InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Out of This World ❯ Prologue: Part I ( Prologue )

Disclaimer: Still don't own Inuyasha. Really I don't.

A/N: Yeah, different formatting look but I figured I'll try a different look for a different concept. I'm trying a slightly different (I keep using that word...) technique than usual so, we'll see how it goes.

 

Dedication: To Jazz the Wolf Demon for being the first person to encourage me to go with my idea on this. Here's hoping I make you proud.

 

Note: This story was originally going to debut after On a Leash was finished, but I changed my mind. Don't hurt me please.

 

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Prologue

Part I

 

 

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With a moan, flashes of scenery intermittent with splashes of black appeared before his gradually easing-open eyes. None of the images evoked any kind of sentiment in his brain.

 

“Do you think he's awake yet?”

 

Packed dirt scraped against a tender cheek, leaving a raw, stinging feeling there. Faint sighs of dust grimed his face.

 

“I dunno—who the hell cares anyway?”

 

A rock nicked his temple. The black clouding his vision was not as bad as before, but the desolate brown still warbled in and out of focus.

 

“I'm not saying I care or anything, it's just...what if the kid wakes up? He could put up a struggle, ya know.”

 

The darkness was subsiding into small bursts. A pair of short, heavy boots stamped at even intervals before his nose. More dust assaulted his olfactory, causing his aching head to slow its quest of lucidness.

 

“Then we whack him like before. Will you stop worrying?”

 

His mind's quarry was finally reached while the dark bursts in his vision faded into the occasional pop. The joints of his arms burned with a searing pain, most prevalently in his shoulders, which were strained by their unnatural placement from being dragged by the thick binds clamped on his wrists.

 

“I'm not worried, Brother, but this little wretch is the favorite son of Inutaisho, so, hanyou or not, very powerful youkai blood is in his veins.”

 

The boy let out another forced, yet soft, groan into the intransigent clay road. Heat barraged his back without mercy. Gingerly, he lifted his abraded visage, eyes focusing on the wide girth of the man to his left.

 

“Hmph. Manten, you talk as if the noble Inutaisho was still alive.”

 

A cringe crossed his features at the quietly scathing remark while a moronic chortle followed after. Papa...

 

“So, he truly has fallen? How delightful!”

 

He rolled onto his back, now feeling the still-oozing slashes in his left shoulder—most probably from sharp rocks he was dragged over while torpid. His jaded legs stretched languidly in small bouts to and fro, coaxing nimbleness back into them.

 

“Heh. All of `em. Apparently Naraku used his sneakiness for something useful and surrounded Inutaisho. The human courtesan Izayoi was easily disposed of—apparently her death was what left him open. The eldest son was killed while on his convoy back to Korata.”

 

The clink of the chains attached to his metal cuffs was somewhat comforting white noise. Papa was dead? Mama was dead? Even his half-brother Sesshoumaru was dead? He shifted his gaze from the wide man—no, youkai, his nose told him—and went to the sky. Tears wet his slotted eyes while the light of the twin suns harassed his lenses.

 

“How was that accomplished?”

 

He squinted more, lacing his eyelashes together, repelling both sunlight and dust. A small rivulet of hot blood had trickled from the fresh scratch on his temple, causing some strands of hair to stick there.

 

“I have to agree that blowing Sesshoumaru's ship to smithereens was an ingenious plan. There was no way to defeat that expressionless bastard up close—there was nothing to distract him. His only weakness was his mortality.”

 

He shut his eyes. Tears snaked through the dirt on his face and the heat dried the moisture quickly; it made his chaffed cheek burn.

 

“And now Naraku is throwing this boy to the overseers of Drathna 4, Hiten?”

 

A dog ear atop his head twitched towards the thinner brother; the name `Drathna 4' sounded somewhat familiar.

“Heh. Maybe he thinks that the hard labor is going to make a real youkai out of him.”

 

Hard labor? Where were they taking him?

 

“Ha, Brother Hiten! He may be a descendant of noble blood, but I don't think even that will ever change the fact that he's a hanyou, only a few years weaned.”

 

Fatigue was leaving his legs and the hanyou gingerly flexed his wrists. There was slight room, but not enough to break free.

 

“True enough, Manten—I bet he was just at the right age to start training, too. Once we get him to that camp filled with those disgusting humans, this brat'll wish that Naraku had killed him.”

 

Blinking his eyes open, he scrutinized his left arm. His entire sleeve, which had once been a soft off-white, was now heavily marred with brownish blots. His own dried blood.

 

“At least he will be working with creatures that are the same status. Maybe if he's lucky they'll move him from the mines and make him an overseer when he's older.”

 

Overseer... Wait. He knew where they were taking him...

 

His body trembled. They're taking me to a slave colony! He staggered quickly to his boot-clad feet, his chains chiming together and the brothers turned to look back at him. He yanked his manacles as he fumbled rearward. “No! Let me go!”

 

The thinner, more humanoid youkai, Hiten, snorted with annoyance as the links began to accelerate from his lax grasp. He allowed the hanyou child to tear away before abruptly clamping his hand on the chain lead and giving a sharp jerk. He smirked as the boy subsequently pitched forward onto the dirt road. “Well, well, Inuyasha,” he said as the boy shakily raised his face from the ground, a dribble of blood coming from his nose and upper lip, “it's nice to see you conscious.”

 

“Let me go!” Inuyasha demanded again, getting to his feet, only to be wrenched towards his captor again as he fell to his knees. “Let me go...”

 

“Hm.” Hiten's smirk lifted into a half-smile that would have been handsome had it not been stopped from reaching his eyes by the malevolence already taking residence there. “I don't think so, hanyou. You're worth quite a bit to my brother and me.”

 

The corpulent, semi-reptilian brother, Manten, laughed stupidly again. “Indeed you are. Too bad Naraku said you had to be completely intact when we arrived to the compound—your hair would have made a very nice wig, especially on a scorching day like this,” he said, motioning to his naked pate, which was sporting a violent red sunburn.

 

Hiten tugged Inuyasha towards him again when the boy rose once more. “Well now that you're awake you can move your body of your own accord instead of making me drag you, lazy shit. So, start walkin'.”

 

Inuyasha complied at another brusque jerk and drifted behind Hiten and Manten, taking shade in the pair's long shadows.

 

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The twin suns loomed high, like two orbs of fire burning at the loftiest point North. He glanced charily from side to side, seeing only an eternity of sand, dust, and rock formations all painted with hues of reddish-brown. A few carrion crow youkai flapped in lethargic circles in the surprisingly clear blue sky. Obviously some carcass was nearby and Inuyasha had the unfortunate experience of witnessing the lesser youkai feast upon the rotting flesh; he emptied his stomach contents to the side while the brothers laughed—they had forced him to continue walking at their unhurried pace, giving him plenty of time to commit the incident to memory and smell the sordid odor for the next hour with his sensitive nose.

 

An occasional wind would cut over the trio of travelers. With their long, leather coats and slightly weathered bodies, it didn't seem to bother the brothers at all, yet it lashed at the diminutive half-youkai's tender skin. As soon as the desert current would die away, the dry air would become weightier and the suns seemingly more blistering than before.

 

The time passed languorously, taunting him with the notion that just over the next hillcrest there would some kind of establishment—this camp—where he could finally stop moving just for a minute, yet he was always disappointed when all he found was more solemn desert spread before him.

 

One sun glowed pale ocher while the larger one burned vibrant crimson, the spheres continuing to retreat west. Rivulets of sweat ran down Inuyasha's face, carrying both blood and filth to the angles of his features before thick drops plummeted to the parched terrain. He waggled his head—he suddenly felt very dizzy and his throat was dry. When he swallowed, all he could taste was the lingering flavor of his own vomit. “C-can I have some water...please...?” he rasped quietly, pulling at his shackles.

 

“You'll live, princeling,” snorted Hiten. “We'll be there in a couple hours.”

 

Inuyasha's eyes glanced at Manten, who was pouring generous amounts of the desired liquid down his large gullet before looking back to Hiten when they stopped. “B-but...p-please, I'm—”

 

“Didn't your mother teach you anything?” rounded Manten, bringing his colossal head close to Inuyasha. He sprayed water on the hanyou's face. A smirk crossed his gaping mouth as the boy snorted and wiped at his eyes with the inside of his arms. “Saying `please' won't get you anything. Words like that are for the weak and the dumb—like hanyous.”

 

“I'm not dumb...” Inuyasha quietly protested. “But you're ugly and dumb, baldy.”

 

“Brat!” Manten shouted, rearing back a massive arm and swept it across the young half-youkai's face.

 

Inuyasha's head snapped to the side from the heavy blow. He clenched his teeth as throbbing pain overtook the right side of his face. Fresh tears collected at his interwoven lashes as he scrunched his eyes into slits. A small whimper escaped his throat.

 

Manten glared down at Inuyasha, looming his broad form over the trembling child as his brother spoke. “Don't be too hard on him, Manten.” Hiten tilted his head slightly to half-smirk at his bulky companion. “We're supposed to get him there safe enough; otherwise he won't be able to work.”

 

Giving one last smoldering stare, he straightened up. “Yes, older brother. We'll get `im there...safe and sound,” he hissed at Inuyasha as he turned around again.

 

Bowing his tender head, Inuyasha submitted to Hiten's now rather familiar tug on his manacles and continued his trek.

 

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The suns were loitering at a forty-five degree angle. The wind was still scathing whenever it arose, which was thankfully infrequent, and it carried the harsh heat on its eddies. Effectively wind-burned, dehydrated, and weary, Inuyasha revived a little when his juvenile curiosity was piqued upon spotting a fragile cluster of pink desert flowers close to the roadside. Not far off were some spidery, bronze-green shrubs.

 

Inuyasha blinked languidly, trying to wet his eyes. No matter how feeble or unattractive it was, there was vegetation, and the longer they walked, the more abundant it was. The wheels in his head started turning. “We must be near some water. Are we near a town...?”

 

Hiten chuckled. “Pretty smart, kid. Yeah, there's something like a town up ahead...” They turned around the bend of a large cliff face to find themselves looking down at a valley filled with hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of humans with youkai overseers shouting at them and beating them; Inuyasha swallowed a gasp and Hiten smirked. “Welcome home, Inuyasha. This is your new home—the slave colony of Drathna 4.”

 

Manten leered back at him. “But you can call it Hell.”

 

Inuyasha swallowed again before being jerked forward. The closer they came to this slave colony, the stronger the scents of blood, sweat, filth, and other such unpleasant things became, making him feel sick and the last thing he wanted to do was to vomit in front of those two again. So instead he kept his mouth shut tightly in a grimace.

 

He was lead past the slaves, and he bowed his head when he caught some of them whispering amongst themselves, pointing at him with both curiosity and loathing. The slave drivers were no better, shouting various names at him—some more vulgar than others.

 

The sound of a whip cracking accented each cry or moan of the slaves.

 

He watched the main path of the derelict camp until it was finally softly blanketed by shadow, to which he finally looked up. While the shade was greedily welcomed, Inuyasha had a bad feeling about this slight respite and licked his chapped lips anxiously.

 

“Is thissss him?” asked a dark, echoing voice.

 

Peering between his two captors, Inuyasha spotted a tall lizard youkai. He bowed his thick head, which was crowned with small, yellow horns.

 

“Yeah,” Hiten said, “this is the kid. You remember what Naraku said.”

 

“Yesss....” he hissed, inspecting Inuyasha with his fluorescent blue eyes.

 

“Be sure you don't forget or that bastard will have all our asses, Kisu.” Hiten glanced briefly back to the hanyou before turning to Kisu again. “I promised him water, and you know how I hate to break a promise.”

 

“Yess...I know.... Dehydrated hanyou meansss a worthlessss body...” Kisu turned his head shouting. “Boy! Bring me a pitcher of water...”

 

There were a few moments of just Hiten and Kisu's soft undertones; Inuyasha tried to not focus on any of the noise. It helped to try and block out the sound of labor going on outside. The pattering feet warranted Inuyasha's attention as a dark haired human boy, not much older than he, entered the earthen fore-chamber with a large metal pitcher in his hands.

 

Kisu looked to the young human. “Very good...now give the hanyou a sip like a good boy, Miroku.”

 

Miroku gazed charily at the hanyou for moment before approaching him. He stood abreast to Inuyasha and, keeping his eyes on him, reached a hand in and extracted a dipper filled with water. “Here.” He held it to Inuyasha's mouth and he drank covetously. The water was cool enough and it remedied his throat.

 

“Thank you,” he whispered. Miroku's eyes grew in surprise before Kisu called him to his side again.

 

“Miroku...” Kisu hissed again when the boy scuttled over, still peering at Inuyasha with wide blue-violet eyes, “I want you to take the hanyou pup to your and Sango's room. He will stay with you.”

 

Miroku nodded, rebalancing the water jug. “Yes, Master Kisu.”

 

“Good boy,” he purred.

 

“So, they call you `Master' now, Kisu?” Hiten snorted, flipping a key into his palm from the bracelet of them around his wrist. He tugged Inuyasha forward and slipped the key into the hole. As the mechanisms unlocked with a `click' and the manacles fell away, he muttered, “Disgusting.”

 

Inuyasha briefly got to look at the wide bands of pink skin on his wrists when a kick from behind sent him stumbling forward. He glanced back to see Manten leering down at him. Looking past the corpulent youkai, he tried to gauge his distance between his captors and the door.

 

“Don't even think of escaping,” muttered Hiten. “We'll only catch you and beat you when we do.”

 

Inuyasha whirled to face the front again. “I-I wasn't...” he whispered.

 

“Come on,” prompted Miroku, going ahead of him, “I'll take you to our quarters.”

 

With no choice but to go forward, he begrudgingly trudged after the human—which involved walking past Kisu, who hissed at him as he passed, “And stay in there, you little cretin. At least for now.”

 

Inuyasha was lead through a tunnel worn straight into the desert earth. Shafts of light from crudely cut windows filtered in through the dust, making warm patches on the ground. They remained above sea level, even though the pair moved down a slanted path a few times; even so, when Miroku finally drew to a halt, the chamber was far cooler than any other place in the entire complex.

 

“This is our room,” Miroku stated simply before taking Inuyasha in.

 

Inuyasha glanced around his new home. Even to his small eyes, the chamber wasn't large. A single circular window offered any light to the otherwise darkened space. There were two battered blankets on the dirt floor—presumably one for Miroku and one for this Sango person Kisu had mentioned.

 

“What's your name?”

 

“Huh?” Inuyasha turned to look at the human boy. “My name? It's Inuyasha. You're Miroku, right?”

 

He nodded. “Yeah. Sango should be back soon. She and I fetch water most of the time, instead of mining.”

 

“Mining? What're you mining for?”

 

Miroku peered curiously at him. “For Zier crystals. You know—the stuff that powers ships.”

 

“Oh.” Inuyasha's ears twitched at the sound of a pair of pattering feet running toward them.

 

“Miroku!” a young girl's voice cried. “Miroku!” A girl with dark brown hair scampered into the room, seemingly rather winded; she looked younger than both he and Miroku.

 

“What's wrong, Sango?”

 

“Master Kisu wants us to work in the mines today with the hanyou boy.” Her eyes flickered to Inuyasha. “Working in the mines are hard, especially when you hafta start in mining holes.”

 

“Mining holes?” Inuyasha echoed back.

 

Sango nodded, while Miroku elaborated. “You have to dig straight down with the suns' light on your back.”

 

“Oh.... How long do we have to do that?”

 

Sango's magenta-flecked-brown eyes grew in wonder as she whispered, “All day.”

 

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By the end of the first day, Inuyasha's already abused body was aching in places that he never could have fathomed to ache. He trembled, pulling up the spare blanket that had been left in the chamber - as hot as the Drathna desert was during the day, it matched in coolness at night.

 

Miroku and Sango had gone off to fetch dinner for them from Kisu. It was some thin kind of gruel his nose had told him when they first re-entered the slave quarters again, weary and famished to the point of nausea.

 

Inuyasha leaned his back against the earthen wall of their chamber gingerly, wincing as pain dully spread over his muscles. He drew his knees up to his chest and rested his forehead against them. For a moment or two, he stared at the rough fibers of the dirt colored blanket before closing his eyes. Am I gonna stay here forever...?

 

Sleep beckoned - he relaxed his body and the fatigue began to overtake his small form when the shuffling of Miroku's footsteps reached his ears. Inuyasha lifted his head as the other boy approached him with two bowls of food.

 

“This one's yours.” Miroku offered the right bowl to him, and Inuyasha accepted it with a tired nod. “So the slave traders got you, huh?”

 

Inuyasha glanced up from his gruel to his companion - he had just asked that question so simply, without even a second thought or slight hesitation; it took Inuyasha aback slightly. “Yeah...” he murmured.

 

Miroku nodded once before scooping some gruel in the groove of the rock he was using as a spoon. “Hiten and Manten are two of the meanest slave traders. You must be important if they came only with you. Normally they have a whole train with them,” he commented conversationally.

 

Inuyasha focused his eyes on his bowl, not wishing to confirm or deny the boy's assumption. “Did they get you, too, Miroku?”

 

“Nope.” He swallowed another mouthful of gruel. “I was born here. Same with Sango.”

 

“Oh...”

 

They lapsed into silence; Inuyasha eventually ate his food, as unsavory as it was, because his body begged for some sustenance. Sango eventually came in, bowl in one hand and a water jug clutched against her chest with the other. She set the jug carefully to the ground before plopping on the floor across from the boys.

 

Inuyasha peered at her with passing curiosity, his mind too muzzy to take much interest as to why she was staring at him so intently.

 

Sango quickly ate her portion and got to her feet. She toddled over to the water jug and pulled a fairly clean rag from her pocket. Folding it into a thick square, she dipped it into the water and walked over to Inuyasha. She stopped in front of him before handing him the rag. “Here...Inuyasha,” she said softly, testing out his name. He took it, looking quizzically at her. “It's for you face. You have a lot of blood and dirt on it.”

 

The hanyou inadvertently sniffed. A flood of metal and earth scents assaulted his nose. “Thanks, Sango.” He grimaced slightly, and Sango gave a small grin of her own. Gently, Inuyasha began to wash the grime away with the surprisingly soft cloth. He hissed in pain whenever he hit a tender spot - like when the rag passed over his raw cheek, tears sprang to his eyes.

 

One of the youkai overseers stopped by the entryway. Inuyasha looked up from his washing and to the onlooker with an inquisitive gaze. His crimson eyes looked apathetically at the hanyou child before tapping something on the outside wall. A barrier wavered to a transparent jade sheen over the opening; satisfied, the overseer padded down the hall - no doubt to the next room to do the same.

 

Inuyasha finished cleaning up, not really listening to Sango and Miroku's conversation. He polished off his own gruel and set the bowl to the side with the soiled cloth in it. He glanced once to the pair and shuffled over to a corner of the chamber, blanket gathered in his arms.

 

His dark corner was colder than the rest of the room, but suddenly, Inuyasha found he did not mind. The shadow-cast sky was crystalline with the glistening sweep of stars. He blinked his gold eyes languidly as the pale moonlight listlessly flowed through the window.

 

Returning to sit like he was before - back to the wall and knees furled to his chest - Inuyasha realized that somewhere in that mess of stars and planets was his home.

 

But how far away...? He did not know.

 

Bowing his head to his knees, he drifted off into a dreamless sleep, with only fragments his fragile memories coloring his slumber.

 

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Day and night were not balanced evenly on Drathna 4 - the desert heat reigned longer than the frigid night. Days stretched on in ongoing torture for the slaves, and the night was a transitory repose. The overseers found it to be a wonderful thing; longer hours `til dusk meant more Zier crystals could be mined, and they, of course, took full advantage of the opportunity.

 

After a week of hard labor in the mining holes, Inuyasha's body, not used to the strenuous toil, felt far sorer than he ever remembered it feeling in his short life.

 

The twin suns flickered behind the horizon while a thin stripe of velvety dark blue started on the opposite side of the barren land. Shadows were faintly cast off of the desert plants by the finally-fading light; in its dusty loneliness, the desert looked to go on forever.

 

The sounding of a horn signaled the end of the day. The slaves trudged in - the more able-bodied ones, the slaves more used to the workload, walked into the quarters with an easier, though no less tired, gait. Inuyasha went into the compound with Miroku and Sango.

 

As they passed by Kisu, his hand shot out and gripped Inuyasha's shoulder. “You...” he hissed, tongue flitting out of his mouth slightly as Inuyasha shrunk back, “have a...vissssssssitor.” Kisu's scaly hand roughly clutched the fabric of Inuyasha's grubby shirt as he dragged the hanyou towards another room in the compound.

 

Inuyasha winced as Kisu's sharp talons jostled against his skin as he stumbled along. He was thrown forward and he landed face first in the packed dirt. Sitting up on his knees, he shook the dirt from his hair and face. Opening his eyes - which had closed of their own accord during his fall - Inuyasha waited for them to adjust to the darkness around him.

 

His dog ears swiveled at the sound of even, unhurried footfalls approaching him. A short chuckle drifted into the air, lingering eerily.

 

When his sight finally adjusted to the darkness of the room, Inuyasha gasped at the looming figure that stood only a few strides away. He scuttled backwards with wide eyes. His body shook from overexertion and the fear that this solitary figure evoked in him.

 

Inuyasha took in a shuddering breath; all the shards of his memory came together to form a picture of this man, this youkai. A hanyou... His eyelids quickly shut while his diminutive hands fisted at his sides. No...go away... his mind cried. Just go away...

 

The hanyou stepped closer. “Heh. Scared of me, Inuyasha...?” he drawled. He paused, hearing only the shaking breath of the child. “You're a smarter boy than your brother. He didn't submit to fear - but you...”

 

Sesshoumaru would have chastised him for showing fright to the enemy as he was right now. “It's a disgrace to our family name,” he would have said. “Is that the kind of conduct Father would want us to have in our lives, Inuyasha?”

 

He swallowed; the terror still wracked his body and his mind, yet, even so, Inuyasha slowly eased his eyes open again. His gold eyes locked on the other hanyou's red ones. “What do you want, Naraku?”

 

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A/N: As you can tell, the stylistics uses a darker tone than that of On a Leash. This is more like my book series Spellbinder. Part II will be up soon.