InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Poetry of the Sengoku Jidai ❯ The Only Power ( Chapter 15 )

[ A - All Readers ]

WARNING: Spoiler Chapter 470 in the Manga.

A/N: This poem was written to accompany a fantastic drawing by Foo~Dog (ht tp ://www.deviantart.com /deviation/42479861/ - w/o spaces) which depicts Sesshoumaru with Rin in his arms when they are in the Meidou (Chapter 470) and he realizes that she is gone.

The Only Power

I freeze.

Her stillness paralyzes me,

breath no longer

brushing my cheek,

blood no longer

flowing warm beneath my touch.

Heavy and dark,

an immutable ache leaches into me -

a poison - yearning and boiling my

need to howl

out a challenge,

an unanswered call to powers I despise

for remaining hidden,

refusing to face my fury.

Death laughs.

This death is a stranger, one that does not

keep the comfortable distance,

but presses close,

weighting the air from my lungs.

Our enduring covenant abandoned,

I feel the betrayer's blade slip skillfully

around armor and bone,

slicing a path for black echoes

bellowing into the dark space

carved into my heart.

Mocking and bitter, death beckons me

to that place

where pain is irrelevant,

where I could look down at her body

and see nothing

but a casualty of chance.

I am tempted,

the way familiar.

She cries.

One step forward

to the promise of relief

and a wall of anguish rises before me -

crumbling into my soul as I smash at it,

desperate to move beyond.

I become trapped in a swelling

maelstrom of self-loathing,

swirling the remnants of my pride into

her sorrowful wails,

crying out her torment that I would

forget her so easily.

Frozen again, the tempest calms and

our sadness falls

around me -

through me -

shredding me until I, too,

have become lost.

I hurt.

My vain attempts at self-protection

wound us both -

like a slap at her soul.

A dishonor.

Stunned, I allow myself to be

swept into the void.

I am powerless to protect us -

helpless to give life again.

I am useless.

My pain is the only power left to me.

Living with me now,

it breathes on my cheek -

flows in the beat of my heart.

For her memory -

I will feel it.

For her honor -

I will own it.