New Beginnings
folder
InuYasha › Het - Male/Female › Sesshōmaru/Rin
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
9
Views:
4,777
Reviews:
39
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Category:
InuYasha › Het - Male/Female › Sesshōmaru/Rin
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
9
Views:
4,777
Reviews:
39
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own InuYasha, nor make money from this story.
Chapter 7
© Salome Wilde, 2008
New Beginnings
Author's Note: Thanks to Archfiend for letting me know this chapter was missing.
Chapter 7
There was a time when Kikyo had been so much like Rin. Emotions had swayed her from logic; passion had ruled her emotions. When she remembered that time—the way his hair swung, thick and tousled behind him; the softness in his eyes and the corners of his mouth when he promised always to be hers—it was as if it had happened to someone else. It was a tale told by a priestess to ailing children, to help them fall asleep. It was not her story. Never again hers. She could neither cry over the loss nor even truly feel it anymore.
There could be no such distance for this child, and child she still was. The pain in her too-wide eyes as she experienced the first impact of the intolerable truth was terrible, even for the impassive Kikyo, as she watched it hit, helpless to stop or even slow the crushing wave. She reached out and grabbed the child, took her tightly into her arms. “Hush,” she whispered, “hush,” folding into living but lifeless arms where she rocked her.
Rin could see nothing but red. Eyes open or closed, it made no difference. Tear-flooded and aching, her vision bled red, the red of betrayal. The world inside her was tainted, stained, washed in red, and there was no outside world at all. She felt pressure around her and knew, vaguely, that she was being held. She heard soft sounds and knew, dimly, that they were sounds of comfort. But it was the redness that gripped her. A red pain, searing. The demon’s treachery had penetrated her eyes, stabbed them, blinded her into a deep, awful blood-vision. It overflooded her heart, stole her senses.
Suddenly, Rin wrenched herself from Kikyo’s grasp and began tearing at her bandages, ripping them from her body, scraping and clawing her flesh as well. Kikyo fought to contain her, to stop the damage, to control the destructiveness. She did not try to speak to the child, to bring her back from the madness that was so clearly gripping her. The priestess had faith she would soon calm enough to reach her mind. For now, she must simply not be permitted to injure herself anew. Her body must be allowed to rest even though her heart could not.
Rin grabbed, ripped, moaned, scratched. She had to let the redness out. It wanted to flow, escape her, cover everything. Yes. Let it come. Let her share the blood-vision with the nothingness that was also her. The redness was right; it belonged. Only she did not belong. Let the redness be free of her tainted corpse. She was dead and must free the blood. But no, something was stopping her, fighting her. She resisted, struck out with all her meager strength. She must succeed…she must….
Kikyo sighed as her charge lost consciousness again. She hated to be grateful for such a thing, but it was best. Now she could tend and bandage her again, soothe her in sleep, and hope that the next time she awoke she would no longer wish to die. Only one who had died and been returned to the world, still unalive, could know how precious life truly was. The priestess no longer harbored ill-will for any living being that existed in peace. Seeing Rin battle inner demons that were the result of the assault of a living demon tested her resolve for the first time in years.
Kikyo knew the truth, at least insofar as Sesshomaru himself knew and was willing, in his terse way, to tell it. He had recovered pieces of an enchanted sword. And, so he claimed, they had somehow possessed him. Jaken was bearing them and keeping as far from his lord as he could, while they traveled to have them bound by the monk Miroku’s powerful spells. Kikyo, as experienced in masking her emotions as the inuyokai, felt the truth of his words. He had not meant to attack his mate. She believed that. Yet, still, she loathed him for it.
Above all, he had no right to claim the human as his mate. He knew nothing of sacrifice, nothing of selflessness. He simply took what he wanted and denied the consequences. Lessons in humility were painful and hard-won, and they were perhaps never truly learned. But, over the years, Kikyo had tried to learn. She had released Inuyasha from her thrall, from an impossible love that had turned dark and strangled them both. It had helped her justify her continued existence. Now, perhaps, caring for Rin, helping her survive the agony and come to own herself again, would release her from yet another level of self-hatred and shame.
It was dark when Rin found herself awake again. She knew where she was, and that she was safe, for the moment. Sitting up, she felt the pressure of the bandages, the ache of healing wounds. The red vision was gone now. She watched the yellow-orange flames flicker from across the room. Before the firepit was Kikyo, a calm, detached presence who would offer neither unwelcome affection nor cloying pity. She was grateful for this. Rin needed space now to think.
Kikyo turned, asked her how she felt. Rin replied without thinking and lay back down. Closing her eyes, she probed her mind tenderly and recalled the way the red vision had urged her to tear open her body. It had felt so necessary. But it was unreal. A delusion. She would stay centered now; she must. Kikyo had said her body would mend, and that was all she needed to do right now. Mend. She breathed deeply, trying to relax and ignore the images of violence and violation that tugged at the edges of her consciousness. But soon it was not only remembrance of the recent past that haunted her. Torture came anew as she realized the agony of craving her mate’s scent while knowing it was he who had left her in this state. Sesshomaru had destroyed her love and her trust, abandoned her, and left her to suffer withdrawal with no remedy.
She began to shake and sob, and Kikyo quickly came to her side and held her again, quietly murmuring promise of a relief that she could not hope to provide. As the sharpness of her soul-pain rose, however, the truth struck Rin with fierce accuracy: if she wished to live—and she did—then the inuyokai could not. Pressing away and looking up into Kikyo’s distant eyes through a flow of tears, she summoned a small, still voice and made her demand: “Help me kill him, Kikyo, before he kills me.”
The priestess gazed down at the suffering child and found herself staring beyond and through her to the image of a white-haired hanyo, pinned to a tree by her arrow. She blinked away the vision and refocused on the broken creature before her. How much more would she be made to suffer at the daiyokai’s hands? Before she intended to reply, she had: “I will help you, Rin.”
New Beginnings
Author's Note: Thanks to Archfiend for letting me know this chapter was missing.
Chapter 7
There was a time when Kikyo had been so much like Rin. Emotions had swayed her from logic; passion had ruled her emotions. When she remembered that time—the way his hair swung, thick and tousled behind him; the softness in his eyes and the corners of his mouth when he promised always to be hers—it was as if it had happened to someone else. It was a tale told by a priestess to ailing children, to help them fall asleep. It was not her story. Never again hers. She could neither cry over the loss nor even truly feel it anymore.
There could be no such distance for this child, and child she still was. The pain in her too-wide eyes as she experienced the first impact of the intolerable truth was terrible, even for the impassive Kikyo, as she watched it hit, helpless to stop or even slow the crushing wave. She reached out and grabbed the child, took her tightly into her arms. “Hush,” she whispered, “hush,” folding into living but lifeless arms where she rocked her.
Rin could see nothing but red. Eyes open or closed, it made no difference. Tear-flooded and aching, her vision bled red, the red of betrayal. The world inside her was tainted, stained, washed in red, and there was no outside world at all. She felt pressure around her and knew, vaguely, that she was being held. She heard soft sounds and knew, dimly, that they were sounds of comfort. But it was the redness that gripped her. A red pain, searing. The demon’s treachery had penetrated her eyes, stabbed them, blinded her into a deep, awful blood-vision. It overflooded her heart, stole her senses.
Suddenly, Rin wrenched herself from Kikyo’s grasp and began tearing at her bandages, ripping them from her body, scraping and clawing her flesh as well. Kikyo fought to contain her, to stop the damage, to control the destructiveness. She did not try to speak to the child, to bring her back from the madness that was so clearly gripping her. The priestess had faith she would soon calm enough to reach her mind. For now, she must simply not be permitted to injure herself anew. Her body must be allowed to rest even though her heart could not.
Rin grabbed, ripped, moaned, scratched. She had to let the redness out. It wanted to flow, escape her, cover everything. Yes. Let it come. Let her share the blood-vision with the nothingness that was also her. The redness was right; it belonged. Only she did not belong. Let the redness be free of her tainted corpse. She was dead and must free the blood. But no, something was stopping her, fighting her. She resisted, struck out with all her meager strength. She must succeed…she must….
Kikyo sighed as her charge lost consciousness again. She hated to be grateful for such a thing, but it was best. Now she could tend and bandage her again, soothe her in sleep, and hope that the next time she awoke she would no longer wish to die. Only one who had died and been returned to the world, still unalive, could know how precious life truly was. The priestess no longer harbored ill-will for any living being that existed in peace. Seeing Rin battle inner demons that were the result of the assault of a living demon tested her resolve for the first time in years.
Kikyo knew the truth, at least insofar as Sesshomaru himself knew and was willing, in his terse way, to tell it. He had recovered pieces of an enchanted sword. And, so he claimed, they had somehow possessed him. Jaken was bearing them and keeping as far from his lord as he could, while they traveled to have them bound by the monk Miroku’s powerful spells. Kikyo, as experienced in masking her emotions as the inuyokai, felt the truth of his words. He had not meant to attack his mate. She believed that. Yet, still, she loathed him for it.
Above all, he had no right to claim the human as his mate. He knew nothing of sacrifice, nothing of selflessness. He simply took what he wanted and denied the consequences. Lessons in humility were painful and hard-won, and they were perhaps never truly learned. But, over the years, Kikyo had tried to learn. She had released Inuyasha from her thrall, from an impossible love that had turned dark and strangled them both. It had helped her justify her continued existence. Now, perhaps, caring for Rin, helping her survive the agony and come to own herself again, would release her from yet another level of self-hatred and shame.
It was dark when Rin found herself awake again. She knew where she was, and that she was safe, for the moment. Sitting up, she felt the pressure of the bandages, the ache of healing wounds. The red vision was gone now. She watched the yellow-orange flames flicker from across the room. Before the firepit was Kikyo, a calm, detached presence who would offer neither unwelcome affection nor cloying pity. She was grateful for this. Rin needed space now to think.
Kikyo turned, asked her how she felt. Rin replied without thinking and lay back down. Closing her eyes, she probed her mind tenderly and recalled the way the red vision had urged her to tear open her body. It had felt so necessary. But it was unreal. A delusion. She would stay centered now; she must. Kikyo had said her body would mend, and that was all she needed to do right now. Mend. She breathed deeply, trying to relax and ignore the images of violence and violation that tugged at the edges of her consciousness. But soon it was not only remembrance of the recent past that haunted her. Torture came anew as she realized the agony of craving her mate’s scent while knowing it was he who had left her in this state. Sesshomaru had destroyed her love and her trust, abandoned her, and left her to suffer withdrawal with no remedy.
She began to shake and sob, and Kikyo quickly came to her side and held her again, quietly murmuring promise of a relief that she could not hope to provide. As the sharpness of her soul-pain rose, however, the truth struck Rin with fierce accuracy: if she wished to live—and she did—then the inuyokai could not. Pressing away and looking up into Kikyo’s distant eyes through a flow of tears, she summoned a small, still voice and made her demand: “Help me kill him, Kikyo, before he kills me.”
The priestess gazed down at the suffering child and found herself staring beyond and through her to the image of a white-haired hanyo, pinned to a tree by her arrow. She blinked away the vision and refocused on the broken creature before her. How much more would she be made to suffer at the daiyokai’s hands? Before she intended to reply, she had: “I will help you, Rin.”