1. With all due respect I am thankful for Rumiko Takahashi's work for her creation of Inuyasha.

2. My muse would be happy to see how I have posted two updates-Reason for War and Youkai Senso (Youkai Wars). I must have been more stressed that I have let on. But you my readers would reap the benefit of my travails. Oh, enough drama! I hope you like it!

YOUKAI SENSO (Youkai Wars)

CHAPTER 5

RESISTANCE

"You turned me in, Rin. You!" Kagome shook her head in disbelief at her friend, one of her eyes almost closed. "Why?"

"Sh!" Rin grabbed the angry girl's hand effectively quieting her. "Why? I should be asking you that. What were you thinking, Kagome, huh? Hacking into personnel files?"

"My entire platoon has gone missing!" Kagome hissed back, jerking her hand away. She tasted something metallic on her cracked lip. "I can't locate them."

"Idiot!" Rin pointed at Kagome. "Maybe they're in a classified mission. Didn't that enter your mind?"

"Fine! So they're in a classified mission but why can't I locate their old bunks?"

"So they changed addresses. What's strange in that?" Rin facepalmed. "Geez, have you become a conspiracy nut all of a sudden? And...and you resisted arrest! What the hell!" Rin shook her head in disbelief. "You fought the arresting officers! Look at you!" Rin gestured at Kagome's condition; torn clothes, a black eye, a shiner on one cheek, bruises here and there. "what were you thinking?!"

"Rin! Don't you think it's strange?" Kagome continued after Rin's silence, which was a judgement on its own. "I checked all...all records, of divisions and platoons...yours and mine and everyone else but only mine's not there. Nothing. Nothing at all."

"Look, before you went to this crazy stunt that you did, the hacking, the fighting, didn't it ever occur to you to ask your commander, huh?" Rin banged the table when her friend remained silent. " Kagome!" but the other girl just sighed. "What is going on? What has happened to you out there?" After a few seconds...Rin threw her hand up. "Fine. Keep it to yourself. Be angry at me. I'm off."

"Rin..." Kagome snagged her friend's hand; eyes, one blackened by a backhand during her arrest, implored her friend. "I'm...I'm..."

"Time's up." At the curt and cold command, both women stood up. General Miroku Kanno strode in flanked by four guards who stayed at the door. "You're dismissed, soldier." The man said to Rin without turning to the woman. Ignoring the soldier, he opened the file folder that he slammed on the metal table and sat in the chair that Rin vacated.

"Yes, sir!" Rin saluted smartly but threw a meaningful glare at her friend before leaving the stockade.

"Sit." the general pointed to the chair without looking up. "So, E-3 Kagome Higurashi, infantry..." he intoned as he read Kagome's service history . "...was missing for one year from a routine scouting mission at Area 88." He slammed the folder close with a force that jolted the young woman across him. He leveled his eyes on her. "And who has been caught hacking into classified personnel records. Said personnel also resisted arrest." The silence was so thick and tense.

"General..." Kagome cleared her throat that's suddenly gone dry. "You see..."

"You understand that what you've done is punishable by death, right? And unless you start telling me a good reason..."

"Where are my comrades?" Kagome blurted. "Where have you taken them?"

"Soldier! Sit down!" The commander glared at her after slamming his fist on the table.

"General, I just want to know where they are...my friends are..."

"Dead."

"Wh-what?" the room spun around her, threatening to pull her down.

"All of your members at Omega75 are dead." General Kanno said, "except for..." he pointed.

"Me." Kagome clenched her cold hands tight stopping it from drumming on the table. "Dead...all of them..." she whispered to no one. Her throat is all choked up but at the same time she wanted to puke all over the table.

" We had a memorial for..."

"Where are they?"

"That is classified," the general told her coldly.

"They're my team, general."

"Yes, and they're all dead, because of you..."

"Wh-what? " She sat back down heavily. "What do you...do you mean?"

"They were ambushed trying to locate you. That's all for today." The general stood up and imperiously beckoned four guards over. "Take her back."

"No!" Kagome rushed to the general but two men tackled her down on the table. With a fierce grunt Kagome forced the men off of her and clobbered one with an elbow. She slammed the head of the other one on the table but someone grabbed her from behind, chocking her, she pushed him backwards until they hit the wall where she slammed on his foot breaking the hold. The soldier was able to grab her again but she pulled him towards her uppercut. She tased the other with his own taser and...

The general threw down the baton he grabbed from one of the fallen guards, the one he used to subdue Higurashi. "You're all useless!" The general raged at the two beaten up guards as he stood over the unconscious girl. "Grab her and put her in her new cell. No one is to visit her. Understand?"

"Yes, sir!" The two guards hauled Kagome up by the armpits, dragging her on her feet while the other two guards followed them out. The general ran a hand on his hair trying to calm down. He picked up the file folder off the floor and onto the table and stood there for a moment, leaning over at the brown file until his walkie talkie beeped. "Yes." he straightened. "Come here." He flipped through some pages until the door opened again. "Same place."

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Rin's heart beat so fast that she thought it would jump out and run ahead of her and out of the hallway. One of the two guards on the floor used to be her ex and now she has the cell keys from his belt. One last frantic look on the hallway and she dashed into the isolation cells.

"Kagome!" Rin ran the mostly empty cells, looking for her friend. Personnel were not as crazy as Higurashi to get themselves into the 'cave' if they could avoid it. "Kago...Oh my god..." Kagome was lying face down on the hard floor looking dead. Fearing the worst, Rin rushed inside the cell and turned her friend's body up and she was relieved she saw a strong pulse on her friend's neck. "Kagome!"

"Huhng...uhng...Rin!" Kagome squinted at the harsh yellow light in the cell. "What happened..." but before Kagome finished her question she was being pulled up from the cold cell floor and pushed towards the open door. "Ow..."

"Get up! Let's go!" Rin firmly grabbed the stupefied girl and pulled Kagome behind her. "Shh!" she whispered low before they rounded the corner. The ex and buddy were still out cold, thanks to a spiked glaze on the bread roll. The hall is vacant. "We go this way. Come on!"

"How...my head..." Kagome winced as her fingers found her head wound. She stared dumbly at the sticky blood and there were two men on the floor...

"Hey!" Rin snapped her fingers at her friend.

Behind the fog in her head she wanted to ask her friend thousands of questions. Rin beckoned her to another door that opened to a long tunnel sporadically lit with orange light. "Uh Rin... It looked creepy..."

"Oh for fuck's sake this isn't the time for your phobias! Go!" Rin almost dragged Kagome in the massive tunnel about as long as a football field and they were panting halfway when they thought they heard some commotion behind them.

"They're here!" Rin insistently tugged at her arm. Kagome hissed at the pain but it spurred the girls to pick up the pace although their lungs were about to collapse. But then her knees feel strange, her hands too...

"What?" Rin took one look and cursed, "Snap out of it Kagome!"

The slap stung her cheek and it was enough to make her feet move again towards the end of the tunnel. "Rin! That's the..."

"No time! Hop to it, soldier!" Rin tugged at the girl who has been dragging her weight as they get nearer the heavy doors.

Run, she says. Escape, she says, Kagome thought. I can't do it. I can't. No more running, Kagome gasped, her knees buckling.

Oh damn, Rin thought, looking at her friend. Of all the times to get an anxiety attack! "Kagome! You get your sorry butt up and move. I don't wanna share a jail cell with you, hear me?" She hissed at the girl and gave her another few head-clearing slaps on the cheek.

"Huh? huh? what?" Kagome gasped before she was grabbed by the collar and propelled forward, the heavy metal door a few meters away from her grasp and to the outside world.

-=[00]=-