He opened his eyes, a little worse for wear and struggled to gain his bearing. He stood up and wavered, the ground too far...or was he too high?
Sesshoumaru groaned, his head still pounding as he stumbled his way through the fog. How long has he been here? Where was his pack? His joints hurt and so does his muscles. Basically, everything hurt. The battle had been long and vicious. His mettle had been tested against a deity and he had barely survived the meeting.
Over and over they clashed, his will and skills tested raw.
How many times had he died?
Crushed, burned, bludgeoned, shocked, frozen solid, dismembered, petrified, melted...name the type of death and the Fierce Deity had forced him to experience. A deity born of memories from fallen warriors...what did he expects? At one point, he had almost dreamed of simply be broken, shattered beyond repair, if only so that the pain of death will stop. But his pride as a Divine Dog, or Divine Beast as he was called, would not let him break...and perhaps it was that very pride that saved his sanity.
Ironic, how his pride saved him from a fate worse than death...
Or was it perhaps his fear for his pack?
The Golden Beast appeared and Sesshoumaru turned his gaze to the spirit before being beckoned to follow with a toss of its majestic head and a dash through the underbrush where it appeared. Sesshoumaru toddled forward like a newborn deer, before slowly his body regains its confidence with each movement and each step taken. It wasn't long before he become as one with the wind, chasing after the Golden Beast where he stopped behind it as it sat to toss its head high, notes bellowing from within and echoed through the darkened forest...
Link looked up to see Twilight howling towards the Lost Woods before heading to the entrance. Link stood up from where he was recuperating from the ordeal he had faced in the Middle Trial. He reached Twilight just in time to see him looking at a gold coated wolf that shared a striking similarity with his patterns. Then something large and tall loomed behind the odd colored wolf, causing Link to tense with his muscles ready to spring into battle.
When the looming figure finally come under the sun filtered through thick leaves, his eyes widened at the strikingly familiar yet at the same time complete stranger. But deep inside it was a thought something missing returned to its place as his blue eyes met the one familiar golden gaze, lighter than how he remember it, and the other silvery pale like the moon, "Sesshoumaru?"
The giant, as tall as Sidon, nodded. Link studied his lost friend, so different from the one he had travelled with and yet...he can see similarity. The markings of his face now appeared more tribal-like; his crescent moon now trapped in an odd blue pattern that met in a point that extended to the tip of his nose that was comparable to Paya, fading away as it stretches further away the blue cage. The curved crimson marks on his cheeks had jagged slightly in a familiar feral way, the once short but pointed ears elongated to the same length as Link's and ended with tuffs of pale velvety furs at the tips.
Sesshoumaru had retained the feral appearance he wore as he disappeared into the Lost Woods but more in control of himself. His golden left eye and silver right eye studied Link in turn, the black kohl-like marking around his eyes highlighted by the equally crimson shade of his eyelids making his now mismatched eyes stand out. He sniffed; his head tilted in a familiar way that suggested pride and impress, "You've grown stronger,"
His voice familiar but deeper, almost rumbling with a soft growl that belied the feral Beast held inside, but to Link it was the sound of family as he smiled, "Yeah...the Great Deku Tree said as well," He then frown, "Sesshoumaru...what...happened to you?"
Sesshoumaru looked away and beyond Link's head, "Where is Kagome?"
Link sighed, "I'll show you,"
Frowning, Sesshoumaru followed his now even tinier friend into the scared Korok Forest. Immediately his eyes focused sharply to the lord of the forest, his heightened senses pinpointing divine energy like radar. He greeted their host, "Greeting, Guard of Hyrule,"
Link can feel the fine hair on his neck rise at the odd echoing quality that Sesshoumaru's voice had taken. He whipped his head to see his friend staring at the Great Deku Tree as the gargantuan cherry blossom awake, "You are...the one hidden in the mask..."
Sesshoumaru's now all white eyes turned to Link, "Peace Son of Farore. I came not for war..." A feral grin stretched across his lips, "At least...for now..."
The Great Deku Tree stared at the newcomer, "You're...much saner than we last met...Fierce Deity..."
Fierce Deity scoffed, "Only in thanks to the will of the one that I have taken as my avatar. Our madness cancels each other's. His weakened divine energy was sufficient to exorcise those that had pledge their services to me," He sighed as he looked around the grove, "How I miss this, the energy of life flowing around and through me...and yet as usual...evil beat like a cruel heart in the midst of it all," He scowled.
"You can sense Ganon then?"
The Fierce Deity growl of upset silenced the whole Korok Forest as he snarled, "So...that beast Demise had taken up a different name, then? It matters not. He may take all manners of shape or being but Demise he remain to me,"
Link thought that the usual upbeat and lively energy of the Korok Forest had sputtered at the name, as though a ghost of evil from the past had been evoked with that one name. The Great Deku Tree frowned with his voice, "Fierce One, we speak not of that name. It is merely a word to us, nothing more,"
The Fierce Deity frowned before turning to Link, "Worry not for your friend and mentor, Son of Farore. Though my will and power remain, my mind will not be long for this world. For ages, I have been used as a force for war. But whether I am used for good or evil, I have neither choice nor care for. So rejoice in that with him, Sesshoumaru, I at least will remain your ally and not your enemy,"
A blink and Sesshoumaru grunted, "I will appreciate not being shoved to the back of my own mind, Fierce One," He turned his mismatched gaze to Link, "Where is Kagome?"
Link stared at him for a moment before shaking his head, "Promise me you'll explain where and how you ended with that Fierce Deity?"
A nod was all he gets but Link take that as a promise. If anything, Kagome will bully him into explaining to them. That's...if she wakes up...
Since Sesshoumaru won't fit through the tunnel that's the entrance in the Great Deku Tree, Link decided to carry Kagome out instead. Sesshoumaru take one look and his face darkened, "Someone's stealing her soul," At Link's horrified look he gestured, "Place her somewhere, I need to do something,"
So Link placed her near the sword's pedestal. Sesshoumaru closed his eyes before frowning. The Fierce Deity warned him [If you do this, the probability of either of you returning to your home became lesser and lesser]
What choice do we have?
He took out the sword that once belonged to the Fierce Deity, now solidified into its new form. Though its double helix design remained, his energy mixed with the Fierce Deity had also transformed it. More slender than before, with odd markings etched onto the oddly colored blades' inside, glow a poison green, the blade hummed with a sinister voice. The Master Sword rattled in its blade in return, causing Link to take it out.
Glowing with holy light, it reacted with the blade. Sesshoumaru stared at the blade in his hand, "A sword that cuts through fate and destiny..." He narrowed his eyes and through the veil that only he can see, a black thread of miasma being strangled by a familiar golden light was all that stand between Kagome and death.
[Daughter of Hylia...the girl must be the reason your Priestess remained among the living. But she's strained as it is, between caging the beast in the castle and stopping the Priestess from having her soul stolen, she's barely holding on either]
Sesshoumaru turned to Link, "Place your sword on her body. She will need it as an anchor. The combined energy of this grove and your Princess managed to stop her soul from completely leaving her body. But they can only do so much,"
After Link had done as he asked, he was ordered to stand as far back as possible. Link watched with baited breath and a prayer on the tip of his tongue as Sesshoumaru channeled his own youki through the blade before slashing at the air. Something snapped in the grove, mysterious air blasting away from where he cut and the Great Deku Tree sighed, "What insidious evil, to try and steal a soul under my guard,"
Before Link could ask, Kagome gasped and coughed, "What...what happened?"