I Do Not Own InuYasha
Unknown Starts...
Kobayashi Rin sat very quietly in her seat on the bullet train, she had decided to move the a mountain village to be an elementary school. After everything that had happened to her in Tokyo she felt the need for a clean start, which meant going to a place where absolutely no one knew her and starting over.
It wasn't like there was much for her in Tokyo anyway, she had not been miss popular and having finally finished her university and graduated she felt that a move to a quiet nobody school teacher. It was a good move, and with her uncle's recent passing she had had enough money to ensure she bought a small, remote, house and a used car which would be ready for her when she arrived in the village.
She wasn't brave like her friends who had decided to stay in the city, she couldn't stand the city, there were too many humans there, and everyone was always in a rush, and it was just draining. She wasn't built for the city, and after her breakup she knew that a move to the countryside would be better; and safer for her.
It had been a quiet night with her boyfriend, Kohaku, when they were cornered in an alley, Kohaku had, rather than defend her, offered her up to the thugs. Rin had been so livid and furious and terrified when Kohaku had run leaving her alone with the thugs. She still remembered the shadowy man who had appeared and informed them to leave, when the thugs hadn't done as ordered the shadowy man had proven to be a yōkai, and his light whip had killed the men. Rin had run in fear of being next. Still, she thought about that night a lot, she didn't know why, and she dreamt of hard, cold, gold eyes that were as brilliant as miniature suns and as intense as a typhoon raging. She didn't know why, but after her heated break up with Kohaku; in which she had literally thrown all his crap from her apartment window while she silently cursed his very existence, she dreamt of those eyes. They would pin her in her dreams, they never seemed threatening, just all consuming, which was a terrifying beast all on its own.
Making the move to a small, rural, far away from anything Kohaku would call civilized, village had seemed a wise move. Her small inheritance was enough to get her set up and started, her paychecks would help her cover life there after that, and if she was lucky, she might even be able to start a small garden with crops of her own to cut down her need to be in the village. Rin had long since lost a love for people she had once possessed, which was why the little village being predominantly yōkai and hanyō children appealed to her, human she may be, but humans she did not belong with.
So when she got to her station to get a car to drive to the remote village she was happy. Very happy.
This was a step in the right direction for her life. Nothing had ever gone as smoothly as this decision had, and she wanted to keep going with this fluid motion really. It wasn't like her parents or brothers would be ashamed of her for doing this move. It just made a hell of a lot more sense than staying in Tokyo to be tormented by their ghosts and surrounded by humans who were continually getting worse and worse to be around.
Three hours, a very mountainous journey later her driver pulled up to her house.
It was a rather simple, very old, fixer upper farmhouse.
Rin smiled and thanked the man before she got out of the car, grabbed her bags, ran through the rain into her house. She watched the car drive off and she locked the door, for the first time feeling safe.
She was a bit stunned and amused to see the amount of leaks her roof had which had her rummaging through the old cabinets for pots and pans. The house came fully furnished, which was an appeal for her, even if it meant she'd have to decide what to keep and what she'd need to order. Setting up the numerous pots and pans to catch the leaks she sat down and smiled.
This was all hers!
And there was no one around for kilometres! She was so thrilled; she'd have danced in delight if she wasn't also so exhausted. She had a summer to fix up her home, and then she would be in charge of a class of the local children, she looked forward to it. Pulling out her sleeping bag and pillows she started setting up for a quiet night of sleep.
She was thinking she might get a dog, she had always wanted one but living in the city had never given her the chance to do that, and perhaps tomorrow; provided it was not raining cats and dogs again, she would explore the forest surrounding her. Rin had always wanted to live deep in the mountains surrounded by forests. Now she did, this was a good start, it was a very good fresh start, she reminded herself.
The exhaustion seeped into her bones and she finally closed her eyes.
Immediately her dream was beseeched by a set of gold eyes which were staring very intently at her. She didn't feel scared though, no, quite the opposite really, she couldn't explain it but she felt safe, cherished, wanted, it was all something she had never felt before, and was stunned.
The dream was very pleasant for her, and it had her slipping into a deep sleep.
Sesshōmaru had been plagued by dreams of the mortal girl, he hated them. He hated that it was her he dreamt of, he despised that he was so weak as to actually crave tracking her down.
It was by happenstance he had met his True Mate, it was a strange collision of coincidences really which had left him with these horrid dreams and no clue as to his mate's actual identity.
Sesshōmaru had, almost eight months ago to this day, been walking through Tokyo minding his own business to get to his penthouse. He had no love for coming to the city, finding it crowded and horrid smelling, not to mention that humans were not evolved enough for him to want to interact with them regularly. There was nothing unusual about his trip, he was there on business, he had meetings to attend to and with his younger brother's impending wedding it was clear that InuYasha couldn't make the trip. InuYasha and he had fought violently about it before their father had interceded on their argument.
Tōga had decreed he would go to Tokyo to handle the business, so he had.
InuYasha stayed to plan his human wedding with his human miko mate who seemed to have a fiery temper every time InuYasha said something. Sesshōmaru wasn't particularly keen on getting roped into whatever nonsense his brother's mate felt was needed for the wedding and tended to give her a wide berth because of that. He was not going to be involved, no, he did not care if this was a once in a lifetime event, he was not a part of it. Besides, he and InuYasha despised each other openly.
His mother had been Tōga's first wife, but she had died at his birth. For four years it had just been him and Tōga, then Tōga had married a human named Izayoi and they had had the annoying hanyō InuYasha. Sesshōmaru had, for many decades, despised his hanyō brother because Tōga always favored him. Sesshōmaru had never felt welcomed or wanted in the family, even though Izayoi attempted. It was only in the last decade that he had gotten on speaking terms with his father and half-brother because of the family business, and now there was the damn wedding.
Sesshōmaru wasn't interested in being roped into it, and he still despised Tokyo with a fiery passion. No matter, he had gone to Tokyo.
He hadn't known what had compelled him to be out at night for an evening stroll, he hadn't dwelled upon it, he had merely accepted the rain and mist of the city to wash away the pungent scents which clung to the city. Everything smelled good in the rain, which was probably why he had indulged himself in the walk.
Something had caught his attention, he still did not know if it was a scent or a scream, but something had had him walking down an alley where he saw two thugs harassing a young woman. A human woman no less, she seemed petrified and her brightly colored yellow and orange checkered dress was torn a little.
He didn't get a good look at her face, most of it obscured by the hood of the long coat she had been wearing but he couldn't forget her eyes. They were they most lively shade of brown he had ever seen, like tiger eyes gems, which was unnerving. There was something about them, she had stared right at him and he felt like she was seeing everything he was and could be, it was unnerving really. Reaction had been swift, he gave one civilized warning for the thugs to let the girl go, they hadn't and he had been compelled to act. She had fled the moment she was free, which was probably for the best. And the rain helped her at that point because it made it so she could disappear into the crowd.
In his long life though he had never believed the True Mate's crap yōkai and daiyōkai lived off of, he knew that his father, InuYasha and Tsukuyomaru did, but they were all dillusional, at least he thought they were. There was no one perfect person for yōkai, human or yōkai, True Mates was a rare myth that yōkai told their young so they would have hope with this life. For yōkai lived very long lives and would see the rise and fall of many before they died. The idea that there was someone out there who wanted to be bound to a yōkai was preposterous. Granted Izayoi had not aged a day in the last few decades, but he felt that there was a reason for that, and True Mates was not the reason.
Still, it unnerved him that he was dreaming of the girl.
Walking in his house after his long trip to Tokyo, he examined his fang, Bakusaiga again, then continued to check over his property. He was stunned when he was patrolling his property to see lights on at the old Hamasaki place, he hadn't been aware that anyone had bought the old property. No one had lived there since the war, and even then the few renters who tried to live there always left.
Sesshōmaru watched the place a little, undisturbed by the rain which was pouring over him as he assessed who his new neighbor was.
There was a shadowy figure of a woman, and nothing more, he could hear her in the house, from her heartbeat he could figure she was human, but he couldn't figure out what she was doing there.
Surely someone would have told him if he had neighbor, Shishinki or Kōga or Tsukuyomaru or even InuYasha. They were all persistently nosy about his mountain and forests, which was why he was surprised to see that the old Hamasaki place had a vehicle and person there. Surely this human would have been news that someone in the village would have felt the need to share with his family.
His family, the Nishimura family, were the yōkai protectors of these lands, they were appraised of everything. And though his father no longer was Inu no Tashio, that honor fell to him, so he found it odd that no one had told him of the human.
He would speak to his father an InuYasha about this tomorrow, for tonight he would reacquaint himself with his territory.