Memory's Moon: A Father's Children
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"Chichi-ue!... what's that?"
"Oh, you're just in time. Grab his legs, would you?"
"Chichi-ue, it's… it's a human!"
"I have a better nose than you, pup. Of course I know it's a human."
"What are you doing with it, chichi-ue?"
"It's sort of fun… see, he just popped out of that well just now. And look at his strange clothing! Makes you wonder what the humans are coming up with these days..."
"So you're going to do something with it?"
"'It' happens to be a 'he', pup. Even if your oh-so-esteemed haha-ue detests humans, you've no call to denigrate them that way. They ARE our vassals, after all. It's not courteous to treat your vassals like meat animals."
"Hmph! So, what are you going to do with 'him', chichi-ue?"
"Take him back, I suppose. No point in letting him wander all over the Western Lands."
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A thousand years of memory, time upon time and time again.
-He remembered it all, with the hazy clarity of a dreamer.-
His father's strange fascination with the human magic-user, a fascination that the human hime Izayoi had captured. His own growing fondness for the strange human male, who knew nothing of the harsh youkai world he had fallen into, yet always found the right words to say when things needed to be said. The name Kagome, the pride and joy of the human's heart, destined for great and painful things.
All of those memories, stored one after the other, a charge that he had wearied of keeping, for surely this Kagome must be hundreds of years away. Yet Higurashi had insisted that the pup would meet Kagome soon, and you must tell her of me, tell her of me, tell her what has become of me, tell Takako too-
-He had remembered, but he had not known the girl when he saw her.-
As a young pup, he had not understood Higurashi's strange knowledge, how the human had simply known what all the youkai in the court could not have foreseen. So the request had simply gone down in the annals of his recollection, gradually displaced with more pressing issues. After his human-hating mother had, in a fit of jealousy over her mate and heir, bound Higurashi into the cursed sword that would come to be known as Oborezuki, his thoughts of the human and his girl-child had become few and far between- apart from Higurashi, who walked a very different path from most humans, there had been no other human,excluding Rin, who offered the same kind of companionship, or even any kind of understanding.
Such was the way of the world; and for youkai to hate such humans- such was also the way of the world, an instinct that ran deeper than emotion, reaching down to the primal reaction of predator and prey.
And then she had come through the well.
-When had he first heard her name?-
Certainly her strange outlandish attire and tireless propensity to shoot arrows at him piqued his curiosity, but his half-brother's presence had bulked large over her, bright red eclipsing her brief white and green slip, and the pursuit of Tessaiga had blinded him to anything but the hunt and battle. Gradually, though, she had grown away from Inuyasha's protection, scarred with the marks of her own battles hard fought, and he had found his eyes coming to rest on her more often, as if his unconscious mind worried constantly at the puzzle that was his half-brother's nameless treasure.
And then, like spring passing silently into autumn, they had begun exchanging words- a curt pleasantry here, a quiet greeting there- words that slowly grew into conversations, more words passing back and forth that had no need for names. She knew his, after all, and as a human her name was beneath him-
"Na, Sesshoumaru-sama-"
He had assumed that their peaceful impasse would last forever.
He had been terribly mistaken.
"-when are you going to call me by name?"
"Are you dissatisfied with your appellation, girl?"
"Well, if you put it that way- yes. You call Rin-chan by name all the time-"
"You are not Rin."
"I'm not asking you to call me Rin, Sesshoumaru-sama… I'm asking you to call me by name. As an equal."
"You feel that this Sesshoumaru is your… equal?"
"You could probably kill me a hundred times over in a heartbeat, I know that, but… I suppose so. I just want to be called by name, is it so much to ask?"
"Does not my half-brother call you by name?"
"Huh! Only to yell at me, mostly…"
"State your name, then. Although this Sesshoumaru promises nothing…"
"Kagome."
It had hit him like a slap of cold water to the face, the chill burning through his veins and settling, hard and unmoving, in the pit of his gut.
This had been his charge?
"… do you have another name?"
"Eh? Oh… of course… Higurashi. Higurashi Kagome-"
-He had a duty to her, a duty to her sire.-
Higurashi's girl-child would never know that it had been Sesshoumaru's very intent to allow Naraku to wrest her shards away. She would never realize that when the hordes streamed upon them, swarming by the hundreds, he had slipped away, unseen, and 'returned' only when the youkai flunkies had achieved their primary objective. Kagome would only remember the nameless youkai poised above her, claws slicing down to end her life... thenToukijin casually blasting the foolish goon into a thousand bloody little shreds as the lord made his 'timely' entrance, turning the battle into a rout as Naraku's youkai fled from the arrival of a fresh, ruthless contender.
Yet even though she did not understand his true part in her defeat, some part of her- probably the one that held a trace of Higurashi's strange foresight- realized that he was not a friend. Their conversations grew more strained on her part as she drew away from him, drew away from them, gathering her emotional defences for the inevitable confrontation. He had rested in the secure knowledge that it was all for the best- as long as she retained a shred of hope that their ragtag little posse could actually succeed in their quest, there was literally no way in hell that she would be willing to pay the price that wielding Oborezuki demanded, for the sword would not choose those who still retained hope. And if she did not take up the cursed sword, her quest would not end- Naraku's enduring ambitions would not be dispelled- and, more importantly, Sesshoumaru's childhood promise to Higurashi would not be honored.
Decisions, decisions.
He had not anticipated the miko's enduring optimism, even though her shards had been taken. Apparently it had happened to her before- he had not counted on that. When he had finally told her of Oborezuki, carefully masking the sword's true nature in a shroud of mystic lore, he had not expected that she would attempt to find another way to resolve the hopeless situation. He had also not expected that Naraku himself- or rather, Onigumo- would at last show signs of weariness concerning the battle which had gone on for a few years now. Or else, why would the spider confront the group in person?
-Perhaps that had been the turning point he had sought.-
He had, as for the last ambush, retreated. The rest of the group, used to his odd comings and goings, had not questioned him on that occasion, but the look in her eyes… gut-deep, she had known, even if she had not consciously anticipated his tacit betrayal.
Perceptive. But not good enough.
Inuyasha had been the first to fall, taken off guard by the blast of shouki that pierced his airways mercilessly; not even youkai healed easily from poisonous ki that rotted you from the inside out. The kitsune had fallen soon after; the houshi, beset by swarms of Naraku's poisonous insects, had finally met his end as the Kazaana fulfilled its ultimate destiny. Made foolish with grief, the taijiya and her mononoke companion had perished in a moment of fatal rashness.
Of their deaths, Sesshoumaru regretted the houshi's the most, for Tenseiga could not revive what lacked a body. But the others… something could yet be salvaged from the ruins of their hopes. For him, everything was going according to plan.
He had watched her draw her bow, had watched Naraku pull Kikyou in front of him, the dead miko bound around with all manner of spelled cords, a living undead shield. Watched the arrow fly straight and true from a bow that snapped under the pent-up pressure it had been forced to endure, Kagome's eyes wide with desperation and fear as she realized, too late, what Naraku had planned.
The dead miko had fallen to dust as the arrow pierced her heart, purified instantly; souls streamed from the cracking clay shell in a burst of invisible light, escaping into the next world. Kikyou had died quietly, her eyes solemn and serene even in the face of her final death, but there was an unearthly understanding in those brown eyes that had nothing to do with forgiveness. The miko had accepted her death. Sesshoumaru's opinion of her had risen somewhat as he surveyed the battle-torn scene from afar.
Spider and girl-child faced each other on the battlefield, one bloodied and somewhat singed by the penetrating power of the hamaya, the other panting with pain as the pieces of splintered wood buried into her flesh dropped away. There had been an odd look in her eyes then, half-crazed-half-distant, the eyes of a dreamer caught in a waking nightmare, and he had tensed, wondering if he would have to stop her from taking a suicide run. But incongruously she had pinched herself hard- the welt rose sharp and red under her fragile pale skin- the distant look fleeing from her eyes as misery welled up in its place, and she had fled.
His duty as observer done, he had emerged in her wake, Toukijin drawn in silent warning. Naraku would have to find his corpse-dancing puppets somewhere else; Kagome had related to the lord how the taijiya's younger brother's corpse had been controlled with a shard of the Shikon- the same fragmented jewel that Naraku held. No doubt if the lord had left Naraku to his own devices that day, the spider would have used the shards thus, if only to twist the sword deeper.
Not this time.
--
-He was tired, too. Both of them were, this endless battle-
Naraku was twisted, an abomination upon the earth, but not foolish. The one who had once been Onigumo, who had once been a reasonably sane human, palled of the endless search, the unending quest for vengeance and satiation. Sesshoumaru, straight and tall and proud, had faced him, Toukijin in hand, Tenseiga a pulsing fallen star by his hip, and it would not have been a lie to say that the spider saw death in the narrow golden gaze.
"Your time is coming soon."
"Strong words from you, Sesshoumaru-sama, strong words-"
"Leave this place. They remain."
"And what of me, Sesshoumaru-sama? What of me-"
Tired, just tired. He of attacking, they of fighting.
The lord had simply set Toukijin hard at an angle, the citrine eyes slipping half-lidded as the demon-forged blade warped the air about them. This, then, was his answer-
"-does it come back to her again-"
"Sohryuuha."
But as the ki dragon screamed for its arachnoid prey, Sesshoumaru lowered his killing sword, allowing the attack to dissipate on the wind with leaf-shredding fury. Naraku had fled; the standoff was over. Tenseiga had much work to do.
--
-And in the end, this-
So this was what it felt to be shut up in Kanna's fabled mirror. Endlessly drifting, caught in the looping recollections of one's memory, regretting and cherishing in turn. A pity that he had so few memories of Higurashi that were actually meaningful; his girl-child had given him more- but she was only human. Humans, unlike the longer-lived youkai, were passion. Love, live, burn out fast. Flickering little candles in the long dark waiting of the centuries. Nothing more than a passing distraction while one waited for death to creep softly up…
"Hey, it's the pup-"
Had he once thought of Kanna's mirror as a 'chamber'? Never again.
"Chichi-ue," he admitted with tired respect. "It has been a long time."
Sharp golden eyes, almost peach gold with the bone-deep laughter that the old Lord had been famed for, crinkled as they gazed at each other. "Never thought I'd have to wait so long to catch you alone," the Lord commented, crossing his arms, while his son remained at rest.
How they existed corporeally in this void was a mystery, but… it felt comforting to have two arms again. "You were waiting for me to die?" The old Lord simply gave a noncommittal shrug, mouth almost pouting, and the son felt his nonexistent blood pressure soar in a temple-throbbing leap. "Do not answer that- I do not wish to know." He took a good look around. "Am I dead?"
"You're dead if the void-girl decides not to let you out, yes." Inugami, who had once been called Inu-taishou, fixed his son with a suddenly piercing glare. "In the meantime, let's talk. How's Higurashi been getting on, and WHY are you being such a wimp about the human girl?"
Ah, the joys of fatherhood. Not so joyful for the pup, but still. Sesshoumaru's jaw twitched sharply, invisibly. "Higurashi is- fine, I suppose. The humans sealed him up with concrete about eighty years ago; I figured he would want to go back to sleep after all the mess with finding his daughter again. And the girl…" It stuck in his mind, as if it defied definition.
It really was strange, how she managed to hopelessly confuse all his carefully thought out thoughts just like she managed to hopelessly confuse him.
Well, there was always redirection… his father had never been the best at hanging on to a point when he was alive... "I was NOT being a wimp. Certainly not over the girl."
They stared at each other, the son mirroring his sire's almost belligerent pose, twin amber gazes narrowed. Inugami's chin drew inward slightly, giving a hawkish cast to his roughly hewn features. "Yes you were. Don't you lie to your sire, pup. First you make a hash out of keeping your vow, then you try to fix it, then you decide to go cold fish on her because she suddenly becomes important to you. Damn, pup, make up your mind. Human females don't wait that long for answers, you know that."
"Being dead seems to have sharpened your wit and dulled your brains, chichi-ue," he retorted, doggedly avoiding the barb. "In any case, why should a mere human, a child at that, bother me? I will be here when they are gone, all of them. You of all people-" Wait, that came out wrong. It was no use preaching about youkai tradition to a male who had given them up for the sake of a human female and a hanyou pup. Sesshoumaru glared at his sire and tried again. "We have no obligations to humor humans-"
"Nonsense. Bottom line being that you made a promise and now you're backing down." The ex-taishou gave a nearly contemptuous snort- quite an odd noise given the strange acoustics of the mirror-void, and the fact that there was no air to snort with so the noise simply… did… not… make sense. Sesshoumaru was inordinately proud that he resisted the urge to flatten his ears, never mind that he no longer had ears the right shape to flatten. "Look, if you want her to talk to you again, you have to buck up and tell her the truth first. Even if you DON'T want her to talk to you again, you still have to tell her the truth. You owe the girl that-"
"-I owe her NOTHING."
"You owe her that because her pack-mates are suffering for your petty machinations."
Even without a real body, he still felt cold rage prickle in his imagined veins, like phantom memories of pain. "My servants' concerns are not my concern."
A long, heavy silence stretched between them, razor-edged with condemnation.
"I thought you were the more intelligent of my pups," Inugami said finally, lowering his arms, his powerful voice quiet and awfully controlled. "But Inuyasha is less blinded than you are, and you are a fool if you think she will not regain her memories without your intervention. Oborezuki is already on the move." The familiar visage began to fade, dissolving into the void as the younger youkai watched sullenly. "Straighten out this nonsense before Inuyasha does, or I WILL haunt you for the rest of your life."
And then the world returned in a dizzying rush, his soul filling the contours of his true body with uncomfortable intimacy, and he was staring up into Kagome's startled midnight blue eyes.
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A/N: I've always wanted to write Inu-papa into one of my fics, and I figured that the father-son interaction would probably do this fic some good. Try to figure out what Kanna's up to… I promise there'll be a twist… probably. If anyone wants the sidestory of Kagome's dad, say so in your review; I've got the plot written out, it's just a matter of squeezing off a oneshot.
Conclusion next chapter (probably). And happy birthday to me… cya guys.