Redemption

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, etc. This story is for entertainment purposes only.

REDEMPTION

Summary: Specters of the past bring forth questions for the future. Can she save his soul, or will he wander forever in darkness?

WORDS

houshi - Bhuddhist monk
-sama - honorific meaning great respect, “lord”
-san - honorific meaning respect, “mister” or “mistress”
-chan - honorific designating close friendship

WARNING! DARK IMAGERY AND ADULT TOPICS, RUN ON SENTENCES AND POTTY MOUTHS (GLARES AT BANKOTSU AND INUYASHA)

A/N - Ah, cliffies. Don’t they suck? Mwa-ha-ha-ha! It’s good to be Fate…just be glad I’ve already banged out the next few chapters and it shouldn’t be too long before I post ’em. I want to give many thankies for the continued reviews. The response to this story has surprised me, and has truly inspired. Thank you. (Fate)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The pale blue energies that surrounded him in misty veils of obscured truth slowly withdrew. The fading warmth of the ancient miko was a soft caress that touched along his cheek in farewell before she, too, was gone. Awareness returned; first as a slow climb through layers of hazy transference, then slowly speeding up until he was whirled from out of the heady depths of abstraction with an abrupt lurch as consciousness was fully restored.

He blinked, thinking to dispel a last, haunting image of one of the ghostly demons, trapped inside the Jewel, who had tried to claim his soul in darkness.

But the demon did not vanish, and damn, but reality was sure doing its fucking best to crash back down on him and bite him right in the ass.

With a yell, Bankotsu rolled out of the way of impending doom, the monster howling as its prey escaped snapping jaws. The winged snake was all teeth and no brains; instead of fleeing, it decided to attack him again, this time trying to wrap its lashing coils around his body so that it could immobilize the mercenary and bite off his head.

Bankotsu was ready for it, and with a calculated dive at the last second, he slithered free from the snake’s intended embrace. There was no time to pick up his dropped halberd, instead he latched onto the first available appendage, and grabbed hold of the youkai’s tail. The demon howled and spat, writhing on the end of its impromptu tether with angry hisses.

“Curse you, human! Let go of me!”

Bankotsu smirked.

“Okay.”

Muscles bunching in arm and shoulder, the mercenary turned with all his strength and obligingly let go of it. The snake screamed in angry terror as it was flung spinning out of control. Its long body wrapped around itself, tumbling end over end until, hissing, it careened into a crowd of similar ilk, knocking them over like a set of loosely propped spears.

Bankotsu bent, as graceful as any dancer, and picked up his sword from the churned mud, using the force of his slanted whirl to bring him back around into a defensive stance. The long braid of knitted black hair slapped wetly against his back as he glanced about with a cocked brow. The fuchsia-ridden light that gleamed from his halberd did little to dispel the darkness of the gathered storm, which cast the clearing into a pallid gloom of unnatural shadows.

“Give me the Jewel shards!” A raspy voice whined, its disturbingly single pink eye glittering with angry avarice as long, three-fingered claws reached down for him.

*You would think they could come up with something different to say. At least once!* They were as bad at repeating retold lines as the countless, unimaginative monks who were always trying to purify him right back into death.

With a casual swing of his giant sword, Bankotsu lobbed the ogre’s head off with one stroke.

At least the gurgling shriek of the ogre’s dying stagger was a bit different than the last one slain. This one was a bit high-pitched, almost like a girl. Kinda funny.

The next one gagged, and the next one gibbered.

The fourth one didn’t stick around long enough to do much more than shriek as it turned tail and ran---right into the whipping edge of a giant, boned boomerang, which sliced it neatly in two at the chest before whirling back on its axis and disappearing into the rain-splattered gloom. A fiery-footed neko snarled, making sure of the kill as a black paw neatly nabbed a flying skull right out of the air with almost negligent disdain.

“Wind Scar!”

*Huh?*

A blinding flash of yellow radiance lit the left side of the clearing, and the snarling roars rising from countless throats were brusquely silenced.

Bankotsu paused, trying to push away the sodden black bangs that kept getting in his eyes, and glared through the splattering drops that came down so thick it was like trying to peer through a wall of splashing water. Lightning splintered the swollen sky, and he was distracted by the slender, black-clad form of the taijiya as she ducked under the clawed swing of yet another lumbering ogre.

His heart clenched as he saw the demon’s other fist connect with the slayer, who was sent flying into the dirt at its feet. *Sango!*

She needed him, damn it! But his few seconds of inattention had allowed more of the filthy vermin to try and surround him, and he faced a fleshly wall of jeering youkai, all hissing, roaring or screaming that they wanted the Jewel shards, give me the Jewel shards!

*Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah!*

With each beat of that silent litany, Banryuu struck. A litter of discarded body parts and demolished flesh was left strewn in Banryuu’s wake as demons howled in pain and rage. But more and more of them stood between him and Sango, and Bankotsu cursed, “Damn it! Get out of my way!”

Rotating his giant halberd in a continual, circling sweep over his head, Bankotsu spun through the mass of demonic monsters who barred his way. There was a sudden wave of screaming youkai trying to back away from that deadly, spinning sword. Scrambling over or under their fellows---who had yet to realize what faced them and were still straining to get close to the resurrected mercenary so that they might steal his shards for themselves---the line of demons erupted into utter chaos as those trying to flee were thwarted by those trying to get closer.

With near glee, Bankotsu took advantage of the situation. Reversing Banryuu’s spin, he swept the deadly blade in a sweeping, two-handed stroke, clearing the striving bodies from his path in the most expedient manner. Screams rose from the wounded and dying, and Bankotsu leapt past them, blue eyes searching frantically for the fallen taijiya who so desperately needed him.

But she didn’t.

Need him, that is. For Sango had come up under the attacking ogre’s guard and was even now leading him a complicated dance, darting in and out of the demon’s reach, using a hidden blade that she had released along her right arm and wrist, after having lost her katana in the initial fall. Bankotsu could only stare in dumbfounded amazement as he watched the slayer twist in for a final blow, the slender blade quivering at the impact with the thick hairy hide of the ogre’s deflecting arm. A slim dagger suddenly appeared in Sango’s left hand, and she sunk it up to the hilt in the demon’s unprotected throat.

Jumping clear of her tottering foe, the taijiya neatly landed on the balls of her feet, the fire-cat swooping past to make sure the area around her was clear. Sango braced for the return of her Hiraikotsu, and then spun around to wreak havoc on the next batch of demons too stupid to get out of her way.

“Sango!”

Bankotsu started as a flash of dark blue robes caught his eye. The monk’s staff swung at the nearest demon, who screamed as the holy cudgel caved in its skull. A flaring pink and rose-strewn light shot past. Hissing, angry demons dissolved as the purified arrow swept through them.

“Sango-chan!”

“Damn it, Sango! How come we always have to come rescue you!” An all too arrogant voice snarled as the clang of a giant sword struck the ground in a flare of yellow fire. “Wind Scar!”

Sango whirled around, her rain-soaked hair tangling down her cheeks, and the smile that lit her tired eyes was almost breath-taking. “Kagome! Inuyasha!”

Something died inside Bankotsu, but all he could feel was aching weariness. The rage was gone, purified by the light of a miko’s forgiving grace. He had been touched by clarity in that moment of utter revelation, and he understood now.

Sango didn’t need him.

It was he who needed her.

But she didn’t need him---and he would never allow himself to be a burden to her. He loved her too much for that. He was a scarred vessel, not of this earth, and one who had just had his very world knocked off its foundations. Beliefs long held had been decanted by the sweeping touch of Midoriko’s hand, and he was just realizing what it was in him to do.

Not of this earth…

Did he have the courage to do it? To walk away from her, to free her from the burden he would become? He would have to find it. Gods help him, he would have to find it.

Anger, cleansing and strong, swept through him, anger at the fate given to him by the laughing gods of destiny. *Damn them.*

Their paths were too different. She was mortal, and he, he was not of this earth, no matter what tainted fragments of the Jewel of Four Souls he had purloined to extend this third chance at life. His soul was too blackened to bring her anything but sorrow, and she had already had too much of that in her short life. He understood that now, and understood what the Shikon shards that he had so casually used for his own selfish benefit would try and do to him if given half a chance.

Selfish greed lent power to the darker side of the Jewel, and that malign force would continue to tease him, taunting him with false promises of his heart’s desire to tempt him into using them to gain what he wanted. Her. But she deserved better than he, and damned he would be if he sought the aid of the ill-fated Shikon no Tama to keep her with him, against her will and wanting.

Hadn’t his soul nearly just been devoured?

The Jewel of Four Souls was balanced by both light and dark, and it was the darkness that fed off of the self-serving dreams of foolish mortals who dared to use the Jewel for their own gain. Only a true priestess could purify the dark power from the Jewel. With anyone else, that malevolent force would turn back on its bearer, feeding insanity and rage to the darker side of a man’s divided nature, until he was little more than a raging blood demon, lusting for death and destruction, ultimate power and ultimate evil.

Even youkai could not escape such a fate. Hadn’t Naraku been proof enough?

Much had been revealed to him in that frozen instant of time, when his small scope of the world had been shattered, opening him up to a true understanding of the universe around him. He, Bankotsu, was but a small player in a deep game, a mere pawn in the claws of the demons trapped inside the Jewel who ever hoped to tip the balance of power to their favor, and finally win free of their eternal captivity.

What did it matter if he, one mere man and not even mortal, were made to suffer? Truth was ever a double-edged sword, and it struck deepest to the heart. His heart.

But he knew what he had to do. He had to let her go. Forever. It was the only way.

*The only way.*

But damn did it hurt.

1111111111111111

Three cracked remnants, shattered splinters of a dying priestess’s heart, glimmered with greedy malice in the half-mooned hilt of a giant sword. The fiercely fuchsia-spun light of malevolent power glittered and swirled inside of them. Their flickering energy pulsed in cadence as if the heart they were born from still beat life through the body the Jewel had burst out of in the last, desperate efforts of a dying warrior.

Matching shards in the mercenary’s body and the blade of his giant sword spun their own evil influence, their gleaming presence to one who could see them tainted with crimson hate. They fueled the man’s very existence, and waited for when next they could strike out and veil his soul in darkness…

But the mercenary had stopped, his blue eyes darkening until they were deepest indigo. His mind churned, and his heart was taut with sadness, but he bowed his head to the inevitable, and decided to let love free.

The scattered shards of the Shikon no Tama in body and blade pulsed once, and a searing light of utter purity emblazoned forth to overwhelm the darker shadows of their once tainted presence.

For with one man’s selfless decision, they were instantly purified.

And somewhere in the darkness of an abandoned tomb, demons entrapped for centuries howled their anguish as the stoic stone face of a forgotten priestess smiled…

1111111111111111

The bow quivered in her outstretched hand, as she closed one eye to better aim the arrow strung across it. Squinting, Kagome drew back just a little further…

And nearly fell over as her body, tied to the scattered shards of the Jewel that had once housed it, shuddered. The arrow flew out of her hand to land ignored in the dirt at her feet as she spun, eyes wide and mouth falling open, to stare at the blurred white form of the attacking mercenary.

Bankotsu fought like one possessed, and the brilliant light that winked from his body and bathed his giant sword in swirling purity made the attacking youkai fall back away from him as if that light burned. Shrinking into themselves, countless numbers of attacking monsters turned to flee.

“Damn it! They’re getting away!” Inuyasha snarled, swinging his fanged sword around in a wide arc. In a glaring blaze of pale golden fire, he summoned the Wind Scar one last time, setting alight the fleeing hordes in a final shriek of dying ash. The battlefield fell abruptly silent, except for the spattering drops of the pallid rain that fell around them, unconcerned with the petty fears of men.

Tetsusaiga came to rest on the hanyou’s shoulder as he turned an amber glare on the mercenary who stood facing him across a muddy ground littered with the destroyed remains of the dead.

“Hello, Bankotsu.”

Kagome bit her lip, brushing the wet bangs from her face, brown eyes darting from one arrogant stance to the other.

Blue eyes glittered. “Been a long time, half-breed.”

“Ain’t been long enough, ass hole.” Inuyasha replied through gritted teeth.

“Stop.”

Kagome’s fingers tightened on the smooth, wooden shaft of her bow as she caught sight of Sango’s white face, her eyes dark holes of pain.

“Sango-chan,” she whispered, taking a step forward, wanting to embrace her lost friend and make sure she was all right.

Shippo beat her to it.

“Sango!” A rusty ball of fur bounced right into arms that opened automatically to catch the impudent fox. Fire flared as Kirara dissolved into her smaller form, mewing a sweet welcome that relaxed the tension from Kagome’s shoulders. Kirara would never transform if there was any further hint of danger to imperil them all. Kagome chose to ignore her growling mate for the moment so she could dash over to Sango’s side and see for herself that her best friend was indeed all right.

“Kagome-chan.” Sango gave her a warm, if tired, smile as Kagome smothered her in a spontaneous hug. Shippo sniffled, hugging the taijiya fiercely with his little paws as even Miroku drew near to greet their long-lost comrade.

“Sango, I missed you!”

“Sango-chan, we were so worried!”

“Sango-san, you are truly all right?” Miroku ventured to lay a warm hand on the taijiya’s shoulder, his blue eyes concerned.

“Yes, houshi-sama. Thank you.” Sango blushed at all the attention gathered around her, her heart warming at the love and concern in their anxious eyes.

“She better be.” Inuyasha growled with dark promise, his eyes narrowed on the mercenary who stood like a statue, his giant halberd held loosely extended in one hand, parallel to the ground.

“Inuyasha, please.” Sango stopped him, her voice weary and drawn.

“Don’t worry, Sango. This ass hole won’t be messing with you ever again. I’m going to make sure of that. Right…” Inuyasha brought the huge fang down in a threatening pose, “…now.”

“Inuyasha.” Kagome warned, her arms around her friend, who had tensed as tight as a drawn bow at the hanyou’s harsh announcement.

“Heh.” Bankotsu lifted the great weight of his halberd to rest it on his shoulder. The casual stance spoke nothing of readying for battle.

“What the hell’s wrong with you, mercenary? You turn coward or something? Don’t just stand there looking stupid! Prepare to fight!” Inuyasha bellowed across the muddy field. The rain had not ceased, but the thunderclouds had passed on, and the hanyou’s silver hair was plastered to the back of his red haori.

Bankotsu just smirked.

Enraged, Inuyasha shook a fist at him. “Damn it, Bankotsu! I killed you once, I can kill you again!”

“No.”

Even Shippo blinked at the fierceness in Sango’s voice.

The taijiya passed the surprised kitsune over to Kagome, pulling away from Miroku’s cautious prevention, and deliberately walking between the two adversaries.

*Sango-chan, what are you doing?* Kagome shivered as icy drops found their way past her collar and trickled down her back. She hugged Shippo tight, deep lines of worry furrowing her brow.

1111111111111111

Sango stood between them and closed her eyes. Taking a deep breath, she wondered what, exactly, she could say to make them both back down. She felt so drained, both emotionally and physically. The thousand and one aches of battle were coming to slow life, making a dull pain in the back of her mind to distract her. Rubbing between her eyes with a closed fist, she wished fervently that the headache that throbbed in her temples would just go away. She needed to think, damn it, and think fast.

“I have no intention of fighting him, you know.” Bankotsu carelessly broke the silence that had descended, speaking to her alone, as if no one else stood there glaring at him.

Sango’s eyes blinked open in surprise. The rain made her squint.

“What?” Inuyasha was in shock.

Sango stared at the mercenary. “What do you mean?”

His eyes were unreadable. “It’s been fun, ninja.”

*Fun?*

Sango’s heart clenched in her chest. Fun? Was that all it was?

Could it have been anything more? Could she expect it to have been anything else? Her memories had returned in full, and she felt overwhelmed and confused as everything meshed together. He had taken her captive, and treated her wounds. He had somehow messed with her mind, so that she wandered about in a daze without concern or recollection of her friends. He had dragged her through mud and forest, kept her prisoner by night and tied to that poor slaughtered nag by day. He had shared his dark past with her and insulted her own. He had teased and taunted her, and brought her wild mushrooms just because she liked them. He had argued and cajoled, sneered and held her tight in his arms as she slept.

He had made her mad. He had made her laugh. He had made her hate him, and he had made her love him.

And all she could say was…

“I’m not a ninja.”

“I know.”

His blue eyes were dark, his expression unreadable.

“What the hell is going on here?” Inuyasha shouted at them, oblivious to the tension in the air.

“Inuyasha.” Kagome dragged the hanyou’s name out with exasperation.

How typical.

It should have made her laugh.

But why did she suddenly feel like crying?

“Why are you leaving?” She asked, more than rain in her cinnamon eyes.

He only smirked.

How typical.

How hurtful.

“Gotta.” He said, with typical disregard and a casual shrug.

Sango bent her head, not wanting him to see the pain his flippancy caused her.

A calloused hand gently gripped her chin, pulling it up. Deep blue eyes stared into hers for a long moment as she tried to blink the tears away so that he would not see.

“Get your filthy hands off her, bandit!” Inuyasha snarled.

“Sit, boy!” Kagome shouted, and dancing lights flashed behind them with a muffled thud.

He kissed her then, a hard, bruising kiss that left her breathless.

And then he was gone.