Note- This chapter was the easiest to write for some reason. It's been a rocky trip, and I realize the chapters are a bit short, so I tried making this one a bit longer. If you're still interested, stick with me till the end of Rin's hardships at Sesshomaru's castle, if you can.
Chapter 10:
A couple of days had passed. The cat, who Akima named Jasmine was now living with them, despite Sesshomaru's annoyance. Rin was glad that the cat was alright, and that it seemed to like everyone in the castle. Everyone had crowded around Rin for awhile and refused to let her go anywhere alone, which was a little embarrassing at times. Sesshomaru had ended the meeting with the dog demons a little early for reasons that puzzled Rin. Didn't he want to start an empire?
Jaken was also back, sarcastic exterior and all. He'd heard about what happened to Rin and had thrown a fit, and all sorts of curses aimed at a Kasai who was probably too far away to hear. After hearing Rin tell the story, Muryumi had shaken her head, horrified. Rin had assured them though, that she preferred it if there was no bloodshed made on her behalf. "Well, if you're fine with it, I suppose it's fine… Perhaps." Akima had said doubtedly.
They'd all taken the news of Rin's changes well. Her hair was still that strange combination of black fading to brown, then fading to white, and her senses had somehow become more alive. She could even hear Jaken waking up early in the mornings, attempting to be quiet while tending to flowers in the gardens.
Sine hadn't been back however, and Kocho's confidence that she was alright was also diminishing every day. Rin had asked Sesshomaru about searching for Sine, and he'd shook his head, saying that he couldn't seem to smell Sine anywhere. Though he pretended to be unconcerned, Rin could tell that her disappearance was bothering him too. "W-well," Blanche said, ladling soup intp Rin's bowl. "She'll turn up. She has to sometime, right?" Blanche had already been outside for the last two days before she returned disheartened, with bags under her eyes.
Rin had taken up a little bit of fencing with Jaken with Muryumi and Akima cheering her on and Blanche writing down her observations of several of the flowers growing near the castle when Sesshomaru had called upon her in the middle of the day.
She followed him to the kitchen where it had been abandoned by the others in favor of doing leisurely activities. She knew that Kocho was gardening again and getting ready to sell crops to the towns he'd told her about.
"Did you like it here even though I'd been away sometimes?" Sesshomaru asked.
Rin nodded, blushing. The feeling she'd had around him and no one else, still hadn't gone away. "It's a pity sometimes when I can't come along like in the past, but everyone here aren't bad people. Or demons, I should say." She laughed at herself, knowing that she would have to get used to the fact that she was partially a demon herself.
Sesshomaru didn't laugh at Rin, not that she'd expected him to, but he didn't smile either.
He seemed to just be looking at Rin, and contemplating what he was going to say next.
"I think it'd be better if you stayed with humans in the village of Inuyasha's." He said after a moment of having Rin just looking around the kitchen, smiling at the little at the paintings Akima and she had put on the pottery.
Rin stared at him. The words that had slipped out of Sesshomaru's mouth- he couldn't be trying to get rid of her right? She'd said she was happy here.
"Why would it be better for me? Is this because you think I feel lonely?" Rin asked. "Or is it because…"
"You're much safer in a village where you're constantly paid attention to, Rin." Sesshomaru replied.
"I am constantly paid attention to here too, Lord Sesshomaru! And besides, why can't I just follow where you go?" Rin asked.
"So you wish to spend your life following me and not what you could be doing? Is that what you are telling me, Rin?" Sesshomaru asked right back.
Rin quieted at this, her patience wearing. "Are you just trying to get me to go back to the village because of Lady Kasai's blood in me? Are you just trying to get rid of me now, Lord Sesshomaru?"
Sesshomaru eyed her, keeping his emotions under a mask of indifference. It hurt still to say something other than the truth, but if he told Rin that she wasn't safe around him, she'd simply try to argue back, although if he ordered her to go, he knew she would still obey him unquestionably. "What if that would be the case then, Rin? Go back to the village. Your place is not here. I should've realized this long ago."
Rin stared at him uncomprehending at his cold words. Sesshomaru was making her go because he hated what she became? That was beyond her control! Something ate at the back of her mind, telling her that it didn't seem like him shove her away. She didn't listen to the tiny voice of reason telling her that he'd never left her, even at the possible cost of his life, behind the shock that shot through her with his words.
"And what if I don't want to? What if I say that I've always been safe because of you?"
"You will do as I say, Rin. Go back to the village. I'm certain they will not mind your change in appearance as much as I do."
"Stop treating me like a child, Sesshomaru!" Rin said, not quite shouting. "I already told you I wanted to stay with you forever-" Rin stopped herself short, before she had confessed.
Sesshomaru ignored the outburst, turning his back on her, and walking toward the kitchen entrance. "Go home, Rin."
"This is my home!" Rin couldn't stop herself as she said, "My home is with you, Sesshomaru!"
Sesshomaru closed his eyes. The little girl he had twice found dead, the kind girl that he'd allowed to make him go soft, the stubborn girl who always followed him, had turned into a woman who questioned his authority. She didn't refer to him as "Lord" anymore either.
When had that happened, and why didn't he notice?
He still refused to turn and look at the woman with tears close to spilling.
Rin glared at his back although she couldn't find it in herself to be truly angry at the demon who'd been more human to her than the humans who had turned her away for trying to survive. It puzzled her back then, how a demon could be considered more human than an actual human. She knew now that to be human was just a name made by humans to describe those qualities. Lord Sesshomaru was a demon, but he was also human.
She bit back the urge to cry like when she was little, and said, "Wait, Lord Sesshomaru."
Sesshomaru paused on his way out of the kitchen. "You need not call me Lord Sesshomaru. We will not see each other again, if life treats you well."
Rin bit back another urge, this time to argue that if life treated her well again, it would let her stay by his side and find her place in the world somehow that way. Instead, she said, "I… I will go after we find Sine. I won't be able to sleep peacefully in Edo, knowing that she was still missing and everyone tires themselves looking for Sine."
Sesshomaru considered this for a second, and nodded his head curtly.
He felt two arms wrap around his waist. Startled that he hadn't heard Rin approach, he tensed in the embrace, but relaxed, knowing it was still Rin. Perhaps the demon blood in Rin allowed her to move faster in that short space, too fast for even him to hear ahead of time.
"Thank you, Sesshomaru. For keeping me safe. I've been able to live for longer than what was meant for me, because of you."
Sesshomaru closed his eyes, and turned around before he could stop himself. Did Rin know what kind of powers her words had? He couldn't stop himself from wrapping his arms around her back, nor could he stop himself from burying his nose into Rin's hair. Lately, all he could smell was Rin, and the potent smell of chrysanthemums was still there; unmarred by any hint of Kasai. It bothered him that he couldn't seem to smell as well lately, but he would look into that after Rin was safely back in the village with that annoying half-brother of his, and the priestess.
Rin swallowed the pain in her, knowing that she wouldn't be like this in the future. She couldn't quite keep out the guilt though, hoping that she would find Sine quickly so that Blanche didn't need to look like she was sleep deprived, but also hoping that whatever Sine was doing, she was happy and would stay hidden for a longer amount of time.
Rin stood in the embrace until she saw the quintet of resident demons standing at the entrance of the kitchen, four pairs of heads appearing, two on each side and another one attached with his body standing with a cat in the middle of the entrance.
When they caught her staring, Kocho cleared his throat and said out loud, "Is anyone hungry? We uh-came to get something. Should we-uh, leave, perhaps?"
Sesshomaru let go of Rin and said, "No, stay and eat as much as you please. Rin will be leaving soon."
Muryumi gulped. "We heard."
"You really are an unbelievably strong adult, Rin," Blanche assured her.
"Rin, we'll be coming with you too. We were hired to take care of you after all," Akima told her.
Jaken stayed strangely silent, and was looking at Sesshomaru instead, his eyes following his lord's departure from the kitchen. Did Sesshomaru ever look sad in the slightest? Did he actually want Rin to leave?
Suddenly Sesshomaru jumped out of the way as something flew at his spot a second before. It hit the floor, and created a disintegrate hole.
Rin stared at the mess, and looked back at Sesshomaru. He was well away from the kitchen so no one had been hurt, but who was attacking Sesshomaru in the hall? It was too well-placed to not have been aimed at Sesshomaru.
Before a second strike could follow, Sesshomaru looked at the kitchen again and commanded, "Bring Rin to the room I assigned her to."
Akima nodded grimly, assessing the situation with a clear head and hurried the others out of the kitchen to the direction of the said room.
"Hurry up!"
Rin tried to reason that she had to stay with Sesshomaru, but no one was having any of it. They dragged her up the stairs right before she heard a second blast and saw Sesshomaru running outside.
"No, wait," Rin protested.
"Rin trust Sesshomaru and stay in here," Kocho said. His face looked grim. He looked at his wife, and they exchanged a look that Rin did not understand. She frowned back, and looked at Akima. "But that's not possible…" Akima said.
Rin looked at them in confusion. Did they mean Sesshomaru was going to die? That that wasn't possible?
"It really doesn't seem like it," Muryumi agreed with Akima on whatever it was they were talking about.
"You can't deny you can't sense it," Kocho said to Muryumi. "Make sure Rin stays safe in here, I'm going to go and see what the heck she's doing."
"I'm coming too," Blanche said firmly.
"Akima, you should go too," Muryumi encouraged her twin. "I know you want to make sure she's safe too. I'll stay here with Rin."
"But-"
"No, you guys need to go. Sine never liked me anyway, so she won't like seeing me there."
"Muryumi…"
"You know it's true. Now go, and see if she's fine for me!" Muryumi implored, and Rin could see the slight despair in her usually cheery eyes. Why did Muryumi look like that?
Blanche, Kocho, and Akima hesitated, but with a final look from Muryumi, they disappeared out the ricepaper doors, and their footsteps dulled as they went further down the staircase.
"Was that… Sine?" Rin asked hesitantly, watching the swan demoness in front of her carefully. Muryumi picked up her head and looked at Rin.
"Yeah," she sighed. "That was. I don't understand how she got those powers considering she's human. Or why she seems to be attacking Lord Sesshomaru. She's quiet and a bit mysterious to me, but she doesn't feel like she's going to hurt anyone."
Rin took it in. Sine was human, she knew that already. Why would Sine disappear and then reappear a few days later, attacking Lord Sesshomaru. Rin rubbed her forehead. It had been too eventful a week, and not in a good way whatsoever. Was Sine being controlled by someone?
"You said Sine wouldn't want to see you. Why's that?" Rin asked.
"Opposites don't attract all the time, I guess," Muryumi said. "Maybe it's because I'm too loud."
"Muryumi, you are loud, but it's a good thing you are," Rin said. "You're not as loud as Inuyasha when he and Kagome are fighting though."
"The half-demon and the priestess who defeated the Shikon jewel?" Muryumi asked. "I hear about them too, but nothing about how loud they were." She offered Rin a smile. "They're loud and they fight, and you miss them?"
Rin nodded. "I really do. I'm sure Sine doesn't hate you. I've never noticed her shooting evil looks at you. What makes you think she does?"
Before Muryumi could answer, there was a loud boom outside that they could hear even in Rin's room. Rin wanted to step outside and help if only she could. But she didn't have the sacred arrows from Kagome with her, and it was unlikely Muryumi would let her outside anyway.
"They're still fighting… Sine must've gotten strong, if she managed to fend off Sesshomaru for that long." Muryumi said.
"Do you think she might be controlled by a demon?" Rin said.
"It's plausible."
A loud tapping came from one of the windows. The two heads in the room turned around to see a two-headed dragon knocking their heads on the window. It was Ah-Un.
"Rin, that's Ah-Un right? We haven't seen him in awhile."
Rin nodded, going to the window. She'd missed the dragon after he decided to graze instead of going back to Sesshomaru's castle.
"I miss you too," Rin said to the dragon. She glanced back at Muryumi. She hadn't moved from her spot.
Rin leaned in to Ah-un, and whispered, "Hey, Ah-Un, you still have my bow and arrows with you right?"
Ah-Un snorted and his heads nodded.
"Good. Do you think you can break the window for me?"
Ah-Un nodded again and Rin stepped back and away. Ah-Un head-butted the window once, twice, three times, and the wood splintered onto the floor.
"Rin, you didn't tell Ah-Un to break the window, did you?" Muryumi asked, still fixed in her spot.
Rin stepped toward the window, careful not to step onto the sharp fragments on the floor. She reached for Ah-Un determinedly.
"Rin, wait!" Muryumi said, standing up.
Rin looked back at Muryumi and shook her head. "Muryumi, I'll be fine. I need you to trust me on this. I have sacred arrows from Kagome, and if I do say so myself, I'm pretty good at aiming."
"Arrows from the priestess…?" Muryumi bit her lip, thinking. "Alright, but take me with you, okay Rin? I do trust you but…"
"Come on, Muryumi. You want to check up on Sine too right?" Rin beckoned.
With that, Muryumi joined Rin, and they both leapt onto Ah-Un's back. The dragon didn't object, and listened to Rin's commands. He'd taken a long look at her while she was talking to Muryumi, questioned at what he was seeing. Rin didn't look like herself, but she still smelled like herself. Sweet and soothing like chrysanthemums. Maybe he bug her to tell him what happened later, but right now, Rin sounded like she really needed something.
They flew to the front of the castle where Rin was certain she'd seen Sesshomaru lead Sine out, with Muryumi clutching at her waist.