InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Lord of the West ❯ The White Brothers ( Chapter 18 )

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

 

{+} {+} Chapter 17: The White Brothers{+} {+}

 

Three Hundred Years In The Past

 

She was leaving him.

 

Her leave-taking was an act of utter betrayal.

 

She was his last and dearest daughter, whom he had formed into a woman's shape from a piece of his own heart. She stood in the cave, at the end of the tunnel that the last desperate scraping of his claws had carved into the earth. She stood facing the seal that held him fast, binding him into the mountain. Out of all his children, she had been the only one to come back to him after the Inutaisho cast him into this prison. This waking hell.

 

(FREE ME, DAUGHTER. YOU ALONE POSSESS THE POWER.)

 

Midoriko shook her head.

 

“I know what you ask of me. You wish me to lay with the one who sealed you; to bear a demon's child . . . and then to paint its blood upon the walls of your prison to free you.”

 

Raiiru's great eye glared at her through the barrier of crystal. He loved her, and yet he hated her as well. He had created her; shouldn't she do this? She was denying him. She was betraying him. She was standing there wearing human armor and human robes and human flesh; frail things that would pass away. And she was telling him that they meant more than the power he was offering her ever would.

 

(INSTEAD OF WASTING YOUR LIFE PURIFYING DEMONS IN THAT WEAK HUMAN SKIN, FREEING ME WOULD END DEMONKIND IN A DAY. FREE ME, SERVE ME, AND BECOME A GODDESS AMONG INSECTS.)

 

Again Midoriko shook her head. She was a woman of insurmountably strong will. Raiiru saw that she would not be swayed.

 

“All you offer is power,” she said to him. “It is all you know. But that is not what will endure. I foresee a future that has no place for monsters.”

 

Raiiru became angry. His soul beat violently against the seal, but it held fast.

 

(I WILL ENDURE) he thundered. (I WILL SURVIVE. I WILL TAKE MY PLACE AS RULER OF THIS EARTH, AS I WAS AT ITS DAWNING.)

 

She sighed then, and turned away from him.

 

“You will remain sealed,” she murmured. “Tomorrow, I go to battle a great horde of demons, in my own way, of my own strength. Sleep, my Lord; my King. I pray your dreams will turn to peace. But here you will remain, for your age is past.”

 

Then she started back down the tunnel, her footsteps echoing softly. He knew that she wept as she went.

 

{+} {+} {+}

 

The Feudal Era

 

He stalked his prey across the mounds of rubble. As he walked, he could feel the hanyou's blood making his own begin to sicken and rot. Once the hanyou was dead, he would be able to use his power to purge it from himself, to ensure once and for all that this flesh was his. Once the hanyou was dead . . .

 

His nostrils flared and he inhaled deeply. He could smell the demon's presence ahead of him. Inuyasha smelled of pine and metal and human and power all at once. And fear. Raiiru's lips rose in a feral grin. Inuyasha had more to fear than he knew. He thought he was buying himself time, forcing Raiiru to chase him across this frozen waste. But he did not know . . . could not know . . . that though the mountain had fallen the Dragon still possessed an unearthly power over this place. In truth, Raiiru had allowed himself to be lured here now, forsaking the possibility of holding Inuyasha's companions hostage, knowing that this was the place where he could kill the hanyou easiest.

 

This mountain, and the ones surrounding it, were hallowed ground.

 

He slowed to a halt, robes cracking against him as the blood staining them dried and froze. He was not a demon, though he wore a demon's body. He was a Dragon, and he did not waste time hunting. It was time to flush out his prey.

 

He planted his feet on the rock and allowed his consciousness to seep into the ryunochi beneath him. This time, however, his great mind reached further down than that, into the very roots of the earth. He had not wanted to do this; it would ravage the surrounding land. His children would be forced to flee it to survive. But had he not been the one who had watched over his children on their long journey to the Tatesei Valley? Had his blood in their veins not given rise to the Wise, who had destroyed their demon enemies and allowed them to grow as a nation? Did his blood not extend their lives far beyond the normal human lifespan? They were nothing if he did not survive to lead them.

 

This land was his to do with as he pleased.

 

He knelt, pressing both palms flat against the rock. Fire filled his eyes.

 

And the earth began to tremble.

 

{+} {+} {+}

 

Inuyasha felt the earthquake coming long before it came. The Tatesei in him knew it was coming. It was a humming in his bones; a ringing in his ears. It made the hair on his head rise in horror.

 

He had been crouched in a depression between two junctured plates of rock shelf. He had found this hiding place quite by accident, having slipped on a place where the rock was slick with snow. He had huddled there for several minutes, resting his hands on his knees and wondering what to do. In order for his blood to purge the Dragon from his brother's body, his own Youkai blood would need to be ignited. But the Dragon was still in Sesshoumaru, though he had succeeded in wounding him with the Hijintessou. At that time, he had not lost himself completely to his demon nature, which could only mean one thing: he had not called upon enough of that power.

 

“Damnit!” he swore, vehemently shaking away the small drift of snow that had gathered atop his head.

 

He had called upon his anger toward his brother that time to ignite the blood. It seemed that somehow his anger wasn't strong enough. The only other way he could think of was to place himself in a situation where his body was in danger of dying. It would mean that he would have to fully lose control of himself, as he had not when he fought Raiiru on the ridge.

 

`Just because I couldn't hate Sesshoumaru enough, I'm going to have to . . .' He had not forgotten what Kagome had told him, about how the “White Brothers” were to kill each other and so end the Inu Youkai Line. Now the answer was becoming clear to him: he might take Raiiru with him, but he and his brother were still going to die.

 

It had been fate.

 

“Keh,” he scoffed, at his own fears. “I'm thinking too much again.”

 

He rose to his feet, and began to climb out of the hiding place, using digging his claws into the stone for traction.

 

He had nearly crested the juncture of rock when the earth began to shake.

 

The rubble around him exploded upward, first in a hail of debris, and then in geysers of liquid flame. The heat caught him and sent him skyward, searing around his skin, blinding him and deafening him with its roar. Utterly disoriented, tumbled head over heels by the momentum of the eruption, Inuyasha held his breath and prepared himself to die. Two things saved him: the first the Fire Rat robes that he wore; the second the shard of the Sacred Jewel embedded in his flesh.

 

The heat did not burn his limbs or chest where the haori hakama covered it, and the jewel . . . the jewel's protection was another matter entirely. A great wave pulsed outward from his body, unlike anything he'd ever felt before. Once he had inserted a Shikon shard into Tetsusaiga, and that alone had been a rush of power that sent his head reeling. This was . . . he was not prepared for this. Nothing could have prepared him for this.

 

The Shikon no Tama, forged from the clash of demon strength and the unearthly power of the woman who had once defied the Dragon, flashed rays of brilliance in every direction. Inuyasha's head tipped back, light spilling out his mouth and eyes, as the erupting lava broke upon the jewel's kehai like water. It splashed outward, spraying the outermost rubble of what had once been Reiyama Mountain, mingling with the thicker rivers of lava that had begun to seep and burn their way onto the plain.

 

He tried to blink, clawing at the skin of his own arms in confusion, trying to suppress the white heat that ringed his body like a halo. He thought, dimly, that the lava overflowing onto the plain would send it directly onto his comrades, who were still out there. He thought, even more dimly, that the lava would continue past the plain, gravity pulling it downward into the Tatesei Valley, right on top of the city.

 

But then thinking became an impossibility.

 

He sprang free of the fiery geyser as if he were flying, snarling, eyes aflame. Not far from him, standing atop a boulder that the lava had not consumed, was his enemy. Tall and white and silent as a statue.

 

Reeking of fear.

 

Raiiru . . . the Dragon . . . he could no longer remember the body's other name. It didn't matter. His enemy's name didn't matter. And he rushed forward, ugly laughter bubbling from his lips like slaver. He flung the blood he had clawed from his arms.

 

The white figure dodged it, pale robes and silvery hair trailing ghostlike after it. Raiiru landed upon another boulder, closer to the path of the lava. Inuyasha skidded to a halt where his enemy had been standing a split-second before. The rock was burnt and cut deep where his blood had scored it, and steaming. He laughed again. It was enough this time. It was finally enough.

 

His demon blood was truly ignited.

 

He turned to face his adversary a second time, leering.

 

“Afraid to die?” he snarled.

 

Even from a distance, he could see his enemy's pale face contort. Fountains of lava burst upward through the cracks in the boulders. Inuyasha was already hurtling toward him, long before the rock could explode beneath his feet from the heat and the pressure.

 

The rock exploded in front of him, forcing him to veer sideways, away from his target. He flung more blades of blood, recklessly, but the spray of debris and lava deflected them. He ended up running a half-circle around his enemy, with such increasingly wide radius that he was forced further away from Raiiru than he was before he'd charged. The ground erupted at his heels. Once again, he found himself at an impasse, reversing direction again and again to avoid being struck. Then he realized something, and bared his teeth in a feral grin.

 

His survival instinct was no longer a problem. He didn't need to veer so far away to avoid being struck. With the power of the Shikon shard at his command, there was nothing to fear. He reversed direction one final time, and made straight for the white figure, heedless of the hell erupting skyward from beneath his feet.

 

A sea of rock stretched between them, cracked now with steaming fissures, releasing stinking sulfur. The landscape was a broken, jagged puzzle, through which the earth's firelight shone upward onto the faces of hanyou and Dragon. The Dragon's face was ugly to behold, fierce and contorted with hatred as he finally forsook his pride and turned to flee. Inuyasha's face was a mask of grim laughter.

 

He tore across the long distance between them, shouting as he went.

 

“Afraid to die, are you?” he snarled. “There's nothing that can stand between me and you now! Still want to bury me to save your hide? JUST TRY IT!”

 

The space between them closed rapidly. Inuyasha reached deep into his arm, soaking his nails; his fingers. The pain was nothing. The pain was only what he chose to take from himself. The pain meant something . . . meant . . . something . . .

 

He struggled for thought.

 

`Why?' a voice inside him asked. `Why do this?'

 

Then he remembered. Something vague. Something . . . His blood. He was doing this so his blood would touch the enemy's . . .

 

“No,” he growled, a flash of intuition cutting through the red haze of his rage. “Not touch . . . It has to mingle . . .”

 

Fire exploded between them, rising in a jet so high it disappeared into the circling storm-clouds. Inuyasha ploughed through it blindly, safe within the brilliance of the Sacred Jewel's kehai. As he passed through the column, it seemed his ears went deaf for a time, and the light had swallowed him.

 

`Kagome,' he thought, inanely, striving to remember who that was. The light was drowning his memory.

 

The Dragon stood still beyond the rush of fire, as if he had not expected his prey to live.

 

`Ha! Bastard!'

 

Inuyasha caught him too swiftly this time, and too unexpectedly.

 

As liquid flame fell around them in a soft, lambent rain, demon and Dragon clashed.

 

{+} {+} {+}

 

Kagome straightened, pulling away from the Seer's grasp and shaking her head.

 

“What did she say?”

 

Kagome turned and saw that Sango's head had lifted from Miroku's chest, and that the demon-slayer was now regarding her with obsidian eyes devoid of hope.

 

“Miroku?” Kagome asked, the words coming thin and choked through the tightness in her throat. “He isn't . . . is he . . . ?”

 

Sango swallowed hard and shook her head faintly; Kagome couldn't tell whether this was to confirm that he wasn't dead or to brush aside the question.

 

“What did she say?” Sango repeated, a tremor in her voice this time. “The Seer.”

 

“You must go,” Suiton whispered, her black eyes fixed obsessively on Kagome.

 

But Kagome was not given the time to answer to either of them. At that moment, the earth beneath their feet began to rumble.

 

Inanely, Kagome was reminded of the earthquake drills they'd had at her school, where they'd dived under their desks, clutching their hands tightly behind their necks. She forced herself to suppress a hysterical bit of laughter; school and home and earthquake drills were worlds away from this. This felt like the end of the world. She clutched at both the Seer and one of Kirara's strong forelegs, so that neither would be flung by the tremors. Sango pulled Miroku tight against her, looking around in bewilderment.

 

The ground began to heave, until at last it buckled, rising in long, twisting humps. Curiously enough, these distortions of the earth all ran toward the ruins of Mount Reiyama like veins toward the heart. In some places the rock warped so dramatically that it ruptured, and jets of poisonous-looking steam shot skyward from them.

 

The snow that coated the plain was beginning to melt.

 

“Kagome, we must get to higher ground!” Sango shouted suddenly. “There's going to be an eruption!”

 

“A what . . . ?” Kagome turned toward the mountain in abject horror. “Then it's a volcano?”

 

“I don't know,” Sango answered. “I didn't think so. But this may be the Dragon's doing. And I used to live in the mountains; I've seen eruptions from a distance.”

 

Staggering unsteadily to her feet, Kagome hoisted the Seer up onto her feet. Fortunately, Suiton was conscious, though clearly in pain from her wounds, and she was able to wrap her arms around Kirara's neck to hold herself upright.

 

“No!” she hissed through clenched teeth. “Our lives are nothing. Go, Kagome-sama!”

 

Kagome was not a selfish person. She would never willingly leave her friends in such dire straits, not even if it meant going to the aid of another one of them in dire straits. But right now, she wanted more than anything to take Kirara and go, as the Seer had bade her.

 

Even if she wouldn't be able to do anything to stop this, she couldn't bear the thought of Inuyasha dying alone.

 

But she found herself kneeling, hoisting her clasped hands beneath the Seer's torn feet.

 

“Get on, quickly,” she urged. “We're getting out of here.”

 

The Seer was too weak to resist, but neither did she help lift herself. She turned wild eyes Kagome's way, as if she thought Kagome had gone mad.

 

“Don't tell me that their lives, and your life, are NOTHING!” Kagome suddenly found herself shouting. She was angry at her own helplessness, and at the Seer's attitude. “The future isn't made of `Lines' or `blood' or prophecies! It's made of people.”

 

She broke off, instantly ashamed that she'd yelled. The Seer's pale face was very young, and very sad.

 

“Inuyasha-sama said that to me also,” the woman said softly.

 

This time Kagome couldn't stop the tears. They ran freely down her cheeks, now that the heat rising from the plain would no longer make them freeze. Ignoring them, she hoisted the Seer upward yet again. This time Suiton swung a leg over Kirara's back, still clinging to the demon's neck for balance. Kagome turned to Sango.

 

“We have to hurry and move Miroku,” she called.

 

But Sango had already been thinking along these lines. She knelt and hoisted the monk onto her back, draping his arms around her Hirakoutsu and over her shoulders, and hooking her own arms under his legs. Then, gritting her teeth with the effort of it, she rose to her feet, staggering toward Kirara as she held herself upright against his dead weight. His chin rested on her left shoulder. He was breathing.

 

Kagome could see that he was breathing, from the faint puff of steam about his lips.

 

Kirara knelt and Kagome mounted her next, and then the two women pulled Miroku onto the demon's back behind Kagome. Sango mounted last, bringing up the rear.

 

“I'm sorry, Kirara,” the demon-slayer called. “I know it will be heavy flying with so many of us. But it's the only way.”

 

Kirara growled an affirmative, springing into the air with aplomb. Once she had risen clear of the rumbling earth, travel was unexpectedly easy. The storm that followed Raiiru was now centered around the mountain, and even that had grown weaker.

 

`If it disappears, I'll know it's too late,' Kagome thought. `The Dragon's kehai will have won over Sesshoumaru's jyaki completely.'

 

Then a horrid thought occurred to her.

 

`But . . . how can that be POSSIBLE? If Sesshoumaru breaks free of the Dragon's hold, the Seer says Sesshoumaru will kill Inuyasha. If the Dragon WINS, he will become the White King Raiiru, history will change, and Inuyasha will STILL die . . . What's the way out of this, then?'

 

There was one way. It was the only one she could think of.

 

But it wasn't good.

 

“Suiton,” she murmured, bending over the Seer's shoulder to speak directly into her ear. “What exactly is it you want me to do? How am I supposed to kill someone who might be the strongest of all Youkai?”

 

The Seer was utterly still, and Kagome thought she had slipped into unconsciousness. But then the answer came, faint and cryptic.

 

“Your last arrow.”

 

Kagome drew in a sharp breath.

 

From behind her, Sango said softly, “There are two arrows left in your quiver.”

 

Kagome had given no thought to the bow she carried on her back. It had been useless in the cave. It had been her arrow that had broken the seal around Inuyasha. But. . .this was not going to be like that time in Sesshoumaru's garden, by the hot-springs, where she had been able to hold him at her mercy. Sesshoumaru had been stunned that time, by Miroku's holy powers. This time, he would be . . . this time . . .

 

In thinking this way, she came to realize that she intended to go back; back to the place where the white brothers were destined to fight.

 

Reiyama.

 

She squinted across the dark plain ahead of them. Almost as if by mutual, silent agreement, they had all accepted that Kirara would take them north, to Sesshoumaru's stronghold. That was where he had bade his two small companions to wait for his return; surely he wouldn't have considered the place safe without good reason.

 

Kagome kept glancing behind them at the plain and the mountain. Lava was beginning to run down the side of the ruins, its flow impeded only by the boulders, which were beginning to crumble away in its lee. Soon it would cross the plain . . . perhaps heading for the valley where the Tatesei city stood . . .

 

However, she was immediately distracted from this sudden realization; Sango had arrived at some sort of decision.

 

“Kirara!” she called. She didn't have to speak very loudly to be heard, though, for the wind around them was no longer very strong. “Take us down at that pass there, just west of the ridge!”

 

Kagome glanced back at her in alarm.

 

“Sango, what are you thinking? We can't dismount there! It's in the middle of nowhere! Miroku will bleed to death if we don't get him somewhere where we can make a fire . . .” Kagome knew about cauterization. She'd only seen it in movies, but she knew that you had to heat a blade until it glowed, then press it on the wound to burn it closed. It was the only thing she could think of in the Feudal Era, without any sort of medical help necessary to save a human being from a mortal stab wound.

 

Sango ignored her.

 

“Take us down!” she ordered, more fiercely this time. Kirara had already been veering northwest toward the pass below the ridge. It led northward, into the wooded slopes bordering the Inu Youkai valley. If it wasn't clear before, it was certainly clear now: Sango intended to go the rest of the way on foot.

 

“I'm going to go back,” Kagome informed her. “I'm going to take Kirara and go back to the mountain, to do what I can. But first we're going to get the wounded to safety. I won't be the cause of any more . . .”

 

Sango shook her head firmly, wearing an odd, bitter little smile. Kirara took them down.

 

The snow was only a foot deep where she landed. She knelt and her passengers slid off. Sango laid Miroku down gently on his side. Suiton, who was still conscious, slid down next to him, huddling against him to melt the snow surrounding him with her supernatural body heat. Kagome was loath to leave them.

 

Sango would have none of her hesitation.

 

“He won't die,” the demon-slayer asserted, kneeling beside Miroku's prone form. “And neither will the Seer or myself.” Then she pulled aside his sash to reveal the tear in his robes where Irusei's dagger had wounded him. The tear was now singed around the edges, and the flesh beneath was an odd raw, reddish shade. The wound was closed.

 

Kagome's eyes widened.

 

“What? How . . . ?”

 

Then Sango held up her hand. There was a bloody slash down the palm, too cleanly cut to be anything but deliberate.

 

“Uh . . .” Kagome couldn't think of anything to say. She knew Sango wasn't proud of her hanryu blood.

 

Sango rose to her feet, gesturing sharply to the south.

 

“Take her to the mountain, Kirara,” she bade the demon, who had risen to her four feet as well. “She needs you to get her within shooting range of Sesshoumaru. It's going to be risky. If she loses both arrows, please take her out of there quickly, regardless of whether she's succeeded. If she fails, her protection comes first.”

 

Kagome knew Sango meant well, but the part about failure made her heart clench. It was obvious that the demon-slayer was not happy about letting her do this alone. Yet if the Seer lost consciousness when left alone with Miroku, Suiton would not be able to warm him, and he might freeze to death. Kagome turned toward the Seer one last time.

 

“Suiton,” she said, clasping her hands before her in pleading. “Please tell me . . . where to aim.”

 

For a moment, it seemed as if the Seer's black-tainted eyes pierced right through her. Then Suiton lowered her head.

 

“There are two brothers,” she murmured, “and two arrows.”

 

Sango rounded on her.

 

“What does that mean?” she demanded. “Tell her what it means.”

 

Suiton shook her head, refusing to look at Kagome. Her shoulders hitched once. It was then that Kagome realized she was weeping. Her black hair trailed over her face, dragging in the snow.

 

“I don't see what you see,” Kagome told her gently, blinking back her own tears and forcing a quavering smile. “And I don't envy you. But I promise that I will try my best to make this nightmare end . . . so you don't have to see it any more.”

 

Then she turned and mounted Kirara, hands moving automatically to check that her bow and quiver were securely fastened to her back. Soon they were airborne, heading for the mountain, which blazed ahead of her now like a torch across the storm-darkened plain.

 

{+} {+} {+}

 

On the mountain, a temporary hush had fallen. It was as if a brief spell of silence had fallen over the two combatants.

 

Inuyasha found himself stopped short, his bloody fingertips outstretched inches from the Dragon's chest.

 

At first, he could not understand what had happened. He tried to reach further; to snarl a curse, but as he did so he felt something warm rise into his throat. It trickled from between his lips. Snarling again, impatient, he tried to lunge forward, but found himself stopped by the blade his enemy had thrust directly through his chest.

 

He looked down at the sword. It had a name, he remembered vaguely. What was the name? Didn't matter. It hurt like hell. His vision wavered.

 

A seductive, slow languor began to steal through his limbs. He fought it, trying to think. That feeling was his greatest enemy right now; even greater than the man holding the sword upon which he was impaled.

 

The human in him might have recalled Kagome in this moment. The languor of approaching death felt like laying his head in her lap while she stroked his hair, whispering for him to sleep. But the demon in him would not listen. And it was the demon who was in control now.

 

The shard was still in him. He had to survive.

 

Grinning around a mouthful of blood, he lurched forward abruptly, pulling the blade deeper into his body as he went. His enemy had thought to use the sword as a last resort, to keep his fingertips from reaching that pale flesh. Now he thrust forward with his own blade-like nails, darting fingers forward like razors to part white robes and white skin. His enemy tried to stagger backward to avoid him, but his newly-awakened demon strength surged through him. He was about to die and he bore a jewel shard; it was more awake now than it had ever been before. His mind was almost utterly consumed by it.

 

Yet he remembered now his purpose for doing this. The sudden spurt of hot blood over his hands had reminded him.

 

“Wake UP!” he growled.

 

{+} {+} {+}

 

The Lord of the West dreamed as he swam toward waking. He knew now who it was that was waking him. He knew this person well.

 

Long ago, when his father and kindred had died, only two besides himself survived that massacre: the Tatesei princess Iyazoi and his young half-brother, Inuyasha. He hated Iyazoi, for bringing his father to such ruin. And he hated Inuyasha, for the simple fact of his existence. It was easier than hating himself for his own powerlessness to prevent the massacre from happening. The Wise were afraid of Inuyasha, and that was why they had attacked when they did. The sorcerers believed the hanyou was meant to destroy them. Inuyasha's birth was a curse.

 

From the moment Sesshoumaru had learned of Inuyasha's existence, in his mind the hanyou was marked for death.

 

That was why he tried to kill both mother and child, when they had sought refuge in the palace. The sword Tenseiga had stopped him then, and Iyazoi had fled. The Wise recaptured her, returning her to the Tatesei city. Then they erected the wardings around the valley, so that no demon could pass.

 

Frustrated that his vengeance remained unfulfilled, Sesshoumaru became obsessed with watching the city from afar, awaiting the day when he would be able to reach it. Sometimes he saw a tiny pinpoint in the distance; a silver-haired head in the gardens. More often he saw the grey hoods of the Wise, filing somberly down the palace walkways. The years passed.

 

And then . . . the Wise made their move. Iyazoi took her son and fled into the night. For the first time in years, they left the safety of the valley, passing through the mountains and heading north. Sesshoumaru began tracking them.

 

The Wise found them first, in the forest beyond the mountains. Sesshoumaru found them soon after. They had wounded the hanyou; his blood-scent was strong on the air. They were going to kill him.

 

Killing Inuyasha was a privilege that belonged solely to Sesshoumaru. Sesshoumaru rose into his demon form in a brilliant flash of white, and with his claws he gouged a great runnel in the earth, between the Wise and their prey. Then he sank back into man-shape, and began killing them before they could flee into the forest. He was wearing a white hood pulled low, and a grey cloak, in the manner of a high priest of the Wise, so that they had not noticed him at first. Before taking action, he had slipped silently into their midst to see what had become of the hanyou and his mother. He was not surprised to see the mother dying, and that the Wise intended to kill Inuyasha.

 

After he had carved the ravine into the earth, dividing the hanyou from the sorcerers, he laid about him, killing the Wise one by one. His attack had been swift and unexpected; the Wise were unable to use their magic against him effectively. His stolen cloak was soon stained with death.

 

It was not until every last one of them lay shredded across the grass that he turned toward his half brother. The child stood watching him from across the ravine, frozen and wide-eyed with terror. Pale as a human throat waiting to be torn.

 

Sesshoumaru had every intention of doing so.

 

But then . . . something changed in the child's face. As they stood their in silent regard of each other, the young eyes narrowed, and the fear that had frozen that face now contorted into hatred. And Sesshoumaru read in that look something of himself. If he spared this pathetic creature . . . what might Inuyasha become? He was no longer sure.

 

If he spared this creature . . .

 

“Run half-breed,” he said coldly. “I am going to kill you.”

 

To his utter surprise, the child then flung his own blood at him, and it became blades. He dodged them easily, staring in amazement as the boy disappeared into the woods.

 

`Well,' he thought, standing quietly in the clearing. `Interesting . . .'

 

Years later, he sought out Inuyasha once more. He was not really sure why; perhaps out of mere curiosity. He had expected to find his half-brother wild and uncouth, a beast wandering the wilderness alone. Instead, he found the boy staying in a human village, with an old man. This made him angry. Humans had massacred the boy's own kin; why did he deliberately seek out their companionship? When the old man would not tell him where Inuyasha was, Sesshoumaru killed him. Then Inuyasha returned.

 

Sesshoumaru gave him one chance to deny his human blood. Inuyasha, foolish and stubborn, refused.

 

Then Sesshoumaru gave him another chance.

 

Still he refused.

 

Sesshoumaru left him for dead there, in the ruins of the old man's house.

 

Years later, he heard rumors that his half-brother was still alive, but by then he no longer cared. His rage had dwindled over the years, perhaps because of the deep solitude that he kept. He decided that since the boy had chosen humanity, he would leave him to the mercy of humans. After all, Inuyasha would never find peace with a people who hated demonkind.

 

To Sesshoumaru, who had never been able to find peace himself, that was vengeance enough.

 

{+} {+} {+}

 

He awoke to the sensation of sharp pain in his chest. His vision swam into focus through a red haze, and he drew in a gasp. Yet even through the pain, he was aware of a dark cloud being lifted from his head, and of his mind shaking free of its shackles. Then he realized that the Dragon's spirit was leaving him, and that the long dream in which Raiiru had imprisoned his soul was broken now beyond all repair. He could never return to that illusion; that world where he was god.

 

And it was because he was impaled now upon his half-brother's claws. The hanyou's blood had flowed into his own, and in circulating through his heart had driven back the Dragon's. He was himself again; the white demon. Lord of the West.

 

Inuyasha's head was bowed. Sesshoumaru wrenched himself free of the claws, stepping backwards. The wound was not mortal. Inuyasha, on the other hand, appeared to be dying.

 

Sesshoumaru's left arm, which the Dragon had regenerated, was gone again. The sword Tokijin hung from the hanyou's chest.

 

“Inuyasha,” Sesshoumaru said softly. “Return my sword.”

 

There was still time. The Dragon had deserted him, and could no longer possess him now that Inuyasha's blood flowed through his. That meant the wraith would seek a new host. Sesshoumaru understood why the Dragon had chosen his body and not one of his followers': though Raiiru believed that humanity was what would endure the ages, he had not been entirely willing to surrender his immortality. Thus he had chosen Sesshoumaru as a kind of happy medium; neither god nor man. A powerful mortal body, which could pass for a man's, but without human weakness. Yet now, given no other option, the Dragon would surely go to the Tatesei city, to find himself a willing host. There were plenty there; all were hanryu.

 

The only way to ensure that the Dragon's spirit never rose to power was to kill every possible willing host. Then the wraith would have nowhere to run. Sesshoumaru would revive Raiiru with Tenseiga and take his heart, as he had intended from the beginning.

 

But he wanted the sword Tokijin back, and Inuyasha had not moved. Impatiently, Sesshoumaru reached for the hilt.

 

Inuyasha's head lifted.

 

The hanyou was smiling. His eyes were insane.

 

{+} {+} {+}

 

“Something is wrong.”

 

Jakken, who was busy wearing holes in the rugs with his pacing, had to agree. He had found Rin and the Kitsune Shippou sitting in front of the fire in the great hall together. He was too worried about Sesshoumaru to be irritated by the Kitsune's presence. The earth had trembled for a bit, and he was worried that somehow the earthquake and his lord had something to do with each other. And Rin, who was foolish sometimes but not stupid, had obviously arrived at the same conclusion.

 

“Let's go to see if we can find him,” Rin persisted, standing up and coming over to prod Jakken with an insistent finger. “He may need us.”

 

“Ha!” Jakken replied, with amusement that was quite obviously feigned. “Sesshoumaru-sama doesn't need us. He's all-powerful!”

 

Rin just stared at him.

 

“Hey, I'll help.” The Kitsune had risen to his tiny feet.

 

`Damn the Kitsune brat,' Jakken thought viciously.

 

Rin turned toward him.

 

“Oh, will you, Shippou-sama?”

 

Shippou puffed up his chest importantly.

 

“I'll go to the mountain-top, to see if I can see what's going on across the plain.”

 

“Rin will go with you,” she decided, thumping one small fist decisively into her other palm. “We will take Aun.”

 

And the two of them scampered off down the palace halls.

 

“W-w-w-w-w-w-WAIT!” Jakken stammered, scampering after them. “Sesshoumaru-sama will not be pleased if we disobey him!” But he could see that his words were falling on deaf ears. Briefly, he considered using his Staff of Heads to fry the troublesome Kitsune to a crisp, but he was too worried that he might hit Rin.

 

{+} {+} {+}

 

Sango curved her body around Miroku's pressing her face into his chest. His heartbeat was slow, in the manner of someone sleeping, and no longer erratic. He smelled of sweat and blood.

 

“I won't let you die,” she whispered, and he sighed in his sleep. The Seer was sleeping as well, curled up against him on the other side, lending him her warmth as well. The wound on his back had been cauterized with Sango's own blood; with the Dragon's blood. For once, she was glad of it.

 

But her troubles were far from over. There was no conceivable way she could carry both Miroku and the Seer through the pass to the Inu Youkai palace. She was exhausted. The best she could hope for was that Kagome would return with Inuyasha and Kirara, to help them all to shelter. The best she could do for now was to keep both of them warm with her hanryu abilities. But if the Dragon was somehow destroyed in the battle to which Kagome was hastening . . . she and Suiton would be hanryu no longer. Their blood would slip back into dormancy, and they would be left with nothing but human warmth to see them through this awful night.

 

When first she heard the voice, Sango thought that she might be dreaming. It wasn't Miroku or Suiton; it sounded like a little girl. Then she lifted her head, pulling out of her troubled doze, and saw that some sort of creature was approaching. It had five heads. She blinked.

 

Then it landed, and she saw that it actually only had two; the other three belonged to a girl, an imp, and a Kitsune.

 

“Shippou?” she called blearily.

 

“No, no, NO!” the imp was wailing as the girl and the Kitsune dismounted. “We're supposed to be going to find Sesshoumaru-sama!”

 

The two young ones ignored him, hurrying over to the three people lying in the snow.

 

{+} {+} {+}

 

Sesshoumaru drew in a long, deep breath and exhaled just as slowly, blowing a gentle drift of steam into the air. So. It had come to this.

 

Tetsusaiga was not in the scabbard hanging from Inuyasha's side. The hanyou was becoming a pure-blooded demon before his very eyes.

 

Inuyasha took hold of Tokijin's hilt and wrenched it from his own body. Then he cast it to the side with a clatter, spitting out a mouthful of blood at Sesshoumaru's bare feet as he did so. His form was wavering; he was beginning to change. Into what, Sesshoumaru had no idea. He had never thought it possible for Inuyasha to take beast-shape, in the manner of pure-blooded Inu Youkai. That was a privilege he had always assumed belonged to himself alone, now that his father was dead.

 

He had always sensed, in some intuitive way, that Inuyasha in this state would be more powerful than anything he'd ever faced before. He stared coldly into his brother's crazed red eyes. Once he had told his father that he would kill him one day, when he became strong enough. In Sesshoumaru's mind, such a challenge was a sign of deepest respect, for he did not believe in loving anyone who was not his equal.

 

Ever since the first time he had seen Inuyasha's demon blood awakened, he had never challenged Inuyasha in that way. Never as an equal.

 

Because the hanyou Inuyasha was not an equal.

 

Inuyasha was stronger.

 

Quietly, Sesshoumaru faced the rival before him, his face composed and his eyes clear and sane. He could see that if he was to survive this, he would have to fight with both raw power and a Daiyoukai's cold clarity. After all, the thing in front of him was now nothing more than a mindless killer.

 

To think he had once wondered what the hanyou child would become.

 

“So,” he said softly, “it comes to this.”

 

This was not the way he had envisioned this. He was surprised that he, Sesshoumaru, would feel this way at such a time, and he was not one who surprised easily. He eyed Inuyasha shrewdly, looking for a weakness in his stance. Plotting the best way to subdue him.

 

`I must try to wake him, as he woke me . . . or he will never return to himself again.'

 

He lunged straight forward toward Inuyasha, sparing no more time for rumination. He conjured a whip made of pure light as he moved, seeking to catch Inuyasha with it, all the while calling poison into the claws of the hand that held it, to stab when the weapon had reeled his prey in. Inuyasha darted sideways with such speed that his body blurred. Sesshoumaru snapped his wrist sideways, causing the weapon to recoil back into his grip. He had suspected the hanyou's speed might have increased like this. Inuyasha was faster than he'd been when they fought in Sesshoumaru's garden, when the hanyou had gone to take back the Shikon shard. But Sesshoumaru soon turned the missed strike into a feint, serving the dual purpose of gauging Inuyasha's reflexes and diverting him.

 

Now Sesshoumaru had an opening to retrieve his sword.

 

He darted sideways, swiftly catching up the blade by its hilt. It had been teetering on the edge of the rock, over a crevice in whose depths the lava flowed steadily. He heard his brother snarl, and knew that Inuyasha was readying to charge again.

 

That was when he changed his mind.

 

`No.'

 

Sudden, black certainty flooded his heart.

 

`No. I've already risked much. I won't risk dying to save this fool from himself.'

 

“If you kill him . . .” his darker self whispered.

 

`If I kill him . . .'

 

“There will be none to stop you from taking what you want.”

 

`But if he dies,' he reasoned, `there will be none to protect the Shikon no Tama from Naraku . . .'

 

“If you take the power you seek, the Dragon's power, you will be a god. The jewel is made from a human woman's soul, is it not? A human's power is nothing.”

 

He turned slowly toward his advancing brother, raising the sword in readiness.

 

“Come, half-breed,” he challenged softly. “I am going to kill you.”

 

His eyes flared red with new malice. It was he, and not Inuyasha, who charged first.

 

{+} {+} {+}

 

The baby in the cavern smiled, peering intently into Kanna's glass.

 

“At last, Lord Sesshoumaru,” he whispered. “The Dragon's presence is gone from your soul. It protected you from me because it wanted you for itself. But now it has gone, and it has left you weak.”

 

In the mirror, he could see the red jyaki from the sword, twining round the demon lord's body like a serpent. It had already struck his heart. It had struck him the moment he picked it up.

 

“What fortune,” the baby murmured. “Or perhaps mine is the hand of fortune . . . The sword Tokijin, after all, has been mine all along. You have wielded it all this time, but it has always been my trump card.”

 

He found a poignant beauty in this irony. The white brothers were to die, as the girl Kagome had feared, though not at the hands of the Dragon. The Dragon's possession of Sesshoumaru had merely cracked open the flaws in the white demon's heart, through which Tokijin's dark influence would seep.

 

“It was a blade ever aimed at your heart . . . and it struck you. Now you aim it at Inuyasha's.”

 

Naraku laughed softly into the darkness.

 

{+} {+} {+}

 

As he fought, Sesshoumaru found himself flooded with burgeoning anger. That first charge had resulted in a clash of claws on steel. Under normal circumstances, Tokijin's deadly kenatsu would have been too much of an impact for Inuyasha to bear. His feeble hanyou's claws should have shattered, and his body should have been sent flying backwards amid a hail of jyaki slivers from the sword. Instead, it had come to an even draw. Inuyasha's muscles had thickened, and his claws had lengthened to the measure of small daggers. It was like trying to shatter solid steel. Inuyasha's claws passed through Tokijin's kenatsu to clang stridently against the blade itself. The slivers flying toward the hanyou broke like water upon the strange aura surrounding him. Red light splashed in every direction.

 

Sesshoumaru glared at him, clenching his teeth with the effort of holding him at bay. He did not understand what this aura meant. It was one thing to take a demon's form; it was another to project ki like a shield.

 

Then the two brothers sprang apart from each other, circling warily. Inuyasha's hair had grown thicker, and it crackled with energy. Sesshoumaru had never seen jyaki this strong . . . save on the several occasions when he faced Naraku, who possessed the shards of the Shikon no Tama.

 

The Shikon no Tama.

 

“The jewel,” he snarled. “You have the jewel.” That had to be it; Inuyasha had taken the shard from the girl Kagome.

 

He initiated another rush at Inuyasha, leveling the blade with the hanyou's heart. It was a maneuver meant to kill instantly. He had to end this quickly. What he wanted was worth more than this mindless monster, shard or no shard. Sesshoumaru's red eye glared down the length of the blade as he moved swiftly forward, tracking the line to Inuyasha's heart with cold-blooded accuracy.

 

When they clashed this second time, the outcome was even less favorable. The sword caught Inuyasha through the chest once again, but it struck too far to the right to reach the heart. Energy crackled white-hot between them as Tokijin's red kenatsu passed through the Shikon no Tama's aura of ki. It sent sparks snapping into the air. Inuyasha's claws, in the meantime, had finally scored their mark. The fingers of Inuyasha's right hand sank into the flesh just above Sesshoumaru's chest on the left side. He let out a hiss of pain. One claw had hooked itself around the other side of his collar bone beneath the skin. The other fingers formed a ring of thick punctures just to the left of his breastbone.

 

Had he not managed to stab Inuyasha just now, degrading the hanyou's forward momentum, Inuyasha would have gouged out his heart.

 

Uttering a swift curse, Sesshoumaru yanked Tokijin toward himself, thinking to let go of it at the last minute, to tear Inuyasha's throat with his poisoned claws. But Inuyasha wrenched his own body backwards, jerking free of the sword. The claw hooked around Sesshoumaru's collar-bone wrenched also. Demon bones were strong, but his was instantly dislocated. He lunged forward, and this alone saved him from having the bone snapped in half. As Inuyasha's claws came loose of his chest, he stabbed forward viciously, thinking to catch Inuyasha a second time. This time, Inuyasha dodged it, leaping high into the air and hurtling straight for him again. The hanyou laughed, revealing bloodstained teeth.

 

“What's the matter, bastard?” Inuyasha jeered. His voice had thickened as well; it was more guttural now, with an odd echoing quality to it, as if there were several of him speaking at once. “Are you holding back? Don't you hate me?”

 

Sesshoumaru leaped backward, landing a good ten yards away from where Inuyasha landed in a crouch. The rock cracked beneath the impact from the hanyou's transforming body. This time when Inuyasha rose, it was onto all fours. His face was beginning to lengthen, lips drawn upward in a grimace as his fangs grew.

 

Sesshoumaru had never been so humiliated.

 

“I hate you,” he said, with certainty.

 

Then Inuyasha flew at him again, in a fury. This time Sesshoumaru realized that he was standing with his back to the pointed edge of the boulder, and that there was nowhere to run. Again he raised Tokijin. Inuyasha slammed into him, impaling himself yet a third time upon Tokijin's point. White and red energy cracked and whistled around them, twittering like tiny birds. Together they flew backward over the edge, bathed suddenly in a rush of sulfurous steam from the lava flowing below. They did not descend into the flow, however. Instead, the impact was so strong that they flew onto the next boulder, which was a good twenty yards away. There they both landed on the ground, skidding across the rock almost to the opposite end.

 

For a moment, neither moved. Both were severely wounded, and exhausted as well.

 

Sesshoumaru was the first to rise.

 

With cold, calculated precision, he slide his sword out from the body of the beast lying beside him and rose to his feet. It seemed Inuyasha was temporarily stunned. The hanyou was covered in blood; Sesshoumaru was certain that even with his borrowed strength, he was dying of his wounds. The Shikon no Tama, whatever power it might lend its wielder, lacked the power to heal.

 

“Kill him.”

 

“I will kill you,” he whispered fiercely, planting a foot on Inuyasha's back. Then he lifted the sword at an angle, preparing to take his brother's head.

 

Something struck his sword.

 

It came sizzling through the steaming air like a bolt of lightning. He froze for a split-second, confused. Like Inuyasha's claws, the arrow rang off Tokijin's blade rather than being stopped by the red kenatsu. Then the arrow vanished, and a brilliant pulse went out from the sword. It burned him, instantly searing his hands, leaving them red and raw. With a gasp, he dropped the sword, shielding his face from the light. The blade clattered to the stone, skittering across the rough terrain before coming to a stop several yards away.

 

Then he turned and saw who had come.

 

{+} {+} {+}

 

Kagome had been thinking long and hard on the journey to the mountain. She did not want to kill Sesshoumaru. It wasn't that she bore any particular liking toward him at the moment, but the mere fact that him dying was part of the Seer's doom prophecy made her reluctant. And when she saw him standing there, she was horrified. Not just by the sword he held, poised to chop downward, but by the unusually bright red aura of the blade. It twined slyly around his body, like a serpent slowly constricting.

 

`Can't he see it?' she wondered. `It's taken over him like it did Gaijinbou, the one who forged it!'

 

Another great shock was his appearance. His face was twisted. She had never imagined someone so refined and coldly beautiful could be so distorted by hatred. That was what she read on his face: open, raw hatred. She had a pretty good idea what weakness of his the sword was feeding off of.

 

Both he and Inuyasha were drenched in blood. Their silver-white hair was slick with it. So was the rock face where they were. And Sesshoumaru was about to take Inuyasha's head.

 

The Seer had told her to kill Sesshoumaru. But right now, to save Inuyasha's life, she was going to have to shoot the sword. Tightening her knees about Kirara's back to balance herself, she notched one arrow into her bow and shot.

 

The blow struck its intended target. And Sesshoumaru dropped the sword; it seemed to have burned him. Then he turned slowly in her direction. His face had smoothed into an expression of vague surprise, like a sleeper waking.

 

Behind him, Inuyasha rose to his feet, a hulking shape against the background glow of magma.

 

Before it could even register in her mind what was happening, Inuyasha attacked.

 

His body slammed into his brother's back full-force, throwing him against the stone face. Sesshoumaru swiped at him with his claws, snarling something incoherent, and tried to throw him off. Inuyasha locked both hands around his brother's throat, pulled him upward, and then dashed his head downward against the rock.

 

There came a sickening crack. Kagome could hear it even from where she sat, hovering atop Kirara a good thirty yards away.

 

“INUYASHA!” she screamed, horrified. He no longer looked human.

 

At the sound of her voice, he lifted crazed red eyes her way and laughed. Blood dribbled over his front teeth.

 

Sesshoumaru had gone limp beneath him.

 

He let go of his brother's throat with one hand, cracking the knuckles of the other, priming his claws for a second go.

 

“INUYASHA, STOP!” Kagome shouted. “Kirara, take me closer.” She had Tetsusaiga with her. If she could just get him to touch it . . .

 

Kirara growled, refusing to obey. The demon cat clearly intended to hold to her promise to Sango to keep Kagome out of danger.

 

“INUYASHA, YOU CAME HERE TO SAVE HIM!” Kagome called in desperation, tears welling up in her eyes. “DON'T DO THIS!”

 

Inuyasha laughed thickly.

 

“I'll save him!” he crowed. “I'll drink his blood. Paint him across the snow.”

 

Then he turned away from her, lifting his claws.

 

And Kagome realized now what destiny was asking of her. She could see the shard in his back. If she could hit it . . .

 

“There are two brothers, and two arrows.”

 

`I can save them both,' she realized.

 

(“How am I supposed to kill someone who might be the strongest of all Youkai?”

 

“Your last arrow.”)

 

And she understood.

 

`I am the one with the potential to make the prophecy come true. What the Seer told me . . . I could kill them both.'

 

If she shot him, Inuyasha might die. The shard was not in a location anywhere near his vital organs. However, she remembered that Kikyou's arrows were deadly to him. She prayed with every ounce of desperate love that her own were not.

 

There was no other way.

 

She notched the arrow and took her aim. Even through the blur of tears, the shard glowed brightly in him.

 

A clear target.

 

Steeling herself, she murmured, “If I must, I will . . .”

 

{END OF CHAPTER 17}