InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Pitiless ❯ Prelude ( Chapter 1 )

Title: Pitiless

Rating: R [M]

Warnings: Dark; Romantic.

Character Focus: Mainly Sesshoumaru Rin. Also, some Sesshoumaru Kagome.

Author's Notes: I've read a couple of one-shots where Sesshoumaru becomes this vicious creature when he confronts the subject of love in a human's presence. You could say this is like this, but I've put my own creative spin on it. Here's to hoping I don't go overboard with Sesshoumaru's character…

 

I. Prelude…

 

The night was cold…too cold in fact.

 

Sesshoumaru was used to it, however. He silently traipsed the halls of his prodigious castle without a hitch in his step, nearly gliding as he walked in the moonlit dark. He, the great lord Sesshoumaru, could not possibly seek comfort in light because he had no use for it. As a great, demon lord, he was able to cope with the darkness, reach a binding covenant with it that not even his toady retainer Jaken could understand.

 

The darkness knew him, and he it. They were alliances that made many promises and witnessed many things such as murder, intrigue, and so on down the list. There was no use in hiding it any longer; he and darkness have been through too much beyond speculation, farther beyond calculation.

 

Tonight was the anniversary of the day they first became an allies. Ironically enough, tonight was also the eve of the anniversary when he first met Rin, a young girl who happily appointed herself as his traveling companion several years back.

 

He should not have saved her, yet, once Tenseiga's blade became acquainted with her aura, it reveled in it like a fish being reintroduced to its watery home after being torn from its depths longer than it should be. It drank greedily, thirstily, her death-reeking aura, pulsing in satisfaction as its spirit consumed him whole and blinded him, allowing him the chance to see what it saw - Tiny minions of evil, little, low-level creatures that only lived to help their minister of darkness feed on lost souls.

 

At first, he was sick, utterly repulsed in the hindmost reaches of his mind, yet the sword pushed the thoughts aside and whispered to him with a voice that sounded scratchy…almost fatherly, “Do you not see? You can save her. You can save her from these things and see that happy smile again…”

 

“Why would I want to see such an awkward smile again?” he recalled asking rather begrudgingly, tone numbingly bitter and frigid, his definite signature written in stone.

 

“Because, a part of you wants to,” the sword murmured then trembled, shaking him slightly as well, “A part of you wants to see that weird smile again.”

 

He'd wanted to say that that was not true; however, before the chance seemed rightly fitted, the sword gave one more pulse, a last warning, and instinct immediately consumed him whole. He twisted the sword in his hand, feeling the cool, unyielding metal of the handle. With a quick and skillful flick of the wrist, the sword whisked to the right then clean to the left, slicing at an incline through the minions small bodies and causing them (and their screams) to melt away into the night beneath the pearlescent moon.

 

For a few minutes, he stood there, without thinking, without making any abrupt movement or noise. The world around him was deafly quiet, engulfing him at a piecemeal pace in an effort suck him back into reality. Once he was fully reeled in, he closed his eyes and sighed, habitually whipping Tenseiga to the side to flick off the imaginary innards and blood of the things he'd just slain. He then faced the sword backwards and let it glide gently across the opening of its scabbard perched on his waist before starting from its sharp tip and thrusting it down to the hilt. The sound of hissing metal and the decisive clink of the hilt against the rim of the scabbard, lingered inside his mind and ears. He gazed down his nose at the body of the girl he'd saved, stooping down to scoop her up in his one arm.

 

That's when her eyes glinted back at him.

 

That's when he felt his chest almost clench at their doting luminosity.

 

That's when the girl with the awkward grin and the demon-lord with the icy heart had their strings of fate twine together into one.

 

Every time he thought about it, he waited for repulsion take its toll over his body, yet, it never did, making his soul roar out in raw, unadulterated fury. Darkness, his lifelong companion, would cradle him during such times, but not for long. On their anniversary, however, it would make an exception of the past and hold him close, combing its fingers through his smooth strands and ushering him to remain at ease.

 

At last calm, Sesshoumaru would lean into darkness's embrace and sigh inwardly, secretly thanking it for saving him from his daredevil leap into the pit of insanity. After thanking it, it would say in reply, the same thing it always said during the mordant anniversaries they shared together after the sparing of Rin's life, “If you want me to hurt her…I will. I can kill her and hide her mangled body so that you will never have to see or think about her ever again.”

 

But…his reply was always the same, dull and yet sure, “No, that's not what I want.”