Chapter 53 Wei Triumphant

The world blurred into streaks of light and dark as Kouga felt himself and Wei jerked harshly back over to the shattered carcass of the hell serpent. The landing was just as bad as Wei's hand piercing inside of him and caused the world to blink out of existence for a moment behind a black veil of pain.

No damnit...not going to give in...

The seductive darkness and its promise of peace in oblivion grudgingly withdrew and rising up, he had just enough time to witness a badly scarred Sesshoumaru use his light whip to swing Wei into the beast's scaly hide. Before anyone could react, Sesshoumaru sank his teeth into the meaty part of his palm, causing blood to well up. Shifting backwards to Kouga, he clapped the bloody hand against Kouga's forehead.

I wouldn't normally do this Kouga, but we have almost no time left and this is the fastest method. When Wei tried to cut off my arm earlier, he came into contact with my blood and I finally saw and understood what he is.

Your blood? What?

It can forge bonds, but never mind that, this is the future...

A storm of images swept through Kouga's mind like the winds of a hurricane. Iron boxes on endless treads belching smoke and flame, metal birds in the sky disgorging eggs that exploded on impact, corpses by the thousands littering the streets of an unknown city, fires raging and children and infants screaming, terror filling the air. It was a world gone mad and consumed in a war stretching from horizon to horizon...

Those are some of Wei's memories, or more accurately, those are memories of people who fought and died at Nanking. The final truth of Wei is that he isn't a single individual or even really alive, he is a fusion of all the murdered souls of Nanking; all their hatred, all their rage, all their sorrow and agony, all of it melded into one completely psychotic entity.

Wei is Nanking.

All these bodies that we are fighting, they are just manifestations and extensions of an undying hate personified.

Kouga began to form a question, but even before it was fully fleshed out in his mind Sesshoumaru was answering.

He can be destroyed but we need to stop him here first, which requires us to keep this body, his strongest body, occupied or it will return to the keep and cut down your army like a scythe through wheat...

Contact was cut off suddenly and the vision of the future world disappeared from his mind and was replaced by an enraged Wei smashing his blade down onto Sesshoumaru's in an assault so violent, Kouga thought the Tessaiga might break beneath it.

" Wei," Sesshoumaru rasped. Half his face and head was a mass of burn scars and melted flesh. His lips looked like they were having trouble parting to pronounce words. "I know what you are, when you stabbed me you let me see your true nature. The dead have no place among the living."

"Like you can speak credibly," Wei returned, while parrying a return strike. "By the way, I love what you've done with your face; very rugged looking."

"It'll get better," Sesshoumaru responded mixing equal parts condescension and certainty. "You, however, won't."

Wei withdrew a few paces and offered them a smile that gleamed coldly in the pulsating light from above. "Just like a Japanese to possess such unwarranted self-confidence. This body fought you to a standstill and it houses only half my power. How would you fare against seventy percent of me?"

"I know we're ready to find out," Kouga said, breathing hard and steeling himself.

Ignoring the protests of the wound spurting blood from his side, Kouga rose up to set himself for battle once more, but paused midway when he felt something wet and sticky flow between his toes and swiftly by him; glancing behind he saw a dark river bubbling up from the shattered skull of Wei's leviathan, streaming past him and Sesshoumaru to be absorbed into Wei.

"Do you honestly believe two battered, bleeding and burned youkai are a match for a reckoning decades in the making? Even if you were a match, it wouldn't matter. You're too late," Wei said, as the Shining Hate disappeared from his hand. A deep and resonating thrum sounded from everywhere and nowhere, audible and yet silent.

"DO YOU HEAR ME SESSHOUMARU!" Wei's face nearly split apart as his sick smile blossomed on it. "YOU'RE TOO LATE! TIME IS UP! IT'S THE END FOR JAPAN! HEAVEN'S WRATH IS ABOUT TO WIPE IT OUT! YOUR PEOPLE WILL NEVER THREATEN MINE!"

The night sky, disfigured by the albescent scars of Wei's power, suddenly shattered into shards of darkness that were immediately drawn upwards into a maw of merciless light, which devoured them totally and consumed the world around them. Heaven had heard Wei's cry and the gate was now open.