A/N: Welcome back, everyone. I do apologize for making you wait this long... life and my muses both seemed to have other ideas whenever I thought about working on this. Either I had no time or no inspiration, and both together conspired to delay me for an entire year (as you may have noticed). I hope you can forgive me.

The next couple of chapters are nearly done, and should follow quickly. From there it's only a few more to the end of the story. Bear with me just a little longer, dear readers.

-Eia

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Chapter XXXI: Shatter

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No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

-Colin Powell

Izayoi woke with a shriek, clawing her way through the darkness towards the ceiling.

It was not yet morning, but the air had a quality of expectancy to it that said it was not far off. She staggered to the window and threw it open, sucking in great breaths of the harsh pre-dawn wind. The air bit at her. It was not yet winter, and yet she could taste snow on it.

A knock on her door, tentative and concerned. Takemaru. "My lady?"

"I'm fine," she replied, managing to keep her voice somewhat level. "Go back to sleep."

"Call if you need anything," he said, sounding unsure but for once too groggy to be disobedient.

Izayoi dug her fingernails into the sill of the window and stared sightlessly out at the autumn-withered expanse of trees and grass beyond the castle, made barely visible by the ambient grey glow of dawn.

"Mai," she whispered. Her tears fell unnoticed onto the ground outside and froze almost immediately. "Please keep him safe."

It would snow today.

xxxx

There was something wrong with the mist.

Sakenmaru and Katsuro came up to stand beside Inutaisho, staring into the drifting grey-silver banks with worried eyes.

It did not appear to have anything wrong with it. It moved with the wind, thinned and thickened as ordinary fog would, and was not unusual with this cold, humid weather. The sun had not yet risen, so its continuing presence was not to be unexpected. There was no feel of magic about it. Naruka had confirmed this. It was entirely natural. And yet, it made their hackles rise as though they were being watched.

"Rouse the men," Inutaisho said softly. "Do not raise the alarm just yet, but caution them to be on their guard and keep their weapons at hand."

"My lord," said Katsuro, face shadowed with hair he had not yet had time to shave off. His ever-present bandanna held his uncombed hair away from his face. For once, he was not smiling. He was a general. The taste of war on the morning air was familiar to him as the hilt of his sword, and there was no place for humour in its presence.

Inutaisho took a moment to regard him, meeting his eyes searchingly. This was the man who had been at his left hand for a year, and whom had never let him down even once. This was a human man-- only the third human he had ever trusted with his life, after Naruka and Izayoi. Katsuro had trained his army, sweated and bled alongside them for months without praise or payment, and had never asked for anything but faith. Inutaisho put a hand on his shoulder, a wealth of meaning behind the gesture, and knew Katsuro understood.

His general bowed and left to do as asked.

Sakenmaru put a hand on Inutaisho's shoulder. "Well, old friend?" he asked quietly. "What are you thinking?"

"It is going to snow today," Inutaisho said by way of answer, which wasn't really an answer at all. The wind was picking up, and his hair flagged out behind him until it was nearly indistinguishable with the mist.

"Yes, most likely," Sakenmaru agreed, "but I'll wager you're thinking a sight more than just that."

Inutaisho did not answer, and the conversation lapsed into silence for several minutes.

The fog grew lighter as the sun began to rise behind it.

"Do you think they're ready?" asked Sakenmaru at last. "I think we may have been too lax in preparing them for the eventuality of battle. Their skills are good enough, but I think sometimes... in their hearts they never really expected to actually have to fight. We were lax in preparing them for the reality of what--"

Sudddenly, the skin of their arms rippled into stiff gooseflesh and the wind grew urgent. There was a strange resonance to the air that any seasoned soldier could have recognized-- the song of battle.

"Regardless of that, it is too late now," said Inutaisho before Sakenmaru could continue. Quickly but without seeming to hurry, he untied a leather thong from around his wrist and bound his hair back into a streaming tail of steely silver, and thrust two polished wooden sticks into it to hold it in place. "It seems they grew tired of waiting for us to come to them, and came to us instead."

Naruka's barrier had never been meant to hold even this long. Inutaisho had been expecting this for weeks already.

Katsuro returned, his hand already gripping the hilt of his sword with unconscious anticipation. "Orders?"

Inutaisho scanned the fog as he spoke, not looking at his general. "Split them into three groups, two large and one small. Range the two large ones up the sides of the valley mouth and have Naruka hide them. Line up the smaller one on the valley floor in such a way that from below they will look like more than they are. Instruct them to scatter for the sides when I signal. Ask Naruka to activate what she prepared as soon as all warriors are out of the camp and into position."

"Understood," said Katsuro, bowing and turning to leave. Before he took more than two steps, however, he turned back to regard Inutaisho with a gaze no human should have been able to turn on him-- knowing, insightful, too sure of itself. "...Shall I send word to the princess?"

Inutaisho shook his head once, refusing to be knocked off balance. He resolutely banished the vision of Izayoi's face from his mind. "No. There is no need. She will already know."

"Of course," said Katsuro softly, still too knowing, then took off running in earnest.

"Will you retreat to higher ground?" Sakenmaru asked. Traditionally, the general would stand on a high point overlooking the battle and call out his commands from there, however...

Inutaisho was not very good at tradition. "No," he said, predictably. "No one else here can handle Ryuukotsusei. It would be a lost battle if I were not at the front lines holding him off."

"True enough," agreed Sakenmaru, grinning toothily. "All right then. You have your swords?"

Inutaisho touched the hilts-- Tetsusaiga at his left hip, Tenseiga at his right, Sou'unga on his back. He could hear the cowardly spirit of Sou'unga's sheath whispering to itself in alarm, but ignored it. "Yes. Sakenmaru, I have some favours to ask."

The lion tensed. The hand on his shoulder tightened slightly. "Am I going to like this?"

"No," said Inutaisho honestly, knowing Sakenmaru would hear the truth even if he tried to lie. "If, perchance, anything happens to me in battle--"

The hand gripped his shoulder convulsively with almost painful strength, and Sakenmaru growled under his breath.

"--there are some things that will need doing. I have already asked Katsuro and Naruka to make sure Izayoi is cared for, but there are some things only another youkai can do."

"Ask," said Sakenmaru simply. "If it is in my power, I will see it done."

"My swords," said Inutaisho immediately. "I have also asked Toutousai for his assistance in this, but in case he does not come in time... I wish to have the added security of knowing you also know my will. Sou'unga must be taken away and put somewhere where no one can reach it. I would ask you to destroy it, but I know you cannot. No one but its maker had the ability, and he is dead. Tenseiga I leave to Sesshoumaru."

"Sesshoumaru?" Sakenmaru broke in, surprised. "Are you certain? He will not want it."

"I have my reasons," said Inutaisho, and he did. Sesshoumaru had to learn temperance and compassion at some point, and Inutaisho would not necessarily be around to teach it. Tenseiga could teach it for him. Sesshoumaru would ihate/i it, and hate him for it, but Inutaisho respected his son enough not to spare him this lesson.

Sakenmaru read as much in his eyes and made a face. "Well, all right then, but remind me to be elsewhere when Sesshoumaru finds out. Where is he, anyway?"

Inutaisho hesitated. He had not seen his son for nearly a year, not since the first night he had spent with Izayoi. He knew his son had run, but not where, and did not have the heart to call him back when he so well understood what Sesshoumaru had to be thinking. It was best if he was far away from Izayoi until he came to terms with his anger about Inutaisho's supposed betrayal. "He is... where he needs to be," he said, settling for half of the truth. "Do not count him among our allies for this battle."

Sakenmaru sighed. "Very well, though his strength would be a great boon. And what would you like me to do with Tetsusaiga?"

"For my son who has yet to be born," Inutaisho said after a long pause in which he fought off thoughts of Izayoi again. "He will need to protect himself. Hanyou do not have easy lives." The thought of it made his chest ache. He knew what wounds and bruises his son would suffer before ever reaching maturity. He knew what scars he would carry all his life. Inutaisho wished there was better protection he could leave behind for his son's body, but there was none. He would have to trust in Izayoi to arm his heart.

"It is unkind of you, you realize, to even consider dying in this battle," Sakenmaru told him disapprovingly. "You burden your woman with a stone too great for her alone to carry, extraordinary though she is."

"No, she can carry it," Inutaisho corrected, faint pride in his voice, "she is stronger than even you give her credit for. I shall of course do my utmost not to die if at all possible."

Sakenmaru clapped him on the back. "Good. I will not be impressed if I have to drag you off the battlefield in pieces. It's an awful thing to do to a friend."

Inutaisho smiled at him, and Sakenmaru smiled back. There were long pages of words behind their smiles, memories stretching back through years uncountable. They had been friends for a long, long time. They trusted each other with more than simply their lives. They trusted each other with everything precious to them. There was no greater faith.

Katsuro ran up again, still impressively not out of breath. "Preparations are complete, my lord. Whenever you're ready."

The wind changed direction, carrying the heavy wet salt scent of the ocean up the valley from the shoreline some miles away. The sun slashed up the valley on its tail, turning the fog blazing white and blindingly opaque. Dawn had come... and with it, war.

"Stand back," Inutaisho instructed his friends.

When they did as asked, he took a deep breath and drew the Sword of Earth. Months and months of preparation and care had gone into making sure the moments after this one went their way, but battle is ever the most uncertain of things. He had no way to be certain that any of them would live through this, his own self included. However, he had no time for doubting himself or his warriors.

He trusted the people who stood beside him, and those who rallied behind them. There was nothing more he could do.

Inutaisho took three half-running steps forward, raised Tetsusaiga, and brought it raging down through the air with a yell. "Kaze no kizu!"

Light and fury erupted from his blade and scythed through the mist towards the mouth of the valley. The fog burned away in seconds, the remnants ghosting up the mountainsides where his men lay hidden.

Into the gap boiled an army of youkai such as none any of them had ever seen before. They were in the air, under the ground, a coiling and writhing mass of scales and slime and bruised colours through the space towards the place where Inutaisho stood.

"By heaven," murmured Sakenmaru behind him. "Ryuukotsusei has apparently never heard of restraint."

"He may have, but it is wise of him not to take any chances," said Katsuro with a wry smile, but his voice was strained.

They had not expected an easy battle, but neither had they expected this… horde. There were tens of thousands of them. It was nearly impossible to see past the solid wall of contorting demonic bodies at the valley mouth.

And before them all strode a tall man with deep violet hair braided back off his head and black armour. Those of them with keener sight could see that his eyes were very green.

"Leave him to me," said Inutaisho, and launched himself across the grass without a backwards glance, a lone figure flying through the last lingering shreds of morning mist.

With a roar, his armies followed his lead and came swooping down the mountainsides behind the youkai horde, trapping it inside the valley and driving it relentlessly towards the encampment.

Battle was joined.

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A/N: The beginning of the end.

I hate writing battles, which is a goodly part of the reason why this took me so long. Don't expect long dissemination on tactics and exection and we won't have any problems. :)

Stand by for more in a little while. Thanks again for reading.