InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Pride (In the Name of Love) ❯ Chapter 142 ( Chapter 142 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Pride (In the Name of Love) 142 / ??
Written by Jezz-Ra
Warnings - Not all warnings apply to all chapters.  Yaoi, Het, Rape, Lemon, Violence, Torture, Language, Angst, Incest, Dark (at times).  It's a massive story, folks, it's got a little bit of everything.
Disclaimer - I don't own Inuyasha, don't make money off it.  Wish I did.

Sidestories can be found under my author profile at any of my archive sites.
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// Blah // indicates thoughts.

A/N - Wow!  I've never actually been THREATENED to update before...although I daresay the thought of Sesshoumaru's teeth in me may not constitute a negative event.   Or  whipping.  Hmm.... This bears further contemplation.

Sessh - .... *glances at Vyperbites*... *glances at the Jezz-Ra*.... What in the name of all that is holy did you commit this Sesshoumaru to, woman?!

Sadly, nothing.  I intend to proceed with updates.   On with the show and all that.  And I absolutely adore everyone that reviews.  Honest, I do.  You make it all worthwhile.  Also, French Onion Sun Chips are delicious.

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He felt like he was floating.  The air was oddly heavy and thick around him, suspending him in its flow, like a river without motion.  There was no heat or cold.  No sounds met his ears.  He was tethered to something...he could feel the magic binding his soul.

Slowly, Sairex opened his eyes and looked around.  A dim gray nothingness surrounded him on all sides.  His mind worked only sluggishly, and his hands shifted to grip at the blazing golden tether that wound through his spirit and melted away into the distance, the cord simply fading from view.

He wanted to break it.   His soul squirmed to be released.  He struggled briefly, but couldn't get a grip on it, mentally or otherwise.  His fingers passed through it as if it were no more than smoke, and yet there was no way to deny the feel of it, holding him to his heavy, broken physical body.

So broken.  TOO broken.  He hadn't been able to slow their fall enough, he knew.  The shock of his body bouncing and tumbling over the ground when they had hit had outweighed the pain of snapping bones.  The pain was lurking like some enormous beast that waited patiently, oh so patiently, for him to realize its presence so it could rear up and swallow him, monstrous and consuming.  He had felt the tree suddenly arrest his crazed roll with final, fatal force.  The middle of his back had impacted first.  The thick branch jutting free of the downed trunk had punched an impossibly huge hole through his stomach, forcing out things that were never meant to see the light of day, bits of his torn innards glistening hot and wet with blood on the end of the jagged limb.  Even that pain hadn't had more than a split second to register, however.  The impact snapped his frame like a whip, his body uncurling and slamming back against the hard wood.  He heard the crack as the vertebrae in his neck snapped from the too sudden, forceful impact.  That explosion of sound was drowned out a moment later from his skull impacting, bone crunching.  The pain had flickered out then as if it never had been, an all-pervading numbness wrapping around him, soothing him and easing him into a dark, thoughtless, blissful dark as the light melted out of stunned yellow eyes.

He didn't know what state Miroku was in, and could only hope that his body had provided some slight cushion to the monk's.  His sorrow at the thought that Miroku may have indeed died was distant, like a dream he couldn't realize.  He hoped with all the fervor he could muster in this strangely distant, lethargic state that his mate had lived.

Sairex was intimately familiar with death.  He had, in fact, died himself more than once.  He had seen countless others die from a wide variety of wounds.  The fact that his body had not died instantly was a fluke, he knew.  He assumed his spinal cord hadn't snapped when his neck broke, although the paralysis that had taken him led him to believe it had at least been sorely damaged.  Vital organs had been shish-kabobed by that tree branch, torn and punched out through his belly.  His skull had been smashed in.  Even a demon couldn't withstand that much damage.  There was absolutely no way he could still be alive.  To be sure, a demon's body was strong and he imagined it could put up one hell of a struggle...

But if he wasn't dead and he couldn't be alive, what did that leave?

Sairex frowned, trying to cudgel his brain into coming up with some solution.  He had no particular urge to be dead, really, although his soul was crying out for freedom from the torturous tether binding him to that impossibly shattered shell he had inhabited for so long.  

// Of course, I've never been dead for any length of time before....perhaps this is the true face of the underworld?  How dull.  Even when I was killed by  Lord Sesshoumaru, there wasn't this emptiness.  And this cord still ties me to my body.  But if I was alive, i should be able to wake in some fashion, or at least not have this...disconnected consciousness. //

YOU ARE RIGHT, LITTLE DEMON.  YOU ARE NEITHER DEAD NOR ALIVE.

Sairex jolted, distant surprise cutting through the heavy fog in his mind.  It never occurred to him to speak in any language but his native tongue, even though the voice that had sounded in his head seemed to speak in no language he knew.  It was more like blocks that formed into the shape of familiar words had been simply pushed into his mind one at a time.   "Well, there's not much of a middle ground, and I surely don't think I'm either a ghost or undead."

NO.  YOU ARE NOT.

The raven paused, closing his eyes and stretching out languidly, his fingers idly plucking at the golden tether that he couldn't quite touch.  He felt something like a lazy sense of amusement at the whole situation, despite how serious the content of their conversation was.  He just couldn't bring himself to care.  "Well, then....what of me?"

YOUR BODY, AS YOU SUSPECTED, PERISHED.

"So my soul is tied to a dead body?"YES.

"And I don't suppose you could share with this bird how that could be?  I'm no spirit, I'm tied to the living world to a dead body, and somehow I'm not going to the underworld this time.  Did I buck the system somehow?  I mean,  avoiding death is something my kin have always striven for, but if this is the result...well...let's just say it leaves something to be desired."

MY POWER HAS BOUND YOU.  YOU HAVE DIED, BUT YOU WILL BE RETURNED TO LIFE WHEN YOUR BODY HAS HEALED ENOUGH TO ONCE MORE CAGE YOUR SOUL.

Something distantly was screaming a whole list of questions to Sairex's mind, but he couldn't bring himself to focus on any of them.  It just didn't matter where here was, who he was talking to, or why he would be spared death....what godlike power had intervened.  Out of the distant mire, one issue did force itself enough to the surface for him to voice a question.  "Miroku?"

YOUR HUMAN MATE LIVES.

Sairex nodded and allowed the rest of his concerns to fade away.  Miroku was alive.  That was enough for him now. The raven drifted away into the peaceful gray,  resting peacefully, and waited.

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Sesshoumaru's nose wrinkled a bit as he glanced at the destruction occupying Miroku and Sairex's crash landing.  Inuyasha had already situated Miroku as gently as possible, knowing he'd have to lift him.  Next had come the painstaking task of separating Sairex from the tree he was still impaled on.  Inuyasha didn't wish to exacerbate the damage and so, rather than try and pull the raven free of the tree he had instead carefully severed the branch itself.  He and Kouga laid Sairex out carefully on the ground, still strongly doubting that he'd survive anything more than another few moments.

Sesshoumaru lips twitched into a slight frown.  "How is it they came to take such injury in the first place?"

Inuyasha shrugged as he plucked Miroku's shakujou out of the ground - it had been embedded halfway up the shaft and took some effort.  "I don't know.  I didn't see any tracks.  It's like they fell out of nowhere, but...that's not possible.  I mean, Sairex said he couldn't carry another person when he flew so they couldn't have gotten off the ground high enough to do this much damage.  And when you have wings and shit, I don't imagine you fall anyways."

Sesshoumaru shrugged a bit, the mystery beyond him for now.  "This Sesshoumaru will question them once they are healed."  Without further ado, the taiyoukai called upon his energy and teleported the lot of them back to his castle.  

The castle's medical staff was already waiting when they arrived.  Even though she was expecting her friends to be grievously injured, Kagome couldn't help but let out a horrified little gasp at the actual sight of them, tears springing to her eyes.  She didn't waste any time, however, in kneeling next to Miroku and drawing on her holy power to try to heal him, putting the gruesome sight of Sairex out of her mind as the castle's healers loaded him onto a board and carried him off to get to work.

The priestess couldn't recall ever praying so hard for the sake of one of her friends.  She could feel the nasty infection that had settled into Miroku's limbs as if it were a tangible beast, writhing and squirming malignantly through his flesh and intent on consuming him.  "Inuyasha?"

Inuyasha had been hovering nearby, wanting to help but not knowing how, left with little better to do than to chew nervously on his claws and watch.  He was also simply being prudent - he was a half demon and didn't envy getting too close to Kagome's power while she was working. "Yeah?"

"I need you to....I need you to come set this bone for me.  It has to be pulled straight again."

The hanyou made his way over, hesitating at the thought of the task before him.   He swallowed thickly and wiped his palms on his haori.  He wanted to help Miroku, but at the same time, he didn't want to touch him.  He was too afraid that he'd do something to make these terrible wounds worse.

Inuyasha understood the necessity of the request, however, and he took a deep breath before gripping Miroku's broken leg firmly.  It took a surprising amount of effort to pull the bone straight again from where it had slipped, and Inuyasha looked away at the fresh gush of hot, infected blood.  Kagome cringed too but kept her wits about her enough to warn the hanyou to step back so he wouldn't get burned by her powers and set back to work.

Kagome didn't stop forcing healing energy into the battered monk until the very real specter of unconsciousness loomed before her eyes.  She had given everything she had...but she wasn't entirely displeased with the result.  She had managed to wipe all signs of infection clean.  Most of Miroku's cuts and scrapes had vanished.  His bones had been set and were weak, still in need of bracing and wrapping, but well on the way towards healing.  Miroku's breathing no longer had a sick, rattly wet sound to it.

In fact, a moment later, a fuzzy looking set of blue eyes had opened, looking around in confusion.  The monk tried to speak but all that came out was a rather dusty croak.

Inuysaha quickly went to get a glass of water as Kagome gave Miroku a teary-eyed, relieved - if careful - hug.

"Oh, Miroku, thank god you're alright...I was so worried!"

The monk let out a little wince as he attempted to sit up.  Inuyasha helped him to sit up enough for him to manage a few small sips of water as the priestess busied herself with carefully bandaging his wrist.

Miroku finally had his bearings about himself enough to manage to speak.  "Thanks, Kagome...Inuyasha."

"Keh, don't mention it, monk.  Just...what the hell happened?  Where have you been?  How'd you.... end up like this in the first place?"Miroku flew to a sitting position and probably would have tried jumping up if the hanyou hadn't held him down.  "Sairex!  Dear Buddha, where is he?  Is he alright?"  Despite his bargain that he had made with that strange woman in his subconscious state, it did nothing to alleviate his need to see his lover, to confirm with his own eyes that he was alive and well.

"The castle healers are looking at him right now.  He... he was hurt pretty bad, Miroku.  Really bad."

"He's still alive?""I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself.  Yeah.  He's still kickin'."

Miroku slumped back, his adrenaline having played itself out.  "As soon as they're done with him, I need to see him."

"Of course.  So.  What happened?  How'd you get so hurt?"

"I'm...not exactly sure, to be honest.  Somehow, we were sent back in time to a foreign country when Sairex accidently broke a magical amulet.  We stayed there until he found out a way to try and get us back home, but I think something went wrong.  When I woke up, we were laying on a hillside and...well.  Broken."  Miroku idly lifted his hand to finger the small golden ankh at his throat.  If it hadn't been for that tangible proof, he might have thought that the whole thing had been a dream, brought on by his injuries.

"Well, yeah, it looks like something DID go wrong.  Come on, I'll get you into a proper bed with some food and water and all that good junk.  You still need a lot of rest yourself."

Miroku nodded, his head already drooping sleepily.  "I do at that... thank you, my friends.  Make sure you wake me when I can see him."

Inuyasha nodded as he scooped Miroku up.  "I will.  I'm glad you're back.  I really would have missed you, you know."  The hanyou got no answer, however.  The monk was already asleep.
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