Penetration

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In This Chapter: Violence, Language

Chapter Five

Inuyasha sat perched on a branch of the Goshinboku with his hands stuffed defensively in his sleeves and his ears twitching madly.

He was still here.

Three days had passed since the bastard had followed him away from that waterfall. Three days he'd stalked Inuyasha to the point where the hanyou thought he was going to have a fucking breakdown from the inexplocable fucking weirdness of it all. Inuyasha barely fucking even saw the bastard - like now. Sesshomaru was nowhere in sight, but his youki was so strong and so familiar to Inuyasha that he'd know it anywhere. It was like being stalked by a fucking ghost. A really dangerous, menacing, creepy fucking ghost.

And he just knew Sesshomaru was watching him.

Creepy asshole.

The jackass wouldn't even acknowledge what he was doing, and that, even more than being followed, was driving Inuyasha beyond insane. It made absolutely no fucking sense. There was an unspoken rule about how they interacted. They insulted each other, they fought, they insulted each other more, and they walked away. It was so routine it was almost fucking scripted. And now Sesshomaru had gone and changed the whole damn thing, and fucked if Inuyasha had a clue why.

"I have no idea what you're referring to, half-breed," had been the hoity-toity reply he'd gotten from the bastard when he'd finally lost patience and confronted him. Inuyasha had been so stunned by the bald refusal of something so obvious that his brain, already under undue stress thanks to being freaked out beyond belief, had been unable to form a response. He'd managed no more than incoherent sputtering before Sesshomaru had apparently become bored and glided away.

Because the bastard never just walked anywhere, did he? Had to be fucking perfect at fucking everything; perfect hair, perfect clothes, perfect -

Inuyasha cut that thought off abruptly, aware he was starting to get petty. Stress and frustration were just getting to him, that was all. Hard not to be fucking stressed when a hateful daiyoukai doggedly - heh, 'doggedly'; that's funny ­- followed his movements.

And not just that!

Had it been only that, Inuyasha might have been in a more mentally sound state. Sesshomaru was still riding him about his cursing. All the fucking time. Whenever the bastard deigned to reveal himself and actually talk to Inuyasha, rather than hang back and just watch like some fucking creepy-ass peeping tom, he'd taken apparent great delight in pointing out Inuyasha's vulgarity. His face would never change, but those eyes... those eyes held mocking laughter every damn time he told Inuyasha the current tally of curse words. Inuyasha couldn't remember the current number - and that was because he chose not to remember, not because fucking Sesshomaru's barb about his poor memory was right.

He knew it shouldn't, but it grated on his nerves so bad. Just thinking about the fucker's condescending tone every time he called Inuyasha on it set the hanyou's teeth on edge. Much to his annoyance, he'd even begun trying to cut back after the first day just so it would stop. Screaming at the daiyoukai did no good; he inevitably ended up swearing, and the whole fucking cycle would begin anew.

As a preventative measure, he'd tried ranting to his heart's content inside his own mind. It was why his inner monologue currently sounded like the offspring of a drunken sailor and a tavern wench even to him. He didn't think he'd ever said 'fuck' as much out loud in his life, but it didn't help much. He still felt like he was going to pull a fucking muscle holding himself back.

Damn fucking Sesshomaru, the arrogant, cock-sucking bastard. He wished the fucker would go back to trying to kill him; at least that didn't screw with his head.

Inuyasha's back suddenly stiffened against the Goshinboku's trunk. The bastard was coming closer, and he'd been so busy mentally cursing him, he hadn't noticed immediately. He hesitated a split second, and then jumped nimbly down to the ground. Sesshomaru hadn't been keen on coming into the village since Inuyasha had returned - probably didn't want to get too close to the filthy humans in case they got fucking dirt on his clothes, Inuyasha thought nastily - and so that was where Inuyasha was going to go. He didn't care if it could be construed as hiding. There were some things the hanyou just didn't want to deal with if he could avoid it, and this was one of them.

Of course, Sesshomaru wasn't just about to let him get away. Of course not. Fucker.

He'd taken no more than two steps before the daiyoukai materialised out of the trees in front of him. Cool as ice, Sesshomaru regarded him silently for a moment before speaking. "I had wondered when you would finally stop clinging to the boughs of this tree like a scared cat and do something."

Inuyasha paused. What? "What the hell do you mean, 'do something'? I can do whatever the hell I want, when I want! And if I don't want to do anything, that's up to me, too!" Inuyasha so badly wanted to curse at him. Fucking wanker deserved it. His claws bit into his palms hard enough to almost draw blood when he saw Sesshomaru open his mouth to speak, and he rushed to get there before him. "Don't start that again, you - just don't. 'Hell' is not a curse word, damn it! And neither is that, so shut up!"

One of Sesshomaru's elegantly curved eyebrows climbed just slightly toward his hairline. "While this Sesshomaru would enjoy educating your unlearned self on that score, there are more pressing matters at hand." Sesshomaru's voice was calm and devoid of all inflection as he continued. "Two youkai have stumbled into your precious village of humans. The elderly miko and some of the men are attempting to hold them off, but they will fail. I had originally assumed your senses, pitiful though they are, would have informed you of this, but it seems I was mistaken."

Ordinarily, Inuyasha would have jumped on Sesshomaru admitting to a mistake - insult to him or not - and rode it 'til the wheels fell off. But not this time. All Inuyasha focused on was the vital information Sesshomaru carried: the village was in danger, and he'd missed it because he was sulking out in his forest like a self-centred prick because Sesshomaru wouldn't leave him alone.

"Fuck!" he burst out loudly, at himself, the youkai, and Sesshomaru. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!" He didn't care about Sesshomaru's taunting anymore; he barely registered the bastard's eyebrow lifting even further at his exclamations. All he cared about was getting to the village and saving as many people as he could. He could only hope he'd get there in time to stop significant bloodshed.

As he pelted away from the Goshinboku as fast as his legs would carry him, unsheathing Tetsusaiga along the way, he missed Sesshomaru's openly satisfied expression.

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The village was in chaos.

Inuyasha's first quick scan told him the same thing as his ears: most of the women and children seemed to have escaped into the surrounding woods with the men not defending the village. A few, however, had apparently taken shelter inside the flimsy wooden huts they called home; he could hear the frightened cries of children, and the desperate voices of their mothers and older sisters begging them to be quiet.

The two youkai had apparently heard the same thing. One - a large, beefy creature with skin the colour of curdled milk - was approaching one of the houses with a hungry gleam in its eyes while its multi-limbed, black-skinned cohort that put Inuyasha in mind of a spider kept Kaede and and the remaining men at bay.

Inuyasha let out a battle cry and charged from the trees, heading straight for the youkai preparing to chow down on the village women and children. Like that was fucking happening. Inuyasha may not like the villagers much and they might not like him, but he'd be damned if he was about to let any of them die on his watch.

He slashed at the big youkai with the Tetsusaiga, and was surprised when his blade met thin air. The thing was faster than he gave it credit for, and could move with an agility belied by its bulk. It had leapt away from him and was now regarding him warily.

Inuyasha took a moment to shout at Kaede. "Hey, old woman! Get yourself the fuck out of here! I'll handle this!"

Inuyasha barely heard the old priestess' agreement as a sudden movement slightly behind him and to his left caught his eye, splitting his attention between two foes. The spider thing had noticed his appearance - not surprising, when he ran in screaming like that - and had evidently summed him up as a more dangerous opponent - again, not surprising to Inuyasha, what with the huge friggin' sword he had and all.

Even though it meant he now had two youkai facing him on opposite sides, Inuyasha was grateful their attention was on him now. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kaede arranging a quick withdrawal from the village - not just of the men, but of the remaining villagers who still hid within her reach. But there were others. Inuyasha could hear them on his right, where Kaede couldn't get because of the damn youkai.

"Shit," he muttered to himself. He had to get out of the village and take the youkai with him. But how?

Despite being far from stupid, thinking battle strategy was far from Inuyasha's strong point. That had been the premise of Miroku and Sango. Inuyasha had been the brute strength; they'd pointed him at a target and then let him bash the fuck out of it. It had worked for their group, and so Inuyasha had seen no reason to hurt his brain trying to learn their way of thinking... something he occasionally regretted when forced to think on his feet like this.

There was no use crying over what couldn't be changed, Inuyasha reminded himself. He shifted his grip on Tetsusaiga's hilt and grinned. He'd wing it, he decided. He'd give it his best shot to lead the demons away from the villagers and avoid destroying their homes, but... if it didn't happen, it didn't happen. And at least he'd get to let out some of his Sesshomaru-induced stress on these two fuckers.

Speaking of that bastard, Inuyasha could still sense him nearby. Probably watching again. Ready to watch his worthless, half-breed little brother get cut up protecting a bunch of pathetic humans. Bastard. It was ludicrous to entertain the notion that Sesshomaru would think anything else. Only that crazy little kid he kept around him was worth Sesshomaru's notice; the fucker had walked away from humans in danger to harrass Inuyasha about it. These two wouldn't have stood a chance against him, but he would never have helped.

Carried by the anger that gave him, Inuyasha lifted Tetsusaiga high in the air and charged the spidery-looking youkai.

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It had been a hard fight.

Though Inuyasha had managed to get the youkai out of the village by letting them gouge his flesh with their claws a few times until the scent of blood and food had yanked them along like strings when he'd retreated - the only tactic he'd been able to come up with in good time - fighting two opponents at once had proved something of a challenge.

It had become clear, once he began fighting for real, that these two demons had worked together before. He'd found it exceedingly difficult to snatch the time necessary to form and unleash a Kaze no Kizu; just when he had fended off the attack of one, the other would hit him on his blind side, or try to. It was an effective strategy, and Inuyasha lost more and more blood to the simple pattern.

It took him a while, but he eventually realised that was exactly what it was: a pattern. Once he recognised that, he began to follow each step in the crudely choreographed dance: one would attack, he would defend, and get hit on his unguarded side by the other. With the steps down pat, Inuyasha was able to dodge. Unlike him, the youkai had no adaptable strategies. In fact, it was the only one they had. Inuyasha could only guess it had worked so well for them before they felt there was no reason to try anything else.

It proved to be a fatal oversight for them. The hard fight turned into an easy kill. Instead of defending himself from an attack as they expected, Inuyasha leapt high and to the side. At the same time, he unleashed a Kaze no Kizu that enveloped both youkai and obliterated them. Fragments floated away on the wind as Inuyasha allowed the Tetsusaiga to return to its quiescent form.

He wiped the sweat off his brow and then turned to glare daggers at the human gathering at the edge of the village. It consisted of Kaede and a few of the men she had initially been defending the village with. Irritated, he stomped over. "What's this all about? Nice fucking vote of confidence; were you waiting for me to get killed or something?" he barked, waving a hand broadly at the gathered men.

Kaede was unruffled by his unruly behaviour. "It be no slight against your skill, Inuyasha," she said mildly and with great patience. "In the event one slipped by ye, it was wise to be prepared."

Slightly mollified, Inuyasha 'hmph'ed.

Kaede's one eye twinkled with amusement. "We thank ye for your timely assistance, Inuyasha." A few of the men grumbled in what he took to be agreement. The villagers didn't like him, he knew that. He was still a monster from their history, the half-demon who'd killed their priestess and tried to steal the Shikon Jewel. Despite being innocent of the crime, he knew he'd likely never live it down. The villagers accepted him into their midsts with grudging tolerance because his strength was useful whenever youkai threatened the village's peace.

Inuyasha turned his back on the group and 'hmph'ed again. One ear twitched, betrayed his discomfort over being thanked. "Whatever. I'm going." He glanced back over his shoulder at the already departing men. "You guys yell or something if another youkai tries to eat ya."

Without waiting for an answer, Inuyasha began to head away from the village and back towards the Goshinboku, arms tucked in his sleeves. It was only as he got into the shelter of the trees and out of sight of the villagers that he noticed something that made him pause. He had no idea when it had happened, focused on the battle as he'd been, but for the first time in days, he couldn't sense Sesshomaru anywhere around him.