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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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XXXIV: Protective Devices
Sesshomaru and Inuyasha were given separate, adjacent rooms for the night. Half their own guards stood in the corridor, and the other half joined Kagura's security staff outside the house.
"The mushrooms will keep, you know," Sesshomaru said, when he stepped into Inuyasha's room and saw his brother worrying unhappily at the knot which secured the parcel of edible fungi.
"Oh, I know," Inuyasha replied uninterestedly.
"What's wrong?" Sesshomaru asked, entering the room and putting his arms round the boy.
Inuyasha at once felt ungrateful for sulking over what was probably nothing, when Sesshomaru had gone out of his way to take him on this outing, which had for the most part been very enjoyable.
"Nothing's wrong," he lied. "Maybe it's just that I'm not used to this house, and Kagura looks so much like Naraku."
"She does. But as I said before, a person's character will colour every way in which you perceive him or her. Kagura is a good demon. She is very mischievous, is unquestionably vicious when you raise her ire, and can be sharp with people, but she is honourable and good at heart in a way that her father could never be."
"I know. I can tell."
"So rest easy under her roof. Her house has the highest security in this town, thanks to her living under the constant threat of being assassinated by her own family. This place may even be better guarded than Minister Atsushi's house, but don't tell him that."
Inuyasha smiled and received a kiss from Sesshomaru.
"Go to bed now," the demon lord said to his brother. "I will sit up with Kagura for a while – you won't want to be bored by all the old topics we will be discussing."
The demon lord left the room then, closing the door behind him.
Inuyasha could not sleep. It felt like the night he had tossed and turned in Sesshomaru's bed while waiting for him to come upstairs from the event hall. This was the same night all over again, with a female Naraku ready to seduce his brother this time – that is, if the seduction had not already taken place long ago, going by the way they seemed to know and trust each other implicitly.
The similarity between the two occasions grew even stronger and made Inuyasha feel even worse when he lay down for a sleepless hour before getting up and wandering restlessly around his room, and finally out to the small balcony onto which his bedroom opened. It was carefully walled on its sides and double-screened as the rest of the house was, but once he moved past the inner blinds, he had a surprisingly good view of the exterior through the slats of the outer blinds.
The balcony overlooked a small but very elegant back garden with high walls that were well guarded. Security was clearly not an issue here – but that was the last thing on Inuyasha's mind when he looked down into the garden and saw his brother and Kagura strolling through it in the night like a pair of old lovers.
Sesshomaru had said before that he had considered Naraku's physical form attractive until the spider demon's character coloured his view of him. So that meant he surely found Kagura very attractive – a female version of the spider lord, without any of his disgusting personality traits.
"If Kanna's mirror left a shard or two behind," Kagura was saying. "You would be able to sniff them out – they have the same aura and scent as Naraku himself."
"We have detected nothing despite combing the entire castle – no scent and no aura," Sesshomaru said.
"Then perhaps the shards have flown off – they can shrink and grow and move of their own accord, you know, or under remote orders from Kanna – which would ultimately be Naraku's orders, of course. They can even grow into an entire mirror demon � but you wouldn�t miss that!"
"We shall continue to be on alert, and so must you. The shards may be on their way over here."
"I know better than most how to deal with my sister's tricks. To be fair to her, she never does anything of this sort without being ordered to by our father. We'll all keep a sharp lookout for anything out of the ordinary. Now, about your brother – you should have told me how cute he was," Kagura said playfully to Sesshomaru. She was still barefooted, the way Inuyasha himself preferred to be, except that he now had to dress properly as the prince of the castle.
"Why? So that you could make plans to seduce him?" Sesshomaru asked.
"Well, if he would have me…" Kagura began cheekily, before rapping the broad lacquered side of her fan against Sesshomaru's chest. "Oh, don't look at me like that! I know better than to try – I can see how you look at him."
"Can you, now? I did not realise that I had become so transparent. I must work on hiding my feelings better."
"Why would you want to do that? I would show off such a beautiful partner."
"For his safety, Kagura," Sesshomaru replied. "It is not always good to tell the world how much you treasure someone, if it only invites your enemies to work harder to take that someone away from you."
Although their exchange was emphasising how much Sesshomaru cared for him, it stung Inuyasha that his brother had spoken Kagura's name so gently – he suddenly realised how Sesshomaru almost never used anyone's name when conversing with them. It was as if most people were beneath acknowledgement, except when he was addressing them in a hostile manner as he did Naraku, or when he was fond of the person and considered him his equal, as Inuyasha believed he did with regard to himself.
So Kagura was worthy of such intimacy?
"What is your brother's official status in relation to you, Sesshomaru?" Kagura asked in her naturally sultry voice. "Would it be… breaking some kind of etiquette if I were to suggest picking up where we last left off?"
She rested an elegant, petite hand on Sesshomaru's arm and looked up at him out of her thickly lashed, ruby-hued eyes.
Sesshomaru seemed to consider her offer for more seconds than Inuyasha thought necessary, before saying: "Thank you for your very kind and inviting suggestion – it is not unwelcome to me, but I must turn it down. I know you won't hold it against me, as I am very certain that you have numerous playmates who would amuse you better than I would."
"I won't hold it against you, as you know very well," Kagura said graciously, and far more good-humouredly than Inuyasha himself would have done had he been in her place. "But none of my 'playmates' are quite like you, Sesshomaru."
"I will accept that as a compliment."
"I suppose this new restraint of yours has a lot to do with the way you couldn't keep your eyes off him."
"We are finding our way with each other; I would not damage that for all the world."
"Oh well, another time, perhaps."
"Perhaps."
That "perhaps" infuriated Inuyasha. What was Sesshomaru saying? That he would sleep with Kagura on some other occasion? Maybe when he had grown tired of Inuyasha and was ready to resume his "recreational" activities with all his other lovers? Or at the first possible opportunity when Inuyasha wasn't under the same roof as them? Or…
Inuyasha suddenly pulled his raging, runaway thoughts up short when he realised that he had no substantial, iron-clad basis for feeling this way. After all, he was Sesshomaru's brother and the prince of this land – but beyond that? What was he to his brother besides a brother? What official status did he have as Sesshomaru's partner? None. He was not a mate or a consort, not even the equivalent of a high-born concubine from another royal house.
He had had a cryptic verbal exchange with his brother over lunch in which they seemed to have chosen each other as partners, and they had later declared each other a chosen companion in private. He knew that Sesshomaru now regarded him as his mate; but that was not the same as telling the world that one had taken a mate.
He was a prince, and the demon lord's brother, but as far as his partnership with Sesshomaru was concerned, he was officially nobody. Kagura had certainly not overstepped any boundaries, for there were apparently none.
He stood there for a while more as Sesshomaru and Kagura went on to discuss other matters, mostly concerning what Inuyasha had overheard Kanna's mirror saying in the forest patch, and when she would set off on more of her travels again for business and pleasure. The conversation ended with Kagura declaring that it was high time she got some rest and untied the miserable Mamoru, whom she casually described as "still strung up by his balls in my bedroom."
"What, may I ask, did you do to make that idiot more of an idiot than before?" Sesshomaru asked curiously.
"You did not just ask for my trade secrets!" Kagura affected shock and horror.
"I only wanted to know if you used magic on him."
"Magic? Of course not, Sesshomaru. You know me better than that. What fun is there in using magic spells on someone when it means that their responses to you are not genuine?"
"Then what have you done to him?"
"You are still asking for my trade secrets!" she said, smiling. "Surely you don't want me to go out of business!"
"You have many trades other than that of taming demons – one open secret won't ruin you."
"I can give you one hint: generous doses of feminine charm laced with strong evidence of a bitchy temper, a lot of psychological harshness layered with a little kindness, and plenty of minor physical punishment paired with a small amount of affection can take you very, very far."
Then they went indoors and disappeared from Inuyasha's view.
The half-demon returned to his room and closed the doors to the balcony behind him. He lay down in his bed, expecting that Sesshomaru would come in to check on him, just as he had the other night, and possibly stay with him. That would make up for a lot of what he had heard this evening.
But his brother did not come into his room. With wounded feelings, he listened as the door of the room next door opened and closed, and that was it. After some time he shut his eyes and slept. Before he knew it, it was morning, and Sesshomaru had not been with him at all. The injury was quite complete.
They did not stay for breakfast, although Kagura invited them to. Inuyasha now wondered why they had even needed to stay the night, considering that the castle gates were merely two miles from the edge of the town.
After thanking their hostess for her hospitality, and catching one more inadvertent glimpse of the unfortunate yet infatuated Mamoru scurrying around naked, trying his best to scrub the floor of a small room on his hands and knees with his wrists bound to his ankles, they left Kagura's house and set off for the castle.
~ - ~
Sesshomaru knew better than to try to talk to Inuyasha on their two-mile walk to the castle. The vibes emanating from the half-demon's spirit, and the look on his face, suggested that he would explode spectacularly in front of all the guards and every person they passed if Sesshomaru said one wrong word.
The demon lord also knew better than to suggest that he and Inuyasha should fly back to the castle while the guards took the road, because his brother did not look at all as if he would be amenable to being clasped in his arms and carried through the air in front of everyone.
So when they reached their home and finally stepped through the front door of the castle building, Sesshomaru watched with increasing concern as Inuyasha put on a cheerful face while distributing his presents to Kazuki, Natsumi, Jaken and to Satoshi to give out to the children, then waited till he was back inside the royal wing to stomp down the corridor to his own room and shut the door firmly after him.
Sesshomaru could not believe that he actually felt some trepidation and needed to draw a deep breath before knocking on the door and entering Inuyasha's room. How much had he allowed this one boy to affect and change him? Was it good for either of them?
"All right – what is wrong now?"
"You say that as if I give you trouble all the time."
"You can hardly deny that my life has been turned upside down since I brought you home."
"So why don't you just get rid of me?" Inuyasha snapped.
"Why would I want to do that?"
"So that you can go back to your precious Kagura, and 'perhaps' take her up on her very generous offer to pick up where you last left off!" Inuyasha snarled. "You didn't even come into my room once after you left her!"
"It seems that you hear many things which are not intended for your ears," Sesshomaru remarked quietly.
"Bloody good job I heard that, or I might have deluded myself into believing that you would only want me. But of course you don't. You're a king. Kings have their mates and their concubines and consorts and pleasure slaves and the gods only know how many mistresses outside their castles, and I'd be an idiot to imagine that things would be any different with you just because you've been nice to me."
Sesshomaru, starting to grow exasperated, threw him a response: "Do I not show you how much I care for you? Have I not just spent an entire day and night indulging your desire to see new places? Would I do that for anyone else in the whole world? Inuyasha, I did not go into your room last night because you had just told me not so many hours before that that you needed your space and your privacy! Why are you upset about this? Have I not honoured you above all others in every way?"
"Oh, so it's 'honouring' me now and there will be a bunch of others after this, will there?" Inuyasha shot back.
Sesshomaru took a moment to consider the matter. He had fully intended to remain faithful to Inuyasha from the second he decided that he truly cared for him, and he was now in the process of making preparations to take him as a first mate. But demons have very long lives, and this demon lord could not honestly assure himself or his brother that he would never take another companion for as long as he lived. He had decided that he would no longer use his bath and chamber servants for pleasure, and he planned to hold himself to that. However, other companions of a rank appropriate to him – such as Kagura and Tsubasa – were a different matter. How could he make a promise to have no other when he was a king with an entire kingdom at his disposal, and faced with numerous temptations from countless inviting or politically attractive sources?
More importantly, their inu-demon clan believed strongly in having children born through natural means, not by magic. So Inuyasha would never bear him any heirs. At some point, he would have to take a female mate who could secure his line with strong children. He might not love such a mate, but she would probably be a necessary element in his future. Surely the boy realised that?
Inuyasha would always be his dearest one, his first choice, his first mate, the companion of his heart. But the only one?
The boy had to know that would be highly unlikely.
While he was thinking all those thoughts, Inuyasha was wrapping up the amulets he had bought for the village children and putting them away in a cabinet where they would be safe and undisturbed until he was ready to either take them with him on his next visit to the village, or send them off along with a freshly written letter to Kikyo and Kaede – for the letter he had begun on previously and not finished had disappeared – he guessed that it had probably been destroyed or blown away by the wind during Naraku's assault on Natsumi.
"Inuyasha," Sesshomaru said, not entirely sure of what words he would follow that one, precious name with.
"What?" Inuyasha snapped, straightening up after finding an empty space in the low, lacquered cabinet to put his amulet packages in.
"I have taken Kagura to bed a number of times over the years. She is a loyal ally and makes entertaining company – when she can be trusted to remain in one place for more than a day. But if you heard us last night, I turned her down this time. I told her 'perhaps' purely out of politeness, and not because I meant to follow through. I would never insult you by taking another companion into my bed without your consent. I would never pressure you for such consent either. I have promised you that I would do my best not to use our servants and visitors indiscriminately for my pleasure, and I intend to keep that promise. But at some point in our future, I shall require a female mate to bear me children. Do you understand that?"
Inuyasha was very quiet for a while, fingering an invisible spot on the glossy surface of the cabinet top. He was thinking of how peculiar almost all of Naraku's magical children had turned out to be, and how he assuredly did not want Sesshomaru or himself to have to create any weird offspring through magic. He also thought of how he and Sesshomaru would not be here at all if his father had not taken one demon female as his first mate, and one human female as his next. The late demon lord would have had no descendants without those two females. History – and his family – did not relate whether his father had ever had any male lovers.
"I suppose I do," he murmured softly, realising that it would be selfish of him to expect Sesshomaru never to mate with a female and have offspring of his own. Except that somewhere at the back of his mind he had hoped that there would be some other way…
Sesshomaru stepped over to the cabinet, right up behind Inuyasha, and took him into his arms. "Would it help if I were to tell you that I have no intention whatsoever of taking any such female for at least a thousand years more? And by that time, you will probably be –"
"Dead," Inuyasha interjected flatly.
Sesshomaru sighed heavily and continued: "I was going to say that by that time, you would probably be so weary of me that you would be off somewhere ruling your favourite province and sleeping with a troupe of female concubines and telling me to 'fuck off forever' or whatever it is you like to say when you're furious with me."
"I'll still probably be dead. Half-demons don't live as long as full demons."
"They do when they are sired by great demons as mighty as our father was. You will live a long and happy life, my little brother, and you will be as powerful as you choose to be. I won't allow it to be otherwise."
"You can't have everything your way, you know," Inuyasha said quietly.
"I know. But I will move heaven and earth to have my way and will not back down until heaven, earth and hell convince me that I cannot."
"And even then you'd tear heaven, earth and hell asunder and try again."
"I would."
Inuyasha mulled over his words for some time before murmuring: "I suppose we can revisit this issue in a thousand years." The first note of lightness was stealing back into his voice after an entire morning of gloom.
"Even after a thousand years, you will still be my first and foremost chosen companion, my primary mate, and I will still be yours – I have no plans to permit that to change, ever. No one will take your place."
"If you insist… control freak," he answered, giving his first genuine grin of the day.
A sharp smack to his backside informed him he had just crossed the control freak's line.
~ - ~
"You didn't!" Inuyasha gasped.
"I did," Sesshomaru replied.
The prince was staring at the toy set he had been so fascinated by in town. Sesshomaru had sent someone out to buy it and have it delivered to the castle by the early afternoon.
"I told you I wouldn't know what to do with it!" Inuyasha said, but his eyes were shining and he was already starting to play with some of the wheeled carts, sending them speeding and spinning around the track.
"How about… just playing with it until you are so utterly bored with it that you decide to toss the entire thing out of the window when you are next angry with me?"
"Ha."
He was delighted with the toys, however, and had to be pried away from them when Sesshomaru decided that it was time to meet Totosai in the field and do some training with their swords.
Feeling very satisfied with himself and with his thoughtfulness, Sesshomaru thoroughly enjoyed the training, which went on for hours until Inuyasha could hardly lift his arm to swing his Tetsusaiga. He looked much more cheerful now, and did not seem to be sulking any more over possibly having to share him with some unknown female a very, very long way into the future.
But the demon lord's smugness was completely shattered when they stepped into the grand hallway after their training, and the chief administrator hurried up to them to report that a messenger had just delivered a gift from Lord Naraku to Prince Inuyasha.
Sesshomaru immediately feared a trap or poison, picturing rabid centipedes with poisonous fangs shooting out of the elaborate box. He ordered that his security staff trained in magical defence should examine the item at once. They were in fact already doing so with great care, and it was soon pronounced safe by all of them.
So the beautifully embroidered box with Inuyasha's name inscribed on an elegant wood-and-gold inset was placed on a table in the hallway. After Sesshomaru and Totosai themselves had inspected the box and found nothing untoward about it, Inuyasha was allowed to approach his gift and raise the lid, the inside of which bore an inscription: We were destined for each other. But it was what rested in the silk lining the base of the box that made everyone gasp.
"Oh my!" Totosai exclaimed in a gravelly burst of interest. "That's very fine – very fine indeed."
For Totosai, the great craftsman and artist, to say that something was fine, it had to be impressive.
It certainly was, as Sesshomaru was obliged to acknowledge, when Inuyasha lifted from the box a stunningly beautiful golden necklace of multiple lace-like strands with an elaborately worked, sapphire-accented amulet pendant shaped like a treasure cask suspended from them. It was the kind of filigree jewellery that only the cleverest spider fingers could create. The lacy strands were elegant, yet entirely suitable for a powerful male to wear, for when overlaid against one another, they gave the appearance of fine chain mail, and were very strong.
"The amulet seems to be genuinely protective, my lord," explained the security captain whose speciality was magical weapons and defence. "There is no trap in it that any of us can discern. It appears in fact to be a beneficial gift to His Highness."
"It is the kind of gift that royal spider demons give to those they want to woo, though I've never seen one as fine as this," Totosai observed. "I remember, because there was this spider-demon duchess I knew from long before Onigumo's time… oh, but I suppose that's another thing you wouldn't be interested in."
"Well, I don't want it," Inuyasha said abruptly, putting the amulet and necklace back in the box. "Please return it to Naraku."
But it was an exceedingly fine item, and Sesshomaru himself could hardly help admiring its breathtaking construction and proportions, neither could he help noticing that Inuyasha was, albeit reluctantly, impressed by its splendour and by the grandness of such a valuable gift.
"It isn't polite to return such items," Totosai murmured. "They're not like engagement gifts which should be sent back if one party changes his or her mind – these are gifts meant to be kept, whether one accepts the suitor or not. Items like the one before you are intended purely as a message of the suitor's sincerity."
"Whatever," Inuyasha muttered, his cheeks turning slightly pink – which made him look even more beautiful than usual – when he suddenly realised that Naraku had just made a very public declaration of not giving up on the hope of having him as a consort. "I still don't want it."
"Then it will be kept in the treasury, out of your sight," Sesshomaru told him quickly, gesturing to the chief administrator to shut the box and remove it from the hallway. The demon lord knew something of such spider customs, and grudgingly had to agree that such a gift was not supposed to be sent back to its giver, regardless of the recipient's answer.
And suddenly Sesshomaru was not satisfied – not satisfied at all – with the platitudes and shallow assurances and childish toys he had given Inuyasha earlier. He should instead have given him wholehearted promises, declarations of undying devotion and a thousand gold rings.
Because he wanted so much more for him, and to be so much more to him.
In the blink of an eye, most unexpectedly, one thousand years of faithfulness now looked miserably inadequate.
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The Tale of the Demon Lord