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The Tale of the Demon Lord	By : Arianawray Category: InuYasha > Yaoi - Male/Male > InuYasha/Sessh?maru > InuYasha/Sessh?maru Views: 56279 -:- 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
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XLIV: Dungeons And Demons
Despite the surprise of the floor disappearing under him, Inuyasha fought to remain upright as he fell down, down, down, holding Sesshomaru tight to protect him from the impact of landing, whenever that might come.
He could not look down very well with his brother in his arms, but the scent of the air and sound of the wind whistling past his ears told him that he was getting close to the ground now, so he bent his knees to absorb the shock, and jar Sesshomaru as little as possible.
He grunted as the soles of his boots hit solid stone. Not wanting to fall right over and hurt his brother, he staggered a step or two and managed to fall only to his knees, bruising them. But that was all right. They would heal, and Sesshomaru was still safe in his arms. He just had to get them both out of here.
Inuyasha looked around. Not a ray of light came in from anywhere, but his half-demon eyes could make out the stone walls, floor and ceiling of the large space they were in, with three narrow passageways at the far end. They had possibly fallen past three or four levels of magically rigged flooring above them before landing on this level. The deep echoes and scent of the air suggested that they were in a subterranean dungeon. Strange markings of what looked like black ink were painted over several spots on the walls and ceiling.
No one was with them for now, so Inuyasha turned his attention to his mate-to-be.
"Sesshomaru?" he whispered, gently lowering him to the floor and stroking his beautiful face and hair. "Are you awake?"
The demon lord's golden eyes blazed back at him, as if communicating the message: I am awake, I am alive. But he could not move or speak, and Inuyasha guessed that a spell had been put on him.
"Naraku put a spell on you, didn't he?" the prince asked. "I don't know how to undo it, but I will bloody well keep you safe until it wears off, or until we can get to your mother."
But as he made to lift Sesshomaru into his arms again, the scent of the air changed, and he knew that Naraku or Hakudoshi, or both, were making a move. The exits to the passageways across the chamber slammed shut with solid stone doors that Inuyasha knew he would not be able to break down by force – not, as Totosai had warned, without bringing down on their heads more rubble than they would survive being crushed by.
Inuyasha carefully set Sesshomaru down in the middle of the room and stood over him, circling him, watching every corner of the dungeon.
"Welcome to my castle, Inuyasha," Naraku's voice sounded from a high corner of the chamber, underlining the magical nature of the room they were in, for the spider lord who had been invisible a moment before now seemed to melt out from the stone where the wall met the ceiling. "I am delighted to see you here, and looking so well too."
"Naraku," Inuyasha snarled, holding the Tetsusaiga in front of him. "You will pay painfully for everything you've done."
"Will I, now? Your brother believed that too when he left you to confront me, but as you know, things didn't go so well for him. Now that you're here too, can I keep both of you?" Naraku asked, with a smile in his voice.
"Dream on," Inuyasha growled, as he launched himself at the spider lord, wielding Tetsusaiga as if it were an ordinary sword, only three times as large. But a strong spiritual barrier sprang up in front of Naraku, deflecting the blade and preventing Inuyasha from making contact with his opponent.
Naraku melted back into the wall and reappeared at the far corner. Inuyasha flew at him, but again, his barrier-and-disappearance method of avoiding Inuyasha's attacks was used. Over and over, Inuyasha found himself unable to touch Naraku.
Sesshomaru watched in silent frustration as the game played on, knowing that this could not be all Naraku was going to do. He felt the spell slowly wearing off, and found that he could just move the fingers of his right hand. It was hard to remain calm at a time like this, but he forced his emotions and mind to be still, and focused hard on shaking off the effects of the paralysing magic on his body.
But just as he succeeded in moving his legs, drawing them up close to his body so that he could get up, the crafty Hakudoshi slipped out through the enchanted stone ceiling above him and came out of the shadows. The little imp drifted down towards him and was just about to cast another spell to keep him down when Sesshomaru gathered all his strength and blocked his magic with a burst of his demon spirit energy.
That made Inuyasha whip around. The prince saw what was happening, and sprang to his brother's defence at once, punching Hakudoshi hard in the face and sending him sprawling before the childlike demon disappeared back into the stonework.
"Sesshomaru!" he cried, helping the demon lord into a sitting position. "Are you all right?"
"Fine," Sesshomaru whispered in reply, finding that he could now move his tongue. "Behind you…"
Even before he could finish speaking, Inuyasha had already spun around to fend off a tentacle of Naraku's with his blade.
Fumes of venom spewed out from the gash, and the half-demon swiftly carried his brother to another part of the room, to get him away from the poison.
"I'm useless to you at the moment," Sesshomaru hissed, angry with himself for being reduced to such a state. That one burst of demonic energy he had used had left him weak again, unable to do anything else.
"You'll never be useless to me," Inuyasha assured him, moving him to a spot as far away from the fumes as possible, while keeping away from the walls, from which Hakudoshi and Naraku seemed able to emerge at will. "How the hell are they coming through the walls like that?"
"Magic," Sesshomaru stated.
"Natsumi said she had never seen the room you were in before," Inuyasha said under his breath. "Naraku must have recently created this whole structure magically to flow seamlessly with his being."
"And his spawn's," Sesshomaru added, watching for Hakudoshi.
"Those weird paintings…" Inuyasha murmured, staring at the thin black lines on parts of the stonework.
"They look familiar," Sesshomaru remarked.
"They do – but that's not what's just struck me. The places Naraku and Hakudoshi emerged from seem to correspond with the positions of the paintings."
"Yes."
"So let's see what happens if I do this!" Inuyasha grunted as he swung the Tetsusaiga in the direction of one of the paintings, using only a fraction of his strength so that the demon power which fired from the blade would not bring down the ceiling on their heads, but only wreck the surface of the stone.
Small pieces of rubble and dust clattered to the stone floor as the black ink lines were blasted off the ceiling with a hiss and a strange, soft scream. Inuyasha and Sesshomaru had a sense of Naraku's aura seething with rage as Inuyasha aimed another blow at the painting closest to the first one he had destroyed.
When more black ink and stone surfacing rained down, Naraku suddenly shot out from a different part of the room, garnet eyes glowing with anger and excitement above a twisted smile as his tentacles fired from his body towards the brothers.
Inuyasha twirled his blade and drove the tentacles back without cutting them, to spare the recovering Sesshomaru more doses of venom.
"You'll be mine yet!" Naraku hissed triumphantly, firing out even more tentacles before the first lot could regroup, and knocking the Tetsusaiga out of Inuyasha's hands. The blade flew through the air and landed in a far corner of the chamber, out of the dog demons' reach.
Hakudoshi sprang out from another painted stone wall behind them and clapped a barrier spell around Inuyasha with a single movement of his hands, trapping the half-demon under a brightly glowing dome of magical energy.
Inuyasha clawed and pounded at the barrier, but the magic was powerful, and he was stuck. Naraku then emerged fully from the stone and drifted across to Sesshomaru, while Hakudoshi closed in on him from behind.
"Sesshomaru!" Inuyasha yelled, pounding the barrier hard again, to no avail.
The demon lord rose to his feet and stood upright proudly, facing Naraku without bothering to spare Hakudoshi a backward glance.
"It looks like I'll have no need of you after all, Sesshomaru, now that I have Inuyasha," Naraku said. "Although I might still choose to keep you, for my amusement. Let me consider…"
A furious roar issued from Inuyasha, and more futile pounding against the barrier resounded in the enclosed space they were all in.
"I suppose I could entertain myself with a one-armed demon lord," Naraku purred. "But then it may be more trouble than it's worth to keep both of you under control. Besides, where there is life, there is hope, and I certainly don't want to leave you around for your little brother to gaze longingly at while he serves me. He should be in a position of hopelessness, where he knows he will have no one else but me to look forward to for the rest of his life."
Naraku lifted a tentacle and raised it to Sesshomaru's throat, readying it to slash through the demon lord's neck. "Don't hope to be rescued by your mother and godfather up above you, or even by my eldest daughter," the spider lord continued. "Your family cannot break down the stone without killing both of you, while Kagura was disowned long ago and no longer has the authority to penetrate any of my magical walls…"
Naraku trailed off at this point as a sudden flare of powerful demon energy heated the air behind him. In disbelief, he turned his head to see the barrier holding Inuyasha coming apart as the red-clad figure it held blazed with a raw and terrifying force.
Inuyasha's eyes were blood-red, purple markings were creeping over his cheekbones, and the snarl on his face was dominated by large fangs. His mane of silver hair seemed to take on a life of its own, blowing in the lightning-like charge of his out-of-control aura, which was turning full-demon under the threat to Sesshomaru's life. Without the restraining force of the Tetsusaiga to keep his demon energy balanced with the human, nothing could stop his demon side from emerging.
Even as Naraku turned cold with fear, the demon Inuyasha ripped through the magical barrier, heedless of the burns and wounds it left on his flesh. Hakudoshi took a step back in fright and melted into the walls again. Naraku tried to do the same, but he was further away from the paintings, and before he could reach the sanctuary of any of the black ink lines, the creature in the red fire rat robe had pounced on him like a beast and sunk its fangs into his head.
Naraku screamed, and screamed again when Inuyasha's large claws raked his body open. However, Sesshomaru knew that his brother had not torn Naraku's heart, because the spider demon continued to struggle. Ironically, the fact that half of Naraku's body was shredded helped him escape Inuyasha's grasp, because the ribbons of his flesh simply slid through the prince's fingers.
The torn body of the spider lord swam through the air towards the nearest painting, and disappeared into the stone. Sesshomaru was left alone in the chamber with an animal-like Inuyasha, who seemed not to know who he was, or what he was doing there. He remembered how Inuyasha had demanded Tetsusaiga while lying close to death after the glass shard had splintered inside him, saying that he did not want to die mad. Sesshomaru now understood, for this being before him hardly seemed to be of rational mind, judging by the way he snarled and stared like a beast facing a threat.
But something of Inuyasha's conscious mind was still functioning, Sesshomaru was certain, because his brother only looked at him, making no move to attack. Perhaps he knew who he was.
"Inuyasha?" Sesshomaru spoke softly, wondering if the boy could understand. "Inuyasha, we are not out of danger yet. We must get the Tetsusaiga, and remain alert. Naraku is not dead."
The demon half of his brother's being quietened a little, although the red eyes blazed as fiercely as before, and the claws were poised to slash and kill.
Sesshomaru moved slowly towards the fallen Tetsusaiga – slowly because he did not want to provoke Inuyasha, and also because that was the only pace he was able to move at while the spells cast on him were still wearing off. But as he took his third step towards the sword, there was a blur of movement above and behind Inuyasha, as Naraku shot forth from the stone ceiling, tentacles extended, body almost back in one piece.
"Inuyasha! Behind you!" Sesshomaru called urgently.
The demon youth heard him, but either did not understand, or was uncertain of his motives, because he did not react. Naraku wrapped his tentacles all around Inuyasha, pinning his arms to his sides and ignoring his crazed, enraged roars.
"You're quite something, little one," the spider demon leered. "You'll make such a marvellous toy, with the different forms you can take – I wonder if you have a human form as well – wouldn't you be amusing to play with in that shape?"
Inuyasha's fangs tore at the tentacles closest to his face, but Naraku clung on, while his venom filled the air around Inuyasha's head, dazing the prince.
Sesshomaru felt the fire rise into his heart as he saw his beloved, wild brother enclosed in the endless tentacles of the enemy. He had almost no strength left, but he called on the strange power that he could feel protecting him – the priestess-like aura which had kept him from Naraku's violations. He drew on it, and used the last of it to give him a burst of strength that he teamed with the will of his heart. Expending that final ounce of vitality, he stepped forward as quickly as he could to slash at the teeming appendages with the claws of his remaining hand. He ripped several of them apart with that single blow, allowing Inuyasha to tear free and spring away from Naraku.
"He is not your toy!" Sesshomaru growled, raising his arm again, knowing that he was still too weak to use his poison whip, and that he really could use only his claws as very short-range weapons.
Before he could swing his arm at Naraku again in a desperate show of pride and defiance, a long tentacle flew in from the left and drove itself clean through the demon lord's pale body, shattering his chest.
As Sesshomaru fell, Inuyasha snarled and leaped on Naraku again, from behind this time, tearing out the point on his back where his tentacles grew, and once again raking his body open. Naraku howled with pain and fear, feeling those terrible demon claws come much, much too close to where his heart was hidden.
Then Hakudoshi jumped out of the ceiling, grabbed his father, and snatched him up through the stone, where Inuyasha could not follow.
The full-demon prince growled with a beastlike anger at losing his prey, slashed at the ink markings on the ceiling and clawed them off in rage, then jumped back down to the floor and stared coldly at the bloodied body lying at his feet.
"Inuyasha," Sesshomaru whispered one more time, very softly, before he could say nothing more.
But the blood-red eyes of the demon prince only gazed at the broken body before him, unmoved and unfeeling, and it was the last sight that Sesshomaru saw before his terrible injuries overcame him.
The great demon lord drew one more rattling breath through his torn lungs, and died.
~ - ~
"I cannot get through," Kagura announced in despair. "Naraku must have crafted a spell that would let the rest of his children use the magic of the chamber, but not me. And that little rat won't cooperate!"
She glared at Byakuya, who was secured within a barrier that Lady Shirakumo had thrown up around him. He was calm and quiet, looking out at them with a peculiarly beatific smile on his face.
"I've been trying to feel my way through the magic used here," Lady Shirakumo said thoughtfully. "I can sense it being utilised frenziedly below. The patterns and signs I detect suggest that this entire column of the chamber before us, and everything below it, has been designed to work almost as if it were a part of Naraku's being. He should be able to flow in and out of the walls and floors provided certain entryways are magically marked on the stone."
"And we can't get through?" Totosai asked.
"No. But perhaps I can help them from up here, if I can block those entryways."
Lady Shirakumo seated herself on the ground outside the barrier, placed her palms flat on the floor, and began to channel her magical powers through the stone, far below. She murmured incantations under her breath, battling through the shields Naraku had put up, letting her magic seep through the tiniest gaps, until she succeeded after several minutes in forcing a few wisps of her own spiritual energy through. She spoke another incantation to complete her task.
She lifted her hands from the floor, and announced: "There. Naraku and the other boy will either have no magical pathways out now, or will be trapped in the stone, as the magic –"
The lady abruptly broke off, as her instincts told her that something had gone very wrong with her only child.
"What is it, my lady?" Natsumi asked with concern, as she saw the elegant frame of the powerful demoness freeze.
"Sesshomaru."
That was the only thing she said, his name uttered with apparent emotionlessness, but with a strange tone to her voice that the others gradually realised was an expression of the deepest pain.
~ - ~
The demon Inuyasha stared at the dead body lying at his feet. His beastlike mind was in turmoil, but was incapable of understanding why. He should know this person before him, and a peculiar racing of his heart seemed to be telling him that he ought to care that the body had ceased to breathe, but again, he did not know why.
Traces of a half-remembered dream misted his mind with visions he did not comprehend. Bewildering images of an anxious search for someone in a garden, someone who could not be found… a child who became a grown-up in his arms… a kiss… things he did not know. The demon growled, unable to make sense of anything.
He only knew that he felt compelled to gaze upon that deathly-white, beautiful face before him with its eyelids half-closed over rapidly dulling golden eyes, the curving mark on its forehead, and the stripes over its cheeks.
And he only knew that his own eyes burned to see that sight, although why that should be so, he could not comprehend… until the burning of his eyes proved to be scalding tears, and he simply knew that he must fall onto his knees and touch that torn body with his claws, ever so gently.
In the next instant, the burning tears seemed to wash the red out of his eyes and dissolve the markings from his cheeks, and he was his half-demon self again – a half-demon self who stared disbelievingly at Sesshomaru until the confusion was replaced by horror and utter misery as he cradled his brother in his arms and wept bitterly.
"Sesshomaru… please, no… please, Sesshomaru… no…" he wailed, his tears soaking the demon lord's unchanging face as he alternately kissed him and rocked him, trying with all his being to bring him back to life.
But Sesshomaru remained as he was, without breath in him, and a heart that wouldn't beat.
"You can't leave me!" Inuyasha cried. "You promised you would love me even when we were old and dying – and we're not old yet, so you can't die!"
In his sorrow, he did not notice that Naraku and Hakudoshi had ceased to come out of the walls and ceiling. He did not care and did not know that they had been sealed into the stone for now by the lady's magic. He only knew that the one he loved was lying broken in his embrace, and that Sesshomaru had died looking upon the crazed thing he had become – which he had so feared turning into when he had lain close to death in his bed.
"I came to get you back, and I will take you back!" he screamed. "So you have to live!"
As he moved to wrap his body even more tightly around Sesshomaru, the scabbard of the remaining sword secured to his sash scraped along the stone floor, triggering in his grief-stricken mind a reminder of what Totosai had told him about the blade.
Tenseiga. It could bring back the dead.
Only if it allowed him to wield it. Only if he knew how. And only if the one who had passed on was meant to be brought back.
He had been unable to save Kikyo, perhaps because Tenseiga respected her decision to pass on peacefully. But he was pretty damned sure that Sesshomaru would agree to come back, because…
"Because you promised," he said fiercely, setting his brother's body down carefully before rising to his feet and drawing the Tenseiga, which he had brought with him with the intention of returning it to Sesshomaru.
As he drew the blade up along the length of its scabbard, Inuyasha whispered a prayer to his father, and to the gods, and to his mother's spirit and Kikyo's: "Please, please, please, I beg you, please help me. Please let me do this. Father, if you are listening, I know this is not the sword you left me, but please let me wield it. Father, I'm begging you – please let me use Sesshomaru's sword!"
As the tip of the thin, elegant Tenseiga emerged from the mouth of the scabbard, Inuyasha whispered one more frantic "Please!" and held the sword before him.
And there he saw them – the little spirits of the underworld who were gathered around Sesshomaru's body, collecting his demon soul to bear it to where it must go.
Tenseiga was made to cut spirit, not flesh, Totosai had said. So Inuyasha held the blade aloft before swinging it over Sesshomaru's body, slicing through the spirit collectors and dispersing their fleshless bodies into nothingness, leaving Sesshomaru's soul to ease back into its shell.
Inuyasha watched and waited for a few tense seconds during which nothing seemed to happen, until his brother's wounds magically started closing up. Only the lost arm did not regenerate.
The prince held his breath for another few moments, then joy flooded his heart. He was overwhelmed by the sheer bliss and sweet relief of an unbearable burden lifting from him as he saw the life returning to Sesshomaru's golden eyes and the breath flowing through his body again.
He dropped to his knees beside Sesshomaru, still clutching the Tenseiga.
"You came back," he whispered, so relieved that he scarcely dared to speak any louder, fearing that his voice would wake him from this dreamlike state.
Sesshomaru said nothing, but first pressed the cool palm of his hand to Inuyasha's face and cupped his cheek, then slid his hand round to the back of the boy's neck and drew him close for a deep, lingering kiss.
Inuyasha believed then that this was no dream, and he rested the Tenseiga respectfully on the ground between them before wrapping both his arms around Sesshomaru and pulling him into a tight embrace, feeling quite contented at the thought of remaining like this forever.
But even the sweetest of embraces must end so that the ones locked in it can look at each other in wonder, caress each other, and live out the rest of their lives. Also, sometimes they must pull apart so that one of them can rail at the other, as Inuyasha now did, when he gripped Sesshomaru's shoulders and snarled at him through his tears: "Don't you DARE do that to me again, you big idiot! Don't you ever sacrifice yourself for me again, and don't die on me like that, ever!"
"I'll do my best not to die again," Sesshomaru responded dryly, yet affectionately.
Inuyasha glared at him, picked up the Tenseiga, and sheathed the sword before returning it to Sesshomaru.
"Yours," he said.
"Go and get your Tetsusaiga," Sesshomaru said.
"I don't want to leave your side. Come with me. Naraku and Hakudoshi don't seem to be coming back, but I'm not absolutely sure, so you are staying close to me."
Inuyasha slipped his left hand into Sesshomaru's right, pulled him to his feet, and moved across the room with him to retrieve his sword.
"How did you bring me back?" Sesshomaru asked. "I know I died. I felt the life leave my body."
"Tenseiga," Inuyasha said with a grateful smile. "Totosai told me that because Tenseiga is made to cut spirit, not flesh, it can cut through the spirits of the underworld who come to collect souls. I begged Father's spirit for permission to use your blade, and I saw them – the creatures from the underworld. I cut through them, they vanished, and you came back. It didn't work with Kikyo, though."
"The priestess is dead?" Sesshomaru asked, concerned.
Inuyasha nodded, overcome for a moment by the lump in his throat as he thought of his dearest friend. He explained with a catch in his voice: "Kanna and her mirror demon attacked the village. Kikyo died defending her grand-niece."
"I felt her spirit powers with me, protecting me from the worst of Naraku's acts," Sesshomaru revealed. "Because of her protection, he could not do as much to me as he had wanted to."
"Really?" Inuyasha asked, his eyes shining. "Kikyo helped you? It's just like her. She said her soul would be at rest, but her spirit and love would always be with me."
"And her spirit protected the one you love," Sesshomaru confirmed. "So I have been saved by your priestess' power, and by Father's sword."
He gazed at the Tenseiga in his hand with a new respect. "I suppose Father wanted me to live."
"You're such a moron. Of course Father wants you to live. Tenseiga didn't bring your arm back, though," Inuyasha said as he sheathed his own blade. He was sad about that, but not too mournful, for how did one arm compare with his beloved being alive and well?
"Naraku burnt the arm," Sesshomaru said. "I imagine that the sword, if it does what it does, only restores life and the wounds that were linked to the death of the one it brings back. Perhaps it does not restore older losses. So you are stuck with a deformed mate from here on."
"I don't care about that," Inuyasha whispered, nuzzling Sesshomaru's neck. "I only care that you'll be here for me to get stuck with."
"You'll be stuck with me for a long time," the demon lord replied, nuzzling Inuyasha's hair in turn, inhaling the wonderful scent of his mate, which came through clearly under the wild aromas of wind and battle, dragons and trees, sweat and blood, and the touch of enemies and friends, which filled that silver mane and told whole stories in themselves.
"Yes," Inuyasha agreed, drawing back now and glancing at their surroundings. "Although I'm not sure that we want to be stuck together down here. And we are kind of stuck. How do we get out without getting buried under a ton of rubble?"
"I believe I have recovered enough of my strength to use my poison again. There were openings to tunnels at the far end of this dungeon before those walls came down, were there not? Perhaps I can melt one of those walls."
~ - ~
Far above them, Lady Shirakumo's sensitive nose and keen spiritual senses perked up. She suddenly looked quite as insouciant as she always had before the moment when she sensed that her son was no longer of this world.
"My lady?" Totosai spoke in his gravelly voice as he noticed the change in her.
"Perfect."
"I beg your pardon?" the fire demon asked, puzzled.
"I said it was perfect," the dog demoness answered lightly, as she began walking elegantly down the corridor. "Everything is perfectly fine."
The others hurried after her, marvelling that she was now leading the way although she was even less familiar with the layout of this strange new part of the castle than Kagura and Natsumi were. Down the stairs she glided, and further down, until she stopped at a plain stone wall and sniffed it lightly before melting it down with poison from her claws.
"This way," she said, stepping through the large hole she had created. By now, all the others could detect the scents of Inuyasha and Sesshomaru, and Sesshomaru's poison. It was a sheer drop from there to the bottom, but they drifted down gently, Lady Shirakumo by her own power of flight while holding Natsumi, and Totosai on Kagura's feather.
Several crudely finished passageways lay before them, but they followed their noses down the right one, and arrived just as Sesshomaru finished melting down the wall of the chamber.
The brothers stepped towards the group of four, not quite knowing what to say now that they were all reunited. Sesshomaru bowed formally to his mother. She regarded him in silence for a few moments as he straightened his back again after the bow. Then to everyone's surprise, she reached a hand out and touched her son's face before putting her other hand up and drawing his head down to kiss his forehead.
She stepped back with a tiny smile, saying nothing, although she did not need to, for her uncharacteristic silence and actions spoke volumes.
Turning to Inuyasha, she kissed him on the cheek, whispered a quiet "Thank you for bringing my son back to us", and looked into the chamber the brothers had emerged from. She stepped into the room, followed by the rest.
The dog demoness examined the large space in silence for several minutes. When she opened her mouth again, her light tone told the others that she was back to her usual self.
"Those black ink lines are the magical markings Naraku has been using like doorways to move in and out of the walls. I may have sealed them with my magic sent through the stone, but that won't hold him and the other boy in there for very long."
"So we should reach in there, drag them out and seal them behind a proper barrier," Inuyasha said.
"We should," the lady agreed. "However, I can feel that Naraku has also added his own seals behind mine, almost certainly with the objective of preventing us from doing just what you have suggested. I can break through those… with just a little effort."
She pressed her palm to the stone and began to neutralise Naraku's shield.
"Well, there's no other way out for him, is there?" Inuyasha remarked. "Either he stays in there, or he comes out to face all of us."
Kagura was staring hard at the markings, looking as if she was trying to remember something. "These painted marks…" she began. "I think they lead to exits elsewhere…"
"What do you mean?" Inuyasha asked.
"I believe the Lady Kagura means that these magical marks indicate entryways to portals that can open somewhere else," Totosai rumbled. "The blue painting I made above Sesshomaru's bed has the potential to be used like that too, by myself, except that I never activated it, partly because I respected his privacy, but mainly because he would have killed me if I had popped my head into the bedroom without warning, would you not, Sesshomaru?"
"That blue painting is a portal?" Inuyasha gasped, blanching at the thought that their godfather could easily have peered in at him and Sesshomaru going at it like rabbits in the large bed.
"An unactivated one!" the fire demon reiterated. "I was able to sometimes send my voice, or certain scents, from my forge through the painting to Sesshomaru when he was a child, but I couldn't put myself through it without him opening the portal."
"Your father and I asked Totosai to paint something above the bed for decorative reasons, and I imbued it with a spell in case our enemies attacked the castle – we had countless enemies in the days when Sesshomaru was a pup," Lady Shirakumo explained slightly absently, as she focused on applying her powers to the stone. "In an emergency, should Sesshomaru be left alone and helpless, he was to activate the portal on his end so that Totosai could come through from his forge to help him."
"Fortunately, that was never necessary, so it remains dormant," Sesshomaru assured himself and Inuyasha.
"Kagura," Inuyasha addressed the wind demoness. "You're saying that these markings lead out to somewhere else?"
"I remember Naraku using things like these many years ago, as potential escape routes that would have more stability than normal magical portals which use temporary spells that constantly need renewing. But he stopped using them after some time because it was hard to activate them from the other end – someone at that other end is needed to open the exit, and it's never easy to arrange that."
"The exit would have similar markings then?" Sesshomaru asked.
"Yes," Kagura confirmed.
"These markings look so damn familiar," Inuyasha murmured. The next second, his huge golden eyes grew even bigger as he remembered where he had seen them before.
"Bloody hell – the paintings on the earthenware vessels that Naraku gave as gifts during his visit!" the prince exclaimed to Sesshomaru. "They have fine markings like these on them!"
"Where are those vessels now?" Kagura asked urgently.
"In my castle, in the north gallery," Sesshomaru answered.
"No one in the castle would open an exit for Naraku, would they?" Natsumi asked worriedly.
"I wouldn't have thought so," Lady Shirakumo murmured, touching one of the markings with a delicate hand. "But I fear that is exactly what has happened. However, I do have this little devil by the toe…"
As she said those words, she drew her hand back from the stone, apparently pulling something invisibly with it, until a foot emerged from the wall. She closed her fingers around it and hauled Hakudoshi out none too gently. With her other hand, she cast a swift spell on him which left him hanging limp in her grasp, upside-down, like a rabbit knocked out and picked up by a hunter.
"Unfortunately, his father has escaped. Naraku is no longer within these stones."
"Which means…" Inuyasha began.
"It means that he is inside my castle," Sesshomaru growled.
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The Tale of the Demon Lord