InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ What Matters the Most ❯ The Aristocratic Assasin - Naraku ( Chapter 13 )

A\N: I think that a lot of people are gonna start hating me and this story soon.

Oh well. ^_^

I only need one person to like the story and I’ll keep going! ^_^

-Crazy-Inuyasha-Girl - I know, that really does suck doesn’t it? It’s okay if they’re not hot though! ^_~

-AnimeRainChildOfLove - Lol, actually when I first saw him, I had missed the intrduction to the Shichinin-tai, and I actually thought he was a woman. I probably would have kept up that belief until I saw the starting episodes again (which would have been nearly a year later) had I not read somewhere that he was, in fact, a man, and then saw him in only his armour. Lol, needless to say I was quite shocked and not entirely sure what to make of him. Still, I kinda like him because he’s one of the only characters in the whole damn world who seems to stand a chance against Inuyasha, and you gotta like it when they introduce those guys from time to time. ^_^

-XX_Blue_Lips_XX - I appreciate the help (though I’ll probably continue to refer to Inu Taisho as “Lord of the dogs”-- it’s just something that can’t be helped ^_^), but I’m fairly certain that Naraku doesn’t mean devil. Oni means devil sometimes as well as demon in some dialects, making Onigumo into Demon-cloud\spider or Devil-cloud\spider, but I don’t think Naraku means devil. And as to Sesshomaru, the actual definition of his name, as far as I can tell, has remained fairly uncertain. I’ve heard “Killing Perfection” and “Destruction of the circle of Life” a few times though, so I tend to go with those. ^_^ anyway, thanks!

DISCLAIMER - Own nothing but the story itself and one of the characters. The rest belongs to Rumiko Takahashi and I make no money off of it. ~*~   The Aristocratic Assassin - Naraku

Inuyasha ran as fast as he could, branches tearing against his flesh, which instantly moved together to heal the minor cuts left behind.

He didn’t know where he was going, only that he had to get away-- he couldn’t take this madness anymore!

Skidding to a halt as the scent of water reached his nose, Inuyasha growled low in his throat and changed directions.

As much as he wanted to go there, he knew that he couldn’t. His scent was everywhere around the pool, and if Sesshomaru came after him (and he would come after him, because there was no way in all the seven hells he was returning to the castle unless he was dragged kicking and screaming) it would be too much of a give away. Sesshomaru would follow his scent and find him in an instant.

Inuyasha ran for a long while, but was forced to slow when he reached an area where the trees became so dark and thick you could feel the air not moving and the sky was not visible through the dark canopy above. He lowered himself slowly down to sit between two of roots that slunk and twisted along the forest floor from the ancient trees whose knowledge was likely more vast than anything he could learn in his lifetime.

He couldn’t explain why he suddenly felt so tired-- the run hadn’t been that far. He had gone much farther before and not been nearly so exhausted as this...

He leaned back against the tree, one hand coming to rest on his stomach, the other flopping lazily beside him while he rested his head against the tree and tried to catch his breath.

His brow furrowed even as he let his eyes flutter closed to block out the dark gloom that seemed to surround this particular path of trees. Why was he so tired? Was this, perhaps, an after effect of him and Sesshomaru mating? Was everyone so tired after being fucked like that and then running away from the one who fucked them?

Inuyasha’s stomach fluttered as he remembered the night before-- the taste of Sesshomaru on his tongue, the feel of his brother moving inside of him, the sound of him when he came... but the most erotic and at the same time amazingly beautiful sight had been when Sesshomaru had moved to bare his own neck for Inuyasha-- a motion not taken idly by even a half-youkai.

To bare that piece of flesh where even a single fang imbedded could easily end the bearer’s life was a sign of ultimate trust among youkai-- to let someone have full access to the place where your heart beat the clearest and the pulse was so easy to tear from beneath the flesh... it was a place where only one should ever have access too-- the one you chose as worthy. The one you chose as your mate. Forever. And Sesshomaru had let him mark him there. Albeit, this was only after he had taken Inuyasha by surprise and marked him without consent, but still...

He felt his groin stir slightly as he brought his hand up to touch his own mark and a small wave of pleasure followed again by a large wave of that feeling of belonging washed through him. It had been hidden mostly under his haori’s neckline (a place where it was safe from anyone by Myouga) throughout the day, but it’s presence had been enough to ward away most of the other demons. Not to mention Sesshomaru’s newfound role of playing overactive bodyguard.

This was something that even he had noticed-- the mark smelt of Sesshomaru. Strongly. And Katashi had said to him that morning that his heat smell was beginning to fade, should be gone in a couple of days, which was strange because he had thought that it lasted a week, mated or not.

“Well male youkai’s only go through heat until they find a mate, and each heat can last from a week to a month, or until they have mated.” The old youkai’s voice said in his head. “After that they go into things called “ruts” which are similar to heats, only, instead of calling other youkai’s to them, it drives them to mate with their chosen youkai. It usually only happens when a male demon senses his mate in heat-- which will happen only to females after they’ve found mates. Since both you and Sesshomaru are now mated and neither are female I do not think it will effect you even if a female in heat were to enter the palace. That is, as long as you keep yourselves as busy as you did last night.”

Inuyasha growled as the smirking face in his head, then gasped, his eyes flying wide as a voice reached his ears, his eyes following the sound to focus on the intruder.

‘Well, well, what have we here? A little hanyou lost in the woods?’ The demon said, his voice a silky hum that sent shivers racing and colliding with each other as they moved up and down his spine.

The demon had wavy dark hair that flowed down his back in snake-like tendrils to a little below his waist. He was dressed completely in deep purples and black and stank of something that smelled similar to poison and malcontent and was nearly enough to make the hanyou gag and start his eyes watering (how he hadn’t sensed the demon coming was beyond him!).

But what got Inuyasha the most were the demon’s eyes.

Most demons had light coloured eyes-- yellow, gold, blue and pink being near the tops of the list-- that turned red when demon’s transformed.

A very rare few had brown or very pale silver or red eyes -- though Kagura was the only demon he had witnessed so far who possessed the later.

But this demon was different.

His eyes were not red, but a deep crimson--the colour of freshly spilled blood or the scales that sometimes made up the backs of the dragons-- and it was not the sort of red that bled over the entire eye when a youkai transformed, it tinted only the area that colour should have been-- clearly indicating that this was his natural colour. And it was with those dark-blood eyes that the demon now stared down at him with as they glittered malevolently in a light that did not seem to exist anywhere else in the area.

There was something familiar about this man’ scent as well-- diluted, but similar, and he knew he’d smelled it somewhere before. He frowned up at the demon and sniffed the air again, trying to get past the choking venomous smell that seemed to be radiating off of him. And then it hit him.

Everything clicked into place and Inuyasha’s eyes flickered with confusion, but never once lost their narrowed stance as he stared up at the demon before him.

‘Naraku.’ He said, and it came out as a venomous sort of snarl rather than the cold comment he had meant it to be, and the demon chuckled-- a sound that made Inuyasha’s hackles rise.

‘What a clever mutt you are. Yes, I am Naraku. Though, that is a very insignificant detail to you at the moment.’ The youkai said, and Inuyasha frowned at him in confusion. ‘What do you mean?’ He asked. Naraku smiled, a sick and twisted look that seemed more out of place on Naraku than a smile ever had on his father.

‘Trivial facts such as identity tend to mean very little... to the dead.’ Inuyasha stared at the demon, not bothering to hide his confusion anymore. It was enough work staying focused on this conversation let alone zapping his energy with useless things such as emotional masks.

He weakly entertained the thought of getting up and taking the demon’s temperature to see if he did, perhaps, have a fever, but it flew away as quickly as it had come. He was still feeling too drained from his run. And anyway, the demon didn’t smell sick (if you could call being surrounded by the stench of poisonous miasma smelling healthy) and if it was a mental problem, well.... then there was little he could do about it anyway.

Instead he settled for asking ‘are you insane or something?’ Not really caring whether or not he received and answer. He just wanted the fucked up demon to leave him alone so that he could go back into his silent meditation\brood thing without interference.

Naraku’s eyes narrowed slightly, but he still smirked down unfalteringly at Inuyasha.

‘My sanity is not important right now. You should be less concerned about me, and more concerned about you.’

Inuyasha’s brow furrowed as he glared up at the demon, because, to him, that sounded suspiciously like a threat, and he had never been one to take threats lightly-- if at all. ‘What are you--’ He began, but his words were cut off as Naraku, in a movement too fast for his uncooperative eyes to take it, appeared suddenly in front of him, his hand flying in a savage punch delivered to the hanyou’s chin.

Inuyasha’s mouth snapped shut, causing his fangs to dig painfully into his tongue as his head snapped violently to the side, scraping against the rough bark of the tree he leaned against.

‘The dead should to question the living.’ Naraku said as Inuyasha blinked dazedly, his eyes refusing to focus.

When he finally got them in working order again, Naraku was still standing over him, smirking cruelly and coldly down at him. ‘I thought you would have figured my purpose out by now, half-breed.’ He said at the obvious questioning rage in Inuyasha’s eyes. ‘Or perhaps you really are just that dense.’

Inuyasha’s eyes narrowed, his ears flattening as a low growl escaped his throat, things Naraku seemingly decided to ignore as he continued speaking. ‘This is not some idle visit I am here on.’ The youkai said. ‘I have come to relieve you of this pitiful existence of yours that you call a “life”.’

That said, Naraku took another swing at Inuyasha, but this time the hanyou was ready for him, and his own hand came up, blocking the swing as he dug his claws brutally into the tender flesh that made up Naraku’s wrist.

A surprised yelp escaped Inuyasha as he felt a burning pain on the tips of his fingers, and he yanked his hand away, staring in horrification at the poison and blood running over his claws and slowly eating away at them. Luckily enough, the poison didn’t seem to flow as easily as the blood, and he managed to scrape it off on the ground before it could get down too close to his fingers.

Naraku chuckled. ‘That was not very wise, half-breed. Unless of course you see some sort of complex strategy in removing yourself of your only available weapons.’

Inuyasha snarled and pulled himself to his feet, though his muscles (curse the damn things to hell!) protested angrily at the movement.

He turned to face his opponent in time to meet another blow face-first, and he stumbled backward, tripping over one of the many twisting roots and falling to land flat on his back, the breath effectively stolen from him by the force of his landing.

Naraku sighed above him, as though disappointed in some way. And indeed, a moment later he said ‘How pitifully disappointing.’ He moved, suddenly, pinning Inuyasha to the ground with his own body as the hanyou had begun an attempt to rise to his feet again, and Inuyasha’s arms collapsed under the weight of them both as he was again crushed to the ground.

‘I had heard rumours that you offered a great challenge to even the most powerful of youkai, and yet here I have taken you down with a mere three blows. This is very disappointing indeed, though it does make my job that much easier, it is never quite as fun when your victim gives in so easily.’

Inuyasha snarled and struggled to get out from under the youkai, but it was useless-- he couldn’t use his claws to help with his “persuasion”, and Tetsusaiga was out of reach (not that he would be able to wield the sword of this position even if he could get to it), and his pitiful struggles were easily quelled by Naraku relaxing his muscles, letting his full weight fall on top of the hanyou and crush him further into the ground, forcing out the little air he had in his lungs.

In the end, Inuyasha had to either give up on his futile attempts at struggle or risk passing out, and he did not want to be unconscious with this lunatic around who seemed to have it in his head that he needed to kill Inuyasha (for reasons unknown to the hanyou as he was certain he had never met Naraku before, and he had done nothing wrong to Rin or Kagura).

He grudgingly stilled (as a cat might still when is sees there is no way to escape: silent, tense, just waiting for the perfect opportunity, waiting for when it’s captor will ease their hold even the slightest before going wild again) barley able to breathe under the for the weight of Naraku on top of him.

‘That’s better.’ Naraku said, easing up slightly so that Inuyasha could suck some desperately needed air into his lungs, but not so much that the hanyou could actually begin struggling again without risking suffocation. ‘Now’ the demon said, as he stared down at the back of Inuyasha’s neck, the edge of the mating mark just visible under the collar of his haori.

It was then that the scent reached the demon’s nose-- faint, almost overpowered under the scent of Inuyasha and his mate, but there nonetheless. It was the slowly ebbing scent of heat.

Naraku grinned, letting the clawed hand he had just raised drop again as he leaned forward and purposefully sniffed around Inuyasha’s neck. The hanyou instantly tensed, clearly knowing what it was that he was smelling, and Naraku smirked.

‘Now’ the demon said again, as Inuyasha remained tense and silent under him, waiting... ‘Since you deprived me of an entertaining battle, we shall have to find some other way for you to amuse me.’ Inuyasha quivered slightly as a clawed hand ran down his shoulder and flank, making the flesh under his haori and yukata tremble, before coming to hover just over the waist of his hakama.

‘Have any ideas, puppy?’ The demon asked, and Inuyasha felt a surge of panic race through him as Naraku lifted his hips slightly so that his hand could come down and rest slightly on his ass.

He knew very fucking well what Naraku was getting at, he was just hoping -- praying-- that he was wrong. It had hurt with Sesshomaru at first, but that had turned to pleasure, and over the night the wounds left behind had healed so that it had not hurt for him the way he thought it might. But Naraku would not be gentle with him the way Sesshomaru was. He would cause him as much pain as humanly (or demonly) possibly while deriving as much pleasure for himself out of the experience.

But the pain was not even what bothered Inuyasha. It was the fact that Naraku was going to take him-- was going to ruin everything he and Sesshomaru had worked to gain and finally purify and justify for themselves. He was going to taint Inuyasha in an irreversible manner, and then he was going to kill him.

Inuyasha would die a filthy half-breed used like a whore and dumped uncaringly because he had so foolishly run away from his mate and worn himself down so that he could no longer defend himself. He would die tainted and unable to ever explain to Sesshomaru anything that had happened. Even if he didn’t die, would Sesshomaru even accept him? Would his brother want someone as dirty as him-- ‘a whore and a hanyou no less?’

Inuyasha blinked as he realised that Naraku had been talking all that time, his words moving the meld together with the hanyou’s thoughts and twist them in the direction Naraku wanted them to take.

His eyes narrowed slightly and he growled. Of course Sesshomaru would want him, dammit! If his brother had wanted him before after hating him so long, there was no way he was going to let him go now! Even if he was tainted... they were mates now... Sesshomaru couldn’t leave him... could he?

‘I hear you’re a screamer.’ Naraku said, and Inuyasha realised that Naraku had continued on with his rant that had proceeded to whoosh by the hanyou’s uninterested mind that was only just now focusing back in on what the demon was saying. He also realised that Naraku was running his hands over his body, down his chest to the bow of his obi. ‘Well, we’ll soon find out won’t we?’

‘Like hell we will!’ Inuyasha snarled, thrashing violently and nearly unsettling Naraku as his mind raced about trying to figure out exactly where he had heard that he was a screamer. It was about this point that the part of his mind that was still sane yelled for the rest of it to ‘Shut the fuck up!’

Naraku’s eyes narrowed and he brought his hand up, delivering a savage blow to Inuyasha’s temple, while several long brown tentacles shot out from God knows where to wrap around the hanyou’s wrists and ankles, pulling the flailing limbs until he was stretched out in an X like shape under Naraku, unable to do anything to free himself for risk of dislocating any given limb.

He followed along the tentacles that led up toward a strange figure a short distance away clad in a white baboon-skin pelt, with many more of the thick, brown tentacles writhing beneath his figure. Inuyasha glared up at him, because there was something not right about this guy.

He smelled almost exactly like Naraku-- looked a bit like him too, from the little of the intruder Inuyasha had to go on-- but he didn’t feel any real presence coming from him. It was like he wasn’t alive at all...

‘Ah, I see you finally noticed my demon-puppet.’ Murmured Naraku, and Inuyasha turned a furious glare on the demon even while his mind registered what the youkai had just said. ‘So that’s what it is.’ He said. He had encountered demon puppets before-- none nearly so life-like as this one, but demon puppets nonetheless. They were very weak, in his opinion, and not nearly as fun to battle with because you never really got the satisfaction that came whenever you kill a real enemy.

Naraku, seemingly under the impression that Inuyasha was so simple he did not know what a demon puppet was, then said ‘just think of him as an extension of myself.’ As though that was supposed to make the thing any easier to cope with.

‘He’s a pretty ugly fucker, isn’t he?’ Inuyasha hissed, but Naraku only smirked. ‘Your tongue is as sharp as a blade, but it will do you no good here.’ He said, his crimson eyes glowing malevolently as he stared down and the enraged hanyou beneath him while his hands finally managed to free the unhelpful obi and haori, and Inuyasha felt panic and the first traces of fear beginning to creep back into him.

And clearly Naraku could feel it too, because his smirk grew as he leaned down and whispered into Inuyasha’s puppy ear, which turned itself away from him, trying to block out his voice. ‘Oh yes, Inuyasha, I have you now.’ The demon hissed, his breath hissing like poison against Inuyasha’s ear and cheek. ‘And not even your brother can save you. I am the only one here. And no one but I shall hear your screams.’

And Inuyasha felt terror streak through him at the demon’s words because he knew them to be true. He was alone out here. And no one, not even Sesshomaru, would come to his aide. He was at the mercy of a monster-- worse, of the devil-- and there was no possible chance of escape.

He was trapped.

And now he could not get away. ~*~

Glossary

Youkai - Demon

Haori - A Japanese half-jacket

Hanyou - Half-demon

Yukata - A light, summer Kimono and\or a bathrobe.

Obi - Sash

(any corrections for the glossary please let me know!)