Authoress' notes: The name Soumeikarasu means "Intelligent Raven." And I still don't own Inuyasha, or anything in the Inuyasha universe. Especially Bankotsu. :(
HUGE thanks to Wikipedia, for lots of info on lots of stuff used in this fanfic. If you want an exhaustive list of sources, let me know, since URLs don't work on fic pages. Maybe later I will link in my profile to an HTML page listing all of them.
Wayward Ransom, chapter 25.
"So...the young man has escaped from the underworld, and even has retained a physical body," said Soumeikarasu as she appeared in front of Yukio, a clear indication that she had seen something interesting while spying around for the day. "Quite remarkable," she said, intrigued. "I've questioned some villagers and sages about him after seeing him. I've heard in my travels that he was one of the few people that can take control of an entire castle single-handedly," said the raven-demoness. "Now that I've seen him in action, I believe it. And it's so fortunate for both of us that I am the only one he cannot lay a hand on," she finished, her deep, throaty voice becoming more gravelly and menacing.
Yukio was perturbed by many of the demoness's habits, and one of them was suddenly appearing wherever she wished to be. The older man hated the way Soumeikarasu tended to invite herself everywhere. "The door, Soumeikarasu."
Soumeikarasu scowled. "As useless to me as that supposed paperwork on your desk," she shot back.
Yukio lifted his head from his paperwork, and looked over to his right, where the temperamental Soumeikarasu stood. She was, underneath all the annoying habits, an intriguing, intelligent, ambitious apparition. She was stunningly beautiful in the traditional sense, but Yukio's fascination with her was often tempered by the fact that he found her mannerisms were quite often unbecoming of someone so lovely, and her skin much too swarthy.
She was usually made of thin air, anyway, as making herself solid took an incredible amount of effort for her, weakening her all too quickly. But her immateriality also gave he the abilities of a boundlessly useful messenger between the worlds of the living and the dead. Yukio knew the raven-demoness had her depthless black eyes set on the young warrior for a long time; in fact, she knew about him ever since Yukio's former lord had executed the young man, but due to the limits on her powers, could not take control of him in the underworld. Yukio saw a renewed usefulness in him, thanks to his resurrection, and his deal with Soumeikarasu. The demoness, in return, felt she had to wait all too long for someone like Yukio to be able to give her what she sought: a strong, able warrior's body she did not have to work at keeping solid, and could take down the Underworld single-handedly while using. A lowly messenger she soon would not be; she had much more potential than that!
"I have to have my paperwork ready," said Yukio, his annoyance growing. "In these uncertain times, if anything happens, I surely want my son to have all that I could give him, and that means keeping close track of expenses. I can't run this place without paperwork."
Soumeikarasu made a closed fan, made entirely of jet black feathers, appear in her hand. "This boy will certainly be a wonderful tool in keeping everyone else around your castle in line." she said, oblivious to her partner's explanations. "So why are we stalling so long? I'd love the chance to break him in, and now is the best time for us to begin this," she said impatiently.
"You will not be able to accomplish anything without him staying in the same place for very long," answered Yukio, burying his eyes in scrolls again. "That's my responsibility."
"And I'm sure you've got it all under control,"cooed Soumeikarasu pleasantly, with a wave of her black feather-fan. "From what I've heard of your old lord, he most certainly didn't use this young man to his potential."
"No, he didn't. That's why he's dead," answered Yukio matter-of-factly, while writing some figures down. "Of course, I saw no issue in killing the boy and his lackeys off, but I forwarned my lord that he shouldn't have been so smug about things. WIth the pieces of that ridiculous purple stone all over the place recently, who knows what could have happened? He should have had the place more secure, and sent someone to get me the second he knew about that letter. Either way, if the brat wasn't resurrected, no doubt someone using the Shikon Jewel would have struck him down anyway..." Yukio stopped writing for a moment, and turned a side of his mouth down. "...but perhaps...not as quickly," he reluctantly admitted. "Anyway, it was too bad that I wasn't there to greet him upon his resurrection. And I have no doubt the brat was offered a position in the castle by the lord, and it was right before the Banryuu fell on him," continued Yukio, dryly.
Soumeikarasu huffed. "That would make him only the more idiotic to me." She turned her head toward the screen, and opened it slightly. She peered out into the afternoon sun a bit, and her kimono, made of her own substance and consisting of layers of jet-black feathers, reflected no sunlight at all.
She shut the screen. The quick motion of her forearm caused the long, royal-blue-trimmed sleeves of her kimono to flutter. "You don't ask a boy like that to work for you," she said, balling a black-clawed hand. "You just take him. You just use him," she said, laughing gently. "And having him fall at your feet is just a bonus."
Yukio looked up with a smile on his face. He implicitly agreed with most of the things she had said. Looking back down at his paperwork, wrinkled his brow. "I do have to say though, that without painstaking preparation, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to contain him without killing him. We might have trained him a little too well. As you have seen from the results, training him certainly wasn't an overnight process."
"Certainly not," agreed the demoness.
After a bit of thought, a slight smile returned to Yukio's mouth. "However, he's still only human. And I always insisted that he was too much of an investment in time and resources to let him go wandering around like he did. I suppose when it came between gaining favor of the masses versus dealing with the negative effects using him would cause, it was just more efficient to kill him." Yukio waved a bit at Soumeikarasu with the brush with which he had been writing. "However, I don't ascribe to the same philosophy. Willing or unwilling, he will work for us. The losses will be worth the rewards."
Soumeikarasu cleared her throat loudly.
"Yes," he said to the demoness, "with your expertise, he will work for us."
Soumeikarasu smiled broadly. "You've thought this out very well, I believe. The stone, the bird, the armor..."
"Yes, either way, one may be dead, and one will definitely be broken."
"The bird, or the boy," clarified the demoness.
"Yes. Then we may put one, or both, back together our way."
"Hm. I heard breaking his spirit worked the first time, by first killing off his group of cohorts, and also by killing that girl he seemed to be attached to." Soumeikarasu continued to smile broadly, until she noticed that Yukio was getting lost in his facts and figures again. She looked at the elderly man, puzzled. "Don't you have anyone to do that annoying paperwork for you?" she asked. She pointed to the guard in back of her. "How about having him do it and we look for the brat?"
Yukio looked up again. The guard behind the demoness was silent, then nervously began adjusting his magical armor, bearing the emblem of a silkworm.
"I like paperwork. It relaxes me," Yukio said, and huffed an exasperated sigh. Soumeikarasu often felt welcome to say whatever she wanted, as she knew no blade or spear could discipline her.
With a huff of her breath, Soumeikarasu turned herself into the form of a raven, and vanished from the room in a wisp of purple smoke.
Let the brat come to us, thought Yukio, calmly doing his paperwork. Half of the mistakes made in the past were due to underestimation. But that's what happens when you are never there to observe someone's training progress.
Yukio's brow knitted, and he stopped writing for a moment. His eyes shifted to their corners. And that demoness still didn't bother to at least pretend to use the door.
Bankotsu sat on the rock, toweling his shoulders and chest off a little more after his long hot spring bath. This time, his bath had been a relaxingly solitary one; he must have been in there for hours, and it was well needed. He only wanted to remain in there a short while. However, he had made the mistake of closing his eyes, and by the time he opened them, he had been in the bath so late, that the darkness was making things a bit difficult to see. Figuring he had to be ready for tomorrow's assault on Yukio's castle, he mentally bid the hot spring a sad farewell, and started making his way back on the path to Masakisho's place to get some sound sleep.
He took note of his arm. It was healed rather well by now, and the hot spring seemed to melt the rest of the nagging discomfort in his hip away.
He toweled his neck a bit more, and by the time he reached the tree line a little ways from the spring, he toweled his knee-length hair a bit more, too, as it still made the back of his white trousers a bit wet.
That's when he realized that his hair tie was glaringly missing. Rolling his eyes as his forgetfulness, he stopped dead in his tracks, with the intention of heading back to the spring.
And just as he turned around, a weapon bit into the tree he would have passed, had he continued walking.
Looking back at it, he recognized the weapon as something similar to what that guy, Raidonichi, used. Bankotsu quickly estimated, with a killer glare, the direction from where the weapon was thrown, and made a bolting run in that same direction, but not before plucking the sai out of the bark for himself to use.
The shrubbery whizzed by as he deftly went straight for the offender. Jumping over large stones and small streams as deftly as a cat, he knew he was in hot pursuit, as he could hear the offender disturb the forest vegetation in front of him.
He didn't have to run very long before he caught up with the offender, and tackled him. His enemy tried in vain to fight back, turning himself to face him, but Bankotsu only chuckled at the sorry effort that was made.
Bankotsu held the sai above the aggressor's head, poised to sink it deeply into the neck of his opponent. He glared into his opponent's widened eyes.
And realized they belong to a child. A child he knew, in fact.
Bankotsu wasn't surprised. He threw down the sai poised above the child's head, grinning the while time. Surprisingly, the child didn't shout or scream.
The weapon bit into the ground, an inch away from Kanaye's neck.
Still holding onto the weapon's handle, Bankotsu glared at the boy, his cold smirk replaced by the expression of sheer, unbounded rage. "You...stupid...fucking...kid!" growled Bankotsu menacingly at the boy underneath him. He gripped the weapon handle so tightly, his knuckles turned white, and his hand vibrated. "The hell did you think you were doing?"
"Seeing if you were a liar," hissed Kanaye softly, but so intensely for someone his age. "And that's what you are. A liar."
"The hell - ?"
"I was testing you, Bankotsu of the Shichinintai!" said Kanaye thoughtlessly, as Bankotsu plucked the weapon out from the ground and got off him.
The mention of his men sent a sting of pain through Ban. He had lost his men twice already, and it infuriated Ban for the kid to think that warfare, and thus, his losses, were all some sort of joke. In some ways, he felt guilty for being the only one strong enough to escape the Sanzu under his own power, and still walk on the earth.
However, the sight of his men so peacefully and patiently waiting for him on the heavenly shore of the Sanzu encouraged him to continue on, of course. Otherwise, he might...just might...have had to hunt down the half-demon again so he had the chance of getting sent back to hell in a fair fight.
Kanaye got up to his hands and knees. "You told me if you'd fight me, you'd kill me. I wanted to see what you'd do! And you missed me just now...so fight me!"
As he sat on the ground, Bankotsu had to wipe his face with a palm of his hand, while the other still nervously fingered the weapon. "You stupid kid," he spat again. "You don't get it. I missed you on purpose!" explained the young man with ever lessing patience. "According to this," he hissed as he angrily held up the sai he plucked from the tree, "there was no fight! You're already dead!"
Kanaye, in his reckless innocence, had not thought that he was actually spared, and his eyes grew wide in horror. They shifted to their corners, and he lowered his head in utter embarassment.
"Lucky for you, kid, that I can tell the difference between someone trying to kill me out of stupidity and someone trying to kill me because of business!" Bankotsu stated furiously, while Kanaye sat upright. "Let me tell you," he continued softly, his now lowered voice even more frightening to Kanaye than if he would have shouted. "Some of my men would have gladly ripped into you for the simple fact that you're a kid!" He pointed the weapon at the boy, his eyes narrowed, and his voice full of quiet menace. "Andaren't you damn lucky that I'm not him, and I personally don't believe in killing kids like you!"
The young man threw the weapon down, and it bit into the soft, grassy earth with a low-pitched ring. He continued to mercilessly scold the child as he got up from the ground. "I wasn't the leader of a bunch of professional killers for no reason. This isn't a fucking game, kid. Do something half-assed like that again to someone who doesn't care about the fact that you're a complete idiot, and your handlers'll find your head on a pike!"
Kanaye tried to be strong and not let the young man's understandably vicious reprimand get to him, but he found he couldn't help it. He wiped his damp eyes, too humbled to get up from kneeling on the ground. "...I'm gonna have a baby sister..." he whispered almost inaudibly.
Bankotsu, now up on his feet, crossed his arms defiantly, but remained silent to let the boy talk as he glared down at him.
"Raidonichi told me my mom's gonna have a baby." He looked up at Bankotsu with the most serious, dark black eyes Bankotsu had ever seen, and balled his hands into fists. "And I know I'm gonna have a baby sister! So I have to protect her from people she won't like!" His eyes glistened as he looked up to the young warrior. "Don't you wanna do that too?"
Bankotsu smirked sarcastically. "Well. Ain't you gallant."
"You're already so strong! Don't you wanna use it to defend someone?"
Bankotsu's expression softened considerably, and he had to look away, as something about the sheer sight of Kanaye annoyed him. The idiotic kid had managed to really strike a chord in him. "I started out that way," he confessed quietly. "But my life ended up being different than I wanted it to go." His eyes flashed intensely at Kanaye for a moment, and the boy flinched backward. "That's what happens when you get caught up in this crap, kid!" He inhaled, then sighed deeply. "So...remember that, too." With his brow knitted in thought, he continued. "And yeah, I've defended people in the past." He shook his head, uncrossed his arms, turned on his heel, and stepped away from the boy. "But most of them ended up not even being worth it," he said, continuing to put distance between himself and Kanaye.
Bankotsu continued on his way through the forest, and eventually Kanaye succeeded in relatively catching up to him. They walked for quite a while without speaking, Bankotsu fuming in irritation at the boy, at himself, at everything he could find an excuse at which to be irritated. The young man was now constantly aware of Kanaye walking a few paces in back of him.
With each step forward, though, Bankotsu could feel his feathers smoothing over again, and almost as quickly as his irritation was ignited, it was soon gone. However, Kanaye continued to stay behind him, his eyes lowered and his shoulders slumped. He had never, ever been reprimanded so severely, as everyone he ever knew tended to fall all over him for how much "spirit" and "energy" he had. With the young warrior's words ringing through his head, Kanaye promised himself not to try anything like what he did again.
As they walked up the few stairs, about to enter Masakisho's place, Bankotsu turned back, and saw Kanaye, still standing on the ground below, his head lowered in humiliation. He respectfully waited for Ban to open the door and enter first.
Bankotsu had to smile at the boy. "You know what?" he said, looking down and over his shoulder at Kanaye. "In some ways, you remind me a lot of myself when I was your age." He recalled his sound scolding of the boy, now that he was compeltely cooled off, and thought it amusing that he hadn'tever quite gottenthat angry with anyone...except his own men.
Kanaye brightened. "Wow! Does that mean you'll train me? Um...please?" he pleaded as quietly and politely as he could, fervently hoping for the young man to say yes. Though now Kanaye was positive he would never launch another sneak attack on anyone without their permission, he still hoped to gain some skills from someone he saw was so amazing in battle.
Bankotsu scowled deeply. "No," he growled, after pondering something for a moment. He turned back to the door and slid it open. "That gives me all the more reason not to train you, kid."
Kanaye sighed, and took his frustration out on a rock in front of him. He kicked it soundly, and it landed far away from him with a solid, earthy thunk.