Adult-FanFiction.org : Inuyasha / Yashahime

A Twist in the Myth
By : Dunkelgelb
Category: InuYasha Crossovers > General
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Disclaimer: See full disclaimer in Chapter 1
Chapter List
- 24
- 25
- 26
A Twist in the Myth
Chapter 25: Prelude to the Union

Chapter summary: Byakuya seeks out InuYasha and Sesshomaru on Honshu after he and Kagura sensed the turbulent youki aura of the inu brothers fighting with the oni Kuno, followed by InuYasha’s transformation into the 16^th-century Japanese analog to the Incredible Hulk of Kagome’s time. Once he finds them and their ‘pack,’ the wind demon seizes the opportunity to divulge important information about Naraku’s state of health and beseech them to help free him, Sayaka, Kagura, Kikyo, and Kohaku from the oni lord’s grip.
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(Soundtrack: Dark Tranquillity – Ego Drama)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kJLB-JN6qw
            Riding his giant origami crane, Byakuya’s latest copy flew southwest from the forest where the original Byakuya and Kagura had captured Kikyo and Kohaku. At the end of that risky skirmish, they had felt the incredible youki aura of the oni Kuno fighting with InuYasha and Sesshomaru, a fight that led to InuYasha transforming into a full demon and gaining Naraku’s attention as he lurked in his dark castle. The oni lord had directed Byakuya to dispatch a copy of himself to investigate, and now that copy was closing in on the location on Honshu where he had sensed Kuno’s, InuYasha’s, and Sesshomaru’s aura.
            Byakuya was without Kanna’s mirror now, having returned it to Kagura, and so he navigated by aura alone. The mirror was an artifact of great demonic power and the only one of its kind, while he, a mere copy, was expendable, and likely to be killed when coming into close contact with InuYasha or Sesshomaru. If he had the mirror with him, it could be destroyed or fall into Kagome’s hands, Kagome being the one most likely to figure out how to use it. In that event, she could use the mirror to find Naraku in very little time, then point InuYasha and Sesshomaru straight to him.
            The original Byakuya’s life was tied to Naraku’s, and he – and therefore his copy - now knew that he wanted to live to be a husband to Sayaka and a father to their child. This was to fulfill his most immediate responsibility as the male who had impregnated the miko prostitute, as well as to atone for his role in the desecration of her shrine and the destruction of her village. He also knew he needed to find a way to separate himself from the link between himself and Naraku and survive it, before the sadistic oni lord’s death by either illness or more violent means. And not only himself, but Kagura, and Kanna when Naraku got around to bringing her back. Then, InuYasha, Sesshomaru, and all the others were welcome to a piece of him.
            An hour of quiet, high-altitude flight passed for Byakuya and by mid-afternoon, he reached the sky over the village where InuYasha and the others first learned of Kuno – the village of Hideki Saito and his wife, Keiko. The village sat at the base of a short, forested mountain and appeared to have been marauded recently by a gang of bandits or a unit from a hostile daimyo’s army. Several of the structures within its limits still smoldered and poured thick, black smoke into the sky. Byakuya could feel InuYasha’s and Sesshomaru’s youki emanating from within the village, inside one of the undamaged dwellings. InuYasha’s, in particular, seemed to be in a state of wild flux, increasing and decreasing in intensity at unpredictable intervals. Byakuya descended to the village, taking care not to be observed by any of the villagers as he concealed himself in a tree some distance up the nearby forested mountain slope.
            Byakuya’s elevation above the village gave him a panoramic view over it. Needing to get a closer look without entering the village himself, he bent his head and cupped a hand over his left eye. His eyeball detached from its optic nerve inside his head, plopping out onto his palm to leave his eyelid closed over an empty socket. As he lifted his head and raised his eyeball into the air, it sprouted two tiny demonic bat wings and flapped them vigorously to rise off his palm. It then propelled itself out of the tree’s cover and out over the forest down the mountain slope, then open, grassy fields, then the village itself. Controlling it remotely, he guided his eyeball ‘drone’ to the house he felt InuYasha’s youki coming from and closed his right eye to focus on the drone’s perspective.
            Through a small gap in its thatch roof, the eyeball drone entered the house that belonged to the village’s healer, Keiji, and took up a vantage point in the house’s hand-carved rafters, tucking itself into a dark corner unseen and peering downward. Inside the house, Byakuya could see InuYasha laid out on a futon on the floor, stripped of his red haori and white kosode, a terrible, bloody bite mark marring his bare right shoulder. He writhed and trembled in pain, as if consumed by fever. Sesshomaru was there with him, joined by Kagome, Rin, Miroku, and Sango, expressions of great worry occupying their faces. Clearly, something big and powerful had bitten InuYasha, and it looked like the thing’s venom was killing him.
            Though Byakuya’s eyeball drone was only an eye, the membranes of its wings acted as ears by catching the vibrations in the air, allowing the wind demon to both watch and listen. A gray-haired human male of 50 or 60 years of age, evidently a healer of some kind, was busy at his apothecary bench, mashing up green, blue-tipped leaves with a wooden mortar and pestle. He was making medicine for InuYasha, which he diluted with water and poured into a wooden cup, then took the cup in hand and moved to InuYasha’s side across from Sesshomaru.
            “Sit him up, please,” Byakuya heard Keiji instruct to Sesshomaru. Sesshomaru obeyed the healer and lifted InuYasha into a sitting position on his futon, tilting his head back and opening his mouth to allow Keiji to pour his medicine in. This was a fascinating display for Byakuya’s observation: Sesshomaru was actively caring for InuYasha, and Byakuya had never known them to be anything but adversarial. He didn’t consider it to be a bad thing: for InuYasha and Sesshomaru to not be openly fighting anymore meant they could work more closely together against Naraku and stand a far better chance of actually killing him. At the same time, such a thing shortened Naraku’s prospective lifespan dramatically and put his goal of him, Kagura, and Kanna being free from him on an even more problematic timetable.
            Soon after Keiji administered the first dose of anti-venom medicine to InuYasha, the healer sent Kagome, Rin, Miroku, and Sango to a nearby meadow to collect more examples of the herb he had made the medicine from. Kirara, Ah-Un, and Jaken joined them. Sesshomaru stayed by InuYasha’s side, and Byakuya felt his spirit sinking along with the daiyoukai’s as the hanyou warrior’s condition grew steadily worse over the following hour. The wind demon angled the wings of his eyeball drone to focus on InuYasha’s chest: his breathing was ragged and rattling, and he came dangerously close to a lethal heart attack more than once. Such sounds surely did not go unnoticed by Sesshomaru, but he said nothing to Keiji and made no mention of it when Kagome, Rin, Miroku, and Sango returned with the herbs the healer needed.
            Byakuya looked on with grim expectation as InuYasha declined further and further under the weight of the oni venom in his blood. It was eating him alive from the inside out. A particularly upsetting scene came when the hanyou warrior, beset by delirium, mistook Sesshomaru for his late father and Kagome for his late mother. Byakuya supposed that they were fortunate that whatever had injured InuYasha had done so when Naraku’s condition was too unstable to allow him to take advantage, even if he had known of it. A dark thought occurred to him: if he was really on InuYasha’s side now, if only to free himself, Sayaka, Kagura, and Kanna from Naraku, then he couldn’t allow himself to return to Naraku alive. If he did, he would be working against InuYasha by providing Naraku with information he could exploit – that of InuYasha’s infirmed state. He had to either kill himself, or allow himself to be killed. From his vantage point overlooking the village while his eyeball drone monitored the inside of the healer’s house, he breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Good thing I’m only a copy!’
            Byakuya’s relief was compounded when the situation took an unexpected turn for the better around sunset. The flea demon Myoga arrived at Keiji’s house, having ridden a large, black dog to reach InuYasha and his friends after sensing the hanyou warrior’s demonic transformation. The tiny flea used his natural talent as a bloodsucker to filter out the venom Kuno had injected into InuYasha’s blood. Unfortunately, he evidently arrived too late and InuYasha’s transformation into an oni hulk like Kuno began in earnest.
            InuYasha’s skin turned a rich, olive green and one of his arms grew several times larger than the other, filling out with raw, oni-like muscle. His body seemed to be resisting the change, since it did not immediately progress further. This left him is a grotesque, misshapen and asymmetric state. Hastily, Sesshomaru ordered everyone out of the house and moved to hold InuYasha down to his futon as his brother writhed in cursing agony, trying to speak some sense into his venom-addled mind. Byakuya watched as the scene devolved into a grappling melee, which led to Sesshomaru grabbing one of InuYasha’s ankles and flinging him around the interior of the house, spinning him round and round to hammer-toss the semi-oni-fied hanyou warrior right through the ceiling.
            Byakuya braced himself in the tree he hid in out of sheer reflex as Keiji’s house shuddered around his eyeball drone, shuddering as InuYasha’s body punched through rafters and roofing to sail skyward. Sesshomaru stepped out of the house to speak with InuYasha’s friends, then a few seconds later, Byakuya heard the sound of a screaming InuYasha drawing closer and closer, getting louder and louder very rapidly. He suddenly realized that he wasn’t hearing it through his ear-equipped eyeball, then opened his right eye and looked up into the night sky to spot InuYasha tumbling through the air almost directly at him. Frantically, Byakuya leapt out from his hiding tree and dove for cover behind another as InuYasha plummeted through the forest canopy just a few yards away from him. The hanyou warrior’s heavy, half-transformed body stripped heavy tree limbs from their trunks on his way down to the ground, and the awful, splintering racket of it caused the forest insect nightlife to fall silent.
            Grunting with bestial tone, InuYasha pried himself out of the short trough his body had dug in the forest floor and staggered to his feet, his oni-sized arm dragging on the ground by its sheer weight and length. His eyes glowing blood red, he glanced down at his transformed arm, comparing it to his normal one in silent revulsion, and the next sound in the forest was that of his howl, one that split the night by its volume and sheer emotional turmoil. Every bird that been sleeping in its nest in the surrounding trees within a hundred yards woke up and fled by the roar’s report, and for his own part, Byakuya swore he could feel his teeth rattling in their gums. The male wind demon copy kept himself concealed with the tree he had taken cover behind, his heart racing as wondered whether or not InuYasha knew he was there. Under ordinary circumstances, he knew InuYasha would not hesitate to attack him, as he was an incarnation of Naraku. Now, Byakuya feared that if InuYasha discovered his presence, the hanyou warrior would try to rip him limb from limb and eat him.
            InuYasha stumbled away from his landing site, venturing further up the slope of the mountain forest and away from Byakuya without seeing, hearing, or smelling the wind demon. Byakuya relaxed a little, then turned silently and peeked around the side of the tree trunk he hid behind. He watched InuYasha disappear into the dense mountain forest, reeling as if drunk and using his huge, transformed oni arm to claw at the trunks of the trees that dared get in his way, felling them with single slashes of his arm’s youki-charged claws. This had the effect of carving a winding gap in the forest canopy above him, letting soft moonlight illuminate the ground over which he had just walked.
            Once InuYasha was completely out of view, Byakuya knew he had to make a choice: withdraw immediately after coming so close to being discovered, or push his luck and observe InuYasha and his friends further. If he left, he wouldn’t be able to find out what became of InuYasha as he underwent his oni transformation, while if he stayed, the worst that could happen to him was getting killed by InuYasha, Sesshomaru, or one of their more combat-proficient friends. Since he was only a copy of the real Byakuya and he had decided that he needed to die anyway in order to deny Naraku useful information gathered from his little ‘reconnaissance,’ he chose to continue.
            Byakuya could feel InuYasha’s youki roiling violently in him, making him easy to keep track of through the forest, even without using Kanna’s mirror or by following the trail of downed trees. He recalled his eyeball drone to him and replaced it into his empty eye socket. Then, he began to track the rampaging hanyou/oni at a safe distance, using his wind demon agility to leap into the trees he hadn’t destroyed and move from limb to limb, choosing only the limbs that would not bend and rustle underneath his weight. Eventually, InuYasha reached the summit of the mountain that overlooked the village Sesshomaru had tossed him out of, exiting the forest into a grassy clearing bathed in soft moonlight. Byakuya positioned himself in a densely-leaved tree so that he could see InuYasha without being seen himself, and InuYasha sank to him knees in the clearing, clutching his transformed arm and convulsing with his ivory-haired head hung low as the rest of his body began to catch up.
            Sesshomaru and Kagome arrived shortly afterward, having traveled in the daiyoukai’s glowing sphere form to cross the distance between Saito’s village and the mountain InuYasha had landed on as quickly as possible. They reached the summit clearing just in time for them and Byakuya to see InuYasha enter the final moments of his oni transformation. Hunched over on his knees, InuYasha clawed at the ground with his giant oni arm, clutching tightly at his midsection with his normal one as his bones began to enlarge inside him, cartilage, muscle, tendon, and his skin growing to contain his skeleton’s new dimensions. The creak and pop of his bones popping in and out of place reached Byakuya’s ears, getting his stomach twisting in sympathy for the pain he was undoubtedly feeling. InuYasha threw his head back and roared to the moon above as he gave in to the transformation at last, his bronzed skin darkening to a deep, olive green, his height increasing from perhaps six feet to nearly ten, and his weight increasing from around 200 pounds to nearly one thousand, all in the space of just a few seconds.
            Naraku had vested in Byakuya a somewhat eccentric sexuality. Certainly, the male wind demon was attracted to women, and he greatly enjoyed his encounters with Sayaka and Kagura, but he also harbored desires toward especially beautiful males when he saw them. He had a private, intense ‘crush’ on the gorgeous Sesshomaru and he had become enamored with Kohaku as he grew into a handsome adult. He had fantasized getting taken hard by Sesshomaru on his fluffy, comfortable Mokomoko and doing the taking on Kohaku in a steamy hot spring somewhere, as he ranked himself somewhere between the two in terms of sexual power. Therefore, when he laid eyes on InuYasha without his haori or kosode in his new, hulking oni form, seeing all that hard, bulging muscle neatly, tightly arrayed and rippling beneath his green skin, and seeing his alluring ivory mane had grown to the size of Sesshomaru’s Mokomoko, Byakuya saw not a monster, but a newborn, bestial god.
(Soundtrack: Dark Tranquillity – The Silence in Between)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2xWGyloplo
            InuYasha grew silent and stood up to reach his new, ten-foot height. Waves of youki rolled off his now-hulking body with each beat of his heart, and Byakuya pressed a hand to his chest, feeling his own heart reacting to it, instinctively attuning to the power of such a magnificent creature. InuYasha gazed up at the moon, his enlarged, green-skinned, square-jawed face contorting in a terrible sneer as he braced his body and snarled out at Earth’s natural satellite, stomping over to a nearby tree to rip it right out of the ground. He hefted the tree in one hand and cast it root-first at the moon, tossing it as a professional athlete might toss a javelin in competition. By InuYasha’s size and incredible display of strength, having a sexual mindset, Byakuya wondered how someone, anyone, might fuck the hanyou hulk and survive it.
            Byakuya watched as InuYasha turned to face Sesshomaru and Kagome. He caught a glimpse of InuYasha’s transformed face as he turned, relieved to find that as it had been scaled up and given some exaggeration in his brows and upper lip with the oni transformation, his face had generally retained its handsome composition. If this new oni ‘hulk’ form of InuYasha’s was permanent, then he at least wasn’t doomed to oni-like ugliness. “InuYasha,” Sesshomaru spoke, stepping forward to put himself closer to InuYasha than Kagome. “Do you recognize me?”
            “Rrr…Sssss….’Shomaru,” InuYasha answered with great difficulty.
            “Yes,” Sesshomaru confirmed to InuYasha, clearly taking heart from his transformed hanyou brother’s recognition of him. Byakuya noticed that Sesshomaru had three swords at his hip instead of just two, carrying them under the golden sash around his armored waist: Tenseiga, Bakusaiga, and Tetsuseiga. The daiyoukai slipped Tetsuseiga out from beside the other two swords and held it out to InuYasha. “Your sword calls to you, InuYasha. Take it.”
            Moving on all fours, InuYasha advanced slowly and carefully until he was just a few feet away from Sesshomaru. Byakuya looked on in suspense, concerned of what danger a fight between a super-powered and emotionally/mentally unstable InuYasha and Sesshomaru would pose to him. Kagome was close by and Byakuya worried for her safety, as well, regardless of whether or not she thought of him as an enemy. Thankfully, InuYasha did not move to strike Sesshomaru, but sat on his haunches before him and reached out to take hold of Tetsuseiga. Byakuya immediately perceived a change in his body’s youki output as the magic sword pulsed in its scabbard, speaking to his blood on a spiritual level to calm it. “Sess…Sesshomaru!” he uttered, having less difficulty speaking as Tetsuseiga infused sanity into his mind.
            “Yes, InuYasha, I’m here,” Sesshomaru replied with audible optimism by Tetsuseiga’s effect on the hanyou warrior, even in his ‘hulk’ state. “Kagome is here, as well. The others are on their way.”
            “Sesshomaru…help. Help me!” InuYasha begged. Byakuya found the desperation in his warped voice heartbreaking. As beautiful – in Byakuya’s opinion - and powerful as InuYasha had become, he didn’t seem to be enjoying it.
            “I will,” Sesshomaru promised. “You’re in this state because the oni bit you. Myoga says I can cure you of this…condition…with my own bite. Do you understand?”
            Byakuya felt the situation turn even before InuYasha spoke. Kagome seemed to feel it, too, as she slowly backed away from Sesshomaru and InuYasha. InuYasha’s youki suddenly blossomed in intensity, defying Tetsuseiga’s control. “Bite,” he repeated, shaking his big, green, ivory-maned head from side-to-side as if to dispel unpleasant thoughts. From Byakuya’s perspective, the very word ‘bite’ seemed to upset him greatly – after all, it was a bite that had transformed him in the first place. It stood to reason that he wouldn’t want to be bitten again. “Grrr… bite. Bite! NO BITE!”
            InuYasha yanked Tetsuseiga out of Sesshomaru’s hand with ease and stood up to throw the enchanted sword aside, inadvertently throwing it into the forest in an arc that took it in Byakuya’s general direction, high overhead. Byakuya turned his head to listen for the rustling sound of it crashing through the forest canopy, then returned his attention to InuYasha as he tried to smash Sesshomaru into daiyoukai paste.
            From here, Byakuya looked on as Sesshomaru and Kagome tried to get the again-enraged InuYasha under control. Kagome invoked the subjugation necklace he wore to ‘sit’ him and as he lay flat on his face after the necklace took him to the ground, Sesshomaru restrained his arms and legs with shackles made of his youki, then leapt onto his back to try and give him his own bite so as to try and counteract the effect of the oni Kuno’s venom. Unfortunately, Sesshomaru proved unable to penetrate InuYasha’s skin with his fangs, and the hanyou hulk broke free of the daiyoukai’s shackles to rip him off his back and toss him into the trees, this time in a direction away from Byakuya’s position.
            Now, Kagome stood before InuYasha all alone. She tried to ‘sit’ him again, this time with markedly less effectiveness as he first anticipated the yank of the subjugation necklace he wore, then overcame it through brute force. Once he was upon her, she protected herself with a spherical shield of her reiki, much like the youki barrier Byakuya had used to protect himself from Sayaka’s arrows back at her shrine, and the wind demon watched with mounting horror as InuYasha used his giant green fists to beat his way through Kagome’s shield little by little. Since Sesshomaru was briefly out of play and self-preservation was a non-issue, Byakuya was about to intervene, if not to fight InuYasha head-on, then to grab Kagome and fly her to safety. Right then, he spotted Shizu and Shiori, the mother/daughter members of InuYasha’s pack, riding on the back of Shippo in his ‘Fire-Fox’ form, as they dove hard from the night sky, bearing down on InuYasha from a steep angle.
            InuYasha broke through Kagome’s reiki shield but before he could kill her, Shippo opened his vulpine maw and cast several bolts of streaking, glowing green ‘Fox-Fire’ from it, hitting InuYasha several times in his chest. This separated the hanyou hulk away from Kagome long enough for the transformed kitsune to pull up out of his dive, slow down to a hover, and have Shiori pull Kagome onto his saddle, placing the stunned miko between herself and her mother in front of her. Then, Shippo aimed himself upward and blasted off into the sky to take himself and his riders out of InuYasha’s reach. InuYasha shrugged off the impact of the kitsune’s fire bolts, then leapt after him and his passengers with great speed and acceleration as the oni transformation had taken his normal, superhuman hanyou agility and multiplied it in every measurable way.
            With Kagome, Shizu, and Shiori clinging to his saddle, Shippo evaded InuYasha midair and gravity took hold of the hanyou hulk again as he passed underneath the transformed kitsune, his long, white mane streaming in the air above him as he fell back to earth. His size and weight causing him to crash through the forest canopy and do horrible damage to several more trees. He landed on the ground beneath with a thoom that seemed to shake the mountain, and Byakuya wisely decided to withdraw to a safer observation point before InuYasha landed on him.
            InuYasha jumped after Shippo again, only to have to defend himself from Sango’s Hiraikotsu as the lovely taijiya cast her giant boomerang at him. His oni hulk transformation gave him a short attention span, causing him to change targets to Sango and Miroku as they flew on ‘Battle Cat’ Kirara’s back. He landed in the mountain summit clearing, then leapt after Sango and Miroku to try and kill them, his mind lost in bloodthirsty rage. Before he could gain much altitude, though, Sesshomaru’s youki whip wrapped around one of his giant green ankles and dragged him back down to the ground. Having rejoined the fight, Sesshomaru then engaged in a short, demented game of ‘tug of war’ with his hulking brother that saw him knock InuYasha off the mountain to the forest far below.
            Byakuya awed as Sesshomaru entered his ‘true’ demon form, that of a 30-foot, five ton dog demon giant. His size eclipsed even InuYasha’s in his new ‘hulk’ state and he galloped down the mountainside to meet his brother head-on, easily overpowering him. Clamping his massive canine snout over InuYasha’s body, Sesshomaru zoomed up to a high altitude above the mountain and plunged back down, exceeding the speed of sound in both directions as he ‘dive-bombed’ InuYasha into a deep crater in the forest. InuYasha’s extreme durability in his oni hulk form allowed him to survive the fall stunned, but otherwise unharmed.
            With InuYasha unconscious now, Sesshomaru shrank himself down so that the width of his dog demon jaw corresponded to the width of one of his shoulders, his teeth long and strong enough to penetrate the hanyou hulk’s tough green skin without biting his shoulder off. He gave InuYasha his daiyoukai venom and the effect was immediate as InuYasha’s body began to shrink, his skin tone changing from olive green to its original tanned bronze.
            Seeing that Sesshomaru had at last brought InuYasha to heel, Byakuya descended from the tree he had been observing the scene from and sought out Tetsuseiga. The great demonic fang had gone unattended after being discarded by InuYasha and Byakuya felt it unwise to leave such a powerful weapon unsecured. He found it where it had fallen through the forest canopy, bathed in moonlight shining through the rent-open trees.
            Kneeling beside Tetsuseiga, Byakuya suddenly hesitated to touch it. He could feel the great demonic power radiating from within it and he could sense a protective seal imbued into both the scabbard and the sword itself. He was unsure of how it would react to its touch. “Tetsuseiga,” he spoke softly, addressing the sword by its name aloud as he felt its power fluctuating with some kind of limited intelligence. “I understand that you can choose who you allow to hold you, and you probably don’t know me. I am one of Naraku’s incarnations, and I think your master would regard me as an enemy. Nevertheless, I want to return you to him. I’m going to pick you up now, so please don’t…burn my hand off, or anything.”
            Byakuya held his breath and placed a hand on Tetsuseiga’s scabbard, then closed his fingers around it. The sword did not harm him, seeming to accept his stated intentions. He picked it up off the ground and contemplated it in his hand as he stood up, turning to seek out InuYasha’s and Sesshomaru’s youki through the dense forest. InuYasha’s aura felt generally normal now and he began to move to him.
            Cured of Kuno’s venom and reunited with Sesshomaru, Kagome, and his other friends, InuYasha trudged back up the side of the mountain Sesshomaru had thrown him down, the same one that Saito’s village sat at the foot of on its far side. Together, he and the others were moving to return to the cave Kuno had used for shelter, rather than Saito’s village itself. They weren’t yet sure he wouldn’t suffer a relapse of his hulking oni rage and Sesshomaru had caused great damage to the interior of the healer Keiji’s house, having used InuYasha’s body to demolish the interior and having thrown him through the roof. Therefore, they would shelter in Kuno’s cave to spare Saito and the residents of his village from any further oni-related drama.
            Slowly regaining his wits after his oni transformation, InuYasha held the stretched-out waist of his red hakama bunched-up with a hand, to keep it from falling down his hips as he walked. Kagome walked at his side to help him along, as he seemed unsteady on his feet. She solved the problem of his hakama’s fit by extracting one of the long, red decorative ribbons that marked the end of one of her white miko haori’s sleeves, letting him use it as an improvised belt for his hakama. Then, he realized he didn’t have his sword with him. “Shit…” he cursed in sudden alarm. “Where’s Tetsuseiga?”
            “You threw it away while you were transformed,” Kagome said. “I think it landed somewhere on the top of the mountain.”
            “We need to get it back,” InuYasha worried, speeding up his gait a little and feeling his muscles burning in protest, an after-effect of his oni transformation. “Who knows who or what else prowls this mountain at night?”
            “I do, apparently,” Byakuya answered to InuYasha with some mirth. He spoke as loudly as he could without yelling outright in order to be heard as clearly as possible. InuYasha and his pack stopped in their tracks as they searched for the source of the wind demon’s voice. Slowly, and without any sudden movements that might alarm them, he stepped out from behind a tree that lay in their path some yards ahead of them, fully entering their view.
            “Byakuya!” Kagome exclaimed, recognizing Naraku’s handsome male incarnation as he stepped out of the shadowy darkness of the forest and into the moonlight. Bristling, Sesshomaru drew Bakusaiga from its sheath at his hip, stepping forward to place himself between Byakuya and InuYasha and Kagome, who were as-yet unarmed. The others went for their respective weapons: Sango drew her katana and Miroku readied his enchanted staff, while Shizu and Shiori placed their hands on the hilts of their own defensive swords. Shippo, having returned to humanoid form, manifested a sword made of his green Fox Fire that burned harmlessly in his hand. Kirara crouched low, ready to pounce, a threatening growl resounding from her feline throat. Rin and Jaken stayed close to Sesshomaru while Ah-Un advanced to protect them with his big, armored reptilian body.
            “Hello, everyone,” Byakuya greeted to InuYasha, Sesshomaru, and their extended pack, respectfully and with some trepidation as he observed the accusing expressions on their faces, especially on those of the women. Certainly, they must have visited Sayaka’s shrine and village and seen the blood and cum-soaked aftermath of the colossal orgy of sex and death that had transpired there. “I’m glad to see that all of you are okay, especially you, InuYasha.”
            Glowering in suspicion and mild offense as Byakuya roved his cobalt-blue eyes up and down his conspicuously-bare chest, InuYasha glanced down at Byakuya’s hands to see that he had Tetsuseiga with him. “That’s my sword. Give it back!”
            “Of course,” Byakuya agreed outright. He grasped Tetsuseiga at its center of gravity and held it upright, then looked to Sesshomaru, tossing the magic sword through the air in a rising, falling arc for him to catch. The towering daiyoukai caught it with his free hand, weighing it suspiciously as if it was a fake of some kind. The weight of it, combined with the sensation of the youki radiating from the dual seals in its hilt and scabbard, told him otherwise. Not taking his eyes off Byakuya, he held Tetsuseiga out behind him for InuYasha to take.
            As Sesshomaru handed Tetsuseiga off to him, InuYasha confirmed its authenticity by drawing it from its scabbard. The great demonic fang transformed into its fighting state, the seal in its hilt communing with his half-demon blood to soothe it after his ordeal with Kuno’s venom. “This is really my sword,” InuYasha noted with some disbelief before he looked to Byakuya again. “I say ‘give it back,’ and you just…give it back…just like that?”
            “I wouldn’t deny you your most powerful weapon, given the choice,” Byakuya said. “Not now.”
            “How much of all this did you see?” Sesshomaru asked bluntly to Byakuya, gripping Bakusaiga tightly as he weighed the wind demon’s fate.
            “I saw everything beginning just before you threw InuYasha out of that village, so a few hours’ worth, I think,” Byakuya answered forthrightly to Sesshomaru. “Naraku felt you and InuYasha fighting some thing earlier and he sent me to have a look. How much did all of you see at Sayaka’s shrine?”
            “Plenty,” InuYasha intoned with disgust, while the others listened. As disgusted as he might have been, he sheathed Tetsuseiga again, seeming to sense that Byakuya hadn’t come to fight. He was probably a copy, anyway.
            The look in InuYasha’s eyes, as well as Kagome’s, inspired shame in Byakuya’s heart. “Then you must know that Naraku was making me do such things, either manipulating me into it or forcing me,” Byakuya added. “Sayaka is safe, for now. Do you want to know why Naraku took her?” He interpreted the collective silence that followed as a ‘yes.’ “He took her because he’s sick.”
            Strange expressions of semi-amusement crossed the faces of Miroku and Sango, while InuYasha gave up a bitter laugh. “Tell us something we don’t know,” he scoffed.
            Byakuya smiled half-heartedly. “I don’t mean mentally. I mean physically,” he clarified. “He’s dying.”
(Soundtrack: Avantasia – Memory)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUorXmCKWaU
            Whatever cynical smiles had started to grow on InuYasha’s face or those of Miroku, Sango, or any of the others faded immediately. “Dying…” Kagome repeated. It stunned her to think that Naraku could die – he’d been a driving force in her life and the lives of her friends for years, long enough that she barely visualize what life without him would be like. “How…and from what?”
            “The Shikon jewel,” Byakuya revealed. “You know he’s had it for years. Most of it, anyway. Having it near him for so long has done something to him. His body begins to betray him now, changing against his will, growing and withering in ways he can’t control. A miko’s reiki seems to keep the illness at bay, so that’s why he took Sayaka – to drain her of her reiki and use it to purify himself.”
            Kagome had always suspected the Shikon jewel’s energy could have a detrimental effect on the health of whoever possessed it. Before she inadvertently shattered it so many years before, she’d felt the warmth of the energy radiating from it and had wondered what that energy was really doing to the people that came in contact with it, at the cellular level. Radiating – she considered the word as it applied to the science of her own time. Was the Shikon no Tama radioactive? If it was, then she considered herself fortunate that the demonic ‘Mistress Centipede’ had dug it out of her when she did.
            “Why are you telling us all this?” InuYasha asked to Byakuya.
            “I want you to kill Naraku,” Byakuya said with cool venom, harboring escalating hatred for his creator. “Now that he’s ill, there’s never been a better time.”
            “Holy shit. This is a pretty fucking huge betrayal for you,” InuYasha noted, stepping forward until he was abreast of Sesshomaru. “Mugen no Byakuya, Naraku’s most loyal of all, conspiring behind his master’s back. What’s changed your mind about him, all of a sudden?”
            “I think the word for it is ‘conscience,’” Byakuya considered introspectively. “Right before Naraku made me…violate Sayaka and her girls, I felt something break in my head, right here.” Byakuya tapped to one of his temples for emphatic effect. “It was like the worst headache you can possibly imagine. I think that was the mental block Naraku put in my mind, the subconscious device that allowed me to follow his orders, collapsing under the weight of my conscience’s protest.”
            “He made you with a conscience, huh?” InuYasha remarked with audible skepticism. “Seems like a design flaw, to me, to make an incarnation that would eventually have such a crisis down the road.”
            “You’re more right than you know,” Byakuya agreed. “That is what I share with all of Naraku’s other incarnations – a flaw. Every one of us has embodied a flaw in some way. Goshinki, Kageromaru, and Juromaru were driven by bloodlust and uncontrollable because of it. Kanna was empty, limiting her use in battle. Kagura desired freedom above all else, informing all of her actions against Naraku. Hakudoshi and the Infant desired power. And I…I have a conscience, which prevents me from serving Naraku willingly – happily - any longer.”
            InuYasha and his friends were quiet for a few moments as they pondered on Byakuya’s words. “There’s more,” the wind demon added. “Sayaka is pregnant, a consequence of what happened at her shrine. I’m the father, and I want you to kill Naraku so that the baby, hers and mine, doesn’t come under his influence. I want to live and help her raise it.”
            Kagome’s blood cooled in her veins at the terrible thought of another innocent life being exposed to Naraku’s evil, that of a newborn. “You’re linked to Naraku, I’ve felt it before,” she warned to Byakuya from behind InuYasha.
            Byakuya nodded. “That’s right. I need you to free me from him, so you can kill him without killing me. And not only me, but Kagura, too.”
            Everyone stilled and Sesshomaru shot Byakuya a particularly menacing glare. “Kagura is dead,” he said with complete certainty, as he had witnessed Kagura’s death first-hand.
            “Not anymore,” Byakuya corrected to the daiyoukai, helpless to prevent his lips from curling into a smile by Sesshomaru’s reaction. It felt so good to say that certain people were alive again after having been dead for a long time. “Naraku brought her back last night. With his illness, he limits himself to his castle more and more, and leaves it only for… special occasions. He’s brought back Kagura and soon, he’ll do the same with Kanna, so that he can have more incarnations in the field than just me.”
            InuYasha stared right into Byakuya’s eyes, briefly dumbstruck. Kagura, alive again – along with Sesshomaru, he considered the wind witch’s tragic death one of his greatest failures and that failure was suddenly undone. Kanna’s, too. He couldn’t wait to see them for himself. “Are there any other fucking shocking revelations you’d like to drop? Because I am all ears.” InuYasha then wiggled his alluring dog ears for comical emphasis.
            Byakuya returned InuYasha’s gaze and glanced at his furry white dog ears, then looked off into the dark forest coyly. “Oh…” he began with a semi-musical tone and an arched eyebrow. He considered Kikyo’s relationship with InuYasha and decided he shouldn’t mock it. “There’s this - earlier today, Kagura and I captured Kikyo and Kohaku. They are now Naraku’s prisoners, along with Sayaka.”
            Whatever cordiality and good humor InuYasha had built up in him as he and his pack talked with Byakuya disappeared as soon as the wind demon mentioned Kikyo. Sango felt similar anger as he mentioned Kohaku. InuYasha tried to storm forward at Byakuya, intending to throttle him if not disembowel him, only to be held back and restrained by the larger, stronger Sesshomaru. “You fuck!” InuYasha spat, struggling in Sesshomaru’s hold and causing Byakuya to backpedal a few steps. “Did you hurt her!?”
            “Yes,” Byakuya answered honestly, much to InuYasha’s rage. Next to InuYasha, Kagome gave no overt reaction to his behavior, as provoked by invocation of Kikyo’s name. “I’d rather not say how, in case you try to do the same thing to me out of revenge,” Byakuya continued. “Other than that, Kikyo is as well as can be, as is Kohaku. Naraku has no intention of harming them, or at least killing them.”
            “Like we can believe that,” Sango sneered. “Naraku had you capture Kikyo for her reiki, and Kohaku for his jewel shard. Removing it will kill him!”
            “Ordinarily, that would be true,” Byakuya agreed. “However, Naraku told Kagura that he will remove Kohaku’s jewel shard…‘in such a way that he survives.’” Here, Byakuya narrowed his eyes and imitated Naraku’s indecent, hedonistic tone. “Beyond the jewel shard, Naraku wants Kohaku to impregnate Kagura as I did Sayaka.”
            “Impregnate!?” Sango repeated. “Why would Naraku want Kohaku to do, uh…that, with Kagura?”
            “If nothing else, it amuses him,” Byakuya speculated. “He created Kagura with a functional reproductive system this time, and now, she’s gone into heat. This is precisely the time of year for such a thing, isn’t it? Whatever Naraku wants Kagura to have a child for, it can’t possibly be good for anyone.”
            “Where is Naraku’s castle? Tell us exactly,” Sesshomaru demanded. “We, or I, can go to him and end this, once and for all.”
            “I can’t,” Byakuya replied, to Sesshomaru’s displeasure. “All I can tell you about the castle is that it’s not on land, but far out to sea in the east. I find it through my link to Naraku – it acts like a beacon for me to follow. Leaving the castle, I navigate to land by the sun and the stars. I found you, Sesshomaru, and InuYasha through your auras, but you cannot do the same to find Naraku – his castle his surrounded by a barrier that hides his youki.”
            “Then we follow you to Naraku,” InuYasha concluded. “You can fly, and all of us can fly, if we have to. You can lead us right to him.”
            “Remember, I want to live,” Byakuya reminded to InuYasha. “Do you already have a way to free Kagura, Kanna, and me from Naraku? Without one, killing Naraku will kill me, of course, and it would also doom Kagura and Kanna each to a second, truly permanent death, so soon after their resurrection. Then, they would have been alive just long enough to have thought that life was going to stick¸ and the despair they would feel just before their deaths would be magnified. Is that what you want?”
            “…No,” InuYasha grumbled. “I want to help. I think all of us do.”
            Byakuya calmed himself after successfully dissuading InuYasha from such a disastrous course of action. “Thank you. Following me wouldn’t do you any good, anyway. Naraku would see you coming miles out, giving him plenty of time to slip away. Then, his punishment on me would be swift. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to find his castle for yourselves, then find a way to get close to it without him noticing.”
            “Is there anything else you can tell us?” InuYasha asked, his anger over Kikyo having subsided to more manageable level. “Anything at all?”
            Byakuya looked to Kagome, great worry shining in his eyes for her to see. He imagined Naraku getting his hands – and tentacles – on her as he had Sayaka and fought the shudder that resulted. She understood his expression and stepped a little closer to InuYasha, taking comfort in the warmth of his bare upper body in the cool nighttime air of the forest they all stood in. “Naraku has taken Sayaka and Kikyo prisoner, to use them as sources for the reiki that heals him,” Byakuya said grimly. “Kagome is probably next.”
            For a moment, Kagome felt everyone’s eyes on her and felt greatly reassured that she had so many people that cared about her and would protect her from Naraku. “That isn’t going to happen,” she rebuked to Naraku’s evil will through Byakuya. “Take a message back to Naraku, and Sayaka, Kikyo, Kagura, and Kanna with him – we’re coming. He will be destroyed and they will be free.”
            Byakuya smiled at Kagome’s resolve. “As much as I would like to say that to Naraku’s face, I must not relay such a message,” he declined, to Kagome’s intrigue. “I am a copy of the real Byakuya. We are the same in every way, except for our memories. I now have memory of things that he does not, which he would gain if we recombined into one. And when he knows what I have seen and discussed with you, Naraku will know it, too. For his safety, as well as the safety of all the others imprisoned in Naraku’s castle, he must have no memory of this conversation. I...must die, before I recombine with him.”
            “You mean we have to kill you? As in right now?” InuYasha asked in increasing exasperation.
            “It’s the only way,” Byakuya confirmed. “I can’t kill myself. All the ‘real’ Byakuya will know is that I was killed by one of you, which should not be a surprise to Naraku.”
            “Shit…” InuYasha cursed under his breath. He looked around to his friends and noted the disinvested looks on their faces. “I don’t want to kill you, Byakuya, and no one else here does, either. We don’t hate you. As far as Naraku’s incarnations go, you’ve been more of a nuisance than a threat.”
            “Uh…thanks?” Byakuya responded to InuYasha’s backhanded comment, with audible ambivalence. “But as much as you may not want to, you must. Just ‘Kaze no Kizu’ me in my face and be done with it. I promise to stand still, in case your aim is off.”
            Before InuYasha could protest again, Sesshomaru stepped forward until he was just a few feet from Byakuya. “I will do it,” the daiyoukai volunteered himself. “Am I not the ‘Perfect Killer’…?”
            Byakuya looked Sesshomaru over with a nervous smile and nodded. Standing so close, the daiyoukai warrior was a half-foot taller than him and projected an intimidating presence. Sesshomaru glanced behind him briefly, counting the females of his and InuYasha’s combined pack. “There are women present. Perhaps they would not want to see this,” he observed, looking to Byakuya again.
            Fully committed to achieving his own death, Byakuya turned his back to Sesshomaru, a suicidal act in its own right. He walked then forward to disappear back into the shadowy nighttime forest from whence he came and Sesshomaru followed him until they were fully obscured from InuYasha and the others behind a large oak. Once there, Byakuya faced Sesshomaru again and put his back to the oak, surrendering himself totally to the daiyoukai’s mercy.
            Sesshomaru observed Byakuya’s complete willingness to die with stoic fascination. In this case, his death would serve a vital purpose: to prevent Naraku from learning of his betrayal and of InuYasha’s oni transformation. “How do you want it?” he asked. “Sword, or acid?” Still holding Bakusaiga in a hand, he raised his other hand and summoned his youki into it, which manifested as a glowing green aura around his fingers that illuminated his face dramatically. The youki then began to drip to the ground, melting through grass and earth with a soft hiss.
            “Let’s keep this quiet,” Byakuya suggested. “Strangle me.”
            Sesshomaru raised a thin, male eyebrow, reabsorbing his youki acid into his hand and slipping Bakusaiga back into its sheath. He stepped forward until he was just inches from Byakuya, towering over him. He could hear the male wind demon’s heart racing in his chest, and he could smell both fear and arousal on him. “You’re enjoying this,” he said with some surprise.
            Byakuya swallowed thickly and gripped the bark of the tree behind him to keep himself steady on his feet. “Naraku patterned me after Kagura,” he hushed, trembling as Sesshomaru leaned in closer to smell him more deeply. “She was quite attracted to you, and I think I’ve inherited some of that attraction. Any excuse to be near you is a good one.”
            “Then you shouldn’t mind if I kiss you,” Sesshomaru suggested. He reached up to slip a hand behind Byakuya’s ebony-haired head and closed in to join their lips, drinking a sweet, chaste kiss from him. Byakuya closed his eyes and moaned softly, opening his mouth to take the kiss deeper. Sesshomaru indulged him, then reached up to wrap his other hand around his throat, beginning to squeeze.
            Byakuya opened his eyes again to gaze into Sesshomaru’s as the beautiful, lethal daiyoukai pulled his mouth away, beginning to tighten his steely fingers on his throat and increase the strangling pressure. He didn’t struggle – this was exactly what needed to happen. He couldn’t breathe now and his heart began to speed up as the missed breaths began to add up. The veins in his temples strained visibly and blood vessels in his eyes began to break. “Save us,” he begged to Sesshomaru, on behalf of himself and all the others Naraku held sway over. “Save us all!”
            Sesshomaru tightened his fist further and Byakuya’s neck broke with a sickening crunch. The life left the wind demon’s cobalt-blue eyes and his head hung to one side as his heart slowed down and stopped. Dead at last, his body began to dissolve into glowing, weightless ash and flowed away in the gentle air currents of the forest, reminding Sesshomaru of Kagura’s death years earlier. Once Byakuya had dissolved completely, Sesshomaru stepped out from behind the tree he had strangled the wind demon against, back into the view of InuYasha and his friends. From their perspective, Sesshomaru and Byakuya had disappeared into the trees, but only Sesshomaru returned.
            “It is done,” Sesshomaru confirmed coolly to InuYasha and the others. InuYasha scowled, while Kagome felt queasy that such a terrible thing could ever be truly necessary. If there was another option, she wished she’d have thought of it.
            “So, Naraku’s castle is out at sea,” InuYasha considered. “No wonder we why haven’t found it, yet. We’ve been looking on land, the whole time.”
            “That still doesn’t give us much to go on,” Kagome mused. “Japan has thousands of miles of coast line. Even if Naraku’s castle is just out of sight of land, we still have no idea where to start looking.”
            “And now, in addition to Sayaka, Naraku has Kikyo, and Kohaku,” InuYasha added, pacing pensively. “That’s another jewel shard for him…another, uh…” Gradually, his speech became strained and his movements became sluggish and clumsy, causing his friends to take notice. “God damn it…god damn it, fuck!”
            InuYasha felt himself become suddenly, intensely dizzy and knelt on the forest floor to prevent himself from toppling over. Kagome rushed to his side and Sesshomaru felt the hanyou warrior’s youki aura rising again, though not with the same bestial rage as when he transformed into an oni hulk earlier. Its nature was amorous.
            At first, InuYasha thought that thinking about Naraku so much was making him physically ill, until he felt his entire body give off a pulse of flaring youki. Ba-bump. Another pulse hit, followed by another and another, each one coming in time with the quickening beat of his heart. The bite mark Sesshomaru had left in his shoulder throbbed with a not-unpleasant warmth and he tilted his head back, growling out his rising passion. Kagome and all the other women in the pack gasped aloud as they felt his demonic sexual energy reach into their bodies and tell them to get ready. It was just like back at the inn in Kotobukiya, when it preceded a long, wild, night-long orgy, and incredibly, it felt even more powerful now.
            Kagome struggled for breath as a pleasurable heat blossomed deep in her belly. She was getting aroused for InuYasha and in very little time. She looked around her to see the other women squirming as if sexually-stimulated, rubbing their thighs together to soothe the ache building up between them. “InuYasha, what…what’s happening to you?”
            “The change has begun,” Sesshomaru grit out, his own youki responding to the rise in InuYasha’s. “He is becoming daiyoukai.”
            Myoga was still present, clinging to one of the shoulders in Miroku’s houshi robes to watch the events of the night unfold. “Lord Sesshomaru’s venom has purged that of the oni in Master InuYasha’s blood, and now it is taking root itself,” he explained. “It is elevating him, from hanyou to daiyoukai, or something close to it. Daiyoukai are notoriously sexual creatures…the Inu no Taisho egregious among them, and now that InuYasha is becoming one himself, his demonic spirit wishes to inaugurate his body’s new form.”
            “In…inaugurate?” Shizu panted, looking to Shiori as she clung to Shippo. The cute, young demon couple was getting hot and bothered as she was, and she looked back to InuYasha to see the muscles rippling beneath his bronzed skin, growing larger, stronger as if gearing up for…something. That ‘something’ was a marathon, daiyoukai-level mating session, and she knew that she and Kagome were probably InuYasha’s first targets.
            “Myoga, what should we do?” Miroku asked to the flea demon on his shoulder. He could feel his blood heating up in his veins, answering the call of InuYasha’s rising daiyoukai spirit. Sango clung to his side as Shiori did with Shippo, and her heat and scent were intoxicating.
            “In the coming hours, Master InuYasha must be kept sated,” Myoga answered with a blush. “Food and water for his body to cope with the physical changes he will undergo, and, uh…female companionship to keep his blooming sex drive in check.”
            “We’re already on our way to Kuno’s cave,” Kagome said, trembling by the effect of InuYasha’s aura on her. “We can shelter there, and we can send out to Saito’s village for food and water. For InuYasha’s sex drive, we have our condoms and sutras. Inside the cave, we won’t need to worry about the noise. We should be okay, but we need to head there right now. I feel like I want to start tearing all my clothes off!”
            InuYasha growled again, his inner demon’s approval of the idea of a naked Kagome. Along with Kagome’s scent, he smelled Shizu, Sango, Shiori, and Rin – five hot, beautiful bitches all dripping for the ultimate fuck. Once at Kuno’s cave, he promised himself to try to keep himself limited to Kagome and Shizu, but he knew that if any of the other girls needed more than their own males could give them, he’d be happy to fill in. He stood up, his dizziness fading while his burgeoning arousal remained. His cock throbbed visibly beneath his hakama, forming an impressive bulge in the red Fire-Rat material. “Then let’s go,” he intoned, pulling Kagome to her feet with him and sweeping her right off them, scooping her up into his arms. He turned and began to march on the path he and his friends had been following before they encountered Byakuya.
            The others followed InuYasha, all of the resuming their trek back to Kuno’s cave, this time moving with urgency and excitement. Ahead of them lay a night of wild, frenzied passion that would unite them all.

-To be continued-
- 24
- 25
- 26
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A Twist in the Myth	By : Dunkelgelb Category: InuYasha Crossovers > General Views: 18090 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: See full disclaimer in Chapter 1

A Twist in the Myth