InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Price of Vengeance ❯ Chapter Thirty-Four: Amazing ( Chapter 35 )

Disclaimer: I do not own any of Rumiko Takahashi's characters or stories. This story is for private entertainment purposes only.

A/N: Wow! Forty-seven emails alone! Thank you very much for all the response, and I promise some more Kagome interaction in the next few chapters. I did promise to have this chapter out by Tuesday, and w-e-l-l, it's still Tuesday night, my time...lol. Work caught up with me. :P Special thanks to Vyncent, River, and Shiro Ryu for renewed inspirations, and to Wyldwolfrose for nominating my fic on Savage_Anime_Fanfiction. Whooee! My first nomination ever! Thanks again for all the reviews and inspiration!

Side Note: I think aff.net has kicked the bucket (main server went down). This fic is still being updated on S'Spark (NC17) and ff.net (R-Rated).

Chapter Thirty-Four (Amazing)

Ginta was so tired he was nearly falling over from exhaustion. Koga had sped out of the caverns last night like his tail was on fire, and no one had seen him since. Without their leader's countermanding orders, Ginta had stayed where he was...miserably guarding the manure trenches and desperately trying not to breathe in too much of the awful stench.

The butt of his spear-shaft was sunk into the dirt beside him, and the spear was the only thing propping him up as he blinked wearily at the early mists of dawn. The sun had not yet risen, and the world was written in grey and white shadows around him, everything washed in an other-worldly haze.

Three red-brown wolves had kept him company all night, and even they had abandoned him to go curl up under a tree, their light snores and occasional wuffs of dreaming reflex the only sounds in the silent world around him.

Ginta yawned widely, fang-tips showing as he shook his grey head, trying to fight off sleep. His ears perked slightly when he heard the tentative, first-morning call of a distant bird in the thick forests that bordered the caverns. Blinking, he turned to peer at the grey-green trees, and winced when he caught a hearty whiff of nauseating aroma behind him.

"Egh..." Nose wrinkling, he faced toward the caverns once more, one wrist coming up to rub across his nose and sleep-heavy eyes.

The bird piped twice, trying again to break the early morning fog.

*I hate birds...* Ginta thought, scowling slightly.

"GINTA."

The wolf youkai nearly shot two feet up in the air, before his sunken spear-shaft and his own tight grip on it brought him back down to nearly fall over on adrenaline-shaken legs. Suddenly wide awake, he gaped.

"Koga?"

Koga growled at him, arms crossed and light blue eyes narrowed. Ginta bit his lip, and tried to look casually unconcerned.

"Morning, Koga."

Koga scowled. "Get Hakkaku and some of the others. We're going."

"G-Going?" Ginta blinked red-rimmed eyes, before a huge yawn split his mouth wide open. His hand fisted over it in surprise, and he flushed. Ducking his head at the narrowing of Koga's blue eyes, he mumbled an apology.

"Get going. Tell Hakkaku to bring that damn woman."

Ginta perked up. "You mean Yura?"

"KAGURA, you idiot!"

"S-Sorry, Koga!" Ginta ducked instinctively, but Koga wasn't swinging---yet---this morning.

"Just go!" Koga growled out.

"Y-Yes! Right away!" Knowing with a sinking feeling that getting to sleep was going to be a lost cause, Ginta yanked his spear-butt out of the ground and sped up the rocky incline toward the cave entrance. His three lazy friends, who had raised their heads at Koga's sudden appearance, watched him go, opening their wide jaws in various, unsympathetic yawns before slipping the big furry heads back to their paws and closing their eyes.

*Lucky louts.*

*~*~*~*~*

The jagged end of the purified Shikon shard pressed hard against her tightened fist, and Sango kept her head down as her dragging footsteps took her away from the blood-splattered hanyou behind her and toward the blood-splattered corpse of her brother that lay before. Her eyes were clenched as tightly as her fists, trying to keep the tears at bay. She knew she should turn around and go to InuYasha. He was badly wounded, and confused. He was not the blood-driven inu demon now.

But part of her could not.

She had to do this...had to do this last thing for her brother...

*Kohaku.*

His name was a lost echo in her mind. She had failed him.

And she had chosen.

*InuYasha...*

Even in the darkness of that horrible, cloud-churned night, she could make out the white blur of her brother's empty face. She could see in her mind the wide-opened eyes with their pain-etched fear.

*My poor little brother...I could not protect you.*

Falling to her knees by his side, heedless of the sopping mud that squelched under her legs, she let out a harsh sound, before reaching out one hand---the one not fisted around the Jewel shard---and stroked the cold cheek of the young boy.

Blinking back the fierce sadness that gripped her, her fingers slowly traced the delicate line of his brows, brushing back the wet locks from his forehead in a loving caress before gliding over the opened, blank eyes to close the delicate lids over them in a semblance of sleep.

*May peace come to you now, Kohaku.*

Her hand fell away, and she knew InuYasha was there, beside her.

"Kohaku."

Sango said nothing.

"Sango, what happened?"

Fingers gripped over the Shikon shard, and she said in an incredibly flat, emotionless voice, "Goshinki killed Kohaku. You killed Goshinki."

She could feel his amber eyes resting on her for a long moment, but she could not move from the spot beside her brother. Her eyes stayed focused on the shadowed ground, the wet tangles of her bangs slithering over her forehead and cheeks. Her wrist, wounded by Kohaku's chained scythe, throbbed dully, but she ignored the pain.

She jerked as a strong hand rested for a moment on her bowed head, the claws tangling slightly in her black hair. She froze in place, as a fleeting image of the blood-demon, red eyes glowing and claws dripping, stabbed through the numbness.

The hand was removed, and she raised desperate eyes to watch in confoundment as the hanyou rested those hands, darkened with dried blood, on the clasping claws of the dead Goshinki. Kohaku's body was trapped between those claws, and she, with all of her personal desperation, had not been able to move them.

With a grunt of effort, InuYasha used his enhanced strength to spread the claws that had trapped her brother into death. Brown eyes widened in shock, Sango stared as the hanyou bent over the limp form of her brother, scooping him up like the child he was, and then laying him carefully in front of her.

"InuYasha..." Her whisper was nearly inaudible.

"Couldn't damn well leave him there." InuYasha made a faint try for his normally abrasive demeanor, but the brusque words were lacking their customary bite. With a long sigh of feigned exasperation, InuYasha slid down beside her to sit cross-legged in the mud, neither of them heeding the soggy earth that covered most of them anyway.

Sango turned her head away from his glowing gaze. Even in the darkness of the dissipating storms, she could see the golden flash of his eyes and the silvery-whiteness, streaked with filth, of his long hair. Choked emotion gripped her, and she fought it back, seeking control.

"So what the hell happened?"

Sango just shook her head, unable to form words around the inner battle she was losing with herself.

The bloodied claws extended to her shoulder, and InuYasha's voice was hesitant, almost soft. "Sango?" He could smell the tears that burned behind her closed eyes.

"I...can't..." She shook with the emotions that were burning up and over the tight rein she kept over them.

"Uh...you're not crying are you?" InuYasha's voice had that familiar hint of helpless fear, and she wanted, suddenly, hysterically, to laugh. There was nothing that sent the hanyou running faster than a woman's tears...

The laughter upset the balance, and she ducked her head, a tear falling down her cheek. "I'm...sorry." She said, feeling pathetic and miserable and hating herself and him for seeing her weakness.

A hesitant hand came to pat her awkwardly on the back, in a feeble attempt at comfort.

"Um..." All the awkward hesitation he was feeling was put in that single word.

Something broke inside Sango. Perhaps it was the feeling of something beside her that was living...breathing...CLOSE...

She didn't care, at that moment, what he thought or she thought or how he was going to react, or truly, how she should act. All the raw emotion poured through her, and she turned and flung herself into his arms, the deep sobs of loss and sorrow heaving out of the very heart of her as the tears ran unchecked down her face.

InuYasha blinked in shock, before his arms instinctively came up to cradle her like a pup against him. Confusion and astonishment played tag in his mind, and he clumsily tried to pat her back as she sobbed against him, her tears soaking into the red haori that was damp already from the rain, and stiff from the dried blood of unknown foes.

They were there for some time, Sango's harsh tears giving way to soft heaves, and then to stilled silence. She felt protected, for once, and did not want to let that go. Her head rested against his shoulder, and his arms encircled her, holding her exhausted body up against him. She felt no fear of those claws now, and a sudden memory pierced the fog of her released sorrow.

She was pinned beneath him, unable to move, the blood-red eyes glowing with more than the lust for blood. She saw again as he bared his fangs, and she shivered.

And not from fear...

Lifting her head, she looked at him.

To find him staring down at her.

The night was lightening into the pale indigo and azure of coming dawn, and his features were revealed, the silvery-white gleam of his hair an aura surrounding the darker shadows of his face. The amber glow of his eyes was almost goldened in their intensity, as the concern shifted into something more...

*InuYasha...*

She blushed, uncertain of the feelings that now tumbled through her mind, uneasy with the sudden awareness that he was there, surrounding her in his embrace. His eyes darkened further, as if he too, could suddenly feel their physical proximity.

She closed her eyes, and softly shook her head.

There was too much, too many, between them...

"Sango?" Her name was a wondering whisper on his lips, and she wanted to cry again, feeling as if she had finally reached for something that had always been locked away from her, and that she must not.

*Kagome.*

Kagome loved him, and he loved her. There would never be any other for him. She knew this, and even if her heart bled from the raw wound of that knowledge, then she must be forever wounded.

"I'm sorry." She said softly, head bowed, before she slithered out of his arms and knelt back on her heels. She turned her head away, not wanting him to see her pain, and wrestled to contain the sudden swamp of emotions that filled her. Shaking her head again, she summoned the strength to stand.

To stand alone once more.

The familiar containment of calm purpose was closing in around her, and her hands, slightly shaking, reached for the hilt of her katana, as if seeking the firm hold of the familiar.

Her voice was harsh even to her own ears. "We must go."

"Sango, you..." She could hear him swiftly rise to his feet behind her, and a part of her was amazed at the ability of the hanyou to heal himself.

He was so strong...

She turned to face him, her eyes cold and distant. "I was weak. I apologize. We will not speak of it again."

He seemed to close in on himself, the worry and wonder blanked behind the return of his armor against the world who refused to let him in. "Fine! I'm not the one who was crying all over the place! Let's go then, we've wasted enough time. Damn it, anyway."

That last was said as he looked at the dried blood that stained his claws. He turned his back, and stalked off to find the nearest spring. Sango's mind was too exhausted and numbed to remember where it might lie, but she, too, wished for a bath. She watched him as he disappeared into the forest, the trees darkening as the sky lightened in early morning, her eyes hard even as her heart wept.

Something roared.

She half-drew her sword in pure instinct as she whirled around, dark eyes searching for that ominous sound.

"SANGO!"

Her eyes widened as she saw the flaming trail of the fire-cat descending toward her. Rings tingled faintly on the wind, and the houshi's staff was waved at her as his dark blue and purple robes swirled in the raised wind of the neko's descent.

Kirara roared again, her red eyes glowing warmly, her roar one of glad discovery and smug achievement.

"Miroku! Kirara!" The katana slid home as she freed both arms to wave back at them. She watched as the cream-colored youkai landed, the monk's blue robes rustling into stillness as he stared around the littered battlefield with frank appraisal, brows raised.

"What in all that's holy happened here?"

Sango could only stare at him in numbed exhaustion.

*~*~*~*~*

"She did the most amazing thing. I've never seen anything like it." Miroku gave the purring neko an impressed glance.

Sango yawned, stretching her arms above her head, not really paying attention. InuYasha had grudgingly allowed them a day to rest...some distance away from the disturbed battlefield. Miroku's news that Kagome was at the village under Kaede's watchful eye had pacified him enough---for now---to take at least a day off to recuperate. Kirara's exhaustion had been a telling factor, the neko had been fairly slumped over as much as her mistress after she had transformed back to her smaller form and allowed Sango to cuddle her.

Sango looked half-dead, and InuYasha wasn't much better. Miroku hadn't been able to get much out of either of them, and had had to employ several practical prayers for patience and quite a few meditative maneuvers to keep from drilling the exhausted pair with all the questions that burned in him. Both of them were covered in dirt and blood, and the carnage around them showed that a horrific battle had taken place. His own concern over Sango had been about the small body that lay not far from her.

*Kohaku.*

The poor lad was finally laid to rest, and the houshi had a haunting sense that this was probably the best thing for him, though he would never dream of telling Sango that. The boy had borne too many wounds of the soul to have healed easily from them, and in eternal sleep, he might have found true rest from the nightmares he had lived through.

Yet another notch in the staff to be held over Naraku's accounting.

InuYasha had almost attacked him, earlier, demanding to know where Kagome was, how she was doing, what the hell had happened to them all. Miroku had been patient---thanking the training of old drunken Mushin---and had been sparse with the details. He didn't know what, exactly, to tell the hanyou. Thank the spirits, InuYasha was so tired he was almost falling over, though the stubborn hanyou refused to admit it.

Miroku had had to wait all day long as his friends slept and recovered their strength. Even Kirara, after her amazing transition through time and space, had been a ball of limp fur draped beside her mistress, not even her tails flicking in dreamy reaction as she slept deeper than dreams were allowed to wander...

He had spent the day in quiet contemplation, in carefully wrapping Kohaku's remains and saying a silent benediction over him. As the cloud-stretched day had come to a close, he had searched for dry tinder and started a fire. Having the time, he had even fished in the nearby stream. Not as quick as InuYasha, he was still handy with a hook and line from his own travels between hostels needing a ready demon exorcized for a bed and a meal. The cooking meat had finally aroused the rest of them, and Kirara had even come over to bump his knee with her head, purring, as if she was forgiving him.

Miroku flushed over that thought, and then put it neatly aside.

There was plenty of time for THAT too...

"Is dinner ready yet?" Sango asked him, rubbing a sore spot on her shoulder. The demon slayer was truly a beautiful woman. Too bad she had about as much use for him as the dead fish cooking over the fire.

Miroku pulled the makeshift spit from the fire, and tested one of the fish. "Nearly." He said with distraction as he watched the flames flare and pop as another fish's juices dripped down into it. Putting the first fish back, he settled himself comfortably on bent knees, directing his attention back on the taijiya.

Sango stared at him. "What is it?"

"I am a patient man. I can wait all day, if need be."

Sango frowned. "What is that supposed---"

"Will you tell me, now, what happened over there?" He waved his free hand, bare of beads, toward the general direction of the abandoned battlefield.

The taijiya's face was suddenly blank, an almost emotionless mask. Miroku's brows rose at the girl's sudden reaction to his question.

*Something has happened to change her. Kohaku? No...something more. She is...different.*

Patience was a virtue rewarded---eventually---by the spirits.

In a flat, dull voice, as if she was lecturing, Sango told him in sparse detail of the battle with Goshinki. She did not deny the details, but she kept them simple. Miroku's mouth nearly fell open as she described in a few sentences how they had been attacked by a mind-reading incarnation of Naraku's, how that same incarnation had bit through the Tetsusaiga and BROKEN it. Miroku flicked his eyes upward to the tree above that he knew to hold the hanyou in its limbs, and wondered if InuYasha was hearing this.

He listened with growing amazement as Sango went on to tell of Kohaku's death, and InuYasha's resurrection. A slight stirring rustle in the branches above told him that, if nothing else, the hanyou had heard THAT at least. Sango continued, unheeding of how her flat words were affecting both of them.

*SesshouMaru? HERE?*

He looked around the peaceful forest that surrounded their impromptu campsite, trying to picture the cold Taiyoukai, and failing. The branches above had stilled at the mention of the Lord's name, and Miroku knew that InuYasha was listening intently to Sango's bare description.

*She's not telling me...us...all of it.* Miroku thought to himself, his blue eyes intent on the slayer's closed expression. *How could the Jewel shard not save Kohaku, when it saved InuYasha?*

And the Jewel had saved InuYasha...from himself.

"And then you came." Sango finished, her eyes shifting away from his.

*She's changed.* Miroku wanted to shake his head in sadness. Sango had never been an open book, like Kagome, but the years she had spent with the loving girl from the future had melted---a bit---the shield the proud woman kept over her heart. Now that heart was closed tightly shut once more, the defensive armor thicker than ever. She seemed as hard and steeled as the katana she wore at her side.

Shaking his head, Miroku was startled out of his dark thoughts by the smell of burning fish.

"Eyah!" He grimaced as he tried to grasp one of the spitted fish off the fire, and knocked the wobbly stand made of forked branches into the hungry blaze.

There was a flurry from the branches above, and InuYasha was suddenly crouched beside them, amber eyes glaring at the hapless houshi as the hanyou neatly snagged the burning meat from the delighted flames.

"Damn it, Miroku! Can't you even cook a stupid fish?" InuYasha was back to his old grumpy self.

*Some things never change...*

*~*~*~*~*

*FINALLY.*

Finally they were ready to go back to the village.

Back to Kagome.

They had certainly taken long enough! *Damn humans and their damn frailty.* InuYasha didn't want to admit that he, himself, had needed to rest as much as the taijiya or the neko. He had been a lot more wounded than he cared to admit, and it had taken forever to wash the damn blood off of his claws.

He instinctively shied away from that thought. There was plenty time to think about it later. After they returned to Kaede's.

*And Kagome.*

All three of them---well, four, if you counted Kohaku---were piled on Kirara, and the neko youkai wasn't showing much strain. InuYasha would have preferred taking to the tree-tops by himself while the fire-cat carried the other three, but Miroku had insisted they all ride.

The damn monk had that stupid, mischievous grin on his face, saying that Kirara had a much faster way to travel.

What the hell THAT was supposed to mean was just making InuYasha all the more irritated.

*Stupid houshi.*

"Kirara!" Miroku was calling over Sango's shoulder. The taijiya had Kohaku's body in her arms, her strongly muscled thighs keeping her seat. Miroku, the hentai, was being oh-so-helpful by wrapping his arms around Sango, "to support her" (yeah, right!), and InuYasha was keeping his claws to himself at the tail-end.

The neko rumbled an answer as InuYasha felt the powerful body twist under him.

"Take us to Kagome, three days hence!" Miroku called out, his face spilling into a wide grin.

*What?*

Even Sango rolled her brown eyes back toward the houshi in bewilderment.

The neko only roared, and InuYasha watched in stunned disbelief as the creeping flames that surrounded the youkai's black paws seemed to grow right before his amber eyes. The orange blaze seemed to come up and around them, holding them in a ball of brilliantly trailing fire.

InuYasha felt a sudden lurch, as if a rift had been ripped through time and space. The feeling was more abrupt and familiar than traveling through the Bone-Eater's well to Kagome's time. The well-gate had always felt as if he was flowing in thick air or water, free-falling, so to speak. This was more like a cutting through the dimensional fabric, and it wasn't at all comfortable.

Growling low in his throat, his amber eyes glared at the chuckling houshi, irritated by Miroku's smug reminder.

"Told you Kirara can do the most amazing thing!"