SquidgeWorld Archive

The strip of fine sand sparkled in the clear light of dawn, a curving expanse of gold and silver glitter unmarred by even the slightest trapping of civilization. The water was free of boats and buoys and no piers or pylons polluted the view. The night’s bounty of shells and driftwood lay undisturbed and would remain so until the turning tide washed them back out again. Gulls and pelicans screeched noisily, vying for stranded mollusks and snails. A large, sleek looking grey cat slunk from dune to dune intent on breakfast, another ginger coloured tabby sat smugly on a large piece of driftwood as she cleaned her whiskers.

Golden eyes, bright as the sun rising over the sea, watched the scene impassively. The ancient youkai stepped down from the deck of his abode onto the soft grass of Rin’s garden. She was long gone, but here in this place where she had lived out her final days, her spirit remained along with the wild and tangled riot of flowers she had collected and lovingly planted around the elegant cherrywood mansion. The cats were her doing as well. She had brought home one, a mangy female heavy with kittens, and now some twenty-five or thirty generations later, there were seven. Like the human child he had raised, they seemed to adore him no matter how cold or distant he was to them. He found a small measure of amusement in the irony of an ancient and powerful dog demon like himself sitting in a flower garden with his lap full of purring felines. His mother would have rolled in her grave if she could see him in such a pose. No one would see him though, not here.

He owned the entire beach and the steep mountains that blocked it from the surround areas including the road that was supposed to access it. The road he kept blocked with massive boulders and seeded with deadly traps. Humans were still the mindless sheep they had always been. Every so often they tried to access his lands in defiance of the paper treaties he held and the money he paid them to hold his lands. He destroyed their power lines, ripped out their water pipes, crushed their machines of destruction, and killed any human fool enough to be there when the sky blackened and his poisonous aura billowed across the land. He did the same for any boat or plane that marred his view. The deeper waters off the shore hid a graveyard of silent vessels and barnacle incrusted skeletons. The humans went away eventually, they always did. They learned to avoid places of death and go around. Sometimes the scholars or the warriors came seeking answers in their noxious vehicles with their flashing lights and earsplitting wails, or hikers intruding in the wooded hills with their garish tents and plastic bottles of water that were not half as pure as what filled his creeks from the deep artesian wells he had dug himself . He usually allowed a few of those to escape, to carry back tales of monsters and ghosts to the outside world. Then things would be quiet again for a time.

He walked down a nearly invisible trail until coarse grass merged into soft sand. His bare feet were silent as he walked into the wind. The strong ocean breeze whipped his knee length white hair back from a face that was still inhumanly beautiful. Time had not dared to change Sesshoumaru in the least. He still stood tall and slender and strong, surrounded by an aura of time and magic and power that even the most ungifted human could sense. The only differences between the man who walked along the line where the surf broke in the year two thousand and eight and the one who had walked the same stretch of beach in the year fifteen hundred and eight were those he had wrought himself. Magic use had faded away the marks of rank and caste that had once been his pride. The crescent moon and stripes were gone, bleached to the same pale white as his skin and his hair. The missing arm he had deliberately not replaced to remind him of his defeat from overconfidence had re-grown right down to the dagger sharp talons with their load of flesh melting venom. He did not pretend to be human as had many of the last youkai. His ears would always be elvishly pointed, his fangs visible when he bared them in a warning growl, and no contacts would ever cover his glittering gold pupils that were nearly as vertical in the bright light as the eyes of the cat twining around his ankle.

He stopped so suddenly the cat actually ran into his ankle and rolled himself end over end. It sat up and looked at him reproachfully. The look was cut short as a furious growl vibrated the air, cutting through the omnipresent sound of the surf. The cat aborted its look and shot away seeking cover in the less open area beyond the beach. The seabirds fell silent huddling warily heads turning constantly to find the danger. The demon lord dropped into a crouch, and stared balefully at the offender, a footprint in his sand on his beach.

It was a shoeprint to be more precise one with a crazy pattern of lines and circles on the sole, a tennis shoe. His eyes narrowed as he spotted another disturbance in the sand ahead of him. Someone had walked on his beach in the early morning light. The water had been higher then and the intruder had followed the course of the water just as he himself did almost every morning. That bothered him as much as the intrusion. He stood frowning down for a long moment then followed the intermittent trail. His fingertips tingled as poison glands responded to his anger with increased activity. He could catch no scent in the heavy salt air. That was disconcerting for a moment, but he did not need scent. His prey was not hiding its tracks and unless it had gone into the ocean or scaled the rocky cliffs it was ahead where the beach ended and a stony point of land jutted out into the sea sheltering his private kingdom.

His eyes caught sight of the intruder standing and staring out to sea. He was not paying attention to the to the demon closing on him. He wore jeans and a button up shirt open at the front. The material was bright red like the baseball hat crammed down on his head and flapped in the breeze. There was something familiar about the sight, something that tugged at ancient memories long relegated to the dark recesses of his mind, places he chose not to visit too often. It was too easy to find Rin in those places laughing and growing and playing in her eternal spring and Jaken bowing and begging for his attention. Others lurked there as well, shadows and ghosts less real than his ridiculous little menagerie, his father and mother, people he knew, people he had slain, people who had gone on and left him alone. One of those specters detached itself and flitted out into his awareness. Red flapping in the wind, like the interloper’s shirt, pale hair shorter than his but the same, eyes golden like his bigger more innocent but again the same.

His world suddenly froze. The anger faded away and with it his resolve to utterly destroy the being stupid enough to desecrate his territory. He exhaled with a low hiss and drew a slower deeper breath savoring the brine and sunshine and searching out a scent he only vaguely recalled one close enough to his to blend with it, get lost in it, especially in the modern world where he had no enemies, no prey, no anyone.

There it was. He closed his eyes for a long moment then they flicked open. Instinct told him that he stood now in one of those moments, the moments on which the universe itself turned. He had a choice to make. That choice would be like throwing a stone in a tidal pool, ripples would spread and the reflections break apart and change into something new, something different, or settle back into a forgotten pattern.

“Inuyasha,” he spoke softly letting the wind carry his voice.

The figure jumped and spun to face him, reaching for a sword that was not there. His father’s fangs were broken long ago in the time of Naraku when everything changed. The hand dropped back down to his side and a stubborn chin rose defiantly.

“Sesshoumaru, what do you want?”

“You’re standing on my property asking me what I want?”

Inuyasha sighed and dropped his head for a moment. “I’ll leave. I was just walking all night and this place was quiet.”

He tilted his head thoughtfully. This was a point in time, things were shifting but in what direction? Inuyasha was turning now and walking back the way he had come. He had to choose or the choice would be made for him. His half-brother was now beside him looking down at his feet as he walked past. His tennis shoes were worn out he noticed, frayed at the toes and heels. His hand shot out and latched onto Inuyasha’s wrist.

“Did I say leave?” Once the words would have been imperious, commanding, condescending, but now they were quiet and hollow, very much like himself.

“Eh?” The half-demon turned and looked at him in naked confusion then his face, so much like their father’s, hardened and his lips thinned. “I’m not going to fight you, forget it. Why are you even here? The rest of the youkai are gone, disappeared somewhere. I can’t find any trace of them.”

Sesshoumaru looked fully searching his face. “You do not know?”

“Know what? Just spit it out.”

He raised an eyebrow, some things apparently never changed. The hanyou was just as impatient and short tempered as he ever was, or perhaps that was his response to what he did not know. He had never considered in all his years that the mindless aggression that annoyed him so much might be a survival tactic to cover ignorance. Their father had died and left his human lover and his son to the winds of chance. He had watched them from a distance from time to time, but his anger, bitterness, and yes his own hurt had kept him from reaching out. The feeling he could not, would not acknowledge had coalesced into hatred and arrogance. He had his defenses and Inuyasha had his. His voice was gentle when he spoke, a voice no one but his bizarre little trio of a family had ever heard before a voice unheard in four hundred years.

“You will find no trace of other youkai, for they are dead. A few mononoke still exist, but they were already dead when it happened. I remain because I crossed the threshold of Hell itself and transcended mortality. You are still here because you were burned by the fires of Heaven, purified and tempered. Like me, you returned in defiance of the laws of order, returned for love. For our pathetically rash acts, we are still here when all we knew is gone.”

“When IT happened? What happened? Did it affect humans too?”

“The humans drained the magic from the land. I do not know how, but it occurred in an instant. The weaker youkai went first then even the strongest. They fell comatose and then faded away. Now we are only stories for children. As to the humans, I cannot be sure. Other than Rin, I never had any desire to communicate with them. I think they must have drained ALL magic though, including their own. There have been priests and shaman sent here to exorcise the evil spirits and I felt no true power in any of them, nor did they call on any spell or skill when I slaughtered them.”

“Kagome lost her power too, and her memory of everything that happened. She could still hear and see me, but it was like she could not hold on to any thought about me or the past, it just went away.”

“Someone or something wiped youkai from the world then covered their tracks. They might not know about you and I, or more likely they simply do not care. Who would we tell and who would listen if we did? If anyone actually knew what we are, it is unlikely they would feel more threat from some vague conspiracy theory than from a demon and a half-demon.”

“A perfect plan then, shit. Can it be undone?”

“Somehow I doubt there is a magic on-magic off switch hidden somewhere.”

He grunted acknowledging that the remark deserved a sarcastic answer. “You’re still holding my hand. People will think we’re family or something.”

The corner of his lip quirked up at the waspish comeback and he let go of the hand turning back toward his home. “Come.”

“Not because you say so.” Dark brows drew together stubbornly.

“Come because I ask you to do so.” He heard Inuyasha hesitate and felt eyes on his back. Then the sound of tennis shoes in the sand fell in behind him.

2

Sesshoumaru pondered the tennis shoes parked beside his door. His eyes narrowed as his frown deepened. He hated them, tennis shoes. They annoyed him. They were ugly, bulky, graceless. Boots were better, slippers were better, even bare feet were not as offensive. His hand itched to shred them or toss them into the fire. This particular pair of tennis shoes were the most hideous he had ever seen with thick souls and a blunt white plastic front. The tops were red and white and the laces thick and grey. His hand twitched but he held it still, a host did not go about destroying his guests’ footwear. It was impolite.

“How come you have electricity but no TV?”

“TV?” he gave Inuyasha a flat, blank stare he had perfected to agitate Jaken. It worked perfectly.

He let the Hanyou rattle on about the value of television and turned his attention to examining him more closely. A few weeks of plentiful food and rest had taken the haggard look from his face. They were almost back to the baby fat roundness that he remembered from the past. Some of the sadness had eased from his eyes. He was by turn restless and lazy, irritable and easy going, morose and cheerful. In other words, he was becoming the same moody, unpredictable man that had saved the world from the evil of Naraku centuries ago.

“Are you listening to me?”

“No,” he answered honestly.

“I asked why you were letting me stay here. You hate me.”

“Hate?” He dropped gracefully onto the couch beside him. “I hate your tennis shoes, television, cars, and those plug-in air fresheners. I stopped hating you the day we fought the third sword. On that mountain, in the instant the power of the fangs joined, the instant I realized against my will that I did fight to protect something, I stopped hating you and I forgave father. You never asked so I never told you that.”

He watched Inuyasha as he digested that bit of information. The way he lowered his head told him that he knew very well that his huge eyes hid very little from anyone who cared to read them. He reached out and rested a curled finger under his chin and tipped his head back up so he could see them. He felt so little now that the play of the Hanyou’s emotions was too fascinating to miss.

“Did you love dad? I never could tell and mama didn’t mention it when she talked about you.”

“Your mother spoke of me?”

“She told me about my brother. She warned me not to provoke you. She never thought you would actually kill me though. She thought that father was too hard on you, that someday we would be family. By the time she died, I knew she was wrong. She was a dreamer.”

“That is most likely what made her so attractive to father.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I do not know the answer. When I was a child, my mother was too self absorbed to care about anything or anyone. Father was my role model, everything a demon lord should be. He raised me to rule after him. I learned fighting, tactics, and all the aspects of command before I was old enough to take the rights of manhood. I was taught to be cold and calm in the heat of battle, to unleash my rage and my true form at the right moment to crush my enemies and inspire fear and awe in those around me.”

He was lost in the past now, sinking into that shadowy place as the glittering shards of his heart, soul, spirit, and mind surfaced to shine in the light of memory. He still held Inuyasha’s chin, though he had forgotten the fact and was unaware that his brother was staring at him intently.

“There were other lessons too, harder ones. Emotions that cannot be channeled for your use are weakness, mercy, love, compassion, hope, fear, remorse, guilt, pity. They must be eliminated, not just suppressed. Father taught me that himself with the flat of his sword and the back of his hand and I learned. I became exactly what he taught me to be. I became a merciless killing machine without conscience or compassion. I became a youkai who would some day be powerful enough and ruthless enough to challenge father and defeat him.”

“But then he fell in love with your mother. Her influence was small at first, a softening that could be hidden and excused from all but those who knew him best. Love is a strange thing, like a morning glory. It can start in the hardest ground, with little light or food, but once it starts it digs its hooks into the very stone of the wall and creeps up it finding the sun and the rain it needs. In the process of growing and flowering it tears apart the stone that supports it and becomes the support that holds the broken stone together. Together the vine and the stone are strong, perhaps even stronger than the wall alone, but separate them, rip the flower by root and by stem away from the stone and the morning glory withers and dies, and the weakened wall collapses. She changed him, changed everything about him.”

He sought to catch and hold the echoes of feelings long lost, but it was like trying to catch the rain in your open palm. The moment he felt them they were gone slipping through his fingers to fall away into darkness.

“And you?” Inuyasha nearly whispered as if he were afraid that he would break the spell of the tale.

That was actually not a bad idea. The old wounds were healed, dead scars left behind, if he cut too deeply into them he might open himself up, but what did that matter now in this unending, pointless life? He continued revealing what he had never told anyone before and never would again. He frowned as he focused inward once again.

“Me, what happened to me as his heart changed? Did he take me into his arms and shower me with the love I had never known? Did he speak my name with gentle reverence and respect? Did he apologize for wasting the time we might have spent together? No, he did not.”

“What he did do, was tell me he was wrong, that he had always been wrong, that everything I knew, everything I had been taught, everything that made up the foundation of my self was a lie. He tried to change me, and when I did not change he called me a monster. In the last days, I think he realized that the monster I am was a monster of his own making.”

“The rest you must surely know, your mother must have told you. He got her with child. The youkai army he commanded and the other great houses found out and his weakness was revealed to everyone. Her people snatched her away in the night and held her captive. They believed that he had in some way bewitched her and that if they terminated her child and kept her away from him their priests could free her. He learned this on the eve of his victory over one of his greatest foes, and without stopping to heal the poison wound in his side he went to her rescue. I asked him to give up his reign and pass the swords to me and he refused. He gave his life for you and her. His cronies grabbed the swords and hid them according to his wishes.”

“What happened after that, to you?” Inuyasha asked quietly. “Why did you suddenly decide to kill me?”

“I took his position and had to prove over and again that I was not weak or a puppet to be manipulated.”

“And when you were done proving it, you were standing alone in a pool of blood.”

“Something like that.”

“What threat was I to you or was it always just the damn sword you wanted?”

He gave his brother a puzzled look then dropped his chin sitting back and folding his hands in his lap, “threat?” He closed his eyes and considered it. “When you were a child I was drawn to you time and again. I do not know why, perhaps curiosity, perhaps I just needed something to focus my anger at father. He betrayed me and his people and then he died and stole from me the right to win my kingdom by strength and skill. I do not expect anyone else to understand that, the difference between being handed something and told to defend it and winning something because you deserve it.”

“Believe it or not, I do understand.”

He nodded once, “perhaps you do.”

“I saw you sometimes when I was a kid. Never up close though. I tried to chase you down and you were gone. I thought you were a ghost until I described you to mom. You could have killed me then.”

“Yes.”

“Or you could have- Ah fuck, never mind.”

“You still have a filthy mouth, hm? I could have reached out to you, been a brother?” He was not surprised when there was no response. “I watched you sometimes. You made me feel so many things I had thought were burned out of me. No one has ever made me lose my temper and make stupid mistakes the way that you do. No one else has ever made me stay my hand from the final kill after a battle. I have never turned away from a battle with anyone else either.”

“Why did you do that? Kagome said something in you was changing, she thought it was because of that kid that followed you around.”

“Rin.”

“Yeah, she was a pretty sweet kid, reminded me of Kagome kind of.”

“Did she change me or just reflect me so clearly that I could no longer deceive myself into believing the mask I wore?”

“What?”

“Nothing that matters anymore. I did reach out to you once and you did not come. The armies of the Cat Lord moved against me. We were outnumbered and overpowered. I called on every ally I could find, traded on favors, called in debts to me and to father. They were pathetic. Not one real warrior in the group. So I sent Jaken to find you.”

“Yeah, he said some weird shit about that once when we fought that undead cat. I didn’t know what he was talking about and he was pissing me off.”

“He found you sealed on the God Tree by your human lover. You made the same mistake as father. When he told me that, I came to kill you myself.”

“You came when I was sealed to the tree? I never knew that. Why didn’t you kill me then?” A chill washed over him and what little colour he did have in his pale skin faded to dead white.

He raised his right hand touching his lips as a memory he had savagely repressed returned with crystalline clarity. He had been so vulnerable pinned like that with the boughs of the tree twined around him, beautiful and fey and the face of an innocent child. They were alone with the cherry scented air and the heavy hum of insects. He wrapped his hand around his neck meaning to release his venom meaning to melt away that lovely face, but he had not done that. He had acted without thought, without evaluating the consequences, acted on impulse, a thing he never did. His lips remembered skin softer than sunlight, forbidden taste that burned through his blood stronger than rage. He turned and fled, running with all the speed he possessed until the world was silvery blur screaming past and he was flying, but he did not register at that time the learning of a new skill because he had crossed some dark and forbidden line in his soul and it was somehow the fault of his bastard half-brother, it had to be his fault.

“Sesshoumaru, what the hell is wrong, talk to me! Snap out of it!”

He drew in a sharp breath and jerked himself out of the recollection. Inuyasha was in his face shaking his shoulders. His hands were hot as coals. “What?”

“You were white as a fucking sheet and you weren’t breathing!”

“I don’t necessarily have to breathe.” Inuyasha was still in his face scowling darkly. His thick dark brows were pulled together tightly and his eyes were flashing. “You were worried about me?”

“I just don’t want to be- “

“Alone again,” he finished for him.

“Fuck you, asshole! I didn’t need you then and I don’t need you now. I’m fine alone.” He turned away abruptly ready to run the way he had always run.

“You were never alone then, your mother, that miko who came back undead, your idiot followers, your Kagome, you always had someone to stand beside you, to give you a reason to fight. Even when you were on the tree, I had the youkai of the forest watching over you. You were free, you could choose your company and choose your path. I had to take by fear and violence what was handed to you without conditions.”

He was surprised when Inuyasha turned to face him instead of stomping off. “It doesn’t matter now does it? Nothing we did then, nothing we said or felt. It’s just a fairy tale now.”

“It mattered. There are points in time that change everything. That time was one of those points. Imagine this world if Naraku had not been defeated and his evil had consumed everything.”

“Yeah, I have nightmares about that.” He sat back down heavily. “So where did your stripes and stuff go?”

3

The breakers crashed hard on the beach reaching well up into the grass and native plants. They hissed and boomed as loud as the thunder from the thick clouds piling up overhead. The grey water faded into the grey sky and the pouring rain erased any lines of distinction in between. The flung spray almost reached the garden wall where Sesshoumaru sat on top of the stone with his back against a support pillar. One leg was drawn up to his chest, the other stretched out. The loose white cotton pants he favored were soaked through and he was shirtless. All the cats except one glared balefully from under the deck as if he had personally called the storm. The last cat, an old, grizzled mackerel tom with the scars of many battles on his broad head was draped across the extended leg as indifferent to the weather as his benefactor. He watched the hypnotic rise and fall of the sea and the play of lightning from cloud to cloud and absently stroked the big cat.

“I’ve heard of the crazy cat lady, but that’s just too weird.” Inuyasha landed lightly on the wall in front of him.

“I forgot about your jumping.”

“Comes in handy.”

He shifted a little, the wall was wide enough for two, just barely and the support at his back cut a measure of the wind. Inuyasha took the invitation and slid in beside him. He was shockingly warm against his side.

“You’re cold as ice, how long have you been sitting here?”

“A while.”

“It’s like time doesn’t flow here. It’s so quiet, so isolated.”

“Bored?”

“Nah, just feeling a little strange I guess.” He reached over and tickled the cat’s ear. It deigned to open one faded green eye. “What’s his name?”

“I don’t name them. I just call them all Cat.”

He snorted, “lazy ass.”

“Is that the pot calling the kettle black?”

“Probably. Hey, can I ask you something strange?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you stay here? You could take any territory you like, even rule the world, no one would have the power to stop you anymore, except me.”

“I am content enough here.”

“How did you stand it all those years? I had friends and companions even if they did sooner or later grow old, but I had them while I could. You never had anyone after Rin and that little toad. How did you keep from going insane?”

“You actually think I’m sane?” The corners of his lips curled upward in amusement. “Rin and Jaken are still here, in the flowers and the trees and the streams, and in my memories.”

“Must be nice to be loved like that, I still don’t know how you came to have the girl.”

He looked up into the sky letting the sheeting rain run over his sharp features. “It started with the wound of the wind.” He told the story, then stepped back in time to the day Jaken laid his own noble titles down to follow him as his faithful servant.

“You and Rin, she was like your daughter? Everyone thought that you- uh- you know.”

“She was my child, not some human whore. No man touched her until she in time chose a lover of her own picking with my approval, one who understood that she wished to stay with me and if he wanted her, so would he. She had no heirs, those brought back by Tensaiga can never bear children. Had I heard any such rumour I would have slaughtered every filthy minded pervert who dared think it."

Inuyasha looked out on the dangerous sea thinking that it was a great deal like his brother powerful, dangerous, moody, and still beautiful and noble, a thing of nature, pure in so many ways but never to be taken for granted, He was absently petting the cat and it shifted suddenly causing his hand to stroke over Sesshoumaru's instead of wet fur. He caught it and lifted it between both of his. "You're fucking frozen, I bet you've been out here all night!"

"I am fine."

"Yeah right, get down off of here and inside before you catch something." His brows pulled together stubbornly.

"And what exactly am I going to catch?" Sesshoumaru sniffed, "I do not get sick and I am certainly not going to mold or mildew or something of the like."

"Yeah well, humour me," he jumped down from the wall dragging Sesshoumaru and an utterly outraged cat with him. The cat stalked away with his tale up and twitching in indignation. His brother he hauled behind him by the arm toward the mansion.

"Inuyasha, I am not amused."

"Get over it, Jackass." He yanked him through the door and into the kitchen. "Find us some food while I get some towels."

Sesshoumaru glared at him with the first flames of irritation shooting through the sluggish indifference that had held him numb and silent for years. He wrenched open the refridgerater and stared into the sterile brightly lit chamber as if it might grow something better than what it held, something to satisfy the awakening restlessness in him. When it just sat there looking the same as always he slammed it shut and opened the freezer instead. Ice cream, he liked ice cream, a lot. He poked through the containers of Pet and Hagendaaz and Ben and Jerry's until he found what he was looking for, chocolate oblivion. He growled under his breath as the air conditioning chilled his wet pants. He slogged the off and stood still a moment taking a long breath, then shook himself flinging water everywhere.

When Inuyasha returned, his brother was no where to be seen. He snorted in annoyance then threw his head back sniffing the air and seeking his aura. He found him in a large sunken tub up to his neck in steaming water eating chocolate ice cream from a carton with an antique silver spoon worth more than the whole ice cream factory. He stared in disbelief until he was noticed. The glare he finally got made his skin tingle and the hairs on the nape of his neck stand up.

"What?" The single word was low, menacing, both challenge and threat.

He tossed the towels aside and edged closer. "Your eyes are red."

The red eyes narrowed as he set the melting treat aside.

"You look angry." He tensed and backed up a little as the air thickened with demonic energy. "Sesshoumaru?"

Sesshoumaru smiled and Inuyasha jumped as his instinct screamed at him to run, but he was too late. His brother lunged from the hot tub striking him hard in the midsection and sending him sliding on the wet floor into the wall with a thud that promised bruises when the adrenaline wore off. He cursed and tried to get up only then realizing that he was pinned down. A long, lean, pale body crouched over his. Hands like iron vises held his wrists beside his head. He rested on the pads of his feet, long clawed toes digging carelessly into the hardwood floor. He could have kicked up or tried to knee him, but that would only make the full demon angrier and he was already growling.

He swallowed as he looked at the nude form seeing it for the first time without the hurt and jealousy he had nursed for so long. From the swordsman's arms to the six-pack abs, the body that entrapped him was built for fighting, hard muscled and sleek, graceful as a cat, made for endurance. His eyes drifted down to areas he had never seen before. He was not too surprised to find his half-brother semi-aroused. Fighting did the same thing to him. He looked up into the crimson eyes and for a moment he could believe they were hundreds of miles and hundreds of years away. He could hear Kagome's disgusted voice accusing them of being two of a kind, the kid, Rin's giggle that was not actually all that unpleasant if the truth be told.

Inuyasha smiled, "she was right, huh? Two of a kind." The tip of a tongue, still cold from the ice cream licked away a tear that pooled on his lower lashes.

"Two of a kind? The last two." The voice was silky smooth again, the eyes golden, eyes so much like his."