Author's Note: Big, huge thanks to grace for letting me know that I misspelled 'cowardice'. I swear I only made that mistake because I'd written something that ended in '-ess' before it and the sound is the same.

Title: Pack Mentality

Author: Reaper Nanashi (a.k.a. Lady Shinigami)

Type: One-shot (Complete)

Rating: T (for the presence of a bad word)

Word Count: 1,239

Date Submitted: 11/30/06

Disclaimer: My real name, for the record, is not Takahashi Rumiko. Nor does my real name, for that matter, have any Japanese links. That I know of.

Claimer: The concept of this fic is mine, as is the style it was written in. Whatever that is.

Summary: Sesshoumaru thinks about what could have possibly caused him to keep Rin and Jaken around and finds that he can't accept the answer.

The Reasoning Behind It: My sister and I were debating this concept after watching the second movie and I decided to kill two birds with one stone. So not only did I make a little fun of my favorite InuYasha character (aside from Ah-Un and Kirara), but I also discovered that I can write short one-shots, but only barely.

It was odd that Ah-Un had taken such a liking to her.

Of course, Ah-Un was unusually mild-mannered anyway, considering that it was a twin-headed thunder dragon. Even though she was a human, it seemed to be especially gentle with her because she was so young and small. Curiously enough, it did not behave this way with Jaken, who was even smaller than her. Perhaps Ah-Un's temperament came from its gender--whatever that was. He had never actually looked before because Ah-Un's gender did not have an effect on its usefulness to him. He had always referred to it as a 'he'--and Rin and Jaken had accepted that designation blindly--but only because he had never seen it lay eggs or go into heat before. For all he knew it was a juvenile empress, which would make it incapable of either but allow it to retain a mothering type of instinct toward young of any species.

Note to self: Find out Ah-Un's gender at next possible opportunity. Be discreet.

"Good night, Ah-Un," Rin chirped, stroking the large muzzled heads fearlessly as they leaned in toward her. Dancing away, she bowed to Jaken's curled form sleeping at the other side of the fire and said politely, "Good night, Master Jaken." She then moved between him and the fire, bowed to him, and offered him a "good night" as well.

He did not answer her--he never did--but he met her gaze, thus acknowledging her words, and returned the majority of his attention to the fire. With a happy murmur she lay down where she stood and drifted to sleep. He did not understand why the littlest thing he did or said to her pleased her so much; she had always been that way. All he had done was save her life and she had followed him all on her own after that. Yes, he kept her fed and clothed and her hair out of her face so she did not look like a feral child, but he certainly was not going to travel with an entourage that looked unkempt.

Damn it, she was shivering again.

Sighing inwardly, he reached out and grabbed the back of her little yukata, picking her up off the ground and settling her down against him. Humans were so disgustingly fragile; he would have to get her a coat and snow boots for the winter. She did not appear to care for footwear, but she was too small to maintain a good body temperature in extreme conditions and her legs would freeze off if she was not wearing something.

Not that he cared about what she did to herself.

". . . Lord Sesshoumaru?"

"Go to sleep, Rin."

". . . But . . . I have a question."

He barely refrained from rolling his eyes. She could be annoyingly persistent and the only way to stop it--without killing her--was to indulge her. "Very well. One question."

"Why do you fight with your brother?"

It was one of the most inane and personal questions she had ever asked . . . and he had no idea how to answer without telling her his life story, which would take months to explain if he had actually been the slightest bit interested in sharing it. Finally, he told her, "Because he embodies everything that I hate."

She processed that in her inexperienced mind, clearly did not understand in the least, then said, "Oh. Well, I was out picking mushrooms yesterday and saw two male wolves fighting. It reminded me of you and your brother, that's all."

"Go to sleep," he commanded, annoyed at the implication that she had made. She was accusing him of fighting with InuYasha simply because they were both uncut males? Oh please. Perhaps InuYasha would give in to such an immature, animalistic behavior, but there was no way that he himself was that uncouth.

"Yes, My Lord," was the obedient response. She cuddled up to his tail, using it as both a pillow and something to hug, and stroked it until she was asleep again. He had never told her that it was his tail and considered doing so, but he was sure one of two things would happen. Either she would be mortified and never touch it again, the best scenario, or she would be absolutely fascinated and hold onto it all the time, the worst and most likely scenario.

He could just imagine how he would look with some seven-year-old trailing behind him with her hand tangled in his tail fur, so he decided to not tell her. Between the choices, he much preferred her occasionally holding two of his fingers and swinging his arm back and forth while they walked to her fondling his tail for hours on end.

A hushed rustle drew his attention to the forest. He considered the noise briefly, extended two fingers so that the poison whip snaked quickly across the grass and into the trees, and ended up dragging back a large rabbit. He left the corpse lying near the fire so that it could be breakfast for whoever woke up and skinned it. He was fine himself, but both Rin and Jaken were smaller, metabolized faster, and thus needed food more often.

Why, he wondered as he gazed vacantly into the fire, was he protecting them like this? He had no need for . . . followers. He had tamed Ah-Un for the strength it possessed, but neither Rin nor Jaken were particularly useful to him. While Ah-Un needed care, the care was minimal and nothing he was not willing to do when the occasion called for it, like bathing and brushing and feeding. He could hunt for himself if he got hungry and covered greater distances far faster when he was alone. Really, he would do better to get rid of both of them and go on with Ah-Un. It was the memory of his father's voice, however, that stopped him.

"You do quite well on your own, Sesshoumaru, but you cannot keep yourself company. The more intelligent one is, the more one needs others to communicate with to maintain a sound mind. It is the pack mentality--something you were born with and cannot get away from. Without regular interactions, you will grow dull and foolish. I know you prefer solitude, but do not allow yourself to decay in such a useless and wasteful manner. Form a pack, even just a small one, and draw strength from it."

Sesshoumaru was highly tempted to list that as another idealistic part of his father, but the longer he thought about it, the more it started to make sense. He did prefer having Rin and Jaken around; they amused him, if nothing else. Rin's strange, intrusive questions and Jaken's inherent clumsiness and cowardice forced him to think more quickly and more thoroughly; he had almost completely stopped wasting time with unnecessary fights. He did not need them, but they were--when he thought about it--relatively useful.

Yawning delicately, he finally settled for the night as well, his ears tuned for the slightest unusual sound. He draped his arm over Rin--his sleeve would help her stay warm because he did not cuddle with anyone--and let his eyes drift closed.

Their usefulness was the reason he kept them around; he did not require a pack.

Did not require one at all.

Fin

Answers To Questions You Didn't Even Know You Wanted To Ask:

I base the Rin-sleeping-on-Sesshoumaru's-tail thing on the fact that I have read in several locations that in an interview, Rumiko Takahashi has said that the fuzzy-boa-thing is his tail. There are inconsistencies to this, such as the fact that in his dog form he has a semi-ruff in the same place, but I like the idea because so far it's the only one I've heard that, currently, makes any kind of sense (I seriously doubt that he would stoop to wearing another creature's skin and considering his relationship with both his parents during the manga/anime/movies, it's not the pelt or part of the pelt of either of them).

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I am assuming that Sesshoumaru's poison whip must do actual cutting damage to truly poison something (i.e., slice open the skin to allow the poison to seep into the bloodstream) as well as assuming that he has enough skill with such a whip (or he should, considering his age) to use it like a prehensile tail. So in this case he simply broke the rabbit's neck with the whip and did not need to poison it, so it would be safe for Jaken or Rin to eat as long as they didn't lick the rabbit's neck fur.

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Reviews are always greatly appreciated, thank you.

--RN (LS)