A/N:.Fun fact! Apparently the doc manager registers the "%" symbol in an archaic delete function format upon an initial save. So to not have to do too much re-editing, there is a %- because once the hyphen is there, it doesn't delete the next word which was originally right after and touching the "%" symbol.

There may on rare occasion be times when there's an actual indication for that hyphen to mean that dialogue was cut off by, for instance, another character's interruption. At that point it should be self-evident though. If I'm that bad of a writer you can't tell the difference, well...I digress.

I tried a minimalist approach this time. I decided, almost as a Social Experiment really, to do as little bold and italics as possible while retaining the necessary parts that help indicate thought-speech differences and such. Emphasis implied mostly by capital letters and imagination. Leave a review and tell me what you think! Can always be updated with more later, but it would be nice to know your opinions. On to the story!

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?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?

?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?-?

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"Tetsusaiga has been eager to come back to you," Shippou said as soon as they landed near the group, noting that they had correctly assumed that most of the catching-up would be skippable because they'd been watching with Moumou's projections.

"It was worth the delay to find out Lady Mud Nose's name," Inuyasha giggled, still unable to help himself.

"She's really going to kill you, Shippou," Miroku came to pat his shoulder as he sweatdropped.

"Moumou showed you even that, huh? Well, I'm as good as dead," the fox agreed with a nervous gulp, untying the final sash knot around the sheath and reverently handing the sword back, "Inuyasha, I owe you big for this one," he added as he bowed his head.

"Nah, you helped my Big Brother, and like, the whole world I'm pretty sure, y'know? Besides, if you were the one who had the sword I needed I know you'd have done the same," Inuyasha smiled confidently, then, with a flattening flick of his ears, he tried to keep a smile, and as casually as he could, remarked, "and speaking of, seems you got a cool new sword of your own."

"It's going to take some...getting used to," Shippou said quietly, and a look of unease flashed across his face briefly.
But before they could talk further, Inuyasha, finally with Tetsusaiga in his hands once more, had rested his palm on the hilt of the sword, and it pulsed now, and he looked at it in surprise.

"Oh? What's this?" he raised an eyebrow, and drawing the blade, he saw something that made him smile. "Hey, Shippou, thanks for the present."

"Huh?"

Everybody gazed in slight surprise as Inuyasha held the Tetsusaiga, now transformed into it's full state with his own attunement, as large and curved as Shippou was used to seeing it before he had used it; and there was the Foxfire still, although it was a little different this time, green with flecks of magenta and blue, whirling about the blade itself, without the Meidou.

"I think, when you cut your two combined youketsu back in half again and reabsorbed your powers through Tetsusaiga, it still had to retain a bit of that power, to unlock your powers. So I don't think I can do all those things you did," Inuyasha smiled gracefully, "but it looks as if you gave me a new technique to train. It'll be fun to find out what it does for me," then after a short pause, he looked behind Shippou at Ah-Un's bare back, and frowned, "hey, where did my brother-"

"With Kagura," everyone else chorused in unison.

"Ooohhh. I didn't even notice," he blushed.

"You were distracted by reuniting with your sword. She rushed him rather passionately in fact, but as quiet as the two of them can be, and discreet as they both are, they made off before the rest of us could greet them," Miroku waved one hand, and Sango sighed at him.

"It would be you, monk, who would have been watching them like that."

"I am merely observant of my surroundings, nothing more," he said innocently, but somehow, it never sounded innocent when he spoke anymore.

.

Having spirited away a few hundred yards from the others over by the hot springs, Kagura and Sesshoumaru felt the swell of passion overtake them as they reunited with one another, and soon they were clutching at each other's clothes, impatient to get them off their bodies.

But as Kagura pulled down his shirt and flung it to the side, she hesitated; he felt this hesitation and looked at her curiously, quietly.

"Kagura?"

"I..." she paused, then shook her head, "oh, it's nothing, I am but a silly woman, pay it no heed."

"Kagura...you're upset," he halted his passion and lowered his voice, "Is it something I did?"

"No, of course not! I bother myself too much, it is of no concern," she waved her hand as if to emphasize that.

"You are upset," he insisted, and then, his eyes growing troubled, he asked carefully, "is this because of...because Shippou and I-"

"Well," she blushed, "not like you Think, my love. I just...well I, you know that cow never showed us Exactly what you did, so your brother was in denial for a bit, but I felt that feeling, you see, and I...it was...intriguing," she finally admitted, her face red.

"You mean...you're not upset?"

"Well I suppose what's upsetting me," she huffed, "is that I don't know if you'll share your toys."

Sesshoumaru cracked into a wide smile, himself relieved that she was not only absent of jealousy, but intrigued by his own fascination.

"Oh, I'd share any toy of mine with you, if it was mine to share. But I think there's one more person I'd have to ask for this one," he said with a mischievous grin, "although I'm sure he can be convinced. Shall I-"

"No, no, not yet," she giggled, relieved to have gotten the truth off her chest, and leaning in for a kiss, she breathed, "after all, we are husband and wife, and right now I want you all to Myself."

"As you wish, dear Husband," he chuckled, relaxing and spreading his arms wide in surrender.

"You are so devious. Your brother has no idea," she grinned at him and caught him in a firm, passionate kiss as they resumed removing each other's clothes, eager to express their love in many ways...

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Shippou sneezed twice. Then Inuyasha sneezed, and flicked his ears, and glanced around at the others.

"So uh," he scratched his head awkwardly after a moment, Tetsusaiga reverting to it's dormant form as he sheathed it, seeing that now was not the time for him to train his own new technique, "I guess tonight you're staying at my house, Shippou. Just don't try to fondle me."

"Nah, if I want to fondle anybody, I'll ask your older brother," Shippou smiled, and Inuyasha cracked his knuckles, one eye twitching.

"You weird little creep," he huffed, shaking his head with a shudder down his spine. "Worse than Jaken, I swear..."

"And just what are you saying about me now?!" Jaken demanded with a huff, shaking his fist at the hanyou, "I'll have you know that I have never done with Lord Sesshoumaru what this kistune has, and if I had I would certainly be more respectful of it than to jest, you youngsters these days place no value on discretion, cavorting about like, like wild animals!" he scoffed, crossing his arms.

Shippou snickered, as did Miroku and Sango. Inuyasha grew red in the face trying NOT to imagine the scene Jaken's words had painted in his mind, but he couldn't erase the image he'd just conjured up and stuck out his tongue, ears flattening in mild disgust.

"I'm not talking to any of you anymore. You're all perverts," Inuyasha declared decidedly, turning about to head down the hill, "later, and Shippou, when you stroll on in at the ass-crack of dawn to crash on the floor, don't you dare wake up the kids."

"I won't, I promise," Shippou vowed, and Inuyasha snorted and headed back home, content with that.

"So, Shippou," Miroku began deviously after the hanyou had walked down the hill, sidling up next to the fox-

"Come on Miroku, it's none of your business," Sango grabbed his ear and pulled him away before he could start.

"I'm innocent, I'm innocent!" Miroku protested, and Shippou snorted and watched them go, leaving him there on the hill now with Toutousai, Myouga, Moumou, Kaede, Jaken and of course Ah-Un.

"So, Kippou," Toutousai began, eying the Sou'unga slung over his back in an illusion of a sheath, having thought of no better way to carry it on his person, and looking like old Touga when he did so, "I suppose it's time to give up making a new blade for Saya," he huffed as Moumou stood and mooed, and Myouga hopped from his shoulder to Shippou's.

"Uh, I didn't even think of that," Shippou frowned, "but I don't know if Saya's powers are really necessary to bind Sou'unga anymore. This sword has been, well, Sou'unga has been...it's very quiet now," Shippou finished, but his eyes flicked with uncertainty for a moment.

"Do you...do you Trust it?" Myouga asked carefully, and Shippou frowned, drawing the blade very slowly from off his back to look at the orb that glowed faintly on it's hilt, now a deep purple rather than the bright red they'd seen in the great battle years ago.

"I don't know if I trust him Yet," Shippou admitted finally, "but I feel his heart, and it feels like guilt and the desire to repent. So I'm sure that trust will be built over time," he said quietly.

"Nevertheless, I think it's best if Saya accompanies you, just for safety's sake. For my own peace of mind too," Toutousai insisted, and at that Shippou relented.

"Well, that I can't argue with really. I suppose he'll just have to deal with it," Shippou agreed.

"Ah-Un," Jaken began quietly, "you have been far more intelligent than I imagined, and this whole time I thought of you as a mere beast. I apologize for having such a dismissive opinion of you, old friend," and here he bowed his head to both dragons, who chuffed and snorted and smiled at him, amused.

"Aye, 'tis a mystery we were all unaware of until now," Kaede agreed sagely, "but has not it always been said, that Two Heads are better than one? And here we see the proof," she smiled with a graceful deep nod to them, and they smiled and nodded back to her also.

"Words of wisdom," Myouga agreed, and Toutousai noised his agreement as the two old men dipped their heads at the dragon in turn and he back at them in turn equally.

"Well, all ye youkai surely have things to idle over, but we old humans need our rest. I am retiring for the evening, but should ye wish to rest at my house, ye know where I live," Kaede huffed to her feet and waved as she went off, yawning.

They bade her goodnight and watched her for a moment, none really knowing what to say just right now; but after a few minutes they all began to look at each other with curious thoughts bouncing around in their minds, about many things.

.

For a long while they started and stopped several small conversations; but each distracted by their own thoughts about the sword now, after about two hours it became apparent that it would be impossible to avoid the subject entirely, of course.

"So I wonder," Shippou mused out loud finally, "if now, because Sou'unga isn't trying to control me, and we're to work together, if my own powers will affect the things we've seen with the sword before, or if it's just going to be the same?"

Well, someone had to break the tension somehow.

"I think, most likely, that is if Sou'unga is being genuine," Toutousai huffed, his mouth unused to the words he was speaking, "well, if he lends you his powers willingly, you'll have an easy time of it, you see, because you can wish your attack to only be strong enough to kill one evil youkai rather than blast a whole mountainside, and he'd be able to reduce the power used for it. I also suppose that, given you've shown how your own powers were able to manipulate Tetsusaiga's when it was compliant, the same may yet be true of Sou'unga."

"Shippou," Myouga winced, eying the sword on his back, "You know and I know that Sou'unga can hear what we are saying, but I must admonish you anyways, not to trust him too swiftly. He has lived longer than time recorded. He existed nearer the time of the birth of the stars. A creature such as he has no limit to his patience, not in our mortal terms. And we are in fact still mortal, and his soul a Celestial Being. I...don't know how many years it would take, for any of us to...to Really, Truly Trust him."

Shippou sighed, acknowledging that fact without dispute, for he had none.

"I will let Lord Sesshoumaru judge whence he feels he can trust Sou'unga," Jaken said quietly, and Ah-Un nodded in agreement with that one.

Shippou sighed again, not sure really what else he could say or do about those statements, except agree that it would be difficult, for all of them, even him...Especially him.

For whose fault would it be if the Gokuryuuha got out of control? Whose hand would be wrapped around the hilt of the blade, pierced with those vile wormlike tentacles, possessed by bloodlust? Whose stupid mistake would lead to ruination and force Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru to kill him maybe twice at that point, destroy his corpse beyond reanimation, and live with the guilt of that afterwards? Whose heart would be corrupted if all came to an evil twist? Whose responsibility was this anyways? Surely not theirs! But oh, they spoke to him of these things as if he didn't know, and all he could do to respect his elders, was stuff it down and sigh, because he knew they were right.

%-I am sorry to have caused so much trouble, though I know not how to prove my sincerity,% Sou'unga's voice whispered softly in the kitsune's mind, and it having been the first time he'd spoken since they had left the Nether, Shippou startled just a bit.

"Sou'unga?"

"It's speaking to you?" Myouga asked warily.

"Yes, it must be," Toutousai noticed the faint purple glow of the orb in the hilt.

"What does it say?" Jaken asked.

%-I shall tell you all,% Sou'unga projected his thought-voice now to the entire small group on the knoll, %-I have just said that I am sorry for all the trouble I have caused, yet know not how to prove I am sincere.%

"Time, I suppose," Myouga shrugged, uncertain what else he could say.

The others nodded, and Shippou sighed again. But he did not speak, for he knew how it would sound to them.

Sou'unga had different ideas, though. Having been subdued by the kitsune, having been bathed in the fox's houshi-no-tama while inside the Primordial Egg, having battled with him and studied him and all these other things...and now, touching his skin, he could read the fox's heart as easily as when he clashed steel with another swordsman; and he felt awful, and protective.

Before he had really cognizantly thought over those new emotions, Sou'unga had already acted upon them.

%-You who have witnessed what this Taiyoukai Kitsune is capable of, even with only his first two tails, you all have no faith in him still? For whom would be seen weilding Death in his claws? Whom would be on the other end of his dog brother's blades? Whom would be responsible if my own will were able to overpower his pure heart? You think he has not considered all these things and the more, for all time since we have returned from the Nether? Speak freely of your lack of trust in me, but dare not lose trust in your friend. He has proven to me that I cannot corrupt his soul. Surely you realize that was how he defeated me.%

"The Primordial Egg was made-"

%-My brother Thanh Long told me of that, but that is not the magic of which I speak. The White Meidou inside of the Black Meidou was a power only a pure heart could have summoned, with Heavenly Powers beyond those inherent in Tetsusaiga itself. Take not my word for it, but ask of my brother Thanh Long and discover the truth. If Shippou was not pure of heart, the White Meidou that bound me inside the Primordial Egg could not have formed. That was one of the reasons he was destined to teach me this lesson. And learn it in his service I must, else I will be forever in a wretched miserable existence of hatred. It was mere hours to you we were in the Egg together...but near five millenia to us.%

Falling silent after that, which last was thought to them in a low and soft voice, as if to lower from speaking to whispering, Sou'unga had no more words for them at present, and they all looked at each other warily, then the others looked at Shippou sadly, as if to apologize.

"I suppose...five millenia trapped inside an egg with one other being and unable to die or kill each other, would really give you a lot of perspective," Jaken finally huffed, surprising the others by being the first who was willing to speak their collective thoughts aloud.

"Hmm, when you put it that way, it would probably...behoove us to have a little less skepticism," Myouga said sheepishly. "Sorry, Shippou."

"I'm still used to you being a little whelp," Toutousai admitted, "you got big overnight n'now here you are with the most powerful sword anyone has ever had to fight against, and I'm to just accept things like that, well, it's not gonna be so easy but I'll do it, I'm sure," he mumbled, trailing off with a sigh, "I'm old, and set in my ways, and I remember before Sou'unga was tamed by Touga..."

Moumou mooed at them all then, and they paused to blink at her as she blinked all three eyes rapidly in strange succession, erratic, not all at the same time but rather winking one or two at a time before finally starting to project an image. She had been searching, it seemed, for the perfect moment to show them.

And surprising all of them, what she began to show them had happened inside the Primordial Egg...

...

There was a long silence; Moumou had conveyed this with three long minutes of this silence punctuating the moment before Thanh Long spoke.

Both he and Sou'unga were in dragon form, the swords they were bound to wrapped in their tails and laying on the bottom of the shell below them, limp and still. Each had their back turned towards the center and faced the side of the shell as if to put their nose into the wall so to speak. They were Celestial, and thus did not actually require anything as trivial as breathing air; therefore they moved not even one scale or muscle as they laid there, truly as still and silent as stone statues.

Thanh Long's head moved just slightly, and his jaw opened; but when he tried to move his lips, his mouth merely contorted into a strange and undefinable expression. Blinking at himself, Thanh Long opened and closed his mouth slowly, and again, and finally began to speak, and it was a very quiet noise, barely a whisper.

"Sou'unga," he had said, and Sou'unga's entire body spasmed as if he had been stuck with a spear; his back stretched out, his tail flicked with the sword held up high, his neck turned about, his legs were beneath him-

"Sou'unga, my brother," Thanh Long said, his voice very quiet and very hoarse from disuse, "how long will we deign never to speak to each other again?"

Sou'unga had tried to hiss, but his own voice disused, it devolved into a cough; after this he replied.

"If you would tell me how to leave this Egg-"

"There is no escape if the mortals do not use the same powers to release us, save reincarnation," Thanh Long sighed, laying back down his head again and mumbled, "oh, nevermind."

Sou'unga snorted and adjusted himself as he'd been before his startle again, and they seemed like they were going to be quiet once more...

But after a few minutes, Sou'unga spoke once more.

"I suppose, if we cannot escape, and cannot kill each other, and cannot destroy one another's swords...we may as well speak. Though I know not what it is we have to speak about," he huffed.

"About Us, brother. Look what has happened because of us," Thanh Long sighed, "look at the misery we've caused."

"Oh, so it's We when we're in the Egg, but just Me when we're outside it? I see," Sou'unga scowled.

"No, it was You outside the Egg because I was unwilling to accept my end of the responsibility. I was your Brother. I was supposed to help you learn, help you grow, help you-"

"Oh, so that's it? You blame yourself for me? Well, be not so condescending, Dear Brother, this is just how I am. Mother's blood, so to speak you know, and all that nonsense," Sou'unga retorted with a loud snort of indignation.

"Right, well, I deserved that," Thanh Long winced, apparently something from the past he'd said or done recalled to him.

"The only thing I need your help with, is getting out of this Egg. And then we can depart, for this battle will never be won or lost."

"Sou'unga..."

"Thanh Long, you wish to speak to hear noise inside this tomb. And tomb it is," Sou'unga paused here, and with a lower, quieter voice, "for all it's worth, we may as well be dead. We can do nothing to each other, and touch nothing outside the Egg. We are as ghosts ourselves here."

"Yes, this must be...well, I imagine if We were able to die, and not simply traverse the realms when forced from mortal forms..."

"Yes, brother, this must be why mortals fear Death. The powerlessness, the unknowing, the emptiness..."

"If we can do nothing else, brother, we can fill the silence with our voices."

"And of what should we speak?"

"We have much time to speak of anything we wish, it seems," Thanh Long paused, "and so, I think, we should speak of what it is we wish to speak of freely, because what else is there to do?"

"You would not wish to hear the things I would wish to speak."

"I would wish to hear anything but this silence. And if you speak words I wish not to hear, what can we do to each other? We have fought for centuries, millenia already. Can we defeat each other? Can we truly silence each other?"

"I suppose, then," Sou'unga snorted, "that we must find a topic to discuss."

They both paused.

"I remember," Thanh Long began softly, "when Father made the gardens in East China, and the splendor of the fruit trees in bloom."

"You would think of such things," Sou'unga sneered, "rather than recall how Father Really was."

"And how Was he, Really, Sou'unga?" Thanh Long snapped his jaws, suddenly his ire raised by that tone.

"Oh, you Ask me that question, Thanh Long? Thanh Long the favorite, Thanh Long the-"

"Not this again, Sou'unga, I'd rather the silence!" Thanh Long hissed.

"Oh, but you just Told Me, what if you didn't want to hear it, I asked, and you just Told Me, Speak, Sou'unga. As if you'd Listen for a change-but of course you never do! Not the mighty Thanh Long!" Sou'unga hissed back, then resoundingly, "But, if you want Silence, you shall have it, Dear Brother. Anything for the Great Thanh Long's comfort, of course!"

And falling silent for a long time again, tensions high, they were stone once more.

Moumou flicked her eyes a few times, and it seemed that a long time had passed, though how long was anyone's guess (it was about nine days in egg time, but for all they knew it Could Have Been Nine Decades); and now Thanh Long spoke again, very softly, very quietly.

"Sou'unga, I am listening. I am really listening, brother," he said, and Sou'unga stiffened slightly; but with a slow motion, he turned all three heads, one by one, to look long and hard into his brother's eyes.

"Very well, Thanh Long," Sou'unga began with a much calmer tone than before, though still clearly irate, "I will tell you what side of Father I saw. I saw that side of him You never felt. I was Always Wrong, Thanh. I was Never Good Enough. My Heart was Dark, he said. Dark as Mother made me, but he couldn't understand that. He was too caught up in the idealism, the perfection of his plans, the goals of the far distant and damnable Future. He never paid attention to the Present Moment, always telling tales of the past, and planning for the future. Even as though Time Itself could not have bowed before him and halted for him to relish a moment; but he would not 'Abuse' that power for even a minute of his focus for Me, Thanh Long. You were the favorite. The Bright Child. The Heavenly Successor. You look just like him, think just like him, feel just like him, you're nearly a copy crafted in the image of his own soul. You sound like him, and I hate that," he spat, but then as he paused and collected himself, his voice began to take a slightly softer tone. "You couldn't have felt anything but love for him, I'm sure. He doted on you like I wish he had doted on me. He gave you the Heavens as your birthright, and I, from my Mother, was gifted the Nether as she saw that Father did not see me fit to rule any realm. And they argued about that, even though it was Hers to give and not his."

"They Argued about that?!" Thanh Long raised both eyebrows and snorted incredulously.

"That was when Father stormed a storm so mighty he created the Great Flood in this last iteration of mortal life," Sou'unga huffed, "and it's another reason I detest his high and mighty morality speeches, when he himself destroyed almost all life that was on this rock at the time, having a tantrum over Mother bequeathing me the greatest portion of Her Nether, and dominion over all our other younger brothers therein."

"I never knew that," Thanh Long marvelled.

"Oh, and Father never told you, of course. Just assumed you'd never ask and he'd never have to tell, right? And you never did."

"No, I didn't," Thanh Long admitted quietly, "I had even asked myself whence I saw the marks of old floodwaters what had happened, but it never even occurred to me that Father would have done such a thing for that. I thought perhaps it was in the course of other events."

"In truth, he blamed Me for his outrage. He said that my dark energy, the influence that clung about my shoulders, had been upon him, and that his anger was wrought by Death being in his realm, and bade me never return to the Heavens again, and rent me from his open skies and high clouds and cast a barrier that prevents my soul from ever returning home."

"What? He...he exiled You for the Flood that He caused?!"

"I wasn't even there," Sou'unga hissed, eyes flashing from dull red to brilliant red, "I had been deep in the Nether, exploring the twists and shrouds therein, pleased with my new home. I was determined to enjoy Mother's gift despite Father's protests, and when the Flood drowned all the world and the souls rushed the gates, I left our younger brother Shishinki to oversee the others and went back to the Heavens to see what was going on. And there he was, frothing the oceans with his tail, smashing the clouds with his claws in fists, his voice thundering up the clouds and crackling rain and lightning in sheets of his fury. And Mother was trying to calm him, and he saw me and pointed his claws and called me a foul thing, and a-" here Sou'unga made noises that would not translate into human words; Dragon Tongue, which of course had no real actual translation, but if you were to put it in human words it would mean something akin to "eggless spawn of a tailless snake" or something thereabouts; which in Dragon Tongue is a very deep insult indeed, one of the very most vile and foul things that can be said.

"No!" Thanh Long gasped, actually rearing his head, so aghast was he.

"Yes," Sou'unga said, and pausing, he turned all three heads sharply at the memory, "and though I knew he had always despised me, that still hurt in my...in my heart," he admitted.

"Oh, my brother...I never knew he had been so cruel to you," Thanh Long said, and Sou'unga felt the sincerity there, and all nine of his eyes closed tightly, and he continued to speak, his voice softer now, trembling slightly.

"Mother had been pleading with him to stop the Flood, but so wroth was he, and so Imperious, he rebuked her; and for her words, he made a great declaration, that I was the one whose Foul Claws had rested on His Heart. And thus saying, he rushed me, and cast me out of the sky before I scarce knew he'd thrown me, and then he made the binding barrier that separates me from the Heavens, around my very soul. And he bade me to learn," here Sou'unga snorted, rolling his eyes as he opened them, "to be more like You. And I resented you for that, Thanh Long. Always you were going with him, and always he was pushing me aside, telling me that my dark heart was unworthy of his inheritance. That I, his son, was not worthy of Him. Father, of course, showed You a completely different side. You got his compassion, his love, his attention, his affection, Thanh Long the Perfect Little Copy of Father Himself, the Son That Made Him Proud...while I was Mother's child, and cold, and aloof, and strange as Mother herself was to him. For you know as they were, they kept not even the same den lest she was clutching him new Eggs."

"I had never thought much of that," Thanh Long admitted, then sheepishly, "truly, after all this time, perhaps I really should have."

"You were conditioned with a different life," Sou'unga said, himself not even realizing that his voice had become soft and easy.

"Brother, I feel as if I've terribly misjudged what drove you to your madness," Thanh Long said after a long, heavy pause.

"Madness, you say?" Sou'unga chuckled, almost derisive, "Why, what ever makes you think that I am mad?"

"But should this be the way you unleash your own fury, brother? If you saw injustice in his actions over the Flood...why then unleash your own fury upon the innocent as well?"

"Innocent? Rarely is there such a thing aside from babes, and babes grow into adults, and lose that innocence. It makes no difference. They all die. All of them, Thanh Long. All of these mortals who worship or fear or fight or flee from us, they all just...die, and become as the soul they once were, and repent of their sins, and are reborn, and die again, and come back, and die again...to kill them is nothing, as he once proved with the Flood. The horror escapes me anymore, brother. I grow weary of caring for the whims of specks of life."

"But why, Sou'unga, have you grown weary?"

"Because there is no point," Sou'unga sighed, flicking his tail absently. "To what end, brother, do You care for these creatures? For what purpose do you concern yourself with mortal affairs? To seek their worship, their adoration?"

"No, it's not that," Thanh Long shook his head, "It's More than that, brother. They have Destinies, greater than the sum of their mortality, greater than ourselves. Are we not indeed trapped in an egg, both of us, by these Mere Mortals?"

"Well that's true," Sou'unga snorted, then lifting all three mouths in three big smiles, "but I daresay you weren't expecting to be joining me here for our little chat."

"No, indeed, I hadn't expected this," Thanh Long conceded, then briefly taking a thoughtful pause, "but perhaps, perhaps that was part of the Destiny of which I speak to you now."

"Oh? Do go on," Sou'unga now seemed almost playfully amused, not malicious at all anymore.

"Brother, though I realize how you have felt wronged by our Father, and how you must have become jaded after all this time spent suffering from this unfortunate series of events...what if, Sou'unga...what if we, if we ever get out of here, we resolve to amend all the wrongs that both of us have caused? For now I see that I have wronged you as well...I too had forgotten you in my heart. I too had sought, not to save you, but to destroy you. Not even my own heart was pure enough to see what had to be done, for I hadn't even anticipated that the fox would seal me inside the Egg with you, but, well..."

"Well, here we are, and that's how it must be, is that what you're saying?" Sou'unga asked.

"Well, yes."

"I must admit," Sou'unga let out a heavy sigh, "my mind has been troubled for a long, long time. I have been restless to free myself. Of the sword, of the Nether, of the Earth. I long for the sky, brother. I long for the feel of my clouds beneath my claws. My Own Clouds, not just the furrows of natural storms in the air. I love Mother's realm, I do, but...that doesn't mean...I am still of his blood, of the sky, and my heart aches when I cannot touch the True Heavens."
Thanh Long then said something so expressive it could only be said in Dragon Tongue; to translate this would be impossible, but it was a few words, if you will, of great comfort and encouragment and brotherly love; it was something to the rough effect of 'There is nothing I wish more for you than to heal this wound in your heart and ascend unto the Heavens with me to fly together in the sky as brothers again, strong and pure and with clouds between our claws so that we may create vast winds together in unison and count all the ducks as they migrate (for this was a favorite pasttime of theirs ever since ducks had been made;) and call to the Sun and hear it answer, and call to the Moon and hear it answer, and exist between the Vast and the Void where Neither and Either are the same (and here is where it is hard to translate) and the Fold of the Unfolding is as Music, and the brilliance bursts, and as beams unto the soil they become blood, and we offer together, the breath, and fly' and that's of course not Literal, you see, for there are not Exact Literal Translations for what Thanh Long said to Sou'unga at that moment; but you get the gist of it onward; and despite not knowing any of this, from the inflection of the noises, save Ah-Un who of course knew Dragon Tongue, those who were watching Moumou's projections also understood the Feeling of those noises and Understood, that it was Comfort, and Encouragment, and Brotherly Love.

And at hearing those Dragon Noises, expressing things that human minds could not have ever wrapped themselves around, but Feelings that all could understand, Sou'unga closed all nine eyes again, slowly turning all three heads away, and began...

To cry.

"I am still of his blood," Sou'unga sniffed, "I am still of the essence of the Heart. Does Father not know, in his supposed great wisdom, in his supposed power to see into all hearts, does he not know that his rejection...has broken mine?"

And Sou'unga sobbed, a grief that had been held in for time incomprehensible to youkai or human lifetimes suddenly pouring out of him. And Thanh Long, for all he knew about hearts, found himself feeling guilt and shame; for he knew not what to say, even in Dragon Tongue, to help his brother now, who clearly was suffering all this time from the grief of Father's rejection, a Father that Thanh Long loved dearly.

It was about then that the Egg had begun to glow green; and they who were watching realized that was when Tetsusaiga had bid Shippou to cover the Egg awash in his own houshi-no-tama, the purity of his own Heart and Soul.

However, inside the Egg, at first the two dragons hadn't actually realized just exactly what happened. And because years passed in minutes within the Egg, the brief seconds that it was aglow had in truth given them a long time to ponder it's meaning.

"Sou'unga, look," Thanh Long whispered, "the Egg...there's a glow outside of the shell."

"It feels strange, Thanh," Sou'unga murmured, opening his eyes, "like...like a soul, only, different."

"Like a heart, but also different," Thanh Long agreed, and then they looked at each other, bewildered.

"Are we being engulfed in a new heart and soul?"

"Well, this Primordial Egg was crafted with the hopes of being able to force a sort of reincarnation, though I wasn't sure if it would really do that, just that it would contain you. But it appears that might actually be the case."

"Reincarnation? You mean, our souls are to be...reborn? So. We have, in a way, died," Sou'unga laughed, almost derisive, "a Death without a Death, Brother! Think of that kind of fate."

"Well, it is curious, that we define Death as we do. For if we are now to be reborn, then I suppose we may have been the same as dead inside this Primordial Egg all along."

"Do you think we are to emerge as two, or will we be forced to come out in one body?" Sou'unga mused.

"I don't know. Perhaps we'll have four heads and two tails, and I'll be in the middle of two of you," Thanh Long snorted.

"That I would be able to fly in the Heavens, I'd suffer your head next to mine," Sou'unga sighed, and closed his nine eyes, and surprisingly he suddenly became very peaceful, and laid down. "I think, brother, that I am ready for this existence to be over at last. In truth I have grown very weary of it."

"Sou'unga..."

"No, Thanh Long. I have had enough. I have wished to be free...free of not only this chokuto, or the Nether, but free of this eternal and unending existence. I cannot remember...what real happiness was like. Rage has filled me with bloodlust and fever, but it leaves me hollow and jaded. I have become..." and here he paused, then sighed very heavily, "I have become a monster, Thanh. Look at what I did to your pet."

"Lord Sesshoumaru was not my pet," Thanh Long huffed, but his reproval was mild, "and you were not always as such. I know you were trying to draw me out. And I was the coward who would not come to his side...you weren't wrong," Thanh Long said quietly, softly.

"In truth, I thought you would not let me do it."

"In truth, I should not have permitted you to. But I was afraid of what would happen if I broke that chokuto. I was so afraid of letting you, my own brother, go free, that I let Lord Sesshoumaru suffer your wrath instead. As well as you have always read the hearts of mortals you've read the heart of your brother Thanh," he whispered.
Sou'unga looked up with all three heads, but what he felt was not triumph, but despair, and it was in his voice as he whispered back.

"You had that much fear of me, Thanh? You thought I would continue to wreak havoc once I was free?"

"Had you done much to prove otherwise?" Thanh Long asked, but still flinched, and added softly, "I had not known how to reach your heart, so it did not seem to me I could do anything but release your rage from the Nether into yet another realm. I am sorry, Sou'unga. I should have tried, at least. I should have learned from the two dog brothers who weild the two swords made from my own essence."

"Ah, well. At last we can speak. It seems we have made amends just in time...well, amends with each other," Sou'unga sighed, then lowering all three heads in regret, "but would that I could have contained my fury and withheld my madness, and not done those terrible things..."

"If we are reborn as four heads in one, we can together right the wrongs we have both committed. We can cast a spell of forgetfulness upon Lord Sesshoumaru so that the scars will heal without a sign. We can recall the souls from the Nether and put flesh-"

"Are we getting ahead of ourselves? As we still bask in this soul about us, you plan to remember what to do next?" Sou'unga chuckled.

"Well, of course all of our powers will probably be locked away until our physical body reaches maturity, whatever form it may be. If we are inside a Primorial Egg though, I imagine when we emerge we'll still be some kind of dragon."

"You imagine?"

"I don't see why not."

"Many things are born of eggs, Thanh. What if we become koi fish?"

"Hah! Then we shall learn to turn our fins into wings," Thanh snorted softly, and Sou'unga rolled his eyes at that, slightly amused.

"Well, it seems we shall discover soon enough what we will be."

"How soon is soon enough?"

"I've not the faintest idea any more than you do, I'm sure."

"It was an idle question. This feeling upon me..."

"I feel strange too. This soul we are to become part of must be affecting our own essence, making our own souls pliable for reincarnation."

"This soul..." Thanh Long frowned, and though it had been less distinct through the thick enchanted shell of the Primordial Egg, he finally recognized the soul, and it clicked in his head. "Brother, this soul is not around us for our rebirth. It's the fox," he gasped, "the Fox has spread his houshi-no-tama around the Egg!"

"Wh-what?" Sou'unga blinked all nine eyes at him, then sniffed deeply, using a sense beyond scent to gather the feelings in his being, "yes, you're right, Thanh. It is that kitsune after all. But why is he doing this?"

"I don't really know," Thanh Long admitted, "it was never described in any of the documents or anything I've ever seen or heard of."

"His motives are unpredictable, even to you? You, who imprinted upon him through your brother sword?"

"Indeed," Thanh Long murmured, "and this can only mean one thing."

"And what is that?"

"My motives," Thanh Long said slowly, "have not been entirely pure. My actions have been based on my own personal prejudice against you, an errant perception I obtained from Father, not knowing all of the ways he was with you in my absences. I was not willing to try and save you from the wretched Nether, nor to redeem you or forgive you or...even listen to you, for a long time. I had tainted my own heart with a form of hatred for you; a coldness grew there like Father's ice in my veins, and would that I had known before..."

"If this is not a rebirth, but rather the kitsune's soul, then he means to release you..." and here Sou'unga paused, and giving his brother a sad smile, "and I'm sure, for what I have done, I will be left to suffer the darkness alone. Oh, but I deserve it, and be not so sad. We had spent so long hating each other...I will sleep a deep slumber such as no dragon before-"

"Sou'unga, if we can show the kitsune how to cast the amnesia spell as I said before, maybe we can get them to allow you to leave the Egg."

"You are kind, brother. But you know what I have done to him, regardless of whether or not he recalls it."

"You were not yourself, brother. You have not been yourself for a long time. He does not know that. None of them have seen who you were when time was a different thing...when the mountains were beneath the oceans, and the skies were still part of the Vast and Void."

"Speak not of those days, Thanh. They are long gone for me," Sou'unga shut all his eyes, but fiercely, Thanh Long pressed on.

"You used to whistle three different tunes and call the winds to dance in the autumn. The leaves, you said, were the most beautiful things to swirl into the air. You watched the mortal creatures, especially humans, and were curious at their ways. You knew not a fear of death, and so sought to explain to yourself what it was. You watched them live and die and fight and work and play and ponder. They were simple creatures with simple ways back then, not much more than oversized monkeys. And you pitied them, brother. You felt moved by them, Sou'unga, and you had made many a foul gale to thwart a bandit raid or sink a pirate vessel on the prowl for innocent victims. You used to Love them, Brother."

"Love? Thanh, you must know by now," he huffed, eyes still shut, "I am incapable of that anymore. Maybe once, long ago..."

"You are not, Sou'unga. For surely after all we've spoken, I can tell that you still love Mother."

"Even her I have cursed, for leaving me the Nether to begin with, the cause of the Flood, during which Father overfilled the Nether quickly as to have created the problems that turned it into the start of the Hell it is now," Sou'unga scowled, "and if Mother is the last scrap of love you can find in me, it still proves nothing."

"Do you love me, brother?"

Sou'unga paused, and thought about that for what felt like a very long time to mortals, but seemed more appropriate a long time for the immortals. About fifteen minutes passed in utter silence before the question was actually answered, but Moumou blinked and skipped after two minutes, deigning to spare them the wait.

"Well, Thanh, I no longer hate you. And I once felt I loved you. I don't suppose I can tell you what I feel about you right now. Is it love?"

"I don't know," Thanh Long replied softly, "but I hope it can become that."

"Is that so? Well, it would...be nice...to not feel so Alone," Sou'unga admitted.

"If they will listen, Sou'unga, I will plead on your behalf," Thanh Long said, and Sou'unga huffed, putting his heads back down, uncertain.

"IF they Listen, Thanh. But they will not. Surely what I have done to Sesshoumaru is truly unforgivable. Even one who can live so long as he, will never outlive that memory."

"That is why we must ask of the fox to use the spell, else use it ourselves if they let us out first."

"And you really think that will work?"

"If he can't remember it, then it will no longer hurt him," Thanh Long said simply, and Sou'unga gave him a soft smile.

"Well, if you think so. I'm not so sure, but I'll agree to let you try it of course."

Moumou blinked again, and a few flashes showed them appearing to chat idly as the green glow lingered; then it died down, as the houshi-no-tama retreated from the shell of the Egg, and many more flashes flickered before them, until finally the sacred cow's visions settled down into a much later memory. The audience didn't know quite how long it was between the end of the green glow, to this memory in the dragon's perceptive time, but knew it was a very long time indeed (it was hundreds of years; one hour had become about six hundred years roughly, and this was drawing near the end of the last hour after Shippou had used his houshi-no-tama on the Egg).

"It has been a very long time and they have not released us. I think we are to stay here, Thanh. They probably don't know how to tell which one of us won the fight," he chuckled softly, and Thanh Long chuckled with him. Now they were laying both in the center of the egg, no longer on one side and the other, no longer enemies.

"Well, if that is to be so, then at least I am not alone," Thanh Long said meaningfully.

"I agree," Sou'unga said, and then, ducking all three heads as he added softly, "do you remember, when you asked me..."

"When I asked you what?"

"I do love you, Brother Thanh," Sou'unga said very softly, and Thanh Long raised both eyebrows, but smiled back, and adjusted his sinewy back so that it pressed closer to his brother's back-a sort of snakelike, dragonlike form of a brotherly hug, if you will.

"I love you too, Brother Sou'unga."

"If we ever get out of here, Thanh, I vow to make amends for what I have done. For all of what I have done. And especially what I have done to Sesshoumaru...I have never been so wretched in all my miserable existence as I was to him, nor do I know how to redact it-"

"We'll use the forget spell to chase away his phantom pains. If he has no memories of the trauma, he will swiftly have nothing to fear."

"If we get out of here while he's still alive, or with our own memories intact," Sou'unga snorted.

...

And Moumou flashed an overlay of the Tetsusaiga's pulse in Shippou's hand, and his opening of the Meidou, and then blinked again, and the projections ceased as abruptly as they began.

Moumou walked to the side to graze then, and the three old men and two dragon heads of Ah-Un and Shippou all looked at each other in wonder.

%-I did not realize you could view those things so easily,% Sou'unga finally spoke quietly into their minds, %-it would take more than your lifetimes to show you truly all of what we had spoken of.%

"The powers of the humblest looking creatures are often surprising," Sesshoumaru said as he stepped out from behind the bushes, Kagura also peeking out from the shadow just beside him.

"I figured you were watching," Shippou glanced over, "but I wasn't sure if you wanted anyone else to know or just go think it over yourself."

"You sensed my heart," Sesshoumaru nodded, having just about expected that by now. He had walked over to stand between Shippou and Ah-Un and Jaken as he had emerged from the shadows he'd lurked in, and lost in thought, he paused to stare expressionlessly at Sou'unga again.

The awkward pause thereafter made Kagura blush and cough just to disrupt it.

"Ah, husband?"

I am not her husband!

Neither is he, remember?

Very true. They agreed that she was the husband.

"Ah," Sesshoumaru turned to look at her, then emphasized with a glance to the side, looking at Ah with the tiniest bit of humor lingering at the edge of his eyes, an amusement just barely visible to those who knew him well, "is not your husband, Kagura. Neither am I, if I recall correctly. Had we not agreed that You were the Husband of the two of us?"

She giggled, and the old men all sighed, and Ah-Un snorted and chuffed with both minds and mouths, and Shippou snickered behind his hand.

"Oh, forgive me, Dear Wife," she said with exaggerated coyness, and he cracked a slight grin.

"That, Husband, is easy to forgive," he said softly, but then pursing his lips, his voice dropped into a more serious tone as he continued to speak, "but some things, other things you see, must be said on the matter of forgiveness. Before I lose my nerve," he admitted out loud, and she understood, and nodded at him; and they held each other's gaze for a moment before he turned to look at Sou'unga again.

Shippou felt uneasy; he could sense the roiling in Sesshoumaru's heart as well as feeling the intensity of his gaze; but daring not to make Sesshoumaru feel bad by acting on that discomfort enough to appear like fear, nor wanting to wear a face of pity, he merely stood, waiting, carefully neutral-questioning in his facial expressions.

Finally, after a long few minutes, Sesshoumaru composed himself and spoke.

"It was good that we did not join forces long ago, when you sought Takemaru's broken heart to take out the frustration of your own. For at that time, I was also still something of a monster. I had only begun to learn what friends, real friends, were actually like. I'd spent all of maybe half of a year learning how to use my heart to guide Tenseiga's powers before that battle. If I..."

Sesshoumaru paused, taking a breath and blowing his bangs out of his face, steeling himself to continue.

"If I am to be perfectly honest, I was reminded...of myself," Sesshoumaru said very quietly, and his face showed great unease as he forced himself not to look away in shame, "the way I used to be, before I...before I grew up and made sense of myself. The rage...it was my one worst crutch. I let it fill me with emptiness. And it is true, Sou'unga," here he stared right at the orb on the hilt, "that if you are full of hatred, you are hollow inside. I have felt that readiness to cease existing before, long before what you did to me. When I realized that I was meant to surrender the Meidou to Inuyasha..." he paused, seeking the right words, "Let me tell you something, for just a little bit, so you can understand. At first, I thought my own Father was being unfair by leaving us each these particular swords. I'm the firstborn, the purebred, on and on I went. I hadn't known at first that Tetsusaiga suppressed Inuyasha's youkai blood, prevented it from consuming his soul. After that, it made a bit more sense. I understood why he was given that sword. Somewhere around the same time, I stopped blaming him for Father's death. The old fool made his own choices, and I daresay Inuyasha never Decided to be born. Not too long after that I stopped try to steal Tetsusaiga altogether, and realized Tenseiga was, in it's own right, a powerful sword. Not for battle, but who else can raise the dead? And not just in the fashion of reanimating a corpse, but actually, truly bringing a soul back to it's body...that's not such a useless power after all. But I was still sullen. Resentful. And I spent many restless nights trying to figure out why."

Here Sesshoumaru stopped again, and his agonized gaze bespoke the difficulty of saying these words-but Shippou's hint of the start of a small smile gave him courage, and he continued after a moment of collecting himself.

"It occurred to me one day that I was losing all of my reasons to harbor a grudge against my brother. And do you know what that made me think?" here he paused, his tone shifted slightly, "I was mad. Furious, in fact. Because if I didn't have any reasons to hate him anymore, then why should I even bother going anywhere near him in the first place? I had that thought, over and over. In those exact words. The more I thought it, the more it enraged me. Not that I necessarily knew why, but it did. So I held on, for a while at least, because...I wasn't sure what exactly I felt. I didn't know why I was compelled to seek him out. I couldn't fathom spending the rest of my life avoiding Inuyasha, but I couldn't see spending the rest of my life picking pointless fights with him either. And so at last, I got fed up. I stoked and fumed and roiled and churned inside my own mind. So when Byakuya showed up with the shard of Kanna's mirror, I decided, 'here it is. This is my excuse. This is my final fight with that stupid mutt of a stupid brother of mine, the one I can't hate anymore, the one I can't like because I hate him...this is how I kill him. Or he kills me. Either way, it's done. I'm done. This incomplete Sword, this incomplete Body," and here he gestured with his restored arm for emphasis, the one he'd still been without at the time, "this incomplete Life. I'm not doing it anymore. I won't be some Puppet of Father's intricate plan to give my brother all the glory and all the power while I get the short end of the stick, the responsibilities and inherited enemies of his kingdom, and a sword I just started to master that I now have to sacrifice, and for what? So that some Hanyou, some bastard child, could just swing around Tetsusaiga like a butcher's cleaver and make me look like a simpering fool?' Those were all the thoughts I had when I dragged him into that fight, within the closed realm. And I thought I won. When I unleashed the Meidou and watched it suck him in, I threw away Tenseiga because I was Done. I had no goals, no purpose. I just wanted to have some peace. Yet somehow...even though I had sent him to his death, Naraku's interference outraged me. He was some filthy vermin, not fit to dispose of Inuyasha. He wasn't Allowed to kill My Brother. Nobody Else was allowed to kill My Little Brother. So I took back Tenseiga. I didn't want to. I smashed it against Tetsusaiga, not really so much to give him the Meidou, but to destroy the burden of carrying Father's legacy. At that point, I had no intention of saving either of us. I left it up to him. Inuyasha...saved us both. Which made me even more upset, for a reason I couldn't yet grasp," Sesshoumaru seemed to snort at himself at the recollection he was about to recount in sequence now, "Tenseiga appeared again out of the Meidou, whole, with all it's other power intact, only the Meidou Zangetsuha surrendered. I left it there. Rin picked it up and took it along for days before I finally relented and accepted it back. Actually, I even gave her the sheath to keep it off my hip. I didn't want to be reminded of Inuyasha. I didn't want Tenseiga to rattle and rumble whenever Tetsusaiga was nearby, or when some pitiful soul needed saving. I wanted to go back to being that angry, arrogant, self-righteous asshole I used to be. Yet I couldn't find it in myself to be that person anymore. So instead, I did what my brand-new moral compass told me to, and when that stupid taijiya kid thought he could take on Magatsuhi, I tried to save him. Then Inuyasha showed up, and so of course, I had to be Better. I had to Prove I wasn't crippled by the loss of my technique, by the new emotions I was having...and when I got myself damn near killed, he jumped in to save me. Only, it was Different. He'd saved us both from the Meidou, but that was unavoidable, self-serving. Yet this time only I was doomed. I was on the verge of death, and even Jaken was sure I was already dead. But my Little Brother called out to me. He put his heart into rescuing me like he would for friends. He called me his Brother. He was worried. Afraid. And in my dying mind, something snapped. I realized I couldn't die on him like that. His heart...drove me to find my own. That, I think, was Father's greatest gift to me...a Good Brother, who could help change my heart. Tenseiga, Thanh Long, was instrumental in my conditioning, but in truth, I'd have never become as great as I have...had I not had the forgiveness of my brother, of all those who are now my friends."

Here Sesshoumaru finally had summoned up the greatest of his courage, and with but the slightest tremble in his hand, he drew out Tenseiga and affixed his eyes to Shippou.

"Draw," he breathed, and Shippou understood, and slowly drew Sou'unga from behind his back.

Sesshoumaru did not strike the swords, but rather, merely raised Tenseiga and touched it to Sou'unga, and closed his eyes, and let out a troubled breath as he spoke very softly.

"Sou'unga...what you have done to others, it is not my place to decide how you will atone for. But as for me...I think I can-"

%-Lord Sesshoumaru, please, you need not-%

"You haven't the faintest clue yet, Sou'unga," Sesshoumaru smiled then, as if talking to a child, and finished, "but I forgive you."

There was a very, very long pause after that.

"Do you mean-"

"Yes, Jaken."

"So you-"

"Yes, Husband."

"Just like that?"

"Yes, Myouga."

"For all of it?"

"Yes, Toutousai."

"For my sake?"

At Shippou's question, Sesshoumaru paused, opening his eyes, then offered a half of a smile, and a half of a sad expression as he answered.

"For my sake, and yours. But mostly for my sake. I'm very selfish you know."

Shippou snickered and cracked a grin, and perhaps they would have bantered more, but then a strange thing happened.

%-You...you truly mean that. I feel it in your heart, Lord Sesshoumaru. You...would...%

And Sou'unga was stunned beyond any shock he'd felt in his eons upon eons of existence, and something morphed inside his Celestial energy, and something rattled the sword he was in; and Shippou raised both eyebrows and watched the orb glow on the hilt, at first the deep purple that matched the color of Sou'unga's eyes ever since he'd toned down from brilliant red...but then, thick swirls of green flecked with little spots of magenta whirled into the orb, and created a swirling marble pool of purple-green-magenta, and it pulsed, and pulsed again, and pulsed more rapidly until it was almost a hum.

%-I have no words to...I have never been...after what I have done to you, Lord Sesshoumaru...%

"If I linger in those thoughts, they will give me grief. Mother lingers in the past many times. Father often lingered in the distant future, his grand plans so far ahead that he forgot to take time to enjoy what he had while he was alive. Much like you felt about your own Father. Yet I prefer...well, my own family and friends, when I recall what I've done to them in the past...I must remind myself, Now, in the present, you have vowed to serve and protect my friends. Sou'unga, you've always had the power to read the heart of another," and Sesshoumaru wore a genuine smile here, "but with your brother's soul in my sword, I have felt yours now. You intend to Earn Redemption. That is enough for me. For what else should I wait before I am free of this unsettling hatred?"

%-Never has any mortal creature been more worthy of my Brother Thanh's power than you,% Sou'unga said reverently, not sure how else he could really express his gratitude without sounding like he was trivializing it with a blunt expression of simple 'thanks' or the like.

Sesshoumaru held Tenseiga there for but a brief moment longer; then, with a sly smirk, he suddenly threw his weight forward and swung wide, knocking Shippou down in the moment of surprise.

"Don't let your guard down, Shippou. You'll get lazy if you rely on just having a powerful sword."

Shippou smiled and stood up slowly, mischief dancing in his eyes.

"Too close to the village, Sesshoumaru, and we just got back really. But definitely tomorrow, out past the spring fields."

"And just what is it that you forestall until the morning for?"

"I wanna get some sleep before you kick my ass," Shippou laughed, and the old men nodded at this wisdom, and Kagura chuckled at the humor.

"Oh, is that all?"

"I mean, unless you wanna do something else to my ass before you kick it," Shippou said deviously, and Sesshoumaru responded in kind.

"Is that a challenge?"

"Is it? You tell me," Shippou asked coyly.

Sesshoumaru let one long fang slip from his near crocidilian grin.

"A challenge, then. And to the victor, the spoils."

"Oh? Spoils?" Shippou pressed, intrigued.

"Yes, spoils."

"What's the challenge?"

"Shougi," Sesshoumaru dared to test himself in a true challenge, "just one game, here and now."

"What's the spoils?"

"You'll see when you lose," Sesshoumaru's eyes flashed roguishly.

Shippou grinned back, and accepted the challenge, and they sheathed the swords and made the board to play...

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Let me know what you think, you know where the review box is! One more chapter to wrap this up and then we move to the fourth story once I get that chopped into chapters and smoothed out of any wrinkles it might have. The series continues at least into a ninth season so stay tuned! :D