InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Zero ❯ The Heart of Kiriyama ( Chapter 4 )

Ten days.

Ten days, and he still hadn’t found the Heart of Kiriyama.

Ten days, and he still had no idea, just what the heart really was.

He’d reached the summit three days ago, and now, he was working his way back down, searching for anything he might have missed the first time, yet unable to shake the feeling that it was a fool’s quest.

His patience threshold was at an all-time low, and yet, he couldn’t abide the idea of giving up, either.

Kagura’s scent was starting to fade from the feather that he carried with him.  When he’d first realized that a couple days ago, he’d very nearly succumbed to blind rage.  Instead, he’d taken that anger and had focused it into his search.

Deliberately slowing his gait as he ventured through the macabre forest just below the snow line, Sesshoumaru narrowed his eyes as he slowly, methodically, scanned the area.  At this elevation, the terrain was harder to see since the trees here grew so gnarled and warped.  Higher up, the blowing snow was a minor annoyance, but at least it was easier to see . . .

‘So, Sesshoumaru . . .’

He ignored the voice and kept moving.

‘Tell me something.’

Ducking into a cave that he was fairly certain he’d already checked before, probably more than once, Sesshoumaru still didn’t respond.

‘Assuming we find this damndable heart—assuming we are able to barter it for Kagura’s soul—just what will you do with her?’

‘Do with her?  It’s not my place to do anything with her.  She . . . She will be free.’

‘And we’re going through all this, just to free her?’

‘I have no claim on her.  She . . . She simply didn’t deserve to die.’

‘Yes, perhaps, but when did you start to care if one got what one deserved or not?’

That question drew him up short, and he frowned.  ‘I don’t care,’ he insisted.  ‘However, she died for me.  She put herself between Naraku and me.’

‘And that makes a difference?’

‘. . . It does to me.’

His youkai-voice sighed.  ‘So, what you’re saying is that all of this insanity really is simply about your anger toward Tenseiga.’

‘Is that not what I have said?’

‘Then you don’t remember . . .’

‘Remember?’

‘You ’ve felt it before.  When you saw her, you wanted her.  You’ve felt lust before, but the emotion that you felt was deeper, darker—and somehow, lighter, too.  It was more than that.  That tightening in your body, that surge of that heady thing . . . You felt it, and you reveled in it, even as you sought to secret it away.  It was a desire the likes of which you’ve never felt before—and then, you closed that away.  You made yourself forget about it because it was, what?  Ignoble?  Beneath you?  But you felt it—and I did, too.’

‘Silence.  I don’t need you to tell me what I do or do not feel.’

‘No, you do need that of me.  You simply don’t want to hear it—don’t want to think it.  Don’t want to face it. That woman—Kagura . . . You know her.  You know you do. Your impetuous desire to lock away your own emotions? And yet, you ask yourself why, don’t you?  That’s fine, though.  You will figure it out . . . If we can find this damned heart, that is . . .’

It was absurd, wasn’t it?  The very idea that he, Sesshoumaru, would lower himself to suffer such a base emotion as that?  It wasn’t possible.

‘I simply do not wish to feel beholden to her.  She had no need to do what she did.  As if This Sesshoumaru would have succumbed to death by such a vile affectation as that . . .’

‘To settle a perceived debt, then . . .’

‘Isn’t that as good a reason as any?’

His youkai-voice grunted.  ‘Perhaps you won’t find the Heart of Kiriyama.  Perhaps one such as you deserves no such thing.’

‘I will find it, and when I do . . .’

‘And when you do, then you’ll have to face the truth of . . . everything . . . won’t you?’

Ignoring those words, Sesshoumaru moved on.  If nothing else, he was more determined than ever . . .

And finding the heart . . . He would find it—or he would die, trying.

Roused from a fitful slumber, Sesshoumaru instantly came awake, pushing himself to his feet from his place, reclined against the rock wall on a very narrow cliff about fifteen feet off the ground.  He’d taken to slightly higher ground out of habit—entirely stupid, really, given that there wasn’t anything living on the mountain aside from vegetation.  He hated the idea of sleeping here, but the mist was draining him.  He could feel it, and every day he spent in it was slowly wearing him down.

He blinked slowly, scanned the area for anything amiss.  There was nothing.  He could tell by the sound of the wind, the smells being carried on the air, that it was nearing dawn.

Following the faint trickle of water, it didn’t take long to locate a small stream.  Despite the pervasive fog, the uncomfortable mist, the water was remarkably clean, and he knelt on the bank, taking a moment to rinse his face, to drink a few handfuls of the cold, cold liquid.

Youkai, as a rule, didn’t need to eat.  Some of them did, simply because of a base urge to do so, but he was not one of them.  Some of them—wolves, for example—ate because it pleased them to do so, and most of the youkai who did eat targeted humans.  He had eaten when he was younger, growing, but that was so long ago, that he really did not recall it, and even then, he had never eaten a human, either.

Well, there was one time since he’d matured: just once.  He had eaten when InuYasha was small, shortly after the hanyou’s mother had died.  The baka had no idea, how to fend for himself, though he had tried.  Seeing no other way around it, after observing as the baka had eaten handfuls of grass, Sesshoumaru had stopped at a stream near the area where InuYasha was hiding, and he’d made sure that the pup had seen him catch a fish that he’d proceeded to eat, raw, simply so that he’d learn without Sesshoumaru having to demean himself by showing InuYasha in a more straight-forward way.

It had seemed strange to him, too, when he’d seen that his half-brother had taken to cooking his food once the miko had started traveling with him, though, in hindsight, he supposed that was more for her benefit, as well as their other human companions, than it was for InuYasha.

All of that aside, there was something about the mountain that made him feel thirst more acutely, and that was something he couldn’t simply ignore, either.

Standing up again, he slowly looked around.  The fog, he’d noticed, tended to be a little thinner by water.  Where it hung so thick in some areas that he couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead of him, here, it was more of a thin veil, though the moisture still seemed to permeate everything, making his clothing damp and clingy . . .

And he hated the sensation that he was being watched.  It felt unnatural, given that there were no living creatures on the mountain.  No, it felt more like the mist itself was probing him, trying to infiltrate his very mind, and when he listened closely, he could hear the rush of whispers—none of them discernable—like a thousand voices or more, talking in hushed tones.  They were like the voices he’d heard when he was attacked in Yomi . . . But these voices . . .

He was starting to comprehend the idea that those who sought the heart might well have ended up, going mad . . . Hadn’t he so foolishly and arrogantly believed that he was above that sort of thing?  And yet, he, too, could feel the very edges of his psyche, starting to fray.  He wasn’t near madness, but he could . . . could begin to understand how someone with a lesser constitution might well give in to it.

Heading away from the water, he meant to resume his search, but as he passed under the low hanging branches of a weeping cherry tree, his empty sleeve caught—and pulled against him.  Glancing down at the branch that had ensnared his clothing, he frowned.  It looked like a gnarled old fist.

“You . . . Who are you?”

Shifting his gaze to the side, meeting the eyes of a cypress-youkai as the face emerged from the gnarled trunk of the bent and misshapen tree, Sesshoumaru ignored the demand to provide his name.  “Let go of me,” he said, quietly, no less forcefully, his voice a low rumble in the otherwise stillness.

The tree held tight to his sleeve.  “You are searching for the heart, are you not?  I could help you . . .”

“Know you where the cave lies?”

“Lies?  Fallacies?  Untruths . . . That is all you will find here, inu-youkai . . .”

“The cave,” Sesshoumaru reiterated.  “Where is it?”

The tree laughed.  “There is no cave—no heart!” he wheezed.  “No cave, no heart . . . No cave, no heart!”

He could feel the approaching branches, long and slender like vines, and he didn’t have to look to verify it.  It was as simple as feeling the area within his youki—a skill he’d learned well over the years.  With every one that crept closer, the scent of the cherry blossoms grew thicker, headier, creating a haze in his mind—almost a sense of bemusement.

‘Sesshoumaru, be careful . . . That tree’s trying to drug you . . .’

He didn’t need the warning, flashing his claws as the vines tried to snake around his wrist, around his ankles, his legs.

“So hungry . . .” the tree moaned, almost whimpered, as more branches closed in, faster now.

Sesshoumaru cut them down, too.  Tree-youkai didn’t eat, taking their nourishment in the same way as regular trees.  That this one seemed to think otherwise only proved just how corrupt the mountain was.

A third round of runner vines closed in fast, but not nearly fast enough to catch him.  With a flash of metal, Sesshoumaru whipped Tokijin from the scabbard on his hip, neatly severing them in one efficient slash.

The tree-youkai shrieked in anger, the entire trunk, leaning toward him with a hellacious crack and groan.  It meant to try to overwhelm him.  Sesshoumaru narrowed his eyes, swung Tokijin, cutting the tree in half in one mighty blow.  The shriek shifted into a caterwaul that echoed through the sentient forest.  Then it slowly faded, died away, as a sudden flash of blinding light, of unnatural wind erupted around him, as the weeping-cherry-tree-youkai’s aged body disintegrated into harmless dust.

‘Another’s jyaki to add to the mist . . .’

Sesshoumaru said nothing as he resheathed his sword and walked away.

“Sesshoumaru . . . Fancy meeting you here.”

Stepping out of the dense forest, his gaze lazily trained upon the wily wind-sorceress, Sesshoumaru said nothing to acknowledge her.

“Let me guess: you were looking for Naraku, right?”

“Perhaps, but he wouldn’t be so brave as to appear, out in the open, would he?”  Sesshoumaru asked, his voice, rumbling softly in the night stillness, almost a sneer—almost.

Kagura laughed.  It was a warm, almost sultry kind of sound that rippled over him like the fingers of the breeze.  He ignored it.  “I can feel it in the wind,” she said, her voice, taking on a rather sad kind of lilt.  “I think . . . I think it will all be over soon.”

“And will you battle against me?”

Her smile turned a little ironic, her skin, tinted a melancholy shade of blue in the burgeoning night.  “I will battle against everyone.”

“Only if you’re strong enough to survive.”

She laughed again, and then, she sighed.  “I apologize if you’re disappointed that you didn’t find Naraku instead of me,” she quipped, but she sounded entirely amused.

“I knew it was you,” he admitted, striding past her.

He was traveling, on his way to visit Totosai, the ancient swordsmith.  He’d seen InuYasha recently in the tomb of their father, had witnessed Tetsusaiga as it had absorbed the power of the kongosouha from Hosenki, and he wanted some answers about it.  That he’d happened across Kagura along the way was mere happenstance . . . or maybe . . . Maybe it wasn’t . . .

He could feel her gaze upon him as he strode away.  Her voice stopped him.  “Sesshoumaru . . .”

He didn’t turn around to face her, but he did peer over his shoulder at her.  Something about the far-away look in her eyes, the almost sad sort of smile that touched her lips . . . Just what was she thinking? he wondered.

She took her time, shuffling over to him, her bare feet, whispering in the cool, damp grass.  She stopped beside him, her face tilting upward, staring at the stars so high above.  “Are you my enemy?”

For some reason, her question caught him off guard, but he only paused a moment before replying.  “Of course, I am.”

“Will you kill me, then?  Send a message to Naraku in that way?”

“That would serve no purpose.  He ought to know already that he will never escape me.”

She laughed again, and this time, she neatly whipped a feather out of her hair, tossing it up over her head.  It enlarged with a gust of wind as she hopped atop it and flew away into the night.

Her husky laughter trailed behind him long after she was out of his sight.

Blinking away the lingering memory, Sesshoumaru sat down on a large and rotting tree.  As loathe as he was to admit it, he was growing weary from the days of endless searching.

Almost four weeks, he’d spent, combing over every inch of the mountainside, only to find nothing.

Just why was he still looking?

There was no easy answer for that particular question.

“Sesshoumaru-sama?  Is that you . . .?  It is!  It is you!”

Blinking, almost sure that he had to be hearing things, Sesshoumaru narrowed his gaze as he looked down, only to see as Myouga, InuYasha’s retainer and a flea-youkai, landed upon his knee.  “Myouga,” he said, his voice almost rusty-sounding after so many weeks of no actual use.

“This seems like an odd place to find you,” Myouga remarked.  “What brings you here, of all places?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” Sesshoumaru countered dryly.

Myouga hopped up and down.  “InuYasha-sama is gone!  Sango and Miroku tell me—”

“I know,” Sesshoumaru cut in.  “He followed the miko.  Now, tell me why you are here.  Kiriyama seems an odd place for one such as you.”

The flea chuckled.  “Well, you’re right.  Ordinarily, I avoid this mountain.  It feels so . . . unnatural, but I . . . I wanted to speak with your father, and he feels closest here.”

Sesshoumaru frowned.  “Speak to chichiue?  Why here, of all places?”

Myouga’s seemingly good spirits died, and he slowly shook his head.  “Because this is where he died,” he said.  “So close, and yet . . .”

“Chichiue did not die here,” Sesshoumaru interrupted coldly.  “He died in that human castle—InuYasha’s mother’s home.”

“Oh, but he didn’t,” Myouga said.  “I went there after the fire—after the castle collapsed.  I found him unconscious among the rubble and the still-smoldering embers, but I woke him up.  Make no mistake, he was gravely injured, and he considered, going to find Izayoi-sama, to spend his last bit of time with her and InuYasha-sama, but he’d thought that maybe, if he could find the Heart of Kiriyama . . .”

“So, he wished to barter for his life with Izanami no Mikoto,” Sesshoumaru concluded.  “But he did not find it.”

Myouga sighed, tiny shoulders drooping as a melancholy washed over him.  “He could not get it, no . . . How he managed to move his body still amazes me now.  He had lost an arm, had innumerable wounds, both from Ryukotsusei as well as from the castle guard . . . and the castle, collapsing on him . . .”

Sesshoumaru considered that for a moment and slowly nodded.  It made sense.  Sesshoumaru had gone looking for him when he’d heard of the battle at Izayoi’s father’s castle, but he couldn’t find him, and now, he knew why.  “Chichiue died here . . . I see . . .”

Again, Myouga sighed, only this one seemed more resigned than anything.  “There he was, at the threshold of the cave, and his body . . . just gave out.  He said he had to rest a moment, but he never opened his eyes again . . . His body dissolved in a storm of light and wind . . . and he was gone.”

Sesshoumaru stopped dead, frowned at the retainer, who looked entirely inconsolable.  “Then the heart . . . You know where it is?”

The sadness in the flea-youkai’s aura faded, only to be replaced by a thoughtful kind of concentration, as though he was trying to remember.  “Well, it’s been a long time.  Maybe the guardian moved it, but . . .”

“The guardian?  There is one?  Tell me, why have I not sensed this guardian?”

“Because it’s not alive,” Myouga replied simply.

Not alive?  Just what did that mean?  Surely no one from Yomi would have been tasked with such a thing.  After all, once one died, there was no coming back . . .

“Show me,” he said, standing abruptly, ignoring the holler when the flea fell to the ground.

Myouga bounced up onto the metal spikes of Sesshoumaru’s armor.  “The cave is up there,” he said, pointing up the side of the mountain.  “Not too far.  It’s hidden by a barrier, but if you are looking at it just as the line between daylight and darkness falls, you will see the outline and thus can you enter.”

Hidden?  It explained a lot . . .

“Tell me, Sesshoumaru-sama, if I might ask.  Why do you seek the Heart of Kiriyama?”

“I have my reasons,” he replied.  The flea heaved a loud, long-suffering sigh, and fell silent.

Standing back, scowling at the rock wall that looked entirely solid, Sesshoumaru deliberated the idea of squashing the flea between his fingers for feeding him misinformation if he was wrong about the location of the cave after all.

“Myouga.”

“Yes?”

&# 8220;If the cave is not here, I will kill you,” he promised.

Myouga squeaked indignantly.  “I tell you, it’s here—unless the guardian moved it!”

“And yet, I sense nothing—nothing at all.  If you have wasted my time—led me astray, you . . .” Sesshoumaru started to respond, but he trailed off when the rocks suddenly seemed to glow just a little—just for the vaguest moment.

“Quick, Sesshoumaru-sama!  Quick, go through before it closes!”

Striding through the barrier into the dank and solidly black cavern, he blinked at the solitary beam of stingy light that filtered through a hole on the far side of the rounded chamber.  It didn’t reach the floor, so far below, the shaft of brightness slowly fading as it descended until all that was left was the blackened void once more.

He said nothing as he slowly strode forward, narrowing his eyes as he struggled to see in the darkness.  No, it was more than darkness.  Even in darkness, there were vague sorts of shapes, shadows upon shadows.  In this?  It was . . . negated . . .

As he stepped into the middle of the cave, though, he stopped as torches, affixed to the cavern walls, suddenly sprang to life.  The chamber was empty—entirely empty, and oddly lacking of the permeating fog.  No furnishings, no altars, no pedestals—nothing that gave indication that this was the place he’d been searching for, and yet, he could feel it—the presence of something that was neither good nor was it evil, neither malignant nor pure . . .

Where was the Heart of Kiriyama?

He started to step forward once more, but he stopped.  All around him, sliding over the humble stone floor, came the mist.  It rolled past him, effusing the chamber with the faintest sense of foreboding, but something about it . . . It felt different from the rest of the mist . . . Before him, the prevalent fog swirled, seeming to pull together, to grow taller as it condensed into a very vague and fuzzy outline of a being.

“I am the guardian of the Heart of Kiriyama . . . Who are you?”

The voice seemed to echo around the space but did not sound like one that came from any kind of corporeal body.  It was more of a harsh whisper than a tone—dry and papery, like autumn leaves, dancing across the frozen ground . . .

“I am Sesshoumaru,” he replied.  “I’ve come to take the heart.”

The mist laughed.  The sound of it grated against Sesshoumaru’s nerves.  “You must earn it,” the voice told him.  “If you do not, then you die here.”

“Do you mean to say that no one has managed to take it?  That everyone who has sought it has died?”

A strange rumble filled the air around him—a scoff, maybe . . . “None of them were worthy of it.  Tell me, why do you wish to possess it?”

Sesshoumaru reached across his body, grasped the hilt of Tokijin, but he did not draw the sword.  “My reasons are my own.”

“Let go of your weapon, Sesshoumaru.  Fighting will avail you nothing here.”

He didn’t move his hand.

The disembodied voice laughed again—a haughty sound, as though it had seen all of this before.  “That is an interesting sword . . . Tenseiga, is it?  The sword of life?”

“Yes,” Sesshoumaru replied.  “What of it?”

The entity slowly seemed to nod.  “Will you offer it to me in exchange for the Heart of Kiriyama?”

“No,” Sesshoumaru said.  “I offer you nothing.  You’ll give me the heart, and I’ll be on my way.”

The rumble of laughter again . . . “No, you must barter for the heart.  That which is of great value is never given for free.  If you will not offer your sword, then you must offer me something else—something worthy of the trade.”

Something about the way the voice spoke . . . What was it that the guardian wanted . . .?  “What would that be?”

“Tell me why you want it.  The truth or you die.”

“You said I had to earn it, then you say I must barter for it,” Sesshoumaru pointed out.  “Which is it?”

“Can they not be one in the same?  Or are you so arrogant that you believe that all should fall to your sway?”

Bristling at the self-righteous guardian, Sesshoumaru’s grip tightened on Tokijin as he gritted his teeth and willed himself to be calm.  “I want—need—the heart to correct a mistake.”

“A mistake?”  The guardian suddenly laughed that nasty laugh once more.  “Are you dying?”

“Dying?  This Sesshoumaru?  No.”

“Then tell me of this mistake.”
“I don’t have time to—”

The entity unleashed a harsh gale, a roughened growl.  “On the contrary, Sesshoumaru.  You have nothing but time if you want my treasure.  Do you wish for the heart so that you can be reckless?  So that you can go and wage war without the fear of death, hovering over you?  Do you wish to possess it so that you can stand before Izanami no Mikoto and trade your miserable existence for it?  To squeeze out another few paltry years, be they decades or centuries—to me, it is all for nothing!”

“I fear nothing like that,” Sesshoumaru insisted.  “I am not so easily killed.”

The being seemed to be amused by his reply, even though Sesshoumaru couldn’t rightfully say why he felt that way.  “Then why?  If you say you do not wish for it for yourself, then you must tell me why . . . And again, I say, true answers or die now.”

His gut reaction was to fight the guardian, and maybe that would have been simpler.  It was how he had always lived his life.  Fight his enemies, vanquish them . . . Being forced to do anything . . . Well, it simply did not settle well with him . . .

“There was one who . . . who died in my place,” he ground out, angry that he was being forced to entertain these questions—angry that he was allowing it to be so.  “I would not have died, but she . . . She did.”

“A woman?  You want the heart to restore a woman—your woman?”

“I—” Eyes flaring wider as the crux of the question slowly sank in, Sesshoumaru had to force himself to speak again.  “I know not, but she . . . She should not have died.”

“And you are one with the ability to say what should or should not have been?”

“I am not that presumptuous, but . . . but I know that she should not have, yes.”

It seemed to him that the guardian was quiet for far too long.  Did it think he was lying?  Was it trying to figure out, whether or not Sesshoumaru was speaking the truth?  The guardian’s foggy form wavered back and forth, almost as though it was resonating with something that Sesshoumaru could not see.  Suddenly, though, the mist glided forward, surrounded him, seemed to be pressing in on him on all sides.  His first instinct was to warn it away, but he ignored that impulse, reminding himself silently that he had to get the heart . . .

He could feel the mist as it invaded the recesses of his body, his mind, his memories.  It felt like an eternity as he stood his ground, as he fought the impulse to struggle against the assault.  Finally, however, the mist receded, scooting over to congeal before him once more.

“You need the heart to barter with Izanami,” it concluded.

“Yes.”

It sighed.  “Others have come here, have stood before me, trying to convince me that they wished for the stone for such an altruistic purpose, and when I probed their minds, it was to find that they lied.  Always after power, always searching for a way to squeeze out just one more day of walking in the light.  You . . . You are the first who wishes to have the heart, solely for someone else’s sake, but it’s strange.  You, who holds little in the way of compassion for others, though you are learning . . . You, who would rather fight than to question yourself—or to answer those questions, even unto yourself . . . You, who possesses the potential but not the desire to achieve great things, terrible things . . . or nothing . . . I grant you the Heart of Kiriyama, Sesshoumaru.”

Sesshoumaru watched as the mist seemed to condense, drawing in upon itself, spinning like a cyclone as it grew smaller and tighter.  With a flash of light, a loud rattle, the mass fell to the ground.  It teetered, wobbled a few times, before finally stilling.

Sesshoumaru strode forward, picked it up.  It was smooth, cool, like a stone, but small enough to be held in the palm of his hand, and as he rolled it slightly, the stone seemed to reshape itself as the mist inside swirled and undulated, emanating a soft light—a warm light . . .

He stared at it for a long moment.  Then he stuck it into his armor, right next to Kagura’s feather, and he turned to go.