InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Asclepius ❯ Elevator ( Chapter 1 )

Asclepius
.Chapter One.
.Elevator.

It was raining. Her body convulsed in a shiver, but the action didn’t even register. The heavy drops mixing into her hair, absorbing into her clothing weren’t even making a notice in her conscience. Her thoughts were spiraling around her rapidly and her eyes were tightly closed to the sight in front of her.

The tall apartment building stood like a spirit in front of her. Dimly, it dawned on her that this was a sure sign that someone had been here. Someone had lived in this place before the colony was destroyed. With her forearm, she scrubbed rain out of her eyes before reaching to her exposed brown leather shoulder holster and taking out an ancient pistol.

Slowly, her feet found the dark entrance into the striking monolith. Every few seconds lightning would throw the glass paned façade into stark relief and the girl moving into the doorway was surprised every single time. Out of her right pocket she produced a tiny LED light that drove the darkened room into dim light. Immediately she was staring at the corpses that lined the ground. She closed her eyes hard, fighting back her tears. She was too late, again. He had won.

A noise behind her made her turned swiftly, refocusing and flashing her light over the area. “Is there anyone in here?” She called out, reluctantly. “Are there any survivors?”

It was a lost cause, and she knew it. The noise was probably some stupid bug or something losing its place on a shelf. Slowly she made her way to what she could tell was an elevator shaft and studied it for a long moment. The doors were corroding and she noticed the faint outline of a hand in a rust coloured stain. ‘Someone was fighting…’ It told her that this wasn’t exactly like the other destroyed homes she’d investigated. There, they’d died before they had the ability to move.

No, here, Naraku was searching for something. Or possibly even someone. And the fact that there was blood all around this elevator shaft and covering the bottom bits of the door told her that whatever he’d been looking for was inside there.

Most importantly, the doors were still sealed firmly shut.


~*~

The girl’s voice had to be unreal. He’d shifted in the elevator to press his ear to the door, praying to hear footsteps again, only to have her call out. Despite his absolute desperation, he had to note the girl’s voice was light, as if she weren’t used to carrying a frown in it.

Three long days he’d been in here, seventy-two hours and fifty-five minutes, and all because his damn mother and that bitch…

‘Never mind that now! Call back, make her find you!’ She called out again, and he still couldn’t find his own voice to call back to her. He could feel her getting closer and immediately backed, pressing his cut and bruised back against the cool metal that shined on the opposite wall. The only untouched area in the whole building was this elevator. The only place un-charred by Naraku’s fury and he was in it, wallowing in self-pity. He needed her to open the thick metal doors, needed her to find him. His lips were moving, but nothing was coming out. He needed to speak, damnit!

Finally his voice penetrated the air, rough, unused for days. “I’m in here, but I can’t open the doors.” It squeaked and faded, but he knew that she’d heard, evidenced by her flurry of movement, the sound of metal hitting tile, and the distinct screeching of metal on metal.

“I’m coming, I promise!” She called back, worry etching out her words. “Please, hold on just a little longer!”

~*~

Instantly, she dropped her gun and light, removed her thick jacket and leather holster and started pulling at the tiny slip of vacancy between the two sliding doors.

All of her mind was taken over by the monumental task of prying these doors apart; she hadn’t noticed the barrier produced encompassing the doors that was warming her freezing skin and drying her hopelessly doused clothing. “Hurry Kagome!” A thick static voice filled the room and echoed off of the walls and floor. “You have to get out of there! The reapers are moving quickly!”

“Miroku, there’s someone down here!” Her voice was frantic and her efforts were doubled, trying to pull the metal apart. The doors were breaking open, the railing that the traveled on making plenty of protest.

The man was at the back of the elevator, his eyebrows drawn down, looking just as desperate as she felt. As soon as the doors were open enough, she grabbed his arm and pulled him out. She was quickly putting her holster back on, as well when she heard Miroku’s voice again over the radio. “They’re breaking through the atmosphere! Kagome, hurry!”

Growling she threw her flashlight into her pocket and picked up her gun. The man who’d been pulled out of the elevator had grabbed her jacket and thrown it to her before she could even bend over again. With a quick nod of thanks, she had his arm again and was pulling him out of the door. “We have to get to the dock again, and fast. I can feel reapers coming.” Regretfully, she looked out to the slew of rotting flesh and felt sick in her stomach. Running through the door she yelled over her shoulder. “Rest well!”

~*~

Miroku’s control panel was blinking rapidly and he cursed when he flipped on the light in the top of his ship. The woman he’d come here with was dreadfully far away, despite her best efforts to hurry along the wet and dented road. The man following her was being partly dragged along, seemingly shocked by what he was running through. She was talking to him, Miroku could tell, and trying to motivate him to hurry it up.

He clicked a button right in front of him, “Alright honey muffins, I’m serious now. If you don’t get up here faster I’ll take off.”

He heard her frustrated growl as she reached for her radio, hanging at her waist, and pressed the button to speak into it. “Shut up! I’m getting there as fast as I can!” He felt a bit bad for her, hearing the tone she held in her voice. She was frightened, and awfully so. “Have the hatch open!”

The rain was pelting the metal ship as he got up and made his way through the piles of random assortments of odd objects littering the cabin. The hatch door was kicked open roughly (the only way to open it as it was quite rusted and broken) and fell onto the wet dirt with a sickening crunch. He grimaced, finally willing to admit that they’d have to pony up the money to fix that.

As soon as the thing was down, Kagome and the unidentified man were upon the ship, climbing on the thin rusted metal, and Miroku was falling into his chair, flipping a row of switches above his head. After Kagome pushed the man she’d saved roughly into her back seat and threw his buckle at him, she returned to the broken door and started pulling it closed. It wasn’t moving.

“Kagome, hurry!”

Kagome’s eyes closed tight as she pulled up again, only to meet another failure. “Just get going, I’ll get it up by the time we leave the atmosphere!”

Miroku shook his head and reached over to where she should have been sitting, flipping another short row of switches. A few lights blinked on his left and he nearly growled. “They’re getting close.”

“Don’t get distracted, I’ll take care of them,” She called back. She was getting claustrophobic, and her chest was getting tight. Finally, on a particularly heavy pull, she had the door swinging up, and Miroku was launching off the ground. She had to use all of her muscles to bring the door to its correct position and lock it in place.

For a moment there was complete silence, the open door was the only reason they could hear the engines roaring. Kagome was sitting back, her head parallel with the low ceiling, her eyes shut tight and her breath heavy.

The silence was ruptured by the man that she’d dragged up here. “They’re getting too close,” he reported slowly. “How are we getting out of here?”

Instantly her eyes were open and she was at Miroku’s side, strapping herself into the co-pilot seat. “The only way we can,” Kagome replied, glancing at the man sitting directly behind her own seat. “I’m going to blast through.”

~*~

The hospital room was dreary and dark. The curtains pulled around her bead were shabby and a sickening pink colour, but her sheets were stark white and smelled of alcohol. She groaned a bit, trying to sit up.

Someone had her curtain pulled away in a flash, surprising Kagome enough to fall back into a laying position. Muttering darkly, she rubbed her head and turned over to see who had barged in so rudely.

“Oh, Kagome, that face isn’t a good look for you!”

It had to be merry Miroku at her bedside as soon as she was up, didn’t it? It just figured.

His voice started up again, seeing he was only receiving silence for his first comment. “Very brave that was and all, but you left me to pilot all by myself. I think I scared the pants off of our little passenger over there.”

That had her sour mood wiped clean off of her face. She was sitting up, as quickly as she could and Miroku was at her side immediately, steadying her. As much crap as he gave her, she knew that he was always by her side, willing to help her. She offered him muted thanks before she stood up. Someone had gone great lengths to strip her of her clothing and give her a thick, warm hospital gown and socks.

“Could you show me where he is?”

Miroku eyed her warily before pointing to a curtain about three curtains away from her own partition. “He was sedated when we got here, though. They think he has an infection on some of the cuts on his back.” There was a pause when Kagome’s eyebrows drew together. “Kagome, did you notice the barrier that was put around him?”

Silently the younger girl shook her head. After a moment she added, “When I was trying to get the doors open, the air was warmer. I just figured that someone stuck in a confined space would produce heat.” Another pause. She started walking towards the closed curtain, careful to watch her delicate step. “I need to know.”

“Someone was protecting him.” Kagome stopped dead in her tracks and noticed that Miroku wasn’t following her. He was just staring at the curtain that he’d said contained Inu-Yasha. “He isn’t human, but all those humans there had died to put up that barrier. When you got back up to the ship, it was all over you. What were they protecting?”

She shrugged. “Maybe someone who had quite a deal of power cared about him enough to save him.” Kagome was purposely lending a cryptic edge to her words. She knew Miroku hated it.

She gently pushed the curtain back as soon as she reached it and slid it back in place when she was inside of it. Her eyes traveled over the prone form lying in the white bed. His chest was partially bare, but she could see where they’d wrapped bandages around his well-built body. His abdomen was covered in sodden bandages, turned slightly pink. She felt her heart ache a bit for him. This boy (or rather man, as he was just slightly older than her, it appeared) had lost everything three short days ago and then spent the three consecutive days after in a tiny elevator, bleeding.

It wasn’t fair, Kagome mused still staring at the man in front of her. How it was that one person could take everything a person knew and loved away, she was not aware. “And for what?” She muttered, lowly, tears prickling at her eyes. “Some stupid jewel.”

Again the girl had her eyes searching over the man’s form, landing on his relaxed face. When she’d gotten him out of that building she hadn’t even looked back to really take in his appearance, but now she was marveling at it openly. His hair was chalk white, blending together well with his bed linens and throwing his face into stark contrast. His skin was very tan, and his body was built for fighting. She couldn’t help but wonder again why he’d been holed up inside an elevator instead of fighting.

She was startled when he grunted and opened his eyes. They were the colour of Miroku’s favourite beer. That brought a bit of a smile onto her face as she traveled up and watched as the two ears on top of his head flicked around. She didn’t know how she’d missed those before…

“Stop staring.” His voice surprised her and she jumped a bit.

She offered him another soft smile, taking note of his scowling features. “I’m sorry.”

He seemed to be studying the curtain and she took the chance, clearing her throat lightly. “You’ve met Miroku, I’m sure,” Her smile didn’t waver at his snort, “My name is Higurashi Kagome.”

Slowly he looked over at her. He’d noticed already how dark her hair was. It reminded him of another girl long gone. Her eyes, though, drew a thick line of distinction between the two girls, he noted. This Kagome woman had eyes like amethyst and just looking directly there made his heart skip a beat. Not that he would ever admit that little nugget of information to anyone. “Inu-Yasha.”

He watched as her head tilted to the side, her face a mixture of confusion and honest curiosity. “Don’t you have a family name, Inu-Yasha?”

Silently Inu-Yasha admired the sound of his name from her lips. “You ask a lot of questions,” He replied gruffly. She apologized again and he let out another snort. “Have you ever been to Mars before?”

Kagome’s face scrunched up, and she sat herself in the small plastic chair at the man’s bedside. “When I was little, my mother took me there once, but I don’t remember a lot. And yesterday,” She swallowed thickly, seeming to choke over a few words before regaining herself.

Inu-Yasha sat up and waved a hand in front of him, dismissing her next thought. “We take family names from women. My mother is gone, so I don’t have one.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying that.”

Kagome swallowed again, trying desperately not to cry. She stopped herself from apologizing for apologizing so much. “Why were you put in that elevator?”

The question was sudden and caught him off guard. “Do you have eyes?” He replied, as if she was asking what colour the sky was. “Or are you just stupid or something?”

“What the Hell is that supposed to mean?” Kagome stood up from her uncomfortable seat in a flurry of movement and pinned him with a glare. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I just said I didn’t know anything about you or your colony.”

It was Inu-Yasha’s turn to swallow a lump growing in his throat. Instead of apologizing like he knew he should he had to open his mouth and let something stupid come out. “Well you’d have to be completely daft not to notice that I’m not even fucking human.”

Kagome’s eyes widened, but then they turned rapidly into angry slits. “I don’t know about you aliens, but here on our cozy little colony we have manners. You should learn them, jerk!”

With a turn, she was rushing back to her own empty partition, tears in her eyes. Instantly she’d felt guilty, bringing up a rather sore topic. She knew it would be like rubbing salt into a wound, but he’d pushed her, damnit.

Miroku watched fascinated before entering the curtain that Kagome had just fled. “You know,” He started, “I don’t think I’ve seen Kagome get so angry at someone before.”

A silent man crossed his arms and let out a “Keh!” Miroku shrugged it off and wandered out. All of this action was making him hungry.

~*~

A/N- So I’ve started another one after an extremely long hiatus from writing anything at all. Life’s been kind of chaotic with school and work and all of that. I’m getting back into this though. Forgive my grammar mistakes. I’m with a beta reader so I’m just proof-reading through my chapters briefly before I post them.
So this will be my schedule. I have most of this typed up already, so I’ll be posting about one chapter a week, maybe more some weeks, maybe less some weeks, I’m not for absolutely sure. I’ll try and keep it pretty regular (or as much as I can, anyway).
Disclaimer: I don’t own Inu-Yasha or anything affiliated with it. I just like putting the characters into my sick little fantasies.
(Sorry for the formatting issue. I’ve never used Office 2007 before now and so I don’t know how I should save to make it come up right. I’ll figure this issue out and we’ll be good.)
EDIT: Just a few grammar changes.