Disclaimer: I do not own anything InuYasha related. All of the characters belong to Rumiko Takahashi.

Chapter Three: Bankotsu and Jakotsu

"You…" Akiko mumbled in disbelief. "I thought that you were dead!" she said accusingly at him.

"Well, I was brought back to life. Not that it is any of your business," he said. "By the way, who are you?"

"Brought back to life? Well it doesn't matter. I'm going to kill you now anyway." Akiko said angrily, not paying attention to his question.

He didn't seem worried at all. "You? Kill me? I'd like to see you try!" He brought his weapon that he used to kill Akiko's father and prepared to fight her. Akiko attacked first with her Dohanone. He easily blocked it, but the strength of Ryuukotsusei's fang did affect him some. She thrust the sword at his throat, but he managed to block again.

'That sword is so large, it probably is hard to move it quickly,' Akiko thought. She moved as fast as she could to get around the huge weapon. Unfortunately, he was faster than she thought. He managed to block every single one of her blows. Akiko was no getting very frustrated. She was attacking with all of her skill and yet he didn't even seem tired yet. She quickly put Dohanone away and took out some of her throwing stars. She threw them at him as fast as she could. He managed to block all but two of them. One just barely missed his neck. The other hit his arm. It cut a slice in his sleeve and blood dripped from it.

"Damn it! What the Hell is your problem? Why are you trying to kill me?" said the man, now seeming to get angry.

"You killed my father. And you're the leader of the Shichinintai! It is your fault that my entire family is dead!" Akiko said, fighting back tears. "You will pay for what you have done!" This time she threw two throwing knives at him. He wasn't prepared this time and two knives hit him. One stuck in his left shoulder and the other stuck right above his heart. He winced, but pulled both of the bloody knives out.

"That is it! I'm tired of you." He swung his weapon at her and just barely missed her neck.

'That was close,' she thought. As Akiko bent down to avoid getting her head chopped off, she pulled out Dohanone again and came right up to his chest. She was about a centimeter away from his heart when a blade knocked hers out of the way.

"Who is she?" The new person said with disgust as he said 'she'.

"I don't know. She wants to kill me because I killed someone or something…" said the leader of the Shichinintai.

The second man gave her a disgusted but amused look. "Filth thinking that they are even worthy to fight us! Pitiful isn't it Bankotsu no Aniki?"

"Well, I don't know, Jakotsu," said Bankotsu. "She came pretty close to killing me. She probably would have if you didn't come."

Jakotsu scrunched his face up like he smelled something foul. "So…?" he asked.

"Both of you, I hope you are prepared to die because I will get revenge for my family!" Akiko yelled at both of them. They both just stared at her.

Bankotsu scratched his head and said, "Who was it that we killed? Somebody's father from a village is a bit vague for us."

"The village that was in the Valley of Ryuukotsusei! You know, the one with a huge dragon pinned to a cliff!"

They both seemed like they needed to think about it for a moment. "Oh! I remember that!" Jakotsu said.

"Me too," Bankotsu said deep in thought. "I remember that that was the last village we killed off before those damned shogun tortured us." Jakotsu nodded.

"Enough! I will die to avenge them," Akiko said and tried to attack them both. However, as she knew this was coming, they both attacked her back. Bankotsu didn't hit her with his Banryuu though. He punched her right on the cheek where Master Kensei had already hit her, which made it hurt even worse. Jakotsu took out his sword and was nearly about to cut it though her when Bankotsu stopped him.

"I was thinking," he said. "She's pretty tough. Not many people ever stand up to us. And even fewer ever get that close to killing me…"

Jakotsu sighed and gave Bankotsu a fearful look. "Please don't tell me that you're thinking what I think you're thinking!" Bankotsu looked at him guiltily. "But we cannot have filth associated with us!"

"She may end up being really useful to us. Judging by the way she's dressed, I'd say she's a ninja. We could use someone like that around. Plus we could always use someone to do the cooking and all that other stuff."

Jakotsu sighed again in disapproval, but he knew that he could not argue with Bankotsu. He pouted and said, "whatever," as he walked away.

Akiko turned her glare to Bankotsu. "Surely you are not thinking that after I swore revenge upon you and the rest of the Shichinintai, that I would willingly join you?"

Bankotsu stared at her with an amused look on his face. "Why not? We're really strong. No one can defeat us. And we make lots of money."

'What is with this guy?' she thought. '…Actually… If I did join I could get inside information about all of them. There's no way I could take on all seven of them at once. Besides, I could probably easily kill them in their sleep…' She pretended like she needed time to actually consider it. "I'll join, but I will not tolerate being forced to do all the cooking or being treated like I'm weak because I'm a girl."

Bankotsu didn't seem too concerned with meeting her demands. "Well don't think anyone is going to go easy on you because you're a girl. And let me warn you of everything before you meet everyone."

"Warn me?" she repeated.

"Yeah. Like how you might not want to be alone with Jakotsu; he tends to like to sadistically kill women. Suikotsu you also need to look out for. He looses his temper sometimes and will try to kill people. Don't worry though; it's mostly children that he likes to kill. Oh yeah! And Mukotsu. He is a bit self-conscious about the way he looks. So try not to stare or say anything. Another waning about Mukotsu, he may try to rape you. Just hit him or something. He'll take a hint eventually. Kyoukotsu. You should be okay with him. Although he does tend to eat unusual things so you might want to watch out for that. Ginkotsu probably won't bother you. He usually just does whatever Renkotsu tells him to do. I almost forgot about Renkotsu! He is the traitorous one. He wants nothing more than for me to die so he can be Second in Command. Be careful because he'll probably kill whomever it takes too.

Akiko listened in silence as Bankotsu told her all of the warnings and things that she needed to know. As the list went on, she couldn't believe some of the things he was warning her about like how Kyoukotsu ate demons. And how Jakotsu was in love with some hanyou called InuYasha. That wasn't so surprising until he referred to InuYasha as "him". "Jakotsu is a guy isn't he?" she asked, thinking about how Jakotsu was wearing a purple yukata and makeup.

"Yeah. He just so happens to like guys and hate women. Why? Something wrong with that," Bankotsu said to defend his best friends honor. When Akiko replied no, he continued to tell her about what she'd have to do being one of Shichinintai. "You have to be able to kill people villages at a time. You'll also have to split the money with us. Since you're new, you won't be getting very much at first."

Bankotsu and Akiko had reached their final agreement by the time they had gotten to wherever it was that Bankotsu needed to go. It was somewhere in the castle. That was when Akiko remembered that she was there to kill Lord Kagewaki. "Do you know if Kagewaki Hitomi lives in this castle?" she asked Bankotsu.

He scratched his head for a moment. "Hmm… I think only Naraku and his incarnations live in this castle. "Wait a minute! I think I once heard someone call him Lord Kagewaki when he still had vassals. Maybe this person you're looking for is Naraku."

"The person who I'm looking for was suspected to be a demon."

"Well, Naraku's a demon. It probably is him you're looking for. "…Why do you want to find Naraku anyway, uh…," he said, stopping. "What is your name anyway? I'm Bankotsu."

"Akiko," she said flatly. And I'm looking for Naraku because I was sent to kill him."

"Kill him?" he repeated. "Good luck with that. He is such a coward, I hardly ever even see him. He always sends Kanna or Kohaku or someone like that. That's why I was so surprised when I thought that you were him."

"Who are Kanna and Kohaku?" she asked, not really caring, just out of curiosity. The name Kohaku sounded familiar, but she couldn't remember where she had heard it before.

"Kanna is one of Naraku's incarnations. The first one to be exact. Kohaku I don't know too much about. All I know is that he's dead like the Shichinintai and Naraku uses him to do his evil bidding. The odd thing is, is that they are both only children. I don't think that Naraku really likes to get his hands dirty. So far I've only seen him use other people. I, being one of them, in fact."

Akiko somehow forgot that she was enemies with Bankotsu and that her life has been devoted to killing him and his friends. He seemed so nice and not at all like an evil, brutal killer. She couldn't help staring at him. He had such lovely long hair, deep bluish eyes, and he was so handsome. When he looked over at her she quickly turned her head. She thought that he didn't see her staring, but she saw him smirk slightly.

Bankotsu slid open a door. Inside was a young girl. There was something unsettling about her. She had cold, black eyes. She wore a pure white kimono, which matched the white flowers in her hair. Her hair was just as white and she was so pale that she looked ghostly. She held a mirror in her hands. The mirror was glowing and there were white lights moving inside of it. It was so foggy with, what looked like to Akiko to be souls, that Akiko couldn't even see her reflection. The ghost-like girl spoke in such a calm, quiet, and childlike tone that it sounded eerie. "Bankotsu, Naraku has told me to give you a message. You are to kill InuYasha." With that, the strange girl disappeared into the shadows.

"You don't have to tell me twice," Bankotsu said. "I've wanted to kill that hanyou for ages!"

Akiko remembered what Bankotsu had said about how Jakotsu was in love with the hanyou InuYasha. "Won't Jakotsu be mad if you kill him?" she asked.

"He did say that he wanted to be the one to kill him, but I'm sure he understands how much I hate him and won't mind when it is me who kills that damn InuYasha."

'Not really what I meant, but wither way I guess Bankotsu doesn't care…' Akiko thought. '

"Are you coming to help us kill InuYasha and the rest of his bitchy little friends?"

"I guess," Akiko said with a shrug.

"Good. Let's go and let you meet everyone first," Bankotsu said pulling her by the wrist off where Jakotsu had gone.

Authors Note: I hope you review. So far I have none! I'm updating and hopefully someone will read. I'll only do one more chapter and if still I have no reviews, then I will cease to write. But anyway, see you when chapter four is up!