Limerance

Chapter 4

Though Sesshoumaru had never spent much time in Settsu province, he remembered it as a forested land cradled by mountains with fertile grounds for farming and large flowing rivers with waters as clear as pure springs. He recalled visiting this area with his father once and taking in the sights of massive human palaces and homes being built on riverbanks. Lush gardens had surrounded those homes, filled with flowers, trees, and chiseled statues of all kinds. At the time, he hadn't held much of an opinion of such frivolous architecture, though his father had dubbed the humans' craftsmanship "pleasing to look upon".

Traveling through Settsu in the present day forced Sesshoumaru to question his own memory of it. Since his last visit, things had drastically changed here. War and chaos had been branded into this land with a callousness and cruelty that even someone like Sesshoumaru could not condone. The castles and wooden palaces with their crimson rooftops and finely polished walkways now lay strewn across the land as nothing but piles of ash and rubble. The province was scarred and ravaged, no longer cradled by the mountains but imprisoned by them. Rivers ran red with the blood of those who lived here, and those that could have farmed the land had either fled the war or fallen victim to it.

The Relegation had attacked the majority of the prominent estates and villages in the province, forcing the Miyoshi - the ruling human clan - to fall back west towards the province of Harima in order to seek refuge. Every village from the northeastern border to the south of the province was destroyed. Sites that had once stood as testaments to the Miyoshi's power and grandeur were now nothing more than black spots upon the landscape.

It was in one of these ruins that Sesshoumaru first came across the burned and tattered crest of the rebellion. The symbol took him by surprise. The crest bore a black sakura flower with a golden heraldry symbol representing "steel lightning" at its center. The image tugged on a memory that Sesshoumaru had buried long ago. Something distant, an event taking place centuries ago when his father was still alive.

Days went by as he struggled to remember this important "something", hours of sitting and brooding over a scrap of cloth with the bloodstained crest sown into it. Sesshoumaru tried to cling to this memory and unearth it from the sticky confines of his subconscious with no success. The failure was as frustrating as it was maddening.

How could he, The Great Sesshoumaru, fail to remember something so important, especially when the information he needed was so critical now? Was there a reason he'd shoved this particular memory so far into the depths of his mind?

He moved on to the next village and the next, but no matter how many times Sesshoumaru saw that accursed crest, he could not recall where he'd encountered it before.

By the end of the third day of what he considered to be an aimless trek through the ruined province, Sesshoumaru's blood was aboil with anger. When he arrived in the city of Amaga and witnessed the charred and dark remains of what used to be the abode of one of the West's highest ranking demon vassals, that anger spiked. The beast within his breast stirred to life, crying out for vengeance.

Not for a servant's life, but for Sesshoumaru's pride, which continued to thrash and flail in the darkness as the Relegation's disregard for it carved bloody scars into its core. How dare a human attack demon nobility? How dare a human think so highly of himself that he would threaten the lifestyle of those far above him in worth and station?

Letting out a silent huff of irritation, Sesshoumaru glanced behind him, where the cursed child who was still following him was looking at something with great interest. He cursed. Another element that he held no control over. Damn her!

How Sesshoumaru wished to take his anger out on her. How he wished he could stomp out at least this particular aggravation out of his life. Still, her spell stayed strong. When he looked at her, the beast inside him receded. The anger that stirred up a maelstrom in his thoughts was soothed, and rational thought gained strength and purchase within the pandemonium.