Her scent was thicker among the lavender fields he was approaching. His mother would have liked this place. The moon was brilliant and gold against the deep midnight blue of the sky. The pathway was a mixture of silver and gold sands being illuminated from the celestial presence of the lunar face. Patterns of ripples and curves were raked into the sands bordering forest and lavender as a small mountain or hill came into view. Her blood was filling his senses enough to where the spice was a bit more identifiable. It burned his nose a bit but held some sweetness to it. He could almost take it. The doctor was here. As Sesshomaru walked on the path, he spotted something in the center of the pathway. It was a lamphanger chair. Someone was sitting in it, but the face and body were obscured by a large straw and needle hat and a long, shadowy cloak. A lantern was floating around the chair in an orbital motion. Sesshomaru narrowed his eyes before cautiously walking up closer to the figure in case it was just a decoy. The closer he got, the more he smelled the doctor's blood. Smacking off the hat, he took a step back when the doctor caught the hat between her fingers effortlessly and turned to him with displeasure in her glowing, hazel eyes.
Her war paint and rosy lipstick had returned to accentuate her features. Her hair looked softer than usual. She must have just brushed it. The hell traveler's tasseled earrings were being worn, but they weren't that deep indigo color like before. They were closer in color to the war paint on her eyes, a deep burgundy color. Fire danced across the needles in her hat before she disappeared in a burst of shadow and reappeared with a sword in hand on his right side. He backed away just in time to dodge a forward thrust and backward slash. Sesshomaru wasted no time in summoning his poison whip to wrap around her sword and snatch it out of her hand, but the doctor was quick in throwing her hat like a disc and letting it disperse to surround the western lord with barbed wires. The needles rattled around him before he ducked and shot backwards to avoid the wires from clinging to him in a deathly grab.
When the needles returned to the hat and Meioshi retrieved her sword, she narrowed her eyes at him and hissed, "I told you to never come near Homugi again. Since you didn't understand me the first time, let me make this clear for you again!"
Thrusting her sword into the sands, Meioshi picked up tendrils of silvery grains with her blade in arc motions to mask herself in shadow and grit. Her hat flew out from her shifting form and spun directly at Sesshomaru, forcing him to go on the defense and slash at the hat with his claw. Mistakenly believing that would be enough to rid himself of the decoy, he was taken by surprise when the hat burst into needles and struck at the sands surrounding him. The sands rippled and undulated like snakes travelling over water. Without warning, he felt a harsh elbow to the nape of his neck that left him partially stunned until he retaliated and dodged a slash across his armor from Meioshi's sword. She was no longer covered by the black cloak. Instead, she wore a variation of her doctor's garb in similar coloring like the burgundy tassels and war paint.
She charged at him to attack again, but Sesshomaru unsheathed Tokijin and turned the blade so that Meioshi's went inside of a keyhole. He then twirled his sword around and pointed it at the doctor's neck to stop her. Only she kept going. Kicking the blade away from her, she backflipped away to form a few hand signs then slowly punched at the ground to summon spikes of sand to blast the western lord off his feet. Spinning rapidly to gather more sand into her hands, she controlled the hat kinetically and spun it around in her hands before throwing it at Sesshomaru. He blocked it from hitting him with Tokijin then charged at her to perform several slashes in a barrage attack. She blocked most of the hits with exception to three and was thrown to the ground. Anger rising, the western lord let his yoki energy pick up the wind and sands around him. His eyes began glowing. If she wanted to play the hero so bad, so be it! Rushing at the doctor, he swiped at her with iron claws twice before dashing behind her and slashing at her another two times. She managed to block the last hit to disrupt a critical blow and made the hat disperse into needles again. Her cloak gathered some of his wind energy into its bodice before covering her and swimming through the air to surround him. It rushed around him in a circle before the needles finally grabbed him and unleashed a blast of power that shot him off the sandy pathway and onto regular, beaten ground.
His eyes went blood red at that, having had enough of her tricks. Summoning a devastating amount of yoki energy, Tokijin started glowing red before the energy took a more solid form and started changing into something unusual. Meioshi narrowed her eyes at this but wasn't about to let him destroy her beautiful meditation grounds. Rushing at him with her restored hat, Meioshi went to charge at Sesshomaru again, but a flash of light made her widen her eyes and the recognizable sheath of Kirameku Ha's sword struck her across the chest. He hit way harder than Sesshomaru did and knocked the wind out of her. She slid across the ground, wincing at the pain, but her sensei didn't stop there. He unsheathed his sword just enough to show his sword glowing bright blue with only an inch worth of exposed height and unleashed enough divine energy to burn Sesshomaru's yoki energy and silence the beast forming from his sword.
"Enough! Both of you!" Kirameku Ha barked, Jaken running behind the old man.
"Lord Sesshomaru!" Jaken called, hustling to his lord's side.
"Meioshi, I trained you better than this! What is the consequence of acting out on your anger?" Kirameku Ha questioned, displeased with his pupil's actions
"Punishment... of the second degree..." Meioshi replied, trying to catch her breath from the hit. "Violation of the eighth principal withstanding."
"Go back to the sacred grounds and serve it!" Kirameku Ha ordered, narrowing his eyes with fury.
She flinched at his tone but dared not go against him. He was right. Choosing the way of violence did not equate to protection. It just relieved her of the confusion and anger temporarily. She struggled to get up, but she did and she bowed to her sensei in respect. When she placed a hand on her chest and limped off, all was quiet until the old man snapped his sights to Sesshomaru. He wasn't sure why he was lecturing the demon boy, but somehow, he felt he had to. What they both did was out of line.
"How exactly was this supposed to clear your name?" Kirameku Ha questioned.
"You've no right to speak to me - "
"What part of stay away didn't you get?" Kirameku Ha asked, interrupting Sesshomaru. "Are you so incompetent as a man that you can't follow the simplest of directions to save your own skin? I wasn't telling you to keep your distance to sugar coat your truth. I was telling you that to show that you were ready to move on! You not only dishonored yourself, but you also dishonored the one you were trying to make amends with! If you keep standing in the wrong, you will never be able to make this right!"
"I will not stand to be lectured by some human!" Sesshomaru responded, lifting up his sword.
"A human just proved that you're weak as both a man and a leader. A woman just defended someone you're supposed to be defending. My pupil just showed you exactly how your kingdom will fall. The sad thing is she didn't have to kill you to do it," Kirameku Ha stated, silencing Sesshomaru.
"Lord Sesshomaru is not weak!" Jaken defended, stomping his feet in anger. "He could destroy the doctor at full power! She wouldn't be able to touch the House of Inu at all!"
"If she can gain the trust of your lord's followers, that's all she needs to overthrow him. Your power means nothing if it can be taken at will," Kirameku Ha said.
"Well, I don't trust the doctor at all, and I would never betray Lord Sesshomaru!" Jaken argued.
Sesshomaru looked down for a brief moment and thought to himself, But... she knows how to cure you... from my poison. If she does that... then...
"Leave this place at once, young Sesshomaru," Kirameku Ha ordered, making Sesshomaru look at him. "You have failed this trial. When Meioshi is no longer resolute in her anger, as I said before, you may try again to make amends with this other you are so adamant about speaking to."
With that, Kirameku Ha walked away from the sand path and back to Ah and Un. Jaken was about to argue again with Kirameku Ha, but he noticed that his lord hadn't moved from his spot. He turned back to Sesshomaru and noticed that his eyes widened like he heard those words before. Little would the imp know just how right he was. Failure... was Sesshomaru's mistress...