InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Seven Feudal Fairy Tales ❯ Trial of Blood ( Chapter 50 )

Disclaimer: These characters belong to Rumiko Takahashi and other associated companies.

 

 

Chapter Fifty: Trial of Blood

 

 

The hollow rhythms of currents lapped at the hull of the beached ship, seeping into the tai youkai's ears as if eager to stir him from his deadening sleep. Joining the persistent waves, his brow knitted under the unwelcome glare of sunlight bathing his thinly sealed eyes. With begrudging consent, his dark gray lashes finally parted and the faceted citrine of his irises took in the polished wood and crimson sails that surrounded him.

 

Tattered and dulled by the voyage, the broad, fin-shaped fabric overhead inspired little interest, however it would be the vacancy of their limp shreds that would swiftly garner his attention. The wind that had kept them swollen and taut was strangely absent and the demon shifted to sit up onto his elbow so as to discover the reason.

 

Not unlike the sails, he soon learned that the rest of the ornate vessel was also missing that which it normally held. No matter where his inquiring gaze fell, he was only greeted with the emptiness of waxed mahogany, the odd crew the boat chauffeured nowhere to be found. Beyond the delicately carved railing, he found the cause in the sheer, volcanic cliffs of the outlying island.

 

Leather boots finding purchase beneath his armor-weighted body, Sesshoumaru struggled to stand up so that he could obtain a better view. Sharp and jagged, the harsh outline of the isle cut against the faded blue with its twin mountains piercing the heavens high above, bleeding a festering storm from the putrid wound. The tempest's sapphire eye fixed upon the pointed summits filtered through the rays of the missing sun. However, the black monument of stone amid the churning sea drank up the brilliant light, leaving little left to illuminate its facets.

 

The demon lord walked across the deck until his hand found a finished corner of railing and his sight the gangplank below, half submerged in the dark waters. His gaze followed the tide as it broke against the beach and then high upon the pressed sand which had yet to feel the returning touch of surf. There he spied the miko's tracks, the regular half-moon print of her geta sandals divided by the two bars that sunk deep with each step.

 

Unbidden, a scowl grew on his face, furrowing his brow and hardening the line between his lips. It would soon be the time of their battle if it had not already begun and the impulsive girl had left him to sleep it away. War-hardened ogres were not foes easily defeated, especially by the tender skills of a fowl, a monkey and the inexperienced priestess who leads them. For all of the recklessness she had displayed in his knowing of her, to allow him to remain behind in slumber would be without a doubt her greatest blunder.

 

“Or would it be mine?” the tai youkai asked himself, the ire that tightened his muscles and burned behind his glare diminishing at the telling words that trickled through his thoughts. What had he done but inspire the weakness she almost certainly saw in him? How could she see the formidable warrior when he could barely walk? All he had proven was that he could sleep; his mind and body tirelessly shackled by the familiar shame he saw in his clan and held captive by the uncertainty of the pride he could instead embrace.

 

Smoldering deeper and darker than before, the youkai lord's anger flared, the vice of his grip peeling away shavings from the rail as his claws raked it. Then it shattered, a cascade of splinters raining into the shallows below. With a firm kick, his boot swiftly met with the next unfortunate piece of the low wall, fracturing it under his attention. Soon, more chunks of the ship flew before his indiscriminant wrath as the demon dismantled the vessel plank by plank. The wooden koi offered no resistance now that its destination had been achieved, watching blindly as its beautifully crafted scales and beams flew from its body with a great fervor.

 

Panting and with perspiration beading across his forehead, Sesshoumaru stumbled back against what remained of a broken mast that had fallen from a well-aimed swipe of his claws. Hand shaking and muscles twitching at the exertion, he rested his heavy head back against the thick pole while he caught his breath. Even in his exhaustion, his eyes gleamed and an air of satisfaction overcame his features. Unbridled destruction did have its benefits. Turning his head to view the ominous island, his jaw locked and his teeth ground. He was not finished. There was more to rend and a miko to question. He would find her and she would tell him her reason for leaving him behind. With that there was no doubt.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

“There are so many of you today,” Fe-San chirped from high on his perch of obsidian tiles that layered the roof of the gate. “It's so pleasant to have such a large audience.” A fair distance below, ogres brewed in the open square of the fortress, their ill-content uttered in growls and guttural curses. In sickly hues of bloated green and boiled red, death and rot looked to mark their skin with oily locks of gray hair sprouting from their balding heads. Crude, spiked maces of iron laid heavily on their broad shoulders, some tapping eagerly on their rests as they thirsted for the crunch of bones and the spurting of blood.

 

“Get down here, bird!” a particularly disgruntled beast yelled, his singular, jaundiced eye veined with red. Clothed like his brethren, tanned, human skins and scalps hung off his back and around his waist, their sagging, empty faces still embroiled in the despair they were slain in. “We're hungry.”

 

“Now, now, I seriously doubt there is enough of me to go around and that would somehow seem unfair, don't you think? You just have to be patient.”

 

“I will devour you myself,” he argued with unfazed certainty before gesturing with his meaty hand at his crotch and the deflated face of a woman whose open mouth hung at a telling angle, “And I will hang your skin here in your honor. You'll have to forgive me if I piss on you occasionally.”

 

“See now with that I believe there is enough of me to go around. I think a feather each should cover you all nicely there.” A fresh flood of curses greeted his remark and the agile pheasant ducked his head tightly to his bosom as a rock nearly grazed him. “I didn't mean to offend. Honesty should be rewarded and not scorned.”

 

“Damn it, he ducked,” the hurler growled in disappointment and then busily searched the crowded area for more.

 

“I resent that remark! I don't duck, I pheasant.”

 

“Ugh,” they groaned in unison.

 

“Hey, I am far superior to any of those other fowls! My unparalleled skills will not be equated to something that they are named after,” the bird insisted with plucky defiance before a cluster of stones hailed from the sky. Nervous squawks erupting from his beak, he dodged the bombardment as if he were liquid and all without rising from his roost. “Let's not get too eager. We'll be fighting soon enough. Maybe now would be a good time for the lady ogres to go inside and huddle in fear somewhere.”

 

“There are no women here, mouthy pigeon,” the first ogre enlightened Fe-San with a heated sneer and under the hearty agreement of his vile compatriots.

 

“Really?” the pheasant mused aloud, “But, I could swear that half of you look an awful lot like women. Are you sure that none of you are women that want to go cower in a corner? No one will look down on you if you admit it.”

 

“No!” the crowd denied in seething anger.

 

“Well, I can see that now. With no ladies about, you all are a very difficult group to entertain. One would think that if you're all such good friends, then maybe you would help each other out every once in a while. You know, to relieve the tension.” Answering in a deafening roar, the ogres writhed with fuming hatred as they demanded the bird's blood and swore to the depraved acts that would swiftly be done to his mangled body.

 

Sprinting at the front gate on which Fe-San sat, a fervent ogre leapt up to grab the curving eave. His dirty claws reaching to find a sure grip, he clasped the edge and the thick muscles of his torso swelled as he hoisted himself up.

 

“I'll be the one to get you, chicken,” he promised, licking his fat lips between the decaying orange of his jutting fangs. Slowly, the beast slithered up the eave, steadily pulling his body up the roof, tile by tile. The bird remained indifferent, unwilling to move from his warm post. “I'll be the one to pop your head off and drink the blood from your body like a water bladder.”

 

“I doubt that.”

 

“Why is that? Are you afraid? Are you going to fly away like the chicken you are?”

 

“To be a chicken,” Fe-San remarked wistfully. “Now there's an act that I have little skill to demonstrate and sadly no time to improve.”

 

“Why do you say that when your miserable end is so close?”

 

“Because, Momotaro-sama is finally here.”

 

Shuddering under a mysterious blow, the ogre's bloodshot eye widened in confusion and his face paled in dismay. Releasing a shivering hand, he felt for his throat and the burning pain that drew his touch. A pair of points doused in blood and tissue, his questing fingers had found a horseshoe-tipped arrowhead protruding from his neck. A scream of horror erupted from him when he realized his fate, its terrified sound becoming nothing more than gurgling bubbles. The pheasant watched on impassively as his eye dulled and the fierce grip he held loosened. Trailing a slick smear of red, his limp body slid down the roof and fell below to be remorselessly trampled upon by his allies.

 

“Is Fe-san all right?” Kagome blurted out while steadily nocking another arrow into place. “That bastard didn't get him did he?”

 

“No, wa-ah,” Mon-Ki answered, shaking with nervous excitement as the prospect of slaying ogres dominated his mind and twitched his reflexes. “He's still there, perched on the gate waiting for the signal.”

 

“The signal?”

 

“You're the general, Momotaro-sama. You have to give the orders.”

 

“All right and you're my advisor, right?”

 

“Yes, wa-ah, if you wish to grant me the honor.”

 

“How have you fought this battle before?”

 

“Me and Fe-San work as a team and keep them fighting on both sides so that they don't get away and have a hard time cornering us.”

 

“A war on two fronts,” the school girl murmured, recalling her history and World War II. With the United States and Britain on one side and Russia on the other, Germany had fallen, because its fighting power had been split. As a commanding tone found her voice and a hard stare darkened her sepia eyes, she gave her orders. “Press them hard to the center, Mon-Ki and I'll give you the best cover you could ever desire. Together, we'll leave none of them alive.”

 

“Yes, sir,” the monkey agreed with a broad, fanged grin and bowed low, “We will not disappoint you, general.” Then he sprang away, his galloping stride swallowing up the hard, black earth. Despite his speed and verve, the whistling of a rapid volley of arrows would soundly outrace him, the thin projectiles finding their marks in the exposed necks of their evil quarry ahead. Collapsing unsteadily to their knees, the struck beasts fell under the precise blows. Vulnerable, but not quite dead, Mon-Ki finished his general's work, flashing the silver of his blade across their throats as he leapt over their prone bodies.

 

“Mon-Ki, are we ready!” the pheasant asked excitedly, standing up with his wings ready to spread.

 

“Let's press them together like a squashed, bean bun, Fe-San!”

 

“All right!”

 

Gliding down from the safety of his roost, the brash bird extended his wickedly curved talons and dove hard into the fray of monsters. The razor edges of his claws sought the bare skin under the chin of the first ogre he met, ripping hard through the yielding flesh and extracting a roar of rage and agony as he tore.

 

His foe slumping forward as his life spilled from the wound, the pheasant unfurled his wings and flew back into the unexpected grasp of a waiting beast. The usual means of escape cinched against him by the squeezing grip of the snarling monster, he kicked out viciously with his talons, reaching for the gnarled face of the ogre. Hooking his assailant's lips and puncturing his cheeks, Fe-San loosened the crushing hands that bound him. Wiggling free, he soon clucked his admiration when a piercing arrowhead sprouted from his former captor's chest.

 

Fluid in motion and unyielding in stance, his Momotaro reached overhead for another arrow from the quiver and pulled the bowstring taut once it was nocked. With her following strike, another beast fell, the iron mace he was set to swing at the unaware bird dropping harmlessly from his hands. Determination trailing relief, Fe-San puffed out his feathered bosom at the sight before diving away, his moment of appreciation in battle having passed too long.

 

“Fe-San, pay attention, wa-ah!” Mon-Ki yelled, slipping agilely between columns of growling enemies, his accurate dagger severing arteries as he twisted away from their searching claws and the bludgeoning of their spiked weapons.

 

“I know! I know!” the bird squawked, his screeching cries and flapping wings distracting his prey from the deadliness of his talons. “I had to warm up!”

 

“You always start off jumpy at a leaf falling and end happily surrounded by angry ogres ready to spit you over a fire.”

 

“I need my general to make me brave,” he admitted and warbled a satisfied cackle when his claws dug into another throat. “And this one makes me braver than most.”

 

“Same here, Fe-San. Same here.”

 

Churning the chaos as they wove through the throng of bodies, the animal warriors piled the dead, finished the dying and taunted the still dangerous. With their comrades thinned, the remaining ogres knew better than to fall for their deceptive ploys, growing wiser to the distracting tactics. Nodding to their compatriots, it was swiftly understood that the daring creatures that stabbed and slashed were losing the advantage of their diminutive size when their disorderly crowd became nothing more than a handful of organized fighters.

 

Pressing their backs together, four beasts remained and neither let the monkey or the pheasant free of their critical glare. Afar, the archer still proved beyond their reach and the lethal strikes loosed at them were beyond their defense. Clasping their weakest member by the shoulders, they shoved him out of their tight circle. Roaring a battle cry and slapping his head, he charged forth, his heavy strides thundering towards the general. Blade and talon finding him before the arrow, the ogre stumbled as he fell, dying several deaths before he met the cold ground. Breathless, the monkey and the pheasant eyed each other before returning their attention to the enemies that still lived.

 

“Wasn't there three of them left?” Fe-San asked, tipping his head so that he could recount the pair of monsters grinning deviously at them.

 

“Where's the other one, wa-ah?”

 

“No!” Kagome raged when the missing beast grabbed her by the arm, showering the ground in blue, glittering light as he squeezed her wrist hard enough to snap it. After sending the bow clattering uselessly to the floor, he chuckled gruffly with his other hand finding her jaw, swiveling her head back and forth as he examined his prize.

 

“Momotaro-sama!” her concerned soldiers called out, but before they could begin their rescue, the snatching claws of the last ogres seized them by their tails. Holding their trophies high, they prodded the writhing animals in their victory.

 

“Let us go!” she demanded with a steely glare, ignoring the pinching nails that raked her skin.

 

“I will,” the ogre agreed, tracing a faint line from her chin down the middle of her chest, “But, not before I bleed you out and offer you as a feast for the warlord, boy general.”

 

“You're going to kill me?”

 

“Of course.”

 

“Wait, please,” the school girl begged, tears suddenly streaming from her glossy eyes and the straining fight in her pull to escape gone. “I'm sorry. I was told that I had to fight all of you. I don't want to die. You can have them if you want, just let me go.”

 

“We already have them. You have nothing to barter with.”

 

“Then, I'll do whatever you want, if you just let me live.”

 

“Really?” the monster replied. “To think that the great Momotaro is such a coward that he would choose to be enslaved to our whims rather than die with honor. I will enjoy you before I present you to the fancy of our leader.”

 

“I don't think so,” she muttered vehemently, her still loose and stealthy hand having found her last arrow. Swifter than he could react, the arrowhead pierced his eye and Kagome drove it in deep, cracking though the brittle plate of bone and burying deep into his brain. The strength of his hold did not lessen as he fell back, dragging her unwillingly atop his lifeless body.

 

Wrenching away her darkly bruised arm, the school girl then yanked her only arrow free; its metal tips and shaft coated in the slain monster's thick blood and the jelly of his brain. In one, easy motion, she deftly scooped up her bow and drew it without thought, leveling her unwavering aim between the two remaining ogres and her helpless warriors that they still held captive.

 

“Shoot Mon-Ki's,” Fe-San called out, spying her dilemma and then flapped hard, forcing her decision by ripping away from his brilliant tail feathers firmly snared by the beast who held him. Liberated and whole for the most part, the pheasant pivoted in mid-air, an outstretched set of talons hooking into the monster's eye while he shredded the beast's throat with his other foot.

 

The finishing arrow flew, finding the heart of the last ogre and ending the siege in a final, agonizing roar. As the lingering cry dulled, Kagome stumbled back, nearly collapsing to her bottom. Fighting the weakness in her muscles, she instead stood trembling, her clothes spattered with red and her eyes searching for the sky and the impossible blue oval at its crest. She lost herself there in that moment. Cleansed of blood and filth, it was the only place she could see that did not remind her of the horror of death that pooled at her feet.

 

“That was scary,” she whispered at last. “I can't believe we won.”

 

“You're the reason why we did, wa-ah,” the little primate spoke up, his words drawing her from her light stupor. Sticky with blood, he sat on his haunches with his fur dyed the same color as his pants and his sheathed blade balanced across his shoulders. “Your arrows saved us.”

 

“Do you think so?”

 

“You're the hero, Momotaro-sama. Without your strength, we would have only known defeat. Whatever you meant to prove to Do-Gu, you've done it. There can be no shame in how you fought.”

 

“I hope so,” she smiled before her face fell into mild shock. “Your tail, Fe-San! It's gone!”

 

“Yeah, well,” he chirped nonchalantly, his plumes thoroughly coated in red like his friend's fur. “You can't have anything nice around these guys. It'll grow back tomorrow.”

 

“I guess that's good. Where to next, everyone?”

 

“There, wa-ah,” the monkey replied, raising a finger toward a pair of massive, iron doors at the top of a broad flight of black, stone steps. Wide cauldrons of vigorous fire burned on each side of the entryway, illuminating a figure held in relief on the heavy metal barring the entrance. Crested with horns and overwhelming in his menace, the image of the Ogre Warlord beckoned them.