A moment later,
Inuyasha left.
It took Kobe Hikaru roughly the span of a cup of tea to "persuade" this once-half-yokai, now-human, freshly returned from death, to leave the scene.
The process wasn't complicated.
Inuyasha was blunt and straightforward by nature. His temper ran hot, but at heart he was not a complicated man.
Quite the opposite—he was simple, simple to the point of being almost slow.
All it took was to smooth his fur the right way, to validate his anger, and then to hand him a direction he already wanted for himself.
Kobe Hikaru hadn't lied to him.
He had merely laid a few facts out in front of Inuyasha.
First, Sesshomaru had always wanted Tessaiga. This time he'd taken the black pearl into the underworld, and whether he came away with the sword or not, the first thing Inuyasha would face upon his return would be Sesshomaru.
Second, Inuyasha was human now, without yokai power, utterly unable to fight back against Sesshomaru—though even with yokai power he'd have had no way to fight back against Sesshomaru anyway. If he stayed here waiting for Sesshomaru to emerge, he'd either be ignored or dealt with.
The former his spirit couldn't take. The latter, his body couldn't take.
Third, he was a human being now.
A true, complete, pure human who would not change back after the new moon. He could go live in a human town, no longer squeezed out by both sides, no longer treated as an aberration.
And even as a human, his physical constitution, inherited from Toga, was still strong—he'd merely lost his yokai power. Dealing with ordinary small yokai would still be effortless.
Living out peaceful days would not be hard.
Yes.
Kobe Hikaru hadn't concealed the existence of Tessaiga. He'd even told Inuyasha outright that he wanted the sword for himself. He had never considered himself a good person—in fact, he wasn't even a person at all—and he had always been selfish, whether in first handing the Shikon Jewel to Kikyo or in everything he'd done since, all of it carrying its own private motives.
But he had always been open and honest: good was good, bad was bad, selfish was selfish, and he never made excuses for himself.
He was merely a yokai, greedy yet clear-eyed about himself.
At most, he still kept a line he wouldn't cross.
After hearing all this, Inuyasha naturally hesitated, silent for a long while.
In the end he only asked one thing: what Kobe Hikaru meant to do once he got that Tessaiga.
Kobe Hikaru's answer was just as simple—use the blade's power to grow stronger, so that he could hold on to the life he had now.
Looking at the quiet, settled village behind him, Inuyasha finally stopped arguing. Tessaiga might be the keepsake Toga had left him, but for a man who had never truly met his father, it wasn't something he absolutely had to have.
What was more, he couldn't use the blade now, and no longer needed it.
In a world where human military might existed, all he had to do was find some bustling great city to stay in, and he could sidestep most of the danger.
He wasn't stupid.
Hot-tempered as he was, slow as he was, the things worth understanding he could understand. He was just usually too lazy to think them through.
And many things only came clear to him very late.
At last he stood up.
His white clothes were caked with dust and old blood, his black hair loose over his shoulders. His deep brown eyes glanced at Kobe Hikaru.
"What's your name?"
"Kobe Hikaru."
"I'll remember it."
Inuyasha turned and walked toward the mountain path to the south, away from Kaede Village. His steps wavered a little—his body was still weak—but he walked steadily.
He had never walked quite like this before: feet planted firm on the ground, landing on some chosen direction.
A few steps on, Inuyasha turned back again.
"Oi, Kobe Hikaru."
"Hmm?"
"Next time we meet, this great one will treat you to a bowl of noodles—the kind that's popular in the human world."
Right—the very kind he'd always wanted to eat.
"…Fine."
Inuyasha grinned, and on his human face—black hair, brown eyes—that smile looked strikingly boyish.
Then he walked off without looking back.
Toward some distant human town in the opposite direction from Kaede Village, toward the ordinary life he had never truly possessed yet longed for so deeply.
This was enough.
Kobe Hikaru stood where he was, watching that receding figure.
In a way, this counted as Kobe Hikaru's compensation to him, after taking what was his.
What Inuyasha wanted—the thing that, in the original story, this fellow had wandered and struggled and suffered through everything to finally obtain: a settled life in which he was accepted—Kobe Hikaru had helped him reach ahead of time.
Though the method was rather different.
Though the process had a little smuggled-in agenda.
But at least for Inuyasha himself, an outcome like this wasn't bad at all.
He'd been brought back from the dead, and the other man really had saved him after all. No matter how much private motive was folded in, faced with that open, forthright manner, Inuyasha would say no more.
A so-called win-win… had always been just like this.
Kobe Hikaru withdrew his gaze and leaned back against that boulder.
He still had to wait here.
Wait for Sesshomaru to come out.
Through all of this Jaken crouched not far off, the Staff of Two Heads laid across his knees, not daring to make a sound and even less daring to interfere. The little green yokai's face was full of anxiety, glancing now and then at the spot where the rift had vanished, then at Kobe Hikaru.
As though terrified Kobe Hikaru might turn on him here.
One hour, two hours.
The eastern horizon began to pale.
The morning light had not yet fully reached this slope, but the air had already turned cold.
And then—
Space split open once more.
A dim blue rift tore open again in its former place.
Sesshomaru stepped out from the rift.
With a yelp Jaken sprang up to meet him.
"Lord Sesshomaru! You've returned! Did you get Tessaiga?!"
Sesshomaru walked past him.
Without a single glance.
Utterly ignored, Jaken didn't mind in the least, wearing the look of one long since used to it.
Kobe Hikaru didn't move. He only raised his head from the rock and glanced at Sesshomaru.
Looking at his hands.
Empty.
Both hands were empty.
The palm and fingertips of his right hand bore charred scorch marks, as if burned by something and then healed in an instant, the traces not yet fully faded.
Kobe Hikaru knew Sesshomaru hadn't gotten Tessaiga.
No surprise there.
In the original story's premise, Toga had set an immensely powerful sealing barrier upon Tessaiga—only a human, or a yokai with a heart to protect humans, could draw Tessaiga out.
A pure yokai who touched Tessaiga would be seared and flung back by the sealing barrier.
Sesshomaru was a pure-blooded great yokai, a born superior being.
As things stood, he had no regard even for a younger brother of his own blood like Inuyasha, let alone any wish to protect humans.
So the moment his hand touched Tessaiga, the barrier pushed him out.
This too was the safeguard behind Toga's decision, all those years ago, to leave Tessaiga to the half-yokai Inuyasha rather than to his eldest son Sesshomaru—Inuyasha had half of human blood, and could break through that seal.
And this was one of the very reasons Kobe Hikaru had been so cooperative with Sesshomaru's request from the start.
He knew Sesshomaru couldn't obtain Tessaiga.
This trip was fated to return empty-handed.
Sesshomaru halted at the edge of the slope.
His silver-white hair drifted faintly in the morning wind, his golden slit-pupiled eyes fixed on the horizon brightening in the distance, his face calm.
But the thing pressed down beneath that calm—even Jaken could feel it—was a displeasure cold to the very bone.
Jaken, at his side, recounted Inuyasha's departure, and throughout Sesshomaru kept his face cold, betraying nothing at all.
"Sesshomaru."
Kobe Hikaru spoke.
The young great yokai of the dog clan turned those golden slit-pupiled eyes toward him.
"If that black pearl of yours is no more use, then give it to me as the terms of this exchange."
Kobe Hikaru had, in that instant, laid his cards on the table.
He'd never counted on getting Tessaiga directly. What he wanted, from beginning to end, was this key that led to the place where Tessaiga lay.
In the original story there were three routes to Inu no Taisho's grave, and only this one was within Kobe Hikaru's reach.
Claiming it through Sesshomaru's request was all the more natural. Tenseiga was hopeless anyway—he could hardly be accepted by Tenseiga's spirit, and if he couldn't even touch it, what use was there in speaking of winning it over?
Sesshomaru looked at him.
That gaze was cool, eyelids lowered slightly.
"What do you want this for?"
"To keep," Kobe Hikaru answered. "And besides, the peerless yokai blade of the Western Provinces' foremost great yokai—I'd like to see whether I can get in as well."
From then on.
Sesshomaru asked nothing further, nor could he be bothered to.
He had plainly lost all interest in this black pearl—
It was only a single-use key, already spent. The underworld's rift had opened and closed again; using it once more would require its maker's power to reactivate it.
It would be simpler just to have Hosenki make another.
And even getting in would be pointless—he couldn't undo that sealing barrier, and this oni warrior before him certainly couldn't either.
To Sesshomaru, the thing was worthless junk.
Nor did he truly believe Kobe Hikaru could do anything with it. At most he was mildly surprised that this small yokai was so candid, hiding nothing of his own heart, and nothing more.
He drew the pitch-black pearl from his sleeve and tossed it away with a flick.
The black pearl traced an arc in the moonlight.
Kobe Hikaru reached out and caught it.
The round, smooth touch settled into his palm, a faint chill still clinging to its surface—the breath of the underworld.
"This doesn't count."
Sesshomaru said.
His tone was flat.
Not courtesy, and not thanks.
He had said that, in return for summoning Inuyasha, he would do one thing for Kobe Hikaru.
Inuyasha had indeed been called back—only half of him, but Sesshomaru did not quibble on that point.
Because the revival had genuinely been accomplished.
As for Inuyasha becoming a pure human after his revival—that fell outside the terms of the bargain.
And in Sesshomaru's view, a spent black pearl plainly could not settle an exchange like this.
"I'll keep this account. When you need it, come find me in the Western Provinces."
With that.
Sesshomaru strode away.
The white fur stirred faintly in the morning wind, his silver-white hair sweeping past his shoulders, his tall figure moving westward along the ridge of the mountain crest.
His pace was unhurried, neither fast nor slow.
Jaken scrambled to gather up the Staff of Two Heads and chase after him, short legs pumping frantically, still shouting all the while.
"Lord Sesshomaru! Wait for me! Don't leave me behind—"
The figures dwindled into the distance.
Vanishing into the western dawn.
Kobe Hikaru stood where he was and lifted the black pearl before his eyes.
Its pitch-black surface mirrored the reflection of his scarlet Demon pupils.
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