“…So, another ‘dead end’ then,” the Lady of the Western Lands surmised, setting down her teacup with a definitive click.

Inuyasha’s ears went as flat as Sesshoumaru’s expression. Across from them, Ryouken shifted at her shoulder, careful to avoid his cousin’s flinty gaze. The phrase ‘dead end’ was a modern one—one which Sesshoumaru’s mother had appropriated from Inuyasha, and ultimately from Kagome herself. To hear her own words turned back upon her rankled the demon lord in a way he could not place.

“Yes,” he said shortly, the faint crinkle at the corners of Inukimi’s eyes acknowledging his agitation.

Smoothing, they slanted toward his half-demon brother instead. “Inuyasha,” she said, the hanyou tensing at her direct address, “will you fetch me some more tea?”

Shoulders rigid, Inuyasha rose warily from the cushion upon which he sat, his tension not abating in the slightest as he took up the empty cup from the table between them and slunk across the terrace to refill it. Had Sesshoumaru given him a similar command, the cantankerous hanyou would have launched into an explosive tirade. It was clear to the daiyoukai that Inuyasha held a singular and powerful apprehension toward their late father’s mate—an apprehension which Inukimi clearly found amusing. Golden eyes alight, she followed him as he retraced his steps, a little of the pale green tea sloshing onto the lacquered wood as he dropped the cup and returned stiffly to his seat. Taking a sip, she regarded him levelly over the rim, Inuyasha only seeming to breathe again once her gaze had shifted back to Sesshoumaru.

“Have you another lead to pursue?”

A slight furrow creased his brow. “I had hoped to obtain one from you.”

His mother set down the cup, the silken tails of her hair swaying as she shook her head. “My emissaries have nothing new to report.”

“Still?” Inuyasha blurted, his disappointment getting the better of him.

At Inukimi’s dry glance, the hanyou cowed. “It would seem my channels of communication have been exhausted to this end,” she continued, running a red clawtip around the teacup’s porcelain edge. “And yours as well. Perhaps it is time, then, to consider the alternative.”

Inuyasha frowned, Sesshoumaru as well. In his mother’s mind, there was only one alternative—in his brother’s another, though equally as grave. Emboldened, the hanyou leapt to his feet to voice it.

“The Jewel’s the only option, Sesshoumaru—just like I said from the start. I know Kagome may have wanted things to go a different way, but that was before all this shit went down. She’d understand, I know she would.”

“The pup has a point, my lord,” Ryouken conceded after a moment. “The girl could never have known what horrors would befall her.”

“If,” even Inukimi herself said slowly, “you are precise with your demands, my son, then surely the Shikon no Tama will abide them.”

Sesshoumaru grit his fangs as they continued one and all to harangue him. Appeals to emotion, to ego, even to supposed reason bombarded him from all sides. Yet beneath the pressure of his family’s assailing, he could feel the dark pulse of the Jewel like a second heart, see its abyssal glint reflected in the eyes of those who looked upon him—and he knew then who was truly seeking to persuade him, to lure him away from the gravest and most dreadful option, which until now he had been refusing to entertain.

In the Jewel’s desperation, he felt his own. And he knew then, too, with terrible certainty, what he must do. Resolved, he stood, his mother, cousin, and brother falling still and silent as the Shikon no Tama at his chest.

“You once told me that there were limits to what mortal flesh could heal,” he said, holding his mother’s gaze. “I have seen this limit in Kagome. Yet if she were immortal, it would not be so.”

At his words, Inukimi went rigid, a flash of such raw pain flickering in her gaze that Sesshoumaru felt its sear upon him. “No,” she bit out, as if this denial wrested itself unbidden from her throat.

Such an abrupt loss of decorum from his mother was so unheard of that Ryouken stiffened likewise in shock. As the meaning of what Sesshoumaru had said began to register, the captain paled, his jaw falling grimly slack.

“Cousin…” he rasped out, forgetting himself in his distress.

In growing unease, Inuyasha looked between the three of them, his face lined with frustration and confusion. “What?” he snapped, his ire focusing in on Sesshoumaru. “What the hell’s going on?—what do you mean by ‘immortal’?”

The demon lord rested his gaze upon him. “I mean that if I were to give Kagome my mark, she would become as I am—as you, Ryouken and my mother are.”

“Your mark,” Inuyasha muttered, his claws flexing at his sides. “You mean, marry her?”

The term ‘marriage’ was a mortal one—to Sesshoumaru’s knowledge, more ritual symbolism than binding act. Yet he supposed it was the same in sentiment. As he nodded, the hanyou began to furiously pace, fangs bared and claws kneading his closed eyes. Exhaling a forceful breath, he at last came to a stop before Sesshoumaru, the tang of blood suffusing the air as his furled claws bit into his palms.

“So,” he ground out, his half-formed instincts still struggling to grasp the full significance of what Sesshoumaru had proposed. “You just bite her, and then she…”

At Sesshoumaru’s heavy silence, Inuyasha trailed off, his expression darkening thunderously as comprehension dawned upon him at last.

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi