InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Catch Me ❯ Prologue ( Prologue )

Title: Catch Me

Author: Lady Hiko

Chapter: Prologue

Genre: Inu Yasha

Characters: Kouga, Aphreal, Sesshomaru

Rating: PG-13

 

Disclaimer: However much I love Inu Yasha and the gang, I do not own them and it will never change. It is the property of Rumiko Takahashi.

 

 

Need to know:

 

“…” = words

`…' = thoughts

<…> = telepathic speaking

Iie = Japanese word for no. There will be apart where it is screamed and will therefore be extended.

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Demonic voices whispered all around her, their words echoing like screams within her head.

“No!” she whispered as her words turned to yells while she held her clawed fingers over her dagger-like ears. “Get out of my head…GET OUT OF MY HEAD!”

Amidst the crimson darkness stood an embodiment of white. Tall with golden eyes and an ivory split-cloak stood a white haired woman hanyou, before her was a tall blue haired demon-man in a cloak of human skin.

“It's not real…it's not real…” she whispered to herself as he just stood and grinned with his vile wordless mouth. Being a telepath, he restricted verbal directive to only the most necessary occasions.

<You think it's not real, eh?>

At his side were strapped two simple scabbards against a dark leather belt. One encompassed the hilt of what would appear to be a fiery sword, for it glowed with the fury of the sun. The other, an distraught emptiness upon which nothing physical could be seen. Putting his hand close to wear a melee handle would be above the hallow scabbard a beautiful ebony handle faded slowly to being. Her golden eyes widened, her heart racing as from the air that just moments before had been a void came a sword of pure substance.

<Care to test that theory?>

As the now unhilted blade contacted the stale air around it, a crackling emerald lighting coursed its way slowly down to its merciless tip and he thrust it into her right eye. What was once gold spilled to the ground, leaving her eye a clear blue as blood poured past her fangs. She held her hand over her eye, the other one watching the gold wash over her clawed fingertips. A low growl erupted from her throat as she used her other hand to send a scroll of fire in his direction. This, of course, missed, and her other eye was to pay the price for her folly.

With dire satisfaction at his sister's disabling blindness, the blue haired man sheathed his black blade and placed his hand upon the other. Its infernal glow reacted instantly with his tactile contact, and a elaborate crescent moon upon its hilt focused itself below his grip. He pulled the weapon quickly from its protective birth and sliced hastily at her. For a second nothing happened, flashes of burning light streamed through the air until the blood within her pushed its way to the surface.

Within that instant blood began to solemnly flow from her cheeks, wrist and ankle. She curled within her self trying desperately to find some warmth from the cold world around her, yet as she wrapped both her arms around her waist a deep fear came upon her. Her thighs, had suffered three treacherous blows, and her navel another four. Blood poured from under her arms as well.

Burning and bleeding on the callous earth below her, she lifted her defying yet reminiscent blue eyes to him. She unclenched her shaking palms and a purifying blue light shot ominously from it. With a simple yet desolating glance the light reflected quickly upon him and reciprocated its motion towards its sender. A snowy white tail grew behind her as this light emitted itself back onto her tattered body.

<I don't know why father bothered to try to return you to him, you waste of flesh!>

Taking the hilt of the sword, he heaved it into the air aiming to end its journey with no more than the silent sounds of a departing soul.

<Die, Aphreal.>

Glowing in smoldering blue light, the moon marked hilt smashed into her forehead, intensifying its light as it appeared to push through her.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHH!!!!!!!!”

Her scream echoed harmoniously through both present minds as her body experienced the agony of being ripped in two. When the pain seemed to peak, suddenly she felt as though she was falling, swallowed up by the sounds of her screams. Fearing the silence that followed the all too common sounds of a unheard death she continued to cry aloud. Her chest was burning, not only from the over exertion she placed upon herself by the unwavering screaming, but from the blackness it slowly became. Her body slowly darkened with a charcoal composure and the screams stopped as the murky ash her body burned to become passed her lungs. The cloaked man turned on his heel, his compassion for the ash that remained of his sister blew away just as she did in the wind. Noticing her old sword on the harsh earth, he threw it toward the sky. It glistened for a moment, like a falling star before it burns softly out of existence and slowly descended into the waters below. As the fallen item hit the still aquatic surface the skies ceased to glow red and the water boiled.

<I guess Father didn't need Aphreal after all. She barely gave me a headache.>

 

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Walking slowly through the forest, a human child asleep on the beast behind him, moved the great Demon Lord Sesshomaru. Jaken walked a few paces behind, frantically trying to avoid the claws and hooves of “Ah and Un”.

Out of the blue of the night came a rumbling shriek that echoed throughout the forest and a eerily unfamiliar scent. Stirring from her sleep, Rin blearily asked, “What's going on Sesshomaru-sama?”

“I don't know,” he whispered, his uncertainty disturbing him somewhat. Looking to Jaken he mumbled, “Take care of Rin for me. I'm leaving to investigate.”

Before Jaken could even mutter a `yes my lord', the demonic prince left in the direction of the disturbance of his forest.

The further he went, the deeper the footfall, the louder the disturbance became, until unexpectedly it just stopped. He entered the star bit clearing in front of him where the trees went arching into the sky and created vast shadows below in which a small brook flowed from. In the center - covered in the light of the moon - was a luminescent white form.

She lurched suddenly, her body shaking. She could smell him. She could smell the positively terrifying aura he held about him and she knew her presence was known.

“What are you doing in my forest?” he expressionlessly demanded.

She lifted her head to look at him and shuddered, for his voice wrapped and sifted through her like ice.

He back-stepped as she gazed upon him with her dripping golden eyes and stood in shock to the similar resemblance to himself that she held. With the various bruises, burns, and cuts, he would have sworn she was directly out of his pack. She heaved again and blood spattered past her fangs…blood with a peculiar origin and scent.

He flinched and asked, “What are you? The scent of a demon clings to you, but yet I smell something else.”

Sneezing blood, she replied, “Half tenyou.”

He scoffed. “You're lying. Tennyos don't exist.”

She sneered from her place on the ground, “This coming from a demon himself. What a hypocrite.”

Thoughts of ripping the creature in its red cloak in half danced in his head as he flattened his gaze. “Don't irritate me. You're not worth the kill considering you're almost dead as it is.”

“Don't flatter me.”

“Such impudence! No one speaks to LORD SESSHOMARU that way!” A little annoying toad demon scurried onto the scene followed shortly by a small six-year-old child.

“Jaken be nice!” yelled the small child as she proceeded to kick him in the rear. Aphreal was already beginning to like the kid. The small child walked over to `Lord Sesshomaru' and promptly tugged on his pant leg. “Sesshomaru-sama, what is she?”

The foreboding demon peered down at the small child and remained silent. Aphreal could already tell if it weren't for that child's presence, she'd probably would have been diced into tiny pieces.

Figuring that she wouldn`t get her first question answered, the small child asked, “Sesshomaru-sama, what's wrong with her?”

Sesshomaru sensed a change in the half demoness as her eyes widened and she sputtered and twitched. The small brook behind her held a twinge of pink from the creature's blood.

“She's dying Rin, probably from wounds acquired in battle. It won't be long now…”

Slowly Aphreal's seizing slowed to a halt and just as Sesshomaru said, her body began to calm. Her eyes, painful and burning, had dulled to an ache and felt heavy and the thought of closing them seemed almost ethereal.

`So this is what death feels like. It's not as bad as I thought it would be…'

“SESSHOMARU-SAMA!” the girl cried. Apparently the sight of seeing the hanyou die was disturbing her. “You can't let her die! She's just like you! Rin wants her to live…”

`Poor kid,' Aphreal groggily thought to herself. `I really can't help her in that department…' She shakily drew in a breath, musing slightly as it burned and as she released it, she let go and perished.

“IIIIEEEEEE!!!” Rin screamed, her voice ripping through the treetops. “Rin doesn't want her to die! Rin doesn't want you to die! IIIIEEEEEE!!!”

Something dawned in the demon prince. Apparently due to the appearance the hanyou's wounds had lent her, Rin had taken her under the image of Sesshomaru himself. Seeing the look-alike dying had apparently given the child the impression that he would sometime die during her lifetime and it scared her.

`At least someone would miss me if I were suddenly gone.'

“Quiet Rin. Please, for me,” he said patiently waiting for her wailing to stop. When she did, he asked, “Do you think she looks like me?” Rin nodded, so he continued, “What do you want me to do about it?”

“Heal her,” Rin stated firmly as he stared on in shock. “Heal her the same way you do Jaken.”

He stood there and considered it a moment before stepping up to the corpse.

“M-My Lord! Don't tell me you're going to fill that silly child's request!”

“Stand aside, Jaken,” he coolly stated as he drew the blade. Jaken immediately ran from site as the demon lord held the blade high in the air.

With the power of sight that the blade had given him, he could already see the hellish demon imps fall upon her. However, they seemed to take an unusually keen interest in this one's soul, much unlike when they were festering after Jaken's. `Perhaps she may have been telling the truth,' he considered as he swiped the blade swiftly across her form, destroying the imps and healing her somewhat.

Eyes suddenly painfully bursting into focus, she drew first breath at a peel, her lungs almost collapsing on themselves in the force. `Am I in Hell already?'

`Her wounds haven't healed completely?' Sesshomaru thought in wonder as he stared perplexed at the creature before him and at his demonic blade.

Her blue eyes dodging in and out of focus, Aphreal slowly lifted her clawed hand to her face and shook in surprise as the child's hand was now on hers.

“Rin! What are you doing over there! Get back here now!” a shrill voice yelled from beyond her shaky sight.

“Leave her be Jaken. The hanyou will not harm Rin if she wishes to continue to live,” Sesshomaru breathed coolly as he stared at the strange scene before him.

Ignoring the shrill noises of Jaken - an annoying creature she placed a mental note to maim later - she belligerently tried to focus her eyes on the girl before her.

“Who are you?” the child asked.

“Aphreal,” she croaked. “Aphreal Sin.”

Upon uttering the last word, the world fell black once again, but under the careful guidance of the child and inu-youkai, her heart did not stop.