InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ He Touched Me ❯ Fatal Mistakes ( Chapter 1 )

He Touched Me

By: TuxedoUranus89

Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha. The goddess Rumiko Takahashi does and we're just allowed to play with the characters. =)

Author's Notes: Well, it's been a while, hasn't it? I've been a bit dead on story ideas, but I came up with this one after going through a bunch of randomly-themed fanfics. It's a bit different than my usual style, so it might be a bit rough. I hope you enjoy it!

 

They took her. Snarls ripped through the air, a clawed fist punched the nearest tree. The kit was crying, utterly useless in a crisis as usual. The slayer was white with shock, and hadn't spoken a word since hearing what had happened. The monk appeared to be unperturbed, but then again, he had always been the best at hiding his emotions out of their ragtag group.

The utterly damning part about it was, they did it in the rain, and they did it in mud. They'd thrown her, thrown his woman, gods damn it all, into the biggest pile of the muck they could find, and masked her scent as much as possible. They'd hoped to delay him as much as possible, altogether was the main goal, but they were wrong. Oh, it might take him longer than under normal conditions, but his sense of smell had never failed him yet, especially not when it came to Kagome.

Kagome. His heart lurched at the thought of what those bastards might be doing to her, or planning to do to her… That line of thought made him see red, and he quickly grasped Tessaiga's hilt to keep himself under control. Now was not the time to lose control, not when so much was at stake… when Kagome was at stake… Hadn't his lack of control and awareness got them into this mess in the first place? If he hadn't been so busy focusing on those demons the bandits had brought with them… Then again, if he had been thinking rationally, he would've known that if he hadn't listened to Kagome's shrieks to protect the villagers, not her, they'd be facing much worse than a few looted and scorched huts, some missing roofs due to demons, mildly injured men, and frightened women and children.

The rain was partially lucky, since the wood on the huts had been too wet to do more than blacken a bit, and that was easily fixed. The village had never been very wealthy, so the losses in terms of valuables were minimal: some family heirlooms, some livestock, and offerings and decorations to the shrine. The men would heal in time, and the women and children would be soothed. All in all, it hadn't been a terrible raid, there had been worse attacks upon the village, and there were no significant losses.

No. They'd lost Kagome. She was still alive, or she had been when the bandits made off with her mud-coated body on the back of a stolen horse, but it might be hours, or even days before he found her. What a sight she'd been, a fiery, merciful temptress in battle, her arrows aiming to wound and distract the bandits rather than kill. He mocked her weakness in battle after, always, but it was to hide the awe he felt when she fought back when her friends were in danger. Today, she had been focused on taking out a bandit who had been intent on snatching one of the older girls. The snap of her bowstring was drowned out by the sickening thud of a club to her head. InuYasha, intent on cutting off the head of a demon, had barely registered yet another sound of attack, and had moved on to the next before he glanced around, precious minutes too late, to see if she was managing. His quick eyes had seen a flash of green rolling in the mud, and being slung over the back of a screaming horse before his mind registered that the flash of green had been Kagome's skirt, and those ransacking bastards were making off with his woman, dammit!

Normally he would have gone straight after her, but there was the nuisance of the babbling monstrosity at the business end of his sword, and ten others like it -Where the fuck did those bandits get all of those demons anyway??— and while Sango was good, she wasn't him. They were dealt with, and he had been delayed yet again by the need to dig some of the villagers out of their caved-in huts. Why they were still inside, he had yet to figure out, but it was something else to think about other than how to rip each and every one of those bandits to pieces if they did anything to Kagome—not that he didn't plan on doing it anyway. His last delay, which he was currently growing more and more impatient over, was that the monk, annoyingly patient and persuasive idiot that he was, had insisted on knowing why InuYasha was determined on sprinting off into yonder forests without telling them why. After threatening to wring Miroku's neck if he held him up too much longer, InuYasha explained his need to leave through gritted teeth, and was now grinding his molars to dust because a certain group of people would not let him fucking leave! Oh, they wanted to find her, but they kept pestering him with questions; rather, Miroku was pestering him with questions, and Shippou was yelling at him between sobs for letting Kagome go. Sango had yet still to say a word.

“Miroku, if you don't shut the fuck up, you won't live to see another woman's ass. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to find Kagome, because it's obvious that none of you care enough to do more than sit around talking about it!” InuYasha snapped, and turned to stalk off into the rainy evening.

Sango's voice stopped him. “InuYasha. Please… be gentle with her, when you…” Her voice shook. “You know as well as I what they're going to do. She… she might not be…”

“I know.” InuYasha's reply was flat, and laced with anger and bitterness. “And I'll make them pay.”

With that, he sprinted off, heading the way the bandits had run off to after leaving the demons to handle the rest. He paused after a mile or so, and sniffed around. He looked for anything that might help: the horses, the filth from the bandits, a whiff of an item once belonging to a villager, or Kagome herself. His nose was assaulted with thousands of scents, as usual, but he filtered through them, intent on his quarry. His ears pricked as he found the smell of a horse, overworked and frightened, among the others. He also picked out bits of filth from the men who were running with those on horseback. Tracking for a minute or so, InuYasha darted off towards the east. He barely noticed as it got darker still, and as the rain continued to steadily soak through his clothes. Suddenly, he gasped in pain as his legs burned from exhaustion. Fear overtook him as he realized his fatal mistake, and with the last of his fading demon strength, he bound into a high tree branch, and gripped the wood with human hands. Silently he cursed himself for forgetting his weakness, the night of the new moon. It would be impossible to continue his search until dawn; he barely had an idea of where to go from here as it was; to do so while weakened and handicapped was suicide. While he hadn't heard any demon activity in the forest around him, that didn't mean a damn thing. The rain would let up soon, and the nightly activities would begin. And here he was, a weak, stupid dumbass who'd forgotten his human night for the first time in over 200 years, stuck up a tree and forced to wait out the night in sopping wet clothes with a human's immune system. Gods damn it all, Kagome, why the fuck did you have to get kidnapped?

He nearly gasped as soon as he finished his thought. Immediately he felt guilty. It wasn't her fault. She didn't plan on getting taken during the raid. She'd only had other's interests at heart, forsaking his protection to fend off the raiders, and having him deal with the worst problems. But he should've still found a way to protect her. Even with those twelve-odd demons, he still should've kept an eye on Kagome. But no, he'd trusted the others, and looks where that had got them. InuYasha growled, not so feral-sounding coming from his human form, and vowed to himself, I'm never letting her out of my sight again.

His human nights always passed slowly, with the same tense awareness of his surroundings, but tonight seemed to amplify it all. His ears were weaker, but they still strained to catch every rustle of leaves, and sounds of living creatures. The minutes crept by at an agonizingly slow pace, and InuYasha cringed at every thought of what those fucking bastards might be doing to his Kagome. His thoughts also wandered to the blow that had taken her out. He wondered if she was ok, or if she had one of those… those… co-cushion things she was always babbling about when he took a blow to the head. He hoped she wasn't hurt; it was a slim hope, he knew she was about to be in some sort of pain, but hope he still held.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Kagome moaned lightly. She ached all over, but her head was throbbing. She could smell cooking meat, and under that, the smell of many unwashed humans and clothes. She gagged as the scents assaulted her nose, and tried to sit up, to get away from the smells, and was brutally knocked back down with a cuff to the shoulder. “The bitch is awake.” An unfamiliar male voice chortled. Others joined in the cruel laughter, and Kagome froze. Her head was still pounding, but she started thinking rapidly, trying to remember what happened. She realized she was blindfolded, firstly, and that her hands were tied behind her back. Her legs remained unbound for some reason. Where am I…? This isn't the village; I don't recognize any of these voices. The village… oh! That's right, those bandits… I think… did they capture me? It might've been when I was saving that girl; I don't remember anything after that… Why am I here though? Where's InuYasha? InuYasha!!

She mumbled InuYasha's name, hoping he was there, but instead she was met with more laughter. “What was that, girlie? Hopin' fer someone t'save ya? Ha! All yer friends were all too happy to let us go w'out ano'er glance at ye, there ain't no one commin' t'save yeh.” The man speaking was drunk, she knew that much. She suddenly felt herself being lifted by the front of her shirt, and the blindfold ripped from her head. She opened one groggy eye and slowly focused on the drunk. He laughed when she opened the other eye. “Look-a here, lads, the bitch dares t'look at her masser.” He slapped her with what felt like all his strength.

Kagome couldn't even draw the breath to speak. The light, though dim, was piercing her eyes, and made her nauseous, in addition to being forced upright so quickly. The alcohol on the man's break wasn't helping. She gagged again, her body shuddering. “Whassis? Yeh gonna cry, girlie? Chokin' back a sob? Tha's it, girl, cry like I like yeh to.” She couldn't take it, the smells, the light, her head ached so much…

“STUPID WHORE!” Kagome was slapped with such force she went flying into the wall, and everything went dark again as she slid into a splash of her own vomit.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Dawn. At last, InuYasha leapt from the tree as the dim gold light struck the tips of his newly-restored ears. With a graceful landing, he once again sorted through the smells around him, fearing the trail might be growing colder. There. Heading east once more, he paused only to make sure he was still heading the right way every so often. He smelled smoke: they were close, with the wrong kind of wood to hide from a demon's nose. Bounding up and soaring above the treetops, no villages or human dwellings appeared on the sprawling expanse of forest below, but that meant nothing. Sometimes humans actually kept their leafy coverings, and built homes under the trees. Scowling, he descended under the trees again, and continued.

After what felt like hours, a building appeared in a gap through the trees. His hand gripped the hilt of his sword, and he stalked to the door. There were no sounds coming from the building, something InuYasha regarded with suspicion and a bit of dread. He could smell cooked meat over ages of filth, and blood—Blood?! Kagome's… Throwing caution to the wind, he kicked the door down with a crash, withdrawing Tessaiga in the same motion. What he saw made him freeze.

There was no one. His guess, it had been abandoned only hours before, the scents were still fresh. His eyes scanned the one-room building's interior, and froze at one wall. There was a small streak of blood on the wall. He took a cautious step towards it, and jumped back at another smell. Looking down, the floor was partially covered in drying vomit. Scowling darkly, not liking this one bit, he nimbly jumped over to the streak, and took a cautious sniff. His knuckles were white, he gripped his sword so hard. Kagome was still alive, there wasn't enough blood here or on the floor to suggest otherwise. The sick on the floor was definitely hers, he deduced. Her scent was still lingering in strength, so they couldn't have left more than a few hours ago.

He wasn't sure which emotion gripped him more: rage or fear. Possibly he felt both equally, but so overcome with them, he failed to hear the first creak of a floorboard. He didn't miss the second. Whirling, the Tessaiga rang a pure note as it briefly met with a lesser-made sword, before hacking it in two. The man wielding it yelled, and attempted to stick him with the bit left on the hilt. InuYasha's hand was wrapped around the man's throat more quickly, however, and slammed him against a wall. “Where did they go?! Where the FUCK did those cowards run off to?!” He snarled, baring his fangs inches from the suddenly frightened man's face.

He tried to swallow, but found it difficult, due to InuYasha's hand nearly crushing his windpipe. He gasped for air, and InuYasha realized that if he wanted information, he had to let the man live. For now. Able to breathe better, the bandit spat in his face. Fingers tightening menacingly, the man started to turn blue. “If you want to live, I suggest you not do that again…” The hanyou stated in a low growl.

The bandit attempted to choke out a word, and InuYasha lessened his grip once more. His heart beat up near his Adam's apple, but he tried not to let on his fears about Kagome's welfare. “T-the river!” The bandit gasped. “A river, not far… to the east! Th-they meant t-t-t-to take to the b-boats, head south! We've a better hidey-hole there; t-they've been gone hours, you'll never catch up!”

“We'll see about that. I followed you fuckers this far, why the hell couldn't I get further south? Where's this other hideout?” He demanded, pushing him further against the wall threateningly.

“I-I can't say, I've never been there, only… heard t-t-talk of it! I swear it, don't kill me, don't-”

InuYasha's patience had run out. With all his strength, he threw the bandit into another wall, and crashed through the eastern wall in search of the river. It wasn't far, the horses and stolen livestock grazed on the banks, glancing up at him as if wondering if he was there to take them back to their masters. InuYasha noted stakes tied to the ground, five of them, and the lack of boats attached. He also noted the swiftness of the water: added with oars, they could possibly already be at this new destination, depending on how far south it was. He growled in the back of his throat. “Is every god out there against me today?!” He roared, sprinting along the riverbank.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Kagome had once again awoken to being blindfolded and bound. She tried to make as little movement as possible, not wanting to receive any more unwanted attention as she had the night before. Was it last night? She wondered. For all I know it could've been ages ago…

She was on a boat. She was stashed in a corner of the boat, and could hear water inches from her head. She panicked, realizing she could be very far from her friends at this point. InuYasha might not be able to track her now, if he was even on their trail at all. Oh gods, please let him find me quickly… She refused to believe he wouldn't be trying to find her, clinging to a small bit of hope. Breathing slowly and deeply, she tried to calm down.

With nothing better to do than think and draw as little attention to herself as possible, Kagome mentally took note of her injuries. Her head was still throbbing, but less so than the last time she was conscious; she felt what could be dried blood on the side of her face, either from what had originally knocked her out, or what had taken her out again. Her body ached, either from being in the same position for hours, or from rough handling, she couldn't be sure until she could see. Amazingly, she didn't feel any pain that could lead to sexual assault, but she wasn't holding her breath that it would stay that way. She supposed they were waiting for that sick torture. The last note she made was her wrists, sore and chafed from being tied with a rough rope. It was tight, and Kagome fully expected the rope to break skin if it was left on much longer.

She wanted to scream in frustration. She hated being the damsel in distress, wanted to do something about it, but she knew she'd have to sit this one out and do what she could until help arrived. Hopefully that help would be in an extremely pissed-off hanyou, and hopefully he came soon. She didn't want to think about what they were planning on doing to her, and she really didn't want to think about how she was going to be unable to do much about it. Kagome noticed that her legs were still unbound, probably for as good a reason as anyone could guess, so she supposed that she could kick them away if it came down to it…

Her body moved against her will as the boat collided with something. No one made any disturbed sounds, so she suspected they had landed… wherever land was. Hands roughly lifted her and threw her across a shoulder like a sack of flour, and she almost squeaked at the rough treatment, remembering to keep limp and silent at the last minute. The men were all laughing about something, she couldn't hear what was being said. She felt a hand pass up her leg, and she couldn't help the goosebumps that rose. Nor could she help shrieking in indignation when the hand moved to flip up her skirt all the way. “Oh-ho, boys, the wench is awake!”

Kagome managed to find her voice. “Of all the rude, inconsiderate, chauvinistic things to do, I ought to—”

She was silenced with another slap across the face, as the men just laughed at her outburst, joking with one another about women who didn't know their place. Tears stung in her eyes, she was glad the blindfold hid them; as much as she refused to show weakness in front of these pigs, she didn't know how much longer her resolve would hold. She hated being the damsel in distress, yes, but that didn't mean she wasn't scared. Any woman in her situation, surrounded by at least twenty men who weren't looking out for her welfare, would be scared witless. While she was fairly sure her wits were still about her, Kagome wasn't sure how long it would take for them to flee faster than Myoga faced with a battle. She only hoped she held on long enough for InuYasha to rescue her.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

InuYasha was ready to rip every tree in sight out to the roots. Even travelling at his fastest speed, this was taking far too long. Fucking hell, how fucking swift is that fucking river, this is taking too fucking long… Gods fucking dammit all to hell, those motherfuckers had better say their fucking prayers now, they don't stand a fucking chance when I lay my fucking hands on them… His anger seemed to have eradicated nearly every descriptive word he knew, save from `fuck' and it's variations.

As much as he didn't want to, he realized he needed to see if he was still following the river. In the forest, he could still hear it of course, but that didn't mean anything: his hearing range was close to three miles without straining much. He could go farther if he worked at it, but usually it was too much work to bother. He slipped off towards the sound of the river, and minutes later, perched on a flat-topped boulder at the water's edge. Glancing around darkly, he looked for any sign of the boats, not that he expected to. However…

Farther downstream, his eyes picked up an odd sight. Curious despite himself, he bounded down the riverbank. It was a flat boat. He couldn't tell how long it had been there, and there were no others. Five boats left, but there's only one here… Either this has nothing to do with Kagome, which I highly doubt, or I'm being set up for a trap… His thought barely finished, his ears picked up the soft hiss of a sword being drawn behind him. Whirling and drawing Tessaiga at the same time, he cut through yet another poorly-made katana. Five men, looking surprised that their ambush had been caught before it even begun, were standing with various weapons in their hands. Deciding to take some of his frustrations out a bit earlier than planned, InuYasha smirked despite himself. “Who's throwin' the fucking party?”

One of the bandits opened their mouth to speak, and InuYasha cut him off. “Don't tell me.” His eyes glittered dangerously. “You were told to stay behind and throw me off if I made it this far.” He re-sheathed his Tessaiga as he spoke, and was amused to see the humans relax slightly.

“I don't slow up that easy. Especially when you fuckers took something precious to me.”

Before the words had finished registering in the men's brains, InuYasha had two by the neck and slammed their heads together. It was too easy. His youkai clamored for more, the taste and the smell of blood, but he fought it down. He didn't kill humans; as much as he really wanted to at this point, he didn't kill unless necessary. Now wasn't the time. The three remaining men watched in horror as their comrades fell, and wisely took off screaming into the forest. `bout fucking time they got any sense… if only they'd learned not to mess with me before we got into any of this…

A faint, high-pitched sound caused his ears to twitch. A second made him turn his head downstream. He breathed deeply, trying to find a scent. His ears twitched again. Kagome…? Without another thought he sped off down the riverbank.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Kagome screamed as pain shot up through her left arm. It felt broken, just like her right leg after she'd kicked two of the men in the face for touching her. One's nose, she had thought with wicked satisfaction, was broken and it would take a long time to heal from the sound of the satisfactory crunching of bone and cartilage. The other probably had a broken jaw. Her wrists, still bound, felt wet, and she was certain the skin had broken under the ropes. Her back was one big hurt, and her headache had returned with fervor.

Two pairs of hands grabbed her legs and pulled them apart with force. Kagome screamed again as pain shot up her broken leg. Something had shattered inside her somewhere around the time her leg had. She quivered from head to foot and tears fell thick and fast down her cheeks, sobs choking their way out of her mouth. An abnormally large, meaty hand worked its way around her throat, and lifted her up to a partially sitting position. Shaking harder than before, Kagome winced at the sharpness of a knife pressed against the other side of her neck. She opened her non-blackened eye, a reward for spitting in last night's drunkard's face, and struggled to breathe as she stared into the face of the half-naked man before her. She winced as she felt enormous pressure at her core, and more tears leaked out of her. InuYasha…

She shrieked at the sound of an explosion close by. Pressure, hand, and knife vanished as she fell back on her broken arm, and her cries were drowned out by yells of fright. Pain all over made her drift in and out of clear consciousness; she lost track of time and her body jolted unconsciously when gently hands picked her up.

InuYasha's anger was fading, but flared up again when Kagome screamed at his touch. His ears flattened against his head, wincing at the sound, but he refused to drop her and do more damage to her battered body. He turned and looked back at the carnage he'd left, and spat on the pile of corpses, already starting to gather flies. Kagome's shrieks subsided and she went limp in his arms. Molten amber eyes looked at her sadly. More slowly than he would have liked, to keep from hurting his Kagome more, InuYasha left the hideout, and headed for the nearest hot spring he could scent.

 

((Well, that was harder to write than I thought. Don't worry, there's more to come, I'm not leaving things like this, I promise!! Much darker than my old stuff, I know, but like I said, my muse gives me an idea, and I just work with it while she kicks my ass around. See you next chapter!))