We're back with the meat of the war!
I've been writing a lot more for this fic and my Naraku fic Miasma again lately, and I think I feel comfortable enough to make a semi-regular schedule with these two where I alternate posting chapters again. If you want to read more of my stories but don't want to wait all that time between now and my next ITJOTW chapter, feel free to go check out my other stories, particularly Miasma, as it's the one I write most on, and personally my favourite fic in general.
That being said, enjoy this chapter. I found it a lot of fun to write
In The Jaws Of The Wolf
Chapter Sixteen
My head whipped around at the yelled warning, but I couldn't see anything through a sudden whip of heavy wind that dragged along debris of the battlefield.
A storm? Where the Hell had it come from? It had been a totally clear day.
I yelped when a strong wind whipped through the area, sweeping me off my feet. Confused and scared, I flung my arms out, trying to grab hold of anything to keep me in place, but the wind was vigorous in the way it whipped me around, and I was so lost to the feeling that I couldn't tell which way was up, let along find a strong handle to keep me in place.
What's going on?!
Before I could even try to make sense of what was happening, a clawed hand grabbed at my arm, pricking at my skin with its tight hold, dragging me through the sharp wind and to the safety of the other Wolves. InuYasha, my saviour, tossed me towards them, and I grunted as I stumbled forwards, trying to hold my balance so I didn't end up planted on the dirt and stone beneath me.
I caught myself just as the Wolves reached me, surrounding me. For a few moments, my world was the Wolves calling my name, and speaking words I couldn't hear through the roaring of blood in my ears as I was passed through the pack. Everyone had their hands on me, checking me for wounds and other damage, prodding the cuts on my arm, the scrapes along my legs.
My mind was still spinning.
Where had that wind come from? There hadn't been any wind a moment ago, and the air was just as still now, I realised, as I looked around between the faces crowding my vision.
Akari's face came into my confused line of sight. Warm hands cupped my cheeks, and our eyes met. "Dan. Dan? Are you okay?"
"Yeah." I blinked, looking down to the floor then back up to meet his eyes again, mind clearing a little as I was grounded by his solid presence. "What... What was that?"
"The guy in purple has a storm in his hand. It swallowed the Birds. All of them." Akari hugged me close. "It almost swallowed you."
"A storm in his hand?" My arms wrapped around him as well, holding him tight, though I couldn't feel really feel him so much as I wanted through the thick armour he wore. A storm? In his hand? What?
Not that that even mattered. The battle wasn't won until we had that jewel shard in our possession. Thinking about the storm, and whatever other weird phenomenons others had seen, could wait. There was always something wild told in stories after hunts and fights.
I pulled away from Akari, brushing him away when he resisted and held me a little tighter. "Someone help me scrounge some more arrows," I ordered, turning away from my mate.
"Yes ma'am," a few voices chorused. With most of the Bird's bodies gone now, the pickings were a bit slim, but it didn't stop us looking, and it wasn't long before we had a full quiver of arrows between us for me to work with. The other archers would have to step back. I could do more damage with my spiritual-energy-laced arrows than any demon could with regular arrows.
Armed again, I looked up in search of Koga. It was pretty easy to find him. Pretty much as soon as I'd started looking, he was yelling down to us - or rather, InuYasha. "I'm busy! I don't have time for dog training today so I'll let you escape! Go home, puppy! Get out of my face!"
My worry faded away into exasperation. Really? He was trying to fight a war against the leader of the flock of bastard birds that had been killing our people, and instead he was yelling at someone in the middle of a battlefield with petty remarks? What was that idiot thinking?! Scowling, I stepped forwards, reaching for the bow I had picked up during the arrow scrounge. "I'm going to kill him."
Akari came to Koga's aid, holding me back so I couldn't pummel him. "Maybe wait til the battle's done before you try to kill the alpha?" he suggested with a dry grin.
Clearly the Wolves weren't taking this fight so seriously anymore. With most of the opposition gone, there was only really the Bird's leader to deal with. Between us, we could take him down, but no one was lifting a hand to even attempt to go at the Bird. What was with these people?
"Shut up! Dream on, Wolf!" InuYasha yelled back, his lack of urgency just as clear as the Wolves. "You're going to pay for kidnapping Kagome!"
Was that really the issue right now?
"Hey, Dog Breath! Take this chance to run but keep your hands off my woman, got it?"
His woman? "Fuck this." I elbowed Akari out of the way hard and drew back an arrow. It hit the rocks at Koga's feet. The idiot jumped back with a little yelp. "Argue over her after we've killed the fucking Bird, idiot!"
"Dan!" Akari dragged me back into the throngs of Wolves and Ginta wrestled my bow away from me. "You can't go attacking Koga like that. I was joking when I told you to wait to kill him."
"I don't care," I shot back, jerking out of my mates hold again, incensed. "Right now we need to kill that Bird." We needed it gone and we needed that shard. Standing around yelling about a kidnapped girl was not getting the threat of the Birds out of the way. It wasn't getting us that fourth jewel shard. These two idiots were fighting amongst themselves and giving the Bird ample time to recuperate.
Did they not see that or was Koga just so cocky that he didn't care?
My bet was on the latter and I hated it.
"I've claimed her as mine. I'm in love with you, Kagome!"
I was seeing red. "You." I turned a sharp glare to the Wolf that had hold of my bow. Ginta cringed away from me, clutching it together protectively. "Give me that now. I'm going after that bastard bird, then I'm going after that brainless asshole."
"You're far better off with me," Koga carried on above us as the bow was reluctantly passed off to me. "And you know it. It's time to make a clean break and give up that pathetic mutt-face."
Make a clean break? I'd give his head a clean break from his shoulders if he carried on.
Hissing sharply through my teeth, I decided I was just going to ignore the grandiose display of vacuous idiocy. The Wolves parted around my pissed-off form in total silence as I stormed through them.
The leader of the Birds had gone quiet. I could feel him, the shard was close, by the mountain he'd cleared when we first found him. I couldn't see him, though. Still, I carried on towards the mountain, flexing my grip on my bow as Koga and the Wolves laughed at whatever cocky, stupid thing he'd said. Something I was purposefully not listening to. It was easy to ignore over the roaring of blood in my ears and the feeling pumping through my veins. I was on a mission.
Killing Koga for his stupidity wasn't an option, no matter how tempting it seemed.
Scaling the mountain wasn't so easy for me without the Wolf stamina and strength, or Koga's ability to leap like he could, but I did what I could.
"Koga! It's about another fifty feet up," Kagome yelled.
"Fifty feet more?" he yelled back. "'Cause there's nothing at the peak."
Koga was right, I realised. It wasn't at the peak, and it wasn't in the half-caved-in nest. So angry and jostled as I felt after Koga's display and that storm I was caught up in, I hadn't been focussing so hard on the Bird's location. Stupid.
It was above us, but it wasn't on the mountain like I thought it was.
Wrestling to find a steady perch and grab an arrow, I aimed up into the clouds. Where are you?
There!
I let the arrow fly, and it lit up in that same beautiful pink glow as it sailed towards the shadow I could see.
Without having a solid view of the thing, I'd misjudged, and as the Bird swooped, further away than I'd thought it was, the arrow shot off harmlessly past it. Shit. "Koga, brace yourself!"
"Dan, what are you doing?!" Koga yelled instead, already descending the mountain to get to me as I nocked another arrow and aimed.
As the bird changed its course, straight for Koga, the Wolf changed his course as well, heading upwards to the sky again instead of down towards me. That gave me ample chance to strike. I hit the bird at the join of a wing, searing feathers and flesh, but not stopping its flight.
Damn.
This one was in a league of its own against the other Birds. I wasn't winning against this one with a single arrow.
The time between securing that hit and nocking another arrow gave the Bird plenty of time to catch up to Koga. His attempts to save himself were thwarted when the bird caught hold of Koga's jewel-laden arm.
"I could use some help here," I screamed down to the tribe.
Why weren't they doing anything?!
The next arrow caught its wing again, sending the thing off-balance enough for Koga to get a few licks in, shattering teeth and freeing himself.
The pink glow wasn't a good sign, though. While I could feel them strongly no matter where they were or what they were hidden in, I could only see the shards when they weren't embedded in flesh. That could only mean Koga's arm had been mauled and the shard had come free.
Koga was more important than trying to off the bird, or catch that falling shard, though. As he fell, I slid down the rocky outcrops I'd climbed, scratching myself up something fierce along the way, but more determined to get to the injured Wolf and defend him if I needed to than worried about injuring myself. Cuts healed. I'd be fine.
I wasn't the only one making my way towards Koga. InuYasha was ambling towards the Wolf, too, his gaze turned upwards, on the Bird flying towards us, unsteady with its damaged wing.
InuYasha was the first that Koga addressed when we both got close to him, with a grumbled noise, then a yell. "Why are you here?!"
I dropped to my knees beside the Wolf, reaching out to get a good look at the arm Koga was clutching. It was torn up worse than I thought it would be. I could see muscle under the torn skin, and almost heaved when I caught sight of off-white. Bone.
"Shut up and take notes, fleabag. You're about to witness some real power now."
I stretched out Koga's arm, holding in my gags. "We need to get back home. It needs to be cleaned up and covered." There wasn't anything I could do to it here. I'd been so caught up in the battle plans, I hadn't thought to make sure that someone had bought along medicine or bandages for the injured. I'd just wanted to get the battle over with so we could be at peace.
Stupid.
Why was I so stupid?
"What the..." Koga murmured, trying to shake me off as he watched InuYasha attack the Bird.
The air was heavy, and wind whipped around us. My gaze turned over my shoulder as well, trying to see where the sudden wind had come from. Was it that guy's hand again? I clutched a little tighter to Koga, feeling my heart in my throat.
What I witnessed was the Bird being torn apart by the wind - something different than the one I had been caught up in.
I echoed Koga's confused murmur. What was that?
The wind around us died down, and a hand on my shoulder drew me from the awe and confusion that was consuming me.
"Dan." Kagome looked down at me with a wary little smile. She looked exhausted and rattled by the war she'd just been a part of. "Help me get Koga back to the others."
I shook myself off. Yes. That was more important. "Yeah."
Between the two of us, we heaved the injured Wolf up onto his feet and towards a demon cat that crouched to let the three of us onto its back. Kagome sat in front, clutching to the thick fur at the cat's scruff. I sat behind Koga, holding him steady with one hand and clutching to the cat's thick fur myself so I didn't fall.
Kagome and I helped Koga down off the cat together as well when we reached the lower levels where the pack was, lowering him to the ground as InuYasha approached, mouthing off again. "I've singlehandedly gotten rid of the pigeon from Hell. Now there's just this fleabag Wolf to deal with."
"You're not going to be dealing with anything, do you understand? Koga's hurt." Kagome shot back.
"Help him up," I ordered Ginta, who'd been the first to approach us when the cat demon had landed down on the flat ground. "Let's get him back to the cave so I can clean him up and kill him myself."
Koga, not one to let his ego take a hit, grunted and nudged me away, far more interested in his injured ego than his injured body. "Never mind that. This is nothing."
Kagome, sweet as she was, had nothing but gentle words for the Wolf.
I growled at him. "If you so much as look towards a fight right now, you'll really have a fight on your hands and I don't think you can take me right now." As the Wolf tried to stand, I kept a hold of his fur-lined shoulders, actually managing to keep him in place in his weak state, despite his struggle. If he thought he could fight InuYasha right now, he was insane.
"If you think you can try to get me while I'm down, think again," Koga growled, failing once again to push me away. "I'm still able to whip ya."
"He's terrified," I replied dryly, shifting so Koga wasn't leaned on my legs, and rising into a crouch, still holding the idiot in place as he tried to stand. "Ginta."
"Yes ma'am," the younger Wolf replied, helping me to get Koga on his very unsteady feet.
I could hear InuYasha coming towards us, bare feet slapping against stone, and I was tempted to reach for my bow as I surrendered Koga to Hakkaku, who was definitely better suited to help Ginta carry Koga back home than I was.
Kagome took care of InuYasha for me, though, with some sort of weird spell that left him sprawled out on the ground.
I'd never understand the world of magic and spiritual power.
As the boys began to lead Koga away, with most of the Wolves following behind, I turned to join them, more than ready to get home and licky my wounds with the others. My furs were calling to me. Kagome called my name, though, as I reached the pack. I stopped my own escape, turning a look over my shoulder.
"You're like me," she said, her hand coming up to rest on her chest, something of a quirk of hers, I'd noticed. "You can see the shards and you have this power, too. You could come with us. Miroku and Sango have spiritual powers, too. We could help you learn."
An arm rested around my shoulders, and I knew without looking that it was Akari. I reached up to grasp his hand.
"Akari came come, too," Kagome insisted. "We can help you."
Review Corner
TheVulcanNara - Thank you for joining the family! I always love having new people enjoying what I write. There'll be plenty to mourn in the near future, trust me. It won't be pretty for a while. I'm a sucker for some good worldbuilding, and I believe that relationships don't exist in a bubble, so having that outside perspective and making sure that the characters interact outside of each other is super important for a realistic story. I think it'll be a lot more interesting when the packs on the move. That'll be a fun one to write, but we're well away from that happening just yet. So much plot to go through before Kagura gets her nasty fan on the Wolves.
Blu3b3rryT3a - Haha! She tries, at least. When the pack's smaller (many tears) then it'll be slightly easier to herd those cats. For now, though, the poor girl struggles hard. Yeah, she definitely likes to get to the root of her problems quick. It's not always a good thing, but it certainly is in moments like this one, when there's a war to be won. She's really cat-herding in this chapter. You'll have to wait til the next chapter to see about her real first meeting with InuYasha. Thank you! It's good to be back.
Buzzk97 - It's good to be back! I've missed writing and chatting here. The wolves are her family now. She can't let anyone hurt her family and get away with it. Especially not our favourite mutt-face. Foreshadowing? Here? Me? Well it has been known to happen, but... It's safe to say Akari makes it through the battle. He's safe for now.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter!