InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Tsubaki's Revenge ❯ Departure ( Chapter 23 )

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

 

Tsubaki's Revenge, Part XXIII: Departure

Her scent was everywhere, like sitting in a cherry tree during blossom season. She smiled up at him, and he bent down to kiss her, folding her into his arms. She returned his embrace.

And her hands turned into knives, tearing him apart.

Inuyasha screamed, and woke up. His eyes flashed open, and saw Kikyo's face hovering above him. Fear clenched his heart, and whimpering, he tried to scramble away. But his body wouldn't move. He whimpered again, staring up at her face. She smiled at him. Her teeth looked perfectly normal, perfectly human. She looked like Kikyo. But she wasn't Kikyo. His dried blood still marred her face, and her eyes looked at him with hunger.

“Mistress told me I mustn't touch you while you sleep,” she whispered, a hand with fingernails that appeared perfectly normal hovering above the cloth tucked under his neck. “But you are awake. Do you want a drink? Mistress said I must offer you a drink.”

“Yes,” he whispered. Thirsty or not, the positive answer was a far better option to whatever her alternative was. Her expression turned sulky. She brought the bamboo tube up and forced the spout into his mouth. Water flooded his mouth, and he was forced to swallow or gag.

She pulled away the container after only a few swallows, spilling water on his face. Moving it out of his range of vision, she leaned back over him, the hunger back. “I want you,” she whispered, hand gripping the cover. She pulled it down to his chest. “I want to make you scream,” she continued, stroking a fingertip from the side of his neck out over his left shoulder, caressing the half-healed bytes. “I want you.”

Terror smothered him, as he felt her pull the cover off his body. He couldn't take a repetition of the last two days. He couldn't! The terror clogged his throat, and he couldn't even whimper as he felt her straddle him, as she lowered her head and nuzzled his neck, then moved down and slowly bit him, driving needle-pointed teeth through his skin. He felt the venom from her bite burning, and wanted to scream, wanted to escape, knowing what would happen next—

And then she released him, standing up. His body twitched as the paralysis spell lifted, and then he was scrambling away from her on all fours, until he hit a corner post and went down, agony starting to throb through his groin. Whimpering, he went to his hands and knees, the multitude of cuts, burns and bruises, starting to ache and throb in a cascading sympathy. He could smell his stench—the stench of his fear, his blood, the poison, his urine and his seed. He wanted to stand on his feet, howling defiance. He wanted to slash with his claws, bring the house down on their heads and his, ending it. But he couldn't. He could only tremble and whimper, shivering in fear that he couldn't hide, while humiliation ate his soul. He was no better than what they had called him all his life, to be so weak that he could let his body be used by that priestess and her puppet.

“Well, you're looking better than last night, puppy, but you're still a mess.”

The dark priestess. Inuyasha cringed, his eyes shutting, not wanting to get even a glimpse of the source of his torment. He heard her walking towards him and shrank in on himself. He heard the rustle of her robes as she knelt beside him. “Let me see your hand, puppy.”

Whimpering, he obeyed, shivering. He felt her take his hand and manipulate it, pulling the fingers back, making him flinch as the unhealed fingertips protested the motions. “Interesting,” she said. “You're not healing nearly as quickly as you were. Is it the power I've pulled from you, or the poison? Or both.”

He didn't know. He didn't care. Releasing his hand, she grabbed his chin and forced his head around. “Look at me, puppy.”

Inuyasha looked at the dark priestess, ears lowered as far as they would go, sweat trickling down his face. She smiled at him. “Not very much like the puppy who tried to defy me a few days ago, are you? I wonder what your `little sister' Kaede will think of you, when she sees you?”

Kaede?! Inuyasha recoiled, jerking his jaw out of her grip. “How do you know about that?!” he gasped. “What have you done to her?”

She smirked. “Oh, only asked her a few questions the night I rescued you. I may have also put a few false memories in her head, about how a youkai tossed her aside, then slaughtered and ate you. Of course, Kikyo saw through that before she left to find you, but I suppose it must have given the child a bad time for a little while.”

“You—you witch!” For the first time in days, he felt a spark of rage. How could she do that to Kaede!

“Oh, getting a bit defiant again, are we?” She reached over and grabbed and twisted his further ear. Inuyasha yelped, then whimpered, trying to shift his position to relieve the pain. She let go, and he went back down to all fours. “I will do what I want with those miserable villagers,” she told him, standing up. “And you will watch me.”

Gods, no! Kaede, Korana, Yasuo—what would she do to them? The flicker of rage had vanished. “Pl-please,” he whispered, his terror vaulting to new dimensions, yet horror impelling his pleas. “D-do what you want with me, b-b-but l-leave them alone!”

She laughed. “A hanyo foolish enough to defend mere villagers, who probably would have been more than happy to chase you down and kill you, if not for Kikyo? What makes you think I would ever listen to a fool?” Her sandal came down on his outstretched hand. Inuyasha cried out as she ground her heel into his fingers, splitting open the scabs. She lifted her foot, and he pulled his hand away from the floor, tucking it into his chest. “Kikyo, since the puppy has forgotten himself enough to talk back to me, you may entertain yourself by breaking his fingers. When you are finished, clean up this room, feed him, then clean him up. Other than that, you are to leave him unharmed.”

“Want him,” came the puppet's sullen reply.

“Yes, I know, dear. You'll have him again, but later. Now obey me.”

“Yes mistress.”

He heard Tsubaki head towards the door. “Oh, yes. One more thing.” He heard a snap, and he nearly fell over sideways as he felt the spell descending on him again. “You're a dog.”

* * * * *

Miyatsu's horse lagged behind the other as the trail narrowed. Brooding, the monk watched the miko's long, black hair shifting slightly as she rode. After a long meditation the night before, and after a morning's ride buried deep in thought, he still had trouble accepting the very idea of a miko falling in love with a hanyo. He could not help but feel a deep sense of revulsion. Didn't she understand that she was tainting her own soul, by associating with a misbred hanyo?

At least, that was what he had always understood. Humans and youkai weren't intended to get along together. A human associating with a youkai risked their life, at best, and at worst, their very soul. Youkai understood nothing of morality, honor, sacrifice--so it must be for any with demon blood. And yet...

Surely his family, his sensei, his temple--they couldn't have taught him wrongly. Could they?

He wanted to like her. He wanted to help her rescue her beloved. He wanted to help her smile, even if it was at a rival. He wanted to flirt with her, tease her, make her blush, perhaps even laugh. But since learning that she was in love not with a human, but with a human-youkai crossbreed, he could not make himself do any of those things that usually came as naturally as breathing. Was he really afraid that he would somehow be tainted if he helped her? If he touched her? Surely not--surely her own sin, in loving a hanyo--if it was indeed a sin--did not mean that helping her made his actions a sin as well. But, to help, even indirectly, someone who was the embodiment of shame--a hanyo...

He sighed, reaching up to rub his temple beneath the broad straw hat.

"Houshi-sama?" He grimaced a bit as he realized she'd heard his sigh. She didn't look around, her back straight as she rode. "Is something wrong?"

"Only in my heart, miko-sama," he replied. "As I said, I gave my word to help you rescue this--Inuyasha. I won't go back on it, and yet--part of me insists that helping you rescue this hanyo is--going down a path that is wrong, that could imperil your soul."

"Even if I didn't love him," she said, "I would think that knowing someone is being tortured by a dark priestess, and refusing to do anything, simply because of what he was born, would be a far greater danger to one's soul. Or are only saints worthy of rescue?"

He winced at that last. "No, miko-sama," he said, "The state of another's soul should not be a reason for deciding to rescue someone: what matters is that they need rescue." He sighed again. "I am sorry I find the idea of helping a hanyo so--uncomfortable."

She was silent for a bit. "Perhaps it would help, to think of helping Inuyasha, not of helping a 'hanyo.'"

"I..."

"Try thinking of Inuyasha as a brash, hot-tempered young man who wants everyone to think that he's the toughest, meanest creature around, yet who can be talked down from a tree by a little girl. Think of him as an orphan who has been completely on his own since he was a child. An orphan run out of every village he ever dared approach openly, just because of his looks. An orphan attacked by youkai just because of the way his blood smells. And ask yourself if you'd been that orphan, if you could ever have brought yourself to trust anyone. Or love anyone."

Her description hit hard. Miyatsu dropped his gaze to his horse's neck, unsettled. He'd traveled a few years before through a section of country decimated by fighting between two warlords. Villages had been burned out, men and old women killed, younger women and older girls vanished, when they hadn't been raped and murdered. A few children in two villages had survived, but they'd reacted to his efforts to help them with fear and distrust. And there had been so little he could do for them--a bit of food, a bit of work to repair a hut to make it even partly livable, a promise to try and talk a surviving village into taking them in. He had succeeded in one instance, but in the other...

Those faces, starving not just for food but for everything a child needed to survive, had haunted his dreams for months. And this--Inuyasha--had been an orphan? Rejected not just by one village, or two, but all?"

"How did he survive?" he asked softly, remembering faces of dead children he'd found, dead of starvation. Dead of illness. Dead because no one had been left to care for them.

"He doesn't talk about it," she said, surprising him a little that he'd been heard. "His youkai blood helped physically, I'm certain. But his heart is human." She was silent for a moment, then sighed. "That's why he wanted the Shikon No Tama. He thought, by using it to become a full youkai, he could make a place for himself in the youkai world. He came after it again and again. But there was never the mindless desire for power that I felt in most youkai who attacked. Or the hate for humans. There was--I could feel it--his human soul made him different. He was never really trying to kill me; just steal the jewel. And I--I couldn't make myself shoot to kill him. Instead, I talked to him."

"Talked to him?" Talk to a youkai, even one not full-blooded?

"Talked to him," she agreed, and then sighed. "He was lonely, even if he'd never admit it. And I--I was lonely. Pledged to purify the Shikon No Tama. Striving to keep myself perfect. Having to always be on the alert against attack. I felt--I couldn't let myself be human. We were--alike--in a way. So I--invited him to come down from the tree, and talk to me."

"And then--?"

"We talked. We became--friends. And then...we fell in love."

"And became lovers?" he asked, with an edge of distaste.

She shook her head. "No. We--didn't get that chance. I realized there was a way to purify the Shikon No Tama, and probably destroy it..."

The miko fell silent. Miyatsu waited, his curiosity heightened, then finally prodded. "How?"

"I asked Inuyasha to wish to become human."

“And he agreed.”

* * * * *

Inuyasha sprawled on his side, pretending to sleep, and wishing that pretending would make it true. Not that it was likely. His skin stung and burned: the puppet's definition of 'cleaning' him meant scrubbing him hard with the harsh lye soap and a very stiff brush. His upper hind leg was drawn backward as far as it would go, as he could not bear the thought of any sort of pressure of his agonized and throbbing privates. The 'tail' had at least some usefulness; curled over his thigh, the long hairs drifted down and provided a tiny bit of modesty. His hands throbbed nearly as badly as his privates; the puppet had driven her claws into his hands repeatedly while breaking the bones, knowing that the poison made it impossible for his youkai blood to subdue the pain. His stomach was queasy; the meal had been a single fish, uncooked, untrimmed and unscaled, and rotting. He had tried to refuse, but the pulling of one of his fangs had destroyed his resistance.  Eating fresh raw fish that he could at least gut, scale and debone with his claws was barely on a list of tolerable-if-nothing-better meals. Eating one that smelled and tasted of rot was only preferable to the torture that the puppet was so happy to inflict on him.

He heard the priestess come in, one of his ears twitching in her direction. He tensed, causing his body to protest even more. Clenching his jaws together to keep from whimpering (though that hurt as well), he waited, dreading that at any moment she would let the puppet start torturing him, or, just as bad, she would start absorbing more of his youki. It didn't hurt, precisely, but it made him feel awful. It made him dizzy and nauseous. Worse was the feeling that something deep inside him was cracked. That every time she pulled on his youki, the crack widened. And that there was something behind that crack. Something terrible.

He felt the whirl of borrowed youki and her personal power, and trembled, fighting a whimper of terror, waiting for the torture. He felt the spell take shape, and drift closer. Shaking, he scrambled to all fours, trying to back away. Like a mist, it seemed to envelop him, and his terror broke loose in a wail of fear.

Which began soft, and faded to nothingness, even as his throat continued to vibrate. Startled, he opened his eyes, and found the daylight that had been seeping through his eyelids was darkening to absolute blackness. The delicate scents of puppet and witch faded, and then his own stench. For a moment, he thought he must have reverted to full human, but then he felt his ears twitching madly, and realized that he was surely still hanyo. But she had blinded him, deafened him, and taken his sense of smell.

Arms and legs collapsed, and he crumpled onto his belly, igniting a flare of pain. He yelped, in pain, and in fear, shaking in growing terror for what she must be planning, that she was robbing him of all his senses.

Something grabbed one of his hands, and pulled his fingers roughly straight before curling them into a fist. He yelled and tried to pull away, but the hands belonged to the puppet, who only squeezed his hand until he screamed. Shaking and moaning, he felt a rope being wound round and round his clenched hand, obviously intended to keep him from opening his hands, even if the bones suddenly healed. His hand becoming one single, big throb of pain, he could barely manage a whimper when he felt her start working on his other hand.

A few thoughts began to ooze through the agony as he felt his arms being bound behind his back. The dark priestess hadn't used bindings since she'd broken him. Something was changing, but what? Mind dulled by pain, Inuyasha felt his legs being bound. He lost track of his thoughts as the puppet rammed a gag into his mouth, choking him. His body mindlessly fought, and it did loosen enough to let him breathe again. But he didn't realize what was happening, until he felt an ice-cold, scaled body curl around him, radiating the dull, dark youki of a snake-bodied youkai. He felt it wind tightly around him, felt its generalized, mindless hate, and a more specific fear. And knew.

The dark priestess was preparing to return to the village. She was using flying youkai to travel. The ones she had under control might well fear him, and so he was bound—even though he was already paralyzed—to reassure the primitive-minded youkai. And if she was going to fly to the village, then that meant she was getting ready to destroy him.

Which he wouldn't really mind. Dying was preferable to more of the torture she'd put him through. If the kami were at least kinder to a dead hanyo than to a living, they would let his soul search for Kikyo. For himself, that was all he would ask, to be with his beloved. With Kikyo.

But going to the village also meant the witch-bitch was getting ready to hurt, even kill, the villagers. To kill the people who had at least let Kikyo care for him. Some whom had liked him. One who had thanked him. One who had called him `older brother.' And a little girl who had petted his ears, who had shown him that humans weren't always afraid of him, didn't always hate him—

His eyes burned.

Korana was in danger. They were all in danger.

And there was nothing he could do.