InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Lord of the West ❯ The Seer of Reiyama ( Chapter 2 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: Yamisui 
He remembers the night his soul turned to ice...
Sesshoumaru has alway sought an answer to the question that drives his obsessive desire for power, and his hatred of his own brother. Now that answer may be within his grasp, for he has found a Seer.
In the present era, Kagome wakes up one morning to find that the future has been changed...possibly by something she's done...
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Fantasy / Adventure / Action | Type: Divergence | Uploaded On: 08.17.2004 | Updated On: 01.02.2006 | Pages: 5 | Words: 7.0K | Visits: 693 | Status: Completed
He remembers the night his soul turned to ice...
Sesshoumaru has alway sought an answer to the question that drives his obsessive desire for power, and his hatred of his own brother. Now that answer may be within his grasp, for he has found a Seer.
In the present era, Kagome wakes up one morning to find that the future has been changed...possibly by something she's done...
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Fantasy / Adventure / Action | Type: Divergence | Uploaded On: 08.17.2004 | Updated On: 01.02.2006 | Pages: 5 | Words: 7.0K | Visits: 693 | Status: Completed
Author's Note: Again, I plead with you: if you have not read “The Bearers of the Shards,” PLEASE READ THAT FIRST. I assure you it's just as good as this story, so you won't regret it. But this story will make a whole lot more senseif you do.
“Chichi-ue” is the term Sesshoumaru uses to address his father.
{+} {+} {+} LORD OF THE WEST {+} {+} {+}
{+} Chapter 2: The Seer of Reiyama {+}
The young man stood in the field, ankle-deep in snow. His clothes and flesh were torn and stained with blood. Some of it was his; some belonged to his enemies. . .and some belonged to his family, who lay dead beneath the blanket of white. He stood frozen, but it wasn't from the chill.
He had fought his way through a multitude of warriors, sent by the human king to stop him from reaching the battlefield. And he'd slain them all. Their bodies---ripped and dismembered by his own claws---lay strewn in a bloody path behind him. Yet he had reached the field too late: his father lay dead, the last to fall amongst his kin. Their enormous bodies lay in the snow, as if they were slowly sinking into it. Their souls were no longer their own, for the Wise had taken them.
And now the sorcerers were moving toward his father, chanting their dark spells to entrap the dead Youkai's soul. He had been standing frozen with shock before; now something snapped in his mind, and he rushed at his enemies with no thought for his own life.
“No!” Sesshoumaru snarled, curling his claws in preparation to tear them down. “You will nottake him!”
They were the Wise: the self-appointed priests of the Tatesei city, who had long been practicing their dark necromancy in secret, until the time came when they were strong enough to attack the Inu Youkai Clan. . .Until the time when they were strong enough to betray the very ones who protected their people. . .
Now some of them turned from his father, and the red light of their necromancy reached toward him like grasping claws. It seemed they wanted to take him as well.
“No!” he cried again. He pushed past them, brushing their fragile human forms out of his way as a man might swat at flies. He did not stop until he had come to stand between the leader of the sorcerers and his father.
The high priest of the Wise was an old man; wizened and shrewd. To his comrades, he said, “Take him.” The sorcerers obeyed, moving toward the young demon slowly but steadily. Their long, gray robes covered their feet, so that they seemed to glide like ghosts over the snow.
Sesshoumaru, knowing their advance meant his doom, drew the sword that hung at his hip.
“If you would take me,” he said to them in a low voice, “then take me. But I will not let you take him.”
He raised the sword, gripping the hilt so tightly that his hand went white at the knuckles.
`Tenseiga,' he thought, speaking to the sword with his spirit. `If you are truly the Sword of Life, then give me back my father. . .'
“That sword,” the sorcerers murmured. “It shines. That is no ordinary blade!”
They drew back from it, fearing the young Inu Youkai would mow them all down with one sweeping arc of the blade. Yet his attention rested not upon them, but upon his father's enormous body. The true form of the lord of the West was twice as large as Sesshoumaru's---larger than any other Inu Youkai's. But his father's brilliant fur had lost its silver luster, and the snow beneath the Greater Youkai was dyed crimson.
“I can still see him,” Sesshoumaru murmured, and it was so.
His father's spiritstood before him---not in his massive Inu form but as the man who had once held Sesshoumaru's hand as they walked through the forests together. This was the man who had taught him sword-craft and Youkai magic, and how to kill with predatory swiftness. This was the man who had shown him not only the beauty of the woods and streams, but also the music and the gardens of Men.
Now this man---Sesshoumaru's father---was surrounded by the imps of the dead, who had come to guide his soul onward.
“Come back to me!” Sesshoumaru called to him. “With Tenseiga I call you back!”
But his father's soul, standing amongst these otherworldly messengers with quiet dignity, smiled and slowly shook his head. His gaze upon his son was keen with love and pity. But Sesshoumaru was weary and nearly numb with shock, and still barely over the threshold of manhood. He didn't want pity.
“Father!” he cried, aggrieved. “You gave me the Sword of Life! I want you to live!”
Hebrandished the sword and made to slash at the imps.
But his father stepped between the little messengersand the descending blade. He caught it in his hand, and his fingers around it were firm and strong as any living man's.
“No,” he said softly to his son.
The eyes of the lord of the West were grave; for all the love there, there was no possibility of him accepting his son's offer.
“Don't turn away and leave me,” Sesshoumaru pleaded, forsaking all pride in his desperation. “Return, and you and I will walk together as we once did. We will avenge our kin!” He paused to take a deep, shaky breath, then added in a low voice: “Their blood cries out from the fields of the Tatesei. How can you leave meto stand alone here?”
But his father only shook his head again.
“Live,” he bade his son, “and protect them.”
Then he turned his face upward, and his form dissolved into light. His soul as he began to ascend into the night sky was so brilliant that Sesshoumaru could not bear to look upon it. Throwing one arm up before his face, he averted his gaze. When he was able to see again, his father was gone---taken by the messengers to whatever lay beyond.
Slowly, Sesshoumaru's gaze drifted to the sword in his hand, Tenseiga.
“Useless,” he whispered hoarsely. “He is dead. Of what use is a life-giving sword when it cannot even bring him back?”
And with an incoherent snarl, he cast Tenseiga aside, flinging it to the ground. Then he became aware of the bemused mutterings among the Wise, and remembered he was surrounded by enemies.
“The Great Demon is gone,” the leader of the sorcerers told his fellows, “and the sword is proven powerless. Take the young one, then.”
Then the old man turned his pitiless gaze upon Sesshoumaru and said, “Son of the Inu Youkai: the age of your kind dies with your father's Line. You must accept this. Don't waste your last breath fighting a battle that you cannot win. Die like a Man, and not a beast.”
Sesshoumaru's young face settled into a calm, cold mask; still waters hiding the current of hatred that ran beneath.
To the sorcerers, hesaid, “Oh, but I ama beast.”
Then he plunged forward into their midst.
He lay about him as if his hands had become scythes and he was reaping grain from the fields. But it was human lives that he harvested now, and their blood drenched his hands. He struck blindly in his rage, not caring who it was that he killed, for the only living ones around him were his enemies. His sorrow maddened him, and with this new unraveling of his sanity his human form was also departing.
He began to rise into his true form. Then he was the great white Inu, laying about him with claw and fang. His rage filled his spirit with so much strength that the spells of the Wise could not take hold of him, and because the souls they had captured were newly taken, they could not yet be used to attack him. He was white death, and they were helpless as children before his might.
Only when their bodies had been trampled to a bloody pulp beneath his claws did Sesshoumaru come to himself again. He cast one glance about him, surveying his dead foes, and then turned away from them, no longer caring to dwell on the fact of their deaths.
Before his father's corpse, he sank onto his knees in the snow and wept bitterly.
After a time, his hoarse sobs became dry, for there were no more tears left in him. He rose to his feet, scarcely aware of the chill in the air. It had begun to snow again. Then he remembered Tenseiga. He walked over to the place where he had flung it and stood there, gazing down at it in silence. Flurries of white were slowly burying it.
Why shouldn't he leave it here? Its powerlessness had left him bitter and angry. His father had left him a worthless blade, because Sesshoumaru was not the one chosen. His father had not given him Tetsusaiga, the sword that might have destroyed the Wise before they could utter their foul spells. His father had not thought him worthy.
In the instant the lord of the West had turned away and left him, Sesshoumaru's heart turned to ice.
And yet. . .
And yet. . .
Though his veins now coursed with the poisoned chill of bitterness, Sesshoumaru found himself bending to retrieve Tenseiga. He sheathed it quickly at his side, because he no longer cared to touch it.
But he kept it. . .because his father had given it to him.
The snow swirled around him, pure and cold and empty as the night. . .
But he kept it. . .because his father had given it to him.
The snow swirled around him, pure and cold and empty as the night. . .
{+} {+} {+}
The world spun and shifted, and once again Sesshoumaru was standing in the forest on the slope of the mountain, but a few miles away from his home. He was himself again---no longer the young man he'd been then, who had let his passions rule him. The hand that had held Tenseiga was no longer there. And he was stronger now, quieter, for time had begun to ebb away his arrogance and his bravado like the tide upon the sands.
Yet for a moment, the anger and bitterness that had driven him so long ago had been slashed open like an old wound by the sudden onslaught of memory.
`What can this mean?' Sesshoumaru wondered to himself. He was not frightened, but neither was he glad. He had heard of mind-readers before, but what the man in the gray cloak had done to him was something else entirely.
The sorcerer, of course, had vanished. Sesshoumaru had no idea how much time had passed since the spell had first been cast. Then, with sudden concern, he touched his remaining hand to the hilts of both his swords. He was reassured to find Tenseiga and Tokijin both still hanging at his hips on either side. Though the Wise would not be able to wield Tenseiga because it only obeyed its master, he had no such certainties where Tokijin was concerned. His strength had overcome the sword's evil will and bent it to his own, but he was not certain what would happen if it ever fell into the hands of another.
Sesshoumaru wondered why a sorcerer so powerful would be fleeing from mortals. That the man was a practitioner of the arts Sesshoumaru himself had forbidden was no mere possibility . . .
Sesshoumaru was not allowed much time to stand and wonder. By this time, the torch-bearing posse had overtaken him. They burst through the trees as noisily as a bunch of stampeding oxen.
They were, as he had surmised, Tatesei warriors, but to his surprise they were armed to the teeth. They carried bows and arrows, swords and shields---though the shields were lightweight to make for faster travel up the slope. They wore metal helmets and thickly studded leather armor. They stopped short at the sight of him, then half-sank, half-fell to their knees before him, regardless of the snow.
`So,' Sesshoumaru thought. `Even in the boldness of their intrusion I have their fear.' This was always good to know.
A long and uneasy pause ensued. Sesshoumaru was notoriously not very sociable, and the warriors waited nearly a full minute for him to say something before finally giving up and addressing him first.
“Great Lord of the West, have you seen the girl?” their leader asked. He looked very cold and wet, doubtlessly longing for a cup of tea and a warm fireside.
If he was looking for hospitality, he certainly wasn't going to get it from Sesshoumaru.
“A girl,” Sesshoumaru repeated slowly. He supposed the sorcerer might have been female---not that it mattered. Male or female, all Ningen smelled alike to him. But he wasn't about to let these clanking fools know that the sorcerer had eluded him. Instead he asked, “Why have all of you come chasing one girl with so many weapons?” His gaze swept across their numbers.
The warriors shifted uneasily at this question. Sesshoumaru rather enjoyed watching his enemies shift uneasily in his presence.
“She is a most valuable servant of the king,” the leader finally answered.
“Truly?” Sesshoumaru asked with feigned idleness. “Your king serves under me. Is she not my servant as well?”
The warriors did not answer. Sesshoumaru fought the urge to grimace. They reeked of fear. Yet after another moment's pause he switched to a different tactic.
“She passed this way,” he informed them. “She heads upward toward my estate. The punishment for such intrusion is death.” His eyes flashed. “Especially for a heretic necromancer who has dared to practice those arts that I have forbidden you.”
There it was. He had found the warriors' weakness. They blanched at his words; it seemed they had come to take the girl alive. The warriors, in turn, seemed to realize that he was toying with them and that avoiding giving explanation was getting them nowhere.
“We cry your mercy, O Great Lord,” their leader pleaded. “Spare her. She's not a sorcerer like the Wise. She's a Seer.”
Sesshoumaru's piercing gaze flickered, and it was with supreme effort that he concealed his surprise. The kirin's last words echoed in his ears as if they had been spoken a moment ago and not two years:
(This is not over. Though I ordained you, you are not the one chosen in prophecy. If you will not rule the city, then choose a king who will. But do not abandon the Tatesei. It is dangerous to do so---far more dangerous than you know.)
`What can this mean?' Sesshoumaru wondered to himself. He was not frightened, but neither was he glad. He had heard of mind-readers before, but what the man in the gray cloak had done to him was something else entirely.
The sorcerer, of course, had vanished. Sesshoumaru had no idea how much time had passed since the spell had first been cast. Then, with sudden concern, he touched his remaining hand to the hilts of both his swords. He was reassured to find Tenseiga and Tokijin both still hanging at his hips on either side. Though the Wise would not be able to wield Tenseiga because it only obeyed its master, he had no such certainties where Tokijin was concerned. His strength had overcome the sword's evil will and bent it to his own, but he was not certain what would happen if it ever fell into the hands of another.
Sesshoumaru wondered why a sorcerer so powerful would be fleeing from mortals. That the man was a practitioner of the arts Sesshoumaru himself had forbidden was no mere possibility . . .
Sesshoumaru was not allowed much time to stand and wonder. By this time, the torch-bearing posse had overtaken him. They burst through the trees as noisily as a bunch of stampeding oxen.
They were, as he had surmised, Tatesei warriors, but to his surprise they were armed to the teeth. They carried bows and arrows, swords and shields---though the shields were lightweight to make for faster travel up the slope. They wore metal helmets and thickly studded leather armor. They stopped short at the sight of him, then half-sank, half-fell to their knees before him, regardless of the snow.
`So,' Sesshoumaru thought. `Even in the boldness of their intrusion I have their fear.' This was always good to know.
A long and uneasy pause ensued. Sesshoumaru was notoriously not very sociable, and the warriors waited nearly a full minute for him to say something before finally giving up and addressing him first.
“Great Lord of the West, have you seen the girl?” their leader asked. He looked very cold and wet, doubtlessly longing for a cup of tea and a warm fireside.
If he was looking for hospitality, he certainly wasn't going to get it from Sesshoumaru.
“A girl,” Sesshoumaru repeated slowly. He supposed the sorcerer might have been female---not that it mattered. Male or female, all Ningen smelled alike to him. But he wasn't about to let these clanking fools know that the sorcerer had eluded him. Instead he asked, “Why have all of you come chasing one girl with so many weapons?” His gaze swept across their numbers.
The warriors shifted uneasily at this question. Sesshoumaru rather enjoyed watching his enemies shift uneasily in his presence.
“She is a most valuable servant of the king,” the leader finally answered.
“Truly?” Sesshoumaru asked with feigned idleness. “Your king serves under me. Is she not my servant as well?”
The warriors did not answer. Sesshoumaru fought the urge to grimace. They reeked of fear. Yet after another moment's pause he switched to a different tactic.
“She passed this way,” he informed them. “She heads upward toward my estate. The punishment for such intrusion is death.” His eyes flashed. “Especially for a heretic necromancer who has dared to practice those arts that I have forbidden you.”
There it was. He had found the warriors' weakness. They blanched at his words; it seemed they had come to take the girl alive. The warriors, in turn, seemed to realize that he was toying with them and that avoiding giving explanation was getting them nowhere.
“We cry your mercy, O Great Lord,” their leader pleaded. “Spare her. She's not a sorcerer like the Wise. She's a Seer.”
Sesshoumaru's piercing gaze flickered, and it was with supreme effort that he concealed his surprise. The kirin's last words echoed in his ears as if they had been spoken a moment ago and not two years:
(This is not over. Though I ordained you, you are not the one chosen in prophecy. If you will not rule the city, then choose a king who will. But do not abandon the Tatesei. It is dangerous to do so---far more dangerous than you know.)
Sesshoumaru had then asked of the kirin: “Why does this prophecy the Wise spoke of point to Inuyasha? Why do they fear him so?”
And the kirin had answered: (If you would know, then take this Shikon shard and use it to find the Seer.)
But Sesshoumaru had cast the shard away, giving it to the girl who traveled with Inuyasha. Though he did not like to admit it, he had been more arrogant then. He had refused to heed the kirin's advice out of pride. Yet now he was not so certain. He had elected not to seek the Seer, but he had never anticipated that the Seer would find him first. . .
But all this was meaningless, regardless of the coincidence. Sesshoumaru did not trust the Tatesei enough to reveal he was interested. If there was one thing he'd learned from his encounters with Naraku . . .
`If your enemies cannot prey upon your fears,' he thought, `then they will prey upon your desires. And that is a more dangerous thing, because they are yourdesires.'
The warriors made no attempt to rise. They watched the white demon warily, awaiting his answer. Some of them were visibly shivering now.
Sesshoumaru asked, “What will you do with the Seer when you have found her?”
The leader bowed his head.
“Then you wish me to find her, Lord?” he inquired respectfully.
“Don't make me repeat myself,” Sesshoumaru said coolly. “Tell me now, or I shall lose patience.”
He shifted the stump of his left arm ever so slightly, so that its sleeve fell away to reveal Tokijin at his side. The warriors noted this and tensed, thinking he would reach for the sword.
“We will bring her back to the city,” the leader answered, daring to raise his eyes to Sesshoumaru's unsmiling face. He was a much younger man than the others, but he seemed to hide his fear more successfully. “A Seer is prized among our people. He or she brings us great counsel and advice.”
`Either this one is young, and has not heard the stories of me,' Sesshoumaru thought wryly, `or he is a fool who believes them to be lies.'
In the white demon's two-year reign as lord of the western lands, never once had the Tatesei offered the slightest hint of revolt. But Sesshoumaru's memory was long, and he recalled that there had been many years of peace before they betrayed his father, as well. As for their betrayal of Sesshoumaru . . . he believed it was not a matter of if, but when.
`Did you know, Chichi-ue?' he often wondered. `Did you feel this ever- deepening mistrust that I feel now? This lordship so binds me to them, in ways that I can neither fathom nor deny. I can sense the approaching storm, even if I cannot judge its distance. You musthave known. . .and yet you guarded them. You. . .loved them.'
Sesshoumaru realized that he'd lapsed into silent contemplation of the young warrior's face. The man's jaw and cheekbones were angular and high; his eyes were deep-set, bearing the shape and color of almonds. His expression now was very earnest.
“Will you allow us passage?” the young man asked humbly, with ill-concealed hopefulness.
As he gazed upon this young man's face, Sesshoumaru found himself wondering---as he so often did---`Will it be you? Or your children someday?' The young warrior bore this piercing scrutiny stoically, but Sesshoumaru could tell that his companions were very frightened now. They probably thought that he would take their leader's head because the youth had dared to lock eyes with the white demon. His nostrils flared slightly, and his lip curled in disgust as he smelled that one of the warriors had wet himself. Disgusting. The beast in him urged him to slaughter these contemptible creatures where they knelt, painting the snow red with their flesh.
But the Lord of the West turned his back on them instead, sharp gaze spanning the darkness between the trees. He caught the Seer's scent; she wasn't far off.
“Find her,” he bade the warriors, “I will allow it.”
With some difficulty because fear and cold had made them stiff, the posse rose to its feet. The men were too nervous to pause and stretch the flow of blood back into their muscles, so their progress as they filed off into the trees was slow and awkward. The leader brought up the rear, probably to ensure that his cowardly underlings didn't give up altogether and flee.
“You!” Sesshoumaru said to him, calling him back.
The warrior did not approach the white demon, but turned and inclined his head respectfully. His long warrior's queue slid over one armored shoulder. Like all the Tatesei, his hair was a very dark brown, like the trees in winter.
“Yes, my Lord?” he murmured, sloe eyes fixed upon Tokijin hanging at Sesshoumaru's side.
“What is your name, Ningen?” Sesshoumaru asked. He had already decided he disliked this human stripling who didn't seem afraid of him.
“Irusei,” the young man answered.
“Well, Irusei,” Sesshoumaru said, “if you and your men are not down from this mountain by morning, I will hunt you.”
Irusei bowed lower to conceal his apprehension, but Sesshoumaru saw his lips tighten. Then the young man turned and followed his companions off into the darkness of the wood. Sesshoumaru stood watching the flickering lights of their torches until they became mere fireflies against the denser shadows of the trees.
“It is good that you fear me,” he said softly to Irusei, even though the warrior was long out of his sight. “The day that your fear of me dies, so shall what little trust I have in your people.”
Sesshoumaru waited until the falling snow had filled the last prints left by the warriors, then turned to move homeward up the mountain.
{+} {+} {+}
The Present Era
“. . . and so we conjugate this verb by adding . . .”
Thunk.
“Kagome-chan? Kagome-chan?”
Slowly, Kagome lifted her head from where it had just hit the desk, blinking groggily. Her friend Yuki was gently shaking her arm, whispering her name. As Kagome's eyes came into focus, she saw that her face had fallen onto her open textbook. There was a faint nose-print right over the poem they were reading aloud in class.
She glanced up at her teacher, but fortunately he hadn't noticed her nodding off. To prevent further mishaps, she propped her chin up on her hand and directed her gaze in the general direction of the blackboard and zoned out, recalling the reason for her current condition.
She had been starting to dream of holding the Shikon no Tama in her hand when a sudden commotion set the bed to rattling on its frame. Naturally she sat bolt-upright to see what was going on. What she found was Inuyasha and Buyo the cat locked in what appeared to be a life-and-death struggle over the spot at the foot of the mattress. Buyo had dug his claws into Inuyasha's chest and was also managing to hiss around a mouthful of Inuyasha's hand. Inuyasha, while trying to swat the cat away from his right hand with his left, had also managed to bite him in the rump.
“ET IS FFFKING GAT OV ME!” the hanyou managed around a mouthful of white- and-brown-spotted fur.
Somewhat reluctantly, Kagome plunged into the fray. After some kicking and scratching on her own part, she emerged holding Buyo by the scruff of his neck and Inuyasha by the ear. Buyo she dropped over the side of the bed. He landed with a thud on all fours and scampered out of the room.
“HEY, LEGGO!” Inuyasha bawled---apparently the ears were very sensitive.
“Not until you promise you'll go to sleep and stay asleep!” Kagome insisted. “I've got school in the morning. Early.”
Inuyasha nodded and she released the ear.
“School,” he muttered, rubbing it as if to bend it back into shape. “School . . .”
Kagome flopped back down in bed and rolled over, pulling the comforter over her head with both hands. There was a moment of silence, and then . . .
“School?”
“I've got to go to learn about math and Japanese so I can get a good job,” Kagome explained with a groan.
“Why the fuck d'you have to learn Japanese?” Inuyasha demanded, folding his arms. “You already know how to read and write.”
Kagome could see he was in one of his stubborn moods---one of his especially stubborn moods. Apparently this was a side effect the flu had on demons.
“I have to go,” she explained patiently. “And you have to stay here and rest. You're sick, remember?”
“Relax,” Inuyasha told her, lying down with his arms behind his head. “I'm not going to tag along like some lost little puppy. I'll stay here and protect your family while you're away.”
“Okay,” Kagome murmured from beneath the blankets. She was too tired to worry just what he meant by “protect.”
She had awoken this morning with her head feeling like it was full of lint. Getting ready for school involved twice the usual effort because she was so tired, and also because Inuyasha was making things difficult. He seemed to have decided---perhaps as revenge for the Buyo incident---that he was going to milk being sick for all it was worth. He kept demanding that Kagome bring him glasses of water, then soup, and as what was perhaps his last desperate attempt to keep her from leaving he demanded she bring the “glass stick” to insert in his mouth.
Thus Kagome had arrived at school late and bleary-eyed.
“Kagome-chan?”
“Eh?” Kagome's head snapped up again from its slow, nodding descent toward the desktop. “What did I miss?”
Her friend leaned over next to her and whispered, “Sensei just reminded us about the field trip tomorrow.”
Kagome directed her gaze toward the front of the classroom, where her teacher was writing the time and place of departure on the board.
“Field trip?” she asked, blinking groggily. “Oh, I forgot . . . Where are we going again?”
The teacher turned around to address the class.
“Be sure to be on time,” he told his students. “This is our nation's capitol building we're visiting, and the available hours for tours are few and far between. We can't afford to wait for anyone.”
Kagome frowned, sitting up straighter in her chair.
“So we're going into central Tokyo?” she asked her friend.
Her friend stared at her.
“Hell-OOOOOO.” She waved a hand in front of Kagome's face. “Since when is Tokyo our capitol?”
Kagome stared right back, slightly dazed. “You're kidding, right?”
“Eight-o-clock sharp,” their teacher was emphasizing over their whispered conversation. “The last bus for Reiyama leaves at eight sharp.”
{+} {+} {+}
The Feudal Era
Sesshoumaru sat cross-legged on a wooden terrace overlooking the gardens. Right now they were covered in snow, which glittered in the moonlight revealed by the clearing clouds. The flowers and leaves of spring lay frozen beneath the white blanket, bent and subdued. Only the reeds that grew around the edges of the pond weathered the chill, standing straight and proud above it.
His long white hair spilled over his body like a silken curtain. He sat completely motionless---deep in thought, with his yellow eyes fixed upon the moon reflecting off the frozen pond.
`I don't care to know what Inuyasha was chosen for that I was not,' Sesshoumaru thought. `And yet. . .the kirin's words haunt me still. I have found the Seer. . .and she is Tatesei. Can it beshe is a precursor to some darker form of sorcery spawned among them?'
“Milord?”
Sesshoumaru didn't so much as twitch, but his lips moved.
“What is it, Jakken?” he murmured, his tone insinuating that violent chastisement would ensue if the imp had bothered him for nothing.
“I've brought you tea, Milord,” Jakken offered timidly, shuffling nearer to his master. “You've been sitting in the cold for so long.”
Sesshoumaru held out a hand expectantly and Jakken placed the small, steaming cup in his palm.
“Jakken,” Sesshoumaru said, bringing the cup to just beneath his lips that he might breathe in the steam.
“Yes?” Jakken responded. He had been preparing to leave in a hurry in case Sesshoumaru's mood turned ugly.
“You are older than I,” Sesshoumaru murmured. “You knew my father and his dealings with the Tatesei. What can you tell me . . . about a Seer among them?”
The imp's bulging eyes narrowed as best they could, and a pensive frown wrinkled his green, bulbous face, making it uglier than usual.
“So . . .” Jakken croaked, folding his little arms in front of him. “After one hundred years, they've found another one.”
Sesshoumaru sipped his tea, frowning slightly.
“Then you know of a Seer from Chichi-ue's time,” he said softly, lowering the cup to his lap.
“Oh, yes,” Jakken answered, warming to the subject. “Among the Tatesei, the advent of a Seer can either mean great prosperity for their people . . . or great disaster . . .”
{+} {+} {+}
The Present Era
“What? You mean that city and those people still exist today?”
“For heaven's sake, don't shout, Inuyasha,” Kagome advised, laying a placating hand on Inuyasha's chest to push him back down into bed.
She was sitting on the edge of her bed, having just taken his temperature. Inuyasha was glaring up at her, one eye slightly obscured by his bangs flopping over it. He was wearing his hakama again, even though he'd apparently come to a truce with the striped pajamas.
“But it seems like it,” Kagome added when he'd settled. “This is very weird. Not only is the city of Reiyama on all my modern maps now; it's now Japan's capitol.”
“And you're going there tomorrow?” Inuyasha demanded. “Alone?”
“Yes,” Kagome answered firmly, seeing where he was going with this. “And, no, you can't come. People in my era aren't used to seeing Youkai. They'll either think you're a nutcase or they'll just get scared and shoot you.”
“I guess you're right---they would be afraid,” Inuyasha agreed, somewhat smugly. Then he grew more serious. “If Sesshoumaru's guarding them, I can see why the Tatesei might've survived for so long. But why would they be so powerful? With Sesshoumaru as their lord, they can't practice sorcery and they can't leave their valley. They're no better than any other mortals. Sesshoumaru's practically made them his bitches.”
“I can't see why, either,” Kagome said, laying a thoughtful finger on the side of her chin. “But all this seems to have changed recently. Sesshoumaru's ruled the Tatesei for two years and I haven't noticed the Japanese capitol city being anything other than Tokyo . . .”
Inuyasha frowned.
“Unless . . .” he began.
“Unless something's happened recently in the Feudal Era that I caused.” Kagome finished. She was really beginning to worry. What would she find in Reiyama? That the Wise had been reborn and risen to power again?
Or something worse?
“For heaven's sake, don't shout, Inuyasha,” Kagome advised, laying a placating hand on Inuyasha's chest to push him back down into bed.
She was sitting on the edge of her bed, having just taken his temperature. Inuyasha was glaring up at her, one eye slightly obscured by his bangs flopping over it. He was wearing his hakama again, even though he'd apparently come to a truce with the striped pajamas.
“But it seems like it,” Kagome added when he'd settled. “This is very weird. Not only is the city of Reiyama on all my modern maps now; it's now Japan's capitol.”
“And you're going there tomorrow?” Inuyasha demanded. “Alone?”
“Yes,” Kagome answered firmly, seeing where he was going with this. “And, no, you can't come. People in my era aren't used to seeing Youkai. They'll either think you're a nutcase or they'll just get scared and shoot you.”
“I guess you're right---they would be afraid,” Inuyasha agreed, somewhat smugly. Then he grew more serious. “If Sesshoumaru's guarding them, I can see why the Tatesei might've survived for so long. But why would they be so powerful? With Sesshoumaru as their lord, they can't practice sorcery and they can't leave their valley. They're no better than any other mortals. Sesshoumaru's practically made them his bitches.”
“I can't see why, either,” Kagome said, laying a thoughtful finger on the side of her chin. “But all this seems to have changed recently. Sesshoumaru's ruled the Tatesei for two years and I haven't noticed the Japanese capitol city being anything other than Tokyo . . .”
Inuyasha frowned.
“Unless . . .” he began.
“Unless something's happened recently in the Feudal Era that I caused.” Kagome finished. She was really beginning to worry. What would she find in Reiyama? That the Wise had been reborn and risen to power again?
Or something worse?
{END OF CHAPTER 2}