"White… so white…" The fairly short young Japanese man thought as he looked over the scene before him, his violet eyes taking in his surroundings suspiciously. His eyes crept from tree to tree; trying to look for the men in grey he was told about back at the town they had arrived at. In his mind, there had been very much confusion and ruckus caused by some strange contraptions rumbling down the roads like great iron dragons, ready to strike with crushing force. He was lying in the white snow, his staff at his side. He had refused a weapon, saying he was a man of peace, and the men there just looked at each other and shrugged, pointing him to a small tent, where he was given strict sounding orders by a man with many ribbons on his olive green uniform. Even though he had no clue what was going on strategically with this army, he decided to do as they did. He had watched the small squad of men he had been assigned to creep out of the town and silently slip into the undergrowth of the surrounding forests.
It was dark, and extremely cold. He could feel his limbs beginning to freeze up, his reactions becoming slowed by the cold. He cursed the cold that gripped the air, making it seem as though if he swung something through it, it would erupt and open up a new realm of existence, just like a mirror. "Or the well…" he though, his thoughts mulling over how the hell they had gotten to this juncture.
Everything was so sharp; he could see pine needles through the undergrowth from about 100 yards away. His eyes caught a flurry of movement, and his body reacted automatically, wheeling towards the disturbance to his right, and lunged, sweeping his staff through some obscuring branches. He had swung low, and a scream of pain and long guttural phrases of what seemed to be curses as he heard the thing topple through the brush, then land on the ground with a loud grunt. Miroku dropped to a knee, looking down, and saw a young man. He couldn't have been more than fifteen years of age, lying next to a pair of upright combat boots. He stared at them, then saw that steam was rising from the insides, and a little bit of grey pant leg stuck out of it, showing him that those boots were still occupied.
He winced in pity, his eyes suddenly growing wide as he saw the metal fire stick that had been wielded throughout these engagements leveled right at his head. He felt the cold muzzle of the barrel against his forehead, the metal sticking to his skin, making him wince a bit more as he saw a small grin form on the boys paper white face.
The next few seconds were a blur of movement as a tiny ball of fur slammed into the boys arm, making his gun fall away from the monk's head and dispense its deadly spray just inches from Miroku's right ear, making him shoot back and onto the ground in alarm and a plume of white powder. The next thing he knew, he saw a young, very familiar fanged smile looking down at him. "Bet your glad I came along!" a grinning Shippo announced to the befuddled monk.
"Sh… Shippo! How did you get out here?" He asked, looking him over as if he were making sure this was the genuine fox kit.
"I had to give them candy to let me come!" He cried, looking a little perturbed that he had not been let onto such a dangerous mission without the need to use bribery. A few feet to the right of the talking pair, a large blossom of red began to bloom onto the fluffy white snow, soaking it into a red slush, then it froze over the next few minutes, leaving a frozen memorial to the young man who had fallen just minutes before.
In the town, the early morning light shimmered weakly over the shattered village rooftops and barely lit the dirt roads, which served as its main thoroughfares. The pair of half demons skirted the walls on the sides of the roads, trying to stay off the roads, which took light shelling from time to time. Inuyasha had taken a bed sheet from the upstairs of the building they had slept in and draped it delicately over his fire rat fur, taking the advice from Sgt. Baker when he came to give them their orders of using it as camouflage. The sheet worked fairly well, even though it left his feet exposed, which served to allow a different problem as he put a hand on Kagome's shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze to signal to her that he needed to talk with her. "Whats wrong, Inuyasha?" she asked quietly, looking into his eyes. She saw that her mate was shivering.
"F…f…feet… c… cold…" he stammered, his teeth chattering, hands rubbing the outsides of his arms quickly, trying to stay warm.
Kagome was shocked, dropping to a knee quickly and tore off her service blanket, using her claws to rip it in half, then wrapped it securely around her mate's feet as though she had been trained to do this. "There you go, sweety…" she whispered, smiling lightly up at her love.
Inuyasha smiled, nodding down at her in thanks as he started off ahead of her. "C'mon, we've got to get to the northern outskirts…" he growled roughly, trotting off to the northern edge of the town.
When they arrived there,Inuyasha spotted a four-story house to his left, making him smile back at his mate, then point to the building. "Up there! You should get a good view from up there, don't you think?" He asked, looking expectant of praise for his quick thinking.
Kagome thought for a second, then nodded. "Right… we set up on the second floor."
Inuyasha stared at her, face filled with confusion. "The second floor?" he asked, "Why not the fourth floor?"
She shook her head, "If we get hit by artillery, I think I'd rather be on a lower floor so we could get out quicker…" she said, her voice trailing off. They could die here… in an instant… they could be blown all over this village and nobody would know the wiser. Mom, Gramps and Souta suddenly flashed before him, all of those wonderful memories, the conversations with her mother about Inuyasha and why he was such a touchy kind of guy. With Grampa, telling her that Inuyasha was a no good hanyou, and Souta, not exactly seeing it, but hearing it, "I think I have a new hero…" She frowned, dashing into the building overlooking the no-man's land that spanned the three hundred yards between the low city walls and the treeline of the surrounding forest.
After running up the rickety looking wooden stairs in the back of the building, tearing through freshly made cobwebs as they ran, they came to a small room on the second floor at the end of a short, dark hallway. Inuyasha suddenly grabbed her shoulder as Kagome reached in front of her to the doorknob, making her halt dead in her tracks. "Kagome… don't move…" He whispered, suddenly sliding onto his belly and peering under the door, investigating the wood flooring and the object placed on it. He sniffed, the scent of sweat and a long absents of any form of bathing came to him, making him wrinkle his nose in disgust. He slowly rose, then straightened himself in front of the door, then his right foot came up and slammed into the door. The heavy barrier flew with a crash into the corner of the small bedroom they now found themselves in, and found to their horror, that they were not alone, more of those men in grey they had found yesterday wheeling on them, helmets off, their blonde hair seeming to shimmer in the weak sunlight as they looked in horror up at them.
Inuyasha scoffed, looking down at them with a smirk, "Just young boys and old men…" he thought, giving them all piercing looks down the sight of his Thompson, which was now raised to his shoulder, which he had been working on an hour before Kagome had awoken. He had not stopped in his training to handle the beautifully crafted fire spitting machine. He knew better than to wield tetsuiga around here. He had figured out the logic from watching men firing muskets back at the major towns, and in a few battles he had witnessed between humans, watching the color and the glory and the savagery from afar. He knew that the sword would do him no good in this kind of environment.
Indeed, the men they had stumbled upon were just as Inuyasha had said, just young boys and old men. There were four of them in that small room, the largest one, a grizzly looking man with graying hair, whom Inuyasha supposed was their leader, looked up to him with a tired expression, his right hand dipping to his belt, where he pulled a beautifully crafted pistol. Inuyasha spotted the movement, and did not hesitate in firing off a three shot burst from the weapon, two of the projectiles slamming into his chest, the other drilling a hole straight through his unhelmeted skull. The man fell back with a thud, the pistol flying out of his hand and landing at the other men's feet. The other three men, or boys, huddled together in their corner of the room, horrified as their hand dropped their weapons, and two of them began to cry, shrinking away from the two people who had entered and killed their leader. The third looked angered, and tried to reach for his pistol as well, but kagome was on him, grabbing him by the throat and slamming him to the wall. "Just what do you think your doing, kid!" she shouted, her eyes blazing with anger as she batted the pistol out of his now trembling hand.
The tears began to collect in the boys eyes, he was only about 16, and the boys below him were obviously a little younger. He began to whimper in terror, stumbling over his words, trying to make some sense as he squirmed in pure terror, eyes wide and bulging.
Kagome sighed, letting the boy down gently, looking at the small pile of weapons at the children's feet, a bazooka like weapon, a few shining machine pistols, and a Luger was now at the boys feet. She picked it up, and without thinking, pocketed it, shaking her head. "Shame on you…" she muttered in Japanese, "You should be at home! This isn't a place for children!" she growled, looking them over scrutinously, making them huddle closer together in fear. Kagome looked back at her mate, grabbing the bedsheet from him and setting it over the weapons at her feet, as though saying they were "off limits" to the children, shaking a scolding finger at them.
She gave them another hard look, then, knowing they were not going to do much, she turned to Inuyasha. "keep an eye on them, Inuyasha, and if they do anything, just escort them back to the center of town, then get back here as quick as you can, alright?" she asked, looking right into his eyes as she spoke.
Inuyasha was, quite frankly, amazed by her cool headedness and her ability to completely disarm these soldiers, then nodded, showing she understood her "command". "You got it, Kagome…" was all he replied with, in a gruff tone as he turned to the boys, snarling at them before leaning against the wall, keeping his eye on them.
Kagome smiled softly, satisfied with her mate's reaction and obedience, then turned to the window, trying as best she could to find a stable position. The boys watched her, sniggering and laughing very quietly amongst themselves, their tears fading at this very entertaining show of ineptitude for proper shooting stance. Once the trigger was pulled, and a rifle shot rang out through the room and across the silent snow covered plain outside, all laughter ceased, and they watched in mute horror as a tiny smile of self pride quirked at her lips, her mouth moving silently as she slowly tracked target after target, keeping her shots spread out, as not to attract too much attention to her position.
Minutes passed in silence, only interrupted by her soft muttering as she reloaded the five round magazine of the rifle after she had emptied her clip, the series of bangs finally having ended, to be replaced with the light tinkles of clinking metal. She looked up to Inuyasha, smiling to herself. As she crawled out away from the window, then rose, looking to the open doorway. "Let's get moving, I think we've been spott-" Her voice was drowned out by the sudden eruption of chattering from a machine gun not too far off, the window suddenly filling with lead as fire rained down on it, making her drop to the ground, Inuyasha quickly following suit. "We gotta get out of here!" she cried, looking to the three young soldiers, taking one of their hands, and tugging. "Lets move it!" she shouted, pulling him out of the room and into the hallway, followed by Inuyasha. The other two soldiers just stared at each other for a moment, then ran out after them as quickly as they could, leaving the weapons they had taken such good care of behind them under the linen sheet.
They rocketed down the stairs, and just as their feet hit the snow outside, the room they had been in took an 88mm shell, the front side of the house blowing off in an incredible eruption of smoke and debris. This cataclysmic event sent all five of them to the ground, Inuyasha sprawling face first into the powder, his weapon slipping from his grasp. The oldest of the boys was up in an instant, and dove for the dropped weapon, rolling to his side, the barrel now sighted in on Inuyasha's face.
He froze, everything he knew about, his nights with Kagome, every "I love you" they had ever exchanged, flitting through his mind as his body acted instinctively. He rolled to his side, then quickly gained his footing as he drew his sword and slashed, feeling a little bit of resistance, then a clean follow through.
The boy's eyes were wide as he watched the front half of his weapon fall to the ground with a clatter, just the tiniest bit of his hand being sliced off in the gut reaction. He cried out, falling back to the snow, looking up at the man who was now on his feet, snarling down at him. "you little bastard!" he shouted, drawing back his fist and slamming it to his face, making the boy's arms give out from under him, and forcing his back to ram down into the powder, making it fluff up around his body.
The enraged half demon reached down, grabbing him by the collar, ready to throttle him a little more, before Kagome's hand found his shoulder again, making his tension ease immediately. "Sweety," she whispered, "We have to get going!" Her voice was a little frantic, her eyes searching for a place to hide and continue shooting from to slow the advance.
Inuyasha nodded slowly, picking up his destroyed Thompson and running quickly down the street, the perimeter of the town starting to receive more and more shells as they ran, finding a field hospital. It was a very ornate place, very old and made of dark stone. It had withstood bombardment and all the punishment that the blonde haired people could give the structure. A large white sheet, or supposed to be white, now soiled a light grey with all of the soot and ash and dust, emblazoned with a red cross hung over the entrance, waving in the light wind that was now blowing through the town streets. One ear popped out of his hair taking in the sounds around him. The chattering of the terrible weapons he had encountered in this time, the gut rumbling thuds of artillery pieces, the deep throaty roar of engines all around, from all around the town. But above all of that… were the screams of men… crying for water, mother… anything to make the pain go away… some just crying, "Help me! Help me for God sakes! PLEASE!" A thought hit him now that made his thoughts stop cold. "With Naraku back in Kagome's time… will this be what we come back to find?" He shook his head pulling the boys along with them, looking very frustrated, and a little scared as they walked past filled litters, some men missing arms, legs, feet, hands, fingers and toes. Some were frozen through and through, solid as ice and blue as icebergs.
The smell coming from the place was almost unbearable, so much blood, and death… just then Kagome doubled over and vomited, the soft white snow stained a horrible looking yellow with her sick.
