Disclaimer: Sesshomaru, Rin, and Jaken are part of Takahashi-sama's Inuyasha, so they're not mine. Kinnosuke is mine, though. ^_^ Tale of Genji, of course, isn't mind, but Lady Murasaki's.

Belonging nowhere
By miyamoto yui

Part 13 – the softer side of the moon.

"Sesshomaru-sama," Rin found herself calling out to him.

Sesshomaru stopped walking and turned around. "Yes, Rin?"

"Are you sure there isn't anything you aren't telling me?" she asked with concern as she found herself in worry.
It wasn't that she didn't trust him, but that certain something was tugging on her heart.

Not being able to lie to her honest eyes, he lifted up his hand for her to come next to him. Looking around, he took her arm cautiously as he led her into the woods to where Jaken was. There he was standing in front of a stump of a cut tree with a human arm on top of it.

Rin calmly took in the scene.

Sesshomaru stood by with his arm on the empty space upon the trunk. Jaken nodded his head in deep concentration. With a large dagger, Jaken cut into Sesshomaru's arm.
He knew exactly what he was doing because he had to do it for many years.

But not in front of Rin.
She had never seen this before and Sesshomaru looked away from her. Whether it was out of shame or to mask the pain, she couldn't tell for he always hid his feelings well.

To think that Sesshomaru would show her this side of him…
Gruesome as it was, she was happy.

"My strange girl," he said in endearment as he looked straight at her with blood dripping from his arm.

Rin reached out to him.

"Do not touch Sesshomaru-sama," Jaken had warned.

But it was of no use.
Sesshomaru, unwavered by now, reached out for her hand. She held it as Jaken sighed in frustration with his eyes still expressing the whole, "You always let her do as she pleases."

As Jaken placed the new arm into Sesshomaru, the latter slightly winced while a sweatdrop went down his cheek. Even his hand slightly squeezed Rin's.

He had wanted her to see something that showed a direct result of his pridefulness and his weakness. Sesshomaru explained, "Inuyasha had severed my arm, and my pride wouldn't ever forget that. My half-brother had defeated me for the first time, because I had underestimated him."
He looked deeply at Rin.

Maybe he had underestimated her at one time. Thinking she was foolish, only to find that she would be the one to show him the truth about life.

When the procedure was done, Jaken commented, "It was hard to find that."

Sesshomaru bowed his head. "Ah. As always."

Rin hugged Sesshomaru like when she was little. "Why don't you ever tell me when you're in pain too…?"

It was only then did she really understand him.
They were the same in this sense.

At this, Sesshomaru finally let go of her as he stood up straight, tall and elegant as he had always been. Only momentarily showing her a side of the moon that all humanity or demons couldn't ever see.
No one but she and Jaken.

She especially. For she was neither of these beings, and yet she infused both. Their child was the proof of that bond.

At that moment, as they stared at one another, Jaken put his fist towards his mouth and cleared his throat. "Ahem."

Rin laughed as she bowed and kissed Jaken on the forehead. "I'll see you later too?"

He cleared his throat again. "I'll be running back and forth between you two."

"As you had always been doing," Rin answered as she crossed her arms with a sigh and a knowing nod.

"You think he would let you go so easily? Or me?" he smirked as he pointed his staff towards Sesshomaru, who had raised an eyebrow comically.

Sesshomaru then took up Rin's hand and dropped a whistle. Clearing his own throat, he instructed, "If there is any trouble, use the whistle and I will come to you."

Rin blinked as she began to smile. "Always so full of surprises," she said to herself, but enough for Jaken and her beloved to hear her.

Turning around, Sesshomaru set out without another word.

"And I should be used to this, shouldn't I?" commented an exasperated Jaken who waved his staff back and forth shouting, "Hey, wait for me, Sesshomaru-sama! Sesshomaru-sama!"
At that, Rin went back to the village. As she entered, some looked at her strangely, for she had taken care of the bleeding youkai that had come last night. The one rumored to be the father of her child.
She did not care about these words. What was important was that things would be as 'normal' as they could possibly be.

Rin walked back to her dwelling and walked over to the opposite side of it to stand in front Kinnosuke's room. She looked at her stomach again and patted it.

It wasn't fair to any of them.

Besides, this was the tip of the iceberg. There would be more discrimination to come.
Maybe she had been away too long wandering to finally notice it.

That was what Sesshomaru had thought all this time in the back of his mind.
It made sense to her now.

Knock, knock.

"Kinnosuke?" she called to the door of his room. Her hand was still in mid-air when he opened the door for her.

She knew he'd be there. He was trying to hide the fact that he was fatigued, and she knew more than anyone what that entailed. To her, it was from experience and Sesshomaru's silence combined.

"Hello," he greeted as he politely nodded his head.

Awkwardly, she nodded her head as she walked to his table and sat on the opposite side of him. As he made her tea, she smiled as she bowed towards him. "Thank you for taking care of Sesshomaru-sama."

"So that is him, isn't it?" Kinnosuke said as he smiled with melancholy while trying to avoid her eyes.

She nodded with a shy smile. "Yes."

It was even more awkward to address Sesshomaru this way.

Kinnosuke said nothing else, knowing that his proposal was bound to be rejected. As he reached over to give her cup, Rin reached out to his hand and enveloped it with both of hers. Looking straight into his eyes, she honestly answered, "I wanted to say yes to you, Kinnosuke."

He blinked at her, shocked that she had even considered it at all.

"But it wouldn't be fair to you or myself," she continued while she held his hand firmly. "Sesshomaru is more to me than anyone would ever imagine. Despite his coldness, he was the warmest person to me, though he would never admit to that."

She began to laugh. "He scolded me all the time and I cried thinking I could never get anything right. Then, Jaken said, 'Brat, you have to learn that's just how he shows he cares.' So, from then on, I worried when he didn't say _anything_ to me."

Kinnosuke laughed as well. "My sister was that way too. She'd always yell to do one thing or another. Then, when she died, I realized that she had done the right thing. I realized that it must have been hard being a mother and a sister to me."

Rin finally let go and they spent the morning talking about their memories. Days that had passed so quickly, but could never be forgotten, as if they had just happened a few hours ago.
"Did you tell Rin everything?" Jaken asked as he looked up to Sesshomaru, who was looking grim, even for him.
He ended up answering his own question. "Guess not."

"Jaken, we must go towards the rebelling clans, but I must also find where my father died." Sesshomaru felt uneasy as he said this. "And somewhere else as well."

Jaken blinked at him, surprised that he had even shared his thoughts with him. "Well, the rebelling clans are all in one region to the north. But if you go, you may be too far from Rin if they start to attack again."

"I've been strolling back and forth. It takes two days for them to advance and retreat," he pondered aloud. "From every direction. You know this as well."

"That's the general consensus," Jaken agreed. "But that would mean you would still need a few hours if she ever used that whistle."

"Never mind that. Rin isn't to be concerned over." With slits for eyes, he simply said, "Anything that touches her will be shown no mercy."

"And he shows his true youkai side!" Jaken laughed as he walked with Sesshomaru towards the clans.

They were the clans that were on his father because he had gotten married to his mother. So, primarily, they were mostly his mother's clans. And after Sesshomaru broke the engagement to the current heir of the clan, they were stirring.
After many years, they had finally been able to do something about it. It was about pride, like the Rokujo lady from Genji Monogatari (the Tale of Genji) in which the Rokujo lady was destined to become the empress, but her husband had stepped down of his own accord. Therefore, she had lost her position and had become only of the high class once more.

Her pride, above all things, was hurt badly.
She would never forget.

Like her, Sesshomaru's former fiancée, was still bitter. What more that she was a vengeful youkai…

And to find that he had given his heart to nothing but a human girl?!
She wasn't going to sit down and take this lightly.
Sesshomaru walked toward a land that was in a state of unrest and his presence would add oil to the fire. What would he say this time? What could he say?

He wasn't wandering anymore because of Rin.
There was somewhere to go to. Someone to go home to.
As he passed by a rocky surface, he stopped walking. Bowing his head, Sesshomaru said in his head, "Please give me guidance, Father. I never asked you for anything, but I will ask you now to please provide me the course of action I should take.
"Rin will soon be giving birth and our child will be shunned from the world. The clans will rebel even more because of this. Theirs is just the first of many. I don't want to lose what you worked so hard to gather. "

At that, he looked up to the afternoon blue sky above him. At last, after all these years, he would ask, "Please forgive me for my ignorance about your relationship with Inuyasha's mother."

There was nothing else for him to say except that. Then again, that's how he and his father had always been. They had come to a mutual understanding that was unlike any youkai father and son.

A little part of him had been jealous that his father favored Inuyasha so much, but then he understood why after Rin began to carry his child.

The perfection of realizing their love through this child, and yet the constant worrying over this child not knowing where they would fit in the world because of that love.
When he began to walk again, Jaken wondered what his master was thinking, but said nothing. Knowing that the journey wouldn't get better from here, he was trying to brace himself for the fall that was soon to come.
"It doesn't matter where you belong," Sesshomaru thought to himself. "As long as you find where you want to be."

That would be the answer he would give the child. The eventual question that would come out of his or her lips.
It was the best that he could ever express, having wandered blindly for so long, only masking his strength with an iron face and an cold heart. When in reality, he was trying to find where he was going all these years.

Being mixed up of where he should have gone, where he could have been, and where he was going…

..all because of that girl Rin.

Because she had smiled at him.
Giving him hope.
Tsuzuku…
--
Author's note: I'm sorry for the hiatus, but I've been really really busy.

I wanted Rin to see a side of Sesshomaru that he had never wanted to show – the human part. The one that felt pain.
Ah…we are getting to the end finally, but not without the final conflict! As to how I will do this, I have no idea. I want it realistic, yet political in a way. I'm not very good at that though, so thank you very much for sticking out with me.

You guys have been an awesome group so far. I really do get a kick out of your comments because they're moody like Shuichi and me. Up and down. I'm glad that it's a range of things. I wanted this to be angsty, but warm at the same time.