Chapter Fourteen:

Inuyasha glanced at Kagome, and gently shuffled –floated- her behind him. ….How far away was his sword?

Sango was having the same reservations when she spotted Kagura. She suddenly wasn't sure which one she would hope to kill first: Kagura or Sesshomaru? Sango all but snarled at the female demon. "I should have known that somebody with an ego like yours couldn't get sucked into a wind tunnel that easily. I suppose I was being too hopeful to pray for your demise."

Kagura smirked. "Wind tunnel. Wind demoness who controls the winds. Gee. What are the odds something related to the winds, would kill me?" Kagura asked viciously, the smirk never once leaving her blood red lips. Raising her chin aristocratically, Kagura folded her arms over her chest and tapped her fan impatiently over her forearm. "Go on and pray dearie," Kagura commented dryly, looking at Sesshomaru beside her and feeling a shiver crawl up her spine. When he was this cold... It usually didn't take more then a second before Kagura realized the blood splattered on her was from his victim.

Sesshomaru never lost his aristocratic stature as he sat on a boulder and stared at them all, not so much as an inch of his persons getting wet. "I must admit, it's so bothersome to always have to try and rectify the mistakes my brother makes. When one of the wolves from Kouga's tribe told me that a pregnant human was claiming that I was the father of her child, I was more than just slightly surprised, but at least my suspicions were correct. Having a fun time in the demon world, human?" He was completely ignoring Sango, but Sesshomaru's tone and expression clearly indicated that he was not favoring Kagome with questions to be hospitable.

Kagome could feel Inuyasha beside her, and it lent her already strong will strength. "The hospitality of your world is somewhat lacking," Kagome replied, meeting the demon's eyes and not blinking or shying away once. For all of her blushes of earlier, Kagome was now showing the same strength she had shown Inuyasha she possessed on the ship. "As for the father of my child... It seems your information has been misleading," Kagome said, licking her lips hoping that she could play this next part well. "Just the way Naraku wished it to be."

Miroku caressed Sango and gave her a look to be ready to pull her knife out of her boot. Standing up, Miroku ignored both demons and lowered his head thoughtfully while he trudged out of the water. Raking his hand through his hair he tossed it back and away from his face. Now on solid ground, where he could fight better, Miroku stood silently, on the defense, his hand innocently enough toying with his Buddha beads. All that was needed was one pull, and he would release his Kazana, regardless of the results.

Sesshomaru saw him and stared at his brother and Kagome before he finally paid attention to the other two. "You lost your own life when you took up your agreement with Naraku, Miroku, are you really going to risk taking the life of your wife as well?" he demanded, even though he never stopped staring at Inuyasha and Kagome. "You shouldn't have come back, either of you."

"Unfortunately, that really wasn't a choice," Inuyasha growled.

"Yes, you had to rescue the demon slayer. You could have let her died, with the loss of but one. Now you risk the lives of… hm, if the demon slayer is pregnant as well, you risk losing six lives," he drawled. "Not that I care about the lives of two humans, one crossbreed, a wayward monk and… what ever shall we call the new mutt?"

Inuyasha smirked. "Personally, I rather hoped that you would call him or her by name. But apparently Sango wasn't the only one who was too hopeful."

Sango was busy trying to get closer to Miroku, concerned. "Miroku, what does he mean…"

Miroku bared his teeth. "My life is forfeit. But not my wife's. Kagura may control the winds," Miroku then added, a dangerous tone in his voice towards the man he had followed, towards the rightful king of these lands. "But you don't," He reminded. "Speaking of Kagura," he then added. "How is life working for Naraku?"

Kagura hissed audibly. "Open that tunnel, monk. I'll make sure it sucks you in - Right after it does the demon slayer. By the way, you are looking good dear. If a bit worn out around the thighs."

Kagome patted Inuyasha, forgetting he was naked in the water. Turning back to Sesshomaru, Kagome demonstratively placed her hands on her abdomen. "Any ideas why Naraku wanted me to think you were the father?"

"I don't just have ideas, Priestess. I have answers. Convince you that Inuyasha is not the father, and a myriad of things happen. You leave Inuyasha because you feel guilty. Inuyasha, in turn, becomes vengeful, as hot headed as my half brother is, and he will come after me, seeing me as the person who drove you apart."

Sango spoke up, having been silent since she had spat at Kagura. "But by doing so, he also would have driven Kagome to Sesshomaru's side, and in a war against demons, you have to admit that having somebody with the ability to kill demons is pretty handy."

"Not when they can't use their magic, not when they're so tired they can barely walk by the end of the day," Inuyasha retorted, thinking of Kagome and last night. "And Naraku didn't just convince her that I wasn't the father, he convinced her, through mind manipulation, of course, that I was going to kill the baby."

Sesshomaru nodded. He had known that, of course. Kagura was a good spy to have in Naraku's castle. "So, say that I kill Kagome. Then it only makes Inuyasha even more angry. Not only do I suddenly have to fight Naraku's forces, but my half brother as well. I'm fighting a double sided war, and Inuyasha, as we all know well, has no reservations about killing other demons."

Inuyasha scoffed. Why should the scum of the earth mind killing other scum? Demons knew what to expect when they got entangled with him. Besides, in the demon world, very little was sacred; even kinship.

"But perhaps Inuyasha realizes he can't kill me himself, what else would he do but go and join the enemy? Hold your friends close and your enemies closer, after all. So now I have a weak and pregnant human to take care of, or kill her, sending my half brother into a frenzied demonic state and watch him take half the world to hell with him."

"Either way, Kagome would have been out of the fighting. The best demon extinguisher's being watched by a piece of Naraku himself, the Tetsusaiga would no longer be able to transform because I'm no longer protecting Kagome." Inuyasha, over the month that he had been with Kagome, had finally figured out why the sword transformed into a fang, but his brother still knew that Inuyasha did not know all of the sword's secrets, or its past. "But he still gains an extra demon for his army. Sango would die."

Sango peered over her shoulder at Miroku. "And as for you…?" She let the inquiry slide away.

"Apparently you're not as dumb as you make yourself out to be," Sesshomaru said, sounding almost disappointed at Inuyasha's display of intelligence. "Naraku obviously fears you four, otherwise he would not have gone to such extremes to try and take care of you all, to separate or break you. Either that or else he's completely confident that he's going to retain the throne and he can mess with people's lives."

He looked around: his brother treading water, the scent of his love for Kagome pouring off of him; Kagome trying to be brave and proud while her thoughts lingered on worry for the sake of her babe and her friends; Miroku, still contemplating the idea of trying to suck Sesshomaru into the wind tunnel, his fingers playing with the beads on his hand, and Sango, apparently off in her own world, trying to deduce what was going on with her husband.

They all seemed, for the one instance, completely and utterly powerless. Seshsomaru's lips tightened. "Personally, I'm starting to think it's the second one."

"Regardless of that," Sango said quietly, "we have to face the facts. You need our help. So far, Miroku and Inuyasha are the only people who managed to get inside the capital, am I right? Otherwise, if you had the skill, speed, and strength or even the knowledge to take the capital, you would have done so in the month since you came back here. But instead, your main force is camped far away from the city, and you lay no siege to it. I can't imagine that you would care enough about demon lives to avoid using siege engines. No, my guess is that you and your army have been pushed on the defensive.

"Secondly, there's the fact that you actually came to talk to us. You can't expect us to believe that you left your camp because you thought a human was claiming to have your kid. Anybody you ever touched is dead." She glared at Kagura softly. "Okay, any human you touched is dead. And since you already knew that slaying Kagome would turn Inuyasha to Naraku's side, you obviously didn't come to assassinate her. You're just using the baby as a weak excuse.

"Therefore, based upon the presented information, I can only assume that you need our help and came to ask us for it. Or rather, you came to talk to us into offering you our assistance, with all that crap about holding friends close and enemies closer, and right now, we're both. Your army might be bogged down, but a handful of mercenaries? They can easily sneak into enemy camps and kill the leaders, destroy food, let lose mounts, poison water supplies… or sneak into the castle itself and open the floodgates so that the main contingent can enter the city. That's what you want, Sesshomaru: mercenaries. And what could be better than a Priestess, an ex-monk, a demon killer, and a real demon?

"That's why I was kidnapped. Naraku knew that if he took one of us four, the other three would band together. Then he could play you and your brother against each other, and kill Miroku and I, as we have no part in the battle between you and Naraku." She again glanced at Miroku, her gaze lingering on the sealed hand. She pursed her lips, and her brown eyes hardened when she looked again at Sesshomaru. "Well, at least, I don't. He knew that sooner or later, we'd team up, somehow."

For a half a second there was a light of respect in Sesshomaru's eyes. Then it was gone, and he gave a weak glare to the seductive woman at his side. "And you said she was an idiot… but you were right: she talks a lot."

There was a long lingering moment of silence over all those present. And the quiet weighted down on all of them like a thick bog.

However, there was just so much of cricket sounds that Kagura could take before breaking the almost sacred silence that fell about them. "Well, she is an idiot. She thought she could defeat the winds, besides for one stroke of brilliance, we don't have to eliminate the other possibility. She might've just recently hit her head," Kagura remarked, tapping her fan irritably.

Kagome glanced at him a killing look, before looking back at Sesshomaru, her hand holding Inuyasha's tightly. She might be acting strong, but she was relying on her strength from somewhere. Or in this case, someone.

"This was all a trap from the beginning," Kagome whispered, her eyes widening as she looked over her shoulder swiftly at Inuyasha. "It doesn't make sense that even a small pack like ourselves could get in and out of the city so easily. Let alone, Sango who was a prisoner and myself," Kagome said shaking her head.

"Naraku might've had an agenda to letting us go but… It just doesn't add up. He would've killed you and Miroku once you were there, no matter if he couldn't used you on other fronts, helping his army. Sango managing to actually escape her cell? What good is Sango free to Naraku? He could've used her as blackmail for Miroku to work for him. It just means that all of this… But what for? He already has Sesshomaru's army cornered, what he really needs is to get the lead demon out in the ope-"

Kagome let go of Inuyasha's hand and moved forward. "It's a trap!" Kagome shouted and suddenly felt Miroku dart from behind her and pull her back roughly, causing her to loose her balance on the slippery earth below and crash back onto Inuyasha's hard chest.

Standing there looking like a man risen from hell, his eyes scanned around for the menacing laughter that he had could a drift of, which now grew louder and louder until from dark fog and parting shadows appeared a being clad in a raccoon fur coat, draped over him.

"How fun it is when the game realizes it is just that; a game," a deep voice spoke mockingly. A moment later the fluttering depth of the voice was replaced by the squealing shrieks and cries of demons being released from the sky upon them.

Trapped in a bad spot, Kagura stepped away from Sesshomaru and raised her fan, draping it open about to use it in an attack- But against whom? Before Kagura's panicked blood red eyes could decide she felt a sudden terrible squeezing in her chest that caused her to drop her fan.

Collapsing onto the boulder on which she and Sesshomaru stood, Kagura clung to her kimono and glared up at Naraku, a pleading look through her hateful stare.

"I do not go easily on those who betray me." The figure spoke coldly. "You were foolish to forget who owns your heart. Such a wonderful spy, for any side, and yet, so pathetic and weak. A waste of flesh." The tightening grew as far off, his hand reached into a magical pan and tightened its grip on a still beating heart.

Inuyasha swore, and grabbed his pants, throwing them on faster than one would have thought humanly possible. He grabbed the sword, and tossed Kagome her bow and arrows. Inuyasha didn't have time to spare her a smile, but his eyes told her to be careful.

Sesshomaru drew his own weapon. The humans had been able to figure out what he hadn't. How positively wretched. He glanced at Kagura. There wasn't anything he could do for her. Naraku was no doubt in his castle. But Sesshomaru couldn't let Kagura die like this… "I can make it end quickly for you," he offered, his voice almost sounding like he cared.

Kagura glared up at him, her crimson eyes hateful. "You swore you'd kill him! That you'd help free me! This is your bloody help?" Kagura hissed and with her last strengths, grabbed at her fan and swung her arm in a wide arc, sending wind blades at the cloaked figure.

The same figure who was too preoccupied, for the barest of seconds with the charging monk, to notice the blades before they sliced through the guise, leaving only a torn up coat on the ground and a broken puppet.

Screaming in pain, as the fist around her heart refused to let it expand with every beat, Kagura fell to the ground in pain.

By far, Sango was the one cursing the most, even though she was muttering it all under her breath. She wished she had her boomerang with her. It would be so much easier to kill demons with a giant weapon as opposed to one knife. She smiled. It was still nice that Miroku had given her one. She darted out of the water, drawing out her tiny weapon. She gritted her teeth. She was still Sango: she'd show Kagura why she was the best demon hunter around!

Not believing that he was actually going to protect his brother, Inuyasha leapt into battle, taking out the first wave of demons with a simple feint, changing his strike at the last moment. Their bodies dropped like flies. He just hoped that Kouga wouldn't kill him for polluting his lands like this.

Kagome having no time to react, simply shot arrows at oncoming demons who posed a threat, that Inuyasha couldn't get to. When one snake-like demon attacked, Kagome sent an arrow straight through it's mouth. The arrow came out of his tail a moment before he exploded and shattered, taking along with him a few of the smaller demons.

Miroku, with a hateful look at Kagura for taking the pawn before he could have his go at it, spun away and began battling the land demons with his bladed stick, fighting them and beheading them. But when he saw a special interest of the demons in his wife, still wanted under Naraku's law for murder, without a second thought for himself rushed forward, releasing his Buddha beads and sucking the encroachers up into the black hole of his palm.

The wind made her high ponytail sway in the breeze. She glanced over at Miroku and flung a demon over her back, twisting down on the captured arm as he landed before she slit the demon's throat with her knife. She risked a moment to wipe the blood off her face as she backed up, and felt a back touch hers.

She didn't even need to spin around to know it was Miroku. Sango's grin was ruthless. This was how she liked fighting: with her husband covering her back and she his.

Inuyasha snarled as a demon got a lucky hit and sliced a part of his arm. His attacker didn't have a second chance to hurt Inuyasha, and wasn't quite so lucky as Inuyasha beheaded him. The wind rushed by him as he landed on a tree branch. He thought Miroku had opened the tunnel (and was indeed correct) but saw that the breeze he had felt was from his brother, who had finally decided to join the fight.

The whip lashed out again, and ripped a demon in half. Inuyasha's face tightened, his golden eyes becoming angry. And yet Sesshomaru bothered him about being a merciless killer when it came to demons! If there was one thing the brothers shared, it was their fighting spirits.

Miroku's wind tunnel was more than taking care of the demons on the ground, much to the discomfort of the trees. Between Sesshomaru and Kagome, the ones that had appeared overhead were soon destroyed. Inuyasha took care of the rest, moving like a shadow from here to there. The surprise attack failed miserably, if Sesshomaru was truly the target. The stately demon was never in any danger of even being hit.

Still, Inuyasha couldn't help but grumble, the part of him that vividly remembers walking into his bedroom and trying to rid Kagome of Inuyasha's 'mistake' fresh in his mind. He should have let Naraku's soldiers kill him! It would save Inuyasha the trouble of worrying that Sesshomaru was planning to try that again: and a baby was just one more target for him….

Blocking the downswing of a lion demon, the gold-skinned enemy realized the hopelessness of the battle and yet still attacked again. Naraku was a hard man to follow at times, and the lion purposely left himself wide open. Feeling like shit for taking such a weak opening, Inuyasha killed the last demon, letting the carcass drop on the ground in a pile.

He looked around at the bodies. Maybe he could convince Kouga and the other wolf demons to eat them…. Glancing at his wound, he saw it wasn't too bad. He and Sango were the only ones injured, the danger at being a close-range fighter. He waved at Sango, who was busy cleaning her dagger on the grass.

When Miroku closed the wind tunnel, Sango waited for him to turn around before she kissed him hard on the lips, letting her tongue touch his before she pulled away, smiling. Oh, she liked this new way of thanking her husband!

Inuyasha cleaned his own weapon off in the water. It was too large for the grass. His ears pulled back when he looked at himself. Now he really did need a bath. He sat down on the rock previously occupied by Miroku and Sango. "Gotta love the demon world," he grumbled, working the worst of the tangles out of his silver hair. "We haven't even had breakfast yet and we've already been attacked. They could have at least waited until we dined…"

Kagome turned around and stared at Inuyasha. Her knuckles white around her bow and her expression dumbfounded. "At home you always complain when something DOESN'T happen to prohibit you from having breakfast!" Kagome yelled, but the weak smile on her lips betrayed her true feelings. Weakly, Kagome turned around and wanted to go sit by the water, when she saw the wind demoness laying on her stomach, face staring into the water. "Is she...?" Kagome asked softly.

Kagome narrowed her eyes and watched Kagura closely before gasping. "She's... alive?"

"It takes a lot to kill a demon," Inuyasha said from his rock, watching Kagome as closely as she did Kagura. "Especially one made from somebody that overthrew my brother." Seeshomaru glared at him lightly, but he just shrugged. 'He's probably been using her this whole time….' Inuyasha wasn't sure if he felt bad for Kagura, or disgusted by Naraku.

Kagura lay on her belly staring at the reflection in the water. The reflection, not hers, but of her older sister's... Kanna.

"Kanna..." Kagura rasped.

Kanna stood there, stony as always. Her small hands holding the mirror between her palms, shaking the mirror slightly, Kanna's flat eyes urged Kagura to stare into the mirror. "Come home, Kagura. You've been spared. This time." A moment later, a ripple passed through the water shattering the image.