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Come to Pass
The first thing Sesshô-maru knew about Rin was that she feared death. At such a young age, she had already witnessed more murders and tortures than most did, even during those unstable times, and had watched her parents die before her eyes. She had even died herself once; nothing in her memory was more vivid than the feel of her skin ripping as wolf claw struck and shredded, and even now she could recall the scent of her own blood burning her nostrils and the feel of her heart as it slowed and stilled.
But she also remembered the one who gave her life back, the demon who feared nothing and defied death itself.
Sesshô-maru remembered, too.
He remembered the call of Tenseiga from his hip and the wide eyes of a child, still innocent even in passing. He remembered his attempt to ignore both, remembered remembering her smile and the fish she'd cleaned for him, and remembered not wanting to remember.
All the same, he drew the blade, and in doing so, allowed Rin to defy death, too.
When she opened her eyes, she'd sat up and looked at him. She was pitiful then, Sesshô-maru recalled, a stereotypical human that clambered for a protection he would not give.
But then she saw the blood on the ground and cowered, and it was then that Sesshô-maru found out the first thing about her.
She feared a death that he had relieved her of, helped her to join the ranks of those who would live.
It was the first thing she knew about Sesshô-maru.
She'd smiled.
He'd frowned.
Both had felt fate's hand press binding bruises on their skins, ones that would tie them together always.
The die was cast, just as death was cast aside.
The first thing Sesshô-maru knew about Tenseiga was that he resented it. It was the sword he had vowed never to draw, and yet the same object that had commanded him to revive the girl that now stood at his side. Sesshô-maru did not care that the weapon had saved him hours before from his brother's newest technique, one he'd utilized along with the heirloom that should have been his. He bore no obligation to Tenseiga, after all, save for a familial one.
Rather, he did not want to bear an obligation because when Sesshô-maru was obliged to do something, he either begrudged it whole-heartedly or fulfilled it without hesitation.
When Tenseiga all but took control of his body and forced his hand to bring its blade down upon a human dead-but-not, it implicitly told him, "This is what you must do."
Rin was the result, as was the purple mark that bore down on his shoulder.
She was Tenseiga's gift to him, a white elephant he was required to care for. Should he let her wander off or skip into the lair of an especially ferocious forest demon, Tenseiga would wail in protest, like a father admonishing his disobedient son.
The sword had decided for him that Sesshô-maru was meant to protect Rin and, now that he thought about it rationally, probably was the force that caused the bruises in the first place.
Like it was heaven's blade, it was fate's assistant in making Sesshô-maru suffer.
And so the demon lord resented it.
The last thing Sesshô-maru expected was for Rin to want Kohaku. It wasn't so much of a romantic want; more than anything, she'd been bearing an invisible longing to find someone else, someone human, who could defy death too, and, when she saw the bruise on his skin, knew that he'd be right for her.
Sesshô-maru despised humans, and under normal circumstances would have despised Kohaku solely based on that fact. But Kohaku had taken away the girl he was obligated to watch over and kept him from fulfilling his duty to bend to fate's will (though he hated that more and more each day). He wound up developing a loathing for the slayer-killer-innocent anyway in the end.
It was his charge, though, that had reached out to Kohaku, remembered his name and held it in her battered but beating heart.
It was the same name that she called out one day as she let tears slip from her eyes, tears that called Sesshô-maru over to her because she is your duty and don't you dare forget that.
In a clearing, Rin stood, wailing over Kohaku's corpse, bathed in blood and shreds of the blackness that had been his uniform. A gash in his back was the source of the redness and of Rin's tears, because she feared death and there it was, right before her.
"Kohaku…" Fate curled its unforgiving fingers about her throat, choking her voice and her spirits, making pretty dark marks on her child-white skin.
"Rin…" The name glowed, like the shard of something lying between the boy and a bloodied kusarigama. Sesshô-maru recognized it by sight; it was a part of the Shikon Jewel, and it beat with energy like Kohaku's heart used to.
Something took control of Sesshô-maru's feet then. Though he resisted the call of Tenseiga and his fate as much as possible, they moved on their own accord, and the demon lord knew—just knew—that there was no stopping them. His hand stirred next, swooping down to catch the shard and place in Rin's hand.
He said nothing.
The shard was her white elephant.
Tenseiga cried and complained, and fate shook the die again.
The first time Sesshô-maru discovered the consequences for reviving Rin occurred when she was attacked by a hawk demon. It wasn't the fact that it had tried to kill her that had alerted him to the matter at hand; youkai attempted to slay Rin on occasion, typically because they were hungry and delirious and saw a prospective meal in her.
But this time, she bore a jewel shard, one that normally, Sesshô-maru would have never placed in her care.
She held on to it always because her beloved lord had given it to her, and she took satisfaction in the fact that she could protect something besides. Even as the hawk demon tore downward and slashed at her face, she kept a grip on it as tight as death.
As she fell, the demon struck again, this time on her arm, the same one that held the shard. Sesshô-maru, whipping around, drew Toukijin to cease its life.
Even Rin did not fear the termination of this creature.
She couldn't.
Not while marveling at the fact that she was still alive.
Even after she set her shard down to assess the damage, the slashes across her skin stitched themselves closed. Little evidence remained that they had been there, save for faint scars reminiscent of the stripes running down Sesshô-maru's form.
"What…" It was all she could say, with or without fate pressing down on her.
Tenseiga stilled, its job done long ago.
Sesshô-maru knelt, his figure blocking the blood of the hawk from the girl's sight.
"Rin… are you still afraid of death?"
The first time Sesshô-maru questioned Rin's role in his life was when she began to grow up.
Of course, Tenseiga bound her to her current body, like it had bound her to her master. She couldn't grow tall or become a physical adult, but her ideals about life matured and expanded. A flower opening up, a sack being filled with objects, a head absorbing itself in new subjects… this was what she had become, who she was continuing to be.
"Sesshô-maru." Long ago the honorific had been dropped. Eternity was no grounds for formality, she'd decided, much to Sesshô-maru's chagrin. "Do you think I will stay like this?"
"Most likely." His eyes closed. When something occurred that Sesshô-maru did not want, it was best to pretend that it did not exist.
"But why?" Time had not taken away her inquisitive nature.
"It is your destiny to remain here forever."
Shorts sentences pierced her ears like daggers. "Where is here?"
Silence ensued.
"Oh… I understand, Sesshô-maru."
Her question had been redundant, like everything else was becoming.
"Sesshô-maru."
He felt her look at him. The tilt of her chin as she peered up was at the same angle as it had always been and would continue to be since Tenseiga had deprived her of her fears.
His quiet was her invitation.
"What if I don't want to be here?"
Her voice was hysterical. His mind was amused. Rin, innocent, childish Rin, his Rin forever and always, was becoming a rebel. Against him. Against life. Against fate.
"It is what you must do."
"For you?"
Silence ensued.
This time, she didn't even vocalize her understanding.
The first time Sesshô-maru was concerned for Rin was when Toukijin broke and Tenseiga was molded into a weapon that could destroy. With a sweep of his arm, anything near the opening it created would be sent to the world of the dead, perish immediately and painfully.
Whenever he used it, Rin would look at the spectacle full on.
She was no longer afraid of death, he knew then. Not at all, not anymore, not his Rin.
He never let his thoughts show through, not even when he found her one day trying to stab herself with the sharp end of a rock. Blood had spurted from her hand, yes, but it had faded away into skin-toned nothing, and any wounds she had received sewed themselves shut and left only the faintest scar to show its once-presence.
He didn't express anything, even as she cried.
"My fate…" The teenager in a child's body wailed, unwilling to accept and move on alongside her lord.
"You must."
"No…"
"There is no choice."
She'd sniveled then, laughed sarcastically as though her entire dealings were one huge joke that would be over soon enough, if she could just wait that time out. Turning away, she whispered, "I know… and I resent it."
The last time Rin spoke was when she turned one hundred. Just as she'd been when she first stumbled upon him, she remained quiet; he no longer traveled with a girl, but with silence stalking him wherever he went. Years ago, Sesshô-maru had reveled in this; quiet was less edgy than noise, less distracting and bothersome, and the less Sesshô-maru had to do with irksome matters, the less likely it was that something would die at his hand.
But Rin's silence was different. It wasn't a state; it was a disease that hung like death over her aging spirit. He'd watched her rebellious ways settle some as she transcended into adulthood, a spectator to her calming and newfound serenity. There was a certain acceptance that came with maturity, one that eroded the ways of youth completely, and she seemed happy then, at least. But by her forties, the child-but-is-she began to slide down to a grave she would never reach. Her life's mountain was limitlessly high; there was no bottom for her to sink into.
And all throughout these years, through the silence and the sound, she still held onto that shard. The scars that crawled over her body were as numerous as the wrinkles in her still-fitting clothes, and yet she clutched the thing as though letting it go would mean having to go on without a purpose.
Like on that first day, she was pitiful, Sesshô-maru thought. It was disrespectful, just like her lack of an honorific for him.
How annoying.
Everyday he'd rumple his nose in her direction, at this girl who had given up on everything except a sliver of a jewel that wasn't even worth the false hope.
"It was Kohaku's," she explained to him on her hundredth birthday, and he understood.
She'd died then. Not in the literal sense of the word, of course, but as a person, she'd ceased being.
He couldn't help but wonder what happened to his Rin. Wasn't she supposed to be his always and forever?
Looking at her, clutching the jewel and murmuring wordless nothings as it glowed bright bright bright, he felt uncertain.
And then everything went white, and she resurrected herself from her mental grave only to have her immaculate skin torn up again. Sesshô-maru could feel fate put the die away.
The first time Sesshô-maru saw Rin dead was also the last time. He looked down at a girl with eyes as empty as her life and remembered her smile and the fish she'd cleaned for him. But to Sesshô-maru, memories were hollow because he would live forever and what was their use if that was his fate?
Tenseiga cried at his side, screaming to Sesshô-maru that he owed it for saving him and shouldn't he feel something for this pitiful human.
But that was all she was in the end.
Sesshô-maru bore no obligation to anyone, much less a girl he could never come to care for.
He stalked away from her, feeling righteousness and complete and utter wrongness wage war in his heart.
As they battled, the wind sighed in a happiness Rin's corpse couldn't express, in spite of the fact that she was afraid of both death and of life-death.
Overtime, Rin faded into the earth, just as the bruise on Sesshô-maru's shoulder faded into nothingness.
End fic. Reviews, particularly constructive ones, are wonderful; I'd really love to hear what you thought. Thank you for reading.