Setting: Manga Canon
Rating: K
Pre-requisites: Chapters 183, 519.
Characters: Bokusenou
Genre: General
Author's Note: This was inspired by a 2009 challenge prompt called "Tree" in the Inu Yasha Themes Livejournal community.
Summary: Toutousai must have obtained the materials for Bakusaiga's sheath from somewhere...
Seasons of the Heart.
Can the immovable be moved?
I once made a promise: three branches for three sheaths. Two were resolved quickly enough. However, the third would be made in spring, after the thawing of an unending winter's ice.
The year I was born, the earth shook from the honour of bearing the weight of the divine warrior. Humans – wanderers and potters – somehow settled yet never settling; the coming of rice; the first chants of the new religion that named the namelessness that had existed before. The coming of the nobles.
The tireless passage of the seasons, to which I bore witness. Watcher. Guardian. Keeper.
Immovable.
With undying expectation, I watched the days blur into nights and months, and finally even years: a conversation triggered by swords and the fate of swords. Yet when it came, it was accompanied by an unexpected twist – the trigger was a single soul; a mere whelp. The conversation carried with it a taste of melt-water. Foolishly, I was surprised.
Wise though I am, I still know nothing at all.
I was able to learn one thing, however: spring was finally coming.
Which begs the question, can the immovable be moved?
That day, I dropped my third branch.
FIN.