A/N: As always, thanks for all the wonderful reviews. I am truly amazed by
the number of people saying things like "I just found your story today, and
I read the whole thing in X amount of time." I am very flattered. I
wasn't aware this was such a page turner.
Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.
Synthetic Emotions
When Sesshomaru arrived at the gates to the Nakamura house, he still didn't know what he would do about Rin and her father. He didn't know precisely what he could do. The changes in his code had only just stopped writing themselves. The consequences of those changes were still at least partly unknown to him.
He knew he had been able to attack the hanyou when he should not have. He should not have been able to fight with Inuyasha unless he was a threat, but Sesshomaru had been the aggressor. He had used an energy weapon as well, something which should never have even been installed on a privately owned youkai.
But he hadn't been able to hurt the girl when she moved to take a blow in Inuyasha's place. He hadn't been able to kill her, and he didn't know why. It wasn't that he wanted to hurt the girl, but she shouldn't have mattered. He didn't care about her one way or another.
As point of fact, he wasn't even sure why he had attacked the hanyou save that Inuyasha seemed to. . . agitate him.
Sesshomaru shook his head minutely. He was weaving himself a net of words with this thinking. He was a youkai. He could not want. He could not care. He could not be irritated by his maker's last, meaningless creation.
But he did, and he was. He was irritated by Inuyasha, and while he did not care about the girl who owned him, he still wondered about why he had not killed her when he could have. And he still needed to figure out what to do about Rin.
Oddly, Ryoko no longer seemed to enter the equation at all. When Tenseiga had activated, it had removed the last vestiges of obligation toward the woman. Only Rin mattered, and Nakamura Kyosuke because he had hurt her, and would hurt her again if allowed.
He was concerned for the girl.
'Leave it to Taisho to drive his creations mad with a limited vocabulary,' Sesshomaru thought and felt his mouth twitch toward a smile. He should not be 'concerned,' and yet, what other word was there which ought to be applicable to a youkai?
Sesshomaru finally gave up on waiting and jumped lightly over the gate. A few of the security youkai monitored his passing, but since he was allowed here, they didn't set off any alarms. He walked by them, making his way slowly toward the door. He could have moved quicker, but this pace gave him a few more moments to think over what he would do.
'I could leave,' he thought, 'and take the girl with me.' It wasn't a bad idea, but what then? Once the girl was safe, would he leave her? Something inside of him rebelled at the thought. What would he do without a mistress? And how would the girl take care of herself? She was too young to get a real job, and if she was found, the authorities would just return her to this place and her lawful guardians.
He felt a twinge of revulsion at the thought of Nakamura. What kind of man did these things? What kind of man let his wife die a slow death from substance abuse and raped his daughter? There were youkai he could buy if he felt the need to vent his frustration on someone, or if he just wanted a convenient body to fuck.
But if he stayed with the girl, what would he do then? His experience was sadly limited in most respects, and if there was a way for him to support the pair of them, Sesshomaru was not aware of it.
He opened the door and padded up the stairs. He could hear the television in the living room, playing some sports program from the sound of it. A man was rehashing the events of a soccer game in Europe earlier that day. He could also hear snoring, which he assumed was Nakamura himself.
Leaving, however, seemed like the best choice. Indeed, it seemed like the only choice. As long as Rin was with her family, she was in danger. The only way around it was to removed her from the situation.
Now he just needed to figure out where they would go, and how he was to take care of a human girl without any income.
Sesshomaru opened the door to his room and was surprised to find Rin on the bed, sleeping soundly.
*~*~*
Sango got home well after dark. She was sore, tired, and her brain felt like something the relative consistency of cottage cheese. Whether that was from the sedative she'd been given, or just because it had been a very long, very tiring day, she couldn't even begin to guess. All she knew was that bed was calling like never before, and anything else would just have to wait until morning.
The young woman stumbled through her before bed ritual in a daze, and fell onto her mattress face down in an oversized tee shirt. After a few moments, she crawled under her blankets and rolled onto her side.
She had every right to be tired. Her day had started out with a protest, climaxed with a rogue youkai attack, and ended in a conversation that had seemed specifically designed to give her a head ache. Oh, and there was still the drugs. Mustn't forget the horse tranquilizer that those nurses had given her.
And there was Kohaku.
It couldn't have been him. He was dead, and, she hoped, peacefully so. What Sango had thought she saw at the protest this morning didn't change that. Perhaps it was just someone else who resembled her brother, or perhaps it had just been a figment of her imagination. Gods knew, she wanted him alive enough to see him places.
Kagome had tried to help her when she followed her brother's fetch. She had commanded her youkai to fight the rogue--her hanyou, Miroku had explained that part after the younger girl had left. Inuyasha had been damaged in doing so.
Sango almost found herself feeling guilty over that. She knew that Inuyasha was a machine, and a mistake at that, but it was. . . it was just easy to forget that when she was around him. There was something very convincing about him. Actually, Shippo had seemed more real than a youkai ought to as well. Perhaps it wasn't the youkai themselves, but the owner that made them seem so different. Kagome behaved as if the two of them were real.
Who ever heard of someone arguing with a Companion youkai before? Even if he was a hanyou. Sango didn't know much about hanyou, but she was familiar with the attempts. To the best of her knowledge, none of them had been particularly successful. Well, excepting Inuyasha, now.
"Why am I not sleeping?" Sango asked her pillow. Her sluggish brain plodded on though, despite her best wishes that it shut up and let her get some sleep.
Miroku was a mystery as well. How could a man who professed to have a youkai trying to kill him act like he did? With a story like his, she would have expected him to be on her side. She had asked him as much before she left.
"People can be dangerous, too," the young man had said philosophically. "I think most people have a better chance of being murdered for their wallet than being killed by a rogue youkai. Still, I'm not anti-humanity."
"But most humans can't rip your arms off and beat you to death with them," Sango had returned tartly. "Most humans don't have claws, and can't crush your skull with their bare hands."
"No, they can't," Miroku agreed. "They have to buy a gun, or a switchblade, or use a baseball bat. But they manage all the same." Sango had the distinct, unpleasant suspicion she had come out behind in that discussion. What's more, it had planted a seed she didn't really want to consider.
What if the lech was right?
Sango hid her head under the covers and tried to pretend she wasn't still awake. She failed.
Finally, she gave up and got out of bed, fumbling for her slippers in the dark. Standing, she wondered ruefully how it was that she could be dead tired until she lay down, then suddenly her fuddled brain would wake up and start thinking about the most inconvenient things, dredging up memories from before, when her father had been alive and she hadn't had the same opinions she had as an adult.
She walked quietly even though there was no one to wake up, and pulled down the slide ladder to the attic. The dust that wafted down made her sneeze. Sango rubbed her nose and climbed up.
She hadn't come up here in more than two years. Not since her family had been killed, but she remembered where everything was as though it had only been a few weeks. She had played with her brother up here as a child, and the two of them had gotten in trouble for it more than once.
The young woman found what she was looking for in one corner, under the slopping roof beams. It was a little white container, about the size of a mini-cooler, with the Inutaiyoukai emblem in relief on the plastic. It was a storage unit for small youkai, like Shippo. Sango's fingers slid over the grimy plastic, finding a button near the bottom in back. It pressed in with a soft 'snick,' unlocking the unit. Hesitantly she lifted the lid.
Curled up inside was a small, rather feline youkai covered in pale cream colored fur striped with black. Her large eyes were closed as though she were sleeping, and the tips of her two tails covered her nose. She was just like Sango remembered her.
The girl swallowed a lump in her throat, letting her hands travel down to stroke to still youkai. She was just as soft as she had been when Sango had played with her as a child.
After what happened, she hadn't been able to keep Kirara around, no matter how much the little youkai cat seemed to sympathize with her depression. Sango had to deactivate her, but she hadn't quite been able to bring herself to throw her out. She hadn't sold her, and she couldn't scrap her.
'It's just sentimental value,' Sango told herself firmly. 'That's all.'
She gave Kirara one last pat before closing the unit again and going back to bed.
*~*~*
A/N: Okay, I'm sorry that this chapter is a little short, but there were only two scenes that could come next, and both of them were way too long. But hey, I worked in Kirara! The thanks for that one goes to my reviewers entirely. It became obvious that you guys missed her, and a few of you were kind enough to give me suggestions on how to work her in.
Until next time.
Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.
Synthetic Emotions
When Sesshomaru arrived at the gates to the Nakamura house, he still didn't know what he would do about Rin and her father. He didn't know precisely what he could do. The changes in his code had only just stopped writing themselves. The consequences of those changes were still at least partly unknown to him.
He knew he had been able to attack the hanyou when he should not have. He should not have been able to fight with Inuyasha unless he was a threat, but Sesshomaru had been the aggressor. He had used an energy weapon as well, something which should never have even been installed on a privately owned youkai.
But he hadn't been able to hurt the girl when she moved to take a blow in Inuyasha's place. He hadn't been able to kill her, and he didn't know why. It wasn't that he wanted to hurt the girl, but she shouldn't have mattered. He didn't care about her one way or another.
As point of fact, he wasn't even sure why he had attacked the hanyou save that Inuyasha seemed to. . . agitate him.
Sesshomaru shook his head minutely. He was weaving himself a net of words with this thinking. He was a youkai. He could not want. He could not care. He could not be irritated by his maker's last, meaningless creation.
But he did, and he was. He was irritated by Inuyasha, and while he did not care about the girl who owned him, he still wondered about why he had not killed her when he could have. And he still needed to figure out what to do about Rin.
Oddly, Ryoko no longer seemed to enter the equation at all. When Tenseiga had activated, it had removed the last vestiges of obligation toward the woman. Only Rin mattered, and Nakamura Kyosuke because he had hurt her, and would hurt her again if allowed.
He was concerned for the girl.
'Leave it to Taisho to drive his creations mad with a limited vocabulary,' Sesshomaru thought and felt his mouth twitch toward a smile. He should not be 'concerned,' and yet, what other word was there which ought to be applicable to a youkai?
Sesshomaru finally gave up on waiting and jumped lightly over the gate. A few of the security youkai monitored his passing, but since he was allowed here, they didn't set off any alarms. He walked by them, making his way slowly toward the door. He could have moved quicker, but this pace gave him a few more moments to think over what he would do.
'I could leave,' he thought, 'and take the girl with me.' It wasn't a bad idea, but what then? Once the girl was safe, would he leave her? Something inside of him rebelled at the thought. What would he do without a mistress? And how would the girl take care of herself? She was too young to get a real job, and if she was found, the authorities would just return her to this place and her lawful guardians.
He felt a twinge of revulsion at the thought of Nakamura. What kind of man did these things? What kind of man let his wife die a slow death from substance abuse and raped his daughter? There were youkai he could buy if he felt the need to vent his frustration on someone, or if he just wanted a convenient body to fuck.
But if he stayed with the girl, what would he do then? His experience was sadly limited in most respects, and if there was a way for him to support the pair of them, Sesshomaru was not aware of it.
He opened the door and padded up the stairs. He could hear the television in the living room, playing some sports program from the sound of it. A man was rehashing the events of a soccer game in Europe earlier that day. He could also hear snoring, which he assumed was Nakamura himself.
Leaving, however, seemed like the best choice. Indeed, it seemed like the only choice. As long as Rin was with her family, she was in danger. The only way around it was to removed her from the situation.
Now he just needed to figure out where they would go, and how he was to take care of a human girl without any income.
Sesshomaru opened the door to his room and was surprised to find Rin on the bed, sleeping soundly.
*~*~*
Sango got home well after dark. She was sore, tired, and her brain felt like something the relative consistency of cottage cheese. Whether that was from the sedative she'd been given, or just because it had been a very long, very tiring day, she couldn't even begin to guess. All she knew was that bed was calling like never before, and anything else would just have to wait until morning.
The young woman stumbled through her before bed ritual in a daze, and fell onto her mattress face down in an oversized tee shirt. After a few moments, she crawled under her blankets and rolled onto her side.
She had every right to be tired. Her day had started out with a protest, climaxed with a rogue youkai attack, and ended in a conversation that had seemed specifically designed to give her a head ache. Oh, and there was still the drugs. Mustn't forget the horse tranquilizer that those nurses had given her.
And there was Kohaku.
It couldn't have been him. He was dead, and, she hoped, peacefully so. What Sango had thought she saw at the protest this morning didn't change that. Perhaps it was just someone else who resembled her brother, or perhaps it had just been a figment of her imagination. Gods knew, she wanted him alive enough to see him places.
Kagome had tried to help her when she followed her brother's fetch. She had commanded her youkai to fight the rogue--her hanyou, Miroku had explained that part after the younger girl had left. Inuyasha had been damaged in doing so.
Sango almost found herself feeling guilty over that. She knew that Inuyasha was a machine, and a mistake at that, but it was. . . it was just easy to forget that when she was around him. There was something very convincing about him. Actually, Shippo had seemed more real than a youkai ought to as well. Perhaps it wasn't the youkai themselves, but the owner that made them seem so different. Kagome behaved as if the two of them were real.
Who ever heard of someone arguing with a Companion youkai before? Even if he was a hanyou. Sango didn't know much about hanyou, but she was familiar with the attempts. To the best of her knowledge, none of them had been particularly successful. Well, excepting Inuyasha, now.
"Why am I not sleeping?" Sango asked her pillow. Her sluggish brain plodded on though, despite her best wishes that it shut up and let her get some sleep.
Miroku was a mystery as well. How could a man who professed to have a youkai trying to kill him act like he did? With a story like his, she would have expected him to be on her side. She had asked him as much before she left.
"People can be dangerous, too," the young man had said philosophically. "I think most people have a better chance of being murdered for their wallet than being killed by a rogue youkai. Still, I'm not anti-humanity."
"But most humans can't rip your arms off and beat you to death with them," Sango had returned tartly. "Most humans don't have claws, and can't crush your skull with their bare hands."
"No, they can't," Miroku agreed. "They have to buy a gun, or a switchblade, or use a baseball bat. But they manage all the same." Sango had the distinct, unpleasant suspicion she had come out behind in that discussion. What's more, it had planted a seed she didn't really want to consider.
What if the lech was right?
Sango hid her head under the covers and tried to pretend she wasn't still awake. She failed.
Finally, she gave up and got out of bed, fumbling for her slippers in the dark. Standing, she wondered ruefully how it was that she could be dead tired until she lay down, then suddenly her fuddled brain would wake up and start thinking about the most inconvenient things, dredging up memories from before, when her father had been alive and she hadn't had the same opinions she had as an adult.
She walked quietly even though there was no one to wake up, and pulled down the slide ladder to the attic. The dust that wafted down made her sneeze. Sango rubbed her nose and climbed up.
She hadn't come up here in more than two years. Not since her family had been killed, but she remembered where everything was as though it had only been a few weeks. She had played with her brother up here as a child, and the two of them had gotten in trouble for it more than once.
The young woman found what she was looking for in one corner, under the slopping roof beams. It was a little white container, about the size of a mini-cooler, with the Inutaiyoukai emblem in relief on the plastic. It was a storage unit for small youkai, like Shippo. Sango's fingers slid over the grimy plastic, finding a button near the bottom in back. It pressed in with a soft 'snick,' unlocking the unit. Hesitantly she lifted the lid.
Curled up inside was a small, rather feline youkai covered in pale cream colored fur striped with black. Her large eyes were closed as though she were sleeping, and the tips of her two tails covered her nose. She was just like Sango remembered her.
The girl swallowed a lump in her throat, letting her hands travel down to stroke to still youkai. She was just as soft as she had been when Sango had played with her as a child.
After what happened, she hadn't been able to keep Kirara around, no matter how much the little youkai cat seemed to sympathize with her depression. Sango had to deactivate her, but she hadn't quite been able to bring herself to throw her out. She hadn't sold her, and she couldn't scrap her.
'It's just sentimental value,' Sango told herself firmly. 'That's all.'
She gave Kirara one last pat before closing the unit again and going back to bed.
*~*~*
A/N: Okay, I'm sorry that this chapter is a little short, but there were only two scenes that could come next, and both of them were way too long. But hey, I worked in Kirara! The thanks for that one goes to my reviewers entirely. It became obvious that you guys missed her, and a few of you were kind enough to give me suggestions on how to work her in.
Until next time.