InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ An Encounter With Fate ❯ The Battle ( Chapter 10 )

A/N: I know, I know, I know. I left the last chapter at a cliffhanger, I am such a hypocrite. But that's why I'm updating so quickly. I was short on time when I wrote Ch. 9. Anyways, onward!

Disclaimer: *sigh* still no sign of 'em. *Tear*

An Encounter With Fate

By Boredomstrikes

Chapter 10 - The Battle

Kiyoshi was in shock. His first thoughts were muddled, and if he thought back, he would only remember two of them. One was, 'How does he know about the jewel?' and 'I should move out of the way' of course, he actually carried out his second thought. As the chameleon youkai came closer and closer, Kiyoshi finally regained his senses and dove to the ground, barely missing the attack aimed at him.

The youkai stopped and turned around to look at the group, particularly Kiyoshi, and said, "Where is it?!" he swept in for another attack.

He rolled away and said, "What are you talking about? I don't have any jewel!" It was a bold-faced lie, and most demons could smell when you were lying. He just had to hope that he was a good enough liar.

"Don't lie to me! I know you have it! I can smell it, and I can smell that you're lying!" he dove in for another attack. "Give it to me this instant, lest I be forced to convince you to give it to me. " They knew exactly what he meant by 'convince'. He moved into attack.

"Well, I've got news for ya, buddy." Dodge. "Even if I did have the jewel," duck, "I wouldn't give it to you," move "And," jump "It wouldn't be so easy," roll "to get it from me anyway!" Dodge, duck, roll. This guy was attacking almost blindly, and he wasn't fighting very smart. He tried to land a hook on Kiyoshi, but Kiyoshi was too fast, even for this youkai. He ducked under the punch and rolled away to where his bows and arrows lay. While he left the youkai to recover from the shock of missing his target, Kiyoshi drew an arrow, aimed it at his forehead, and released it. The arrow hit its mark.

His enemy laughed haughtily. He pulled out the arrow and threw it at the ground while he laughed some more before mocking Kiyoshi. "Fool. You think you can defeat me, the great Hakkaku, with a simple arrow?" Kiyoshi was in shock. "It will take more than that!" he plunged down towards Kiyoshi for the next attack. "Now you will be sorry that you just didn't give me the Shikon no Tama!"

Kiyoshi didn't move from his spot. He was frozen and just couldn't move. He braced himself for the attack from Hakkaku. But it never came. He looked and saw Hakkaku lying face down on the ground, split in half. Something flew by his face and he turned to see Sango catch her Hiraikotsu. She had taken the time to remove her kimono and was now wearing her infamous demon exterminating armor.

"Always know where all your enemies in battle," she said. "Lest it be your downfall."

The group thought that Hakkaku was finished and they turned to leave, but boy were they wrong. They heard malicious laughter come from behind them. Hakkaku was on the ground cackling like a hyena.

"Imbeciles, I have yet to be finished." He said. A flash of light filled everyone's vision, and there he was, standing as if nothing had happened. But something did happen. Inuyasha and his gang were all sprawled on the ground, groaning in pain. Hakkaku laughed again. "Such tasty energy," he licked his lips. "After I take the jewel from you, I'm gonna enjoy eating you."

"Wha-what just happened?" Kiyoshi asked, trying to sit up.

"He has the ability to sap peoples energy," Inuysaha said, using the Tetsuiaga to assist him in rising.

"So that means, he just took a bunch of our energy, and used it to heal himself." Miroku said, doing much the same as Inuyasha, only with his staff instead.

"So how the hell are we supposed to defeat him?" Kiyoshi demanded, leaning on his bow.

"You're not," Hakkaku laughed maliciously and came down for another attack. The group dodged time and time again as he repeatedly went after several different members of the group, each time leaving a crater in place of his target. Soon the small clearing was filled with craters.

Hakkaku was going after Inuyasha, when Inuyasha yelled out, "I'm tired of running." He turned to face his opponent. "If I'm gonna die, I'm not gonna go without a fight first!" he leapt at his opponent and yelled out, "Kaze no Kizu!" he swiped down with Tetsuiaga, directly hitting Hakkaku with the blast. When the initial flash of light from the attack faded, five large claw marks were left in the ground.

Hakkaku stood in the midst of it all, between two of the scars in the ground contentedly licking his lips. "Mmm…such tasty energy," he said happily. "I can't wait 'till you try again, maybe I can eat some more of your wonderful energy that way."

The group was in shock. This was terrifying, the Kaze no Kizu was the most destructive and most powerful attack that Inuyasha had learned. If this guy could eat it, how were they supposed to destroy him?

"What the hell?" Inuyasha said, taking a step back. This was not fun. Now that Inuysaha had tried and failed with his Kaze no Kizu attack, they did the only thing they could. Fight.

They fought furiously against the youkai. Sango repeatedly tried and tried again to hit him with her Hiraikotsu, but he dodged every time. While he was distracted with Sango's Hiraikotsu, Miroku would try to impale him on his staff. But he dodged that too. Then Kiyoshi would shoot arrows, which he would dodge, then Inuyasha would come in from above. He still dodged it. He avoided everything that they threw at him, and still came on strong. He even found time to retaliate against the group. He got all of them good.

The battle had been raging on and on for several hours. They attacked relentlessly, but never succeeded in advancing in their attempts to win. Every time they seemed to have taken a step forward, they took two more back. Every time it seemed things were turning for the better, things would get worse. The group was tired out now. Getting their energy sapped from them, then fighting almost non-stop for hours on end was not a good thing for them. They were getting desperate now.

Kiyoshi was tiring faster than the others. He was not used to battling, and his endurance was starting to wear thin. He rested on the ground on one knee, breath rattling in and out of his chest. He actually had worse injuries than the rest of the group. Hakkaku had taken a liking to him (most likely because he had the Shikon Jewel) and picked on him the most. Throwing him to the ground, punching him repeatedly, kicking and overall just hurting him. Bruises littered his body, and there were ones that had yet to appear, and he could feel those turning black. Along with bruises came several cuts, from when Hakkaku sent energy attacks at him and manipulated the wind so that they formed blades. He bled in several places, and a few bloodstains started appearing on places on his clothes.

Overall, Kiyoshi just wanted to lie down and sleep. But he couldn't just leave his friends to fend for themselves, after all, he was the one with the jewel, the whole cause of the problem. He notched the arrow and aimed it at Hakkaku. During the course of the fight, he had been thrown to the ground, and his eye was hit. Now his left eye was swollen shut and turning a sickly purple color. His vision overall was becoming blurry, and he was seeing double and triple. He couldn't really decipher where Hakkaku really was, so he took a wild guess and shot.

He missed. But little did he know, that him missing was probably the most important thing he had done throughout the whole battle. Instead of hitting Hakkaku, it flew past him and was heading straight for an oddly shaped tree trunk at the top of the cliff. The bark on the tree looked like it was a target, multicolored, with different shades of brown, lightest in the center and darkest rimming the outside. The arrow hit the trunk at the third to darkest rim of the rings. But the odd thing was, Hakkaku had abandoned his toying with Sango and Miroku to try and stop that arrow. And when the arrow hit the trunk, Hakkaku looked like someone had just stabbed him in the stomach. And that's when Kiyoshi knew.

He thought that it was strange that no matter how many times they hit him, he never seemed to weaken. And that's when Kiyoshi figured out that the Hakkaku they were fighting wasn't the real Hakkaku. The real Hakkaku was actually projecting an image of himself while he hid and let his projection do the fighting. That way, he would gauruntee himself victory without ever really lifting a finger. But to do that, the real Hakkaku would have to put a sealing spell on himself, so that no one would be able to find out that the tree trunk was actually Hakkaku, and then put a bunch of other spells to prevent himself from actually getting hurt by indirect blasts that were not aimed at him. But if the real Hakkaku was hit directly, then its projection would be weakened. So now, Kiyoshi had to go and destroy the tree trunk.

He considered telling Inuyasha, but it wouldn't help. If he told anyone, then Hakkaku would know that he knew his secret. He would have to yell it out to Inuyasha, and then Hakkaku would hear, and he would know to guard the tree trunk. His only option now was to go and destroy it himself. But how? Hakkaku would notice if he was gone or not, he wasn't that dumb. But what if…yes! A thought came to his head. He knew that if Hakkaku was distracted long enough, he wouldn't notice that he had gone off after his real self. He just needed the illusion that he was still fighting. He needed someone to take his form. And the perfect kind of person to do that, would be a kitsune, a shape-shifter. A kitsune like Shippo.

^*^

A/N: ok, so I left another cliffhanger, I'm SORRY!!!! Right now, I need to take a shower before there's no more time, and I have to help my brothers transpose some musicas for my dad. Anyway, please review, and I am absolutely, incredibly sorry that I left another cliffhanger. Anyway, REVIEW!!!!!!!!!