12/17/05--Authoress's notes: Adding a disclaimer to every chapter of twenty chapters' worth of writing is a pain in the ass. But I guess if I don't want my story pulled or anything, oh well!

Disclaimer: Believe it or not, I still don't own Inuyasha or anything in the Inuyasha universe. I just like playing with the Shichinintai.

Wayward Ransom, chapter 3.

With every polestroke by the old ferryman, Bankotsu's soft cries became louder, more desperate. "Jakotsu...JAKOTSU! JAKOTSU!" He found a deep inner strength from seeing his friends and fellow warriors again.

Oddly, his comrade wasn't answering him; in fact he acted like he didn't see the raft approaching yet. Bankotsu figured he was still out of hearing and sight range...as they still were a distance away. He himself knew his two brothers were discussing something, but couldn't hear anything. And maybe the waters, or the noises from all the people on the busy bank and beyond it kept him from hearing anything that was very far away from shore. Additionally there could have been a glare...or maybe the red mist that barely allowed him to recognize his brothers at first also prevented Jakotsu from seeing anything at all.

Unconsiously, he started pulling on the heavy metal shackles that encircled his wrists, and tried to break himself from the strange, steely filaments that seemed buried in the flesh of his back and legs, keeping the rest of his body attached to the floor of the raft.

Seeing their passenger was unwilling to keep quiet, the heavily armed young man used the blunt edge of his weapon to smack him on the side of the head. "Shut up. You'll be there soon enough."

Instead of keeping him quiet, the light hit only made him furious. Analyzing the situation with the strength his fury and also seeing his friends gave him, he found it interesting that they would take him over to the opposite shore in such a heavily bound fashion. They WANT me to go there, he thought.They don't want me to have control of this raft. Well...we'll see about that. I will decide where and how I leave this raft.

Bankotsu again started pulling hard on the metal cuffs, twisting them and hoping to break them by stressing a weak spot.

The young man raised his spear high in the air, one hand on the shaft, the other on the end nearest to him for added leverage, aiming straight for the prisoner's heart. He spoke to the old ferryman. "So this one would be trouble after all! I'll just have to knock him out again so we can drag him ashore. He'll have no trouble there, and can get completely healed the instant he lands."

In the background, toward the front of the raft, the ferryman quickened the rhythm of his poling.

Down came the spear.

Using the same strength that made others regard him as a living demon while he was alive, Bankotsu managed to shatter the ring attaching the cuff around his left wrist to the metal base on the deck. In a split second it popped off, sending pieces flying through the air and over all four of the unwalled edges of the wooden ferry. When the pieces fell in the watery liquid, they hissed and smoked angrily as they sank like pebbles to the bottom of the channel in which the raft floated. The metal that still encased his wrist was a bit scarred from the metal flying away, but nonetheless was still firmly encircling it, and he'd need the keys to remove it.

In a flash, Bankotsu had the shaft of the pole in his free left hand, millimeters away from breaking the skin covering his sternum. It only took a moment for his steely cobalt eyes to verify that this man did not have the keys to the shackles.

So with terrifying force, he pushed back and drove the spear right through the young man's rearmost hand, into his gut, and out again through his back. He managed to rip the two or three gossamer strands that held each of his legs to the deck. It was rather painful, and he could feel the skin pulling away. Ignoring the sensation, and holding onto the spear for leverage, he supported the weight of the much larger man with a leg, and used the other to flip him completely over his head and off the raft.

The young man popped off the spear as he flew away, his bones making a sickening sound as it scraped free of the pole. He landed away from the raft with a loud splash. He let out feral screams as he was boiled away alive by the disgusting liquid that surrounded the raft.

The old man heard the splash, but did not turn from facing forward. That's why I hold the keys, he thought as he continued to move the raft.

Deafening silence resumed after the young man's body was compeltely devoured in the waterway.

Bankotsu's legs fell heavily toward the floor of the raft. Feeling his body screaming all over again, he let his left hand, still rushing with adrenaline and gripping the blood-trailed spear tightly, also drop limply to the deck. He laid his head down to rest on the deck for a moment to recover, his arm still stretched above his head, right hand still firmly bound to the small metal projection. Breaking the shackle was no problem; unattaching himself from the strange little filaments that kept him wired to the deck was excrutiating. But for every one he broke, he could strangely feel just a slight bit of energy return. It was a horrible compromise.

The ferryman eerily, silently kept poling. But with his back turned to the prisoner, his grey-white eyes shifted over to their corners warily. Bankotsu breathed quietly and heavily through gritted teeth. His eyes shifted over to the ferryman. Both men had an unspoken mutual understanding that by the time the raft reached the lip of the opposite shore, one of them would suffer the same fate as the young armed man.