InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Dominating the Indomitable ❯ Dog Fight ( Chapter 9 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

~*~

CHAPTER TEN

Dog Fight

(Many thanks to Periwinkle for beta’ing and to ajj7sunhawk for pestering me to get this chapter written.)

“So, this came from outside?” Kouga asked while studying the tiny shards of glass.

“Yeah, it’s all I could find,” Hakkaku replied.

“Hm…” Kouga turned the pieces around, squinting one eye and closing the other. “Somethin’s on it. Ginta, grab me the magnifying glass over there on the file cabinet?”

Kouga reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a pair of tweezers then grabbed the magnifier from Ginta. “There’s a fiber here…blue, like those cleaning rags.”

Ginta and Hakkaku drew closer, though they would not be able to see anything.

“Get out of my light!” Kouga practically shouted. Both of his men jumped back.

“Sorry, boss,” Ginta exclaimed.

“Yeah, we didn’t mean it,” Hakkaku added.

“Would you guys just shut up and let me look at this?” Kouga growled and glared at them.

“Sure, boss,” they both replied in tandem and backed away.

‘At least their knees don’t knock anymore.’ Kouga sighed. His men hadn’t changed much. That was more than evident. One thing he could be grateful for was that they had gotten smarter. He could also say that they were still loyal to a fault.

Kouga really didn’t want that fiber going up his nose and got a good grip on it with his tweezers. “Dunno if there’s enough here to smell anything,” he grumbled. He took a few light sniffs and sighed. “Nada.”

“I’m sorry boss, but we did find the rock,” Hakkuka informed him and pointed to the edge of the desk.

“Well, why didn’t you say so!? Did you touch it?” Kouga demanded.

“No boss! See!” Holding up a blue cloth, Hakkaku smiled proudly.

Kouga groaned, stalked around the desk and punched Hakkaku upside the head.

“What’d I do?!” he whined.

“Did you use that damn rag to pick up these shards!?”

“Uh, yeah boss, we knew you wouldn’t want us touching them,” Hakkaku replied, eyes rounded and lower lip trembling.

Kouga pinched the bridge of his nose. “Sometimes…” He sighed and looked over the rock then leaned down and sniffed it.

“That’s her! That Ling woman! I knew there was something rotten in the air. I just didn’t know what it was! Hot damn! Guys!” Kouga exclaimed, grabbing some maps. “Let’s find the place where Kamylla’s first scouting party disappeared. That oughta give us a clue where Inuyasha is!”

It didn’t take long to find the exact location, but…”They’ve been fucking with my maps. We gotta make sure this is right.” Grabbing the magnifier, he went over the one he’d drawn out of the pile that had been haphazardly stacked during the cleanup. “Hah! New ink!” he exclaimed when he also picked up a new scent. “Think I’m a moron? Hah! I’ll have mutt-face back in no time. Take that, Bitch!” Kouga exclaimed, prematurely patting himself on the back. He was nearly dancing in place. “Take my Inuyasha, will you? We’ll see about that!”

Kouga would have done a victory dance, but he quickly sobered. “Hakkaku, go wash your face and hands. I don’t want you smelling your own upper lip. After you’ve done that, get back out there and keep looking for tunnels. I never got a whiff from those trees. Ginta, you’ve got the lists. Get Yukio and some men to round up those assholes. I want them locked up good and tight, and I want Yukio to interrogate them. Someone has to know something. I’ll track down the missing wench. Can’t have any of these guys interfering or getting the jump on us. Once we’ve got them locked down, we’ll go after Inuyasha. Now, get out! Out, out, out!”

“Yes, boss!” The two were gone in a heartbeat, excited that they were finally making progress. “We did good, right?” Hakkaku asked Ginta.

“I hope so. Kouga seemed to be pretty excited and we only got hit once.”

“Yeah! We did good!” Both high-fived then split up at the end of the hall.

Kouga marked the area on the map that he would be searching, mentally cataloguing all the equipment he’d need for the hunt. No one would stand in his way, human or not. He’d need to take some men to counter any resistance, but he’d wait until all the traitors were rounded up. The more men he had, the better. With a smirk, he rolled the map and tucked it into a tube that had been left where it had been flung against a wall.

‘Hang in there, Inuyasha. The cavalry’s a comin’,’ Kouga thought as he exited his office, a wicked grin twisting his face into something feral.

~*~

Sesshoumaru scanned the area, studying the bodies while flicking blood from his claws. ‘Vermin. Kouga has much to answer for.’

Glancing down at his camouflage suit, he grimaced. Two spots of blood had managed to plant themselves on his left sleeve. ‘It has been too long. I’m definitely out of practice.’ With his poison claws, he melted the offending areas. ‘I refuse to smell of humans.’

Wearying of his hunt and feeling the need to pick up the pace, he gathered his youki and skimmed the treetops. In only twenty minutes, he was approaching the gates. There appeared to be quite a commotion. Two groups of soldiers were in chains and being hustled into one of the bunkers. ‘So, he has accomplished something, but…where is Inuyasha?’ There was very little scent of him and it had grown stale.

Narrowing his eyes, he ignored formalities and simply lit within the compound. All eyes turned to stare, but he ignored them and approached one who was dressed as a commanding officer. “Where is Inuyasha?”

The youkai’s eyes widened in fear. Everyone knew the great and terrible Sesshoumaru. Even though he had mellowed, he was still quite merciless. The commander quickly bowed.

“I asked you the location of my little brother. Speak!”

“We’re trying to locate him! He went missing a few days ago.”

“Where is Kouga?” Sesshoumaru growled.

“At the armory. He’s preparing to go in search of your brother.” The man was hyperventilating by now. He should have been. Sesshoumaru’s claws were glowing green and dripping acid.

Sesshoumaru didn’t waste any time with the commander; he had a wolf to punish. If anything happened to Inuyasha, Kouga would pay with his very life. Spinning around, he headed toward what could only be the armory. Jeeps and transports were quickly being loaded with weapons. Sesshoumaru glared at the building. He certainly didn’t want to bring it down around everyone’s ears, but he had a wolf’s ass to kick.

It was a fortunate thing—for everyone else, that is—that Kouga chose to exit the building just as Sesshoumaru rounded a truck.

“Oomph!” Kouga’s head was the first end of his body that went flying several yards and ended up taking the brunt of the metal fence. It gave, but flung him back out to land on the hard-packed dirt. Just as he managed to get onto his hands and knees, his head still spinning, he was sent flying back into the fence with what felt like a kick to his ribs. Again, he was flung to the ground. “Ugh.”

“You insignificant, piece of filth,” Sesshoumaru snarled. “Where is my little brother!?”

Kouga waved his arm to stave off anymore attacks while blood splattered through his coughing. “Son of a bitch,” he rasped. He managed to pull himself to a sitting position, legs spread while he felt his jaw and ribs for breaks. “How the fuck do you expect me to find him if you put me in the med center?” he rasped.

“Your incompetence is astounding! How you have survived this long is a mystery I do not care to contemplate.”

The next thing Kouga experienced was a deathly grip on his throat and he was being yanked into the air to stare into furious golden eyes. “You are unworthy to be Inuyasha’s mate. You have allowed your territory to become infested with humans. You gave them access to my domain. Now they have Inuyasha. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Kouga choked and gasped until Sesshoumaru realized he wouldn’t get a reply unless he released the wolf. He dropped him like a stone.

“Bastard. Youkai were helping them or it never would have happened,” Kouga wheezed from the ground.

“Do you think I do not realize this? How is it that so many have been turned against us? You are a complete failure. Inuyasha is mine! I will mate him and he will never come to harm again!”

“No!” Kouga yelled, his throat cracking under the strain. “He doesn’t want you! He came to me because of you!”

“He no longer has a choice in the matter,” Sesshoumaru stated imperiously.

“If you, for even one second, believe that Inuyasha will allow this, you’re a total moron. He’ll shove Tetsusaiga so far up your ass, he’ll split you in half,” Kouga growled, taking a page from Inuyasha’s book.

Sesshoumaru snorted. “He’s too weak to fend off either of us. You know this.”

“What the fuck ever. It won’t matter if we don’t get to him before someone kills him! By the Gods! Damn, fucking sonofabitch!”

“You know where he is?” Sesshoumaru asked, exasperated.

“I’ve got an idea where we can start looking. I’ve got a small group of soldiers following a tunnel we found. His scent is there, but I’m going for the main location. Damn bitch had a fake vent that led to a trap door. Explosives were found as well. Without all this crap to drag along, it won’t take me as long to find their main dwelling, so I can be a step ahead while my men come in from the other side—outflank ‘em. Those trucks are just backup. I plan to take to the forest on my own,” Kouga rambled as he stood up and dusted himself off. “Did you have to hit so damn hard? I’ve got shit to do, you know? And, you’re just holding me up.”

Sesshoumaru thought about Kouga’s plan. “You’re an idiot for going in alone.”

“It’s called stealth,” Kouga sarcastically responded.

Sesshoumaru curled his upper lip. “It’s called idiocy, flea bag.”

Kouga’s eyes widened. “I never thought I’d see the day when Inuyasha rubbed off on you,” he chuckled.

Sesshoumaru nearly rolled his eyes and ignored the comment. “I will be accompanying you.”

Kouga glared at the Daiyoukai that had a head bigger than his shoulders. “You keep your hands off me and I’ll let you come along.”

“Do not think to command me, wolf.” Sesshoumaru put enough disgust in his voice to give Kouga the urge to sock him one good time. At least once. But, he restrained himself.

“Fine, just don’t get in my way.”

“You will tell me of the location.”

“Oh no, you don’t. I know how fast you are. You’re following my ass.”

“Do not test me, you worthless excuse for a youkai.”

“Live with it. This is my territory. You wanna help Inuyasha, you ain’t gonna mess up my strategy.”

Oh, the wolf did not just say that. He would not dare! Sesshoumaru clenched his fists. If he was going to find Inuyasha, he couldn’t be batting around the one person who knew his possible location. The least he could do was continue to insult the wolf.

“I find it most difficult to believe that you have the capacity to develop a viable strategy, if you could even manage one at all.”

“Lot you know. Besides, I don’t really give a flying fuck what you think. All I care about is finding Inuyasha,” Kouga stated as he began walking away. “Quit your jawing. I got some prisoners that need interrogating. It’d make me feel better if I had confirmation on Inuyasha’s whereabouts.”

Sesshoumaru cracked his knuckles and held up his hand, his claws glowing green, and smirked. “May I offer my services?”

Kouga turned back and gave him a lopsided grin. “If you can keep ‘em alive long enough to talk!” His brows drew down into a scowl. “And, I want them to suffer.”

“Done, and done,” Sesshoumaru replied, cracking his knuckles once again.

~*~

“Can’t say they got what they had comin’,” Kouga grumbled as he and Sesshoumaru sped through the trees. It was his opinion that Sesshoumaru had been too quick to kill his prisoners.

Sesshoumaru smirked. His poison was quite lethal. At least the traitors had given confirmation to them. It bothered him that, though they would find Inuyasha, there was no doubt that someone else was pulling the strings, and whoever it was would not be so stupid as to stay in a medical complex. This entire mess also left the question of whether or not there were more traitors in his territories. It appeared as though his work would be cut out for him once he returned to his territory. Inuyasha would not be safe otherwise.

“I bet there’s more of them,” Kouga commented. “Damn. And, I thought my pack was actually growing. Looks like I’ll be doing some culling.”

“Hn, so it would seem,” Sesshoumaru commented and left it at that. He’d certainly keep better tabs on the wolf and make certain that every single rebel was removed. Taking over the wolves’ territory had not been on his agenda. Perhaps, that needed to change.

“Well, you have no room to talk,” Kouga sneered and got a whap with a branch from behind.

“Need I remind you of your role in inserting that vermin into my lands?” Sesshoumaru snarled.

“Fuck you, asshole!” Kouga really didn’t have any better come back than that. Sesshoumaru was right, but he’d never admit it.

“I don’t think so,” Sesshoumaru growled and glared at the back of Kouga’s head.

A few minutes of tense silence followed before Kouga spoke again. “Sorry. I’m just upset about Inuyasha and worried like hell.”

“You should be. If Inuyasha dies, so will you,” Sesshoumaru warned with his trademark smirk.

Kouga snorted. “Like you could take me out.”

“You certainly impressed me at the compound,” Sesshoumaru sarcastically drawled.

“Hey! That wasn’t a fair fight!”

“Hn, you should have felt my youki. It was your own failure.”

“Fuck you!”

“How…,” Sesshoumaru paused simply for the effect, “…unoriginal. I’d like to see you try.” Sesshoumaru almost grinned at that one. Kouga was turning out to be more entertaining than Jakken. Maybe he wouldn’t kill him after all—if Inuyasha managed to stay alive. It still didn’t mean that he would allow the incompetent wolf to mate his brother. As far as he was concerned, that matter had already been settled.

The slurs continued, filling up the time until they neared their destination.

“It’s right up here.” Kouga pointed to a milder incline of the densely forested hill they had been climbing. “There wasn’t a trace last time I was here. Let’s go down and check it out.”

“I’ll stick to the trees and check the top canopy for any evidence.” Sesshoumaru knew that the wolf certainly wouldn’t be of much help up there.

“Your call,” Kouga replied and began leaping to the forest floor. Damn dog sure didn’t like being told what to do; not that he gave a shit when Inuyasha’s life might be on the line.

Half an hour later and they still hadn’t found anything.

“This is fucking ridiculous. There’s always evidence,” Kouga muttered to himself just as Sesshoumaru lit on the ground, holding some rope he’d found in the second tier.

“Seems they left behind a few walkways. Escape routes or attack routes?” Sesshoumaru mused as he inspected the ropes.

“Escape…those assholes are still alive and they’re around here somewhere. We just gotta keep looking for the entrance. With what we found at their base, there’s got to be tunnels, too,” Kouga unnecessarily reminded him.

“You have been down here for half an hour. Do not tell me that your tracking abilities are so pathetic that you haven’t found one iota of evidence,” Sesshoumaru said with distaste.

“Fine, I won’t tell you,” Kouga huffed and crossed his arms. He was still checking trees for signs of a battle. Nothing, no gouges, no slashes. Sure, it had been awhile but shit like that was permanent.

“What the…” Kouga muttered when he felt a small vibration through the soles of his feet.

“It is underground…that way.” Sesshoumaru hurriedly made his way east, keeping track of the vibration’s origination.

“Let’s get to the trees. Something is coming our way and I’d like to have the advantage,” Sesshoumaru recommended.

Kouga didn’t argue with that and they were quickly perched in the lowest tier of the canopy, waiting for whatever was on its way to the surface. Soon enough, a ten foot high, vine-covered boulder exploded out of nowhere. The voices, shouting from within, were muffled inside the cavernous walls, the sound of their arguing eventually reaching Kouga’s and Sesshoumaru’s ears.

“We’re supposed to take the bastard alive!”

Sesshoumaru and Kouga looked at each other and smirked. “Still goin’ strong! Looks like the princess won’t be needing us after all”

Sesshoumaru flicked Kouga ‘s ear for that one.

The first one to exit the tunnel was a splatter of blood and guts by the time the body reached the trees.

“I said alive!”

“He’s killed to many I want him dead!

“Kill him and we’re all dead meat!”

“He’s ri…”

The voice was cut off by a gurgle and the sound of ripping flesh. A slightly unbalanced laugh preceded the flinging from the cave entrance of a smattering of flesh that could not be described as a body.

“Think we should go help?” Kouga impatiently asked.

“Not yet.”

Kouga couldn’t believe Sesshoumaru’s calm and blasé attitude. It was obvious that there were a lot of men after Inuyasha. The sound of dart guns popped and echoed. There was a snarl and another partial body flew out.

“Fuck, Sesshoumaru, what the he…”

A band of men in fatigues ran out of the cave with their backs towards the two youkai standing in the trees.

“He said not to kill him!”

“Fuck you!”

A slightly frazzled, white-haired hanyou blurred out of the cave and rushed the crowd.

“Shoot the fucker!”

More pops as rifles were fired. The sound of darts thudding against flesh was easily heard, and just as easily, the slurping as they were yanked out. Inuyasha’s head was down so that his eyes could not be seen, but the purple stripes of his youkai blood were clearly visible as was the elongated fangs hanging over his maniacal grin. He didn’t even flinch when more darts struck home…several of them. He slowly raised his head and golden eyes narrowed on his target.

“He’s goin’ down!” One of the men pulled out a .45 semi-automatic and Kouga prepared to jump into the fray, only to be yanked back by his ponytail.

“Lemme the fuck go!”

“It is his battle. Let him fight,” Sesshoumaru hissed.

Kouga struggled when he heard the pistol fire. The sound of ripping flesh had his head snapping in Inuyasha’s direction, his eyes wide with fear. Inuyasha was still standing. A trickle of blood ran down his naked chest, but there was a baseball sized hole in his shoulder blade, and blood splattered and ran down his back. A chuckle was heard before the hanyou roared and surged forward with two inch long claws. Body parts flew, blood sprayed, and in only a few seconds, the ground was strewn with unrecognizable twitching bits of flesh.

With his back to the cave, the hanyou scanned the carnage and cracked his knuckles before raising his head and letting out a thunderous howl, which was cut short by a loud bang from the cave. His belly exploded, blood shooting for feet right before he fell to his knees. By the time the perpetrator got outside to let off another shot, he was cut to ribbons. Sesshoumaru hadn’t moved from his spot in the tree, but the man was instant puree. Both youkai sped for the hanyou as he fell forward onto his face.

“Inuyasha!” Kouga shouted as he bolted forward

Sesshoumaru beat Kouga there and was rolling the hanyou onto his back when Kouga skidded to a stop on his knees at Inuyasha’s side. “Fuck,” he muttered when he saw the damage.

A third of Inuyasha’s intestines were gone and the rest were hanging loose across his belly. His eyes were closed, but there was a very minute rise and fall in his chest. The wicked grin, plastered on Inuyasha’s face, clashed with his condition

“Fuck, damn, shit, fuck,” Kouga ranted as he shoved Inuyasha’s intestines back into his body cavity.

Sesshoumaru immediately ripped off his shirt and tore it into strips. “Sit him up!” he demanded.

Kouga immediately followed Sesshoumaru’s command. With lightening speed, Sesshoumaru had Inuyasha’s belly bound and tied tight. He grabbed Kouga’s left sleeve and ripped it off without any protest from Kouga and proceeded to wrap the shoulder.

“Your medical center. Staffed?” Sesshoumaru quickly asked.

“Yeah,” Kouga whispered as he brushed Inuyasha’s hair away from his face.

“Move,” Sesshoumaru commanded and wrapped his arms around his little brother.

“This is all your fault!” Kouga shouted, needing to vent his rage and upset.

Sesshoumaru never answered. He was gone in a flash, the boom of his departure nearly bursting Kouga’s ear drums.

“Bastard!”

Kouga never ran so fast in his life, not even with the Shikon shards embedded in his legs. Inuyasha was hurt, Inuyasha might be dying! All because that prick wouldn’t help him! He was going to kill Sesshoumaru! Leave him in a pile of guts and gore!

~*~

Sesshoumaru arrived at the compound in seconds, blowing through the medical center door and knocking them from their hinges. “Medic!” he yelled and found a gurney where he gently placed his brother. He laid Inuyasha down as a medic burst through the metal double doors.

“What’s the condition?”

“Bullet wounds through the shoulder and abdomen. Back exit in shoulder, front exit in abdomen.”

Inuyasha’s eyelids were slit open, his golden eyes unseeing. Stripes still adorned his cheeks; a good sign as far as Sesshoumaru was concerned. His chest was also still rising and falling, very weakly. The grin he had earlier sported had morphed into a smirk. ‘May your dreams of victory continue,’ Sesshoumaru’s jumbled mind managed.

“Gotta get him into surgery now. He’s losing too much blood.” The bandages were completely soaked.

Despite his knowledge that Inuyasha had survived worse, and his faith that his brother would no doubt easily overcome his condition, Sesshoumaru didn’t want to take chances and quickly moved aside. In a flash, Inuyasha was gone, the metal doors left swinging. This was supposed have gone differently. Inuyasha was supposed to kick their asses, win his own battle, just like he always had in the past. He’d made friends with his youkai side. The outcome of the battle should have been different, damn it all!

Kouga burst through the doors. “Where is he?! Where’s Inuyasha!?” he yelled at Sesshoumaru.

“Surgery,” Sesshoumaru flatly stated, hiding his own turmoil

“He’d better live or I’ll skin you alive, you fucking prick! This is all your fucking fault!” Kouga yelled, letting fly a punch that Sesshoumaru easily dodged.

A light whip snapped around Kouga’s throat and threw him into a wall. “Now is not the time!” Sesshoumaru shouted, though he could easily feel the guilt building in his mind.

The metal doors swung open and a doctor rushed into the room, bloody, gloved hands raised in order to prevent contact with any objects.

“He’s bleeding out; I need a donor.”

Sesshoumaru was in front of the medic in a heartbeat. “I’m his brother.”

“Fine, come on! No time for tests, so I’ll take what I can get.”

“Wait, he can have mine!” Kouga shouted.

“I don’t care who it is, get the fuck in here!”

The surgeon spun around and rushed back through the doors, dog and wolf in tow. He could only hope that the human blood didn’t adversely react to his brother’s full-blooded youkai blood. The wolf would have to wait.

Though the circumstances were unfavorable, Sesshoumaru was glad that he’d be able to watch over his little brother. Inuyasha was strong, but there was the complication of his condition, something Sesshoumaru hadn’t thought to consider when he’d seen the stripes on Inuyasha’s cheeks. When pulled to the surface, the boy’s youki was incredibly strong.

As soon as they entered the room, Sesshoumaru stopped in his tracks. An assistant had Inuyasha’s intestines on the side of the metal table, washing out the debris with a tube spurting water. He vaguely felt himself pulled to the table and a mask wrapped around his nose and mouth.

“Sit,” someone ordered and shoved him onto a second operating table.

Near invisible, silver tracks of scars, trailed in perfectly spaced rows, littered Inuyasha’s torso; where it wasn’t already smeared in crimson.

“What the hell happened?” the doctor asked as he sewed a vein that had been clamped.

“Humans,” Sesshoumaru sneered, never taking his eyes from Inuyasha. On his arm, cold, then a prick, went barely noted.

“And it’s your fucking fault they managed to get to him,” Kouga hissed. Now that he could watch over Inuyasha, he had somewhat calmed, but he still felt the need to violently obtain retribution. Inuyasha was…he looked so vulnerable, even with that stupid smirk on his face.

Sesshoumaru’s attention snapped to the wolf. “You are to blame for allowing his abduction,” Sesshoumaru snarled.

“Shut the fuck up! Both of you! Nurse, remove that glass shard from his palm; I want it tested. That color isn’t normal.” He indicated the spread of yellow tint radiating from the wound.

Sesshoumaru turned back to the doctor and narrowed his eyes. “My brother was not bleeding out when I brought him in. What did you do?” he asked imperiously.

“Spinal fragment; with all the dirt and shit in there, and twisted up the way his intestines were, I didn’t realize it was embedded in main artery,” the doctor absently answered.

Sesshoumaru couldn’t find fault with that. It was a stroke of luck that Inuyasha hadn’t bled out the moment that shot had been fired. Sesshoumaru ignored everyone else as he watched the doctor carefully patch his brother back together.

So much saline was being pumped into Inuyasha’s body that the wounds nearly bled pink instead of red. Kouga became concerned when he noticed that Inuyasha appeared bloated. It reminded him of dead bodies, but the sound of electronic instruments assured him that Inuyasha was alive. “Why are you pumping so much water into him?” Kouga asked, worry obvious in his tone.

The doctor sighed, but decided it wouldn’t slow him down to answer their questions. “Helps separate the organs, can see better, makes it easier to do my job, and hydration is critical to prevent infection and keep his body running when I’m through. Consider it radiator fluid. By the way…” The doctor glanced up at Sesshoumaru. “…he isn’t rejecting your blood. He’s a lucky son-of-a-bitch.”

“His mother was human,” Sesshoumaru ridiculously pointed out and Kouga rolled his eyes. “Our father’s blood runs strong through his veins.”

“Well…that’s a damn good thing, otherwise, he probably wouldn’t make it,” the doctor replied.

Kouga was puzzled when the doctor didn’t immediately wrap Inuyasha’s belly after everything was replaced. Instead, one assistant was manipulating the skin while the other continued to wash everything out. Even after Inuyasha was rolled to his side so that the wound in his shoulder could be treated, the two continued to wash and press, careful that nothing moved out of place.

“Why don’t you sew him up?”

“Stupid assholes won’t listen to me,” the doctor snarled. “I have the best survival rate, the best record of infection prevention, but do they listen? No! They’re too interested in getting patients in and out, won’t put in extra operation bays, won’t keep large amounts of purified water on hand,” the doctor ranted. “It’s imperative that you wash for long periods of time. I can understand the limits during the Cataclysm, but there is no excuse for it now. Laziness, pure and simple.”

Another assistant—Kouga wondered just how many they had—was hooking a cylindrical object to the water holding unit that was washing Inuyasha’s palm. The water color changed to a milky white.

“What the hell’s that?” he asked, pointing to the cylinder.

“Are you bored or something?” one of the assistants asked. “You could just leave.”

“Fuck you. What is it?”

Neither Kouga, nor Inuyasha, cold see the grim expressions beneath the masks. The silence was suspicious.

“I believe the wolf asked you a question,” Sesshoumaru pointed out, glaring at the male. It was the doctor that answered.

“Precaution,” he said through clenched teeth as he finished bandaging Inuyasha’s shoulder.

“Against wha…” Sesshoumaru didn’t have time to finish his sentence before Inuyasha snarled, reared up, and punched a hole through Sesshoumaru’s gut.

Reflex action. Sesshoumaru’s hand was crushing Inuyasha’s wrist, the same one that had the wound from the glass shard.

“Fuck!” the doctor shouted as everyone pushed Inuyasha back down onto the table. The snarl was still on his mouth as he lost consciousness again.

Kouga’s eyes snapped wide and his jaw dropped. He had no idea that Inuyasha had it in him. No wonder those rebels never stood a chance.

Sesshoumaru was sloughing off the blood when the assistants turned the milky substance onto his belly. “It will heal in moments,” he informed them.

“Not this time,” the doctor refuted.

“You question the Lord of the Western Lands?”

“I don’t care who you are,” the doctor snapped and strode to the equipment against the wall behind him. He flipped a switch, yanked down his mask and leaned toward a microphone. His voice carried through the building as he shouted. “This building is quarantined until further notice; no one in and no one out until I say so.” The switch was flipped off and the doctor hurried around to check Sesshoumaru’s wound, which, in Sesshoumaru’s estimation, was disobedient enough to have refused to at least half-way heal.

The doctor nodded his head. “Give him the injection.” He looked up at Sesshoumaru. “It’ll slow it down, but you need to know that you’re in deep shit. Lay down.” He shoved Sesshoumaru onto the table and turned to Inuyasha’s newly washed palm, inspecting it. “His human blood is worth something; no surprise there,” he muttered as he inspected the wound. The yellow color had almost completely disappeared.

“I want a good washing of the Lord’s wound,” the doctor instructed. “Say goodnight,” he said, staring down at Sesshoumaru.

Sesshoumaru’s cloth mask was replaced with a plastic one and a cold noxious fume invaded his senses. He barely refrained from rolling his eyes. Couldn’t these idiots see that it would have no effect on him? Right after that thought, his eyes rolled into the back of his head.

“Take that one to recovery and keep him tied down. You…“ he said, pointing to Kouga, “go with him.”

Everything was happening so fast that Kouga wasn’t sure what to think, but he knew where he belonged—by Inuyasha’s side.

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Many thanks to those who have previously reviewed. You are a great encouragement.

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Disclaimer

Inuyasha and all associated characters are owned by Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan, Yomiuri TV, Sunrise, and Viz. I do not own Inuyasha and make no profit from this story, nor do I intend to. My only goal is to occupy my demented mind with delusions of actually owning a life-sized, anatomically correct Sesshoumaru android to use and abuse at will.

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