Demon's Night

Long, slender legs sheathed in billowing white silk moved with deceptive carelessness over the rough, uneven ground. Half-boots of soft black leather stepped through a maze of small, jagged rocks scattered on the path.

"Wait! Lord Sesshomaru! I can make your heart's wish come true! Will you let me prove it to you?"

Sesshomaru again looked at the lovely piper, Lady Soluo – or at least, what was left of her – with ill-concealed disgust.

She claimed to love him, did she? A mere ningen, noble-woman or no, could not hope to claim a being such as he.

He turned his back on her, another obvious enough dismissal, even without the caustic words that followed.

"Hn." He inclined his head slightly, narrowing his eyes to look through the protection of his lashes as he turned his face to the cold wind. "You are welcome to try."

Sesshomaru heard the woman depart.

She was truly pathetic. Apparently she had taken his sarcasm to heart.

He should have told her not to bother. Nothing she accomplished would ever make him care for her. She was dead, doomed. She had given her soul over to the lesser-demons in the foolish hope that she could gain his love…he almost allowed a smile to escape as he began walking again.

As if he could love anyone other than her.

The mere thought of her made his severely controlled emotions rise dangerously to the surface, and anger at his heart's refusal to forget her made him snap his command for Ah-Un, carrying young Rin, to fall in behind him.

"The pretty Lady seemed very sad to me, my Lord," Rin said thoughtfully from her comfortable mount on the two-headed dragon.

Sesshomaru didn't respond, and as usual, the child was wise enough not to speak further.

He ignored Jaken's pleadings to slow down, but not because he was tired of listening to the toad's ranting – this time it was because his mind was too filled with himself for him to bother to pay any attention.

Was he, Sesshomaru, not pathetic, then, as well? Did not his own traitorous emotions mirror the Lady Soluo's feelings for him?

She was a ningen – a special one, unarguably, but still only human. She was weak, despite her obvious strengths. She would grow elderly, and one day she would die. It was inevitable, a sad fact of a human's life.

And yet…

The thought that she would wither and eventually pass from his world into the next where he could not so easily follow caused him pain…and the knowledge that he was allowing himself to feel it because of her was enough to enrage him.

He would not have her! He could never have her, yet he persisted in wanting her! If he did succeed in banishing her from his thoughts during the day, she haunted his dreams throughout the nighttime hours! The loss of control was causing him to drown in the wash of unwanted sentiment…it was maddening -

Sesshomaru was jarred back into the present by a furious blast of power that came unbidden from his own fingertips. His powerful rush of emotion had generated a mass of lethal energy, and it had built unto the point of exploding without him even being aware of it.

"Lord Sesshomaru!" Rin cried out, her voice high with fear for him.

Sesshomaru barely heard her, as an eerie wind rose around him, picking up the ends of his hair and pelt, signaling that his bestial change was imminent. In an effort to stave off the transformation, he brought his hand up in a movement too fast to see, unleashing the seething power through the violently humming energy of his poison-whip attack.

The assault nearly resulted in an avalanche as the high rock walls of the mountain pass they were traveling through crumbled.

In the dust-clouded aftermath, Sesshomaru finally became aware that he was still cracking his knuckles, glowing poison continuing to well up to drip from the points of his claws. He was seeing his surroundings through a haze of bright red, and he forced himself to become calm. He did not care to frighten Rin further, yet the idea that he had lost control over his power in a way he had not done since he was but a pup only added to his fury.

"My Lord?" he heard his retainer ask meekly between coughs, from beside him.

"Are you alright, Sesshomaru-sama?" Rin echoed, her normally cheery little voice sounding close to tears.

Sesshomaru didn't dare lower his eyes to the toad-demon, or Rin. The mere sight of a weaker creature at this point would only cause his feral instincts to react with the need for a bloody kill.

"Jaken, stay with Rin until I return."

"Yes, my Lord," came the surly reply.

"Jaken."

"Aye, my Lord?"

"If she is not with you when I return, your life shall be forfeit." Sesshomaru tilted his head just slightly, allowing the toad to glimpse the glowing red of his eyes.

"Y-yes, my Lord!" The small demon skittered back, trying to hide behind his staff-of-heads.

Satisfied with the scent of fear reeking in the air, Sesshomaru took to the skies, turning a deaf-ear to Rin's childish pleas asking that he not forget about her. The girl should know by now that he always came back for her.

The moisture in the air was cool and soothing as he moved through the clouds, thinking back on this last confrontation with the female half-demon.

She was a fool. The youkai-infested shell that the Lady Soluo now inhabited would never allow her the happiness and peace she sought, even if he somehow did return her feelings.

In truth, the Lady Soluo had never had a chance.

Before her, no one had.

After the dishonorable and untimely death of his father, he'd sworn never to fall prey to his emotions as his sire once had. The late Inu-no-Taisho had once been the fiercest of warriors, feared and respected by allies and foes alike. Nothing had moved him – despite his keen intelligence, he'd been as a mindless beast in his need for power and destruction…and then the bitch who'd whelped his half-breed brother – a woman whose beauty surpassed even the ethereal exquisiteness of Sesshomaru's own mother – had crossed his path.

Their enemies had struck him down within a scant year.

Though he'd taken his pleasure at will, Sesshomaru had never allowed himself to feel anything for a female beyond the most basic desires of lust. If he ever wanted companionship, he need only to cast a seductive gaze toward a female to have her purring and ready at his feet.

Recently, all that had changed. He'd begun feeling a need for something other than the purely physical…but not with just any woman.

She didn't strive for perfection, like youkai females did. She was giving and kind where they were cruel and selfish, warm where they were cold…

Sesshomaru swallowed a curse as he felt his body react violently to his thoughts.

It was pointless to think on her. A sensitive creature such as she would demand that he love her, and he…would not. His heart would not bleed for any woman. He refused to waste any more time chasing her memory like a phantom through his mind…

Besides, any 'love' he could give would be a cold thing indeed.

As he passed near the great ocean, he once again sensed the presence of the Lady Soluo. He perceived the sadness in her half-demonic aura that Rin had spoken of earlier, but he didn't care enough to continue thinking on it.

Anyone who wasn't her was of very little interest to him at present.

Sesshomaru stared at the waning sunlight in the red skies before him, and allowed himself to say her name in his mind. He savored the word like a taste on his tongue though he didn't dare give it voice.

'Where is she now?' he found himself wondering as he gazed at the dying blaze on the far horizon. The violent colors of the sky meeting the glittering golden sea made for a magnificent view, but its glory was lost on him.

Was she with InuYasha, that useless half-breed? InuYasha, that crude mutt of an inu-youkai…that mongrel who could not see the brightness of the future right in front of him because he allowed himself to be blinded by the darkness of the past?

'I defend her as if she were my own,' he grimly acknowledged to himself, 'as if she were truly mine. As if she were my – '

Sesshomaru suddenly clenched the muscles of his jaw, determined to forget her existence. She'd intrigued him with her loyalty to his brother, with her steadfastness in the heat of battle…as she was only a lowly human wench; it was only natural that he be curious about her…

Yet as the lonely night slowly fell, he could not help but hear the echoes of his thoughts.

'I defend her as if she were my own. As if she were my…Kagome…'

To Be Continued in Chapter One, 'Demon's Night'

Disclaimer: I do NOT own InuYasha, or any related characters!

A/N: This fic is set tentatively during episodes 133-134 (I think) 'The Woman Who Loved Sesshomaru'. This is my first attempt at an InuYasha fanfic, so I'm still kinda' working on the rough edges – Sess being a bit OC, for one – so feedback on this would definitely be helpful with the editing and revisions. Thanks for reading!

- D.V.