InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Bearers of the Shards ❯ Judgment Passed ( Chapter 11 )

{#} {#} {#} THE BEARERS OF THE SHARDS {#} {#} {#}

{#} {#} Chapter 11: Judgment Passed {#} {#}

Flashback: One Month Earlier

Upon the highest mountain overlooking the Tatesei Valley, a man trudged up the slope. The chill in the autumn air was fierce and biting; the wind harsh and unforgiving. It snapped the man's dark trousers and sleeves against his limbs. It whipped his long black hair about his face, though he had bound part of his hair back to prevent this.

The night was freezing and the wailing wind lonely, but the man smiled.

As he crested the slope, he saw what he had come to find: the white demon standing there, staring down at the city.

"You can't stay away, can you," he asked the demon softly.

The Inu Youkai did not turn around. The wind blew his hair about his face, and stirred his clothing, but he did move.

"It draws you, doesn't it. . .?"

Still the white demon did not move, but the man approaching him sensed his anger.

"Lord Sesshoumaru," he murmured, moving to stand at the Inu Youkai's side.

Sesshoumaru turned his head ever so slightly, so that one eye glared balefully at the one beside him.

"Have you come to mock me?" he asked. "Naraku?"

Naraku lowered his head, smiling as he gazed down upon the valley below.

"The fields are green," he commented, "and the city prospers."

Sesshoumaru glanced away from him again, dismissively.

"Enough, golem. Explain to me why I should not kill you where you stand." He lowered his gaze to rest upon the city once more, and his eyes narrowed. "Perhaps I shall kill you anyway."

"I am HERE, Lord Sesshoumaru," Naraku told him, still smiling. "Here beside you, in the flesh. This is no golem, but my own true form."

This achieved no reaction from Sesshoumaru, who continued to watch the valley.

"I have come to you thus as a matter of trust, to make you an offer," Naraku informed him. "And I have brought you a gift."

He held up one hand. Resting upon his palm was a shard of the Shikon Jewel.

"Heh," Sesshoumaru said without looking at it. "I hold no esteem for the offers you make. Did you not lend me an arm before? Knowing that it would not last?"

The wind blew Sesshoumaru's hair across his face. He pushed it aside with the fingers of his right hand. The ghost of his left arm still remained, so that sometimes he could almost imagine the fingers of his left hand performing this gesture.

"I recall quite well," Naraku murmured, glancing sideways at him, "that you took it of your own accord. Your hatred for Inuyasha is equal only to mine. Yet it seems to me. . .THIS hatred runs deeper. . .?"

Naraku gestured toward the city below with long, fluid fingers.

"Do not speak of what you do not understand," Sesshoumaru warned him, tight-lipped and narrow-eyed.

"I understand that you dream of vengeance," Naraku continued, inexorably. "I have walked among your enemies, Lord Sesshoumaru. I know their secrets."

Sesshoumaru half turned to glare at the man beside him.

"How was it that you penetrated the Tatesei defenses?" he demanded. "The wardings in the mountains? Only humans may pass those."

Naraku smiled and answered, almost apologetically, "I took possession of a human body."

Sesshoumaru's lip curled in disgust, but he seemed willing to listen.

"The king's heir comes of age," Naraku went on. "Soon he will be ordained the new ruler. But this boy is not the king's eldest son. The eldest Tatesei prince is exiled."

"What do I care?" Sesshoumaru asked flatly. "Why is one Tatesei prince any different from the others?"

"From the Wise I learned that this one had dabbled in forbidden sorcery," Naraku answered. "Now his body is possessed by a demon's during the day, and he is only human when night falls. But this prince is full of greed and jealousy, or so they say. He was fascinated with sorcery; his own father called him a `creature of the Wise.' Power was the string with which the Wise planned to control their royal puppet once he ascended the throne. But he was too rash for his own good. Now he wanders the lands of the North, brutal and mindless by day, filled with rage and fear by night."

"How do you know that this accursed prince is still alive?" Sesshoumaru asked suspiciously. "And why should I care about his plight? Why can YOU not just pass through the wardings as a human and then destroy them for me, that I too might pass?"

Naraku lowered his head, smiling.

"I know that he's alive because I have seen this prince for myself," he answered. "This wretched boy, cursed to bear the form of those Youkai that he so detests. . . And alas: I cannot help you through the warding. I may pass through using a human body, but only one who knows the arts of the Wise may release the souls that guard the mountains. Only a Tatesei sorcerer may destroy the wardings that bar you from your revenge."

The wind wailed through the valley below.

"And what is your part in this?" Sesshoumaru demanded. "What does Naraku gain from this?"

"I?" Naraku murmured. He held out the shard, and the Inu Youkai took it from him. "I ask only that you find a way to lure Inuyasha to Reiyama. I desire the shards that he carries. And then I wish him to die---either by your hands or by the hands of the Wise."

Sesshoumaru nodded and was silent for a time, watching the wind rustling through the trees in the valley.

"Why is it that you hate Inuyasha?" he asked after several moments had passed.

Naraku shrugged.

"Why is it that YOU hate him?" he asked casually, then answered his own question: "Because he was chosen, and you were not."

Sesshoumaru's ire was instant and white-hot. He struck out to the side with his claws. Naraku's head fell from his body, and then Naraku was not there at all. On the ground where he had stood, there was only a small wooden figure. Sesshoumaru did not bother looking at it; he had known that Naraku was lying, and that he had really only sent a golem. He knew that it was folly to trust Naraku.

`And yet,' he thought, enclosing the jewel shard in a fist, `he is most useful as well.'

Borne on the wind, Naraku's voice echoed through the air around him.

"Find the Tatesei prince Yaburenumaru, Lord Sesshoumaru. You have waited too long for justice. It is time to set vengeance into motion."

Then Naraku's presence was gone, and Sesshoumaru stood alone once more.

{#} {#} {#}

The Present

Writhing, twisted, and enraged, Naraku flowed toward the Inu Youkai that had crushed Sesshoumaru. The trap that he had laid so carefully, the trap that he had set for Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru and the girl and the monk. . .all had failed. He had gone to all the trouble of verifying that the Tatesei were indeed a force capable of destroying the Inu Youkai brothers.

Well, now he had firsthand verification.

And he, Naraku, was afraid.

He had made a grievous underestimation of the Tatesei sorcerers: he had not anticipated the sheer numbers of spirits at their command. If he did not take what he desired and escape quickly with it, the Wise might well defeat him and take his soul. Though this body was a golem's, his soul was still inside it. The soul would ordinarily fly back to his own body if the golem was destroyed, but the Wise possessed the power to bind any soul to some physical remnant. He resolved to make this a fast exit.

Naraku could not see Sesshoumaru beneath the massive Youkai that crushed him against the earth, but he could sense the shard there. And the shard was what he wanted. The Wise were beginning to converge toward the same direction as well, clearly with the same intentions.

Acting quickly, Naraku raised himself from the mass of flesh, one arm forming a long scythe. With it he cut a deep slash into the Inu Youkai's heaving side.

The beast, however, did not seem to feel any pain, despite its apparent solidity. The scythe passed through it with no seeming effect.

`What?!' Naraku thought, alarmed. `Though I cut it, it doesn't even turn toward me. . .'

"DIE, ASSHOLE!"

Naraku turned quickly, just in time to see Tetsusaiga sweeping down toward him in a deadly arc. He dodged it just in time, his entire mass flowing swiftly to the side. Instead of striking its intended target, the sword's kenatsu struck the Inu Youkai instead.

Time seemed to speed up. The Inu Youkai reared upward, opening wide its slavering maw to bellow in pain and rage. Naraku scarcely had time to register the fact that Tetsusaiga's blow had had an actual effect, because the next thing he saw was the gleam of the shard falling from its gaping jaws. Instinctively, he swooped down to take it before the Inu Youkai spirit recovered itself. The logical part of his psyche---the demon whose first concern was survival---warned him of the danger. `Why does the DEAD ONE have the shard?' it asked. `What of the other. . .?' However, fueled by Onigumo's greed, Naraku reacted too late.

As his hand closed around the shard, he felt the laceration tear through him. Even as his body absorbed the shard the slash sliced a red line through him from throat to navel.

"What---?!" he gasped, raising himself to see the one who had just dealt the blow.

Sesshoumaru stood before him, shaking ichor-like blood from his hand.

"Naraku," the white demon said softly. "Did I not tell you. . .that I do not need the shard to defeat you?"

As the golem's body began to dissolve, and Naraku's consciousness with it, he thought he saw Sesshoumaru smile.

{#} {#} {#}

When Naraku had gone, only a small wooden figure remained. The Wise swooped down upon it with predatory swiftness, but before they reached it Tetsusaiga descended upon it and clove it in two.

"And YOU'RE next," Inuyasha told the sorcerers, who backed off in a hurry. Sesshoumaru backed away as well, waiting to see what Inuyasha would do, or perhaps wary of Tetsusaiga. Near the broken golem lay Kagome's Shikon shards, which Inuyasha promptly snatched up and slung around his neck, pocketing the one that had come from Sesshoumaru's body with evident distaste.

Upon the Temple stair, the sorcerer Honechi watched this with great misgivings.

"It is that SWORD!" he called to his fellows. There was a new note of urgency in his voice that belied a turning of the tides. "It repels the souls!"

Miroku, who stood near the stair beside Kagome, took hold of her shoulder with one hand and pointed with the other.

"Look, Kagome-sama!" he exclaimed. "He's right!"

The Inu Youkai that had been attacking Sesshoumaru continued to retreat from Tetsusaiga, which seemed to blaze even brighter than usual. From the beast's side where it had been struck there poured forth a greenish light that flowed like blood. However, just as it reached the earth it vanished into thin air.

"But why Tetsusaiga?" Kagome asked, clenching Miroku's arm worriedly. She didn't like the way the attention of the Wise now seemed to be focused entirely on Inuyasha. "Why does a sword work against the dead when nothing else does?"

"I don't know," Miroku answered, frowning. "I think the spirits spared me once because I expressed compassion toward their plight. And my spiritual powers seem to have some effect against them. But a sword. . ."

"But Tetsusaiga is special," Kagome reminded him. "Even though Inuyasha's a hanyou he's still the only one who can wield it. . ."

Honechi glanced down at Kagome and Miroku, distracted by what Kagome had said.

"This. . .Inuyasha. . .is a hanyou?" he murmured softly. Then, to his comrades, he ordered, "Command the souls to attack these two humans! They are his weakness!"

"Come on!" Miroku urged, gripping Kagome's shoulders and propelling her alongside him toward Inuyasha.

The souls moved swiftly, swarming at them from all directions, but Inuyasha was faster, coming instantly to his friends' aid. He swept Tetsusaiga in a series of arcs so quick that it became a blur of light. Kagome and Miroku threw themselves on the ground, crouching at his feet to avoid the swinging blade.

Inuyasha was aware that he was defending them, but there was also a very strange feeling came over him. Even as he swung the sword, a convulsive shudder passed through his body. He felt himself grow cold all over, as if an icy fang had slid into his spine. His hands still gripped Tetsusaiga, and his arms still swung it, but this new awareness was something else entirely.

It felt as if the ghost had risen up through Inuyasha from the very ground beneath him. He had not seen it coming, nor sensed it, but in that moment his field of vision was swallowed in a brilliant flash of green. It was all around him.

Inuyasha remembered disconnectedly that Miroku and Kagome were still kneeling beside him, and his heart clenched with fear for them. He lashed out with Tetsusaiga in desperation, striving with all his might to drive the ghost from him, but for once the sword had no effect. The thing was too immense, and while inside it he could do nothing.

Time seemed to slow and stretch. Inuyasha's vision shifted and blurred. He became like one great eye, seeing every Youkai soul that closed in on him---only now his perception of those souls had changed. His gaze spanned the multitude of faces---sad and hateful, tormented and bitter---and it seemed that he knew them in a way that he had not known them before. Inuyasha did not understand what was happening, and so could not have put it to words. Yet even if he'd wanted to, he couldn't have. His tongue would not respond to his brain.

He thought that he might have spoken to the spirits, but he couldn't be sure. His gaze swept over them, and as it did they began to fade.

As they faded they floated back into the Temple, into the buildings of the city, as if flowing on a tide of air.

Gradually, as the spirits retreated, the green light of the ghost faded, and Inuyasha's perception of the world returned to normal.

The first things that he heard were the angry and fearful exclamations among the Wise, who were apparently as baffled as he was. Then he heard Kagome's voice calling his name as she tugged on his sleeve. She seemed a bit nervous; dimly Inuyasha supposed that he cut a pretty impressive figure standing there with Tetsusaiga ablaze, having just thrown off the attacking ghosts. The third thing he heard was Miroku, already on his feet and rattling off a variety of possible explanations for what had just happened. Inuyasha still felt too oddly to bother with the monk's prattle, so he ignored it.

The first thing that Inuyasha saw was the last of the spirits' light fading into the city. He felt that the worst was over now, though he didn't know how he knew this. Somehow he had driven them back into wherever it was they were bound to, and the Wise---who were still chanting in a rather pathetically determined manner---seemed powerless to reverse this. The second thing that Inuyasha saw was Kagome's worried face, and Miroku's pensive expression. The monk had planted his staff in the dirt and was leaning on it rather heavily, as if he were very tired.

Humans, Inuyasha recalled, were weak and wimpy creatures. Next Miroku was probably going to insist that he needed sleep. . .

The third thing that he saw was Sesshoumaru standing there, watching him with a regard as icy as the spirits' touch. The Inu Youkai was covered in blood---much of it his own---and purple slime. His hair was matted with it. But Sesshoumaru glared at his brother unflinchingly, and his steady stance made it clear that he wasn't going to die any time soon. Inuyasha supposed it had been too much to hope for.

"Inuyasha," Kagome murmured, resting her good hand on his arm. "What happened?"

"What spirit was that?" Miroku asked in hushed tones. "Why did it come to our aid?"

"How the HELL should I know?!" Inuyasha responded, gesturing widely and throwing up his hands. Kagome and Miroku had to duck, as one hand still held Tetsusaiga.

Standing among the Wise---who had finally gone silent---Honechi stared, aghast.

"How can this be?" he murmured. "We cannot destroy him?" He cast a long, solemn glance at each of the remaining sorcerers clustered around him. "Then this," he said to them, "is the end of all things. . ."

Wordlessly he moved out from their midst and walked slowly toward those he had been trying to kill. He met Inuyasha's gaze with a long, grim stare.

"Stop that," Inuyasha demanded, glaring back at him and brandishing Tetsusaiga. "You Wise are SO fucking weird."

Then, to everyone's surprise, Honechi knelt before him, bowing his head.

"Many generations of sorcerers have protected this city," he said. "And none have stood against us and lived. But now. . .I have failed. And if Reiyama is to die, then I beg you: strike the first blow to give me death, so that I must not live with this dishonor."

"What?!" Inuyasha was completely nonplussed. "You're giving UP?"

"It would seem so," Miroku murmured, coming to stand beside the hanyou and wearing an expression of equal perplexity.

Cautiously, Kagome joined them, still eyeing the kneeling sorcerer warily.

"It might be a trick," she warned. "He might want us to kill him for a reason. The Wise enslave their own dead, remember?"

Inuyasha paused, gazing at his solemn reflection in Tetsusaiga's blade and considering this. Honechi did not move.

"But my sword protects me," Inuyasha responded after a moment, frowning. "The dead can't hurt me or those I'm protecting." Slowly, he lowered Tetsusaiga.

A new idea was occurring to him. Up until this moment he had been fighting to protect his friends, and to prevent his enemies from getting their hands on the Shikon shards. But now the enemy was defeated and surrendering to him, and he didn't have to worry any more. And in this moment, with his thoughts in perfect clarity, Inuyasha understood just how much he wanted to kill them all. It was not rage that made him decide this, nor bitterness, but only a vague sense that some justice had to be done here. The sorcerers were evil; their magic was twisted and cruel. Why should they live?

Inuyasha clenched his hand tightly around Tetsusaiga's hilt and began to raise it. Why shouldn't he? They deserved to die. And he could start with the bastard kneeling in front of him, whose head bowed in acceptance.

Behind him, Sesshoumaru made a noise of disgust.

"They're toying with us," the white demon observed. "They know you can't be killed, but they also know that unless we spare them the Inu Youkai souls will never be free."

Kagome startled and pressed closer to Inuyasha---she had forgotten that Sesshoumaru was still here, and now he had moved closer to Inuyasha's group. She preferred that there be a good fifty feet between herself and Inuyasha's brother---or a good fifty miles.

"How are we supposed to get them to free the souls?" Inuyasha demanded without turning around. "I've got to show them I mean business before I get around to making them do anything. . ."

"Apparently you're deaf as well as stupid," Sesshoumaru replied coolly. "The magic must be done willingly. You can't force them to do this."

"'STUPID'?!" Inuyasha bellowed, glaring back over his shoulder. "I'M not the one who got the bright idea of shoving a SHARD up my ass and going on a rampage through the city!"

Sesshoumaru's haughty expression went temporarily blank, and he appeared slightly taken aback.

"Um. . .Inuyasha?" Kagome murmured, tugging on his sleeve.

"What?" he demanded.

"I lied when I said the shard was---er---you know," she replied.

Sesshoumaru's eyes narrowed, but for the moment neither of them noticed.

"Really?" Inuyasha asked, pulling a face and lowering Tetsusaiga. "Why?"

"I didn't want you to fight him," Kagome said simply. "You would've been distracted from the REAL danger and the Wise might've defeated you."

"So where was the shard?" Inuyasha asked, still somewhat befuddled.

"In his arm," she answered.

"I see," Miroku murmured, rubbing his chin pensively. Up until this point, he had been listening with an expression of faint amusement. "But he removed the shard and thrust it into the mouth of the Inu Youkai attacking him. Then, when Naraku went after it, lured by his ability to sense its nearness, Sesshoumaru caught him attacked him. Naraku probably thought he was dead by then, so he was caught completely off guard."

Sesshoumaru's scowl deepened.

"What I still don't get," Inuyasha remarked, "is why that one Youkai spirit rose up around me like that and drove the others off."

Honechi looked up, apparently curious about this as well.

"But it wasn't a ghost," Miroku corrected him. "It was more like. . .an echo."

Inuyasha scratched his head, frowning.

"Felt like a ghost to me," he mused. "But then, it also felt like it was kind of. . .speaking through me, I guess. Like it was using my body for something."

"I knew that voice," Sesshoumaru said, unexpectedly. His own voice was very bitter. "It was our father's."

Inuyasha, Kagome and Miroku stared at him incredulously. Honechi's eyes narrowed.

"It was an echo of our father's spirit," Sesshoumaru continued, "summoned by the near presence of the Inu Youkai souls. It was preserved, like his Youkai power, in that sword."

The white demon's gaze came to rest upon Tetsusaiga. He took a step toward his brother.

"If you were dead, Inuyasha," he said hungrily, "then perhaps the sword's spirit would choose ME. . ."

"Back off, baka---it's MINE!" Inuyasha retorted, but he backed a step away from his advancing brother. This, of all places and times, was the last one he wanted to get in a dogfight over Tetsusaiga.

But abruptly Sesshoumaru swept past Inuyasha, tearing his gaze away from the sword. Instead he came to stand before Honechi.

"Release the souls," he ordered, voice low with hatred. "I won't kill you, but I will batter Reiyama into dust. . .if you won't release them."

Honechi's eyes filled with a fire to equal Sesshoumaru's.

"They are the lifeblood of this city," he hissed. "They serve and protect its people."

"They're DEAD, you sick bastard, and they should be FREE," Inuyasha retorted, moving to stand at Sesshoumaru's shoulder. "What do we have to do to convince you Wise to let them go?"

Sesshoumaru shrugged faintly.

"It does not matter," he said, and his tone was calm. "If you will never free my kin anyway, then killing the Tatesei sorcerers is going to ease my heart greatly." His eyes flickered down toward Honechi. "But you I will kill last, so that you can watch your brethren die." He lowered his voice to a toxic whisper. "And I swear to you on my father's grave that it will be slow."

Honechi swallowed hard, squaring his shoulders. There was a moment of pregnant silence during which it seemed the sorcerer might still dare to defy Sesshoumaru.

Yet finally he answered, "With Reikotsu dead, I am the new leader of the Wise. I speak for my brethren in saying that we promise to do as you ask. Pass judgment upon Reiyama as you will. But our magic is tied to the will of the king. We may only release the souls if the ruler orders it."

"Iryokugou-o-sama is dead," Sesshoumaru told him icily. "I have passed my judgment upon him."

"Ah," Honechi said softly. "Yet two princes remain. . ."

{END OF CHAPTER 11}