Hindsight

A/N: Yaar, mateys! I be so sorry for being so bloody late. Cursed be the stupid internet provider, and the fact that I could not be bothered to scrape myself off of my duff to find an internet cafe. Then again, the jungle that passes for my room made any and all forays rather difficult, not to mention dangerous. Anyhoo, I'm up with the Sessy-pective.
Enjoy, me hearties!

Disclaimer: Hmmph. Ye accursed fates, how dare ye not make me Rumiko Takahashi? Alas, I don't own Inuyasha or his compatriots, and I never will...
Do pirates sob hysterically?
Well, this one is.

Day Two, Act Two: Sesshomaru
Chapter Twelve: A Fine Day

**********************

Sesshomaru was having a fine day. He touched down on the Palace complex’s grassy inner gardens, inhaling deeply of his flower gardens’ heady scents.
He was far away from the idiot, the vexing Kagome, and not being able to kill what he wanted. As such, he was very far away from all stressors, and felt good.
Even better, he was well on his way to scratching his proverbial murdering itch.

All he had to do now was locate Keichi.

And, as inarguable proof that the gods favoured him, Keichi appeared, clothed in rich purple robes Sesshomaru knew came from his own wardrobe, surrounded by Sesshomaru’s own guards, none of whom looked particularly pleased. As Keichi neared, Sesshomaru noted, with growing ire, that one of the Western Lands’ official rings had been squeezed onto one of his pudgy fingers, and Keichi had even dusted off the ancient Western Lands’ sword of state and had it fixed to his sash.
No doubt, Sesshomaru would derive great pleasure in the moments to come. He even found himself thankful to Kagome for stopping him from releasing his anger on the idiot, as his fury fair overflowed from him now.

“It is indeed lowering to note that a rat can impersonate a dog.” Sesshomaru said coldly, his inner demon grinning viciously as Keichi’s head snapped up, his thin, pinched face paling several shades, until he turned a very unappealing pale green.

“Lord Sesshomaru! We received word and proof that you had fallen!” Sesshomaru’s head-of-guards, an inuyoukai named Nobu, said, looking utterly relieved.

“And which proof would that be? As far as I can tell, I’m quite alive.” Sesshomaru was glad to note that his guards had not betrayed him either, as he had known them all their lives, and would sincerely dislike having to kill them, too.

“Your armor was smashed to bits and covered in your blood and scent. Did you slay the bastard dragons that did that to you?” Nobu asked, eyes flashing as he, and the guards, completely abandoned the trembling Keichi to crowd Sesshomaru.

Sesshomaru decided happily that he was really, really, really, going to enjoy this.

“Dragons? Unless the species has shrunk, grown fur and smell of rat, I doubt it.”

“Rat?”

“Oh, Keichi…” Sesshomaru called, eyes blazing as the rat turned from where he was creeping away.

“Y-yes, Lord Sesshomaru?” the traitorous bastard stammered.
Sesshomaru quirked an eyebrow, which caused the rat to soil itself, and Sesshomaru’s robes, too. Oh, gods. Would the travesties never cease?
Sesshomaru, before he prepared himself to slice the treacherous rat open, remembered dimly that he wanted to know if Keichi had had co-conspirators. Only because he needed to quell all efforts at insubordination in his court.

Not at all because he would dearly love to have more things to eviscerate.

“Who else, Keichi?” he asked softly. He knew Keichi would speak the truth, if in an effort to somehow get Sesshomaru’s mercy, or in an effort to deflect Sesshomaru’s rage onto someone else. That, and he knew that Sesshomaru could smell a lie a mile away.

“No one, my lord.” Keichi squeaked, and Sesshomaru could see Keichi’s regret that he had not included others in on his deeds.

Once more, hindsight was a raging bitch.

Satisfied, Sesshomaru’s face widened in an unholy smirk, before pouncing on the hapless rat and ripping his throat out, pelting the bloody chunk of flesh to the wild dogs patrolling his palace’s borders.
He ripped his robes off the traitor, as well as the sword and ring, and poured acid in the still breathing rat’s mouth, grinning evilly as he burnt alive.
Sesshomaru turned from the screaming, sizzling naked rat behind him, to look at his awed guards.

“Oh, right.” Sesshomaru turned back, thrust his poisoned claws deep into the rat’s belly, before tearing out his spleen and placing it gently into Keichi’s fisted hand.
Sesshomaru took another deep breath, the aroma of flowers scented with blood and gore, and felt completely content.

Especially as he had gotten not a drop of blood on himself, because he was that good.
Aah, sweet revenge. And the death he had chosen for Keichi was both slow and painful. Sesshomaru reflected, to the dulcet tones of a treacherous soul in torment, that he was kissed by the gods, indeed.

**********

Clad in a new, clean haori and shiny armor, Sesshomaru left his palace in the capable hands of the trusted Nobu, who promised to flick copious amounts of wasabi at the still-dying Keichi’s gaping wounds, unfortunately healing, but not fast enough to cure him completely.
Keichi would continue to die for weeks.

Oh, rapture.

Sesshomaru, clear of conscience and light of heart, set out to look for the miko and her group, his nose picking up immediately on the idiot’s stench.
It was slowly being proven to Sesshomaru that the idiot did not enjoy water, soap or even a clean change of clothes.
He found where he had left them, and then followed the fast-fading trail for about fifty miles, taking some time off to butcher any youkai idiot enough to get in his way, his soul singing at the destruction and carnage, and mind flashing happily to the bloody, gooey Keichi probably still writhing in pain on his gardens’ grass.

He finally saw them, the taijiya and kit curled together in the strange bed cloth he had noticed last night, the monk far away, the red handprint on his cheek still visible. The idiot was sitting cross-legged against a tree, fast asleep, with Tetsusaiga propped between his folded arms. Kagome was nowhere in sight.

Sesshomaru cursed mightily, both at his brother’s incompetence as well as Kagome’s insistence on placing herself in dangerous situations.
He found her scent trail soon enough, and followed it to a hot springs nearby.
As he stepped lightly towards her, he wondered at her seemingly-viral need to be clean.
He had noticed it before, as she always smelled fresh and clean, like spring water and cherry blossom. The humans whose scents he had previously had the dubious honour of experiencing all smelt vaguely of dirt, sweat, and unwashed clothing.

Kagome was almost inuyoukai in her cleanliness.

He walked to the springs, finally seeing his ally, or rather, his ally’s head.
Sesshomaru frowned deeply. One well-placed kick from a moderately skilled youkai and she would lose all feeling above her neck, especially as she was apparently asleep.
A deep sigh of apparent contentment escaped her, and he breathed a bit easier, knowing that she was not asleep, and therefore not too stupid.
He stepped deliberately on a twig to alert her to his presence, and also to see how she would react.
He watched, amazed in spite of himself, as she turned gracefully and rapidly, scooping her nearby bow and arrow up as she turned and pointing a glowing arrow in his direction in one movement.
He had no idea that she was that fast, or that accurate. Perhaps he would not find her in danger constantly. Perhaps it would only be intermittent.

Then, he looked down from the arrow, and his eyes fair bugged out of his head.

Sesshomaru had always been distantly aware, as all people generally are, that to bathe, one must divest oneself of one’s clothing. This would make one nude enough to cleanse oneself. Having been in such a state countless times of his life, Sesshomaru had rather taken it as a given, that one is naked when one bathes.
Nevertheless, seeing Kagome’s upper half completely void of clothing made him distinctly uncomfortable, and he found himself thinking, rather stupidly, that she should have been bathing with some sort of clothing on.
However, some side of him, the side that had gone wild the day by the riverside, when he pulled her away from the water and drew her against him, rioted in glee at the sight of her firm breasts, tiny waist and the barest glimpse of a thatch of darkened hair. Because, if he would just move his feet, he could get a tactile knowledge of such visual bounty, something a person obviously needed…

He even started to think about moving forward, something that would later leave him dumbstruck upon inspection, when she dropped her weaponry, grabbed something off the ground and dropped herself well into the water, shrieking like someone had taken a poisonous whip to her flesh.
Sesshomaru moved forward, worried as to her reaction, when a speeding rock whizzed past his head, almost slicing off the tip of his ear.

“You reprobate pervert! Oh, gods, you’re worse than Miroku! How dare you walk in on my bath? When I’m naked? NAKED! Oh, gods!” As Sesshomaru dodged her fast, well-aimed missiles, he frowned, both at the attack and also at the likening of himself to the hentai monk. Sesshomaru did not have to force his attentions on any female. They tended to throw themselves at him, arms open, because...he was Sesshomaru.

She thankfully ran out of pebbles, but threw herself at the banks, most possibly to gather more ammunition.
This, Sesshomaru could not allow, because she might actually hit him if she threw them all at him, and how would he ever live with that shame?
He threw himself at her, immediately soaking his clean clothes as he grasped her wrists in a tight grip, hoping to all the gods above that she would not; one, incinerate him with her holy ki, and two, raise her knee in any way or with any speed.

“Greater people than you have died for lesser offences against this Sesshomaru.” He knew, of course, that such a threat, or any threat, would now have no effect on the blasted miko, but he had to try, at least for formality’s sake. Such a challenge could not go unanswered, of course.

She instead thrust her face close into his, utterly unimpressed, and started a rather remarkable rant.

“Well, I’m sure they weren’t walked in on while bathing. And I’m sure they hadn’t been dragged halfway across the world at a dead run by your STUPID brother. And I’m sure they were not bonded to you by your own obligation and honour. And I’m sure they-”

Sesshomaru knew, as he clamped his palm to her mouth, that he had never in his long days ever met someone so enamoured of the spoken word.

“I’m sure that they weren’t quite this mouthy.”

He could tell that she did not appreciate his attempt at humour.

Kagome’s eyes narrowed, and he could sense her ki rising rapidly, and he winced, realizing belatedly that he really should not antagonize the unstable miko, especially at such close quarters.
To his surprise, instead of blasting him with her ki, she controlled it, before twisting her head in an effort to get him to release his hold on her mouth.
He really should let her go, but strangely could not move his hand, fascinated with the soft lips pressed against the sensitive skin of his palm.
He watched as her cheeks worked under his palm, before she looked at him and he could see the deviltry in her eyes. She was about to do something.
Sesshomaru almost fell out of his skin when she did.

She licked his palm.

He immediately removed his hand, staring at her in shock. Did she know what a lick to an inuyoukai meant? Probably not. She had probably done it to get him to move his hand, thinking that he would be disgusted.

Well, he wasn’t. He almost had a heart attack.

Because a lick was akin to the humans’ practice of kissing.

“What? Are you crazy? You don’t stop a girl in the middle of a rant! Rants are necessary to uphold sanity.” She told him heatedly. He shook himself out of his shock to hear her.

His eyebrow rose at that. It didn’t seem to be helping her.

Her fury had faded from her gaze, and she was now staring in apparent rapture at his forehead. Again, there was just no understanding her. And then she shook her head and frowned, proving his theory that she was incapable of feeling the same emotion for more than ten seconds.
When she tried to get him to release her hands, Sesshomaru decided to enlighten her as to her present danger. He was frankly very patient, gently pointing out that she could have very well been eaten by a passing youkai. As her eyes widened, he sighed in relief. His message had obviously gotten across.

Alas, he was once more surprised to realize that he could indeed be wrong.

“I’m perfectly fine. See how quickly I picked up the bow and arrow? If it weren’t you, you’d have been crispy youkai.” She informed him, rather smugly.

“After I stepped on a twig to announce my presence. What if another youkai is not so accommodating as to tell you he’s going to kill you beforehand?” he truly now felt the urge to shake her until some sense fell in.

Her quiet contemplation of his face gave him hope, however, that he would not have to resort to anything physical.

“If I concede that you may, perhaps, have a point, would you let me go?” her obvious reluctance to do so had Sesshomaru immediately replying in the affirmative, just to tweak her temper.
He just could not stop baiting her. He liked to live dangerously.
As they traded their now customary quips and barbs, Sesshomaru found himself wondering just when he had allowed reality to progress to such a state that this human girl spoke to him with something other than utmost deference, coupled with a healthy dose of fear.

“Why do you have a point? What kind of question is that? You just spent a good minute trying to convince me and now you’re asking why? Well, let me just say-”

Oh, gods. Here she went again. He honestly thought that she misunderstood him so often, just to annoy him. He pinched her lips closed and took a deep breath.

“Why are you bathing alone? Does the taijiya not accompany you?” he clarified wearily.

“Well, usually, but today Inuyasha was being an idiot and made us run fifty miles and Sango was tired and Miroku was feeling her up and how do you know that?”

Sesshomaru followed her rambling sentence as best as he could, which was quite well, as Rin spoke at the exact speed at all times. He registered her question and answered coolly.

“I heard you talking last night.”

“Ohhhh. Now will you let me go, so I can get dressed?”

Sesshomaru’s gaze drifted downwards, reminded as he was that she had no clothes on. And he became quickly aware that he was soaking wet, she was very naked, and that she was plastered against him, her breasts pressing against his chest, their abdomens fused and her legs fixed against his.
With the juncture of her legs pressed to his, he experienced some pressure in a rather sensitive area. He shifted slightly, not enough to alert her to his discomfort, but enough to slide her a bit off.
Because, honestly, seeing as he couldn’t feasibly assuage said discomfort with her, what was the point in torturing himself?
However, seeing as he was Sesshomaru, after all, he was fairly certain that he could persuade her to let him lean forward and nibble her deliciously plump lip, then lick-

“How about that, let-go-of-Kagome-plan?” she stammered.

He snapped out of his daydream to abruptly release her, and practically ran out of the springs, disturbed at the direction of the thoughts still running through his head. Had his glorious rampage against Keichi somehow addled his wits? No, he had had those same thoughts before he sliced open Keichi, so that could not be it.

When had he become attracted to the miko so fast?

Well, she had been naked…

He stopped at the fringes of the springs, back still to the miko, fist where she licked him clenched as he mucked his way through his tangled thoughts.

“Um, you want to leave so I can finish bathe?” she called hesitantly.

As he informed her of the stupidity of that particular thought, he reflected on the fact that he did not particularly wish to stay, but something in him could not leave her here, where she could well be attacked. And he had the sinking feeling that it had very little to do with his debt of honour.

“Of all the arrogant asses the gods ever spat into the world…” she muttered behind him. Sesshomaru’s lips quirked up into a small smile as he picked up on her words.
Why was it that people mistook his knowledge of his intelligence and skills as arrogance? It was definitely not. Sesshomaru preferred...pride.
He looked down at his drenched clothing, before sighing and whispering a few words, watching as the water droplets lifted off his clothes and returned to the springs, leaving him completely dry. He ran his hands over the smooth, dry silk and grinned.

But damn, he was good.

“How did you do that? Get dry so fast, I mean.” She asked from behind him, right after she crested from beneath the water.

As he answered, he stared studiously forward, preserving his sanity by declining to turn around and be confronted with her nudity.

“Cool. Um, listen, Sesshomaru? I’m really tired, because Inuyasha is an ass, and he made me run fifty miles today. This water is really helping my muscles, so could we stay a while longer?” she asked, sounding very hopeful. The idiot had been pushing her very hard, and he could smell her tiredness wafting off of her, overpowering her delicate, cherry blossom scent.

He stayed silent for a few moments, before deciding that a restorative soak would be beneficial to her health, thereby making his duty to protect her that much easier, then turned around and sat on a large, flat rock next to her large, obnoxiously yellow bag, staring straight at her.

“Fine.” He could not keep watch on her if she was behind his back. Even Sesshomaru had
not quite mastered the ability to see behind himself.
Thankfully, she kept herself well underwater, grinning at him in relief and pleasure, before resting her head against a nearby rock.
The steam wafted all around them, and he watched over the fascinating miko, careful to keep his suddenly wandering thoughts centred on protecting, not molesting, her.

Sesshomaru decided, upon careful inspection of the occurrences of the day, that he was indeed having quite a fine day.

A better day than he had had in a while, at the very least.

He found himself anticipating their next interaction.

As a relatively young inuyoukai with countless time ahead of him, Sesshomaru had the foresight to know that someone this unpredictable and this fascinating would come around rarely, and make his life infinitely more interesting.

And if he got to annoy that blustering ball of fur he had the misfortune to call a brother...well...life occasionally had its perks.

A/N: Ooh, I personally think that he is too adorable! My friend says that Sesshomaru is too indecisive here, but I don't care!!!!! He's sooo damned cute this way. And it makes it easier to set up the funny scenes. But anyhows, next chapter, a Kagome scene, will be quite cool, if I do say so myself.
And, once more, I grovel for mercy at your toes, oh venerable readers! I am so very sorry for the delay. I'm being crushed by an Everest of evil homework and assignments. Because, honestly, who really needs to know Matza's Drift Theory, I ask you!!!

A/N pt2: Oh, lawd. I put the dashy thingie in the wrong place for italics. Which just goes to show you, I am in creditable command of the English language. Computer speak, not so much. So sorry!!!
A/N pt 3: And then this A/N was all italicized. I tell you...Jinxed! I'm jinxed! I hope nothing else is squidgy with this chapter once I upload this fix!