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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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XLVI: Strength In Numbers
Inuyasha had been raring to go and destroy Naraku the moment Sesshomaru and the Tenseiga had revived all who could be saved in the healing rooms – until Totosai remarked that it would be best for those brought back to life to remain in the rooms, because Tenseiga could be used only once on a person.
That was when the prince's fears for Sesshomaru returned in full force, and he took his brother aside to try and make him stay with the recovered soldiers while he, Lady Shirakumo and Totosai went after the spider lord.
Unsurprisingly, Sesshomaru refused firmly, saying: "Don't be afraid for me – I won't allow myself to be killed by Naraku again."
Inuyasha did not want the soldiers to know that Sesshomaru had died once already, so he could not argue back, and had little option but to hurry after Sesshomaru when the demon lord strode out of the healing rooms, towards the throne room.
What they found there was complete chaos.
Despite the best efforts of the commanding officers, the areas around the throne room, indoors and outdoors, were in upheaval when Sesshomaru, Inuyasha, Lady Shirakumo and Totosai entered the wide hallway of the castle that morning.
They could hardly blame the soldiers or their officers. A foreign lord was ensconced in their king's throne room with prisoners, and their magical security experts were unable to break the barriers around the room. Their ministers were sealed up elsewhere, and all attempts to batter, claw, kick or hack their way through the closed doors and shuttered windows had failed.
Worse, they had heard rumours that their lord had been maimed and seized by the one who had invaded their castle, that their prince had gone to his rescue but surely would only be following him to his death, and all was lost. Naraku's shocking appearance in the castle only added strength to those rumours.
Thus, when the royal family entered the hallway, a hush swept like a wave over the assembled demons, washing over those nearest to them, spreading towards the grand entrance of the castle, then gradually outdoors, where other soldiers were beating against the walls and windows of the throne room.
This hush was succeeded by a silence so pure that for a few seconds it sounded as if they were standing in an empty hallway. Then pandemonium broke out again, but it was a different chaos this time, one of relief and excitement, as the soldiers and guards saw with their own eyes that Sesshomaru and Inuyasha were not lost forever, but standing proud and tall before them again.
Sesshomaru's demon-silk clothing had repaired itself swiftly once the spells on him wore off, and by the time he had stepped into the portal, his white robes were pristine, free of the ghastly bloodstains and large gashes that had marred their appearance. With his long sleeves hanging down, most of the demons present did not even notice at first that his left arm was missing.
"How long has it been since Naraku barricaded himself in the throne room?" Sesshomaru's voice rang out low and clear through the grand hallway. "How many of our people has he taken prisoner?"
"It has been half-an-hour since he put up the barrier, my lord," the head of security replied, stepping forward. "He has your head attendant, the wolf-demon healer, the art gallery custodian and one child who was not with the rest who escaped into the forest. There may be more hostages, as the housekeepers tell us that one girl, Morio's daughter, is missing, but we cannot confirm that. My best magical security experts have been working on the barrier with no success. It is very powerful."
"Naraku's barriers are indeed powerful," Lady Shirakumo agreed. "But having been given some inside knowledge about how he constructs his magical spells, I believe I may have a better idea than the rest of you how to break his shields down."
The lady glided to the great door of the throne room, examined the barrier that made it more than a mere physical block, and touched the tip of one claw lightly to it before tracing strange symbols on the wood. What exactly she was doing, Inuyasha had little idea, but she appeared to be undoing, unlocking and neutralising invisible components, one after another, in lines and rows and circles.
All he knew was that it worked, because the barrier suddenly flickered, then dispersed. Lady Shirakumo stepped back, and the security officers and soldiers forced the great doors open.
The sight that greeted their eyes was both fully expected and startling at the same time.
Naraku was seated quietly on Sesshomaru's throne, a calm smile on his face. His primary body was dwarfed by the sea of tentacles that almost filled the room. At the tips of several of those secondary limbs were his prisoners.
Satoshi was forced into a crouched, kneeling posture beside the throne, on the floor of the dais. Isshin struggled to breathe within coils of unyielding muscle which crushed him against the wall to the spider lord's left. The terrified art gallery custodian was pinned to the floor by another appendage which extended the length of the room. A girl from the housekeeping department, Mamoru's sister, was unconscious in the ruthless embrace of another of Naraku's bizarre false arms. And the fox-demon child with the bright green eyes whom Inuyasha had patted and comforted on previous occasions was sobbing, dangling upside-down by his tail high in the air, held almost up to the ceiling by a long tentacle which gave him a vicious jerk every few seconds to make him yelp for Naraku's entertainment.
"Bad boy," Naraku purred at Inuyasha. "You really tried to kill me back there. You truly don't want me, do you?"
"If you were the last living creature in the world I'd still drown myself before accepting you," Inuyasha snapped.
"Such a pity. We could have had a wonderful life together. But as you won't have it, I'll have to destroy all of you with my puppet friends."
"Puppet friends…?" Inuyasha wondered aloud, only to find out what Naraku meant when he thrust his arms out from his body and abruptly became five Narakus all at once.
"Puppet magic!" Lady Shirakumo exclaimed softly, gliding back out of the throne room and drawing the others with her as an ocean of tentacles came after them.
"What the hell just happened?" Inuyasha demanded, as the guards who had previously worked so hard to force the doors and windows open now held them shut, trying to keep the hideous things at bay while their leaders hastily organised a strategy to deal with the nightmare.
"The real Naraku has puppets concealed within his being, and each of them can project an exact replica of him, down to his scent and aura, fully capable of everything he is," the lady explained briefly. "If you destroy one, you only destroy the puppet – the only way to end this is to kill the original."
"Which we cannot identify among that mass of limbs," Sesshomaru growled.
"We'll just have to kill all of them!" Inuyasha declared.
"Officers!" Sesshomaru gave his orders. "Divide your soldiers among the replicas of the enemy. The puppets will be easier to kill off than the real Naraku – sever the head or destroy the chest, and they should vanish! Go!"
The soldiers let go of the doors and windows, and Naraku and his replicas exploded from the throne room, scattering across the castle grounds in all directions. Each held one hostage.
"Soldiers! Into five groups!" the general of the castle forces bellowed. "Leave none of these replicas unchallenged! Protect our people!"
Sesshomaru, Inuyasha, Totosai and Lady Shirakumo themselves flew into action, each one pursuing a Naraku and leaving the fifth one to the guards who had gone after it.
Sesshomaru sprang after the one who had seized his attendant, Isshin, and found himself having to hack and whip with precision around the dog demon, for this Naraku was using his hostage very effectively as a shield.
"Never mind me, my lord," Isshin gasped breathlessly.
"Shut up, Isshin," Sesshomaru snarled, before sailing over the heads of the soldiers on the ground and hacking clean through the tentacle that held the loyal servant. He hauled him out of the toxic fumes towards the soldiers with some difficulty as he had only one arm to use for both rescuing him and wielding his sword. The soldiers then cleared a path for him, and he flew straight through the mass of tentacles to hack off the head of the enemy with the armoury sword.
The replica evaporated into thin air, proving what Sesshomaru had suspected from the moment he had succeeded in freeing Isshin: this was not the real Naraku, because he had been far too easy to tackle.
"Get out of here," Sesshomaru ordered Isshin, before flying across the grounds towards the next tower of tentacles.
Inuyasha, meanwhile, had gone after the Naraku who had the child in his grasp. He had not wanted to separate from Sesshomaru, fearing that he would lose his brother again, but the little fox demon was so petrified that he had to get to him at once. By the time this Naraku had flown out into the open field near the wing holding the staff rooms, the child was in shock, and his wails were emerging from his mouth in jerky little gulps.
"Your weakness has always been your concern for others," the Naraku before him sneered. "I could have given you power and strength by teaching you how to put yourself first."
"Don't need to learn that sort of shit!" Inuyasha snapped, before chopping the spider demon's body in half.
Damn, he'd missed the chest, and still didn't know if this was a puppet or the real Naraku. And the child was dangling in the way of the spider demon's head, right over the toxic miasma spewing from below.
"Don't hack at those things any more – the child's too young to handle the poison!" Inuyasha warned the soldiers with him.
In an impulsive but ultimately effective move, the prince sprang onto one of the tentacles and launched himself off it high above the demon's head where, predictably, about twenty tentacles rose into the air after him. He planted his boots on a big, thick one and rode it downwards, using it to shield himself from the other appendages, then thrust his sword deep into the demon's head. It vanished in a cloud of toxic fumes, leaving Inuyasha to catch the child, cover him with the lapel of his robe, and leap clear of the poison.
"Get him to a safe place!" Inuyasha yelled to one of the soldiers as he tossed the boy into his arms.
Then he bounded across the next three fields in great leaps until his nose and then his eyes told him that he had reached the scene of a battle with another of the Narakus. To his relief, he was swiftly joined by Sesshomaru, who had come looking for him.
They had arrived not a moment too soon, for Lady Shirakumo, tired from having used so much of her magic here and at Naraku's castle, was flagging under the onslaught of the advancing tentacles, relying on the soldiers with her to keep her in one piece while she wielded her poison whip.
"Mother!" Sesshomaru called, swooping in and lifting her out of the tangle of limbs. "Leave this to us."
"You haven't recovered yet," she protested, annoyed at finding herself picked up like a child by her own son.
"I've recovered enough," he said, depositing her in the care of a posse of guards just as Inuyasha launched himself at the Naraku with Mamoru's sister in his grasp. Sesshomaru flew at the spider demon a moment after, armoury blade flashing. Together, they made quick work of this replica and caught the falling girl, who remained unconscious.
"Get her to the healers!" Inuyasha ordered, springing towards the next battle with his brother beside him.
Only two of the Narakus were left – the one holding Satoshi, and the one with the art gallery custodian. More soldiers were clustered around both of the enemies now that the other three had been eliminated. Others joined them, as the security staff had at last succeeded in freeing the two ministers and their guards from the administration wing, using the technique Lady Shirakumo had shown them earlier.
"If I were to think the way Naraku would think, I suspect the real one would hold on to the prettier hostage – Satoshi looks a hell of a lot better than the gallery guy, so it'll be the one with him," Inuyasha murmured to Sesshomaru. "I thought it would be the one with Isshin, as he's good-looking, but maybe he likes the look of Satoshi better?"
Sesshomaru, turning his head fractionally towards Inuyasha as they sped towards the two remaining foes in the field behind the administration wing, demanded: "So you think both the wolf and Isshin look good?"
"For pity's sake, don't start that now," Inuyasha groaned. "You're the bloody best looking of the lot even with one arm, okay? Now can we get on with killing these spiders?"
"Fine," Sesshomaru replied, taking to the air and flying straight at the Naraku with Satoshi, who was being tackled by Totosai and a host of guards.
"I think this is the real one," Totosai warbled in an indiscreet whisper to Sesshomaru as his godson flew past his head.
"You believe I'm the genuine article, do you?" the Naraku towering above them sneered, applying a crushing grip to Satoshi.
"Guards, all of you – help your comrades destroy the other Naraku and rescue the gallery custodian!" Inuyasha ordered. "Leave this one to us!"
"You too, little prince?" the Naraku before him laughed. "You think I'm the real one? You do know me well, don't you? You should have chosen me as your mate."
"Shut your mouth," Sesshomaru snarled, sniffing the air to look for differences in scent between this one and the others. It was no good. They all seemed identical.
"Maybe I shouldn't bother saving the wolf, as you think he looks good," Sesshomaru muttered to Inuyasha as they sailed past one another towards the main body of the Naraku before them.
"Bloody hell, Sesshomaru!" Inuyasha grunted. "Don't think I don't know that you used to take Isshin into your bed. Do I begrudge you going after him first of all the hostages?"
Satoshi was in great pain, but retained enough of a sense of humour to groan when they reached him: "Please either save me or kill me quickly – this is torture!"
"You're telling me!" Totosai grumbled, finding a path clear now to blast a stream of fire at the Naraku they faced.
The demon shrieked in pain, but did not disintegrate, and was so intent on protecting his head and chest from the blades flashing at him that Satoshi was in serious danger of being minced.
Totosai's mallet whirled into the mix, slamming several tentacles aside with one powerful blow and allowing Inuyasha to nip in, swing the Tetsusaiga and sever the limb gripping Satoshi. Sesshomaru flew in, caught the wolf demon, and bore him to safety.
He set him down on the grass a good distance away, glared once into his too-good-looking face, and charged back into the fray.
"I'm going over there!" Totosai yelled to the brothers. "If those guards take any longer to get rid of that one, it will be nightfall before we determine that this one is the real Naraku!"
But as Totosai swung hard at the spider demon who held the gallery custodian, and the brothers attacked the one they had just freed Satoshi from, successfully decapitating them, both bodies vanished in billows of toxic fumes, leaving them with the sickening realisation that they had been tricked once again.
None of the Narakus they had battled out in the fields had been the real one.
"Where is he?" Inuyasha wondered frantically. "We didn't miss one, did we? There were five, weren't there?"
"We must have been fooled from the start," Lady Shirakumo glided up to them to say in an unbelievably calm manner, considering the situation. "Naraku was inside that throne room for a good half-hour, at least. From the moment he closed himself up inside, out of sight, he must have created another puppet. Especially if it was one with all its tentacles extended to fill the room and confuse the hostages as they were seized and passed from one limb to another, then the real Naraku, much smaller with all his secondary limbs retracted, could have easily slipped behind a camouflaging barrier to hide from everyone's eyes. The chaos that erupted when he replicated the first puppet and they broke out of the castle in every direction would have distracted us sufficiently to leave the real one unnoticed. We never talked to the real Naraku in the throne room."
"And the air is now filled with his scent thanks to all the poison fumes!" Inuyasha yelled in frustration. "Where the devil is he?"
"Patience," Sesshomaru said, stilling himself and sending out his senses to find a trace of Naraku more distinct than everything filling all the fields around the castle. "Use your nose and your spiritual senses."
A minute later, Sesshomaru was taking flight, bearing Inuyasha with him.
"Oh no," Inuyasha whispered as he too caught the scent and aura, coming from the forest patch. "Oh no, no… not Bokusen'o!"
But it was indeed Bokusen'o that the real Naraku had gone after, having spent the time in the throne room feeling out his surroundings and picking out the faint signs of a peculiar demon power to the south of the castle structure, far out in the sprawling grounds.
"You're the one I didn't count on," Naraku was saying to the tree demon as the brothers sped towards the forest patch. "You… a tree demon… that's how the prince got his shard out without it killing him. Oh, what I could do with powers such as yours…"
Inuyasha panicked, knowing how worn out Bokusen'o was from sending his root through so many miles of earth to the village to save him. He would not have the strength to… no, no, no!
Even as he screamed that desperate denial in his heart and Sesshomaru flew at top speed towards the little piece of forest, they saw Naraku sprout a massive bank of tentacles which slammed with full force into the tree demon and poured gallons of poison into his trunk, which creaked, tore, split and finally broke apart.
"Bokusen'o, NO!" Inuyasha screamed, springing to the ground between his godfather and Naraku, and swinging the Tetsusaiga hard at the spider demon, tearing a mighty scar across the earth and through the air away from the forest patch. Half of Naraku's tentacles were ripped off his body, but he had dodged the main blow.
"Naraku, you piece of filth!" Sesshomaru roared, slashing at the spider demon with his poison whip to drive him away from the forest patch, preventing him from absorbing Bokusen'o's powers.
As the brothers rained furious blows on Naraku, Totosai and Lady Shirakumo rushed to the fallen tree demon, and detected no life in the toppled trunk.
"My old friend…" Totosai murmured.
Lady Shirakumo placed her hand reverently on the bark of the snapped trunk, and whispered: "Old one, not you… not like this…"
"You bastard!" Inuyasha bellowed, charging in so recklessly at Naraku that he almost overbalanced and fell straight into the tentacles waiting for him. But he righted himself just in time to escape and launch another assault on their tricky foe.
Sesshomaru swooped in from the same direction, forcing Naraku further out into the field, away from the forest. Perhaps if they gave his mother space and time, she could somehow save Bokusen'o. Or maybe they could use Tenseiga… but would the sword work on a tree demon? Was Bokusen'o too old? Tenseiga had not revived the priestess Kikyo…
Inuyasha let rip another mighty blow from the Tetsusaiga, careful to aim away from the castle. He shredded Naraku's body this time, but to his dismay, as the ribbons of flesh scattered and then regathered in the air, he saw Naraku's beating heart, whole and undamaged, swiftly being reabsorbed by the rest of the body coming together.
"There!" Inuyasha pointed out the spot to Sesshomaru, who thrust his armoury blade at the target, only to be disappointed when Naraku contorted his body and moved his heart away.
"Everything I want…" the torn mouth of the spider demon was saying to Sesshomaru as it joined up along its ragged seams. "Everything I want is here, belonging to you! Why does it all belong to you?"
"You're a greedy lump of scum, Naraku," Sesshomaru hissed. "You have always had so much – clever and beautiful children, your princedom, your people – but they were never enough for you – you always had to lust after what someone else had!"
"It will all be mine!" the spider lord declared, spewing a shocking blaze of poison from his mouth like a nightmarishly thick and long spider's web filament, separating the brothers. Sacrificing four of his tentacles, he snatched at the Tetsusaiga's blade with two of them and at the armoury sword with another two. This damaged his limbs badly, but he succeeded in lifting the Tetsusaiga and the armoury sword up along with the dog demons gripping their hilts. To Sesshomaru's frustration, the armoury blade was not strong enough to withstand the force Naraku was exerting on it, and as it bent out of shape, he was forced to release it and watch Naraku absorb it into his body.
Another long limb made to lash around the prince's form, but Inuyasha wrenched the Tetsusaiga free, slashing through the two tentacles holding the blade. However, he was unable to avoid the approaching appendage which smacked smartly against the flat of the blade and sent it flying away from him.
"You changed when you lost your sword the last time. Let's see you take your gorgeous demon shape again, shall we?" Naraku taunted, reaching for Inuyasha with every one of his terrifying, snake-like limbs.
As Inuyasha backed away, hacking at the tentacles with his claws, Sesshomaru dived for the Tetsusaiga, lodged in the ground not far from him. He uttered a silent prayer to the gods to and to his father, almost the same way Inuyasha had prayed for permission to use the Tenseiga, even though he had known nothing of the desperation of his brother's plea to their father's spirit.
Father, I covet this sword no more, but I beg you to allow me to wield it in my brother's defence – please, Father. For him, not for me…
To his relief, as he seized the hilt of the sword, it did not burn him fiercely as it had in the past, and did not reject him, but flared to life. It allowed him to wield it as he flew between Inuyasha and Naraku, and swung so powerful a blow at Naraku that the spider lord was once again shredded.
"Have you got his heart this time?" Inuyasha called.
"Damn it, no!" Sesshomaru snarled, seeing the body reform again.
Was there no end to the spider lord's regenerative ability? It seemed not, for Naraku had so many souls, bodies and powers absorbed into his compound being that he was able to draw on each of those stolen strengths, one after the other, in order to heal his wounds. How many hundreds of demons were inside him? Was that how many times they would have to tear him apart to keep him down? Could they last that long?
"Use the Tetsusaiga again – you can deliver much stronger blows than I can!" Inuyasha told his brother.
"No, Inuyasha," Sesshomaru said, returning the blade to his brother at once. "The sword is yours."
"But you're unarmed!"
"I have the Tenseiga, remember?"
"Which can't cut Naraku!"
"No, but perhaps it can clear out some of the souls inside him!"
With that, Sesshomaru drew Tenseiga and launched himself in a streak of white lightning at Naraku, slashing at and through him to get at whatever inside him was a stolen soul or borrowed spirit.
Naraku howled with rage as he felt several of the powers he had stolen from others die as their spirits were dispersed by the fang that could cut no flesh. "Wretched dog!" he shrieked, wrapping a raft of tentacles around Sesshomaru's body, until Inuyasha could barely see his brother, save for the locks of silver hair spilling out from between the coils of the terrible limbs.
"You will NOT hurt him again!" Inuyasha bellowed, flying at the spider lord and splitting his main body in half, an easier task now that so many of those limbs were occupied with Sesshomaru.
The Tetsusaiga, alas, was too hefty a sword to efficiently probe Naraku's body for his heart, and Inuyasha found himself hacking away as if wielding an axe – a blunt instrument in search of one tiny object.
"Why won't you just die?" he grunted furiously, plunging his blade through the body again, without finding its hoped-for target.
Then new tentacles grew, and he had to dodge them and leap away. He was about to jump in again to try and free Sesshomaru when a stunning blaze of white light bloomed within the tentacles holding the demon lord. To everyone's amazement, Naraku's tentacles crumbled away like dust from Sesshomaru's form, and the great dog demon sprang free, holding not one sword but two – in two whole, perfect arms.
Inuyasha's jaw dropped. Sesshomaru's lost arm had returned… along with a strange new sword no one had ever seen before, an elegant length of shining demon metal and a perfectly formed hilt of a mysterious wood-and-metal-like substance. What was more, that new sword was destroying every part of Naraku's body that it had touched – and those portions in turn ravaged the parts they were connected to.
Naraku gasped as he realised what was happening. With his own hands, he severed all his affected tentacles to stop the rot.
Sesshomaru flew at him once more with his new sword before him, and Naraku met him with more tentacles to keep him away from his primary body, sacrificing those again by tearing them off at their roots before the devastation could spread to his core.
"Damn you, dog!" the spider demon growled, generating yet more tentacles to keep him at bay.
Inuyasha saw his chance. He drove a vicious blast of the Tetsusaiga's demonic energy straight at Naraku, careful to avoid Sesshomaru, and shattered what remained of the spider lord's body. Sesshomaru spotted the exposed heart and flew straight at it, only to be blocked by one of Naraku's previously absorbed demon bodies, which sprang out from one of the shredded pieces of flesh.
The new sword laid waste to that form, and to another, and to another, each one throwing itself between Naraku's heart and the dangerous new blade.
"He's got too many beings inside him!" Inuyasha called. "They're endless!"
"NO! IT ENDS NOW!" boomed a shockingly loud voice from behind the brothers, stunning everyone within a mile of the forest patch.
Sesshomaru and Inuyasha leaped clear of Naraku and gained a safe distance before turning in astonishment towards where Bokusen'o had fallen earlier, only to see the incredible sight of their tree-demon godfather erect and in one piece again, looking stronger than he ever had before. Totosai and Lady Shirakumo stared up at him with equal wonder.
"Bokusen'o… and the sacred tree?" Inuyasha gasped, hardly able to believe his eyes, for there before him was his tree-demon godfather with a strange glow about him – a mysterious glow in which Inuyasha seemed to see the shape of the sacred tree from the village. And deep within the brightest part of that incomprehensible aura was a lithe figure of great beauty, a vision Inuyasha had not seen in at least thirty years.
Kikyo. Kikyo in her prime, in her youth, whose striking loveliness had won the favour of humans and demons alike, and even of the gods, for all he knew. Kikyo's spirit, right there with the holy tree and Bokusen'o, merging them, giving them strength, giving them harmony.
Legend became reality as the figure of the beautiful priestess, like that of the priestess of myth, sent up from her delicate hands a rainbow of shards – not the evil glass shards of Kanna's mirror, but the pure shards of the ancient sacred jewel whose story had passed into tales that for thousands of years had seemed like nothing more than fantasy.
As Naraku's reforming body watched with horror, the two blended trees gathered the sacred shards up in their branches and fired them in a hailstorm of crystal at the spider lord. The countless shards ripped through Naraku, causing him agonies of pain like the horror he had felt when the holy tree had ended his attempt to violate the young Kikyo, only this was multiplied by a thousand times. The crystal needles pulverised his flesh, purifying him in a million pinpoints of pain that seemed to his dying being to last forever, shooting through all his multiple forms at once, firing through his heart, his limbs, his head, shattering his bones and crushing his eyes, turning every inch of his compound body into ashes. Purified ashes. Ashes so pure and fine that they dispersed like powder in a storm.
The shards then flew like a million drops of the purest rainwater towards the horizon in every direction, scattering throughout the world again as people said they had done tens of thousands of years ago, seeking evil bodies and souls to turn to good, and finding living creatures everywhere to impart wisdom to. Like the demon lord who, not so long ago, had felt a pure and mysterious pain needling his heart when he had tried to damage the brother he eventually came to love, those touched by the new burst of these sacred shards would have a chance to change themselves for the better.
Inuyasha stared at Naraku's dispersing ashes, purified forever. Then he slowly turned to gaze at Bokusen'o, alive and well, with the halo-like vision of the tree sacred to the gods around him, and Kikyo's spirit in the heart of that vision. The beautiful priestess was looking at him with a smile of such peace and contentment that for as long as he lived, Inuyasha's heart would always be warmed whenever he saw that smile in his memory.
Then the vision of the sacred tree and the priestess faded, and only Bokusen'o remained, standing tall and mighty once more.
Inuyasha rushed up to his godfather and wrapped his arms around his trunk, pressing his face to the bark and whispering: "I thought you were dead… I was so afraid… I'm so glad you're all right."
"That root of mine is still at the village," Bokusen'o explained. "The tree sacred to the gods was able to lend me its power, and heal me along with the spirit of your priestess, who gave us the ancient shards."
"How? I don't understand," Inuyasha murmured, hardly caring what the explanation was. He only knew that Bokusen'o was well, Sesshomaru was well, Kikyo was at peace, they were all fine.
"I once speculated that the tree sacred to the gods must have acquired its power and holy aura because it had been touched by a shard of the sacred jewel long ago," the tree demon spoke. "I thought it mere legend, but perhaps legends are born in truth. Perhaps the spirit of your priestess, who was always so close to the tree, was able to turn the shard within the tree into many shards. Maybe it was like the mirror shards' ability to replicate, only this was for good, not for evil."
"I'm just so happy you're alive," Inuyasha said.
Then he turned around and reached out for Sesshomaru's perfect new fingers.
"Before you ask how this happened, I had better declare that I do not know," the demon lord stated, caressing his brother's hair with his other hand.
"I know," Totosai said smugly, looking very impressed with Sesshomaru's new arm and sword.
"Well?" Inuyasha demanded.
"Your new sword was born of your own demon power, Sesshomaru," their fire demon godfather explained. "The natural magical process of forming that sword also made the rest of your body whole, allowing you to regrow your arm. It was prompted by your readiness to return the Tetsusaiga to your brother even in the heat of battle, proving once and for all that you have acknowledged the sword as his, and no longer require it to make the most of yourself. That was when your full powers were unlocked, and those powers have given you an exquisite blade of your own. If it had taken you a hundred years to fully yield the Tetsusaiga to your brother, then it would have taken a hundred years to grow your new arm and sword; but because you reached this stage so soon after losing your arm, you have been rewarded by not having to live too long with a missing limb. You need no longer rely on your father's power, for you have exceeded his strength."
Sesshomaru absorbed the information with dignity, as always, but that dignity was tinged by a delicate new humility. He thanked Totosai for his guidance, and Bokusen'o for all he had done for them. He bowed formally to both his godfathers and his mother, then turned to Inuyasha.
"I'd still have liked you with one arm, you know," the half-demon whispered playfully.
"I know. But I'm glad to have two, so I can hold you better."
He slipped both his arms around Inuyasha and drew him into an embrace of the kind they had not enjoyed in the longest time – a hold of comfort and pure love in a safe place, in the heart of security and peace.
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The Tale of the Demon Lord