AN: I've been writing a lot this weekend, and I'm several chapters ahead, so I'm gonna be super nice and post this one early. It's short anyway.. heh. But in return for my niceness, everyone needs to review it. (points accusingly at the elusive "everyone") Don't forget!
Oh yes, and I forgot the disclaimer last time.. again. But I remembered this time!
DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of the characters from Inuyasha, though I do harbor illegal copies as muses. Or voices in my head, whichever you prefer. But Maina is my character, and I've put a lot of thought into creating the mythology stuffs and whatever else concerning her, so no one had better steal her, because I'll be pissed and start suing people.. plus my Sesshie muse will be angry, and no one wants that. Hehe.
Chapter Five - Sympathy for an Enemy
Pain crossed Sesshoumaru's face as one of Naraku's wide tentacles burst forth from his stomach, sending blood and pieces of flesh flying through the air. It had stabbed him through in a split second, and he hadn't sensed it coming at all. The bloodied tentacle lifted him into the air and threw him savagely onto the hard ground.
"SESSHOUMARU!" Maina cried, too late. For a moment, all she could do was stare at him, forsaking the eyes that stared at her from the battlefield. She watched him, desperately, for any movement, any sign of life, but no matter how hard she looked, she could see nothing. His body was just lying there, slumped on the ground in a pool of blood, the offending tentacle still hovering over him. Gathering her strength, she jumped down from the rock platform, one hand still encased in a glove with a broken chain hanging from it, and fell to her knees beside him, still finding not even the slightest sign of breathing, nor of a heartbeat..
Tears welling up in her eyes, she violently wrenched the remaining rock glove off, ripping her skin open and crushing the bone in her thumb by doing so, and she placed her hands over his body. A soft light spread over him, rippling outward from her hands, and then dissipated. At least her barrier would keep the monster from desecrating his corpse…
The shocked and horrified words and gasps of disbelief that came from Inuyasha and his comrades escaped her ears as a terrible rage began to burn through her body, spreading like wildfire, feeding on her weaker feelings of shock and sadness. Her tears left her as her hands began to glow with power. She turned to face Naraku, who was not laughing, but whose face had just the slightest hint of a smile, which was more than enough for her.
The woman Inuyasha's troupe had assumed was human took on a fearful appearance as she rose to her feet beside Sesshoumaru's lifeless body, covered in his blood as well as her own. Her eyes began to grow noticeably red, even from their distance, and she pointed those eyes right at Naraku - even he seemed a little afraid.
"Die," she said simply, quietly, as if Sesshoumaru himself were speaking through her. She lifted her glowing hands, and, almost immediately, countless jagged objects, looking much like broken shards of glass, flew from her and cut Naraku open in dozens of places, slicing through his flesh and lodging themselves in or near vital areas of his body. Stepping over Sesshoumaru's body, the woman began to walk toward Naraku, her aim becoming more and more precise with each step. Naraku tried to flee, as he often did when he was in real trouble, but just as quickly the woman rose her hands towards the sky and erected a semi-circular barrier in midair, a hundred or more feet away from where she stood, placing it right in Naraku's path. Inuyasha and the others snapped out of their amazed state to take advantage of the strange woman's powers.
"KAZE NO KIZU!"
Inuyasha's attack hit Naraku almost dead-on, slicing through his body, just missing his head - but to his surprise as well as Inuyasha's, the attack bounced off the barrier, causing it to hit him a second time. The ordeal left Naraku's body in pieces, and bits of him began to fall to earth, but from the midst of the dense cloud of mutilated body parts, the battle-worn Inuyasha spotted his head, still alive, laughing at them.
Inuyasha attempted the Kaze no Kizu attack again, but the head managed to dodge him. Sango hurled her Hiraikotsu to no avail. Maina sent more of her flying daggers at him, and he managed to avoid those as well. Kagome shot an arrow at him, but it was knocked out of the sky by a falling chunk of his body. Miroku even tried to use his kazaana, despite the poisonous insects flying about, but Naraku's head was simply too far away and blocked by too many miscellaneous chunks of flesh, and so he closed it again.
"Damn him, he's escaped us again!" Inuyasha yelled, his voice rough with frustration, watching helplessly as the head flew around the barrier and disappeared into the clouds, with several of the more vital chunks of his body following.
"Escaped..," Maina echoed softly, her voice dripping with a bitter sense of defeat. She dropped to her knees, her quickly departing rage leaving her an empty shell of the person she'd been just a minute before. The barrier in the sky broke apart and disappeared. Her tears returned to her and flowed freely, and she put her intact hand to her face in an effort to hide them. "I let him get away.. I let the bastard escape with his life..," she said to herself, her voice choked. Kagome, ever the kind-hearted sympathizer, kneeled down beside her and put a supportive arm around her shoulder.
"We really should get your wounds looked at," she said softly, gesturing to Maina's blood-soaked clothing. Maina tried to speak, but what came out was a pitiful sob that she would've rather not let out in public. The rest of the group gathered around her, anxious to find out more about the strange circumstances of the battle they'd just fought.
"Can you tell us who you are? And why Naraku targeted you?" Miroku asked gently.
"My name.. is Maina..," she said, struggling to control her tears and keep her voice steady as she looked up at the monk, dropping her hand from her eyes.
"And you're a miko?" Sango asked. Maina turned toward the taijiya and opened her mouth to answer, but said nothing. Her eyes widened in apparent disbelief.
"What's wrong?" Kagome asked her before glancing in the direction she was looking. Kagome gasped in shock, and her arm fell limp from Maina's shoulder.
"Out of my way..," uttered a shaky, but nevertheless stern, voice from behind Sango. She turned and nearly fell backwards as none other than Sesshoumaru pushed his way between her and Miroku, covered in blood and leaning heavily on the Tenseiga as if it were a cane.
"Sesshoumaru.. You're alive," Maina whispered.
He took just two more shaky steps before falling to his knees before Maina, still keeping a death grip on the sword. If at all possible, he looked paler than usual, and his eyes fluttered a bit as he forced them to stay open. He was on the verge of passing out.
"…Maina..," he whispered, looking with concern at the deep gash across her chest.
"I'm fine, really.," she said softly, tears threatening to fall again. One corner of his mouth lifted the slightest bit before his head fell to his chest. Maina's eyes widened again, and she grasped his head in both her hands and placed her ear as close to his mouth as she could, desperately listening for breathing. She sighed with relief when she heard it, but knew that he very well could die if his wounds weren't tended to. He could die, in just the same way his father had so many years ago..
"He's only fallen unconscious," she said simply, her voice deceptively calm and rational, "but he needs medical attention."
"Well, we could.." Miroku was interrupted when Maina unexpectedly threw her head back and began to howl loudly.
"She's.. a wolf youkai?" Sango asked in disbelief.
"But she's dressed as a miko," Miroku pondered aloud.
"She doesn't smell like a youkai at all, much less a mangy wolf..," Inuyasha stated quietly.
Within seconds, a jet-black wolf ran at full speed into the clearing, slipping right between Inuyasha's legs and stopping in front of Maina.
"Get Ah-Uhn," she told the wolf. The wolf ran off, howling as he went. They could hear other wolves, farther away, relaying the message. Maina began to tear off strips of her already ruined hakama and wrap them around Sesshoumaru's stomach in an effort to slow the bleeding. In just a few minutes, much less time than it would have taken the wolf to go to the forest and get the dragon, Sesshoumaru's familiar steed was seen flying overhead at full speed. As he landed beside the little gathering of people, Maina began to lift Sesshoumaru's torso. She glared at Inuyasha and the humans, who were just standing there.
"Isn't anyone going to help me?" she asked angrily. Since Inuyasha wasn't about to touch his brother, unconscious or not, and with him being the only other man there, Miroku knew he'd have to be the one to help. Lifting Sesshoumaru's legs, the two of them moved his body onto Ah-Uhn's back. Maina then climbed onto the dragon as well, sitting as far back as possible on his wide haunches and holding onto Sesshoumaru's motionless body. She positioned him so that he was mostly lying down, with his shoulders and head resting on her chest. Lastly, she carefully slipped the Tenseiga back through his obi, knowing now its powers of resurrection and wanting to keep it in constant contact with his body, should his life become endangered by blood loss. She finally took hold of Ah-Uhn's reigns.
Though Inuyasha was perfectly content to let his brother leave, dying or not, Kagome, Miroku, and Sango were conflicted. However, Kagome was the only one who dared to risk invoking Inuyasha's anger by voicing her concern for their endangered enemy. She stepped up to Ah-Uhn just as he was readying for take-off.
"It might be a good idea to take him to Kaede's village for healing. She's a very skilled miko, and she's managed to help Inuyasha with life-threatening wounds on several occasions…"
Maina looked doubtful for a moment, and glanced at Sesshoumaru's face.
"How do I get there?" she asked quietly. Kagome smiled.
"Just follow us, we'll take you there."
AN: Short one, ne? And for all the time I spent revising and rewriting it.. Grrr. Battle scenes are not my friend, I tell you. I can never seem to get them just right.. Oh, and don't mind me seemingly getting out of character a lot, because I'm really not - you'll just have to keep reading to find out why. Evil authors are like that, with all our storyboarding and re-storyboarding and all.. Come to think of it, if I'm not careful I'll end up doing some scene wrong because I cut out some small detail from a previous one and then things won't make sense.. Eep.
And if anyone cares, I'm gonna be starting another fic soon.. a less serious and less complicated one than this. Boy, did I make a complicated plot line for my first attempt at a fanfic.. ugh. Anywho, it's gonna be a more fun one, and a more out of character one, not to mention it's based on one of the strangest pairings you'll probably ever see, haha! I haven't gotten the beginning worked out yet though, so it could be next month or it could be June.. who knows. Spring is not conducive to writing, what with finals, AP tests, and I'm taking the ACT and SAT within like.. a week of each other? And then comes the summer job thing. Lovely. But with new story ideas flooding my mind, how can I resist?
Oh yes, and don't forget to review! High-strung perfectionists need encouragement! And even if you hate the thing, hey, at least I know someone's been reading it..