(a long author's note this time.. you can ignore it if you wish... just consider it my celebration of the hiatus' end.. lol)
YES! It's here, it's really really here after.. good grief, months of hiatus! The whole chapter is one HUGE battle sequence - not superfluously so, because every part was put in for a reason - that took these last two full weeks to write.. It just ended up being huge, nearly as long page-wise as the last chapter.. It took a hell of a lot longer to write than that one, though - not counting the hiatus, just the time I spent typing it.. Gah, battle scenes! Every time I try to write them I have to fight massive writer's block.. I can only write them at a rate of one or two small pieces per day, unless I'm feeling reeeeeeeeeally creative and productive (which luckily did happen, or else it would have never gotten done!). Domestic scenes are so much easier! The scene with all the girls in the kitchen, for instance, or my favorite scene of the whole story so far, the sunrise! (Maybe you'd call those the fanservice scenes? Heh..) I swear, when I write those, I go into a creative frenzy! I type for hours and can't seem to stop!
I'll say it again - I suck at battle scenes. My forte is the moment snapshot thing - a single moment or a fairly calm scene (one that doesn't involve moving around a lot).. something that stays constant long enough for me to really describe it. In battle scenes, my sense of time bothers me. (I tried using snapshot techniques on the key moments of the chapter, but I'm not sure if it really worked..) I can't write fast-moving scenes all that well.. I need sound effects or something to toss in. When the scene is fast, I still need to be able to describe things. I need to describe them better than in still ones, really - but the descriptions end up being longer in the reading of them than the events are. In a still moment, the long description flows with it.. The slowness reinforces the longness of the particular moment. I've seen writers do the same with action scenes - they use brevity beautifully, and the words read as quickly as the action should flow. And I simply CANNOT do that. I'm a perfectionist that can't get anything perfect.. so instead I try and describe every facet of whatever I can't say perfectly. And you guys know how I ramble. I'm doing it right now! Sigh.. action is not my friend. No matter how clearly I can see it in my head, I can't seem to ever do it justice when I try to describe it in words..
Okay.. Is anyone familiar with the statue of Laocoon and his sons being attacked by the twin serpents? If not, I'll just tell you that it's one of the most amazing statues I've ever seen - you look at it, and you feel Laocoon's pain, you see his emotions, his young sons' fear, and at the same time you see the action happening. Statue or not, I dare you to take a good look at it and not see the movement there. It's just an absolutely perfect snapshot of a battle scene - you can see all the details and emotion and everything that is portrayed in still moments, and yet you get a definite feel for the actions taking place. If I were an ancient sculpter, I would have made the kinds of statues that merely stand, the ones revered for their beauty and detail, their eerily human faces, and the amazing way that the clothing flows and hints at the body beneath. A still moment captured in marble rather than an action-packed moment captured in marble.
And yeah, if I were a sculpter back then, I would worship the ground that the sculpter of the Laocoon statue walked on..
Hopefully you guys will think higher of my battle scenes than I do.. Enjoy!
(haha... I made an Inuyasha-episode-style chapter title this time.. sooo creative..)
Chapter Sixteen - Attack of the Saimyoushou!
"What are the saimyoushou doing here?" Kagome asked timidly.
"This isn't right at all," Miroku pondered aloud. "Naraku was badly injured in our last battle - normally he stays in hiding a while to build his power back up. Why would he try to provoke us so soon by sending his spies here?"
"I agree. Something's up..," Sango commented.
"Then let's just get rid of the something right now!" Inuyasha yelled, leaping into the air and swiping at Naraku's messengers. "SANKON TETSUSOU!"
But the saimyoushou dodged his claws, zipping out of the way with lightning speed and regrouping in their former position as Inuyasha landed.
"No way..," he mumbled. "Since when are these things so damned fast!"
The battle-ready group watched the hovering hell-insects curiously as they briefly turned toward each other and seemed to communicate something, as if coordinating their battle plan, just before they swooped down again, one flying at Miroku, another at Inuyasha, and the third at Sesshoumaru.
Miroku struck out with his shakujou only to have the insect mockingly dodge him; Sango joined the chase with her hiraikotsu as Kagome strung an arrow and waited for the creature to stay still enough for her to hit it, but neither of the women could strike it. The saimyoushou that had gone after Inuyasha dodged widely to avoid his more powerful demonic attacks, leading him farther away from the group. Even Sesshoumaru's speed could not match that of the insect that buzzed teasingly near him. Maina held her hands up, ready to throw a barrier around it, but she could do nothing as long as it continued to dart about so.
All at once, the saimyoushou left their targets. Sesshoumaru's insect flew straight up into the air, seeming to take on an observatory role, as Inuyasha's sped away and began to assail Maina. The insect that had initially targeted Miroku suddenly turned in its flight and made a beeline toward Sesshoumaru at a speed that more than topped its previous one, becoming nearly invisible as it flew.
Neither Sesshoumaru nor anyone else had even a full second to react as the rocketing saimyoushou slammed into the taiyoukai's back, latching itself upon his recently healed wound. The others, having been separated from him by the carefully planned attack, could only watch, horrified, as the insect ripped open both layers of Sesshoumaru's haori and his bandage with its monstrous mandibles. Sesshoumaru fell onto his hand and knees with a choked, painful cry as the creature tore open his skin and burrowed itself into his body.
Before he knew what had hit his back, the saimyoushou was tearing into the tender flesh of his newly healed wound. He had not even the time to cry out in pain - his voice left him almost immediately, cutting off the sound in his throat so that only a short, struggling note escaped.
The moment his knees and palm hit the ground, his body was assailed with the intense pain of a thousand needles, but a mere second later, all feeling left him. He saw his hair fall over his shoulders; a lock of it lay across his hand, but he could not, for the life of him, feel it. In fact, he only knew the position of his limbs because he could see them. And then his vision began to blur.
"Sesshoumaru..?"
It was Maina's voice, he would know it anywhere, even now, with his superb hearing beginning to falter and fade along with his sight. Though he struggled to hear what else she said, her voice had become too faint to hear, and soon too faint even to distinguish it as hers.. Her scent, too, lessened with each passing moment. With all his might he latched on to the uncertain sight of his hand below him, but despite his efforts it faded into an indistinguishable blur of colors that soon all became black.
Within seconds, Sesshoumaru had become nothing more than a blind and deaf soul floating somewhere within a body he was unaware of, with nothing left to hang onto but a few last remnants of fragrance, the scent of a divinely protected forest that, though impossibly faint, still was somehow able to reach him…
Disregarding the insect that flew around her head, Maina rushed to his side, dropping to her knees to inspect the wound. Had what she witnessed truly happened? He was losing blood almost as quickly as he had when Naraku's tentacle went through him, and the offending saimyoushou had buried itself so deeply within his flesh that she could no longer see any trace of it..
"Sesshoumaru..?" she asked quietly. "Are you…"
Her breath caught in her throat as his face suddenly snapped up with a menacing growl, his eyes red and the youkai markings on his cheeks jagged. Shifting his weight fully onto his knees, Sesshoumaru lashed out at her with his claws, but Maina fell backwards with shock at his attack, so he did nothing but tear her sleeve and graze the skin.
"What's Naraku done to you..?"
Maina scrambled to her feet, with Sesshoumaru following suit, though less gracefully than usual. As he lunged at her, his claws slicing the air, she threw up a quick barrier to shield herself. He only attacked her all the more fiercely, unbothered by the sparks and flashes that scorched his skin with every clash of his youki and the divine power concentrated in her barrier. The mere force with which the enraged taiyoukai struck her shield threatened to send her tumbling off balance; all she could do to keep her feet on the ground was to back away from him in between blows.
"Sesshoumaru, what the hell are you doing!" Inuyasha yelled, rushing to the scene with his famed sword drawn. His half-brother paid him no attention, but the brash hanyou was not one to be ignored. Grasping Seshoumaru's armless shoulder with his free hand, Inuyasha shoved him away from the goddess and inserted himself between them, brandishing the transformed Tetsusaiga.
"If you wanna turn against us," he challenged, "you'll fight me first."
Apparently having no qualms about such a fight, Sesshoumaru charged at the hanyou with a furious and uncharacteristic abandon, throwing himself within range of the Tetsusaiga just to get a few badly aimed strikes in. Maina watched the battle with worried eyes - though he had not yet been struck, the old wound that the saimyoushou had torn open was bleeding ever the more with all his moving about. The backs of his torn haori and hakama, soaked, clung to his body, and the grass below him was stained dark, the saturated clothing unable to soak up the blood trickling down his legs any longer.
"Inuyasha, don't hurt him!" Maina cried out.
The warning was unnecessary. Bewildered by the utter lack of style on the part of the proficient assassin, Inuyasha could do nothing more than block the relatively weak attacks with the flat of his sword, much as Maina had done with her barrier shield.
Inuyasha's human companions stood together, unable to keep their wide eyes from the sight of the mighty taiyoukai's barbaric, animalistic assault.
"Why is he doing this..?" Sango asked, more to herself than those around her.
"He's fighting savagely, mindlessly, much like Inuyasha does when his youkai blood takes over," Miroku observed, "Perhaps the saimyoushou is purposely targeting some organ that controls his youki.."
Suddenly, Inuyasha knocked Sesshoumaru back with the blunt edge of his sword. As he awkwardly stumbled backwards, shaking his head and trying to regain his balance, Kagome had a flash of insight. While Miroku and Sango kept their eyes on the battle, Kagome turned hers upon the two saimyoushou that now hovered above the half-brothers.
"I think I understand now!" she told her friends. "This is some kind of experiment of Naraku's.."
"Experiment?" Miroku asked.
"Yes. These saimyoushou are different from the others - it seems to me he's testing out a new breed on us. And those two up there were sent to observe, as well as to keep us from messing up his plans.."
Inuyasha came at Sesshoumaru again, hoping to bring him down while he was still disoriented from the last blow. He didn't care what had happened to cause the situation - he didn't want to hear Miroku's theories or ponder Naraku's motives. All he knew was that Sesshoumaru posed a threat to all of them and that he had to stop his attacks, one way or another, before he got any closer to Kagome and the other humans.
Sesshoumaru stared dumbly at him, blinking as if trying to focus, as Inuyasha ran toward him, holding the blunt side of his sword at the ready. Did he even realize he was about to be attacked?
The hanyou swung the great fang at his bleeding and uncoordinated youkai brother, striking his collar bone with as much force as he could without breaking it, but Sesshoumaru fought on, heedless of the blow, and struck out with his claws.
"Inuyasha!" Kagome cried from the sidelines. With the girl's yelp, Sesshoumaru turned his blood-red orbs upon the trio of humans. Not seeming to notice that Inuyasha, recovered from the brief shock of his wound, was brandishing his sword for another round, he turned to the side and sped toward Kagome.
All the world converged to save the young miko, Maina and Inuyasha hurrying to the spot to stop Sesshoumaru and Miroku, Kirara, and Sango, battle-ready, rushing in front to defend her. Claws clashed first with the Hiraikotsu; Sango held her ground well with it, but Miroku was ready to attack with his shakujou if Sesshoumaru should overwhelm her.
Kagome kept low behind Miroku and Sango. Despite the danger of her position, it seemed her safest bet was to stay put. She had an opportunity to run for cover, but that would leave her alone and in the open - she would be an easy target if her friends couldn't hold Sesshoumaru back. Besides, at present she was defenseless; unless she could somehow hit exclusively the saimyoushou lodged within his body, her sacred arrows would kill him, and she had no other weapons. Once again, she had to depend on the protection of her friends to save her..
Maina stood nearby, unable to do much except wait for an opening - the maddened taiyoukai's attacks came too quickly and fiercely for her to place a barrier around the humans. She also kept an eye on Inuyasha - in the time it took to blink, the hanyou could take his half-brother's life, and she knew his reservations about doing so were lessening by the minute now that he seemed to be targeting Kagome. Of course, the clawed gashes Sesshoumaru had left across his chest had done nothing to help the situation either..
'Wait.. The wounds aren't…'
CRACK!
Sesshoumaru fell to the ground, blood trickling from his left temple. The great bone boomerang was lowered, slowly, cautiously..
"Got him..," Sango sighed in relief.
Maina knelt beside the fallen lord. The blow wasn't serious, at least not for a youkai, but his eyes were closed. His youkai markings troubled her more than the head wound, though - they still were jagged. If he was unconscious, shouldn't they have returned to normal?
"Is he out?" Inuyasha asked, slightly lowering his Tetsusaiga.
"I don't..," she began, mumbling. Suddenly, his eyelid twitched and began to open.. "Ah, he's awake!"
Too late.
The possessed demon launched himself off the ground with a greater control than before. Maina latched onto his arm and tried to hold him back with a barrier, but he flung her away like a rag-doll and raced toward Kagome, unhindered, speed alone clearing his path. The speechless girl could do nothing as the snarling creature's bloody claws bore down on her.
"Kagome!" Inuyasha cried out.
"Watch out!" Miroku yelled, leaping toward her. He and Sesshoumaru reached Kagome mere milliseconds from each other - the monk knocked Kagome down as the claws lashed out - and the wound that might have taken out her throat was instead inflicted upon her shoulder.
"You bastard!" Inuyasha howled, chasing after his half-brother, the Tetsusaiga's blade at the ready. Sesshoumaru grinned with transformed fangs, snarling mockingly at the hanyou as Sango and Miroku tended to his victim.
Maina's eyes grew wide. 'That's it..'
"Get out of the way! All of you get behind me!" Inuyasha called out to his human companions.
"You're going to use the wind scar?" Miroku gasped, suddenly finding himself fearing for the life of the stoic youkai he'd kept company with these last few days.
"Inuyasha, no!" Maina cried, jumping to her feet and running into the intended line of fire.
"What the hell do you think you're doing! Move!" he growled.
"I won't let you do this, Inuyasha," she said firmly, grabbing hold of the Tetsusaiga's blade for emphasis. "It's what Naraku wants.."
"He nearly killed Kagome! What do you expect me to do, reason with him?"
"Inuyasha, listen to me!"
"There's no time!" Inuyasha yelled, focusing on something behind her. She turned her head only slightly, but in her peripheral view she could see him.
Sesshoumaru was coming for them both.
"MOVE!" Inuyasha swung his sword, knocking Maina off her feet and out of his way. He took the opening. The wind swirled all around them as the hanyou lifted the massive fang above his head.
"KAZE NO KIZU!"
Maina cried out, but her voice was drowned by the pure force of the attack. She could see Sesshoumaru for only a split second before the great golden light of power blinded her. Gathering her own power in her hands, she could only hope her timing was right. She groped in the brightness and found the familiar arm as the wave of destruction came at them - she forced all the energy she could muster into him, hoping…
The humans, huddled together with Kirara several feet behind Inuyasha, were stupefied by her sudden, desperate act; Inuyasha himself was in disbelief. In their eyes, she had simply leaped into the middle of the blast. Collectively forgetting Maina's immortality, and perhaps even worrying about Sesshoumaru's fate, they held their tongues and their breaths, waiting for the dust to clear.
Moments later, Inuyasha's troupe began to make out a blue glow in the center of the target area. As the view became clearer, they could hardly believe their own eyes. Sesshoumaru, outlined by a bold blue aura, stood straddling the fissure that the attack had forged in the earth, still bleeding from his old wounds but otherwise untouched. At his side, Maina was slumped on the ground, her clothes ripped and countless new wounds bleeding, her eyes sealed tight against the pain, still gripping his solitary arm, as if afraid to let go of it..
"No way..," Inuyasha mumbled.
"So that's her protective barrier," Miroku mused. "The attack didn't affect Sesshoumaru at all, but it wasn't thrown back at Inuyasha either."
"Amazing..," was all Kagome could say.
"Yes, but as long as that barrier is around him," Sango said pessimistically, "he is invincible.."
Maina opened her eyes and slowly turned them upon Sesshoumaru, hoping against hope that the barrier had gone up before the wind scar hit him - when she saw him, alive, protected, she could not even sigh out her relief, it was so powerful.. His eyes and youkai markings were unchanged, but he was alive, and, for the moment, docile. Moments ago he had fought without thinking at all, it seemed, but now, just standing there unmoving, he looked confused..
He didn't know how long it had been since all went black - seconds, hours, weeks.. He only knew that no matter what he did, he couldn't seem to win back his body or his senses from whatever it was that had confiscated them from him. He knew now, something had stolen his physical self away. With only his instincts and spiritual senses left to him, he had eventually sensed this something - a dark presence, deeply evil, and yet, at the same time, simple and primitive..
His only connection to the outside world was the maddeningly weak sense of smell he had managed to hang onto. He couldn't feel any movements, but the smells changed just enough that he knew his detached body must be in motion.
But then, he felt movement.
It felt to him like a massive earthquake - at any rate, there was some force outside strong enough to disturb even a numb, formless spirit. Or had it come from the being possessing him?
When the shaking stopped, that theory lost its possibility; the being's presence was suddenly less apparent, as if it had been injured or thrown into shock.
And for a moment, for one fleeting moment, he could feel the hard ground beneath his feet..
It was gone all too soon, and he could feel the dark being gain control again, but something besides his brief sense of body was also lost. He had earlier smelled Maina, then Inuyasha for a while, then the humans with his limited remaining sense, but now the air was strangely blank, empty.. It was as if the world outside had slipped from his grasp and disappeared.
Or been destroyed.
He floated in darkness for the longest time without sensing anything of the outside in the slightest; he actually found himself wishing to smell Inuyasha or the humans nearby - anyone or anything that he could grab onto before he lost touch completely with the outside, if he hadn't already..
The others could only stare, wondering if perhaps Sesshoumaru's stillness meant he had snapped out of it, and if Maina was okay - having witnessed her miraculous show of power, they now kept her divinity and immortality nearer to the forefronts of their minds, but she was injured and had not yet moved, so she might have been knocked unconscious.
Suddenly, Sesshoumaru blinked, the corners of his mouth raised ever slightly, and both questions were answered at once.
All in the blink of an eye, Sesshoumaru shifted his muscles and lifted a foot to charge again at the Inuyasha gang, the movement shocking Maina out of her trance. Letting go of his arm for just a millisecond, the worn goddess called up a new barrier, an impermeable dome as tall as Sesshoumaru, and trapped the youkai underneath. Infuriated, he clawed ferociously at the barrier, but Maina kept both hands on it, feeding as much energy as she could spare into maintaining it.
"You'll stay in there, Sesshoumaru," she whispered. "For your own good, you'll stay there.."
"Are you all right?" Inuyasha asked her, cautiously approaching.
"I'd be better if you'd listened to me instead of trying to solve things with your sword," she snarled.
"Well now we'll all listen," Miroku joined in, Sango following closely with Kirara carrying a wounded and hastily bandaged Kagome on her back.
"The saimyoushou is controlling him somehow - I suppose you all have figured that out by now," Maina began, gazing pensively through her barrier at the raging taiyoukai, "but Naraku didn't do this to make Sesshoumaru into a puppet assassin. That's only a cover. The saimyoushou began by attacking us at random, but when it became apparent that the strategy was ineffective, he chose a target that would elicit an extreme response. He tried to attack Kagome so that Inuyasha would retaliate."
"No way," Inuyasha fumed. "He was aiming for her throat when he attacked. He meant to kill her!"
"The saimyoushou only pretended to aim for her throat. He wanted to convince you that he would kill her. I'm sure he would have pulled aside at the last second and given Kagome just a simple flesh wound anyway if none of you had interfered."
"No offence, Maina, but that's only speculation," Sango interjected.
"I'm sure of this, Sango. After the first few blows of his bout with Inuyasha, he seemed to be more coordinated than before. And after you knocked him down, his movements were even more precise, and the saimyoushou was able to tap into his speed. All along the insect has been gaining better and better control over Sesshoumaru's body - by the time he made his move for Kagome, he seemed to have achieved complete control. If it wanted to, the saimyoushou could have used any of Sesshoumaru's fighting techniques by then, and yet he continued to use only brute force." Maina looked then to Inuyasha. "If he had truly meant to kill Kagome, he would have used his poison, which would have killed her no matter where the wound was made. In fact, he could have easily taken her out from a distance with the energy whip. He didn't use these deadly weapons on you or any of the rest of us either, even when you threatened to use your wind scar on him."
"It's not as if he just stood there. He charged at me when I was about to strike!" Inuyasha retorted.
"Sesshoumaru would have already gathered the poison in his claws or readied his energy whip if he had meant to use either to stop your attack - the saimyoushou did not prepare a deadly attack, but instead a ruse, a charge meant to spur you into action and keep me from stopping you. Sesshoumaru was never meant to kill you, Kagome, or anyone else!"
"Then what the hell's the point of all this? To scare us? To let us know Naraku's not out of commission just yet?" the hanyou yelled impatiently.
"Don't you see, you baka!" Maina yelled back. "You're the one that Naraku's been using all along! He made Sesshoumaru attack so that you would be forced to kill him!"
SCREECH!
Everyone jumped at the sound of claws against the barrier wall. Sesshoumaru was trying like mad to escape now, throwing up lightning-bright sparks as his claws clashed with it. To her surprise, Maina saw clawed ridges dug into the inside of the barrier. She brought her concentration fully to the barrier, pouring more of her power into it to fill in the weaknesses and strengthen the entire barrier's integrity, but Sesshoumaru only etched more cuts in it.
"Is something wrong?" Sango asked tentatively. Maina glanced at her for a moment with wide eyes. She hadn't realized her worries were showing. She turned back and began to release more power into the barrier, but it didn't seem to be getting any stronger.
"This isn't right," she muttered. "He shouldn't be able to damage the barrier.. And I can't seem to repair it…"
"You mean he's actually breaking through it?" Miroku chimed in.
"I don't understand how he's doing this!" Maina cried, now trying frantically to forge another layer on the outside. "All of you, get away from here!"
As Inuyasha and his friends hurried to a safe distance, they were nearly blinded by a bright beam of light coming from behind them. Daring to turn around, they saw as the light dissipated that Maina's barrier had been split open…
AN: Haha.. I guess I didn't mention before that the huge battle sequence spills into the next chapter, did I? To tell you the truth, I planned to dedicate this chapter to the battle so I'd have no battle scenes to write for the next one, but I didn't know just how long this thing would end up.. It's nearly as long as Taiyoukai Sunrise, the longest chapter to date, and the battle isn't even over yet! Holy fish sticks, Batman!
(nevermind..)
Of course, in reading over and editing it, the darn thing seems a lot shorter than it should be..
It all works out, though.. The stuff I had planned for next chapter will probably end up being fairly short, so it won't hurt to sneak in the end of a battle with it.. Besides, I think doing it this way will allow me to make the 17-18 chapter break just where I want it without 17 being too short for it. Yay!
Anywho, except for the conclusion to this in the next chapter, no more battles for a good while, thank goodness! Next one will be dramatic, but definitely not boring.. Some of the story's most vital scenes are approaching! Woohoo!
(bows down and thanks my muse for the strength to write the battle chapter.. and for gracing me with a kinder plot to follow in the next one..)