Disclaimer: This story is loosely inspired by "A private affair" by Beppe Fenoglio.
None of the characters belongs to me.
The war described in this story is of pure fiction and in no way relates to actual historical events.
Chapter Two: For the Love of Truth
He could not live without knowing anymore and, above all, he could not die without knowing in an era when young men like him were called on more to die than to live. He would have given up to everything for the truth, between the truth and the creation's intelligence he would have opted for the former.
Just one moment had been enough to make sure Inuyasha strengthened his purpose.
Those words he had read in the letter written by Kikyo to his sister were not enough for him. He needed to hear the truth from her first hand; he wanted her to tell him that she had lied to him, that she had pretended to love him, and that she had never wanted to marry him, even though she had said yes.
While she was saying I love you to him, she was thinking of someone else. As his lips rested on hers, she was tasting a whole other flavour, imagining other arms around her. The warmth he'd seen in her eyes those times she'd let go and become a woman, not a priestess, had never been because of him. Inuyasha had always lived a lie and had done so happily.
The half-demon paused, unable to continue, and listened to the silence to assure himself he was alone. The pour down of the water suggested there was a stream nearby. He would take a brief pause, and then he would be on his way home.
He rinsed his face in an attempt to regain clarity. Once, twice, three times. The images of Kikyo, now distorted, didn't leave his mind.
How had he never noticed? His sense of smell was unerring, and yet...
A doctor. Suikotsu, the man Kikyo had always belonged to, was a doctor. Could that be why they had managed to fool him and get away with it?
Inuyasha imagined that the man, like the priestess, had to handle medicinal herbs and potions all day long. How much of that distinct pungent smell that Kikyo always carried was really hers? How much was the doctor's instead?
He began to laugh like a maniac but immediately brought his hands to his mouth to block out any suspicious sound; he was still in enemy territory, after all.
Inuyasha laughed, again and again, tears escaping his eyes. He finally understood how foolish - and in love - he had been and how easy it had been to make fun of him. He laughed to the point of exhaustion; he laughed of himself.
Did Suikotsu know that while Kikyo promised him all of her, she let someone else touch her? Was Suikotsu aware that she let a half-demon kiss her? Did the village know that the poised and controlled priestess sought pleasure under the touch of not one but two men?
My God! How had he been so stupid? How had it happened? He had been so willingly carried away by what he thought was a love so pure that he had never seen the real Kikyo. How could she have been both the good priestess and the unfaithful woman? How could she have loved her sisters unconditionally and then, immediately after, lying while being in his arms?
What remained of that seemingly pure feeling? A black, corrupt mass that now threatened to grip his heart in a chokehold. Perhaps, just like Kagome, Inuyasha had been so eager to feel what love was, to have what he saw between his parents, that he had jumped at the first chance he got. In doing so, he had probably ignored signs that he would have found glaring under other circumstances.
His mind and heart couldn't find peace, and they never would if he didn't talk to Kikyo. Even if he had to travel all over Japan, cross the enemy lands, betray his faction and even defy death, it didn't matter. All that mattered to Inuyasha now was hearing those words come out of his Kikyo's mouth. She owed it to him, after all those seasons he had wasted because of her, after the lies and the cruel way she had led him on; she had to have the courage to tell him that she had never loved him.
And Suikotsu...
He was entitled to the truth, wasn't he? And even if in reality the lousy doctor already knew everything, even if he had known about his betrothed's affair from the beginning... At least this way, Suikotsu would look in the face the man who had kissed and touched his beloved.
Inuyasha wouldn't find peace, and he wouldn't give them peace; he intended to find them in whatever hole those cowards were hiding in – for such they were.
They were tired of the war. So what? Who wasn't beside the crazed soldiers who found pleasure in killing and maiming? Certainly not him, whose mother had been taken away by the war and whose father, though still alive, had become a shadow of his former self.
He never wanted the war, nor did Kagome. The latter had lost her family and was left to fend for herself, guarding a shrine and a child as her sister decided to run away with her lover and leave the others to fight in her place.
Kikyo was a liar but also a coward. What of the responsible and honest woman he had known?
Another doubt arose to obstruct his already troubled mind; had he ever known the real Kikyo? Had she ever laid bare herself in front of him?
A lie, another one.
Inuyasha brought his hands to his hair and tugged with rage, clenching his teeth. After a couple of seconds, he found some silver locks between his fingers.
He looked around himself again; the clearing was still very much empty. Inuyasha knew that should he head West, follow the same path he had come from that early morning, he would encounter less danger and he would also go back easily to the castle where they were waiting for a report from him.
However, he didn't care about it, not now, not until he had listened to the truth from Kikyo's lips.
He would head east instead.
For one like him, a demon easily noticed – hair and eyes were of unnatural colour and were difficult to hide – it was crazy to formulate such a plan. The more he went to East, the more human camps would he meet; whoever had gone into those woods had come back by sheer luck or as a dead body.
Inuyasha had travelled through those streets only once, the new moon night when he had met Miroku. A couple of hours later, anxiety running high and his heart pounding, he had made his way back in a hurry hoping to leave the enemy territory before the sunrise bleached his hair again, his eyes turned to gold and his human ears turned to canine.
That one time, Miroku had revealed to him that, should have he needed it in future, he could have tried to find him in a Shrine South-East run by his mentor Mushin. In case he wasn't there, Miroku had said, Inuyasha Inuyasha could find the old bouzu who ran the temple and was trustworthy.
Now his goal was to reach the shrine Miroku had given him directions to, not knowing that his interlocutor was not the human in front of him but a half-demon. He would reach the location and seek out the perverted monk.
Inuyasha hoped to find him because he didn't know how much the old man would be able to help him. The fewer people he had to deal with, the better was for the secrecy of his plan. It already annoyed him he had to rely on Miroku to find out where Kikyo was hiding. He did not intend to add more intermediaries to his plan. It was already dangerous as it was.
The half-demon imagined what his brother's reaction would be had he found out what his intentions were. Sesshomaru had never hidden the hatred he felt for his half-brother; in fact, he didn't even consider him as such. The only reason he had never killed him was the presence of his father, whom he still admired despite everything. Sesshomaru probably would have still looked at him with disgust and offered some remarks on his worthlessness. Maybe he would have even encouraged him because at the end of the day his was a suicide mission.
Had Inuyasha been lucid, he would have realized that his plan was futile. Whether he found out from Kikyo himself or from her letter, the truth about the years they had spent together didn't matter much. After all, the priestess would never be his, and it was better to make peace with that.
But his heart was torn and betrayed; it didn't understand certain things. Inuyasha's fate was sealed.
Remembering the moon of the previous night, Inuyasha calculated that in less than ten days there would be another new moon. Maybe it was better to wait to put his plan into action. However, patience had never been his forte, and even now, he immediately dismissed the idea. He wouldn't have lasted so long without knowing; he had to have the confirmation as soon as possible. Inuyasha already knew that, even if he found Miroku right away, it would take him many days before he could meet Kikyo again. Thus, he would leave that very night; humans were weaker in the dark hours, and their guards were always a little down.
The half-demon had been travelling from tree to tree for a few hours now. He was now in the middle of the enemy territory and, thanks to his keen sense of smell, he had managed to avoid any large human settlement. He knew that if someone spotted him there alone, without back-up, there was no chance for him.
Humans had developed containment weapons for demons during the war; one moment of distraction was enough for them to pin a demon down with an absurdly strong collar.
He travelled in a religious silence, paying attention to where he put his feet and avoiding unstable branches. He chose the thickest and tallest trees and was so fast that even squinting their eyes, humans could only see a red spot, something easily dismissed as a hallucination.
Inuyasha predicted that at this rate, he would reach the old man's temple before the sun rose; it was his hope. However, when his ears caught unexpected voices, he froze and decided to stop and listen.
He took a couple of steps back and hid on the top of the strongest and thicker one to make sure no one could see him. Finally, he focused on the voices coming from the small camp.
"...We will attack in two days at dawn," one said.
"Are you quite sure about that? Won't it be too dangerous?" asked another voice, louder but also more uncertain.
"There is no other way Rikichi, you know how important Miroku-sama is," replied a third.
Miroku! Those guys were talking about Miroku. Maybe they would be more useful to him than he thought, and then... what kind of attack were they talking about?
He looked closely at the people who formed the small group. There were five of them: two young and three stouter men who looked middle-aged and more experienced. Three were dressed as simple hunters and in fact, beside them lay common but effective weapons if those wielding them were used to them.
Hunters were the second half of the human army. They were stronger and loved the violence; they had no spiritual powers, and thus, they always tried to hit from afar or behind. They were sadists; they loved to have fun with their prey and then send the mutilated bodies back to the sender. Inuyasha had seen what they could do and remembered thinking the first time how much worse humans could be than some bloodthirsty demons. They usually took care of half-demons or deserters; brute force was needed for those since the spiritualists couldn't do any damage. Inuyasha was sure it was a gruesome sight, and he had seen enough blood and guts.
"But we are not enough! You want to infiltrate a major enemy base and retrieve a prisoner. Those guys over there have an infallible nose; it won't take them long to discover us," the second voice spoke up again, the one called Rikichi.
"I don't know if we've got any good weapons with us from the exterminators, but in any case, we will collect some before the operation starts. Their nose may be infallible, but it's also a weakness when overloaded. It won't just be us going; we'll meet up with reinforcements tomorrow. Miroku-sama must be saved; it doesn't matter if someone else dies. We swore allegiance when we joined the army, and we can't back down now. The first one who manages to free him must return to base as soon as possible without worrying about the others," a fourth voice intruded; it was one of the two spiritualists. To Inuyasha, it sounded like one of those many crazed men talking about cleansing the world of the corrupted spirits of demons or traitors to their race.
"And where is Miroku-sama right now?" Rikichi asked again. He seemed to be the least informed of all.
"He was captured a few days ago while bringing supplies to one of the many refugee families. You know how he always insists on putting himself in the service of others, despite the risks involved. Even if we told him millions of times that as a monk he has other duties, he never listened to us," the first voice replied. Inuyasha recognized anger in his tone; it was clear he was not happy with the foolish way Miroku had been taken. "I heard he was taken to the castle where those silver-haired mongrel dogs live; it won't be hard to knock them out with some special powder."
Miroku was at the castle, damn it! If only had he returned to base earlier, he would have found out and saved himself that unnecessary trip. At least these men had proved to be helpful to him. He would return home as soon as possible, warn his father of the attack – he couldn't know how many of them would participate, none of them had been accurate – and then glean any news from Miroku.
Luck was on his side, after all.
Now he just had to think about leaving these woods unnoticed by the guys gathered down there and hurrying back west. He felt a little sorry for Miroku. The man had seemed like a nice guy to Inuyasha, he had been caught helping those who needed it most, and now he was surely being tortured by one of his brother's underlings. If he was of any use to him, he would free him and save his hide perhaps.
Yet, as he retraced the path he had taken only moments before, Inuyasha realized that he had rejoiced a little too soon; getting out of that treacherous territory would be much more difficult than he had thought.
His tired mind had played tricks on him again, and he could see that he had tempted fate a little too much in a single day; his luck had run out. This time it wasn't an innocent priestess in need of company who spotted him but a sentry who immediately raised the alarm.
Inuyasha froze; if he was chased by the five who were in the camp plus those who were on the lookout it was the end for him if he didn't escape in time. If even one of the spiritualists managed to catch him, he would die; he would end up like the many who had become prey to the hunters and had no desire to do so.
Not to mention that if they knew his father, they would have recognized him as one of the silver-haired bastards, and they could have tortured him just for that. Maybe, if they were smart, they could use him as a bargaining chip, but Inuyasha didn't count on that. The hunters would have tortured him in any way; they never said no to the fun.
The shock lasted less than a second. He couldn't panic; he was a born fighter, his father had trained him since he was a child and with a bit of lucidity, he would manage this time too.
... if only his mind had been clear at that moment and not clouded by those dark feelings.
Only a couple of minutes passed, but he could hear the screams that chased him. The commotion had also alarmed other nearby camps, and now it wasn't just the five he had been listening to chasing him but many he could hear coming from left and right. He was clearly in deep shit despite having a clear advantage over the humans.
The arrows were starting to fly, more and more accurate despite the distance. How the fuck could they be so precise in the dark of night? Damn silver hair that was like a beacon of the night, he had never thought he would have wished for them to be the same black that adorned him on new moon nights.
"Fuck, fuck... I'm in deep shit," he hissed as he ran as fast as he could, trying to avoid every arrow that came as close to him as possible. He had come close to having a couple catch him right in the chest; it would have been the end. It didn't matter if the humans were far away; at that point, he would be immobilized and completely at their mercy.
More voices continued to reach him more were being added.
If only he could reach Kikyo's village he could ask her sister for refuge. Inuyasha knew it was too much to ask, but if he hid there, it was unlikely hunters or spiritualists would come looking for him in a shrine. It was the last place they expected a demon to find refuge, and unfortunately, it was still too far from the western lands. The hunt wouldn't stop as long as Inuyasha was in enemy territory, and he wasn't sure he could hold out that long. Not to mention that if even one of them got even a little bit closer, they could chain him with one of those cursed collars.
"That demon has silver hair," shouted a voice. "Don't let him get away. He's definitely from one of the major demon bases; he's to be a big shot!"
"We could use him to take Miroku-sama back, capture him, quickly!"
Inuyasha didn't dare turn around and waste even a second of his precious time. He had almost made it to the stream he had visited that afternoon, which meant he was closer than he thought to Kagome's village. One last effort and he would be safe.
It was a risk he had to take. He hoped Kagome wouldn't refuse his request. He didn't know exactly what made him think he could rely on the girl, after all, hiding an enemy or a deserter was a serious crime punished with death. Kagome could decide she didn't want to take such a serious risk, especially if the little girl and the old woman were involved.
But as he ran like a madman, he saw in front of him that genuine look of hers, the certainty that she would help him and get him to safety.
It was a feeling, a stupid feeling that could have cost him his life. He could also try to reach the border of his father's lands despite the long distance. However, deep down he knew the better option between the two was stopping at the shrine and asking for Kagome's help.
His life was in her hands, the sister of the woman who had betrayed him and pushed him to the brink only hours before. Wasn't it Kikyo's fault if he was in that situation now?
Sure, his recklessness had led him east to carry out a suicide plan, but it had only been Kikyo and her lies, her lying love, that had set everything in motion.
The voices continued to grow, and Inuyasha figured they must all be armed or with ammunition. Time was running out.
"Surrender!" shouted one, "You can't hold out against so many of us."
The voices were getting closer and closer, and the anxiety that had gripped him made him inevitably slow down. Finally, he decided to turn around, and his eyes widened at seeing the number of humans chasing him. Without wasting a second more, he launched an attack with his claws.
His battle cry was followed by those of the fallen humans; he counted five or six of those closest and about to attack and then resumed his flight.
An arrow caught him on his right thigh, and he hissed in pain. A second later, a sigh of relief escaped him when he noticed that it was not spiritually charged and that had prolonged his life for a few more seconds.
"Surrender!" the voice came to him again.
Caught off guard by yet another arrow grazing his cheek, he stumbled, sinking into the mud that covered that part of the ground. He got up without batting an eyelid, ignoring the mud that now littered his face and hair and only cleaned his eyes to see clearly again. He started to run again, this time more awkwardly because of the arrow that was still stuck in his thigh and that he had no way to remove. If he stopped even one more second to do so, he could lose more precious time. They were after him, and the distance he still had was his only advantage.
With relief, he saw in front of him the borders of the village. He changed his trajectory slightly, and instead of continuing to run straight ahead and come out into the open in the square, he stayed at the edge. There the trees, though now fewer would still hide him from the hunters' view. That way the latter would waste a minute to locate him. A precious minute for Inuyasha.
Quickly, without stopping running, he removed the muddy boots that would only help his pursuers find him and continued to run barefoot. He had no problem doing it; he had been running like that all his life and only the arrival of the war had forced him to wear those ugly boots
Now he could also see the stairs that lead to the shrine; he had to try and reach it without being noticed. If even one of them saw him, even taking refuge by Kagome's would be useless. He decided to walk along the perimeter of the shrine and enter from behind; he would lose a few more seconds, but at least he had a better chance of not being seen.
The barrier that was placed to protect the shrine would hurt him if he entered unannounced, it would turn him human, but at that point, he knew he could be safe and hide if the young girl decided to help him. He hoped that with the thick darkness of the night the only thing the humans had noticed about him was his silver hair and not the red of his robe.
He took one last leap, the one that would ensure his entry into the barrier and thus his hoped-for salvation. He was high up and about to land when something hit him in the chest too close to his heart. He instinctively brought his hand to that point as if he could stop the pain that was now spreading throughout his body, and he fell face-first to the ground.
Not even a second later, he felt two pairs of hands grab his shoulders and legs, and he let go, defeated, as he sensed his demonic side disappear in a single beat. His eyes closed, the pain becoming even more unbearable in that human form, the exhaustion from the race washed over him, and he collapsed.