InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Tomorrow ❯ Chapter 15 ( Chapter 15 )

Chapter Fifteen

 

Despite his calm exterior, general Yamazaki was seething with rage. First his daughter had betrayed him- not that that slut was his daughter, not any more. Then his wife hadn't woken up. He vaguely remembered her hitting the wall hard, during his rage. The healer said that that hit had cracked her skull and swollen her brain. And by the time he had crawled back to the village - armless and half-dead from blood loss - she had passed on.

 

Well, he would have his revenge. His left hand gripped the hilt of his sword as he remembered the detestably calm face of the tall youkai that had attacked him. He would pay, and Kazeko too, along with anyone else who stood in his way.

 

The path through the forest widened, and he could see a village ahead, across some fields. At the point where the forests ended and the fields began, in the centre of the path, stood a woman. As Yamazaki drew closer, he recognized the garb of a village miko. She was staring at the western mountains with a look of serious concern. He raised his hand to stop the army which, like large moving bodies of people everywhere, ended in a ripple effect as those who could see him stopped and those who couldn't bumped into the men in front of them.

 

“Miko-sama!” he called. “I am general Yamazaki. My army is passing in a hunt for mononoke. Move from our path.”

 

The woman turned to him and bowed her head respectfully. “It is good that you are here, Yamazaki-sama,” she said. “Not long ago I felt a vast concentration of evil energy flowing through the mountain pass.” She pointed to the mountains that she had been watching, and Yamazaki could discern a small gap, where his army could pass through the mountains without having to climb them. “I would investigate and destroy it but I cannot abandon the villagers.”

 

“There is no need,” Yamazaki said. “We are well-practiced in destroying large numbers of youkai. If we move now, we should catch them by-“

 

“Yamazaki-sama, it is a trap!”

 

One of the monks had pushed through the soldiers and was now standing by Yamazaki's horse, pointing an accusing finger at the miko, who was now wearing an expression of deepest shock and hurt.

 

“You should not be so disrespectful to a holy woman, even if you are a monk yourself!” Yamazaki motioned to a couple of the soldiers but the monk shook his head frantically.

 

“She seeks to distract us, to divert us!” He insisted.

 

“Houshi-sama, I seek only to assist your lord,” the miko said sadly. A peasant woman had stepped from the fields with a covered basket.

 

“Miko-sama, what's happening?” she asked, probably scared that there would be more war. Near the rear of the army, though Yamazaki could not see them, a woodcutter and his wife were making the same enquiry of several soldiers. Two of the soldiers at the front gently grabbed the monk's arms, a little scared that the gods would strike them down for manhandling a holy man. And all the while the mad monk kept yelling.

 

“She is deceiving you, Yamazaki-sama!” he yelled angrily. “She is no miko at all, no holy woman! She is a youkai!”

 

“Houshi-sama!” the miko protested, but Yamazaki's eyes narrowed when he saw her hand give a little involuntary jerk near her stomach. He motioned to the guards to release the monk.

 

“She has the aura of a youkai!” the monk spat. “These monsters are too audacious, stealing the forms of our holy servants!” The village woman had moved between the monk and the miko and was looking from one to the other in bewilderment.

 

“Yamazaki-sama-” the miko protested again, but he cut her off by drawing his sword.

 

“Silence, youkai,” he said coldly. The peasant's eyes narrowed on the blade. “Stand aside, woman, and we shall reveal your false miko for what she truly is.”

 

“Not a chance,” the woman said impertinently. In a sudden move she threw her basket into the air, over the soldier's heads. The cover fell off and so did the contents.

 

Smoke bombs.

 

The men yelled and choked as they were enfulged in thick green smoke. Seconds later, more smoke billowed from the rear of the army, and Yamazaki turned, peering through the smoke. A woodcutter and his wife were running and ducking through his soldiers, trailing more green smoke from bamboo tubes and wearing masks which covered the lower halves of their faces. He swore and turned, slashing his sword at the first woman, but she ducked and tore away her cheap yukata, revealing a black bodysuit with red-and-pink armour that made her look like some kind of ninja, a swift assassin. She drew a sword of her own and parried her next attack. The other two `peasants' ran past her, discarding their own poor clothing to reveal ninja outfits beneath. As they ran past the miko- they were inhumanly fast- he saw that what appeared to be a giant white cat had appeared, and a monk was pulling the miko onto its back. The she-ninja leapt backwards and grabbed the monk's hands as the cat jumped up and flew away.

 

“After them!” he roared, spurring his horse forwards. The choking, sputtering troops tried not to bump into each other too much as they worked their way out of the smoke and back into formation. They stampeded out of the trees and across the fields, destroying the recently-harvested rice paddies. They stormed through the conspicuously empty village. So it was a trap. The ninja were presumably youkai too, or dark warriors. The two on foot had already vanished, and he could see the flaying cat- clearly another youkai- making for a large, unnatural-looking crevasse to the east. Probably a relic of some huge earthquake, but that was unimportant right now.

 

They neared the mouth of the crevasse. There was a single path into it, maybe enough for seven abreast, and in the dead center stood a tall, white figure. A detestably familiar one.

 

“Artillery up, Infantry forward! CHARGE!” He screamed, as they swarmed into the valley.

 

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Kirara landed on one of the cliff-tops on the edge of the crevasse as Rin and Kohaku ran through the valley entrance. Kagome dismounted. Since her holy powers didn't have any effect on humans, she had to stay out of the way of the battle.

 

“Stay up there, Kagome!” InuYasha hollered, cracking his knuckles. “Miroku, Sango, get yer asses down here!” Sango and Miroku slid down the valley walls, Kirara staying behind to protect Kagome. They quickly slipped into positions which, they had ascertained earlier, were out of view of the canyon mouth, but SesshoMaru moved into the center of the path.

 

“What the hell are you doing?” InuYasha said, but had to stay out of sight because the general, sword in remaining hand, was riding into the ravine, with the army on his heels. As he drew level with the loose boulders piling on the canyon walls, SesshoMaru whipped out Bakusaiga and slammed it into the ground, unleashing the kuchiku no kizu which ran through the rock and tore the ground from underneath the men's feet, while the loose stone cascaded into the ground, taking the unstable valley walls with it. Yamazaki made it through, with a few soldiers, but the rest were crushed or blocked. Sango and the others instantly moved to take out the soldiers, but Yamazaki rode straight for SesshoMaru, consumed by hatred.

 

He was a skilled swordsman, or would have been with his right hand, but SesshoMaru was better. He calmly ducked and parried the man's slashes, but then he swung Bakusaiga and cut through Yamazaki's blade and ride, eventually making contact with the man's chest. Horse and rider fell motionless to the ground with the unconscious soldiers.

 

“I'm glad it didn't come to more than that,” Sango said, but an instant later there was a rumble like thunder and a terrible scream, and a huge explosion threw them all into the air.

 

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Kagome watched with some horror as a whole unit of men were crushed in the landslide. The deaths sickened her, but she knew that there was little alternative, not when those men who did survive would come after her children once again. InuYasha and the others were knocking out those who had made it through, and SesshoMaru was duelling Yamazaki.

 

Suddenly, Kirara growled menacingly and moved to hide Kagome. She turned to see several men creeping out of the trees. Some were lighting grenades, and several others were aiming their guns at her and Kirara. As the first group threw their sizzling explosives at the boulders blocking the army's path, and the rest fired their guns. Kagome felt a hot, sharp pain in her shoulder as she and Kirara were thrown from the cliff.

 

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Kagome and Kirara were both falling, both trailing blood. Kirara changed into her small form as she fell.

 

“Kirara!” Sango yelled, climbing upright and running for the cliff.

 

“KAGOME!” screamed InuYasha, quickly overtaking her and catching both the Nekomata and the miko. He handed Kirara to Sango as he cradled Kagome. She was clutching her right shoulder, from which thick red blood was oozing. InuYasha felt his heart stop for an instant, as if he were seeing a ghost.

 

“I'm all right,” Kagome muttered, as if knowing his fears. “It's not bad, I'll be all right... quickly, before the gunmen reload.”

 

InuYasha looked up. At the cliff top, a group of men were lighting their guns. Behind him, Miroku, Kohaku and Rin picking themselves up off of the ground as SesshoMaru fought the first soldiers to be climbing over the destroyed remains of the boulders. Sango, with a growl of rage, clutched the injured and feebly mewing Kirara to her chest and entered the fray, swinging Hiraikotsu at head-height. The gunmen aimed for her.

 

InuYasha shot up the cliff towards them, his vision turning redder as if his mate's blood were staining him. He shot past the row of men, claws extended, their guns and in some cases hands falling in pieces behind him. The men slumped over, clutching at their bleeding appendages. More men were raising explosives, but InuYasha quickly cracked them all on the head, and as they fell unconscious, their grenades fell off of the cliff-edge and fell among the soldiers. InuYasha felt his rage give way to a sickened disgust as men were torn apart in the fire, blood gushing into the sky. InuYasha leapt across the canyon to the opposite cliff-edge, snatching Kirara from Sango's grasp, and placed both of them into a small cave that had worn into the valley walls. The soldiers wouldn't be able to get into here.

 

“Stay here. Patch up your wounds. And don't you dare die, okay?” InuYasha ordered, though beneath the arrogance was a perceptible level of pleading. Kagome smiled warmly at him.

 

“I'll be all right,” she repeated. “Go help the others. You can't leave something this important to a bunch of annoying humans and your bastard brother, can you?” she added jokingly. InuYasha nodded and left to rejoin the fight.

 

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There are bonuses to fighting overwhelming numbers if you know where to look for them, Sango thought as she swung Hiraikotsu at the nearest soldiers. They all fell unconscious with bleeding lumps on their heads. Firstly, no matter how many hundred of them there were, it wasn't as if all of them could reach you at once, especially if they'd formed a tight circle, likes the ones around her and Miroku, or Kohaku and Rin. InuYasha only had a semicircle around him because his back was to the stone wall, about ten feet below the cave where Kagome and Kirara were hidden. SesshoMaru had a considerably wider circle around him, because he was quite effortlessly slaughtering anyone to get within six feet of him, not that any of the soldiers seemed too keen to be. And that was the second thing. Who's going to take too many risks or do anything dangerous when you're surrounded by a hundred other men who can do it first? And thirdly, when it's a hundred to one, then you know that wherever you swing your giant boomerang, you'll almost certainly hit an enemy.

 

All in all, any decently skilled and fit fighter could deal with near-endless hordes of the average, Sango reasoned. Quantity was no match for quality, as was being demonstrated by the growing mound of soldiers with Hiraikotsu-induced headaches or a shakuju in the gut that were lying sleeping around her and Miroku. Through the gaps in the ranks, she could see that Kohaku and Rin were holding their own in a similar fashion. Sango was proud of both them, but especially Rin.

 

After the death of Naraku, Rin had elected to live with Kaede, whose advancing years meant that she needed a little help, and SesshoMaru agreed because he felt that Rin's place was among humans, not wandering randomly with a daiyoukai. Rin had assisted Kaede with her day-to-day tasks, but she had refused to train as a miko- she wanted to train as a taijiya. For various reasons, she disliked handling weapons, and she didn't have time for full training anyway (at nine years old, in Sango's old village, she should have already been training for four years), so Sango simply did strength, athletic and martial arts training with the girl, and Rin had excelled. With her small size had come a natural speediness, and once she built up some muscle she soon became a force to be reckoned with, weapons or not, not that you'd know it from her normally sweet disposition.

 

Most of the men around Rin were falling to a little speciality of hers- a rapid-fire punch, her tiny fists sinking into their stomachs ten times a second, an experience not unlike being kicked by a horse with both back hooves at once- although an unlucky few were falling to some rather devastating kicks. Sango hoped they didn't want any more kids.

 

Kohaku was whipping his Kusarigama in wide arcs, the huge weight cracking men's heads and the chain taking their legs out from beneath them. The chain extended almost indefinitely, a hallmark of it being a youkai weapon- a couple of years after Naraku's death, Totosai had reforged the sickle, giving it the powers of a youkai blade. A youkai weapon could not be handled safely by normal humans, but in the hands of a skilled taijiya- which Kohaku certainly was- It was a great asset, as was noticeable by the fact that the chain also moved like a snake, in curves that would normally be impossible.

 

Yamazaki's body had disappeared in the confusion- probably buried beneath the thick layer of dead or insentient soldiers lying in the canyon bottom. Some were running now, clearly having noticed that the army wasn't beating the six evil spirits in the valley. Through the thinning ranks, Sango caught Rin's eye and nodded. She tapped Miroku's arm and a second later, all at once, the four humans broke from their rings and ran full pelt towards the other end of the valley, their taijiya training and Miroku's holy powers meaning that they quickly outstripped the soldiers. SesshoMaru had disappeared an instant later, and InuYasha had leapt into the cave and come running after them, holding Kagome and Kirara. A few soldiers chased them, but soon gave up and returned to clean up their dead friends and treat the living. The fight was over- at least for now.

 

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“Kuchiku no kizu” means “Scar of Destruction” and is the name I made up for that highly destructive thing that Bakusaiga does, the wound that keeps on hurting. I had to make something up because, to my knowledge, it has no name. The only problem is, the site that I searched “destruction” in also came up with “kujo”,“metsubou”, “toukai” and“inmetsu”. I just went for the one that sounds best, but if there's someone out there who's better at Japanese and has realized that one of the other words is much better suited, please, please let me know. Thank you.

 

Oh, and I take the third movie, “Tenka Hado No Ken”, as canon, but aside from that I don't count the other movies or most of the anime. It's just the manga and THNK, really because a) I love it and b) because otherwise, we don't know a bloody thing about InuPapa and a lot less about Izayoi.

 

InuYasha is the property of Takahashi Rumiko-Sensei, and I claim no ownership of any of it. All couples not involving original characters will be strictly canon. Aside from Haruka, Yuki and Kazuki, I made up all of the kids, though since birthdates other than Kazuki's were never really stated in the manga, nor names, I've made these up as well. This fanfic will make little sense if you have not read the entire manga, and I'm afraid that to read the last twenty or so volumes you will have to (at the time of writing) venture into the internet, but I strongly suggest that you do buy the Tankoban volumes for yourself, so that Takahashi-sensei can afford to continue gracing us with her imagination. Anyway, hope you enjoy the fic. ^_-