(Can't wash it all away)
(Can't wish it all away)
(Can't hope it all away)
(Can't cry it all away)
Chapter 2
Sesshoumaru walked down the crowded streets, slipping through the summer heat, impassive and acknowledging none who looked his way. Life changed daily, small changes, large changes it was all the same to him. The only guarantee in life was that it was inconsistent and it was beyond his power to make the world stagnant. What drew him forward, kept him walking was the vagabond within him. A tree without roots, a mangrove floating in the vast expansion of water that is life, he wandered his feet seeking something that his mind did not know. Life was a cycle, death and rebirth followed once more by death and rebirth for eternity. He knew his life was finite, immortality was something died to all living on the earth, a gift meant for the gods. He was no god. He was a youkai. He was a prince of darkness despite his angelic visage, Azrael perhaps, the bringer of death. Tenshi, a soft voice echoed in his mind, tenshi, a childish voice. Tenshi, tenshi were good, pure and immortal. He possessed none of those traits. Once, there was a time, once long ago he knew an angel but the angel's purity was corrupted, Sesshoumaru was the cause of the taint and the damage inflicted. It was the course of nature he decided, nothing remained constant. Not even angels. They were bound to change one day, lose their innocence, the purity that marked them as angels. It was the natural order of things. Robert Frost stated the truth quite plainly, "Nothing gold can stay." The hardest thing to keep was innocence, it was impossible to be held captive. He did no wrong, slaughtered no intangible aura, and committed no sin.
What purpose did walking serve? Why bother questioning the life he lead, the decisions he made? The past was the past; he could no more change the past than he could alter the gravity of the Earth. Acceptance, simple in concept and design but so few things were truly accepted in life. His past, his decisions, he could not understand why they plagued him so. He had no regrets. No desire to change what he had done in the past. He closed his eyes and saw eyes filled with tears, irises the same amber hue as his own irises with sharing the same slit-like pupils. No. There were no regrets.
Satisfied with his answers, not that he ever considered a different answer he continued his walk, pace brisk wanting to escape the kaleidoscope of noises and sounds that assaulted his senses. He was unsure, even though he would never admit the fact, of why his thoughts always turned to the same topic. Always shifting, twisting, deviating to a realm he did not like and found little use for. Existence, purpose, they had no meaning; the instant something was born it began to die. From the first microsecond of creation its end drew closer. Therefore, he had done no wrong. Still, despite having his answer, despite knowing the truth he still felt the insatiable need to justify himself. To justify the past, the past that he could not change. Not that he wanted to, but if he could he knew he would not change his decisions. He made no mistakes.
He turned to his right, staring at his new residence and entered the cool building, the glass doors closing behind him in an air of finality. No regrets.
If I should choose to keep lying to
Myself pretend my mind is telling truths
Well I've got my own so who are you
I know I know
Joydrop - Cocoon
The setting sun bathed the once pristine white walls with crimson hues, of intangible gold, pinks oranges and soft fire, the dying flame barely illuminating the entire room and its furniture. A solitary book lay upon the cherry stained desk, the gilt edges of the pages shining in the fading light of the sun. Across the top right page of the heavy volume where the words, The Divine Comedy while its partner page bore the name Dante Alighieri, the headings for the satirical poem written in lyrical verse. Pages spread open to the first Volume, Inferno Canto III "The Vestibule of Hell" the black and white coloring of the page spoiled by green highlighter and handwritten notes of blue ink around the lines
I am on my way into the city of woe
I am on my way to a forsaken people
I am on my way to eternal sorrow
Sacred justice moved my architect
I was raised here by divine omnipotence
Primordal love and ultimate intellect
Only those elements time can not wear
Were made before me, and beyond time I stand
Abandon all hope ye who enter here
Silence filled the room as the tapping of keys from the notebook situated next to the book ceased, the bright LCD screen displaying an open Word document scrolled down to the twelfth page of a term paper. Symbolism, satire, literary techniques, rhetorical devices they were all contained within the paper. Sesshoumaru, sitting in a black high backed rolling computer chair continued to proofread his work, refusing to tolerate anything less than perfection in his work.
The assignment was not particularly difficult, for although the poem was written in archaic language it read easily for him, the centuries that he witnessed providing him with a complete knowledge on all things archaic. As he read the poem he found himself intrigued by Dante's grotesque depiction of death, of purgatory, and the afterlife. Once there was a time when he believed ningens incapable of creating such wretchedness, incapable of producing anything of literary merit, with vivid imagery relating to the eternal damnation of unfortunate souls. He released this notion as easily and softly as exhaling, expelling the uselessness from his body. He now knew that ningens were capable of producing marvelous works of literature, art, and music even if what they created had no standing when compared to youkai works. Regardless of this new revelation, Sesshoumaru was immensely pleased that this would be his final year of university and that he would no longer be coerced into submission by a reprehensible ningen professor. Unfortunately, he was faced with the prospect of enduring one entire year in the same vicinity of the hanyous, the insufferable idiot that he had the misfortune of sharing DNA, physical attributes, and family name; his worthless hanyou brother.
Inuyasha, dear Inuyasha, the bane of his existence whose presence always succeeded in reminding Sesshoumaru of how his family's name and status was shamed, tainted by Inutaisho's union with Izayoi. The prestige long upheld by his family, in the feudal era as the inu taiyoukai rulers of the Western Lands and in modern times as part of the social elite shattered the instant the famed and powerful Inutaisho spied the young Izayoi. Sesshoumaru felt the disgust rise within him, a ningen beauty they said; he saw no such beauty within her. Such honor, honor that had been withheld for centuries was tarnished and destroyed, the deep loathing that his mother's family felt for Inutaisho had broken the blood ties that bonded the two families. Broken bonds, how the words dredged up the painful memories of his youth, of the days long gone by, days of innocence, and the memories of his mother. His mother, she had been beautiful beyond compare, a tall silver-haired female inu youkai that came from a respectable youkai family one of the oldest of the dwindling species. Her death was something he could barely recall, the memories were mere fragments, unneeded and worthless emotion rather than visions, the more he strained to remember the less he could recall; just as a dream fades while caressing the psyche with invisible fingers of familiarity. The more one strains to remember, the more one coerces the fragile psyche to recall specific details the less and lighter the fingers caress until they vanish completely leaving the psyche void of thoughts and filled by a phantom. He remembered her scent, her voice, but most of all he remembered her grace the way she moved with such elegance that no other female could emulate.
Sesshoumaru sighed, his right hand massaging his temple; normally he was not so pensive and if he was he most certainly would not ponder of the collection of mistakes, why call them mistakes when he regretted none, that was known as his solitary life. What had inspired this arduous journey down the winding river of memories he was not sure, could the day's events have caused him to recall every memory regarding his pedigree in such ardent detail, Sesshoumaru mentally scoffed at the ludicrous proposition. True, his day had been, dare he say it, quite unorthodox from the way that they normally transpired, but still to think that one unexpected encounter would affect his life in such a way was preposterous.
The only thing that had set this day apart from all the others was the fact that a female ningen had crashed into him and landed unceremoniously in an ungainly heap on the floor. The petite black haired and brown eyed ningen had quickly collected herself while blushing profusely and mumbling apologies before proceeded to collect the various objects that had been knocked from her arms and lay strewn about the white tile. He had turned away from her, offering her no assistance for it was her fault that her belongings were on the floor, and she was a ningen. He owed no courtesy to a ningen.
Sesshoumaru turned away from the laptop's screen, certainly he ought to stop pondering the day's mishaps for it was fairly certain that he would never come into contact with the dark haired ningen during this, his final year.
If Sesshoumaru had been any other person, he would have laughed hysterically at the irony of the situation and his thoughts during that inauspicious day. He had long heard that everything occurred for a specific reason but refused to repudiate the significance behind his strange encounter with the ningen that was now his mate, curse providence and her fickle humor. Sesshoumaru turned his gaze away from the slumbering form of his mate and stared at the lustrous shape of the full moon, whose inconceivable callousness called to him as a siren calls unfortunate sailors to their death in the unfathomable nadirs of the ocean.
Sesshoumaru's attention returned to his mate when her heard her light coughs, shifting her position slightly he began to rub her back soothingly with one hand. Although the scent of illness no longer lingered around her body she still was not completely recovered and had been confined to rest for two weeks. While she had not been happy with the arrangement she had agreed merely to please him, she was that self-less. Her miko friend had visited her earlier that day and had kept her entertained with stories of Inuyasha's antics and various happenings with her other friends. Sesshoumaru could not help but acknowledge the bitter truth that he had indeed been worried over the health of his fragile mate and had been most pleased, though he repudiated to express his emotions, when she had begun to recover.
Reminiscing over the past was not something that Sesshoumaru enjoyed nor did he regularly partake in such insipid pondering, however, something about this starless night had caused him to recall things that he had no desire to remember. Whatever enchantment had caused this unwanted change in the pattern of his thoughts concerned him, nothing in existence had the right to delve into the recesses of his psyche and cause such unwarranted thoughts, nothing. His university days had passed mostly in a blur, for what was four years compared to the longevity of a youkai, nothing but ephemeral intermissions in a seemingly immortal life. What a fool he had been, he ought to have realized the signs when he had been unable to clear his psyche of the ningen's face, he ought to have realized it then, realized that nothing happens without reason, ought to have realized that things would never be the same.
Where has my heart gone?
An uneven trade for the real world
I want to go back to believing in everything and knowing nothing at all
Evanescence – Field of Innocence
Sesshoumaru walked down the hall of the large campus, in one hand, he held his term paper along with several course books, today would be his last day of Literature of the Western World and he had to take his final. He felt somewhat grateful towards his father for choosing this particular university for him to attend, Patiens University of Business and Fine Arts was not what one would consider a traditional university, on the contrary, instead of having four to six classed daily Patiens' students only had one class a day for one full month, the class started at eight thirty and ended at two. Still, he did feel some confusion towards the seemingly disparate nature of its finest programs. He saw no relationship between business and art, doubted that there even was one and wondered once more why it would focus so much on two seemingly unrelated sectors.
The campus was divided into two parts separated by an expressway and connected by a bridge constructed over the expressway, the reason for such an interesting design was due to the fact that when the original campus needed to be refurbished and expanded to meet the needs of growing technology and population and the land that the campus was built on was far too small. Thus the one hundred acres across the expressway had been bought and a second campus constructed. Sesshoumaru had only been on that side of the university once before an amazing feat in itself considering that it did not contain any of the business courses, only those dedicated to the fine arts. However, starting the next day he would be staying in one of the many buildings for one month to take his Portfolio I class, art had never truly appealed to him before but seeing how he had completed all the prerequisites required for him to ascertain his Bachelors the previous year and was required to take only three more classes, thus his schedule needed to be filled with something thus he chose art.
The final exam had come and gone, Sesshoumaru sat alone on the balcony railing connected to his spacious apartment and watched the sun set behind the enormous buildings of Tokyo . He was loathe to enter his apartment for though it had been impeccably furnished to suite his taste in decoration it lacked something that he was incapable of defining. The change of space had not affected him as his father had first assumed, for Sesshoumaru had the uncanny ability to adapt to almost feasible type of setting whether it be the island of Okinawa or the bustling city of Tokyo .
Sesshoumaru was slightly irate because his capricious psyche had once again succeeded in drawing up the image of the ningen who continuously plagued his thoughts. What caused him to be unable to rid his thoughts of the ningen he could not say, he had only seen her once and still her face continued to haunt him, what did her face contain that continuously demanded his attention, her eyes he later realized. The ningen's eyes where what haunted him, large eyes, child-like eyes that were full of innocence, eyes that he remembered seeing on Inuyasha when he had still been a pup, a pup who had adored his "onii-chan." He inwardly cursed at the memory, eyes filled with innocence indeed. He didn't believe that such a thing could exist in one so old, innocence. It completely undermined his prior justifications; no he refused to reconsider his actions. There were no mistakes made. He had no regrets. Innocence was meant to be damaged. The ningen he met was an anomaly and that explained his fascination with her eyes. Now, now that he had solved the conundrum surely, surely she would cease to haunt his thoughts.