Epilogue: Return
She was fast asleep in the afternoon after a strenuous battle when his call came. The lightest of touches on the pack-bond in the back of her mind, a request.
Raven?
Forty minutes later, she was waiting in front of Jump City's best chocolate shop, dripping wet from the drizzling rain. A minute after she got there, a striped hand tapped her gently on the shoulder – from behind, as always.
'You have got to stop doing that!' she said, still trying not to yelp.
Sesshoumaru was as immaculate as ever. But his attire had changed completely. He wore a very modern shirt and slacks – white, of course. She didn't think that was going to change any time soon. He still wore the boots and the swords and the moko-moko sama. Passersby were shooting slightly nervous looks at him. Raven wasn't surprised. For all his neatness, he looked as if he'd just escaped from Arkham.
He paused, looking at her impassively. 'So you heard me,' he said in English. Well, he was a fast learner. 'Congratulations on finding me here. I thought you'd figure it out.'
'And that's all you have to say after a year and a half?' she shot back in the same language.
'Hn.' He was laughing, the twisted freak.
'I really hate you, you know that?' She was feeling remarkably childish, but hell, she deserved to yell at him.
'I told you I would leave. Did you doubt me?'
Raven twitched, both at his tone and at the cold water trickling down her hood and inside her cloak. 'Where's Rin?'
'In school. It's amazing how quickly she's picked up the language.' He was positively glowing with paternal pride.
More water dribbled down her hair. 'Do you actually have a house or something around here? I'm getting wet.'
They wound up at an apartment house, one of the more expensive ones, spacious and luxurious, situated right on the harbour, with an impressive view of Jump City.
Raven raised an eyebrow. 'Nice place. Yours?'
Nodding, he shook the water from his silver hair. Dug out a pair of rimless glasses and slipped them on. They looked…..kind of cute, though she would never admit it. 'I bought it a few weeks ago. I've been planning to return for a while now.'
'Oh.' He was shielding his emotions, but she didn't have to scan his aura to know he was amused. Which irritated her. 'Would I like the answer if I asked where you got the money?'
'I own a flourishing business venture,' he replied with a straight face.
'It can't possibly get you this far this soon,' she scoffed. He didn't reply, and her eyes widened. 'Oh God, you're a crook, aren't you?'
He shrugged, an oddly modern action that brought home just how much he had changed since he left Titans' Tower. 'I would have made a poor kindergarten teacher.'
'And you crack jokes. The world is ending.' Raven leaned against a window, the cold glass grounding her. She could see the vague outline of Titans' Tower through the clouds and rain. 'So what is it you do, exactly, and how long will it be before I have to put you behind bars?'
Sesshoumaru sat down on a couch and regarded her over the edge of his glasses. 'Things are changing, Raven. Supervillains aren't isolated anymore. There is a counterpart and an equal to the Justice League, now; in a few years, the less morally straightlaced and better intellectually equipped citizens of the world will be a part of it. And even if you did come here to arrest me, you'd never succeed. Would you like some tea?'
Raven choked. 'That's impossible. The Justice League would have heard if some sort of conglomerate like the one you're implying would have formed.'
'It's not really all that old, Raven.' He shot her a sharp look. 'And it's quite selective. I don't aim to let just anyone in. I want the artists, the survivors, the truly talented ones. The fools who rely on brawn, not brain, can stay out.'
'You started it? I never figured you for the team player type.'
'It's not a team, merely a resource pool. For now.' He crossed over to the kitchen area, where an electric kettle was already boiling. Demon speed. Had she turned her back on him? 'Of course, the shape it takes in future years is quite unpredictable. They're an interesting lot, these supervillains.' He poured hot tea into two mugs. Raven picked one up and sniffed tentatively. It was her usual herbal blend. Until today, she had believed that she was the only one who knew the recipe.
'You would think that,' she accused. This encounter was turning surreal. 'We'll defeat you, you know. The Justice League's won against every supervillain there is.'
'Maybe so, maybe so. But imagine. Slade's technology, backed by Lex Luthor's money and, say, Catwoman's skills…….really nice tea, isn't it?'
'Why are you doing this? What do you get out of it?' there, that was better than thinking about the scenario he'd so casually laid out. Sesshoumaru sighed and leaned back against the cushions, still looking at her.
'Entertainment,' he offered, sipping the tea.
Raven choked again. 'Entert – oh, for – you can't possibly be serious!'
'Oh, I'm quite serious. I've lived for centuries, Raven, even excluding those I skipped, and I'll last dozens more. I've done some research while I was gone, Raven. I can survive just about any weapon, physical, chemical or biological, that your world has come up with. Right now, I'm indestructible, and it's beginning to bore me to be a wanderer. In a few decades, I might tire of being on their side and come back to yours. It doesn't really matter what I do, as long as I enjoy it.'
She shivered. His sincerity was obvious, which made his statement all the more frightening. For the second time in her life, she was facing something beyond her reckoning. The only thing that kept her from blasting her way out was her conviction that he couldn't harm her, wouldn't harm her.
'It's the truth, and you know it. I don't have to count the years, or even the decades. Neither do you, for that matter. After a while, all that matters is how you keep yourself on the edge, how you make yourself feel…..alive.' His eyes closed and he looked almost pensive for a second.
Raven grimaced. Her lifespan as a half-demon was something she hated thinking about. There was too much loneliness implied there. Humans wouldn't live a fraction of her lifetime. And she rarely made contact with youkai.
Then he dropped the next one on her, just as she was beginning to relax.
'The world needs her supervillains, you know, just as much as she needs superheroes.'
'What?' she said feebly.
'In all things, there is a certain balance. As long as the balance is maintained, there will be no disruption, things will go on as they were.'
'And you're disrupting that balance!'
'Of course I am.' He smiled, ever so slightly. 'Without disruption, there can be no real movement. Not forward, not backward; just a more efficient form of the same old world, the same old problems and solutions. The world's been placid too long, heroes and villains matched too perfectly. This league I have initiated, it will ensure the supremacy of either the Justice League or itself. Either way, it will become a catalyst for change. Once one or the other wins, I can move to disband it.'
The confidence with which he spoke, the efficiency with which he had disarmed her struck her yet again. This situation was completely under control….his.
'Why are you telling me this?' she asked, regaining some part of herself.
'Join me, Raven.'
Three words. They could have been three punches for the effect they had on her……not because she hadn't expected them, but because for a microsecond she had caught herself considering it. Then she drew her identity around her like a second cloak and was the Titan again. 'You can go to hell and shake hands with the devil.'
'I expected that,' he said. 'Well, that makes things much more interesting.'
'Yeah, well, what I'll find interesting is the look on your partners' faces when they find out you've been talking to me about this hush-hush deal of yours.'
'Actually, they know I'm with you here and now.' He was really enjoying this. 'We feel it's time to go public with our idea. They're informing other members of the Justice League as we speak. Robin should be receiving his call from Slade any minute now. I only had an advantage because of the pack-bond.'
'So I'm, what, your chosen archenemy?' Raven looked at Titans' Tower again. 'You say I'm pack, but you're going to fight me?'
'So would you,' he reminded her. 'I'll just have to be careful not to hurt you, that's all. Not much, anyway,' he added as an afterthought.
Not hurt her much? Be careful? Raven twitched. 'How would it feel to be a girl for a day or two? I can do that, I promise you.'
Now it was his turn to twitch. 'I look forward to seeing you again, Raven.' He stood, and he didn't have to add that the conversation was over.
She walked down the steps of the building into the rain, pondering his words as she pulled the hood of her cloak up to shield herself. Balance and disruption, change and permanence. Well, she had time to fight him. She had decades. Centuries. As he said, it would be something to keep them both occupied.
Sesshoumaru was right.
Life had just become a hell of a lot more interesting.
A/N: hmm. Well, it's been fun…… Sequel? Maybe. Probably. Any ideas, anyone?
I simply couldn't see Sesshoumaru as a Titan (though seeing him in a tight-fitting spandex suit would have sent me into instant cardiac arrest) or a member of the Justice League; and he's too much of an opportunist to return to Sengoku Jidai. So I took the easy way out – with a little flair.
Hugs for all my reviewers, and may more keep coming.
Seeya,
Niru