InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Arigatou Project ❯ Vega Sailor ( Chapter 3 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Empatheia 
A rather unusual pairing... I love you Vega Sailor!
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Comedy / Drama / Hentai / Romance / Angst | Type: Vignette | Uploaded On: 02.25.2006 | Updated On: 02.25.2006 | Pages: 4 | Words: 3.2K | Visits: 504 | Status: Work In Progress
A rather unusual pairing... I love you Vega Sailor!
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Comedy / Drama / Hentai / Romance / Angst | Type: Vignette | Uploaded On: 02.25.2006 | Updated On: 02.25.2006 | Pages: 4 | Words: 3.2K | Visits: 504 | Status: Work In Progress
A/N- Okay... it's now three in the morning and I'm freakin' wiped. But it's done. And I think it's less than absolute dung, though I could be wrong. Let me know.
OooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooO
Thank You #3- Vega Sailor
Show: Inuyasha
Pairing: Inutaisho/Ryuukotsusei
Scenario: Before Sesshoumaru's mother, there was...
Lemons: Nope. Amazing.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX OX
Liar
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX
The boy was dying. He stood shaking in a pool of his own blood, holding his sword up with a blue-white arm. The enemies around him, Southron demons and ugly as sin, were less pathetically weak than usual, and many, so that even the boy's extraordinary strength was close to exhausted. His clothing might have once been white.
He was a demon, that much was blindingly clear. Tall and straight-backed, with silver hair nearly to his knees, he was far more beautiful than any human could ever hope to be. There were sharp lacerations of indigo scoring his cheeks in a double-line-- his clan marking. They were also on his wrists and ankles, and less visibly his thighs. There was no possible way to mistake what he was.
The watcher, a demon himself and possibly just as beautiful, stood easily balanced on a swaying tree branch, watching the tragic scene impassively.
One eye swollen half-shut and clogged with blood, the demon boy with moonbeams for hair struggled to keep his sword up. Licking their lips, the hideous inferior demons advanced, hardly even winded. A good three dozen of their kin lay in confused pieces, strewn about the little meadow.
Blood on flower petals, on grass. Red on green and pink and blue. Shining. Reeking of iron and death.
The demon man watched and savored the aura of courage and doom that hung over the meadow. It was intoxicating.
The boy was truly beautiful, like this: standing under the weight of the black sword against the back of his neck. Even still, his eyes like tainted diamonds flashed and whirled, and his teeth were bared and defiant.
The demons advanced.
The watcher found himself caught, unexpectedly, in a dilemma. The boy was far too beautiful to simply die here, without any to witness his glory. And the opponents were not worthy. However, the watcher did not like to involve himself in things like this-- it seemed to spoil the mood, somehow. To let die, or not? An interesting puzzle.
"Hmph," he said to himself, and drew his sword. He was bored anyways.
The boy, as though sensing imminent rescue, seemed to find a reservoir of strength from somewhere and began to flail clumsily with the sword. He could not have been more than four hundred years old. The watcher was not really that much older than him, a few centuries at most, but he was polished where the boy was not; experienced where the boy was raw and untested.
With the ease of long practice, he soared from his tree branch and became a violet and violent comet amidst the inferior ranks of the Southrons. Red complemented his coloring well, and he was rarely averse to covering himself in it. And soon, indeed, he was. It soaked into the tightly furled braids of his deeply purple hair, framed his jewelesque green eyes. Red was a beautiful color. Too bad he was wearing black; blood did not show up well against things darker than it.
It was over quickly. The watcher was mildy disappointed at being denied some decent exercise. For a moment, he wished he could revive the squadron and slaughter them again, more satisfyingly. If wishes were fishes... It was not to be. He sighed and accepted the boringness of the expedition, and then turned to the trembling, defiant boy. Apparently, the boy had lost so much blood he was no longer coherent; he swung his sword with all the desperate strength of those near to death... in the wrong direction. The watcher parried easily despite being taken halfway by surprise.
"Stop waving that around, you're more likely to take your own foot off the way you're carrying on," the watcher said irritably.
The boy's fiery gaze did not diminish in the slightest, but the sword sank to the ground with a thud and did not move again. It was now taking everything he had just to stand.
"I will not... surrender," the boy gasped.
"Surrender? To who? Look around, boy-- there's nobody left to surrender to."
"Chichi-ue," the ragged mouth whispered, seeming to not have heard. "I am sorry." Gracelessly, he collapsed and lay deathly still in a pool of blood and curling moonbeams. The sun labored downwards against its upward impetus. It would set in about an hour, the watcher guessed.
Sighing in a long-suffering way, he hoisted the limp, bony weight of the boy onto his shoulder and set off for shelter. Somewhen, for vague and unimportant reasons, he'd set his mind on saving the boy. Really, truly saving him, in every way possible. When the watcher was done with him, he'd never need saving again.
VvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvV
The boy woke up like the sun rising-- slowly and gloriously. Upon discovering the watcher several feet away, he started convulsively and made as if to draw the sword that was no longer fastened to the belt that was no longer there. His ruined torso was carefully, expertly bound with strips of his own haori, and the sword was lying innocently several feet away.
"Who are you?" the boy cried, fiercely concealing his fear.
Stretching languidly and crossing lean legs, the watcher drawled his answer. "My name, if that's what you meant, is Ryuukotsusei. And you, if I'm not mistaken, are an inuyoukai from the West. You're a long way from home, boy."
The boy drew himself up proudly into a crosslegged position, ignoring the pain. "I am not 'boy'. My name is Inutaisho. And you, if I am not mistaken, are a ryuyoukai from the East. You are also a long ways from home."
Amused, Ryuukotsusei slapped a hand on his armor-clad knee. "That I am, boy. That I am."
"Stinking lizard! Call me by name or suffer the consequences!"
The dragon demon stared for a moment disbelievingly, and then burst into appreciative laughter. "I didn't think people said things like that anymore. How amusing."
Inutaisho flushed a fierce red and averted his face so that his pale locks fell straggling across his cheek. "When Father says those things, it sounds intimidating," he explained sheepishly.
The dragon threw his head back a laughed, long and freely, until tears flowed brightly down his cheeks. "Ah, boy, you are interesting. I'm almost glad I saved you."
"You mean... oh." Kneeling gracefully, Inutaisho bowed deeply. "I thank you for your assistance. Is there a way in which I can repay you?"
Ryuukotsusei raised one thin purple eyebrow and appeared to consider. "Well... if you really want to repay me..."
"I owe you my life. Name your conditions."
The dragon snapped his fingers cheerfully. "Well then! You have to let me train you for one year."
Seeing the utterly confused look on the gangly dog demon's angular face, he explained further.
"If I ever have to rescue you again, I don't want to have to worry about losing my head to your sword."
Gratifyingly, Inutaisho blushed.
"I agree... sensei."
A broad, toothy smile devoured Ryuukotsusei's sharp face. "Good. Pick up your sword."
"Now?"
"Something stopping you?"
"N-no, sir." The boy, still pale enough for every blue vein to show through clearly, picked up his sword in a shaking clawed hand and stood. “Ready whenever you are... sensei.”
Vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv vvvvvvvvvvvvV
Steel-pink dawns and ringing conflict. Booming voices and fierce ones, echoing through cavernous dewdrops.
"Why are you traveling?" Ryuukotsusei asked his student one day.
"Why are you?" Inutaisho replied quietly-- and that was the end of that.
Most of the time, everything important to say could be said through the singing of folded steel and the harsh gasp of overtaxed breath. The other times, when the language of death was not enough, they stumbled around on tottering words and lost sight of whatever it had been that was so important in the first place.
The days were clean days.
VvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvV
When next they saw each other, it was centuries later. The boy had grown and lost all of his gangly ungrace, and the dragon had gained something of sobriety.
"Sensei!" Inutaisho gasped, when he caught sight of the distinctive violet braids and flashing green eyes.
"Boy!" Ryuukotsusei cried, boisterously overjoyed to see his favorite pupil again. Then he stopped, perplexed. Something had changed-- the teasing nickname no longer felt right. "Inutaisho," he corrected, and frowned. Interesting.
The years had made them both more beautiful, but Inutaisho especially. Where before he had been all graceless limbs and awkward height, now he was exactly proportioned muscle and sinew. Where before his face had held something of childish softness and innocence, now there were only angles and strength. He was glorious in his adulthood, and Ryuukotsusei stood for a moment in silence to appreciate it.
He did not know what the years had done to him- elongated lines that once were cramped, created lines and furrows where before there had been only carefree expanses of innocent skin. Change had not left him alone and unblemished, either.
"What are you doing here?" Inutaisho asked, once he found his voice.
"I'm an emissary," Ryuukotsusei answered with not a little pride. "My brother sent me to negotiate with the Westlord, your father. Inutaisho, have you been well?"
Inutaisho nodded shortly, then hesitated before saying quietly "As well as could be expected."
Ryuukotsusei raised an eyebrow questioningly. It may have only been a year, but he knew his student very well. "What does that mean, exactly?"
"Nothing," the bright-haired man-child answered, a little too quickly to be convincing. "Do not concern yourself with my problems."
"So you do have a problem," the dragon said with satisfaction. "Come on, let's go for a walk. You wouldn't have mentioned it if it you didn't want to talk about it, so let's go."
Accustomed from long months of training to obeying that voice without question, Inutaisho fell into line behind his savior and teacher with hardly a murmur of protest.
When they were far enough away from the compound walls to avoid eavesdroppers, Ryuukotsusei rounded on his pupil and narrowed his eyes. "Now, out with it!"
Inutaisho lowered his head and pretended to find the ground very interesting. "Honestly, sensei, it is nothing you need be concerned about. Family issues, that is all."
The dragon narrowed his eyes ferociously and cracked his knuckles. "I don't remember asking you if you wanted to tell me," he growled, low and dangerous.
Inutaisho gulped and tensed his muscles. "Like I said, it is nothing major-- my father did not take it too kindly when I vanished for a year without contact or explanation. He was most... displeased, when I returned at last."
Displeased.. furious, more like.
"And...?" Ryuukotsusei prompted. "Then what?"
"He beat me," Inutaisho said simply. "Of course. And ever since then, he has made his displeasure known at every possible opportunity. He was never one to praise me, but of late he has been almost cruel in his actions and attitudes. It is... distressing." The dog demon narrowed his eyes and stared into the sun. "I am sorry to have mentioned it. It does not involve you."
"Inutaisho."
"Yes, sensei?"
Ryuukotsusei looked away and thought for a moment before answering. "Do you deserve the things he says and does?"
Silver hair fell in a concealing curtain as the dog demon thought. "Well... not really, no."
"They why," the dragon snarled, seething, "do you allow him to speak to you like that?"
Inutaisho's head snapped up in surprise. "Why, he is my father! How can I speak back to him? It would be disrespectful!"
"He has done nothing to earn your respect that I can see, Inutaisho. Therefore, you have no reason to accord it to him. Listen to me." Striding over and seizing Inutaisho's shoulders, he stared deep into the anguished golden eyes. "No student of mine may bow down and accept such abuse to their honor. Stand and act like the man I taught. I do not know this sniveling weakling-- where is my student?"
"Sensei..." Inutaisho whispered, stricken.
"Don't look at me like I'm crazy. It only makes sense-- if he has done nothing worthy of respect, then you are under no obligation to reward him with it. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, sensei! But...”
“I don't like that word. But, what?”
“But... I am not certain that I am strong enough to stand against him. If he should choose to retaliate...”
The sentence was cut short as Ryuukotsusei soundly cuffed the young man's ear. “Useless fear! If you can't even face this enemy, what are you going to do when something truly dangerous comes along? Cry and run for your mother's skirts? Come on, Inutaisho, I know you're better than this.”
A long silent moment, full of truth and fear and trust.
“Wait for me here?” Inutaisho said at last, quiet and resigned.
“Where else?”
That earned a smile, though a small and painful one. The dog demon straightened strong young shoulders and walked back the way he'd come. The dragon sat in the exact same place as he'd been standing in and waited.
VvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvV
When Inutaisho returned, he was hardly recognizable through the swollen flesh and new, strange darkness of his aura. He staggered through the night-dark woods and fell brokenly into Ryuukotsusei's shocked arms.
“I feel wonderful,” he croaked through a half-crushed windpipe. “I have truly never felt better.” He slumped into the blessed oblivion, smiling all the way.
Ryuukotsusei curled around him protectively, blazingly proud and achingly helpless all at once. He had never thought it would go this far. The Lord of the West had a reputation for cruelty, but somehow the dragon had believed he would restrain himself when it came to his son. He'd never been so sorry to be wrong.
“Oh, Taisho,” he whispered into bloodsoaked moonbeams. “I'm sorry, so sorry.”
“Don't... apologize,” a muffled voice answered, to his surprise. Apparently, the dog demon was not quite so unconscious as originally thought. “I told you, I feel wonderful. I stood up to him, and though he beat my body he could not reach the things that were important at all. He was... impotent. I was, in the end, stronger.”
Ryuukotsusei thought he might burst with pride. Though the body of his beloved student lay broken, his spirit had been forged and sharpened into something beautiful by the event he'd just survived. “I'm proud of you,” he said out loud, unable to restrain the burgeoning thing in his chest.
“Really?” Inutaisho said faintly. “That makes me very... happy.”
“Idiot.”
“Why? Praise from someone you respect should make you happy, shouldn't it?”
“You're all bloody and torn up because of what I told you to do, and instead of being resentful, you're happy! Idiot!”
Inutaisho laughed painfully, and turned to rest his head on Ryuukotsusei's folded knees. The dragon threaded his fingers into the silver hair he loved so much and bit back tears.
“It does not hurt, not much anyways. Please, do not worry. A good night's sleep and I'll be halfway healed already.”
“Idiot,” Ryuukotsusei repeated half-heartedly. “You're so stupid.”
“Yes,” Inutaisho rasped. “By your definitions, very stupid indeed.”
They sat that way for a long while, both breathing raggedly and fighting back the pain.
Inutaisho lifted a long pale hand and found the dragon's tanned and scarred one. “Your knees are more comfortable than I might have thought.”
“Your head is less heavy than I might have thought,” the dragon replied quietly, understanding.
“Ryuukotsusei,” Inutaisho said. A first-- always before, he'd adhered strictly to the respectful honorific sensei.
The dragon stiffened a little at the sound, and closed his eyes.
“Can I stay here, just for tonight? For some reason, I do not want to be anywhere else very much, right now.”
“I'm not going anywhere, do what you will.”
“Then I will stay.”
And the dragon was glad.
VvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvV
The next time they met, nine years later, there was nothing left of innocence in either of them.
“Ryuukotsusei.”
“Inutaisho.” ;
A long pause, while they ordered everything between them into a bridge and remembered how to cross.
“....Stinking lizard, where have you been?”
“Mangy dog! Conquering, of course! Where else would I be?”
They smiled and fell into being together because it was natural and right that they should.
“The world has grown boring indeed when I miss you, scaly worm.”
“Ha! I felt no such weak emotion! You have grown soft, old friend!”
Inutaisho smiled, a secret, deep smile that Ryuukotsusei felt in the little tendons of his spine.
“Liar.”
And he was.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX
A/N- There you go, Vega Sailor. Sorry for torturing you. I hope you liked it! As requested- love not lemons. And now, somehow, I am in love with this pairing. Pat yourself on the back for that, and for being an awesome reviewer and artist and friend and everything. You rule.
OooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooO
Thank You #3- Vega Sailor
Show: Inuyasha
Pairing: Inutaisho/Ryuukotsusei
Scenario: Before Sesshoumaru's mother, there was...
Lemons: Nope. Amazing.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX OX
Liar
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX
The boy was dying. He stood shaking in a pool of his own blood, holding his sword up with a blue-white arm. The enemies around him, Southron demons and ugly as sin, were less pathetically weak than usual, and many, so that even the boy's extraordinary strength was close to exhausted. His clothing might have once been white.
He was a demon, that much was blindingly clear. Tall and straight-backed, with silver hair nearly to his knees, he was far more beautiful than any human could ever hope to be. There were sharp lacerations of indigo scoring his cheeks in a double-line-- his clan marking. They were also on his wrists and ankles, and less visibly his thighs. There was no possible way to mistake what he was.
The watcher, a demon himself and possibly just as beautiful, stood easily balanced on a swaying tree branch, watching the tragic scene impassively.
One eye swollen half-shut and clogged with blood, the demon boy with moonbeams for hair struggled to keep his sword up. Licking their lips, the hideous inferior demons advanced, hardly even winded. A good three dozen of their kin lay in confused pieces, strewn about the little meadow.
Blood on flower petals, on grass. Red on green and pink and blue. Shining. Reeking of iron and death.
The demon man watched and savored the aura of courage and doom that hung over the meadow. It was intoxicating.
The boy was truly beautiful, like this: standing under the weight of the black sword against the back of his neck. Even still, his eyes like tainted diamonds flashed and whirled, and his teeth were bared and defiant.
The demons advanced.
The watcher found himself caught, unexpectedly, in a dilemma. The boy was far too beautiful to simply die here, without any to witness his glory. And the opponents were not worthy. However, the watcher did not like to involve himself in things like this-- it seemed to spoil the mood, somehow. To let die, or not? An interesting puzzle.
"Hmph," he said to himself, and drew his sword. He was bored anyways.
The boy, as though sensing imminent rescue, seemed to find a reservoir of strength from somewhere and began to flail clumsily with the sword. He could not have been more than four hundred years old. The watcher was not really that much older than him, a few centuries at most, but he was polished where the boy was not; experienced where the boy was raw and untested.
With the ease of long practice, he soared from his tree branch and became a violet and violent comet amidst the inferior ranks of the Southrons. Red complemented his coloring well, and he was rarely averse to covering himself in it. And soon, indeed, he was. It soaked into the tightly furled braids of his deeply purple hair, framed his jewelesque green eyes. Red was a beautiful color. Too bad he was wearing black; blood did not show up well against things darker than it.
It was over quickly. The watcher was mildy disappointed at being denied some decent exercise. For a moment, he wished he could revive the squadron and slaughter them again, more satisfyingly. If wishes were fishes... It was not to be. He sighed and accepted the boringness of the expedition, and then turned to the trembling, defiant boy. Apparently, the boy had lost so much blood he was no longer coherent; he swung his sword with all the desperate strength of those near to death... in the wrong direction. The watcher parried easily despite being taken halfway by surprise.
"Stop waving that around, you're more likely to take your own foot off the way you're carrying on," the watcher said irritably.
The boy's fiery gaze did not diminish in the slightest, but the sword sank to the ground with a thud and did not move again. It was now taking everything he had just to stand.
"I will not... surrender," the boy gasped.
"Surrender? To who? Look around, boy-- there's nobody left to surrender to."
"Chichi-ue," the ragged mouth whispered, seeming to not have heard. "I am sorry." Gracelessly, he collapsed and lay deathly still in a pool of blood and curling moonbeams. The sun labored downwards against its upward impetus. It would set in about an hour, the watcher guessed.
Sighing in a long-suffering way, he hoisted the limp, bony weight of the boy onto his shoulder and set off for shelter. Somewhen, for vague and unimportant reasons, he'd set his mind on saving the boy. Really, truly saving him, in every way possible. When the watcher was done with him, he'd never need saving again.
VvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvV
The boy woke up like the sun rising-- slowly and gloriously. Upon discovering the watcher several feet away, he started convulsively and made as if to draw the sword that was no longer fastened to the belt that was no longer there. His ruined torso was carefully, expertly bound with strips of his own haori, and the sword was lying innocently several feet away.
"Who are you?" the boy cried, fiercely concealing his fear.
Stretching languidly and crossing lean legs, the watcher drawled his answer. "My name, if that's what you meant, is Ryuukotsusei. And you, if I'm not mistaken, are an inuyoukai from the West. You're a long way from home, boy."
The boy drew himself up proudly into a crosslegged position, ignoring the pain. "I am not 'boy'. My name is Inutaisho. And you, if I am not mistaken, are a ryuyoukai from the East. You are also a long ways from home."
Amused, Ryuukotsusei slapped a hand on his armor-clad knee. "That I am, boy. That I am."
"Stinking lizard! Call me by name or suffer the consequences!"
The dragon demon stared for a moment disbelievingly, and then burst into appreciative laughter. "I didn't think people said things like that anymore. How amusing."
Inutaisho flushed a fierce red and averted his face so that his pale locks fell straggling across his cheek. "When Father says those things, it sounds intimidating," he explained sheepishly.
The dragon threw his head back a laughed, long and freely, until tears flowed brightly down his cheeks. "Ah, boy, you are interesting. I'm almost glad I saved you."
"You mean... oh." Kneeling gracefully, Inutaisho bowed deeply. "I thank you for your assistance. Is there a way in which I can repay you?"
Ryuukotsusei raised one thin purple eyebrow and appeared to consider. "Well... if you really want to repay me..."
"I owe you my life. Name your conditions."
The dragon snapped his fingers cheerfully. "Well then! You have to let me train you for one year."
Seeing the utterly confused look on the gangly dog demon's angular face, he explained further.
"If I ever have to rescue you again, I don't want to have to worry about losing my head to your sword."
Gratifyingly, Inutaisho blushed.
"I agree... sensei."
A broad, toothy smile devoured Ryuukotsusei's sharp face. "Good. Pick up your sword."
"Now?"
"Something stopping you?"
"N-no, sir." The boy, still pale enough for every blue vein to show through clearly, picked up his sword in a shaking clawed hand and stood. “Ready whenever you are... sensei.”
Vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv vvvvvvvvvvvvV
Steel-pink dawns and ringing conflict. Booming voices and fierce ones, echoing through cavernous dewdrops.
"Why are you traveling?" Ryuukotsusei asked his student one day.
"Why are you?" Inutaisho replied quietly-- and that was the end of that.
Most of the time, everything important to say could be said through the singing of folded steel and the harsh gasp of overtaxed breath. The other times, when the language of death was not enough, they stumbled around on tottering words and lost sight of whatever it had been that was so important in the first place.
The days were clean days.
VvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvV
When next they saw each other, it was centuries later. The boy had grown and lost all of his gangly ungrace, and the dragon had gained something of sobriety.
"Sensei!" Inutaisho gasped, when he caught sight of the distinctive violet braids and flashing green eyes.
"Boy!" Ryuukotsusei cried, boisterously overjoyed to see his favorite pupil again. Then he stopped, perplexed. Something had changed-- the teasing nickname no longer felt right. "Inutaisho," he corrected, and frowned. Interesting.
The years had made them both more beautiful, but Inutaisho especially. Where before he had been all graceless limbs and awkward height, now he was exactly proportioned muscle and sinew. Where before his face had held something of childish softness and innocence, now there were only angles and strength. He was glorious in his adulthood, and Ryuukotsusei stood for a moment in silence to appreciate it.
He did not know what the years had done to him- elongated lines that once were cramped, created lines and furrows where before there had been only carefree expanses of innocent skin. Change had not left him alone and unblemished, either.
"What are you doing here?" Inutaisho asked, once he found his voice.
"I'm an emissary," Ryuukotsusei answered with not a little pride. "My brother sent me to negotiate with the Westlord, your father. Inutaisho, have you been well?"
Inutaisho nodded shortly, then hesitated before saying quietly "As well as could be expected."
Ryuukotsusei raised an eyebrow questioningly. It may have only been a year, but he knew his student very well. "What does that mean, exactly?"
"Nothing," the bright-haired man-child answered, a little too quickly to be convincing. "Do not concern yourself with my problems."
"So you do have a problem," the dragon said with satisfaction. "Come on, let's go for a walk. You wouldn't have mentioned it if it you didn't want to talk about it, so let's go."
Accustomed from long months of training to obeying that voice without question, Inutaisho fell into line behind his savior and teacher with hardly a murmur of protest.
When they were far enough away from the compound walls to avoid eavesdroppers, Ryuukotsusei rounded on his pupil and narrowed his eyes. "Now, out with it!"
Inutaisho lowered his head and pretended to find the ground very interesting. "Honestly, sensei, it is nothing you need be concerned about. Family issues, that is all."
The dragon narrowed his eyes ferociously and cracked his knuckles. "I don't remember asking you if you wanted to tell me," he growled, low and dangerous.
Inutaisho gulped and tensed his muscles. "Like I said, it is nothing major-- my father did not take it too kindly when I vanished for a year without contact or explanation. He was most... displeased, when I returned at last."
Displeased.. furious, more like.
"And...?" Ryuukotsusei prompted. "Then what?"
"He beat me," Inutaisho said simply. "Of course. And ever since then, he has made his displeasure known at every possible opportunity. He was never one to praise me, but of late he has been almost cruel in his actions and attitudes. It is... distressing." The dog demon narrowed his eyes and stared into the sun. "I am sorry to have mentioned it. It does not involve you."
"Inutaisho."
"Yes, sensei?"
Ryuukotsusei looked away and thought for a moment before answering. "Do you deserve the things he says and does?"
Silver hair fell in a concealing curtain as the dog demon thought. "Well... not really, no."
"They why," the dragon snarled, seething, "do you allow him to speak to you like that?"
Inutaisho's head snapped up in surprise. "Why, he is my father! How can I speak back to him? It would be disrespectful!"
"He has done nothing to earn your respect that I can see, Inutaisho. Therefore, you have no reason to accord it to him. Listen to me." Striding over and seizing Inutaisho's shoulders, he stared deep into the anguished golden eyes. "No student of mine may bow down and accept such abuse to their honor. Stand and act like the man I taught. I do not know this sniveling weakling-- where is my student?"
"Sensei..." Inutaisho whispered, stricken.
"Don't look at me like I'm crazy. It only makes sense-- if he has done nothing worthy of respect, then you are under no obligation to reward him with it. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, sensei! But...”
“I don't like that word. But, what?”
“But... I am not certain that I am strong enough to stand against him. If he should choose to retaliate...”
The sentence was cut short as Ryuukotsusei soundly cuffed the young man's ear. “Useless fear! If you can't even face this enemy, what are you going to do when something truly dangerous comes along? Cry and run for your mother's skirts? Come on, Inutaisho, I know you're better than this.”
A long silent moment, full of truth and fear and trust.
“Wait for me here?” Inutaisho said at last, quiet and resigned.
“Where else?”
That earned a smile, though a small and painful one. The dog demon straightened strong young shoulders and walked back the way he'd come. The dragon sat in the exact same place as he'd been standing in and waited.
VvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvV
When Inutaisho returned, he was hardly recognizable through the swollen flesh and new, strange darkness of his aura. He staggered through the night-dark woods and fell brokenly into Ryuukotsusei's shocked arms.
“I feel wonderful,” he croaked through a half-crushed windpipe. “I have truly never felt better.” He slumped into the blessed oblivion, smiling all the way.
Ryuukotsusei curled around him protectively, blazingly proud and achingly helpless all at once. He had never thought it would go this far. The Lord of the West had a reputation for cruelty, but somehow the dragon had believed he would restrain himself when it came to his son. He'd never been so sorry to be wrong.
“Oh, Taisho,” he whispered into bloodsoaked moonbeams. “I'm sorry, so sorry.”
“Don't... apologize,” a muffled voice answered, to his surprise. Apparently, the dog demon was not quite so unconscious as originally thought. “I told you, I feel wonderful. I stood up to him, and though he beat my body he could not reach the things that were important at all. He was... impotent. I was, in the end, stronger.”
Ryuukotsusei thought he might burst with pride. Though the body of his beloved student lay broken, his spirit had been forged and sharpened into something beautiful by the event he'd just survived. “I'm proud of you,” he said out loud, unable to restrain the burgeoning thing in his chest.
“Really?” Inutaisho said faintly. “That makes me very... happy.”
“Idiot.”
“Why? Praise from someone you respect should make you happy, shouldn't it?”
“You're all bloody and torn up because of what I told you to do, and instead of being resentful, you're happy! Idiot!”
Inutaisho laughed painfully, and turned to rest his head on Ryuukotsusei's folded knees. The dragon threaded his fingers into the silver hair he loved so much and bit back tears.
“It does not hurt, not much anyways. Please, do not worry. A good night's sleep and I'll be halfway healed already.”
“Idiot,” Ryuukotsusei repeated half-heartedly. “You're so stupid.”
“Yes,” Inutaisho rasped. “By your definitions, very stupid indeed.”
They sat that way for a long while, both breathing raggedly and fighting back the pain.
Inutaisho lifted a long pale hand and found the dragon's tanned and scarred one. “Your knees are more comfortable than I might have thought.”
“Your head is less heavy than I might have thought,” the dragon replied quietly, understanding.
“Ryuukotsusei,” Inutaisho said. A first-- always before, he'd adhered strictly to the respectful honorific sensei.
The dragon stiffened a little at the sound, and closed his eyes.
“Can I stay here, just for tonight? For some reason, I do not want to be anywhere else very much, right now.”
“I'm not going anywhere, do what you will.”
“Then I will stay.”
And the dragon was glad.
VvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvV
The next time they met, nine years later, there was nothing left of innocence in either of them.
“Ryuukotsusei.”
“Inutaisho.” ;
A long pause, while they ordered everything between them into a bridge and remembered how to cross.
“....Stinking lizard, where have you been?”
“Mangy dog! Conquering, of course! Where else would I be?”
They smiled and fell into being together because it was natural and right that they should.
“The world has grown boring indeed when I miss you, scaly worm.”
“Ha! I felt no such weak emotion! You have grown soft, old friend!”
Inutaisho smiled, a secret, deep smile that Ryuukotsusei felt in the little tendons of his spine.
“Liar.”
And he was.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX
A/N- There you go, Vega Sailor. Sorry for torturing you. I hope you liked it! As requested- love not lemons. And now, somehow, I am in love with this pairing. Pat yourself on the back for that, and for being an awesome reviewer and artist and friend and everything. You rule.