Dying to Live
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.
Since the first time that she laid eyes on him, when she was much smaller and spied him propped against a tree trunk in the woods, recovering from battle wounds, Rin had thought Sesshomaru was the most beautiful being that she had ever laid eyes on. That was no less true now. She thought back to the early hours of that morning when Miroku brought them back into the room to see Sesshomaru.
Rin gasped when she first saw him.
"That is not Lord Sesshomaru!" Jaken exploded in indignation.
Rin couldn't resist drawing closer to their lord to check for herself. "It isn't, but it is him," she managed to say after the initial wave of confusion passed. It was evident that the monk had brought him back from death, but—
"That is not Lord Sesshomaru's hair! Lord Sesshomaru's hair is white! And what has happened to his youkai markings?" Jaken shouted.
"You will also find that his fangs, claws, and mokomoko pelts are gone," Miroku volunteered to save Jaken the trouble of enumerating any more obvious differences.
Finding her voice again, Rin asked the burning question, "How did you revive him?"
"An extremely rare, extremely risky ritual. That was only after hours of trial and error that I somehow realized that most of his soul was missing," the monk replied, looking terribly weary.
"Missing?" Rin let the word digest for a moment before daring to ask, "Then… you did get the missing piece back?"
Miroku looked uncomfortable, as he made to explain: "No, that's the thing: I didn't. So instead, I realized I had to bind other souls to his body in order to bring him back to life. It's only a temporary measure," he added.
The wheels were already turning in Rin's head as she began to articulate the conclusion: "So, the souls you used must have been—"
"—Human ones," finished Miroku. "Yes, that's why he looks so different—he's more human now than demon. In fact, he's probably mostly human."
Rin was barely processing what she was hearing, but still, she felt she had to ask, "When he wakes up, I mean, will he still be…himself?"
"To be honest, I don't know what he'll be like. I've never done anything like this before," the monk answered.
Suddenly, Jaken let up a great wail, "Human?! Lord Sesshomaru is going to be so angry when he wakes up, he is going to kill us for surrrrrrrre!"
After Rin finally managed to hush the distraught imp demon, the monk slept for about three hours before leaving not long after dawn. Before leaving though, he showed Rin how to make and administer a fish head and herbal broth he recommended to help Sesshomaru get his strength back. He also explained that Sesshomaru still retained the more serious gouge and scratch wounds he had sustained to his chest. Therefore, Rin was going to have to start changing the dressings covering those areas more regularly now that his body was not so fragile. Furthermore, Sesshomaru would no longer be able to heal himself so rapidly, so Rin would have to watch that he did not get too feverish during his physical recovery, which would be difficult even under otherwise normal circumstances.
She indicated her understanding and thanked Miroku profusely on his way out. Just before he was about to depart, as an added thought, she told him to take Ah-Un with him so that he could return to his wife faster. He could use him as long as he liked, she told the monk. All Miroku had to do was tell the beast where he wanted to go, and Ah-Un would take him there. Miroku expressed his gratitude and told her he would try to come back in about a month to see how Sesshomaru was faring, and he told her to send word, if the Ruler of the West grew suddenly worse. Then, the monk departed.
That was how Sesshomaru had now become the most beautiful man she had ever laid eyes on.
Even as she knelt at beside him, she did not feel as much like she was nursing him back from the brink of death. In fact, she couldn't help but get distracted admiring everything about him. It was as if she was looking upon him all anew, like one looks upon the first spring day when the frost melts for the last time after a long, dark winter; while it was the same familiar scene, one had to adjust to seeing it in fresh adornments and colors.
Although his features now looked less unreal than before, his new mortal appearance was hardly common. While his usual starlight-white hair had been changed, the locks were still almost as breathtakingly silky, and the new color was a beautifully unique shade of darkish-grey slate. His skin, now uninterrupted by his typical indigo and purple youkai moon and stripes, was still incredibly pale, but with sanguine warmth compared to his normal, frosty, white complexion. Beneath his lowered eyelids, handsomely fringed with a thicket of much darker lashes, she was dying to know whether the color of his eyes had changed too. She had always loved the molten gaze of his golden ones, but she was convinced that if Sesshomaru had brown eyes, they would be gorgeous as well.
Rin was truly beside herself. She just couldn't believe the change that had taken place over him not only compared to how she had always known him but to how he was even ten hours before, when he looked barely better than mangled death. Aside from the more aesthetic changes in his characteristics, the multiple minor cuts and bruises that had marred his face, neck, and arms had vanished, and his body was no longer twisted, stiff, cold and corpse-like.
Rather, he had become feverish as Miroku had predicted he would as a response to all the heavy-duty healing his body had to accomplish. However, instead of being anxious, as she normally would've been if someone dear to her had a fever, Rin was excited. She imagined her hands melting away like snow with a burn from his now flush, warm skin. Likewise, she wanted to kiss each drop of perspiration she wicked from his brow. Finally, for each time he swallowed or even twitched in his sleep, she felt like bursting into tears of joy, for these were all signs that he was not dying but living.
The only problem was that in a matter of time he was going to wake up, and only then would the enormity of the next challenge in their lives even be revealed.
::
It was just before sunset when Miroku saw his destination slide into view on the earth below. It had been a funny experience riding Ah-Un. The creature had done just as Rin had said and taken him exactly to the place that he had requested. He flew much like Kirara, soaring through the air quite smoothly. The demon seemed pretty uninterested in Miroku for the most part; although at one point, Miroku thought he caught one of the demon's heads looking at him over its scaly shoulder, but when the monk did a double take to see, Ah-Un was again looking straight head.
"There," Miroku said now pointing to a spot where Ah-Un could land. As Ah-Un touched down, Miroku looked directly at the landmark he knew too well: the crater where his father met his demise all those years ago. Miroku slid off of Ah-Un and was standing before the crater, looking from his now wind-tunnel free hand to his feet in the grass below, when he heard the old man's voice.
"Welcome back, my boy, although I certainly hope you did not come all this way to inspect the grass growing over your father's grave," his old master joked.
"Mushin," Miroku said as he turned and looked up with a weak smile at the monk. Of course, Mushin was flanked by a familiar, jovial looking raccoon dog demon, who Miroku greeted next, "And Haji, it's good to see you again."
"Master," Haji said in greeting with a small bow before Mushin spoke again.
"But why are you alone?" the older monk with the ruddy nose asked, looking around. Although it was slight, Miroku detected the slightest falter in the monk's demeanor as the older man noticed Ah-Un before he went on to say, "Where is that lovely girl of yours? I thought that you said that you were bringing her with you."
"Sango fell ill on the way, so she had to stay back in Nagoya. Fortunately, I don't think it's anything serious, but I ended up going on without her," Miroku said a little awkwardly before he went on to his real reason for continuing on to Mt. Hiei on his way back to Nagoya. "Master, there's something I had to see you about," he said very seriously.
Mushin's mustache twitched ever so slightly out of curiosity before he beckoned to the younger man saying, "Well, then come in out of the cold and have a drink of sake and a seat by the fire with me, and I'll hear about what troubles you."
It was after Mushin had poured them each a couple of rounds of warm sake, and Haji had stalked off to go find his dinner that Miroku found his voice to speak: "Master, I've done exactly what you once told me never to do."
Mushin sighed, feeling that this was no average thing bothering Miroku. He had seen it in the younger man's eyes the moment he arrived. Still, he said half-jokingly, "It would hardly be the first time. Which thing is it this time?"
"This time is different, Mushin. I think I have completely failed in my capacity as a servant of Buddha," Miroku replied, having set his sake cup aside and leaned forward toward the fire pit so that his elbows rested on his knees. Guiltily, he looked at his hands as he spoke, "I performed one of the forbidden rituals."
Still looking into his clasped hands, Miroku heard the thud of Mushin's sake cup and the liquid plink of sake sloshing inside it, as the old man deftly set it down on the wooden paneling around the pit; Miroku knew he definitely had his master's attention now, for the old man never set down a half-full cup of alcohol. "Which one?" Mushin said, his voice very serious.
"I was begged to save someone from death. It was the "Soul Binding" sutra. I knew it was wrong, but I did it anyway," Miroku replied.
There was a moment of silence. Then Mushin stood up, and although the old monk rarely ever got angry about anything, his voice suddenly cracked over Miroku like thunder: "You stupid boy! Do you even know how the forbidden sutras work? What will happen to you if… Who did you do it for?"
"I didn't have much of a choice. It was a friend's brother," Miroku said, wishing he could avoid revealing the full identity, like a child futilely resisting a parent's questions.
Mushin was going to drag it out of him: "Which friend?"
"Inuyasha, his half-brother," Miroku replied.
"Inuyasha's half-brother? Inuyasha's a half-demon… Then it was Inuyasha's human half-brother?" Mushin half-pried, half-hoped.
Miroku sighed, "No, Inuyasha only has one brother: Sesshomaru-"
"The Ruler of the Western Lands," Mushin finished. He then reached down and smacked Miroku over the back of the head. When he spoke again, his voice was thick with emotion, as he berated his protégé: "You stupid, stupid boy! I train you, and this is what you waste your abilities on? Not only do you use one of the forbidden sutras, but you use the power given to you by the Buddha to revive a demon? Do you have any idea what you've gotten yourself into? Where's the mark?"
"On the bottom of my right foot, in the same exact place as him," Miroku answered.
"Let me see it," Mushin answered gruffly, sitting down again.
Miroku removed his sandal and lifted his foot so that Mushin could see: there on the ball of his foot was a small, black, eight-spoked wheel that was noticeably incomplete on one side, the wheel part a broken circle. Miroku still clearly remembered the searing pain that had burned through his foot the moment he finished binding the last soul to Sesshomaru's body. The shock of it had been so terrible that he had been forced down on one knee. As soon as he had recovered enough and seen the mark on his own foot, it had only taken him a moment to discover that Sesshomaru had received it too.
Mushin looked Miroku dead on. "Of course this mark means that your fates are now bound to one another, unless the ritual is reversed, and you can release the souls bound to him. I hope you have a good plan to do that, because you realize what will happen if either of you dies before you can do so?" Mushin asked, his eyes filled with concern and disappointment for the younger man. Miroku hated himself for hurting his master by what he had done, but he felt like he had to tell someone what he just went through to save Sesshomaru.
"Upon death, we will both suffer immeasurable torments in the Underworld for the rest of eternity. Yes, I know," Miroku replied. "I'll think of something."
"Oh Buddha in Nirvana, I hope you can," Mushin said wearily before throwing back his drink of sake.
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Notes: So this is a pretty short update this time, but I wanted to give you all these two parts before we go back to check on what's up with Inuyasha and the Jewel. Not to mention, I had a great time writing the Rin Sesshy bit, so hope you enjoyed reading it, too! Peace, for now!