Chapter Thirty-Seven: Requiem for the Lost, Part One
Pale yellow along the eastern horizon, the first rays of the summertime morning warmed the night sky. As its soft light grew brighter, it revealed thickly forested mountains and valleys patterned with rice paddies. Thick and gray, fog settled upon the low-lying places, foretelling the arrival of another hot and humid day.
Along the border between a field gilded with ripe grass and the tangle of an overgrown wood, a daiyoukai in white and red refinement strolled. Lagging behind him, another youkai followed. Small in stature, he hurried to keep pace, his birdlike feet a flurry of motion.
"Sesshoumaru-sama," he called out as he shrugged under the weight of the two-headed staff he shouldered. "Sesshoumaru-sama."
The daiyoukai paused in his step and turned to eye him coolly.
"If it would please you," Jaken began as he wiped away the tiny beads of sweat that dotted his green brow, "Could we take a moment to enjoy this beautiful sunrise."
He continued to stare at him.
"I-I understand that you are busy with matters related to your lordship, but after dedicating the entire night to constant journeying, a man of your importance deserves a brief respite so that you may behold the glory of your lands."
One of his delicate eyebrows furrowed.
"I'm tired and I would appreciate a short break."
He snorted. "And with this meandering conversation, you have received it." Turning to face forward, he started to walk again, his pace a step quicker than before.
"Sesshoumaru-sama," Jaken implored, his voice carrying a keening pitch. "I apologize for misleading you. Sesshoumaru-sama!—"
His next salvo of fawning pleas ended in a surprised squawk as he collided with the back of a leather boot. As he landed on his rump, he peered up, catching Sesshoumaru's head in profile.
With his attention focused on the dark recesses of the wood, the daiyoukai scented the air and frowned.
"Sesshoumaru-sama?"
Without a reply, he headed into the tree line. Slashing at the undergrowth with glowing claws of youki, he cleared the way. Behind him, Jaken followed, mumbling nervously as he clambered over the shredded vegetation. And when they reached a shady glade, Sesshoumaru dispelled his power with a flick of his fingers and entered it. Thick layers of leaves crunched under his boots.
"Sesshoumaru-sama?" Jaken called out again as he waded chest deep into the leaf litter. "What's going on—" Then he gasped.
Under the dappled light of the rising sun, a winding pile of crystal glinted lavender. With Sesshoumaru taking the lead, they approached the strange formation until the angles of it facets revealed its origin.
"It's a centipede youkai," Jaken noted in a whisper as he grasped for the daiyoukai's pantleg.
Sesshoumaru nodded, his eyes following the rectangular segments of its carapace until he discovered the humanoid upper body at its anterior end.
Jaken swallowed, unable to look away from the petrified agony that distorted its face. "It didn't die well."
With a light inhale, Sesshoumaru scented the air. Ignoring the clinging decay of the forest floor, he picked up the stink of vomit and blood which drew his attention to the splintered trees and overturned soil that bordered the glade. Indeed, it had not been a good death. But beyond that, there was nothing else of note. There was no evidence of predatory youki or divine purification.
"It's the same color as the Shikon-no-Tama," Jaken said, venturing a few steps beyond his lord's shadow. "When it was pure at least."
Sesshoumaru frowned and pored through the scents again. The profiles of every enemy that he had ever faced were etched into memory, especially Naraku's, and none of them were present. Even the range of odors that he had encountered during his yearlong crusade against the hanyou were absent. "A coincidence perhaps."
Turning on his heel, he headed back for the path that he had carved to the creature's grave. Rustling through the leaves, Jaken hustled after him in pursuit.
Midmorning arrived as they emerged from the wood. Under the sun's radiance, the creeping fog had burnt away, revealing gently sloping hills. Bearing right, Sesshoumaru continued his route along the tree line, his pace a few steps slower than before. Behind him came an obliviously loud sigh of relief, one that drew a smirk from his lips. His amusement though didn't last long.
Screeching cries echoed through the valley, and in the distance, a cloud of dust stirred.
Swirls of youki billowed around Sesshoumaru's boots, whipping at his clothes and his long, silver hair. Jaken made a dash that ended with an awkward leap, grabbing onto the fur of his lord's trailing pelt just as he took flight.
In a blur of green and gold, the fields and forests sped by as they sailed over the valley. Beneath them, a village slipped past, its people already barricaded from sight. And when they approached the final rise, Sesshoumaru alighted nimbly onto a rutted road, his whirling youki dispersing into nothingness.
"What is it, Sesshoumaru-sama?" Jaken asked as he slid clumsily from his pelt.
In reply, Sesshoumaru began to walk up the road as it curved towards the crest of the hill. With the heads of his staff bobbing along, Jaken followed.
When they reached the summit, they discovered a thinly wooded dell stretching out below them. Jumbled tracks of overturned earth had stripped away but a few patches of grass, and the cause of the ruin writhed nearby. Like landed fish, the sinuous bodies of serpent-like youkai flailed, lost to the throes of impending death. As they rolled and thrashed, their ventral sides flashed outward, revealing the scar of a spider, its long legs squeezing their chests.
"Naraku," Jaken gasped as he pointed towards one creature's scar. "A mark just like his proxies once bore."
With a soft sniff, Sesshoumaru tested the air and discovered no sign of his former enemy. And beyond that, he couldn't sense any trace of corruption or purification. The area was devoid of menacing youki or divine threats. Instead, there were only the natural precursors of death, matters so mundane that they were hardly worthy of passing attention.
Swept aside by the youkai tracks, shattered chunks of lavender crystal ringed the dell.
On a gust of youki, Sesshoumaru glided down for a closer look. Plucking a fragment from a bank of soil, he noted a pattern of scales etched on one side. It was then that he realized one scent was strangely absent, decay.
"Sesshoumaru-sama!" Jaken called out as he scrambled down the hill. "What is it?"
"Serpentine youkai are succumbing to some kind of petrification," he replied as he tossed the fragment back onto the ground.
"So, it wasn't just the one then?" he said thoughtfully. "Does that mean that we're going to investigate it further to determine why?"
A deep bellow shattered the air. A series of footfalls thundered, each one shuddering the ground. The pale green of a bloated body, a massive ogre entered the dell, felling trees as it lumbered through. A hail of screeching erupted from a crippled youkai as it snatched it up, and then with a casual chomp, it bit off its head. As it snapped up the rest of the creature, it took a seat. Surrounded by a defenseless feast, it soon began stuffing its maw, gorging itself happily. Across its chest, the scar of a spider loomed.
Jaken took a few steps back, his expression soured by revulsion.
But as the ogre reached for another wriggling youkai, it froze. A red glow burned in its eyes as it stared down at Sesshoumaru. Then the light faded, and it continued its meal.
Sesshoumaru turned away, heading back up the hill.
"Are we going to investigate?" Jaken asked.
"I once slaughtered a thousand serpentine youkai as a simple display of Bakusaiga's power," he replied. "Even the thousands that Naraku consumed over the decades have hardly culled their numbers. I doubt that this will have much of an impact either."
"But the ogre is affected too—"
Sesshoumaru spied down at him from over his shoulder. "Where the weak succumb, the strong will thrive. That's the natural order of things. That these vulgar creatures are too feeble to defend themselves against a threat that stinks neither of corruption nor purification is not my concern."
"Yes, Sesshoumaru-sama," Jaken replied.
The grass parting as he passed, Sesshoumaru continued up the slope.
Regarding the dell one last time, Jaken watched the glutinous ogre sate its appetite.
"Jaken."
"On my way, Sesshoumaru-sama." Then he hurried up the hill, following in his lord's footsteps.
OOOOOOOOOO
Through a sky turning amber on a midsummer's evening, Sesshoumaru soared above like an ancient god in transit. His hair and clothes billowed around him, caught in swirling vortices of youki. Lost in the deep plush of his pelt, Jaken held onto a tuft of fur with one hand and kept his staff in a vicelike grip with the other.
As they descended to glide over the treetops, a free flow of sputtered anxiety poured from him. Long accustomed to his mutterings, Sesshoumaru ignored him, his gaze on the break in the forest ahead. In a breath, the trees disappeared, replaced by the geometry of water-locked rice paddies. His shadow fluttered below him, falling onto rows of young plants and the farmers who tended them. Despite his status as a daiyoukai, the people of this village paid him no mind, an attitude he discovered that he preferred, more so than deference or fear.
The scattered structures of the village itself soon approached, and the churning youki that kept him aloft slowed. He alighted near the outskirts on the slope of a gentle hill. And with a flick of his pelt, he dumped a gibbering Jaken onto the ground, a place the small youkai was immediately thankful for.
"Do you still have the gifts?" Sesshoumaru asked as he ran his claws through his hair, detangling it after the blustery flight.
Jaken picked himself up out of the grass and slipped his hand into the sleeve of his coat. After searching for a moment, he produced a fine, ivory-handled brush and a small mirror framed in silver.
Satisfied, Sesshoumaru nodded. By his aristocratic standards, they were rather plain, but Jaken had proven to be a better judge of Rin's tastes than he.
"I think she will be very pleased with them, my lord," Jaken remarked as if reading his mind. "If you would sense where she's at, I will go fetch her."
He nodded. As tolerant as this village was, he favored brief visits that kept opportunities for encounters with a certain hanyou at a minimum. But when he sampled the air to isolate her scent, he frowned.
"Is she nearby?"
"No," he said, sniffing a second time to be certain, "What scent of hers that remains is old and faded. She hasn't resided here for weeks." Anger warmed in his chest and his jaw tightened.
"Perhaps she's summering somewhere else given the warm weather," Jaken stammered. "I will go ask so that we may be on our way."
"None of Inuyasha's entourage are present. Not even the elderly priestess that serves as her guardian."
"Then I'll ask one of the villagers," he offered. "They might know or at the very least, they might have a clue."
The evening breeze shifted, tugging at their clothes.
"You need not bother," Sesshoumaru said, and he turned on his heel to face a nearby copse of trees.
Clothed in firerat fur, a young man emerged from the tree line, his unruly mane of white hair swaying behind him as he approached.
"Sesshoumaru," Inuyasha greeted with a voice as coarse as granite. "It's been a while."
The daiyoukai's eyes narrowed. "Where's Rin?"
He sighed, brushing his bangs upward to wipe the sweat from his brow.
"You should have notified me before changing her residence."
"I'm sorry about that," he apologized. "Everything's been happening so quickly, and we needed all the help that we could get. I was coming back here for supplies when I caught your scent." He paused, working his jaw. "Have you heard about the infection that's wiping out youkai?"
"I don't see what that has to do with Rin."
An unexpected nervousness radiated from the hanyou, and he started to pace through the knee-high grass. "It's spreading. More and more of our kind are getting sick. And transforming into stone."
"Our kind?"
He gave him a withering look "You know what I mean. Anyone with youkai blood."
Sesshoumaru scoffed and looked away.
"We've gathered at Midoriko's Cave near the abandoned taijiya stronghold. There's something about the place that seems to slow the infection down. Gives us a little more time. Rin's there, tending to the sick, if that's what matters. But I was hoping…"
With cool dispassion, his gaze returned to the hanyou, watching him as he walked up to an old, dry well and stared down into its depths.
"But I was hoping that you might help us," Inuyasha confessed, his hand tracing the woodgrain of the boards that framed the well. He took a deep breath and added in a whisper. "You're smarter than any of us. Or at the very least, you have an easier time figuring this kind of shit out. We might have a chance if you join us. But only then."
The breeze picked up again, rippling through the grass.
Sesshoumaru snorted. "Where the weak succumb, the strong thrive. This curse, or infection as you put it, is a natural culling. It's not worthy of my time or talent."
Inuyasha spun around, snarling with anger. "I can't believe that someone like you is considered a youkai lord."
"What?" he replied, scowling.
"All you care about is what's yours or what you think you deserve. And your pride." He scoffed and crossed his arms against his chest. "If something doesn't affect you personally, then you don't care and that's it."
He glared at him.
"You know, Rin and Kohaku speak so highly of you," he continued, leaning against the well. "Kohaku especially likes to talk about the time when you were perfecting Tenseiga's Meido Zengetsuha. When you entered the underworld to save Rin at the risk of your own life. As if in that moment you learned compassion. But it's not really compassion befitting a lord if it only extends to those that you deem worthy." He nodded towards Jaken and the gifts he cradled. "If one human matters more to you than thousands of youkai. Maybe even an entire world of youkai."
His silence continued.
"Do you hear me? Youkai are dying," Inuyasha growled, his gold eyes glowing with an impossible brightness, especially under the summertime sun.
"It's not my concern."
"Then what does it mean to be a youkai lord, huh? Aren't lords supposed to protect? Aren't they supposed to be guardians?"
"You bore me."
He scoffed and shook his head. "I don't know why I'm surprised. I thought maybe with everything that happened with Naraku that you had changed. That maybe you cared now. But you don't. Not unless it's personal."
Silence.
"Fine," Inuyasha spat angrily, and he undid the ties of his coat, opening it wide to reveal his chest. Across his tanned skin lay a scar shaped like a spider. "I don't know which half of me you care about, if any, but if I've got it despite our father's blood, it's gonna get you too. I hope that's personal enough for you."
Sesshoumaru sneered. "Where the weak succumb, the strong thrive. What did you expect from daiyoukai blood diluted by your feeble human half?"
Redoing the ties of his coat, he chuckled bitterly. "It's not a real conversation between us if you don't level some kind of insult at my human half." He sighed. "It's strange. You know who thought asking you for help would work? Not Rin or Kohaku. It was Kagome. She really believes in you. More than anyone else. Maybe more than she believes in me. To be honest though, I don't see it. You're a youkai lord in name and that's it. And we don't have time for you to realize that there's more to being a guardian than that."
"Jaken," he said, his expression an inscrutable mask, "We're leaving."
"Yes, Sesshoumaru-sama."
Turning away, he headed down the slope of the hill.
"Jaken," Inuyasha called out.
The small youkai looked up at him, worry tiring his features.
"Talk to him, please. Maybe you can get it through his thick skull… before it's too late."
Rubbing at his chest, he looked to the western horizon and the setting sun. Then he nodded before dutifully following his lord into the coming night.