InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Secret Weapon ❯ Chapter 3

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

So many nice reviews, so here's a reward.

If I owned Inuyasha, my name would be Rumiko Takahashi. As my name is nowhere near Rumiko Takahashi, I guess that means Inuyasha does not belong to me.

Chapter Three

Miroku's shout was immediately followed by a dull roar that quickly grew louder as invisible winds suddenly began to rip their way through the cavern. The incredible gale caught the centipede queen, who shrieked as she began to struggle fiercely against the tremendous suction, trying desperately to escape its pull. Armored shell struck the walls and ceilings as she found herself being sucked in, increasing her struggle as she realized that she couldn't escape. She began to disappear into the black maelstrom among a litter of broken rocks and dust and debris, thrashing wildly against the walls and ceiling, knocking large chunks of rock into the air, which immediately got sucked in along with her.

Sango, even from her position behind Miroku, could feel the incredible power of the Kazana, and threw all caution to the wind as she threw her arms around his waist to hold on, just in case. Her panicked eyes sought out Kirara, finding the fire-cat huddled further down the tunnel, well out of range of danger.

And then it was over, the queen's final shriek fading as the last of her body was sucked into the black hole in Miroku's palm, and with a snap, his fingers were closed and the beads were once again wrapped firmly around his hand.

And that should have been the end of it.

But it wasn't.

The noise continued, the roaring vanishing beneath a series of great, cracking groans as rock began to fall in force from the decimated roof and the smashed walls of the cavern. It was exactly as Sango had feared would happen; the entire place was caving in, and they were about to be caught in the middle of it. “Run!” she shouted, grabbing his hand and yanking him back out of the cavern and into the tunnel. There was no time for lewd comments or teasing remarks; Miroku appeared to have realized what he'd just done even before she did. Face set in a grim, determined line, he clutched his hand firmly around hers and they both took off at a dead sprint back through the tunnel, trying to outrun the falling rocks and praying they wouldn't trip and stumble over any fallen stone in their path.

The cave-in didn't appear to be stopping at the cavern; apparently, the entire cliff was hollowed out, filled with side-passages and burrows left behind from the queen's innumerable children as they'd tunneled through the rock, making the entire thing unstable enough to start breaking apart around them.

“Where's Kirara? Wouldn't it…be faster…to ride her?” Miroku shouted around his harsh breathing as he ran.

“She's probably…out…by now,” she panted. “But the tunnel's…too narrow…and there's…no time to mount. It's all coming down…too fast.”

His reply was cut off by a sharp crack from above their heads, and Sango's eyes widened as she looked up in a panic, knowing that somewhere the roof was coming down.

“Sango!”

She was abruptly bowled over by an incredible force, flying off her feet to land on her back, realizing dazedly that Miroku had tackled and was now sprawled on top of her, trying to shield her with his body. There was a tremendous crash just behind them; she realized belatedly that if he hadn't pushed her out of the way, she would have been struck full-on by the falling rock.

There was no time to think anymore; the collapse had caught up with them and the air was thick with choking dust. There was no more time to run. All she could do was close her eyes, her hands gripping Miroku's robes as he tucked her head against his shoulder, and wait for the inevitable.

~*~*~*~

After what seemed like a small eternity, the ear-splitting, earth-shaking, grumbling clatter of falling rock seemed to gradually fade, growing fainter and softer until the noise finally ceased altogether, save for the varied soft clicks of stray pebbles rolling and tumbling to the floor.

In the deafening silence to follow, Sango came to two conclusions, the first being that she was still, by some miracle, completely alive and relatively well, considering what she'd just been through. The second was that Miroku was still sprawled full-length across her body, his arms locked around her in a death-grip with one hand cradling her head from the hard ground, her hair tangled tightly around his fingers. Even though the danger had apparently passed, he still held her pressed against him, shielding her as much as possible with his own face buried against her neck and his breath ghosting moist and hot against her throat. He didn't appear to be awake. Her stomach twisted in a knot.

“H-Houshi-sama?” she whispered, trying to fight back the rising alarm which set her slowing heart to pounding again. “Houshi-sama…are you…awake?”

There was no answer, just the deep breaths against her throat. His dead weight was getting rather heavy by now; she could hardly breathe from the pressure against her chest. Shaking slightly, she raised her hand to run her fingers along his temples, seeking out any hidden cuts or knots that might speak of a head wound. His hair, like warm silk against her fingers (covered though it was by a thick layer of dust and grime), was momentarily distracting, but she gritted her teeth and forced herself to focus on the task at hand.

She did, indeed, find a small knot forming at the base of his skull where he'd been struck a glancing blow. Her breath caught; had he been hit hard enough to give him a concussion? Certainly, it had been hard enough to knock him out. Was he in a coma now? She again had to force back rising panic as she continued to check over his body, as much of it as she could reach, anyhow. She brushed a few stray stones off his back as she sought more bumps or other signs of injury and breathed a quiet thank-you when her fingers encountered nothing that felt like blood. But still…his silence was unnerving, and the utter blackness was even more unnerving, reminding her too much of another time when she'd been trapped in this same kind of darkness, surrounded by the stench of dirt and blood, her lungs in a knot of agony as they sought to gain oxygen.

Her body began to throb with remembered pain, and she just wished that he would wake up and talk to her, to keep her from remembering…

“Houshi,” she tried again, a little louder this time, the panic edging into her voice despite her best efforts to keep it away. Then, “Miroku, wake up!”, followed by lightly slapping his cheek in the hopes of bringing him around.

That seemed to have the desired effect. Miroku slowly stirred, groaning a bit as he lifted his head, blinking blearily in the utter blackness, and abruptly stiffened as he realized that he was spread out on top of a deliciously soft body. A deliciously soft body that would probably not hesitate to use his already-aching head as a punching bag, if he didn't remove himself from it post-haste. But at the moment, he was far too concerned about her state of health to be worried about the continued assurance of his own.

“Are you okay, Sango? Are you hurt?” he questioned intently, his hands removing themselves from her back to lightly explore her abdomen in the pretense of checking for injuries.

“I-I'm fine,” she wheezed, clumsily slapping his hands away. “J-just…you're heavy. Get off now,” she added, attempting to shove him away from her body. Now that he was awake, it was suddenly a lot more dangerous for him to be sprawled on top of it, given his normal inclinations to grab whatever he could reach.

There was a moment of scuffling in which he shifted a bit, and then, wryly, “Sango-chan, I would be delighted to move elsewhere—” Okay, so that was sort of a lie; he rather liked it right where he was, thank you. “—but it appears that I am unable to do so.” Which didn't bother him in the least.

It did, however, appear to bother her. “H-huh?” she squeaked.

“The cave-in seems to have…well…caved us in,” he murmured, “and I find that there is relatively little room to move. There is perhaps a foot of space on either side of us…” There was a pause and he shifted; he appeared to be sitting up. And then came a muffled thud, as of something hard (his skull) smacking against something even harder (a rock), followed by a hiss of pain and a growled curse, before his weight was once again pressing down on her. “And apparently,” he added humorlessly, rubbing the fresh bruise growing on his abused head, “there is no more than a foot or two above us, as well.”

“Y-you mean…we're boxed in?” she choked out, no small amount of panic in her voice. “There's no way out at all?”

“One moment,” he replied, snaking a hand down between their bodies - ignoring her indignant yelp as he (not-so-accidentally) brushed across her breasts - and rummaging around inside his robes for a bit. “A-ha,” he muttered, his fingers closing about the tiny flashlight that Kagome had once given him, which was about the length of a finger, and which he kept stored in an inner pocket of his robe for dire emergencies. This particular emergency certainly seemed dire enough to warrant using the precious light, so he switched it on, nearly blinding the both of them with the brilliant beam; he hastily turned it away from their faces to aim it at the decimated ceiling, instead.

What they both saw was disturbing, for the ceiling wasn't so much a ceiling as it was an extremely large slab of granite, which had managed fall in just the right position so that one end of it landed on top of a large pile of fallen stones, only two feet or so away from their heads. The other end had landed on the tunnel floor itself, creating a long, narrow, triangular shelter around them. This lucky turn of events had managed to save their lives; had the rock pile not been so close to them, the slab would have landed on them, but the cover it provided had kept the rest of the roof from crushing them, as well.

“Well,” he breathed, smiling shakily, “it appears that Fate is smiling down on us today.”

“Unless the slab cracks beneath the weight of the rubble on top of it,” Sango replied in a hushed whisper, her eyes fixed on the roof. He could see that her face was ashen in the light that now flooded their little habitation, and against his chest, her heart was pounding erratically. “Wh-where's Kirara?” she whispered after a moment. “D-do you think she…?”

“You need not worry, Sango,” he murmured. “I'm sure she's fine. She's a much faster runner than we are, after all. You said yourself; she was probably already out of the tunnel before it collapsed. My shakujou, on the other hand…” He trailed off with a mournful sigh, wondering just where in the tunnel he'd dropped it, and whether or not he'd ever be able to retrieve it.

“Yes, but…”

“Shhh,” he shushed gently, pressing a grimy finger to her lips. “Kirara is probably flying at top speed to seek help as we speak. We'll be out of here in no time,” he reassured her. “As for that, despite our…erm…situation, we should be safe. The rock looks strong enough to hold out for a long time, and I don't believe we're in danger of asphyxiation; I can feel something of a draft passing over our heads, so all we'll really need to worry about is whether we're found before either of us starves to death. Although, I'm certain we'd both die of thirst before then.”

There was a moment of silence. Then, “Oh, thank you, Houshi-sama. I feel so much more reassured now,” came the irritated grumble.

Miroku chuckled softly, wedging the flashlight between two chunks of stone so that it illuminated most of the little cavern. “Well, let us make ourselves more comfortable while we wait, shall we?” he suggested. “If I'm too heavy for you, then why don't you move over that way, and I'll turn this way…and…” With much mumbling and shifting and scuffling about, they managed to separate themselves well enough so that they were stretched side-by-side on the rough floor. Miroku was much closer to her than Sango would have normally preferred, but given the situation, she didn't feel she had the right to complain. After all, he had just saved her life.

Then again, he was the one who had caused the whole cave-in to begin with, too.

“I feel I must apologize for putting us into so much danger, Sango,” Miroku abruptly murmured, startling her out of her thoughts. “It was my carelessness that caused such an accident.” He sighed and held his gloved hand up before his eyes, eyeing it ironically. “So much for our `secret weapon', huh?” he added with resigned humor.

She turned to regard him with wide eyes; could the man read her mind or something? His eyes crinkled as he smiled, and her heart skipped a beat; had she ever noticed how much violet those depths held before? “W-well, you…saved my life, too, so I guess that makes up for it,” she stammered, hastily looking away again, lest he be able to read that thought, as well. “I-I'm glad you aren't seriously hurt, by the way.” Her face softened a bit at the memory of his still, lifeless form draped across her body. “You really scared me for a moment, there,” she added softly, almost to herself.

Miroku's beaming face was abruptly in her line of vision, and she blinked in shock. “Do you mean to say you were worried for my safety?” he questioned innocently. “That you would have been distraught had something untoward happened to me?”

She sought to speak, feeling her cheeks burning again, and finally came up with a snapped-out, “Well, of course I would have! Wouldn't you feel a little distressed if you had somebody's corpse draped across your body?”

His elated expression turned swiftly to disgruntlement and he lay back again and stared at the ceiling. Sango sighed. “I'm sorry,” she told him softly, refusing to look at him. “Of course I would have worried if you'd been more seriously hurt. You're my friend, after all. And…you got hurt because of me, anyway, trying to save me and all.”

“That is very true.” His face was abruptly back again, fixing her with the kind of innocent smile that she had learned to trust the least. Had there been any room, she would have hastily backed away. “I did save you, and is it not tradition for the damsel to reward her hero?” he continued curiously. “I believe a kiss would be a suitable reward.”

Her face flushed. “K-kiss?” she squeaked, attempting to edge away.

“Hmmm…you're right,” he sighed, regarding her impishly. “A kiss isn't nearly enough. Perhaps something more…pleasant?” And she felt his hand begin to slip up the underside of her thigh.

Her eyes narrowed dangerously, but her smile was saccharine as she grabbed the offending hand and replied sweetly, “Why don't I reward you by not cutting your tongue out of your head for any further lewd comments I'll have to endure?” Her forceful grip on his fingers tightened until she saw him wince in pain, as she added, “I cannot, however, promise the same of any wandering hands I may encounter, and so I suggest you think carefully about any actions you choose to make. I am not in a good mood.”

Flexing his hand to get the blood flowing again, Miroku wisely decided to back off.