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The Tale of the Demon Lord	By : Arianawray Category: InuYasha > Yaoi - Male/Male > InuYasha/Sessh?maru > InuYasha/Sessh?maru Views: 56279 -:- Recommendations : 4 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or any of its characters, and I do not make any money from these writings.

Chapter List
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XXVII: Unwelcome Advances
Naraku, unnatural lord of the spider demons, gazed with hungry garnet eyes upon the great castle of the dog-demon king as he flew through the air towards it, escorted by the demon lord's strongest guards. He coveted that enormous castle and everything in it, in particular the beautiful demon lord himself, who had evaded his clutches for too long now. He coveted the resources and the power that would be his if he conquered this land.
He coveted a hundred other things too, endlessly, and for that, he blamed his predecessor, Onigumo. The old spider demon, whose evil magic and natural bent for violence and desirable things had seen him consume human and demon souls by the hundreds like death at a feast, taking whatever possessions or persons he wanted by stealth or by force, had perished at the hands of Sesshomaru's father in the great battle.
Somehow, out of the cauldron of magic and souls, rage and lust which made Onigumo what he was, Naraku had emerged whole and powerful, a full-grown demon-thing sprung ready-made from the old corpse, recalling memories that were not his own, and hankering after what he did not know he desired. He had the stolen face and primary body of a human prince, the heart of Onigumo, the red eyes and multiple secondary limbs of a spider demon, and the power of a legion of creatures locked within his soul. He had made peace with Sesshomaru, the new demon lord, in tune with the other successors of the old leaders who had turned against the dog demons; but inside, his unnatural heart burned with urges he did not understand.
He carried Onigumo's memories of lust for a beautiful priestess in a village from many hundreds of years ago, and even knew her name – Midoriko – although she had died long before Naraku himself had been created. Onigumo had failed to seize the priestess, having been repelled by the power of the ancient tree sacred to the gods, but had lusted for her ever after.
Because of that pointless lust, he, Naraku, had been born saddled with an inconvenient attraction to beautiful priestesses from the village of the sacred tree. Some fifty-one years ago, he had stolen into Sesshomaru's kingdom and sought out the village, driven by a power he loathed but could not control. There, he had spied the exquisite Kikyo, who was turning fourteen and already as lovely as a starry night. But when he had attempted to rape the girl, the sacred tree had generated a strange and powerful force that repelled him and left his head feeling as if a million thorns were screeching inside his skull, tearing at his brain and shrieking at him like countless shards of broken glass. He had fled far from the village, until he could no longer hear or feel the screaming thorns.
Unfortunately, pretty priestesses were by no means the only things that Onigumo had desired. The insane old spider lord, born a thief, had lusted after power, gold, blood, magic, cunning, males and females of all species, and had contradictorily been attracted to the late dog-demon lord while at the same time feeling murderously jealous of him for having taken two flawless females – one demon and one human – as his mates. As a result, Naraku found himself burdened by a nasty urge to steal, rape or mutilate everything in sight while battling an irresistible attraction to Sesshomaru, who was even more beautiful than his parents, and possessed all that the late demon lord had owned.
The spider lord and his entourage now descended slowly to ground, where they stood in the open field before the castle's grand entrance. Naraku looked up at the towering building before him for the first time in forty years, and felt again the powerful desire to ransack it while claiming it as his own, and to torture and control all who dwelt within its walls.
As they were escorted into the castle through its great entrance hall and gallery towards the throne room, Naraku's heart and mind screamed: This must be mine, mine, mine! His face and outward carriage, though, were the very picture of calmness and composure.
They turned into the throne room, and saw the demon lord and his people standing on the raised, richly carpet-covered platform at the other end. Naraku's heart again shrieked to him to absorb Sesshomaru into his soul and body until he became an integral part of his being. However, as before, his face remained a perfect mask of pleasant serenity.
He strode confidently towards the beautiful Sesshomaru, thinking his unseemly thoughts, until his red eyes caught a glimpse of a stunning creature clad in black and silver, standing beside the demon lord. His hair was as long and snowy as Sesshomaru's, and his eyes as golden, but a perfectly proportioned pair of dog ears crowned his head, and his thick pair of braided sidelocks framed a face that was as open as a child's.
The spider lord shuddered. For once, his unnatural composure cracked as his lips parted and his red eyes flashed. His inner turmoil rose to a crescendo as every fibre of his compound being caught its collective breath, skipped a heartbeat, and demanded in a choral voice of excitement and desire and enraged interest all compacted into one cry: Ahhhh… who is that?
~ - ~
"Naraku," Sesshomaru said calmly, although he did not at all like the way the spider lord was staring at Inuyasha. "What brings you here? Your letter was vague, to say the least."
"Lord Sesshomaru," Naraku greeted him, turning his eyes back onto him and offering a deep and formal bow which was returned politely but coldly by the demon lord. "It has been much too long since we met in person."
"Perception of time is relative," Sesshomaru replied coolly.
"Icy as ever," Naraku remarked admiringly, taking in the splendid form and features of the dog demon with a long and indecent sweep of his burning eyes. "But you are looking finer than I have ever known you to look, Your Majesty, and that is saying a lot, considering how perfect I thought you forty years ago."
"Flattering words, Naraku, but if you would declare the intention behind this visit, we would know how to make your stay a better one – surely you would want me to be the best host I can reasonably be?" Sesshomaru asked.
"You are a perfect host merely by permitting me to stand in your presence," said Naraku smoothly. "Please allow me to express my appreciation for your kind reception and hospitality with a few humble gifts."
Naraku nodded to his entourage, and stepped aside to let three richly dressed demons lead his attendants forward with chests and wrapped packages of the finest spider-woven silk, exotic fruit from the southern lands, and cleverly crafted decorative vessels of fired earth, beautifully painted by nimble spider limbs.
"Thank you for your generous gifts," Sesshomaru said. "You should not have gone to the trouble of preparing them."
"No effort is too much for Lord Sesshomaru," Naraku said with a smile. The spider lord then indicated the three richly attired demons who had presented the most elaborately wrapped packages at the head of the line of attendants. "May I present my children, my lord? I don't believe you have met all of them?"
From a window in the throne room, Inuyasha had seen them flying down to the castle, and had already thought from the look of them in the air that they were a motley assortment of beings. He had never seen anyone's children looking so unlike one another, and their parent.
"Kanna, my eldest… remaining child," said Naraku, indicating a small female demon dressed entirely in white who looked very much like an innocuous little girl, but whose hair and skin were as colourless as death, and whose eyes were twin black chasms of emptiness.
"Hakudoshi, the next-eldest who is still with us," he continued, introducing a demon who looked like a youth with white hair and calculating violet eyes, who had ridden a flying steed through the air.
"Byakuya, my last," Naraku stated, gesturing to a demon with smooth black hair pulled away into a neat tail from an apparently untroubled and good-natured face. He was the one Inuyasha had seen riding on a magical paper crane, which had also carried the small-sized Kanna. Although Naraku introduced Byakuya as his youngest, he looked in fact like the eldest of the three.
Inuyasha looked from Naraku to the trio behind him and back at Naraku again, and still could see no family resemblance whatsoever between any of them. Naraku – with his long, black hair falling in untidy waves about his neck and shoulders, his sly red eyes and the way he had flown through the air within a translucent forcefield of his own power, his stiff and elaborate purple-and-gold attire barely moving in the wind as he travelled – was nothing like his children.
Sesshomaru gave a scarcely perceptible nod to each of the three before he put a hand lightly on Inuyasha's back and said to Naraku: "My brother, Inuyasha. I believe you are already acquainted with Minister Atsushi and Minister Ryota."
Naraku bowed to Inuyasha, devouring his form with his eyes again, and nodded to the two ministers. "Your brother? How wonderful. I am honoured to meet His Highness, and to renew my acquaintance with the good ministers."
"I have no doubt that you are," Sesshomaru said dryly. "Now, what brings you here?"
"My dearest Lord Sesshomaru, the purpose of my visit is primarily to renew the excellent ties I have always had with you, and to clear up, in person, the misunderstanding that appears to have arisen between us with regard to the outlaws on the border. I sincerely regret to learn that your kingdom seems to believe that those outlaws inhabiting the region between our lands originate from my kingdom. I am quite sure that they are outcasts who belong nowhere."
"Then we must find a way to deal with them – it is no good letting outlaws wander freely about like homeless pets forced to turn feral," Sesshomaru replied.
"Indeed. I also wish to say how very sorry I was to hear that parts of Your Majesty's kingdom were affected by floods in recent days, and to offer any help to the people that I can."
"It is most kind of you to sympathise with my people," Sesshomaru said. "I thank you for your good thoughts. Shall we discuss these matters over lunch? Let us adjourn to the dining hall."
Naraku and his entourage bowed to express their thanks for Sesshomaru's hospitality, and let themselves be shown out of the throne room and into the dining hall nearby.
Over a fine spread of meat, seafood, eggs and fruit that the spider demons seemed happy enough to consume, Sesshomaru neatly deflected Naraku's reiterated offer of help for the flood victims by revealing that help was already abundantly forthcoming from various tribes. He diplomatically made it out to seem that the most generous thing the spider lord could do would be to "save" the bandits in the wilderness by channelling his resources towards rehabilitating them.
"I trust that with your generous charity and considerable means, those bandits could become productive members of demon society again, and cease to make trouble for all the lands bordering that stretch of neutral wilderness. That will benefit all parties, and I am sure you will find ways to make them useful within your kingdom. They are, after all, spider demons, and would integrate well with the people of your lands, far better than trying to build a fresh existence from scratch in other kingdoms."
"What an excellent suggestion, Lord Sesshomaru," Naraku cried a little too enthusiastically, concealing his true thoughts on the matter under a practised façade of pleasure, while his three children eyed him warily. He turned to Inuyasha, who was facing him across the table, and said: "Your brother is a wonderful king. You must admire him immensely."
"He is like no one else," Inuyasha remarked, sufficiently vaguely to leave Naraku unsatisfied with the answer, yet unable to reasonably demand further detail.
"I understand that you have lived away from this castle for most of your life, Your Highness," the spider lord remarked. "I wonder that Lord Sesshomaru would dare to leave so beautiful a brother of his unguarded for so many years. If you were mine, I would certainly not let you out of my sight for even one second."
"Good thing I'm not, then, or you'd have trouble keeping an eye on anything else, and it looks like you've already got too much on your plate," Inuyasha said bluntly.
Inuyasha felt something tickling his left leg under the table, insinuating its way into his boot and trying to creep up his trouser leg. It couldn't be Sesshomaru – not when Sesshomaru was closer to his right leg – and it assuredly was not the very proper Minister Ryota to his left either.
The prince carefully lowered his head as if to eat, but used the movement as cover to sniff the air under the table. He caught the sharp scent of Naraku closer than he ought to be. He remembered from the dinner conversation last night that the spider lord had extendable secondary limbs which acted like tentacles, and realised that one of those appendages must have made its way under the broad wooden dining table to molest his ankle and try to stroke its way up his leg.
He was sure of it when he looked back up at Naraku to see the spider lord leering at him over the rim of his drinking glass as the tentacle stroked his skin.
Subtly and inconspicuously so that even Minister Ryota noticed nothing as he conversed with Hakudoshi, Inuyasha continued eating with his right hand, while with his left he slipped Tetsusaiga downwards through his sash, sheath and all. With a swift but barely noticeable movement of his left arm, he stabbed the sheath of Bokuseno's wood hard and painfully into the unwelcome tentacle.
He had the satisfaction of feeling the limb withdraw in a second from him, and the even greater satisfaction of seeing a lightning flash of pain streak across Naraku's face, a brief convulsion that the spider lord quelled with some difficulty in order to answer Sesshomaru in a normal tone of voice when the demon lord asked him pointedly if he approved of the taste of the marinated octopus, and whether he would like a fresh piece of skewered tentacle from the plate.
~ - ~
"If he slips another appendage up your leg again, I will cut off every one of those slimy things, along with his hands and feet," Sesshomaru said grimly to Inuyasha once they had the privacy of the royal wing, to which they had retired after lunch, while Naraku and his entourage were shown to the guest wing.
"It wasn't a problem. I got him good and proper," Inuyasha said.
"I know you can handle many situations without help, but you must be careful with Naraku. His tentacles are venomous – the fact that he reached underneath the table and touched you with the tip of one is a serious breach of etiquette. He could have poisoned you. Give me your ankle."
"Huh?" Inuyasha asked, then found himself hopping in surprise on his right leg when Sesshomaru bent down and lifted up his left leg, pushed the trousers up and the soft black boots down, and examined his skin to ensure that it was not broken.
"Sesshomaru!" Inuyasha yelped in protest. "I'm not hurt at all. I would have managed just fine even if he had poisoned me. You don't have to worry."
"He had no right to touch you at all. I have no doubt that you would survive any toxins he could inject into you, but it would be an unpleasant road to recovery. Kagura took months to heal from a single massive dose of his poison, even though she was supposed to be relatively immune to it as she was born of his flesh," the elder brother said, wiping the younger one's ankle with the trailing end of his sash as if to remove all traces of Naraku's contamination from his skin.
"I'm stronger than any wind demoness," Inuysha assured his brother, as he relinquished his leg at last.
"I don't want any harm to come to you," the demon lord said.
"I know," Inuyasha said.
The half-demon stepped up to his brother and rubbed the side of his head against his upper arm. Sesshomaru's protectiveness of him, and the way he had so deftly handled Naraku's subtly dangerous words and behaviour over lunch without losing his temper left Inuyasha quite impressed. It made him feel unexpectedly affectionate towards his brother.
He wished that Sesshomaru would suggest that they snuggle up for an afternoon nap in his room, but that was hardly likely, not when he had work to do and correspondence to tackle before they would have to begin their afternoon schedule of formal meetings and discussions with Naraku.
True enough, the demon lord kissed his brother on the top of his head and said to him: "Rest in your room now. I have work to do. You'd better check on your attendant as well."
Natsumi had not left Inuyasha's room since Naraku's arrival, for the prince had told her and the guards that she should remain within the royal wing for her own safety. The guards and the attendant stationed at the end of the passageway were also told that Natsumi was to have all her meals delivered to her in this room while Naraku was here, and that only the racoon demon Kazuki, from the kitchens, was allowed to bring them to her.
Natsumi had been calm when Inuyasha told her in the morning that Naraku was expected within the castle grounds by noon. She had remained steady as she dressed him in formal attire appropriate for a prince who was to meet a head of state. Although he asked her if she wished to talk about it, she had said little, and only reminded him that he would be late for breakfast if they chatted on about inconsequential things.
Now, she rose from a couch at the far end of the room as Inuyasha entered, and hurried over to help him remove his formal outer robe.
"Are you all right?" Inuyasha asked her.
"Please don't worry about me," she answered. "I am perfectly well."
"You weren't well during his last visit, from what I hear, so don't mind me if I'm concerned," Inuyasha said firmly. "You wouldn't say anything this morning, but I want to be sure now that you are all right."
As Natsumi walked over to a stand to drape his outer robe carefully over it, she began to explain her background in her soft voice: "I suppose you have the right to know, as I am your attendant. I will tell you. Forty years ago, I panicked when Naraku arrived for a visit that I did not know was planned until he appeared at the castle gates. No one – not even Minister Atsushi, who saved my life – knew at the time that Naraku was my former master, so no one knew that I ought to be warned about his visit. I had previously only told Minister Atsushi that I had belonged to a cruel spider demon, without naming him. After the head of the housekeeping staff found me hiding in the dragon stables, Minister Atsushi spoke to me in person, and that was when he learnt the whole truth. I won't panic again this time, I promise. I'll simply avoid Naraku. Remaining in this wing seems like the best way not to see him while he is here, as there is no way that he would be permitted into this part of the castle."
"How did you become his slave?" Inuyasha asked carefully. "I would like to know what happened, if you're willing to tell me."
Natsumi took Inuyasha's inner robe from him and handed him more comfortable wear, then said in a soft but steady voice: "My parents, and three-quarters of my clan, were killed by a group of ogres who invaded our tribe's territory at about the time of the great war in which your father perished. I was only a child. In my terror and in the chaos after I saw my parents die protecting me, I somehow became separated from the surviving members of my clan."
She made Inuyasha sit down in his usual seat before the tall mirror so that she could groom his hair, then continued with her tale: "In those days, spider-demon slave traders roamed freely across various lands. An opportunistic group of them watching the slaughter caught me, carried me across two borders, and sold me to a spider-demon family. That family treated me reasonably well for almost a hundred years. If I did the chores, looked after the children and cleaned their home well, they gave me no trouble. But when I matured, the male demon started taking an interest in me, so his mate sold me off to another slave trader, who sent me to Naraku's castle. I discovered very quickly that Naraku enjoyed drawing blood from his slaves, and even from his children, whom I later learnt he had created for himself through magical means. I was beaten and cut with whips and blades almost every day for nearly forty years, purely for his amusement."
Inuyasha's eyes flashed with anger and tears. Natsumi saw his face in the mirror while she was undoing the braids she had plaited his sidelocks into, and shook her head.
"Don't be upset for me, Your Highness. It's over. I survived. Many others did not. I thought I was in hell and wished I had died with my parents, but every time I saw yet another slave's corpse tossed out with the waste, a small spark in me told me to be grateful that I still had life in me. Sometimes I was burnt with hot irons, or raped, but not as often as others who responded to Naraku and his artificial family in ways that excited them more. I was probably beaten and mutilated more than the other slaves because I was so quiet and reacted less than others. But that also saved my life in the end, because Naraku became rather bored with me. Thus, he did not notice when Kagura, his eldest daughter who was turning against him and who had the most compassion for me, smuggled me out of his castle along with a group of slaves he had decided to sell. I was sick at the time. Some of my wounds were infected – an unusual thing to happen to a demon, but those wounds had been repeatedly inflicted on me, and would not close. I was dying. The traders were about to discard me in the wilderness between Naraku's land and Lord Sesshomaru's kingdom before they crossed the border."
"Those slave-trading scum are just as bad as those who buy other living beings and mistreat them," Inuyasha snapped bitterly. "They don't give a shit what happens to the people they sell, do they?"
"They do not. But Minister Atsushi was at the border, and he took pity on me. He thought he would be buying me only to let me die in peace and some comfort in the barracks of the fortress at the southern border – but I survived. His own healer attended to me, and I pulled through. He then took me to his home, where his servants cared for me, and slowly, over the next few years, my wounds began to heal. Once those wounds were no longer being reopened daily, my healing powers returned. After five years of good treatment in his household, my scars were gone. I shall always be grateful to Minister Atsushi for his kindness, and to Lord Sesshomaru for paying me wages, and never hitting me once in all my fifty-five years of serving him. I had heard from others that Lord Sesshomaru could be cruel, and I wondered why Minister Atsushi was sending me here after all I had been through. But I discovered for myself that if Lord Sesshomaru had any cruelty in him, it was mostly gone by the time I came here. I found him demanding, and hard on those who opposed him, but fair. I can barely express to you how happy I am to be working here. The only danger now is that if Naraku sees me and recognises me, he may try to reclaim me as a runaway slave."
Inuyasha could not help his tears, although she had told him not to cry for her. He turned around in his seat and looked into her face, saying fiercely: "One of these days I'm going to kill Naraku – then he will never again be able to do such things to anyone, and you need never fear seeing him, ever. If you'd told me this in the morning, I would have beaten him up in the throne room right in front of everyone! When I see him at dinner, I'm going to –"
"No, Your Highness," Natsumi said anxiously. "You must behave towards him as Lord Sesshomaru does. Everyone knows what Naraku is like, how dishonourable he is, and how he abuses his people – but behaving badly to him only excites him, when he sees that he's getting a rise out of you. Trust me with regard to that. I should know."
"But I can't just sit there and be polite to a monster like that!" Inuyasha protested.
"Yes, you can," Natsumi stressed. "Because you know that it only makes him happy to see others agitated in his presence. Be calm. Never show disgust or fear in his presence. Take your cue from Lord Sesshomaru. His Majesty knows best how to leave Naraku disappointed. Follow his lead. If you lose your temper and offend Naraku too publicly, he will lose face and it could strain the peace between lands. You are a prince – it will not be a quarrel between private individuals, but between two states."
"Bloody beast. I hope he starts a fight so that I'll have a good reason for bludgeoning him."
"While that would be nice, it would be very unlikely," Natsumi said, turning the prince around again in his seat and brushing his hair straight. "Naraku is usually too smooth a politician to display his anger openly."
"Well, one of these days he's going to make a wrong move, and then I'll get him."
"There are other ways to protect people besides using violence," Natsumi responded firmly. "This world sees more than enough violence. We could do with less of it."
"Sometimes, violence is the only thing some creatures understand."
"Perhaps. But that also means dealing with them on their terms, and not yours."
"Heh," Inuyasha huffed grimly. "How do you know that violence isn't the only thing I understand, and that I'd be doing it on my terms too?"
Natsumi shook her head and smiled. "Because I think I know you better than that, Your Highness. And I know you are better than that. Now lie down and get some rest. I will be at the other end of your room – I won't be in your way."
She returned to the couch behind a screen, giving her privacy while leaving Inuyasha to rest in his bed and think up ways to get at Naraku, the touch of whose tentacle he could still feel lingering like a bad memory on his flesh.
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The Tale of the Demon Lord