InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Once Upon a Time ❯ Questions ( Chapter 12 )

Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the Inu gang--if I did, we would be holed up somewhere for some citrusy fun!

12. Questions  

The tall youkai stood slowly, stretching each muscle unobtrusively. He had been sitting in one position for nearly five full days, and although he suffered no ill effects from the extended immobility, he was more than glad to be on the move again. Since his ill companion was essentially recovered, Sesshoumaru was once again able to take up the hunt for Naraku.

Just who, Sesshoumaru wondered, did that pretentious hanyou think he was? When he had been offered a human arm containing a shard of the Shikon no Tama he had realized that Naraku was planning to use him as a tool against Inuyasha. Since his desire to prove himself superior to his impossibly strong hanyou sibling coincided with Naraku’s plans, Sesshoumaru had agreed. When his plan to take the Tetsusaiga from his brother’s dead body had failed, Naraku’s backup plan had gone into effect. Though he was never in any real danger of being consumed by the arm, the very idea that this nobody had even made such an attempt was a step beyond amusing on the way to intolerable.

Naraku’s tactics had grown even more distasteful with time. On one occasion that filthy hanyou had actually engulfed Sesshoumaru’s body with his own substance in an attempt to absorb the taiyoukai’s power and abilities. Naturally, the attempt had failed, and although Inuyasha’s intrusion had not been necessary, it had distracted his enemy, making it marginally easier for him to break free and take up the attack.

Unfortunately, Naraku had escaped by using an unworthy trick suitable only for a treacherous hanyou like him. He had stolen the human child from Jaken’s care in an effort to secure Sesshoumaru’s cooperation. Instead, he had earned the youkai lord’s wrath: while Sesshoumaru had gone to retrieve the hostage, that bastard Naraku--weakened and near death from the combined attacks of Sesshoumaru and his brother--made his escape.

Sesshoumaru had been hunting him ever since.

The youkai placed Rin on the broad back of his dragon and turned to the north. Although he could not sense any presence of Naraku--neither his scent nor his jyaki--that was still the general direction in which he had disappeared. As badly damaged as he had been by the combined power of Inuyasha’s Tetsusaiga and his own Toukijin, he could not have gone too far.

Though he was aware that others also hunted Naraku, Sesshoumaru was not worried that he would be left out of the fighting. Though not entirely youkai, Naraku had frequently demonstrated a cunning nature that would easily confuse simple-minded hunters who would expect a straightforward search followed by a toe to toe battle. Deceit and treachery, after all, were Naraku’s stock in trade.

He walked along in silence, listening intently to the progress of his companions. As he drew closer to Naraku, Sesshoumaru decided that he would have to start looking for a place out of harm’s way where he could leave the child until the fighting was over. Not only did he have no desire to provide Naraku with yet another opportunity to strike at him through the girl, but he also much preferred that she not be injured--either accidentally or by design--in the coming battle.

He was uneasy with his growing concern for the child. He had, after all, developed his cold disdain for humans over centuries. To see it eroding away after only a couple of months of interaction with the girl was disturbing at best.

Of course, he had always avoided any kind of personal contact with humans, unlike Inuyasha, who had spent his earliest years among them and still sought out their company. Sesshoumaru was no longer certain that he would have reacted any differently if he had experienced the same intense level of exposure at his younger brother.

Although he still maintained that most humans were completely without any redeeming qualities, Sesshoumaru was now prepared to admit that there were, in fact, exceptions. He had first suspected that this was so after a serious confrontation with Inuyasha, when the Tenseiga his father had left him had been the only thing between him and annihilation at his brother’s hands.

Even though his life had been spared, he had been badly hurt in the attack. As he withdrew deep into the forest to regain his full strength, he became aware of a small human girl watching him from the trees. It was only a short time before the child began bringing him what he was certain were choice foods, although he had no desire for human food of any description.

That the girl had brought him the offerings was no particular surprise: he was, after all, one of the most powerful of the taiyoukai. What Sesshoumaru found truly amazing was the girl’s complete lack of fear despite the fact that he was not only much larger than she but also an entirely different kind of creature.

As he considered the matter, he realized that he had seen the very same refusal to experience fear on other occasions. In the grave of his father, his brother’s bitch had been willing to challenge him for possession of the Tetsusaiga, in part because she didn’t like his use of Mu’onna, a youkai formed of the despair felt by mothers who had lost children to famine or war, to trick Inuyasha into revealing the location of the hidden grave, information he did not consciously possess. She had challenged him again when he had used a human arm to try taking the Tetsusaiga, refusing to leave the field of battle until she was physically carried from the scene. She had done so yet again, protecting the transformed and finally unconscious Inuyasha from him with her fragile human body. That in itself was surprising, as the very nature of the hanyou’s transformation should have terrified the girl: the carnage he had observed at the scene indicated that it had certainly had that effect on the band of thieves who had attacked the village.

What, he wondered, was the ultimate source of the hidden power that some of these humans seemed to possess? It was entirely possible that he would never completely understand.