InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Pride (In the Name of Love) ❯ Chapter 103

Pride (In the Name of Love) 103 / ??
Written by Jezz-Ra
Warnings - Not all warnings apply to all chapters. Yaoi, Het, Rape, Lemon, Violence, Language, Torture, Angst, Incest, Dark (at times). It's a massive story, folks, it's got a little bit of everything.
Disclaimer - I don't own Inuyasha, don't make money off it. Wish I did.

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// blah // indicates thoughts.

A/N - Just to clarify a point in regards to Sesshoumaru. The biggest thing I've seen that people are pointing out to snap him out of his crazy is the fact his claws were yanked out - however, the timeframe Sesshoumaru believes himself to be in is previous to the point where Tsetsukosei removed them.

Also, I giggled a good deal to hear Naraku being called an 'amoral lazyass tease'. Yeah, pretty much nailed it. XD Originally, I was going to have him recover...now I'm not so sure. He's a lot of fun like this....
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After the allotted hour had passed, Tsetsukosei returned. Toga squared his shoulders and faced the dracolich with all the frigidity he could muster, flatly denying his terms. The dracolich smirked - it was not really a surprise, and turned to leave.

Tsetsukosei returned home and his portal shut behind him. With a gleeful smile, he settled in to have a good meal and plot out his time with Sesshoumaru.

When Tsetsukosei left, Sairex spent his time doing what he could to make sure Toga was alright, then went to find Miroku. He needed to teach the monk how to open portals. Toga had brought up a very valid point - if anything happened to him, they HAD to be able to get back and forth to the Circle, at least until they had regained Sesshoumaru.

Naraku, too, spent his time productively. He had concocted a scheme that was just crazy enough to work. He simply had to learn what it was he was capable of..and how to control it.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Three years passed.

During that time, Sairex had made numerous forays into the Circle, seeking out every contact he had and using all his resources in an effort to learn anything at all of Tsetsukosei or Sesshoumaru's whereabouts. No one had heard anything, however. Even the raven's best attempts at scrying had produced nothing. It was as if they had dropped off the face of the world.

No one noticed when, on one occasion when Sairex slid through the portal to the Circle, he did not travel there alone.

Toga grew quiet and distant, and rarely shared meals with the rest of them anymore. He did his job with careless efficiency, but his heart wasn't in it. He was gripped by a terrible sadness, and it deepened with each day that passed. Every hour that passed lessened the likelihood that he would ever see his beloved Sesshoumaru again in this life...and with the dracolich's control on the afterlife, he probably never would in any other life either.

Sairex did what he could to try and give him hope, but he knew how hollow his words had to sound. As months melted into years, Toga settled into a numb sort of acceptance. He never fully gave up hope, as was evidenced by the tiny flicker of desperate pleading in his eyes every time Sairex came to report. But the reports were always the same. Nothing.

Toga practically became a ghost in his own castle. He went to bed early, was locked in his study before anyone else was up.

Life DID have to go on, and it did in some ways. Toga held the official mating ceremony for Kouga and Inuyasha after a year and a half, and the news was relatively well-received by the wolf's elders.

The rest of Rin's child-like appearance had mostly melted by the time she turned sixteen and she had grown into a stunningly beautiful woman. She never noticed any of the growing number of suitors that had been following her, however. Toga took her protection as a personal matter in Sesshoumaru's absence and it soon became evident that to think about laying a finger on Rin was asking for death.

Rin was at least as heartbroken as Toga, although part of it was BECAUSE of Toga. She could feel his despair, see the hollow ache in his eyes. No one had told her precisely what had happened to Sesshoumaru, but she could see it's awful immensity in his sire's pain.

One of the other few bright points in the castle was Sairex and Miroku's daughter Aliana. She was an absolutely adorable child, smart and mischievous with rapidly growing black hair and huge, sparkling yellow eyes. Kagome had done her share of babysitting while Sairex worked to train Miroku, and soon had her calling Miroku 'Daddy' and Sairex 'Father'...although the priestess had snickered that she should have taught the little raven to call Sairex 'Mommy' instead. Miroku had thought it a grand idea, but Sairex had had issues with it.

Aliana adored both her parents and all her various 'aunts and uncles', but she especially loved Miroku and had announced to all and sundry that she was going to be a monk when she got older. Sairex had tried to gently break it to her that demons couldn't be monks, but Miroku had just laughed and laughed and told his lover to let the girl have her fun.

Life moved on, however stilted and pained it may have been for some of its participants.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Tsetsukosei had not been idle in his efforts against Sesshoumaru. During the years he had made an art of the taiyoukai's pain...although as the days and weeks turned into months, he lost the ability to cause Sesshoumaru any real anguish. His lunacy had grown too far.

Sesshoumaru's insanity had slowly deepened and all traces of reality fell away. His perceived loss had been too great, and despair had overtaken him. Tsetsukosei had come to him in an elaborate series of ruses, in the forms of all those he had loved. He would give Sesshoumaru false hope...even went so far on some occasions as to help him escape...but every time, things twisted. The inu found himself beaten, broken, emotionally taunted, raped, and assaulted from all angles by the mutated forms of all he loved...always to end with them wisping away and him left in his cell. Each time had shattered his damaged psyche further.

Once the machine was fully put into motion, it proved to be self-propelled. Dark voices whispered and giggled in the corners of Sesshoumaru's mind, and he truly did begin to hallucinate. Tsetsukosei was, in some ways, proud of his work...but as the madness fully took hold, he found his ability to even register on Sesshoumaru's radar to be slim. The inu was largely removed from anything he could do, and would sit and giggle during the worst beating the dracolich could muster, or idly chat with things that were not there.

The dracolich would never admit it, but the look in those never-blinking, bloodshot gold eyes sent a chill through him now. His carefully laid plans were slowly shelved, and he made sure to keep shackles on the inu's wrists and ankles at all time. It was not that he feared an escape attempt any more...he was worried about what Sesshoumaru was capable of, now that he had no restraints, no morals, no codes or guidelines at all. His power was entirely unfettered. While this meant he lacked the precision and control that made him so technically deadly...it also meant he was wholly unpredictable and for no apparent reason could let loose without any restraint or thought of self preservation.

He HAD thought to keep Sesshoumaru as his own plaything and perhaps trade the use of him for favors. It did not take long before being taken to Sesshoumaru was a threat instead of a promise of enjoyment. The first lord to try had met a terrible end. He had been confident as he strode into the dark chamber, eyeing the shackled inu sitting against the wall, head down and arms hanging between his knees.

Slowly the head had lifted and the wild, tangled silver bangs had parted enough to reveal those terrible bloodshot eyes and a maniacal, fanged grin. Sesshoumaru had jerked slowly to his feet as if pulled up by invisible strings. He had torn apart the shrieking demon with his teeth and claws, laughing as he was showered in blood. Tsetsukosei had almost been afraid to take the corpse away afterwards - Sesshoumaru had set it in the opposite corner and begun something of a conversation with it.

It only took a couple more brutal deaths before no one wanted to come anywhere near the dracolich's crazed pet.

Eventually the whispers of the dracolich's crazed pet reached a certain set of ears that had searched for any such rumor for months. Sairex was too far removed from the lowest parts of the Circle's underbelly to hear things as well as he had used to - he had a while before the crafty raven would hear and act.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Naraku eyed the carefully concealed fortress with a cross between relief and irritation.

// It's about damned time... I am SO sick of this place. //

Naraku had come up with a brilliant plan, but it hadn't quite panned out as he had expected it would. After mastering his ability to change his shape at will, he had slid into one of Sairex's portals behind the raven. His plan was devious but simple.

He would get to Sesshoumaru first and ransom him for the rule of the West. This way he could get his own castle without having to fight for it, really. It had sounded like such a good idea at the time.

A year and a half of wandering had produced absolutely no leads, and the kumo found himself continually under attack by threats unlike anything he had experienced before. He was able to avoid or destroy them, but his life was dreary and unpleasant.

The memories he had lost failed to resurface, especially with as much time as had passed in unfamiliar settings. In truth, he had grown used to his new life and no longer felt the drive to recover what had been lost. He knew it was still there, locked somewhere in his subconscious...but he had accepted the idea that he may never recover them.

Sairex knew immediately what had happened when he heard of Naraku and his symptoms, just as he knew what was necessary to fix the damage. Of course, no one wanted him to except the kumo himself - a Naraku that forevermore did not realize his dark nature was to the group's liking. Then the kumo had vanished without a trace, and it didn't matter anymore.

Finally, Naraku had located Tsetsukosei's hideout. Gone were his thoughts of the grandeur and delight he would feel as the new Western Lord...all he wanted was to get Sesshoumaru out of there and run around waving flags until the raven found them so he could get out of this blasted place. It was forever dark, it was dreary, and there wasn't a good cup of tea to be found anywhere.

Slipping from shadow to shadow, Naraku made his way into the heavily concealed fortress. There were only a few guards posted, and almost all were magical automatons such as golems and some mindless undead. Tsetsukosei did not trust living guards to not reveal his whereabouts.

The kumo's ability to mold his body to his will allowed him to easily slither through the cracks in Tsetsukosei's defenses in the way almost no other could. He had timed his assault to one of the rare occasions the dracolich actually left, so he wasn't worried about the confrontation.

Since his reawakening, Naraku had never actually seen Sesshoumaru...but even still, the taiyoukai was unmistakable. Naraku shuddered as he examined the room he had finally located the inu in.

The stone walls were covered in deep claw-marks. Bones were scattered in various places, although there was one small pile arranged carefully in one corner, all of them painted almost wholly with long-dried blood.

Sesshoumaru was sitting in another dark corner, his knees bent up and his forearms resting on them. His long hair was a ragged mess of tarnished silver tangles - it hadn't seen a brush in years, the kumo was willing to bet. Sesshoumaru's clothing was little more than frayed tatters of cloth. He was underweight and his skin was a spiderweb of cuts and scars. Naraku swallowed thickly when Sesshoumaru's head fell slowly to one side and one eye locked on him. The tiniest glint of a toothy smirk shone in the dark. Still...despite the dark and terrible thing this creature had become, it had to be Toga's son.

"Well, hello, Sesshoumaru. I..." Naraku swallowed, unnerved by the lunatic stare. "I have come to get you out of here, to get you home."

Sesshoumaru didn't move or respond, so Naraku cautiously unlocked the door and walked in. Still, the inu made no motion. "You don't look like you're in too good of shape, but I suppose they'll want you back in any case. And without you, I can't get back, so...you'll have to come with me. I'll take you out of here."

There was a gentle clink of chains as Sesshoumaru slowly jerked himself to his feet, still staring at Naraku without blinking. He made no move to approach the door or the kumo.

"You do want to go outside, right? Back home? You know...get some fresh air, sleep in a real bed, see the stars and the moon at night?"

Finally Sesshoumaru spoke, his voice a lilted crack, slightly raspy from long disuse. "The moon is a bitch...we have seen her bleed, and it makes us laugh. Her other children are screaming..." The inu trailed off slowly, muttering before chuckling softly.

Naraku blinked before smiling feebly. "Yes, of course. Can you...er...do you understand me?"

Slowly Sesshoumaru nodded once, his wide grin only growing. "We can understand."

"Good. Will you come with me? I promise, the reward is worth it."

Sesshoumaru walked over slowly and squinted at Naraku. The kumo gasped and tried to jerk backwards as his face was suddenly snared in a clawed grasp, his cheek laid open as Sesshoumaru's talons were torn down its length. Naraku stumbled back a few steps, only to collide with something...Sesshoumaru. The inu had somehow gotten behind him, and he hadn't seen him move.

Sesshoumaru slowly leaned forward and ran his tongue over the deep cut with a soft laugh. Naraku knew, somehow, that fear was something he wasn't used to...he could feel it in how deeply wrong it felt. But this was wholly unnerving. This creature with him was very sick and very, very dangerous. // Maybe I would have been better off trying to find a different way back... //

Naraku slowly extricated himself from the taiyoukai's embrace and made his way out the door. Sesshoumaru shambled after him, muttering quietly to himself and occasionally growling or giggling softly. When they neared the door, he turned to face Sesshoumaru. "There are guards ahead...after that, we'll have to travel swiftly and far to make sure the dragon does not catch wind of us."

"The wind will hold her peace, she is too afraid of what we will do. She has slithered and spoken threats in our ears but now we are free..." Sesshoumaru whispered with a private smile. Before Naraku could respond, the taiyoukai bounded towards the door with complete disregard for the guards, leaving the kumo helpless to do anything except try and keep up.

Between the two of them - although Naraku was incredibly hard-pressed to keep up with the inu - the guards were all destroyed. Once the last golem fell, Sesshoumaru's blur of motion halted abruptly and the inu stumbled and shuffled his way off in a random direction. Naraku stared before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath to try and strengthen his resolve. // Maybe I should have stayed a farmer after all... //