Fuiasu sat in the family gardens across from her son, her hands folded sedately in her lap as she watched him. "Again, Sesshoumaru," she ordered.
Sesshoumaru grunted but did not argue as he set the beast loose again. His gold eyes bled red, his new markings turning jagged. The little monster ripped away the rest of the control Sesshoumaru had been holding back and shifted into his inu form to sniff about in the gardens across from his mother.
"You control the speed of the drum," she murmured and stifled a smile as the young inu snarled at her, merely raising one delicate brow as if amused he had the gumption to challenge her.
Inside the beast, Sesshoumaru hardly paid his mother any attention. I am the master of this body, he thought, and narrowed his eyes the same way he'd seen his mother do hundreds of times when faced with an argument from someone below her. And that's just what his beast was, below him. "I am the master," he sneered, tugging on the strands of power within him. "I am the master, and you willobey me." With a mighty roar, he grabbed the inner manifestation of his beast and threw a collar around the thick fur of his neck.
Obey me!
Still in his Inu form, Sesshoumaru looked at his mother again but his eye were gold now, his marks smooth on ruffled white fur. I am the master.
"Well done." She smiled, pleased. He was progressing much faster than she had anticipated. "Now, do it again." And she unfurled the terrifying might of her yōki all at once, so quickly and suddenly that the beast came free out of sheer instinct to survive.
And so it went for hours in the family garden as Sesshoumaru learned to control the monster within.
Later that night as they ate in Fuiasu's sitting room, Sesshoumaru asked about Kagome. "It's been three days already," he mumbled, picking at his rice and fish. "You said Father would have brought her back by now."
"Your father is a most powerful Daiyoukai," she agreed, and nibbled on a pickled okra sedately as she contemplated the problem. Toga shouldhave been back by now. "Perhaps themost powerful. However, even he might struggle in the face of death to bring a soul back. You must be patient, Sesshoumaru."
"But I want Kagome back now," he whined, and for once the monster within agreed, a small keening low aching to break through. In truth, they both felt guilty about the damage they had done her. Father had always said they needed to be more careful with her. It didn't matter that she wasn't human, it was just that no one really knew whatshe was, or how easily she would break. He knew her though, his Kagome. She wasn't so easily breakable—his chest had its first scar from her, after all, a dark blemish from a burn of her purity. But even though he knew she was stronger than anyone gave her credit for, guilt still ate away at the very bones of his soul. He had hurt his Kagome.
Fuiasu, though unaware of the extent to how muchhe felt the guilt and the need to have their missing little girl, understood enough of his feelings to sigh. "We rarely get what we want, Sesshoumaru. You will trust that your father is strong enough, and honorable enough, to bring Kagome back to us." She slanted a glance his way, offered up a small smile. "You will also trust Kagome to fight her way back with every inch of her battered little soul. She is a Ward of the West, after all."
She's more than that. So much more,thought Sesshoumaru. But he said nothing else on the matter and instead continued to pick at his fish.
o.O.o
Word Count - 643