Adult-FanFiction.org : Inuyasha / Yashahime

Angelus
By : TwilightAlien
Category: InuYasha > General
Views: 3232 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha, nor make money from this story.
Chapter List
- 16
- 17
- 18
Author's note: Thank you Merely Truth for your
review, I am glad that you like the story despite my flaws! I had to warn
people about the F/F aspect for some simply can�t stand it. Will it be a
passing time or a part of Kitana�s personality, only time will tell� I invite you and all my other readers to continue to
encourage me through reviews. I hope you enjoy what is going to happen soon! Bonne
lecture! :o)
Chapter 17
Kitana swam for what seemed like an eternity.
The river descended with an important current from the side of the hill, but
she had no difficulties swimming upstream. When she approached the nest though,
she saw that the flow of the river was disturbed by the presence of numerous
stalagmites that she would have to go round. The depth of the river itself
diminished and she had to be careful not to let her spiked back emerge and
alert the rats about her intrusion. She could sense them, multiple little
specks of energy running and foraging in the tunnels surrounding the river. She
could also clearly detect Rin and Shippo�s energies, who were kept together in
a much deeper part of the nest.
She detected an area devoid of rats where a
larger tunnel departed to the left in a descending direction. Silently, she
emerged from the water and climbed on the nearest wall, reaching the ceiling in
no time. She pressed herself tightly to the rock, erecting her back spines so
she would mimic the stalactites that descended from the roof of the cave. Just
as she predicted, there was absolutely no light that deep underground, not even
a luminescent moss or a torch to light her way. Closing her eyes, she paid a
closer attention to what her other senses told her.
She sensed the energy of lots of rats inside
the large tunnel. They were mostly on the ground though, some of them
escalating the walls to go over the others, but none shared her ability at
sticking to the ceiling. None of them was strong either, they were all
low-level demons, small fry, but she knew she would be in trouble if they
detected her presence. She advanced slowly, taking utmost care not to make any
rocks or pebbles fall on the ground, and then she saw them.
Her thermal vision gave her a glimpse of what
she had gotten herself into. Multiple small bodies, about the size of a human
child, were running all over the ground in an explosion of crimson, yellow and
white colors dancing over the underlying tones of black and deep blue of the
cold rock. Their claws clicking on the ground and their noses sniffing the air
made a concert of strange, foreign noises, combined to squeaking sounds that
were heard from time to time. Some of them were carrying food items in their
mouths, between huge incisor teeth.
Her black, spiked body was the perfect disguise
to infiltrate an underground complex of caves and tunnels. Her natural
instincts came rushing back at her, and no matter how much she tried to keep up
a civilized fa�ade toward those she considered her friends, in this environment
her nature couldn�t be denied. The aliens� hives, although transformed by the
resin secreted by the creatures themselves, were very similar to this nest with
multiple tunnels branching and going everywhere, and she felt at home despite the
terrible smell. As long gone memories of past hives and battles came back to
her, she savoured the moment. She had always wondered how much of her was from
the Aliens, and how much from� something else. She thought about the way all of
these monsters deferred before her, she remembered the touch of the Queens� minds upon hers, and for an instant she wondered
if she would have been happier living a simpler live among her kin rather than
skimming the stars in search of blood and revenge. Being connected to the Hive
Mind had been for her the most formidable thing in her life.
But this place was no Alien Hive, and there was
no Hive Mind to soothe her and guide her decisions. The rats were simpler than
she had thought; their very basic emotions were nonetheless individual and not
connected to each other. They apparently scurried along the place following
scent tracks, their noses never immobile; this was not the behavior of higher
beings. Suspended to the ceiling in a crouched position, Kitana played with the
idea of staying there, hidden in the maze of tunnels, and decimating the rats
one by one, slowly destroying the whole nest just as a true, pure-blooded alien
would have done with delight. Saliva came flooding to her mouth as she
envisioned the pleasure she would take in stalking and killing her preys, one
after the other, and evading their counter-attacks. When a strand of the sticky
fluid menaced to overflow her lips and fall to the floor, she came back to her
senses. Very rarely had she been so close to her instincts, and it irked her.
She had lived all her life trying to prove herself and others that she was not
a beast, not a mindless animal, and she would not let it happen no matter how
tempting the idea was.
Moving stealthily between the rocky formations,
she went undetected over the multiple rodents. Once a bigger one came down the
tunnel, sporting a larger amount of energy but nothing to the level of what she
sensed from outside the nest. The real fighters were grouped together, even
deeper in the nest than the children.
After the large rat passed by, Kitana stopped
her progression to obtain more information about her surroundings. She called
to her energy-sensing ability to see the rats that were circulating all around
the place and use their endless lines and rows to determine the layout of the
confusing tunnels. Turns and twists, vertical ventilation shafts, dead-ends and
crumbled tunnels were abundant and she did not have any spare time to waste
loosing her way.
As the information came back to her, she
determined that she was far from the kids, very far. Somehow the hill was only
the tip of the nest and the tunnels plunged very deep inside the earth. She
felt a great source of heat down below, close to where she needed to go.
Determined she took the right turns and took down a small vertical shaft
headfirst, her hands and feet sticking to the rock as easily as if she had been
walking on the floor. She started her descent, slowing down only when she
crossed with a horizontal pathway loaded with the rodents; the small furry
creatures were not able to navigate such a vertical passage, thus allowing her
to accelerate the pace.
When she reached the end of the shaft, which
leaded to tunnels much warmer than the upper ones, she was closer to her
targets. Taking a good look before starting to move again, she saw that the
rats around her were now different from the first ones; she could not detect
the sound their fur made when brushing against each other, as if the creatures
were nude. The pattern in which the heat distributed inside their bodies also
changed, becoming hotter, and where she could once sense the warm presence of
eyes, she only felt a void filled with cold bone and skin. The rodents that
dwelled in the deeper levels of the nest were furless and totally blind.
After a half hour spent carefully navigating
upside down on the ceiling over a multitude of chirping and crawling rats, she
was much closer to the level were she could sense Rin and Shippo. A new kind of
obstacle presented itself though, one that she had not anticipated even though
she should have, having seen it from outside the nest. Underneath her the
ground had crumbled, revealing a stream of boiling lava flowing lazily about a
hundred meters below her. The heat was incredible, and there were now only
small ledges on the walls on which the rats could move about. She had reached
the deepest parts of the nest, which was built directly on an active volcano.
A short way ahead, the tunnel opened on a very
large cavity. The ceiling went up, culminating in a dome at least a hundred
meters high, and many other tunnels emerged everywhere around the cavern.
Narrow pathways circulated along the walls all around the chamber, connecting
the tunnels together, and endless lines of nude rodents, small and large, were
navigating on these catwalks. The lava down below was covered with a black
crust of thick, colder magma and a reddish, eerie glow was cast from times to
times when the crust broke up in smaller parts, letting the red lava appear in
between.
Kitana took her time, evaluating her options.
She detected the tunnel she had to take to reach the kids, which was on the
opposite side of the chamber. The shortest way to this tunnel forced her to
cross five lines of rats, and she could not risk that. She would have to
descend further alongside the wall and move as close to the lava as she dared,
following the curve of the chamber to the other side. Then, there was only one
pathway full of rodents that entered the tunnel she planned to take. Sighing,
she decided she would deal with them once she got there.
Her descent started well, with not a foe
noticing her. She took utmost care to move in sync with the bursts of light
that came from the lava, stopping when the light was strong enough to outline
her movements, moving when darkness came back. The rats were all of the blind
race, but she could not take any chance; if a sighted demon was to come here
and see her, it would be the end.
As she reduced the distance between herself and
the minerals in fusion, she discovered that she was not hurt by the heat. It
was not comfortable, and any other creature could not have tolerated this kind
of heat, but she was not truly suffering from it. She remembered accounts of
Aliens surviving from being pushed in the hearth of furnaces by steel factory
workers; she deemed them far-fetched and doubtful when she first heard these
stories, but now she was reconsidering them. She also knew very well that the
Aliens were known to build their hives around a central hot point, and she understood
why. The heat permeated her body, replenishing some of her meager energies. Not
to a point similar to a meal, by far, but the sensation was pleasant and it
boosted her confidence.
While she made her way to the farther side of
the chamber, Kitana discovered a useful phenomenon. The larger eruptions of
lava that happened down below often triggered the fall of small rocks from the
walls. She witnessed the death of about fifteen rats when a pathway crumbled
underneath their feet. The other rats didn�t seem to mind the disappearance of
their peers in the slightest, as if this was a common occurrence.
Kitana used that to her advantage. When she
came only meters away from the line of rats that blocked her path to the
tunnel, she concentrated what powers she had left and waited for an eruption.
She did not have to wait long, as a big bubble of magma inflated and blew right
below her, sending small tremors inside the wall. She immediately provoked the
collapse of the catwalk to her right by manipulating the earth around it. The
results were as good as she hoped: the column of rodents reacted too late and
the demons bumped into each other, sending another two into oblivion, and then
turned back to where they came from. No alert was given, the creatures were calm
and collected, circulating with materials or food in their mouth that were too
important to deliver to loose time on something as trivial and common as a rock
fall.
As she entered the tunnel which headed toward
the surface, a strange vision came to her. Up ahead, a very large nude rat was
being carried by multiple smaller ones. The large rat was colder and not
moving, and when it came closer to the light emitted by the volcano Kitana
could see that it was dead: a huge, dead female with swollen mammary glands.
The small creatures brought the body to the entrance of the tunnel and threw
her down into the lava, before turning tail and returning to where they came
from. Kitana followed, as the path to the kids was going this way.
--
Above the ground, edginess had grown. Inuyasha
had been quick to spot a hot spring that wasn�t too hot for human beings, as
was often the case in such an environment. However, the sulphurous smells
around the water were too strong for him to bear so with the consent of his
friends, they chose to camp further down the slope that led to the basin. Jaken
had grumbled and insulted them in his usual way until a well-placed blow from
Miroku�s staff rendered him silent, for a while at least.
Kagome and Sango had done an inventory of the food
left in the huge yellow backpack that never left Kagome�s side. There would be
enough ramen for the kids, but the others would have to share energy bars.
Water was a problem though, as the river was completely polluted and the
sulphurous waters of the hot spring had an unpleasant smell. Kagome carried
about a litre of bottled water, but Sango decided to let some of the hot spring
water cool down just in case the smell would go away with time. They would have
to limit the water they would put in the ramen if they wanted to avoid
shortage, and leave as soon as they could. While they were planning their
sustenance, they sent Miroku to gather wood for the fire. It wasn�t an easy
task, as trees were very few on this sterile ground, but the ones he found were
dead or dying so he could pick the branches directly on the trunks. All this
time, Inuyasha was trying to hunt down some food but he found nothing except
small rodents and snakes that were hiding in holes as soon as he approached. He
came back to his friends, pushing them to hurry up, and when he saw that his
best annoying behavior led to no results except being sat again and again, he
started sulking, sited atop a bigger dead tree. The only thing left for him to
do was to cut open some rats and, why not, a dog demon, and even that was
denied to him.
When there was enough wood gathered and water
collected, about an hour after their arrival at the spot, the young fighters
couldn�t resist going back to the cliff overlooking the rat nest. They moved
carefully, but as the spying bees were nowhere to be seen, they quickly reached
Sesshomaru�s hiding place. A simple glance from him stopped them from joining
him though, not that they wanted to but his hideout was perfect. Only the
little Jaken managed to squat nearby, leaning against Ah-Un�s side. The
greenish-brown color of the steed was a perfect camouflage, making it very hard
to detect him amongst the boulders and rocks found atop the cliff.
Leaving the kappa and dragon with their master,
Inuyasha and his companions found other smaller boulders that they could crouch
or sit in between, avoiding being detected by any onlookers from the nest or
from the sky, and waited. After a while, Kagome rose and hesitantly approached
the taiyoukai.
�Herm, hmm, Sesshomaru-sama��
He did not acknowledge her presence, but she
continued anyway as he was definitely not deaf, she was certain of that.
�I was, erm, wondering�. Did anything happen
while we were gone?�
Her only answer was a stern �Hn� which she translated
to no. Sighing, she went back to her group and prepared herself for what could
be a long wait.
--
Rin and Shippo had been unconscious for most of
the travel from their camp to the nest. The rats that abducted them carried a
liquid which emitted a strong gas, and whenever one of the kids emerged from
slumber, they would open the jar containing the liquid to put them back to
sleep. The demons had been pleasantly surprised by the presence of the two
children alone in the woods. Their Queen had asked them to bring back both the
child that was travelling with the Shikon priestess and the one who was by the
dog youkai side so her plan could succeed, but they thought the wait for them
to join together and scurry away from the adults would be longer. They had been
very lucky.
As they neared the nest, the rats let them
awaken completely though. At first Rin and Shippo did not understand what was
going on around them, as they seemed to be moving inside the earth itself.
There were four large rats with them, as tall as adult humans, two of them in
front and two carrying them. They were advancing through the earth, the first
rats emitting youki with their hands that pushed the soil to their sides. Their
feet were placed upon small rocky slabs fuelled by their youki that pushed them
forward at a great speed with no physical effort. Behind them, the ground
collapsed and crumbled when the youki left it, leaving no tunnel to follow for
eventual pursuers.
The children were so mesmerized by what was
happening around them that they did nothing to fight off their captors.
However, it changed when they entered the nest itself for a strong smell of
sulphur, rodent urine and faeces irritated they noses. Shippo, who was
particularly sensible to scents, managed to pull out one of his toys and was
soon replaced by a heavy stone statue that made the rat plummet to the ground.
Rejoiced by his success, the little fox was quickly brought back to reality
when he realized that he had nowhere to go. It was very dark around him and
rats were everywhere, showing their sharp teeth and hissing at him. He tried to
fight them off with his foxfire, but to no avail. He was quickly caught again
and stripped of all his magical toys. He wondered why the rats did not bother
to bind him and Rin, but soon understood when they were thrown in a three
meters deep hole in the ground. A very scant light was coming to them from
above, and sounds of suffering and despair reached their ears, apparently
coming from somewhere close to them.
Shippo tried his best to escape the hole,
digging at the bottom and at the walls, jumping or climbing to reach the top,
to no avail. One of his tentative resulted in a good beating from the rats, as
they saw him emerging from the hole in his pink balloon form. To Rin�s delight,
he even tried transforming into a rat to easily climb out of the hole and flee
undetected, but his fox tail gave him away and he was thrown back into the hole
with a new black eye. After all his attempts failed, he turned to his
unfortunate companion, puzzled by her peacefulness. She was sitting in a
corner, her arms resting on her knees and humming a song to herself when he
spoke to her.
�Rin, why don�t you help me escape from here?
Don�t you wish to be out of here? Aren�t you afraid of what they might do to
us? Rats eat anything, you know! I think even Inuyasha will not be able to find
us here, not with the smell that burns the nose.�
The small girl smiled to her brave fox friend,
stopping him from erupting in tears.
�Don�t worry, Shippo-kun. Lord Sesshomaru will
be here for us soon. He always rescues Rin, always.�
The fox was puzzled, for him Sesshomaru was
nothing more than a ruthless killer, almost stronger than Inuyasha and caring
about no one but himself. When he told that to Rin, she simply giggled and
started humming again.
The following day and night blended together as
a slow continuation of the same nightmare, basked in the gloomy twilight of the
cave and soon they lost sense of time. They managed to use one of the holes
that Shippo dug up for their natural needs, but as after two days without
eating or drinking they were dehydrated, it became useless. They slept a lot,
taking small naps and trying their best to entertain each other in between,
often awakening curled in each other�s arms.
--
Kitana, hidden on the ceiling, followed the
group of rats who threw the breeding female in the lava for a while, and after
a few turns they entered a chamber were an unexpected sight appeared to her.
Multiple huge females, similar to the dead one
she saw earlier, were scattered everywhere across the floor. She couldn�t count
them all. About a quarter of them were of the nude variety, and the rest were
regular rats. Many of the furred females sported a higher energy level and
seemed much more conscious and less animalistic than the others. All were
feeding large groups of small pups in different stages of development and most
were also blatantly in advanced gestation. The small furless rodents were
tending to them, carrying the droppings to a far away corner and licking the
skin of the small newborns. She detected the presence of at least four huge
males who were mating with the females in turn, not caring at all about the
state of gestation they were in. The males seemed to have claimed territories
and displayed aggressively to each other when they came close enough to do so,
but never attacking. Kitana silently passed over this amazing display of
intensive breeding and continued through a tunnel that led to the surface, to
finally reach the place where she knew Shippo and Rin were kept, in a round
chamber at a dead-end.
She took her time, evaluating her options. She
knew that was close to one of the exits of the nest, but before reaching it she
would have to by-pass many sighted enemies while carrying two smelly, white-skinned
children which was very risky. A dim light as well as fresh air were brought to
the place by long, narrow chimneys that she was too large to enter. The kids
could have done it though, but they were apparently completely vertical and she
couldn�t picture Rin escalating one of them. There was no guard at the entrance
of the prison, which was good, but she felt at least two rats inside the
chamber and multiple other creatures, which were not moving around at all,
probably being kept captive. Summoning her courage and hoping for her luck not
to leave her, she entered the prison.
The place was a natural cavity of about thirty
meters of diameter. Stalagmites and stalactites created an eerie atmosphere,
and three chimneys brought enough light for human sight to be functional here.
Kitana couldn�t help but wonder about the age of this complex array of caves
and tunnels, for rocky formations such as the one she was admiring needed a lot
of humidity to be formed and the place was as dry as it could be. Carefully
choosing the darkest corners and spots, she made her way to where she felt
Rin�s presence. Between the rocky columns that supported the roof, deep holes
were holding captive different creatures, all of them weak and emitting
desperate sounds. Then she saw the guards: two huge rats towering over two
meters high, clad in full body armors made out of different pieces amalgamated
from multiple samurai armors. Both had huge swords in hands and were laughing
hard, harassing a prisoner near the cell of the kids, plunging their swords
toward the creature contained in there.
Kitana was facing a problem. She would have to
incapacitate them to reach Shippo and Rin, but attacking one guard without
alerting the other would be challenging. She knew no blood could be drawn for
the rodents had already demonstrated their keen sense of smell by the casual
way they navigated inside the dark tunnels, and if she was right they could
probably detect pheromones emitted by a fearful rat. Or the scent of a dead
rat. Her energies were extremely reduced and her favorite means of killing at a
distance, by crushing the internal organs, always caused some blood to spill
from the mouth, eyes or ears. Fire she couldn�t use either, and she would not
take the chance of letting a scream escape the place if she used wind to
immobilize them. Sighing, she resolved herself to watch them and wait for the
best opportunity to strike. After all, when fancy powers were of no use, she
could always come back to her natural physical abilities...
--
Sesshomaru was becoming very irritated. Kitana
had been gone for almost all the afternoon and he itched for a good battle. He
had already silenced the grumbling Jaken by throwing him a rock and had nothing
left to evacuate his frustration.
A few feet away, Sango was polishing her
Hiraikotsu, preparing for the upcoming battle, Kirara curled in her lap. Miroku
was in a meditating posture, sporting a red hand imprint on each cheek, and
Kagome examined her arrows for the tenth time since they started their watch.
Inuyasha was dozing off in a corner, his vigilance numbed by the long waiting
hours and the previous sleepless nights. Once in a while he awoke, took a
suspicious look at his friends and foes who feigned not to notice him taking a
nap, and then closed his eyes again.
--
Kitana was very slowly descending headfirst
along the darker side of a stone column, her prey approaching her unknowingly
from the other side. The guards had left their victim alone a few minutes ago
for a patrol of the other prisoners and she took her chance when they reached
opposite sides of the room. She took care of the first guard swiftly and,
silently, she regained the center of the room where the guards usually met in
their patrol. Now that one of them was neutralized, she only had to concentrate
on the last one and free the kids.
Descending a little more, she felt the rat
coming closer to her and she struck. In a move faster than the eye could see,
she extended her bony tail toward the rat�s muscular neck. A movement at the
very tip of the appendage revealed the presence of a stinger, usually hidden
inside the shaft of the tail. The tiny point dripped yellow poison, and by
merely brushing it against the rat�s hide, Kitana managed to inject the guard
with her venom without even wounding him. The rodent didn�t even realize that
he was assaulted when his brain and muscles fell under the powerful paralysing
agents contained in the poison. In a breath, he went limp and was grabbed by
Kitana. She left the sleeping body in one of the unoccupied holes with the
other guard where they would sleep soundly for a couple of hours, and then ran
to the hole where the kids were kept.
In a jump she reached the bottom of the hole,
silencing them in a flash with a firm hand on each of their opened mouths. In
their weakened state, they very weakly fought back and then they recognized
her. Tears came to Shippo�s eyes but a �shhhhh� from Kitana prevented him from
bursting in cries. Rin�s face was beaming with a toothy smile when her mouth
was released. Kitana took a moment to examine them before starting the most
dangerous part of her intervention. The black eyes on Shippo�s face were
turning a deep bluish green, both children had eyes a little sunken from the
water deprivation and their clothes were in rags, but beside that they appeared
healthy, no open wounds or broken members.
Kitana had yet to bring them out of the nest
and it wouldn�t be an easy task; actually, it would be the most testing part of
her raid. She looked around the hole and found what she was searching for; to
the disgust of the kids, she grabbed handfuls of the dirty soil in the farther
corner of the hole and plastered it on their faces and clothes. Shippo was
about to throw up but did his best to stay silent. Kitana was a grown-up and
unlike children, grown-ups would not do yucky things without a purpose,
especially a grown-up who travelled with Sesshomaru, he told himself. Holding
back his nausea, he took Rin�s example and let Kitana turn him into a walking
mound of filth.
Kitana was pleased by what she saw. The eyes of
the child were now the only white parts that showed, and to her nose their
scent was exactly similar to the stench that filled the whole nest. It would
have to do: it was the best she could do.
She took Rin in her arms and in a whisper asked
the girl to grab her neck and waist firmly so she could support her safely when
they would reach the ceiling. When she was done, the small fox child jumped
upon Rin�s shoulder and although he was at least half her size, he rolled up in
a tiny ball of fur, hanging to the tattered clothes with his claws. Kitana gave
him a nod of approval and jumped out of the hole after checking for any hostile
presence.
Shippo and Rin were hanging on as strongly as
they could, but their muscles were weak from the lack of sustenance. When
Kitana climbed a column and suspended herself to the ceiling of the cave, she
wrapped her tail around their bodies for an added security. It left her
unbalanced but it was not too bad; as long as she didn�t have to run and jump
they would be fine. Under her, she detected the presence of humanoid rodents
similar to the guards of the prison, and other smaller ones more like the
messenger they met at the camp two days ago. They appeared to prefer the
lighted areas over the dark ones, so they gathered in the tunnels and chambers
were the chimneys brought some dim light. She took her time, trying to move
slowly from a dark spot to another one, making sure no rat was looking her way
before moving. The conversations of the demons were banal for now, centered
around food gathering and great battles to come when their Queen would become
even more powerful, but she stayed attentive to what was being said in case
words of the kids� escape were to circulate.
They were approaching the surface when the rats
noticed the absence of their most important prisoners and discovered the
paralyzed guards. Only some hundreds of meters of tunnels were left before
breaking outside, but the rodents were now very agitated, lighting up torches
and inspecting every corner of the tunnels and rooms. Huge rats started to
appear from some sideways, even bigger and more muscular than the guards.
Warriors, thought Kitana. She decided to hide in between two large stalactites
for a moment, and think about her strategy.
�Shippo, Rin,� she whispered. �You will move
onto my back, very very slowly. Hang on as tight as you can, for I won�t be
able to hold you with my tail. When you are ready, we will run toward the exit,�
she added when the kids successfully managed to shift onto her back. Rin was
smiling widely now, and in a muted tone told Kitana �this is just like when we
played with Master Jaken!�
Kitana smiled at her and nodded, warmed by the
confident attitude of the girl. She waited for the rats to scatter a little
bit, and she jumped to the ground. Immediately detected, she broke into a run
for her life.
- 16
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Angelus	By : TwilightAlien Category: InuYasha > General Views: 3232 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha, nor make money from this story.

Angelus