Greetings, loyal fans, to the start of yet another wonderful yaoi fic! I can't believe it took me this long to write for Inu/Sesh. I've been hinting at it for ages, and it's such a good pairing. Talk about guilty pleasures, now we're throwing incest into the mix. Well, this is going to be a long fic, and, rest assured, chock full of lemons. It will, however, be at quite a different pace from my other stories. There's a lot more history involved here; it almost has an AU feel to it. There will even be an OC added later on (not a female and not a main character, so don't fear that a Mary Sue will interfere with your yaoi. I hardly ever include female characters in my fics). Well, we've got a long way to go, so it's best to get started. I look forward to reading reviews from each and every one of you!

Warning: This fic contains adult themes, male-on-male graphic love scenes, some explicit language (probably), and incest. If you don't appreciate the subtle beauty of such a piece of fiction, you can damn well stop reading right now. (Ha, I knew there would be language).

Important: For the first half of my fic, we will be flashing back and forth between the present time and either sixty or fifty years ago. Be sure to pay attention to the flashes, or you'll be easily lost.

Disclaimer: I own nothing pertaining to the characters of Inuyasha or its original plotline. I own only the yaoi-licious twists which I choose to throw in and my own interpretation of the obvious lust Inu and Sesshy have for each other. So there.

…

Sixty years ago

The half-demon child was desperate to escape. His stubby legs pumped frantically in an attempt to propel himself as far from his current location as he could possibly be. Every shaky breath he managed to suck in sent pain shooting through his lungs. He sobbed hopelessly against the ache in his chest, unable to stop, unable to rest for even a moment.

They were right behind him. He could smell the fire and hear their vicious shouts. They thirsted for his blood. The villagers couldn't care less that he was only a pup, barely six years of age, and absolutely no threat to them. He was tainted by demon blood, and they would do anything and everything to spill that blood until nothing remained of him but an empty shell.

Another sob ripped from Inuyasha's cold lips, hard as he tried to contain it. He was only a child after all, and his despair was great. He'd lost everything that day—everything that he'd ever truly cared for. His home was gone, burned to the ground with the help of the villagers' torches. All his memories had been lost with that house, along with any meager possessions he'd owned. But the biggest loss was the one that still haunted his every waking moment. He envisioned her face perfectly—her smiling, caring face—and her sparkling eyes looking tenderly into his. Her eyes were once bright as she whispered words of love and hope into his pointed ears. She'd sung lullabies to him in the sweetest voice he'd ever heard, an angel's voice, though now he only heard it as a distant echo in his thoughts. His mother's eyes would never gaze into his again.

The babe shrieked helplessly as his tiny foot suddenly caught in a knobby branch stretched across the ground, invisible in the dark night. His ankle wrenched painfully as he was sent sprawling to the dirt, skin scraping against thorny vines and loose stone. He laid still for a moment, absorbing the shock from the blow, then scrambled to get back to his feet.

He couldn't stay here for another second. They would catch him if he did. His mother wasn't around anymore to protect him from their hate. If they managed to catch him alive…. Inuyasha whimpered with fear as he thought of all the tortures they would put him through before finally ending his miserable existence. The villagers hated demons even more than was to be expected of average humans of their time. They had blamed every little accident on him from the moment his mother had brought him to live with her in their town. They were even quicker to blame the big accidents on him, too. They beat him mercilessly every time something went wrong; it was only the pleading of his mother that had kept them from killing 'the half-blooded urchin' for this long. Now they had their chance; they would not pass it up.

Inuyasha forced his trembling body to rise from the ground, though his muscles screamed in protest. Flaming hot needles ripped into every inch of muscle and sinew as he climbed unsteadily to his feet. He ordered himself to keep running, but his knees were shaking too badly to obey the command. He wheezed brokenly as his lungs struggle to fill with air. Inuyasha couldn't even say how long he'd been running, but it seemed like hours at least.

The smell of smoke was still right behind him, filtering through the trees like a black omen. He gagged on the rancid odor of burning torches, fur, and flesh. The villagers had sacrificed their prize bull to the gods before beginning the hunt, and the smell of the animal's charred remains assaulted Inuyasha's sensitive nose almost painfully. The child felt a wave of guilt as he thought about the beast that had been killed in his name. His pursuers had been willing to give up the blood of a noble creature to assure that the demon babe's own blood would soon join it. The thought made Inuyasha retch.

He took an unsteady step forward, willing himself to fight through the pain as he had done so many times before. Every time the villagers had dragged him out into the fields to 'punish' him for his alleged crimes, he'd forced himself to get through the pain. He'd learned to shut out the sound of their guttural laughter, the glee in their voices as they'd sliced open his delicate skin, the smell of alcohol on their breath as they'd spat in his face. He'd forced himself to trudge home, bloody and broken, to climb silently into bed so his mother would not wake up and notice his injuries until morning, when they'd had a chance to heal some. As long as she thought his beatings weren't as bad as they were, she wouldn't further endanger herself trying to protect him.

A strange noise gurgled in the back of Inuyasha's throat, halfway between a sob and a moan. The smoke had made the flesh in his mouth raw and tender, preventing him from mourning properly for his mother. Hard as he had tried to protect her, it had done him no good. She was dead now, and there was nothing he could do to bring her back. All he could do was run as hard as he could, as long as he could, and hope the villagers tired of chasing him. He was helpless now. Even if he did escape, he knew he couldn't fend for himself.

His skin was burned in numerous places, blood trickled from a dozen wire-thin cuts on his arms and legs, his knees were torn up from tripping, the view in his left eye had gone foggy gray nearly an hour ago, and to top it all off he was tired, thirsty, and hungry. He knew nothing of how to endure in the wilderness without a mother to care for him. His six years of life had taught him nothing about survival, and there was still no guarantee that the villagers wouldn't catch him and finish what they'd begun.

Inuyasha stumbled forward again but did not trip. He forced his body to comply with his commands, biting back a scream of pain. He needed to stay quiet and hope the humans lost his trail. He knew that for all the common blood he shared with the beings tracking him, they would never be able to do half the things that he could do with ease. His young mind understood that he was special, and that the humans hated him for his abilities. He could smell people when they were still miles away, could sense rain days before it arrived, could lift bags of rice that the men in his village groaned at the sight of, all before he even hit puberty.

The demon babe couldn't understand why his gifts were so hated. It made his brain hurt to think that everything he was could be so completely loathed by people who shared common ancestors with him. It pained him when he thought about how much misery his gifts had brought not only to him, but to his human mother as well. It pained him to realize that over the years he had learned to hate what he was, too. He shook his head to stop the melancholy path his thoughts traveled. He had better things to worry about at the moment.

As if in answer to his thoughts, another tree root rose up and gave him an additional worry to add to his list. He couldn't deny the loud crack that split the air this time as his leg tangled helplessly in its snare and brought him crashing down. Red waves of pain flashed in front of his open eyes, and Inuyasha couldn't help but cry out in earnest this time. The young hanyou lay helplessly, knowing that the sound of his scream would lead the villagers to his exact location. He couldn't run anymore, had no means of escape. He was trapped.

Tears stung at his eyes as he realized that all the torment and agony he'd been through had been utterly pointless. He would die here in these cold, harsh woods after sating the bloodlust of an angry mob. His death would create not a single ripple in the world; no one would care once he was gone. No one would remember that he'd ever even existed. The only comfort he could give himself was that eventually all the pain would disappear, and maybe he would be with his mother again.

Blackness crowded into the edges of his sight, ensuring him that a peaceful void waited just beyond the bend of his universe. Inuyasha felt the world grow strangely cold, and he assumed that death was coming early to take him. He could even see a figure approaching him with ghostly silence. An angel, he thought, as the mysterious chill invaded his body. While the figure continued to approach him, Inuyasha's blurry vision managed to make out a few details that proved the creature to be an angel. It was a male, though a breathtaking one, with skin paler than freshly fallen snow and eyes of cold, molten gold. His supernatural beauty could only belong to that of the purest heavenly being.

"If you don't get out of my fucking way, Sesshoumaru, I swear I'll kill you here and now!" Inuyasha's eyes flashed with fury as he unleashed yet another Wind Scar. The attack sliced through the air, leaving gouges in the earth as it went. The figure it was aimed at leapt easily out of the way, chuckling scornfully, but had to dodge again an instant later as poison claws came racing for his throat.

Naraku laughed again at the combined efforts of the two brothers. As long as they refused so blatantly to work together, he would have no trouble avoiding their uncoordinated attacks. The longer he could string them both along, the more fun he would have in the process.

Sesshoumaru glared back at his half-brother as Inuyasha's threat echoed in the air. "Foolish mixed-breed, you will never possess strength enough to defeat this Sesshoumaru. Keep your childish attempts at intimidation to yourself." Inuyasha growled furiously in response and leapt into the air, bent on ripping those mocking golden eyes out of his brother's head.

Unfortunately, this rash action left him wide open to attack, as he soon discovered when one of Naraku's branchlike appendages planted itself in his sword arm. Inuyasha let out a hiss of pain and fell neatly to the ground, cursing his impatience. He finally had a chance to take Naraku down in a legitimate battle—no dolls or trickery involved—but of course Sesshoumaru had chosen now to show up and pick a fight. The pureblood had seemingly done everything in his power to get in Inuyasha's way; he was obviously determined to kill Naraku entirely on his own.

Inuyasha ground his teeth wrathfully at the thought of being robbed of the right to kill Naraku by his own brother—not that he had ever thought of Sesshoumaru as such. The inu youkai had caused him nothing but trouble from the first time they'd met, and he seemed determined to carry on the tradition by interfering in a battle that was rightfully Inuyasha's. The hanyou was the one who had tracked Naraku down. He was the one who had led him to this clearing and started the fight. He was the one who had prevented his friends from getting in the way as he attacked the spider feverishly. He was the one who had put forth so much effort to get as many hits on his enemy as he could. Just as Inuyasha was honestly beginning to believe that today would be the end of the traitorous kumo, Sesshoumaru had shown up and ruined it all. The thought filled Inuyasha with rage. How was he supposed to concentrate with his brother on the field?

Naraku seemed to sense the distraction that was running through both of the brothers as they regarded each other from opposite sides of the clearing. Neither seemed to be fully willing to use their strongest attacks while the other was nearby. Maybe they don't want to reveal their techniques to each other, Naraku mused. Or maybe there is much more going on here than can be observed by one such as I. The spider had grown weary already of fighting these two when they were obviously not giving it their all. He hated to be treated as second best in a battle, and Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru were clearly focusing more on each other than on him. Naraku used their distraction to pull forth some of his demon energy. When the time was right, he released it into a cloud of crackling black power and disappeared from sight.

Inuyasha noticed this immediately and charged after him, slicing the black cloud in two, but it was too late. Naraku had escaped. The hanyou bellowed out his frustration as he fell to the ground, barely managing to land right. He was angrier now than he'd been in a long time, angry with his brother for yet again getting in his way. Why couldn't the Taiyoukai ever just leave him alone?

With a flash of white movement, Inuyasha spun around and unleashed an attack on his brother. His youki ripped across the ground like hellfire, scattering massive rocks into the air like feathers. Sesshoumaru dove to the side just in time and somehow managed to land elegantly on his feet, almost catlike in his grace. "Do you really think it wise to take your frustrations out on me, dear brother?" His voice was oily with condescension. Inuyasha's lips curled into a feral grin, as he came after the inu youkai again, shouting, "Why can't you ever just stay out of it, Sesshoumaru? Why do you constantly have to interfere with my life?"

Sesshoumaru smirked as he easily avoided a dozen thoughtless blows launched at him by Inuyasha. The hanyou wasn't even pretending to coordinate his attacks now. He was just throwing as many punches as he could, heedless of where they fell, determined to take out his anger on Sesshoumaru. With an easy pass of his hand, the Taiyoukai smacked Inuyasha roughly to the ground and quickly pinned him there with a hand to his neck. As Sesshoumaru crouched down next to the squirming hanyou, he let the hiss of poison in his claws become audible, warning Inuyasha that he should be very careful with his movements. The half-demon stilled almost instantly, recognizing the threat that Sesshoumaru's claws held, and glared up at his brother.

"Dear brother," Sesshoumaru cooed mockingly, "you shouldn't glare at me so. You know how much I dislike it when your pretty face gets twisted around like that." His hand tightened around Inuyasha's neck to prove his point. Reluctantly, the hanyou relaxed his face into a look of utter blankness, obviously thinking up a thousand different ways to kill his brother once he managed to break free.

Sesshoumaru studied his brother's face for a moment, then leaned down and whispered in his ear, "You asked me why I have to interfere in your life, Inuyasha. In response, I have only this to say: think of what would have happened to you if I'd never interfered. You would have died sixty years ago, long before your fight with Naraku, long before you were pinned so helplessly to that tree. I saved you that day, when I found you injured and sniveling in the woods. You know the debt that hangs above your head."

Sixty years ago

The baby hanyou shivered as he stared into the angel's eyes—so much like pools of liquid sun—and suddenly he realized the chill in his body was not from the heavy presence of death, but from the presence of this ethereal creature. The 'angel' stalked closer, his white and red kimono swishing slowly around him. His chest was covered in the finest armor, and a single sword hung at his side. The babe wondered briefly why an angel would need armor, but his pain-clouded mind was unable to register the thought. A voice drifted to him through the pain: a voice that was as melodious as it was filled with contempt.

"How fitting to see my father's bastard son squirming in the dirt like a worm. If I'd known you were so utterly pathetic I might not have bothered to come when I smelled your tainted blood in the air." The child struggled to understand the angel's words, but found it nearly impossible. What was the angel saying about his father? Inuyasha had never known his father. The Great Demon had died only a few minutes after giving Inuyasha his name. If his mother's stories were true, Inutaisho had died to save the lives of his mother and himself. What did this strange angel know of his father?

Inuyasha struggled to ask the thousands of questions in his mind but dissolved into a bout of harsh coughing instead. Golden eyes stared mockingly down at him as he struggled to keep breathing. A smile formed on the angel's lips, a cruel and terrible smile that sent a shiver racing down the hanyou's spine.

"I will say this about you, young bastard," the angel spoke, smirking, "you may be every bit as feeble as the mixed blood that runs in your veins, but I am amused to see the apathy in your eyes. You know death is coming and have already resigned yourself to the fact. You will not fight it; acceptance is the path you have taken. For that, and the common blood we share, this Sesshoumaru will spare your life."

Sesshoumaru…? Inuyasha thought as the angel closed the last few feet between them. He felt a surge of youki in the air, and suddenly the child understood that it was not an angel who stood over him but a full-blooded demon. The youkai slid the sword at his side easily out of its sheath, and the youki in the air grew thicker.

With a flash of demonic energy, the one called Sesshoumaru sliced the air around Inuyasha's limp body, and immediately the half-demon felt relief wash through him like a warm flood. Power that was not his own coursed through him, mending his torn sinews and broken bones. The energy grew to be too much for him, and a moment later Inuyasha passed out with one last lingering image plastered behind his eyes: golden circles of light and a cruel smirk.

To be continued….

Well, what do you guys think? Love it? Hate it? The only way I'll know is if you review. I think this is the first fic I've ever written where the main characters haven't been completely absorbed in lust three paragraphs in. Definitely a different pace from what I'm used to. Well, I hope to hear from all of you and see you again come the next chapter. Also, I have both a livejournal and forums that I would suggest you guys check out. They're fairly important if you want to know what's going on in the world of Yaoi. Links are listed below:

Livejournal: http/ www . livejournal . com/users/hieiaijin1410/

Forums: http/ www . fanfiction . net/f/671396/

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