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The Great Trial	By : WinterDovane Category: InuYasha > Yaoi - Male/Male > InuYasha/Sessh?maru > InuYasha/Sessh?maru Views: 22203 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha and Co nor do I make any money from this fic.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
- 3
A/N: Did I mention Angst? There will be quite a bit before the climax of the story. The beginning background is slow going; please bare with me. The first eight chapters are also at fanfiction.net. Thanks again for reading.

Chapter 1: Wandering
Five years….and he finds himself here of all places. The Lord of the Western Lands looks up at the sea with nostalgia.
One hundred and fifty-five years in the past:
In between the nations, set on one of the smaller islands off the mainland, lies the imperial palace of the Elders. Cut from shining white stone, inlaid with unique carvings from the ancients, the massive structure is seemingly untouched by time and the elements. It remains a shrine, a haven, to demon kind, literally stranded where no human dare tread. Specifically, the history of civilization as they knew it was recorded in tomes deep within the catacombs under the palace. Moreover, the amount of scolls in the underground sanctuary tripled that of any royal library; ancient secrets, demon and human spell weaving, weapon-making, spirit stealing, and so much more knowledge rested within these walls—multiple traps and ten of the most powerful being on the planet charged with guarding it all. From ruling bodies in human and demon societies to the greatest heroes among both races, the Elders have stayed outside of time in order to record the events and information for future generations (and still manage to meddle in affairs of state). That in itself deems seclusion from the mainlands; the island itself nestles the structure among bamboo and wildlife, deep forests and bordered by sand. The structure has stood longer than memory serves.
However, the Demon Lord of the Western Lands is irritated at being summoned to the Elder’s island like some peasant cur. This is not the first time he has appeared on this island, and those past memories hold fear, anger, and mistrust in many aspects. These emotions, which the Demon Lord purged from his being, resurface whenever he draws near; he controls himself with ruthless intent, cutting off those churning feelings in his abdomen. He is a ruler in his own right now and only abides by this farce of a ruling body because of tradition and respect—not out of any real fear for non-existent power or threat of warfare to his lands. His late father respected and abided the council, and that is reason enough for Sesshomaru.
The council is comprised of ten ancient, all massively powerful and wise in their own rights. They hold no standing army nor land but for the island; however, they consistently keep their noses in the affairs of demon lands that stretch to the four corners—from Nippon to the Middle East. They justify their interferences in present affairs with mentions of past mistakes from other societies of long ago, using their infinite knowledge as an excuse to have their own way in affairs they deem as their business. For the betterment of demonkind and demon/human relations...he would bet Moko Moko on the political ranglings as just pretense. Immortality and immense power lead to only few options: eternal boredom (and, thus, the meddling as ways to alleviate it), the need to seek even more power and knowledge, or the eventually breakdown of sanity. Maintaining some sort of purpose would give all the Elders and excuse to fight against madness. Consequently, no one, no one, alive had met all ten. The ten are not all from Nippon or even all Inu. As speculation always insinuated, the ten were each a separate sect of demon society...
In summoning one of the main rulers of the four lands, at least half the council had to be in agreement of its own opinion (or “advisement” as they called it) should be known (and expected to be heeded more often than not) to the ruler. In the past, the council had intervened in all manner of events: all-out war, territory disputes, invasions, choosing of the heir and disbursements of land, mating plans for the upper echelons and administrators, traditional feasts and events, even single-person duels for honor. No matter seemed to trivial for their interference. One story he had learned from Bokusenou told of a council member appearing at the birth of the Inu no Taishou and assessing, scrutinizing the future ruler carefully before carrying word back to the rest. From his infant father’s feet and the length as well as color of his demon markings, something important had passed onto the council, which may have somehow determined their lack of action in most his battles and political dealings with the Western Lands. Sesshomaru, to that day, still wondered why the council did not intervene in matters of the Hime Izayoi or the fatal fight with Ryukotsusei. No, their interests were only with the half-demon born of a royal human and powerful ruler.
The last time Sesshomaru had been summoned by the ancients was less than two full moons after the birth of his half-brother. The main message had been delivered and his presence required to finalize the formalities. After receiving the letter with the council’s ultimatum, he had immediately killed the council member (acting as messenger) as quickly and efficiently as his name indicated, using his own hands rather than sword, poison, or whip—perhaps in some sort of twisted idea of retribution. In fact, the young, newly-appointed Lord should have been able to kill the Elder as easily or as quickly as he was able. A Tiger demon (more than a thousand years his senior) should have literally painted the walls of the Western Palace with the young dog’s blood without even becoming winded. The young lord, while incredibly arrogant, was no fool. There was much more behind this summons than he originally imagined, and his intense curiosity drove him to discover why he should simply bow to these unreasonable demands (as well as why the Tiger Elder had been ordered not to harm him). Sesshomaru arrived at the auspicious sanctuary with the scent of ancient death still surrounding him. It was the play Sesshomaru needed to assure himself a place in the ruling world; killing easily a demon thrice his age and ability would spread throughout the realm and instill fear in his enemies.
However, before three of the remaining council, the newly appointed Lord of the West had cooled his impetuous behavior as the full edict was explained. The Elders had effectively trapped him into consenting to their demands by using his own sense of honor against him. To prove their bloodline and the legacy of his great father, Sesshomaru had no choice but to accept the deal they proposed in person, the former message thrown at their feet stained with blood. As the new lord listened to the proposition, his youkai rose in anger, but he could not simply refuse and stain his honor. Rather, after their demands, he assured them he would not wage war on their tiny island refuge, he would not lay siege with the great army under his command, and he would not slay them one by one as long as they kept their end of the bargain—but would also never mettle in the affairs of the Western Kingdom as long as they existed.
The eldest of them, who was actually a female Shiro-Inu, drew herself up to her full height when he made these promises and gave his own stipulation. Long moment of still silence from her followed his decree and gave him time to study his possible opponent should she decide his stipulations were unacceptable. The Elder’s seemingly calm manner was more cold and more removed than even his own; her golden eyes merely reflected the ornate receiving room around her—expressionless, emotionless to his plight. She sat traditional-style with perfect posture on pillows littering the raised daises before him, breeding and bearings obvious in each gesture of her deceptively small hands to the complex and multiple-layers of embroidered kimono to the delicate was she sipped tea from a dainty cup at her side. The complex arrangement of her silver hair held tiny black pearls (that Sesshomaru suspiciously noticed) masked her true youkai with auspicious style and function. Her true power would be impossible to estimate in battle... The other two remained behind her by the open windows with the sound of the sea filling the silence.
“Young ruler,” for one so terribly old, her voice rang out as clear as an unsullied spring flowing down the mountain-side, “you may feel this is a terrible injustice now, for you are still new to the ways of the elite... One day, however... one day, you will see the decision is made for the best interest of all included.” Her golden eyes narrowed at him, “and on that day, son of the Dog General, you will realize how difficult it was, not for you whom must carry out the sentence, but for we, who will have to abide the consequences of this decision.” She blinked delicately, “we accept your terms, Lord of the West. The Great Trial for the younger son of the late Dog General will begin in his fifth year. You will be his huntsman, the bane to his existence, his tormentor. If he survives, the honor of your bloodline will be established,” to this, her hand gestured to the great wall spanning her right, and his eyes slid to the white stone. Covering the walls on three sides, small diagrams caught his attention. He noticed the concise handwriting was actually hundreds and hundreds of names. Her dainty hand gestured specifically to one family tree that took up more length than many of the others. Touga, the Inu no Taishou. Under it, Sesshomaru, the Killing Perfection.
The new Demon Lord sucked in a breath. Our family line. Our honor lies here on this wall. Yet, beside his name, under his honored father, was a blank space.
Sesshomaru wanted to snarl at her, wanted to transform in a bone-crushing dog, wanted to break them all between his acidic jaws, wanted to inflict the agony upon them such as that they had wrought upon him just by this compendium of honorable rulers. He had more than proved the nobility of his generation, his worthiness. His many battles won, his first two-hundred years of survival against the wilds, his conquest against the cat demons were all proof of his prowess, and any indication of the contrary raised his hackles. He could feel the inner demon well up like flood waters. Yet, a sovereign had to school his face, and the politician had to keep a calm air—as his father during negotiations.
“You presume much about this Sesshomaru,” his tone contained no inflection, no remorse, no pain. His eyes returned to the Elder Inu; he would give no one the satisfaction of wringing rage or joy, sorrow or guilt, a smile nor a tear from him again. “This Lord will abide by the decision made this day. One hundred and fifty-five years hence is the agreed time.” Without another word, certainly no respectful one of these immensely powerful beings, Sesshomaru returned home to face the Lady Izayoi and his newborn half-brother and carried the edict that would be InuYasha’s fate...
Yet, in the here and now, the Lord Sesshomaru stands. The time is up, and the summons from these damn ancients has finally called him from his fruitless meanderings. Fruitless? Not necessarily, he reminds himself, his meanderings, his monumentus and hated task kept him from settling permanently in the Western Lands. Of course, he returned every few moons to keep up appearances in the surrounding fiefdoms that he maintained a permanent residence at the palace of his father. More often than not, larger matters of state were sent via carrying birds maintained by Jaken (as well as that damned staff) and indicated when the Lord’s physical presence was needed. His advisors and ministers kept track of the daily workings of the kingdom, designated tax collection and militaristic positioning, calculated efforts to keep the people from starvation and the elements, coordinated disaster relief and pre-planning during the monsoon seasons. He had long ago planned good and trustworthy men in places of power.
The corners of the Diayoukai’s mouth slightly turn down, breaking his expressionless mask with distaste. Hunting those who prey upon his people, those who lay siege in his land, those who subjugate others under his rule were all honorable reasons for wanderlust. The other reason, hunting down his only brother, his only connection to his honored father, however, left a sour twist in the Lord Sesshomaru’s gut—in truth, it always had. Spewing hate and degradations about the half-breed’s blood and birth mother went against Sesshomaru’s personal code of honor, for strength is proven through deeds more than lineage, but the hanyou was sensitive to those personal attacks and would remain his ultimate weakness to be exploited. But more detrimental to Sesshomaru’s state of mind, it brought back images of his own hated childhood, his own detested Trial. Those memories aided him in the appearances of hatred and disgust; those memories gave him the motivation to fight his brother, to drive a poison hand through his unprotected abdomen, to find every weakness with the goal to eliminate it from InuYasha’s psyche.
The Demon Lord shuddered, decades of exile, of being hunted by his own kin (by the Inu no Taishou, specifically) haunted this Western Lord each time he came upon his half-brother surviving in the wilds, an exile at the order of these ancient fools. Their discrimination burned at Sesshomaru’s sense of honor, for only one son in a royal family had to survive the demeaning Great Trial in order to have the necessarily fighting, warring skills of battle to take over the mantle of ruler. Sessohmaru, the first son, had spent two hundred and fifty years in ignorant exile, as unaware of the formal tradition as InuYasha was at present. No one would whisper a word of the trial to an exiled one, no one would dare lend aid to an exiled one, and no one would show one shred of kindness to the exiled one. The scent marker left upon infancy made sure all demons would know...
“My Lord?” A small voice brings Sessohmaru out of his bloody, tortured past. He turns from the breath-taking view to the small girl bowing low at the waist. She is young, weak, and plain. The only interesting thing about the girl is that her eyes are the same color as Rin’s rather than an exotic coloring of a lizard demon. “The council apologizes for your wait. They are ready to receive you at any time.”
Had he not been schooled in the art of political maneuvering after his Trial, Sesshomaru would have snorted or bared his teeth in a snarl. Apologize, indeed. I waited three full moons before I answered their damnable summons, and this is a petty excuse for revenge. Rather, he nods regally and follows behind the servant to the massive set of iron doors, carved intricately with demons of all nations from top to bottom. In the center, a shiro-inu in full form howled, a demon that looked suspiciously like his late-father in full dog form. He restrains himself from reaching out to touch that carving. The demon lord closes his eyes, and what would you believe of this Sesshomaru now, father? The door steadily creeks open and the demon lord sweeps inside.

The Hanyou, InuYasha
Five years after Naraku’s defeat and Kagome’s disappearance back to her world beyond the well. Five years of wandering the Western Lands alone, taking on no followers or new pack members; this time, the hanyou forced himself away from contact, away from others and the possible friendship they may have offered. Five years since his soul started bleeding, the scent like rotting sweets to trail after him and attract others, mistaking the scent of a dying soul for infirmity. Some weaker demons that came after him, those that had heard of the final battle, actually stopped short of fighting to talk about that life-changing battle. More than a handful of times, he had somehow ended up on the other side of a campfire using his rusty voice in a re-telling of the fight as he remembered it to an enrapt, young warrior’s face. Young, hell. The majority of them were years older than him, some by a few hundred years. He told the story, he left before the fire went out, and he never accepted their offers of joining their own bands of warriors. Countless times over the years did he hanyou reinforce his own banishment from anyone.
However, those that were warriors of worth would pause when they saw his rusty sword transform into a huge fang. Them, he shared the fire and a meal; others, he shared its power in the form of their eminent demise. He had only used the Kaze no Kizu a few times and the bakuryuuha against three specific demons that were out for human blood—as in a whole village of tasty, mortal treats. Since the final use of his Kongosoha against Naraku, InuYasha did not have the heart to use it again, not with the memory of trying to make adamant for Kagome back in her time at the Higurashi Shrine. Her brother Souta had shown him the beautiful stone, and the memory of it (or wanting to give her something like it) caused the pain in his chest to start gnawing all over again. Besides, in his wandering, he had actually slowed down his memory and tried mimicking some of the techniques Sesshomaru had used against him in previous battles. The smooth and seamless style his brother and remaining hated enemy could wield that wicked blade Tokijin and later Bakusaiga was the way of a true swordsman, and InuYasha had slowly begin incorporating the motions he could remember into his own style of fighting. Without Sesshomaru’s incredible speed, the hanyou modified the movements with balanced dodges around his opponent. Someday he wouldn’t have to rely on the larger attacks but his own basic movements. In only five years, then, he had grown somewhat more flexible and balanced wielding Tetsuaiga more gracefully to exploit opponents’ weaknesses instead of planning his strategy around club-like movements.
Some of the interested ones, though, weren’t interested in his style or his lineage as the bastard half-son of a famous demon. Hell, most weren’t really interested in the first half of his life (of course, who wanted to hear about a hundred years of starvation, fear, and fighting?). Most didn’t even care about the first part of his interactions with Kikyo or the Shikon no Tama or about the priestess’ incarnation with the strange clothing. The majority wanted to hear about that last stand, the final battle. He really couldn’t count how many times he’d gone through the tale in only five years:
InuYasha, baring the now-six formed fang, had once again modified his technique in order to finally beat the bastard half-demon Naraku near the end of the battle; his pack and allies looked on, ready, but unable to strike with him in the tentacle clutches of the enemy.
The battlefield had been conveniently at the top level of Naraku’s castle, stone inlaid kept his tentacles from driving into the earth and with open spaces the bastard couldn’t simply hide in. But, three spaced turrets still allowed for the humans to have a place for cover. Numerous strikes from the humans, mostly in cleaning up the many demons that made up the evil half-demon, began what would be a three-day long war. The amount of demons Naraku had absorbed gave him an army along with his surviving incarnations. The group of them originally consisted of him, Kagome, the monk Miroku, the demon-slayer Sango and her brother Kohaku, Shippo the Kitsune demon, and Kirara, the fire demon; joining them in the first few hours: Koga the wolf demon. The eight of them seemed to fall into an unspoken agreement, when one fell or ran out of supplies (like anyone keeps endless arrows or sutras! But, they had planned ahead and brought quite a stock!) and needed to restock, others would jump in to keep Naraku fighting and the demons dying. Luckily, the specially rigged saddle full of arrows on Kirara and Kagome’s bag (empty of anything but stacks of sutras) kept the humans with power to protect themselves from the onslaught.
Long into the first night, his brother Sesshomaru had appeared. Not one strike was raised against the half-demon. Not one “die, little brother” or “stand aside, vile half-breed.” Rather, the Daiyokai appeared just to shove the hanyou out of the way of a very devious attack from behind. The fight progressed as such, for some reason the half-brothers found some sort of truce in the single purpose of killing Naraku. They fought together, shoulder-by-shoulder for two days and a night.
The final stance had come long after the extra arrows were gone, and Wind Tunnel remained the monk’s last option. The hanyou, bloody and exhausted but still on his feet, was clutched in the tentacles of the monster while the humans corralled behind the turrets. Koga was either dying or dead, and Sesshomaru was on bent knee with a sneer and blood staining the white of his haori. They were all wearing thin and tiring and even the appearance of an arrow from Kikyo did nothing to deter the rabid beast Naraku had become.
Finally, it came to the hanyou while the life was being squeezed from his body. Only a concentrated blow would destroy him completely; a blow in the spot right below Naraku’s sternum where an aura of power had kept the half-breed’s attention. Inuyasha shoved the blade through Naraku and somehow managed to concentrate the Wind Scar’s massive blast into that single point, making the power rip Naraku apart from the inside out. With the evil half-demon’s power to regenerate, InuYasha had enough time to glance over his shoulder at his friends and Sesshomaru with a silent message: if this is the last battle I fight in this world, we will meet up in the next. But here and now,we will finish the job. It ends today.
He hadn’t known at the time, but he’d scored a direct hit by piercing the child in Naraku’s body rather than shattering the sacred jewel as he intended. At the moment, it didn’t matter if the damn thing shattered again or if he never got to be a full demon. All he’d wanted was to save Miroku and possibly Kohaku, to avenge Kikyo and Sango, to free Kagome from the dangerous life of a jewel-hunter, to take this evil out of the world before it could fuck-up anymore innocent lives. Getting the jewel simply to become a full demon was no longer his primary motivation; it didn’t lend to his strength.
However, the inu hanyo remembered the victims of Naraku, the faces of suffering and pain. When his blade shoved into the wriggling mass of evil, the faces he’d met along the way of this crazy journey took up his mind’s eyes. For them, to keep Naraku’s touch from others, InuYasha, bastard outcast, was willing to give up the last of his youkai and his life. Even if he couldn’t finish it, he knew the others were strong enough together to end it once and for all after the most important hit was scored. In some insane part of his brain, he figured that in itself would comfort them when they mourned him.
But apparently, the jewel in Naraku’s body responded to him and his intentions. Still whole, that might be why it ripped itself out of Naraku’s flesh just before his golden energy wave took over with ten times the intensity of the Backlash Wave. The new and improved Wind Scar ripped their enemy apart at the literal cellular level; this new intensity fed by InuYasha’s own strength, willpower, concentration and pure, demonic energy. The wave was no longer a golden ripple of claws, but rather a mixture of golden and red energy sharper than even his claws for rending and tearing at high velocity. Naraku was caught in the epicenter of a similar device to Kagome’s mother’s “blander.”
In truth, the blast almost killed him in exchange but left nothing left of Naraku to regenerate. The half-demon remembers the wave hitting him, remembers seeing his enemy’s face agonized as it was rendered to shreds by this new attack. He remembers the wave hitting, ripping into the tentacles around him before cutting into his own flesh like a thousand of Sango’s sword thrusts. Even the robes of the fire rat raised in front of his face could not save him. He dimly remembers being thrown back, hitting the stone wall with the Tetsuaiga still clutched in his burned hand just before he teetered over the edge. This is where he ends him monologue to the others, but while the battle was over in that memory, the aftermath lead to the reasons InuYasha left inviting campfires and company soon after.
Shockingly enough, Sesshomaru had been the one that reached him first and had pulled him away from the edge of the castle, away from a deathly fall. But, the hanyou recalls the blurry movement as his elder brother fell to his knees beside InuYasha, dropping his sword to place oddly careful fingers to the pulse at the side of InuYasha’s throat. That touch made him open his eyes, blood dribbling from his mouth, eyes dazed as he looked up at the demon that would someday be the end of him.
The half-demon remembers wondering if this battle would be his last, if his brother would just rip his throat out while he was weakened and take the damn sword once and for all. But, the sight that met him was shocking. It was the first time he’d seen anything other than cold calculation, anger, or distaste on his older brother’s face—Sesshomaru had actually looked concerned.
“Girl,” InuYasha choked out around a mouthful of blood, “the girl!”
The little human whelp that followed his brother everywhere had been close to the battle. His party had enough brains to duck for cover when he used the Wind Scar, but the human girl and toad might not have been so lucky. InuYasha’s sluggish, blurring gaze moved around his brother’s imposing figure, looking for a short girl in the character kimono. His brother, seemingly checking the damage, paused long enough to look over at InuYasha’s humans (standing just over his shoulder) in question.
“No,” the half-demon vaguely remembered, “little girl. Your girl, toad…” then all the lights went out completely.
With the blood loss and backlash from the Wind Scar, the half-demon was sure he’d only imagined talking to Sesshomaru or of the bastard checking him over (especially the part where he hazily came to and found Sesshomaru carrying him through the forest with incredible speed and without strain in his newly-grown arm). He also claimed to be slightly insane from the blood loss when vaguely recalling what seemed like Sesshomaru speaking in his few moments of consciousness through the run, “you have done well, little brother. This Sesshomaru is proud.”
Of course he was imagining things; years of wanting nothing more than Sesshomaru’s approval had made him hallucinate the strangest things, just like when he saw images of his mother when his body was ready to give out on him. Obviously, his bastard brother would never say such a thing to the stain on his great father’s name.
From there, darkness takes over once again until the ceiling of Kaede’s hut blurs to focus upon waking. At his side were Miroku, Sango, Shippo, Kirara, and Kohaku. No Kagome. Something was horribly wrong, just from the expression on their solemn faces. Why weren’t they celebrating...? Not long later, the others filled him on the missing parts from the aftermath, of the Jewel seemingly granting Kohaku his life while stealing his friend from the future back to her own time. The dark, swirling vortex—one similar to the Wind Tunnel in Miroku’s hand—had appeared behind the future-miko and swallowed her theoretically back to her future world. They could only hope she had returned to the world beyond the Bone Eater’s Well, five-hundred years in the future. Simple, she had just vanished in front of their eyes, calling out tearful farewells…
His world tunneled and not because of the wounds. That was the end of the great quest for the Sacred Jewel of Four Souls—a journey that had taken him the better part of fifty-six years to finally end. Over the next few days, while healing from his wounds in Kaeda’s care, he thought calmly and carefully about the whole of it; everything in the fates seemed to bring him to the path of the Jewel, to dispose of it with the only people in his life to accept him regardless of his half blood. To meet and protect this hodgepodge pack had changed the demon InuYasha; his once selfish intents were made more honorable, more noble by including these humans with their own agendas and painful pasts. They made him unashamed of his half-blood and broke him at the same time. With them, he was more powerful than before, and without them, he was a wandering freak-show. It has to be some sick joke from the Gods, to reward him with loneliness and discrimination after he fricken saved the world.
Such must be his lot in life… In the arms of Goshinboku, the same tree that cradled him safely for fifty years, he talked with Morku, Sango, and Shippo about the future. Their talk had included the monk and slayer’s plan for marriage and Shippo’s future. Who would the kit be best off with? InuYasha, painful as it was, declined responsibility on the grounds of the constant discrimination the kid would face with a half-demon travelling companion. He, however, agreed to contact kitsune elders that administered the Kitsune Exam about the Shippo’s training. All this while sadness and despair gnawed on his insides, but he managed to keep his outer demeanor as calm and untouchable as his brother. A moon later, he sat again in the God Tree while the remainder of his little pack finished gathering their supplies to be off the next day to the abandoned Slayers’ Village. From there, the young demon lost an integral part of himself in loosing his pack and returning to the wilds.
Five years, he roamed listlessly throughout the island.
Time became filled with killing off demons, saving humans, stopping for a few weeks to help Miroku and Sango in their effort to rebuild the slayer’s villages, making sure Shippo was safe and happy with others of his kind, and then stopping in Kaede’s village to cut wood for winter or fill the storehouses with meat. His scent in the forest kept out scavangers and foragers out for human blood. His occasional presence reinforced the markers; if he was lucky, he might come upon a nice and powerful bi-ped form of a demon and have a halfway decent battle to improve his own technique. Slowly, his life became all about killing the evil ones and saving the innocent like Kagome would have done; his wounds were inconsequential as always, and the battles themselves were not worth a hot meal some villagers offered when overcoming their fear of him. He did not do it for acceptance of human kind or to find another pack, for InuYasha finally realized that true strength meant protecting the weak—even if the weak hated and feared you. The blood he shed for the people of the Western Lands convinced some humans of his sincerity. Of course, the tales of his deeds has spread throughout the land: a half-demon with puppy ears and a fang for a sword. None, though, could reach him. He would save them and go, regardless of being cursed or coerced.
Only a few times did he stop at the well or perch in the painfully familiar branches of Goshinboku. Other than those instances, he kept moving and shied away from personal contact other than the warriors that came for him. The forests became home again with higher branches and enveloping leaves that hid him like when he was young and figured out sleeping in trees was safer than the ground. He could lounge in one place for a while during the summer but had to keep moving constantly in the winter. Not that he minded fighting, but food was more scarce and predators more desperate. The biting winds and heavy snow made his very bones ache and his bare feet turn blue with frostbite; moving kept him as warm as fighting. The young hanyou took out his fare share (more for the sake of humans in neighboring villages than for survival) even when his fingers were so frozen he could barely extend them for the Iron Reaver Soul Stealer. Just like his life before the Shikon No Tama, the hanyou was again exiled; his voice faded, became quiet and rusty with disuse.
More to the point, he hadn’t seen or smelt Kikyo since Naraku’s demise. Her desire to take him to Hell with her apparently not important enough to seek him out. She, too, had left him.
A/N: Present day events next, retrospective chapter is somewhat over. Please forgive mistakes and typos. Reviews are appreciated.
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The Great Trial