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Chapter Text

The fire crackled softly, its orange light throwing restless shadows across the clearing. Night had settled fully, cold and damp, wrapping the forest in an eerie stillness. Rin sat crosslegged on the ground, staring into the shifting flames. Her face was bright in the glow, framed by the soot and dirt of travel. Across from her, Jaken fussed over his staff, rubbing the crooked wood with the hem of his sleeve, his bulbous eyes narrowed in great concentration. 

Sesshoumaru kept guard a short distance away. His back to the camp, he faced the darkened woodland, the silver cascade of his hair catching faint glimmers of moonlight. Rin studied him, seeming thoughtful. His customary silence had been heavier today. Taciturn and unmoving, the Great Demon might have been carved from stone and left to watch over the entrance of a shrine. 

She leaned closer to Jaken, whispering quietly so only he could hear. “Lord Sesshoumaru seems… sad.”

Jaken froze mid-polish, his thin lips curling into a sneer. “Sad? Foolish child! Do not mistake discipline for weakness of heart.” He puffed out his chest, though it was absurdly small. “My lord is incapable of such petty mortal feelings! He—” 

The imp hesitated, then. His gaze flickered toward the white figure beneath the trees, then back at her. Suddenly, he appeared oddly reluctant to speak. “Today marks the anniversary of his father’s death. That is all.” 

Rin’s brow furrowed in confusion. Her words, though hushed, carried the unassuming bluntness typical of a child. “I thought Daiyoukai lived forever.” 

“They do not die of old age,” Jaken corrected harshly, as if to reprimand her ignorance. He cleared his throat, features momentarily softening with reverence. “But they can be killed. The Great Demon Dog, Lord Toga, was gravely wounded in battle. He sealed away Ryukotsusei, a dragon who terrorized these lands. Even with his immense strength, the effort cost him dearly…”

He paused, his claws tightening on the staff, as if wondering whether he should continue. For a brief moment, anger marred the smooth expanse of his beak, or perhaps pity. “But no. That was not what ended him,” he muttered. “He died for a human.”

Rin blinked, taken aback. “A human?”

“Yes, his mistress. Princess Izayoi,” Jaken spat the name as though it tasted foul. “While Lord Toga lay wounded, she was giving birth to his bastard child. She had been captured by her former suitor—a man named Takemaru. Lord Toga went to her rescue, though he could barely stand.” 

Jaken shook his head slowly, his disgust plain. “Takemaru struck him down. Felled by a human. The most shameful death imaginable for a Daiyoukai.” 

The fire popped, sending a spark spiraling upward into the night. Rin stared at her hands, weak and mortal, painted in trembling warm hues. “So that’s why Lord Sesshoumaru doesn’t like humans.”

Jaken grunted, nodding stiffly. For a long while, Rin was quiet, looking unusually downcast. Then, with a suddenness that caught the imp off guard, she inquired, “Was it a boy or a girl?”

“What?” Jaken frowned at her, his staff at last forgotten. 

“You said the princess was giving birth.” Rin leaned forward earnestly, her child’s curiosity as sharp as any blade. “To a hanyou. Was it a boy or a girl?” 

Jaken’s beak opened, then closed. For once, speech failed him. He squinted at her, as if she had grown two heads. “So you know about hanyou. I did not expect such perceptiveness from a silly little girl,” he murmured. Finally, he sighed, “It was a boy.” 

Rin’s eyes widened, round as hazelnuts. “A boy? What was his name?”

Jaken seemed nervous, like he’d been caught in some misdeed. “... Inuyasha.” 

“Inuyasha?” Rin repeated, too loudly, the name carrying through the clearing.

Jaken nearly leapt out of his skin. He clapped a hand over her mouth, glancing frantically at Sesshoumaru. “Quiet, you fool!” 

The Daiyoukai had not moved, but there was a hint of expectancy in the air, the way storm clouds gather before a thunderclap.

Jaken swallowed hard and hissed furiously. “Do not say that name where Lord Sesshoumaru can hear. The very sound of it enrages him. Do you understand? That half-breed,” he spat again, as though trying to cleanse his tongue, “is a stain on my lord’s noble bloodline. The reason his father died. They despise each other!”

After some brief hesitation, Rin nodded, and Jaken released her with a tired huff. She looked at Sesshoumaru once more, her brow creased in worry. Rigid as a statue, the moon cast his profile in light and shadow—the cold, immaculate beauty of a mask no human could ever read. Rin hugged her knees tight, her heart strangely heavy. 

The wind howled through the Valley of Ryukotsusei, like a dirge haunting the crumbling cliffs. Sesshoumaru’s silver hair whipped violently in the breeze, every strand gleaming under the pale sun. His gaze roved across the scorched earth where even now vegetation refused to grow, as though the land itself could not forget the great battle once wrought here. 

Rin clung to his trailing fur, unsettled by the dreary scenery. Behind her, Jaken scampered with quick, clumsy steps. He held the Staff of Two Heads firmly against his chest, as if prepared to shield himself from the valley’s elusive spirits. 

Sesshoumaru’s mood was sour. He did not need Rin’s trembling hand or Jaken’s fearful mutterings to remind him what this place was. They stood on the ground his father had consecrated with blood—the sealed grave of Ryukotsusei, chained in eternal sleep after defying the former Lord of the Western Lands. A hollow victory. Bearer of a power revered by all Great Demons, Toga was not brought down by the beast, but by a spurned man’s lowly hand. 

Within Sesshoumaru stirred that same quiet, unyielding ache. A wound born of insult rather than grief. His father had not perished in this vale of shadows and decay, but in a human fortress now burnt to ash. He still couldn’t bring himself to visit it. When it was time to commemorate Toga’s passing, he always came here instead. Even that was no longer allowed, though. 

“L-Lord Sesshoumaru,” Jaken stammered, scuttling forward a few paces. Round eyes darted left and right, scanning the terrain. “The body—where is it?” He cried out. “Where is the sealed body of Ryukotsusei? It’s gone!” 

Sesshoumaru did not answer. His senses had already told him what Jaken was yet to understand. The air, acrid with centuries of malicious energies, now carried a different scent. Another’s presence lingered like a blemish upon the battlefield. The faintest flicker touched his eye—a twitch so light it could have been mistaken with the flutter of a lash. It was the only sight of his displeasure.

“Ryukotsusei is no more,” he spoke gravely. 

Jaken reeled back, blinking furiously. “N-no more?” he squeaked. His squat form whirled in frantic circles, peering behind boulders, flipping over rocks with the end of his staff, as if the dragon’s colossal frame might be hiding just out of sight. “But how can that be? He was sealed! No sword, no force could—” 

Rin tilted her head, a faint frown creasing her brow. “Was it… Inuyasha?”

Sesshoumaru’s gaze lingered on the horizon, where storm clouds gathered in sluggish coils. When his voice finally rose, it was stripped of all feeling, each syllable precise as a needle through silk. “It was Inuyasha who slew him.” 

The child’s frown deepened, unsettled not by the words, but by the way they were spoken. She clutched at Sesshoumaru’s sleeve, a nervous gesture he felt no wish to correct. Jaken froze, his wide beak falling open in disbelief.

“That—that imbecile?!” He asked in a strangled gasp. His legs wobbled as if the very thought unbalanced him. “The half-breed? Inuyasha? He could not defeat a flea without stumbling over his own feet, how could he—” Suddenly, he faltered, unable to finish the sentence. It was rare when he was able to understand that he was treading dangerous ground, but not impossible. 

Somehow, Sesshoumaru’s silence spoke louder than any denial, and even Jaken’s outrage. Ryukotsusei had been more than a demon. He had been the measure of his father’s strength—the limit that had defined him. To see it surpassed, not by himself, but by the half-brother he had always dismissed as weak and pitiful, was a venom spreading through his veins. 

Inuyasha had mastered Tessaiga, and he had used it to achieve what their father could not. He had done what Sesshoumaru, for all his refinement and power, had never accomplished. The revelation hung like gallows above him, suffocating and inescapable. His fingers flexed slightly at his side. Was Inuyasha now stronger than their father? Stronger even than him? 

Rin peered up at him. “Lord Sesshoumaru… are you alright?”

Jaken whirled on her, his beak snapping. “Quiet, girl! How dare you—”

A single glance from Sesshoumaru was enough to cut the reprimand short. Covering his head with his hands, Jaken shrank back in fear. Sesshoumaru did not strike him, though. Anger couldn't begin to convey what he was experiencing. What had once been a memorial now felt desecrated, stolen from him. “It does not matter,” he said, but even then he knew it to be a lie.

Chapter Text

Vast and restless, the sea stretched out before him, churning beneath the waning light of dusk. The promise of tempest spread across the horizon, ominous dark clouds looming in the distance. Salt and the metallic sting of thunder permeated the air. Sesshoumaru stood at the edge of the precipice, white robes stirring in the breeze, his gaze intent on the turbulent tide. 

Behind him, Rin shivered, clinging to Jaken’s shoulder for balance. The raging gusts threatened to knock her down. “Lord Sesshoumaru,” she ventured timidly, her voice almost drowned by the wind’s roar. “Why have we come here?”

Jaken snapped, though he too seemed unnerved. “Silence, girl! Do not pester Lord Sesshoumaru with your foolish questions.”

Despite his protests, a hint of uncertainty in his posture betrayed apprehension. A tangible pressure was building steadily around them, sharp enough to brush even the impaired senses of a lesser demon. Sesshoumaru paid them little mind. The depths seemed to beckon him, each crashing wave sending shivers of anticipation down his spine.

“Ryukotsusei is gone,” he said, without turning. His pride burned—a fury that was ruthless, searing and centuries old. The Lord of the Western Lands would not be bested by a lowly half-breed. “But he was not the only one of his kind.”

Jaken jolted, gripping his staff tighter. “You mean—”

“Ryukaijin.” Sesshoumaru’s sunlit eyes reflected the murky waters below. “The sea dragon, Ryukotsusei’s brother.”

Jaken shook his head. “L-Lord Sesshoumaru, surely you jest! Ryukaijin is… he is said to dwell in the deepest trenchest of the sea, older than memory itself! His scales are impenetrable, his power—”

“Silence,” Sesshoumaru cut him off, and that was enough for Jaken to immediately back down, stuttering apologies. Rin glanced up at him, a mild quiver to her lower lip, but he refused to stare back. 

At first, it was a subtle tremor, a shift in the rhythm of the waves. Then the ocean bulged, rising unnaturally, as if some great beast lurked underneath. Foam surged along the coast. The sky darkened further, the sun vanishing behind a wall of unyielding iron. Rin clutched Jaken’s sleeve in fright.

The sea exploded upward, a colossal form breaching the surface with a howl that shook the very earth. Saltwater lashed the cliff, drenching them in its icy bite. From the abyss rose a boundless creature, armored in scales so black they gleamed obsidian. Its maw gaped wide, jagged spears for fangs, eyes burning like lanterns in the dead of night. A nightmare given flesh. Finny prey scrambled to flee—life itself seeming to recoil from the darkness of its aura. 

“Ryukaijin!” Jaken squealed, his knees buckling. He pressed his face into the rock-strewn ground, muttering incoherent prayers. 

Sesshoumaru’s fur streamed around him in the bellowing wind, his silver hair flicking across his face, but his stance remained unmovable. He reached for the blade at his hip, hand closing around Tenseiga. For a brief moment, he paused. The sword that had saved him countless times—his father’s unwanted legacy—lay heavy in his grasp. Then he tore it from his belt, flinging it aside with contempt. It landed on the sand with a dull thud.

Jaken gasped. “Lord Sesshoumaru!” 

Tokijin had already been drawn, though, its cold blue aura flaring to life. Relying on the protection of a useless relic was beneath him. He would surpass Toga by his own hand. As the dragon howled again, lightning streaked the overcast skyline. Waves crashed violently against the rocks below, as though the ocean too convulsed in rage. Sesshoumaru did not hesitate this time. He leapt, a blur of white and silk, soaring toward the monstrous head. 

Steel met scale in a burst of blinding light. Tokijin’s demonic power surged as it carved across the dragon’s side, gouging a deep wound. A deluge of black ooze followed in its wake. Ryukaijin’s massive body writhed. Its tail lashed out of the water, large enough to shatter the stone pillars jutting from the surface. Jumping from coil to coil, Sesshoumaru used the updraft of the creature’s thrashing to maneuver. He landed on the back of its neck, his footing secure despite the seismic tremors rippling through it. 

Ryukaijin twisted fiercely, attempting to scrape him off against the edge of the precipice. Crouching low, Sesshoumaru sought purchase on a horn slimed with algae. Blindly, the creature reached for him. Its claws flew in arcs of black lighting, leaving sizzling scorch marks in the wet rock. Sesshoumaru dodged with lethal grace, missing them narrowly. His movements were measured, a simmering wrath hidden beneath his façade of perfect control. 

He aimed not for random gashes, but for crevices in the scale plates, looking for the vulnerable points where the dark armor overlapped. Each swing of his sword was clean and precise, sending shockwaves through the air. His robes grew heavy with brine and blood—his own crimson ichor mingling with the dragon’s hideous ooze. The odor was overwhelming, coating the back of his throat. His assault was merciless, slashing through flesh and bone, until at last his blade found the creature’s heart. 

Ryukaijin bellowed in anguish, a tremulous quake that rocked the seashore. Its body reeled, writhing frantically, its death-throes staining the coast with rivers of black blood. With a final blow, the dragon collapsed, cleaving the sea in two. Sesshoumaru allowed himself a moment to relish in his triumph, the thrill of slaughter humming pleasantly beneath his skin. For a fleeting instant, the battle seemed won. 

So proud a creature would not be so easily felled, though. As the Great Dragon sank, it coiled its immense body around Sesshoumaru, its last strength blinding him in a deathly embrace. Despite his struggles, the crushing weight dragged him down, deeper into the freezing abyss. A cold trepidation swept through him as the depths swallowed him whole, darkness closing around him. Tokijin’s light flickered faintly, then vanished under the tide.

From the cliff, Rin’s voice reached him as a muffled scream. “Lord Sesshoumaru!”

The ocean enveloped him like a living tomb.

Sesshoumaru sank under the pressure, a meager figure at the mercy of the current. A bitter cold bit into his flesh. The coils of the slain dragon still twined about him, pulling him down with inexorable force. He offered no struggle. Even in the face of death, he had the sense to be unnerved by his own arrogance. 

He had cast aside Tensaiga, the blade that had protected him ever since his father’s passing, deeming it worthless. Unfit to kill or wound, it was sentiment wrought into steel, and Sesshoumaru had despised it for that. Now, what he had always refused to see was evident to him. It was Toga’s sword of mercy that had always stood between him and the void. By discarding it, he had relinquished his only lifeline. 

The pressure intensified. His lungs burned, desperate for air, but no breath came. Darkness enclosed him tighter. A peculiar stillness settled over him, like frost across a field at dawn. His body grew heavy, unresponsive. Thought slipped from him in fragments. So this was death.

I should have known. I die a fool. 

It awoke in him no fright. It stung like an insult, though, much like his father’s final defeat. A failure he could neither accept nor undo. The frontier of the Underworld opened before him, merciless and unsettling in its familiarity. He had touched it before, wielding Tensaiga to cross into its threshold, striking down the pallid messengers that ferried souls away. 

Now they reached for him, and the blade in his grasp could not vanquish them. They hovered at the edges of his awareness, voracious hands stretching through the turbulent waters, ready to lead him where no power could summon him back. With a scornful grimace slashing his mouth, he yielded. 

Then there was warmth. Unexpected, foreign. A tug at his very core, far stronger than the pull of death. It seized him, hauling him upward against the current. He could not resist it, or even begin to comprehend it. The first sensation that pierced through the numbness was neither air nor light, but scent. Sharp, raw and unforgettable. The rottingly sweet odor of grief. 

His eyelids twitched open by sheer will, slivers of gold barely discerning the hazy vision above. The hanyou hovered there, breath ragged, eyes dark and shining wet with tears. His hair—black, not silver—hung in drenched strands about his face, plastered to pale skin. For a moment, Sesshoumaru’s mind faltered. This was not the Inuyasha he knew. It was his human vessel, fragile and strange. 

Untamed dark locks, soft mortal features, and that deep, fathomless gaze. It was the face of Izayoi staring down at him. The resemblance was uncanny. Awe and loathing twisted together in his chest until he could scarcely distinguish one from the other. Something pressed against his lips—insistent and unfamiliar. He did not first recognize what it was, only that it anchored him in a way nothing else ever had. 

Inuyasha caressed his cheek with a trembling hand. Then it moved to his neck, as if checking for a pulse. Unconsciously, Sesshoumaru leaned into the touch, betraying himself with that subtle motion. His body shuddered. A pressure again, on the right side of forceful, and breath surged back into his lungs with violence. Brine teared his throat as he coughed against the sudden return of life. 

When Sesshoumaru next woke up, he was lying alone upon the shore. The night had deepened, a storm breaking overhead in heavy, relentless rain. Water streamed down his face, mingling with the remnants of tears he was certain were not his own. A shrill cry assaulted his ear.

“Lord Sesshoumaru!” Jaken was clinging to his arm, his bulbous eyes red and swollen, mucus streaking his ugly muzzle. He sobbed openly, his voice breaking. “Y-you’re alive! I thought—I thought—” Then he buried his beak into Sesshoumaru’s sleeve, weeping noisily.

His revulsion was immediate. With a sudden movement, he sat upright, flinging Jaken aside as though discarding filth. The imp tumbled into the sand with a squawk, sniffling pitifully. Rin stood several paces back, her small hands clenched at her chest, her face still wet but softened with relief.

Sesshoumaru ignored them both. His senses reached out, searching. The wind carried with it no trace of Ryukaijin save the stench of black blood polluting the sea. Another scent lingered, weak and barely there. Tears of grief. They clung to him, like smoke from a shimmering flame. He raised his hand, slender fingers brushing against the corners of his mouth. The warmth prevailed in memory, though rain had washed away all evidence.

Inuyasha had been here. 

He sat in silence, unmoving, the ocean raging before him. The hanyou had saved him. Sesshoumaru could not understand why—or how.

Chapter Text

The cliff loomed over the darkened valley, curved inward, like the spine of a sleeping beast. Far below, the forest stretched in an unbroken tapestry of green and black, treetops whispering in the restless breeze. The moon hung wide and unblinking above him, spilling bleached fire across the clouds. Sesshoumaru watched it with a peculiar interest, the pale disc mirrored in his golden eyes.

Jaken scurried about with the mindless fuss of an insect, the Staff of Two heads clutched tight in his claws. He muttered endlessly, as he often did when silence pressed too heavily upon him. “Lord Sesshoumaru, you should rest after such a battle. That sea monster—that accursed Ryukaijin—you destroyed him utterly, yes, yes, but the wounds you bore—” His shrill voice trailed into a nasal whine. “Even you, mighty as you are, should not…” 

Sesshoumaru’s gaze did not shift, unwilling to acknowledge him. 

Undeterred, Jaken cleared his throat to call his attention. “And that half-breed, that wretched Inuyasha, strutting about as though he has conquered the world—pah! He is nothing compared to your greatness, Lord Sesshoumaru. Nothing at all. It is laughable that anyone could even suggest he might—”

“Enough.” The single word, sharp and low, silenced Jaken at once.

He shrank back, bowing his head. The staff clattered softly against the stone at his feet. Sesshoumaru’s focus remained on the moon, but his thoughts had drifted elsewhere. Time and again, the memory flared in his mind’s eye, timidly but without rest. A glowing ember against the encroaching night. The Realm of the Dead beckoning him into its hollow embrace, the unyielding pull of the abyss, merciless and absolute—and then, warmth. 

It lingered still in his spirit, pressed stubbornly against his mouth, a ghost he could not dispel. The caress of lips, haunting and impossible, had forced life back into him. It was a ceaseless return, a moment he could neither seize nor leave behind. That elusive touch should have meant nothing. A mortal reflex, an insolent trespass. Yet it had seared him more keenly than any blade ever had, unnerved him more even than the cold viciousness of his own wrath. 

The scent was even worse, refusing to fade with the passing days. It slid through the tendrils of his hair, sweeping into the fabrics of his garments, persisting as an aftertaste with every draught of water. His ichor staining the murky waters, Inuyasha's grief, the salt of tears—it all kept resurfacing, against his will. 

He found it intolerable. The Lord of the Western Lands, son of Toga, wielder of Tensaiga—the sword that held dominion over life and death—should not be alive because of a half-breed. Still here he was, knowing his existence continued not by his own volition, nor by the relic his father had bestowed upon him, but by Inuyasha’s intervention. The thought cut him to the core, each reminder an affront. 

It defied all reason, and perhaps that's what aggravated him the most. The hanyou had spared him before, when they fought in their father’s grave, and later, the day he at last mastered Wind Scar. He’d attributed it to contempt then, or perhaps pity. A spiteful need to rub salt into the wound, deeming him unworthy of even a final blow. Now, Sesshoumaru wasn’t so sure.

Awe was the other poison, twining with his resentment into a seamless, maddening whole. He could not deny what had occurred. With neither blade nor spell, and lacking any command over the dead, Inuyasha had resurrected him. It was an act Sesshoumaru had not believed possible. His half-brother’s power had reached beyond his own, but not in the manner he had feared, and perhaps, expected. 

His eyes fell at last from the moon, moving toward the sword at his side. Tenseiga lay quiet, its unassuming hilt catching the dim light. He stared at it for a long moment, not quite frowning. Before his battle with Ryukaijin, he had hurled it aside, determined to prevail by sheer strength alone. To sever himself from the chains of his father’s legacy. He had slain the beast, and the ocean had drunk its black blood. By all rights, he had triumphed. He had surpassed the limit his father had failed to conquer. Even that victory felt meaningless, though. 

If it weren’t for Inuyasha, it would have cost him his life.

Jaken’s voice piped up again, small and tentative. “My lord…?” When no answer was given, he shifted uneasily, rubbing his claws together. 

Rin, curled in her blanket some distance away, slept without stirring, blissfully unaware of the thoughts that plagued him. Sesshoumaru’s heart ached with a restlessness he despised. He could not remain here, drowning in the memory of another’s touch. He needed to see Inuyasha, to face him in his frailest form, to understand this strange power he had acquired. Without a word, Sesshoumaru stepped forward. His fur unfolded behind him, a ribbon of white against the sky, his figure lifting into the air with effortless grace. 

“My lord—wait for me!” Jaken squawked, scrambling to snatch up his staff. His stubby legs pumped furiously as he gave chase.

Sesshoumaru flew on, paying him no mind. The new lunar cycle would bring the hunt for his half-brother. Until then, he would sharpen his claws on lesser prey. 

Autumn had arrived. Trees were stripped of their leaves, branches forming a skeletal outline against the starry sky. The moon was gone—swallowed, as it always was once each cycle, leaving the world half-blind and brittle. Sesshoumaru stood within the thicket, unnaturally still, his form cloaked by shadows. The scent of smoke carried to him first, weaving through the undergrowth in thin threads, and he followed it. Voices reached him, faint and dulled by distance. 

He moved without a sound, the soles of his boots whispering against the floor, until he caught a flicker of light amidst the vegetation. There he found his half-brother’s pathetic band of misfits. A monk with an insidious laugh, a Demon Slayer, a fox-child forever chattering, a nekomata, and that inane priestess. They huddled close about a campfire. It was not them that Sesshoumaru sought, though. His gaze fastened upon the one sitting slightly apart.

No feral ears, no fangs, no silvery mane. Instead, Inuyasha’s hair fell long and black, catching the fire’s blaze in coppery strands. His face was pale, unguarded, the harsh edges of his features smoothed into something softer. Dark eyes watched the flames with a weariness that belonged only to mortals. Tessaiga lay near, but it seemed almost ornamental now. 

So this was the form. This was the shell that cradled enough life within to wrench him back from the depths of oblivion. Inuyasha had none of the energy that usually poured off him in waves, none of the unruly sharpness he knew so well. Were it not for the Robe of the Fire-Rat, he scarcely would have recognized him. Sesshoumaru studied his half-brother with the intensity of a predator lying in wait, but the thoughts that stirred within him were far more complicated than mere hunger. 

He searched Inuyasha’s every motion for it—the slow rise and fall of his shoulders, the subtle crease of his brow as the slayer said something that earned a dry snort of laughter, his hands flexing when the fire spat embers. There was no spark, though. No hint of the hidden power that had reached into the Underworld and tugged him free. He looked weak, fragile even. A breakable body, skin paper-thin, his scent muted without the overlay of demon blood. Just a frail husk that could be split in two with the twitch of a claw. 

Though he remained out of sight, Sesshoumaru's keen ears caught every word of the conversation. Insipid trivialities. Plans for the morning’s travel. Complaints about stale rice. The fox-child’s whining, the priestess’s gentle scolding. Inuyasha contributed little, his answers always curt. He sat hunched, the firelight painting him in shifting orange. 

There was something unsettling about his gaze. Bottomless, pitch-black, unfamiliar—so utterly unlike the molten gold he was used to. Eyes that had wept for him. He had smelled the tears, felt them spill onto his cheeks, heavy as blood. Saw Inuyasha pale with fear as his own life ebbed away. He still couldn’t understand.

His fingers twitched once against the hilt of Tokijin. How simple it would be. One step into the clearing, one strike across the flame’s glow, and this mystery would end forever. Though his wounded pride rejoiced at the idea, his body refused to move. The unknown pressed harder. Why had this feeble creature succeeded where all else had failed? What lay buried beneath this human vessel?

The smoldering logs shifted and fell, throwing sparks into the air. Inuyasha raised a hand, shielding himself from the brief flurry of heat. A simple, instinctive movement. Sesshoumaru followed it with ruthless focus, as though the answer might be concealed in the bent of slender fingers or the brief scowl that followed. He found nothing. Only flesh, tender and perishable. Easily hurt by a meager flame. 

He looked away at last. His wrath coiled and pressed, sharp as thorns. The wind shifted, carrying the warmth of the campfire into the woods. Sesshoumaru recoiled from it reflexively, melting back into the shadows. The secret was there, concealed beneath this mortal shell, and he would unveil it.

Chapter Text

The next lunar cycle, Sesshoumaru returned. He stood unmoving among the cedars, concealed by the dense vegetation, gaze fixed upon the clearing ahead. Though the fire still burned, the humans had settled into a lull. Soft conversation, the faint crackle of the roasting embers, the occasional snore from the impudent monk. Even the priestess, usually so disconcertingly loud, was nodding off.

Only Inuyasha remained alert. Sesshoumaru’s eyes traced the contours of his frame—mortal again, stripped of demonic strength. Perhaps instinct allowed him no rest, while wearing this form. He looked less the snarling adversary he had fought countless times in the past and more like a sullen youth pretending at adulthood. His posture betrayed fatigue, his eyes half-lidded as he stared into the flames. Pride kept his back from bowing, though. Tessaiga rested close by, a useless comfort in his present state. 

The memory of warm lips, the trembling hand pressed to his cheek, gnawed at Sesshoumaru yet again. A persistent offense, aching like a tender bruise. He had thought that revisiting the hanyou’s lesser form would reveal the truth of that life-giving touch, but nothing came. What was he doing here, then?

A stench bled into the night, sharp and acrid. Sesshoumaru turned his head over his shoulder, mouth twisted slightly downwards. Nearby, a demon prowled. Its aura was greasy and pathetic, almost imperceptible, but it slinked with purpose. Drawn by the scent of roasted lamb, it crawled closer, permeating the air with malice.

From his vantage point, Sesshoumaru saw the demon emerge. It crept low among the roots, its body long and sinewy, scales glinting dimly as it moved towards the circle of light. The humans did not stir, their awareness muted by the late hour. Even the nekomata failed to notice.

Sesshoumaru’s devious mind could not register it as concern. He did not fret over the hanyou’s safety, nor of the others clustered around him. It was second nature, a reflex impossible to override, not unlike a guard dog trained to attack. This secret was his to unveil. Inuyasha’s mortal vessel would not be forfeited to the cravings of a lowly scavenger. The decision was made before thought fully formed. 

One moment, the creature moved forward, drool stringing from voracious fangs. The next, Sesshoumaru slid behind it, quiet as snowfall. His claws gleamed through the thick undergrowth, catching the firelight. He struck once—clean, precise and effortless. His prey gasped, eyes wide with animal terror. It shivered violently, then dissolved into grey dust. By the time its ashes touched the earth, Sesshoumaru was gone, already retreating back into the woods. 

Inuyasha’s head snapped up, black hair spilling across his face. He scanned the treeline, gripping Tessaiga's hilt. Sesshoumaru went rigid, hidden only a few strides away. Had he been seen? Did the hanyou’s impaired senses stretch far enough to pierce through the shroud of night? For a fleeting instant, their gazes seemed to lock across the flames. Inuyasha scowled faintly, suspicion lining his brow. 

His nostrils flared once, as if straining to scent what a mortal, by principle, could not. Then, after a brief consideration, he looked away. He turned back toward the campfire, muttering something under his breath. The monk chuckled lazily in response, unaware, as if nothing had disturbed the silence at all. 

Sesshoumaru’s claws flexed once before falling slack at his side. Blind and deaf in this vulnerable shell, Inuyasha had felt something. Only enough to frown into the dark. Slowly, he allowed the coil in his muscles to ease. With the faintest whisper of silk, he walked away. The campfire’s glow receded behind him, no more than a dim star flickering between the branches. For now, the secret remained safe.

The forest stank of blood. 

Sesshoumaru stood amid the wreckage of battle, his silver mane flecked with dark spatters, claws drenched in gore. His armor glistened where the last spray of crimson had caught it. The demon's carcass had already begun to dissolve, convulsing in spasms before collapsing into a formless pulp. Steam hissed from the gouges his claws had carved, the stench of scorched flesh rising thick into the humid air.

He breathed in deeply, his chest rising as he filled his lungs with the metallic scent. It was intense, invigorating, like heated iron and wild game roasted on an open fire. His eyes half-lidded, he let the rush of it course through him, awakening instincts he seldom indulged. For a moment, he allowed himself to relish it. Not the battle—that had been disappointingly short, a mere exercise of reflex—but the aftermath. The silence after violence, the weight of death hanging around him. 

Lifting his hand, he studied the black smear across his claws. The blood was sweeter than he expected for such an inferior creature. Unconsciously, his tongue pressed against the edge of his fangs. His ichor hummed with hunger, an old, primal urge he had learned long ago to deny. The spell broke with a sound. A twig snapped—sharp, brittle, and unnervingly close. 

Golden irises contracted to thin slits, pupils dilating black. He turned around, every nerve alight. The lingering taste of slaughter faded beneath something less familiar. Firewood, steel, and that faint trace of human skin. Sesshoumaru went very still, a low rumble coiling in his chest, like a beast disturbed at its kill. Though the thicket, half-hidden in shadow, was Inuyasha. 

He stared back at Sesshoumaru, wide-eyed and lips parted, his pale face turned ghostly by the sliver of starlight that pierced the trees. Dark hair spilled in soft strands across his shoulders. For a long moment, they simply watched each other. Silence stretched taunt as a bowstring. Inuyasha’s expression shifted, bewilderment quickly hardening into dread. He retreated a step. Then, abruptly, he turned on his heel and fled. 

The reaction was instinctive. Before Sesshoumaru even thought of it, his body had moved, the rush of speed leaving the ground a whisper beneath him. The thrill was sudden, raw and animal. Prey had bolted, and predator gave chase. Inuyasha stumbled through the underbrush, panting heavily, arms clawing branches aside. It was shameful how slow he was. Sesshoumaru closed the distance in a single breath, his shadow falling across him. 

Unthinking, he struck. His fingers clamped around Inuyasha’s slender neck, locking like a manacle. With brutal grace, he slammed him against the trunk of a broad oak. The bark cracked beneath the impact, splinters showering down. Inuyasha choked, his feet scrambling for purchase on the earth, blunt nails scraping at the deadly grip.

Sesshoumaru drew nearer, inscrutable, eyes bright with a feral gleam. His pupils were wide like blackened pools, the fog of the earlier kill thick in his ichor-flow. He watched his half-brother struggle with a chilling stillness, his mind caught in a ravenous daze. Even pity seemed out of reach. 

“What are you doing here?” Inuyasha snarled, his voice hoarse under the pressure at his throat. He uttered the words with a viciousness his body lacked, his gaze burning with a furious fire. “Why are you stalking me?” 

The corners of Sesshoumaru’s lips curled ever so faintly. Amusement flickered across his otherwise impassive features. So he had been noticed—not only tonight, but before as well. He leaned in further, so close that the heat of Inuyasha’s breath caressed his skin.

His senses were clouded by the smells of the forest. Honeysuckle, petrichor, freshly cut grass. A balmy summer night. He’d never cared to properly discern Inuyasha’s scent. It was distinctly human now, and tinged with fear. Sesshoumaru inhaled deeply, his nose almost grazing tender flesh. His gaze roved lower, catching on tangled black locks. He dipped his head, taking it in, allowing the unfamiliar softness to ghost against his cheek. 

Inuyasha thrashed harder, his terror a sudden, palpable musk. A broken cry emerged from his throat. “Get the fuck away from me!”

His fist shot up, connecting with Sesshoumaru’s jaw. It was a clumsy, desperate dash at freedom, weak as a child’s strike. Though he barely flinched, his wrath once again stirred. His hand moved of its own accord. With a heartless, cold precision, he struck back—his open palm smacking Inuyasha hard across the face. The slap ripped through the forest, an echo bouncing off the trees.

Inuyasha’s head snapped sideways, crumpling against the oak before sliding to the ground. Crimson welled at the corner of his mouth. He groaned weakly, then clutched his cheek, twitching from the sheer impact. Not unconscious, but reeling. Sesshoumaru took a single step backwards, clarity drifting back in with the night wind. The riveting haze of fresh blood hummed through his veins, but the thrill was gone, leaving behind only uncertainty. 

What had he meant to do? Why had he given chase as if hunting down easy quarry? Why had he come so near, scenting Inuyasha’s hair as though yearning for something words could not convey? He stared down at his half-brother, human and frail, bleeding into the dirt at his feet. A familiar sight. It had never made him recoil the way it did now. 

“Pathetic,” he spat, though whether at Inuyasha or at himself he could not say. He turned, his soles whispering against the leaves as he vanished into the trees. “You are beneath my notice in this form.”

Even as he walked away, uncertainty still clung to him. The phantom warmth on his lips, the smell of tears and ichor, the strange, unrelenting pull toward the hanyou’s human form. It all ate away at him, senseless and unbearable. Sesshoumaru refused to look back, yet he could not banish Inuyasha’s haunting dark eyes, blazing with hatred even as he faltered under a Daiyoukai’s merciless hand.

Chapter Text

Blood stained the earth, its coppery smell momentarily clouding Sesshoumaru’s senses. Tokijin still dripped with the last life it had severed. A man lay in the dirt, his chest torn open, rendered frozen in the eerie blankness of death. Only a few paces away, a woman’s body was slumped against the roots of an elm, her garments soaked red where a crude blade had been driven through her neck. The infant bound to her chest screamed, tiny fists thrashing, its mournful cries raw enough to grate. 

Sesshoumaru looked down at the man with unmasked disdain. Little more than a strike was needed to dispatch him. It was a cowardly act—slaughtering a young mother in a burst of jealous rage. The baseness of it had offended him more even than the stench of mortal blood. He disposed of him without hesitation, the disgust seeping into his veins forcing him to draw his sword. 

Slowly, he approached the woman, unconcerned by the child’s wailing. He considered the hilt protruding from her throat. Though small and poorly forged, the dagger had proved sharp enough to end her life. He crouched and withdrew it with a smooth motion, its exit marked by an unpleasant squelch. Frowning, he regarded the blade, narrow and rust-stained, then skimmed a finger along its rough edge. The steel bit him cleanly. 

A thin line of ichor welled across his palm, bright against his pale skin. Such a paltry weapon, and yet it had succeeded where far greater enemies had failed. He didn’t wrap the cut, nor glance at it again. For reasons he could not explain, he lingered, caught between the relentless cry of the infant and the dead woman’s unnerving silence. When a familiar aura brushed faintly against the edges of his awareness, Sesshoumaru refused to turn. His hand held the blade with a rare fierceness, unable to look away from the inert corpse. 

Footsteps approached, certain and deliberate. “... What are you doing here?”

Though he offered no answer, Sesshoumaru at last looked up. Inuyasha emerged from the woods, his wild mane of silver hair gleaming in the warm afternoon. A form he was much better acquainted with. Molten gold eyes darted from the dead humans to the Great Demon, as cautious as always. The hanyou's skin was unblemished. Sesshoumaru had almost expected to find it bruised, after their altercation during the last new moon. No matter what he did to Inuyasha, he always appeared to heal as if by divine work. 

He wondered what had drawn his half-brother here. Was it his ichor, drawn by so meager a blade, that had called him across the forest? Inuyasha’s gaze flickered towards the dripping wound. A faint crease marked his brow, then his attention was drawn to the wailing child. With a sigh, he stepped forward. His touch was surprisingly careful as he lifted it. He rocked it awkwardly but with intent, the crying abating under his clumsy attempt at comfort. 

Sesshoumaru’s mouth curved down, faint and contemptuous. A foolish assumption. It was the infant’s shrieking that had brought the hanyou here, and nothing else. Much as their father, only humans held Inuyasha’s regard. “What do you intend to do with it?” He asked, his tone deceptively neutral. 

Inuyasha glanced up, then replied dryly, “Fry it and eat it for dinner.”

Sesshoumaru gave no sign of understanding the grim jest. 

“What the hell do you think? There’s a village not far from here.” Inuyasha shifted the child in his arms, allowing his eyes to deliberately trail over Sesshoumaru’s form. “Unless you’re looking for a new addition to your litter.” 

The Daiyoukai’s jaw tightened. He said nothing, but the scowl that marred his forehead betrayed the barb’s sting. It tugged at memory. The battle at Naraku’s lair, Rin used as leverage to draw him near, the boy with the chain-scythe entrusted with her killing. Inuyasha interceding, as always, where he wasn’t needed. Tessaiga sweeping aside the weapon meant for Sesshoumaru.

Why, Inuyasha, I never knew how much you loved me.

He still couldn’t fathom his own senseless words, or the profound fury that had ignited within him, when Inuyasha threatened to kill him if he didn’t release the boy. Underneath the taunting, lay something raw and aching that he couldn’t bring himself to prod at. He knew as much. The infant’s cries dragged him back to the present. He stared at the woman’s corpse once more, the fresh blood pooling at her throat. 

“Kiss her,” he commanded.

Inuyasha took a staggering step back. “What?” 

“Kiss her,” Sesshoumaru repeated, brooking no argument.

Inuyasha’s face contorted with revulsion. “Are you fucking nuts? She’s dead!” 

“Why do you recoil? Is it not your custom to endear yourself to human women?” Sesshoumaru said, unwilling to peer into the cold resentment that swelled within him. “Kiss her, as you kissed me.” 

“Uh?” For a long while, Inuyasha simply stared at him, as if unable to comprehend the words. Then he snarled abruptly, his whole face coloring with outrage. “The hell are you talking about? I didn’t kiss you!” 

Sesshoumaru tilted his head subtly, one brow arching, making plain his recollection of that night by the shore. He remembered too vividly to be denied.

“It was not a kiss! You hear me?” Bristling, Inuyasha propped the child against his shoulder, pointing an accusing finger at him. “I just gave you CPR. Nothing more!” 

CPR? Is that the name of Inuyasha’s mysterious technique? Sesshoumaru wondered idly. His half-brother made for a curious sight. The brow knitted in irritation, the flush spreading across mild features, the soft mouth stubbornly turned downwards. A boy struggling to appear formidable. 

“You may call it what you wish,” Sesshoumaru replied dismissively. “If you do not repeat it now, your charge will remain an orphan.”

Inuyasha blinked, his nose wrinkling faintly. He glanced at the woman, her throat nearly severed by her husband’s merciless blade. “Won’t be any good,” he replied bitterly. “It doesn’t work like that.”

The Great Demon considered him in silence. He was pulled back to that shoreline, to the weeping, the rawness of Inuyasha’s fear. The scent of grief, clean and biting. How he cupped Sesshoumaru’s cheek with a quivering tenderness. There was none of that here. No tears fell, no distress showed. Only a grave acceptance.

Whatever he had done that night, it didn't appear to be fully within his control. It was not the act itself, not the warm press of lips, but something else. Sesshoumaru had considered, for a time, that compassion might be the secret of Inuyasha’s power, but it appeared he was mistaken. He was seized by an idea then, one so foreign and unsettling that it felt near frightening. A shadow stirred within him, then sharpened into a defined form, as if pulled by some taunt thread. Even then, he would not name it, or perhaps simply couldn’t. 

“I see,” Sesshoumaru murmured, suddenly unable to lift his gaze. 

“I’m not sure you do,” Inuyasha said, sounding skeptical. 

Sesshoumaru turned, stepping away from the corpse, and the infant still bawling in his half-brother’s arms. If he stayed here, he feared he might say something he’d come to regret. Before he could disappear into the trees, Inuyasha called out for him. 

“It does not have to remain an orphan!” He said, the unspoken request carrying across the clearing. Sesshoumaru halted mid-step.

“I can’t bring her back,” Inuyasha insisted, an unusual earnestness to his voice. “I’ve no power over life and death. But you do.” 

Sesshoumaru did not move. His eyes shifted once, flicking to the child, its small body shaking with each sob. Then to the mother, her lifeless face slack in the dirt. His hand clenched, the shallow cut across his palm burning as ichor welled anew, but the pain searing through him brought a strange comfort. Compassion was not the root of Inuyasha’s power, nor of his own. Still, he reached for Tensaiga, and for the first time in his life wielded his sword at another’s bidding. 

The forest lay drowned in the moon’s absence, all light smothered from the skyline. Even the stars seemed to have withdrawn, their faint shimmer lost behind the dense canopy. Sesshoumaru stood motionless within the thicket, half-shrouded by a curtain of hanging vines and dark foliage. One with the night, spectral in his stillness. The scent of wet bark, moss and human skin reached him, emphasized by the humidity pervading the air. His keen eyes cut through the blackness, tracing every subtle motion, every rustle in the vegetation. 

Below, a clearing opened amid the trees. There, Inuyasha knelt beside the Demon Slayer, claimed once more by the curse of the moonless night. The telltale signs of demonic blood had faded, rendering him vulnerable and unusually pale under the dim glow of the stars. His long black hair was tucked behind his human ears, left uncovered. They looked oddly out of place on him. 

Even after striking him and bearing witness to his frailty, Sesshoumaru knew it was not pity that this form awakened in him, but something far more complicated. As much as he despised the notion, he could find no other word but fascination. Inuyasha’s aura was subdued in this weak shell. That same softness lined his every move, that same warmth to the eyes. A grotesque mirroring of their father’s perdition. Izayoi appeared to defy death through him.

Sesshoumaru recalled the sight of blood dripping from Inuyasha’s split lip, staining the earth below. He wondered then if Toga had ever raised hand to his mistress. Had he ever beheld the sheer might of his own strength, and been afraid of hurting her? He repelled the thought before it could properly take shape. 

The Demon Slayer rose from her crouched position. Her skin glimmered faintly with moisture. Though composed, her face bore that strange weariness Sesshoumaru often observed in her kind. She was carrying an armful of kindling, the bundle pressed to her chest. As she turned to look at Inuyasha, she seemed to consider him, then asked, “Why didn’t you kill him?”

It was a sudden question, as if she had been waiting for the right moment to poise it. Inuyasha stared back, frowning. “Uh? Who?”

The Demon Slayer adjusted the bundle of sticks, a hint of hesitance to her stance. “Your brother,” she said. “When you unlocked Wind Scar.” 

Sesshoumaru’s attention sharpened. He could never forget that day—Tessaiga’s blinding light, the whirlwind tearing across the battlefield, the grim certainty that the end at last had arrived. It would have been fitting, in a way, to be vanquished by the blade forged from his father’s fang. He had tasted its raw power, felt the very earth split beneath its devastating force, but death had not come. Inuyasha held back. 

He had always assumed it was meant as an insult, an unspoken declaration that he was not worth the effort. Now, hearing the Demon Slayer’s blunt questioning, a curiosity long buried stirred again. 

“Khe! What you talking about?” Inuyasha shrugged, bending down to pick up another branch. His hair shifted with the motion, black strands shielding his face from scrutiny. “He ran off like the coward he is. Just didn’t have the time.” 

A poor attempt at deceit. Even at a great distance, Sesshoumaru could not miss the falseness of his excuse. The Demon Slayer too was unfooled.

“No, that’s not it,” she said firmly, stepping closer. There was a distinct hardness to her expression. “Totosai told us. He said you pulled the attack at the last second. You spared him, intentionally. Why?” 

Inuyasha’s hands twitched. His grip tightened around the firewood he’d gathered. He turned slightly away from her, eyes stubbornly cast downwards. 

“Don’t you realize,” the Demon Slayer pressed, “he’ll just keep coming back until he succeeds? Until one of you dies?” 

A long silence followed. Somewhere far off, the mournful call of a night bird rose. Finally, Inuyasha spoke. “I thought you, of all people, would understand.” 

The Demon Slayer frowned. “Understand what?”

Inuyasha’s gaze remained averted, trained on the murky darkness beyond the clearing. “My mother…” he began gravely. “She died when I was a kid. Never even met my old man. I can’t kill Sesshoumaru.” He hesitated then, eyes shifting to the starry sky above. “He’s the only family I have.” 

Family? Sesshoumaru thought, retreating a step. The word seemed to resonate, hollow and fragile, inside him. It carried a weight he had long since cast aside, buried centuries past, the night a human brought dead upon his father. Yet here it was again, clawing its way back from the depths. He had imagined Inuyasha’s mercy a mockery—a refusal to have his blade stained by him. 

“You are wrong, Inuyasha.” The Demon Slayer’s face darkened. “I don’t understand.”

Inuyasha’s head turned sharply toward her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I was ready to kill my own brother,” she spoke in a harsh whisper, a strange intensity to her taunt frame. “I would’ve rather seen him dead than keep on living as a monster. You were the one who stopped me. Even then, you still believed Kohaku could be saved.” Her gaze flickered then, a shadow falling across her features. “But Sesshoumaru isn’t Kohaku. He’s not caught in Naraku’s web. Every time he’s come for you, he’s done it because he wanted to.” 

She looked at him squarely, her words neither cruel nor kind. Merely certain. “I know you, Inuyasha. No matter how hard you try to hide it… your heart is merciful. But your brother’s is not. There’s no force in this world that can save Sesshoumaru from his own darkness.” Her warning slit the night like a blade through flesh, unfaltering but swift in its leniency. “If you don’t kill him, he will kill you.”

Sesshoumaru bristled at the indignity. To be judged and sentenced by a human was an intolerable affront, almost as much as the knowledge that he could not contest her claims. Did he not stand above sentiment, untouched by earthly bonds? Indeed, he took pride in it. Yet the memory of that night—the warmth pressed to his lips, the tears staining his cheeks—would not fade. 

“Where’s all this coming from, anyway?” Inuyasha retorted defensively.

The Demon Slayer exhaled slowly, her expression softening. “You’re my friend,” she replied evenly. “I don’t want to stand around, waiting for it to finally happen.”

She picked up the rest of the firewood, then turned back toward the camp. Inuyasha remained where he was, his shoulders slumped as he stared at the ground. From his hidden perch among the trees, Sesshoumaru continued to watch him. The hanyou’s profile was scarcely visible, black strands spilling about his feeble mortal vessel, seeming tired but strangely peaceful. As if confronted by a truth already well-known. 

The Great Demon understood then that time and again he had taken his brother’s sparing of him as an offense, because he’d assumed him to be as cruel as Sesshoumaru himself was. Shamed burned faintly beneath his skin. 

Could it truly be so simple? The kiss, the mournful tears, the impossible act that had broken his descent into the Underworld. Ensnared by the stifling darkness of the moonless sky, Sesshoumaru’s thoughts crystallized. Was love the answer he’d been seeking? The shadow he’d refused to name? A force their father had died for, and that he had scorned, mocked, sworn never to understand. 

It was beyond reason. What bound them together but blood? He’d never coveted nor earned such baseless attachment, but it had saved his life. For the rest of the night he stood there, the wind sliding through his hair, the bitter taste of revelation a poison on his tongue. He turned his gaze skyward. No stars and no moon, the heaves appeared a black void. For the first time, the darkness unsettled him.

Chapter Text

The world he walked in was not his own. Sesshoumaru was very aware of it as his steps carried him forward, traversing a clearing awash in ethereal light. The weather was balmy, fragrant with spring, as if all the cold harshness of the earth had been purged away. Above him, the heavens stretched in an unbroken blue, so pure it stung the eye. In the heart of the glade stood a lone cherry tree, its branches heavy with blossoms the color of dawn. 

The petals drifted downward in slow spirals, carpeting the ground. Sesshoumaru waited beneath the tree’s shade, still as carved marble. A strange quiet had seized his chest, disorientating and unfamiliar. For the first time in centuries, his spirit bore no anger. He’d always found peace intolerable, anathema to his nature, but in this secluded haven, it slipped around him like a second skin. 

Then he noticed him. Inuyasha hesitated at the verge of the clearing, not as Sesshoumaru had known him—ears sharp, silver mane, aura bristling with stubborn fire—but human. Long black strands gleamed in the daybreak’s blush, catching a coppery sheen as the breeze teased them forward. His face was gentler, bare of any wrathful edge, dark eyes lucid and calm. 

It should not have been possible, Sesshoumaru’s mind rebelled at once. The hanyou’s mortal form was confined to moonless nights, fleeting by principle, yet it was presented to him now, beneath a brilliant sun. Their gazes locked. Sesshoumaru did not reach for his blade, and his lips did not curl with disdain. No challenge ignited Inuyasha’s stare, no simmering resentment. His sword too remained unsheathed. The raging flame that burned between them for so long had been extinguished, replaced by something stranger—neither fear nor hatred.

Sesshoumaru meant to draw closer then, and reach out to lay a tender hand upon him, but before he could the vision fractured. 

His eyes opened to the gray of dawn. His body coiled at once, every muscle taunt, though no enemy loomed over him. Only the silence of a cloudy morning, the faint hush of leaves whispering in the cold wind. The dream dissolved into shadows, leaving only an unsettling echo behind. Sesshoumaru sat upright. The camp around him was empty. A fire, reduced to smoldering remnants, sat at his side, smoke rising thinly into the sunless sky.

A dull ache pressed against his temples, throbbing like the aftertaste of polluted water. Unease crawled beneath his skin, though he could not trace back its origin. Dreams meant nothing. Mere fabrications of a restless mind. Yet his hand rose of its own accord, fingers brushing his lips in a gesture that after months he still hadn’t shed. His brow tightened. 

He rose, his garments stirring slightly in the chill, and began to walk. The forest opened before him, its damp breath carrying traces of his vassals. Rin’s voice, distant but unmistakable, drifted on the breeze. He followed it, the sound threading through the trees until it grew clear. “... you lied to me, Master Jaken.” 

Sesshoumaru paused, half-concealed behind the wide trunk of a cedar. Arching an eyebrow, he remained where he was, his curiosity piqued. Jaken’s exasperated sigh followed almost instantly. 

“Lied? Hah! You simple-minded girl. The truth is far too complicated for you to understand, that is all. Matters of Great Demons such as Lord Sesshoumaru are beyond your little human grasp!” He spoke with smug certainty, as though puffing himself up in borrowed authority. 

“You did lie,” Rin insisted, pointing an accusing finger at him, though her tone lacked any real anger. “You said Inuyasha hated Lord Sesshoumaru. But if he did, he wouldn’t have pulled him from the water.”

Sesshoumaru stilled completely, the bark of the cedar cool against his shoulder. He recalled the dream and the shore, Inuyasha’s human eyes awash in sunlight, the tremor of his hand on Sesshoumaru’s face, blood soiling the earth at his feet. A grief sharp enough to wound. To carve him open and rearrange everything inside. The shadow stirred within him again. 

“You foolish child!” Jaken squawked. “Mind your tongue, and stop prattling nonsense. You know nothing of such things!” 

Annoyed, Sesshoumaru moved, stepping out from behind the tree. His silent approach startled the imp into a squeal. He spun, eyes bulging, and fell into a bow so deep his beak nearly struck the earth.

“My lord!” he gasped, scrambling for reverence. 

Although he never had before, Sesshoumaru wondered then why he’d kept him in his service for so long. He was a worm. Born from an infinitely lesser caste, but a pureblooded demon nevertheless. Not a hint of humanity in him. Still, in his every word and gesture, he was pathetic. In due time, Sesshoumaru would be rid of him.

His gaze did not linger on Jaken, sliding instead to the girl. Rin stood barefoot in the grass, holding a string of freshly caught fish. She looked up at him with wide brown eyes, unafraid, though a mild guilt crossed her features. Perhaps she could tell her words had been heard. Sesshoumaru studied her. Fragile, human, undeniably weak. Unlike with others, he felt no offense at the sight of her. He never had, not truly. 

All along, he’d been lying to himself. The Great Demon did not stand entirely above sentiment, and before him was the living proof. The one earthly bond he’d been unwilling, or perhaps unable, to escape from, ever since the day he wielded Tensaiga to resurrect her. The phantom pressed again at Sesshoumaru’s mouth, indistinguishable from sunlit petals, and the kiss that should not have been. 

Inuyasha’s human form haunted him once more, his dark gaze tender in that impossible dream, unclouded by hatred. His fingers flexed once at his side. He did not speak, but his attention lingered a moment longer upon Rin before he turned to walk away. Jaken scrambled to follow, muttering apologies, but he paid him no mind. Within him something shifted, though he could no longer name it a shadow.

Perhaps Rin didn’t need to be the only one.

Sesshoumaru stood concealed by the vegetation, his form coiled like a viper poised to strike. The forest had grown dim, painted in the bruised purples of nightfall. Hazy streaks of starlight bathed the canopy in silver, leaving the undergrowth still and hushed. Inuyasha’s breath came ragged, chest heaving with exhaustion, dark hair plastered against his face with sweat. He was staggering. 

Gone was the glint of fang, the bristling ears, the demonic speed. His mortail coil was laid bare once more. He was merely flesh now, feeble muscle and bone, and the faltering rhythm of a human heart. It had been a long battle. The multi-limbed demon, an oozing, foul beast that reeked of decay, had pursued him through the forest until twilight. His band of misfits was nowhere to be seen.

Sesshoumaru had not intervened. Instead, he watched, impassive, measuring the hanyou’s movements, the slow bleed of his strength as the day waned. He wanted to see how far his half-brother could hold, while trapped in this fragile shell. Carelessness, as always, was the bane of him. A single slip, no more. Inuyasha’s foot caught in the thick roots, his stance faltering. The demon surged, claws gleaming in the dim light, ready to cleave him open.

Tokijin cut the air in a graceful arc of dark blue. No battle cry, no clash of steel, not even a whisper. Just one pure line of motion, and then silence. The creature’s body split neatly in two, black blood spraying, then dissolving into a noxious smoke. Inuyasha stumbled back, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he stared into the hideous fume, slowly curling upward.

“What the hell was that?” he spat, glaring not at the vanquished demon, but at Sesshoumaru. His fingers curled tight around Tessaiga’s hilt—useless in this form, yet still clutched with the same stubborn defiance that marked his every breath. He stepped forward, shoulders stiff, body bristling like a cornered dog. “Why did you intervene? I had it handled!”

Sesshoumaru’s face betrayed nothing, neither haughtiness nor contempt. He replied not in answer, but with a question of his own. One endlessly stirring, that transcended the pursuit of any hidden power, or the jealous urge to prove his might against the unknown. He needed to hear it aloud, spoken to him and not another, while he lay in wait among the bushes, like a starving predator. Betraying no hesitance, Sesshoumaru advanced a step. “Why were you crying?”

Inuyasha halted. His brows knitted, his eyes hardening, a mask of blank confusion falling over his features. “What the fuck are you babbling about?”

“Do not feign obtuseness.” Sesshoumaru’s gaze was unrelenting, for once unwilling to pretend and obscure, the way he always seemed to, of late. “I remember your tears, the night you snatched me back from Death’s grasp.” He did not allow his voice to waver, though deep within it pulsed something rawer than his usual detachment. “Why did you weep for me?”

Inuyasha’s rage seemed to falter then. His body locked, as though to armor himself against the question. To erase the shameful memory Sesshoumaru insisted on bringing forth. “That’s—” he began, but the words caught in his throat. He shook his head sharply, his mouth twisted into a defensive scowl. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” 

Sesshoumaru closed the remaining distance, his gait slow but deliberate. “Cease your lying.” His claws flexed at his side, then went still. Although the need arose, he did not reach out to touch. “Tell me why.” 

Inuyasha looked away, a telltale twitch crossing his jaw, black hair falling like a curtain to shield him. In the moonless night, every angle of him appeared softened—no claws, no fangs, no arrogant bite. Perhaps that’s what had kept him coming back, time after time. Sesshoumaru would have never dared confront him under the daylight, when his fire burned the brightest. It was only in his frailest form that Inuyasha could ever yield to conquest. 

When the hanyou at last spoke, it was with a studied blankness. “I don’t know," he said, somehow managing to stare down at him despite their difference in height. "I should have let you die."

Sesshoumaru heard the confession he would not utter, felt the lie as tangibly as the cut of steel, enduring long enough to solidify into reality. His nostrils flared, catching the faint shift in Inuyasha’s scent—the swell of emotion always veiled by the pretense of contempt. No matter what the hanyou said, what excuses he’d concocted that afternoon, as they stared upon the corpse of a slain mother. Sesshoumaru knew deep in the core of him that love was the secret.

He remembered the dagger that had severed the woman’s throat, sharp enough to draw even the ichor of a Daiyoukai, wielded not by a stranger but her own husband. Whatever tenderness had once united them could not survive his hate-fueled passion. He thought of the arrow that had sealed Inuyasha away for fifty long years, nocked by the priestess who’d claimed to love him. His mouth stained with dark blood after Sesshoumaru struck him, though he hadn’t meant to. Their own father, the mightiest of them all, brought down by the hand of Izayoi’s scorned suitor. 

There’s no force in this world that can save Sesshoumaru from his own darkness. If you don’t kill him, he will kill you.

The Great Demon’s gaze, steady and expectant, flickered once, then cooled. Was that all they could ever be? The hanyou would not voice his truth, and perhaps it was unreasonable to expect that from him, after everything. Following by example had never been a talent of his, though. Sesshoumaru relinquished his blade, letting it clatter to the damp forest soil, and seized Inuyasha by the shoulders. The warm press of lips unmoored him once more, but it was no phantom this time.

Tha hanyou gasped against his mouth, a wounded catch of breath that offered no resistance, and for an all too brief moment Sesshoumaru thought him conquered. He rejoiced in his triumph, like one might after a grueling war of wills. As he made to part Inuyasha’s lips and taste him, he met no struggle, but neither reciprocity. Instead, the hanyou trembled beneath the Great Demon’s unyielding grip, and somehow he knew that something was wrong. He backed away with a frown, and met frightful eyes of midnight that held no warmth. 

“I… did you just… why did you…?” Inuyasha stammered, moist lips quivering faintly, before he seemed to catch himself. He glanced up at his older brother as if seeing him for the first time. The gleam in his gaze spoke not of pleasure, or long awaited-relief, but a trespass he’d not been quick enough to prevent. His expresssion hardened into dread. "Let me go.”

Even then, the Great Demon would not release his hold, and he couldn’t help but be annoyed by his own stubbornness. He did not need to scent Inuyasha to understand that he was blindsided, and afraid. The hanyou did love him, but only as a brother, and Sesshoumaru could not be that for him.

“She was the death of him,” he spoke hollowly, a familiar bitterness seizing his heart, cared for and well-nurtured over centuries. Even if he often pretended otherwise, he knew himself. It was not thirst for power that had kept him from forging any bond after his father’s passing, and made him recoil at the barest hint of mortality. Daiyoukai did not die of old age, but they could be slain, and he’d always known that there was no force in this world more destructive than love.

“You pulled me from the depths, and yet…” A scornful smile slashed his mouth, the cut faint and barely there. “I’ve the sense it'll be no different, in the end.” 

Inuyasha frowned, and he could tell, somehow, that the meaning of his words eluded him. It did not matter. The two stood facing one another, and remained silent. Sesshoumaru released him and turned, steps unhurried as he walked away, the line of his back rigid with control. The shadows swallowed him as he withdrew into the trees, fleeing light for the last time. Behind him, Inuyasha did not call back. Neither of them spoke his truth, and even if they had, they would not have understood each other. 

So the lie prevailed.