A/N: New fic, la-la-la. *looks innocent* Well, people DID ask for it.

Will most likely include yaoi in later chapters. If you've read my stuff before, you should know the pairing. If you haven't, you'll find out real soon. I've wanted to write this for a bit now, so with any luck it and "The Responsibility of Seeing In The Dark" should soon become my main focus. Fingers crossed, kids.

*flees from wrath of enraged "Slayers REGAL" fans*

Sesshoumaru's POV.



"Becoming What You Hate"



"You cannot slander human nature; it is worse than words can paint it."

~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon



It is impossible. It has to be trick, an illusion- anything but real.

I stare at my hands in horror, and for the first time in a long time, that's what they are. MY hands, not a mismatched pair with someone else's stolen for to be my prosthesis. I'd love that, if it weren't for the simple fact that they are both human.

That I am human.

That my hair is black where it was white- that my claws have thinned and blunted to nubs and my markings vanished into my skin. That everything that made me unique and powerful is gone, and I am only one of these worthless cattle now, unrecognizable as the person I was. My armor is even too heavy to wear now, and I had to leave it behind as I ran like a frightened rabbit from the bastard who did this to me. I can only thank the gods that he was so old and fat that he chose not to follow.

Still, I barely got anywhere before this frail body gave up and I was forced to my knees, gasping for breath and wishing more than anything that I could still fly, or at least command the loyalty of a lesser youkai to carry me faster. But no lesser youkai would ever even dream of submitting to a human, even a human that used to be the great Sesshoumaru.

I knew better, really I did. There are certain spells and certain youkai that you just don't want to mess with; it's a fact of life. Jii is one of those, and I was a fool to think that I could beat him. Though I may be one of those youkai as well, it doesn't make me exempt from the others' powers.

Or at least I WAS one of those youkai.

But . . . he has stolen my Rin, and Jaken too. My only companions . . . Rin, who I literally delivered from death, and Jaken, who has been with me for so long that I have forgotten how long it has been since I stopped keeping track of the years. How couldn't I have taken Jii's challenge when it came?

I cannot possibly have been so stupid as to let this happen to myself. To let myself fall prey to the same weaknesses that any human has, to become even weaker than my brother. This feeling . . . this slowly growing numbness inside of me . . . is this how he feels, when it is that time of the month that steals his powers away?

No, I cannot believe that we have anything in common. He probably doesn't even notice the change; after all, he's lived with it all his life, hasn't he? He must be used to it.

I finally get back to my feet, only to stumble directly into a mud puddle that could pass for a small swamp with an unpleasant squishing sound. This is quite possibly going to be the worst experience of my admittedly lengthy life.

Assuming I survive it, anyway.



* tbc . . . *



. : review the story. make an old author happy : .