InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Mitsukaitou: Blade of the Angel ❯ Chapter 5

Kagome neared Tsukyo. She'd managed an entire day of uneventful travel, and was about to see her reward. During the day, she'd collected information from villagers of the adjacent towns. Her suspicions of a Shikon shard were steadily becoming solid.

"Tsukyo, yes, I have a sister there. Word has it one demon controls all of them..."

"Tsukyo? I used to live there. The head youkai generates weaker youkai to rampage the city..."

"Tsukyo? What's a Tsukyo?" Well, that hadn't been too helpful. But most of what she got said there was one youkai, which produced youkai, running the inner city youkai. Her strides were purposeful as she rose along the hillside, prepared for anything but what she saw.

Tsukyo looked like a ghost town, ghosts included. No humans were outside. Children's faces peered through bloodstained windows of greased paper. Blood covered the sides of buildings and the ground. Deformed youkai were fighting each other in the streets. She suddenly saw a human child running to a house between the fighting. She didn't make it. A former mother was crying. Why did they live here? Why didn't they get out like some of the people she'd spoken to? How could they live like this?

"Not anymore." She swore. "No more death here."

"I suppose you're thinking, 'except for the youkai. Must kill those youkai, I must.'" Kagome spun. One of the pitiful looking demons stood behind her. Pitiful enough to prey on a defenseless human child.

"That's right. Guess who's on the top of my hit list?" She briefly looked down on Mitsukaitou, and then returned her stare at the enemy. She couldn't use Tenrai Uindo, or she would draw the attention of more demons than she could handle at the moment. But a simple katana...She placed her hand on Mitsukaitou's hilt.

"Oh, so you've got a toy! Listen little girl, no man alive can defeat us, why should you think you can? A weak woman, that's all you are."

"A weak woman am I, as you are an invincible god!" She fully drew the sword and brought it into the demon's arm. The arm that had strangled a child. She let her newfound youkai instincts control her movements. She completely sliced off the wretched arm. As soon as it disconnected from his body, it dissolved.

"Damn. Watch where you aim your mistakes woman. You might make contact again."

"Mistake my ass." She shouted, driving the gleaming metal into his stomach and yanking it back out again. Blood dripped, but dissipated into the air, leaving behind hazy white wisps of smoke.

The blood that would kill an innocent should not be blood at all, she reflected, thinking briefly on where to strike next. She decided to kill the beast. Remove his filthy soul from the earth. She held the bloody sword tip to his throat. He looked at her, his eyes wide and feral.

"I'm not thinking of letting you go, if that's what you believe. I just want to see you fear someone as much as that child feared you. It's what will fuel me to kill your leader. Smile sweetheart." In a flash of light she'd pulled the sword to the side of his neck and brought it across. Not a hair of his bloody head hit the ground. His entire body welled up in smoke, which she watched until it completely vanished. If they were all as easy as this, she could clear the town before the day's end. She glanced down at the bodies of a hundred youkai, crammed into the streets.

But first the outer limits. Take out the reinforcements, she thought sagely. She trotted about the area in search of another youkai who strayed from the city. She was quick to find one.

"I smell the blood of ours upon you, human." He said.

"Human? You're kidding! You're too weak to even, oh that's sad." She laughed.

"Excuse me? I don't think you're in the position to laugh or joke. You have killed someone. You shall pay with your life."

"Not yet! I'm having too much fun!" she drug her sword into his chest. "More 'blood of ours'" she mocked.

"WRETCHED HUMAN!" he drew a sword of his own, though he could barely stand.

His left arm clutched the gaping wound. He paled; the blood of his body was quickly becoming harmless air. He struck at Kagome. His sword stroke was slow and sluggish. She cut his hand off at the wrist. Only the sword clattered to the ground. The demon panted and gaped for air. She left him to die bit by bit; torturously.

"Feel the pain of those you kill. Everyone of you demons will feel such pain you wouldn't believe, for killing helpless people."

"Is that so now?" asked a humored male voice. She turned to face her new opponent. Something was strange though. Then she noticed it; he had a definite youkai form. Mitsukaitou hadn't been sheathed since her first fight. She simply had to aim it at him.

"Easy where you point that thing! I'm not one of them." He held up his paw-like hands. Kagome narrowed her eyes.

"And how am I to know this is true?"

"Well you don't, but you could always take my word for it. Look, I know you're a good guy, I smell their blood on you. I'm on your side."

"If you're within the borders of that city today, I will kill you. I suggest that if you tell the truth, you not enter. If you lie, this is your only chance to repent." She leapt over him, looking for more blood to satisfy the anger still hazing her mind from the child's murder.

"The blood of a brother is on that scrap of a sword." Said another of the deformed youkai. It hit Kagome with a jolt. She couldn't smell their brand of blood.

"Yes, sadly I don't have the pleasure of smelling it myself." She said, hoping to probe out more information on its scent.

"Of COURSE you don't you stupid woman! Only those with ill intentions can pick it up. Wicked thoughts like murder. Thoughts I was BORN with!"

"That bastard. He will die." She murmured.

"What's that? Scared? I'm not surprised. You are just a woman after all."

"You aren't really youkai, are you? You aren't real at all! You dissipate in the air, you have no youkai senses, and I don't believe ANY youkai fights so poorly! Not to mention your forms, I see now!" Kagome jumped into the air and brought her sword straight down, neatly slicing the thing in half. The gray-tinted smoke rose, as usual. A small circle of the beasts came about her upon smelling the "blood" of their kindred.

"You killed-"

"None of you were ever alive! It is so unfulfilling to spill your blood! I waste my time here. I call upon TENRAI UINDO!" She wove a round blade of wind about her.

"What trick is this?" one of them shouted.

"Let me SHOW you!" the appended blade expelled itself upon Kagome's whim, slaughtering the creatures. A wave of the weak creatures came upon her, and she put her concentration into the people who wanted to live, and these, things, which would not allow them.

"DIE!" She screamed, letting fly as many runs of wind as she could need to kill the blood-covered hellions before her.

"Why is it they do not stop her?" Asked a rather fat reptilian-youkai.

"They try. Even now they exhaust their numbers without even touching her." Replied the youkai Kagome had spoken with earlier.

"A human kills them?" he asked incredulously, his eyes popping.

"Not human, not demon, but not hanyou, and I believe I saw a miko's aura about her."

"You're kidding. Great. Well, my guards will defeat her. After all, they're purebreds, and she's just some filthy mix." Said the Head Youkai.

"Certainly they will." Replied the servant youkai, though he himself was uncertain. Maybe if his master created enough of his mud-demons, the girl's strange powers would be exhausted. Her anger though, seemed insatiable, though she wanted to trust, if she would let him off. Who knew what would happen? Her permission for him to flee seemed awfully tempting though.

His eyes glazed. He was remembering something. Something he didn't think he would. Something he didn't want to. A powerful youkai killing his parents. Just like he killed parents so that mud filth could kill children. Evil. He'd hated his parents' murderers. Yet here he was, doing the same thing. A wave of shock took over his mind. He hadn't realized it until he'd seen that look in her eyes. The one that wanted to trust, but really shouldn't. He bowed himself out of the room. Once outside, he saw a hoard of the mud demons fighting amongst themselves.

"KITSUNEBI!" he shouted, destroying them in a wave of blue flame. He chased after the dirt-born cretins, annihilating as many as he could.

"TRAITOR IN THE RANKS! TRAITOR IN THE RANKS!" Several true youkai tried to restrain him.

"Satoshi, you've lost your mind! Get a hold of yourself!"

"EASY FOR YOU TO SAY! I'M NOT GOING TO KILL ANYMORE!"

"SATOSHI!"

"NO! DON'T YOU REMEMBER WHAT THEY DID TO US? WOULD YOU DO THAT TO THEM JUST FOR BEING HERE BEFORE US?"

"You've lost your mind man! Get a grip!"

"NO! I WON'T KILL THEM ANYMORE! I REFUSE! I REFUSE! I REFUSE TO KILL THEM ANYMORE!"

Kagome stood on the very edge of the cliff she'd been fighting on, looking down. She'd seen the youkai from before walk out of a clean building and decimate about twenty of the creatures like the ones she'd been fighting. She heard every word. So he'd changed that quickly? In those ten minutes he'd left his mission?

Several youkai were trying to restrain him. He looked up, and their eyes locked. He looked dead into her soul. She saw it. A little kitsune covered in his parents' blood. There were two hellish youkai nearing him, but rather than kill him, they made him kill. Kill over and over, ruin lives, tear morals apart limb from limb, just as he did his prey. She turned her head away. She couldn't bear that. He'd been forced to do what had been done to him. She looked back down. They were beating him. The very same youkai that had killed his parents. It couldn't happen. She wouldn't let it. After all, had he not taken to heart her words? '...now is your only chance to repent?' Had he not tried? Wasn't he doing the right thing now? A new anger washed upon her. This was wrong, so wrong. With a livid cry she jumped down the rock face, from ledge to ledge. This hate would stop. When she reached the bottom a wave of mud-demons met her. She was ready with a powerful rush of uindo. The youkai restraining Satoshi watched in shock. This woman was crazy. All of the protecting mud-demons were gone now. She was turning on them. They thrust Satoshi foreword.

"So low are you to try and sacrifice one of your own?"

"Low nothing. This is our leader. We have rebelled and captured him."

"DON'T TRY TO LIE TO ME!" Kagome ran at the guards, Mitsukaitou raised. She heard a shout...