Konniciwa Minna-san
Thank you for deciding to read this fic ^_^v
This is written in 2003 (yes 9 years now and riddled with a boatload of grammar mistakes and thesaurus abuses that I decided to rewrite most part of it) Now that the series has ended, this I guess is considered as an alternate reality where Rin does not live with Kaede and follow Sesshoumaru until she comes of age.
Enjoy….!
I own Inuyasha not, Rumiko Takahashi does, no profit gained from this fic except your attention (I hope)
. . .
Repeating History
Chapter One : The Blooming
It was supposed to be a nice day spent walking under the sunlight around a human-populated place for her, away from the constant prattle of the annoying little toad youkai. Rin smiled; Jaken would turn a nice shade of green when he's vexed and he would turn to one when he realized that she had left him inside the chaotic bustle of the market.
Honestly! She just wanted to look around so much without people staring back at, or worse, run away screaming from her because she had a youkai waving two impaled human heads at her heels. As much as Jaken like to think himself so refined, he would never blend in a crowd. He would reward her with some thumping on her head for sure, but she reckoned she would dodge it easily; even with nintoujou on his hand, that kappa couldn't reach her easily now, for she had grown much taller.
But she still felt some stare on her. It made her uncomfortable. Is there something wrong with me? Was her first thought. She took a good look at herself; there was nothing wrong with her. She looked like a human girl supposed to look like; there was no sign 'I live with Lord Youkai of the West' written in her forehead or something. What were those people staring at?
Someone whistled as she passed a bevy of men lounging in a sake house. Side-street vendors' calling passersby to take a look at their wares. Music was in the air, courtesy of street-performers dressed in vibrant colors. It was so busy, and almost too exciting for her; spending months inside the woods in absence of human contact played a huge part in her boredom, and her playing truant.
But amidst the sounds, she noticed a distinct set of steps, everywhere she went. She threw glances over her shoulder time and again to see if someone was indeed stalking her, but she saw only throngs of people in blurry features. She shrugged, maybe she was just being too sensitive, she blamed it on the youkai-kind; she had encountered them so many time that she lost counts and her mortal survival instinct had been honed to notice their presence, or the subtle signs of there of, and she could sense if something was hunting her…
But she was not inside the forest, she wasn't trespassing some youkai's territory, she was amongst her own kind, her fellow human being… What was the worst could happen anyway? So she shoved that thought away and decided to enjoy herself.
As the sun inched higher on the cloudy sky, she decided to go back to the forest. She trailed back the narrow path leading to the shaded green foliage. The further she walked, the quieter the ambience grew. Voices faded away, but not those steps, she realized. They were no longer concealed, they were not only in her imagination.
She glanced back once more and caught a sight of a figure, a man. She couldn't see his face, for it was hidden under the shade of a wide veiled sunbonnet.
For some reason she felt alarmed and unconsciously hastened her pace, hoping that the man was just coincidentally heading the same direction. But to her dread, the sound of his steps adjusted to hers.
He is following me!
She found herself running to the deeper shade of the forest. She let out a gasp of shock as pair of arms seized her waist and violently slammed her against a tree. Reeling from the pain on her sides, she took a look at her assailant. A tall, stocky man whose face crisscrossed with scars was attached to the arms that pinned her. A wide, loathsome grin tugging on the corners of his cracked lips.
"Hello there gorgeous!" he rasped, with an equally loathsome voice, "Alone I see, hm?" his grin grew wider, wrapping the girl's small wrists in painful grip.
"Let me go!" she shrieked.
Her protest was met with a mocking laughter, "Yare-yare… It's not safe for you to wandering around unescorted prettyface! Better to stick around with me!" he taunted, taking pleasure from the girl's feeble attempt to wrench her hands free.
"Let me go!" Rin struggled harder, yanking her hand in desperation. She should have just run back to the woods the second she realized that someone was stalking her, but she didn't, oh how stupid she was…
"Or…?" her stalker mocked, inching closer at her. The girl flinched at the smell of stale sake on his breath.
She gritted her teeth both in anger and fear. She mustered her strength and kicked him between his legs. The man let out a surprised squawk, but undeterred. Laughing, he pinned her shoulders to the tree, "Playing hard to get ne? Yariman! Ama onna! You led me here in first place! Now stop fussing about and we'll both get what we want!" he hissed, fumbling on her obi, trying to undo the knot.
The girl flinched, lead him there? What do this man mean? But she sensed someone coming and panic seized her. She pleaded "Let me go. Please let me go while you have the chance." Can't he smell the danger coming?
Mocking laughter again.
She felt her clothes being yanked away, and her shoulders exposed to the chilly air. She closed her eyes and braced herself…
From the depth of the woods a warm draft came. Oh, how she wanted to run towards it and seek his protection, and throw herself at his mercy before everything turned –
Something warm and thick spattered her face, and that grip was no more.
She opened her eyes and saw the man, or what was left of him - a lump of lifeless meat. A red gash opened his chest, down to his groin, and he's missing half his head, horror frozen in his remaining eye. Blood was pooling on the grassy earth, dark red on dark green.
This shade of red again, this smell again, she could taste the coppery tang in the air at the back of her mouth. She had seen blood spilled more times than she cared to remember but she always suffered the sick, nauseating feeling that came with seeing it, or by smelling its raw, metallic scent.
He'd killed again.
"Rin."
She swallowed the lump caught in her throat and turned to gaze the owner of the voice, "… Se-Sesshoumaru-sama…" she stammered. She didn't realize that she was crying until she heard her own voice; hoarse and faint.
The youkai had taken another life, again.
The youkai had saved her, again. And again. And again.
The warm, spreading pool of blood touched her feet; she gazed down, not so sure of why she felt so miserable. The man was going to harm her, she knew, and he got what was coming to him. Even so, seeing him slaughtered was–
"Can you walk?" the same voice broke her thought, its tone even.
"H-Hai." she managed to answer, and so she stood up.
The daiyoukai turned back on his heels and headed inside the woods without more words. None needed for the girl to trail his steps. She took a few strides before throwing back a glance, to the bloody corpse, and saw the fear that trapped in his dead eyes.
"Don't dawdle you spoiled mortal!" called Jaken from his master's side.
"H-hai…" she replied, still had her vision locked on the gruesome scene. She had warned him, she thought, with a vague sense of guilt. She turned away and ran to catch up with them, leaving the corpse to feast the hungry residents of the woods.
She had warned him…
Sesshoumaru flicked his claws in annoyance, allowing a bit of his poison to flow out. Disdainfully, he watched the blood and bits of flesh staining his hand vaporize with a soft hiss. He shouldn't have bothered to kill such a lowlife with his own hand, he could have simply ordered Jaken to do it for him, he didn't know what had gotten into him, what a waste of use.
"Anou… Sesshoumaru-sama…?"
He glanced aside and found Rin's face, concerned and blood-spattered. He stopped walking, looking the human infant in the eyes. He noticed that he didn't have to lower his gaze as much, for the vertical distance between them had been rapidly closed by the girl's growth in past few summers. Time did run… at least for human, for he found no particular change in himself.
Rin parted his lips, trying to arrange the jumbled words inside her head into proper sentence, gratitude and apology at once.
"I'm… sorry, Sesshoumaru-sama, I didn't know what that man would–"
"I told you never to part from Jaken for reasons Rin." he cut her short. He needed no explanation from the girl. She reeked of that dead ningen, it irritated him. He had spent some time to track her scent; that light airy fragrance of moonflower, when he had found it moving, fading beyond his senses. And now that he'd found it, it was overwhelmed by this pungent odor of a filthy mortal male. A drunk filthy mortal male. In heat nonetheless.
It's always very true, very predictable, human nature; curious over everything, do whatever they were told not to, suffer the consequences, and feel sorry for themselves after; and eventually repeat the cycle all over again...
The girl winched and broke their eye contact, opting to stare at the ground instead. She sensed the tension beneath the Lord Youkai's level tone. She was being reprimanded. Having no words good enough to apologize, she stood still, letting the youkai's icy, disapproval gaze wash over her.
He scanned her briefly, took his lavishly embroidered haori off and handed it to her,
"Cover yourself," he ordered and resumed his pace.
…and it was what so expected of a male human when catching their counterpart walking around in their boring broad daylight wearing a thin yukata that exposed a bit too much of her femininity. Those disgusting ningen and their ceaseless lust to mate! No wonder the world was infested with so many of them.
Rin stared at him, half bewilderedly, before wrapping herself with what he just handed. The cloth was thick, but held a certain lightness and softness all together. It was the warmth much needed.
"Anou… Sesshoumaru-sama, where are we going?" this time the interruption came from the toad.
"Where do your puny little head think?"
"As far as this humble Jaken remember, this path is leading to Okinkumo's lair Sesshoumaru-sama," he hesitantly replied.
"Then don't ask what you have already known," he silenced Jaken.
. . .
Rin trailed the two youkai silently, feeling a bit unnerved by the surroundings; it was getting darker and darker. The air was tinted by a thick, eerie mantle of the unearthly presence. The girl had no doubt it came from a powerful youkai. A powerful youkai nearby.
They were heading to a seemingly dead end. But then she realized that the vast solid wall before them was an enormous trunk of a tree, one with a timber spanning so wide, height soaring so high and foliage growing so thick they dimmed the light into a complete darkness before it had a chance to touch the ground.
"Sesshoumaru-dono?" a whispery feminine voice greeted the Youkai Lord.
"Okinkumo." he replied.
"Ah… this Okinkumo wonder what has brought you here…, Douzo." the disembodied voice spoke again.
Rin gasped as the ground shook. Something was rising from the floor of the woods. Thick tendrils of roots rose and parted, revealing a dark passage inside its wooden trunk. Her master promptly went in, followed by his two hesitating subjects.
They arrived in a chamber, dimly lit by countless twinkling lights –those, she realized after a few moments, were countless fireflies scattered on the circular wall. The interior of the tree was a nest. It was not so vast that she could make out the perimeters clearly, but the ceiling… She looked up and her eyes widened at the sight; more and more wall of fireflies, forming a glowing tunnel around the chamber's dark cylindrical hollow, indicating how high the ceiling was. Among those twinkling lights, she made out pairs of glinting larger orbs in various colors…
Youkai…
Alarmed, she inched closer to Sesshoumaru.
There was a sound of something, some clicking, rhythmic thumps of something – things, approaching them out of the darkness. A figure loomed out of the shadows; a torso of a woman, no, a female , a she-youkai; a beautiful one it seemed, but for the extra pair of her hands, and whatever her equivalent of legs that clicked noisily under her long, layered, richly embroidered uchikake.
Eight spindly legs, she guessed. O kin kumo – golden spider.
"What does Lord Youkai of the West need so much that he bothers to grace this humble lair of mine with his presence?" she purred, presenting Sesshoumaru a polite bow.
"I have a need of your service Okinkumo," he replied the courtesy with a curt dip of his head.
"Ah, joy indeed to know that you still consider my craft worthy of you… as usual then?" she looked at the Lord Youkai with her pair of eyes – which Rin was taken a back to see–had two irises in each. But the she-youkai didn't appear to notice her presence.
"No. Not for me this time. For her."
Rin shied away a little as Sesshoumaru referred to her.
Four amber orbs turned to stare at her, their black pupils dilated in surprise. The she-youkai did smell a scent of human on the Lord's person, but she had taken it as only a residual whiff of… his previous meal mayhaps? And she had been too anxious to present a proper protocol of welcoming him to her lair that she had not noticed her presence until that very moment.
She narrowed her eyes; a female mortal? A living one at that? The Lord Youkai of the West brought a living mortal with him, as not for his meal? The Lord Youkai who despised his sire for taking a mortal female for a mate? The Lord Youkai who despised human over all creatures? How? She was greatly fascinated.
"You will oblige us, Okinkumo?" asked the said Lord Youkai, his tone slightly raised.
Us?
Sesshoumaru, of course, did not miss the she-youkai's curiosity, with the change on her demeanor; she might as well have questioned him directly. His tone was to remind her that it was none of her business. And to hint that she would not want it to be her business.
The she-youkai fully understood it, "At once, My Lord! Please, make yourself at home while I–" she paused, "–attend to her," she countered, deciding to curb her inquisitiveness and stay away from displeasing her sovereign.
Sesshoumaru's gaze softened, "Bring her to me as soon as you 're done with her," with that he turned away, swallowed by the shades, leaving Rin there with she-youkai and her looming hordes.
Rin couldn't stop herself from flinching as the golden spider touched her cheek and traced her jawline with her long, willowy, dead-white fingers.
"Hmm… well-shaped I must admit…" she said, almost to herself, "Tell me, mortal, who are you to Sesshoumaru-dono?"
Rin was more than a bit intimidated by her quadruple stares, but knew the she-youkai wouldn't harm her, not when The Lord Youkai of the West has told her to bring her back to him. Now, actually answering her question was harder, what was she indeed to her Lord? She was Sesshoumaru's… pet? She was suspicious that there wasn't a term more proper or acceptable to youkai-kind to describe their apparent relation other than that… but she found that she didn't like to be referred as a mere pet…
"I don't know," she blurted.
"I've been travelling with him since he revived me from wolf attack when I was little…" she added breathlessly.
Was that an acceptable answer? She wondered.
The she-youkai arched her eyebrows, "Oh?" so that rumor was true then, she recalled. There had been a scuttlebutt in youkai-kind rumor mills about Lord Youkai of the West taking a human infant into his custody, which most of them dismissed as a nonsense, a mere delicious, presumptuous scandal.
It had been too famous for them of how much the said lord loathes the creature so-called humans. But some of them believed that he had somehow acquired his sire's taste for human and gotten himself a child, others had said it was an experiment with a weapon gone bad, other said he had merely kept his food alive to keep it fresh while on his annual journey inspecting his domain. The rumor fed the gossip circle a long while for Sesshoumaru's a figure greatly fascinating due to his solitary tendency.
Neither of the speculation true then, but the rumor was right, he did bring along a human with him in past few years –raised her even…, My, my… strange… strange-strange-strange…
"What would you do to me?" she heard her voice hitched.
Most of mortals would have lost their voices in fear after seeing a youkai nest, but this one was brave, she'd give her that, "You'll see," she said, and that line reminded her of what things she would better start to do.
A sheer, golden string shot out of the female youkai's hand, up to the darkness, so fine it disappeared few meters from her sight. Then with a sudden movement too fast for Rin to see she locked a steely arm around her waist.
And then the ground was no more. they zoomed off, up and up, passing the glimmering vertical tunnel in such a speed that all Rin saw was glittery blur. She only had had a moment to let out a startled gasp and clutched the youkai's uchikake for her dear life.
Next thing she knew, she was standing in some translucent web woven from thousand silky strings attached to the surrounding walls. She gazed down and her breath caught on her throat. The ground was no where to be seen; she stayed very still, afraid that even a single movement could damage the fabric suspending them and let her plummet down to her death.
A low chuckle came from the she-youkai, "Worry not child, I spun this web myself, a dozen youkai couldn't bring this down," she purred,
"Now, Where do we start?" she took a glance at the girl's clothes for the first time; and recognized her own work. She considered the embroidered haori one of her masterpiece, and still remembered the appreciating look the Lord Youkai gave it for the first time she presented it to him.
He allowed a human to wrap their mortal body with it? My, my again, she should have felt scandalized by that, but that feeling was overwhelmed by her ever growing curiosity, "Undress yourself." she ordered flatly.
Rin took a moment before she did what the she-youkai asked, being rather reluctant to part with the lingering scent of her lord. Her ivory skin tingled in the lost of the warmth.
Again, the youkai's four pupils contracted briefly. She tilted her head in an observing manner. Budding beauty, it was what she saw on her, a growing, blooming promise. An impression of a creature somewhere between an adolescent and a young woman.
Obviously the yukata she's wearing was not adequate to hide her curves, not to mention the hem barely skimmed her knees. It was meant to clothe a child, and allow the said child running around clumsily without interruption. A 'child' this human is not anymore, and that kind of yukata on her might be found too… provocative by some of male population.
Or had the Lord Youkai himself been provoked? Never, she thought, not ever she and the rest of western youkai-kind heard about their lord had taken interest, neither love nor lust, on any female being. Either he had no interest in the matter or that he had been very very discreet. After he brought the mortal there to her place, would they eventually hear anything more about it? But of all youkai-kind, why a human?
She sighed outwardly; yes this human could be funworthy, and perhaps the lord brought her to her place to be beautified–nay–garnished? She could tell by the girl's scent, that she was still holding her innocence, none had put a claim on her before. Mayhap the Lord Youkai himself intended to pluck her personally?
To reveal or to conceal? She mused. She could do either of that, she could turn a beast into a belle, it wouldn't be so much effort to uncover a beauty that had already been there… but that's a human, why should she waste her skill for a mere ephemeral being?
But her lord sovereign had been benevolent enough to let her and her swarm stay within his domain. Because to not do her best would be insulting no one but herself, for she had been too proud of her extraordinary expertise, she vowed to herself that she would never create something short of splendor.
Finding herself a good excuse to waste her work on the mortal instead of giving in to her youkai nature to devour her slowly with her web, she waved her hands in the air, calling in her swarm to aid her crafting the work.
Rin stood unblinking, mouth slightly ajar witnessing what's probably the most amazing thing she'd ever witnessed in her life. Tens, hundreds, of spiders coming – gliding – from all directions, dangling in delicate strings of every imaginable colours.
. . .
The sun was setting, leaving a shade of mauve and a warm vermilion blended exquisitely. Its golden radiance turned into a colour of dying ember, splendid, yet subdued enough to be gazed directly.
Jaken had always known his master's partiality towards such scenery. He understood why the Lord Youkai indulged his rare spare times sitting quietly enjoying the view, absent of humans and their wars.
But, he, lately, being the one who had been on his side since he was still counted as a pup princeling, could feel a shift inside of his master. It was slowly displacing him, and his instinct said it wasn't good. He thought he had, if not figured, understood his master all over, but that thought had been plagued with doubt since the day he revived the human infant.
Since then he felt that like had dedicated his loyalty to an unpredictable stranger. Sesshoumaru still held that insurmountable youkai pride of his and that magnificently aloof, cold superiority that could only came from royal lineage. And of course that intense loathing of humans – apart from that human whelp. All of these qualities, were what made Sesshoumaru the new Inu No Taisho, Daiyoukai of The West, and those were the things that define his actions and his decisions that had proven successful in creating a delicate balance in the westernland's politic.
There had always been those who lurked in the shadows, waiting, plotting for his master to show them his weakness, topple him and seize the reign. Reputation was all that matters, and his current reputation was a fairly firm shield protecting him from a horde of usurpers, it had to stay – it had to be maintained – like it was, for a single change could be a gap, a catalyst leading to destruction.
Like his sire's mortal mistress.
And as the human infant grew, so did his concern, for she was a change. She would keep changing and might drag his lord with her. Whatever it was that exist between them, it was also growing alarmingly. It must be contained before everything got out of his master's hands.
"Sesshoumaru-sama!" oh speak of the devil.
The Lord Youkai tore his gaze from the scenery to where the voice was calling. He felt a tug on his chest as his eyes found her. She was clad in a long, layered furisode in all possible colors of spring, complimented by the tinge of blush that graced her cheeks.
"Okinkumo-sama made this for me," she beamed, twirling in her steps so the Lord Youkai could see the newly made clothes in its full splendor.
Sesshoumaru blinked, his composure seemingly unaffected. But his eyes were completely locked on the human girl displaying her joy in front of him, by her beaming smile, by her ebony silken strands, that was loosely braided, by her smooth neckline, all of her. She seemed to absorb all the beauty in the surroundings, and projected it back more vibrantly.
"Arigato Sesshoumaru-sama," she whispered.
Sesshoumaru nodded curtly, her master was never one rich in expression. But for a fleeting second she could have sworn that she did see something shifted inside his golden pools, a mixture of appreciation and maybe something else.
But it was very brief indeed, as the Lord Youkai turned his eyes on the she-youkai who stood behind Rin. Her face was serene, inside she smiled gleefully, for she did not miss a single fleeting reaction, intentional or not that had reflected on the Lord Youkai's cold, handsome face. The mere reaction he had given seeing the human wrapped on her work was a most rewarding compliment. But what's more to her, this was an invaluable token of information to youkai-kind society, what with the story she could tell about their sovereign and his pretty little pet.
"Excellent work Okinkumo," muttered the Lord Youkai. His compliment was sincere, but there was something else in beneath the tone; something bothered, almost remorseful.
She of course heard it too, and savored it. Now it was up to the Lord Youkai; she hoped that her work would provide him a worthy embellishment in whatever it was he was going to do to the mortal, alive or dead, or the various state in between.
On the other hand, Jaken, was cursing the spider youkai for her unwitting contribution in what he feared was the end of Sesshoumaru as he knew him, as anyone knew him. He was seething. Curse the she-youkai for revealing this little infant's feminine allure. This human, this human was not the random hunk of living flesh some youkai would pick from a random village to toy around with and kill and or eat afterwards. This female has been with his master for far far too long. She somehow some impossible way had manage to get a hold on him!
He was very afraid, for he too, sensed his master's momentary surprise; his appreciation in seeing Rin, and he too, knew what kind of emotion his master was getting himself into and it was nowhere near good for him. And to make matter worst; his master himself was seemingly unaware of it.
But no, the Lord Youkai did realize, on his own way, that he was intrigued by this growing human girl, in a different way than he already was. A small part of him was delightedly charmed, but more of it was furious that it was feeling that way about it. And wearily he knew that these two parts of him would battle one another long after they left the spider's lair.
*******To Be Continued*******
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