InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Price of Vengeance ❯ Chapter Fifty: Hell's Children ( Chapter 51 )

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, etc. Rumiko Takahashi does. (Lucky lady.)

A/N: Gomen for the wait. Special thanks to Vyncent and Fairia13 for your continued help and inspiration. Vyncent inspired the battle in the later part of the chapter, much to my surprised delight, and it is thanks to her that a whole new twist has been put in this little story. I'm working on the next chapter now, and should be catching up on my emails tonight. Take care, and thank you for the reviews!

WARNING: DARK IMAGERY.

Chapter Fifty (Hell's Children)

"Damn! Don't you EVER shut up?"

She just stared at him with those big red eyes he could drown in...damn her...and her mind, for once, was quiet.

Too quiet.

He scowled at her. "Now you're just seething."

~Ungracious lout.~

"MUST you call me names in my HEAD?" Gods, he had a headache. That damn---

~Don't you dare call me a witch, mongrel!~

*MONGREL!*

That damn---FEMALE---was getting on his last nerves. He had always thought that one of her---FEW---good qualities was that she kept her damn pretty mouth shut, holding completely understandable conversations with those rubied orbs of hers, which told a lot more about what she was feeling than she could ever know.

~You are annoying me.~ She sent him.

Gods, she was a chatterbox!

*And YOU are annoying ME.* He snarled back.

She shrugged, her eyes glinting. ~You marked me.~

"And you marked ME." Damn it all.

Their marks, touched by their united auras, blazed white fire at each other, reaffirming the bond between them.

They were, suddenly, of one mind, and he grinned at her, wolfishly, and she blushed, but the sparkle in her eyes wasn't with annoyance, but with something more ardent. Both reached for the other at the same time, their thoughts kissing across each other's with embered desire. As their minds entwined and burned, their arms embraced and their mouths sealed the passion between them.

Gods, she was hot.

She was growling at him, and he enjoyed it. Immensely.

*Kami, that's sexy....*

He tensed suddenly, hearing a slight, tussling noise in the enshrouding brush. She stilled as well, the reddening glow of her ardor dissolving into the chilling awareness that they were not alone.

It was his turn to growl, and her lips left his. She bared her fangs slightly, and he mentally grinned at the annoyance now directed at the intruder, and not him. Gods, she was ready to defend him, her mate. He could sense the slight motion of her claws curling, her back stiffening, her eyes narrowing.

Damn, he liked that.

~Pay attention, wolf.~ She snapped at him, but he could feel the warm surprise underneath the sharp thought...she was pleased by his smug pride in her.

Another stir in leafy brambles, and his thoughts immediately snapped into defense. His murmured rumble turned into a louder sound, a warning and a threat.

A head popped through the bushes---a white spiked head with a guileless smile. "Koga?"

Hakkaku, damn him.

Koga let out a grunt of impatience. "What?"

Another head popped out, this one grey and black. Ginta.

"Hey, Koga."

Koga was going to throttle the both of them. A hint of amusement---sent by Kagura---whispered across his mind, and he suddenly realized that they were both completely naked and that Hakkaku and Ginta were staring at them, wide-eyed with interest.

"I knew you would do it!" Ginta grinned.

Koga's blue eyes narrowed. "What. Do. You. Want."

"Er..." Hakkaku flushed, and the bush rattled angrily as he fished for something tangled in the branches. Browning leaves hissed in agitation and cloth tore sharply as Hakkaku thrust a bundle of white fabric out. Koga stared at the embarrassed ookami. Four lines scratched across the wolf-brother's reddened cheek stood out sharply.

"Somehow...heh...I woke up with this..." Hakkaku couldn't flush any brighter, it should have been a physical impossibility, but he did.

Kagura gracefully twisted around Koga's braced crouch, and neatly nipped it out of the ookami's claws. With a swirl of white fabric (and small shower of small twigs and leaves), the kaze youkai had her yukata firmly sashed around her trim waist.

Koga glared. What in all the forsaken hells was HAKKAKU doing with Kagura's robe?

Blue ice flared into fire.

Five furry heads popped out of the concealing brush, panting tongues lolling out as yellow eyes rolled across the clearing. One of the four-legged brothers got a good look at Koga, yelped, and was gone.

No fools, the others vanished with a scrambling of clicking claws in the dirt and a shower of brown leaves. Ginta and Hakkaku exchanged wary looks, blushed at Kagura's amusement, froze at Koga's deepening growl, and did one of the smartest things they had ever done.

They fled.

*~*~*~*~*

Blinking against the sudden piercing light of the rising sun that shot across the top of the desk, blurring the timeworn words on the parchment in front of him, SesshouMaru was brought out of his focused concentration. Stirring slightly, he eased the tension of his shoulders, idly watching the dust motes that danced under the sun's light and realized, finally, how weary he was.

*Has the night passed already?*

One pointed ear twitched, catching the faint sounds of the stirring day. The strange jabbering speech of this land made him wince slightly as his sensitive hearing caught the harsh cries of one peasant berating another. Their speech was far different from the soft sibilance of his own country, and suddenly, acutely, he felt the absence of the familiar from around him.

Pushing the parchment away from him, he stood up and combed his claws through the long fall of silvery-white hair that tangled down his back. Pausing to extinguish the rather smelly candle that had dripped wax over the base of its iron holder and hardened onto the scarred surface of the desk, he strode to the half-opened window that had let in the early sunlight to disturb him from his search.

Looking out upon the dirty streets of this far-off village, the ningen peasants with their strange, jabbering language and their stranger mannerisms, he sought, in his mind, the memory of a more soothing vista...one beheld from any side of his castle in the mountains of home.

*I have been away five months now. I should return. There is not much more than I can gleam from these articles.*

If he was honest with himself, truly honest, seeking out the scant bits of knowledge that would aid him in what he wished to understand had only been an excuse.

*I, feared Taiyoukai of the West, have been hiding. And from a mere scrap of a girl, a child in years to me, and a weak ningen at that.*

She was hardly weak, this ningen.

Reincarnated miko from the future who had carried the Shikon no Tama in her very body, a true Guardian of the Jewel. No, Kagome was hardly a weak creature.

But she made him weak. Or rather, she was his weakness.

*I am tired, that is all.* Cynically, he scoffed at the idea that his thoughts had presented to him.

Turning from the scene framed by the shuttered window that should have been familiar to him now after nearly three months spent in this cold monastery, but was not, he came to a decision. *I will rest this day, and then return home. I am weary of finding no answers to questions that now seem pointless somehow.*

Staring at the various parchments and dusty tombs that littered every available surface of the small, stoned cell that had been given over for his use by the elderly youkai abbot who had once been a friend of his father's, he was struck by the very single-mindedness that had consumed him, the denial that he sought of what had come to pass. He was not usually so abnegating of the truth. Acceptance had finally come to him in this dawn's early light. With a final thought, he turned away from the symbol of his denial and embraced reality.

He could no longer deny his need for the girl. It would be foolish to do so.

::MINE...::

*Enough. What is, is. It is time to return home.*

*~*~*~*~*

Although no one would believe it, Miroku could be subtle at times. At least, he could try to be subtle. But when certain young ladies were not in a perceptive mood for subtlety, then hinting at anything and beating around the bush wasn't worth the time and patience it took.

*Well, hell.*

Look at him. Pathetic. He was resorting to obscenities, damn it.

Sighing, he stared morosely at his lap, mentally telling himself that he might as well give it up, or resort to a quick dunking in freezing water. Koharu wasn't perceiving his physical discomfort at all.

In fact, she was too busy sewing little garments for the coming baby to even notice his sorry condition. He felt like a heel, the girl had enough burdens---namely, his kid---and he shouldn't worry her with his, uh, little problem.

Except, he had never been little.

And what, normally, would be a minor irritation had turned into quite a frustration. Koharu wanted him to cuddle her every night, and he liked that as much as she did. But whereas it was comforting to her, and she slept like a babe in his arms, he was the one wide awake breathing in her womanly scent and fighting the urges of his weaker flesh.

Sigh.

"Miroku?"

He glanced up, blue eyes meeting the concern in her mild brown ones.

"Are you all right?"

*No.*

"Yes."

"You look tense."

Sigh.

Forcing a smile, he leaned over and tickled his fingers under her chin. She giggled---oh, gods, that giggle---and batted his hand away with her own. The firelight lit across her face, emphasizing the curve of her delicate cheek and the full roundness of her breasts. His deeply blue eyes darkened further, his want clear to see, all subtlety forsaken. But Koharu wasn't perceptive to his frank hunger. In fact, she was already bending her head, and attention, back to the sewing in her lap.

Sigh.

Her lips parted, teeth flashing momentarily as she neatly snipped the end of an over-long thread between them. His eyes were riveted to her mouth. A pink tongue poked out as she industriously re-threaded the needle in her fingers.

Miroku abruptly stood up.

Koharu looked up, startled, but he was already out of the hut, his walk firm and quick.

Kami, where in all of the forsaken hells was that freezing water?

*~*~*~*~*

The slight rattle of a disturbed pebble at the entrance to his cave made him turn around sharply, his eyes flashing red for a moment before his ookami blood cooled upon recognition and he scowled at the intruder.

*Damn northerners.*

"What?" Hideki grumbled, thoughts on the flaky fish he had prepared over the fire for his noon-day meal. Stupid northern wolves, always interrupting at the most inopportune times...

The mangy wolf-brother's weaselly eyes darted around the small cavern and fastened on the tasty morsel all wrapped up in tastier herbs, just waiting patiently for the old healer's mouth to complete the recipe of enjoyment.

The stupid whelp had the gall to look hungry, even licking his chops like Hideki might have compassion enough to fork over his lunch.

*Ha! The young scamp can catch his own.*

"WELL?" Hideki was out of patience with the stupid brute.

The northern youkai wouldn't meet his eyes. "Um...you're needed. Katashi---"

"Katashi's been hurt?" Hideki's eyes glowed.

At the northerner's glum nod, Hideki grinned, feeling extremely expansive, his mood lightening considerably.

"Badly hurt?" He prodded, delighted by the infinite possibilities in that thought.

The northerner cut a quick nod, avoiding the old healer's eyes. Hideki didn't care, though. He was suddenly in a really, really good mood. Grabbing up the small bag of his medicinals, he didn't even mind that his beautiful fish would be cold by the time he came back to eat it.

He was in such a good mood, he started humming a raunchy song as he pulled the small furry pouch where he had hidden the two Jewel shards Koga had given him at the start of the Gathering down from their hook on the wall. Unwinding the leather thong that necklaced the small pouch, he pulled it over his grizzled head and patted it reassuringly. He wouldn't let these little treasures out of his sight.

He even slapped the little northern ookami on his mangy grey back, making the wolf-boy stagger under the force of his friendly blow. Gods, he felt great. That arrogant ass had had his comeuppance, and if Katashi was laid up, that meant that Koga and Kagura were marked and mated, and all was well with the world...

"C'mon, puppy." Hideki chortled at the staggering ookami. "Take me to Katashi, and let's see what---if anything---I can do for him."

The northerner ducked under another friendly back-slap, and darted out of the cavern, Hideki's off-key voice humming right behind him.

*~*~*~*~*

They had spent the night wrapped in each other's arms, the slow exchange of searching looks and soft kisses a wonder to them both. But with the morning came the realization that their idyll was short. The thought lay between them, unspoken and yet there.

They must return, and soon.

InuYasha raised his head from where it rested against the midnight-softness of Sango's hair, a yawn breaking through as the curving muscles of his back twitched and flexed with awakening awareness. Golden amber glanced over the shadow-ridden hut and the question popped out of his mouth before he could stop to think about it.

"Where's Kirara?" InuYasha asked, puzzled.

"Kirara?" Sango started guiltily.

He chuckled slightly as the taijiya raised her head, her eyes concerned as she scanned the empty shadows of the hut. Dawn had come edging across the sky, the faint touch of the sun a pale glow around the edges of the bamboo curtain that shielded the doorway. He could hear the first piping call of a bird in the distance, and his nostrils expanded, taking in the early dew that touched the browning landscape outside, and the closer warmth of the girl wrapped in his arms.

He couldn't help nuzzling the side of her exposed neck, the mussed tangles of her black hair swept aside as she turned her head to look for her missing neko. Goose-bumps trailed across her delicate skin, and he kissed them as her body shivered in his. He rested his chin against the curve of her shoulder, his eyes a deeper golden than the sunlight peeking through the cracks in the shuttered windows. He could hold her like this forever...

Sango stirred in his arms, distracted. Much to his chagrin, she was not distracted by him, but by her sudden realization that she had not seen Kirara since yesterday afternoon, when the neko had been curled up in the sun and flicked her black-tipped tails at her as she passed by, taking her Hiraikotsu to challenge InuYasha to a match. The remembrance of the results of that match made her blush, but she was already unwinding herself from InuYasha's arms.

He wanted to keep her there, his head bent against hers as he just took in how comfortingly close she was to him, but he was still tentative, uncertain and doubting. He released her immediately, his gruff defense against rejection already bricked into place. Scowling, he glared at the empty room.

*Stupid cat.*

Why had he asked that stupid question anyway?

Sango could be downright single-minded at times, and he tried not to feel hurt when she didn't even cast a look back at him, but was already pulling the bamboo aside to hurry out of the hut to go look for the damn furball.

Damn it, anyway.

There was no help for it. Jumping limberly to his feet, he stalked after the taijiya, muttering under his breath about neko nuisances.

*~*~*~*~*

Stars that glimmered and twinkled against the night's sky were blackened by the horde of whirling insects that ascended and fanned out, seeking the faint, glowing luminance that marked the Taiyoukai's tiny allies. The whirr of their wings was an ominous, thundering sound that struck terror in the uncomprehending minds of peasant ningen below them, who huddled in their beds, praying to their various gods to protect them behind closed doors from the evil presence that lurked outside in the night.

The insects of Hell spread out across the face of the known world, seeking the tell-tale light of the delicate youkai who had been sent by the spider-servant of the inu Lord to find and warn him. Directed by the dark hanyou they called Master, they set about their task with a single-minded purpose: destruction.

The diminutive youkai were scattered, their pale glow of white and yellow auras seen as tiny, mirrored stars captured against the rolling lands that unfolded before the evil horde of Saimyousho. Hell's children, none dared interfere with their intent. The few who spied them, thinking to nab easy prey, for food or for merely the pleasure of killing, were quickly overcome, the very number of stinging insects overwhelming the petty fools who tried to stop them. If one insect died, there were dozens of others to surround the aggressor, turning predator into prey. The agonized screams of the dying youkai or animal as they sought escape from Hell's avenging children was an eerie call of pure terror, warning of approaching doom in the chilling depths of the night.

The airy butterflies, their beauty ethereal and delicately transparent, were singled and seperate, most of them scattering on the winds of the earth, searching for their missing Lord. Their very separation would be their downfall, as the Saimyousho would converge on each and every one in superior numbers, ensuring their torturous demise. Spying the first of the tiny lighted creatures, the evil horde seperated and spread out, the loud buzzing of their arrival overwhelming the small sounds of the night, the throbbing thunder of their whirling wings accompanied only by the red glow of bloody intent crimsoning their eyes, which brightened as they converged on the first of the unknowing youkai.

Their speed was unmatched, and the delicate, airy wings of the butterflies stood no chance against the darting grasp of the Saimyousho. The pale yellow and pearly glow of the first to die where swamped by the black aura of their malevolence, as the first of the tiny allies were surrounded and struck. The wisping scream of the initial victims made the bloody glow in the Saimyousho's eyes flare and heighten, as if the butterflies' very death was an aphrodisiac to them and gave them strength. Delicate wings beat desperately against the grasping claws of the evil insects, seeking futilely for freedom and release as they were encircled and stung, their pale glowing light flashing into radiant brilliance one last time and then fading as their crushed, pain-wracked bodies were tossed aside.

The whispers of their dying spread out, as the insects overtook more and more of the tiny messengers. The screams of the slain called to the others, who burned with a fierce glitter, their luminance taken from the very stars above, so that it seemed the night was lit by small strands of solitary lightening. Fury spread from ally to ally, their minds united by their youkai blood. The ones who were fastest, their wings brightest, were sent ahead, as the others stayed to defend them, distracting the evil horde in a last, desperate attempt. Word must reach the Taiyoukai at all costs, and the ones who stayed behind knew that they were merely a diversion, that their deaths were imminent and unavoidable.

By twos and threes they joined together, their glow illuminating into pale fire as they converged. Solitary butterflies, singing their friends' loss and sacrifice in an eerie song of angered sadness in a frequency too high to be heard by human ears, streaked on ahead into the chilling night. The ominous buzzing of the Saimyousho spread out, seeking to silence that beautifully ethereal and heart-torn song. Red eyes thirsted for blood, the faint yellow stripes on their black and violet bodies standing out as they amassed on the defenders. Poison dripped from stingers, claws chittered together and mandibles clicked in agitation as the others fled before the defending line of angry allies.

Black clouds of seething menace, they swarmed down on their easy prey, their contempt for the dainty butterfly youkai glistening in their red eyes. Paltry in number, the defenders would be easily overcome, their sacrifice nothing as the ones they sought to defend and allow escape were tracked down and killed, one by one, as decreed by their Master. None would survive.

They taunted their prey, the loud whirr of their wings and the hungry chittering of their evil cry increasing in malicious volume. Clustering together in tightly knit groups, they arched across the sky and arrowed down on their prey in a thunderous roar.

Desperation lent strength, and the butterflies left as sacrifice illuminated their fierce courage in a pale blaze of starlit anger. Delicate wings beat in fury, their soundless call of battle the last song of their dying, valiant hearts. Spreading wide their airy wings, they waited the oncoming death with grim determination. Brightening in anger, their own silent song reached a fevered pitch as the insects surrounded them on all sides, grasping their more delicate bodies in hard claws. Red eyes flashed, poison struck, and the futile struggles were trapped beneath stronger bodies and chitened armor.

They seemed easily subdued, but their evident weakness was not what it appeared. Drawing the Saimyousho in, the butterflies paid with their lives to inflict the most damage they could. Brightly glowing lights expanded as small forms writhed in torment, as delicate, fluttering wings were stripped off of struggling bodies and poison spasmed across the screaming youkai in the painful throes of death, their light condensed to white and yellow fire, becoming smaller and tighter around each tiny ally. With the last of their strength, the tiny globes of compressed light exploded, the last dying scream of triumph, not despair.

Sparks flew in all directions as the small forms were crushed beneath the ravaging hordes of the dark hanyou, Naraku. Startled by the sudden flash of lights as the tiny butterflies burst into sparkling showers, mimicking pinpoints of flaring starlight, the Saimyousho did not realize their danger. Drawing closer into the glittering explosions to destroy that final light, they ignored the tiny sparklets as if they were nothing, residual of a dying youkai. But as the glittering sparks touched wing, chiten, or claw, they embered and ignited, creeping over each insect they touched with a ghostly fire. That fire could not be rid, no matter how each insect buzzed and whirred and dove trying to put it out. It crept over them, consuming wing and claw and body in a slow agony of torturous, unending pain. The angry buzz grew into a screaming agony as countless Saimyousho were thus consumed, the surprise and terror of the dying having no effect on their brethren, who lingered, just out of touch by the fire of the dying butterflies.

Hundreds of insects were devoured in that final ghostly fire, their brethren untouched by the tormented screams of the dying. Hell's children had no pity, even for their own. They simply waited, hovering silently with eyes glowing crimson against the furious storm of ghostly fire that consumed their brethren. When the last dying scream was silenced, and the last fire-wrapped body fell in shrieking torment to the earth below, the Saimyousho turned as one, and stretched out their senses.

Speeding away in all directions were more of the butterfly youkai who they had been sent to destroy. Few in number, and filled with the despairing knowledge that their sacrificed companions had only been a diversion, they would be easily overwhelmed.

And easily destroyed.