Title: The Dragon and the Rift-Maker
Author: Gyaku no Sekai
Fandom: Rurouni Kenshin / InuYasha Crossover
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: violence, blood, gore, intestine-devouring, hardcore yaoi/shonen-ai
Pairings: Hiko x Kenshin main, side: Inuyasha x Sesshomaru, Sango x Miroku, Kouga x Kagome, Saitou x Sano, Aoshi x Misao, possible Enishi x Kaoru
Summary: CRACKFIC, Crossover AU. He was tied to the Hiten Mitsurugi practitioners to control his powers, and though he never said it outright, he considered them to by his jailers - until HE became the Thirteenth Hiko Seijuro. HikoXKen, NC-17-ish later.
A/N: So, um, yeah. Explanation for the crack: so I've had this random idea floating around in my head for a while (don't ask where it came from, I honestly don't know, but I guess I can blame reorganizing my manga collection and making the mistake of putting my InuYasha manga next to my RuroKen manga right before I went to bed, creating a crossover-dream), and I made the mistake of telling my (gangsta) "sistah from anothah mothah" (/gangsta), Kireteiru (in the background: "Hells yeah! You go, sis!"), about this insanity.
And then she promptly demanded that I write it up as her b-day present. And post it so she doesn't have to carry around a sheaf of paper a mile high when she wants to read it.
Oh, well. Saves me the trouble of buying her something. However – *shakes fist* - you owe me MCxC pr0n for my birthday, Kire-teme!
Prologue: The Rift-Maker
The village had been absolutely and utterly devastated. There was no other word for it; it seemed as if Sou'unga's Gokuryuuha had gone through it at top speed and twice the ordinary level of power, shattering all of the buildings and leaving no survivors. As if the devastation of the village was not enough, the now-dry rice fields around it were in direct contrast to it, utterly untouched, irrigation canals intact, the river beyond having been rerouted by the creature.
Toga, the Inu no Taishou, surveyed the damage from a distance, hardly daring to believe what he was seeing or approach with such an oppressive youki lingering in the area. The Sou'unga thrummed delightedly against his back, but his will was stronger; he forced it to submit again before padding silently down the winding path from the foothills to the village below. As he got closer, he could see what had become of the villagers: every single one – men, women, and children – had been severed in half at the waist with a cut too clean for any blade, no matter how well-forged. The wounds stank of youki, demonic aura, and the majority of their bodies appeared to have been devoured by some kind of "absorption" youkai – there had been one in the village, he could see its corpse, but it had clearly been the first to die.
The dog demon straightened from examining one of the corpses and let his gaze sweep the rest of the village. Now that he was up close, he could see that the buildings had been torn asunder in the same manner that the people had been split in half, the worst of the damage in a path through the center of the village, leaving a carpet of essentially splinters behind. Whatever had done this clearly rivaled him in strength and was not going to stop any time soon.
He walked deeper into the village, sensing the other youkai following him approaching the ruins, along with –
"You understand, now, why I'm calling in the favor you owe me."
The Inu no Taishou did not need to look up to know that Hiko Seijuro I was guiding his horse through the devastation to his side, expertly dismounting and landing with a crunch of broken wood fragments. "Aa," the inu daiyoukai replied, smacking his cheek when Myouga bounded up and tried to suck his blood. "Report."
"Of course, my lord," the flea said from his new perch on his lord's hand, "The scouts have found the creature causing this some thirty miles east of here. He is described as being relatively small with long red hair and red eyes, wearing a tattered black cloak. They've begun calling him 'Kiretsu no Seizousha' after the manner in which he kills."
"'The Rift-Maker,' huh?" Seijuro nudged one of the corpses with his boot, loosely holding the reigns of his warhorse as he walked with the daiyoukai through the remains. "It seems apt enough, but right now we need a way to stop it, not a name for it." He knelt to close the eyes of a six-year-old girl, who still held tight to a heavily-patched and clearly loved doll even in death. "What are our options?"
"Destroying Kiretsu seems unwise; his powers are out of control, right on the surface, and his sudden death may very well cause a backlash of the energy that he was created from, possibly destroying the whole country." Myouga jumped up to perch on his lord's shoulder, sinking down into a cross-legged sitting position on his shoulder guard.
"So a seal, then." The Dog Demon Lord lifted his head as a distant explosion echoed off of the mountains, bringing with it a fresh waft of smoke, and started off in the direction that the noise had come from. "But it is his powers that are causing the problem; containing them would only make the situation worse when the seal broke because it could no longer regulate them."
"A SpillOver Seal, perhaps?" Hiko mounted his horse and guided it to gallop alongside the daiyoukai. "It's an old legend in most parts of Japan, but I was able to find documentation of one actually being performed a thousand years ago. It ties a human to a youkai, and the excess youki from the demon is channeled into the human, being purified by the latent reiki in all humans and usually doing nothing more than replicating the youkai's immortality in the human until the youkai dies. The human just starts to age naturally after that. In the interim, the human can only be cut down in battle."
"You certainly know a lot about this 'SpillOver Seal,' Hiko-kun," Toga said as he rallied his men with a sharp whistle and sent Myouga off to collect all of the miko in the surrounding area to help.
"Yes, well, let's just say that my great-grandfather didn't sire my grandfather until he was almost six hundred."
"Hmm. So this seal really works, does it? Are you volunteering?"
"I never said that." Seijuro gave the inu daiyoukai a look that clearly said, "Are you crazy or something?"
"Then perhaps we'll just have to find some other human to do it, like oh, Kyouketsuki…"
"…you're trying to goad me into it, Toga-kun." His face took on an utterly deadpan expression as the two of them arrived on a stretch of cliff overlooking a beautiful valley – with a line of flame and burned forest running partway through it.
"I find myself unable to trust anyone else with this kind of power in their hands. You, at least, will know better than to abuse it, unlike Kyouketsuki." The inu daiyoukai jumped and slid down the cliff face at high speed, pulling Sou'unga out of its sheath and beginning to charge it for the Gokuryuuha. The boy apparently sensed him coming and ceased his slaughter of the villagers to face the threat the daiyoukai posed, long red hair swinging. His eyes were completely red, a youkai – or hanyou – ruled by his powers, dark "demon trails" leading down his face like tear tracks, wearing a tattered black cloak that seemed to be made of mist; the boy flung out both of his clawed hands before the Gokuryuuha – and it vanished, detonating up on one of the mountains ringing the valley. 'A rift… a ripple in space,' Toga thought as he alighted a score of meters away, straightening and lifting Sou'unga into a defensive position, 'This boy… he's creating something like a Meidou to protect himself.' The child's arms dropped, disappearing into the folds of the misty cloak, for a moment simply watching the daiyoukai as if gauging his threat level.
The narrowing of red eyes was all the warning the Inu no Taishou needed, and he leapt back out of the way just as the Meidou-like rift opened where he had been, looking up just in time to see the boy's eyes widen before he vanished, reappearing some thirty meters away right before Hiko landed right where he'd been standing, having tried to use WinterMoon to perform a Ryuutsuisen ~ Zan on him. The holy blade was glowing white, purifying the air even as it passed through it, and Seijuro moved back to stand next to the inu daiyoukai. "I've sent my fastest messenger hawk to my castle for what we need," the swordsman said, "and with orders to gather all of the miko in the shrines around it and bring them here to help with the sealing."
/What's wrong, Inu no taishou?/ the Sou'unga mocked, /It's not like you to hesitate in battle./
'Shut up,' the dog demon growled at the evil spirit in the blade before sending his youki surging, body taking on his true form just in time; he reared up and only got a single fang severed by the boy's Meidou-like attack, but he plunged back down, paws slamming against the earth and breaking it up, forcing the child to jump or be crushed by one of the boulders flung into the air. Seijuro used the cover provided, launching himself from boulder to boulder while in the air, then bringing WinterMoon up in front of him for a Kuzu-Ryuu-Sen. The boy was unable to dodge in time and let out a horrible scream of agony as the holy blade cut into his tainted flesh; he was unable to catch himself in time or open a Gate, resulting in him slamming into the ground with a fresh cry of pain.
The human dodged back, alighting next to the full-size dog demon just as the demon boy rolled onto all fours, panting; the "head" strike of the Kuzu-Ryuu-Sen had missed when the boy had ducked his head at the last minute, but the rest had connected – and the wounds were healing before their eyes, albeit slowly. \Seijuro-san, this boy -!\
"-has a 'regenerator's' flesh inside him, and the purifying effects of WinterMoon are only inhibiting his healing, not stopping it." The swordsman ducked when Toga spun to kick the creature full-on as it leapt at them, and again it was not able to dodge in time, slamming into a cliffside with a gasp of shock and pain before falling to the ground. After a moment, the boy lifted his head and, much to their surprise, gazed around with pained and confused violet eyes – right before his whole body clenched, jaw widening and eyes turning completely red again, nails returning to their claw-state, but this time it was worse; the mist-cloak disappeared as his body began to change, limbs expanding, armor forming, wings bursting from its back, until at last, a dragon perhaps three-quarters the size of the Inu no Taishou stood before them, flinging its head back and letting out a terrible roar that shook the earth.
\This – this thing… it's too strong to be just a ordinary youkai…\
"Then what other option is there?" Hiko Seijuro I shouted, ducking beneath the swipe of the dragon-beast and barely managing to escape being sucked up into the true Meidou its claws opened.
\Absorption youkai - even after death - can be fused together to form a much more powerful being – possibly even one that cannot control his powers.\
Human and youkai both stared for a moment at the monster before them, and Hiko's hand tightened around WinterMoon, filled with new resolve. "Right. Even more of a reason to defeat this thing."
The battle lasted for almost a full day, with injuries on both sides: Toga got a severe slash down his spine, Seijuro almost lost an arm, but it was the boy who was worst off of all when it ended, pinned to the ground by the holy sword. Immediately, his body convulsed and reverted back to human form faster than even demon eyes could track, and though he was clearly in pain, WinterMoon held his power in check – barely. That was made clear by the fact that the boy's canines and nails were still abnormally long, the sclera of his eyes still bloodred, but the exotic violet irises were there, the "demon trails" leading like tear tracks from his eyes down his face and neck, disappearing below the mist-cloak that was half-dissolving around him.
And he appeared to be in control of himself for the moment, albeit wracked with agony from the purifying sword piercing his demonic flesh.
When Seijuro turned to go find the High Priestess, a soft whimper and a hand on his ankle stopped him; the boy was looking up at him with tear-filled eyes, visibly afraid, and the human knelt next to him, gently stroking the flame-colored locks as he said, "Easy, easy, youngling. We're not going to kill you." The youkai shook his head and refused to relinquish his grip, making Seijuro sigh. "Toga-kun, would you go find the High Priestess of Kotaguni Shrine and bring her over here, please?"
The daiyoukai nodded and moved quickly away, making the boy whine softly and flinch away from the demon before hissing as the holy sword rubbed against his flesh. "Hey, try not to move; it'll only make it worse!"
"Hiko-sama!"
The swordsman looked up; several miko, including the High Priestess, were approaching his position, following the Dog Demon General. Before he was able to stop her, his sister rushed over to him and squeezed him into a tight hug before promptly trying to deck him. "You infernal IDIOT! Do you know how worried Haha-ue and Chichi-ue have been, you ass?"
Hiko ducked her swipes and growled, "Yeah, yeah, laugh it up!" when he heard both 'Kiretsu' and Toga chuckling, the former at least trying to hide it and the latter not even bothering. Finally, his sister Yuki stopped trying to beat him into the ground (not even one of her attacks had connected) and brushed her hair out of her face. "Alright," she said, "what's the plan?"
"A SpillOver Seal, like the one Great-Grandfather Joshiro had."
"Really? And I certainly hope you're the one who volunteered to be tied to the youngling rather than forcing one of your men to do it?" Yuki lifted a fist threateningly, and Seijuro dodged before she could lash out.
"Of course I'll do it!" the swordsman snarled, "Geez, on'na, I'm not so heartless as to force something like this on my men!"
"Ah, there's my asshole of a brother! Alright then, let's get started – um, do we have the spell patterns we need?"
"They're on their way," Seijuro growled, "I sent a messenger hawk to my castle to-"
"You have a castle?"
"Don't sound so surprised, nee-chan; I've been busy." The human turned to glare at the inu daiyoukai who was struggling to remain upright as he was wracked with howls of laughter, actually wiping tears from his eyes as he struggled to calm down.
"So much for your 'stoic badass' persona, Hiko-kun," the youkai chuckled, nodding in approval when the young one still pinned by WinterMoon made a noise of assent that was more like a trilling purr.
A screech interrupted the sibling rivalry, a large black hawk gliding towards the knot of people, heavily laden by a box that Seijuro took from its claws before holding out his arm for the great eagle to alight on. The swordsman shifted the bird onto his shoulder and opened the container, briefly flipping through the pages contained within before handing a selection to his sister. "That's everything we'll need right now; the rest is just how to restore the seal if it breaks."
The eagle glided down off of his shoulder to examine the pinned creature with a large red eye, making the boy eye him back warily. Finally, the bird let out a trilling note and moved to nest in the child's hair, making him blink in confusion while the others howled with laughter, and Seijuro let the eagle remain there until the circles for the seal were finished. The miko formed up on the edges of the circles, oe around Seijuro and the other around the boy, charging the circles carved into the soil with their reiki and beginning to tie their souls together.
The swordsman gritted his teeth as the nonhuman's memories and feelings and power flooded him, sensing his own washing over the boy – the child was barely two weeks old. He could see the boy's moment of birth – no, moment of creation – a bunch of shadowy, black clad men were gathered around him, one of them disconnecting a multitude of tubes from his body, saying, "Magnificent, isn't he? He has more than enough power to defeat the Inu no Taishou, but I don't understand why you didn't want him awakened inside Headquarters, Hankou; we're behind schedule because it took so long to move all the equipment."
And then the child lost his fragile control over his powers, tearing everything asunder within a good two-mile radius, and everything after that was just a blur of red until he was slammed against the cliff face and now pinned to the ground by the strange white-light-pain-sharp, terrified by the burn of the miko's reiki against his skin and inside his soul as he felt the soul of the strange white-cloaked-prey-scent who had brought him back to himself –
Seijuro eased himself from the youngling's mind, making his mind relax and letting the SpillOver Seal run its course; he felt it form a kind of soul-cage around them both and force them to bleed over into each other, fusing them at the edges – the boy was whimpering in pain, his young mind being forced to bear the weight of nearly twenty-nine years of memory. The spell was completed soon after, and Seijuro hesitantly eased WinterMoon from the boy's shoulder – the other's youki surged wildly for just a moment, spilling over into him, but the excess was purified by the inherent abilities in all humans, the energy released harmlessly into his limbs. He almost tangibly felt time grind to a sudden halt for him, and he looked at his hands for just a moment, noticing nothing different on the outside. "Excellent work, ladies, gentleman." He nodded to the one priest who had arrived during the battle, and the other male nodded back – right before Seijuro was hit by what felt like a solid boulder. There were wisps of red in front of his eyes, and he realized that the child was hugging him tightly and weeping quietly, trying to contain his happiness at being free from the oppressive red haze of his instincts. "…You're welcome."
"Ah, so they do fit you!"
"Toga-kun, if I didn't know any better, I'd say that little 'Kiretsu' here is a life-size doll, and you're having a great time playing dress-up," Hiko said bluntly as he watched the dog demon pace around the young youkai, who was now wearing one of the elder's old outfits: a deep navy kimono patterned with cresent moons and matching hakama gathered at the ankles, covered by the typical armor of the era with a black, sleeveless, and trenchcoat-like jacket on top of that. His red hair was pulled up into a high ponytail, giving him a slightly more mature look that was belied by his innocent violet eyes, blinking between the two of them in confusion.
"Eh?" It was the only sound he was able to make; despite having access to Seijuro's speech-memories, he was still only a few weeks old and had not yet learned how to walk properly, despite his rampage through a vast swath of Japan, much less speak at all. "Eh?" He suddenly looked down at his stomach, and both inu daiyoukai and human warlord heard it growl audibly. 'Kiretsu' appeared confused; he had never heard his body make such noises before, so he was understandably perplexed, and Seijuro sighed and got to his feet.
"Come on, then," he said to the young youkai, who trailed after him with an air of curiosity, closely followed by the Inu no Taishou, who was also hoping for some free food while he stayed briefly with the human to help the youkai get settled in. They were in luck; the hunting squad had just come in with several deer and rabbits, and they called greetings to their lord and his daiyoukai friend who occasionally came to visit, unhesitatingly handing over a few of the carcasses for the youkais' consumption. While Kiretsu crunched away on a few large rabbits, Seijuro turned to Toga. "Why couldn't he control his powers on his own?"
"You said that he was created, correct? Not born?" At his nod, the youkai continued, "While we are in the womb, our mothers – human or youkai – regulate our youki for us, and we instinctively mimic that regulation pattern until we are trained to control our youki in our own manner. Because he did not have a mother to do that for him and teach him, he lost control immediately after he was awakened."
"I see…" Hiko twitched suddenly. "You mean to tell me that I'm playing the role of this kid's surrogate mother."
The Inu no Taishou blinked for a minute before toppling over, howling with laughter.
"Dammit, Toga, this isn't funny!"
I lived out my first hundred and fifty years in that castle with Hiko Seijuro I and his wife and children; the kids loved me because everything they showed me was so new to me, and they could marvel at the fact that I, who looked so much older, had never even seen common things like butterflies or fireflies until they dragged me out to see them. It was Hiko-san's family who taught me everything about the world, with Inu-no-Taishou-sama coming in occasionally to educate me on all things youkai while Hiko-san was out "warlord-ing," and I was happy there – but my presence inevitably caused problems. More specifically, my powers and the way they froze time for Hiko-san. The years passed, his wife, then his children passing away of old age, and I watched as despair set in. Finally, he took an apprentice, taught him the refined version of the Hiten Mitsurugi Style, and, with the passing down of the Amakakeru Ryuu no Hirameki, departed from my life for the last time.
Hiko Seijuro II lasted about thirty years beyond the death of his wife before he, too, perished at the hands of his apprentice, aged almost one hundred and twenty. The Third lasted for one hundred and fifty years, the Fourth only forty, but the Fifth held on for two hundred years before taking an apprentice. The Sixth was one hundred and fifty, Seven two hundred, the Eighth one hundred and seventy-five, the Ninth sixty-seven, the Tenth thirty-three, the Eleventh only ten – the shortest of them all – and the Twelfth lasted twenty-five years; one thousand three hundred years, all told.
I was away, in the Western Lands, when the Twelfth took an apprentice and passed on, taking care of affairs for Toga-sama while he was doing battle against the dragon Ryuukotsutei. I had heard about his – mm, indiscretion – with the human princess called Izayoi, and as I was on good terms with the young heir Sesshoumaru and knew of his disapproval of his father siring a hanyou, I was not surprised in the slightest when his first act as Lord of the Western Lands was to banish both his step-mother and half-brother from the territory. I did not necessarily approve of his actions – family is blood, after all – but it was not my place to comment, so I left after about twenty years and returned to the Twelfth's, now the Thirteenth's castle to meet my new anchor.
A/N: And that's the end of the prologue. And yes, in the original Japanese, InuYasha's and Sesshoumaru's father's name was given as Toga (at some point - I can't remember where, but it was).
Glossary
Aa: informal yes
daiyoukai: demon lord
Gokuryuuha: lit. "Infernal Dragon Blast," translated into English as "Dragon Twister"
inu: dog
Inu no Taishou: literally, the "Great Dog Demon"
Izayoi: InuYasha's human mother
Kiretsu no Seizousha: literally "the Rift-Maker"
miko: a priestess (the term for "priest" is houshi, right?)
on'na: woman
Sou'unga: a double-edged longsword with an evil spirit from ancient times sealed inside, wielded by Inu no Taishou (featured in InuYasha Movie 3: Swords of an Honorable Ruler)
youkai: demon
youki: demonic aura