Ice and Snow, Mind and Heart

Chapter 65: Loving You

'Nothing I could have gained was worth losing her.' Sesshomaru thought bitterly as he fought the pain in his breaking heart. 'Nothing!'

Tenseiga suddenly started to glow beside him, the sword releasing a warm and bright light. Sesshomaru paused before slowly lifting his head as he hear movement, and he looked up to find himself surrounded by the thousands of corpses as the dead mortals reached their hands out towards the shining sword.

'You all wish to be saved.' Sesshomaru thought grimly as he closed his eyes momentarily. 'Is that it?'

He knew what Yuki would have said if she'd seen this, and he could almost hear her voice again in his mind: "Sesshomaru, don't be stubborn and help them!"

Sesshomaru. The soft, affectionate tone she used, the way her tone filled unconsciously with love when she said his name, even when she was cross with him; it was like a knife in his heart as he remembered it. Knowing he would never hear it again.

Sesshomaru knelt down, Yuki still held firmly in his embrace, and grabbed Tenseiga's hilt once more. The sword thumped, beating like a heart, and it glowed even brighter as Sesshomaru drew it.

A dark-blue light mingled with the bright white glow as Sesshomaru lifted the sword to be perfectly straight before his face, and Sesshomaru let Tenseiga guide him. He closed his eyes as the sword released its energy, wrapping around every single one of the corpses and purifying them before it seemed to explode in a giant ball of power.

"Meido Zangetsuha!"

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Ouside the Meido

The group watched in awe as the Meido stone glowed brightly, and Sesshomaru's mother murmured in awe: "The corpses of the underworld are being purified."

"Meido Zangetsuha!"

"Hm?" Sesshomaru's mother looked up as she heard her son's voice echoing ethereally from somewhere before them, before she hurried to her feet as Jaken, Kohaku, and Rin also turned to look in shock as a giant Meido appeared behind them.

"He's opened another path to the underworld!" Jaken gasped as he stared at the almost completely round Meido, while Rin said in awe: "It's so much bigger than it was before. Ah!"

She perked up as they saw movement from within the Meido, and then Sesshomaru appeared from the darkness.

"Oh, Lord Sesshomaru!" Jaken cried in relief as soon as he saw the familiar dog demon.

But Rin's eyes went wide, and Kohaku placed a comforting hand on her shoulder when the children saw the lifeless body in Sesshomaru's arm. And if Yuki's colourless skin wasn't enough to confirm their fears, the look on Sesshomaru's face certainly was. It spoke of grief, anger, and a helplessness Rin had never seen before - and that, more than anything, convinced her that there was indeed no saving her female guardian.

By then, Jaken too had realized something was amiss, and he gazed uncertainly from his master to Sesshomaru's mother as the dog demoness stated with what was becoming her signature careless calm: "So. You have returned."

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Rin stared with tears streaming silently down her face while she knelt beside Yuki's head where the half-demoness lay on the smooth velvet expanse of Sesshomaru's mother's throne recliner.

Yuki had been laid out gently so she was lying straight on her back as she remained still and lifeless, her long caramel locks sprawled out around her head like a bronze halo. It had been almost like a cruel joke from the Gods when Yuki's body had shifted back into its half-demon form after Sesshomaru had returned them to the world of the living, her hair lightening and her fluffy ears returning even when the woman's life didn't.