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The Tale of the Demon Lord	By : Arianawray Category: InuYasha > Yaoi - Male/Male > InuYasha/Sessh?maru > InuYasha/Sessh?maru Views: 56283 -:- Recommendations : 4 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or any of its characters, and I do not make any money from these writings.

Chapter List
- 42
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- 44
XLIII: Tricks And Traps
Naraku congratulated himself on the bargain he had struck. True, the beautiful half-demon prince he wanted was not in his arms, but the demon lord he had previously been so attracted to was now in his clutches.
Looking upon the stump of Sesshomaru's left arm and the bloodstains that severing the limb had left all over those white robes excited him, for Onigumo had greatly loved the act of mutilating others, and a vestige of his dark soul continued to provoke in Naraku a fascination for blood, wounds, carefully made cuts and missing appendages.
Sesshomaru was as good as unconscious – necessarily rendered so by Naraku's spells – for he remained highly dangerous despite agreeing to take Inuyasha's place. He had come quietly enough, but upon being locked into the chamber which was designed to weaken and contain its prisoner, the dog demon had slashed off one of the spider lord's tentacles when he stretched one out possessively and snaked it between his legs.
"I see you're not ready to be fully receptive to me, despite so freely offering to bear my children earlier," Naraku had murmured thoughtfully, allowing the fumes which spewed from his severed appendage to daze Sesshomaru further. "It doesn't matter. There will be time, and you will soon be keen enough."
Naraku then unleashed the full power of the chamber's spells, and Sesshomaru slumped to the ground, his great spill of silver hair fanning out around him. The spider lord issued a magical command from across the room, causing the dog demon's remaining arm to be clasped in a cuff of magical steel and secured by a length of chain to the wall nearest him, while a double ring clapped around his beautiful, elegant throat and held his head to the floor by a shorter chain.
Only when that was done did Naraku dare to approach again and look deep into the brilliant golden eyes which directed a fierce glare at him through lids struggling to stay open, expressing the revulsion felt by the immobile snowy-white body they belonged to.
"There will be lots of time for us to get to know each other very well, Sesshomaru," Naraku whispered, his multiple limbs disrobing the demon lord, stroking and caressing his skin as they pleased, examining the gaping wound that ran clean through the centre of his body where the tentacle had punched through him, molesting him till he provoked a shiver from him that was all the more exciting because it was an uncontrolled response.
But when he attempted to go further with Sesshomaru than merely touch him, a strange aura surrounding the dog demon lord prevented any form of penetration or further infliction of physical injury, burning Naraku's fingers and tentacle tips fiercely.
"This was not part of our agreement," the spider lord hissed angrily, only to realise that Sesshomaru was scarcely conscious, and could not possibly be working magical spells.
Cautiously, the spider lord examined the aura of the powers protecting the dog demon, and took a step back when he found it familiar, so very much like… the spiritual signature of the priestess he had once desired.
How was she doing this? Surely she did not have such power as to imbue a demon with protection from so far away? Her abilities must be far-ranging indeed – as if no longer bound by a physical body.
Naraku examined the strange spiritual resistance further, and concluded that he could overcome it with a little more study and a little more time.
For now, he had to be content with merely touching Sesshomaru, which he did at his leisure. When at last he was satisfied with his exploration of his new toy, he withdrew his tentacles and hands, stood over the dog demon, and smiled, repeating: "There will be so very much time for doing so very much more. I shall leave you to rest for now. You must be exhausted after losing an arm and sustaining such an injury – I can see the floor right through that hole in your belly. I trust that your powers will heal those wounds eventually. The spells will keep you weak, so the healing may take longer than you are used to. But before I go…"
Naraku produced Sesshomaru's severed arm, which he had borne back here within his own body, and laid it on the floor before Sesshomaru's eyes.
"Let this be a reminder to you of how weak you are now."
He spoke another dark magical command, and in an instant, Sesshomaru's arm was consumed in unnatural flames, burnt to a cinder, and lost forever.
"Let that remind you that all of you is mine, and I can do whatever I want with any part of you," Naraku sneered.
The spider lord left the chamber, sealing the door behind him with another spell, leaving Sesshomaru half-dead in body on the floor, barely physically conscious, but burning with rage in his mind. The lord of the dog demons swore that if he could know for certain that Inuyasha was free from the threat of the shard, he would tear himself out of these chains and destroy Naraku slowly and painfully.
But for now, he was left alone to fear for his brother's safety, and for himself. He wanted to roar that none of this should have happened. However, a part of his conscience which blazed strongly with a sense of justice prompted him to think: It is only right that I should lose a limb, for it matches the anguish within me of losing you, Inuyasha. Was what I just went through anything close to how you felt in the days when you hated me and I forced myself on you? Does all the blood I have shed compare with your suffering when the shard splintered inside you? You forgave my misdeeds and suffered so much pain on my behalf. I can now do the same for you.
Before he lost consciousness, his last thought was: Stay safe. Don't come for me. This is nothing more than I have deserved.
~ - ~
Kagura led the way south towards the border on her magical feather craft. They gathered that Naraku had taken some other way home, for there was no trace of his scent or Sesshomaru's lingering in the air from the moment they passed the place where they had disappeared.
They landed in that barren space for a while, to try and discover how he might have departed. After all, without the nulling stone, he and Sesshomaru would have been detectable to the border guards the moment he attempted to move from one land to another. Yet, no reports had come from the border defences.
Kagura sent out her senses like feelers to examine the area, and found at last a clue in the quality of the air above them.
"That's it – he used a magical portal," she said. "I can feel the familiar traces of his magic up in the air. We don't know how long he and Kanna stood here before he sent her away with the nulling stone and baited Lord Sesshomaru. He could have had all the time in the world to set up a portal that would connect with an exit point back at his castle. He used to do that when I was still with him – he would first create one end of a portal at home, and then go somewhere else and form the other end just in case he needed a quick escape route."
"I don't suppose it's still open for us to use?" Inuyasha asked hopefully.
"No – he would have made certain that it could be used only once," Kagura replied, recalling the tactics her father had used in the past.
"So it'll be the long way then – no problem at all," Inuyasha stated resolutely.
"None of that should ever have happened here," Totosai murmured to Inuyasha. "Here, in the place where you were born."
"And the place where my father died," the prince said. "But I'll be damned if I let this be the place where my brother was lost forever. We're going to get him back no matter what."
He mounted his dragon again and took to the skies with his companions, continuing their flight south.
Lady Shirakumo was in her dog form, slowing her pace to follow Kagura's lead. In that shape, she was an enormous canine demon-beast as large as a dragon, with brilliant white fur, an elegant tail, and silky, flowing ears. Her eyes were red and the dark-blue crescent moon marked her brow. If Inuyasha had not known that this was her, he would never have recognised her by sight alone.
He had never seen Sesshomaru in his dog form. His heart ached again, wondering if he ever would. Please be alive and well, Sesshomaru, he silently pleaded with any gods or spirits or good forces that might be listening. Please… you promised to live a long and happy life with me…
They pressed on across the southern reaches of the kingdom towards the border. Totosai, with Natsumi seated behind him, had chosen to ride a dragon this time, for his cow's pace would have been no match for the lady, Kagura's feather craft, or the two-headed beast of Sesshomaru's which Inuyasha rode.
The fire demon eyed the back of Inuyasha's head keenly, observing his long silver mane streaming in the wind. The boy looked tense, but determined. Would he be strong enough to face Naraku? Behind Totosai, Natsumi trembled as they drew closer to the southern border, where she had once almost lost her life.
"You were brave to come, pretty one," he turned his head to say to her. "But it's not too late to get off here."
"No," she replied. "I am afraid, but I am determined to do this. This is one thing I know I can help with. It is nothing, after others have done so much for me."
As they approached their own border close to evening, soldiers mounted on fire cats and dragons soared into the air to meet them, recognizing the great dog-demon form of a member of their royal family, and their lord's twin-headed dragon. They had never seen the prince with their own eyes, but had heard of him since his return to the castle. His mane of white hair and resemblance to his father told them at once who he was.
"Did you see and hear nothing yesterday?" Inuyasha asked the commander of the southern fortress, a battle-hardened dog demon. "No scent or sight of Naraku?"
"No, Your Highness," the commander replied. "We have not scented, sensed or seen Naraku since he paid his last official visit twenty-one days ago."
"Keep the border secure. Be prepared for trouble when we make our return journey, in case we are pursued, or the ones we seek flee before us."
"Yes, Your Highness."
Onward they flew across the neutral lands, then entered Naraku's territory as the sun was sinking. Immediately, they were challenged in the air by Naraku's disorganised but vicious border-defence forces.
"Out of our way, or you won't live to regret it!" Inuyasha yelled, his great sword clashing against the weapons of three spider-demon soldiers at once.
"Listen to me!" Kagura shouted at the solders, fending them off with wind blades that she purposely made blunt so that they would not kill. "You know who I am! I am the Lady Kagura! Let us pass and we will give you no trouble!"
But the soldiers ignored her and continued to attack in waves. Inuyasha, seeing the desert-like terrain they were in which held no civilian settlements, knew that he would be able to deal with this problem in a much quicker manner with the technique of his sword that Totosai had taught him to feel and generate, but which he had not been allowed to use yet for fear of destroying innocent lives.
They could not lose any more time if they were to reach Sesshomaru as soon as possible. And they certainly could not leave any of these soldiers alive to report back to Naraku's castle before they themselves got there.
At Inuyasha's command, their little group swooped towards the ground in a wide arc, followed by the spider demon battalion. Inuyasha and his companions then turned unexpectedly in a quick, tight circle to face the bulk of the pursuers.
A few soldiers had not rushed in with the rest of the battalion and were now clashing with Inuyasha's comrades. He left them to deal with these smaller numbers as he focused on the bulk of the battalion before him. These were the ones who would get a taste of his sword's magical ability to smash its own demon energy into the forces of other demon energies in front of it. Totosai had told him that it would then tear asunder those life forces, wiping out all before it in one strike.
He did not hesitate to use that training now. As he sniffed out the point at which the numerous demon energies before him were coming together, he confidently raised his mighty sword and brought it back down in one swing, aiming at the point where the auras met and clashed.
Demonic power shot forth from the blade, the air crackled and split, and the dry earth roared as the force of Inuyasha's blow exploded through the air and even rent the ground, leaving deep gashes and cracks across a mile of barren landscape.
The prince gasped as the life forces of the spider-demon soldiers disintegrated, and their bodies were shredded. Severed limbs and tatters of flesh rained back down to earth as the sword roared its delight at dispatching so many opponents with one blow – something it had not done in two hundred years.
The only soldiers still alive were those who had not been in front of Inuyasha, and these were swiftly seen to by the rest of the prince's group. Totosai got rid of two soldiers at once with a swift sweep of his swordsmith's mallet, then turned to his younger godson, who was staring in disbelief at the carnage his blade had wreaked.
"Now do you see why your brother and I would not let you do this anywhere near the castle?" Totosai asked, putting a wrinkled hand on his shoulder. "You would have killed everyone in it!"
On another occasion, Inuyasha would have paused for longer, regretted the lives he had taken, and pondered the destructiveness of the weapon he wielded. But he was entirely focused on rescuing Sesshomaru, so he only nodded soberly and sheathed the blade, and they flew on.
As the stars came out, they reached Naraku's castle complex. Its structure was surprisingly elegant, Inuyasha thought – a symmetrical collection of buildings interlinked by open walkways leading up to a gray, looming stone fortress with turrets capping the spindly towers which stood at the ends of the numerous wings.
"Look out!" Kagura called sharply, as demon arrows and spears whistled through the air from the hands of alert guards on patrol.
The battle-trained dragons dodged the missiles even before their riders commanded them to, while Kagura and Lady Shirakumo were too nimble to be caught off-guard by such attacks.
"There's no time to waste – leave them to me!" Kagura shouted.
"Are you sure you can handle them alone?" Inuyasha asked.
"I'm sure – my wind blades can kill an army and then manipulate the dead to fight for me. Take the nulling stone for further protection. Now go! I'll cover you as you enter – Natsumi will have to lead you through the castle!"
Inuyasha caught the blue crystal Kagura tossed to him and slipped it inside his robes while Natsumi made a careful jump from the back of Totosai's dragon onto Inuyasha's. The prince steadied his attendant and settled her behind him, then urged his dragon to dive steeply into the castle compound while Kagura cleared the way for them with a barrage of wind blades which stopped every missile dead in its flight, and killed a quarter of the guards on duty at that end of the compound.
"That way, Your Highness," Natsumi urged, clinging to Inuyasha's sash with one hand while pointing with the other towards a tower on the eastern point of the fortress. "That tower gives access to the main buildings of the fortress – some of the others lead to dead ends, or only take you back outside."
"Got that," Inuyasha confirmed, tightening the left leash of the two-headed dragon to make it turn to the east. Lady Shirakumo flew past them and stayed ahead to shield them from possible attacks, while Totosai took up the rear to guard their backs.
As they swung in the direction of the eastern tower, they caught a glimpse of Kagura controlling the dead soldiers with her fan and its magical winds, turning them against their living comrades, and using their bodies as shields for herself. By now, Naraku had to know they were here.
When they drew level with the tower they wanted, Inuyasha grabbed Natsumi and sprang powerfully off his dragon's back, soaring through the air and flying cleanly through a narrow window near the top of the tower. Totosai followed more clumsily, while the lady transformed into her two-legged shape as she flew elegantly through the opening.
Inside the narrow column of gray stone, Inuyasha lifted his nose to the air and sniffed. "I can't scent Sesshomaru at all," he murmured.
"If he is being held behind certain kinds of magical barriers, you won't be able to sense him," Lady Shirakumo explained.
"Come this way," Natsumi whispered, running towards a flight of spiral stairs. "It leads to a dungeon Naraku always used to keep his prisoners of war in until he was ready to do what he wanted with them. Lord Sesshomaru may not be there, but it is the first place we ought to check."
Natsumi wanted to take the lead, but Inuyasha had no intention of letting her be the first to encounter the sharp end of a sword waiting to greet them.
"Stay behind me!" he ordered. "Just tell me which way to turn whenever we come to a fork."
They raced down the spiral stairs, booted feet tapping lightly against the cold stone.
"Get off the stairs at the second landing!" Natsumi called.
From the landing, they sped down a closed passageway and down another flight of stairs. The nulling stone shielded all their scents and auras as long as the others stayed close to Inuyasha, but their thankfulness that they would not immediately be set upon by every spider demon in the castle did not allow them to be complacent. Inuyasha remained alert, and it was a good thing too, for a small group of spider-demon guards came upon them at the bottom of that second flight of stairs.
Lady Shirakumo dispatched three of them with a poison whip lashing from her claw-tips, exactly like Sesshomaru's. Inuyasha saw off the other four with the Tetsusaiga, and Totosai protected Natsumi.
"Use this for self-defence," Inuyasha said, untying Sesshomaru's armoury sword from his sash and giving it to Natsumi. "You're not battle-trained, but at least you'll have a weapon in your hands."
He had brought both the Tenseiga and armoury sword with him, trusting that he would find Sesshomaru and rescue him, and give him back his blades so he could use them himself. The broken Tokijin had, on Totosai's advice, been left lying in the dirt at the place where Sesshomaru had been taken.
They proceeded more cautiously down the corridor, then down another, at the end of which was another clump of guards, looking nervous as word was going round at lightning speed that the intruders were inside the castle, but no one could tell where they were.
Inuyasha swept all the guards aside with a blow of the Tetsusaiga, and the lady silenced them forever by slicing their heads off their necks with her whip. They had been guarding the dungeon door, which Inuyasha now kicked down, only to find that it held no prisoners of war. Only a few slaves were chained to the walls, and Totosai unshackled them in seconds with quick blows of his swordsmith's tools.
While Lady Shirakumo stood guard at the entrance, Natsumi addressed the frightened, ragged group of demons to reassure them. "I used to be a slave here, like you," she explained quickly. "I escaped and have remained free since then, just as you have the chance to do now. But we need your help – tell us if you saw or heard any prisoners brought into the castle the day before."
One thin, malnourished-looking mountain-cat demon said softly: "I saw nothing, but I was working in a chamber of the north wing yesterday, and I felt a powerful aura within the castle, very close to where I was. I had never felt a demon aura like it before."
"Was that aura still in the north wing when you were moved to the dungeon?" Natsumi asked.
"Yes," the slave replied.
"Thank you," Natsumi said. "All of you must try to leave safely, the best you can, and find your way home. Do not under any circumstances get in the way of the wind demoness who is dealing with the castle guards, or she will kill you along with them. The closest and safest exit I can think of for you is the window on the first floor, one flight up and two corridors down the left – quickly now!"
The slaves bowed their thanks, fled the dungeon, and disappeared up the nearest flight of stairs.
"The north wing is where Naraku's private rooms are," Natsumi said when the slaves had gone. "At least it is where they were when I was here all those years ago."
Inuyasha growled to think of Sesshomaru at Naraku's mercy in his rooms. The spider lord used magic liberally, and he would have worked all manner of spells to keep Sesshomaru weak and quiet.
"Let's go," he said with quiet determination.
~ - ~
Naraku had snarled with rage to see, hear and sense the assault on the borders of his castle complex. The auras and scents fluctuated – first he had detected the dominant spirit energies of the prince, the old fire demon, and a very powerful female. Then suddenly, all those energies were masked in seconds, while that of his disowned daughter flared fiercely, seemingly out of nowhere.
That was when he knew that the nulling stone had fallen into the hands of his enemies, and that his younger daughter Kanna was dead, or incapacitated, or won over by her sister.
With a cry of fury, he gave orders for all his castle guards to hunt down and trap the intruders in one of the many magical cells and dungeons all about the fortress. Taking Byakuya and Hakudoshi with him, he slammed and barred door after door behind him as he moved towards the north wing, sealing their passage with the strongest spells he could use in a hurry.
Now in the room where he had chained Sesshomaru, he stilled himself and tried to work out what was happening in the fortress. The nulling stone was shielding its users, but his sense of hearing alerted him to clashing blades and sounds of battle here and there.
He tried to sense the presence of the glass shard but could not. Although its aura was masked, it was a part of himself, so at such close range, he would be able to tell, by trying to control it and move it, if it was responding. But when he gave it a mental nudge, he had no sense whatsoever of it.
Impossible. He had sealed that shard even more strongly to himself, so that it could not be removed by the priestesses or the sacred tree of the village. There was no way in the world that Kikyo and her sister, or the powers of the tree, would have been able to push that shard out of Inuyasha without killing or permanently maiming the boy.
Yet, he had sensed Inuyasha's strength and scent at the outskirts of the complex, just before it all vanished under the concealment of the nulling stone. No shard. The shard was gone from the boy.
"We were supposed to have had time!" Naraku scowled at the seemingly half-conscious Sesshomaru, who stared at him out of hooded eyes he could not read. "Damn the inefficiency of Kanna's mirror pieces – if she isn't already dead I'll wring her skinny little neck myself! Useless daughter!"
But Kanna was out of his reach, in more ways than he knew for certain, so he could only listen and wait, and hope that the intruders would stumble into one of the traps.
~ - ~
"Watch out for the floor traps," Natsumi whispered. "This fortress is littered with them. Step on one and we'll be many feet underground in multi-walled chambers that will take the longest time to break out of."
"I'll just use the Tetsusaiga to tear the place down if that happens," Inuyasha said.
"And bring down the entire weight of the walls, floors and roofs above us to bury us alive?" Totosai warbled, alarmed. "Use your brain, young one! I can't believe you wanted to do this alone – we would never have seen you again!"
"There, and there, and there…" Natsumi pointed out the spots on the floor which she had observed the fortress' experienced denizens avoiding in her years as a slave here, marked subtly by paving stones shaped and arranged in certain ways.
As they moved carefully towards the north wing, they noticed that they were running into less and less opposition as they went along.
"Kagura must have turned the dead soldiers against their comrades so well that they are now overwhelmed outside," Lady Shirakumo remarked. "A useful skill."
Down a long flight of stairs Natsumi led them, across the central hall where scattered soldiers were battling against the dead, and up another lot of stairs, where they encountered only a small group of house slaves huddled together, scared stiff at the sight of the dead soldiers seemingly coming back to life to turn against their own.
The corridors they raced into were empty now, and they only needed to avoid the traps in the floors and walls. But they were also facing more locked doors and magical barriers. While Inuyasha's sword and Totosai's mallet took care of the physical obstacles, Lady Shirakumo tackled the magical ones.
Door after door fell before them, and barrier after barrier dissolved, until Natsumi announced: "Just ahead – there's the door leading to the passageways and rooms of the north wing!"
Inuyasha lifted his Tetsusaiga to shatter the large, barred double doors at the same time as Lady Shirakumo dispersed the barrier, and they were through.
~ - ~
Naraku screamed at Hakudoshi for trying to remove the spells around the chamber so that he could get out and fight.
"What are you doing, you little fool?" the spider lord shrieked, dealing his eldest living son such a sharp blow across the face that the boy flew several feet across the room and hit the floor with a thud.
"I'm trying to get out there to do what you are supposed to be doing – our people are getting killed, and we're just sitting in here!" Hakudoshi shouted angrily at his father.
"They are expendable. We are not," Naraku said pragmatically. "You are not to touch that barrier again. Byakuya, show me that you have the sense your elder brother lacks, and prepare the traps."
Sesshomaru, lying still on the floor, watched in silence as Hakudoshi sulked while Byakuya calmly went about the room to suspend in the air around it a circle of magical defences which looked like harmless origami sculptures, but which were designed to unleash a torrent of sharp blades against anyone who penetrated the barrier.
Sesshomaru's heart both lifted and grew weighty with dread as he realised that Inuyasha had come for him after all.
The boy shouldn't have come. He, Sesshomaru, had landed himself in this hell-hole through his own impulsiveness and arrogance, and Inuyasha should have left him to rot in it. Now they could both die or be imprisoned.
But no one had ever been able to stop that child from doing what he was bent on doing, and Sesshomaru knew it only too well.
Something was going on in the chamber, however, in a corner of the room which Sesshomaru could not see without lifting his head from the floor. Strange, grating sounds reached his ears, then Naraku was leaning over him the next moment, removing his chains and whispering: "I'm going to have you both."
Although the chains were now gone, a swift spell cast over him rendered him incapable of speech and movement. Then he heard those strange sounds again, another sulky protest from Hakudoshi, and silence. What was happening?
As the crash and boom of doors and barriers coming down grew louder and louder, getting closer to the room where he lay, the demon lord grew tense in anticipation of seeing that beloved face again. He could not smell or sense him, but he could hear him smashing his way towards this spot.
One more mighty crash sounded as iron and stone crumbled to nothing, and onrushing footsteps carried four figures through the billowing dust to the edge of the magical barrier.
~ - ~
Inuyasha's heart flew into his mouth as he saw Sesshomaru sprawled on the floor. No one was with him. His clothing was in disarray, as if someone had removed it but hastily redressed him afterwards. His left arm was a stump, and his upper robe was hiked up over his back, showing that the awful wound through his abdomen had not healed yet.
He was not moving.
"Sesshomaru!" Inuyasha yelled through the magical barrier which burned brightly between them.
No answer came from the still figure.
"Can you remove this barrier?" Inuyasha asked Lady Shirakumo, keeping his eyes fixed on Sesshomaru's prone form.
"Not without setting off those traps," the lady replied, pointing out the origami structures.
"Something's not right," Totosai mumbled. "Where's Naraku?"
"I don't know," Inuyasha muttered. "That worries me, but we need to get to Sesshomaru now."
"I've never seen this room before…" Natsumi murmured, realising that she was in an unfamiliar spot.
Just then, they sensed Kagura approaching, and the Naraku-like aura of another demon close by.
"Byakuya!" Kagura's voice echoed angrily from somewhere close by. "I can see you there!"
Inuyasha and his companions turned to see the wind demoness sweeping into the passageway after having destroyed Naraku's security forces, red eyes blazing as she homed in on her youngest brother, concealed in a nook along the part of the passageway that her companions had not explored yet.
Everyone readied their weapons as Byakuya was hauled out into the open, hanging limply from his collar as Kagura held him off the floor from her airborne feather.
"All right, no need to be so hostile," the youngest of the spider children said nervously as he dangled in the air.
"Did you set those traps?" Inuyasha demanded, pointing the Tetsusaiga at him.
"Of course I did, on Father Naraku's orders," he answered.
"Remove them now," Inuyasha snapped.
"Oh dear no, I can't do that," the youngest of the spider children answered. "Father Naraku would have my head for it."
"Byakuya…" Kagura snarled again. "If you know what's good for you, you will remove your traps and disperse that barrier now!"
"Ah, Sister," he smiled. "It is good to see you again. I've missed you."
"Stuff and nonsense," she hissed. "You were newly made when I left. You hardly know me."
"Hmm," he said thoughtfully. "I suppose that means you don't me very well either."
It gave Kagura pause for thought. It was true. She did not know this sibling as she did the older ones, and could not be certain what he was capable of. But this was no time for indecision – she could not even tell if Lord Sesshomaru there on the floor was dead or alive. So she growled at him: "I know you well enough to assure you that you will rue the day you were made if you don't cooperate with us."
Byakuya sighed dramatically. "Oh dear, I suppose that if Father Naraku dies, you will be the head of our family, won't you?"
Leaving that thought to sit in the air between them, Byakuya indicated that she should allow him to move towards the chamber. Leaping off her feather and releasing Byakuya's collar but keeping very close to him, Kagura let him approach the barrier, where he made the traps point away with a wave of his arm.
Lady Shirakumo stepped up to the barrier to work her magic on it, but Byakuya quickly said: "No need for that. I will lower the barrier."
Kagura's eyes narrowed. Something was not right. He was cooperating a little too fast, and too fearlessly. This room was new to her, added on after she had left the family, and she wondered what traps it had that she knew nothing about. But Byakuya was indeed reducing the strength of the shield, so they stepped forward.
Inuyasha passed through the magical shield and rushed over to Sesshomaru, so anxious to reach him that he did not notice how his companions who had stepped into the barrier at the same time as he did were blocked at its rim and forced backwards, and only he was inside.
"Inuyasha!" Kagura cried, but it was too late. They were outside, and he was in there with a motionless Sesshomaru.
Kagura had the presence of mind to seize Byakuya before he could get his entire body through the barrier, and twist his arm behind his back with a swiftness that only a wind demoness could muster. It did not, unfortunately, change the fact that she and the others could not get through.
Inuyasha thumped at the edge of the barrier and found that it now blocked him from exiting. He drew his blade and slashed at the shield, to no avail. He even drew the nulling stone out of his robes and hurled it at the barrier, but it too could not penetrate the shield, dropping to the floor with a loud thud.
In his desperation to save his brother, Inuyasha lifted Sesshomaru carefully into his arms and tried to pass him through to the others, but that did not work either.
"Let us through, or let them out!" Kagura growled at Byakuya, tightening her hold on his arm and making him grimace.
But her youngest brother only smiled painfully and replied: "I can't do that, Sister; I was always so much more obedient than you."
The origami traps were now pointing outwards again, and some pointed inwards at the brothers. With the traps there, Lady Shirakumo could do nothing about the barrier.
"You cheating scum!" Inuyasha shouted at Byakuya from within. "Let us out, and tell us what you've done to Sesshomaru! Why isn't he moving or speaking? What's wrong with him?"
"You'll find out soon enough, Your Highness," Byakuya said calmly.
With that pronouncement, the floor opened up under Inuyasha's feet, sending him and Sesshomaru tumbling into the depths of the castle.
Kagura punched Byakuya in the face in rage. But it changed nothing. They were outside the barrier, and the rigged floor closed up again by some unseen mechanism, sealing the two brothers somewhere far down below, out of their reach.
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The Tale of the Demon Lord