Hunted By The Wolf

Hunted by the Wolf

Chapter 15: Death Agape

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Sorry for the wait.
Class started (blah)
so updates will be hopefully
around once a week.
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I was aware of the way I tossed and turned
before I was conscious. I couldn't get
comfortable on the ground, I was restless.
In a haze, I slowly sat up, trying to clear my
head. Everything felt so very odd to me-as though
there was a mist or a shroud over my vision.


Despite the obstruction, I clearly recognized
the figure standing over the dead embers of our
fire. The silhouette alone was enough to spark
a horde of feelings, not all of them pleasant.


Smaller than me, more bent than before. This figure
had grown skinnier and more sullen with time. The
armor, in the dark, so like my own.


Kohaku. I could not breathe, much less speak.
Sluggish and unreal, I trudged over to the
figure-I felt as though I floated. I reached a
hand out, turned the shoulder towards me.


Why had no one else heard him?


Slowly, the face turned up to mine, the hair
coming away from blocking my view.

His face, his face was ruined, rotted away. Remains
of flesh and sunken bone glistened wetly in the
bare moonlight, taunting grotesquely as it shone
up to me.

I tried to move away, could not.

Opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came.


And I sat up. My chest heaved, greedily absorbing
air as fast as it could. Where was he? Was I lying
down once more? My breathing slowed, and my
eyes focused. It had been a dream..


There Kouga sat propped up a few feet behind me,
hunkered against a tree, his head bobbing down
momentarily until he picked it up once more,
unconscious. I exhaled slowly, realizing that yes,
it had been a dream. No Kohaku, no rotting
corpse of my brother...

I scanned for the rest of our party. Something..
something felt wrong. My eyes passed over
it, dismissing it at first as a remnant of a nightmare.
No, as my gaze lingered, I realized that yes, it
stood there.

Thicker in outline and jerking slightly every
few seconds, there stood a figure over the fire. My
heart pace doubled. No, no it couldn't be. I
sneered, rose slowly with my hand on the hilt
of my katana.

Who the fuck was this intruder, anyway?


I crept only a few steps forward, my brain alert
but my body still fairly asleep, and I stepped on
a twig. The snap seemed to echo loudly through
the campsite, and the figure whirled with no grace,
to allow me to see just who, or what, it was.


A corpse. A corpse stood ready, unaware but
seemingly ready to attack. I gasped.


It was a villager. The thing rushed me with speed
I didn't expect, and I dodged to the side, kicking
off from the spot with one leg. Now would be the time
to alert my companions.


I had no time, however, and nearly missed the
decrepit claw that swiped at my throat. Ginta's startled
yelp distracted me, and a cursory look beheld
him pushing another corpse off of him. The rest
of them woke, Kagome's frightened cry and then
a snarl, crunch, and wet spattering allowing me the
knowledge that he'd deflected an attack against
the miko.

Animalistic grunts and howls rang out as wolves
flew into the fray, and to my horror between the
bodies surrounding me, I could see flashes of
bloodied fur sailing through the air. Oh god,
the monsters were trying to eat us all..


The clang of rings against metal was houshi, but the
sound of decayed flesh bursting was the most
prominent. Suddenly, they were everywhere,
all of those we'd buried earlier in the day. I'd
taken three heads off with the sharp edge of
Hiraikotsu, severed limbs with the katana. This
was a nightmare.


"Just what the fuck are you!?" growled a wolf
demon from somewhere behind me, but this time a
dry, crackling sound followed. I turned to get
behind him, put my back against his. He'd
taken apart a badly burned villager, ash covering
the ground it had stood, and his claws.


We fought through the encircling corpses, their ruined
faces leering so closely to ours I thought I would
be sick. Smartly, Inuyasha did not use any
of his swords techniques; in this close of quarters
they most likely would have decimated us all.


I caught fleeting glimpses of the others fighting,
and they appeared more and more to be in the
same state I was. Gore spattered and hung from
me, undoing all of the baths I'd taken in the past
week. The smell was unbearable, stole one's breath.


"Ugh!" I cried, knocking back as many as I could
with a swipe from the boomerang. I was suffocating
in that smell, in this sea of corpses. Kouga pulled
away from me for a second, all I felt behind me was
the runoff wind, most likely from a kick.


Kirara's eyes could be seen in the night, flashing
as she ripped through groups of decaying bodies.
She made fast work of them, and I only hoped
she could move fast enough to move out of their
grasp when they went to tear a chunk out of her hide.


The noise was lost on me now, I could hear nothing
but the beating of my own heart. These eyes, or
what was left of them, were empty, soulless as
my brother's. He'd done this. His body had been
used to slaughter all of these people.


A slow rage built at the base of my spine, some kind
of hopeless, primal instinct that goes hand in hand
with grief. Suddenly I was furious-furious at these
corpses for being there, menacing us.. Furious
at Kohaku for his weakness..and enraged with myself
for allowing him to continue his existence as
a puppet of Naraku.


The next few minutes were a blur, my conscious,
rational mind only seeing shards of action. I
was moving fast, killing efficiently as I'd been taught
all my life before my family and people had been
slaughtered.

Cold comfort washed over me as my mind and
body slowed. I was covered-absolutely covered
in coagulated blood and sinew. Unable to
control my horror, I keeled.


I wretched onto the earth, probably onto bodies as
well.


Kouga was at my side in a moment, one arm encircling
my shoulders and arms, the other holding back hair.
I raised my head in shame after I'd spit, looked around
dazedly.
"What happened?" I asked weakly, and I berated myself
for my weakness. I was shaking. Kouga hauled me
up slowly with him, not letting go once we were there.
"They're all...in pieces. You," he paused, swallowing
as he glanced around. "..you got most of them."


Carnage. Absolute, disgusting carnage lay around
us in bloody heaps. How long had it taken for them
to surround us and then be slaughtered? Inuyasha
snarled, ripping what appeared to be a patchwork
of muscle out of his hair. His head shook
as he swallowed, and he covered his nose as
he stared darkly around.

"What the fuck was that?" he growled, shrugging
a relatively cleaner Kagome from his shoulder
when she went to cling to him. Her face dropped,
and I could smell a fight brewing. Not now, not
now, you idiots...

"I'm filthy," he muttered to her, looking at her from
the corner of his eyes. She nodded and held
her arms close.
"Oh dear gods.." she whispered, her eyes narrowing
painfully. This was indeed awful.


"We've got to...I've got to bury them..again.." I whispered,
pushing away from Kouga.

I was sick with myself, above all else. What had I thought
about Kohaku? That he was weak?


'He's just an thirteen year old boy, you cold hypocrite...'
And you were just an eighteen year old girl when
you were buried alive with your family after watching
your little brother slaughter them...
'It wasn't him! It had been the youkai with the spider
web, you baka...'


I shook my head, holding it in one hand. I was losing it.
Needed to stop having conversations with myself.
I trudged to the center of the carnage, dragged Hiraikotsu
behind me. I, myself, felt like a zombie now.

I began pushing dirt away, trying to dig a hole large
enough for all of these bodies. Out of the corner of my
eyes, I saw the others silently move to do the same-
and the wolves...not the youkai, but the actual wolves
were digging, dirty flying behind their paws.


I choked back tears, focused on the digging to calm
whatever emotions roared in my ears. I was not
weak. Not as weak as I thought myself to be,
anyway, and I had to move past all of this. I had
to focus on the task at hand and put personal
emotions aside in order to get the job done.


Muscle protested with each submersion of Hiraikotsu
into the earth, and my body tried to put itself back
to sleep.

I wouldn't have it. In a daze, emotionless and
drained of all feeling, I dug along with my companions until
we were able to create a mass grave. This, hopefully,
would be large enough for all of those bodies,
dismembered or no.


The sun rose slowly, forcing us to wince into the light
as we dragged parts and torsos to the hole. My gag
reflex was exhausted, and I was actually quite
glad that I'd already emptied the contents of my
stomach earlier. I rested for a moment, leaning against
the boomerang I'd dug into the earth.


What were we doing? Was this what life had designed
to throw at us over and over again? Hopelessness
did not always deepen character-sometimes it
corrodes the fiber of one's being.


The sky was a white-blue by the time we finished, traces
of orange snaked over the horizon.
"Let's get out of here," I grumbled, realizing just
how sore I was as I turned to walk further away from the village
and the camp that had eaten my imagined solace.

Stupid of me to be comfortable for once, to feel safe
or secure with my 'family'... That calm before the
storm had reinforced the idea that I'd held
firmly up until recently..


Never, ever lose sight of that which causes you agony.

I had tried not to think of Kohaku, to allow whatever
I'd felt for someone to be the forefront of my heart for
even a day.. And this happens.

He is not a burden. Kohaku cannot and will not ever
be a burden, but sometimes I feel guilty. Guilty
for not ending both of our lives when I had the chance,
those two years ago... It had been wrong, and I'd
learned that. But it would've been easier.

We moved slowly, the wolves trailing their prince
that walked as arrogantly as ever a few feet in front
of me. How could he, I thought..how could he still
be so proud, covered in rank human remains?


I could still smell it on me, smell that awful stink
of death. I would gladly jump into the next river
I saw if only I could escape this smell.

I was lost in my thoughts, my body shutting down
even as I walked. I was so very tired, so drained
of resolve and hope and energy. I staggered slightly,
forgetting myself. Kouga put an arm around my waist,
leaned me against him and continued on, saying nothing.


I couldn't accept this.

"Stop, Kouga," I whimpered, trying to push him away. He
continued to move us, ignoring my protests. "I can't imagine
what I must smell like to you.." I whispered, too weak to
really push him away. I could barely walk on my own
as it was.
"You smell like you, woman, so drop it," he growled,
still staring straight ahead. Weakly, I raised my head
to watch him from the corner of my eye. I couldn't
understand him whatsoever. Why was it that he
did these things for me, even when I didn't want them?

We walked until noon, until us humans could walk no
farther.
"Please," Kagome stated, stopping in her tracks. "Can
we stop?" She sighed, leaning against a tree. Inuyasha
crawled into the tree, and I could see the fatigue in his
movements. Kagome slid down against it, and she
was asleep within minutes. I felt the same.

Miroku sat, in meditation or sleep I couldn't tell.

The wolves dispersed, once again satisfied with the safety
of their leader. Ginta and Hakkaku leaned against
a tree facing us, and their heads drooped soon after.
Dumbly I stared at them all, too tired to register
that I could rest. Calloused hands pulled me down
to a patch of grass sprouting up through smooth
tree roots. Kouga sat back against the trunk of their
source, and he pulled me to sit against him.


I saw a tiny Kirara curl up at his side, the sound of her
purring putting me at ease. Her matted fur would
have to wait..as much as I hated to see her so
filthy and miserable.

I did not want to flaunt this closeness to my companions.
It was very unlike me to be affectionate like this, not..
not with a man, much less one I didn't know very well.


That was a crock of shit, my taxed brain spat out at me,
my ear laying against his collarbone. You know him plenty,
Sango. He's saved your life several times in the past
few days and tried to comfort you. He's understanding
when you do stupid, distant things...and...

And you want him around.

So shut the fuck up, frigid baka.


I was going crazy. I could accept that, I thought, as
I put an arm up around his neck. Going crazy
was proving, despite the gore covering us all,
to be a comfortable and comforting inclusion to
everyday life.


"I don't want to wake up to more corpses," I murmured
absently, pressing my face into his skin. I felt him nod.
"I'm keepin' watch," he whispered, tucking my head under
his chin.

Almost every part of me wanted to be hunting for my
brother, freeing him one way or the other from that
existence. I wanted to find his captor and tear his
black heart out.

Laying against Kouga then, however, was entirely
too important. The very closeness began to mend
what was left of this demon slayer's heart, and I knew
he would be more than happy to help me in my
vengeance, his own vengeance, once we'd gotten
some sleep. I needed his help, could not stand
on my own against the pain any more. I needed
the newfound comfort his presence offered.

I needed him.

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Hopefully this was:
a)sweet but kinda disturbing
b)nasty and interesting
or
c)too drawn out and descriptive.

LET ME KNOW DAMN IT!