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Through The Well	By : TheKaytla Category: InuYasha > Yaoi - Male/Male > InuYasha/Sessh?maru > InuYasha/Sessh?maru Views: 25850 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 9
Disclaimer: I do not own the series Inuyasha, nor its characters.They are property of Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan, Yomiuri TV, Sunrise, and Viz. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-One
- 2-Two
- 3-Three
- 4-Four
- 5-Five
- 6-Six
- 7-Seven
- 8-Eight
- 9-Nine
- 10-Ten
- 11-Eleven
- 12-Twelve
- 13-Thirteen
- 14-Fourteen
- 15-Fifteen
- 16-Sixteen
- 17-Seventeen
- 10
- 11
- 12
Chapter 11

Inuyasha started laughing. Koga had planned to leave that part out, but Inuyasha had been looking uncomfortable at the revelations about his relationship wth Sesshomaru and so he'd put the other Inuyasha knocking him out back in last minute for this very reason. He decided it was a good choice; it made the corners of his lips kick up in a grin to hear Inuyasha laugh again. And though the laugh was surprised, it was real and straight from the belly.

"All right, all right," he said, rolling his eyes, while still secretly pleased. "It's not that funny."

"Fuck, yeah, it is." But Inuyasha calmed himself enough to talk properly, absently wiping one eye. "So that's how we met?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

"So how the hell did we become... friends... if things started off like that?"

"Ah, well, I was just getting to that." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Hm... let's see... I guess if I had to pinpoint where it started, I'd say it was what happened a couple days later. By the next night, just before dawn, I was feeling stronger. Sesshomaru was off doing... something... and you were asleep by the fire. I'd had the entire day and night to work myself up over the Birds of Paradise killing my friends and I wanted my revenge..."

~*~

Silently as he could when he was still injured, Koga crept toward the mouth of the cave, one wary eye on the annoying hanyou. He knew those fluffy puppy ears were just as sensitive as his, no matter how ridiculous they looked, so he had to be careful.

If Inuyasha knew what he was planning to do, he'd probably try to stop him. And while he had no doubt he could take a hanyou with a rusty sword, even though he wasn't at his best, he couldn't waste the energy if he was going to kill some of the damn buzzards who took his friends.

Holding his breath, he tiptoed out of the mouth of the cave, only letting it out again when he was a few feet away from the opening, and even then he made sure to keep it quiet. The last thing he needed was the mutt or Sesshomaru noticing him and forcing him back into the cave. He had to act quickly if he was going to avenge his packmates; the longer he waited, the further away the birds who killed them would get. He wouldn't let that happen. Couldn't let it.

With a final glance back to make sure the hanyou wasn't awake, he started moving. He didn't dare run; though he felt he might be strong enough to do so, he didn't know if he'd be able to trek up the side of a mountain if he did. So he resolved to walk, ignoring the aches that lingered in his muscles and the voice of reason in the back of his mind that told him he should wait a day or two more.

It was a long, slow trek, trying to conserve as much of his energy as he could, and the sun was bright in the sky by the time he was back in the mountains. He felt vulnerable and exposed, knowing what he was about to do, but he couldn't turn back at this point; the only thing he could do was move in shade and behind cover whenever the opportunity presented itself.

He briefly wondered how he'd find the exact birds that killed his friends, but then he decided it didn't matter. They were all the same and would all kill any of his kin they could get their dirty claws on, so hunting specific targets wasn't necessary. So long as a good number of them died, his restless need for revenge would be sated and he'd be able to return home without the burden of guilt for not being able to save his friends.

He'd been laboriously working his way upwards for roughly an hour before he finally found them - or, rather, they found him. One moment, the sky was clear, then all of a sudden the quiet was pierced with their grating shrieks and he was forced to dive onto a ledge to avoid being snatched up by a pair of viciously sharp claws.

"Fuck," he muttered to himself, crouching behind a rock to make himself as small a target as possible. He'd stumbled upon at least half a dozen of them; how was he supposed to handle that many all by himself? He started to consider, for the first time, that this might not have been the best idea he'd ever had. He hadn't really thought about how he'd get one or two of them alone to fight.

The light was suddenly obscured as one of the birds swooped in, and talons shot past his shoulder to graze his face as he ducked, stretching and grabbing at him. With a growl, he grabbed hold of it and bit down as hard as he could, ignoring the disgusting taste. The youkai cried out in pain and yanked its foot back, and the sunlight flooded back into Koga's hiding spot as it flew back up.

"Stay back, ya bastards!" he shouted, but didn't dare poke his head above the rock to track their numbers and positions. They may look big and cumbersome, but he knew from experience how quick they could be when they wanted to.

He was still trying to figure out the best course of action when the sunlight suddenly turned blinding, and all around him, the rock of the very mountain seemed to crack and split with an awful racket, joined by the panicked sounds of the Birds of Paradise, becoming a deafening roar. He was almost stupefied, completely at a loss for what was happening, unsure whether to count it as a good thing despite how it seemed to affect the birds that had him trapped here.

"You still alive, you mangy wolf?" a voice called out, and Koga simultaneously ground his teeth in irritation and sagged in relief. Back up was welcome, even if it did come in the form of the rude hanyou.

"No thanks to you!" he shouted back. "The hell are you trying to do?"

"I'm saving your ass, is what I'm doing," the hanyou retorted with a snort. "You can come out of hiding now."

"I'm not hiding!" Koga growled indignantly, immediately bouncing to his feet. His searching eyes quickly found Inuyasha standing further up the mountain. His demeanour had entirely changed; he stood and focused on his perch, and the rusty sword had transformed into an enormous weapon almost as tall as Inuyasha himself. He held it casually in one hand with the blade resting on his shoulder, and the last traces of the massive amount of energy it had expelled were just fading from it.

Curious, Koga turned to look at the damage it had caused, and almost gaped. Above him and heading down at an angle from Inuysha's feet were a trio of deep gouges in the face of the rock, like the claws of some huge beast had torn into the mountain. Down at the bottom lay the corpses of several Birds of Paradise, similarly sliced into by whatever devastating power Inuyasha's weapon called forth.

The remaining birds were hovering a distance away, and were letting out a repetitive chorus of shrieks and clicks. It abruptly dawned on Koga what they were doing and he turned to face Inuyasha again. "They're calling for others!"

"I know," Inuyasha said calmly, glancing at him. "That's why you came here, right? To kill them for the other wolves that died? If that's the case, why settle for just a few?"

Surprised, Koga stared. Inuyasha came to help him, not drag him back? He hadn't expected that from the irritable hanyou.

When he said nothing, Inuyasha blew out a breath. "They're probably gonna be here soon. You might wanna climb up from there so you can actually join in instead of hiding."

Koga glared, but the damned hanyou was right, so he held his tongue and resumed his climb. By the time Inuyasha reached down to drag him up the last little bit, much to his irritation, more birds were coming into sight in the distance.

Inuyasha changed his stance, planting his feet firmly in the ground and holding his sword in front of him. Wind currents began to curl around the broad blade as the hanyou grinned ferally at him. "I hope you're ready for this, fleabag."

"Ha! I was born ready, muttface," he retorted, but as more and more silhouettes of Birds of Paradise appeared in the sky, he began to rethink his bold statement. There was certainly a hell of a lot of them against just the two of them. Instinctively, the pair of them shifted until they were back to back as the birds began to surround them and braced for impact.

~*~

"From there, it sorta becomes a blur in my mind. Lots of fighting, lots of blood, seeming to go on forever. But suffice to say that we lived and they didn't, and I got to go home with my head held high, so it all worked out," Koga finished.

Inuyasha sat back, undeniably impressed with his other self. He might not understand this world's Inuyasha's choice of company, but he had this going for him, at least. That sounded pretty awesome.

"So..." he said at last. "Fighting off all those birds was some kind of male bonding experience and we became friends after?"

"Well, I suppose it didn't happen right away," Koga admitted, scratching absently behind one of his ears. "We kept running into each other over the years and I guess it just sort of... happened."

"Forgive me for interrupting," Sesshomaru said, melting out of the trees and causing both Inuyasha and Koga to jump a foot in the air in surprise, "but I do not remember it happening quite like that."

Inuyasha was the first to recover and explode. "The hell are you trying to do, kill us? Don't just [i]appear[/i] like that, damn it. You sneaky bastard. Why are you here, anyway?"

Sesshomaru, looking entirey unrepentant, merely lifted one of his shoulders slightly. "I came to tell you that the children were sufficiently distracted by play, if you wanted to return to the village. It is no fault of mine the two of you became so engrossed in your story time that you let down your guard."

Because he couldn't argue the point, Inuyasha settled for folding his arms crossly and focusing on something else. Besides, Sesshomaru had said something when he emerged that piqued his interest.

"What did you mean, that wasn't how you remembered it?" he asked the daiyoukai.

A glimmer of amusement warmed Sesshomaru's amber eyes. "Well --"

"C'mon, Sesshomaru, don't do that to me!" Koga immediately argued, and was summarily ignored as the older youkai pointedly turned more toward Inuyasha.

"As I recall it, the supposed battle at the end wasn't quite as epic as previously described," Sesshomaru explained. "From how the Inuyasha of this world later related the tale to me, with much laughing, there were only two Birds of Paradise, and the full might of the Tetsusaiga was not required to dispatch them."

Inuyasha blinked in surprise. Koga had lied to him? His first instinct was to be pissed at the deception when he was trying to get everything straight in his head, but after a moment of thinking about it, he realised it was actually... pretty funny. Breaking out into a grin, he looked back at Koga, who was a bit red in the face from anger or embarrassment, or a combination of the two, he couldn't quite tell.

"Damn it, Sesshomaru! Why'd you have to do that?" Koga growled.

Again, Sesshomaru rolled his shoulder elegantly. "It's his prerogative to know the truth, is it not?" But his reasonable answer didn't quite hide that he was enjoying himself, from what Inuyasha could see.

"I suppose it's not too different from how I remember us meeting," Inuyasha said thoughtfully.

Koga stopped his growling to look at him. "It's not?"

"Nah." Inuyasha's grin widened. "The gist of it was you getting your ass kicked by a bunch of those birds and me saving your hide with the Tetsusaiga and killing the really big ugly one." Ok, so maybe there was a bit more to it than that, and maybe Koga had been a bit outnumbered before he got there, but when you stripped it down to the bare bones, that was what happened, right? Close enough.

Koga glared at him. "You know what? Both of you are jerks. I don't have to put up with this crap." With that, Koga left them and stomped off through the trees, leaving Inuyasha laughing behind him.

When his mirth had passed and Koga's stomping could no longer be heard, Inuyasha blew out a breath. "You know... after all that, I still can't figure out what the relationship between us was. Were we friends? Did we just tolerate each other? Did we fight all the time?"

Sesshomaru, who had remained silent while Inuyasha laughed to himself, looked toward the village where Koga had disappeared from view. "The two of you enjoyed bickering, hurling insults and throwing the occasional punch. Getting through a conversation without digging at each other would require the situation to be very dire indeed. But you fought for and with each other on a number of occasions, and there was an unspoken trust between you to watch the other's back. All things considered, I would say you got along very well."

Inuyasha considered that. He supposed, given their personalities and how they fought over Kagome (if that even happened here... he'd have to find out, he guessed), that was really the only way they could get along. He remembered Miroku had once suggested that the real reason they fought so much was because they were so alike. He'd thumped the monk for so much as thinking it, but maybe there was a kernel of truth buried in it after all.

"Still, he must have been pretty hurt at the time to not be able to handle a couple of those scraggly birds. If it was that bad, I dunno why he felt he had to make up a story to hide it."

"Ah, well, I do not think that was what he wished to hide from you."

Inuyasha's brows furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"I believe he wished to hide his youthful folly," Sesshomaru explained.

"His what now?"

"At the time we first met him, he was but little more than two decades old. Scarce more than a pup, and largely inexperienced. His decision to go off on his own was grossly unplanned and a result of youthful arrogance and impatience."

"Wait, wait." The hanyou held up a hand to stop his brother. "Wait. Does that mean I'm older than Koga?"

"Yes, by more than a century. Is that not the case where you come from?"

"I... don't know," Inuyasha admitted, still absorbing the surprise. He was Koga's senior? And all the time the bastard had called him "pup" to piss him off... "I never thought to ask him."

"Perhaps one day you shall have the chance," Sesshomaru said, but he didn't sound pleased with the idea to Inuyasha's ears. He didn't know what to say to it; even if his brother was tolerable here, perhaps even somewhat likable, he still wanted to go back to his own world and didn't plan to stop trying to make that happen. But there was no need to keep rubbing that in his face, or anyone else's.

"We should return to the village," Sesshomaru said, changing the subject. "It will take some time for your friends there to not worry about whether they'll see you again every time you wander off."

Inuyasha nodded slowly, grateful for the change. "Yeah... yeah, all right." As long as the kids stayed distracted, he could handle it, he supposed. And so, side by side, the two inuyoukai walked back to the village in, to Inuyasha's mind, a surprisingly comfortable silence.

---

Wow, look at that. I got it finished :D It's a bleedin' miracle.

I started poking at this yesterday, just knuckling down and getting it done bit by bit, and then today it finally got finished. I'm not sure how I got it done since it's SO DAMN HOT it feels like my brain has melted and will be oozing out of my ears any minute now. Dx Mysteries abound.

Next chapter, a very important question is answered: where's the other Tetsusaiga? I've had this asked at least a couple times now, so I figure it's high time to explain it all, hm?
- 10
- 11
- 12
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Through The Well