InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Tale of Sesshoumaru ❯ I command you ( Chapter 3 )

Disclaimer: I do not own copyright to any of the Inuyasha characters. Wish I did. I make no profit off of my fan fiction. Wish I did.

 

Disclaimer #2: I do own the character of Akanesuji and Smart Ass. If you would like to use them, please contact me at skycladstrega@yahoo.com

 

_________________________________________________________________ _

 

Sesshoumaru, Rin and Jaken walked for hours without a single word. The sun was high in the sky and Rin's stomach was making gurgling sounds. Sesshoumaru would not stop for her right now. He was too heated to speak.

 

He wanted to be proud of himself, but could not find a way to be. Beating up a woman was not a victory. She would rise, heal herself and continue to serve Akanesuji faithfully, all because he could not convince her of his view. She was not really a bad servant. She performed duties well. She even did a decent job defending her mistress as she was sworn to do. For a weaker female demon, she did admirably well. It was a shame Akanesuji's champion would go home in dishonor. It was his pride that would not grant her an honorable death.

 

Would she commit ritual suicide rather than see defeat? The question burned in his mind. He had not seen such a lovely demon in many years. Her spirit was brilliant, her love of life extreme. She expressed joy without shame of it and tried to make others smile for no reason other than to spread laughter. She was everything Akanesuji was not.

 

And she was all demon. She could birth him strong inuyoukai heirs. She was physically strong, lithe and nimble. A good match for a great warrior such as he.

 

Oh Gods! What was he saying!

 

She would not forgive him for her defeat. Well....maybe she would. She would respect him if he commanded her to his service after honorable combat. But what about her being a servant? It was not in the best interest of the court to take a servant for a wife. His father had married a demon of noble blood, and expected him to do so too.

 

Father was a lousy example, he thought. He also turned around and loved a low life human woman. Father was not a good example when it came to love, marriage and children.

 

Damn! He was thinking about territory he did not like.

 

Rin never said she was hungry. It was her falling asleep on the back of Ah-Un and falling off that startled Sesshoumaru out of his zombie like walking. The sky was growing dim, night fall would be soon. They had traveled at least twenty miles he figured, judging by the hours of walking without rest. Rin was cranky and swatting at Jaken as he tried to sit her up. She babbled in half coherent sentences about the horsey lady and her soft quilt of silk. Sesshoumaru ordered Jaken and Ah-Un to settle in the forest edge, placing the sleepy child inside the curled up ball of the dragon. He told Jaken to stay watch over her while he went out for the night.

 

Akanesuji spent the day hobbling through the woods, dragging her things behind her until she found a smaller road that led through rice paddies into rolling hills. She found a lovely small carved shrine next to a cold spring, prayer scrolls dangling in the breeze of a nearby tree. She dumped her things behind a rock and sat for a small time. The minor scratches were already healing, but the deep claw marks would take much longer. They still oozed poison and wetness. Her nose was broken, her neck was deeply bruised.

 

She was very thirsty and dreaded drinking. Her windpipe had been crushed, the muscles torn at the back of her neck. For much of the day, her head hung to one side uncontrollably. Akanesuji allowed herself to collapse at the edge of the water, her face half way in the water. She drank a few sips and rested. Her hair bled it's red dye into the water, and it looked like blood. She let unconsciousness take over.

 

It was after midnight when Sesshoumaru found her laying quiet, her arms flung forward into the water. Her yukata was wide open, her breasts smashed below her in the mud. Her nose ran poisons slowly,they bubbled as she breathed. Her left eye was puffy and purple against her white skin, the bridge of her nose was near black. Every bruise was bright on her. She absolutely stank.

 

He knew he wasn't a prize either. His hair was still uncombed, his clothes were dirty too. He took off his kimono and hakama pants, entering the water in his under clothes. Gently he grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her to him into deeper water, turning her over so she could breathe. Her yukata fell open to expose beautiful red stripes over her torso. It was easy to remember how she looked in her true form. She was a colorful red and white dog.

 

It was hard to hold her up with his single arm and try to tend her, but he tried anyway. Sitting in the shallows, he rested her head and shoulders into his lap and carefully undid her hair ornaments until her strands ran free. Red dye ran out, and he watched as his hand turn red too. He dipped her head back and scrubbed at it lightly until it was a paler shade of pink. Pulling her bangs back, he found her three red stripes. Ass was Akanesuji and she had disguised herself using hair dyes.

 

Sesshoumaru pulled her good eye open to look. They were turning back to their original pink. Using her old kimono as a wash cloth, he carefully scrubbed her skin, noting that the smell was going away. He raised her bruised hand to his face and sniffed. Her old smell of ginger and cinnabar was coming back. It was most definitely Akanesuji. No wonder she fought so hard for her honor. She fought for herself.

 

What was he going to do now? She had come to him in hopes of winning him back, and she had proved herself stronger than ever. She was not only strong of body, but of mind. Her old joy was back. Exile had been very good for her. She had found her old self somewhere, the joy, the humor.

 

He took the fabric and wiped her nose. “Wet Nose” he used to call her when they were small children. She hated it, but as the years went by she finally adopted it. Every time she grew mad, the poison would back up out of her mouth and start running out her nose and he would make fun of her for not swallowing it. He wasn't much better. She called him fluffy because every time he got mad, his hair would stand on end and puff up.

 

Frogs croaked in the background, and he was swiftly brought back to a memory of Akanesuji filling her kimono sleeves with toads she had found. She had snuck them into the castle and brought them to him to share. They planted them up and down the halls of the women's wing and waited for them to start screaming. Those were the good old days.

 

Had her mother really beaten her? There was no way to tell. A full demon's skin healed really well. That was good for her because the bites and scratches would eventually fade completely away in a few months. Taking her closer to him, he let her face touch his chest, his arm around and underneath her. He looked at his own amputated arm. She did not care that he was no longer whole. He had a few scars himself. Time had not been kind to them.

 

As light approached, Sesshoumaru laid her on her quilt and this time he recognized it immediately. It was the kirosode and obi from their engagement ceremony. She had cut it up and made it into something useful. It was tattered and torn in places, the silk old and soft from wear. Their betrothal was so long ago. She was so beautiful in that costume he thought. Why hadn't he noticed before. She had tried hard that day to please him and his family. She had thought she was doing the right thing.

 

He cleaned and redressed himself and with great care packed all of her things back into the sacks. He hoisted her up over his shoulder and carried her off into the woods to find a more secure place to put her. He settled on a thicket in a small ravine. No one would find her there as long as she lay quietly. Thinking of her benefit, he sat her things next to her and then sat himself down along side her. As the morning wore on he rummaged through her things, finding potions and dyes, a writing set and sheets of paper wrapped in thick mulberry tree paper. There were her wakizashis, fine demon blades set in red lacquer sheathes. Her stacks of letters were sealed with wax, and if he had been terribly rude he would have opened them to read them, but he thought better of it. One was addressed to her mother, another to her distant cousin. There were ones to the demon lord of the north, which was of great interest to him, and some for the different demon clans that were friendly. He realized then she really did love to write.

 

He had thrown all of her letters away over the years, and now he wished he had saved them to look for the secret meanings written between the lines. He had ignored her poetry as emotional gook and maybe, just maybe, he shouldn't have done so.

 

Inside a rattling bottle he found several jewel shards. What she was going to do with them was anyone's guess. She may have thought she could use them against Inuyasha. Stupid Akanesuji. She would have turned evil and uncontrollable.

 

In the afternoon he left her to order Jaken to take Rin to one of the caves they used as a home base. There Rin could eat some of the foods stored there in safety. Rin did not want to go and pleaded with him, but after he promised to bring the horsey woman back, she quieted and went along quickly. He worried about them traveling without him, but he worried just as much about leaving the beaten woman to wake up alone. He had thrown her away countless times before, he would not do so this time.

 

Days passed and Akanesuji rarely stirred. She would cough and drip poisons out of her wet nose. Occasionally she would drool, and the liquid would burn slow holes in her blanket. Every day he would bathe her and every day she smelled more like herself, the nasty horse ointment wearing off. Her wounds still seeped, but they were closing. She started looking thin and he knew that if he didn't wake her and force her to drink, she would get very dehydrated.

 

He shook her, gently at first. Then he slapped at her face a little. Akanesuji opened her eyes but her vision was very blurry. They were bright pink again, ringed in red. “Can you hear me?” Sesshoumaru asked.

 

“Hai” she said weakly.

 

“You must drink.”

 

“No.”

 

“I command you.” he said, putting the bowl to her lips. She drank though it hurt. She pushed herself to sit up as best she could. When the bowl was empty, she pushed it away. Akanesuji was extremely confused and chose not to speak. Not only did it hurt to speak, but she did not want to. She did not know what Sesshoumaru expected of her and what he would demand.

 

“Lay down.” he commanded and she was happy to comply. Akanesuji pumped her hands to see if they were working. She twisted her wrists and wiggled her toes. Sesshoumaru watched as she did a mental and physical check of herself without getting up.

 

“If you are curious, you will heal.” he stated. “You will be up in a few days.”

 

“Hai.” was all she said. She closed her eyes and pretended everything was going to be fine.

 

At night fall, Sesshoumaru laid down next to her on his back looking up at the stars. She opened an eye to look over at him without turning her head. Slowly she turned towards him, raising her knees up and listening to her spine pop. He turned his head towards her and looked her in the eyes. “Akanesuji.”

 

“Yes my lord?”

 

“Have you forgotten my command to come to me in the winter?”

 

“No my lord.”

 

Sesshoumaru turned his head away and stared at the stars for the rest of the night. Akanesuji pulled the quilt up over her head and turned over, hiding herself from the world.