Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.
Warning!: I have put some swear words in here, hence the T rating.
--
"Finished!" a soon to be eighteen year old Rin cried aloud. She leaned back in her desk chair admiring the thing she had just finished. "Are you done with the illustrations yet?" she asked turning to a now twenty-five year old Kagome sitting at the next desk.
Not even looking up Kagome grunted, "I cannot keep up with you."
"That's because I have the easier job." Rin beamed a bright smile that lit up the room. She started to pick up the litter of papers on the desk she was using. Kagome stared at her current drawing intently, "I'm always impressed by your ability to make Sesshomaru out to be a good character in your stories."
"That certainly is not how I feel about him. If any of the children ever figure out that this silly story is about a real person, or should I say demon, then they'll at least think better of him than I do. Why did I decide to tell the girls stories about my past?"
"Because they don't know it's true, and the rest of it is a pretty good made up story." She put down the silver coloring pencil after coloring in Sesshomaru's hair. She then picked up a magenta pencil and started coloring in the stripes on his cheeks.
Rin fell silent and her face became impassive. She did this every time she became sad because Sesshomaru had always taught her that showing sorrow was a weakness that enemies would love to expose. "I find it interesting that I can write love stories about a guy who tossed me away when I was younger but can't get a boyfriend of my own."
"You know that Souta likes you, right?" Kagome asked her with a large smile on her face. Rin had known for a long time that Souta did have a crush on her and that it was everyone intentions to marry her off to him.
Rin sighed before complaining, "Why does everyone seem to think that Souta and I are going to work out? We may be the same age, but I've been through so much more than him. Hell, I don't even like it in this time period." The look Kagome was giving her after her last sentence told her that she, first of all, shouldn't have been swearing, and, second of all, was not up for discussion. Not that it really mattered anyway because there would be no way for her to cross over to the Feudal Era since the Shikon no Tama was now gone.
Rin could hear Kagome's children racing around the first floor with Inuyasha chasing after them cursing. Kagome was obviously agitated by both her children and her husband, so Rin found it easier to escape. "I'm going to head home." She slipped out of the room and quickly to the front door. Once outside she ran away from the shrine house they lived in and down the stairs.
She was not in a hurry to get home. They probably didn't miss her right now anyway. She was just the kid they adopted because Inuyasha refused to take her in. Kagome had tried so hard to convince him that he had to keep his promise to Sesshomaru to take care of her, but he kept contending that Rin was too much like Sesshomaru for his comfort.
Besides, Sango was only nine years older than her, and Miroku only eleven years older than her. That hardly qualified them as parents. Sometimes it felt like they were more her friends than her parents. And of course she could never forget the fact that they had children of their own the they treated so much better than they treated her. It wasn't that they beat her like the villagers had; it was just that they never noticed her around. They spent all of their time and energy on their children and their all too public sex life and had nothing left for her.
When Rin got in the door she heard Miroku's voice calling out to her, "Is that you, Rin?"
"Yeah," Rin yelled back to him. She slid her shoes off and walked into the living room to find him and Sango quickly redressing themselves. The children must have just been put to bed because they didn't seem to be too upset about being interrupted. "Kagome wants you over there around five tomorrow."
"Okay," Sango said before squealing from the sensation of Miroku's touch on her rear end. Rin rolled her eyes and then ran up the stairs and slammed her door behind her. She turned on her radio to drown out any sound that might be coming from the living room.
--
"Rin, hurry up," Sesshomaru commanded her. She looked up at him and approached the waiting figure. They walked along in silence, side-by-side with Jaken walking behind them squawking about his unwillingness to go back to Sesshomaru's castle because of Rin. Rin smiled at the thought and put a hand on her slightly swollen belly. When she looked up at Sesshomaru's face she could see his eyes watching her with tenderness in them.
Rin shot up in her bed. Looking around she realized she was still in the Modern Era and the sun was just starting to rise. For the past month she had been having dreams about being back in the Feudal Era with Sesshomaru. This dream was different from all of the other dreams because this was the first dream she had been happy in.
She wished more than anything that she could tell her best friend, but that just wasn't possible because Midori couldn't know about her past. Even Rin had to admit that sometimes she felt like she needed to be locked away for believing any of it existed. No, unfortunately the only people she could ask were Sango and Kagome. This Saturday, like every Saturday, the two families were going to get together for dinner and a movie or a game. This wouldn't be the best opportunity to talk about her dreams since the children and the men could overhear, but she just had to ask soon or go crazy from not knowing.
Unfortunately when she got there she realized there was no way to get the women alone. Thankfully she was able to get the adults alone when children decided to play soccer in the backyard, leaving the adults to wait for Inuyasha to finish grilling, or rather burning, the hotdogs and hamburgers. Rin knew that this might be the only time she would have to ask at all that night, so she started speaking in English to keep the children from understanding what they were saying, "Why did Sesshomaru tell you to take me with you?"
She watched as they stiffened. They always had tried to make Rin forget that day. Finally Sango spoke up, "He wanted you to grow up with humans. He knew us, and he knew that we were going to a safer time period."
"Did he think it was wrong for him to raise a human?" In some ways she wanted to hear them say "yes", to know that he was doing what he thought best instead of discarding her like they always made it sound like. But they wouldn't change their tune any time, especially now that they had designs to have her married off to Souta.
Inuyasha was beginning to lose his temper, "Look, my brother hated anything that wasn't a demon like him! He even hated demons that were weak. I don't know why he even brought you back in the first place, but he always despised you. Just forget about him because none of us want to remember him anymore!" Kagome started lecturing Inuyasha at that moment for his harsh tone to her citing that he could at least be sensitive to Rin about the harsh subject.
Rin didn't care if Inuyasha heard her or not so she spoke over them saying, "I'm sorry, but I have to know. I've been having dreams recently about him."
"What kind of dreams?" Sango asked with a worried tone.
"I'm back in the Feudal Era with Sesshomaru again. At first the dreams were about struggles I was having with myself about why he is allowing me to follow him again, and then they changed into dreams in which I am debating whether or not he'll love me like I love him. Last night I had a dream that I was pregnant with his child."
Rin knew immediately she should have left out last night's dream because they all turned their attention to her immediately. Inuyasha's face grew red as he spat out, "Don't get any ridiculous ideas. He hates humans, so there's no way in hell he'd have a half-demon child."
"Dad, is dinner ready yet?" His five year old daughter asked him thankfully taking the heat off of Rin. Inuyasha opened up the grill to find that the food was beginning to burn. He and Kagome then got into an argument about how he always burned the food. The argument continued throughout dinner, but that was the usual dinner conversation. 'Everyone around here argues too much,' Rin thought glumly. To make matters worse, she had gone to them for help and it was obvious that they didn't want to help her.
--
A few months passed, but not a word was spoken again about her dreams. They all pretended like she had never even spoken to her about them, and she sometimes even got the feeling that Inuyasha was trying to distance himself even more from her than he had before.
Then one day on her way home from class she had an unknown number pop up on her cell phone. "Hello," she answered the phone hoping it wasn't another annoying telemarketer.
"Is this Yoshida Rin?" a woman's voice asked her from the other end. The voice on the other side of the phone was quite melodious, so Rin imagined that it belonged to a very beautiful woman.
"Yes," she answered back. Midori's face showed that she was curious to know what was going on. She always was a little nosy.
"My name is Fujiwara Kiyoko, editor of Inu Publishing. I received a copy of the manuscripts for your children's books, and I must say that I've very impressed."
"Manuscripts?" Rin asked stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. The only possible manuscripts could be the little books that she and Kagome had made for her eldest and Sango's youngest children, but how in the hell did they end up on this woman's desk. "Who in the hell are you?" she asked rudely. "And how in the hell did you get your hands on those? They were supposed to be for private use only." Now Midori's curiosity was on full alert.
"Calm down," the woman said calmly. "A Higurashi Kagome sent them to me with the express wish that we give them a looking over. She thinks you have great talent, and I suppose she is hoping for a good review on her illustrations. But I must say that she was entirely correct in both assumptions." Rin was completely speechless at this point. After several uncomfortable seconds of silence the other woman asked her, "Is there any way I can meet with you this Saturday to discuss a contract. We would like to publish your books."
"Are you sure about that?" Rin finally squeaked out. "I'm still only in high school, so I'm sure you have plenty more mature writers to look at."
"Ms. Yoshida, I have been looking for you a long time. Please, meet with me alone on Saturday at ten. Our office building is on 55th and 43rd."
"Okay," Rin stuttered out and then the call was promptly ended.
Midori immediately asked her, "What was that all about?"
"They liked my books and want to publish them." She remembered how adamant Ms. Fujiwara was about meeting with her alone. "She just wants to meet with me though, even though she liked Kagome's illustrations. I wonder if that means that they liked them but not enough to use them. Perhaps they're going to use someone else's illustrations instead." She smiled knowing that for once she would get recognition over Kagome. Sure, it did sound selfish, but for once she wanted to be noticed.
Rin walked into the lobby of the Inu Publishing Company on Saturday morning at the time designated. Before she could even reach the desk she noticed a picture of a large dog demon in his true form hanging from the wall behind the desk. As she got close to it she could see the jagged magenta stripes on its cheeks and the blue crescent moon on its forehead. Her first instincts were to run away because this clearly was a picture of Sesshomaru in his true form. Did Kagome even know who she sent the manuscripts to? Did she know that she was sending it to Sesshomaru's company?
A young woman only slightly older looking than her grabbed her arm to help support Rin. "Please come with me, Rin," the woman whispered to her. Carefully she was guided out of the building by the woman still holding her arm and to a waiting limo. The driver opened the door to reveal Sesshomaru sitting there.
"Oh, no!" Rin protested trying to turn around and get out of the woman's grasp. "I'm not talking to him!"
The woman wouldn't let go of her and let Rin struggle for a little bit before Rin figured out that she wasn't going anywhere. Finally giving up Rin let the woman push her into the limo only to have the door close leaving Rin in the limo and the woman standing still on the sidewalk. The woman smiled at her and waved before she walked away.
Rin could feel Sesshomaru get up from the seat, so she looked in his directiorn to find him moving to the seat across from her. Even in this day and age when humans outnumbered demons he still didn't want to sit with her. "I've been waiting for you to get closer to your birthday, but I guess two weeks before is soon enough." His face remained passive and he had guarded his emotions well enough to not allow them to be seen in his eyes.
"What's it matter to you? You're the asshole who sent me away." She crossed her arms across her chest and looked out the window so that she didn't have to look at him.
She heard him ask her, "Is that what they told you?"
Turning her gaze back to him she squint her eyes and asked him sarcastically, "You mean your loving brother and his wonderful friends?"
His gaze never wavered as he explained to her, "I have come today because in my past they didn't tell you the whole truth until you turned 30. By that time it was too late."
"What in the hell truth are you talking about?" she demanded to know. She clenched her jaw knowing that her jaw would probably be sore later from all the pressure she was putting on it.
"I couldn't raise you alone, especially in your developing years, so I gave you to my brother because he promised to take care of you. But it seems that my brother failed to do so, and he failed to tell you the reason for why you were supposed to be under this care. But his worst offense was that he didn't tell you that we had agreed that you would return on your eighteenth birthday to the Feudal Era. When he lay dying, while you were in your thirties, he told you of his promise to me, but when you returned back my demon mate would not allow you to follow me anymore. You lived your remaining ten years in a human village you despised."
"Why should I believe you?" she questioned him. Why shouldn't she trust him? Inuyasha had already proven he could not hold up his end of the bargain by not taking care of her. Perhaps he had also promised to return her fully intending not to do that part also. That could be why they had tried to fill her head with false impressions of Sesshomaru.
But could she really trust him? Did he really have her best intentions at heart or was he just trying to get rid of her? He did not take long to answer her, "I wouldn't be asking you to return to the Feudal Era on your eighteenth birthday to change history." He did have a good point there. "Things might have worked out better for you and for me if you had returned at the sent time." He pulled out an envelope from his suit coat pocket and handed it to her. "I only ask that you give this to me as soon as you can once you return. I shall wait for you at the well for only a couple of days after your birthday."
Rin took the envelope from him and looked at the strange writing on it. She figured it had to be in the demonic language. The past Sesshomaru would probably only believe it was authentically from his future self if the letter was written in the demonic language since Rin seriously couldn't have written it if that was the case. She looked back up at him to see that his expression had changed some to show that he was being sincere. Rin looked down at the envelope and asked him, "What if I didn't return at all to the Feudal Era?"
"That choice is up to you. I just thought you would be happier returning since they haven't treated you the way that you deserved." The limo came to a stop outside of Miroku and Sango's house. "I only wish that you might forgive me for leaving you with them. I had only your best intentions at heart and had trusted them too freely."
Suddenly Rin felt bad for being so harsh to him. Not sure what to say she just smiled at him and put the envelope into purse. She smiled at him again and then got out of the limo when the driver opened the door for her. She would not turn around and look at him as she walked to the front door for fear of him seeing her mixed emotions.
As Rin got into the house she could see Sango and Miroku standing there as if waiting for an answer to a question that need not be spoken aloud. Now Rin needed to figure out if she should tell them the truth. If she did, there was a possibility they could make the next couple of weeks miserable for her, so she decided to lie to them. "Do you remember the books that Kagome and I put together?" she asked them.
"Yes," Sango answered her sounding a little worried.
Rin brushed a stray hair off of her face as she said, "Well, I guess she sent them to a publisher. They liked it so much that they want to publish it, but I guess they want to go with a different illustrator. They said the pictures were good, but they were looking for someone more professional."
She watched as both let out air that it appeared they had been holding in that whole time. "We're just worried about you," Sango explained to her in a very caring voice. "I have heard that Sesshomaru is living here in Tokyo, and we were worried that he might be trying to contact you."
Rin's nerves started to bristle at their words. "What's so wrong with Sesshomaru? Why do you all hate him so much? Was it because he made you take care of me?" She was so mad she just pushed Sango out of her way, which was no easy task considering Sango's strength, and marched towards the stairs.
Before she made it up the stairs she heard Miroku's stern voice say to her, "You don't know him like we did. He was not the kind demon you thought he was. We're just trying to keep you from being hurt by him."
Rin turned to him and noticed that Sango was holding onto Miroku's arm like it was the only thing holding her up. The concern on Sango's face made Rin feel bad for her tone, but one thing she had learned from Inuyasha was how to hold a grudge. She shout at them with fury, "I knew him better than you did because I actually followed him around, so don't be giving me that bullshit! And if you think you can keep me from him forever, you have another thing coming!"
With that said she locked herself in her room and turned up her stereo so that she couldn't hear them nor could they hear her. She pulled the books out of her book bag and flung them to the floor carelessly. In place of them she grabbed a few essentials and stuffed them into her bag until it was brimming and couldn't be shut. The window to her room opened up to a tree, which she had climbed up and down several times when she had escaped out of the house at late hours to go hang out with Midori.
Tonight it seemed that the tree would not be her savior like it had before. Perhaps it was telling her to wait the next two weeks, but she just had this overwhelming urge to get out of this house…out of this century. She could stay with Kaede for a couple of weeks until her birthday. At least it was better than being here listening to people trying to convince her not to go without directly saying it. They were trying to keep her from understanding their true purpose, but that was only because they didn't know that she was now aware of what they were up to.
Somehow she managed to climb down the tree despite the difficulty, and then she headed towards the shrine. When she got to the shrine she noticed that Inuyasha was outside by the gift shop with a few customers. While he was distracted she made her way to the well house only to find it locked. "Shit!" she said out loud to herself.
"What does 'shit' mean?" a little voice asked her. Rin looked down only to see Kagome's eldest child standing there. Boy would they be made when they found out that she had taught their daughter a bad word!
Rin kneeled before the little girl and explained, "It's something adults say when they are mad at something. But it's not something children should ever say." She hoped that it would at least buy her time before Inuyasha's wrath was thrown down upon her for teaching Emi that word; that is if she couldn't get to the well by the end of the day. A thought then occurred to her, so she asked the little girl, "Emi, do you know where your mom keeps the key for the well house?"
It was a long shot, but at least she could try it. To her surprise the little girl said, "Daddy carries his here," she said pointing at her waist. "Mommy keeps hers in her desk, but I can't touch her desk." Rin got a wicked smile on her face as she thought of a way to get the keys out of the desk. Kagome almost never kept her drawers locked, so it was just a matter of finding a way to get to the desk.
Rin picked up the little girl and said to her, "Can you keep a secret?" she asked the little one. The girl nodded her head enthusiastically, so Rin followed up by saying, "Then don't tell your mom that I need her keys. Okay?"
"Okay!" the girl cried out loud.
Together they walked to the house hand in hand. When Kagome saw Rin at the door with her daughter she seemed quite surprised. "Your parents just called and said that they just had a fight with you. How did you get out?"
"I climbed down the tree," Rin said bluntly. Boy, parents did become dumb when they got older! "I guess you heard that I met with a publisher today."
"I did," Kagome said to her as she picked up her daughter.
Rin deposited her shoes and the bag by the door and walked into Kagome's house without Kagome's permission. "I was hoping that I could get some of the extra pictures you had but didn't put in the book. I want to give them something more as inspiration for the illustrations." She walked into the study hoping that Kagome wouldn't follow her, but she was not in luck. As she dug through the desk she could tell that Kagome wasn't too thrilled with the idea of her digging through her personal things. But Rin just thought that if she wanted to keep things private she should have thought of that before sending in Rin's private stories to a publisher.
"Don't you think you should be more concerned with your parents right now?" Kagome suggested to her rather agitated. Her daughter clearly wanted down, so she set Emi on the ground so that she could run off. As soon as Emi was out of listening distance Kagome closed the drawer that Rin had just opened up. Just before the drawer was closed Rin could see a set of keys lying next to the container holding Kagome's colored pencils. "Is that really why you came here?" She looked quite skeptical of what Rin was doing as if she could read Rin's thoughts.
Thankfully for Rin Kagome's three year old daughter started screaming at the top of her lungs in such a wail that would make anyone cringe. As Kagome ran to her child, Rin opened up the drawer again and took the keys out. She ran out the door not caring that the child had a knot on her head that was bleeding. She was on a mission, and nothing could stop her. It took a few keys before she found the one that she wanted. The rusting lock snapped open and she turned it so that she could remove it.
But as she was about to open the door a hand clamped above the handles and held it in place. "Where in the hell do you think you're going?" Inuyasha's voice rang out in the silence of the day. He knew exactly what she was doing, so this was clearly a rhetorical question.
"Do you know your daughter might need stitches?" she in a matter-of-fact tone. "You better get back to Kagome before she gets angry at you for not paying enough attention to your children." She knew she sounded cold right now, and when it came to the children she never sounded so cold. His eyes showed a fury burning within them because he was obviously not pleased to hear and see her acting like Sesshomaru. Scratch that, she wasn't acting like Sesshomaru because Sesshomaru would have just taken out Inuyasha to get his way.
So Rin punched him in the face. Her knuckles connected directly with his nose and she could feel the cartilage cracking before the pain of connection coursed through her knuckles. He sprawled back slightly from the blow and then immediately covered his face. Now that he was human and getting older he wasn't as much of a challenge. Rin smiled at him using the same evil smile she had seen on Sesshomaru's face several times, and then she slid the door open with a thud. She could hear Inuyasha calling out to her as she jumped down the stairs and then over the lip of the well, but she didn't hear any of his words before the darkness overtook her.