A/N - Just a reminder, this chapter is pretty graphic. You've been warned.
o.O.o
He'd spent the past two nights hunting to sooth the beast and had all but gorged himself on wild bear and mountain lion. Full and sated, he'd slept through the night at the base of a tree and woken at dawn to a deadly quiet and unfamiliar scents—a scent of death that turned his stomach even half muted by the rain as it was.
He knew why his father had been away for a year, had even managed to read some of the reports before they'd been sent to him. It was no difficult task to follow the scent of death and pain to a village not at all far from the citadel. He reached it by midmorning and the sight of the desolate village came as no surprise to the young Lord—but the scent of sex and the sound of rutting and sobbing did.
Sesshoumaru approached with caution, moving downwind even as the rain masked his scent. Buildings were destroyed, roofs caved in, walls torn apart. The ground was littered with bodies of all ages, covered in blood and urine and semen, in the case of most of the women and girls. He was so focused on following his ears that he nearly stumbled over one of the bodies and he couldn't help but to look down as he caught himself—and faced a little girl who was miraculously still alive and younger than Izayoi had been when she'd come to them.
She was alive, he saw as he watched her pulse stutter weakly against her throat, but there was no life left in her dark brown eyes. She reeked of many men and fear and was covered in bruises and cuts and even as he stared at her, as sour bile turned in his stomach, he watched that thready pulse slow and then finally stop and something like relief settled across his shoulders as she died.
He could still hear them rutting.
His eyes flashed red and Sesshoumaru disregarded caution in favor of vengeance and desperation and he shifted into his Inu form. He would never forget that girl, he knew. She would be a stain upon his memories, something that would never be replaced no matter how many happy memories he managed to collect. And they would pay not just for that, but for all the that had been done in this village-and all the villages before it.
The first one did not know what hit him. Sesshoumaru dove at them from behind and bit the bastard in half, chewing up the head and torso before spitting them out. He paused only a moment to put the adult female out of her misery before turning to the remaining three men. A howl ripped free of his jowls, a song of death and poison, before he batted the smallest one to the side where he crashed through several remaining huts and fell unconscious to the muddy ground as thunder boomed and lightning lit up the afternoon sky. A snarl, and he vomited poison on that one.
The two left had already broken into a run, eager to escape the death chasing them. It would not be a kind, quick death. He already regretted killing the first two so easily—they should all be made to suffer as the humans of this village had been made to suffer.
And so Sesshoumaru took control from the beast as he chased them into the forest. He knew they would not escape as he sent a vengeful prayer to Bishamon-kami to help him make the criminals pay. He would catch them, and with the training and expectations of his house raining down around them, he would get the answers he needed to prevent this from happening again.
But he had need of only one body to torture.
He lunged forward and tackled the closest male and shredded his body within seconds before chasing after the last one. Sesshoumaru didn't have the patience for a long hunt, not when he wanted to report to his father all that had happened and to erase that girl's face from his mind.
When he had the other yokai cornered, he shifted back into his humanoid form. "You will answer all of my questions, worthless goat, and maybe I will grant you a quick death." And if his hands shook slightly at the thought of the torture he would commit, he simply curled them into fists and continued.
The goat youkai sneered and lunged. "You think you can beat me, pup?" He laughed and raked his claws against Sesshoumaru's chest, rending cloth and flesh alike as the boy did not move but only stared at him. Unnerved despite himself, the goat moved to attack again—and found himself suddenly with only one hand.
"Raise your arm against This One again, and I will ensure you never sire a pup," he said calmly even as the cuts across his chest burned. He was cold and calm in equal measure, doing everything he could to emulate the father he quietly admired. It was his mother though who had taught him to fight the psychological battle, to unnerve his opponent—and so he hadn't bothered to dodge and focused instead on what else he could do.
"Your arrogance will cost you your birthright," spat the goat, and he threw all caution to the wind. He was going to die here anyway, so there was no point in giving the mutt what he wanted.
And so Sesshoumaru taught himself the art of torture, remembering his lessons with the healer about anatomy and nerves and the many, many ways to kill a youkai.
Sesshoumaru was a savage in the dusk of the pouring rain, his hands and arms bathed in red gore only to be washed away by the deluge of water. His clothing was stained and torn, most of his upper body bare to the pouring rain—wounds already almost healed. It was only when the distant, distinct howls of his father reached him that Sesshoumaru stepped back from male he had slowly taken apart piece by piece.
"Your bastard father won't reach them in time," whispered the goat, the words a broken gasp as he choked on his salvia. "Two little girls all alone…" the words were spat out, followed by a quick bark of laughter before he flinched from the movement. "Those abominations should never have been allowed to live past infancy."
The young Lord paused and started to deny the claim the girls were alone, but then he heard another howl, full of panic. His mother and the sound was distant—further even than his father. If they were both gone, and he was here, all that left was the hare.
"My father will not make it, but I will," he promised, and doused the male with poison so that all he heard as he flew into the sky was the pained wails of a dying youkai, booming thunder, and pouring rain.
Those were the things he focused on as he flew, as panic ate at the strands of his heart-he had to make it. There was no one else.
o.O.o
Word Count - 1177