Perhaps his power alone was not enough, but—

Channeling his full strength into Tessaiga, Sesshoumaru unleashed the Wind Scar in a torrent of blinding light, directing it toward that divergence in Magatsuhi’s youki and his own. His attack blazed through the gap, prising into it and driving the demon’s own power back onto himself with spiraling, cataclysmic force.

With a roar of pure rage, Magatsuhi disintegrated before Sesshoumaru’s eyes, the daiyoukai sinking to his knees as the body of his enemy vaporized in the ensuing backlash of his attack.

Closing his eyes briefly, he breathed with difficulty through the blood filling his lungs as a dark presence bloomed in the wake of Magatsuhi’s destruction. Unrestrained, the malicious aura pervaded the wasteland around him, tainting the air and blocking out the sun. Clutching Tessaiga in his shaking fist, Sesshoumaru glared up at the sky in furious disbelief as a pale disembodied face hovered above him, leering down at him in derision.

So…you have destroyed My borrowed flesh, the evil spirit of the Jewel sneered as Sesshoumaru rose haltingly once more. It is no matter. That pile of scraps Naraku lent Me was ever a poor vessel for My true power.

“If you are so powerful,” the daiyoukai replied through gritted fangs, “why do you serve him?”

Serve him? the spirit laughed. It is Naraku who serves Me.

Lightning flashed in the abyssal sky, a spectral outline illuminating briefly in the umbra of the shadows–

The shape of a dragon.

Waves of darkness swelled around Sesshoumaru, sweeping him up and crashing him into the wall of the canyon. Tessaiga’s radiance died as it ripped from his claws and clanged off into the distance. Hunching forward, the daiyoukai coughed, his breath leaving him in a thick gout of blood. From the opening in his torn haori, the defiled Jewel shard slipped out, peeking dark as onyx from the ribbon that concealed it.

When Naraku casts his wish upon the completed Jewel, he and the girl will become trapped within it. The ghostly face grinned viciously at Sesshoumaru’s expression of dread. Naraku will take My place in the eternal battle, and I will be freed upon the world once more.

“No,” Sesshoumaru growled, his claws scoring through the burned-out stone. “Kagome…”

Do not fear for her pretty flesh, Sesshoumaru-sama, the phantom consoled him mockingly. Her body will live on, after I have sealed Midoriko’s spirit inside it. And as for Myself…

Sesshoumaru snarled as the dark aura surged against him, driving like a million needle points into his skin, seeping like ink into his veins.

…Your form will suit Me most nicely.

Panting, Sesshoumaru fought to force back the encroaching darkness, but he knew he was too weak to resist it much longer. As the shadows closed around him from within, he reached out toward the dropped fragment of the Shikon no Tama. Consumed by the spirit’s evil, a glint of purity yet remained–a small point of light embedded deep within it.

Kagome’s light, he thought.

Closing his claws around the shard, he bent his mind and will toward that light as he brought the splinter to his chest.

“You…” the daiyoukai seethed up at Magatsuhi through narrowed eyes. “You will not take me.”

With fatal precision, Sesshoumaru drove the shard deep into his heart, its power blazing through him on contact. The wound in his chest sealed in an instant, his full strength returning to him as he snatched up Tessaiga and took to the sky.

NO, Magatsuhi screamed in outrage. You fool!

Sesshoumaru’s lips lifted bitterly as he channeled his power through the glowing blade. The golden light of the Wind Scar streaked out from Tessaiga toward the phantom’s ghastly face—only to phase through it completely.

Leaping away from the tide of shadow barreling toward him, Sesshoumaru transformed Tessaiga into a slender violet katana, sending a swarm of thin, razored fragments hurtling toward his foe. Yet once again the needles of crystallized youki pierced straight through—the brilliant blue bolts, red-orange sickles, and green barbs all shearing just as harmlessly through the spirit’s jeering face as Sesshoumaru continued to test Tessaiga’s myriad of forms against his opponent.

It is useless, the phantom said in scorn. Your petty sword cannot cut Me. You have sacrificed yourself for nothing.

Dodging his enemy’s shadowy strike, the daiyoukai landed on a lone outcrop of rock. “My life means nothing to me. Saving Kagome is my only concern.”

How pathetic, the evil spirit disparaged. You speak as if you love this human.

Glaring back, Sesshoumaru considered his enemy and the words he had spoken, as the sword at his hip pulsed in its sheath—in time with the blade in his hand.

“Yes, I love her.” The phantom scowled as Sesshoumaru withdrew Tenseiga, laying it on the ground before him. “More than anything.”

Because of this, he would not fail her.

Before this, Magatsuhi was nothing.

Raising Tessaiga high above him, Sesshoumaru brought its gleaming edge down upon the fang of his inheritance, cleaving it apart in a burst of azure light. As the light faded, the broken sword’s hidden power flooded into Tessaiga, the fang trembling violently as it bled to a deep, celestial obsidian.

Taking to the sky once again, Sesshoumaru brought the black Tessaiga under his control with a brilliant flash, unleashing the power of the Meidou Zangetsuha upon Magatsuhi in a maelstrom of spectral, crescent blades.

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi