Chapter Text
They watched in silence for some time as Kagome finished sweeping the grounds, greeted shrine visitors, and occupied the gift booth to sell trinkets and charms to those who came. The sun was well on its way to setting when Inuyasha scowled again.
“So, what now, we just sit around staring while she does…this? Nothing?”
“This is her life. If I wish it protected, I must be present.”
“I can’t believe this is how you spend your time.”
“I have chosen to cultivate patience rather than find an undead priestess to chase after when I become bored.”
Amusingly, the hanyō’s face flamed red at that. “That was different! I owed Kikyō for the way she died, and—”
“And you are easily distracted when your duties bore you. Or the sun rises. Or the stars hang in the sky.”
Inuyasha’s ears flattened in irritation. “You’re an asshole.”
“So you have said.”
“You know, you’re sure going to a whole lotta trouble over one human,” he groused. “Settin’ guards on her an’ her family, standin’ personal guard over her when she’s home, keepin’ track of that stupid school thing she’s always doin’, makin’ plans for when she’s finished with it. You even talked to Sango an’ Miroku about where and when she came from. What do you think you’re gonna get outta all this? ‘Cause you never do anything unless you see some kinda gain from it.”
So very close, Inuyasha. On the ground, Kagome rose from her seat behind the counter in the gift shop and began setting the shutters in place. Soon, she would go inside with her aged grandfather for the evening meal and Inuyasha would begin a very long-term lesson in patience.
Even as he thought it, his miko exited the gift shop and moved to the shrine proper. “Grandpa, are you ready? It’s time to close up.”
The family’s patriarch joined her a few minutes later, shuffling along at a fairly reasonable rate considering he had seen nearly nine decades. Humans, Sesshōmaru reflected, cannot have been intended by the gods to survive more than a century. Their bodies seemed far too fragile, and yet the ferocious rate at which their technology improved had extended their collective lifespans so long already…
Too late for my Rin, he thought with a touch of bitterness. He took a slow, deliberate breath. Yet she lived long for the time, and her descendants have chosen to remain with me. Perhaps, someday, she will return to me as well. It is worth it, despite the length of a human life. Father must be laughing at me.
Not the first time he’d had every one of those thoughts, unlikely the last. As his gaze fell on the miko guiding her elder in to their meal, the bitterness vanished. It would be worth it this time, too. He would make certain of it. His plans, long since laid to account for her age and lifespan, for her power, for everything, would not fail.
Dusk became true night, and even the sounds of Tōkyō traffic gradually faded into the deep quiet of night. As much as a city of its size ever did, at least. Inuyasha jumped down to the ground after the last late shrine visitor had departed. For lack of any reason not to, Sesshōmaru joined him, though he settled silently on a bench beneath the Goshinboku and kept his yōki furled close to prevent anyone detecting his presence. It would not do to permit a slip that could prematurely reveal his existence to his miko and risk disrupting the final weeks of her education.
Hours later, the hanyō had paced a widening spiral outward from the Gods’ Tree and back inward to the bench, then out and back again several times. Eventually, he leapt up on a root to touch the much reduced but still visible scar in the bark where he had hung so long ago. His claws made no sound against the wood, nor did his footsteps disturb the dust on the ground. Sesshōmaru did not think he had yet considered the full implications of his new existence, nor what they might mean for his presence on the shrine.
Still, he had remained uncharacteristically silent for a considerable time. Perhaps he had used the interlude to consider his new nature.
“More than five hundred years…” the hanyō mused softly, still brushing his fingers over the Tree’s scar. “Wouldn’ta thought this’d last that long.”
Sesshōmaru’s gaze drifted to the eastern sky. The horizon had begun to lighten, though only one with eyesight as keen as his would be able to perceive the change. Not long now, and his miko would depart her home for the University campus. His people would take up their watch at the bottom of the shrine stairs, and he would meet his driver a few minutes later to return to his home for a few hours’ rest before he must tend to his own daily routines.
“Look, you still don’t make any sense.” Inuyasha’s voice broke into his thoughts, irritation clear in his tone. “None’a this is necessary anymore.”
“None of what, little brother?” the daiyōkai all but purred, fully aware the whelp must be on the verge of realization. He deliberately kept his gaze on the eastern horizon, though his attention had gone to the red-clad whelp in the periphery of his vision.
“All this shit you’ve done all this time!” He waved a clawed hand in a vague gesture that encompassed the shrine and their mutual presence. “Naraku’s dead! I gotta assume the Jewel’s gone, too. All the trackin’ her down and guardin’ her and keepin’ track of her life… Ya just spent all night sittin’ around doin’ nothin’! The important crap’s done, so whadda you care? there’s no point. If I didn’t know better, I’d’a said you’re treatin’ her like…she’s…your…”
Ah, there it is, Sesshōmaru thought with great amusement. Moving woodenly, as if his body refused his command, Inuyasha turned to face him. Amber eyes widened comically, jaw hanging, ears flattened tightly against his head, he stood in silence with his arm still raised as though touching the Tree for a long, increasingly comical moment.
“No.” The word sounded strangled, airless. Sesshōmaru suppressed a chuckle. The boy squeezed his eyes shut tightly, blinked once, twice, and shook his head hard. His arm fell limply to his side. “No. No, no, no, no, no, no, NO!”
Unable to resist, Sesshōmaru turned his head to look directly at the whelp, raising his eyebrow and allowing just the slightest upward curve of his mouth to show his amusement. “No what, Inuyasha?”
“Th-That’s not… Y-You can’t… Th-There’s no way…” He shook his head again, then lifted both hands to clutch desperately at his hair. “No way. No. Way! Not happening! No chance in hell!”
The daiyōkai let his other eyebrow rise, smile widening a little more. “You will have to make some sense if you wish me to respond.”
Suddenly, Inuyasha jumped down from the root where he’d stood, legs planted aggressively apart, one hand fisted at his side, the index finger of his other hand speared violently in Sesshōmaru’s direction. “First of all, quit looking at me like that, it’s creepy as hell! And! Kagome! Is not for you! You keep your filthy, disgusting, poison-dripping paws off her, do you hear me?! There is no way in heaven or hell I’d ever let you put your dirty hands on her! Never! Happening! YOU TRIED TO KILL HER, YOU BASTARD!”
And he was off, bellowing and screeching denials and accusations at the top of his lungs. The meltdown was spectacular. Sesshōmaru tuned the noise out and watched, fascinated, while the whelp’s ears gyrated atop his head and his face turned so crimson it outdid the firerat cloth he wore. He’d never gotten this much of a rise out of the boy even when they’d feuded over the Tessaiga half a millennia ago!
Alas, all good things must end. While Inuyasha gesticulated, the sun broke the horizon and rose into a clear sky. Bits and snatches of sleepy conversation reached his ears from inside the Higurashi home every time the hanyō paused to inhale. Idly, he wondered whether the whelp actually needed to breathe, or whether taking in air was simply a habit. Either way, a fortuitous pause to pant as though exhausted allowed the daiyōkai to hear his miko’s footsteps as they approached the door. He took the opportunity to lean forward, bringing his face within a meter of the hanyō’s.
“You are wrong, little brother,” he rumbled pleasantly. “I want her, and I will have her for my mate. You may assist me or not, I do not care, but if you attempt to hinder me I will have you exorcised and she will never know you were here.”
He straightened without waiting for a response, flexing his yōki to carry him into the Goshinboku’s branches just as Kagome stepped into the open once more. Inuyasha gaped up at him for a moment, surprised, then noticed the young woman making her way to the stairs. That bought another moment of startlement, but then he bolted after her.
“Kagome! Hey, dammit, you gotta hear me!” the hanyō bellowed at her. “Kagome! Kagome!”
Sesshōmaru followed behind both at a leisurely pace, lowering himself back to the ground to walk when he judged the distance sufficient to prevent any chance of her noticing him. “She still cannot hear you, Inuyasha,” he said mockingly, soft enough she would not hear. “And there is something you should know about guardian spirits.”
Inuyasha half-turned to glare over his shoulder, still trotting after Kagome as she started down the stairs. “Back off, asshole! She’s not yours!”
“Not yet. But you should know that most often, guardian spirits are bound to an item, to a person…”
The hanyō jerked suddenly, stopped cold as if he’d impacted a wall at the very top of the stairs beneath the torii gate. He hung there for a moment, eyes glazed, and then toppled backward to lie on the pavement, blinking dazedly. Sesshōmaru strolled the last few steps to lean over him.
“…or to a place. It would appear you are bound within the perimeter of the Higurashi Shrine, little brother.” He straightened and stepped under the gate to move down the stairway, leaving the prone hanyō to find his feet on his own. “Enjoy your day.”