1.

To put it simply, Sesshomaru Ookami cared about nothing and no one. He had never cared before, whether it be his oppressive father who spent most of his days in the soaring skyscrapers and buildings he erected in his honor than in his own house and the presence of his own family. Even more far-fetched than the idea of caring about his father was the question of Sesshomaru caring about Inuyasha, his half-brother (the half part he cared enough to stress), a boy born to his father by a mistress, a child who he had come to resent as the main successor to his father's estate. Sesshomaru was the eldest son, for God's sake, and the legitimate one, not that the shadowy and completely incomprehensible man that was his father cared.

Essentially, Sesshomaru cared about nothing. While he wanted money, he was willing to throw it away for his own pleasure, and while he wanted his father's estate, it was as a man coldly covets revenge so he can throw it, excruciating and sharp, into the faces of his enemies. When Sesshomaru thought about it, at least he had a lot of those. And so, as Sesshomaru stood in one of his father's five star hotels with the girl he'd picked up solely to use for her father's business connections, and then she tearfully asked if he cared about her at all, there was only one answer he could think of:

"Hell no."

Her face contorted with mascara tears and a lip-sticked scowl, the woman raised her hand. Sesshomaru, giving her open palm a cold glance, caught the woman's wrist swiftly in his own and returned her look of indignation with a glare of such disdain that it could have quelled a pack of wolves.

"While I may be willing to tolerate your extravagant wastefulness of my father's money and my time, you're not worthy of touching my face," Sesshomaru said coolly, and his gold eyes flashed. The girl stared at him in horror, desperately trying to snatch herself away. "Be it your lips or your slap."

"You bastard!" she screamed, and wiping the dark tears tracks from her face, she hissed, "don't you give a damn about my father's money? Throwing me away like some tramp you picked up in the street—"

"Not even all your father's resources would be high enough a bribe for me to put up with a pathetic brat like you," Sesshomaru answered, and walking through the crowd of people watching him with wide, petrified eyes, he pushed open the hotel double doors. His date watched him in outrage, her fists clenched so tightly that her fake nails cut into her skin.

"Just wait until I tell my father!" the girl screamed, her hair falling like dark tentacles into her face, her mouth a dark, ravenous hole. Without their careful make-up and perfect poise, Sesshomaru thought, these high-class women were all the same, simpering smiles, unbearable giggles that screeched in his ears, disheveled, gold-digging banshees.

"You can tell your father," Sesshomaru's back replied, his silver-blonde hair falling down his shoulders, his regal figure as composed and invulnerable as ever, "that the next time he wants my father's patronage, he had better send me a business proposal, not a marriage one."

…

"Lord Sesshomaru," Jaken gasped as Sesshomaru slipped into the limousine. While unseemly and indecisive, Jaken served as the perfect servant, obedient in every sense, and unlike the other servants at the manor, he obeyed him alone and not his father. It was Sesshomaru's main interests to surround himself with obedient followers and those who would add to his legacies rather than his father's. That, and to obtain his father's wealth by disinheriting that interfering boy that was his half-brother.

"Take me back to the mansion, Jaken," Sesshomaru commanded, smoothing out the ruffles in his expensive suit-jacket and trousers. "I have business I need to attend to."

"That was a, um, rather short dinner, sir. Will your date not be needing a ride back?"

"That woman," Sesshomaru said plainly, his gold eyes aloof, "doesn't matter. I have just received some very…intriguing information."

Jaken gulped, recognizing the tone in his master's voice. It was that characteristically calculating tone, manipulative and cold, that usually resulted in Jaken undertaking some impossible task with business associates and crooks and occasionally hired guns. "And what would that be, Lord Sesshomaru?"

"That, my loyal servant," said Sesshomaru, and he opened up his briefcase, stroking a manila folder ponderously with his long fingers. Despite the usual cold detachment on his face, Sesshomaru's eyes flashed with excitement, "is some dirt on my 'dear' baby brother."

Jaken breathed out a sigh of relief, happy though he was to carry out his beloved master's orders that usual entailed him being chased down by bodyguards and mobsters. At least he wasn't involved. "On master Inuyasha?"

"Not master for long," said Sesshomaru, and from the manila folder he plucked a couple photos that revealed, though blurry and at dizzying angles, a young girl with dark hair. In one of the photos a young man with long white-blonde hair grabbed the girl's arm, looking into her hazel eyes; in another, he smiled over her shoulder. "Even his taste in women is foul," Sesshomaru said, and he held the red business card before his wild gold eyes. "Who would have thought that he'd involve himself with a prostitute."

The car abruptly swerved, and Jaken grabbed the wheel frantically beneath his minute hands, honking back at the other cars he nearly rammed into. Sesshomaru sat unperturbed and aloofly in his seat, oblivious to all but the folder sitting securely in his lap.

"A-a," Jaken gasped, sweat beading his ugly face, "prostitute? The successor of the Ookami empire is in a relationship with a girl from the red-light district?"

"So it seems," Sesshomaru said simply, though he was barely paying heed to Jaken's words or his panic-stricken frenzy. All he could focus on was the look of sheer horror on his younger brother's face, his gold eyes wide, his shoulders stooped with the impact of the blow to his reputation. This news of a prostitute with the already thin ground of Inuyasha's illegitimate lineage and young age would be enough to send him falling onto his knees. "So it seems." Sesshomaru cast one last glance at the black-haired girl smiling out at him from the photograph, and thought if his brother had to go for a prostitute, he could have at least been a little more selective.

"C-couldn't this simply be a rumor or something the tabloids made up?" Jaken said nervously, feeling his master's malicious intent thick and stifling in the confined space of the car. When matters concerned Inuyasha, Lord Inutaisho, or the inheritance of the estate, Sesshomaru seemed to radiate pure, pulverizing coldness. Since matters rarely involved anything else other than the family, company, and succession nowadays, Jaken could barely serve his master Sesshomaru without feeling the cold sweat or the ulcer from stress that had recently developed in his stomach. Why did things have to be so difficult? "Do you really think Master Inuyasha would become involved in such a scandal…?"

"I expect nothing less—" Sesshomaru hissed, and glancing down at the picture of his brother's smiling face, he resisted the all too alluring temptation to tear the evidence into shreds. Revenge, he reminded himself, would come much later, much colder, and much more excruciatingly sweet. "—from the half-breed cur of a mistress."

…

Inuyasha reclined against the white-stone of the mansion, looking at his watch impatiently before switching from worry that maybe she had gotten into an accident and irritation that she wasn't here already. It wasn't easy for him to escape from his tutor's and their preaching about his succession of the estate and need to be fit for the company, et cetera.

"Where is that girl?" he said through clenched teeth. Though anger was usually his tone and a frown was usually carved into his face, Inuyasha was the undoubtedly handsome son of the undoubtedly powerful Lord Inutaisho, wealthiest of the wealthy, most powerful of the powerful men. From his father Inuyasha bore the hair so blonde it looked white, which he wore to the servant's and high-societies contempt in a long, unkempt cascade of silver. His gold eyes were also his father's work, like his damned older brother, though while his brother's gold eyes usually narrowed in cold glares, Inuyasha's were smoldering with anger unbridled, a will that could not be contained. The household hated him for it, and he hated this place for everything, for the scorn of his infamous mother, for the names they called him behind cupped hands and in leering, mocking tones.

"It's been over an hour," Inuyasha complained, though by now the irritation had subsided to concern. Kagome wasn't usually this late since she was the one who insisted that no one would see them. Their relationship, to Inuyasha's perpetual chagrin, had to be careful and hidden. Of course, his family would probably throw him out on the streets for it, and Kagome….with the precarious situation that she was already in, she couldn't have any more close calls. It was a situation that Inuyasha could barely stomach and Kagome withstood only by being as emotionless as a doll, as empty as a shell.

"Why," he said, slowly, bitterly, but tenderly all the same, "do I have to need her so goddamned badly?"

Inuyasha caught the sound of the crackle of gravel, and whipping his head around, he saw the girl. Though her clothes were cheap and disheveled, her hair fell in rich, dark waves over her shoulders and framed the delicate face, a face often bruised and bandaged and half-hidden by her bangs. As she looked hastily up at him, Inuyasha found the green eyes, avid, glistening, that he loved with such madness, such reckless, insatiable need. And, her eyes still fixed on him, Kagome tumbled into his open arms.

"Inuyasha," she gasped, almost disbelievingly for a moment, as she buried her face into his chest. "You're…here." Kagome let her arms loosen around him, but Inuyasha brought them tighter and close around his shoulders, wrapping his hands around her waist, feeling her light, unsteady weight, her presence. He breathed it in like he couldn't get enough of the scent of her.

"Of course I am." Inuyasha passed a hand over her face, his fingers gliding over a bruise. "You're the one who begged me to meet you here."

"It's been over an hour," Kagome answered.

"At least it's not like last time. You had me waiting in a goddamned storm—"

"That's when I thought you were a stalker!" Kagome protested, and she laid the side of her dark head on his shoulder. Inuyasha could feel her black hair against his mouth and pressed his lips against it. "You know, it's usually guys like that, perverts and stalkers, who end up at our place," Kagome said hollowly now. "The only guys I've ever known are like that. Just groping hands and disgusting, slobbery, simpering mouths." Kagome tried to laugh it up, and instinctively, Inuyasha held her tighter, closely, in his embrace.

"It's not like there aren't pigs just as bad here," he said, and uncontrollably, ringing, he could hear the voices of high-society wafting around him like wasps, like poisonous smog. He remembered a lovely but weak black-haired woman wrapping her arms tight around him as the women glared in her direction and the men grabbed at her with filthy, pudgy hands. "It's like hell in this place. Kill or be killed. You learn to live, somehow, with these cretins."

Kagome said nothing and eased into Inuyasha's arms. "Are you going to come over today?" She gave him a sad look, and Inuyasha could almost hear her thoughts: Not that I'd blame you if you didn't want to step a foot in that place.

Holding the side of Kagome's pale face in his hands, Inuyasha brought up her small, red, and madly intoxicating mouth for a kiss. For a long moment those two stood in the shadows of the mansion, pressed against one another, kissing deep and close, before Inuyasha drew his face away.

"Tomorrow," he said finally. "I'll go over tomorrow if I can survive another damned day of hell in this place."

Kagome gave him a small smile, and detaching herself from his arms, she slowly stepped away into the streets.

…

"What do you know about the brothel 'Shikon Jewel'?"

Miroku choked on his drink, and coughing, sputtering, he slowly raised his handsome head to Sesshomaru. Watching Miroku's pale face, Sesshomaru knew that he had chosen the right man to interrogate. Of course, his lowly half-brother's company would include this lecherous investor. He was about the same age as Inuyasha with short, tousled black hair and gold rings hanging from his ears. Whereas Sesshomaru was the famous heartthrob for his coldness, reserve, and sleekness, Miroku was famous for his open arms extended to all women, or in any case the buxom and delectable ones. Miroku was just as famous an investor and renovator as he was a skirt-chaser and ladies' man, and were there any man with expert knowledge of every well-known whorehouse and famous hostess in the red-light district, it was fittingly him.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Miroku answered as he wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve, and his eyes darted back and forth. "Inuyasha certainly is taking a long time…"

"I know that your renovation project for antique shrines is lacking fines," Sesshomaru continued coldly, his silver bangs just brushing against his golden eyes narrowed in distaste. He disdained dealing with Inuyasha's circle of friends almost as much as he hated dealing with Inuyasha himself. Of course, he thought, it suited the son of an adulterous whore to have companions that included lechers, and apparently now, prostitutes. What a pathetic boy his foolish father was lavishing with his entire estate, company, and wealth, wealth that Sesshomaru had spent almost all his life securing and increasing until his father's company transformed one of the most powerful, influential, indomitable businesses enterprises in Japan. And then he decided to throw it away on his illegitimate half-breed.

"Pathetic."

"I wouldn't say things like that when you so desperately need my help, 'Lord Sesshomaru'," answered Miroku with a scathing grin, and he poured some more wine into his glass. "Anyway, what does the great master of the Ookami family have to do with a simple business man like me? Getting tired of your prim and proper upper class women, or are you falling out of their favor and need some company?"

"I wasn't talking about you," Sesshomaru answered. "Not now, at least. And I'm doing this for the…betterment of my poor, misguided brother who seems to have fallen astray. Although I'm sure you have nothing to do with that."

"Of course not," Miroku replied smoothly and sipped at his drink. "Just as I'm sure that you care a lot about what's good for your dear brother."

"I know that Inuyasha has been seen in the brothel 'Shikon Jewel', and more precisely," Sesshomaru removed a photo from his breast pocket depicting the dark-haired Kagome as she smiled against Inuyasha's arm, "he has been endorsing this prostitute. I want you to tell me all you know about Inuyasha's relationship with her and who this girl is."

"And what do you care? You've never given a damn about what Inuyasha did or who he associated with before." Miroku's lips curled up into a handsome, leering smile. "Or is it because of the recent, hmm, changes in successors?"

"Are you trying to make me angry?" Sesshomaru didn't look angry; he looked completely, icily, and mercilessly indifferent to the idea of ripping this man to shreds right here and right now, with his bare hands if need be.

"Of course not," Miroku laughed. His dark eyes flashed ponderingly and he bent over his clasped hands. "It's just, I would be willing help you with your noble quest to help your brother, but I need some leverage. Do you know about a Miss Sango Ryoushi?"

"Should I care?"

"Not about her," Miroku said hastily. "I was just hoping, as her father is a prominent CEO, if maybe you could use your connections to create a little get-together for us."

"And here I thought the ladies' man would never get bored of playing around with tramps and call-girls," Sesshomaru replied icily.

"She just caught my eye," Miroku grinned, and continued, "and if you can do me that little favor, I'll do you yours."

…

"C'mon, sweetheart, just give me a little kiss."

"How about just a touch of that lovely hair, baby?"

"Back off," Kagome muttered, slapping away the outstretched hands of the several men, completely and utterly drunk by now, sitting by the counter of the bar. Shikon Jewel was more like a dingy hostess-club than it was really a brothel, but when it came down to the dirty details, the way the girls got money was mostly throw the sales of more than flirty smiles and caressing kisses.

Kagome wasn't in the mood today to put up with drunks who wouldn't pay her. Even as she wandered through the streets people's stares were constantly on her, on the short, skin-tight clothing her trade forced her to wear, on the fading bruises the last client had given her, on her rich, dark hair.

She needed the money, she reminded herself again and again. It was only for the money. She told herself that every time those filthy, large hands ran over her body, every time those alcohol-putrid mouths stole a kiss, every time Inuyasha watched her with those faraway eyes, knowing he couldn't bear it and she couldn't either.

A man with long, dark hair glided over to her and, smiling that devilish, hungry smile, he slipped his hands on Kagome's shoulders. "So?" he whispered into her ear, his voice as soft and slithering as snakes moving across her skin. "What's it going to be today, Miss Higurashi?"

Kagome felt the bruises throb on her arm, and the man's very touch brought the pain back to her, fresh, damningly real and repetitive. She wanted to run, to scream, to pull herself away. She imagined Inuyasha's eyes, so agonizing, so distant, so endearing, falling on the pitiful sight of her.

"Alright," Naraku hissed, and his mouth moved against her dark hair like a cool wind, chilling Kagome to the bone. "The usual, then."

Naraku pressed his mouth against her ear, and Kagome reminded herself she needed the money. It was for the money.

The vision of Inuyasha passed through her head before fading into grateful black.

…

"Lord Sesshomaru, you can't go down there by yourself!"

"Do I seem so incompetent that I can't find my way myself?" Sesshomaru said icily, stealing the car keys from Jaken's hand.

"But—but," Jaken stammered, flustered, proudly, as he looked desperately at his master. "That is my duty, milord! Allow me to accompany you!"

"I don't need any hindrances," Sesshomaru replied coldly, and grabbing his dark jacket over his shoulder, he slid into the car and drove away. He wanted no distractions, no obstacles—just the certain road to his brother's destruction, and he would take it himself. Setting eyes on the place was merely to fulfill his curiosity about the mess his brother had fallen into. A brothel, of all places? He had to see it himself, confirm the unbelievable rumor—

"Disgusting."

Sesshomaru stepped out of the car and found himself in front of an old building with peeling, china-red paint and the old sign of a glowing jewel chipped and faded. Of course, his useless brother had chosen this dump to find himself a girl, this wreck of a whorehouse.

As Sesshomaru pushed through the scarlet double doors, he felt the dumbstruck stares of the prostitutes and hostesses glued onto his regal figure. They watched him with gaping mouths and shining eyes, and as Sesshomaru threw back his long mane of white-blonde hair, the girls blushed and giggled to each other.

"Hello, handsome." Sesshomaru stood at the counter, and a woman with dark, arranged hair tied with a red feather sidled up to him. She removed her paper fan from her face and flashed him a crimson smile. "Can I interest you in a drink?"

"I'm looking for someone."

"Well, you're talking to the right person, then," the woman laughed, clicking her fan. "I'm the proprietress of this establishment. You can call me Kagura. What exactly are you looking for?"

Sesshomaru took the picture out of his pocket and slid it across the counter. "I need this girl."

Plucking the photo with her red-nailed fingers, Kagura replied, "Kagome Higurashi? Well, I'm afraid…she's with another customer right now?"

Of course, Sesshomaru thought, this was the girl his brother was mingling with, a girl who threw herself at countless other depraved men.

"Would you like another girl, Mr. Ookami?" Kagura continued, "it's hard not to recognize you from the papers. The son of the Ookami empire with money, power, good-looks." Kagura laughed. "Why the hell would a guy like you cater to our humble shop?"

"I'm not here for pleasure," Sesshomaru said dismissively and clicked his nails impatiently on the counter-top. "I'm here for business. It seems that my misguided brother has involved himself in this…unseemly place. It must be stopped."

Kagura smile turned cold and strained on her refined face, and she opened her face over her mouth. "Well, then, I can't help you. We only serve customers here. I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave—" with a jab of her painted fan, Kagura called out, "Kanna, Kanna! Please escort this man out!"

When the girls looked uncertainly over at one another, Kagura beat her fan in her hands and said in aggravation, "of course, she's busy right now…" Kagura's red eyes flicked over to a dark corner of the brothel, and she shouted, "Rin!"

Sesshomaru heard the click of a door, and then the creak of the stairs as a small girl padded hastily down and into the brothel. She was certainly no young woman— her brown eyes peered helplessly through her dark bangs, her hair was so disheveled and dark it almost looked matted with dark, and she fumbled in her pink costume over to the counter.

"Rin, please escort this man out."

Sesshomaru couldn't move his gold eyes from the small, dark-haired girl shuffling, barefoot and obscenely costumed, before him. "You even sell children?" he hissed incredulously.

Kagura beat her fan into her open palm like a whip. "Of course not, we're a business, not a black market. Rin just cleans, cooks, and helps around here when it's necessary. It's an act of kindness that we let her stay here after her mother died. If we didn't, she'd be starving in the streets, and she probably would have to sell herself to sickos to get by. But then," Kagura smiled callously, her mouth a hook of white hemmed in blood-red, "why would someone like you care?"

Rin twisted her fingers together in her lap and lowered her gaze to the floor. For a moment her mouth opened, dumbly, astounded, and then it fell vainly closed.

"She can barely even speak," Kagura said icily. "Well, what are you waiting for, Rin? Show this man out."

Her dark head jerking and flying up to Kagura, Rin nodded, looking back at Sesshomaru, she pattered over to the door. She constantly looked back over her shoulder at the handsome stranger, staring with wide, enchanted eyes at his golden eyes, his long, bright hair, his regal and perfect figure.

Sesshomaru returned her look with a glare, and the girl quickly turned away, almost tripping over her own two feet. He couldn't believe the extent of the filth and degradation of this seedy place, even using children to serve customers and make money. This girl couldn't be over thirteen, and here she was, dressed in her garish, extravagant pink kimono, clumsily-applied rouge on her cheeks, an awkward pin tangled in her dark, wild hair.

"What a mess my foolish half-brother has gotten himself into."

As Rin pushed the heavy doors open, clanging, she gave Sesshomaru one, arresting look, her brown eyes fixed into his own, undaunted, probing. She fiddled with the pin in her hair for a moment, and then in a voice no more than a whisper, she said, "Y-you're looking for…Kagome…?"

And then her dirty face broke into a childish smile, so simple, so unmistakably pure for this foul place that Sesshomaru could not tear his gaze away. He had never seen so serene a smile in his high-class surroundings, steeped in wealth, in self-indulgence, in arrogance.

"She's nice," Rin said quietly, smiling a little, and then her pink dress flapping around her with the bright luridness of cotton candy, she disappeared behind the battered doors.

Sesshomaru watched the double doors close, and he stepped into his car, thinking about the sheer stupidity of his brother involving himself in this dingy brothel, how his succession could surely be eliminated, how he would procure his father's wealth— turning the thoughts of his imminent wealth and power in his head, Sesshomaru tried to distract himself from the thought of the young girl, smiling and bright and misplaced, that kept appearing every time he closed his cold golden eyes.