This chapter is all one of Sesshomaru's dreams while's he's sleeping so its it first person. Anyway, I was just re-watching some of my dvds, and I got to the episode in their father's grave and I found it very ironic about how Sesshomaru was going on about Inu Yasha's and their father's weakness for humans, for later on Sesshomaru finds himself saving Rin! It just goes to tell you how much people can change.

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I was drifting, the cold expanse stretched out before me in the infinity of a vast darkness. It seemed as if I could feel nothing, not the touch of wind that stirred my hair around me in a tattered banner nor the caress of the empty darkness. It was all quiet, a deadly silence that I enjoyed. It all seemed to fit.

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Then as I stood there, letting the dark winds toy with my robes, as their silk slid against my skin, I realized that this must all be a dream. This cool soothing expanse was all, but a simple dream. It was naught but an infinitesimal wisp of desire, a place of healing to escape from the ache of my body.

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Another thought crossed over my blessedly vacant mind. If I was dreaming than I must be sleeping. That did not bode well for me because that meant that I was indubitably vulnerable. My demon senses were telling me to rise from this absurd dream and feign a half sleep to recover my strength. Most of my nights had never included sleep as it was, for to sleep was to expose oneself and show that one is comfortable and trusting in their surroundings. I was never one to trust anyone with anything, much less my life.

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Still another part of me wanted to stay in this vacant world where I did not have to have constant vigilance and cunning. This was a place where nothing mattered and nothing was to observe or battle for there simply was 'nothing'. My cold heart could find plenty of rest in the loneliness and solitude of this hidden dream world. Somehow it fitted a callous, hard- hearted demon lord such as myself and I found it quite to my liking.

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Much to my annoyance I find that something else has invaded my cool presence deep within myself, something warm and loving, something....human. My nose wrinkles with disgust as I smell its stench roll through the air. How dare a mere human invade my place of sanctuary?

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Floating through the air, the sickeningly sweet smell of flowers grows stronger as she approaches. I'm trying to understand how she got here...what she is doing here...of all the people....why would she come? Why Rin?

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"Sesshomaru-sama...." Her voice calls out softly with that bright smile on her face that I have grown so used to of late. My demon blood calls me to recoil from her worthlessness, but for some reason I do not. I simply stand there watching as she approaches.

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What an odd dream I am having, such a strange strange dream. As she slowly reaches out one of her pale small hands to me, so weak, so feeble, and touches my cheek delicately I shiver with an understanding that I seem to only half comprehend. Why in my dreams would I let her touch me, much less have this feeling of desire at such a thing?

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Shivers are racking my body that was once so calm before. Distain fills me. Why such a reaction at the touch of a pathetic human...even if it is...Rin?

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It seems that my dream wavers and I am tossed into memories, recollections that stir up from that single touch. All those moments of my life I spent with her, all the times I tolerated her, and yet seemed to need her at the same time.

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"You were always such a fool...even when I first met you...why did you stay with me? Why did you follow me?"

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Her face swims in front of my vision, as the child she had once been, so small and frail and I admit with a smile, even ugly. But how she had grown since I first met her on that day I was bested by my annoying half-breed brother!

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Even my demon heart must admit how beautiful she has grown right before my eyes. Each day as I taught her what she needed to know, patiently guided her when I thought I was going to lose my mind, I grew more accustomed to having her near, somehow growing to need that. As her body turned from that of a child to that of a young woman I found myself thinking of her in ways that I knew I shouldn't, but I could not stop myself. She had truly developed into a beauty from that which I knew no other

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So I lavished her with gifts while pretending that they were simply trinkets that I was tossing away. Most of them were the expensive silk kimonos that appeared silently in her room when I was feeling in a good mood, or the mysterious jeweled necklace that she had found around her neck when she woke on the morning of her sixteenth birthday. Still I did not acknowledge why I was treating her in such a way, as though she was my own daughter or in some cases, my lover when she was only a wretched human girl.

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So here I am in this strange dream or memory, which I can no longer tell, forced to relive my life with Rin. As I see all these things pass before me, everything seems to become suddenly clear as though a fog that had been clogging my mind had suddenly risen and I came to an astounding conclusion. The demon blood within me boiled and protested at the mere thought, but I could no longer evade or hide from it...I was in love with Rin....