A/N: Okay, I'm over at a relative's house, but fortunately this chapter was already imported into my document queue, so that's good. But it also means that I have to make my authornotes pretty short. So, thanks to everyone who's reading, thanks especially to reviewers, and enjoy! Um, to all anonymous reviewers: I'll put in a special notes section at the top on mynext chapter to reply. To all signed reviewers: Review replies will be a little late due to the fact that time is a factor while I'm at a relative's house.

Reminder-... /-/-/-/memory;... +-+-+-+past, not a memory;... /-/-+memory and past;... #(anything after)special pov

Disclaimer: I don't own. Don't sue me.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 21-So Cold (Breaking Benjamin)

Wise men wonder while strong men die...

-------

Sesshoumaru stood atop the cliff that he had so often visited, wondering what had happened so long ago.

Father should have been strong enough to make it...why did he die? He should have been able to make it out in time...did he pause to think? Did he even realize he could have escaped?

"Father, you were never too wise when it came to love," Sesshoumaru said to the winds. He looked up longingly at the moon, remembering the night that it had eclipsed. A wise man would have known the darkening of the moon to be a bad omen, a wise man would understand the consequences of staying in a burning castle to fight...

But a strong man would have braved the dangers, would have rescued his love, would have risked everything for his honor and pride...would have risked everything for his family. And Sesshoumaru hated that fact. He hated the fact that his father had chosen to be strong instead of wise, had chosen pride over his own safety, had chosen to die instead of escape. He hated it, because he knew he would have done the same thing, yet he knew that he would have been thinking the same things he was thinking now. He knew his father had contemplated escape, he knew his father had been wise, but he knew that he had been strong too, and too proud to run away from a fight. Sesshoumaru was the same way.

"Why is it that the wise wonder as the strong die?" Sesshoumaru asked himself idly, looking over the lands.

He knew the answer, though. He knew the answer, and though it pained him to admit it, he knew that he would be like his father one day, that he would be wise but strong, and he would choose strength over wisdom, and it would cost him. He knew it, and he hated it, but he accepted it as a fact.

The chill wind seemed to kick up fiercely in concurrence with him tumultous thoughts, rendering the night cold.

So cold...just like that night, when Father died...

A single snowflake fell as he thought this, landing softly on his nose as he watched it drift down. He scoffed lightly at the uncanny irony of that; what a mockery.

"Right above my nose-just like that night, when it was all in front of me, yet I couldn't see past my own narrow thoughts. How very similar," he said out loud. Sesshoumaru gazed at the lands a bit longer, then turned from the cliff purposefully, and a bit sorrowfully, wondering when his day would come.

It started to snow, the night becoming colder.

It was so cold that night...

-------

#-Inuyasha POV

You're so cold but you feel alive...

Even my own brother hates me...the one person I have left from my family, and he hates me...he's so cold, so cruel and unfeeling...why does he hate me? Because I'm a halfbreed? Because I have human blood? I don't want to hate him, I don't want him to hate me, I really don't...how can he live like that? How can he stay alive without any emotions or feelings but anger and hate? How does he do it? If only I could be one or the other, then maybe he wouldn't hate me so much...maybe he wouldn't be that way...

Inuyasha shook his head and tried to clear his thoughts, willing them away. It didn't work.

A single image of his brother flicked across his vision so swiftly that it was like a flash of lightning, there one second and gone the next, but leaving such a fiercely memorable impression as to take one's breath.

It looked like there was a lot of snow...

Inuyasha shook his head again.

Sesshoumaru...huh, just like the snow, aren't you? How can you be so cold, brother?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ok, you know what I always say here. Not enough time to write it out, byez for now!