Chapter 1
The Forest of the Weeping Maiden
Someone is coming. She paused, cocking her head to one side. Yes. No, many some ones. A frown flickered across her face. This is unusual. Wait. She tensed slightly. Two groups… unequal in number… yet equal in strength? She shrugged and started to turn away, but froze as a new scent came on the wind. Another group? A single touch made her draw back, hissing. Ada-yokai! Evil demons! The three groups were on a collision course. She had been willing to let the first two pass or meet as they chose. But with a group of demons added to the mix…well, that she could not afford to ignore. With silent steps, she raced through the forest, fleet and unnoticed as the shadows cast by the moon.
"How long do we have to tromp through this forest?" asked Miroku, untangling the hem of his robes from grasping branches for the seventh time.
"Oh stop being such a baby," Sango answered. "The rest of us aren't having any trouble."
Miroku rolled his eyes skyward. "Heaven forbid that I ever disappoint a beautiful woman," he said, and struggled gamely on.
"We'll tromp through this forest until we find that demon with those jewel shards that Kagome saw come in here," Inuyasha said through gritted teeth. "Or until we get to the other side, whichever comes first."
Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut, Kagome thought with a sigh, pushing a vine out of her way. They were reluctant to use Shippo's foxfire to burn out a path for fear of setting the whole forest ablaze or warning their quarry of their presence. So it had come down to mindless slogging through the thickest forest she had ever seen in her life. She looked ahead, Inuyasha's mane of white hair and gaudy red clothing the only things that stood out in this world of twilight green. He'd keep going all night if he thought he'd get away with it, Kagome thought, glancing down at her watch. "Inuyasha!" she called.
A pair of golden eyes bisected with cat-like pupils flashed. "Yeah, what is it?"
"It's getting awfully close to dark," she said, coming to a halt beside the young half-demon. "We might want to start looking for a place to camp."
"Huh. If we take time for that, then the demon will get away!" Inuyasha answered.
Kagome put her hands on her hips. "Chances are that demon is already miles and miles away. We won't find it any faster if we fall and break our necks in the dark. Maybe you and Shippo can see at night, but Sango, Miroku, and I can't."
Inuyasha glared at her for a moment. "I'll keep my eyes open," he finally said grudgingly, then turned and continued to slash through the undergrowth with his claws. Kagome breathed a sigh of frustration, but knew that was the greatest concession she'd get.
Suddenly, Inuyasha dropped out of sight and a startled yell split the air.
"Inuyasha!" called Kagome, racing forward and skidding to a halt at the edge of a sharp drop. It wasn't a cliff, but unwary interlopers would be unpleasantly surprised with the steepness of it. Inuyasha was lying at the bottom, a tangle of robes, hair, and scabbard, stunned, but otherwise unhurt. Shippo, Miroku, and Sango, holding Kirara, came up behind Kagome.
"Inuyasha!" Kagome called again. "Are you alright?"
"What's it look like?" Inuyasha growled, slowly picking himself up. "Why don't you try it and see?" Kagome made a face.
"This isn't a natural bluff," said Sango thoughtfully. "It's too sheer, too neat."
"And look, the forest has been cleared," said Miroku, pointing with his staff. The unnatural bluff extended along the tangled forest in both directions, fading out of sight, all uniformly smoothed and steep. The land below the bluff had been cleared of all vegetation, save grass, acting as a sort of open buffer zone between the thick forest and a second line of trees.
"It's a forest within a forest," said Kagome, staring.
"It looks like someone under siege," answered Miroku grimly. "That open ground will make it impossible for anyone to cross without being seen."
"But…who could have done this?" asked Kagome.
"Someone with a lot of power," growled Inuyasha. Being a half-demon, or hanyou, his sharp ears picking up every word of their conversation. "Hey, come on! We've gotta keep moving! I don't want to be stuck in the middle of this plain longer than we have to."
Kirara obligingly leapt down from Sango's arms and changed into her larger battle-form to carry down her human passengers. Shippo clung to Kagome's shoulder, looking around as if expecting to see eyes peering at them from the trees. Kagome herself cast a worried look at the sun, which was sinking lower in the sky. In a few hours, it would be dark. And they would be within a place that someone probably didn't want them to be in.
When they entered the second forest, Kagome's feeling of uneasiness increased. There was much less undergrowth and the trees grew farther apart, much more like the forests she was used to going through, but compared to the thick tangle they had clambered through earlier that day, it seemed like a well-tended garden. It was making her nervous.
"Kagome, will you stop twitching!" growled Inuyasha. "It's very distracting."
"Sorry, it's just…" She paused.
Inuyasha stopped and looked back at her. "What? Are you sensing the jewel shard?"
"No, not that," said Kagome. "It's just…" She glanced around, and said softly, "This place is giving me the creeps."
"Why? Looks perfectly normal to me."
"That's why I'm nervous. Because it looks so normal. But that thick forest? The bluff? The plain? Those weren't normal, so what makes you think this place is?"
Inuyasha glanced around, sniffing the air of the small clearing. Nothing looked or smelled out of the ordinary… but like Kagome said, that didn't necessarily mean anything. Suddenly, he caught a familiar scent. Pushing Kagome behind him, he unsheathed the Tetsusaiga.
"What–?" Kagome cut the question off in mid-sentence as she saw what had caught Inuyasha's attention. "Sesshomaru!"
"Well, well, well. If it isn't my little brother, Inuyasha," purred Sesshomaru.
Kagome could see that this wasn't going to turn out well. The two brothers hated each other with a passion, though Inuyasha's hate burned like fire and Sesshomaru's was cold as ice. A breeze ruffled the fur draped over the full-demon's arm and swept through his long, silver-white hair. Golden eyes surveyed the scene with a cold, dispassionate gaze. Keeping well back in the bushes, her eyes wide and round, was Rin, the little human girl who followed Sesshomaru around, with Jaken, a small frog-like demon who was the dog yokai's servant.
"What are you doing here?" Inuyasha demanded. "I thought you weren't after the Shikon Jewel."
"The Jewel? I have no interest in parlor tricks such as that," Sesshomaru answered, raising one elegant eyebrow. "Did you come seeking its shards here?"
"That's my business," said Inuyasha, eying his brother.
Sesshomaru's golden eyes narrowed. "So. You do not know where you are."
"Huh? What's he talking about, Inuyasha?" asked Shippo.
"You are in the Forest of the Weeping Maiden," said Sesshomaru. "It is guarded by a powerful demon who hordes secrets of power in its hidden lair. I have come to discover those secrets. Yet you," he said with disdain, "stumble around like a lost puppy after a toy."
Inuyasha snarled at the insult, and Kagome laid a cautious hand on his arm. "Inuyasha," she said softly, "Let it go. We don't have time to get in a fight right now."
"Still hiding behind that pathetic human female?" Sesshomaru taunted. "I suppose that's all one can expect from a half-breed."
Almost before the words finished leaving his brother's mouth, Inuyasha was charging forward, the Tetsusaiga positioned to cleave Sesshomaru in two. The older demon's blade leapt out to meet the Tetsusaiga with a ringing clash of power. For a moment, the blades held, locked together, then Sesshomaru pushed Inuyasha back with a vicious swipe. The hanyou leapt backwards and swiftly reversed direction, charging at Sesshomaru. This time Sesshomaru dodged, slashing at his brother's side, which Inuyasha barely managed to avoid in time, throwing himself out of the path of the sword. The two of them circled, searching for an opening to attack.
"Argh, we don't have time for this!" cried Kagome, reaching for an arrow from the quiver on her back. Suddenly she lost her grip on the arrow and fell to her knees, crying out in pain.
"Kagome!" shouted Inuyasha, distracted and barely dodging another cut from his brother. "Kagome!"
The girl levered herself up, staring at the sky in horror. "Demons!" she whispered. "My God, there's no end to them…the aura…it's so strong…"
Miroku started to pull off the rosary beads sealing the wind tunnel in his palm. "Inuyasha!" he called. "We've got company!"
"What?" Inuyasha glanced up and Sesshomaru let out a low hiss of surprise.
"A demon horde!" said Sesshomaru, his eyes narrowed in thought. "But coming here…?" He glanced at Inuyasha, who hovered with indecision. "We will continue our little battle some other time, little brother," he said.
Inuyasha glared at Sesshomaru, but could not argue. A demon army was a bigger problem than Sesshomaru, though not by much. "What, aren't they friends of yours?" he spat.
"You know me better than that, Inuyasha," answered Sesshomaru, turning his attention to the approaching horde of demons in the sky, his claws glowing with the beginnings of a spell.
Snarling in frustration, Inuyasha bounded back to where Kagome and the others were preparing to face this new threat. Kirara had shifted into battle-form with Sango on her back, her boomerang, the Hiraikotsu, at the ready. Kagome was on her feet again, pale, but with an arrow nocked in the bow. Shippo was clinging to Kagome's leg and Miroku finished pulling the cloth from his hand.
"Wind tunnel!" he shouted as the sucking vortex appeared, drawing in the demons. The demon horde parted like water and dove at them from either side, trying to get in close so the wind tunnel would be a greater hindrance than a help.
Kirara took to the sky, claws shredding demons in her path as Sango whipped the boomerang over her shoulder. "Hiraikotsu!" she cried, the deadly weapon cleaving a score of demons in half with one pass.
"Taste my Wind Scar!" snarled Inuyasha, unleashing one of the Tetsusaiga's most deadly powers at the horde. More demons died…but more came to take their place.
Sesshomaru almost contemptuously ripped dozens demons apart with his extending claws before they came in close enough for them to taste the cold steel of his blade. Jaken was using fire from the Staff of Two Heads to protect himself and Rin. The demon glanced over at Inuyasha, weighing his brother's growing power.
"There's no end to them," whispered Kagome in dismay, releasing one of her arrows. Blue light surrounded the sacred arrow, burning a path through the demons. One of them pointed down at her.
"There!" he rasped. "She has the shards! Get her, and have power beyond imagining!"
"I don't think so!" growled Inuyasha, interposing his body between Kagome and the demons. The demon who had spoken leered at Inuyasha, firing a blast of demonic energy.
"Backlash Wave!" Inuyasha shouted, reflecting the energy back at the demon, incinerating it, along with several of its followers. But the remaining demons were not deterred, continuing to mount the attack. There were so many demons in the air that Kirara was forced to land and Miroku desperately tried to fend them off with his jingling staff so Sango could throw her Hiraikotsu. Even Shippo was trying to help by throwing foxfire, but it was doing little good, since most fox-magic is geared towards illusion.
Suddenly, numerous knobby, clawed hands grabbed a hold of Kagome. "Ahhhh!" she yelled, frantically tugging at the hands which were lifting her off the ground. "Get off of me! Let go! Inuyasha, help!"
"Kagome!" shouted Inuyasha, struggling to escape the tangle of demons surrounding him to help her, but the demons were too many. "Out of my WAY!" he roared, as if by sheer force of will he could toss them aside.
"Inuyasha!" Kagome shouted, desperately struggling to escape, but the demons held her too tightly, their hands groping towards small jar holding the Shikon Jewel shards. No, she thought, trying to pull away. No, no, no! Someone, please help!
Something swished past her face and a demon screamed in pain. More silver blurs whizzed past, striking the demons holding her. What on earth−? Kagome thought. The hands released her, and the girl fell, landing on the corpse on one of the demons. She shrieked, scrambling off the grisly body. Embedded in the demon's heart was a small, graceful dagger. But…who? Kagome thought, looking around for the source of the daggers.
"Kagome!" said Inuyasha, slicing the last demon in front of him in half and running over to her. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," she said. "But who… who is throwing the daggers?"
"Huh? Daggers?" Inuyasha's eyes darted around the woods. "There!" he said, pointing.
Backlit by the dying light of the sun stood a tall figure, the wind whipping its long hair and robes. With a single swift motion, it pulled a pair of daggers from its waist and threw them with deadly accuracy into the throats of two demons trying to behead Miroku. A pair of longer matching wakizashi leapt into the newcomer's hands and, with a single bound, entered the fray. Kagome caught a glimpse of a woman's face, still and hard as ice framed by white hair.
"A demon!" hissed Inuyasha. He blinked in surprise. "She's fast."
The demon was a silver-blue blur like her daggers, ripping, slashing, and tearing through the demons as if they were paper. She said no words, but her wakizashi suddenly blazed with forks of lightning, leaping from demon to demon, blasting them apart. With a gesture, the daggers that had already found targets jerked free and flew in all directions. Kagome and the others could no longer fight, for fear of being hit by the flying daggers. But they really didn't need to fight now… the demon horde was being decimated by the newcomer.
"The Nakishojo!" shrieked one of the demons, attempting to flee before the demon woman cut him down. His cry of fear turned into a gurgle as one of the silver daggers slit his throat. The remaining demons, seeing how outmatched they were, also attempted to escape, flying into the air. The demon stood still on the ground, looking up at them. Then, she crossed her blades above her head, the wind whipping around her frame like a miniature storm.
"Tanto tatsumaki!" shouted the demon. A whirling spout of wind and water leapt from her crossed swords in a roaring blaze of blue-white power that caught the fleeing demons. Then the silver daggers dove in, slashing the trapped demons apart. Kagome covered her ears, trying to block out the dying screams.
When the screaming had stopped, the waterspout condensed in upon itself, withdrawing back into the crossed swords. With a flash, it was gone, along with the remains of the demons, the silver daggers, and the howling wind. In a single fluid motion, the demon lowered the swords, sheathed them, and turned towards Sesshomaru.
Inuyasha's brother still had his blade unsheathed and was watching the newcomer warily. For a moment, no one moved. The demon's back was to them, but Kagome heard a low snarl rumble in the woman's throat. Sesshomaru tensed, hissing, "The Nakishojo…"
The demon woman's arm flashed in a quick gesture. Sesshomaru went flying through the air and slammed head first into a tree. With a groan, he slid to the ground, unconscious. Rin tried to stifle a cry of dismay, shivering in fear in the bushes. Jaken's beak opened and closed wordlessly. The others stared, frozen in shock.
"Out of the frying pan into the fire," Miroku muttered.