The assembly around him argued in a loud and vehement assortment of yowls, hisses and hooting calls. For the most part, he ignored them as he dipped a brush into his bowl of ink. He held his sleeve back with his off hand. An old, beaten book lay open before him, held that way with a heavy golden figurine. With a few masterful strokes, he composed his latest thought in prose-

'Left with strange bounty.
A curse becomes a blessing.
Winning a future.'

With a sigh, he realized the latest questions had been directed at him. He thought back to what they might have been and found that he didn't care. "Lords and ladies of the West, what would you have of me?"

An old boar demon snuffled and grumped, "See, our lord cannot even be moved to satisfy the simplest inquiry."

"Take a care how you speak to this Sesshomaru." He did not have to speak loudly to show how deadly the edge of his temper could be. "Have I not been a good lord? Do you and your peoples not prosper?"

A cacophony of shouts went up after he spoke. Some saying, "We need more territory! Push south-" "No! East!" "Baka, we should war on the North!" Others demanded, "The humans grow ever more insolent! They spread like a wasting disease! What will you do about this!"

Though he did not show it, he despaired for them and their short-sightedness. They had plenty, yet they wanted more. Always more. Even if they owned the whole of the world, they would dig deep and eat its heart, too. He said, with a note of sarcasm, "We war on the East already. Shall we split our efforts on three fronts?"

Byakko, wearing his father's white-striped pelt over green lacquered armor, stepped forth, an ingratiating smile on his tiger's face. He purred as his tongue flicked out to wash his whiskers. "As your general, I would not recommend such a course. Our numbers dwindle. Too many fall and not enough rise to replace them."

This caused a new outcry among the people of his court. Sesshomaru listened with half an ear to problems of which he had already been aware. Low fertility among the pure-blooded along with higher defects from the inbreeding. The search for the virtues of pedigree made his people go to extreme measures. He no longer wondered why there had been no youkai in Kagome's stories of the future. Their very natures made that reason apparent.

But Byakko had another card to play, it seemed. He bowed before his lord and said, "If only Sesshomaru-sama would take a female to wife and whelp on her a litter, then the future of the realm would be secured."

He wanted to laugh. "This Sesshomaru's activities in his bed-chamber are not for you to speculate upon. When I feel the need, then I shall wed and whelp."

"Why the hesitation, my lord?" said a buzzard youkai in the third tier of this round room in which Sesshomaru sat the chair of eminence. Flames licked out of his mouth with every word, "Does it have anything to do with the mysterious boy child you were seen leaving your estate with ten moons ago?"

"Yes! Give us news!" "Who is this pup?" "Whose brat is he?" The shouting fast wore on his nerves, but he kept his serene mask in place.

"If you're seeking a boy, Itsumade, look to your own harem of catamites." In the mocking laughter that followed, Sesshomaru swept his gaze all around the chamber. "Where I go and what I do are my business alone. It is my right and none of yours to question. Any who disagree are welcome to challenge this Sesshomaru for the Western Lands. Singly or all at once, if you so dare. Do not think me unaware of your concerns. Rest assured I will always have my people's best interests in mind."

"But who exactly are your people, my lord? You spend weeks far from your lands. You let the humans encroach on our territories. We heard you even leased them the fertile fields of the Kobe delta." Byakko, always the sly one, genuflected with oily ease, even as his words incited. Sneaky old tiger, using 'our' and 'we' so as to make the source of these accusations vague and unclear. As if the inu lord didn't know.

"Enough." Sesshomaru tested the ink on the page before him to see if it dried and well pleased, closed the book with a snap, tucking it away. He stood and the assembly held their collective breath. "Someone must grow the rice and see to the trusting beasts. If not the humans, then who? Our youths who itch for battle? The lords who encourage them? Perhaps we should focus on breeding, well and diversified, instead of warring for a few generations-"

They didn't even hear his words, so wrapped up were they in who offended who and who deserved to be decimated. He didn't expect them to, in any case. Some habits never change. Saddened, he flared his aura and roared, "Silence!"

He said into the silence that reigned thereafter, "We diminish and refuse to see why. Our society has grown stagnant for lack of outside stimulus. I shall do all that I can, for as long as I can. As I have always done. Use your reason, august beings of infernal might that you are. See to your future or we will soon have none."

Sesshomaru left them then, passing missives to his assistants. Orders for resupply and re-deployment for his troops at the front. Byakko met him in the hall. He eyed the tiger youkai with wary appraisal before nodding a greeting. No, Byakko would not strike yet, not so early in the game anyway.

His general said, "My lord."

"Byakko. I do not suppose you had anything to do with Guhin's betrayal." The unsubtle accusation did not so much as cause a waver in the general's confidence. Sesshomaru applauded the demon his audacity from behind a polite facade.

"I would be a fool to say I had, but no, that baka acted on his own as far as I am aware of."

Not likely. But that thought remained locked behind many mental barriers. "I want the mountain tengu to know that their leader's traitorous actions did not go unnoticed. Make an example of a few of them. We need to keep the tribe alive to fill the ranks, do we not?"

"Yes, Sesshomaru-sama." Byakko bowed at the waist with a flourish. Really, the tiger was wasted on the battlefield. He should have been a courtier. As cunning and conniving as any snake in his stable of vipers. The general paused before turning to leave. Sesshomaru gave him permission to speak with a wave of one hand. "Lord, when heirs were mentioned at assembly, I couldn't help but notice a complete lack of worry from your esteemed self. So lacking as to be inverted. Is the legacy secure?"

He debated a moment on his response. Such roundabout inquiries remained pretty standard among youkai, as hiding one's young until they reached maturity tended to be the prevailing fashion. He let a smirk alight on his face and decided on an ambiguous answer that should have the old tiger chasing his own tail for months. "Very. One might say . . . tremendously so."

Byakko let drop a salacious wink and purr as he left. Let him think Sessomaru had dozens of whelps out there to succeed him. The longer it took for the general to pinpoint Kenshin's location, the more ready and able the boy would be to defend himself. Demons tended to think in the long term so the probability of Byakko rushing out in force to ransack every ningen village . . . probably dwelt down there at next to nil. Plus, he wouldn't want to draw attention to himself any more than he had to. Such a thing could provoke his lord into taking retribution.

It'll take years, no doubt. Sesshomaru hummed a low pleased sound as he exited the courtly wing of his estate and headed into his own modest, personal residence. Jaken rained praises on him from the moment the imp saw him come through the doors. The lord ignored his servant and went to his inner sanctum. With refreshment in the form of rice wine and clean parchment at hand, he set to work. Like all great swordsmen, he took pleasure in out-thinking an opponent, letting his enemy work themselves into a corner before he struck the decisive blow. This game promised to be an interesting one.

He thought long and hard about which strategy to employ and set things into motion with a few short messages. No doubt this plan might take decades to come to fruition, maybe a century. But what is a century to one such as I. No time at all. A blink of a golden eye.

He addressed the imp who still waited on his pleasure, "Jaken."

"Yes, Sesshomaru-sama?"

"Would you ever bow to a hanyou master?"

"Sesshomaru-sama! Please do not say such things! I would never want to be brought so low as to be pressed into the service of a filthy half-breed."

"Even if he were worthy?"

The imp stuttered and coughed, disgusted. "I find it hard to believe that such a thing is possible!"

"Hn," he said, copying out the letter to some of his southern governors for information regarding the expansion of human provinces and who led them. It did pay to keep tabs. Maybe he could spot the tipping point before it happened. "Perhaps it is, perhaps it is not."

"Sesshomaru-sama, why the strange questions?"

"No reason that should concern a servant."

Thus rebuked, Jaken slouched in on himself in misery. Despite being loud and prostrating himself to the point of idiocy, Jaken had an eye for survival, Sesshomaru knew. The imp became a virtual weather-vane for how conflicts turned out. Sesshomaru need only look opposite the way the little youkai ran to find trouble. Though, in recent years, Jaken grew something of a backbone. Loyal, but cowardly. The lord could depend on the imp to be consistent in that regard.

"Ready Ah-Un. I go east for the winter. And I wish to take presents."

"Presents? For whom, Sesshomaru-sama?"

"You will find out. Someone must tend the beast, after all."

The way the imp groaned fed a tiny smirk on his lord's face that lasted til long past the first gatepost.