Welcome back! :) Hope you guys enjoy the fourth chapter!
Chapter 4: Insight
The dark night sky holding the bright white of the half moon was laced with various tints of purply blue hues. A type of visible serenity that only such a remarkable skylit gem could properly reflect. A couple of blowing detached maple leaves that hinted at upcoming winter, made their way through the buildings of the downtown exotics district; coming to rest on the maintenance area of Kodachi's roof.
Rin, having been there for the majority of late morning, lightly picked them up one by one and threw it back to the sky, returning nature's thoughtful gift. It had been three hours since her interactions with the housemothers and the demon clients. Three hours since both her violent lashings and her deranged sentence to serve Lord Sesshoumaru, a human-detesting demon from the Western lands, as an enviable Maiko.
She audibly sighed and laughed at herself. Her? A Maiko? A dream of hers that was only brought to fruition because the Demon Lord had required her to serve his brat of a son. And though it was a laughable case, she couldn't help but thank that demon over and over under her breath. If she had been cast out of Kodachi… If she had even been passed over as a Maiko this upcoming year… there was no doubt that she would have been sent to the pleasure district.
Rin grew sick at the thought.
Most of the servants in Kodachi were pre-adolescent females. Past the ripening age, they were given the ever so slim chance to be Maiko, or they were sent to erotic side of the business. For when a woman reaches the sexually peaked age of seventeen until the outskirts of twenty-one, her worth skyrockets in the pleasure district. A prostitute's first sale, the sale of her virginity, would pay off nearly all of her accrued debt to the house that had bought her. And this was a fact no housemother would ever overlook… Even if the case was a pitiable one.
In a sense, Rin was spared from the possibility of a cruel outcome.
And her distaste for the station of prostitute didn't come neither from moral nor fancy.
It came from horror.
Unfortunately, Rin sunk into the viciousness of her mind. She thought of her lost family. The lot of them had all been slaughtered before her eyes by rogue men. And the things those men did to each of them beforehand as Rin watched in hiding…
…made her cringe at the thought of a man ever touching her.
And though there was one exception she was willing to make…
…That too had been stripped from her not even five years later.
Rin gulped down the acidic build-up in her stomach; clenching all of her features to maintain her stable mind as she was taken to a past she longed to forget.
After a few moments of panicked breathing, Rin calmed herself enough to look back up towards the sky. Oranges and yellows started to break the horizon. The new dawn that proceeded the fateful night was now upon her.
Servant duty would begin soon.
But… Was she to go to work like the rest of them still? Rin, lost in the wonder of what was expected of her now, found it best to swallow the pain she was so used to swallowing and return to find Izayoi-sama.
Though it was true that Rin, in this moment, yearned for the freedom of the small and uncomfortable roof.
In one graceful motion, Rin managed to stand up on the bamboo slats of the Japanese establishment. She took one last whiff of morning air before mumbling,
"Kohaku… I miss you terribly."
After a final moment of weakness accompanying the stinging pain of her back, Rin straightened. With a determined look, she turned on her heel and returned to the ladder that had allowed her these last hours of contemplation.
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"Oh? You despise her so much, Sesshoumaru?" An amused InuTaishou prodded his son, gaining a growl of disapproval in response.
"I despise all humans, father. Though you have known this for ages now, you still insist on playing the same games," Sesshoumaru seethed, "I have no intention of ever returning to such a distasteful place under such disgusting company."
Inu Taishou scoffed.
"You mistake my intentions for games, my son," The reigning dog lord smiled, "I merely wish to keep my nation out of the hands of an insolent closed-minded pup."
Slowly, Sesshoumaru's head swiveled from the negotiation documents that he and his father had been deciphering together to illuminate his disapproval once more.
Choosing to stay calm even at the blatant insult, Sesshoumaru replied, "Insolent… Closed-minded, even? This is how you see my strategy, is it?"
Taking his brush and correcting the mistakes that had been detected by his eldest in the documents, Inu Taishou frowned, "If such is a 'strategy' then you are not the man that I had envisioned to take my place, Sesshoumaru."
With this utterance, the young dog demon's utensil snapped in half. The crack of split wood and a struck nerve was the only sound reverberating throughout the room for those few silent moments.
With collected defiance Sesshoumaru finally stood from his low-rise desk and zabuton. Only a slight growl and a deathly glare gave away his discontentment as he turned his back to his father; intending to leave the room.
Inu Taishou's eyes grew red with frustration. And with the most intimidating tone of pure malice that put Sesshoumaru's own to shame, he snarled,
"Sit down you incompetent child."
Sesshoumaru ceased his exit, turning to look his father straight in the eyes. Perhaps the only ounce of fear that could have been detected from him was his reluctant decision to comply. Slowly, Sesshoumaru maneuvered to face his father once more, and retreated to the seated position before his father's own low-rise desk, upon his knees.
"You will obey me, Sesshoumaru. Lest you willingly toss aside your inheritance."
Sesshoumaru's fists clenched in the obvious desire to retaliate. However, he simply stated,
"I will bring no harm to the human race unless they so choose to raise their weapons against us... I have given you my word in that, father. So why must I have my patience tried unnecessarily by being among them?"
Inu Taishou merely analyzed his son in contemplation before replying coldly, "Perhaps I simply have no a reason to trust you, yet."
To this, Sesshoumaru's eyes widened, obviously taken aback by his father's harsh words. He began,
"And why would you-"
Inu Taishou cut off his son with the raise of his clawed hand,
"Our business partners find immense satisfaction in being taken to the most expensive and reknowned Geisha house in the provinces. Because Geisha entertainment is of human culture, there is no other option to you if you are to maintain friendly relations."
Sesshoumaru growled, "That is due to your poor judgment to introduce them to such in the first place! Should one party have retaliated against the other back then, a plausible occurrence no doubt, your decision could have easily led to international war. And how is it that you justify that, father?"
Inu Taishou glowered silently.
"For the sake of peace, if I recall correctly…," Sesshoumaru continued his strategic backlash, "…That is the answer you gave me the last time we had this conversation. But you underestimate my ability to see things for what they are. You mingled our races because you fell for that whore of a human woman. A woman who couldn't even be bothered to raise her own-"
"Silence," Inu Taishou growled, his aura threatening that of anger-stimulated transformation.
Sesshoumaru ceased his words, though his pervasive glare remained.
For the longest time they sat there, both equally angry and both equally stubbornly set in their ways. Inu Taishou, after recollecting his thoughts, finally spoke.
"Your accusations only prove your closed-mindedness. I will not tolerate any more insubordination from you," his menacing frown began to overpower his son's, "You will continue to frequent Kodachi and you will tolerate the 'disgusting company' of that girl."
He smirked as he watched a scowl form, continuing, "Should you find it in your capacity to continue treating both your father and those human maidens with disrespect, I will find it in my capacity to relieve you of your inheriting status, Sesshoumaru."
Aching to retaliate once more, Sesshoumaru merely glared in silence.
"I knew you had common sense in you somewhere," Inu Taishou threw the final blow at his son's submission, "Now, get out of my sight."
At the command, Sesshoumaru stood with nary a defiant word nor glare, and left the business hall.
Thanks for all the reviews and follows! Hope you guys are enjoying thus far. :D
I'm having a fun time with this little story.
