Author notes: Well, here it is: the story of what happened two years ago. I hope that with this your doubts get cleared and to not disappoint you with this chapter. It took me a lot of effort to write it but I believe that the hardest part of the fanfic has come to an end. Finally the past that linked Inuyasha with Kagome's father will be revealed and well it was hard to be Inuyasha in this position, but it helped me a lot to have dreamt of what Kagome's father looked like – and once you read it you'll understand what I mean and yes, I dreamt him that way. I think that I managed to convey every feeling and picture in the chapter and I hope you won't criticize me a lot for this 'dark twist'. I promise you that the next chapter will be more enjoyable and without big problems ^^ I hope you enjoy this. And thanks to all of you for your lectures (Over 200 the last episode! *o*), your reviews and comments ^^ see you the next Friday!
Disclaimer: Besides the plot line, I don't own anything. Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi and Yomiuri TV Corporation. I'm not getting any profit from this story; this was just made for fun.
Warning: Explicit descriptions of violence. Blood, and that kind of stuff so if you're sensitive of stomach, you know what to do ^^U at least for me this episode is really hard and maybe there is bad language? I'm not so sure what you consider bad language... ^^U
Thanks to: Thanks to my beta reader, PandaStarz, for her wonderful work on this chapter.
Slavery.
Author: MikoAucarod
Chapter 10: Two years ago...
"You've done it this time, Kouga! He's gonna kill us!"
"He'll never catch us, Miroku! He's a weak little puppy!"
"Shut up, you mangy wolf!"
"Israel, don't yell, I'm right next to you."
"Sorry, Lady Kaede," grumbled the half-demon, walking beside her while watching how Miroku and Kouga were trying in vain to run.
"Lady Kaede, for all the sacred things please lift your order. If we don't escape from Inuyasha right now, he'll kill us," sobbed Miroku, walking as fast as he could since Kaede's order had been 'Don't run today, take it easy' so…
"Well, Miroku, you must understand that it's really dangerous for an old lady like me to wander around this place alone. Especially now, after dark."
"But with Sesshomaru you would be more than protected," the wolf demon exclaimed this time, while carrying around five or six plastic bags containing food and things they had just bought.
"Maybe, but I don't like to go out and be in silence the whole way back home."
Touché.
"Keh! Well I don't see why that mangy wolf had to come along. Miroku and I should have been enough."
"Oh, for the love of God! Can't a woman have the company of life-long companions for a few hours?" she laughed at the complaints of her little family. To her they weren't Slaves, they were like her own sons – even if before they had been like her parents, then her brothers, and she even had a crush on one of them when she was 15 – with Sesshomaru around, who could resist? "Anyway, I just don't want you to keep fighting for today, please."
Inuyasha frowned at Kouga, without being able to replicate anything of what he said.
"Did you know Miroku, that dogs are called the human's best friends because they are always running behind their masters as the animals they are?"
"Kouga, I don't think this is the moment to-" the monk tried to interrupt, catching immediately the wolf's intentions. If he couldn't fight, he would indirectly insult.
"No, I'm serious, I saw this documental on TV… and of course, I saw it myself centuries ago, when I wasn't a Slave. The landowners and the leaders gave an order and the dogs launched themselves to obey without thinking about it."
Inuyasha narrowed his eyes, severely upset. Lady Kaede wasn't getting the double meaning of Kouga's words and listened to him attentively, believing he was talking about common pets… How wrong she was!
"Lady Kaede ordered us not to run, but nothing will happen if you stop for a moment and wait until you can't hear Kouga's words," Sesshoumaru spoke, cold and discreetly as always, to Inuyasha who looked at him with surprise. If it was true that they didn't hate each other, in the nearly seventy years they have been living with Kaede they had talked about… fifty times at most? Well, with Sesshomaru you never had something to talk about.
The young hanyou slowed his steps, allowing himself to relax once he noticed how the others were turning a corner. He waited for ten seconds and then began to walk again, carrying the three bags that Kaede had entrusted him with: The loaves of bread, milk cans and butter.
Sesshomaru's advice worked since Inuyasha was walking behind the others without hearing the absurd critics that Kouga was saying towards him, with arrogance and without looking back. Kaede was so engrossed listening to the wolf that she didn't notice Inuyasha's absence.
The hanyou had never understood why, but there had always been rivalry between he and Kouga. Always. At the Sengoku whenever they were near each other they used to insult each other and fight, there was blood and bruises somewhere and then they took out their own path… That was the way they demonstrated their friendship? Because he accepted that he didn't hate him but he neither was saint of his devotion…
"Stupid thoughts," he scolded himself. He couldn't allow himself to open up to anyone else again; he didn't even know how he would feel once Kaede died. He didn't want to keep suffering for his friend's and loved ones lost. He had to not establish any friendship with anybody. At what moment had his thoughts turned in that direction?
"Som-someone…" There was a murmur inaudible to humans and almost undetected by Inuyasha. He heard it at the moment he had passed near an alley that divided the main street from a courtyard between old and abandoned buildings. The half-demon observed the place carefully, before he continued his way. Maybe the ghosts of his past were tricking his mind again.
"St-stop… this… some-…-one…" There it was again: the murmur. This time Inuyasha stopped completely. And then he heard a louder noise, coughs and spitting, very strong coughs. There was something at the abandoned square.
Kaede and the others had continued on without noticing anything. What could happen if he separated from them a few moments? She hadn't ordered him not to follow…
Inuyasha made a decision and entered the black alley, following the nearly inaudible moaning… He could almost hear Kouga saying: 'Just like a little and curious puppy'. He scolded himself for thinking about that and cast that stupid wolf from his mind. Kouga insulted him often enough; he didn't need to add to it.
As soon as the clock struck midnight – because the old lady had told them to not fight just for that day – he would make sure to give that mangy wolf a good reason to-
Inuyasha stopped abruptly his line of thoughts and the bags in his hands fell to the ground. A second later they were abandoned since the half-demon walked as fast as he could towards the body that was lying between a small wall that divided an old play area and some trash cans that had been dropped near it.
When he stood beside him – it seemed to take him minutes to reach the body – he kneeled and noticed, with horror, that it was a human being, a Slave just like him. He was wearing a gray shackle, which had a silver stone in its center, on his left wrist. He was badly injured.
And saying that he was badly injured was an understatement. How was it possible for that man to still be able to breath?
Throughout his entire naked chest – since his shirt was tattered because of the cuts - he had countless knife wounds and of what he could tell in the dark he had at least 20 bullet shots, all in vital points of the body. Several of them were at the height of his heart and others over his lungs and stomach as well as one that had passed cleanly through the center of his throat.
His legs were extended at an odd angle and through the holes in his pants he could see severe burn marks. Most of his skin was gray and Inuyasha could swear that for a moment he had seen a part of the shin and knee bones of the man.
At first sight the arms appeared to be intact but Inuyasha saw that they were too thin at the back of them and he preferred to not corroborate if what he had saw a few steps of the body was his own flesh.
The face of that man – who nevertheless remained conscious and breathing – showed lots of injuries, not enough to disfigure his face, but enough to pierce part of his skin. Dried blood covered his front and skull.
Inuyasha could swear that if he touched the back of his head he would find a really disgusting surprise.
Making big efforts to not pass out from the horror in front of him – he knew that not even Sesshomaru would have been immune to this situation – Inuyasha looked at the man's eyes. One of them had a lost gaze in some indefinite point, while the other one was looking intently at his own eyes. With his brown eye – of a deep chocolate color – looked at him supplicant.
"Make… it stop…" he managed to whisper – how, it was a mystery to Inuyasha. Tears mixed with dirty and dry blood while falling from his eyes. How many hours had he been in that state? None of his wounds were bleeding and yet he was still alive, how was that possible?
"Who did this to you? Who are you? My owner isn't so far away, I can ask her to-" Inuyasha stood up, ready to go look for the others. They shouldn't be so far away since Kaede tended to walk really slow but before he could do anything, the left hand of the man – the one with the shackle and the one that looked less hurt – managed to get a grip on Inuyasha's right ankle. That stopped him completely.
He could have got free so easily, but he didn't want to bring one more wound to that man.
"Ta-take it… off… make… it stop…" he repeated tirelessly, with his tears falling and almost undetectable moans of pain coming out of his injured throat.
"You need help, I can bring it to you, I-"
"I ne-need… my… fre… freed-" a new cough attack interrupted the man's plea. Inuyasha closed his eyes just in time, since he could hear how the Slave at his feet was spitting not only blood, but his own entrails. He could swear it.
The half-demon kneeled again and with his haori cleaned, so delicately, his face. The strange man looked as if every breath was breaking his soul.
"The… shackle… make… it stop…"
The hanyou looked again his hand. He noticed that the man was making an effort while trying to lift his left hand in the air so he took it with his own hand, with strength but without hurting him. He tried to transmit some of his own energy and some warm… that hand was cold and bruised!
"I must take off the shackle? That's what you want?"
He, just God knew how, nodded his head.
"But that would kill you…" Inuyasha then understood. If he took of his shackle… for people they were just rumors. That once you take off the shackle of a Slave, he dies. But he had seen, with the passing of years, how people simply withdrew the object from their Slaves and they fell lifeless to the ground, almost immediately. Did this man want him to become a murderer?
"No…" he whispered again, noticing how Inuyasha had intentions to leave again.
"There must be a way to help you!"
"No…" the man shook his head again, almost desperately. That was the only thing that would work. He needed him to release himself.
"I won't kill someone innocent! Tell me who did this and I'll make them pay, I'll demand them to give you your freedom, but I can't do this!" He exclaimed, with all his feelings on the surface. He, kill a Slave? To someone like him?
"They won't… lift the- the ord-… order…"
"What order?"
"Keep… breathing…"
Those two words… For just those two words! For something like that he-! Why hadn't he left that stupid discussion with Kouga? That way he could have run and go faster towards home than the others, as he usually did, and maybe, just maybe, he would have found out who did this. Maybe he could have saved him. Why did he have to kill him? Why he couldn't left him there of take him with someone? Why did he feel so-?
"No… my son, don't blame yourself…" he was surprised at hearing him speak. It was as if all his remaining strength had been saved for this moment. "This isn't… your fault at all… it'll never be. And even less keep grudges against- against them… don't pity yourself and- and don't… don't keep bad feelings inside your heart. Please don't torture yourself, I- I… I don't judge them… I'm nobody to judge them… that would- that would just kill my soul. Grudges kill the soul."
The soul? Goddammit, if that was true then those people who had done this were the Devil itself. There's no way that they could have a soul! No one could have been so cruel to-! There was no way!
"Don't… kill your soul…" the man said again, begging with his stare at the hanyou in front of him. "… name?"
Inuyasha observed him, completely shocked, how was it that he-?
"Isr-… my name... is Inuyasha." He finally spoke, tightening his fangs and taking the wrist of the man in front of him between his claws. With a clean cut the shackle wouldn't be in contact with his skin anymore.
He didn't want to become a murderer… but he wasn't either a sadistic bastard who left people suffering like this. What he was about to commit wasn't a murderer. He had to repeat that to himself a thousand times. This wasn't because he was a bad person. He had to save this man's soul. That person was begging to him… and that God had mercy for what he was about to do.
The man managed to smile weakly, even between so much pain he could find a little peace, knowing that he was being accompanied for someone, even if he was a complete stranger. A stranger who he would make sure to take care of and protect from the other world. He swore, for his daughter, Kagome, that he would take care of Inuyasha. He would do that for him.
"Thank you… Inu..yasha..."
The younger one closed his eyes and clenched his claws around the shackle to then remove them with haste from the arm of the man. The shackle was lying over the floor, broken into pieces. The man's arm was intact, Inuyasha hadn't cause any injury to him but he felt as if in any other second he would break down, because of the pain. He didn't know why, but he felt that he had done something outrageous.
When he opened his eyes, with an overshadowed look, he stared at the motionless body in front of him. The man kept the faintly smile he had managed to do at the end, for him. His closed eyes gave his face an expression of deep peace.
"... eleven... twelve... thirteen... fourteen... fifteen." Inuyasha started to gasp for air.
He had just… he had just…
"A while later, I-" Inuyasha put his arm at Kagome's back.
At some part of his tale, Kagome had hugged him and hid her face in his chest, clenching tightly to his clothes. Sometimes he felt her silent tears wet his chest, but she never made any sound. At first Inuyasha had interrupted himself for her but she had begged him to continue.
After a few seconds in silence, where he dedicated to lightly stroke the back of the girl between his arms, he continued.
"A while later I searched if there was something that belonged to him at that place, something that could help me to identify him. There wasn't anything. Not even an empty wallet, – its trace would have served, and at that moment I imagined again Kouga's insults, – but there wasn't anything. Then I decided to wait and see if any cop or ambulance, anything, could pass for that place during its night rounds. But nobody came… about an hour later I decided to go with Kaede and tell her about what had happened but… the order of not run was still existing. And if they saw me with his body in my arms in- in that state I- I wanted to-… I needed to know that-… but…"
"I understand, Inuyasha," she whispered, looking at him. "If they had seen you with him they would have accused you of the murder."
"I did kill him."
"But you weren't the one who hurt him. They would have accused you of all the atrocities that those people had committed against him. You just granted his wish… please, go on."
Inuyasha observed the girl's face. She was staring the floor, lost in thought, but paying attention to every single word from him, every movement, every gesture.
"When I got to Kaede's house, I was so angry because of that stupid order that I didn't speak to them for two or three days. I-… I felt like scum. I don't know… it was horrible." He finally confessed, shaking slightly. That wasn't unnoticed by the young girl, who turned again to look him at his eyes. "When I finally could communicate with someone by phone, without the others knowing – since they would start an interrogation and I wasn't feeling well enough to answer it… or worse, to be forced to answer it. – I called an emergency number and told them that I had heard shots and screams at that abandoned square. I prayed for your father to still be there and I hoped that that way someone would be able to identify him and return him with his beloved ones. I knew that he was from this era, because of his clothes but I… I didn't think at that moment that the calls were anonymous and that's why they never reported back to me to let me know what had happened. When finally it passed midnight, I quickly ran to the square, free from Kaede's orders had given for that day… but there was no one anymore."
This time was Kagome the one who remembered. She and her mother had been at the living room of their old house, waiting for news from the city. They knew that her father was a Slave, but in one of the occasions where his master hadn't ordered him to not speak with other and he had been forced to rob the house, he had told them that he would find a way to escape and return with them. It was then when the phone rang and the Police Officer had told her mother that they had found his corpse… and it was then when all her world had collapsed.
"For a long time I searched in the news, newspapers, radio, TV, anything." Inuyasha continued with his tale, lost in thoughts, releasing everything what he had lived and kept locked up for two years. "Any clue, to know that his family had found him and that they knew he was resting in a decent place… but simply nothing came out. There was no trace of him. It was as if he had never existed."
And Kagome knew the reason. Because he had been a Slave, the people hadn't seen him as important and they found out because of the remains of the shackle near his body.
"It's just another Slave's death," had told the one writer of the newspaper when he denied to publish the wake of death. "Do you imagine how would this be if we made one for every single Slave that dies? The newspaper would never finish. Now get out of here."
And that's how it had been…
Inuyasha felt Kagome's hands touching delicately his cheeks. She was removing a couple of tears that had escaped from his eyes. He didn't notice when that had happened and began to scold himself, but at least she seemed to have calmed down and stop crying.
"Thank you so much, Inuyasha." She spoke, without removing her hands from his face. "I know that you did what you could and now I understand a lot of things that before this were just unknown to me… I… thank you."
He lowered his gaze, feeling powerless because he felt that it was getting more and more difficult to retain his crying, but he didn't dare to be apart the girl at his side. He felt stupid. He… needed her that way…
"It isn't humiliating to release your suffering. You told me to not drown myself in my own suffering, don't force you to do the same thing; don't hold your suffering anymore. Here I am." He heard Kagome's voice, and it was as if he had needed to hear those words to finally break down.
Inuyasha hugged the girl with despair and this time it was he who cried into her chest, finally releasing that anguish, that pain, that guilt, all of those dark feelings he had kept within him for over two years.
At the other side of the room, Kikyo, with tears in her eyes, moved apart the chair locking the door and then she went down stairs, followed closely by Kagome's mother and Shippo who comforted her ensuring that, at that time when Kagome's father had needed company, had needed someone to accompany him in his last moments, there couldn't have been anyone better than Inuyasha.