Accountable
An InuYasha fanfiction
By Amber C.S.
Chapter 3: Daughter
(Before Bakusaiga)
Sesshomaru isn't quite sure of how the transformation of his own character came to pass, so fully and irrevocably.
But he does recall the precise moment when he realized he loved Rin as if she were his own child. Before that she had been a curiosity, a tolerated presence, a precious object, a living pet in his itinerant group, finally an extension of himself. And then, at last, she became his daughter. The most important living thing in his world.
It had been an incident over a meal of fish, again. Almost a year before he regrew his arm and obtained Bakusaiga.
There were bandits on the road by their camp. Jaken had neglected to put out the fire properly, and the smoke attracted them straight to Sesshomaru's party.
Sesshomaru had just experienced another extensive run-in with his little brother, Inuyasha, whom he continues to swear is in some obscure fashion developmentally handicapped.
Particularly in the brain capacity.
He was, therefore, irritated, exhausted, and feeling the heat of his father's spurning rejection fresh, as he always did when he encountered the clumsy, obnoxious young Inuyasha, toussan's unquestioned favorite. Inuyasha, the bastard son, whose name, their father's dying wish on the battlefield, literally means "demon bitch." Apparently old Inu no Taisho did have some sort of warped sense of humor, after all. Or perhaps he was just going for something a bit less melodramatic than his eldest son's name, which means "deadly perfection." Who in hell knew? At any rate, both of their names were peculiarly well suited.
At least this is Sesshomaru's distinguished opinion.
The incident which Sesshomaru recalls fondly, however, was Rin's surprisingly astute, sensitive handling of a situation which might have otherwise resulted in disgrace and dishonor.
The bandits who had seen the campfire came upon Sesshomaru attempting to eat his fish fillet one-handed.
Never had Sesshomaru felt the stigma of a cripple before—his extraordinary self-confidence had ruled out such a self-perception even as blood still gushed from the stump where dear Inuyasha, using Tessaiga, had severed his arm. But with one arm, he had more difficulty with tasks that didn't involve a sword than he would ever admit—chopping and carrying firewood, taking a piss, getting his hair out of his face, eating, and the like. It was just that his endurance and stoicism made up for what was lacking.
Yet, as the dirty eyes of even dirtier, dung-and mud-covered human peasants fell on him sitting in a yogi pose, chopping a dagger one-handedly and with a plodding but self-sufficient air in his meat….as, in that moment, the knife slipped out of his hand and onto the ground, and the strangers roared with laughter…. in that moment, Sesshomaru, Lord of the Western Lands, felt hotness in his porcelain, magenta-streaked cheeks. His ore-colored eyes burned as he took in the bandits, standing in a circle around him, sniggering and gesturing with their crude weapons at the pretty, pompous one-armed man who couldn't even cut his own meat.
No one would ever know. He could kill them easily. No one who mattered would ever know. Not Naraku and his incarnations, not the little brother whom he grudgingly protected, in their father's memory. He could kill them with one slash of his Poison Claws, which already hummed a lurid green. But the shame would already be there, the shame of being ridiculed by a bunch of filthy human commoners, and would stay affixed to his proud spirit like a brand…
And that was the moment when Rin walked calmly into the clearing, carrying a cloth on which reposed a neatly cut fish fillet. "Sesshomaru-sama," the little girl chirped, twirling once in a circle and handing over the meat to her horrified guardian. "Thank you for cutting my fish for me, but I don't want it." At that moment, her little stomach growled.
Though his mask never once slipped, Sesshomaru forgot to breathe for a split second.
He wasn't sure whether she was doing what he thought she was doing, but if she was…
The bandits fell silent, shocked by the presence of a child, and even more shocked by the epiphany that she, at age eight, had tactfully planted. They stepped back from the one-armed man, strangely abashed.
Sesshomaru drew himself upright. His voice was like a gentle roll of thunder. "Rin, you must eat your dinner in order to keep up your strength. Go do so." He looked directly into those large, bright cherrywood eyes, and then he smiled at the little girl who had saved his pride—and by facing down bandits, the same lot of people who had killed her family, no less.
That was the moment that Rin became Sesshomaru's daughter. He could not conceive of another child on earth, human or youkai, whom he would more proudly claim as his own.
Rin produced a gleeful grin in response. She relished her victory, and her loyalty to her guardian. She danced back behind the tree where she and Jaken were eating. She devoured the fish fillet that she had claimed to not want. Jaken could be heard complaining shrilly of her poor table manners.
Sesshomaru arched an eyebrow at the interlopers, who were backing away. His Poison Claw regenerated in his fingers. "Do you think that this Sesshomaru-sama, the great daiyoukai, is incapable of trivia? You will know better hereafter. Leave before I kill you all."
The bandits readily complied.
Sesshomaru wasted no time in standing. He passed the dagger which he had dropped in the dirt, and glided behind the tree to greet his charges. He bent to Rin's level—an act to which he rarely resorted. He patted the child's cheek, puffed out comically with fishmeat that she was happily chewing. And then he said something that he almost never said, not to anyone: "Arigato. Arigato, Rin. You are an uncommonly smart child."
Rin nodded and giggled, accidentally spitting out bits of fish. As Jaken's dearth of luck would have it, these regurgitated bits of meat struck the hapless toad youkai in the face. He sputtered and fumed.
Rin clapped her hands over her mouth, exaggerated chagrin replacing her cheer. "Gomenasai, Jaken-sama.." she began.
But she was interrupted by a short bark of laughter from Sesshomaru—that peculiar "HOH" sound he made, a roar of mirth without smiling, which came and went so fleetingly that it always seemed to surprise Sesshomaru himself. Indeed, once the noise was past, he blinked, and then shook his head. "Jaken will be fine. But cover your mouth."
Jaken looked sour and sulky.
Rin giggled again, hands still firmly clasped over her mouth. She swallowed with a satisfied "ahhh" sound, and then wrapped both her arms around Sesshomaru's extended right hand.
His daughter, Rin.
"I am glad it worked, Sesshomaru-sama," she chirped.
Oh, it worked. Sublimely. Her presence in his life worked. There was no question of that, now.
"Hai," Sesshomaru blankly retorted, but then he reached a few fingers down to tickle her nearest armpit.
The child shrieked with laughter, wriggling out of reach. "Sesshomaru-sama!" she protested gleefully, and then with the delightful incongruity of a happy child's mind, she added, "Aishiteru, Sesshomaru-sama!" Shyly she hid her face in his kimono sleeve, still bursting with giggles.
Sesshomaru went still as death, but his eyes softened. "Hai," he said again.
Jaken just glared.