InuYasha Fan Fiction / Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ In Pursuit of the Green Dragon ❯ An Unexpected Opportunity ( Chapter 30 )

Kasama Castle, 16th-century Japan

If Kagome had thought she was cold before, it was nothing compared to the frozen horror that she felt as she saw Envy cupping Kouga's jewel shards in his blood-stained fingers.

Her captor grinned and raised his prize to examine it more closely.

"I just love it when my guests bring me presents," he purred, his strange purple eyes glowing with delight.

"You...bastard," Kouga gritted out. He was still on his knees, struggling to rise after the sudden attack that had ripped the shards from his lower legs. "Those are mine. I need them!"

The wolf-prince clutched at Kagome's hand, trying to lever himself to his feet.

She found her voice. "Kouga-kun...don't. Please..." Please don't let him kill you, too.

She shuddered as she vividly remembered Alphonse Elric as she had last seen him, unconscious and bleeding heavily from deep slashes across his chest and belly. Was Al really dead, as Envy had told her?

No, he couldn't be! And if Kouga had found her, perhaps Inuyasha was close behind.

Wrongness, like a heavy wave of jyaki, swept over her. She looked up to see Envy enveloped in dark coils of a miasma that writhed free of the jewel embedded at the base of his too-pale throat.

"Oh no, you don't, you little fucker!" he rasped, his face contorting.

He was holding Kouga's shards against his own large fragment, but as his wide sleeves fell back, Kagome saw how the muscles in his forearms bunched, as if he were fighting to move his arm away from the jewel--and couldn't.

There was a soundless explosion, and Kagome staggered backwards a step against an invisible wave that surrounded her momentarily with an overwhelming anger and lust to destroy everything.

She gasped, and the feeling left her as abruptly as it had appeared.

"No! Not now!" Envy's voice was now a choked growl.

He stiffened, his body bowing backwards as if he were convulsing. His arms fell to his sides, and the dark energies pulsing around him surrounding him like an evil cloak.

Not good! Kagome thought, rooted to the spot with an awful fascination. What's happening to him?

She wasn't the only one. The youkai and human retainers who had followed them out into the courtyard began to murmur uneasily, and a gradual shuffle away from their afflicted lord commenced.

Envy screamed, and convulsed again, his body lengthening and changing. Kagome took a nervous step back herself.

A hint of scaliness appeared on the bits of pale skin that showed through the miasma, and his body kept elongating just as unnaturally as his fingers had...earlier.

What was going on?

Another hoarse scream. His head was deforming as she watched and the miasma cloaked him in choking coils.

And the expression in his eyes, when Kagome caught a glimpse, was entirely devoid of the malicious intelligence that had characterized her previous interactions with him.

Waves of blind rage and bloodlust beat against her mind like angry wing-beats, battering, bruising her sense of self.

And then she knew. The jewel was possessing him, forcing him to transform into a dragon, and it had driven him mad.

"We have to go!" she whispered fiercely down at Kouga, who was still on his knees and who seemed transfixed by the sight of Envy's transformation.

"Yeah," he replied absently, but didn't stop staring.

"Oh no," said Chouko's voice at this most unwelcome moment, and Kagome felt the youkai woman seize her arm in a bruising grip. "Envy-dono has not yet dismissed you."

"But something's really wrong with him!" Kagome protested, feeling as if she were stating the obvious.

"And you have to stop it! That's why he let you live," countered Chouko.

To Kagome's horror, she actually stepped forward, pulling Kagome with her. "Envy-dono! We can help you!" she called.

Nononono! No one can help him now!

Kagome bit back a whimper and dug in her heels, trying to wriggle out of Chouko's painful grip on her wrist. Unfortunately, her flimsy zori sandals didn't give her much purchase on the loose gravel that paved the courtyard, and she skidded, flailing a little to maintain her balance as Chouko dragged her forward.

"She's not going anywhere with you!" said Kouga, finally rousing from his distracted state, and Kagome suddenly found herself the center of a tug-of-war between two youkai.

"Let her go!" demanded Chouko, in a low voice.

"Like hell I will!" Kouga's grip grew tighter, and Kagome felt the bones in her hand grind together painfully.

The relentless pull continued from both directions, until the pain in Kagome's arms and shoulders grew unbearable. It felt like Chouka and Kouga might pull her arms from her sockets without realizing their strength.

"OW!" she cried, finally. "Let go of me!"

Neither of the two youkai paused from glowering at each other to pay heed to her.

But Envy, who had nearly completed his metamorphosis into a giant, pale-green dragon, took notice of the disturbance.

There was a blur of motion, and Chouko's sudden scream was just as suddenly silenced. Her grip vanished abruptly, and Kagome was yanked backwards.

She fell heavily on top of Kouga. He made a faint "Oof!" and wrapped his arms around her waist as they landed in the dirt and gravel.

Then Kagome watched in horror as the dragon that had once been Envy bit down on the body in its jaws. Chouko convulsed in a dark spray of blood, and the miasma surrounded her. Kagome saw the youkai woman's youki flare, then dissipate rapidly, as if absorbed by the miasma.

Then Envy began to chew, noisily and messily, and Kagome turned away, feeling light-headed and more than a little nauseous.

"C'mon. We'd better get out of here," Kouga said.

The arms around her waist tightened, and Kagome found herself abruptly on her feet. Dizzy, and swallowing hard to keep down her meager breakfast, she didn't protest when he took her hand and began pulling her along.

They found themselves engulfed in general stampede of humans and youkai, all trying to escape the confines of the courtyard as Envy finished devouring the unfortunate Chouko and casually plucked up another youkai, this one dressed in what looked like a garment of green leaves and vines.

"Stand fast! Hold your ground, men! We are the Sons of the Dragon!" one of the armored human guards was shouting, bravely trying to stop the exodus by barring the broken gate with his spear.

No one paid him any heed, not even his fellow guardsman, and certainly not Kouga and Kagome.

But the guardsman had created a bottleneck in the gateway, and the mass of fleeing retainers fighting to shove their way through the narrow opening in the walls only made things worse. As Kagome watched, Envy swiftly advanced, and took another victim from the now-panicked mob.

They weren't going to escape that way. But where could they go? Kagome glanced around wildly.

"This way!" Kagome shouted, and pulled at the hand Kouga still held.

He lurched in her wake with staggering steps, his fingers laced securely with hers.

"Hey," he panted, as she tried frantically to hurry him along. "Wasn't I supposed to be rescuing YOU?"

She spared him a small smile over her shoulder. "We'll rescue each other, Kouga-kun, okay?"

His mouth quirked in return. "Just don't tell dog-shi--I mean, Inuyasha."

The screams intensified behind her, and then came the crashing sound of something large collapsing.

"Hurry!" she urged, pulling Kouga around the corner of one of the outbuildings.

They had to get out of the courtyard. They had to get out of sight. If Envy was following them....

Unimpeded by human or youkai, all of whom seemed more worried about saving themselves than recapturing escaping prisoners, they passed through an inner gate which opened into the bailey courtyard. Kouga's legs were apparently healing themselves with supernatural speed, and he was starting to keep pace with her.

"There!" He tugged on her hand and pointed. A wooden door stood ajar in a small building that adjoined the innermost set of the castle's fortification walls.

They pushed the door open and stumbled into a dimly-lit chamber that looked like the castle's guardroom. No one was here, thank goodness--they must have all run outside when the alarm was first raised.

Kagome frantically bolted the door behind her, aware that it would provide minimal protection at best from the dragon, if it found them. Then she looked around her temporary refuge.

The guardroom was small, and dark, with stone walls and a tiny barred window high on one wall. It was furnished with a small ceramic charcoal stove filled with glowing coals. A pot of water boiled away and an uncapped canister of powdered green tea stood next to the stove, along with a collection of rough-glazed teacups, as if the room's occupants had been in the middle of a tea-break when they were interrupted.

The walls were hung with bits of armor and weapons of various kinds. Kouga didn't hesitate. He unhooked a quiver filled with arrows from the wall nearest him, and tossed it to her. "Here, catch!"

She made a desperate grab for the heavy, boiled-leather cylinder, trying to keep the arrows from spilling over the floor. Without waiting, Kouga turned away again, and freed the next item, a sturdy bamboo longbow. He thrust it toward her, and Kagome took it. It was unstrung, and larger than her usual weapon.

Am I strong enough to string this myself? She thought, looking at it in dismay.

But...no. Kouga plucked it from her grasp, braced one end against his foot, and looped the waxed hempen bowstring effortlessly over the notch at the top of the bow. "Here you go," he said, handing it over. "I remember you're a pretty good shot."

"Thank you." The weight of the weapons in her hands was comforting. She didn't feel defenseless any more, even though... "Kouga-kun, these won't work against the dragon," she said. "He's not a youkai."

"Hn. That explains a lot," Kouga replied, sourly. "Well, use them against the others--I could swear that at least half the guards in this place are youkai. Weird to see them working with humans, though," he continued, frowning. "Though dog-s--I mean, Inuyasha works with humans."

"Have you seen him?" Kagome said, eagerly.

"What, him?" Kouga shrugged, then yielding to her entreating glance. "Yeah. Last night--that's how I knew where you were."

"So he knows where I am? And he's coming?" Kagome felt hope kindle like a flame in her chest, warming her. "And Sango? Miroku,too? A-all of them? Did you see Alphonse-kun? Was he...?" All right? Not dead?

Kouga nodded, hefting a long pole-axe and testing its balance before putting it aside. "Not sure which one was Alphonse-kun, but Inuyasha and your two friends, the monk and the youkai-exterminator, had three humans with them. They all looked kind of weird--said they were sorcerers, but I--"

"Oh, Kouga-kun!" Kagome interrupted him, hugging the quiver and bow tightly to herself. "Everyone's okay? I was so worried after Envy attacked us!"

"Yeah, yeah, they're fine," he said dismissively, which was encouraging in and of itself. "And they're coming, they're just slow-asses. They had some kind of fancy carriage with them, made of metal, but I didn't see or smell any horses or oxen."

A car? How did they get hold of a car? Kagome wondered as the two of them waited in the shadowed guardroom, listening intently to the faint screams and other noises of destruction filtering in through the tiny windows. Her speculations were rapidly swamped in a rising flood of hope. Inuyasha's coming for me!

ooOoo

They drove all night, following the deeply rutted dirt track that was the road to Kasama, Edward occasionally and reluctantly yielding the wheel of the car to Alphonse or Souta so that he could catch catnaps.

Inuyasha seemed tireless at first as he raced ahead of them with his graceful leaps, but as the deepest hours of the night passed, Ed noticed that the hanyou was beginning to look tired, as well, and his grumbling protests whenever they were forced to stop to refill the car's water tank became pure formality.

"You could ride with us, you know," Ed offered casually, as he carefully poured a narrow stream of water from the bucket's spout into the tank. The sky was beginning to lighten now. Soon, they wouldn't need the car's headlights nor the lantern that stood next to the car.

"Keh!" Inuyasha, sitting under the nearest tree while Ed and Al worked as swiftly as they could, looked like he had been on the verge of nodding off. "Where would I sit? On that perverted monk's lap?"

Ed sighed. "You have a point. Al and I should have made the car a little bigger, but we were running out of time..."

"I'll be fine," Inuyasha insisted, but the lantern-light belied him. There were lines of weariness drawn tight around his mouth and eyes. "How much longer until we get going?"

"Just this bucket," Al answered, as he returned from the small roadside spring with its moss-grown carved stone basin, lugging a full container.

Ed noticed how Inuyasha turned his face away rather than acknowledge Al, and suppressed a small sigh.

Then he forced himself to focus on the matter at hand--how was he going to take down Envy, with his jewel-enhanced abilities, when Al and Souta were the only ones who could use the shards? That left Ed without a way to use his alchemy in situations that required instant reactions.

Their enemies were not the type to hang around and wait for Ed to draw a transmutation circle so that Al or Souta could push the jewel's energy through it.

Damn it.

He had to find a way to use his alchemy, and he had to do it fast. They were only a couple of hours away from Kasama Castle, if their maps were accurate.

Ed finished pouring, then stepped away so that Al could take his turn.

"Okay, folks," he said, loudly, when his brother had finished and was screwing down the cap on the tank. "The express train is now leaving from platform one!"

That won him a weak smile from Souta, a roll of Al's eyes, and blank confusion from the rest of his companions.

Inuyasha leapt to his feet. "Kagome," he breathed quietly, and Ed heard a world of guilt and longing in that single word.

"We're almost there," he said, just as quietly.

Inuyasha hesitated for the briefest fraction of a section--was that a look of gratitude in those golden eyes?-- before leaping lightly onto the roof of the car. He crouched there, bare toes flexing, his hands tucked into his sleeves. "I'll ride up here, and make sure you wimpy humans don't fall behind."

As Ed gaped at him, Miroku chuckled.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" demanded Inuyasha.

ooOoo

It seemed a like a long time before the sounds of Envy's rampage died away, and even longer before Kouga, whose senses were undeniably keener than Kagome's, turned away from his post at the door.

"I think it's over. You want to try and get out of here?"

Would I ever! Kagome nodded gratefully. Slinging her quiver across her shoulders, she clutched her new bow with sweaty hands, and watched as Kouga cautiously unbarred the door and looked around.

He swore in surprise, and looked back at her. "You're not going to believe this--the bastard's destroyed his own castle!"

Kagome peered around him and saw that Kouga was not exaggerating. Many of the buildings in the inner courtyard had been reduced to broken beams, plaster fragments, and heaps of shattered blue-glazed roof-tiles. And the fortification walls had been knocked down in at least two places, allowing her to see that the damage extended well beyond this inner bailey.

"At least we'll have an easier time leaving," she said, pointing at the nearest gap in the wall.

Kagome prepared to step out of the guardroom. But before she'd taken more than one step--

"Stop!" Kouga whispered fiercely, and grabbed her shoulder, hard.

I'm going to be covered in bruises after all this ends, Kagome thought, wincing. "What is it?"

"That bastard...he's right here!" Kouga pointed, and Kagome saw the end of a huge serpentine tail draped limply over a pile of broken beams. "Are you sure your arrows don't work against him?"

Kagome blinked away a sudden memory of her arrow's mystic blaze guttering out like a dropped match, while Alphonse lay bleeding at her feet...Al-kun's all right, she told herself fiercely. Kouga-kun saw him last night. He wouldn't have any reason to lie to me.

"I'm sure, Kouga-kun. I'm really sure."

"Damn."

The two of them stared, frozen, at the scaly green length as long moments passed. It never moved.

Then, with a sick lurch of her gut, she understood what she had to do. She took a deep breath, trying to steady herself, and stepped forward.

"Hey!" Kouga said in a low, but intense voice. "Where are you going, Kagome?"

"I-I have to find the jewel. A-and get it back." Her voice was shaking, and she wished it didn't sound just as unsure as she felt.

But she had to do it. It was her duty. Her responsibility.

She took another step, then another, stepping carefully over chunks of plaster and other debris littering the ground, using the bow to steady herself.

"Damn it, Kagome!" Kouga swore in a whisper behind her.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him fall into place at her shoulder, and couldn't help smiling in relief. Her eyes never left the dragon's tail, which grew larger and larger the closer she drew to it. She murmured, "Thank you, Kouga-kun."

"Yeah, well, dog-face will never forgive me if I let something happen to you," he muttered grumpily, but his steps kept pace with hers.

She could do this, she told herself. She didn't have a choice.

ooOoo

Envy lay sprawled and unmoving across the rubble of one of the castle's inner walls.

But was it a trick of some kind?

Kagome's heart was pounding so hard that she couldn't hear anything above the drumbeat in her ears as she crept closer to the dragon's supine form. Even Kouga's steady presence at her back didn't make her feel much better.

Having him here was better than trying to do this alone, though.

Step by cautious step, her breath rasping in her throat, she made her way forward.

Envy still didn't move.

She stopped an arm's-length away from him, trying her best not to pant in terror, and scanned his length. She quickly found what she was looking for--a large fragment of the Shikon no Tama, darkened with taint and sending out tendrils of miasma that coiled and wove their way around the dragon's celadon-green scales.

She stopped Kouga with a quick touch to his arm, and pointed silently at the pulsing shard embedded in the long neck. It was higher than she could reach, and she stared at it, chewing on her lower lip in frustration. So close!

Kouga tilted his head, studying the fragment thoughtfully.

Then he knelt, and indicated silently that she should climb on his shoulders. She hesitated momentarily, looking between him and the dragon, then stepped forward. This might work!

She toed off her sandals and got into place, putting her hands on his head to steady herself. His dark hair was soft and thick beneath her palms, dusty and a tangled with a few fragments of dried leaves.

Intensely conscious of Kouga's hands wrapped around her ankles, steadying her, she balanced as he rose to his feet, then she stretched upwards.

Her fingers were almost touching the jewel when Envy let out a long sigh and loud whuffle.

She and Kouga both froze. If the dragon awoke now, nothing could save them.

After an endless moment of not even daring to breathe, and Kagome's heart pounding even harder, until she could feel her head throbbing in time, the dragon seemed to relapse into unconsciousness.

Kouga's fingers squeezed her ankle briefly. Go, he seemed to say.

Kagome drew a shaky breath, and raised a trembling hand. The large fragment looked as if it was deeply sunken in Envy's flesh, and she wondered how she was going to remove it.

To her surprise and relief, the jewel dropped obediently into her palm as soon as her fingertips touched it. She closed her fingers around it tightly, worried that she would drop it in her shaky state, and the familiar tingle of purifying energy moved down her arm.

The jewel pulsed once, the dark smear of taint vanishing.

Carefully, Kouga lowered Kagome back to the ground. She stood for an instant swaying dizzily.

She glanced down at the jewel in her palm, nearly complete now, except for the three remaining shards. Two of them had been hers, but were had been lost when Envy abducted her. And one was embedded in Sango's little brother Kohaku, helping to sustain his life.

I did it! she thought, disbelievingly. I really did it!

She turned to Kouga, ready to thank him for his help.

But he was staring up, an odd expression on his face. Kagome followed his glance, and saw that the dragon had awakened, its malevolent purple gaze still a little dazed-looking.

"Uh-oh," she said, faintly.

ooOoo

"What the hell happened here?" Inuyasha demanded, looking at the splintered remains of the castle's huge main gate.

There were bodies scattered here and there, some moving and some clearly dead, and the air reeked of blood and the pervasive musky stench of the dragon. It coated the inside of his nose and throat like thick, nasty slime, and made him feel nearly as nose-blind as he was when he was human.

He drew in a deep lung-full of the foul air, concentrating intensely for any hint of Kagome's warm, sweet scent, but it was impossible to discern.

Miroku, watching him, grimaced in sympathy. "Can you sense Kagome-sama?"

Inuyasha shook his head. "But I know she's here somewhere. She's gotta be."

He started forward, and Edward grabbed his flowing sleeve. With an irritated snarl, he tried to shake off the obstacle, but Edward was predictably obstinate.

"Wait. I have an idea," he said, refusing to release his grip on Inuyasha's fire-rat jacket.

Inuyasha glared down at the annoying human who was preventing him from rushing off to find Kagome. "Fuck off. I've had enough of your ideas."

Edward glared back. "I see a castle filled with dead and injured youkai, and there's probably a crazy homunculus lurking around somewhere. Something bad just happened here, and your girlfriend's in there somewhere. We need a plan."

ooOoo

Canon and Historical Notes

Jyaki - an evil demonic aura, a miasma

youki - demonic aura or energy

As always, thanks to Ginny, aka kokoronagomu, for beta-reading!