InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Tsubaki's Revenge ❯ Attempted Flight ( Chapter 15 )

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

 

 

Tsubaki's Revenge, Part XV: Attempted Flight

 

Sweat and blood spattered the mat below Inuyasha's feet. His youkai blood kept the pain of his dislocated shoulders to a dull ache—but only when he wasn't fighting his bonds.

 

Gasping for breath against his constrained ribs, Inuyasha opened his eyes as the pain and dizziness from his latest effort to break the bonds receded, and noticed it was lighter. Kuroshin had blown out the lamps when he left, leaving it dark. Night was nearly over. Inuyasha felt a whimper trying to claw its way out of his throat. He clenched his teeth against that cry, then had to open his mouth again, as he just couldn't seem to get enough air with his mouth closed.

 

Inuyasha stared down at the floor, fighting a growing fear. How long had he been fighting the bands? How many times had he tried to summon the strength to break the spells, only to be burned or convulsed by the inner spells triggering? He'd lost count. He'd never been held like this. Youkai never tried to capture him; they were only interested in killing him. Humans did, but they hadn't been able to do so since his childhood, when his desperate desire to believe that someone would want him and take care of him, had led to him into several traps, before he had learned to abandon hope. But none of those occasions had been anything like this. They had only had human ingenuity and human powers to draw on. But the bands on his wrists and ankles drew on youkai and human powers alike, and he couldn't break free!

 

Inuyasha flung his head back, fighting the susurration of panic, the keening edge of fear that would send him into a mindless paroxysm of struggle against the unmovable bonds if he gave into it. Pain crackled and snapped along his neck and shoulders as he moved, and his eyes screwed shut as he fought against the panic. Gods, what wouldn't he give to have Kikyo step in at that moment, ready to take down that rutting bitch and free him? Who cared if it was the big, strong hanyo getting rescued by the priestess? Who cared about pride? He just wanted to be back at her side, he wanted to be free of this!

 

“Ki-kyo.” The name stumbled brokenly out of his raw, dry throat, and despair threatened to overwhelm him. He wanted her to show up, but how could he really bear it if she did? What would she think of him, with his hair shorn, stripped naked, unable to escape from a mere mortal woman?

 

And what if she did show up, and she wasn't strong enough to defeat Tsubaki? Apparently, she'd done it once, but what if she failed? The bitch wasn't threatening just to get revenge on him, but on Kikyo, and the villagers as well. He didn't understand why, but from what she'd said, she wanted to kill them.

 

It hit him, then. The bitch intended to kill Kikyo. And the villagers. Kaede. Yasuo. Kenichi. Korana.

 

Korana.

 

The bitch wanted to kill Korana.

 

No. He remembered the little girl's fingers on his ears, and the little girl's hugs, and his promise to her. He thought of her dead, again, just because he was too weak to defeat a power-grubbing, rutting, sneering bitch. No! Kikyo dead, Kaede dead, Korana dead, because he wasn't there to protect them.

 

“I - won't - let - you!”

 

* * * * *

 

Tsubaki started at the scream, and the brush jerked wildly, spoiling the spell scroll. “Kuroshin!” she snapped, before remembering that she had sent him on an errand, when she had gotten up early to finish working on the new neck ring to have it done by sunrise. The hanyo had looked exhausted and barely conscious, and had seemed safe enough to leave without a watcher. She cursed to herself as she glared at the ruined spell scroll, before scrambling to her feet. She snatched two items from the altar, tucking them into her sleeve as she ran towards the other room. She felt the noticeable shift in energies before she arrived. Nevertheless, she halted in shock and dismay as she saw the hanyo.

 

The hanyo's body was taut against the bands, his head thrown back, teeth bared in a grimace, as spiritual energy sparked and danced around his extremities, causing his body to jerk and dance. A half-strangled, almost continuous growl issue from his throat, as his youki pulsed and flared around him, growing ever more. Blood dripped from his clenched hands, and slid down his arms and feet. And her bands - her double-spelled bands - were glowing white, pulsing in time with his youki. She mentally touched the spells, and flinched - she could feel them cracking, starting to fail. She had to stop him, and now! But how? She reached into her sleeve, then hesitated a moment, momentarily uncertain which one to use. She wasn't ready to kill him, and did't want to risk maiming him—

 

With an explosive crack, the world went wild. The flash of light from four broken bands caused her to instinctively shield her eyes with her hands. The air was filled with glowing, razor-edged, red claws of blood. At least half a dozen slammed into her, and despite her shields, she was flung backwards into the wall. Off-balance, she fell to the floor, her ears filled with the multiple cracks of the blades slicing through solid wood. She caught a glimpse of the ceiling blowing apart under the multiple blades. And then everything was collapsing with a roar of sound, and all she could do was wrap her arms around her head and concentrate all of her power on the shields in the hope that it would be sufficient.

 

* * * * *

 

With an explosive grunt, Inuyasha jumped with all the strength in his legs. Sections of floor, walls and roof rattled off him as he flew into the air. Unencumbered, he landed in the clearing outside, staggering, and then going to one knee. Not quite groaning as he pushed himself to his feet, feeling the blood running down from a torn ear and a multitude of other cuts, he turned to look at the house as the rising sun threw his shadow across it. About half of the house appeared to have collapsed, while the rest looked as if the first stiff breeze would finish its destruction. Panting, the hanyo studied the scene with a moderate sense of satisfaction. It served the bitch right to have her house destroyed. Of course, he was almost certain that he hadn't taken her out—he had smelled the mingled scent of her body and her magic shields while he had been squirming around under the debris to get his feet under him. Which meant that he'd better get moving before she recovered.

 

Turning away from the house, he took off at a slow run, heading downhill, his abused body refusing to go faster. He desperately wanted to get to water, to quench his thirst and to wash off the blood. He'd worry about food and clothing later, after he'd opened some distance between him and the bitch. But he had to have the water; the scent of the heavy dew was maddening, given his raw throat, and the scent of a river was enticingly near.

 

He'd reached the first trees when his left leg collapsed on him. He fell with a yelp as pain spasmed through his lower leg, sliding his own length on the steepening slope before a tree root stopped him. Shoving himself against the tree, he managed to get upright, standing on his good leg. Gingerly testing his other leg, he realized that it was broken; the bones snapped a hands-breadth below the knee. Swearing in gasping hisses under his breath, Inuyasha began to hop on his good leg, determined not to give up.

 

Six hops later, and he went down with a scream more of frustration than pain as his right leg broke in identical fashion. Curse that bitch! Why didn't she give up! Panting, he looked around, and then lunged from his knees towards the nearest branch that was higher than his normal height. He managed to get his left hand around the branch, then let himself fall, twisting violently as his weight slammed on his shoulder. Fire flamed through his shoulder, but he felt the pop as the bone moved back into its socket, and immediately let go. Crumpled in on himself, he panted, waiting for the burn of the pain to recede. When it faded to something he could ignore, and when a brief test showed that the arm could move normally, if painfully, he repeated the process with his right arm. Panting away the pain, blinking the sweat from his eyes, Inuyasha pulled himself to his hands and knees. He wasn't giving up.

 

Unfortunately, neither was she. Inuyasha had the river in sight, when all four upper limb bones shattered one after the other. Inuyasha went down with a cry and a curse. Face down, he panted for long moments, then lifted his head. Face twisted in a grimace, he forced his arms up, ignoring the pain that came with every muscle twitch, pain that not even youkai blood could entirely subdue. Planting his claws in the ground, he pulled himself forward a bare scant hand-width before the pain overwhelmed even his ability to ignore. Trying not to whimper, he waited for the pain to subside, then pulled out his claws and forced his arms forward again. That hurt worse than the first time, and he had to pause before digging in his claws. Blinking back sweat, he looked up at his destination, trying not to think of how many times he would have to repeat the agonizing exercise to get to the water. He wouldn't think of it. Only the goal mattered. Reach the river. Topple in, fall in. Let the current take him, and if it drowned him, he didn't really care. Just getting there.

 

Digging his claws in, he pulled his body another hand-width forward.

 

* * * * *

 

It had been hard, very hard, to open a hole in her shields sufficient for her summoned demons to slip through, while still keeping the shields intact against the weight of the collapsed roof and wall. Even harder was holding the shields while also using the spell to use her new bird-youkai's eyes. It would have been simpler if she had had a mirror to hand, but she didn't. Fortunately, the paper doll she had taken from the altar needed no additional energy. Tied to the hanyo through blood and hair, the figure of a white dog could have been used to destroy the hanyo at any time.

 

She didn't intend to, of course. She only intended to stop him, and bring him back under her control. Moving the paper dog between her fingers, ignoring the sounds the large demons made as they started pulling away the material trying the squash the life out of her, Tsubaki concentrated, pushing all emotion aside to keep her will centered on her two spells. The hanyo was already near the woods when the bird-youkai spotted him. Fingers drifted over the palm-sized cutout of a dog, and found a hind leg. Pinching the lower leg between thumb and fingernail, she folded it sharply. In the birds-eye vision, she saw the hanyo fall. He picked himself up, and kept going on one leg. She bent the dog's other hind leg, breaking the corresponding bones in the hanyo's leg. He performed some odd antics, and then started crawling on hands and knees. After a long pause—it was difficult to think under the pressure of multiple spells—Tsubaki realized that the hanyo had somehow managed to force his upper arm bones back into their shoulder sockets.

 

A stray thought conceded that the hanyo's stubbornness was in the same class as her own.

 

But it wouldn't save him.

 

Shifting the paper doll in her fingers, she quickly added new folds—and breaks—to the upper arms and legs. The hanyo collapsed, and this time, looked ready to stay down.

 

But not long. To her disbelief, she saw him trying to pull himself forward with his arms, broken as they were. She released the spell on the bird-youkai, noting that the pressure on her shields was lessening. Enough was enough, she thought, calling out the other two youkai she had brought under control the day before. They were small, each barely the length the length of her hand. Narrow, lidless red eyes watched her from behind needle-pointed snouts, while boneless, worm-like bodies studded with hair-thin, equally needle-pointed spikes twitched restlessly in mid-air. Their minds radiated nothing but blood-lust. They were a vicious type of youkai, and rare only because they were as ready to turn on one another as on any other youkai or mortal animal.

 

“Find the hanyo,” she told them. “You are not to kill it, but you are to stop it from moving forward. I want it bled, I want it injured, I want it unconscious. I do not want it killed. Do you understand?”

 

Their minds rebelled. They wanted more than blood, they wanted death. But they were only minor youkai, vicious as they were, and Tsubaki's will and spell subdued their rebellion. Satisfied that they would obey her, she released the pair.

 

She returned her attention to re-establishing the vision spell, smiling thinly in a distanced anticipation.

 

* * * * *

 

His arms would not move. Inuyasha lifted his head and looked down the slope, to where the river ran barely two lengths from his fingertips. So close! And yet his arms would not move, and he was so tired, and he hated how almost everything and everyone wanted to hate him—

 

He smelled youkai, and heard something moving through the air that was not using feathered wings. His ears flicked, trying to localize the sound, and then he saw them, arrowing straight towards him. Uninjured, on his feet, he probably could have avoided them. Exhausted and on his belly, he had no chance. They struck.

 

Inuyasha screamed. Pain overcame pain, and his claws raked his face, catching the two youkai between fingers and yanking them out of his eyes, twisting onto his back. His hands clenched on the tiny youkai, driving dozens of needles through his palms and fingers even as they twisted and drove their snouts into his palms as well. Instinct, not conscious thought pulsed his youki down through his claws and into the tiny bodies. The eldritch energy disintegrated the two youkai with tiny pops, needle hairs and all, but Inuyasha cried out as his own power seared his hands. Blinded, exhausted, whimpering in agony, the hanyo started to curl onto his side.

 

Then the scent of youkai tickled his nose again, and any semblance of conscious thought vanished. Driven by pain and fear and instincts, he lunged to a sitting position, fingers arched and claws glowing, his fangs bared in a rolling snarl. A voice spoke but he did not hear; a scent of paper and ink came to his nose but he did not smell. There was only the scent of youkai, and the pain-triggered instincts of his youkai blood. Instincts told him when the enemy came too close, and he slashed out with his claws, yelling his battle-cry though his voice was more croak than shout, and when the smell of youkai vanished, leaving behind the scent of burnt paper, he did not wonder why.