Chapter 34 Wei's trail

Kagome gagged as a sweet fetid stench washed over her in a heated rush of wind. Her eyes watered and the sharp taste of bile rose in her mouth as the foul air assaulted her. Standing at the gate of a demolished town that Wei had evidently attacked, she resisted the urge to cover her nose and forced herself to breathe through her nose, determined to not let the stench make her look as uncomfortable as she felt. No matter what else was in there, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that corpses were rotting in the sun.

Movement to her left caught Kagome's attention as Sango knelt down to examine the ground at the base of the gate. The once brown earth had been charred black and a huge gouge two meters wide and half a meter deep scored the ground leading up to the shattered gate.

Curious to know what had captured Sango's attention, Kagome stepped up to her side and peered at the ground.

"Do you see this?" Sango asked pointing toward what looked like dirt-covered hunks of crystal laid out in a line to the gate. "The force that did this generated enough heat to transform the earth into glass. You did say that Wei had an affinity for fire..."

"Yes, he does." Kagome confirmed. "In order to form Tektites like this, he would have to be able to produce heat in excess of 1000 degrees Fahrenheit."

Kouga's blue eyes looked at Kagome questioningly.

"Tektites are deposits of glass that occur in nature. Extreme heat fuses the earth together to make a glass of sorts."

"And degrees Fahrenheit?" Kouga asked.

"It's a unit of heat measurement," Sesshoumaru commented from nearby. He was tempted to argue with Kagome about whether the newly formed glass deposits could really be called Tektites because they weren't naturally occurring, but decided against it. The argument wouldn't have been worth the effort.

"Come," Sesshoumaru commanded while motioning towards the gate Wei had entered only a short time ago. In his mind's eye, Sesshoumaru could practically see the sick glee written on Wei's face as he turned the town into a terror filled abattoir, while screams filled the air like a shrieking wind.

Entering into the town proper, Sesshoumaru was struck by the lonely quality his footsteps held as they echoed in the silence. Of course, the impression was created by the town itself being nearly empty of life. Every store and house in the outer ring of the town was a burned out husk whose remains looked like broken and blackened skeletons.

Progressing past the outer ring, it was evident that Wei had redesigned the middle and center of the town to his liking.

"Holy..." Kagome gasped in horror.

"It wasn't like this before..." Kouga breathed in a hushed voice, stunned by their enemy's ferocity. Although he had killed many humans in the time before he met Kagome, Kouga had never gone purposefully out of his way to be cruel to them. Wei on the other hand, was clearly determined to torture them mercilessly and desecrate their bodies hideously.

Every adult male inhabitant had been bound to crude wooden crosses set in a circle with each hanging body's chest torn open revealing a red emptiness in it. In the center of the horrid circle, piled meters high in a mound of black and red gore, were the missing internal organs of the men. Hearts, lungs, stomachs, livers, and God knew what else lay under the sky, attracting swarms of flies and other carrion feeders.

And at the base of each cross were the decapitated and naked bodies of the town's women. Each one was pale as porcelain and their bruised limbs had been spread eagle. It was clear immediately from the bite marks and obvious signs of struggle and forced entry that each woman had been gang raped brutally.

Looking at the base of the bloody mound, Kouga noticed misshapen black spheroids were placed at regular intervals. Kouga stared at one for what seemed like hours, trying to determine what it was, until he realized he wasn't looking at the objects head on. He was looking at their profiles.

Charred infant skulls...he used them for decorations...

For his part Sesshoumaru knew he was looking at something more than simple murder. It was a monument to pain and death and a clue to whatever madness was spurring Wei on. He wasn't looking just at a scene of mass murder; it was also a glimpse into Wei's mind.

What is he...Why is he?

"Kouga," Sesshouamru intoned in a voice of quiet steel, "you said it wasn't like this before. Obviously Wei wants to send a message. Do you perceive any meaning in this?"

"I am going to guess that you do," Kouga answered.

"Wei Cheng is not motivated by a thrill derived from murder. It goes further than that. If murder were his sole objective, he would not go to such obviously elaborate lengths to reap agony from his victims," Sesshoumaru said. "What he is doing here is not just killing people, but punishing the Japanese."

"So that leaves the question of why," Kouga said "He wants to change the past. Fine, whatever. If he is punishing these humans though, what is he doing it for?"

"That is still unknown," Sesshoumaru admitted. "But the answer to that is at the center of all of this."

As the word "this" left his lips, the distinct scent of tears, like the salt water waves of the ocean, wafted into Sesshoumaru nostrils, and he turned to the man Wei had spared. He dressed in a traditional Korean hanbok of dark grey with an orange cinch at the waist and approached at a pace that suggested his spirit had been crushed beneath the weight of memories from which he would never be free.