Father

Sounga screeched as the general hoisted it to the sky, allowing its power to focus into the blade. He saw no other way to end this particular conflict; there were just so many of them, the sky black with their numbers.

"DRAGON TWISTER!!"

He watched as the creatures and clouds were sucked into the cyclone that ripped across the horizon, bodies shredding into nothing and drenching the land below in a mist of bloody viscera. A few of the bodies fell back to the earth, not quite destroyed, and the general acted immediately as they began to animate, switching Sounga for Tenseiga to put the rising specters to proper rest.

He still had not settled on a strategy to deal with Ryuukotsusei, instead cleaning up some of the lesser masses. He could not delay for much longer, but neither could he rush in unprepared. There was too much at stake. Summer gave way to Autumn, and Autumn to Winter, Izayoi's belly growing larger every day. She would give birth, soon, and as the snow blanketed the landscape, he knew his time was up.

He went to her one more time, watching from the trees as she rested by the fire inside her castle, gazing out the window longingly. Their eyes met, and he set his hand on his Tessaiga, silently communicating his intentions. Fear flashed across her features for only a moment, replaced with a pleading he could not acquiesce to, and he knew she understood that as she bowed her head for a moment.

'Will you return for me?' her eyes begged.

He gave her a confidant nod before stepping back into the trees and into the sky, making his way toward the valley of Ryuukotsusei.

***

Sesshoumaru followed the scent of his father's blood. There was so much on it, saturating the air; had the dragon creature truly been so ferocious?

Below on a cliff by the sea he saw him, gazing out over the distance towards the castle where his human concubine labored in agony. He alighted some distance behind his father, examining the injured daiyoukai that barely seemed to notice his arrival. Sesshoumaru easily ignored the chill from the insistent wind coming off the ocean as he assessed the situation.

There was so much blood, pooling thick and hot in the snow. His father was in dire straits, but Sesshoumaru knew he would not rest long enough to heal his wounds. He would go, instead, to the human and the disgraceful bastard it fought to whelp, and onward into death thereafter.

'How foolish, I will not accept this.'

His father had left him nothing, for there was little he had to give. The lands would fall into contention, for Sesshoumaru had no desire at the moment to maintain them; the servants and vassals would disband to whatever meager and insignificant ends fate had in store for them, for Sesshoumaru would retain none of them. Currency was of little consequence to the likes of him, and he required precious little in the way of material goods. No, the only things his father had to give, the only things Sesshoumaru wanted…

"Do you insist on going, father?"

The general did not move.

"Will you stop me, Sesshoumaru?"

Sesshoumaru considered for a moment.

"I won't try to stop you. However, before you go, please entrust the swords Sounga and Tessaiga to this Sesshoumaru."

"And if I say I won't, will you kill me, your own father?"

Sesshoumaru was silent. They both knew the answer to that already. The general scoffed.

"Do you desire power so much?"

He sounded disappointed, almost ashamed.

"Why do you seek power?"

They'd been through this countless times before, in almost every battle where they clashed, but Sesshoumaru decided he would explain it to his father again; one final time.

"The path I walk is the Way of Supreme Conquest, and it is power that will reveal the way for me."

"Supreme Conquest..."

His voice rang heavy with his disgust.

"Tell me, Sesshoumaru, have you someone to protect?"

Sesshoumaru blinked. Someone…to protect? His father was blathering on about those senseless things again. The very idea was laughable! He, Sesshoumaru, waste his time on some helpless cretin? Such weakness, so repulsive and ignoble; no, Sesshoumaru would not let this go on. His words were a sneer as he flexed his claws to prepare his whip.

"No, I do not. This Sesshoumaru, has no need of such.".

It was clear his father would not surrender his swords of power, so Sesshoumaru would simply have to take them by force and release his father from his irrecoverable shame. He would ascend, here and now, into the higher power he so craved to become.

…or so he thought…

He felt his father's youki rage, watched as, in an instant, his form billowed to reveal his true form, enormous, lethal, and Sesshoumaru was, for a moment, stricken with terror.

He stood, frozen, watching as his father bounded across the expanse, eventually melting into the forest near the castle in the distance. The sounds of battle soon met his ears and he frowned, finding he had no more reason to stay. The fool had made his choice.

"Ridiculous..." he muttered to the lashing wind as he left.

He would not help, but neither would he remain to witness his father's final fall.

***

In the days that followed the fire at the castle, Sesshoumaru had returned to see what he could find.

There was nothing. No trace of his father or either of the swords he coveted, no trail of the woman or her filthy spawn.

Damn it all, he swore, father must have taken the blades with him to his grave…but where is it? Where is father's tomb?

He'd heard nothing about where his father had been buried from Rekkonji any of his father's other retainers, and he was certain his father had wanted it this way; but why? He asked himself that question again as he visited Bokuseno, the magnolia tree his father had befriended, to find his father's Tenseiga hanging from the nail that held a sign which read 'To Sesshoumaru' to the face of the tree.

This wasn't right, where were the swords of power? They were his rightful inheritance! How perfectly insufferable. Why had his father hidden away the Sounga and Tessaiga, giving Sesshoumaru instead this Tenseiga, this…'sword' of healing? As though Sesshoumaru would ever have need or use of such a thing.

Even as he cursed it, though, he slid it into his obi and went about his way. It was from his father, after all, his great and terrible, incomprehensible sire who, even in death it seemed, continued to try to instill a sense of compassion in his heir, this Sesshoumaru, who was the Killing Perfection.