#sesskaede

Love is in the air.... xD

However, the possibility of SessBoku should be immortalized forever, so here:

(Title taken from an autumn haiku by Matsuo Basho)

Sesskaede is a crack ship that suddenly inspired me to write this.

Summary: the Priestess Kaede was eight and ten when she first met the infamous Sesshōmaru of the West. And despite only seeing him a handful of times, her fondness for the cruel demon does not disappear even after forty years.

Rated: T for mentioned and non explicit violence

---

In this autumn,

Why I get older?

The clouds and birds.

---Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)

>>>----------> ♡ <----------<<<

When Kaede was eight and ten and a fully realized Miko, she first saw him.

The most feared Dog Demon in all of Japan with hair the color of a moonbeam and an almost maidenly beauty standing as regal as the Tree of Ages.

He was Inuyasha’s half-brother, Sesshōmaru of the West. He had only known him by reputation, but seeing the demon stand in front of his brother, she did not need to ask him who he was.

“Are you so weak that a human woman was able to defeat you?” He spoke to the sleeping boy struck in the tree. He tugged on the arrow and held onto it even when the seal stung him.

Kaede readied an arrow, one of Kikyo’s, to kill the demon before he did anything else.

“Do not waste your arrows on me, girl.” The dog demon did not even look her way and Kaede did not heed his advice before shooting him.

The demon simply moves out of the way and laughs at her like she was some stupid little girl and ot the daughter of a famed archer and the protector of this village.

“Were you the one who sealed Inuyasha?” he asks as if she had not just shot an arrow at him.

“Nay, my sister did and only she can remove the arrow in your brother’s chest.” Kaede said.

“Half-brother.” The demon corrects. “Your sister must have been very strong if she could do this to someone stronger than the average half-demon.”

“No one, not even I, can ever come close to her.” Kaede said proudly.

The demon lord said nothing and left.

----

Kaede was four and twenty when she saw him again.

This time he had come hunting down the same pack of rabid dog demons attacking a small fishing village just on the other side of the forest where Inuyasha still slumbered.

He looked the same and she had just grown into a grown woman powerful enough to take on stronger demons.

He moved swiftly and with grace, he had no mercy for even for his own kind. His snow-white kimono seemed to absorb the blood and grime the moment it stained the silk. Silk from a demon silkworm was worth kingdoms as it was so incredibly rare.

His kimono and armor had torn and as such his chest and left shoulder were exposed. Had she been as a vulnerable as Kikyo, she would have blushed and fallen victim to the ridiculous notion that demons could love.

Sesshōmaru, as the demon lord of the West, seemed to have been one of the lucky few to afford such luxury while his brother had to make do with the common fire rat’s robe that grew alongside with him.

Kaede readied another arrow and kept her distance from the demon.

“You again. You must be very stupid to think a one-eyed priestess can kill a demon as strong as I.” the eternal youth mocked.

Kaede shoots to the mongrel trying to run away from the car age.

“I am no fool, Lord Sesshōmaru.” The young woman says proudly even though inwardly she was blushing like the stupid girl she was.

---

Kaede was thirty when she made the worst mistake in her life.

A simple excursion to the demon slayers' village had become a fight and out of nowhere a familiar gigantic dog  tore through the crowd of bandits like a knife through butter.

“It is dangerous for a mortal like you to travel alone.” He shifts back into his handsome and youthful form.

“I did not need your help.” Kaede collects her things and gets back on her horse. She had appreciated that he had saved her from men planning to r*pe her, but he did not need to know that.

“I did not need to stop this attack on a woman I have only seen twice, and yet here we are.” He rolls his eyes. He hated humans, everyone knew that, so why had he helped her?

“What makes I, a one-eyed Miko, so special that ye must come to my rescue?” she asks reminding him of that insult four years ago.

“You are tolerable, but not enough to tempt me.” He says and she snorts. “Despite your prejudice against demons and your lack of education, you do not repulse me enough to kill you, Priestess.” He says with a smirk when she rolls her eyes at him.

“Kaede, my name is Kaede.”

---

Kaede is fifty when he shows up at the burial place of a company of dog demons murdered by the Asano Clan almost seventy years past.

She had heard that Sesshōmaru’s father and spouse had been killed while the young demon was away. The demoness whom Sesshōmaru loved must have been strong and beautiful. Somehow, she does not see him with a weak and plain wife even if she were a princess or a demoness.

“Are you so desperate for my attention that you come to where my mate and comrades are buried?” he says anger in his voice making it apparent that he does not like her presence here.

“The burials of dog demons have been looted and the King of Asano asked me to make sure no one disturbed this one.” She said laying down her weapon on her lap.

“How thoughtful him.” Sesshōmaru says bitterly. “His grandfather murdered my mate and comrades as well as my father all because he couldn’t stand that his sister married my father and mother.”

“My condolences, my lord.” She said earnestly.

“I killed Izaburou and Izayoi erected this mausoleum for her husband and mine.” He continues his story.

Husband? Kaede had not assumed that Sesshōmaru was solely interested in women ---and most men all--- but her imagined rival --- a stupid thing that occupied her mind even though she had sworn a vow of chastity--- had never been a man.

“His name was Yusuke, Izaburou hated that I wanted men just the same as I wanted women in my bed.” He touches the name engraved next to that of the Inu no Taisho with such devotion that Kaede can’t help but feel jealous of the dead demon.

---

Kaede is eight and sixty when Sesshōmaru --- two and twenty-- entrusts her with his human daughter.

“There is no one else I can trust with Rin, Kaede.” He says when the little girl talks him into joining them for tea.

“I am honored, my lord.” She says respectfully.

“None, of that, call me Sesshōmaru.” He looks at her like she was her equal and deep inside those secret fantasies she once had about the demon before her let out a girlish giggle.

“It has been fourty years and you have finally given me leave to use your given name.” the old woman chuckles and the stoic demon purses his lips in embarrassment.

“And you are almost recognizable since you foolishly wasted your sister’s arrow on me, my friend.” He says which surprises the little girl trying to impress them with a tea serving ceremony.

“You shot an arrow at my papa?” Rin asked.

“Yes, I shot him when he came to try to unseal Inuyasha fifty years ago.” The old woman nods and Sesshōmaru winces when they hear Inuyasha barge into her hut.

“I can’t believe it, you, of all the people in Japan, came to see me?!” Inuyasha yelled at the unflappable demon.