Categories > Anime/Manga > Inuyasha > Being Sesshoumaru, Being Human
Chapter 4
Sesshoumaru pushed the heavy curtain over Kaede’s door out of the way and staggered into the hut, depositing an armful of firewood against the door and let out a long groan before straightening up and rubbing his lower back. This whole lacking in strength thing was starting to get old. Humans were shockingly weak -- even relatively strong ones like Masuyo, Sesshoumaru’s human form. Really, he couldn’t decide which was worse, the loss of strength or the loss of his (former) killer youkai senses. He had lost count of the number of times people had been able to sneak up on him because he couldn’t hear them or smell them in advance. It annoyed him. Actually, it more than annoyed him, considering that the last time someone had snuck up on him said person had a very sharp sword in his hands, and could have killed Sesshoumaru. For the first time, Sesshoumaru had actually feared for his own life.
“Thank you, Masuyo,” Kaede said from across the hut, pulling him back to the present. He just nodded to her and turned to leave again. There were more chores to be done, and he wanted to finish before night fell. Wandering around in the middle the forest (Inuyasha’s Forest, at that) was probably not a good idea on a cold, dark night at this time of year. As a youkai Sesshoumaru could have easily survived a snowy night outside without even a fire to ward of the cold. Now, though…well, Masuyo wasn’t so hardy. Nor was Masuyo all that effective when fighting youkai, but it wasn’t like Sesshoumaru had a choice. He had to keep living in this body until he found a way to break free. And like it or not, the last of his day’s chores was venturing into the forest to weed out any youkai who had gotten too near since the previous evening. Time to get started. Sesshoumaru gathered his sword and headed out.
He had been wandering in the forest for just over an hour when he finally arrived at the Bone Eater’s Well, having seen and heard nothing out of the ordinary. Sesshoumaru raked his free hand back through his hair and sighed (he did that a lot lately) and frowned at the Well. It just sat there, doing nothing, as usual. Sesshoumaru took one final glance around, then gave in to his desire to rest his aching body and have some time to himself. He walked over to the Well and settled down beside it, carefully leaning back and letting out a small hiss as his muscles protested their new position. He let his head fall back against the Well and closed his eyes, breathing deeply and doing his best to ignore the cold air around him.
His peaceful rest was rather abruptly interrupted by the sound of a loud thud from somewhere behind him, followed by a string of words he didn’t know but that had the tone of distinctly wicked and very dirty curses. There was silence for a moment, then another curse, more silence, another curse…another loud thud, this time followed by what sounded like a wail. Sesshoumaru finally pushed himself away from the Well and looked around. There was nothing here…which meant that the sounds had to be coming from inside the Well. He stood and stared at the Well, took a step towards it, and was just about to carefully lean over the edge for a look inside when a small, pale hand appeared at the Well’s edge, gripping the rim hard enough to turn the knuckles white. A second hand appeared, followed shortly by a head full of long brown hair and a pair of huge brown eyes, which at the moment were filled with determination as the person who owned them struggled to get over the edge of the well. Finally, with one last great surge of effort, the person scrambled over the edge of the Well and fell in a heap on the ground beside where Sesshoumaru had just been sitting. He studied the human for a moment, dark eyes taking in the strange clothes and unusual features. It was a woman -- that much he figured out almost instantly. But it was a much heavier woman than he was used to seeing. She was quite pale, and her features were different from anything he had seen before. She obviously wasn’t a local, that much was certain, But then, where was she from? Kagome’s time, perhaps -- this Well was, after all, how Kagome and Inuyasha managed to travel between time periods. But this woman and her clothes looked very different from Kagome and the things she wore. Perhaps they were from different times? Finally, the woman caught her breath and worked her way into a sitting position, leaning back against the Well. She raised her eyes and looked around, finally noticing Sesshoumaru. Her eyes started at his feet, traveling from there up his legs and torso to his face, and she gasped a bit.
“Please don’t hurt me, I didn’t do anything,” she blurted.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Theresa looked around and rubbed the back of her neck. How was it that she had fallen into that well and managed to not injure herself? Surely she should at least have some nasty bruises right now, maybe even a few broken bones…but there was nothing. It was like she hadn’t fallen at all. But there was something wrong. The air around her was freezing, much colder than it had been when she had fallen. A quick glance up also revealed that, somehow, the shed sheltering the well had vanished, for Theresa could see the cloud-filled sky overhead. Okay. Time to find her way out of the well.
The sides of the well appeared to be covered in vines. Standing, Theresa looked around for the wall with the best footholds and thickest vine growth, then grabbed hold of some vines and attempted to haul herself up a bit. She had managed to get perhaps three feet up the wall when she lost her grip and fell back down, landing hard on her bottom. Unfortunately, the ground was uneven and rocky, and that made her fall rather painful. So painful, in fact, that she let out a string of foul language that would have embarrassed even the most foul-mouthed of people before climbing once more to her feet and gingerly rubbing her rear end. Throwing a glare at the vines and rocks that had failed to provide an easy way out of the well, she began her second attempt. Theresa made it quite a bit farther this time, nearly falling again when her foot slipped from the rock she had stepped on. That elicited another curse from her, but she continued struggling up the well’s wall.
Why, oh why did I not work harder in gym class when we had to climb those stupid nets? And when we had to do chin-ups? Why couldn’t I have put more effort into my strength training regimen before now?
A second slip and cursing streak later, she had finally made it to the top. She grabbed the rim of the well with one hand, steadied herself, reached up with the second hand, and proceeded to haul, kick, and scramble her way over the edge, where she promptly collapsed on the ground in an exhausted heap. Theresa just lay there for a bit with her eyes closed, then finally decided that it was too cold to stay where she was and sat up to take a look around.
She very nearly regretted that. Theresa couldn’t see a single thing that was familiar. In fact, she noticed that she seemed to have left the grounds of the Higurashi temple entirely and wound up in a forest, but she had no idea where this forest was or how she had gotten there. Perhaps she really had injured herself when she fell into the well. Then she noticed that there was someone else nearby. Her eyes settled on the black-clad feet first, traveling up the hakama-covered legs to the person’s torso (/what a marvelous shade of blue material that haori is made of/, she thought before focusing on more important things again), darting to the side just long enough to note the sheathed sword clutched in one hand, then continuing up to the most beautiful face Theresa had ever seen on anyone, man or woman. This was definitely a man, but wow…she could just stare at him all day and be quite happy. It was the eyes, she thought -- they were a deep, striking blue-grey, absolutely mesmerizing. Not so mesmerizing that she didn’t notice his sword-filled hand twitch a bit, as though he was getting ready to use that sword (or so she figured, anyway -- Theresa was hardly an expert in the use of swords). Without even thinking, she said, “Please don’t hurt me, I didn’t do anything,” then did her best to melt into the well wall behind her in the hopes of preventing the man from chopping her into little pieces…or whatever it was he planned on doing.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sesshoumaru snorted. She honestly things I would waste my energy on doing anything to her? There would be no point. If I want her to die, all I have to do is leave her out here…she doesn’t look like she would last more than a day or two on her own. He frowned and wrinkled his nose. Why couldn’t she at least be cute? Inuyasha got a cute girl out of the well. Annoying, yes, but still cute. Why do I have to be the one to find...find…what the hell should I even call her, anyway? He raked his eyes over her less-than-slender figure and sighed. There was no real choice, he supposed -- he had to take her to Kaede. Leaving her out here would hardly do anything for turning him back into a youkai, after all.
“Come with me,” he said, turning away from her and taking a few steps in the general direction of the village. He glanced over his shoulder to see if she was following, and sighed when he saw her still huddled against the well. “You. Come with me, please. You can’t stay here safely after dark.”
Theresa scrambled to her feet and followed the man, staring at his back the whole way. He wore his hair long and loose, and she noticed it was considerably longer than hers -- almost to the ground, really. She was jealous. Her own hair didn’t seem able to make it past her waist. But really, she had other things to worry about right now. Like, where they were going, and who this guy was.
“Where are we going?”
“To my village.”
Okay, a nice, straightforward answer. Theresa could handle that. “Er…is it very far?”
He shrugged. “Not too far.”
“Does it have a name?”
He glanced over his shoulder at her, an unreadable expression on his face. “We call it Kaede’s village.”
Theresa nodded. “How about you? Do you have a name?”
Sesshoumaru sighed and closed his eyes. “Why do you have so many questions?”
“Gee, I don’t know, maybe it has something to do with the fact that I fell into a well in Tokyo and just climbed out of what appears to be the same well in the middle of a place that definitely is not Tokyo.”
What in the world is this “Tokyo” place? Sesshoumaru thought. But he didn’t say anything about that. Somehow, he sensed that any explanation would be more trouble than it was worth. “My name is Masuyo.”
“Oh. I’m Theresa.”
Sesshoumaru didn’t answer. He just nodded, pondered how he was going to get his mouth around the strange name, and continued leading her towards the village. Theresa decided to give up on talking to her guide and instead turned her attention to following him closely and studying her surroundings. They arrived at the village much sooner than she had expected, but not soon enough to keep her from shivering uncontrollably. Her fingernails had long since turned blue, and it had begun to snow…damned snow. It was making her feet and the lower part of her pants wet, which just made her colder. This was miserable. Sesshoumaru (or Masuyo, as Theresa knew him) led her to Kaede’s hut and held the curtain for her as she stepped inside, still shivering miserably.
“Oh, Masuyo, you’re back. Who is this?”
Sesshoumaru nodded to Kaede. “This is…er…”
“Theresa,” she finished, giving the older woman a quick bow and ignoring the fact that Masuyo didn‘t seem to remember her name, even though it hadn‘t been that long since she had told him.
Kaede nodded to her and motioned for her to sit by the fire. “You wear strange clothes, young one. Where are you from?”
“She came from the Well,” Sesshoumaru said, taking up his own spot by the fire and nudging it with the fire poker. Dinner wasn’t cooking fast enough, as far as he was concerned.
“From the Well?” Kaede repeated.
“From the Well,” Sesshoumaru confirmed.
“What does ‘from the well’ mean?” Theresa asked.
Kaede turned to her while Sesshoumaru continued trying to make their dinner cook faster. “It means, you are not from this time,” she said. “You are probably from the future, in fact. The only other person to ever come through the Well is from the future, after all.”
Theresa studied her surroundings and nodded slowly. That made sense…well, as much sense as anything made in this situation. “So, to go back…I just have to jump into the
well again?”
Kaede shook her head. “You might not be able to go back. The fact that you were able
to come here at all is strange.”
“Until you showed up, there were only two people who could travel through the Well,” the black-haired young man said. “I wouldn’t try jumping into it if I were you. I’m not going to rescue you.”
Kaede glared at him. “You will rescue her if I tell you to, Masuyo.” he just snorted and stared at the fire, while Kaede turned once more to Theresa. “What happened before you came here, do you remember?”
“I had gone to the shrine to see the family of one of my students. She hasn’t been
coming to school much lately, and I’m worried about her. Her mother told me she was sick in a hospital in another city, but I didn’t believe that. As I was leaving, I happened to see my student come out of this…shed-type thing…so I went to see what was in it. I found the well, and when I looked more carefully I thought I saw something glowing inside it. I was trying to figure out what I was seeing when I fell in.”
“Hmm…I think, for now, you should stay here,” Kaede said. “And when Kagome comes back--”
“Kagome! Is this where she comes when she’s supposedly out sick, then?”
The elderly miko gave Theresa a surprised look. “I…I do not know. Is Kagome one of your students?”
“Yes. She’s here a lot, isn’t she?”
Kaede nodded. “She is the key to rebuilding the Shikon Jewel.”
“Er…what?”
“Dinner’s done,” Sesshoumaru interrupted.
“Good. I can tell our guest the story while we eat,” Kaede said, taking a bowl filled with food from Sesshoumaru and handing it to Theresa. “It is a long story, though, so I hope you are not too tired right now. The telling will take a while.”
Sesshoumaru pushed the heavy curtain over Kaede’s door out of the way and staggered into the hut, depositing an armful of firewood against the door and let out a long groan before straightening up and rubbing his lower back. This whole lacking in strength thing was starting to get old. Humans were shockingly weak -- even relatively strong ones like Masuyo, Sesshoumaru’s human form. Really, he couldn’t decide which was worse, the loss of strength or the loss of his (former) killer youkai senses. He had lost count of the number of times people had been able to sneak up on him because he couldn’t hear them or smell them in advance. It annoyed him. Actually, it more than annoyed him, considering that the last time someone had snuck up on him said person had a very sharp sword in his hands, and could have killed Sesshoumaru. For the first time, Sesshoumaru had actually feared for his own life.
“Thank you, Masuyo,” Kaede said from across the hut, pulling him back to the present. He just nodded to her and turned to leave again. There were more chores to be done, and he wanted to finish before night fell. Wandering around in the middle the forest (Inuyasha’s Forest, at that) was probably not a good idea on a cold, dark night at this time of year. As a youkai Sesshoumaru could have easily survived a snowy night outside without even a fire to ward of the cold. Now, though…well, Masuyo wasn’t so hardy. Nor was Masuyo all that effective when fighting youkai, but it wasn’t like Sesshoumaru had a choice. He had to keep living in this body until he found a way to break free. And like it or not, the last of his day’s chores was venturing into the forest to weed out any youkai who had gotten too near since the previous evening. Time to get started. Sesshoumaru gathered his sword and headed out.
He had been wandering in the forest for just over an hour when he finally arrived at the Bone Eater’s Well, having seen and heard nothing out of the ordinary. Sesshoumaru raked his free hand back through his hair and sighed (he did that a lot lately) and frowned at the Well. It just sat there, doing nothing, as usual. Sesshoumaru took one final glance around, then gave in to his desire to rest his aching body and have some time to himself. He walked over to the Well and settled down beside it, carefully leaning back and letting out a small hiss as his muscles protested their new position. He let his head fall back against the Well and closed his eyes, breathing deeply and doing his best to ignore the cold air around him.
His peaceful rest was rather abruptly interrupted by the sound of a loud thud from somewhere behind him, followed by a string of words he didn’t know but that had the tone of distinctly wicked and very dirty curses. There was silence for a moment, then another curse, more silence, another curse…another loud thud, this time followed by what sounded like a wail. Sesshoumaru finally pushed himself away from the Well and looked around. There was nothing here…which meant that the sounds had to be coming from inside the Well. He stood and stared at the Well, took a step towards it, and was just about to carefully lean over the edge for a look inside when a small, pale hand appeared at the Well’s edge, gripping the rim hard enough to turn the knuckles white. A second hand appeared, followed shortly by a head full of long brown hair and a pair of huge brown eyes, which at the moment were filled with determination as the person who owned them struggled to get over the edge of the well. Finally, with one last great surge of effort, the person scrambled over the edge of the Well and fell in a heap on the ground beside where Sesshoumaru had just been sitting. He studied the human for a moment, dark eyes taking in the strange clothes and unusual features. It was a woman -- that much he figured out almost instantly. But it was a much heavier woman than he was used to seeing. She was quite pale, and her features were different from anything he had seen before. She obviously wasn’t a local, that much was certain, But then, where was she from? Kagome’s time, perhaps -- this Well was, after all, how Kagome and Inuyasha managed to travel between time periods. But this woman and her clothes looked very different from Kagome and the things she wore. Perhaps they were from different times? Finally, the woman caught her breath and worked her way into a sitting position, leaning back against the Well. She raised her eyes and looked around, finally noticing Sesshoumaru. Her eyes started at his feet, traveling from there up his legs and torso to his face, and she gasped a bit.
“Please don’t hurt me, I didn’t do anything,” she blurted.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Theresa looked around and rubbed the back of her neck. How was it that she had fallen into that well and managed to not injure herself? Surely she should at least have some nasty bruises right now, maybe even a few broken bones…but there was nothing. It was like she hadn’t fallen at all. But there was something wrong. The air around her was freezing, much colder than it had been when she had fallen. A quick glance up also revealed that, somehow, the shed sheltering the well had vanished, for Theresa could see the cloud-filled sky overhead. Okay. Time to find her way out of the well.
The sides of the well appeared to be covered in vines. Standing, Theresa looked around for the wall with the best footholds and thickest vine growth, then grabbed hold of some vines and attempted to haul herself up a bit. She had managed to get perhaps three feet up the wall when she lost her grip and fell back down, landing hard on her bottom. Unfortunately, the ground was uneven and rocky, and that made her fall rather painful. So painful, in fact, that she let out a string of foul language that would have embarrassed even the most foul-mouthed of people before climbing once more to her feet and gingerly rubbing her rear end. Throwing a glare at the vines and rocks that had failed to provide an easy way out of the well, she began her second attempt. Theresa made it quite a bit farther this time, nearly falling again when her foot slipped from the rock she had stepped on. That elicited another curse from her, but she continued struggling up the well’s wall.
Why, oh why did I not work harder in gym class when we had to climb those stupid nets? And when we had to do chin-ups? Why couldn’t I have put more effort into my strength training regimen before now?
A second slip and cursing streak later, she had finally made it to the top. She grabbed the rim of the well with one hand, steadied herself, reached up with the second hand, and proceeded to haul, kick, and scramble her way over the edge, where she promptly collapsed on the ground in an exhausted heap. Theresa just lay there for a bit with her eyes closed, then finally decided that it was too cold to stay where she was and sat up to take a look around.
She very nearly regretted that. Theresa couldn’t see a single thing that was familiar. In fact, she noticed that she seemed to have left the grounds of the Higurashi temple entirely and wound up in a forest, but she had no idea where this forest was or how she had gotten there. Perhaps she really had injured herself when she fell into the well. Then she noticed that there was someone else nearby. Her eyes settled on the black-clad feet first, traveling up the hakama-covered legs to the person’s torso (/what a marvelous shade of blue material that haori is made of/, she thought before focusing on more important things again), darting to the side just long enough to note the sheathed sword clutched in one hand, then continuing up to the most beautiful face Theresa had ever seen on anyone, man or woman. This was definitely a man, but wow…she could just stare at him all day and be quite happy. It was the eyes, she thought -- they were a deep, striking blue-grey, absolutely mesmerizing. Not so mesmerizing that she didn’t notice his sword-filled hand twitch a bit, as though he was getting ready to use that sword (or so she figured, anyway -- Theresa was hardly an expert in the use of swords). Without even thinking, she said, “Please don’t hurt me, I didn’t do anything,” then did her best to melt into the well wall behind her in the hopes of preventing the man from chopping her into little pieces…or whatever it was he planned on doing.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sesshoumaru snorted. She honestly things I would waste my energy on doing anything to her? There would be no point. If I want her to die, all I have to do is leave her out here…she doesn’t look like she would last more than a day or two on her own. He frowned and wrinkled his nose. Why couldn’t she at least be cute? Inuyasha got a cute girl out of the well. Annoying, yes, but still cute. Why do I have to be the one to find...find…what the hell should I even call her, anyway? He raked his eyes over her less-than-slender figure and sighed. There was no real choice, he supposed -- he had to take her to Kaede. Leaving her out here would hardly do anything for turning him back into a youkai, after all.
“Come with me,” he said, turning away from her and taking a few steps in the general direction of the village. He glanced over his shoulder to see if she was following, and sighed when he saw her still huddled against the well. “You. Come with me, please. You can’t stay here safely after dark.”
Theresa scrambled to her feet and followed the man, staring at his back the whole way. He wore his hair long and loose, and she noticed it was considerably longer than hers -- almost to the ground, really. She was jealous. Her own hair didn’t seem able to make it past her waist. But really, she had other things to worry about right now. Like, where they were going, and who this guy was.
“Where are we going?”
“To my village.”
Okay, a nice, straightforward answer. Theresa could handle that. “Er…is it very far?”
He shrugged. “Not too far.”
“Does it have a name?”
He glanced over his shoulder at her, an unreadable expression on his face. “We call it Kaede’s village.”
Theresa nodded. “How about you? Do you have a name?”
Sesshoumaru sighed and closed his eyes. “Why do you have so many questions?”
“Gee, I don’t know, maybe it has something to do with the fact that I fell into a well in Tokyo and just climbed out of what appears to be the same well in the middle of a place that definitely is not Tokyo.”
What in the world is this “Tokyo” place? Sesshoumaru thought. But he didn’t say anything about that. Somehow, he sensed that any explanation would be more trouble than it was worth. “My name is Masuyo.”
“Oh. I’m Theresa.”
Sesshoumaru didn’t answer. He just nodded, pondered how he was going to get his mouth around the strange name, and continued leading her towards the village. Theresa decided to give up on talking to her guide and instead turned her attention to following him closely and studying her surroundings. They arrived at the village much sooner than she had expected, but not soon enough to keep her from shivering uncontrollably. Her fingernails had long since turned blue, and it had begun to snow…damned snow. It was making her feet and the lower part of her pants wet, which just made her colder. This was miserable. Sesshoumaru (or Masuyo, as Theresa knew him) led her to Kaede’s hut and held the curtain for her as she stepped inside, still shivering miserably.
“Oh, Masuyo, you’re back. Who is this?”
Sesshoumaru nodded to Kaede. “This is…er…”
“Theresa,” she finished, giving the older woman a quick bow and ignoring the fact that Masuyo didn‘t seem to remember her name, even though it hadn‘t been that long since she had told him.
Kaede nodded to her and motioned for her to sit by the fire. “You wear strange clothes, young one. Where are you from?”
“She came from the Well,” Sesshoumaru said, taking up his own spot by the fire and nudging it with the fire poker. Dinner wasn’t cooking fast enough, as far as he was concerned.
“From the Well?” Kaede repeated.
“From the Well,” Sesshoumaru confirmed.
“What does ‘from the well’ mean?” Theresa asked.
Kaede turned to her while Sesshoumaru continued trying to make their dinner cook faster. “It means, you are not from this time,” she said. “You are probably from the future, in fact. The only other person to ever come through the Well is from the future, after all.”
Theresa studied her surroundings and nodded slowly. That made sense…well, as much sense as anything made in this situation. “So, to go back…I just have to jump into the
well again?”
Kaede shook her head. “You might not be able to go back. The fact that you were able
to come here at all is strange.”
“Until you showed up, there were only two people who could travel through the Well,” the black-haired young man said. “I wouldn’t try jumping into it if I were you. I’m not going to rescue you.”
Kaede glared at him. “You will rescue her if I tell you to, Masuyo.” he just snorted and stared at the fire, while Kaede turned once more to Theresa. “What happened before you came here, do you remember?”
“I had gone to the shrine to see the family of one of my students. She hasn’t been
coming to school much lately, and I’m worried about her. Her mother told me she was sick in a hospital in another city, but I didn’t believe that. As I was leaving, I happened to see my student come out of this…shed-type thing…so I went to see what was in it. I found the well, and when I looked more carefully I thought I saw something glowing inside it. I was trying to figure out what I was seeing when I fell in.”
“Hmm…I think, for now, you should stay here,” Kaede said. “And when Kagome comes back--”
“Kagome! Is this where she comes when she’s supposedly out sick, then?”
The elderly miko gave Theresa a surprised look. “I…I do not know. Is Kagome one of your students?”
“Yes. She’s here a lot, isn’t she?”
Kaede nodded. “She is the key to rebuilding the Shikon Jewel.”
“Er…what?”
“Dinner’s done,” Sesshoumaru interrupted.
“Good. I can tell our guest the story while we eat,” Kaede said, taking a bowl filled with food from Sesshoumaru and handing it to Theresa. “It is a long story, though, so I hope you are not too tired right now. The telling will take a while.”
Sign up to rate and review this story