Dearest Readers,
This story was written in less than a week. I edited it not for spelling and grammar mistakes but for slowness, cheese, and un-character-like behavior. I had a lot of help from Alexa Massey: queen of Naruto fanfictions, fantastic loves scenes, and drawing hair! Then the story simply sat around for a long time. I can't remember if it was much good. :D I bet it is, though! (Do skewer me if I mess up with portraying Sesshomaru. I deserve to be skewered if I did so. But only be as mean as is called for! You're not perfect, either, and Sesshomaru is very VERY hard to portray!) I hope you like it as well! Again, this story was based on a dream. An incredibly realistic dream where I woke up convinced the next morning that there was, in fact, a dog demon next to a lake. Which lake, I do not know. There are two within a mile of me. And a creek. XD
Oh, and while I have watched every English dubbed episode of Inuyasha thus yet known to mankind, I will not allow myself to see the Final Act episodes! I am saving myself for Richard Cox! So get over it! In MY Fanfiction, Sesshomaru has ONE ARM! :P
Onigen | Mariah Bryant
The Crying at Night
Rin loved Jaken, despite him. She adjusted her hair, hoping to prevent it from touching her, while she mused over his sleeping form. Even in his sleep his voice was annoying. It was still ringing in Rin's ears. Still. She adored him. He did care for her.
A small tear came to her eye. There was a problem.
She willed herself not to look, but her will did not win. She stole a glance at where Lord Sesshomaru had lain back against a tree. His chin touched his chest. He seemed to be sleeping. He probably had a vague idea that he was being examined, though. Rin knew that she could never keep a secret. She was an open and lithe girl.
Her lips trembled.
Apparently that wasn't the best she could be for him. If it was, he would have given her a sign by then. Right?
Sesshomaru jerked.
Rin sat up slowly. Something ominous surrounded her, feeling almost like Kouga's wolf-demon gang. Her ears were ringing not with Jaken's voice … but a far more beautiful sound.
Sesshomaru's eyes opened with a few graceful blinks. He focused on the distance beyond the trees above.
The sound was of a woman's crying.
"Lord Sesshomaru?"
Sesshomaru's kind eyes came to rest on his companion. For a moment, there was wonder on his face. Then it disappeared. "Go to sleep, Rin. We will not disturb what does not concern us."
Rin pouted. "What if she comes closer and I am unable to sleep?"
Sesshomaru did not hesitate a second. "I will kill her," he replied simply.
Rin gazed into Sesshomaru's eyes for a few long moments, and he stared back. Rin was simply amazed. Dazed but content, she lay back down. Sesshomaru was only a few feet away. It made her heart pound.
Jaken was prattling on about breakfast. He wanted to go to the stream and get fish. But he didn't want to ask. So he mused aloud about it.
Rin wished he would be quiet. She was in a rather sour mood.
She was thirteen. Could Lord Sesshomaru not see that she loved him? She could express it well enough with her new body. It wasn't hard to overlook her, she knew, but she was one of two women in the forest – and the only one who was visible to Sesshomaru at the moment.
Sesshomaru strode silently, staring ahead at nothing. It was not a glare at nothing. It was more like a gesture toward the nothingness that told it of his musing over it. It was a polite thing to do – to let the nothingness know that.
Rin looked up at him with longing clear in her eyes.
Jaken huffed.
Rin closed her eyes for a long time, walking blind in a generally straight line. When she reopened them, she had decided to be herself again that day. Trying to be sexy was too much work for a young girl.
She was nearing marrying age, though.
"Guess what I did yesterday, Jaken?" she chirped.
Jaken froze, stunned. "Um, nothing?"
Rin shook her head lightly and smiled at the little green fellow. "When I was hunting yesterday for lunch, I had left at a good time, you know? The springtime is so lovely around noon. I had known I would see many pretty things. This late in spring, all of the flowers have bloomed and all of the trees have baby leaves. Well, I never expected…"
Sesshomaru's eyes were sad. He pretended to be intent on what he was looking. He was wearing is normal frown to hide the sadness his mouth would have betrayed.
Rin was such a happy girl. She always put Jaken and himself before herself. He could tell that things were bothering her … things with which he could not get involved. He wanted to help. He knew he would, as always, be interpreted the wrong way. Still, Rin was trying to make it seem as if she was fine. She was telling a detailed story about how she had stumbled upon a nest of butterflies while out on her hunt. She sounded so happy. It made Sesshomaru consider that, perhaps, his making her hunt alone was a good thing.
The poor, delight of a girl would be gone before Sesshomaru would blink. It was horrible.
That was part of the reason Sesshomaru was going in this bogus direction: to find Kagome. She had somehow mastered time and had not aged for over three years. Inuyasha had not worried in a long time about losing her. Perhaps they had used the Shikon Jewel. It made sense to Sesshomaru that if Kagome was using the Jewel to sustain her youth, she could transfer some of that to Rin. A priestess was about transferring energy, correct?
Rin was too young to be made to stop aging … if Sesshomaru wanted her as his wife. He wasn't sure, however, that his want was such. His truest want was that she would never lose herself to fear or strife. Maybe she wouldn't if she didn't fear for her life.
Rin was too smart to trust fully that she would be safe whenever she was with Sesshomaru. There were still things in the world which Sesshomaru valued above her.
Like his father, for instance.
Rin knew that well. His demonic heart and the strings attached were more important than his human friend was. She did not blame him at all. She wished that she, though, could be his demonic mate.
As usual, there was a demon in the path ahead. Sesshomaru did not worry. It was not great enough to attempt attacking his party.
Jaken began to reprimand Rin, saying that butterflies were everywhere and that she was a stupid girl attracted to shiny, colorful things when the whole world was full of color. Sesshomaru wished Jaken would shut up. He really appreciated his friend, but Jaken was out-of-line when it came to Rin. If Sesshomaru ever had the mind to tell Jaken about his feelings about Rin – which he didn't even think in terms of 'telling' – he was certain Jaken would never again have the courage to discourage her.
Sesshomaru felt his ears tingling. They wanted to twitch. He would not allow it.
His eyes pierced through the trees to a slight clearing ahead where the creek had once expanded into a swamp. He was a half-mile away from the demon. The demon was engaged in a rough battle; Sesshomaru's ears said so. He could also see the movement through the thick foliage. And he could hear the demon's hissing.
There were no other demons around. No priestesses. No monks. No witches.
What was the demon fighting?
Jaken scoffed in his high, scratchy voice. "Could it be a human that the demon is fighting?" Sesshomaru almost appeared shocked when Jaken came to this conclusion.
It was strange how Jaken, even short and clumsy and beaked, could always lock onto whatever Sesshomaru was musing over at the time.
A human?
Jaken froze. Sesshomaru made no physical reply. Rin was apprehensive but unaware.
A surge of power ripped through the forest. After a moment, it dissipated. The leaves sparkled a little more.
In that moment, the opponent had become a human-looking blob to Sesshomaru's senses. A very small human, too. Then it was gone. The human had simply disappeared. So had any demonic aura or … a powerful aura at all. The being was gone.
Jaken began walking again, catching up to Sesshomaru. "That demon had been so weak before," Jaken muttered quickly. "Perhaps we should investigate, my Lord? Perhaps he has business with you. Though I couldn't imagine why such a pitiful demon who has not yet won against a human would ever think to invade your consciousness…"
"That demon is too weak to have produced that wave."
Unthinkingly, Rin's small hand grasped Sesshomaru's robes. When she had done it as a smaller girl, it had been harmless. Nowadays, Sesshomaru could have blushed.
"The human couldn't possible have done it," Jaken gasped.
Sesshomaru had long been hearing voices. One was the low, cracking, hissing voice of a demon. It was not a particularly weak demon. It was fairly large – as large as Aun, who had taken to the sky to see if Kagome was in the village to avoid wasted days – and resembled a scorpion from the Continent. There were also strong cat qualities.
The other was high and strong – stronger than the demon's. It belonged to a woman. A woman who was attempting to be confident. An unsure, burdened woman.
Her enchanting voice had been the source of the sobbing from the night.
Sesshomaru let out a heavy sigh. "Are you deaf, Jaken? This woman is hardly human. She is a half-demon." Sesshomaru tried not to look as perplexed as he was.
"Like Inuyasha?" Jaken exclaimed. "But this person has no demonic aura!"
I know that, Sesshomaru thought back. I doubt I'm wrong, though.
Rin giggled. "Good! I was getting worried. No one like Inuyasha is a threat."
As the group neared the clearing, Jaken and Rin could also hear the sounds. Rin was the first to state the obvious: the woman wasn't speaking Japanese.
Sesshomaru looked indifferent. He was doing a fantastic job of distracting himself and ignoring the battle. He was going to pass by without looking. (Keeping Rin to his left and the battle to his right, of course.)
Then he made sense of the words he couldn't understand. The language was not familiar to him because the woman wasn't speaking a language.
"ELLITECVESCOTCH!"
Jaken stopped. This time it was Rin who tripped … over Jaken with her newly long legs.
This surge made Sesshomaru's next step a short one. Jaken cried out, holding onto Rin.
Sesshomaru watched the scene, almost immediately to his right, with a slightly turned head.
The woman was no more than twenty. She had silver hair. She was short … but thick, not pixie-like. She looked too tiny to be taking on a demon and winning. Yet, she was.
She thrust the palm of her fist upward toward the demon. The power surged again, coming from nowhere. The demon exploded. His previously detached limbs were joined by his scattered guts. Then it all disintegrated. The half-demon had purified the demon.
The woman fell back onto her butt and then nearly lay on the grass, obviously dizzy. She was panting and pale. Her entire body trembled from the effort.
Sesshomaru had ceased walking. He stared at the woman, utterly confused. He wanted to ask if she needed water only so that he could ask what she was, but he restrained himself.
And when he nearly lost his resolve, the woman stood up abruptly. She turned to Sesshomaru for the first time.
He felt himself touch Rin's shoulder protectively … but she did not feel his ghost arm.
The woman's brown eyes were cold. She turned slowly and walked away.
Sesshomaru gawked after her with a frown. How indignant that he should gawk at a creature who had the respect of an acorn.
Rin removed her hand from Sesshomaru's garments and crossed her arms over her chest.