InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Bloodlust ❯ Wildness Overture ( Chapter 40 )

Sesshomaru struggled blindly up from where he had collapsed on the floor, and knew the instant he looked around him that no true waking had come to him. He could see his own body, pale on the floor beside Histaru. The boy-youkai knelt with knife in hand, guarding the still body of his lord. The room around him did not seem to be made of stone as Sesshomaru knew it was, but rather from light, shifting, eerie blue light. In the center of the floor lay a whirling abyss of energy, a mimic of the void that stole souls for hell - but it fought with itself to pull the energies in and expel them at the same time. There was a pulling, deep within Sesshomaru's body, a throbbing longing in the closest physical place of his soul that he could define. The ration logic of his thoughts pointed him towards the truth, and then he heard a low, rumbling laughter he had not heard in more than two centuries.

"So, Sesshomaru, do you believe in Otherworld now?"

The words hit him like a bludgeon across the back of his skull, leaving him with a ringing sensation in his ears.

"Otou-san."

Sesshomaru knew then for the first time the answer to the question that had haunted the uneasy corners of his mind from the moment he first became aware of his father's death. Otherworld was real, the energy well pulling its strength and terror from that place, and despite everything, there was no blame in the voice of his father for the death he had suffered. Though his eldest son had done nothing to aid in the demon battle that had destroyed his father, InuTaisho suffered from no hate. Sesshomaru shook off the mantle of extraneous feelings that had blanketed his heart, and looked to find where the voice of his memories came from.

"What is this, Otou-san? In what place do I exist right now?"

"You are in between, Sesshomaru, until you prove yourself worthy of life or death. The Gods are interested in what would make the Taiyoukai Sesshomaru throw away his life so worthlessly, to try and control the deep power of this land."

From the swirling mass of blue that pulsed in the midst of the shadow latticed room came the clear lit figure of InuTaisho, Greatest of the Great Lords.

"I have been sent to test you, Sesshomaru. I pray that I find what I have been sent to seek, or the line of our house will fail."

The air grew tight and thick, hot with a viscous intensity that would not be denied, and Sesshomaru followed as though without his own will as the image-shade of his father turned back the way he had come, into the roiling maelstrom that led from the world into what came after. The mist clung to his skin, to the folds of his clothes and the sleekness of his hair. It was an aura that shimmered with unnatural resonance around his form, and then there was freezing shock, instant and impossible cold that seared beyond the bones.

Sesshomaru spoke, his voice falling flat and shiftless in truly dead air.

"Where."

"This is the land of the undying desert, the barren wasteland that is home to the Separator of Souls. This is the bright spring field of Heaven's grove, and the barren pits for the tormented dead who will burn forever in cold fire, their souls eaten eternally. It is also, for our purposes, the vision center, the place that will give you the chance to save yourself - and your mate."

Sesshomaru's eyes brightened and narrowed with a flash of fangs, light flashing from him in that place with a piercing focus.

"Kagome? You know of her? Tell me she fares well!"

"Who held the sword that spilled her blood?"

Sesshomaru only growled, remembering that moment, the overflowing scent of Kagome's blood, the coldness of her skin and the sacrifice of Tensaiga to save her life…and the pup inside her. InuTaisho turned away and smiled slightly, remembering with warmth his own similar concerns, and gestures ahead of him with no answer to his son's questions. Before their feet lay a broken stone path, the cracks between the stones filled with unspeakable darkness. A rotting stench drifted from the black, moving in the stillness as the only wind to break the dull air in that place. It was no comfort.

"At the end of that road lies the Glynynn, Sesshomaru, the Pool of Seeing. Another such pool, that reflects for miko power lies in the house of the Eldest. If you so choose you may look in that pool, and risk your soul to answer the test that you have been set."

"Do you council me to see, Otou-san?"

"I cannot council. I will say only that your choice is this - seek the vision of the Glynynn, save your soul or lose it - or spend eternity in this waiting place. Many have done so."

With a rush like the shock of birth awareness, the land sped beneath their feet, rolling with a quickness that Sesshomaru had never known. There, in the darkness, stood immobile lines, ages long and yet to be longer, made of those too afraid to look, to seek the reality of heaven or hell.

"That is the coward's way, that is the way of endless waiting and no action. But I will not die, father, and neither heaven nor hell is life."

InuTaisho spoke softly, as though from a distance, and Sesshomaru saw that the blurred outline of his father's figure was dissolving into the air around him.

"It is said…Heaven is the fulfillment of great desire. If you desire life, choose wisely. I…am proud of you, my son…"

Sesshomaru stood alone at the edge of that unfamiliar road once again, and turned in silence to follow it and find sweetness at its end.

Kagome loped onto the wide field before the gates to her castle, and halted at once, panting deeply in an attempt to regain her breath. Below her, tiny beside her massive paws stood Akira, unknown to her except as a word of mention from Sesshomaru. She turned, suddenly with the realization that she did not know how to calm the raging blood that had forced her youkai shape. One single howl of desperate agony wracked her silver-furred form, and then she turned and ran again, from the field before the gates to the forest at the edge of the field. Silent and tired, exhausted beyond all endurance and hope, Kagome found a small clearing and fell into a deep and quiet sleep.

She awoke with the first breath of dawn light on her eyelids, and was grateful to find herself in a more familiar form, if not the one she grew up with. When she stood, the exhaustion of four days running still weighed heavily on her thoughts and her motions, heavy and slow. Kagome stretched worn muscles, feeling the tightness in them that spoke of youkai strength, and tugged gentle strings of miko around her weariness, pushing back the time until the crash would come, the moment when she would be able to push herself no longer. More slowly than her youkai induced rush of the day before, but still running, she returned to the field before the castle and saw chaos.

The scent of newly spilled blood washed the field, and a pattern of knowing shook her perceptions. Once before had she seen such a battle, in the vision of Eldest's pool - and in that vision, she had watched Sesshomaru's death, alone against a castle wall that fell with him into dust. The pulse-push-pound of her heart moved faster with memory, and she strode with a mien of confidence and authority that she had learned from Sesshomaru without knowing it. She stood on the edge of combat, and stood for a few, silent seconds, watching the destruction and terror that produced and surrounded such a terrible waste of life. Youkai or no youkai, Kagome felt life-force with the full strength of her miko senses, and it shook her soul.

Someone noticed her appearance, a youkai on the edge of combat, just…watching. It threw both sides into confusion, and the army of her mate rose behind her with a wild roar. Through the haze of battle and at a distance, wrapped in his power and his scent, Kagome stood out as Sesshomaru would have. When she moved, she was a flash of silver, the image of her mate imprinted on her leaping figure the moment she appeared on the battle field.

From the other end of the long field, Akira heard a shout of from his soldiers, a howling wind-cry of ecstatic and almost hysterical glee. He stood tall, sword in hand, seeking a lull in the flickering clang of blade on blade to find the reason behind such frantic noise of delight - but the reason came to him. Ahead, he watched as a silver-haired, silver-robed figure rose over the heads of the front line of dragon youkai, and watched a flash of magic energies wash out from that figure and dissolve them into dust. Dragon after dragon, the second line was followed by a glow of silver light, and they fell in broken in bloody pieces to the ground, destroyed before they had a chance to draw another breath.

A silver blur leapt high into the air, and as it moved toward him, Akira dropped to his knees with a cry of obeisance.

"Lord Sesshomaru!"

Kagome turned in the air at the sound of his name, and she was fierce beauty, animal grace alive and screaming its life into the cold air. Akira could not dare to breathe, shocked to silence by the wildness in her, and let his forehead touch the ground at her feet when she landed effortlessly in front of him.

Her feminine features were instantly apparent, and Akira watched with open mouth as the caught his first sight of Kagome, Lady of the Western Lands, the youkai -miko who had captured the heart of Sesshomaru. The wind of her passage moved around her with all the swiftness of an arrow's flight, lifting the edge of her robe to show delicately slippered feet. The same wind whipped her hair into a froth of cloud shining silver, the flush of her cheeks bright with the eager rushing of her blood after battle. She landed with supreme grace, feet making no sound as she touched the ground, and she let the breath out of her lungs with a hushing sigh. She flashed her fangs in a quick smile, a short bow.

"I am Kagome, Lady of the Western Lands. You called for my mate, but it was me you saw. Sess-chan left to come here - where is he?"

"I was told your mate disappeared into the castle with my son…Lady."

Kagome blinked, disoriented, feeling a strange tug, and glanced toward the castle gates, smooth white stone shut hard and fast as it always was.

"He left the army in the midst of battle? That is not his way."

"Well do I know it, Lady. The combat began scarce minutes after he left, and I did not even see him go. I would that he had not left - lately, the magic that is against us is stronger, the power is deeper, and only he can fight it."

She flashed a grin in his direction as she began a screaming run down the battlefield.

"Not only he!"

Akira saw then a sight he had not expected to see, for miko-youkai were not known for their viciousness - but the subtle truth remained that she had mated one known to be the most vicious of youkai, one that no other had managed ever to touch. The swelling of her pregnancy and the bright scar of her mating showed that she had managed far more than that. Even pregnant, she moved with more grace than he had yet seen, not only light on her feet but as if making light of them.

More than once he saw from the distance a brilliant flame of pinkish light, that faded into the dull glow of flickering fire on flickering steel. The shimmering flood of her hair moved like a million slender snakes, tossed into a misting liquid that spun around her as she moved to avoid a dragon-wielded sword. A few silver strands fell, twisting in the wind. That foe and three others lay dead before the strands hit the ground, and in his heart Akira swore allegiance to this swirling maelstrom of power and beauty who was the Lady of the Western Lands.

Kagome had never before known such joy in battle, and in some sense, she wondered where it came from, joy at the taking of life. But the deep release of tension that came along with the joy led her to believe it was a good and right thing, and the memory of her pain was in every slash of her claws, every snarl and quick stepping motion of her fighting self. The lessons that Sesshomaru had given her blossomed with the strength of instinct and desire, and there was none among her foes who could stand against her.

The image of her was the image of authority to the youkai around her, and for the first time, Kagome was grateful for history lessons. Those who came to her she sent by twos to her right and left, turning each of her soldiers in effect into a pair of scything blades. IN a great pincer movement, her pairs began to move forward, flooding across the circular expanse of the lain with unguided speed, and Kagome watched the dead fall and longed for the sword of her mate. A great tingling of power, unfamiliar and deeply frightening in its intensity began to pour through her veins like the rush of an unfamiliar drug. It was quiet power, beyond her reach of understanding, and she had been told by no one the fate of Tensaiga. Watching form a small rise of land behind the main wave of her army, Kagome stopped to take a breath of cleaner air and nearly choked.

On a hill that rose around the edges of the battlefield, Kagome saw a small shape, wielding a lesser sword with a distinctive fighting style of headlong, rushing idiocy that still somehow managed to protect the wielder and do great damage. From that same hill Kasuka watched Kagome, standing out from the soldiers around her like diamond in a bag of coal. The suns last rags of light were drowned out by a haze of incoming clouds, and with unnatural suddenness, claws of writhing lightening scratched across the sky. Purple light ruptured the darkness, an explosion of lesions against eh stars, pus-boil-blackness of unnatural energy screeching across the heavens with the thunder, a concerto of storm wildness.

Above the swirling rage of the storm came a slow sound, a creaking wrath of whisperish noise that hailed the coming of a sheeting fall of rain. Kasuka stood with her face turned to the sky, eyes wide open and defying the instinct to shut them against the rapid pattern of droplets. She tasted the rain with an expression of malice, and raised her hand above her head with a gathering, drawing gesture.

Focus, a sweltering intensity of attention came to rest on her, and Kagome saw the features of agony that haunted her dreams, and for the second time a how tore her throat, violent priestess, commander unto the army of the west. It struck fear into the bones of all who heard it. It woke Histaru, sitting in the basement of the castle, and called Kasuka's attention to the gathering glow of miko power and the shy glimmer of an emerald dagger that was lit with the opal shine of moonlight on clear water. In anger or fear, Kasuka let loose a low hiss of malice that penetrated the storm noise and whirled in the wind. The lush bluster shook the trees with a high, piercing shriek of strained wood, as the lightening moved with a new direction to the up thrust claws of Kasuka's hand. Laughter magnified by magic punched at Kagome, and in frozen horror, the bright strobe light of Kasuka's pulled and chained lightening revealed to Kagome a red robed figure, black haired and night eyed, and she tumbled into the void.

"InuYasha!"

Woooooooo! I love the evilness of cliffies! Mwahaha! Who can guess the end of this plot? Only me, because I invented it! But don't worry, answers soon…Please review!