Sesshomaru

Inuyasha returned to his home as dusk was beginning to darken the sky. Kagome had already started the fire, but Inuyasha noticed she was no longer tending to it. She sat beside it with an odd expression—brows knit, but a slight smile on her lips. Inuyasha's eyes traveled down to the swell in her yukata, and the hand placed upon it.

"Kagome? Is everything alright?"

She turned her smile to him.

"Come here," she whispered. If he were human, he would never have caught the words. He cautiously walked up beside her, carefully sitting and laying the fish he had caught next to him. She grabbed his wrist and placed it against her belly. Inuyasha smiled. He knew exactly what he was doing as he felt the place under his hand shift. It felt awesome. He was happy that the child—his child—was so strong already. Although, as it moved it felt a little…

"It feels kinda weird," he commented, shaking his head.

Kagome chuckled slightly. "You should feel it from where I'm at."

After a few seconds more, the tiny being in her belly had stilled its movements, though Inuyasha could still hear the strong, quick heartbeat under Kagome's skin.

"He's settled down," Kagome commented, letting go of her husband's wrist.

"What makes you so sure it's a boy?"

"Just intuition. I mean, I was right about…"

Kagome's mind entered a dark place at the same time her husband's did. 'She was right about the last pregnancy,' Inuyasha thought. Kagome had been happy about this pregnancy from the beginning, though Inuyasha had been wary of getting too excited. He knew, probably a week after she had conceived, that they were rolling down that road again, but he had been so hesitant to tell her that. She had come to him at around six weeks, smiling, to tell him of her suspicions. Inuyasha had been supportive, and in truth, he was happy they would get a second chance, but the sting of that first lost pregnancy—the baby girl—was still fresh in his mind.

"So," Kagome began, "I was starting to think about names." She giggled a bit, "I should probably include you in on the decision."

"Yeah, probably," he mumbled before he was entirely dragged away from his thoughts. When he finally found himself in the present, her words clicked.

"Names? Already?"

"Of course," she raised a confused brow.

"The kid ain't even born yet and you want to name 'em?"

"Well, it's never too early to start planning," she said, shrugging.

"I don't know…" his mind began to drift to darker reasons of why, before his continued with; "We don't have a clue of what their personality will be like, so it feels sorta weird to name them beforehand."

Kagome blinked. "Oh, yeah. I forgot that was more common in these times."

Inuyasha threw her a puzzled look. "In your time, people just named the kids anything? I mean, they picked the names out before they were born?"

"Yeah, I guess you could put it that way. Some people name their kids with the hope they'd grow into those names."

"Hm…Alright. Well, I was given my name at birth, so I guess I can't judge."

"You were?"

Inuyasha stared off in a random direction, blushing. "Yeah. My…mother said dad took one look at my ears before deciding." He scowled slightly. He did not hate his name; it just had an unusual meaning.

"I think it's fitting."

Inuyasha looked back at his wife.

"What?"

"Your name," she paused, "It suits you."

Inuyasha raised a brow, needing her to elaborate.

"It means 'dog'—the first part—but it also means 'forest spirit' right?"

He nodded once.

"Well this—" she gestured in a random direction, "is your forest, technically. They've been calling it Inuyasha no Mori for decades now, and now that you protect the village from out here, they'll continue to call it that. Plus…" She blushed, "when I first found you, I wondered why a boy my age would just be alone in the woods like that. I thought that, maybe, you were a guardian spirit. Then, or course, I noticed your ears."

His ears twitched at their mention. He blushed, scoffed, and changed the subject.

"Well, so long as we don't name it something stupid, like…Sesshomaru, I'm pretty good."

Kagome's face scrunched up at the thought.

Inuyasha smirked at a memory suddenly.

"You know how Sesshomaru got his name?"

Kagome frowned. 'No. But you're more talkative than usual, so I guess I'm going to hear it anyways.'

Inuyasha fixed up the fish for cooking quickly, and began to tell the story.

"All this is from Myoga, of course. He showed up a few days after Sesshomaru was born, and stuck around, since the home of a new father is probably the safest place in the world. Sesshomaru didn't have a name at first. Apparently, he was just as creepy of a baby as he is now, and he hardly cried. So his mother left him alone a lot. One day, when he was a few months old, she took him outside, and left him in his cradle for a while for whatever reason, and one of servant kids was looking at him. Well, Myoga says they all heard some pretty horrible screaming, and when they got to Sesshomaru, the servant kid was already dead. And there was Sesshomaru, in his cradle just as quiet as can be, covered in the kid's blood."

Kagome's mouth hung open in horror.

"And to top it all off, that was the very first time Myoga had ever seen him smile. The old flea decided right then to stay as far away from him as possible. Myoga said our dad was pretty shocked, but his mom…she was proud of freak and gave him the name Sesshomaru, because of it."

"That's horrible!" Kagome squeaked.

Inuyasha shook his head. "Have you met the guy?"

Kagome shook the image of an evil baby Sesshomaru from her mind. "Yeah, well, at least he's made a lot of progress since then."

Inuyasha snorted. "Don't give him so much credit."

"He has! He rarely insults you anymore, and he's so good with Rin. He saved your life on a couple of occasions too."

Inuyasha growled. "I wish you would stop reminding me of that."

Kagome smiled. "Well, it's true."

Inuyasha grumbled something under his breath and checked the fish. It was not quite done. He could eat it raw and be just fine, his hanyou body would kill off any parasites on its own, but he was not going to chance it for his pregnant wife.

"So, about these names, we should probably go through male and female names just in case your intuition is wrong. Because, hell, you can't possibly know for sure."

Kagome nodded. "I was actually starting to think about both names as well. Just in case."

...

This story correlates with at least one of my Post Manga oneshots, if you're confused/interested, check them out. However, I tried to make sure this story could stand on its own.

Sesshomaru means well... It could mean a lot of things. It most directly translates to both "cruel" with the suffix "maru" for a man. Another direct translation would be a "circle of killing" or "destruction of life" But I think the meaning Takahashi said she prefers is "Killing blade" which doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, but I'll take it for what it's worth. Any of these translations/meanings seems like something pretty crazy to name your kid.

Back then, sometimes people would change their name given certain circumstances, like if a Samurai started working under a new Lord, or a certain achievement was attained then a man might change his name. Somehow, I don't feel like Sesshomaru picked his name out his own name. I just think it would be funny if one of his parents decided, "Yes, this name is perfect for my precious, chubby-cheeked baby boy...He's going to grow up to be a serial killer and make mama proud, I can just feel it":D

(Or when a woman left her father's household for her husband's, she might then be given a new name as well.)