InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Lord of the West ❯ Tokijin's Dark Aura ( Chapter 14 )

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

 

{+} {+} Chapter 13: Tokijin's Dark Aura {+} {+}

 

Fire pulsed through her veins, infusing her very blood with strength. Melted snow washed over her head; her face; plastering her long, black hair to her shoulders and streaming down her cheeks like tears. Through a blur of water cascading over her eyes, Sango stared at her hands. She could see the fire. Even through the torrent, she could see it. It coursed a twisted, winding track down her arms, emerging from beneath the cover of her black demon-slayer's sleeves to branch spider-like across the tops of her hands, and through the palms on the underside. This was the Dragon's legacy, in her blood.

 

`I . . . I had wished to avoid this,' she thought, simultaneously mesmerized and repulsed by this strange sight.

 

Yet now it seemed that avoiding it was no longer possible.

 

The avalanche was dissolving all around her as the other hanryu freed themselves; it cast the strange illusion that the world was melting, and that she would soon sink into some unknown darkness below.

 

Yet as the snow finished melting, Sango found instead that her feet were firmly planted on solid rock, albeit knee-deep in cold water. All around her, the Tatesei warriors were moving away from the walls. The light from their veins cast a warm orange glow onto the canyon walls around them, strongly reminiscent of firelight save for the fact that this did not dance. It only seemed to flicker when they turned and their armor blocked the illumination of their flesh.

 

“The light . . . it doesn't die.”

 

Sango half-turned to see Irusei beside her near the wall. Slowly, he raised one hand and held it before his face. Caught in the glow from his veins, his black eyes were luminous with hope. She could almost feel the hope radiating from him.

 

But she turned away, bending to lift her Hiraikoutsu out of the water. There was a hairline crack near the weapon's tip, but otherwise it seemed undamaged. Sango was eminently grateful for this; she foresaw the need for it to be fully functional in the near future. As she bent, the demon-slayer saw in the water that her own eyes gleamed like Irusei's.

 

“Where is Inuyasha?” she asked sharply, straightening quickly and forsaking the reflection at her feet.

 

Irusei turned toward his men, who were watching him expectantly. The travois that they had been using to carry the hanyou lay empty beneath the freezing water. Sango made her way over to it, splashing across the canyon floor.

 

“Gone?” Irusei murmured with a frown.

 

Sango saw no sign of a struggle around the litter. The ropes that had bound him to it weren't broken, so it seemed that someone had untied them.

 

“Suiton-sama is gone as well!” one of the warriors exclaimed, emerging from the darkness a little further down the tunnel.

 

Irusei offered no reply to this, but Sango could see that he was angry. Absently pressing one hand over the wound in his middle, he gazed upward into the storm above the canyon. There was no doubt on his face as to what had happened.

 

“Irusei-sama . . . it was the white demon; it must have been!” one of the warriors declared, taking a step toward his leader.

 

`Of course,' Sango thought, rising to her feet and abandoning the litter. `The red light we saw was Tokijin's kenatsu. He did this to trap us so that he could take Inuyasha . . .'

 

She felt nothing but unease. Somehow she doubted that Sesshoumaru's interference had been intended as a rescue mission.

 

{+} {+} {+}

 

Inuyasha swam slowly into consciousness through a haze of gray. The first breath entering his nostrils that he was aware of brought the scent of pine and metal and also Inu Youkai. For a while he became confused and fancied that he was a child again, sleeping between his parents. They all lay upon a bed of soft fur. His mother's hand stroked his hair gently as she drifted off into sleep; his father's strong arms wrapped protectively around them both. It was very warm.

 

But both of his parents were dead; his father before his mother, so that the three of them had never been together like that.

 

With the advent of this epiphany, Inuyasha's return to awareness came like a cold slap in the face.

 

He was lying on soft, white fur, whose hairs were so long that they practically covered him where he lay. Beside him sat a woman; she was the one who smelled of pine and metal. At first he thought that the drug was making his mind play tricks on him. Thin lines of fire twisted across her pale skin like veins, illuminating the falling snow with an eerie glow. As his eyes came into focus, Inuyasha realized that he was looking at the Seer, and that the light he was seeing was indeed coming from her veins. The wind had blown back the blue hood of her robes, and there was ice in her hair. One of her hands gripped the white hair beside her to steady herself. Her head was bowed and she swayed a little; she appeared to be asleep. Tearing his gaze away from her strange appearance, Inuyasha realized that they were moving. The fur at his feet, of course, was attached to flesh, which in turn was attached to the massive form of an Inu Youkai.

 

With an ill-tempered growl, Inuyasha sat bolt-upright, and then immediately wished he hadn't. He didn't feel groggy, but his head ached fiercely. The woman beside him was startled awake and backed away on her hands and knees, allowing him a considerable amount of room to stand. Inuyasha staggered to his feet. For a moment his head reeled, until he became accustomed to the rising and falling of the flesh beneath him.

 

Then he began making his way up the long back toward the neck.

 

“Oy!” he shouted. “Where the hell are you taking me?!”

 

Ahead of him, one of the ears on the massive head twitched at the sound of his voice, but otherwise Sesshoumaru gave no indication of having heard him. Of course, Sesshoumaru often gave no indication of hearing people when they were two feet away and standing eye-to-eye, so this wasn't exactly a surprise. With a sigh of disgust, Inuyasha rounded on the Seer, who was still kneeling and clinging to his brother's fur.

 

“Where's Tetsusaiga?” Inuyasha demanded. “Where the hell is he taking us?”

 

The Tatesei woman gazed up at him with her strange black eyes, which he found severely unnerving, but at this point she seemed to be the only person willing to listen to him.

 

“Do you mean your sword?” she asked, somewhat timidly. “The woman---the demon-slayer---she took it from you hours ago.”

 

Inuyasha's eyes narrowed.

 

“Sango?”

 

The Seer looked down at her hands somewhat shamefacedly.

 

“If that is her name. The Lord of the West pulled us from the snow, and we are headed toward the mountain now. He would not have had the patience to look for your sword, and besides---if you had the sword now you would be trying to kill him.”

 

Inuyasha nodded slowly; this sounded about right. The white plane of Sesshoumaru's back rose beneath their feet. It seemed the ground below was beginning to slope upward again. Inuyasha attempted to peer ahead of them to pinpoint their location, but the wind around him was fierce, driving snow across the way in front of them like a screen. Perhaps it was only his imagination, but he didn't recall from before any indication that the weather was going to be this bad. Fortunately, his Fire-Rat robes and his Inu Youkai blood afforded him a great deal of warmth, but he was beginning to worry about Kagome and the others. They were human; their bodies weren't built to withstand this kind of cold.

 

“Why me?” Inuyasha asked the Seer. “What is he planning to do with me?”

 

Still the Seer refused to look him in the eye.

 

“The Lord of the West plans to use you to unseal the Dragon,” she replied quietly. “Then he will destroy it.”

 

Inuyasha stared at her. She was clearly living in a fairy tale.

 

“And just how does he plan on doing that? With Tokijin? With Tenseiga? The Dragon's not dead, and it's not some small-fry Youkai, either.”

 

The Seer finally looked up to meet his gaze. Wrapped in her thin blue robes, she looked quite cold and miserable. But determination was written plainly on her pale face.

 

“I don't know,” she answered, a bit sharply. “I don't know how your father sealed the Dragon in the first place. But I intend to help in any way I can.”

 

“Heh,” Inuyasha snorted, folding his arms. “Even if that makes me your little virgin sacrifice?”

 

The Seer blinked, clearly taken aback.

 

“You and your brother are very different,” she remarked.

 

Inuyasha eyed her shrewdly for a minute; this was true, but it was also an evasion of answering his question. Clearly this meant that Sesshoumaru intended to proceed with something on the order of killing his hanyou brother and finger-painting “Open Sesame” on the mountainside with his blood. Inuyasha reached an abrupt decision. Without warning---before she even had time to utter a protest---he caught the Seer around the waist with one arm and shielded his face from the snow with the other as he took a running start toward the edge of Sesshoumaru's back.

 

He heard the Seer gasp as she drew back a breath in preparation to scream, but then they were airborne, and her cry was lost in the maelstrom.

 

It was like falling through a cloud, only this was a cloud formed from blowing bits of ice, and they stung. Inuyasha tucked his head against his chest and wrapped one sleeve around the Tatesei woman's head to protect their faces.

 

They landed four feet deep in half-frozen snow with a loud crunch that might have been ice cracking or possibly Inuyasha's kneecaps. He grunted as fire shot through his shins and released his hold on the woman; it wasn't as if she would be able to go anywhere, buried four feet deep in a snow bank. She didn't seem inclined to run away, anyway, judging from the way her thin fingers were digging into his shoulder. Even on half-demon flesh, it would probably leave a bruise.

 

“It's near,” she whispered cryptically, taking their surroundings with her wide, fey eyes.

 

`We've already reached the mountains,' Inuyasha realized grimly, prying himself free of the snow bank and hauling the Seer up onto higher ground with him.

 

There were rocks in front of him---a mound of boulders commemorating some past rockslide down the face of the mountain whose base they now lay at. While Inuyasha had been unconscious, Sesshoumaru had carried them clear across the valley and into the hills beyond. By “it,” Inuyasha had the horrible suspicion that the Seer had meant the Dragon, which meant that going further would lead them closer to the place he'd intended to avoid. Yet behind him the hanyou could also see the red half-moons of Sesshoumaru's eyes cutting through the darkness. The ground trembled beneath their feet, rattling the boulders.

 

“Let's go,” he told the Seer, pulling her along with him as he clambered over the loosening rocks. “We can't stay here; he'll catch our scent soon even through this wind.”

 

Fresh gusts of ice bits blustered around them, stinging their noses and cheeks like tiny insects. The wailing of the storm rose to a near-deafening pitch before mercifully subsiding a bit. Inuyasha sighed.

 

`Damn this snow,' he thought irritably. `I probably should've stayed on the bastard's back until we reached higher ground.' But there was no use worrying about what he should have done now that he'd taken the plunge.

 

Glancing over his shoulder at the Seer, he told her, “I don't know where we are, and I don't care, but we have to find shelter even if it means going further in. The storm will bury us if we don't.”

 

The Seer's mouth fell open and she came to an abrupt halt, gaping at him in abject horror. It wasn't a very dignified expression, but it did make her seem more human despite the web of veins gleaming through the pale flesh of her face.

 

“You---you have no plan?” she gasped when at last she regained the power of speech. “You just jumped . . . without knowing what lay below you?”

 

Inuyasha stared at her in bemusement.

 

“Lady, you're supposed to be a psychic? Of course I didn't know. We're going to have to work together to get out of this, but if you really can't see the future then I don't see how you're going to be much use.” He gave her arm a rough yank, forcing her to stumble after him over the boulders.

 

“I wasn't touching your skin,” the Seer murmured in more subdued tones, sounding as if this admission made her uncomfortable. “I can't See without touching you.”

 

Inuyasha made a mental note to himself not to let her touch his skin---one of the nights he'd stayed at Kagome's house he'd had a particularly steamy dream about her and every once in a while he kept getting pleasant flashbacks. It wasn't exactly something he planned on sharing with anyone else.

 

In the meantime, the ground beneath their feet was now trembling so violently climbing normally over the snow-slick rocks was nigh impossible. With an impatient grunt, Inuyasha swept the Seer into his arms and took off at his own pace. Using demon strength to travel instead of letting the woman slow him down, he managed to navigate a more efficient route around the side of the mountain. Together they crested the outermost perimeter of the rock-pile.

 

On the other side the earth dipped downward into a long ravine of sorts, sheltered by an overhang of rock jutting out from the mountain's eastern side. Inuyasha made straight for the depression, noting that while the snow was blowing slantwise into it there weren't any large drifts blanketing the ground there. It also looked like a space too confined for Sesshoumaru to traverse in demon form. He hesitated before descending, however, glancing over his shoulder at the storm-lashed terrain behind him.

 

`Kagome . . . You must think I'm dead,' he thought solemnly.

 

The ground was trembling beneath their feet, and even over the howling winds he could hear the growl rumbling deep in Sesshoumaru's chest. The white demon was already aware of their escape, but Inuyasha estimated that through the fury of the blizzard it would be difficult for Sesshoumaru to catch their scent. With a sigh of reluctance, Inuyasha set the Seer on her feet and pulled her after him, moving deeper underground.

 

“There is no point in trying to run from this.”

 

Inuyasha glanced behind him and saw that the Seer was watching him intently. There was an odd gleam in her black eyes that raised the hairs on the back of his neck. He vaguely remembered seeing her like this at one point, but then a strange, near-blinding light had flashed before his face, and he couldn't remember if it was a dream or not. Frowning, the hanyou gave his head a little shake, trying to clear it of the memory.

 

“Feh,” he scoffed as they moved further into the tunnel, his bare feet crunching in the thin layer of snow covering the stone. “Who says I'm `running'? As soon as we get out of this, we're going to find Kagome and Miroku. They're out there somewhere in this, and they don't have your hanryu ability to stay warm.”

 

“Listen to me!” the Seer insisted, grasping hold of his forearm and looking as if she wanted to shake him. “Destroying the Dragon is utterly beyond the importance of finding your friends! Don't you understand?”

 

Inuyasha's eyelids lowered, and his feral grin vanished.

 

“To be honest with you,” he said quietly, “I don't really care what kind of world results from this. If I can't protect my friends, then the future doesn't matter.”

 

“That is selfish.”

 

Inuyasha glanced down at her sharply. Her head was lowered, and she did not look him in the eye as she said this. The small drift of ice flurries that had gathered on his brow while they were outside had begun to melt and run down his face. Angrily, he brushed it aside with his fingers.

 

“Lady, the future isn't some vast living thing that you have to protect for its own sake. It's made of people, by people. Don't forget that it's people we're trying to save here, not `the way things happen'.”

 

When she didn't answer, Inuyasha nodded to himself and turned away, satisfied that he'd won the argument. Ahead of them, he could see that the way was growing narrower and more sheltered, almost like a tunnel. And it seemed the ravine ran in more than one direction as well. As they stumbled deeper into the sheltered darkness, he could see from the illumination cast by the Seer's veins that to his left it forked off into what appeared to be a somewhat wider chasm, which appeared to lead due north. Gradually, Inuyasha's brisk pace slowed to a walk and then to a halt. He was wondering if he should take the left fork instead, as it seemed to lead in the general direction of the Inu Youkai palace, where he'd last seen Kagome and the others. But common sense presented possible consequences that he found too great to risk. Regretfully, he shook his head. The wider, northward route might well have taken him directly into Sesshoumaru's path. He also had no guarantee that it led any farther than one hundred feet. The light from the Seer's skin only spread so far, and for all he knew the left fork could dead end out in the middle of nowhere.

 

“He will kill you if you oppose him,” the Seer intoned in a low voice.

 

There was an eerie, echoing quality to her tone of voice that made Inuyasha's flesh crawl. She lifted her chin slowly as he turned to face her. Her eyes were deep and black and ancient beneath the straggle of hair across her pale brow.

 

“It is the fang's will, and he will choose not to resist.” She tilted her head to one side, staring at Inuyasha's face but seeming to look straight through him. “If you oppose him, you will not be spared.”

 

Inuyasha gazed down at her, confused and slightly taken aback. Her words were too cryptic for him to fathom; he'd never had a head for riddles. He was more accustomed to threatening the riddler with bodily harm until the answer produced itself. But there was one thing he had understood . . .

 

“The `fang'?” he asked, fighting the urge to grasp her by the shoulders and shake her. “What about the `fang'? Do you mean Tenseiga or Tetsusaiga?”

 

“No . . .” Slowly, she shook her head, her lips parting as her eyes went glassy with concentration.

 

This made no sense to Inuyasha. He didn't think either Tetsusaiga or Tenseiga would “will” Sesshoumaru to kill him. The sword-smith Toutousai had told Inuyasha that the Inutaisho gave his sons the two fangs to protect them, so such a thing didn't seem possible.

 

“What do you mean `No'?” This time Inuyasha gave in to the urge to shake her, grasping the front of her robes in his fist. “Give me a straight answer, damnit!” The shaking of the earth beneath their feet was growing louder and stronger.

 

“The fang!” she insisted. Her pale face had gone even paler between the web of fiery veins, and her eyes were bulging slightly. “You will die! Each one a fang to strike the other . . .”

 

With a grunt, Inuyasha released her.

 

“Keh. More of that `you're going to eat it' crap,” he grumbled. “I'm sick of hearing it. Try focusing on the here and now for once and use that Sight of yours to help me find a way out of here.” He surveyed the tunnel ahead of them, which appeared to veer southeast. “Where does this place lead? It seems like it was once a riverbed, so it must open somewhere further into the mountains. Once we get out of here we may be able to make it back to the Inu Youkai palace by traveling along the high ridges to the north of the valley. Where the storm isn't so bad . . .”

 

The Seer bowed her head, partially obscuring the light from the fire running through her veins.

 

“If you die,” she whispered, “there will be no future.”

 

Inuyasha glanced down, suddenly becoming aware that her hand was still clasping his wrist. Angrily, he pulled away.

 

“Don't touch me,” he snapped. “I don't want to hear your confusing prophecies. Just shut up and follow.”

 

Aside from the wind howling past the tunnel's opening behind them, things above had gone ominously quiet. This observation made Inuyasha nervous, and he began pulling the Seer along at a much faster pace.

 

Already he could tell that it was not going to be a question of whether or not Sesshoumaru found them but what form he'd be wearing when he found them. To Inuyasha, the silence meant one of two things: the white demon had reverted to man-shape and was now stalking them through the underground route, or his brother had lost the scent. Inuyasha didn't have much faith in the second option; even in the confusion of a blizzard Sesshoumaru's nose was frighteningly keen.

 

And he was beginning to notice something else that was cause for alarm---the tunnel was growing narrower the further they walked, instead of widening and opening up somewhere as he'd anticipated. Because there were two forks nearby, it made sense that the sheer force of water that had once flowed through this point would have widened it. Instead, the walls appeared to be closing in wedge-like both above and on either side of them. He didn't think it was an illusion of the darkness, either.

 

“Hey,” he said in a low voice, peering down at the woman stumbling along beside him. “This isn't a river, is it?” It was not a question.

 

When the Seer didn't answer, he sniffed the air, squinting as he peered into the darkness ahead of them. The ground seemed to be sloping downward, and it was definitely growing warmer in the tunnel.

 

“This place is suddenly rank with jyaki,” Inuyasha muttered, wrinkling his nose with distaste. “Why I didn't smell it before?” Then realization hit him: the Seer's Tatesei scent had distracted him from the traces in the air. Now that he was aware of this, he focused his nose on the underlying scents, and caught amid the scent of musty stone the stronger scent of metal and blood . . . and Naraku.

 

{+} {+} {+}

 

Amid the swirl of driving snow, the great Inu Youkai sank down into man-shape, white fur trailing upward as the wind caught it. His long white sleeves fluttered against his sides, and the wind lashed his hair across his face. He reached up to brush it aside with one hand, tilting his head back to glance at the sky above him.

 

Even through the blinding current of white, he could see beyond it the greater swirl of dark clouds, orbiting in a turbulent column above his head.

 

`Above me?' he thought, his eyes narrowed to slits against the stinging ice. `I, Sesshoumaru, am the one over whom the storm gathers?' It made little sense to him; there was no possible way that he could be the source of the jyaki drawing the clouds. Such supernatural violence of the weather did not result from any normal source; in his hundred years of life he had only seen such things surrounding a place where two sources lay in direct conflict with one another. It made no sense; Inuyasha was not with him. The hanyou was somewhere ahead, closer to the mountain. Yet the air above was unmistakable; high above the snows, amid the twisting column of gray, he could see the jagged play of lightning across the epicenter. He understood that it was a warning of some sort. Yet he was so close to the Dragon now. He could feel it.

 

And the warning no longer seemed to matter.

 

“Inuyasha,” he murmured, catching a faint scent on the wind.

 

Once again the gale lashed his long white hair across his mouth and narrowed red eyes. Uttering a soft noise of impatience, he tore loose the sash he wore around his waist and used it to bind back his hair. Then he turned his head downward, toward the depression in the earth into which his brother had disappeared with the Seer, and he headed toward it with a soft, measured tread. His white haori billowed ghostlike in the wind.

 

{+} {+} {+}

 

Moving through the darkness of the tunnels, Kagome, Miroku, Shippou and Kirara traveled in grim silence. The ground appeared to be sloping gradually downward, yet they had no way of knowing how far they had actually come, or what precisely lay above them. The wailing of the freezing winds over the plain beyond the canyon's bowed walls had grown soft and muted. Occasionally casting apprehensive glances upward, Miroku finally offered comment on it, which to Kagome's consternation added to her own growing suspicions.

 

“The storm is dying,” the monk remarked with a frown.

 

“But how can that be?” Kagome asked, hugging Shippou closely against her shoulders for warmth. “That much jyaki can't just fade on its own, can it?”

 

Miroku went pensively silent for a minute. The only sound was the dismal tread of their feet plodding across the damp stone.

 

“No,” he finally answered, “but it may be that the source is moving further away from us.”

 

Kagome's eyes widened.

 

“That means we're falling too far behind! Kirara!”

 

The demon paused and swung her massive head Kagome's way, blinking in the wan light of Shippou's foxfire.

 

“Are you still feeling strong enough to carry us?” she asked.

 

“Uh, Kagome, why is the floor wet?”

 

Surprised by the question, Kagome took an involuntary step forward. Her shoe landed with a faint splash. Shippou's eyes were peering over her shoulder from atop her sleeve at the ground ahead of them. Together they peered down at the stone. Ahead there were sunken places in the ground, and in the weird green glow of the foxfire they could see that these contained puddles.

 

“Standing water?” Miroku murmured, moving to stand beside them. The rings on his staff clinked softly against each other. “There shouldn't be any standing water---even here. It's too cold. Unless this was made recently . . .”

 

He and Kagome exchanged worried glances.

 

“Melted?” Kagome asked shakily.

 

“I smell blood,” Shippou whispered, his disembodied eyeballs trained on the darkness ahead. “And pine trees. They're not far.”

 

Kirara seemed to have the same idea. She sniffed at the stone between the puddles and then lifted her head, nostrils flaring. Then she swung around to stare at her human companions, orange eyes narrowed to slits.

 

“We walk,” Miroku decided. “If they're ahead, we need to be ready to fight. Kagome, you have your bow?”

 

She nodded, and the monk moved a little ways ahead of them to lead the group down the tunnel. There was a tense set to his shoulders belying the inner turmoil his calm exterior concealed.

 

“You can't change someone's heart if it was their own blood that changed it first,” he said quietly. “If it comes to . . . Then I will. Even Sango.”

 

{+} {+} {+}

 

Inuyasha came to an abrupt halt, nearly causing the Seer to collide with him. He rounded on her abruptly, his hands balling into fists. “This is leading us into the mountain, isn't it? Where does it really lead?” His voice rang hollowly through the tunnel.

 

The Seer's black eyes stared back gravely from between the lines of fire running through her skin.

 

“It was said of the Dragon that his lashing tail stirred the first currents of the ocean,” she murmured. “And that his claws gouged hills and valleys into the lowlands . . . and that with his mouth he breathed fire into the mountains . . .”

 

“Shit . . . you're saying it made this . . . ? Stay here.” Wasting no time waiting for an answer, Inuyasha set off in the opposite direction, moving at a dead run and leaving her standing by herself in the tunnel.

 

`I don't trust her,' he thought grimly. `Why's she so keen on finding the Dragon? She claims she's serving Sesshoumaru, but now I think the Dragon's pulling the strings . . . And why the hell do I smell Naraku?' Despite these suspicions, he had every intention of going back to fetch her once he'd established where his enemy's scent was coming from. Boorish though he was at times, Inuyasha was not the sort to leave a woman alone in the face of danger.

 

Now that Inuyasha had put a considerable amount of distance between himself and the Seer, the air was a veritable maelstrom of scents. Behind him, the scent of pine and metal permeated the tunnel. From somewhere ahead of him, he kept catching whiffs of an enemy more familiar---sly and smoky and cloying as incense. And somehow . . . mixed with this scent was that of his own blood, and beneath it the faintest fragrance of white blossoms.

 

The scent of his brother.

 

A wave of red cut through the darkness.

 

He had no time to dodge it, nor even to stop, and went hurtling straight into the brunt of it. The pain that followed was terrible; like a thousand tiny needles piercing his flesh. Yet the force against Inuyasha's body was like the hammer of a giant's fist. Despite his forward momentum, he was flung backward like a rag doll. Fortunately, as he went sailing through the air toward the walls where the tunnel veered right, he still retained the presence of mind required to minimize the impact. Mid-air he arched his back and turned a somersault, so that instead of landing head-first against the wall he hit the tunnel's floor, skidding a good twenty feet and cutting a long runnel in the stone. Prying his claws loose of the rubble they'd dug up, Inuyasha lurched sideways, rolling onto his feet and rising shakily to stand.

 

Blood trickled down the undersides of his arms; the backs of his ankles. Beads of it spattered the walls around him, glistening jewel-like in the light of Tokijin's lambent blade.

 

“Still standing,” the white demon murmured, approaching him with a slow and measured pace. Inuyasha's blood, which had soaked Sesshoumaru's right sleeve hours ago and then frozen there, was now beginning to melt and drip down the demon's wrist.

 

For a moment Inuyasha could only stare at his brother, panting and regaining his balance. Red, veined light shifted like water around the blade in the white demon's hand. Inuyasha had only once seen the sword blaze this brilliantly---and at that time, it had been in the hands of Gaijinbou, the rogue sword-smith.

 

`It's the sword,' Inuyasha realized abruptly. `The sword reeks of Naraku . . . But why . . . ?'

 

“What the HELL do you think you're DOING?” he demanded aloud, having finally regained enough air to shout. “You want to get past me so badly to UNSEAL this thing? Wake UP, jackass! It HATES us. It wants us DEAD.”

 

Sesshoumaru's advance remained steady.

 

“You have the strength to destroy it yourself?” the white demon asked softly. “I think not.” Slowly, he circled Tokijin upward to point directly at his brother. “And if you believe I need you, you are gravely mistaken. The Dragon is there,” he said, sharp eyes flickering toward the darkness behind Inuyasha and back again. “And all I need from you . . . is your blood . . .”

 

Inuyasha scowled, baring his fangs.

 

“You want my blood? Take it! HIJIN TESSOU!” Digging his claws into the slices across his left forearm, he flung his own blood like a weapon, using his own jyaki to turn it into a barrage of tiny red blades.

 

Sesshoumaru swung Tokijin in a wide, swift circle in front of his body. Inuyasha's attack shattered upon Tokijin's thick kenatsu like glass.

 

“Always you stand between me and what I desire,” Sesshoumaru said softly. His eyes still gleamed crimson; the fight was apparently exciting his demon blood.

 

Inuyasha glared at him, teeth and fists clenched, but he couldn't think of anything to say in his own defense. He didn't have Tetsusaiga, and even his Fire-Rat robes weren't going to be much of a defense against Tokijin . . . and he sensed that Sesshoumaru was in no mood for negotiation. The white demon wore no armor; his white haori hung loose, flowing behind him as he moved. There was a tear in one side; it looked as if something had burnt him. Of all these oddities, perhaps the strangest was the dark discoloration beneath the Sesshoumaru's right eye---a faint, charcoal smudge on his cheekbone like a bruise.

 

`He's injured?' Inuyasha wondered, eyeing the bruise. `Is that from when Miroku hit him?'

 

The hanyou's mind racing furiously as he tried to think of a way out of this. Weaponless and wounded, he was practically defenseless. The only thing that might give him an advantage would be if Sesshoumaru was injured as well. Yet whatever the bruise was from, it didn't appear to be a weakness---and now Sesshoumaru was nearly upon him.

 

Inuyasha sank into a crouched stance of readiness.

 

`I have to stop him from driving me backward down the tunnel,' he thought, grasping at straws. `If I can get just get around him, he'll probably follow me through the tunnel to the surface. Up there, at least, I'll have room to dodge Tokijin's kenatsu . . .'

 

At the same instant, both brothers launched their attacks. Sesshoumaru abruptly dropped all semblance of patience and flew at Inuyasha, pulling the sword back over one shoulder and then slashing downward. Inuyasha rushed him with his claws curved and raised dagger-like before him. At the last instant, before they clashed, Inuyasha launched himself sideways and upward. The hanyou was gambling on the remote chance that his brother could be deceived mid-charge by a feint.

 

The chance immediately proved itself far too remote for probability. Changing directions so fast that his body blurred, Sesshoumaru moved to block his way, and Inuyasha crashed straight into him. The impact caused the white demon to slide backward nearly five feet, yet his feet scraped runnels in the stone and he did not fall. Mid-collision, Inuyasha's left hand shot forward past Sesshoumaru's defenses. His claws tore through the billowing haori, sinking into Sesshoumaru's belly. With his right hand Inuyasha caught Sesshoumaru's forearm in an iron grip, holding back the strike of his brother's sword with strength born of desperation. Together they skidded to a stop amid a scattering of dust with Tokijin's blade pressed close between them, glaring at each other.

 

It was then, beneath the crackling light of Tokijin's aura, that Inuyasha caught a close-up glimpse of the dark spot on the white demon's face.

 

It wasn't a bruise.

 

“What---what the fuck happened to your face?” Inuyasha panted, attempting to shove the sword away from him.

 

Regardless of the five nails curved cruelly into his flesh, Sesshoumaru refused to relinquish his hold on the sword. It was like trying to move a steel wall. The white demon offered no answer to his brother's question save a slight narrowing of the eyes. Amid the strain of deadlock, Inuyasha couldn't summon the words to ask him again. Sweat streamed down his forehead, trickling between his eyes. Tokijin's energy crackled jaggedly around them, as if Sesshoumaru had brought his own private thunderstorm with him into the darkness of the tunnels.

 

`Shit,' Inuyasha thought, gritting his teeth. `I---'

 

“You've become a hindrance,” Sesshoumaru said softly.

 

Then jyaki surged through the sword between them, flaring red and sharp as a hail of needles.

 

{+} {+} {+}

 

Suiton stood alone at the end of the tunnel, waiting. The darkness surrounding her wasn't complete, for the fire in her veins cast weird patterns on the walls around her. After Inuyasha left her, she had turned and moved deeper into the earth. There was no point in watching to see what became of him; she had already Seen it when she held his arm. Instead she walked alone to the end, where the rock on either side of her narrowed to an arm's length in either direction.

 

`Here the serpent's throat narrows to the fangs,' Suiton thought, staring apprehensively at the barrier at the tunnel's end. Smoky crystal protruded from the ceiling and floor in front of her like teeth. Several feet ahead, the teeth were closed in an impenetrable wall of crystal. The wall appeared to be covering the mouth of a cave. What lay beyond Suiton could only guess at; the crystal's multiple facets distorted the images behind it. Vague, fiery shapes twisted sinuously there, as if this were the gateway to hell itself.

 

The air here was warm and fetid and alive.

 

Swallowing hard, she took a step toward the barrier, reaching out toward it. As her hand drew nearer, she could feel the fire inside converging toward the spot behind the barrier nearest her outstretched fingers. The Dragon sensed her presence. That which it had long awaited had come at last. She had never felt such a sense of awe in her life. . .nor such fear. Behind the crystal lay the power to reshape the world. Suddenly, the barrier between her hand and the cave seemed painfully, frighteningly thin.

 

The instant her fingertips brushed the cold surface, she could see clearly the black well of an eye snap open behind the crystal. Suiton uttered a strangled cry, stumbling backward a few paces and almost colliding with the demon who had come to stand behind her.

 

“What? Are you afraid now?” he asked softly, stepping back a pace himself so that she wouldn't bump into him. “You chose this.”

 

Mutely, the Seer shook her head, embracing herself for warmth even though the Dragon's blood flowed furnace-hot through her veins. The white demon skirted around her, turning his attention toward the barrier ahead. The eye she had seen was gone. The faint, flickering firelight had returned, dancing shadows through the crystal's facets.

 

“The seal,” Sesshoumaru murmured, staring at it. “I can see it.”

 

Suiton's eyes widened.

 

“I . . . I can't, my Lord,” she said shakily. “I see no seal, and no pattern.”

 

“Of course not,” Sesshoumaru agreed, glancing over his shoulder at her. “You are not Youkai.”

 

Finally getting a good look at him, the Seer clapped both hands over her mouth in horror.

 

“My lord---your face!” she gasped.

 

His clothes were flecked with blood, and blood stained the front of his white haori, and beneath his right eye, upon his cheek, the flesh was discolored like a bruise. Yet the shadow on his face came not from injury but from something stranger still. Beneath his skin, the tangle of veins had gone visibly dark, as if in that one place on his body his veins now flowed with ichor.

 

“I am unharmed,” Sesshoumaru said coolly, turning away from her to regard the barrier once more. “And nothing remains to hinder me.”

 

Suiton removed her trembling hands from her lips, casting one brief, nervous glance into the darkness of the tunnel behind them. One thing remained: his brother, whom he had neglected to kill.

 

“My Lord, there is a fell air about that sword you carry,” she finally said, her gaze falling upon the blade sheathed at Sesshoumaru's waist. “A demon sword, isn't it? Forged from a demon's fang?”

 

Sesshoumaru ignored her; he appeared to be studying runes graven in the crystal that only he could see.

 

“My Lord!” the Seer repeated, emboldened by urgency. “That sword draws a storm of jyaki around you! Bringing such powerful demon energy this close to the Dragon's kehai . . . I fear your body is poisoned by the clash.”

 

“Tokijin was forged from the fang of Goshinki, offspring of the demon Naraku,” Sesshoumaru murmured. “Its jyaki obeys me; I am master of it.” Though he did not look at her, the tone of his voice was a warning. “You See much . . . but you are not Youkai, and you do not understand all that you See.”

 

“That fang will drive you to clash with your brother,” the Seer breathed, seeing it all unfold in her memory as it had when she touched Inuyasha. “I beg of you---do not take the sword with you to destroy the Dragon. Cast it aside here---on this all things depend.”

 

No sooner had she spoken than she realized that those three words---“I beg of you”---had been chosen poorly. The Lord of the West listened to none save those he felt to be more powerful than himself. In his eyes, once again Suiton had humbled herself from a wise counselor to a pleading woman, asking for mercy where she knew that “asking” only bred contempt.

 

Standing with his back to her, Sesshoumaru lifted his head as he finished contemplating the barrier.

 

“Your `faith' in me is unfounded,” he said softly. “Did I not say before . . . that I have no intention of destroying the Dragon?”

 

Blood pounded in the Seer's ears, matching the frantic rhythm of her heart. This was the man that she had chosen to serve. That he had rescued Inuyasha from the hands of the Tatesei had redeemed him in her eyes---had given her hope that he would not fulfill the destiny she had foreseen . . . that he would destroy the Dragon and spare his brother. But that had been foolish; the Lord of the West was not human. The only honor he valued was that accorded to those possessing power. Suddenly angry---with herself as much as with him---the Seer took another step toward him, hands clenching into fists at her sides.

 

“I wanted to believe you had the strength,” she whispered. “But obsession has made you weak.”

 

She had called him a coward once; she was doing so again.

 

Sesshoumaru's hand shifted to rest lightly upon Tokijin's hilt. For the briefest of instants, it seemed that he would draw it forth from its sheath, perhaps to cast it aside . . . or perhaps to strike her down. But in the end, he did nothing. Instead he lifted his hand to the barrier. Now Suiton saw that it was wet with blood---the blood of his hanyou brother, blood mixed with the ki of the sealed Dragon and the one who sealed it.

 

“I release you from my service,” the Lord of the West told her icily. Then he swept the blood-soaked palm of his hand down a jagged pattern in the crystal.

 

And the crystal began to melt.

 

{+} {+} {+}

 

Sango stopped dead in her tracks. It felt as if someone had just passed a torch through her; she could almost hear the rush of flame. Sango, who in her warrior's training had grown accustomed to the synchronization of body and mind, found now that with her newly-awakened blood her body was becoming stirred by the Dragon's influence. It was unnerving. The danger of the body being stirred was that the mind soon followed.

 

Irusei's head snapped up swiftly.

 

“The seal is broken,” he said softly, wonderingly.

 

Abruptly, he spun on his heel to face his comrades.

 

“It isn't far ahead of us!” he exclaimed, excitement masking the weariness on his face. “Follow me!”

 

`The seal is broken?' Sango thought, alarmed. `Then what of Inuyasha . . . ?'

 

{END OF CHAPTER 13}