InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Price of Vengeance ❯ Chapter Fifty-Eight: Silence ( Chapter 59 )

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

 

WARNING: Some dark imagery and alluded lime. No one under 17, please!

 

Chapter Fifty-Eight (Silence)

 

Ginta was not in the best of moods. He stared sourly at the crooked path where Hakkaku had waved at him cheerfully, several days before, as he and every other ookami fortunate enough to accompany Lord Koga and his Lady off to battle had disappeared.

 

*Lucky mutts.*

 

While Hakkaku and the others got to go off after Katashi, HE had to be stuck here babysitting the wolf dens and those too weak or old to go off and fight. Koga had thought that he, Ginta, would appreciate being left behind as it was his father who had been so badly hurt by the northern wolves.

 

Like he could do anything for Hideki. He wasn't a healer, and he was sure damn certain he wasn't a nanny.

 

He scowled at the rocky verge where his clan-brothers, excited and bloodthirsty, had all left him. One of his furry companions whined and thumped his tail comfortingly against the dusty knoll on which they stood. Ginta wasn't in the mood to be comforted, though. Tightening his grip around the wooden shaft of his spear, he thought mutinously about all the exciting things everyone else always got to go and do...

 

"OW!"

 

Sniffling, he jerked his left hand from around the wooden haft of his spear and regarded the evil splinter embedded in his palm with a pitiful expression. A bead of scarlet blood---the color of Lady Kagura's eyes---trickled out and he slapped his palm to his mouth, sucking at it, only to drop his spear and dance around howling as his sharp teeth only sent the damn thing deeper.

 

"Ow-ow-ow-ow-OW!!!" He hollered to the uncaring heavens, which hung dark and heavy with thickening clouds, muffling his voluminous wail. His wolf-brothers stirred uneasily and whined uncertainly at him as he blubbered self-piteously.

 

Some of the other wolves---Koga had left most of the four-legged furballs behind to help Ginta guard the dens---had bound up the rocky knoll behind him, coming to investigate why he was making such noise. A grizzled ookami youkai popped his head out of his cave and scowled grimly when he saw where all the racket was coming from. That old fart Nobu had protested Ginta being left behind and in charge, questioning whether the young wolf-brother had enough claws to be trusted with that much responsibility.

 

*Responsibility, ha!*

 

Like guarding a measly pile of old rocks---and he WASN'T talking about the mountainous caverns of their home, either---was THAT much of a BIG DEAL. He glared back at the old wolf and sucked at his palm. A furball came and butted his heavy head against Ginta's calf, and the ookami turned his glare down---

 

And froze.

 

There, on the ground just beneath the wolf's rust-colored paws, was a worm.

 

And not just any worm...

 

Ginta stood frozen as he watched in bewildered horror as the long, slithery brown THING opened its jaws---jaws too big for its head, it was physically impossible but was happening right there before his stunned eyes, as were the rows and rows of sharp, needle-point teeth that accompanied that mouth, or the purple-tinged acid that dripped from its twin-split tongue---and suddenly the shriek burst forth out of his chest as the worm-snake lunged for a rusty-red paw.

 

The wolf jumped back as if shot by an arrow, which barely saved him from a torturous death. The rocky knoll was suddenly in chaos, as barking wolves focused in on the intruder, and Ginta scrambled around milling furry bodies, looking for his spear.

 

The worm-snake drew back and hissed as the wolves cleared a wide circle around it. With unbelievable speed, the worm-snake launched itself at a nearby wolf, and there was a startled yipe from its victim, who tried to bite the tiny creature off of him, to no avail. As acid burned, the wolf howled and collapsed, the worm-snake dropping back down to the pebbled ground and launching at another wolf's cream-furred neck.

 

Unable to find his discarded weapon, Ginta grabbed up the nearest rock and roared a challenge loud enough to wake the dead and even impress Koga. With lightening-fast reflexes, the worm-snake changed direction in mid-air and sped right at the young ookami's face. Ginta barely deflected the arrow of poison with an ineffectual swipe of his claws. The worm-snake lost its momentum with the abrupt change of air-current and fell to the ground, where Ginta promptly squished its head with his handy rock. The long, slender body and tail of the unnatural beast wiggled and contorted with disgusting motions before it stilled and blackened as if burned into ash.

 

Ginta fell back, chest heaving as he took in needed oxygen. The wolves around him milled uncertainly, whining softly.

 

*What WAS that?*

 

A soft whine caused Ginta to focus on the poor wolf who had been bitten by the foul worm. Some of his four-legged friends nosed the poor carcass and wuffed low in the back of their throats in sorrow. One of them raised his pointed nose in the air and took breath to utter the first howl of mourning---

 

Only to be cut off in mid-breath by something that had him yipping in pain.

 

Ginta snarled in sudden rage as he saw the tell-tale brown body of another worm-snake buried in the wolf's shoulder. A chestnut-brown wolf cried out and another yelped and bit furiously at something on his back. Ginta looked down just in time to see yet another of the worms, acidic jaws grinning evilly at him, launch itself from beneath a crevice and aim right for his unprotected leg.

 

Scrambling back, he shouted at the wolves to retreat. The disgusting, nasty little worms were suddenly everywhere. Grabbing up the nearest rocks, Ginta's eyes flashed blood red in fury as he snarled his wolves back away from the evil menace they had no defense from.

 

"BACK! TO THE CAVERNS!" He screamed at them, before smashing his rocks together as gaping, miniscule jaws launched at his face, purple-tinted acid dripping malignantly...

 

*~*~*~*~*

 

"Feeding time." A dark voice purred with a dreamy smile curving across sensual lips as he stared at the swirling image of the carnage that was too come. His dark whisper swept over the empty-eyed girl who held the mirror, as did the deep, dark chuckle that accompanied it with delighted anticipation.

 

*~*~*~*~*

 

Koga waited impatiently for the wolves he had sent scouting ahead to return. Camp had been called for the night, and he had his men stationed in strategic points around the small canyon. It wasn't much---just a small cleft between two craggy upthrusts of rock-run hills---but it blocked the damp, chilling wind that whistled down from the cloudy heights and provided a defensible base in case of attack.

 

He didn't put anything past that traitor, Katashi.

 

*Damn him.*

 

Muscles twitched across wide shoulders. Gods, he hated waiting! But he couldn't DO anything until his wolves came back in the chilly dawn's light with a report on where that walking dog-turd was. They wouldn't even have to get that close...wolves had a keen sense of smell, and that reeking, unwashed pile of northern fish-eaters could be sniffed out long before they were ever sighted.

 

His head jerked up as his sharp hearing picked up the sound of a loose bit of gravel clicking down the twisting trace of a path on the rocky slopes of the left-facing hill. The heavy clouds were just lightening in the east, heralding the dawn of the new day, but the shadows were still thick across the creek-crossed valley.

 

Koga relaxed his tensed muscles when he saw the first tail-waving wolf scrambling down the steep path and into the valley. He had ordered the scouting party to keep it quiet, emphasizing his order with a fierce scowl and hearty growl of promised retribution to any wolf who dared to break his edict. He watched ice-eyed as the first wolf was followed by a second, and a third, until the scouting party was over the lip of the hill and fish-tailing it down the path towards him.

 

His word was law, and the wolves kept their usual vocal return to a flurry of body shakes and eager tongue swipes. Koga knelt down to scratch a few ears and suffer their excitement before growling them to silence. He wuffed low in his throat at the lead wolf, a giant male who's creamy fur faded into a rich red-mahogany around his back and face. Yellow eyes alight, the wolf woofed back, his growls low and muffled. Koga nodded sharply, and the wolf wrinkled his lips back in a tooth-hidden grin, allowing a long pink tongue to loll out when Koga praised him with a special scratch across the wide shoulders.

 

Kagura was suddenly there, beside him, her red eyes glowing slightly as the silent question in her mind brushed across his. She could not understand the wolves as an ookami youkai could, but Koga's feral grin, a match for the wolf who stood beside him, spoke volumes.

 

"They are near." She said quietly.

 

"Over that cliff and two hills beyond." Koga nodded toward the eastern edge of rock.

 

"We will meet them?" Kagura raised a thin brow. Koga nodded again, more for the benefit of the watching wolf-brothers who had awakened and gathered around their leader and what word he would have of the impending battle.

 

Kagura's answering smile was as feral as any wolf's as she said simply, "Good."

 

*~*~*~*~*

 

There was a gurgling cry from the darkness, and Ginta wept a curse as he felt one of his youkai brothers fall. Smashing his rocks together, he flattened a worm-snake into ash before taking aim at another. They ran, stumbling and falling, from the caverns, the foul snakes behind them and before them, trying desperately to break free of the very caverns that had always sheltered them.

 

The tiny, acid-biting worms were everywhere they turned, and as many as were squished by rocks or sliced by sharp claws were felt against furred hide or youkai skin, their tiny jaws bringing immediate, painful death.

 

Something grazed his shoulder, and Ginta howled in anger. An almost casual swipe of his left-handed rock smashed the disgusting worm into the craggy wall with a squishy splat. A furry body slid past him and growled when another worm-snake was spied slithering up the rock-face. Weak, wintry daylight peeked into the cave-mouth and the loud roar of his anger covered the ringing screams of rage and howls of pain as the ragged remains of the eastern wolf-tribe stumbled into the wide cave-mouth that opened onto the splashing waterfall that thundered its descent down the mountain-side.

 

Ginta's breath came in harsh heaves as he smashed the slithering worm-snake in front of him before it could launch itself for his throat. His shoulder burned where acid had touched it, and his right arm began to feel numb. He ignored it, and forced both of his sweaty palms to curl tightly around the rocks that had proved the only real defense against the nasty little bastards.

 

He barked an order at the lead wolf, whose furry red-brown body vanished through the waterfall and scrambled up the outer face of the rocky cliff. Standing guard, Ginta aimed his rocks and struck with deadly precision at any worms that came into his view. Wolf-brothers, both two-legged and four, scrambled for the pitiful promise of escape just behind him.

 

His ordered retreat to the caverns had been their downfall. They could not see the worms in the darker caves and the foul-mouthed attacks of the worm youkai had left his brothers screaming their agony to the dusty rocks behind them. Ginta wanted to drop to his knees in despair and desperation, but he kept a tight hold of his rocks and snarled his bitter rage at the wriggling, deadly worms that followed the wolf clan's flight from the dens.

 

A pained yelp had Ginta scrambling forward and he killed the worm as it killed the brown wolf caught beneath its jaws. The last of the youkai, bearing the sick and helpless on their young and stronger shoulders, crowded past him in a tangled knot. The terror that stared back out of wide eyes at the young, grey-haired ookami made his throat tighten in sorrow. Wolves surrounded them, sacrificing their own lives to protect their brothers, burdened and slowed by the infirm they carried on their backs. Ginta's attention jerked back toward the darkness, where faint movement hinted at the slithering death that followed them.

 

"GO!" He roared at his brothers, snarling the wolves away who would have stayed by his side. He was in charge of them, he had led them inside the dark caves to their death, and he would see them out and to the false sense of freedom that awaited them outside and up the mountain. The worms would eventually reach them, up there on the open mountain-top, and there would be no escape for any of them. But he meant to kill as many as he could before he, too, was brought down by needle-teethed jaws hungry for his death.

 

Ginta's roar of despairing rage bounced off the rocks as he leapt for the darkness that waited to engulf him.

 

*~*~*~*~*

 

"KOGA!"

 

The sound echoed off of the creek-crossed canyon walls that surrounded him and his men as they tramped through it, and Koga's sharp ears could not pinpoint exactly where that yell came from. Turning his head sharply to the left and right, Koga suddenly had a startling thought from Kagura that had him throwing his head up---

 

And diving out of the way barely in time as the thickened dust-cloud above him resolved itself into Katashi's forceful thrust to the ground. Broken rocks and scattered dust swirled around the northern ookami, hiding his form but not cloaking the obnoxiously loud, mocking laugh that jeered Koga from the midst of the dust-cloud.

 

As the dust settled, Katashi's voice boomed out a taunt calculated to inflame the eastern wolf lord. "You're getting slow, Koga, in your old age!"

 

"Ookami dog!" Koga snarled back. "You could never keep up with me!" He lowered the shielding arm he had raised to keep the irritating dust from his eyes and the icy blue gaze narrowed as the dust dissipated and Katashi's brace-legged stance was revealed.

 

Yellow eyes glinted and the northern youkai's fangs appeared. "We'll just see if you can keep up with ME, easterner!"

 

With those words, Katashi leapt forward, and Koga froze for a second at the incredible speed with which the ookami came at him. The northern dog seemed to have springs built into his legs.

 

Koga dove to the right, growling in impatient anger at what he felt was a retreat, as the grey ookami's fist came flying out of nowhere to strike out at him. He dodged the first blow, and whipped under the second. Katashi smelled like fish and sweat and dirt and Koga's sensitive nose curled. *Northern filth!*

 

That northern filth had touched one of his clan, had dared to lays hands on that old crack-tooth Hideki, and left the old healer for dead. Even worse, that northern filth had thought to touch his Kagura, had even dared to lay hands on her, not once, but TWICE. The anger built and smouldered inside of him, and Koga's right hand burned with the power of his rage. Clenching his claws into a power-filled fist, he let out a yell of snarling fury as he struck out at the ookami dog.

 

Katashi's sneering grin froze into a scream of outraged pain as Koga's fist connected with his left shoulder in a glancing blow. The northern ookami had fallen back from the attack to avoid it, and Koga's flaring white fist had only brushed across his shoulder. But that was enough to splinter the bone under the feathering impact, and the northern ookami howled with pain-filled fury at the blow that had Koga grinning like a fool.

 

"HA!"

 

*~*~*~*~*

 

Hakkaku bounced on his toes, his muscles tensed and his mood anxious. He watched jealously as his wolf-brothers slowly fanned out, their weapons held at the ready, and blood-thirsty grins splitting their eager expressions for the battle to come.

 

He had a somewhat better view of the eastern slopes of the left-facing, craggy hill, and he could see the grey-colored bodies of the northerners creeping down it. A northern ookami stood up, waving a fist at the eastern warriors, and a lean grey wolf jumped to a crest of up-thrusting rock to howl eerily.

 

An answering growl of simmering rage from the waiting eastern tribe answered the grey wolf's challenging cry. There was a sudden moment of tense stillness, and then the world erupted into a roaring clamor of confrontation as the northern ookami sprang to life.

 

Snarls rent the air as red wolf and grey snapped and circled each other, grinning jaws seeking the soft throats of their enemies. Yelping howls raised by the wounded made a disharmonious accompaniment to the deeper shouts of their youkai brothers, as steel clanged against steel and claws tore and fangs bit. Rock-dust rose to engulf the embattling ookami, and Hakkaku strained to see what was happening from his upper position.

 

He cast a quick glance back at the Lady Kagura, whom he was guarding, and saw that her blood-red eyes seemed unfocused and distant. To the far left, he could sense Koga and Katashi baiting and circling each other, each seeking an opening to strike. He felt a stab of concern as the Lady Kagura, sitting almost relaxed on her flat stone of rock, tensed and shuddered. Her eyes were deep pools of crimson and seemed to glow faintly.

 

Hakkaku glanced back at the fighting clans, and flinched as he saw a northern youkai stab his sword through the heart of one of his brothers. Three eastern wolves, their color undeterminable from this distance, leapt at the northern warrior as he shouted his triumph. The pitch of his voice turned into surprised agony as serrated jaws latched onto his sword-arm, and the grey ookami fell beneath the snapping vengeance of the eastern wolves' wrath.

 

Hakkaku grinned, wishing he was out there with his brothers, feeling the blood burst from the hearts of his enemies, as his claws curled tightly around the haft of his spear. The blood began to seep into his eyes, and he growled unconsciously as the primal desires of a demon's nature swirled through him, until he almost trembling with the eagerness to join the fight below.

 

He jumped as a small sound behind him broke through the red haze of blood-anger, and he whirled around, his mouth falling open in surprise as the Lady Kagura, eyes still unfocused and unseeing, stiffened with a small hiss on her bloodless lips.

 

“Lady?” He asked tentatively, and shivered suddenly as a bone-chilling breeze ruffled the fur bands on his armor...

 

*~*~*~*~*

 

The deep red eyes were unfocused as Kagura sat, protected somewhat by shielding rocks and the young ookami who guarded her, and allowed her senses to expand. In the back of her mind, she could feel the elation of her mate as he scored a hit on Katashi. For a moment, she saw through Koga's icy eyes as Katashi jumped back with incredible speed and agility.

 

She could feel her---Koga's---eyes widen as the northerner came back at him, surprising them both by leaping from rocky projection to boulder-strewn cliff of the craggy hills that overhung the narrow valley where they fought. At first, Kagura was bewildered by the northerner's seemingly stupid moves---

 

*Has that brazen fool lost his mind?*

 

---but then she bit back a hiss as Katashi swung a heavy kick at a boulder, knocking it over so that it fell with a crash far to the valley below---and barely two feet from where Koga snarled in response.

 

Kagura called out a warning with her mental voice, and Koga sent her back a growling rejoinder. A shadow loomed from above, and Koga barely managed to dive out of the way before a veritable shower of rocks and cracked stone rained down on him as Katashi mocked him from a safe distance atop the hill he had just kicked apart with his powerful feet.

 

~DAMN him!~

 

Kagura felt the harsh growl rumbling in Koga's throat as if it were her own.

 

*Too close.* She was getting too close. The deep anger that was rising in Koga's mind, making his eyes spark as blood-red as her own natural crimson, threatened to surround her and pull her strength in with his as his youkai nature dragged in all of his furious demonic energy to direct it solely at the eastern wolf who was his enemy.

 

Kagura forced herself away, realizing that Koga would not know if he sapped her strength with his and that there was something else tugging at her consciousness...something that nagged at her with faint familiarity, something that just felt WRONG...

 

*~*~*~*~*

 

A faint, whispering thrum of sound crept under the dull roar of fighting ookami and youkai. Steel rang and teeth bit into flesh, the howls of the dying mixing with the snarls of the striving. Sweat dripped into curling palms, making weapons slick as warriors grimly held on. Dust rose to choke eyes and mouth, and the smell of blood, metallic and overwhelming, lay over everything else. A howling scream was cut off for all time, and another took up where the first left off.

 

Panting wolves, fur flecked with the blood of their enemies and their own, laid back their ears at the sudden, high-pitched frequency that had them pause and whine. Grey wolf and red-brown shook their heads as if they could get rid of that hideous noise, and their youkai brothers froze as their own sensitive ears caught the searing note.

 

It was a warning siren of doom, and the sudden rumble of thousands of tiny insects' wings beating the air supported it. A northern ookami, his sword raised up to deal a blow to the eastern youkai who crouched in the dirt in front of him, spear raised in defense, stopped in mid-motion, and his eyes widened, the blood seeping from them in surprise.

 

The eastern ookami turned his head to stare, and the youkai warrior paled, the blood of rage dissolving from his own eyes. He had seen those black-and-yellow bugs before...

 

And they were coming.

 

*~*~*~*~*

 

The pain was unimaginable.

 

Koga stared down in numbed surprise as the claws withdrew from his stomach. For a moment, nothing seemed to happen, and then all of a sudden the pain hit him like a thunderbolt as the blood splashed out to cover his shuddering body.

 

Katashi laughed, taunting the eastern lord with how easy it had been to stab through his guts. Koga's fists clenched as the pain dragged him to his knees. The air thundered in his ears, and he felt as if each breath was a sword thrust through his lungs. He knew that several of his ribs were broken, and that one knee was dislocated under the jarring impact of Katashi's kicked rocks.

 

“You are a worthless dog, Koga!” Katashi spat at him, circling the wounded youkai with an almost careless show of ease. Koga refused to watch the posturing dog as Katashi ran around and around like an idiot, almost skipping, as he laughed like one sotted with wine.

 

The foul dog-turd had unbelievable speed, and after the first strike of Koga's fist against the dog's shoulder, Katashi had never allowed him close enough to inflict another. At first, the dirty little bastard had been content to kick the very rocks apart, sending them showering around Koga so that he had to spend all his time jumping out of the way of impending flattening. But finally the obnoxious jerk had tired of the game, and decided to bait Koga with the incredible speed the damn ookami wielded.

 

Katashi had used the power in his legs to dance in and out, striking with his claws or with his powerful feet until Koga crouched on his swollen knees in the dirt, his heart's blood seeping out with his entrails from Katashi's claws digging through his skin and tearing his stomach open.

 

And he could not strike back...the stinking little turd was too fast for even Koga's powerful fists.

 

Katashi circled him like a mad thing, chortling and deriding him, relishing the eastern wolf's pain and slow death. “I now have the power of YOUR Jewel shards, Koga, and I'm going to KILL you with them!”

 

Koga snarled, unable to speak for the furious rage that burned in him. That stinking dog was using the inherent power of the splintered Shikon no Tama as he, Koga, had. THAT was where the foul beast had gotten his speed and power, THAT was how he had beaten him, Koga, to the blood-splattered earth...

 

But he, Koga, was not going to allow that foul shit-eater from the north to deal the final blow unanswered. He was dying as he breathed, but he was going to take that stinking dog with him into Hell!

 

Katashi, dust rising from the trail of his passage, leapt up into the air, the power of the Shikon shards thrust into his legs granting him the force to jump high. His toothy grin was malicious as his furred legs dove back to the earth, intent on using his Jewel-enhanced power to bury Koga into the very ground.

 

Koga waited for death, the pain burning in him so that he could not move. His eyes glowed bloody, impotent rage boiling through him. His claws spasmed as he tried to curl them, to do anything to stop the arching fall of that stinking dog, but the pain was too strong, too THERE, too real. A damp wind was rising, chilling him with the knowledge that he could do nothing, and it made him clench his teeth in rage at himself.

 

And then, from one moment to the next, it seemed as if something was thrown over the pain, taking it away, and Koga was free to move.

 

“DIE, EASTERN DOG!!!”

 

Koga looked up...and smiled.

 

*~*~*~*~*

 

Something pushed at her mind, and Kagura concentrated on finding the cause. Ignoring the dull roar of battle that screamed around her, even ignoring the blood-seething rage of her mate that roared across the back of her mind as he was thwarted by Katashi's Jewel-enhanced speed, she sought out that small kernel of knowledge---

 

And froze as realization swamped over her.

 

*Saimyousho!*

 

Their presence was a dark cloud of menace as they raced across the rock-ridden hills, intent on reaching the bloody scene of battle, and raining destruction on both parties. Their aim was simple...death for all ookami, and the capture of both Jewel shards and herself. She could sense the dark madness of Naraku's essence urging them on in the insects' appointed task, and she fled in terror from the slight brush of her awareness against the shadow of her dark creator's.

 

“No...” She moaned aloud, aware now that it had all been a trap, a mere plot of the dark hanyou to bring the ookami tribes of the north and east to ruin, and to capture the shards of the Shikon no Tama that Koga had had in his possession.

 

Rage bubbled up inside of her, rage at the dark deviousness of Naraku's twisted mind. He had had the Jewel fragments in his possession---he need not have sent Katashi back with them to try and kill Koga. It was but the kumo's evil nature and love of torture and ruin that had given him the notion to have the ookami clans fight, distracting them, as he sent his insects of Hell to destroy them utterly and collect what he thought of as his.

 

“No!” Kagura's eyes glowed crimson fire. She would not allow that foul filth to sacrifice her family on the altar of his dark lust for power and pain. She, Kagura of the Wind, would not allow it!

 

The grey clouds that hovered above shifted, and a chilling breeze, burdened with the damp ice of the upper reaches, blew across the silent battlefield, ruffling the hair of wolf and youkai, kissing the skin of the kneeling ookami lord who awaited his death with raging anger, and making him smile as it took his pain from him.

 

Hakkaku stepped back, calling her name nervously, but Kagura was too enwrapped in calling forth the very seed who had given birth to her essence. She had called them forth once before, and had been nearly dragged into their (essence) in sacrifice.

 

She did not fear death for herself. But for them, her family, her brothers, her clan, she would sacrifice everything.

 

Even life.

 

Rising unsteadily to her feet, Kagura raised her trembling arms to the uncaring heavens. Her eyes glowed with the blood of vengeance and devotion, and the long tangles of her black hair streamed down her small body as she called across the craggy hills.

 

“WIND!”

 

And was answered...

 

*~*~*~*~*

 

The pain no longer overwhelmed and froze him into immobility, and Koga's rage narrowed on one goal.

 

Digging his own sharp claws through Katashi's tough hide and removing his still beating heart as the wolf screamed out his torment to the uncaring heavens...

 

Koga waited for the last moment, and dove out of the way as Katashi's feet burrowed deep into the ground, sinking the eastern youkai to the thighs in the very rock.

 

Katashi's scream of denial echoed across the hills, and Koga bared his fangs in a pitiless smile. Katashi had miscalculated, and he struggled to free himself from the embedded rock as Koga rose slowly to his feet. The blue of his icy eyes was gone, instead the bloody glow of promised death lit their depths. Koga stalked his prey, his claws extending to sharp daggers of intent, and Katashi paled as he realized Death neared him.

 

“WIND!”

 

Koga froze, and the crimson glitter of vengeance dissolved from his eyes as he realized just WHO had flung that single word across the dusty rocks and broken earth. The mating mark at the juncture of his neck and shoulder burned, and he sought suddenly, fiercely, for the mind-link to his mate.

 

“KAGURA!”

 

The cry was ripped from his throat as he felt Kagura's awareness torn from his. Where their souls had been linked through the marks of their mating, he could now only feel a maelstrom of whirling rage and destruction...the echo of the Winds' force as Kagura's awareness sunk into it, joining her soul to her nature.

 

“You're allowing your little bitch to distract you, Koga!” Katashi snarled, having used Koga's inattention to free himself from the earth. His fanged grin was malicious, and he raised a fur-clad leg, intending to crack the very ground open and swallow the eastern lord whole.

 

Koga's growl was lost in the sudden roar of avenging wind that swirled across the narrow valley. Angry shouts turned into ones of fright as embattling ookami were suddenly picked up and flung aside. The distant drone of insect wings was drowned out as the Wind swamped through them, sending Hell's children cresting back like a tidal wave of darkness, cleansing the air of their malign presence.

 

And still the wind howled for Vengeance...

 

Katashi's face froze in a stunned look of horror as the Winds whirled around him like a tornado and sucked him up off of the stone as if he weighed nothing. The northern ookami screamed in agonized incredulity as the white winds tumbled him like a leaf, flinging him to the rocks below and then picking him back up to send him hurling across the valley, to smash him like a rag-doll under their roaring anger. With a final shove, they tossed the howling youkai away over the hills with almost casual contempt, and the northern lord's last scream was abruptly silenced as he disappeared over the crag-toothed hills.

 

Koga watched in disbelief, and he felt the rage rising up from the back of his mind to claim him, too. Kagura had called forth the Winds, and their uncaring destruction would suck her into them as they claimed her soul as payment. He could sense, barely, a thread of the kaze youkai's mind touching his, and he knew, suddenly, that she was willing to give herself to save them all.

 

“NO!” He shouted with a hoarse voice, bitter that she would

DARE to sacrifice herself as if she meant NOTHING.

 

*Damn you, you kaze bitch!*

 

He felt a faint sense of answering laughter, as if Kagura's soul kissed across his, and then started to withdraw into the very whirl of raging wind.

 

~Ours! She...us...we...together...~

 

He heard the multiple whispers of the Wind, claiming the kaze youkai as their own, and he howled to the sky in rage and denial.

 

“NO!!!”

 

He would not let that damn bitch go. She was HIS, damn it, and he would never allow her to leave him...

 

Gathering what strength he could, Koga leapt into the embrace of the winds that tore across the valley, knowing that SHE would not let him be flung to his death as Katashi had. Calling forth all the power within him, Koga snarled as the white flaring energies of his own demonic aura flared around him like a blazing star, channeled into a single demand.

 

“JOIN ME!”

 

The Wind stilled, and Koga used that single moment of time to twist them and bind them to him forever.

 

They were one.

 

And they would live.

 

Suddenly, the wind seemed trapped inside of him, overwhelming his mind, and he felt it sucking at his very soul, seeking to claim it as they would claim his mate's. But a barrier was thrown across him, and he could sense the irritation of Kagura's mind returning to him, and welcomed it with opened claws.

 

~Stupid wolf! You would sacrifice yourself to save me...~

 

~Damn witch! I only do as you would do...~

 

And then their individual awareness and bickering were lost, as they joined together, shielding each other from the Winds that swirled around them, harnessing their power under the shield of twined determination. Slowly, ever so slowly, the Winds receded beneath their combined strength, until the valley lay quiet once more.

 

Stilled into silence.