A/N: Goodness it's late. Not entirely satisfied with this chapter, and I had a surprisingly hard time writing it, but I hope you all enjoy it all the same :)
Chapter 12: Kikyo and Inuyasha, Into the Miasma / Daitan Finally Meets Kikyo
"Are you sure you're alright, Sango?" asked Daitan. Sango had paused to take a breath while walking, and the group had slowed to let her catch up again. The taijiya huffed in annoyance.
"Daitan, I'm fine! Could you please give me some space?"
It had been several days since Daitan had gone to retrieve the antidote from Jinenji with Kagome and Inuyasha, and Sango and Kirara had steadily been regaining their strength. She could no longer hear the rattle in Sango's chest, and she hadn't had any trouble walking now. She couldn't help but worry, however, when Sango insisted on the group getting up and resuming the search for the Shikon Jewel shards.
Sango sped up her pace, and Daitan sighed from her usual spot at the back.
"I'm just concerned about her. She's a human, and not a youkai like me or Kirara…" she muttered. Kagome lightly elbowed her in the side.
"I know you're worried, but Sango will be fine, that antidote we got from Jinenji is really working wonders! And we haven't run into any trouble since we started moving again, so I doubt we'll be doing anything strenuous for a little while." Kagome had just finished speaking when a man appeared down the road, and upon recognizing Miroku as a monk, began to shout.
"Monk! Please, we need your help!"
Daitan gave Kagome a dry look.
—-
As the man led the group to his village, speaking quietly to Miroku in the front, the metallic smell of blood reached Daitan's nose, and the trees and grass began to take on a darker, muted color. Upon closer inspection, Daitan could see drops of thick black blood dripping from the trees, and black puddles littered the dirt path. Kagome elbowed Daitan in the side, pointing worriedly at the severed talon of what had unmistakably belonged to a beastly youkai. Daitan's lips pursed and she glanced around, noticing more and more parts of youkai brushed off the path and into the grass.
After a few more minutes, the man's village came into view, and the man briefly disappeared into one of the houses before coming back out with a large man wearing a black kimono. His worried face relaxed in relief when he spotted Miroku, but his dark beady eyes glanced suspiciously at Inuyasha and Daitan.
"Are you the leader of this village?" asked Miroku, bringing attention back to himself. "I was told you have dire need of my services."
The leader of the village nodded immediately.
"Yes, that's right - as you can see, the body parts of youkai have been raining from the sky. We don't know exactly how it started or where they come from, but it's been ruining all of our fields, and the old, young, and weak have become ill."
"That sounds about right… I'm definitely sensing an evil presence about this area," said Miroku. He straightened up. "We'll do what we can to cleanse this place. Daitan, could you scout out the area? Try to sense what might be causing all of this?"
"Sure thing." she replied. Daitan leapt up onto the roof of a nearby house for a better vantage point, immediately seeing the effects of the unusual "rain" the village had been getting.
All plant life around the village had turned grey with death, and the scent of youkai blood still clogged Daitan's nose. Unpleasant memories began to creep into Daitan's thoughts, but the dark mountain in the distance caught her eye, and she leapt from rooftop to rooftop to get a closer look, making some of the villagers down below gasp in fright. When she reached the very edge of the village, a new acidic scent wafted just below the saturation of blood, and Daitan attempted to breathe deeper to get more of a read on it. It vanished just as soon as it appeared. Daitan's eyes slid up to the nearby mountain once more. Something about it seemed to draw her in, the dead trees leading up to it beckoning her with spindly black fingers.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood up the longer she stared at it, and she tore her eyes away, shaking her head. She leapt down from the roof, the others joining her shortly.
"Did you find anything?" asked Kagome. Daitan just pointed up to the mountain.
"I'd bet you anything it's that mountain. It's got a very strange aura about it… like it's beckoning or something." she said. Miroku nodded.
"Then that's where we're headed." and with that, Miroku took the lead, walking through the dead grass toward the mountain, the rest of the group following behind. The rest of the group, except for Inuyasha, whose eyes were transfixed on the mountain. Daitan approached him, blocking his view. Inuyasha snapped out of his trance, and the two strode side by side to catch up with everyone else.
"You feel it too, don't you?" asked Daitan. Inuyasha didn't look at her, but his mouth twisted into a frown.
"Yeah, it's weird. Like it's pulling me in or something. Can't be anything good."
"We'd best stay on our toes, then."
—-
Every step toward the mountain seemed to strengthen the compulsion to approach it. Daitan could see that Inuyasha was getting more and more agitated and uneasy, no doubt from the ominous aura coming from the mountain. Daitan couldn't blame him. It was never a good thing to feel a strong beckoning force and go towards it with so little information, especially when it only seemed to be affecting her and Inuyasha. It wasn't long before Inuyasha disguised his unease by marching up to the front to complain to Miroku.
"Do we even have time for this? What about Naraku, does he not matter anymore?"
"Nobody's forgotten anything, but Kagome's arrow really did some damage. Even Naraku would be down for a while after something like that."
"I will say I'm pretty glad that most of Kagome's spiritual power only affected Naraku, or I might be in pretty bad shape," Daitan grimaced. "It's a good thing I didn't get sick again." Miroku nodded in agreement.
"And besides," he said, holding up a string of coins. "I've already accepted payment for services rendered, so…"
"When did that happen?" wondered Kagome aloud, and Daitan shrugged.
"But you haven't even done anything yet, doesn't payment usually come after?" grumbled Inuyasha.
"If you wait, you'll get cheated on the tip." Miroku said smugly, and Daitan and Kagome snickered at the bickering that followed. They were soon distracted, however, by Sango, who was now staring at the mountain ahead, not saying a word.
"Sango? What's wrong?" asked Kagome. Sango shook her head, looking back.
"It's just… the miasma at the base of the mountain… I wonder if any youkai other than Naraku could produce anything like that."
"Someone… other than Naraku?" Miroku muttered.
Daitan took a few steps forward, scenting the air once again. After a few moments, she shook her head.
"I can't smell anything other than the blood soaking the ground, I can't tell if it's Naraku's or not," she said. "Either way, we should keep going."
—-
Approximately half an hour later, Inuyasha was leading the group up the mountain, carrying Kagome's bike on his shoulder. Daitan was at the back, as usual, keeping a close eye on Sango, who sat behind Kagome and Shippo on Kirara's back, and was clearly making an effort to make her labored breathing less noticeable.
"The poison even killed the grass…" remarked Shippo. The bitter stink of poison permeated the air, becoming thicker and thicker the higher they climbed. They were only about halfway up the mountain, but Daitan could sense that they were getting close to the source of the dark miasma, the strange pull of the mountain becoming stronger.
The path eventually leveled out, and a large opening in the mountain came into view. It seemed like it was beckoning, trying to draw them in.
This certainly feels like a trap. Thought Daitan, a sense of apprehension bubbling in her gut.
"I think that's where the miasma is coming from…" Kagome said. She made to say more, but was interrupted by Sango coughing roughly into her hand.
The taijiya slid from Kirara's back, and Daitan moved to catch her in her arms. Sango continued to cough, struggling to get enough air into her lungs as Daitan guided her to sit on the ground. Kagome's brows drew together with worry when she knelt by Sango's side.
"Sango, are you alright? …No, of course not, you must still be sick."
Daitan closed her eyes to focus on Sango's breathing, and frowned when she heard that the rattle in the taijiya's lungs had returned. Kirara trilled worriedly and nudged Sango's hand. Inuyasha then spoke up from the front, cracking his knuckles.
"Sango, Kagome, you stay here. It's just a youkai hunt, no sense dragging everyone along. Miroku, Daitan, you coming?" he asked. Miroku agreed immediately, but Daitan hesitated. She didn't feel comfortable leaving the others out in the open, even if they did have Kirara and Shippo with them, but… I have to know what's in that cave… and Miroku has held up for a while, but I'm not sure how much longer he'll last.
She stood, following Inuyasha and Miroku into the dark mouth of the cave entrance. Inuyasha pulled out Kagome's flashlight and flicked it on, illuminating the path ahead. It was mostly for Miroku's sake, since Inuyasha and Daitan could see better in the dark than their human companions.
"The pull is so much stronger than it was…" commented Daitan. The pulling sensation that Daitan felt had strengthened around her, and she wasn't quite sure if she would be able to take a step back toward the exit without some difficulty. The air was thick and stagnant, motes of dust hanging still in the air catching the beam of light from the flashlight.
Up ahead, she saw Inuyasha nod in agreement.
"We must be getting close by now." he said. Miroku suddenly broke down into a coughing fit, knees buckling.
"Oh, not you too…" sighed Daitan.
"Hey, you said you could handle it, what's wrong?" Inuyasha crossed his arms, voice colored with irritation. Miroku slowly got back to his feet, using his staff as a support.
"I can and I will, I just have to go a bit slower. Without my training, I wouldn't be able to do it at all."
"Are you sure you still want to do this? The longer you stay in the miasma, the weaker you'll get…" pointed out Daitan. Miroku shook his head, and was just about to answer when a thundering crash echoed from deeper inside the cave. All of their heads turned in the direction of the sound, and a light at the end of the tunnel caught their gazes.
"Something's there," murmured Inuyasha as more crashes echoed inside the mountain. "Let's go."
As the three approached the end of the tunnel, it was immediately made clear that the mountain they had been exploring was almost entirely hollow. The tunnel opened up into a massive chamber, and the very top of the mountain was open to the sky. It was uncomfortably warm and humid inside the large cave, and upon looking down, Daitan immediately learned why.
The remains of large beastly youkai floated and bobbed on the surface of a mixture of blood and liquid miasma, the scent so metallic and sour that it made Daitan's eyes water. The mist rising from the liquid made the chamber slightly hazy, and honestly it was a wonder that Miroku was still standing from how concentrated the miasma had become in the air.
"What… What is this?" stammered Inuyasha, eyes wide.
"I've never seen anything like this..." Daitan's voice was muffled as she held up part of her shirt to dampen the scents assaulting her nose.
"There are so many pieces of youkai…" muttered Miroku.
Not a moment had passed after his remark that the surface of the liquid rippled and quaked, before an enormous youkai burst from the surface. It looked like an oni, but Daitan could clearly see that it wasn't anything like any oni she had ever heard of. It was easily at least fifty feet tall, and possessed rough scaly skin, along with a thick crocodilian tail.
The oni roared, baring its teeth and clenching massive clawed hands into fists, and another massive youkai rose from the depths, as if summoned. Daitan didn't recognize this one either, and it looked similar to the recreations of dinosaurs in some of the books that she had read. It had a lizard-like head, a long neck, and a thick scaly hide, but had long shards of what looked like crystal coming out of its back.
Inuyasha, Daitan, and Miroku were struck dumb, standing on the ledge and bearing witness to the two giant youkai attempting to tear each other apart. The lizard youkai's jaws locked onto the oni's arm, cutting through muscle as if it was butter, and proceeded to tear the oni's arm off. However, the oni had managed to grip the lizard youkai's neck with its other hand, and dug its teeth into the soft underside of the lizard's throat.
Inuyasha was the first to find his voice as he asked,
"...Why are they fighting?" his tone was made purely of confusion.
"How long has this been going on?" wondered Daitan, still taking in the multitude of slain youkai bobbing in the foul liquid below.
"There must have been a battle," said Miroku, eyes fixed on the wrestling giants. "Hundreds of youkai, fighting, killing, and dying… the losers' bodies thrown in here… or what's left of them."
"But there's gotta be a reason," insisted Inuyasha.
"And it has to be related to the pull we've been feeling." Daitan said. She could still feel it, and now it was tempting her to jump in, to join the senseless violence going on below. But the pit in her stomach and the raised hair prickling on the back of her neck grounded her in her senses.
Meanwhile, the oni had managed to pull the lizard youkai's head clean from its body, and the lizard's carcass fell to the ground. The oni roared with triumph as the liquid roiled once again, pulling parts of the lizard's body toward the mountain's champion. The parts then merged with the oni's body in a flash of light, and the oni reappeared, its arm regenerated, and the lizard's crystal shards embedded in its own back as a trophy.
"So the last one standing gets to keep all the parts." Miroku concluded. When she looked over, Daitan noticed Inuyasha briefly shake his head, blinking his eyes hard. She could feel the pull even more now, making her head a little foggy. Down below, the oni spoke in a thundering voice, looking up to the dark cloudy sky through the hole in the mountain.
"I'm still here! The promise was that the final winner would leave this place alive! Why have I not yet moved on?" the oni's eyes glowed crimson, and he finally seemed to notice that he had an audience. "...Unless I'm not yet the final winner."
"Not yet you're not!" shouted Inuyasha. Miroku attempted to stop him, but the hanyou smacked his hand away. "Let go of me!" he leapt down into the arena, and Daitan immediately went after him, her goal to retrieve him and get them all out right away. The fog, however, was proving difficult to shake from her head. Instead of using her whip to grab Inuyasha around the waist to fling him back to the cave, she changed direction without really meaning to.
Daitan's whip ended up grappling onto one of the oni's horns, and she drew herself toward its face at high speed. She drew her sword and plunged it into the oni's left eye. At the same time, Inuyasha landed on the oni's back, making a long deep cut down its torso. Blood sprayed into the air, some of it hitting Daitan's face, and the oni roared in pain. Daitan leapt back onto one of the larger pieces of a dead youkai, next to Inuyasha, who bared his fangs.
"Now to finish him off!" he growled, but before either of them could rush forward to deliver the final blow, the liquid miasma flowed up into the oni's body, sealing his wounds as if they had never happened.
"Oh, that's just not fair…" grumbled Daitan. She bared her fangs, readying her sword and preparing to rush forward once again, blood humming in her veins.
"Inuyasha, Daitan, please! Stay your swords, don't fight!" Miroku's voice seemed muffled, and Daitan snorted, lip curled in annoyance at his distraction.
"I have to fight, I'll die if I don't!" growled Inuyasha.
Daitan's muscles tensed, about to spring toward the recovering oni…
"Daitan!" shouted Miroku from above. "Daitan, please!" she wasn't listening, rushing forward, her sword flashing in the air, taking off limbs that kept regenerating. Inuyasha swung heavy hits against the oni's body, and Daitan dug into its weak spots. Eyes, joints, throat, liver…
"Please, you have to listen to me!" Miroku's voice cracked from desperation. "If you keep going you'll have to kill each other!"
Miroku's words pierced the fog over Daitan's mind like a shining lance, and all at once she felt she had plunged into icy clarity. If the oni were to fall, she and Inuyasha would turn on one another, and she had nearly lost herself in the hypnotic miasma, the heat of battle, the bloodshed… she would have killed him without hesitation.
Daitan's heart clenched and she lost focus midair. She didn't even see the oni's arm swinging at her, and it flung her hard into the side of the cavern, the stone cracking around her body. Bright spots and stars popped in Daitan's vision and she fell to what little ground was left in the pit of miasma, her sword clattering down beside her. Ears ringing as they were, she couldn't quite hear what Miroku said next, but and she could somewhat hear Inuyasha's voice responding. In the midst of the scent of poison and blood, Daitan caught a whiff of that acidic smell she had sensed before, but it vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared, just like last time. It was still so faint that she couldn't quite place it…
Blinking hard, Daitan slowly got to her feet, stumbling a bit, just in time to see Inuyasha deliver the final blow against the giant oni. She stooped down to pick up her fallen sword, but paused when another odd scent drifted along what air circulation Inuyasha's last attack had caused. It was of rich soil and rot, and an odd sensation made her turn her head toward the source.
A human woman stood in the cave entrance above, pale as death, with perfectly straight dark hair, and dressed in the clothes of a priestess. Her body was wreathed in a glowing energy, not spiritual power, youki, or miasma, and the moment Daitan laid eyes on her, every cell in her body screamed that something was… wrong. Stagnant. Dead.
"K-Kikyo?" breathed Inuyasha, eyes wide. Ah, Thought Daitan. The eerie feeling the priestess gave off made a little more sense now. So this is Kikyo, Kagome's previous incarnation…
The priestess said nothing, but before everyone's eyes, something suddenly began to pull pale glowing orbs of light from her body. Just looking at them made Daitan's stomach sink, and for some unknown reason, she instinctively knew exactly what they were. They were dead souls not yet departed, and they weren't moving on to the next life; they were being drawn into the body of the oni that Inuyasha had dispatched not a few minutes ago.
Kikyo fell to the bottom of the cavern but settled gently on the ground, as if she had sunk through water instead of air. Her eyes had closed, and she remained unmoving. Daitan made to approach her to try and help, but the sheer wrongness coming off of her made the inu youkai stop in her tracks, her skin crawling. Inuyasha ran over, but unbeknownst to either him or Daitan, the oni had reawakened, and its arm easily swept Inuyasha aside. Daitan bared her teeth, ducking below the oni's claws as it went for her next.
"You're not catching me off guard a second time!" she growled. The fog threatened to cloud her mind again as the miasma in the air grew thicker, but she just managed to shake it off. Despite the hypnotic power of the miasma whispering at her to fight and kill, Kikyo's overwhelming aura of wrongness actually helped to clear Daitan's mind a little. Daitan forced herself to run toward the undead woman.
"Daitan, look out!" shouted Kagome's voice from up above. Daitan didn't have time to tell off Kagome for coming after them before one of the oni's enormous clawed hands started to reach for her and Kikyo. The inu youkai snarled and stood protectively in front of Kikyo, despite the priestess' nauseating aura. Inuyasha, however, got to it first, cleaving the oni's arm right off at the elbow.
"You keep your filthy hands off of her!" he roared.
Unfortunately, the oni wouldn't be defeated that easily this time around. Its arm regenerated as quickly as it had been cut off, and Inuyasha once again was flung across the cavern. It was then that Daitan made the decision to scoop Kikyo and her bow up into her arms and leap up to the cave entrance above, where Kagome and Miroku were waiting.
As soon as Daitan made physical contact with Kikyo, it felt as if insects had crawled their way under Daitan's skin, and the nauseating aura that Kikyo exuded made her head swim. With great difficulty, she resisted the urge to immediately drop her to make it stop. As soon as she had set Kikyo down on the ground next to Miroku, Daitan gagged hard and retreated a little ways down the tunnel to fall to her knees, just barely managing not to vomit. Miroku, weakened further by the miasma, crawled over to Daitan as she coughed roughly into her arm.
"Are you okay? What's wrong?" he asked, placing his hand on Daitan's shoulder. The girl shuddered once again, and just shook her head.
"Kikyo… her aura… gives me an awful feeling."
"You little fool…" whispered Kikyo. All eyes were drawn to the undead woman, who slowly sat up. She didn't even look at Kagome, instead gazing down at Inuyasha, who was still locked in combat with the giant oni. "By coming here, you risk Inuyasha losing you forever."
"What are you saying?" asked Kagome as Kikyo steadily got to her feet. "Inuyasha's trying so hard to save you, but you–" she was cut off by an icy look from Kikyo. The priestess said nothing, only drawing her bow and firing a sacred arrow at Tessaiga just before Inuyasha delivered the final blow to the oni.
The spiritual power imbued within the arrow was so concentrated that just being in close proximity made Daitan's skin prickle. As the arrow ricocheted upwards off the Tessaiga and reduced it to its depowered state, it burned away the miasma and soared up into the heavens. The fog that had been attempting to recapture Daitan's mind vanished completely, and Inuyasha was left with a depowered Tessaiga, his fury and bloodlust suddenly fading.
For a moment, everything was quiet. Even the oni, who had stopped fighting completely. It didn't stay that way for long, however, as the liquid miasma below roiled and the severed youkai parts rose quickly into the opening in the mountain. The oni, too, was sucked upwards, as well as Inuyasha. Kagome's shrill scream filled the tunnel as the wind currents pulled her and Kikyo into the torrent of wind, liquid miasma, and youkai parts.
Daitan reached out for Kagome, summoning her whip to grab at her ankle… and was promptly pulled up after her. She heard Miroku call out from deeper inside the cave as she was caught by the wind and tumbled through the air. Daitan's whip flickered from her loss of concentration, and vanished completely.
Youkai parts smacked and bounced Daitan around like a ping pong ball, which made it quite difficult for her to orient herself and find a shock of red or white that signified Inuyasha's or Kagome's clothing. When she spotted Inuyasha however, she noticed that he had Kagome in his arms, and he shoved off one of the parts nearest to him to get out of the current. Daitan followed suit, flinging her whip down to latch onto the ground and pulling herself down next to them. And not a moment too soon, she thought as she finally spotted what must have been the cause of everything.
It was Naraku, once again clad in his white baboon pelt, his arm outstretched and absorbing all of the dead youkai and miasma that had been in the mountain. The oni was nowhere to be seen, and Daitan could only assume that he had absorbed it too. The baboon pelt fell to the ground, leaving Naraku entirely nude as his body regenerated with the power of the slain youkai, and Kikyo's unconscious body landed just beside him.
"So he's been having youkai kill each other and combine into a new body that he could absorb to regain power!" growled Inuyasha.
"Disgusting, dishonorable… he may look like a daiyoukai, but none of us with half a brain would ever see him as such." Daitan's lip curled in disgust, a low rumble starting in her throat. Up ahead, Naraku smirked.
"The mountain mist lured you here. You took the bait, and I cast my spell," he chuckled. "You could have joined me in here, both of you, if only you had the courage." Naraku had addressed both Inuyasha and Daitan, but Daitan could see his eyes fixed on her. A disgusted chill ran down her spine. Naraku broke eye contact to look down at Kikyo, who lay at his feet. She still hadn't woken up.
"So this is the woman who restored me to life… I might not have had this new body at all if not for her."
"Yeah right, loser!" shouted Kagome, quick to come to Kikyo's defense. "She was doing it to save Inuyasha, not you, so wipe that stupid smile off your face!" Kagome faltered a little after the words had left her mouth, as if she couldn't believe she had just said that to her and her friends' archnemesis. Naraku, however, was unfazed.
"And yet, I still know her to be the foolish woman who followed you in death fifty years ago, Inuyasha." Naraku stooped down to pick up Kikyo, eyes narrowed in consideration.
This was the breaking point for Inuyasha, and he charged forward.
"Don't you dare touch her!"
"Inuyasha, wait! His miasma!" called Daitan, rushing after him, but it was too late. Inuyasha swung the Tessaiga with the intent to cut off Naraku's head, but miasma burst out of Naraku's pale skin. Inuyasha was forced backward, covering his mouth as Naraku escaped into the sky on a dark cloud of miasma. Daitan considered going after him, but ultimately knew that she wouldn't be able to stop him even if she did catch up.
Daitan instead knelt down with Kagome to check on the wounds Inuyasha had sustained from his battle with the oni, and for once, he didn't voice a word of complaint as he stared up at where Kikyo and Naraku had vanished into the dark clouds above.
A/N: And that's a wrap for this chapter! Like I said up above, this chapter was pretty hard for me to write, but I got to set some important things up for the future, so it was worth it. Thank you to everyone for reading!
Oh, you thought this was the end? As a matter of fact, since I had so much trouble writing this chapter, I wrote this out as a "palate cleanser" for myself, and I decided to include it at the end of the chapter as a little treat - enjoy :)
Just before "Sango's Suffering" / After Daitan recovers from illness
Sesshomaru watched as Daitan pulled on her shoes and made sure her sword was tucked securely into her belt, finally standing up straight in the entryway. She still had a bit of congestion, and Sesshomaru could tell that she was still slightly stiff from the massive shock of spiritual power she had received two days prior.
Daitan's long white ponytail swished behind her as she turned to face her father, face lit up in a wide smile and hands on her hips.
"Well, I guess it's time for me to go! Wish me luck destroying evil, Dad!" she made to turn and open the door to leave, hand reaching to slide it open. For a moment, Sesshomaru saw her, only far younger than she was now.
"Daitan."
The girl turned back, her smile falling a little.
"...Yeah?"
"..."
He wasn't entirely sure why, but part of him couldn't help but want to make her stay for just one more day. Sesshomaru's face betrayed no distress, but what words he had died before he even thought to open his mouth. Daitan's smile had vanished, waiting for him to speak.
Instead, he raised his arm and let it rest on top of her head. That vision of her appeared again, of the little girl she had been in years past.
"...Be careful."
Daitan reached up to take his hand in both of her own, her smile now soft.
"Don't worry about me, Dad. I'll be okay."
And there she went, her smile once again shining bright. Sesshomaru wasn't sure how long he stood in the doorway, but he eventually turned to retreat back inside, making for his study. He paid no heed to any of the servants or tenants as they bustled about the manor, too lost in his own thoughts.
Shutting the door behind him, Sesshomaru sat down behind his desk and slid open a drawer. There lay a number of small rectangular boxes inside, each measuring approximately seven by ten centimeters and covered with leather embossed with the same cherry blossoms that decorated the sleeves of his kimono. They were all, by now, very old and delicate, but immaculately taken care of.
Sesshomaru lifted the oldest of the boxes out of the drawer and set it on the desk. With the lightest touch, he lifted the right side of the lid to open it. The box was lined with fine crimson silk, and inside, sealed in a glass case, lay a daguerreotype photograph of a very young Daitan, taken in the year 1860. The technology had arrived in Japan about fifteen years prior, and Sesshomaru's curiosity had been too piqued to ignore it for very long. Daitan had been about the equivalent of an eight year old in a human lifespan. The photograph remained pristine despite its age, Sesshomaru had made sure of that.
In the photograph, Daitan was laughing at something happening behind the camera, showing off her fangs, her cheeks still slightly chubby with baby fat and her eyes shining with childish glee. She had been so young at the time, and now…
Sesshomaru had never been an overly emotional being, but it would be a mistake to say that he did not feel a sense of loss in that moment.
A/N: The start of "Empty Nest Syndrome," anyone? It was fun to take a break and write some Sesshomaru POV, even though he's an intimidating character to capture. I might do this occasionally, just as a break from the big stuff. This was also an excuse to lightly describe daguerreotype photography, which transposes positive images onto silver-coated copper plates, and were the first permanent method of photography. They were actually capable of taking very sharp photos, although they are extremely delicate. Despite that, however, there are some that have been preserved so well that they remain almost pristine to this day. And yes, I made it so that the first thing that Sesshomaru did when he got his hands on a camera was take a photo of his kid.