A Father's Wish

A One-Shot by Tifa Tyndal

Disclaimer: No, after looking over my fan fictions I realized that not only do I not own Inuyasha but if I did, I'd ruin it!

Summery: I'm just a normal father with just one wish for my sons.

Spoiler Warning: This story takes place right after episode 43 so if you haven't seen up to 43 then this will spoil you thoroughly.

Sesshomaru and Inuyasha were like your normal brothers: they fought a lot. But they were special. I couldn't just walk in and send them to their rooms then tell them to make up. No, they were different. When they fought whole villages were destroyed. I had to actually fight them off each other. Being the strongest demon alive at that time, it wasn't a problem but it did take effort and like every father does, I just wish my boys would be friends.

Not that I didn't know that it would be hard for them to get along. They came from different backgrounds in their own little way. Sesshomaru was full-demon. His mother, beautiful as she was, hated humans like most demons do. And so while I was off watching over the lands, Sesshomaru's mother would be the greatest influence on him. Hence, Sesshomaru ended up hating humans also. Sesshomaru was to be the heir to my estate. He was treated like the lord's son he was.

Inuyasha, however, had a human mother. His mother was possibly the most beautiful human on earth. Kind, loving, peaceful; she was wonderful. But since she was a human, Inuyasha was only half-demon and that caused problems. All the other people in the tribe ridiculed him. Hated him even. They resented me for marrying a human woman. So, even with such a kind mother, Inuyasha had to learn to rough it. He lived his childhood knowing that many people would try to kill him just because who he was. It was like he wasn't even my son.

So two brothers. They hated each other. It was unavoidable really, I mean, they were competing for my attention, it was a natural inclination. Now I'm not someone to pick favorites but Inuyasha had a special place in my heart. He would carry my love of humans into the next generation. Don't get me wrong, Sesshomaru was great too. Sesshomaru would carry my strength into the next generation. But Inuyasha... poor Inuyasha he was going to have a hard life. Sesshomaru was going to have an easy one. Nothing would stand up to his strength. That's what I feared actually.

Sesshomaru was going to have to learn to love the living. Love humans even, because that's what makes a true warrior. Someone with the power we possessed needs to learn to be kind and use it sparingly. I had to use it for many battles but I never killed just to kill. That's what Sesshomaru had to learn.

Inuyasha would need to protect himself and others. Because he was half-demon he would be challenged time after time for his life. Anyone who dared be his companion would always be in danger. True, he would have to pick up a roughness and possibly even a little maliciousness. But I knew, his human side would have to win out in the end. I wanted it to. But there was a problem. Inuyasha was zealous, really zealous. He lost his temper over and over. I think he took after me in that respect. But it was different with him. If he were every really to lose his temper to a point, his demon blood would take over and all things would go haywire.

So, here I was in a difficult position. I had to figure out a way to accomplish both feats for my sons and I had to make it to where even if I died (because I could die just about any day no matter how strong I was) they would still learn. So I consulted with my trusty flea, Myoga. I didn't get any idea from him but I did slap him for trying to suck the lifeblood out of me, again. It made me hungry though. So I went out and got some wild boar to eat. Then I got to thinking, if my fangs are strong enough for me to tear a wild boar apart and pick every bit of meat off the bones then how strong would they be out of my mouth? That sent me off to a wonderful friend. Toto-sai.

Toto-sai is a really weird guy, but really smart when it came to swords. So when I came to him with two of my fangs, asking him to make swords out of them, and giving him the specifications he eagerly accepted the challenge. I saw the doubt in his eyes but I had none in my own. If he wasn't able to do it then no one was.

Sure enough, he did. I tried each of them out. They worked great. And actually I didn't actually make either of the swords for the boys at the time. I had Tessaiga made so that I could protect my human wife. Tenseiga was.. well handy in any occasion. I would leave the swords as heirlooms for my sons. They wouldn't need them before I died anyway. I decided from day one which was going to get which sword:

Inuyasha got Tessaiga. Ah, Tessaiga, can only be wielded to begin with when you're protecting a human. Someone who wasn't me, or didn't have any human blood in them wouldn't even be able to touch it. That insured that Sesshomaru wouldn't take it from Inuyasha. Tessaiga also kept Inuyasha's demon blood in check. As long as he held the sword his demon blood couldn't take over his human blood. Oh, yes, its power: When used to its full power it could kill one hundred demons at one time. Inuyasha would need that. He would need to be strong but so he didn't misuse the power he needed to be strong in the defense of humans.

Sesshomaru got Tenseiga. Tenseiga was fun to wield. Of course Sesshomaru would just have to learn to like it, because he sure wouldn't like it to begin with. It was a great idea actually. Sesshomaru was clearly the stronger of the two brothers so I would just have to keep him from killing Inuyasha by giving him a sword he couldn't kill Inuyasha with. Or anyone for that matter. I had to instill a love for humans in Sesshomaru or awaken it at least. Tenseiga, the sword that at best can raise one hundred beings from the dead at once.

Sometime I'm amazed at my wisdom.

As one final measure I made each of the swords protect their master. Tessaiga would even protect humans too! Also, as I side note I sent Myoga to be Inuyasha's retainer. Partially because Myoga knew how to find things out and knew legends and wisdom that Inuyasha didn't have and Sesshomaru could find out on his own, and partially because I thought it would be funny. Myoga just loves the blood in our family.

So then I died.

It wasn't that bad, dying I mean, cause it put me in a much better position to keep an eye on my boys. I wondered how long it was going to take for Inuyasha to find his sword and how long after that it would take for both Sesshomaru and Inuyasha to realize that it was pointless for them to fight. That they just couldn't kill each other.

The day that Inuyasha discovered his heirloom was long in coming. I had to watch him as he fell for a beautiful priestess who he could never be with and how that priestess pinned him to a tree for fifty years. Meanwhile Sesshomaru was getting stronger and stronger... old too. I wonder how it felt when they met again and Inuyasha saw that Sesshomaru was now over fifty years older than him. I just had to chuckle.

Anyway, after fifty years of wondering if Inuyasha's nose itched my-I mean his savior arrived in the form of a young human girl. Oh, was I ever happy when she showed up and Inuyasha was made not to kill her. I laughed my head off when she used "Sit, boy!" to subdue him. About that time a certain factor reentered the scene. The Shikon no Tama. Oh, joy, something else to trouble them. What Inuyasha wanted to do with it was bad enough but the fact that he was stringing a innocent human along with him as he tried to become full-demon was worse. Of course... there was an advantage, he got plenty of time to try out his sword. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Why did I choose to place my graveyard in Inuyasha's eye? Well it was extremely convenient. It'd make it easier for him to find his sword and no way was I going to put it in Sesshomaru's eye... who knows what he would have done. So, when the boys met in my graveyard I was a little disappointed that Sesshomaru was there. I didn't mind the human girl... uh Kagome I think was her name. Reminded me of Inuyasha's mother a little.

Now here comes my major disappointment in Sesshomaru. After all those years for him to get ahead of Inuyasha; he didn't. He still hadn't mastered the Tenseiga and his hatred for humans grew every day. It was like watching my boys fight over a toy again.

Sesshomaru, soon found out that he couldn't even touch the sword yet Kagome and Inuyasha could. That pleased me. Maybe Sesshomaru's ego was brought down a few notches. So as the story goes on Inuyasha ends up tearing his brother's arm off,

Sesshomaru sticks his hand through his brother's gut, and so on and so forth. But the major point of the encounter would be that Inuyasha found his sword and Sesshomaru refused to grow up into the demon I hoped he would be.

Now I wasn't counting on Sesshomaru losing an arm or trying to replace it with a human arm. That stunk! Especially since that annoying Naraku decided to hang around. So Sesshomaru takes the sword, tries to kill Inuyasha, and to make a long story short it all ends up ok. They go their separate ways and Sesshomaru thinks about some other way to get the Tessaiga.

Next big encounter, Inuyasha learns the wind scar. Yay! I knew he could do it! He even met Toto-sai... who hasn't aged very gracefully. Anyway, he uses it on Sesshomaru and the moment I'd been waiting for came: Sesshomaru realized the power of his sword: it protected him. Inuyasha learned the wind scar and suddenly had more confidence. Then, I just about growled. After all these years they are still fighting! Is there no hope for them? I just want to go down there and make them get along. But I can't... I can't do ANYTHING!!!!

So after that battle I was extremely disappointed in both of them but ya know what? I'm glad I stuck around to see what happened next. I praised my fangs.

Because, when I saw my sons... When I saw Inuyasha rush for Kagome's rescue, smile at her, and worry for her safety; when I saw Sesshomaru spare that young girl Rin's life, see him actually save it and allow her to follow him, when I saw all that, I was proud. I began to think that maybe, just maybe there was hope for them. And that made me happy. Maybe, just maybe my wish would come true and my boys would get along, united by a mutual love for humans.

Then, then Inuyasha had to go off and break Tesseiga!

THE END

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This is the third story I've prepped to be posted... I think I'm starting to get the hang of this. Oh and as for the spelling of the sword's names, I've found so many different spellings I just didn't know which to use. So I just picked two. If anyone knows the official spellings (of they exist) I'd really like to know. -The Author