InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Killer In Hindsight ❯ Hindsight Is Twenty-Twenty ( Chapter 14 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

A Killer In Hindsight

Chapter 14: Hindsight Is Twenty-Twenty

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha and co.

Author’s note: So first scene is a battle scene, forgive me, for it is not my forte. This is will most definately be the shortest chapter I have ever written for AKIH since the prologue.

“Speech”
‘Thought’
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“Run. Run. Run!” Sango’s voice grew steadier each time she repeated the word until she was yelling at her startled companions. Inuyasha turned and pushed Kagome farther back into the trees away from the enormous creature. Sango grabbed Miroku’s wrist and took after a stumbling Kagome.

“What about you?” Miroku paused long enough to yell at the captain. He barely caught the assurances the captain threw his way before turning and bolting through the trees.

The tall trees bowed under the great beasts’ weight as it came after the half-demon. Inuyasha crackled his knuckles in anticipation. The spider lunged and snapped at him, he dodged, narrowly missing the dripping fangs. Inuyasha kicked himself off of one of the few trees that had yet to brake and slashed at his opponents’ underside.

He landed a short distance away, the belly of the beast bore gashes from his claws and he smirked. A large leg barely missed crushing him under its weight as the beast swayed, unsteady on his feet, surprised by the attack.

“Well, this is disappointing.” He snorted and leapt away as the snapping jaws of the spider came down on him. One large fang grazed his leg and he hissed and cursed as he felt the slow moving poison enter his bloodstream.

He jumped high again coming face to face with the monstrous beast. Its' eyes glittered black and merciless and its' snapping jaws drooled with anticipation. Inuyasha slashed with sharp claws catching it in the face.

The spider made a high pitched squeal and in its' rage it charged blindly. The captain bounded out of the way as the beast lumbered past him, its' legs getting tangled in the many trees. It turned again and made to charge but was stopped short when one of its' many appendages was trapped by a tree. The short glance at the trapped leg was all it took for Inuyasha to make his move.

Leaping high he swung his arm back and brought it forward, the beast barely had a chance as it swung its' humungous head around but the captain had already caught him in the neck and he cleaved the head from the massive body. It fell to the ground with an earth shattering thump.

Inuyasha's landing barely made a sound as his feet finally touched ground. He swiped an arm across his face to clear the blood spatter, merely smearing it more in the process.

XXX

“Sato, what is the meaning of this?” The voice boomed and bounced off the walls to echo in the younger man’s nervous ears. The stocky man’s face was red as he stared down the lesser officer.

“It was supposed to be taken care of, I apologize sir.” The tall lanky man bowed and the wire rim of his glasses caught the waning light of the day to cast patterns on the wall.

“And just what had you done to take care of it?” The General’s voice was quieter now but still held a dangerous edge.

“Since the Shikon Project has concluded with no productive results, we had thought to merely feed it until it was dealt with properly.”

“Sato,” the voice growled in barely suppressed fury, “You had orders to terminate it.”

“I know, sir, but I still felt it was in the military’s best interest if we,” He was rudely interrupted by the red faced General across from, spittle flying from his mouth, as he yelled at the cowering lieutenant.

“Best interest, screw best interest! You had orders and you deliberately disobeyed them. I should send you out to that island to deal with the beast yourself.” The lanky man across from him paled to a ghostly white.

“Please, General, please, my family…” He begged and stuttered but his pleas fell on deaf ears. The General had made up his mind.

XXX

“I bet you’re wishing you killed that son of a bitch right now.” The little man next to him laughed. Sato groaned and clicked his holsters into place.

“Don’t rub it in Fushikenwa. I made a mistake and now I have to clean up the mess. Let’s just hope he goes down without too much fighting. My wife is going to kill me.” The lanky man rubbed at sore eyelids and dragged his large hand down his face.

“Don’t worry Sato, we’ve got this one in the bag. How hard could it be to take down one eensy weensy governmental experiment?” Fushiknewa shrugged and laughed, clapping the taller man on the back.

“You have no idea what we’re dealing with Fushikenwa. At first the scientists’ intentions were good, they tried to create a creature that embodied all the parts of the mythilogical Shikon No Tama but soon it became corrupted.

“Soon after the creation of the creature it became evident that something had gone terribly wrong, instead of creating the perftect being they had created the perfect killing machine. It was merciless and fed on death. You know how no one speaks of December sixteenth? That was the day the creature released itself and killed almost everyone on the base, the only people to survive was myself and four others.

“It became apparent to the higher ups that the thing needed to be terminated, and it was my job to do so. However, everything I tried failed, and I soon started to think that perhaps we could learn from this. Create something that was entirely indestructible, but for that we would have to study the creature further, so I hid him away on one of the islands that the base used to use for testing.

"Since then whenever something gets too close, like that plane a couple months ago, or the fishing boat a couple weeks ago, we look the other way but it has reached the point where the media is becoming curious and there is pressure to get rid of it before the public finds out. I’m telling you it would be utter chaos if they found out. You know how most of them distrust the military as it is.”

“Okay…” He paused for a moment, his brow furrowed in deep concentration, “the thing must have some weakness.” Fushikenwa shook his head at the taller man. “There’s no way it’s completely indestructible.”

“Their has been no weakness that we have observed as of yet.” Sato placed several more hand grenades into his side bag. Fushikenwa gave him a look.

“It’s not like we’re going to war.” Their was mirth in his eyes but it was replaced entirely by apprehension with Sato’s next words.

“But Fushikenwa, we are going to war, that’s just it.” He sighed, “You don’t understand the severity of the situation at hand. Believe me when I say that I wholly regret my actions, innocent people have died as a result of it and I will never forgive myself.”

Fushikenwa clapped him on the back again and gave his shoulder a slight squeeze. “Well, you know what they say, hindsight is twenty-twenty.”

XXX

Kagome's chest heaved as she struggled to take in breaths. She leaned against a tree, the rough bark scraping the skin of her elbow. A bead of sweat trailed down her forehead and over her nose to land on her lips and she tasted her own nervousness. Her head snapped to the side when Sango and Miroku burst through the trees.

"I think we're far enough away." Kagome panted. Miroku hunched over to lean his hands upon his knees. Sango leaned heavily against him, her arm draped over his back. The ground suddenly shook and all three of them stumbled with the force of it.

"What the fuck was that?" Miroku cursed, his language forgotten in the enormity of the situation.

"I don't know. You think Inuyasha's alright? Maybe we should go back." Kagome worried her lip between her teeth, almost breaking the skin.

"No, Inuyasha's made of tougher stuff than that."Miroku assured her, "We should keep going, we can backtrack to the cave."

"Do you really think it's such a good idea to head back there right now? No doubt that thing belongs to Naraku, although how, I'm not sure yet. Besides he might have something following us." Sango's worries were not unjustified as just then a loud buzzing noise overpowered their ears.Wasps as big as a man's hand circled the area above them. "Told you." Sango mumbled in rightous indignition.

The large bugs continued to circel the area for a short while before flying off when Inuyasha burst through the trees. Sweaty and sore he slumped at the base of one of said trees.

"Everyone alright?" He asked even though his eyes were trained solely on Kagome. The younger girl nodded, entranced at the sight of him alive and battle-worn. This did not go unnotice by either Sango or Miroku and they gave each other secretive knowing looks.

Inuyasha groaned in pain and they finally took notice of the fact that not all of the blood was the beasts'. Kagome rushed to his side and prodded gently at his leg. The captain hissed and glared at her. She gave him an apoligetic glance before returning to her prodding.

"We need to get him back to the cave, I can't treat him here." Sango and Miroku both nodded at her before coming over to sling each of Inuyasha's arms around their shoulders.

XXX

They made it back to the cave with relatively little trouble. Kagome set about treating the captains wounds, even as he boasted that no little scratches would bring him down, then she would poke hard at his injured leg and he would curse.

Kagome currently cradled Inuyasha's head in her lap, his brow wrought with sweat. She grabbed the cool wet cloth from her side and dabbed at his face. The captain had neglected to tell them that the wound had been injected with poison, so no matter how many times they washed and cleaned the large gash his condition worsened. They only became aware of it when Kouga had pointed it out.

Kagome sat in the farthest corner of the cave, her head hung, the others watched the distraught girl from a safe distance.

"Is there anything I can do?" Shippou's tiny voice reached her foggy brain and she turned sorrowful eyes on the little kitsune.

"No Shippou, everything's fine." She turned back to wipe the half-demon's brow when he groaned in his sleep. Ayame and the others were right, Naraku was slowly killing them off one by one. It seemed he went after the strongest first, those with demon blood, and then soon he would come after the weaker ones, the humans.

'Sometimes I just wish I never came on this stupid trip but then again if I had never come I would never have met Sango or Miroku or Shippou, or any of the others, especially Inuyasha.' She heaved a great sigh and her shoulders seemed to sag a little more as if the weight of the world was on her shoulders alone. 'Oh Inuyasha, you had better pull through this or I will never forgive you.' Even as she thought it, she knew it wasn't true, none of this was his fault.

XXX

The noise of the plane faded into the background, Sato sat with his head cradled in his hands, the team assembled around him laughed and joked. 'These poor saps have no idea what they're getting into and it's all my fault.'

"Cheer up Sato, this is gonna be a piece of cake." Fushikenwa sat beside him, their conversation from a day ago apparently forgotten.

"Leave me to my misery Fushikenwa, let me wallow." Fushikenwa gave him a strange look, completely lost to the higher ranking officer, his head still hung.

"Oh come on, it's not going to be that bad." Sato sighed having given up, Fushikenwa was a stubborn man and there was no way he would be able to convince the man that this was going to be anything other than a piece of cake. "Land ho!" The boisterous man suddenly hollered, laughing at his own joke.

The island came into view just beyond the vast blue waters Sato could make out the white sands of the beach and the rest seemd to be coated in green fluff, the leaves of the trees blending together. He could see a high mountain and as they came closer and closer he could just barely make out the mouth of a large cave.

XXX
Inuyasha groaned and tossed his head. His bangs were damp with sweat and stuck to his forhead. Kagome reached a hand out to brush them from his fluttering eyelids. He turned his head towards her hand, his golden eyes coming into view. Kagomes own eyes widened when he looked at her. She rushed to set his head in her lap once again.

"You smell good." He murmered.

"You must be delirious. I haven't bathed in days." Kagome shook her head at him even though he couldn't see the movement.

"How long have I been out?" He suddenly asked. Disregarding his earlier statement she answered his question.

"Since yesterday. How are you feeling?"

"Feh. Told you no little scratch would take me down." He boasted and she rolled her eyes at his arrogance.

"It wasn't a little scratch Inuyasha, you were poisoned. Why didn't you tell anyone?"

"Because it was no big deal." He defended.

"No big...what am I ever going to do with you?" Kagome again brushed his bangs from his face, their eyes met and for a second sparks flew.

"Inuyasha's awake!" Shippou suddenly yelled. Kagome jumped and Inuyasha quickly turned away, the others came to crowd around, questions spilling from every mouth.
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End Author's Note: I thought for sure I wouldn't get this out in time but I did. Yay. I did have a few problems, I only had a trial WordDocument program, and my trial ran out, so it locked all of my documents. So I had to revert to WordPad, which does not have spell check so if this is particularly bad with grammar, blame it on that and I also can't see how many pages I've typed so I hope I'm somewhere near six pages at least (3 to 4 pages on MM). haha.
Now about next month's chapter, I'm not sure if there will even be one, I know I just went two months without posting anything (august, september), but with it being near christmas and all my job searching, I may just not have the time. I will try super hard to get it out but I will be visiting with family a lot and I may just not have the time. Keep an eye out for it anyway. Thank you all.

Soundtrack for Chapter's 13 and 14 (I just realized I didnt' do one of these for the last chapter):
Chapter 13:
Daphne Loves Derby: Tennis Court Soundtrack
If You're Lucky No One Will Get Hurt
Fightstar: Paint Your Target
Chapter 14:
Radiation Year: Belly Of The Beast
Gospel and Moonshine
Christmas Carols

All I've been listening to lately is christmas carols, my mom hates it she says it's too soon for them. I just tell her its after thanksgiving I can listen to them. haha.
Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and if you dont' hear from me before then, Happy Holidays. =]

Thank you for reading.
Next Time On A Killer In Hindsight: Confrontation (this is a tentative title, it may change)