InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Healing Hands ❯ Healing Hands Part 3 ( Chapter 3 )

Healing Hands Part 3

Inu-Yasha Fanfiction

By: Kittyonnails

Sesshomaru inhaled again. The scent of Rin was more intoxicating with each breath. He had to concentrate just to think, and he had a lot to consider. She had left him of her own free will. He was hurt that she could do that. She had learned the healing arts in order to mend his maimed left arm. He knew that even the best human could not survive such a feat. Still, a new arm would be a priceless gift. He did want a new arm. It just seemed he would prefer to have his little maid back. He glanced at her, Rin was trotting along beside him and smiling happily. Sesshomaru felt his heart sink. She wanted to die just for his arm? Her devotion was certainly justified, but it was not what he wanted. The pain of losing her has surprised him the first time. He was not about to go through all that again.

"Rin." he stopped walking and turned to face her. She smiled slightly and looked over her shoulder at him.

"Yes, my lord?" she said, turning to face him.

"You will not heal my arm. It is not what I wish. Simply return with me."

"Yes, my lord." her smile had vanished. She bowed low and slowly began to walk again. Sesshomaru sighed inwardly. This walk was taking too long. He wanted to get her to the safety of his mansion as soon as possible.

Sesshomaru took a quick step behind the little maid and scooped her into his arms. His heart pounded as he heard her gasp in surprise. He kept his gaze straight ahead to the west. Without needing to explain, he leapt to the treetops and began to run home.

* * * *

Inu-Yasha stopped and took a long sniff. He growled and turned to the rest of the group.

"I'd know that smell anywhere. Sesshomaru was here." Everyone scanned the clearing. There was no sign of Rin, not even some small pieces.

"so this is as far as the nun made it alone." Miroku wondered out loud; "but why have they left.?"

"He probably took her back to his mansion, to claim the gift she offered." Mushin examined the sky above the clearing where they were standing.

"That sounds like Sesshomaru." Inu-Yasha inhaled again, and pointed to the west. "He'd never miss the opportunity to exploit her just because he was pissed. He took her that way."

Taromaru followed a little behind the group. So she really did meet up with that demon. Rin really was his maid. He hadn't wanted to believe she would really go on her own two feet to such a certain death. Mostly though, he was worried that Rin would hate him for rescuing her. After all, Rin had said that she would not mind anything he might do to her, so long as he was doing it. She only loved him because he had saved her life as a child.

Taromaru smiled as an idea flashed across his mind. He remembered that Rin loved Sesshomaru for saving her life. If he could save her when Sesshomaru is about to kill her, then he would be the hero. Taromaru's heart swelled as he imagined himself slaying Sesshomaru and embracing Rin as he had only a night before. She would love him then. He picked up his pace as thoughts of slaying the great demon lord danced in his imagination. Rin would love him. This, he thought to himself, could end up making things even better than they were before.

* * * *

Rin sat in her chambers hugging herself tightly. It was all she could do to keep the tears back. She was so stupid! What, she asked herself, had made her think that a mere human girl could heal Sesshomaru's arm? He was so sure of her incompetence that he wouldn't even allow her to try. She bit her lip as she remembered how he had explained it to her. A tear escaped from her left eye. She choked on a sob and as she gasped her breath back in, the tears broke loose. She had tried so hard to keep herself stoic! Alas, she was only a human girl, alone in her room bawling.

The door slid open slowly. She knew instantly that it was Sesshomaru. As he stepped inside, Rin tried desperately to dry her tears and choke back her sobs. He starred down at her for a minute, then used his foot to push a cushion to a space in front of her. He set himself down and continued to stare.

"What has upset you Rin?" He asked, once she had quieted herself. She turned her puffy eyes up to his impassive face. How she wanted to melt into his arms and cry out all her sorrows just has she had with Taromaru on the cliff.

"Oh master Sesshomaru!" she sighed, gaining composure from his placid features; "I worked so hard to learn healing so that I could help you, but now I know all I have done is to be insolent and leave you alone for five long years."

He shifted, resting his hand on his chin.

"Rin, you could heal me, but, I won't allow it." he shifted again, resting his hand on his knee.

"But why my lord? Would it not benefit you to have your arm again?" Rin braced herself for the answer she expected. She was a mere human, unworthy to perform healing on the great demon lord of the western lands.

Sesshomaru absently reached up and touched the stub of upper arm he had remaining.

"No, Rin I would appreciate a new limb more than you could know. I am simply not wanting to sacrifice your life If you heal me, especially so large a magic as creating a new arm, you will not survive." She looked up at her lord, confused. She could create a new limb easily. Rin wondered if Sesshomaru realized what a powerful healer she had become.

As if in response to her thoughts, he reached up to his kimono and loosened it, exposing his upper chest an left shoulder. He scratched two deep lines almost six centimeters long diagonally down his breast.

"Heal this wound, and you will understand." His eyes burned with the drama of self mutilation. Rin was reluctant to look away from their beauty, but she wanted to prove her power to her lord. She closed her eyes an concentrated on the deepest parts of the cuts, coaxing the flesh back together. As she worked her way out, she began to understand. His demon flesh was fighting her, resisting the healing. Most of all it was resisting her numbing of the wound. She refused to let him feel the pain of her healing. Rin knew the pain of being healed was intense. It was all the pain that a person would usually experience as a wound healed, compressed into a few minutes. Rin always numbed her subjects. Usually it was no big deal. Numbing Sesshomaru was proving to be the hardest part of the healing.

She had reached the skin, not wanting to leave any scars or marks, she reached up and ran her fingers along the skin to smooth away any scars. It was so draining. She could feel how his body drank in all the energy she would give. He was difficult to heal because his body was trying to take more than it needed. His tissues would rather drink her energies than be healed. Sesshomaru was right, surely healing his arm would be the end of her.

Finished with the healing, Rin opened her eyes. As she did, Sesshomaru reached up and pressed her hand to the place she had just healed. She could feel his heart beating, and she could feel her own heart pounding in her head. She was so tired from healing him. Rin looked up into his golden eyes. They were somehow softer she thought as she tried to keep herself upright. She fell towards him as she lost consciousness.

* * * *

Swiftly, Sesshomaru moved to catch the little human. He was sorry to let go of her hand though. Her touch had been so warm and devastatingly gentle. He breathed deeply, inhaling her aroma. He had to admit that she had formidable skills in the healing arts. He hadn't felt a thing, only warmth, as she healed the tears in his flesh.

Sesshomaru cradled her limp body in his good arm, wishing that he had another arm to wrap around her. As he laid her down on the futon, he starred at the girl slowly breathing beneath him. His body reminded him that she was no longer a girl. Rin was a beautiful woman whose touch and scent both comforted and excited him. There was a time when he was sure that she adored him. Now he felt like he was keeping a wild thing captive. He wondered if it was cruel to do so.

Sesshomaru had never imagined that Rin could develop skills like the ones she'd acquired at that temple. More importantly he'd never dreamt that she would have the desire to go there on her own. Rin seemed full of such insubordination and, he had to admit, courage. Sesshomaru had to admit, it all appealed to him. He deliberately took his hand away from her and stood up. He knew he found Rin entirely too tempting. To keep his composure, Sesshomaru left her to recover alone.

* * * *

Rin awoke alone, but with a strange sense of peace. Healing Sesshomaru had been wonderful. It had taken a lot out of her and surely he was right. Giving her lord a new arm would kill her. Still, a new arm for her lord was certainly more valuable than her mortal life. She stretched out on the futon. It was decided. She would disobey him once again. She was sorry her last act in life would be to disobey her lord directly. It would be alright though. He would he healed, an she would be with him always in that way.

Unfortunately, Rin had just spent a lot of energy healing Sesshomaru's wounds. It would be a few days before she would be able to perform the service. In the meantime Rin meant to enjoy her life and recoup her energies. There was a garden in the central courtyard that Rin remembered. She headed outside to tend it.



As Rin slowly dragged the bamboo rake in a gentle curve, she felt her strength returning. It seeped into her thickly from the sun and the green things. It channeled up the bamboo in her hands like water running backwards. Gardening was so healing for her. Even before she became a servant of Buddha, Rin had loved to tend this garden. She looked up to find her lord smiling ever so slightly and watching her from the veranda.

"So you really have become a nun." He commented on the way she had designed the gravel. It had been carefully combed into a pattern commonly used in Buddhist monasteries like the temple of innocence.

"Yes my lord." Rin stopped raking and smiled up at him. "Do you approve?"

"Have you recovered?" He ignored her question.

"Yes, my lord. I only passed out because I was already tired from our travels. You could let me show you my real power another time, when I am refreshed."

Sesshomaru's smile faded. He looked to the southeast. Rin could tell something outside the manor had caught his attentions. He exhaled slowly and looked down at her.

"They are coming for you Rin. My half-brother and his woman. Some monks are with them as well." He turned to face her once more. "I do not wish you to be a nun, or a healer. Only Rin, my maidservant as you once were. When you've completely recovered, I shall she what I can do about undoing your promise. For now, rest." He turned and left her alone in the courtyard.

Rin sat on the porch and leaned her chin on the rake. Everyone was coming for her? Her lord's half-brother and his woman, what did they have to do with her? Certainly the monks were Master-Mushin and Taromaru, coming to stop her from doing as she planned. How was he planning to undo her promise? She was a nun now, and like it or not, Master-Mushin had told her that there was only one way to break away from that promise. For her to break her bond to the Buddha, Rin would have to consummate her love for another man. Did her lord really plan to do that to her? She sighed. She loved him dearly, but that was almost certainly not what Sesshomaru had meant. He probably knew of many other ways to remove her from her bond, other than making her his own.



Sesshomaru sat in his study, browsing one of the many scrolls shelved there. Rin thought of him as she prepared the poultice she would use on his arm to numb the pain of regeneration. It had been four days and her energies had totally recovered. She felt wonderful as she hummed and ground herbs she had gathered the day before.

In a vial beside her she had a potion made especially for her lord. Sesshomaru would not sense the potion until it reached his systems, slowing him so that he would be unable to stop her. She smiled as she spooned her herbal concoction into doughy balls she had prepared. She pinched them closed. Just like pork and mushroom buns! Sesshomaru would never know the difference.

She poured the vial's contents into the waiting teapot and added the tea. Even with the drugs and herbs, she knew the healing would hurt him. She was sorry she couldn't help him with it. If she tried to kill the pain while healing him, she'd never be able to finish the complex work of creating his hand before she breathed her last. Rin said a prayer over the snacks and carried the tray up to her lord.

Sesshomaru nodded to Rin as she brought him the tray. She watched him as he drank deeply from the tea she had poured. He looked at her, confusion in his eyes as he felt the potion take effect. He tried to rise and fell to the floor. Rin rushed to his side.

"Master Sesshomaru, please forgive me!" She begged as she pulled his kimono down off of his shoulders. He mumbled noises, but lacked the motor skills for speech. Even his tongue was affected by the potion. Rin wasted no time, knowing the effects would be short lived. She opened one of the buns and smeared the contents onto the stump of his arm. He gasped at the pain as she began to rebuild the arm.

"Why?" He managed to ask, although it was barely intelligible.

"Because I love you my lord." She said softly. "I cannot keep this gift from you and I cannot love you in this life. This is all I can do for you." She moved closer and kissed his cheek gently. Rin only let herself linger a moment like that. She was satisfied. Only a short time before her death she had managed to confess her love to Sesshomaru. Now he knew and she did not have to hear his response. She moved closer to him, placing her hands on his arm and shoulder. Rin closed her eyes.

"My lord, I am afraid this is going to hurt." She warned, concentrating her full powers into the rebuilding of his arm. Rin constructed again the bone and muscle, skin and veins that had once lived. As the structures of Sesshomaru's arm grew beneath her fingers, Rin knew the potion had been sweated out long ago. The pain of the regeneration was the only thing keeping him still. She was at the halfway point. His wrist was complete, only the complexities of his powerful but gentle demon hand remained.

Rin pulled blood into the newly laid veins, lacing the bones with capillaries. She carefully built a pair of poison glands and twisted them into the net of blood vessels. Overlaying the bone with lean muscles, she tangled it over and under the veins. Rin felt her breaths shorten. As she layered and stretched the soft and strong skin across the palms, she strung delicate nerves through it. The blackness began to creep up around her.

Not yet! She begged her body, not wanting to succumb to death until his hand was complete. She licked her fingertips and placed them, one by one, on his fingers. She stretched out his claws from the bone endings. Almost finished. She was fading fast. Rin reached up to his shoulder again and ran her fingers down the length of his new arm, stopping at the fingertips. This dragged and pulled his demon blood down into all the veins and capillaries. She was pleased to see the arm swell and gain color. His body was taking the limb easily, but it still had no life. Finally she opened her eyes and shot the last of her life into her creation. In the form of sparks, her final effort jumped into the new muscle and the arm was finished. Rin smiled as she fell into oblivion.

* * * *

"Rin!" Sesshomaru roared as she fell back. He looked from his perfect new arm to the dead girl. This was not what he wanted. Seeing her lying there reminded him. He had saved her from death once before, with the Tensaiga.

"Damn sword!" he growled, searching the weapons room frantically, but not finding the sword. He flew down the halls from room to room. He was unsure how long she could be dead before he would be unable to revive her. For now at least he had only rage to deal with. The grief of losing her again was not something he wanted again.

He found Tensaiga in a closet near the bath. He didn't bother to wonder how it got there. As Sesshomaru's head cleared with relief, he sensed intruders. His half brother and his companions! He rushed to Rin, howling to them to leave at once. He stood over the girl, ready to unsheathe Tensaiga as a young monk entered.

"Rin!" He screamed, looking from the dead girl to Sesshomaru, he hollered again; "Over here! He's killed her!"

As Taromaru jumped at Sesshomaru, the others arrived. He could sense they all thought he had killed Rin. As he opened his mouth to explain, the monk landed a hit on his jaw. He turned to toss the boy away and instead had to dodge a swift strike from his brother' Tetsusagia. His recent ordeal had slowed him, and he wasn't sure how much time he had for this before Rin was dead forever!

--------------------------------End Part Three-------------------------------------