InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Odds n Ends: General Audience ❯ Why He Smiles (Sesshoumaru) ( Chapter 10 )

Disclaimer: The characters of InuYasha are not mine, they are property of Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan, Yomiuri TV, Sunrise, and Viz. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

 

Genre: Character Thoughts

Type: oneshot

Characters: Sesshoumaru

Warning: Language

Rated: PG13

 

=#= Why He Smiles =#=

 

To everyone else, he is a hero, an idol, a king. He is their lord and sovereign; he can do no wrong in their eyes. In tribute to him they offer up their wives and children, their trust, their hopes, their very lives.

And he smiles for them.

Fools.

They call him a disappointment to his father. They find him lacking when measured against his mother's grace. For the most part they ignore him in favor of fawning over someone whose power and position surpasses his own as the underage heir.

Except for him.

His father, his ideal, his goal, his role model, deigns to pay attention to him. And in the beginning, it is like sunshine and rain. Eagerly he soaks it in; hungrily he looks to his father for more. For a time, there is innocent bliss as he basks in the glory of being his father's favorite.

But then…a casual comment here, a missed promise there…his small, bright world shatters so easily. Again and again it happens, and yet he forgives; because his father can do no wrong, because his father is his hero.

Until his father picks up a sword, places one in his hand, and starts to teach him how to hurt others. Until his father teaches him how very weak he still is. Until his father revels in making him feel helpless.

One by one, they turn a blind eye to his dilemma. One by one, they willingly ignore the abuse happening right under their very noses. One by one, they earn the death he will grant them by his hand.

Even his mother, mystical, mercurial creature of comfort and coldness that she is, chides him for his whining.

Bitch.

All they see, all they want to see, is the way his smile brightens in the face of adversity. Only he knows that underneath that brilliant smile there seethes a rage so black inside his father that the hell sword So'unga resonates with it perfectly. Only he knows, that for every flippant grin, every dismissive shrug, every witty comment, someone's pain will be the ultimate result. Most often, it is his.

His father smiles most beautifully when he has ruined a life most completely.

He thought he escaped that legacy with his father's death. Standing, watching Tensaiga with its fully mastered Meidou-Zangetsuha be reabsorbed into Tessaiga, he realizes that his father has left one last cruel twist for his favorite victim.

Sesshoumaru smiles and thinks of death.

Just like his father.

 

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