Tai no Seigi

To my readers: This is not a romance between Rin and Sesshomaru, but rather a story on their father/daughter relationship. Because, although I like the idea of Rin being important and much loved to our favorite full-demon, and although I do sometimes enjoy reading a good Rin/Sess fan fiction, I don't really think that their relationship would work out. For one thing, Sesshomaru despises half demons, which would be the result of such a union, and would not want to taint his bloodline, like his father did. Another thing; Sesshomaru is like twenty something by human terms, and Rin's only seven or eight. Can you say "huge age gap"?

But, personally, I like how Rin has transformed Sesshomaru from a cruel-hearted killer, to a tolerant, even empathetic, character. He's acted like a better big brother to Inu, he's helped the group on several occasions, and he no longer wishes to kill everything in his way. He went from an evil bad guy that everyone hated ("boo, he hurt Inu!"), to a semi-good guy that everyone admires ("yay, he revived Rin!"). He's got his own websites now, and he has fan girls squealing about him. Rin deserves a pat on the back, and a yearlong supply of candy.

Now, on with my story!

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He frantically searched for her, trying to find her scent, but it was as if her existence had been wiped from the face of the earth. She was gone, and he was panicking. He wondered what had happened to her, and cursed himself for leaving her under the care of a foolish human girl, and his idiot half brother. They had lost her, and he couldn't track her! His brother's wench would certainly pay. He had blindly trusted them, trusted them like the blockhead he was. He smelled smoke, and saw a flickering light.

"Sesshomaru-sama!"

Was it Rin…could she be in trouble?

"Rin!"

Sesshomaru roused himself from his nightmare. He had been having the same dream for a couple of months now; the only new part of it was the smell of smoke, and the voice.

As if on cue, a voice rang out again, and the smell of smoke grew strong.

"Sesshomaru-sama, the shiro is on FIRE!"

The voice in question belonged to Jaken, and he sounded anxious. Instantly, Sesshomaru rose, and rushed out of his chamber. The smoke smell was even stronger out in the hallway, and Sesshomaru could only just make out the faint outline of Jaken, hurrying towards him.

"My lord! We have no time to waste! We must escape this inferno!"

"I am aware of that Jaken. I have no time for someone who states the obvious. How did this fire start?" Sesshomaru sent his lowly servant a hard, steely glare, which caused the toad to gather his wits and explain in the quickest way possible.

"I believe that someone started it on purpose, milord! I think they wanted to send the inhabitants to a fiery death!"

Sesshomaru nodded in agreement, and, with demonic speed, raced through the burning structure, straight for the exit. The smell of burnt bodies filled his nostrils, and he sped up, trying to leave the scent behind him.

He finally reached his destination, feeling the cool summer night air blow across his skin. Jaken ran out only seconds behind him.

"Jaken."

"Y-yes, milord?"

"Are any others trapped?"

"No, milord, they either escaped, or died."

Sesshomaru was going to reply, when a cocky laugh reached his ears.

"Well, well, it seems the great "Lord" Sesshomaru has escaped his shiro. I expected no less. But what I didn't expect was that you'd actually be worried about your subjects. After all, weren't you the one that just left them in the care of some second rate general?"

Sesshomaru looked into the darkness, trying to pinpoint the annoying cretin. He didn't have to look far, as the besmirching demon walked into the light created by the flickering flames that were, at that very moment, engulfing his property.

The demon simply smirked at Sesshomaru's glare.

"Don't act all high and mighty with me, Sesshomaru, or I might just kill you, instead of letting you live, as I had planned. I am Hanawanowarui, and if I may say so myself, I have grown used to slaughtering overconfident, lazy, demon lords, such as yourself. I am the leader of the Tai no Seigi, and our objective is to make sure that you royal bastards won't control our kind any longer. If you're lucky, we might just let you escape, so you can spread rumors about us, and strike fear into our enemies. It seems that you are lucky today. But if you try to fight us," and here he gestured to some others in the shadows. Soon the whole area around Sesshomaru and Jaken was covered with demons of all shapes and sizes, all with a fairly large amount of power backing them up.

"If you try to fight us, we will outnumber and kill you."

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Rin slowly printed out the last character in Sesshomaru's name. The kanji was quite difficult, but she had finally mastered it. Kagome looked down at the younger girl's work.

"Excellent, Rin-chan! You've come really far. I wouldn't be surprised if you became a scholar, to say the least."

"Oh, Kagome-sama, do you really think so! I hope Sesshomaru-sama will also be impressed. I worked so hard!"

Kagome smiled at Rin's enthusiasm. It had taken a lot of work to change Rin's grammar, and it had been even harder teaching her how to read and write properly.

At least she doesn't refer to herself in third person anymore. Sesshomaru really is quite an influence on her, if she'll change her speech to please him. But he was the one that probably started the whole thing in the first place; he's always saying things like "this Sesshomaru"; it's a surprise that she hasn't developed a cold tone because of him.

Rin looked at her handiwork. Her writing had gone from wobbly and messy, to neat and precise. At first she had written so large, one character took up the whole page. Now her writing was small and quick. She took great pains to making it so, and was amazed at how easily her words formed, after she grew used to writing them.

The hardest part of writing was forming the actual characters. The words flowed from her head faster than she could write them down, with the correct spelling and grammar, no less. But Rin had cleared up her writing after Kagome had scolded her about it.

"Look at this Rin! It looks absolutely atrocious! You know, your handwriting can reflect your personality. Right now, your handwriting gives the impression to the reader that you're sloppy, lazy, and perhaps even stupid!"

"Really, Kagome-sama?"

"Certainly! Sesshomaru-sama would be disappointed at this, especially since you've been practicing writing his name lately. It would make HIM appear sloppy as well. Do you want that, Rin?"

"No! No, I would never want that, Kagome-sama! He protects me, and looks after me! I don't want to dishonor him. I want to repay him! But how can I write such difficult characters? Sometimes it seems impossible."

"If you break the characters down, it won't seem so impossible. Keep trying, Rin-chan. Once you get the hang of it, it's not so hard anymore. The first time I shot an arrow, it was as crooked as your handwriting. But once I practiced it, I grew better at it. Besides, Rin, I know that you're very eager to start learning your math; once you master this, we'll move on in your lessons."

Rin sighed as the memory from the past month echoed in her ears, and turned back to her paper. The parchment was very peculiar compared with what she had seen before, but she had grown used to Kagome-sama having strange, expensive looking things, and occasionally disappearing to restock on such items. Whenever this happened, InuYasha-sama went to sit by this creepy old well, waiting for her return. Apparently it was a meeting place for them. Rin had asked Shippo several times why InuYasha-sama chose such a strange waiting place, but she never got a clear answer. She never got a clear answer about such things, like where Kagome-sama went, or why InuYasha-sama disappeared as well, or how Kagome-sama got such strange items.

The first thing Kagome-sama had taught Rin was how to sew. It had happened on the second day of her arrival.

"Kagome-sama, Rin tripped and tore Rin's yukata! May Rin go and get a new one?"

"Rin! Do you mean steal one?"

"H-hai."

"Rin that would be dishonorable and mean! Surely you know that?"

"Chau."

"Rin, you will no longer steal. You do not need to steal to survive anymore, and stealing hurts more than it helps. Instead you will learn to repair your clothing. I will teach you to sew."

"Sew?"

"Hai, sew. We'll practice on InuYasha's extra undershirt."

"Hey! I heard that! My clothes don't need sewing!"

"Oh, be quiet! They do too! You ripped them during that last battle with that snake demon, remember?"

Rin giggled at the thought of InuYasha glaring at Kagome, his features indignant, mad at her, but relieved that he wouldn't be sat. The first time Rin saw InuYasha receive his well deserved punishment she had laughed longer and louder than she ever had before, and kept giggling long afterwards.

InuYasha was not very happy at this. The combination of having a pipsqueak laughing at him, and a sore back, compliments of a hard "Sit!" made him want to bark in rage. But Rin had warmed up to him after this, because she partly felt sorry for the poor inu. In turn, InuYasha felt closer to the small ningen, and would protect her as much as he would protect any member of his "pack".

Rin felt grateful for the protection. She was in debt to both of the inu brothers, and would do anything for them.

Little did she know how much she would do.

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Notes: I use several Japanese words in my story, and for those who don't speak it, it can get confusing. Here are the definitions, and if I miss some, please notify me.

-sama: A name ending used as a respectful term for elders.

-chan: Another name ending, used for and among children.

shiro: castle

hai: yes

chau: no

yukata: a light summer clothing

Tai no Seigi: Band of Justice. A slight pun here, since what they do can hardly be considered "justice".

Hanawanowarui: When broken down into Hanawa no Warui, it means Wreath of Evil

kanji: A form of japanese writing. It uses characters, not letters

inu: dog

neko: cat

kitsune: fox

youkai: Although youkai really means "ghost" and yasha means "demon", they use the word youkai frequently in InuYasha, and they certainly are not refering to ghosts of any kind. Another word for demon could also be monoke.

ningen: This word, which means human, and is used by Sesshomaru in some episodes, is not pronounced nin-jin, as I originally thought, but pronouced the same way it's spelled, with the g sounding like g instead of j.

I think thats everything, although I'm not certain. English is my first language, so I might get some things messed up, but hey, no one's perfect. Sorry if my writing sounds too formal, I'll try to loosen up a bit.