The group leaped from building to building, everyone focusing on Luna, who was leading them. Luna, however, was getting her directions from Rin. The plan had been simple: get Rin to lead them to the hideout, sneak in, and free everyone they could. So far, Rin was confident that her directions were correct, because the pulling force she had felt was intensifying, as if she was getting closer.
"How much further? This human is slowing me down..."
"Well, I'm sorry I can't run fast enough for you!"
"Kagome! Zakura! Both of you need to stop complaining!" Regaining her composure, Luna added, "Besides, we're here. Kagome, stay with Rin. Zakura, Sesshomaru-sama, both of you should follow me. I'll need help breaking the locks."
Zakura saluted almost mockingly as Sesshomaru nodded. Calmly, Luna leaned over the edge of the building.
There were three hunters standing outside, smoking. One of them was a tall man with spiky hair, the others were two women, one that was short, the other only a bit taller than the first. It wasn't the people that Luna was interested in, however. It was the uniforms that she wanted.
'Alright, look for shadows...' The hunters were standing in a shadow. 'Build up energy...' The group that was with her gasped as they saw a dark violet flame engulf her, growing bigger and more intense. 'Pull shadow...' The shadow grew darker as it moved slowly, covering the people's legs and spreading up their bodies. 'Burn.' The flaming energy around her caught the shadow she had moved, igniting it like a spark to gasoline. The screams of the humans were cut short by the shadow, which was thickening, crushing anything that wasn't burned. Releasing the shadow, the flames died out, leaving nothing except three uniforms and a pile of dust. "Hurry. Put the uniforms on before someone comes."
Sesshomaru and Zakura rushed over to the edge of the building. Zakura simply leaped over the edge, landing next to a uniform, while Sesshomaru gaped at the damage that Luna had done to the hunters.
"Well, you coming with us or not?" Luna's eyes met his for a second, then lowered to find the uniform, then met his again. "I went through a lot of trouble just to get you this uniform..."
He needed no further invitation. Landing gracefully, he took the uniform and watched as the girls turned the outfits upside down and let the ashes fall out, forming piles at their feet. 'I can do that...' Carefully, he tilted the uniform, watching as a substantial amount of incinerated remains fell. 'Brain, remind me to never upset Luna...'
"Ugh... This has to be blasphemy on so many levels..." Zakura had obviously meant to mutter this to herself, however, had spoken too loudly to keep Luna from hearing.
"No, it's revenge... ancient tribe style. Someone harms your family, you kill them, take their skin, wear it, and harm their family. These uniforms are their skin, just as the scales of a snake." Luna smiled, the dementedness of her comment fading as her cheerful smile made them forget. "We need the helmets too..." Luna picked up something that looked like it was a shiny plastic bucket and placed it on her head. "Ew... Mine smells like alcohol..."
"Mine smells like cigarettes... Wanna trade?"
"I'm allergic, Zakura. Do you want your little sister to stop breathing and die?"
"No. Just sayin', though..."
Sesshomaru suddenly noticed that both of the girls were staring at him. Sighing, he put the helmet on. "Mine smells like..." He couldn't place the scent. It was horrible. A mix of death, tobacco, and a sickening odor that made him want to throw up everything he had eaten that week. It made his head swim with nausea.
"You gonna be ok?"
"This Sesshomaru is not affected by this stench."
"Does he always do that?" Zakura turned her bucket-helmed head to look at Luna.
"Yes. It makes him unique. Now, stop goofing off and let's go rescue the group. Zakura, need you to hack the door open."
"On it." Zakura extracted a card from one of the pockets on her suit and slid it through the card scanner. To their surprise, the door clicked and opened. "Well, that was easy..."
"Too easy... be on your guard. Act natural."
"Moo."
"Zakura... stop."
"Fine."
The trio carefully started walking down the narrow hallway, trying not to flinch at the pained shrieks, trying not to let a tear fall when they heard a mourning mother sobbing about her missing children. The hunters they saw looked as if they were enjoying a casual day at the office despite the agony and sorrow around them.
"Mikhail! There you are! You're just in time to come perform the dissection!" A scrawny girl with dull black hair and overly-tanned skin grabbed Sesshomaru's arm.
Trying to keep his cover, he coughed and tried to fake having a sore throat. "Sorry, kinda sick... One of them creatures got me with some poison gas... I took an antidote for it though... I should be better tomorrow..."
"Oh... Sorry then... Maybe next time then!" The girl smiled all too sweetly and pranced off.
"I must say, I am impressed. I didn't know you knew their accent..."
"I heard that guy say something right before you got him." Behind the anonymizing black plastic, Sesshomaru grinned at Luna's compliment. 'I impressed her...'
Luna stopped at one of the cells and glanced around. Noticing that the hall was clear, she signaled to Zakura to open the lock.
One girl switched places with the other as Zakura pulled a hairpin out from her hair and eased it into the lock. Listening intently, she twisted the tiny piece of metal until there was a click and the door opened slightly.
Luna signaled to Zakura and Sesshomaru to keep watch as she eased into the cracked door.
"You'll never take me alive, bucket-head!" The occupant of the cell tried to tackle Luna, but her head met with Luna's hand instead.
"Chill, Reita. It's me." Luna calmly lifted her helmet slightly to show her face. "And I assure you that I am no bucket-head."
"Luna Kenichi, back from hell-knows-where... Glad to see you in a place like this... I didn't mean it like that."
"I said to chill, so chill. We gotta get everyone out. Where's the leash?"
"On the shelf. I can't touch it. You remember what happens..."
Luna clipped the leash onto her wrist like how she had seen the hunters do, inserting it into a special clip and closing the clip so that the leash would stay attached. Reita's end of the leash was already around her neck, as if they had been expecting to take her somewhere. "Ready?"
"If I have to be."
"You know the drill... depressed, lonely, tortured."
"Got it."
Luna strode out boldly, as if she really was a hunter, a mere human, who had tamed a demon and put it on a leash. She knew this walk all too well, memories filling her mind as she stepped out.
Flashback:
Day and night had run together in the time since she had been in the cell. The leash on her neck chafed her skin and left tiny cuts all across her neck. They no longer bled, but still ached as if they were fresh wounds. There was no food, as the hunters felt that she didn't deserve any. She had killed half of a squad of them by herself before they got her, after all, and no creature that kills one of them can be deemed "good". The water she recieved often had been sitting out for quite awhile, letting little baby mosquito larvae swim about in it as it recieved her look of disgust. She had to admit that they were good at what they did, for she felt nearly defeated... but only nearly. They didn't realize that demons ate worse than just mosquito larvae. They didn't realize that some of the various creatures they caught, tortured, and murdered could actually understand what they were saying. Above all, they didn't realize that the half-breed they held in that cell knew she'd get out if she waited...
The door creaked open as one of the hunters came to take her to her daily session of torture. Luna studied the strange man as he hooked the leash onto his arm, not noticing as Luna memorized every step. Boldly, he jerked at the leash, forcing Luna to fall, clutching the choke-collar and gagging. "Well well well... Lively today, aren't we? I'm sure you'll enjoy today's experiments..." Not expecting or recieving a reply, the man dragged her from her cell, with such pride in his expression and posture that he almost looked like the valiant hero in children's stories, and Luna knew that in his mind, he probably was, ridding the world of something he deemed evil, never caring to ask if this was true or not.
Part of her felt guilty for doing what she did, but the other part screamed for more as she finally pulled back on the leash, flinging him into the cell and detaching the leash in the same motion, shutting the cell door too fast for him to process and hearing it lock behind her. End Flashback
'I just hope she doesn't do that to me...' She decided not to think on that, but instead to focus on imitating the hunter's undeserved sense of pride. "Shall we continue?" Her voice was far deeper than normal, but Zakura and Sesshomaru nodded, recognizing it despite the contrast in pitch.
Almost an hour passed, and they had found five. Five demons out of over thirty. Luna mentally grumbled as she led them through the hallway, wishing she could leave.
"Is that a safety release button?"
"I think it is... Why? Please tell me we haven't just walked in circles..."
"I wanna press it!" Before Luna could stop her, Zakura had pressed the button, opening every cell and door in the building as well as setting off every alarm.
"Nice going, Flopster... What's your encore?"
"This." Zakura took some ammo out of another one of the hunter-suit's pockets and threw it at the hunters that were running up to them. These, however, seemed to know what they were already, as they tried to avoid the ammo. "They know we're imposters... Time to ditch the helmets! Fluffers, aim low!"
"Got it, Floppers!" Luna took her helmet off swiftly, sliding her leg outward as she lowered her body, flinging the helmet as she moved. The discarded helmet took down two hunters, a dull cracking noise letting the world know that Luna had shattered one hunter's leg. The one from Zakura knocked down one hunter, breaking through his unprotected skull. Sesshomaru's helmet, however, missed all three and landed on the floor noisily. "You know, someday, I'm gonna teach him how to throw a helmet..."
"Let's go!" Zakura led the others to where the hunters tortured everyone, letting Luna give out the orders once they were there.
"Free everyone you can! Don't leave any of our kind behind!" Luna's slightly panicked voice made everyone start moving, some to pick the locks, others to smash or pry them open. Some of the rescued had to be carried, while others limped, dragging the unconscious behind them. Luna carefully removed several injection needles from one unconscious boy as Sesshomaru watched, unsure of what to do. He could tell that the boy was a young fox demon, though older and taller than Shippo. Carefully, Luna scooped the small boy up and carried him over to where another fox demon was being held, this one being an adult. Luna passed the boy to Sesshomaru and focused on freeing the adult, who was barely conscious and muttering something about a tiny silver piccolo.
The metal bracelets holding the man onto a lab table fell away as Luna tore them apart, letting them hit the floor with four sharp clinks.
"Why yes, lovely maiden, I'd love to teach you to play..."
Luna smiled, knowing that he was delusional by now and that this was helping him ignore his pain. Throwing him over her shoulder, she murmured softly, "Teach me how to play, Elidian, and I shall teach you to play clarinet."
"Ah, yes, that would be lovely..." The man chuckled to himself, eyes half-lidded as if he was drunk. "And then, we dance."
"And then we march." Luna was halfway to the exit with Sesshomaru behind her.
"Then we eat..."
"Then we play again." She was outside, rushing through the crowd as they cleared a path, focusing on where she went.
"Then we do the fandango...
"Then we sing on our way down the hill, say our goodbyes, and go home for the night... Returning the next day to do it again." Luna smiled as she jumped back onto the roof to pick up Kagome and Rin. To her surprise, Inuyasha had followed them. "Since you're here, can you carry them? My arms are full..."
"I want a pineapple! And I want to name him George!" Elidian slurred the words as he looked around.
"Pipe down back there... I'll get you a pineapple when we get home..."
"Is he drunk?"
"No, just out of his mind right now. We need to get everyone back to the apartment, though... They're all hurt... Follow me."
The large group rushed down the street a bit, stopping as Zakura threw a grenade at the building that they had just left, then continuing as if their lives depended on it. Luna managed to cram everyone into the tiny, old elevator and get everyone to the secret floor, rushing to get everyone out. 'I just hope we're not too late for anyone...'