A/N Okee. This is my first non-nonsensical Inuyasha fic. I hope to work in some humour, but it won't be the complete silliness of my other fics. Please bear with me. Read and review and let me know what you think?
.:.Feudal Japan.:.
"So, ye are the Lord of the Tiger Cult they have sent to vanquish me?"
"You're the guardian of the talisman,"he answered calmly.
Kaede squinted up at the tall pale man with her one good eye. She wasn't so spry in her old age, so most of those who came seeking the talisman were foolish and over confident. She suspected he would not be.
He was dressed in a white kimono with some minor armor. On his right shoulder there was what appeared to be the pelt of a large white animal. Tiger stripes adorned his cheeks and he wore a sword strapped at both hips. His forehead was not quite covered by his slightly curled silver bangs.
She was dressed as fitted a miko of her rank. Something he neither acknowledged, or ignored. It seemed to not matter to him.
"Would ye like to try your luck against me?" she asked him.
Usually those seeking the talisman made the first move. And an aggressive move it often was. He, however, simply stood. Framed in the doorway of her humble village temple. Watching her with eyes that held no more expression then glass.
"Are ye perhaps afraid of an old woman?" she cackled, hoping to anger him into something.
No man should just stand there, staring.
"No." His voice was calm, detached. Expressionless.
"Then it be perhaps ye be waiting for an invitation into my humble shrine?" she asked ironically.
"Do not be foolish," he answered firmly. Sweeping the small room with his gaze. "I have come for the talisman!"
"Aye," she nodded. "If ye take a step for it, ye will be cut down!"
"By you?"
There was no scorn, no disbelief, no nothing in voice. A casual question. Kaede shivered.
'Oh the Cult of the Tigers have done well with ye,' she thought to herself. To him she said.
"Aye, by me!"
"I see."
Her only indication he was about to move was a slight incline to his head. The next thing Kaede knew, she could feel a wind rush passed her as he ran towards the shrine faster then human legs could run.
The charms around the talisman were strong however.
As he reached for it, Kaede could feel a faint shudder seem to pass through the shrine. There was a flash of light as his hand passed through the charms around the talisman. The sound of steel ringing filled the air. She held out her hand automatically.
The Toukijin flew to her gasp from it's scabbard upon the wall of the shrine. She gripped it, feeling it's rage hum through her. Fill her till she barely knew herself.
It's thirst for blood pulsed beneath her hands.
"This be your last warning," she said firmly. "Leave now, or ye will know the wrath of the Toukijin!"
"Is that what it's called?"
He seemed to have forgotten the talisman.
He faced her now. His right hand bleeding from his punishment, doled out by the charms. Kaede fought back the sword's lust for violence with some effort.
"Aye!" she nodded. Her eyes narrowed.
"It's angry," he said, looking with something that might have been curiosity at the sword. He reached for it. The Toukijin released a warning pulse. The stranger withdrew his hand.
"Aye, it's always angry. Always wanting the blood of those it's drawn on! It can only be quenched with blood and it always thirsts for more!" Kaede said.
"So this is how you have protected the talisman for so long," he said. "It has been the swords and not your own skills?"
"I may look like someone's grandmother!" Kaede snapped. "But ye better believe I can lay waste to you!"
"Perhaps," he nodded. "But I am unarmed!"
He looked around and spied the other sword hanging from the temple wall.
Kaede tried to let out a cry of warning, but he was already drawing the sword, already turning it against it's twin.
The swords, forged so long ago no one remember who had done it, knew one another as one brother knows another. Their tips touched, reaching for one another and they let their displeasure be known.
A blast of wind burst from the swords, slamming both would be combatants back with such force neither could resist. Kaede was blown clear from her own temple, while the stranger crashed into the shrine which housed the talisman.
Triggering the charms protecting it.
"Fool turned one against the other," Kaede said rising to her knees. "I hope the charms kill him!"
"Hope denied," he answered, walking out of the temple, holding the Toukijin's twin. Point down, ready to strike.
Kaede scrambled for the Toukijin, but she was not as young as she used to be. He was there first.
A warning died in her throat as he reached for it.
'Let him die by the swords,' she thought savagely. 'My rheumatism will bother me for weeks now because of him!'
As the stranger's hand wrapped around the hilt of the Toukijin, Kaede noticed the claws on his hand.
How odd. Even for the Cult of the Tigers.
She waited for an eruption twice that of the one which had knocked her from the temple. Much as the swords hated to be turned against one another; they hated even more to be held by the same person.
Nothing happened.
The stranger examined both swords curiously. Which was more emotion then he had displayed when being threatened with a sword.
Kaede sagged against the ground in disbelief.
"Ye gods love to torment an old lady," she moaned. Grunting she pushed herself to her feet. She dusted her hands off and limped back to the temple. "Ye might as well come an have some tea," she called to the stranger, staggering back into her temple. "I must explain things to ye!"
He came obediently, holding a sword in each hand. He walked right passed the talisman, which suggested the reasons he as here, were not his own. Probably the Cult of the Tiger vainly trying to reach for the talisman. The fools.
He sat down on a mat in the back of the temple, laying the swords across his lap. Calmly he accepted tea from her. As if it was nothing unusual to sit with someone who had threatened your life.
"Why did they do that?" the stranger asked her. "Attack each other like that?"
Kaede sighed and massaged her forehead.
She knew she needed a successor, but dear gods? A Tiger Lord?
"T'was not attacking," she corrected. "Not each other anyways. That explosion was a warning to us. The swords be brothers. Brothers do not like to be turned against one another. Are not meant to be turned against one another."
"I see."
Kaede didn't bother trying to puzzle out if he believed her or not. For all she knew, he was about to kill her!
"And the swords also do not like to be held by the same person," she added. "Only someone who is completely neutral can hold both brothers at once. Otherwise the bearer would favor one above the other. Which be intolerable to siblings. Someone out for bad, would favor the Toukijin for its power to slay. Someone out for good would favor the Tensaiga, for it's power to heal. Only someone who is neutral can love both swords for what they are."
He nodded.
"If ye be able to hold both swords, then ye be bearer of both swords."
"I see."
"Stop that!" Kaede barked. "Ye do not see! Ye do not understand! Ye are cursed or blessed to bear the twin swords! Ye can never love one sword more then the other! Ye can never choose sides!"
"The Cult of the Tiger, does not concern themselves with the affairs of the rabble," he answered.
"Aye," she acknowledged. "But ye cannot concern yourself with the affairs of the Cult of the Tiger! Dangerous times approach! And all will take sides! Ye must not, lest ye be destroyed by those you wield!"
"What if I refuse?"
"Ye cannot," Kaede said somewhat sorrowfully. "The twins will consume your life and ye cannot refuse!"
He nodded.
"What does this entail?" he asked her.
"Ye are more accepting then I was," she admitted grudgingly.
"Why fight what I have no control over?" he asked calmly. "The swords have chosen me, not the other way around. Their power is great. Why not harness it for myself?"
"Ye can have no cause," Kaede cautioned him. "No cause save that of the swords!"
"And what is there cause?" he asked.
"It be the protection of the talisman," Kaede answered. "It be the protection of the talisman until someone else may take up the burden of two swords. Ye will never be safe, ye will never settle, ye must always roam. Ye will face great and powerful foes. If ye do not die in the protection of the talisman, ye will loose your life as I have. Ye will not be free until your burden is passed on."
"I see."
"Stop saying that!"
.:.One Hundred Years Later.:.
"This is the place!" Akio said to his partner in crime Goro. The thief adjusted his mask and drew his short sword.
"I don't like it here," Goro whispered. "They say that the Tiger Lords still prowl here!"
Akio shook his head over his friend's folly. There were in sacred cemetery of the Cult of the Tiger. Now, a century after their reign, they were nothing but stories to frighten children, and the foolish with.
Akio had no use for such stories. Not while he was starving.
The Cult of the Tiger had always been so good, burying their Tiger Lords with riches and valuables. Many of these tombs had been completely ransacked. One or two might have a few bits and pieces left.
Only one had never been touched.
"The tomb of the Great Tiger Lord," Goro whispered in awe as they approached the lonesome tomb. A little sapling of a tree grew beside it. Hardly a shoot.
Goro grabbed Akio's arm and jerked him to a halt.
"Let's go back!" he whispered. "Please? Akio, it's not worth it!"
"You go back!" Akio spat, jerking his arm from Goro's grasp. "I'm going to become rich off of whatever is in that tomb!"
He ran forward to the crumbling crypt before Goro's fear caught on with him.
"It's night!" Goro whimpered, tailing after. "The spirits are always hungry at night!"
"So am I!" Akio snapped. He brought the pommel of his sword against the tomb's wall. Dust flew up and a small crack appeared. Akio hit again. The crack grew wider, but at this rate it would take nearly twice the time they'd planned on. "Goro I need your club!!" Akio hissed at his friend.
Trembling in fear Goro ran up. Akio watched, waiting to see if anyone would pass through the cemetery as Goro began beating the wall of the tomb with his stout club. Finally a section of the wall caved in.
"I see a glitter!" Goro exclaimed happily. He reached eagerly into the crypt.
A chilling wind blew across the cemetery, almost masking the whisper of steel sliding out of a scabbard.
Goro screamed as his arm was cleaved from his body. His cries were cut short as the silver sword came back and slid into his body as easily as a hot knife slides through butter.
Akio screamed in fear and fell back.
A pale man, dressed in old fashioned clothing with a sword in his right hand regarded Akio serenely.
The blood of his friend still dripped off the sword, although, no blood spattered the pale man. A wind Akio did not feel stirred the man's long silver hair. The dance of th silver strands attracted Akio's attention to the tiger stripes on the man's cheeks.
"You're a Tiger Lord!" he accused, backing up.
"I was," the man answered, walking towards him. Right through Goro's body! Akio was trembling so badly he couldn't have run had he wanted.
"Please no," he whispered.
"When the sword is drawn, only blood can slake it's hunger," the man answered softly. For one second he was engulfed in red mist. "And mine!"
He thrust forward. Piercing Akio right through the heart. The thief could only grunt in surprise. He stared up at the stary sky and stiffened. Sliding off the edge of the sword as easily as he had slid onto it.
The sword was already being sheathed, and the sword's wielder walking away as Akio closed his eyes.
.:.Present Day Japan.:.
Rin ran as fast as her legs would carry her.
She had no destination as she dashed through the ancient Japanese cemetery but she wasn't running to something, she was running away.
Running away from the double coffin being lowered into the ground, running away from that awful Toad-Man, her uncle Jaken. Running away from everyone in black, running away from those most terrible words in any language.
I'm so sorry.
Those words had chased her since the accident. Since she'd awakened from her three day coma and asked the nice nurse to tell her mommy and daddy not to worry because she was alright.
Chased her when the doctor told her she was the only survivor in a fatal crash, claiming the lives of three others.
Chased her as friends and family came to apologize for her loss.
Those words had hounded her since the hospital and she knew they would hound her forever. They follow her forever.
No matter where she went, no matter who she was with they'd always be there.
'Where's your mommy and daddy?'
'They died.'
'Oh. I'm so sorry!'
For the rest of her life she would be the little girl who'd lost her parents in a tragic crash.
That was another word that would follow her.
Lost.
She'd lost her parents.
Rin hadn't lost her parents at all. They were gone. No matter what. She could stay in Japan, she could go to Canada with her mean uncle Jaken, she could go to the moon and they'd always be gone.
She'd tried to bear it in the hospital. She'd tried to bear it since getting out of the hospital. She'd tried to bear it during the funeral as people dressed in black stood at the front of the little temple and gave speeches about their loss.
She'd tried to bear it during the procession as they drove down the street slowly with her parents in a box in the back of the hearse. She hadn't been able to bear it as the casket was lowered and people stood around murmuring sadly.
She'd caught snippets of their sorrowful conversations.
....So young....
....Too young, too good.....
....Such a loss....
....So Sorry.....
And that was why she was running.
All she had left in the world was her Uncle Jaken, whom she not so affectionately referred to as the 'Toad-Man.'
When she hadn't been able to take it any longer she'd run away. Run frm her parent's as they were lowered into the ground, run from her future with the Toad-Man and run from the pitying people with sad eyes and run from 'I'm sorry.'
Her frantic, head long dash was interrupted as her shiny dress shoes caught on the tree root of a huge willow tree.
She went sprawling, the musty dirt of the graveyard smudging her black dress and the tiny rocks scrapping her arms.
She pushed herself up to her knees and hugged herself, shivering.
She whimpered. A wild sob was lodged in her throat and it felt like it was chocking on it. She felt like she'd never be able to get it out, like she'd be locked like this forever, desperate and silent.
She closed her eyes as tightly as she could and sucked in a frantic breath.
The first sob racked her entire body. She choked on the second one and then they began to pour out of her.
She hugged herself as tightly as she could, hot tears falling down her face as she rocked back and forth, crying for everything she'd lost. Everything that had been stolen from her. Everything that should have been hers, for her parents, for her past, for the future rising before her.
For the emptiness she felt inside.
"You there! Girl!" called an emotionless voice. "Shut up!"
Rin was startled out of her tears. Looking around she blinked in surprise. She'd stumbled into the most ancient part of the cemetery, with large mausoleums, crumbling in disrepair. Tombstones that were weathered till no name could be read. Piles of rock and ruble that had once been statues.
"Who said that?" she demanded, rising to her feet. "Who's there?"
"I did!"
She whirled around and stared in amazement at the man who'd come up behind her. His hair was a long silver curtain falling down his back. His kimono was white, with a sash and some minor armor. Over his shoulder was a huge, fluffy object, bearing some resemblance to a fat, fluffy snake. Tiger stripes adorned his cheeks and wrists and he wore a sword strapped at both hips. On his forehead he had a blue crescent moon, not quiet hidden by his slightly curled silver bangs.
Rin wiped her eyes furiously.
"I can see right through you!" she exclaimed.
"Your mother must be proud," he answered, no expression on his face.
Rin flinched at the word like it was a blow. Softly she mumbled, "She, she," she took a deep breath and forced herself to say it. She'd be saying it a lot more in her life. "She's dead!"
He didn't even blink.
"At least you have reasonable excuse to be here," was his response. "Leave!"
Rin was stung at the lack of emotion in his voice. He didn't care. Her world was over and he didn't care.
"Why don't you leave?" she demanded angrily. She pushed herself up and dusted off her stinging knees. "Why are you here?"
"I was put here," was his response. "And I can't leave so why don't you be a good girl and return to your grieving family?"
And then he seemed to disappear.
Rin ran to where she'd seen him disappear, but there was no of him, not a foot print, not even a glimpse of him. He'd really disappeared.
She looked around, but something caught her eye. A tall mausoleum with a crumbling wall, covered in vines and moss. The roots of the very willow she' d tripped on grew over it and around it, wrapping it in a wooden embrace. The crypt looked positively ancient.
She approached it cautiously. She suspected that tombs were something little girl's weren't supposed to touch. She crept forward. She spied a large hole. She stood on a large, bulging root and peered inside the tomb. She held onto it, steadying herself with her hands to look into the hole.
A hand came down on her shoulder.
She screamed and turned around, placing her hand against her hammering heart.
"Rin! What are you doing here?"
"Uncle Jaken!" she gasped, sucking in slow mouthfuls of air. "You scared me!"
"Come along Rin!" he snapped, grabbing her hand roughly. He tugged her away from the mausoleum. She reached out for it regretfully.
"Who's buried there uncle Jaken?" she asked him as he tugged her away, muttering about bad little girls who didn't do as they were told.
"How should I know?" he demanded in his shrill annoying voice. "I don't work here Rin!"
"Uncle Jaken!" she cried as he yanked her painfully towards her parent's tomb. "Uncle Jaken! I saw a man there! He was a tall man with silver hair and..."
"I don't want to here any lies Rin!" he snapped.
"But Uncle Jaken!" she protested offended that he would think she lied. "You're hurting my arm! And there was too a man! I could see him!"
"There was no one there Rin! You're imagining things!" he snapped, flinging her arm down and turning to glare at her.
He had large eyes that were a listless brown, he wasn't very tall at all, only four foot five or so and he wore a strange shaped hat, which his called a 'fez.'
"Uncle Jaken I saw someone!" she insisted. "I really did Uncle Jaken!"
"Don't be a fool Rin!" Jaken snapped, grabbing her by the shoulder so hard it hurt. They were fast approaching the fresh grave that now held her parents. "You didn't see anyone!"
She didn't say anything else as she was rudely shoved back towards the rest of the people who'd been at her parent's funeral.
She was forced to say thank you to everyone and be as polite as she could. People murmured about how brave she was being, but Rin ignored them. Her mind was now directed to the puzzling pale man.
"Uncle Jaken, why would someone have tiger stripes and a moon on their face?" she asked him suddenly as a nice woman wearing a black veil was giving her condolences.
"Why do you ask Rin?" Jaken demanded, tightening his grip on Rin's shoulder. She tried not to show how much it hurt.
"I was just wondering," she said vaguely, "I saw someone like that around somewhere and I was curious."
"He's probably a clown sweety," the nice woman said. She turned back to Jaken. "When are you returning to the United States?"
"Canada," Jaken corrected. "And Rin and I will be flying back at the end of the week. I think it's best for her to get a new start in a new place."
Rin's attention had been refocused on the bleakness of her parent's passing by the question of going to Canada. She stared at the tomb stone and swallowed hard. It was going to hurt to leave her parents behind.
'I don't want a new start,' she thought glumly. 'I want my old life!'
A/N So yeah. How was it? I think it might have been over done in some places, but you know. So helpful hints and suggestions are welcome! Please let me know if I start getting too angsty and pass from deep to just plain whiny!