InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Crow ❯ Chapter 4 ( Chapter 4 )

`Why am I alive?'

 

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, that question had arisen. It had seemed strange to him that he was alive when he had died. How long ago, he didn't know. He just knew that he had. However, Sesshomaru paid it no heed. He had a mission to complete, a death to avenge. His brother's death.

 

Inuyasha had not deserved to die. Not in the manner that he had. It had been brutal and un-dignifying for someone as noble as his brother had been. They may not have had the life to prove it but his brother had truly been noble.

 

`Always thinking of others, always wanting to help . . . Father would have been proud of him.'

 

Ahead of him flew the crow that had led him back to his old apartment. They were both searching . . . they knew who they needed to find, who they needed to kill to right the injustice of his and his brother's deaths . . .

 

He saw what the crow saw. It was leading him, guiding him . . .

 

To his first victim.

 

With a lethal grace that would have rivaled his father's, Sesshomaru leapt from building to building, following the crow. He knew the city . . . yet it seemed so foreign to him. Nothing had changed since his death yet everything had changed. Sesshomaru knew it just as he knew that he had died. He didn't care anymore. He only had one thing to correct and he would do so . . . with the deadly efficiency that had been graced upon his species. And he'd relish in his enemies' demise.

 

`For you, Inuyasha . . . for the life that you could have had . . .'

 

The crow landed on a building, showing him where his victim was. The dark-haired man was walking down an alley way, his braid swishing behind him as he leaned over a fire in a barrel to light a cigarette. He didn't seem to happy about something but then Sesshomaru didn't care.

 

Tonight, Bankotsu died.

 

* * *

 

Kouga blinked at the scene before him then shook his head. It was rather gruesome. Bankotsu, one of Houjo's monkey henchmen, had . . . well, he'd received the same treatment he'd always given his murder victims. Not that anyone had been able to prove anything when it came to Bankotsu's killing spree but they'd always known who he'd killed.

 

`Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy,' Kouga thought, taking a drag off his cigarette. Being wolf youkai, he didn't necessarily like the smells of smoke and pollution but he'd taken up smoking when he was a pup. It had been something that had driven his mate, Ayame, nuts. He'd never been able to stop, though, and had picked up shortly after the deaths of two inuyoukai a year ago. Now that he was now single . . .well, he didn't have anyone to really worry about, other than Rin.

 

`Who could've done this, though? I'd say it was a turf hit but it looks so much more personal than that. So strange . . .'

 

Of course, in the air, there had been the scent of death and something else. Something very familiar to the wolf but he couldn't place it. He took a deep sniff, trying to place that tantalizingly familiar scent.

 

“Christ, what the hell happened here?!”

 

Kouga fought back a groan as he turned to face his commanding officer, the one who had gotten him demoted in the first place, homicide detective Suikotsu. He tossed his cigarette to the ground and crushed it out.

 

“Homicide,” he replied glibly. “What does it look like?”

 

“Shut the fuck up, Albrecht,” came the growl. “Have you I.Ded the vic yet?”

 

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Bankotsu. Liked to play with knives. Guess he liked to play with them a little too much.”

 

“Very fucking funny,” Suikotsu snapped, huffing a little. October always tended to get a little chilly but that wasn't the reason why the detective huffed. Kouga knew that Suikotsu didn't want him there. Still, he wasn't about to leave. Not when he had a job to do. He glanced around the crime scene once more.

 

“You know,” he stated, pulling out another cigarette, “it could be a turf hit but it doesn't look like the usual gang-banger hit. It's strange, to say the least.”

 

“Well, thank you for your input,” Suikotsu sneered, “but no one really asked you. You're a beat cop. So go. Be a beat cop.” His gaze then traveled to one of the buildings. “What the hell is that?”

 

Kouga glanced at it as well, having saw it earlier. To him, it looked like a rather large bird - a crow, to be exact - painted in blood on the wall. Given the smell of it, it was Bankotsu's blood.

 

“It's blood,” Kouga replied, lighting his cigarette and taking a drag off it. “But I suppose you'll write it up as `graffiti.'”

 

“Get the hell off my crime scene,” Suikotsu growled. Kouga shot him a dirty look and flicked some cigarette ash onto the floor. So much for compassion amongst police officers.

 

He'd just walked several blocks away from the scene, and they'd just removed Bankotsu's body from the alley, when another explosion rocked the night . . .