Note: The "149 Years Ago*" = a year before Inuyasha was sealed to the tree. I think he was about 150 when sealed and then 50 years passed and he would have been, technically 200. So it's a year before he meets Kikyou, etc.
Strange & Beautiful
Chapter 2: Beautiful
149 Years Ago*
"Goddamn you, Sesshomaru, you emotionless bastard! I'm gonna kill you!" a very angry Inuyasha snarled, brandishing his claws once more against his brother.
Sesshomaru merely stepped off to the side gracefully, eyebrow raised curiously. As his sibling said, he was indeed an "emotionless bastard," for he was of youkai blood and not of half-blood. The demon didn't understand why his sibling got so defensive when he referred to him as having half-blood. It's what he was, what ran through his veins. Half human blood, half demon blood.
And every time Sesshomaru would mention this, which was as often as he could, his sibling's eyes would alight with fire and his pulse rate would increase, his face would flush and his body would quiver with rage. All this because he was of half-blood and, for whatever reason Sesshomaru could not fathom, his sibling was offended by this fact. It was definitely a curious thing to experience, especially when Inuyasha seemed proud, now, to be both of ningen and youkai heritage.
This notion caused a glimmer of something warm and light to enter his mind and try to breakout by way of his mouth. It almost felt as if his mouth were trying to stretch into a the shape of the crescent moon upon his brow, a softness flowing into his eyes. He could... feel it. And it was not pain he felt. It was something... else.
Sesshomaru moved to one side again as his brother bumbled about with his only weapon, his claws, attempting to aim a poorly devised attack at the spur of a moment.
His brother really was a fascinating being indeed.
"Damnit!" then hanyou cursed as he heaved in a breath from all the exertion it took to attempt to cut into his brother's skull with his claws yet to no avail. He looked up at his sibling who was now currently standing on a tree branch high above his head. And he glared, willing the branch to snap and for his half-brother to fall on his head and crack it open!
Sesshomaru then does something he's only recently been able to do. He chuckled softly. He had heard humans do it in his travels and referred to it as "belly rolling" or "laughing." From what he'd observed in his centuries of life at this point was that humans, usually, laughed when they were happy. However, on the rarer occasion they laughed out of fear or embarrassment.
This was one of the happy belly rolling that Sesshomaru was engaging in. And it felt wonderful, especially when he took in his sibling's agitated form on the ground below. He was practically seething from the tips of his toes.
"What the hell are you laughing at, asshole!" the hanyou bellowed.
Sesshomaru would have continued to chuckle despite the Blades of Blood that were rushing at him but he decided to, instead, jump into the air and land behind his brother before the other even realized he'd moved.
"Hmm, Inuyasha, you really should learn to control that temper," the youkai said, hoping very much for the opposite to happen. And it did.
"You asshole!" he pivoted around and swiped thin air, hearing his sibling's voice but not seeing a trace of him, "I will see you again, soon, Inuyasha."
It had been forty-five years ago to this day that he'd seen his brother... alive and emotional as always. He had finished his travels yet again and sought the younger half-inu out, not knowing his exact location and instead following the half-demon's scent to a human village, hoping to incur the boy's wrath once more. Inuyasha's scent wafted throughout the village yet it seemed to originate from a different location. The youkai followed the wind trail and then came upon the sight of his unconscious sibling.
Truth be told, he hadn't known what it was that bound his sibling idle and lacking mind. However, when he attempted to remove the object that seemed to lay his brother dormant and pinned to a tree, it zapped him, causing massive burns to align his hand.
Sesshomaru's brow creased as he realized what this was. A sacred arrow. The young youkai had merely stood there, staring at his bound sibling, wondering how this had happened.
It wasn't until some human children came upon the half-demon in the dead of night as Sesshomaru made camp at the top of the tree, the kids completely unaware of his presence. These ningens seemed to be trying to spook each other as they told the story of the half-demon, Inuyasha. How he lost his heart to a mortal priestess, how he apparently betrayed her and she shot him down before dying shortly thereafter herself.
This confused Sesshomaru. Lost his heart? His brother? Inuyasha? What did that mean? Once the children had left the young daiyoukai had dropped down from his perch, his head cocked to the side slightly regarding the sleeping half-demon. Sesshomaru placed his hand just to the side of the sacred arrow, and, while it hissed slightly, it did not burn him. But more importantly, he could still feel his sibling's heart beat.
How curious that Inuyasha had... "lost his heart" yet it still beat within the cavity of his being? Sesshomaru continued to try to make sense of it as he spent the night on a high branch, peering at the stars and also keeping watch of the immediate area, lest any other youkai wander about and think to devour his sibling.
He was unsure why he kept guard, but after a bit of thought he came to the conclusion that if the spell placed on his brother, for he was not dead, were to eventually wane and dissipate he would be able to see that fire in the hanyou's eyes, those furious quivers run throughout his body.
He would not allow anyone to take that from him. None but Inuyasha's responses mystified him. That's why he did it so often, encouraged the hanyou's wrath. It was because it gave him a feeling humans often referred to as... pleasure... to be pleased with something.
It was indeed an enjoyable feeling.
Sesshomaru's pondering that night turned into an entire moon cycle and it seemed from the various conversations he'd heard the town's people speak of that his brother would not be awakening ever, or, at least for a very long time. This news had caused a fairly violent reaction in him.
He was angry.
Anger was something he knew well. Anger and physical pain that allowed a youkai to know when they were in danger of ceasing in existence if they did not retreat and tend their wounds immediately. Anger was something he learned the day his sire-... his father, died and his half-brother had been born. Anger was what he felt when the supposed "family" of his father's second mate came after her and her half-blood son with weapons, intending to drive the evil out of both by spilling their blood on the clean white snow.
Anger was what he unleashed when he killed every single one of them that hunted the ningen hime and his young half-sibling. It was out of this emotion, that at the time he could not name, that he began to trail his sibling and the mother, to... protect them.
His father, before having met his death had asked him, "Do you have something to protect?"
Sesshomaru was confused by the question at the time, not knowing what it meant. And he scoffed at the strange notion of "protect," telling his father as much, for he was a child still, and children, when not understanding something, merely play it off as unneeded knowledge.
And his father had left and met his death, Sesshomaru staring at the large retreating back of his sire, which was the last time he laid eyes on him alive.
He had walked off into the snow for a while, trying to comprehend what this "protect" meant. A few minutes later he heard a furious howl. Father... Something tugged at Sesshomaru from within then at his father's dying call, and he willed his body to change into mere energy and whisk through the skies easily to the place he knew his father's body would be.
He found him under the ruble of what human's called a birthing room. A human corpse was also there, but it was not that of his father's second mate. It was a male, and it seemed they had been battling. Both had been crushed under the heat and weight of the fiery building, his father's extended wounds from his battle with a great dragon hindering him.
Sesshomaru stared at the body for a long while before it started to melt into blue fireflies and dissipate into the stars above. That's what happened with daiyoukai, those of noble, pure blood. Their bodies took care of themselves once the being inside had moved on to the afterlife. The bodies would then remove themselves from tangible existence and follow the being they had been attached to, moving to rest in the afterlife as well.
Sesshomaru watched the last bit of his father's existence reach for the stars. One last blue firefly of body took its time, hovering in the air in front of Sesshomaru's face. The small energy moved forward and brushed his face before following the others in the blanket of darkness above. The young youkai could have swore when it had touched his skin that it felt like his father embracing him in what he said humans called a "hug."
The next moment he heard yelling and the sound of swords being drawn and horses moving to the east at a fast pace.
Sesshomaru was drawn to the prospect of battle, for he felt a need to fight something, to rid himself of something that he harbored inside that was confusing him, agitating his senses and making him overwhelmed.
That was when he found the men of the castle hunting his father's human mate and her infant son whose name Sesshomaru had yet to learn.
With his demon eyes, he could see the woman running through the forest several hundreds of yards ahead, barefoot and her child whimpering at the cold that surely stung its young, newly exposed flesh.
Sesshomaru gave chase to the men that chased them. And he slaughtered them, the strange things inside of him only subsiding minimally as he looked to his side, not being able to see the woman ningen anymore but knowing she was still running through the blistery winter.
Sesshomaru had soared in the night air, searching. Moments passed and he found her heaving, leaning into a tree to shield her child from a cold wind. He stayed above in the sky, hovering above them and looking around, trying to think of what it was humans would need in such a situation. Warmth... they were easily affected by abnormal temperatures, such as cold and hot, and seemed only truly happy and at peace in the wild during spring and the endings of summer and the beginning of fall where the feel of the season was easy on their frail skin.
Sesshomaru spotted smoke trailing up into the night not a mile away, he left his guard of the ningen and the child and flew easily to the place he sought. A home, an elderly couple inhabiting the lightened hovel. Sesshomaru peered in.
The man and woman were sickly, not close to death but merely waiting for it. This hut was of more use to the two out in the forest than these two, and Sesshomaru ended the two's lives while they slept; they did not suffer or writhe in pain. He took their bodies and placed them another mile away in the opposite direction of his half-family.
Sesshomaru then turned into blue energy again and went to the human hime and her child in this form. He hovered in front of her sight, hoping she was smart for a human and would follow him. She did, stumbling albeit but made it to the hut. She knocked on it and found no answer. She let herself inside and tears fell from her eyes, landing in wet blotches on her chest. Moving to the fire light and finding furs on the side, she wrapped her child in the blankets and laid him off to the side, a safe distance away from the flames. She turned to the blue energy and smiled through her leaking eyes.
"Thank you, thank you," she said many times. She looked down at her son then, wiggling around to find a good sleeping position as he stared blearily around, a lazy smile adorning his face now that he was out of the cold. "I-" she paused before continuing. "This is Inuyasha."
The blue energy moved from the closed doorway to the child and hovered over him.
Sesshomaru looked down at the infant. Inu... yasha. The youkai tasted the child's name on his tongue. He was...
Beautiful...
A warm sensation appeared in Sesshomaru chest. And while he did not understand it, he knew it was not something that bothered him. He touched the child with his blue energy and then went back toward the door. He looked back and the woman was still crying, bowing to him. He left.
As he did, he heard the woman whisper to the night, "Thank you, my love. Thank you, thank you Inu no Taishou."
Author's Note: Aww. So at the end of this, which is the next chapter... or two, I'll put the lyrics to the song this is based off of. Hope you enjoyed!
