Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Note: Inspiration for this chapter:

You're packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been
A place that has to be believed to be seen
You could have flown away
A singing bird in an open cage
Who will only fly, only fly for freedom

Walk on, walk on
What you've got they can't deny it
Can't sell it, or buy it
Walk on, walk on
Stay safe tonight

And I know it aches
And your heart it breaks
And you can only take so much
Walk on, walk on

All That You Can't Leave Behind- U2

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."- Anais Nin

The End that Came

The gash was really not so bad.

Sesshoumaru, twelve years old, stared at it, eyes wide with wonder, and more than a little fear. It… hurt him. He was fascinated by this. He watched intently, as sinew by thread, the flesh latched together, pulling itself to its former pristine state, leaving nothing but the stain of clotting red as the markers of its past failings.

A keen burning sensation traveled along the edges of the healing wound on his arm. He had raked it, accidentally, with his own claws. Puberty and growing sudden malicious devices of torture upon his person was going to take some getting used to.

Beyond the overpowering smell of pungent iron and copper, he recognized cinnamon in his periphery.

There was a soft flurry, of silken hair thrown in the wind, and then the owner of the scent murmured in his ear: "Do not fear it, Sesshoumaru, it is only a wound. It will be perfect as new in a few minutes."

Sesshoumaru turned in his mother's arms and looked up at her with a little puzzled frown marring his little immaculate features.

"I know that."

Mother smiled. Of course he knew, but she had not missed the hint of surprised fear in her son's eyes, as he took in the first serious scratch he had ever received in his short life. Normally, the small nicks and grazes would heal over before he could even register the discomfort, but this time the feeling was making a sharper impression on her boy. She was happy to have him learn.

Those who are destined to wield their wills like a sword should know how the cut felt. She thought her boy was getting a well deserved lesson.

"That is pain, Sesshoumaru. When your youki is not fast enough to seal the opening of a wound, your brain sends out a siren. It is pain, that which you feel, my Sesshoumaru. Do not fear it. It is what makes you alive."

The little frown deepened.

"But I have never … pained… before. I have been alive."

"Ah," she said, bumping her head thoughtfully against his, "but that is not quite like the raw life you feel while that cut is still open, ne?"

Sesshoumaru thought about this. Around the tender skin he could feel the regular beating of his pulse as if someone was tapping a tiny drumstick against the open wound repeatedly. It insisted upon capturing his attention, and he found that unlike his normal pulse, which had long ago faded into the recesses of his awareness, he could not ignore this gentle throbbing. He looked more closely at his wound and small fingers flexed in discomfort. A little coil of self-pity turned in his belly.

It… hurt.

...

Lord Sesshoumaru smelled the sun in the air. Morning had arrived.

Through fuzzy thoughts, Sesshoumaru registered that something was acutely different about this morning. Running a figurative hand over the mental blind spot, Sesshoumaru caught at wisps of cool, wind kissed hair. His mother. Brows furrowing, his head automatically tilted fractionally to the side- as if he could tip the obscurities out of his unconscious. His own hair, slack and still throughout the long night, flowing to accommodate the movement, was picked up by the gentle breeze and grazed the underside of his left arm.

A cut. He remembered now. A cut; a memory. A dream.

Curling long white fingers into an easy fist, Sesshoumaru's eyes opened to watch the creeping light catch the gleam of his claws as they pierced into the flesh of his palms.

The air stilled.

It hurt.

He breathed.

In the first glints of the dawning sun, a phantom scent of freshly caught fish on a long-ago fire tickled at his awareness and the ward he kept inside him turned in its sleep, gently scraping the memory away. And it hurt, again.

Focusing inward, Sesshoumaru became acutely aware of his own pulsing heartbeat.

He lived.

For the first time in a very long while, Sesshoumaru felt the bittersweet humanity of a smile catch the corners of his lips. He lived. He hurt. He had a name for his ward at last: Pain. It was pain that lacerated the surface of his heart day and night; pain that had settled there, unwelcome and unmovable in that place where Rin used to live.

The dewy wind of the morning swirled around him, and in its midst, he thought he caught the faint scent of cinnamon and daffodils.

Taking another breath, Sesshoumaru unfolded his body from its sleeping position, against the withering oak. Yellow, orange and golden leaves floated gently to the ground around him. Amber eyes followed their slow fall, almost absently. A broken leaf detached itself from the folds of his hakamas and swayed in the air above a shrunken bud of a flower. His eyes narrowed in wonderment. Were not flowers supposed to be dead by this time in the season? he thought.

A survivor.

Narrowed eyes were joined by a frown. Reaching out with a speed much too fast for normal youkai eyes to follow, he caught the leaf between his index and middle fingers, right before it landed on the valiant shoot. Pausing speculatively over the enduring bud, Seshoumaru smelled the moisture still inside it and the slow taint of decay that further sweetened its aroma. It's petals did not respond to the rising sun, but instead held tight to each other, enclosing a dying core within.

A survivor, he thought again, dripping a touch of his venom over the dying petals.

It would suffer no more.

Straightening once more, Sesshoumaru turned cold, fiery eyes to the path of his meaningless pilgrimage and closed his eyes once more. As the tightened muscles of his body relaxed from their night long position, The youkai Lord thought was struck by the wayward thought that he was rather like that flower: tight and resilient, awake at a time when his world died around him.

Keeping his eyes closed, Sesshoumaru pondered his own existence for the first time in two hundred and fifty years: a lone taiyoukai, shining amid the sea of lesser creatures. He had no equal since Rin was gone. He had no equal since Inuyasha had gone. He was like a burnt, fallen piece of a star, upturned from his realm and sitting in the bottom of an empty abyss.

Turning his head and looking at the sizzling patch of ground where the shoot of flower had ended, he thought the universe was surely telling him something.

And how simple, the universe assumed it all to be. He was the Great InuYoukai of the West- who could ever do him the favor he bestowed upon the little plant? Tightening his muscles, Seshoumaru let his Youki flare in dim frustration. There was a creak from one of the nearby trees, thawed too fast by his aura from its frozen slumber, as it broke through the bark.

Who could ever kill him?

A valiant survivor, pushing on against the odds of its existence.

Only, Sesshoumaru did not feel particularly valiant. He felt… over accomplished. Like he had seen too much, done too much, said too much and heard far too much. He was nowhere near as old as his father had been, but his head felt full. Amid the hollowness, the mindlessness, he felt full. Like a dehydrated man in the middle of the ocean; he felt lost within his own body. And there was just too much.

So much, and he had so little to give that the unbalance forced him in a hunch, dragging the ocean behind him, day by day.

He continued to stand still in one spot, overseeing the justice of death.

There was nothing valiant about him.

It was never that simple, Sesshoumaru told the universe- a note of pleading behind his placid eyes.

But the unbidden, rare dose of self-doubt, awakened, continued to probe its delicate fingers into his consciousness. Hesitating, the demon lord noted that it was also the first time in a long while that another emotion- frustration- dared to peek above the leaden Pain.

And so, streaming down the universe's wayward tangent, Sesshoumaru allowed himself to hope. There was something acutely difference about this day, he remembered thinking upon waking up. Perhaps, Sesshoumaru thought, perhaps the universe knew that, too. And today really was different; the universe whispering its secrets after so long withholding.

Perhaps this endless, tireless, meaningless journey had a rest. These days, the aching nights, the mindless killings and musings and memories and hurts and lives- they all had an end, too.

He had walked for so long, he thought the universe owed him a World's End. An edge, a cliff. A death.

Sesshoumaru watched as the last of the sizzling died in the cold, and a burrowed, burnt patch of dark earth remained at the base of the tree.

Yes. He would suffer no more.

Closing his eyes again, and taking a last deep breath, Sesshoumaru thought that the day of the end had at last arrived.

With a scaly turn, his changeling agreed.

Taking all the myriad of smells that dwelled around him in, Sesshoumaru let it soak through his pores and dampen every hurt, every jagged scar that he carried into relief. Like the thirsty floor of a swamp, he sucked all of the life that he felt, in every crack, every fissure, and he exhaled it in a weak farewell.

Amid the many smells, he caught the welcome one of decay. Though he would never die; his light never extinguish, the scent of this forbidden pleasure lured him, now. With purposeful steps, Sesshoumaru turned, and he walked in the direction away from the sunlight, facing the shadow perimeter of the trees once more.

Without pausing, he walked.

Under the shade, he thought about wolves and little human rag dolls. He smelled death, and this time he did not run away, or imagine biting canines. He walked towards it, and without a instant of pause, awash with relief from somewhere dreary and heavy inside his chest, Sesshoumaru let the hurt that would undo him rake over.

Beneath the branches, through roots and over brambles, his shadow flickered and it dispersed.

He walked on.

"But that is not quite like the raw life you feel while that cut is still open, ne?"

Two hundred forty-eight years later, he nodded his head to his mother. Hai. It hurt, and so he lived.

And if he could live, then maybe, just maybe, he could die as well.

With each step Sesshoumaru took, the smell fastened onto the threads of his kimono. With each step he took, he felt every swipe, ever blow, every cut he had ever delivered, and his sword, and his armor re-awakened, washed once more in reminiscent blood. He smelt all the phantom deaths merging with the fimiliar scents of decay emenating from the crude grave near him. And as they assaulted his sensed, he felt each cut, each blow, each swipe on himself.

Like a cut open soldier, at the precipice of death, he called to the vultures.

With every step, he shed one more title, and donned one more scar.

He walked on.

And then-

There it was, at last. The hub, the end, and source of all the scent. It was not a rag doll, after all, and Sesshoumaru found that he was glad for that. Walk into the glade, all defenses dropped, and more naked than he had ever been in life, Sesshoumaru breathed in the smell of bones. It was a well: the bone-eater's well; Reeking of dead youkai, he felt the bottled life inside him throb with pleasure.

Sesshoumaru. Destroyer.

It was perfect. The perfect tomb for his fractured soul.

As he took the last few steps to the well's lip, Sesshoumaru felt the exhaustion of a quarter of a millennium fill his hollowed bones. He was tired.

Gazing down at the shadowed well, he thought: A resting place, at last.

Please, Please Review.