InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Price of Vengeance ❯ Chapter Nine: Broken ( Chapter 10 )

A/N: WARNING! DARK IMAGERY!!! If you are under the age of 17, do not read this chapter.

Chapter Nine (Broken)

The Jewel never ceased to mesmerize him. The beautiful deadly colors that sang from it---the deep magenta of sunset, the bright fuchsia of anger, the pink of a spring blossom, the palest blush on a maiden's cheek---they all enthralled him. The facets sparkled deep within the nearly-completed Shikon with their own light. THIS was the key to ultimate power, and rarely did it take such a beautiful form. The dark lord could stare at the Jewel for hours, idly dreaming of its vast, untapped potential.

The dark hanyou was startled from his enjoyable contemplation by a purple-black miasma that erupted in the center of his shadowed room. Red eyes narrowing angrily, he waited as the swirl of purple-pierced blackness condensed and fell away, revealing the broken, naked woman that laid huddled on the tatami matted floor.

The female youkai was curled into a fetal position, gasps of pain shuddering through the cringing form. Long tangles of wavy black hair barely covered pasty white skin. Singed and burned raw in various places, none of the recent wounds could match the distinctive spider mark burned into her back. Normally sharp claws were torn off at the tips, and she bled sullenly in places where she had been lacerated. The limp awkwardness of some of her extremities showed that her delicate bones had been fractured in many spots.

"Kagura."

The voice sent a deep shudder through the woman. A single tear slipped out of one tightly closed eye as she tried to curl away from that awful voice.

The dark lord smiled at the wind youkai's terror. Terror was an aphrodisiac to the dark hanyou. He relished it like a fine wine---studying the dark layers of pain with an eye to its beauty, smelling the delicate aroma of aroused fear, tasting the delicious fright in all its pain and helplessness. Terror was erotic.

He wondered idly if he should take the female youkai here and now. Her broken body, so helpless to move, might prove more entertaining than the times he had commanded her to lie with him, her angry defiance controlled by the clutch of her heart in his hand. Her pain and terror as he took her now, helpless and broken, might alleviate some of his anger at her failure.

But no. Sexual gratification could be gotten anywhere. Any pitiful peasant girl, brought to the heights of terror by judicious use of pain and threat, could assuage his dark lust. Lying with the broken youkai would be like lying with the dead. And there was only one corpse he would ever consider taking to his bed, and she, in her cold contempt, was still---as yet---unattainable.

Long moments of silence stretched on, as the dark hanyou studied the broken youkai cowering on the tatami mats. Finally, the terrified woman could stand it no more, and opened frightened red eyes to stare at the shadowed form of her Master.

The hanyou Naraku was deadly, but mesmerizing. His beauty was dark and threatening. Thick black hair tumbled in sensuous curls down his back and a well-muscled chest was revealed by the casual openness of his purple robes. The white fur of a baboon's skin draped his lower body like the swirl of a frothy wave. Narrow red eyes regarded the woman coldly.

"You have failed me. Again."

The eyes closed tightly, another tear following the track of the first down her pale cheek.

"You are useless to me now. You have lost your control on the winds." The dark lord flicked a hand at the wind youkai's empty, burnt fingers. The purifying wave that had attacked the Wind Sorceress had split her fan in two. Kagura flinched in remembered pain. When the fan broke, she had felt as is she herself was splitting apart. The fan had been as much of her incarnation as she herself had been. Without it, she was powerless.

"I should kill you." The hanyou looked at the nearly-completed Shikon no Tama that he clutched in one hand. The woman shuddered, unable to speak as fear clutched her soul.

A nasty smile curved the sensuous lips. "No..." The dark lord said thoughtfully. "That would be too easy."

A slight whimper from the broken youkai made Naraku laugh softly, a sensual sound that sent chills down the woman's back as she lay defenseless before him.

"Naraku..." She whispered, the pitiful plea an opiate to the dark lord. He stood up, allowing the white furs to slither down and pool on the floor beneath him. Idly turning the Jewel in one hand, he studied the broken woman for long moments, contemplating the perfect punishment for her ineptitude. Time and again, he had given the Wind Sorceress chances to dispose of the worthless dog hanyou and his ningen allies, and time and again she had failed.

Naraku lifted his other hand, and a red glow suffused the palm. He could not resist squeezing the heart of his incarnation, relishing the feel of his power over the youkai. The woman screamed, a faint wisp of sound, as pain coursed through her broken, burnt body.

The hanyou laughed, his eyes brightening with lust at the pain. "What if I was to return your heart to you, Kagura?" He asked casually, stepping closer to the white body. Kneeling beside the broken sorceress, he waved the glowing essence of her heart above her, taunting.

The youkai opened her eyes, tears sparkling like jeweled diamonds in the ruby depths.

"Beautiful..." Naraku breathed in the smell of her fear.

"Please..." The woman shuddered in pitiful terror.

"Do you know what you are asking for, Kagura?" The voice wrapped itself around her. Smirking, the dark lord opened his palm, allowing the red essence of the woman's heart to spill gently around the wind youkai. The pulsing red mist fell slowly toward the broken body, and then sunk into the white skin, vanishing as it touched the youkai. For a moment, the form was still, and then the faint throb of a heartbeat shuddered through her.

A breath of pitiful gratitude turned into a gasp of pain as another heartbeat throbbed through the broken woman. "Naraku!" The woman whispered hoarsely in pain, eyes closed tight as shudders racked the burnt body.

"Stupid sorceress." Naraku smiled. "You are now whole, but what does that gain you? You now know the true pain of your injuries and defeat. By rights, you should have died in the purifying wave of that ningen girl, and yet you lived, because I held your heart in my hand. I shielded you from certain death. But now you have back what you have so long sought. Is it as wonderful as you always dreamed, Kagura?"

The awful voice was as soft as a lover's kiss, and as poisonous as a snake bite. The woman could only gasp with sobs as pain throbbed through every inch of her body. Every fractured bone, every spot burnt raw by the sacred wave tingled with vibrant agony, the pain twice as powerful as before. Each beat of her heart, long denied her, sent pain coursing through her blood in renewed torment.

The dark lord watched the woman's suffering with delight. He couldn't resist running a clawed hand over her naked form, pressing here and there to send more pain to clench the writhing sorceress. He caressed the pale cheek of her face with the gentlest of touches, relishing the wetness of her tears on his fingers. Smiling softly, he dragged one sharpened claw tip down her cheek. A hoarse, choked scream followed the drag of his poisonous claw. The faint hiss as her red blood hit the purple-black drops of his poison was sensuous to the dark hanyou's ears.

The broken woman writhed in pain beneath him, and Naraku felt his desire rising. Perhaps the pathetic youkai would be pleasurable after all. He could torture the little sorceress for hours, dragging each helpless scream from her with infinite patience and care. But even as the red in his eyes grew hotter with lust, the pitiful woman shuddered, gasping, and fainted from the pain.

Disgusted, Naraku stood up. Glaring at the unconscious woman with contempt, he wondered spitefully what to do with the useless youkai. She was too damaged to ever be of any more use to him---not that she had ever done anything but fail him. Even his carefully laid plan to trap the wolf-demons had backfired due to her ineptitude. Weeks of careful planning had come to naught. He had expended more energy on creating the poisonously fake jewel shard that was to have destroyed Koga, the wolf tribe's young leader, than he ever had for any of the other Jewel shards. And because of Kagura's failure, the bitter wolf youkai now hunted for his blood.

And hers.

A slow smile curved the full lips as a delightfully vicious thought flowered in his mind. A most fitting punishment for the inept little sorceress.

Raising his empty hand, he flicked drops of her blood from his claws. Black vapor, streaked with sharp purple and dull grey, started to mist from his palm. The twisting miasma engulfed the unconscious youkai, lifting the white, naked body to dangle brokenly in front of him. Tangles of wavy black hair swirled with the moving mists, cloaking the scarred cheek one moment and then twisting away the next.

"A most fitting punishment, Kagura." The velvety voice caressed the unconscious woman. The miasma condensed and firmed, covering the white form in moving shadow, ready to disappear and take the wind youkai where the dark lord wished. White fangs flashed in a delighted smile. "I shall give the wolf-man what he wants."

"You."

*~*~*~*~*

"What is this, Miroku?" Sango demanded, scanning the yellow-green glow that surrounded them. Kirara was growling furiously beneath her, and Sango absently patted the hovering neko-youkai.

The houshi waved his staff defensively at the barrier. The poisonous green mists had swirled over them, and he had been certain that they would be obliterated as it engulfed them. But the vapor had solidified into a bubble around them instead, effectively imprisoning them within.

"I have never seen it's like." Miroku replied grimly, scowling at the glowing green shield.

"It's like a spirit ward." The taijiya glanced around her. "Except it's keeping us in and away from our friends."

"A spirit shield..." Miroku looked thoughtful. The rings on his staff chimed as it abruptly stilled in his hand. Sango gave him an impatient glare. While he sat there thinking, their friends could be dying out there!

Kirara rumbled encouragement to her mistress, and the monk's head shot up, eyes bright. "I got it!"

"You can break the shield?" Sango asked eagerly.

"We need to create pressure inside the shield. Something to make it burst. On our own, I don't think we could do it. But if Kirara could..." Miroku's words were lost as the youkai roared to life. Fire flared from her paws, as she ran in a crazy, tight circle inside the barrier. Sango sunk her hands into the neko's fur, and Miroku took the chance to hang onto Sango. Even he couldn't linger on the thought of finally being able to hold the beautiful slayer as his hold tightened in the rising speed of the furious youkai.

The rising wind of their movement beat at them, and the air pressure grew tight. The monk felt faint with the wild gyrations of the neko.

*Maybe this wasn't such a good idea!*

Even as he prayed grimly, there was a loud vacuum of force, and the green glow around them exploded into pinpoints of light. The neko yowled her triumph, and soared out of the dissipating mist. Miroku gasped for air, laying his head tiredly on Sango's back. His arms were wrapped tightly around her waist, and he felt the rise and fall of her own rapid breaths.

*What a perfect opportunity!*

Blue eyes brightening, one of his hands casually crept upwards...

"HENTAI!" Sango's shout was only surpassed by his yelp of pain as her hand cracked on his cheek.

*~*~*~*~*

"Sango! Miroku!" Shippo waved desperately form a tree top below them. Why could they not see him? Desperately, dashing tears from his eyes, he cried out to the neko, whose hearing was sharper than the ningen. "KIRARA! Help! I'm over here!"

The big cat's ears twitched, and she abruptly changed direction. Miroku fell against Sango at the abrupt turn. The taijiya broke off her quelling glare at the monk as she spied the small kitsune below.

"Shippo!" She called, a dark feeling of foreboding welling in her throat. Why was Shippo up in a tree? Why wasn't he with Kagome? Where WAS Kagome? And InuYasha? And---chilling most of all---SesshouMaru? Scanning the skies and ground around her, she laid hand to her sword, wishing she had her Hiraikotsu. She had been able to fling it at the Taiyoukai seconds before his green shield had cut her and Miroku off.

*I hope I wounded the arrogant dog.* Sango reflected, surprised at the viciousness of her own thought. It could account for the Lord's disappearance. But what about Kagome? And InuYasha? Her last sight of the hanyou had been as a swath of trees, torn up by the inu youkai, buried him in their rubble. But she couldn't even see the pile of trees anymore. Instead, the split logs seemed to be spread in an explosion around the cleared area, meaning InuYasha had escaped. But to where?

Kirara swept alongside the tree that held Shippo, and the boy jumped into Sango's arms. He was crying, sobbing incoherently into her shirt as he desperately held onto her. She tried to pet the trembling little fox as she nudged Kirara to take them down. The cat was growing tired, and they weren't seeing anything helpful from the air.

Miroku tried to placate the sobbing kit. "Calm down, Shippo! Tell us what happened. Where is Kagome and InuYasha?"

The cub cried harder, and Sango hugged him tightly. The neko rumbled at the kitsune, but he refused to be comforted or calm down. Sango had never seen the little boy so despondent. The dark foreboding again rose in her soul, even as she tried to soothe the little youkai.

Kirara settled to the forest floor, and Miroku slid off her back. The rings on his staff jangled together as he swept to the the side with shock. "InuYasha!"

Sango's head shot up, and she stared at the red-robed hanyou as he emerged from the shadowed trees. She held Shippo tightly, her heart beating wildly at the look of utter defeat and loss on the hanyou's face. The kitsune's loud sobs had quieted to choked sniffles of exhaustion, and the silence between the friends drew out for a long breath.

"Kagome..." Sango whispered. The flash of the hanyou's amber eyes told her the story before the silver-white hair fell forward to hide his features as he bowed his head, shoulders slumped in defeat. Never had Sango seen the impetuous half-demon so lost and broken. Her heart clenched in her chest, and her faint whisper was lost on the sudden wind that howled around them.

"Oh, InuYasha..."