Tainted Past, Tainted Future by MontiK

[Prologue] The End of Days

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.

[prologue] The End of Days

"Inuyasha?", a soft female voice shouted across the small lobby.

"huh?"

Kagome turned her head to see the black-haired Inuyasha sitting behind his desk in a reclining position, hands folded on his stomach and eyes closed, looking much more like he was sleeping then about to get up and help her.

"Inuyasha!", she shouted at him in exasperation.

Surprised by her sudden shout Inuyasha reached forward and clutched onto his desk to keep from falling backwards from his chair. He glared up at Kagome's precariously balanced figure atop the small ladder, where she was changing the curtains.

"What?! Are tryin' to scare me to death?"

She grinned at him, "I stopped trying after it didn't work for the first two hundred years. Now get over here and help me with these."

He stuck his toungue out at her before rising from his chair and going over to the window. He absentmindedly handed the new light blue drapes up to her as he looked out at the lamp-lit street outside. 

"I don't get why you insist on changin' everything all the time. It looked fine the way it was." , Inuyasha grumbled as she slid the drapes onto the rod.

"I like it to match the season... It makes it look more 'homey' and brings more people in.", she told him in a quite and slightly exasperated voice as if she'd already told him the same thing many times.

"Well I think it's a-", he was cut off mid sentence by the quite voice of a little boy standing at the base of the stairs looking up at them with groggy eyes and a long slender tail clutched in his hands.

"Inu-san? Kagome-san?", he said groggily.

Kagome smiled down at the little figure as she carefully lowered herself down the ladder. Inuyasha watching her the whole time to make sure she didn't fall, in five hundred years she never did lose that clumsy streak. 

"What are you doing up so late Toboe?", she peeked at her watch, "It's long past your bedtime, you should be tucked in with the other kids snoring away."

The little boy looked down at the ground watching his bare toes trace out a cicle on the tile floor, "I'm just worried...", he mumbled.

"About what honey?", Kagome kneeled down in front of him so she was at eyes level and put her hands on his shoulders.

"well... what if I never get adopted? What if noone wants me?", he looked into Kagome's eyes with his own tear misted ones hoping for reassurance.

Surprisingly it was not Kagome who offered reassurance, for whatever she would have said was cut off when the hanyou standing beside her scoop the boy up into his arms.

"What're you whinin' about?! Of course you'll get adopted! We just gotta get you to keep your concealment spell on and you'll find a home in no time.", though Inuyasha's voice still held it's gruff quality it was softened for the little boy's benefit. "Besides, who wouldn't want a cute kid like you.", he said a little quieter while looking the other way. Inuyasha couldn't very well have all the orphans thinking he'd gone soft.

Toboe positively beamed with happiness and threw his arms around Inuyasha's neck, "Thank you, Inu-san!", he said.

Inuyasha grinned a little though it was hidden in the boy's thick black hair. He rubbed his head affectionately, "Okay! Enough of this mushy crap! You're goin' back to bed and I gotta go check on all the other runts to make sure you didn't wake them up with your ballin'. Now put your spell back on, you gotta practice."

Toboe beamed still, knowing that this was Inuyasha's unique way of showing affection. He closed his eyes and concentrated and slowly his monkey-like tail disappeared from sight. He then yawned widely, his teeth now blunting as the spell hid tiny needle sharp fangs and leaned his head on Inuyasha's shoulder as the slow rhythmic trip up the steps lulled him back to sleep.

Kagome smiled wistfully after them. Inuyasha had really grown up over the many years they spent together but still kept much of the rough outer shell that made him loveable. She packed up the box of previously used curtains and got up to put them down by the now abandoned desk before plopping lazily down in the chair with a content sigh. 

She closed her eyes for a moment in comfortable bliss, glad for the day winding down and soon she'd be able to rest. She was pulled from her reverie by the sound of the door swinging open. She immediately straightened in her chair and silently berated herself for not putting the ladder away right away, it must make their place look unkempt. 

"Konbanwa! How may I help you?", she said cheerfully.

The simple black-suit clad man turned his head towards her. His gaze unsettling because of the dark sunglasses granting him anonymity. He strolled up to her desk holding out a small sensor-like device with a periodically blinking light on the front of it and pointed it at her for a moment. Seemingly satisfied with the result her turned towards the stairs Inuyasha had just left through and made to go up.

"Hey! You can't go up there!", Kagome jumped up and went to stand in the strange man's way. "It's after hours anyway! You better leave you freak or I'll call the cops!"

An eerie smirk adorned his face at hearing her comment just before he roughly grabbed her arm with his free hand and threw her to the side before continue on his way. 

"Inuyasha!", Kagome shouted for the hanyou to come to her aid.

/o.o

"Mother, why must you insist on coming to pester me every 50 years like clockwork?", the tall figure slouched behind a dark wood desk spoke as he ran his hands over his face in exasperation.

The beautiful young figure across from him merely grinned. "Oh Sesshou-chan!", she cooed in a sickly sweet voice. "Now if only you would take a wife and give me grand-children I would have them to bother instead of you. I'm not getting any younger you know!"

He scrubbed his hands over his face in a frustrated manner. "Mother I was Lord of my lands for four hundred years and have been a thriving business man for the last three hundred you will use a proper name when addressing me. I am not a child. And I will take a wife and have children when I see fit, you do not age you need not worry about not seeing them."

His mother frowned at him. "Well you better see fit to it soon. Your eqiupment might not work for much longer after you let it collect dust for so long."

Sesshoumaru dropped his hands from his face and gaped at his mother in shock. The woman had no tact! And she was grinning at him like the Chesire cat too! He opened and closed his mouth a few times before regaining his composure. He had about enough of being his mother's source of entertainment for the evening. 

"Mother what I do or do not do with my 'equipment'", he said the last word with a sneer, "is none of your-", he stopped abruptly and lifted his nose to the air.

His mother raised an eyebrow at him and turned her head to the door. The sounds of close to twenty men bounding their way up the staircase reaching their ears and none of their scents were familiar.

/o.o

"Kagome what are you shoutin' for?! I just got that runt to bed!", Inuyasha's voice carried down the stairs as he came rushing back into the lobby. 

His golden eyes immediately took in the sight of Kagome ten feet away sprawled out on the floor and the strange man in front of him holding a small electronic device with a now rapidly blinking light. All of the sudden a high pitched beeping noise emanated from the machine and Inuyasha clapped his hands over where his ears were hidden to block out the noise.

"What the hell is goin' on!", he shouted.

The man only continued to smirk as he motioned with his hand in a beckoning gesture towards the window. He pressed a button on the small device and watched as the hanyou before him aprubtly doubled up in pain.

Inuyasha sneered up at the man, knowing that whatever he had in his hand was causing this trouble. He lunged at him for an attack but the pain intensified as soon as he threatened the man. Inuyasha dropped to his knees clutching his chest as his concealment spell started to waver. His hair wavered between black and white for a moment before the spell failed. 

Golden eyes glared hatefully up at the smirking man in black as the glass doors to the lobby shattered and thirty men rushed through, each clad in kevlar armor. Two rushed forward and grabbed the still stunned form of Kagome up from the floor and pulled her out of the way and towards the wall. 

Kagome watched as everything seemed to move slower than before. There wasn't any sound, at least not coherent to her shocked senses. The man in the suit motioned for more men to come towards the hanyou on his knees, his mouth moving as if speaking but Kagome couldn't comprehend the words. 

More men ran up the staircase to the children's rooms. It seemed like an eternity struggling against the men holding her and wondering what would happen and what was going on. Soon her silent questions were answered as the armor clad men started flowing out of the door and rushed through the lobby to armor clad wagons. Each held a screaming child in their arms, many of their concealment spells fading revealing an assorment of demon and hanyou children.

The five hundred and fifteen year old priestess struggled anew against the tight hold on her arms. She wrenched her shoulders back and forth and kicked her legs, heedless to the way joints twisted the wrong way and the bruising hands that held tight to her arms. They were just keeping her from her children and she needed to save them. She wasn't sure of the truth behind what was happening but it was wrong and she had to get it to stop. 

Inuyasha struggled equally as vigorously against the hold on him. One man held onto each one of his limbs and the man in the suit was still holding the elctronic sensor in front of him that seemed to interupt the flow of his youki rendering his youkai strength and attacks useless. He growled and snarled and fought as he watched the crying orphans, he had only moments before ensured he would find happy homes, be carried away for Kami knows what purpose. 

In his frustration at the futility of the situation his youkai blood was fighting to come forth triggered by his fighting instinct. 

/o.o

Sesshoumaru stood and stalked over to stand in a crouched position behind his office door and motioned for his mother to stay put. She merely huffed at him and stood, placing her fur stole on her chair for safe keeping, before readying her iridescent, violent, energy whip. As the scrambling footsteps came closer Sesshoumaru loosened his fingers and cracked his knuckles in preperation to release his posion while his mother dropped back into a ready-stance.

The door burst open and men dressed head-to-toe in black kevlar armor flooded into the twenty by twenty room. Soon the scent of sizzling plastic filled the air. Corrosive-poison-weilding claws and whips of light met kevlar in a flurry of action. 

The armor protected the men for a few moments before one raised his forearm and pressed down on his wrist. Sesshoumaru cringed as an odd sensation engulfed his skin and he vaguely heard a choking noise come from his mother before his attention was stolen away. His hand had stopped glowing and he couldn't will his poison back to the surface, in a similar situation his mother no longer had her youki whip out. 

Something hard slapped over his chest in his moment of confusion, he looked down to see a metal bar curled around his torso and upper arms, pinning them to his sides. He scoffed at the foolish humans before tensing his muscles and preparing to tear through their flimsy metal. Nothing happened... He tried and tried but each time he called forth the youki to break free the strange tingling sensation over his body turned into pricks, then throbbing, then finally a searing pain before he was forced to stop. 

He heard his mother scream and threw his head around trying to search her out in the maniacal scuffle. He saw her being pushed farther from him by human men using things that looked like cattle-prods but he could tell they disrupted their youki in a way similar to the first device. She cringed and stepped back with a pained expression as she began to curl in upon herself. He roared and tried to rush through the mass of men to get to her but suddenly long pole's were being attached to the metal already binding his arms.

Soon he was attached being held two-arms-lengths away from all of the humans by six men, one on each pole. He was sickenly reminded of a dog-catcher's pole as he struggled against them and tried to get free. His hands were bound now, he didn't remember how it happened. They started shoving him through the door to his own office and down the stairs they came. Whenever he struggled to much they would use the cattle-prod devices to quiet him. 

In the mass of confusion as he struggled one phrase suddenly stood out against everything. It echoed through the white-cement walled stairwell until it would be forever be burned into his mind. 

A deep voice shouted up the stairs, "We only need one, kill the other youkai." And then he heard his mother scream. 

He struggled harder and harder trying to get back up the stairs to her but the shocks of stolen youki in his muscles from the prodding eventually made him complacent and he was forced further and further away from his dieing mother.

/o.o

The sounds of screaming and crying children were now muffled by the armored walls of the wagons they had been thrown into. The men that had been holding Kagome dropped her haphhazardly to the floor before leaving. She scrambled on hands and knees to get closer to Inuyasha, who was now pinned to the ground with men holding his arms and men sitting on his back. His eyes were now red with pale blue irises and he had completely lost himself to his youkai mind. As she neared him she desperately tried to think of a way to change him back now that he no longer wore his subjugation beads from the last time this happened. She kept trying to ignore the dull humm of voices in the background so she could think.

"What do we do with this one?", one man shouted from Inuyasha's back. 

"He is Hanyou. They're no good once they've lost themselves. Put the beast down.", came the cold unfeeling voice of the man in the black suit as he left through the door of the orhanage leaving the men to do the deed. 

The cold black muzzle of a gun was pushed to the side of Inuyasha's head as he was held down. Kagome watched, trying to voice the words in her head, trying to tell them to stop. The tiny croak from her throat was easily drowned out by the mechanical deafening boom of the gun. 

The men got up, wiping arms and hands free of Inuyasha's blood on his shirt while he lay on the floor. Lifeless gold eyes stared back at Kagome's numb gaze. Blood seeped over his face and onto the ground, the side of his skull gaped open slowly loosing pieces of his now useless brain onto the ground. Kagome dropped to her knees and crawled toward him, her lips quivering in shock. 

"Inu... Oh, Inu..", she whispered as she reached his side. She pressed her hand into the wound, mindlessly trying to stem the flow of blood as she let out dry sobs, her body too shocked to produce tears. "Don't worry.. Don't worry..", she cradled his head as she rocked back and forth, "It'll all be okay... this isn't real. Just watch, I'll go get your brother... Onii-san knows how to fix it...", she bit her lip as she layed him carefully back down. "I'll be back, just wait... It'll be all better Inuyasha..", with her last whispered promise she ran out of the opening in the wall and ran for Sesshoumaru's office building.

She ran down the darkened streets as fast as she could. The dark shadows danced around her in the few streetlights. She could see more armored cars around, commontions every where. The whole city looked like the image of the apocalypse: chaos, people running around. Some were looting, some were crying, many screaming and fighting as their previously known or unknown demonic family members were dragged away. 

She reached the block of Sesshoumaru's office building and breathed out a relieved sigh. This place would be safe. Only half a block away now, she was almost there.

"Kagome!", a familiar voice shouted from behind her though the desperation tainting the normal confidence unnerved her. She spun around to see Kouga running towards her, he looked like he was stuggling and she could tell there was something wrong with his leg. "Hide Kagome!", he shouted to her.

She started him towards him, intent on trying to help. Her eyes widened and she took a step back as she saw the armored men running behind him, they were after him too. One was pointing a big gun at his back. Trying to stop a repeat of earlier events she reached her hand out to him, "Kouga, watch out!", she shouted. 

He craned his head to follow her eyes behind him just in time to see a net shoot from the wide barrel of the gun. The weights attached to the edges of the net pulled the thick material over him, forcing him to the ground. "Kagome, run!", he shouted to her as he pulled and slashed at the net he was entangled in, the material never yielding to his sharp claws. 

She turned to run back towards Sesshoumaru's office building only to see his tall, bound form struggling against a group or armored men as they pushed him into a thick armored car. She held her hands over her mouth to muffle her screams as she backed against a wall in a nearby alleyway. Tears clouded her eyes as her only hope was dragged away. His crimson colored eyes locked with hers for a moment and she could feel the angry desperation and hate course through her body. She curled her knees to her chest as he was pushed from her sight and hid her face. 

She didn't know how much later she stopped crying but she did. Her only thoughts that she had to make sure the inu brothers swords were safe. She stumbled to her feet and went into the empty and destroyed office building. Stumbling her way up the staircase, she barely noticed the cracks, dents, and holes in the walls as she ran for the top floor. 

Standing in the door way to his office she looked around at the wreck the normally immaculate space was in. The desk lay overturned and broken o the floor. The chairs were strewn across the room. Plants lay on their sides, tipping their dirt onto the carpet. She let out a dry sob and covered her mouth with her hand to muffle the sound as she stumbled over to the painting she knew his vault was behind. 

She dropped to her knees and covered her eyes against the sight that met her on the other side of the wrecked desk. There lay Inukimi, bloodied on the ground her elegant dress torn and shredded. 

"Kimi-sama...", Kagome whispered brokenly into the quiet room. Her thoughts ran rampant in her mind. Why? Why was all this happening? Who was doing it.. who was behind it all? Why all of her friends and family... and why leave her behind and take them all away? She was all alone now... She opened her eyes again to look at the body of her Onii-san's mother. She bit her lip and heaved a dry sob again, there wasn't a single tear left in her body. 

She crawled on all fours towards her. As she got closer she noticed the tiny bubbles coming from the gash over her throat, belying the fact that she wasn't truly dead yet. "Kimi-sama?", she whispered again.

Silvery grey eyes opened to see her leaning over them. Inukimi smiled. "Shikon Priestess..", her gurgled voice came.

Kagome held onto one of her hands with both of her and clutched it tight. She knew Inukimi wasn't long for this world but Kagome wanted to make sure she knew she wouldn't pass alone. "I'm sorry... I'm sorry, I'm sorry", Kagome's voice rang through the empty room over and over again. She knew it was all her fault, she couldn't do anything to stop her friends from being taken. She couldn't do anything to help anyone... She really was useless somtimes...

Inukimi's head lolled back and forth as if shaking her head 'no'. "Promise me...", she gurgled again. She had to say this before she died.. She need reassurance that things would be taken care of after she was gone. "Promise... make sure he's okay...", more bubbled came up through the slash in her throat as she spoke and her voice became more watery as the blood seeped into her airways. "Keep him safe... Kagome...", she quieted then, wishing to live her last few moments in silence before her soul left her body. 

"I promise... I promise...", Kagome whispered back as she rocked back and forth. She watched Inukimi's eyes close and her chest ceased to rise and fall. Kagome pulled Sesshoumaru's coat from where it had been thrown off the rack onto the floor and layed it over her silent form. 

Not able to stand sitting there any longer she leapt to her feet and threw the painting off of the wall. She turned the dial, entering the combination Sesshoumaru had taught her and Inuyasha in case of emergencies. Inside the vault lay their swords, all placed on silk cushions. She reached forward and grabbed hold of Tenseiga and Tessaiga. She hesitated only a moment before reaching for Bakusaiga, the barrier around it fluttered and then let her past as it recognized her. 

She turned to run from the office with the swords held tight to her chest. She saw Inukimi's fur stole laying crumpled on the floor and realised she couldn't just leave it there. She quickly wrapped it around the swords and turned to run again. She ran and ran until she reached her family's shrine. She ran past the house and the shrine building to throw the doors to the well house open. She closed the door behind her and ran to the corner of the room and curled in on herself. 

Through the gaps in the slats she could see the tiny rays of lilac light as the sun prepared to rise. How dare it just go on as if nothing happened when the world was falling apart around her. She sat there and cried again hoping maybe just one of her friends was exempt from this massacre. 

~

Whew that took a long time to right... Thank you everyone for reading! I <3 Reviews.

Thank you so much to NyKitty for helping me get past my summary block on this story!

MontiK