With the battle over, Sango thought she could breathe a sigh of relief. It was still very early in the morning. She had at least a little time before the sun came up to start figuring out what she was going to do now that her hiraikotsu was in pieces. Now that Inuyasha had the Tessaiga back, she knew he would want to be back on the road as soon as possible. She would need a plan before then. And for that, she would have preferred quiet.
Inuyasha, unfortunately, had other ideas. "Toutousai, you bastard!" he shouted.
"Is there a problem?" Toutousai asked, with an air of complete innocence. By now Sango had little doubt he knew exactly what was going on with the sword—he probably just wanted Inuyasha to figure it out on his own. And Inuyasha, being who he was and as impatient as he was, wanted to take every possible shortcut on the way to mastering his weapon.
"Yeah!" Inuyasha snapped. "How the hell am I supposed to fight with a sword that's so heavy I can barely swing it once?"
Toutousai turned to him, suddenly serious. "You want to know the way to handle a heavy sword?"
Inuyasha was suddenly all ears. "There's really a way?"
"It's simple, really."
"If you say 'train your body' I'm gonna punch you, old man."
When Toutousai made no attempt to deny that this had indeed been his plan, Inuyasha decked him as promised.
"Are you finished?" Miroku asked, sounding just as fed up as Sango. Unlike Inuyasha, his attention was still on Toukijin. A blade like that might still be dangerous even after its wielder was dead. "The sword's evil aura is weakening, but it doesn't seem to be disappearing."
"The sword forged by Kaijinbou using the fang of the ogre Goshinki… such a thing will continue to spread evil until it is removed from the world," Toutousai observed.
"How do we destroy something so dangerous?" Sango asked. Back at her village, there had been rituals for properly disposing of especially evil remains and artifacts that the slayers encountered, but never in her lifetime had something this evil come their way. She was not sure any of the rituals she knew would have even the slightest effect. If so much as touching the blade could result in being possessed as Kaijinbou had been, what hope did anyone have of destroying it? Perhaps Miroku had sutra scrolls that would help… and Kagome had power that might protect her, though Sango hated the thought of asking Kagome to risk sullying herself by touching that sword.
She did not have long to worry about it, because a new enemy appeared. This one came from the sky, dropping swiftly toward the group and landing with such force that Kaijinbou's remains were obliterated by a surge of youki and fire. It was Inuyasha's brother, Sesshoumaru, and his strange two-headed mount.
"What are you doing here?" Inuyasha demanded, clearly incensed by his brother's sudden appearance. Sango rather thought he ought to be glad that Sesshoumaru had not appeared even a few minutes earlier, when he would have still been in human form and his secret would have been revealed.
"I should be saying that to you," Sesshoumaru said as he dismounted. Compared to Inuyasha he seemed dispassionate and cold, uninterested in bluster. "I merely came for the sword. It seems the monster you killed still wanted to slay you, even after its own death."
That was strange. "How does he know the sword was made from Goshinki's fangs?" she murmured.
"If he knows that much, that means—" Miroku began.
"I was the one who told Kaijinbou to make the sword," Sesshoumaru cut in, having obviously overheard them.
Sango watched, feeling ill as he turned toward the sword. If he, too, became possessed by the sword's power, there was no telling what he would do. One thing was certain, however: it would not go well for Inuyasha.
Toutousai, having taken up a relatively safe position directly behind Inuyasha, peered around the hanyou's shoulder to advise, "Sesshoumaru, you mustn't touch Toukijin! Even someone as strong as you may be overtaken by its evil power!"
But Sesshoumaru's expression and intent did not change. Toutousai's words seemed almost to goad him into action. He seized the sword and drew it from the earth.
Power blasted forth so strongly that even an ordinary human could have sensed it without any training at all. The evil aura made Sango's skin crawl. Only her years of training as a slayer kept her from giving in to the intense desire to run and hide.
And then, just as quickly as the power had risen, it began to dissipate. Sango realized with a shock that despite Toutousai's warning, Sesshoumaru had not been possessed by the sword. He had brought it under his own control instead.
"It would appear the sword has chosen its master," Sesshoumaru commented blandly. It was as if he did not care at all about what had just happened. Yet obviously there was something else he wanted, for he set his gaze on Inuyasha, his eyes narrowing. "Draw your sword, Inuyasha. I want to test something."
The worst part was, Sango was curious about what he wanted. If he'd commissioned Kaijinbou to make Toukijin in the first place, that meant he knew about Goshinki. Did he know, also, about Inuyasha's role in Goshinki's death and the transformation the hanyou had undergone as a result? Or had he merely been making the most of the death of a powerful youkai, the way the people of her village would have done?
On second thought, she decided, the worst part was that she was about to find out.