A/N: I haven't written in a while and this shouted to me. As a forwarning, there is absolutely NO romance in this between Sesshomaru and Rin. I don't really care for romance between them. I wanted to clear that up just in case. Oh, and I don't own Inuyasha.
SEARCHING
i.
(time is only an inconvenience)
He finds her again, just as the soft blush of girlhood fades from her body, he finds her. She plumps her pert breasts and pouts her lips and her eyes have gone flat. The demon lord realizes this time around is not meant to be, so he silently kills her outside the brothel and waits.
ii.
She is an old woman when they meet again. She grins a gnarled smile at him, revealing the precious few teeth she has. Once upon a time this girl smelled like rice and wind and the meadow on a sunny day. Now, the skeletal hand of a shinigami trails seductively up her spine. Sesshomaru doesn't even bother to unsheathe his sword, instead releasing his impatience like the blood that flows over his claws.
iii.
Hope flowers chillingly in his breast the next time he finds her. She is bright and sunny and beautiful, and this is the closest incarnation of her true form that he as ever found. The tea house she works at is thriving and she flits from customer to customer. He settles and waits for her to serve him.
When she comes the tea is steaming and potent, as is her smell. She bows politely and he inclines his head regally and after he finishes his tea she approaches again. Disappointment wells as she awkwardly, fumblingly, strokes his arm and asks huskily, "anything else?"
He waits until she is halfway home before slitting her throat in a dark alley. Younger, he thinks desperately, he needs to find her younger.
iv.
Inuyasha finds him at the edge of Edo. The hanyou is awkward but stern.
"Just wait. She will find you," he says stiltingly.
"Like your miko?" Sesshomaru replies scathingly.
Inuyasha shrugs. His eyes flit knowingly over the city. Patience has never been his strong suit, but for her he will outlast anything. Sesshomaru is not content to wait. He brushes past his brother roughly, because maybe this time please this time please.
v.
(stillness is illusory)
Sesshomaru's pride is damaged when the foreigners come and he is forced to live the shameful life of subterfuge. The once young fox kit presents the demon lord with a trinket that gives him the appearance of a human, and Sesshomaru only takes it because it's the only way he can search for her. He wonders now, as he frequents hospitals and shops, whether the next one he finds will fear his true form.
vi.
Time is starting to pass him by. The ditch he steadily digs is deep, and he's not sure he will ever be able to escape. He smells her one day, in passing, but when he gives chase she mysteriously disappears. He growls and digs his invisible claws into the damp cement.
vii.
He wonders at the frailty of human beings as he tangles his fingers through her lackluster hair. Seconds too late. Milliseconds too late. Her legs are splayed at an unnatural angle, and her blood is pungent. The man who defiled her lays dead a few feet away, strung up and dismembered.
Sesshomaru is losing hope that she will ever be his lively, carefree Rin again. After all, how can one soul survive so much strife?
viii.
At nights he tries to sleep, but always her death flashes through his mind, so instead he searches. He has become so familiar with her unique little soul that he is finding it faster and faster, yet never fast enough.
He refocuses. When her soul passes him by on the streets now, he refuses to follow. He resigns himself to failure. It's a new flavor and it leaves a bitter, sorrowful taste in his mouth.
ix.
The miko is pregnant when he meets her and his younger sibling. Contentment radiates off them in wave after painful wave. He eyes her swollen belly warily, and Inuyasha scowls at him.
"Hn," Sesshomaru murmurs.
The miko smiles warmly and with a soft sigh invites him up to the shrine.
x.
(but he is favored)
The pup snuffles and Kagome and Inuyasha gaze at it adoringly. Sesshomaru stands off to the side, stunned, entranced, silent.
"Her name," whispers the miko wearily.
The little creature yawns, revealing a sharp fang, pale downy ears twitch. Inuyasha opens his mouth to speak when Sesshomaru interrupts.
"Rin," he says.
Inuyasha looks incredulous, but the miko stares at him knowingly.
"Yes," she agrees, "this is Rin."
(searching… end)