Chapter Text
Posed on a cliff over-looking a waterfall among the clouds, the demon dog perches. His eyes reflecting contemplation, the running stream mirroring recollections. Lessons of both love and loss.
He’s had many swords by now. His first was his father’s fang. The runt in terms of power between the fangs left behind. His relationship with Tenseiga was complicated. Much like the relationship with his father.
“Do you have someone to protect?”
His father’s last words to him. At the moment he had remained stubborn, and when his father passed his guilt drove him steadfast into denial.
It was his father’s one weakness, left for him to ruminate on. Furthermore the clandestine nature of the relationship that ruined him.
He always considered his parent’s relationship naturally taciturn. A loveless marriage, he’d assumed. His father was a natural solution when his then princess mother required greater power to hold the west.
Sometimes he forgets they had sneaky kisses between doorways or the play they snuck when they thought no one was looking. Had their relationship began a secret as well?
When his father had passed, he noticed his mother may have never shed a tear, but her guard grew tremendously. Not when his father confessed his interest in the mortal princess. Only after his father’s death.
Was his mother someone to protect? Was he? Would he have been betraying her if he’d chased his father into battle? Or would he have had someone to protect in that moment?
If he wishes us to protect InuYasha and his mother, was it never proposed? He briefly considers.
Did his mother detest him in this hypothetical moment? Or was it simply because he’s died? If that were the case then he has already betrayed her when he did not follow.
Or the challenge should have been immediate. His thoughts cope. Did we not fight hard enough for him? His insecurity enters. His eyes squint through the water, lost in a haze of emotion. While his face could not be used to discern any of it, it gave signals of some growing warning.
A sword that cannot cut. Did he use it in that battle? The responsibility of the blade was his the moment his father died. Did it have more use in that fight?
He refuses to commit until the news spreads that his father had perished. Challenge came to Sesshomaru as a target on his back and a growing absence. Without the sword, he pushed himself to perform at his peak.
“Dying against a human, for the sake of a human?” His mother once wept. “They should have found their princess lucky. He had to wage a war.” Her weeping was always subtle. Like a dog whining, her voice heady with wistful disappointment. The corners of her eyes would wet, but she would never let anyone catch more.
He cursed his father in these moments. And he cursed those he associated with. His mother excluded. His father’s vassals spoke of his death with thick grief, and they were not shy to express their sharp (albeit cautious) disappointment in his inheritance.
He despised their stories that reminded him of his father’s raconteur nature. Stories of grandeur that at an early age illicited excitement for his heritage.
“Oh please. You’ll be much stronger. You’re my son after all.” His mother would often tell him.
However, he knew she gained no excitement for fighting like his father. Or himself. Play wrestling was his favorite activity as a pup. His mother only wrestled with his father. His father often had matters to address personally.
After some age he can admit his nature has become and maintains quite sadistic. His relationship with his father now an obvious factor. Seeking bonds in what he is capable of. How could he show him his worth if he were still here?
Perhaps the most he’s done like his father is protect the same half-breed that inherited the better sword.
It gave him a head start.
He catches himself admitting. When they play wrestled, was that meant to substitute his head start?
He always felt like he was catching up to Tessaiga with Tokijin. But now… remembering the blade crumbling only fills him with unresolved fury. Recalling makes his blood boil.
“Did that stupid woman die?
After betraying Naraku and betraying me for a trivial thing called freedom, and she ended up dying a pathetic death.
And dying in vain at that.”
Rage pushes his teeth to grit, an expression reserved for his solitude. He remembers the day even more vividly than the night he left his father to decide his fate.
The sound of the sword shattering stung his ears, and it sounded to him much more like the shattering of something far more vulnerable and tender.
The entirety of their story, beginning to end, tied to Tokijin. When it broke, his gut wrenched before departing quickly to the smell of her blood.
Tokijin warned him like a bad omen. The heavy hanging air the night of his father’s sacrifice clung to him in that field. Dread crept along his muscles, and anxiety gripped his father’s fang.
“Do you have someone to protect?”
He recalls and he wants to answer,
I do.
“Se..ssho..maru,” Her weak voice somehow transfixed in her last moments by his arrival.
He recalls his first thought to be,
Why do you speak?
Aggravated by some invisible threat.
His eyes glistened with a despair he couldn’t express.
“I followed the scent of blood and miasma.”
This was the first blunder while navigating his growing realization. His heart sunk further as her surprise fell into delighted acceptance.
“I see. You were expecting Naraku. Are you disappointed I’m not Naraku?”
Her insecurities spilled out like the blood staining flowers. Her head lowered to humble herself. His gaze focused with recognition. She has long accepted his refusal to protect her. Still, she desperately wants it. He knew from the start that it was more than that. Her want. His approval. His recognition.
“I knew it was you.”
He doesn’t hesitate this time.
When her body instantly shudders in response, his hand squeezes tighter at the handle of his sword.
A couple of her tears made their way from her eyes, down her nose and onward to sprinkle the petals below her.
Is this what you were protecting father? Then why am I forsaken?
He feels truly powerless for the first time when the miasma corrodes her vessel in front of him.
Tenseiga refuses to respond. The most he can give to her is his dissociation.
“Are you leaving?”
He says like a child when his playmate is missed.
“Yeah, it’s enough.”
She smiles at him, and he understands. He understands why his mother smiles when she grieves, and why his father’s death had meaning.
Why then, did it still not feel enough?