CHAPTER TWELVE

Sakura

How dare he? How dare Naraku taunt Ayame and I with our parents' corpse? I'm not even sure if those were their real bodies because once Kaede took us from our castle the night we were attacked, we never went back to see what remained of it. We were too afraid. Afraid of what we would find. Afraid that we would see our parents lying out in the open courtyard with their blood tainting our protected grounds. Afraid of reliving the nightmare Naraku knew would haunt us for the rest of our lives.

Standing here staring back at these possible puppets of my mother and father made me realize that avoiding to go back to our castle meant that our parents never got a proper burial. Unless we had any surviving family that did the honor of taking care of that task. But, Ayame and I are their only children. It's our responsibility to see to it that it's done. Now that we're older and have had plenty of time to cope with the situation, there's no need for excuses. If these weren't their real bodies standing before us, we would go back home and bury them properly.

"Who are they?"

My ear fanned backwards, following Shippo's voice as he whispered, questioning the figures in front of us.

"Shinobu and Akira Tsuyotomi." Koga was stunned.

"That bastard!" Inuyasha was very displeased at Koga's information. "Does he really expect them to fight their own parents?"

"Parents?!" Shippo, Sango and Miroku all dropped their jaws.

Kagura gave no response and instead stood statue in her place. She was simply waiting to see what Naraku would command his new puppets to do.

"Screw this!" Inuyasha charged at them to attack. I wanted to stop him but I couldn't find my words. My stomach turned in knots the closer he got to them, ready to use his Tetsusaiga.

"Inuyasha!" Ayame screamed, making him stop dead in his tracks and look at her. He closed three fourth of distance between them and I prayed they didn't find him too close to where they wanted to attack him.

Ayame lowered her shoulders and her voice. "Don't." She spoke with sadness and pain and I noticed her eyes glistening. She was about to cry.

I usually would comfort her when she cried about our parents but not this time. She had to toughen up and consider the situation at hand. Naraku was trying to get under our skin. Even thought it was damn near impossible to show that he didn't, we still had to be strong. On the outside, that's what I was going to do. I had to be strong for Ayame. I was crumbling all the way down on the inside, but I tried my best to hold back all of my tears.

Inuyasha stood his ground, angry that Naraku was doing this to us. The urge to help was strong in his eyes and attitude.

"This is our battle." Ayame's voice was now down to a whisper. She squeezed her hands into fists and I could see her shoulders shutter. She held her breath for three seconds in order to keep from crying. I hated to see her this way.

Inuyasha looked at the both of us with sorrow-filled eyes and sheathed his Tetsusaiga and stood off to the side, anger quickly taking over his features again.

When he was out of the way, my parents ran full speed at Ayame and I. We braced ourselves and when my father punched into both my hands and my mother into Ayame's, the four of us sunk into the ground, causing an energy wave, blowing the dead limp soldiers about 50 feet back and our friends only half the distance of that.

When we were little, my father used to train and spar with us all the time. He'd train defense and let Ayame and I attack him offense since we were just learning to fight and develop some of our powers. This time it was the other way around. Ayame and I were only using defense while my parents used offence.

They were throwing everything they had at us and attacking us from every which way. They were almost too fast to keep up with and I was reluctant to pick up my speed for fear of hitting them with a counter attack. I didn't want to hit them at all. The most I would do is push them back to give us space so I could catch my breath.

One second I was defending myself from my father, the next it would be my mother. He came at me with his brute strength and large hands while my mother used her quick feline reflexes and fist-sized energy blasts. My father always fought with intent to kill as fast as he could. My mother was the exact opposite. She preferred to kill her enemies slow and torturous while her speed confused you into thinking otherwise.

Every time she attacked us, she left small painful cuts on our bodies from her claws. She sliced through my shirt and at the skin of my legs leaving slits everywhere that hardly bled. Her nails piercing my skin stung so badly. I caught her hand once as she tried running past me and threw her in the opposite direction she came from, only to be thrown backwards with Ayame crashing into me by my father's heavy punch.

Naraku got every detail of their fighting techniques correct down to a tee. The more I thought about him being behind all this the more I wanted to fight back. I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

I groaned as Ayame pulled herself up off of me. Everything seemed to stop as we both caught our breath.

"Sakura, what are we gonna do?" Despite defending herself as much as she had been doing and enduring the same pain that I was, Ayame's voice was still as sad as it sounded before the fight even started. I looked her over and she appeared just as bad as I was. Her kimono had been burned away in some places due to our mother's small Ki blasts. There were cuts and bruises all over her arms and legs and her long hair had fallen out from its ponytail.

"I don't…I don't know." I didn't want to fight them anymore, but I wasn't going to let Naraku have my own dead parents kill me off if he wasn't going to do it himself. "Defending ourselves isn't going to get us anywhere. We'll be fighting forever." My voice shook.

"Dammit."

"Something the matter, children?"

I looked from the ground up to my parents. Their voices were exactly the same as I last remembered them to be. This was crazy. Naraku had really pulled a number on us.

"Are you ready to die today?" They spoke in unison again.

My eyes narrowed at them. This was it. I had had enough. "Ayame…" I balled my hands up into fists. I felt Ayame's eyes on me, waiting to hear what I was about to say next. "Fight."

"Remember, girls: we love you."

I ran towards them with every intention to kill- my father's real spirit filling my emotions. Suddenly, my okurimono marking pulsed and I felt a sense of strength awaken within me. Electricity surrounded my right fist as I produced ki and struck my father. At least the puppet that appeared to be him. I followed up by jumping into the air and coming down on him with my fist again, sinking him into the ground, creating a large crater.

"Whoa! Did you guys see that?" Shippo screamed.

Part of me felt terrified of what I just did, only because I was older now and this was no training session. I was trying to kill- or at least immobilize these puppets. Having such hateful thoughts dealing with them because of Naraku didn't feel right to me. It bothered me in ways I didn't think were possible. But I had to do something. I had to be strong. And this was me displaying my strength.

I looked to my right and leapt out of the way before my mother pounded into me just as I did her mate. I saw Ayame chasing after her but my father jumped into the air and tackled her to the ground.

"Ayame!" I tried to fly around my mother to get to her but my mother was too fast, engaging us both in combat with one another.

I saw Ayame struggling with our father all of a sudden. He held her off of the ground by her shoulders and smiled evilly at her. Her kicks to the stomach now had no type of effect on him. The next thing I know, her face turned ghost white as she looked into his dead eyes. I've never seen her look so horrified in my life and that scared me.

My father head-butted her, causing her to lose consciousness and then forcefully threw her past Kagura and into the forest behind her.

"No!" I attempted to get away from my mother once again and the closest I got to Ayame was only being able to land on the ground, not closing any space between us before vines wrapped around my ankles and pulling my legs together. I was about to burn them off but more shot from the ground and wrapped around my wrists and arms, continuing all the way up to my neck, tightening around it.

I gasped for air, watching my mother land in front of me and quickly jump back out of the way. When she was gone from my line of vision, my father was running towards me. I wasn't escaping his blow. The vines were holding me too tight. There was nothing I could do but prepare for what was coming for me.

When my father's fist came in contact with my stomach, all of the wind was knocked out of my body. As if that wasn't bad enough, I felt a piercing pain through the same spot that he punched.

"Sakura!" Inuyasha screamed.

My breath came out in silent gasps and the taste of blood filled my mouth. My father's face showed satisfaction as he pulled his hand out of my stomach. It had transformed into a sword. I recognized this technique of shape-shifting from Naraku. He turned the sword back into his hand and it was covered in my blood up to his elbow.

He took a few steps towards me and pulled my chin upwards with his blood-stained arm. My mother joined him, glancing over her shoulder into the forest where Ayame's unconscious body lay.

"You are weak." He spoke to me. There was no emotion in his voice, yet the smirk on his face didn't go away. "You were no match for us and so you are no match for Naraku."

I felt a tear slide down my right cheek. I was cracking. A movement behind them caught my eye. Kagura was leaving.

"Don't cry, dear." My mother said. "It was nice to see you and your sister again."

"Until next time." They both said at once.

"Get away from her!" Inuyasha was closing in on us, wielding his Tetsusaiga.

I opened my mouth to try and speak but clamped my teeth shut, hurting from the pain my body suffered from. The fighting had taken a toll on me and left me completely exhausted. Blood seeped from the corners of my mouth and my vision was cloudy. I wanted to say something, anything…but I honestly didn't know what it would be.

Forceful wind from the Tetsusaiga flew past me. My parents disappeared into thin air before Inuyasha's attack could even hit them. My body felt like it was floating and the last thing I was aware of was Inuyasha's warm hands reaching out for me as darkness consumed my vision.

Sorry so short! I may update later, or maybe tomorrow...or some time next week lol but on MONDAY I will definitely be posting a crossover story that I've been working on and I REALLY hope you all like it!...maybe I should reveal the shows, huh? Weeeellllll...ok, ok. It's a KenInuTen crossover :) SO anyways, please R&R! I really want to know what you guys think of this story :( lol farewell for now!