InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Exploring the Sengoku Jidai ❯ Hunting on the Wind - #374 ( Chapter 3 )

Author's Note: Written for the IYfic_contest at LiveJournal.com - Week 45 Theme: Missed Opportunity. Takes place before Chapter 374 (“Wind”). If you haven't read that far in the manga, I won't give it away, but trust me, this is a MAJOR missed opportunity all the way around. I don't own any of the characters - all belong to R. Takahashi, may she write forever!

 

 

Hunting on the Wind

 

Her scent found him, carried on the wind to his place in the deep forest. It was his scent, but it was her scent too, and it stirred something restless in him that day. It hinted at opportunity, calling him to find her, and for once, he followed it.

 

In the past, he had always waited on her to find him, but this time was different. This restlessness, so unusual, like a spell that drifted over him on the Spring breeze, coaxed him into the hunt. As he followed her trail, the wind his guide, his tracking senses sharpened, he wondered what he would find, what she would do, what he would do?

 

She was seated by a stream, much like the one he had once found her floating in, face down and lifeless. Just like before, he could smell the fear in her. Her eyes rose to meet his and she rose, perhaps sensing the predator lurking within him, pulsings of something wild in his chest.

 

The hunter had his prey. Neither spoke. Both waited.

 

“You found me,” her statement made clear her surprise.

 

“You are afraid,” not one to mince words, he noted what was obvious to him, implied the question on his mind.

 

“He knows,” she lowered her eyes, fear rising off her in waves, promising to spice the chase when the hunt began in earnest, “I think I've gone too far helping your little brother.”

 

He felt a small stab of hatred, never far from his heart where InuYasha was concerned, angry that she was endangering her own life to assist his half brother.

 

“InuYasha does not need your help.”

 

“Yes, he does,” she said quietly, hesitating, “and so do you.”

 

He was silent, feeling her words were true, but unwilling to believe them, or their consequences.

 

She continued, “there are only two who can rid the world of Naraku. Him,” she raised her eyes to meet his as she had done many times before on this subject, “and you.”

 

“I will be the one to kill Naraku,” announced as confidence, the true meaning behind these words surprised him. Was he implying that she should be risking herself for him instead? This thought carried with it a slight suggestion of jealousy, which unnerved him.

 

“I hope so.” Her words did not hold hope, but bespoke of vulnerability, stimulating his hunter's instinct again. Her fear intoxicated him, hinted at the desperation he would encounter when he cornered her, promised him he could have her pinned and exposed under him in the blink of an eye the moment she moved.

 

She looked at him now more closely, seeing danger in his eyes. No words were needed to make his desire clear. He wanted her to run, and now she knew it.

 

Silence enveloped them, he heard her breath quicken to a new fear, felt the tide in him rise, tensing his muscles and speeding his blood. He inhaled the sharp scent of sweat on her, listened for the telltale beat of her heart. But he could not hear its echo, could not smell the adrenaline rush from it that would signal her to flee, and him to pursue.

 

Then he remembered her wound, the gap in her being where her heart should be. It could not spur her to run, could not invite him to pursue. It was not there.

 

She did not flee, and the predator in him quieted; there was no conquest in hunting the wounded. Yet another reason to obliterate the monster, Naraku, from this world.

 

Normally, he would turn to go at this point, but he did not.

 

“What will you do when Naraku is gone?”

 

“What I have always done.”

 

“Will you be alone?”

 

“Will you?”

 

He turned to leave. The wind blew at his back, carrying her scent with him through field and forest. When Naraku is gone … beyond that final battle laid opportunity only now dreamed of by the wind.

 

THE END