" Have you someone to protect?"
The words were a ghostly echo, carried to his ears by the salt-tinged ocean breeze. It was the question his father had asked him two hundred years before, on this very beach, beneath the eerie glow of another full moon. He had scoffed then, even though some part deep within his heart had constricted painfully as his sire spoke to him, for what they both knew was the last time.
He wondered now what would have happened if rather than demanding that his father hand over the swords, Sounga and Tetsusaiga, he had demanded, instead, to accompany him into battle. Could his aid have changed the course of events that led to his sire's ignoble demise?. Perhaps...
But he had been too full of disdain and -he could now admit- too full of bitterness, to even consider it.
For the great dog demon, Inutaisho, already gravely wounded after his fight with the mighty dragon Ryukotsusei, was desperate to reach the side of his beloved human mate, who was about to whelp his half-breed child in the midst of danger.
" Have you someone to protect?"
Silently, he had watched as his father took to the skies. And when the lord's true form became but a speck in the distance he, Sesshomaru, vowed that he would never let himself fall prey to such ridiculous weakness...
Five years after Inutaisho's death, Sesshomaru went to see for himself the fruit of his father's folly.
He arrived at the human compound just after mid-afternoon, alighting on the topmost branches of a tree that offered a clear view, while easily concealing him from the weak eyesight of those below. From there, he had observed as a small, red-clad figure bounded onto a courtyard where a group of humans were playing some ridiculous game, involving the kicking of a ball. Even if he had not noticed the ripple of disgust that the child's sudden appearance caused among the humans, he still would have known the runt by the smell he gave out.
Half-breed.
Sesshomaru saw one of the players toss the ball onto a footbridge, where it bounced to the other side of the stream. Then he watched as the idiotic little cretin chased after it while behind his back, the humans quickly dispersed, leaving the courtyard deserted.
{ Even such pitiful creatures as these mortals, know him for the wretched mistake that he is. } The demon lord thought, his lip curling in derision at the dejected slump of the whelp's shoulders, when he turned and found that all had gone.
But then a tall, graceful female emerged from one of the shadowed porches and the little runt let the ball drop, rushing to her side with his small arms outstretched. As she enfolded the child in a loving embrace, Sesshomaru's eyes narrowed. This, then, had to be the half-breed's mother, Izayoi. Unbidden, a memory came to him of a moment in his long-ago chilhood when, after some mishap, he had tearfully rushed into the arms of his own mother, only to have her grab him by the scruff of his neck and severely reprimand him for displaying behavior unbecoming to one of his station.
{ And rightly so. } He growled to himself.
Yet as he saw the human woman tenderly stroke the silver hair of her bastard son he, Sesshomaru, became aware of an uncomfortable sensation stirring in some deep forgotten corner of his heart. He had left then, moving away from the human compound with an atonishing burst of speed. And it was only after slaughtering several demons unlucky enough to have crossed his path that he was able to banish from his mind the image of those two, for whom his father had so wrecklessly thrown his life away...
A mere three years after, word reached him from one of his spies that the Lady Izayoi lay near death, having fallen victim to some unknown illness.
Once more, Sesshomaru travelled to the human compound, this time arriving in the dead of night, to find the coutyard aglow by the warm light of a myriad lanterns. Not that it mattered, for he could see that the sentries were all-but-asleep at their posts.
{ Fools!. They should be flayed alive for their incompetence. } He thought, contemptuously.
Yet it was that very incompetence that enabled him to move about undetected. For his purpose there was not to engage in battle, but to engage in vengeance. Thus, he came to stand before the shoji screen that gave entrance to the lady's chamber from the garden, his lips twisting into a dark smile as he detected a peculiar smell coming from within. A smell that was rooted in the woman's own body. Poison. So...she had been poisoned by one, or more of her own kind.
" How ironic." He murmured, flexing the lethal claws of his right hand.
But there was no time to truly savor this deliciously evil twist of fate. Lady Izayoi was quickly slipping from the land of the living and he had things to say to her, before she succumbed.
{ And how fortuitous that her stinking mongrel is in there with her. } Sesshomaru thought, wrinkling his nose at the other peculiar smell from inside the room, as his hands silently slid the screen open.
The whelp lay tightly curled upon the sleeping futon, his tear-streaked face slacked in exhausted slumber. But his mother...she was awake. Even ravaged by the poison coursing through her veins, the Lady Izayoi remained a lumminescent beauty. A beauty that was lost on the demon who stared down at her, dispassionately. Sensing a presence, she slowly turned her head, her fevered eyes widening when she beheld his form. Then her lips curved into a beatific smile.
" My dearest..." She whispered, extending one pale hand out towards him.
{ She mistakes me for father! }
Sesshomaru's brow creased into a frown, for the love and longing in her voice had again caused something to shift uncomfortably inside him. Going down onto one knee, he leaned his face close to hers.
" Do you who I am?" He asked, his own voice quiet and cold.
Her expression became confused. " Inutai... No...no...you are his...his son."
As realization hit, her confusion gave way to fear. She began to struggle, trying to force her weakened limbs towards the still-sleeping figure of her small son. Seeking to shelter him, even to her dying breath. Suddently, Sesshomaru heard his father's voice inside his head.
" Have you someone to protect?"
His hand shot out, pinning Izayoi back against the sleeping pallet. Her wide eyes looked up at him, imploringly. But before she could open her mouth to beg for her bastard's life, Sesshomaru spoke.
" It is not sickness that rends you from this world, woman, but poison." He told her, and was not surprised when he saw the resignation in her gaze. " It is a certainty that whoever did this to you will seek to kill your mongrel, after your demise. And so, as a last token in honor of my father's memory, I will take his get from this place and see to it that he reaches adulthood."
He watched as relief flooded her features, letting himself relish her incredulous gratitude, before uttering the words that would shatter her hope and deliver his vengeance.
" But know this. When your pitiful wretch of a whelp does reach his majority, I, the only true son of Inutaisho, will kill him."
Fast as a lighting strike, his arm scooped up the sleeping child, who awoke with a startled yelp.
" No...No!" Izayoi cried, but the room was already empty...
As Sesshomaru leapt high above the outer wall of the compound, his ears picked up the faint sound of her voice over the chaotic fumbling of the sentries, and even over the inarticulate screams of the half-breed child in his arms.
" Inuyasha!" She was wailing.
" INUYASHAAA!..."
TBC...