The Crimson Samurai

A/N Yeah, a long time since an update - and it would likely still be a long time, but I promised someone I'd give them another chapter as a happy b-day thing, so here 'tis! Apologies for suckiness - I'm so freaking sick right now, I have no idea how bad this may be. But...it's something anyway, and that's what editing is for anyway, eh?

Thank you for previous reviews. They were much appreciated!

Chapter 3 – Kimono are for Pansies


Inuyasha clawed his way from unconsciousness and found himself in the same room he’d escaped from. His entire body ached like he’d just battled Naraku, but he didn’t make a sound as he slowly slit his eyes open; you didn’t live long if you groaned at every little pain, not when you were in enemy territory.

He couldn’t see anyone, but he inhaled carefully for the scent of youkai nearby before he opened his eyes all the way and sat up. He really was alone… and he was in a fucking kimono.

Disgusted, Inuyasha clawed at the navy sleeves and began ripping them off his body in shreds. Whoever had invented the modern kimono had never fought a day in his damn life – might as well slit your own throat if you bandaged yourself up like this. Growling, he didn’t stop ripping at the cloth until he was left with a creamy silk fundoshi, and the only reason he didn’t take off the pretentious piece of shit was to keep his dick tucked away.

He’d still leave naked if he had to, but there were certain body parts he’d rather not leave hanging out if he had to fight his way free.

Scanning the room, Inuyasha grinned savagely as he found Tessaiga tucked into a corner. It was wrapped up – looked like nobody related to Sesshoumaru could touch it. A shiver spread down his spine as he realized suddenly that it could have different. One of Sesshoumaru’s kids might have been able to take the sword – they had some of Father’s blood, too.

“When they pry it from my cold, dead hand, the little rats.” Inuyasha unwrapped the blade and held it tightly as he scanned the room again. He couldn’t escape the feeling that he was missing something. Sesshoumaru went to all the trouble of knocking him out, dressed him in those damn clothes, and then he left him alone? It made no sense.

Inuyasha looked around quickly once more, checking the cupboards in the room for his fire rate robes even though he knew he’d be able to scent them if they were close by, and finally gave up. He couldn’t wait around for the horde of bastards to come back and trap him here, no matter how much his hackles rose at leave his possessions behind.

Fuck this, and fuck Sesshoumaru.

He sheathed Tessaiga – it wasn’t easy to skulk when the damn thing was bigger than he was – and holding it by the sheath, he crept barefoot out of the room. The door wasn’t even locked. Jackass was pretty sure of himself.

Did he actually think Inuyasha was going to wait for him here? Do what he said, just because he had some modern day shit that could blast Inuyasha’s ass out? Well Sesshoumaru, his kids, and his fucking youkai council could all kiss Inuyasha’s hanyou ass. He was getting out, he was getting the hell away from them all, he was kicking human and youkai asses that needed kicking, and they couldn’t stop him.

Inuyasha tripped in the hallway, catching himself just before he knocked over some huge pretentious vase that he didn’t remember being there earlier. Stupid legs weren’t quite steady yet from whatever Sesshoumaru had done. Padding down the hallway, he stopped as he heard footsteps coming from up ahead. Shit – more than one set of footsteps. He shifted Tessaiga and nearly fell over as his leg gave him trouble again. Dammit it to all the hells! He couldn’t take them in a fair fight, fucked up like this. Looking around frantically, he saw the vase and grinned fiercely.

Yeah, he couldn’t’ take ‘em in a fair fight, but he’d given up on fighting fair before he was 30. Better sneaky and alive than fair and dead.

He slipped behind the vase, pushing himself against the wall and crouching down. His arms were shaking and twitchy as he arranged Tessaiga to draw quickly. He heard three voices murmuring to each other and held his breath as they stopped. A brief sniff and he readied himself. They were youkai, probably Sesshoumaru’s by the scent, and if he could smell them, it was a pretty good chance they could smell him too. If he could just get in the first strike…

The vase he was hiding behind suddenly burst into fragments as a poison whip slashed through it and nearly sliced Inuyasha’s head off.

“SHIT!” He blocked with Tessaiga, drawing it instantly, and managed to deflect the whip, but a huge shard of pottery knocked it from his weak, fucked up hands. “Fucking dammit!”

He turned to leap after it and reared back as one of them landed between him and his weapon. Turning again, he stumbled to a halt as two more waited for him on the other side.

The fucking wonder triplets, shit.

“Trying to escape the council’s punishment, hanyou?” The tallest said in an attempt at a menacing, low rumble. Inuyasha leapt at him, flinging out blades of blood as he went, and the dumbass cried out and fell back. Inuyasha bounded over him, just feet away from his sword when his leg went out from under him again and he landed hard on his stomach.

He had seconds to get up, but his knees buckled the moment he tried and he cursed as it gave the bastards the time they needed to jump him. Swearing and struggling, he kicked and bit and hit, but they had something that tangled around his arms too tightly to break free.

He was bound hand and foot, dragged down the hall, within minutes. It was so humiliating Miroku would have laughed his ass off.

“Fucking assholes! I am going to kick you sorry asses! You’re just as pathetic as your that fucking white-haired pansy bastard! Urrrrg.” One of them punched him in the stomach.

“Take care with your tongue or you might lose it, hanyou.” The one holding his right arm sneered as they exited the hallway. “You do not know who you insult.”

“I’ll call that jack ass anything I want to, and there’s not a fucking thing you can do to stop me!” He began kicking out at them with both feet as they stopped and looked at each other. One of them walked to the nearest window and took a tie from the curtain. Bringing it back, he stuffed it into Inuyasha’s mouth and tied it behind his head.

“You were saying?” He paused, waiting while Inuyasha screamed muffled curses at him from behind the gag. “Having trouble cursing?” Inuyasha stopped cursing and started chewing. He’d just tear through the damn thing with his teeth and see how they liked that.

Looked like the apple didn’t far too fall from the bastard tree, although they were pretty pathetic at it. Sesshoumaru would have torn a bloody hole in his stomach, not given him some pathetic little punch. Fuck. If he could just face them one at a time, and his body wouldn’t keep betraying him, he could take ‘em, easy.

As long as he got free, and out of here, before he had to fucking deal with Sesshoumaru again. And where the hell were they taking him?

He got his answer when two of them grabbed onto him and leaped over the banister onto the lower floor. A few steps and they were pushing open a large set of doors on the side and shoving him inside. Sesshoumaru sat at a table, eating, surrounded by a crap load of silver haired youkai.

It was even more than earlier. Fuck. He was fucked. Totally fucked.

One of the sons stood up next to Sesshoumaru, so obviously outraged that Inuyasha snorted. That was just fucking weird, seeing emotions on Sesshoumaru’s face.

“Kohaku! Minoru! Hideo! What do you think you are doing? I told you not to disrespect Sesshoumaru-sama’s-”

“The hanyou was trying to escape!” Inuyasha had never heard such a whiny voice in his life, not even from Kagome. And this was one of the bastards who had caught him? Fucking humiliating. “The taser must not have been at full strength and he woke early. We had to – “

“The taser worked fine. Remove the gag.” Sesshoumaru’s voice cut through everything and before Inuyasha could blink, the tie was taken out of his mouth. The bastard slowly stood and stared at him a moment before murmuring. “You always were stronger than was good for you. You should have been out for another two hours yet.”

“Sorry to fucking disappoint you, jackass.” Inuyasha squirmed, still bound, and wished for just one fucking second that he had his claws free to wipe the blankness from Sesshoumaru’s face.

Sesshoumaru stared at him again before shaking his head. “I had hoped that you could be made to see reason, once you had a moment to calm yourself.”

“Fat fucking chance, bastard. You’ll have to beat me unconscious before I agree to do anything you fucking want. And that still ain’t gonna work!”

“Usually, I would be willing to oblige you, but this meeting is not the place for our…personal issues to come to the fore.” Sesshoumaru tilted his head and then one side of his mouth tilted up minutely. Inuyasha froze within his bonds. “You’ve been staying with a group of humans, Inuyasha. I wonder if I should pay them a visit and request their aid in persuading you to behave.”

“How the hell do you know about them?” Inuyasha could feel the sweat on his body dripping like ice down his back.

“Their smell covered you too thickly for it to be a chance encounter. Shall I track them down and pay my…respects to your previous caretakers?”

“Stay the fuck away from them, asshole.” Sesshoumaru was dead if he touched them. Inuyasha would fucking kill him. He’d do it this time – fucking rip off both his arms and beat the bastard to death with them.

“I would be happy to leave them be, as long as you cooperate, dress yourself again in the proper clothing, and come to the council meeting with me today, Inuyasha.”

Inuyasha was so tempted to tell him to go fuck himself.

But this was Kagome’s family…

“I go to this damn place with you and you never try to find the people I’ve with, never hire someone to find them, never do a damn thing that would cause them to be harmed in anyway? And never threaten them again?”

“I vow it on the name of my firstborn son.”

Inuyasha wrinkled his nose in disgust at the reminder and glanced at the two youkai with Sesshoumaru faces near the head of the table. Sesshoumaru, with kids. Fucked up, that’s what it was. But it didn’t change that this would keep the Higurashi’s safe. His brother was a bastard, but he wouldn’t lie.

“Fine.”

Sesshoumaru gestured to the two dumbass kids still holding him. “Release him.”

The inu bent their attention to the bindings, and Inuyasha was free almost instantly. He backhanded the nearest inu the second he was free, clipping the other with his claws in the side before the youkai backed away.

What were they, stupid? They just stood there!

“Inuyasha, cease this behavior at once.”

“Go cut off your own dick and rape your bitchy ass with it, you bastard. Being nice to your clones wasn’t part of the deal.”

The inu sitting around the table and standing in the room stared at him with wide eyes the second he let the insult fly. A few took a step back from Sesshoumaru, and Inuyasha glared at them. What the fuck was wrong with them?

“Grandfather’s going to kill him for that.”

Inuyasha heard the shocked whisper from one of the wonder twins and he shot them a glare that had them puffing up like peacocks. Idiots.

Sesshoumaru barely looked at him as he sat back down. “Not one of your more creative insults, hanyou. And you needn’t bother trying to enrage me; you won’t get out of this meeting.”

Inuyasha hadn’t thought he would. He’d given his damn word, hadn’t he?

“And you’re safe here.”

“That’s what you fucking said last night, you fucking, perverted, shit-eating, ass fucker!” Inuyasha heard most of the men choke a little.

“And weren’t you safe?”

“No!”

“You are not injured, even if you may be somewhat…sore.” Sesshoumaru was smirking over it!

“You fucking – you… “ He looked around and did NOT want to talk about what his brother had done to him last night. It was too fucking humiliating. “You know exactly what you did, jack ass! Now gimme back my fucking clothes!!”

“After the council meeting, remember, Inuyasha. Everything will be returned to you after the council meeting. I will have another kimono brought up for you to put on, since you seem to have…misplaced your first one.”

“Yeah. You fucking do that,” he growled. “I do this crap, you stay away from my humans, and then that’s it! I’m outta here!” Gall seared through his veins at the thought of doing anything the fucker wanted, but it was a one time deal, and then he never had to see Sesshoumaru again until he cut off his damn dick.

With a frustrated snarl, Inuyasha turned and headed for the door. He stopped as the three jerks who’d stopped him before stood in his way.

“Get the fuck outta my way!”

The first sneered at him. “We would be fools to trust –“

“Move.” Sesshoumaru said coldly. “He has said he would stay. He will keep his word.”

“Grandfather, surely you cannot mean to trust this – “

“Yeah, grandfather.” Inuyasha stared around the room as he waited for the idiots to move out of the way, like he didn’t give a shit if they moved or not. He wasn’t going to fucking fight them just to get upstairs and put on a damn kimono, especially not when he was doing something that ‘they’ wanted him to do in the first place! As his eyes traveled along the table, he frowned as he realized there were only men in Sesshoumaru’s side of the table. “So where’s your damned mate, jackass?”

One of the sons actually reacted for the first time, his eyes narrowing. “That’s none of your concern.”

“She passed away giving birth to my two sons,” Sesshoumaru said quietly, and everyone around them looked shocked again. Inuyasha felt like a pill. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about Sesshoumaru, ‘cause he knew that bastard never cared about anyone, so he couldn’t have cared about a mate, but the kids….even if they looked even older than Inuyasha was at this point, it still didn’t sit right, talking shit about someone’s dead mother.

“Sorry,” he muttered. He stared at the men and women in the room another moment before turning. The three mini-assholes had finally moved aside and stood near the door, trying to look menacing. “Make sure they bring up something soon, asshole.”

“Someone will be up to braid your hair, as well.”

“Oh kiss off, you hypocritical ass.” Inuyasha kept walking, thinking of all the unbraided, silver hair flowing down Sesshoumaru’s back as he sat there.

“Mine will be braided as well for the meeting.”

Inuyasha stopped again, stared back at him, and then kept walking. “Fucking world is fucking crazy. Whole damn world. Fuck.”

After the door closed behind him, the three young youkai who’d brought Inuyasha into the room began to speak. “They’ll execute him, won’t they?” One of them asked eagerly.

“They must,” another answered. “Such a rude, uncouth, mannerless little scrap of refuse, they can’t possibly see any worth to him.”

Sesshoumaru calmly started eating again and ignored them. His two sons followed suit.

Jirou took two bites before he stopped and looked to his elder brother. “I thought you said the hanyou wasn’t claimed by anyone?”

Ichirou finished his rice before he answered. “He isn’t.”

“Then what about the mark on his neck? He’s someone’s blooded mate.”

Shaking his head, his brother snorted. “He had no marks.”

Sesshoumaru continued eating. “He had no marks last night, that is true.”

Every head in the room turned to look at him.

“Father, are you trying to say that you…” Ichirou couldn’t finish the question and Sesshoumaru raised one eyebrow at him.

“Yes?”

“You took a mate?” His grandson blurted out. “You took that… that… hanyou as a mate?”

Sesshoumaru raised one eyebrow until the younger male stared at the floor. “You had better work on your groveling, Kohaku. Inuyasha now has a much higher status within the family than you do.”

The family simply stared, while Ichirou shook his head. “You said you had a solution, but I would never have thought…”

One of the grandchildren blurted out, “He’s younger than I am!”

“And disrespectful! And loud! And –“

“-really rather adorable.” The first female voice to speak that moment came from a slender inu-youkai who stood and approached Sesshoumaru with her hands out. “I wish you happy, Sesshoumaru-sama.”

He took both of them, nodded in greeting, and released them as she smiled.

“I imagine our lives are going to be a lot more entertaining over the next few years. He seems very…confident of his own opinions.”

“He is that.” Sesshoumaru murmured. “He has… suffered much in his life. You will all have to embrace your patience until he has adjusted to his new position.” He took one more bite and stood. “Ichirou, Jirou – you will accompany us to the council meeting. The rest of you will remain at home until we return with news.”

He turned and gazed solemnly at his three grandsons. “And while you are waiting, you may think on why it was that Inuyasha had the opportunity to destroy his kimono and escape, when you three were supposed to be guarding him in my quarters.

The three young males gulped and nodded, avoiding his eye as Sesshoumaru made his way out the door and back up the stairs.