LXXIII
Canes Pugnaces
Sixty years and more, they've been searching. Sixty years, wandering aimless from one tomb to another, following a path of conquests whose meanings had disappeared long ago, vanishing with their conqueror into the dark of time. That they are tombs is the only thing Jaken really knows about them. His master does not speak, does not offer intimation or information. Whatever the truth is, it will remain hidden behind the veil of cold-eyed silence that Sesshomaru-sama draws behind him wherever he goes.
I was lucky to get his name, at the beginning. Lucky to live long enough, but I wonder if I can count the words my lord has said to me, in all this time.
He can't, of course, but it occupies his mind for a while to try. The journey is not exciting, except for where it offers the opportunity to witness Sesshomaru-sama's existence, great power unified with great beauty. Instead, he feels himself growing more at risk every day, though it isn't his fault that this journey is taking so long. Privately he's begun to suspect that there's something more than just the nature of these tombs that he's missing, but how to question Sesshomaru-sama without giving insult? How to make clear the things he's been wondering for some time now? There's how bored Sesshomaru-sama seems, and how the Lord knows everything, everywhere they're going. It's as if their presence in this time, in these places, remains merely a footnote to some greater knowledge, of which Jaken is missing the central piece.
Today, the Staff of Two Heads has brought them to stones piled together, their shadow staining the purity of the snow. Threads of blue and white light brush back and forth across the empty expanse, yet someone must be there, something lurking among white shadows, or Sesshomaru-sama would not have stopped. Ice crystals sting his face, and Jaken squints into the darkness. Feathers? No. Fur, black as the night. As Sesshomaru-sama steps forward, centering himself before the tomb, Jaken sees white on white as golden glory. Ritual papers flutter in the wind overhead, and a rush of power is sudden and almost palpable. When the Lord speaks, the wolves tremble, and Jaken watches those that survive the first attack rush away with their mouths open, scattering from Sesshomaru-sama's presence. Soon, they are too far away for the sound of their howling to be heard.
The Lord stands, facing the tomb, and the expression on his face is hard and terrible. "The fang." And again, "I, Sesshomaru, seek the fang." But the winter wind is unaware of consequences and defies him with silence. The stones tremble, but they are only voiceless stones.
Slowly, Jaken steps forward, then rushes under the weight of an impatient glare. Sesshomaru-sama seems more expectant than usual, more than he has been since the very first tomb, and he stamps away leaves with impatience and presses the butt of the staff against the centermost tombstone. Will it be – please will it be – But there's a scream of disappointment and failure from the staff in his hands, and Jaken trembles with the new displeasure he can feel pressing down on him.
"If not here, where? Many times, I have stood before the sealed dragon. More than once, returned to that ignominious place where my father fell. What other place of significance could hold it? What other purpose could it bear? That fang. It was meant to serve one such as me." Sesshomaru turns away while Jaken tries to gain a new direction from the staff that has guided them here, for whatever reason. First east – then north, abruptly, as if somehow the tomb that is next in line might be moving.
But Sesshomaru-sama, too, is already moving, and Jaken is hard pressed to keep up, his thoughts moving as fast as his feet. Where else? What else? Something, somewhere, that might be in motion, explaining why the staff of heads could change direction.
There is only one other thing he knows, one name that is forbidden, and he keeps it swallowed back all night, and all morning – until the weight of Sesshomaru-sama's simmering anger threatens to press him through the bow of the boat. "Sesshomaru-sama, what of your brother? Is it possible that Inuyasha…"
"The fool has been sealed for fifty years, Jaken. Speak no more of him."
"Ah… my Lord… It's only that, that recently…. Recently, the half breed was reported as having awakened, my Lord. And with the Staff of Two Heads acting so strangely-" Sesshomaru-sama's sudden grip around his neck is savage, and the water cold and ugly-tasting as the current forces its way down his throat. It's likely he has gone too far, this time. Even if he is right. Even if Sesshomaru-sama is calmer now, and their direction changes.
By nightfall, he thinks, they will have reached Inuyasha's Forest – and perhaps he'll be finished coughing up half the river.
A presence is making its way closer, heavy with power, dampening down the moonless night. Alone among the trees, keeping watch as only she can, Kanna tastes it with her mirror, and tunes her peering eye in its direction. Inu, she thinks. And then: He looks familiar. She has never seen him before, but his face is something like the hanyō's. Something like, but she knows that Inuyasha hasn't moved from his place in the old woman's hut since nightfall. This is someone else, someone with features alike to Inuyasha's, but crueler and finer, as if all the roughness has been smoothed out.
The wind brushes away a spattering of snow; now that she has him in focus, Kanna can see his eyes, molten gold, staring through the dark, then focusing back at her in a way that should be impossible. If he is aware of her, he is dangerous, even if she doesn't yet know who he is. Standing orders require her to find out all she can about any being who might be a threat to her master. She must gather every snippet of information as it makes itself available.
The image jumps, and impresses on her a sense of speed, the one she's watching in motion, but the blur of the landscape around him is too quick to contemplate. Could he really be moving that fast? Is it an illusion brought on by her third person perspective?
A bright light vanquishes the horizon, spilling Edo into brilliance like a false moon at its full. There's a blast of wind, and then he is there before her, the white-haired stranger looking down at her with a cold face and hot eyes. "You dare? You would pry at my intentions, seek my secrets?"
How has he crossed the distance? He was darkness; now he is light, but the radiance dims until it leaves behind only yōkai flesh. Inu, definitely, but with far greater power than the one she has been assigned to observe. And his question, that would require a second look at her brief impressions. What secrets? What has she seen but him? Slowly, she lifts her eyes to meet his gaze. "I observe unknown powers, as I was ordered to do."
The Inu's hand moves up, then down, lightning without thunder. Kanna dies in silence, mind blank as it was at her beginning, and all her suspicions go with her, breaking apart into nothing like the mirror in her hands.
The girl dies without blood or screaming, and thus proves that she is not a girl. Wherever she came from, whoever she reports to, whatever she is, it no longer matters, but Sesshomaru is frozen, watching her fall. His thoughts are snared by the sight of his own face in her mirror as it breaks, golden eyes staring back at him, then falling apart. He is motionless, silent. The wind brushes his hair into his face, then dies as if it, too, is shocked to stillness. All his attention is focused on the change in perspective, the way the light changes gold to silver and back again as the pieces shatter.
Seeing, yet never seen. It is not a direction, but a taunt. Not a requirement but a riddle. Is there anything else in the world that sees, but cannot see itself? Only an eye; only a shift in one's point of view. The Staff of Two Heads has led him on a meaningless chase, a journey that only boasts the achievements of the dead. Who cares for the dead? Who cares for their accomplishments? That which you cannot brag of yourself need never have been done. Those who leave the world behind should bear it no ill will when it forgets them. A defeated general is no general at all.
"Isn't that right, Father? Isn't that the way it has always been?" The wind brings him no answer, but he hears an echo reply regardless. Isn't there something…you want to protect? Thinking of it now, the way those words have drilled into his consciousness carrying so much weight, he wonders why he's never seen the intention of them before.
Protected, but never known to its protector. All his father's promises, all he cared about and had provided for… all of it is there, telling Sesshomaru where he can find the treasure he seeks. Fate demands it of him. Destiny has led him, even before he was aware of the need. He turns his attention to the forest, Inuyasha's Forest, taking in the whole of it, the breathing wood and the moonless midnight sky, blinks and perceives it anew with hungrier eyes. "Where are you hiding tonight, Inuyasha?"
"My lord…" Jaken's grating, sycophantic tones interrupt Sesshomaru's contemplation. "My lord, if you are looking for your b…. I - I mean, the half breed, the Staff of Two Heads might…"
"Unnecessary. His stench is obvious to one of my stature."
"Of course, Sesshomaru-sama. I could summon an ogre or two, perhaps a mu-onna? It would be something to see, how such a creature would torment him!"
The barest flicker of scorn disturbs the aggressive placidity of Sesshomaru's features. "I have no desire to play such games, Jaken. Bring the staff and follow." The fingers of his right hand twitch and clench spasmodically as he follows the odor of his brother's freshest trail through the edge of the woods. Something dead curls close around that scent, not of it but nearly – as if Inuyasha has rolled in grave soil, or been sleeping in a tomb.
His lip curls, thinking of it. If he's right, then it is appropriate. The hanyō is merely the unworthy keeper of an unworthy grave. If he's wrong… well. There are some stains he's been meaning to wipe out for years. Now is as good as any other time. Now, perhaps, is better. Since I am here, and he is here, and tonight everything there is to hate about him is written on his face. One step at a time he makes his way toward the village, Jaken scurrying in his shadow, but it isn't until he's stepped into the ring of torchlight that marks the market's open edge that he's confronted.
"Stop. I know who you are, and there's no reason for you to take another step. No reason for you to be here –" And then, as if she can sense the response he will make, the woman who defies him corrects herself. "No good reason, Sesshomaru."
"How dare you refer to Sesshomaru-sama so disrespectfully! Allow me to remove this woman from your path, my Lord!" A single arrow cuts the fire of the Staff to nothing, buries itself in the ground between Jaken's feet and stands there quivering, glowing, projecting a warning barrier just by its presence.
"You will not gain by defying me. You will not enter this house –"
But Inuyasha has no sense of his own weakness. No idea of his own doom, certain as it is, thicker in the night air than darkness. "Kikyou? What's going on out there?" Sesshomaru sees the moment his half-brother becomes aware of him, the moment their eyes lock and the half century of conflict between them snaps back into livid life. "You! What are you doing here?"
Sesshomaru is many things, all of them yōkai. The taste of Inuyasha's fear is just as sweet as anyone else's. The temptation to taunt him, to break him a little more, and a little more… It is great, but not as great as that which brought him here in the first place. The woman – he doesn't know her name, might have heard it once but didn't deem it significant enough to remember. But he knows her relation to his half-brother, the feeling that connects them, the power she wields and the charge she had…. Though now there's something wrong with her. She's the source of all the dead scents here, and she has no heartbeat.
It doesn't matter. She, and she alone, is a threat in this whole place. A lucky shot by one of such power might destroy even him – or make it so that he wished it had. Still, the fact that she is here, standing before him, arrow waiting on the string and not already heading in his direction – it is a weakness, and one he can exploit. With one explosive movement, Sesshomaru crosses the distance between himself and his half-brother. The arrow follows him, but his speed is too much for her. By the time the woman regains her aim, he has Inuyasha between them, caught by the throat and lifted off the ground to meet his gaze.
"Put him down, you beast!"
Sesshomaru ignores her now, all his focus on his half-brother, the brown eyes stripped of all their yōkai overtones, reflecting the stars and terror in their wide, black pupils. "Yes, Inuyasha. Now you can be afraid." The hanyō opens his mouth to protest, to say something, anything – but Sesshomaru can feel the power now, and knows what to do.
Delicately, and yet with far more force than necessary, three fingers strike out and pluck free his half-brother's eye. All Inuyasha's attempts at words turn to screams as the blood runs down his face. The woman, too, is screaming, and the villagers summoned by the noise, but he has no patience for any of them. "Jaken. Give me the staff." Carelessly, he tosses Inuyasha to the ground, where he lies gasping, clutching at the wound in his face. As Sesshomaru knows she will, the woman goes to him before anyone, dropping her bow to tend his half-brother's wounds.
In Sesshomaru's hands, the eye he stole reveals its true shape: a black pearl, a trinket used for a gateway, a hidden treasure to light a hidden path. With one hand, he takes the Staff of Two Heads and strikes the gem. Finally, the proper mouth is opening, and he hears the scream of confirmation he's been waiting for. In its wake, a portal opens, indigo mists rolling away to reveal a desert wasteland on the other side, and Sesshomaru can see the shadow of familiar bones. Like the lord he is, he strides forward without hesitation.
Behind him, Jaken cowers, then snatches up the Staff of Two heads and follows his master. Inuyasha stares as the portal begins to close, human fingernails digging deep into the dirt. With a growl that sounds remarkably demonic for a night of no moon, he pushes himself out of Kikyou's lap, away from her grasping hands, and staggers forward. Before she can stop him, or cry out against it, he's dived through the portal, and no one is surprised when Kikyou grabs her bow and leaps after him, the closing portal snipping off a length of sleeve.
A/N: Well, here we are again! This chapter's title, Canes Pugnaces, means "fighting dogs"... which of course, they are. I've been working on this stupid chapter off and on for ages now, but Sesshomaru did not want to cooperate. I'm not sure why, he's getting to do one of his favorite things, but then on the other hand he might not be pleased with where this is going to end up. He knows, and I know, but you guys shall only know… next time! In Which A Limb Is Lost, But What's That, You Think You Know Which One? (Insert Evil Laughter).
Please Review!