Wednesday! hurray hurray!! I was waiting for this, and you were too.
wow, Three whole reviews for one chapter... I feel so loved! seriously, i hadn't thought the first chapter was all that awesome. Just kidding!
One of my reviewers asked where the heck I got "Chef Boyardee Flying Ravioli kick" and some of my other more entertaining moments that are just so far out in left field as to be impossible to see them coming. Well that's simple. There is a box, that hides out in this pocket that is stuck in Ammo space which is located in the guns you find in gun space which is to the left of hammer space. Hammer space, which is right above grill space, because Ukyo from ranma had to have someplace she stashed her portable grill in, Grill space is under hammer space as I said, which is to the right of food space and under that space where anime characters keep their innumerable matching and identicle outfits that they wear for the entirety of a single season of anime. Is everybody confused? Good, because all of this has absolutely nothing to do with where my awesomely weird Ideas come from.
see, I get my freeze dried special brand inspiration from the designer store I get my brand canned insanity from and my fresh sarcasm, because Fresh is soo much better than canned. Sorry you asked, huh?
Now back to our regularly scheduled rant. Don't you just hate the morons on the road that insist on breaking the law? And I don't mean just speeding, I mean the morons that make illegal U-turns on the highway after dark and across your lane because they were too stupid to catch their exit and they were too impatient to drive the handful of minutes down the road to the next exit to turn around. Where the hell was the law enforcement then, I ask you? It happened to me twice in two days! what the hell? And worst of all, the first time was after dark, after my shift, around midnight, on really rotten roads. And I mean really rotten, radio was reporting accidents all over the place, bad roads. I almost wanted to hit the gas and plow into them to just show them why it's illegal. (I didn't of course, I have an exceedingly healthy aversion to pain, especially mine and that of my bank account. My poor car wouldn't have liked it very much either.) but seriously, is it so hard to follow the rules? Especially rules that make a lot of sense?
I wonder if Rumiko Takathashi makes illegal u-turns when she's driving her characters around. I know I would if I had both Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru and Naraku in the same car. And I wouldn't even bother to make sure we didn't wind up in a fatal accident. Seriuosly, can you imagine that trio in a car?
Supplemental Insurance
Inuyasha's most recent worst nightmare was about to come true too fast for him to defend against it. The fates were proving to be just as unkind to him as they tended to be with anyone else. They were a great bunch of sadistic bastards whenever the given the opportunity. And all because Fred had been sent on a mission.
Fred had somehow managed to find the cavalry despite his extremely slow speed. He still couldn't figure out how he had managed to be so lucky as to find help for Aki as quickly as he did when it had taken him nearly a week just to cross over to the big island.
Once he had reached land he couldn't count the number of strangers that felt the need to flee before his ghostly might. It was damned annoying and quite solidly punched in the point that his options were greatly limited in seeking aid.
And to make matters worse he was finding that the farther he moved away from his anchor the harder it was to continue and the slower he seemed to go. The task of find Aki a rescue team was mounting into an impossible undertaking.
Fred was cursing up a storm and seriously debating turning around and trying to save his best friend without back up when a miracle happened…
Kikyou overheard him.
Kikyou had resumed her directionless wandering after being completely ditched by Aki sometime back. Occasionally she would find a place to stay for a small space of time or she would find some project to catch her listless thoughts, but normally she just felt the call to move about.
Often she would think about Aki and wonder how the strange youkai was doing and if she'd managed to shake off that lusty ghost. Sometimes her thoughts would warm her broken soul and fill her eyes with mild amusement. Other times she just wanted to see if she couldn't eradicate the ghost without having to touch him.
But when she stumbled upon Fred fretting at the air around him and no Aki within sensing distance, she knew there was serious trouble to be overcome.
She wasn't wrong. In fact Aki had gotten herself into more trouble than Kikyou could see a way out of without some serious power in their court. In Kikyou's opinion, serious power on their side equated with the taiyoukai that had once been mated to the female in danger.
Luck was with them, Sesshoumaru was within sensing distance, and with Kikyou helping him, Fred caught up with him in less than an hour. Ten minutes later, Sesshoumaru was out of sight and the rest of the party followed slowly after.
On the one hand it was lucky Fred had found aid at all so quickly. On the other, Inuyasha really could have lived without Sesshoumaru's fist miraculously planting in his face out of nowhere.
Aki climbed to her feet and leapt back as Sesshoumaru came to a stop right next to where she had fallen.
"Whoa!" Yumi yelped as the taiyoukai seemed to materialize out of thin air.
"Aw yeah! Now we'll see a real fight!" Youta yelled in delight.
"What do you mean 'real fight'? What was all that before?" Shippou demanded angrily.
"A fight with a hanyou is baby stuff," Youta scoffed.
Shippou growled and attempted to leap from Kagome's arms at the mole brat, but Kagome refused to let go.
"No Shippou!" Kagome tugged him closer. "Aki would hate it if she was forced to hurt you!"
Sesshoumaru glared at her for an explanation and she cursed under her breath. She really was spending too much time around the dog boy of her heart.
"The lady is not acting under her own volition," Miroku told the taiyoukai.
Aki leapt at her new opponent shouting yet another ridiculous attack name as the inu youkai easily avoided her.
"No! No! No!" Youta stomped his foot to punctuate each word. "You're still doing it wrong!"
Aki pulled up short and stared blankly at Sesshoumaru as the boy threw a fit.
"Why can't you do it right?" Youta demanded. "You can't be that stupid!"
"Don't call her stupid because of your dumb idea!" Yumi shouted over Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru's angry growls.
"My idea was not dumb!"
"Enough!" their father yelled over the racket. "This is not a game! You!" he glared at his waiting puppet. "You will fight them seriously and you two will knock it off, NOW!"
Aki immediately launched herself at the inu brothers, separating them as both evaded her attack. She started to focus more on Sesshoumaru who had been driven closer to the family of mole youkai. Punches and kicks flew at him in quick succession, forcing him away from the moles as he blocked and deflected each move she made.
"Quite holding back and hit him already!" the mole yelled.
Aki was forced to speed up and land a blow in Sesshoumaru's gut that knocked the wind from him.
Sesshoumaru quirked an eyebrow at her in the realization that she was still fighting with the mole. Aki could do him serious damage if she put her mind to it, but she was still holding back from combining her speed with her strength to increase the impact of both. She was using all of her speed and all of her strength, true, but not together like he knew she could. She would do no harm if she had anything to say about it.
Which she didn't for much longer, the mole wasn't stupid. He knew something was suspicious if the taiyoukai wasn't attacking or bleeding. Hell, the hanyou wasn't bleeding either. If Naraku had cause to want this female, then she was more capable of fighting than his eyes were suggesting. The wench was still holding back, but he could fix that!
"Come here!' the puppeteer ordered Aki away from the taiyoukai threat. He pulled out some hidden weapon with an edge on it and firmly placed it in her hand. Then the mole pointed back towards the group of interlopers and said one word as he stared directly into her eyes. "Kill!"
"Oh shit!" Inuyasha swore. This was bad. There was no doubt in his mind that Aki could actually massacre all of them if she put her mind to it, but that wasn't what worried him the most. He worried about how Aki would react to killing someone. She kind of had a bad view of death, fighting, and her being the cause of it. This couldn't be good.
"You great big Coward!" Shippou managed to holler from Kagome's shoulder despite his ever-growing fear.
"What did you call my dad?" Youta demanded angrily as Aki took her first step forward.
"He's a coward! And so are you! Why else would you force Aki to do it for you?" Shippou yelled back as Aki continued to approach them. Kagome and the other humans were drawing back, their trepidation getting the better of them.
Aki came to a stop two feet away from Sesshoumaru who remained the one closest to the mole family besides her. Her blank eyes seemed to see right through him, though he knew this was a false impression.
The weapon flew back over her head as she swung it around in preparation to strike. One tense breath found its home in the time just before the sharp edge of the weapon soared through the air and down across her opposite wrist, slicing it open and filling the forest with the scent of Aki's blood.
"Release!" Yumi screamed. "Spell release! Let her go!" The child rounded on her father angrily. "You swore she wouldn't die! You promised nobody I cared about would ever die again! You lied!" She shoved her father to run over to where Aki had fallen only to be warned off by the taiyoukai holding the partial youkai's bleeding wrist.
Aki whipped around to shoot a blast of miko power past the young mole youkai and into the evil Naraku puppet crouching in the tree above and behind the mole family. The threat disintegrated into so much ash to carry away on the cool wind.
A tug on her wrist brought Aki's attention back to the self-inflicted wound. Sesshoumaru glared at her as he held her arm up and kept his fingers pressing on the deep cut. She released a small amount of miko power into the tip of her finger and caught his eyes with hers. She pointedly glanced from her glowing finger to her bloody wrist.
Sesshoumaru got the gist of what she was trying to convey and slowly lifted his fingers carefully to reveal the ruptured skin. She dragged her finger smoothly across the lips of the wound. The holy power burned along her skin, cauterizing the wound before she could lose more blood.
Aki gave him a brief reassuring smile before her eyes rolled back into her head and she passed out, slumping forward against Sesshoumaru's chest.
"You stupid git!" the mole youkai was yelling at Yumi over the noise of a gleeful Shippou fighting the obnoxious Youta.
"Shippou, stop that!" Kagome yelled, trying to break up the ruckus.
"You wouldn't want his stupidity to spill over on you," Inuyasha laughed. "It must be contagious since his dad is just as stupid."
"What did you say?" Youta demanded, shaking in all his enraged mole-y might.
"What are you deaf as well as stupid?" Shippou teased. "Or are you too stupid to understand what he said?"
"Shippou that's enough!" Kagome scolded. "Inuyasha, you're not helping."
"Keh," Inuyasha turned to Youta's father, who was still berating his daughter.
Sango and Miroku watch father and daughter argue in bemusement. The pair of youkai did realize they were in imminent danger at that particular moment, right?
"You shouldn't have released the spell," the mole youkai hollered in anger.
"No, you shouldn't have cast the spell in the first place," Inuyasha growled angrily.
"You'd rather I'd given her over to Naraku, I suppose," the mole grunted in return.
"Is that why you attacked Aki?" Sango asked sternly.
Sesshoumaru picked up Aki and cradled her to his body. The noise was getting on his last nerve and he was finding it difficult to maintain his control. He wanted to do bodily harm to the low life responsible for forcing Aki to the point where she would threaten her own life to break free.
"Silence," he roared over the sounds ringing through his ears. Sesshoumaru glared at them from his full height angrily. All sound and movement had stopped at the powerful order.
And then Kikyou was hurrying into view headed straight for Aki. The dead miko checked the unconscious female for injury, ignoring the growl Sesshoumaru sent her way. Being a non-living individual with extra abilities, it was hard for her to take verbal threats of any kind seriously.
"All right, what'd I miss?" Fred demanded as he appeared right next to the growling youkai holding his unconscious friend.
"Apparently, Aki has broken free, though she seems to have sustained some damage," Kikyou observed.
Fred turned to the confused on-lookers and the mole youkai in various stages of apprehension. "Anybody care to explain?"
"The moles put Aki under a spell and ordered her to attack us when we got here," Shippou started. "Aki tried to fight the spell while the rest of us just defended ourselves until those dummies," the kit pointed at the other children, "started making it difficult for her. Then Inuyasha stupidly hit Aki."
"Hey! you could have left that part out!" the hanyou protested.
"I don't see how," Miroku shrugged. "You knocked over a tree, which is kind of hard to miss considering how recent it happened."
"You would have needed to explain the broken and cracked ribs either way," Kikyou announced and Inuyasha ducked his head in shame.
"I noticed that wasn't what broke the spell," Fred commented drolly.
"Then Sesshoumaru got here and the mole youkai upped the ante," Kagome continued for Shippou. "He's the one who gave Aki the weapon she cut herself with causing the little girl to release the spell."
"Which she shouldn't have done!" said mole youkai made to grab at his daughter. Inuyasha bashed him on the head with his fist.
"You had best thank her," Miroku suggested. "Because if Yumi hadn't set Aki free right then Naraku's doppelganger would have killed you and your children."
"That's true," Sango nodded as the slightly abused parent turned white as the blood drained from his face. "He had told Aki to kill in the opposite direction. If Aki hadn't been free to take him out it's very likely nobody would have taken it out in time."
Kagome shook her head at the conversation as she handed Kikyou a roll of bandages from her pack to wrap Aki's ribs with. "I think the worst thing about this situation is that Aki would have helped them against Naraku if they had simply asked," the teenager observed sadly as the miko continued to tend Aki's injuries with Sesshoumaru's presence looming over her.
He wouldn't let Aki go, which made their efforts difficult. It didn't matter to Sesshoumaru. His instincts were riding close to the surface and desperate to combat the memory of Aki's blood staining his fingers with the reality of her being truly alive.
His control was fraying and he was just barely keeping from using drastic measures to reassure himself of Aki's continued life. The only things helping him at the moment was the fact she was breathing even and steady and her warmth had not diminished dangerously.
"Yes Aki would have offered her aid," Miroku nodded thoughtfully.
"Don't be absurd!" the mole youkai laughed. "No youkai would just help someone they don't know without demanding something impossible in return."
"That's not true!" Shippou yelled. "Even Inuyasha would have helped if it meant fighting Naraku!"
"Aki is in the habit of helping others," Sango said in observation. "Most often her solutions don't even require violence."
"You can't just talk Naraku out of hurting people," Shippou pointed out.
"No, but you can hide from the bastard," Fred murmured while still studying his unconscious friend. "Could move them somewhere that we'd pass by often to add the extra insurance of readily available aid coming to the rescue." The ghost reached out to poke his phantom finger through Aki's forehead.
"Fred, what are you doing?" Kagome demanded as Aki's features scrunched up in unconscious discomfort.
"Aki pulled me into her dream once, I'm trying to see if I can enter one without her help," he answered.
"Why?" Shippou asked curiously.
"Because I'm too impatient to wait for her to wake up before learning if she's okay," the ghost muttered.
"Didn't Kikyou's examination tell you that?" The boy demanded even as Kirara nudged him to be quiet.
Fed shared a glance with the miko in question. "There are some hurts that a person can't find just by looking for physical wounds," Kagome explained. "You hurt when you think of your parents' death even though you aren't wounded on the outside, right?"
The ghost shook his head, "It's worse than that. Aki doesn't do very well alone, and I've been gone for help a little over a week."
"You worry her fears and enchanted state will have had a detrimental effect on her mind," Kikyou conjectured blandly.
"She's already been to the brink once, I'd rather she didn't get that close to breaking down ever again," Fred shook his head. "So I want to check on her," he mumbled as he tried again and failed.
"Try it when you're invisible," Kikyou suggested.
Fred disappeared from view.
"Do you think it'll work?" Shippou asked the general group.
"We're sure to find out soon enough," Sango shrugged and hit the adult mole youkai on the head when he tried to sneak off. "You stay put, we haven't decided what to do with you guys yet."
"Kill them so I can beat the shit out of them!" Fred snarled harshly. "And make their deaths slow and painful!"
"Fred!" Kagome gasped. "What's wrong?"
The ghost ruthlessly dampened his anger and glanced at the youkai cradling Aki like a precious treasure. "Talk to her, growl at her, prick her with your claws, I don't care how you do it, but make sure she knows you're there. Reassure her that the spell truly has been broken. Just make sureshe knows she's not alone," Fred was visibly restraining himself from some great useless gesture. "Don't worry about waking her up. She hasn't been allowed to sleep since before that damn spell was cast!" He fairly growled out the next sentence, "And she hasn't eaten either! She was almost back to her normal eating habits before this started!" he glared at the moles. "You locked her in her head to starve and go crazy with her fears and lack of sleep!"
"What are you talking about?" Youta demanded in total confusion.
"When did you tell her to eat and sleep?" Fred glared at the brat.
"She's a grown up! She should be able to take care of herself!" the boy declared sourly.
"She would have been able to had he," here Fred jabbed his ghostly fingers into the face of Youta's father causing the youkai to jump in a mixture of surprise and extreme discomfort. "Had that bastard not be spelled her so that she couldn't move or talk without a direct order!"
Yumi gasped, "I hadn't thought it was as bad as that!"
Fred softened his ire slightly when he directed his gaze at her. "So you just thought a gull grown woman wouldn't mind being treated like a doll you could order around," he snorted.
Yumi blushed in response.
"Somebody kill them so that I can beat the crap out of them!" He demanded again.
"That's enough!" Kikyou yelled over the fuming ghost. " The family of moles will be judged and punished, but it will not be by you. Aki was the victim and she suffered the most for it, so Aki should be the one to hand down their punishment.
"We need to move," Fred declared darkly. "She said it was going to snow."
"How on earth can she tell in her condition?" Kagome glanced at the sky incredulously.
Sesshoumaru strode directly over to the somewhat subdued mole youkai, planted his foot on the back of the dolt's neck and pushed him to the ground. "Take us to the shelter you call home." He knew better than to question Aki's weather predications.
"Don't hurt my dad!" Youta shouted.
Sesshoumaru leveled a glare at the child that promised death.
"I'll show you the way," Yumi squeaked out, mildly terrified for her family.
"Well, what do you know, your family tree really did manage to produce someone slightly intelligent," Fred commented sarcastically.
"Yumi!" He father yelled angrily.
"Oh fine! Next time I'll let them hurt you and Youta!" She grumbled with a roll of her eyes.
"I really wish you would," Inuyasha muttered to the side. "Sesshoumaru might be less likely to beat the rest of us up."
"The only one he's likely to take a piece out of is you, Inuyasha," Kagome pointed out. "None of the rest of us did more than block Aki's attacks."
Inuyasha cringed as the taiyoukai in question threw a threatening look his way. "SHut up! Wench!" he growled to the teenager from the future. If he was lucky, Sesshoumaru would forget about him, but it wouldn't happen if Kagome kept bringing it up.
"Aki will need to be changed back into her own clothes," Fred observed as Miroku and Sango prodded the two male youkai into movement. "It'll be warmer than that short kimono."
"Dad burned those weird things," Youta declared smugly.
"No he didn't," Yumi declared. "None of it would burn so he stuck it in his usual hiding place." She rolled her eyes at the look her father sent her. "Aki said they were protected by the gods."
"Why would she tell you that?" Shippou demanded.
"I asked," Yumi answered.
"More like interrogated her," Inuyasha grumbled.
"That's not true!" Yumi hollered. "She's my friend."
"Oh really?" Fred raised an eyebrow darkly. "And when did you talk about things Aki wanted to talk about? When did she get to ask questions? Never?"
"Shut up!" Yumi yelled defensively.
"What our transparent friend means is simply that friendship cannot be one-sided," Miroku said gently.
"What's Kikyou doing?" Shippou asked as Kagome turned back to watch the miko.
Kikyou caught up with the paused group without explaining her delay. What she did was her business and would be revealed if she felt the need of it.
Fred shrugged her fake air of mystery off and urged the group to hurry up.
Sesshoumaru was fast leaving them behind as he hadn't cared about the miko's doings. His focus was on getting Aki to his destination. Everybody else could fend for themselves, Damnit!
