Tale of Rin+Sesshomaru: Ch. 5

The Tale of Rin and Sesshomaru

The Village

One evening, not too long after she began her journeys as her own mistress, Rin came over a small rise to discover the remains of a small village, its humble homes nothing but burning embers.

"Rin-sama," Jaken said hastily, "This is of no concern to you. There is nothing to be done here. We will find another road. Let us leave this sadness behind us."

Rin did not move an inch; she stood still as a stone, her face slowly growing pale. "It was just like this in my own village... the day my parents were killed." Her left hand sought out the hilt of Bakusaiga, and she grasped it so hard that her knuckles turned white. "Bandits," she said through clenched teeth. "I hate them. I hate them more than anything else."

"Rin." Sesshomaru's voice entered her thoughts; he could sense her anger, and his words came gently. "I hear only the weeping of children, and I smell only blood and death."

Without really looking where she was going, Rin haltingly walked the path to the village. She knew what she would find before she arrived, and she was sickened to find that she was right. It was exactly as Sesshomaru had said: there was nothing but blood and death.

To one side, she heard a small snuffling noise. In front of what remained of one of the villager's homes was a little girl. She held a soot-stained doll in one arm, and with the other grasped at what looked like a pile of rags on the ground beside her. As Rin drew nearer, she saw more clearly: the girl was holding the hand of a woman's body, which was limp and cold in her little hand.

Rin made her way to the little girl's side, and asked, "What happened here?"

The girl looked at Rin, and opened her mouth, but no sound came out. After a couple of attempts, the girl stopped trying to talk, and just rocked her doll and tugged at the woman's limp hand. Rin looked more closely, and from the way that the child clutched at the woman, the patterns of the woman's and the child's tattered clothes, and from the woman's wounds and the blood that had dried on the girl's face, Rin understood what the girl was too devastated to tell her: that this had been her mother, and she had fallen defending her child to her last breath.

Memories of her own stolen childhood swam before Rin's eyes: the terror of the bandit's attack, the lifeless eyes of her father and brother in the wreckage of their home, and her mother's own blood splattered on her hands and face. The shock had robbed her of the ability to speak for months, and she had only found healing in her relationship with Sesshomaru. And now, all the horror that she had been unable to deal with in her own childhood came rushing back, and heaped upon the tragedy of the child before her, it was more than Rin could bear. A red miasma clouded her vision, and she crumpled to her knees with nausea and pain, one hand on her stomach, the other over her mouth.

"Rin. Compose yourself." Sesshomaru's gently reproving voice brought her back to the present, and slowly she mastered herself. She wiped the cold sweat from her forehead and the tears from her eyes, swallowed once or twice, then stood up. As she looked down at the child, Tenseiga pulsed quietly at her waist. The sword as ever spoke without words, but its message was clear: This time, it can be different.

"Yes," Rin said to herself, straightening her back and gathering her resolve. "This time... it will be different." With a flash, she drew Tenseiga. The little girl saw the sword and Rin's grim visage, and in terror fell protectively over her mother's body, her mouth opened in a silent scream. With one quick stroke, Rin drew Tenseiga through both mother and daughter, then in a second stroke destroyed the hell-minions that were attacking the mother's soul.

The little girl immediately felt the warmth of Tenseiga's restoring power, and her tears stopped at once. Slowly, the mother opened her eyes. When she saw her daughter, she rushed to embrace her with tears of joy. She turned and saw Rin, and for a moment she mistook her for the bandits that had attacked her, and she desperately covered her daughter with her own body to protect her from another killing stroke; but the little girl's sweet voice suddenly piped, "No, mommy—the nice lady made you all better."

In a flash, memory of the attack returned to the mother; she haltingly felt her body for remembered wounds, and to her amazement found none of them. Understanding grew in her eyes, and unable to find any words, she arose, and solemnly bowed very low before Rin. The little girl ran up to Rin, and hugged her tight around the knees, and with a big smile looked into Rin's face and said, "Thank you for fixing my mommy."

Rin smiled at the little girl, gently stroking the girl's long hair and wiping the tears from her face, then she fixed the mother with her stern gaze. "Take this child away from the village tonight. Do not let her see what is going to happen here. She has seen enough death this night." With that, Rin sheathed her sword, turned, and walked away without another word.

She made her way to the center of town, where the villagers had made their desperate, futile last stand, and where their bodies still lay. Again she drew Tenseiga, and looked pensively at the blade. "The sword that can save a hundred lives with one stroke," she mused. "Let's see if the legend is true."

She held Tenseiga aloft to the sky, and a whirling electric vortex formed around the blade. With a firm stroke, she cast Tenseiga's power across the bodies of the villagers, its light momentarily banishing the darkness; and in a few moments, they began to stir. One by one, they arose, memories of their defeat gradually returning and the realization of their resurrection dawning; and one by one, they became aware of Rin, still standing within their circle, her naked sword still in hand. When she saw that all eyes were on her, her clear voice rang out: "Those who committed these crimes will soon be returning. This time, be ready for them." Her long hair and her kimono whipped smartly around her as she whirled and sheathed her blade, and in silence she walked out of the village.

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In a field not far outside the village, the troupe of bandits had gathered to congratulate themselves on their exploits, and to revel in the bounty they had stolen. They did not hear Rin's silent footfalls as she walked into their camp, nor did they see her until she was right in their midst, standing next to their fire. Even then, they paid her little heed.

"Which one of you killed a woman today, even while she was holding her child?" she asked in a cold, steady voice. The bandits just guffawed and continued drinking.

Sesshomaru's voice slipped into Rin's thoughts. "That one. His hands still reek of the woman's blood."

Rin walked up to the bandit, the largest of them all, a pile of pillaged goods beside him. He lounged against a stump, drinking from a jug and belching rudely. "Did you kill a mother holding a child today?" she asked him quietly.

"Oh, hell, I dunno. Probably." He scratched himself, then called over his shoulder to his companions, "They all kinda look the same after a while, don't they?" The other bandits roared with laughter. "Now you and me, little girl, we could really have some fun..."

The bandit suddenly howled in pain. With the speed of a striking snake, Rin had drawn Bakusaiga and thrust it into the man's belly. There was no magic whatsoever in the stroke; Rin had coldly, and efficiently, run him through with the sword.

"Aaarrgh! I'll kill you!" he screamed in pain and rage, but Rin was not through with him. She lifted the bandit, still spitted on the end of her sword, high into the air; his feet dangled several feet off the ground, and he kicked them uselessly. As the hapless man screamed and struggled, mystic fire flowed along Bakusaiga's blade, engulfing him in a cold green flame. His cries of pain redoubled, and as his body burned, parts began to drop, still ablaze, to the ground. "Help me!" the man screamed, and two of his fellows rushed to his aid. But with a cruel snap, Rin flung the burning body from the blade of her sword into the arms of his would-be rescuers; the flame immediately spread to them, and now all three lay on the ground, blazing in searing green fire and screaming in agony.

The remaining bandits grabbed their weapons, and circled Rin. "She killed the chief—get her! Get her!" they screamed, and with swords and clubs aloft, they charged her. Rin leapt into the air, spinning gracefully, and a whip of energy extended from the sword, sweeping along the circle of attackers—and as one, their weapons shattered. Swords burst into sparkling shrapnel; clubs exploded from within and sent flaming splinters in every direction.

This, finally, was too much for the bandits, and they fled screaming in terror, with Rin following steadily after them, her face set in a cold, implacable mask that promised certain, grim death. The bandits made for a nearby forest, but their escape was cut off by Aun and Jaken rising out of the underbrush. "Cowards! Miserable dogs! Think you to escape my lady's wrath so easily?" Jaken cackled with evil glee as Aun lifted him high into the air over their heads, rising aloft on a bed of flame; and as Jaken laughed, he sprayed the men with flames from his staff.

And still they ran, this time heading towards a meadow; but they found no escape there either. Darkening the moonlit night, a great fog suddenly arose and coalesced into a huge and terrifying apparition: it was Sesshomaru, in his fearsome canine form, with a roar that shook the earth.

The bandits were utterly undone. Sesshomaru, towering above the meadow and snarling, blocked their left; Jaken's eldritch screeching and a curtain of flames cut off their right; and still approaching them with steady and inexorable steps was Rin, her dark eyes blazing with hatred, and her terrible sword shining with a chilling light of its own. The bandits fled screaming in the only direction of escape that Rin had permitted them: the road to the village, where their former victims lay in wait. And as Rin had instructed them—this time, they were ready.

Rin waited until the bandit's screams of terror were replaced with cries of pain as they were dealt rough justice by the villagers. Only then did she sheathe her sword, turn her back to the village and the bandit's encampment, and walk to the meadow, where Jaken and Aun were waiting for her.

"Do you feel better now, Rin-sama?" Jaken asked gently.

Rin's thoughts immediately went back to the destruction of her home village, but then they quickly returned to the little girl, to whom Rin had returned her mother, her home, and her voice; and she remembered the little girl's embrace, her innocent face, and her sweet piping "Thank you."

And Rin smiled, and said with her face turned to the sky, "Yes. This time, it was different." She laughed to herself; then, with a coy grin, she turned to Jaken and said in her most businesslike tone, "Now, Jaken, I must speak to you about this: 'Miserable dogs?' You do remember who your master is, don't you?" And, smiling primly, she walked briskly on ahead.

Jaken sputtered and bowed so violently that his forehead struck the ground. "Rin-sama, please forgive me—it was just a figure of speech." When he stopped bowing, he saw that Rin had already walked a considerable distance away from him. "Rin-sama! Wait! Please wait!" Always leaving poor Jaken behind, he muttered to himself, as he ran to catch up with her. Just like her father.