A/N: The author dances. She didn't recieve any reviews after posting chapter three, but no matter. She is rejoiceful, for the fourth chapter is finally done. Yay!
Chapter Four - The Hanyou in the Baboon Pelt... And the Hanyou in Red
When Maina regained consciousness, she found herself suspended in the air above a large, flat-topped boulder that formed a platform of sorts. A low-level youkai stood behind her, holding a long black whip. She was bound by chains on her feet and strange coverings, shaped like vases and made of some sort of rock, over her hands, which were connected to more chains. The rock platform over which she hung was near the edge of a clearing surrounded by dense trees and foliage. She didn't recognize this place - the varieties of plant life even differed somewhat from those in her forest. For a moment she was confused - she remembered Sesshoumaru and his followers were leaving her forest, and she was saying her goodbyes, and then it all went black - and she'd found herself here.
"Ah, you're awake. I suppose my puppet wasn't too harsh with you after all," a deep voice said from the center of the clearing, a hundred feet or so from her. She turned her head to see a man with long, wavy dark hair wearing a white baboon pelt, the head dangling between his shoulder blades - his discarded hood. He was twirling what looked like a wooden doll between his fingers. She suddenly remembered seeing the white blur that knocked her out - it must have been him. She began to concentrate her power in her hands, but they wouldn't respond.
"Don't bother trying to use your powers, goddess, the gloves I've made for you will prevent it," he said mockingly.
"I can't use my barriers to protect myself, huh? So what? You can't kill me, even if I'm completely defenseless. I'm immortal," she spat back at him.
"Oh, I know that. But I can make you suffer. I can make you wish for death." Right on cue, the youkai standing behind her cracked his whip across the middle of her back, making her yelp, both in surprise and pain.
"You're quite a lucky find, goddess. A creature that can be hurt and tortured indefinitely but cannot die. There's no end to the fun I can have with you.."
"Sick bastard, do you have any ideawhat I could do to you?"
"What could you do, exactly? You're a defensive goddess - a protector. Not a warrior," he said with an arrogant smile.
"As soon as I get out of these gloves of yours, I'll show you just what a protector god is capable of," she retorted, with an even more arrogant air than his own.
"Ku ku ku," he snickered. The youkai began to whip her again, but though the wounds stung beyond belief and sent blood flowing down her backside in rivers, she refused to give him the satisfaction of voicing her pain.
"Perhaps I'll have to test you out one day..," he trailed as a large, bee-like insect flew up to him. It buzzed at him, and, judging by his face, he seemed to understand it. He turned his attention back to Maina. "It seems I've got an inuyoukai hunting me. Friend of yours, perhaps?" Maina did not answer him, so he continued, "This could prove amusing. Maybe I should let down my barrier so he can track me a bit more easily, what do you say?"
"I'm not gonna argue with you over this, Inuyasha! I have to go back home next week, whether you like it or not. I have a math test, and I'll fail it for sure if I don't get a couple days of peace and quiet to study for it!"
"We can't just postpone the search for the jewel shards every time you happen to have a test, Kagome!"
"I did you the favor of telling you in advance so you could prepare for it - it's not like I just popped up one morning and said, 'Hey, I'm leaving for three days. Bye!'"
"Advance or not, you're still not going! Who knows when Naraku might show his ugly face again?"
"Err.. SIT!" Kagome yelled in a huff, crossing her arms in front of her and storming past Inuyasha, who was now lying in his own custom-made crater in the ground.
"Don't pay attention to him, Kagome, he's just upset that we haven't gotten any leads for a while," Miroku said calmly, his shakujou jingling slightly as he walked up beside her. "At the rate we're going, I don't think that you being gone for a few days is going to hinder the search." Inuyasha could be heard cursing, and not quite under his breath, behind them.
"Miroku's right, Kagome," Sango contributed, coming up on Kagome's other side. "And besides, it would be nice to take a few days rest. We've been wandering around for days and getting nothing done, so what's the harm in doing nothing while relaxing?" Kirara, curled up in Sango's arms, cooed her agreement.
"Shippo's probably missing us anyway, waiting around in Kaede's village for his safety when we aren't even doing anything dangerous," Kagome said with a laugh. Abruptly, though, her face went serious, and she stopped in her tracks.
"Kagome, what is it?" Sango asked.
"I sense jewel shards - a lot of them!"
"Enough that it might be Naraku?" Inuyasha asked,walking up from behind them, still picking dirt and grass out of his hair.
"Uh huh," she answered meekly. Inuyasha crouched down, inviting her to climb on his back.
"Lead the way, Kagome."
A few minutes later, the group was speeding through a patch of dense forest, doing their best to avoid hitting the trees, with Inuyasha carrying Kagome and Sango and Miroku on the transformed Kirara. Then, out of the blue, Naraku's scent filled Inuyasha's nose. It could have knocked him backwards, he thought, with its sudden strength.
"Did we just pass through Naraku's barrier?" he yelled.
"There wasn't any barrier," Miroku called back.
"Then how come I can suddenly smell where Naraku is?"
"I don't know - maybe he knows we're here and is trying to lead us into a trap," Miroku replied.
"Could it be one of his incarnations you're smelling?" Sango chimed in.
"I don't know, and I don't really care. I'm following it," Inuyasha said, speeding off in the direction his nose pointed him, no longer needing Kagome's directions. Even with all the trees to dodge, it was much easier to keep in the right direction when he could sense it himself.
"Well, it's not an incarnation..," Kagome yelled into the wind.
"Whaddaya mean?"
"The scent is leading us straight to the jewel shards. It's Naraku himself this time."
"If Sesshoumaru really is coming here, then he will kill you," Maina told the man in the baboon pelt heatedly. He smiled deviously, evilly.
"Ah, so you are on friendly terms, aren't you? He's not the type to let people get away with disrespect, after all." She paused for a moment, fighting the threatening blush.
"I'm a higher being than he, you worthless smart mouth. He refers to me with a title," she retorted, thinking quickly. "And just who are you to talk of respect? You should bow to me when you speak, youkai."
"Just what do you plan to do about it? You're a bit tied up at the moment."
"Damn you and your cheap puns!" she yelled, which only got her a few more lashings with the whip.
"Look at this, now you're disrespecting me as well, goddess," he yelled. "You're to refer to me as your master!"
"Why.. bother?" she asked between the last of the whippings. "You'll be sliced up beyond recognition as soon as Sesshoumaru arrives!"
The arrogant youkai suddenly turned his head towards the woods, and she followed his gaze. Even the one who'd been whipping her grew quiet and seemed to be waiting. She heard a rustling of leaves, quickly increasing in volume, heralding a newcomer who was getting closer and closer. Maina smirked.
"Prepare to die, you sick son-of-a-bitch," she said under her breath. Sure enough, a man with long silver hair slashed through a patch of foliage and stepped into the clearing.
A man.. wearing red. And drawing a sword that quickly transformed from a rusty old katana into a huge youkai sword with fur, suspiciously looking like dog fur, above the hilt.
"Naraku!" he growled in a voice that was definitely not Sesshoumaru's. He stood before the man in the baboon pelt, and she studied him. He had the same hair, yes, but strange ears.. Were they dog's ears? She gasped, the pieces at last coming together in her mind. 'Could this be Sesshoumaru's hanyou brother, Inuyasha?'
Three humans emerged from the woods behind him - a man, obviously a monk from his attire, a woman in a tightly fitting black outfit and armor, and a second woman wearing a scandalously short green and white kimono - a very strangely designed one. The monk and the first woman rode atop a neko youkai while the second woman rushed alongside them on foot. The two on the neko dismounted and stood behind Inuyasha, the monk brandishing his shakujou and the first woman a large boomerang. The woman in the strange kimono held a bow and wore a quiver of arrows over her shoulder.
Naraku looked surprised for a second - he obviously wasn't expecting to attract anyone other than Sesshoumaru - but he quickly composed himself. Inuyasha wasted no more time, though, and raised his gigantic sword to attack. Naraku jumped back and rose into the air as hundreds of brown, creeping tentacles grew from beneath the baboon pelt. A hundred or so snake-like lesser youkai joined the fray, flying in a great mass, seemingly out of nowhere, against the band of attackers. The youkai were killed easily by the odd troupe, leaving their mutilated corpses lying all over the ground. Inuyasha, the humans, and the neko began to bat away, tear away, and slice off the tentacles in an attempt to get to Naraku, but they just kept coming as they regenerated over and over again. And all the while those bee-like insects were flying around them in a fury..
Kagome stabbed at the tentacles with one of her sacred arrows, not able to do much else to help. Miroku and Sango were more effective at fighting them back, but they were getting nowhere, and Inuyasha couldn't seem to get a good shot in anywhere with his Tetsusaiga. For a few moments, since she was positioned behind Miroku and Sango, she was able to stop fighting back the tentacles and get a better look at their surroundings. After all, she reasoned, she might be able to spot something that could help them. That's when she saw the woman..
She was hanging by several chains from a great tree, suspended above a rock platform. A lesser youkai, looking like an overgrown salamander walking on two legs - which was probably one of Naraku's servants, rather than an incarnation - stood behind her, holding a whip. The woman was wearing the red and white clothing of a miko, and had long dark hair, making Kagome take a more thorough look at her. Her face was nearly hidden by the feathered hair that seemed to float about it, but she was definitely not Kikyou. She was covered in blood, and her clothing had been torn to ribbons by whiplashes, which had been directed mostly at her back, but also at her legs. There were even a couple of wounds on her stomach, and one went across her chest, right below her collarbone.
As Kagome began to fight off more of the tentacles, she couldn't help wondering if that woman had anything to do with why Naraku had been so easy to find..
In an instant the battle came to a halt as a giant oak came crashing down into the clearing, nearly landing on the woman in the short kimono, its trunk cut clean through and sizzling where it had been severed. From behind it came Sesshoumaru, his hand still glowing green with poison. It took him no time at all to locate Maina, but it took him a second or two to erase the look of utter horror which crossed his face when he saw her condition. He didn't seem to be able to keep his usual façade of indifference up - his expression was pure and unbridled, and his full, undivided attention was on her.
But after this brief instant his eyes began to glow red, and a growl resounded from deep in his throat. He leapt onto the rock platform, slicing the youkai who brandished the whip through the stomach with his poison claws, leaving him in two lifeless pieces on the ground. He would have liked to have made the creature's death more painful, more drawn out, but he simply didn't have the time. He quickly went to work, burning through Maina's chains with his poison. The solid gloves that encased her hands were thicker, and it took him almost a full minute to break through the first one.
"He hurt you," he said at last, his voice somewhat ragged.
"I'll be fine..," she uttered, still taken aback by seeing him put in such a state. He knew that she was immortal, after all; he knew that nothing that despicable Naraku creature did to her would really harm her, but still he acted as if she were in danger of dying..
As he was raising his claws to begin on the second glove, Naraku seized his opportunity. With his full focus on liberating the wounded and bleeding goddess, the taiyoukai didn't sense the coming attack in the least.
The battle had paused for a moment as the tree crashed down and Sesshoumaru entered the clearing - Naraku's tentacles even stopped trying to block the group's efforts. Inuyasha was just as shocked as everyone else to see his brother there, but he waved the concern from his mind, telling himself that Sesshoumaru had simply caught Naraku's scent and pursued him, just as they had done. While Naraku was still distracted, Inuyasha began his attack again, drawing Naraku out of his momentary stupor and forcing him to continue the fight. Miroku and Sango thus had to continue their part of the battle as well. Only Kagome kept her eyes on Sesshoumaru long enough to see the horrified look that crossed his face as he looked at the woman in the miko outfit, but she soon turned back to the battle as well, forcing any suspicions that had arisen in her mind to depart so that she could concentrate on the tentacles that threatened her and her friends.
But soon enough, the battle was interrupted again as a woman's panicked cry pierced the air.
"SESSHOUMARU!"
A/N: The author continues dancing, despite all the insults she's getting from her Sesshie muse for doing so, for she's left you all with yet another cliffie (evil laugh) This chapter and the next are frustrating me, though.. I'm just no good at battle scenes. That's all there is to it. Sigh. It's been a long time in the making.. and editing.. and revising.. and editing again.. but this is as good as it's gonna get. Hope you liked it - and please REVIEW, whether you did or not! (besides, you might know better about battle scenes than me.. and I could use advice in that, if you haven't noticed.. T.T)