InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ An Encounter With Fate ❯ Closure ( Chapter 11 )

A/N: Chapter 11! Wooo! Finally! Almost a month, man, my longest non-updating period. Ahh…the joys of laziness. ^_^

Disclaimer: Shesshy how could you! *Sob* my own sister (well, half-sister, but whatever)…letting the inu-gang get away *sob*

An Encounter With Fate

By Boredomstrikes

Chapter 11 - Closure

Kiyoshi stumbled through the edge of the forest. He had just dodged a particularly large blast from Hakkaku, and he strongly felt that he deserved a break. It seemed as though after Kiyoshi had shot the trunk, Hakkaku was fighting even more ferociously than before. The clearing they were in might have well just been a giant pockmarked crater.

'Now, back to business. Where could Shippo be?' he thought as he crawled amongst the shrubbery. Soon enough, however, he spotted Shippo cowering in a tiny ball at the base of a large maple tree. Creeping up to him, he placed his hand on his shoulder.

At his touch, Shippo started, "Ah! What! Ge awaa fom mae" by now, Shippo actually looked at who or what touched him, and plus Kiyoshi put a hand over his mouth.

"Shh…" he calmly silenced the kitsune boy. Looking deep into the boy's eyes shining with fear, sobriety shining in his own. "I need your help."

=*=

Inuyasha, Sango and Miroku had been fighting Hakkaku for several hours along with Kiyoshi. The sun would set soon, and Hakkaku would be at a great advantage. Not only would their vision would be hindered from the darkness, he could more easily perform aerial attacks, and there were all those craters on the ground. If they could not see where they were going, then it was more than likely that they would get caught in one of those craters and be left for the taking.

'Damn it! This is such bull! Why don't my attacks faze him?' Inuyasha thought, while Hakkaku lulled in his attacks for a moment. 'It can't be that time of the month already, can it?' He cursed under his breath. 'Shit. Don't tell me it's that time of the month! We're already losing as it is,' at the moment, he saw Sango and Miroku dodging more attacks. It wasn't long before a shot was fired at him, and he had to once again dodge.

While dodging, he had noticed that Kiyoshi had been thrown into the woods. He wondered if he was all right. After all, he was human. If Kiyoshi was dead, Inuyasha would've smelled it. If he wasn't, and only unconscious, he couldn't say. But he was taking an awfully long time in the woods.

Time passed, and more attacks were dodged. Hakkaku was unrelenting, and just kept pushing on. What the hell was up with this guy? Even demons would have been tired by now. Surely he had to show some sign of fatigue at this point in the battle. The only time he ever seemed to relent (even if it was only a tad bit) was when Kiyoshi attacked him that one time. And just that one time.

And speaking of Kiyoshi, he still had not come out from the woods yet. He still had yet to emerge from the wood, or to confirm Inuyasha's worst fears. After all, if he were dead, Inuyasha would never beat him in an eating contest. But soon enough, as Inuyasha sailed through the air to dodge and attack, the gray-and-brown clothed figure of Kiyoshi came running out of the woods, shooting an arrow at Hakkaku. It missed miserably.

Inuyasha considered yelling at Kiyoshi for a moment or so, but his decision was made as Hakkaku returned with a new attack, having easily dodged (or just stood, or floated, there) the arrow from Kiyoshi. 'Great. Now what the hell is he doing? If he's gonna attack him, at least do some damage! ' He swung uselessly at the oncoming Hakkaku. Again, Hakkaku was unfazed.

Kiyoshi tried to shoot him again, but it again, missed horribly. Again, Inuyasha ignored it. But time after time, Kiyoshi missed shot after shot, until all that was left of his arrows was a measly five arrows out of an almost-full quiver that could hold well over twenty. That was when Inuyasha decided that enough was enough. He was just wasting valuable arrows. "Kiyoshi! What in the seven hells - " he began. He was cut off when Hakkaku yet again attacked him. Continuing, "Are you DOING?!"

If Kiyoshi answered, Inuyasha never knew. It was because Hakkaku was diving in for another attack, and was veering towards Inuyasha again. But this time, when Inuyasha was about to jump away, he suddenly changed direction and was now headed straight for Kiyoshi.

The look on Kiyoshi's face was clear. And you can probably guess what it was too. Fear. An absolute look of terror. Eyes wide as they would go, mouth slightly agape as if to scream in his last moments, and visible sweat starting to pour down his face. He started walking backwards as if it would take him away from the life-threatening danger approaching at a life threatening speed, and fell. When Hakkaku came close enough to Kiyoshi so that he was able to see the look of pleasure and ecstasy filling the face of Hakkaku, he shut his eyes tight and braced himself for the worst possible outcome.

But it never came.

Everything was silent for an eternal moment before Kiyoshi opened his eyes. Hakkaku was frozen directly in front of him, so close that their noses were not less than a centimeter apart. In the moment that Kiyoshi had shut his eyes and Hakkaku was frozen in place, that look of pleasure and ecstasy on his face had all but drained away, and was replaced with a different look. The exact same look that Kiyoshi had had of absolute fear, although it was mixed with shock. At the moment, Hakkaku looked as if he had been stabbed in the back while he wasn't looking. But no blade protruded from Hakkaku.

Everyone in the group was equally, if not more, shocked than Hakkaku was. The demon Hakkaku that they had been fighting for the better part of the day, the Hakkaku that was seemingly invincible due to his manner was frozen in mid-air, ostensibly nothing having been done to him. Kiyoshi took the moment to scramble away from the frozen threat before him.

The group looked around in confusion as Hakkaku turned and looked at something. The rest of the gazes followed suit and looked at whatever Hakkaku was looking at.

"Kiyoshi?!"

=*=

"I need your help." Were the words Kiyoshi (the real Kiyoshi) had spoken to Shippo in the cover of the forest. Shippo nodded silently, and he began to quickly explain what Shippo had to do. Shippo nodded again and attempted to change into Kiyoshi. After a few more faulty tries before getting it right, Kiyoshi handed Shippo his bow and arrows and his cap and sent him back through to the battlegrounds.

Armed now with only his daggers and short swords, he left to find the cliff path to initiate his plan. Quickly circling around the battlegrounds while in the safe cover of the woods, he came to where the cliff should have met the forest, there was indeed a cliff path.

But climbing this path would be no easy task. This slope was steep. Very steep. Kiyoshi calculated that it would be around a 125-degree angle, 130 at most. Not only was it steep, but as he soon found out with his first step, pebbly and unstable. His first step broke a hole into the ground. Looking at it, he judged that it was probably an underground snake nest.

He cursed silently to himself. He would need to go slowly, which wasn't an option, considering that Shippo might not be able to hold his transformation too long. Cursing enough that any mother would wash his mouth out with soap, he initiated his second option. He grabbed a large, staff like branch lying dead on the ground. It was large enough to be used as a quarterstaff, but light enough so that he was still able to sprint with it. Hopefully, it would prevent him from falling into any underground nests and break his ankle, or find one with live snakes.

Backing up a few steps, he started off at the path. It was a lot harder than it looked. Which was pretty difficult, considering that it looked hard to begin with. And plus, he had a few close encounters with the snake nests. The path was hard to traverse not only because of its instability and pebbly texture, but also because the soles of his boots didn't grip very well on the surface, so he often times tripped. Which resulted in him coming face to face with a nest that had the surface crumbled in, and full of resting reptiles. This was a lot of problems, considering that he had only come up ten feet on the forty-foot path.

Still, he slogged on. But soon, the path became it was not long before he heard a buzzing, humming sort of sound. He froze. It was getting louder, which meant whatever was making the sound was getting closer. Cautiously, he drew one of his swords. The buzzing/humming grew louder still. He couldn't determine where it was coming from. Louder. Was it from behind? No, not from there. His thoughts raced a million miles per minute. Louder. The right? No, the cliff was on the right. Louder. The left? No, there wasn't anything there either. Louder. Above? Yes!

Just as he turned his face upwards, he saw the source of the sound diving straight at him. he saw it in time for him to just get away. All he saw was a large debris explosion from where the creature had come in contact with the ground. He half-hoped that it wouldn't crawl back out, and he half-expected it to crawl back at. The latter half was correct.

As soon as the dust settled, the creature emerged from its homemade crater. It wasn't pretty, not at all. It was some mutated from of a dragonfly hybrid with some kind of crustacean, a lobster maybe. Whatever the hell it was, it was disgusting. The head and the body were so disproportional to each other, it was a wonder that he could move, much less dive at amazing speeds.

The origin of the creature, a lobfly if you will, was still a mystery. Kiyoshi assumed it was a defense set up by Hakkaku as an extra precaution after he hit him. It rushed him again. When it came at him, he knew that this was no ordinary creature, not that a lobfly was ordinary. His reflex action was to retaliate, but where to hit it? There was some sort of mark in the middle of the lobfly's forehead, so he hit it and the thing just fell over dead and disappeared in a purple haze.

He didn't know why he knew to hit it. Maybe it was just because it was this big glowing, pulsating thing in the middle of the things forehead. But it was much more than that, he could sense that this lobfly thing had some sort of strange presence. It was just one of those things that you just sensed. When he had that feeling, he knew that that was the right place to hit him. It was that same sense he felt whenever he was with Inuyasha. He always knew where he was, like a voice nagging at the back of his head, always telling him these things.

He didn't take time to dwell on the familiar sense that came and went. All he really paid any attention to was the fact that hitting those things on the little mark would kill them. So he continued on.

Kiyoshi did encounter more lobfly's, and things that definitely weren't lobflies. They were more like, crogs (crab frogs), or catickets (cat crickets) and some other very disturbing things. And they weren't exactly easy to defeat either. The lobflies marks were on the forehead, but crogs had it on the other end, and catickets had it under their right paw-thing. When Kiyoshi first started to fight these things, he didn't know any of this. And right now, his extra sense thing wasn't really working, so he didn't know to hit them there. So naturally, he assumed that they were in the same place as lobflies. What a surprise it was when it wasn't on their foreheads. He had first encountered a caticket, and he tried hitting the forehead again. But all that succeeded in was making it angry. And being part cat, it hissed at him then clawed his legs. When he missed the crog's mark, it used its pincher on his right arm and broke it.

So there Kiyoshi stood, at the top of the path, not less than ten feet away from his target, legs bleeding, arm broken and the rest of the injuries he sustained while fighting image-Hakkaku. But when he saw the real-Hakkaku, his spirits were lifted and he forgot of all of his injuries (for the moment), and began running (limping running) to his target.

But Hakkaku had one last defense, unbeknownst to Kiyoshi. Though it wouldn't stay so unbeknownst to Kiyoshi for long. He barely made it 3 steps before the last defense revealed itself to him. It looked like a beetle rhino hybrid, a behino.

The behino came raring out of nowhere and all he knew was a giant hulking something was rushing him. He leapt out of the way just in time and was able to get away, sending the behino down the path. Though it succeeded in him not looking where he was going, and his foot landed in a nest. And unfortunately for him, it was full of resting reptiles. And you can bet that they were angry when they found a foreign object intruding in on their rest. So they naturally attacked the intruder and injected him with venom.

Kiyoshi felt the tiny fangs sink into his legs and the liquid-death spread through his veins. He didn't know the kind of snake that bit him, or the potency of the venom, but he knew that he didn't have long, and was just lucky that he didn't die right then and there. When those fangs sank in, he bent back in pain as if someone had kicked his knee in so he fell.

But he didn't fall down because the behino had recovered and returned. He again rushed Kiyoshi, but this time, he wasn't so agile. The behino had a horn, like a regular rhino, but moved with amazing speed. So when he got rushed. That horn pierced through him like a blade, and he found himself pinned against the cliff.

Kiyoshi couldn't breathe. Even if he did manage to survive the behino's attack, he would either die of blood loss, or poisoning. He was getting crushed every moment, dying slowly and painfully. The need for him to survive was great, and the adrenaline already was twining with his blood and pumping through his veins, and all that just folded in on itself and even more was sent coursing through him. Whatever didn't come out of him, anyway.

He knew he wouldn't survive. He was going to die. But still, if he was going to die, better go with style.

So he reached within himself and willed with all his might for his sense thing to find the mark. Evidently it worked because he found it, right between the behino's eyes. The only problem was actually getting his sword through it. It still hurt to move. But he needed to do this.

He reached for his sword as best as he could. But when the behino hit him, it hit him at an odd angle, and he ended up sort of twisted against the cliff. The sword was wedged between the cliff and his body, with no way out. Futilely attempting to draw his sword, he remembered his daggers, stuck in the space between his leg and the boot.

Leaning down as best as possible, while alternately bringing his leg up, he drew the dagger. Whispering to his enemy he said, "Buh-bye Mr.Behino," and drove the dagger through the mark. The behino disappeared in another purple haze and Kiyoshi was set free.

Now he really had to get moving.

As fast as possible, he ran to the stump. When he reached the cliffs edge, he saw image Hakkaku diving at Inuyasha, then quickly change direction to him. Well, Shippo-him, but still, he was gonna get hit. So he drew his sword and drove it into the center of the stump.

The result was a pleasurable one. Hakkaku froze right in front of Shippo-Kiyoshi's face. Shippo-Kiyoshi scrambled away as everyone's gazes turned to him and a shocked cry came from his friends. "Kiyoshi?!"

As Hakkaku's face turned to him, a malicious smile grew. The boy responsible for this action looked terrible. One eye was swollen shut, cuts littered his body, he limped, his arm looked broken, and he had a gaping hole in his stomach. But he was a boy. He laughed dryly. He mocked, "Hahahahaha! Foolish humans! I can only be defeated by a mi-"

He never finished his statement. Instead, a crack filled the air. The sight was unbelievable. A bolt that just seemed to come out of Kiyoshi's hand flew down the length of the sword and entered the stump he had impaled. The lightning spider-webbed over the surface of the trunk before a blinding flash was seen. When the flash faded, the trunk looked different. Gray colored, brittle and old, the remnants of a once majestic tree, was what the sword was in now. Hakkaku looked like he had been singed, or turned into ash, as he floated in his spot, the same expression of fear and shock on his face; that is, before he disappeared in a purple haze of dust.

But Kiyoshi didn't know half of that. All he knew was Hakkaku laughing at him, mocking him. He couldn't bear to stand the thought of all the work in vain. His anger flared and he felt something, something that he couldn't name. He just felt something, a pleasant warm, tingly, fizzy sort of feeling pass throughout his body and collect and shoot through his arm. Then the flash came and he felt warmth disappear.

But as the feeling disappeared, so did the light. And he couldn't help but smile when he saw Hakkaku disappear like the other mutations. He whispered to himself, "Heh. Game over Hakkaku,"

Kiyoshi was so tired. All that adrenaline was gone. He had fought for the whole day, now that the sun was just about set. All those injuries and the poison were taking its toll. it wasn't to be avoided.

He closed his eyes and fell off the cliff.

A/N: Dun dun dun… and so the chapter ends at another cliffie. Sorry. ^_^;; but I made it extra long to make up for the lateness and cliffie. don't worry, I'm not really writers blocked anymore, so chapters will be coming faster. Plus it helps that school ends in next Tuesday. *sigh* five more days… anyway, REVIEW!!!!!!!! Please?

Oh, and P.S. They're gonna find out Kiyoshi is a girl in the next chapter. And reviewing is encouragement, and encouragement makes me write faster.