InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Strategist, the Leader, the Infiltrator and the Suicide ❯ The Legacy ( Chapter 3 )

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Legacy

 

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Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.

 

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“Sesshoumaru?” Kagome asked him.

 

“He's coming!” With one leap, Inuyasha disappeared from the vicinity.

 

Kagome watched him leave. She was battling in her inside. It seemed as if the hanyou was in danger or was about to be in danger. She didn't want to meddle with his problem, but her conscience was tugging on her.

 

“Go if you have to,” Kazuhiko whispered softly, his eyes closed.

 

“I don't have to. Neither do I want to.” Kagome dropped her body beside him.

 

“Go, you know you like him.”

 

Kagome started. She almost sputtered her next words, “I certainly don't! That boy is the most impolite, weird-looking, abusive creature I have ever met!”

 

Kazuhiko smiled. “Sounds like you're already considered him as a friend.” She huffed. He opened his eyes and turned to her. “Go, I'll wait here so long.”

 

“You promise you won't help me?” Kagome asked him tentatively. He nodded.

 

“But you understand that I still have to—?” once again she asked him. He heavily nodded this time. Kagome pressed a finger to the side of his neck, and instantly he fell into unconsciousness.

 

She brushed the side of his face tenderly. After giving him a quick but tender kiss to his cheek, she left to find Inuyasha.

 

~*~

 

Once she got to Inuyasha, she saw that he was climbing through a portal, so she followed him inside.

 

“Stupid girl! What are you doing here!?” Inuyasha yelled at her when she caught up with him. And she almost left him then and there. But then she looked into her surroundings; bones and skulls were scattered all over the place. Trying hard to keep the fear out of her voice she questioned him, “Where the hell are we?”

 

Inuyasha growled over her choice of words. “Show some respect, we're in my father's tomb.”

 

“Your father's tomb! Are you saying that between these bones lie the bones of your father!?”

 

“No. I'll show you where he is.” A bird of bones suddenly appeared. They climbed into its back, and the bird took them to a giant skeleton.

 

“It's his skeleton.”

 

Kagome could only watch in wonder. “It's big.”

 

“It's the bone of his true youkai form. He was once a taiyoukai. My father had reined over the western land of Japan. But now Sesshoumaru is the lord of the western land.” Inuyasha's expression was unreadable, but his tone was weaker with every word he uttered.

 

“So, this Sesshoumaru is your brother?” Kagome asked softly.

 

“Half-brother!” He snarled at her. Seeing her stunned expression, he dropped his head and whispered silently, “Half-brother…”

 

“I see… does it have anything to do with the fact that he ruled over your father's land and you're not?” Kagome asked him again carefully.

 

“Keh, none of your business, wench.” He turned away from her and headed into the skeleton.

 

This time Kagome didn't feel like scolding him.

 

~*~

 

Inside the cave a demon reached for a katana that was stuck in a stone table, but before he could touch it, electricity crackled around the hilt. He was rejected by the energy of the sword. The youkai narrowed his eyes in displeasure. Though his beautiful face still remained expressionless, a dangerous aura was visible in the surroundings.

 

Suddenly he pulled his upper body elegantly backward. His long, silver white hair flew on each sides of him, caused by his movement.

 

Inuyasha's attack was easily dodged, and he fell down on the floor hard.

 

“Temper, little brother, temper, it doesn't go well with lack of skill.” His cold voice rang out in the air. Though every bit of his words dripped with sarcasm, Kagome couldn't help but shiver hearing his clear and yet deep tone.

 

Sesshoumaru sniffed the air lightly, and he turned to face her. “Another girlfriend of yours?” His gaze followed her intensely. Suddenly Kagome had to fight the urge to blush over his scrutinizing eyes, but she quickly snapped out of her embarrassment when she realized what he had just said.

 

“No, but I thought you would fill that post better than me.” Kagome commented while she was throwing a glance at his whole appearance. `One beautiful guy and he just had to be a cross dresser.' She threw a quick glance at his pelt. `A cross dresser with a fashion-victim tendency, that is just great.'

 

Sesshoumaru's eyes immediately sparkled with suppressed amusement while Inuyasha was too cataleptic to even hear her. The taiyoukai stepped closer to her, and Kagome immediately positioned herself in a fighting stance, eliciting almost an amused chuckle from him.

 

But before Sesshoumaru could reach her, he was stopped short by his hanyou brother, who was once again on his feet to charge at him. But his attack was once again ineffective. Sesshoumaru was too strong and fast for him. Again, Inuyasha's claws were scraping the dirt.

 

Sesshoumaru was about to comment on his brother's stupidity when he felt a cracking pain on his back. The shock and the impact of the attack were causing him a slight dizziness. With surprised eyes, he spun around to face his attacker, and that was when Kagome struck his jaw with all the strength she could gather in her fist.

 

Inuyasha, who had witnessed the small scene, could only gape at her when she rushed to his side to help him to his feet. Kagome yanked at his hand forcefully. “Don't just lie there and stare at me! He could be on his feet anytime now!”

 

Inuyasha grabbed her hand to steady himself. When he was finally standing firm on his feet, he caught her wincing slightly, and then a whiff of blood surrounded his sensitive nose. He looked down at her hand and saw blood appearing slightly on her damaged knuckles.

 

“Stupid wench! Why didn't you say anything!?” He gripped her hand and brought it to his face, examining it carefully. Kagome looked at him, a little bemused at his conduct. “And what are you going to do about it? Nurse me —”

 

She stopped short when she saw him licking at her wounds. She immediately yanked her hand back and pulled a disgusted face at him. “Eew! Warn me if you're going to do that!”

“Ungrateful bitch! I was only closing your wounds!” He snarled at her, surprised when she pulled away her hand.

 

“Okay! Thank you, you brute! Just get what you need to have from this place and let's get out of here! Oh great! He's recovering now!” Kagome rambled nervously as she watched Sesshoumaru slowly stood up and turned around to face them.

 

Sesshoumaru was livid, but he didn't allow his anger to show in his face. He looked at the girl, who stood next to his brother, and narrowed his eyes at her. “Attacking an opponent from behind? The most famous human art, I heard.”

 

“Yes, only that you're not actually my opponent, you're his. And I wouldn't call that an attack. I was merely trying to get to the other side, and you were in the way.” Kagome mustered an innocent look on her face while Inuyasha was staring at her as if she had suddenly lost her mind.

 

Sesshoumaru was silent for a moment, and then he turned his gaze at his brother and gave him a sneering glance. “Does your wench always talk this much, Inuyasha?”

 

“Enough of this, you bastard! You're not going anywhere with that sword, Sesshoumaru, because it's for me! Father trusted it to me. The only thing that he truly treasured in his life, he gave to me. You should at least respect his last wish.”

 

“And give you a powerful legacy that you'd probably use for cleaning your toe-nails? I don't think so, dear brother. Father might not know how undeserving you are, but I'm here to correct the mistakes he made in the past.”

 

“Maybe it's time for you to accept the fact whom father had truly cared for, brother,” Inuyasha said mockingly. For a moment he was undeniably satisfied to see his brother's anger at his words. He had finally managed to touch him, hurt him like he had innumerably hurt him before.

 

Sesshoumaru didn't waste his time lashing his toxic whip in their direction, and Kagome, who had expected his attack, pulled out her katana. As soon as it appeared the katana extended tenth its size. Its blade, when looked from afar was like a long broad chain, but actually this whip-like weapon was many small separated pieces of the blade, strung with an almost invisible strong thread. Kagome's blade-whip caught the toxic whip before it headed towards their direction. It slung against another like vines until the toxic whip dispersed into rain of flames.

 

Inuyasha watched as the ground beneath them withered under the toxic assault. A burned, acid smell covered the whole area of the battle.

 

Kagome still held her stance; she didn't dare to take her eyes away from this enemy. She had an instinct that the villain was dangerous. Sesshoumaru, on the other hand, was for the very first time in his life surprised to see his failed attack. He locked eyes with the girl and was further surprised to see the look of determination and cold detachment in her eyes. She was no regular girl. He had seen this look before. It was the look that many men had had before they made their final attack, to kill and die or nothing at all.

 

Suddenly her expression changed; a pained grimace replaced her cold look, and she coughed up blood.

 

“Kagome!” Inuyasha's eyes widened. “It's the toxic acid!” Inuyasha rushed to her side as he gazed at her worriedly.

 

Kagome wiped the smeared blood from her mouth. “Is it deadly?” she asked Inuyasha without taking her eyes off Sesshoumaru.

 

“Not at first,” Inuyasha said softly. “It's suffocating in the beginning, and then a surge of blood rushes to your brain until you couldn't stand the pressure and literally,” he added morbidly, “Explode.”

 

“Speaking from experience, aren't you?” Kagome coughed up more blood and wiped it again with the back of her hand. She glanced at her opponent. “O, look, my present condition delighted him.” Sesshoumaru's face remained expressionless. Inuyasha looked harder to see if he had missed something. “I didn't see anything.”

 

“You have to feel his happy aura.” More blood. “He's about to attack. Inuyasha, you go fetch your sword while I —”

 

“Uh-uh.” Inuyasha shook his head. “I'm taking you out of this place.”

 

Kagome ignored him and dashed up towards Sesshoumaru.

 

“Stupid, stubborn girl!” Inuyasha ran up to her.

 

“I've never seen a human who anticipates his death so much as you do.” Sesshoumaru dodged the attack of her katana.

 

“Remember this, human. For one attack that you executed to this Sesshoumaru, I would return hundreds back.” Suddenly Sesshoumaru disappeared from Kagome's line of vicinity. But trained as a soldier her whole life, she managed to intercept Sesshoumaru's surprise attack until she realized that it was a feint. And the next thing she knew, a deep gash on her left arm began to throb painfully.

 

She didn't scream nor did she flinch as she felt the slicing pain. Ignoring her wounds, she wasted no time as she made a lunge at him. Moving in a speed that was indistinguishable to the normal eyes, she appeared suddenly behind Sesshoumaru from above. Sensing her presence, he turned swiftly around and stepped back to avoid the slung charge of her chain-like katana and utterly missing to notice the right-handed swipe from a small blade that coming out of her sleeve. The thin blade managed to cut the skin under his left eye.

 

For a moment Sesshoumaru was shocked to find the girl managed to touch him, but his surprise lasted only for a second as he realized that the girl was no longer in the area of his vision. As the seconds passed, he began to detect that sensing his opponent's presence was getting more difficult as if the girl had suddenly suppress her aura; this was not usual from a mortal opponent.

 

Kagome watched from a small hiding, waiting to execute a new ambush.

 

The trickle of the blood on his left cheek became stronger. Normally such cut would close itself immediately due to his rapid healing ability, and yet now, as if adding to his injury, there was a slight drowsiness that made his movements seemed heavier.

 

Knowing that the tranquilizer, coating the blade, had worked, Kagome charged towards him from above. She whipped down her chain-like katana and caught him on his shoulder. Sesshoumaru grabbed the part of the blade with the end of it still embedded in his right shoulder and pulled it to him, ignoring the sharpness of the blade that threatened to sever his fingers.

 

Kagome was for a moment surprised by his strength. The tranquilizer on the blade was allegedly strong enough for ten men, and Sesshoumaru was supposed to be completely anesthetized by now, but her opponent was far from neutralized. In a moment of surprise she was pulled down to the ground; the material of her clothes burned against the still active acid on the soil.

 

Sesshoumaru relentlessly pulled on the katana so that Kagome was dragged towards him by the force of the pull, scraping the front of her body against the acidic ground. He spotted her hand holding the small blade and stepped on it.

 

Kagome suppressed a silent scream of pain as she let go of her blade. Sesshoumaru bent down to pick the blade up and examined it. He sneered cruelly as he tossed the blade to the side. “Do you have more tricks under your sleeve now, you worm?” He held out his hand as his claws lengthened themselves tenth their span. “You know what we do to despicable, deceitful warrior such as you?” He pulled the almost unconscious Kagome to her feet. The extended claws were suddenly embedded in the left side of her waist. “We shredded them to pieces.”

 

The shock of the nauseating pain was the only thing that kept her from unconsciousness as toxic acid was emitted from his claws, burning the wound's opening. Kagome flexed her left hand; it flew to his wrist, twisted his hand, and pushed it away; the movements were executed in one beat, and then she jumped back in a flash, creating a fair distance between her and Sesshoumaru.

 

Again the youkai lord was amazed. Although the girl was heavily wounded, she was apparently still able to fight fair and well. Her face was showing no trace of pain whatsoever. It was held expressionless and cold. For a moment a thought skipped across his mind that it wouldn't be right to kill her.

 

Keeping her gaze straight to her opponent, Kagome wondered if she was going to survive this fight, but she immediately chased such thought away from her mind. It wouldn't matter if she wasn't meant to survive. The enemy before her — an opponent that was at such a gamma scale and probably more superior to her — was more than she could wish for.

 

A slight check to Inuyasha; apparently he was struggling with the sword. The sword refused to budge as he kept pulling it out. The vein on the side of his neck bulged under the exertion. As he threw a slight glance at the duel before him, he froze watching his brother's claws impaled in Kagome's waist; a surge of white rage coursed through his veins as he let out an enraged roar forcing the energy from his gut to be freed. Channeling all his energies through his hands, he pulled the sword out, and finally it gave way.

 

Kagome locked eyes for a moment with her hanyou friend. She saw the sword in his hand and smiled a little at his success. Sesshoumaru followed her eyes, and upon seeing the blade in Inuyasha's hand, he suppressed an angry snarl as he turned the object of his attack to his half-brother.

 

Kagome, surprised at the direction-change of his opponent, followed him, but this time she refrained herself to attack him from behind. He deserved a good clean fight.

 

Inuyasha readied himself against his brother attack, holding the old sword poised in front of him. Blocking the strike of Sesshoumaru's extended claws with the sword, he channeled all his energy into the rusty katana. The block was successfully executed, but when he moved to an attack, swinging the katana straight down from above, the silly, dull blade did not slash through Sesshoumaru's block, but, instead, it gained a new chip on the surface.

 

The katana bounced from Inuyasha's hand to fall with a clank on the ground. The three occupants of the cave stared at the blade with mix emotion of disappointment and humor.

 

Sesshoumaru was the one who broke the silence first. “And what a legacy it is,” he commented sneeringly, “How fitting it is for you, hanyou. You and your sword are both worthless.” And with that, he struck Inuyasha with his toxic whip, throwing him to the corner of the cave.

 

The taiyoukai then turned towards her. Lifting his stoic brow, he asked her out of the blue, “How would you prefer your death?”

 

“Painless if possible,” Kagome answered him in good humor.

 

“You should've thought of such options before you attacked me from the back, filthy human.”

 

“You see.” Kagome sighed theatrically as she rested a hand on her cocked hip, trying to strike the pose as smoothly as she could, blocking the pain from her waist. “This is what's wrong with you old warriors. You left your back open and blamed your opponent when they tried to take a chance at this angle of an attack. As a fighter, you should keep every part of yourself on guard all the time.”

 

The word `old' slightly irritated him, but he didn't let it show, schooling a stony mask on his face.

 

Kagome tilted her face to the side as she watched him. “You're good,” she admitted softly.

 

“Whatever it is, I'm better.” With that arrogant statement, he advanced full speed.

 

Kagome, trained on the slightest movement the enemy was making, recoiled quickly from the advance, but Sesshoumaru followed her trail closely, giving her no room to escape. Feeling that she almost reached the wall of the cave, Kagome performed a fantastic mid air maneuver and finished the move with an acrobatic kick in full power that would dislocate any man's head off his shoulder.

 

Inuyasha, who had recovered from the previous attack, observed the fight with attentive eyes. Though the movement seemed blurry to the normal eyes, being a hanyou, he was able to catch it and, in result, tremendously impressed. His jaw dropped when Kagome had performed the finishing kick, but not out of fascination.

 

“You kicked him on the head!” he said, stupefied as Sesshoumaru was thrown to the other side of the cave from the power of the blow. “Nobody ever touched him on the face, yet you did it, twice even,” he continued as he moved to stand on her side.

 

“I know,” Kagome sighed, “I'm good too.”

 

“No, that means we're dead, wench.” Inuyasha then grinned at her, “But it's okay, you get to touch his head. Now, it's my turn.”

 

“What do you mean?” Kagome looked at him dryly. “He's mine, okay? Go get your rusty sword and get out of here.”

 

“No fucking way,” Inuyasha whispered as his eyes were trained on Sesshoumaru, “If you get to do it then so do I.”

 

“Let's do this chit chat some time later, okay? He's up.” Kagome watched keenly as Sesshoumaru, not only picking himself up, but expanded his form as well.

 

“He's transforming,” Inuyasha whispered back.

 

“He's freaking huge,” Kagome answered him, her eyes glued to the transformed shape of the taiyoukai.

 

“It's always the size, isn't it?” Inuyasha said jokingly.

 

“Yeah, but then again, how'd you know?” Kagome responded just as serious.

 

Inuyasha gave her an annoyed side glance, thoroughly pissed.

 

The now, as a giant dog, transformed Sesshoumaru turned his enormous-sized head towards them, his eyes glaring red. He snarled fiercely as toxic drips coming out of his mouth.

 

“That is one angry dog,” Kagome commented softly.

 

Inuyasha snorted at her comment, and then his expression grew sober. “You don't have to die with me.”

 

“Sssh, it's bad luck to think about losing before winning.”

 

Inuyasha grinned. “You're a character, you know that?”

 

Kagome shrugged as they evade a giant paw that was meant to crush them. “Sword, take it!” She picked up the rusty katana and threw it to him.

 

“It's useless!” he yelled back.

 

“You don't stick a piece of useless metal inside a stone. There's gotta be something about it. Try swinging it around or something!” she shouted at him as she was trying to dodge another paw, drawing her own chain-like sword out.

 

He did as told and turned to her with a bored look as nothing occurred.

 

“Now, work it like you mean it,” she called out to him wryly as she whipped her blade towards Sesshoumaru's hind leg. The furry skin was as hard as metal as her katana lashed back towards her. Just as she succeeded avoiding her own weapon, a kick from the giant paw sent her crashing to the wall of the cave.

 

“Kagome!” Inuyasha screamed out her name as he rushed forward, holding the sword frontal to his body. And as he charged while truly didn't have any idea what he was going to do, a magnificent thing happened; another transformation occurred.

 

He could feel the power unfurling from his abdomen transcending towards the metal, answering him back with a dose of electric jolts. The sword mutated into a bigger form, and in one strike, it cut off the impending paw of the great taiyoukai.

 

~*~

 

Their exit from the portal was greeted by their friends. Kazuhiko immediately rushed to Kagome's side when he saw that she walked limply towards him, supported by the hanyou.

 

“What happened?” he asked, “You look all cut up.” He frowned worryingly as he checked up on her.

 

“You should've seen my opponent,” she blurted out in excitement as Inuyasha cleared his throat. She gazed at him questioningly as he gave her a dry look. “Yeah, I mean `our opponent',” she corrected.

 

“He lost a paw. We won,” she explained simply.

 

“How exciting,” Kazuhiko commented, uninterested at her account, as he checked up on her wounds.

 

“Hey, Dog-boy,” Kagome called out to the hanyou, “You fought well too.”

 

Inuyasha gave her an arrogant smirk, “I know.” He then complied to his friends' nagging queries about the course of the event, giving the illustration an extra angst and drama here and there.

 

All in all, it was a good start of a journey.

 

 

 

 

 

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A/N: I know… what's with the long-ass pause… Sorry… I was on the verge of giving up this story, diverted by the sudden thought of another pairing in mind, and suddenly everything didn't seem to flow like I wanted it to, so I gave this story up. But that's not the end of the story. One day — more like two weeks ago — I looked up this story again and had this strong feeling that I could probably make it work. So here I am — totally unworthy, I know — beseeching all of you, dear readers, to read and review.