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And You, My Brother	By : Arianawray Category: InuYasha > Yaoi - Male/Male > InuYasha/Sessh?maru > InuYasha/Sessh?maru Views: 15030 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or any of its characters, and I do not make any money from these writings.

Chapter List
- 13
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- 15
Chapter XIV: Through the fog and filthy air
"I see that you didn't come willingly," someone said, from somewhere behind him. "If you had, you wouldn't have injured yourself quite so badly on the way in."
It was a man's soft voice, almost gentle in its quality, but the sound of it made him ill. It exacerbated the nausea he felt, and worsened the pain in his head from having cracked it hard against the ground upon which he now lay, face-down. He had stretched his hands out as he fell through the well, and they should have broken his fall, but somehow he had still hit his head. He had probably blacked out somewhere along the way, an unusual thing for him.
It was a stone floor. In a dark room – no, a cave. Or a dungeon, Inuyasha thought, as he tried to raise his head. The dizziness and pain made it hard to move or focus his eyes, but he sensed that he was in an underground area of some sort, carved out by the work of nature or tools. The stone beneath him was too cold, and the air too dank, for them to be above ground.
"You're very strong." The voice held a note of surprise. "You really shouldn't be moving at all yet, after what you've just been through."
The air was ripe with the odours of herbs and brews, but it smelt nothing like Kaede's hut. It reeked of sorcery and blood and corruption, and underneath all that was the scent of a human.
Inuyasha tried to lift himself off the ground and face the person who was speaking to him, but he only managed to turn onto his side and crane his neck slightly as he lay there, to see a man standing several feet behind him in the cave or dungeon or whatever the devil this place was. He himself was in a smaller niche within the larger cave, and the human was separated from him by a wall of pure magical energy that he could see through easily, but which he could tell was pulsing with power-sapping force. He felt for Tetsusaiga at his hip and found it, but as he grasped the hilt, the man spoke again.
"Don't bother with your sword. You are in a cell imbued with spells that suppress your half-demon strength. You have no powers that can transform that sword into its true form – yes, I can tell it's a demon blade. It won't respond to you while you're in there."
Inuyasha figured the man was speaking the truth, but he had to try, although he knew as he painstakingly drew Tetsusaiga inch by slow inch from its scabbard that even if the fang flared to life, it would be pointless as he couldn't stand up to wield it in his own defence. When he finally dragged the blade free of its sheath, it clinked against the stone, thin and unawakened and of no help to him at this time.
"I told you so." The voice sounded smug.
He struggled to focus his eyes on the man and succeeded in making out, for a few seconds before his vision swam again, that he was of average build and height, perhaps forty years old or so, wearing robes that could have been cut for a scholar from the western regions, or perhaps for a priest, except that they seemed to be of a fine material with a sheen to it. He had a well-formed, intelligent face, with a pair of dark eyes that looked keenly and objectively at him.
When he could no longer focus his vision, Inuyasha continued examining the scents his nose was picking up – very poorly, however – and thought that behind all the smells of herbs and brews and humanity, he could detect the strong youki of a demon lingering about the man. This had to be the sorcerer or warlock or magician they had been looking for, and the traces of youki had to have come from the demon who was his master or patron or whatever the crap he was to him.
"What the fuck is this place and how did you get me here?" he asked. He could not summon much more than a croak, but the man heard him.
"A nice touch, wasn't it? Using the well?"
"What do you know about the well, you piece of shit?"
"You're a really polite creature, aren't you? I know nothing about the well, actually. I simply made an educated guess," the man said, sounding so pleased with himself that Inuyasha itched to smack him about the head with a club. "For some time, I didn't even know it was a well – my little spirit-child was not designed to speak or describe things, so when I eventually placed new spells on it to allow it to do so, I had the most painful time imaginable attempting to understand what it was trying to tell me. I thought it was just a hole in the ground that it had been gathering those precious emotions from, but when I finally understood that it was a deep, even hole with wood around its edge, I realised it was a well, and guessed that it must once have been a doorway to somewhere, as the child eventually managed to put together enough words to explain that you kept leaping in and out of it over and over again. That really was just a lucky guess. I gave the child a one-time portal spell to flick into the well the second it lured you there, and told it to make certain that you entered the well, and it did just that, and my portal dragged you here."
"You know, you keep jabbering on and on, and I have no idea what you're yammering about," the hanyou said, in what he hoped was a disgusted tone, although it came out more like a grumbling murmur. "What the hell do you want with me?"
"You're the one who gave us all the despair we needed for a good stretch of time. All that pure desperation, perfect for distilling into those potions my master wanted so much. Then one day the supply stopped. We had a reasonable store and we drew from there, but at last it ran out, and my little ghost-child couldn't get any more. You'd stopped."
"You could ramble right on into the next century and I still wouldn't understand all the shit coming out of your mouth," Inuyasha spat. That was what he said, but he was starting to get the picture: the apparition had been collecting his emotions for a time, from the well, until his friends had forced him to cease moping in it and the sorcerer could get little more. "What did you want my despair for, anyway? I can point you to lots more all over the world. Heaps of it – everywhere."
"Ah, but emotions collected from different sources produce brews of different quality. My master was happy to consume all the potions I used to give him, until my little ghost child came back one day, months ago, with its bottle full of despair from a single source, someone who seemed both human and demon – I guessed it must be a hanyou. When I made a potion from it, my master drank it and thirsted for more, and wanted none other. He said it tasted and worked like nothing else – nothing else I had gathered from humans or demons or animals – it was unique, and perfect."
Inuyasha had been gradually shifting his weight onto his elbows as the sorcerer spoke, for his vision was slowly clearing, and he managed to lift his head off the ground to say caustically: "Let me see if I've got this straight – you've been distilling my emotions into a drug for some pathetic demon-addict who likes misery so much that he needs it to be made into a drink for him? What's wrong with him? Can't chew on prey for himself cos he's lost all his teeth?"
"You will mind your tongue when you refer to my master, half-breed," the sorcerer said sternly, colour flaring up around his nose and eyes.
He didn't feel up to it at all, but he had to give it a bash while the man was off-balance and irritated with him. Summoning every last drop of strength he had, Inuyasha pulled himself into a crouching position. Lifting his head and arms from there, he struck out at the magical barrier with Tetsusaiga and his fists. It burned and hurt his skin, and Tetsusaiga throbbed in protest, but the sword could not flare into life, and he could not even crack the shield. The effort left him drained and feeling sick, and he knelt beside the barrier and retched. He tried to keep it down, but he retched again, and his stomach gave up the remains of last night's dinner, which splattered onto the ground.
Despite his failure to damage the shield, the sorcerer looked alarmed. "You really are ridiculously strong, aren't you? We're going to have to do something about that. It's just as well you're only in a holding area. This is where I'll be keeping you…"
As he said those words, he picked up a staff, pressed one end of it to the barrier, and used it to make a firm flicking motion towards another part of the cave. Inuyasha felt himself pulled again through exactly the same kind of portal he had felt himself falling through earlier in the well. It left him disoriented and nauseated as it had before, except the journey was much shorter this time, because the sorcerer had merely moved him from one part of the cave to another.
He lay curled up in his new prison, around which he could see iron bars that he would normally have had little trouble breaking through, but which were clearly steeped in the same energy-depleting spells that the holding area had been. His body was pressed against a rough stone slab also imbued with magic, and his feet touched the bars at one end, while his hands touched the bars at the other. He looked up and saw another stone slab above him, demarcating a space too low for him to be able to stand in – he might be able to sit up, but that was it – and too small to fully stretch out in while lying down.
He was in a cage.
** *** **
"So this is the half-breed who has been the source of my despair," a voice brimming with amusement reached Inuyasha's ears, some time after what felt like a long spell of drifting in and out of consciousness inside the cage. "What an adorable creature."
"Don't get too close, Kinrin-sama. He may be out of it, but he's vicious, and very strong," he heard the sorcerer say. "I had to intensify the spells on the cage before I could make him pass out so that I would be able to remove his sword and check his clothing for hidden weapons. All the demons we held here before were easily rendered unconscious with only half or a quarter of the spell-strength I've had to use on him."
"Oh, but he looks utterly charming – those fuzzy ears, and all that beautiful silver hair. How come he still retains his demon characteristics when your spells are supposed to suppress them? If he's a half-breed, shouldn't he be in his full-human form by now?"
"The spells only suppress his strength, but they won't change his half-demon appearance. I've heard that half-demons naturally spend some time in their human form, although I don't know when this one does, so if we keep him long enough, you may be able to see what he looks like as a full human, Kinrin-sama."
"Make sure that we do keep him long enough, then. I'd love to see that for myself. I'm sure he looks just as pretty in his human shape."
"Kinrin-sama, please be careful…"
Inuyasha sensed something intruding through the bars into the cage, getting closer and closer to him, until it touched his hair. He whipped around in a flash within the confined space he was in, slashing out with his claws and snapping with his fangs at the thing that had touched him.
What he saw was a flash of gold, then lots more gold. The demon who had extended a hand into his cage to stroke him – and hastily retracted it when Inuyasha lashed out – was a gold-scaled being, glossy, long-limbed and sleek-muscled. He was stooping in front of the low cage so that he could get a good look at the hanyou locked inside it, and his mane of long green hair, which swept clear of his forehead, framed a golden-bronze face with high cheekbones and matched the glittering green of his eyes. Dragon demon, Inuyasha thought. No, more like lizard, or a mix of dragon and lizard youkai.
"Ahhhh," the demon breathed, an undercurrent of excitement in the throaty hiss that issued from him. "Feisty little thing. And such beautiful golden eyes. I knew the potions you gave me had to have come from a very special source. And that he is, this ferocious little animal. Maybe I should keep him for good. I think I'll enjoy taming this one, I will."
Inuyasha snarled with fury, and to cover up the shudder that ran through his body, triggered by the creeping, sickening sensation crawling over his skin. The way this reptile was talking, and looking at him, and smiling as he stared, made him want to hurl. The very sound of that voice felt like a repulsive contaminant that was coating him in slime, and he desperately wanted to scrub it off his flesh.
"Fuck you," he spat through the cage bars at the reptile demon, who gave a short laugh in response.
"Exactly what I was thinking, little half-breed. Exactly."
** *** **
"Kinrin-sama has been in here three times to look at you while you slept," the sorcerer murmured, when Inuyasha next stirred. "That's more often he's come by in two days than he's visited this den of mine in the past month."
He sounded resentful.
"He's so pleased with having captured you that he hasn't even been hounding me for the brew I'm making from the emotions I've been able to extract from you."
Inuyasha opened his eyes a crack to see the sorcerer stooping in front of his cage, poking at something secured to the upper ends of the bars with his staff, and for the first time, he noticed a row of vessels that looked very similar to the one the child apparition had been carrying.
"It's so much easier getting them this way than through my little ghost-child."
"It's not a ghost or a child," Inuyasha muttered. "It's just a thing you made."
"Technically, yes. It isn't a ghost, or a spirit, or a child. It's just an artificial being I created to gather the essences I needed to make my potions. But I like thinking of it as a ghost-child. It hasn't come back, by the way. I can only assume that someone must have got hold of it over there where you came from. Do you have friends who know how to do that? Is that what they've done? Trapped my spirit-child? Well, it doesn't matter. I've severed all portal connections between it and myself, and besides, it won't be able to tell them anything. The heavens know how hard it was for me to extract any useful information from it – so I very, very much doubt that anyone holding it right now will learn anything at all."
"What are you gathering all these bloody emotions for, you bastard?" Inuyasha asked. His throat felt dry. He'd had a bowl of water thrust into his cage for him to drink from some time ago, and he needed more now, but he didn't intend to ask for it.
"Kinrin-sama has his uses for them, which are not your business – although he may be pleased to elaborate on them to you if he really decides to keep you," the sorcerer said.
Suppressing the urge to retch at the thought of being kept by the reptile youkai, Inuyasha pressed for more information: "You weren't collecting emotions only from me – that apparition has been gathering stuff from everywhere."
"Oh, that's only for the run-of-the-mill potions that Kinrin-sama ordered. The emotions from you, however, have been and are for his personal use." The emphasis that the sorcerer put on the world personal had a sleazy ring to it.
The man rose and started to walk away from the cage, but stopped after a few steps, turned back and stooped down again to look through the bars. "You know, it's quite funny, really," he mused aloud, gazing at Inuyasha.
"What the fuck are you talking about now?" the hanyou snarled, stifling a cough that threatened to erupt from his parched throat.
"No one would ever have seen my ghost-child if you had only remained miserable."
"I have no idea what you're on about. As usual."
The sorcerer smiled. "It really is amusing. There it was, discreetly collecting essences from all over this land for months and months, and getting them back to me, and all was fine. No one ever saw it, to the best of my knowledge. Then it was drawn to your emotions and would dip into the well whenever you weren't inside – or sometimes when you were, but weren't looking – to pick up your despair, and Kinrin-sama loved the brew from that, and all was still well. Then you stopped being unhappy, for whatever reason, and we ran out of that particular potion, and Kinrin-sama demanded more. That was when I started sending my ghost out all over, at all hours, everywhere it could go, taxing the limits of my control over it, in an attempt to find a replacement source. From all the reports I heard all over the country, just about everyone saw it then. But it seems that half-breeds are rare in our world, and half-breeds in despair are rarer still, and nothing I made from all that it collected could satisfy Kinrin-sama as a substitute."
"So?" he growled.
"The silliest part of it all was that the child was never designed to be able to tell one place or person from another – at the start, I created it to simply be drawn to various emotions I asked for, and speed towards them through magical pathways. It was never intended to be able to navigate physical landscapes. Even after I made it capable of speech, it couldn't tell me where your well was located, who you were, what you looked like or anything that would have allowed me to find you. In fact, it could no longer even find the well through its usual magical routes, because your emotions were no longer there to attract it. You can't imagine how many new and difficult spells I had to put on it so that it would be able to identify places and recognise individual beings, and to try and trace you, to literally sniff you out on the physical plane, from scratch. I finally managed that trick only a few days ago. And here you are."
A few days ago? That must have been when the bear youkai saw the apparition again, behaving differently and sniffing at them, Inuyasha thought.
"You've caused me no end of trouble, half-breed. But Kinrin-sama should be much happier now that we have you right here in the flesh, where we can get anything we want from you. Oh yes, he'll be much happier now. And when he's happy, I'm happy. So everything will be fine, and he can concentrate again on his plans for the dragon clan."
"Plans?"
The sorcerer sniffed. "Yes, his plans. Once he's done with those, he will have all the time in the world for you. And I hope he uses you up and discards you like the piece of trash you'll be by the time he's done with you. He always comes back to me eventually."
"You can keep the pervert for yourself, you lump of turd. If he touches me I'll rip his filthy hand off."
"Sure you will. Now you really must go back to sleep. I'm getting some very interesting ingredients from you every time you have a nightmare – and you seem to be having a lot of those."
The sorcerer applied his staff to the cage, increased the intensity of the spells further, and after a struggle to remain conscious, Inuyasha slipped once more into oblivion.
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And You, My Brother