InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ War's Shadow ❯ Conscience ( Chapter 9 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Kardeya 
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Adventure / Action / Romance | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 07.08.2005 | Pages: 6 | Words: 10.2K | Visits: 182 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Adventure / Action / Romance | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 07.08.2005 | Pages: 6 | Words: 10.2K | Visits: 182 | Status: Completed
Chapter 9 - Conscience
She hesitated, and that was what cost her the opportunity to kill him. It was her conscience, that damned whispering voice her mother had instilled in her ... that same little voice her father never seemed to hear. But this was a time when Sashe wished she was able to silence it as easily as Kanaye, because the blade continued to hover in midair, held aloft by a stiffened arm that would not do her bidding.
As she waited for that righteous fury to seize her again and force her to carry through with the motion, she heard the sounds of a heavy footfall rapidly approaching the door. Sashe instantly lowered the sword, clutching it to her in an attempt to hide it from the sight of anyone that came in, wrapping her fingers tightly around the hilt.
The wooden door swung open. The disembodied footsteps took a present form in that of Kawahira, who entered the darkened room. The door was slowly shut, there was a slight rustling movement, the murmur of low voices outside the door, and then she could hear him approaching her from behind.
"He doesn't look well, does he?" Kawahira commented.
"No, he doesn't," she replied evenly.
Kawahira took a few measured steps forward until he was standing right behind her, close enough so that she could feel the brush of clothing against clothing. She felt frozen, unsure of how much he suspected, but highly aware of the heavy weight in her hand. She pulled the sword in closer, hugging it like a child.
Kawahira's eyes flickered from her stiff posture to the empty sheath that lay on the table. He saw the muscles in her arms clench, as though she was holding tightly onto something. He smiled grimly at the back of her head, grateful for the expected moment of complete stupidity on her part. What a perfect solution.
"What I said to Elif earlier is true," he said slowly, listening with amusement as her pulse sped up, surging to a feverish thumping that rang to his hearing as soundly as a confession. "I will not let her take responsibility for her poor decision. It was a moment of insanity. She does not see clearly where Sesshoumaru is concerned."
"Does anyone?" she mumbled in reply. She certainly hadn't.
"He does have a way of creating misunderstandings, doesn't he? A strange talent for a creature as prone to the literal as he is. He does not seek to explain himself, because he does not care about the perceptions of others. Such an attitude creates harsh feelings, as there are between him and my father. That same lack of clarity engendered this pathetic hope in my sister, the one that leads her to do such destructive things in order to garner his favor. How sad for Elif that she does not realize that he has the most miniscule of hearts, and that it is currently consumed by his fascination with her human rival."
"Why are you telling me this?" she asked, the edge of the hilt biting into her hands from the harsh grip.
"I study my opponents, Sashe. I learn their strengths, their weaknesses, their very thought patterns. Sesshoumaru is not nearly so difficult to understand as others make him out to be. He is motivated by possession, purely and simply. Not greed, not malice for its own sake, not love, loyalty, hate, or feelings of any sort. One is strictly beneath his notice until they strike out in some way against something that is his." Kawahira paused in his dissection of Sesshoumaru. "Then there is you," he went on. "On the surface, you seem so simple. But I can tell you from experience that the enemy you watch the most closely, the one you trust the least, is the one that is motivated by their heart. Hearts change so quickly. A suspicion can switch loyalties. A spoken word can morph love into hate, and with that the intentions of the individual."
"I am now your enemy," she gathered from his tone.
"You always were," he stated lowly. "I have thought ahead of you. I knew the rage you would feel at being betrayed. You're not stupid. It was only a matter of time until you figured out what was going on. You see, I place more faith in your intelligence than my father. I had only to wait for the realization to come to you and to be present when your meltdown occurred. I will admit that I did not predict you to attempt so suicidal an action, but again, it proves what I said about one whose heart rules them. I could not have possibly engineered so perfect a scapegoat for Elif. I thank you."
Sashe nodded, feeling as though she had just aged a century. She found it interesting that he felt her to be of competent intelligence when she was so certain that a bigger fool had never walked the earth. "Her scapegoat," she repeated. "Then I'm to take the blame for the letter. And if I refuse? I could always tell Eizan the truth."
"Do you think he'll believe a woman I found hovering over his bed with a drawn sword?"
She went very still at his words, so much so that he was able to hear again as that nervous heart rate fell, lowered into something calmer. He watched her, curious as to what she would do. She had always struck him as astonishingly passive for a demon, but then he had never witnessed her cornered before.
"Give it to me, Sashe," he warned. "Don't make me take it from you."
Sashe shook her head imperceptibly, less at what he was saying than at the bizarre turn of events that had brought her to this point. But for the first time in months, she did not feel bad for her actions. It was a very freeing feeling. It felt like she had gone home, like she had shed the new Sashe and crawled back into her own skin. She inhaled a slow breath, vaguely heard the cheerful chirp of a bird on the windowsill, a little creature who was trying to stay light-hearted on such a dark day.
She turned and swung the sword so quickly that she surprised even Kawahira's honed battle instincts. His face darkened into anger as he threw up an armored forearm to deflect the blow, then twisted his hand instantly and grasped onto the blade itself. The edge cut through the thick glove on his hand, but did not reach the skin. With a violent jerk, he pulled it from her grasp and tossed it toward the far wall, where it skidded to a stop.
Sashe took a step back, looking vengeful. She paid little attention when the door swung open and two guards entered the room.
"My lord?" one questioned, but Kawahira gestured for them to move back.
"It's fine," he said calmly. "She clearly wants a fight, and I'm happy to give her one."
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"Hey, I see something!" Inuyasha called suddenly, causing Sesshoumaru's head to turn in response. He watched as the hanyou took yet another plunge into the river, went under for several seconds, and then emerged with an annoyed expression. He held up a dislodged, leafy plant, its disturbed roots waving in the breeze. Sesshoumaru withheld comment, but Inuyasha seemed to read his mind.
"It looked like a shadow of something!" Inuyasha called defensively, pulling himself back out of the water and giving himself a shake, sending drops of water hurtling in every direction.
There goes his sight, Sesshoumaru complained internally as he continued downriver, eyes scouring the water for anything out of place. Inuyasha's rapid footfalls trailed behind him.
"Shit!" came a sudden curse from behind him. The footsteps stumbled slightly then slowed drastically.
And there goes the rest of him, Sesshoumaru added the mental note, turning to look behind him to watch as the now-dark-haired Inuyasha fell further and further behind. Dismissing the half-breed from his thoughts, Sesshoumaru again tried to focus in on his senses in an attempt to track Rin's location. It was a futile effort, he knew. Scent did not adhere to water, which made his sense of smell about as useful as Inuyasha's.
This blindness was causing him a deep sense of unease. It was like wandering about in a dark, cavernous room, hoping an outstretched hand grasped onto what you were looking for. He found himself weighing the prospect of her permanent loss, something he tended to avoid, but now with the possibility of it and no way to correct it looming ahead of him, Sesshoumaru felt something he was loathe to term as fear, but decided that was as close to a description as he could come up with. Being separated from her would ... return his life to what it had been before, except now there would be a vacancy he did not want. He hated regret. He hated being bothered by anything, but that was beyond change at this point. Another sign of his growing weakness. But he had discovered that it is easy to ignore the absence of something good from one's life, when they've never experienced it before. When it has been there and then no longer is, there is no forgetting it. Very simply, he wanted her back.
He was pulled out of his dark musing when he noticed that the river forked off up ahead, split into a V-shape that carried it in two separate directions, one larger, the other slightly shallower. He stopped, his mind turning with the best idea of which way the demon would have gone. Likely into the deeper waters, since it would lead to a larger body of water.
Panting breaths caused him to look behind him as Inuyasha sprinted up to him and then came to a stop, squinting out over the dark, churning water.
"Which way?"
"There is no way to tell."
"Fine. Then I'll take that way, and you go that way," Inuyasha said, gesturing in the two directions the river forked.
"For all intents and purposes, you are now blind and deaf," Sesshoumaru muttered.
"Do you have another idea?" Silence. "That's what I thought. They meet up again further downstream. We'll check them both," Inuyasha replied before running off down the right fork. Sesshoumaru then took the left.
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It was complete watery chaos. Rin found it nearly impossible to gather her bearings, as she was dragged along under the river's current at a dizzying speed. Her lungs were aching with the need to inhale fresh air. Her eyes were open and registering the blur of the river bottom, hands flailing in an attempt to grasp at something to halt the demon's forward motion. Its tentacle-like appendages were still securely wrapped around her midsection. It gave another harsh jerk, expelling more air from her lungs, and knocking her container of arrows off of her shoulder.
They hung from her arm, held their by the leather strap, razor-sharp points catching some of the remaining light from the surface. Without even thinking, Rin reached for her arrows, but was only able to grasp two of them before another jerking movement dislodged the rest into the current.
Clutching one of them carefully, she shoved the pointed end into the demon's soft flesh, then removed it and did it again, this time getting the reaction she wanted. The tentacles loosened and thrust her away. Rin felt her forward movement quickly slow to match the speed of the river, but when she turned herself around, it was to find the creature hurtling back toward her, its filmy, opalescent eyes now red with rage.
Rin quickly shoved off the bottom and shot toward the surface, heaving in a great lungful of air before she felt the slick appendages circle her again and drag her back under. Instinctively her hand went out, nails digging into the demon's neck in an attempt to keep its jagged teeth away from her. Its face was absolutely terrifying to behold, some sort of cross between an octopus and a shark. It made her all the more ready to get away from it.
Gripping her second arrow in her fist, she took what she hoped was a good guess and plunged it into the demon's chest. There was a water-muted roaring, followed by an odd gurgling, but the creature refused to give way, and instead of releasing her, this time wrapped itself more securely around her and began falling back toward the bottom. She tried to wriggle free, but it was as though she was being weighted down by a block of iron.
The bottom of the river was strangely peaceful, plants swaying back and forth, and darting fish. Her chest was tightening up with the growing need to inhale. But just as she began resigning herself to the fact that the odds of her drowning looked very good indeed, the water around her was violently displaced. She turned her head, her long hair waving languidly back and forth, obscuring her vision, but she could swear she saw some movement behind ….
A flash of green lit the calm riverbed, and Rin blinked at the sudden manifestation of this attack she recognized so well. Sesshoumaru's long hair whispered past her face as he sliced through the tentacles that clung to her before pushing her backward out of the way. Another set of hands gripped onto her arms and suddenly Rin was shooting back toward the surface, hacking and coughing up river water. She spent several seconds raggedly inhaling enormous quantities of air, her head pounding from lack of oxygen. She shoved a curtain of sopping hair out of her face and found Inuyasha, dark-haired and frowning, treading against the current with her.
"Inuyasha … you're human," she commented in a moment of confusion. Before he could reply, she looked behind her. "Where is he?"
"He's making sushi out of that thing. He'll be back in a minute." Inuyasha replied as he started swimming toward shore, one hand latched firmly around her arm. When they reached the bank, he clambered out and then pulled her up. Immediately, Rin collapsed back in the soft grass and began calming her breathing, waited for her muscles to stop shaking, and wiped water out of her eyes. She found that she was surrounded by reedy plants that waved steadily in the evening breeze, and a quickly darkening night. Fireflies lit up around her, flickering on and off.
"Are you all in one piece?"
"Yes," she breathed, pulling herself back to a sitting position. She looked out at the river, which had resumed its previous tranquility, all while some unseen struggle was taking place beneath the water.
"He's one slow bastard, isn't he?" Inuyasha muttered. She watched as he moved back to the edge of the bank and poised to jump back in, but stopped short when Sesshoumaru broke the surface and then cleared the water entirely, dropping gracefully back to shore, appearing calm and cool as ever.
He knelt in front of her, his face very intent and looking as though he was about to say something … and then seemed to remember the company they were in. His gaze flickered to Inuyasha, who was busy wringing his sleeves out. "You can go, hanyou."
Inuyasha glanced sharply back at him, eyebrows quirking in annoyance. "Oh, I've been dismissed, Your Majesty? Well, you're welcome." He stood up, bent to unravel some sort of aquatic vine from around his ankle, then turned to walk off.
"Thank you, Inuyasha," Rin called, saying the words she knew Sesshoumaru would sooner die than utter.
He turned back around at the sound of her voice. "You are welcome," he said in a mixture of gruff sincerity. "He's the one that can go to hell. Which reminds me … I think I'll head back and get a good seat for the complete thrashing your boyfriend's about to give Kanaye."
"Don't return to Kanaye as you are, Inuyasha," Sesshoumaru said, eyeing Inuyasha's human form with barely concealed disdain and surprising Rin with his lack of a retort at the word usage of "boyfriend".
"Don't order me," Inuyasha countered quickly.
Sesshoumaru's expression went ice cold. "Then do what you will. I do not care, but I will not lift a finger to interfere with anything you start with him."
"Who's asking you to? You think I'm afraid of him?" Inuyasha sneered.
"You're not that smart," Sesshoumaru answered. "He would quite happily take advantage of your unfortunate human condition. He views you as even more of a disgrace to us than I do."
"Careful there, Sesshoumaru, you're almost starting to sound like my brother," Inuyasha warned sarcastically before turning on his heel and trudging upriver through the waist-high reeds.
"Don't get your hopes up," Sesshoumaru scowled, watching as Inuyasha dismissively waved that comment away and kept walking.
Rin watched as he turned back to face her and the scowl melted into something kinder. She smiled gratefully back at him and before she knew what she was doing, her hands had reached up to grasp the sides of his face between her palms. She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips.
When she drew back, he was looking at her with some surprise. "You're in quite a good mood for someone who was nearly drowned."
"Yes, I am," she agreed, watching as the wind picked up behind him and blew across the water. It brushed at his hair and she saw, with some amusement, that he even seemed to be drying out faster than she was. Now that her world was calm and in order again, she took a moment to tune out the day and just enjoy the face that was staring back at her with an expression of such deep affection.
"You did well against that demon. There wasn't much for me to finish off," he praised her, reaching out to pull a twig from her hair. "It was rather disappointing."
"You've taught me well," she said with a growing smile, then glanced upriver at the distant speck that was Inuyasha. "And it's good to see you and Inuyasha getting along better."
"You call that getting along better?"
"It was nice of you to warn him about Kanaye," she amended the statement, reaching back to gather the weight of her hair and knot it in an attempt to get that clammy feeling off of her neck. She shivered lightly in the wind, noticing that Sesshoumaru was watching her every movement, as though entranced by something she was doing. His expression was thoughtful as he replied to her accusation of kindness.
"I'm not certain why I bothered. They would both do me a favor if they would just send each other to hell."
"You don't mean that," she said with a gentle smile. He would be damned before he would admit it, but Rin suspected that he was actually learning to tolerate Inuyasha. She would not go so far as to say that he had come to like the hanyou … it was more that he had become accustomed to the fact that Inuyasha was going to stubbornly continue to exist.
His face became hard once more, and Rin reached out and grasped onto his hand in an attempt to bring back his sweeter side. She saw it so infrequently that now that he was allowing it to come through, she didn't want to see it fade. "I'm considering sending Kanaye to hell on my own," Sesshoumaru told her. "I was told what happened while I was gone."
Rin's happiness was squashed at that terrifying memory. She could easily remember the look of cold dispassion on Kanaye's face as he had watched her dragged off into the river with such indifference. It was chilling, because Rin could not think of anyone she hated enough to allow for such a situation to be reversed. "Neither of us can be surprised by what happened," she finally told him in what she hoped sounded like a sincere voice, shaking off her own anger at the incident. "I didn't expect him to help me. I just …."
"Yes?" he prompted.
"A warning would have been nice," she finished awkwardly.
"He is not "nice", Rin, by any stretch of the word. He has very little mercy toward others, and none for humans. Don't catch yourself alone with him again." He paused, then added, "I will make it clear to him the repercussions if this happens again. I think that will be enough to hold him in check."
She nodded and watched as Sesshoumaru fell silent again. He glanced over his shoulder, as though hearing something, then looked back to find her smiling at him with such contentment that he felt compelled to know what lay behind it. "What?" he asked.
"I am very lucky," she said sweetly.
"Yes, you are," he agreed instantly.
"I meant because I have you."
"Yes, that is what I was referring to as well. Another woman would have met an unfortunate end."
She laughed and was rewarded with a slight smile from him as well. "You have the best timing." Rin got to her knees, put her arms around his neck, and hugged him to her, gratified that the usual moment of stiff response fled from him quickly. He allowed her to melt against him and she took the opportunity for all it was worth.
He surprised her by wrapping his own arms around her, that wild heartbeat thumping against her chest, and then his breath against her ear as he quietly replied, "I was motivated."
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When they returned to the site of what Rin's mind had come to term as "the incident", it was to find a far more peaceful scene than there had been when she had been pulled away from this place. The river was now black with the fallen night. There was a crowd of villagers who had been summoned out of their homes to aid in the search, most of which were clutching freshly-lit torches, as the search had not been necessary for very long. Rin was greeted with excitement from Shippou and obvious relief from Kohaku, who had grasped onto her hand and expressed relief over her safety. Tension fairly radiated off of Sesshoumaru when he witnessed this action, and Rin smiled awkwardly back at Kohaku, accepting his words for the kindness they were meant to be, and fully aware that he was now even more disliked by the taiyoukai that hovered just behind her.
"Rin!" a relieved voice called, and she turned to find Kagome darting toward her from further downriver, jeans and tennis shoes mud-soaked, hair hanging in complete disarray, as if she had spent the last hour digging and wading. Kagome grabbed her hands, which were as ice-cold as her own.
"We were scared to death!" Kagome exclaimed, eyes wide. Rin looked from Kagome's pale, torch-lit face to a figure that was standing casually in the distance, lurking like a ghost, and staring back at her with vague interest. Kanaye.
"Don't you and the runt have somewhere to be, miko?" Sesshoumaru hinted, bringing Rin's attention away from Kanaye.
Kagome glanced up at him as thought it had just occurred to her that he was there as well. "Yes, we're leaving. Thank you for bringing him back in time."
"Your wish is my command," he answered in a flat voice that fairly dripped with sarcasm.
"You should be nicer. We're about to be family, Sesshoumaru," Kagome gleefully shot back at his rudeness. Not even Sesshoumaru's dour mood was going to put a damper on her happiness.
He regarded her as though she had just slapped him, head lifting with offense. "That is fitting, miko," Sesshoumaru practically growled back, "considering that my family is consistently inhabited by the people I can stand the least."
Kagome ignored him completely this time, and instead looked back to Rin with a conspiratorial grin. "I'll bring back pictures."
"You'd better," Rin smiled back at how feverishly happy Kagome looked, then watched as the girl turned and practically fled back to the village, likely to collect her half-demon and get him to the well before he could ask too many questions.
Rin was distracted from Kagome's fleeing form when she felt a sudden movement. She turned to watch as Sesshoumaru stormed past her toward the lounging Kanaye, who straightened up as he approached, looking prepared for what was about to happen. His expression never lost its arrogance, and Rin wondered if it was that that angered Sesshoumaru more or the demon's big mouth.
"She has more lives than a cat," Kanaye unwisely commented. Instantly, Sesshoumaru's fist plowed into his face with bone-crunching force. Kanaye staggered back a step from the blow, then shook his head as though to clear it.
"If this happens again, you won't see what hit you," Sesshoumaru threatened with ominous certainty.
Kanaye did not speak again.
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Sesshoumaru steadfastly refused to stay in the village that night. He returned briefly for Rin, but his impatience to be gone from the place was palpable. Rin hurriedly went about gathering her few things, stripping off her wet clothes in exchange for something dry. She said quick goodbyes to Kohaku, Miroku, Sango, and Shippou. Kaede saw her off with a new quiver of arrows for her bow, meant to replace the ones she had lost during the scuffle in the river. Then, with the recently returned Jaken in tow, she and Sesshoumaru took their leave from the village.
In no time at all, they had resumed their usual routine. Sesshoumaru, now again dressed in his own clothing, was nearly fully healed from his battle against Eizan and his people. Wounds that had appeared ghastly the night before, now looked to be little more than scratches, his vision was back to normal, and the hand that had been so thoroughly mangled by Toukijin was quickly repairing itself. As always, Rin was awed by his inherent ability to bounce back so quickly from even the most dreadful injuries.
She felt glad to see everything back to as it had been, even though she was quite sad at leaving behind people whose company she had come to enjoy. Being around Inuyasha, Kagome, and their friends served almost as a means of keeping her in touch with being a human. At times, that was difficult when one was consistently surrounded by demons, their egos, and their interests. As much as she loved Sesshoumaru, and Jaken as well, there were times when it was nice to just fall back on the simplicity that was being around people that were like her.
Breaking out of these thoughts, she watched, amused, as Jaken, in his truest sycophantic form, ingratiatingly worked to get Sesshoumaru to speak to him. Sesshoumaru, as usual, was trying just as hard to ignore his retainer. His intuition must have picked up on her thoughts, because he waited for Jaken to fall silent long enough to inhale a breath, and took that opportunity to say to her, "It is very likely that Inuyasha will try to join us when he returns."
Rin perked up hopefully at this announcement, as much for him as for herself. "And Kagome?"
"That is a safe assumption."
"And you're … okay with that?" she tested.
"No, I am not, but she's not a very bright girl."
Rin frowned at that statement. Kagome struck her as one of the smartest people she knew. "What do you mean?"
He hesitated for a moment, as though altering what he had first intended to say, "Anyone who would tie herself for life to my brother must be as brainless as he is."
"She's a sweet girl. I think you'll learn to like her if you get to know her…."
"Unlikely. I've known her long enough to understand that she is quite irritating in her own right. Together, she and Inuyasha are enough to drive even the sanest man to distraction."
Rin grinned at that and fell silent. They walked into the late night hours, Rin feeling as though she was wading more than walking through the knee-high blades of grass. Jaken, his head barely visible, apparently gave up on Sesshoumaru for the night and fell back to walk with Rin, who always allowed him the opportunity to chatter at her. Rin listened to him, amused as always by Jaken's immense self-satisfaction as he relayed stories to her detailing his "heroics". When he tired of that, they all became quiet, and Rin was left with the peacefulness of the blackest night she had ever witnessed. Starlight cast down from above, allowing her only to glimpse shadows. Her heart leapt into her throat at one point when she caught sight of a lean, dog-like creature that shot across the field ahead of them, clearly hunting its dinner. A wolf…? Rin felt her nerves rise. No, a fox …
As her feet pulled her along, she wondered where exactly Sesshoumaru was leading them. He had been purposefully vague back at the village when she had asked what he intended to do next. She could tell he was planning to take some sort of action, but he would not discuss it with her for some reason. Thus far, Eizan had repeatedly forced him to react defensively, and she could tell that Sesshoumaru was finished with that. It was only a matter of time until he launched an offensive of his own, and it made her insides coil up with quiet anxiety.
Her head came up at a rush of blue and white motion that swept past her, rustling her hair and clothing. She blinked in surprise as, suddenly, Kanaye was walking beside Sesshoumaru and speaking to him in a tone so low Rin could not catch a word of what was said. They spoke like this for several minutes before Kanaye again practically dissipated into the night.
"Is something going on?" Rin asked when the much-detested demon had taken his leave.
"Not yet," Sesshoumaru replied in a tone that discouraged more questions.
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She had been enveloped in a warm, comfortable dream of home … a strange dream that had included her parents and brother, Kameko and Kisho, and Sesshoumaru, all together, interacting as though none of this was out of the ordinary at all. She had felt so thrilled to be with them all at once, no longer with one and missing the other. It was only toward the end, when she could feel her brain pulling her from this contentment, that she was reminded that some of these people were dead and unreachable, some were far, far away … and one would not be caught dead in so casual a situation with a houseful of humans.
When Rin woke, it was to find pale sunlight pouring down on her through the tree limbs that hung above her, blasting away the dream's remnants with morning light. There was something amiss … something that had jarred her out of that happy dream. She lay still for several moments, blinking away the last bit of confusion, and listened to what was around her. The crackling of the fire was absent, as it had clearly gone out sometime during the night. There was the distant warble of a bird, and then the sound of two low voices speaking to each other.
Soundlessly, Rin rose to her feet, straightened her clothing as best she could, ran a hand through her hair to dislodge some of the tangles as she made her way barefoot from the grassy clearing they had stopped in, ears following the familiarity of Sesshoumaru's deep voice mixing with yet another voice that suddenly struck her memory, recalling to her the image of someone who was utterly unwanted. She'd know that voice anywhere, its mocking tone full of an arrogance that was unmatched save by the individual Kouga was arguing at.
She brushed past the heavy vegetation that blocked them from her sight and found her suspicions confirmed. Kouga was standing a few feet away from Sesshoumaru, arms crossed and scowling. Clearly he was not getting what he wanted out of Sesshoumaru, which pleased Rin to no end, even though she had no clue as to what they were discussing. She walked toward them, head held up and determined to squash her childish fear.
Jaken glanced her way from where he was perched on a rock behind Sesshoumaru, his thin green hands clasped casually around Nintoujou. As she came closer, Rin was able to hear more of the words that were being spoken, but still was unable to get a good idea of what their point of contention was.
"It's none of your business, wolf. If you doubt in my abilities, I can be persuaded to demonstrate them to you," Sesshoumaru said in a dry voice.
"I'm righting a wrong, and I'm not doing it to please you. I want to speak with her for a minute," Kouga insisted. He looked up then as Rin approached, her usual glare of ill will already aimed in his direction.
"Rin," he greeted without inflection.
"What?" she bit back, her eyes fell to the large wolf that hovered at his heel, its yellow eyes fixed on her with enough intensity to provoke the fear she hoped she was keeping from her face. In her ears, she could hear the distant stomping of pursuing feet, the howling of wolves calling to their brothers, the panting of hot breath just behind her …. She quickly shook off the memory as Kouga took a step toward her, looking as though he was preparing to speak. She fought the urge to take two steps back.
"I've brought you something," he told her, catching onto her reticence. He gestured with his fingers and the enormous brown wolf trotted out a few steps toward her. Her heart froze. Jaken jumped down from his rock, ready to start swinging Nintoujou at Sesshoumaru's command. Sesshoumaru's eyes narrowed into a glare that went from the hesitant wolf to its leader.
"If I believed that was meant maliciously, you would be a corpse at my feet," he warned Kouga, sounding as though he was now secure in the knowledge that the wolf demon was either completely mad or thoroughly stupid.
"It's not," Kouga replied, not losing the cocky tone in his voice. He spoke something unintelligible to the wolf, and it sat down immediately on its haunches, still eyeing Rin eagerly.
Kouga held out his hands in a conciliatory gesture. "I heard about what happened yesterday. It sounds like you can't trust some of the people around you."
"And I trust you even less," Rin said icily, not completely certain about whom she would least enjoy being alone with: Kouga or Kanaye.
"I can understand that," he said diplomatically, as though he was negotiating something with a rival tribe, and not trying to make amends to someone whose death had once resulted from his past indifference. "We both know why that is, so there's no need to drag up old history. But I also know that you could use a little help watching your back, and that's what this wolf is here to do," Kouga said, gesturing to the enormous beast.
"You are joking," Rin replied, the words practically freezing in midair.
"Not at all," Kouga replied. "You're a human in the middle of two demons trying to settle a fight. That's not a good place to be."
"It's better than being in the middle of one of your village massacres."
Kouga's sudden change in expression told her she had just scored a hit. "As I've told you before, my wolves are no longer allowed to hunt humans."
"Should that make me feel better?"
"Yes. This wolf is now entirely your guardian. His loyalty is to you. You can trust him."
"That will never happen," she replied fiercely. "If you're doing this to soothe your conscience and my feelings, you've just wasted your time."
Kouga inclined his head. "Be that as it may, he now belongs to you." He turned back to Sesshoumaru, who was listening impassively. "Keep the wolf with you. He will protect her life as he would mine. It can only be a help to have someone else around to keep an eye on her. She doesn't have a demon's abilities, but she's targeted as surely as you are. I'm just evening out the playing field for her."
"Why are you doing this, wolf demon?" Sesshoumaru inquired. "After nine years, your conscience suddenly weighs on you so much?"
"I don't like how she looks at me," Kouga explained simply, as though that was enough for him and it settled the matter. "I'm returning to the mountains. You'll hear from me if I see any more movement from your friends."
Sesshoumaru nodded, and Rin's mouth dropped open in abject horror as she saw that the conversation was over and Kouga was indeed preparing to leave. "You're … you're not really leaving it here, are you?" she asked, no longer caring that fear laced her voice.
Kouga grinned disarmingly at her. "He's all yours." Rin's alarm fell from Kouga to the wolf, who still watched her with what she sincerely hoped was not a hungry gaze. Its bushy tail gave a half-hearted wag.
"Take it with you!" she pleaded, but Kouga ignored her request and promptly whirled away in a tornadic swirl of dust, leaves, and wolf demon. She then cast another panicked look at the wolf. When it made a move to come toward her, she transferred that nervousness to Sesshoumaru. "Do something with it," she begged, taking as many steps backward as the wolf was taking toward her. It finally halted its progress and made a deep whining sound before resting back on its haunches again. A yawn opened its mouth wide enough to give her a good look at sharp, white fangs and a long pink tongue.
"What would you have me do with him?" Sesshoumaru asked, calm as always.
"Just make it go."
"He's sworn to you. He's not going to leave."
"You're bigger than he is," she reminded him desperately, turning and walking toward Sesshoumaru, one eye cast warily back on the wolf. Without a bit of shame, Rin clambered up onto the rock that Jaken had been perched on.
"Do you want me to kill him?" Sesshoumaru asked her very seriously.
Rin glanced at his profile, which was only inches from her and watching the wolf thoughtfully. Sesshoumaru turned to meet her scrutiny, waiting for her answer, and Rin was suddenly torn by her desire to get rid of the animal, and the guilt she would likely feel at her order being what caused its unprovoked death.
"No," she whispered.
"Are you certain?"
"No." She shook her head. "Yes. Maybe it'll … get bored and go away." An idea occurred to her then. "I'm in charge of him, right?" she asked in a voice that did not really expect an answer. Rin pointed after Kouga's wake and eyed the wolf. "Go. Go on. Go find your master."
The wolf bent its head and slunk toward her. Rin backed up until she was stopped by Sesshoumaru's shoulder, his spiked armor digging into her back. "Fine," she finally stated defiantly. "Then if you're not going to leave, just stay away from me."
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Morning fled under the harsh rule of full daylight, which then, in turn, crept into hiding as night came out once more. Rin had been forced to flee the wolf by the only means available … she had climbed one of the shorter trees and had spent most of the day glaring resentfully down at the beast that dozed at the trunk, head resting on its outstretched paws. Paws, she had been quick to notice, that were easily bigger than her own hands.
She was sane enough to know that the wolf was unlikely to hurt her, but at the same time, she could not push aside that shaky feeling of terror she got whenever she looked at it. Kouga had seemed genuine enough. Perhaps he was honestly trying to make amends. But she also knew that he was a fool if he thought sending one of his wolves to stalk her every waking movement was a way to make friends with her. It had had directly the opposite effect. She had spent most of the afternoon silently cursing him and his future offspring with obscenities that would have shocked even Inuyasha. Or, perhaps not, she corrected herself, since I probably learned most of the words from him.
Her day got progressively worse when the sun sank. Kanaye emerged from the dark woods. Being the ever-alert creature that he was, he quickly picked up on the wolf's obvious presence. When he learned why it was there and the reason Rin was so set against it, he laughed loudly at her predicament. Rin shot him an evil glare, now quite certain that Kanaye was the devil incarnate. She assumed that he was also the reason they had been lingering in this place all day. She watched from her perch in the squat little tree as he and Sesshoumaru began discussing something in depth, a conversation that was frequently punctuated by a shake of Kanaye's silvery head.
Rin's heart lifted when Inuyasha and Kagome finally arrived, as Sesshoumaru had predicted they would. Kagome still had that happy glow about her, so Rin assumed that everything had gone off as she had planned in her time. She was also quickly reminded of why she liked Inuyasha. In him she had an ally, one who was solidly with her in hating both Kouga and Kanaye. As Kagome slid off his back, he pitched an irritated look at Kanaye, who had turned at his arrival and then gone back to his conversation with Sesshoumaru, dismissing Inuyasha completely.
Inuyasha then looked to find the lounging wolf, and Rin perched at a safe distance in the tree above it. "What have I missed here?" he asked in confusion. "What's with the wolf?"
"Kouga brought it," Rin replied stiffly.
Inuyasha blinked at her, completely uncomprehending. "Why the hell would he do that?"
Rin sounded as though she could barely believe it herself. "He brought it to guard me … or so he says."
"You're joking."
"I wish that were true."
"I guess that's why you're treed then, huh?" he asked, recalling the story Rin had told him of her first encounter with Kouga's wolves. "Want me to get rid of him?"
Rin shook her head, still not willing to be the cause of its death. "He won't go away. He only responds to me. And apparently he'll do anything I ask except leave me alone." She cast a wary look at the wolf, then slid down on the other side of the tree. It watched her with interested yellow eyes as she approached Inuyasha and Kagome with a smile.
"How did it go?"
Kagome grinned widely at her. "It was just like it was supposed to be. Me, Inuyasha, my family, and the priest. It went well enough. He just needed some … encouragement," she said, casting an apologetic look at Inuyasha, who frowned.
"She put me into a damned monkey suit," Inuyasha complained, as though that was what had galled him most about the entire affair.
"It wasn't a monkey suit. You looked very handsome. Except for the black eye," Kagome countered, casting a peevish glare at Sesshoumaru, who thoroughly ignored her. She dropped her backpack from her shoulders and opened the flap, depositing several completely unidentifiable items on the ground before finally coming to some thin, paper-like objects. Kagome pulled them out and extended them to Rin.
"What are these?" Rin asked, looking in amazement at the pictures.
"Polaroids," Kagome offered the foreign word, then explained, "Instant pictures. Inuyasha was in a hurry to get back, so I couldn't wait around for the good ones to develop."
Rin flipped through the pictures, astonished at such a thing, noticing that Kagome was attired in the enormous white dress she had pointed out to her in the book a few days earlier. There were some happily smiling faces of people she did not know … an old man, an older woman who somewhat resembled Kagome, and a young man who looked to be about Rin's age. Then there was Inuyasha, who appeared quite grumpy and ill-at-ease in all of them, frowning back at the camera in a strange outfit, pulling awkwardly at some bit of cloth that was tied around his neck. Several of them looked as though he had been caught completely by surprise, eyes wide in what looked to be open astonishment that something was being stuck in his face to take a photograph.
Rin smiled as she extended them back to Kagome's waiting hands. "Was it really so bad, Inuyasha?"
"She didn't have to hide it from me," Inuyasha sniffed in annoyance. "I'd have come. It's just a ceremony. We didn't need it, but if it made her happy …"
"It did," Kagome clarified quickly.
He nodded gruffly. "Okay then."
Inuyasha trailed away from the two chattery girls and headed for Sesshoumaru and Kanaye. He seated himself without invitation, prompting Kanaye to turn and look at him with an expression of complete distaste, as though Inuyasha was some sort of unwanted infestation.
"Did anything happen while I was gone?"
"Go home, little insect. You're not needed," Kanaye replied to his inquiry.
Inuyasha instantly bristled. "I don't know where Sesshoumaru had to go to dig you up, old man, but I'm about to put you back where he found you. You're long overdue for a good, solid beating."
"Feel free, wretch. It'll give me the excuse I need to kill you," Kanaye said spitefully.
Sesshoumaru, quickly becoming irritable at the pointless bickering, interjected their true purpose back into the conversation. If Inuyasha was insisting on tagging along, then he would need to have his tiny brain forced into functioning. "Do you remember Sashe, Inuyasha?"
Inuyasha dropped the fight and frowned in thought, as though searching back through discarded memories. "Yeah, isn't she the one that looks like an even girlier version of you?"
Sesshoumaru and Kanaye turned identical looks of bland disgust toward him.
"What?" Inuyasha asked. "I'm not gonna believe you're a stranger to a mirror. It can hardly come as a surprise," Inuyasha told Sesshoumaru. "So what about her?"
"She has become caught up on Eizan's side. She believes she's in love with him," Sesshoumaru said the words with marked distaste. "At the battle outside your village, Eizan voiced a threat toward the individual who warned me of the attack. That person was Elif, Eizan's daughter, but he may very well look to Sashe to place blame instead. Kanaye wants to drive straight forward and attack Eizan's fortress in an attempt to get her back."
"So that's the plan?"
"No, it's not," Sesshoumaru replied readily and Kanaye's face darkened. "She is an idiot and she got herself into her own predicament. She can wait."
"Do you want her death on your conscience?" Kanaye asked venomously, his gold eyes flickering with a feral gleam in the firelight.
Sesshoumaru smirked. "I have no conscience, so I will not be troubled. And you really shouldn't speak of such things. You have no concept of what a conscience is."
"True enough," Kanaye agreed coldly. "Then I guess you will track down Isamu instead?"
"And why would I do that?" Sesshoumaru queried, noticing out of the corner of his eye that Inuyasha was watching them, his head turning back and forth with interest.
"Who do you think sent the water demon? Isamu obviously chose a side."
"You just made the same mistake Eizan made," Sesshoumaru informed him with a tone of superiority. "I clearly know Isamu better than the two of you. He has not involved himself and that was not his demon. Ever since the battle, they have been frantically attempting to distract me. First with the attempt on Inuyasha's life during our return from Toutousai, then with the water demon's attack on Rin. They are diverting my attention while they scramble to recover from the sudden loss of their commander. They are hoping I will seek revenge on Isamu while they regroup. My unprovoked attack on Isamu would then draw him in on Eizan's side … or so Eizan hoped." Sesshoumaru paused, smiling maliciously. "But I know that Isamu would not deign to lower himself to such a thing as sending an assassin after a human girl. Isamu's involvement builds as slowly as his anger, then he makes one swift strike and he is done. These are not his tactics at all."
"Then what are they?" Inuyasha asked, frowning at the details. To hell with strategy. He just wanted to go in and blow someone away for the mess they had made of his village.
"They are the tactics of a coward," Sesshoumaru answered. "I credit Kawahira with more intelligence than to try something so stupid. Keito is his lackey. Elif is clearly on my side. That leaves Ashihei. Ashihei, who could not be a better fit for cowardly tactics, and who currently resides in an island fortress toward his eastern border. An island fortress whose first line of defense are creatures such as the one that attacked Rin."
"Then we take him out first," Inuyasha stated.
Sesshoumaru disliked the hanyou's usage of the word "we", but let it slide. "You can do what you will, hanyou. I will be leaving to meet Ashihei tonight."
"Will he anticipate you?" Kanaye questioned.
Sesshoumaru was confident as he answered, "If he didn't have the brains to recognize a bad plan when he formed it, he won't have enough to guess that I'll be coming for him first."
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The miko and the hanyou were plastered together, always side by side, particularly now, after their quaint little ceremony. It was nauseating. The last thing Sesshoumaru wanted to witness was some horrible romantic interlude between his brother and his apparent mate. They were constantly touching each other, looking at each other with sickeningly adoring expressions. It almost made him wish Kanaye would start something again, just so the hanyou would return to his normal belligerent behavior.
Normally Sesshoumaru would not pay them any attention at all, but he intended to have a discussion with Kagome. It was not something he was looking forward to. He could almost admit that it made him uncomfortable, but the fact remained that they were too stupid for their own good, and if it all went as he hoped, Sesshoumaru just might find himself free from their interference entirely. It was not something he would approach Inuyasha about; it was not even something he wanted to discuss with Inuyasha's woman. But she, by far, was the more sensible of the two, and so it was better to bring it up with her.
He waited for a good moment to approach her and was inadvertently done a favor by Rin when she engaged Inuyasha in a conversation about Kouga and his character, or lack thereof. The massive, furred beast still hovered not far from her, warming itself next to the fire, head resting on one paw, both eyes ever watchful.
Sesshoumaru listened as Kagome did what she could to defend Kouga, but when Inuyasha began to get jealous, she dropped it and mentioned something about washing up at the nearby stream. She stood, stretched, grabbed her backpack and wandered out of their encampment. Sesshoumaru took that opportunity and faded into the woods as well.
He haunted her footsteps all the way through the forest. In her long years with his brother, this girl had clearly learned something about how to move quietly and Sesshoumaru was vaguely impressed. If he had not been a demon, he would not have been able to track her so easily. With his senses attuned, however, she might as well have been lighting beacons the entire way.
She walked down the sandy embankment and knelt to splash some water on her hands, then her face. He took that moment to address her, wanting to catch her before she went into any state of undress. In his mind, he could just hear the shriek of "hentai!" and the explanations that would have to follow. Sesshoumaru wondered again why he was even bothering, but he supposed that he should at least warn her. Some months back, she had gone to some trouble for his benefit, and so he decided that this would make them even.
"Miko," he called, watching with some satisfaction as, at the sound of his voice, she almost fell forward from her awkward perch.
"Don't do that!" she berated him instantly, turning around. "I can't hear when you're coming. Next time make some noise." Her face calmed then, and she frowned at the oddity that was Sesshoumaru's attempt at a private conversation. "Did you need to talk to me about something …?"
"You should not be here, and you should take the half-breed with you."
She sighed and closed her eyes, as though gathering strength for yet another battle of words in an attempt to defend Inuyasha's worth, as well as that of her own species. "Just because I'm human doesn't mean I'm completely useless. I handled myself pretty well against Naraku, if you'll recall."
"I remember. But this is a different circumstance."
"And why would that be? Naraku was a lot scarier than this Eizan guy."
"Strength has little to do with it; they are vastly different opponents. My purpose here, since my brother is a complete imbecile, is to warn you properly. This is going to be a dirty fight, a violent one. These people are not after a magical jewel. They intend to kill me for what I have, and since Inuyasha is, quite unfortunately, in succession behind me, they will have to deal with him, too, if they intend to achieve their goals. They are not merciful people. They will not stop until they have destroyed me and anyone that stands to inherit behind me. And now that you are armed with that knowledge, you would be wise to rethink your decision."
"I don't understand," she said, genuinely confused. "You don't have a problem with Rin coming."
He found himself becoming weary of her stupidity. "Rin is not in the same situation. And if she were, she would receive the same warning." He paused, then went on, hating the words, "Until quite recently, Kanaye was third in line for my position, behind Inuyasha. You have now affected that succession, much to my chagrin, and now Kanaye will fall fourth."
Kagome frowned and shook her head at him, as though he was speaking something other than Japanese. "What situation? You're not making any sense."
Sesshoumaru frowned back at her. Are humans really so half-witted? Do they not even notice? he wondered. Then it was probably for the best that he had chosen to intercede, since this human girl had clearly made an uninformed decision. One of many, he thought blandly. With malicious pleasure, Sesshoumaru decided to shock the hell out of her.
"Then let me make it plain for you, miko. I don't have time to waste on a shrill, pregnant female, nor do I want to have to deal with Inuyasha's excessive distraction over your well-being. You would do us all a service by returning to your village."
"Pardon me?!" Kagome practically choked on the words.
Sesshoumaru shook his head at her, wondering what exactly it was about this slow-minded girl that had so endeared her to Rin and the hanyou. "I wasn't aware that deafness was one of the unfortunate side effects. Shall I repeat myself?" he inquired.
She stared back at him with white-faced awe, and he wondered for a moment if that was due to rage or shock.
"How would you….?"
"It's not difficult," he said blandly. "I often forget that humans have so little idea of what is going on around them."
"But Inuyasha…."
"… has senses that are capable of half what mine are, but he'll figure it out after a while," Sesshoumaru interrupted her. "Were you really so clueless, miko?"
She blinked at him in astonishment, as though still trying to process his words. Then her face suddenly darkened with a look he had seen before, the one that tended to precede one of Inuyasha's embarrassing osuwaris. "Quit calling me that! I hate being called that and you've known me long enough to learn my name!"
"And so the foul moods begin," he said wryly.
"You're one to talk, as ill-tempered as you are," she snapped back. "Why are you telling me this? I'm not guessing that it's because you care."
"You are correct about that," he acknowledged with a nod. "It is your brat and your business. Concern yourself with that as much or as little as you want."
"I can't tell him," Kagome whispered guiltily, as though expecting Inuyasha to be lurking behind the bushes. "He'll send me back to the village." Or worse, back home, Kagome thought, anxious, as always, at the thought of leaving him.
"You place too much faith in his nonexistent wisdom."
She ignored Sesshoumaru's comment, frowning deeply in thought, "I don't want to be separated from him. Besides, if I go back, Eizan will have a reason to attack the village."
"You also overestimate your own importance," Sesshoumaru added coolly.
"He's targeted Inuyasha as well," Kagome reminded him. "Which means it's safer for the villagers if I'm not there, either. You won't tell him will you? I'll let him know as soon as this is over."
"I have no desire to speak to Inuyasha at all, even less so about his personal matters," Sesshoumaru replied. "And I do not care what you do. Just know this for a fact: at the moment, you are below Eizan's notice. That changes as soon as he knows of your condition. Do what you will with that warning."
"If it's not your concern, that doesn't explain why you would go to the trouble to warn me," Kagome said quietly.
"Isn't it obvious?" Sesshoumaru asked contemptuously, as he turned to walk back into the shadowy forest. "I was hoping to be rid of you."
She hesitated, and that was what cost her the opportunity to kill him. It was her conscience, that damned whispering voice her mother had instilled in her ... that same little voice her father never seemed to hear. But this was a time when Sashe wished she was able to silence it as easily as Kanaye, because the blade continued to hover in midair, held aloft by a stiffened arm that would not do her bidding.
As she waited for that righteous fury to seize her again and force her to carry through with the motion, she heard the sounds of a heavy footfall rapidly approaching the door. Sashe instantly lowered the sword, clutching it to her in an attempt to hide it from the sight of anyone that came in, wrapping her fingers tightly around the hilt.
The wooden door swung open. The disembodied footsteps took a present form in that of Kawahira, who entered the darkened room. The door was slowly shut, there was a slight rustling movement, the murmur of low voices outside the door, and then she could hear him approaching her from behind.
"He doesn't look well, does he?" Kawahira commented.
"No, he doesn't," she replied evenly.
Kawahira took a few measured steps forward until he was standing right behind her, close enough so that she could feel the brush of clothing against clothing. She felt frozen, unsure of how much he suspected, but highly aware of the heavy weight in her hand. She pulled the sword in closer, hugging it like a child.
Kawahira's eyes flickered from her stiff posture to the empty sheath that lay on the table. He saw the muscles in her arms clench, as though she was holding tightly onto something. He smiled grimly at the back of her head, grateful for the expected moment of complete stupidity on her part. What a perfect solution.
"What I said to Elif earlier is true," he said slowly, listening with amusement as her pulse sped up, surging to a feverish thumping that rang to his hearing as soundly as a confession. "I will not let her take responsibility for her poor decision. It was a moment of insanity. She does not see clearly where Sesshoumaru is concerned."
"Does anyone?" she mumbled in reply. She certainly hadn't.
"He does have a way of creating misunderstandings, doesn't he? A strange talent for a creature as prone to the literal as he is. He does not seek to explain himself, because he does not care about the perceptions of others. Such an attitude creates harsh feelings, as there are between him and my father. That same lack of clarity engendered this pathetic hope in my sister, the one that leads her to do such destructive things in order to garner his favor. How sad for Elif that she does not realize that he has the most miniscule of hearts, and that it is currently consumed by his fascination with her human rival."
"Why are you telling me this?" she asked, the edge of the hilt biting into her hands from the harsh grip.
"I study my opponents, Sashe. I learn their strengths, their weaknesses, their very thought patterns. Sesshoumaru is not nearly so difficult to understand as others make him out to be. He is motivated by possession, purely and simply. Not greed, not malice for its own sake, not love, loyalty, hate, or feelings of any sort. One is strictly beneath his notice until they strike out in some way against something that is his." Kawahira paused in his dissection of Sesshoumaru. "Then there is you," he went on. "On the surface, you seem so simple. But I can tell you from experience that the enemy you watch the most closely, the one you trust the least, is the one that is motivated by their heart. Hearts change so quickly. A suspicion can switch loyalties. A spoken word can morph love into hate, and with that the intentions of the individual."
"I am now your enemy," she gathered from his tone.
"You always were," he stated lowly. "I have thought ahead of you. I knew the rage you would feel at being betrayed. You're not stupid. It was only a matter of time until you figured out what was going on. You see, I place more faith in your intelligence than my father. I had only to wait for the realization to come to you and to be present when your meltdown occurred. I will admit that I did not predict you to attempt so suicidal an action, but again, it proves what I said about one whose heart rules them. I could not have possibly engineered so perfect a scapegoat for Elif. I thank you."
Sashe nodded, feeling as though she had just aged a century. She found it interesting that he felt her to be of competent intelligence when she was so certain that a bigger fool had never walked the earth. "Her scapegoat," she repeated. "Then I'm to take the blame for the letter. And if I refuse? I could always tell Eizan the truth."
"Do you think he'll believe a woman I found hovering over his bed with a drawn sword?"
She went very still at his words, so much so that he was able to hear again as that nervous heart rate fell, lowered into something calmer. He watched her, curious as to what she would do. She had always struck him as astonishingly passive for a demon, but then he had never witnessed her cornered before.
"Give it to me, Sashe," he warned. "Don't make me take it from you."
Sashe shook her head imperceptibly, less at what he was saying than at the bizarre turn of events that had brought her to this point. But for the first time in months, she did not feel bad for her actions. It was a very freeing feeling. It felt like she had gone home, like she had shed the new Sashe and crawled back into her own skin. She inhaled a slow breath, vaguely heard the cheerful chirp of a bird on the windowsill, a little creature who was trying to stay light-hearted on such a dark day.
She turned and swung the sword so quickly that she surprised even Kawahira's honed battle instincts. His face darkened into anger as he threw up an armored forearm to deflect the blow, then twisted his hand instantly and grasped onto the blade itself. The edge cut through the thick glove on his hand, but did not reach the skin. With a violent jerk, he pulled it from her grasp and tossed it toward the far wall, where it skidded to a stop.
Sashe took a step back, looking vengeful. She paid little attention when the door swung open and two guards entered the room.
"My lord?" one questioned, but Kawahira gestured for them to move back.
"It's fine," he said calmly. "She clearly wants a fight, and I'm happy to give her one."
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"Hey, I see something!" Inuyasha called suddenly, causing Sesshoumaru's head to turn in response. He watched as the hanyou took yet another plunge into the river, went under for several seconds, and then emerged with an annoyed expression. He held up a dislodged, leafy plant, its disturbed roots waving in the breeze. Sesshoumaru withheld comment, but Inuyasha seemed to read his mind.
"It looked like a shadow of something!" Inuyasha called defensively, pulling himself back out of the water and giving himself a shake, sending drops of water hurtling in every direction.
There goes his sight, Sesshoumaru complained internally as he continued downriver, eyes scouring the water for anything out of place. Inuyasha's rapid footfalls trailed behind him.
"Shit!" came a sudden curse from behind him. The footsteps stumbled slightly then slowed drastically.
And there goes the rest of him, Sesshoumaru added the mental note, turning to look behind him to watch as the now-dark-haired Inuyasha fell further and further behind. Dismissing the half-breed from his thoughts, Sesshoumaru again tried to focus in on his senses in an attempt to track Rin's location. It was a futile effort, he knew. Scent did not adhere to water, which made his sense of smell about as useful as Inuyasha's.
This blindness was causing him a deep sense of unease. It was like wandering about in a dark, cavernous room, hoping an outstretched hand grasped onto what you were looking for. He found himself weighing the prospect of her permanent loss, something he tended to avoid, but now with the possibility of it and no way to correct it looming ahead of him, Sesshoumaru felt something he was loathe to term as fear, but decided that was as close to a description as he could come up with. Being separated from her would ... return his life to what it had been before, except now there would be a vacancy he did not want. He hated regret. He hated being bothered by anything, but that was beyond change at this point. Another sign of his growing weakness. But he had discovered that it is easy to ignore the absence of something good from one's life, when they've never experienced it before. When it has been there and then no longer is, there is no forgetting it. Very simply, he wanted her back.
He was pulled out of his dark musing when he noticed that the river forked off up ahead, split into a V-shape that carried it in two separate directions, one larger, the other slightly shallower. He stopped, his mind turning with the best idea of which way the demon would have gone. Likely into the deeper waters, since it would lead to a larger body of water.
Panting breaths caused him to look behind him as Inuyasha sprinted up to him and then came to a stop, squinting out over the dark, churning water.
"Which way?"
"There is no way to tell."
"Fine. Then I'll take that way, and you go that way," Inuyasha said, gesturing in the two directions the river forked.
"For all intents and purposes, you are now blind and deaf," Sesshoumaru muttered.
"Do you have another idea?" Silence. "That's what I thought. They meet up again further downstream. We'll check them both," Inuyasha replied before running off down the right fork. Sesshoumaru then took the left.
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It was complete watery chaos. Rin found it nearly impossible to gather her bearings, as she was dragged along under the river's current at a dizzying speed. Her lungs were aching with the need to inhale fresh air. Her eyes were open and registering the blur of the river bottom, hands flailing in an attempt to grasp at something to halt the demon's forward motion. Its tentacle-like appendages were still securely wrapped around her midsection. It gave another harsh jerk, expelling more air from her lungs, and knocking her container of arrows off of her shoulder.
They hung from her arm, held their by the leather strap, razor-sharp points catching some of the remaining light from the surface. Without even thinking, Rin reached for her arrows, but was only able to grasp two of them before another jerking movement dislodged the rest into the current.
Clutching one of them carefully, she shoved the pointed end into the demon's soft flesh, then removed it and did it again, this time getting the reaction she wanted. The tentacles loosened and thrust her away. Rin felt her forward movement quickly slow to match the speed of the river, but when she turned herself around, it was to find the creature hurtling back toward her, its filmy, opalescent eyes now red with rage.
Rin quickly shoved off the bottom and shot toward the surface, heaving in a great lungful of air before she felt the slick appendages circle her again and drag her back under. Instinctively her hand went out, nails digging into the demon's neck in an attempt to keep its jagged teeth away from her. Its face was absolutely terrifying to behold, some sort of cross between an octopus and a shark. It made her all the more ready to get away from it.
Gripping her second arrow in her fist, she took what she hoped was a good guess and plunged it into the demon's chest. There was a water-muted roaring, followed by an odd gurgling, but the creature refused to give way, and instead of releasing her, this time wrapped itself more securely around her and began falling back toward the bottom. She tried to wriggle free, but it was as though she was being weighted down by a block of iron.
The bottom of the river was strangely peaceful, plants swaying back and forth, and darting fish. Her chest was tightening up with the growing need to inhale. But just as she began resigning herself to the fact that the odds of her drowning looked very good indeed, the water around her was violently displaced. She turned her head, her long hair waving languidly back and forth, obscuring her vision, but she could swear she saw some movement behind ….
A flash of green lit the calm riverbed, and Rin blinked at the sudden manifestation of this attack she recognized so well. Sesshoumaru's long hair whispered past her face as he sliced through the tentacles that clung to her before pushing her backward out of the way. Another set of hands gripped onto her arms and suddenly Rin was shooting back toward the surface, hacking and coughing up river water. She spent several seconds raggedly inhaling enormous quantities of air, her head pounding from lack of oxygen. She shoved a curtain of sopping hair out of her face and found Inuyasha, dark-haired and frowning, treading against the current with her.
"Inuyasha … you're human," she commented in a moment of confusion. Before he could reply, she looked behind her. "Where is he?"
"He's making sushi out of that thing. He'll be back in a minute." Inuyasha replied as he started swimming toward shore, one hand latched firmly around her arm. When they reached the bank, he clambered out and then pulled her up. Immediately, Rin collapsed back in the soft grass and began calming her breathing, waited for her muscles to stop shaking, and wiped water out of her eyes. She found that she was surrounded by reedy plants that waved steadily in the evening breeze, and a quickly darkening night. Fireflies lit up around her, flickering on and off.
"Are you all in one piece?"
"Yes," she breathed, pulling herself back to a sitting position. She looked out at the river, which had resumed its previous tranquility, all while some unseen struggle was taking place beneath the water.
"He's one slow bastard, isn't he?" Inuyasha muttered. She watched as he moved back to the edge of the bank and poised to jump back in, but stopped short when Sesshoumaru broke the surface and then cleared the water entirely, dropping gracefully back to shore, appearing calm and cool as ever.
He knelt in front of her, his face very intent and looking as though he was about to say something … and then seemed to remember the company they were in. His gaze flickered to Inuyasha, who was busy wringing his sleeves out. "You can go, hanyou."
Inuyasha glanced sharply back at him, eyebrows quirking in annoyance. "Oh, I've been dismissed, Your Majesty? Well, you're welcome." He stood up, bent to unravel some sort of aquatic vine from around his ankle, then turned to walk off.
"Thank you, Inuyasha," Rin called, saying the words she knew Sesshoumaru would sooner die than utter.
He turned back around at the sound of her voice. "You are welcome," he said in a mixture of gruff sincerity. "He's the one that can go to hell. Which reminds me … I think I'll head back and get a good seat for the complete thrashing your boyfriend's about to give Kanaye."
"Don't return to Kanaye as you are, Inuyasha," Sesshoumaru said, eyeing Inuyasha's human form with barely concealed disdain and surprising Rin with his lack of a retort at the word usage of "boyfriend".
"Don't order me," Inuyasha countered quickly.
Sesshoumaru's expression went ice cold. "Then do what you will. I do not care, but I will not lift a finger to interfere with anything you start with him."
"Who's asking you to? You think I'm afraid of him?" Inuyasha sneered.
"You're not that smart," Sesshoumaru answered. "He would quite happily take advantage of your unfortunate human condition. He views you as even more of a disgrace to us than I do."
"Careful there, Sesshoumaru, you're almost starting to sound like my brother," Inuyasha warned sarcastically before turning on his heel and trudging upriver through the waist-high reeds.
"Don't get your hopes up," Sesshoumaru scowled, watching as Inuyasha dismissively waved that comment away and kept walking.
Rin watched as he turned back to face her and the scowl melted into something kinder. She smiled gratefully back at him and before she knew what she was doing, her hands had reached up to grasp the sides of his face between her palms. She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips.
When she drew back, he was looking at her with some surprise. "You're in quite a good mood for someone who was nearly drowned."
"Yes, I am," she agreed, watching as the wind picked up behind him and blew across the water. It brushed at his hair and she saw, with some amusement, that he even seemed to be drying out faster than she was. Now that her world was calm and in order again, she took a moment to tune out the day and just enjoy the face that was staring back at her with an expression of such deep affection.
"You did well against that demon. There wasn't much for me to finish off," he praised her, reaching out to pull a twig from her hair. "It was rather disappointing."
"You've taught me well," she said with a growing smile, then glanced upriver at the distant speck that was Inuyasha. "And it's good to see you and Inuyasha getting along better."
"You call that getting along better?"
"It was nice of you to warn him about Kanaye," she amended the statement, reaching back to gather the weight of her hair and knot it in an attempt to get that clammy feeling off of her neck. She shivered lightly in the wind, noticing that Sesshoumaru was watching her every movement, as though entranced by something she was doing. His expression was thoughtful as he replied to her accusation of kindness.
"I'm not certain why I bothered. They would both do me a favor if they would just send each other to hell."
"You don't mean that," she said with a gentle smile. He would be damned before he would admit it, but Rin suspected that he was actually learning to tolerate Inuyasha. She would not go so far as to say that he had come to like the hanyou … it was more that he had become accustomed to the fact that Inuyasha was going to stubbornly continue to exist.
His face became hard once more, and Rin reached out and grasped onto his hand in an attempt to bring back his sweeter side. She saw it so infrequently that now that he was allowing it to come through, she didn't want to see it fade. "I'm considering sending Kanaye to hell on my own," Sesshoumaru told her. "I was told what happened while I was gone."
Rin's happiness was squashed at that terrifying memory. She could easily remember the look of cold dispassion on Kanaye's face as he had watched her dragged off into the river with such indifference. It was chilling, because Rin could not think of anyone she hated enough to allow for such a situation to be reversed. "Neither of us can be surprised by what happened," she finally told him in what she hoped sounded like a sincere voice, shaking off her own anger at the incident. "I didn't expect him to help me. I just …."
"Yes?" he prompted.
"A warning would have been nice," she finished awkwardly.
"He is not "nice", Rin, by any stretch of the word. He has very little mercy toward others, and none for humans. Don't catch yourself alone with him again." He paused, then added, "I will make it clear to him the repercussions if this happens again. I think that will be enough to hold him in check."
She nodded and watched as Sesshoumaru fell silent again. He glanced over his shoulder, as though hearing something, then looked back to find her smiling at him with such contentment that he felt compelled to know what lay behind it. "What?" he asked.
"I am very lucky," she said sweetly.
"Yes, you are," he agreed instantly.
"I meant because I have you."
"Yes, that is what I was referring to as well. Another woman would have met an unfortunate end."
She laughed and was rewarded with a slight smile from him as well. "You have the best timing." Rin got to her knees, put her arms around his neck, and hugged him to her, gratified that the usual moment of stiff response fled from him quickly. He allowed her to melt against him and she took the opportunity for all it was worth.
He surprised her by wrapping his own arms around her, that wild heartbeat thumping against her chest, and then his breath against her ear as he quietly replied, "I was motivated."
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When they returned to the site of what Rin's mind had come to term as "the incident", it was to find a far more peaceful scene than there had been when she had been pulled away from this place. The river was now black with the fallen night. There was a crowd of villagers who had been summoned out of their homes to aid in the search, most of which were clutching freshly-lit torches, as the search had not been necessary for very long. Rin was greeted with excitement from Shippou and obvious relief from Kohaku, who had grasped onto her hand and expressed relief over her safety. Tension fairly radiated off of Sesshoumaru when he witnessed this action, and Rin smiled awkwardly back at Kohaku, accepting his words for the kindness they were meant to be, and fully aware that he was now even more disliked by the taiyoukai that hovered just behind her.
"Rin!" a relieved voice called, and she turned to find Kagome darting toward her from further downriver, jeans and tennis shoes mud-soaked, hair hanging in complete disarray, as if she had spent the last hour digging and wading. Kagome grabbed her hands, which were as ice-cold as her own.
"We were scared to death!" Kagome exclaimed, eyes wide. Rin looked from Kagome's pale, torch-lit face to a figure that was standing casually in the distance, lurking like a ghost, and staring back at her with vague interest. Kanaye.
"Don't you and the runt have somewhere to be, miko?" Sesshoumaru hinted, bringing Rin's attention away from Kanaye.
Kagome glanced up at him as thought it had just occurred to her that he was there as well. "Yes, we're leaving. Thank you for bringing him back in time."
"Your wish is my command," he answered in a flat voice that fairly dripped with sarcasm.
"You should be nicer. We're about to be family, Sesshoumaru," Kagome gleefully shot back at his rudeness. Not even Sesshoumaru's dour mood was going to put a damper on her happiness.
He regarded her as though she had just slapped him, head lifting with offense. "That is fitting, miko," Sesshoumaru practically growled back, "considering that my family is consistently inhabited by the people I can stand the least."
Kagome ignored him completely this time, and instead looked back to Rin with a conspiratorial grin. "I'll bring back pictures."
"You'd better," Rin smiled back at how feverishly happy Kagome looked, then watched as the girl turned and practically fled back to the village, likely to collect her half-demon and get him to the well before he could ask too many questions.
Rin was distracted from Kagome's fleeing form when she felt a sudden movement. She turned to watch as Sesshoumaru stormed past her toward the lounging Kanaye, who straightened up as he approached, looking prepared for what was about to happen. His expression never lost its arrogance, and Rin wondered if it was that that angered Sesshoumaru more or the demon's big mouth.
"She has more lives than a cat," Kanaye unwisely commented. Instantly, Sesshoumaru's fist plowed into his face with bone-crunching force. Kanaye staggered back a step from the blow, then shook his head as though to clear it.
"If this happens again, you won't see what hit you," Sesshoumaru threatened with ominous certainty.
Kanaye did not speak again.
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Sesshoumaru steadfastly refused to stay in the village that night. He returned briefly for Rin, but his impatience to be gone from the place was palpable. Rin hurriedly went about gathering her few things, stripping off her wet clothes in exchange for something dry. She said quick goodbyes to Kohaku, Miroku, Sango, and Shippou. Kaede saw her off with a new quiver of arrows for her bow, meant to replace the ones she had lost during the scuffle in the river. Then, with the recently returned Jaken in tow, she and Sesshoumaru took their leave from the village.
In no time at all, they had resumed their usual routine. Sesshoumaru, now again dressed in his own clothing, was nearly fully healed from his battle against Eizan and his people. Wounds that had appeared ghastly the night before, now looked to be little more than scratches, his vision was back to normal, and the hand that had been so thoroughly mangled by Toukijin was quickly repairing itself. As always, Rin was awed by his inherent ability to bounce back so quickly from even the most dreadful injuries.
She felt glad to see everything back to as it had been, even though she was quite sad at leaving behind people whose company she had come to enjoy. Being around Inuyasha, Kagome, and their friends served almost as a means of keeping her in touch with being a human. At times, that was difficult when one was consistently surrounded by demons, their egos, and their interests. As much as she loved Sesshoumaru, and Jaken as well, there were times when it was nice to just fall back on the simplicity that was being around people that were like her.
Breaking out of these thoughts, she watched, amused, as Jaken, in his truest sycophantic form, ingratiatingly worked to get Sesshoumaru to speak to him. Sesshoumaru, as usual, was trying just as hard to ignore his retainer. His intuition must have picked up on her thoughts, because he waited for Jaken to fall silent long enough to inhale a breath, and took that opportunity to say to her, "It is very likely that Inuyasha will try to join us when he returns."
Rin perked up hopefully at this announcement, as much for him as for herself. "And Kagome?"
"That is a safe assumption."
"And you're … okay with that?" she tested.
"No, I am not, but she's not a very bright girl."
Rin frowned at that statement. Kagome struck her as one of the smartest people she knew. "What do you mean?"
He hesitated for a moment, as though altering what he had first intended to say, "Anyone who would tie herself for life to my brother must be as brainless as he is."
"She's a sweet girl. I think you'll learn to like her if you get to know her…."
"Unlikely. I've known her long enough to understand that she is quite irritating in her own right. Together, she and Inuyasha are enough to drive even the sanest man to distraction."
Rin grinned at that and fell silent. They walked into the late night hours, Rin feeling as though she was wading more than walking through the knee-high blades of grass. Jaken, his head barely visible, apparently gave up on Sesshoumaru for the night and fell back to walk with Rin, who always allowed him the opportunity to chatter at her. Rin listened to him, amused as always by Jaken's immense self-satisfaction as he relayed stories to her detailing his "heroics". When he tired of that, they all became quiet, and Rin was left with the peacefulness of the blackest night she had ever witnessed. Starlight cast down from above, allowing her only to glimpse shadows. Her heart leapt into her throat at one point when she caught sight of a lean, dog-like creature that shot across the field ahead of them, clearly hunting its dinner. A wolf…? Rin felt her nerves rise. No, a fox …
As her feet pulled her along, she wondered where exactly Sesshoumaru was leading them. He had been purposefully vague back at the village when she had asked what he intended to do next. She could tell he was planning to take some sort of action, but he would not discuss it with her for some reason. Thus far, Eizan had repeatedly forced him to react defensively, and she could tell that Sesshoumaru was finished with that. It was only a matter of time until he launched an offensive of his own, and it made her insides coil up with quiet anxiety.
Her head came up at a rush of blue and white motion that swept past her, rustling her hair and clothing. She blinked in surprise as, suddenly, Kanaye was walking beside Sesshoumaru and speaking to him in a tone so low Rin could not catch a word of what was said. They spoke like this for several minutes before Kanaye again practically dissipated into the night.
"Is something going on?" Rin asked when the much-detested demon had taken his leave.
"Not yet," Sesshoumaru replied in a tone that discouraged more questions.
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She had been enveloped in a warm, comfortable dream of home … a strange dream that had included her parents and brother, Kameko and Kisho, and Sesshoumaru, all together, interacting as though none of this was out of the ordinary at all. She had felt so thrilled to be with them all at once, no longer with one and missing the other. It was only toward the end, when she could feel her brain pulling her from this contentment, that she was reminded that some of these people were dead and unreachable, some were far, far away … and one would not be caught dead in so casual a situation with a houseful of humans.
When Rin woke, it was to find pale sunlight pouring down on her through the tree limbs that hung above her, blasting away the dream's remnants with morning light. There was something amiss … something that had jarred her out of that happy dream. She lay still for several moments, blinking away the last bit of confusion, and listened to what was around her. The crackling of the fire was absent, as it had clearly gone out sometime during the night. There was the distant warble of a bird, and then the sound of two low voices speaking to each other.
Soundlessly, Rin rose to her feet, straightened her clothing as best she could, ran a hand through her hair to dislodge some of the tangles as she made her way barefoot from the grassy clearing they had stopped in, ears following the familiarity of Sesshoumaru's deep voice mixing with yet another voice that suddenly struck her memory, recalling to her the image of someone who was utterly unwanted. She'd know that voice anywhere, its mocking tone full of an arrogance that was unmatched save by the individual Kouga was arguing at.
She brushed past the heavy vegetation that blocked them from her sight and found her suspicions confirmed. Kouga was standing a few feet away from Sesshoumaru, arms crossed and scowling. Clearly he was not getting what he wanted out of Sesshoumaru, which pleased Rin to no end, even though she had no clue as to what they were discussing. She walked toward them, head held up and determined to squash her childish fear.
Jaken glanced her way from where he was perched on a rock behind Sesshoumaru, his thin green hands clasped casually around Nintoujou. As she came closer, Rin was able to hear more of the words that were being spoken, but still was unable to get a good idea of what their point of contention was.
"It's none of your business, wolf. If you doubt in my abilities, I can be persuaded to demonstrate them to you," Sesshoumaru said in a dry voice.
"I'm righting a wrong, and I'm not doing it to please you. I want to speak with her for a minute," Kouga insisted. He looked up then as Rin approached, her usual glare of ill will already aimed in his direction.
"Rin," he greeted without inflection.
"What?" she bit back, her eyes fell to the large wolf that hovered at his heel, its yellow eyes fixed on her with enough intensity to provoke the fear she hoped she was keeping from her face. In her ears, she could hear the distant stomping of pursuing feet, the howling of wolves calling to their brothers, the panting of hot breath just behind her …. She quickly shook off the memory as Kouga took a step toward her, looking as though he was preparing to speak. She fought the urge to take two steps back.
"I've brought you something," he told her, catching onto her reticence. He gestured with his fingers and the enormous brown wolf trotted out a few steps toward her. Her heart froze. Jaken jumped down from his rock, ready to start swinging Nintoujou at Sesshoumaru's command. Sesshoumaru's eyes narrowed into a glare that went from the hesitant wolf to its leader.
"If I believed that was meant maliciously, you would be a corpse at my feet," he warned Kouga, sounding as though he was now secure in the knowledge that the wolf demon was either completely mad or thoroughly stupid.
"It's not," Kouga replied, not losing the cocky tone in his voice. He spoke something unintelligible to the wolf, and it sat down immediately on its haunches, still eyeing Rin eagerly.
Kouga held out his hands in a conciliatory gesture. "I heard about what happened yesterday. It sounds like you can't trust some of the people around you."
"And I trust you even less," Rin said icily, not completely certain about whom she would least enjoy being alone with: Kouga or Kanaye.
"I can understand that," he said diplomatically, as though he was negotiating something with a rival tribe, and not trying to make amends to someone whose death had once resulted from his past indifference. "We both know why that is, so there's no need to drag up old history. But I also know that you could use a little help watching your back, and that's what this wolf is here to do," Kouga said, gesturing to the enormous beast.
"You are joking," Rin replied, the words practically freezing in midair.
"Not at all," Kouga replied. "You're a human in the middle of two demons trying to settle a fight. That's not a good place to be."
"It's better than being in the middle of one of your village massacres."
Kouga's sudden change in expression told her she had just scored a hit. "As I've told you before, my wolves are no longer allowed to hunt humans."
"Should that make me feel better?"
"Yes. This wolf is now entirely your guardian. His loyalty is to you. You can trust him."
"That will never happen," she replied fiercely. "If you're doing this to soothe your conscience and my feelings, you've just wasted your time."
Kouga inclined his head. "Be that as it may, he now belongs to you." He turned back to Sesshoumaru, who was listening impassively. "Keep the wolf with you. He will protect her life as he would mine. It can only be a help to have someone else around to keep an eye on her. She doesn't have a demon's abilities, but she's targeted as surely as you are. I'm just evening out the playing field for her."
"Why are you doing this, wolf demon?" Sesshoumaru inquired. "After nine years, your conscience suddenly weighs on you so much?"
"I don't like how she looks at me," Kouga explained simply, as though that was enough for him and it settled the matter. "I'm returning to the mountains. You'll hear from me if I see any more movement from your friends."
Sesshoumaru nodded, and Rin's mouth dropped open in abject horror as she saw that the conversation was over and Kouga was indeed preparing to leave. "You're … you're not really leaving it here, are you?" she asked, no longer caring that fear laced her voice.
Kouga grinned disarmingly at her. "He's all yours." Rin's alarm fell from Kouga to the wolf, who still watched her with what she sincerely hoped was not a hungry gaze. Its bushy tail gave a half-hearted wag.
"Take it with you!" she pleaded, but Kouga ignored her request and promptly whirled away in a tornadic swirl of dust, leaves, and wolf demon. She then cast another panicked look at the wolf. When it made a move to come toward her, she transferred that nervousness to Sesshoumaru. "Do something with it," she begged, taking as many steps backward as the wolf was taking toward her. It finally halted its progress and made a deep whining sound before resting back on its haunches again. A yawn opened its mouth wide enough to give her a good look at sharp, white fangs and a long pink tongue.
"What would you have me do with him?" Sesshoumaru asked, calm as always.
"Just make it go."
"He's sworn to you. He's not going to leave."
"You're bigger than he is," she reminded him desperately, turning and walking toward Sesshoumaru, one eye cast warily back on the wolf. Without a bit of shame, Rin clambered up onto the rock that Jaken had been perched on.
"Do you want me to kill him?" Sesshoumaru asked her very seriously.
Rin glanced at his profile, which was only inches from her and watching the wolf thoughtfully. Sesshoumaru turned to meet her scrutiny, waiting for her answer, and Rin was suddenly torn by her desire to get rid of the animal, and the guilt she would likely feel at her order being what caused its unprovoked death.
"No," she whispered.
"Are you certain?"
"No." She shook her head. "Yes. Maybe it'll … get bored and go away." An idea occurred to her then. "I'm in charge of him, right?" she asked in a voice that did not really expect an answer. Rin pointed after Kouga's wake and eyed the wolf. "Go. Go on. Go find your master."
The wolf bent its head and slunk toward her. Rin backed up until she was stopped by Sesshoumaru's shoulder, his spiked armor digging into her back. "Fine," she finally stated defiantly. "Then if you're not going to leave, just stay away from me."
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Morning fled under the harsh rule of full daylight, which then, in turn, crept into hiding as night came out once more. Rin had been forced to flee the wolf by the only means available … she had climbed one of the shorter trees and had spent most of the day glaring resentfully down at the beast that dozed at the trunk, head resting on its outstretched paws. Paws, she had been quick to notice, that were easily bigger than her own hands.
She was sane enough to know that the wolf was unlikely to hurt her, but at the same time, she could not push aside that shaky feeling of terror she got whenever she looked at it. Kouga had seemed genuine enough. Perhaps he was honestly trying to make amends. But she also knew that he was a fool if he thought sending one of his wolves to stalk her every waking movement was a way to make friends with her. It had had directly the opposite effect. She had spent most of the afternoon silently cursing him and his future offspring with obscenities that would have shocked even Inuyasha. Or, perhaps not, she corrected herself, since I probably learned most of the words from him.
Her day got progressively worse when the sun sank. Kanaye emerged from the dark woods. Being the ever-alert creature that he was, he quickly picked up on the wolf's obvious presence. When he learned why it was there and the reason Rin was so set against it, he laughed loudly at her predicament. Rin shot him an evil glare, now quite certain that Kanaye was the devil incarnate. She assumed that he was also the reason they had been lingering in this place all day. She watched from her perch in the squat little tree as he and Sesshoumaru began discussing something in depth, a conversation that was frequently punctuated by a shake of Kanaye's silvery head.
Rin's heart lifted when Inuyasha and Kagome finally arrived, as Sesshoumaru had predicted they would. Kagome still had that happy glow about her, so Rin assumed that everything had gone off as she had planned in her time. She was also quickly reminded of why she liked Inuyasha. In him she had an ally, one who was solidly with her in hating both Kouga and Kanaye. As Kagome slid off his back, he pitched an irritated look at Kanaye, who had turned at his arrival and then gone back to his conversation with Sesshoumaru, dismissing Inuyasha completely.
Inuyasha then looked to find the lounging wolf, and Rin perched at a safe distance in the tree above it. "What have I missed here?" he asked in confusion. "What's with the wolf?"
"Kouga brought it," Rin replied stiffly.
Inuyasha blinked at her, completely uncomprehending. "Why the hell would he do that?"
Rin sounded as though she could barely believe it herself. "He brought it to guard me … or so he says."
"You're joking."
"I wish that were true."
"I guess that's why you're treed then, huh?" he asked, recalling the story Rin had told him of her first encounter with Kouga's wolves. "Want me to get rid of him?"
Rin shook her head, still not willing to be the cause of its death. "He won't go away. He only responds to me. And apparently he'll do anything I ask except leave me alone." She cast a wary look at the wolf, then slid down on the other side of the tree. It watched her with interested yellow eyes as she approached Inuyasha and Kagome with a smile.
"How did it go?"
Kagome grinned widely at her. "It was just like it was supposed to be. Me, Inuyasha, my family, and the priest. It went well enough. He just needed some … encouragement," she said, casting an apologetic look at Inuyasha, who frowned.
"She put me into a damned monkey suit," Inuyasha complained, as though that was what had galled him most about the entire affair.
"It wasn't a monkey suit. You looked very handsome. Except for the black eye," Kagome countered, casting a peevish glare at Sesshoumaru, who thoroughly ignored her. She dropped her backpack from her shoulders and opened the flap, depositing several completely unidentifiable items on the ground before finally coming to some thin, paper-like objects. Kagome pulled them out and extended them to Rin.
"What are these?" Rin asked, looking in amazement at the pictures.
"Polaroids," Kagome offered the foreign word, then explained, "Instant pictures. Inuyasha was in a hurry to get back, so I couldn't wait around for the good ones to develop."
Rin flipped through the pictures, astonished at such a thing, noticing that Kagome was attired in the enormous white dress she had pointed out to her in the book a few days earlier. There were some happily smiling faces of people she did not know … an old man, an older woman who somewhat resembled Kagome, and a young man who looked to be about Rin's age. Then there was Inuyasha, who appeared quite grumpy and ill-at-ease in all of them, frowning back at the camera in a strange outfit, pulling awkwardly at some bit of cloth that was tied around his neck. Several of them looked as though he had been caught completely by surprise, eyes wide in what looked to be open astonishment that something was being stuck in his face to take a photograph.
Rin smiled as she extended them back to Kagome's waiting hands. "Was it really so bad, Inuyasha?"
"She didn't have to hide it from me," Inuyasha sniffed in annoyance. "I'd have come. It's just a ceremony. We didn't need it, but if it made her happy …"
"It did," Kagome clarified quickly.
He nodded gruffly. "Okay then."
Inuyasha trailed away from the two chattery girls and headed for Sesshoumaru and Kanaye. He seated himself without invitation, prompting Kanaye to turn and look at him with an expression of complete distaste, as though Inuyasha was some sort of unwanted infestation.
"Did anything happen while I was gone?"
"Go home, little insect. You're not needed," Kanaye replied to his inquiry.
Inuyasha instantly bristled. "I don't know where Sesshoumaru had to go to dig you up, old man, but I'm about to put you back where he found you. You're long overdue for a good, solid beating."
"Feel free, wretch. It'll give me the excuse I need to kill you," Kanaye said spitefully.
Sesshoumaru, quickly becoming irritable at the pointless bickering, interjected their true purpose back into the conversation. If Inuyasha was insisting on tagging along, then he would need to have his tiny brain forced into functioning. "Do you remember Sashe, Inuyasha?"
Inuyasha dropped the fight and frowned in thought, as though searching back through discarded memories. "Yeah, isn't she the one that looks like an even girlier version of you?"
Sesshoumaru and Kanaye turned identical looks of bland disgust toward him.
"What?" Inuyasha asked. "I'm not gonna believe you're a stranger to a mirror. It can hardly come as a surprise," Inuyasha told Sesshoumaru. "So what about her?"
"She has become caught up on Eizan's side. She believes she's in love with him," Sesshoumaru said the words with marked distaste. "At the battle outside your village, Eizan voiced a threat toward the individual who warned me of the attack. That person was Elif, Eizan's daughter, but he may very well look to Sashe to place blame instead. Kanaye wants to drive straight forward and attack Eizan's fortress in an attempt to get her back."
"So that's the plan?"
"No, it's not," Sesshoumaru replied readily and Kanaye's face darkened. "She is an idiot and she got herself into her own predicament. She can wait."
"Do you want her death on your conscience?" Kanaye asked venomously, his gold eyes flickering with a feral gleam in the firelight.
Sesshoumaru smirked. "I have no conscience, so I will not be troubled. And you really shouldn't speak of such things. You have no concept of what a conscience is."
"True enough," Kanaye agreed coldly. "Then I guess you will track down Isamu instead?"
"And why would I do that?" Sesshoumaru queried, noticing out of the corner of his eye that Inuyasha was watching them, his head turning back and forth with interest.
"Who do you think sent the water demon? Isamu obviously chose a side."
"You just made the same mistake Eizan made," Sesshoumaru informed him with a tone of superiority. "I clearly know Isamu better than the two of you. He has not involved himself and that was not his demon. Ever since the battle, they have been frantically attempting to distract me. First with the attempt on Inuyasha's life during our return from Toutousai, then with the water demon's attack on Rin. They are diverting my attention while they scramble to recover from the sudden loss of their commander. They are hoping I will seek revenge on Isamu while they regroup. My unprovoked attack on Isamu would then draw him in on Eizan's side … or so Eizan hoped." Sesshoumaru paused, smiling maliciously. "But I know that Isamu would not deign to lower himself to such a thing as sending an assassin after a human girl. Isamu's involvement builds as slowly as his anger, then he makes one swift strike and he is done. These are not his tactics at all."
"Then what are they?" Inuyasha asked, frowning at the details. To hell with strategy. He just wanted to go in and blow someone away for the mess they had made of his village.
"They are the tactics of a coward," Sesshoumaru answered. "I credit Kawahira with more intelligence than to try something so stupid. Keito is his lackey. Elif is clearly on my side. That leaves Ashihei. Ashihei, who could not be a better fit for cowardly tactics, and who currently resides in an island fortress toward his eastern border. An island fortress whose first line of defense are creatures such as the one that attacked Rin."
"Then we take him out first," Inuyasha stated.
Sesshoumaru disliked the hanyou's usage of the word "we", but let it slide. "You can do what you will, hanyou. I will be leaving to meet Ashihei tonight."
"Will he anticipate you?" Kanaye questioned.
Sesshoumaru was confident as he answered, "If he didn't have the brains to recognize a bad plan when he formed it, he won't have enough to guess that I'll be coming for him first."
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The miko and the hanyou were plastered together, always side by side, particularly now, after their quaint little ceremony. It was nauseating. The last thing Sesshoumaru wanted to witness was some horrible romantic interlude between his brother and his apparent mate. They were constantly touching each other, looking at each other with sickeningly adoring expressions. It almost made him wish Kanaye would start something again, just so the hanyou would return to his normal belligerent behavior.
Normally Sesshoumaru would not pay them any attention at all, but he intended to have a discussion with Kagome. It was not something he was looking forward to. He could almost admit that it made him uncomfortable, but the fact remained that they were too stupid for their own good, and if it all went as he hoped, Sesshoumaru just might find himself free from their interference entirely. It was not something he would approach Inuyasha about; it was not even something he wanted to discuss with Inuyasha's woman. But she, by far, was the more sensible of the two, and so it was better to bring it up with her.
He waited for a good moment to approach her and was inadvertently done a favor by Rin when she engaged Inuyasha in a conversation about Kouga and his character, or lack thereof. The massive, furred beast still hovered not far from her, warming itself next to the fire, head resting on one paw, both eyes ever watchful.
Sesshoumaru listened as Kagome did what she could to defend Kouga, but when Inuyasha began to get jealous, she dropped it and mentioned something about washing up at the nearby stream. She stood, stretched, grabbed her backpack and wandered out of their encampment. Sesshoumaru took that opportunity and faded into the woods as well.
He haunted her footsteps all the way through the forest. In her long years with his brother, this girl had clearly learned something about how to move quietly and Sesshoumaru was vaguely impressed. If he had not been a demon, he would not have been able to track her so easily. With his senses attuned, however, she might as well have been lighting beacons the entire way.
She walked down the sandy embankment and knelt to splash some water on her hands, then her face. He took that moment to address her, wanting to catch her before she went into any state of undress. In his mind, he could just hear the shriek of "hentai!" and the explanations that would have to follow. Sesshoumaru wondered again why he was even bothering, but he supposed that he should at least warn her. Some months back, she had gone to some trouble for his benefit, and so he decided that this would make them even.
"Miko," he called, watching with some satisfaction as, at the sound of his voice, she almost fell forward from her awkward perch.
"Don't do that!" she berated him instantly, turning around. "I can't hear when you're coming. Next time make some noise." Her face calmed then, and she frowned at the oddity that was Sesshoumaru's attempt at a private conversation. "Did you need to talk to me about something …?"
"You should not be here, and you should take the half-breed with you."
She sighed and closed her eyes, as though gathering strength for yet another battle of words in an attempt to defend Inuyasha's worth, as well as that of her own species. "Just because I'm human doesn't mean I'm completely useless. I handled myself pretty well against Naraku, if you'll recall."
"I remember. But this is a different circumstance."
"And why would that be? Naraku was a lot scarier than this Eizan guy."
"Strength has little to do with it; they are vastly different opponents. My purpose here, since my brother is a complete imbecile, is to warn you properly. This is going to be a dirty fight, a violent one. These people are not after a magical jewel. They intend to kill me for what I have, and since Inuyasha is, quite unfortunately, in succession behind me, they will have to deal with him, too, if they intend to achieve their goals. They are not merciful people. They will not stop until they have destroyed me and anyone that stands to inherit behind me. And now that you are armed with that knowledge, you would be wise to rethink your decision."
"I don't understand," she said, genuinely confused. "You don't have a problem with Rin coming."
He found himself becoming weary of her stupidity. "Rin is not in the same situation. And if she were, she would receive the same warning." He paused, then went on, hating the words, "Until quite recently, Kanaye was third in line for my position, behind Inuyasha. You have now affected that succession, much to my chagrin, and now Kanaye will fall fourth."
Kagome frowned and shook her head at him, as though he was speaking something other than Japanese. "What situation? You're not making any sense."
Sesshoumaru frowned back at her. Are humans really so half-witted? Do they not even notice? he wondered. Then it was probably for the best that he had chosen to intercede, since this human girl had clearly made an uninformed decision. One of many, he thought blandly. With malicious pleasure, Sesshoumaru decided to shock the hell out of her.
"Then let me make it plain for you, miko. I don't have time to waste on a shrill, pregnant female, nor do I want to have to deal with Inuyasha's excessive distraction over your well-being. You would do us all a service by returning to your village."
"Pardon me?!" Kagome practically choked on the words.
Sesshoumaru shook his head at her, wondering what exactly it was about this slow-minded girl that had so endeared her to Rin and the hanyou. "I wasn't aware that deafness was one of the unfortunate side effects. Shall I repeat myself?" he inquired.
She stared back at him with white-faced awe, and he wondered for a moment if that was due to rage or shock.
"How would you….?"
"It's not difficult," he said blandly. "I often forget that humans have so little idea of what is going on around them."
"But Inuyasha…."
"… has senses that are capable of half what mine are, but he'll figure it out after a while," Sesshoumaru interrupted her. "Were you really so clueless, miko?"
She blinked at him in astonishment, as though still trying to process his words. Then her face suddenly darkened with a look he had seen before, the one that tended to precede one of Inuyasha's embarrassing osuwaris. "Quit calling me that! I hate being called that and you've known me long enough to learn my name!"
"And so the foul moods begin," he said wryly.
"You're one to talk, as ill-tempered as you are," she snapped back. "Why are you telling me this? I'm not guessing that it's because you care."
"You are correct about that," he acknowledged with a nod. "It is your brat and your business. Concern yourself with that as much or as little as you want."
"I can't tell him," Kagome whispered guiltily, as though expecting Inuyasha to be lurking behind the bushes. "He'll send me back to the village." Or worse, back home, Kagome thought, anxious, as always, at the thought of leaving him.
"You place too much faith in his nonexistent wisdom."
She ignored Sesshoumaru's comment, frowning deeply in thought, "I don't want to be separated from him. Besides, if I go back, Eizan will have a reason to attack the village."
"You also overestimate your own importance," Sesshoumaru added coolly.
"He's targeted Inuyasha as well," Kagome reminded him. "Which means it's safer for the villagers if I'm not there, either. You won't tell him will you? I'll let him know as soon as this is over."
"I have no desire to speak to Inuyasha at all, even less so about his personal matters," Sesshoumaru replied. "And I do not care what you do. Just know this for a fact: at the moment, you are below Eizan's notice. That changes as soon as he knows of your condition. Do what you will with that warning."
"If it's not your concern, that doesn't explain why you would go to the trouble to warn me," Kagome said quietly.
"Isn't it obvious?" Sesshoumaru asked contemptuously, as he turned to walk back into the shadowy forest. "I was hoping to be rid of you."