InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Ours ❯ Sesshomaru ( Chapter 31 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

I thought we'd seen it all. In the Feudal Era of Japan, while fighting Naraku, along with so many others, I thought I knew all there was to war. I thought I was so strong. So invincible...but in reality, I didn't know anything. Not until I encountered...it...that day.

I can't breathe. Here I am, standing by a river, looking at my reflection, trying to clear my head-yet I can't breathe. I scowled; how pathetic. I never thought I would feel like this. My death was something that never really crossed my mind; and yet...now that it's inevitable, I am reacting like a coward. Pathetic.

Soon after my visit with Moriko, Kagura's turn came and she fought. She fought the whole way with a smile on her face. When she died, she was smiling. She was smiling.

Was it real?

I remember she said something about wanting to at least pretending to be happy before she died. Was it pretend?

That...incident. Was it pretend? Why do I even care? I didn't push her away, and later, I got angry at myself for it. It was weakness, and yet...I don't even know how to feel about it. It shocked me. It was because she was to die soon, that's it. But if that wasn't the situation, would I have still allowed it? Once again, I'm pathetic.

I had attempted to go to sleep. Why not? I don't have much time left. But every time I tried, I envisioned Jaken and Rin sleeping curled up next to Ah-Un like they used to do before they died. And I couldn't shut my eyes. Rin would be there, inside Zearth, next to Jaken's corpse, begging me to do something, and I couldn't. Then Jaken's form would turn into his mother, and she would lay there, bleeding and dying, repeating those words she said to me before she passed away. I can't take it.

Don't thank me, old woman! Stop thanking me. I didn't do anything. What you're saying is wrong. I could've known about all this, could've done something, but I didn't care to know. And now that I do know, the information's hitting me like a ton of bricks.

I'm trying to not care, but I'm failing. It hadn't occured to me before that Jaken and Rin had lives of their own before I came across them. I didn't know them like I thought I did.

Inuyasha had said to me that it was too late for me to walk in now and try to be a brother. I wasn't trying to be a brother, I just didn't care about Tetsusaiga anymore. Where had he gotten that idea?

I can't think of him without recalling the conversation he had with Jaken inside Zearth.

"If you knew what it was like, why did you stand there and help Sesshomaru do the same thing to me what they did to you?" he had asked. And Jaken didn't deny it. He didn't deny that I had put Inuyasha through the same thing that the people he was killing had put him through. Fantasies, he said...Jaken was acting out fantasies that Inuyasha would often have. I don't know why that bothers me so much.

Everyone else faced their deaths. Even Rin fought like I'd never imagined. They showed me sides of their personalities I never could have fathomed were there. And yet, here I am...in fear.

Maybe I was wrong about who was strong and who was weak. It looks like I was the weak one all along. It's like everything around me is going to disappear...already, it feels like I'm no longer here. Like I'm slowly fading away.

"Enjoying yourself?" I heard a voice behind me-Dung Beetle. "What, are you trying to hide or something? Shouldn't be hard at this time at night. Not making fun of you or anything, just saying."

I glanced at him, and tossed Tenseiga on the ground next to him. "That. Give it to someone who needs it after..."

"...After you're dead." He finished for me. "It's natural for you to feel like this."

I scoffed at him. Like I need his reassurance. "There will be worthless people here afterwards. Why is it that I need to do this?"

"Godammit, I thought you were ready for this! It's not like there's only idiots in this world." He shouted angrily. "What does it take to convince you? I mean, you've witnessed all of that-the people that came before you! I mean, you guys actually did a better job than we did with our world."

"What does that mean?"

"I mean, you guys...actually managed to support each other." He sighed. "When we were being initiated, the dude that came from the previous world to teach us signed up more people than he needed. Arguments broke out and some ran away. People lost their minds. But you guys...I mean, even after witnessing all that first hand, you can still say that? Kagura even thought of you high enough to love you."

I bit my lip. He...he didn't just say that.

"There's only so much I can say, but those fourteen people aren't the only people in this world capable of that-I thought you'd learned that by now. Every single person in the world is made up of the same basic things; they just choose to react differently and make different choices. I mean, isn't there even one person left that you wanna save?"

The vision of Jaken's mother passing out flashed in my head once again. Talking about her son, the one that left and never came back.

That form is so easily replaceable with another. One with silver hair.





"I thought I'd never see you again."

Mother said that sarcastically, but her words really struck me. They could've so easily been true. I nodded in acknowledgement, unable to express myself as usual. She raised an eyebrow. No doubt she was waiting for me to explain my presence. I'd bet she was expecting me to want something from her. No way that her son could come see her just to see her. Not Sesshomaru.

I've never hated myself so much before.

"What are you standing there for, Sesshomaru? Make yourself at home." she waved her hand in the air lazily. "It's not like this happens very often."

I flinched. How do I do that? Make myself at home-why is it I find myself unable to do so even in my own mother's presence? Lowering my gaze, I shifted uncomfortably.

"That is my fault." Mother stiffened. I don't think she was expecting me to say that. "I...apologize."

There. I've said all I could. Slowly, I turned my back to her to leave.

"No. I should be the one to apologize." I heard her sigh from behind me a few moments later. "I think I kind of brought that on myself...I was too formal with you."

I balled my hands up into fists by my sides. This makes me feel so damn...helpless for some reason.

"After I..." She swallowed. "...Split...from your father, I was too afraid of being weak so I became rigid. Instead of treating you like a son, I treated you more like a student or something. I'm sor-"

She didn't get to finish. Everything around me became fuzzy; I was being teleported somewhere.