The Hostilities That Bind Them by MontiK

Search For Survivors

Disclaimer:The characters of InuYasha are not mine, they are property of Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan, Yomiuri TV, Sunrise, and Viz Media. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

The mist hung thick around the boats. The passengers were deathly silent, this would be a surprise attack and the weather was on their side. Each of the men in the boat wore black clothes, baggy to allow movement. They were covered on the chest, shins, and shoulders by black kevlar armor and were each equipped with assault rifles and grenades.

A tall man with his hair hidden under his hat and a crescent moon on his forhead was crouched down low. He stood against the door that would swing open like a draw bridge and pour him and his comrads out onto the landscape like a miasma to suck the life from the land. He had seen many wars over his five hundred year life span but it never ceased to amaze him what great toles war took on the land. His brother was standing far back in the pack, this was to be his first major attack.

The young boy with golden eyes looked around anxiously. The quiet was hard to bear but he had to be strong. He wished he knew more about war and how things went but he was considerably younger than his brother at nearly three hundred years of age. In human years he didn't look much older than fifteen. He felt like they had been waiting forever to reach land. His eyes jerked nervously to the front of him, he could barely see through all of the men in front of him but his keen ears couldnt miss the sound of the metal door slamming against the stoney beach.

The tall man ran forward as the door slammed down, he was as silent as the wind and nearly invisible. A cry emanated from the fog where he had run and blood stained the stones of the beach. The enemy was alerted and battle ensued. Forty boats had simultaneously released their spawn onto the beach and wreaked bloody chaos for all of half an hour before the enemy started to retreat. The demons now fueled by their small triumphs gave chase.

The young boy tried to find his brother in all the mess, he would feel safer if they were together. The sounds of the guns and screams filled his ears, he couldn't hear himself think. Everytime he heard a shout he was worried maybe he could have lost the last member of his family. He realised how people could get 'shell shock' as he had heard it called from being caught in this mess too long. Soon he spotted the man with a blue crescent moon on his forehead, he was raining hellish death down on the enemy in the form of bullets.

He started to run towards his brother, cutting down each enemy in his wake to reach him. He heard a whistling noise in his ear as he ran. For a moment he wondered what that terrible noise could be, it made his head hurt. Then the answer came to him, somthing hit the ground thirty feet in front of him. The dust flew high in the air as the menacing piece of technology hit the ground and split their ranks.

Something sunk deep into the young boy's shoulder and he felt his arm go limp and useless. He was forced back and the world began to spin in his eyes. He picked up his head to see his brother down on a knee, one leg torn to shreds by the shell that had hit so close to him, but he was still shooting and fighting for their cause. For a fleeting moment he wished he was as strong as his brother and then the darkness crept in on him and the noise stopped. That shell that had meant to kill him was the saving grace that took him for the sounds and sights of battle that a young boy should never have to witness.

The older brother held himself up with an unshakable resolve as the blood was seeping from his barely attached leg. He was a demon so he had a higher tolerance for pain than humans even though it was still a grievous wound. He hated the way the humans fought, they would retreat and then come at them with these cowardly shells to take their ranks apart. He couldn't take it any more, in his anger he couldn't help but shout. "Bastards!!! Can't you come out and fight face to face!!!", as he shouted he loosed the grenades at his belt on some of the small remaining clusters of humans around him.

What had felt like minutes to the people in the battle had really been hours. They were surrounded by blood and dead men, human and demon alike. The man with the crescent moon looked around from his position still on one knee. There was noone left around him, now he could let the exhaustion take him. He leaned forward on his hands and let himself lay on the damp ground, the scent of the blood nearly made him sick as he realized how heavy it hung in the air. He would just lay there for a while he thought, then he would go back and await new orders. He closed his eyes and relished in the quiet after the battle, sleep slowly ate away at him and took him.

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A young girl covered from head to toe in a stoney grey darted around the body covered battle field. She matched the surroundings almost perfectly as she slipped among the ranks looking for men who may still be alive. She remembered the first time her chocolate brown eyes had looked upon carnage like this, and how she couldn't stop crying for three days. She had refused both food and sleep and she thought she would never get used to it. Somehow she had, now it was like a routine. She had never chosen sides, never been in favor of this war in any way, but she was destined to take in their rejected and near dead. Someone always had to be the compassionate one and not care who was what and if they should die, she was born for that role.

She looked dissapointed at the field around her, they had searched for over an hour now and stil found no living. This battle had been more gruesome then most, they were lucky to have found a body that even still had all of it's limbs. Suddenly and excited shout came from the boy she had come to scout the field with.

"Kagome!! I think this one's alive!! Over here come quick!", The red headed boy with the bushy kitsune tail shouted to her. He was as she, never having chosen a side and not wanting to. He thought the whole war was useless and he only wish to help the wounded and try to stop the body count from going up.

Kagome rushed over to him to see a handsome looking demon, his skin pale from the loss of blood. It made the magenta stipes on his face stand out even more, there was a symbol of a crescent moon on his forehead too. She winced when she spotted his leg, it was still attached but barely and she quickly deduced that that was the source of most of his blood loss. She leaned down to try and flip him over onto his back and motioned for Shippo to help. As she did his black beret came off and his silver hair slid out. If it wasn't all bunched up it would have reached to his knees.

She sighed as she thought of how he had come to be there and what his life may have been like without the war. Her thoughts were interupted by the sound of metal on metal right behind her ear.

The golden eyed boy had struggled to his feet and silently walked over the girl turning his brother over. He cocked the pistol he had in his hand, "Get away from him." he said in a cold voice. He could smell she was human, probably one of the soldiers who had tried to kill him.

She sighed and didn't turn to see the boy behind her. "He'll die without medical care..." she spoke slowly and didn't make a move as not to startle him into pulling the trigger.

"We don't need help from a human, get away from him." The boy repeated himself with more urgency and a quick motion of his gun to the side with empahasis.

"Does it really matter what I am if you both die?", she could sense how the boys voice faltered and figured he must be injured as well. "We are not part of the human army, look for yourself", she motioned to the fox demon boy standing across from her with a terrified look in his eyes. A human and a demon would never be in the same army so this would prove her point.. "We are from the resistance, we dont care who or what anyone is or what their parents were. War is just senseless... We've only cleaned up the messes it makes... Now let us help you..", she waited quietly for the answer and she could hear his breathing become more labored.

Shippo watched as the bloodied demon soldier stood behind his friend. He was petrified, he couldn't bear to lose another friend to this stupid war. He watched as the demon's breaths became more shallow and labored. Soon the demon didn't have the energy left to even respond to his friend. He jumped back as the girl standing over the unconscious body with him spun around with speed that could only come with her years living in these troubled times and planted the side of her foot cleaning into the cheek of the demon boy. His eyes rolled back and he fell to the ground. The girl then turned back to her stunned friend and barked urgent orders to him.

"Quick Shippo. They both need help quickly.", she saw the fear in his eyes, "You take the younger one... He's unconscious Shippo, he can't hurt you." She said the last part with a hint of sympathy in her tone. She grunted with the effort of putting the larger of the two demons they had found over her shoulder. As she stood with his weight she heard a familiar voice from the top of the hill.

"Kagome! We only found two still alive up here... I think that's it..", his tone was grim. Two wasn't a very good number as the battle field was littered with at least a thousand bodies.

She nodded accepting the low number to herself and shouted back, "Same here, they're badly injured. Let's get back Kiba...", she hated accepting it but they had to go. She saw Shippo pick up the demon she had forced unconscious the same way she carried the one she had and they headed back up the hill together.

It took their group of three nearly two hours to make it all of the way back to the half destroyed building their small resistance group of fifty called 'home'. They layed the four bodies down on open cots. They had to alternate who carried the extra body all the way home. When they reached home Kagome nodded to Kiba and Shippo, it had been a hard day and she told them she would tend to the new wounded and they shoulder get some rest.

They reluctantly obliged, they hated it when she took all of that work onto herself. So what if she was their leader, she was human and needed more rest then either of them.

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Sry for the weird format before, I noticed it when I went to check on the story. Fixed it up so all better now :P