InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Tsubaki's Revenge ❯ Together ( Chapter 26 )

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

 

 

Tsubaki's Revenge, Part XXVI: Together

"Let her go!"

The puppy looked up, his expression anguished. Tsubaki smiled at him, and was tempted to continue to taunt him and Kikyo further. But practicality reigned in the temptation. Instead, she silently cursed him.

The hanyo jerked, eyes widening as he suddenly could not breathe. "Inuyasha!" cried Kikyo, trying to move forward, reaching for him. Tsubaki jerked her handful of hair, then let go.

"If you want the puppy to live, put your hands behind your back, and your feet in front of you," she said cooly, returning the knife to her sleeve and removing two cords she had hastily retrieved from her supplies before slipping up behind the pair. "Or do you wish to gamble his life, that you can defeat me before he suffocates?" Kikyo's shoulders tensed and her hands fisted, but then, lowering her head, she obeyed.  Going to one knee, Tsubaki quickly bound Kikyo's wrists behind her. Tying the miko's ankles together, the dark priestess stood up and leisurely drifted back to her original position behind Kikyo. She watched the twitching hanyo with amusement, creating a small spell-light which she sent to hover above his body. His eyes were starting to glaze, even as his spasms became more frantic.

"You've made your point, Tsubaki," snapped Kikyo. "We're your prisoners. Now stop that."

"What? You want him to die a worse death than this?" asked Tsubaki, smirking to herself. Kikyo stiffened, but said nothing. "Well, since you asked." She broke the curse. The hanyo gasped, coughed twice, then panted, tightly closing his eyes and trying to turn his face away. Tsubaki watched him a moment, then gave a mental sigh.

She'd been fortunate that the blast had not destroyed her personal barrier. That had probably saved her life, and had kept the knife from shattering. Unfortunately, it hadn't saved the youkai—or her Kikyo puppet. Tsubaki considered that fact with considerable annoyance. She had fully intended to control the puppet as she raped the hanyo one last time. But the blast had destroyed the intricate set of spells, and she did not have the time or spare power to create another. Losing the power—not to mention the pleasure—of that act infuriated her. It was all that monk's fault! If he hadn't so cleverly hidden the level of his power, making it seem that he was no more than a man slightly gifted with healing magics—

Turning on her heel, Tsubaki stalked back towards the unconscious monk, pulling her spell-light with her. Sending the light to hover over him, she glared at his figure, remembering his attempt to distract her. He was one of those, was he? One of those men who wanted to bed every attractive woman they came across, and who thought all they needed to achieve their end was a smile and clever words. She was tempted to kill him, as he lay there helpless. It would, after all, save countless women from his importune pestering. But  it wouldn't teach  him anything.

She dismissed the thought of trying to keep him prisoner. The monk was far more dangerous than the hanyo, and she had come too close to disaster too many times to risk trying to keep two powerful priestly types and the hanyo all under control at the same time. Especially since she didn't know the spell that had shattered her own attack. The monk had either not cast it correctly, she thought, or he simply hadn't had time to complete it. She suspected that it was some sort of barrier that reflected attacks. She'd heard rumors that some temples had spells of that sort. If it was, she was fortunate it had misfired. Her attack on Kikyo had been a split-second decision that she had to take the miko down in pure self-defense, even if it meant she didn't get to torment the self-righteous prig. But that much power, perfectly reflected, would have shattered her personal shields and killed her.

The best step, then, was to leave him. Make sure he wouldn't be killed by anything while he was helpless, but make sure that he had no way to interfere with her at the village. If he tracked her down later, well ... She smiled to herself. If he was as susceptible to a beautiful woman as she suspected, another puppet, this time looking like her, might be the perfect lure. And once she broke him...

 

The sun was nearly below the horizon, but the half-full moon rode high in the sky, providing light as her eyes adapted to the growing dark. Sadly, she looked at Inuyasha, whose body was growing silver-dappled from the moonlight slipping past the sparse branches as the last of the sunlight faded. "Inuyasha," she whispered, eyes burning. "I'm sorry."

"You-you shouldn't have come," he said, voice cracking with barely held-in sobs. "Should have—should have just forgotten me. 'm only a hanyo. Should've forgotten me."

Her throat tightened with grief. This was so not the wild, arrogant and lonely hanyo she'd fallen in love with. She had to swallow twice, to get the tightness loosened enough that she could speak. "You're not just a hanyo, Inuyasha. You saved the villagers. You destroyed the Shikon No Tama. You saw through Naraku's deceit, you had the courage to put your life in my hands, when I thought you had betrayed me."

"'s not that," he said, voice ragged. "She's going to—she's going to—to kill the villagers."

Kikyo gasped. "What?"

"She—she said, she's going to, to make me watch, what she does, to the villagers." His voice broke off in a sob. "K-Korana—Kaede—please, d-don't worry about me, just, just stop her. Just stop her."

Oh, gods. Kikyo closed her eyes against a cold wave of horror. Tsubaki was vain, ambitious for power, and possessed of a petty spite that sought revenge against those who obtained something she'd wanted. Kikyo had figured that out a long time ago. But she had never imagined that the dark priestess would strike out at an entire village of men, women and children. What possible reason could she have for such a wicked action?

She didn't know.

But she believed Inuyasha.

Clenching her hands, Kikyo opened her eyes, feeling a grim sense of determination. "We have to stop her."

Silence. "How?" came a whisper, finally.

"I don't know yet," she said frankly. "But we have to try."

"C-can't."

Kikyo blinked, startled by that single, despairing word. "Inuyasha?"

He sobbed. "Can't—fight—her. Tried. Tried to fight. Tried. To escape. Can't. It hurts. So much. Can't fight. I can't."

She would have given anything to be able to gather him in her arms, to soothe him and reassure him, as if he were a terrified child. But she couldn't. And he wasn't.

Drawing a breath, she spoke quietly, but firmly. "Beloved. I need you."

He stopped breathing. The silence trembled, then broke with a tiny, fearful whimper. "I—I—"

"I need Inuyasha," she said. "I need the hanyo who could keep fighting, even after he was impaled. I need the hanyo who was willing to sacrifice his life to save the lives of others. I need the hanyo who found the courage to try and trust even just one human being, after years, decades, of being reviled and hated. I need Inuyasha."

"I—" She heard a whimper, and then heard him swallow. "I-I'll fail..."

"We may both fail," she noted. She hesitated, then added, forced to be honest. "With Miyatsu down, we probably will fail. But at least the gods will know we tried. That's all I'm asking, beloved. That you try."

He whimpered again, his breath coming fast and ragged. She waited, letting her miko senses examine his shivering body. His aura reeked of youkai poison, and his pain. His youki stuttered and pulsed, struggling to clear the poison from his body. But it was so weak that it barely kept pace with the new poison seeping inward. Frowning, she shifted her 'gaze,' and realized that the ropes binding him had been soaked in poison, and were so tightly wrapped around him that his skin was abraded. And that didn't count the open wounds crossed by the ropes. She could also sense the broken bones of his hands, and the shattered bones in his right leg.

"I-I-I'll—try," he whispered finally, drawing her attention back. "Kik-yo."

Kikyo felt a wave of relief go through her, to hear that tiny spark of courage struggling to emerge in the broken hanyo's voice. "Thank-you." She closed her eyes to consider her options, but could only think of one thing to do. She had to help Inuyasha a chance to recover some of his strength, and do it in such a way that Tsubaki might not notice. Craning her neck to see just how close she was sitting to him, she leaned backwards, extending her wrists. "Inuyasha, I want you to bite through the rope."

"She'll—she'll hurt us," came his whispered protest.

"She'll hurt us whether we do anything or not," she pointed out. "And she'll expect me to try something. Now, please. You said you'd try to help."

She could hear his increased breathing as he struggled with his fear. Then, her wrists were jerked as he lunged and caught the rope in his teeth. Kikyo ground her own teeth together as spasms of pain ran up her arms as her wrists were repeatedly jerked, as the hanyo worked to get a satisfactory hold on the rope. The tugs evened out as she felt him begin chewing, and she could have smiled as she heard something that might have been a very faint growl.

Her hands came free with a final jerk.  Pulling her arms forward, Kikyo rubbed her wrists and flexed her hands, then leaned forward to untie her ankles. That knot came undone easily, and she used her three good limbs to move back a bit, so she could look at Inuyasha's face. His mouth was working, his expression one of disgust, his ears at half-mast. "What's wrong?"

"Rope in tongue," he muttered.

She realized that pieces of the rough rope must have come off while he chewed, leaving individual strands behind. It was probably worse, because he had to have a mouth even dryer than her own. "Let me see if I can help," she offered, leaning over to touch his face.

He jerked away, eyes going wide and ears flat. "Don't touch me!" he gasped, somehow keeping his voice low.  He looked away, shivering again. "Just—don't."

"Inuyasha—" she started to whisper, then sighed. "I'll do my best—but I want to purify and remove the ropes. They're leaking poison into your body."  Suiting action to words, she labored to her knees, grimacing as pain stabbed up her bad leg. Moving closer, she looked for the knots in the ropes. She found two, but the first one she attempted to untie proved to be even tighter than the gag. "Ow," she hissed as another nail broke. "Why didn't I think to put a knife in my sleeves before I left?" she grumbled.

"If you purify the ropes, maybe I can break them."

Leaning back, Kikyo peered down into Inuyasha's shadowed face. "I could burn you if I do that," she pointed out.

He lifted his head a little, turning it so both eyes made contact. "I—trust you."

Her eyes burned with tears. "Oh, Inuyasha..."

The hanyo dropped his head back to the ground, eyes closing. "Just do it."

Kikyo drew a deep breath, to steady her nerves and beat back the tears and the lump in the throat. "Keep your ears out for Tsubaki. Warn me if she comes back this way. All right?"

"Stop wasting time, wench."

That was pure Inuyasha. Kikyo found the faintest of smiles tugging her lips as she reached out to lightly set her fingers on top of two sections of the ropes. Closing her eyes, she focussed on her breathing, letting her concentration deepen into something resembling a trance. It wasn't something she normally had to do. She had long been able to imbue her power into her arrows with little more than a bare thought. But to purify the ropes without harming Inuyasha, and without alerting Tsubaki, would require both precision and delicacy of touch, and with the pain in her head and body a constant threat of distraction. She had to move to a place where there was so pain, where there was no fear. She had to find the place where her power flowed freely and precisely, and where the youki energies of rope and bound body stood clear and distinct.

She found that place. Found where her physical fingers lay atop the rope. Carefully, gently, she urged her purifying power to seep into the middle of the poison rope. The poison in the strands faded before her pale pink power. She pushed a little more—

And the section of rope disintegrated with a tiny pop and a squeal. Kikyo snapped her eyes open, and discovered that the rope was moving, its broken ends writhing away from her. It was not normal rope soaked in poison; the entire thing was youkai! She lashed out and grabbed the ends before they could get out of range. She let a small pulse of purification flash from each hand. The apparent rope ends flared and disintegrated, and the pulse of power moved down the rope, like two small fires lit at the end of a rope of tinder.

Inuyasha grunted at the entire set of ropes binding him started to writhe, and then fall apart. Tiny squeals of fear rose as the rope fell into individual youkai that looked like crosses of snakes and rope. Astonished, Kikyo grabbed and grabbed again, her hands glowing with power. Many pieces of rope died, but more escaped into the darkness.

The squeals faded, and Kikyo sat back, feeling stunned. She glanced at Inuyasha's face, and saw that he looked surprised as well. "I didn't know youkai could become ropes," she said softly.

"I didn't know either." They stared at each other a long moment, before Kikyo recalled herself. "You should rest—try to get some of your strength back. Let me help you get into a more comfortable position." Tentatively, she reached out a hand.

"Don't." He didn't quite flinch away. "I'll do it—myself." White flickered at the periphery of her vision. Snapping her head around, Kikyo was startled to see a white appendage settling over the uppermost thigh.

"I didn't know you had a tail!" she whispered, strangling an untoward giggle. She was very glad she managed that when she heard Inuyasha's growl.

"Not mine," he whispered, with an edge of hate in his voice. "Witch-bitch's spell."

In a spurt of totally inappropriate humor, Kikyo wanted to tease him that the tail went with his ears. Then he stiffened, ears snapping forward, and her amusement faded as his sniffed.

"Horses," he whispered tersely. "Two. Running towards us. Bleeding. Terrified." His eyes narrowed, and he sniffed again. "Youkai."

Any sense of amusement vanished. "Our horses bolted," she said. "Tsubaki probably sent youkai to find them and drive them back."

There was a puzzled sound from Inuyasha. "A monk caused my horse to shy and go down in the rain several days ago," she explained. "Broke my leg, and almost my head. He offered to help me rescue you." She sighed. "I thought we had her, when we broke through her barrier. But she managed to launch an attack. Miyatsu blocked it, or I'd be dead, and, well, you probably felt the explosion." 

"What—are you planning to do?"

Kikyo tried to think of something. If she and Inuyasha could crawl back to where Miyatsu lay, she could try and put up a barrier until the two men had a chance to recover. But how long would her barrier last against Tsubaki? Just purifying the rope youkai had left her feeling drained.

"Try to find my arrows," she decided. "I didn't think to look earlier, but some may have spilled when the horse bolted. If I can find some, I might be able to take her by surprise. Or at least destroy a few more youkai."

He gave her a look that was hard to read in the dark. Then, with a grunt and a twist, he was somehow on his elbows and knees. "I'll—come—too," he said, panting against his obvious pain.

"No!" she denied as vehemently she could in a mere whisper. "'Yasha, you need to rest, recover your strength!" She flicked a glance at his hands, swollen into shapelessness, and had already noted the visible breaks in his leg. "I'll manage."

"No." Setting his teeth in a grimace, he forced himself up onto his hands, and then looked at her, sweat streaking his face. "You—wanted me—to try. This—is—try."

"I know, but..."

She met his eyes. The irises were almost invisible, as the pupils had widened to drink in the moonlight, reflecting back a greenish, alien glow. Then he closed his eyes, and his head and his ears drooped. "I-I don't—don't—leave me—alone..."

It was madness for him to even try and move with a shattered leg and broken hands, not to mention all the other wounds in his body. But wasn't it also madness, to think she had any chance against the dark priestess, who had apparently come out of the explosion physically uninjured, however much power she might have lost?

Kikyo sighed. "We'll go together." He lifted his head and looked at her, and she smiled sadly. Then, on impulse, she crawled two 'steps' forward and reached over to touch his face. Inuyasha flinched, but she ignored his movement, leaning over to gently press her lips on his. He flinched again, a thin whine of fear trickling from his throat. She thought he was going to pull away, but then, he returned the pressure. Their kiss was as chaste as their first one, but different, for this was less a promise, and more an acknowledgment of their hope, their desire, that would probably never come true.

"Beloved."

He looked at her, shaking, tears streaking down his face. His mouth opened, but nothing came out. He could not say it, she saw. But he tried. And that was enough. She caressed his cheek a final time, before letting her hand drop back to the ground. "Let's go."