A/N: I'm pretty behind this week, so this may be the only chapter you get this Sunday!
Sesshomaru stood looking at the woman who held his arm in a clawed grip for several long moments. He nodded slowly. "show me. Show me what happens if I keep the woman I love."
Rin vanished in the blackness, then everything around him changed, again, just like a dream world, or a nightmare. It was very bright now- there were flames around him, and the palace was burning. There were shouts and the clash of weapons on the evening air, and he looked frantically for Rin.
Rin—his sweet, human Rin—knelt on the floor before him, 7 months pregnant, trembling in fear. He hurried to her side and pulled her to her feet, making sure she was all right. He could smell blood on the air and looked down at Rin's hands as she held a scrap of bloody, torn cloth. "your mother…" Rin stammered, crying. "she saved me…she's dead…"
At her words, Sesshomaru froze, shocked. No. his mother couldn't be dead! She couldn't! he looked to the scrap of cloth in her hands, taking it from her. It was clearly from his mother's outermost robe, and was stained with her blood. He sniffed, scenting fresh blood very nearby. "stay here, Rin," he told her, rushing into the next room, where the wall had collapsed. Mostly buried under the rubble lay his mother, face-down. She had several arrows in her back. Sesshomaru rushed to her, seeing she still breathed weakly. She stirred as he started shifting the rubble off her. "my…son?" she croaked, trying to look up at him.
"Mother, stay still. You're badly injured." He worked quickly to get the rubble and burning embers away from her ruined body. If he could just get her to a healer, she might still be all right.
"Is she…all right?" the Lady Mother choked out, looking up at him from the corner of her eye. "I…I should have…expected…an attack."
"Rin is fine. You are not. Please, save your energy, mother." He dug faster, desperate to free her as quickly as he could. He could tell the entire palace was burning down around them and he had to get out immediately. But he did not want to leave without his mother, the only blood relation he had left.
"Leave me. Save your mate. The packs are here." So that was it- this wasn't some freak accident, though he hadn't thought that to begin with. It was a coup, a massacre. This time, of the Tsuki clan. All because of him, and Rin, and the child she was near to birthing. "save her…" she whimpered softly, then sighed. "…too late."
His heart skipped a beat as he heard a cry of pain from the next room, where he'd told his beloved Rin to stay waiting for him. He could scent her blood on the air and looked frantically at his mother, then at the door, torn. "go!" she managed to bark, pushing at his ankle before her hand fell limp. That made his remaining choice clear. He ran into the room to see Rin kneeling once more, held up by her hair. An inuyoukai woman stood over her, a knife at her throat. The source of the scent of blood this time was the arrow wound in Rin's shoulder. It must have come in through a hole in the wall. Rin was whimpering, terrified, and the woman looked smug.
Sesshomaru growled lowly and reached to draw his sword. "hold it," the woman snarled, holding the knife a little tighter to Rin's neck and drawing a small bead of blood. "don't move." He growled louder but froze, ignoring the bright flames surrounding them on all sides as the palace continued to burn. He needed to get her out of here, and himself, before the entire structure collapsed on top of them.
"let her go. Now."
The woman—a member of the Dou clan, he knew, by her sandy-brown hair and thin straight lines like brown brushstrokes on her cheekbones—laughed at his command. "you have no authority, Sesshomaru," she informed him smugly. "you forfeited any right to command me the moment you took this human to bed." Rin whimpered again, pained by her bleeding arrow wound, terrified of the flames and the knife pressed at her soft throat. "let her go, you say? I don't think I will. I think I shall kill your precious mate and the bastard whelp she carries, and then I shall kill you. The Tsuki clan shall be no more, and this time the Dou shall take their rightful place as rulers, as we should have from the beginning!"
Sesshomaru moved desperately with blinding speed, using the distraction of part of the roof collapsing to his advantage. He cast his poison into the woman's eyes, blinding her and making her drop the knife and clutch at her face. He pulled Rin away from the woman and drew his sword at last, slashing mercilessly. Head and body hit the floor separately and Rin recoiled in horror at the sight. He turned to her, scooping her rounded body into his arms and jumping clear of the burning palace at last, just as it collapsed behind him.
He looked down, seeing the guards trying valiantly to fend off an army of the Dou and White-yama clans, the same that had caused the Yume massacre all those centuries ago. It was clear they were losing badly, but had bought him enough time to escape. He started to fly to safety only to feel the bite of arrows in his shoulders and back from archers he hadn't spotted before. He managed to get away, now bleeding for himself and in intense pain. He carefully removed the arrow from Rin's shoulder and tore his sleeve to bandage her, ignoring his own wounds. This would have to do until they found safety, and a healer.
As he bandaged the wound, Rin started to whimper again in pain and pant. She grabbed his arm and squeezed tight, her other hand going to her massive belly. "…it hurts!" she managed to bite out, and in a panic he scooped her up and flew again, ignoring his pain and exhaustion for her sake. This couldn't be happening! He could not lose his pup along with his mother in a single day. He knew they were too early. Suddenly the world faded back into blackness around him and he fell to his knees in anguish—that was suddenly gone as the blackness gave way to a room in the palace once more.
Sesshomaru's mother stood before him, her face impassive and unreadable even by him. "you have seen all there is to see, my son. It is time to make your own choice."
He stared around him, terrified the awful visions would return for several moments. He finally struggled back to his feet, shaken. "I…I do not know what to choose…" he admitted in a soft voice. Both of his apparent options were terrible. Either he allowed Rin to give up her soul, the thing he loved most, to become a youkai so he could take the throne, or he lost everything in a coup if she remained human to save their child. Both choices were abhorrent.
His mother was glaring at him when he looked slightly down at her. "I saw all that you did while inside that vision, Sesshomaru." She suddenly shifted and slapped him hard enough to make him step back a half pace, leaving bloody furrows from her claws on his cheek. "how dare you! How dare you even consider endangering everyone for the sake of your human and her half-breed pup!" she spat, more angry than he had seen her in centuries. "your foolish choice would cause the death of dozens of your fellows…even me."
Sesshomaru stayed silent, not moving, though he could feel the blood trickling slightly down his face from the scratches that were taking their time healing. She seemed somehow to get angrier when she couldn't get a rise out of him. "have you nothing to say for yourself?" she demanded, hauling her arm back to strike him again. This time he caught her wrist, holding it away from his face.
"mother. It was your choice that caused your demise in that future. And it is my choice to defend myself, or not." The Lady Mother's eyes widened in surprise as she seemed to finally register that she had struck him. She looked remorseful for her actions. Sesshomaru released her a little roughly and stepped back. "Rin and I shall talk. You will stay out of it." With that, he swept from the room, intent on finding his beloved.
The Lady Mother stared after her only son, then looked down for a moment at her claws, and back up again. "my son…"