Rin-chan!” Michiyou's voice preceded her through the doorway. “Gobodou-sama is waiting for you!” The woman came in the room. “Ah! What a room they've given you!” She walked over to where Rin sat and looked over her head out the window onto the wild tumble of mountainside spread out below. “You've as good a view as Gobodou-sama herself!” Looking down on Rin's face her tone changed and she reached down to tilt the girls face toward her. Rin noticed how warm her hands were, the sharp claws carefully placed on either side of her ear. “Tsk. Now don't you go crying, girl. Gobodou-sama is scary, I'll give you that, but she wouldn't have dressed you in silks and given you this room if she intended to eat you.”

 

“Eat me?” Rin watched the older woman's smile carefully, trying to determine if `eat' was an attempt at a joke.

 

“She's eaten humans in the past,” the woman said matter-of-factly, a slight shade of sympathy passing over her face at Rin's obvious fear. “But it's not just humans. Anyone not of the clan is fair game to her. Now stop your crying.”

 

“I'm sorry, Michiyou-san,” Rin wiped at another tear, trying to get control of herself. “I miss Sesshoumaru-sama is all.”

 

“Ah.” The servant let her face go and lifted a bundle of clothing in her other arm to begin sorting through it. “Well, don't we all, little one!” She chuckled to herself. “That one's a prince to be sure. And not bad to look at, either, eh?” She kept laughing quietly, and Rin had the strangest feeling she was listening in on a private joke in the women's quarters. She smiled a little, thinking of the women whispering about Sesshoumaru behind his back.

 

As if to confirm her suspicions, Michiyou leaned down a bit and lowered her voice into a conspiratorial whisper. “Tell me, little one, does the prince ever smile? I've got a wager on this one, I do.” Rin was surprised at the question, but searched her memory.

 

“I've never seen him smile,” she answered honestly.

 

“Ha!” Michiyou gloated in triumph, undoubtedly having won the bet. Turning her attention back to Rin, she sobered her expression. “You just forget about him, little one. He's not fool enough to take on Gobodou-sama when she holds your life hostage.” Michiyou unfurled purple silk across Rin's lap. “Here. Put this on. Don't want to keep the lady waiting, do we?”

 

Glad for the distraction, Rin looked at the beautiful silk body suit and red silk sash she'd been handed with puzzlement. “What's this for?” Lifting it, she noticed there were no sleeves.

 

“You're asking me what Gobodou-sama has in mind for you?” Michiyou laughed again. “Not me. I never know what goes on in that inu's mind, little one. Just put it on and I'm sure you'll find out soon enough.”

 

As they were led by an armored inuwarrior to a wide building set back into the forest, Michiyou said quietly into Rin's ear, “Ah. The training dojo. She's going to have you learn the ways of weapons!” Rin's heart sped even faster at those words. She'd never even held a weapon before. “Here,” the servant said quietly as Rin removed her shoes and the warrior opened the screen for her to enter, “I'll bind up your hair so it doesn't blind you, girl.” She felt her hair tugged back by careful claws and a ponytail flop against the back of her neck. “Good luck!” Michiyou gave her a little push into the room.

 

Rin took a deep breath and stepped in to see Asai Gobodou-sama standing in the middle of the room, wearing a bodysuit much like her own, but woven of white silk adorned with a deep purple sash that perfectly matched her purple blushing facial scars, the crescent moon on her brow and elegant stripes highlighting her cheekbones. Her hair was bound in its flowing white ponytail, tied off with another purple ribbon and pinned with jeweled bone combs. The body suit, which hung limply on Rin, hugged the woman's torso to reveal a perfect figure and slim, muscled arms without even a wrinkle of flesh though she was centuries old and stronger than any human man. Dragonhide wrist guards covered in ornate knotted scrollwork protected her forearms, the leather bindings dangling where they'd been tied off. Below her tight purple sash, white silk flowed around her legs much like Sesshoumaru's hakama and pelt did right before he flew. Her legs were long and she towered over Rin. In each hand she held a long pole, topped by a curved blade, much like a katana, but shorter and wider. Asai Gobodou-sama watched Rin's eyes widen as she saw the weapons. Rin bowed low, hoping the fearsome woman didn't take her head off right there.

 

As she rose, Asai Gobodou-sama spoke. “What do you call me?”

 

“Asai Gobodou-sama.” Rin said, her heart beating wildly, not sure why she was being quizzed on titles.

 

“Ah!” the taiyoukai exclaimed, letting slip a small note of humor into her barking exclamation. “That's what the little youkai calls me.”

 

“Jaken.” Rin spoke with a pang, realizing she missed the little green kappa as well. I didn't even get to say good-bye…

 

“That one.” Asai Gobodou-sama agreed. “Well, `Asai Gobodou-sama' is a title left over from a time when women knew how to wield power, a skill I intend to teach you. Others may call me `Asai Gobodou-sama', but not you.” Rin gulped. “You will call me Hahaue-sama.” Rin's surprise was apparent on her face, for the woman's face broke into a wide, grimacing smile, revealing sharp fangs below smoldering, deep amber eyes that paralyzed Rin as though she were an insect captured in their crystalline depths. Her eyes were so much darker than her son's, but Rin could just imagine the crimson stain moving into them as she grew into the fearsome inuyoukai that hid beneath her slight frame. The girl had to blink several times to see the woman containing the beast before her again.

 

“Hahaue-sama?” Rin's voice sounded thin and weak in her ears.

 

“Hahaue-sama.” Her new mother tossed one of the tall weapons at her and Rin just barely caught it in her surprise. “You're now a ward in my house, under the temporary protection of the Asai clan.” Rin was struggling to take all this in from the woman she thought might eat her, and she let her arms drop so that the bladed pole hung parallel to the ground. “And a ward, one who would one day be a daughter in my clan, a wife and mother of warriors, will know how to defend herself with a naginata!” In a blur, Rin's new hahaue launched herself at her freshly adopted charge. Rin, still reeling under the honor this powerful woman paid her by insinuating she might aspire to join the Asai clan, had barely begun to raise her heavy weapon when the other's blade came to rest at her neck, freezing her to look up into those ember eyes. “You're lucky I've had these blades dulled, kawaii Rin-chan.”

 

Somehow the endearment of `darling little Rin' didn't warm the icy chill running through the girl at that moment. She saw fire burning in the woman before her, such a contrast to the cold countenance of her son. At that moment, Rin envied Sesshoumaru's unruffled temperament, not to mention his skill with a blade. She held very still, waiting for Hahaue-sama to move.

 

“Come now, kawaii, when your opponent has shown an unwillingness to decapitate you; that is when you fight back.” The taiyoukai's burning eyes were predatory, and Rin knew she only had one way out of this hall, which was through those eyes. With a heave, she jumped back and brought her weapon up to knock weakly against the dragon scale wrist guards, and push the blade away from her face. Hahaue-sama stepped back and then disappeared in a whirl of motion that left a bloody track on Rin's bicep. Rin winced at the sting of the cut. Dull blades still drew blood it seemed.

 

“My son does not understand why I've taken you in,” Hahaue-sama said coolly, as her blade came to center on Rin's stomach. “He treasures you and fears for you here.” Rin felt another level of anxiety as she saw the youkai beast living within Hahaue-sama stir again behind her eyes. Hahaue-sama quickly broke through the beginnings of her trance with a carefully aimed slice, sending a sharp breeze against her forehead as the weapon's edge swept through the air only an inch from her temple. Rin vowed to herself never again let her attention wander from Hahaue-sama when she held a blade in her hand, which she would later learn, was all the time. She lifted her weapon a little higher.

 

“Soon he will come to understand why we must embroil ourselves in the affairs of humans.” Hahaue-sama began circling the young girl, who instinctively moved in the opposing direction, beginning to understand how to watch her opponent. “And you, kawaii Rin-chan, will help me teach him.” Rin raised her pole again, sensing an impending attack, which came with ferocity and grace, and which somehow she managed to repel with an awkward thrust forward. She knew the woman was toying with her, but some strength came up from her core, a refusal to let herself be slaughtered. Rin felt an unfamiliar heat begin to burn in her heart, rushing through her body with the urge to strike out against the one before her, and she recognized a warrior's anger brewing in her for the first time she could remember.

 

“Your reflexes are passable,” Hahaue-sama said, “but you have absolutely no skill.” She reversed her direction and watched as Rin responded, waiting one step too many, opening herself to another attack. This one left another trickle of blood on Rin's unprotected forearm. Later, Rin would realize that Hahaue-sama had been very careful to leave no injury so deep that it would scar her skin, and she would marvel at the skill with which the woman could elicit fear and draw blood without seriously wounding or incapacitating her opponent, as easily and effortlessly as she could kill with a single strike.

 

“Sesshoumaru has done you a great disservice, leaving you with no knowledge of how to protect yourself, exact revenge or even execute an honorable death.” Another whirl of white sliced through the space in front of her, and Rin sensed the breeze of a slice only a hair's breath from her shoulder. “We will teach him, you and I, but only after you have been trained.”

 

“Trained?” Rin jumped back and lifted her naginata to block what even she recognized was a terribly slow strike to her left side. Slow or not, the attack sent her heart into her throat where it met her growing anger and together they created the desire to growl. She ground her teeth instead.

 

“We all must learn things to come into our power, girl,” Hahaue-sama twirled around and ended up behind Rin in a flash. Rin was flummoxed as she tried to turn around at a similar speed, not realizing anyone could move with such skill and finesse. “You've never seen this kind of fighting, have you, kawaii? You're used to watching men fight, and they rely far too heavily on brute force.” She shifted the blade in her hands as she began moving again to circle the more wary girl. “Women need to use speed and reflex in all things, body and mind. It's part of our power.”

 

“But I don't want power!” Rin cringed a little at the implicit challenge her words gave to her intimidating mistress, unused to this new feeling of strength the anger sent surging into her.

 

“Lesson number one.” Hahaue-sama's eyes flashed and Rin saw the telltale deepening of her purple cheekbone scars, indicating brewing anger that Rin knew could easily overwhelm her own newly minted temper. “What you want does not matter.”

 

“What does matter, then?” Even though she feared it was likely to get her killed, Rin's anger stirred again, stimulated by the calculating countenance of the woman before her and the adrenaline of the physical danger she represented.

 

Hahaue-sama let out a mirthless chuckle and exploded into swirling white whips of hair and silk as she whirled her weapon around, coming in at Rin's side, her weapon trying to crash down on the girl's head. Rin instinctively tried to avoid a crushed skull by bringing the flat of her pole up, stopping the blade over head in the nick of time. The moment their poles touched, the inuyoukai curled into herself, pivoting to push her spine back into Rin's stomach, the fire of her skin burning into the girl. Rin stood still, her heart thumping in her ears as she felt the tip of a blade press carefully against her ribs. Concealed in the dragon hide wrist protectors and running along underneath Hahaue-sama's forearm, the knife's pointed tip pressed just below Rin's right breast.

 

“This is a wakizashi, kawaii,” Hahaue-sama's voice was low and serious. “Come to know it well. It will be your salvation and your end. This move is called the gisei, the sacrifice, and you will use it someday to protect something you hold most dear. Only your willingness to use it will earn you a place in our clan.” Hahaue-sama did not move, but Rin felt the slight pressure of the blade increase as the woman continued. “You see how my neck is exposed to your weapon? Use this move to kill your enemy, at the very moment he kills you.”

 

As the frightening taiyoukai drew away, leaving Rin to drop the blade of her pole with a thump, the girl felt the ghost of the Meidou enter the room with the woman's invitation to death. Weakness pulled at her knees, inviting her down to the ground. Hahaue-sama wasn't done with the lesson, reclaiming her naginata and tapping Rin's matching weapon until the girl raised the tip from the mat where it had fallen.

 

“Only one thing matters, girl.” Hahaue-sama's youki energy became audible, crackling in Rin's ears as the beast behind those eyes focused its full concentration on the girl before her, completely captivating her new disciple. “That which you will die for. Do you know it? Do you know what you will die for?”

 

Those words, that invitation to fatal sleep amongst a pile of rotting corpses roared into Rin's ears and plunged down into her soul's darkness; down into the ever present nightmare of her deaths and her dim, terrifying memories of the place where mountains of rotting souls were slowly crushed under the monstrous feet of the Master of Hell. Feeling the memories of hell close in upon her, Rin's knees finally buckled and she fell into a quivering huddle of flesh and ill-fitted silk, sobbing her uncontrollable fear.

 

Hahaue-sama's naginata blade thudded into the mat between her hand and her nose, piercing the dried grasses deeply enough to keep the naginata standing even after it had been released, vibrating quietly with the unused force of Hahaue-sama's strike. The wakizashi and its leather arm strap fell next, landing partially across Rin's hand, as though she were expected to don it immediately. And then Rin heard the words that would hunt her throughout her stay in the Asai palace and beyond.

 

“You will learn what it is you will die for - thereby earning the protection of the Asai clan and the place of wife and mother within it - or you will die without knowing it and return to the place you fear most for eternity.” The weapon stilled its quivering as the woman turned in a whirl of scented youki and swept from the room.

 

With her exit, Sesshoumaru's betrayal in leaving her unprotected and at the mercy of his mother came home to her fully. How could you do this to me, Sesshoumaru-sama? I thought you said you would protect me!

 

From that day forward, even when she did not speak, Hahaue-sama asked the same question with her burning amber eyes. What will you die for? And always, spoken or unspoken, Rin did not have an answer, knowing only fear in response.

 

+++++++++++++

 

Five years passed and Rin trained every day, studying the fighting techniques, poetry and wisdom of the inuyoukai. Hahaue-sama only participated in her schooling to test her and pass on wisdoms she seemed intent on Rin taking to heart, breezing in and out of the girl's days when the mood struck her. She seemed to find Rin a passable student, but never gave words of praise and remained as distant as Sesshoumaru had once been, when the little girl she'd been first brought him the roots and fish he'd turned away. But unlike her son, who allowed Rin the freedom to choose his company, Hahaue-sama constrained her, dictating how she spent her days, where she went and with whom she spoke. The girl accepted her imprisonment under Hahaue-sama's tutelage, but inside she struggled to understand why she was here, and for what purpose she submitted to her education.

 

Always, at the beginning or end of each test, Hahaue-sama would ask the question Rin could not answer, the question that had the power to strike her dumb, bringing the shadow of the Meidou to her consciousness again to leave her quaking in fear as the stench of death rose to fill her. What will you die for? And always, Rin's anger would well up in the scented wake of Hahaue-sama's visits. Why do I have to answer your question? Why should I want to die again? As her anger cooled, she felt the failure stay within her, impotent and quickly tamped down as she realized she'd failed Hahaue-sama's test yet again. Then the hurt would flood her as she turned to leave the training floor. Why do you train me if I will never be acceptable to you?

 

Other than her continual failure to imagine what would send her willingly into hell, Rin did not lead an unhappy life. Though she no longer felt the urge to pick flowers in the fields surrounding the castle, or skip merrily under the shade of the forest canopy, she wanted for nothing and did not feel threatened by the youkai she passed her days among. Frequently as she thought back on the days of hunger and fear, her childhood memories of predatory wolves and humans, Rin would marvel at how her life had changed, and she felt gratitude that she was at least abandoned among civilized youkai rather than frightening humans.

 

In the first years of her stay here with Hahaue-sama, she often sat staring at the greenery outside her window, missing the days wandering in the wilds and wondering what had become of Sesshoumaru. There was a small spray of wildflowers just beyond her window that reminded her of the flowers she used to gather for him when she was small. As she watched their little blue and yellow heads sway lazily in a summer breeze, she would remember the day that she toiled over weaving them into a wreath that she thought would look nice on his shining white hair. But when she had presented the sparse little circlet to him, he hadn't appeared to understand her gesture, and instead of accepting it, lifted it up to place it on her own head, his face impassive and unreadable. She remembered his eyes, deep and golden, soft and hard. Had he been rejecting her gift or giving her one of his own? That question played itself out over and over in her mind as the years had gone by, keeping him from turning into a ghost, a dream she might one day forget.

 

She had neither seen him, nor heard Hahaue-sama speak his name since the day after he'd left her here. Others whispered rumors and more tawdry fantasies in the hallway, but Rin did not give them credence. Only Hahaue-sama's words counted in matters of her son.

 

As she'd become used to the routine of the castle and stopped fearing for her life when Hahaue-sama picked up the naginata to spar with her, Rin had lost most of her anger at Sesshoumaru for leaving her, and in recent years her feelings had transformed themselves into something else entirely. She felt a pang of pain on thinking of him now, and she admitted to herself on lonely nights when she felt the stirrings of womanly desire, that she missed him terribly. The memory of his beauty, strength and reserve pulled at her, drawing her to an emptiness she'd never known as a child with his protection ever near, the emptiness of woman without a man. Laying in the dark of her room when these thoughts accosted her, she always shook herself vigorously and ordered them away. Reminding herself that he had been her protector, more like a father, and he was a powerful youkai lord who would never lower himself to consider claiming her.

 

The final blow would fall on her fantasy when she imagined Hahaue-sama standing between them. Even if Sesshoumaru would try to claim her, she knew Hahaue-sama would never allow it, the tainting of her clan's blood with hanyou offspring. Rin had been present for the lady's diatribes against Izayoi, InuYasha's mother, so many times that she could almost hear the rants in her sleep, Worthless woman! How she birthed anything half decent is beyond me! Allowing the father of her son to sacrifice himself!

 

Despite her apparent disdain for Izayoi, Hahaue-sama definitely had plans for Rin, and had drilled into the girl the hard lessons that the warrior wife's most important duty was to find the most honorable way to sacrifice herself for her sons, husband and clan.

 

“You want me to plan on taking my own life? Seppuku?” Rin remembered asking once at the end of a particularly vigorous training session as the women had left the training floor to replace their naginata on the practice rack.

 

“Never seppuku!” Hahaue-sama had turned to face Rin, eyes and body intense, her shoulders still gleaming with sweat. “That is a human coward's way out. `Honor'. Feh! They think dying in a bloody huddle by your own hand is honorable? No! Honor is to be found taking out the enemy while protecting that which is precious. That is why you must know what you will die for, kawaii. There is no honor in dying without reason.” Her eyes had intensified even more, staring into Rin. “I would have died for him, kawaii. Not let him die for me. Not like her.”

 

These lessons always chilled Rin, and when the girl had asked Michiyou why Hahaue-sama insisted she be ready for such sacrifice, the servant had reasoned that Hahaue-sama must be preparing Rin for marriage into a samurai family. Rin found this idea, along with its implication that it would mean her return to the human world, very frightening. Humans had always been more frightening to her than youkai, killing her family and beating her in childhood with a hatred and malice she did not understand. But then she had remembered that the Asai clan itself was a youkai samurai clan. Despite her loneliness as the only human on the grounds of the castle, this was still her home and the Asai the only clan she'd ever known. Slowly, over the years, Rin began to imagine that a marriage into the Asai clan must be her fate. Why else would Hahaue-sama care so much about my training? She watched the other youkai retainers and commanders as they came in and out of the palace, wondering if she was being prepared for one of them. Inside, she secretly hoped she would be married to an Asai lord, and even more secretly than that - despite knowing it as mere fantasy, barely allowed herself to think on it - still there was the faint hope that it might even be Sesshoumaru.

 

On a late summer's afternoon, after she'd trained and cleaned up, Rin sat at her window, taking comfort in the fresh breeze that came in, carrying the beginning scents of autumn. She'd dressed in her simple cotton yukata with the orange patches, her favorite because it reminded her of the little scrap she'd worn as a child. Whenever she put it on, wrapping it around her woman's body, it reminded her that she had nothing left of her childhood, nothing but memories.

 

A noise from the hall startled her.

 

“Rin!” Michiyou's voice was frantic, sending Rin's defensive reflexes to the ready. “She's coming!” Michiyou burst through the door.

 

“Hahaue-sama?” Rin only knew one female that could fluster Michiyou so thoroughly. “Here?” Her room was right off the servant's wing, near the guest quarters, and as far as she knew Hahaue-sama had never even been in this part of the palace.

 

“Yes. Here!” Michiyou ran to the chest and began grabbing silks, “Hurry and get dressed!”

 

“Yes. Yes.” A smooth voice came from the doorway and both women inside turned to see Hahaue-sama standing there in her finest robes and pelts, the Meidou pendant hanging prominently over her breasts. “Do dress Rin-chan in fine silks. For tonight my son returns and I would have Rin join us for the banquet.”

 

“Sesshoumaru-sama is returning?” Rin felt her first burst of true happiness since the day he'd left. She reminded herself that he'd been away for a long time, never having visited or sent word. Could he have forgotten me?

 

“Naraku is finally dead.” Hahaue-sama drifted into the room and watched as Michiyou began arranging her clothes on the dresser. “What took him so long is beyond my comprehension…” Her gaze carefully wandered the room between where the servant woman worked and where Rin stood by the window, slipping up the girl's body, taking in her curves. Rin suddenly felt uncomfortable watching the woman's lids lazily rise to reveal the unfathomable amber eyes beneath them. “And the worst of it is,” the taiyoukai flicked her fan out and slowly breezed it towards her face, “he still doesn't have the Meidou fully open.”

 

Rin's heart thumped, knowing that Sesshoumaru would be irritated with himself for being unable to master the sword. But will he be happy to see me?

 

“But tonight is still a celebration.” Hahaue-sama seemed to focus on Rin before her, just as Michiyou began to undress her. Rin's cheeks burned as the youkai lady took in her matured figure with apparent satisfaction. “Yes, you have grown, haven't you, kawaii? Let's see…” she looked up into the sky through the window over Rin's head, lost for a moment in thought. “Well, how interesting! You are of marriageable age!” Rin heard Michiyou huff something inaudible to human ears under her breath just before Hahaue-sama continued speaking. “Oh, Michiyou! That's not true! For a human, she's actually old for marriage!”

 

Rin's heart was beating so hard she was sure Michiyou could feel it beneath her claws as she tied off Rin's hadajuban and lifted the heavy silk kimono so that Rin could slip into it. Rin had never had a conversation with Hahaue-sama where the woman hadn't pulled some surprise on her and she was uncomfortable that the subject of marriage had come up so suddenly. Though, she noticed a small whispering thought that - despite her desire not to imagine the impossible - couldn't help but hope that Hahaue-sama was suggesting that she, Rin, might marry Sesshoumaru…

 

“Bring her along when she's ready.” Hahaue-sama gave Rin a last look. “Here.” Hahaue-sama stepped forward and reached up to take a ivory pin with sparkling jewels falling from it out of her hair, handing it to Michiyou. “Put this in her hair. It will look better against her black than my white.” With a whirl, she was gone.

 

“Oh!” Michiyou pushed Rin to sit and began pulling at her hair. “What does she have up her sleeve this time?” Rin winced as the pin grazed her scalp, pulling her hair until her slanted eyes became more angled and tears formed in them.

 

“A wakizashi.” Rin couldn't help the little stab at dark humor and she enjoyed the break in the tension as she and Michiyou giggled quietly. She fingered her own wakizashi, looped to her forearm beneath her kimono sleeve, wondering why she suddenly felt the need to ensure it was firmly seated.

 

+++++++++++++++

 

The setting sun cast its deep, rose-kissed orange glow on the gold leaf screens in the private banquet hall. Less than twelve hours later, when her silks would be covered in straw and filth, Rin would feel like a fool, remembering the pride and excitement that had made her so giddy, awaiting Sesshoumaru's entrance into the hall.

 

She sat to Hahaue-sama's left on a silver silk zabuton and imagined that he would see her sitting at his mother's side, in a position of honor, dressed in rich silken kimono and that he would notice how she moved with a new grace, having shed a child's awkward movements. In her fantasy, Hahaue-sama would join their hands, giving her to him to marry. Again and again, she shook herself without moving a muscle, reminding herself these were mere fantasies and that she would be glad just to see him again.

 

The screens parted and her lord entered the banquet room to the bows of everyone present but his mother. Rin's nose touched the mat in front of her and she couldn't help but tilt her head up, straining her eyes to look at him. He was more beautiful than she remembered, gilded by the setting sun and moving with characteristic grace. His face was as smooth and pale as she remembered, barely a blush beneath his long white hair, but something in his eyes had changed. They had a weariness she hadn't remembered from her childish days running alongside him. How did I never notice this? Did he change, or did I?

 

There was no sign of Kohaku, which Rin noted with some regret, but Jaken toddled along behind his master, carrying the Staff of Two Heads haughtily as though he might threaten to use it on any of the courtiers who dared threaten the much more dangerous figure in white. As Rin rose from the bow, she blushed when Sesshoumaru's eyes found her and widened before moving slowly up and down her form. As a child, even though she'd never seen him smile, Rin had become skilled at reading the subtle changes of his expressions as they drifted in tiny movements across his face, always manifesting themselves in his deep golden eyes. She found herself interpreting his expression now as surprise and - she hoped vehemently - appreciation. Their eyes met briefly and it was as though he looked deeply into her heart, the rest of the room fading into a blur so that only the two of them were present for a moment, beginning to reforge a link that had been broken between them.

 

Jaken saw Rin and made a commotion, dropping the staff and actually tripping over Sesshoumaru's foot, which quickly kicked him into a small lump in front of her.

 

“Rin-chan!” the little kappa, once just below her height and now small enough for her to hold in her arms, squeaked with delight. She smiled down on her old nursemaid and friend.

 

“Little Youkai.” Hahaue-sama recognized him.

 

“Oh, Asai Gobodou-sama!” Jaken bowed to her until his little hat touched the ground. “Forgive me! I'm so happy to see you too!” He rose up and literally danced in front of them both and Rin would have hugged him to her if she didn't know all the rules of the hall which forbade it. She noticed a little green blush on his cheeks as he looked at her. “Ah, Rin-chan!” he came to stand just in front of her. “You are so beautiful!” She blushed and bowed her head in thanks, hoping that as he once did, Jaken still spoke for Sesshoumaru on matters of the heart.

 

“Come!” Hahaue-sama clapped her fan shut. “Little Youkai! Attend your master.” She flicked the fan at Sesshoumaru, who stood before his mother, but Rin noticed that his eyes were still on her and she blushed again. His face betrayed nothing, no emotion, but his eyes… they were still wide, reflecting the dying light of the sun.

 

“Welcome, Sesshoumaru.” Hahaue-sama waved her fan at a seat, indicating that he should sit. “The world is better place without the stink of Naraku within it.” Sesshoumaru blinked and looked away from Rin, giving barely a twitch of a nod to his mother as he moved to sit on her right. Rin saw her fingering the Meidou pendant on her robes and had an ominous feeling as the taiyoukai lady spoke again. “But if Naraku could not tease a full circle out of the Tenseiga, what foe is left on which to practice?” Hahaue-sama flicked a finger to the servants to begin serving the food, but she was not done baiting her son. “It seems as if the hanyou is the only one strong enough to make good prey now.” The small bits of conversation that had begun when the food began to be served came to an abrupt halt at her words, waiting to see what effect the shaming had on the powerful taiyoukai sitting quietly at his mother's side. Sesshoumaru remained silent, staring ahead, but Rin felt the hair on her neck rise with the intensified youki that had begun to permeate the room. All the attending youkai were also alerted to the potential for violence, adding even more energy to the swirling stew of invisible energy.

 

Into the profound silence, Hahaue-sama flicked a talon at Rin, signaling her to pour Sesshoumaru's tea. When the girl rose and moved around to lift the tea pot as she'd been taught, serving from the left so that her back was to Hahaue-sama, Rin's heart fluttered against her ribs until she was sure he could hear it. She felt a tangible shift in the youki immediately around her lord and saw his eyes lift to capture hers. She blushed, seeing something in them she'd never noticed before, a strength and vitality that he'd no doubt possessed, but that had not been able to make a child's blood race in her veins as it did now. Fantasy or reality, her excitement was her own, and she saw in his eyes that he sensed it, and did not find it displeasing.

 

With a slight flush of excitement, Rin set down the little iron pot, preparing to move back to her place. Unexpectedly, she heard a growl behind her, chilling her even as it galvanized her into action. “Or perhaps you need to practice on me to earn the Meidou!” A whirl of silk erupted from Hahaue-sama's throne, catching Rin in its vortex as the frightfully growling taiyoukai launched herself at Sesshoumaru and Rin's defensive instincts triggered. Rin spun up and around on strong thighs, lifting her hands to block Hahaue-sama's hand holding the wakizashi as it came down towards her son. Her training worked and for a moment, the two women stood eye to eye, Rin protecting her lord and staring into the blazing amber eyes. Crimson youki began seeping into the blazing amber pools boring runnels through Rin's soul. Like blood dripping towards her, Hahaue-sama's inuyoukai came forth, asking her the eternal question. Will you die for him?

 

In that moment, Rin's only thought was, Sesshoumaru! Will you not protect me?

 

Rin knew what Hahaue-sama wanted, she wanted Rin to move into the gisei move forcing them into mutual extermination. But her hesitation - not understanding this sudden twist in Hahaue-sama's plot and feeling the familiar and constant fear of death freeze her limbs - it was her undoing as the inuyoukai woman turned her wrist to slash down on Rin's forearm, grazing the silk to expose her still-sheathed wakizashi. Hahaue-sama yanked herself free of Rin's grasp easily, stepping forward to seize the girl's waist in a vise-like grip, and pulling her forcibly into the gisei stance. Rin's spine pressed into Hahaue-sama's chest, conscious of the taiyoukai's firm hold on her wakizashi arm so that she could not belatedly stab at her benefactor. Though Rin was now facing Sesshoumaru, who sat as he first had, facing forward and unmoving as his youki settled with an icy cage around him, her shame would not allow her to look at him and she felt a tear well up even as the flat of Hahaue-sama's wakizashi pressed into her neck so that only a slight twist was necessary to slice her throat.

 

“What a waste that you would die for him now. Without a fight. Without drawing the blood of his attacker.” The woman's growl rumbled deeply into Rin's back as their bodies pressed together, and Rin felt her life balance on the edge of Hahaue-sama's wakizashi, knowing her hesitation had spoken her heart's fear, her weakness. Closing her eyes in shame, Rin prepared for the thin slice of her jugular, the woman's way of death, for her return to Hell. But, to her surprise, what came instead wounded her even more deeply.

 

“You see, Sesshoumaru?” Hahaue-sama's voice dripped satisfaction. “Her fear rules her still.”

 

Hahaue-sama rose then, lifted the blade from her throat and stood as Rin fell to her knees, hanging her head only inches from Sesshoumaru's rich white robes.

 

“Silly girl,” Hahaue-sama almost sounded playful, which sent more shame pounding into Rin's ears, “my oath to Sesshoumaru prevented me from killing you unless he forfeited your life by trying to save you, and you have not the strength to mortally wound me with that blade of yours. You had nothing to lose, but your fear overcame you just the same.” Rin sensed her step backwards and heard the sheathing of her blade. “How could you think that I would harm the one being left alive for whom I would die? Tsk. Tsk. Shame, really.”

 

All her previous failures to Hahaue-sama now paled in comparison to this ultimate failure and humiliation. Rin felt her lungs strain to take in breath as she absorbed the weight of her mistake. She stared down at the mat, seeing a small bit of fluff from Sesshoumaru's pelt and the edges of his robes, which hung limply from the stump of his arm; but she dared not look up to seek his eyes. Her heart pounded violently and the blood rushing through her ears threatened to drive her into welcome blackness. Her mind raced as frantically as a trapped rodent, and she was suddenly consumed with the need to escape from this manipulative woman, these unmoving courtiers, some of whom she'd thought were her friends, and this silent being who seemed to have truly forsaken his vow to protect her.

 

Without thinking of the consequences, Rin scrambled to her feet and ran. Sobbing, she dodged the shocked courtiers and sped down the long staircase onto the barely visible path that led through the barrier around Hahaue-sama's castle and into the human world. She sensed the tingle as she exited the barrier and a small part of her wailed a new lament that she could never return to the only place she remembered that had ever felt like home.

 

++++++++++++++++

 

Hours later, cold blue-white moonlight sliced through the dusty darkness of the horse stable where Rin sought her shelter that night. The icy light cut deeply into still air and the rich smell of dry straw enveloped her as she pulled herself into a dark corner, her knees to her chest, alone, afraid and angry.

 

Finally able to stop running, indignant anger swelled up in her until she was shaking with it. Hahaue-sama wanted me to give up my life, when both she and Sesshoumaru had vowed to protect it! As she remembered Hahaue-sama's eyes asking her to die and Sesshoumaru's unmoving form behind her, fresh hot tears stung the edges of her eyes, burning her skin as they smeared onto her cheeks. Were they lying when they'd said they'd protect me? Now that she was gone from them forever, she gave herself over to the boiling anger that had threatened to overwhelm her since the day Sesshoumaru first left her under Hahaue-sama's talons, and finally after this night of betrayals, she let herself cry the red hot hatred at them both she'd held back from for so long. It is their fault! I hate them!

 

Even as Rin inhaled the rich scents of simple farm life, quaking in fear and fury once again, her memory turned to Sesshoumaru's betrayals. He left me. He didn't move to protect me… and let me run away? Why didn't he come after me? She'd known as she ran down the hill and felt the tingle of the barrier that she could not go back, but she'd stopped anyway, turning to look back up at the steps and seeing only the illusion of endless forest. Now that she'd passed into the human world, Rin would never even be able to find her way back to Hahaue-sama's domain… or Sesshoumaru. If she were ever to see him again it would be because he came to find her. Acknowledging in the deepest part of her soul how unlikely that would be, Rin cried through the memories of what she'd left behind - of him, of her whole life - letting them flood through her in a torrent.

 

After her sadness was finally spent she lifted her head, recognizing sadly that what was done was done, and she was alone in a dark human stable, among the livestock and the earthy stench of existence. Rin stood up, wiping the final tears from her cheeks with shaking fingers. As the first rays of the dawn crept in to illuminate her hiding place, she fingered the wakizashi under her ripped sleeve. As it usually did when she felt fear, the shadow of the Meidou felt close to her, calling to her, coaxing her to seek it again. She knew that seppuku was an acceptable and honorable option for her at this point. But whose honor was she upholding with such an act? What family was disgraced by her actions? The youkai Asai clan? Though they had taken her in, trained her and provided for her, when she thought back on the night's betrayals by both Hahaue-sama and Sesshoumaru, she could feel no loyalty to them, certainly not enough to justify her third and final fall into Hell where she would become another soul crushed under the Master's feet.

 

As she pondered her choices, carefully fingering the sharp edge of the blade strapped to her wrist, she heard the soft sighs of large animals outside the barn and at least one hoof beat. Her training prepared her to distinguish between sounds to the limits of her human ears, and soon she picked up low voices surrounding the structure. She'd been found. Are they going to drag me back to the castle and humiliate me more? She touched her blade, fingering the secret latch for its release as fear stabbed her and the door to the small building burst open. Three samurai stormed in, their yari at the ready. Even as her fingers gripped the buckles to release her blade, she saw an armor-clad figure stride in, fully outfitted in finery that could only denote high status. Their garb was human and barbaric to her eyes, but she relaxed a little bit, believing that they had not come at Hahaue-sama's behest.

 

The ranking figure stood in the middle of the stable, looking around, his bearing regal and his hand casually placed on his katana. Rin noticed that the weapon had the most ornate tsuba protecting its grip she'd ever seen. Instinctively, she did not like this man and his pretenses. She didn't know why they were here, but thought to remain hidden in case their quest had nothing to do with her. Perhaps they were merely here to steal horses.

 

“Rin!” The leader bellowed her name, sending shivers up her spine. They're looking for me!

 

Lifting her head with what little pride she could muster, she moved from the back of the stall where she had hidden and stepped into the early morning light.

 

“You are Rin?” The man was handsome for a human and not too much older than she, his smooth skin denoting youth while his bearing spoke of a lifetime of privilege. Rin nodded as his eyes roamed up and down her, assessing her and apparently remaining unimpressed. He twitched a finger at the closest guard who moved forward and roughly gripped both her arms, identifying the wakizashi under her torn sleeve and reaching to remove it. Rin jerked her hand in an effort to stop him. “Halt.” The senior man ordered and the samurai warrior manhandling her stepped back.

 

“What is the meaning of this?” She surprised herself at the authority in her own voice, as though she were channeling Hahaue-sama even here in this musty old barn. “Who are you? How did you know I was here? And what do you mean having this man touch me?”

 

“I am Taishou Nishima, lord of all that touches the river, general to Daimyou Matsunaga. You are trespassing on Shogunate lands.” The man looked her in the eye and Rin knew he was not telling her the full truth.

 

“Taishou.” Rin quickly tried to remember what she knew of human hierarchies and realized this man must be lord of a local castle and village. “How did you find me?”

 

“I was told of your location by a demon who promised you to the Daimyou in marriage.” The man looked irritated. “I do not have time to talk to a demon's whore of such matters. You will be brought to Daimyou Matsunaga who will decide whether you are worthy.” His smile was cruel. “Maybe you will be lucky and he'll like the silks.” He gestured again to his warrior, turned on his heel and left the stable.

 

Blood rushed in Rin's ears as the warrior stepped forward again to remove her wakizashi. She offered no resistance, too consumed with the horror of this final betrayal and realization of her worst fear. Hahaue-sama wasn't preparing me for marriage to Sesshoumaru, but to a human warlord!

 

++++++++++++++

 

Part II: Ascension

 

++++++++++++++

 

An oil lamp sputtered in the tatami-covered room, giving way to the seeping darkness that encroached from the late night; one of the servants rose unprompted to replace it. Sickness and fear hung unmoving in the air as Rin watched the fevered face of her young daughter, only seven years old and on the edge of death - again. Rin hadn't left Riko's side for three days, changing the cloth on her brow, cooling her with fans and whispering to her, calling her back from the Meidou. As her exhaustion increased, her fear amplified until she sat lost in a cold wash of dismay that her little girl, who picked flowers in the garden on sunny days, may perish.

 

She was dimly aware that her worry for her daughter was mixed with her own fear of the Meidou, which she swore she could feel hovering over their heads. She also heard the past and present whispers of the servants who insisted to each other that the sickly child was never meant to live this long. In their gossip, they'd turned Rin into an evil demoness, forcing Riko to stay in the illness' living hell by praying over her so intensely. But Rin didn't listen to them. They'd never been beyond the Meidou… they didn't know…

 

“Haha-ue.” Taiki's voice was gentle, but it conveyed the distress Riko's eight year old brother felt as he watched both his mother and sister begin to slip away from him. Rin blinked and focused her eyes on the boy, feeling her mother's heart split in two, wanting to be strong for them both and feeling too paralyzed by her own terror and exhaustion to help either of the children that made up her world. The boy placed his small hand on her arm. “Father commands you to attend him.”

 

Rin blinked again, biting back the sharp words that poured into, but not out of, her mouth as she thought for the hundredth time this day that her Daimyou husband seemed to worry more for the health of new foals in his stable than for his wife and daughter. She saw none of this coldness in the eyes of his son, sitting respectfully before her now, and she managed to hold her tongue, wanting to encourage Taiki's sensitivity as long as she could. Already, she saw the hardening affects of samurai training on the child, and it strained her heart, reminding her of her own trials in Hahaue-sama's castle.

 

“Thank you, Taiki-kun.” She managed a small smile and touched his fingers. “Will you continue fanning Riko so I don't worry?”

 

“Yes, Haha-ue.” The boy took the fan and moved quietly to his sister's side. Rin rose and signaled for a servant to take her place. Glancing briefly at her daughter's pale face and willing the Meidou to remain closed, she exited.

 

As she walked stiffly down the dark hallway between the family quarters she shared with the children to the greeting halls where her husband waited with some new command, she thought again how this hallway had become her life. She spent her days traveling between the two poles of her existence - the residence with the small family garden where her children filled her days with joy - and the main building of the castle keep where she fulfilled her tasks of managing the servants. Her only escape from this walkway was her daily physical training, in preparation for defending the castle in the event of invasion. All the women trained a bit, Rin saw to that at least, but she was the only one who made a point of a daily training ritual, insisting on secrecy as she practiced moves she knew only youkai would appreciate. Her training sessions were the one time each day when she felt powerful.

 

Tonight, Daimyou Matsunaga was no doubt entertaining his Taishous and commanders and needed her to deal with the servants instead of tend his dying child. She hardly saw him unless he had a desire late in the night that one of his mistresses could not quench or wished to hand her a domestic concern that troubled him. Though she pretended to others that he treated her so poorly because he pined for his first family, the son having taken the mother's life in childbirth, she knew that it was her own unknown lineage and previous association with youkai that kept him from accepting her fully into his household. Her anger rose as she thought once again that having been a human in a youkai court was really no better than being a human with no birth status in a human court. It was actually even worse, she reluctantly admitted to herself. At least in the Asai court, she'd had Hahaue-sama's attentions and been given a modicum of respect because of it. When these old memories teased at her mind, they burned into cinders as they encountered the seething anger still brewing against Sesshoumaru and Hahaue-sama.

 

Rin ground her teeth and thought bitterly again of Hahaue-sama's training, for just as the taiyoukai had schemed for her, Rin had indeed become a warrior's wife. With a flush of shame, she berated herself as she always did in this hallway walk with the reality that, though a warrior's wife, she had not become the kind of wife she knew Hahaue-sama intended; she had refused to become entangled in the political embroilments that would have given her power in the human court. Rather, she had merely observed the schemes and ploys which consumed her husband and already threatened to ensnare her young son during his first year of samurai training. This suited Matsunaga, as her husband had few uses for her other than securing his youkai alliance, birthing his son and keeping the servants out of his way.

 

Whenever she imagined Hahaue-sama's scathing response to her deployment of the Asai warrior wife's training she'd received, she felt a burning disgrace wither the scraps of pride left in her heart. You've handed over your power, girl! Though it does not look so when the screen is open, true leaders share their power for the good of the clan! As she imagined Hahaue-sama standing before her, that beautifully sculpted face twisted with contempt, and Rin's face would flush with anger. The taiyoukai had had no idea what she'd done when she handed her over to the humans. In the privacy of her own thoughts, Rin screamed out at the implacable white lady. Bitch! You wasted your time! All that training, preparing me for a life of slavery to a human monster! And sometimes she allowed herself an indulgence, deep inside, hidden behind a stoic expression as she moved through her days; sometimes, the little girl she'd been would be allowed to break down and cry. At the age of twenty five, Rin couldn't remember the last time she'd seen the countryside, explored a flower field or walked in a forest. The little girl who'd loved nature and been protected by youkai now lived her life in a human's castle prison, only a small garden and her two children for comfort.

 

By the time she reached her destination, Rin had adjusted her attitude and regained her composure, although exhaustion threatened her every step with emotional and physical collapse. She moved the screen aside silently and stepped into the room, bowing deeply to the men inside. She saw Taishou Nishima looking at her with disdain. He was the only human other than Matsunaga that had experienced direct dealings with the youkai and he always referred to them as `demon monsters.' Rin knew also, because the servants had whispered it to her, that he still called her Matsunaga's `demon whore' behind their backs. Her heart burned at the mere sight of him.

 

“Rin.” Daimyou Matsunaga said casually and without the respectful suffix everyone present knew she deserved as his wife. “I have need of you.”

 

“Yes, Teishu-sama.” Rin hated this petty cruelty that, when she spoke to him in front of others, he demanded she use the form of `husband' that demeaned her as something less than an `honored wife'. As with Nishima, she kept her hatred close, burning herself with it rather than show them how much it hurt her.

 

“We have a visitor.” The Daimyou shifted uncomfortably and even through her fatigue, Rin's instincts perked, surprised to see him look furtively at the door, almost as though he expected someone to appear behind her. “I am busy here and you know this one's ways.” Raising a hand he flicked a finger dismissively at his wife. “Go entertain him until I can make myself available.”

 

“Yes, Teishu-sama.” Rin bowed again and rose, still seething at being given this pointless errand while her daughter lay gravely ill. A young samurai-in-training stood outside the screen waiting to guide her to the visitor; the boy was pale with fear as he gave her a shallow nod, not even a bow, and turned to walk ahead of her. He led her to a seldom used guest suite off the main residence. Though it had a private garden and was well-appointed, this room had once been thought to harbor evil spirits and thus was seldom used unless all the other rooms were full and honorable men needed a night's rest.

 

The boy opened the door and moved aside. As she stepped into the room, Rin felt a familiar crackle of youki energy as a large blue-grey shadow shifted in the corner and Sesshoumaru stepped into the lamplight, his face still hidden in shaded light. Rin froze, her breath caught in her lungs by his presence so near her after so much time. Looking at him as he turned his face into the light, his features chiseled and dispassionate, her awareness of his power and beauty dawned for only a moment before washing away in a wave of fury swelling in her heart. Somehow she remembered the boy waiting outside the room and turned to look at his terrified face.

 

“You may go,” she said to him, noticing the shake in her voice. He closed the screen and they heard his footsteps as he ran back down the darkened hall.

 

Rin turned back to the proud figure before her and felt her weary limbs tremble, caught between warring urges to either run into his arms or stab her wakizashi into his eye. Her body lost the battle with itself; she sank to her knees and tried to recover her composure by moving into a low bow, her fingers meeting underneath her brow as she touched her head to the tatami. As tears stung her eyes, she took several deep breaths before managing to sit up, her eyes watching the mat at his feet. She dared not look at him again, for fear that she would do or say something unwise.

 

He remained silent for a moment and they both listened to her heart beat in the stillness.

 

“Rin.” His voice was not harsh; but just as she'd remembered it, it was also not gentle.

 

“Yes, lord.” Memories came forth at the sound of his voice and a terrible sadness overwhelmed her.

 

“The Daimyou…” his voice trailed off, uncharacteristically and it made Rin look up at him as he stood over her. He had not changed. His face was as placid as she remembered it, his hair as smooth and his robes and armor as regal. His eyes, though, were deeper still, and somehow she knew that he now saw things that once were hidden to him. She saw traces of compassion and worry - and fear - each of these things had left their mark in his eyes, or maybe it was she who now knew these things and could see them more clearly in him.

 

“The Daimyou will come,” she said stiffly, unwilling to recognize any emotion lest they all pour into her at once. “He has asked me to entertain you until he is free.”

 

“That is good.” His voice softened only slightly, but she heard its change of tone and felt betrayed by her own body as her heart leapt with happiness at the intimacy it communicated. She glanced up at him again and their eyes met, pulling a sob into her throat. He did not kneel or draw her up, but she saw that he wanted to reach out to her. “You are well?”

 

How can I answer such a question? After you twice abandoned me - how can you even ask such a thing?

 

She lowered her eyes, afraid he could see the tears begin to form. She did not speak, not trusting her voice, knowing that no matter what words she chose, he would hear her misery. His silence ate at her heart, invited the screams from her mind in to destroy the quiet, obliterate it and tear it away from her body. She knew she should be worried about why he was here to meet with Matsunaga, but her own pain refused to be put neatly away, old anger rising to blend into her weariness and worry for her daughter in the other wing of the castle. Finally, she could take it no longer.

 

“Was it you?” Her voice trembled with her effort to get the words out clearly, her eyes fixated on his feet. “Did you give me to Matsunaga?”

 

Into the pain of her accusation, he spoke. “Yes.” The word dropped sadly from his mouth, and it called the first tear to fall down her cheek. Even as she noted the sorrow in his voice, her anger flared in triumph, crushing her ever-hopeful heart with proof that he had been her final betrayer. The tears began to flow, blurring her vision and constricting her throat so that she had to shake her head to allow the next word forth.

 

“Why?” Her question was a hundred questions, and she wondered if he understood them all, but the single word was all she could utter as she cried silently, feeling the tears drop, still burning, onto her hands as they clenched in her lap.

 

“It was the price of your life.” Sesshoumaru's deep tone had lowered even more and she was sure she heard anguish in it. “Haha-ue owns you even now, and she would have killed you had I not ensured our alliance with your marriage.”

 

“And you couldn't fight her?” Rin had stopped trying to stem the tide of her grief and was sobbing now, trying to sniff back the flood only to feel each new heave of her breath loosen another small wail at the back of her throat. “You couldn't have saved me?”

 

Through her tearful blur, she sensed him lower himself gracefully before her to the point where she could look on his face again, but she squeezed her eyes shut at the feel of his hand on her shoulder. He paused for a moment and the heat of his body burned in his fingers and through the fabric of her kimono. Finally he spoke.

 

“Rin.” He paused again, perhaps hoping she would look at him. “I did save you.” Though she couldn't see his face, she heard suffering in his voice and knew he was pleading with her to understand. Her anger balled in her throat like a lump of indigestible meat, demanding to remain unappeased by such simple words. But her heart heard his plea and suddenly she realized what he was saying - that he'd been trying to help her when he arranged her marriage in exchange for her life. And with this realization came the shame that he must now see her tears as ungrateful. Rin continued to cry silently and uncontrollably, and while she fought to control herself against the anger swelling inside her, she managed to keep from speaking the words that burned in her heart. Save me!? I'd have killed myself a hundred times if I did not fear the Meidou more than this wretched life, haunted by your betrayals! It would have been kinder for you to kill me so that my cowardice could not hold me prisoner here!

 

Her tears began to dry until one small spark burned in her, demanding to be spoken, even as she knew she took a great risk in saying more than she already had. Mustering her courage, and hoping he appreciated her honesty as much as he once had, Rin raised her eyes to look into his, only inches from her face. She saw there something new, not the stoic uncaring youkai she'd first met as a child, or the determined warrior youkai she'd tagged along behind as a youth, but a man who bore wounds on his body and on his soul. And seeing him watch her tears as they rolled down her cheeks, watching his golden eyes, deep and sad, track their path on her skin, she realized that she - Rin - was one of the many wounds on his soul. The words she wanted to speak would wound him again, but the little flame burning in her demanded to be stamped out.

 

“I trusted you like a father…” New tears welled up, already grieving the loss of this father-betrayer before her as she began to let her dream of him go into the reality of his eyes. He shook his head, as though she were still a child that did not understand, and his refusal to be surprised at her words wounded her yet again.

 

Keeping his hand on her as she began to sob into the long sleeves of her kimono, he shifted forward to place his arm around her shoulders, as he had when she was a child. It was comforting, but the memory of his fiery touch opened a void in her, exposing to her the emptiness of knowing that he had been that child's betrayer, giving up his sworn role as her protector and that he could not now protect her from the horrors of her life. Her sobs became grief for her youthful innocence, for the time when she had believed that he was all powerful, that he could protect her from anything… she grieved that innocence through her tears until she felt it leave her, lost for all time and never to return. Almost as though he could sense the moment she gave up her dream of him, Sesshoumaru spoke.

 

“I am not your father, Rin.” He lifted his arm from her shoulders, straightening and shifting to sit with crossed legs, resting his hand on Tenseiga's hilt as he adjusted the sword in its sheath across his knees. “A father would have let you die, a girl-child being a liability, but I brought you back from death. A father would have sold you to Haha-ue for reward, but I gave you to her to save your life.” He took a breath and she saw a shadow pass over his eyes as he looked away from her and said, “A father does not love a daughter like…” he shook his head, as though emphasizing something to himself. When he looked back at her, his eyes gripped her soul as he whispered with conviction, “I have never been your father.”

 

“Then what are you?” Her voice rose and its vehemence shocked her. Rin choked on her words in horror, half expecting him to strike at her with his poison claws. She quickly bowed down the ground again, her fingertips touching the edge of his silken white hakama, afraid of his reaction and mortified at her lack of control. “Forgive me, Sesshoumaru-sama.” He let her stay like that until she'd controlled her sobs again and then he placed a hand on her shoulder, urging her to rise.

 

“I am Haha-ue's son,” he said quietly as they looked at each other, their joint plight finally becoming clear to her, “just as you are her daughter. No matter how much power I have, she still holds the Meidou and my father's lands. Until I can master the Tenseiga, and claim the Meidou pendant that brought you back, she holds your life, and through you, she holds me.”

 

Looking at the sadness in his eyes, Rin suddenly understood with blinding clarity that he was as much a prisoner of Hahaue-sama's schemes as she was. And though she did not fully comprehend it yet, her heart began to understand that she mattered enough to him that he would let himself remain imprisoned for her sake.

 

“But why can't you open it?” In all her dreams, she had never imagined that Sesshoumaru would not be able to call forth the Meidou by now. He was silent and she knew better than to ask again. Hahaue-sama had once said that without a master whose heart acted unwaveringly out of compassion, Tenseiga would not be able to fully open the Meidou. Had he been unable to feel such pure compassion in all this time? She lowered her eyes, seeing that his shame and the weight of his own failure was too painful for either of them to speak of.

 

“Why have you come?” Rin finally voiced the reasonable question, the one she realized she must know before Matsunaga arrived.

 

“Nobunaga clan is planning an attack on Matsunaga's heart. This castle is its target.” Sesshoumaru took on the tone of the warrior once again, his back straightening and his grip tightening on Tenseiga. “Our alliance…” he looked at her and she knew he included her in that statement, acknowledging her role where her husband did not, “demands that we provide warning to Matsunaga on such matters.”

 

“How do you know?” Her own political instincts, learned through many interrogations by her husband on the substance and suggestion of castle gossip, sharpened as well.

 

“Spies.” His voice was flat, and although she was not completely sure, for a moment she thought she saw a brief flash of ironic humor in those glowing eyes. Remembering Hahaue-sama's clucking at him all those years ago, she almost smiled herself, glad also to feel the raw pain ignited by his arrival begin to recede into the boring balm of business.

 

“What more can you tell us?” Her voice now betrayed no feeling, slipping into her duty as the lady of the Daimyou's castle. She was glad to feel some of her dignity return as her back straightened.

 

“Only that they approach from the North within two days' march, and come under the cloak of darkness.” He looked at her, his expression at clear odds with his words. For his eyes roved her now, and she became aware that her vigil at her daughter's side had left her hair unpinned and her kimono loose around her shoulders, exposing more of her neckline than would otherwise be seemly for greeting an honored visitor. But Sesshoumaru did not seem to find her appearance unsuitable. Despite the business-like tone of his speech, his expression was that of a man seeing a beautiful work of art. Rin flushed, feeling the betrayal of her heart once again as excitement ran through her and she felt something unexpected from the youkai lord across from her, carried on the wave of his youki which crackled in her ears once again - desire. Suddenly her youthful giddiness of nine years ago was back, feeling his eyes upon her, and she realized that since the day he returned after triumphing over Naraku, she had not felt desired by a man.

 

She thought later that it may have been sheer fatigue that kept her body from controlling itself, but the thrill of his scrutiny made her heart race and a new warmth spread from her middle, heating her until her cheeks burned. Surprised and disconcerted, she looked away, acutely aware by the swirl of energy in the room that he sensed her reactions to his appreciative gaze.

 

“How long will you stay?” She fought to keep feelings she didn't understand out of her voice, the emotional whipsaw of the last half hour having left her unbalanced.

 

“Only long enough to pass on the warning,” he said, “which I have done.” Sesshoumaru rose smoothly in a fluid motion, barely scuffing a whisper on the grass mats. She watched him lift his weapon and deftly wrap the tip in his silken yellow and blue sash so that he could thrust it cleanly into place at his hip. “Despite our alliance,” the sadness in his voice spoke to her of changes in him more clearly than any of the words he'd spoken this night, “we still do not involve ourselves in the matters of humans unless necessary.”

 

“I see.” She did not hide her own sadness as she watched him ready himself to leave.

 

“I will send Jaken to be with you.” He looked down at her and she saw the unspoken concern again in his eyes. He was worried… for her. “Whatever happens, I want you to be safe.”

 

“Th… Thank you.” The anger she'd carried with her for so long, and which she'd allowed to flare up inside her tonight, had vanished and left behind a black stain on her heart, as though tar had blistered there. But his concern now was like a soothing balm, cooling her wounded heart and easing the pain. She still felt ashamed, but now - for the first time since she was a child, on the brink of womanhood - she felt gratitude towards him as well.

 

“Be well.” Sesshoumaru paused as the edge of the door leading out to the garden, his hakama beginning to flutter in his youki's breeze. Looking at his proud figure poised on the edge of flight, she saw sorrow in his eyes but he did not speak it. And then, like he had done so long ago, he turned on his heel and was gone with such speed that his pelt floated on the air for only a moment before winking out into the darkness on a soft ruffle of air.

 

Rin sat still for a moment longer, even more exhausted than she had been when she'd entered the room. She knew that in a moment she would rise and return to her sick daughter until Matsunaga summoned her to report on the meeting. But for that moment, she allowed herself simply to sit, her heart suddenly open and warm - almost giddy - with the overwhelming knowledge that Sesshoumaru did not love her as a father loves a daughter, but… he loved her…

 

A step in the hall broke the loosly weaving threads of her thoughts and she rose just as a samurai warrior opened the screen for his Daimyou. She composed her features and bowed.

 

“Is he gone?” Matsunaga looked tentatively around the room, not daring to step inside.

 

“Yes, Teishu-sama,” she said, careful to reveal nothing of her happiness.

 

“What did he say?” Rin was surprised at how much she enjoyed seeing the fear in her husband's eyes.

 

“He had news… of my father's passing.” Rin smiled at her harmless witticism and swallowed the truth for a moment, desperately wanting to hold on to her brief interlude with Sesshoumaru as her own; resentment surged through her at the thought of sharing it with Matsunaga .

 

“Ah.” The Daimyou looked relieved. “Good that I sent you to meet with him, then.”

 

“Yes, it was.” Rin bowed to her husband again as he turned his back on her preparing to leave the room. As she straightened, sitting tall, she carefully lowered her voice and added, “the youkai lord had other news, as well.”

 

Matsunaga turned slowly around to face her kneeling figure, acutely aware of a new and unfamiliar tone in her voice that rang with the clarity of a freshly honed blade. It was a sound that did not befit an appropriately submissive wife and his posture told her that it displeased him. He studied her face for a moment, and she saw the disdain in his eyes that made her feel dirty and soiled by him, as she had ever since the day when he'd first taken her, pure and untouched until that moment. Rin looked at him now with a steady gaze she knew he may interpret as threatening, and they both felt a shift in the dynamic between them. The Daimyou recognized her solid posture suddenly as that of a strategist calculating and analyzing a piece of information, assessing its value to the recipient. The furrow of his brow as it wrinkled into a scowl told her that her husband did not like the thought that his wife may play any kind of role in negotiating aspects of his delicate youkai alliance. Swallowing her resentment that he would deny her such a role, when she was the alliance, Rin let him stew in his discomfort for only two more heart beats before averting her eyes to speak.

 

“He reports that Nobunaga is sending warriors against the castle in two day's time.” Rin watched her husband's eyes carefully through lowered lashes, wondering if he would believe her. His face stiffened as a hint of fear quickly dissolved into prideful conceit.

 

“That Owari scum?” Matsunaga's hands disappeared into his long silken kimono sleeves to meet across his wide girth. “Nobunaga's dogs wouldn't dare attack us again after our most recent victory! Are you sure you can trust this demon's word?” He sneered out the vile insult to her lord's honor. “Isn't he the one that promised me you would bear me many sons? Why should I believe him this time when he is clearly capable of ridiculous exaggeration?” Rin clenched her jaw at the insult and the painful reminder of what Sesshoumaru had done to `save' her. To prevent dishonoring herself with a sharp retort, she remained silent as the lord of the Matsunaga clan closed the conversation. “I will send out a few patrols out to see if there is anything to the monster's claim.”

 

With his final insult at her and Sesshoumaru, who had come to warn them, Rin felt her loyalty shift from the man whom she called husband to the one that had proven tonight that she still meant something to him. Biting back her desire to defend Sesshoumaru, her true lord, Rin merely bowed to her husband's receding back once again.

 

She followed slowly behind the Daimyou, watching his shadowy figure disappear into the long hallway towards his private chambers. As he melted into darkness, she felt a brief stab of fear as she imagined Nobunaga's forces swarming towards the castle, and then to her horror she felt a matching stab of triumphant satisfaction imagining Matsunaga's bloodied body at Nobunaga's feet.

 

Shaking with exhaustion and nightmare images, Rin returned to her daughter's bedside, haunted once again by the Meidou.

 

+++++++++++++++

 

The rising sun found Rin seated again at Riko's side, fanning the girl. A servant finally moved forward and urged her to sleep, which she did because she had not the strength to refuse. By midday, she awoke somewhat refreshed and after checking that Riko's condition had not worsened, she took the luxury of a quick bath. Afterwards, as she swept up her hair and looked at her drawn face in the small mirror, an impulse overcame her to wear the jeweled ivory hair pin Hahaue-sama had Michiyou place in her hair all those years ago, and she smiled briefly as she thought once again of Sesshoumaru. I am still in his heart.

 

As she returned to her room through its private entrance, she was surprised to see the screen to the family garden open, allowing the breeze to clear out the stench of sickness and worry she'd brought with her from Riko's chamber. Looking carefully around, her eyes widened and she felt her heart lighten when the Staff of Two Heads made itself known from around the corner as the woman's face on the staff sneezed. Jaken is here! For just a moment, she was a child again, hunting the little green kappa in some elaborate game through the woods.

 

“Jaken?” Her voice was tentative.

 

“Oi!” He hopped into the room from the garden. “Rin-chan! You frightened me!” He kept hopping even though he was now where he wanted to be. “Look at you!”

 

“Jaken!” Rin knelt down and hugged her old caretaker. “It really is you!”

 

She knelt and he stood as they looked at each other, memories flooding back, though neither knew whether now was the time to speak of them. When last they'd spoken at any length, she had been a child, happy to follow him around and learn from him. She was no longer a child and she wondered what he still had to teach. Finally, Jaken broke the increasingly awkward silence.

 

“Sesshoumaru-sama told you of Nobunaga's attack, didn't he?” The little kappa seemed agitated, his excited hopping having turned to foot tapping.

 

“Yes,” Rin blinked and remembered the bitter conversation with Matsunaga the night before. Her brain being less muddled at the moment, she immediately began to second-guess her prideful method of warning her husband. “The Daimyou… was suspicious of Sesshoumaru-sama's motives in delivering the warning to me… he has sent out several scouts…”

 

“What? Only scouts?” Jakan's pointed little mouth fell open, looking like a baby bird in need of sustenance. “On the way here from the South I saw dust in the distance as only a large cavalry could create! They are coming faster than our spies had warned.”

 

“Calvary?” Rin's heart began racing and she massaged her face with her hands, trying to rub out the fatigue the bath could not wash away. “We have fought Nobunaga before and defeated him easily, but he has never sent cavalry…” She fell silent, her mind beginning to race. Jaken didn't move and she suddenly felt stupid. “Matsunaga-sama has gone hunting this morning… perhaps Nobunaga will pursue him and leave the castle untouched?” Rin heard the naivety and misplaced hope in her own voice, irritated that she had not tried to impress upon her husband the seriousness of Sesshoumaru's warning.

 

“Ah! He is not even here?” The little youkai before her looked shocked. “Rin!” Jaken began bouncing again. “Don't you understand that Matsunaga-sama is not their target? They will challenge the Daimyou and his army at the gates to distract him from the stealth warriors that sneak in to attack the castle's heart. Did Sesshoumaru-sama not warn you that the heart was their goal?”

 

“The heart? But why would they bother to sneak in here if their enemy, the Daimyou, is outside the gates?” Rin was at first confused and then became more horrified every moment as her small miscalculation became something much more, and the truth began to dawn on her even before Jaken confirmed her worst fear.

 

“Your son.” Jaken stopped moving and leaned on her knee. She looked into his round yellow eyes, full of worry, and felt her heart fall through the hollow in her chest taking the blood from her face. “They come for his only son, Rin. If they can kill him, all they have to do is wound the Daimyou and they will have mortally stabbed at the Matsunaga clan and begun to secure the entire territory away from the Shogun.”

 

The reality of her situation crashed down on her like a leaden weight, and she lowered her head back into her hands. “Jaken, what have I done?” Rin began thinking quickly. “I must send word to Matsunaga…” her face showed her fear and Jaken put his hand on hers.

 

“Yes! We must prepare.” The little Kappa's calmness unnerved her as much as his words, and she prepared to send word to Matsunaga's hunting party of the imminent attack. But in her heart she felt shame that her foolish, egotistical husband had not heeded the youkai warning, and that she had not been willing to risk her own dishonor and insist that he do so. Deep in this burning pool of guilt, settling in her core, rested the knowledge that their son would likely pay the price. Rin shook her head to rouse herself; it was time to move and there was much to do.

 

“Thank you, Jaken.” She looked into the little youkai's eyes and saw there a friend.

 

+++++++++++

 

Dusk sifted into the residence, finding its way quickly to the rooms where women and children hid without lamps, their small blades at the ready. Rin paced the room where her daughter still lay, damp and flushed with fever. Taiki stood with another young samurai trainee whose parents had both been taken by vengeful spirits the year before. Her boy stood proudly, wearing his full training armor, not much more protected than she was in her light fighting gear. All the women of the castle were trained in defensive actions and ready to fight, but they all knew that if they had to fight, the men would have been overwhelmed outside the gates and that their lives were essentially forfeit. Many were preparing for seppuku by the women's way, the throat slitting, instead of defense. This thought did not even occur to Rin, though she was very conscious of the shadowed Meidou hovering near her in the room. She tried not to think on it as she tended to her daughter and chaffed at her inability to do more.

 

Few of the women had either Rin's skill or daily practice regimen to help prepare them, and none had her full complement of techniques. However, they also did not have the worry that no matter how the battle beyond the castle walls went for their husbands and sons, their family inside was vulnerable to the stealth warriors.

 

“Okugata-sama!” The sound of rushing feet in the hallway startled Rin from her worry and she turned to see three young samurai warriors enter the room in full battle armor, katana at their sides. “The Daimyou has met our troops at the front gate. He wished me to tell you to be prepared. We are to stay here and protect you.” The young man looked frightened, perhaps mirroring the fear on her own face.

 

“Very well.” Rin had debated sending word to her husband about the plot to infiltrate the castle and target Taiki. She did not mention it now in front of the boy, but it occurred to her that he had sent the additional guards because he suspected just such a devastating tactic. “If you are to protect us, you must prepare to defend every entrance to this part of the residence.” As the men explored the rooms and gardens outside, Rin looked around for Jaken and could not find him. The little youkai had hovered near her much of the afternoon, frightening some of the servant girls without even trying. He had been jittery, listening to the reports of hurried defensive preparations and Rin had known her little protector was more anxious than she was. Then, he had just disappeared, and this made Rin even more apprehensive than having him there, bouncing nervously about.

 

Just as she was kneeling again to care for Riko, relieving the young servant girl who had tended her all day, the castle inhabitants heard an eerie cry as the sounds of battle began.

 

For several hours of the early evening, the screams of living men rushing to their deaths and then dying drifted up over the castle walls to settle upon a fearful silence within the enclosed village and keep. Everyone inside listened intently, waiting in terror to discern whether the sounds would intensify and draw nearer or begin to waver, becoming more faint as the Daimyou's armies pushed their enemies away. But throughout the long hours the sounds seemed always the same, horrible noises that chilled the bones of everyone whose lives hung in the balance.

 

Every few minutes, a messenger, court lady or servant would burst into the room where Rin sat tending Riko, seeking guidance or permission to move supplies, shore up battlements or report that the walls and gates were holding. They all seemed uncomfortable that they had to report to the lady in her daughter's sick room, but Rin would not hear of moving and continued to mop Riko's brow and fan her while listening and directing. They were as ready as they could be, given the short time to prepare. The castle stores had all been centralized so that they could be rationed in the event of siege and burned in the event of overthrow; and each gate and private entrance had been barricaded and had at least three samurai and as many trainees as possible located on the inside of the walls. Now well into the night, Rin was dismayed to hear the sounds of the battle outside intensify, indicating that the Matusnaga army was being pushed back, probably to die against the gates of the fortress.

 

Then, in the room's thick darkness, they heard the cry of the youngest of their samurai guards. Taiki recognized it immediately as the man who had gone to protect the north quarters at the far end of the residence hall. Distant sounds of hand-to-hand combat reached them and everyone but Riko and the servants stood, readying their weapons. As the battle raged outside the gate, the silence of the young samurai in the north quarters rang more loudly in their ears, and the beat of their hearts sounded into the void of his cries.

 

Suddenly, confusing the tension already in the room, thunderous footsteps echoed down the hall from the other direction, signaling the approach of someone from the battlefront. Taiki and his young friend stood at Rin's side as the servants cowered over Riko's body and their remaining samurai guard stood before them, a katana in each hand.

 

The screen rushed aside and the fearsome figure of Daimyou Matsunaga strode into the room. He was fully adorned in his samurai armor, hardened leather plates covering his entire body. Rin noticed he'd worn his shoulder plates as well, which meant he had not planned to do any fighting, being unable to lift his katana over his head due to the shoulder armor limiting his movements. Though he wore a frightfully masked helmet, which made him look more fearsome in the darkness, Rin could feel his fear.

 

“Rin!” He moved around the shocked samurai, who lowered his swords and stepped back, bowing to his master. Matsunaga ignored him and came towards his wife and son. ”You and the children must come with me. They must find our bodies together.”

 

“What?” The realization that Matsunaga intended to commit seppuku and force her to kill the children and herself washed over her like a cold wave. She felt the shadow of the Meidou then, hovering directly over her, ready to open and suck her whole family into its maw. To her surprise, as though drawn forth by the threat of death so close, she felt an answering anger rise within her, unwilling to watch as her husband slaughtered her children. Steeling herself against his wrath, she drew herself up proudly. “I prefer to fight.”

 

Matsunaga's anger shone in his eyes, flashing deeply in the dim light behind the mask he wore. “I will not be dishonored by you!” He took a step towards her and to her surprise Taiki stepped in front of his mother.

 

“Father!” The young boy showed no fear. “I will fight with Haha-ue.” Matsunaga paused for only a moment, before taking a threatening step forward and reached a hand towards his son, grabbing at his throat.

 

At that moment, without a sound, the walls erupted as black-clad figures became visible in their motion, apparently having crept in unseen through the open door behind the Daimyou. Rin sensed a figure behind her and pivoted instinctively, drawing her short blade. Her naginata stood in the corner and she did not plan to use it in the cramped quarters unless she had no choice. The man was not prepared for either her quick movement or deadly aim and he fell without a sound. Noticing that these `stealth warriors' did not wear armor and were easily cut, she moved into a defensive stance, her back to Taiki. There was no sign of Taiki's companion as several of the unseen assassins moved around them. On Rin's command, both she and Taiki sent their blades in a whirl against the darkness moving about them. They heard Matsunaga and the samurai fighting similar phantoms at the far side of the room. Watching as their opponents shifted and moved about them, but did not attack, Rin realized that her tormentors were merely keeping her busy until the others could deal with her husband and come for the boy as a group.

 

Though her heart was pounding in her ears, a strange calmness had descended over Rin, as though it drifted down from the Meidou, somewhere in the dark above their heads. Her mind was clear and she realized that if she had an advantage it was now, while the majority of the enemy was busy with Matsunaga. Praying that Taiki could hold off his attacker long enough for her to dispatch hers, she waited two heartbeats until her instincts instructed her and then stepped into a sweeping strike that met her surprised assailant in the side, felling him silently. As his short weapon fell to the ground, Rin turned quickly to Taiki, pulling at his shoulder until their backs were to the wall and their single attacker had no room to maneuver around them. She glanced over at Riko's bed and saw the limp forms of the servant women draped across her daughter, blood from their slit throats soaking the bedding black in the moonlight. She could not see Riko's face, and the worry she'd been nursing along with her daughter for so long began to congeal in her heart, wrapping itself around her anger and fear until a dark mass of energy laid there, ready to release.

 

Turning her full attention back to the shadowy man before them, she noticed that, as before, he did not seem intent on attacking, but merely in holding them trapped until reinforcements arrived from the other fight. He moved constantly, whirling a scythe-shaped weapon before him as his quarry kept their blades raised against possible attack. The grunts and clashing of weapons from her husband's battle were becoming more intense and she heard the samurai grunt in pain as a heavy thump hit the mat. Rin counted perhaps four more assassins in the room.

 

Abruptly, Taiki let go his child's cry and lunged at the dark figure of their tormentor. Unprepared for his risky move, Rin's fear stabbed at her heart and she quickly stepped into her son with her hip, pushing him to the side and using their attacker's distraction to her advantage. She swiped her blade towards his neck as the man's attention and weapon shifted towards her. He had been well into his attack on Taiki and now his blade glanced against Rin's side, her woman's armor too sparsely distributed over her body to fully protect her from its cut. As she lifted her arms to build strength into the swing of her sword she felt a burst of pain as her weapon met his neck and she tensed her wounded muscles to cut as deeply towards his spine as she could. As he fell, she bent and pressed her hands to her side, breathing shallowly. The wound was superficial, but bloody.

 

“Haha-ue!” Taiki ran to her and she pulled him back towards the wall again, shushing him.

 

“Taiki-kun, that was brave, but let Haha-ue fight,” Rin whispered in his ear as she began moving them sideways along the wall to the corner where her naginata stood. As she hefted its familiar weight in her hands, a new determination came over her, her training giving her confidence.

 

“No, Haha-ue.” The boy was breathing hard and she heard the same determination in his voice. “I will protect you.”

 

“We will protect each other.” She followed her son's gaze to the shadowed whirl of bodies at the other end of the room where three fighters appeared to be baiting Matsunaga into weariness, two of them coming at his front while one stole behind to stab at gaps in his armor. Rin could smell her husband's blood, and while she had released whatever interest she'd had in saving his life the night before, she did not want to face three attackers alone with the boy. She thought briefly of running out into the garden, but the stealthiness of the attackers frightened her and she knew the Meidou would follow them until this was finished. For the moment, they had a small advantage and she decided to try to use it. “Stay at my back,” she whispered as they began to creep towards the dark swirls of motion around her husband, careful not to move too far from the wall at her side.

 

With every step towards the flurry of swords and blood, Rin felt the Meidou lower over her, haunting her with its cold, ghostly presence. She did her best to ignore both it and her fear as she came within her weapon's reach of the fight. Watching the motions of shadows upon darkness, she chose her target and pushed Taiki behind her as she stepped into a move, she realized with a small sadness, that Hahaue-sama had taught her, chopping at the man's feet and disabling him as the tendons at the back of his ankles were cut. Remembering the taiyoukai's warnings about what damage could still be accomplished by the upper body, she stepped in quickly to end his life and saw his palm open to release a small weapon he was surely planning to hurl at her face.

 

Now there were only two of these mysterious warriors left, but Rin could tell that Matsunaga was losing his battle and she felt the Meidou drawn to him, his movements now sluggish. As she tried to move to strike at another warrior, he moved fluidly out of range of her weapon. These fighters were trickier than the others, refusing to expose themselves to her blade while fighting Matsunaga. She would have to move away from the wall in order to confront them. Before she had decided what to do, the sounds of shouts and running could be heard far down the corridor, intensifying the fight in everyone present, not knowing who would come through the door. The stealth warriors' began moving even more quickly, dropping their silence in favor of grunts and exclamations which fueled the strength behind their movements as they slashed at Matsunaga. He took a blade to the neck and fell to his knees, allowing one of his enemies to step in and bury another palm-sized weapon into the wound.

 

“Chichi-ue!” Taiki's cry was heart wrenching and drew the attention of Matsunaga's killers, who began moving towards them with speed and grace. They had apparently decided not to take the chance that it was their master who ran towards them through the hallway outside, but to finish their task before anyone could arrive.

 

Rin stepped forward, swinging her naginata in an attempt to buy time. Unlike them, she had decided to chance the possibility that it was Matsunaga's forces running to their rescue. To her dismay, she felt the dark warriors' burst of strength as one met her blade and pushed it aside while the other began to move down its length, coming into range of personal combat.

 

“Oka-san!” Taiki began to move out from behind her, as if to draw their attention from her and suddenly, though fear should have overwhelmed her, it was if time slowed and Rin could see everyone in the room as under a full light, as though the roof had opened to shine a silver glow onto everyone present. Rin did not think. She did not decide. She merely knew that she had only one choice and stepped back, pushing Taiki against the wall to give herself more room to swing her naginata.

 

I only have to incapacitate one… This thought focused her and she felt her movements quicken even as the rest of time remained slow before her. With a cry that put new strength into her limbs even as it stabbed pain into her wounded side, she whirled the naginata up as though to bring it down sharply, but suddenly swung it around in a sweeping movement, which Hahaue-sama had taught her originated in the fields, when farmers converted their scythes into weapons. The blade caught the man in the side even as he raised his hands to block it from above. He fell with a thump.

 

“Taiki!” she called to her son. “Finish him!” The boy's battle cry and the grunting sound of death behind her told her he had not waited for her command, but had moved bravely to protect her from behind.

 

Not looking back, she stepped towards the one remaining warrior, a large man who was the trickiest of the group. He did not move directly at her but darted around, drawing her into the center of the room. They both knew that his strength and agility would best her there in a direct fight and she hoped that only a little more time was needed to keep him at bay until the others arrived. Their shouts and footfalls were becoming louder and giving her hope that she might at least keep her enemy distracted from Taiki long enough to see if it was Matsunaga's forces coming towards them. But her opponent was not willing to be so baited. He stepped towards her and produced a katana, dropping the smaller weapon and parrying her heavier naginata with skill.

 

Her training told her this man was more skilled than she and would have her down in three strokes, moving on to Taiki before the men outside reached them. As though from Hahaue-sama's lips, speaking from behind the years that had passed between them, she heard the words she'd tried so hard to forget. What is it you will die for?... and she knew. Her heart was clear and for the first time since she could remember, she did not cringe at these words but welcomed them, finally knowing the answer.

 

“Taiki!” Screaming his name as a battle cry, Rin stepped into the move she'd trained on so hard all those years ago. Her own pain forgotten with her son's name on her lips, she brought her naginata into a fisted grip, raising it above her opponent's head and forcing him to lift his arms to block it as she moved forward into the gisei and curled herself against him, dropping her weapon to release the secret latch at the back of her wakizashi's sheath, then sinking its sharp blade into the warrior's ribs. She heard the exhalation of bloody air from his lung and pushed the blade in deeper, twisting it and waiting for his blade to fall on her neck. All she felt was the spray of his bloody breath on the back of her neck as he heaved it in and out of his punctured chest. He may or may not have realized it, but the wound she'd dealt him would not be fatal until she had twisted and sliced at his insides, forcing her to stay within range of his blade and his arms.

 

His grunt was angry and she felt him drop his long blade, reaching for his own palm-sized weapon even as he staggered against her and gripped her throat with his free hand. As if in slowed time again, Rin saw the light shift when his hand came up from below her, the glint of a blade shining in the eerie light of night, and she prepared herself to face the Meidou, Taiki's face before her closed lids serving as her beacon to the otherworld, while she continued pushing and twisting at the blade in her own hands. The sounds outside were lost in the rush of blood and breath in her ears and she sensed the man jerk, interrupting the aim of that blade headed towards her throat. She gave one last thrust into his chest and felt his grip on her neck loosen as her weapon moved past a bony obstruction into his heart, his blade glancing against her jaw, tearing into the skin.

 

She expected to feel his weight on her as he lifted his weapon for a killing blow at her neck, but instead her wakizashi caught briefly in his body as they parted and she began to fall away. From somewhere at the edge of her perception, she sensed motion and thought she saw a whirl of white just as her knees and hands met the floor with the full impact of her weight, the weapon still in her hand and the blood from his wound joining her grip around its handle.

 

Confused about why he had not struck her or crushed her to the ground with his own dead weight, Rin twisted and fell on her back with a painful grunt. Her eyes wide, she looked up into the inky darkness of the real Meidou open in a full circle against the ceiling as her attacker's body rose from the ground, pulled by its unseen force into eternal oblivion. Its physical presence was as desolate and cold as she remembered it, and she recoiled at the power of the void over her, just as she'd imagined it coming for her all through the years. But it wasn't pulling at her, wasn't taking her into its black heart. Taiki's frightened voice pulled at her attention, and she grabbed him, holding his small body to her chest as she fought to look past him - to stare into the Meidou - for she saw something else there now… something she didn't remember from her childhood journey into its core. Floating in the inky depths, away from where the man had disappeared was a blur of gray, as though a bright light were obscured by smoke.

 

And then it was all gone, the Meidou having closed just as men poured into the room, dressed in fearsome samurai armor. Taiki rose to his knees at her side, allowing Rin to sit painfully and look up at the men, trying to discern in the darkness if they were Matsunaga's or Nobunaga's warriors. She couldn't tell, her vision still blurred in the darkness, until one of the men stepped forward, his armor stained with a dark liquid that could only be blood, his weapon raised. In a flash, she recognized the hilt of Nishima's katana - its elaborate tsuba topping his fist as he raised it - and then she knew that under the excuse of darkness, he intended to kill them and declare to his men that he'd found them already dead.

 

“Nishima!” she yelled, her voice rough but strong. “Taiki is now Daimyou and you will protect him!” Rin knew instinctively that Nishima would not find her order compelling, but they both knew that the men under his command might. He stopped, lowering his weapon.

 

“Okugata-sama!” She had to admit that he put a credible amount of surprise into his voice. “You are alive!”

 

“I am.” She pushed Taiki's hand away and sat, groaning under her breath at the pain in her side. Standing, she felt the blood dripping from her jaw down her neck under her armor as she stepped slightly in front of Taiki, her bloody wakizashi firmly in her grip. A small part of herself was surprised and proud to realize that, having planned to sacrifice herself once, she was very prepared to do it again. “Lower your weapon.”

 

“I must take Taiki away,” Nishima sounded slightly uncertain and Rin had the feeling he was lying, but he did sheath his sword, as did his men. “Matsunaga-sama instructed me to hide the boy for his own protection.”

 

“Matsunaga-sama was preparing to force Taiki into seppuku,” Rin said, feeling a new sense of command flow through her, and she was unsettled to realize that the strength in her now felt almost as though Hahaue-sama stood behind her, channeling her own confidence into her `daughter.' “You.” Rin turned to a samurai she did not recognize immediately behind Nishima. “How does the battle go?”

 

“Poorly, Okugata-sama,” the man said, “but the men are holding their own. We have not yet been defeated.” Rin looked back at Nishima and when their eyes met, in her heart she knew his plot, knew that he had planned to spirit Taiki away to kill the boy and then assume command and declare himself Daimyou. Momentarily, she thought to accuse him openly in front of his men, but she also knew also that their armies would need his leadership, and the dishonor of their Taishou by a `demon's whore,' a woman who might very well be accused of killing her own husband, could demoralize them into committing mass seppuku on the fields before the castle. Thinking quickly, she accepted the strength of Hahaue-sama's presence within her, considering it yet another necessary sacrifice.

 

“Nishima.” Rin lowered her weapon fully and stood as tall as her frame would allow. “You will escort us to the walls of the castle where you will present to our men and our enemies the young Daimyou who slaughtered his attackers and saved his Haha-ue single handedly, even as his father fought valiantly and fell.”

 

Nishima was silent for a moment before looking down at the young boy peeking out from behind his mother.

 

“He is only a child…” Nishima stood on the edge of a blade, and suddenly the men in the room seemed to understand the game being played, and they began to shift and reach again to the handles of their weapons.

 

“A child who is the son of the Daimyou. A samurai himself who defended his clan and will be honored for it.” Rin stood tall, tightening her grip on the blade in her hand again, preparing to use it. Her heart beat in her chest as she prepared her riskiest move of the evening. “A child whose Haha-ue will advise him in his father's place until he is honored with Genbaku and takes control of his father's lands in service of the Shogun.”

 

“You!” Nishima's anger was palpable to everyone present and the tension increased at the Taishou's confrontational tone. “The spawn of demons! That unholy alliance has cost us our advantage. I would die before I let our armies be led by demons!” Everywhere, fists were tightening on blades and Rin was not sure who would fight who, but she was sure she was at a disadvantage and that Taiki would pay the price if it came to blows. As she opened her mouth to defend her honor against the wrongful accusation of her heritage, hoping to buy time before violence broke out, she sensed a shift in the air at her back. A familiar presence of youki enveloped her, and a large white figure materialized at her side as Sesshoumaru made himself known to them all.

 

“Ah!” Nishima jumped back and at least half the men unsheathed their katana, fearful of the youkai and probably sensing the energy that had begun to blanket them all as his anger brewed.

 

“Your youkai alliance brought you warning of this attack.” Sesshoumaru expressed no emotion as he spoke to Nishima. “This woman and her son are human and already lead your forces better than you do.” Rin cringed inside, wondering if the dishonor of his words would weaken the men's resolve when they faced their common enemy again. But she waited and watched for how to help resolve the situation.

 

“You again!” Nishima's voice was cracking slightly with fear. “You brought her to Matsunaga-sama! This has been your plot from the beginning.”

 

“I did, and it was not.” Sesshoumaru said steadily. Once again, Rin accepted the information that Sesshoumaru had given her to these foul creatures… but where once this knowledge would have stabbed at her heart and weakened her, now, as she felt his strong presence at her side, she understood that he had never truly abandoned her and this knowledge filled her with strength. Sesshoumaru continued, “She has borne your master and protected his life when even his father could not.” The tall youkai pointed a sharp claw at the unmoving lump of Matsunaga's armor off to the side.

 

“A woman cannot lead us.” Nishima sounded somewhat desperate, but Rin recognized his greatest argument against her proposal. In the eyes of the men standing behind him, Nishima's words against her proposed leadership would ring especially true. Unlike the youkai, who remembered the days when a woman warrior could lead, these humans recognized no such feminine strength. Even as she opened her mouth to reassert her claim, Sesshoumaru spoke again, displaying a diplomacy she'd never observed in him.

 

“A woman does not lead you.” He stepped aside to reveal Taiki. Jaken waddled up next to the boy, fire-breathing staff at the ready. Rin felt a brief stab of love for the little youkai who stood ready to protect her son as loyally as he had once protected her. Sesshoumaru's voice dropped into a commanding tone. “A Daimyou leads you…” Taiki's head jerked up to look at the tall youkai at his side, surprise clear in his eyes as Sesshoumaru continued, “and behind him, his Gobodou-sama.” Rin's heart leapt in her chest as he bestowed upon her the honorific title. Sesshoumaru's voice deepened yet again. “And behind her, the Asai inuyoukai.”

 

Even as the men absorbed the promise of strengthened youkai protection Sesshoumaru's statement carried, Rin felt weak as she turned to look up at the tall white warrior standing beside her, gratitude flowing through her as he looked back and their eyes met. In the meeting of their gaze, they both recognized the completion of a journey laid down years prior by Hahaue-sama - their Hahaue-sama.

 

Nishima recognized finally that he had only one honorable way out of this situation and turned to his men. “I will lead Matsunaga-sama and Gobodou-sama to the castle walls.” They all heard the residual anger in his voice as he spoke these words, but the Taisho made a credible attempt to hide it and so his honor was left to him. “Bring the horn and accompany me.” He turned back to Sesshoumaru, clearly wondering if the youkai intended to accompany them. “And you?”

 

“As I always have been, I will be close by.” Sesshoumaru said, turning to step out into the garden, Jaken at his side. He glanced back only once to catch Rin's eye again before disappearing.

 

Even though she wanted nothing more than to run after Sesshoumaru, falling into a low bow of thanks at his feet, she was careful to maintain the upper hand he had given her. Rin spoke forcefully. “Nishima, you will precede us. Taiki and I will follow.” She stepped toward the door, careful not to expose her back to the Taishou as he moved past her.

 

+++++++++++++

 

The next day, the village was alive with the activity of repairing the damaged walls, burning the dead and caring for the wounded. Rin had spent the night and early morning meeting with the commanders who stayed to protect the perimeter of the castle while the remainder of the Matsunaga forces, under Nishima's command, tracked Nobunaga's armies away from the castle, ensuring that they would not dishonor their surrender agreement with Rin. Taiki had been at her side through the entire night and day, and now he lay sleeping in his chamber. Rin knelt to adjust his covers and left the room quietly, stepping through the small screen into her own chamber to change out of the remains of her battle armor, she rewrapped the poultice on her side and dressed in her favorite olive kimono with the blushed orange and fire red flowers that reminded her of autumn. Taking a moment to prepare herself, she pulled her hair into a loose sweep, securing it once again with Hahaue-sama's ivory pin.

 

Rising slowly, she moved to the other room connected to hers and stepped into Riko's small bed chamber. The servants had moved the child's body here for Rin to clean and prepare for cremation. She had insisted on it, and even though she could hardly speak through her own exhaustion, she knew she must do this final act of grace for her daughter.

 

A small bowl of scented water sat next to the compact table near Riko's head. Rin knelt and looked at the pale, soft face of her little daughter, noticing that the girl looked as though she slept peacefully. Though sadness weighed on her heart, Rin did not cry, but leaned forward to slip her arm underneath the light body, moving it onto her lap for the last time. Dipping her fingers carefully into the little bowl she performed the Matsugo-no-mizu, gently touching a droplet to the girl's lips in good-bye. For a moment, she simply sat like this, like any mother would, and rocked Riko's body against her, no longer able to feel the life more precious than her own which had escaped and fled its sad existence. The hollowness in her arms matched the emptiness in her heart and yet the tears would not fall. It was too soon. Quietly, she lowered Riko back to the mat and removed the little white yukata the servants had put on the girl when they took away the blood soaked bedding and garments. Rin's mother's heart breathed a sigh of relief to see that the girl had not been stabbed herself, and that the blood had only been from the servants who were slain while tending her. Riko had died from the sickness that had threatened to claim her life since the day she was born.

 

As she cleaned each part of the little body, lifting the willowy arms to wipe elbows and delicate fingers, rolling Riko on her side to wash her ribbed back and neck, and finally, smoothing the cloth over her flat little cheeks and brow, Rin was aware that the child that lay dead under her hands was more than simply her daughter. Unbidden, the events which had led her to this moment moved past her mind's eye deliberately, showing her Hahaue-sama's face as she drilled on the gisei; Sesshoumaru's unmoving form as Hahaue-sama humiliated her again with the gisei; Sesshoumaru explaining his cruel act of love and then acting in her defense, as though to prove it, the very next night. Sitting now - not as ward of the Asai Gobodou-sama or wife of the daimyou - but as mother to a young daimyou and leader of a clan in his stead, Rin felt the dead child's body beneath her fingers as if it were her own. Rewrapping the tiny yukata and smoothing Riko's unruly hair, Rin knew in her heart that she was saying farewell to her own childhood, preparing herself to release her own paralyzing fears, selfish bitterness and unwarranted expectations.

 

Looking once again at Riko's delicate, pale face, Rin remembered the fuzzy image from within the Meidou the night before. When she'd seen the void open above her in its full circle, felt the disorientation of infinity within arms' reach and watched her enemy disappear inside, she'd also seen a tiny blurred patch of light that teased a small bit of memory from her. Now, in the presence of her dead daughter's body, she let her mind wander back to that vision, trying to see beyond the grey, muddy glow into the place where Riko's face shone at her, bathed in her own light - and happy. Rin's hand stopped its final adjustments, hovering above Riko's heart, as her own memory took over, taking her back to a place where a small girl running from wolves had fallen in a dark forest to awake in a field of flowers and she gasped. I remember the flowers! The images came back to her now of when she'd gathered flowers before she awoke in Sesshoumaru's arms. She blinked back a tear. The Meidou isn't always hell…

 

Rin lowered her head to her hands and cried out of grief and joy for her daughter, living now in the flower field beyond the Meidou.

 

Finally composing herself, Rin carefully laid a tiny knife on the girl's chest and said the prayer to keep away evil spirits. Lighting the incense sticks, she rose wearily, moving through the open screen into the Daimyou's private garden where she gathered Riko's favorite flowers and laid them on the girl's body, readying her for the funeral pyre. With a sigh and a small touch on the young girl's forehead in final goodbye, Rin washed her hands in a separate bowl of water and stood, planning to go to her own sleeping chamber and rest. But her body and mind were still reeling from the new situation she found herself in, ruling advisor to the young Daimyou and the Matsunaga dynasty. The fresh scents of the family garden called to her, reminding her that whenever her life became overwhelming, the earth and its blanket of life could calm her.

 

As she moved out on the small wooden decking and prepared to step down onto the groomed pathway, Rin was startled to see the imposing white figure of Sesshoumaru standing at the far edge of the garden, near the koi pond, the sunlight blazing down on him so that he glowed white under its glare. She hadn't seen him since he'd left the night before, promising to be near. Now he stared down at the lazy fat fish and she knew he was aware of her, as well as the fact that her heart beat had just quickened - her fatigue and excitement conspiring to make her body react spontaneously to the sight of him. Walking towards him, Rin noticed the tangible feel of his youki, its energy snapping silently around her when she was six sword's lengths from him, warming her and lifting her exhaustion as it made her blood run more quickly through her. She'd forgotten after living so long among humans how quickly his youki affected her.

 

She stopped a respectful distance from him as he lifted his eyes from the circling fish and turned to face her. Rin took a deep breath, conscious of the responsibility to Taiki which she had taken upon herself, and which the dignified youkai lord before her had helped her achieve. She was now more than just `Rin' in her approach to a representative of the Asai, she was the Matsunaga clan and humanity itself. Preparing herself, she bowed deeply.

 

“Thank you, Sesshoumaru-sama.” Rin spoke carefully, hoping he heard the sincere note of gratitude in her voice as she said the words she'd been preparing to offer him, and she wondered if he heard her forgiveness as well. Rising, she saw that though he had not moved, his eyes had softened, looking at her as though seeing the weariness in her. Concentrating, she continued, “Because of your assistance, Taiki will rule the Matsunaga clan. Please tell Hahaue-sama that I will honor a deeper alliance between our clans until my last breath, as will Taiki after I am gone.” She watched him, waiting to see what these words would mean to him. Despite his appearance the night before, no doubt because Jaken had gone to fetch him when the little youkai realized how precarious her situation truly was, Rin still did not fully understand why he had come to her aid, or what Hahaue-sama expected in return.

 

“I do not need to pass on your promise to Haha-ue for our alliance to be sealed.” His brow tensed slightly, and he said, “It is now I who speak for the Asai.”

 

“You-“ Rin sucked in her breath, beginning to comprehending the important shift in power he hinted at and the event that must have lead to it. She searched his face and did not see the pride she would have expected, only the truth of his statement and something more, something deeper and more important to him than pride. Her mind began to piece his news together. “Last night… the Meidou…” Her eyes roamed his body, looking for the proof and she found it, partially hidden under his white pelt and hanging on a silver chain from his golden sash… the Meidou pendant. A tear rose in her eye, knowing the hard battles and losses that had lead to his mastery of the Tenseiga. “Sesshoumaru-sama.” Her voice sounded thick in her ears, her happiness for him bubbling up inside her. “You've done it. You've mastered the Tenseiga. You have the power now, over life and death.”

 

“Rin,” he said softly, his own voice thickening as his eyes looked into hers, trying to reach her with his words, “Don't you understand?” He took a small step closer but did not reach out his arm. “All this time I sought it… Rin... you were the power.”

 

“What?” She was confused. “You saved me, Sesshoumaru-sama.” Rin fought to keep a habitual tinge of bitterness out of her voice as she spoke her next words. “I learned Hahaue-sama's lessons well and would have succeeded in the gisei with the last warrior had you not saved me with the Meidou.”

 

His gaze on her remained steady, having heard her words, he did not accept them. Still seeking something in her eyes, Sesshoumaru spoke.

 

“Through these years I could not open the Meidou fully.” He stepped towards her and his heat flickered against her skin as he lifted his hand to stroke her cheek with the backs of his fingers, smoothing lightly over the small but jagged wound of the night's bloodshed. Her breath caught in her throat as his hand brushed past her ear to withdraw his mother's ivory pin from her hair. She saw his eyes blaze in the sunlight as they followed the strands of her hair falling loosely to her shoulders. “I thought it was because I was not as powerful as my father… and I was right.” His claws slipped through her hair and she saw his eyes continue to roam her face and hair as the tendrils fell through his fingers, and then those beautiful eyes came to meet hers, stilling her heart as he said, “Until I saw you under the shadow of death again, I did not have his power to love.”

 

Rin blinked, her heart pounding in her ears as a little voice whispered in her ear that he'd just declared his love for her twice in the space of as many days. But still, feeling the wounds she still carried, wounds from his apparent betrayals and the betrayal of her own expectations, she was not willing to believe the little voice, and so she remained silent and unmoving. Waiting. He paused, moving his hand through her hair, perhaps letting his words sink into his own heart as well. Looking beyond her, into the past, he spoke again as his brow tightened slightly around the indigo crescent that was his birthright.

 

“When you were small, you wanted me to be your father.” His fingers sifted through her hair gently, fingering it and letting it fall only to pick it up again. “But I did not want to be your father. I did not want to discipline you or tell you what to do. I've never wanted that.” His eyes found hers again and the next words went straight to her soul. “I want a strong woman who stands by my side and does as she wishes.”

 

Like Hahaue-sama… Rin felt her knees become weak, from fatigue and excitement and shock. She wavered a little and Sesshoumaru moved into her, slipping his hand down her back to hold her to his side, the soft white pelt she'd played with as a child and his armor between them. Lifting her hand, she clung to the silky fur as the heat of his fingers on her back penetrated her, warming her.

 

“I don't… I don't understand, Sesshoumaru-sama.” Rin's voice was thin as a low roaring sounded in her ears and she began to feel faint. “How did I help you open the Meidou?” Their eyes met again, only inches apart now, and he continued to speak softly.

 

“Until last night I had been selfish with the power of the Meidou. I saved your life the first time because I was curious, but also my heart recognized that your kindness should not go unappreciated.” He walked them over to a small stone bench under a weeping cherry tree, the blossoms just beginning to bud over their heads as he sat down and pulled her onto his lap; she leaned into his arm as he held it around her shoulder. “I saved your life the second time because I needed you and because I could not imagine my life without your smiles.” To her complete amazement, he lowered his head gently, brushing his lips against her forehead, but he brought his golden eyes back to hers as he finished. “Last night, I saved your life because I saw a woman sacrificing herself to save her son. And… I felt it too.”

 

“What did you feel?” Rin's words came from her as though she spoke from a dream. His eyes searched her face, sweeping down to her lips and back to meet her gaze as he answered her.

 

“Compassion. The love that washes all else away - the fear and even the selfishness.” She felt a tear form at the very slight tremor of emotion she heard in his voice, speaking the truth of his heart. “I never truly understood that before last night.”

 

She had no more questions and he had no more answers. They continued to look into each other's eyes for a moment, Rin now fully believing that he loved her and her heart quickening to the pace of this excitement. His eyes slipped again to her mouth, and hers, too, traced the planes of his face, seeing the angle of his jaw in a new and intimate way, following the indigo scars across his cheeks until she saw his lips part slightly and felt the pressure of his arm around her shoulders, drawing her in. She moved easily with his fiery strength as his noble head bowed to meet hers.

 

Their lips met softly and he cradled her to his chest. She lifted her hand to run her own fingers through his long, white-silver hair, letting it fall across his armor and onto her chest, her tears flowing freely now until she tasted the salt of them between their lips. He kissed her again, over and over, on the mouth and cheek and soon, feeling long dead stirrings of desire, she was kissing him back, her hands cupping his face. Finally, her exhaustion and exhilaration came together inside her, demanding release, and she could not contain herself, pulling away to sob into the soft pelt at his shoulder. His arm stayed strong around her until she was done.

 

They sat together for some time after that - the youkai holding the woman under the cherry blossoms. Speaking softly and kissing again, they indulged in the beginning of dreams until he saw that her eyes were dipping lower with each blink. Scooping her in his arm, Sesshoumaru rose and walked to the open screen leading into Riko's room. The smell of the dead child mingled with the scents of the dead everywhere and he ignored it, but he could not ignore the child herself, looking so like Rin when he'd first slashed through the messengers of the underworld those many years ago. But for Riko, it was too late; Tenseiga could no longer save her. With a strong echo of the sadness he'd felt for Rin's lifeless form so many years ago, he moved silently over to look down at the child. Speaking to the woman cradled in his arm, he asked quietly, “Would you have wanted me to bring her back?”

 

Rin felt light in his grasp and she leaned into him, shaking her head as her eyes looked inward, seeing only a memory. “She's happier now.”

 

Though he did not fully understand her statement, her intent was clear and he moved to where she pointed, into her bedchamber, and knelt to lay her gently onto the futon. As her weight shifted from him, he prepared to stand and was stopped by the feathery touch of her fingers on his cheek.

 

“Please don't go,” she whispered, and he stayed, seating himself next to her, smoothing her hair.

 

Sesshoumaru let his gaze rove over the face of his beloved Rin. He saw the love in her eyes that had first coaxed his heart open as she left him her day's meal. He saw the youthful blush of the young girl he'd returned home to find waiting for him, strong, beautiful and so easily wounded. He saw the weary tears of a noble woman who bore the weight of love and duty with dignity and grace. Seeing all these things living in her eyes as he tenderly stroked her face and neck, and felt her hand move up his arm to touch the parts of him she could reach outside his armored exterior, he savored the opening of his heart once again.

 

At that moment, the journey he'd begun the night his father left to die for a human woman came to an end. Ever since that day, Sesshoumaru, heir to West, had been searching for an answer, seeking to both understand his father's power and discover it within himself. Looking now at the human woman reclining trustingly beneath his hand almost seventy five years later, he knew that she was the one that had first created the space inside his heart to find his father living there - with all the power he'd ever possessed, and more. Like a fresh, pure spring, Rin was the source, and as long as she was beside him, compassion would flow through him and his power would be strong.

 

Thinking on all this with just a touch of awe, seeing her love for him in return, Sesshoumaru smiled.

 

Rin smiled back.

 

The End