How You Measure a Man by Naishinnou

Is That How You Measure a Man?

She walked through the thick foliage of the forest at an unhurried pace. There was no need to rush anymore.... They had won. The final battle with Naraku had been fierce and costly, but thanks to sheer will-power and other's sacrifices, none in the inu tachi had fallen to the vile hanyou. 'Well...' Kagome thought as she walked on, '...no matter how cold or cruel he pretended to be, Sesshoumaru had helped us in the fight. And as such, I think of him as a sort of honorary member to our group, and now he is no where to be seen.'

Once Naraku had been purified into oblivion and the jewel secured, the survivers had gathered together and succumbed to their exhaustion at the edge of the clearing... Sesshoumaru had not been present.

'He's probably sitting around underneath a tree, to proud to join us...' She smiled knowingly, 'they can deny it all they want, but Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha are similar in as many ways as they are different.'

So here she was, searching for the Great Lord in the forest surrounding the battlefield.

She called out to him many times, yelling his name into the unanswering forest. She had been walking around for nearly an hour when she felt the fear begin to creep over her.

'What if he's hurt?' Her eyes pricked with tears of panic for her unconventional friend. She began to run in erratic patterns as her heart pounded, her breath hitching in her throat. 'Where is he?'

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If one day you discovered him,

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She caught a glimpse of white in the permeating green and froze. She pushed the leaves from her line of sight and could see a clawed foot and the edge of a white hakama. A smile spread over her face, "Sesshoumaru," she called out quietly, "come on and..." She took a small step closer, freeing herself from some thorned vines when Sesshoumaru's supine form came fully into view.

She gasped...

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Broken down he's lost everything,

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Her eyes widened as her pupils narrowed to pinpricks... Her breathing stilled, barely able to take in air at all... Her heart beat pound loudly in her head in protest. Even so, all blood and color ran from her face and her stomach lurched, an aching coldness seeping into her limbs.

Perhaps, if she had been more attentive to her own body, she might have retched, but her brain was far removed from her body. It didn't care about anything... anything but this one singularity.

Her mind ceased all function as her body went into lockdown, if she stayed like this much longer she would die.

If she looked at the view set out before her much longer, she would die.

A violently loud sob ripped forth from her chest as she was suddenly reanimated. Her hands slowly reached up to gingerly touch her face as tears began to slip over her paled cheeks. All of her muscles tensed and she found herself unwilling, or simply unable, to move forward. Her mind and body dissolved into the air, melting into that moment in time to never move again. Time was quiet and still.

Denial ricochet inside her mind and engulfed her body at the scene before her. Unconsciously her head began to shake back and forth in the physical manifestation of her denial...

'no'

Even in her mind, her voice could only manage a weak whisper...

'no'

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No cars, no fancy cloths to make him who he's not,

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His upper body was completely exposed, the regal clothing and protective armor having been disintegrated and ripped away. His shoes were flung off into the distance and his pants in lay tatters around his leg. Mud and filth swirled with the crimson blood, changing the normal plane of gossamer white to an ugly, nearly brown color. His royal robes simply no longer existed.

His dark red blood shone eerily on his unnaturally pale skin. The rays of light that filtered through the green forest canopy above splashing against his prone form had no effect on softening the carnage.

Her eyes never left his body, perversely enthralled, yet still she was unconsciously searching with her peripheral vision and could find no trace of Tenseiga, his heirloom pelt, nor Tokijin, the only three possessions she had ever seen him hold. His father's pride and his own as the Lord of the West, his weapons of choice, they were gone now, lost to who knew where.

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The woman at his side is all that he has got,

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She felt something inside herself suddenly snap and before she could realize what she was doing, she was sprinting towards him. She ran. One of her arms outstretched itself towards him as the other loosely covered her mouth.

The flesh obstruction of her hand fell away,

"SESSHOUMARU!" the name tore from her breast as his image came closer and closer. The sound so loud, her voice so shrill and broken her mind didn't register that it was she whom actually uttered it. The name quivered in the cold winter air... It flew past on the rays of the setting sun... It settled on his prone form like dust on the wind.

Time was already moving onward without him.

She reached his side after what felt like an eternity, she collapsed down onto her knees. Her entire body was jarred by the impact. Her legs slid across the grass as her momentum was suddenly lost to the ground. Sobs wracked her small frame, sounds of her grief filling the forest.

She threw herself over his unmoving chest, burying her face into his shoulder. She was suddenly so weak... so tired.

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Why do you ask him, 'move heaven and earth,' to prove his love has worth?

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'No...it can't be...' her mind irrationally sputtered. 'Sesshoumaru, the impenetrable youkai that Inuyasha could never really defeat, the lone ruler of a great land,' she whimpered against his cold skin. Her tears fell from her eyes to drip on his muscled form and slide along the toned lines. Her shoulders shuddered and her mind went blank once more. Her grip on him tightened as she saw a lock of black hair protruding from behind him, the dark tendrils contrasting starkly with his own silver locks.

Kagome blinked her eyes and forced them to focus on the sight. She shook as the sadness of the situation filled her, but she knew what she had to do...

She didn't want to let go of him, not yet, it was all still to much, but she pushed herself up and swallowed hard. She put both her hands on his sholder and rolled his stiff body over halfway to reveal a young girl lying beneath him.

"Rin!" Kagome gasped as she pulled the girl from behind her lord and onto her lap, placing his body back on the ground. She forced away all thoughts of her grief and pain for Sesshoumaru to focus on the girl. At first glance it appeared that she was lifeless and another wave of nausea and fear flew through her veins. However as she watched, the tell tale rise and fall of the small chest told that she was indeed alive. Tears continued to roll down her face as she cradled the girl in her arms.

This girl, whom Sesshoumaru denied having any desire to protect had lead to his own death. Rin's breathing was shallow but getting stronger with each repetition. Her pulse fluttered beneath her young flesh as she lay limp in unconsciousness. She was sweating and her skin was cold and clammy, but she was alive. Kagome's eyes were once again drawn to Sesshoumaru and she began to shiver with sadness,

'he saved her...' the thought echoed through her otherwise empty head. Her eyes widened in shock.

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Would he walk on water?

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As her eyes flooded with tears her silent mind decided to begin its work once more and it flooded with memories. The first time she had seen Sesshoumaru, his tall, noble form so filled with intelligence, arrogance, and pride, yet seemingly so unemotional.

'He... he had been so beautiful and graceful, not at all like Inuyasha.'

When he had transformed into his true form she had been so awed by the sight. Though Inuyasha's life was in danger she could not help but admire the great demon.

'He was so powerful...'

She had climbed up the ribs of his father to escape the sea of poison that he released, a green ocean with deadly intent. It swirled, crested and sank in waves, the misleadingly sweet scent of flowers drifted through her nose. The scent of poisonous flowers.

Even though they were enemies and he had attempted to kill her once, she found she could not hate him. She respected him, there was something there other than what he showed, something only a few people in the world seemed to have noticed...

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Would he run though fire?

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She remembered when Sesshoumaru saw Inuyasha's transformation for the first time. He had looked... surprised, one of the few emotions she had ever seen grace his elegant features.

The inu tachi knew Inuyasha could not fight in that state of insane bloodlust, so they convinced Totosei to blow a wall of fire to stop Sesshoumaru's attack. It cut him off at that very last micro-second before he struck.

As they ran off, she had cast a glance behind them and saw Sesshoumaru beyond the flames.

Her breath failed her.

The light of the flames glittered and danced in his auburn eyes, happy to be caught in his haunting gaze. The flickering light cast his defined cheek bones into sharp relief with dark, black shadows and warm, golden highlights.

For but a moment, he seemed more like a god than anything demonic. His perfect body engulfed in gold and orange flames yet he did not burn, like he was something to pure and holy to be harmed by the evil destructive powers of fire. He was untouchable, even by something so natural as a fire.

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Would he stand before you when it's down to the wire?

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Then she remembered how he had protected Rin, ran after her without hesitation when ever she was in peril. How he cared for the girl who so faithfully fallowed him... though he would never admit such a thing.

Then how he saved her from Mukotsu. How he saved both her and Rin from Takemaru. How he unexpectedly worked with Inuyasha to destroy Sounga, and now he had helped them to finally destroy Naraku. These events could all be explained away by rational logic. Saving her, saving Rin, were just side effects of his completely selfish quest for power, but it wasn't like that.

Kagome knew better.

Her mind returned to the present as tears flew down her face. She had surprised herself that she had forgotten, even for an instant, where she was... where he was. She wanted to know what had happened and she could logicly guess 'Naraku must have attacked Rin, in an attempt to distract him... it seems as though he was... successful... Sesshoumaru must have shielded her with his own body...' Her stomach lurched again and she cried out in agony to the heavens,

'why!?!'

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Would he give his life up to be all he can?

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Rin shifted a bit in her grasp but did not awaken. The girl was alive but...

Kagome looked into Sesshoumaru's face but quickly shut her eyes, that image haunting her behind closed eyelids.

His eyes were wide open, the passionate gold dulled to a sickly yellow, blank and soulless, the light in them gone... forever. His lips were parted slightly in an eternal last breath, but there was one single consolation.

Near the corners of his mouth, if one looked close enough, you could see they were turned up in the tiniest of smiles, perhaps the only true smile he had ever shown.

He had been happy.

He was glad Rin was safe and that he had been able to protect her,

until the very end...

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Is that, is that, is that how you measure a man?

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THE END???

Perhaps not, if, and only if, I get enough reviews asking me to 'bring Fluffy back' or even some 'please continue's I might be persuaded to let you know how the rest of the story goes.

However, until that time comes, I am easily able to let you remain ignorant of the rest of the tale. I know how it ends, but do you?

(snickers evilly)

Until then...