a/n: Wow, the response to chapter 17 was almost overwhelming! I'm glad you all liked it so much and as always, I appreciate all the kind, encouraging comments that were left. Is always great to know that I'm on the right track!
DISCLAIMER: I do not own this show!
SONG OF THE WEST
an Inuyasha fanfic
xviii.
When Sesshōmaru was young, he survived an assassination attempt. It was no brilliant stratagem, merely a jittery horse and a well-timed, well-placed serpent, but it was enough to make a boy of five or six just learning how to steer a horse fall and fracture his arm in several places so that the bone peeked through the skin. It did not take his mother long to investigate the incident and execute the perpetrators; and while a poorer child might have died from an infection, with money and access to the best physicians and herbalists in the land, his bloody mess of an arm had been set, cleaned, and bandaged swiftly. In time, the boy healed with very minimal scarring. Save for the lingering pain he occasionally felt in his forearm and elbow and his tendency to favor his left side during especially heavy physical activity, it was almost as if the grisly trauma had never occurred.
Rin's injuries were far worse.
The muscular man had been surprisingly easy to kill, requiring only a rapid stab through the chest. It was like preparing a boar for roasting. The archer may have been formidable, but arrows in close quarters were as good as having no weapon at all. The plain man screamed like a dying animal when he fell.
Sesshōmaru hadn't known what to expect when he ventured into the woods that evening. There was a chance she'd be alive, given the Northern tribesmen's habit of capturing and selling their prisoners; however, there was an even larger chance that he'd have to explain to his father how the young woman he took in to nurse to health died alone in the woods.
Thankfully, the latter had not been the case. But the scene he had walked in on was gruesome enough: Rin's face smeared with blood and dirt and tears, an arrow sticking from her ankle as if she were wild game, bracing to be mounted from behind by some stranger.
It was nighttime when they reached the village. Sesshōmaru had left his horse a safe distance away as not to alert the tribesmen to his arrival, but even with that method of transportation, he'd been forced to travel slow to avoid exacerbating Rin's wounds. In the darkness the village was circumscribed with a haze of light on account of the extra lanterns set up by the regiment he'd led into the area. By the time his dismounted and took Rin into his arms again, their clothing was covered in blood, much of it from the neck of the man Rin had, to his surprise, managed to stab and slow down before Sesshōmaru ended his life forever.
A small crowd stood on the outskirts of the village. The young grey-eyed woman who had run into the regiment in the woods and alerted him of Rin's whereabouts was the first to sprint towards them.
"Rin!" She cried out dramatically. "Rin!"
Sesshōmaru shifted his position so that his body could shield Rin from any potentially rough treatment in her fragile state. Still, Rin responded.
"Yosomi!" she said, her voice nasally on account of having to pinch her nose to slow the bleeding. "Are you and Kei alright?"
The young woman—Yosomi, apparently—caught a glimpse of Rin's bloody face and was shocked into silence. Another woman stepped forward to pull her back.
"Give her some space, Yosomi," a dark-haired woman said.
"Where's the physician!" A male voice, Lord Tsukuyomaru's, inquired.
A young man stepped forward with a bag. "I'm here, my Lord. I've already prepared the room for the procedure."
Rin's hand gripped the back of Sesshōmaru kimono at the sound of the unfamiliar men.
The physician followed the pair to the guest hut. Rin's nosebleed had slowed some, but her ankle was covered in drying blood and was still hemorrhaging profusely.
Carefully, the physician began to inspect the wound. Rin winced.
"I'm afraid this will most likely leave a scar." The physician frowned.
Sesshōmaru huffed in annoyance. That was the least of their worries. "Can you remove the broadhead?"
"Yes, but she'll have to be restrained," the physician replied, digging through his bag. He pulled out a small blade, then a thick strip of leather, and looked at Rin. "Bite down on this."
Rin glanced up at Sesshōmaru, her brown doe-eyes wide with fear. Sesshōmaru's unwavering gaze stared back at her. The task had to be completed. With an anxious sigh, Rin accepted the leather strip and positioned it between her teeth.
Sesshōmaru moved to sit behind her. Quickly and effortlessly, he pulled her halfway into his lap, wrapping his arms around her torso and hooking his legs about hers to prevent her from writhing and injuring herself more. He could feel her hands shaking as she touched his sleeve.
The physician began the extraction by using the small blade to cut into Rin's ankle. In Sesshōmaru's arms Rin's whole body tensed as she closed her eyes and muffled a scream with the leather piece. Despite her slight build, the young woman was surprisingly powerful when she was writhing about in pain, forcing Sesshōmaru to exert a bit more effort in restraining her than he thought he would.
Though the shaft had broken, a bit of it remained in Rin's ankle, presumably still attached to the arrowhead. The physician pinched the dark wooden shard and wriggled it slightly, causing the young woman to jolt.
"It doesn't seem to be lodged into her bone," he remarked, slightly relieved.
He tugged. As he said, the shaft slid out without much force; however, the arrowhead was broken in two, with only one jagged bone-half still attached by the hafting. Sesshōmaru bristled at the sight of it.
By the time the physician had made necessary additional incisions into Rin's ankle and located and extracted the remaining pieces of the arrowhead, his hands, the futon, and the leg of Sesshōmaru's nu-bakama were tinged blood red. Sometime in the middle of the procedure, Sesshōmaru felt Rin go limp in his arms and her head loll against his shoulder. The gentle rise of her torso and the pulse in her small wrist assured him that the worst had not occurred.
The noren made a shuffling noise as Seiten stormed into the room. Whatever comment he was going to make died in his throat when he took in the bloody scene and Rin's unconscious form.
"My god," Seiten breathed.
"She'll be fine. She's only fainted," the physician assured him. "The arrowhead has been removed. All that's left is to wash and bandage it."
Sesshōmaru glanced down at her. In addition to the dried blood from her nose and the dirt from the forest floor, a thin layer of perspiration had accumulated above her furrowed brows. She seemed anxious even in repose.
"Give me something to clean her face," Sesshōmaru ordered.
Seiten reached around and handed him a clean cloth from the physician's bag. Gently Sesshōmaru wiped from the sweat from her forehead before wiping the blood from her nose and lips.
Once the ankle was wrapped, the physician could not help but glance at the old scars on Rin's legs that had become more noticeable since her skirt hem had been pushed out of the way. He frowned. "What's all this?"
Sesshōmaru huffed and pulled Rin away from the stranger. "She's clumsy."
The physician's gaze lingered on Sesshōmaru out of suspicion. Sesshōmaru's golden eyes glared back at him. Seiten, meanwhile, glanced between the two men, completely silent. Finally, the doctor sighed and began to gather up his tools.
"What should we get for her pain?" Seiten asked, cutting through the tense silence.
"There's an herbalist in Yugatori that sells to-ki and sen-kyu for a reasonable price, as well as gai-yo for the bleeding," the physician announced. "Habushu may be even better if she can stomach it, but any other liquor will do in a pinch."
When the physician was dismissed, Sesshōmaru was left alone with Seiten and a still unconscious Rin. Seiten peeked out of the noren to see the physician off and turned back to Sesshōmaru once he was out of sight.
"You know he suspects you did that to Rin's legs now, right?" Seiten warned.
"Perhaps," Sesshōmaru drawled uncaringly. He didn't have to explain anything to the man that wasn't about Rin's current injuries, and he doubted Rin would have wanted the stranger staring at her legs if she were awake.
Sesshōmaru slid from behind her and laid her gently against the futon. She looked slightly more peaceful now that the operation was over, and her face was clean. There were still a few pieces of foliage and grass in her dark, messy wash of hair, which he began to pluck out.
"Where's Yasutoki and Tsukuyomaru?" Sesshōmaru asked.
Seiten hesitated. "Lord Yasutoki is sleeping in his tent. But Lord Tsukuyomaru just went out with a few of the soldiers to scour the woods for any tribesmen that may have gotten away."
Sesshōmaru met Tsukuyomaru, the young Lord and oldest son of the Ozawa clan, on the way to Lord Naozane's castle. He too had been traveling to meet Lord Yasutoki but swiftly decided to join Lord Sesshōmaru after striking up a conversation with the unwilling, reticent young Lord of the West. Fortunately, the talkative man was proving himself to be an asset, unlike the contemptible Yasutoki, who practically had to be dragged out of the guest apartments of Naozane's castle. At least it took less convincing for Naozane to supply additional men to protect the area, partially because he was so afraid of Sesshōmaru after watching the young Lord manhandle his friend, but also because he aimed to curry favor with the Inu no Taisho. With his portion of the mission completed, he had been able to return to the village in perfect time.
If he had not…
The young Lord glanced at Rin's torn and bloody yukata. "Her clothes are ruined."
"I'll ask one of the village women to change her," Seiten said. "I'm sure they'll be able to clean your clothes as well."
Sesshōmaru was completely aware of the blood that still lingered on his once-fine clothing. Still, he replied: "I'll wake up Lord Yasutoki."
"Like that?" Seiten brows furrowed.
Sesshōmaru tensed. "Yes."
Seiten blinked but did not push the topic further. He had known Sesshōmaru since the young Lord's infancy; he knew by now not the nobleman when he had set his mind to something.
With no more words to spare, Sesshōmaru left the hut.
Rin awoke to the chirping of crickets on the other side of the wall closest to her, a sharp ache in her head and ankle, and the gentle breeze that came with only being in undergarments. It was this last sensation that made her bolt up on the futon in search of her clothing, only to be forced onto her back once more by a sudden swarm of asterismos and the feeling of lightheadedness.
"Don't exert yourself," a deep voice said. When her vision cleared, she noticed a plain folded screen had been placed in the center of the room. The form of a man shown slightly through the beige paper. Close by, visible to her, a white kimono and nu-bakama sat drying on a wooden rack.
Lord Sesshōmaru's clothes, Rin thought. She could recall the excessive amount of blood she had gotten on his clothes before she had fallen unconscious; at least someone had been able to get the stains out. Her yukata, however…
Rin glanced around the room again. There was no sign of the once-fine garment anywhere. "Where's my—"
"In ruins," Sesshōmaru said simply.
Rin sighed. This was the second time she had damaged it. What was the point of receiving nice things if she was just going to keep ruining them?
Another issue suddenly pressed on her mind. Her brows furrowed. "Who undressed me?"
"That Shizu woman."
On the other side of the screen, Sesshōmaru noticed that the tension in Rin's form seemed to melt away open hearing the familiar name.
"There's food and drink on the table behind you," he continued.
Rin glanced behind her. Sure enough, on the low table was a steaming bowl of okayu, as well as two wooden cups filled with liquid. A few beats of silence passed as Rin focused on eating her food. Her eyes widened when she brought the spoon to her mouth, like she was surprised that it wasn't the typical bland porridge. She made a small sound of contentment and glanced at the screen again.
"I didn't make it," Sesshōmaru clarified.
Rin made another small noise and continued to eat.
It was strangely awkward for both of the young people, sitting there in silence with each other after what had occurred—and in juban, no less. In spite of the screen, Rin could feel Sesshōmaru's eyes trained on her as she ate; Sesshōmaru, meanwhile, was in no way accustomed to nursing someone, especially from afar.
"How did you know where to find me?" Rin asked quietly. Of course, she wasn't complaining about his heroics—for a few moments in those woods, she had thought she might actually die.
"That girl and her brother told me," Sesshōmaru responded. He had been riding back towards the village with Tsukuyomaru, Yasutoki, and the rest of the reinforcements when he'd come across the two young people, sweaty and flurried and loud. Upon hearing of Rin's capture, he'd turned the reinforcements over to Tsukuyomaru and went to find her.
Rin breathed a sigh of relief. Yosomi and Kei found someone after all.
It was Sesshōmaru's turn to ask some questions. "How did you get separated from the rest of the villagers?"
The young woman shrugged. "Yosomi and Kei got captured in the woods on the way back from the lake. I didn't have time to go and get help, so I went on my own."
"The reinforcements would've found them before anything happened."
"But I didn't know that at the time. And no one knew where they went," she said quietly. Whenever she closed her eyes, she could still visualize the brutalized pair she had stumbled upon in the woods that one night. She shuddered to think of what might've befallen the two young people had she not freed them and had they been taken as slaves. "I just didn't want them to…"
Her shiver did not go unnoticed. Sesshōmaru's brow rose. "So you decided to sacrifice yourself instead?" He asked, his voice still even.
Rin blinked. Sacrifice was a strong word. She hadn't thought about it in that way when she set out to find them—she only wanted to help them.
"I'm used to dealing with men like that, so it's not really much of a big deal," Rin assured him.
There was another beat of awkward silence.
"Is that how you got those bruises on your legs?" Sesshōmaru asked. He had admittedly been curious about them since he first seen them that day as she was fishing. She had been lower than a yūjo, a prostitute without the preservative backing of a brothel or a posting station, thus it was plausible that she would receive unruly clientele; however, the injuries she bore seemed rather excessive.
Heat rose on her face. "My legs? When did you see—"
Since leaving the village, she had tried hard not to think much of her sordid past, save for the details surrounding her brother's disappearance. Of course, she'd always bear the physical reminders, like the ugly scars on her legs or the random twinges of pain she sometimes felt…
Rin's eyes began to burn, but this time no tears came.
The sudden silence on her side of the folding screen was not lost on Sesshōmaru. The reticence of the typically talkative girl made him feel a twinge of regret at even having asked. It was slight, but still unpleasant.
To his surprise, her voice was cheery when she started speaking again. "Yes, but that's in the past. Let's not talk about it anymore."
Sesshōmaru's eyes narrowed. He was beginning to notice a pattern with her, one of haphazardly shrugging off horrors—and, if the discordant sound of her voice meant anything, hiding her true feelings. He wondered how much his father truly knew about his ward. She seemed wholly different from the girl who had cowered behind him in the Asano gardens or clung to him in the woods just a week prior. Clearly, there was much more to her than it seemed.
"You save me again, though, so thank you," she continued softly. It was the third time he had swooped in to rescue her, she believed, even if the first time at Yobetsu was unintentional and the second at Asano castle was merely a formality.
"You seem to have a propensity for trouble," Sesshōmaru dismissed, but not in an unkind way, or even the usual disinterested tone Rin had become so familiar with over the past few weeks. She let out a light laugh; the sound of it was clear and lovely and genuine, though somewhat stifled on account of her nose. Perhaps it was only a result of the sharp ache growing in her head, but for a small moment, the young woman believed she had detected a whisper of concern in Sesshōmaru's typically aloof voice. Not annoyance, not callousness, but a hint of interest in her wellbeing.
Whatever it was the unexpected reaction to his words had the effect of firmly bewildering the young Lord, who replied to her pretty laughter with furrowed brows and a wry, "Is that something you find amusing?"
"No," she said, still smiling. The okayu was finished, and the empty bowl had been placed back on the table. "When Lord Tōga comes back, can you not tell him what happened?"
Sesshōmaru thought of her appearance. Last he'd checked, her ankle had not stopped bleeding; he'd replaced the bandages after returning from Lord Yasutoki's tent. She could barely stand or even move too quickly on her own without some sort of assistance due to her head injury, and though her nosebleed had ceased, she'd undoubtedly have swelling and bruising for the next week, at the minimum.
"Surely he'll find out without speaking to me," the young Lord said.
"Oh, not about my injuries."
She had nearly been stripped down to her hadajuban when he had saved her. If he was only a few minutes later, he might've stumbled across a more harrowing scene.
There was a nervous silence on Rin's end as she awaited his answer.
"I won't," Sesshōmaru agreed.
Rin leaned back against the wall relieved, and the two young people sat in silence until Rin returned to a painful rest and Sesshōmaru's clothes were finally dry.
Despite all the pain, with proper care and adequate rest the wound on Rin's ankle did not become septic; likewise, in three days' time, her nose injury devolved from an angry red swell to a dark but healing bruise. Shizu, Chiyo, Ino, Yosomi and Kei visited often, bearing copious amounts of delicious homemade okayu and a yukata for her to wear in the absence of her old one. When the sun set, she was left to the care of Master Seiten and Lord Sesshōmaru, though, to her surprise, it was predominantly Sesshōmaru who watched over her to ensure she was still breathing. Each night the young Lord would quietly watch over the physician as he changed Rin's bandages and applied medication to her foot, reducing her anxiety greatly. The dismissive behavior stopped, replaced with somewhat awkward moments of silence that lasted until Seiten's patrol shift ended and Sesshōmaru went off to replace him. Rin didn't question it. It only morbidly amused her that it took a near-death experience to change his attitude towards her. Still, as was her wont, she resolved to let bygones be bygones and hold no ill-feelings towards the young man, especially after he had just saved her from a humiliating demise.
At the end of those three days, the Inu no Taisho made his lonesome but triumphant return to the village a few days earlier than expected. His arrival was met with the typical laudation afforded to him by his folk status, with some additional excitement from the likes of Lord Tsukuyomaru, Lord Yasutoki, and the rest of the regiment stationed nearby, who never suspected they'd ever meet him in person in that life. After those formalities, Lord Tōga went promptly to the guest hut provided by Grandma Sen, a sudden move which gave his son and Seiten no time to properly warn him about what he would see upon entering the room.
It was his reaction that Rin had truly been dreading. Thankfully, after the initial shock, he managed to remain more levelheaded than she thought he would.
"What the hell happened?" Lord Tōga asked, his deep voice tinged with mournfulness. His large, rough hands were cupping her face, his thumbs brushing softly the bruises that had formed beneath her wispy lower lashes.
Rin winced, embarrassed. "I ran into some Northern tribesmen in the forest."
"How did you end up there when you said you'd stay close to the village?"
The young woman's face faltered slightly. "Yosomi and Kei got captured, so…"
Tōga frowned.
"I'm fine, really!" Rin said, grabbing his wrists. "I just got hit in the face. And shot in the ankle. But those have basically healed now, and Yosomi and Kei and Master Seiten and Lord Sesshōmaru have been taking great care of me—"
The older man's brows raised in pleasant surprise. "Sesshōmaru?"
Rin nodded eagerly, thankful that the conversation had shifted away from her assault and towards the young Lord. "He found me. And he even rode into town to get my medicine."
Tōga sighed and removed his hands from the young woman's face. "You're brave; I won't fault you for that. And you aren't dead, which is ultimately what matters," he said tenderly. Then, his expression grew a bit more stern; Rin noticed he looked an awful lot like Sesshōmaru when he became this serious. "But you should never run off without support and without telling anyone where you're going, especially since your physical health still isn't up to par. Seiten and I don't even do that, and we have decades of fighting experience under our belts."
Now that Tōga thought about it, the only other person liable to pull such a stunt was, well, Sesshōmaru, not that the young Lord was a good example to follow in that regard. Such was the over-adventurousness of young people, he supposed.
Coincidentally, once Tōga had changed the old bandages on Rin's ankle and walked out to convene with the soldiers again, Sesshōmaru was standing in front of the hut, on his way in. The young man carried a nondescript box beneath his left arm and seemed surprised that his father had suddenly materialized before him.
"You're early," Sesshōmaru said tonelessly.
Tōga huffed dramatically. "You don't see me in nearly two weeks and that's the first thing you say? Should I have come later?"
"You've seen Rin, then?"
The older man sighed. "Yes; if she didn't look so pitiful, I would've given her an earful." His gold eyes alighted on the box Sesshōmaru was holding. "What's that, more medicine?"
Tōga lifted the lid to peer inside. The fine, almost golden fabric glinted in the sudden wash of sunlight, each strand seeming to vibrate before his eyes. The Imperial Lord had to close it as not to be blinded.
"Well!" He exclaimed. "What's this sudden change of heart?"
Sesshōmaru bristled at the question. "I've had no change of heart."
"Just a few weeks ago, you complained about how expensive Rin was becoming. How much did this cost?"
"Would you rather she run around in her torn one?"
"The village women were willing to give her a new yukata."
"It isn't appropriate for her to run about in commoner's clothing while traveling with us."
Tōga scoffed. "No one would've minded but you. We could have purchased something else later."
"Is there a point to this interrogation?" Sesshōmaru said crossly.
Tōga laughed loudly. "Like I said, I'm simply curious. Just a few weeks ago, you threw her into a horse stable during civil unrest. Anyone could have found her and harmed her. Before I left, she was terrified of you, and now she's singing you praises! It's a bit jolting."
Still, his father's words had unnerved him. When he had first met Rin and left her in those stables, he hadn't considered that he was placing her in danger, hadn't known much about her day-to-day adversities. No—that wasn't truly an excuse, either. When he had gone to retrieve her after the explosion, he had come across her being maltreated by the perpetrator of the attack whose arm had had chopped off, though he had been too focused on his goal of restraining her to notice.
Tōga, meanwhile, said nothing, but gave Sesshōmaru a knowing look. Something had changed while he was absent, no matter how long the young Lord insisted on keeping up this petty denialism. He hadn't thought much about it when it occurred two weeks ago, but looking back on it, it had been quite a sight to see his son in the middle of the forest with Rin clinging to him, standing more or less dumfounded and without a protectorate bone in his body. But who could blame him? Though Sesshōmaru was a bit of an extreme case, not many young men his age of the nobility had empathy for the struggles of commoners. It wasn't something taught by tutors alongside philosophy, military tactics, and government. Tōga had learned compassion by virtue of his upbringing and has tried hard to impart those values on his son, but his excursions as the Inu no Taisho had often taken time away from these vital lessons.
Things seemed to be changing now, though, at least with Rin. It was too bad it had taken the young woman nearly being killed for it to happen—he hadn't wanted her reduced to a morality pet.
"Just treat her as you would a sister or a cousin from now on. Perhaps now she'll feel more comfortable traveling alone with you," Tōga finally commented. "Anyway, I see you've fulfilled your duties and then some. Though I heard you gave Lord Yasutoki quite a fright the other night."
When the soldiers had informed him of how Sesshōmaru, his clothing still slick with blood, had stormed into Yasutoki's tent and forced him onto a horse for patrol duty with all the aura of despot, Tōga had been slightly amused by the theatrics, but not surprised. It was why he put Sesshōmaru to the task in the first place—his dictatorial style was most efficient, in certain cases.
Sesshōmaru rolled his eyes. "He needed no rest. His inactivity caused this. What of the border?"
"The guards were horribly disorganized when I arrived in Aomori," Tōga explained. "They'd been forced to abandon their post in Kuzuhara after evacuating the townsfolk; many of wits and work out an actual plan, it wasn't too difficult to defend Aomori and take back what was left of Kuzuhara. We were even able to take some prisoners."
Tōga then released a long, irritated sigh. Sesshōmaru's brow raised.
The Imperial Lord continued, "According to one of them, a few weeks before we found that couple in the woods, three girls and one young boy from one of the Northern tribes came to Kuzuhara's market, just a simple outing between young women. They picked up a few trinkets, traded a few of their own, and left the city walls to return to their village. Come dayspring they had been found a few miles from the city, badly beaten and defiled; the boy had succumbed to his injuries in the middle of the night."
"The Northern tribes would immediately go to war over a few villagers?" Sesshōmaru asked.
"No; tribesmen and citizens have gotten into conflicts before, and they were handled without much fuss by Lord Morikawa," Tōga explained, shaking his head. "But this time, the aggressors were believed to be city patrol. When approached by tribesman envoys about the issue, Morikawa denied the accusations, claiming that none of his guards would've been in that area during that time of night. The tribesmen claimed they had proof; and, considering how much revenue the treaty gives them, they'd have no reason to lie just to start trouble. It didn't help that the boy and one of the girls involved were the nephew and niece of a tribesman higher up.
"The situation basically devolved from there. Morikawa continued to deny the crimes; a few skirmishes broke out between tribesman and patrol, and then citizens; tribesmen from all communities were banned from the city, which hurt trade and violated the treaty; then a few tribesmen decided to take revenge and attack the wall. The rest is as you know."
Tōga stopped to take another long sigh and sat on the guest hut's wooden platform. Thankfully, the summer sun had let up some, and was no longer bearing down hard on their heads. On the other side of the noren he could hear the soft sound of Rin's breathing as she slept.
"Those girls were younger than Rin," he suddenly said. "And the boy was about ten or eleven."
"Northern fools," Sesshōmaru said contemptuously. Now that they had been put into perspective, the tribesmen's attacks—the kidnappings and the rapes, the brutalization of that couple in the woods, Rin's assault—were not randomized, depraved episodes, but methodical acts of vengeance.
Not that they were justified in anyway.
"All this turmoil, yet Katsushika can only find the time drink and jaunt with his concubines," Tōga said. "Between this and Ryukotsusei, it feels at times like the country is rotting from the inside out."
Sesshōmaru noticed that the older man suddenly looked pensive, mournful even, as he spoke these last words. Such were the pitfalls of a big heart.
"You can't heal the world's ailments," Sesshōmaru said evenly.
Tōga chuckled wryly. "Yes, yes—Bokusenō said something similar, once." Suddenly he stood again and stretched in the summer light. "As soon as Rin's leg is well-enough to ride, we'll leave the village in Tsukuyomaru's hands and continue on to Hyōkusui. We'll get caught in the crowd of midsummer revelers, but that's a price I'm willing to pay."
Sesshōmaru grimaced. The revelers weren't the true threat; that, instead, would be the traveling lords and ladies and merchants and their peacockish attitudes and formalities, just like in Yobetsu.
"After that, Seiten and I will go to the capitol to issue a formal complaint against Ryukotsusei and, depending on how he responds when I see him, Katsushika, before the Emperor," Tōga continued. "You and Rin can continue on to Inugawa."
Sesshōmaru considered the evidence they had against the Eastern and Northern Imperial Lords so far. His father's account on Kuzuhara and additional testimony of Lord Tsukuyomaru would be enough to prompt an inquiry into Katsushika's dealings, at least; meanwhile, the emperor was bound to take any reports of threats presented to him by his estranged half-brother Ryukotsusei seriously.
"And be accused of currying favor with the emperor by those silly courtiers?" Tōga pointed out. "Like I said previously, Kusakabe was a trustworthy man, and I still have the letters with his seal on them." Then, he gave another wry chuckle. "In addition, though he indubitably prefers me to Ryukotsusei or Katsushika, His Imperial Majesty doesn't enjoy my presence enough for me to visit him in his study. Perhaps you should go instead, since he seems to like you, despite your charmlessness."
In truth, Sesshōmaru would rather return to Inugawa than deal with the courtiers as well.
A gentle yawn and the rustling of cloth came from inside the single-room hut. Rin was awake again.
"Go give her that yukata," Tōga smiled. "You did well; in fact, yellow so happens to be her favorite color."
Sesshōmaru gave his father a sharp look and entered the room. With a laugh, Tōga continued on to the encampment.
a/n: Sorry for all the head hopping in that scene between Sesshōmaru and Rin. I was initially going to write this entire chapter from Sesshōmaru's POV but decided this was better. That was also one of the scenes I had tucked away in a scraps folder on my laptop for about a year. More to come, of course!
Until next time!