Author's Note: This is in the Point of View of Sesshomaru from Movie Three and his feelings for Rin.
My father was Inu-Taisho, a great demon lord. He lived for centuries before finding a demon mate, my mother. She passed away shortly after I was born, being weaker than my father. A couple hundred years later, I found out that my father had taken a human mate. After the initial shock, all that was left was the blood-curdling anger. How could my father, the Lord of the Western Lands, take on a lower and weaker being for a mate? Lay with her? Put her with child? How could he do those things and not be sickened by their ever-existing humanity?
Out of that bonding came my younger half-brother, Inuyasha. A being of the worst sort: a half-breed.
My father's weakness towards humans was the one trait of his that I did not inherit.
Or so I hoped.
How could I have known? How could I have known?
How could I have foreseen the fight between Inuyasha and I, that he would use the wind scar, that I would come so close do dying, only to be revived by the sword that I believed was useless? How could I have seen that a young girl, an outcast from her village, would find me, unconscious, and try to help me? Feed me?
"Where did you get those bruises?"
After she cared for me, or tried to, when no one else would even give me a second glance, it was the least I could do to show interest. I expected her to spit out the whole story in full detail, as would any other disgusting human. I was wrong.
The girl smiled. She just smiled and laughed, like it was nothing at all, like I didn't need to worry.
"I don't care, I'm just curious."
It hurt to say that to this girl, so cut up and bruised, yet she still smiled on, without a care in the world, even though the village men were beating her…she didn't seem to care. As long as they didn't come get me, as long as she could protect me…when it was I who should have been protecting her.
At first, I rejected these feelings of protectiveness, these…feelings in general towards a human. I didn't feel anything. I just forgot her and moved on.
But I didn't forget her. My mind kept coming back to her over and over again. It kept asking me questions, such as: 'What is her name?' and 'I wonder how old she is?' and 'Does she have parents?' But that was foolish. Why would I care about such things as these about a human?
I was not my father.
I kept telling myself that until I found her, lying dead on the path, bitten and bloody. Blackness nipped at my mind and body, willing me to kill. Revenge. I felt the Tensaiga pulse at my hip and before I knew it, she was alive and the fang was back at my hip as if it had never left. She was in my embrace, breathing, and…laughing.
She was laughing as if nothing had happened.
I do not love Rin. I do not care for her in any way. I do not have to protect her.
I can't protect her.
I can't explain it, it's just the way we demons are; we don't feel, we don't care, we don't love. Least of all not for mortals. It's dishonoring for a demon with such a high status as myself to be weighed down by something so helpless, and innocent.
It's called a weakness. Love is a weakness. Love is the downfall of all demons. I know, I witnessed it with my father. When the demons found this out, many were outraged and came to kill my father, so that he would not dishonor the rest of them. My father killed most of them, but eventually his love for Izoyoi destroyed him. It was because of this, love, that Ryuukotsusei was able to wound him so badly, and he was only able to save her. He sacrificed himself for a mortal.
I knew I would never be so foolish. I would never find someone to love. I would never protect anyone because I wanted power. I didn't want to be weak like my father was in the end.
I refused to be like my father.
But then she came along and smiled; laughed in that innocence of hers. For some reason, the knowledge that the world did not harbor such innocence made me guilty.
Through my musings I kept returning to my senses, reminding myself that I was a demon, and that she, a human. I can't protect her.
Yet I do anyway. Whenever she is put in danger, I kill. I never let anything harm her.
But I am not my father.
"What are you thinking about my lord?" Rin said as she smiled up at me, eyes glowing with warmth and affection. And I just couldn't fight it; I couldn't hold it in any longer; I smiled back.
A/N: Written by Faith Lee and Regaime Seishi