InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Child of Earth and Sea ❯ Satoshi ( Prologue )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

 

AN: The Child of Earth and Sea is part of the Purity series, and braided into the timeline of Charity and Ben's story. Rumiko Takahashi owns Inuyasha and all recognizable characters from the anime, all characters from the Purity universe belong to Sueric, I have simply been granted the honor of taking them out to play for a little while. This series tells the story of Nessa Beaumonte, from the one-shot Heart of a Warrior, and has been written with the approval of, and in collaboration with the original author of the Purity Universe, Sueric.
 
Summary: What happens when a myth that was never supposed to be real turns out to be the one you love the most? What wouldn't you give or do, to protect the ones dearest to your heart?
 
 
 
 
 
The Child of Earth and Sea
A Purity Collaboration
By WhisperingWolf
 
Prologue
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Darkness surrounded her, soothing her with the familiar weightlessness she had once known so well. She wasn't breathing, her lungs weren't moving, but she wasn't frightened by it, didn't suffer for it. Opening her eyes, she studied the world around her, the fragments of shadows and light thrilling her as she waited, holding still despite the rioting storm of anticipation inside her. She could feel the vibrations in the soft sands beneath her, the ocean bottom cushioning her, as the water slipped past her, around her, gliding over her like so many silk ribbons. The familiar youki - vibrating with excitement - was there, coming up behind her ever faster, the water trembling against her thick skin, as she felt the ashika drawing closer, racing toward her, only to shoot past her as he spiraled ever higher. There was a burst of excitement, her muscles tightening and releasing as a restless energy surged through her that was too much to hold back, and with one great beat of her flukes she lifted from the sands below.
 
The water parted, her flippers and dorsal fin slicing through the sea as bubbles formed around the seam of her mouth. Her muscles contracted as she beat her flukes harder against the sea that held her, chasing behind her friend as they raced through the water, spiraling higher and higher, the darkness of the ocean depths growing lighter until she could see the sparkling array of sunlight glinting off the surface of the water above. The cry she released was full of excitement and joy as she broke through the surface, air exploding from her blowhole as she released the breath trapped inside of her, water falling around her, as she took in a deep breath and crashed back down into the ocean below.
 
She rose again, breaching the water as she jumped higher, rolled to land on her side, felt the water slapping against her body as she played in the ocean. It was a vague sense of amusement she could feel from him that made her laugh, made her release a sing-song sound as she clicked and squeaked, talking to the ashika - the sea lion youkai - she called friend. He followed her down into the depths, diving next to her, following her every turn as she spiraled and flipped, moving faster as she rose higher, certain that she would be able to do it this time, and shrieked with happiness as she broke through the surface, flying higher as she flipped once, twice, three times before diving back down into the water below.
 
Laughter came from her in the pattern of her squeaks, the stuttered clicks, when her friend rammed the side of his body against hers, and she rolled in the water as she enjoyed the freedom of being able to play. Unlike their animal cousins, it was an unspoken understanding among marine youkai, that while they may hunt together in their youkai forms, play together, they never hunted - never ate - each other. Rolling her eyes when she looked over to see the ashika in his humanoid form, she dove beneath him, lifting him on her back behind her dorsal fin, as she rose higher to bring him to the surface of the water where he would be able to breathe.
 
“I have missed you terribly, my friend,” he said to her, and she gave a low sing-song cry, the sound making it clear that she didn't understand how he could miss her when she was there with him. “It has been centuries since you last swam in your true form, joined me in the play we once enjoyed so much. I do not know if this is my dream or yours, but I do know this,” he said, and she felt her mind slow at the sensation that she was floating, the air surrounding her as the water left her, her form smaller, more delicate. Gone were her fins, and in their place, were tiny arms with smaller fingers extending at the ends. “She is waiting for you. It is time, Chyokohime. The grief you once knew will be gone, a distant memory, replaced by the joys of being the mother you've always wished to be.”
 
“Ashika!” she called to her friend, darkness surrounding her once more, and heard the rolling chuckle of his easy laughter.
 
“Do not be afraid!” he called to her as she felt the world around her spin.
 
She felt as though she were moving, flying, the air around her propelling and cushioning her as easily as the sea once had, and though she was certain her eyes were open, she could see nothing but darkness all around.
 
“I knew who each one of you were before you came to me, before you were ever inside of me.”
 
“Mother?” Amaya gasped, shaking her head as she tried to understand.
 
“It is the power of the Kujira, a gift from Susanoo-no-Mikoto, the God of the Sea,” her mother told her.
 
Amaya felt her mind still as she tried to remember the conversation from so long ago, the words she and her mother had shared the night of her thirtieth birthday. That night had been almost a decade before she had been sent on her hundred-year long journey to travel to all of the oceans and seas, to discover all there was, to explore the kingdom that was theirs and all that lived within, from the coldest waters of the arctic, to the warmth of the southern seas. It was the same journey that all those in her family were sent on, something that had to be done alone. Those same words - her mother's wisdom - had been granted to her a century before she had first seen Satoshi standing on the barren cliffs overlooking the ocean, before she had made the choice to leave the water behind. Against her mother's wishes, and in spite of her mother's rage, she chose to follow the demands of her heart even when she hadn't been certain that Satoshi had felt the same. She had known her life was meant to be with him, to be lived on land, long before her youkai-voice had ever spoken the truth to her, with a certainty she couldn't deny. It was a time of innocence, when she had been curious about the one her mother had told her she was betrothed to from the southern oceans. A time when still believed her mother's fairytales - her lies.
 
“You will dream of the child you carry, the one you will keep, before they ever live inside you. The spirit of your child will come to you, greet you in your dreams, long before you become pregnant. It is the way of the Kujira, her mother said, her words somehow wistful. “We see what will be, in our dreams, in the stillness. We are connected in a way that no other youkai knows or can understand. Our minds and our hearts are connected to each other, our youki interwoven as one. In the stillness, the darkness of the quiet, our youkai dance as one. All that we are and all that we can be is all of us together and each of us alone. We are many, and we are one. It is the way of Kujira - all Kujira, but we - shachi - have always been stronger.”
 
The sound of her mother's voice faded away as the words haunted her, looping in her mind as she felt the warmth of the sun on her skin and let her head fall back, turning her face up to the sky above as she opened her eyes. Strands of gold fell down in delicate ribbons and wisps through the canopy of the trees, the leaves lit from behind by the sun. The scents of wood and earth, grass and wildflowers, surrounded her, cossetted her as the breeze slipped past her, lifting her midnight strands to dance in the air. The sweetness of pine and magnolia, tempered by cotton, and enriched by blackberries, apples, and orange blossoms perfumed the air, wrapping around her as she dropped her hands to the forest floor, leaning back against the tree behind her as she closed her eyes, smiling as she listened to the crunch of leaves and twigs.
 
It was Satoshi's rare talent that allowed these plants to grow around her, sharing the same space in the forest that they wouldn't be able to naturally, if he didn't possess the ability to bid the earth to grow as he did. She had never met an earth youkai - or any elemental land-dwelling youkai - before him. She didn't know how truly special he was until she had learned that he was the only one able to do what he did. She laughed softly as she felt the leaves beneath her hands tremble and shift, thick green stalks rising from the earth to stand between her spread fingers. Opening her eyes, she turned her head to watch the emerald shafts rise higher only to culminate in a twisted bulb at the top. Leaves of green flared out to the sides as the golden trumpets of daffodils blossomed beside her, and she smiled as she cut through one of the reedy stalks with her claw, lifting the flower to bury her nose in the delicate petals.
 
She blinked, a smile twisting her lips, as she watched over the curve of the golden flower as the young girl darted in front of her, tripping herself, as she rolled to lie in the leaves and grass. Her walnut hair, shot through with highlights of sorrel and burnt honey, fanned out across the ground around her, her porcelain cheeks flushed with coral as she laughed and lifted her hands high into the air, only to let her arms fall to the forest floor on either side of her. This child was full of light and laughter, barely older than five or six, and Amaya laughed when the girl turned her eyes to her, her breath catching in her throat. The girl's eyes, swirling green with flecks of gold and white - meadow grass - they were her father's eyes.
 
“Mama!” the girl called to her, and Amaya couldn't silence the laughter that came from her as she watched a young lamb race toward her daughter, the tiny creature bleating as it called to its friend before it, too, tumbled to roll in the leaves and grass. “Snow!” her daughter cried happily as she rolled to her side, hugging her arms around the creature that was only too happy to snuggle against her. “Mama, can Snow stay inside with me tonight? Ple-e-e-e-e-e-as< i>e!”
 
“Vanessa,” she laughed as she shook her head. “Where would you put her?”
 
“In my bed!” the girl cheered happily, and Amaya shook her head as she looked up at the long shadow that fell over them both. “Papa!”
 
Satoshi sighed as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Did I hear you correctly, Vanessa?” he asked, amusement sparkling in his eyes. “You want Snow to sleep in your bed tonight?”
 
“Yes!” the girl cheered, and Amaya shrugged when her mate turned his head to meet her gaze.
 
“Do you remember what I taught you?” he asked their daughter. “Do you remember how to create a door in the wall of your bedroom, so that Snow can get outside if she needs to?”
 
“Yes!” Vanessa cheered as she rose to stand, and jumped around in a circle, bounced on the balls of her feet. “I hold my hands on the wood and I close my eyes, and I ask the wall to turn soft, and then, when the hole is big enough, I let it become hard again.”
 
“Go make the door for Snow, and then come back to us,” he instructed her as he knelt down. “Once that is done, and I know that Snow can fit through it easily, then you can take her inside.”
 
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Vanessa cried out as she ran to her father, kissing his cheek before darting back to the house behind them.
 
“Six years old,” he said as he moved to sit next to Amaya, and she smiled as she tipped her head back against the tree behind her.
 
“You know she believes quite firmly that we are faeries and that we live in Ferngully,” Amaya told him with amusement, laughing as she shook her head.
 
“Whatever gave her that idea?” Satoshi asked, a bewildered smile turning his lips up at the corners, the white and gold flecks in his green eyes sparkling with mirth.
 
“Considering that we have the cabin by the road we live in during the winter, but the rest of the year we live out here, far removed from anyone else, in the home you grew for us from the twisted roots and braided ferns?” she asked in return with a teasing grin.
 
“Faeries?” he repeated with a laugh. “Well, at least fae folk are closer to youkai than demons,” he said, and rolled his eyes. “Does that make me the Faery King?” he asked, and Amaya laughed.
 
“I think so,” she agreed, and looked back when she heard the pitter patter of her daughter's running footsteps, and the tiny stuttering hoofbeats of the lamb she'd befriended.
 
“Mama!” the girl shouted, laughing as she darted closer, and ran to sit in her mother's lap, Snow bleating as Vanessa lifted the lamb to sit in her lap, and wrapped her arms around the creature.
 
“Yes, my darling?” Amaya asked with a chuckle.
 
“Someday,” Vanessa said with a dreamy smile. “I'm going to grow roses.”
 
Amaya gasped as she sat up in her bed, the blankets falling to pool in her lap as the dream faded into the recesses of her mind. Tears of joy and disbelief stung her eyes, as she covered her mouth with her hand, taking comfort from the soft thrum of her mate's youki. Even as he slept next to her, their youki were tied together, braided around each other as the energy rose and fell in an endless pulsing wave that had no beginning, no end. Breathing in deeply as she opened her eyes, she turned her gaze on Satoshi, watching him as she slept. Centuries ago, longing so deeply for the telepathic connection of the pod she had left behind, Amaya had taught Satoshi this skill, the ability to speak through his youki. He had been confused, rejecting the very act of it as first, until he had felt the connection, the bond. It was as easy and as effortless, as breathing for him now, she thought, a smile tipping her lips as her mind drifted back to the night she had first began his instruction.
 
Satoshi shook his head as he stood from the dirt floor of the wooden hut, turning away from her as he paced to the end of the room and back. Amaya winced at the abrasive feeling of his youki, the way he instinctually tried to put up a barrier around himself, and she shook her head.
 
“This isn't . . .” He fell silent with a sigh, turning to look at her as the rhythmic drumbeats began to sound, the elder men of the village they had been welcomed into in Vanuatu calling the young men of the village to rise with the coming dawn. “What you're talking about, Amaya, what you want to teach me to do, it isn't done. It's one thing to reach out with your youki, to feel someone else's, to assess the danger in an area, or who's lurking in the dark, but what you're talking about . . . ” He shook his head.
 
“It was among my people. It . . . For Kujira, we are all connected as one by our minds, our hearts, some even said our youkai were bound together. Our youki ebbed and flowed around each other. We were never separate. We didn't simply reach out to pull back as land-dwelling youkai do, we . . . We were all one. We shared everything - our thoughts, our emotions, our memories, our souls. I want that connection with you. I promise, Satoshi, I promise you it's not bad,” she said, watching as he closed his eyes, regret darkening his expression as he released a heavy exhalation, not quite a sigh.
 
“It's not that, I just . . . “ He moved back to sit in front of her, facing her, as he reached out to touch her face, bringing her close for a chaste kiss. “There was a youkai my father knew, ancient, even by youkai standards. Two? Three thousand years old? He used to tell these stories, said that all youkai used to be able to hear the thoughts of other youkai - not their youkai-voices, no, but their actual thoughts and not just of their mates, either, but of everyone, but that the ancient leaders put an end to it long before my father was ever even born.”
 
Amaya frowned as she shook her head. “Why?”
 
“I don't know, they considered it a threat, I guess. For all I know it's nothing more than a story, a legend. I . . . “ He shook his head as he closed his eyes, his chin lowering until it almost touched his chest as he released a heavy breath. “I'm doing it again,” he admitted as he looked up to meet her gaze. “I'm shutting you out, aren't I?”
 
Amaya ducked her head, looking down at her hands folded around the carved wooden cup in her lap. What was she supposed to tell him? Did he want to hear how alone she felt, that even though they were mated and she was with him, that she didn't truly feel connected to him the way she wished to? That even though he held her at night while they slept, or sat with her as they watched the sun rise and set, that she felt alone then, too? To say any of that felt like useless whining. She pushed down her emotions, swallowing back the darkness of isolation that clouded her heart, reminded herself to smile as she looked up to meet his gaze.
 
“It's all right,” she assured him, blinking quickly to stave off the tears stinging behind her eyes. “Sometimes, I forget that I'm a land-dwelling youkai now. I still have a lot to learn. Like hugging and - “
 
“Amaya,” he cut her off, reaching out to hook her chin with a crooked finger, turning her face toward him when she glanced away. “I can feel your emotions, that's the bond of true mates,” he reminded her as she met his gaze. “I hate it when you try to make things like this okay for me. Do you think I can't feel it when you hurt so badly you want to cry, but you smile for me instead?”
 
“I can't ask you to change for me,” she denied him.
 
“You left the ocean for me,” he reminded her incredulously, his brows furrowed high on his forehead. “You think I don't know how huge that was for you? How painful it was?” He let his hand drop as he held her gaze, the furrow between his brows smoothing out as his gaze softened. “How painful it still is? I would do anything to take away that loneliness and sorrow you try to hide from me, and if learning to do this will do that, then teach me, Amaya.”
 
Her lips trembled, the tears stinging behind her eyes blurring her gaze as they overflowed, slipping down her cheeks. “Close your eyes,” she whispered, unable to speak any louder. “When you feel me reach out, return it, touch me with your youki the way I touch you.”
 
She took in a deep breath, reminded herself that he was willing to learn, as she fought against the memory of his earlier rejection. Her eyes fell closed as she unfurled her youki, reaching out to gently brush it against his, twining her energy around him. She opened her eyes when she heard his gasp, met his wide-eyed gaze as he began to respond slowly, his youki reaching out to her in return, twisting and braiding around hers. He tried to subdue her youki at first, an instinctual reaction, she guessed. She waited, maintaining the gentle ebb and flow until he learned to relinquish the need to dominate, learning to be calm, instead, to dance his youki beside hers. She relaxed finally, her tears falling faster as the connection she had yearned for, for so long, was finally hers to behold.
 
“No, don't pull back,” she cautioned him when she felt his youki retreating. “Stay bonded with me.”
 
He nodded quietly as his youki pulsed with each beat of his heart. She felt him relax, the feel of his youki growing stronger around hers as he grew more confident and comfortable with the connection. She guided him slowly, lifting their energy higher, spiraling it around them as she taught him to move with her as one, only to bring it back down, the soothing flowing thrum of their interwoven youki holding strong as it faded to the background. Amaya smiled as she lifted a thread of her youki to brush against his, pulling back a moment later to let it rejoin the braided connection between them. He responded in kind, maintaining the woven connection as he lifted part of his youki, brushing it against hers before returning it to the quiet thrum that ebbed and flowed with the beating of their hearts.
 
“This is . . .” He shook his head as he stared at her in wonder. “This is the connection that you had with your family in the ocean? This is what you've been without for so long?”
 
“It pales in comparison, but . . . yes,” she replied, blinking slowly as she felt him wrap her in his youki, pressing in gently as he held her without ever touching her. “See?” she said with a tremulous smile. “Once you feel the connection, everything else comes naturally.”
 
“I thought our bond as mates was strong, but this . . . I don't even know how to describe this.” He shook his head, staring at her in awe. “It is true, isn't it? There was a time when all youkai were connected like this, could even hear the thoughts of others as they spoke with their youki?”
 
“I don't know,” she said, laughing softly as she shook her head. “Before you, all I've ever known was the ocean. Kujira - all Kujira - could connect with each other as my family did, maybe not always as strongly with those of different clans or types. We could communicate with most other marine youkai in the same way, ashika and iruka were the easiest to speak with. Shironagasukujira, were the hardest to speak with. They never took humanoid form. It was said that that was beyond them, beyond their reach.” She tipped her head, her lips pursed, brows gently furrowed, as she considered her own words. “In fact, aside from us - shachi - the only other Kujira to take humanoid form were Zatokujira. As far as I know, no other Kujira - not even those smaller than us - took humanoid form. ” She blinked as she shook her head, dismissing her wandering mind as she met her mate's gaze.
 
“You mean to say that only orca and humpback youkai ever took humanoid form?” he asked, and she nodded thoughtfully. “Why?”
 
“You have to understand, when I made the choice to live on land, in this form, not a single Kujira had left the ocean - not in five hundred years. It simply isn't done. The draw of the ocean, to be one with the water and all that was around us, there's no place we would rather be. But for me, the draw to be with you, no matter where that may lead, was stronger that the pull of the ocean.” She released a slow breath as she dragged her teeth over her bottom lip. “It takes effort, a concentrated deliberate choice to take humanoid form, to leave the water. Mother always said that we - shachi and Zatokujira - were more spiritually connected to the life around us, that Susanoo-no-Mikoto granted us awareness, and that was why we could.”
 
Satoshi's brow furrowed as he nodded slowly, the feel of his youki curious and energetic. “How far can this connection remain intact?” he asked, and she laughed softly as she shrugged.
 
“I don't know. Distance . . . It was hard to judge in the water, but as long as we could hear each other singing, no matter how soft our voices, we would remain connected.” Amaya chuckled as she turned her gaze to the doorway covered by long swaths of tapa cloth, rolling her eyes as the rhythmic drumming grew louder, more insistent. “You'd better go. The villagers are expecting you to help them fish.”
 
He leaned close to kiss her, his lips lingering against hers for a few moments before pulling back. “I'll see you in a few hours, aisuru. Where will I find you when I return?”
 
She smiled as she bit her bottom lip, dragging it through her teeth as she chuckled. “In the largest hut, the one without doors or walls. The elder women and mothers of the village will be teaching me how to turn the paper mulberry tree into tapa cloth. I'll be learning how to make clothing and tapestries as they do. They'll be teaching me how to weave baskets, and braid the coconut fibers into rope, and . . . everything else.” She stood when he did, bracing one hand on his shoulder as she leaned up on her toes to kiss him. “If ever you cannot find me, simply close your eyes and tug on that low vibration you feel right now, follow where it leads and you will find me.”
 
The memory faded, her lips curling up in a smile as the whisper of drumbeats faded into the darkness around her. The soft pings and taps of the summer rain on the window pane called to her, and she looked at the glass, watching as the rivulets of water streamed down. The whisper of voices, the scent of forest and fruit on the air surrounding her as her dream came back to her, her dream-daughter's voice echoing in her mind as she bit the edge of her lip. She blinked in the darkness as her chest heaved, her breaths coming from her in broken gasps before turning into sobbing laughs, as she lifted her hands to cover her mouth as she shook her head.
 
“I always thought it was nonsense,” she whispered as she combed her fingers through her hair, pulled the thick locks back from her face. “I never dreamed of any of the others,” she said, speaking her thoughts out loud, and began to laugh as the tears filling her eyes spilled onto her cheeks. “Vanessa,” she whispered the name of her dream daughter, her lips trembling as she smiled, and looked at her mate sleeping beside her. “This time will be different,” she promised him, touching her hand to his dark hair, smoothing the backs of her knuckles down over his cheek as she watched him sleep. “This time I dreamed of her.”
 
 
 
 
 
~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~
 
 
 
 
 
Satoshi lifted his left hand to his face, his eyes falling closed as he gripped his temples between his thumb and middle fingers. He tipped his head forward, the braid securing his cherry wood hair falling over his shoulder as he dropped his hand with a sigh, green eyes flecked with gold and white opening as he looked across the room to stare at nothing. For as old as he was, for as old as he felt some days, he still didn't look a day over three hundred. But today, he felt the wealth of his age in the depth of his bones. Part of him was grateful to be alone, the solitude comforting for the task ahead, even as he worried over his mate. She would be gone for a few hours, at least, delivering the patterned tapestries she'd made on the loom, the quilts she had sewn, and the clothing she'd created - the cotton, linen, wool, and tapa cloths made by her own hand - to the woman at the farmer's market who sold them for her, and picking up any money made from the sales for the week before.
 
The hand-pressed paper she made, sewn into the leather journals he created from the animal hides gathered when he hunted their dinner, were always in high demand, bringing in a greater price simply because he only made a few each month. The seedlings he'd created - something Amaya had convinced him to start doing almost fifty years ago - would be delivered to the woman's husband at another stand, along with the journals, to be sold as well. The plants at times brought in more money than Amaya's creations, or his journals did, especially since the man who sold them had learned that it didn't matter how dry or wet the soil they were buried in was, they would always grow strong and bear fruit.
 
Amaya would be stopping by the sheep farm on her way home, he reminded himself, as he mentally reviewed her to-do list. She would be helping the farmer - a very kind, very old, human man - to sheer his sheep. It was a trick between them - he and Amaya - helping human farmers to sheer their sheep, alpaca or other animals bred for their wool, using only their claws while never letting the humans know that that was how they were doing it. The animals preferred it, and he was fairly certain that it felt to the creatures as though they were simply being petted, even as the substantial weight of their wool was removed.
 
`She is safe. You would know if she wasn't,' his youkai-voice reminded him, and he nodded to himself as he blew out a heavy breath, still able to feel the whisper of her youki against his. How much of that feeling was the bond between mates, and how much of it was the connection of their youki, he didn't rightfully know. `Stop trying to find a reason to not do what she asked you to do, Satoshi. I know it scares you, but you agreed to do this.'
 
Satoshi looked down at the closed book sitting on the low table in front of him. At twenty inches tall, fifteen inches wide, and eight inches thick, the tome weighed close to forty pounds on its own. It had been an impulse buy, something about it had felt as though it belonged with them, at least that was what his mate had said. The pages inside were made of hand-pressed linen paper that felt as though it had been brushed until it was as soft as down feathers, in a color that wasn't white, but wasn't quite grey either, stuck somewhere in between as though they had been removed from time itself.
 
He released a heavy breath, the exhalation half-hearted, almost defeated, as he reached out to smooth the fingertips of his right hand over the leather-bound wood carving. An ironic smile twisted his lips as he exhaled, the sound of it almost amused. The scene that had been carefully crafted into the wood by youkai claws - the carving too fine, too precise to have been made by any human tool - depicted a moonlit night, the beach below the stars cast in shadows as rolling waves crashed over the sands, and mountains overlooked the two lone figures standing on the beach at the crest of the sea, the ripples of water distorting the tops of their feet but not touching their ankles.
 
The woman's flowing gown rippled behind her in the wind, the man's arm wrapped around her shoulders as they stared out at the ocean in front of them. It was then that he noticed the tiny object in the water nearly hidden by the frothing turbulent waves, too small to be a boat, too large to be flower, and as he looked closer, he could see it was a tiny covered basket. An infant burial at sea, he surmised as he sat back with a sigh. There was something wholly beautiful and completely damning about the image, a mockery of he and his mate, he supposed, and shook his head. No, that wasn't right. He knew Amaya found this image hauntingly beautiful, it was just . . .
 
`It's a little too accurate, isn't it?' his youkai-voice asked. `It makes you think of things you don't want to remember. A life you would give anything to forget.'
 
` . . . Yeah,' he answered with a silent sigh. `She wants me to write my story. The truth, as I know it, about where I came from - my childhood, my family, their history. Something for our child - children - to have when they grow up. Something to remember us by, I guess.' As excited as she was for the future, his mate also seemed to be preparing for the end.
 
`Neither of you had easy pasts before you met, and the time since taking her as our mate hasn't been simple, either. Maybe this was easier for her, a way to heal. Maybe it'll be easier for both of you,' his youkai responded, releasing a heavy sigh. `And if nothing else, it will be the darkness of your truths left behind when you're gone. Ten children, Satoshi. Ten babies. And not a single one of them lived past their first year. Some didn't even make it past their first month.'
 
He closed his eyes as he felt the weight of all they had lost overwhelm him, and bent forward as he wrapped his arms over his stomach, his face contorting in a grimace. His mouth opened wide in a silent cry that was so raw, so aching, there was no sound that could ever express it. Every life that had grown inside Amaya's belly had been one he could not forget. Every child brought into existence - shachi - just like their mother, to be held, to be loved, only to choke on the very air they needed to breathe as they died slowly in her arms, or in his.
 
He'd never told Amaya what he'd done, he thought as he closed his eyes. After their third baby died, he'd had to know why, and when he had left her sleeping in their seaside home to return their dead infant to the sea, he'd taken the time to cut his tiny daughter with his claw, to open her chest. What he found had both stunned and saddened him. Her lungs were oversized. There was barely any room at all between her lungs and her ribcage. Even her heart had been compressed because the organs were too big. She had suffocated slowly - they all had suffocated slowly - because they were meant to live in the water, and the size of her lungs was proof of that.
 
How many times had Amaya told him of what it was like to live in the ocean? To watch as one of her sisters gave birth, and that calf swam with them all? Kujira live in the ocean. We are born, and we will die in the ocean. It is in our blood. Those were the words she had told him, and when he thought on it now, he couldn't help but think of them as some kind of macabre warning.
 
Amaya had told him that she was ready to try again, that she wanted another child. She was ready, he thought as he shook his head, as he schooled his features, but he didn't know that he was. Even for all his reservations, for all the heartache it had brought them both, he had given her what she asked for. She was stronger than he was. She always had been, he admitted to himself, and maybe, he thought, that was why he had agreed.
 
It took effort to swallow back his grief, to force it into the dark recesses of his mind and lock it behind the heavy steel doors of his heart. To be strong for her, to act as though the memories of their deceased children didn't hurt him as much as it did, even learning how to hide it from the connection they shared through their youki was taxing, but he did it - all of it - for her. He closed his eyes as he took in a deep breath, centering himself, as he reined in his youki, pulling it back from the grief he had allowed momentary freedom. A bittersweet smile twisted his lips as he shook his head slowly and held out his hand toward the honeysuckle vines that climbed down from the slats in the top of the walls to pool on the floor in the exposed dirt around the inside wall of the house near the front door.
 
He focused his youki, released only what was needed to restore life to the plants, taking from them the agony that had withered them. It was the one thing he had learned to control, or at least taught himself to correct, he thought as he sat back against the couch. Emotions that were too strong to be controlled, that demanded to be released - anger, fear, the agony of grief, even the fires of passion - the earth responded to all of it without pause, without reservation. Where fear or anger would shake the ground until it crumbled or thrust large boulders of earth into the air as an attack, hate would rip fissures and deep valleys, collapsing and swallowing anything that dared get in its path. Grief had the power to wither those things that lived around him, his despair turning once vibrant plants and trees into sickly greasy dark green - almost black - rot, and sometimes, even returning them to dust.
 
Passion, he thought as a smile tipped his lips. Well, that was a whole other ballgame, as they said, wasn't it? The night he'd first kissed Amaya, the night he'd felt his heart swell and overflow with love, sakura trees and appeared out of the ground surrounding them in a circle as they grew taller, fuller, branches of the trees braiding together until they were inseparable, perfect white and pale pink blossoms blooming in seconds as they shone with unparalleled radiance against the backdrop of deep green leaves under the light of the full moon. That circle of trees still stood there on the mountainside overlooking the ocean, their flowers never fading, never falling, shimmering under the light of the moon. The humans, and even most youkai, believed that the land had been blessed by the Kami.
 
`If only they knew,' his youkai chided him, and he chuckled.
 
`You think they'd be upset if I told them all that it was just an earth youkai getting his first kiss from his mate?' he asked, and smiled when his youkai laughed heartily.
 
`I doubt they'd believe you. They'd think you were some kind of heretic.' His youkai sighed heavily, the sound resigned. `Are you going to do it? Are you going to write your - our - story?'
 
` . . . I don't know,' he admitted as he covered his face with his hands and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and reached out for the giant book again. `Should I?'
 
`They say the truth can set you free,' his youkai offered.
 
`It could also damn me to Hell. What he did . . . How do I write that? How do I even speak about that?'
 
`You write about it because you must, because it was never your burden to bear.'
 
`Not my . . . ? Are you kidding me? He did all of it - every damn bit of it - to create me. How is it not my burden to bear?'
 
For once, his youkai-voice was quiet and Satoshi sighed as he reached for the book. He lifted the heavy cover, his gaze falling on the first page and the kanji gracefully inscribed in his mate's careful hand. He fell silent as he brought his hand to the page, tracing his fingertips over the characters, his meadow grass eyes following every line, every curve. She had translated the inscription below in English, and his eyes softened as he studied the flowing loops and angles of her elegant calligraphic handwriting.
 
This book, my children, is a collection of memories, of stories we've told you, and of the things that we haven't. It holds the answers to questions you may never think to ask, and others you may fear to. Who we are will not change because of what you read within these pages, but perhaps there will be things you understand after, that you wish you never did. Remember always, that without condition or compromise, we always have, and always will, love you.
 
The accuracy in her gentle words was enough to give him pause, and Satoshi closed his eyes before reaching across the table to grasp the fountain pen she had left behind. He unscrewed the metal utensil at the center, pulling it apart to check the plastic ink tube tucked inside, and nodded to himself as he secured the instrument back into one piece. His handwriting wasn't nearly as beautiful as hers, but then again, he thought, he hadn't been taught to write English by a French master of calligraphy as she had, either.
 
Pushing the table away from the couch, he sat down on the wood floor of the house he'd built himself, and pulled the heavy volume down to rest in his lap, propping it against the table as he brought the tip of the pen to the middle of the page, just below Amaya's inscriptions.
 
`To my children, the children of my children, and all those we leave behind,' he wrote in his native Japanese, and paused as he rested the bottom of the pen against his lips in thought before he brought the tip back to the paper. `You have heard the stories from your mother and myself, the tales we told you of our histories, but contained within these pages are the truths of the whispers, the darkness we dared not tell you before. Remember us, my children, my grandchildren, as you knew us, as we are, for in these pages you may not recognize the people we once were.'
 
It was a good start, he supposed as he read over the characters he'd marked down once more, before translating it into English below. It added to his mate's words of introduction, but was it really anything more than a carefully crafted warning - a reader beware? He had been able to hear the words she hadn't said, felt the tightness in her youki, the jagged vibrations through their bond. He had seen the trace of tightness around her eyes when she'd stepped out of their bedroom that morning with the book in her arms and the pen in her hand with the tiny box of extra ink cartridges. She'd been writing in it for weeks now, and where he had thought she had kept it as a journal for herself, he had found out just how wrong he had been.
 
This book wasn't a private journal, nor was it something that was intended to be held and read to their children at night. It wasn't meant to be a fanciful tale, full of hopes and dreams or princesses and dragons. This was a book that they were meant to leave behind, a tome of answers that their children would be able to read once they were dead and gone, cut down by one of the Tai Youkai's hunters, or by one of the crazed youkai hunting them to experiment on his mate, or himself. People crazy enough - insane beyond reason - who believed the same lies his father had. Or worse, he thought with a deeply indrawn breath, those who were looking to capture his mate, to sell her to someone else, to be held for all eternity like some kind of prized possession once she'd been forced to retake her true form.
 
He shook his head to dispel his dark thoughts as he looked down at the page in front of him and closed his eyes as he took in a calming breath. There was a nagging feeling in the back of his mind, a whisper from somewhere beyond his youkai-voice, deeper than himself, that told him this child would survive, that this child would need answers once they were gone. This book was to be their last words, hold truths that he and Amaya weren't strong enough to give voice to. And their deaths, he thought as he signed his name and date at the bottom - 23 April, 2050 - following it up with the city and state they were in, the national park they called home - it was all his fault. One single moment when he had lost all control, when he had become the monster his father had always wanted him to be, when he had become death itself.
 
`Do you really think that, Satoshi?' his youkai-voice asked as he pulled out the ribbon just enough to slip his finger in between the pages it marked, and opened the book to somewhere near a third of the way through. `You do . . . don't you?' the voice prodded when he remained silent, smoothing his hand over the blank page before he rubbed his fingertips against his brow in an entirely soul-weary kind of way. `You see yourself as some kind of monster? Tosh, you're not bad, you're not evil. He was insane. You need to remember that. How can you believe any of what he said?'
 
`I never wanted to believe him!' he denied, and heard his youkai sigh.
 
`So, what? You believe him now?' his youkai asked in return. `If that were the case, you never would have given Amaya a child the first time so long ago, or this time, two days ago. You would never have taken that chance, I know you. Which means that you don't really believe him . . . Do you?'
 
Satoshi released a heavy sigh as he capped the pen, scooting down further across the floor and leaned his head back against the couch behind him, the back of his head resting on the seat cushion. That was the problem, wasn't it? He didn't really know what he believed anymore. For so long now, he had hung onto the belief that his father's beliefs, his actions, were all just the ravings of a mad man, but after L.A. there was a part of him that could no longer ignore it, either. He closed his eyes as he took in a deep breath, releasing the air in a slow exhalation that was as tired as it was resigned.
 
`Look at everything that's happened, from the moment I met Amaya, to the moment that I refused the mating and found out the truth about everything, to right now. The only reason Amaya survived that doctor is because I found her in time, because I . . .' he sighed as he shook his head. `Because in my fear and my anger, in my haste to get her away, I lost control. I was so angry, and I . . . I wanted to hurt them, to make them as terrified as they have always made us and because of that, I tore a city to its very foundations. That was only supposed to be a fissure just big enough for that bastard to fall into. What happened - that earthquake - that was never meant to happen.'
 
His youkai was quiet, the feel of the silence heavy and dark. It made Satoshi wonder, not for the first time, just how much of their father's mad ravings his youkai believed. Satoshi had cast them aside, believing his father nothing more than a lunatic turned murderous, but he had always been tempered by his youkai, encouraged to create life, and cautioned every day not to take it - to use only what was needed of his power to get away, to run, but not to fight. He felt his youkai's sigh more than he heard it, his attention drawn back to the voice inside of him, and felt the gravity of the things his youkai wouldn't say.
 
`It's because I never wanted you to have to find out if you were the killer your father wanted, or not. For all he tried to do to you, for all he did to you under the guise of training, you were never able to wield water on its own as he wanted you to, and maybe that's been our saving grace. But our power's grown, Satoshi. It's more than tripled what it once was.' His youkai-voice fell silent once more as it waited, as it contemplated, and Satoshi wondered just why the feel of his youkai was so serious, grave beyond his understanding. `Do you remember? That . . . surge . . . we felt on the night we turned one thousand? I never even thought we'd make it this far, but we did. You've felt surges like that before so many times, but not quite as powerful as it was that night. You were born under a blood moon, and on that night, there was another one. Whether it was coincidence, or not, that surge of power, that - that rage - that was something new.'
 
`That rage was because they took Amaya, because they thought to lock her up, to experiment on her, on our baby still growing inside of her,' he protested, feeling the anger rolling inside of him, the earth beneath him trembling quietly in response, and felt the answering caution from his youkai.
 
`Then . . . Figure out what happened,' his youkai advised, and Satoshi frowned as he got the feeling that his youkai hadn't said what it wanted to say. `We felt that surge at night, but she wasn't taken until the next day. You have the maps, the ones that lay out every single fault line, even the minor ones. Study it - memorize it - until you know it by heart. And don't ever let what happened in L.A. happen again. And if . . . by some dark miracle, if Amaya gives birth to the child your father was trying so desperately to create, the one like you, but stronger . . . If it happens -`
 
`He was insane,' Satoshi argued. `What I am came about through the torture, rape, and bloodshed of innocent people, of youkai who had done nothing to gain his attention other than exist,' he snarled in return. `And thank kami he didn't know that Kujira were real - were anything other than myths back then, because the very thought of what he would have done to Amaya terrifies me.'
 
`If it happens, if she has that child,' his youkai cautioned him sternly. `You make damn certain that they know what kind of damage their power can cause, and you keep it from happening. Your father knew what he was doing, knew the power you would hold, and knew exactly what he wanted you to be - what any youkai would want someone like you to be. Be grateful that for everything he did in your youth, that he was never able to make you use the powers of water on its own. No matter the torture he put you through, you could split the earth but never raise the sea. He raised you with hate, but you were stronger than he was. So, you must do everything in your power to raise your child with happiness and love, but always - always - with caution, and don't you dare let another youkai too close to them. Because you know what will happen. Your child would either be weaponized or killed. Don't ever let anyone harm your child, but above all, don't let someone turn them into the weapon your father was trying so desperately to create.'
 
`I - I won't,' he promised. `I won't ever let that happen. I won't ever let a child like me do what I did. I'd never let another youkai near them. I wouldn't put them in that kind of danger.'
 
His youkai sighed, the sound all together tired and worn. `Do us both a favor?' his youkai asked, and Satoshi frowned. `Let Amaya see how much you're hurting, how scared you are. She might be able to feel it through your bond as mates and through your braided youki, but you need to grieve with her. Every time you've lost a child you've been stoic throughout it all, only grieving when you're alone. I know - I know - it's not the Japanese way to show emotion, but the way she was raised . . . when one grieved, they all grieved. . . she's hurting just as much as you are. Just let her see that. You tend to forget far too often that the family she came from was vastly different than yours.'
 
`Meaning what?'
 
`Meaning that when you try to hide your feelings from her, you leave her feeling isolated. Don't you remember what she told you so long ago? The hearts and minds and youki of her pod were shared among all, no one was separate. It wasn't just communication, it was . . . everything. Her youkai talks to me sometimes, when you're both sleeping. Her youkai longs just as desperately for that connection with me as Amaya longs for it with you. I've felt it when her youkai tries to share her memories with me the way it would have been shared in her pod, and that she can't, frustrates and pains her youkai just as much as it frustrates Amaya. She tells me the things Amaya would never tell you because Amaya knows you don't understand and she'd never want to hurt you. Her youkai tells me when Amaya feels . . . ` The voice inside him trailed off as though unsure that it should be speaking what had been said in confidence.
 
`When she feels what?' Satoshi demanded, unsure if he was angered or hurt by all his youkai was telling him.
 
`When Amaya feels abandoned.' His youkai heaved a sigh. `Tosh, you may not realize it, but when you try so hard to hide your emotions from Amaya, you're pulling back your youki from her and raising up a wall with it at the same time. You're severing that connection and leaving her alone. Maybe you don't know that you're doing it because you don't feel it as strongly as she does because you didn't grow up with that kind of a connection in your family, but when you pull back, it hurts her. Just stop hurting her.'
 
Satoshi nodded as he closed his eyes, his breath caught somewhere between his lips and his lungs. He tipped his head up from where it rested, his chin lowering to touch his chest as he took in a tumultuous breath. Tears burned behind his eyes, clogged his throat, dulled his senses. He had been there to hold Amaya when she cried, when she hadn't been able to keep going after losing one of their children, or when she had simply been too scared when they had been forced to run, to leave the homes they'd made when the gyrfalcon youkai or one of his ilk chasing them had found them yet again.
 
But for all of that, he knew that she was still stronger than he was. Because through it all, he realized as he closed his eyes, one tear slipping down his cheek, each time he had closed off his emotions to be strong for her, he had unknowingly broken the connection between them, and she had never told him just how much she hurt because of it. She bore the pain in silence, never letting him know how isolated she felt, how alone she was. And in that moment, he promised himself he would never leave her alone again.
 
Satoshi took in a deep calming breath as he opened his eyes, blinking slowly down at the open book in his lap, his brows furrowing as he stared in confusion at the drop of moisture drying on the pressed linen fiber page. He lifted his hand to his cheek, felt the dampness of his skin, the furrow between his brows growing deeper. He didn't even know he was crying, he didn't feel the tears, but that didn't stop them from falling.
 
His heart beat faster as he closed his eyes, the muscle in his jaw ticking as he felt the whisper of memories tickle at the back of his mind. Images and voices best left forgotten rose from the deepest recesses of his mind, haunting him like ghosts. He fisted his hands at the feel of the darkness, the malignancy, of them all, and the more he tried to push the memories back, the more powerfully they came forth, until they were too strong to be stopped, too loud to be silenced. And like so many angry wraiths seeking recognition, he was helpless against them.
 
The moon was in full view, shining down from a sky free of storm clouds or rain. It was the first dry night they'd seen in almost a month. It was a simple time, even with the expectations and trainings his father insisted upon, the Kamakura period brought with it a measure of peace for their region, a kind of graceful solitude. He'd been hearing whispers through the village below them, the youkai who lived on his father's lands saying that the Inu no Taisho's mate had born him a son. Sesshoumaru, they said he was called. The Great Dog finally had his heir, he thought with a nod, the grass whispering beneath his feet as he walked.
 
How many times had he thought of leaving this place? He was two hundred years old, he thought, turning his gaze up to look at the moon covered by a thin veil of gossamer clouds. He had tried leaving before, several times, only to find himself right back here, under his father's thumb, and why? Because of all his father had done to gain control over the lands he called his, the youkai living just outside those borders had seen fit to attack Satoshi each and every time he'd dared to cross that invisible line. And if that hadn't been enough to keep him here, his father had made certain to punish him for daring to dishonor him by leaving. Those punishments, he thought with a sigh, usually left him unable to leave his bed, let alone walk, for days on end.
 
He sighed as he pushed back those dark thoughts, letting the soft scents of the wisteria and fringed iris that grew wild in these lands soothe him. Closing his eyes as he came to a stop, standing still in the open field, he knelt down and buried his fingers in the dirt up to the first knuckles. The impassive expression on his face didn't change, though his green eyes flecked with gold and white brightened in the darkness as he watched twisted roots rise from the ground, spiraling higher as they wrapped around each other before spreading out into a myriad of branches - some thick enough to sit on, and others thinner than his pinky finger. Tiny deep green buds appeared on the branches, covering the tree in the darkest jade, as some of those buds became leaves while others blossomed forth into the delicate blooms of star magnolia.
 
He'd pay for his actions later, he thought as he stood, brushing the bits of earth from his hands as he stared at the tree, watching as the flowers and leaves danced beneath the starlit night. Growing the earth brought him such a sense of comfort and peace, but for a reason he couldn't fathom, it served only to enrage his father. He turned his face into the night wind as he closed his eyes, resuming his journey once more as he looked up at the moon, watching as the hazy shadows of clouds parted to reveal the brilliance of the full moon.
 
The gentle breeze swirling around him offered a welcome relief from the warmth of the day that had ended only moments ago, and Hayashi Satoshi shook his head as he fisted his hands at his sides. He had gone for a walk to clear his mind, to free himself of the unsettling feeling that hadn't left him all day, and he'd grown the tree to comfort himself, but none of it seemed to help. By all rights, it was a beautiful evening, the kind of night he would spend months waiting for, just to be able to sit on the cliffs overhanging the sea below and watch the roll of the waves on the ocean's surface, the small crests tipped in white that would dance and churn only to be broken into droplets and mists by the release of air from the blowholes of so many whales.
 
But if this night was so beautiful, he thought as he walked down the path that led to the chambers he kept in his father's massive estate, then why did it feel so ominous? The closer he came to the door of his chambers, the more he felt something inside of him scream as it clawed at him and demanded that he turn - that he run. His eyes narrowed as the air stilled for barely a moment, just long enough for him to fully sense what he had only caught the barest hint of before. There was a youkai in his chambers - female, but there was something unsettling about her. Feeling that she was both ice and water, not quite one, but not quite the other, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
 
“What have you done?” he asked, his voice low, absent of emotion, as he looked at his father from the corner of his eye.
 
“You will take this one as your mate,” his father commanded regally as he threw back the shoji door and pointed at the girl sitting inside, her legs tucked beneath her, hands on her thighs as she sat seiza.
 
“I don't even know her,” Satoshi said as he looked at the girl, before turning his gaze on his father.
 
“Your familiarity with her is of no importance to me,” his father declared, and crossed his arms over his chest. “She has been bred specifically for you. She possesses no worth other than the child she bears you.”
 
“What?” Satoshi shook his head as he stared at his father, his brows furrowed. “What do you mean `she has been bred for me'?” he demanded.
 
Daichi turned, leveling his unamused stare on his son, and narrowed his eyes. “Exactly what I have said. Should you not take her as your mate, she will be discarded, and left to rot. But you will take her as your mate because I command it,” his father ordered, and nodded toward the girl sitting inside. “Now.”
 
“I will not mate her, or anyone else, with you - or anyone - watching,” Satoshi refused, ignoring the growl his father had issued. “Be clear now, chichiue. Speak plainly of her origins.”
 
Daichi smiled, the expression full of satisfaction and pride in his own actions. “Years ago,” he began, “four hundred, to be exact, I came across a prophecy that spoke of a creature of earth and sea, a youkai stronger than all others of their kind. One who would be able to break the world apart and drown it in turn. Strong enough to divide the tides, or so the scroll told. From the father of earth unfurled, and a mother of the ocean, and I knew it would be my son who would be the father,” he said, and Satoshi felt the breath still in his chest as he stared blankly at his father. “I would never allow it to be anyone else.”
 
“Divide the tide”?” Satoshi repeated as he shook his head, his brow furrowed. “What does that even mean?”
 
“Who cares what it means! That creature will be a weapon - my weapon,” his father boasted, and Satoshi's frown deepened as something else his father said caught his attention.
 
“Mother of the ocean . . . But hahahue is a water youkai, her family comes from the rivers not the ocean. That's what she always . . . The old wooden hut down by the shore,” he whispered in horror as his mind slowed to a crawl, the disbelief he felt swelling as it twisted with rage to create a storm of emotion he could only barely control. “The marine and earth youkai wrapped in chains . . .”
 
“I am powerful,” his father declared, stomping his foot on the ground as he lifted his hand, great clumps of earth flying into the air, shaking the very ground they stood on, and Satoshi narrowed his eyes when he saw the girl's mouth open wide in a terrified cry, though no sound came from her throat. “Oh, don't waste your concern on her,” his father scoffed a moment later as the shaking earth stilled. “She has been made silent,” he said, and Satoshi frowned as he shook his head in confusion. “There is a traveling priestess, a medical woman, who has been paid quite highly to silence the humans' children, but unlike humans, a youkai will heal the wound, and once every decade it must be repeated. She isn't due for another two years, at least.”
 
“What . . . procedure?” Satoshi asked as he felt his stomach turn.
 
“A simple quick cut,” Daichi said as he brought his finger up to indicate the spot on his own throat. “It severs the chords, makes it impossible for her to speak. She can draw in as much air as she wants to,” he said as he stepped up behind the youkai, and pulled her hair back roughly, fisting his hand around the thick locks that were so white they looked blue, and dragged her to her feet, only to throw her to the tatami mats. “Do anything you like with her, she'll never make a noise.”
 
It took strength Satoshi didn't know he had to school his features, to remain outwardly unaffected, when he felt so completely horrified that he was sick because of it. “Her parents let you do this?” he asked as he stared at the girl, watching as she slowly stood before kneeling down to retake the seiza.
 
“Her creation was paid for!” Daichi snapped.
 
“Paid - what the hell does that even mean?” Satoshi demanded, his emotions getting the better of him before he was able to rein them in once more.
 
“Her parents were indebted to me, and I demanded repayment in the form of her,” Daichi said haughtily. “Of course, they let me do as I wished with her. You think they would refuse me? Dishonor me? I am a god to them,” he declared, and Satoshi shook his head. “You do not agree?” he scoffed.
 
“Why?” Satoshi asked, the horror he felt making the single word difficult to speak.
 
“And the mother, born of the sea, will come from a place where only the strongest survive,” his father said, quoting a passage. “Even the iruka do not go to such depths, as the waters are too cold for them, but,” Daichi said as he held up one finger in triumph, “nature can be made to bow,” he announced pridefully. “And I made nature bow down on her knees before me - twice. First with her -“ he said as he pointed to the female. “Her mother was an ice youkai, and her father was water youkai - both from the purest of bloodlines. I commanded them to breed, and even breed their offspring, until the perfect youkai - a perfect fusion of water and ice - had been bred.”
 
“Breed their offspring,” Satoshi repeated slowly, dumbly as he refused to believe what his father was telling him. “You mean to say . . .?”
 
“She is born of her father,” Daichi said primly.
 
“And her mother?” Satoshi asked, unable to stop himself.
 
“It was their third daughter who held the strongest power,” he said simply, and Satoshi feared he would be sick. “Concern yourself not with this. It is unimportant.”
 
“And her family?” Satoshi asked, trying desperately not to attack his father, or worse, loose the dinner he had eaten only hours before. “All those she left behind?”
 
“Gone,” Daichi dismissed. “Once she was born and her power tested true, they were unneeded. My men, of course, took their pleasures before destroying the lot of them. I had her silenced first when she was an infant, the cries that came out of her were simply annoying, but don't worry, she was allowed a respite for her eleventh year, and I made certain she could converse quite well before having her silenced again. It is quite simple to do with the cut of a single claw.”
 
Satoshi swallowed the bile rising in the back of his throat with difficulty before turning his eyes on the girl. “The cliffs overhanging the sea guarded by the ancient peach tree, do you know where they are?” he asked, and the girl nodded. “Wait for me there, I will come for you,” he told her, his voice giving nothing away.
 
He turned his back to her, putting himself between his father and the girl as he allowed her to escape, and seconds after he watched her disappear into the woods, his head snapped to the side. A trickle of blood fell from the corner of his mouth where his father had lashed out, striking him with the back of his hand.
 
“You would dare defy me?” Daichi snarled as he raised his hand to strike his son again, and Satoshi caught him by the wrist, the true hatred he felt for his father shining in his eyes.
 
“You would dishonor me?” he asked in return, as he held his father's wrist in an iron grip. “Dishonor that girl as you have so many others?”
 
“She is nothing but a womb! She means nothing beyond the child she can bear you,” he snapped. “She was bred the same as you!” he exclaimed, and Satoshi stilled as he felt the blood freeze in his veins.
 
“ . . . What?” Satoshi growled through clenched teeth. “You did these things to mother?” he asked, feeling unsteady under the wave of vertigo his father's revelations had inspired.
 
Daichi scoffed. “That woman is a pathetic excuse for a water youkai, but our mating was arranged, just as yours has been. My father and hers were business partners, combining forces. And I killed them both when I discovered how weak her power was,” he boasted, and Satoshi stilled as he was reminded of what he had almost forgotten.
 
“The shack, the dead youkai rotting and secured in chains, the . . . How many, chichihue?” he asked, his eyes cold as he schooled his features into an unreadable mask. “How many siblings came before me? How many were born, only to be sacrificed - slaughtered - by you, until I was born?” he demanded, and in his rage, he squeezed his hand around his father's wrist until he heard the bone snap. “How. Many.”
 
“Twenty-five,” Daichi answered dismissively, and it was only through his father's strict and often painful lessons that Satoshi managed to appear unaffected.
 
“You fathered them all? Killed them all?” he asked, clenching his jaw as his eyes began to take on a deadly light. “Do not think me a fool,” he snapped when Daichi scoffed. “I saw the youkai in that hut - male and female - water, ice, ashika, iruka, and kurage - the rarest of the marine youkai. If the mythical Kujira you've always romanticized about actually existed, no doubt you'd have one of them, too. Your scent may have been masked by the wind, by their blood that soaked the floor, but I could still smell you in there.” He stilled as his father yanked his injured wrist free of Satoshi's hold. “You - you raped them. You made them rape each other,” he said as the bile returned, and he swallowed it back as he shook his head in disbelief.
 
“Do not be a simpering fool. No one was raped,” his father scoffed mockingly as he yanked his wrist free from Satoshi's hold. “They were bred.”
 
“Bred?” Satoshi repeated. “Bred?” he repeated incredulously as the anger he had held at bay finally overflowed. “They are not animals! You are mated to mother!”
 
“And she was not strong enough!” Daichi snarled. “She was weak and pathetic, and the only reason I agreed to the mating was because I wanted her family's wealth - their lands. But she would never have been strong enough to bring about the prophecy. Oh, but you Satoshi,” he said as he lifted his hand to touch his son's cheek. “You are my prize. That iruka, she gave birth to a daughter, powerful - formidable, but she was only a third as powerful as you are. And then that ashika, she gave birth to a son. I bred them both, those offspring were mine. And I tested them both over many years,” he said, and Satoshi felt the air catch in his throat, choking him, as he prayed to Kami that his father wasn't about to say what he thought he was. “They were both formidable in mind and spirit, they both could command earth and water separately, but neither power was very strong. Their power never became much more than that of a child's. But then it happened,” Daichi exclaimed, his eyes wide as he laughed, the sound manic. “The night the stars fell from the sky, I commanded them to mate, commanded him to breed her, and he did so as I watched. And nine months later, under the cover a moon eclipsed, you were born.”
 
`Don't think about it, Satoshi,' his youkai warned him.
 
`My . . . parents,' he thought with difficulty, his mind slowing to a crawl. `My parents were siblings? He is my . . . grandfather - their father?'
 
Satoshi stood silent as he stared at the youkai in front of him without truly seeing him. Who was this person? Has he always been this - this monster?
 
“You had a sister, did you know?” Daichi asked as he smiled slowly, the expression wistful, if not a bit nostalgic, as though he were thinking back on some pleasant memory. “It was the Iruka who bore the child,” he told Satoshi. “She had her mother's pale blue hair, one grey eye - like her mother, and one eye the color of meadowsweet. Yes, yes,” he murmured, sounding proud, even happy. “My eyes. Dark green with flecks of white. Oh, how her mother cursed me the night I bred her. She thought she could command her own body not to accept my seed, but my will is stronger, and it was easy to impregnate her. I had to keep her in chains just so that she wouldn't rip the child from her womb with her own claws. She had fire, that one. Kojunin was powerful,” he said as he took in a deep breath, a self-satisfied smile bending his lips up at the side.
 
“Kojunin?” Satoshi repeated with a shake of his head. “Tenth child? That's not a name, not a proper one anyway.”
 
Daichi rolled his eyes as he scoffed. “There is no reason to name something bound for slaughter,” he said reasonably. “Kojunin was five years old when I last saw her,” he reminisced, smiling at the memory. “Her fifth summer had come to pass, and when I tested her, she raised the earth to create a doll. Can you imagine that?” he asked Satoshi, his brows high on his forehead as he laughed, as he sneered. “It barely lasted a few seconds, just long enough for her to hold it up before it crumbled into dust. The foolish child even grew for me a flower, that, too, wilted and returned to dust within the span of a few heartbeats. She even thanked me for the kimono she wore. I remember her smile . . . And I remember the look in her eyes when I cut her face with my claw, when I drew her name upon her neck and watched her blood seep from the cut. The sound of her gasping cries when I pushed her to the ground and kneeled beside her, my knee across her neck, the last sounds she ever heard were that of my laughter and her mother's screams.” He sighed with delight. “That was one of my most favorite days. Just thinking about it brings me such . . . peace,” he said, and Satoshi's eyes widened as the air escaped his lungs in one harsh exhalation, as though he had been struck.
 
It took more willpower than he thought he had to appear as unaffected as he did. The one standing before him was not his father. His parents had been half siblings, children forcefully bred to unwilling mothers. The more he thought about it, the sicker he felt, until the world around him spun uncontrollably, the horror he felt swirling into a blinding storm of something dark and unnatural, a hate so deep, so profound that he was powerless against it.
 
“You . . . “ Satoshi shook his head. “Where are my birth parents?” he asked, fearing he already knew the answer.
 
“Of all those born, you were the strongest. You tested true, and they were unneeded. The only disappointment I've found in you, your defect - if you will - is that you cannot command water on its own as you can the earth. You may be able to command them together, grow the earth and have it thrive, but there has never been anything quite as useless as that,” he answered simply. “But, I allowed you to live with your defect because of your strength, because there is hope. . . Hope that your child will succeed where you have failed. And when you breed that wretch, you will give me your first born.
 
“I will give you nothing,” Satoshi said, the rage he felt matched only by the violent nausea twisting his stomach.
 
The earth responded to his emotions as it always had, his desire to never look upon his father again resulting in spiraling thorned roots that rose up around Daichi in seconds, closing him inside with the thorns pointed in, the outside left smooth, as the roots climbed higher, wrapping around each other to create a barren tree. Rivulets of crimson seeped out in a few places, the enraged screams of the one trapped inside muffled to whispers. This was the only time his father had been able to make him use his power to destroy, to willfully bring harm to another, Satoshi thought with a disgusted grimace. He knew his father would eventually escape his prison, suffering for the effort. He knew it was impossible to trap an earth youkai in a prison made of earth, but it would give him the time he needed to get away - to run - before he did something that would forever mark his soul, like kill the man entombed in the tree before him, or worse - become him.
 
Satoshi shook his head as the memory faded and closed his eyes against the nausea twisting his stomach. It wouldn't matter how long it had been since that night, the knowledge of it all would forever hold the power to upset him as it did the first time. He owed it to the ones who'd suffered so he could be born, he thought as he took in a deep breath and brought his pen to the top of the page. He may not know the identity of his birth parents, but what he did know was that they deserved to be remembered.
 
`Many centuries ago, long before I was born, in the lands now known as Kanazawa, Tojinbo, Fukui, and Oshima Island, a devil swept across the earth, shaking the ground, creating deep fissures and leaving so many dead, in order to claim it all as his own. By claw and by fang, he took the lives of men - old and young alike - of women, and children, until the only humans and youkai left alive, knew nothing, but the tyranny of his command. This man - youkai - was called so many things by so many people - human and youkai alike. While he never said it implicitly, I do believe his ultimate goal was to overthrow the Inu no Taisho of the time - the Great Sesshoumaru's father - and I was to be his weapon. What he never counted on, was for me to say no.'
 
He paused as he looked down at the page, closing his eyes as he fought against the desire to tear the page from the book, to erase the horrors his father had told him about like so many bedtime stories. The man had rejoiced in the suffering he'd caused, taken pleasure from the pain and grief of others. But as much as he wished he could deny the truth of what was done, he knew that those unknown faces, those countless dead, they deserved to be heard, as well. His very existence had been soaked in great rivers of blood, long before he'd ever been born.
 
`I do not know the names of those who gave me life, but I know the name of the one who forced me into existence,' he wrote, and clenched the pen in his fist when his hand started to shake. `Below, and on the pages to follow, is the truth as I know it. It is dark, and it is foul, but a truth that has caused this much pain and suffering to so many, deserves to be known. May the Kami forgive me for the sins of the one who called himself my father.'
 
 
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Glossary
 
Susanoo-no-Mikoto = ancient Japanese Shinto Kami of the sea and storms
 
Ashika = sea lion
 
Kurage = jellyfish
 
Iruka = dolphin
 
Kujira = whale
 
Shachi = killer whale
 
Shironagasukujira = blue whale. The largest of all whales
 
Zatokujira = humpback whale
 
Sezia = traditional formal way of sitting in Japanese culture with the legs folded beneath you, feet turned in, and hands resting palms-down on the thighs
 
Aisuru = beloved
 
Chichiue = father - formal, archaic.
 
Hahahue = mother - formal, archaic
 
Kamakura period = 1185 - 1333 in Japan.
** From research done and questions made of Sue herself, in the current timeline of Purity (2070 - 2080), Sesshoumaru is roughly 760 years old [give or take a decade], which - by way of simple mathematics - puts his birth year somewhere between 1220 - 1250. In this instance, I split the difference and selected 1238, as his birth year. **