Author's Note:
This truly is a chapter I anticipated writing. I hope you are
still there, after all this time. 0-0
Since I am taking some of my inspiration from the world of Rokugan, you will be seeing some strange stuff. An explanation for whatever is to come follows:
yao ren: a sorcerer, a mage who controls
magic through sear force of will.
wu jen: more like an elemental wizard, wu jen specialise in
magic that involve one of the five elements that make up the
world in one of the oriental cosmologies - earth, fire,
metal, water, or wood. The wu jen use ofuda (the kind of scrolls Kagome's
grandfather used), as do most many other figures
of Asian folklore...
maho-tsukai: a blood-mage, one who wields great magic
at the expense of his very own blood and soul.
maho: magic; blood magic in this text
- text -: things spoken by the Taint of the maho magic in the
very mind of a maho-tsukai; a delusion
Chapter 25
Magemorou Unfold
The young - or were you not? You could not tell, really - man rose from the mattress by the wall he occupied... He noticed some difficulty, and a sharp pain in his wrists: sure enough, they were bound tightly. There was a bowl full of broth and a small glass of sake there. He had left them there himself the previous afternoon; could it be he had been unconscious any longer than that? He remembered the control that run throughout his every move, the deliberation behind each of his actions... Now, his movements were slow, wiggly, as his head spun round and round from the terrible headache he felt - you were hit, weren't you? - and he had a flashback of the previous night. He did hit his head; in fact, someone else hit his head with a torch.
As another wave of vertigo hit him, he made a terrible amount of effort in order to avoid throwing up, and tried to sit straight, but his body in this frail state did not allow him to move very controlled, a mockery of his former grace... 'The grace of a hanyou...', he thought bitterly. He had given so much up to gain nothing.
Realising that something was up - you were attacked, remember? Your adversaries must be somewhere around! Look around - he turned his gaze to where the most spacious area in his chambers was. Truly, there they were, the people he tried to pry off their powers. To suck them dry of them. Apart from the three smaller youkai, who were looking frantically around at the various objects, the young girl who was shuddering in this dark atmosphere and the taijiya who was comforting her, all the others were looking down at him. A look of contempt, of disgust, maybe?
No. It took him to long to realise that, except for the two other men with youkai blood running through their veins who were looking at him with gold, cold eyes, flashing brightly out of suppressed fury, the three more spiritually oriented people were glancing at him with a mixed look of sympathy and grief.
'They must have seen the blood patterns...', Magemorou mused.
Supposing he would need some comfort at least, he finally managed to stand up after some moments and leaned on the wall to brace his back against it. Raising his eyes to the people in front of him, the first sentence rung high and true in the air.
"This Sesshoumarou would bid you tell us what was this all about, and you would better give him and his brother a good reason not to tear you in pieces, but he thinks we can wait until you regain some of your former strength." Sesshoumarou said.
Inuyasha chose to intervene. "We've left the broth as it was, but I suppose it would be best if you ate something more sustaining than that stale thing. We could warm it up for you, so you could take some strength, but the interrogation is not over, remember that...", he said and flashed him a sly grin. "It seems you are not that as good in melee as in magic, so we suppose it is safe, for both sides, to let you with just your hands bound. I hope you can still eat, for none will trust that you will not harm them under any other condition."
Magemorou nodded. "I understand." He felt his head spin. "Allow me some more rest: I do not feel so well." Without another word, he fell asleep, dead to the world.
When he woke up, he found he had a bandage wound around his head and another around his hurt hand; those torch swings were hurting more than he had suspected.
"Please do not move...", Kagome told him. "It seems you lack a lot of vitality. It is good you never confronted Sesshoumarou-sama; you might have died even with the weakest of his blows..."
"Thank you for your administrations." Looking up at the others, he spoke to the youkai lord. "I would like to get this over with." Sesshoumarou nodded slightly.
Miroku piped in. "From what we have seen and heard, it seems you are a yao ren, or maybe even a wu jen, of great power. I wonder, though, because, for all we know, you should either be hanyou or youkai, not ningen!"
"I was hanyou. Now I am ningen. That's the doing of the Shikon no Tama I stole from you."
"A-ha! I knew it!" Kagome said. "Tell me though, for I cannot understand this: if you are so powerful, what do you want with us? It seems there was more to it than the Shikon no Tama itself."
It was Magemorou's turn to nod. "I chose to lose my youkai blood for two reasons. The first one is only practical: the madness that can cloud a hanyou's mind from time to time and send him in a berserk does not work so well with someone like me who is not trained in combat but in magic. Secondly, you may have noticed that I have bound you with a ritual."
"We figured as much. Go on." Kaede answered.
"Well, to make a long story short, I wouldn't be able to... Anyway, I wanted to drain you all of your powers so that I could use them, to empower my own body, without being in need of either giving up my magic, or having youkai blood. The ritual would not harm you, but it would put you in a temporal stasis, as long as I was alive. The time I would be dead, you would also be released from the magic."
A long silence covered the chambers of the sorcerer. While the nostrils of the youkai-blooded flared, Myouga, the sole person who could have acquired such knowledge, spoke up. "Either you are trying to lie to us with much fluency, or you know to little of the Dark Art you have started studying..."
Startled by the flea's recognition of his eldritch skill, Magemorou chose to give things a try. "I take it that some of you have noticed the blood pattern, haven't you?"
Kagome looked down at the floor. "Hai. We even took notice of the blood in the bowl. It was yours. We don't know though why would you make up a paintbrush out a lock of kitsune-fur."
"It was the familiar spirit that rose from the land to bind you." When they looked at him, he simply said: "You know what I mean, or you can at least figure it out."
Inuyasha looked at him sternly. "I see. Tell me though, before we think this over, what would you like us to do?"
Magemorou gasped at the request. The others looked at the hanyou as if a second head had just been formed out of this air on his shoulder. Answering to Kagome alone, he said: "The last time I did that with that lord, it came out well, don't you think?", and he winked. Kagome could only smile at the recall of the whole incident.
"I don't know what you have in mind, but I only wanted to have the power to go through a new stage of life, one that would allow me to study my art under the full potential I have, negating the effects time would have on me. The arcane arts is not something one can master in one lifetime, and I am not a true youkai to reach the understanding their spirit bonds provides; merely a hanyou, I was but a laughing stock, and the rituals of my art require the use of blood, which only as a ningen could I provide... Do as you wish then; I am in your mercy."
"It seems that you have been deceived, for I sense no lies in you..." Myouga said, and Magemorou turned white as a ghost in shock. "It is not the blood of a ningen that provides maho with what is needed, though it is true that some people are immune to the Taint that you must have in order to learn this Dark Art. Has anyone offered you his or her help in the study of this art? It is quite necessary that you answer us this question."
A voice spoke in the back of his head to not answer, but now, quite alarm that something was wrong, and trusting that these people might help him, with all of their care and administrations, he complied.
"Why, yes, a hengeyoukai of awesome powers... and it is truly strange, now you mention it, for hengeyoukai prefer the study of the wu jen than that of the yao ren! Anyway, that same hengeyoukai told me that I should be able to master the art of the maho without having much problem. I studied under him almost for 13 years, but one day he simply vanished. After my master left, I started using maho along with my normal sorcery, achieving great results. The only problem I noticed was the fact that my body became more frail, but since I am... was a hanyou, that was no great problem; till now it seems." He run his eyes up and down, and confirmed his theory: his body was... shriveled, as if he had not had proper food and drink for some weeks.
"So it seems. I am sorry to say so," Kaede told the unnaturally frail man before her, "but your 'master' has used you, in one way or another. We do not know to what extent, and even if we find out what he has taught you and how far has the Taint gotten into you, it is still possible that you may not recover. From what I see, though, and that is wondrous, even though you learned to use maho, you have not used it much..."
"I suppose I worked too long, trying to invent this ritual to actually use the maho to any great extent." The others nodded. "Would you accept the help of your adversary if he vowed to stop using the maho and tried to recover? I might as well bring down furious vengeance on the man..."
"Can you tell us his name, then?" Sango questioned.
"I cannot, for he never spoke of it. But we could start searching for him, I suppose..."
Well, the end is really quite close... I will try my best at not
letting you wait much longer!