Trinity Blood Fan Fiction / InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Shadows of Time ❯ Chapter 21

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Title: The Shadows of Time

Author: Ryukotsusei

Fandom: Inuyasha and Trinity Blood

Rating: NC 17

Warnings: Violence, torture, language, lemons, spoilers for the entire series just to be safe, and the possibility of out of character characterizations. Read at your own risk.

Pairings: Tres Iqus x Kagome Higurashi x Abel Nightroad

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or Trinity Blood. The series belong to Rumiko Takahashi, and the late Sunao Yoshido. I make no money off of this fan fiction.

Author's Note: Yes, I'm well aware that these chapters are shorter than the others. The story is winding down and if I were to combine it all into one chapter to keep the lengths consistent, the story would be over by now. I have to say, I'm rather sad to see this story so close to being over.

At any rate, this is my Christmas present to you all. This should answer a few of the questions that people posed about Abel and the bond. Merry Christmas everyone :)

Chapter Twenty One

Father Nightroad looked at the letter that he'd received earlier that day and clenched his fists. Now he knew why he'd been getting the feeling that something was terribly wrong with Kagome, even if he hadn't known what. Denial played a large part in why he hadn't acted before now, his belief in Tres' abilities to care for her blinding him to the truth. 'How could I have been so damned blind to what was going on? It's inexcusable!'

It was only by chance that he'd even managed to get the letter in the first place and that was because he'd somehow managed to befriend some of the nuns in the Vatican. Although they knew nothing of his past or what he was, they'd welcomed him as a friend, even if he hadn't revealed to them that he too, was a priest of the highest order. So when his name had been spotted on an envelope, one of the women had come to him immediately.

“Is it terrible news, Mr. Nightroad?” Sister Agnes asked uncertainly. She'd never seen that particular expression cross his face before and she feared that someone close to him might have died. Even the way his hands trembled spoke of a grief that was barely being contained.

“I have to return home,” Abel replied solemnly and glanced at the crumpled paper again. That Tres had bothered to write him in the first place was telling enough and the words that were on the page were enough to make his blood run cold. 'I'm going to be a father, and I never let her get the words out to tell me. Dear God, what have I done?'

“I thought Rome was your home,” Sister Agnes said in confusion. He seemed to know his way around the city well enough after all, and his accent wasn't foreign like that of so many of the travelers that came through their doors.

“At one time it was, long ago. But then I stayed in Japan briefly and met someone, but if I would have stayed there, it would have only brought her pain. I had to leave so that she could be happy,” Father Nightroad said quietly, “But now... I have to return and pray that I get there in time. I can't let her die, not if I can stop it.”

“Oh how terrible,” Sister Agnes said and looked sympathetically at the man. That foreigners weren't often welcomed in that part of the world was immaterial. To her way of thinking, the man standing before her was incapable of lying which could only mean he'd established important connections during his travels. Beyond that though, she knew that it was sometimes difficult to give up someone in order for them to be happy, but to do so showed how much they indeed cared. That he was still willing to go back now, in her time of need was touching and she hoped that he would succeed. “Will you be leaving soon then?”

“Within the hour,” Abel said and smoothed out the crumpled edges of the paper. 'If only I had known, this could have been avoided. I'm so sorry, Kagome. I failed you yet again and didn't even realize it.' Quickly he looked around the small room that he'd taken up residence in. There was nothing of value there, save for his clothing. The rest could be replaced easily enough so he wouldn't bother packing any of it. Traveling lightly was his only option and added baggage would only hold him back.

“I see, shall I arrange transportation for you then?” Sister Agnes asked quickly. The path to Japan was a long and dangerous one. Most of it could be traversed on foot, but it would take far too long. A carriage would suit him nicely though and if she could aid him in any way, she would.

“Yes, please do, Sister. If you could, find the fastest horse that you can. It's imperative that I get there quickly,” he replied and reached into a small container on the dresser for the money to purchase an animal that would be suited to his needs. While he didn't have much, what he did have would be enough to cover the expense. During his short stay, he hadn't led an extravagant life by any means and what money he had managed to acquire had been set aside in case of an emergency. Quickly he handed it to her without bothering to count it out. It didn't matter to him if it took every last coin there, it was that important.

“I'll try to hurry, Mr. Nightroad,” Sister Agnes replied quickly and hurried out the door. Normally they were not to interfere in the lives of others, devoting themselves only to God, but she knew that the silver haired man needed as much help as he could get. Her fingers tightened around the money in her hand and she ran faster, straight to the stables that would have exactly what she was looking for.

While the woman dashed off, Abel set about to grabbing his clothes and stuffing them in a small travel bag. These were the only things he couldn't replace easily as he had to have them tailored to fit him. Of course, the tailor had looked at him strangely when he asked if he could replicate the outfit he'd brought with him, without the religious symbols on them. While he hadn't forsaken his faith, wearing them so openly left him open to questions that he could not answer. In the end it was best to have them removed, just to prevent those inquiries. He couldn't afford to arouse any suspicions about himself.

With that finished, now all that was left was to wait for Sister Agnes' return and think about what awaited him back in Japan. It had been hell these past four months trying to forget about the girl and it was safe to say, that had been a complete failure. He'd constantly wondered if he'd done the right thing and when her grief didn't subside, he'd known he made the wrong choice. But it had been too late to right the wrong, especially seeing as he knew that for the first time since they'd left their own time that had been the only time he'd truly been happy.

All that had changed though when he became aware of Kagome's declining health, even if he wasn't sure of the reason why. At first he'd attributed it to the season, but as spring had approached and it only got worse, he had to reconsider. Now it was all to clear what had gone wrong.'I should have never left. Forgive me, Tres, but this is one time that you'll have to put your personal feelings aside. I won't leave her again.'

Deciding that he could wait just as easily outside, Father Nightroad picked up the small bag and strode out into the hallway. The people he walked by stared in surprise, but he paid them no mind. He'd never told them how long he intended to remain, he had made no promises. At least not to them anyway.

The sunlight struck him harshly the moment he stepped outside, but he didn't flinch away from it. Instead he gazed about the great city that was Rome, taking in it's appearance one last time. He understood that the moment he had packed his bag that he would never return again.'The past is just that, and that's where it shall remain. I have to start looking towards the future and embrace what I've been given instead of looking back and wondering what might have been.'

“It's a shame that you're leaving us so soon, Mr. Nightroad,” the innkeeper stated quietly. She'd seen the look on the man's face and knew that something terrible had happened. “I'd wondered why Sister Agnes ran off so suddenly. I tried to ask her where she was going, but all I got was something about needing a horse.”

“Yes, I'm afraid that I must continue my travels, Mrs. Baratti. Sister Agnes went to purchase a horse, as it's rather important that I get on the road tonight,” Father Nightroad replied apologetically. The older woman had been generous in allowing him to stay and had he more time he would have sought her out personally to thank her. But instead she'd come to him, “I must thank you for making my stay so enjoyable. I'm sorry to be running off on such short notice.”

“You're going back to the one you lost, aren't you?” Mrs. Baratti said with a knowing smile. There were few things that could get a man moving as quickly as what this particular male was doing, and a woman was one of them.

“How... how did you know?” Abel asked curiously while wishing that Sister Agnes would hurry. But there was no sign of her through the throngs of people walking past the entrance to the inn. He'd never spoken of Kagome to anyone even though she had become such a large part of his life, as painful as it was.

“I know the look, young one. The day you came here I could tell that you were missing someone and it was obvious she wasn't with you. A girl like that has to be important if you're ready to rush off like you are,” Mrs. Baratti explained with a wave of her hand, “Do yourself a favor and don't let her go this time, Abel. Life's too short to be indecisive. The next time she might not be there to return to.”

“I know,” Abel replied quietly, taking her words to heart, “Don't worry. I won't let her slip through my fingers again.” Fate wasn't so kind as to offer many second chances and this one he intended to take advantage of. His resolve strengthened and he knew that no matter what happened, things were going to turn out for the better. For all of them.

Suddenly the sound of hoof beats reached his ears and a wave of relief swept through him at seeing Sister Agnes leading a tall bay mare. The animal looked to be not only strong but fast which suited his needs perfectly. As soon as she pulled the animal into an area free of people, he stepped forward.

“Thank you for your help, Sister Agnes, you have my gratitude,” he said genuinely and took the reins from her hand.

“You're welcome, Mr. Nightroad. I'd give you your change, but I'm afraid there wasn't any,” she replied regretfully. It had been difficult to get the man to part with his best horse and the cost had been high, but she knew that there wasn't time to negotiate the cost down.

Father Nightroad shook his head, “I expected as much. Don't worry about it, you did well.”

Sister Agnes and Mrs. Baratti watched as he tied the small bag to the horses saddle and mounted up. Each of them took an uneasy step back when the horse fidgeted and the man grabbed at the reins. Identical thoughts crossed both of their minds as they wondered if he'd even been on a horse before.

“Be careful!” Sister Agnes called as he seemed to get himself situated comfortably in the saddle.

“Thank you both, for everything,” Abel said before he urged the mare into a trot. He couldn't go much faster through the crowd, not unless he wanted to run someone over. Fortunately he wasn't deep within the city and within a matter of minutes, he passed through the outer wall. Only then did he let the mare have her head and they darted out across the open ground.

Eventually he knew that the animal would tire and they'd have to rest, but for now he wasn't about to slow in his headlong dash back to Kagome's side. He'd deal with the need for sleep later, after he'd closed the distance between himself and his destination.

~Elsewhere~

It had been nearly sixteen days since they'd managed to catch up to the ship and only four since they'd managed to step foot onto the main land. By day Inuyasha ran while carrying a sleeping Kirara in the folds of his haori and by night, she carried him through the darkened skies. It was the quickest way that they knew to travel and the only time they stopped was when it became necessary to eat. By now each of them were thoroughly sick of traveling, but still they pushed on. To anyone else, they were making excellent time but neither of them were content with the progress they'd made. They needed to be even further along than they were, Kagome's life depended on it.

In fact it was nighttime now, and Inuyasha couldn't see shit in front of him, so he was relying on Kirara's superior sight. It had been hard to keep track of exactly where the hell they'd been going and getting directions wasn't exactly the easiest task in the world. He'd been rather annoyed to find that very few people on the mainland spoke Japanese, and the only other language that he knew in any small part was some archaic form of English that was different than what Kagome had managed to teach him. But those words were not nearly enough to get him through and it was less than helpful given the people they generally ran into.

Nor was there any sign of a large city nearby, which led Inuyasha to believe they still had a long distance to travel. He just hoped that Kagome was still hanging on, because this was taking longer than he'd anticipated. When Kagome had said that the mainland was many times larger than Japan, he'd had a hard time imagining it, but now, now he saw all too clearly how right she'd been.

'Just how much longer are we going to have to search?' He thought irritably, and tried to see though the darkness. The fact that the moon was nearly gone didn't help matters at all and he'd knew it would only be a few days before his human night was upon him. 'Good thing Kirara's taking the night shift, otherwise we wouldn't be making shit for time.' The breeze that had been caressing his face suddenly switched directions, bringing the acrid scent of smoke to his nose.

“What the hell?” he muttered and looked in the direction the scent was coming from. In all this time they hadn't come across one person camping out. It had all been extremely small towns, if they could be called that where the people were harder than hell to understand.

“Tch, probably some other bastard that has no business being out here, but has no choice,” Inuyasha snorted and prepared to ignore the fact that they weren't as alone as he'd first thought. But when Kirara abruptly switched directions he blinked in surprise, “What are you doing? Tthe damned city is the other way.”

In response Kirara shook her head and continued in the new path. She'd picked up on a scent that if Inuyasha had been paying attention, he would have noticed too. She, for one, was grateful that they weren't going to have to continue the trek to Rome and once Inuyasha realized who she had found, he would be as well. To that end, she endured the hanyou's muttered curses and except for the twitch of her ears, ignored him.

Suddenly the soft glow of a campfire came into view, nestled in between several large boulders that shielded the camp's occupant from the wind. A horse neighed in fear upon scenting Kirara's approach and moment's later hoof beats could be heard heading in the opposite direction.

“Good going, Kirara. That person's gonna be pissed when they have to go and track their horse down in the dark,” Inuyasha said with a snort and crossed his arms. It really wasn't much of a concern to him though, so long as they got back on track and weren't asked to help track the beast down. 'Hell, maybe we'll get lucky and this person can tell us whether we're even going in the right direction.'

However the muffled curse that echoed through the darkness had his eyes widening in surprise. 'No fucking way!' What were the chances they'd come out all this way only to run across their quarry camping out on this god forsaken stretch of desert? Yet that's exactly what seemed to have happened and now that they were almost upon the man, the Crusnik's scent was like a slap to the face.

“Bastard,” Inuyasha growled and launched himself off of Kirara's back. He smirked in satisfaction when the man turned just in time to see the punch coming and he was pleased he he smelled the metallic scent of blood fill the air. “Stand up, priest. I'm going to beat your ass and then drag your half dead corpse back to Japan so you can finish what you started.”

Father Nightroad stood up and wiped the blood from his lips, but he made no move to defend himself from the advancing hanyou. “I see you found me, Inuyasha.” To see the half demon standing before him wasn't a great surprise, if the roles had been reversed, he would have done the same thing.

“Surprised, asshole? Did you think that I wouldn't catch up to you sooner or later? I'd like nothing more than to tear you limb from limb, but lucky for you, I need you alive,” Inuyasha growled and cracked his knuckles. This was the perfect battle ground to have it out. The open stretch of land ensured that there was be no destruction of anything important and there was no one around to stop them. By the time he was finished with the Crusnik, he wouldn't be in any condition to object to going back. If Abel was lucky he'd be conscious enough to know he was being slung over Kirara's back like a sack of clothing.

“I know you do, why do you think I was already returning?” Abel replied testily. He'd already accepted that he was deserving of the hanyou's anger, as well as the punch that he'd already been dealt. In all honesty, he knew that he deserved far more than what he'd been given. But was there a point to beating each other bloody when it would only delay getting back to Kagome?

“Returning? Doesn't look that way to me, you're a little too far north for that,” Inuyasha said with a snort of derision and then paused. “Wait a minute. What is it that you think you know?”

“Tres sent me a letter and I got it almost a week ago, Inuyasha. I'm well aware of what's going on and why you are here. As far as me being too far north, I'd say you're mistaken. This is the trading route to China, I'd say it's you that went off course,” Abel replied warily, waiting to see what the hanyou would say to that.

“He sent you a letter? Why the fuck didn't he tell me that?” Inuyasha swore, his eyes narrowed in further irritation. If he'd known that much he would have been watching for the Crusnik instead of looking for a damned city. They could have passed right by him and never known if they hadn't smelled the fire he had going. He could have imagined the hell he would have gone through then, hunting through a city in which their prey had already escaped from. 'Dammit, I'm going to kick his ass when we get back.'

“You'd have to ask Tres that,” Father Nightroad said and looked off into the darkness. The horse was long gone of course, not that it would have been able to keep up with Kirara for long. “I was going to start traveling again in the morning, but if you're here it means we don't have time for that.”

“Damned right we don't. I've wasted enough time looking for you, there's no telling how bad things are back home now,” Inuyasha said and kicked dirt over the fire to put it out. It would be a strain on Kirara to carry them double, but it couldn't be helped. What was going to suck was the fact that their traveling time would be cut in half, unless Father Nightroad gave up the pretense of being human and used his Crusnik form because Kirara still needed to rest during the day.

Quickly Father Nightroad gathered up his bag and waited for Inuyasha to climb on Kirara's back. Once the hanyou was firmly in place, he slid in behind him and waited for the cat to take to the air again.

“Tell me the truth, Inuyasha. How bad is it? Tres wasn't exactly descriptive in his letter,” Abel asked quietly. While he could feel her through the bond, he also knew that Kagome had learned in part how to minimize how strongly he and Tres could feel her. He needed to know just how much she was hiding so that he could be prepared for what awaited them once they got back to Japan. While he'd seen the damage done to humans carrying a vampire's offspring before and knew that it wasn't pretty, it was highly unlikely that Kagome was dealing with that problem. After all, he wasn't exactly a vampire.

“It's not good. She's been bedridden for weeks now and can barely eat. What little energy she has is being destroyed by the fever,” Inuyasha replied solemnly. Now that he knew that the Crusnik was aware of the situation, it took some of the burden off of his shoulders. “You know what it's doing to her right?”

“I do,” Abel replied uneasily, “In the beginning, humans volunteered themselves for the experiments with the Bacillus virus and the nanomachines. However, once they learned what would happen, the ones in charge decided to force the issue and it was no longer a voluntary program. Hundreds died before they figured out that most humans weren't strong enough to bear a child infected with the virus.” And none had survived the implantation of the nanomachines. It had only been once the people in charge decided to start with test tube embryos that they had any measure of success, and then, it was only the four of them that had survived.

“Obviously they found a way, otherwise you wouldn't be here. Mind telling me how to stop this thing from killing her?” Inuyasha snapped impatiently. He really didn't care for the history of the Methusela. He just wanted to know what they'd need to do in order to save Kagome.

Hearing his child referred to as a thing had Abel's eyes narrowing in anger, but he didn't comment. It figured that even Inuyasha would consider it as something less than desirable, considering what it was doing to its mother. “If she were carrying a vampire's child, it would need the energy of another vampire nearby to repress it. Otherwise it would continue to feed unchecked and the mother would weaken to the point where it would kill her,” he said, not bothering to hold back in the slightest.

“What do you mean if? This kid certainly isn't a human, not with what it's doing to her,” Inuyasha said with a scoff. He wasn't sure if this was some ploy by the man to say the kid wasn't his, but he wasn't about to stand by for that one.

“It could be nothing else, unless the nanomachines managed to pass themselves along to the child,” Father Nightroad replied warily. Was such a thing even possible? He couldn't say for sure, but something told him that they had to consider the possibility with the way that Inuyasha was reacting.

“But I thought you were an enhanced vampire,” Inuyasha said uneasily. He wasn't sure that he liked the way the conversation was going. If the idiot was right, then there was the distinct possibility that Kagome's illness was something that even Nightroad wouldn't be able to fix.

“I was a human before I became anything else,” Father Nightroad said quietly, still pondering the possibilities of what this child could be. Theoretically his child would be human, but since he'd fused with the nanomachines at one hundred percent during his ressurection, nothing could be certain.

“Shit,” Inuyasha swore under his breath before continuing, “Say these things in you managed to pass themselves on to your kid. Would it act the same way as a vampire would?”

The question made Abel pause before answering. He'd never attempted to feed on a human himself and in fact, he'd never had the urge to. Yet there was still the fact that blood was blood, which was the only reason he'd been able to subsist on demons for as long as he had. Assuming that his child had the nanomachines, would he or she do more damage to Kagome's body than would occur normally? He had to admit that it was a very real possibility, “Most likely, in which case Kagome would suffer in the same way that a human would when carrying a vampire's offspring.”

“So if that's what's going on, will you be able to stop that from happening?” Inuyasha asked and then held his breath while waiting for an answer. He didn't want to believe that he came all this way, just to bring the man back to say his final goodbyes.

“If it's God's will, then yes,” Father Nightroad whispered, hoping that was indeed the case. That he'd be able to do anything to stop Kagome's death was a slim one, if she was as far gone as what Inuyasha had said. But he had to hold out hope and he knew that Kagome was inherently strong, both in her will and her body. That alone is probably what had kept her alive for this long. Most pregnancies never survived past the first trimester when the mother was carrying vampiric offspring.

“You'd better be able to do something, Priest. I refuse to let Kagome die because of something you two idiots did to her,” Inuyasha muttered, knowing that his warning was clear and understood. Should they lose Kagome, he'd destroy the both of them, or die in the attempt. That much was a promise he'd already made to her, even if she'd never heard him speak the words.

End of Chapter Twenty One