InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Lord of the West ❯ Fire Awakened ( Chapter 7 )

Author's Note: The suffix “-danna” means “master.”

 

{+} {+} {+} LORD OF THE WEST {+} {+} {+}

 

{+} {+} Chapter 7: Fire Awakened {+} {+}

 

Wordlessly, the infant Naraku stared into the mirror for a long time. He had turned his attention away from watching Inuyasha and his comrades the moment Sesshoumaru took the Shikon shard from Kagome.

 

“How troublesome,” he murmured.

 

Kanna, who was holding the mirror, merely glanced at him blankly. This was fine with Naraku---noisy subordinates were more likely to become food for the worms.

 

“An irritating development,” Naraku went on, ignoring her and talking to himself. “The mortal girl no longer has the fragment. This complicates things . . .”

 

Regardless of the fact that she was under Inuyasha's protection, Kagome was still mortal---albeit a mortal who could see the shards. But Sesshoumaru . . . this was not something that he could have predicted. Sesshoumaru had never shown any direct interest in obtaining the Jewel before . . .

 

“Knowing him, it must be a quest for vengeance,” Naraku mused wryly. “In the mirror, I have seen that he still watches the Tatesei city with hatred in his eyes. Yet up until this point, he has done nothing, because Reiyama is silent . . .”

 

The mirror that Kanna held was dark and silent. Naraku had witnessed what Sesshoumaru saw in the scrying bowl, but at the instant the dragon turned its burning gaze upon its watchers something strange had happened and the vision had vanished. Now the mirror would no longer call up Sesshoumaru's image.

 

“It's as if something has erected a wall around his soul, barring all from entering,” Naraku murmured. Kanna's mirror revealed images seen by people whose souls were troubled by hatred or fear or sorrow; the way her magic worked was for the soul to become the window to the eye.

 

Naraku's violet eyes narrowed.

 

“Somehow, he has managed to summon a dragon---which may prove to be his undoing, for the dragon hates him. Yet at the same time something is protecting him from me, because I can no longer use the mirror to spy on him . . . A mystery.”

 

“What do you want me to do, Naraku-danna?” Kanna asked in her soft little girl's voice. “The mirror is dark. Shall I go to Hakudoushi and send him to find Sesshoumaru?”

 

Naraku frowned. In his current physical state, regardless of the crystal that he had obtained to disguise his demonic aura, this was still the most vulnerable that he had ever been in his life. Thus he could not go personally; that would be too much of a risk. It was a considerable price to pay for spreading himself so thin---distributing his demonic life-energy among his minions so that he might seek the last Shikon fragment more swiftly. That was why he had been forced to hide his heart in this small, weak form, which would ever be vulnerable until the day the completed Shikon no Tama was placed in his hands . . .

 

“I will not send Hakudoushi, or any other,” Naraku decided. “Nor will I go myself into that particular den of vipers---the Tatesei city. Instead . . . I sensed something vital at the last moment before Sesshoumaru's mind became closed to us . . . He wants the dragon's power. With it, he will no doubt come to destroy me. This I cannot allow.”

 

Kanna merely stared blankly at him, now that he was no longer directly addressing her. The only other sound in the cave was the infrequent dripping of condensed moisture from the ceiling to the rock below.

 

“Yet . . . there is another way,” Naraku mused, a cruel smile flitting across his lips. “A trump card, which I have waited for a long time to put into play. The dragon, wherever it came from, hates Sesshoumaru. Yet he will seek it, because he desires to kill me, and perhaps he also desires to finish what he started and destroy the Tatesei.” Naraku paused, eyes flickering toward the darkened mirror. “Very well. Let him be lured to the dragon, to take its power if he so desires. There is another weapon that will kill him, though I cannot be present. This weapon is a blade ever aimed at his heart.”

 

He laughed softly, and the sound echoed through the cave.

 

“When Sesshoumaru is dead, I will send Hakudoushi to take the last shard for me. Once the Sacred Jewel is made whole in my hands, nothing else will matter.”

 

{+} {+} {+}

 

In the palace chamber, the fire still crackled heartily but the air had grown colder. At least, it seemed this way to Suiton, who had been kneeling on the stone floor for so long that her limbs were stiff and chilled to the bone. The demon lord still lay unconscious, speaking no more after his last strange pronouncement. She managed to turn him over onto his back and laid a blanket over him because his skin had grown icy to the touch. She refused to or even so much as glance over her shoulder at the Shikon no Tama on the floor. At this point she felt that seeing another vision might truly drive her mad.

 

Even as this thought occurred to her, the Seer turned back toward the white demon in alarm. She didn't exactly know what it was that had happened to him to make him like this. Had he Seen what she had Seen? And, if so, why had he alone been affected?

 

What if he had been driven mad?

 

The hand that she had been reaching toward his face withdrew and returned to her lap. If he had been driven mad, then touching his mind would do her no good. Suiton had no desire to risk her own sanity by plunging into whatever maelstrom the dragon had unleashed within him.

 

So instead she waited, keeping a silent and worried vigil at his side.

 

Hours passed, and eventually her head slumped forward onto her chest as patience gave way to exhaustion.

 

She awoke moments later to the sound of his voice, opening her eyes to find him sitting up and rubbing his forehead.

 

“Where is the dragon?” Sesshoumaru asked softly. He did not seem angry, but the slight knit of his brow gave indication of bemusement.

 

The demon lord seemed to show no sign of lingering pain or weariness. He rose onto his knees and then turned to stare at the Seer, who was regarding him with something akin to amazement.

 

“You---you're alive,” she blurted out without thinking. She had half-expected him to die from whatever it was the dragon had done to him.

 

`He is strong,' Suiton thought to herself. `Perhaps there is hope . . .'

 

Sesshoumaru didn't appear pleased that she'd had any doubts about his survival. His arm shot out and grabbed her by the front of her robes, pulling her off-balance. He leaned toward her, until their faces were nearly touching. Suiton braced herself. She had supposed that death was imminent from the moment the demon lord had laid claim to her, but she wasn't overtly fond of pain, either.

 

“Your eyes,” he said unexpectedly. “They have changed.”

 

“I'm sorry, my lord,” she managed, averting her gaze. “I will find the veil and wear it again so---”

 

He gave her a little shake, cutting short her stammered apology.

 

“Your eyes are like the dragon's now,” he said sharply. “Why?”

 

“What?” Suiton straightened, hands moving automatically to her face, but of course she felt nothing amiss. Her face was still her face.

 

Yet his words echoed the unease that she had been feeling before he awoke, and she rushed to the chamber's dressing table, casting about clumsily in her desperation to find a mirror. The disc the Seer found was small, but it was enough.

 

Holding it level with her face, Suiton saw that her eyes were black---completely black. No white remained, though she was frightened and her eyes were wide open. The Seer dropped the mirror, and it shattered on the floor at her feet.

 

She sank to the floor after it.

 

“What is this?” the Seer whispered, pressing her fingers into her eyelids as if it were a stain that could be rubbed off. “It's inside me . . .”

 

A strong hand caught hold of both her wrists at once, forcibly pulling them away from her face.

 

“Be still,” Sesshoumaru ordered, wrenching her wrists downward. “Tell me what you See.”

 

There was no fear in the Inu Youkai's voice, nor any anger, and the Seer calmed down a little.

 

“I See no visions,” she answered, staring down at her hands, which were held fast in the demon's grip. “It's as if these were my own eyes. But I feel . . . something stirs inside me.”

 

“What is it?” Sesshoumaru asked sharply. His touch on her skin was cold, as if he had been holding snow in his hand.

 

He was recalling how the shadow-magic that bound the Tatesei to him had seemed to strike him from inside his very blood. He had been aware of its presence within him from the moment of his ordination, but nevertheless it unnerved him. And now . . . from the moment that the dragon had been summoned in the scrying bowl it had seemed to come awake . . . But was it acting to protect him, or to destroy him on behalf of the Tatesei . . . ?

 

`Or perhaps,' he thought darkly, `it acted according to the dragon's own will . . .'

 

But the Seer could not hear these thoughts.

 

“I don't know what it is,” she answered. “But it moves through my blood . . . and I feel stronger, somehow. More alive. I don't know.”

 

Sesshoumaru released his hold on her, and her hands fell limply into her lap.

 

“Have I changed as well?” he asked softly.

 

The Seer lifted her chin and stared boldly into his face, as she had not dared to do before. His features were cold and perfect as sculpted marble; his mouth a firm line that betrayed neither fear nor anxiety.

 

“You are as always, my lord,” she answered. “Your eyes are your own. But . . .”

 

She paused, frowning.

 

“Explain,” the demon lord ordered.

 

Unexpectedly, the Seer reached out and took hold of his wrist with both her small hands. Immediately Sesshoumaru began to feel her sorcery at work, and snatched his arm away.

 

“You will not touch me,” he told her icily.

 

But the Seer did not cower from him this time. Instead she leaned toward him, heedless of the broken glass upon which she was pressing her palms.

 

“My lord, I cannot See your mind,” she told him, peering up at him earnestly. “The way is blocked. I See only darkness.”

 

Sesshoumaru rose briskly to his feet, backing away from her. His gaze down upon her bordered on contemptuous.

 

“Good,” he replied tersely. “That is as it should be.”

 

For a moment the Seer stared at him in amazement, scarcely able to believe the folly that his arrogance was driving him to. How could he not see the danger? Something had taken hold of him when he and the dragon locked eyes.

 

Now that her gift was blinded, the Seer could not divine what it was.

 

“My lord,” she murmured, bowing her head. “Then you must know that I can no longer serve you. Believe that I'm telling the truth, because if it is indeed truth then my life is now forfeit.”

 

Sesshoumaru was silent for a while. The Seer crouched with her head bowed low---so low that her black hair brushed the stone floor, trailing through spilled water and broken glass.

 

“Killing you,” he said finally, “would be an utter waste of my time.”

 

Slowly, the Seer raised her head.

 

“And,” Sesshoumaru continued calmly, “I smell the stench of Ningen nearby.”

 

“What?” the Seer whispered, surprised yet again. Though the demon lord's tone of voice was even, she could tell from the sudden ire kindling in his eyes that he was not referring to Rin.

 

{+} {+} {+}

 

“Wake up! We have to leave now!”

 

Inuyasha's bellow filled Kaede's previously peaceful hut. Miroku and Sango were up in a flash, staff and Hiraikoutsu in hand.

 

“Ow!” Shippou wailed. “That's my tail!”

 

“Sorry,” Kagome apologized, removing her foot. “It's so dark I can't see. Inuyasha, you shouldn't have yelled---we're not under attack or anything.”

 

“Miroku, that's my chest!” Sango exclaimed in exasperation.

 

“Whoops . . . ah . . .” Miroku didn't bother to offer any explanation for this particular “accident.”

 

“Ye gods, ye have given us a fright,” Kaede grumbled from the opposite side of the room.

 

Inuyasha didn't bother to apologize.

 

“Get packed so we can leave!” he ordered. “We're going after Sesshoumaru!” There was a fierce gleam in the hanyou's eye; he didn't seem overly dismayed at this prospect.

 

“You mean we're going after the shard,” Miroku corrected him. “We are not dragging ourselves out into a blizzard just because you finally have a good excuse to go slay your brother.”

 

Kagome placed both hands on Inuyasha's shoulders to calm him down.

 

“Inuyasha, you're still sick,” she reminded him. “This isn't the time to be `slaying' anyone. Remember we're doing this for your sake . . .”

 

To her surprise, Inuyasha shrugged her off, bristling and somewhat perturbed.

 

“Will you stop with the `heading to my doom' crap?” he snapped. “We'll worry about the Reiyama problem after we've got the shard back.”

 

Stepping away from him, Kagome knelt and fished a flashlight out of her backpack.

 

`Honestly,' she thought in frustration. `He thinks he's immortal or something . . .'

 

Once she had produced the flashlight, she switched it on to reveal the scene of tracked-in snow, scattered bedding, hastily-packed food provisions, and the hut's rather tense and irritable occupants. Shippou scampered over and clung to her legs.

 

“I'm coming too, right?” he asked her, gazing up at her hopefully.

 

“No, you're not,” Inuyasha told him from off to the left. The hanyou was hefting Kagome's pack. “Hey, Kagome, you're going to have to leave most of this stuff behind or it'll take us ten times as long to reach the mountains.”

 

Kagome sighed. She knew she should've thought of this earlier. Of course they needed to pack lightly in order to make good time; time was of the essence when one's quarry could travel in the form of little glowing balls of magic.

 

“Fine,” she told him. “Just keep the food, about half the clothing, the toothbrush, the hairbrush, and the math book.”

 

Inuyasha just stared at her. Kagome sighed again.

 

“Okay, maybe not the math book . . .”

 

“Right,” Inuyasha replied. Hunkering down over the bulging knapsack, he set to.

 

Soon the objects he deemed unnecessary were flying across the room in all directions.

 

“Inuyasha, quit it!” Shippou cried as a shoe hit him across the back of the head. He was still clinging to Kagome's legs.

 

“What's this?” Miroku asked, fingering a bra that had been flung into his arms. “Some sort of sling?”

 

He seemed genuinely mystified, prodding at it with one finger. Sango walked over to investigate, frowning.

 

“I've seen this before,” she told the puzzled monk. “You'd better give it back to Kagome.”

 

Kagome snatched it back, blushing furiously. Then she dropped it, just in time to catch the pair of blue panties sailing through the air.

 

“Inuyasha!” she cried. “Stop throwing stuff away that I'll need! I'm not going on a journey that long without clean underwear!”

 

“Underwear?” Miroku asked, a gleam of interest kindling in his eyes.

 

“Here, Kagome,” Sango said, collecting some of the objects flung onto the floor and handing them to Kagome. “I'll help you repack.”

 

Inuyasha and Miroku stepped back and watched while the two girls crouched over Kagome's knapsack and replenished its supplies.

 

“Will you hurry up?” Inuyasha grumbled, folding his arms and looking cross. “Sesshoumaru's probably already reached the mountains by now.”

 

“Underwear . . .” Miroku muttered, rubbing his chin and looking pensive.

 

“Inuyasha . . .” Kagome paused in her work, looking thoughtful. “How do we know that that's where Sesshoumaru went? We don't really know what he's taken the shard for, so we can't assume he took it to Reiyama . . .”

 

Inuyasha shrugged, looking somewhat sullen.

 

“Feh. You're the one that predicted our doom in Reiyama,” he reminded her. “And the way things are going it sure looks like I'm gonna have to fight him if we follow him. So we assume that's where he went.”

 

“But why Reiyama?” Sango asked, standing up and brushing the dust off her knees. Kagome's flashlight beam revealed that she was wearing her demon-slayer's suit now, albeit with a woolen cloak over it to keep the snow off it. “Do you think he's changed his mind and means to finish the massacre that he started two years ago? I can't see any other reason for him to take the shard there.”

 

“I never said he'd go directly to Reiyama,” Inuyasha told them. “I said he'd go to the mountains.”

 

Kaede, who was seated opposite the room's central fireplace, frowned at them over the glowing embers.

 

“What lies there, Inuyasha?” she asked. “In the mountains, at this time, there is naught but snow and wind and rock.”

 

Inuyasha, who was heading for the door, paused in the doorway with one hand on the bamboo curtain.

 

“He lives there,” the hanyou said in strange, flat tones, “in the palace of the Inu Youkai.”

 

“I wanna go!” Shippou insisted. The Kitsune had reattached himself to Kagome's leg.

 

“No,” Inuyasha and Miroku said at once.

 

“Ye will stay here with me,” Kaede told him. “I fear this trip may be too dangerous for the likes of young Kitsune.”

 

“I can go, right, Kagome?” Shippou pleaded, peering up at her. “Kagome . . . ?”

 

“Is something wrong, Kagome?” Sango asked, strapping Hiraikoutsu across her back.

 

Kagome was standing utterly still, with the flashlight aimed at Sango.

 

“Kagome?” Inuyasha moved to stand beside her. “What's wrong? We don't have time to stand and . . .”

 

Inuyasha's gaze followed the path of the beam and then his voice trailed off.

 

{+} {+} {+}

 

Abruptly, Sesshoumaru spun and swept out of the chamber, white robes snapping with the suddenness of movement.

 

For a moment, Suiton knelt there, frozen with shock.

 

Why any human intruder would come here, she could not fathom. Yet the boldness of this intrusion showed that the stranger had either abandoned all fear of death . . . or all fear of Lord Sesshoumaru.

 

The Seer staggered to her feet, clutching at her skirts.

 

She was about to hurry from the room when it occurred to her that the intruder might be someone seeking the fragment of the Shikon Jewel. Remembering that she had flung it onto the floor, she began searching for it on her hands and knees. Her hand plunged into the puddle in which the shard lay, but the instant the shard had settled in her palm, a very strange thing happened. The shard, which had been opalescent and shining before, was now jet black.

 

As the Seer stared at it with wide, frightened eyes, it began to sink into the flesh of her hand.

 

“No!” she cried, flinging it to the floor again and clutching at her palm.

 

The flesh was whole and undamaged---it seemed the shard had not pierced her skin but was being absorbed by it. The Seer knelt there a moment, breathing hard, wondering what this meant. Then, slowly, calm returned and she was able to think rationally again.

 

`This didn't happen before the dragon appeared,' she thought. `Either my use of the Jewel to See Lord Sesshoumaru's answer in the scrying bowl tainted it . . . or somehow the dragon has done this . . .'

 

Whatever the reason, the fact remained that Suiton could not touch the Jewel. Instead of trying to pick it up again with her bare hands, the Seer wrapped it in a silken sash lying nearby and tucked it into the inner sash of her kimono. If the intruder tried to take it, then they would first be forced to come within range of her sorcery. Unless, of course, they came at her with a sword . . .

 

The Seer hurried out into the hall to search for the demon lord and his quarry.

 

{+} {+} {+}

 

Sesshoumaru swept through the halls in a fury. So swift were his steps that the torches lining the way blew slantwise in a great rush of flame. He would not have been so angry if the dark magic coiled inside him were not warning him that the intruder was Tatesei. That one of them had dared invade the sanctity of his home was unforgivable.

 

He rounded a corner and flung open the screens leading out into the garden so violently that they were nearly thrown from their runners. Outside, the snow fell quietly, piling over the bushes and foot-bridges in drifts; coating the stark brown branches with a mantle of white. The torchlight through the open doorway shone on the snow, making it sparkle.

 

Irusei stood beneath the terrace roof, silent and utterly still.

 

He stared calmly at the demon lord as if he had been waiting for this very moment. The young warrior wore no armor and no cloak to stave off the chill. He wasn't even wearing shoes, though he must have walked for hours to ascend the icy mountain slope to reach the Inu Youkai Valley.

 

Sesshoumaru stood motionless in the doorway as well, eyeing the young man narrowly and wondering at the strangeness of his appearance. Irusei's clothes were utterly soaked through; his dark hair dripped melted snow onto his brow, which trickled down his cheeks like tears and pooled in the hollow of his throat. His hands were clenched into fists.

 

“Lord Sesshoumaru,” Irusei called, in a low voice. His head was lowered, but his stance was firm and resolute---it seemed he had no intention of fleeing.

 

This was fine with Sesshoumaru, who at this point had no intention of allowing him to flee.

 

“What folly has brought you here?” Sesshoumaru asked coolly. At his side, the nails of his hand began to glow a poisonous green.

 

Still Irusei made no move to flee. He tilted his head to one side, as if the demon lord about to slay him was merely an object of curiosity.

 

“I see it's true, what they say,” the warrior said softly. “You hate us. I have crossed your boundaries, and now I am to die. But . . . don't you even want to know why I'm here?”

 

The green glow around Sesshoumaru's claws expanded down the lengths of his fingers.

 

“Speak, Ningen,” he answered coldly, “but don't think that it will spare you the fate you've brought upon yourself.”

 

Irusei took a step toward the demon lord, plucking his hakouma away from where the water made it cling to his legs. Drops of melted snow pattered softly on the wooden floor, falling from the young man's clothes.

 

“I've come for my sister,” he said simply.

 

The gleaming poison now encompassed Sesshoumaru's entire hand.

 

“Really?” the demon lord said dispassionately. “You won't take her. The Seer is mine.”

 

Irusei took another step toward him, not seeming to care that there were five toxic glowing claws with his name on them.

 

“Oh, no, my lord,” he said softly. “You see, the Seer has always belonged to the Tatesei. She belongs to us now. Especially now. Now that she has awakened the fire in our blood . . .” He paused, correctly interpreting Sesshoumaru's bland expression as one of surprise. “Don't you know, my lord, what you've done? What you have allowed to happen?”

 

Sesshoumaru made no move to raise the glowing hand, but it clenched into a fist at his side.

 

“Explain,” he ordered, his tone a warning not to try his patience.

 

“Very well,” Irusei said, halting his slow progress toward the demon lord. “But perhaps you might ask her to explain it, for she knows it as well as I.”

 

Sesshoumaru glanced over one shoulder to see that the Seer had come to join him in the doorway. She stopped short at the sight of her brother, frozen with shock as if she were afraid of him.

 

“Explain,” the demon lord commanded her.

 

“There . . . there is a legend that tells of the Great Dragon who . . . who formed these lands,” she began, somewhat haltingly. “They say his lashing tail stirred the first currents of the ocean . . . his claws gouged hills and valleys into the lowlands . . . and that with his mouth he breathed fire into the mountains . . .”

 

Sesshoumaru turned from her in disgust.

 

“I will waste no more time on the legends of Ningen,” he told her. “Speak plainly, or do not speak at all.”

 

But the Seer laid a placating hand on his elbow, and when he glanced down at her Sesshoumaru saw that her eyes, though black and inhuman, still gleamed with the inner light of her gift. This was the Seer, not the frightened woman from the inner chamber, and Sesshoumaru remembered that once the gift claimed her she would speak only truth.

 

“Here legend blurs into history,” she continued, “for in the heart of the mountains far to the north there dwelt a clan of humans bearing the Great Dragon's blood. They began as half-breeds, this race, but after years of intermixing with humans they came to be human themselves. The Dragon still looked upon them as his children, and into their midst the First Seer to guide them. She came in the form of a young priestess wearing a man's armor, called by the name Midoriko.

 

“It was Midoriko who gave the Tatesei the prophecy that you have heard, Lord Sesshoumaru. The very same Midoriko from whose soul the Sacred Jewel was born. Yet afterward . . . those villagers who wished to dedicate their lives to defending the Jewel were the ones to inherit it . . . while those who feared the greed of demons chose to flee, taking the prophetic scroll with them. These found refuge in the valley where Reiyama exists today. The rest you know---the legacy of the Tatesei.”

 

The light faded in the Seer's eyes and the woman glanced up at Sesshoumaru.

 

“All I know, my lord, is that the Tatesei bear the Dragon's blood within them. I didn't know what would happen if I used the Shikon shard to See your answer, but somehow . . . somehow my doing so has awakened the Dragon.”

 

Sesshoumaru stared at her, saying nothing and refusing to admit even to himself that she had tried to warn him.

 

“You tell it so nicely, Suiton,” Irusei said, frowning. “Yet you leave out what is truly important. For someone so wise, sister, you really don't know what you've done.”

 

Sesshoumaru turned back toward the young warrior standing on the terrace.

 

“Speak, then,” the demon lord bade him, in a tone devoid of anger. “This becomes interesting.”

 

“Ryunochi,” Irusei said softly, “is the metal we call `dragon's blood,' drawn from the mines in the mountain . . . That is what the scrying bowl was shaped from, in the forges of the city. It was given to Suiton ten years ago by the Wise, who foresaw a time when she would use it. They knew then, from the warnings given by the Second Seer, that in time there would be born a Seer whose vision would wake the Dragon. Then the Wise were destroyed, and the Second with them.” He paused a moment, so that Sesshoumaru would not miss this point. “But there were still those of us . . . who never gave up hope.” Slowly, the warrior lifted his chin. The long strands of dark hair that concealed his face in shadow fell away.

 

The Seer gasped, backing away from the terrace. She recalled her brother as she had last Seen him---standing on the Temple stair, arms wide open to draw the shadow into his breast. Seeing him now, she began to understand what that had meant.

 

“You could not imagine our joy . . .” Irusei whispered, “when we felt the blood in us begin to stir . . .”

 

His almond-shaped eyes were black now---black as the shadow that he had welcomed into his body. Now Sesshoumaru sensed the hot energy gathering within Irusei's flesh, and understood what it was that he was facing. Irusei had come here to attack him.

 

`Like Yaburenumaru, the exiled prince,' Sesshoumaru thought darkly, `this young one has accepted something fell inside of him in exchange for power.'

 

“Has everyone been . . . changed, like you?” the Seer asked her brother worriedly. “Have all the Tatesei succumbed to the Dragon's will?”

 

Irusei's face was grim.

 

“It's not a matter of choice,” he answered. “Everyone has been changed because this is what we are meant to be. Even you,” he added, nodding toward her. “Even you have the Dragon's eyes, and the Dragon's blood, if only you would call upon it.”

 

A strange, fey light was beginning to gather around his skin.

 

With his right hand Sesshoumaru pushed the Seer back further from the door.

 

“Go home, Ningen,” he told Irusei, his voice a soft warning.

 

The warrior's expression darkened, and his hands clenched into fists at his sides.

 

“No,” he answered firmly. “No. I've come for my sister, and I mean to leave with her.”

 

Sesshoumaru raised his hand, calling power into his fingers once again.

 

“Go home,” he repeated.

 

Something flared brightly from within Irusei's skin, and then both demon and Seer experienced the strange spectacle of the fire running through the warrior's veins, visible even through the flesh. An aura of flame was gathering around Irusei, rushing and swirling like a hot wind; Sesshoumaru could feel the heat warming the skin of his face.

 

Then Irusei rushed at him.

 

Flames wreathed the young man's body, regardless of the fact that his cold, soaked clothing clung to his skin. They touched him but did not burn him, and now he was summoning them into his hand. He was thrusting the burning hand straight out in front of him as he rushed forward. He was aiming this deadly attack directly at Sesshoumaru's heart.

 

He was stopped a mere few inches away.

 

Sesshoumaru caught him by the wrist and held him fast. The two regarded each other from this sudden proximity---Irusei with open hatred; Sesshoumaru with icy disdain.

 

“Did you truly believe, Ningen, that you would kill me?” the demon lord asked scornfully. “With this mortal hand, you thought to destroy your own lord and protector?”

 

“You aren't my lord,” Irusei retorted through clenched teeth. “We never chose you.” He was straining against Sesshoumaru's vise-like grip, but it seemed that even the strength granted to him by the Great Dragon's blood was not enough for him to break free.

 

“The Tatesei, had they been allowed to choose, would have set a liar and a murderer upon Reiyama's throne,” Sesshoumaru said frostily. He tightened his hold on Irusei's wrist. “I have little faith in the `choices' you make.”

 

“I care nothing for your faith,” the warrior responded. “And don't think your demon strength can stop me.”

 

Though his hand was held fast, the flames that Irusei wielded spread outward from the vertex of his palm, reaching toward Sesshoumaru's heart so hungrily that they seemed to be alive. Sesshoumaru did not move to avoid them at all, but his grasp of his enemy's arm tightened further. Then the flames began to shrink.

 

“The dragon's blood in yours, is it?” the demon lord murmured idly. “Then, if I were to cut off the flow of blood to your hand . . . it dies. Or perhaps I should remove the hand completely . . .” To emphasize his point, Sesshoumaru clenched his hand, and the snapping of bones was audible even above the crackling of the flames. The fire surrounding Irusei's hand shrank back into his flesh and disappeared.

 

To his credit, Irusei did not flinch or cry out. However, now flames were beginning to gather in his one free hand. Sesshoumaru sensed it the instant the magic began, and his eyes narrowed.

 

“Go home, Ningen,” he repeated for the third time.

 

“No,” Irusei whispered. “Die.”

 

The flames finished gathering in his left palm, and he thrust it at the demon lord's belly. But this time his hand froze on its own, inches away from striking.

 

A shadow passed between them, from demon lord to Tatesei.

 

`What is this?' Sesshoumaru thought, uncertain as to why this had transpired. `The magic in my blood that binds me to the Tatesei . . . has protected me of its own accord?'

 

The coiled serpent had never struck unless he bade it to do so---with the exception of the time he and the Great Dragon had locked eyes through the scrying bowl. At that time, it had struck its own wielder . . .

 

Irusei pulled away, staggering backward. Sesshoumaru let him. Even as the Tatesei warrior did so the fire in his veins subsided and its light vanished.

 

“So I must obey,” Irusei said bitterly, clutching his broken wrist and continuing to back away. “But don't think this will save you. The Dragon is awake. Your binding sorcery won't make slaves of us for much longer.”

 

“Slaves?” Sesshoumaru asked coldly. “Slaves? Whom, Ningen, do you think has been protecting your borders? It was not the dragon.”

 

“We belonged to the Dragon, demon, before we ever belonged to you,” Irusei spat.

 

Sesshoumaru stepped smoothly out onto the wooden terrace, eyes flashing.

 

“Go home, Ningen, and tell your king that I am giving him the choice you so desire.”

 

Irusei's scowl deepened.

 

“I will give him three days to choose,” Sesshoumaru continued inexorably. “If he chooses not to abandon what honor the Tatesei have left, then I shall come and new fealty shall be sworn.” The demon lord paused, lowering his head. “If he chooses to betray what he had sworn to uphold . . . then I will come.”

 

There was no need to explain what the white demon's coming would mean in the second case.

 

Apparently too angry to reply, Irusei turned and stalked off into the garden. Sesshoumaru watched him go with a placid stare, as if he understood the magnitude of what had just transpired but he didn't care. The Tatesei warrior's dark form vanished beyond the curtain of falling snow.

 

“Why did you spare him?”

 

It was the Seer, whose presence behind him he had forgotten.

 

“He will bear my message,” Sesshoumaru answered coldly. He would not do her the courtesy of turning to face her---this frail woman with her eyes inhumanly black and her fall of dark Tatesei hair. “I will give them their precious choice.” Absently, his hand slid over Tokijin's hilt. `And then,' he thought, `whether or not they betray me . . . I will use them to lead me to the Dragon . . .'

 

The lord of the West removed his hand from the sword. “When they betray me . . .” he murmured aloud.

 

“My lord,” the Seer whispered, daring to lay a hand on the back of his sleeve. “Is your hatred for them so strong . . . that you want them to betray you . . . ?”

 

Sesshoumaru didn't move.

 

“Get out of my sight, Ningen,” he said icily.

 

Immediately the hand removed itself and she left, vanishing down the palace corridors. He hated the way her scent lingered.

 

{+} {+} {+}

 

“Sango,” Kagome whispered, body so frozen with shock that she could scarcely move her lips. “Your eyes . . .”

 

“Black,” Miroku said softly, joining girl and hanyou in staring at Sango's face. “Completely black.”

 

“Truly?” Kaede asked, getting up to see. “Is it so?”

 

The old priestess ran her hand across Sango's forehead, muttering a spell. She touched Sango's eyelids with gentle fingers, uttering another spell. Nothing changed.

 

“It's no curse put upon her,” Kaede told them when she finally stepped back. “I admit this is not something I've seen before.”

 

Inuyasha sniffed the air.

 

“She doesn't smell different at all,” he announced. “She still smells like Sango.”

 

Sango pulled a face.

 

“And just what does that mean?” she asked, fingering Hiraikoutsu's straps uneasily. “Listen, all of you: I don't feel any different. In fact, I'm quite warm and well-rested.”

 

“Your aura has changed,” Kagome said softly.

 

“But I'm still me,” Sango insisted, frowning worriedly.

 

“Relax,” Miroku admonished, sneaking an arm around her shoulders. “No one's saying you're not. We will take care of this, I promise.”

 

“I'm not sure she should come,” Kagome murmured, still staring. “Her aura . . . looks like flames.”

 

But no one heard her last words, because at that point there was a sudden loud burst of erupting flames from the opposite corner of the hut. Everyone jumped, except for Shippou, who was still clinging desperately to Kagome's leg.

 

“Kirara?” Inuyasha asked, turning around in surprise.

 

The tiger-like demon had just transformed into her large shape---that had been what the flash of fire was all about.

 

“Kirara, you shouldn't be up with that injury,” Sango told her worriedly.

 

“Kirara, you shouldn't transform in the hut,” Miroku scolded her. “Wood is flammable, you know.”

 

Kirara shook her head, growling a definite negative, and then she swung her head in Sango's direction, seeming to wait for the girl's response.

 

“She wants to go with you,” Sango told everyone, “and I think she wants me to go with you, also.”

 

To confirm this, Kirara moved closer and nuzzled Sango's arm with her nose.

 

“Huh,” Inuyasha said. “I guess she's going, then.” He always trusted Kirara's instincts---probably because he was the next closest thing to an animal himself.

 

Despite everyone else's apparent determination to go through with the journey together, Kagome still felt highly uneasy. Inuyasha sick, Kirara wounded . . . and now Sango . . .

 

The change in Sango's aura made her uneasy. It had faded since she'd first noticed it, but nevertheless it reminded her of something she couldn't quite remember.

 

“He took the Jewel, and the skies rained fire . . .” Kagome whispered to herself.

 

But Inuyasha was already tugging at her hand.

 

“Come on,” he insisted. “Let's go . . .”

 

Donning her knapsack and wrapping her scarf snugly about her neck, Kagome followed her friends out into the snow.

 

{END OF CHAPTER 7}

 

Yamisui: The plot thickens. (It's about gravy-consistency by now.)