Ab initio by wonderbug
Ab initio
Disclaimer: Rejoice! – I don’t own Inuyasha.
WARNINGS: Dark!Sesshoumaru…Expect disturbing imagery, non-con interactions, death, violence, adult language, etc. Definitely not for the faint of heart!!
Author’s note: This one-shot darkfic is my submission in Catalina’s Dark Challenge M to MA. For those of you who’ve read ‘Stasis’, this one is told from Sess’s POV rather than Kagome’s and covers events up to and including those described in Ch.1: ‘winner take all’.
Please let me know what you think! Is it sufficiently twisted? I’d love to hear your thoughts on how it relates to ‘Stasis’ as well. :)
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Ab initio
– a prelude to s t a s i s –
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It begins with a sword.
“Well, my son, what do you think?”
He takes the blade from his father’s outstretched hands. In his own, it is unexpectedly light.
Sunrays gleam along the length of mirrored silver, its edge honed to perfect sharpness. It is a peerless weapon, worthy of its wielder. He smiles in satisfaction.
“It is a fine sword, Chichi-ue,” he says as he delivers an experimental slash. “What is it called?”
“Tenseiga,” his father replies, an answering smile in his voice.
He glances up, eyes narrowing.
“Tenseiga,” he says. “A curious name for the sword of the Inu no Taishou’s heir.”
“Do you think so?” His father’s grin widens. “I find the name quite fitting.”
A suspicious frown weighs at the corners of his lips. The suspicion grows when his father makes no move to dodge his sudden strike, and the blade slices through without leaving so much as a scratch.
Seething, he hurls it at the Inu no Taishou’s feet.
“A sword that cannot cut—is this your idea of a jest, Chichi-ue?”
His father’s face is stern as he bends to retrieve the discarded blade.
“Tenseiga is an instrument of life, Sesshoumaru, not death. It has the power to revive one hundred persons in a swing.”
“I have no interest in resurrecting the dead. Those weak enough to die do not deserve a second chance to live.”
“So I suspected you would say,” the Inu no Taishou responds with a sigh. He returns Tenseiga to its scabbard. “Although I had hoped you would not.”
As the sword slides through his father’s obi, he notices now another blade resting on the opposite hip, behind Sou’unga. Though the grip is unraveling and the hilt is battered, it is new to his eyes.
“What sword is that?” he questions lowly.
His father’s hand rests on the pommel. “This blade is Tessaiga, a weapon with the strength to destroy one hundred enemies in a swing. It is to be your unborn brother’s inheritance, as Tenseiga is yours.”
My brother, he thinks with a curl of his lip, that half-blooded abomination.
Within him a hatred blooms that will never wither, a dark rage that seeps through bone and marrow and stains the very fiber of his soul.
He glares at the daiyoukai who sired him as if he were a newly-encountered foe.
“You would bestow such a prize on your half-breed bastard, while your true son and heir is gifted with that mockery of a sword?”
“Call him ‘bastard’ again in my presence,” the Inu no Taishou growls, “and you will receive far more from me than that.”
Undeterred, he sneers.
“Do you not know what the others say of you? They call you weak. They claim your fascination with mortal flesh has made you soft-willed and prone to distraction.”
“And you believe them?” the Inu no Taishou challenges back.
He says nothing. There is no need.
And when that grasping dragon Ryuukotsusei inquires the same, he will remain silent still.
This decision in mind, he turns and walks away.
…
The next time they meet, his father is dying.
Blood streams from the side of the Inu no Taishou’s mouth. His chest plate is shattered, the flesh beneath torn and weeping reddish-black. Bleared with pain, his eyes lift to his son’s.
“Izayoi…I must go to her…”
Unmoved, he steps forward. “Give me the swords.”
His father releases a short bark of laughter. The motion jars loose a broken fang, and, bitterly, he spits it out.
“Cold as ever, I see,” the Inu no Taishou says with a rueful grin. “Will you kill me for them?”
His lips thin.
He should kill him—take the three swords and his rightful place as Lord of the West. But his honor chafes at the notion of slaying his father in this weakened state.
“Go to your human lover,” he tells him instead. “Go and die at her side.”
As he watches his father take to the skies, he has already begun to regret his leniency. Yet, still, he does not give chase.
Let it never be said, he thinks with a scowl, that this Sesshoumaru is without mercy.
…
Years later, when Toutousai bequeaths only Tenseiga to his keeping, he sees that the Inu no Taishou’s crude japes have continued beyond the grave.
The half-breed lives. With him, the sword Tessaiga now resides.
In renewed fury, he travels to the castle where that woman Izayoi and her offspring are housed in isolation, their rooms a separate structure from the rest.
Even humans, it seems, detest the company of half-breeds.
He enters their sleeping chamber through the opened window, stalks silently toward the futon across the room. Sensing the menace of his presence, the silver-haired whelp awakens and begins to growl.
At the sound, the woman stirs as well. Her head lifts, a curtain of dark silken hair falling back from her face. For a human, he supposes, she is beautiful.
She blinks her sleep-fogged eyes at him, addresses him in a tremulous whisper of awe.
“…My love?”
“No, woman,” he answers in a cutting tone. “I am not he.”
“Oh,” she says softly, peering at him through the darkness. “Then, you must be his elder son…Sesshoumaru-sama?”
His fist clenches in irritation. He has not expected her to know his name.
Did you speak fondly of me, Chichi-ue, he wonders, as you buried yourself inside her?
Perhaps noting his anger at last, the woman pulls her snarling brat to her chest. Her shaking fingers trail through the half-breed’s hair in a soothing gesture.
“Inuyasha,” she tells it with a fragile smile, “your brother and I have a…a matter to discuss. I want you to go find Kayo-obaa-san. Stay with her, and I will come for you in a little while.”
Its tiny claws hook in the fabric of her white yukata. “But, Haha-ue…”
“Inuyasha,” she admonishes in a firm voice, her black eyes glittering, “do as I say.”
The bastard nods, releasing her in obvious reluctance. As it leaves, its wary amber gaze remains trained upon his face.
Half-breed, he thinks in scorn, you are right not to trust me.
As soon as the screen slides shut, he advances, the woman before him tensing in fright.
“Where is Tessaiga?” he demands. When she looks at him in bewilderment, he asks again, “Where is my father’s sword, the one he intended your whelp to inherit?”
“I-I do not know, my lord…”
He steps up onto the futon, and she retreats toward the far wall. “Do not lie to me, human.”
“F-forgive me, my lord,” she pleads, her white fingers clutching at the thin blanket above her, “but the sword is not here, nor do I know where it resides. Your father, he…he did not have the chance to speak to me of such intentions.”
Her gleaming eyes are guileless, her upturned face as pale and open as the waxing moon beyond the window. He knows she is not lying to him about the whereabouts of the sword, but the knowledge does little to ease his distemper.
“I believe you, woman,” he concedes, yet before she can breathe a sigh of relief, the sound of his armor falling to the floor startles her into fearfulness once again.
“Though I must admit I’ve wondered,” he says, kneeling before her on the bed, “what it is about you that drove Chichi-ue to commit such…detestable acts.”
His claws touch her cheek, and she flinches away with a gasp. On the other side of the shouji screen, there is a small angry flare of youki. Hearing its mother’s pleas, the half-breed must have come slinking back.
Good, he thinks. Let it listen.
“Please, my lord…” The woman’s eyes are wet and round. “Please, don’t do this…”
When he reaches for her again, she turns and attempts to crawl away. He hauls her back by the hips with a sound of annoyance, ripping through the fabric that hides her from his view. The sight before him is not one which he would go to his death for.
Still…
“Please, no,” she cries out as he presses her down with one hand and frees himself with the other. “Please, Sesshoumaru-sama…please!—think of your father…”
“I am thinking of him,” he growls as he enters her. She chokes sharply in pain. “…Perhaps you are as well.”
Around him she is tight and warm and not altogether unpleasing, and within her worthless flesh he is able to spend a portion of his frustration, of his unceasing rage.
It is enough, for now.
He leaves her lying bloody and weeping on the futon. Later, he will learn of her death due to "illness" and think himself a proper scourge.
But for now, he collects his armor and exits through the screen. Outside, his bastard half-brother glares up at him in watery accusation.
I should kill it, he thinks.
But as with his father, he stays his hand. To slaughter such a pathetic creature seems beneath him.
It is likely as not, he considers as he resumes his departure, to die soon enough on its own.
…
One century passes, and Inuyasha survives to plague him still. Beside the half-breed now stands a blue-eyed girl in strange attire—a human, and a priestess at that.
The sight of her is another beginning, though he does not know it yet.
That knowledge comes later, when he sees her pull Tessaiga from its resting place. Because of her, his half-brother is able to best him—a pattern that continues, much to his chagrin.
The girl, he comes to understand, is Inuyasha’s strength.
And weakness.
To him, she presents an intriguing possibility, one which he finds himself revisiting more and more as the months go by.
Perhaps, the darkness within him whispers, humans have some value, after all.
…
The battle with the hanyou Naraku draws to a close.
All of them are dead but four. He, the half-breed, the miko, and the wolf.
Even that human of his has perished yet again, though the thought does not concern him. She has served her purpose. And, like Tenseiga, she was ever a poor substitute for what he truly wants.
What his half-brother still possesses.
He looks out across the field, to where Inuyasha’s miko readies her arrow for the final strike. Her reiki will surely be exhausted after such a powerful attack.
He smirks to himself. Good.
Glancing down, he sees the wolf prince kneeling in the muck, hacking blood and clutching at a gash in his chest. His eyes, too, are trained upon the girl in the distance.
Gaze sharpening, he frowns.
“Wolf, should you not be concerned for your own welfare?”
Kouga scoffs wetly. “It’ll heal. I’ve suffered much worse, believe me.”
He does. For a youkai, even the gravest of injuries does not necessarily spell death.
But he was not speaking of the wound.
Beneath the weight of his booted foot, the wolf falls easily. Red-stained lips twist up at him in a snarl.
“What”—cough—“what the fuck, dog-face?”
“Uncouth to the end, I see,” he responds in distaste, leveling the tip of Bakusaiga at Kouga’s throat, “even when this Sesshoumaru is giving you the privilege of dying by his hand.”
“You’re insane,” the young wolf spits viciously. The fingers curled around Bakusaiga begin to disintegrate.
“And you,” he says as he lowers the blade, driving it through the gash and into Kouga’s heart, “are an unnecessary complication.”
As he pulls the sword out, there is an explosion of radiance behind him. The girl’s reiki sears him even where he stands.
When he turns, Naraku is no more.
He joins her and the half-breed as they stare blankly upon the remains. The girl has collapsed to the earth, her weapon ruined. Near her, Inuyasha leans against Tessaiga.
And before him, lying in the center of Naraku’s blasted palm, is the Shikon no Tama.
He walks toward it, seizes the purplish orb in his claws. It is the first spoil among many which he will claim this day.
"The prized trinket of half-bloods and lesser beings," he muses aloud, as the Jewel seems to shrink from his indomitable will. "But perhaps I have a use for it yet."
He can hear the half-breed stirring, shouting to him.
"Hey…what the hell do you think you’re doing?"
Slipping the Jewel into his haori, he contemplates the glaring hanyou. Inuyasha is much changed from the whimpering brat of their first meeting—as is he. He can feel the fullness of his own power, the ripeness of his nurtured hate.
And he savors them both as he steps forward, thinking that the time has come for him to correct his father’s mistakes.
"Well done, little brother," he says, smiling slightly. Bakusaiga slides free of its sheath with a metallic hiss. "Perhaps now, at last, you have proven yourself worthy of my full attention."
“No!” the girl screams as Inuyasha charges toward him.
The sound strikes a primal chord within him. He had thought to draw out this battle, to bleed his half-brother from every limb while Bakusaiga’s poison worked slow death upon his foe. But he is eager for her. For all that is his proper due.
Knocking Tessaiga back, he plunges his sword between Inuyasha’s ribs and carves to the side in a savage arc. The hanyou falls gurgling blood, and the girl releases a piteous whine.
Though he cannot fathom her reason for it, he permits her to sob for the half-breed. Her attempts at contact anger him, however, and he snatches her up by the hair, pulls her against his chest. With Bakusaiga, he angles her face toward his and studies her anguished expression.
She is even more lovely, he observes to himself, now that she is mine.
Glimpsing movement out of the corner of his eye, he sneers down at the dying hanyou’s futile efforts to defend her.
"Don’t worry, half-breed," he assures Inuyasha, returning Bakusaiga to its scabbard, "I’m not going to kill her."
The fingers reaching for Tessaiga crunch beneath his heel. His half-brother releases an agonized gasp.
"Tessaiga belongs to me now," he explains, more for the girl’s sake than Inuyasha’s, "and I’ll need a human at hand when I choose to wield it.
"Mine is lost, it seems." He slides his hand over her ribs, grabs at her heaving breast. Her flesh is full and tender beneath his touch, and he enjoys it almost as much as the look of deepening horror on Inuyasha’s face. "But yours, I think, will do nicely."
“You monster!” she yells, wrenching at his hand, and he ignores the insult she throws at him. This once.
Like Inuyasha’s suffering, her struggles arouse him. He considers taking her here and now in the mud, sending his bastard half-brother to hell with the image of him inside her. But he resists the temptation—not wishing to inflict Izayoi’s illness upon her.
With a small smile, he parts reluctantly from her breast and retrieves the Jewel of Four Souls. Toward her, it seems, his benevolence knows no bounds.
In his hand, the Jewel emits a wary light. Absently, he restrains the girl when she grabs for it.
You fear me? he demands, as he forces his consciousness upon the orb.
Lord of the West, a Voice answers him in hesitation, you are without equal. What can I give you, which you do not already possess?
Nothing, he replies, allowing the Jewel a brief glimpse into his mind. But there are still those who would seek to take what is mine.
So I see…
There is a dark grin in the Voice’s response, accompanied by an even darker glow.
…Is this what you would have Me do?
He frowns, not bothering to lift his eyes from the Shikon no Tama as he addresses the half-breed.
"Unlike you, Inuyasha, I will not be giving up what I have won this day." His voice is soft with promise. He gives the Jewel his command, and dark light bursts forth from it in eager waves. "Not ever.”
His lips fall upon the girl’s with bruising force, as the Jewel vanishes and Inuyasha dies at last. With his half-brother’s death, one vendetta ends, only to be replaced by another.
And he welcomes it gladly, to the sound of her muffled screams.
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To be continued in S t a s i s…