Outcast Dog (Inuyasha FF)(Boyxboy)

Chapter 14

It's hard to say how fast or how slow time passes here. We have no grasp of what lies beyond this space, save for the instances she attempts to communicate. Always whispering things to us, fuel for the fires of outrage, pain, and hatred.

They do fuel them. But we feel no urge to act, nothing to compel us to action. Why would we, being reduced to souls trapped in a mirror? We lacked the bodies to do anything. The most we could do was remain here, grumbling or snarling at nothing. So quickly does the company of lost loved ones become stifling. I have not felt them for so long, long enough that I feel as if their very presences serve to suffocate me. They assure me they are not, and try to give space, but there is no space to give.

The suffocation of being lost amongst others increases the more I realize how many are here. Not just my kin, but those of our village. Some that I have not seen in centuries, that should have died long ago in the first attack. Some I know not the names of, but who know me. How curious it is that in this fate worse than death, their hatred lies not with me. Yet knowing they are there bring me panic. Panic to flee, to get out.

Time passes. Emotions strengthen into near-mindlessness. The voice of the collective becomes stronger.

Out.

Out.

Out.

This worries her. It is hard to say why. Did she not want us enraged, furious and desperate? Here it is, her wish come true, though it is the fury for release, to be separate. Suffocating, drowning in one another. We are solitary beings by nature. Such constant noise of each other drives us mad. The oldest are the worst. Truly insane, foaming and wailing and screeching. What creatures are these, no longer proud and powerful.

Crazed, mindless, obsessed.

I am no better. My mind slips gradually away, despite the efforts of my kin to keep me grounded. They do not seem so affected by the madness...

Run through the names. Find the difference.

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He isn't the only one tracking the female. He senses it often, lurking nearby, but it never shows itself completely. Jaken grumbles constantly, and he finds himself repeatedly irritated with his vassal. Rin is safe in the human village, while he treks after such a nuisance.

Here and there he spots the creature. Not the whole, but pieces. A tail there, a footprint, a glowing eye, a lingering scent. It moves quickly, as quick as he does, but not too quick to lose the trail. Why it hunts, he doesn't care. The female will be punished for insulting him, as simple as that. Still, he gets the sense she knows she's being hunted. She moves erratically, moving as if to visit a village then dodging it abruptly. Her destination cannot be defined, and by now he's certain there isn't one. Still, she evades him with seemingly effortless ease, which does not improve his mood.

He doesn't return for Rin when spring comes. He can't afford to lose the trail. Nor does he return for her the following spring.

It takes him three years to catch her. Three years until he corners her in an abandoned castle, and who is it that he sees. Inuyasha's foolish group, standing at the ready to attack her. As if they had any idea of his fury. He lets them, for a while. Watches them throw themselves at her only to be deflected. Still, her demeanor is disheveled and nervous. Too nervous for someone able to defend themselves against his father's blade. So he waits.

He notices that the mirror she holds is never turned towards herself, and kept out of the way of attacks. It's also deliberately faced towards the ground. He waits for her to exhaust Inuyasha's group, before finally making his move. He lunges not for her directly, but for the mirror. She defends, not fast enough, and leaps to the castle roof, her arm bleeding profusely.

It is then that she grins, laughing down at him.

"You want him back, Lord of the West? Alright. I'll oblige."

She raises her hand to the air, flipping the mirror to catch the moonlight. As it's glow casts her in shadow, and the castle grounds in its light, she laughs. In her disheveled state, she looks completely mad. He's not even surprised when she suddenly collapses, dead, to the ground. There were so many scents from the mirror. She had paid the price for imprisoning so many. The mirror remains in the air, the sharp sounds of glass cracking filling the air. Inuyasha's rabble regroups and puts some distance.

He stays exactly where he is.

Energy pours from the cracked glass, the sounds of easily several hundred demons shrieking and screaming filling the air. The glass can no longer contain, and the mirror shatters completely. Pure energy spews forth, souls rushing everywhere. The sky, to the north, the south, the east, some even collapsing to lay on the earth as they fade away. Many never made it anywhere, evaporating into nothing. Time had weakened them. He barely spared them a glance. When the torrent of souls had died down, six stood silently in the area. The largest he knew. The Lord of the North. Golden eyes, colder than the blizzards of the far mountains, stare him down. He doesn't look away. He doesn't fear something already dead, or even anything living.

Hmf. So these are your sons, Inutaisho.

It's less a voice, and more a feeling. The irritating murmurs and shock somewhere behind him show Inuyasha's rabble were also included in the conversation... if it could be called that at all.

A thousand years ago, I would have eagerly brought forth my own to see who is truly stronger. But it seems fate would decide that only in death do we meet. So be it.

Time to return, father.

The second voice belongs to a smaller dog demon soul, bearing similar markings to the largest. Silver. As one, both turn away, looking north and fading into nothingness. Three others follow... he doesn't care to know them, but his intellect tells him they were perhaps the Lord's generals of long ago.

He meets the gaze of the last lingering. A soul that shimmers with a fiery rage expressed only through the eyes, otherwise skeletal and sickly in appearance. Silver. Yet he knows who he's looking at. This is the dark one staring back at him. Their collective gaze breaks at the arrival of the shadow. The one he sensed to also be tracking the wench.

It is not a wolf, nor is it truly canine. Some of its features appear more fox-like despite its build. It is truly a shadow, it's form little more than dark energy collected into a shape. It's maw opens, red eyes rolling back, and disintegrates. As the energy unfolds into nothingness, a pool of bubbling crimson spews forth. Perhaps contained solely within that form. The pool appears to be blood. Blood a sharp vivid red, bubbling and rushing about within itself with a life of its own. He recognizes it. The presence of life within the dark one's body after his death.

Cursed blood.

The pool abruptly rushes with a speed seeming impossibly for a liquid, streaming past Inuyasha's screeching rabble and his silent self. The dark one merely watches, never looking away from him as the blood moves to encase his battered spectral form. They lock eyes again. The dark one is... disturbed.

I thought death was to be permanent peace... yet it has only tormented far worse than the nightmare of life.

He knows the dark one is only speaking to him. The vivid liquid has completely encased the dark one now, smothering silver. When the dark one takes a step, breaking free of its hold, it is flesh. Flesh encase in dark, ebony fur. The blood soaks in, and there he stands. Alive, breathing. He doesn't care how. He didn't care if the dark one simply evaporated like the others.

Still... there's a flicker of something deep within. Approval? Ridiculous.

He turns to leave. Jaken emerges from somewhere in the rubble, but he ignores him. Listening. He hears the soft heaviness of the dark one as he begins to follow.

And he doesn't suppress the small, cold smile that rises to his face, to Jaken's squeak of terror.