...
...
Chapter 4: Unfamiliar Emotions
Sesshomaru landed a short distance away from Kaede's place where Rin and Jaken had landed with Ah-Un earlier.
He stood fixedly gazing at Rin reclining in Kohaku's arms. Her hand was cupping Kohaku's cheek. Her face was close to Kohaku's face, their lips almost touching. The two were looking at each other, seeming to forget about the world around them. And Rin was smiling.
Jaken was flailing his arms fussing about some decorum again when he suddenly screamed, "SESSHOMARU-SAMA!"
Rin and Kohaku both turned toward Jaken and saw Sesshomaru standing a short distance away, watching them.
"Sesshomaru-sama," Kohaku properly let Rin down and greeted Sesshomaru with a respectful tone.
Kagome was collecting the sun dried herbs on her yard. She too turned at him and greeted him in a more playful tone.
"Oh, Hi, big brother!"
Sesshomaru didn't react or return the greeting to any of them. He just gazed at Rin.
'Hmm! Is that what Rin has chosen?'
"Ooh! He's angry," Jaken thought out loud.
"Sesshomaru-sama is angry?" asked Rin as she ran up to Sesshomaru.
He turned around and took off toward the nearby woods, to be somewhere far away fast before he gave in to his urge to kill Kohaku, ignoring Jaken and even Rin who were both screaming after him.
"W-wait for me, Lord Sesshomaruuuu," screamed Jaken.
And Rin's voice followed.
"Jaken-sama, wait for meee!"
The stripes on his cheeks had become jagged and his eyes had turned red when he landed in the woods. He looked at a tall tree in front of him and his face turned back to the more gentle human form by the memories of his first meeting Rin.
He stood in silence. His journey with Rin flashed back .
During that journey, He had saved creatures like Kohaku or Kagome who he had wanted to kill before, and he had practically protected the whole Inuyasha's gang, even Inuyasha. He had refrained from killing needlessly. Even when he was challenged first, he had let some go unharmed like those Ungai monks.
He had overheard Jaken's conversation with Rin about her adventure to obtain the thousand year berries to save his life. After she told the story, Jaken fussed at her for being risky, and she told Jaken, "I don't want anyone else to die, especially you, Jaken-sama!"
Of course, Rin was weak, but her weak little self seemed unfazed. She had risked her life trying to save the person who had abducted her, Kagura, and again risked her life trying to save Kohaku who had tried to kill her.
Even when Sesshomaru let the very person who did kill her, Koga, go, Rin was as happy as she always was, walking behind him with her scent as pleasant as ever.
"I don't want anyone else to die."
The sentence was imprinted in Sesshomaru's mind. He started to observe her innocent bravery of her love for living beings. Her view of the world was interesting and different from his.
When Sango risked Rin's life to save Miroku during their final battle with Naraku, Sesshomaru stood there, wondering if Rin would forgive Sango. And he knew she would, so he forgave Sango.
Rin had driven him to do the very thing he scorned Inuyasha for doing and used to be proud that he himself would never do.
Worse, he even brought gifts!
With his hatred for humans, he never did imagine that he would one day visit and bring gifts to a mere weak human girl. By god, he didn't even bring gifts for his mother.
But he brought gifts because Rin's utopic aura intensified when she received them. It energized him even more than obtaining power, and he was secretly proud that his gifts could increase its intensity.
Rin had made him feel emotions he didn't know existed - compassion, sorrow and fear, protectiveness, and the desire to be wrapped in Rin's peaceful light.
He learned camaraderie when he fought alongside Inuyasha's gang, a far cry from the self-reliant and arrogant Sesshomaru of before.
And he had learned respect when he realized he could not destroy the Shikon Jewel, but Kagome could with her far less impressive power.
He had stepped into Rin's world where his actions became softer, yet he became stronger, and he slowly realized that power was a product of many interweaving elements and not just the simple attainment of sheer brute strength.
And in that world, he had experienced many uncharted emotions that he thought he could no longer be surprised by any new ones.
But at the moment. How did THIS happen? This new emotion!
It was an intoxicating desire to be Rin's choice, to make her happy, yet it was conflicted with the thirst to kill KOHAKU who was apparently making her very happy in the evidence of her smile while in Kohaku's arms.
He was briefly angry at Rin, something he had always thought impossible.
How could an emotion be so conflicting. How could one feel the desire to make someone happy yet wanting to kill the object that was making her happy. How could one want to be with with someone yet angry at her when she had done nothing wrong.
This baseless emotion! He was unable to control it.
His eyes flared red again.
'Rin! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME!'
This emotion, this weakness, was invoked by one very fragile little human girl, and she didn't even do it intentionally.
He crouched into a half-kneeling position and planted the Baksaiga on the ground. Leaning with one hand on the sword hilt, he lowered his face in the shadow of his arm.
Rin and Jaken finally found him and were approaching him from behind. His eyes quickly flipped to the usual gold. He stood up and put the sword back by his waist. Strangely, the confusing emotion completely evaporated. Perhaps it was just a freaky glitch.
He closed his eyes and thought matter-of-factly, 'I, Sesshomaru, bend to the will of No One!'
He turned around and gazed at Rin. Telling Rin a final goodbye would be too difficult. Surely, her death would be the only thing that would force their final farewell. But at this junction, since she had obviously chosen - not him, so to preserve her happiness and to prevent himself from that cursed emotion again and couldn't twice resist the urge to kill everything around her, he must leave.
Rin approached him with her usual cheery smile and bright eyes.
"Sesshomaru-sama, are you angry at me?" she asked.
He gazed at her for what seemed like the longest moment. Uneasiness churned inside his mind. But he had never lost his determinate nature despite having developed the more gentle side.
"Rin."
"Yes, Sesshomaru-sama."
"We shall part ways here."
Rin didn't say anything. She just stared with an empty expression.
He, too, gazed at her for a long moment. She must have an explanation, a protest, a question or something, but Rin stood speechless.
He finally said, "This is my final goodbye. I hope you will fare well, Rin."
Jaken screamed, "H-Hah!? What? Final Goodbye? Are we going to another dangerous battle?"
Sesshomaru kept quiet. After a short moment, he turned and started walking away.
Jaken ran after him, "Lord Sesshomaru, waittt! WAITTT MY LORD!"
Suddenly, Sesshoamru stopped. His eyes flickered.
'BLOOD!'
His head jerked back.
'Rin!'
He dashed toward Rin. His eyes wandered from Rin's teary eyes to her hand where the scent of her blood came from. He took her bleeding hand and inspected it.
She opened it and saw that the pointy ends from the crescent pendant had made two deep cuts into her palm.
"Ooohh!" she apparently just became aware of the blood and the pain. "Oouch! Sorry, Sesshomaru-sama. I have to find some morning glory plants to stop the bleeding."
She grimaced as she pushed on the wound to constrict the blood flow. She started walking around looking for the plant.
Jaken went with her, fussing about everything and asking about morning glories.
Sesshomaru followed. His recent conviction that he would bend to the will of no one seemed to have faded.
Jaken kept plucking random plants and handed them to Rin.
"Is this it?"
Rin giggled.
"No, Jaken-sama. Its leaves are triangular. Its flowers look like cones of duck web. What you got there is a pennywort."
Sesshomaru looked around and saw nothing that looked like what she just described.
Suddenly, he caught an unfamiliar scent and turned to its direction, trying to recognize what the scent was but couldn't.
He called his companions, "Rin. Jaken."
They answered in unison, "Yes, Sesshomaru-sama."
"Follow me."
...
Note:
hanayuki. Thank you for your review. I will try my best, for my favorite Rin and Sess. ^ ^
GuestoftheMoon. Thank you for your very candid review. First, I appreciate your comment for both stories. It encourages me a lot, and I am going to try my best to make them good. And yes, I am having terrible trouble with the other story. As for Rin, since she is my most favorite character, I don't intend to make her pathetic. But so far in the story, I parallel this modern Rin with the Rin in the anime before she met Sesshomaru. I do think she did have somewhat a hard life until she met him. But for my other story to work, Sesshomaru has to be gentle. So, in trying to keep Sesshomaru in character of a cold hearted person, the flow of the story seems too forced, so I am not having a very easy time with it. And I realize that writing about Sesshomaru as a human is just too hard because the character I know and love is not a human but a cool powerful demon. So yes, I am having a horrible time with it. lol. But since I started it, I am going to find some way to try to finish it. Any further comment from you is very appreciated, positive or negative. Thank you.
Sgt. Sporky. Oh my! You're very knowledgeable about all this stuff. I am very illiterate about the whole thing. To be honest, Inuyasha is the only anime I have watched, and one of the very few fictions I have read. I'm mostly a nonfiction person. So all those you named, I have not seen or watched or even heard of. I tried to get into other anime after Inuyasha but I couldn't get into any of them. I follow your advice to look up stuff in Jishio dictionary, but I have no idea how to read kanji, so I am still as clueless. So I just look up for words to be translated into Japanese and use them as names. Now I do hope that it doesn't come out meaning totally different or inappropriate like some of the examples you gave. If you find it interesting to follow my story further, I hope if any names sound ridiculous, please give me that feedback, so I don't inadvertently name someone with a very inappropriate word. Thank you again for your review and your interesting explanation. It was eye opening for me. I thought it would be easier than that, but apparently, it gets complicated.