InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Price of Freedom ❯ A Fiery End ( Chapter 18 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Disclaimer: e-mail me if you aren't sure what I mean by 'I don't own Inuyasha'

(A/N: I am definitely up to my eyeballs in ants - They're everywhere!!!)







The Price of Freedom

A Fiery End











"Specimen 'three-two-nine I' has been somewhat of a controversial matter the past few weeks as he has been the first subject to ever escape, and hopefully the last." A man standing to her right narrated the test in the other room. Frankly, Kagome found it annoying.

She watched as the electrode wires were hooked up to a box with buttons and papers were delivered in front of a still rather quiet Inuyasha, along with a pencil.

"While we believed that he had his spirit broken before, it appears that he has undergone a mental change in his absence. And while his Intelligence Quota has apparently-"

"What's that?" Kagome asked innocently.

The man gave her a strange look. "IQ, Major."

Kagome mentally slapped herself - she'd said a very Kagome like thing there.

"Anyway... while his Intelligence Quota has not increased a lot (Kagome resented the chuckles at this comment) it appears that his EQ is subject to query."

"EQ?" Kagome frowned slightly.

"Yes, Major. EQ - it stands for Emotional rather than Intelligence in IQ. And its level seems to have increased."

"What is EQ?" Kagome said again.

"His perception of emotions in others. It seems that he has grown more perceptive in general. We've done a test on him to prove this."

"Then what is this test for?" Kagome asked, turning her gaze back to where the doctor's were forcefully making Inuyasha hold the pencil and make him start to write. One of the doctors was even twisting one of his ears and whispering something nasty into it.

"He has never killed before..." the man said solemnly. "This test is for his endurance."

"Endurance of what?" Kagome asked once more.

Inuyasha dropped the pencil deliberately again and a doctor touched something on the box connected to the electrodes. Suddenly Inuyasha flinched and jolted almost all the way out of his chair. Kagome also started in response.

"Hey - I think there's something wrong with the device... it's short- circuited or something." Kagome told the narrator to her right.

The man just slanted a sneer at her... and she quickly realised that there was nothing wrong with the machine - it was supposed to do that. Now what was she supposed to do? Knock on the window and wave to Inuyasha? It wasn't like he would see her anyway. And if she went on a Bruce Willis moment and went and tried to break him free then she'd be found out.

She was helpless to just sit and watch.

"Get on with the test." Kagome heard one of the doctors clip Inuyasha around the ear with a hand and stuffed the pencil back in his fist.

For a moment she saw Inuyasha narrow his eyes only briefly before lowering the tip to start to write.

"What is the test for?" Kagome repeated. He would fail for sure if it were an English test.

"To see how long it takes for him to crack. Last time the test went on for three days. The first time it only took thirty seconds."

Kagome bit the inside of her cheek. Inuyasha flinched again as another electrical jolt shot through him and for a moment she thought that he was just going to get on with the test, until he stopped again and dropped his pencil. Another jolt spasmed through his body and the doctor in front of him said something too quiet for anyone in the observation room to hear. Inuyasha just stared at him with a mild glare. He was refusing to co- operate.

"Notice how the subject challenges his orders." The narrating man spoke. Kagome scowled. They really did treat people like animals here. In fact she'd seen real lab rats that had been better treated than this.

There was a muffled order delivered by one of the doctors who slammed his hand down on the table between him and Inuyasha, obviously trying to get some reaction. But Inuyasha's gaze had now slid from the man to the wall and was either ignoring him, or had lost interest in everything. Something inside Kagome's chest squeezed - most likely her heart.

The doctor was getting very annoyed now, his patience running out. "Start the test!" he practically yelled in Inuyasha's face. Finally the specimen decided to take some interest in the man, but only gave him a plain look... looking neither scared, bored, or annoyed. Kagome had never seen him like this... what had they done to him? Had he always been this way before he'd escaped and become blind?

There was a tense moment of absolute stillness and silence as everyone in both rooms held their breath to see what would happen. And finally something did happen - though it wasn't what Kagome had been hoping for.

Inuyasha just picked up the pencil and got on with the test. The doctors shot grim looks in the direction of the one-way mirror. He wasn't snapping still... though Kagome doubted that he ever would.

"So far... it appears that maybe he'd been deluding us." The narrator noted quietly. "He appears not to be rebelling as much as we'd thought."

A doctors finger slowly pressed down on the console on the table and a rather large and long shock seemed to grip Inuyasha. He twitched and flinched before allowing himself to give in to a loud cry of pain. Kagome felt weak at the knees.

The torture stopped and Inuyasha slipped off the chair without so much as a whisper of warning. One of the guards in the room with him simply stalked over and lifted him by the back of his shirt and set him upright in his chair, though he seemed a little out of it now.

"Get on with the test." The doctors repeated, obviously trying to push him.



Kagome brow furrowed as Inuyasha reached for the pencil the same moment the doctor reached for the console. She saw his eyes flick to where the doctor's hand was heading and suddenly swung his arm out and swiped the equipment off the table, ripping off the electrodes in the process.

There was sudden chaos in the bright room as guards sprang forward to subdue him, but Inuyasha was going nuts. He'd managed to get the evil doctor on the floor and was punching him repeatedly and rather violently around the head.

"Thus the test proves that Specimen 'three-two-nine I' has reverted to an earlier state of mind in his absence," the narrator said cheerfully. "It seems to have only taken him five minutes to crack. Very interesting."

A chair rebounded against the two-way mirror and the observers in the dim room took a nervous step back as the glass pane shuddered. Kagome had had enough by now and stormed out of the room. It only took her a matter of moments to find the other room before throwing the door open, and yelling a halt to the activities within. "Stop this nonsense!"

Inuyasha had been pinned to the floor, two men all but standing or kneeling on his back, and they still had trouble keeping him down. The doctor who was about to sedate him looked up at her quizzically. "What is the meaning of this interruption?"

Good question...

"Um..." Kagome quickly brought her Kikyo façade back into place. "Naraku wants to see you two right away... something about a lamp."

"But we're busy."

"I'll deal with him." She told them sternly.

She should have expected the incredulous and offensive look they gave her. "Let him up this instant!"

She was higher up in rank than them and they obeyed instantly. Kagome went and pulled the blind down over the one-way mirror and dismissed the soldiers standing guard with a single glare and a, "I'll handle this my way."

As soon as they were gone and the door was closed she turned back to Inuyasha and opened her mouth to speak, only to find him suddenly spit on her cheek. She was stunned into silence.

"Fucking whore bitch!" he snarled with such venom that she took a step back, about to cry... until she realised he was talking to Kikyo.

"Ew... Inuyasha..." she wiped the spittle off her cheek and wiped it on her jacket carelessly, ignoring the weird look he gave her. "Is that the way you usually greet your saviours."

He paused a moment before sneering at her. "No mind games, this time, bitch!"

"Would you stop calling me that? My name is Kagome." She smiled. "Remember me?"

He sniffed and carried on smirking. "Right, and I'm Marilyn Munroe's lost daughter."

"Hey... how did you learn about her?" Kagome frowned, but halfway glad that he didn't seem to be hiding inside a shell like she'd observed only moments before. Stupid doctors had brought him straight back out of the place where they'd sent his mind.

"You can't trick me to believe your Kagome, bitch." He looked past her. "What the fuck is that?!"

"What?" she looked over her shoulder but scowled and turned back slowly when he snorted with laughter. "What's so bloody funny?"

"You're such an ignorant cow." He said shaking his head.

"Fine. You want me to prove I'm Kikyo, here's good proof." She leaned forward, aiming to kiss him. Inuyasha's eyes suddenly went wide and he leaned back quickly. She smiled quickly and stepped back to give him room. "What's the matter? Don't want to find out what kissing is like anymore?"

"Kagome...?"

"Duh." She smiled. "Took you about long enough didn't-"

She was cut off rather quickly as he suddenly wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her into a very heated and 'pleased to meet you' kiss. She was fairly used to them by now and happily closed her eyes to enjoy herself, simply loving the way his strong hands roamed her back. Then she suddenly realised something as they 'face-sucked' as Inuyasha so delicately put it.

"Um... Inuyasha...?"

"I've missed you so much..." he told her before sealing her lips with another kiss.

"There's a camera up there." She mumbled against him.

"So?"

"So get away from me before they find out!" she shoved him back roughly. She also remembered that there was a whole agency listening in to their little conversation as well.

She straightened her little uniform and cleared her throat. "Follow me, I'll get you out of here."

No sooner had they taken two steps out of the testing room than three officers in military uniform came along, smirking. "I think we should take the specimen from here to his cell now."

"But I haven't finished with him yet." Kagome protested.

All three snorted in what she thought was a very childish manner, until she realised they must have just come done from the control room where they saw all...

Kagome flushed red straight away. She'd be called a slut for ages now... wait... what did she care? They'd be calling Kikyo a slut now. Hooray for Kikyo... in whichever closet she was locked up in right then...

They dragged a rather peeved looking Inuyasha away, leaving Kagome standing a little desolated in the middle of the corridor.

"Ok, we've seen enough, you can come back now." She heard Sesshomaru statically crackle into her ear.

Kagome discreetly raised a hand to shield her mouth as she spoke. "You're going to shut it down?"

"Yes, we're sending a squadron right now - they should be there in an hour."

"And get Inuyasha and everyone else free?" Kagome prodded.

There was a crackle of static but nothing else.

"Uh... could you repeat that?" she whispered quickly.

"No."

That was either a 'no' for I won't repeat that, or a 'no' we're not setting them free. "Sorry?"

"No - we're not setting them free."

Kagome did an emergency stop like an old person, getting in everyone's way at once. She quickly ducked to the side of the corridor before someone got too annoyed and pushed her out the way. "What do you mean you're not setting them free?"

"They're unnatural and illegal. You wanted us to terminate the project - and that's what we're doing." He responded coolly.

They were going to terminate everything... even after all she said about wanting to save Inuyasha.

Her lips turned down at the edges and she ripped the earpiece from her ear and smashed it on the floor with her heel, followed by the camera and the microphone. So much for being the good guys. She seemed to be the only human being with morals in the world right then.

And she was busy forming a plan in her head about how she was going to outwit two government agencies in one night... some serious brain resting would be needed in the morning. She checked her watch. Fifty minutes or so until the cavalry arrived. That gave her just about enough time.

Kagome headed along the corridors, following the signs that directed her towards the isolation block. It wasn't difficult to find Inuyasha since his cell had a plate saying 'Three-Two-Nine-I' on the front. She swiped the lock with the card that Kouga had copied and entered.

Inuyasha's head snapped up at once and Kagome's eyes slipped to the chain and cuffs that strapped to the corner of a cement bunk. "Please tell me you're here to set me free?"

"Well..." She closed the door and looked around for cameras. There weren't any... well... any that were visible anyway. "Actually, I've got a better idea."

Inuyasha sat up on the floor rather quickly. "What could be better than breaking me out of here?"

"The agency I went to just told me that they plan to terminate all the subjects that have been created - including you and Kouga. So I've been thinking..."

He got that worried look.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, I come up with good ideas don't I?" she scolded him. "We wait until the agency come in with guns blazing and I'll be waiting in the control room. The minute they arrive I'll shut down all the locking systems in the cells, releasing all the prisoners. In the confusion, I think a lot of them will escape."

Inuyasha just frowned.

"Say something!" Kagome hissed, annoyed that he seemed reluctant to her idea.

"It might work..."

"It WILL work. It has to." Kagome said firmly. "You stay here, and when the doors unlock, run like the wind, ok?"

"What about you?"

"I'll get out as well."

"I'll come for you."

"Don't play hero."

"Don't play heroine." He retorted.

She was touched by his concern and she smiled. "It'll be fine, you'll see. You can get out of those cuffs on your own right?"

"Um..." he flexed his wrists and bit his lip as he tried to force them apart. There was a squeaking sound as the iron stretched to the point of breaking, then he stopped. "I think so."

"Good... because you'll need to be able to make a run for it the minute those doors open."

"You're a good person, Kagome." He told her quietly. "I hope you realise that."

"I must be. Crazy too if I really believe this is going to work." She smiled as she stroked a hand down the side of his face, it faltered slightly as he leaned into her touch. "I swore I'd never abandon you. I won't."

If she did then the guilt would eat her alive for the rest of her natural life. She wouldn't bear it she knew she'd left Inuyasha in such a hellhole to perish. As she left she heard Inuyasha's words of encouragement. "Good luck."

So then she made her way down to the control room, and after getting lost twice, she found the door was not only secured by a swipe card thing - but by someone behind it.

"Rank, name and serial number please." Someone called as her swipe card failed to open the door.

"Um... Major Kikyo, serial number, eight-four-two-two-five." She rattled off the numbers they'd forced her to memorise.

She was allowed in at last. "Doctor Kurusei wants to see you two in his office." She made up blatantly.

"Who?" both men frowned at her.

"On the first floor?" Kagome contrived to look bewildered. "How can you not know who Dr Kurusei is?"

"Er... of course we know him..." the two young men left in a confused state and she quickly locked the door behind them. She had roughly fifteen minutes before the cavalry arrived... plenty of time to sit tight and figure out how to unlock every door and prison cell in the base.

Kagome puzzled here and there and mulled over the programs before finally deciding she had a rough idea of how to do it... first she had to draw up the electrical blue-print... and then... trash it... and then... run.

Simple.

Except when it was drawing into five minutes left, the door suddenly banged open, crashing against the wall behind it. Kagome spun around and came face to face with a rather angry, disgruntled, and bedraggled looking Kikyo, and behind her was Kouga, looking as usual, a little peeved but tolerant. And behind them both were dozens of the soldiers aiming their weapons at Kagome.

For the first time in her life she had never seen so many guns... aimed at her no less. She was all but flattened against the control panel in an effort to shrink away.

And from behind all those people then came Naraku himself, he stopped beside Kikyo and glared at Kagome with contempt. "I thought I'd given you fair enough warning!"

Kagome didn't have the courage any more to spite him to his face and just stayed quiet, looking at Kouga. He'd been commanded to release Kikyo probably... she didn't blame him for this... not much anyway.

"At times like this I wish I hadn't destroyed my secret camera." Kagome remarked quietly.

Naraku froze and Kikyo's eyebrows drew down.

"What did you say?" Naraku demanded in a low voice.

"I just destroyed my secret camera... and the cavalry from the other agency you're playing mole in will be here in less than five minutes."

"She's lying." Kikyo narrowed her eyes.

"No she's not." Kouga said simply. And his word was good enough for everyone. They all knew he couldn't lie.

Kikyo gaped at Kagome. "This whole institute... what have you done?"

"The right thing for once." Kagome glared at her look-a-like spitefully. "You'll all be going to prison before morning breaks."

Naraku suddenly burst into movement, taking Kagome by surprise and shoving her out of the way of the console. Kagome staggered to a stop beside Kikyo and turned to see what he was doing.

"What are you doing, sir?!" Kikyo demanded, uneasily.

"Setting self-destruct."

"What?" the two girls said in unison.

Naraku's hand slammed down on the return button on the keyboard and the ground trembled below them, while half the screens on the wall went blank. He turned back to his audience and smirked. "Have a nice day."

And with that he swept out the room and was gone from sight. Kikyo reacted quicker than anyone else and ran to the console to try and undo what he had just done. "Shit..."

"What the hell did he do?!" Kagome gaped.

"There are small bombs planted randomly around the institute." Kouga told her slowly. "They're for the self-destruct... he's set them off..."

"The doors are on lock down." Kikyo stepped back from the control panel and folded her arms. "No one can escape."

"But the whole base is about to be engulfed in flames." Kouga growled at her.

"That is my superior's choice," Kikyo snapped back at him coldly. "He must destroy the evidence no matter what... there will be nothing here to find when the other agency arrives in five minutes."

Kagome blatantly shoved Kikyo aside now and tapped furiously away at the keyboard, trying to open all the automatically locked doors. "It needs a password!"

Everyone, including the soldiers who had lowered their weapons by now, looked to Kikyo. Kouga frowned. "Give her the codes."

"I don't know them." Kikyo said lightly.

"But you're second in command!" Kagome cried. "You must know them!"

"Sorry." She didn't sound too sincere there.

Kagome scowled and went back to try and crack the password with all of the codes, passwords and numbers that she'd memorised. But none of them seemed to be working.

Parts of the blueprint map on the screen before her were going red. Even Kagome knew what that meant. "The whole of the basement isolation floor has been destroyed." She looked up at the monitors above her head. "Fires are spreading to the first level..." Inuyasha was in the first level.

"And to the nursery." Kouga commented casually, sliding a look at Kikyo who was glaring at the floor hard.

"Major Kikyo..." Kagome said evenly. "We'll all die if you don't tell us those codes."

Kouga was a little more forceful. "Do you want to die just because you're superior said so?!" he obviously felt less restrained than Kagome.

"And what about you, Kouga? I tell you to sit here and die and you'll do it!" she snapped at him.

"I have no choice-"

"Stop speaking!"

Kouga fell silent at once.

Kagome glared at the older girl angrily. "You HAVE a choice! You can't compare yourself to him! Just tell me the codes and let us out!"

"I can't!"

Kagome had had enough of this cow and waltzed straight up to her and slapped her. Hard. Kikyo's head snapped around, and before she'd even brought it back up she returned the favour to Kagome - so hard that the poor girl staggered back. "Ow..." she hadn't expected her to hit back.

A few of the men in the background were wincing, and probably a few wouldn't have minded a good bitch fight, save for the part that they were all about to die.

"Why not just follow Naraku and escape?" Kikyo sneered, touching her pink cheek softly.

Kagome ignored her own stinging skin and pointed to the screens behind her. "He's not going anywhere - he's just sitting in his office waiting to die."

Everyone looked.

"He intends to go down like a captain on his ship." Kouga remarked.

"Shut up." Kikyo hissed. "We're not going to mutiny!"

"Hey - do you guys want to mutiny and live - or die pointlessly?" Kagome called to the soldiers who shifted uncertainly. She wasn't going to point out just yet that if they did mutiny and live then they would be living in a little cell for the rest of their lives. But no need to turn them off the prospect just yet.

Kagome spared a glance at the surveillance screens and frowned with anxiety. Smoke and flames were beginning to engulf the next level up and she could see the cell doors thumping in their frames as the inhabitants tried to break out. Inuyasha's cell was one of the more furiously pounding doors. And none of them could be freed unless Kikyo spilled the codes.

"You're killing hundreds of humans as well, you know." Kagome turned back to Kikyo. "You're not just destroying the evidence. Have you ever lost anyone you loved."

Kikyo raised her chin and glared at Kagome. "My parents. What of it?"

"Think how many families all these people have... who will all feel the pain you suffered." That was assuming Kikyo even had a heart to care for her parents.

Kikyo's eyes narrowed the slightest bit... something Kagome had said had obviously just struck a nerve. "I lost both my parents."

"So? Losing one family member isn't enough?" Kagome scowled. "Naraku will kill us all if you don't open the locks..."

There was a moments silence before Kikyo stepped up the console, took a deep breath and tapped in a brief code in the message box and pressed enter. There was a short buzzer sound that echoed through the corridors, and at once, every single door on the base with an electric lock came loose. Kagome saw Inuyasha's cell door burst open, along with every other door and a whole flood of people dressed in similar white clothes poured down the corridor towards the exits.

Kagome didn't waste any more time on Kikyo and ran from the control room like every other soldier there. Against better judgement she ran deeper into the base, desperate to find Inuyasha.

"Kagome!"

She turned at once and saw him racing ahead of a stream of other hybrids that looked fairly human save for the odd differences. But it looked like he was running to keep from being trampled.

"Keep moving!" he grabbed her as he flew past and hauled her along as well.

Smoke was beginning to swamp the air, making it difficult to breathe, but they were nearly at the exits now, one more turn and they would all be free. Inuyasha kicked the manually locked doors open with one forceful blow and they all poured out in a flood of white.

Almost at once they were greeted by a sight of flashing lights. The cavalry had arrived at last... and they all looked a bit busy capturing all the scientists and soldiers from the institute to be able to give chase to the rapidly departing hybrids.

Inuyasha was about to take flight with Kagome as well when they both stopped and looked at each other at the same time, realising the same thing at once. "My mom..."

"Go back..." she told him quickly. "Be careful..."

"I will..." he turned to go.

"I love you." It slipped out before she could stop it and she saw him hesitated a moment, but without looking back he plunged on.

Kagome wasn't about to even try and stop him, and seeing as that it would be better if she didn't go after him, she ran as well, shedding the jacket and shoes and unpinning her primly held up hair. No one noticed her escape because they'd already captured the only woman that was supposed to have been on base.





^_^





Despite the smog that was rapidly engulfing the corridors, obscuring his senses, he could still pick up a faint trail that belonged to Yashira... his mother. Why hadn't she escaped like the rest had done? What was keeping her?

He had to weave around the network of corridors, unwillingly running deeper into the base than should have been attempted. The floor beneath him was hot to step on, meaning the floor below must have flames licking the ceiling tiles. It wouldn't be long before they ate through the level divide and broke into the next floor. And if he hadn't found his mother by then... he'd die trying to find her.

He heard someone coughing weakly and followed the sound to a cell door that was locked manually - so it hadn't been affected by the electrical locks that had been sprung. He quickly slid it out the way and threw it open.

"Yasha!"

"Mom - stop wasting time and let's go."

She was about to say something to that since she hadn't been given the chance as of yet to waste time, but he literally picked her up and threw her over his shoulder to carry her out like a carpet.

This time he was going to take a short cut to the exit.

A left turn and then a right turn and he began to smell clean air... through those open glass doors, through that room and out the other side. He went in without a moment's hesitation.

A bit of a mistake.

The moment he entered the room the doors on either end of the room snapped closed automatically and he found himself trapped. The chair at the desk on the other end of the room turned and he was faced with his maker.

"If I don't get out of here alive then neither will you." Naraku said evenly.

Inuyasha lowered his mother to the ground who was busy glaring at Naraku to pay much attention to her son now.

"Open the doors." Inuyasha demanded.

"As if. I have something to tell you first. Something you're going to take to your grave and wish you had never learned." Naraku smiled slowly, creeping Inuyasha out intensely.

"And that would be...?" Inuyasha shifted nervously.

"Inuyasha... I am your father."

His mother made a gagging sound behind him and Inuyasha glared at Naraku with a thoroughly peeved expression. "So?"

Naraku's smirk vanished. "Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"I already knew that, jeez..." Inuyasha sneered at him. "Everyone knows that you are the biological father of every hybrid created. Only because you think you're so fucking perfect. I'm just glad I didn't inherit my taste in clothes from you."

"Thank god you got your looks from my side of the family." His mother added, from the safety behind Inuyasha.

"Still." Naraku shrugged. "You're not going anywhere."

"Oh yeah?"

Inuyasha lunged at Naraku, ignoring the yelp his mother made of surprise and knocked the man to the floor stunning him for a moment. Inuyasha took the opportunity to grab a lamp and his mother and drag them both to the other side of the room. He kicked the doors open, pulled both the lamp and his mother through and then closed the doors carefully behind him, despite them being broken and all.

By now Naraku was up from the floor and could see what Inuyasha was doing, and charged at the doors. But he was too late. Inuyasha slid the length of the tall lamp though the handles of the doors and stepped back at once as Naraku crashed into them from the other side. The doors gave a jolt, but couldn't brake open.

"That won't hold." His mother warned.

"I know..." Inuyasha looked around and spotted a red fire axe in a glass case against the wall. He smashed the glass quickly and added it to the barricade against the door. How an axe would ever prevent a fire of this scale had always been beyond Inuyasha...

"I meant the glass doors." His mother said again.

"They're bullet proof." Inuyasha said simply and looked up to look gazes with Naraku. Suddenly his face broke into a wide grin and he waved cheerfully. "Bye dad!"

"I'll see you in hell, Inu!!" Naraku roared.

"Whatever, let's go mom."

The older woman quietly revelled in the fact that he'd adopted her as his parent so quickly and allowed him to pull her along to the exits.

Naraku was left alone on the base to quietly bake in his office as it grew hotter and hotter as the flames rose through the floors...







(A/N: don't ya just love an ending like that? ^_^ Still another chapter to go though.)