InuYasha Fan Fiction / Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ CrossFate ❯ Chaos ( Chapter 1 )

Disclaimer: I own neither Inuyasha nor Yu Yu Hakusho.

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CrossFate

Originally Posted: 1/13/08

Chapter One: Chaos

Threads and ribbons of radiant, silver light glowed against a blackness unmarred by even a single star. They danced and wove their brilliant, intricate patterns throughout the Barrier, forever touching and crossing, coming together and going apart like the glistening strands of a moon-kissed spider web. They flowed like rivers, in constant motion, but solid and permanent.

There was a kind of awesome, ethereal beauty to them, too, but he had no real concept of such things. He had nothing beyond a vague idea that if there were ever anything that could be called beautiful, then it would be the Currents.

He was the Guardian: piece of a whole, essence of the whole, and an entity that was completely separate all at once, a unique being. He existed within the Currents. He was the Currents. Source and fount, he was as much as much a part of them as they were of him, and he was just as unchanging.

But with time, change comes to all things, even that which seems beyond its reach. It is inevitable.

It started small, a light flicker on the edge of his awareness, like a shadow or ghost that could be glimpsed but never seen clearly. Still, it caught and held his attention because of its strangeness. The phantom presence floated on the edge of the vastness beyond the Barrier. He had never felt anything like it before.

Then there was chaos. It surged over his insubstantial form like a ripple on the calm surface of still waters. In its wake came pain, an agony he had never experienced before. White-hot pulses seared through his consciousness and made his senses scream. It passed as quickly as it came, but even then it wasn’t over.

All around him, and for as far as he could sense, he could feel the Barrier crying out, as if it, too, could and did feel the same pain that its Guardian had. Slowly at first, but then with building momentum, the Currents began to change. Ripped from their age-long courses, the shimmering threads of energy moved, coming together as if pulled. Where they met, they formed a nexus of radiant power, already as brilliant as a silver sun, and only growing in strength as more of the Currents fed into it.

(()()()-()()())

“Just! Stay! Down!” the Spirit Detective shouted.

He punctuated each word by landing another blow. Already, the demon bled freely from its nose and mouth, and from the vast multitude of other injuries that covered its body. Strangely, though, that didn’t seem to matter all that much. Like every time before, as soon as he released it, the demon struggled back up to its feet.

Now, of all people, Yusuke Urameshi had the ability to appreciate true stubbornness for its own sake, like an art form. His own streak was more than a mile wide and counting. That wasn’t a country mile, either, more like a rough trek through the heart of a cold, cruel city, with every old ‘downtown’ cliche that’s ever been thought up thrown into the mix just for fun. That was the kind of mile you didn’t want to walk.

Still, the demon’s thickheaded resilience was a little much, even for him. He’d long since ceased to feel threatened by it, and had even finally worked his way through every level of amusement that the repeated sight had the power to inspire in him. That had taken a while; it was actually pretty ridiculous. Now the Spirit Detective was becoming annoyed, and that wasn’t a good thing...for the demon. Whether it kept getting up because it actually thought it had a chance of winning, or if it wanted to run away, or if it just wanted to prove some inane point, he didn’t exactly know or even really care anymore.

What he did know was that he’d been ordered to capture this demon, to take it in alive unless absolutely impossible. Come hell or high water, that’s exactly what he planned to do, too, though that was less because he’d been told to than because his boss would throw a giant temper-tantrum if he didn’t. Finishing his case early might even earn him a few days respite, too, and it was about damn time.

“Can’t you take a hint?” he asked the demon in exasperation.

“Quit playing around, Yusuke,” called Botan. His assistant stood, hands on hips, against the wall a little ways away. She’d been watching the fight from the start. Actually, she’d been with him ever since he’d taken off after the demon in the first place (not helping, really, just sort of tagging along).

Absently, the Spirit Detective nodded in reply, already feeling his spirit energy surging eagerly at just the thought of firing his Spirit Gun.

“Shut up, you,” the demon shouted.

Then, faster than Yusuke would have thought it could move after the bare-knuckled, royal smackdown he’d delivered, it pivoted and fired off a shot of its own. Wounds or no wounds, the blast of demonic energy flew straight and true, and right at the wide-eyed Botan.

(()()()-()()())

Not for the first time, Inuyasha gritted his teeth and glanced up at the dark, star-strewn sky, silently cursing the moonless night. Dawn was still hours away, and he didn’t think he could wait that long. The night of the new moon always made him anxious, to say the least.

Of course, it didn’t help that his friends were systematically getting the crap beaten out of them, either. He looked back to the fight just in time to see Sango, the demon slayer, and Kirara, her saber-toothed cat demon partner, get slammed to the ground. He winced in sympathy before running up to distract the demon yet again.

The thing was big, ugly, and strong. It was stupid, too, but that hadn’t stopped it from getting a shard of the empowering Shikon Jewel or seeking them out in the hopes of getting more. Lately, it seemed to be common knowledge among the demons in that area that their group possessed several. It wasn’t hard for Inuyasha to guess who was behind that.

Miroku was attacking from the other side of the giant monster, but he wasn’t having much luck at hurting it seriously. The monk couldn’t use his deadly Wind Tunnel without pulling in the shard that the demon carried, too. He wasn’t exactly helpless without it, though. The demon’s scales were blackened and charred where his paper sutras had connected, and he wielded his staff with much the same level of skill as Sango did her giant boomerang, Hiraikotsu, for all the good either seemed to be doing at the moment.

Damn it, Inuyasha thought to himself as Miroku went tumbling, too. It seemed like fate was conspiring against them to make this fight about twenty times harder than it should have been. Damn that moon!

At least there was one thing that had worked out in their favor. The demon had come upon them in the middle of a swampy waste. The ground supported the weight of the humans well enough, but their large opponent kept getting bogged down, and its movements were very sluggish. Inuyasha realized an instant too late that that didn’t apply to the thing’s arms as one swung around and connected, sending him flying several yards back to land near the last two members of their group, the girl Kagome and Shippo, a young fox demon.

“Look at it this way, Inuyasha, at least you had a soft landing,” said the fox kit. He eyeballed the puddle that was already forming in the ditch the young man’s backside had just dug.

Inuyasha grumbled some choice words about that and glared. He had to admit that Shippo was right, though (but only privately, of course). Okay, so maybe there were two good things about fighting in a swamp.

Kagome stood with her bow in hand and an arrow at the ready, waiting for the demon to present her with a decent target. Her eyes narrowed and her bow came up as the beast turned, putting her in line with the Shikon Jewel shard in its chest.

(()()()-()()())

High above the soggy battlefield, she watched the fight as it progressed. Kagura the Wind Sorceress rested easily on the wind of her demonic power in the cradle of a giant feather. She sighed.

No matter how it looked now, there was no doubt in her mind about how it would eventually end. Even so, suffering through the boredom of spying on a one-sided battle, even at Naraku’s command, was better than being locked away inside his castle, stifling in that sickening air. She had decided not to dwell on the fact that her skills could be better served elsewhere.

Below her, she saw the young human woman draw back on her bow. The demoness’s hand clenched the delicate paper fan at her waist, and she leaned forward, suddenly interested. It was almost over now.

(()()()-()()())

Kuwabara had just about decided that this was the last sewer that he ever wanted to see the inside of. For one thing, there was dirty, disgusting, sludgy water absolutely everywhere, and the majority of the time since the three of them had last seen the light of day had been spent sloshing through rivers of it that were anywhere from ankle to chest deep. Even when the tunnels (giant drain pipes, really) were comparably dry, or on the too rare occasions when there were walkways along the edge for city workers to use, everything was still wet. The walls, floor, and even the curved ceiling glistened with a kind of thick slime in the light of his flashlight.

As if that wasn’t bad enough by itself, there was also the smell to consider. It stank. It stank bad, really bad, like seven-day-old-funk bad. No, it was worse than that. In fact, it wasn’t hard to imagine that the murky, filthy water that he was wading through was also sweeping along hordes of half-rotted animal carcasses that were hidden beneath its dark surface. That was made even easier to believe when he stepped down onto something that felt both slimy and soft, and he nearly lost his footing. Right away, he decided that there was nothing that could possibly make him want to know what it was that he had slipped on. Fortunately, he managed to catch his balance and never had to find out.

And then there were the rats. They were big, black, evil looking things, with their beady, little eyes that seemed to glow from just beyond the light. Usually, the shining dots would blink out suddenly as the rats turned and swam or skittered away, their claws clicking against the slick concrete.

Worse by far, though, was when they didn’t run. Sometimes the rats chose to stay where they were, and they stood their ground, growling menacingly, usually from atop a pile of choice refuse, even as the three of them approached. In the lead, his two demonic companions, Kurama, a fox, and Hiei, a fire demon, passed them without hesitation, but Kuwabara edged by with his fist clenched, ready, willing, and able to summon up his Spirit Sword in an instant. It unnerved him that the creatures were so fearless.

Once or twice when it happened, he thought he heard Kurama mutter something under his breath when he walked past. Whether he was talking to himself or to the rat, the young man had no idea, but when the demon spoke, the vermin seemed to cower away from him.

No, Kuwabara decided firmly, there was no goddamn way in hell that he was ever going to let anyone talk him into sewer-sludging ever again. Some things were just too nasty.

In fact, if he’d had any idea about how to get out of there and back up onto the city streets where he was most comfortable, he might have just turned around right then. It was probably just as well that he didn’t have any clue. He did know where he was going, though, so at least that gave him something to look forward to, even if it was just getting to strangle Urameshi for making them chase him and Botan all the way down there. With his keen sixth sense, Kuwabara could clearly feel the Spirit Detective’s powerful spirit energy. Like the beacon in a lighthouse, it lit the way straight to their goal.

When they reached a junction and were finally able to turn off into another sewer line that ran more in the direction that they wanted to go, the beleaguered human was just glad to be able to climb up out of the deep water. Then it was time to run again.

“We’re definitely getting closer,” he called to his two companions, who were still ahead of him.

“Well, of course we are,” Hiei grumbled, loud enough as if to be sure the young man heard him. The dark-haired demon, in his long, black coat, didn’t bother to drop back and say it to his face though. “Kurama, remind me how I got dragged into this,” he added, just as loudly.

“You know how it works,” the fox demon replied. “When Koenma says jump....”

“Yusuke is supposed to ask, ‘How high?’ but that doesn’t answer my question.”

Kurama’s response was a chuckle, not even slowing as they ran down the round-floored sewer pipe. “Just hope it doesn’t rain,” he said.

(()()()-()()())

Kagome tensed and released her arrow, along with a quick prayer for it to fly true. It left a glowing trail of purifying energy that lit up the night as it sped like a rocket toward the shard. Her attack found its mark, and she let out a shout of triumph. Shippo bounced up and down next to her in excitement.

“You did it!” he whooped.

The giant demon howled once in agony before falling backwards with a sloppy crash, dead before it even hit the ground. They all let out a sigh of relief when the jewel shard dropped placidly into the muck as well.

“Nice shot, Kagome,” Sango congratulated her, as she, Miroku, and Kirara walked over to join her and the fox child. The young woman smiled her thanks and started forward to retrieve the shard.

“Wait,” Miroku said suddenly. “Something...something isn’t right.... Kagome, get back away from it!”

“What is it?” asked Sango. The demon slayer still carried Hiraikotsu by one of its fighting straps, and now the giant boomerang was hefted and ready.

All six of them were instantly on their guard again, watching the dead demon, waiting for something to happen. For a long moment, nothing did.

Then, with the sickening crunch of breaking bones, the demon’s chest cavity collapsed in on itself. The corpse began to contort; its back actually lifted up off the ground until it was in a position that the demon would never have been able to achieve when it was alive. The thing continued to implode upon itself until it was nothing but an undulating ball of unrecognizable flesh, bloody scales, and cracked bone.

Finally that, too, disappeared, devoured by the small black hole that had somehow sprung into existence where the demon lay. Now that the dead mass that had blocked it up before was gone, the suction began to pull in everything around it. The wind of it made Kagome’s hair whip around wildly, and she threw herself to the ground.

“Grab onto something!” Sango shouted. She dug Hiraikotsu into the soft earth and wrapped one arm around Kirara’s thick neck. The giant cat braced her strong legs against the pull.

“Damn it, we forgot the jewel shard!” Inuyasha cursed in frustration. How could he have been so stupid as to leave it behind? It was too late now, he realized. The pull of the hole was too strong; the shard was already gone.

“I can’t hold on,” Shippo cried desperately. His tiny claws were already slipping on the tough, wind-whipped weeds that he clutched for dear life.

Kagome shouted encouragement and reached for him, but she couldn’t hold on to her own precarious anchor with just one hand, and then both of them were being pulled in. Inuyasha, a mere human, could only watch in horror. Flailing her free arm, the other clutching the young fox, the girl managed to grab the gnarled trunk of a squat tree, but even though she was able to lock her arm around it, she wasn’t out of danger. The two of them were very close to the black hole, and the suction was only getting stronger.

Miroku, further away, had latched on to the limbless stump of a dead tree, and he watched in horror as his friends held on for their lives. His mind struggled to come up with some way to help them.

“It’s just like the Wind Tunnel!” Sango exclaimed from where she was still braced, not far behind him. The monk saw that she couldn’t hold on much longer either. His own robes flapped around him in a frenzy, and his fingers were already digging deep furrows in the soft, rotten wood of the stump.

Like my Wind Tunnel? he thought suddenly. That gave him an idea, but time was running out. If he was going to do it, it had to be done now. Hoping that he wasn’t grasping at straws, that it wouldn’t just make things worse, he let go and unwrapped the rosary beads from around his right hand.

Just then, Sango and Kirara flew past him as the force became too much for them.

(()()()-()()())

Hiei and Kurama burst around the last corner and into the vaulted chamber just in time to see the demon attack Botan. Either one of them might have been able to do something about it, but Yusuke, in heroic fashion, didn’t give them the chance.

With a dramatic battle cry, he fired his Spirit Gun. A roaring ball of blazing, blue spirit energy exploded from the tip of his index finger. It blasted in at an angle to the other shot, and it was so much more powerful that it caught up the demon’s attack and deflected it without even slowing down.

“Hey, that’s un-sportsmanlike conduct,” Botan shouted indignantly.

The demon could only stare in mute shock at the feat it had just witnessed. The Spirit Detective’s fist smashing into its face came as a complete surprise, as did the wall it was thrown into. By the time the hard concrete buckled and collapsed on top of it, it was already unconscious. Had it been awake, though, that would have been a surprise, too.

Hiei and Kurama shared a look as they both relaxed. Apparently, they hadn’t been needed as desperately as they’d been led to believe. The fire demon, in particular, seemed annoyed by that.

All of a sudden, Kurama stiffened. Something was wrong.

Across the chamber, neither Yusuke nor Botan had noticed yet. The Spirit Detective was too busy standing menacingly over the large pile of fresh rubble, looking very intimidating in case the demon managed to crawl out. (That wasn’t very likely.) His death spirit assistant, meanwhile, had already turned to the next issue of getting the fugitive demon out of there and packed off back to Spirit World’s prison.

Hiei had seen it, though.

From the tunnel behind the two of them came the sound of squishing footsteps. Kuwabara appeared, wiping a thick coating of sludge off his face and swearing loudly and colorfully. As soon as he entered the chamber, he jolted to a stop and stared.

“What is that?” His startled exclamation finally got Yusuke and Botan’s attention. They both turned to see what the problem was.

Yusuke’s Spirit Gun had had more than enough power behind it to blast straight through the thick wall of the chamber and keep on going. For some reason, though, it hadn’t. Something had stopped it. Something had caused all of that massive energy to gather at a single point, into a pulsing, glowing orb of spiritual power that floated freely in the air. Even as they watched, the energy seemed to compress. The sphere warped into a disk. There was a flash, and the center of it turned from bluish-white to deep, lightless black, like a portal into the heart of darkness or a distant, starless ether.

Kurama started to back away, uncertain, but it was already too late. A wind broke over him, dragging at his hair as it rushed toward the newly formed black hole. Chunks of shattered concrete seemed to come alive and turn suicidal in the same instant as they jumped out of the rubble and into that dark, ravenous mouth. He could feel its hunger trying to draw him in as well, pulling on his skin like a vacuum, even from a distance, and it was getting stronger.

The confines of the tunnels did nothing to restrict the black hole’s suction. Instead, they channeled its force. Driving wind whistled and screamed in the fox demon’s sensitive ears, drowning out the shouts and cries of the others. It nearly tore his feet out from under him; he could feel his shoes sliding on the slick floor. The only thing he could grab onto was the corner at the mouth of the sewer tunnel, and he clung to it desperately. Hiei was foundering, too. Kuwabara was gone. Kurama couldn’t see through the maelstrom to learn Yusuke and Botan’s fate on the other side of the chamber, but he feared the worst. They’d been closer.

Now, massive pieces of the broken wall, like boulders riddled with steel rebar, were flying across the room. The floor trembled under him, and beneath the shrieking wind, there was a deep, ominous moaning.

Kurama’s feet slipped. Before he could recover, the corner was wrenched from his grip. He was sliding across the floor, out of control.

The black gate seemed to rush toward him.

Its darkness filled his vision.

(()()()-()()())

The air around her whipped wildly, out of her control. Despite her steadying hand, the giant feather bucked like a maddened beast and was whirled about by the crazed wind. Sweat beaded on her forehead as the demoness stared down in horror. What was it? What was happening? She wanted to escape, to run and not look back, and damn Naraku and his jewel shards, too, but Kagura couldn’t make herself look away.

Below her, the hole in the air was pulling in everything around it, and she watched as Inuyasha and his companions fought desperately, futilely against it. It was like a rip or tear in the very fabric of reality, and on the other side was nothing but blackness that made the night look bright as day, an endless, lightless, lifeless abyss. It was an airless void.

Suddenly, the demoness jolted back to herself, and at that point she didn’t hesitate. Snapping open her fan, she created a mighty gust of wind that blew her high into the sky. Then another. Then another, until she was flying so fast that the ground sped by below her in the darkness, and the clouds became a blur as she raced the stars for the horizon.

She would not die like that. She was the wind and she would be free.

(()()()-()()())

As soon as his Wind Tunnel opened, Miroku could see a difference. In an instant everything that had been rushing toward the black hole slowed down, suddenly caught between the pull of two powerful, opposing forces of suction. First, it all slowed, and then it all stopped, and then everything began to move sluggishly toward him.

If it weren’t for the effort that it took to hold his hand steady and to brace himself, the monk would have sagged with relief. Incredibly, his Wind Tunnel had proven the stronger.

Just as Inuyasha, who had been knocked unconscious somehow, was getting close to him, Miroku saw that the gate was getting smaller. It seemed to be closing. He resealed the Wind Tunnel quickly as the suction disappeared.

The next thing he knew, he was flying backward as something heavy slammed into him.

(()()()-()()())

Searing pain, like acid fire, burned through the Guardian’s being again, only a thousand times worse than before. It nearly destroyed him, an eternity of agony trapped in a single moment that consumed everything that he was.

It passed. The second shockwave moved on, leaving the stricken entity behind, drifting with the flow of the Currents, unable to feel the way his world was once again shifting around him. When at last he had recovered enough to reach out with his senses, the Guardian was stunned by what he found. More new sensations assaulted him, unlike pain, but just as damaging: horror, dread, despair. They crippled him, though he couldn’t put a name to them.

A calm stillness had descended on the Barrier. All seemed peaceful again at last as the Currents began to break away from the nexus and return to their proper courses, but it was all wrong. It was too peaceful. It was too still. The awesome power of the nexus had faded from sunlight to starlight. The Currents, the lifeblood of the Barrier, had diminished. Their shimmering magnificence and tangible energy appeared drained and pale now.

The Guardian, born from them and part of them, felt their loss.

Frantically, he stretched out with his awareness even further, searching the vastness beyond the Barrier for the presence he had felt before. It was no use. It, too, was gone.

(()()()-()()())

Kurama gradually came to believe that he was still alive. He drew a long, deep breath, fully appreciating for the first time the wonder that was air. Weakness and pain assaulted his consciousness next. Every tiny movement was a trial, but he forced his chest to rise and fall again, and he willed his heart to continue beating. When at last he managed to open his eyes, he couldn’t stop the soft groan that stole out of his throat.

As he blinked away flashing lights, it occurred to him that he wasn’t in the sewers anymore. He didn’t know where he was. It looked like a swamp that had been hit by a tornado. Nearby, Yusuke, Kuwabara, and Botan were lying sprawled out on the ground, still unconscious. Hiei was there, too, and already stirring.

They weren’t alone.

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