Chapter 65 Wei Versus Sesshoumaru: Showdown in Nanking

The real Wei's voiced snapped Sesshoumaru back into reality and his own body. Wei somehow had arrived in Nanking and stood between Sesshoumaru and the tree which anchored him to the world of the living.

I knew we had committed crimes during World War II but to actually see and feel them...

A strong feeling of shame and disgust filled him.

"I can tell by your expression, that you are shocked Sesshoumaru." Wei said in a voice that strangely managed to mix both sadness and condescension. "Unlike the Germans, the Japanese have never really owned up to their crimes and have always tried to whitewash their history."

Sesshoumaru, while not a normal Japanese, still had national pride and wasn't about to let that pass.

"What do you want from us exactly?" Sesshoumaru asked trying to keep a level voice though he knew there was no possibility of reasoning with Wei. "The Japanese have apologized numerous times. We can't change what happened. China is just addicted to holding its grudges. Now how did you get back to Nanking?" Sesshoumaru added on before the inevitable rejection from Wei. I know you can't fly...

"BULLSHIT!" Wei shouted angrily at him. The moonlight gave his face an unearthly pallor that only served to heighten the obvious outrage written on its features.

"YOUR APOLOGIES ARE COMPLETELY WORTHLESS WHEN YOU STILL PAY HOMAGE TO WARCRIMINALS! JUST WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE FOOLING? IN ONE BREATH YOU OFFER APOLOGIES FOR WARCRIMES AND IN ANOTHER YOU OFFER PRAYERS TO THE MEN WHO PERPETRATED THEM! YOU FILL YOUR HISTORY BOOKS WITH LIES JUSTIFYING THE WAR AND YOU WANT US TO BELIEVE YOU ARE SINCERE?" Wei thundered while materializing his blade from the ether. Sesshoumaru unsheathed the Tessaiga in response and took up a guard stance.

"As for how I got here," Wei continued in a harsh whisper, "you aren't the only one with friends."

With that said, Wei attacked. He powered in, his sword a moonlit blur of silver as he carved air with shocking rapidity. Sesshoumaru did his best to match him blow for blow and their blades rang out in the night filling it with a rhythm of screaming steel. Parrying and deflecting half a dozen strikes, Sesshoumaru found an opening and advanced a step and then another, forcing Wei on the defense and pushing in towards the cursed tree.

A gnarled root pushed itself out of the ground and tried to ensnare Sesshoumaru's foot. Sesshoumaru shifted backwards and Wei reclaimed the lost space and went on full offense. Driving forward, Wei slammed into Sesshoumaru's defenses with such force that sparks erupted between the two blades as they kissed their razor edges against each other.

The strength of Wei's attack was phenomenal; concentrated into one body his hate fueled might struck at Sesshoumaru with such force that the youkai knew either the Tessaiga would shatter under the blows or his wrists holding the blade would.

In response, Sesshoumaru dodged and weaved, looking for any opening that was promising. A blow that would have decapitated Sesshoumaru had it connected went by and Sesshoumaru took a chance to get past Wei. Spinning quickly to one side, Sesshoumaru chopped downwards and cut Wei's hands off at the wrist, causing the Shining Hate to fall to the ground.

For most, even Sesshoumaru, such a blow would have been the end of it.

Wei was barely fazed and his hands reformed almost immediately. Catching one of his legs behind Sesshoumaru's, Wei struck him to the ground with such force that Sesshoumaru knew at least two of his ribs were broken.

Forget the pain...have to get past him, that tree is the crucible for their souls and I have to get to it...

Even before Sesshoumaru finished that thought though, Wei's heel was smashing into his temple and grinding his face into the dirt.

"HERE IS WHERE ALL JAPANESE BELONG!" Wei snarled at him. "BENEATH OUR HEEL!"

Sesshoumaru had an instant to act as Wei materialized the Shining Hate in his hand again and stabbed downwards. Slamming his claws into the knee of the leg pinning him down, Sesshoumru released his venom, causing first the pants and then the knee and a good portion of the leg to melt into nothingness as he rolled away.

Thrown off by the sudden absence of his leg, Wei pitched towards the ground and crashed against it.

The moment it took Wei to recover and reform himself, Sesshoumaru used to maximum effect. Wei was not a youkai and thus no yoki emanated from him with which to produce a windscar. Sesshoumaru had his own yoki though and pumped it into the Tessaiga.

"Wei," Sesshoumaru called out, as he poured power into his sword causing it to glow and illuminate his bloodied face. "We have paid dearly already. The Americans saw to it."


For the briefest of moments, while the Tessaiga's attack reflected as white arcs in the dark depths of his eyes, Wei considered Sesshoumaru's words. The Americans had laid waste to the cities with firebombing raids, dropped two atom bombs on them, and effectively defanged them. Was mercy an option?

NO!

The answer resounded in the essence of his being. Every soul that was bound together to form him into a whole found the notion so vile it almost made him nauseous. Neither forgiveness nor mercy could ever be offered to the Japanese. They had to be held to account for their crimes.

Wei's eyes hardened as he channeled the spiritual force of a murdered city into a barrier to protect his link to the corporeal world.

Nanking cried for vengeance.


Sesshoumaru felt a measure of relief as he managed to put Wei on the defense. It was only a small measure, though as the windscar came to a sudden screeching halt against Wei's obstruction.

It is the spiritual Great Wall of China, Sesshoumaru thought absurdly, as his windscar beat heavily against it. Have to break through...

Sesshoumaru released another windscar and another after that and continued to release them until the entire garden was swallowed by blinding light and a deafening roar as his power and Wei's rocked the very earth they stood on and split the firmament surrounding them.


We's field of vision was limited to an insane blaze of radiance and the ever-increasing pressure on his barrier was beyond words to describe. It was crumbling and once it did his tree would be disintegrated almost immediately thereafter.

Is this it? Do I fail?

The thought filled him with despair.

Can you hear me? I was eight years old when I died. They broke into our house and went after my sister. My father begged them to not touch her, but they shot him in his face. My mother screamed and they covered her mouth with their hands and ripped off her pants. I ran up to one and tried to protect my mother. The soldier turned on me and smashed my face with his gun. Mother told me to run but then there was the sound of thunder and everything went black.

Are you going to forget what they have done?

No.

I was a father and my daughter was a beauty beyond compare. When she entered a room all eyes would turn towards her and silence would fall as she enchanted men effortlessly. The Japanese soldiers came and offered a choice. Either I would be with her unnaturally; against all laws of Gods and men or they would force themselves on her. I took my daughter's virginity and defiled her so that the Japanese soldiers would not touch her. They laughed and they jeered until they tired of it. Then they threw a grenade between us.

Will you forgive them?

No.

I was five. There was a pounding at the door and my mother told me to go to my room and hide. Inside my room, I heard the door creak open. A loud bang and then I heard my mother weeping and crying, asking why they had killed our father. Another bang. Heavy footsteps coming down the hall to my room. I squeezed into a ball under the bed; my heart beat so loudly I knew they had to hear it. The mattress lifted up and they grabbed me by my hair. I screamed and was dragged across the floor. One of them had a sword. I remember my head being tilted upwards as the sword stabbed down into my mouth, filling my throat and lungs with blood and broken teeth.

Are you going to let their sins be buried beneath the sands of time?

NO!

Screaming like one damned, Wei focused every grain of his will against the roaring light of devastation before him.


Beyond the limited constraints imposed by aural senses and into the formless realm of the incorporeal, Sesshoumaru not just heard but felt a howl of rage and defiance. It penetrated through him and filled him, resonating so intensely that he felt his soul was on the verge of shattering.

What the hell is going on?

The answer would never be fully known to Sesshoumaru; the ether twisted and his stomach wrenched like he might vomit as the force of the Tessaiga's windscars was redirected and channeled outwards in all directions. The garden walls, already heavily stressed and cracking just from the presence of the windscars Wei had been holding at bay, instantly disintegrated as they came under direct assault. Botanical wonders flashed out of existence as the windscars blazed through the displays with a roar like that of a God, sparing nothing.

Sesshoumaru barely had time to leap skywards to avoid being on the receiving end of his own onslaught as deadly light rushed towards him.

The illusory safety of the air was emphasized a moment later as Wei hurled the Shining Hate at him and narrowly missed impaling him through the neck. It did leave a line of burning red on Sesshoumaru's chin though, as his mid air flip didn't entirely succeed in evading the blade's path. Such a wound was meaningless though and Wei proved it in the next moment by launching himself like a missile at Sesshoumaru, delivering a solid right to the youkai's face that shattered one of Sessoumaru's optical orbits while simultaneously grabbing his wrist and exerting bone breaking force to cause him to release the Tessaiga.

This is no good, Sesshoumaru thought in a strangely calm manner while his wrist exploded in agony and Wei used his own spiritual power to negate Sesshoumaru's flight abilities. Plummeting back down to the decimated earth below them, Sesshoumaru used his free hand to slash Wei's torso to bloody pieces, which immediately started to recombine but at least secured Sesshoumaru's release.

Crashing through the remains of the rear wall, Sesshoumaru wondered if losing the Tessaiga might actually give him an advantage. I have one advantage already though, he won't risk starting a conflagration that might consume his tree.

"We will never forgive you. We will never forget what you have done," Wei promised in a whispered voice of countless thousands of dead, as he rose up from the demolished wall. His face and skin were cracked with gold-orange lines. They slowly twisted and writhed on him like serpents made of liquid flame. His facial features began to shift continuously now, the jaw line taking on a more feminine appearance, then his cheeks morphing into those of a gaunt elderly person, his hair swiftly changing from black, to grey, to white, and black again. His eyes becoming youthful and filled with righteous anger, then becoming rheumy blue and staring sightlessly with hate.

His cohesion is degrading...He must have strained himself in the non-stop fighting and overcoming the windscars... Sesshoumaru surmised. Reaching out with his senses he located the Tessaiga behind him. I can make this work...just need him blind with fury.

"I honestly pity you Wei," Sesshoumaru said in a maddeningly gentle voice that was soft as silk. " You are frozen in time, still fighting a war that ended decades ago. Unable to let go of your hate and committing the same sins we have, only trying to do so on a larger scale."

The night turned still and silent as time seemed to pause to allow Wei a moment's consideration.

"Pity?" Wei said in a flat, dead voice "You pity me?"

"YOU ARE NOT IN A POSTION TO OFFER PITY!" Wei screamed with the voice of the mass murdered as, in a barely visible blur of motion, he surged forward and ran Sesshoumaru through on the Shining Hate. "AND I AM NOT OF A STATION TO REQUIRE PITY! YOU ARE A MAN OUT OF PLACE AND A MAN OUT OF TIME AND YOU OFFER ME PITY? YOUR PITY BE DAMNED! YOU ARE NOT FIT TO OFFER PITY TO SOMEONE FROM A SUPERIOR CULTURE AND BLOODLINE!

"Wei," Sesshoumaru rasped, while blotting out an ocean of pain and focusing his will on the Tessaiga. He twisted off the Shining Hate and slumped to the ground in front of Wei like a penitent man expressing contrition. "My pity is what ends this."

Like the Tensaiga, the Tessaiga shared an empathic bond with whoever it accepted as its master. To a degree it could think and act on its own. The sudden explosion of agony from Sesshoumaru and his unspoken call brought it whistling through the air. Cutting an unerring path through the night it slammed into Wei and drove him back dozens of meters in an instant. Spearing through him and carrying the undead engine of rage backwards, it carved a moonlit silver streak through the night and straight into the origin of hatred personified.

Wei had just enough time to turn his head and catch sight of his point of genesis rapidly approaching before slamming into it, the Tessaiga burying itself deeply into the gnarled bone-white wood. Wei grasped the blade and tried to free himself but it was already too late, his hands dissolved into flame and his face contorted into a rictus of agony as a crimson inferno exploded out of his chest, engulfing his torso, licking away at his features. His eyes, once gleaming with genocidal zeal, now lit with roiling flames as his link to the world cracked and charred. There was an immense hammer of thunder as an explosion of blood-red flame spat out tongues of yellow and orange brilliance before a fiery tornado consumed both Wei and the tree completely.

Consumed by the flames of his own hate Sesshoumaru thought. How appropriate.

"So that's how it ends." A voice said from behind.