A few minutes later they were reassembled in the chairman's quarters with Inuyasha in the bedroom hurriedly changing. Ruri outlined options standing outside the open door between bedroom and office. No point in letting Kagura know just how they knew each other so well.

"The most obvious tactic would be to re-take the bridge by force," Captain Hoshino began. "However, due to the fact that the bridge is on the uppermost deck, a stray bullet could easily yield a hull breach."

"The core then?" Inuyasha asked, stepping up behind Ruri. She knew he was there, but it was still a bit of a shock to see him dressed the same as he had been in Sengoku Jidai. The black and grey cloak parted enough at the center to reveal flashes of the dark red fire-rat fur and the hint of a gun belt.

"Hai. We can control all aspects of the ship from there by tying directly into Omoikane. They also cannot override any commands issued from there. We only have a few minutes left here before they will come looking for us. I suggest we all go to the armory, secure further weapons, and then separate. One group should secure the shuttle and Aestivalis bays, the other will go Omoikane himself and secure him."

Greg spoke for everyone "Next step?"

Ruri looked to her betrothed, who nodded slightly at the unspoken thoughts. "I will shut down the engines and gravity, we will then-"

"Kill them" Kagura finished.

"Oi, been a while since you got to play youkai no kaze?" The chairman asked. "I think the point here is to avoid conflict if at all possible."

"Watching your pocketbook again?" The youkai sneered.

Inuyasha paused to maintain the coolness his side of the family considered a trademark. Ruri, however, did not. She walked up to Kagura, and though she was a whole head and shoulders taller than the petite Captain, Hoshino Ruri, Captain of the Nadesico, fiancee of Nergal Chairman Inutaishou Inuyasha, and long standing pacifist, punched Kagura in the jaw with a force that sent the older woman to the floor.

"Oi, Kagura, you might want to avoid pissing her off. She's the reincarnation of my uncle."

A little earlier would have been nice."

"It must have slipped my mind," the younger youkai stated, smiling at his fiance as she returned to where she was standing earlier.

"Again, a fight on the bridge will surely result in a hull breech. As I was saying," Ruri continued as if nothing had happened, "we will then sound the emergency distress beacon, and deactivate all interior locks. In order to avoid further conflict, I would suggest we pull Omoikane's drive cores and get them off the ship."

The chairman nodded, but the Lackeys suddenly were concerned. Dean spoke first. "Nee-san, I agree with you in theory, but a core shouldn't be exposed to the vacuum of space. The only way to get it off ship is in Nii-san's shuttle, and it's not big enough for both drive cores."

Inuyasha walked up to Dean and stared into his face, inches from his nose. Greg sighed rather audibly and Dean resigned to his fate of being thumped on the head. After the lump began forming, he asked the inevitable question. "Okay, bossman, what'd I say that was stupid?"

"You forgot what drives are in use on the ship right now."

Dean blinked, remembering now. "The KdT drives!"

"Bingo."

Kagura and Akito were suddenly, thoroughly lost. Reading this, Ruri explained without putting on the hat. "A standard hard drive used in a ship's computer is about the size of a hardcover book, and each stores about one double-terabyte. However, Omoikane is currently using prototype KdT drives, each storing a kilo, or thousand, double-terabytes. The drives are also only slighter larger than the laptop drives in use right now."

Lackeys' heads bobbed. Greg started with "So while Nii-san could barely pick up a normal drive core and there would be no hope of fitting it on a shuttle-"

two normal humans could easily carry one of the new cores, and we can easily fit the whole array in the shuttle," Dean finished.

// \\

O'Donovan leaned over Hari's shoulder, listening to the news from the galley. No one down there. The cooks down there hadn't seen anybody come in since the ship started moving.

"Well, find them, we know she's somewhere on the shi- SHIT!" Hari continued cursing at the empty air once occupied by the image of one of his co-conspirators.

What happened?"

"They've cut off communications systems inside the ship, they must be in the core!" Hari hurriedly attempted to key in further commands. "Ship's speed decreasing, emergency beacon's activated, and DAMMIT!"

With nothing left for him to do, Hari punched the now-worthless console.

"Get your ass down there, Hari."

// \\

Inuyasha and Kagura stared up at Ruri seated a few feet above their heads. Despite having lived through the entire computing revolution, Kagura still didn't understand anything about them and was slightly frightened by the display before her.

The part of Ruri's mind that wasn't busy with Omoikane and was paying attention to Inuyasha giggled at the youkai below her. He was staring up at her with giant puppy dog eyes, completely enthralled at the sight before him. He did have a point, though. The lines of light all over her body from the computer system did make it look like something from Tron, and her complexion and hair did lend an other-worldly aspect to it.

The part of Inuyasha that was inherited from Sesshoumaru was slightly appalled at the display he was putting on, and wondered if there were any way his eyes could possibly get any bigger when the side inherited from his uncle proved that yes it was indeed possible. Ruri cut the gravity to 0.1g, a tenth that of earth's gravity and barely enough to keep your feet on the floor. One of the things it did not do was keep your hair pointed at the floor. Ruri's hair (and his, but he wasn't paying attention to that) swirled up around her, carried by small currents created by the army of fans scattered throughout the computer core. It was the most beautiful thing that Inuyasha had seen in his life. Ruri obviously heard him think that, as a slight blush appeared on her face.

Kagura was jealous. She really didn't have reason to be; she didn't want the youkai beside her back. Perhaps it was because she had once possessed him yet he had never admired her that openly. He had certainly admired her, but not like this. She slapped the youkai rather roughly with her fan. "We should expect visitors soon."

Hai," Inu replied, and pushed off towards the door. Kagura didn't fair as well as the younger youkai, who had spent time in zero-g environments in the past, but managed to follow him.

// \\

corridor to the room containing the computer core was one of the easiest to defend on the ship. A long corridor led to it, which T'd into one of the concentric corridor rings on the ship. One way in, one way out. The two youkai stood one bulkhead back from the T, not immediately noticeable if one simply walked past.

Kagura, bored from waiting, decided to try for conversation. "Oi, Inuyasha, how'd you two meet?"

"I don't think that matters. Has the scar returned?"

Kagura blinked. "The scar?"

Inuyasha winced inwardly at forcing the memories through his mind, not because they pained him so much as he knew they would hurt Ruri.

'It's alright, Inu.'

'Arigato, Ruri.' "Kagura, I grew up hearing tales of the Shikon-no-Tama, and after our parting spent much time with Inuyasha-sama. I am quite familiar with the ways and doings of Naraku, as well as the fact that all of his children bear his scar. However, if you bore his scar during the time we were together, I certainly would have noticed it."

Kagura's eyebrow lifted. "I'm rather surprised to hear you say it so bluntly, but then again your trophy is still playing with that computer and isn't out here with us. Indeed, after Naraku was sealed the scar disappeared. It has not returned yet."

"Good. If it does and you turn against us, I will be forced to kill you by any means necessary. Do not forget this." Kagura's eyes opened in fear. The inu-youkai sniffed the air and cracked his knuckles. "Here they come."

// \\

Hari raced to catch up with the rest of the group tasked with taking back the computer core. He had stopped back at his quarters to grab his family's sword. He'd been warned in the past to never draw the blade, but he also knew that he had no hope of defeating this Inutaishou Inuyasha with anything less than a steel blade. The chairman had easily dispatched with Hari earlier when it had been wooden swords. He rounded a corner and bolted down the final stretch of corridors leading to the core.

// \\

"Inuyasha!" Kagura floated halfway down the hallway from the younger youkai, who had looked up from the half-dozen unconscious humans floating at his waist when she called. "Youki!"

Inu righted himself with the aid of a bulkhead and sniffed the air. The scent of youki was unmistakable, belonging to a very powerful demon, but a demon this powerful would have been sensed by both Kagura and himself as soon as they were aboard ship. It was a large vessel, but not considering the distances powerful youkai could sense and be sensed from. They turned to face the corridor, Inu pulling out his bokken and Kagura her fan.

Kagura tensed, slowly growing used to low-gravity combat. It was kind of fun. Youkai strength already lessened the effect of gravity on beings such as herself and the dog demon beside her. Humans, so used to the concept of the force of gravity, were lousy at martial combat in space. She could see why they always reverted to guns and diplomats to resolve their disputes. She watched as a perfect example tumbled into their view of the connecting passageway. He couldn't have been any older than the fiancee of the puppy beside her. He was obviously having problems keeping his feet underneath him, despite the fact he obviously intended to fight them with the sword he carried. She coiled her fan around herself, preparing to strike as she was a few steps ahead of the puppy. What didn't make sense to her was the their new opponent was obviously not even hanyou, yet the scent of youki was obviously coming from him.

"Kagura, wait!" She blinked as her former lover leaped over her head and landed in front of her.

"So, since this fool wields a sword, you get to fight him?"

"It's not that. It's the sword. Hari, if you value your life, do not unsheathe it."

The human at the end of corridor smirked. "So, you're afraid of me now that I'm holding steel and all you have is that wooden thing?" He held the still-sheathed weapon in front of him with his left hand and grasped the tsuka with his right, which was the most intimidating way he could think of to stand.

// \\

From inside the core, Ruri stopped working on the shutdown procedure and stared through her love's eyes. She watched as he tossed the bokken to his offhand and his right flipped his cloak back to reveal the sidearm at his hip.

'Inu, you're not going to kill him, are you?'

'No, Ruri, but I have to stop him from drawing that blade.'

// \\

Hari thumbed loose the sword, unsure as to why his opponent was holding his sword in the wrong hand, when he realized the other hand was going for a gun. The coward. He blinked and suddenly saw a revolver aimed at his head. He saw the flash and heard the report as he began to draw the sword. Suddenly, the sword stopped moving from the sheath.

'I did it!' Inuyasha thought. Ruri understood. He'd fired into the blade, lodging the sword in the sheath with the bullet. 'Wait, no--'

It was too late. The ancient wood cracked from the strain suddenly placed on it, and because Hari continued to pull, the scabbard split and fell away from the blade. Demonic light suddenly illuminated the corridor.

"Hari, don't you know that's not a steel sword you hold? It is formed from the bones of youkai. From the evil emanating from it, it also may hold all the power of multiple demons as well."

"You trying to scare me with bedtime ghost stories, coward?" Hari roared, yet even he could not deny that something was taking hold of his mind. He held the sword aloft and prepared to strike. Why, though? He wasn't within reach of his opponent.

Inuyasha fired again, striking the sword just above the tsuba and feeling some measure of triumph as he saw the steel crack. There wasn't time for a third shot, as Hari dove at them and swung the weapon. Inutaishou barely had time to turn his back and pull his hood before the waves of energy hit him. He stumbled forward but the cloak absorbed the blast and prevented any of it from getting to Kagura. Once he felt the blow finish, he spun back around to face Hari.

Despite the fact that they obviously weren't out of danger yet, Kagura found herself wondering just what in the world the chairman's cloak was made of. The bulkheads around them were scorched but there wasn't a single scratch anywhere on it she could see.

She let herself float up beside Inu, and saw their opponent's face for the first time since he had drawn his weapon. The expression was one of undiluted malice, one that she had never thought a human capable of generating. The blade had obviously taken control of him, much like Sesshoumaru's sword was reputed to be able to do. She watched as her former lover drew to fire a third shot at the possessed weapon.

Hari's mind reeled with the power he now held in his hands. He should have used this in his first battle. The fool wouldn't even attack him with the little wooden sword he was holding. The possessed mind watched as its opponent drew his gun again. The fool had missed him with his first two shots, why would the third? He held the blade aloft so that its demonic glory permeated the area.

"Coward! Why won't you come at me with your stick like a man instead hiding behind a gun like a boy!"

Inu smiled ice at his opponent. "Who says I'm fighting you? You're being very helpful, however. Arigato, baka." As the last word sneered past his lips, he squeezed the trigger. The round flew from the lengthy barrel and hurtled towards Hari, striking his sword just above the tsuba and slicing through the blade.

// \\

Ruri's hands paused over Omoikane's master console, watching what was happening outside through her love's eyes. She watched with relief as the evil left Hari's face as soon as the blade broke.

'Ruri-chan, I'm not proud of what I'm about to do. In fact, I'm ashamed, but it must be done and Kagura is not the one to do it. I swear to you on the grave of my grandfather and my love for you that I will not kill him.'

'Anata, I trust you.'

'Arigato, koishii. I'm going to block my mind from you. Please don't try to see what happens.'

'Hai, koi. I love you.'

'I love you too, koishii'

In the hallway, Inu spun the heavy frame into its holster and replaced his bokken at his side. He could smell the fear coming from Hari but knew that the human wouldn't accept defeat. He let his blood flow into his eyes, burning them with the fire of Sesshoumaru.

"I came to you seeking to fight a fair battle, and you pulled a gun on me! What kind of coward does that? You're cheating to keep Ruri!"

Inu held out his left hand slightly away from his side and let the golden whip of his father come forth, letting it float lazily in the air for a few seconds before flicking it towards Hari. It wrapped around the fragment of the katana Hari still held and with a practiced snap of the wrist the fragment flew from his opponent's hand."

"Tell me, baka, what was the name of your weapon?"

"It's a sword, not a person!"

"That does not answer my question, and yet it does, doesn't it?" He flicked the whip dangerously close to Hari's face. As expected, in dodging the whip Hari lost his balance and found himself unable to get his feet back under him.

"One does not simply happen upon a cursed blade, and no such blade has been forged in the past several hundred years." Another practiced twist of his wrist wrapped the glowing whip around Hari's neck. The youkai yanked the whip and threw the human towards himself, catching Hari by the neck with the hand which a few moments ago possessed the weapon. He applied just enough force to make breathing uncomfortable for Hari. Hari struggled in vain against the iron claws.

"So," the inu youkai continued as if having a fireside chat, "I must assume it's been handed down through your family. Yet you don't know the blade's name. Probably don't know its history either, do you?"

Inuyasha sniffed the air, ignoring the struggling beside him. The youki hadn't disappeared. Well, one more way to scare Hari back onto the straight and narrow. He walked out into the connecting corridor where the blade was floating, still carrying the struggling human. The broken blade was still glowing, its greenish tint magnifying instead of diminishing. He held Hari where both could see the terror unfolding in front of them. The mists around the blade slowly solidified and took on a grotesque humanoid shape.

"Blooood," it croaked hoarsely. "Fellow youuukai, giiive to me that huuuman, his blood is fressssh."

"What? What is that?" Hari asked, matching the croak in its coarseness.

"That," replied the chairman flatly, "is what you sought to use against me."

"What a foooolish mortal he issss, isn't heeee?" the newcomer retorted. "Tell me, fellow youkaaaai, what your name isssss, and we shall consssuuume theeese... pitiful... fools." The last three words were spat with such disgust that Inuyasha was surprised that a few moments before it had wanted human blood. His face formed the family smirk.

"You are not worthy of knowing my name. You're a fool who got himself trapped in a poorly-forged blade. I will tell you my grandfather's name, however, so you may tremble as you go forth unto hell. My grandfather was Inutaishou, father of Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha and friendly to humans."

He pulled the bokken from his waist and pointed it at the unnamed opponent. "And now, go to hell." Sesshoumaru's poison claw formed on his right hand, and hurtled down the bokken toward the barely-formed youkai as if fired from a rifle. It hit the being in its chest and caused it to explode and dissipate into the air, the only remnant of it being a scream it uttered as it died which resounded throughout the ship.

Inu slipped the bokken back to its home at his side, and then flung Hari roughly into the wall opposite them. "Do you see now? You are not an opponent to me, and I have no desire to fight you." He leaped forward and grabbed Hari's hair and forced the human to look him in the face. "You say you fight me to claim Captain Hoshino as your own. Do you know why I continue to fight you?"

Hari tried to sneer. "For the same reason I do, baka," he snorted.

The youkai laughed and released Hari's head. "You've spent at least two years around Ruri-chan, and you still don't know how to use that word. Let me tell you a secret." He leaned close to Hari's face and stared into his eyes. "Even now, if Ruri decided that she wanted you over me, I would let her do so, and love her no less than I do now. Do you see now? And can you say the same?"

// \\

Greg, Dean and Akito all looked up when the scream sounded. When the scream stopped, the first two resumed their tasks of preparing the shuttle for departure, but Akito stood at the door of the craft, staring at the empty bay around them.

"Wh-what was that?"

Dean stepped past him into the hanger, his lighter flaring to life in front of a cigarette. "Youkai death scream," he said calmly around the lit tobacco.

"WHAT? Demon? I thought Inutaishou-san was joking when he said he and Kagura were youkai..."

Dean stared at him and blinked. He slowly closed the lighter and inhaled the fumes he had created. "I thought you knew... oh, yeah, that's right. Greg told me, memory loss. Well, nii-san said to trust you, and there's a rather short list of people he says that about. So yes, Inutaishou Inuyasha is a cross between youkai no inu, Sesshoumaru, and youkai no mizu. And if I understand correctly, Kagura is youkai no kaze, based on what nii-san said to her back in his quarters."

"What?!"

"Buddy, half the stories you heard as a kid were true, and you didn't even know it, did you?"

The full impact of previous conversations hit Akito and sent him down to the ground with a pronounced thud.

Dean pulled the lit cigarette from his mouth. "Oi, Greg! Gimmie a hand getting Tenkawa-san to a shuttle couch."

Greg stuck his head from the craft and looked down at the inert form. "Guess he didn't accept what you just told him. Kinda surprising. He never struck me as the fainting type. Oh well."

// \\

Ruri blinked and looked up from the master console when the scream sounded. She reached out with her mind and found that Inu was still there and safe, so she knew she didn't have to worry. She looked around her at the chamber, watching the lights dim as she stopped Omoikane's processes one by one. A few minutes later she heard the door to the chamber open behind her and felt Inu's mind open back up to her own.

'Gomen, Ruri-chan. I know it isn't easy to do this to Omoikane. But it's the only way to protect him.'

'I know, Inu-kun. Knowing that doesn't make it easier.'

'Hai.'

Kagura, not having the benefit of hearing the conversation, stared up at Ruri's saddened face. "What is wrong with you, child? Your lover has been out fighting for you and--"

"Baka." Kagura looked over to see Inuyasha opening up an access panel on the other side of the room. "You think her pain is from what was going on out there? Shutting down Omoikane isn't like shutting down the computer in your office." He punched in some access codes and pushed the wall to drift to the other side of the room. "Omoikane isn't the name of the operating system of this vessel, it's the name of its AI."

Kagura blinked. "Ey, ai?"

It was Inuyasha's turn to stare. "Artificial Intelligence? Look at it this way. We both know from experience that a being has both a soul and a body, correct?" Kagura nodded and he continued. "Most computers are just a body. You pull their strings, they do things for you. The things people do every day don't require you to pull very many strings in a computer, so they're never aware of what's going on inside. It doesn't matter to them if it's sentient or not. Frankly, for most purposes, it's better that way.

"However, on a ship like this you don't necessarily want to pull every string necessary to make the computer do what you want it to. Thus, you give the computer its own soul, which on the Nadesico is named Omoikane. When you shut down an AI, you are in effect killing it as surely as if you had pulled the soul out of human. Sure, the body's fine, but you have to pull every string yourself to get it to work. The analogy is crass, but it's akin to the manipulations of Naraku versus the puppeteering of Yura of the Hair."

Kagura was able to grasp that, and she looked back up at Ruri, the lines across her fading, making it appear almost as if she were illuminated by candlelight instead of the display they had seen earlier in the room. Hearing a hissing behind her, the kaze youkai turned to see Inu pulling open a two-story access panel.

"Are these the drives?" She marvelled up at the twin cylinders before her.

"Not the ones we're carrying. These are the old ones, but if we don't destroy them Hari can reroute power and processes to them and restart the ship systems onto full automatic." 'Koishii, where are we at?'

'I have to flash the RAM to tape then wipe the areas reserved for Omoikane. I can do it without interruption to the systems we're leaving up. That's it though. Inu, how are we going to disembark? We'll have no bay control.'

' 'Youkai don't live a thousand years by trusting everybody.' It doesn't look it and won't show up on any cursory examination, but that shuttle could beat an Aesti to a pulp if it had to. We just gotta make sure we seal the shuttle bay before we leave, because until Omoikane's back up, ain' nobody re-pressurizing that area.'

Ruri nodded then spoke aloud. "Flash from RAM to tape done. Unmounting tapes."

Kagura jumped as yet another panel popped open and fifty backup tapes simultaneously ejected from their drives. Ruri hopped/floated down from the operator's station and grabbed a nearby case and boxed the backups.

"Oi, Ruri-chan," Inu said over her shoulder. "I can't believe I never asked you this. Did you pick up any extra youkai powers from the transfusion?"

Ruri blinked up at him, pausing momentarily before she shut the case of tapes. She stood and collected the swords which she'd laid by the station when they came in. "I don't think so. I've never felt anything different."

Inu smiled slightly and jerked a thumb towards the outdated drives. "Now's the time to find out if you want to."

Kagura smirked as the Captain walked up to the two cores. There's no way a human could inflict serious damage on the units.

'Inu, what do you expect me to do? I mean, sure I can do Kaze no Kizu, but that would damage more than just the cores.'

He stepped up beside his fiancee. 'Something like this.' "SANKON TESSOU!"

When he landed back next to Ruri, the deep scars on the upper area of one of the cores was plainly visible. Those drives were now useless. Ruri timidly walked up to the undamaged core. She felt Inuyasha in her mind, shepherding her arm into motion as she moved her well-manicured nails towards the unit. "Sankon Tessou!"

Kagura blinked in surpirse. It was nowhere near that of either the hanyou Inuyasha or the youkai Inuyasha, but it was still the last thing she expected to see from what she considered nothing more than a timid trophy fiancee.

Inuyasha smiled as she returned to where he was standing and extended his hand to her. 'Now, let's finish this.'

Ruri took his hand. Despite the fact that their relationship had matured, "nii-chan" kicked in as she felt a wave of pride from him at her accomplishment. 'Baka. It wasn't that impressive. Not compared to yours.'

He leaped towards the ceiling, bringing her up with him. 'I'm not comparing you to me. You're Ruri, not Inuyasha.'

'Baka. What are we doing up here?' She caught a conduit running on the ceiling to keep from drifting back to the floor.

Inu pulled his bokken from his side. 'Splitting firewood.' He caught a sideways glance from her. 'Just worry about chopping yours in half with Tetsusaiga, don't worry about me breaking this.'

Kagura stared in disbelief as Hoshino pulled Tetsusaiga from its sheath. She'd mistaken it for just another battered sword, but seeing it out she remembered the blade well. She fully awoke to the fact that this was indeed the reincarnation of the Inuyasha she had known and fought in Sengoku Jidai. She watched as the two propelled themselves towards the cores and drove their blades through them, splitting the cores from top to bottom. She only remembered to blink once the two had sheathed their weapons and walked back up to her. Her normal demeanor quickly re-asserted itself.

"What, not going to save any destruction for me? How selfish."

Ruri gestured towards a large steel locker in the fourth corner of the room. "Baka. Those are the rest of the backup tapes for rotation. They must all be destroyed."

The fan opened and Kagura swiped at the box, letting her air blades mutilate the box and its contents into bite-sized pieces. For extra show, she then proceeded to mutilate the leftovers into bit-sized pieces. Ruri, however, missed the show as she was visiting the first panels that Inu had popped open. A series of commands opened the drive vault itself from which Inu pulled the two cores which constituted Omoikane's drive array.

"Let's get these puppies off ship so there's no chance of bringing things back up before the conspirators are dealt with."

Ruri nodded and stopped to key in a final series of commands at a secondary terminal. "There. All accounts are locked except for Lisette and Haruko, who don't have admin or operator access."

"It'd be a liability to Saburouta if he could still access anything," her love agreed.

// \\

Next up, a bit of the old ultra-violence in old Mexico...