Through The Well
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InuYasha › Yaoi - Male/Male › InuYasha/Sesshōmaru
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Category:
InuYasha › Yaoi - Male/Male › InuYasha/Sesshōmaru
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
17
Views:
26,168
Reviews:
144
Recommended:
1
Currently Reading:
9
Disclaimer:
I do not own the series Inuyasha, nor its characters.They are property of Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan, Yomiuri TV, Sunrise, and Viz. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
Sixteen
Chapter Sixteen
The day after the party was quiet and uneventful. This was mostly thanks to the sake consumed by the ningen of the village and the resulting headaches and nausea experienced by the vast majority of them, his friends included. Sango, at least, had tried to rouse herself for the sake of her children, but an extremely irritable Miroku had wrestled her back into their futon and she hadn't put up more than a token show of resistance. Inuyasha had then been rudely ejected from the hut with a string of growled curses following him.
Thus it had fallen to the older and wiser of the group to corrall the energetic children and keep them in line throughout the day - by which he meant Kaede and Sesshomaru. Both had attempted to recruit him, and both times he had refused. He'd stubbornly remained up a high tree, away from the dozen or so screaming brats, and watched with not a small amount of amusement as Sesshomaru oversaw Jaken trying to keep all the kids in sight, occasionally shooting glares up at him.
It served him right for not intervening when the humans kept drinking and drinking. It wasn't as though they hadn't noticed what was going on; neither of them had touched a single drop of alcohol. It took far greater quantities to intoxicate them thanks to their inuyoukai blood, so it would have been pretty pointless to indulge. And besides, for different reasons, neither of them were the type to get drunk in the first place.
They'd caught a lucky break by late afternoon. Several hungover humans to whom the brats belonged were able to rouse themselves out of bed and start taking responsibility for them, at least in part. Anything overly energetic still seemed beyond them, but he'd often heard it said it was the thought that counted. It seemed like a pretty pointless sentiment to him - what good did thinking about helping do for anyone? - but then again, he'd always been a man of action. He didn't think about doing things, he did them.
Still, he'd thought, as he watched the activity from his perch above, Sesshomaru did seem to be pretty good at handling the kids. He had a way of looking at them that stopped any bad behaviour in its tracks, yet was mild enough that they weren't afraid of him. And somehow, he managed to look calm and regal despite the noise and distraction, look engaged and interested whenever the kids brought him a flower or a funny shaped rock to look at.
That was why, when he stumbled upon Sesshomaru and Rin the next morning, he supposed it shouldn't surprise him that he was displaying the utmost patience with her as well. Inuaysha knew, he damn well knew, he would rather have faced down a horde of ravenous youkai than let a little girl braid his hair. Especially not when she intended to weave a small meadow's worth of flowers into it, as Sesshomaru had evidently suffered. Yes, that was a torture it took a special kind of tolerance to endure.
Inuyasha made sure he stayed hidden while he committed it to memory. When he finally managed to get back through the well, he would be sure to remember it whenever he faced his asshole brother. Sitting on a fallen log, looking strained, his normally perfectly neat hair unevenly braided down the length of his back and decorated sporadically with little white, yellow and blue flowers no doubt picked from the grass at Rin's feet, Sesshomaru hardly looked like the regal, aloof daiyoukai he liked to embody.
The hanyou actually had to cover his mouth with his hand when Rin danced back around in front of Sesshomaru and beamed at her work. She clasped her hands together gleefully, smiling as bright as sunshine, and then she quickly leaned forward to kiss Sesshomaru on the cheek while he clearly struggled to return her enthusiasm.
Oh, but not even that could be better than telling Sesshomaru he looked pretty.
Pretty! Inuyasha's stomach was actually aching, he was trying so hard not to laugh. His ribs felt fit to burst. And through it all, Sesshomaru plainly swung back and forth between the desire to maintain his dignity and his refusal to embarrass Rin and take away that smile, only adding to Inuyasha's amusement.
Even as his eyes blurred with mirthful tears, the hanyou saw the way Sesshomaru's fingers flexed and then curled into his palms again, desperate to check the damage done to his hair, yet worried about Rin turning around as she ran off and being offended. Not wanting Sesshomaru to notice the flowers just yet, Inuyasha quickly took a deep breath, wiped his eyes on the back of his hand, and strolled out into view just before Rin disappeared into the village.
"It's a pretty morning, isn't it?" he said cheerfully.
Sesshomaru immediately scowled at him, being more than sharp enough to catch the dig. "Indeed," he replied. "Even an irritant couldn't spoil it."
Inuyasha grinned unrepentently. "Y'know, I had no idea you enjoyed having your hair played with. Is your big secret out? Is it going to spoil your image if I tell everyone?"
Sesshomaru lifted an eyebrow. "Will it spoil yours if I reveal you enjoy having those fluffy ears of yours played with?"
Said ears flattened defensively. "What the hell are you talking about? I don't even like people touching my ears."
Sesshomaru merely smiled, feeling better now that he once again had the upper hand. "So you believe. I, however, know different."
"Yeah, well, whatever." Inuyasha didn't want to go there, absolutely not, and now he was annoyed because Sesshomaru had, yet again, managed to effortlessly turn things to his favour. Damn it. It was time to set things back on track.
He waved a hand at the flowery explosion that was Sesshomaru's hair. "Why do you let her do this stuff to you? The Sesshomaru I knew would have rather died than lose even an ounce of dignity."
The smug humour fell away from the daiyoukai's face as a considering look swept across it instead. For a few moments, he didn't speak at all, merely stared out into the distance and over the village. Finally, just before the silence got to Inuyasha and he had to say something to break it, Sesshomaru found his voice.
"I suppose the simple answer to that question would be that Rin is precious to me."
The hanyou's eyebrows lifted in surprise. That wasn't something he would have ever expected to hear from Sesshomaru, not even from a good version of him. But the simple sincerity with which it was said prevented Inuyasha from mocking him for it. Instead, he prompted, "Precious?"
"Yes," Sesshomaru agreed. "I have no doubt that Rin is the only thing that kept me here after our Inuyasha passed. He... he died in my arms, and while doing so, he asked that I protect our friends, protect the village. I would have honoured that promise regardless, but without Rin here, I would would have withdrawn from everyone into solitude, away from the memories. It would have been a lonely existence."
Inuyasha rocked on his feet a bit as he absorbed this information. He had to admit he could see it happening just that way. Sesshomaru - either of the ones he knew - wouldn't stick around just because he needed someone to lean on. He wouldn't even let anyone know he did. The stubborn independence was a trait apparently both Sesshomaru's shared. He could grudgindly admit, in that regard, they were pretty similar.
"The Sesshomaru I knew was like that," Inuyasha found himself saying. "He only cared about Rin. I think, anyway. Pretty sure he brought her back from the dead with Tenseiga, so that has to mean something. I'm not too sure about that, though, because he didn't exactly stop by to chew the fat and catch up on things."
The daiyoukai turned to look at him. "If it was true in your world, it would be something in common with this one. I, too, brought Rin back from the Netherworld with Tenseiga."
Inuyasha bit his lip a bit. "See, I'm not too sure it would be exactly the same..."
"Why not? It sounds similar enough."
"Yeah... but I'm betting, since you've all known each other for a while, that... Koga's wolves weren't responsible for her dying in the first place?"
For the first time, Inuyasha saw what a truly shocked Sesshomaru looked like. His eyes widened and his jaw even slackened a little, leaving his mouth hanging partially open. "Koga? Koga's pack killed her?"
"I think so. It was never admitted outright, but I noticed things, y'know? When we met Koga - which was after we started hunting Naraku - we found him after he'd slaughtered a village. There was a lot of blood, but I could pick out the scent of different people easy enough. I smelled her blood there - didn't realise it at first, but after seeing her a couple times, I realised where I knew the scent. There was a lot of it in the woods surrounding the village... and she was small. So when I saw her with - with the other Sesshomaru, not a mark on her... I had a good idea what it meant. Didn't say anything to the others, though. By that point, Koga was... sort of an ally, I guess, 'cause he hated Naraku as much of the rest of us and was head over heels for Kagome to boot. He'd sworn off killing humans, and that satisfied everyone else."
Inuyasha blew out a breath. "I suppose that's one story I shouldn't be telling everyone else, huh?"
"I can only concur," Sesshomaru agreed, his composure settling back into place.
The hanyou leaned his back against a nearby tree and peered up at a flock of birds winging across the sky. There would be a lot of stories like that one, he wagered. Memories that would shock or even haunt some of the people here, which meant he would always run the risk of saying something that would cause upset. Then again, he ran the same risk of upsetting himself with all the questions he asked; this world had its share of tragedies and not all the answers would be ones he wanted to hear.
"Guess I'm gonna have to be more careful about stuff like that," he said. "We've all got questions, but not all the answers are gonna be goods ones."
Sesshomaru didn't respond, but Inuyasha could feel his eyes on him. A few moments of this, and he got the urge to twitch, so he looked over to find Sesshomaru smiling. A small one, just a slight curve of the lips, but a smile nonetheless. One of his eyebrows hiked up almost to his hairline.
"What?"
"My apologies," Seshsomaru said, but the smile lingered. "It just brings me happiness and... comfort to see the similarities between yourself and the Inuyasha I knew."
It was a sentiment Inuyasha was familiar with, but one that surprised him, coming from Sesshomaru. "Where did that come from?"
"He could both be surprisingly considerate of others, just as you can," the daiyoukai explained. "Because of a rough childhood, the Inuyasha of this world found it difficult to place his trust in others, but once it was earned, it was never lost. Those who were graced with that trust, those who became his inner circle, were first and foremost in his mind. He could still be gruff and uncouth, but he was compassionate towards them in his own way, and we all understood. Even for those of us who did not initially start off in a favourable manner, like myself, he found it within him to open up, despite the many times he had been rejected in his life. From the way I have seen you behave since your arrival, I feel most if not all of this is true of you, as well."
Inuyasha shifted uncomfortably. Those were not qualities he saw in himself at all, and it worried him that others might start expecting to see them. To distract himself from the thought, he asked instead: "You and the other me didn't hit it off right away? With how everyone here talks about you, that's a little bit of a surprise. What did you do?"
Sesshomaru sighed quietly. "I was not kind to you in our first meeting. It's something I regret now, for I understand my reasons were petty and foolish."
"So what happened?" he asked again.
Sesshomaru was quiet a moment. "For you to understand why I acted as I did, it may perhaps be better to start at the beginning," he decided. "Come, sit with me. Please."
The hanyou heaved a sigh of his own. "That means this is going to be a long one... All right. Get it off your chest, I suppose."
Sesshomaru waited until Inuyasha was seated on a fallen over log opposite him before he began. He seemed to take a moment to steady himself before speaking.
"It would probably be best to start before Inuyasha's birth. Our father and I had, up until Inuyasha's mother caught his eye, been close. Closer, in fact, than most youkai and their progeny. It was always understood that I would one day succeed him, whether by force or otherwise, but it did not impact our every day lives... until he started pulling away. Looking back now, I can see quite clearly that I was... jealous, though at the time, I firmly believed I was disgusted and indignant that my father would lower himself in such a way, and that he would also discard me to do so. I was his son, his firstborn, his heir... and he would carelessly toss me aside to fraternise with a human woman?
"That feeling grew worse when the woman fell pregnant. I--"
"Her name was Izayoi," Inuyasha interjected flatly. "Not 'the woman'."
Sesshomaru held his hands up peaceably. "I'm sorry. I hadn't wanted to assume the names were the same. I wasn't trying to insult her or her memory."
Satisfied for now, Inuyasha hackled down and gestured for him to continue.
"Izayoi, as I said, fell pregnant. Father was ecstatic... I was mortified. It was clear the child would be hanyou, and I could only see that as a stain on father's legacy. I became terribly prejudiced toward Inuyasha before he had even taken his first breath; I truly hated him, I think, and that coloured every interaction I had with father until his birth. Our relationship crumbled. This led to a desire to take his seat of power and establish myself as Lord of the Western Lands, and I now believe even that was a pathetic cry for attention. If I could show him how powerful I had become, how well I had learned all the lessons he taught me, perhaps then I would become the closest person to him again.
"The night of Inuyasha's birth, I went to him, in an act of arrogance and bravado, to tell him that I had begun my conquest. I demanded he give me the Tetsusaiga, as my birthright. I could see that he was injured from his battle with the demon Ryukotsusei, and that no longer concerned me as once it would have. I had become single-minded in my focus, so much so that what I wanted was standing directly in front of me and I didn't even realise it.
"Father told me that Izayoi was in danger. Her family had discovered the father of her unborn child was youkai, and they had put her under heavy guard. It seemed they intended to wait for her to birth Inuyasha and then destroy him, thus purging what they preceived as evil from their home. They believed, as many do, that Izayoi had been manipulated and seduced against her will; it was beyond their comprehension that father cared for her deeply enough to be prepared to sacrifice his life for her."
Sesshomaru paused here, and Inuyasha could see his eyes had become shadowed. It didn't take a genius to see what was eating at him.
"You knew, though, didn't you?" the hanyou prompted.
Sesshomaru's eyes closed. "Yes, I knew. I could see it clearly in how resolutely he stood before me. Even as his blood stained the snow at his feet from a wound too deep to heal quickly, he was determined to go. I let him go and did nothing."
"You think you should have gone with him."
"No... I know I should have. However, I was stubborn, and so against the very notion of involving myself with Inuyasha or his mother that it didn't even occur to me. It was my father's affair, not mine. If I had only gone with him... things would have been very different today. If he had had me there to watch his back, he might have even been alive to greet you."
That... was an implication it would take a long time for Inuyasha to absorb. If a similar exchange had happened with the Sesshomaru of his world and their father... He didn't even want to think of it right now. But it would be something he and his Sesshomaru needed to discuss, whether he liked it or not.
"So, what actually happened that night?"
"As I said, father was determined to go, and there was nothing I could or would say to stop him. He did, however, pause just long enough to try to teach me one, final lesson, one that I didn't even realise was a lesson until years later. He asked me if I had anyone in my life to protect. Of course, I did not, and even dismissed the very notion as foolish. What need did a powerful youkai like myself have for anyone else?
"Perhaps my answer was all he needed to know, for he left then. He assumed his true form, likely putting more strain on his already weakened body, and tore into the night at great speed. I cursed him for a fool and began the trek back to the Western Lands. Hours later, a retainer of my father, a flea by the name of Myoga, caught up to me. He begged me to return and aid my father.
"I had been unsettled since my father left, but too stubborn to turn around on my own, so this gave me the much needed impetus to return. Unfortunately, it was too little, too late."
"He was already dead?" Inuyasha asked quietly.
"No, he was alive, but... barely. He didn't even have the strength to lift his head, and it was not surprising. I could see the trail of blood he'd left behind as he dragged himself out of the burning mansion. I don't believe he could even truly see me as I knelt beside him, but he gripped my hand, and he told me what happened. He said that, when he arrived, he heard Izayoi crying out in labour, and he knew he had to hurry, but his injury slowed him. By the time he reached them, it was too late. Her family, in desperation, had killed both Izayoi and Inuyasha and he was forced to use the Tenseiga to bring them back. Someone had set the mansion ablaze, and he covered their escape.
"He begged me then, Inuyasha. My proud father begged me to go after Izayoi and protect them both in his stead, and I said nothing as his last breath left him because I didn't want to. I didn't care what happened to Izayoi and her child. At least I can say of myself that I tried to use the Tenseiga to bring him back, but the Tenseiga is not a sword that will work for just anyone. I lacked the necessary qualities to wield it then. It felt much like a simple, iron sword in my grip, without a hint of the true power it wields."
Sesshomaru paused then to close his hand over the hilt of the Tenseiga, safely secured in his obi; it seemed to steady him enough to finish saying what needed to be said.
"Youkai do not bury their dead; to prevent his body being mauled by scavengers, I burned it. Then... I left. I did not do as he had requested and see to Inuyasha's safety. Instead, I went to attend to my own interests, consolidating my power in the Western Lands. I did not see Inuyasha again for seven years."
Inuyasha nodded absently. From his own limited knowledge of the circumstances surrounding his birth, this seemed to fit well. The age at which he met the Sesshomaru of his world seemed approximately the same as well. If it wasn't such a serious subject, he might even find it interesting how certain events seemed fated, no matter how they were reached, almost like intertwining threads intersecting at significant events in their lives. He imagined Kagome would have been able to explain it better using one of those theories her future scholars had.
"It was by mere chance that our paths happened to cross," Sesshomaru continued. "I was tracking a youkai I was of a mind to kill when, suddenly, there he was. I think we were equally surprised, but I knew who Inuyasha was the instant I saw him. There was no mistaking the colour of his hair and his eyes, his age, even the scent of inuyoukai blended with that of human."
This was it. This was the part that intrigued Inuyasha most. If this Sesshomaru had been as cruel and callous as his own brother, he had no idea how that relationship would have been mended. The fear, the hate, that had been instilled in his tiny body by the almost careless acid-tipped backhand he had received from Sesshomaru that fateful day had still not totally faded centuries later. There would never be reconciliation with the Sesshomaru of his world, and he thought both of them preferred it that way.
"At first, I was speechless. I had never intended to see Inuyasha again, let alone so soon, and yet there he was, standing right before me, looking confused and wary and just a little bit hopeful. Then he asked me a single, innocent question."
Inuyasha got a sinking feeling in his stomach. He had a pretty good idea what question that was...
"He asked me... if I was family. I don't care to repeat the things I said to him, but they were far from kind. I chased him away from me with all manner of threats."
Inuyasha couldn't help cringing. Oh, yeah, he remembered asking that stupid question. He'd been confused as hell stumbling across Sesshomaru that first time. Couldn't figure out why his nose told him this youkai was familiar, but his eyes told him he was a stranger. But his mother had spoken of his father, how his strange colouring came from him, and had blurted out the first stupid thing that had come to mind. He'd regretted it within moments, for many reasons.
Sesshomaru, however, noticed his expression, and made one of his own. "I told you it was unpleasant. I apologise if it's hard to hear from my perspective."
The hanyou blinked. "What? No. No, no, that's not it." He blew out a breath that made his bangs flutter. "I just remember asking the same question, and it's kinda... embarrassing. If that Inuyasha was anything like me, he just kinda... blurted it out without thinking. I, at least, couldn't understand why you smelled like I knew you but I'd never met you before. I'd never smelt another youkai like you before, plus we looked vaguely similar. What you did probably just pissed him off more than anything. I got worse than that from the Sesshomaru in my world."
"Worse?" Sesshomaru asked warily. "What did he do?"
Inuyasha shrugged awkwardly. This was one of those things, he thought. A question with an answer Sesshomaru wouldn't like.
"To put it simply, he backhanded me. If my mind had caught up faster than my mouth, I might have noticed the look of pure and utter loathing he was giving me and run instead. But he knocked me clear off my feet and into a nearby tree, hard enough that the entire side of my face felt numb - that kind of numb you get when the pain is too much to even understand. And while I sat on the ground, reeling from the shock, he told me, in a cool, calm voice, that if he ever saw me again, he'd kill me, and then he just walked away. That was when I ran, as fast as I could, until I couldn't smell any trace of him and the pain started to throb. I found a stream to look at myself and that was when the fear really set in - it'd just been shock before then, y'know? But when I saw the burn marks on my face from that nasty acid stuff, the black eye, the split lip, I knew he'd meant what he said. It took a long time for me to even figure out who he was, let alone understand why he hated me so much."
Sesshomaru had gone completely still, so still one might have thought he was a statue. Inuyasha could tell he was struggling to absorb and accept this revelation, and waved a hand dismissively. "Look, I got over it. It was a good lesson, honestly. I stayed alive because that woke me up, made me realise I had to be tough and I shouldn't ever let my guard down. No one was gonna take it easy on me just 'cause I was a kid. Even the humans didn't. I'm not afraid of Sesshomaru anymore and haven't been for a long time. I always gave as good as I got after that, no matter what he tried to do to me. I cut off his arm. You do remember that, right? So you don't have to be guilty for what another version of you did, damn it."
"You were a child, Inuyasha," Sesshomaru stressed. "And he did not check his blows in the slightest. What was he thinking?"
"I was an eyesore," Inuyasha explained with a shrug. "He wanted me out of the way. If he'd thought more of me, he might have even killed me there and then. That has always been Sesshomaru's attitude, though. He cuts down whatever's in his path, be it youkai or human, and he holds grudges until the end of days. You wanna know the whole reason he decided to make Naraku his enemy? Naraku decided to use him in a plot to kill me, then discarded him as soon as the plan fell through. It pissed Sesshomaru off to be someone else's tool, and he decided from that point on to hunt Naraku down even if it took forever. He wasn't trying to do the right thing or help anyone but himself."
"I had thought confessing my own transgressions would be hard enough," the daiyuokai commented after a moment. "But hearing even worse about myself is... difficult."
"It's not you," Inuyasha said, voice thick with exasperation. "It's an entirely different person. Just like me and your Inuyasha - not the same people. I'm sure he did things I wouldn't do and vice versa. So why the hell would you blame yourself for what the Sesshomaru in my world did? That's stupid as shit."
"An interesting way to put it," Sesshomaru said dryly, lifting an eyebrow, "but you are right."
"Damn right I am. And what I want to know now is: how the hell did you and the other me end up travelling together if it started off like that?"
"Well, I didn't see Inuyasha again for more than ten years. I was, as before, busy bringing the Western Lands under my thumb. Many of the youkai under my father's rule wanted to challenge his whelp, as they called me, to see if I was worthy. It was a few years after the encounter that I even discovered Izayoi had alreay passed away when we met. I hadn't realised I had chased off a small child, now an orphan, with my callous words.
"I won't go into detail of the epiphanies I had in the years that followed, but suffice to say I realised the hate I had for Inuyasha was... baseless. I blamed him for things he had no part in purely because he reminded me of things I would rather forget, and it wasn't fair. I had left him to fend for himself when my father had asked me to protect him, and I didn't even know where he was or if he was alive.
"I went looking for him, when I was finally able to swallow my pride and my stubbornness. Inuyasha had moved on from where I found him, but I was undeterred. I had not completely forsaken either stubbornness or pride when I managed to track Inuyasha down, however; I batted his crude attacks away like irritatating insects, and I did not initially apologise for my earlier actions. I don't know if I truly had a plan for Inuyasha before we met again, but after seeing him like that, almost feral, I decided it was my duty to train him - and that only. I determined that I would fulfil my father's wishes if I taught Inuyasha to defend himself as an inuyoukai, and then I would be able to leave him again with my conscience clear.
"I browbeat Inuyasha with the necessity of this, the logic of it. And, cautiously, he eventually agreed. Of course, I didn't even consider the possiblity then, but Inuyasha was far more intelligent and shrewd than I ever gave him credit for."
The hanyou's fluffy ears perked up then. "Oh, really? You thought he was an idiot?"
Sesshomaru managed a faint smile. "No, not exactly that. I just looked down on him in every way - a rather telling sign of my arrogance. Inuyasha was only half the demon I was, literally. In my mind, that translated to all aspects of him. Everything was inferior. The fact that Inuyasha was half-feral at the time only compounded the idea. I did not realise that his time spent alone - something I did not, at the time, take any responsibility for, despite my revelations - had made him cunning. Having never experienced anything close to it, it was simply beyond my scope to comprehend. I did not realise having survived since infancy on his own meant Inuyasha was not only smart, but also had an indomitable will, a certain tenaciousness and grit. And he was easily as stubborn as I was, which I found out very soon after.
"Naturally, we clashed; our personalities were different on a fundamental level. Hardly a day passed without us shouting at each other, one of us storming off or threatening to kill the other... but somehow, we didn't burn that bridge. Gradually, as one might expect, the things we kept hidden from each other initially - our thoughts, our histories, even our feelings over certain matters - came out, whether intentionally or not. We grew to... understand each other, and accept the faults we saw that had once seemed insurmountable. We stayed together for many years, skirting human settlements, taking our time getting to know each other.
"I learned a great many things about myself during that time, and I like to think Inuyasha did, too. I discarded the notion that I was merely fulfilling my duty within that first year, as travelling with Inuyasha slowly assuaged what I began to understand was guilt. I threw away my plans to completely dominate the Western Lands; some of it remains unclaimed even today, hundreds of years later. I had thought I wanted absolute conquest, to have all I surveyed beneath my yoke... yet by travelling with Inuyasha, I came to enjoy the challenge he presented. No one else dared talk back to me, or in such a disrespectful way. No one else would go nose-to-nose with me in an argument - or even dare argue to begin with. Never before had I felt myself so suffused with hot rage, and thought it may sound strange, I came to enjoy that animation and energy he brought to me."
Inuyasha gave Sesshomaru a bland stare. "Yeah," he said dryly. "That does sound really weird."
The daiyoukai laughed, inclining his head in acknowledgement. "Strange though it is, I believe Inuyasha felt the same. Why else would he always come back even after storming off? Kagome had her own thoughts on the matter. What was the phrase she used...? Ah. 'Opposites attract', I believe it was. It was true, in our case, as we eventually found out."
Here, the hanyou began to squirm internally. He knew where this story was going to go from here on out, and he really, really didn't want to hear about it. Probably not ever. But when Sesshomaru had just sat there, and spoke more than Inuyasha had ever heard him speak over the course of his three hundred years of life, let alone in one go, confessing all manner of things that clearly still caused him some amount of distress even now, it made him feel like a bit of an asshole to tell him story time was over because the rest was going to creep him the fuck out.
Still, it had to be done. Inuyasha raised a hand to stop him before Sesshomaru could begin again. "Listen... Look... I really... appreciate you setting it all straight for me, but... but the rest of that... I just don't think I'm ready to, y'know... hear it... so..." Inuyasha risked a glance at Sesshomaru, then narrowed his eyes. "You already know exactly what I'm going to say, don't you?"
The smile that had been forming on the daiyoukai's face only grew, and the mirth almost sparkled in his eyes. Yeah, damn right he knew. But before Inuyasha could tear strips off him for it, the smell of cooking meat floated in on a breeze. Almost in sync, both inuyoukai paused to scent the air. The midday meal was close to being prepared.
Sesshomaru rose to his feet fluidly. "That would be our cue to return to the village," he said. "Come, Inuyasha, before they send for us."
Inuyasha rolled his eyes and climbed to his feet, taking the opportunity to indulge in a long, long stretch to get the kinks out of his back. Then he trotted to catch up with Sesshomaru, who was already disappearing into the trees ahead. He folded his arms and tucked his hands into his sleeves, then glared ahead of him as he walked. He was still ticked off about earlier.
He managed to walk an entire minute in silence before bringing it up. "You knew exactly what I was trying to say," he said accusingly. "And you let me carry on anyway."
"I knew," Sesshomaru agreed pleasantly. "It was rather endearing the way you were trying to say it without offending me, so I thought I would let you continue."
"You know what? You're still actually kind of an asshole."
Almost lazily, Sesshomaru's hand batted Inuyasha with enough force to send him toppling into a nearby bush. Inuyasha's defence for falling - and also for making a loud squawking noise of surprise as he did - was that he hardly expected Sesshomaru to do something so... so playful, because that was the look on his face when Inuyasha finally managed to claw his way out of the bush. That, and smugness.
Still, unpreparedness didn't mean Inuyasha wasn't willing to respond in kind. "Oh, it is on now," he declared, teeth bared in challenge.
Ten minutes later, the two of them disturbed the relative quiet of the village as they emerged out of the trees, still bickering, with Inuyasha decidedly more sour, as he had yet to manage to push Sesshomaru into any kind of foliage. The bastard was solid as an oak when he wanted to be.
Finally giving in - at least for now - Inuyasha folded his arms with a huff. It was then that he became aware of the giggling and pointing that had begun with their arrival. Sesshomaru seemed to notice it, too, but instead of being concerned, he smiled. Inuyasha raised an eyebrow, having a good idea why everyone was laughing.
"What're you so happy about?"
"I believe everyone is happy to see some semblance of normalcy between us," the daiyoukai explained. "Even if they are having fun at our expense."
Inuyasha failed to hold in his snort. "No, dumbass, that's not why they're laughing. They're laughing at you."
"Me? You were acting just as infantile as I."
"Oh, but I don't look so, so pretty with my hair like that," Inuyasha replied, raising his voice as high as it would go and reaching over to pluck a flower out of Sesshomaru's hair, twirling it between his fingers.
The hanyou took immense pleasure watching Sesshomaru's attention focus on it, then the dawning look of comprehension and horror that spread over his face. As the daiyoukai hurriedly dragged the huge braid he had evidently forgotten about over his shoulder and hastily started pulling the rest of the flowers out of it, Inuyasha walked away, laughing loudly.
---
It's here! And damn, is it long. Like, three times as long as a normal post for me. I honestly considered splitting this into two, maybe even three posts, but I couldn't find a place where I liked the cut and it felt better as one big thing, anyway. It's Sesshomaru's first emotional moment, where he tells us his feels, and he deserved to be allowed to get it out in one go.
That being said, I really hope you don't expect other updates of this size in future. >_> I won't rule them out, but I have no plans for them, either. Back to my batting average of 2k words!
The plot for things and the order I do them in are still pretty fluid for this one, so do you guys has any questions? Anything you want to know like RIGHT NAO in terms of what's been going on in this world? Lemme know and I'll see if I can't work it in to next time. x3 Either way, I hope you've enjoyed this mammoth post!
The day after the party was quiet and uneventful. This was mostly thanks to the sake consumed by the ningen of the village and the resulting headaches and nausea experienced by the vast majority of them, his friends included. Sango, at least, had tried to rouse herself for the sake of her children, but an extremely irritable Miroku had wrestled her back into their futon and she hadn't put up more than a token show of resistance. Inuyasha had then been rudely ejected from the hut with a string of growled curses following him.
Thus it had fallen to the older and wiser of the group to corrall the energetic children and keep them in line throughout the day - by which he meant Kaede and Sesshomaru. Both had attempted to recruit him, and both times he had refused. He'd stubbornly remained up a high tree, away from the dozen or so screaming brats, and watched with not a small amount of amusement as Sesshomaru oversaw Jaken trying to keep all the kids in sight, occasionally shooting glares up at him.
It served him right for not intervening when the humans kept drinking and drinking. It wasn't as though they hadn't noticed what was going on; neither of them had touched a single drop of alcohol. It took far greater quantities to intoxicate them thanks to their inuyoukai blood, so it would have been pretty pointless to indulge. And besides, for different reasons, neither of them were the type to get drunk in the first place.
They'd caught a lucky break by late afternoon. Several hungover humans to whom the brats belonged were able to rouse themselves out of bed and start taking responsibility for them, at least in part. Anything overly energetic still seemed beyond them, but he'd often heard it said it was the thought that counted. It seemed like a pretty pointless sentiment to him - what good did thinking about helping do for anyone? - but then again, he'd always been a man of action. He didn't think about doing things, he did them.
Still, he'd thought, as he watched the activity from his perch above, Sesshomaru did seem to be pretty good at handling the kids. He had a way of looking at them that stopped any bad behaviour in its tracks, yet was mild enough that they weren't afraid of him. And somehow, he managed to look calm and regal despite the noise and distraction, look engaged and interested whenever the kids brought him a flower or a funny shaped rock to look at.
That was why, when he stumbled upon Sesshomaru and Rin the next morning, he supposed it shouldn't surprise him that he was displaying the utmost patience with her as well. Inuaysha knew, he damn well knew, he would rather have faced down a horde of ravenous youkai than let a little girl braid his hair. Especially not when she intended to weave a small meadow's worth of flowers into it, as Sesshomaru had evidently suffered. Yes, that was a torture it took a special kind of tolerance to endure.
Inuyasha made sure he stayed hidden while he committed it to memory. When he finally managed to get back through the well, he would be sure to remember it whenever he faced his asshole brother. Sitting on a fallen log, looking strained, his normally perfectly neat hair unevenly braided down the length of his back and decorated sporadically with little white, yellow and blue flowers no doubt picked from the grass at Rin's feet, Sesshomaru hardly looked like the regal, aloof daiyoukai he liked to embody.
The hanyou actually had to cover his mouth with his hand when Rin danced back around in front of Sesshomaru and beamed at her work. She clasped her hands together gleefully, smiling as bright as sunshine, and then she quickly leaned forward to kiss Sesshomaru on the cheek while he clearly struggled to return her enthusiasm.
Oh, but not even that could be better than telling Sesshomaru he looked pretty.
Pretty! Inuyasha's stomach was actually aching, he was trying so hard not to laugh. His ribs felt fit to burst. And through it all, Sesshomaru plainly swung back and forth between the desire to maintain his dignity and his refusal to embarrass Rin and take away that smile, only adding to Inuyasha's amusement.
Even as his eyes blurred with mirthful tears, the hanyou saw the way Sesshomaru's fingers flexed and then curled into his palms again, desperate to check the damage done to his hair, yet worried about Rin turning around as she ran off and being offended. Not wanting Sesshomaru to notice the flowers just yet, Inuyasha quickly took a deep breath, wiped his eyes on the back of his hand, and strolled out into view just before Rin disappeared into the village.
"It's a pretty morning, isn't it?" he said cheerfully.
Sesshomaru immediately scowled at him, being more than sharp enough to catch the dig. "Indeed," he replied. "Even an irritant couldn't spoil it."
Inuyasha grinned unrepentently. "Y'know, I had no idea you enjoyed having your hair played with. Is your big secret out? Is it going to spoil your image if I tell everyone?"
Sesshomaru lifted an eyebrow. "Will it spoil yours if I reveal you enjoy having those fluffy ears of yours played with?"
Said ears flattened defensively. "What the hell are you talking about? I don't even like people touching my ears."
Sesshomaru merely smiled, feeling better now that he once again had the upper hand. "So you believe. I, however, know different."
"Yeah, well, whatever." Inuyasha didn't want to go there, absolutely not, and now he was annoyed because Sesshomaru had, yet again, managed to effortlessly turn things to his favour. Damn it. It was time to set things back on track.
He waved a hand at the flowery explosion that was Sesshomaru's hair. "Why do you let her do this stuff to you? The Sesshomaru I knew would have rather died than lose even an ounce of dignity."
The smug humour fell away from the daiyoukai's face as a considering look swept across it instead. For a few moments, he didn't speak at all, merely stared out into the distance and over the village. Finally, just before the silence got to Inuyasha and he had to say something to break it, Sesshomaru found his voice.
"I suppose the simple answer to that question would be that Rin is precious to me."
The hanyou's eyebrows lifted in surprise. That wasn't something he would have ever expected to hear from Sesshomaru, not even from a good version of him. But the simple sincerity with which it was said prevented Inuyasha from mocking him for it. Instead, he prompted, "Precious?"
"Yes," Sesshomaru agreed. "I have no doubt that Rin is the only thing that kept me here after our Inuyasha passed. He... he died in my arms, and while doing so, he asked that I protect our friends, protect the village. I would have honoured that promise regardless, but without Rin here, I would would have withdrawn from everyone into solitude, away from the memories. It would have been a lonely existence."
Inuyasha rocked on his feet a bit as he absorbed this information. He had to admit he could see it happening just that way. Sesshomaru - either of the ones he knew - wouldn't stick around just because he needed someone to lean on. He wouldn't even let anyone know he did. The stubborn independence was a trait apparently both Sesshomaru's shared. He could grudgindly admit, in that regard, they were pretty similar.
"The Sesshomaru I knew was like that," Inuyasha found himself saying. "He only cared about Rin. I think, anyway. Pretty sure he brought her back from the dead with Tenseiga, so that has to mean something. I'm not too sure about that, though, because he didn't exactly stop by to chew the fat and catch up on things."
The daiyoukai turned to look at him. "If it was true in your world, it would be something in common with this one. I, too, brought Rin back from the Netherworld with Tenseiga."
Inuyasha bit his lip a bit. "See, I'm not too sure it would be exactly the same..."
"Why not? It sounds similar enough."
"Yeah... but I'm betting, since you've all known each other for a while, that... Koga's wolves weren't responsible for her dying in the first place?"
For the first time, Inuyasha saw what a truly shocked Sesshomaru looked like. His eyes widened and his jaw even slackened a little, leaving his mouth hanging partially open. "Koga? Koga's pack killed her?"
"I think so. It was never admitted outright, but I noticed things, y'know? When we met Koga - which was after we started hunting Naraku - we found him after he'd slaughtered a village. There was a lot of blood, but I could pick out the scent of different people easy enough. I smelled her blood there - didn't realise it at first, but after seeing her a couple times, I realised where I knew the scent. There was a lot of it in the woods surrounding the village... and she was small. So when I saw her with - with the other Sesshomaru, not a mark on her... I had a good idea what it meant. Didn't say anything to the others, though. By that point, Koga was... sort of an ally, I guess, 'cause he hated Naraku as much of the rest of us and was head over heels for Kagome to boot. He'd sworn off killing humans, and that satisfied everyone else."
Inuyasha blew out a breath. "I suppose that's one story I shouldn't be telling everyone else, huh?"
"I can only concur," Sesshomaru agreed, his composure settling back into place.
The hanyou leaned his back against a nearby tree and peered up at a flock of birds winging across the sky. There would be a lot of stories like that one, he wagered. Memories that would shock or even haunt some of the people here, which meant he would always run the risk of saying something that would cause upset. Then again, he ran the same risk of upsetting himself with all the questions he asked; this world had its share of tragedies and not all the answers would be ones he wanted to hear.
"Guess I'm gonna have to be more careful about stuff like that," he said. "We've all got questions, but not all the answers are gonna be goods ones."
Sesshomaru didn't respond, but Inuyasha could feel his eyes on him. A few moments of this, and he got the urge to twitch, so he looked over to find Sesshomaru smiling. A small one, just a slight curve of the lips, but a smile nonetheless. One of his eyebrows hiked up almost to his hairline.
"What?"
"My apologies," Seshsomaru said, but the smile lingered. "It just brings me happiness and... comfort to see the similarities between yourself and the Inuyasha I knew."
It was a sentiment Inuyasha was familiar with, but one that surprised him, coming from Sesshomaru. "Where did that come from?"
"He could both be surprisingly considerate of others, just as you can," the daiyoukai explained. "Because of a rough childhood, the Inuyasha of this world found it difficult to place his trust in others, but once it was earned, it was never lost. Those who were graced with that trust, those who became his inner circle, were first and foremost in his mind. He could still be gruff and uncouth, but he was compassionate towards them in his own way, and we all understood. Even for those of us who did not initially start off in a favourable manner, like myself, he found it within him to open up, despite the many times he had been rejected in his life. From the way I have seen you behave since your arrival, I feel most if not all of this is true of you, as well."
Inuyasha shifted uncomfortably. Those were not qualities he saw in himself at all, and it worried him that others might start expecting to see them. To distract himself from the thought, he asked instead: "You and the other me didn't hit it off right away? With how everyone here talks about you, that's a little bit of a surprise. What did you do?"
Sesshomaru sighed quietly. "I was not kind to you in our first meeting. It's something I regret now, for I understand my reasons were petty and foolish."
"So what happened?" he asked again.
Sesshomaru was quiet a moment. "For you to understand why I acted as I did, it may perhaps be better to start at the beginning," he decided. "Come, sit with me. Please."
The hanyou heaved a sigh of his own. "That means this is going to be a long one... All right. Get it off your chest, I suppose."
Sesshomaru waited until Inuyasha was seated on a fallen over log opposite him before he began. He seemed to take a moment to steady himself before speaking.
"It would probably be best to start before Inuyasha's birth. Our father and I had, up until Inuyasha's mother caught his eye, been close. Closer, in fact, than most youkai and their progeny. It was always understood that I would one day succeed him, whether by force or otherwise, but it did not impact our every day lives... until he started pulling away. Looking back now, I can see quite clearly that I was... jealous, though at the time, I firmly believed I was disgusted and indignant that my father would lower himself in such a way, and that he would also discard me to do so. I was his son, his firstborn, his heir... and he would carelessly toss me aside to fraternise with a human woman?
"That feeling grew worse when the woman fell pregnant. I--"
"Her name was Izayoi," Inuyasha interjected flatly. "Not 'the woman'."
Sesshomaru held his hands up peaceably. "I'm sorry. I hadn't wanted to assume the names were the same. I wasn't trying to insult her or her memory."
Satisfied for now, Inuyasha hackled down and gestured for him to continue.
"Izayoi, as I said, fell pregnant. Father was ecstatic... I was mortified. It was clear the child would be hanyou, and I could only see that as a stain on father's legacy. I became terribly prejudiced toward Inuyasha before he had even taken his first breath; I truly hated him, I think, and that coloured every interaction I had with father until his birth. Our relationship crumbled. This led to a desire to take his seat of power and establish myself as Lord of the Western Lands, and I now believe even that was a pathetic cry for attention. If I could show him how powerful I had become, how well I had learned all the lessons he taught me, perhaps then I would become the closest person to him again.
"The night of Inuyasha's birth, I went to him, in an act of arrogance and bravado, to tell him that I had begun my conquest. I demanded he give me the Tetsusaiga, as my birthright. I could see that he was injured from his battle with the demon Ryukotsusei, and that no longer concerned me as once it would have. I had become single-minded in my focus, so much so that what I wanted was standing directly in front of me and I didn't even realise it.
"Father told me that Izayoi was in danger. Her family had discovered the father of her unborn child was youkai, and they had put her under heavy guard. It seemed they intended to wait for her to birth Inuyasha and then destroy him, thus purging what they preceived as evil from their home. They believed, as many do, that Izayoi had been manipulated and seduced against her will; it was beyond their comprehension that father cared for her deeply enough to be prepared to sacrifice his life for her."
Sesshomaru paused here, and Inuyasha could see his eyes had become shadowed. It didn't take a genius to see what was eating at him.
"You knew, though, didn't you?" the hanyou prompted.
Sesshomaru's eyes closed. "Yes, I knew. I could see it clearly in how resolutely he stood before me. Even as his blood stained the snow at his feet from a wound too deep to heal quickly, he was determined to go. I let him go and did nothing."
"You think you should have gone with him."
"No... I know I should have. However, I was stubborn, and so against the very notion of involving myself with Inuyasha or his mother that it didn't even occur to me. It was my father's affair, not mine. If I had only gone with him... things would have been very different today. If he had had me there to watch his back, he might have even been alive to greet you."
That... was an implication it would take a long time for Inuyasha to absorb. If a similar exchange had happened with the Sesshomaru of his world and their father... He didn't even want to think of it right now. But it would be something he and his Sesshomaru needed to discuss, whether he liked it or not.
"So, what actually happened that night?"
"As I said, father was determined to go, and there was nothing I could or would say to stop him. He did, however, pause just long enough to try to teach me one, final lesson, one that I didn't even realise was a lesson until years later. He asked me if I had anyone in my life to protect. Of course, I did not, and even dismissed the very notion as foolish. What need did a powerful youkai like myself have for anyone else?
"Perhaps my answer was all he needed to know, for he left then. He assumed his true form, likely putting more strain on his already weakened body, and tore into the night at great speed. I cursed him for a fool and began the trek back to the Western Lands. Hours later, a retainer of my father, a flea by the name of Myoga, caught up to me. He begged me to return and aid my father.
"I had been unsettled since my father left, but too stubborn to turn around on my own, so this gave me the much needed impetus to return. Unfortunately, it was too little, too late."
"He was already dead?" Inuyasha asked quietly.
"No, he was alive, but... barely. He didn't even have the strength to lift his head, and it was not surprising. I could see the trail of blood he'd left behind as he dragged himself out of the burning mansion. I don't believe he could even truly see me as I knelt beside him, but he gripped my hand, and he told me what happened. He said that, when he arrived, he heard Izayoi crying out in labour, and he knew he had to hurry, but his injury slowed him. By the time he reached them, it was too late. Her family, in desperation, had killed both Izayoi and Inuyasha and he was forced to use the Tenseiga to bring them back. Someone had set the mansion ablaze, and he covered their escape.
"He begged me then, Inuyasha. My proud father begged me to go after Izayoi and protect them both in his stead, and I said nothing as his last breath left him because I didn't want to. I didn't care what happened to Izayoi and her child. At least I can say of myself that I tried to use the Tenseiga to bring him back, but the Tenseiga is not a sword that will work for just anyone. I lacked the necessary qualities to wield it then. It felt much like a simple, iron sword in my grip, without a hint of the true power it wields."
Sesshomaru paused then to close his hand over the hilt of the Tenseiga, safely secured in his obi; it seemed to steady him enough to finish saying what needed to be said.
"Youkai do not bury their dead; to prevent his body being mauled by scavengers, I burned it. Then... I left. I did not do as he had requested and see to Inuyasha's safety. Instead, I went to attend to my own interests, consolidating my power in the Western Lands. I did not see Inuyasha again for seven years."
Inuyasha nodded absently. From his own limited knowledge of the circumstances surrounding his birth, this seemed to fit well. The age at which he met the Sesshomaru of his world seemed approximately the same as well. If it wasn't such a serious subject, he might even find it interesting how certain events seemed fated, no matter how they were reached, almost like intertwining threads intersecting at significant events in their lives. He imagined Kagome would have been able to explain it better using one of those theories her future scholars had.
"It was by mere chance that our paths happened to cross," Sesshomaru continued. "I was tracking a youkai I was of a mind to kill when, suddenly, there he was. I think we were equally surprised, but I knew who Inuyasha was the instant I saw him. There was no mistaking the colour of his hair and his eyes, his age, even the scent of inuyoukai blended with that of human."
This was it. This was the part that intrigued Inuyasha most. If this Sesshomaru had been as cruel and callous as his own brother, he had no idea how that relationship would have been mended. The fear, the hate, that had been instilled in his tiny body by the almost careless acid-tipped backhand he had received from Sesshomaru that fateful day had still not totally faded centuries later. There would never be reconciliation with the Sesshomaru of his world, and he thought both of them preferred it that way.
"At first, I was speechless. I had never intended to see Inuyasha again, let alone so soon, and yet there he was, standing right before me, looking confused and wary and just a little bit hopeful. Then he asked me a single, innocent question."
Inuyasha got a sinking feeling in his stomach. He had a pretty good idea what question that was...
"He asked me... if I was family. I don't care to repeat the things I said to him, but they were far from kind. I chased him away from me with all manner of threats."
Inuyasha couldn't help cringing. Oh, yeah, he remembered asking that stupid question. He'd been confused as hell stumbling across Sesshomaru that first time. Couldn't figure out why his nose told him this youkai was familiar, but his eyes told him he was a stranger. But his mother had spoken of his father, how his strange colouring came from him, and had blurted out the first stupid thing that had come to mind. He'd regretted it within moments, for many reasons.
Sesshomaru, however, noticed his expression, and made one of his own. "I told you it was unpleasant. I apologise if it's hard to hear from my perspective."
The hanyou blinked. "What? No. No, no, that's not it." He blew out a breath that made his bangs flutter. "I just remember asking the same question, and it's kinda... embarrassing. If that Inuyasha was anything like me, he just kinda... blurted it out without thinking. I, at least, couldn't understand why you smelled like I knew you but I'd never met you before. I'd never smelt another youkai like you before, plus we looked vaguely similar. What you did probably just pissed him off more than anything. I got worse than that from the Sesshomaru in my world."
"Worse?" Sesshomaru asked warily. "What did he do?"
Inuyasha shrugged awkwardly. This was one of those things, he thought. A question with an answer Sesshomaru wouldn't like.
"To put it simply, he backhanded me. If my mind had caught up faster than my mouth, I might have noticed the look of pure and utter loathing he was giving me and run instead. But he knocked me clear off my feet and into a nearby tree, hard enough that the entire side of my face felt numb - that kind of numb you get when the pain is too much to even understand. And while I sat on the ground, reeling from the shock, he told me, in a cool, calm voice, that if he ever saw me again, he'd kill me, and then he just walked away. That was when I ran, as fast as I could, until I couldn't smell any trace of him and the pain started to throb. I found a stream to look at myself and that was when the fear really set in - it'd just been shock before then, y'know? But when I saw the burn marks on my face from that nasty acid stuff, the black eye, the split lip, I knew he'd meant what he said. It took a long time for me to even figure out who he was, let alone understand why he hated me so much."
Sesshomaru had gone completely still, so still one might have thought he was a statue. Inuyasha could tell he was struggling to absorb and accept this revelation, and waved a hand dismissively. "Look, I got over it. It was a good lesson, honestly. I stayed alive because that woke me up, made me realise I had to be tough and I shouldn't ever let my guard down. No one was gonna take it easy on me just 'cause I was a kid. Even the humans didn't. I'm not afraid of Sesshomaru anymore and haven't been for a long time. I always gave as good as I got after that, no matter what he tried to do to me. I cut off his arm. You do remember that, right? So you don't have to be guilty for what another version of you did, damn it."
"You were a child, Inuyasha," Sesshomaru stressed. "And he did not check his blows in the slightest. What was he thinking?"
"I was an eyesore," Inuyasha explained with a shrug. "He wanted me out of the way. If he'd thought more of me, he might have even killed me there and then. That has always been Sesshomaru's attitude, though. He cuts down whatever's in his path, be it youkai or human, and he holds grudges until the end of days. You wanna know the whole reason he decided to make Naraku his enemy? Naraku decided to use him in a plot to kill me, then discarded him as soon as the plan fell through. It pissed Sesshomaru off to be someone else's tool, and he decided from that point on to hunt Naraku down even if it took forever. He wasn't trying to do the right thing or help anyone but himself."
"I had thought confessing my own transgressions would be hard enough," the daiyuokai commented after a moment. "But hearing even worse about myself is... difficult."
"It's not you," Inuyasha said, voice thick with exasperation. "It's an entirely different person. Just like me and your Inuyasha - not the same people. I'm sure he did things I wouldn't do and vice versa. So why the hell would you blame yourself for what the Sesshomaru in my world did? That's stupid as shit."
"An interesting way to put it," Sesshomaru said dryly, lifting an eyebrow, "but you are right."
"Damn right I am. And what I want to know now is: how the hell did you and the other me end up travelling together if it started off like that?"
"Well, I didn't see Inuyasha again for more than ten years. I was, as before, busy bringing the Western Lands under my thumb. Many of the youkai under my father's rule wanted to challenge his whelp, as they called me, to see if I was worthy. It was a few years after the encounter that I even discovered Izayoi had alreay passed away when we met. I hadn't realised I had chased off a small child, now an orphan, with my callous words.
"I won't go into detail of the epiphanies I had in the years that followed, but suffice to say I realised the hate I had for Inuyasha was... baseless. I blamed him for things he had no part in purely because he reminded me of things I would rather forget, and it wasn't fair. I had left him to fend for himself when my father had asked me to protect him, and I didn't even know where he was or if he was alive.
"I went looking for him, when I was finally able to swallow my pride and my stubbornness. Inuyasha had moved on from where I found him, but I was undeterred. I had not completely forsaken either stubbornness or pride when I managed to track Inuyasha down, however; I batted his crude attacks away like irritatating insects, and I did not initially apologise for my earlier actions. I don't know if I truly had a plan for Inuyasha before we met again, but after seeing him like that, almost feral, I decided it was my duty to train him - and that only. I determined that I would fulfil my father's wishes if I taught Inuyasha to defend himself as an inuyoukai, and then I would be able to leave him again with my conscience clear.
"I browbeat Inuyasha with the necessity of this, the logic of it. And, cautiously, he eventually agreed. Of course, I didn't even consider the possiblity then, but Inuyasha was far more intelligent and shrewd than I ever gave him credit for."
The hanyou's fluffy ears perked up then. "Oh, really? You thought he was an idiot?"
Sesshomaru managed a faint smile. "No, not exactly that. I just looked down on him in every way - a rather telling sign of my arrogance. Inuyasha was only half the demon I was, literally. In my mind, that translated to all aspects of him. Everything was inferior. The fact that Inuyasha was half-feral at the time only compounded the idea. I did not realise that his time spent alone - something I did not, at the time, take any responsibility for, despite my revelations - had made him cunning. Having never experienced anything close to it, it was simply beyond my scope to comprehend. I did not realise having survived since infancy on his own meant Inuyasha was not only smart, but also had an indomitable will, a certain tenaciousness and grit. And he was easily as stubborn as I was, which I found out very soon after.
"Naturally, we clashed; our personalities were different on a fundamental level. Hardly a day passed without us shouting at each other, one of us storming off or threatening to kill the other... but somehow, we didn't burn that bridge. Gradually, as one might expect, the things we kept hidden from each other initially - our thoughts, our histories, even our feelings over certain matters - came out, whether intentionally or not. We grew to... understand each other, and accept the faults we saw that had once seemed insurmountable. We stayed together for many years, skirting human settlements, taking our time getting to know each other.
"I learned a great many things about myself during that time, and I like to think Inuyasha did, too. I discarded the notion that I was merely fulfilling my duty within that first year, as travelling with Inuyasha slowly assuaged what I began to understand was guilt. I threw away my plans to completely dominate the Western Lands; some of it remains unclaimed even today, hundreds of years later. I had thought I wanted absolute conquest, to have all I surveyed beneath my yoke... yet by travelling with Inuyasha, I came to enjoy the challenge he presented. No one else dared talk back to me, or in such a disrespectful way. No one else would go nose-to-nose with me in an argument - or even dare argue to begin with. Never before had I felt myself so suffused with hot rage, and thought it may sound strange, I came to enjoy that animation and energy he brought to me."
Inuyasha gave Sesshomaru a bland stare. "Yeah," he said dryly. "That does sound really weird."
The daiyoukai laughed, inclining his head in acknowledgement. "Strange though it is, I believe Inuyasha felt the same. Why else would he always come back even after storming off? Kagome had her own thoughts on the matter. What was the phrase she used...? Ah. 'Opposites attract', I believe it was. It was true, in our case, as we eventually found out."
Here, the hanyou began to squirm internally. He knew where this story was going to go from here on out, and he really, really didn't want to hear about it. Probably not ever. But when Sesshomaru had just sat there, and spoke more than Inuyasha had ever heard him speak over the course of his three hundred years of life, let alone in one go, confessing all manner of things that clearly still caused him some amount of distress even now, it made him feel like a bit of an asshole to tell him story time was over because the rest was going to creep him the fuck out.
Still, it had to be done. Inuyasha raised a hand to stop him before Sesshomaru could begin again. "Listen... Look... I really... appreciate you setting it all straight for me, but... but the rest of that... I just don't think I'm ready to, y'know... hear it... so..." Inuyasha risked a glance at Sesshomaru, then narrowed his eyes. "You already know exactly what I'm going to say, don't you?"
The smile that had been forming on the daiyoukai's face only grew, and the mirth almost sparkled in his eyes. Yeah, damn right he knew. But before Inuyasha could tear strips off him for it, the smell of cooking meat floated in on a breeze. Almost in sync, both inuyoukai paused to scent the air. The midday meal was close to being prepared.
Sesshomaru rose to his feet fluidly. "That would be our cue to return to the village," he said. "Come, Inuyasha, before they send for us."
Inuyasha rolled his eyes and climbed to his feet, taking the opportunity to indulge in a long, long stretch to get the kinks out of his back. Then he trotted to catch up with Sesshomaru, who was already disappearing into the trees ahead. He folded his arms and tucked his hands into his sleeves, then glared ahead of him as he walked. He was still ticked off about earlier.
He managed to walk an entire minute in silence before bringing it up. "You knew exactly what I was trying to say," he said accusingly. "And you let me carry on anyway."
"I knew," Sesshomaru agreed pleasantly. "It was rather endearing the way you were trying to say it without offending me, so I thought I would let you continue."
"You know what? You're still actually kind of an asshole."
Almost lazily, Sesshomaru's hand batted Inuyasha with enough force to send him toppling into a nearby bush. Inuyasha's defence for falling - and also for making a loud squawking noise of surprise as he did - was that he hardly expected Sesshomaru to do something so... so playful, because that was the look on his face when Inuyasha finally managed to claw his way out of the bush. That, and smugness.
Still, unpreparedness didn't mean Inuyasha wasn't willing to respond in kind. "Oh, it is on now," he declared, teeth bared in challenge.
Ten minutes later, the two of them disturbed the relative quiet of the village as they emerged out of the trees, still bickering, with Inuyasha decidedly more sour, as he had yet to manage to push Sesshomaru into any kind of foliage. The bastard was solid as an oak when he wanted to be.
Finally giving in - at least for now - Inuyasha folded his arms with a huff. It was then that he became aware of the giggling and pointing that had begun with their arrival. Sesshomaru seemed to notice it, too, but instead of being concerned, he smiled. Inuyasha raised an eyebrow, having a good idea why everyone was laughing.
"What're you so happy about?"
"I believe everyone is happy to see some semblance of normalcy between us," the daiyoukai explained. "Even if they are having fun at our expense."
Inuyasha failed to hold in his snort. "No, dumbass, that's not why they're laughing. They're laughing at you."
"Me? You were acting just as infantile as I."
"Oh, but I don't look so, so pretty with my hair like that," Inuyasha replied, raising his voice as high as it would go and reaching over to pluck a flower out of Sesshomaru's hair, twirling it between his fingers.
The hanyou took immense pleasure watching Sesshomaru's attention focus on it, then the dawning look of comprehension and horror that spread over his face. As the daiyoukai hurriedly dragged the huge braid he had evidently forgotten about over his shoulder and hastily started pulling the rest of the flowers out of it, Inuyasha walked away, laughing loudly.
---
It's here! And damn, is it long. Like, three times as long as a normal post for me. I honestly considered splitting this into two, maybe even three posts, but I couldn't find a place where I liked the cut and it felt better as one big thing, anyway. It's Sesshomaru's first emotional moment, where he tells us his feels, and he deserved to be allowed to get it out in one go.
That being said, I really hope you don't expect other updates of this size in future. >_> I won't rule them out, but I have no plans for them, either. Back to my batting average of 2k words!
The plot for things and the order I do them in are still pretty fluid for this one, so do you guys has any questions? Anything you want to know like RIGHT NAO in terms of what's been going on in this world? Lemme know and I'll see if I can't work it in to next time. x3 Either way, I hope you've enjoyed this mammoth post!