Drabble Collection Alpha

Epilogue

Supreme Conquest

In the peaceful dark of the hour before midnight, Sesshomaru led Akihito away from the island. They left their women sleeping behind them, one round as the moon, one cradling a waxing crescent in her womb.

The light of my night. The heart of a world that moves forward a step at a time, a world of which I was not a part, and would still run from, fearing…everything, if not for her. It no longer cost him to admit; the truth was as it always had been, but Kagome had changed the world, and him… and herself. No longer mortal, vulnerable only as the world itself might be vulnerable, he need not even protect her, though he would, lest she ever begin to think he cherished her less. Now that he had conquered himself nothing could threaten him, and as he ran, letting power rise to the surface and speed him up the mountainsides, he contemplated the future that lay before him.

There was a look in Akihito's eye that Sesshomaru knew all too well, having been forced to acknowledge the same thing himself once. Soon, they would all be aware of it, all these yōkai choosing their women, if they weren't already. The price they'd chosen to pay… the cost yet to come. Even as he ran, leading the way toward healing power and its sacred intention, a twinge of warning pressed against some deeper awareness of the world when he thought of all those miko as mothers of hanyō, made immortal, drinking down celestial tears.

Even if they were freely offered, wouldn't there be a consequence? Even given one at a time over a hundred years, wouldn't the balance shift? It might be too late to be concerned with it now that he had made all these choices, unwritten the book of the future except for his chosen chapter, the precious page that was Kagome, more-than-woman, saved for himself. For myself, as much as for her. For myself first, and for her second. Because I am yōkai, and that means selfishness. Because I would not give her up… And none of them would. In this, neither rank nor power mattered; in this, he and his kin were for once the same. For once, let the balance swing in our direction.

"My lord? Are we…"

"Close. Yes." Sesshomaru paused, lifting his face into the air, tasting the subtle fragrance of their prey at a distance. "We should already be among them, but perhaps at this season there are fewer than there were before. If you listen, you'll hear."

"Yes, but –"

Wincing, Sesshomaru fixed his subordinate with an irritated glare. "And if you are not quiet, they will hear you, and you willgain nothing. Riku is your woman, not mine. I have brought you here, but not to do your work for you."

"No, my lord. Of course not…" But he fell silent then, the noiseless night pressing its weight down on him as Sesshomaru retreated, eyes open, to watch and wait. Stillness came over him and Akihito both, as dawn approached and the tide of tiny presences they'd been waiting for came flooding through the undergrowth. Stepless, they danced; rhythmless, beat their way beneath the trees. The line of their passage was narrower than Sesshomaru remembered, and was the strength of each phantom light a little less than it should be?

Was it the season? Could it be? He'd passed this way many times in his long centuries of life, remembering, hunting, testing himself against the world. A shiver touched his spine, but the meaning of it missed him. He couldn't remember if they had been few like this when he'd last been here, seeking healing for his mate. Perhaps they had been, compared to his youth. Perhaps there had been one living bauble, one glistening flutter of yōki for every ten that he remembered, but now… now there was one for every hundred, or less. Little phantasms that they were, neither beast nor yōkai, they still were responsible for sweeping currents of magic wherever they went. Something would be missing if they were to disappear, he could feel that as surely as the tingling presence of the few that drifted past him, turning without direction, or as if they were fighting the wind.

Delicately, pulled by some inner sense he could neither name nor deny, Sesshomaru followed the trickle of transparent beings, picking out individuals as they wafted along beneath the trees, making their way up the mountain. It would have been a hard road for a human, this way past the tree line, away from any semblance of a path. But though it was a sacred place with roots in the same age as the origins of man, no mortal had dared the danger in living memory.

Here, where the heart of the world beat strongly, there was a Door.

Even for Sesshomaru, it had been a long time since he'd reason to pass through that gate. Diyu was home to the Great Demon Court, but not to him; home to many powers, many trials, but not to anything he found tempting. Without a real reason, drawn by something he couldn't have named, Sesshomaru leaped up the rocky mountainside, until the air grew thin and the stream of fluorescing beings faded to a bare trickle. At the highest point, he stopped, confused. They should be densest here, at their most powerful. Instead the shone for only a moment before they passed out of sight.

He held out a hand, and the current tugging the tiny creatures along dropped one right onto his palm, where it lay limply, heart full of yōki but still barely beating. The rest flowed past him, sliding out of moonlight and into shadow – the Shadow that waited Underground, on the other side of the Door.

A sudden shiver clutched at Sesshomaru's spine. He turned his hand and there was a weak fluttering, but the minuscule glow as the creature returned to the stream of its fellows did not reassure him. A summons had come from beyond that Door, but that which had once been a source seemed now to be an ending. Behind him, somewhere down the mountain, Akihito howled in victory, but even that sound seemed suddenly hollow, drained of something essential that had no name.

What was happening here? Was it important, or just part of a cycle Sesshomaru had never seen? No. Something was wrong, even if he couldn't explain it. Something was missing, or if not yet gone, then in the process of being stolen. His thoughts drifted back to the track they'd been on as he'd run here. A balance, unbalanced. A tipping point. One piece kept, of a future lost forever… Or is it as lost as we think? No yōkai, Kagome had said. No power. As if the magic had died -

The shiver dug its claws in a second time, and again he reached out to catch a drifting sparkle of yōki. This was the reason for the summons. As it occurred to him, as he watched them sinking slowly through the Door, into Diyu, he knew it for the truth. It wasn't his choices, wasn't his power, his accomplishments, his heirs, which had brought that edict to his door. All his fears had been for nothing, he knew it as he stood there, but that didn't mean there was nothing to fear. The Yokai Emperor has need of his General, but even I may not be able to win this war.

Nothing. He couldn't even imagine it. Would the world be an empty space, or would it be crowded with unfulfilled promises instead of forever? A void of existence, or made only of mortals after all? Never. Never. Something fierce beat proudly in Sesshomaru's chest. Smiling, he bared all his teeth, the expression he saved for challenging death. He'd been worried, but for nothing. There was no need to leave his path. The end of everything would be a worthy foe, and his supreme conquest.

A/N: THE END! That's it! That's all there is! No more! ALAS! This was years in the making, but I'm glad to be here at the finishing line, much a I will miss this story. No guarantees on when I'll get the sequel started, but Omega is a thing, so that's an eventual happening. Thanks so much for sticking it out with drabbles and doom and delays... You're the best! Yes, you! WOO! Now, there's more fics to be finished out there, so go forth, glorious being!

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