Chapter Fifty-Nine: An Oath Kept
The sconces lining the hallway flickered, casting the forested murals and wood flooring in lanternlight.
With her shoulder braced under his, Kagome and Ishida staggered their way through, her good side supporting his bad. After an awkward stumble, she glanced at the bandage outlined by his pantleg, not missing the poetic justice. Days earlier, it was her arrow that had given him the limp.
A few steps ahead of them, Yukina hurried, her delicate frame in silhouette and her silk kimono rustling. Without the slightest hesitation, she guided them through the maze of secret doors and hidden passages, reminding Kagome of an old, western fairytale about two children lost in the woods and the trail of breadcrumbs they left in their wake. At least in these painted woods, she hoped they weren't lost.
Behind her, a rhythmic wheeze filled the hallway, its persistence both distressing and reassuring. Tora, riddled by bullets, shuffled along with Mama at his side. Sweat dappled his skin and his mask was drenched, but he pressed onward.
"We all have our costumes," he said impishly to Mama, his voice tight with pain. "But I think yours might be the best." He tugged at the lapel of her open kimono, catching a glimpse of skin and her underclothes.
Gently, she freed his hand and nudged him forward. "You've lost too much blood to be thinking about that. We don't need you passing out."
"Probably a good idea," he chuckled, and then his amusement degraded into a cough that wracked his body.
"Yukina-chan," Mama called out, her hands hovering around Tora protectively, afraid to touch lest she cause him more pain. "Are we almost there?"
"Yes, Higurashi-san," she replied as she reached a dead-end, its mural a mountainside shrouded by an evergreen canopy. Above it, a sun broke behind voluminous clouds, promising freedom in watercolor swirls. She felt at the panel's frame, and with a click, it opened, revealing a sterile white alcove with an elevator on its far wall.
Relief rippled through them as they approached. When Yukina pressed the button, it lit up with a downward-pointing arrow and beyond the brushed steel doors, they could hear the hum of a motor. Its quiet smoothness drew Kagome's thoughts upward. The ceiling-rattling roar of the helicopter was gone. Sesshoumaru was on his own against the oyabun, no doubt nearing the limit of his power.
Beside the elevator, a heavy, utility door bore a red sign: 'Roof Access Only'
If she could do nothing else, she could at least bear witness.
"Yukina-chan," she said, slipping out from beneath Ishida's shoulder. "Take him."
Nodding her head, the girl rushed over, catching Ishida by his upper arm as he wobbled unsteadily.
"Kagome-chan…" Mama said, fresh concern worrying her features.
"It's all right," she replied, her hand on the handle, unlatching its lock. "I'll be right behind you. I just have to see. To be there for him in whatever way I can."
She managed a weak smile. "It's okay. Just be safe."
"And when you're done," Ishida said, clearing the hoarseness from his voice, "Take the elevator to the second basement floor and follow the corridor to the right. There's a custodial closet and inside, you'll find the hidden entrance to a tunnel that leads to the subway. That's where we're going."
She nodded. "Got it."
He gave her a wry smirk that looked both unnatural and refreshing, like a snake shedding its skin and revealing lustrous, new scales underneath. He was still a viper, but there was tolerance in his manner now. A measure of respect and honor rooted in ancient bushido code. And it's something she felt in return.
With the smooth rasp of well-greased machine parts, the elevator doors opened.
And the utility door shut behind Kagome.
Her legs pumping, she raced up the concrete stairs, flickering fluorescent lighting guiding her onward. At the crest, she spied a small square of sunlight beaming through the center of a metal door and she burst against the push bar handle. The door swung open and she rushed out across the helipad.
A man groaned.
Fear coursed through her, flushing her skin with perspiration, and she spun around, searching for its source. Sprawled on the pavement, she encountered a dazed pilot and her eyes flew to the jagged, city skyline and the wide sky above it.
Following the sound of its droning rotors, she spotted a navy-blue, police helicopter, its nose angled downward as it lurched away. Perched on its landing skid, she caught sight of Sesshoumaru, his mane and clothing a torrent of silver in the wind. She traced their flight path forward and discovered their target. Barely more than a green speck in the distance, she watched the other helicopter shrink, nearly disappearing before her eyes.
"They're never going to catch her," she said, biting her lip. "She's going to get away."
The compound bow strapped across her back swayed as she walked towards the edge of the roof, tickling her wounded arm.
Could she do it? Even on her best day with all her power, both physical and spiritual to guide her, it would be almost impossible. And today, she was far from her best in either regard. Could she commit to it? Her arm throbbed as she unslung her bow. Could she commit to the pain that came with the effort? She felt for an arrow from her quiver, pinching the bristled fletching between her fingers. Could she commit to the torture even when failure was all but assured? An old journal in a secret mountain shrine flashed through her memory, and through gritted teeth, she nocked the arrow.
He believed in her and she believed in him. They were family by heart if not by blood. For him. For the city. For the tragic oyabun. She could do it.
Her muscles screamed and her arm trembled as she pulled back on the bowstring. With a hiss, she inhaled shakily, and fresh blood trickled down from her shoulder to drip from her elbow. Red encroached on the edges of her vision and tears streamed down her cheeks. The agony, like the tension in the string, ratcheted until there was nothing else. It seethed and roiled, and the world went out of focus.
She could do it.
And as she exhaled, a shuddering cry burst from her and she loosed the arrow.
OOOOOOOOOO
With his claws anchored to the fuselage, Sesshoumaru hung from the hobbled helicopter, his glare afar on his eminent loss, which had become nothing but a metallic glint on the horizon. Sighing, he spared a glance at his free hand and the dull gauntlet as dark as graphite. Limitations and broken oaths, it would seem, were all that he had left.
Then, blazing past him, a beam of brilliant pink light pierced through the sky.
Deafened by the rotors and wind, shocked exaltations roared from within the helicopter, freely shouting what he expressed through wide eyes and a slightly gaping mouth.
Flashing brightly, the comet sputtered out in a hail of glitter.
The excitement quelled, then swelled again as a tiny point of pink reappeared in the distance and slammed into the fleeing helicopter. The aircraft rocked from the impact and a plume of black smoke began to pour from its engine.
Strands of argent hair blowing across his face, he leaned out to look back at the tower. There he spotted Kagome slumped on her knees and clasping her arm. His chest heaved with pride when he saw her, and gratitude flowed through him. Sacrifice, an anathema to him in his past life, was now the greatest honor, and he wouldn't let what she'd given go to waste.
The police helicopter surged onward, rapidly closing in on its stricken prey as it started to lose altitude. Flat rooftops on a dozen skyscrapers reached up, offering sanctuary for an emergency landing. But the helicopter limped past them, abandoning the densely packed edifices that crowded the downtown area for the open parks and culture centers along its fringe.
With a sharp jolt, it plummeted, its nose driving towards an exposed construction site. A latticework of iron beams, the skeletal frame of a new building protruded from the ground, and idle machinery and fuel tanks were scattered around the dusty lot.
A girl jumping from an old hotel balcony flashed through Sesshoumaru's mind, and he clenched his jaw. He knew what she was about to do.
Quickly, he scanned the area, hoping for deliverance, and banded orange and white, he spotted a massive spire. Tokyo Tower pierced the sky to the east, close enough for him to see every steel girder and tessellated truss. Frowning, he looked back at the smoking helicopter. The sequence of leaps would be almost impossible. The timing had to be perfect. He made a fist, summoning power from his gauntlets until they turned as black as coal. It was the only shot he had left.
Crouching down, he gathered his strength. Torrents of youki surged around him, and the helicopter he rode jounced with the turbulence. He funneled that power into his legs until they burned for release.
The spire's heavy beams reached out as they flew past.
And then he sprang.
Narrowly dodging the rotor blades whipping overhead, he rocketed across the expanse towards the oyabun's helicopter. Weightlessness buoyed him as he shot through the billowing smoke, leaving a neat hole in his wake. He burst through the other side, like a phoenix reborn, and crashed into the helicopter, sending it careening wildly. It became a wobbling top with the earth and sky spinning around him in dizzying circles and he dug into the fuselage to keep his grip. Then, claw-by-claw, he rushed for the passenger door and ripped it clean from its hinges.
Inside the cockpit, he discovered Oya desperately trying to regain control, her expression a blend of shock and fury. Seeing him, she spat curses, the venom of her rage drowned out by the fire-engulfed helicopter disintegrating around them. As she swiped at him, he grabbed her by the arm and tore her from her seat. He pulled her to him, and his fangs flashed when she dug her nails his side. Growling, he wrenched her closer and together the spun towards the reeling, smoke-choked horizon. He gathered power and waited for the blur of orange. Timing was everything.
It came and they launched off the landing skid. The doomed helicopter's spiraling tail swept towards them, its wicked rotor slicing the air. Summoning youki, he deflected it upward, and it scythed over them as they blasted through.
Bright oranges trusses swallowed them when they hit the spire and narrowly, they threaded through the gaps. Her nails in his side twisted, and his hold on her loosened with the piercing pain. She broke free and kicked off him. Reaching out, she caught a beam, flipping once around it with acrobatic grace before alighting upon it. He slammed into another beam, bouncing off it with a crack. He tumbled awkwardly and his claws screamed across metal as he grabbed for a girder. His grip held and he hung, his body swinging with the momentum.
"Why?" she seethed angrily at him, her eyes ablaze. "Why did you stop me?!"
Wheezing as he panted, Sesshoumaru fumbled as he climbed onto the girder, his body listing. His side was drenched red with blood and he noticed dozens of other wounds, chunks of metal debris buried in his flesh.
Like cracking thunder, an explosion shook the tower and the beams rumbled. The helicopter had struck the construction yard, decimating it in a hail of fire, and a chain reaction of smaller blasts followed, popping like the finale of a fireworks show. A volcanic cloud of smoke erupted, and in the distance, sirens began to wail.
"Why did you stop me?!" she repeated, unfazed by the raging blaze.
He clenched the deeper wound, hoping to staunch the blood streaming down his hip, but it continued to flow, spilling between his fingers. His youki was nearly gone.
"Answer me!" she shouted.
"I'm this city's guardian," he said, and he looked up at her, his gold eyes cool and resolute. "Saving its people, no matter who they are, is my sworn duty."
"I'm not your people," she snapped, and she waved her hand emphatically. "I don't belong to this city. I don't belong anywhere."
He reached up, unsnapping the mandarin collar at his neck, and he loosened the armored vest underneath until he revealed a glimpse of the spider-shaped scar on his chest. "You are my people. And we're all that's left."
"No," she replied icily, and her body tensed, promising violence. "We're just the ones who were left behind."
Her braids swirling in a flurry behind her, she sprang towards him, her fist drawn back for a strike. Sluggishly, he leapt back, narrowly dodging her blow. She punched through the girder, and the iron whined as it wrenched apart. The shockwave buffeted against him, and he stumbled a few steps, teetering at the edge. Below him, the kaleidoscope of orange and white latticework spun in a disorienting bout of vertigo.
"We are the survivors," he said as he grabbed a column to steady himself. "It's our task to live in honor of those who died by that curse. We do their sacrifice justice through upholding that which united them in their final battle."
She bolted for him, her nails raking the air, and he dropped down to a beam below as she melted through the column, wrenching it in half.
A series of groans rippled through the spire.
"We become stewards," he continued between labored breaths. "Guardians who must abandon selfish indulgences and acts of vengeance."
"Vengeance is all I have," she snarled, and she sprang at him from above, her foot arcing towards his face in a fierce kick.
Swiftly, he slipped to the side, evading her strike, only to realize it was a feint. Her fist was ready, and he raised his forearm to block. Her left hook glanced off his wrist as he swept the force of it outward and landed his own punch across her jaw. Blown backward, she blasted across the spire, snapping beams and girders, and slammed into another column, warping it in the shape of her body.
Sputtering groans ached through the spire.
His hand tingling, Sesshoumaru flexed his wrist. Flashing bright behind his eyes, blinding pain shot through his arm and flooded his brain. He staggered, his vision blurring. The bone was broken.
"Vengeance isn't something that you possess," he said through a grimace, and he tamped the pain down until his senses returned in a fuzzy haze. "It possesses you. It consumes you and sets you on a path of destruction for yourself and others. It robs you of what you do have."
"And what is it that I do have?"
"Family."
She blinked, taken aback.
The sharp twangs of bolts snapping rang through the air. The beams began to quake and shearing metal screamed. A violent rumble swelled, and the spire listed to one side, its shredded ironwork no longer able to bear the millions of tons overhead.
Oya grunted as the column encasing her started to crumple under the added weight. Her hands dug into the metal and she poured her strength into her back and legs as she tried to lift it and free herself, But instead, she sank deeper into the column and slowly, it started to crush her.
With ragged breaths tearing at his throat, Sesshoumaru crouched to leap towards her and his boot slipped. Stumbling, he shakily regained his balance and looked down. Blood puddled across the girder, trickling over the edges to drip on the cityscape below. He followed it up to a red cascade drenching his pantleg and side. And from there, he looked at the gauntlets lacing his hands and forearms. Black as a void, there was no glinting metal left in them. Only emptiness. A vacuum.
Snarling curses erupted from Oya as she struggled, and he looked at her next, bent in half by the column she bore across her back. With her knees digging into her chest, her eyes blazed like fire and her muscles trembled as she fought against her Sisyphean fate. For all her anguish and tragedy and desire for an end, she still had the will to live. Hope, even if she hadn't realized it yet.
And in the distance below, he spotted fleeing specks in the shadow of the collapsing spire. Dozens of people running in terror, their mortal legs not fast enough.
His city needed him one last time.
He clenched his fists, summoning his youki. In a rushing torrent, it came, whipping at his tattered clothes and mane. Falling hunks of metal struck it and spun away, tumbling through the air. Like dense fog, it grew thicker, occluding his body as it started to churn with silvery light.
He thought of Inuyasha, the lord he wished he'd been.
He thought of Kagome, the spirited thread that bound them.
And he thought of his new family and cherished the brief time he'd had with them.
His youki swelled like a thunderstorm, enveloping Tokyo Tower in a swirling cloud. White lightning crackled through it and in the flashes, it illuminated the black silhouette at its center as it grew and transformed, swallowing up sky.
Thunder boomed and the city shuddered under the weight of something massive. And as the youki slowly dispersed, a huge, white paw tipped in razor-sharp claws reached out from the cloud and grabbed the spire.