InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Zero ❯ Onward ( Chapter 13 )

The sound of the blade, slicing through the air, whirred around Sesshoumaru’s brain as Jester spun the staff-part of the rather fearsome-looking and razor-sharp scythe that Totosai had just delivered.  It was a little ridiculous, as far as he could tell, but it would do, he supposed—unless Sesshoumaru decided to toss it away since Jester couldn’t seem to stop fidgeting with it . . .

“If you cut me with that, I’ll send you back to Yomi,” Sesshoumaru warned.

Jester chuckled, but the whirring blade stilled.  “Just what am I supposed to do with this?” he queried, but he sounded pleased enough.

“Use it to defend yourself,” Sesshoumaru replied.

“Isn’t that what you’re here for?”

Sesshoumaru uttered a very terse grunt.  “No.”

For some reason, his response only served to make the entity laugh.  “We’ve got to work on your people skills, Sesshou,” he remarked.

The shortened version of his name brought him up short.  It had been centuries since anyone had dared to use that, and even then, he did not welcome it, especially when the last one who had felt familiar enough to do so was long, long gone . . .

If Jester realized that he’d managed to irritate him, however, he gave no indication.  “You’re entirely too serious for your own good, you know.”

Opting to ignore the current line of conversation, Sesshoumaru brushed aside the acute irritation that had surged through him at the use of the too-familiar form of address.  “Totosai seemed to know you.”

His statement drew an abrupt end to Jester’s misplaced amusement.  Turning his face upward, as though he were studying the skies, he deliberately took his time before answering, “Well, that old codger seems a little off-kilter, if you ask me.  Maybe he confused me with someone else.”

“Or maybe he did not.”

Jester didn’t argue that.  Truthfully, Sesshoumaru didn’t care, per se.  After all, Totosai had been alive for a long, long time, and there likely weren’t many that the old youkai didn’t know—or at least, know of.

No, the truth of it was that Sesshoumaru just couldn’t quite shake the rest of what the swordsmith had said, and it was of far greater interest to him than just who Jester was before he’d died . . .

“Well, for starters, your . . . your uncle tried to gather those things long ago . . . Wanted me to use them to forge a powerful sword that could rival your father’s Tetsusaiga . . . That’s how he died, you know . . . Died, trying to retrieve the ward in the north.  Fool of a dog tried to force his way through the barrier.”

His mother’s brother, was it?

That was interesting.

Too bad Sesshoumaru himself didn’t really remember this uncle of his.  Vague memories, at best, but even those weren’t the strongest.  He couldn’t even remember his name, and his face was nothing at all but a blur in the recesses of his memory.  He was little more than a pup the last time he’d seen his uncle—he thought.  He didn’t remember him, dying, either—if he had even been told, in the first place . . .

According to Totosai, that uncle had died, trying to breech the barrier that surrounded the Northern Ward . . . A purification barrier akin to the one that had been erected on Hakurei-zan . . .? If that were the case, then Sesshoumaru would have to figure out how to get through it, too, because giving up was simply not an option . . .

‘That barrier might well pose the biggest obstacle of them all.  If it was strong enough to kill oji-san, then it’s nothing to scoff at, and even you ought to know that it won’t matter, how strong or powerful you might well be.  If it’s a spiritual barrier, then there will be no passing through it.’

‘I realize that much,’ he thought, his gaze taking on a steely glint.  ‘I do not have a choice.  I must find a way past it.’

‘If you were InuYasha, you might be able to breech it.  He was able to force his way through the barrier on Hakurei-zan, wasn’t he?  Just how did he do that?’

‘As though I’d care, what that miserable half-breed did back then,’ he scoffed, temper flickering to life at the mere thought of his idiot half-brother.

‘Be that as it may, he did find a way to get past that damned barrier—something you’re going to have to figure out, too, so, instead of getting all irritated at the mere mention of your baby brother’s name, maybe you ought to focus on how he was able to do it, in the first place.’

He didn’t reply to that.  There wasn’t really anything to say, and more importantly, he really should focus upon the task before him.  He still had two wards he could get before he had to deal with the issue the barrier presented, and he’d figure it out, too.

“Is there a reason why you suddenly look like you want to rip something to shreds?  Well, more than you usually do, anyway . . .”

He didn’t glance at Jester, either.  “It’s nothing,” he lied, mostly because he just didn’t feel like delving into it any deeper than he already had.

“You know, you really need to work on those expressions you get on your face,” Jester went on casually, as though he were discussing the weather.  “I mean, you honestly look like you’re contemplating someone’s imminent demise.”

“Yours,” Sesshoumaru shot back in a rather matter-of-fact tone.

“Except you can’t kill me,” Jester pointed out with a good-natured chuckle.

“I don’t really need your assistance,” Sesshoumaru pointed out.  “It isn’t as though you’ve been of much help thus far, anyway.”

Jester snorted and shook his head.  “No, I mean that you can’t kill someone who is already dead,” he quipped.  Before Sesshoumaru could reply to that, however, the entity whipped the handle of the scythe once more, and this time, the tip of the blade managed to cut through a few strands of Sesshoumaru’s hair.  “Oops.”

“You realize that isn’t a toy, don’t you?”

“I’m trying to get a feel for it,” Jester said.  “Can’t say I’ve ever used something like this before . . .”

In one fluid motion, Sesshoumaru yanked Tokijin from the sash at his waist and swung around.  Pure reflex moved Jester, and, with a flash of his arms, he blocked the blade easily enough.  Sesshoumaru narrowed his eyes, but gave one curt nod, satisfied that Jester did, indeed, possess some sort of skill, no matter what he’d claimed.

“Were you really going to lop my head off?” Jester asked as Sesshoumaru slipped Tokijin back under the sash once more.

“Only if you were too slow to stop me,” he replied simply.

Jester grunted.

“But if you’re already dead, couldn’t you just . . . put your head back on, Jester-sama?” Aoizoku asked.

“Well, probably,” Jester said.  “Then again, I’d rather not test the theory.”

“I’ve never tried to reattach someone’s head before, but I could probably do it,” she went on.

“You’re very useful, did you know?”

This time, Sesshoumaru pursed his lips and resumed his trek once more, resolved to ignore the inane chatter of his travel companions as he wondered yet again if he really, truly needed to bring them both along with him . . .

“Youkai!” ;

Sesshoumaru frowned as he stopped on the narrow road that wound around the outskirts of what appeared to be a small village in the distance.  The human man who had raised the alarm dropped the huge basket as he turned and ran toward that village, screaming as he went.  The others he met in passing reacted in much the same way, dropping whatever they were carrying and running as though the devil himself was hot on their trails.

“I take it that these people haven’t had much experience in the way of dealings with local youkai,” Jester mused, more to himself than to Sesshoumaru or Aoizoku.

“Do you think they’re going to cause trouble?” Aoizoku fretted, wringing her hands, shifting her weight from one foot to the other in a decidedly nervous fashion.

“If they are wise, they won’t,” Sesshoumaru muttered, making no move to keep going as he watched the growing group of men, running down the path toward the one hut well away from the rest of the village.  A moment later, a larger being stepped out of the hut—a tall and gangly creature—but even from the distance, Sesshoumaru could feel his youki . . . But . . .

‘Hanyou,’ Sesshoumaru thought.  ‘Interesting . . .’

And the three stood still.  Aoizoku hid well behind Sesshoumaru and Jester as the group of humans, led by the larger hanyou, crossed through the fields, making no bones about it as they headed straight toward them.  None of them held anything resembling any kind of weaponry, and the humans all stopped well before the hanyou did.

“My neighbors would like to know who you are and what you want,” the stranger asked, though not unkindly, despite the obvious reservation in his aura.

Sesshoumaru blinked slowly as he sized him up.  Earth, most certainly, and chosen to speak for the group of them because of what he was, no doubt.

“We are simply passing through,” Jester replied when Sesshoumaru offered no explanation.  “We’re on our way to the Road of Hell.”

“The Road of Hell?” the hanyou echoed, already bulbous eyes, widening even more.  “It’s a dangerous pass.”

“We’re searching for the Fire of Wrath, rumored to be located, deep in the Valley of Fire,” Jester added.

“None who have ventured that deep into the Valley of Fire has ever come out alive,” one of the humans piped up.

The hanyou frowned thoughtfully as he stared at Sesshoumaru.  Finally, though, he shook his head.  “I . . . I don’t know why, but you . . . Something about your youki reminds me of InuYasha, but your scent . . . It’s vaguely familiar to me . . .”

He couldn’t help the instant bristling at the mere mention of his half-brother’s name, though he managed to tamp down the irritation quickly enough.  “That baka is my half-brother,” Sesshoumaru allowed in a tone that should have served as warning enough that InuYasha wasn’t exactly his favorite topic of discussion.

“InuYasha?” one of the men murmured, turning to eye the rest of the group.  “Oh, that hanyou!  The silver haired one who traveled with that strangely-clad miko . . .”

A general rumble of agreement and recognition passed through the crowd.

“The little girl,” the hanyou suddenly exclaimed.  “The one who sought the sennensou berries for her youkai friend . . . I smelled your scent on her clothes . . .”

“Rin,” he said.  He did indeed remember that.  He’d barely managed to catch the girl as she fell from the cliff after she retrieved the medicinal herb for Jaken, who had been poisoned by the venom of the saimyoushou.  “And you are . . .?”

“I am Jinenji,” he replied.  “You . . .?”

Jester sighed under his breath.  “He is Sesshoumaru.  I’m Jester, and this,” he said, jerking his head toward the rear, ‘is Aoizoku.”

Jinenji nodded politely before he finally shook his head.  “I’ve not heard of this Fire of Wrath,” he said slowly, “but if you’re going to the Valley of Fire, allow me to make a tincture for you.  It . . . It should help you, should you breathe in the lava fog.  It’s toxic, even to youkai.”

“And why would you offer such a thing?” Sesshoumaru asked.

Jinenji smiled slightly, almost shyly.  “InuYasha helped me,” he replied simply enough.  “I would like to return the kindness in some small way.”

“So, the little girl . . . She’s your pet?”

“She is my ward,” Sesshoumaru corrected dryly.

Jinenji’s mother cackled loudly, the old woman, pausing in her task of stacking wood beside the small hut.  “If that’s what you wanna call it,” she shot back pleasantly—abrasively.

Sesshoumaru held his commentary.

Jester and Aoizoku were in the hut, talking with Jinenji as he created the tincture, while Sesshoumaru had opted to remain outside where he’d hoped to be left alone.  He had been until the old woman had come outside . . .

“What’s your brother up to these days?  Haven’t seen him around these parts in a while,” she went on, seemingly unaware of Sesshoumaru’s desire to be alone.

“Half-brother,” Sesshoumaru replied tightly.  “I would not know.”

“Ah, well, if you see him, tell him to stop in if he’s in the area,” she went on, entirely oblivious to the irritation in Sesshoumaru’s otherwise dry tone.  “He’s a little rough around the edges, but he’s a decent one.”

“Jinenji said that he helped to prove that another youkai was troubling your village,” Jester remarked as he stepped out of the hut.

“That he did,” the old woman agreed.  “They blamed Jinenji for killing and eating some the villagers, but it weren’t him.  He was going to help defeat the beast, but I wouldn’t let him. Jinenji needed to learn how to do for himself, but InuYasha’s help was invaluable.”

“I’m sure Sesshoumaru will let him know when he sees him,” Jester replied, stepping forward, letting his gaze sweep over the landscape.  “This place . . . The plants are amazing here,” he said slowly, thoughtfully.

“That’s all Jinenji.  He’s got a way with them.  Always has,” she said.  “Got it from his father.”

Jester chuckled.  “I imagine that he did.”

“Jinenji says you’re heading for the Valley of Fire through the Road of Hell,” she said, bracing her hands against the small of her back and grimacing as she stretched.  “It’s a dangerous place.”

“We’re looking for the Fire of Wrath,” Jester told her.  “Have you heard of it?”

Letting out a deep breath, she crossed her arms over her chest, her gaze taking on a far-away kind of contemplation.  “The Fire of Wrath . . . I can’t say I have . . .”

“The Fire of Wrath,” Jinenji mused as he stepped outside.  He had to hunch his shoulders inward, stooping down to clear the small doorway, but the straightened his back once he did.  “It sounded familiar to me the first time you mentioned it, and then, I remembered.  My pa mentioned it to me a few times . . . It’s another name for the fire flower.”

“The . . . fire flower . . .” Sesshoumaru mumbled under his breath as another voice echoed in the annals of his mind.

“He said they only grow in the Valley of Fire between the Gale Mountains and the Blue Depths.”

“I’ve never been there,” Jinenji went on thoughtfully, entirely unaware of the quiet voice that still echoed in the confines of Sesshoumaru’s mind, “but Pa said it grows in the one valley between the three great lava geysers, but it only blooms on the night of the summer solstice—that you must sear the stem in the lava after you’ve picked it or it will wither away to ash within minutes—so if you want it, then you need to hurry.”

Hovering over the unwelcoming terrain that was otherwise known as the Road of Hell, Sesshoumaru could feel the myriad of eyes, of creatures that lurked in the shadows.  Whether they were trying to size him up or if they were simply waiting for an opportunity to present itself, he didn’t know and didn’t rightfully care, either.  Those lesser-youkai were of no real concern to him, but the sheer number of them was enough to warrant a little more attention.  If they were to work together, then it might present a bit of a problem—if they were intelligent enough to do so.

“We’re being watched.”

Sesshoumaru uttered a curt sound to indicate that he’d heard Jester’s rather quiet words.  The entity did not shift his gaze, either, nor did he look particularly alarmed.  He’d come to the same conclusion that Sesshoumaru had.

At least, in this, they didn’t have the added trouble of looking after Aoizoku since she had chosen to stay behind at Jinenji’s farm, at least, for now, so it was just the two of them, and, given the situation, it would make dealing with these vermin a lot simpler, should it come to that.  As it was, time was a definite factor, so if they didn’t bother him, then he supposed he would ignore them, too. Tomorrow night would be the summer solstice, and, if what Jinenji had said were true, then it was the one chance he had to find and pick that flower . . .

“Do you think it was safe to leave Aoizoku with Jinenji and his mother?” Jester finally asked, giving voice to the question that Sesshoumaru figured he’d been pondering since they’d taken their leave of the hanyou’s farm.

“It was what she wished,” Sesshoumaru replied simply.

“You don’t suppose she likes Jinenji, do you?”

Blinking away the blackness of his own thoughts, Sesshoumaru increased his gait and didn’t reply.

Jester chuckled.  “Or maybe she does.  Come to think of it, it wouldn’t surprise me.  After all, she spent so much time as a tree . . .”

“You have the most curious sense of humor,” Sesshoumaru remarked.

“Think it’s funny, do you?” Jester quipped.

Sesshoumaru grunted.  “Keep it to yourself.”

Jester heaved a melodramatic sigh.  “Somehow, I feel as though you just don’t appreciate it as much as I do.”

Lighting on the ground in a smallish but clearer area than most of the road, Sesshoumaru spared a moment to pin Jester with a very dry glance.  “Your ridiculous sense of humor got you killed, didn’t it?”

Jester choked on a loud guffaw of laughter, leaning heavily upon the scythe as he doubled over, as the sounds of his misplaced amusement filled the air.  “Kami, you?” he gasped out when he finally managed to get a hold of himself.  “You’re making jokes?  I never thought I’d see that . . . That was a pretty good one, too . . .”

“I don’t know if I would say it was a joke as much as an educated guess as to how, exactly, you died,” Sesshoumaru replied.

Jester’s amusement finally, mercifully, wound down, and he straightened his back, a good-natured smile still gracing his features—the ones that Sesshoumaru could see, anyway.  “No, but . . . but it would have been preferable, I guess.  I mean, to die while laughing would be a far sight better than dying with regrets still lingering in one’s mind.”

“You died with regrets?”

Jester shrugged as the last remnants of his amusement finally faded away.  “Everyone does,” he remarked quietly, in a tone that Sesshoumaru hadn’t heard from him before.  “It’s the nature of death . . . to think of the things you should have done, the people you should have spoken to, just one last time . . . The things you might have said, given the chance, and knowing in your soul that you will never have that opportunity again.  So, you spend time after death, wondering if those you left behind really understood the wisdom you’d tried to impart through life, and you hope, but it’s a hollow hope.  It’s tempered by the realization that, even if you did the best you could, it might well not have been enough . . .”

He started to open his mouth to reply, but snapped it closed as the feel of a thousand or more youki pressed in closer around them.  Those little fire imps—some that greatly resembled Jaken, others a little more grotesque in shape and body, others larger, some smaller . . . The growing rattle of their countless voices, like chirps of crickets in the evening still . . .

Without a word, Sesshoumaru yanked Tokijin free, slammed it, point down, into the hardened and cracked earth, sending out a blue shockwave that drove the creatures back with screams and shrieks and hollers.    

Jester hopped away, as though he wished to give Sesshoumaru some room, even as the whistle of the scythe cut through the din created by the army of fire-imps.  Another collective wail filled the air as the reek of blood filled Sesshoumaru’s nose.

On they came, pouring forth from the craggy rocks that rose on either side of the narrow trail, closing in from ahead and behind—innumerable—as vast as the sea.  With every swing of Tokijin, Sesshoumaru cut down tens—hundreds—of the little vermin, and yet, they still swarmed as thick as ever.  The malignance in their youki, the hate in their eyes, in their very auras . . .

“How many of these are there?” Jester hollered, his voice, barely registering over the collective din.

Sesshoumaru grunted, unleashing a series of energy balls that blazed a path straight through them.  “Come!” he yelled back, dashing through the valley of the imps on the path he’d forged, firing off more energy balls to keep the way cleared.  He could feel Jester behind him, and that was good enough.  They didn’t have time to waste, battling with the imps.

“Sesshoumaru!”

Skidding to an abrupt halt when Jester’s hand on his shoulder stopped him, Sesshoumaru turned, just in time to watch as the imps seemed to divide, to suddenly gather into huge piles, climbing up each other’s bodies into small humps that grew into larger hills, almost totems . . .

Six of them, well over twenty-feet tall, and those imp piles . . .

Their bodies merged, morphed, seemed to pull together into huge oni—fire-oni . . .

Their collective roars were enough to send tremors, shockwaves, deep in the ground, unseating landslides of rocks and boulders and dirt, cascading down the high cliff walls.  Sesshoumaru pushed off the ground, just in time to avoid being crushed under a huge boulder.

The nearest oni swung at him.  He lopped off the appendage with a flash of Tokijin as the oni screeched in rage and pain.  The blood that poured from the severed arm was blackened, sullied by darkness and the venom that lived in this valley.  A moment later, and a flick of the energy whip, Sesshoumaru decimated the oni in a blast of wind, an explosion of rock and sand and blood . . .

Down below, in a flash of yellow light, Jester managed to cut off the leg of one of the oni.  It fell with a heavy and massive thud as the entity leapt up, sliced the oni’s head off with a clean sweep of the scythe.

Lighting on the ground, he spun around, swinging Tokijin, firing off a blast of bright blue lightning that shot across the surface of the land, only to explode as it hit another of the giant oni who shrieked and fell and crumpled to earth once more.

Glancing over his shoulder, he spotted Jester, embedding the blade of the scythe deep into another of the oni’s skulls and dragging it straight down, cutting the beast open from top to bottom.

The oni before him stomped the ground, setting off another surge of violent tremors.  Sesshoumaru started to leap off the ground, only to grunt when one of the oni behind him, dealt him a good, hard swat that rattled straight through him.  Grunting again as though the oni shot a shockwave of fire straight through his body, Sesshoumaru felt the flames sear through him, settling in his very bones, setting off a pain the likes of which he’d never felt before.  Slamming into the rock edifice with such force that he couldn’t move, it took a moment for him to shake off the effects of the stunning blow, of the strange surge of malignant fire energy that seemed to cling to him.  Something about it had numbed Sesshoumaru’s arm, his legs, but he forced himself, braced his body, shoved himself away from the wall, but he couldn’t stay aloft.  Grimacing as he landed rather unceremoniously on the ground, he barely managed to stretch out his hand as a wild and uncontrolled spray of acidic poison jettisoned from his claws, showering the oni that was bearing down on him.  It screeched and flailed, toppling backward as the acid ate away at it . . .

He could feel the rapid and thundering approach behind him, yet his body wouldn’t cooperate.  As hard as he tried to force himself back to his feet once more, the effects of the oni’s fire blast hadn’t worn off.  Peering over his shoulder, he saw the oni closing in as he tried yet again to get his body to move.

Suddenly, though, the flash of brilliant white light, the gust of unnatural wind . . . Sesshoumaru barely turned his face away in time to avoid the debris that suddenly filled the air.  The oni’s shriek cut off abruptly as its body exploded in a rain of pebbles and dirt . . .

“Summer solstice is tomorrow night,” Jester said as the two of them strode into the rocky terrain of the scant trail otherwise known as the Road of Hell.  “We should make it—barely.”

“We have time.”

“And you’re sure you’re all right now?”

Sesshoumaru didn’t respond to that, other than to offer a very curt grunt.

Jester nodded slowly, but he seemed thoughtful.  For a long moment, he didn’t speak, opting instead to inspect the path ahead.

In truth, Sesshoumaru still felt a little stiff, could feel the ache that the fire had caused, deep in his very bones, but the initial numbness had worn off, and that was good enough.  He should have paid better attention.  Allowing himself to be caught even slightly off-guard by the likes of those miserable oni?  It was careless, and he knew it.  After all, the Valley of Fire was dangerous, especially since they were taking this road.  It was the only true entrance to the valley since the only other trail lead ultimately to the gates of Yomi.

This path . . .

It had been a long time since he’d ventured into the Valley of Fire.

‘That’s right . . . You haven’t been this way since—’

‘I don’t care to talk about that,’ he interrupted sharply.

‘Will you ever care to?  I doubt that.  It was a long, long time ago.’

‘Exactly why it does not matter now.’

‘It wasn’t really your fault, you know.  You don’t believe that, but it’s true.’

Sesshoumaru ignored that.  He knew the truth better than anyone.  He was there, and it was something he would never, ever forget . . .

“So, do you have a plan?” Jester asked, breaking through Sesshoumaru’s silence.

“We must create a vial for the Blackened Tears,” Sesshoumaru said, ignoring Jester’s off-kilter sense of humor.  “Aoizoku said that it must be formed of the lava rocks and baked in the heat of the valley’s flames.  You can do that while I find the flame flower.”

“I’m hardly a potter or stonemason,” Jester pointed out.  “I’ll do what I can, though.”

“Come,” Sesshoumaru said, increasing his pace as his expression shifted into something a little darker, a little more determined.  “We have a lot of ground to cover and not a lot of time to do it.”

Jester complied immediately, moving with an easy grace that hadn’t been there initially.  The entity was growing more accustomed to the body that he was given, which was good, and yet, it vexed Sesshoumaru, too.  After all, just how hard was it going to be for Jester in the end, when he had to return once more to Yomi?

“I . . . I knew someone a lot like you, you know,” Jester suddenly said.  “When I was alive . . . He was . . . He was my best friend—and my rival.”

“Like me?” Sesshoumaru repeated.

Jester nodded.  “Remarkably similar, actually . . . Sometimes when I see you, when I watch you . . . I have to remind myself that you’re not him . . .” He chuckled softly, but there was a marked sense of sadness, of true melancholy, behind it.  “I can’t tell you how many times I’d try to figure out, just what he was thinking—what he was plotting.  I mean, he never said anything outright.  It was always hidden behind vague innuendo or masked behind half-truths . . .”

“And that’s how you see me?”

He nodded again.  “And yet, when it came down to it, he was always there, always ready to fight or to defend . . . and it wasn’t until he was gone that I realized, just how much he truly meant to me . . .”

“He died before you.”

“He did . . . and I missed him every day, for the rest of my life . . .”

Sesshoumaru frowned as he pondered the point of Jester’s musings.  It was the first time that the entity had really offered any actual seriousness in his words, and even then, he had the feeling that there was something more belying Jester’s momentary introspection than he’d said out loud . . .

“So,” Jester remarked after a few minutes of silence, “if I were to ask you something, would you answer me for real?  Not just your normal, cryptic half-answers?”

“Is that what you think?” Sesshoumaru countered, nearly breaking into the barest hint of an amused smile.  Then, he blinked.  When was the last time he could remember being even slightly amused by much of anything?  He couldn’t rightfully recall, but . . .

Jester heaved a sigh, shook his head.  “You . . . You hate your half-brother, don’t you?”

For some reason, Jester’s question caught him off-guard, and he spared a moment to glance at him before turning his attention forward once more.  “Of course, I do,” he replied, but it was an automatic response, and it sounded as hollow and empty as it really was.

Jester grunted.  “Can I ask you why?”

Sesshoumaru didn’t respond right away.  The instant reply was the normal things, and yet . . . He frowned.  He wasn’t sure why he felt compelled to actually answer Jester’s question.  “Many reasons; none of them more important than another . . .”

He could feel Jester’s stare, though he didn’t look to confirm it.  “I . . . I believe you,” he replied.  “You really aren’t sure why, are you?  And maybe it’s not hatred, after all . . . Maybe it’s something a little harder to explain . . .”

This time, Sesshoumaru didn’t answer, but that was all right.  Somehow . . . Somehow, he had the feeling that Jester actually did understand . . .