A/N: Seeing how short this chapter is, expect the next one more swiftly. I have to do a lot of editing for it and then next month or so I have no idea, holiday plans are being made with my family and they wanna fly me in for Thanksgiving. We'll just have to see what happens after that, might not be back home until mid December from the looks of it. Thank you for your patience! :))

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Zusaku paused, hovering as he saw in the distance a strange large obelisk, and the Box throbbed in his talons as he stared at it intently.
"The Key is in there," he smiled, "and with it, the end of this pain at last."
Flapping his wings, he coasted towards it, certain now that this was where he would find what he was seeking...

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"Pain?" Lady Mud Nose asked herself out loud, but so quietly only she had heard herself speak in the midst of the rapt viewing of the others, for Moumou was showing the progress of the group that had went with Inuyasha, whereas her own Meidou-seki with the Meidou Mirror showed what Zusaku was doing, and by far Zusaku had actually been rather something of a bore, having done pretty much nothing but fly around until he'd just now spotted this obelisk and gotten a reaction from the Box.
She wondered to herself what kind of pain Zusaku was referring to, but got no other clues from watching as he made his way towards the huge towering spire...
But just as she was about to delve further into those thoughts, a cheer from the others snapped her attention to the side as Inuyasha and those who had gone with him emerged from the Foxfire Meidou...

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"Sou'unga and...Shippou?" Inuyasha's ears both stood tall, then he cried out joyfully, "SHIPPOOUUU!"
But when he ran to hug the fox, who tried to hug him back, they found, oddly, that even though Shippou was holding Sou'unga, his body was still immaterial to Inuyasha, despite both being in the Nether.
"Oh, right. My body is still outside this place," Shippou laughed at him, and Inuyasha flicked his ears low now, uncertain how he felt about that when it was spoken.
"Oh. I see. You can hold Sou'unga because it's your sword, attached to you. But you're right, of course, your body is...so are you...?"
"Uhm, not really? Not exactly. I'm a, a Living Spirit, I guess? An Ikiryou? Anyway," Shippou smiled and held Sou'unga up slightly to show Inuyasha the orb that now glowed with a heavy magenta tone, "guess who else is here?"
"Uhm," Inuyasha narrowed his eyes, "is that..."
%-Hello, little brother!%
"WWHHHHAAAAAATTTT?!" Inuyasha yipped and leaped back as if struck, and Shippou laughed at him, flicking both tails in amusement.
"Sou'unga is keeping his soul safe for now, until we can beat Zusaku and get him back to the land of the living. Since we don't have the Crystal with us, Sou'unga's orb is just about the only thing that can contain a soul and bring it out of the Nether intact. Anyways, since Sesshoumaru had a piece of my houshi-no-tama when he died I guess it stayed with him and we found him pretty quick, I guess it doesn't work the same as a normal death if I'm not really the normal kind of dead? I'm pretty sure that means he's got my soul in there too, but well, I'm his weilder? And a, a Living Soul? Ikiryou? Whatever that means, I guess that makes it different? Don't ask me."
"This is too weird, but okay, I guess we just roll with it," Inuyasha huffed, still a bit incredulous, but grinning now, "okay, okay, so we have Sesshoumaru ready to return as soon as we kill this bird once and for all, right?"
"When Zusaku is dealt with, we all go home," Sou'unga confirmed, and they all smiled, and Inuyasha felt Tetsusaiga pulse, and without any more questions, he summoned the Foxfire Meidou again, and swung open another portal...

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Zusaku entered the only door on the far side of the obelisk, finding nothing inside but one pedestal with one light cast upon it, from where was a mystery he cared not to ponder at, for he knew it was the Key he had been seeking...
But he walked towards it, and it stretched out before him; he flew, but it fled faster away. He paused, and found himself still at the door, and the Key was still in the middle of the room on the pedestal.
"A puzzle, then!" he laughed out loud, and peering into the distance between himself and the Key, he began to look for clues...

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"He's already inside," Sou'unga hissed as they emerged near the obelisk, "this won't be so easy anymore. The doorway is enchanted, and all who enter do so alone."
"Uh, what do you mean by that?" Shuran asked, not the only one perplexed, but the first one who thought to ask out loud.
"If you enter the doorway at the bottom of the obelisk, you step into an enchanted place, where each person must find their own path to the exit. I'm not even sure what would happen if I entered, carrying Shippou and Sesshoumaru's souls within my orb. It may separate even our souls from each other. Zusaku seeks the Key within, and so is on his own path. Even if you follow him, you are not likely to meet him."
"Sounds complicated," Ai frowned, "but what's most important, is that we have to have faith, right? We're here now," she said, and with a bravery that filled all of their hearts with conviction, "I'm a Lucky Koi Fish, after all, so there's no way we can lose!"
"Spoken like a true hanyou," Shippou laughed as they all smiled at her, and Inuyasha flicked his ears at the fox's proud comment.
%-A true hanyou indeed!% Sesshoumaru's voice from within the orb chuckled. It was odd to hear him from the inside and Sou'unga from the outside, but it was still distinctly his voice, and Shippou and Inuyasha both heard it, and agreed.

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"See, Lady Moon Dog?" Kouga smiled at her softly, his tail whisking briskly as she tried not to shed tears of joy at knowing that her son and his beloved fox were there with Sou'unga, their souls within the orb, and her hope and faith returned...
"I should not doubt so, but oh, I had doubted," she whispered, caught in the moment by the wiser-than-he-seemed Alpha Wolf who had grown in wisdom far beyond the years he'd lived, "yet you, Kouga, haven't doubted them once this whole time, have you?"
"I learned from experience," Kouga sniffed a smile at her, "but man, they have a way of making your chest hurt sometimes. Scares me too, but I'll get over it," he said, expression soft and understanding.
She daintily wiped a tear from one eye and continued to watch, now curious as to how they would defeat the Phoenix.
Somehow, between one moment and the next, she hadn't even realized when her mind had changed thought-form so that If had become When, so that If had become How, so that she no longer wondered If they would succeed, but Knew it would be so.
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