Free At Last
☽ In which Sesshomaru visits the grave of his father once more, but with more clarity to what his life had been. A decision he could have not gone through without a certain accompanying wind at his trail. ☽ fic song: Fukari Mori by Do As Infinity (surprise surprise) ☽ warning: none, it’s a simple, mild angst and pondering, taking place after the canon events of Inuyasha ☽ pairing: hint of sesskagu i guess, but mostly just talking to the wind, soft!sess, wind!kagu ☽ author’s note: first ever Inuyasha fic from a very rusty fanfic writer, so be warned of the quality haha i’ve just been way too obsessed with this scene to not imagine what would be happening. either way, enjoy! ♡
AO3 link
Sesshomaru stepped out of the Black Pearl's portal, as a gust of mellow wind ushered in close behind him. Night began to descend onto the tomb-world of Inu No Taisho, splashing a lilac-rose tint over the horizon. Violet fragments of shattered yoki streamed up from the ground, answering the call of the Pearl. Sesshomaru only ever stayed once long enough to witness it.
Yet, the presences lingered, like it would for an eternity.
The barren ground, the sharp cliffsides, bone-beasts and the sparse fauna alike — even the cooling air Sesshomaru breathed in, they all belonged to his father, reaching for the sky every time the portal opened, as if to escape the grave they maintained. What they were confided in. Inu No Taisho might have been long gone, but his conquering essence remained, perhaps more stubborn than his memory.
The wind nudged mokomoko as if Sesshomaru otherwise wished to stand idle. He glided through the air, the breeze catching into his free-flowing silver hair and caressing his face. Gentle enough to comfort. Intentional. It had been like that since he burrowed the Pearl from the half-breed, earning a questioning, suspicious look, though no remark.
Strange, but no stranger than his request, he supposed.
White petals drifted alongside him. They've been around since her passing, coming and going, though staying a somewhat constant companion in the most unexpected moments. Warm, teasing, trailing.
Free.
Sesshomaru kept his gaze at the expanding corpse while he approached, yet his mind wandered.
"Do you feel him?" he asked the wind, though did not receive an answer. Not in words, at least.
In touch, however. In a soundless whisper against the soft blow beside his ears, that breathed something akin to an affirmation. Or taunting. For once, he could not be certain.
Sesshomaru glided above the rock pillars that sprouted from the ground, and which never were no comparison to the monumental, armoured skeleton of his father. Inu No Taisho, the greatest daiyoukai of the West, died in his true form. One that against Sesshomaru himself dwarfed.
Still, he lay alone, restless, where he should have found peace.
Sesshomaru passed the cliffside he used to halt upon. Far enough to see his father as he always had; large as the open sky, fangs bared in a silent sneer on his bone mouth. The Lord of The West. A distant myth. A shadow that reached far beyond generations.
A figure with no care to spare for Sesshomaru.
The familiar train of thought lacked it's bite, however he had anticipated it. His temper rose but like the breeze around him, it had been washed away as easily as it had come. Not disappearing, merely changing. Shaping.
Unyielding as it was for countless millennia, the feeling morphed enough that Sesshomaru decided to put it to test. It was what he was here for once again.
"This was what you searched for?" he murmured into the wind this time, finding the same affirmative dance of air embrace him. The landscape would have been eerily still if the wind wouldn't have followed him here, he gathered. Was it the wind's presence, though, or was the cold distance his conjuration before? Sesshomaru hummed. "You are hardly more help than Jaken."
A sudden flurry flipped mokomoko off his shoulder, landing draped over his head, fallen into his face. How childish. Yet, his lips tugged up.
Before, it had been unimaginable to smile in the presence of his father, alive or dead. Still, there he was, founding no anger, fear, or bother at all.
He smoothed back mokomoko into its place, arriving at the foot of his father's remains. There, he stood, for once craning his neck to drink in the daiyoukai who made him in every way it mattered, and who he would not look upon since the day the resolve to surpass him lodged into his very being.
Sesshomaru deemed the notion a feat to accomplish no matter the cost. Indeed, he nursed the determination within, until it grew so large, he found himself unable to fill it. No rare skill, no gruelling quest, no great sword mattered. Not truly.
By a bruised human girl showing kindness where it should have been hatred, and a desperate sorceress offering more than she ever asked for, the purpose of his life unravelled before his eyes at last, shedding it's poor disguise. It was no tether to greatness.
But a shackle.
The moment of Kagura glancing up at him at her last minutes came unbidden into his mind as he kept his eyes on his father. At long last, her crimson irises hid no silent plea, no agonising lure. Not with that smile. Her smile
The smile, that never been a goodbye, but a promise.
"I understand it," Sesshomaru said softly, keep looking up at the one he once steadily chased in the hope of salvation. Of acknowledgement. Not the daiyoukai, the father or the traitor. But the ideal. A prison of its own. Sesshomaru rested his hand on Bakusaiga, leaning into the wind's barely present, yet persistent caress. "Care — it is a difficult thing. It requires more strenght than the lack of it. I understand it, but I do not forgive it. Let that be said."
Nothing changed, except him. He came here to see if he would find that smouldering, gnawing fire in himself that kept him on the move for so many years again. If it would come to him.
However, he did not expect the essence do so, solely. The yoki gathered around him evenly, most likely for a while now, but he did not pay any mind to his surrounding before. The violet twinkles swayed by the wind gently. Still, they approached, as if to attempt to merge into him.
Sesshomaru frowned, his hand on Bakusaiga tightening. He did not need his father's essence, yet it kept coming, some even escaping the remains through his monumental, overgrown mouth. The sword in his grip pulsed, unease creeping up on his arm. It rejected the idea just as much as he did so.
"No," he stated, firm. The wind, and the soft petals around him took up speed and force, reinforcing his new found determination. To see freedom as Kagura had showed him.
Sesshomaru unsheathed Bakusaiga, and once more — the last time — glanced up at the mighty skeletal corpse of Inu No Taisho. His father.
"Let us be free, at last. Rest in peace."
He swung Bakusaiga, shattering the skeleton with a tidal wave of supremely more powerful yoki. The effect came instantaneous, the remains exploding as the colossus came down. Crashing into the ground, the tomb-world of the Black Pearl shook, the very essence of it beginning to dissolve. His father's yoki, mighty as it was, whirled and swirled like a trashing, frightened animal, unable to be absorbed by Sesshomaru. It was as if it had been sucked outside when the portal opened on its own, not too far from him.
The wind lifted Sesshomaru up before he began to rise himself. The sky distorted and melted, the barren landscape cracking, breaking, turning to dust. He flew through the portal, until landed on soft grass again, Rin, Jaken and Ah-Un's scent finding him at once. They were nowhere near, yet it was enough.
Sesshomaru extended his hand to let the Black Pearl fall into it. Only to disintegrate before it even touched his skin. Wind and white petals swirled around him close, as if to keep him steady if needed. His lips curved, barely.
The final violet twinkle was blown away, and with that a weight so grand it had been impossible to spot, lifted completely. Finally, he, too, had become free.
