InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Tsubaki's Revenge ❯ Cooperation ( Chapter 14 )

Disclaimer: This story is based on "Inuyasha," copyrighted by Rumiko Takahashi. No infringement of copyright intended or implied.

 

 

Tsubaki's Revenge, Part XIV: Cooperation

 

Damn her, damn her, damn her! He would not be held!

 

Inuyasha pulled against rings with all of his strength, unleashing the rage he had been keeping under control. He would not let her do this to him! No one was going to pinion him, play with him, make him a pet—never! He felt the skin tearing at the wrists and ankles as he fought to bend his limbs, and didn't care. His tightly-clenched fists were driving his claws into his hands, but it didn't matter. All that mattered was defeating the witch's latest spells. He had broken her spells the night before, he could break them again! Enough of human manners, and silly human ways!

 

He felt his youkai blood start to burn in response to his anger. Yes! Gasping for a fresh breath, Inuyasha welcomed the fire, urged it to increase. He could sense the youki in the spelled rings, and it was strong. But not stronger than his! He felt his own youki rise, and willed it down his legs and arms. He would shatter the rings from within. He could feel the blood under their surfaces, where they had burned through cloth and skin. Stupid woman! He would break her rings with his blood, his youki, and then he would break her, he was not her plaything, not ever!

 

Power pulsed down his arms and legs, flaring, gathering about his bleeding ankles and wrists. Gasping again, growling, he concentrated on the blood, seeing it as four circles of power, of tiny red claws poised to rip outwards, shattering anything and everything in their path. It didn't matter that he had no way to `throw' the blood claws, no way to give them direction. All that mattered was enough power to shatter the rings, to free him, and if he shattered half the house doing so, he didn't care. Another gasp, another pulse of youki, and he opened his mouth to yell the words that would trigger the claws—

 

Instead, he screamed, as fire exploded up his limbs from the rings, burning the youki as it went. Concentration broken, he screamed again as, freed of his fierce resistance, the rings' full power jerked savagely on his arms and legs. For a moment, it seemed that he was going to be pulled apart. And then, the relentless pull from the rings halted. Every muscle in his body howled at the release in tension. He panted for breath, trying not to moan.

 

“So.” He heard the witch move closer. “You are just as vulnerable to spiritual power as a pure-blooded youkai, aren't you, little puppy? Look him over, Kuroshin—I'm sure I heard something snap.”

 

The pain from his pulled muscles was already fading, but Inuyasha did not try to resist the small hands that carefully—and with surprising gentleness—investigated his limbs. He didn't need the little man to tell him that both shoulders were dislocated. “Should I fix them?”

 

“A two-legged puppy doesn't need his forelimbs,” replied Tsubaki. “Sit him up and remove his kimonos.”

 

“As you wish, mistress.” Inuyasha winced as the shikigami moved his arms from above his head to alongside his body, though he was a bit surprised that the being hadn't simply shoved him to a sitting position, letting his arms fall as they would. He felt the small hands working on his upper clothing, pulling them out from under the sash and working them open.

 

“Can you sit up, Inuyasha-san?”

 

He opened his eyes, surprised again. Impassive black eyes looked down at him, one small hand barely touching his chest. “Do you need help?”

 

Inuyasha blinked. “Uh, no.” He brought his legs together, relieved that he could at least move them, then braced himself and sat up. Shoulders and arms protested. He ignored it, slowly moving his legs until he was sitting cross-legged. The shikigami eased the sleeves off his arms, and then stepped back with the clothing, leaving Inuyasha bare from the waist up.

 

“You don't have to be polite to the puppy, Kuroshin,” said Tsubaki, with the slightest edge of impatience in her voice. “It doesn't appreciate it.”

 

“My apologies, mistress. However, this one was created by the mistress to be polite. This one has not been informed how to determine that when or how to be polite to one being, and rude to another. And is it not better to return rudeness with politeness?”

 

“Hanyos don't need politeness, Kuroshin.”

 

“Why? This one acknowledges that Inuyasha-san was quite rude to the mistress. However, this one observed that the mistress was impolite to the hanyo first. It also appeared to this one, that the mistress was attempting to make the hanyo lose his temper.”

 

In the fulminating silence, Inuyasha smirked to himself, mildly amused. “If the miko-san agrees to stop calling me `puppy' and threatening me with a collar, I'll agree to stop calling her a bitch,” he offered.

 

“You—!” Tsubaki snarled something unintelligible. Inuyasha gasped as the rings wrenched his arms around, snapping together behind his back, twisting so that his unclenched claws would lie against his bare skin. Another muttered word, and the ankle rings suddenly seemed to become massive weights. The wood floor groaned, and Inuyasha grimaced. “That's better. Now, look at me, puppy.”

 

His ears twitched. “Bitches in heat are annoying when you're not interested.”

 

He heard her walk up behind him. He expected her to grab his hair; he didn't expect her to grab and twist an ear. He yelped and tried to pull away, then cringed when she scorched his ear with her miko's power. It didn't precisely feel like Kikyo's power, but it hurt. A lot.

 

“You are my captive, hanyo, and you had best not forget that,” she said with an icy, angry edge in her voice. “Just how painful the short remainder of your life is depends on you.”

 

“Keh,” Inuyasha sniffed. “If you're trying to seduce me, bitch, you're doing a piss-poor job. I wonder how ugly you are under that illusion—what are you, really, a withered old hag?”

 

Her fingers on his ear tightened, then released it. He thought he was prepared for pain. He wasn't prepared for the bands to move. He was brutally wrenched into the air, all of his weight—and, for a split second, the apparent weight of the ankle bands—slamming onto his already dislocated shoulders. He cried out, then clenched his teeth as all four bands began to burn. Something was said, but at that moment he could not hear words for the effort to not give in to the pain. The cursed miko witch bitch was not going to make him scream!

 

* * * * *

 

Kuroshin considered his current set of orders, and inspected the suspended hanyo. The captive's eyes were closed and his teeth bared in a grimace, through which his gasping breath wheezed. Blood had trickled down his forearms and soaked his socks, but the oozing from the bands appeared to have stopped. His shoulders, however, were darkening from internal bleeding. Deciding that his questions would have to wait, the shikigami knelt besides the hanyo's feet, which dangled a double-hand's breadth from the floor. Carefully, he began to pull off the first ruined, bloodied sock. The ankle ring had gone on top of the sock and then sunk into the skin, burning the material into two pieces. The foot twitched as he pulled on the bottom part of the sock, and there was a faint rumble of a growl above his head.

 

"Hanyo-san, I am only removing the socks from your feet. There is no reason to resist."

 

"Keh," the hanyo answered after a moment, a bit tightly. "Always hated—wearing socks."

 

"Then why did you put them on?" asked Kuroshin, the curiosity that was his one emotion piqued.

 

"You—figure it—out."

 

Kuroshin eased the top of the sock over the ankle band. "You were attempting to please the mistress by dressing as you thought she wanted, so that she would not punish you?"

 

"Stupid!" The hanyo snorted. "Did it to annoy her. She—didn't expect—me to know—how to dress."

 

The shikigami shifted his position. "You seek to annoy her? That is also why you insulted her? But why? It has only led to more pain that you might have otherwise experienced."

 

The hanyo snorted again. "Stupid. Bitch plans—to kill me. I'm not going to let her."

 

Kuroshin pulled the pieces of the second sock off, then stood up and moved behind the hanyo. "I do not understand how annoying her helps your chances of surviving, hanyo-san," he said, working on the knot of the sash holding up the hakama. "It would seem to decrease your chances, if anything. She did offer you the chance to live, and to protect your friends, by cooperating with her—why did you not take it?"

 

"Bitch was lying."

 

Kuroshin froze for a second. "Lying? Why do you say that?"

 

Inuyasha gave an impatient grunt. "I smelled it, stupid. Just like I smelled her lust."

 

"Smelled? Oh." Kuroshin recalled the tanuki's words from the night before. "Just how acute is your ability to smell?"

 

"Why should I tell you?"

 

"Because I desire information in order to give my mistress the best possible advice." Kuroshin contiued working on the knot.

 

"Like I should help you help your mistress to kill me."

 

Kuroshin's hands froze again for a moment. "Oh. Of course," he realized. "Forgive me, Inuyasha-san. I have not had to speak with a captive of the mistress' before: I had not considered that a captive will obviously desire not to give any information to the captor's servant."

 

There was an unintelligible sound from the hanyo. The hakama slid down to the ground in a crumpled heap. Kuroshin began to work on the under-clothes. "Hey!" protested the hanyo. "What are you doing?"

 

"Did you not hear the mistress' orders?" asked the shikigami. "She ordered you to be stripped, and to have your hair cut off."

 

The hanyo cursed. Then cursed again as the last cloth dropped off his body. "Rutting bitch," Kuroshin heard the hanyo mutter as he neatly folded the clothes and left the room with them. The hanyo was still muttering to himself as Kuroshin returned, though he stopped as his ear swiveled towards the shikigami. Approaching from behind, Kuroshin laid out a square of silk. Looking up at the hanyo, the shikigami considered his options, given that while he had been able to reach the hanyo's waist, barely, he was far too short to carry out the remainder of Tsubaki's orders from the ground.

 

“Please forgive me, Inuyasha-san," he said. "The mistress did not give me the power to lift myself off the ground, so I must do this.” Leaping, he clamped his feet around the hanyo's waist, grabbing hold of one arm to balance himself. The hanyo gave a pained grunt, ears flattening in reflex. The shikigami shifted position so that his lower legs were braced against the hanyo's sides. “I will be as quick as possible,” he said, pulling out a rawhide thong and tying Inuyasha's hair into a tail. “Please try to not move unless I ask—I do not wish to hurt you.”

 

The hanyo did not answer, save with a faint growl. Shifting himself carefully, the shikigami started to cut the hair with a small, thin-bladed knife, slicing through a small lock at a time. The hanyo said nothing, but the white ears shivered almost constantly. Trimming the shorter hairs at the front of the scalp, Kuroshin worked through the longer hairs. “Inuyasha-san,” he said presently, “would you please move your ears? You do not appear to like having your ears touched.” The ears folded more tightly against the skull for a long moment, before, with a small sound, the hanyo swiveled his ears so that they were pointing almost horizontally away from the skull. “Thank-you,” said Kuroshin, carefully maneuvering the knife so that the tip missed the ear.

 

He felt the ribs beneath his legs heave. “Are you—always this polite?” asked the hanyo in a querulous tone.

 

“It is as I was made,” he replied. “Does it bother you?”

 

“Feh. People don't go around—being polite—to hanyos.”

 

“Not even those whose lives you saved?”

 

The ears twitched. “Almost all,” the hanyo corrected himself with a mutter. The ears started to rotate forward, then moved back to their previous position. “Headman … thanked me,” he murmured a few moments later, as if to himself. “No one … ever thanked me. Before.”

 

Kuroshin paused in his work to stare at one quivering ear. “I still do not understand why humans despise hanyos,” he observed. "Neither you nor the mistress has given me a reasonable answer.”

 

"Why do youkai hate hanyos? Same difference."

 

“But why?” persisted Kuroshin, smoothing some of the cut hair of his way. “It does not make sense, to hate or despise someone just because of their existence.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

The rather forlorn note in the hanyo's voice made the shikigami pause in his cutting for just a moment. “This one was not given the ability to hate or despise,” he said after a moment. “Perhaps that is why it does not understand.”

 

The hanyo just sighed.

 

The shikigami continued his task in silence. Finishing, he dropped back to the floor, taking the long tail of hair with him. Setting it to the side, he lifted the corners of the cloth, shaking the short hairs into the middle. Folding it in thirds, he then doubled up the long tail of hair, set it in the middle of the cloth, and then folded everything into a neat packet. Standing up with the packet in his hand, Kuroshin walked around to face the hanyo. "Inuyasha-san."

 

The hanyo opened his eyes to look down at the shikigami. "What do you want?" The furry ears, looking huge without the thick hair to hide their bases, swiveled to concentrate on him.

 

The boy—Kuroshin considered this description, and decided it fit well enough, though he suspected his mistress would not care for it. The young hanyo, he corrected himself, then, looked tired and in pain. He wondered what the emotion of 'pity' felt like. "Thank-you for not fighting this one, Inuyasha-san," he said formally.

 

"Keh." The hanyo looked away. "It—wasn't worth—fighting over."

 

Kuroshin thought there was a lie in that reply, but after a moment, saw no reason why he should argue with the captive. "Nevertheless, this one acknowledges appreciation." He gave a bow and turned away. He had almost reached the sliding door when the hanyo called out.

 

"Kuroshin-san."

 

He turned. The hanyo looked at him, and then glanced away. "I—thank-you," he said awkwardly. "For—showing me—for being polite. Even if it's only—because of how you're made."

 

Kuroshin tilted his head and studied the hanyo, before giving another bow. "You are welcome, Inuyasha-san."

 

* * * * *

 

Tsubaki stalked back into her workroom, holding her bandaged hand, still trembling with her anger. To think that that filthy hanyo would call her - her, a powerful, clever, beautiful dark priestess - a bitch! And worse, to think that he had smelled out her body's unwanted attraction for his body, and taunted her with that knowledge!

 

She sank into a kneeling position before the altar. Her anger, she knew, was dangerous. She would not be able to create a new collar, let alone achieve her desire to gain power from the hanyo, as long as he was able to provoke this rage in her. Folding her hands together, she closed her eyes and started murmuring the repetitive prayer that her sensei had taught her as a means to meditate. She let the words fill her head, letting go of thoughts, of emotions. There was no infuriating hanyo, no seething anger. Only the gentle cadence of the words, the slow in and out of her breathing, the quieting beating of her heart.

 

When she finally opened her eyes, Kuroshin was waiting along the inner wall of the room, kneeling, a white-silk packet placed in front of his knees. "You have the hair," she observed.

 

"Yes, mistress."

 

"Did he—it—fight you much?"

 

"He did not fight me, mistress. He was, in fact, cooperative."

 

Tsubaki nodded her head, letting the pang of disappointment fall disappear into the lake of calm the meditation had left behind. "It is a fool, then," she said dismissively. "This will make it easier to control it."

 

"Is it wise to call the hanyo a fool, mistress? Could not using such terms lead to underestimating him?"

 

She gave him a long look. "You are probably right," she conceded grudgingly. She stared down at her slender hands, laying on her thighs. "I am—very angry with h-it. The things it called me..."

 

"Was there any truth behind what he said?"

 

The shikigami's voice was very calm, as always. But just the question threatened to raise the billows of rage she had been attempting to calm. She did not want to admit the truth, not to him, not to anyone. She wanted to deny that there was any truth; she wanted to tell Kuroshin never to ask that question again. But to do so, would be to waste everything she had put into the shikigami. For this was one reason why she had created him as she had; to have a voice that could ask her the questions that she might prefer not to hear, that might keep her from another disastrous course of action. A voice that she could trust… “I—I have—I am attracted to him," she said after a long pause and a deep breath. She closed her eyes and sighed, imagining her anger drifting out from her on that sigh. She straightened her back a little, and turned her hands palms up, thumb and index fingers touching. "Very attracted."

 

"Why does it make you so angry?" asked Kuroshin. "If you want to have him, can you not create a spell to make him submit to you, as you did for the lady who visited two moons ago?"

 

Tsubaki shot him a sharp look. "It's not that simple."

 

He tilted his head. "Explain please, mistress?"

 

She sighed, and settled her gaze on the incense burner on the altar. "I refuse to let a man touch me. I will not risk my beauty, my youth, my power, to let any man bed me. Mother was a beautiful and powerful miko, but she let her father marry her to an ambitious lordling who cared only if she could give him sons. She died trying to bear a son. I will not be like her."

 

"And it would be a risk, to curse him to submit to you, since he has already broken some of your spells."

 

"Yes," she answered shortly. "But even if he were human and powerless, I would not let him bed me. No one touches me."

 

"He has not shown that he wants you," Kuroshin observed. "Is that why you feel angry?"

 

"No! Idiot!" she glared at the shikigami. "I am angry because he knows! You heard him—he mocked me, he was trying to make me angry, and he succeeded!"

 

"Then, why did you not accept his offer to drop the insults?"

 

Tsubaki stiffened, whipping her head around to glare at the shikigami. For a long moment, she said nothing, her hands clenching. "The hanyo is my captive," she said. "I make no bargains with a captive."

 

"Is that why you lied to him, when you suggested he should cooperate with you?"

 

She started. "What?"

 

Kuroshin elaborated. Tsubaki flushed, and looked away, back down at her hands. "I wasn't serious," she admitted. "I was trying to make the hanyo angry."

 

"But why not be serious?" asked Kuroshin. "You want his power, yet that power threatens you, if he breaks free. Would it not be safer, to persuade him to let you work on him without his resistance?"

 

She snorted. "And why would that hanyo ever agree to let me try to strip his powers from him?"

 

"According to what you told me, he risked dying, to use the Shikon No Tama to save the lives of others. Is it not then reasonable to assume, that he would give in to you, rather than risk harm to those others?"

 

"He's a hanyo..."

 

"Yes, mistress, but what does that mean? You thought his being a hanyo meant he was weak; he is not. You thought his being a hanyo would make him unappreciative of politeness: you are wrong again, for he thanked me for being polite to him. You have admitted that you have never met a hanyo before. Where then, is the evidence that he would not accept a bargain that protected those he cares about, even at the risk of his own life?"

 

Tsubaki raised her gaze to the small brazier on the altar, and the thin thread of incense, letting her thoughts try to grapple with the concept of a hanyo selfless enough to put other lives before his own. Nonsense, surely! And, yet—she knew she didn't understand that type of person. She could not imagine any situation where she would help another at her own cost. But that they existed, she knew. The old priest who had talked her father into letting her train at the temple had later been killed trying to stop a masterless samurai from raping a young girl. Or so her sensei had told her. And no few of her clients had intended to use their victims' desire to protect loved ones, to make their torment worse.

 

Humans, certainly, had such weaknesses.

 

But a half-youkai?

 

She couldn't imagine any of the youkai she had interacted with ever having a single, selfless thought in their mostly tiny heads. But were the higher youkai, and the taiyoukai, equally selfish? For that matter, what would drive a taiyoukai to mate with a mortal human? Did they--could they--feel love, caring, sacrifice?

 

And, like it or not, the hanyo was also half-human, and according to the brat, in love with Kikyo. Lovers were so often the most foolish beings around, eager to protect their beloved from danger. So, she should probably grant that this hanyo did have such vulnerability, and that she should attempt to use it.

 

Tsubaki sighed. Giving up her plan to curse the villagers would be a minor loss; they were only illiterate, poor, helpless farmers after all. But to give up any idea of killing Kikyo after forcing her to watch her lover die—that would be hard. Of course, letting Kikyo live after having been helpless to save her love would be a form of revenge. But sufficient?

 

She sighed. Revenge was a glorious, tasty dish.

 

But there were other goals, even more important than revenge.