Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction / InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ One for the Ages ❯ Chapter Fourteen: The Innevitable ( Chapter 14 )

One for the Ages

By Gan Xingba

Chapter Fourteen: The Inevitable

 

Kurama had waited patiently as Kagura had slipped from her bindings and “escaped” out into the night, feigning sleep the whole while. When she had left, however, he still did not stir. The illusion had to be as realistic as possible, and no doubt Naraku would be watching the cave for a short time to make sure it was not a ruse. Demons as with as much cunning as Naraku usually had just as much arrogance, though, so although the cave would be watched, it would only be for a short while, as Naraku would be confident in his success fairly easily. This played right into Kurama's hands, for, as all strategists know, when an advantage presents itself, it should be exploited with all due haste. So it was that after a tedious fifteen minutes of waiting in false slumber, he at last arose and made to stir his comrades.

 

“Everyone,” he announced with a voice just loud enough to begin to wake most of the team. “I'm afraid that the time for rest is now over.”

 

“Wha' is it?” asked Inuyasha sleepily as he rubbed his eyes and looked around before he noticed the pile of ropes sitting on the floor. “What the hell? Kagura's escaped! You said that stuff would keep her asleep until the next morning!”

 

What few people had remained asleep after Kurama's announcement quickly awakened to Inuyasha's furious bellowing. After waiting long enough for everyone to become aware enough of their surroundings to comprehend what he was about to say, he responded to Inuyasha's accusation.

 

“Yes, I did say that. I lied,” he said simply, and quickly began further explanation before Inuyasha could begin to yell again. “I had to make it seem as if she had actually managed to escape, otherwise I am positive Naraku would have killed her somehow. As Sango said earlier, he likely has a failsafe for such a situation.”

 

“But she got away!” protested Inuyasha, still not putting the pieces together.

 

“No, I had Hiei follow her. He is sending out a subtle telepathic beacon using his Jagan,” elaborated Kurama further. “There is a range limit to that sort of thing, but I believe it won't be a problem.”

 

“Are you sure? He is far faster than any of us,” pointed out Miroku as he used his staff to aid him in standing up.

 

“Yes, I am positive. If Naraku's castle was not close, then Kagura would not have even attempted to escape on foot,” replied Kurama. “Tonight, Naraku shall be defeated definitively.”

 

By now, everyone was awake and preparing for the coming battle. Kagome took inventory of her arrows, Kouga slapped himself to try and overcome the effects of the sleeping mixture, and Sango left the cave to go change into her armor. No motivational words were necessary for this particular battle. For many of the caves occupants, their greatest goal was to see to the death of Naraku personally. They were motivated for this day long ago.

 

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One advantage of the Jagan was that when it needed to be used, it performed its function almost subconsciously. Even though Hiei had to both follow Kagura with the utmost stealth and send out a telepathic beacon so that the others could in turn follow him, he could focus entirely on the former as the Jagan sent out the beacon. Thus far, the wind sorceress had been following a fairly straight path, concerning herself more with speed then subtlety. She had no idea that she was being followed. At last, she changed directions, turning straight towards a large mountain. Hiei had no time to be confused by this, however, for as she approached, the image of the mountain was replaced with a shimmering violet barrier surrounding a small castle.

 

Sensing what was about to happen, Hiei quickened his pace to close the distance between him and Kagura as a small hole appeared in the barrier for Kagura to pass through. With a final burst of speed and a powerful leap, Hiei hurtled through the hole just as it became too small to pass through. Despite the speed of this maneuver, it had still been too silent for Kagura to notice and she continued to fly towards the castle until she disappeared behind the battlements. The fire demon turned his head slightly to look at the barrier that now had him trapped within Naraku's lair, and with a snort, he quickly made ran towards the castle wall.

 

In a single leap, he cleared the wall and landed on the other side gracefully, but he felt a sharp pain from his back when he hit the ground. Removing the pouch Kurama had given him from his cloak, he stared at it for a moment.

 

`It will likely take a short period to begin affect me,' he reasoned, and then dumped the entire contents of the pouch into his mouth and swallowed. `Besides, it should give me more than enough time to destroy that pathetic Naraku.'

 

After a few moments, he cut off the beacon that the Jagan was sending and focused it on scanning the castle grounds for Naraku. Surely, Kurama knew where the beacon was coming from right now, and Hiei needed the Jagan for his own uses now. Detecting a strong demonic presence from the farthest corner of the castle, Hiei leaped up onto the nearest roof top and sped off in that direction. Finally, he halted on a rooftop overlooking the courtyard that housed his prey, and was slightly surprised that it had a very familiar appearance. The figure was clad in a white baboon skin, just as the demon puppet he had encountered earlier. This time, however, the hood was pulled back, revealing the face of a young looking human with an arrogant smirk on his face and a sinister gleam in his eyes.

 

“Welcome to my humble castle, fire demon,” greeted Naraku with mock politeness. “I figured that if any of that worthless group you tag along with would be able to follow Kagura here, it would be you. A shame your talents are wasted on such unworthy allies.”

 

“Hn. They would be equally wasted on such lowly scum as yourself,” scoffed Hiei with contempt as he leapt down from the roof and landed in the courtyard in front of Naraku, throwing off his cloak with a flourish. “I have no time to waste on your feeble attempts to draw mercy out of me. You will find such efforts completely futile anyway.”

 

“How sad that someone with three eyes can be so blind,” retorted Naraku with a chuckle. “You are the one who ought to be begging, little fool.”

 

Suddenly, Naraku glowed with energy, and his lower body practically exploded as it turned into an enormous mass of tentacles and various demon appendages. Even Hiei found the jumbled collection of demon parts disgusting as they writhed and pulsed below the upper body of Naraku, which, oddly enough, remained totally unchanged. As he unsheathed his sword, though, Hiei noticed something far more important. In Naraku's stomach, the Jagan saw the very reason Hiei was fighting Naraku in the first place: the vast majority of the Shikon Jewel.

 

Knowing that being forced on the defensive would lead to his immediate downfall, Hiei leapt towards Naraku with speed that even he found surprising. Naraku responded quickly, though, for the power of the Shikon Jewel was on his side. He lashed out with several tentacles to slow Hiei's attack while at the same time dodging to the left and out of harms way. The maneuver cost him two tentacles, which were sliced into several pieces by Hiei, but it gave him superior position, as Hiei now had his back exposed. Sensing victory, he sent a swarm of tentacles towards Hiei, intending to impale him. However, much to Naraku's dismay, Hiei disappeared right before the attack could reach him, and suddenly reappeared on Naraku's left flank.

 

`This pain-killer Kurama gave me is incredible,' thought Hiei with what was as close to elation as he had felt in a long time. `I feel almost stronger than I was before I fought Youko.'

 

With a roar, Hiei allowed his spirit energy to soar to its maximum in a single instant, causing a glowing red aura to burst to life around him. Now certain of his imminent victory, Hiei once again charged his enemy with his sword raised.

 

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After everyone had finished their hasty battle preparations, Kurama and the others had set off after Hiei at top speed. Inuyasha was carrying Kagome on his back, who in turn had Shippou clutching onto her shoulder as the half-demon sprinted beside Yusuke, Kuwabara, Kouga and Kurama while Sango and Miroku, whose ankle was still not fully recovered, soared above them on Kirara.

 

“How much further, Kurama?” demanded Inuyasha, eager to kill Naraku as quickly as possible.

 

“Not much further,” assured the fox demon. “His single is coming from just a short while ahead.”

 

In truth, Hiei had stopped sending the signal a good twenty minutes ago. Kurama knew that this was no cause for alarm, but he also knew that telling his comrades this would cause an unnecessary panic, and that was the last thing they needed. After a couple more minutes of running in silence, all doubts about where they were going disappeared. What had appeared to be a large mountain ahead of them slowly changed form, and now took on the shape of Naraku's castle, surrounded by a pulsing violet barrier.

 

“I'll take care of this,” announced Inuyasha as they approached the barrier.

 

He unsheathed his seemingly normal katana, and, as usual, it glowed violently and transformed into the massive falchion style sword that was the Tetsusaiga. This time, however, it did not stop there. After it had transformed, it seemed to pulse as its energy underwent an odd change, and the blade's color slowly changed from dulled silver to a bloodlike crimson. With Kagome and Shippou still hanging off of his back, he took his mighty sword in both hands and leapt forward towards the barrier. When he was within striking distance, he swung the Tetsusaiga furiously at the barrier, and, amazingly, the sword passed through with incredible ease, and the barrier began to disintegrate.

 

“Let us down before you do that next time, Inuyasha!” chided Kagome while detaching herself from the now grounded half-demon's back.

 

Within moments, everyone had come to a halt by Inuyasha's location and gazed towards Naraku's castle. It was still a small distance off, but everyone knew that this was likely the last chance they would have to catch their breaths before the battle. Kouga's followers in particular, who arrived a few moments after the others, were particularly appreciative of the stoppage.

 

“Someone's coming…” said Kuwabara, indicating two figures riding on a large object and the platoon of lesser demons that was following them.

 

“Kagura…” growled Kouga in confirmation, hatred pouring out of his every pore as he spoke the name of his hated enemy.

 

“You handle them,” ordered Kurama as he suddenly leapt onto Kirara's back behind Miroku. “We'll aid Hiei in holding off Naraku until you arrive. Sango, take us towards the castle.”

 

“Wait…but that's Kohaku!” she protested after looking closely at the second figure on Kagura's feather as it came near.

 

“He'll be fine,” insisted Kurama quickly. “But if we don't hurry, we may not be able to say the same for Hiei. He has been fighting Naraku by himself for longer than I had hoped already.”

 

With just a slight hesitation, Sango gave in and urged Kirara towards Naraku's castle. Kagura and her demons, either unwilling or unable to stop them, simply allowed the demonic feline and her passengers to pass by as they closed on the others. Instead, Kagura focused upon the grounded members of the party, and unleashed a torrent of her signature energy blades down upon them as her demons began to dive in a follow up attack. The battle for the Shikon Jewel had now begun in earnest.

 

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Hiei dodged a tentacle, cut another into several pieces, and then leaped out of the way as a dozen more came flying towards him. The battle had been going on like this for some time, and while Hiei could feel no pain while under the influence of the mixture Kurama had given him, he did feel fatigue. This would always be a bad thing, but what made it worse was that he had been unable to do any real damage to Naraku. True, he had cut many of his tentacles to bits, but he had soon realized that the bits of flesh he had cut from the demon simply oozed back to him and repaired all the damage his sword had done. Up to this point, it hadn't mattered, as Hiei had avoided receiving any damage himself, but now the fatigue he was now feeling was not reflected upon Naraku. Hiei was losing.

 

“What's the matter? Feeling a little winded, little demon?” taunted Naraku as he lashed out with his tentacles once more.

 

Hiei rolled, slashed, and leaped his way through the tentacles that now threatened to engulf him, but, as was the pattern for this battle, he emerged unscathed. However, this time, something slightly different happened. As he landed with his back to the castle wall and his front to his foe, he felt a sharp pain from his back.

 

`Pain? That means…Kurama's pain killer…it's wearing off!' he realized with alarm.

 

Indeed, even as he thought this, his entire body began to feel slightly sore, and the pain in his back was slowly intensifying. Indeed, Kurama's mixture was wearing off, and quickly. Panic began to consume Hiei. If he wasn't able to beat Naraku while unable to feel pain, he would stand no chance if he began to feel it in droves. It was time to take desperate measures.

 

Leaping away from yet another tentacle attack, Hiei sheathed his sword and quickly tore away the bandages that covered his right arm, and pointed his right fist towards Naraku. With his free hand, he removed the headband that covered the Jagan Eye, and it glowed brightly in response. Black flames began to swirl around his right arm as all the energy that remained within him was summoned to unleash the terrible monstrosity known as the Dragon of the Darkness Flame. At last, the attack was ready, and he opened his mouth to call it forth, but no words came out. Instead, he let loose a short cry of pain.

 

The black flames around his right arm had vanished, and the Jagan no longer glowed with power. For, while Hiei had been preparing for his attack, Naraku had sent a tentacle underground to get behind the fire demon. Naraku had succeeded, and just as Hiei was prepared to unleash his attack, the tentacle had exploded upwards from the earth behind him and immediately changed course, impaling him through his right shoulder. To make matters worse, Kurama's mixture had now faded completely, and just as the fox demon had said, Hiei was feeling far more pain than he usually would from the attack.

 

“You fool, you can't possibly defeat me,” jeered Naraku, smirking triumphantly. “All I had to do was see you use that pathetic dragon once, and I knew exactly how to defeat it.”

 

Even with the incredible pain coursing through his body, Hiei was unable to accept defeat. Tearing himself free of the tentacle that was piercing him, he lunged at Naraku with all the might he had left, but it was not enough. He managed to avoid being pierced through the heart with another tentacle by spinning out of the way, but he was unable to avoid the second one, which swung horizontally into him with incredible force, slamming him into the castle wall. He tried to stand after he hit the ground, but he was again slammed into the wall by a swinging tentacle. This happened three more times, and at last Hiei crumpled onto the ground unconscious.

 

The force of Naraku's blows was so great, however, that the wall above Hiei had begun to collapse, and an avalanche of stone began to fall towards Hiei. Fortunately, it was at this precise time that Kirara and her passengers arrived at the scene. Seeing Hiei's predicament, Sango jumped down off of her mount and rushed towards Hiei. As she approached, she realized that she was not fast enough to carry him to safety, and instead she hefted her boomerang and chose a most daring course of action. Placing one end of the boomerang firmly against the remaining castle wall, and the other end equally as firmly against the ground, she formed a kind of triangle with the boomerang, the ground, and the wall. Then, pulling Hiei under the safety of the boomerang, she kneeled down and braced her back against the weapon just before the stones began to fall.

 

“Sango!” cried out Miroku in horror from atop Kirara as the stone avalanche collided with Sango's boomerang.

 

While Sango held firm and thus managed to avoid being crushed by the avalanche directly, the amount of stone that was falling was great enough that it soon had engulfed her, Hiei, and the boomerang beneath it. All that could be seen was a large pile of rubble, leaning against the remainder of Naraku's castle wall.

 

“Sango! Hold on!” yelled Miroku as Kirara touched down on the ground and he and Kurama dismounted. “I'll get you out!”

 

Miroku began to undo the prayer beads that sealed his Wind Tunnel, presumably to remove the rocks that trapped Sango and Hiei, but stopped immediately when a swarm of large, wasp-like insects appeared out of every nook and cranny in the courtyard.

 

“I'm afraid you will be doing no such thing, monk,” taunted Naraku as he turned his gaze upon the newcomers. “Besides, she has been crushed to death anyway. I doubt it would make you happy to see her bloody remains.”

 

“He's lying,” interjected Kurama quickly, placing an arm on Miroku's shoulder to restrain him from any rash action. “They are both alive. We can free them after we have beaten him, but for now, we must remain focused.”

 

Miroku nodded in understanding, and took a deep breath to calm himself as Kurama removed a rose from his hair and transformed it into his Rose Whip. With a roar from Kirara, the trio charged Naraku.

 

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Back outside the castle, the rest of the group was doing battle with the lesser demons. In addition to the initial group that had flown out with Kagura and Kohaku, there had been a second wave that came on the ground, and it was taking much longer than any of them had hoped the eliminate them and move on.

 

“Damnit! If only that kid weren't with her,” cursed Inuyasha as he cut another demon in two. “If he wasn't, I could use my Wind Scar.”

 

“All right, I'll take care of it,” replied Yusuke, and rushed into the oncoming horde of demons, punching anything that got in his way.

 

When he had gotten close enough to Kagura, he pointed his fist up towards Kagura on top of her feather. With a cry of “Shotgun!” he sent a barrage of blue energy bolts cascading towards her and Kohaku, who was still sitting on the feather with her. Kagura had been caught of guard, so she was immediately hit and sent tumbling off of her feather towards the earth. Kohaku, however, had not been so easily surprised, and he managed to leap out of the way, whipping his chain scythe at Yusuke as he landed gracefully on the ground. This was just what Yusuke wanted, however, and he dodged the scythe while grabbing hold of the chain it was attached to and tugging hard. Kohaku, still holding onto the other end of the chain, was picked up off his feet and went flying through the air into the waiting arms of Yusuke, who quickly knocked him out with a sharp jab to the head and sprinted out of the crowd of demons.

 

“I got the kid, waste `em!” yelled Yusuke back at Inuyasha.

 

“All right!” said Inuyasha, raising the Tetsusaiga, now covered in small whirlwinds, above his head. “Wind Scar!”

 

With that, he brought the massive sword down in a powerful swing, and a huge wave of yellow energy was sent tearing through the remaining lesser demons and straight towards Kagura, who now found herself grounded. However, she merely smiled and leapt backwards, revealing Kana standing behind her with her mirror outstretched. Stunned, Inuyasha could just stare in horror as his attack was launched right back at him and his companions, with seemingly no way to stop it.

 

At the last possible moment, though, Kuwabara jumped in front of the attack, his feet squared and his arms held out to his sides to block it. The energy wave slammed into his chest with what looked like the force of a train, but Kuwabara gave a grunt of effort and he pushed back hard. He was slowly being pushed backwards by the reflected attack, but that seemed inconsequential relative to the amount of energy that was hammering into him. The sleeves of his trench-coat were quickly disintegrated, causing it to be blown away by the wind, and for several tense moments it looked as his entire upper body would suffer the same fate. However, after a few more seconds, there was a bright flash and the attack dissipated, leaving Kuwabara standing there with steam pouring off of his body. He tried to stumble forward, but had walked no more than three steps before he collapsed upon the ground.

 

Saying so many swear words he likely repeated himself several times, Yusuke dropped Kohaku and rushed to the side of his fallen friend. Kana had taken a few steps forward and was going to attempt to suck out the souls of the two boys, but fortunately, Kagome remained alert and fired a glowing pink arrow straight into Kana's mirror, shattering it. Yusuke looked up at the sound, and, upon catching sight of Kana, threw a nearby rock at her as he spewed another round of curses, mostly along the lines of “stupid albino bitch”. To his satisfaction, Kana, who had never been much of a fighter, was unable to get out of the way and was knocked unconscious by the projectile.

 

Seeing that her odds of survival were grim should she stay any longer, Kagura quickly removed a feather from her hair and with a burst of wind had taken flight off towards the east.

 

“Oh no you don't!” cried Kouga with rage, and began what seemed like a futile pursuit of his nemsis.

 

“Wait! Kouga!” yelled Kagome in vain after the wolf demon as his two followers and their pack of wolves began to give chase to their leader. “Oh well…”

 

With a sigh, she walked over to the others, who had gathered around Kuwabara. Whether he was unconscious was hard to say, mostly because Yusuke was yelling at him.

 

“Come on Kuwabara, get up!” demanded Yusuke down at his friend, shaking him enthusiastically. “At least say something!”

 

“Damn it…stop…yelling…Urameshi,” muttered Kuwabara, though he didn't move at all as he spoke. “I'm just…just a little tired. Lemme ge' some rest…jus' a little…”

 

“I think he's fine,” concluded Inuyasha after Kuwabara had lost consciousness. “He just used up a lot of energy stopping that attack.”

 

“Yeah…” agreed Yusuke, finally getting up off of his knees. “Kagome and the midget should stick with him just in case though.”

 

“I am not a midget!” denied Shippou indignantly with great vigor.

 

“You are not leaving me behind again!” demanded Kagome almost simultaneously, but with even greater vigor. “If you do, I will never forgive you, Inuyasha!”

 

“All right, all right,” surrendered Inuyasha hastily. “You can come, Kagome, but Shippou, you have to stay and make sure Kuwabara is ok.”

 

Shippou began to mutter some unflattering things about Inuyasha's intelligence under his breathe, but sat down and resigned himself to his job nonetheless. Not wanting to waste any more time, Kagome jumped onto Inuyasha's back, and without further delay, the trio was making their way towards Naraku's castle wall as fast as possible.