A/N: Not far now. There's probably only two chapters left after this one. :D

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Chapter XXXIII: Fall

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For what is it to die,

But to stand in the sun and melt into the wind?

-Kahlil Gibran

Myouga looked up at his lord in horror.

The wound on his ribcage was terrible to behold, gaping and full of serpent-poison so that it would not heal.

"My lord," he said, not even certain Inutaisho could hear him through the exhaustion. "Izayoi-sama is in danger. That Takemaru boy has turned the castle against you, and I fear he means ill to the child she bears."

Inutaisho groaned, and collapsed into his human form once again. "I might have known," he growled, clasping one clawed hand over his wound. "This has not been... a good day."

It dawned on Myouga that his lord was making a joke. That was a bad sign.

"The battle in the valley is nearly done," Myouga said truthfully. From what he'd seen on his way out, the taiji-ya had been steadily winning out without the presence of Ryuukotsusei to lead the youkai in an organized fashion. "We must go find your friends and make haste."

"No time for that," gritted Inutaisho. "Get onto my shoulder. We are leaving now."

"If you're heading off, you had better take this with you, Master," said an unexpected voice from the left, gravelled with age and familiarity.

"Toutousai?" said Myouga incredulously. "Why--"

"No time for that, the girl's in trouble. Take this and get a move on, mutt." The swordsmith was suspended twenty feet from the ground on the back of his odd flying cow, dangling something red and clothlike from his spidery fingers.

It hit Myouga that that was the first time he had ever heard Toutousai call Inutaisho 'Master.' Things were definitely not looking good if the crotchety old man was being respectful.

"What is this?" asked Inutaisho, catching the falling garment in between his claws.

"Robe made from fire-rat fur," Toutousai answered in a yell. He was already leaving, back to the battlefield. "It'll protect from most indirect wounds, poison, and of course, fire. Thought the girl could use it... was supposed to be a gift when the pup was born, but seems there's no time to wait. I've got the other half at my cave, almost finished, tell your woman to come and get it in a month or so... catch up to you later!" And he was gone.

There was a moment of silence in which the world seemed to coil against the coming of the next, waiting for a weakness to burst into motion.

It came when Myouga spoke. "Shall we gather your friends now?" he pressed.

The moment broke. The course of all the following ones was decided. Inutaisho shook his head. "As I said, I do not have time for that." But then, despite his words, he paused and tilted an ear to the wind. "Wait. It seems there is one more thing I must do."

Myouga felt him before he saw him, moments before he touched down on the sward behind them. He knew immediately that the boy had overheard their conversation. He felt obscurely frightened, as though he had done something shameful, and burrowed into the safety of his master's clothing.

He wished he was elsewhere. This was not a conversation he had any right to be privy to... but there was no time to run.

Myouga did his best to pretend he wasn't there.

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"Are you going, Father?" asked Sesshoumaru, cold as ice.

If you are, you lose all right to oppose my plans from this point out, he thought to himself. You will have abandoned the battlefield for the sake of a mere mortal woman, and you will not be forgiven.

"Will you stop me, Sesshoumaru?" his father asked, almost gently. There was a tone in his voice Sesshoumaru could not identify.

"I will not," he replied without hesitation, "but before you take your leave, I request that you bequeath the swords Sou'unga and Tetsusaiga to me." He would need them when the time came to set his vision to action. Sou'unga had the power to raise hell, and Tetsusaiga had many yet-untested powers which would doubtless come to be useful once mastered. He was certainly powerful without them... but with them, he would be invincible.

He needed those swords, and if his father would not give them willingly...

"And if I refuse?" said Inutaisho, as if reading his mind. "Would you kill me for them, your own father?"

Sesshoumaru remained silent, knowing his father would read his answer in it. His father's honour could not fall further if he were dead.

The dog lord's head lowered slightly. "Do you desire power so much?" he murmured, as though it were a revelation to him.

That did not surprise Sesshoumaru. His father, after all, did not seem to know him very well at all. Nevertheless, he had no time or inclination to explain the truth to a man who would not want to hear it in any case. He remained stubbornly silent.

"Why do you desire power?" Inutaisho asked finally.

Ah, a test. Sesshoumaru recognized the tone of his voice. Passing it would make this much easier, but unfortunately he did not know which answer his father was searching for. To be a good ruler? No. He wanted to rule a good country. He mentally shrugged and decided to tell the truth. "My path is that of a conqueror," he said flatly. "Power is the sole means by which that path can be opened and tread."

"Conquest?" echoed his father.

Sesshoumaru thought he sounded sad. That made him angry. What right did he have to be disappointed in his son when he had fallen so greatly himself?

"Sesshoumaru," Inutaisho continued after a pause, "do you have something to protect?"

The question stunned Sesshoumaru. What point was there in asking that? Better to ask why he thought he was fit to wield the swords, he had already thought up answers to any variation of such a question. Or what he planned to do once conquest was achieved. What was this? One could only protect something weaker than oneself, which meant by nature that such a thing would be a weakness. And unlike his father, Sesshoumaru did not allow himself to have weaknesses.

What a foolish question. "Something to protect?" he repeated, disbelieving and half-hoping he had misheard.

He had not. His father was silent, waiting for his answer.

Sessshoumaru did not know what to say, so he again he decided on the truth. Raising his right arm out to the side, claws tingling with poison, he readied himself for battle. He had committed to taking the swords by force if necessary. He would not back down from that. "I have no need of such a thing."

Inutaisho's head lowered another fraction, the tension frayed wildly, and in that moment Sesshoumaru knew he had made a great mistake.

His father was wounded, yes, but still alive and not yet at death's door. He had power yet, and Sesshoumaru could not stop him from leaving after saying so clearly that he would not. Even if he attacked him now-- from behind, how utterly dishonourable-- his father would throw the swords into the sea before he would give them to him.

Sesshoumaru watched helplessly as his father straightened his back, made the transformation to his demon form, and leapt into the sky without speaking another word.

Before returning to the battle, he stood on the sea-cliff for a long, long time, staring at the space where his father's back had been.

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Kiyoko returned to the room carrying a fresh bowl of warm water, a small frown on her broad, plain face. Her hair was neatly scraped back into a bun to keep it out of her way. "My lady, there are men arrayed about the gates," she said. "Who are you guarding against?"

Lost in pain, Izayoi barely comprehended what the midwife was saying until several minutes later. Then the information sank in and she felt herself go suddenly cold. "Men? Whose?"

"Chaoju-sama leads them," Kiyoko answered, perplexed. Her mud-brown eyes were dull with incomprehension. You mean you did not order them?"

"No," whispered Izayoi, and closed her eyes.

She remembered Chaoju. He was loyal to Katsuro from what she knew, but-- and the breath stopped in her throat for a moment-- he had no love for youkai. It had been naive of her to assume that all the soldiers would be happy with their lot, defending a demon lord's human consort. A few charismatic words from a leader among them and they would be easily turned against her... as it seemed they had. She wondered now, too late, how deep the treachery ran.

"How many stand at the gates?" she gasped after the next contraction subsided enough to allow speech.

"Easily ten dozen," answered Kiyoko readily, "most of the soldiers and many of the servants. For some reason they said nothing about this to myself, or to old Keigo, who guards this door against all but me while you labour."

Something was terribly, terribly wrong about the entire situation. Izayoi did not know precisely what but her intuition screamed at her to do something, anything. "Run, Kiyoko," she said distantly. "Go out the back and up into the hills, as fast as you can. I don't like the feel of this."

"My lady, don't be ridiculous. You are halfway through childbirth, how could I leave you?" the midwife said with a smile, patting her sweat-soaked, distended belly.

Izayoi narrowed her eyes, fighting down her frustration. Kiyoko did not know what she did, could not feel the ebb and flow of intuition as she did. She knew nothing but her duty, which was to stay. It was not her fault that she did not understand why it was important that she run. Taking care to temper her voice with kindness and patience, Izayoi said "Do as I say. Take Keigo with you, and anyone else you find like you-- who were unaware of the orders. Hurry!"

"But-- I--" Kiyoko hesitated, clearly unsure of what to do.

The worst contraction yet seized Izayoi and wrung her dry. Her mouth opened to scream, but her lungs would not work and all she could force out was a strangled gasp. Her eyes rolled back into her head. It seemed forever before it eased and she collapsed bonelessly back onto her pallet, breathing shallowly.

Without the pain distracting her, she heard what she missed before-- footsteps, outside her door.

"Get out, Kiyoko. Now." Her voice was high, weak, hardly a shadow of its usual commanding self, but the order behind it was clear enough.

The midwife nodded, wringing her hands, and bolted out the back door.

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Takemaru looked upwards as the light faded unexpectedly.

He saw a moon partially devoured by darkness, and smiled viciously. His sword felt good at his hip, his armour snug and comfortable. There were good omens everywhere he looked. "An eclipse? Such a fitting night for vanquishing mononoke," he murmured, pleased by this new sign.

The youkai would surely fall to him. All of fate aligned in his favour. The demon would die and all that should have been would come to pass, as was right and correct.

Izayoi was his. She would be his forever.

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The door slid open near-soundlessly, followed by heavy booted footfalls which crossed the room and stopped directly outside her birthing tent.

"Who is there?" she asked, curiously unafraid although she knew beyond reasonable doubt that whoever this was, it was not a friend. If the soldiers stood outside the gate in revolt, it stood to reason that a soldier in her bedroom would not be here to protect her. Unless...

There was a brief, falling silence. The candlelight flickered, nearly died.

"Setsuna no Takemaru," said the dark figure beyond the curtain in a wonderfully familiar voice.

Izayoi nearly fainted with relief. Exactly the person she'd wanted to see. She would kill him later for being such a stunning idiot, but first she would save his life and that of all the idiots following him.

"Takemaru? Thank goodness. You've come at a convenient time." She tried to harden her voice, but she was too exhausted. It came out in the same weak whisper that seemed to be all there was left to her. She sounded like the fragile princess everyone had been treating her as. It drove her mad, but there was nothing she could do about it. "Take your men outside the gates and get out of here as fast as you can. You know you cannot stand against him."

For a moment, Takemaru was silent.

Silence was not the reaction she had hoped for. Izayoi's throat twisted in undefined fear. Something was wrong with this too, though she just couldn't be sure of exactly what just yet. What was his purpose here? Why precisely had he ordered this revolt? What did he stand to gain that was worth enough to him to stand against someone so much more powerful than him?

The silence swelled, broke. "Izayoi-sama," he murmured, oddly reverent. "I have adored you for a very long time."

The wrongness intensified and abruptly resolved itself. So this was his objective. She had known of his feelings, could hardly have avoided them, but she had never expected them to run so close to madness... for madness this certainly was. She could feel his killing intent radiating through the gauzy curtain between them like a sharp heat. Izayoi racked her brain. Where was the closest weapon? She was hardly in any state to be fighting, but all of a sudden she felt horribly defenseless.

There were no weapons in here, she realized, heart sinking. She'd been far too trusting. She had never imagined that he would prefer her dead over her loving someone else, and now she was going to pay for that naivete.

"Even though," Takemaru whispered, voice clearly communicating his resignation, "your heart has been stolen by a mononoke."

She saw the spear coming, raged helplessly against her weakened state but could do nothing. The pain as it tore into her was unhappily familiar. She recalled the feeling of Inutaisho's claws ripping her apart back within Ryuunomei's barrier, taking the talisman from her. It didn't hurt any less this time. If anything, it was worse, and this time there was no one here to put her back together. Her only relief was that it was too far to the side to have hit her child, and even the angle it was jutting from her with and the slow cut its weight was making down her side would not cause him harm. Her baby, at least, was still safe.

The candle beside her wavered and died. The symbolism would have amused her at any other time.

Takemaru stood and walked to the door, then paused. "My love for you will remain unchanged for all of eternity," he told her. There was regret in his voice. Not much, not nearly enough, but it was there.

For a moment she savagely hoped it tormented him for the rest of his life... but even as she did so, she hoped that life would be long. He was a fool, and mad, but he had been a friend to her once and that was not so easily forgotten. Then, reminded by the pain and the darkening of her eyes, the depth of her current plight dawned on her... and with it came a new feeling.

Rage kindled within her even as her senses dimmed. No! she thought with impotent fury. I cannot die here, not with my son still unborn! Not without knowing whether Inutaisho is alive or not! Not without knowing how the battle has gone! Not betrayed by the one person I thought I could trust...! This is all wrong. All wrong.

And yet, wrong as it was, all her fury was doing nothing. She could feel the life slipping through and away from her with each hitching breath she managed to suck into her numb lungs.

It was cold. So very, very cold. Even the light on her face was as silver-blue as ice and gave no warmth.

She turned her head to look at the small window from whence the light came. It seemed to take an eternity. Outside the blinds, the last remaining sliver of the eclipsing moon shone brilliant and defiant. Before her eyes, without conscience direction, her hand wandered up to caress the painfully distant, blurring light. Inutaisho's clan crest. So bright, so beautiful... and so terribly, terribly distant. "Beloved," she whispered.

She knew she would never see him again. Perhaps she was already closer to death than she believed... the thought didn't hurt as much as it should. Nothing really hurt anymore, or felt like anything at all for that matter. Everything was dull and colourless and quite detached from her.

Izayoi let her hand fall, shut her eyes, and turned the last of her strength and tattered attention downwards. She would not die with her son still smothered within her belly. Izayoi sucked in her last oddly painless breath and pushed.

It was all she could do to hold on long enough to feel him slip from her into the freedom she was leaving behind.

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By the time her son drew his first breath and used it to scream lustily, Izayoi was far beyond hearing him.

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A/N: Thanks for reading!