InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Seven Feudal Fairy Tales ❯ Trial of Heart ( Chapter 51 )

Disclaimer: These characters belong to Rumiko Takahashi and other associated companies.

 

 

Chapter Fifty-One: Trial of Heart

 

 

Sighing away her wearing tiredness, Kagome made her way up the steep stairway, each wooden sandal making a clear clap as she stepped. Bordered on each side, her animal comrades escorted her dutifully as they hopped and flapped, easily surmounting the regular ledges that rose before them. Immense and equally foreboding, the great slabs of iron forged as doors loomed ahead, absorbing the cool, ocean air with their dominating presence. Flickering in brilliant amber by the light of the massive torches burning on each side, the smooth, engraved image of the Ogre Warlord seethed; the harsh shadows of his molded relief darker than a night untouched by the moon.

 

“Imagine my success,” she whispered a piece of the intimate mantra that endlessly orbited through her thoughts since her first arrow had flown. With each heartening repetition, she heard the demon lord's voice less, his deep baritone gradually lightening to her softer quality. The lesson he had taught her was becoming her own to keep and as the last step came to pass, the school girl knew that even as she attempted to prove her worth to him, the triumph she would be sure to know was meant even more so for herself.

 

As if buckling under the strength of her determination, the grand doors parted, sounding a booming grind while they swept slowly across the floor. Glancing at Mon-Ki and Fe-San, Kagome looked to her subordinates for confirmation when the revealing way was clear and was answered with a reassuring pair of nods. Her fierce grip on her relaxed bow tightening, she resumed her quest and fearlessly stepped over the threshold.

 

Blinking away the blinding darkness, the school girl paused in her stride to allow her sight to adjust to the dim room. Warming in her eyes, lamps of open flame affixed to the walls appeared, becoming small points of light in the broadening space. High above, a vaulted ceiling of black stone caught her gaze. Without a beam of support, it towered unnaturally overhead with the mirroring dots of orange fire along the walls playing across its surface like constellations on a starry night. Brilliant in reflection as its counterpart with every glimmer illustrated flawlessly, the polished obsidian floor flowed below, echoing crisply as the intrepid conquerors delved deeper into the fortress.

 

The slick, spattering sound of liquid abruptly replaced the clean sound of their footfalls and the school girl searched the poured glass beneath her feet for the mysterious cause. A deep crimson even in the low light, streams of blood trickled and at the headwaters her stunned sight discovered the cause. Limbs sprawled at strange angles and their delicate, silken attire dyed with their lives, Kagome found the princesses.

 

“I thought so, wa-ah,” the monkey spoke up solemnly, quietly moving to be beside one maiden's head so as to smooth her unbound hair from her fair face.

 

“He did it again, Mon-Ki?” Fe-San blurted out worriedly, the clatter of his talons tinkling with his nervous jittering. “Why does he keep doing this? Why does he keep killing them?”

 

“Because they betray me, bird,” a sinister voice rasped venomously ahead, the vague silhouette of his stooped figure sharpening in the strengthening light. Taut muscle stretched too thin over a skeletal frame, the Ogre Warlord stared at the conquerors with a long, open vest of scalps draping over his gaunt body and a tattered pair of hakama pants cinched at his waist. Beneath him lay the stacked corpses of more slain ladies, their soft bodies proving a comfortable seat. “I punish all who betray me.”

 

“They didn't do anything to deserve this,” the pheasant squawked vehemently, his voice cracking under the pressing weight of his outrage.

 

Ignoring the outburst for a stranger fascination, the teetering beast dragged the edge of a rust-spattered dagger over the lean muscle of his sunken stomach, trailing glittering sparks of blue as he loosed rivulets of blood. The mutilating lines he drew seemed without purpose, uncaringly carving a maze of channels in every direction. His flustered anger nearing an unbearable peak with the warlord's inattention, Fe-San stretched out his sticky wings as he prepared to add his own slashes to the ogre's growing collection.

 

“Wait,” the school girl spoke up as she stepped in front of the enraged bird, hoping her slight, but eclipsing figure would be enough to subdue the bird's fury.

 

“He's killed them again.”

 

“I know,” she soothed gently, spying over her shoulder to catch his distraught sight. “And I think I know why it hurts you so much to see that he has. But, you need to remember why we're here. Remember that you're one of my soldiers. So, stay calm and strong for me, because I'm your general and I still need you.”

 

“Then, I will wait for you, Momotaro-sama,” he finally replied softly in his quaking voice, tucking his wings away as she asked.

 

“Thank you, Fe-San.”

 

A hollow, sardonic laugh echoed in the great hall, drawing their attention to the beast. Knife protruding from his shredded gut as he paused in his disfiguring amusement, the warlord grinned with a sadistic glimmer flickering in his bloodshot eyes.

 

“How very touching that you should care to calm nothing,” he remarked once his twisted mirth quelled to a scattered collection of disturbing chuckles.

 

“He's more than nothing,” she answered sharply, her comforting tone a moment earlier lost to his callous words.

 

“Magic is nothing. It has no life and no value. It is worthless.”

 

“And you're not worthless, because you have life?”

 

“No, I'm worthless as well,” the Ogre Warlord disagreed knowingly, retrieving his blade and sampling the blood that coated the sharpened metal. “But I am no betrayer. Not like him and not like them.”

 

“Not a betrayer like Susanou you mean.”

 

“Hn,” he snorted indignantly before setting the point of the dagger onto the pad of his knobby forefinger, balancing it effortlessly with the hilt aiming toward the ceiling. “There is no greater traitor than he.”

 

“How did he do it? Who were you before your imprisonment in the scroll?”

 

“It's strange,” he replied, his unsteady sway jerking his movements from side to side, but never allowing the knife to fall. “I don't remember my name, but I remember what he did. The very memory sears my flesh with every conscious moment that I spend in this loathsome realm, branding me forever as a fool.

 

“Countless ages ago, I was the leader of a band of mercenaries. I was not a powerful youkai, an evil dragon or a pure goddess like others here, but a former bandit who found valor on the battlefield. Everyday, I led my soldiers in search for war, slaying men and demons for the highest bidder. It was a bloody business and I enjoyed every piercing scream and agonizing death visited upon my enemies, because their undoing meant another gold coin earned and brought me closer to realizing my aspiration of lordship.

 

“A particularly difficult victory left our numbers low and I sent my persuasive scouts to gather volunteers from nearby villages. Upon their return and amid their reluctant recruits, they escorted a particularly pathetic man mired in self-pity and misery. Unworthy for the strenuous trials of combat at first glance, I alone saw a fury brewing in his dark eyes, a violent tempest surging in his soul. Recognizing this, I knew that with the right training he could harness his anger to become an unmatched warrior in any fight.”

 

“Was he Susanou?”

 

“Who else could it be other than him?” the ogre replied spitefully, his eyes darkening in hatred at the sound of the god's name. “At first, harboring this man swiftly proved my advantage. He was insatiable once armor weighted his body and a sword found his hand, slaughtering our foes seemingly without a glimmer of compassion to stay his blade. All that I taught him of war and tactics, he absorbed with a matchless fervor and in return, he was to me a brother in arms that I had never before held in family.

 

“My foolish trust had become so profound that when I discovered the tale of a priceless sword hidden in the immense body of a dragon called Yamata-no-Orochi, I divulged it to him. That was not the end of my ill-placed imprudence as I had also devised a plan to slay the beast so that the weapon could be liberated from the evil flesh it was entombed in. Those wretched, earth gods had sacrificed so many of their children when the method of sparing themselves had been in their hands the entire time. Drunkenness makes mice of even the greatest beasts and an enemy of the gods such as that eight-forked serpent was no different.

 

“The burning fumes of smoke scorching my breaths, I awoke the next morning to find the camp ablaze and my army murdered as they slept. Even my ever alert guards had found unexpected deaths through a cowardly sword to their backs. The heavy, war chest I had groomed for so many years lay plundered, not one gleaming piece of my wealth left. All else burnt away until the field was blackened ash and I stood alone amongst the smoldering remnants of my dreams.

 

“I searched for that man amid the endless corpses, wishing to honor my closest comrade through proper burial so that he would not be left for the appetites of the crows. His body eluded my hunt, but so did his armor, sword and horse. No belongings that were his could be found and that is when I realized who the vile traitor behind my downfall was.”

 

“Susanou has betrayed many and he seems to always leave someone behind to know it was him.”

 

“There was a purpose to it and my imprisonment here serves it as well. For years after that man's betrayal, I struggled to rebuild that which he destroyed, but my paranoia and disgrace kept my successes meager and my defeats grand. A bandit I was born and a bandit I was when the strange fog of this scroll overtook me. Stripping away my humanity and clothing me in the tattered skin of a monster, that man bestowed me a province to rule and an army of beasts to oppress it. My lifelong dream realized in a perverse fashion and repeatedly ripped from my grasp by a young boy and his insignificant animal soldiers.

 

“I still don't understand the reason for your imprisonment. If Susanou betrayed you to become a god again, why would he seal you here? You haven't insulted him or acted cruelly toward him. You gave him a place and a purpose and he tortures you for it? It doesn't make any sense.”

 

“He did not do it to punish me as much as he did it to conceal me and what I know. In my plan to slay Yamata-no-Orochi to recover the famed sword, Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, that man discovered a path to his restoration. If I had perished to journey in the afterlife, it would have only been a matter of time before his tale of deceit reached important ears. Once he could claim his powers again, I was silenced in this contemptible domain of his creation.

 

“Then again, perhaps the greatest irony lies here in this scroll as well. In the evenings, my army would gather around the hearth fires to tell stories and craft poetry, seeking to pass the time and reminisce about the innocence of our youths. Never had I met a man so fascinated as he when these familiar stories were recited, as if he had never heard them the hundreds of times we all had. The Man Who Made Withered Trees Bloom, My Lord o' Bag of Rice, The Tale of Urashima Taro, he loved them all and his favorite was none other than that of Momotaro and his quest towards glory. In a warped celebration of the honors I had given him, he placed me here to play the warlord villain when I was once his closest ally.”

 

“I'm sorry for what happened to you,” Kagome apologized once he was finished, swallowing down hard at the next words that she would speak. “But, as much as you hate Susanou, you've become no better than him.”

 

“How is that, little, boy general?” the angering ogre hissed harshly, flipping the dagger he formerly balanced into the air and then catching it by the blade with a steady rhythm. “Do I deserve my fate?”

 

“No one deserves this fate,” she replied, standing as tall as she could in an attempt to quiet the trembling that quaked in her legs. “But you talk of the torture of betrayal when you yourself are a betrayer.”

 

“How dare you call me such!” he roared heatedly, his intense red eyes piercing through her and the knife he unrelentingly tossed cutting deep gashes into his fingers under the iron of his grip. “I have deceived no man and am a traitor to no god.”

 

“Then what do you sit on, Warlord?! Who lies dead beneath you to be stepped on by your dirty feet?”

 

“They are nothing!” he raged, his rapid breaths coursing through him and his erratic lurching deepening in his fury. “Shaped magic designed to betray me and open my gates to grant you and your nothing army a method to destroy all that I have! They deserve no quarter!”

 

“But, they are your prisoners just as you are Susanou's.”

 

“Why do you keep saying his name?”

 

“Whether these women are illusions or not, they are only doing what they are meant to do, what Susanou intended. They shouldn't be faulted or punished.”

 

“Stop saying his name! Stop it now!”

 

“They're your spoils of war, the priceless treasures from your victories. How can you lament what Susanou robbed you of in the past when you destroy what you have now?!

 

“Stop it!!”

 

Spinning end over end like a star of red and silver, the soiled dagger flew from the ogre's hand and arced through the air toward the deliverer of his torment. Caught in disbelief and distracted by the panicked scrambling of her soldiers at her back, the school girl scarcely realized what the flashing object was before her until it had nearly reached her throat. Then, a brilliant shower of molten, blue sparks erupted in her sight, drawing unbidden tears to leak from her eyes while she reached unsteadily for her neck and the dagger she would no doubt discover. Finger tips trembling over unmarked skin as the glittering light dissipated in the warm air, the silhouetted back of a striped wrist found her gaze.

 

“Sesshoumaru-sama?” she murmured her question softly when her blurred vision drifted up his outstretched hand and over the white and red silk of his coat. Turned to face the mumbling insanity of the warlord, his stalwart attention did not stray at her quiet request. Following with a swift jerk of disgust, the youkai lord flung the knife from the wound in his palm, spattering the polished floor with his blood without a waver in his concentration.

 

“Are you all right, general?” Mon-Ki asked in a hushed voice. “I am sorry that we are not as fast as Do-Gu.”

 

“Don't worry about me,” she answered shakily, her twitching nerves still screaming their distress. “I'm fine and I know that both of you did your best to save me.”

 

“I guess it's good that he didn't stay on the boat, wa-ah.”

 

“Yes and I need to finish this even more so now than I had to when he was gone,” she announced bravely, rallying her resolve before stepping around the perplexed demon and his assured protection. Sandals clacking as she walked, Kagome approached the crumpled figure of the Ogre Warlord. Rocking on his toes as he sat, the distraught beast took no notice of her presence until her gentle hand found the rippled flesh of his shoulder.

 

“It's time, isn't it?” he whispered roughly.

 

“I'm sorry that I can't save you. It's not my role even if I had the power. All I can do is wish that you will find some measure of peace until the day comes that your spirit is finally free of this place.”

 

“Then instead, will you help me break them? Will you help me break off my horns, so that I can be free of this world if only for a little while?”

 

“Yes,” she replied kindly and he reached to grip the long, pointed curves that protruded from his forehead. Her hands delicately sliding over his, they pulled together. With a terrific crack and the burning blue radiance of the scroll's power, the warlord's horns snapped from his head and he vanished into nothingness.