InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Closest Thing to Love ❯ Chapter 1

Title: The Closest Thing to Love

Genres: General/Introspective

Pairings Represented: None

Rating: G

Summary: How Mukotsu came to be a master of poisons.

 

 

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He never thought that genuine love was too much to ask for, and yet the world just wouldn't give it. When he was little, the other children would run away from him, fearing his less than appeasing looks. It was a face he inherited from his mother, and she died soon after he was born, leaving him with his attractive, work-o-holic father in a cramped little hut.

 

 

Mukotsu's father studied medicine, and made cures for certain illnesses, including poisons. Poison was indeed a horrible way to go; some people with writhe in pain, some would clench their stomachs and scream, others would be drenched in sweat, blood, or tears. The lucky ones got to die instantly. After many nights of asking, his father reluctantly agreed to pass his knowledge of antidotes onto his son. He was grateful that his son picked up quick learning from him, and soon hired him once his skills became too well to pass up.

 

 

The small father/son business paid well enough, though didn't last for very long.

 

 

"Your father was killed in an ambush. We're terribly sorry," said one war lord plaintively, and dropped his father's basket of medical supplies on the door step. He said it would profit well to bring the injured soldiers something to help them recover, yet they were all hit with a head-on attack by a merciless army, and the ones that stood before little Mukotsu were the few survivors.

 

 

Since that moment, he'd lost the one person who'd ever shown any sign of caring, and he was alone once again.

 

 

In the orphanage, kids either berated him for his looks, or they avoided him like a formidable disease. He often sat alone in the corner of the room and continued to work on his medicine. No one seemed to care, though. His medicines could have easily cured the sick here, and no one ever accepted them. They didn't feel it was necessary, since his handsome, yet intimidating father no longer stood beside him.

 

 

It wasn't long at all until the mixtures he made in the corner became something that would take their lives, rather than save them. He met with a war lord one night, and paid him with all of his savings to teach him to make poisons. The next little boy that pointed an laughed at him got a face full of poisonous gas, and died slowly. It was the first life Mukotsu ever took, and though it hurt him to do it, he released his gas on the rest of the orphanage, killing everybody else inside. His father would have been so ashamed, yet the pain he felt inside was just too much to handle. Mukotsu wanted everyone to feel what he had felt for so many years.

 

 

He left that village after burning down the orphanage, and took his poison with him, in the same basket his father once kept medical supplies in. There was nothing more he could do in this little place that just wouldn't accept an ugly little boy. He expected to have the same fate as his father, though he'd be fighting in the war, rather than blindly helping those who just didn't appreciate it.

 

 

His skills in poison spread far and wide throughout the years, and he eventually met up with a pair of bizarre looking men. The leader with the large halberd, Bankotsu, requested that he join their band of mercenaries, and the taller one with make-up, Jakotsu, questioned the cloth Mukotsu wore over his face.

 

 

He showed the two men his face, and both of them shrugged, seeing him more as a valuable asset than an ugly man. Bankotsu even went as far as to call him his "little brother" before they were on their way, which put Mukotsu in tears.

 

 

It was the closest thing to love he'd ever gotten.

 

 

[End]