"You lot look like you've been through the meat grinder."
Cu Chulainn leaned against a jagged outcrop, his gaze sweeping over the group huddled at the base of the mountain. Bandages were being wrapped, wounds were being cauterized, and the air was thick with the smell of iron and exhaustion.
He and his Master had arrived shortly after the summit's climax, finding a procession of legends limping and supporting one another like a defeated army.
"Shut up, Lancer!" Inuyasha snapped, though he winced as Kagome tightened a bandage around his upper arm.
"Don't move, Inuyasha. You've lost enough blood as it is," Kagome scolded gently.
Compared to the front-line fighters, those who had stayed at the mountain's base--Miroku, Sango, and Shippo--had fared much better. The army of youkai-demons they had been fighting had simply dissolved into ash the moment Muzan's core was disrupted, leaving them tired but largely unscathed.
"Kagome... thank you," Sango whispered, helping her friend with the dressing on her leg.
Sango could see the intent behind the wound. The Shikon Jewel hadn't just been aiming for a fragment; it had been a deliberate strike to cripple Kagome's mobility, ensuring she would be a liability if Kirinmaru decided to finish them off. With almost everyone on the brink of collapse, a single immobilized companion could have been the difference between a successful retreat and a massacre.
"Uuugh... what are we going to do?"
"Lord Jaken, stop that," Rin said, her voice bright despite the carnage.
"You fool! Don't you understand the gravity of our situation?" Jaken shouted, waving his arms frantically.
"Everyone's Dragon Balls have been stolen! Once Kirinmaru tracks down Naraku and takes the rest, his next target will be YOU! Lord Sesshomaru cannot face both his father and the Eastern King alone. It's impossible!"
Jaken tucked his hands into his sleeves, his confidence wavering. He worshipped Sesshomaru's strength, but even he wasn't blind to the mathematical reality of facing two Demon Lords at once.
"Hmm..."
Rin tilted her head, her face scrunched in thought. She understood Jaken's fear; she didn't want Sesshomaru to be in danger either.
"Jaken."
"Y-yes, my Lord!"
"Stop your senseless babbling."
The command was flat and cold, cutting through Jaken's panic like a razor. Sesshomaru stood several yards away, his back turned to the group.
'Lord Sesshomaru is as harsh as ever...' Jaken thought, hanging his head.
"Hehe..."
"What are you laughing at, Rin?" Jaken barked, turning his frustration on the girl. "Does my being scolded amuse you that much?!"
"No, Lord Jaken. I just think we're both worrying too much," Rin said, her feet dangling off the rock she was perched on.
"?" Jaken blinked, genuinely confused by her optimism.
"How could Lord Sesshomaru ever lose?" she asked simply. Her voice was filled with a trust so absolute it left Jaken speechless.
"Besides, I believe in Akame-san... and look at everyone here. We're all together, aren't we?"
"We can beat that Kirinmaru if we work together!"
Jaken looked around at the assembled group. Four legendary Servants. A dozen seasoned warriors. Toga might be a powerhouse, but his heart wasn't in the fight.
'Maybe she's right,' Jaken thought, a faint spark of hope igniting in his chest. 'The era of the solitary Demon Lord is ending. Now, it's a time of alliances. We can do this!'
"Tch. Sesshomaru... what's the plan?"
Inuyasha looked up from the ground, his voice heavy. "Without a proper sword, you can't go toe-to-toe with the old man and that bastard Kirinmaru. You going to crawl back to Totosai and beg for a replacement?"
Inuyasha knew his brother hadn't given up. But the [Tenseiga] wasn't a weapon of destruction, and bare hands wouldn't break the scales of a King.
"Hmph. You don't need to concern yourself with my affairs, half-demon," Sesshomaru replied. "And you can rest assured... I will never have need of the [Tessaiga] again."
He looked down at his left hand--the one that had been burnt and blackened by the [Tessaiga]'s rejection. It was already beginning to heal.
Thump-thump.
Sesshomaru could feel it. A rhythmic pulsing within his core, a surge of demonic energy that had been dormant for centuries.
He realized now that the [Tessaiga] had been a curse disguised as a legacy. Pursuing his father's blade had been an admission that he was merely a "successor"--a shadow following a greater light. Whether it was the [So'unga] or the [Tessaiga], those swords were the glory of the old era.
But Sesshomaru was a creature of the now.
He didn't need to inherit a legend. He was going to be one. He was Sesshomaru, and he was going to surpass the Great Dog Demon.
"!"
"What is that...?"
A sudden, violent eruption of emerald energy exploded from Sesshomaru, a pillar of light that reached toward the grey morning sky.
Everyone fell silent, their eyes wide as they witnessed something impossible. Within the swirling vortex of light, Sesshomaru's missing left arm began to manifest--not as a spectral limb, but as real, living flesh and bone.
"His arm..." Jaken's jaw dropped so far it hit the dirt.
"Is this...?" Rikuo stared, the sheer weight of the aura making his skin prickle. It was a level of "Fear" and "Presence" he had rarely felt since the age of legends.
WHOOSH.
As the light faded, Sesshomaru stood with both arms intact. In his left hand, he gripped a new blade--a magnificent, ornate katana that hummed with a devastating, hungry power.
"[Bakusaiga]!!"
The flea demon, Myoga, shouted from Inuyasha's shoulder, his voice trembling with awe.
"To think... to think I would live to see the day it manifested!"
Totosai had once mentioned the possibility, but no one had truly expected it to happen like this.
The [Bakusaiga] (Explosive Crushing Fang).
It was the sword sesshomaru didn't inherit from his father, but rather the sword he had forged from his own soul. It was proof that he had finally severed his obsession with the past and his father's legacy.
His father had known. That was why Toga had never intended for Sesshomaru to have the [Tessaiga] or the [So'unga]. He knew that as long as Sesshomaru looked to the past, he would never find the god-killing power that lay dormant within his own core.
The moment the [Bakusaiga] appeared, the era of the Great Dog Demon truly ended. Sesshomaru had surpassed his father.
"That aura..." Miroku muttered, his hand going to his [Wind Tunnel]. Even with the sword sheathed, the air around Sesshomaru felt as though it were being shredded.
Sesshomaru looked down at the blade, ignoring the stares of his companions. He had made a promise to his father, and soon, he would keep it.
He would find Kirinmaru. And he would break him.
Hmph.
Mid-flight, the Great Dog Demon glanced back toward the mountain where his sons remained. For a fleeting heartbeat, he felt a surge of resonance--a new, magnificent energy blooming on the summit. He smiled, a look of profound satisfaction on his face.
"Something the matter?" Kirinmaru asked, his eyes narrowing as he noted the change in his companion's mood.
"I can't feel their presence anymore," Toga replied casually. "They must have finally understood that the peak is no place for them."
Kirinmaru didn't question it, his focus returning to the hunt for Naraku.
"They're hiding in the Jewel's core, aren't they?" Kirinmaru mused, slowing his pace as they reached a desolate valley. "A desperate move."
"Perhaps they think they can outlast us," Toga added.
"Hmph. There are a thousand ways to tear a dimension open. If they won't come out, I'll simply drag them out through the Path of the Netherworld."
Toga remained silent. He would do nothing to help Kirinmaru find them. Every minute he stalled was a minute his sons had to recover and prepare.
"It seems your calculations weren't quite as perfect as you'd hoped, Naraku."
"Kirinmaru and the Dog Demon didn't finish them off. They just let them walk away."
Inside the infinite void of the Shikon Jewel, the spirit within the humanoid shell sat on a throne of bone, mocking the floating head of Naraku.
"Hmph. It doesn't matter," Naraku replied, his voice calm and detached.
"The more complex the plan, the more variables you have to account for. Perfection is an illusion."
"Is that why you've ended up like this?" the Jewel spirit asked with a cruel grin. "Reduced to a head, hideing in my shadow?"
"This is merely a stage in my evolution," Naraku explained, his tone devoid of any emotion.
"Every effort up to this point has been a necessary ritual. I seek to be the vessel for the ultimate malady."
He looked at the three Dragon Balls floating in the void around them.
'Is this all just a meaningless ceremony?' Naraku wondered privately.
He had spent his entire existence searching for the Jewel to grant his one true wish--to possess the heart of Kikyo. But deep down, he knew the truth. A wish granted by a gem was not love; it was just a mimicry.
If the Jewel couldn't even grant a simple human desire like that, then the Great Demons were right to treat it with contempt.
"You discarded your human heart and realized it wasn't enough... so you tried to take it back, and that failed too," the Jewel spirit sneered.
"Now you're betting everything on a wish. How pathetic and small you are."
"But don't worry. I will fulfill your other wish... even if you aren't around to see how it ends."
The Jewel spirit laughed, its body shifting and warping as it began to integrate the biological mimicry it had stolen from Muzan.
Muzan's evolution and Naraku's malice were a perfect match.
"ORAAGORRRHH!!"
A sound of absolute, monstrous joy erupted from the Jewel, a scream that signaled the birth of something the world had never seen.
"The strongest youkai... is about to be born!!"
"Typical Naraku."
"He spends his life treating us like puppets, and even after 'dying,' he still leaves orders."
In a dark cavern far from the group, Byakuya of the Illusions sat on a rock, watching Kanna as she stared blankly at her mirror.
"Are we really doing this now?" Byakuya asked with a sigh. "We should wait for the final battle. We stand no chance against that group as we are."
Kanna didn't answer. She simply began to walk toward the cave entrance.
"I know, I know. 'Prepare,'" Byakuya muttered, following her.
He didn't care about Naraku's goals anymore. To him, life and death were just shades of the same grey. But if he was going to die, he was going to do it with a bit of style.
The final command Naraku had left them was simple: In the heat of the final battle, force Kagome or Kikyo into a fatal choice.
He wanted their souls. He wanted to trap them in the Jewel forever, ensuring that even if he lost, they would never be free.
"He truly is a piece of work, isn't he? Even in the end, he won't let the living find peace."
"Tch! Rikuo, again!!"
"Are you sure? Your wounds are still open," Rikuo said, his concern audible as he watched Inuyasha struggle to lift the [Tessaiga].
"We don't have time!"
"I have to master it. If I had been able to use it properly back then... we wouldn't have been so helpless."
Inuyasha's chest was wrapped in bloody bandages, but his eyes were burning with a desperate, new fire.
The summit had taught him one thing: his current level wasn't enough to protect what he loved. He needed more. He needed to be stronger than a King.
[Translated and Rewritten by Shika_Kagura]