Crazy idea I had, set in the universe of a possible NaNoWriMo/Fictionpress project inspired by Hiromi Goto's Half World, Jay Kristoff's Stormdancer and the absolutely awesome deviantART drawings of AdrianDadich.
Disclaimer: I wish.
"Hostage"
In this war neither side takes prisoners. Shogun Yamamoto has decreed that he will not rest until every last yokai in Nippon has been eliminated. His generals have taken up his edict with the fervour of zealots and within a year of the announcement no less than three of the Five Great Yokai clans, the Ookami, the Tengu and the Neko, are gone.
Rangiku watched the massacre of most of her clan, the Neko, from a fox hole where she had been taken after her rescue by a young Kitsune, Gin. His clan had fared much better, having long experience with dealing with hostile humans, but in this new, dangerous world no one is safe. He nursed her wounds and stole her heart, and, when she was strong enough, trained her to change forms, to become a very beautiful golden-haired woman whom few human men can resist. It is important that she learned this. She had sworn, after all, on the bodies of her fallen clan that she would find and destroy the human general who had orphaned her, Ginrei Kuchiki, and all of his clan.
Destiny has other plans.
She has been on the trail of the young samurai and his small squad for the past three days as they make their way deeper into the forests that mark the western boundary of the Kitsune lands. They have already cut a path of destruction that destroyed her favourite bathing pool, breaking the kappa's dam and bludgeoning the hapless creatures as they tried to escape, burned the thicket where some very nice tree sprits slept and, worst of all, destroyed a land god's shrine.
This is no different from any of the hundred other such squads that increasingly press in on the Kitsune from all sides. The men laugh and mock the spirits as they run. They torture the half-human ones and rape their human mothers before burning them together on pyres they take turns pissing on. All of these things they do in the name of defending the other humans, those on the Shogun's good side that is, and the liberation of Nippon. What makes this squad different though, is that they engage in none of these things. They are a disciplined, well-trained unit, as ruthless as they are efficient. Wherever they pass, nothing is left alive. But they can be merciful too, and this, Rangiku suspects, is because of their leader.
He is a striking man, tall and fair-skinned, with long black hair in a high ponytail and clear grey eyes, barely different from any of the hundred other noblemen like him that head the samurai squads. His armour is old, ornate, with a mask that covers half of his face in the pattern of a sakura blossom. He speaks little, even to his men, and carries himself with the air of someone above the carnage he has been ordered to carry out. She imagines that he would be much more comfortable seated in some flowery garden composing poems for a beloved than out here killing those weaker than him. But then he gets on the battlefield and becomes something else entirely, something monstrous.
In the raids he goes in first, taking out the leader or at least the strongest one before he lets his men go after the others. It is always in one or two strikes, nothing more, and he insists that his men carefully lay out the dead before burning. He must consider it an honourable thing to do, she supposes, but all she sees is arrogance. This is not like the old days when the samurai would come out on the trail of the yokai for one wrong or the other; they have no quarrel with the ones they kill. This is extermination.
When she gets them alone, she will grant him the honour of dying last so that he can watch his men be flayed alive.
This day they have been marching solidly since sunrise, heading on a general path that, should they survive it, will lead them directly to the heart of the Kitsune hideout. She knows this because she is the one who cleared the path for them, and prepared the ambush. Just ahead there is a small clearing where a little magic has concealed a spike-pit. Crude, yes, but sometimes the simplest method is the best and she is no Kitsune.
Gin will not be pleased that she is taking them on alone but they ruined her bathing pool. A girl cannot let things like that stand! Besides, she is the one in control here. She could have killed them at any time during the past three days. The only reason she has not is because she has to return to the foxhole at night so that Gin will not worry. Not to mention that she also had to set up the trap and lure the men in too far for them to easily escape to the shogun's lands.
So what if she is toying with them. She's a Neko, it is what Neko do.
Just before the men get to the pit, talking and laughing about some matter or the other, their leader saying nothing, walking ahead oblivious of the danger to come, Rangiku swings into a tree over their heads. This is it.
Then suddenly the leader stops. His men continue on without as much as a backwards glance.
The leader remains staring around, then he glances up to the trees and his eyes grow wide. "Wait, stop!" he calls.
The others are not so quick and one of the men slips, grabs for his companions, misses every outstretched hand and falls with a sickening thud into the pit.
There is immediate pandemonium. Startled birds take to the air, screeching loudly. Small animals in the undergrowth scatter in a cacophony of shrieks, cries and footsteps tearing through the brush, crushing dead branches and the old corpses of dead things. The false ground she laid with leaves, dirt and sticks goes down with the man with a horrendous crash, revealing the spiked, gaping maw they nearly walked into.
"Seiji!" one of them cries out to the fallen man, drawing his sword. The others draw their weapons as well, though the leader does not. Rangiku observes this but sets upon the second part of her plan anyway.
Neko magic does not extend far beyond shapeshifting, but she was raised by the Kitsune. From her hiding place in a tree overhead she draws her blade, forged by Gin himself, and with the other a handful of ash. A whisper of incantation and the ash forms a cloud that spreads to surround the men in the clearing and trap them in magical barrier of dust.
Now there are cries of alarm, each man turning this way and that with weapons out and prodding the walls of the barrier. Even the leader has shifted his stance, legs apart, arms slightly akimbo, though he still does not draw his blade. Easy pickings then. Rangiku jumps from her place in the trees and down into the fray.
Neko magic ensures that she lands on her feet, in this case on the back of one man whose head she lops off with one swing. She is also swift, agile, so that she can immediately dart into the trees again before the others realise what has happened. It does not take them long.
"Kagane!" But none leave their position and instead now drift closer to their leader.
And then one of the men, a tall tattooed man with a shock of crimson hair, turns to him and yells, "Kuchiki-dono, we must get you out of here!"
He snaps a reply, terse, scathing, but Rangiku barely hears it. All other sounds fled the moment she heard his name. Kuchiki. He is a Kuchiki.
Suddenly she is hot all over as the old rage builds and she loses control of the magic keeping her in human form. That man whom she has followed for three days is one of those who destroyed her clan. Her ears pop out on the sides of her head and her tail returns, sprouting from her back and curving around to her front. Her golden hair becomes a lion's mane, her blue eyes become cat-like and her fingernails become claws as her feet bend and become paws. She must kill the Kuchiki and avenge her clan! She must rend him limb from limb with her with own claws! She must rip out his throat and watch him drown in a pool of his blood! She must! She will!
She launches herself from the trees at the leader, forgetting all about his men and her blade. Claws and fangs, she can already taste his blood on her tongue.
This is a mistake.
The last thing she sees as she falls towards one of the men responsible for the massacre of her people is him finally reaching for his sword, but it is the sheath that connects and everything fades to black.
0o0
"There is no need to keep checking, Abarai. Urahara designed those specifically for the Great Clan yokai. She will not break free of them unless we release her," says someone somewhere nearby as Rangiku awakens.
Her head is throbbing. She blinks, groans at the pain and tries to open her eyes. Bright, white light sends lancing pains through her skull and she squeezes them shut again. Damn bastard Kuchiki, he could have taken her head off with that blow. That thought gives her pause. Why is she still alive?
She forces her eyes open to find two men looking down at her, the red-haired one from earlier and another with shorter, dark hair and more tattoos. Then the red-haired man says, "She's up…my god, what magic is this?"
Magic? Rangiku looks down at herself to find that she is in human form again, her hands and feet bound in chains on which are inscribed hundreds of incantations. She tries to shift, a test, a mistake. Of a sudden it is as if she is being stabbed, stung and whipped everywhere. Shooting pains course her body to her head forcing a scream from her throat. She wants to rip her skin from her flesh to spare herself the pain but she does not even know where to begin. The world goes white, tremulous, tempestuous…and then finally, mercifully her vision goes black.
"I would not do that again, if I were you, yokai. You will not survive it," says someone.
Rangiku opens her eyes. The two men from before are packing up their little camp, so the person who spoke is the leader, the Kuchiki. She turns her head to him and he says, "Our journey to the fort will take a week. I expect your full compliance or we will kill you and find another. Those bracelets you wear will keep you in this form for the duration for we understand that this where you are weakest."
Rangiku looks at her bound hands and feet, remembering the pain and winces. The moment she is free she intends to return the favour tenfold.
Then the Kuchiki speaks again. "I understand that you creatures have given yourself names. What is yours, yokai?"
She keeps her mouth shut. He waits only a little before replying, "Yokai, then. Let us go, Renji, Shuuhei." Then he stands and Rangiku realises that he is holding the other end of her chains. She looks up to find him staring back at her, no trace of amusement or disgust in his expression, just…borderline disinterest. Then he says, "You will walk, Yokai, and you will not drag your feet or I will drag you."
For a moment Rangiku is tempted to let him do it, but her human skin is too sensitive and the forest floor to uneven and unforgiving. She stands and they begin their march out of the forest.
There are no other traps waiting for them on the way. Rangiku had not anticipated the possibility of their escape so her only hope is that Gin or someone loyal to him will stumble upon the little group and run for help. The commotion she caused will not go unnoticed.
The men carry themselves with the same arrogance they showed earlier. After nearly an hour of tense silence where nothing happens and Rangiku glares at their backward glances, teeth bared, eyes narrowed, they begin to relax and chatter again. It is not exactly as before. She has killed two of their number and personally threatened their leader. They talk now of the men they have lost and how they will give the news to their families, with one even suggesting that she be made to pay as the men did. They make no move to attack her though and their leader remains silent. Rangiku thinks that if that is their idea of punishment they are decidedly unimaginative.
Just wait, she wants to say, just wait until Gin gets his claws into you. He will drive you all to kill yourselves. You will slay your wives and children in their beds as you have done to my family. You will violate their corpses and each other as you have done to my kind. And you Kuchiki, I will serve your head to your kin as he took my father's head for your Shogun. Just you wait...
As if he can read her intent, the Kuchiki suddenly turns to look back at Rangiku. His face is expressionless but his gaze sweeps over her a moment before he says, "You killed my men with your traps and magic but tried to kill me with your bare hands. Why is that?"
He stops walking to turn fully towards her. The men stop too, the moment he began to speak. She growls at them but it becomes a surprised yelp when the Kuchiki yanks the chain in his hand and she nearly loses her balance. "Why did you try to kill me with your bare hands?" asks the Kuchiki again.
Rangiku looks at him and spits. The glob of saliva hits him square in the chest but almost before it lands his men are rushing to his aid.
"Kuchiki-dono!" cries the red-haired one.
The Kuchiki glances over at them, bringing them to an abrupt halt, then says, "It is no matter. She will talk eventually. Let us continue. We are not welcome in this forest."
He turns to lead on again and Rangiku says, "A human general called Kuchiki Ginrei led an army into my family's lands when I was a cub and slaughtered them. I swore on their graves that I would not rest until every last one of his kin have shared their fate." The Kuchiki turns back to face her and so she looks him in the eyes as she says, "I will kill you all."
He stares back at her in silence for a while after this declaration. His surviving men stare too, wide-eyed and red-faced, furious that she would think such a thing possible. Then he says, "We have a week to get to the fort. You are my prisoner until that time and your duty as such means that you have the right to attempt to escape. You say you wish to avenge your family. During this time, you are welcome to try."
She holds his gaze looking for the jest, the mockery and finding none, nods.
He turns yet again to lead on, though it takes his men a moment to recover and follow. Then he says over his shoulder, "Be warned, Yokai, I will not fall so easily."
The egg-sized bump on the side of her head is all the proof she needs that he has the strength to back up that claim. She replies, "My name is Rangiku. Nor will I."
A/N: I think this needs a part two...