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Silver Demons
by SkyFire (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
rabid_plotbunny)
Previous chapters: 1 | 2 | 3-4 | 5-6 | 7-8 | 9-10 | 11-12 | 13-14
Warnings: Eventual Sess/Seph (shonen-ai or yaoi, I haven't decided. We'll see when we get there. ^_^)
Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII or InuYasha and no money is being made.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Chapter 15
They hadn't even arrived at their destination yet and already Sephiroth knew that he would have to rethink some of his previously held conclusions. Specifically, that 'demon' was only a blanket term used by superstitious Wutainese to classify anything that they saw as strange or inhuman.
It was rather hard to hold on to the whole 'demons are just strange humans' idea when confronted with an entire village of people whose only resemblance to humans was their basic body structure.
From a distance, it looked like any of the other villages they had passed by that day, but unlike those, this one thrived within sight of a fortified mansion large enough to rival that of Lord Godo.
He had been happy enough when they had bypassed the other villages.
Sometime during the night, he seemed to have acquired not only a fluffy fur pelt but a series of markings on his face and wrists mirroring Sesshoumaru's. Judging by Jaken's outraged squawking when he saw them, clearly he wasn't the one responsible. He was almost certain it had been Rin to 'decorate' him, but that conclusion was based more on a hunch than any actual proof; not that his hunches were anything to scoff about. He could only wonder how she had actually managed to do so without waking him, or causing him to lash out - usually fatally - in his sleep. No one had managed to sneak up on him like that since he was a small child; he had Hojo to thank for that, not that he ever would. That morning, she had complimented him on his 'improved' looks, but that didn't stop him from washing them off at the first available opportunity.
Or trying to, anyway.
To his dismay, the dye stubbornly refused to vanish and though the marks were mere shadows of their former vibrancy, they were still quite easily visible.
Great. Now it looked like he was the one trying to look like Sesshoumaru instead of the other way around. He could only imagine the consequences should a picture of this get back to Shinra and they decided that he had gone AWOL just to take a trip to Wutai to imitate the pale lord. How much lab-time would the President curse him with then...?
But that was beside the point, that being that they had bypassed all the other villages so he had rather expected them to pass this one as well, but instead of veering off again, Sesshoumaru stuck to the road and led them right down into it.
And that was the point when his safe little preconceived notions screeched to a rusty halt and shattered.
On one side of the village's main street - which seemed to double as a market - a woman was selling fabric. Even to his untrained eye the quality of the cloth was superb, but that wasn't what caught and held his attention. Dressed in a beautiful pale-pink kimono decorated with a delicate flower pattern, the woman had the head, paws, and tail of a fox. Make that tails, as there seemed to be two of them bouncing along behind her. In front of her, examining a bolt of fabric, was another well-dressed woman with a head of brightly-colored feathers, wings, and three-toed bird feet.
All around them, people went about their daily business just like any other village, with the sole exception being that everyone had either some obvious animal parts or markings and an almost human shape like Sesshoumaru.
His first thought - that they were just smarter than average Mako monsters - was proven wrong by the simple fact that even when they were surrounded by them, he could not detect even a hint of the distinctive sour smell of Mako.
None.
So demons were real?
Sesshoumaru had been telling the truth?
Demons were real? Why had he never been informed of that? It was his job to know things like that! And if these Wutainese demons were all as fast and strong as Sesshoumaru, why had his own SOLDIERs never encountered them?
Then again, considering the reaction of the human villagers and monks toward anyone they thought might be a demon, perhaps it shouldn't surprise him that any real demons would let them fight and fall alone.
They kept walking and soon the fox-headed woman was lost from sight behind them thanks to the bustling crowd. Crowd. The market was full of... people... and yet they were still moving along at that same steady pace and he hadn't been jostled even once. How-?
His question was answered when he caught sight of Sesshouamru again, wrenching his attention back to his companions and away from the market's novel population.
No one jostled Sesshoumaru, either. Instead the crowd parted for him, getting out of his way in much the same way that they moved away from the Presiden't vehicle, only without SOLDIERs having to be there to enforce that distance. This crowd respected Sesshoumaru's personal space - and that of the rest of his party - all on their own, and while the iron tang of fear or anger rose from a few, most seemed to feel nothing but a great respect and almost awe.
Was that what it meant to be daiyoukai? Or was it because he was Sesshoumaru? For that matter, it was actually quite similar to the reaction he got whenever he went somewhere, only without the creepy imitators.
Was Sesshoumaru, possibly, Wutai's answer to Sephiroth?
Now that was something to think about.
oOo
It wasn't long before they left the bustling town behind them, the quiet of the open road closing around them again, disturbed only by Rin's cheerful singing and Jaken's occasional squawks.
Sephiroth wasn't sure what to think of that. Since they had actually gone through the village instead of around it - and since the people there obviously knew who Sesshoumaru was - he had more than half-expected them to stop at one of the houses there; some of them looked big enough to belong to a backwater Wutainese demon lord.
But they didn't, didn't even pause, and he was left wondering just why they had gone there at all. Had it been Sesshoumaru's way of proving that demons did, in fact, exist? To simply show him almost-irrefutable proof instead of verbally arguing the point? He could understand that; neither of them seemed to be fond of saying two words when one would do, and if they didn't have to speak at all, so much the better. He had pulled similar things on his subordinates on more than one occasion himself and knew that the point tended to sink in better when one discovered it for oneself than if someone else simply told them.
Yet another way that they were similar, but Sesshoumaru had taken silence and near-invisible cues to a whole new level. Even he, who had trained himself to notice such things, only started seeing those cues when he noticed Rin answering them. Sephiroth couldn't help but be impressed; the daiyoukai made the Turks' covert hand-signals seem as obvious as the archaic semaphore.
The road turned and started to climb.
Shinra's SOLDIER-General added the detail to his ever-growing mental map and once again tried to superimpose it over his image of Wutai but no matter how he turned it, it just wouldn't line up anywhere. He thought briefly that he might be one one of Wutai's collection of smaller islands, but dismissed the idea almost immediately. Those islands were small enough that he should be able to see ocean in at least two or three directions at any given time and that was just not the case. He could smell seawater in the air, getting stronger as they walked, and hear the cry of seabirds, but looking back the way they had come all he could see behind and to the sides was field and forest.
When they got to wherever they were going - he could only assume it would be Sesshoumaru's home - he would have to see if the other man had a map he could look at. He was sure that once he could check an accurate map he could figure out how to get back to the main continent and from there....
...from there, what? He had already decided, even before Jenova sank her tentacles into him, that he would not be going back to Shinra. And yet, they were the ones who had the records that he wanted, the ones that would tell him who he was, who his real parents were.
He supposed that Genesis was always an option, though he didn't know that he could keep the anger of betrayal back if the redhead insisted on taunting him as he seemed to enjoy.
After careful consideration, Sephiroth decided against it. It might be easier to get the answers he wanted if he joined him, but they would not be worth the level of conflict and aggravation the redhead seemed to thrive on.
What, then? He supposed that he could always hit one of the smaller outposts. He doubted that his security clearance had been revoked yet - especially if they thought he was dead - so getting in should be easy enough, and once he had access to one of the networked computers, well. It would be time to see if those hacking tricks he'd learned from one of the Turks were as good as he'd claimed they were.
But that was for later. Now was now.
The ground leveled off again and Sephiroth shook off his musings to look around. One snowy brow rose slightly as he found that they had come within range of the fortified mansion walls he'd noted before. Surely this wasn't... it couldn't be....
Sesshoumaru didn't even hesitate as he walked toward the large gates. Decorated with elaborate carvings of dogs, they swung open at his approach. The guards at either side snapped smartly to attention.
"Welcome back, Lord Sesshoumaru," one greeted.
With a tiny nod of acknowledgement, Sesshoumaru led his group through the gates and into the clean-swept courtyard beyond. Almost immediately, Rin took off across the smooth flags towards the mansion and Ah-Un wandered away, presumably heading for the stables.
Sesshoumaru walked across the wide open space and up the mansion stairs. At the top, he paused in front of the now-open doors, the guards there at attention like those at the gates had been. He turned to look at Sephiroth, who had followed him there. "As the lord of these lands, this Sesshoumaru welcomes you, Sephiroth, to the Western Lands' summer palace."
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Chapter 16
Now he was getting somewhere!
When they had arrived at the palace the evening before, Sephiroth had followed a woman Sesshoumaru had called to the room that was apparently to be his for the duration of his stay. It was nice enough in that bare, clean-lined traditional Wutainese way, the bed a simple futon on good-smelling tatami floor; near enough to what he had expected given everything he had seen so far. Not being a man who enjoyed clutter in his living spaces, it was very much to his taste. It was also a single room.
He got a blank look when he asked the woman where he could shower, but when he changed it to a request for a bath she brightened and led him down the hall then out a door and into a mid-sized courtyard. It was surrounded by walls with covered porches running the entire way around, the middle left open to the sky, and in it was carefully-cultivated greenery surrounding what could only be a natural hot spring. The woman showed him where the bath supplies were then left him alone with a promise to return with towels and a sleeping yukata.
As soon as she was gone, he wasted no time in stripping then slipping into the soothing warmth, noting with satisfaction that the wound from his impalement on the Buster Sword had healed without even a mark. If he had missed anything about his time in Wutai - besides the complete lack of Hojo - this was it.
After a good long soak - it was full dark by the time he pulled himself from the water and servants had already been around lighting various lamps - he dried himself off, dressed in the robe he'd been left, then went back inside. Thanks to his habit of mapping out everywhere he went, he didn't have much trouble finding his room again.
With the decision to find Sesshoumaru and ask for a look at a map in the morning, Sephiroth put out the lamps that had been lit in his own room and slipped into bed.
oOo
It was not yet dawn when he awoke; his usual hour.
Sometime in the night, someone had put a small pile of clothing just inside the door and though he was a bit disturbed that they had been able to do that without waking him - between them and Rin, he was starting to wonder if he was losing his edge - he was glad to be able to change into real clothing instead of having to go around in sleepwear.
The clothes themselves were just as awkward to get into as last time and he was forced to do it from memory. It took maybe twice or three times as long to get dressed as the last time, but he was reasonably confident that not only had he gotten it right but that it also wouldn't loosen and fall off.
Hopefully, anyway.
He was lucky that the style was the same as those he had borrowed from Sesshoumaru. He wasn't sure just what he would have done if they had been different.
Once he was dressed to his satisfaction, he waited in his room, checking over his weaponry until he heard the sound of people moving around quietly in the hallway on the other side of the thin paper wall. It didn't take long; his weaponry at that point was reduced to a pair of small knives, the Masamune, and a pouch full of dead Materia he'd found in the temple rubble near the bodies of the last monks he'd slain, retrieved at some point during his night-long battle with Sesshoumaru. He didn't know why he had bothered to pick them up, other than the faint hope that he might somehow be able to fix them, or at least find out why their power had vanished.
Stowing them away again, he left the room then followed a helpful servant down the long hallways to the dining hall where he could presumably get breakfast.
Luck was with him; he arrived shortly after Sesshoumaru, which certainly made tracking down the daiyoukai a lot easier, and it was as they ate that he made his request to see a map. His request granted, once they were both done eating he followed Sesshoumaru to a large room the other man called his 'study', what Sephiroth would have called an 'office'. There was one bigger table sitting facing the doorway, centered against the far wall. Full shelves lined three of the walls and there was a smaller table off to one side, both table in the traditional style with cushions for sitting.
Sephiroth took the roll of paper Sesshoumaru pulled from one of the shelves with a quiet thank you, then moved to the smaller table and unrolled it even as the daiyoukai took his place behind the larger table and began his own work.
Whatever optimism he'd felt at finally being able to know exactly where in Wutai he'd ended up shriveled up as soon as he really took in what he was seeing and compared it to long-sinced memorized maps of the world.
What the-?
"Sesshoumaru," he said, looking over to the daiyoukai, who paused in his own work to look up, gold eyes meeting blue-green.
"Yes?"
"Just how accurate is this map?"
Sesshoumaru stood with a soft hiss of silk, went over and looked at the map. "Very," he said after a long moment of study. "Here we are" - one claw pinpointed a spot on the map, then lightly followed the thin line of a road to another spot - "and this is the temple where we met."
Unfortunately, the map and Sesshoumaru's words were matching up perfectly with the mental map he'd formed as they walked. He drew his finger down the coastline nearest the landmass labeled simply The Continent. "And the coast?"
"Is accurate."
"That isn't possible."
"Explain."
"The Wutainese coastline isn't shaped like that, and the continental coastline is all wrong. And why are these mountains here?" One finger pointed out said mountains, then dragged down the page to a spot roughly in the middle of the country. "They should be over here. For that matter, the entire island is entirely the wrong shape. Wutai isn't shaped like this, it's..." he looked around. Spotting blank paper on Sesshoumaru's table, he pointed to it. "May I?"
A simple nod in reply, the barest hint of a frown on that impassive face.
Sephiroth went over, dipped the brush in ink and began to draw, long experience speaking plainly in the ease with which he made the country appear. "Wutai is shaped like this. See how the coast curves? Then the mountains and Da-Chao. The capital and Lord Godo's estate. The continent closest to Wutai had a soastline like this, and here's the port we usually use to get there." Taking his map, Sephiroth brought it over to compare to Sesshoumaru's. "See? They look nothing alike! Were I you, I would have words with the cartographer responsible."
"True, they bear no resemblance. However, this Sesshoumaru is unfamiliar with the landmarks you named. He knows of no 'Da-Chao', nor any lord - demon or human - named 'Godo'. He also knows that his map is accurate; he has seen his lands from above on enough occasions to know this."
"From above? You mean from an airship? Good! If you could tell me where they are, I could hire one to take me back to where I'm supposed to be."
"This Sesshoumaru knows of no 'air ship'; he flies under his own power. He has also already pointed out that he knows no 'Wutai' and has yet to send out queries to his informants."
Now it was really starting to sink in, despite the way that everything he knew argued against it as impossible. The way that Sesshoumaru's map fit perfectly with the one he has made since he had awakened after his dip in Nibelheim's reactor. The way that nothing about the daiyoukai's map lined up with his own well-memorized map of Wutai; and he knew it was accurate - nine years spent waging war across it made him absolutely certain of it.
All right. Time to count the facts.
Fact: His own map of Wutai was accurate.
Fact: Sesshoumaru's map was also accurate.
Fact: The maps were clearly not the same and their only similarity seemed to be the fact that they were islands.
Conclusion? He was not in Wutai. And, considering the fact that Sesshoumaru's map didn't mesh with any part of Shinra's map of the world....
"Where am I?"
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