OMG IM SOOOO SORRY!!

It took 4EVR to make this chapter cause my computer was being wierd and ive been busy with school and soccer and friends and dates and AUGH! ill try harder to make updates for you guys though ok??


InuYasha- Chapter 399- The Most Powerful Sword

The Dokumizuchi's body sizzled on the ground, its skull staring at the frantic group. InuYasha still lay on the ground, the deep cuts in his body exposed to the wind. Kagome kneeled next to him, Sango and Miroku squatting at his feet. Kagome grasped his shoulders and shook them lightly.

Her voice was desperate, "InuYasha! Snap out of it! InuYasha!"

The hanyou's eyes remained closed, his face in peaceful unconsciousness.

Byakuya stood in front of the group, the dead demon behind him. He stared off after the particles of the demon's body, it becoming dust in the wind. "Incredible, isn't it?" he asked, memorized by the ashes. "The Dragon-Scaled Tetsusaiga, huh? The Dokumizuchi that ate a piece of Moryoumaru's flesh…was crushed without being able to regenerate. However…" He looked over his shoulder at the untransformed Tetsusaiga in the ground, it's rusted hilt standing straight up. "The user paid a price for it, didn't he?"

Kagome clenched her fists on InuYasha's shoulders, hovering over his slightly for protection. Her expression was one of anger.

"If there was one more enemy," Byakuya smiled, his face clouding over with evil, "I wonder what would happen?"

Sango stepped in front of Kagome and InuYasha. She held her Hirakotsu above her head menacingly, fury in her eyes. "And you mean that you'll be the "one more", do you?"

Miroku struggled to grasp his beads, the Dokumizuchi's poison still in his system.

Kagome pulled an arrow back on her bow, her face even more angry than before. "If you lay one finger on InuYasha…" she warned, "I'll never forgive it!"

"Don't get the wrong impression," Byakuya smiled, yanking a piece of paper from his kimono. "My job is only to watch. For now at least."

He folded the paper quickly, and then threw it into the air, jumping up with it. A giant tornado of wind and dust flew up with him, clearing as the paper's transformation was complete. It was now a giant paper crane, its wings bent crisply. Byakuya was perched atop of it, looking over his shoulder at the group below him.

"See you."

Kagome glared after him, the wind from his leave pushing her hair up to her face. InuYasha groaned behind her, causing her to jump and swivel around. "InuYasha?!"

InuYasha looked in the opposite direction, at his sword. What the hell's wrong with my Tetsusaiga?

A while later, the group made their way to Totosai's mountain. Considering humans couldn't set foot on the demon's mountain, the group had assembled at the foot of the hill.

Shippou rode on Kirara, flying down the mountain's side. Totosai rode along side him, sitting upon his three eyed cow, MoMo.

"Tetsusaiga was acting strangely you say? Ah geez…so what went wrong?"

"They're all waiting at the foot of the mountain," Shippou responded, not quite sure how to explain what went down. It was kind of a complicated battle.

InuYasha leaned against a rock, holding Tetsusaiga in his crossed arms and legs. Miroku sat next to him, the both of them looking quite ill and battered up. Kagome stood upon Totosai's arrival, calling him by his name.

Totosai jumped off his cow, facing InuYasha. He looked him in the eye and said, "You look horrible." He snatched the sword from the boy, "Here. Let me have a look at it." He unsheathed it and held it up to the sun, inspecting it thoroughly. "Oh ho," he exclaimed. "It's become able to suck up youkai energy? It didn't become a better sword?" He re-sheathed the sword, and then got back in InuYasha's face. "So?"

"Huh?" InuYasha asked drearily. This old man made no sense.

"So…tell me where there's something wrong."

Kagome sighed, "O-jii-san. The blade's stored youkai energy injured InuYasha. Until now, however strong Tetsusaiga became, nothing like this happened."

Totosai stared at them, and gave it to them straight, "There's nothing wrong with Tetsusaiga. If there's a problem, InuYasha…it's with you."

"Wha…?" InuYasha asked.

"With InuYasha…?" Kagome didn't understand.

He explained, "That's right. Youkai power is somewhat like poison. Particularly InuYasha, for a hanyou like you. Originally Tetsusaiga was forged from a fang of your greater-youkai father. It held the capacity to absorb a great amount of youkai energy. However, a half-human like you, doesn't have the strength to take on the enemy's youkai powers absorbed by the Tetsusaiga…which means it is you and your own inability to handle the power that you've put into Tetsusaiga."

Kagome stared at him with wide eyes. "That's…that's why Tetsusaiga injured InuYasha then…"

He continued, "Before that however, I expect something happened. Show me your hands."

InuYasha glared at him. "Heh. You going to give me a palm reading?" He slowly upturned his hands, showing huge, deep burn marks on his palms. Kagome gasped as Sango and Miroku's eyes widened.

The damned fool, Totosai thought, he didn't let go of the sword even when it got like that.

"The more youkai power I absorbed with the Dragon-Scaled Tetsusaiga, the more it burned."

Totosai glared at his palms, "Tetsusaiga was giving you a warning. To let go because of the danger."

Tetsusaiga didn't injure InuYasha… Kagome thought. It was InuYasha himself who caused the damage.

Meanwhile, Byakuya rowed a boat to the center of a foggy lake. He stopped and stared up at a man in a barrier, hovering above the water.

He smiled as he told his master the tale of the new sword power.

"The Dragon-Scaled Tetsusaiga, eh?" Naraku's insidious voice asked, its deep tone rippling off the liquid below.

Byakuya held his oar tightly, still smiling up at Naraku, "Just as you'd requested, I just watched them."

"The sword injures its user each time its enemy is cut…?" Naraku further inquired. "How fascinating."

Byakuya cut in, "You really didn't need for me to finish him off? After all this trouble you've gone through to defeat InuYasha. Or did you…want to have Moryoumaru slain with that sword?"

Naraku smiled deeply, crazily. "Will InuYasha's demise be by his own sword? Or will finding and slaying Moryoumaru happen sooner? Isn't this fun?"

Back at the foot of the mountain, the group still huddled together, listening to Totosai.

"So what should I do?" asked InuYasha.

Totosai hummed questioningly.

"There's got to be some way, right?"

"There isn't." Totosai answered bluntly as always. "Once applied, the sword's abilities cannot be removed."

InuYasha's vein popped on his forehead. Stupid slow old man. "Who said anything about wanting it taken off? For me to master the Dragon-Scaled Tetsusaiga! Tell me what I can do!" There was a great seriousness in his eyes as he clutched his sword to his body.

Totosai's large eyes stared into the half-demon's fiery ones. "Get more experience," he said simply. "That is the only way."

InuYasha smacked him across the head with a clenched fist. "You think I'm joking?!"

Kagome stepped in, seeing as their conversation was going no where fast. "Can it be used from now on? Or will it be like what happened every time…"

"Of course," Totosai continued on his experience train of thought, completely ignoring Kagome's statement. "You have to find the right opponent. InuYasha, you said the rival Dokumizuchi was cut by your sword and beaten didn't you?"

"What about it?" InuYasha asked, feeling that the conversation was repeating itself.

He continued, "Then that's good. If you hadn't cut the Mizuchi with the poisonous blade, the regurgitation of the sword's stored youkai poison…would have blown you to pieces in a heartbeat."

InuYasha and Kagome's expressions widened at the sound of this.

"Hey, and I thought InuYasha had just charged in," Shippou commented from atop Miroku's shoulder.

Miroku looked over at him, "No…he was just desperate."

Totosai concluded, "So…by accident you went in for the kill, and you had a little bit of power and intuition to control the Dragon-Scaled Tetsusaiga."

InuYasha perked up slightly at this, and then smiled sadly. "Feh," he scoffed, "guess I'll have to do it step by step this time, huh."

"Let me see your wounded hands…and your face too," Totosai said, trying to get them in a cheerier mood.

InuYasha took a step closer and held his hands out before him. "You can heal them?"

"You have medicine?" Kagome suggested from his side.

Totosai outstretched his giant tongue and licked up InuYasha's hands and onto his face.

Slurp.

Everyone sweat dropped.

InuYasha stood up and stepped onto Totosai, pushing him to the ground with his foot. "What the fuck are you doing?! What the fuck are you doing?! What the fuck are you doing?!" he repeated.

Totosai waved his hammer, "This works the best though!"

A while later, the group decided to depart. Kagome waved back over her shoulder, shouting a thank you to Totosai.

He watched them leave, leaning on his hammer as he stood next to his cow. Dragon-Scaled Tetsusaiga, huh? If InuYasha masters the power of the dragon scales…Tetsusaiga will do away with Naraku…and it will become the most powerful sword. InuYasha…just might be able to do it.