What is a story this length called here anyway? I used to think it would be a drabble, but apparently those have to be exactly 100 words.

Word count: 279

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Sometimes Kagura wonders if Sesshomaru can feel. He is, she thinks, like the sword he wields, the Tokijin—cold and unforgiving. It is said among samurai that one's sword is an extension of his very soul, and Sesshomaru would appear no different. The Tokijin cannot show compassion.

That does not stop her wishing, though. In some other world, with Naraku gone, she could share her freedom with him. In that world, he would rescue her. These dreams of her's are no more than deluded fantasies wrought up as she watches the world through the bars of a cage, but she indulges in them all the same.

She goes to him, when she can, though she knows he will not save her. Just to see him is enough. She might be able to accept the inevitability of her death, if he could simply be there. Remember her...

How sad, she thinks. I might as well ask for the sun to set in the east.

She is like a sparrow that has been bitten by a snake—poisoned, dying, but oh so happy to be free.

°•°•°•°•°

When Sesshomaru finally does seek her out, he finds her too far gone to be saved. Even as her life slips away, some small part of him shatters, and Tenseiga—his second, forgotten sword—pulses mournfully at a loss too deep for even him to understand.

Neither she nor Sesshomaru realize that it will be in her name that the cruel Tokijin is later transformed into nothing more than a million, sparkling fragments. That sword was never meant to be anything but temporary.

Her smile will haunt his thoughts for centuries to come.