How He Fights

Lord Of The Western Lands

The Style:
When engaged in battle, Sesshoumaru is always cool and calm. His thoughts are collected even during difficulties, and his body moves as though it requires no effort on his part. His maneuvers almost seem to be a part of his instinctual reflex especially since you never see him hesitate or fret about which move to make. Moreover, he rarely shows any emotions while fighting, and he's unfazed even when hit. Reading someone's reactions in a battle can often help a fighter analyze the opponent's moves and in this sense, it makes Sesshoumaru an even more difficult opponent to anticipate.
Regardless of what he may be doing or looking at, Sesshoumaru always seems to know what's happening around him. He's extremely observant of his surroundings and reacts very quickly to respond to them- it's as though nothing ever surprises him. In fact, the only time I remember him being distinctly "surprised" during battle was when Inuyasha was taken over by his youkai blood- and even then, he reacted quickly.
Because Sesshoumaru always have full control and use of his body, this tends to put him at a far advantage in a battle. His speed is incredible and he dodges attacks so easily it's like second nature to him. He's capable of moving faster than the eye can see and this often takes his enemies by surprise. In one blink of an eye, he can be in an entirely different point of space from a moment ago. Giving his speed even more advantage is his capability to control his body by levitating himself and maneuvering mid-air with the same kind of grace. From mid-air, he can continue to attack while making it difficult for his opponents to reach him.
Most of the time that we get to see Sesshoumaru in action is when he fights his half-brother, Inuyasha. Unlike Inuyasha whose brash methods of fighting often consists of just straightforward slashing and attacking with the use of sheer strength and his Tessaiga, Sesshoumaru doesn't bother with all that. Instead, he utilizes his speed to gracefully move out of the attacks (while sometimes looking dispassionate or even bored) until he either feels like fighting back or he sees an opportunity for him to execute an attack that would completely smack his opponent down.

The Dokkasou Technique:
Dokkasou basically translates as "Toxic Flower Claw." This is probably one of the first techniques we see him use, and throughout the series, we get to see some various forms or versions of it. Like Inuyasha, Sesshoumaru also has claws- but unlike Inuyasha, Sesshoumaru has more use for his claws than just slashing. By using his claws, he can execute strong poisonous attacks on his opponent- which is so powerful that it is capable of melting his target (and pretty much everything else around it). Upon the attack, Sesshoumaru can also often be heard exclaiming "Dokkasou" or announcing that he's about to annihilate the enemy with his Dokkasou.

As mentioned, we get to see various different methods of how he actually executes the poison attack. Sometimes he just does the dashing forward and swiping at his opponents act while other times he may stab his clawed hands in the air and grab a hold of his target, aiming to melt and poison with his touch. He can also actually "spray" his poison from a distance without touching the person that he's attacking. That's what we see him do with Kagome at the beginning episodes inside his father's tomb with the Tessaiga. He basically stood from afar and raised his hand, then releasing his poison in the form of what looked like "spraying." The result? Everything sizzled away and buried Kagome beneath a pile of melted poisonous goo.

We can usually see when he's about to use his poison because his whole hand starts to glow green. I'm guessing that it signifies the poison gathering at his claws ready for usage as I don't think his hands are poisonous at all times. It was never mentioned where he got all that poison in his body and whether it was an inherited ability or something that he trained for. However, we do know that because he's a poison user, most of the poisons don't really affect him as he was heard to have claimed in the later episodes.

The Whip:
Aside from using his claws for executing poisonous attacks, he's also able to make some sort of a whiplash look-alike thing come out of his fingers. It's basically some greenish white swirl that looks and works like a whip as you see in the picture. I'm not sure how it comes out (it just does) but he appears to control it with his two forefingers and doesn't seem to take much effort on his part in executing it.

At the beginning of the series, Sesshoumaru used it to reprimand the humongous youkai that often appeared with him until the youkai was sucked into Miroku's air rip. Convenient for taming a pet, perhaps? :p In general, however, this method is often useful for attacking from afar as it's able to stretch very long. Utilizing it to fight against multiple enemies can also be effective as was seen at the very beginning when we were first introduced to Sesshoumaru's character. Being surrounded by a pack of wolves, he executed an attack with the whip although it appeared to be a little more elaborate than usual. He began by twirling and spinning his body while using some hand movements which sent out what looked like a bunch of green blades. These "blades" then literally sliced and shredded all the wolves around him into pieces. The battle was over way before it began.

I've also noticed that he uses this particular method a lot when fighting with Inuyasha...and usually it comes after some sort of sarcastic demeaning comment. I'm beginning to think he uses it for the purpose of making fun of Inuyasha. (laughs) No, okay...that just crossed my mind only because when he attacks Inuyasha with the "whip", it seems to make Inuyasha look a bit more inferior than usual. That probably has to do with the fact that Sesshoumaru often strikes Inuyasha from up in the air somewhere while Inuyasha isn't even able to get close to him. The usual scenario is Sesshoumaru "slapping" Inuyasha around with that whip-like motion and Inuyasha being too busy blocking to even have time to be attacking back. It doesn't actually do any real damage during these times, but Sesshoumaru still seems to enjoy it quite a bit....hence my little "making fun of Inuyasha" theory.

The Transformation:
When in need, transform! Sesshoumaru is a dog demon and therefore he is capable of changing in to his true form which, of course, is a huge dog. Here I will only touch on how he attacks after he enters his dog mode.

In his massive dog form, he is even more intimidating and powerful than his "human" form. Needless to say, his strength multiplies by quite a bit and well...being that big, it's not like a coupla punches will actually have much effect in terms of hurting him. On top of that, his ability to execute poisonous attacks also carries over into this form. However, instead of coming out of his claws, it alternated to dripping off his mouth. He basically salivates some major toxic stuff- which in turn melts away and burn whatever's sitting on the floor under his jaw. Scary stuff. The fumes of the poison is also incredibly toxic and is fatal to whoever breathes it in.

Aside from the poison, he usually just hops around on his four legs while he's in his transformed state. He also bit and clamped Inuyasha up with his jaw in one of this dog attacks. He was only seen to have transformed once so we actually don't know much else of what he can do as a gigantic dog. At times I'm almost inclined to feel that his untransformed self is more powerful but that's mainly due to the fact that we usually see his most amazing attacks while he's in his human form. Hopefully, we'll eventually learn more about his other form and what else he can do as a dog.