Indifference by MontiK

Chapter 1

Indifference

Disclaimer:The characters of InuYasha are not mine, they are property of Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan, Yomiuri TV, Sunrise, and Viz Media. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Standing before the sea of bloodied ground, the sunset staining the clouded sky to match, Sesshoumaru watched his remaining soldiers. The winter was harsh, and Naraku's surprise attack swift upon the gathering foe. 

He watched as the soldiers, demon and human alike, huddled over the freshly dead bodies. Warm steam still rose from the wounds of the newly departed, providing warmth for the frozen hands of their recent executioners. 

He didn't turn away, he didn't flinch, and he didn't cry. He simply reminded himself that this was why he was trained from birth to be indifferent. Leading one's troops into battle wouldn't be possible if he took every one of their deaths to heart, or cried over every lost life. One could simply never survive that amount of emotional strain, so he acted like none of it mattered and pressed on.

Inuyasha stood beside him, turned away from the gory scene. He couldn't bear too look. Even after his fair share of battles he had never had to witness a massacre like that. They had won but at a steep price. And in the harsh winter he could hear as men gathered the bodies of their comrades, meat for food because in the harsh weather it was so sparse, splinted wooden armor for firewood, nothing was wasted. At least their deaths were not in vain.. He thought morbidly, uncertainly...

It was collectively that the brothers were forced from their introspection on the days in which they lived. Both realizing that their focus on their own thoughts had momentarily closed them off from their surroundings. 

Kagome stumbled bandaged from the treeline, she had come searching to check on them. Her fur bundled form crumbled to the ground when she saw the field and realized just what she participated in that day. Battle... War... Murder... and Death, the scent hung thick in the air suffocating to even human senses. And as she felt every death, friend and foe, as if it were her own brother and added her own hot tears to the stew of blood and snow on the ground she wished she could be indifferent. She wished she could go home, and she wished she could turn away. But her soul cried out for them and made that impossible. She wished she could just not care.

Sesshoumaru tried to ignore the scent of her turmoil as he forced himself to visualize every dead man and live one as a simple piece on a shogi board, merely a pawn or minuscule loss in the game of tactics. He had to so he could keep his own sanity. He turned from the battle field to go about checking on those still alive while Inuyasha held the huddled form of the crying miko well into the cool night hours.

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inspired by a line from M*A*S*H Where the priest says 'and the steam rose from the wounds and the doctor warmed his hands over it' or something to that affect. I've always liked mash and I felt that line was so profound it deserved some sort of recognition in another genre. Hope you like it.