I didn't know whether it was apprehension that day, or whether it was simple curiosity, but I rushed over to the dungeons seeking Sango's well-being. I could feel the air stifle around me corruptibly as my feet hurriedly plunged themselves into an excruciating rhythm. The odd, quenching feeling in my stomach did not go away, instead, it persisted even more. I clutched the inner seams of my shirt tightly and gritted my teeth, causing an unsoundly noise to emerge from them. My silk cloak flew in the wind as I ran down the spiraling stairs, jumping down 3 by 3 to ease my traveling. It had only been a few seconds after Miroku's battle and I had already hurried down into the chambers.
"Where the hell are you, Sango?" I whispered, looking around the room with my perceiving eyes. There were many chambers inside the seemingly small dungeon, and it was going to take quite some time to explore every, single one of them; especially because they were quite large. This room had previously been the headquarters of 'Horizon Six' but it was no longer put to use after the change of leadership. I tapped my boots gently on the ground and cracked a wooden door open, breathing in the disgusting, musty scent. "Damnit," I said, waving a hand in front of my face, clearing the dust away. "Not here, eh?"
I spent a wholly good half an hour searching for the wench in the chambers until I jolly well realized that she wasn't there. Did she escape? Or did that stupid butler of mine put her somewhere else?
"Looking for me, Inu-yasha?" A sweet voice trickled behind me. I spun around fiercely and glared into the woman's eyes, her presence intoxicated the air as I nearly suffocated with disgust.
"Kagura," I drawled, my voice saddled with sickening apathy.
"Inu-yasha," she said in the same tone, causing me to raise a fist. "Oh, dear me, Inu-yasha, you're in quite a tight spot, aren't you?" she circled around me, tugging at the edges of my hair gently. She reached over to my right shoulder and turned me roughly to her direction. "Can't have imagine it, could you?" she asked, "that Inu-yasha, of all people, would be worried about a petty little girl."
"Shut your trap, Kagura, or else I'll call the guards," I threatened, baring my grim, white teeth at her. I snapped my arm in the space in front of me to back her away from my area, but she only dodged my skilled punch as she prodded behind my back like an old hag.
"I'm scared Inu-yasha," she howled in a high-pitched voice, "really scared," she smiled, baring her half-toothed grin.
"I swear, I will call them," I threatened once more, fire burning gloriously inside my eyes.
"What's the matter with caring for someone?" she tugged the outer rims of my shirt. "After all, the slut has been after you for quite some time, it's only natural," Kagura babied, cooing at me in a domineering mother-like fashion. I grabbed her slim neck gruffly as she wheezed for air, yet I still could not erase the scum look on her face. I thrust her to the ground, leaving her to sprawl on the ground lazily, looking sadistically up at me.
"Guards!" I yelled satisfactorily. Kagura's face only smiled up at me, beaming like the sun as a mass of men surrounded her involuntarily.
"You know, Inu-yasha," she drawled out, her hot breath silencing the room. "I can kill all of these men with my bare fists," she murmured, scanning every guard with her good eye. I could see the men shudder under her focused gaze and cursed inwardly at them for being insidious cowards.
"Drop in formation," I uttered. The men immediately formed their soldier-like rows, letting Kagura pass through the middle.
"Thanks for letting me go, sweetie," she winked, swinging her hips side to side like a little slut. She ran a hand through her short hair and climbed the stairs slowly, one by one, waving at the guards arrogantly. "And Inu-yasha, she's in Tower C, you better go check on her. Last time I saw, she was pretty devastated," Kagura remarked with pretence concern.
I furrowed my brows deeply in discontent until a soldier interrupted my adventurous train of thoughts, "sir! What are our orders?" a man shouted at me, his helmet covering more than half of his deformed face. I glanced at him coldly as I snapped my fingers, admitting him to open silence.
"You are free for the rest of the day, but I warn you, you must stay in the head quarters, or else you're gone," I said in my monotonous tone. The men broke their formation instantaneously as they scrambled hurriedly out of the room, edging closer and closer towards one day of real 'freedom.' But as they left, one thing a soldier said bothered me to the very core. And if you're asking, considerably more than the look on Higurashi's mad face.
"Master's still human!" I heard a man cry out, his voice filling the room, quickly to be hushed up by a few other soldiers that were as idiotic as he.
Human, eh? Would he still think I was human once he saw the sacrifices? Once he saw the mass-murdering? The purification? The sadistic killings? Oh, I hoped not, because I am every essence of what a human is not: cold, calculating, precise, if I were to dub myself, it would be as the devil.
-_-_-_-
Before I knew it, I had dragged my squirming form over to the bottom of Tower C. It was disfiguring to me how much I actually did want to know what the hell was up with Sango. If I lost her for the organization, then what would happen to us?
No…
That wasn't right, that wasn't what I was feeling right now, looking up at the endless corridors and starting my silent ascent. What was it exactly that was disturbing me? Something quite subordinately strange, it seemed like.
Sango.
What was it about her that brought interest to me? Her seduction, her little games…her easiness…with normal women it would've taken at least a day or two to fully be of use…but Sango, she just threw herself directly at me. She was the little back-up I had when I needed one…all stocked up nice and clean inside a hidden closet full of useful things. She was my puppet, more like it, willing to do anything I told her to do, and even some things I told her not to do. It was satisfying to play her games, they always ended up as me the winner and she the howling loser.
I smirked at my little theory of her existence but did not bother to sympathize with her situation. If the woman preferred to be a toy for men like me to use, then so be it. Losing her to insanity would only be a matter of time, but before that, it would be interesting to use her.
The heels of my boots made a disfiguring 'clickety-clack' in the hard cement as I proceeded up. I nearly reached the peak of the tower when I heard a few sobs from the bottom of the courtyard, so being the ever-curious idiot I was, I poked my head outside the window.
"Miroku," a woman's voice sighed regretfully. I could make out the face of her shape and some of her features, and came to realize that it was Higurashi. Now this should be interesting. A lover's spat!
"I'm sorry, about everything I did," the man across her cried to her back. His fingers gripped his walking stick tightly as he proceeded to approach her. He touched her back gingerly as she turned around, glaring at him with full force. He fell back slightly, perhaps for disappointment, or perhaps because of shock, and buried his head in the trenches of his free arm.
"You know, it used to be so great before," Higurashi chuckled, "when you and me used to go out to the port and look at the seagulls or the waves rolling," she sighed. "But then that happened."
"I didn't mean for it to, it just came like the wind," he added to his speech, oblivious to how Higurashi's eyes seemed to scan his face for any honesty. I tensed the muscles in my arm and held more of myself out of the window to get a better view. Miroku was currently trying to talk more bull to Higurashi.
"And she also came," he added persistently, not loosing the softness in his voice. I snickered at the thought of Miroku being a big softy.
"Yeh, that's right…and that's when everything went downhill, right?" Higurashi remarked softly, tears forming in her dead gray eyes.
"I never expected it to turn out that way…she was always my little sister…still is…" Miroku added hopefully.
"It's nowhere near possible now, is it?" Higurashi fiddled with her skirt, tightening it around her waist. "For an us to exist?" she sobbed silently, clutching onto Miroku's shirt.
"I think we've done enough bad deeds as it is, Kagome," he muttered, breathing in the scent of her hair as he kissed her temples. "You know, I still feel the same way as before," he said whilst he released her from his strong hold. "That will probably never changed."
I examined the fine details of stress on Miroku's behalf as he regretfully pushed Higurashi far away from him. I knew this reaction of his. Once he did the same with Sango when she still obsessed over him; but in this particular scene, I could see that the emotions he managed to muster up more than tripled what he felt with Sango. Did Higurashi have so much power over him? It was frightening that a man of his caliber could begin the spiraling descent of his peak all because of a woman.
"But I have to tell you that I've changed," he continued talking, not daring to touch Higurashi's shaking body. "I've changed so much that if you didn't know how I looked like, you would've thought I was a different person. If anything, I would love to turn back time, be with you again, have everything in its normal state…but as it turns out, I'm here, and so are you," he continued, prodding along with his speech. "It's actually kind of funny…how everything could turn around 180 degrees in such a short period of time," he stated as Higurashi nodded her head timidly. "I once promised you the rest of my life, and heck, I can remember the day when I did that. Do you?"
"Of course…" Higurashi choked.
"The birds were flying around all over the place, and the market was full of the scent of dead fish, and there you were, standing in that idiotic white dress of yours waving at me!"
"Don't you dare make me remember, I'll kill you for real if you did," Higurashi cursed monotonously.
"Better you than anyone else, right?" he chuckled, "I'm sorry I can't keep my promise any longer. And I'm sorry that I had to be the one to break it," he uttered softly, leaving Higurashi behind in a state of absurdity as he continued to limp to his chambers. I saw the girl press her back against the cold, tower wall as she sank into the ground, burying her face into her knees as her hair tore out small strips of her hair.
And suddenly, she wiped the tears off of her eyes and proceeded to stand as if nothing had ever happened. Higurashi stood up proudly and dusted off the soil on her skirt, walking away from her indefinite position.
-_-_-_-
I quickly ran down the stairs again, trying hard to catch up with Higurashi. If I wanted to attack, now would be the time. Never mind about Sango and her depression, she would survive, as she always did. I stumble my way through the bushes and found Higurashi's figure disappearing round the corner. She held her fist to her chest as she continued to walk ever-so-slowly. I ran towards her as quick as the wind and propped myself directly in front of her, omitting a gasp of surprise from her pretty, little mouth.
"Inu-yasha," she growled.
"So I see that you've had quite the reunion with Miroku," I said breezily.
"You'd never know," I squinted my eyes laboriously as she tried to escape my presence.
"Ah, you can't go that way, can you?" I tsked, blocking her path with my arm. "You can't escape me, not when I'm not allowing you to."
"Funny, but I don't have time for your childish games now," she muttered, trying to brush past me once more.
"You know, you're really bad at playing my game, aren't you?" I smiled.
"Playing your game?" she gasped, "oh my, well then, let's switch games, shall we?"
"Why of course, the pleasure is mine, my lady," I lifted my eyes to hers.
And by all means, I had not expected anything like what had come to me to happen. Higurashi thwarted an arm around my backside and rose her face to mine, tracing my nose gently before she pressed her lips against mine for a good whole minute or two.
"Thanks for letting me pass, sweetie, but you're really not my type," she arched her back merrily, waving her small hand before she disappeared around the corner again.
-_-_-_-
AN: OK…sorry about that, it was weird…it was very very weird….but just because Inu-yasha is 'interested' in Sango's well-being does not mean he is in love with her…and Sango vice versa…and just because Miroku and Kagome are in a dilemma right now…does not necessarily mean they will get together in the end…and so I end it here for this chapter! Please review and tell me what you think!
