Knights in Shining Armor
Chapter 4: Knights in Shining Armor
There was a green light and a sickening slicing sound, then a spray of blood took her sight. When she opened her eyes again, there were two halves of a frog demon instead of one whole frog demon. Fancy that. Her eyes traveled away from the ghastly carcass to find the reason for the frog demon’s demise.
“…You? But…”
Sesshoumaru did not grace the miko’s incoherent question with a response. He regarded her for a moment with a look of utter boredom on his handsome face. Then, he turned around and started walking in the direction of the human village while the miko still stood there gawking like an imbecile.
Kagome watched the demon lord walking away in his usual, unhurried pace. She still couldn’t believe that he actually saved her. Of course, he had done so before but the first time when she was being strangled by Mukotsu, he had wanted a question answered and the second time within Naraku’s body he had known that without her, the Shikon jewel would not be destroyed. Sesshoumaru wasn’t someone to come to your rescue simply because you needed help. But she wasn’t going to be picky about her saviors, although it was unnerving to be rescued from certain death just to look into the uncaring, cold eyes of a creature that would probably kill you next if you became an inconvenience. She moved away from the tree when she felt a painful stab in her ankle. This seemed to be the beginning of a long night.
…
The Lord of the West was concentrating on the source of the one smell in the proximity that held any appeal for him. Rin smelled like sunflowers, unlike all the other humans who smelled mainly of various stages of decay. Combined with the still lingering stench of hanyou in the woods and the new odor of dead frog demon, it made it hard for Sesshoumaru not to wrinkle his nose in disgust. And as if that were not enough, he could smell his half-brother, or rather the human who had once been his half-brother, walking in his direction. He did not wish to meet Inuyasha but neither would he alter his path because of a lowly human. If they were to meet then so be it. He heard him, too. Trampling through the underbrush, Inuyasha yelled for the miko he had just left behind. With all that noise he was making, Sesshoumaru was fairly sure that Inuyasha would not be able to hear the wench with his inferior human senses, should she answer his calls. His musings were interrupted when loud cracking and rustling announced the former hanyou before he burst out of the thick foliage in front of his elder brother.
“Sesshoumaru! What is your stupid ass doing here? Get lost!”
Apparently, being human had improved neither his half-brother’s vocabulary nor his sense for self-preservation. Stopping, Sesshoumaru looked at the human in front of him with barely concealed disgust.
“Inuyasha. I am certainly not here to listen to a lowly human’s rants. You should think very carefully about the manner in which you are addressing your superiors.”
“Keh. And you should get that stick out of your ass and come down from your fucking almighty cloud. And you can drop the ‘I hate you ‘cause you’re human’ bullshit. Rin’s human too, you know, and you like her well enough though I’ll be fucked if I knew why she likes your cold ass.”
Sesshoumaru’s golden eyes narrowed a fraction, it was the only outward sign of his anger. Were Inuyasha still hanyou, he would have had his brother’s claws in his guts by now. But the demon lord was well aware of the fact that even a punch to the face could kill his human half-brother and even though he would never admit it, Sesshoumaru had given up on his goal to kill Inuyasha. He had been so often on the brink of finishing him only to find himself unable to go through with it that in the end he had to realize that Inuyasha would not die by his hands after all. It was not sympathy for the half breed, of course. Maybe it was because he still honored his father too much to let his last sacrifice, foolish as it had been, be in vain.
“You will not speak of Rin in my presence. And you will keep away from her, half-breed. If I hear just one profanity out of her mouth you will be the one to face the consequences.”
“Bastard. Rin lives in the same place as me. If you don’t want her around me, get her a leash. You fucking bet I gonna teach her as much shit as I can just to see your stupid face when she sounds like me.”
Only a heartbeat later, Inuyasha knew that he had probably taken it too far. He was hanging in the air, held by the throat in the iron grip of his brother’s claws. The demon lord regarded him with a look of infinite boredom. That look, in Inuyasha’s experience, was not a good sign.
“Stop it now! Both of you!”
Kagome could not believe it. Here she was, covered in stinking frog blood, dirt, slime and who knows what, hobbling around on a twisted ankle and these two idiots had nothing better to do than go at each other’s throats instead of helping her, the damsel in distress. Okay, she hadn’t expected Sesshoumaru to actively help her but he could have at least avoided Inuyasha so that he had the chance to find her. And Inuyasha, that idiot! Did he not know that a human should not, under any circumstance, annoy someone like Sesshoumaru?
To her utter astonishment, Sesshoumaru actually let go of Inuyasha, who fell gracelessly to the ground and started coughing and cursing foully at the same time. When the demon lord then looked at her with those eerie golden eyes, she wished she had chosen her words differently. His voice, if that was actually possible, was even colder than his eyes when he spoke to her.
“You, miko, should not presume to give me orders.”
With that, he turned on his heels and started walking in the direction of the village. Without looking back, he addressed his half-brother one last time.
“There is a matter that I have to settle with you, half-breed. You will wait here.”
And then, he was gone.
A/N: Writing Inuyasha is easy. Writing Sesshoumaru is hard. Getting reviews and knowing that people appreciate this story makes writing that much more fun. Thank you!
