The Long Road to Freedom Part 1:

The Dastardly Prince

Chapter 4:

Kazawa mirrored Aoki as she stifled a yawn. The first silvery rays of dawn were spilling into the kitchens through the slatted windowpanes, playing off the morning fires and bathing the walls and servants in foreboding crimson shades.

The servants chatted idly as they waited for the various containers of water to boil. Some of them were clad in the lighter colors and basic lined patterns of the veteran staff; others in darker shades with the circular patterns of the younger or less experienced. An elegantly poised trio bore the floral and marigold uniforms indicative of the general’s attendants, and they were offered the first batch of tea for the morning. Aoki and Kazawa claimed the next batch for Sesshoumaru before wishing their colleagues well and departing the kitchens. 

Aoki stifled another yawn as she trailed along behind Kazawa, tray in hand, the pair making their way to Sesshoumaru’s wing of the castle-base. Kazawa paused suddenly, and Aoki nearly ran into him. 

“What—”she began angrily. 

“Look,” he said quietly, motioning to a figure further down the hall. 

Aoki peered around her fellow servant. “Who is that?” 

“Never seen her before, but… she’s in gray.” His tone was disbelieving. Usually, Fuyutoka would tell either himself or Aoki when a new attendant was assigned to Sesshoumaru, but the clueless shrug from Aoki told him she hadn’t been informed about this new addition either. 

“Are those… dog ears?” she muttered quietly.

Kazawa shrugged. “It would seem so. I suspect this could be that hanyou I keep hearing rumors about.” 

“The other servants mentioned there might be one, but I’ve never seen her.” Aoki blinked, then groaned. “Ugh, we’re going to have to talk to her, aren’t we?” 

Kazawa thought for a moment before turning to take the tray of tea from Aoki with a passive smile. “What ‘we?’” 

Aoki fixed him with a lethal expression as he continued down the hall without so much as a glance at either of the females. She would get him back for this later, she swore she would. 

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Kuroihi watched Kazawa and Aoki pause at the end of the hall, muttering to each other. She hid her hands in her sleeves and scraped a claw across the pad of her thumb as she waited for them to come closer.

Kazawa passed without a word and disappeared down another hall, leaving her alone with Aoki. The older female suppressed a grimace as she approached and appraised her with shock blue eyes. 

“What do we have here?” Aoki said. 

Kuroihi bowed respectfully, ears flattened against her hair. “I… I was ordered to begin work this morning as Lord Sesshoumaru’s attendant. I promise to work hard.” 

Aoki snickered. “Oh, I’m sure you do.” she said, then scoffed. “What is the Overseer thinking, assigning a half-demon to Lord Sesshoumaru?”

Kuroihi bowed lower to emphasize her sincerity, though in truth she was asking herself the same question. 

The older female took hold of Kuroihi’s sleeve, tugging her to stand straight. She turned her this way and that as she gave the half-demon a closer inspection.

“Hmph. At least you’re dressed all right. Come on, Lord Sesshoumaru demands punctuality.” 

Kuroihi trailed quietly along behind Aoki as they followed the same path Kazawa had taken. Down one hall, they took a left and padded down the length of another. Finally, they were met with a set of shouji doors. The painted panels formed a beautiful panorama of twisted pine bonsai trees dipping and rising through a swell of peach-colored clouds. Beyond them, a hallway stretched left and right, leading to smaller, plain rooms. 

Ahead of them was another set of shouji doors. These were off-white with alternating bands of fuchsia, cobalt, and gray cutting diagonally across the bottom right corner. Judging from the mismatched edges of the pattern and the inconsistency of the colors, Kuroihi supposed a few of them were replacements for ones that had been damaged over the years. Were any of them from the original set?

“Wait here.” Aoki’s sharp tones brought her attention back to the present. 

Aoki placed her hand on the frame of the door, slipping gracefully inside at Sesshoumaru’s call. With no one else around to see, Kuroihi dared to perk her ears, listening as best she could to the soft voices in the room beyond. It was considered supremely rude to eavesdrop, but she was willing to risk it in order to gain any sort of insight to her new situation.

Inside, Aoki spoke respectfully.

“My lord, the Overseer has sent a replacement for Ide.” 

Sesshoumaru’s voice was cool and airy. “Indeed? Where are they, then? Have they not the good sense to present themselves in a timely manner to their new master?” 

There was a pause before Aoki spoke again, hesitant. “Sire, they are… That is to say, one of the lesser servants has been employed; a half-demon.” More silence, then Aoki’s hurried voice. “Please, my lord, allow me to rectify what is clearly a mistake and send them—”.She fell quiet. 

The brief moment of silence was heavy, pregnant with foreboding, and Kuroihi held her breath. 

“Come,” Sesshoumaru said, and Kuroihi flinched. His soft voice had been raised only enough to be heard clearly beyond the paper door, but to her, it may as well have been a gong. She swallowed her bile-like trepidation, steeled her nerves, and reached for the wood frame. 

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Sesshoumaru watched the creature slip inside his quarters, slide the door closed and kneel behind and to the side of Aoki. The older female tensed, no doubt waiting for his admonishment. He allowed her to wait as he took his time examining the half-demon, relishing the unease of them both. 

The hanyou’s scent told him it had been made to bathe, but the delicate hint of soap could not cover the aroma of anxiety it now exuded. The smell pleased him. Its visage gave the impression of something unkempt, hastily assembled, and he wondered exactly how much preparation Fuyutoka had put it through. Not enough, clearly. He had achieved his goal, however; the details could be tended to later. For now… Sesshoumaru pursed his lips to feign the expected displeasure. 

“A half-breed, indeed… How loathsome and cowardly the others must be; to allow a creature such as this to display more gumption than themselves. I, for one, would be ashamed.” 

Aoki exchanged a nervous glance with Kazawa before speaking again. “My lord, if it pleases you, allow me to correct this oversight.” 

Sesshoumaru’s lip quirked with mocking pity. “The stray can be left for now. Tend to your duties, Aoki.” 

The older female exchanged a brief, baffled expression with Kazawa before rising with practiced grace to kneel behind Sesshoumaru. She took her time parting his hair into manageable sections, drew a comb from within her sleeve, and began picking it through the ivory tendrils.

Left kneeling on her own and feeling rather exposed, Kuroihi focused on Aoki’s movements to distract herself from the urge to fidget. Eventually, Kuroihi felt comfortable enough to let her gaze wander about the room. She took in as much as she could without drawing attention to herself. That was done easily enough, though she had the distinct feeling she was being pointedly ignored. 

Several feet in front of and perpendicular to her, Kazawa sat across from Sesshoumaru. The two males were facing one another, separated by a low, polished table that bore only a teacup. From where she sat, Kuroihi couldn’t see the matching pot. The area they all sat in was several yards squared, surrounded by plain shouji screens that nearly scraped the ceiling, and it seemed to be the only area with tatami mats. There was nothing else to characterize the room or indicate its utility, and she supposed Sesshoumaru spent very little time here. The rest of the prince’s quarters stretched the length of the hallway outside it and was floored in polished wood as far as Kuroihi could tell. The damp morning breeze reached her from beyond the screens, telling her that at least one wall of the room opened to the outside. 

A soft sound from Aoki drew Kuroihi’s attention back to the older female as she pulled away from the young daiyoukai. Sesshoumaru reached back to inspect the plait Aoki had twisted his hair into, showed no indication of either satisfaction or displeasure, and rose smoothly to his feet, angled to leave. Kazawa moved to slide the door open for him before the thought had even occurred to Kuroihi, and the pair melted silently into the darkness of the hallway beyond. 

Aoki waited until the two males were out of earshot before barking at Kuroihi to help her straighten the tatami room. The half-breed was stiff, legs almost numb as she tried to shift to her feet, and Aoki pursed her lips with clear disapproval. It was an expression Kuroihi was used to, thankfully, and it did little to dissuade her as she worked. Padding along behind Aoki to return the tray of tea to the kitchens, she caught sight of the late morning sky. By now, a vivid blue had long replaced indigo and pastel, and Kuroihi realized they’d been in Sesshoumaru’s quarters for quite some time. Had his hair truly taken so long to care for? 

For the rest of the day, Kuroihi shadowed Aoki, assisting where she could with the older female’s chores, and the next several days progressed in a similar manner. Kuroihi met the pair at the entrance to Sesshoumaru’s wing, shadowed Aoki, then sneaked away to her own room at the end of the night.

Every day, Kuroihi silently questioned why she was even there. Aoki and Kazawa seemed perfectly capable of tending to Sesshoumaru’s every desire, and she only seemed to be in the way; so why had Fuyutoka sent Kuroihi to him?

She would not have to wait long for her answer.

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To Sesshoumaru’s satisfaction, the half-breed proved itself acceptable enough as a servant to justify retaining it. It was clumsy and slow to act, but punctual and mostly dismissible. Were it not for its scent, he found he could quite forget the thing was even present. As the days passed, however, his patience for this game of propriety he was playing wore thin and, by the end of the week, he was fed up with it. He’d not manipulated the creature into his grasp to have it assist Aoki. The time had come to enact his true purpose.  

As Aoki combed through his hair for the evening, he inspected the hanyou knelt demurely nearby. Quiet and obliging, it would be a simple task to bend the thing to his will, to extract the knowledge he sought. He could then be rid of it in whatever manner he saw fit. The thought spawned a myriad of acrimonious ideas, curling his lips in his signature smirk.

The usually motionless hanyou shivered, ears flattening into its hair. Sesshoumaru blinked. Had it only now sensed his watching it? What a dull creature…

He rose once Aoki finished, waving her off silently for the evening. She tucked the comb away again and bowed, the half-breed mirroring her, and both made for the door.

“Not you.” He said.

The two females paused, blinking between each other for a moment. Lips pursed, Aoki slid the door closed, leaving Sesshoumaru alone with the half-demon. He waited for Aoki’s steps to fade into the distance. The half-breed flinched when he snapped his fingers at it, but fell into step behind him as he left the tatami room, passed through the rest of his quarters, and exited onto the patio that wrapped around his wing of the castle. There were only a few yards between his patio and the wall of the base; a distance he easily covered in a single, graceful leap to land quietly in the grove beyond. Behind him, he could hear the creature scramble to scale the wall and race to catch up with him as he strolled leisurely into the wilds.

He watched the gold and crimson in the west give way to ultramarine, then black. A river of stars blinked to life one by one in a grand arch above him, providing light and navigational reference as he sought out the nearby pine forest. Darkness pressed in around him as he stepped into the thick of the trees, but it did not hinder his ability to see. He easily found and settled comfortably on a flat, raised rock in a small circle between the trees. The hanyou was several strides behind. It ducked its head submissively once it rejoined him, tufted ears perked attentively.

“Make a fire.” He waited patiently as it worked. Once the flames were high enough, he commanded it again. “Make them black.”

It raised its head hesitantly, blinking in confusion. “My lord?”

“Do not play coy. I have seen what you are capable of.”

The hanyou’s shoulders stiffened, face turning white. It dared to flick a glance in his direction. Sesshoumaru’s narrowed eyes reflected the angry heat of the fire, his face cast in the dancing shadows it spawned. The hanyou swallowed audibly and ducked its head again as it sputtered.

“I… That is to say…” It motioned subtly to itself. “This one is not possessed of any notable talents.”

“Is that so?” His tone was dangerously even. He inspected his claws, willing his poison into the tips to glow a noxious green. “In that case, I have no further use for a cretin like you.”

Its yellow eyes fixed on his claws, panic written in its features. “I-I… My lord, please, I cannot—”

He quirked a brow expectantly.

“The Overseer, if he finds out—”

“Are you confessing, then? Or do you dare imply that this Sesshoumaru is subject to the condemnation and reprimands of a mere hawk?”

The air was quickly perfumed with the scent of its terror, riling his inner predator and bringing him to his feet to loom over the creature. It recoiled, scrambling back on its hands for several feet, ears flattening into its hair.

“M-m-my lord, please! H-he will thrash me!”

Sesshoumaru was a blur of movement. He grasped the front of the creature’s kimono with his non-venomous hand and dragged it to its feet. It ducked its head as he bared his fangs.

“That bastard Fuyutoka is inconsequential now. You belong to me, or is your simple mind incapable of grasping this concept?”

He could not discern an answer from its whimpering.

“Hear me well and understand, hanyou: You. Are. Mine.” He snarled. “My every whim and desire is the only purpose for your continued miserable existence.”

This time, it managed to choke out a ‘yes, my lord’.

He released it to crumple into a trembling heap at his feet and strode leisurely back to his rock before settling himself comfortably again.

“The fire, servant,” he reiterated sharply.

The creature shifted unsteadily to its hands and knees, crawling back to the small fire. The young prince sharpened his senses, watching as it slowly calmed and focused its youki into a hand. His patience was beginning to wear thin as it struggled, but then he caught a fresh wave of that rich molten scent. It managed to force a small amount of its energy forth, black seeping into the fire from its hand. With a little coaxing from the terrible daiyoukai, the fire became completely tainted. The black flames gave off a sinister light, thickening the shadows around him and radiating a searing, lava-like heat. In seconds, the small amount of wood in the circle was rendered to powdery ash.

“Again,” Sesshoumaru said simply.

The creature hesitated.

“Make another fire and alter it,” he clarified with annoyance.

It hesitated a moment more, but obeyed him. It had soon constructed another fire within the circle of stones and was attempting to taint the flames as it had before. Sesshoumaru watched its meager pool of youki thrash and strain to focus into its hand again. Blackness feathered from its fingertips more slowly this time as the hanyou struggled, eventually tainting the flames to a similar end. He had it repeat this task over and over, watching its youki drain away to almost nothing.

Exhausted, it finally collapsed.

Sesshoumaru allowed it a moment’s rest as he contemplated. He knew for certain that this creature was nothing more than a miserable half-breed, shameful and ineffectual, and yet tonight he had watched it reliably display its talent on command. He surmised it had been capable of this for some time and that the Overseer did not approve of its using it. The honored general and Warmaster had also responded negatively to the idea of a creature able to produce this dark fire. Was there something proscribed about its origin? The thought only made it more enticing.

He fixed his eyes on the drained half-demon.

“For how long have you possessed this skill?” he inquired.

It fought to sit upon its knees before answering weakly. “For as long as I can remember, my lord.”

“From which parent did you inherit this?”

“I do not know.”

“You do not know?” His lip curled. “How can you not? Surely, you are acquainted with your disgraced lineage.”

The half-breed’s ears flattened, its speech taking on a shamed note. “My lord’s servant remembers little of her short life before coming into service to his honorable father. All she knows is that both parents were also hanyou.”

Sesshoumaru blinked, puzzled. Again, proof of the impossible sat before him. A half-breed born of half-breeds, gifted with power from the gods only knew where. His thoughts returned quickly enough to that power, and he continued his interrogation.

“The black fire; has it always existed in this form?”

“It…is more effective now than in previous years.”

“Is this the extent of its application?”

The hanyou shrank away from him, declining to answer, and he growled his disapproval. The general might be permitted to refuse this Sesshoumaru, but his servants most certainly were not.

It licked its lips, answering hesitantly. “If I focus, I can make it form without using an external fire. It takes a great amount of energy, and it is less consistent than simply influencing a flame that is already struck.”

It is, perhaps, capable of growth as well? How bizarre, he thought to himself. “Show me.”

It hesitated again but did not refuse to answer him this time. “I have spent nearly all of my energy tonight, my lord; I do not know that I can.”

Sesshoumaru’s lip curled, tone thick with derision. “Tell me, is it always your habit to abstain at the first sign of weakness, or is this perhaps a dilatory habit formed during your years under Fuyutoka’s incompetent vigil?”

The creature bowed its head in a proper display of submission. “I will try.”

Sesshoumaru drew up a knee to lay an arm across as he watched. The half-breed had not been insincere concerning its depleted youki. With hands cupped together as though catching rain, it fought to pool its remaining flickers of energy in its palms. Once or twice, its hands began to glow with the same dark light as the fire had, but it faded a moment later, leaving the half-breed even weaker than before. It became clear to him that the thing was incapable of acquiescing, and he lost interest in it for the night.

“Tch. How pathetic.” He rose to his feet. “You bore me, hanyou.”

It muttered a kowtow apology, swaying with fatigue, and Sesshoumaru found he could not resist the temptation it presented. He flicked out his mokomoko as he strode past the thing, sprawling it into its proper place in the dirt. He didn’t glance back as he made his way back to the castle-base, but he picked up on the deeply satisfying sounds of it struggling to crawl along behind him.