Author's Notes: I do not own Inuyasha. I would very much like to, but sadly I do not.

I wrote this first story, which I titled regrettable kin, last year. A few of my reviewers have asked if I was going to write anymore chapters. I got the idea from one person to start a series of short stories rather than a large, ongoing story. Short stories are easier to write and they include only a few hours of commitment rather than months or years of it.

These stories will be about different characters in the Inuyasha world and are definitely not going to be chronological. Mostly, at first, I will be featuring Sesshomaru. Hopefully I will feature Kagome, Inuyasha, Izayoi, and, if possible, Inuyasha's father.

I hope you like this collection of stories.

-Skyla Ladona

Regrettable Kin

Half Breed Half Brother

)(

There was that child again. One could tell instantly what it was. A hanyo. The brat-ling smelled of both human and demon, a mixture of the two, to create this big eyed, little mutt gazing up at him from his sitting place on the ground as he made a mud pie with his little fair skinned hands. Even at the age of two, he could already do many things by himself, even run pretty well. This made him a problem nearly every week. On the nights when there was no moon, when he appeared to be no more than a human, he was even more of a nuisance. Without his powers be was easily bored, for it was essential to keep him indoors where no enemy would see his vulnerability.

Sesshomaru glared down at the toddler sitting in the moonlight and growled quietly in annoyance when the little thing took a flower from ground and promptly began to eat it. "You realize that is not food," he murmured.

The child still watched him, silently eating, and held up the stem to offer him the last petal with giggle.

The demon lord internally shuddered to think what would occur if his yokai associates ever discovered that he had a hanyo for a half brother. It was a well-known fact, and the target of amusement, that his father, the demon lord of the west before him, had fallen in love with a mortal woman named Izayoi. What came out of that love was this child called Inuyasha.

The child rolled over, stood, and began to prowl about, snatching at moths and the occasional insect, growling and babbling as he went. Sesshomaru followed at a distance. It was not a wonder that the child had wandered away from home again, a small village in the east. The village tolerated the hanyo and Izayoi, ignoring them most of the time, especially the woman. She, in a way, was a greater outcast than her son was. It was said that she betrayed her fiancé, Takemaru of Setsuna, when she let herself be lured into an affair by the demon. Sesshomaru had no wish to protect woman's honor but he knew clearly that she had never been this mortal man's fiancé. His father would not sink so low to steal an already promised woman, nor would he force one.

Still, Sesshomaru had despised the union. His father had fallen in love before with mortals when he was younger. That was to be expected. He had been a mere child then, attracted to flowers that bloomed quickly and died just as fast. However, at the peak of his greatness, the demon lord had somehow fallen in love with another of these creatures and willingly died to protect her. Sesshomaru remembered scolding him for it once, craving for a reaction, a reproach, that would lead to the fight he had been waiting for all his life, the one that would determine who was lord of the west, the father or the son. The Inu no Taisho merely looked at Sesshomaru with surprise and laughed, too self controlled to lose his legendary, unrivaled temper with his son.

Little Inuyasha sang a song as he skipped, half the words incoherent, his bare feet getting dirtier with each step. His mother must have given up forcing him to wear shoes. Sesshomaru could not help remembering that he had refused shoes at that age as well, though his mother was not as lenient.

Nor would she ever lose sight of me, he thought, watching the unsupervised child from a distance. With his sensitive hearing he could hear the human mother calling the boy's name. He would not be surprised if his father's old, annoying friend Myoga the flea was searching as well.

Myoga needed to improve on his skills. Had the old flea known he had found Inuyasha, Myoga would make sure he never lost sight of the boy again.

Sesshomaru found the boy climbing a tree, his little claws digging into the bark. When he slipped he bit onto a tree branch and wiggled his body into position so he could hook his leg over another branch. Sesshomaru could not help but speak again. "Too slow. You climb like a human."

The toddler hooked his other leg over the branch and let go, swinging himself back and forth upside down with a laugh, long, tangled silver hair swaying. A big grin filled his face. "Tree," he babbled.

"Yes, it is a tree. And you are a fool, worthless half-breed. Stop laughing. Be angry when you are insulted."

Inuyasha climbed again, this time a little faster, babbling about trees as he went. Sesshomaru looked away, glaring at the ground. He would endure just a little more of this nonsense. After that he would end it all. He did not know how much more of that child he could bear.

Inuyasha stood atop one of the highest branches, looking out over the moonlit landscape, and looked down at Sesshomaru. He called a word that sounded slightly like "brother" and called it again . . . and again . . . and again.

"Speak to me when you learn how to do so," he answered.

Inuyasha laughed and leapt. His leap took him from one tree to the next one a few feet away. He leapt again onto another. Now greatly amused he continued this till he was racing along the treetops, laughing. As usual, Sesshomaru followed . . . and sped up suddenly, eyes narrowing.

Inuyasha leapt onto the largest tree in the forest and bounced up and down on branches, yelling, "Hop! Hop!"

A voice rumbled deeply. "What is this?" Inuyasha froze, growling softly, and sniffed. One of the tree's great branches wrapped tightly around him like a serpent. He clawed at it, crying out in shock and surprise. He never knew trees could move. He slashed and bit at it furiously.

The tree demon studied him with hollow eyes, heedless to his efforts to free himself. "Hanyo," he murmured aloud. "Not a rich meal but it will do."

"There will be no meal." The branch slowly closing around the child was slashed through. Sesshomaru caught the child in one arm, gazing upon the tree demon with emotionless eyes. Inuyasha half hid his face in his brother's shoulder, gripping the fur draped over his shoulder.

The tree demon's aura glowed red with his anger. "How dare you. Don't you know who I am?"

"No, and do not need to." With a father as powerful as the Inu no Taisho of the West Sesshomaru-sama could care less about a low class demon such as this.

Inuyasha growled, trying to struggle out of his brother's grasp to attack the demon tree, his surprise gone.

Sesshomaru's response angered the tree even more. His roots tore the ground apart as the reached for the two brothers.

Sesshomaru drew forth a whip of green light from his fingers and slashed through the tree in only an instant. The demon tree, perhaps thousands of years older than Sesshomaru, vanished with a death cry in a shower of green light and ancient splinters.

"No one will kill the child but me," he vowed softly.

Inuyasha leapt out of his arms, looking around for the tree, bemused, and turned to look at Sesshomaru with anger, as though he had been supposed to kill the demon first. He walked promptly up to him and took hold of his wrist in little hands, examining it all over to see where the whip of light had gone. His interest gone, the little child hugged his arm. Sesshomaru, watching him, said nothing.

"Inuyasha!"

The woman walked into the clearing, looking about, and stared upon Sesshomaru with widened eyes. Visibly she hid her fear and bowed. He could see her tremble. "Sesshomaru-sama."

Inuyasha looked up, letting go of the demon lord's arm. "Mama!" he cried and ran to her hugging her around the middle. He pointed, "Big tree. Bad tree. Sesshomamoo smash it."

Izayoi looked at her departed lover's eldest son, surprised, and averted his intense gold eyes humbly. She had always been shy and nervous when near him. "I suppose that is what I heard. You saved him. I thank you, Sesshomaru-sama."

Sesshomaru did not answer, just simply looked at her, eyes shining in the darkness. Seeming to have found what he was looking for in her face he turned. "You should look after him more carefully."

He started away. "Wait," she called. He would have kept walking, had it not been for the sudden, unknown emotion in her voice. He turned, glancing at her sidelong. Her eyes gazed at him sadly. "Please . . . I do not wish for any ill will to be between us."

"There is nothing between us at all," he answered. "There was none and will never be."

She lowered her head. "Then if that is so I only hope you continue to watch over him as you have these last two years . . . It means so much to know you are there for him."

In the same calm, emotionless tone, he replied, "The boy is a nuisance, worse than I was at his age. Woman, this is the fifth night in two months that he has escaped from your grasp. He is rebellious, loud, barefooted, and disregards everyone and respects no one. If he is this troublesome now he will be a terror when he grows older."

She nodded, head still lowered. Inuyasha was walking off again to explore. Sesshomaru glared down upon him, his patience nearly spent. The child halted, caught off guard by his brother's anger, and risked another step towards the woods, and then another.

Indeed, the boy would be a terror when he grew older.

Catching sight of her son she smiled. In her expression was a mixture of sorrow, joy, and love. Sesshomaru had rarely seen her smile since his father died. "What is it?" he asked, curiosity too great for him to keep silence.

She looked up at him. "Sometimes . . . I am glad he is this way."

"To think that way is dangerous."

"Our lives are dangerous already. Making an obedient child out of my son will not change the fact that there are some demons and humans alike that would sooner see him gone. And even if I tried it would be all in vain. Because he . . ." She looked away from the dog demon. In the dark he watched her eyes well with silent tears she thought he could not see.

The demon lord raised his head slowly to gaze at the glistening moon. "He is his father's son," he quietly finished.

No amount of teaching would rid the unmistakable thirst for rebellion from Inuyasha's eyes, the same thirst that thrived within his father's veins. Perhaps it was why Myoga, wherever the old demon was, loved the taste of their blood. The departed Inu no Taisho rebelled against the old traditions and begot a son with a mortal woman. He was loud, preferred to walk barefoot whenever he could, and was unafraid to show emotion with his thick, dark eyebrows, his flashing gold eyes.

Inuyasha, a hanyo, had no right to be more like his father than he was.

Sesshomaru departed, leaving the woman and child behind, much to his satisfaction. He did not know how much more of the boy he could take.

"Sesshomaru-sama!" Jaken, his demon minion, raced into the clearing bearing the unwieldy Staff of Two Heads. "I can not find him! Oh, my lord, I—"

Sesshomaru stepped on him. "I already have," he said, walking past Jaken's prone and twitching form.

Jaken sprang back to his feet and muttered. "Why is it you had to find him anyway? It is because of him that your father is dead, my lord. And that woman. She is to blame for it all! Was it a last request from your father to protect him?"

"I do this by choice, not by his," Sesshomaru answered firmly.

Jaken opened his mouth to ask more questions but saw that Sesshomaru was walking away. Tears of admiration filled his eyes for his mysterious master and he hurried after him. "Sesshomaru-sama! I will follow you to the ends of the earth!" he cried. It wasn't the first time he had done so either.

After a few minutes of travel the demon lord clenched his clawed hand till it shook, a vision of his brother before his eyes in the darkness lit only by silver moonlight. It would take only a few more years till he could end this regrettable suffering. Only a few more years and Sesshomaru would truly see if this unruly off spring of his father could ever present a challenge to him. Until then he would watch over the child his father had died to protect.