He should have known.
He should have foreseen that this would come to pass. That the half-breed would return to threaten his claim.
Bakusaiga is in his hands. Green and simmering, its blade runs the half-demon through, and he falls forward through the open window, into her arms.
Two sets of eyes stare up at him in horror. Yet he sees only her.
He has only ever seen her.
One of the gathered servants speaks.
“That’s him,” she declares. “That’s the strange man I saw Kagome-sama consorting with on the night of her return.”
His eyes seize upon the servant woman’s face. Blood scorches like fire through his veins, yet his voice is cool.
“Return?”
The woman cowers. When she and the others fail to answer, he advances upon them all.
Weaklings. Cowards. Pathetic, even for humans.
He thrusts Bakusaiga beneath the chin of a guard, though to use his sword upon such a creature would be a waste indeed.
“Speak,” he orders.
The guard’s jaw gapes soundlessly. Bakusaiga presses upward to persuade him.
“M-my lord,” the man gasps. “Kagome-sama was…was abducted during a burglary a few months back.”
Red heat bleeds into his eyes, seeps like the venom weeping from Bakusaiga’s virulent blade. The guard cries out in pain.
“Why was I not sent word of this?”
It is she who replies.
“Because they feared your anger,” she says. Her voice is toneless, empty. “They hoped I would be returned to the palace before you arrived, and so I have. Please, Sesshoumaru-sama, let them be.”
His sword lowers as he turns toward her, dismissing all else.
“Leave us,” he commands.
The crowd retreats. He holds her gaze, her eyes as dead and unblinking as the half-breed’s.
Months, the guard had said. Such a short time, but perhaps even a moment would have been enough.
Before him the years fall away, as though they had never been.
“So,” he forces himself to say, “you care for this half-breed.”
She looks down from him and embraces the corpse in her arms.
“Yes.”
Her confirmation hangs in the air between them, leaves no room for doubt. And yet—
“And yet you returned to me. Why?”
She regards him, as though uncertain herself. Her expression hardens. He imagines her heart does too.
“Because,” she forces herself to say, “I know my place.”
A tendril of satisfaction wends through him. It is a small consolation, to know that his efforts have not been entirely in vain.
He inclines his head. “It is well that you do.”
As Bakusaiga returns to its scabbard, Tenseiga thrums faintly at his side. He unsheathes it in question.
Blue light plays along the blade.
“Do you know this sword?”
“It’s Tenseiga,” she answers. “Your birthright.”
“A frivolous weapon,” he denounces. “Still, never before have I wielded it with regret.”
He draws closer to her, and to his fallen rival. Fate has brought them to a familiar place. In his mind, a scene of devastation rises up around them—alike, yet different.
And he wonders.
“What would you give me,” he asks her once again, “in exchange for the half-breed’s life?”
Her face crumples, in confusion and despair. She looks to him for help, but he has none to give her.
“What more could I give you, than what I already have?”
His smile is bitter, resigned. “Nothing, it seems.”
As Tenseiga restores the half-breed to life, he asks himself whose will it serves. As her gaze softens and the name of another leaves her lips, he asks himself the same.
Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi