InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Demon Game ❯ Chapter 5: A Little Time to Heal ( Chapter 5 )

Chapter 5: A Little Time to Heal

Don't Own Inu-Yasha, don't report me

Early morning, I walked over to Rin's and checked on her to see if she's alright, to my surprise, she wasn't there. I started to panic but regained composure.

`Get a hold of yourself, you are the great Sesshoumaru-sama, do not panic just because a little girl is not where she should be.' I scolded myself.

I sniffed the air a little and knew instantly she was in Haruna's room, I allowed myself a rare smile; it was nice to see that Rin was already confiding in Haruna for comfort instead of screaming for me. I might actually get some work done this way. I couldn't but help feel a pang of jealousy at the thought of her not needing me as much, but pushed it away and decided to check up on them.

As I neared Rin's playroom (the room Haruna was staying in), I could hear Haruna telling Rin a story, Rin always loved stories, but I unfortunately ran out of them awhile back and had to keep repeating them upon request, though I really was getting tired of telling them…

Haruna must have heard me approaching as she ran up to me, still in her sleepwear, with a look that told me she requested something.

"Sesshoumaru-sama, Rin and I were wondering if we could go outside and perhaps explore a little, I would like to teach her about edible fruits and maybe I could bake a pie when we come back." she asked.

"Well, I suppose…" I agreed, Rin's face lit up again and I couldn't help but feel a bit excited as well.

I led them to the kitchen where Haruna got two small buckets and two large ones, I took them outside where I formed a dust cloud, taking us to the forest. Upon arriving, Rin ran ahead and got Haruna to chase her, they ran like that for a while, the girl never letting Rin get out of my line of vision. Finally, the girl started to look at bushes and finally found a couple with different fruits. She sat down next to them and started to tell Rin about which ones were good or bad and then worked on identifying them and picking the edible ones clean.

In a matter of moments, they had finished filling the buckets and were carrying them back to me. I was amazed at their speed, especially both being human girls. Rin held out her hand, offering one to me, I hesitated, turning to Haruna, she nodded. I put it into my moth and chewed thoughtfully, while Rin was shoving handfuls onto her mouth. I decided that they were exceptionally sweet for the season and nodded an approval at Haruna, who was delighted.

"These two large buckets here…" she showed me the buckets, "…are for making jam, something to spread on bread, or to dry. The dried ones can then be baked in the bread itself or used to preserve into an edible snack." she explained, I nodded, amazed by her logic.

"What are the small buckets for?" I questioned.

"One is for making pie and the other is for eating, I suspect Rin will have that covered by the end of the day!" she replied, smiling sweetly.

I nodded and picked up the two large buckets, Haruna gasped in surprise.

"You honestly didn't think I would let you carry all that, did you?" I asked.

"Well, yes…" she admitted.

"Carry those two small ones." I ordered and she smiled again, obligingly picking the buckets, the dust cloud started to form and we were carried back up to the palace.

"If I knew you would help, I would have brought more…" she said, mainly to herself.

"That's exactly why I didn't tell you." I replied, her eyes darkened in anger, and she frowned, only that it looked more like a pout, causing me to chuckle to myself.

"What's so funny?" she demanded.

"Nothing." I lied.

I let her sulk to herself to a moment, but she was only mad for about three seconds flat before she started to chatter mindlessly with Rin.

`Great, now I have to listen to two voices instead of one.' I thought, grinning to myself at the prospect of having two Rins. My mind started to wander and I brought me back to the bath, I didn't concentrate much of how she looked and more of what she said.

Flashback:

"Well, while you were reaching for the soap, I had a pretty good view of what you were trying to hide. And I must say, most women would try to expose as mush of themselves as possible to me if they had a body like yours." I commented, trying not to mean what I said, I saw her face turn red and chuckled at her reaction.

"I am not most women, and anyways, why would I even show my body to anyone, and of all people, you?" she replied coolly after a quick recovery.

End Flash back

For some reason, I felt the need to prove to her that she would, but maybe that was just the steam getting to my head, she's a young human, I'm a demon who's hundreds of years old, it would never work, in age, race, and pride. I always hated humans, but in the short time of twelve hours, she somehow proven herself more worthy than any demon I've never met in my life thus far.

"Sesshoumaru-sama?" Haruna asked, touching my arm in concern.

"What?" I snapped, I hated being interrupted, she looked as if I had slapped her and pulled away, her eyes started to water.

"I…I was just worried because we are suspended in mid air at the top of a mountain…" she faltered, a tear escaped from her eye. I saw she was desperately trying to hold it back, "Oh great, you probably think I'm a crybaby now…" she said bitterly.

"I'm sorry." I said, I was just as shocked as Haruna when those words escaped from my mouth.

"It-it's okay." she said, awed.

I willed myself not to look at her while I got the cloud moving again, who knows what might have happened.

Thankfully, Rin was unaware of that awkward moment and was still humming the song Haruna taught her while picking berries.

We landed and I excused myself, leaving at once for my quarters to ponder the sudden outburst.

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Haruna's POV: Then…

I was stunned that he would apologized to me, ME, not any girl, but me! The girl nobody notices, and him being the supreme ruler of the western lands and all… I was shocked and was just about to ponder his age when Rin begged me to tell her another story. I decided to tell her about Cinderella, subconsciously picturing Sesshoumaru as my prince. I admit I had built up some walls to keep me from the last time I fell head over heels in love. I was in the ninth grade, just a freshman, a boy in grade twelve had asked me to go out with him. Not only was he popular, and good looking, but he was a football player too! I was immediately entranced by him but found out his intentions (he just wants to screw -_-;) the only reason he went for me was because my head was too far in the clouds to notice. Good thing he never got his way, because I finally was convinced by the last girl he dumped after using her and finally I left him. After that, I couldn't help but feel that way about all guys being that way. And Sesshoumaru no different, he's probably even worse… I suddenly realized that and started to build the walls again, but letting a window of possibility shine through. Plus, my father and mother got separated and he got another woman pregnant, she died in childbirth and we got landed with him and a kid brother after mom let him come back. That just made me build more walls…

I was pulled out of my thoughts by Sesshoumaru entering the room, I couldn't bring myself to look at him, afraid I might start liking him again. He must have noticed the silence because Rin had drifted off to sleep and I was deep in thought, looking at the ceiling, trying to be intrigued by the patterns.

"Haruna…" he started, my heart did a flip, `He said my name… NO! Get a hold of yourself, girl!' I thought.

"What is it, Sesshoumaru-sama?" I asked.

"You can just call me Sesshoumaru if you want…" he said, sounding defeated.

`Why the heck is he doing this to me?!' I thought, my heart ached a little.

As if he could read my thoughts, he walked over and sat down next to me, I turned away.

"Why can't you look at me?" he asked, this time putting a hand on my shoulder.

"Because…" I started, tears filled my eyes again.

"What is troubling you?" he asked.

"Why do you care now, all of a sudden?" I asked.

"Because…Haruna, you've earned my respect." he replied.

"Do you promise never to tell this to anyone, or think of me any less?" I asked.

"There is nothing you can do to lose my respect once you have gained it." he promised.

I poured out entire story to him, about my family and my encounter and my hopes and dreams of traveling the world as a photographer, as well as the one of true love. I knew that he would not tell a soul, because he is true to his word and that it wouldn't matter, because I would probably be leaving and never coming back once Inu-Yasha hands over the sword. As I poured out the story and many tears, I felt like a weight was lifted and my heart was slowly starting to heal.

He nodded in understanding and told me of his family mess, it seemed our stories were alike, yet the positions are only somewhat different.

I sighed and looked up at him "Are all guys like that?" I asked.

"I haven't met all the men in the world, but I'm guessing, no." he replied.

"Why?" I asked.

"Well, I know I'm not." he replied, I looked slightly suspicious.

I felt a tug at my heart, it hurt to know that no matter how good he might be, he was a bloodthirsty demon, and that it would never work out.

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Sesshoumaru's POV: Then…

I watched emotions flicker across her face: suspicion, hope, then pain.

To my dismay, she started to cry, I didn't know what to do, but I had to do something. I reached over and did something highly spontaneous; I hugged her tightly, not wanting to see her like this, not hurt. She seemed to be as surprised as I was, but hugged me back. I had no idea what to do next, so I just let what ever happens to happen.

"Haruna, why must you cry?" I asked.

"Why do you tell me that you won't hurt me and everything I've ever wanted to hear from a person in my entire life when you know that I can never fall in love with you?" she asked.

"I just wanted to comfort you." I replied, it struck me that she might have thought about it the wrong way, she pulled away.

"So you never meant it to be…" she trailed off, "So when you said you weren't one of those guys, you just wanted a friend?" she asked, pain filled her eyes again, I was about to reach out to comfort her again when…

A crash could be heard and Inu-Yasha charged through the wall, then became frozen in shock.

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Normal POV: Meanwhile…

Inu-Yasha was going at top speed, running alongside the giant Kilala with all the people on it. They arrived in a matter of moments, since they were nearby, and barged in, right when Sesshoumaru reached out to comfort Haruna, who was crying again. To Inu-Yasha's relief, no harm was done, and the only thing wrong was that Haruna was crying her eyes out, another wrong thing was that Sesshoumaru was sitting next to her, ACTUALLY comforting her with a hand on her shoulder. Upon seeing Inu-Yasha's arrival, he tenderly kissed Haruna on the forehead and went into a protective stance, blocking both Haruna and Rin from view.

Kagome reached there in time to see him kiss Haruna on the forehead and block them, Sango, however, came later and was not effected by the shock. She aimed her boomerang and threw it, it missed by an inch and, when she noticed no one was attacking, retreated next to Kagome.

"Why isn't anyone attacking?" she whispered to Kagome, Sesshoumaru was growling at all of them, his eyes starting to turn red.

"You missed this, but the shock value isn't the same if I told you. Let's just say, we misjudged him." Kagome replied.

Sesshoumaru, however, had taken the liberty of pinning Inu-Yasha to the wall, to everybody's shock again.

"Sesshoumaru…" Haruna whispered, reaching out to calm him.

Sesshoumaru growled even louder and his eyes flashed red. She whimpered and pulled away as if she'd been slapped, she'd never seen anyone like this before.

As he heard a whimper that seemed to come from Haruna he completely snapped out of it, dropping Inu-Yasha to the ground.

Inu-Yasha got up and went into a defensive stance.

Sesshoumaru turned around to see Haruna crying once more. Walking over to her he saw she was cowering, she flinched a little when he reached out to put a hand on her shoulder. She tried to pull away, but he pulled her into a hug, holding her tightly to calm her down.

The whole room was dead silent, watching the great Sesshoumaru-sama backing down from a fight to calm down a little human girl. Inu-Yasha smirked, but Kagome mumbled `Sit' before he could comment, pulling him to the ground by the neck.

"I'm so sorry, I had promised to myself I would not snap at you again, I have not only failed you, but myself as well, please forgive me…" he whispered into her ear.

"I will." was all she said.

Sesshoumaru realized that all eyes were on him now and a low growl escaped from his throat, causing everyone else to look at the `interesting' ceiling.

Haruna was back to her own happy self in a matter of three seconds flat.

"So! I know it's not in my place, but would anyone care to have some pie?" she asked, Sesshoumaru chuckled and pulled away, allowing her to leave the room.

"So why did you all come here, I don't think it's just to have pie, right?" he asked, glaring.

"Well, we did come to save Haruna, but it turned out it was Inu-Yasha that had to be saved, not her!" Kagome said, smiling.

"Well, as you can probably see, she is happy here and would probably not wish to go back." Sesshoumaru stated.

"Yeah, I guess we didn't think that you would have a different motive other then the Tetseiga." Sango added.

"That was my motive, originally, but Rin is quite drawn to Haruna and I guess the happiness of Rin couldn't be traded for a sword." he replied.

"Who's Rin?" Kagome asked, a little bounded in at the sound of her name.

"Sesshoumaru-sama, are we having guests for dinner?" she asked hopefully.

Not wanting to burst her bubble, he nodded, she squealed in delight and proceeded to hug everybody in the room.

Haruna came back with pies and some tea, she sliced it up and served the tea while there was an awkward silence in the room. Everyone was eyeing Sesshoumaru with suspicion and Shippou was cowering behind Kagome.

Haruna knew this would happen and started the conversation with news.

"Kagome, you haven't by chance gone back to the well…" she asked.

"Yes, actually, it's quite good that you asked, Ryoku had brought some things for me to bring." she replied, reaching in her backpack and pulling out a rather large parcel, everyone noticed a look of jealousy cross the lord's face.

"Did you, perhaps, happen to mention that she was kidnapped by Inu-Yasha's older half-brother?" Sesshoumaru asked, to everyone's surprise, everyone probably guessed it was a make-up for the sudden outburst earlier.

"Yes, I did, he actually seemed quite excited and asked her to get him an autograph!" she replied.

"I think I'll wait for the next full moon." Haruna replied, Sesshoumaru looked confused, "It was part of an experiment, but we still haven't worked out how to get back yet." she explained.

"Will you be getting back soon?" he asked, concerned.

"I should hope not, at least not until school starts, but I could work that out if you're willing to keep me." Haruna replied, hopefully, it caused him to shift uncomfortably in his seat.

After everything was cleared out by servants, everyone took to watching Rin and Shippou exchange hellos and play with each other, since neither came across other children much. Shippou soon got comfortable with having Sesshoumaru in the room after awhile.

"You're actually a nice guy if you weren't yelling `die Inu-Yasha' and trying to kill us all." Kagome joked.

"Let it be known that a truce is called, however, everything will return to normal once you leave these grounds." Sesshoumaru stated.

"But what about if they were to be in distress?" Haruna asked.

"Then, I would help them, if you wish so, I also won't try to kill anyone other than Inu-Yasha unless they get in my way, since they are your friends." he replied, Shippou gave a very audible sigh of relief causing everyone but Shippou to laugh.

"Wow, I've never seen this side of you before." Kagome commented.

"Don't get used to it, I'll be yelling `die Inu-Yasha' again very soon." he replied, with a serious face in his most condescending tone, everyone laughed except Rin, Shippou and Inu-Yasha who didn't get it.

Everything seemed to sink into slow motion and it turned peaceful, watching Rin and Shippou chase each other around.

Rin stopped and said "Shippou, there really is nothing for you to be ascared of, Rin thinks Shippou-chan should go say hi to Sesshoumaru-sama."

Shippou, wanting to keep chasing her, walked a shyly over to Sesshoumaru, looking like a scared mouse. This, indeed, left lord Sesshoumaru in a very uncomfortable situation. He did want to greet the little fox child because of Haruna, but there were others watching, having a different personality was hard! Upon hearing Haruna and Rin's laughter at the situation, he decided to go on with it, if he was going to get ridiculed either way it might as well make both of them happy.

He sighed and looked down at the little kitsune, he squeaked and looked as if to run away. He slowly reached out and patted Shippou's head willing himself to let his guard down, they had called a truce, so he felt he should relax a little.

Haruna was amazed he did it at all and smiled a bit sadly, allowing herself time to congratulate the girl that will one day win his heart, for it was evident he had one.

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Haruna's POV: Then…

I stood up, sighed and excused myself from the room, which was a mistake, because I soon heard a thump, I saw that Sesshoumaru had pinned Inu-Yasha again, on the floor this time.

"Sesshoumaru-sama!" I called, snapping him out of it again.

"What did I do this time?" he asked, a bit tired.

"Why are you pinning Inu-Yasha to the ground?" I demanded.

"He provoked me!" he replied, everyone was surprised, again, that the tai-youkai would have to explain himself to Haruna.

"How?" I asked.

"He said `Didn't you bring Haruna here to screw with her, or are you just a damn hypocrite?" so I guess I kind of lost control." he replied, I wasn't pleased with the answer and looked at him in disbelief.

"You-you said you weren't like that…" I stammered, turning and running back to my room to grab my backpack.

"Yes, I mean, Haruna, let me explain…" he called after me.

I picked it up and ran back to the room, avoiding Sesshoumaru.

"Let's go…" I said, looking at the ground to avoid their eyes on me, once again, I felt me build up my walls again.

Rin looked at me "What's wrong Haruna?" she asked.

"Rin, I'm going to be leaving, I will, however, come back to visit you soon. Allow some time, I can't come back so soon." I replied, letting a tear escape from my eyes.

"Inu-Yasha, I hope you're happy." Sesshoumaru mumbled.

"Oh, I am!" he replied with a sneer, walking out after everyone.

"Haruna, I hope you'll come back when the time seems fit." he said.

"I will, I give you my word." I replied.

"Haruna, it isn't like that, don't get hurt so easily, I need to explain it to you." he said, pulling me aside.

"Haruna, I admit that was my original plan, but that was the plan with Kagome, to make Inu-Yasha jealous, but Jaken took you back instead, so the plan changed." he explained.

"That doesn't change the fact that you wanted to do that with Kagome, now does it?" I asked.

"I suppose not, but I'm not done yet, you see, I could plainly see that Kagome likes Inu-Yasha but he likes another, namely, Kikyo. So, I supposed I had a big enough ego to assume she would want to be with me instead, therefore causing Inu-Yasha indirect pain, of course, I must change her to a demon first. I wasn't about to force her to, if that's what you mean." he replied.

"You didn't love her, did you?" I asked.

"Haruna, it's time you know something, I didn't know demons could feel love until now. I still know that they cannot feel physical pain." he admitted.

"But what makes it so different now?" I asked in disbelief.

"Because…" he pulled me into a hug, which explained itself.

"Why did you lie to me?" I asked.

"I…I didn't want to cause you not to like me, not after you poured my heart out to me. I actually found there was someone of common ground." he replied.

A huge boom could be heard coming from outside, I heard Sesshoumaru start to growl.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Naraku's here, I told him to stay off of my land…" he replied, "Make sure you and Rin are safe, I will take care of this." he snarled, letting me go and heading outside, landing neatly next to Sango.

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Aww… Isn't that so sweet??? *readers prepare to fire flames* I KNOW it's OOC… oopsies!!! It's pretty long, I guess… But I only have nine chapters. BTW: I'm done already (The story, I mean) so I'm only uploading. I will give my replies in the last chappie!! ^_^

I will mention your name and stuff if you write good or helpful reviews, I doubt anyone would read it though, the summary stunk -_-;

Sesshoumaru-sama

Age: 23

Eye color: Gold

Hair color: Silver

Fav. Color: White/Silver

Fav. Flower: Sakura Blossom

Kinds of People he Hates: All Humans

Dream: To get the Tetseiga/ To destroy Inu-Yasha

Personality: Condescending, snobby, bossy, very selfish

Described as: A violent cynical asshole

Fav. Animal: Dogs

Greatest Fear: To be turned Human

Faults: Lies easily, selfish, basically watches out for his own interest most of the time, cynical, hypocritical (all from his huge ego)