Dying to Live
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.
Note: Hi, dear readers! Squeezing in a cheeky quick update for you all today - hope you enjoy. I've been looking forward to writing this chapter too based on who we get to catch up with!
Will look to do some review responses next time since it's been a little minute since I've done them - still, hugs for now for my faithful reviewers and thanks for your patience! Also, big thanks to everyone for your loyal readership as well. Please leave a review if you think of it, but otherwise, I see you're there reading through the chapters, and it still means so much! Peace ~ Origamikungfu.
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Spring had also started to come to the central foothills of the part of the archipelago that would one day become modern Honshu. While nature reveled in the early turning of the season much like Rin and Sesshomaru starting to energetically enjoy their training sessions, elsewhere the season did nothing to uplift the spirits of a certain small demon that found himself deep in the foothills' heavily forested region.
More beleaguered possibly than ever before in his life - which was saying something as it had been a fairly long life by demonic standards for a youkai of his particular physical stature - Jaken dragged himself along behind "Lord" Taikobara.
With Taikobara's favorite associates, Lefty and Righty, Jaken's large bellied master, had taken to traveling the day before. Never terribly concerned with the movements of ogres in the past, Jaken had been shocked to awaken with a shuffling kick from one of the brute's big toes in the morning prior.
The imp quickly learned that they would be leaving the high caves they had been inhabiting. It became clear over the day that like other creatures, the ogres would resume a more rigorous hunting and scouting schedule across more fertile lands. In the warming weather, they would come down out of the mountains after a season of relative hibernation.
And hunt they did, and with a fervor that thoroughly betrayed all notions that the possums which Jaken had presented them with at all hours of the day, every day, through the winter could even begin to satisfy their appetites.
While Jaken could normally just barely keep up with the pace of their steps through the forested wilds and thickets, the first time a hunt commenced had proven particularly heart attack inducing to the imp. He learned fast that hunts started frequently and without warning, the ogres' senses for prey in the area possibly shared between them; or perhaps Righty and Lefty were so apt to do as Taikobara did that no communication was needed between them to go into a chase.
Jaken couldn't be sure. Still, their chase easily sent up such a racket through the surrounding wilderness, that birds could be heard launching into the sky in terrified flight for many paces out all around. Jaken, if found in the wrong spot at the wrong time could be trampled instantly.
Naturally, the imp dropped down and thanked the spirits for his life that he had remained behind them when for the first time on their travels, the three ogres took off in an unexplained stampede that felled smaller trees with which they clashed.
Having said his prayers, he then hurried to catch up with them. As he went, he promised himself never to follow the ogres too closely and to always stay behind them from that point forward.
Eventually, he reconnected with them after that first hunt when he found them nauseatingly devouring the fresh, steaming flesh of a pair of adolescent bears.
However, in spite of all of this, Jaken had decided that staying with this horrible crew of demons was still in his best interest. By nightfall, still of their first day out on the move, the ogres had slowed to communicate for the first time at length that day, just as the sun was setting.
Long shadows surrounded them on the forested trail. Jaken hung back some paces away, observing them, as they talked dumbly about where to bed down for the night. They had used the fair weather in the day to fill their stomachs, so night travel did not seem of interest.
Distracted with learning what they would decide and deciphering their ragged half-speech, Jaken did not even see the huge, rabid racoon dog demon dart out of the shadows before it closed its nasty maw on his brown overclothes.
His impish scream must have been three times as loud as a result, as the creature made to disappear back into the dark-green shadows with him as its catch. The effort quickly proved futile though as a fist crashed down from above like a boulder falling from the sky.
"Wutzit doin wi' Ol' Taikobara's vessel!" Lefty roared, as the raccoon dog demon fell unconscious, never even a match for a single blow from the ogre. Jaken later wondered if the idiotic beast even noticed how close the ogres were over its apparent hunger for his little imp-scaled bones and flesh.
Taikobara lumbered over. Looking down at the collapsed raccoon dog demon, the ogre grunted from beside his companions, "Ye stop't it. It think'd it wuld have a snack?" A moment later raucous laughter exploded from all three ogres.
Then, they hungrily fell upon the creature's body.
Now, Jaken did recall that his Lord Sesshomaru had a certain flair for his own brand of viciousness. However, over the past months, the imp had had time to reflect.
He realized that Sesshomaru had also always warned Jaken when something was about to happen, whether by terse order, a not-so-nice kick out of the way, or merely leaving him behind at the blink of an eye. Often Jaken would later catch up, only to find what was at that point the indistinct aftermath of Sesshomaru's violence. Getting sidelined only to show up after Sesshomaru's engagements were over had seemed rude and degrading for the centuries that Jaken had experienced it, and later on, he was most commonly just left somewhere behind with Rin and Ah-Un…
Yet now, Jaken understood that no real, permanent harm had ever come to him in any of those cases. Additionally, he had also been spared from being a front row witness to many a grisly act by his lord.
As a result, Jaken was forced to admit it: he was not really that well-acquainted with the sheer gruesomeness that constituted more or less a revelry for other demon life.
So though his hat still sat battered and askew on his head and the terror of nearly being swept away and devoured had not quite worn off, Jaken's small stomach turned, as the ogres tore his attacker limb-from-limb.
Too scared to stray far, he tried to mentally block out the excited sounds of their feasting. When there was nothing left of the raccoon dog, he followed them as quickly as his still-shaky legs would take him until they reached a small clearing.
There, the three ogres settled down in the grass. When Lefty demanded their ration of fresh rodents, Jaken went out and returned faster than ever with his bag full of scorched creatures.
Fortunately, having eaten all day, the ogres did not send him out again. Relieved and flagging from the stress of the day, Jaken curled up just out of his brutish master's sight but close enough to be within his immediate range.
The imp embraced a fretful rest, again thanking his stars that the ogres had saved him. Still, the sleep he fell into was a bitter one.
He drifted off feeling forlorn. No matter how Jaken looked at it, it appeared that staying with Taikobara's group was his best option.
Even if he couldn't be sure they would save him again…
Morning came too soon, the sun rising over Jaken's tiny, stiff body, where he laid tightly-curled around the Nintoujou staff. He had not rested well, and so he delayed cracking his eyes open to look into the gaping expression of the Old Woman, whose face was toward him on the staff. Instead, he cuddled in close to it, as the first rays of sun cracked over the horizon.
The staff could be damned. Even if it didn't like Jaken's close proximity, it hadn't burned him yet, so the little imp stayed clutching the staff like that even, as a short while later, motion came from elsewhere in the camp.
A loud belch broke over the camp, as one of the ogres stirred. A wet streaming sound that went on for some minutes told Jaken without even looking that another was letting go his first great piss of the day.
The imp had come to know their morning routine well. He tried to cling to sleep, but knowing what was coming next, he still heard them in his half-sleep.
"Ye slep?" Righty grunted somewhere from behind.
"Yea, I slep," Lefty replied, in his usual broken way, receiving a grunt from Righty.
Their conversation having reached its technical extent between the two ogres, Jaken listened, as more shuffling ensued.
The imp wished he could sleep more. After the pace of the day before, even after sleeping, he wondered how he could survive another day of it.
Perhaps, his weakened will was to blame but nod back off somehow Jaken did.
Sleep reclaimed him like a sweet embrace, as his body finally relaxed.
Oh why could he have not found this sleeping position at any time during the night prior? His subconsciousness bemoaned it.
Indeed, those short moments of morning slumber had at last been deep for Jaken.
Therefore, when the ear shattering blast broke over the ogres' camp in the small clearing, the imp literally flew several inches skyward, torn from his sleep in reactive terror.
Jaken's body quaked with the adrenaline of sudden wakefulness. His gaze flew around, as at last he found where the ogres were already in battle stance.
Clubs in their meaty hands, they growled and faced the treeline at the edge of clearing.
Splitting several weak young trees where it stood, a black Inu Dai-youkai raised its head and released a single, snarling roar.
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Inukimi rolled her eyes and stretched her neck. Yet, another li of drab rural land rolled by underneath her, while she rode atop her son's two-headed, flying pet dragon. Fortunately, spring had started to creep over the land in the past days. The subtle change in the scenery into more colorful, pastel hues relieved some small amount of the eye strain the boringness of the view had been giving her.
Still, it hardly changed the demoness' mood in any meaningful way.
Days had passed, and she did not have any real clues to add to the ones she had gotten from Sesshomaru himself about apprehending his attacker.
Even as the demoness thought of it, being alone except for her mount, she allowed herself a deep sigh. It was quite unlike herself to be so thwarted. She generally accomplished things swiftly once setting her mind to it, but this task simply was not simple.
Did she not have ears listening everywhere? And yet, not to hear of a creature of a scale to bring Sesshomaru to the brink of death… It had slowly begun to shake her faith in her promise to her son that she would hunt down those responsible.
Worse still, having heard nothing from her usual informants - though Inukimi would never admit it to another - she did not have another clear clue where to start.
More land rolled on beneath her, as she refused to give into agitated thoughts. Still, she knew full and well that she had an abundance of time on her side but her son no longer had the same luxury. Added to that, though, she also prided herself on setting herself apart from others of her kind that took their long lives for granted and generally failed to accomplish much of real meaning at all. That meant it was an important personal tenant that Inukimi felt she would also be remiss to let slide.
As a large stretch of forested land passed into sight, she had just begun to think that perhaps things might be solved by taking a few days' break to go back to her own grand estate. In Inukimi's book and for the record, intelligent beings knew that rumors and information were far easier to pick up hosting polite social engagements than running in the wilds.
That was how the demoness had been mentally planning a guest list to maximize her intel gathering on the latest diverse happenings in their world, when a thin, low-hanging frosty cloud slipped past her.
A gust of cold air rushed through following the white, wisps of frosty moisture, catching the dog demoness' attention. Focusing, Inukimi gripped her gleaming white pelt around herself.
Abruptly, the charcoaled tang of burnt flesh that carried on the wind caused the Inu Dai-youkai's nose to scrunch up.
Her gaze searched the landscape below for the source.
The end of the extensive thicket of forest trees approached fast within their flight path.
Thereafter, a clearing opened up.
Inukimi leaned forward to watch with sharp eyes. In the center of the opening sat a veritable crater in the earth. The ground had been stripped of grass and deeply indented by an apparent spike of power that left the earth now parched as baked clay.
What it had been precisely, Inukimi could no longer tell as she urged Ah-Un to circle back down toward the earth. As they descended, wisps of her platinum hair threatened to escape the single heavy plait that had hung past her left shoulder. However, Inukimi paid it no mind - her hairdresser truly was second to none, and indeed her powerfully styled coif held its effortless-seeming chic form all the way down.
Soon, Inukimi could feel the pall of a nearly dissipated youki signature hanging in the area. It lingered, barely more than a shadow now, but she didn't recognize whose it was.
However, other more grotesque signs marked the scene as still fairly fresh, as Inukimi dismounted at the apparent edge of the violence.
The stink of burnt flesh overwhelmed her senses where she walked now. Unsurprisingly, out of the corner of her eye, the demoness immediately caught sight of three unusually large crows, huddling fretfully in the shade of the trees.
Having just finished beating their dark, ratty wings, the ugly things held very still. Boldly, they watched her anxiously with their tiny, glassy unblinking bird eyes. She realized she must have startled them off their cautious approach of the pieces of carcass she now observed strewn about the naked dirt.
In her humanoid form, Inukimi sniffed with her nose raised derisively in the birds' direction. The dumb beasts would be lucky; she wouldn't challenge them for their meal – if they stayed put while she surveyed the curious looking area.
Curious indeed, she thought to herself, once again studying the crater to her side. The depression was large, being as big as the base of three columns from the Western Sky Palace set together.
Inukimi decided to take a brief investigative turn about the site. Wearing a kimono of soft, pale lilac, the demoness almost glowed against the backdrop of flat, stripped dirt flecked with dried blood. An obi in a shade of light silver stitched with a motif of phoenixes to match the band of silver that nestled at the crown of her intricately braided white tresses added to her strangely beatific look, while she stepped delicately about the wreckage in her richly lacquered platform geta.
Her sensitive nose easily recognized that the decimated flesh had been of ogres. Whatever had attacked them had burned the victims to pieces with something other than fire and possibly eaten most of them, given the sparse amounts of what was left…
A particularly gross pile of the dead ogre parts laid together with a pile of broken up tree branches. Beside it sat an indistinct ashen heap, only the sharp carbon scent of which told Inukimi it had likely been a camp fire pit that had been ravaged and scattered.
Trying to decide what to make of it together with the odd crater, the demoness stopped again beside the disgusting cluster lying on the ground beside the ruined fire pit. To her side she heard Ah-Un release a huffing snort from the distance where it stood. Glancing at it, she found the dragon was looking in her direction with great interest.
Suddenly looking back, she focused on the nasty mess before her. Her ears perked to a subtle sound she had not expected: faint but distinctly alive, a tiny heartbeat fluttered within reach of her supernatural hearing.
Inukimi's eyes narrowed, as she glared at the pile where it was coming from.
What thing could have possibly lived through such a merciless attack?
Feeling that it was certainly worth finding out, she stepped closer, the lacquer coating of her shoes glinting in the sun. Reaching with one long fingered hand tipped with immaculately manicured, red painted claws, she pushed back her silk sleeve.
Then with no further ado, she drove her hand into the midst of mangled flesh and wood.
A moment later there it was: warm and slow, the steady beat of a pulse in her hand.
In a single tug, she pulled up on the small body. A layer of gross refuse fell to the ground, as she brought the only surviving thing out into the open.
Despite being unconscious as it was, and with its own natural scent obliterated by the filthy blood and guts of others clinging to it, Inukimi still recognized the small creature in an instant.
"Little demon," she spoke. The limp body of her son's puny, impish peon dangled at arm's length in front of her.