Damn! Currently having power failure (? google translate - worthless) at home, so are borrowing my grandma's electricity and Internet. Either way, InuYasha belongs to Rumiko Takahachi!
It took another two days before InuYasha woke up. By then Kouga had persuaded and pleaded with Sesshomaru to hold his word of the bargain; it may be so that the dog lord now had what he wanted, but he had to hold his promise to help the wolf find the young miko. After all, that was the deal.
Sango, Miroku and Shippo were oblivious as to why the demon lord – also known as the brother hating InuYasha and thereby hating them – were tagging along on their hunt, but for now they didn't care much. The more people helping them with finding their friend were better than none. Even if this said person not was the most kind, thoughtful, emotion-showing, human-loving demon in the world.
Especially now when they flocked around the stirring body of Inuyasha, as if they were vultures circling around an especially tasty-looking corpse. Kouga leaned warily against the doorway, ready to leave or jump at the hanyou at any moment given, Sesshomaru was nowhere in sight.
"My good friend," Miroku said, clapping the hanyou heavily on the least bruised shoulder," what in the world happened to you?"
Shippo propped his hands on InuYasha's sickbed and leaned forward. "Never mind that," he said angrily and glared at InuYasha's badly injured face, trying to find the amber somewhere in the purple and blue," where are Kagome? You didn't leave her, did you?"
InuYasha's eyes shot open and he rose suddenly as if he were about to go up, but winced as his whole body screamed in protest. His friend's warm hands pushed him down again, not without causing him more harm as they did.
"You need to lie down, InuYasha." Sango scolded. "In my village our strongest warriors needed at least a month after the same sort of injuries as you clearly has suffered, and because you are half demon your healing are faster. But even so, you are still not ready to be up and about anything. Lie down, rest and recover."
Sango's outward appearance was that of a master reprimanding its student, but inside she felt as if she was a general, watching the lines of a battlefield – her warriors losing. InuYasha had, throughout their journeys, been caused severe injuries, but none had ever been this bad. When Naraku's incarnation Kanna turned the Wind Scar against the hanyou it had been close to death; when Kagome's body had been taken over by Menomaru it had been slightly worse than bad. But his hair gone, bruised body, broken ribs, broken arm, blisters on both hands and feet? And not to forget the worrysome fact that his wounds – made from some sort of tool – had taken almost these two days to heal?
"I- can't lie… here," he choked. Sango winced slightly as she watched the newly healed scar on his throat wobble. "They still h-have Kagome."
Swiftly the wolf youkai shoved the tajiya out of his way and loomed over InuYasha. He narrowed his eyes at the beaten body. "Tell me about the fools."
InuYasha seemed as if he stared something no one else could see before he noticed the wolf and recoiled in surprise. His eyebrows narrowed in return, but a not completely healed cut under one of the brows made him think better of it.
"The fools, you say? For star-starter, they are reptile dem-ons," he whispered hoarsely before a violent coughing made him crumble into a heap. Miroku offered a cup of water, but InuYasha only waved it aside. "The leader of the gang is Hebi Otoko. His second in command, and also the one who kidnapped me and Ka-Kagome is called Ha Jins-oku."
"How did you end up like this?" the monk asked.
The fox kit snorted and blew his hair out of his eyes. "Isn't it obvious? InuYasha clearly made them angry in some way or another and they made him pay for it."
Unmistakably InuYasha was feeling better, since he had enough strength to hit the kit on the head. "Yeah, b-ut only because they was ab-about to take her away from me for some sort of cer-moni. I shouted at them and called them cowards and that they should figh-ht someone in their own strength." InuYasha swallowed painfully, the only sound in the deafening quiet hut. "They made her watch as they started with hit-ting me. Nothing I can't handle but still a pain in the ass since three of them held me in p-place. Then they toke one of the torches on the walls and burned my hands and feet, before they used the sharp end of it to pierce me. Finally they en-ded it with cutting of my hair. And all the while K-agome screamed."
The onlookers watched in badly hidden horror as a tear slipped from InuYasha's eye and slide down his cheek. "That was the worst; seeing the pain, horror and anger in her face and hearing her cursing and screaming. And I couldn't do anything."
The other's, except InuYasha, jumped as Kouga smashed his hand into the wooden wall, again and again. Then he leaned heavily at it, for the unknowing person looking as if the wolf prince were begging it for forgivness. The prince's mind drifted only around the name.
Kagome, made her watch, Kagome, she screamed, Kagome, couldn't do anything, Kagome, take her
Our mate is in danger.He flinched slightly as his inner beast circled around his mind, sneaking into his minds words. We must find our mate soon; preferably now, it said.
'I know that,' he growled at it, pounding at the wall again. 'But where?'
Doesn't we have a dog in our service? Doesn't we have the pitiable hanyou to drag any useful information from? Aren't we the leader of the wolf tribe? His youkai chuckled humorlessly, it's cool voice spilling cold water throughout his body. Of course, maybe the tajiya and monk have some tricks up their sleeves.
Kouga heard muffled voices through the cloud that always blocked out everything whenever his youkai talked – teased – him. He ignored the suggestive voice in his body and turned to see InuYasha's lips moving again. Confused he met the tajiya's eyes and it was like the cold water that had been leaking from his youkai now came flushing down at him, alike the waterfall at his den. He closed in to them and paid attention to the hanyou.
"… and she was so weak that she was mute for a week. Those bracelets or handcuffs or whatever has, if Ha Jinsoku is a man of his words, muffled her powers until she smells like a normal human. But," InuYasha glanced at the wolf," whatever those are they are bad news."
Kouga glared at the tajiya, desperately begging her with his eyes to tell him what the hanyou were talking about. She cleared her throat nervously.
"Kouga-kun, Kagome is being used by the reptile leader."
He had suspected that much, but the words still froze the cold water in him to ice.
Sango swallowed thickly before turning away from him, avoiding eye contact and trying to hide the tears from him. "She was… abused by him. He…" she didn't dare to complete the sentence and she couldn't either way; Kouga had already leapt out of the hut, leaving the flap to rustle behind him.
This tree had fifty-two thousand and six leaves. It also had sixty-four branches, whereas twenty of them were the largest and longest and the remaining forty-four were thinner ones connected through the twenty. Fascinating how a tree, the nature, could produce something so complicated but also so fragile.
Sesshomaru bored drew a claw at the trunk, leaving a sizzling scar as his poison settled into the tree. He sat gracefully down against the huge trees roots, sticking up and posing as nature's version of a minuscule mountain. Covered in grass and vegetation instead of snow and stone.
Letting his head fall against the tree trunk he sighed heavily. He wanted to tease something, he wanted to hurt something, but most important – he wanted to kill something just to ease this suffocating boredom. He didn't even have Jaken to amuse himself with since he had sent the imp and Rin back to his stronghold.
Heaving another sigh he heard footsteps rapidly rising in volume as someone came crashing into his peaceful – and awfully dull – glade. Sitting up in a not-so-bored-but-powerful seating he awaited the unwelcome guest and welcome distraction. Understand the lord's displeasure when his distraction proved to be his reluctant ally.
Kouga of the Wolf Tribe skidded to a stop in front of the lord, his speed whirling up clouds of dirt and leaves, tickling Sesshomaru's nose as it settled.
"So," Sesshomaru said with a quirk of his lips in something that resembled a smirk," are we heading out?"
Kouga snorted and placed his hands on his hips. "Of course."