End of an Era
All was transitory, he knew. The past three hundred and fifty years since Naraku's demise had taught him that much.
Yet he found himself wishing he could return to those days of freedom, impunity, and purpose.
That's why they were all exterminated, right? No purpose.
The foreign trespassers to whom the people of the islands had opened their gates certainly entertained no ideas about yokai, magic, and spirituality. Their cold machines seemed to overrule such thoughts.
A sole vestige of myth still standing, he absorbed one final gaze at the remaining untouched scenery. The Land of the Setting Sun, his land, would soon be entirely corrupted with the rising factories the now numerous humans were assembling.
Will they truly forget all the values of this era?
"Riku! C'mon, Riku!"
He turned toward the sound's source. A young girl was waving a twig before a puppy's nose, friendly teasing.
"You see? You se-" the child was cut off into a fit of giggles as the little dog leapt onto her all together, covering her in playful licks.
For the first time in three and a half centuries, he smiled. Perhaps where some things could not, others transcended time.
He turned his boots toward home. Humans would not forget this Sesshomaru.
–
Author's Note: The Meiji Era of Japan really is an interesting one; Matthew Perry visits in 1853, the Tokugawa shogunate is overthrown within fifteen years, and tiny Japan with all her scattered islands is industrialized in just forty years (if you're wondering what I'm rambling about, take an AP World History class and you'll learn more than you cared to know)! However, it was the culture shock that spurred me to write this fic. I mean, what happened when the machine gun replaced the sword (yeah, I saw The Last Samurai and loved it)? What happened to the homesteading creatures of mythology? It's often said that when an idea loses belief it withers and dies. That seemed to be the case here, especially for a feudal daiyokai.