Author's note : OK, so Sesshomaru is in Hell now. I gave the place my personal description, trying to make it as creepy as possible. What do you think ? Send me reviews !

Chapter ten : The Dark Realm

Sesshomaru's POV

He was a demon Lord. He had seen battlefields many times. He had made war. He had seen carnages like no one had seen before. Had caused many of them. But nothing like what was lying at his feet right now...

Sesshomaru was standing on the edge of a rocky cliff, looking at the landscape beneath him. He had this huge desire to throw up. It was only due to his great force of will that he was able to contain himself.

From his high position, he could overlook the whole place. As far as his eyes could see, it was the same thing : the black walls and the ground were totally covered whit blood. At some place it was dry and crackled and at others fresh and trickling. And the scent, oh god... the scent... it was like he couldn't smell anything else than blood and death. The roof was very high. He couldn't make half the jump it would take to touch the top. But the roof wasn't such a big deal, it was just black rocks... While what was on the lower level was sickening. There was... people, over there. Humans and demons alike, hundreds, no, millions of them. Here and there, you could see some clumsy constructions, made of black metal or rock. On certain places, without any precise order, flames were rising menacingly, glowing red, making the air even more hot than it was, polluting it with smoke. Skulls, skeletons and bodies in putrefaction were pinned to the walls in a twisted way of decoration. It looked like a bad excuse of a village, thought Sesshomaru. An enormous and horrible village of Hell.

The people down there were souls. He knew it. Damned souls. The worse and cruelest population of Earth was here. The most dangerous men, the most despicable demons... anyway, those who were dead... And now, they were all moping, moaning, crying, screaming in fear... Sesshomaru could see them, from where he was. What a pitiful sight. They were all packed there like animals, and treated as such. Many were doomed to stay here for an eternity of sufferings, others were probably waiting to be reincarnated into a life of misery and despair, just to come back in Hell at the end of it. That was their punishment for whatever unforgivable thing they had done...

Some of them were alone and isolated, screaming or moping, completely terrified for a reason only known by them. Those ones had lost their minds, they were crazy...

Some others were in groups, fighting and killing each other. No one was siding with anyone. In Hell, all others were your enemies. It was kill or be killed. Those people were crazy too, in a way. They couldn't die, here. They were already dead. But they seemed to have forgotten that...

And then, there was those who were being tortured. That was the most horrible sight. Everywhere, there was those strange looking demons ; THEY weren't souls. They lived here. They were demons of Hell. They were all looking alike : tall, whit an oversized musculature, they were wearing some ugly pieces of fur that couldn't even be called clothes. They had from two to five horns on their head, depending on the demon. Maybe it was a way of ranking ?... They were all a dark black, a bright red, or a dirty brown color. They had claws and fangs and all, but they were using weapons to torture the poor souls that were their victims. They were cutting them, burning their skin, pulling out their hair and eyes, drawing on their torsos with anything that was sharp, totally jubilating at the sight of blood... When their victims would scream, they would laugh with pleasure, adoring the sound... Sesshomaru corrected himself : they weren't demons, they were beasts.

He took another look at the constructions. No doupts there was more tortures going on in there. And he didn't know why, but he had the feeling that the most terrible punishments were in those constructions. Hided from sight. Though, how could anything be worse than what he was seeing now ? He didn't want to know...

Considering all that, Sesshomaru could guess that he had been sent to a certain level of Hell, the one where Inu-Yasha was. There was other levels, though. He knew that much. He wondered if this level was the worst...

"Alright, enough observation" he told himself, trying to ignore the scents and the noises, which was near to impossible. Reluctantly, he jumped down from his cliff and went from rock to rock before landing on the ground. He was in the "village", now. It really was enormous. He couldn't see the end of it. But maybe... there was no end. How would he find Inu-Yasha in such a big place ?

He blinked at the thought of his little brother being here. Like all those other damned souls. Suffering. But the hanyou didn't deserve to be here... He had died saving his big brother's life... It was almost as if Sesshomaru had sent him here himself... He bit back a moan. No self-pitty. He had to be strong for the both of them, and that meant no sentiment of guilt or pain was allowed. Putting on a determined expression, he begun to walk... always straight ahead...

The other souls stopped their current activities to watch him pass... They looked puzzled. Were they feeling he wasn't like them ? That he wasn't dead, but still very much alive ?... He couldn't know. He just walked right through them, his coldest expression on his face, as they backed off to make him way. They seemed to fear him. Sesshomaru just ignored them, trying his hardest to pick up his brother's scent among all the others.

But after a while, they stopped acting scared. The surprise had passed. Now, the deads looked angry at him, ready to attack when he wouldn't be paying attention... be alert... Sesshomaru tensed and stopped walking. He glanced at them and waited. And all of a sudden, they threw themselves on him, growling and shouting, making him their new target. He just jumped in the air and landed as far from them as he could. He couldn't fight them, he had no time. He had to hury... always straight ahead...

The place where he landed was also full of dead people. They acted the same as the others, first scared, then shooting threatening glares at him. He freezed and prepared to jump again... when they all suddenly wimpered and stepped back as far as they could go. He wondered what had set off that strange reaction... when he felt a presence behind him. He quickly moved away and turned to look who was there ; it was one of Hell's demon. A big red one with three horns and a big metallic club in his hand. He had inky black eyes with no pupils or irises. Just all black. He growled at the dog demon. Ah, so they didn't speak ? It was probably their greatest quality...

The beast throw itself on Sesshomaru, swinging its club over its head, growling and slobbering. The demon Lord dodged. He was quicker. The beast whirled round and growled angrily. It came running at him again, and this time his first reflex was to slash the red demon with his poisonous claws. Wrong idea. Not only did it inflict absolutly no damage to his opponent, but it felt like his claws had been snapped off like mere cristal. He brung his hurting hand to his chest and looked at the Hell demon. This one seemed amused and satisfied by his enemy's suffering. OK, so no claws attacks. Then what ?... kill them with the Tenseiga... Yes ! His sword, of course ! Duh, how could he have forgotten that ?... Probably because he wasn't use to rely on it so much, he thought...

Smiling devilishly, he grabbed his sword's hilt with his other hand and... and...

-Damn ! he yelled out loud, astonished.

His other hand ! He had two arms ! How could this be ! And more important, how could he have missed it !... He looked at his left arm in bewilderment, not believing what his eyes were showing him. Was it an illusion ? He rowled his shoulder, turned his wrist, clenched his fingers... No, it was real alright... But how ?... And since how long was it there ?... How could he have not seen it ? "I guess... I'm so used at just having one arm that I only made movements with that one. I didn't even thought about the other since I was so sure it wasn't there anymore..." Yes, that was a logical explanation. And besides, his thoughts were very numerous lately.

He suddenly realized that he had been daydreaming, and jumped aside just in time to avoid the Hell demon's attack. He frowned. It was time to end all of this... He unsheathed his Tenseiga. The blue light surrounded it again, clashing with the red glow of the flames. The Hell demon stopped dead in his track and freezed, as well as everyone else in the area. The blue aura of the sword suddenly became pure white, illuminating the place with such power that most of the damned souls covered their eyes, moaning in pain. The demon just looked at Sesshomaru with pure fear in his black empty eyes, not knowing what to do. Sesshomaru didn't lose time ; he ran toward his enemy and sliced his head off. The demon fell to the ground, defeated. The sword returned to its gentle blue aura.

Sesshomaru didn't sheathed it, but held it before him, daring the others to make a move on him. They didn't of course, to terrified they were by the purifying light of his Tenseiga. The demon Lord smirked arrogantly... but it vanished almost immediatly. Closing his eyes, he raised his head and sniffed the unhealthy air more deeply...

Yes. No mistake. It was there. Not far... His eyes popped open.

Sesshomaru had just picked up Inu-Yasha's scent.

A/N : Hold on InuYasha, help is coming !