InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Lord of the West ❯ Ryunochi ( Chapter 15 )

Arrr . . . the map, she reads: “Here thar be dragons . . .”

 

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

 

{+} {+} Chapter 14: Ryunochi {+} {+}

 

In the heavy darkness of the tunnel, Inuyasha lay prone on the ground. Beneath him blood was smeared across the stone. It formed a long trail from where the last blow had sent him sliding along the tunnel floor, as if someone had painted it there.

 

“Shit,” he muttered, around a mouthful of rock.

 

He was lying face down where he'd fallen, too incensed even to do anything but lie there and fume.

 

The blow Sesshoumaru had dealt him had not been meant to kill him. Of course, it had hurt a great deal, and he was still leaking some rather vital fluids, but already he could feel his strength returning. This meant he wasn't going to die---which was good to know because he would prefer to die with his head in Kagome's lap, not face-down in some stinking cave.

 

“Shit,” he swore again, finally taking the initiative and pushing himself up into a sitting position. “That cocky bastard . . .”

 

His hair was sticky with blood, and in disgust he pried it off of his face as he rose onto his knees. Then he turned his attention in the direction Sesshoumaru had presumably taken. Though he had been unconscious at the time, Inuyasha was quite certain that his brother had gone ahead of him to seek the Dragon.

 

“That idiot,” he growled, staggering to his feet. “And where the fuck is the Seer . . . ?”

 

Ahead of him, the scents of Sesshoumaru and Naraku were overpowered by the scent of blood and metal. The air was rank with it. As Inuyasha stumbled down the way his brother had taken, he kept one hand clapped over his nose to keep the stench at bay. How Sesshoumaru could have gone this way with his acute sense of smell was beyond Inuyasha. Of course, why Sesshoumaru seemed to be ignoring the fact that Tokijin reeked of Naraku was also beyond Inuyasha . . .

 

For a while he bumped into walls as he traversed the tunnel, still reeling from his injuries and disoriented by the darkness, but then a soft, reddish glow began to permeate the air. He rounded a bend in the path, and then realized that he was wading into a river of steam. It swirled around his legs, knee-deep and so hot he could feel the warmth through the thick fabric of his hakama. It took a while for his skin to become accustomed to the heat, but he paid it little heed because there were more pressing concerns ahead.

 

Now that he was in the direct path of the light, he could see that it was emanating from some kind of chamber in front of him. Vague, fiery shapes dancing beyond the scope of the tunnel cast weird, flickering shadows on the stone walls around him. The reflections wavered, as if what lay beyond was some manner of red ocean. Inuyasha walked forward more cautiously now, wrinkling his nose against the stench of metal.

 

His next footfall resulted in a soft splash.

 

The hanyou stopped dead in his tracks, slowly turning his head downward to see what lay at his feet.

 

“Black water . . . ?” he murmured, staring down at it in bafflement.

 

In the places where the swirling steam grew thin, he could see that the strange water lapping at his feet was spread across the floor in an ink-dark puddle. Yet there was no plausible way this could be ink . . .

 

“What . . . ?” Inuyasha whispered, hastily withdrawing his foot. “What the hell?”

 

He stood there, somewhat daunted by the prospect of wading into whatever lay ahead. Against the skin of his bare foot, the dark liquid felt warm and alive. He lifted his gaze, and saw now that the walls surrounding the narrower passage that led into the red-lit chamber were crusted with bits of crystal, hanging jagged from the ceiling like broken teeth. The crystal was smoky, and dripped beads of dark water, which landed soundless in the puddle beneath the hiss of steam. The jagged bits shimmered like ice, as if they'd been formed from frozen brackish water.

 

Inuyasha realized he was holding his breath and let it out in a long, slow hiss, barely audible over the steam.

 

`What the hell?' he thought, mentally knocking himself upside the head. `It's just water. I'm not going to melt . . .'

 

After making this inner assertion, his limbs unfroze, and he stepped out over the puddle. The warm liquid grew deeper further out, lapping against his ankles, but otherwise his flesh didn't start to sizzle so he quickened his pace, returning his attention to the strange formations on the walls. Unlike his feet, the crystal crusting the walls did seem to be melting . . .

 

`This . . . can this be the seal? Is this stuff melting because Sesshoumaru broke the seal?'

 

Moving nearer to the wall where the crystal grew, Inuyasha swiped two fingers down it. They came away smeared black, and smelling of metal and blood.

 

Metal and blood . . .

 

Growling a curse, Inuyasha hastily wiped the stuff off his fingers on a portion of the wall where the crystal didn't grow. The scent had abruptly brought to mind something Kagome told him before . . . something the Tatesei leader in the future had told her . . .

 

“Ryunochi!” he suddenly exclaimed. “Shit! The black liquid that Tatesei Sano told Kagome came from the mountain . . . This is it! And it really is `ryu-no-chi'---the Dragon's own blood!”

 

Staggered by the realization, he stopped dead in his tracks again, standing there transfixed while the black blood sloshed gently at his feet. The entire future that Kagome had seen . . . this was where it began. The secret to the survival and the success of the hanryu race lay in the very blood of their Dragon protector, whom they had awakened, and whom Sesshoumaru had unsealed . . .

 

“Wait . . . no . . .” Inuyasha shook his head. “This can't be right. If the Dragon was freed, and lived to protect the Tatesei, then how could they have used its blood to shape their metals?”

 

A sly epiphany slipped through the haze of his bafflement.

 

`But Kagome never said the Dragon had to live for that future to be possible . . .'

 

Once again, he found himself staring down at the blood pooled on the floor. Experimentally, he stamped downward in it. It splashed beneath the impact, like any normal liquid would.

 

`But this isn't metal,' Inuyasha thought, one corner of his lip curling in disgust. `It only reeks like metal.' He was no expert at blacksmithing, but he had a pretty good idea that metal in its liquid form should be molten. The stuff he was standing in was hot like real blood, but it certainly wasn't burning him.

 

Frowning, he lifted his head. Whatever lay behind the melted seal certainly might be molten. He could see the lines of red light wavering along the ceiling ahead.

 

`Maybe the hotter blood is still inside the Dragon,' he thought, scowling so deeply his eyebrows met. `Maybe . . . I'm not supposed to KILL the Dragon. What if . . . what if I'm meant to keep it alive . . . ?'

 

Again, he shook his head in an effort to clear away the confusion. After having been tossed around and slashed up by kenatsu, he was feeling a bit woozy. The smell wasn't helping, either.

 

“Whatever,” he finally muttered in irritation. “Fuck the details; I'm going after Sesshoumaru.”

 

And he took off down the tunnel at a run.

 

{+} {+} {+}

 

Irusei expressed no concern whatsoever when they came upon the steam, which swirled thicker and thicker around his comrades' legs the further they traveled. A stifling, oppressive heat was beginning to pervade the entire length of the tunnel.

 

The group of hanryu had come to the place where the way forked northwest and southeast. Peering at the northwestern tunnel as they passed it, Sango couldn't help wondering about the strangeness of the terrain here. The tunnel was of unusual shape for something purportedly formed by a river's course; from what she could envision, it was forked like a serpent's tongue.

 

`What really formed this place?' Sango wondered, glancing about her with great misgivings.

 

But Irusei led them onward without a backward glance, and she could do nothing but follow.

 

Sango was frightened.

 

There was only one other time in her life when she could recall being this frightened---and that had been the dark day when Naraku took her family's lives, and her brother's soul. This, however, was a very different breed of fear. Here, her own soul was at stake.

 

From the very beginning, she had intended to deceive everyone to save Inuyasha's life. If she hadn't, the Tatesei would have killed him, because they feared the Inu no Taishou's hanyou child. She had made this decision the instant Sesshoumaru's blade scored its mark through the Inuyasha's flesh, almost on instinct. Yet instinct wasn't what ruled her---that was why her intentions had never included freeing the Dragon. The Tatesei had trusted her all this time because of her act of betrayal . . . and because they could not imagine someone actually resisting the call of the blood.

 

But Sango knew that blood wasn't what determined the course of a person's destiny. She knew this because of the long, strange journey she'd begun years ago, with a monk, a half-demon, a Kitsune, and a girl from another time. She knew it because of the half-demon who cast aside the part of him that craved power time and time again to protect those he'd come to call friends. She knew it because of the monk she loved, who refused to accept the inevitability of death by the accursed hand passed down through his family, instead seeking to destroy the one who had cursed him. She knew, because though the blood in her burned and stirred to wakening, her desire to protect her friends had not diminished.

 

But she was afraid nonetheless.

 

Since she'd first called upon the power of the hanryu blood to melt the snow in the tunnel, Sango was finding it harder and harder to ignore the Dragon's call. It was almost like a humming in her veins---a music that she could almost hear but not quite; the sort of sly noise on the threshold of hearing that could drive one to madness. Thus far, the demon-slayer told herself that her mind and body remained her own, because thus far the Dragon had not used its influence to prevent her current course of action. However, as she walked on amid the host of Tatesei, nagging doubts plagued her.

 

`Perhaps it hasn't tried to bend my will to its own . . . because I haven't really tried to oppose it yet. Maybe it allowed me to bring Inuyasha because if he's killed to break the seal binding it, it no longer needs to fear him . . .'

 

Sango hated not knowing if she'd done the right thing. But she could see no other choice here. She had to follow the hanryu now, because now she was afraid her act of deception really might end up costing Inuyasha his life. From the very beginning---though she'd realized it too late---there had been one major flaw in her desperate plan.

 

The flaw's name was Sesshoumaru.

 

There was no way she could have predicted that Sesshoumaru would kidnap Inuyasha, let alone take matters into his own hands like this. She could not for the life of her understand why Inuyasha's brother would say that he had no intention of destroying the Dragon and then change his mind.

 

After what seemed an interminably long time spent trudging along the rocky path, with only their skin to light the way, they soon came upon a part of the tunnel where the floor grew very uneven. Sango paused to kneel and bend nearer to the ground, so that her flesh illuminated what she was looking at. Her palm brushed tentatively over the place where the stone had ruptured, buckling in places and strewn with rubble.

 

If Sesshoumaru had ever really intended his procurement of Inuyasha as a rescue. . .then something had gone horribly amiss. There were small, dark stains upon the rock---darker than the stone. Sango froze, staring wide-eyed in horror. Raising her head, she saw that there were long runnels in the stone, as if someone with razor-sharp claws had been flung there . . . or dragged . . .

 

“It's here!” Irusei called abruptly, jolting the demon-slayer from her shock. “The seal!”

 

The other hanryu kept walking while Sango knelt---after all, it was Irusei they were following. The young man seemed to slough off the weariness induced by his injuries as he strode quickly ahead of the others. Something in front of him cast a strange, reddish glow on his earnest face---a glow that did not belong to the fire in his veins, but to some other fire that lay beyond.

 

“No,” Sango breathed, but there was nothing she could say that would sway them from their course---not at this stage in the game. This was what their quest had been leading to all along; it was stupid to expect them to listen to reason now.

 

Biting her tongue, Sango pushed herself to her feet and hurried after them.

 

The Tatesei warriors had scarcely rounded the bend in the tunnel when they found themselves wading through drifting tendrils of steam. Sango eyed it with great misgivings; it grew thicker the further into it they went. And it almost felt as if they were treading upon some kind of liquid underneath . . .

 

“The seal was broken,” Irusei murmured, staring at something ahead in hushed tones.

 

Picking her way around the outskirts of the company of warriors to avoid knocking them with the Hiraikoutsu strapped across her back, Sango made her way to the forefront. Her shoes were definitely splashing through something . . .

 

Red light danced on the walls, glimmering through the smoky bits of crystal that clung to the ceiling.

 

“What do you mean, `it was broken'?” Sango asked him. “How do you know?” She was glancing down at her feet nervously, where the steam had temporarily parted to reveal the odd, dark liquid she was standing in.

 

Irusei ignored her, reaching out to touch the crystal. His leather armor creaked as he stretched out his arm.

 

“There is crystal all around this part,” he finally answered. “It probably stretched from floor to ceiling, forming the seal.” He half-turned toward his comrades, gesturing sharply for them to follow him.

 

However, no sooner had he turned back and set foot upon the broken barrier's threshold when a very strange noise stopped him in his tracks. It began as a low hiss, like the sound of wind whistling through a narrow opening.

 

Sango, of course, instantly thought: Dragon? as her thoughts had been progressing along those lines the instant she saw the red light. However, the Tatesei company froze and made no sound, and nothing scaled and slavering came bursting through the broken seal. One of the warriors just behind Sango was the first to glance down at his feet, and he uttered a low cry of startlement, stumbling back a few steps to avoid whatever it was that he saw. Irusei whirled about swiftly at the sound, and then he, too joined his comrade in regarding the ground.

 

The black liquid, which they had been splashing through for the past few yards of tunnel, was moving. Sango's eyes widened with horror; the foul, brackish-smelling stuff flowed swiftly around her angles, like the sea tides ebbing. It flowed toward the way ahead of them.

 

“Blood,” Irusei said softly, wearing a frown.

 

The hanryu company watched as the liquid slid smoothly across the stone, like some live thing fleeing to its den. The hiss came from the speed at which it moved. Unconsciously, some of the warriors stepped backward as it slid out from under their feet, glad to see it gone. However, it didn't vanish utterly. Instead of flowing naturally along the cave floor, it raised itself in the place where the crystal ringed the way. Irusei stumbled backward, startled, as a curtain of black, ink-like fluid rose in front of him, blocking the way.

 

“This is the seal?” he gasped. “The Dragon's own blood? The Inu no Taishou sealed the Dragon into the mountain with its own blood?”

 

“How can this be?” another man asked. “We aren't meant to enter?”

 

The black blood, undulating like shaken silk, now stretched from floor to ceiling.

 

The seal, it seemed, was restoring itself.

 

“No!” Irusei cried suddenly, lunging for it. In a flash the sword at his hip had cleared its sheath, and he struck hard at the barrier.

 

However, in the split-second before the blade could touch the dark curtain before him, the black blood hardened into crystal. This process, unlike the initial re-formation of the barrier, was almost instant, and far louder. The blood crystallized and thickened, with a cracking sound like something being scraped across ice. The noise was near-deafening in the confined space; all of the hanryu---Irusei included---backed away with their hands clapped to their ears. Yet when at last it had finished, Irusei flung himself forward against it, attempting to batter it down with blade and fist.

 

“No!” he shouted, and this time one of his fellow warriors tried to catch hold of him to stop him.

 

Sango expected the man to pull him back easily from the barrier, but Irusei shook him off with a force that could not have come from any mortal strength. Injuries aside, his rage was causing the Dragon's blood to course more swiftly through his veins. All could see that the fire beneath his flesh intensified, giving off a stronger light that reflected even in the smoke-dark crystal in front of him. Irusei's sword rang off the barrier as if it were made of steal.

 

“Irusei-sama,” a warrior called. “That is ryunochi; you can't break it!”

 

However, to Sango's amazement, Irusei suddenly seemed to be beyond all reason.

 

“WHY?” he snarled, hurling the sword aside. It clattered against the stone, landing somewhere beneath the steam, which was already dissipating. “WHY does it not allow us in? WE are its children! Why does it keep us from entering? WHY?”

 

Surprised as she was by Irusei's behavior, Sango was wondering the same thing. Whether by the Dragon's will or by the will of the one who had sealed it, it looked as if only Inuyasha and his brother were meant to pass through.

 

“I am the one chosen by the Dragon!” the young man cried, fire flaring beneath his flesh. His company was standing clear of him now; no one knew what to expect of him in this state. Fire gathered in his palms.

 

Sango backed away slowly, one hand slipping deftly behind her shoulder, reaching for the strap that fastened her Hiraikoutsu to her back.

 

Flames erupted between the Tatesei warrior and the obstacle to his desire. He flung himself against it once more, flesh ablaze. Tongues of fire licked along the dark surface of the crystal, rippling like water. Sango could feel the heat even from several yards away; it made her squint.

 

Yet after a moment . . . it died---thinning into smoke before vanishing altogether into thin air. Then Irusei beat against it with his fists until blood ran down his forearms from where the sharp edges of the crystal's facets had cut him. No one made any move toward him; he seemed beyond all reason.

 

He continued like this for a moment, and then beat both fists against it one final time. When his pounding fell silent at last, his followers held their breath, waiting to see what his verdict would be. Slowly, he slid his hands downward over the barrier, and then dropped them to his sides, turning to face his comrades.

 

“Of course,” he murmured, in a tone much softer.

 

To Sango's surprise, his noble, aquiline face was utterly calm, though his eyes were narrowed to black slits.

 

“The Dragon, it seems, has chosen my sister.”

 

{+} {+} {+}

 

“The seal hasn't been broken,” Shippou reported. “They can't get in.”

 

He had just returned from a spying mission of sorts, creeping quietly over the rubble-strewn tunnel floor on his tiny paws to look for the Tatesei. Kagome breathed a deep sigh of relief.

 

“Then Inuyasha must not have come this way,” she said. “Or Sesshoumaru.”

 

As they drew nearer to the hanryu, Shippou had extinguished his Kitsunebi to make for better stealth; they could not see the way the ground was torn up by demon claws.

 

Miroku seemed less relieved.

 

“Are they still trying?” he asked. He was clasping the head of his staff very tightly in one hand so that the rings wouldn't jangle and alert the enemy to his presence. “To get in, I mean.”

 

Mutely, Shippou nodded, eyes huge as saucers. They could see each other's faces faintly when they turned toward the tunnel ahead, where the darkness faded away into a faint reddish glow. Miroku turned toward Kagome.

 

“We can't spare the time to search for Inuyasha,” he said heavily. “If they break the seal, then no one will be safe. We have to stop them, above all else.”

 

Kagome opened her mouth to protest, tears burning her eyes, but then she saw that the monk's face was a study in weariness. He looked like he'd aged twenty years in a day. Kagome held her tongue; the look on his face had subtly, painfully reminded her that Sango was with the hanryu.

 

“We'll attack them,” Miroku decided, nodding in the direction of the red light's origin. “Kirara will have to lead the charge. You will be behind her. You'll be able to see clearly when we get there, I think, but I don't want you shooting your arrows unless it's a matter of life and death for Kirara or Shippou. I have a feeling you may need them more in case we . . .”

 

`In case we fail,' Kagome finished silently. But she didn't speak this out loud; everyone was demoralized enough as it was.

 

Kirara padded closer to the monk, butting his elbow with her nose as a show of encouragement. He sighed.

 

“I'll bring up the rear,” he continued. “I will form a barrier around us all, so that they won't be able to touch us with their fire-magic. I don't know if any beside Irusei can do that, but I'm not willing to risk it.”

 

Shippou sprang up into Kagome's arms, peering worriedly at the monk.

 

“But Miroku, you can't protect yourself if you do that,” the Kitsune pointed out. “I can only do so much to help you. I can make myself bigger, but I can't really make myself stronger . . .”

 

Miroku laid a hand on Kirara's massive shoulder, and some of the weariness left his face.

 

“You're forgetting there's one more of us,” he told them. “I haven't given up hope yet; neither should you.”

 

Kagome frowned.

 

“You mean . . . ?”

 

Abruptly, Miroku smiled---a smile very serene and very out-of-place in a situation as dire as this.

 

“I trust Sango,” he said simply. “I'm willing to stake my life on her.”

 

And then, without another word and before his companions could protest, he turned and began walking down the tunnel toward the inevitable battle.

 

{+} {+} {+}

 

Beyond the barrier, the way was jagged with smoky crystal, jutting sharply from the floor in long spikes. Flickering red light glimmered in the larger facets, simultaneously magnified and darkened so that everything was bathed in luminescence the shade of blood---human blood. Sesshoumaru strode purposefully through it all without looking back. All around him there came the steady drip-drip-dripping where the Dragon's blood slid down the crystal stalactites in thin, dark lines. The floor was awash with it; every step the Inu Youkai took ended in a soft splash, though his tread was soft and measured.

 

Everything was also waist-deep in steam, which shifted and roiled around him as he walked like a sea of ghosts. Every so often a long, slow wind would pass through the tunnel---the Dragon's behemoth sigh---stirring the steam and drawing it downward and inward through the tunnel before gently expelling it again in a warm gray tide.

 

“The crystal seal is melting where you pass,” the woman behind him whispered. Her tremulous words bounced off the myriad facets around them, amplified tenfold. “The Dragon is gathering its strength, preparing to kill you.”

 

Sesshoumaru ignored the remark; he had nothing more to say to her. The hanryu woman had been following him all this way, despite the swift pace at which he traveled. He never sped up to lose her, but neither did he slow down to wait for her. The ground was very sharp and uneven here, and grew increasingly so the further he traveled. In some places the way sloped dramatically downward, and the ground was slick and treacherous from the blood that coated it. In others, blade-sharp bits of crystal were strewn across the way so thoroughly that he and his would-be pursuer were forced to trod upon them. He could feel the points beginning to tear through the soles of his shoes; he could only imagine what the jagged edges were doing to the soles of the Seer's bare feet.

 

Yet still she followed him. He could hear from the unevenness of her breath and her tread that she was limping along in what was apparently a great deal of pain. Her determination was beginning to irritate him.

 

His head was beginning to hurt.

 

The Seer didn't say anything more. If she had, he might have killed her.

 

More time passed, and Sesshoumaru lost track of how far he'd come, or how far beneath the mountain they were now. The air was growing oppressively hot, and the steam oppressively thick. At some point, at long last, he finally heard the woman behind him collapse, landing hard between the needle-sharp stalagmites and no doubt losing a good deal more blood. He left her lying there, breathing hard and struggling pathetically to rise. Soon he had put enough distance between them that he could no longer hear her whimpering echo off the walls.

 

The tunnel was growing wider again; he was sure of that now. Steam now drifted past his face, making the hair nearest his face sticky enough to cling to his skin. He moved through a strange red haze, both in body and mind. The ache burgeoning between his brows intensified into a distinct, sharp throbbing. His shoes finally fell apart, slashed to ribbons by the sharp crystals. Time ceased to matter; pain ceased to matter. He had no idea how long the trail of bloody footprints was that he left behind him, nor did he care.

 

When at last the tunnel widened and opened into an enormous cavern, Sesshoumaru knew beyond certainty that this was the place he'd been searching for. The instant he stepped through the opening, he was assaulted by a scent of blood and metal so strong it made his stomach roil. The pain in his head spiked outward into his temples, but he gritted his fangs, ignoring it as he entered the cavern. Ahead of him, spanning a chamber nearly a mile cross-wise and height-wise, there stretched a lake of fire.

 

Heedless of the wounds on his feet, or of the hot sting of sweat that poured down his skin, he kept moving, staggering across the long, flat shelf of rock that rose but ten feet above the roiling magma.

 

As he stumbled further out into the chamber, something dark and massive began to rise from the lake.

 

It rose slowly---not with the awkward speed of some caged, dumb beast, but with calculated laziness. The long, sinuous neck was the first thing visible to Sesshoumaru above the rock shelf, at first a dark hump, but soon with silver scales reflecting fire as it unfurled and the massive head lifted. Black eyes, brilliant as obsidian borrowing a flame's light . . . a body serpentine and fluid, yet impossibly large . . . this was what he had seen in the scrying bowl. This was what had called to him, silently and yet with eyes that spoke a language he knew well---the language of power.

 

The head lowered, descending toward him, and he stopped where he stood, knowing that he need go no further. Here, at the heart of this mountain, was the end to every means he had ever employed. Here was his due. Here was his right.

 

The Dragon hated him. He could feel it; the hatred was a thing as tangible as the heat that oppressed him. It called to him in malice deep and black and bitter, but also in deepest fundamental need. Now that he stood before it and felt its presence in full, he understood that it was bound to him.

 

That it wanted something from him.

 

“Dragon,” he said softly, wonderingly. “You . . . are not alive.”

 

{+} {+} {+}

 

Inuyasha found her crawling on her hands and knees, pathetically slow over a stone floor slick with black blood.

 

`Damn,' he thought morosely, scratching absently at the cuts on his arms, which were itching him. `The last thing I need is someone else to protect . . .'

 

But he knelt beside her, hoisting her into a sitting position.

 

“Where is he?” he demanded, handling her a bit more roughly than was polite. “What the hell's going on?”

 

“He left me,” the Seer whispered. “He goes to find the Dragon. He goes to find the Dragon!”

 

Sensing that she had been through a lot and was about to become hysterical, Inuyasha gave her a shake. It rattled her teeth, but at least her wild, black eyes looked a lot less wild, and managed to focus on his face.

 

“Suiton!” he snapped. “That's your name, right? Listen, Suiton, I'm going to find him. I'm going to stop him. Just tell me what the fuck he's planning so I know what to expect.”

 

Her clothing was in tatters; she looked like she'd been crawling for miles over broken glass.

 

“There was crystal here,” she told him, sounding saner after hearing the sound of her name. “But it melted when he left. It's gone, now. There's only blood . . .”

 

Her voice broke off, and her head flopped rather than turned toward the tunnel ahead. Inuyasha fought hard to keep from pulling a look of disgust; he could see the fiery veins in her face pulsing.

 

Her eyes went wide with alarm.

 

“Go now!” she whispered. “You must stop him. He won't destroy the Dragon . . . he wants to become the Dragon . . .”

 

Shocked, Inuyasha released her. She slumped backward a little, still staring into the distance.

 

“He's what?” The hanyou hadn't seen this one coming. `That bastard,' he thought, lip curling in a snarl. `With him it's just one goddamn surprise after another . . .'

 

“Go back,” he ordered the Seer. “Get the hell out of here. You can't help him, or he wouldn't have gone on alone.” Inwardly, he added, `The only thing to `help' him now will be five claws through his gut.'

 

The Seer just shut her mouth and looked at him, an odd, prophetic gleam in her eye.

 

Rising from his crouch, Inuyasha sighed.

 

“Alright---what is it that you See?”

 

“I See you dead.”

 

“Feh.” Though greatly unnerved, Inuyasha turned away from her and began to run. If Sesshoumaru was far ahead of him, he didn't have time to waste worrying about himself.

 

{+} {+} {+}

 

Sesshoumaru gave no ground, standing before the Dragon undaunted. The magma had scarcely shifted at all when the Dragon came forth, and the walls of this entire place dripped with the creature's life's blood. The Dragon was dead and yet undead at once. Though the late Inu no Taishou had defeated it, its powerful soul lived on beneath the mountain, imprisoned by a magic seal formed from its own blood. The thing before him was both god and wraith, awaiting its return to life.

 

The beast's head lowered further, until at last its gaze met his. Its head was easily twice as tall as he was, and just as wide. In order to face him, it tilted its long nose downward, angling the horns at the back of its head toward the heavens that it had not seen in centuries. Hot, acrid steam blew around him as the great nostrils flared. Then it released the breath it had drawn in with a long, clacking hiss.

 

In Sesshoumaru's mind, the Dragon's seething malice coalesced into words.

 

(LORD OF THE WEST. AT LAST. AT LAST.)

 

Almost of its own volition, Sesshoumaru's hand reached for the sword fastened at his side---the Sword of Life. He could do it, he knew. Easily.

 

Bring the beast to life, with Tenseiga.

 

Rise into demon form, like his father before him; wage the long, terrible battle.

 

Use the malevolent power of the demon sword Tokijin to slay it at long last, and then carve with his own poisoned talons the warm heart from the broken chest.

 

Devour the source of its power, and so make it his own.

 

`What a fool you were, Chichi-ue, not to take this when you had the chance . . .' he thought. `Instead you rot in a graveyard, taking nothing with you and leaving nothing behind.'

 

(YOU CANNOT KILL ME.)

 

Sesshoumaru's eyes narrowed to slits against the pounding in his skull, and his hand tightened into a fist around Tenseiga's hilt.

 

“Can't I?” he asked, with icy calm. “I carry with me two swords of immeasurable power. I carry within me the blood of the Daiyoukai who bound you here. There is nothing I can't do.”

 

The nostrils flared again, more briefly this time, in a snort. Amusement? Perhaps. Sesshoumaru could see his twin reflections in its eyes---two smaller, darker versions of himself.

 

(LORD OF THE WEST YOU MAY BE . . . YET YOU ARE ALSO LORD OF THE TATESEI. AND YOU ARE BOUND TO ME AS I AM TO YOU.)

 

Clenching his teeth, Sesshoumaru pulled Tenseiga free of its sheath. Yet another thing he recalled from the tales his father told him: dragons lied. They spoke falsities, and they were believed, for words seemed so much more like truth when spoken by something so ancient and powerful.

 

As if age and power bred wisdom.

 

This time the Dragon's laughter came distinctly in his head. It rang like a clamor of great bells, maddening and terrible. This time Sesshoumaru tried to shut his eyes against it, but there was no escaping the sound. Rivulets of sweat ran down his chest, between his shoulder blades.

 

(SMALL, BLIND CREATURE. SUCH FOOLISH ARROGANCE. YOU CANNOT KILL ME. I AM INSIDE YOU.)

 

His eyes flew open. The voice in his head went on inexorably.

 

(IT IS THE FATE OF ALL KINGS WHO WOULD RULE MY CHILDREN. FROM THE MOMENT OF ORDINATION, THE TATESEI RULER CARRIES WITHIN HIM THE STRONGEST OF MY BLOOD. YOU ARE NO EXCEPTION.)

 

“No . . . impossible . . .” Sesshoumaru breathed, staggered by the fiery aurora of realization dawned too late. Tenseiga clattered to the ground, falling from the grip of fingers suddenly gone nerveless. “I never made that choice.”

 

Yet the evidence that he had had been there all along.

 

The coiled serpent in his breast; the command which the Tatesei could not resist.

 

The fanged, black shadow in his heart; the force which protected him from the hanryu and from the Seer's intuition, and which drew him here . . .

 

“It cannot be true,” he insisted, shaking his head as if to clear it. “I never chose this.”

 

Again, the laughter. The massive head turned sideways, so that Sesshoumaru saw his reflection clearly in the mirror-like scales. He saw his body fragmented there, broken by the black, flint-shard edges of the plates. And in one shining silver scale, held at such an angle so that there was no distortion of the image, he saw the pale shape of his face.

 

No longer pale.

 

“This . . . this is . . .” The words would not come to him. Instead he raised his hand to his face, running long fingers down the cheekbone, where the black veins spidered through his flesh.

 

(THIS IS WHAT YOU WANTED.) the Dragon mocked him. (YOU HAVE LUSTED AFTER MY POWER, AND SO YOU SHALL HAVE IT.)

 

Behind him, Sesshoumaru felt a great rush of hot air, and glanced behind him to see the long, black tail snaking its way across the rock shelf in a rasp of scales. He could no longer see the way out beyond it.

 

(I AM YOU AND YOU ARE MINE. NO FIRE MAY BURN YOU, NOR DEMON BLADE OVERPOWER YOU. THIS WAS WHAT YOU CHOSE.)

 

“No.” Demon instinct and the throb of pain in Sesshoumaru's forehead urged him to flee. Yet the fear only made him angry. “No.” Master of himself, even beyond the point of fear, he bent and swiftly took Tenseiga up in his grasp once more. “You will not give me your power, Dragon,” he said coldly. “I will take it!”

 

He raised his arm above his head. Enclosed in his fist, Tenseiga pulsed white-hot, like a star.

 

The Dragon's head lifted as well, the long neck coiling sinuously above. Wraith though it was, slaver trailed downward from between its jaws, landing in a hiss of steam upon the stone. The dark maw opened, revealing rows of fangs, wickedly curved and serrated. The black eye fixed itself upon him.

 

(I, TOO, WILL TAKE WHAT IS MINE. SEE NOW, O DEMON, WHAT IT MEANS TO BE CHOSEN . . .)

 

Another star-pulse radiated from Tenseiga. The Sword of Life was gathering strength for resurrection.

 

Then the Dragon struck. The gaping jaws plunged downward toward the white demon standing on the rock, who held his ground defiantly.

 

Sesshoumaru did not try to dodge the Dragon's striking head. There was nowhere to go anyway, and he knew the thing above him to be dead and powerless against living flesh.

 

Thus it came as a complete and total surprise as blackness, hot and immaterial as steam, surrounded him, extinguishing Tenseiga's light.

 

Utterly disoriented, he heard the Dragon's voice in his head.

 

(YOU HAVE CHOSEN POWER OVER LIFE, DEMON. AND NOW YOUR LIFE IS FORFEIT.)

 

The dark mouth yawned around him, and then the black jaws snapped closed.

 

{+} {+} {+}

 

The warriors standing at the rear, with their backs to the shadow, fell first. Claws raked across flesh, through leather armor as if it were paper thin. Tusks sank dagger-like into bone at the base of the skull---the point of human fragility that every predator knows. Unlike the monster whose advent they awaited, this monster was warm and very much alive. Three men fell, and then their comrades cried an alarm, turning to face this new threat with spears and swords.

 

Kirara fell back a little; even she was daunted by weapons aimed her direction when the battlefield was such a close, confined space. Something small and vicious scuttled out from behind her, snapping at her assailants' legs with pinchers and stabbing at weapon-bearing arms with the long spike on the end of its curled tail. Shippou had been inspired by the scorpion-like thing Naraku had sent after them, and had elected to take its form to fight.

 

“Kirara!” shouted the man bringing up the rear of this odd war party. The shout was a warning; as they moved further into the midst of their enemies, Kirara had allowed a gap to form between her hindquarters and the girl behind her, whom she was charged to protect. Snarling and snapping at the Tatesei, she retreated a little ways, until she felt Kagome's body against her back legs.

 

The battle did not last long.

 

The hanryu leader's voice rose above the din, calling an order to his men.

 

“STAND DOWN!”

 

When they did not immediately obey, fire flared in his hand, drawing everyone's attention to the place where he stood with his back to the barrier.

 

“I said stand down,” he repeated, more calmly. There was an odd sort of serenity about his face, as if he no longer had any pressing concerns. Clasped tightly to him, with one of his arms pinioning hers to him, was Sango.

 

“Miroku,” she said softly. But she couldn't move because of the knife Irusei held pressed against her throat. Her Hiraikoutsu lay several feet away; the instant the calamity began, Irusei had torn it from her back and flung it aside.

 

Slowly, guardedly, Irusei's warriors backed away from her would-be rescuers, still holding their weapons raised defensively before them.

 

“Stand down,” Irusei repeated a third time, but now he was addressing the monk, who had shifted slightly to see what was going on around Kirara's massive form.

 

“If you think holding her hostage is going to make us surrender, you're sadly mistaken,” Miroku told him. His dark-browed face, though smudged with dirt, was hard and determined.

 

Irusei's mouth quirked ironically.

 

“Don't be foolish, monk. You love her. Your tongue lies, but your eyes don't.”

 

Sango blinked her black eyes, unprepared for the sudden rush of strong feeling in her chest at the sight of Miroku. To her credit, love was utterly responsible for the dire mistake she made next:

 

“Miroku.”

 

She spoke his name again. His eyes shifted toward her; toward then knife at her throat. And then, with painstaking slowness, he laid down his staff.

 

{+} {+} {+}

 

Inuyasha had no idea what he'd been expecting to find at the tunnel's end. The lake of seething magma was about right; that didn't surprise him in the least. He didn't know much about dragons, but he was under the impression that lava pits were sort of like hot-springs to them. But there was no sign of any dragon at all.

 

Sesshoumaru stood alone, on the middle of a long rock shelf stretching outward from the chamber's entrance. His white clothes were tattered, and there were bloody footprints leading to the place where he stood with his back to his brother. Other than this, he appeared utterly unharmed. Inuyasha wanted to kill him right then and there, for all the trouble he'd caused. Righteous anger surged through him, strong and fiery.

 

But the Seer's last warning echoed in his furry ears.

 

“I See you dead.”

 

Swallowing hard against the lump of temper in his throat, Inuyasha forced himself to speak instead.

 

“Sesshoumaru.” That was all he could manage between clenched fangs: his brother's name.

 

Slowly, the Sesshoumaru turned to face him. His brother's countenance was as cold and composed as ever. The dark veins that Inuyasha had noticed when they fought earlier were gone; even in the red glow of the magma, the white demon was white once again. Yellow eyes regarded Inuyasha calmly and without malice. Inuyasha's nostrils flared briefly, breathing in his brother's scent . . .

 

. . . of pine and blood and metal.

 

“Just who . . . the fuck . . . are you?” Inuyasha glowered at the man before him, hands clenching into fists at his sides. “And don't give me some bullshit about you being Sesshoumaru, because it's obvious you're not.”

 

A slight, wry smile lifted the corners of the creature's mouth.

 

“He received what he sought,” the Dragon said, in Sesshoumaru's soft voice.

 

The smile raised the short hairs on the back of Inuyasha's neck. He started forward, a low growl in his throat. There was a tremendous aura of power about the tall, pale demon standing before him, as if his comparatively small form had suddenly become the focus for the dark, fiery power contained in these chambers.

 

“That doesn't answer my question, jackass. WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?”

 

Again the cryptic smile.

 

“Centuries ago, before your father sealed me here in this prison of rock and blood . . . my name was Raiiru.”

 

{End of Chapter 14}