InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Price of Vengeance ❯ Chapter Forty-Five: Three Days ( Chapter 46 )

Disclaimer: I do not own any of Rumiko Takahashi's characters or stories. This story is for private entertainment purposes only.

WARNING: LANGUAGE (Edited out on ff.net)

Chapter Forty-Five (Three Days)

She had managed to avoid him for three days.

It annoyed her that so many grey-hided wolves were hanging around, and that Koga didn't even seem to care. They smelled like dead fish---possibly because their lands were closer to the sea, and they were expert at catching them, even from the nearby lakes. Still, she couldn't stand that gods-awful stench. Some of the four-legged wolves had managed to weasel their way inside her cave last night, after she had fallen asleep. But her penetrating senses had alerted her immediately to the fact that they were in there, and she had snarled them out.

The three culprits had left in a scrambling hurry, tails between their legs and yipping their fright. The eastern wolves---the red and brown ones of Koga's tribe---who had taken up guard in furry lumps all over, in and out, of her cave, had been grinning when the three weasels were tossed out. Kagura had been furious at the eastern wolves---who should have kept those mangy fish-eaters out of her den---until she had seen the tell-tale wounds on quite a few of them. They HAD fought the three weasels, at least, trying to guard her. But, she had to admit, those three stinking mongrels had been big brutes with old battle scars who had muscled their way in.

She had spent a good two hours among the eastern wolves, petting and patting, checking wounds and finding nothing too serious. She had done it deliberately, right under the watching eyes of several northern greys and their staring wolf-brothers who reeked worse, most times, than their four-legged companions.

*That would teach them.*

Or so she thought.

But those posturing dogs wouldn't let up. She might have a high tolerance for the wolves---and ookami youkai---of Koga's clan, they were familiar, they were...well, not family...but perhaps the closest thing to it that she had ever known. She had grown used to them. But those weaseling, posturing, stinking, mangy-haired dogs just got on her nerves, and she wasn't about to put up with their presence in HER cave.

Worst of them all was their so-called leader, an ookami named Katashi. He might---doubtful---have been handsome, if he didn't always have such an outrageously infuriating smirk on his face. But it couldn't be only that annoying, overbearing smirk that turned her off---Koga himself had an arrogant smirk that could get under her skin when she thought about it, which wasn't often. But she didn't loathe him like she did that posturing dog of a clan chief.

First of all, he was filthy. Dirty nailed and dusty-furred, he smelled like wet dog. Her nose wrinkled at the thought. He might have been a strong specimen of a youkai male, but she could care less. His attitude was one of domineering egotism---and there was nothing for the foul fish-boy to be egotistical about.

His yellow eyes were constantly on her, making her skin crawl. When cold looks and sneering scorn had not worked to turn his attention elsewhere, she had deliberately started ignoring him. He kept trying to get close to her, but she always managed to slip away, thanks to the assistance of her countless furry four-legged attendants. She hadn't thought she would ever be grateful to the gathering mutts, but she was.

But her silent withdrawal only seemed to intrigue the infuriating ookami more, and she could barely step outside her small cave without having those piercing yellow eyes staring right at her, leering as if he was picturing her disrobing.

Gods, she hated that!

She wasn't one to be overly modest---how could she be, with panting furballs always milling around? Her body had always been a mere instrument, a tool for her use...

She shied away from that thought, and the thought that her body had once been a tool, a mere instrument, for her creator to use. If there was one thing in this world that she hated and despised more than anything else, it was her creator, Naraku.

When he had freed her, sending her broken body that he had no more use for to the wolves, intending her tortured death by his act, and relishing in it with his sick and twisted sense of sadistic pleasure, she had mourned the loss of her control of the winds. For a long time, she had felt like she was half of what she had been. But now she knew she was more...

She was alive and free, no matter what limitations she might have. And she guarded her freedom of self zealously. She would never submit to another youkai like Naraku, cruel and callous, overly ambitious and uncaring of WHO she was.

And there was something in Katashi's eyes that she recognized. He only saw her as a possession, a jewel, perhaps, to adorn his arm and his bed. A challenge, a prize to be won. Her earlier disdain, perhaps, had been a miscalculation on her part. Her steadfast ambivalence had only drawn him in further, instead of disgusting him and making him leave her alone. He would have her, his raging ego would not allow him anything less.

Lips curling at the thought, she tossed her head, red eyes deepening in defiance. *We shall just see about THAT.*

THAT was when he had finally caught up with her, the stinking dog.

Nerves raw, mostly due to that ogling brute, she had dismissed her furry companions, needing some time alone and away from them all. She had gone deep into the woods, seeking a quiet place where she might just spend some time ALONE and with her own thoughts. She was feeling restless and on edge, and full of a nervous energy that was driving her crazy.

*Probably comes from all of them hanging around me all the damn time.*

She had believed that finding peace and quiet, being by herself, would calm the edgy uneasiness from her mind. But she had paced, her mind disquiet, and she did not know what was causing her anxious restlessness.

*Damn wolves have me wanting to just kill something.*

She was even growling slightly, much to her own disconcerted surprise. *I'm hanging around them so much, I'm turning INTO one of them.*

Shiver. What a thought.

She had been so distracted that she hadn't even sensed him coming. He was just THERE, suddenly, and she stepped back, eyes widening in surprise.

"You." She said.

The dusty mongrel gave her an arrogant bow. "Lady Kagura. Finally we meet."

The ookami's yellow eyes flicked down her person and came slowly back up, glowing slightly with appreciation. She felt sullied under that brazen examination.

Thin brows came down, and her ruby eyes narrowed. Her lips curled with scorn. "I have no wish to meet you, wolf. You may leave my presence."

"Your wishes in the matter don't count, Lady." The ookami was annoying in his conceit. He had a knowing gleam in his eye, and actually stood with his feet braced apart, arms fisted over his chest to show him to best advantage.

As if THAT could impress HER.

Eyes cold, she deliberately turned her back on him.

He was on her in a flash, hauling her around with a bruising grip on her smaller arm, and pulling her close to his reeking person. He twisted her arm up behind her back to hold her helpless against him. His armor was hard across her flattened breasts and his other hand came up to curl around her neck and tangle in the thick waves of her long black hair.

"How dare you!" She hissed at him, eyes rubied and fired with ferocity.

"Oh, I dare, Lady." Eyes glowing a yellow challenge, he pulled her face to his and smashed his hard mouth on hers, hauling her up his lean body so that he could grind his hips against hers in a possessive, domineering manner that made her sick.

Stiffening in outrage at the attack, Kagura's free hand came up to claw across his cheek. She made her claws go deep, tearing through the skin up to his ear. He released her immediately, his hand coming to his cheek as he snarled at her, yellow eyes flashing red with fury.

"You little bitch!"

She whirled away from him and into a defensive crouch. Claws outstretched, sunlight glinted on the razor-sharp edges in ominous warning. Her own eyes were glittering rubies of outrage, and she snarled at him. "You stinking dog! How DARE you!"

Katashi's claws curled with menace as he dropped his hand from the wound which seeped sullenly with streaking blood. "You need to be taught your place, woman!"

"My place?" She snarled. "And I suppose you would do me the honor, wolf?"

He flashed sharp fangs at her, yellow eyes glinting across her heaving breasts. "Gladly."

"You could try." She spat at him, fury making her beautiful. Her eyes crimsoned with fury, and the long length of her raven hair tumbled down over her shoulders and frothed over her back, framing the muscled body of a full youkai female on the verge of attack.

He licked his lips, the foul dog, and folded his arms. "You are a hot little piece, Kagura. I like that in a woman. There's no fun in it if there's no fight. You've a strong temperament. You'll make me a fine mate."

*MATE?*

"If you think I would ever consent to lie with you, you stinking dog, you are---"

He laughed at her, making her want to claw that smugly wolfish grin off of his ugly face again. "You'll have no choice in the matter, woman. You're unclaimed, and fair game. I'll kill any wolf who'd dare try and take you from me."

"You uncouth bastard. You'd have to kill me first." She spat at him.

He barked a sharp laugh---gods she hated that laugh. The bastard was as dull-witted as he was single-minded. "I like a feisty woman. After we are mated, I won't tolerate your foul mouth, of course, but it will be amusing taming you, wench."

She snarled, enraged at his patronizing words. Claws curling, she braced her feet, ready to launch for his throat.

"KAGURA."

She froze at that booming voice. *Damn him!*

Koga was abruptly there, between them, his icy eyes glaring across her disheveled clothing to Katashi's bloody cheek.

She snarled her denied vengeance, wanting that foul wolf to pay for his insults with his life. A strong arm shot out, holding her back with a hard and immovable grip on her shoulder.

"Let me go." She growled, the fury pounding through her, wanting release. All of her restless frustration had a focus now, and she wouldn't be denied. She wanted blood.

"No." There was enough emphasis on the command that she actually gained control of her raging fury, but did not relinquish it. Impotent frustration had her shaking, and her claws curled into fists.

"You would deny me honor?" She hissed at him, eyes narrowed on his own light blue glare.

Katashi's booming laugh washed over them. "Heh! A woman has no honor!"

"I," Koga said coldly, the ring of force in his quiet words, "will deal with him. You will return to the caverns. You are not yourself right now."

She snarled, wanting to claw HIS eyes out now. What did he mean by that? Of course she was herself---

But she wasn't. She was acting like a damn three-year-old having a temper tantrum.

Her lips curled in amusement.

She was acting like Koga at his worst.

His light blue eyes narrowed on her, wanting to know just what was so damn amusing all of a sudden. He was so easily read.

The calm control was back, and she drew herself up. The haughty look of frigidity finally made him let go of her shoulder. She nodded once, sharply, her compliance with his mandate. She would leave it to him---this once.

Back straight, she turned her scathing scorn on the other ookami who should have been beneath her notice. A look of pure abhorrence flashed across her red eyes, making the scarlet deepen, before they cooled under her deliberate dismissal.

He was pathetic.

Her look actually made the other wolf stiffen, and he even snarled at her.

*Truly pathetic.*

"You are hardly worth my notice, ookami dog. If you dare to lay your filthy claws on me again, I will tear your balls off and feed them to you before ripping out your throat and ending your sorry excuse for a life."

Both youkai's eyes widened in surprise at the cool detachment with which she had made that little speech. Red streaks striped Katashi's eyes and his claws fisted at his sides with impotent rage. Koga's glinted a bit, amusement flashing across before being swallowed by the cold aura of dominance he could assume when he chose to exercise it.

Kagura made a graceful bow, the final touch to her insult. Raising her head high, she turned away from the ungracious dogs and walked-slowly, carelessly---away from them and into the darkened forest.

*~*~*~*~*

The faint luminance of the gardens at night was a sight of unearthly beauty. The twinkling lights of the stars above were echoed in the aura of the butterflies that dotted the inner sanctum in pale yellow and white lights, their own glow touching the delicate wings in pearl and champagne.

The dove-grey skin of the four-armed spider youkai who had come to the gardens was touched with its own pearlescent hue, the glow lightening around him as the curious butterflies came to alight on his form and touch his expressionless face with delicate wings.

Extending his palms, the brightest of them landed on the surface, their feet a soft whisper across his fingers. Bending his head, he whispered to them, a humming sound of haunting sibilance. Wings fluttered and the unearthly radiance of small figures brightened and dimmed with understanding.

Slowly, he raised his arms, hands spread out so that the small youkai, nightly messengers only by requested aid, could alight on the soft breeze that circled through the star-lit sanctuary. Wings flashed as they beat a quick rhythm, their soft music spread across the garden that was held enthralled in the magical radiance of their youkai aura.

Small, but strong, they would seek out the Lord of the Western Lands, delivering their message. Carrying their own light through the darkness, they would span the world, seeking him in the night...

*~*~*~*~*

"That bitch needs beating." Katashi's snarl was low and ominous as the kaze youkai slowly departed the quiet clearing deep in the woods.

Koga raised a black brow in amusement. "You could try."

Yellow eyes---dog pee eyes---narrowed with contention. "You think I couldn't?"

Koga crossed his arms, taking up a casual stance. Katashi was acting like a brat. "I said, ookami, that you could try."

Claws extended meaningfully as the fury flashed red across those dog pee eyes. "She won't be able to escape me for much longer."

His other black brow quirked up at that in amused question. What made that stupid ookami think Kagura would ever change her mind about him? He'd seen that hard look of pure loathing in the witch's eyes, and she wasn't one to change her mind easily, once set.

Yellowy pools of dog pee widened, and Katashi actually barked a short laugh, annoying the hell out of Koga, who couldn't see any reason for the damn upstart to be amused.

*Stinking dog-turd---*

"You don't know, do you?" Katashi barked again, REALLY getting under Koga's fur this time.

"What the hell are you getting at, ookami?" He growled, blue eyes narrowed.

"Don't you smell her scent, or do you have snot blocking your nose?" Katashi's canines flashed at his own bad joke.

The growl grew, a warning. He was not to be played a fool by stupid upstarts who thought---

He stilled suddenly, having taken in a good long breath, and caught it---sharp and slightly spicy, the faint hint of Naraku's own hated stench over-ridden by the kaze youkai's freshening fragrance. Her scent had changed, slowly and not really registering on his conscious mind that it had.

She had, at one time, reeked of Naraku. It was his essence that had created her, had fueled her existence. But the dark hanyou had completely separated the witch from him when he returned her her heart, and she had become more and more what she truly was created from...the Wind.

The Wind had a strange scent, a mixture of many different ones, a changing scent that spoke to him of fresh gusts off the sea, faint breezes up from a flowered field, icy hints from the upper mountains, secretive winds passing through dark, lonely forests...

He inhaled deeply, wanting to name all of the different varieties of that interchanging scent. But that wasn't what really made him freeze in place. Under that strange combination of the awakening kaze youkai's own essence, was the spicy fragrance that lingered, making his eyes flash for a moment with a more primitive urgency, a tantalizing fragrance that made him want to---

*DAMN.*

Katashi grinned knowingly. "I don't have to wait much longer, Koga. The wolves tell all, don't they?"

Icy fire glared at him in a hardened blue stare. *Damn, but he's right.* He should have seen it, should have understood why all his damn wolves were sniffing around the wind witch all the damn time, why his men were all fawning over her, so bent on pleasing her and making her smile for them.

*DAMN.*

Katashi smirked. "I don't even think she knows, which is the beauty of it. Won't she be in for a shock."

Koga growled. *Lay one claw on her, you bastard, and I'll---*

What the hell was he thinking? Kagura wasn't one of his clan. She was an unclaimed kaze youkai who could more than defend herself. He didn't have any business interfering with nature.

But...

She had saved Ginta. *Damn.* And his men. *Damn.* And she didn't deserve an overbearing tyrant who wouldn't be much better than Naraku, when all was said and done.

*DAMN.*

*~*~*~*~*

Three nights he battled for the taijiya's life, and by the end of it, even he was hollow-eyed and dull with fatigue.

*Damn it, anyway.*

She was hot and cold by turns, the fever and the chills wracking through her weak body until he wanted to tear his hair out with frustration. He had always been one to face something with fists and claws, and he didn't like the creeping sense of helplessness that ate at him every time her condition worsened.

"Come on, damn it." He growled over her, sponging the sweat from her body with cool water from the stream nearby.

Her crisis came, and he spent nearly ten straight hours with her, keeping the fever from claiming her life with the few tools he had and the single-minded determination that would drive him to do all that he could in any situation, however bleak, to continue fighting until the very end...

At first, his touch had been tentative, the tell-tale flush of embarrassment on his ruddy cheeks and deliberate averting of amber eyes a sign of how nervous he was with her. But as the long days and nights of her illness continued, he became familiar with her body, intimately familiar, and he was no longer apprehensive as he bathed the sweat from her skin, or wrapped the thick woolen blankets over her to keep in the warmth as he held her in his arms, seeking to share his heat and willing with all his being that she fight, and live...

Kirara's continued presence seemed to reassure him. The neko's faith never waned, and she distracted him, sometimes, when he fell into the dark moodiness over the taijiya's inability to throw off the sickness of her body.

It was Kirara's happy mew that awakened him from the numbing exhaustion that had him slumped against the wall across from Sango's sick-bed. Mentally groaning, he forced his tensed muscles to move and obey him, and he crawled over to where the neko was pawing at the taijiya, who was again tossing in the throes of another nightmare.

Her fevered dreams had disturbed her rest---and his---more times than he could count, and often it was only HIS presence, as he held her and soothed the night terrors that haunted her, that would calm her down and allow her to fall into peaceful slumber. His right hand immediately went to cup her forehead, testing for her temperature in a motion that had become unconscious by familiarity, he had done it so many times over the past three days.

His claws curled in surprise, for even though the woman's skin was sweaty under his seeking, her temperature was actually cooling to normal, not chilling into clamminess---a downward spiral he had grown to dread. A surge of relief almost left him giddy, and swept away the numbness from his mind. Grabbing up the closest bucket, he almost tore the bamboo curtain off of its ties in his hurry to fill up the damn thing with cool water from the stream that---of course---ran through the farthest side of the village from Sango's hut.

He cleaned the dried sweat from her skin carefully, pausing to check the original would that had caused all this crap in the first place, and fangs gleamed white in the dim light of the dying day as he saw that it had healed nicely. In another day there would not even be the trace of a scar...

Not that the warrior-woman didn't have scars enough. He had been shocked, and daunted, by how many covered the girl's body. For one so young, she had been through a lot. Not to mention the starred one on her back that made his claws curl into his palms with rage---not at her, no, but for the pain it must have caused, and the reminder it must be to her.

He respected those scars. They were badges of strength and survival.

Pulling a clean yukata from the pile he had shoved in one corner---thank the holies Kirara had actually found clean clothes in many of the cots, slightly dusty but useable, he didn't even want to ever think about having to do LAUNDRY, and had tossed the dirty linen out the doorway and kicked it under a brush on one of his countless journeys back and forth to the wide stream for fresh water---and wrapped Sango in it. Cocking his ears forward, he caught the soft, slow beat of her strong heart. The pale cheeks were actually flushed a little, and not with fever, but with returning health. She slept deeply now, the sleep of recovery.

Wrinkling his nose at the smell of her futon, he didn't want to lay her back down in that mess. Kirara hadn't been so lucky in finding useable blankets as she had in clothing. Fatigue was nipping at him again, and he finally just slumped back down against the wall, holding the girl close in his arms. She was like a limp doll, and he hauled her legs over to curl across his lap. Kirara gurred and mewed over the heavy fabric of his haori, which he had discarded three nights ago and not donned since. The neko managed to drag it across the few feet of space so that he could lean over slightly, trying not to jostle the sleeping taijiya, and hook it up neatly with one claw. Using his left hand to brace the girl against him, he used his right to tug the familiar red fabric over and around her, tucking her feet into its warmth.

Sango sighed against him, and his arms flexed over her, holding her frail body protectively against his even as the girl settled down, her breaths evening out into serene repose. Kirara came and curled up on a piece of his haori behind Sango's covered feet, and the last thought he had before lowering his head and closing his eyes to sleep as well were laced with grumbling irritation.

*Damn it, that stupid cat better not get white hair all over my Fire Rat robe...*