Chapter Text
The metropolis's damp asphalt reflected the neon lights, distorting them into pools of cold, shimmering color. The air, heavy with post-rain humidity and the scent of ozone, also carried the scent of countless human lives, an olfactory cacophony that Sesshoumaru, in his human form, ignored with calculated indifference. He walked through the bustling crowd, an anachronistic figure in his immaculate elegance.
His figure was adorned by a dark, tailored suit; perhaps the most striking difference in the Daiyoukai was the topknot, but the rest of his hair remained carefully slicked back. And his golden eyes, though less intense than in his true youkai form, still held a depth that betrayed millennia of existence.
Sesshoumaru boasted to himself about not needing to use any of his swords, but he didn't want to admit that this "feat" was due to there being nothing else worthy to kill.
He was a silent predator, adapted to the urban landscape, but never truly belonging there.
For centuries, he had roamed the world, a relentless hunt that, to him, was less a search and more the solving of a persistent enigma. Perhaps he was lonely after so long alone, which he would never admit, or perhaps he was truly engrossed in some mystery of life.
His brother's scent had long since dissipated in the air, every few cold trails leading him to dead ends, to forgotten corners of the globe, and even to places he had never seen before.
The persistence in finding him wasn't affection, never was, and never will be - the sentence flashed through his mind - but a need to fill a void, as if there was something disturbing him enough to stir something approaching worry.
Kagome's death - he went to the young priestess's grave - a distant echo of a bygone era. Sesshoumaru didn't have many useful memories of the human, but he knew his idiot brother clung to that woman physically and mentally. He'd watched the funeral from afar back then; there had been no crying, no dramatic goodbyes... Just silence.
But Sesshoumaru realized after a short time - after a few years - silence was the most painful way to say goodbye to someone, as if crying or ceremonial farewells would disturb the journey to the end. He didn't know the name for the sensation, but he felt his chest split in half as he covered Rin's aging body with cold, damp earth.
Why would such an irritating and noisy being erase itself from existence? The answer? He never found it.
Curiosity was a peculiar trait, even for a youkai as indifferent as he. He had heard and seen stories that human adults told their families about great youkai and other tales. Some of these tales even spoke of enemies Sesshoumaru and his father had faced. But most humans didn't tell the stories with great certainty.
His network of informants, spanning both the ancient youkai clans and the whispers of the human underworld, had been exhausted. The clues were scarce, the information contradictory.
Sesshoumaru never believed such a banal death for his half-brother. And if it were truly the hanyou's time to leave, it would have to be under Sesshoumaru's command.
The sound of a twig snapping in half draws Sesshoumaru's attention back to the present. He remembers the day he began searching this filthy place - dirty neighborhoods and streets filled with all manner of human commerce, each with its own enormous territorial expansion - that's where he is now.
It had been 18 days since he began searching every street and alley of this place. His informant was as frustrating as any inferior to him: the little green devil had been following Sesshoumaru to the night market since day one and kept telling him it was useless to search there, that they had passed this way before, years ago.
His feet froze, looking around and seeing a handful of foolish humans drinking at a bar a good 20 feet away from Sesshoumaru. The smell of alcohol was strong, and even stronger was the animated chatter surrounding the men.
Suddenly, the cacophony became intelligible. From the bar, amidst the shouting, drunken laughter, and the constant clinking of glasses, two voices stood out.
"Have you been to that place, the one with the old wooden sign? If I'm right, the name is Ikagai Ikazaya..." one of them asked, his voice a little slurred. "Oh, don't make that face. You know the one!"
The other shook his head, smiling. "Oh, yes! I had completely forgotten... I went there... last week! It's a little hidden and weird, but the food... it doesn't even compare to my wife's, haha!" Sesshoumaru kept as neutral a face as he could manage as he listened to the conversation.
He heard the two men joking about miss the wedding. Sesshoumaru realized he was still literally in the middle of the street and decided to move closer to the small bar. Sitting three stools away from the two men, he raised an eyebrow when the bartender pushed a glass of liquor over. "And the chef, the one... Damn, I can't remember his name right now!" He frowned, trying to remember.
"I don't know his name either," the first man interjected, taking a sip of his beer. "He's like a ghost, only showing up to take orders at the counter. Takao said he only has eyes for his dishes, and thinks about delicious food..."
Sesshoumaru pushed his untouched glass away and gave the bartender a piercing look. That was it; the description - although fragmented - was enough for him.
He spent a few more hours wandering through the so-called poor parts of the city until, after careful observation, he found an establishment that fit at least part of what the men had said.
A restaurant in a low-key neighborhood, dimly lit, even non-existent in some corners of the street. There it stood, with no large signs or decorations, just a name in elegant Japanese calligraphy, carved into dark wood: Ikigai Izakaya.
Sesshoumaru noticed that the establishment was open, even though it was almost 4:00 a.m.; there were no hours posted at the entrance and no sign indicating whether it was open or not.
In the middle of a rainy dawn, with the street nearly empty and the city plunged into a humid slumber, Sesshoumaru entered, the bell above the door tinkling softly, the sound muffled by the soft music coming from a man playing a shamisen.
There were only a handful of customers, immersed in their own bubbles of silence and reflection, some eating slowly, others simply watching the rain fall outside. The scent of spices and something unmistakable hung in the air.
It was the scent of youkai - the smell was weak - a scent he'd known for ages, but masked by the strong aromas of spices.
His golden eyes swept the room until they landed on the kitchen, partially visible through a gap in the wall, framed by a noren curtain.
He glimpsed a man with his back to him, hunched over a polished metal countertop, handling knives with almost artistic precision, his movements fluid and practiced.
His hair was tied back by a kitchen scarf, but a silvery lock - barely visible from Sesshoumaru's distance - escaped from beneath, falling over the nape of his neck.
Sesshoumaru understood in that exact second.
Sesshoumaru took a few slow steps, the sound of his shoes on the wooden floor barely audible, his voice neutral but charged with a lifetime of exhausted patience.
"Inuyasha."
The sound of the knife against the cutting board abruptly ceased, silence filling the space between the notes of the shamisen. Slowly, he turned.
His golden eyes, though mysteriously opaque, shone with resigned recognition. There was no surprise, no fear, only a deep, weary acceptance, as if he had been waiting for this moment.
Inuyasha stood there, wearing a simple chef's apron over a dark linen shirt. His characteristics were the same, but the vivacity of before had been replaced by a somber stillness. His silver hair, once a wild cascade that he displayed with pride, was tucked under his kerchief, with only a few stubborn strands showing, and his pointy ears, which always stood out, seemed to be hidden under strands of hair or some other artifice.
He was no longer the impulsive, boisterous hanyou of the Sengoku Era; he was a man - or a youkai, Sesshoumaru couldn't decide - bearing the weight of regret.
Sesshoumaru stared at him, his voice sharp. "Why this pathetic hiding place, half-youkai?"
Inuyasha just sighed, turning back to the stove, a gesture of evasion Sesshoumaru knew all too well. The scent of something gently burning began to spread, adding a bitter note to the air.
"None of your business, Sesshoumaru," he replied, his voice hoarse, almost a whisper, without turning around.
Sesshoumaru watched his half-brother's hunched figure, his gaze fixed on what he was preparing, as if his life depended on it.
Sesshoumaru continued to watch, discovering this new side of his brother for the first time. His impassive face betrayed nothing, not even the chaos of emotion Sesshoumaru was feeling at that moment.
It wasn't the lack of searching that prevented him from finding Inuyasha; it was his ability to become a ghost. This poor place and its quiet existence felt like a self-imposed prison, a silent penance.
A prison designed to protect him from his own brother.