InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Lord of the West ❯ Chosen ( Chapter 17 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: Yamisui
The Dragon is ready to take hold of his new body for good. Meanwhile, Inuyasha makes a choice that may lead to his death...and to a future world in which Naraku possesses the whole Shikon no Tama...

Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Fantasy / Adventure / Action | Type: Divergence | Uploaded On: 05.02.2005 | Updated On: 01.03.2006 | Pages: 8 | Words: 16.4K | Visits: 465 | Status: Completed

{+} {+} {+}LORD OF THE WEST {+} {+} {+}
{+}Chapter 16: Chosen {+}
It seemed he drifted in a strange limbo between sleep and death, very different from the web of memory and illusion in which his brother was now ensnared. It was as if all time had stopped, and now he had truly died.
Yet he lived.
He could not move; imprisoned in a casket of dark glass; seeing nothing but empty rock and steam mirrored in the crystal's myriad facets. He caught no scent and heard no sound, but in his mouth there was the bittersweet tang of blood; his own, from where the crystal had cut him as it grew a little ways between his lips. That taste, and the dizzying shine of crystal in his eyes, were all that his awareness encompassed. He had no thoughts, nor awareness of who he was. He wasn't even breathing.
Then there came a flash of light, so brilliant that a slight awareness of his body returned. He tried to shut his eyes against it, but the crystal encasing him forbade even a movement that small. A horrid cracking noise followed, so deafening that he thought his ears might rupture. All around him, the facets split and split again, splintering into pieces so tiny that he could no longer see through them. Luminescence surged between the cracks.
And then he was falling.
{+} {+} {+}
 
Strong arms wrapped around her, pulling her back. Her hand lost its grip on the arrow, but that no longer mattered. The arrow dissolved into brilliance, and then disappeared. Roughly, she was flung to the ground. The impact jolted her hard, causing her teeth to click together loudly. She lay pressed against the stone, stunned.
The disorientation lasted only a few seconds, however, and then she realized that the person crouched over her protectively was Sango, and that between the two women and the shattering crystal Kirara stood as a living barrier. The demon's fiery ki deflected the worst of it, sparing them all a potentially deadly shower of jagged shards. Kagome didn't bother waiting for Sango to sit up and move away from her. The ground was trembling beneath her belly, but she scarcely noticed it. She wriggled out from beneath the other woman and staggered to her feet.
The ryunochi encasing Inuyasha's body had shattered, and he was falling. His eyes were wide and staring, as if he were dead, and he fell to his knees with a loud thud. He would have tipped forward to land face-first on the sharp debris, but at the last instant Kirara caught the back of his haori in her jaws. Kagome rushed to his side, kneeling down and catching him in her arms once Kirara let go. He was very heavy; the weight of his head and upper body on Kagome's lap pressed her shins into the debris underfoot, tearing holes in her jeans. She paid this no heed, grasping him by one arm and shaking him. There was a long, nasty-looking weal across his back, oozing blood. She was so terrified in this instant that she couldn't even manage his name. All that emerged was a kind of wordless whimper.
“Kagome!” Sango shouted from somewhere behind her. “The mountain's going to fall! We have to leave NOW!”
Clasping both arms tightly under Inuyasha's Kagome tried to lift him as she rose to her feet. Yet he was too heavy; she was forced to kneel again to keep from dropping him. She was aware now of the ground rumbling beneath her legs, but somehow he was more important.
“Help me!” she cried. “We're not leaving without him!”
Sango's hand grasped her firmly by the shoulder.
“Kagome, he's . . .”
“Alive!” she breathed.
His hand moved.
He placed one palm flat against the shard-strewn ground, pushing himself slowly into a kneeling position, crystal tumbling from his hair in a fall of dark glass. As he did so, he laughed softly.
“Inuyasha?” Kagome asked, still grasping his arm tightly. She peered up into his face, seized with the new fear that he was somehow no longer himself. She had no idea what his imprisonment in the ryunochi might have done to him.
Yet he caught hold of her by the arm, and pulled her with him as he rose abruptly to his feet.
“I see now,” he murmured, and Kagome found herself heaving a sigh of relief. His face was slashed cruelly in places from where the shattered crystal had cut him, but the expression he wore was a familiar fierce grin.
“Inuyasha, we have to leave here,” Sango insisted. She was now carrying the unconscious woman Suiton with one arm beneath her shoulders. “Raiiru intends to bring the mountain down on us.”
“Yeah; to kill me,” Inuyasha said, moving quickly to help her. He held the Seer while Sango climbed atop Kirara's back. When the demon-slayer had helped Kagome up as well, he lifted the woman and set her in front of them astride Kirara. “Hold onto her, Kagome. We have to move.”
Wordlessly, Kagome nodded, clasping her arms around the Seer's waist to hold her steady. The woman slumped helplessly against her.
They took off at a flying pace down the tunnel. Though the whole place was shaking violently, Kirara's feet scarcely touched the ground and her riders scarcely felt it. Inuyasha ran alongside them, for Kirara could only carry so many. Kagome kept her eyes fixed on his face, unable to bear seeing what the sharp crystals jutting out of the floor were doing to his feet. He bore it with grim resolution; it seemed as if from the moment he'd been freed from the casket of ryunochi he'd become filled with a renewed grim purpose. Kagome wasn't reassured in the least.
“Inuyasha, what did you mean, `to kill you'?” she asked him, wincing as a bit of falling crystal glanced off her shoulder. “Why does the dragon want to kill you so badly?”
Inuyasha's head lowered, shading his eyes with shaggy white bangs.
“Heh. Because Sesshoumaru is a dolt.”
Kagome's mouth formed a little O of shock. Then she became so angry and confused that even her thoughts started running into each other.
`How can he. . .how. . .after what thinking he died just put me through. . .he says `heh'. . .?'
Fortunately, Sango was still able to think coherently.
“Inuyasha,” she said, in a low warning tone, “that doesn't explain anything. We want to know what's going on.”
Inuyasha grunted as his foot trod on a particularly sharp bit of shard.
“Ow. Fuck.”
“Inuyasha. . .”
Inuyasha took a deep breath, biting back the longer string of swear words that had apparently been pending.
“Like you said earlier, the `hanyou' holds the key,” he blurted out instead. He stumbled a little; the shard had cut him just under the ball of his foot and it hurt like hell. “Otou-sama knew what he was doing when he entrusted the secret of the Dragon's location to me. He knew that if for some reason the seal faded, my blood alone would hold the key to restoring it.” He paused, smirking. “And he knew Sesshoumaru would just fuck everything up. Which he has.”
Sango nodded slowly.
“That makes sense,” she agreed. “But why didn't Raiiru just kill you outright? Why go to the trouble of dropping a mountain on you when he had you at his mercy?”
Inuyasha's fierce expression faded into a frown.
“I don't know,” he admitted. “That's the funny thing. But it seems to me like he's afraid of just coming into contact with my blood. We fought, in the cave, when he'd just taken over Sesshoumaru's body. And I noticed something weird: he seemed to be avoiding touching me. He used Sesshoumaru's power against me only twice, and neither time did he use very much of it at all. The first, when I attacked at close range and he gave me this.” Inuyasha nodded over his shoulder, presumably referring to the weal across his back. “The second . . . I think it was a lure. He called poison into his claws, to make it look like he was going to charge me. But when I charged him . . . like before . . . the wraith in him attacked instead.”
Sango nodded, comprehension dawning on her face. Kagome was starting to get an inkling as well.
“And he used the ryunochi to imprison you?” she murmured, shuddering a little.
“You didn't have Tetsusaiga,” Sango remarked, a bit more shrewdly. “Here.” She let go of Kagome's waist to remove Tetsusaiga from the strap across her back. She'd been storing the sword there ever since she'd retrieved it after Kagome cast it aside. It had shared her Hiraikoutsu's harness. Now she leaned to one side and passed it to Inuyasha, who took it quickly and re-fastened it at his hip.
“I didn't have Tetsusaiga,” Inuyasha agreed as he did this. “And I couldn't get close to him. So I used my Hijintessou.” He paused, looking very grim indeed. “And that was when he did it. I think that was why he did it; if he hadn't dodged it, the attack would've brought him into contact with my blood.”
Sango's brows knitted together in a frown.
“You mean to use the Hijintessou to defeat him,” she said slowly. “You think that somehow if your blood touches him, it will destroy him?”
Inuyasha grunted.
“Something like that, yeah.”
Neither Sango nor Kagome found this very reassuring. From his behavior it seemed less like Inuyasha didn't really have a plan and more like he was trying to keep something from them.
“The tunnel ends up there,” Kagome said suddenly, lifting one of the hands from the Seer's waist and pointing.
As they moved, the air had been growing steadily colder. They had already passed the place where the tunnel forked, and were now running up the branch that led to the surface. Behind them, larger chunks of rock were beginning to shake loose and fall from the ceiling. From somewhere far behind along the way they'd just come, there came a loud crack, and then a crash, as of even weightier debris descending. Then there came an even louder crack, causing Kagome and Sango to flinch. The noise was so deafening that it echoed repeatedly off the cave walls.
“That wasn't just rocks falling,” Kagome said in a low voice. “That sounded like something hit the whole mountain, making it crack like that . . .”
“Not hitting it,” Inuyasha replied unexpectedly, in a voice equally as low. “Pulling it down from the inside out. Reiyama is filled with the Dragon's blood. Over the centuries, sealed away by his own blood, he couldn't move. But I think the ryunochi has soaked into the mountain itself, becoming part of it.” Even for describing something so grim, the hanyou's tone was unusually dark. “I understand, a little, what the Dragon endured. Being sealed in that stuff is like . . . well, not like dying . . . but like being trapped in a state of wanting to die. No wonder the Dragon dreamed so hard of freedom that his soul reached out to Kagome's . . .”
Kagome pursed her lips, forcibly holding back tears. She had resolved the instant she lifted Tetsusaiga from the bloodstained floor that she would make this right somehow. And she had saved Inuyasha from the waking death of the seal. Yet the way events were beginning to move, she had changed nothing. . .
“Say . . . where the hell is Miroku?” Inuyasha was asking Sango.
Sango looked over at him.
“Oh? He took Shippou and went on ahead of us.” She sounded faintly puzzled.
Inuyasha's brow furrowed, and then abruptly his eyes went wide with what appeared to be a mixture of outrage and horror.
“He WHAT? Sango, do you KNOW why he LEFT YOU? SHIT! THAT COCKY BASTARD!”
Sango flinched, somewhat taken aback by this outburst, but when the look of horror didn't fade from Inuyasha's face she gasped as if in sudden realization.
“DAMNED IDIOT!” Inuyasha swore, shaking his head to clear away some rubble that had fallen into his hair. “He thinks he can kill the Dragon HIMSELF with the Wind Tunnel!” He paused, panting from the exertion of emoting and running all at once. “The Wind Tunnel . . . will devour lesser Youkai . . . but he forgets that that THING in my brother's body is that thing in MY BROTHER'S BODY . . .”
Sango's grip around Kagome's waist tightened.
“We'llgo to his aid,” she said firmly.
Inuyasha turned away, nodding. His eyes gleamed fiercely, fixed now on the tunnel's maw ahead. There the cave opened onto a sky like a roiling sea of storm clouds. Icicles hung from the ceiling there like pointed teeth.
`Inuyasha is avoiding looking at me,' Kagome thought, watching him. She could not bring herself to say anything, because the way he looked she doubted anything could dissuade him. `What are you thinking, Inuyasha? Why do you look like you know you're about to do something terrible?'
He was alive here and now, but she had changed nothing. They were racing to meet the Dragon in battle . . .
. . . who wore Sesshoumaru's flesh . . .
The flesh of one who was destined to die with his brother when the mountain fell . . .
{+} {+} {+}
 
A lone figure struggled across a frozen plain, bearing in his arms what appeared to be a bundle of red fur. His dark robes flapped around his body, billowing away from his skin and letting out precious warmth. He shuddered, clutching the bundle tightly against him as he stumbled. Even his ki was waning; his ankles were starting to sink into the snow.
And his feet, though wrapped in cloth shoes beneath the sandals, had gone numb long ago.
“Ow,” the bundle protested.
Miroku offered no apology, but loosened his grip.
“You should go now, Shippou,” he said, lifting the Kitsune in his arms. “Transform and get to the mountains to the north as fast as you can.”
Shippou uncurled, staring up at the monk in defiance.
“No,” he argued. “I won't leave you.” His teeth were chattering as he said this.
Miroku smiled wearily at him.
`I will probably die doing this,' he thought.
“You will go,” he told Shippou gently. “Because if you are drawn into the Void in my hand along with the Dragon, Kagome-sama will cry.”
Shippou's determined expression wavered.
“And she's cried enough on this journey, hasn't she?” Miroku pressed.
Slowly, the Kitsune nodded. His eyes were very large and liquid. He turned away from Miroku before jumping from his arms and transforming.
Miroku squinted against the driving snow, shielding his eyes with one hand as the large, awkward bird Shippou had become winged its way northward. Then he lowered his arm, tucking it beneath the voluminous folds of his sleeve and pressing onward.
Ahead of him he could see a dark cluster of boulders: an outcropping. They formed a ridge, atop which there stood another dark cluster of much smaller figures: the Tatesei. He would have known them even if he hadn't been able to distinguish their shapes; their faces were glowing embers in the dark. The fire still flowing through their veins had rendered them pinpoint candles, ringing the one tall, pale figure standing in their midst. Even from this distance, Miroku could see Sesshoumaru's head turned toward the mountain, palms slightly upraised. The Dragon's eyes gleamed; he was bringing the mountain down.
`I muststop him,' Miroku thought. `But is it possible from this range?' He stole a quick glance around him.
The plain, of course, was still blanketed in snow. If he opened the Wind Tunnel at this distance, it would be less effective against Raiiru, and would pull tons upon tons of snow in as well. This could potentially be as harmful as pulling boulders or hordes of demons into his hand; it could tear the hole wider again. He hesitated a moment, weighing the risks. The storm was not as intense here as it was surrounding the Dragon; a fact which Miroku did not fail to notice. The fact that the jyaki-driven storm still circled where Sesshoumaru walked must mean that there was still some clash between the white demon's blood and the Dragons, igniting this maelstrom. The closer Miroku came to the Dragon, the less the winds would interfere with the wind from his hand. But closer in, the Dragon would be able to react more effectively to counteract his attack. . .
It was a risk he could not avoid.
Flinging aside the prayer beads covering his accursed hand, he shouted, “KAZAANA!” into the face of the storm.
Then the windswept plain was besieged by a storm of his own.
{+} {+} {+}
 
Shippou, for the first time along the journey, elected to obey his elders and go to where he could remain in safety. He told himself as he flew that he would not cry, he would not cry he would not, though of course he was crying as he said this. It was difficult to fly against the wind at first; the ice stung his eyes. However, when at last he cleared the ridge on the far side of the plane, he found that the wind was slower, and the snow did not blind him as he flew.
`Miroku was right,' he thought angrily. `Sesshoumaru really isthe center of the storm. ALL of this is his fault!'
Not far ahead, he could see buildings below. The Inu Youkai palace, he recalled. Where he was supposed to go. He knew that he was supposed to take shelter here somewhere, but he also knew that the two who followed Sesshoumaru lived here. He didn't know what sort of welcome he would receive.
He doubted it would be friendly.
To Shippou's surprise, as he began to circle low over the slanted roof he saw that there were lights on in the windows. And the odd thing was . . . as he circled around the building, he saw that there were lights on in every window.
`Just how many people live in this place?' he wondered.
Finally, when his magic was beginning to exhaust him and he could no longer hold the transformation, Shippou landed on the snow-strewn garden and considered what to do next.
Now that he was no longer flying, his teeth began to chatter, and his thoughts turned immediately to warmth. He scampered over the snow and climbed onto the wooden terrace that ringed the palace, taking shelter under the roof. There he huddled against the wall, watching the icicles dripping off the eaves. He was still shivering.
`Maybe I can find somewhere to hide inside,' he decided.
There really wasn't anywhere else to go. He was too tired to fly anywhere else, and he'd freeze to death trying to travel through this weather on foot. That left the Inu Youkai palace itself. He swallowed hard. He wasn't sure he wanted to meet whoever Sesshoumaru's friends were inside. He wasn't afraid of the two who traveled with the demon lord; they were small, and though the one named Jakken carried a staff that breathed fire, it wasn't anything he couldn't run away from in time. However, it occurred to him that Sesshoumaru might have stronger demon allies living here as well. At least, it seemed lighting the whole palace with candles would be too wearisome a task for two people alone.
Looking right, then left, Shippou saw no one coming round the terrace. He slid aside the nearest door panel and crept inside.
The room he found was empty. It smelled of dust and stone and old wood, and also of Inu Youkai. But even that was an old scent. It looked as if no one had lived there for years.
Yet there was a candle burning in the window, flickering against the canvas drawn closed to shutter it. And there were no cobwebs in the corners.
There was a dagger lying on the floor. Shippou stepped on it quite by accident; the light wasn't good. With a yelp, he temporarily forgot his intended caution and scurried out into the hall.
There was no one there.
Again he paused, nursing the cut on his foot and considering what to do.
`I can't stay in the hall, at any rate,' he finally decided. `If someone comes there's nowhere to hide.'
He wandered furtively down corridors lined with torches. He heard soft scurryings that sounded too large to be rats, and felt eyes watching him, but every which way he turned there was no one. At long last he came to a vast room, where a fire pit burned invitingly at one end, and where cushions had been laid out for its denizens' comfort. Shippou approached the fire, thinking only of warming his numb little hands and feet. However, he hadn't come within three feet of it before he realized what was happening. This was just like some tale Kagome had once told him, where the young maiden seeks shelter in a demon's castle, and in return the demon forces her to become his wife. Or maybe it was a tennyou maiden, and the castle was a wood-cutter's hut? Or a temple with a lecherous priest?
Shippou shook his head, knocking on it with his tiny fists.
“Gah!” he chided himself. “Everyone's stories confuse me!”
“Stories?”
The Kitsune jumped so high it was practically levitation.
Then he turned, and saw that the young maiden from the story was standing there, staring at him. She was wearing a blue silken tunic embroidered with fish and swirling waves.
“What stories?” she persisted, folding her hands before her composedly and peering at him with polite curiosity.
Then Shippou, despite his rapid heartbeat, realized that this was Rin; the girl who followed Sesshoumaru around. He relaxed a little; he wasn't afraid of her at all.
“Isn't there anyone else in the castle?” he asked her, folding his arms and trying to look mature.
The little girl looked somewhat crestfallen.
“Rin has only Jakken to look after her,” she said sadly. “Lord Sesshoumaru has gone to fight the Dragon.” She approached the fire and plunked down on one of the cushions, hugging herself. “Rin is afraid.”
Shippou realized with a start that he couldn't just blurt out how this was all Sesshoumaru's fault in front of her. She might cry, and he knew better than to make girls cry. Instead, he patted her on the hand in a companionable sort of way.
“You're afraid he'll forget you?” he asked, in his trying-to-sound-older tone of voice.
Rin shook her head, staring transfixed into the flames. Her brown eyes were very large and liquid.
“No,” she answered sadly. “It has been a long time since he left. And the Seer said he will die.”
{+} {+} {+}
 
The instant the monk's cursed hand began to disrupt the storm-winds surrounding Raiiru, the Dragon turned away from the east to face this new interference. He regarded the tiny figure of the monk with yellow eyes narrowed. One of his children lost their footing and went sliding off the ridge and into the pull of the vortex. Still more attempted to grasp hold of something, anything, to hold themselves fast against it, but there was little for it. Several more were lost before he could react; the others acted quickly, planting their spears deep in the earth beneath their feet, where the snow had melted. They clung to the secured weapons, turning their faces toward him expectantly.
Raiiru pushed his way past them, disregarding the snow buffeting against him. His eyes were beginning to blaze. The strange wind-curse would not pull him into it, as he was sure the monk intended, for his soul's wraith-like talons dug into the stone where he stepped, leaving runnels in the rock. Despite the fact that he had taken a mortal's flesh, the Dragon and the flesh had yet to become one. It was not because the white demon's soul prevented him; Sesshoumaru was bound deep in shadow, wound into the heart of a labyrinth of lies. The Dragon knew the heart of Sesshoumaru far better than Sesshoumaru himself. The lies that the white demon chose to believe most; the ones that formed the strongest shackles, were the lies Sesshoumaru had told himself.
“I will take the Dragon's power and become a god. I will not lose myself to it.”
“Power will bring me peace.”
Raiiru shook his head faintly, stalking toward the edge of the ridge. Sesshoumaru was nearly gone. But he could not fully merge his soul with this body until he was certain it could not be defeated. He would remain a wraith in a demon's body if it meant an easier way to defeat this new threat. He would remain in this state until he was certain the hanyou Inuyasha was dead, also.
He was not a fool, and he was not so full of pride that he refused to acknowledge his vulnerabilities. While in the mountain he had come to realize something vital: the hanyou's blood touching him caused Sesshoumaru to stir inside him. He feared what might happen if too much of Inuyasha's blood made contact with his borrowed flesh, and so he chose to bury it beneath the mountain, so that none would ever be able to retrieve it. Only when Inuyasha's blood was sealed away from all retrieval would he be able to merge fully with this new form. Only then would he become the destined White King.
Yet now this new distraction was calling him away from the task at hand.
He descended from the ridge, cutting a steaming path through the driving snow where he passed. The monk was holding his ground, his face pale and drawn from the strain of using the curse in his hand. Raiiru was finally forced to halt at a distance of roughly one hundred yards. Even with Raiiru's ghostly talons digging into the earth to hold him fast, the monk's vortex was formidable, and he would not be able to move closer. Neither would the monk be able to draw him in.
A standoff.
He didn't speak; he merely stood there, waiting. Soon enough, the monk saw that his ploy was having no effect, and began to move toward him.
Raiiru's head lifted, white hair streaming out behind him.
“I see your aim,” he called. His voice was Sesshoumaru's, soft and cultured, yet it now possessed a strange resonance. It carried past the shriek of wind, into the monk's very head, so that he would not fail to hear it. “But you won't spare him time with your power. He's dead. And the mountain willfall. . .”
Raiiru's yellow eyes rolled upward in his head, flashing white. His consciousness shot through the places in the mountain where his blood had seeped through cracks in the rock, as if he were traveling through his own veins. And now there came one final crack. The earth began to rumble.
The monk ran at him. He could not see the monk, but he could smell the stench of desperation on him. And he tensed, preparing to move with according speed to dodge the brunt of the vortex.
The monk was too late. With a mighty din, the mountain fell.
It was a slow thing to watch; the massive, broken rock face crumbling and sliding down beneath the weight of the snow atop it. A gigantic cloud of snow mushroomed over it, rising skyward, only to be caught in the winds of the storm that swept across the plain. A smile spread across Raiiru's pale face, baring pointed teeth. It was done. The hanyou was buried.
Slowly, he turned to deal with the monk.
It was then that he realized the vortex was gone; closed.
The monk's eyes were wide with surprise. As Raiiru turned to face him, brushing aside the hair the wind whipped across his eyes, he saw the monk take a single, unsteady step toward him. Then the young man pitched forward, stumbling to his knees in the snow, bent double with the sudden pain of the dagger protruding from his back.
Irusei stood behind him.
Raiiru said nothing; he made no further move to approach. It seemed the strain of maintaining the vortex had become too great, and so the monk closed it. And as he did so, Irusei had caught him unaware. He was finished, whether he lived or died. The wound would rob him of consciousness, if not his life. For a moment, the Dragon and Irusei regarded each other across the man bleeding in the snow. The Tatesei warrior's face glistened with sweat, though the air was so cold that it frozen where it dripped off his chin. Irusei's eyes, still black against the cross-work of fiery veins beneath his skin, were feverish.
“I guarded the way out of the tunnel,” the young man finally said. His voice was hoarse and breathy. “As you bade me. And I followed him all this way. But my strength failed me . . . and I did not overtake him until now.”
Still Raiiru said nothing. He had known when first he laid mortal eyes upon Irusei that the young warrior would die from the wound the white demon's sword had dealt him. And still Irusei continued to serve him, even though he had not been chosen; even though the Dragon had chosen Sesshoumaru instead.
“What would you have me do?” Irusei asked. His voice had dropped to a whisper, scarcely audible above the monk's ragged breath. He sank to his knees behind the man he'd stabbed, bowing his head in obeisance. His hands, wet with blood, branded red prints into the snow. “What must I do now?”
Raiiru, who had seen the dawn of centuries, and whose claws had furrowed valleys and lashed seas, was beyond words. This humble creature, though he should have been bitter over his coming death, instead knelt before him, holding out his remaining life like a gift. Human strength. Human strength such as this was what would endure the ages. Raiiru knew himself to be wise to see this, and to choose this race for his own.
But for his devoted child Irusei, he could do nothing.
“Heal me,” Irusei whispered, pleading with his head bowed. Stringy wet hair fell across his eyes, hiding his face. “Let me see the world you will make.”
Raiiru glided closer to him, skirting around the monk, who lay groaning and helpless.
“You were stabbed by a demon blade, to which Sesshoumaru gave the name Tokijin,” Raiiru said softly. “Its poisonous jyaki has mingled with my blood in you. Because of this, I might save your life, but you would become something unnatural as a result. A demon.” He tilted his cold, beautiful head to one side, thoughtful as he laid one hand gently atop Irusei's bowed head.
“If that is so, still I ask that you save me,” Irusei begged. He wanted to live, despite his courage. He clung to life in the manner of humans. His shoulders were tense with it. “Please. I want to see the future ahead. I want to see . . .”
Sharp talons curled inward, clenching into flesh and through the skull, into Irusei's brain. He died with his eyes open, staring at nothing.
Gently, Raiiru disengaged his claws and lowered the dead man into the snow beside the monk. The fire in Irusei's veins had faded and grown dark, and his eyes were clear.
“You have died a man, and not a beast,” Raiiru told him softly. “That is my gift to you.”
Then he turned and started up the ridge, toward his remaining children. They had pulled their spears free of the frozen earth, and now regarded him silently. There was no accusation in their eyes; only hope. He had not suffered a demon to live, and so it would be from now on. Now he would merge fully with the body he'd possessed, and with his art of necromancy he would put an end to this age.
The power once possessed by the Wise, amplified a thousand-fold in him, would sweep across the land like a wave.
“It is done,” he said softly to his followers. “And now I am the Dragon no longer. I will take this mortal's body in full, and become Raiiru, the White King. Your king.”
Going utterly still, he drew his soul inward, toward the core of the flesh, burning white-hot as a star imploding. He felt his blood begin to melt, to merge with the white demon's, becoming something entirely new.
The winds around him began to slow, for now the clash of his blood with Sesshoumaru's demon jyaki was nearing its end. He was overcoming it, becoming one with it and stilling its malice, and so the storm was fading.
And he felt the soul that had once worn this flesh begin to fade away and die.
{+} {+} {+}
 
Inuyasha had known what he had to do from the instant before the Dragon locked him away in crystal. That was why the Dragon had done it. Now that he was free, and he had finally come across the frozen plain to see his enemy standing there on the ridge, his resolve was hardened further. As the tall, pale figure became clearer to see through the maelstrom, he fell back and drew abreast of Kirara. Then he lifted Tetsusaiga free of its sheath and pressed it into Kagome's hands.
She stared at him, her face full of questions. She grasped the blade as if it were a life-preserver, even though her arms were also locked around the Seer's waist.
Inuyasha hadn't had any regrets up until this point. Now he hated himself for doing this.
“Keep it safe,” he told her huskily. “And stay back.”
Then he reached upward for the Shikon shard that hung on the chain around her neck, and with one swift tug tore it free.
He turned quickly away, and without warning surged ahead, speeding full tilt toward the Dragon.
{+} {+} {+}
 
Kagome stared after him with her lips pressed together tensely. Her face had gone white with surprise, and dawning horror.
“Inuyasha!” Sango called after him, but he ignored her completely. He was already well beyond earshot.
Finally, Kagome found her voice.
“What is he thinking? What is he thinking?” she found herself shouting. She was angry. And full of fear. “He's going to fight without Tetsusaiga! And with the shard. . . He'll lose to his own demon blood!”
Behind her, Sango shook her head, mystified.
“I don't understand, either. He knows from past experience that trying to fight Sesshoumaru without Tetsusaiga will only get him killed . . . or rob him of his sanity. Does he think if he gives in to his Youkai blood he'll be strong enough to take on the Dragon?”
The woman in Kagome's arms stirred a little, moaning. Kagome's hands tightened around Tetsusaiga. Its blunted edges dug into her palms.
“What are you thinking, Inuyasha?” she asked softly, even though he couldn't hear. “What made you choose this . . . ?”
{+} {+} {+}
 
In the cavern beneath the mountain, the air had been filled with smoke and red blades. The thing in Sesshoumaru's body dodged them with fluid speed, as Inuyasha had suspected he might. That was when the hanyou dug his nails into his flesh yet again, and let loose another volley.
“HIJINTESSOU!”
This time, the Dragon did not evade it completely. The edge of one crimson blade caught him in the upper arm on the left side, on the arm that wasn't supposed to be there. It scarcely fazed the Dragon at all, drawing only a little blood to spot the white sleeve. Yet in that instant Inuyasha thought he saw something of his brother return to the cold, yellow eyes. And the blood he'd drawn smelled only of Sesshoumaru.
He prepared to let loose yet another slew of red blades, but his preparatory gathering of inner ki was impeded by a growing sense of exhaustion. The air here was thick, and too hot. It reeked of sulfur.
The Dragon grinned at him; an eerie, bestial expression that bared the points of Sesshoumaru's fangs.
“Your blood can't wake him,” Raiiru sneered, “because you are both hanyou and hanryu. There is too much of me in you, and too much that is human, for you to reawaken the demon in him.”
Inuyasha darted sideways, evading the smoky claw that shot straight for him. He landed in a crouch, panting, and reflecting on the Dragon's words. They were true.
If that was so, there was only one way left.
He began to let the Youkai in him loose. It seeped through him like a poison, carrying with it the power that he'd long kept buried. Every muscle in his body went taut with it.
He found himself laughing; a low, ugly sound, and with the lengthening claws of one hand he reached into the red blossom of his wound.
This time the Dragon acted swiftly and without comment. Black blood rained down upon Inuyasha; flew toward him from every direction, in droplets like insects swarming. They coated him like a second skin, blinding him, filling his nose, pressing in around his body. Maddened, he lashed out at them, but his Hijintessou flew blindly, and the Dragon avoided them easily. Running blindly, he tore down the tunnel, in a rage but unable to see where his opponent was. The black mist came frothing after.
The infuriating thing, amplified tenfold by his excited demon blood, was that he KNEW he could defeat the Dragon, if only he could see where he was. His fury escaped his throat in a roar, which reverberated off the tunnel walls. But then the ryunochi had overtaken him, and he was able to run no further.
{+} {+} {+}
 
Now, as he ran toward the ridge, Inuyasha began calling that fury back into his blood. He was glad he did not have to look at Kagome as he did this. It felt like his very flesh was boiling with it. His fangs lengthened, and his claws curved cruelly outward, and he became suffused with strength. The wounds from the tunnel before had already closed, but now he opened a new one, gouging deep into his own chest between the folds of his haori.
The pain was white-hot and terrible, but it added to his fury. It was swallowed by his other self; the one who laughed when he killed.
It made him feel alive.
{+} {+} {+}
 
Raiiru, flowing through his own veins in a rush, was not aware of the danger rushing toward him. His awareness was locking itself into bone and skin and muscle, drinking in the deep awareness of this new Self. He was not aware of the red blades that cut through the now-windless air, until at last they struck him.
He did not receive the full brunt of the attack. Two of the Tatesei had seen it coming and interposed themselves between the White King and the blades of blood. They were cut asunder, bodies pistoning grotesquely as they were sliced to shreds where they stood. Their blood splashed into the snow; spattered across the back of his white robes. Several flashed past the warriors, however, catching him in the ribs on one side, beneath the arm, and on the other at the hip. The last caught the side of his face as he turned, slicing a new stripe down his cheekbone.
What he saw made his eyes widen in disbelief. The hanyou was alive. Somehow, he had escaped the seal of ryunochi, as the Dragon had never been able to. Raiiru's breath caught between his grimacing fangs in a hiss of pain. He was remembering a prophecy, spoken by Midoriko. Midoriko, who had chosen to abandon the one whose blood flowed strongest in her veins, to serve humankind in place of the Dragon . . .
“Two rivers I see: one flowing alongside the other. They are two great Lines; theirs is a flow to span the Ages. One is a line of Youkai, strong and terrible. The other is a long line of sorcerers and kings---a race guarded by a shield of spirits. Where these rivers meet, I foresee the end of this Age, for a battle which began long ago shall at last be lost.
And that which was broken shall at last be destroyed.”
“Where these rivers meet. . .”
“. . .the end of this Age. . .”
Long ago, the Inutaisho had broken the strength of the Ryu Line. Then Sesshoumaru had broken the strength of the Tatesei Line. Now the rivers had met. The two Lines had blended. And now. . .to destroy at last that which was broken. . .
The Inutaisho's chosen son had come for him.
The hanyou's bloodwas already beginning to seep into his body like a poison.
{+} {+} {+}
 
His body coiled atop a great black throne, carved with dragons twining, with embedded rubies for eyes. His claws curved over the armrests. He surveyed with placid authority the host of those come to pay tribute. Still more waited outside, bearing gifts of rare fruit and rarer gems, tokens of allegiance and new armies, bought and paid for. The world was his.
This was what he'd always wanted.
What he'd always wanted.
The man kneeling in front of him was lifting a sword to him; the symbol of a regiment newly sworn to follow beneath the shadows of his wings. His head was bowed. The dragon-lord did not allow his subjects to look upon him. They averted their faces, veiled their eyes, for he was too beautiful and too terrible for them to be worthy of seeing him this close.
Idly, he reached silver claws down to take the sword. To take an army on a whim.
That was when something went wrong.
The kneeling supplicant raised his head as the dragon-lord's claws closed around the blade.
The blade cut him. He gazed down at it in wonder. It gleamed red, and his blood trickled over its edge, running slantwise to the hilt, which was cradled in the supplicant's palms. The blood was not black, as the Dragon's should be. It was not black, but. . .
The supplicant raised his head, sneering, baring fangs while yellow eyes mocked him over the sword between them.
“What, jackass? You thought I'd just giveit to you? Wake UP!”
The dream wavered. Then everything was as it had been; as he'd always wanted it to be. Yet now Sesshoumaru shifted his silver coils, restless upon his throne.
Now there was a problem: he was beginning to remember who he was. . .who he'd once been.
And he could no longer make himself believe that this wasn't a dream.
{+} {+} {+}
 
“NO!” the Dragon rumbled, swiping at the blood running down his cheek. “It isn't enough! You're a hanyou! You aren't demon enough to banish me!”
Inuyasha laughed; a guttural, menacing sound. Then he flew at the tall, pale figure standing on the ridge. The Tatesei warriors who followed the Dragon threw themselves into his path, but his claws swiped vicious arcs through the frozen air, rending them down before their spears could reach him.
“My blood burns,” he called as he charged. “It burns pure. And he'll wake soon. I see him stirring in you . . .”
Raiiru was retreating. Dimly, Inuyasha was aware of fearful cries coming from somewhere behind him. One was Sango's voice. Miroku was down; he could smell the blood. The other was Kagome's. He was trying not to listen, or his blood would cool. He didn't like her to see him like this.
The shard embedded in his flesh pulsed in time with his heart. He'd inserted it into the wound he'd dug from his chest, and the skin had immediately closed over it. His wounds were healing. Grinning fiercely, he dug his claws into his left arm, then slung crimson blades outward in a horizontal rain. The Dragon leaped backward, retreating a good ten yards to avoid the hijintessou. Simultaneously, the smoke of his wraith-like form surged forth from his body, forcing Inuyasha to halt his charge. It seared past Inuyasha's left side as the hanyou dodged it.
Inuyasha landed against the slanted side of a boulder atop the ridge and catapulted himself off it, hurtling toward Raiiru from a new angle. His lips were drawn back in a snarl now; he had been hurt. Though his Fire-Rat robes had protected him from the heat, there was an ugly scorch mark down the side of his left cheek, and the flesh of his left hand swiftly grew red and blistered. It hurt like hell. It made him want to kill.
Again the smoky claw swiped at him, and again he dodged. He was coming to realize something. He crouched atop yet another boulder, breathing hard.
“You . . . can't reach me,” he called to his enemy. “. . . can you? You're afraid. You're losing . . . hold of that body.”
Raiiru spun to face him, mouth pressed firmly closed and eyes snapping sparks of ice. The Dragon was angry, and did not seem to know how to hide it. For a moment, both went still, each taking the measure of the other.
“You can't use his power, can you?” Inuyasha jeered. “Can't use the power of the body you wear because you can't merge with it `til I'm dead, is that it? What's the matter? Am I keeping you from what you want?”
The wounds in Raiiru's pale flesh were beginning to close, but slowly.
Inuyasha grinned.
Well, he thought viciously, I'll just have to reopen them, then. Tear him open.
The grin stretched the seared skin of his cheek, sending tiny wires of pain shooting up into his eye that might have been scorched nerves. He clung to the pain, knowing that it kept the Youkai blood in him boiling. He needed that. Needed to be stronger to . . .
To be strong to . . .
To banish this thing from Sesshoumaru's body.
He'd almost forgotten. It was hard, thinking while in this state. His grin contorted into a grimace. He was going to have to make this fast, before he lost control completely. He was about to attack again when his fortune took a sudden turn for the worse.
“HIRAIKOUTSU!”
The Dragon turned from him, and in one flying leap sped clear of the ridge. Sango's weapon landed in the place where he'd previously been standing. The impact was thunderous; snow sprayed outward from it in every direction. Inuyasha's view of his enemy was temporarily obscured by it. Cursing darkly, he sprang from his perch, dashing straight through the spray after him.
What he saw upon emerging from the brief shower of snow drove the madness completely from his blood.
The Dragon might not yet have had complete mastery over Sesshoumaru's power, but nevertheless his strength was formidable.
As was his speed.
He stood between Sango and her weapon. Sango stood between him and Miroku, seeming uncertain which way to move. She seemed torn between going to Miroku, who lay wounded and bleeding in the snow, or to advance on the Dragon. She was weaponless now save for the short sword she carried, which would never be able to strike beyond the reach of Raiiru's claws. One of the Dragon's pale arms was lifted, its sleeve fluttering gently like a banner. His hand encircled Kagome's throat as he held her aloft.
Her legs dangled limply; at first Inuyasha thought she was dead. Then he realized that her eyes were wide open and she was staring at him and breathing shakily. She was not struggling because Raiiru's claws were pressed against her neck.
Kirara started toward them, a growl rumbling deep in her chest. Raiiru heard the sound but did not turn toward it. Instead he tightened the grip of one finger, digging one nail into delicate skin. Kagome flinched. Her hands, grasping feebly at the arm that held her, were shaking. A few drops of blood leaked onto the collar of the sweater she wore. Kirara halted her advance, unwilling to risk the girl's life.
The Dragon said nothing, but his pale face tilted sideways toward Inuyasha, yellow eyes rolling slightly. The expression gave him an eerie, feral look that had nothing to do with the demon whose body he inhabited.
The message was clear.
Inuyasha was filled with sudden rage. He was disgusted; with Sesshoumaru for becoming the instrument of all this, and with himself for his helplessness. He could not break the standoff by rushing at his enemy now. All care for himself aside, all futures aside, he had meant what he told the Seer before.
“I don't really care what kind of world results from this. If I can't protect my friends, then the future doesn't matter.”
If I can't protect her, then the future doesn't matter.
That was when he made the choice; a choice to change a future.
His future.
“She's not the one you want,” he said, standing with his feet planted in the snow.
The Dragon remained still and silent; waiting for him to continue.
Inuyasha swallowed hard, brushing a hand over the place in his flesh where the Shikon shard was buried. It pulsed at his touch, reassuring and sly all at once. He was going to need it.
“You can't be sure you'll keep that body as long as I live,” he called, more stridently now. “Whether or not you kill her, I won't rest until you're gone.”
And then he did one of the hardest things he had ever done in his life.
“If you want me,” he said told his enemy, “come and take me. But I won't surrender my chance to kill you, no matter who you hold hostage.”
Then he turned and sprinted down the ridge. He did not charge the Dragon. Instead, he veered eastward, away from them all, across the plain. He gritted his teeth as he ran, trying not to picture how fragile Kagome looked in the Dragon's grasp. He was gambling with her life, and with his own.
If he fled, the Dragon would pursue him. Odds were, Raiiru would not kill Kagome before doing so, believing that she did not mean enough to Inuyasha to be worth killing.
All Inuyasha's hopes now rode on Raiiru's obsession with seeing an end to the threat he posed.
He didn't know where he was leading the Dragon, or to what end, but he did know that he had to draw his enemy as far from his friends as possible. Many Tatesei had died because of his brother. He was not going to let his friendsbecome sacrifices to Sesshoumaru's stupidity.
He ran swiftly atop the snow now, no longer hindered by sinking into it. The jewel shard had strengthened his ki to such heights that he had not even needed to think to achieve this. In fact, his body had been steadily acquiring more and more jyaki the longer he kept it. It was heady, and distracting. If he weren't so uncertain of what to do next, Inuyasha might have removed it to keep his head clear. But it seemed he'd gambled correctly; the Dragon was now giving equally swift chase across the snow-lashed plain, and he could not afford to lose speed.
Yet.
Inevitably, he would have to turn and face this thing, and kill it.
It was not until he came to the gargantuan heap of broken rock that he realized which direction he'd been fleeing: eastward. This was the remains of the mountain Reiyama. He sprang up onto the mound of debris, darting across it in desperation.
{+} {+} {+}
 
“Where. . .is he?”
Kagome turned in surprise. The Dragon had released her and gone after Inuyasha; she had been standing frozen on the plain, shielding her eyes from the snow and squinting as she tracked their progress. They were soon gone from view. Sango had hastened to Miroku's side, lifting him into her arms and clutching him to her breast as if she would never let him go again. Only Kagome glanced over at the Seer, who, amazingly enough, was pulling herself shakily to her knees. She leaned against Kirara, who had gone to her aid.
“Where is who?” Kagome asked in return, rounding on her a bit more angrily than she'd intended. This woman had served Sesshoumaru.
Suiton leaned her head sideways against Kirara's massive shoulder, breathing raggedly. It looked as if she wasn't going to be able to stand at all. Her face was haggard, and her hands shook even more than Kagome's. The Dragon's fire in her veins gleamed more dully than Sango's.
“Inuyasha-sama,” the Seer answered weakly. “The Dragon . . . ?”
“He went after Inuyasha,” Kagome said thickly. It was hard to speak around the lump in her throat. She wanted to cry very badly. She wanted to go running after him, after the Dragon, even though she was out of arrows and out of ideas and venturing out across the frozen wasteland between them would probably kill her.
“Stop him.”
Something in the Seer's tone was too compelling to be ignored. The woman's voice had taken on an odd, echoing quality. Kagome hastened to her side, heart thumping wildly. It was as if Suiton had read her mind. . .
“Stop him,” the woman repeated. Kagome was clutching at her shoulders, but the Seer's eyes were looking at something much, much further away.
“How?” Kagome pressed, filled with desperation. “How do I stop him?”
Suiton shook her head.
“The Dragon's defeat is not the answer to Midoriko's prophecy,” she whispered, in her strange, echoing voice. “That which has been shattered. . .is not what I believed it to be. I know now that I've seen it. What was shattered. . . You wear it.”
Kagome stared at her in surprise.
“You mean . . . the Shikon Jewel? The jewel that was shattered by my arrow . . .” One hand flew to her throat, where the chain had hung. “But he took it. Inuyasha took the shard I carried.”
Again the Seer shook her head.
“The Jewel was shattered. . .and the hanyou is the one fated to see that it is destroyed. But the Dragon has unraveled the threads of fate, and now they are dangling loose. The destiny for which Inuyasha-sama was born is no longer assured.”
“The jewel. . .” Kagome breathed. “You mean . . . if Inuyasha dies . . . Naraku will get hold of the whole Shikon no Tama and it won't be destroyed?”
“If he dies,” Suiton breathed, “the future, no matter what shape it takes, will see the rise of the greatest evil this world has known.”
“The Dragon?” Kagome persisted. “What can we do to keep the Dragon from killing him?”
And the Seer shook her head a third time.
“Even the Dragon will not be able to stop the one who possesses the whole Shikon no Tama. And. . .the Dragon is not the one fated to kill Inuyasha.”
Kagome recoiled, taking her hand off the woman's shoulder.
“You mean . . .”
The Seer's hand, thin and wiry, suddenly clamped down on Kagome's wrist. The woman's eyes shone fiercely.
“Go!” she urged. “Lord Sesshoumaru's strength is vast. You are the only one left here with the power to kill him.”
{End of Chapter 16”