A/N: As promised, the next chapter.
If you've seen the fourth movie, you should start to recognize things fairly soon. I promised at the beginning of this fic that it would eventually line up to those eight minutes in the movie dealing with our hero and heroine. I intend to keep that promise.
If you catch anything which contradicts with canon (with the obvious exception of Sesshoumaru's mother being alive and not characterized as I have written her, and the other smaller ones like Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru's ages as we have mixed reports on those and I've already made clear which of them I'm choosing to believe). I'm fairly certain it should be error-free as I've watched those eight minutes literally dozens of times and taken notes, but I'm not infallible. :)
Thank you for reading. Enjoy the chapter.
-Eia
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Chapter XXXII: Iron
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There is no glory in battle worth the blood it costs.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
The first contraction came like a riptide, rolling and tearing its way down her body with unbelievable violence.
She cried out in shock and fell to the cold wooden floor, a puddle of birthing fluid slowly spreading around her. Her fingernails dug into her belly but she could not feel it. Her hair fell about her face and pooled on the boards, fluid seeping into it.
"My lady!" cried Takemaru, kneeling beside her and holding her shoulders. His hands were strong and warm. "What ails you?"
"My child is coming," she gasped, close to tears. "Too soon, too soon! There are still several weeks left before he should come. Why now?"
"I know nothing of this," Takemaru said, distressed. "I will call Kiyoko, she has some experience with midwifing."
"Please," said Izayoi.
The pain eased enough for her to laboriously push up from the floor and drag herself to her bed. She lay down without any real relief and waited with dread for the next contraction.
As she waited, she prayed—first that her child would be healthy despite its early birthing, and second that Inutaisho would win his war quickly and live to see his son be born.
Only one of those seemed at all likely.
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The earth beneath each step was heavy and bogged with blood and trampled mud. The air stank of iron and death, enough to burn the nostrils. The wind fair crackled with mana, stinging the skin.
Inutaisho noticed none of it, his eyes focused with singular determination on the enemy standing before him. It should have been anti-climactic, facing the brother of his worst enemy in the last battle instead of the enemy himself... who was already dead, ashes mingled with Izayoi's tears.
It wasn't.
Ryuukotsusei hated him every bit as much as his brother ever had, and for stealing Ryuunomei's death from him Inutaisho hated him back with equal ferocity. The elder brother had been his enemy for a long time even by his reckoning of time, and someone who has been an enemy for that long is almost a friend. Inutaisho had known him better than almost anyone else in his life, and knew that the dragon had known him as well. Their battle had been predestined, a clash of fates both of them had seen coming for centuries and simultaneously looked forward to and dreaded.
The younger brother had, in his greed and shortsightedness, stolen that from both of them. Inutaisho would not forgive him for intruding on something which should not have involved him in the first place.
For the victory he should have had, Inutaisho would fight this battle instead.
They came at each other with calculated, wrathful intent, every blow of their swords carrying countless years of feeling behind them. Magic surged harshly down and through the steel, throwing courses of vibrant lightning out in all directions whenever they clashed. They were both snarling bestially though still in human form, far past the point where spoken insults could have any effect. This was hatred at its deepest, purest form-- wordless and intolerable. It would never leave either of them until the other was dead, and possibly not even then.
Around them was a wide circle of empty earth-- the soldiers and demons had learned quickly that to venture near the battling lords was to invite swift and painful death. They continued their own smaller death-matches as far away as they could.
It was impossible to tell who was winning. The demons had superior numbers, but the taiji-ya had superior training and were much better organized, smarter, and trusted each other. Each of the human hunters were taking dozens of youkai down with them. It was fairly evenly matched.
At the opposite end of the valley, unnoticed by the dueling lords, a brilliant lilac flower of energy blossomed silently, the great shockwave and thunder of sound following several seconds later. All the demons unfortunate enough to be within reach of its thin vicious petals appeared, horrifically, to explode into bloody pieces and shrivel to ash. Naruka had been pouring power into these traps of hers for months-- whenever a great enough concentration of youkai came near their buried nuclei, they erupted, terribly beautiful and far more lethal than anything else on the field excepting the daiyoukai. She stayed hidden in the hills, setting them off with a directed thought, a pair of daggers clenched in her white knuckles and a bow at her side.
Sakenmaru, staying as near his friend as he dared, battled three fairly powerful youkai at once, too old for it but too determined to simply die. He laughed as he fought, with sword and teeth and claws, ready for defeat should it come but fighting like the demon he was until then. He still had much to live for and planned with all his heart to do so.
Katsuro was laughing as well, genial and merry-hearted as if this were some sort of celebration. Battle was his home, what he was most familiar with. His sword fairly danced around him, and where it went the enemy died.
Battle was never beautiful, and this was no exception, but as battles went it had more than its fair share of glory... and of death.
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Takemaru smiled to himself. He had smelled the battle wind, heard the faint echoing roar of voices. He knew what was transpiring in the valley two mountains over. The time had finally come to set his plans in motion.
Izayoi had been angry with him for finding his way to her side despite her efforts to keep him away, but even she had no true idea of how deep his plans for her ran. He would not simply stand by and watch the monster carry her off. Not ever again. She belonged to him. She had always belonged to him and no evil filth would take her from him without a fight.
Unwittingly, the monster had given him the very means with which to defend her-- a fortress, and men enough to hold it against most anything. Many of the soldiers and servants sent to care for and protect her had already been loyal to him, and now that he had had so many months to weave his plot, almost all of the rest were as well. They had come to see the truth of his view of the demon lord-- and indeed, all demons-- and would fight to protect their beloved princess from him.
Good and reason would always triumph in the end, thought Takemaru, and let his smile spread.
After the battle, should he live, the demon would return here for his lover. Exhausted and hopefully wounded, he would be greatly weakened and open to Takemaru's attack. With the assistance of his converted soldiers, victory was certain.
"I will array the men at the gates," said Chaoju, Takemaru's chosen lieutenant. He was a burly man with a porcine face, thick shoulders, and thinning hair tied back in a thin topknot. His eyes were small and glittered with malice.
Takemaru nodded. "Do that. The mononoke will likely be back before nightfall. The time has almost arrived... ensure that no one will bar my way into her chambers when it comes. I will not be thwarted by some overzealous handmaiden with a kitchen knife. The filth must die, both he and his whelp which has so befouled my beloved princess. You understand."
"I do, Takemaru-sama. I will see it done." The lieutenant saluted, hand to chest, and walked away.
Nothing could go wrong. The end to his needless suffering was close at hand at long last.
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Myouga stood frozen on the rafter overhead, so shocked he couldn't yet convince his traitorous limbs to move.
He had never liked Takemaru. His blood was sour and tasted of old resentments preserved too long. Now he knew why. The boy was a traitor, and half-mad besides. Myouga wasn't certain exactly what he planned, but he had heard enough to know what he had to do.
He sped across the courtyard to the stables, taking care not to be seen by any sharp eyes, and found his way to Saeki's stall. The clever horse had found his way home after Izayoi's flight from the house of dragons, sensing the impending conflict early enough to escape with his life. He was not a youkai, but he was nearly as intelligent as one, and understood what Myouga asked of him.
They fled the castle from the back gate and raced through the woods at frightening speed towards the valley two mountains over.
Myouga could only pray he would arrive in time.
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Inutaisho and Ryuukotsusei's battle had scaled the mountainside and plunged out of the valley down towards the sea. They stopped halfway there, on a great plain of grass, knowing it was not necessary to go any further.
Here, there was enough room.
With roars of joy and relief, they released their human forms and exploded into their true ones. A moment of mist and screaming wind later, there was a great white dog with a noble face standing on the grass facing an equally massive violet serpent. They were tall as cliffs and wide as rivers, and wherever they went the earth gave way to them.
Their swords had vanished within themselves with their clothing. They came at each other with nothing but their claws and teeth. It was as it had been in the beginning, a battle between great demon lords with little evidence of humanity between them. Scales and fur were torn, rent from skin, until blood flowed freely onto the earth at their feet. Theirs was a savage dance, graceful but pitiless, and there were no words, only such sounds as animals would make-- roars and howls and bellows of rage and pain.
The earth shattered and split beneath them in their fury. Inutaisho's claws and Ryuukotsusei's tail rent the ground until it broke apart into great canyons of stone and earth.
Even as they grew weary, their rage and pride kept them upright at each other's throat, ripping and tearing long past the threshold of coherent thought.
You will pay, said Ryuukotsusei's teeth as they flashed in the light of the dying sun. For my brother, for my pride, you will pay.
For stealing his death from me, I will make you bleed, Inutaisho roared wordlessly. For Izayoi and what you both have done to her, you will die.
Drained nearly to his last breath, he threw himself at the dragon, his last living nemesis, and gave himself up to fate.
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Sesshoumaru smelled the blood two hours before reaching the battlefield.
Perched on a crag high above the fighting, he gazed dispassionately down over the bitter conflict and reflected on the fact that he did not want to walk away.
He no longer wished to run, not really. These last months he had spent wandering, lost in thought, running from the truth of his father's fall into weakness, from the pervasive smell of Izayoi and everything she had ruined. No more. He had made his decision, and it was this: he loved his father, respected him still, but he was too weak to be allowed to rule.
Sesshoumaru would take the rule of the country out of his fallen hands and rule in honour of what he had once been.
Before, he had thought running and denial would let him live peacefully. He saw now what a folly that had been.
He would walk a different path to inner peace-- conquest. He would take his father's lands from his, his rulership, everything he could. His pride, if it became necessary. He would not suffer the only person in the world he yet cared for to spiral slowly and publically down into disgrace. Sesshoumaru would strip his father of everything he had before he would allow that.
He flexed his hands, feeling his claws flare to poisonous life, and leapt from the peak to plummet into battle at the side of his father's allies.
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Katsuro fought his way across the battlefield to Naruka's side.
She sat exhausted in the mud, a pale and badly-wavering shield of magic her only protection. His step faltered upon seeing her, a moment of weakness which nearly got him killed. He stabbed the youkai aiming at his side with long, poisonously dripping claws before it could reach him, but it was a close thing. He hardly noticed. The relief he felt on seeing her alive and conscious was so powerful, it nearly took his legs out from under him.
He had tried so hard not to encourage her. He knew what her calling meant to her, and knew that the chance of her being truly happy with him was too slim for any real hope. He had tried to so hard to protect her from herself.
Her shield wavered on seeing him. He strode up to it, then through. It parted like fog to him and he knelt beside her, laying a hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him, tears spilling over her eyelids and down her grime-streaked cheeks, and knew he had failed. Even if it meant tearing her away from the priesthood she so loved, even if it meant years of unhappiness for both of them, he could not make himself let her go.
"Will you survive?" he cracked, joking in hopes of temporarily staving off the crushing fear for her safety threatening to swallow him.
"I... possibly," she replied in a whisper, giving him a sweet smile that made his chest ache. "Don't worry about me. I can keep the shield up for a while yet."
He snorted, fighting tears himself now. "That I doubt. Even if you could, you think I would rather be halfway across the field from you when we win?" He promised as many things with the tone of his voice as he possibly could, and hoped she would understand. He was finished running from her, in every applicable sense of the word.
Her smile said she understood perfectly. "All right then. Stand there like an idiot and defend my maidenly honour if it will make you feel better."
Katsuro grinned fiercely and turned back to face the remaining tatters of the demon horde. "I don't recall asking permission, priestess. I outrank you and I say this is where I'm going to stand."
"Far be it from me to order you around, General," she said placatingly, her smile out of sight now behind his back but still clearly audible in her voice. "Do as you wish."
"I plan to," he replied, and killed two youkai with the next swing of his sword. No one would get through him to her while he lived and breathed. Not after he'd finally realized what it was he wished to do after the sword no longer had a use for him. Not after he'd finally come to understand what she was to him.
The youkai came, and died, and Katsuro laughed with joy.
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Saeki thundered over the last ridge, and Myouga beheld the battlefield.
It was an ugly sight, churned and trampled from its previous tranquil green into a red-brown sea of muck and death. The valley was dotted everywhere with the fallen corpses of both friend and foe. More foe than friend, but that said little as there had been fewer friends to begin with. He searched frantically for Inutaisho, but he was nowhere to be seen. Neither was the dragon.
Myouga found Sakenmaru to be the nearest ally to his current position, fighting on the very edge of the battle. Not fancying a jaunt across the war-torn field and the probable death such a sojourn entailed, Myouga had little difficulty deciding where to go next.
At his direction, Saeki slid down the near-sheer slope to land strides away from the bitterly embattled lion king. With the ease of long practise, Myouga timed his leap and landed neatly on Sakenmaru's shoulder. The nasty teeth and long swords flying around made him ill, but it couldn't be helped.
"Sakenmaru-sama! Sakenmaru-sama!" he yelled.
"Myouga?" gasped the lion, clearly half-dead of exhaustion. "What are you doing here, you fool?"
The flea crawled up the tossing mass of golden hair beside him until he reached the relative safety of Sakenmaru's ear. "Where has my master gone?" he asked. "I have news of great import, I must find him immediately!"
"I... saw him leave by the mouth of the valley with... Ryuukotsusei," Sakenmaru struggled to say. "Augh! Fie on these persistent fiends. A moment." With a roar and a blast of energy seemingly from nowhere, Sakenmaru finally obliterated his three persistent enemies, leaving him clear for a moment though his breath now came in painful wheezes. "Finally, we may speak at... ease," he rasped wryly, clearly far from easy in his crumbling body.
"The valley mouth?" repeated Myouga. "I must go!"
"Wait!" cried Sakenmaru, clapping a hand over his ear and trapping Myouga most unfairly within. "I do not... have very long, I do not think. You may have to carry out Inutaisho's will on my behalf. Rest assured, they are not terribly onerous burdens he has set me. Ask... Toutousai. He knows also, he will help you."
Sakenmaru fell to his knees, breaths coming in great laborious gasps. His skin was terribly pale.
"I will try to survive. I am a stubborn old man. If, however, I do not see tomorrow, tell Inutaisho that I thought him a very good friend... the best."
Myouga brought one of his hands to his heart and bowed as best he could. "I shall, but you must let me go! My news will not bear waiting any longer!"
"Ah, I forgot," rasped Sakenmaru, and laughed gratingly. "I am, after all, an old man." He unclasped his ear and let Myouga out.
The flea bowed low again and wished he had more time to offer his respects, but what he had overheard burned hot in his brain and his legs itched to run for his master.
Saeki was still nearby, standing at a respectful distance and tossing his head in agitation. Myouga remounted and told him to run for the sea with all his might.
He prayed the delay had not cost Izayoi's life already.
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Izayoi was being torn apart from the inside.
The child had always been strong and lusty within her, but he had never tried to hurt her before. Now, as if realizing his impending freedom, he was struggling towards it with all his might. She was unsure of whether the smaller pains alongside the breaking agony of her hips were really his claws gashing her, but that was what it felt like-- as if he was tearing his way out of her, tooth and nail.
Her throat bled from screaming but she could hardly feel it.
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Sesshoumaru methodically slaughtered his father's enemies ten at a time.
If the future Sesshoumaru saw was to be realized, all such opposition had to be crushed without mercy. He hardly saw the blood or the rent flesh, seeing instead his glorious vision of a Japan brought to heel under his might.
He would save his father from further ignominy by taking all responsibility from him. He could hardly be disrespected for his leadership when he was not a leader, correct?
Sesshoumaru would lead in his stead-- not just the paltry lands his father had clung to for all these millennia, but all of Japan. There was no good reason to have his power checked by three other lords. They were only in his way. He would eradicate everyone in his path, every enemy, until Japan was a place where he could live in satisfaction and peace.
Enemies came, and died, and Sesshoumaru smiled.
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Night fell.
The moon rose, white and pure high above the welter of death below. Where there was still snow on the ground, it glared and blinded.
The dog and the dragon were past seeing. They fought by instinct, by ears and nose and the touch of air currents against their skin, far more than they fought with their eyes. It is human to feel helpless when one cannot see, but they were not human; indeed grew further from it with every passing minute. Their other senses were not so weak.
Soon they would reach their bodies' limits and the fight would have to end, one way or another.
Inutaisho knew that Ryuukotsusei felt the same as he did-- there was no glory in a battle won at the furthest ends of exhaustion. By then delivering death to the enemy was almost a formality, not a bright triumph any more. They had passed that threshold already. There was no point in continuing like this.
They staggered apart, drew themselves up, and met each other's eyes in a warrior's farewell.
The next blow would settle it.
Ryuukotsusei lunged for him.
Inutaisho made a decision. He knew he was too weak to win the battle with outright strength. It rankled with his honour which demanded that the dragon die, but there would hopefully be time to deal with that later, after he had won. Instead of meeting him head-on, therefore, he took two steps backward and collapsed into his human form amid the tumbled rocks. They swallowed his tiny body as though he was not even there. Ryuukotsusei could not see him, and it would take several seconds for him to find Inutaisho by smell alone. More than enough time for what he planned.
The dragon roared in frustrated fury. Inutaisho ignored him.
Reaching up, he seized one of his teeth and wrenched it out with a swift, painful jerk. His mouth flooded with blood, bitter on his tongue. The tooth lay in his palm, bloody and entirely unremarkable in this form. No matter. In his demon form, he could not wield a sword, but this was as good as one... if a little unconventional.
He put the bit of bone between his remaining teeth, protruding outwards, clamped down, and with a deep breath exploded back into his demon form. Where before there had been a sad bit of white enamel, now there was a gigantic, razor-sharp fang which was stronger than metal and stronger than stone and stronger even than dragon scales.
Ryuukotsusei lunged at him, too battle-blind to see the new danger, or perhaps seeing it but unable to stop himself with his tired muscles.
Inutaisho leapt forward to meet him.
The fang sank into his armoured hide like it were little more than fish skin, cutting deeply into his heart. He fell back against the cliffside, roaring in shock and pain, and the fang pierced through him completely and buried itself into the stone.
"Sleep," growled Inutaisho. He would kill the dragon, but he hadn't the strength left to cut him apart and scatter the pieces as was needed to truly finish him. "Sleep forever."
The magic of the fang flared brilliantly to life, white and curling red like his clan colours. It wrapped around the dragon in great shining ropes, sinking into the cliff and rooting securely there. The ropes spread like webs, drawing his power back and imprisoning it behind its cage of glowing bars.
With the last of his rapidly fading strength, Ryuukotsusei lashed out with his great claws. Inutaisho was far too tired to dodge it entirely, and the blow opened up the entire right side of his ribcage. Blood instantly drenched his side, gushing with alarming volume down his arm and leg. There was far too much of it. The wind almost immediately began to feel colder where it lanced through his coat to touch his skin. The world spun madly across his vision. He fought the dizziness, but only found partial victory.
Combined with his exhaustion and all the other wounds he already bore... the future grew dim. All he could seem to see was a face, wavering pale and anxious in his darkening vision.
Izayoi.
Inutaisho staggered away from the sleeping body of his enemy to the sea, where he bathed his wounds in the salt water and prayed he would live long enough to see her again.
Overhead, darkness began to devour the moon.
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A/N: I really hope I'm not missing any canon points that need to be taken care of here. If I am, I'd much appreciate it if you'd let me know.
Thank you for reading.