Accountable

An InuYasha fanfiction

By Amber C.S.

Author's Note: The character of Kaede the Second is (c) K. Melchior and used with permission. Thanks for the rpg's, K-chan!

This has been a really fun project, and some of the interactions have deep personal significance to me. I'm sorry to say it's over with this chapter, but I hope everyone has enjoyed reading!

10: Epilogue--Full Circle.

Five years after the events of Chapter 9.

Sesshomaru comes upon her around seven in the morning, as he rises from bed early in anticipation of Rin's delivery date for her very first child. It has taken several more years than Rin and Kohaku anticipated to conceive a child, but they have finally done so, and the day of meeting their new baby is upon them. Sesshomaru maintains stoic calm, the center of the storm as ever, the anchor for them both.

On the inside, Sesshomaru the mighty is absolutely terror-stricken.

As are all men of all ages, eras, classes, and races, at a woman in childbirth.

But anyway.

He comes upon the child with the name that he had predicted as that of the next child he would love as much as he loves Rin, on this very day.

Kaede the Second.

It is the first time they have ever been in close proximity to each other—mainly because Inuyasha has been reluctant to allow his occasionally cold-hearted, homicidal brother around his offspring. In part, also, because, though he has maintained admirable civility with his younger sibling, Sesshomaru is still far too different from Inuyasha to be around him more than a day at a time without a quarrel erupting. Still…Inuyasha has proven an excellent father. Something else Sesshomaru keeps to himself, but sincerely feels, is pride in his little half-brother's parenting skills.

The child called Kaede has been furnished by one of the dojo servants with a chamber off of Sesshomaru's war strategy conference room. He is mildly amused at the location, but says nothing, as he watches Inuyasha's daughter and second-born, one Kaede, work on her calligraphy.

Her hair is just like his hair, and his brother's on any time but a new moon—long, silken strands of silver-white, with undiscerning bangs hanging over warm chocolate-gold eyes the color of her mother Kagome's.

Her ears are like her uncle's—small and pointed at the tip.

Sesshomaru is glad for the child that she does not have her father's ridiculous white dog ears.

Then he is surprised at himself for being happy on the child's behalf.

But there is something about Kaede that draws Sesshomaru towards her. The recognition of a compatible soul. That is the only way he can describe it, even to himself. It seems the time has come again for him to protect, and be accountable for, someone.

He stands in the doorway of the modest writing room off of his meeting hall for some time, silently brooding at the little girl, his waterfall of luminescent hair stirred by the occasional draft through the palace.

Kaede gives no indication that she recognizes his presence.

At least an hour passes before a tiny, thin, colorless voice emitting from the child states, "Uncle Sesshomaru-sama is making this Kaede-chan nervous by staring over her shoulder."

Sesshomaru catches himself smiling instantaneously, and flattens his features. As the years have passed, his relentless effort at stoicism has gradually decreased. "I see. Unfortunate. Then I shall join you." He proceeds into the room soundlessly.

"Arigato, milord."

"There is no need." He seats himself across from her, and continues to observe her.

"…Sessho-ojisama, there is little difference between staring over my shoulder and at my face. I still feel as though I am a fish in a bowl." The child's pointed ears redden. She stops painting words and images on her scroll, and sits there as though rendered immobile.

And oh, Sesshomaru knows how it is. How it is to be her. The eyes that fear to meet anyone else's. The sentiments that are kept tirelessly at bay. The automatism that feels safe. "Gomen, honored niece," he rumbles, and actually means it.

Kaede the Second's eyes lift from their self-mulling depths, and rise to the level of his nose. Not to Sesshomaru's own eyes. Not for an instant. "It is alright. It is not my place to chastise my greatly honored uncle."

"Your manners are impeccable," he comments. He brushes hair out of the path of his double-magenta-streaked cheek. "What is it you are painting?"

The child speaks with un-childlike precision and crispness. "I am painting honored cousin Rin-chan. I am painting her because she is wonderful, and has done many things that I wish to do." She sniffs, rubbing her miniscule nose and getting ink on it.

"Hai, that she is. And that she has." Paternal instinct, which seems to never go away once it has awakened, sparks inside Sesshomaru. He reaches unthinkingly to correct the smudge.

But he has forgotten, now, how it was for him before, for so many years—how much he had recoiled from, feared, the caring touch of any other living thing.

For Kaede, that struggle has just begun.

And so the reaching is a mistake.

Kaede's hooded, blank eyes spark to frightened life. She jerks back from the touch, by some self-containing instinct. At this sudden jolt of startled energy, the table jitters and the bottle of ink spills all over the painting, Kaede, and Sesshomaru.

Sesshomaru gazes thoughtfully down at the black on his outrageously expensive kimono. "Hoh," he grunts, realizing many things at once.

Kaede meanwhile stuffs her hands into her mouth and makes a strangled noise. She rocks back and forth, whimpering, clammy and pale.

A mistake, an imperfection—unforgivable, somehow, to the child.

Sesshomaru feels like he is watching himself through a glass into the past. Himself, as a little hanyou girl.

"No no no no," Kaede is mumbling, while rocking.

Sesshomaru does not reach for the child again at first. He shifts weight, stands, and moves the empty ink bottle and messed upon scroll out of the way. He disregards the black mess on the floor and on himself. He kneels again directly beside Kaede, against her, giving her body his warmth, but not smothering her. Then he waits.

The child's rocking slows down quite slowly.

"It is alright," Sesshomaru murmurs. "I know. I know."

Kaede's eyes are jeweled with tears as she looks at his hands, folded serenely in his lap. Hands that have slain thousands. Powerful, graceful hands. "Nnn.. no.."

"Hai, I do. Kaede. Let us be stronger for it by trying again." Sesshomaru's Poison Claw ribbon of venom charges up electrically in his right forefinger. "I shall paint something."

"How?" the child hiccups, still gazing desolately at his hands.

Sesshomaru does not answer, but begins to use his venom whip to etch a crude drawing of a large, flop-eared dog into the dried black ink. "Hoh, dreadful. But I tried. I resemble a rabbit instead of an inu daiyoukai, do I not?"

Kaede blinks. She leans closer to Sesshomaru, and the ruined paper. "Is that you?"

"No, but it is supposed to be. However, owing to my poor artistic skills, this Sesshomaru is now apparently Uncle Rabbit-Sama."

The child's lips tremble upward. "…Honored Uncle Rabbit-Sama..."

"Hai? What is it?"

"No, no, I was only correcting you. For you are greatly honored, uncle. Papa and mama tell me that you are and that I am to treat you as such."

"Hoh, I see. Arigato." Sesshomaru notices that the child has begun to lean against him. At last her tiny silvery head descends on his drawing arm.

"Hai," she breathes.

"It is alright," he says what he has always wished someone had told him, when he was small. "Kaede, it is alright. To be just as you are. It is alright. It is only a little harder, to know when to smile, and laugh, and notice others. But it is alright. And it is alright to make mistakes. As long as you also continue to have a purpose."

"…Hai. I…think I understand."

They sit there like that for another prolonged period, the Lord of the Western Lands seated with impeccable posture, chin proudly yet contemplatively jutted, the child leaning against his arm. Sesshomaru is content with long silences, and always has been. He feels that he has known this child all his life. He has indeed found a new charge to protect. He continues to have a great purpose of his own.

That is when Jaken comes screeching down the corridor and into the room. He trips over his Western High Minister's robes, which are entirely too large and shiny for him. "BABY! BABY COMING! HELP! CANNOT…BREATHE!"

"If you cannot breathe, how is it that you can shriek so?" Sesshomaru snarls, rising quickly to his feet. He begins to walk towards the hysterical toad youkai when he senses an unusual weight on the end of his mokomoko.

He turns to investigate.

His brother's daughter is hanging on by all four limbs to the furry extension of his body. Kaede blushes when he raises an eyebrow at her.

"I am not a cab," he remarks.

"I want to be with Uncle Rabbit-Sama," the child mumbles into his tailfur. "I want to be with him. He understands Kaede-chan. He knows."

Sesshomaru almost feels as though he has been flung back in time and is speaking to his daughter—to his Rin, who right now, an adult woman, is in child-labor. A strange bubble of warmth births in the center of his chest and spreads to the rest of his body. Contentment. A reason. "Hold on tight," he rumbles, turning back to face, and follow, the gesticulating Jaken.

The birthing room sequestered for women only has been furnished months in advance. It is only down the corridor from Sesshomaru's master bedroom.

"Wait here," he snaps at Jaken, who, terrified of all things feminine, readily complies.

Kohaku, the loving and concerned husband of Rin, has stumbled up behind Jaken. "Time…it's time!" he endearingly gasps the obvious at the inu daiyoukai. "Can't…can't go in…! Will she be alright? It…birth…! It's a risky process, Sesshomaru-sama!"

Sesshomaru plops a hand down on Kohaku's shoulder. "Steady," he thunders. "You are a man now."

"But will she be alright?!"

Sesshomaru blinks. "Hnh. An excellent question. I shall find out."

And then he strides right into the inner sanctum of the birthing chamber.

Kaede the Elder, ancient but still living, younger sister of Kikyo, is already in there, the selected midwife for the process.

Near her, several maidservants of the House of Inu squeal in alarm and scatter away from the reclined figure of Rin, mumbling things like, "Sesshomaru-sama," and "oh, honored lord..!"

Sesshomaru sees none of them—he sees only Rin.

Rin's legs are straddled under a thick white blanket. She is rocking and heaving, her thick black hair a mess, her face pinched, sweaty and red-cheeked, while Kaede the Elder feels the swell of her belly for the state of the baby.

"Good," the old woman mutters. "Good, thy child has turned and is ready to be born, Lady Rin." She turns and squints at Sesshomaru. "This is a room for women only, great dog demon."

Sesshomaru pauses in his path.

But then Rin opens her tearful honey eyes, and looks right into his face from her place on the birthing futon. She bites her lip against a yelp of pain, and then she says, "Papa…!" and reaches.

Reaches for him.

And the Lord of the Western Lands makes up his mind. "I won't be in your way," he rumbles, with the faintest trace of a threat in his voice, at Kaede.

The old miko smirks knowingly to herself. "I see," she says. "Then get thee over here."

But Sesshomaru has already taken his spot behind Rin, sliding her up to a sitting position. "Rin, I am here," he declares. How natural that phrase has become to him.

The hanyou girl whimpers and seizes both his hands in her own, squeezing so hard that her nails dig into his skin. Her battle begins, then, with her guardian firmly placed behind her. His presence makes her brave.

Very little time passes before there is a sweet wailing sound, that of a new life, swaddled in Kaede's arms. The maidservants who have helped all embrace each other and cry, and laugh.

"It is a girl," Kaede the Elder declares, her own good eye shining.

"A girl," murmurs a smaller voice. Sesshomaru realizes that it is coming from his niece, who is still latched onto his mokomoko. At her voice, and at this call to rejoice, Sesshomaru allows himself to smile fairly broadly.

He attempts to smooth his expression when Rin, crying and laughing as well, takes the cleaned-off baby girl into her arms and looks up at him, and says, "I did it! Here she is!"

"Hai," he replies, his chin resting on her forehead, something in his powerful iron chest exploding. For once he is not frustrated at his inability to put feelings into words. For there are no words that can adequately describe this moment, anyway.

"Kohaku! Everybody!" Rin cries at the doorway. "Come in! Come in and see!"

In trails a mob of loving family members. Kohaku, who flings himself down next to Rin, and holds her, and fawns over the baby; Inuyasha and Kagome; Kohaku's sister Sango; Sango's husband Miroku; and Jaken, who is fanning himself and looking faint. They take their seats in a circle around the mother, father, child, and the guardian behind the three, supporting them.

After Kohaku has held the baby and kissed her tiny perfect forehead, and touched her tiny pointed ears, and kissed her tiny freckles, he exchanges a look with Rin. Both nod at the same time.

"Sesshomaru-sama," Kohaku then ventures, "would you like to hold honored grand-daughter?"

And for the first time in his life, an expression crosses Sesshomaru's face that no one has ever seen before: Bashfulness.

He bumbles over his words. "Ano….watashi…er…"

"He's scared of it," Inuyasha jeers good-naturedly.

That does it. "I am not afraid of it," Sesshomaru retorts, with a pompous fluff of the mokomoko. "Give it here," he adds, nodding airily at Kohaku. "This Sesshomaru has been quite impatient to hold it."

Rin covers her mouth to hide a grin. Rin always knows.

Sesshomaru holds the baby out at arm's length, cupping her head with one hand and bracing her torso with the other. He wrinkles his nose. "It is small. Smaller than you, Rin. And it smells quite peculiar."

Inuyasha bawls a laugh.

Kagome punches him in the arm with one hand, and dabs at her moist eyes with a tissue with the other. "Osuwari," she mumbles, out of long-standing habit.

Rin emits her silvery giggle. "Papa-sama, that's to be expected from an infant. Do you like your honored grand-daughter, then?"

"Need you ask?" Carefully the Lord of the Western Lands draws the kicking bundle close. "This Sesshomaru quite adores the Smaller One." He sniffs haughtily. "Behold, all, the Heiress of the Inu Clan."

"Hai!" the collected company of old days cries in unison, acknowledging the beautiful new life.

Rin tries for her crafty look, which, as always before, comes across as cutely puckish. She leans back against Sesshomaru, sweat and all, secure that her disheveled state will not disgust him. After all, what she has accomplished is a great and daunting task, and no one admires strength of purpose more than Sesshomaru-sama does. "If Papa-sama does not put his smile back on, this Rin-chan will demonstrate to everyone present where Papa-sama's ticklish spots are, on his honored tummy and under his honored armpits. For I know these grave secrets." She cocks her head at him.

Sesshomaru raises one eyebrow a second time. "My daughter is a merciless combatant in battle," he comments, with the faintest attempt at a mortified expression. And then a smile, small and mellow, very much like comparing a breeze to everyone else's grinning hurricane wind, surfaces on his face. "Better?"

"Much," the hanyou girl chirps, scooting down lower in his arms. "Give back my baby, Papa."

The daiyoukai's eyes slip to the window strategically over Rin's head. His smile fades into a pout. "Just a moment…I have only just taken her. You shall have her all day."

"And all night," Kohaku murmurs ruefully, but he is grinning more broadly and crookedly than anyone, as a tiny fist seizes his finger.

"Papa-samaaaa," Rin fairly sings, looking radiant at Sesshomaru's evident devotion. "Kohaku and I would be more than happy for you to look after her, to take turns at night when she cries."

"Very willing," her husband adds, nodding his messy brown head. He chuckles. "Her grip is strong like her mother's!"

"But she has her father's freckles," Rin comments, leaning forward to kiss her husband. When she withdraws, she curls around and faces Sesshomaru and opens her arms expectantly. "Come now, big loving guard dog-sama. I have worked hard for this reward."

"Oh, very well. I am not ticklish, by the way," Sesshomaru comments, carefully and gently relinquishing the infant.

"I think we should test that claim," Inuyasha smirks, crackling his fingers and knuckles.

"I think you should shove it," Sesshomaru retorts, scowling. And crackling his fingers and knuckles right back.

"I think you should MAKE me."

"I think you should SIT," Kagome hisses at her husband, wedging in between the sibling banter. "And I think that is the most beautiful baby girl I've seen since my Kaede."

"HOH," Sesshomaru guffaws. "Otouto-san's oksaama is like my Rin. Marvelous."

"Yeah, yeah, and you're a neutered mutt," grumbles the little brother, partially pacified by his wife. "A big tame PUPPY."

"Inuyasha, shut up. And come with me." Sesshomaru abruptly stands. Rin and Kohaku blink at him, suddenly devoid of their big fluffy armchair.

"What, are we gonna fight?" The tail-wagging eagerness is unmistakable in Inuyasha's tone. The two have resorted to such harmless, ritualistic battles, almost as immaterial as play-fighting, in the previous several years.

"No, I am too stiff from sitting behind Rin these past hours. We are going to talk."

Inuyasha looks like a kid bereft of his lollipop. "Keh, fine. About?"

"Your daughter. Come with me. Rin, if you need anything, call for me. As always." And Sesshomaru quite literally flows out of the birthing chamber.

"My DAUGHTER?" Inuyasha blares, in hot pursuit.

"Is she still stuck to mokomoko?" Sesshomaru glances over his shoulder, and down.

"What?!"

"No, that is good. She must still be in the birthing room with the others. Then we may speak candidly of her."

"Sesshomaru, how come I never know what yer talkin' about?"

"Because you are stupid."

"….I'm just gonna let that pass."

"Oh, good for you, Inuyasha. I am so proud of you." Sesshomaru is actually smirking. Rin doesn't need to blackmail him with tickle threats for this smile to surface.

Inuyasha attempts to aim every fiber of irritation in his being at his big brother in one constipated-looking glare. "So, the POINT?"

Sesshomaru deliberately pauses as long as he can before Inuyasha's face impatiently turns the hue of a ripe beet. Then, quite calmly and pleasantly, he begins, "There is something I have been meaning to give back to you. And yet, I feel now, it is more appropriate that I should give it to your daughter." He folds his hands inside the trailing sleeves of his kimono.

Inuyasha cocks his head like a curious kitten. "…The hell did you ever borrow from ME?"

"Observe." Sesshomaru steps inside his private chambers, surprisingly sparsely adorned considering his vast wealth and power, and opens the drawer of a plain cherrywood desk by his futon. There are many strange and inexplicable objects inside that desk.

But Inuyasha recognizes the fan their father had made for his mother, impeccably preserved, the instant Sesshomaru draws it from the desk drawer and opens it.

The younger dog demon has to sharply turn his face from the desk, still in the threshold of Sesshomaru's room, to compose himself. His eyes are stinging fiercely. He swallows, but his voice is still thick when he says, "Oh. That."

Sesshomaru's eyes are on Inuyasha, keenly scrutinizing him. "There is no shame in your emotion. Do not turn from me like some coward afraid of a witness to his tears." He assumes that pedagogical, lecturing tone that has always bizarrely characterized his dealings with his little brother. "Really, Inuyasha, you must learn to let others in."

"Look who's talkin'! An' I'm not all upset!" Inuyasha loudly sniffs, and turns, jaw jutting, to glare at Sesshomaru, with distinctly bloodshot eyes. "An' STOP teachin' at me, fer cryin' out loud, it's SO annoying, Stoneface-sama! Lord…Lord Anal-Retentive!"

The Lord of the Western Lands bows his head, and vaguely smiles. "Ah, a good parry. If slightly juvenile. But, if you ask around, this Sesshomaru has been amending his thoughts on the matter of stoicism, and feelings, and personal attachments, the past several years. On how easy, or hard, it can be, to show all these things to others. Which brings me to your daughter—you can give this to her for me, can you not?"

"COURSE I can! Jeez. Even a 'halfbreed mutt' knows how ta fetch and retrieve!" Inuyasha grabs the fan from Sesshomaru, and once it's in his grasp he fingers it. "You…really kept it well. Thought ya'd ripped it apart like…ten years ago."

"It somehow never seemed a suitable fate for the thing." Sesshomaru's face is as inscrutable as ever. He clears his throat.

Inuyasha has long since given up trying to read intention or heart in his brother's face. However, though he'd be loathe to admit it, he knows there is more of the latter under the surface than he had realized. He feels Sesshomaru's awkwardness at this impasse, even though he can't see it. "…Gotcha. Hey, Sesshomaru…?"

"Oh hells. I know that tone. 'Hoy, Sessh-oni-sama, how does one perform a heron stance?' 'Hoy, Sessh-oni-sama, does someone die if you stick them in the belly with your sword?' 'Hoy, Sessh-oni-sama, is it a bad idea to piss against the direction of the breeze on a cold day'…?"

"Knock it off!" Inuyasha's jaw juts farther. "Don't worry, I won't ask stupid questions for TOO long a period…"

"Hoh. Right, otouto-san."

"I'm gonna ignore yer facetious tone."

"You do that."

"ANY-way, have you ever noticed the irony of this whole setup? That yer just like father n' me? A powerful demon…hey are you listening? UWAH."

"Of course I am listening, how can one ignore such bellowing?" Sesshomaru rolls his eyes, which had been averted to the birthing room while Inuyasha spoke. "I am only distracted by my concern for Rin's needs--"

"EXACTLY!" Inuyasha points the fan at his brother, poking him in the chest. He grins at Sesshomaru's ruffled grunt as he continues, "You made a big fancy home for Rin to stay, to be safe and taken care of, while yer off doin' your aristocrat-warrior stuff. Conquering lands and all. Yer a demon who wants to take care of a human girl. How's that different from what I did for Kagome, or from what dad did for my mom…?"

Sesshomaru's eyes tighten, and he thinks for a fleeting instant to strike his brother for comparing his beautiful daughter to that Izayoi, that woman who still causes his chest to hurt, for the changes she and his father unwelcomingly brought about.

But he is trying to let go. To let go of all that, now. Slowly. "It had…occurred to me. Something to protect. Someone for whom to be accountable."

"Yeah. Bingo….Gomen…I mean, sorry, I didn't mean to…y'know…I mean I know even this was …hard…" Inuaysha brandishes the fan awkwardly.

"There is no need. We are simply not looking over our shoulders anymore, but forward. Come then, and let us return to the topic of your daughter."

"Kay. Talk."

"You find it troubling, do you not? Relating to her."

Inuyasha's jaw grinds. "…Yeah." He closes the fan, and sticks it in his belt. "She doesn't look at anyone. She doesn't smile or laugh. Or do anything…spontaneous. Touch makes her squeamish…any touch. And mistakes. It's not that she's depressed or somethin'. It's like she can't show how she feels, period. She's like a…she's…I dunno. It scares…er, Kagome."

"It is not so hard as it seems. This Sesshomaru has felt what Kaede-chan feels. I have a proposal. Send her Wednesdays to have tea with me. I shall labor to help her understand what is expected of her, by others who can smile and laugh and do spontaneous things, as you have said."

"…Are you serious?"

"Most of the time, yes."

"No, I didn't m...wow. Yeah, ya just proved it." Inuyasha chuckles, wiping his face tiredly with his hand.

"So what is your answer to my proposal?"

"…What would you say if I asked you to send Rin to have tea with me every Wednesday?"

"I would gladly concede, but I would also tell you that if you caused her any pain, even for an instant, I would rip all your limbs off your body and then eat the trunk that was left, after salting it and dragging it across Japan, from coast to coast."

"Yep. That about covers my answer."

"Very well. Might I expect Kaede-chan tomorrow for tea, then?"

"Hai, honored Looord Sesshomaru." Inuyasha adopts a gently taunting air of pomposity. "At four eww'clawck shahhhp, with bissscuits."

"Nani? Oh, ancestors. Arigato, bastard idiot."

"Keh heh, you're welcome, shit-face. Guess I should be thankin' you, after all, for helping me understand my daughter. For helping her."

"It is alright, Inuyasha. Really, fool, do you not know? It is only my purpose, after all. Now, go lick a toilet bowl…and be safe. I am tired of constantly saving your ass."

And Sesshomaru turns to go. Sesshomaru is always the one to end these conversations, always has been, with a rude sort of benediction—but this time there is something different about it. Something kinder, and more tolerant.

A long pause.

Inuyasha watches his big brother gliding back into Rin's birthing chamber to check on her.

When Sesshomaru's back is to the younger dog demon, Inuyasha smiles at him in a way that completely lacks malice. He thinks on the increasingly permanent fixture of his older sibling in his family's life. He is slightly awed at the fact that he is glad for that development.

There is something weirdly comforting about having Sesshomaru around. The select few who have really known him, and become his allies, whether tenuous or firm that bond, all feel it. A sense of safety, when Sesshomaru is looming around somewhere in the vicinity, keeping watch over them. A true guardian, who once scoffed aloofly at the concept of protecting anyone.

Inuyasha puts his hand on the fan of his mother, and the smile grows. "Well, I'll be damned," he mumbles, as summation of everything he was just now thinking about.

Back in the birthing room, Rin and Kohaku look up together and smile at their guardian's return. "Papa-sama," Rin trills, "Kagome-chan and I were just talking about how all this must be what 'coming full-circle' means."

"I almost agree," Sesshomaru rumbles as he kneels next to her. He glances round the room. "But one thing must be done to complete this circle. Kaede-chan?"

"Hai, Honored Uncle Rabbit-sama?" The child's timid voice breathes from directly behind him. He turns to find her again embedded in mokomoko.

The company collectively blinks in confusion.

"Uncle what?" Miroku mumbles to Sango, who shrugs. Poor Jaken looks further perturbed, dabbing at his brow with a handkerchief and shaking his green old head.

Kagome giggles at the pair of stoic silver-haired dog demons, one adult, one child, despite having no idea of the name's origin. "That's so sweet," she coos.

"It is an inside joke," Sesshomaru factually explains. "At any rate." He cranes his neck to look at his niece. "Your father will be bestowing a gift upon you from me, which comes from your grandmother."

"You mean mama's mother?"

"No. Your father's mother."

Kagome gasps.

Silence falls over the room, but Kaede, only five, seems to miss the significance of this supremely generous peace offering. She nods and ruffles around in mokomoko. "Arigato," she murmurs, with a seated bow.

"And this Sesshomaru has a job for you. Well, first, a question."

"What is that, honored uncle?"

"Kaede, do you have someone to protect?"

The child cocks her head.

"Someone for whom you are accountable, Kaede?"

"…I do not know, honored uncle."

"You will now. When I am away, it is your duty to look after your younger cousin, this Smaller One in Rin's arms."

Kaede cocks her little silver head at the gurgling infant bundle. She emerges from the furry white mound of mokomoko for a closer look. She dares to gaze at the baby's eyes, and turns pink with pleasure when the so-called Smaller One coos and reaches for her hand. "I will do as honored uncle asks," she says.

Sesshomaru nods. "Yours is an honored task indeed. Good. It is now that the circle is complete." He looks around the room at all the astounded, and touched, faces. He sees Jaken's bewildered loyalty, Kagome-san's radiant pleasure, Sango-san's and the houshi-sama's dawning understanding. He sees, returning through the doorway, Inuyasha's quiet awe and, yes, a growing mutual note of respect. He sees Kohaku's worshipful, teary, freckled smile, the face of a man worthy of his daughter. He sees Kaede's birthing self, a precious, tiny smile that he will make it his duty to elicit, Wednesday after Wednesday to come.

And he looks for his anchor.

He finds the face of Rin.

Joy.

Compassion.

Purpose.

She smiles at him and mouths, "I love you, papa."

Sesshomaru nods once, clearly, emphatically, back. His face is blank. But he bridles his chest and straightens his back and folds his arms, chin high.

He assumes his eternal position, of protector, with pride.