Chapter 11 – The Final Battle
Oh my God! I never realized people loved my story so much! It was amazing all the reviews I got for the last chapter, I was dancing around, I was so happy! And just one more review and I will have the same number of reviews as Miracle! Which is like, huge for me, because my only goal for this story was to get more reviews than Miracle! I love you all! And to reward you – the update! THE FIGHT WITH NARAKU! WHOO-HOO!
Disclaimer: Nobody cares. I don't own Inuyasha. I do, however, own Kaza. Whose POV this chapter is from. You take her, and I'll sic my tortoises on you. NOW READ!
"How do you know me?" I stammered, leaving heavily against Kirara. Naraku chuckled again. I suddenly felt myself being lifted onto Kirara. My mother, with as much ease as if I had been a feather, lifted me onto the cat demon, her eyes never leaving Naraku. Now Inuyasha had moved in front of me, his face expressionless but for a tight smile.
"Naraku. It's been a while." He growled.
"You haven't changed a bit, Inuyasha." He said wryly. "None of you have…Kagome, Shippou, Kirara…oh, and of course – " He grinned. "Sango."
Mama couldn't hold it in any longer. "Where is Miroku? What the hell have you done with him!" She screamed.
"Now, that's a very interesting story. Would you like to hear it?"
I didn't say anything, my stomach tight with fear. Did he kill my father?
"The reason we were sucked out of the sky, some – how long has it been?"
"Fifteen years." Inuyasha snarled.
"Oh, yes. Fifteen years. We were sucked up into the sky because of the mixture of my shouki and his Kazaana. When both of those powerful elements met in a deadlock for that length of time, magic was released from before the dawn of time, and we were taken away from earth. I can't say I exactly understood what was happening at the time, but Miroku, being a mere human, had his memory erased as soon as he was raised up into the clouds. The last word he ever spoke for years was 'Sango,' that night we vanished."
My mom began tearing up, her body shaking. I didn't even understand what was happening and I was crying.
"Touching, isn't it?" He sneered. "I recovered quicker, being the more powerful of the two. Actually, I regained my memory right around the time Kaza was born."
My heart stopped cold.
"I was going to kill you." He said nonchalantly. "You and your bothersome father, while you were both at your weakest state. But then it occurred to me that if it took a combination of shouki and the winds from the Kazaana that would suck us into the sky, it would most likely take that same combination to release us from the magic spell. And so, I let you live. I thought that maybe one of you might prove useful to me and release me from my limbo. Though it would have been kinder to have killed Miroku. He has his memory back now, but he's tormented by it because he can't see his lovely Sango again. And of course, he has no idea Kaza even exists."
"You bastard." The words finally came out of my mouth. "You goddamn bastard."
He smiled. "Well, I suppose you would know all about that, wouldn't you, girl?"
Hot tears spilled out, and I wanted nothing more than to run forward and rip out his heart with my own hands. But before I could do that, an even more powerful force rushed forward. Inuyasha, roaring at the top of his lungs, drew Tetsusaiga and began a furious assault of Wind Scars, while Kagome and Shippou launched themselves at him from the back, and my mother's Hiraikotsu came spinning down from above. As Naraku dodged the attack and the battle began vividly, my mother called out,
"Kirara, take her! You stay back, Kaza!"
"WHAT!" I roared. "HELL NO! I'M NOT GOING TO STAY BACK!" But Kirara was already airborne and we were flying away from the fight – the fight that I had traveled over Japan for two months for!
"DAMN IT, KIRARA, PUT ME DOWN!" I shrieked. "I WANT TO FIGHT!" She ignored me and carried me away. I looked back and saw the remnants of Inuyasha's Wind Scar reverberate through the air. Naraku had dodged every one of them, and Kagome's arrows too. Tears cascaded down my cheeks, and I whispered, "Kirara, they need me."
She set me down where all of our stuff was piled up. I sat down, put my face on my knees and cried. I couldn't fight. Maybe they were right – I should stay back. I hadn't even been in a real battle before. But still – every particle of my being, every vein in my body was on fire with the longing to fight and KILL the man who had made my life a living hell!
And then I felt Kirara's warm snout in my face. I looked up, wiping away tears, and blearily saw her holding something in her mouth.
It was my sword.
Unsheathed.
The iron glistening.
And ready to fight.
I grinned.
"Have I ever told you I loved you, Kirara?"
She purred and lowered herself to the ground. I swung myself on and we rode up into the air. My hair by now was loose from its ponytail and the wind whipped it around. I was still in my yukata, very deathly weak, and I'd never fought a battle like this before in my life.
Did I care? Hell no. I was a girl with a sword, a mission, and a father to rescue.
"NARAKU!" I roared, as Kirara and I swooped low to the battle. Everybody looked up in awe. I could swear in that second, I saw Inuyasha smile. My mom just looked like she was going to have a heart attack.
"DIE!" I yelled, actually jumping to the ground and plunging my sword into his chest.
Was that stupid? Very. Probably the stupidest decision I ever made. Still, I was on an adrenaline rush. You can't blame me.
He laughed, just pulled the sword out of his chest, tossed it to me, and we started to fight.
Parry, lunge, feign, fall back – I knew how to fight with a katana, but so did he. And Thank God, my mom actually stayed out of this, so Naraku and I dueled on that field. I was tired, and probably not fighting my best, so I almost felt like he was toying with me. I kept making reckless jabs towards his heart – again, the stupidest decision I ever made – and I kept losing energy with every thrust. We were moving all over that field, my entire body focused on blocking his attacks, falling back, lunging forward –
At one point our swords were stuck in a deadlock, and he leaned forward to me. I could see his eyes glistening through the mask. "What are you doing, Kaza?" He whispered. "What will you gain if you get Miroku back? You were an accident, Kaza. You weren't supposed to happen at all. Miroku never wanted a daughter, he wanted a son. He doesn't even know you exist – what makes you think he's going to love you if you do find him?"
I was an accident? My father wouldn't love me? His sweet words entered my body like poison, and I loosed my grip on the sword, his words making knots in my stomach.
And that's when, in just one instant, he disarmed me, and stabbed me in the shoulder.
The thing about having very serious and life-threatening injuries is that they're numb. When you stub your toe or get a splinter, you feel the pain right away. But when you get stabbed in the shoulder by a psychotically evil demon, at first I didn't even feel it.
And then blood gushed in a fountain from my shoulder, pain exploded and ricocheted throughout my entire body, and I screamed and dropped to the ground, my hand groping for my shoulder. I felt the blood running through my fingertips and felt like vomiting up my guts.
Though I swear to God – I would have picked up my sword and continued fighting if the other members decided that wasn't such a good idea.
"Hit the mark!" I heard Kagome scream, her arrows wizzing overhead, and Inuyasha barked, "KAZA! STAY DOWN!" My mother sprinted forward, picked me up in her arms in one scoop, and again raced through the field. The blood loss was quickly making me dizzy, and I groaned and pushed my face into her chest. She set me down away from the battle, and I vaguely saw Shippou run forward with a bandage. She kissed me on my forehead, whispered quickly to Shippou to take care of me, and then ran back to the battle. My head was throbbing, my shoulder was completely numb, my yukata was entirely drenched in blood, and somewhere along the lines, I'd lost my sword.
Damn it.
Shippou poured water down my throat at one point, and that's when I woke up. He sighed and said, "How are you doing?"
"Wha - ? Oh…okay, I guess…How's the battle?"
"Not good." He whispered. "I've gotta get back in there, Kaza. You stay here. You're in no condition to fight."
"Okay. Thanks." I whispered back, and he turned into a fox and raced back to the field. I actually wanted to comply with this request – my shoulder was throbbing like a heart, and my entire body felt like I'd been sucked dry, I'd lost so much blood in so little time. Through half-open eyes I saw Shippou launch himself at Miroku, Kirara and my mom coming in for reinforcements. Kagome was tending to Inuyasha, who'd received a bad injury. He looked half-conscious. I registered Kirara and Shippou being thrown back by Naraku, screaming, and as my mother ran forward, hurling Hiraikotsu, he smiled and waved his hand, and with a gust of wind, Hiraikotsu was thrown right back at her, hitting her square in the chest. She fell backwards, and he seemed to smile. I waited for someone to get up and get back in there, but I realized with a start that they were all down. Inuyasha couldn't fight, and Kagome was helping him – my mom, Shippou and Kirara were unconscious or couldn't fight.
I was the only one left.
He knew it, too, and he knew how badly he'd hit me. He smiled, a crazy, creepy smile, like he knew that he'd won. And as he started to walk away, I suddenly had a thought that that creepy smile was probably the last thing my dad had ever seen in this world.
That alone was enough to push me off my feet, tottering, clutching my shoulder, and call out, "Naraku!"
My voice cracked and it didn't seem like he heard me. I blinked back the pain coursing through my body and yelled as loud as I could, "NARAKU! COME BACK HERE!"
He turned slowly. When he saw me, just a little girl, bloodstained and black-eyed, tired and scared, he just laughed.
Until I grabbed the beads on my right hand.
"NO, KAZA!" Kagome screamed desperately. "DON'T DO IT, YOU'LL KILL YOURSELF! KAZA!"
I didn't listen. Gritting my teeth with the pain, I pulled off the beads. It was a moment of pure instinct. My brain wasn't working right now. My brain couldn't give a shit. I was acting on my guts. I was doing what the wind was telling me.
And if I did die?
I'd die trying to save my father. Just like he'd died trying to save my mother.
"KAZAANA!" I roared, holding out my hand.
And then the winds started.
I loved every moment of it.
The winds ripped through my hair, I felt the chill as it rushed over the warm blood on my arms, I saw the look of panic on Kagome's face and the look of pure shock on Naraku's, I saw the swirling vortexes careening around me, and the only thing I thought was,
Die, Monkey boy. Feel the wrath of the curse you gave me. This is for my father.
He started to get sucked in. He couldn't resist the winds. I started to feel the effects of opening the Kazaana immediately – my whole body was going to collapse, my arm and shoulder were both in complete hell, and the only thing I wanted to do was faint. Or even better, die.
And yet there was no way in hell I was going to close that Kazaana, even if it meant me getting sucked in with it.
He plunged the sword into the ground and held on, trying to gain some ground in the vortexes. I laughed, a laugh like a maniac.
"GIVE IT UP, NARAKU!" I shrieked, my voice high. "IT'S NOT GOING TO WORK!"
But he was strong, and he started to walk against the winds. I scowled and walked forward. The wind pressure increased, but I realized so did his shouki. His demon aura was just as strong as my winds, and it surrounded him and grounded him. I realized that no matter how hard I tried, he was still going to get away. He started to walk away from me – away from the winds – and he was going to escape when something happened that I can only describe as a miracle.
There was another set of winds.
It came from the direction directly opposite mine, just like my Kazaana, and Naraku was caught in between the winds. His shouki was ripped to shreds on the violent winds that now roared through the clearing and threatened to break my eardrums. I prayed that my mom and the others had gotten out okay. As I watched, Naraku couldn't resist it. He was slowly lifted into the air, his body jerking between one flow of wind and the other, and I saw him, suspended, the winds whipping his baboon suit, and I smiled in satisfaction.
This was the man who had made my life a hell. This was the man who had ruined my mother's love. This was the man who had practically killed my father. This was the man who everyone all over Japan would love to see die.
And I was the one who got to do it.
It was surreal to see him die. He was actually ripped in half by the force of the two opposite winds. He died in only a second, but it felt like an eternity to me. He was split into two, that hideous baboon suit leaving the face of the planet forever, one half sucked slowly into my Kazaana, the other half getting sucked into the other winds across the fields.
But as soon as my half of Naraku was sucked into the tunnel, suddenly the winds stopped. I looked down in complete astonishment and saw the swirling black hole on my hand growing smaller and smaller, the winds no more than little breezes swirling around my hair. For a second I stared straight down my hand into the endless limbo where Naraku was now trapped, and then, my heart beating a quick tempo and my brain on overdrive, it disappeared.
My Kazaana.
Gone.
The curse was broken.
I didn't believe it at first.
I flexed my hand, looking into my palm like I was in a trance. There it was. A real palm. With all its little wrinkles and lifelines. Without any cursed wind tunnels. Slowly, surreally, I undid the straps of my gauntlet – something I'd never done before – and slid it off my wrist. It was pure white skin underneath – I'd been wearing the gauntlet since the day I was born – but there it was! A normal wrist! My wrist! NO WIND TUNNELS!
Happy tears spilled down now, and then I dared to look up.
Across the field there was a man, who was looking at his wrist exactly like I was. Like he was in some kind of trance. He was wearing the robes of a monk – a black robe with a purple strip over it, and beside him was a golden staff. He had black hair in a little ponytail at the nape of his neck. As my eyes focused, I saw that he had a gauntlet exactly like mine on his wrist. At that, my heart started to race and my whole body flushed, and then he looked up.
His eyes.
My eyes.
The same.
The same blue-purple.
He was my father.
Miroku.
Don't tell me – I suck. It was the worst ending ever. However, think about what this chapter has accomplished! Naraku's dead, the curse is broken, Kaza saved the day, aaannnndddd – MIROKU'S BACK! YAY! For all who were wondering, yes this is inspired a bit by ep. 30, when Sango fights Naraku wearing her yukata, with just a sword and that little dagger thingy. I love that episode, and I thought it definitely applied to Kaza. So, please please review, I really appreciate it, and if you do, I promise to put up a juicy chapter very soon – Arigatou!
