UnBound Memories

A/N: szaugglaughs, I wasn't sure with the mark. I knew I wanted it to be huge, but wasn't sure exactly what the symbols would be. I was happy someone liked the choice I'd made. TenshiYoukai, glad you liked the marks as well. I was also grateful that no one yelled at me for turning Miroku into a hanyou, which was a decision I figured I'd make from the start, but worried all the while about the response to it. As for the hiding the truth from Miroku, I might have glossed over that a bit more than I did if it hadn't been for your comment, and I think it made for a better moment, so don't worry about pointing out stuff like that. nette, last chapter and a few to come are bits of fluff. I couldn't help it. It's a bit of afterglow for the new couples, but it isn't going to last. Liquorish, this story still has quite a bit more to go, so please, keep reading and reviewing. I'm a review whore. I write more and faster knowing I have readers who like what I'm doing (even hate what I'm doing).

Chapter 22

Oto-san

Souta had crashed early the night before InuYasha’s wedding, but the four demons were still awake, Sesshomaru promising to teach his son how to transform into his demon form. Shippo, not having had much of an opportunity to transform, was excited that he was going to be included, despite the fact that he was not an inu and he was becoming increasingly more sleepy. Miroku, even now as a hanyou, was aware that he would not be able to take a demon form, deciding instead that he would take the opportunity to meditate.

As Miroku folded his legs and sat in a meditation position, Sesshomaru walked by, rubbing at his mate’s right ear, doing so carefully enough that the experience for the new hanyou was pleasant rather than painful. Miroku closed his eyes and began concentrating on his breathing while Sesshomaru instructed his son and the kit in the other part of the field, the deep, calm voice of his mate drivting in and out of Miroku's meditation.

“InuYasha, you must focus on your youkai, the part of you that once became wild without the power of the Tessaiga.”

“But--”

“You are nearly a full demon. You are strong enough for your youkai.” Sesshomaru looked to InuYasha. “Focus on the animalistic part of you that gets joy out of attacking an enemy with your claws, with your teeth. Let it have the chance to run free.” Sesshomaru was trying to demonstrate, but for the first time he could honestly remember, he was having difficulty transforming into his dog form, and shifting into the small version of himself was usually far simpler than that of his larger form.

“Like this, InuYasha!” Shippo said, with a tiny hissing growl. The red hair on his head gradually spread to all of his body, his clothes seeming to vanish. With very little difficulty, the kitsune had fully transformed into a fox with big green eyes.

“Little runt,” InuYasha grumbled, as he appeared to go cross-eyed focusing so intently on his inner-demon.
Sesshomaru watched proudly as InuYasha’s body began to morph, his hands lowering to the ground, his mouth elongating, his body covering in white fur, hands and feet transforming into paws, tail growing at the back. The crescent moon on his forehead remained as he shifted into a white dog with tiny pointed ears.

Watching his son, Sesshomaru felt the easy feeling of his own transformation, though somewhat less easy than he was accustomed to. Halfway between forms, it hit him. It had to beMiroku’s human blood. Until it became incorporated as part of Sesshomaru’s own, it would probably weaken the taiyoukai’s abilities, making him grateful that he was in a time where demons were more the rarity than the norm. No one could attack him here while he was slightly weakened.

The shift completed, Sesshomaru was able to communicate to his son, and to a small extent, the fox. He did his best to explain that much in the same way he had transformed, InuYasha could release his youkai and become human again. It took a few more tries, since InuYasha’s youkai was taking advantage of the fact that it was getting free reign for the first time in his two and a half centuries, but the slow process began and InuYasha was once again standing upright. Sesshomaru on the other hand found his transition was almost beyond his control, making him spring back to human form so fast he collapsed to the ground.

Laying there, he was startled when a black dog began lapping at his face, nuzzling his neck. Going wide-eyed, Sesshomaru looked up at the dog as he leaned up on his elbows.

“Chichi-ue,” InuYasha said, “that dog…”

Sesshomaru sat up, holding the dog’s head in both of his hands, looking into two sparkling amethysts and an almost invisible blue crescent moon. “I should have know you would be a rare one,” he said to the little black dog. He began scratching its head, around his ears. The black head buried itself under Sesshomaru’s chin. “Miroku,” he said, “did you hear me explain to InuYasha how to change back?”

The black dog nodded while Sesshomaru continued to rub at the downy soft fur.

“Did you try?” InuYasha asked.

The purple eyes rolled, while a rather perturbed answer rang out in Sesshomaru’s head.

“He has gotten himself stuck in this form.” He rubbed down the black back. “A bit of a run might help release a little of your youkai. It has been some time since I have been able to enjoy myself in animal form, so it could be quite pleasant.” He pressed his forehead to the furry blue crescent. “Though your blood is making it hard for me to transform, my little mate.”

“I’ll run with the two of you, but if either of you start doing anything but run with one another,” InuYasha said, “I will find that thing Kagome calls a hose and turn it on you.”

********

It had taken some time for Miroku to finally be able to return to his hanyou form, but the run had been enjoyable for all four, and Sesshomaru was pleased to know he was mated to a rare hanyou with a demon form. Once Miroku did return to hanyou form, he offered to take Shippo back to the apartment, leaving father and son together. Together, the two inus talked, both desperate to come to terms with their past and their relationship.

“You are so different now,” InuYasha said, sitting atop the entranceway to the Higurashi shrine next to his father. Sesshomaru nodded. He looked to Sesshomaru after they’d sat in near silence for some time.

“I missed my opportunity to be your father, InuYasha.”

“You kidding me? Do you think I’d have figured out how to use my demon form if you hadn’t spent the night teaching me. I can’t wait ‘til we’re back in our time and you can show me how to take a larger form.” InuYasha slid closer to his father. “Is it the wedding?”

“It is a symbol that you are an adult.” Sesshmomaru ran his hand over the top of InuYasha’s head, down the long white hair, then pulled his hand back, waiting for some sign of reproach from his son. “You are a stretch from the little pup who had just opened his eyes.”

“Maybe so, but with Miroku as a hanyou, maybe I’ll have a little brother or sister one day.” InuYasha started to laugh. “Miroku bearing his own children. That’s priceless.” Sesshomaru involuntarily tensed. “Not that there is a problem with men giving birth,” InuYasha recovered, sounding flustered. “It’s just that he used to ask every woman he met to bear his children.”

“So that is why he thought Sango would find it humorous.”

InuYasha smiled. “Yeah, she’d probably find it hilarious, that is if she can accept that you’d be the one impregnating him.” The younger inu leaned on the older’s shoulder. It startled Sesshomaru so much that he nearly turned, toppling InuYasha off of him. His son quickly pulled back. “I-I’m sorry… O-oto-san.”

“No, it is fine, InuYasha.” He couldn’t fight off the smile as it hit him what his son had just called him. The smile was brief as he recalled the last time that word had escaped the younger inu’s mouth. “It has been a long time since you last addressed me as that.”

**********

“Please, I am at your mercy,” the dragon lord pleaded. “I will give you anything you want. My kingdom, money, anything.”

Sesshomaru stood over the lord. “I want nothing.” He smiled darkly. “I am Lord of the West, you fool. I have want for nothing. I only assassinate because I enjoy it. If you want to give me what I want, I suggest you die.” Sesshomaru clawed through the demon’s tough outer skin, allowing his poison to infiltrate its blood stream. “You aren’t even a powerful demon. Hardly worth my time.”

“I am a lord…” the purple demon sputtered.

“Your scales were not even strong enough to withstand my claws.” He knelt closer to the dragon, no expression on his face. “Enjoy a slow, painful death. I must return back to my palace.”

White hair whipping in the wind, Sesshomaru turned his back to the demon, walking away as he heard the approach of the desperate creature behind him. He lowered his hand and spun around, allowing his energy whip to slice the creature in half.

He walked away from the scene, seeing the two dragon demons who’d hired him at the edge of the clearing. “We-we have your payment.”

“I have no need for gold, though as your lands border my own, it would benefit me more to obtain it for myself.” Sesshomaru then sliced through the two creatures with a single crack of his whip. Anything that easy for him to destroy truly was a waste of his time and certainly unworthy of being a lord.

He prepared himself to transform into a ball of light to travel back to his palace when a sudden, crippling feeling struck him, a warning of danger. Looking around the clearing, the only dangerous thing present was himself. He took a few steps, and was nearly brought to his knees by the sensation that he needed to go the other way. The danger wasn’t here. Someone was in danger somewhere to the north.

The more Sesshomaru tried to fight, tried to force himself to go in the direction opposite of his instincts’ instructions, the more difficult the fight became. Cursing, he resigned himself to follow whatever it was that was forcing him elsewhere.

He came upon a clearing near a modest mansion of sorts. There were nearly a dozen demons approaching the figure of a dead human and a white-haired hanyou pup. The pup, probably no more than fifty, appearing only about seven or eight in human years, was growling and clawing at the air to try to hold off the demons, while tears ran down the tiny face.

This was why he needed to come? To save a hanyou? Looking at the woman, Sesshomaru felt a momentary twinge to his heart, brief, almost as though something he should have remembered wasn’t there, as he realized this woman was Izayoi, It was his step-mother, and she was dead. That meant the pup was the little half-breed brother his father had sired.

“Do you have something to protect?” That couldn’t have been a mere question, Sesshomaru realized. It must have been part of a curse, forcing him to guard over the puny half-breed. He would still have his chance to kill him, but it seemed that until this creature reached adulthood, he would be trapped to make no move against him.

With a sneer of disgust, Sesshomaru once again released his energy whip and killed the demons in one swipe. Below him, large gold eyes looked up to him in awe.

“Oto-san?”

Coldly, Sesshomaru looked down at the half-breed. “What did you call me, mutt?”

“Y-you look like me. I thought you were my oto-san.”

Cringing as he looked at the body of the wench his father had lowered himself to screw, Sesshomaru looked back up at the child. “I would never allow myself to be with a human. Do not ever address me as any blood to you, no matter how true it is, half-breed.”

“Then you are related to me. Are you, are you Sesshomaru?”

“You know of me?”

“My mother told me about you.” The pup looked back down at the body of the human. Fifty years, and she still looked like a twenty-year old. That had been a carefully chosen spell on Seshomaru’s father’s part, to ensure that as she grew older he and their children, or in this case child, would not have to realize with each day she was getting older and nearer to death.

The tiny hanyou began to sob. “She died.”

“Then she needs to be buried,” Sesshomaru stated. “Otherwise, she will stink up this entire forest.”

“No!” InuYasha said, clutching onto the stiffening corpse. “No. You have the Tenseiga. Mother told me it’s a special sword.”

“It can do nothing. Your mother died of old age. She was nearing eighty. Humans rarely get to live even that long.” Sesshomaru dripped poison from his hand, allowing it to eat through the ground deep enough that it could provide a proper grave for his step-mother. She may have disgusted him, but she was still the wife of the former lord of the western lands. He looked at the mutt, still clinging around the dead woman’s neck. “You will release her.”

“No!”

Sesshomaru grabbed the pup by the back of the ridiculous fire-rat rag he wore and tossed him aside, then placed his arms beneath his stepmother’s shoulders and knees, laying her in the hole he’d created. InuYasha scrambled to run back to his mother as Sesshomaru for the third time in less than an hour pulled out the energy whip, cracking it at all four sides of the hole, forcing the dirt to crumble down onto the body.

The pup was not dumb enough to try to run into the path of the whip, waiting until Sesshomaru had completed before jumping at the demon, who for once, did not step out of the path of an attack, but let it come.

“You can’t do that!” InuYasha said, hitting and clawing at the older inu. “You can’t just bury her.”

“It would appear that I can, and I did. InuYasha, you must learn that humans are weak, fragile creatures, worthless in every possible way. You must also accept that you are half that, and as such represent all those traits as well.” Sesshomaru looked down at the pup. “If you are quite through trying to destroy my clothing, I am going home.”

“Do I get to come back to the palace?”

“You, InuYasha, are no more welcome at my home than you are in the rest of the world. Humans do not tolerate hanyous, and neither do I.” With that, Sesshomaru left the half-breed, knowing that he would likely spend the child’s youth protecting him, but he would do it without his knowledge. He wanted the pup to be able to fight him fairly when the time came for Sesshomaru to act out his vow to be the only person with the right to kill the pup.

********

“You were an asshole then,” InuYasha said.

“I am still ashamed for my behavior that day. I should have done as I did every other time you got in trouble and stayed out of sight.”

“Are you trying to say you were watching from the shadows?”

“Always. Whether I wished to or not I intervened in the fights you could not win. I thought it was a curse father had put on me. It was my…” Sesshomaru struggled for the proper word, knowing that the bond that kept him protecting InuYasha was not that of a father. “parental bond.”

“Just say it. You were a mama protecting your pup.” InuYasha had a bit of laughter in his voice, but Sesshomaru only raised an eyebrow.

“Are you nervous about your marriage tomorrow?”

“Less nervous than I am about my wedding night.”

“Because you are a virgin?”

“No, actually, that thought hadn’t crossed my mind, and how the hell did you know? And why the hell would you bring that up?”

“Fifty years of your adulthood were spent in a timeless state bound to a tree, my son, and you had not yet had the opportunity of being with Kikyo, your first love, nor was Kagome willing before marriage.” Sesshomaru moved his arm around his son. “If not that, then what is troubling you?”

“I know that Kagome and I are soul mates, true mates, whatever you want to call it. She is the reincarnation of Kikyo, and I can’t believe I’d be chasing around the same soul if it’s just my own stupid luck. If I accidentally try to mate Kagome, I will kill her without the Tenseiga.”

“Then take the sword with you after the wedding. You are my son. I believe I can trust you with it, particularly since you have no idea how to use it as a weapon.”

“See, that’s just one more thing you, as my oto-san, have to teach me.” Sesshomaru held his son tighter as the head at his shoulder rested more easily against him.

“Do you prefer calling me such?”

“Yeah. Do you mind?”

“Not at all, though you must tell Rin. She has nearly addressed me as oto-san several times, but stopped herself short because you were not yet doing so. She will be relieved.” Sesshomaru could see the moon was growing low in the sky. “You must get some rest while you can before your wedding.” But as he said that, he saw that InuYasha was already asleep in his embrace.