InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Broken* ❯ Treachery ( Chapter 6 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Everything happened so swiftly the eye could barely follow, yet so slowly it seemed like minutes were passing rather than mere seconds. Kagome tried to scream, but no sound escaped her open mouth as Inuyasha soared with fluid grace into the mouth of death, only to twist mid-air, switching directions at the last possible second. The viper's jaws snapped shut only millimeters behind him; seizing the chance, he twisted again and brought Tetsusaiga down on the youkai's head with all his strength, trying to sever it, but it was no use. The snake was just too fast as it dodged to the side in a blur of movement. Sparks flew where Tetsusaiga's blade grazed the glittering scales. How could something that huge, Kagome wondered dazedly, be that confounded fast?

Inuyasha struck again, and again the viper dodged the transformed sword; almost lazily, it seemed. Kagome was getting the distinct impression that the monster was merely toying with him. Eventually, its amusement would vanish, and then things would turn really dangerous.

Without taking her eyes off the youkai, she patted blindly around until she came upon her weapons. Miraculously, the bow had survived her rough landing and hadn't snapped, but the same couldn't be said for most of the delicate arrows. She muttered a curse under her breath as she touched the splintered end of an arrow. Only four of them had survived. She would have to make every shot count.

Grimly, she notched an arrow and aimed in the general direction of the battle. Her marksmanship was still pathetic at best—When she actually managed to hit something, vital it was due more to dumb luck than actual skill—but she had to help Inuyasha. Mad or not, she wasn't about to let him fight alone.

The viper's head moved into her line of sight, its entire attention focused solely on the hanyou. It seemed to have forgotten her existence, or maybe just didn't consider her a serious threat. Wouldn't be the first time she'd been underestimated. Muttering a quick prayer for luck, Kagome loosed the glowing arrow and let it fly … just as a blur of red appeared directly in its path. She released a short scream of alarm, which was enough to alert Inuyasha of the impending danger. He turned just in time for the arrow whisper past his nose, yelping in surprise. "Idiot! Where're you aiming?" He glared down at her, momentarily distracted.

"You're the one who got in my way!" Kagome yelled back. "I almost had it before you—Look out!"

Her scream of warning came too late as a thick, coiled tail whipped down across the hanyou's back, bringing him to the forest floor with a resounding crash of broken branches and flattened shrubbery. "Inuyasha!" she shrieked, loosing another arrow at the youkai. The glowing projectile struck the viper in the head, only to bounce harmlessly off of its scaled hide in a shower of sparks.

"No good!" Inuyasha was miraculously on his feet again, grunting as he leapt into the trees and back toward the viper's head. "The scales are too hard! Everything bounces off, even Tetsusaiga!"

"Then how are we supposed to defeat it?"

"How the hell should I know?" Inuyasha barked, blocking the lashing tail with his sword. "Aim for its eyes or somethin'!"

"I only have two arrows left! The rest broke when I fell off the bike!" she admitted.

He cursed fluently. "There's gotta be a soft spot on this thing!" He slashed at the viper's eye with Tetsusaiga. It hissed, preparing to strike. Inuyasha's eyes widened in realization, and he tensed expectantly. "Okay, you overfed worm. You wanna take a bite outta me? Come and get it then!"

"What are you saying? Have you lost your mind?" Kagome shrieked.

"Shut up! I know what I'm doin'!" Inuyasha would have kept talking, but the viper chose that moment to strike viciously. He cursed and dodged. Not out of the way, but directly into the creature's gaping maw, bringing Tetsusaiga up and jamming it into the soft flesh inside its upper jaw. There was a fierce shriek and the youkai reared back, head swinging violently from side to side as blood and venom flew. Its mouth was locked open due to Tetsusaiga jammed vertically into its jaw, and immediately Kagome realized what Inuyasha had done.

"Okay," she muttered grimly, notching her third arrow and aiming it for the exposed inner throat of the huge serpent. She hesitated; it was thrashing so violently that she couldn't get a decent shot off, and she didn't have much ammunition left.

"What're you waitin' for?" Inuyasha snapped. "Tetsusaiga ain't gonna hold forever, and if it winds up in that snake's stomach, I'm takin' it outta your hide!"

"You jerk! It isn't my fault!" she yelled. "It keeps moving! I can't get a good aim!"

Muttering under his breath, Inuyasha leaped nimbly onto the viper's back, just behind its head, and used his momentum and weight to drag it to the forest floor. His claws sliced through a large tree on the way down, sending the thick, heavy trunk plummeting onto the snake and effectively pinning it to the ground … for a short time, anyway. The huge head landed only feet away from Kagome's position, and she could smell the hot, sharp scent of poisonous miasma waft over her. She gagged, choking on the burning fumes, vision blurring. But she had a clear, open shot now, and she took it.

The loosed arrow arched gracefully into the wide-open mouth of the struggling youkai … and ricocheted off Tetsusaiga with a sharp ting before imbedding itself into a nearby sapling, quivering with the force of the impact.

"You idiot!" Inuyasha screamed, but Kagome ignored him, already drawing her fourth and final arrow and stepping as close to the creature as she dared. The viper tried to lunge, but the tree across its neck kept it from getting too far. Still, the evil gleam in its disturbingly-lucid eyes was enough to make her shudder, knowing what would happen if that snake did manage to free itself. Those fangs were still deadly, jammed-open or not, and no doubt being crushed to death from the powerful, corded body would be just as painful. Inuyasha was yelling at her again, this time for being too close to danger for his comfort. Again, she ignored him as she drew back her final arrow and took careful aim.

This time it flew true, imbedding itself deep in the throat of the youkai and flaring brilliantly upon impact. The huge, thrashing body went absolutely rigid for a moment, before the viper abruptly reared, its fury and pain lending it a burst of strength that overpowered the tree holding it down. Inuyasha threw himself at Kagome and yanked her out of the way just as the trunk came crashing down right where she'd been standing. The youkai, in the meantime, was convulsing and from its ruined throat emerged horrible noises that sounded disturbingly like the shrieks of a woman in agony.

The cracks between its scales were starting to glow with deadly, purifying light as the holy arrow continued its work. The light grew brighter and brighter, until suddenly the youkai exploded, chunks of steaming flesh and strips of scaled skin raining down on the area in a bloody rain. A very dangerous rain, the viper's thick blood being just as toxic as its poison, hissing wherever it touched the ground and melting the leaves and wood of the surrounding trees. Inuyasha cursed and yanked Kagome to him, dragging her beneath a thickly-branched tree and pulling them both to the ground, where he proceeded to curl her beneath him and pull his heavy, fire-rat haori over his head and around her to protect them both from the steaming liquid.

Kagome couldn't help blushing at the sudden embrace, her heart kicking into overdrive. It was stupid to get excited, she knew. He was only making sure his shard detector didn't melt into a puddle of goo. But his arms held her tightly, protectively against his body. His thick, soft hair caressed her face in a fall of pale silver. She sighed heavily, closing her eyes and daring to rest her head against his chest. She forgot that she was angry with him. She forgot that he probably hated her, that she was only good to him only as long as she could see his precious shards. The universe narrowed until it existed of nothing but his embrace, his heated breath wafting across her ear, his heart beating strongly against her cheek. She relished in it, wanted nothing more than for time to stand still.

Of course, time insisted on plodding forward, and too soon, Inuyasha lifted his head to cautiously scent the air, making sure the deadly rain had ceased. "That was weird," he muttered, standing gingerly to work out abused muscles. "They never exploded before." He glanced down at the girl still cradled protectively in his arms; she was watching him silently, her expression unreadable through the faint flush spreading across her nose and cheeks. He blinked, then released her so abruptly that she stumbled and nearly fell over. "Well, where the hell did the shards go?” he barked, turning to hide his own rising blush. “Don't just stand there like a ninny. Make yourself useful and look for 'em!"

There was a moment of silence from behind, and he wondered if she was ignoring him again. He was just getting ready to turn around and yell some more when something hard abruptly smacked off the back of his head. He yelped in surprise and whirled furiously. "What the hell was that for?”

"Y-you jerk!" she yelled, picking up another pinecone to throw that one at him, too.

“Oi!” he snapped, knocking it aside. “What's the matter with you?”

"You're so heartless! Find them yourself!" With that, Kagome turned on her heel and stomped to her bike. Well, more like limped; he noticed belatedly that she'd been injured, a dark, ugly bruise forming behind her left knee. He growled. Stupid girl had probably twisted it or something, which meant she was useless to ride that damned contraption of hers.

Not that she could, anyway. The bike was pretty much ruined, as she discovered when she attempted to pick it up. The front tire rim was all bent out of shape, the tire itself completely flat with an obvious tear in the tough rubber. On top of that, parts of the frame had melted, having been exposed to the youkai's acidic poison. She wondered if her pack had fared any better, but it was doubtful. The horrible day was growing even more horrible, and she had to fight the urge to break down for a good cry then and there. Inuyasha hated it when she cried, and he already despised her enough as it was. So, biting back tears, she limped her way around the clearing and trained her eyes on the youkai's remains to locate the shards.

The first two were easily found. They were still in the eyes, and Kagome had dealt with enough gore that extracting them from the cold, unblinking orbs wasn't as stomach-churning as it used to be. Inuyasha, of course, didn't help, having gone off looking for Tetsusaiga, which had been flung into the forest. She found she couldn't be too mad over it, since he'd risked his precious sword to defeat the enemy in the first place.

No matter how hard she searched, however, the third shard remained well and truly hidden. It must have been blown well out of the area when the youkai exploded; she could only pray and hope that the shard hadn't been blown to bits along with it, or Inuyasha would never forgive her. In the meantime, it was growing darker and darker, and the temperature was dropping rapidly. Her knee was also starting to throb painfully, now that the adrenaline was wearing off.

Her pack had miraculously escaped the carnage, having landed against the trunk of a tree that had acted as a very sturdy shield. She sat stiffly on the fallen tree that had held the viper prisoner and dug through the ratty bag in search of her first-aid kit and a bottle of painkillers.

Her medicinal supplies were distressingly low, she noted with a frown. She'd have to go back home soon to—Oh. Wait. Her shoulders slumped as memory returned. Go home? Yeah, right. Not if Inuyasha had anything to say about it. And recently, he had quite a lot to say about it. If she ever saw her family again before the jewel was completed (which would be never if she couldn't find that damned shard!), it would be a miracle. The thought sent a wave of depression over her and she slumped forward, resting her elbows on her knees until a jolt of pain shot through the left one, reminding her of what had started all these depressing thoughts in the first place. She sniffled, feeling the burning in her nose and sharp stinging in her eyes that always heralded a long bout of crying. And, since Inuyasha wasn't there, she slid down the log, buried her face in her knees (ignoring the pain, which she couldn't do anything about anyway), and gave in.

That was where Inuyasha found her nearly half an hour later, when he finally came crashing through the brush looking disgruntled, disheveled, and generally pissed off at having been made to go tramping through the trees looking for his precious sword. He muttered curses under his breath as he pulled stray twigs out of his hair and several burrs from his hakama, wanting nothing more than to have a good yell at someone. Namely, a specific someone, who (he had thoroughly convinced himself) had it coming for making that bloody youkai pop in the first place! Best of all, he could yell and scream and insult her all he wanted, and she couldn't do a damned thing about it, a fact that he was dying to rub in her face yet again.

All thoughts of yelling, however, fled when he scanned the area and found her small, crumpled form laying still as death among the rubble of youkai and shattered trees. His breath rushed from his body as if he'd just been punched. All he could do was stare in disbelief as his mind fought to process what his eyes were telling him. When he finally reached the conclusion that, yes, it was Kagome and yes, she did seem to be unconscious, he uttered a curse and leapt to her side in a single bound.

The salty scent of her tears reached him before he reached her, causing his heart to lurch violently like it always did when she cried. He knelt carefully beside the prone girl, who had huddled back into the log as far as she could, as though seeking warmth from the damp wood and even damper earth beneath. She was a mess. Her clothes were torn and dirty and her skin wasn't much better, coated with mud and blood that seeped from innumerable scrapes and scratches. Her hair was a tangled knot, and her white face held vivid bruises beneath her eyes. Tear-tracks streaked through the dirt, still damp, and her nose was a bit swollen and red.

One hand clenched tight into a fist, as if holding something precious. He gently picked the soft little hand up and pried her fingers open carefully to reveal two glistening shards nestled in her palm. He gazed at them for a moment in relief before abruptly frowning in realization. Wait … only two? Where was the third? What did the girl think she was doing, sleeping when there was still a shard to be found? Who knew what might happen to it if some other stray youkai came along and found it before they did, and it could be anywhere!

Still, even as these annoyed thoughts crossed his mind, Inuyasha gazed down at the clearly-exhausted girl and realized he couldn't stay angry. She had, after all, worked hard to find the two that she held, and the fact that she hadn't found the third was clearly distressing her. It was probably the reason for her tears, he mused. She probably thought he would be angry with her for not finding it, and he had to admit he hadn't done much recently to make her believe otherwise. He was a little annoyed, but he supposed the shard would be safe enough wherever it was until they could find it.

At the moment, it was getting colder and the light was failing. The dark didn't bother him, of course. He could see just fine, and a little cold air wouldn't kill him. But Kagome—being the frail, weak human that she was—would probably catch some illness and end up dying on him if he didn't get her warmed up. He muttered to himself and stood, kicking rubble out of the way as he cleared a small circle for them to set up camp. Weeks on the road had taught him how to build a proper campfire, having been forced to help set camp on more than one occasion under the threat of a sitting. Now he put the knowledge to use, lining a small circle with stones and filling the ring with wood and underbrush to burn. He wished heartily that Shippou was with them, since the kit always lit the fire and helped gather the wood. With the fox gone and Kagome out of commission, Inuyasha was forced to do all the work by himself, which irritated him to no end.

Kagome kept a watertight plastic bag in her pack for non-waterproof things, such as her very useful matchsticks and something she called a lighter. He now dug these out and stared at them for a moment, trying to remember how she'd used them. Examining the lighter, he set his thumb against what appeared to be a lever and pushed, and nearly dropped the thing when a tiny flame flickered to life, nearly burning him. Trying again, he lowered the wavering flame down to the pile of grass and held it there until it started smoking and the flame spread.

He had some difficulty keeping it lit. Everything was damp and would not burn easily, but Inuyasha was nothing if not determined, and soon a large and merry blaze was going that could warm the life right back into a corpse. Feeling justifiably proud of himself, Inuyasha pulled out Kagome's sleeping bag and unrolled it close to the fire, then dug around in search of her cooking utensils and his favorite ramen she always seemed to have on hand. Unfortunately, though the utensils were found, the ramen was not, and he pouted a little when the thought occurred that—since he wasn't letting Kagome go home any time soon—it would be quite awhile before he got a taste of it again.

He dug through the bag, searching the very bottom (just in case he'd missed something), and frowned when he touched something smooth, round, and disturbingly familiar. His claws closed over the object and he yanked it from the bag. He was astounded to find himself holding a beaded rosary, just like the one he'd worn before. He gaped, wondering if he was hallucinating. Hadn't he warned her what would happen if she thought about slipping one on him again? Didn't she believe him? His brows knit together and a low growl rumbled as his fingers tightened convulsively, turning a burning, golden gaze to the culprit still lying in deep slumber not five feet away.

He felt unaccountably betrayed. Even knowing how much he'd hated being collared, she'd still snuck another rosary along? When had she planned on using it? Didn't she know it was fruitless; he'd smell the magic long before she got it over his head! Was she so desperate to get him back under her control that she'd risk her very freedom to do it?

As if sensing the dark storm brooding on the horizon, Kagome shifted, her face pulling into a grimace as she turned onto her back and slowly opened her eyes. She sat up stiffly and groaned with the effort, her entire body screaming at her to go back to sleep. But she was cold, and hungry … and she really had to go to the bathroom. Besides, the pain in her knee was even more distracting than the pain in her full bladder, driving sleep from her unwilling body. She rubbed at her eyes with a dirty hand, looking around blearily until her gaze came to rest upon Inuyasha, who crouched over her bag, staring back at her in a manner fixed to scald a cat.

She froze, every instinct suddenly screaming that to move now would be a very, very bad idea. "I-Inu…ya…sha?" she asked hesitantly, wondering what on earth had happened to put such an expression on his face. Whatever it was, she wasn't guilty! She'd been fast asleep, for pity's sake! Then her gaze fell upon his fisted hand and the beaded necklace dangling from it. Her brow furrowed as she sought to remember why it looked so familiar. Then it hit her, and her lips parted in a startled O as her eyes widened in surprise.

"That's right, wench. Figure it out yet?" the hanyou snarled, every word dripping with cold fury. "Did ya think it'd be so easy? Plannin' to slip it around my neck when I'm asleep? What? How'd you plan on gettin' it on me, huh? You're more stupid than I thought! What'd I tell you would happen if you even thought of collarin' me with one of these things again, huh? Huh?" He was shouting by the time he finished, shaking his fist at her and glaring for all he was worth.

She could only sit there, watching the swinging rosary with an expression of absolute confusion on her face. "I … I don't understand," she finally stuttered, her voice faint with anxiety. "Wh-where did you find it? I didn't—"

"Don't play stupid!" he yelled, eyes glowing with fury. "Don't lie to me! I dug it outta your pack! How else would it have gotten there, huh?"

"I didn't do anything, Inuyasha," Kagome replied, her voice now firm with conviction. "I don't know how it got in my pack, but I didn't put it there. I … I hadn't even considered it! Do you think I'd be that dumb? Why would I risk my entire future just to stick a collar on you? I thought … I thought you knew me better than that." Her voice was rising despite her best efforts to speak rationally. She was hurt, furious that he would believe her capable of such a treacherous act. Didn't he trust her at all?

Oh, wait. Stupid question with an obvious answer, she thought bitterly, abruptly turning her back as her eyes began to burn again.

Inuyasha glared, so mad he could have spit fire. But her words gave him pause. I thought you knew me better than that. His glare softened as uncertainty wormed its way in. It wasn't a lie. He did know her, and he knew she didn't have a treacherous bone in her body. At least … he'd thought so, anyway. But if it was true, then what was he holding in his hand?

Kagome sighed heavily and brought her fingers up to rub her aching head carefully. "I honestly don't know where that thing came from or how it got into my bag," she mumbled, voice choked with the effort to hold back tears. "Maybe Kaede slipped it into my pack, thinking I'd need protection from you.” She shot Inuyasha a brief glare when she felt him bristle behind her. “Quite frankly, I'm not inclined to disagree with her at the moment,” she snapped.

His ears flattened, looking at her as if she'd just slapped him. Her eyes narrowed, refusing to let him guilt her. “All I know is I'm telling you the truth, just like I've always done, and whether or not you believe me is entirely up to you. I can't make you change your mind or your obviously low opinion of me. And honestly, I don't even care enough to want to anymore." With that, she turned to limp further into the forest, muttering something about needing privacy, and left a shame-faced hanyou to stare after her.