The thick stench of blood-his own mixed blood-filled Inuyasha's nose for the hundred-millionth time. He distantly pondered how he'd grown so shamefully soft over the recent years while his head spun too fast for him to bodily force himself out of the dirt before another punishing, serrated limb gashed open his side and sent stars to his vision. Blood gurgled in his lungs.
With desperation, Inuyasha grabbed for the sword at his hip, his constant and trusted lifeline. The empty air and sting of his claws in the palm of his hand reminded him of his loss. Tetsusaiga had plummeted from the cliff and into the ravine below. And perhaps soon he would join it.
The irony was not lost on Inuyasha's swimming, air-deprived mind. The sick amusements of the gods had dumped him into this world as neither a human nor youkai and yet he had always, always found a way to shove their stupidly lengthy list of obstacles back into their divine dick faces. He'd tracked down each and every confounded shard of the Shikon no Tama. He'd vanquished hoard after hoard of both savage and cruelly calculating youkai. He'd finally put an end to Naraku…
And Inuyasha might actually die this way-at the grotesque appendages of a no-name youkai who had caught him off guard and alone.
The pain was dulling. The sounds of his tearing flesh were far away. And a familiar feeling bubbled up inside of his gut.
The will of a dormant creature reached out to Inuyasha, finally tearing past Inuyasha's measly mental barricade. In the back of his mind, Inuyasha knew he could not allow this to happen, to allow this half of him to take over again. But without Tetsusaiga at his side, the hanyou had no choice.
Inuyasha's vision flashed red as he slipped into afflicted unconsciousness.
An unsettling quiet was awash in the forest as Sesshomaru stood perfectly still, eyes closed, breath even as he scented the crisp dusk air. A breeze lifted the length of his hair and shifted the fabric of his kimono. Yet no crickets chirped, no ravens cawed, and no tanuki scurried from their hiding places to greet the night.
The forest was ever telling when something was gravely amiss. A feeling of unease stretched across the adjacent valley and over the looming mountains where Sesshomaru had left Jaken to tend to Ah-Un. Rather than alarm his fragile attendant, the youkai lord had elected to investigate alone. Three years had passed him by since impending danger had affected the land so thoroughly. He would not be surprised if he happened upon a battle over shogun territories. Human activity had been the country's greatest threat of late.
There was a fragile sense of peace within the realm of youkai, a necessary retreat from conflict after the immense manipulation and dominion of Naraku. The wisest of the youkai were quietly licking their wounds while the Ookami tribes patrolled the countryside as self-appointed, brutish guardians. It was doubtless the wolves would come sniffing around the area soon enough. And it was not unlikely that Sesshomaru himself would receive the highest accusatory scrutiny in this situation.
Sesshomaru had not deigned to discuss the forward motion of youkai kind with the Ookami and they had not yet dared to present the matter to Sesshomaru, the current reigning lord of the western lands. The peace was too new, he supposed, for the Ookami to go searching for more conflict before they regrouped their own reign over their dwellings. To Sesshomaru, that was just as well, for he was content to interfere in affairs beyond his own lands as little as possible. If fear of his very name continued to preserve his independence, so be it.
Besides, the only reason Sesshomaru truly had to return to this area was to oversee Rin's reintegration into human society-from afar, of course. Rin would fight her own resolve to remain inside the village if she noticed him observing her progress. Only five times had he made formal visits to the village since surrendering his ward into their care, but not a full moon went by without a detour devoid of witnesses to the outskirts of the village.
Rin was happy in the safety and warmth of the village overseen by Inuyasha and the young priestess. Small and tucked away in the forest, it saw little turmoil now. The last time he'd seen Rin, there had been wild flowers in her hair and she'd worn a grey-violet, more commonly fashioned kimono. She had smiled broadly, her arms linked with those of other village youth. The girl's life was now going precisely according to his plans. Normally, Sesshomaru's personal success was reward enough for his efforts.
And yet, this time… Sesshomaru was actively searching for error in his own decision. So far, he had found none.
Sesshomaru had fully intended to make that detour again this very night, but he now had a new goal. He would isolate the current threat before it had the chance to discover the small human village Rin now called home.
The forest wind changed direction, and the scent of blood ignited his senses, prickling his skin, stripping him of awareness of anything else. Much of the scent on the wind was foreign, putrid, and savage. But the rest he knew well, too well. It was blood he'd spilled himself many times before.
Inuyasha.
The realization thrust Sesshomaru into motion through the trees, hackles risen, dismissing the constricting in his gut as burning fury. Although it had gone unsaid, the only reason Sesshomaru had chosen this backwater village to be Rin's home was because Inuyasha was there to guard it. This was the damned hanyou's only duty now. If Inuyasha had failed in his duty, Sesshomaru swore on their long-departed father that he would tear Inuyasha clear out of the afterlife and end his soul entirely.
Bursting into a canyon clearing, Sesshomaru emerged on the site of carnage. The otherwise dry rock and earth of the cliff edge was darkened by blood and fleshy paste belonging to a creature ravaged beyond recognition. Scattered bits of thick skin were the color of algae, wrinkled and sunken like rotten fruit. Two large blood-shot eyeballs rested heavily in the dirt, still tethered to a brutally stripped skull by long, vein-like cords. The giant creature's mangled carcass was now a misshapen, gutted torso surrounded by torn-off limbs and snapped bones. There had been no attempt to make a meal of the creature, the only aim had been complete annihilation.
Such a messy, uncontrolled, thorough kill was the work of a creature far more dangerous than a mere sizable, brutal beast. But where was Inuyasha? The hanyou's blood mingled with the carnage. As Sesshomaru was now upon the scene, he realized quite a lot of the hanyou's blood had been spilled, but he had not been crushed into a paste as well as the green-skinned beast.
Sesshomaru leapt above the trees, gliding over thick canopies while he scanned the area, his sense of unease rising. His pursuit brought him in sight of the tallest and oldest tree in the forest, the Goshinboku.
An unmistakable figure stood before the tree with long, ashen hair swaying and contrasting against garish scarlet robes. Even standing still on the forest floor, untouched by moonlight, Inuyasha was impossible not to recognize.
Only when Inuyasha pivoted swiftly in his direction did Sesshomaru notice the glowing eyes beneath the layers of gore. This confirmed the lord's suspicions-the hanyou was no longer himself.
Potent youki wafted from Inuyasha's tensed, blood-soaked body. The hanyou's fight was over, there were no more enemies to be found, and yet Inuyasha was still entirely consumed by his own youkai blood.
The sight of Inuyasha in this feral state was just as chilling as it had been the first time the youkai lord had witnessed it. This time, Sesshomaru was nearly upon him as he gazed down from above. And this time, Sesshomaru could not leave Inuyasha to his own devices. The crazed, seething hanyou was between Sesshomaru and the wholly unprepared human village. There was no telling what Inuyasha would do if he wandered into the village this way, as he seemed prepared to tear the head off of the first thing that came into his view.
So naturally, Sesshomaru flung an acorn downward and struck Inuyasha between the eyes.
Murderous claws narrowly missed Sesshomaru's arm, instead tearing clean through his silk sleeve as Sesshomaru shot up, off of the branch, and toward the opposite end of the forest. As expected, Inuyasha tore after him, unwilling to allow neither threat nor prey to escape.
The forest shuddered and quaked before the maddened hanyou, whose claws viciously split and splintered every opposing tree without slowing down. Sesshomaru knew first-hand the sheer adrenaline of inflamed youkai blood. What amount of destruction would it take to quell Inuyasha's?
As if in response to Sesshomaru's calculations, the tree directly in his path plummeted to the ground before his foot could connect with a sturdy limb, and his balance was lost. Searing points of unforgiving steel locked into the flesh of Sesshomaru's ankle through the leather of his boot, wrenching him to the ground atop the wreckage of splintered wood. The youkai lord's teeth snapped together when his jaw connected with a mess of roots and stone. Pocks of light flashed in his vision while he lay there, momentarily stunned and tasting blood. In his failure to rise back up, the hanyou pinned Sesshomaru further, driving his knees punishingly into Sesshomaru's back.
Snarling, Sesshomaru bucked his body upward, only able to move his head, which he whipped backward and smashed into what felt like Inuyasha's nose, evoking a satisfying crack and yowl. Regaining control, Sesshomaru flipped onto his back and thrust forward with glowing claws, but both wrists were captured from below by wide, heated hands.
And this was just about enough.
Elongated in threat of a transformation, Sesshomaru's teeth sliced into the meat of Inuyasha's shoulder. Jaws locked, claws still dripping with poison, Sesshomaru tensed for inevitable retaliation. But the body in his teeth and the hands gripping his wrists seemed to freeze, expelling fast, shuddering breaths as though the hanyou was finally burning out. Except the hanyou remained a steel pillar, unmovable despite their awkward, unstable, bloody tangle. Was the brute...exercising restraint?
Inuyasha failed to release him, so Sesshomaru too remained where he was, his jaw aching, tasting his brother's blood. The awareness of each passing second slipped away and the force of his bite lessened slowly. The pain in his muscles and punctured leg dulled, as did sober, coherent thought. Sesshomaru tried to blink the feeling away, but his head still felt light and unattached to anything.
Just as Sesshomaru realized Inuyasha had allowed the lord's wrists to fall to his sides, a hand clutched the hair at the back of Sesshomaru's head firmly and lifted up. The force was not overly hard, but Sesshomaru still found his jaw opening and his teeth sliding out of feverish flesh and torn cloth.
Sesshomaru's eyes opened. Inuyasha's uneven breaths ghosted across Sesshomaru's lips, and Inuyasha's glare captured the entirety of Sesshomaru's remaining attention. The hanyou's eyes were no longer a solid red, blind with rage. Of course, there was still rage, emphasized by an upper lip raised above fangs that were too long for a human-sized mouth. But his slits of bright blue pupils had widened, replacing some of the glaring red and returning life and possible coherency to the hanyou's stare. Before, those eyes had been unseeing, but now they gazed right through Sesshomaru in his floating yet shackled state. Those pupils darted back and forth, seeming to absorb the youkai's face. Thick, dark eyebrows lifted slowly from their position of anger and melted into something akin to confusion.
Ethereal heat radiated from Inuyasha, erasing awareness of the autumn chill that promised to coat each leaf and blade of grass with frost by the morning. The air was thick and looming now, shrouding them both and forming into feathery whisps that caressed the youkai's face and neck. What was this haze, this cocoon? Something was outlandishly amiss, but the realization did not spur Sesshomaru into motion. Normally lightning responses had been entirely snuffed out. Sesshomaru was frozen in the grasp of a predator. For only the second time in his life, Sesshomaru was now the prey.
Those hypnotic eyes finally broke from Sesshomaru's gaze-not in defeat, but to scrutinize Sesshomaru's other features. Sesshomaru's skin tightened impossibly when Inuyasha lowered his nose to sniff Sesshomaru's jawline.
A low growl emerged from the youkai lord's throat, but that was all he managed, and Inuaysha paid him no mind. Only moments had passed, but it felt like far longer as dirtied claws scraped over essential bloodways in his neck and neared his widened eyes. Inuyasha touched his face then, but the motion was too fast and firm and dirtied claws broke the skin of Sesshomaru's cheek. Rather than Sesshomaru, it was Inuyasha who flinched and pulled his hand back before closing the gap between their faces and running his tongue up the side of Sesshomaru's cheek.
Sesshomaru's blood froze in his veins, and feeling returned to his limbs. But Inuyasha's steeled arms were ensnaring him, drawing him forward, and fangs as thick as a swordsman's fingers plunged into the side of Sesshomaru's neck.
The youkai lord could only choke on the searing, crushing pressure in his throat, his eyes wide with disbelief, his own claws blindly ripping at the body that trapped him.
Was this it? Was this the death Sesshomaru had earned from his estranged hanyou kin? Father would condone this, Sesshomaru thought bitterly. Inuyasha had always been the one the late Lord of the West had intended to thrive. And Sesshomaru had always been expected to be an instrument toward that end. Whether Sesshomaru saw to it willingly, or orchestrated it with his own demise, it mattered not. Inuyasha could tear out the youkai's throat with his teeth and he would still be the hero of this world, of human and now youkai alike.
Inuyasha no longer needed anyone to challenge him, to force him to be better. The young creatures of the world were learning to govern themselves while the old ones were fading into reclusivity. And Rin no longer needed…
Sesshomaru gasped, filling his lungs once more with painfully crisp air as the hanyou's teeth pulled swiftly out of his neck, allowing hot blood to stream down Sesshomaru's chest, beneath his robes. Sesshomaru pressed his hand to the wound, which was miraculously not a gaping crater, but Inuyasha wrenched it away, gripping Sesshomaru's arm as Inuyasha brought his mouth down again to roughly catch blood with his tongue rather than bite.
Sesshomaru realized he was no longer holding himself up or tensing against Inuyasha's grip. It was as though the youkai had been injected with a hundred tranquilizing bursts of spiritual energy-without the crippling pain. He was like an elk being slowly drained by its hunter while it still writhed and twitched before the finality of death.
To Sesshomaru's dazed surprise, fangs did not find purchase in his flesh once more. Instead, the hanyou's tongue focused on the surface of his wound, moving over it again and again until the blood ceased to run.
Beginning within the side of his neck, a warm, tingling feeling crept through the entirety of Sesshomaru's body. For a moment, he forgot who he was, what he was, and where he was, letting go of apprehension and feeling only a sense of contentment. And then it was gone. He was himself again, and at the mercy of another.
Inuyasha's mouth left him and the hanyou turned his head, pulling one side of his own robes off of his shoulder before he sealed his mouth over the wound inflicted moments-or was it hours-ago by Sesshomaru. When Inuyasha lifted his head again, the wound on his shoulder too was closed.
A shudder and sigh of air left Inuyasha's body and the red drained from his eyes, leaving behind the hanyou's usual deep gold. He blinked twice, bloodied lips parted to reveal normal-sized fangs.
"Sesshomaru..?" Inuyasha breathed hoarsely.
Then, Inuyasha's eyes rolled back and his body dropped like a leaded sack, pulling Sesshomaru down with him into the wreckage of the ground. If Sesshomaru could move again, he failed to notice beneath the unconscious hanyou.
Sesshomaru was alive, he was almost certain of that. He was alive...but at what cost?