Disclaimer: I DON'T OWN INUYASHA! HANYA, YUKI, AND ASUKA ARE ORIGINAL CHARACTERS FROM ME AND MY TWO BEST FRIENDS
Chapter 8: Bait
Three days had passed since Hanya and Asuka had disappeared from the fight with Inuyasha. Now, traveling down a pathway, Inuyasha had Yuki tied and gagged (because she wouldn't stop complaining), and tossed over his shoulder like a potato sack. The others walked quietly behind him. They hadn't wasted any time in moving away from their previous camp, but they had stop every so often because Inuyasha hadn't healed yet.
The wound that Hanya had given him cut into his ribcage, breaking the lower two. His lung had also been grazed, and he wheezed slightly. Kagome had tried to convince him to stop and rest until his wound had healed, but he kept insisting that if they had stayed there and the two sisters had attacked again he would not be able to fend them off like he had before. "They would have killed me easily, and then come after you guys. If Naraku wanted me dead, I'm pretty sure he wanted you dead too Kagome." He pointed out every time she had asked to stop for his sake, and continued walking. Sooner or later he was going to have to stop even though he didn't want to.
Asuka and Hanya walked along the borders of the campsite. "They left Hanya. Seems they headed north. What now? Are we going to follow them?" "Of course we're going to follow them you imbecile. It's your fault they found out about me and Yuki trying to kill them, so you're going to help." Hanya growled over at her older sister, "Come on." She got a lock on where the group had gone and followed the scent. Asuka mumbled to herself as she followed.
Inuyasha had given up on convincing his friends to continue, and they had stopped about an hour ago. Inuyasha set Yuki down under a tree; she was still tied by her hands and feet, and she was gagged because she complained too much. She huffed at how rough the hanyou had set her down on the hard ground, and she glared over at the rest of the group as they kept an eye on her. 'Not like I'm going anywhere.'
Inuyasha sat across the kitsune, and Kagome rummaged through her backpack for bandages; she quickly set upon treating the wound. "So what are we going to do?" Kagome asked quietly. "What do you mean?" "Well, we have Yuki as a hostage. But why are we keeping her?"
"She has a point Inuyasha. Why are we holding Yuki hostage?" Miroku interrupted. Everyone turned to face Inuyasha, and his forehead wrinkled in concentration. The silence was broken when a muffled sound came from Yuki. "You know I don't really know why we have her hostage." Inuyasha admitted. Everyone sighed heavily and shook their heads. More muffled sounds came from where Yuki sat, but everyone ignored it. They had no reason to pay attention to their 'friend'.
What they hadn't noticed was the choking sound, and the raise of youki coming from that same spot. It was only until the demonic energy was high enough for Inuyasha to sense that he realized the other youkai that seemed to be trying to kill their prisoner.
The creature was a relative height and was covered in a dark cloak that hung over his head. His outstretched claw revealed long scars and a black flame tattoo that circled around his forearm. No one could distinguish his facial features, and the cloak seemed to cover up his scent and youki as well as; hence why Inuyasha couldn't sense anyone until recently.
Inuyasha launched himself at the attacker with the Tetsaiga raised, but the attacker simply reached out another distorted arm grabbing the blade and flipping it sideways; tossing Inuyasha into a tree. A malicious smile appeared on the creature's darkened face. "I see you have acquired some friends, dear Yuki." Beads of sweat spilled down the silver haired human's face as she gasped for air, "That's ok. In your current state, not even your sister could protect you." The youkai laughed and grasped his prey tighter.
Her golden eyes dilated to where they were completely black. She forced her eyes closed as tight as possible, and tears fell along with the already streams of sweat. Her face began to change from its natural pale color to a deep red, and then a purplish blue. She tried to scream, but the gag still covered her mouth. Just as she was about to give in to the darkness approaching her, the hand around her neck was removed, and she fell to the ground taking in short gasps of air.
Inuyasha had regained his footing and slight dizziness just as the attacker was almost done with his hostage. He could see the color distortion in Yuki's face. He charged the assailant once more; the Tetsaiga flung behind him as he ran. Since the first attempt with the Tetsaiga had failed, Inuyasha turned slightly and rammed into the cloaked figure (football style!). Knocking him away from Yuki. The two rolled several feet away from the tree Yuki had been perched at before regaining their footing – both youkai and hanyou growled at each other viciously.
"Why do you protect a creature like her? Certainly you know what she is." The youkai spat out, "Seeing as how you have her captive I thought I'd take her off your hands. Why do you have her tied up anyway?" "That's none of your business." Inuyasha ground out. The smile, showing gleaming fangs, appeared once more, "You were her latest victim weren't you?" Inuyasha growled again, only resulting in the creature's smile to widen, and then he began to laugh.
"You are one lucky son-of-a –bitch. You caught her before she got you. Unfortunately for you, you're not the only one." The creature pointed a claw at the wide-eyed Yuki on the ground, "She was sent to kill me, and she thought she had me," he lifted his cloak hood to reveal burnt flesh on the right side of his face, a long sword slash slithered its way across the burnt flesh, creating a deep gnash in his cheek. The pink flesh wounds had paralyzed that side of his face, and his right eye was a blind white. His left eye was a dark gray, and had two claw marks running down through the center. "You thought you killed me, didn't you Yuki."
Yuki turned her head away from the familiar sight of a previous job. "You were dead when I left you." She whispered mainly to herself. The youkai smiled, "Things can change you know. Poor, poor dog," he turned his attentions to Inuyasha, "If you haven't figured it out yet, she's an assassin. A hired 'help' to rid the world of certain infidel, and right now is the perfect time to extract revenge on what she had done to me. Pathetic human is what she is now; at least while that collar is on."
A fog surrounded the predator and he disappeared. Inuyasha sniffed the air but couldn't pick up the scent. 'Where did he go?' At that thought, the fog reappeared and so did the youkai. Before Inuyasha could react, the youkai reached down to Yuki, but drew back as an arrow passed between him and her. Glancing up at the new attacker he saw Kagome readying another arrow and aiming it toward his chest. "What do you think you're doing?" he growled furiously.
"Back off." Kagome yelled at youkai. He stood straight up and raised his hands above his head.
Asuka yawned loudly. Stretching straight up and cracking her back, she felt like she could just fall over and sleep. Her and Hanya had been walking for almost an hour, but hadn't found their sister. "Can we stop for awhile? I'm tired and I highly doubt that we'll lose the scent of that damn hanyou…" she ended her sentence with another loud yawn. Hanya growled low in her throat, but gave in. she hopped up into a tree and closed her eyes. Asuka followed her sister's example and hopped into another tree and fell asleep easily. "We'll find her after a quick…break." Asuka reassured her with another yawn.
"Listen, if I don't kill her now she'll just get her mix breed sister to take off that collar, and then we'll all be in trouble." "I don't care at the moment, and if it comes to that, well, then Inuyasha and I will just have to kill her." Kagome still had her bow raised to his chest. The youkai began to laugh, and a muffled laugh came from Yuki as well.
"As you can see, even in her human state, she knows that a half breed and a human aren't enough for her skills. And if you don't act now, she will kill you all." There was no smile on his face; he was completely serious. With a quick movement of his foot the devilish youkai kicked Yuki in her side and she rolled over to Kagome; the gag in her mouth falling around her neck like a bandana. She coughed before yelling at her attacker, "God damn it!" Yuki lay on her side watching as Kagome released the arrow at hand; shooting the youkai in the shoulder. A loud scream emitted from the youkai as he reached up to remove the arrow, but it wouldn't budge.
Taking the advantage in hand, Inuyasha charged and swept the Tetsaiga through the creature's stomach, and watched his two halves fall their separate ways. "We should probably move on." Inuyasha suggested. Everyone nodded and agreed.
Another hours worth of walking and they stopped for a rest. Yuki's face was covered in dirt after being kicked over to Kagome. She now sat underneath another tree while Inuyasha and the others stared at her, waiting for an explanation. "Well?" Inuyasha asked impatiently. "Well what?" Yuki mocked. "We just saved your life, we have yet to figure out a reason as to why we keep you at hand, and I think you owe us an answer to our questions." "Well now, I can't answer your questions if you just glare at me." She shouted back, and she huffed out a long sigh.
"How many people have you killed?" Kagome started. "Just me, or Hanya too?" "Just you." "Somewhere between 75 and 250. Now would you like me to classify that between humans and demons?" "No thank you!" Yuki smiled at Kagome's disgust.
"Naraku sent you and your sister after me and Kagome, right?" Inuyasha asked. "Yeah, so?" "Why didn't you kill us when we first ran into each other?" "Do you want to know the truth? 'Cause I don't think you're going to like the answer." Inuyasha growled, and Yuki continued, "Well when we first met you, we weren't hired to kill you. Do you remember the cat demon Hanya and I killed after you regained consciousness?" the group nodded, "Well he was the one we were supposed to kill. Kagome, retrieve the small pouches at my side."
Kagome did so, and took the pouches and unwrapped the first one. The pouch contained a rough amount of 150 gold pieces. They all gasped as Kagome opened the second pouch. Inside was a deep blood red ruby in the form of a small flame. Fire specks blinked for the center of the stone, and when Kagome started to pull it out she dropped it back into the pouch. "It's really hot." She whimpered.
"Set the pouch down and pull the string to the left." Kagome did as she was told and set the pouch on the ground and pulled the tie string. The pouch opened wider, and lay flat on the ground. "It's an element stone." Sango spoke; Yuki nodded silently. "They say that the specks inside the ruby are frozen flame, and they enhance fire element youkai powers. It's only a myth and if it was true there should be only a handful of them in the world, and even then, it's near impossible to find them." Miroku explained what he knew.
"I recently received that little treasure from Yukio, our last client. The cat we were hired to kill was a traitor to his clan. He deserved what was coming to him." "So you didn't kill us at first because you had no reason to?" Kagome asked, still staring at the gem.
"Uh…sure we'll go with that. Any who, the day that we left was when we were hired. Hanya wanted to enjoy this job, and as she says what better way to make a person suffer than to know the person in harms way."
"I always loved that statement." Everyone turned to see Hanya and Asuka standing behind them; a wide smile on each of their faces, "Miss us?" she asked innocently.
Quick and easy chapter, and I left it open so I can start chapter 9. REVIEW!
