Head down. Hug the shadows. Don’t be seen or heard.

Kuroihi ran through her mantra every morning, afternoon, and evening following her encounter with the general’s son. So long as she wasn’t noticed, she would fade from his memory, right? At least, that’s what she hoped. It helped that Fuyutoka had given her assignments that kept her in the bowels of the castle-base away from the others. Here, she had easy access to the crawlspaces beneath the tatami mats so she could sneak into one of the empty rooms whenever she needed a bit a fresh air. No one saw, no one knew; or, so she hoped.

A week passed, and there was nothing. No increased scolding from the Overseer, and neither hide nor hair of the general’s son. Another week passed, and still nothing. Kuroihi began to relax. Slowly, the looming nightmare of her evening encounter with Sesshoumaru faded into little more than a shadow in the back of her mind.

Three weeks. The moon was waxing half-full; it was her day of rest, and of weakness. As the horizon lightened to indigo and the stars began to fade, Kuroihi sneaked herself out of the castle in her usual manner. Already, her demon powers were receding.

The sublevel pathways under the castle-base took her unnoticed to one of the yagura towers that stood in the corner of the grounds. Hidden in the neglected weeds at the foot of the wall was a removable grate.

The opening was just wide enough for her to wiggle through without notice so long as she timed it when the guards weren’t looking. Their attention was always lax this time of morning, and it was a matter of patience and care for her to make her way through the thick grove just beyond the wall and into the cover of the wilds beyond it.

Kuroihi followed her usual path along the river that led even further from the castle-base. Along the way, she plucked twigs and yellow grass for kindling as well as stinkweeds to help mask her scent from the wayward lesser demons in the area. Around the bend, the river passed near a bamboo thicket. Kuroihi checked again to ensure she wasn’t being watched or followed before ducking into its protective grasp.

Knowing exactly where it was, she easily found her usual cave and got to work.

The Indigo sky bled pastels; her demon powers were on the precipice of torpor. Her senses were growing dull and her strength was leaving her: she didn’t have much time left. She struck up a fire with a bit of flint and began feeding it the kindling and stinkweeds she’d collected to cover not only her hanyou scent, but her emerging human one. Kuroihi still didn’t know or truly understand why or how this transformation took place, but every month on the same day, here she was.

As the sun broke the horizon, her changes began.

Inky black spilled over ivory locks and yellow eyes, claws and fangs shrank away to flimsy nails and rounded teeth, and her ears shivered and crawled down to form human ones. Her body softened, reflexes slowed, and, last but not least, her inner pool of youki sealed away as her demon soul drifted into sleep.

She was mortal now, and would remain so until the sun set again.

Slowly, her human nature rose to the fore and with it came a maelstrom of emotions she was usually able to ignore. Without her demonic constitution, however, they all but overwhelmed her. Rage, desire, hatred, despair: her human heart flitted from one to the other so quickly that she could barely keep up. In the end, she did what she always did to keep from screaming with the frustration of it all; she allowed herself to cry.

It was the only reprieve she had in this life.  As repulsive as it was, she indulged in it this one day out of the month and purged herself of her anger towards the demons at the castle. She couldn’t — wouldn’t — forgive them for the misery they caused her, but she could control how she reacted to it. And she refused to focus on it longer than she had to today. Instead, she allowed her thoughts to eventually shift to the only shred of happiness she had in her life.  

Somewhere out there, she had a family.

Her hopes that they loved and missed her-that they worried about her-were more fantasy than memory. The castle was all she could remember now. In fact, she couldn’t even recall how she’d come to be there. It hadn’t been pleasant—that much she was sure of for the thought of it always made her heart ache. Something inside warned her that she was better off not knowing, but she couldn’t help but wonder…

She passed the day this way: refusing to sleep and never emerging from her protective cavern. Once her fingertips began tingling, she knew it was time. A quick glance outside confirmed that the sun was finally setting. Her veins burned, her body flushed with a special heat as her demon soul raged to life again to return her former strength and appearance. Fighting through the nauseating stench from the weeds, she cleared away every trace she could that she had ever been here.

Except for the back wall.

There, she placed a small mark with charcoal in a broad panorama of tallies before leaving.  Sunburst patterns covered the wall. It was a design she’d found on a scrap of parchment tucked into her yukata sleeve when she was just a pup. It meant something she was sure, but what she did not know. Regardless, she safeguarded the tiny bit of yellowing paper. It was the only proof she had that she’d ever existed outside the castle.

An ensemble of crickets and cicada echoed across the fields as she began her trek home. Timing her re-entry to the grounds was always the most precarious part. Somehow, she managed it.

Save for the guards, the castle was asleep as she made her way carefully back into the sub-level of the yagura and across into the main tower. She remained alert and on edge even once she’d arrived safely back in her closet. There was always the risk that she had been seen this time. As the minutes ticked by, the knot in her stomach slowly released and she was able to fall asleep.

------------

Sesshoumaru could not help but notice in the days following his conversation with the Warmaster, that two additional contingents of scouts had been dispatched. To where, he did not know. With his father’s and Rekkonji’s attention turned outside the castle-base once again, Sesshoumaru had free reign, and this coincided perfectly with the plan he was forming. 

His conversation with Rekkonji had confirmed for him that if he wanted to discover the truth behind the hanyou’s strange fire, he would have to act on his own. He could not simply ask, for that would be obvious and unbecoming for one of his rank. But it was clear that the two elder demons would not tell him what he wanted to know; the insufferable bastards.

Instead, Sesshoumaru decided to take advantage of his own savage reputation to get what he wanted this time. It was a crude strategy, but an effective one, and at the end of the day that was what truly mattered to him; effectiveness.

Eyes closed with relative calm, Sesshoumaru mulled through the details of his plan as Aoki picked through his hair with a comb.

He was currently in possession of three retainers: Aoki, Kazawa, and Ide. It was a satisfactory count for any lord. In order for his plan to work, however, he needed to be rid of one. Kazawa was too experienced and aware of Sesshoumaru’s desires to be released. Aoki was too attentive to detail to simply cast to the wind. That left Ide; relatively new and naïve Ide. Sesshoumaru opened his eyes and settled them on the unfortunate vassal.

No, not a vassal: his next victim.

The thought twisted maliciously at Sesshoumaru’s lips, and both Aoki and Kazawa understood it meant there would be violence and suffering in the near future. In the following days as Sesshoumaru began needling and degrading Ide more than usual, they had the good sense to recognize that the young daiyoukai was in one of his fits again and kept their heads down. Having no desire to draw any of that ire to themselves, they instead fixated excruciatingly on every minor detail of their duties. They offered Ide no sympathy or solace, for it was well understood that once Sesshoumaru had chosen his prey, that particular creature was lost to all hope.

It took a mere two weeks of Sesshoumaru’s focused abuse to send the younger demon groveling to Fuyutoka for reassignment. With Ide gone, Sesshoumaru turned his attention to the rest of the staff. 

Any servant that had been at the castle for more than a few years was aware of the prince’s frequent bouts of ridicule and maltreatment. Sesshoumaru allowed himself to fall into another of these bouts, knowing full well that his father would scold him when he noticed, but that did not concern him for the moment.

It appeared that Sesshoumaru had the staff well-trained by now, for it only took three tormented servants to cause the others to flee at the very thought of him. It was precisely the reaction Sesshoumaru desired and expected. Once he was certain the entire servant body was thoroughly terrified of him once again, he enacted the next step of his plan. 

On a breezy afternoon, a little over a month following his return from the battlefield with his father, Sesshoumaru approached the Overseer.

Fuyutoka was less than pleased to see the young daiyoukai that had been terrorizing his underlings, but he gave the expected bow and respectful greeting nonetheless. Even as he maintained a humble and servile demeanor, Sesshoumaru could tell Fuyutoka had many unsightly words for him. 

“How may your humble vassal be of service to you this afternoon, my lord?” Fuyutoka inquired. 

Sesshoumaru withheld a sneer. The hawk always groveled in the most disgusting manner. “I find myself in need of a new retainer, Overseer. I want it by dawn.” 

Fuyutoka blinked. “My…lord?” 

Sesshoumaru’s delicate brow twitched with irritation. “Did you not hear me? Or is it rather you did not understand? I will say it only once more: I want another retainer by morning.” 

It was Fuyutoka’s turn to withhold a sneer. The prince’s snark was almost more than he could take. “I understood your honorable self well enough, Sire, however I find myself unable to agree to something that might not be possible.” 

“Not possible, you say? Explain.”

Knowing full well ‘why’, Sesshoumaru tucked his arms neatly into his sleeves as Fuyutoka licked his lips and gathered his words. 

“Through the years, every available servant has been employed to your pleasure and found wanting, save for the two you still currently possess. It would be a grievous oversight for me to assign one that is known to be unsatisfactory.” 

“You are saying there is not a single obliging creature in this base that has not served under this Sesshoumaru?” 

“None are left who are worthy, my lord.” 

The young prince clenched his fists at his sides and narrowed his eyes. “I will be the one to determine whether or not one is worthy to attend me. Am I understood?” He cut off the Overseer’s response. “Good. You have your command, then.” 

Fuyutoka was left flustering over how to fulfill the request as his lord departed without another word. 

Sesshoumaru was well aware that, with the dismissal of Ide, every available servant at the castle had been his at one point or another. The Overseer’s response had been technically correct, but it omitted the underlying truth which would violate decorum if spoken aloud: none were willing to serve under Sesshoumaru and his violent temper again, and the dedication of his father’s vassals could only be strained so far.

Truly, he could not blame the cretins-he was redoubtable in every way-, but he still expected his father’s chosen vassals to possess a bit more moxie. After all, what were a few burns and scrapes in the grand scheme of things, really?

----------

Fuyutoka considered the options before him carefully. He could be appropriately obliging and put in the extra effort it would take to quickly summon a suitable demon from one of the general’s protectorates to serve as a new attendant at the castle. He could exchange a favor owed to him by Rekkonji to transfer one of the lesser fighters to the servant ranks and use that one. Or, he could take advantage of the situation to give that arrogant heritor a piece of his mind—politely of course—and assign him the half-breed.

The more he thought it over, the more attractive the last option became.

There would scarcely be a better and safer way to express his disdain for Sesshoumaru’s behavior. And, with any luck, the hanyou would end up being one of his attendants that disappeared mysteriously. Even if Sesshoumaru spurned her and she came groveling back to him, Fuyutoka would finally have grounds to turn her out. The general had not allowed the Overseer to expel her from the castle for reasons only the general understood, and Fuyutoka dreamed of the day he would finally be allowed to. Keeping her hidden for the past century-and-a-half had taken more energy than he was willing to waste on such a creature, and he was quite fed up with the task.

Yes, this will do nicely indeed, he thought as he tracked her down. She was exactly where he’d left her in the sublevels of the castle base, attempting to salvage what she could from a stack of ruined tatami mats. The very sight of her was enough to make him grimace, and he put forth little effort in obfuscating it as she slid to her knees and muttered through the usual respectful greeting.

“Come with me,” was all he said.

He didn’t need to glance back to know she was shuffling along behind him as he made his way up to the higher levels. Avoiding the primary hallways, he meandered into one of the supply rooms and began searching through its closets. The shelves were piled high with the colorful garb of the higher-ranking servants, folded and pressed neatly into flat squares and rectangles. Kuroihi had been in this room many times before, but never in the closets. She quietly drank in the crisp, clean scent of pressed cotton and silk, relishing the fleeting moment of perfect tranquility it brought her.

“Hands,”Fuyutoka snapped.

Kuroihi lifted her flattened palms to receive the assortment of clothing he plopped into her grasp.

“You’re being reassigned tomorrow morning. Go bathe and change; and I mean a real bath with water. Licking yourself doesn’t count.”

Kuroihi gritted her teeth for a moment before muttering “Yes, Overseer.”

She paused at the door as she realized he hadn’t actually told her where she was being reassigned to. She gave the kimono and hakama in her hands a cursory glance: he hadn’t told her because it was unnecessary.

The clothing he’d given her was slate grey.

----------

It was no trouble to find an empty bath this early in the evening, and Kuroihi was happy to sequester away and tend to her own appearance. As she scrubbed, she took stock of the usual small marks here and there and found that a few she thought were scars were, in fact, only dirt. Cleaned and polished, she allowed herself to inspect her reflection in the water. In contrast to what she was often told, she considered herself to be quite lovely, and she took this limited opportunity to admire herself.

Her hair fell in wavy, snow-white tendrils to the middle of her back, the elegant curves of her shoulders tapering into the graceful scoop of her neck. The arch of her brow served to soften the piercing glint of her slit, yellow eyes. Atop her head, her tufted ears swiveled this way and that as she inspected them from every manageable angle; she couldn’t help but find them cute. Properly cleansed, her creamy skin was smooth and luxurious to the touch as she ran her fingertips along every inch.

Even more rapturous to her than her polished skin, was the feel of her new clothes as she dressed. The soft, crisp cotton felt wondrous in comparison to the ragged filth of her former attire. The subtleties of securing the belts of her hakama confused her only momentarily, and she fought to not damage the finely pressed fabric as she made her collar lay flat and even. The hakama fell to her ankles, long and loose, and they felt almost bulky compared to her knee-length, closer-fitting uniform from before. She wondered briefly how people like the general moved so quickly and gracefully in such garments.

She inspected herself in the water again. Even wrapped in the formidable slate grey that promised only degradation and suffering, there was something more substantial to her reflection now. She marveled at the contrast between her skin and the color of her kimono.

She blinked as the significance finally registered. Her clothes were slate grey, the shade of storm clouds pregnant with wrath and savagery; Sesshoumaru's grey.

Sesshoumaru, who had left his mark of displeasure on each and every denizen of the base at one point or another; who had driven off nearly every attendant with his scorn and torment; who would, as of morning, be her immediate lord and master. 
 

Suddenly, the glory of her new state wore off and the implications of her new reality sank in; and she was terrified. Kuroihi clutched her hands to her forehead in a gesture of prayer as she sank to her knees. She silently pleaded with whatever ancestor-gods would hear her to grant her strength and patience in the coming days. 

Even the gods knew Sesshoumaru was ruthless. There would be no excuse for failure.