The Tale of Rin and Sesshomaru
Totosai
Totosai was busily working in his shop when he heard Aun's roar. He did not recognize Rin as she ran inside bearing the sword shards; she was covered with demon gore, dirt, and ashes, and the only clean spots on her face were from the tears that the rushing wind had blown from her eyes across her cheeks. He did, however, recognize Toukijin immediately. "Young lady," he asked sternly, "just what ARE you doing with that evil sword?" But then he stopped; his old eyes, which saw things that no others could, perceived something very different about the sword. "The evil in the sword has been completely purged. It is in perfect balance, neither good nor evil. How did you do that?"
Only then did Totosai take a careful look at Rin, and saw who she was. "Good heavens, Rin-chan, it's you! What happened?" Rin told him what of the story she could, but she had no real understanding of what had happened, and had spent most of the battle hiding under Sesshomaru's stole. Totosai listened carefully, then peered very closely at the sword shards. None knew Tenseiga's power better than he, and he quickly ascertained what had really happened. He could see Sesshomaru's spirit swirling like a dark mist around the shards of the sword, and he could also see the tenuous hold that it had on the weapon. If the bonds between Sesshomaru and the sword were not strengthened, Totosai knew, Sesshomaru's spirit would continue to dissolve into a mist and disperse, lost forever, unable to find home in either this world or the next.
Totosai remembered the lifetime of beatings, abuse, insults, and death threats that he had received from Sesshomaru, and of Sesshomaru's long and bloody history of cruelty, even in the service of his father, the only being to whom Sesshomaru had ever shown even a shred of respect. "It would serve him right," thought Totosai. "I can't think of anyone who deserves oblivion more."
But then Totosai looked at Rin's tear-stained face, and she pleaded with him. "Please, Father Totosai. Please save Sesshomaru-sama."
Rin's pleas softened his heart, and he relented. "Oh well," Totosai thought. "I never could say no to a pretty girl." He took the sword shards under one arm, and patted Rin on the cheek. "All right, my dear, I'll see what I can do. But when I reforge it, I'll need something to bind the pieces together." He deftly plucked a single long hair from her head. "This will do fine." He set the shards in front of him, and began laying out his tools. "Why don't you go to the stream and wash yourself, then take a rest. You'll need to wait outside—it's not safe for you in here." Rin wanted to protest, but the blazing heat from Totosai's breath, the deafening "clang" of his hammer, and a shower of sparks quickly convinced her to go.
As Totosai had suggested, Rin went outside to the stream. The day was warm, and the stream ran clear with sweet, cool water. She washed, cleaning the remains of the battle from herself and from her clothes (Sesshomaru's stole, through some magic of its own, had not only protected her but had remained spotless and shining white), then she settled down at Aun's side to wait. She felt lonelier than she had since the day that her parents had been killed, and she held Sesshomaru's beautiful stole close, trying to take some comfort from its softness. The fur was supple and warm, and Rin could still faintly detect Sesshomaru's scent in it, but whether that gave her more or less comfort, she did not know.
Day turned to night, and back to day, and Rin had heard not a single word from Totosai; only the harsh clanging sounds of a sword-smith at work. She was lying against Aun, nodding in the warm morning sun, when Totosai came to get her. "Rin...please come with me," he said grimly, and led her into his shop.
On the floor, its blade suspended across two black wooden blocks, lay the great sword Toukijin, and Rin knew immediately that something was very wrong. She had spent years in the company of Sesshomaru's swords, and had wielded Tenseiga and felt its strange "life" herself, and knew exactly what an enchanted sword should look like. But this sword was nothing but cold, dead metal. Totosai knelt down next to the sword, and Rin knelt next to him. She touched the blade in disbelief, then looked at Totosai, her eyes pleading for an explanation.
"I did the best that I could, Rin-chan...but in the end, I couldn't do it. There was one crucial ingredient that I just couldn't supply. I'm...I'm sorry."
This was more than Rin could bear. She hadn't cried at her own parent's deaths; the shock of that horrible experience had stilled her voice, and it wasn't until she met Sesshomaru that she could laugh or even speak again. But today, she did not grieve in silence. As she knelt over the sword, her anger and loss found its voice, and from the depths of her soul came wracking sobs.
"Sesshomaru, you...you...you IDIOT!" She screamed at the sword, pounding her fists on the ground. "Damn you! Why did you do this? I told you to let them take me. I begged you to let them take me!" Tears poured down her face, bathing the blade in a flood of sorrow. "Sesshomaru-sama...I didn't want you to die for me!"
When Totosai saw this, he gently but firmly drew Rin aside, blew on the blade with his fiery breath, and struck it with one expert blow of his hammer. The blade rang with a high, beautiful note, and Rin's tears that had fallen on the blade coalesced, but did not run off. Instead, they sank into the metal, where somehow in the depths of the blade they seemed to kindle a warm, lavender radiance. Gradually the glow increased in brightness and spread throughout the blade, until the entire room was suffused with the sword's living, vibrant light.
Totosai bowed very low before Rin. "Forgive an old man's cruelty, my child, but there was no other way. I didn't lie to you—there was one crucial ingredient that I could not provide. But you could." He gently wiped the remaining tears from her cheeks, and kindly patted her on the head; then turned aside to collect his tools. "I'd go easy at first with that sword. I've adjusted the hilt for your smaller hand, and there's some magic in it that's just for you...of course," he chuckled, "you'll need to find that for yourself. But although the evil's gone from it, there's a lot about that sword I don't understand. I'm afraid it will be too heavy for you..." Totosai turned, and was surprised to find Rin had easily lifted the sword and was now dancing with it, all sorrow forgotten. She laughed and sang as she twirled, and in her hand the sword moved with the lightness of a kite on a string. Presently she sheathed the sword, and slipped it and Tenseiga into her belt with a practiced ease. Then, she wrapped the white stole over her shoulder, and carefully folded Sesshomaru's kimono in which she had carried the swords and placed it in Aun's pack.
Watching her prepare to depart, Totosai was unwilling to let her leave alone, even with Aun. "It's a dangerous world out there for a young girl, all alone," Totosai said, with fatherly concern. "Maybe we can get the word to somebody to come get you. And I can always use another hand around the shop."
Totosai saw Toukijin pulse, and Sesshomaru's sonorous voice quietly reached his ears: "Do not worry. I will protect her." At the sound of that voice, Totosai shuddered at the thought of what might happen to anyone who dared to even attempt to harm Rin, but then he laughed.
"Well, in that case," he chuckled, "I guess you don't need my help." He went back into his shop, and shortly returned with something wrapped in gray cloth. "Before you go, I have one more gift for you," said Totosai. He unwrapped the bundle, and presented her with Sesshomaru's breastplate and spiked demon-bone shoulder guard. "I rebuilt these for you last night while the sword was cooling. They were too big for you, but now they should fit just right." The breastplate and shoulder guard slipped on easily, and indeed, Rin looked as though she had been born to wear them. "Since I had to cut them down to your size, I had extra material, so I made you these." And he gave her two beautiful bracelets, strong but graceful; and inset in each, in burnished silver, was the sigil of the crescent moon. "I think he would have wanted you to wear them."
Rin bowed graciously. "Yes, you're right. He does." She kissed Totosai on the forehead; he giggled and blushed. "Thank you, Father Totosai, for everything." Without another word, she turned, and with Aun at her side, walked off. As she walked, she rested her left hand on Toukijin's hilt, and a slow mysterious smile crept across her face. It would become her most precious secret, something that Totosai might have guessed but that she never discussed with him, nor did she tell any other soul as long as she lived. For when she set her hand on the sword's hilt, she did not feel cold metal, but something that she had wanted since her childhood but had never dared to ask for: the soft warmth of Sesshomaru's hand, gently holding hers.
Totosai laughed to himself at the firm stride with which she walked, and especially the way that she turned and departed wordlessly; it reminded him very much of Sesshomaru. He looked at the sky, and thought of his old master, the Inu no Taisho, Sesshomaru's great father. "Well, master," he said to the air, "you would be very proud of your son today." And he laughed again, and gently rubbed his forehead where she had kissed him. "And of your son's daughter."