InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Killer In Hindsight ❯ Bankotsu's Betrayal ( Chapter 16 )

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

Author’s Note: Again I will warn you, I am not very good with action scenes. I apologize.


XXX


A wild spray of bullets flashed towards the beast, the muzzle fire was constant. One by one the bullets fell like rain all around them, ricocheting off the chest of the monster before them, their descent marked as they plinked against the ground.


A quick burst and Inuyasha was in the air, claws poised to strike. A large hairy arm swung in a wide arc and knocked the half-demon from the air. He landed against a tree with a great crack that echoed through the small clearing.


Inuyasha arose with a slight shake of his head. When his vision cleared he saw Kouga charging the giant purple beast, but with little success. Inuyasha stopped to consider the beast, barely taking notice of Kouga as he flew through the air to land next to him.


It moved with a grace that belied its size. The soldiers continued to fire at the monstrous being and were already running low on ammunition. And then he noticed it, the only vulnerable spot this thing had. It’s head. Every time a stray bullet would come close, it went through the effort of moving its humongous arms to protect its face.


“Shoot for the head!” He suddenly heard himself shouting. Fushikenwa barely spared him a glance and a roll of his eyes. Inuyasha growled shortly under his breath in a flash quicker than the muzzle fire he was in the air. The soldiers had the thing distracted and he took his chance.


His claws just barely grazed the face of the thing and he was on the ground. He cursed under his breath. The beast turned from the soldiers to face him. Roaring again its huge fist went up into the air and came down, again barely missing him as he rolled out of the way.


Inuyasha sprang through the trees, using the beasts’ bulk against him. As he kept it distracted, Kouga recovered from his fall to the ground and grabbed a great stick from behind him. With his own immense leap he ran the branch through the side of the beasts’ head. A spray of blood and gray matter rained down upon the various soldiers.


“You idiot I almost had him!” Inuyasha yelled as he came down from his spot amongst the trees.


“Yeah right, you were too busy dancing with it to kill it,” the wolf demon retorted.


“I was observing its movements. There was something different about this one.” A puzzled look came across Kouga’s face.


“Whatever you say half-breed.” Just as Inuyasha’s face became a dangerous shade of red they were interrupted.


“Excuse me,” Fushikenwa cleared his throat to gain their attention, “My assumptions of you before seem to be wrong, and I apologize.” A slight grimace graced his features; apologies often left a bad taste in his mouth.


“It is alright. Why don’t we start with introductions, hmm?” Miroku’s passive nature earned a look from Inuyasha but nothing more.


“Alright, that works for me. I’m Fushikenwa.” He thrust his hand out towards Inuyasha, intending a shake of the hands. Inyasha glared at him.


“And why should we trust you?” He asked.


“Because I’m military.”


“Exactly.” Kouga exclaimed. “Who honestly trusts the military these days?”


“I do if they can take us home.” It was Miroku’s turn to give the other two a look. “I’m Miroku,” He pointed to himself, “And these are my colleagues Inuyasha and Kouga.” He pointed to each one respectively.


The radio on Fushikenwa’s shirt clicked and fizzled before Sato’s voice was heard, “We’ve got nothing, let’s regroup.”


Fushikenwa clicked the little button on the side, the walkie-talkie clicked and fizzled again and he replied, “Sato, we’ve found survivors.”


There was a pregnant pause before Sato responded. “Good, we’ll regroup and go from there. How many?”


“How many of you are there?” Fushikenwa turned imploring eyes on the three.


“Counting us,” Miroku paused for a second, “Thirteen but two are small children and one is currently missing.”


Fushikenwa turned back to his walkie-talkie, “We have a confirmed twelve, two are small children, and one is missing.”


Another pregnant pause and this time Sato’s voice sounded unsteady, “Alright we’ll regroup, debrief and see what can be done.” With that the walkie clicked and fizzled for the last time.


XXX


They returned to the site of the helicopter. Sato’s nervous fidgeting having long ago gotten on the nerves of the other men.


“Where the hell could Fushikenwa be?” He grumbled under his breath. There was a rustle in the foliage to his right and the aforementioned soldier appeared, followed by a haggard looking troop and lastly came three people he didn’t recognize.


“You’re short a soldier,” Sato’s words were sharp and Fushikenwa scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. “Is that…blood?” He came closer to observe the uniforms of his men.


Fushikenwa looked to his superior officer nervously. Sato crossed his arms and tapped his foot impatiently. “He’s dead.” Sato frowned.


“You see we were distracted, we thought the survivors might be working for Naraku, and while we were speaking this huge monster just came out of nowhere and…uh…bit off his head. We have his dog tags though, to send home,” he thrust the shiny metal tags out in front of him and they tinkled against each other.


“I see.” Sato continued to frown. ‘So Naraku’s been doing some experimenting of his own….’ His thoughts ended there when he took in the sight of the survivors. “Where’s the rest of them?” He finally asked.


“I don’t know.”


“You don’t know?” Sato raised a thin eyebrow in response.


“They refuse to divulge the location on the excuse that we’re military and not to be trusted,” the edges of his mouth quirked up in obvious amusement.


“We’re here to rescue you,” Sato turned to the bedraggled group of three.


“Not with all that dynamite you’re not. What’s really going on?” Inuyasha cast a suspicious glance at the tall lanky man known as Sato.


“It’s a need to know basis,” Sato responded.


“We need to know.” Inuyasha crossed his arms and matched Sato’s stance. The officer heaved a great sigh and uncrossed his arms, his shoulders slumped and he suddenly looked very undignified. Several moments and an extremely long explanation later the three shocked faces that stared back at him were almost comical.

“Well shit,” Kouga exclaimed running a large hand across his eyes. “That’s some story Sato.”


“So, Naraku’s some governmental experiment gone horribly wrong, I should have known. But Sato, answer me this, how does he create these monsters that have been attacking us? ” Miroku’s question caught the officer off guard and it showed.


“Well I’m not really sure but I think they’re detachments from his own body. He can take them and mold them into anything he wants. He has total control over them.”


“Feh, we should go collect the others and get this over with.” Kouga and Miroku rolled their eyes at Inuyasha’s crass nature; it was no surprise to them, however, Sato seemed a little startled. Giving the two soldiers assurances that they would return in a few hours they left, disappearing into the trees.


“What do you think Sato?” Fushikenwa shifted in his spot.


“I think they can be trusted for now but we should watch them closely. Naraku can turn anyone.”


XXX


“Can they be trusted?” Kouga asked as they neared the waterfall.


“I don’t know.” Miroku and Kouga exchanged bewildered looks behind Inuyasha’s back.


“Don’t act so surprised.” Inuyasha’s gruff voice broke through their silent exchange.


“We’re not surprised that you don’t know, just that you actually admitted to it.” Inuyasha glared at Miroku and he grinned back, obviously pleased with himself.


The rumble of the falls soon reached their ears and shortly after the towering cliff face of the falling water appeared before them.


XXX


She reveled in the feeling of the wind in her face, closing her eyes she tuned out the obvious discomfort of her companion.


“Kagura?” Bankotsu’s voice was unsteady and he clutched the edge of the feather in a death grip.


Kagura continued to ignore him and after several more attempts Bankotsu soon gave up.


“What do you want now?” she finally spoke.


“Are you sure we’re doing the right thing? Maybe we should tell him.”


“No! Do you want to get killed?” her vehement reply startled him.


“But he should know,” Bankotsu continued to try and convince Kagura but she was beyond it.


“I don’t plan on dying for this and there is no way he’ll let us waltz right out of there if we tell him what we’re doing.”

“But,”


“No buts, he’s not going to find out.” With Kagura’s final words they flew on to their destination.


XXX


Inuyasha, Kouga and Miroku entered the cave with nervous anticipation.


“Finally.” Ayame threw up her arms and let them fall back down to her lap. “We were about to send a search party out to get you guys. Where have you been?” Inuyasha frowned but Miroku answered.


“We encountered another one of Naraku’s beast thingies. And we made contact with the soldiers; we need to meet them soon.”

“They’re going to help us, right?” Ayumi’s hope rang clear in her voice.

“That’s what they say they’re going to do,” Inuyasha’s gruff response made the smile fall from the hopeful girls’ face.

“You don’t trust them.” It was Kagome’s turn to frown as she looked directly at the half-demon.

“No, I don’t.”

“We should be going.” Miroku interrupted their silent staring contest.

“Alright. Let’s go.” Kagome nodded once in finality.


XXX


They came upon the soldiers’ campsite just as night came over the island. Various tents were scattered around the clearing with the glow of light coming from some but not all.

“Ah, Sato,” Miroku suddenly exclaimed and approached the tall lanky man.

“Miroku.” He nodded his head in affirmation. His perusal of the others left a bad taste in Inuyasha’s mouth; he looked as if he was gazing at cattle instead of people. Sato finally spoke after several minutes, “You will stay here tonight. Unfortunately we don’t have any tents left, but we do have a few bedrolls. You’re welcome to them. We head north in the morning.”


XXX


Just as the sun came over the horizon Kagome felt a nudging in her ribs. She groaned knowing the only person who would wake her up this early was Inuyasha. Rolling over onto her back she glared up at him through bleary eyes.

“What do you want?” She managed, her brain still sleep fogged. She rubbed her tongue over her teeth and winced at the fuzzy feeling.


“Get up and be quiet about it,” his gruff response not surprising her in the least. She looked around at her companions; this was obviously a private conversation as he had not bothered to wake anyone else. Groaning at her luck she pulled herself from the warm embrace of her sleeping bag. She followed him beyond the tree line until they could barely see the camp.


“So, what is it?” she asked and yawned.

“You’re not coming with us.” He turned away, gazing farther into the foliage.

“Excuse me?” She shot back indignantly.

“You heard me.”

“I’m not staying behind. Would you look at me when you‘re talking to me?” Kagome grabbed his chin and forced his face in her direction. Dark amber eyes immediately locked onto melancholy blue. Her fingers softened and moved to touch his cheek. “You’re worried about me.” A grin broke out and crinkled the edges of her eyes.

“Feh, am not wench.” Inuyasha wrenched his face from her hands.

“Are too.”

“Am not.

“Are too.”

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“Shut up.”
“Never.” His lips were against hers in an instant. Startled blue eyes stared into even more startled amber. He pulled away and stuttered a quick apology.

“Don’t apologize.” And in a burst of confidence she grabbed the back of his neck and brought his lips to hers again in a quick, firm kiss. As Kagome pulled away she whispered against his lips, “I’m still going.” The goofy grin fell from Inuyasha’s face and he stared, shocked, at the back of her head as she walked away. ‘Sneaky wench, I wouldn’t have you any other way.’

XXX

They had started north hours ago and much to Inuyasha’s dismay, Kagome in tow. The children and the camp far behind them now, he could not make her turn around and go back. Sato led the way with his machete, but not without much bickering between Inuyasha and himself.

They passed the clearing where the last battle had been fought and headed further north until they came upon an area so thick with trees it became hard to navigate. There was a yell from above them, and several trees were suddenly cut in half. They all looked up at once; their eyes fell upon the form of a woman and man seated upon a large white feather.

“Bankotsu.” The one utterance from several people amongst him had Inuyasha cursing like the sailor he was.

A sudden crashing through the trees had everyone looking to the right. A large muscular beast all gnashing teeth and claws felled trees an acre wide with one swing of his mighty arm.


“Go for the silver-haired one.” Kagura yelled and beady red eyes focused on Inuyasha. He felt several of the soldiers around him shiver in anticipation and fear. Cracking his knuckles Inuyasha prepared himself for a fight.


XXX


Author’s Note: So we have Kagome and Inuyasha’s first kiss, the same kiss I’ve been promising a few people for sometime. Haha. I hope no one was too out of character, I’ve never really written fluff before.

Let’s all give a big thanks to my new beta, O-Mega Lead, without your help these poor readers would still be suffering through my horrible grammar.

And now for something I haven’t done in awhile, Chapter Soundtrack. I drew a lot of inspiration from local music for this chapter.

Are You A Fox? EP.

Burning Valhalla EP.

Love Is Murder - Five Ways To Kill Yourself EP.

Next Time On A Killer In Hindsight: Battles Won And Lost