Unseelie # 13
"Here, I found our red-haired vampire."
Angel's library was well stocked with research books. Willow, reading by the light of one of the last remaining flashlights, had found a page describing the vampire that had been leading the demon horde. She turned the book around and showed Kagome.
Kagome squinted at it. "Hitokiri Battousai ... Himura Kenshin ... he's a vampire?"
"You know of him?"
"Schoolchildren learn of him." Kagome shrugged to hide the fact that she was thoroughly disconcerted. "He's a hero from the revolution. He was a peasant boy, sold to slavers, later raised by a samurai and taught an arcane form of swordsmanship. He became an assassin during the Bakufu in the late 1800's. Reportedly, he was a brilliant swordsmen -- one of the best ever. He was never defeated in a fight, though he was badly injured several times. He took a vow to never kill again after the revolution; by all accounts, he kept his vow. Later, one of his enemies killed his entire family -- his wife and child -- and all his friends. They never found his body. Legend has it that he killed himself in shame because he could not protect them -- suicide's a bit more culturally acceptable in Japan, so this is seen as romantic, I guess."
She looked up as awful realization struck. Willow met her eyes over the top of the book. Kagome said softly, without looking at the data in the book, because she knew this answer: "He was the one who killed them, wasn't he?"
Spike, who was seated in a chair with his feet propped up on the table and another book in his lap, commented, "Typical story. Newly fledged vampire eats family. I killed m'mum. Well, I turned m'mum and then she tried to boff me, so I had to off her."
"Eww." Kagome frowned at Spike. Just when she forgot he wasn't human, he would say something to remind her that -- soul or not -- he was a vampire. "I so didn't need to know that."
"Chibi, what else does the book say about this hitokiri?" Spike changed the subject. She didn't miss the sudden flash of -- what, regret? -- in his blue eyes.
She looked down at it. The book was strictly factual, itemizing his known significant kills -- there was a Slayer among them -- and associates of his. "He's known for -- ugg, I hate vampires -- present company excluded -- beating his victims nearly to death with the dull side of a sword before he eats them."
"He's a sadistic monster." This came from Kavan, who had been silently standing in the shadows until now. "He's the reason I'm the heir to my father's throne and not the second son. He's Torin's general ... he killed my brother, and sent us the parts back piece by piece in jars of alcohol. He's Torin's dog, his assassin, his right hand man, his most loyal officer. His enforcer."
"Pfft. Vampires aren't loyal." That came from Spike. "Not unless something's in it for him."
"You were," Angel pointed out, with a smirk.
"Not to you."
"To her." Angel meant Buffy, clearly.
"That was love. That was something different. Unless Himura is gay, I doubt he's loyal to Torin so much as serving Torin out of complete self interest." Spike sounded weirdly defensive. "What's in it for him?"
Kavan suggested, with a snort, "A master who encourages him to be a sadistic bastard, and promises him world domination?"
"Bingo," Spike agreed with Kavan's opinion.
"And Torin gets a ruthless killer who rules over his men with a rather effectively cruel hand." Kavan shrugged. "It works for both of them, likely. Torin doesn't have to deal with the day-to-day headaches of managing a demon army. The hitokiri gets to ride Torin's coattails to victory, if he wins."
"Well, he's not going to win," Willow said, absently.
Kavan sighed. "Why, because the bad guys never do? I'd observe we're stuck inside a barrier and you've lost your leader and your most powerful fighter ..."
Sesshoumaru, very delicately, cleared his throat.
Kavan glanced at the youkai lord, but didn't correct his statement. And Kagome agreed with that; Sesshoumaru was certainly capable of racking up the hatch marks in a fight, but Inuyasha held nothing back. Sesshoumaru's dignity got in the way of his hit count sometimes. Though she wasn't about say that to the man.
Kavan concluded, after a moment of pregant silence, "... and Gods only know what they're going to throw at us next."
Spike smiled, a nasty smile that said he was enjoying the thought of murder and mayhem among the enemy. "For all that, another way to look at it is that Rover's gotten beyond that bloody barrier."
"And is probably mauling the bad guys into little bitty bits of hamburger right about now. Anything Inuyasha can get his claws on, he can kill," Kagome said, with confidence. "Pulling him through the barrier was a bad miscalculation on their part. I figure he'll show up any minute to let us out."
--
The hitokiri was quiet and compliant as they climbed the stairs to the tower room. Out the narrow tower windows, Buffy saw a devastated and alien land -- one clearly at war. There were craters, and pits, and trenches; long rows of coiled razor wire; men (or men-like things) huddled around camp fires. Cries drifted up through the glassless arrow slots from the battlefield below -- moans of pain, lusty grunts, cries of rage, sobbing.
Halfway up the tower, they passed a nearly dead woman on the stairs. She wasn't human, but Buffy thought she might have been elven rather than a true demon -- she couldn't begin to guess if she was Sidhe or Unseelie. She moved feebly.
"Huh." The vampire stepped around the near-corpse. In a casual tone of voice certainly calculated to provoke, he said, "I guess Torin is done with her. I thought she'd last longer; daoine sidhe are generally tougher than that."
Buffy considered making the hitokiri's death painful herself, nevermind Torin. Daoine sidhe were the good guys; they were Lord Kavan's people.
Inuyasha had his hands full with the vampire. He gave Buffy a significant look, then glanced down at the wounded woman again -- she was shocked at the concern in his eyes for her. Buffy, without a word, and not actually needing Inuyasha's suggestion, knelt beside her. The woman was covered in blood, in ways that made Buffy coldly angry. And as Buffy rolled her over, she stopped breathing.
Inuyasha shuddered. She saw that out of the corner of her eye; his expression was terribly dismayed.
"Pity." The vampire said, "I don't suppose you'd let me eat her. You interrupted my dinner ... such a waste to let all that blood congeal."
Buffy rounded on him and before Inuyasha could react, she let fly with a furious punch. The vampire rocked backwards against Inuyasha's chest.
He licked at blood from his split lip. "Oh, Buffy-dono, do it again," he purred. "I like it when women hit me. It turns me on."
She pulled her other hand back with the broken table leg in it. "Bet you'd like it if I put a stake through your heart, too."
Inuyasha snapped, "Damnit, Buffy, he's just trying to provoke you."
"Well, he's succeeding." She balled her fist and lowered the stake, and turned back to climbing the stairs. She noted now that the dark stone floor had darker spatters of blood and other bodily fluids. People had died up here, and she was willing to assume some of them were good guys.
At the top of the tower, there was, as the hitokiri had said, a bedroom -- with more more gloom-on-gloomy decor. Plus there were instruments of torture scattered around the room, where one would ordinarily expect to find loveseats and chairs and perhaps a vanity or desk. In one of them, there was a freshly dead body still strung up from hooks. It wasn't human.
"Torin likes to sleep surrounded by the moans of his enemies. He says it's sweet music," the vampire offered helpfully.
"Where's my sword?" Inuyasha demanded.
"Is that it?" Buffy spotted the blade first.
There were gleaming swords all over the walls, hanging on racks. Against the excess of jewels and shiny steel, Tessaiga was small and dull and worn. Still, Torin apparently knew what it was, because he'd put it with the other, shinier, magic blades.
"Would you get it?" Inuyasha clearly wasn't about to let go of his grip on the hitokiri or let the man get too close to any possible weapons. One fight had taught him caution.
Buffy snagged it off the wall. The hilt felt warm in her hands, and snug, and well balanced. This sword was clearly magical; she knew from the moment she touched it. It pulsed in her grip, and she got a feeling of warm greetings from it.
"It likes you," Inuyasha sounded nonplussed. He'd clearly sensed the sword's reaction from across the room. Then he nodded suddenly. "Because Slayers are part demon. That's why. It will defend humans, but it's designed to be wielded by someone who's both human and demon. You apparently qualify."
"Kagome could handle it then, too," Buffy pointed out.
Inuyasha nodded. "We've never tried. It's protected her in the past. But she doesn't need Tessaiga to kick ass."
Buffy handed him the sword after he had a solid grip on the vampire's wrists with his left hand. He shoved the sword into the scabbard, then absently scratched at the stitches on his arm -- the cut itself was entirely healed but nobody had thought to take the time to pull the stitches out. They had all been a little bit distracted.
When the vampire moved, it was so suddenly that she almost didn't register the motion. One moment Inuyasha had a grip on the vampire's wrists -- and the next, the creature was across the room, and the belt was gone from his wrists. Inuyasha, shocked, stared at shredded bits of leather in his hands. Apparently, the vampire had yanked loose in such a way as to make Inuyasha's deadly sharp claws rip through the belt.
"Fuck." Inuyasha's sword flared to life in his hands, car-bumper large and a whole heck of a lot more impressive.
The vampire casually opened a dresser drawer behind him with one hand. And then he made a flicking motion with one hand. A silvery object flew through the air and struck Inuyasha in the chest.
Inuyasha screamed in a tone of voice Buffy had never expected to hear from the hanyou. He collapsed, dropping the sword, as a spell arced and sizzled around him. Tessaiga went dormant in a flash.
The vampire pushed the drawer shut with his hip and said casually, "The jewelry on my wrist? Is the master control. Torin wouldn't kill me for one screw-up -- I'm far too useful to him. We've worked together for decades. He doesn't break his best men because it's wasteful."
Inuyasha howled and writhed. A silvery bracelet appeared around his arm.
Inuyasha finally quit screaming and went limp. She thought he might have passed out until he took a deep, shuddering breath.
The vampire said, "You can't leave this room; it's spelled to contain demons. You will experience pain for fifteen minutes every fifteen minutes until you kill the Slayer. You will not die of this pain; the setting is not high enough. But I assure you, it will be the worst agony of your life. Enough to drive you insane within moments."
Inuyasha lifted his head up. "I ... will not ... kill her."
"We'll see."
The vampire dodged Buffy's attempt to stake him with more of that impossible grace, and darted out the door. Buffy sensed the static energy of a magical barrier and didn't try to follow. Inuyasha, however, lunged after him -- and was repelled back with a sizzling explosion of power. He stumbled to his knees and then stared up at Buffy. "I won't do it. Buffy, I swear to you, I won't. I'll die f..."
He screamed, "Fuuuuuuuuuuck!"
It was the sort of scream that would turn your hair grey. He screamed and he arched his back and he fell over sideways and started kicking. He vomited. And he shouted his girlfriend's name. "Kagome, Kagome help me! Kagome! Kagome! Kagome!"
He cried for her, over and over, begging the absent Kagome to come and stop his suffering. Buffy had never expected that macho Inuyasha would so quickly plead for Kagome's help. They were so very close to each other. The trust, and love, and respect between them -- she'd never had a relationship like that, not even with Angel. Not to the degree those two had.
Stripes appeared on his face, alarming her. His eyes turned red. He'd said to stay out of his way if he turned demon -- how could she do that here, in a tower room where they had been trapped?
And he continued to scream Kagome's name -- but now he scrambled to his feet and dove off into a corner of the room. She could see veins standing out on his arms, and blood had begun to run freely from his mouth. Had he bitten his tongue?
She realized calling for Kagome wasn't completely pointless; if she could come there was a decent chance the miko would do something to nullify the bracelet's spell. Unfortunately, she wasn't here. And Inuyasha wasn't quite coherent enough to realize that.
He screamed until his voice gave out, and then he cowered shamelessly, shivering and shaking. She was utterly unsure of what to do. Buffy had never thought Inuyasha could be pushed into mindless animalistic sobbing by simple pain.
She wondered if she should kill him.
If so, how? Even incapacitated, that would be difficult. A man whose skin could turn steel blades with nothing worse than a welt couldn't exactly be staked to death. Perhaps one of the magic weapons on the wall could do it, but which one?
He was suffering. He was suffering so very much. Perhaps it would be merciful to end it for him now.
Would he turn on her? Would he break?
She feared he would.
But she couldn't bring herself to move.
Finally, he collapsed with a whimper of utter relief as this round of pain ended. She approached him warily, wondering if he'd take the cessation of the spell as a chance to kill her -- to avoid another round. It would be simple for him to lunge at her and snap her neck, or eviscerate her with one savage swipe of his hands. But instead of turning on her and attacking he just lay there, curled into a ball, and then he started rocking back and forth.
Warily, she called his name: "Inuyasha."
No response.
She touched his shoulder, expecting him to flinch or to snarl and turn on her. However, to her surprise, at her touch he relaxed. His skin was clammy, sweaty, and she could feel that he was quivering. But when she squeezed his shoulder a bit more firmly, he looked up at her with enormous golden eyes, and then slowly, toppled over against her. She found she had an armful of hanyou -- Inuyasha crawled into her lap, like a very small boy grown tall, and curled up and shook and just whimpered for several minutes. His dignity, his bravado, his machismo -- she realized they were all a front. Now, he was just terrified and vulnerable and far too shaken to hide it.
"Shhh. We'll get you back to Kagome," she promised.
"I ... all I can think about ... the pain. And stopping the pain. My demon wants to do it. To kill you." His voice was hoarse; he could barely talk. "I won't, I refuse, but ... it would be so easy to lose myself ..."
"You won't." Somehow, she knew this.
"I ..." he had his face buried in her shoulder. He took a deep and shaken breath that rattled down his ravaged throat. "The demon in me hates you. The demon in me has wanted to kill you for a long time. I ... Buffy, I'm letting it go."
"What?"
"The demon is me, and I am the demon and we're both pissed at you. I'm fucking letting it go. I forgive you." Golden eyes met her. Those eyes were soft, and gentle, and somehow very wise. And brimming with completely unexpected tears. "I forgive you. For everything. For Amelia. For hurting me. For pushing me into killing those little girls. You were trying to fight on the side of good. You made mistakes. I forgive you for those mistakes. Your destiny is to save the world and what you did to us was an accident and I have to accept that."
Tears prickled at her eyes. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders tighter -- like she would have with Xander, or Willow, or any of her other friends, if they'd been hurting this much, physically and emotionally. "I don't deserve it."
"If I don't let it go right now," he said, "I will turn youkai and then I will kill you. I won't be able to stop myself. Do you understand?"
"Yeah." She felt humbled. In a choice between killing her and forgiving her, he was committing to forgiveness. She was ashamed, unsure if she would have made the same choice. She never would have expected Inuyasha to let the past go -- or that he would have the insight into his own mind to know what he needed to do.
He buried his face in her shoulder again and hugged her close. "There is nothing I can say that will bring your people back, but I so sorry for what happened. To my wife, to me, to the girls, to you."
"Inuyasha," she started to promise him, "if we get out of this alive, I'll ..." she trailed off, and then said simply, "if we get out of this, I think we'll be friends."
He looked up at her again, and a shy smile touched his lips. She'd never expected to see such genuine feeling in reaction to her simple words. Then he warned, "You'd better move back. I think it's been about fifteen ..."
He was accurate with his estimate of the time that had passed. He groaned and arched his back and thrashed, trying to shove away from her. But she didn't let go. Instead, she held on tighter, even as his features stretched and twisted into demon form, and even as he clenched his clawed hands around her arms and left bleeding scratches. He didn't quite go youkai, but she knew the pain was driving him in that direction.
"Kagome ..." he whimpered, over and over, but he didn't scream now. He just quivered and trembled and shook. There was no danger, she didn't think; no risk that he'd kill her now even to stop unimaginable pain. He would die, first.
Yes. They would be friends. How could they not be, after this?
When it was over, he sat up, and wiped his eyes, and said, "Sorry to lose control."
"It's allowed."
A crooked smile touched his lips, which were flecked with blood. He'd definitely bitten himself. "I thought I knew pain before. Wow. That's something else."
He tried to claw the bracelet off his wrist. The result was an arcing snap of electricity that she knocked him several feet through the air. Apparently, the bracelet couldn't easily be removed.
He swore, and scrambled to his feet, and shook his zapped hand, then stuffed his fingers in his mouth.
"We need to get out of here." She walked to the open doorway. When she got within a few feet of the exit, there was a mild shock and a feeling of resistance. She spotted a rune on the facing wall; better part of half of a lifetime spent slaying had taught her a few things. That was demon calligraphy for, Keep the demons in.
Willow might be the team's Research Goddess, but Buffy wasn't entirely clueless. She'd seen the same markings on a few thousand rooms, cells, objects, and magical knickknacks meant to contain demons. It was working on her because she was a Slayer -- and it was working much stronger on Inuyasha because he was a lot closer to demonkind that she was.
"Can you break a hole in the wall?"
He shook his head. "I think it's spelled all the way around. Torin is smarter than his minions."
"Ceiling? Floor?"
"No."
He stared at the rune for a minute, over her shoulder. He, too, clearly recognized what it was. Even just forty-five minutes ago, she'd have flinched away from his nearness and been wary of his deadly claws. Now, his presence was comforting -- she had a powerful ally on her side right now, one she'd determined she could trust to the bitter end.
Inuyasha grabbed a magic sword at random off the wall, and threw it like a spear at the rune. The sword exploded when it hit the magical force field, leaving a sword-shaped purple after image on her retinas, and a spatter of molten metal that fortunately missed both of them.
"I am not going to try to go through that with Tessaiga," he said, with feeling.
She remembered belatedly that his sword was legendary for its ability to cut through barriers. "Damn."
Inuyasha met her stunned look with a sour expression. "Tessaiga's strong, but it's not unbreakable. I've had it five centuries and I don't want to destroy it just yet."
"There has to be another way out."
"Oh, sure. We just need a human. Someone fully human could walk through that doorway without even knowing there was a ward there." Inuyasha threw a chair at the barrier. The chair flew through it, and hit the rune, but did no damage -- it was etched into the stone. "Unfortunately, I don't even know if this world has a moon, much less when the next new one is."
She regarded him thoughtfully. "You can only go human during the full moon?"
"Or when someone purifies me. Right. But you're not a miko."
"But you can go demon voluntarily."
He glanced at her, then picked up an entire rack -- the kind you stretched people on until they were torn apart -- and threw it out the door. It made a satisfying crash against the wall, but didn't damage the rune. The rack, in a noisy jangle of metal and a crunch of breaking wood bits, tumbled down the stairs.
Then, patiently, he said, "If I'm provoked enough, and in a fighting rage, I can become fully youkai, yes."
"Why can't you become fully human?"
He scratched his jaw. "I dunno. I've never tried it."
"In seven hundred years, you've never tried to become fully human?"
He snorted. "There's a story I'll tell you some other day, about how Kagome and I met. But no, not the way you mean. I've never tried."
"Why not?"
"Because chicks dig the puppy ears." His answer was flippant, his tone amused despite their circumstances. He looked around the room, clearly trying to find something else heavy to throw.
"Be serious for a moment. Why haven't you tried?"
"Keh. Because I'm vulnerable as a human, and I cannot easily turn back." This was the truth, she recognized. "It takes several hours -- or a sunrise -- to turn me back to human. As a demon, I have some natural magic that helps with the transformation from hanyou to youkai and back. But when I am human, I am truly human -- more human than a Slayer. I have no innate powers."
He paused. "Also, I like being a hanyou. Why would I want to be human? I'm happy being who I am."
Which was also the truth. She'd known demons who were ashamed or dissastisfied with their natures -- Spike and Angel came to mind; she knew the two of them would do almost anything to be human. Inuyasha wasn't like that. Inuyasha liked being a frighteningly powerful half-demon with attitude and a very human soul. Still, she had to try to convince him this might work. "Okay, fine. But a human could walk through that door and scratch the damn rune off the wall."
He regarded her thoughtfully. "You're right. But I don't know how to turn myself human."
"Well, how do you turn youkai?"
"I get really mad and the demon comes out to play. Or enough pain will do it ..."
And at that instant, the bracelet activated and he collapsed to the floor, curled up, and started shaking. She knelt beside him, wanting to help. His long white hair pooled around him -- when she put her arms around his shoulders, it was thick and silken against her hands. He wasn't saying a word now; but the sudden acrid scent of urine told her just how very bad it was. He tears ran freely down his cheeks and he was grinding his teeth together, and the stripes were back on his cheeks.
"Get away from me!" he said, suddenly. "I could hurt you!"
"No." She trusted him. She didn't know why, but she did. He wouldn't turn on her.
He grabbed her tighter, suddenly, not to rend her apart, but as a drowning man might grab a life preserver. "Don't, then. Stay here. Don't go. Don't go. Don't go away. I'll lose my mind. I'll lose it. I'll lost it fucking lost fucking lost fucking lost."
"Inuyasha, listen to my voice." She stroked his hair. "Listen to me. Focus on me. You can get through this. It's just a few minutes longer ..."
He threw up -- turning his head so he'd miss her, but splashed her leg anyway. Well, she was already wearing worse. They both needed a bath, after all the ick they'd been exposed to today. Possibly one with bleach in the bath water. She didn't think she'd ever be clean again.
She didn't let go of him and she kept talking. If she shoved him away, she was afraid he'd think she was abandoning him or was afraid of him. He continued to heave, and she pulled his hair back even as her own stomach churned in response.
Finally, he slumped against her in boneless relief as the pain ended. Softly, his voice now thoroughly ravaged by screaming, he whispered, "Thank you."
"Don't mention it."
He coughed and spat bloody phlegm and didn't say anything else.
After a moment, she asked, "When you turn human ... how are you different?"
"I'm less angry." He met her eyes, with a bit of chagrin in his expression. "Calmer. Less likely to fly off the handle. Kagome says I'm a sweetheart when I'm human. The demon gives me an edge. Mind, I like the edge and I'm not putting myself down."
"So it's an emotional difference."
"Mostly." He was still scowling.
"So if strong emotions make you a demon -- would warm-fuzzy emotions make you turn human?"
"What are you going to do, sing Kumbaya at me?" He shot her a deadly glare. He apparently was less than thrilled by this whole line of discussion.
"Inuyasha, it may be our only chance for getting out of here."
He exhaled a deep, ragged breath. "Buffy, I am vulnerable as a human."
"I'll protect you."
"That," Inuyasha said sourly, "is generally my line."
"That's because you are a medieval bastard who was born a couple of centuries before women's lib." She reached out and shoved his shoulder a bit, a friendly, teasing gesture that came automatically. "You can do this. And you can trust me, too. I will protect you."
"I'm worried about Kagome," he said, finally, and slowly. "I can't protect her if I'm here. We need to get out of here. By the time we get back to the hotel, I might be demon again."
He would do it not for himself -- or for herself, Buffy realized -- but he would become human for the woman he loved more than anything else in the world. He would do it for the woman whose name he screamed in the throes of agony, for the woman who had promised to marry him; for the woman who'd crossed both centuries of time and entire continents to be by his side. The two of them were a team -- two halves of a whole.
She got that, now. And she suddenly felt ashamed that she had tried to recruit Kagome only, resisting Inuyasha's presence. Had Kagome accepted her request, Inuyasha would have been frantic with worry. And she had a suspicion that Kagome would have been lost without him.
I'll take care of him for you, Kagome, she silently vowed. I'll get him back to you safe and sound.
She suggested quietly, "You let go of the anger you felt towards me. Perhaps if you let go of everything else ..."
He was an angry man. She recognized that; nobody really disputed it. He had a hot temper and old issues and there was fury at the world lurking just below surface of his consciousness.
"The problem is, I have to mean it." Inuyasha said, then shook his head. "And letting go of the anger, that's not the answer. Humans get mad all the time."
He sat crosslegged, after pulling Tessaiga into his lap. He stroked the naked blade with one clawed hand -- the one that had been so badly burned, and was now nearly healed. His white hair, streaked and matted with blood and worse, tumbled in a tangled mess around his face when he bowed his head over the magic sword.
And suddenly ... after two or three minutes of Inuyasha sitting in silence and doing nothing visible ... his features shifted.
She'd seen him human before, of course, but still, it was a shock. His eyes were brown now, and his hair turned glossy black before her eyes. He blinked at her. Hoarsely, he whispered, "It worked."
"How?"
"I ... youkai don't trust, Buffy. They don't allow themselves to be vulnerable. They don't love -- not in the way that humans love. They do not attach to people in the way that humans attach. They don't sacrifice themselves for others."
"Shippou does," she said, quietly, disputing his point.
He snorted, sounding very much like himself as he climbed to his feet. "Shippou's the exception that proves the rule and the twerp was raised by humans."
She could argue all of his points with examples of demons she'd known who weren't bad guys. Spike came to mind, even pre-soul. Spike, who'd let Glory beat him to a pulp; Spike, who'd gotten a soul for her; Spike, who had saved her ass a thousand times over.
On the other hand, whatever he'd done had worked for him. Perhaps it wasn't a cosmic truth he'd discovered, but just an individual truth for this particular half-youkai man.
He added, in a rough whisper, "I decided not just to forgive you, but to put my trust in you. And I decided to do it because I will do anything for Kagome, including making myself this damn vulnerable. I need to get back to her." A twisted grin split his lips. "Kagome's going to be vastly amused by this. Kikyou would laugh her ass off that I figured out how to purify myself and we never even needed the damn jewel in the first place."
"Jewel? Oh, the shikon jewel."
"I will have to tell you the whole story later. Your books tell some of it, but they're not complete. Kaede didn't know everything." His tone, despite the hoarseness of his voice, was light, as if he planned to invite her over for coffee someday soon.
Hopefully not that truly awful instant crap he'd served two days ago.
Inuyasha handed her Tessaiga and its scabbard -- she realized as she accepted it that she wouldn't be able to take the sword through the ward without damage to it. He then stepped calmly through the doorway, and disappeared around the corner. After a very short moment, he returned with a bit of metal from the rack he'd earlier chucked out of the room. He started chipping at the rune. While she waited impatiently, she hung the sword on her belt.
Buffy knew when enough of the mark had been destroyed -- a certain sense of pressure lifted. She darted through the door, and caught him just as the bracelet fired again and pain overwhelmed him.
He choked, his voice too far gone to scream. She caught him as he collapsed, and hoisted him up over her shoulder, and then started running down the stairs even as he sobbed in agony. Buffy wasn't entirely sure where she was going to go, though finding the hitokiri was a good starting point. And she wanted to do it quickly; she wasn't sure how much agony human Inuyasha could take.
This time, she'd just kill the damn vampire at the first opportunity, after making him release Inuyasha from the bracelet.