Disclaimer: I do not hold any rights to Inuyasha in any form or way, nor do I make any profit out of writing this fic.
Reviews: Once again, thank you all wonderful people who reviewed the last chapter, you all probably know how great it feels to have your story reviewed, but let me say it again, it does! :D I'm very glad that so far the progress is to your liking, and I hope you will like the rest too!
And as for the specifics:
VAB: I agree, Sesshoumaru is very self-assured and arrogant, not to mention extremely egocentrical, but this is exactly why the knowledge would shake him. His conviction of his own superiority is to a significant extent based on the fact that he is a youkai, a powerful one at that, and thus above all others. He perceives the world as inhabited by youkai, and infested with humans, so naturally the idea that the youkai world – the world that lasted for as long as his knowledge can reach and one that to his eyes is the only right kind of world – was to just cease to exist before he could even leave his mark on it, would undoubtedly capture his attention.
Another thing here is that from his perspective a few centuries is not that long, after all, he spent over a century searching for a stupid sword ;) So imagine yourself being an egocentrical 20 year old who is told that he has only 10 more years to live and thus all his plans had just gone void. I'm pretty sure that there are not many beings who would take such news calmly.
As to why he accepts it as inevitable – I'm not really sure why, yet Sesshoumaru strikes me as a bit of a fatalist, not in relation to what he can and cannot do, but in relation to the general ways of the world and 'happy endings'. Moreover, he is undoubtedly of analytical mind, and usually seems to follow through with logic.
But overall, I do agree that the issue can be questionable, and the fic probably could've done without it. I just found it interesting when watching Inuyasha, and it will be useful later on in the fic.
SusanneTJ: I do know what you mean, the consequences of time travel are usually confusing, and even more so in Inuyasha since here it's mostly used as an excuse for an adventure, without any deep plot on time travel underneath. But since I indeed won't focus too much on that, and I think I solved most issues that will appear later on, this fic will hopefully manage to avoid any gross miscalculations. :)
Note: The first part of the fic and the 'hair issue' is just an attempt at some general humor, to be taken lightly. I was still trying to keep Sesshoumaru in character, so I hope it will be acceptable, but if not, just ignore it, it's not relevant to the story. As for Sesshoumaru's decision, it's a classic of Rin/Sess stories,and here tooit will mostly serve for introducing more of his past.
Since I watch only the Japanese version and prefer to use the Japanese terminology, there are language notes at the end of the chapter.
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Chapter 4
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"It's reaching the sash already!" Rin's cheerful voice carried through the woods.
"Nah, it only seems so coz he keeps moving his head," Shippou might've been smaller than Rin, but his eyes were without a doubt much keener.
"Sesshoumaru-sama, don't move your head!"
Sesshoumaru was not having a good day. There he was, walking on as usual, the sun was there as usual, the forest was there as usual, everything was there as usual, so everything should've been just fine. But there were also two children, right behind him, almost tripping on him, and they were staring at him so intently that he could swear their eyes were burning holes through his back. And they also happened to be the children he wouldn't kill.
And yet the day started normally, nothing forecasted his impeding torture. Rin and Shippou laughed and run about as usual, Myouga snored as usual and Jakken grumbled as usual. And when midday came, they made a stop as usual, the young ones run off in search of food as usual, and when they came back, that was when the whole issue that led to his current situation had started.
They spotted some caves in the hills nearby and there were what they thought to be bear tracks and bear smell nearby. Since neither of them had ever seen a bear, which was not unexpected as the animals were rare in those parts, they both wanted to inspect the caves a bit closer. Fortunately, and quite surprisingly, they had enough brains to know that it might not be the best idea for two small children to enter a bear den. So they came back and asked him to go with them.
At first he had no intention to agree. Running around the forest with two children in search of bears was not high on is priorities list. And yet he agreed in the end, mostly because he approved of the direction Rin's development was taking ever since the fox child and Myouga chanced upon them. It had been a few months, five actually, since the two joined them and although he had assumed before that she was as alright as a child can be, he discovered that it had not been the case. Apparently children needed each other's company, they needed to play together in their childish games, to talk about their childish issues and to have 'friends'. It was a simple truth that he had forgotten, or perhaps had never known since his own childhood had been somewhat different. The company of two adult youkai was not the same, especially since neither had any experience with children.
And during the past five months Rin had become much more open, inquisitive and vivacious, although he had previously thought her to have enough of those qualities. Yet... it wasn't the same. Before, she would just observe the world, she wasn't a part of it. She accepted everything as it was, be it flowers or bugs, hardly ever reaching abroader perspective or displaying inquisitiveness, yet now she wanted to know and learn everything. She used to take care of herself, and tried to take care of others, but it wasn't because she wanted to be self-dependent, but rather because being alone was the only state of being she had known.
He had realized the change a few weeks prior, while watching the two play, and had been quite astounded that without paying it any particular attention he managed to perceive such subtle a difference. And he also realized then, that whatever was to happen to her in the future, whatever direction her life would take, those qualities would serve her well.
And thus, not wanting to discourage a child that was only trying to learn more about the world around her, he agreed to go to the bear den.
And it was an educational experience for the two. After entering the cave, they quickly spotted the bear that had probably chosen that particular niche for his upcoming winter sleep. It was not pleased with the visit, but a quick glare silenced it abruptly and the young ones spent some time observing every detail of the animal and exchanging comments. Yet, after that time, the bear had enough of the attention and rising to its hind legs, roared very loudly. As luck would have it, the animal had to be not of the most intelligent bears, because the cave it had chosen was not entirely stable. Which they found out when rocks, large and small, started to rain down on them.
That wasn't much of a problem however. He quickly grabbed the two and sped out of the cave before any lasting damage had been dealt. Unfortunately, be it because he had been too slow, or just because of bad luck, when he made his way out, he discovered he couldn't take another step without being yanked on the head, rather roughly. His hair had been very securely caught in between the falling rocks that covered the entrance, and he couldn't pull it out without feeling that the skin on his head would come off too. It had happened to him before, so he did what he would always do in such situations – after setting the two down, he reached back and cut off his hair close to his neck. After that, he was ready to leave the place, especially since the bear was still roaring inside and more rocks were threatening to fall, but a strange whimpering sound coming from the direction of his feet caught his ears.
Looking down, he realized that Rin was the source of the noises. She was sitting on the ground just as he had placed her and her bottom lip was wobbling. It was an odd sight, and something she had never done before so he was observing the phenomenon quietly until her eyes filled with tears, and that as always made him somewhatuncomfortable.
"Rin?", he asked hoping to resolve the matter quickly.
She just kept whimpering at first, but then pointed to his head and piped out, "Sesshoumaru-sama's hair...".
Yes, he cut off his hair. It was the only thing to be done in such a situation.
"What about it?" He really hoped she had some rational explanation for her behavior, rather than something he'd never understand.
But instead of replying at once, she got up, run towards the hair that was still caught in between the rocks and fingered it.
"Sesshoumaru-sama's pretty hair..." She said sadly.
And then he comprehended what was on her mind. She was sad because he cut off the hair that she happened to like for some reason, and because she didn't know about the true nature of his physical appearance.
"It will grow back," he informed her and realized it probably wasn't enough, "within hours."
She looked back to him, surprised. "It will...?"
That was what he just said, wasn't it?
"Really?"
"Yes," he confirmed since it seemed she really needed to be sure.
She broke into a wide happy smile and he was yet again surprised how easily she went from tears to joy. Considering the matter closed, he turned to leave, but the child was still not done with his hair. She was yanking on the strands caught in between the rocks, trying to pull them out. He felt slightly annoyed. Didn't she realize that pulling it out would most likely loosen the rocks, thus releasing the bear that was still inside and right in front of her?
"Rin." She had better let it go.
But she just gave him a sheepish grin and kept yanking. He considered telling her that he would cut off his hair again when it grew back, and give her a whole length of it since she wanted it bad enough to risk her life for it, but found there was a quicker method. He scooped the child up, told her to hold on, and pulled the hair out himself, an easy task now that it was no longer attached to his head.
After that he quickly made his way away from the cave, before the bear rampaged out. Rin promptly grabbed the strands from his grasp when he let her down, with an even wider smile than before, and they went back, on the way picking up the grinning kitsune who had been watching them from the edge of the forest. At least he had been smart enough to run away instead of worrying about somebody's hair.
And that brought him to his current position. The two were trailing right behind him, as close as can be, and were counting how fast his hair was growing. They would even tell him not to move his head too much, because it made them loose track of how far against his back his hair was reaching already. Not only was their constant proximity annoying, but he also kept feeling that he was about to trip on one of them, any moment now. And it had been going on for what seemed like an eternity. And he didn't know how to make them stop. Killing wasn't an option, neither was tossing and he wasn't sure if glaring would be enough, not to mention that glaring at Rin always seemed to him to be wrong by principle. He had even considered taking another stop somewhere, sitting down and allowing them to count all they wanted, but he was too annoyed for it.
In the end, when his patience reached its end, he did opt for glaring down at them, hoping it would indeedbe enough since it was the only non-violentplan he had. It seemed to have worked, for good he assumed, as they even took a step back.
"I warned you it wasn't a good idea." Myouga spoke up from somewhere on Shippou. "And it's half a foot every hour."
Great, so even Myouga was in for the fun. He wouldn't have been surprised if Jakken was counting too, especially since when he had returned to the clearing and Jakken saw that his master's hair was hardly reaching past his ears, he let out a strange squawk and Sesshoumaru half expected to see his bottom lip wobble too.
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Rin was lying on the grass and braiding the thick strands of Sesshoumaru-sama's white hair she managed to obtain that day. She was planning to keep it, she would stuck it on Aun's pack and that way, whenever Sesshoumaru-sama went away to somewhere, she would still have a part of him with her. And it was so pretty. She had always admired Sesshoumaru-sama's hair, it was so different from any other kind of hair she had ever seen. She remembered that once, she even ventured to touch it, when Sesshoumaru-sama was sitting down and seemed in a good mood. She wasn't sure how he would react to her doing that, so she moved closer to him cautiously and looking at him intently for any reaction reached for a loose strand of his hair that was resting on his shoulder. Sesshoumaru-sama didn't say anything, just looked at her strangely, so she took it to mean it was okay and inspected it fully. It was smooth and silky to touch, and yet surprisingly heavy. She wondered if Sesshoumaru-sama ever felt that it was weighting him down.
She finished the braid and inspected her work. She had tied the hair with some grass at the top and the bottom, and that seemed good enough, but the braid itself was a bit crooked in places and she regretted she had never learnt how to do it properly. Still, it had to do. She fingered the braid thoughtfully, remembering something she was supposed to find out but forgot. Some time ago, it was during summer, when Sesshoumaru-sama got her the new special kimono and they went to see the spider woman, she figured out that Sesshoumaru-sama had to have some other form too, and that it was probably that of a dog since he was an inu-youkai. She had wondered then what kind of a dog was he, and now, when she was holding some of his white hair, it occurred to her that maybe he was a white dog.
She glanced at him thoughtfully. He was sitting nearby, with his white hair already grown back and looking the same as it always did. She focused, trying to imagine him as a white dog and came up with many images of various dogs she had seen in her life, only white, yet none seemed satisfactory. She wondered if it would be okay if she asked him to change for her. But there was some vague memory in her mind, related to the spider woman. Rin frowned, remembering. That's right, the woman changed into a human form because of her. So maybe other forms of youkai were some kind of a private thing, and it shouldn't be shown to others. Then, she decided, she would ask Shippou-chan and Myouga-sama about it, they were youkai too so they should know. She would've asked Jakken, but he would probably just tell her off for asking stupid questions and wanting to bother Sesshoumaru-sama.
Sesshoumaru was eyeing Rin as she was first braiding his cut-off hair and then playing with it thoughtfully. He couldn't really understand what her attraction to his hair was. Yes, he supposed, he had fine hair in terms of hair quality, but to him it had always been more of an annoyance than anything else. It would so often become saturated with some foul smell, be it the smell of Rin's fried fish, Naraku's miasma or his brother's stench, and it was too heavy to be pulled back, whenever he tried it he always felt as if he was being yanked back all the time. He didn't mind it being traditionally long, but it could've been a bit shorter, as far as he was concerned. The best option then seemed to cut it, but since its length and shape were determined by his youki, cutting it was pointless, every time he did so, it would swiftly return to its previous state. With the speed of half a foot every hour, his mind appended grumpily.
He frowned, remembering how the two were trying to establish the speed of his hair's growth. They would measure it against his back and then ask Myouga how much time had passed. At first they also tried to count to measure time, but it quickly turned out that neither was an expert on counting, to say the very least. Rin could count to ten, but then she would jumble up the numbers and eventually start all over. He doubted if she even understood that counting was based on tens. Shippou was a little better, but not by much. He wondered whether it was because they were still too young to learn. But no, they had no problems with understanding that speed was related to distance and time. Then it could be only because they had never learnt.
"Rin," he asked, as a sudden thought occurred to him, "can you read and write?"
Rin looked at him, surprised. Read and write...? Her brow knitted in effort, as she was trying to understand what Sesshoumaru-sama meant. Some distant memory of her parents talking about asking somebody to write something for them stirred in her mind. She remembered asking her mother what it meant to write and her mother made some strange marks in the sand in front of the hut and said that it read 'Rin'. She also said that it was higarana... no, not like that, but it sounded similar, and then she added that they needed to have it written in... kanji?
"No," she answered tentatively.
Sesshoumaru already suspected that much from the long time it took her to answer. Did she even know what it meant...? Probably not, he thought, recalling what he had learnt about her life from listening on her talking to Jakken. She was an orphan, her parents and brother were killed by bandits a few years back and then she lived in a human village as a 'nobody's child'. She had been mute, ragged and filthy, and he if he remembered correctly, she had even gotten beaten up by the villagers because she tried to get him food, food he neither needed nor wanted.
He frowned. That was the world of the humans, wasn't it. And then they would dub him as evil and try to purify him on sight. 'Purify', huh? As if he had been in some way 'dirty' or they were bearers of a 'light'. And yet they were after all the future while he was the past. He frowned again, displeased with himself for returning to that thought. It had been months since he had discovered that in the future, youkai would have disappeared giving place to humans. At first it played on his mind constantly, and he tussled around trapped within it, forever angry and frustrated. But he soon learnt how dangerous the knowledge truly was. From the perspective of the future, all his actions were meaningless, he was meaningless. Whatever he did or didn't do, it would have no impact whatsoever on the future, it would mean nothing at all.
He sighed inwardly, looking up to the darkening skies above him. Even now, as the clouds above kept floating past him like sand grains in an hour-glass, he was still following his previous course, his life's objective. He was headed north, to check the rumors of a sword smith there, a sword-smith that could potentially provide him with a decent sword at last. It's not that Toukijin was not a good sword, he noted, glancing down and the cursed weapon, but, it was just an oni's fangs, as he had discovered many times. Yet... what did it matter whether he had a proper sword or not. Even if he obtained the best sword ever forged, it would not cut down the future. And no matter how hard he fought to obliterate the awareness of his fate from his mind, it was forever there, flaunting its certainty into his face, taunting him with its inevitability.
Gazing up again to the stars blooming around the pale moon he thought of his life and of all the unexpected turns it seemed to be taking lately.
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By the morning he had reached a decision, and instead of following his course north, he turned around to return to the south. Unsurprisingly, it did not pass unnoticed by the others.
"Sesshoumaru-sama?" Jakken began, as always forgetting his own lectures on not questioning the master, "Anou... why are we going back?"
Sesshoumaru glanced at them as they were all looking up to him expectantly. Yes, he supposed telling them of their destination in advance could save him many questions once they got there, since Myouga would undoubtedly inform them of all they needed to know.
"We are going to the Western Lands, to my Father's shiro." He announced evenly and went on his way again.
"Nani?" Jakken mumbled, his beak loose out of surprise. He had been there before, Sesshoumaru-sama usually returned to his father's lands every few decades, but Jakken clearly remembered that they had just been there some ten or so years ago. So why would Sesshoumaru-sama want to go back to the shiro so early...?
Shippou and Rin were equally surprised, although for other reasons, and promptly started prodding Myouga to tell them everything he knew about it. Seeing that he had little choice but to oblige them, and guessing that it was Sesshoumaru-sama's intent to begin with, Myouga set out to educate the two young ones on Sesshoumaru-sama and Inuyasha-sama's origin.
They were the sons of Touga-sama, the great taiyoukai of the West, who had united a part of the land in the west under his rule, defeating the local human daimyous and rouge youkai, many centuries ago. Touga-sama believed that youkai and humans should live in peace, as they were both equal parts of the world, and conducted his lands accordingly. To honor the human traditions, he had a shiro built in the land, even though it had not been in habit for most inu-youkai to dwell anywhere permanently. In time, the Western Lands became known as the land of the youkai, yet one where humans could still live peacefully, more peacefully than in other parts of the country that was forever torn by wars.
Touga-sama was not only a great taiyoukai and the daimyou of the Western Lands however, he was also the Inu no Taishou, the Leader of the Dogs, the Oyakata-sama of the inu-youkai pack. Although inu-youkai were not as territorial and close-knit as for example the wolf youkai, nevertheless they tended to form packs, linked together by chains of family relations and co-dependencies. And many inu-youkai chose to follow Touga-sama into the Western Lands and to settle there permanently, even if some did not agree with his views on humans.
Yet, the Western Lands under Touga-sama's rule lasted only for approximately 400 years. Around 200 years ago, Touga-sama had died, due to the wounds he received from his old enemy, the dragon taiyoukai Ryuukotsusei. Although it had been expected that his position would be taken over by his eldest son, Sesshoumaru, who – like his father before his birth – was the only inu taiyoukai of the lands, the only reminder of the line of youkai who for many generations, and thousands of years, had been considered to be the Inukami, Dog Gods, it did not happen so. Sesshoumaru-sama left his father's domain and had been wandering around the lands of Japan ever since.
But most of the inu-youkai remained in the Western Lands, in hope that Sesshoumaru-sama would return there one day, to accept his heritage. After all, he had been still a boy when his father died, and young ones often needed to test their youth against the world before they could settle down. Moreover, since Sesshoumaru-sama would regularly return to his father's domain, to battle off anyone who attempted to take over the lands, the hope seemed to be quite justified.
Rin and Shippou listened intently, their young minds trying to cope with all the information. Rin was having difficulties with understanding all those hundreds of years, since she wasn't all that sure how much a 'hundred' was. It seemed to be a lot though. And all those other things she just heard. She knew that Sesshoumaru-sama was important, and very strong, since Jakken always told her so and she had seen that most people feared Sesshoumaru-sama. But she didn't know he was the son of a daimyou, and such a great one at it too. She looked at Sesshoumaru-sama thoughtfully. She had been with him for so long and yet there was still so much she didn't know about him.
Sesshoumaru, who had been listening to Myouga's story, was thinking about his decision to return to his father's lands. When Chichi-ue died, he was indeed still a boy, in that precarious age when one is no longer a child and not fully an adult either, yet believes oneself to know everything. He had stayed at the shiro at first, but soon he could no longer stand the stability of that life. If he just followed in Chichi-ue's tracks, he would never prove his own worth, he'd always be just a copy of his father, and a feeble one at that. Just a tool in the hands of both Chichi-ue and the other hanshu's, born to serve their purposes. So he had left to do what he had been doing before Chichi-ue's death, to search for his own strength, and ultimately to one day surpass Chichi-ue.
Yet he felt a sense of obligation for the others. After all, the survival of the pack depended on their unity and on its strongest member, whom he was destined to be. So he would return there every few decades, making sure that things were still as he had left them and driving off any perpetrators. He couldn't be bothered with the human settlements that always seemed to multiply during his absence. They were like mushrooms after a rain, popping up the moment you turned your back on them. He planned to take care of that once he decided to return there, if ever, and apparently it was now.
He had thought about the matter long on previous night, as he sat under a star lit sky, in a middle of a sleeping world. During the last few months he had been continuing with his life as he had done for the past two centuries, as if nothing had changed. He pushed the knowledge of the future aside, or at least he tried, and still followed the same objectives that guided him throughout most of his life. Yet... it was pointless, wasn't it. No sword and no amount of power could change the course of fate that had already been set, and trying to avoid the issue in his thoughts only left him feeling like a fool who refuses to see the truth.
He wasn't entirely sure why he had thought of returning to the place that was supposed to be his home. Perhaps because it had always been something that he knew he'd have to address sooner or later, and in the current circumstances, when his time turned out to be so limited, 'sooner' was the only right option. Besides, the place was bound to keep his thoughts occupied for a while.
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Language notes:
higarana – actually, it's 'hiragana', I made Rin mix it up. For explanations look at the general notes.
shiro – 'castle'; I'm not sure if that's the most proper term, but hey, who cares;
daimyou – Japanese feudal lord; there was a lot of them in the Warring States Era, since – as the name suggests – it was a very turbulent period;
hanshu – another word to describe a feudal lord. I used this term to differentiate other daimyou youkai in the Western Lands from Touga.
inu – dog, so 'inu-youkai' – "dog youkai";
anou – "well, err";
nani – 'what?'
oni – ogre, demon; oni's are usually large, brutish and have horns;
General notes:
As most anime fans probably know, Japanese writing is based on three systems, two of which – hiragana and katakana, referred to collectively as 'kana' – are quite simple and based on similar principles as the alphabet we use, whereas the other system, based on kanji – the symbols usually associated with Japanese and Chinese – is partially ideographic (meaning that singular symbols are used to represent not only sounds but meaning too), quite complex and difficult to learn. So it is quite possible that Rin's mother might've known hiragana (it really is easy to learn), but not kanji.
Touga – Although it's not known for sure what the name of Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru's father is, there have been rumors that in the credits of Movie 3 he is listed as 'Touga' or 'Toga' and I decided to follow suit, even though as far as I could tell he was credited as just "Inu no Taishou" or something like that.
I know that Sesshoumaru is generally believed to have taken over from his father as the lord of the Western Lands, and that in the English Dub he is referred to by others as "Lord", but it's not implied anywhere, in any form, in the original. The impression that I got from the anime is exactly as I have described, that he both is and isn't, meaning he is supposed to be, but is slacking off on his job, so to speak ;) The rest is just my imagination. I couldn't decide on where exactly in Japan the Western lands could be, but I assume it that it's not all that far from Musashi (which is modern day Tokyo area).
And finally they're getting out of the woods! I've had it with all the clearings!
