InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Tale of Sesshoumaru ❯ Shinobi-Go-Seek ( Chapter 16 )

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, Smart Ass, Hizumeha and Kuza . If you would like to use them, please contact me at skycladstrega@yahoo.com

 

 

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The first snow came and Akanesuji didn't. Sesshoumaru had sat on the wall where they once had held hands and watched most anxiously. When the first deep blue clouds had come, it was like a comforting blanket. He had anticipated them for months and he was so glad to see them. When the snowflakes began to fall, so did his tears. So did Rin's.

 

It was very difficult to explain to her why Akanesuji would not come. At first he tried to tell her that Akanesuji didn't love him any more, but deep inside he knew that wasn't true and so he couldn't spit it out. Then he tried to tell her that he didn't love her, and that wasn't the truth either. Finally he settled on telling Rin that Akanesuji had to take care of her other children this winter and though Rin cried for a couple of days, she at least understood that kind of reason. Rin wanted to go spend the winter “at mama's other home”, but Sesshoumaru refused and she grew angry with him.

 

It broke his heart to hear her call Akanesuji “mama”. Holding Rin in his arms before bedtime he secretly wished his wife had come home so they could be the happy family again, even if she hated him and would not receive him in her bedchamber. He would give anything to see her doing her embroidery once more, or teaching Rin to play the shamisen. How he longed for her to call herself “Ass” and carry Rin around on her back. How he missed the frog races and the hot tea.

 

But worse were the lonely nights spent laying in her bed, smelling the sheets that held her scents from the last winter. The coverlets, the quilts, even the damn Persian rug stunk of her. When he would start welling up in tears he would choke them back down and return to his own room to lay in his empty bed. He would put a blanket over his head, remembering that she would always do it too when she wanted to hide from the world. Every damn little thing he did reminded him of her. In only the few months they were together, he had picked up so much of her and incorporated it into himself.

 

The second week of snow was the hardest. She still had not come or send word and he was pacing the grounds like a caged animal. It was then he changed his mind and packed up Rin and Jaken for the buffer lands. Maybe Rin's sweet heart and gentle pleas would bring her to her senses.

 

Hizumeha sat at a low desk, writing quickly with a bamboo stylus in the vulgar fashion. He did not raise his head when Sesshoumaru was ushered in by a human house maid. When he finished the page he finally raised his eyes to look at him. Turning to his side, he dismissed his new wife to go do what ever she wanted. She did not need to hear the coming vile discussion.

 

“Please sit,” he said with out using the polite title of “sama”. “What may I do for you?”

 

“Where is Akanesuji?”

 

“She left a long time ago. Can't you smell her fading scent in the place?”

 

Sesshoumaru ordered Jaken and Rin to go, leaving the two men to be alone. “I want to know where my wife is.”

 

“She no longer claims to be your wife.”

 

“I see.” Sesshoumaru swallowed the hurt down and tired to hide his displeasure. His hand started to shake underneath the full sleeve. He had not expected her to go that far. He had hoped that if he apologized well enough, she would forgive him and take him back. “Obviously the invasion went well?” he asked to slightly change the subject.

 

The horse knitted his eyebrows, knowing the truth of how it hurt him. He judged that the inu really did love her, even though he had yelled at her so cruelly. He decided to be kind. “I will be very frank with you Sesshoumaru, if you are very frank with me. I love Akanesuji with all of my heart and soul. I have for years. She was my first kiss, but she would not accept my further advances because in her heart, she loved you. I would be happy to kill you on this very spot if I thought it would bring her back to me.”

 

“Understood.” The two men now had a gentleman's agreement. They could see eye to eye.

 

“Now, as for Akanesuji. I hope you find her and bring her to her senses. She has gone insane. She brutally slaughtered everything in sight and showed no mercy. She not only killed their leaders, but bathed in their blood.”

 

“She often bathes in the blood of her enemies.” Sesshoumaru pointed out calmly, thinking back to her slaying of the boar youkai.

 

“No Sesshoumaru, not like this. For three days she filled the west pond with the bodies of their warriors. They were men and women we could have used on our side. She would bite their heads off and disembowel them with her own hands. She did not bathe. She did not sleep. She only sat among the carnage and ate livers. She rolled in them like a common dog.”

 

“Much brutality can be done in the name of noble victory.” Sesshoumaru said. The horse could not forgive her for such disgusting behavior, but the dog sure could.

 

“She has stopped using your name, Sesshoumaru. She now calls herself “Ass” and laughs. She told me that her new name will strike terror into the hearts of demons and men alike. When people will talk of who killed her family, all will say that some “smart ass” did it.”

 

“She will go after her mother then?”

 

“Yes. And she babbled some incoherent thing about the claws of your father. Maybe if you keep an eye on his burial place, you will find her there.”

 

“Thank you.” The dog demon went to rise, he had a starting place to find her.

 

“No Sesshoumaru, there is more,” Hizumeha said. “She has taken the jewel shards into herself like Koga had done. She is more powerful than ever. Not only does she have a poison bite and blood stripes attack, she has gained poison projection. There will be no limit to her now.”

 

“Blood stripes?”

 

“It was her only long distance attack. She can make red bands come from her forehead, immobilizing an enemy until she can get close enough.”

 

“She never showed me. She always seemed to prefer inside fighting.” Hizumeha nodded in understanding. Sesshoumaru could not look at the horse now, but only stared at the side walls. They were lined with handgonnes, the kind she had brought with her last winter. He had not been impressed at the time, but now it brought all new significance. “She gave these to the human warriors didn't she?”

 

“Yes. With these our humans could fight side by side with us. Truly, she is a wise and clever leader when she wants to be. We had very few casualties.”

 

“Indeed.”

 

“One last thing before you go. I would also watch for the gates of hell to open back up. One day your son will be a powerful and strong demon in his own right, and she has vowed him a sword of Inu No Taisho.”

 

Sesshoumaru nodded. Yes, his son would deserve a sword of Inu No Taisho, but would he be mentally powerful enough to handle Sounga? Both he and Inuyasha were not capable of it and it had taken their teamwork to subdue it. Would his son be the one to control the armies of Hell?

 

A cold chill swept over him. Was this in his father's plans? With the right life-long mental training his son might just be capable. No, Sesshoumaru concluded. Inu No Taisho had wanted to keep the Sounga for himself. He had never expected to die. He had everything in life before him, a loving woman and a new son. He probably would have had even more sons and daughters with her since a human could produce children so quickly. He would have had a dynasty of descendants.

 

He knew he would do so too with his love, if she would ever stop and listen to him.

 

Rin was talking outside with Hizumeha's wife, a pretty but not gorgeous woman. She had a long nose and full teeth and looked too much like a horse in her human form for Sesshoumaru's taste in women. She was very tall for a woman as well, and a bit too lean, but looked really nice in the furisode his talented wife had made for her. The woman had been sitting on her shins, but quickly stood and bowed gracefully when he walked within the proper distance for a customary bow to take place. At least she had good manners.

 

The little girl hugged the horse in a very excited and friendly manner, which puzzled her lord. Rin had become a very loving child, but did not hug total strangers. “What was that all about?” Sesshoumaru asked her as they walked away.

 

Rin lifted up a bronze cast frog miniature to show him. “It was from the horsey lady.” Taking the butt end to her lips, she blew into it and it made a low whistle out of it's open mouth. Sesshoumaru cocked a single eyebrow.

 

“Tell me Rin, did she say anything to you about Akanesuji?”

The little girl got very quiet and pursed her lips together, trying to figure out exactly what she was going to say. She was learning very quickly from her adoptive father how to say just enough and not too much, but with her young mind, it was not quite as developed a talent.

 

“We are going to play a game called “Shinobi Hide and Go Seek” and that it will be a lot of fun. Every time I find her, I get a prize.”

 

“Who exactly is “Her” Rin?”

 

“Me and the horsey lady of course, Sesshoumaru-sama.” She felt so proud knowing something that he didn't.

 

“You mean Hizumeha's wife?”

 

“No, Sesshoumaru-sama.” Rin smiled really big, her cheeks going very rosy. She drew really close to him as if to tell him a secret. “Mama is going to play Shinobi-Hide-and-Go-Seek with me.”

 

“Where is Jaken?” Sesshoumaru fumed. “Where is that little bastard?”

 

Hearing his name, he ran from a room down the hall as fast as his little feet could carry him, trying to pull together his kimono. The little toad had somehow managed to get in a quick trip to the toilet. “Here I am my lord! Here I am!”

 

Swiftly Jaken got hit over the top of his head for something he had no recollection he had done. He watched the stars going around in circles in his vision against the white background of the ceiling. It was all he could see as he lay sprawled out on the floor.

 

“She was here you fool!” Sesshoumaru spat. Looking back to Hizumeha and his wife now standing in the hallway, they were shocked and speechless. Obviously they had no idea she was so close. There was no point in interrogating them, it would only waste time. He bolted down the halls, searching for any clue of her.

 

Down the stairs he found a white hair of hers and in the courtyard there were her footprints leading out into the rice fields. There were traces of mud in the tree branches from where she had escaped through the boughs. There was a mixed scent of her, something dog-monkey-pine tree this time. Sesshoumaru stopped at the bottom of a tree and sat down. He put his face in his hand and drew his knees up tight to himself. What a fool he was. She had put him into exile without ever sending him physically anywhere.

 

What an ironic punishment for him he thought. The poetic justice was not missed on him. She was doing it deliberately and methodically to teach him some sort of sick lesson in why a husband should not walk away from his wife.

 

“I'm sorry!” he cried out to the trees, in hopes that she would hear him. “Alright? I admit it! I screwed up! Please stop doing this to me!”

 

Only the wind in the pine trees answered him, the snowflakes starting to come down again.