The Remnants of the Day
Prologue
It had inexplicably started once she reached puberty. She lay on her futon, her hair tumbling like black ink over pristine paper; her dark eyes wide open as she stared at the ceiling. For a second, she felt a tingling feeling, like the prickling of skin when a breeze brushes against the nape of one's neck, or when one experiences the remarkable, weighty calm before a storm. Then she felt a flash of images invade her mind, and a scream—an endless scream tearing out of her throat as she convulsed on her bed, features pale and eyes wide. Jaken had rushed into the room, his eyes bulging when he saw the state the young girl was in. Taking a gulp as he watched her slender body twitch, the small toad demon sped out of the room, calling out fretfully, "Sesshoumaru-sama! Rin-chan is possessed!"
The aforementioned demon lord had heard the girl's screams from the first, getting up slowly from the lounge room near his quarters and walked with a feral grace, his amber gaze calm. By the time he had reached his younger companion's room, the screaming had ceased and Sesshoumaru looked into the room with cold, detached eyes, unprepared for the sight that met his eyes. The young girl was making the furniture around her levitate, her normally dark eyes shining brightly in a haze. Sesshoumaru's eyes widened just to a slight degree as he watched Rin shiver uncontrollably. Suddenly, all had stopped as abruptly as it had started. Rin fell back exhausted against her futon, her dark hair snaking over the pillows, her small chest heaving as she withdrew into a fitful sleep. The lord watched her until her breathing became even; his curiosity peaked as he gazed over at the girl's slumbering features. What had elicited such a change? At this, he mentally shrugged: it does not matter; he would inquire of it over the next day.
Rin shivered when she woke up, her face gleaming in the pale sunlight. She felt unaccountably tired, her strength sapped from… Kami-sama knows what. Sitting up, she noticed that a lot of her possessions seemed out of place, to say the least. Her dresser was overturned, and the full-length mirror had shattered, her clothes laying in a haphazard mess on the floor. Her youthful features settled for a muddled appearance, her expressive eyes filled with good-natured curiosity. Well, she clearly seemed to have a nighttime visitor. Chuckling lightly, Rin thought of several culprits. Why, there was always Sanami-chan or Aejin-kun. Or possibly Geisuke-kun. Sesshoumaru-sama possessed a considerable amount of human slaves, but that didn't keep Rin from befriending the slave children. At first, her lord would lift a slender eyebrow, his bearing of mild condescendence when he had caught Rin chasing some of her human friends around the castle. Upon hearing Jaken scold her for debasing herself to "their level", Rin had replied with a mild smile, "Why, isn't 'their level' also my level? Just because I choose to follow Sesshoumaru-sama and he chooses to let me does not hide the fact that I am wholly human." She then gave her lord's faithful lackey a friendly noogie before coaxing her frightened friends to resume their play. At hearing Rin's youthful straightforwardness in seeing the world, Sesshoumaru nearly smiled. Nearly. The girl had a strong sense of belonging—even though she had been severely abused by her own kind and had to give up her life among them for the solace of a life with demons, she had kept a strong loyalty to humans as well as the new demons she had befriended. The slave parents had been skeptical of her friendship with their children at first. If angered, their families could be torn apart by a single word. And yet, she was not of unmanageable spirits or irrational behavior. Although she possessed a streak of mischief, she would do nothing that would endanger her friends. In time, even the slave adults had come to like her, greeting her with a smile or a nod of respect. In many eyes, she seemed to have a sort of openness that encouraged any one true of heart to gather around her and take part in her joy. There was only one who could not or would not see that. Getting up with a tired smile, Rin spruced herself up and dragged her protesting body to the dining halls where she hoped to see her Sesshoumaru-sama.
Her lord was of a restless spirit, often staying within his domains for but a few days before leaving mysteriously on another journey. Sometimes he would take her with him, but lately, he seemed more inclined to making her stay. When she asked why, the youkai ladies-in-waiting twittered with amusement before saying something about her monthly bleeding. It was a subject that apparently fascinated the female youkai, since it was a characteristic unique to female humans and mammals. That, they concluded, was irrefutable proof of the savagery and brute animalistic lowliness humans had. After having voiced this aloud, the ladies hushed suddenly, gazing down at Rin with unsettled or frightened eyes. Rin merely shrugged, her dark eyes indifferent as she responded in her clear voice, "Perhaps we do have a closer connection in that sense. But," she added, raising a slender finger upwards to make her point, "We also have something that does not seem to come to youkai easily."
One of the more bold and disdainful ladies looked down upon the small girl, her icy green eyes sparkling with contemptuous interest, "And that is?"
Rin ignored the other lady's sneering before plowing onwards, "Compassion, remorse…" she stopped, a little less sure of herself as the ladies let out whoops of laughter, "…love." She ended decisively, her dark eyes firm even as her spirit cringed internally.
The jade-eyed beauty peered down upon the midnight-haired girl; her lip curled daintily, "I think we are all better off with such… trifling issues. Honestly," she commented as if in helpless mirth, "you are such a strange little being! I wonder what Sesshoumaru-sama sees in you."
Rin gazed up at her with a set smile on her face, even as she felt like she had been made the fool a thousand times over again. Luckily, Sesshoumaru-sama had been passing by and had witnessed the whole scene from afar, watching his brave Rin face the youkai women with barefaced honesty. Without a word, he swept into the waiting room and summoned the young girl to his side with an imperious gesture, ignoring the simpering curtseys and beguiling looks the women cast at him. He turned to leave, but not before turning to give the green eyed lady in waiting a cold look and saying simply, "You are dismissed from your duties."
Running to catch up with her lord, Rin smiled up at him, talking animatedly as she followed him down the long hall. Sesshoumaru seemed to tune out everything she babbled until she asked suddenly and hesitantly, "What happens when a mortal woman bleeds? What does it mean?"
With those questions, Sesshoumaru-sama merely halted in his steps, his pale eyes gazing over the young girl's features as he responded smoothly, "It means that she is a woman, and that she may conceive."
At his words, Rin felt herself blush, even though she couldn't explain why she would color so, answering with a hushed, "Oh." For some reason, the idea of childbearing was associated with a vague sense of shame. Rin asked no more of the subject and followed her guardian in unusual silence. The worst thing was that this peculiar feeling of shame kept her from inquiring why he wouldn't take her with him on trips any more. She had no wish to know how her becoming a woman and being able to have children would cause Sesshoumaru-sama trouble on the road.
The girl was eating voraciously, her usually healthy appetite seeming to have doubled suddenly. At Jaken's scolding, she paused only to stick her tongue out at him and resume her eating. The toad demon grumbled slightly before getting up from his spot, wobbling off on some errand or other. She only stopped once she had gone through her second bowl of porridge, making Sesshoumaru vaguely wonder where she was putting it all away. She was still quite slim, even when she had filled out a little more from when he had first rescued her all those years ago. It had been about five years, hadn't it? He spoke up suddenly, breaking the silence with a low-voiced query, "Girl, how old are you now?"
Rin blinked slightly before setting the strawberries aside, tilting her chin upwards as she tapped it thoughtfully, "Hmm, you rescued me when I was about seven years old. It's been seven years since then." Doing lightning addition in her head, Rin answered with a smile, "I should be about fourteen by now." She gave him another smile before she went back to demolishing the crimson fruit, her hands reaching out for the honey as she finished off what seemed to be her tenth or eleventh strawberry. Those fingers… they were astonishingly long and slender for a child, making Sesshoumaru gaze into his young ward's face intently for a split second. Had she? Although he was loath to admit it, she had—Rin had started to grow, taking on the shape of a young woman already, her face having lost some of its childish pudginess and the inches she seemed to grow each day. She was still green now, but she held the promise of flowering in her eyes, those dark brown eyes that glimmered with a secret joy. The day of departure would come sooner than he thought.
"Sesshoumaru-sama?" He abruptly tore himself out of his reverie to face the young girl, his face expressionless as he said, "Yes?"
"A-ano, I-I've just felt somehow… exhausted, lately. Especially today." She wrinkled her nose as she commented lightly, "It must be that I'm just getting out of shape. I haven't trained for the last few days. Maybe I should—"
"How long have you felt like this?"
The demon lord's crisp interruption cut through her words like a cold, silver sword thrust, making Rin blink slightly before responding hesitantly, "I think… well, it must have been a week already. Why?"
The odd look Sesshoumaru-sama wore on his face made Rin suddenly uncomfortable—it was intense, almost… engulfing. He lost the look suddenly, replacing it with his usual vacant gaze, "Then you do not remember…"
"Remember what?"
The silver-haired youkai stood up without responding, leaving the young girl in a tumult of thoughts. What had just happened?
Odd happenings seemed to increase as Rin grew. For six months, Sesshoumaru kept shrouded vigil of his young charge, his amber eyes taking calculating measure of everything that she did. She could not only make things levitate when she slept, but she could also make objects "respond" to her. Once in a while, her eyes would cloud suddenly as she absentmindedly focused on an apple before her, or a pitcher across the room. Then she would magnetically pull it towards her, make it tremble like a leaf, or, in the case of the fruit, smash it forcefully until it was reduced to pulp. After each one of these incidents, she would awaken, her eyes lighter as she stared around the room in a daze, often seeing the product of her efforts with surprise and curiosity, "Sesshoumaru-sama, what happened to the apple?" Each day it grew harder to avoid touching the subject of her new extrasensory powers, especially since she seemed to gain an inkling of something out of place, something extraordinary that was occurring in her otherwise normal life. It seemed like she had some power akin to that of his bastard brother's wench, the one who could sense supernatural auras and take her inner ki to charge ordinary objects into formidable weapons. But then again, she had an immense soul, one that he had not expected from a mere mortal. Did Rin possess one alike to that of his brother's bitch? Her power seemed to be more of a clairvoyant kind; the way she levitated and animated her surroundings. He had also noticed that creatures of the forest had started to treat her differently, almost with awe and reverence. What had she cultivated, that it had escaped his notice for so long? As of now, he could not yet diagnose her new condition. All he knew was that as Rin grew and budded, so did her paranormal skills.
One day; however, all concealment crashed down upon the two of them as Rin came trotting out of her room and plopped herself down by Sesshoumaru's side. She gave him a curious smile before saying, "Look." She outstretched her hand, balling the rest of her fingers so that only her forefinger pointed forwards; settling its direction on the small hat Jaken wore. It trembled slightly, then jerked suddenly, making Jaken start to his feet, squawking his surprise. Rin paid him no attention, merely lifting her finger higher and higher as Sesshoumaru watched, unperturbed. She made it float upwards, hit the ceiling and stick there, like it was charged. She finally lowered her finger, bringing it to drop lightly on Jaken's head, the toad demon still gaping at her with his eyes impossibly wide in amazement. Rin dropped back against the sofa, sweat frosting her forehead as she gave her lord a small, triumphant smile and then fell into a peaceful sleep. As Sesshoumaru looked down upon her impassively, he noted the way she glowed—almost as if she were shining from the after effects of her power. He hesitated before bringing her into his arms and carrying the small girl into her room, his steps light and sure and his body casting a golden light against the sunlight.
It was after that afternoon, he assumed, that matters seemed to fall out of themselves; leaving him in the most uncertainty he had ever felt in all of the centuries of his life.
Author's note: I normally write Ruroken fics and had just gotten hooked on InuYasha. I really think the Sesshoumaru+Rin pairing is cute (though that seems to be an uncommon opinion, since all I see on ffnet is Sesshoumaru+Kagome). Sess and Rin seem a little like Aoshi and Misao (my fav. Couple in RK), so the possibility of their future relationship seemed too appealing to pass by.
The neck of a swan (Grace and Subtlety)
The coils of a snake (Menace and Stealth)
The scales of a fish (Revelations and Reflections)
The horns of a deer (Determination and Strength)
The wings of an eagle (Liberty and Power)
The eyes of a tiger (Sensuality and Persuasion)
The Call of the Wild (Last Chapter)