Meanwhile Shippo and Sango were by there camp packing up and watching Kirara playing with an insect, when they heard the ruckus coming from the river bed they jumped to attention and ran towards the loud noises coming from the reeds when they found Kagome and Inuyasha beating the monk who was lying slightly dazed on the ground, Shippo and Sango pulled Kagome off Miroku and then Inuyasha stopped and said to Miroku 'don▓t ever do that again you no good monk' Miroku just lay on the floor and groaned in a small voice 'it was worth it'.
The small group then headed off, following the river towards Kyousei Kosui (great lake) in which a small population of half demons resided, they were in search of the shards of the shikon jewel which Kagome had broke trying to destroy a demon. When they heard of a half demon population hiding away from the world of humans and denial they chose not to be part of, the group lived on a small floating island in the middle of the lake and you could only get there if you were half demon or not trying to destroy them. Inuyasha thought that maybe the half demons would be keeping track of the jewel to gain the power of becoming a fully fledged demon, he thought to himself as they trekked through the mosquito ridden reeds 'maybe I'll finally meet some people I can relate to, its so hard being the only one apart from junanji that gets rejected from the world, but I cant let Kagome know that or she'll think I've gone soft'.
Kagome looked up and noticed Inuyasha deep in thought she wondered what he was thinking about when all of a sudden a small dirty boy with blonde hair and startling green eyes sprung up from no where, he called to the group in a loud voice, too loud for a small boy, 'come to the performing family of Gingo, we will entertain all travelers if they are weary and need a break from the road, come to our stage and we will en-trance you in our performance!'. Shippo was getting excited about this prospect 'please Kagome, please can we go! I've never seen a performing family! The Gingo's family are supposed to be famous amongst the whole performing family world!', Kagome thought about it for a while then said to Inuyasha 'what do you think', Inuyasha wanted badly to find the group of half demons but when he saw Kagomes face he gave in and said 'well don▓t blame me if all the shards are collected by Naroku while were watching some stupid performing family'. So the group followed the small boy towards the stage.
When they got there they were amazed, the stage was lit up and the family were flying from ropes and walking on thin wire and performing amazing tricks with water and fire. Kagome and Shippo ran towards the flying children, Sango headed towards the men and women walking on thin wires with Kikirara and then Miroku followed. Inuyasha decided to look around a bit and make sure nothing was wrong, he rounded a corner and found a small tent where two high pitched voices talked in hushed tones 'master please I would advice against it, the girl had a powerful presence about her we should not try anything' 'well what else should we do? there is no other option, the vase fell towards her, we must take her soul' then it went quiet. Inuyasha wondered whether he had imagined it, when the two things in the tent emerged, they had the form of two children the boy he recognized as the one with a loud voice and a girl, Inuyasha thought of what they could be planning with a powerful girls soul, then he recognized something, she was demon he was sure she had a shard of the sheakon jewel inside her but were? He decided he must find Kagome, then he suddenly realized that the powerful girl must be Kagome! He yelled out loud 'KAGOME!'.
Kagome was sat on the benches watching the new trick with Shippo when two children stepped onto the stage, the boy with a loud voice asked for silence then he said 'I am looking for someone from the audience to partake in our performance, you there young lady come up onto the stage and aid us in our magic' the spotlight went around the room and landed on Kagome, she turned red and walked towards the stage, she arrived and the girl took her hand and put her in a dark crimson box with gold engraved in mystical shapes and spells then the boy said 'ladies and gentleman I shall now make this lovely young lady disappear, 5,4,3┘' Kagome looked at the girl and noticed Inuyasha running towards the box shouting something but she couldn▓t hear then she noticed a glow coming from the girls left hand 'a shard of the sheakon jewel!' '2,1!' then Kagome disappeared in a cloud of smoke with the children. Inuyasha just stood there and whispered 'I'm too late'
Shippo, Miroku and Sango then ran up onto the stage and started to question Inuyasha, Shippo asked 'Inuyasha why did you run up like that its just magic' Miroku said 'I can sense that Inuyasha realized that Kagome was in some type of trouble and tried to save her but was too late, am I right in thinking that one of those children were demon?', Inuyasha looked at him and said 'we must find Kagome, we must'.
The three of them returned to the tent in which Inuyasha had heard the children talking. When they got there the children were no where to be found, Inuyasha was about to leave with the others when all of a sudden the floor came crashing down, he hid behind a stage trunk and watched as the young boy came clambering out of a hole in the floor muttering to himself he pulled a rope on the side of the tent and walked out meanwhile the hole in the floor slowly came back together, the others came into the tent and didn▓t see Inuyasha until he emerged from behind the stage trunk and told the group what he had seen, Inuyasha then walks towards the rope that manipulated the entrance to the underground cavern and pulled it, the floor came crashing down and a pair of stairs forged out of the walls led the group downwards for what seemed like eternity.
When they had reached the pit of the cavern they looked up and saw that the entrance had been closed but the way was lit by torches surrounding either side of the walls on which the crumbling staircase resided. The room at the bottom of the cavern was perfectly cut like a hour glass or a vase there were two tunnels on either side of the room both hourglass shaped. The group looked at each other and Miroku then said 'I think we should split up'. Inuyasha nodded his head and said 'Sango, Miroku go to the tunnel on the right with Kirara, meanwhile me and Shippo will head for the tunnel on the left' he thought to himself 'we must find her I couldn▓t live with myself if I lost her for good this time'.
So the group split up, Miroku and Sango carried on and on for what seemed like hours the torches lit up at any sign of movement and then one torch did not turn on at their approach, the trio noticed each lamp being extinguished until they were in complete darkness, Sango was getting very nervous and Miroku noticed her shaking he thought to himself maybe I can make a move now she is so nervous she may feel comforted by my presence, so he moved his hand towards her when he felt a hard slap across his face, he then said out loud 'hmm maybe not', 'MIROKU don▓t you dare do that again you shameful monk!' then Miroku felt something curl around his waist he said 'Sango! I knew you couldn▓t resist me!' Sango turned confused and said 'What are you talking about?' Miroku realized that this was not in fact Sango too late to do anything he groaned and said 'Just my luck' and then the demon rendered him unconscious. Sango heard a thud and felt around she then felt a heap of cloth on the floor 'Oh no Miro┘' she felt a hard whack on the back of her head and heard Kirara turn and head for the entrance to find Inuyasha and Shippo before she passed out on the floor.
Inuyasha and Shippo raced down the tunnel heading for a light at the very end when they heard a growl approaching them, they turned to find Kirara running towards them, when she got to them she turned back to her normal self, Inuyasha couldn▓t see Miroku or Sango he knew something was wrong but Kagome is more important I must find Kagome he said to himself, so they carried on Inuyasha ran even quicker than before and Shippo had to cling as hard as he could to Inuyasha's back to prevent himself from falling off , eventually they arrived at a small lit up room with a vase in the centre and lots of coffin like boxes hanging of the walls they all seemed to be full of a liquid and then when Inuyasha looked closer he saw faces in the liquid, faces of men, women and children even one old man was staring blank eyed through the liquid, then suddenly voices came through a tunnel ringing of the walls. Inuyasha recognized them as the voices of the children he heard talking in the tent, this time the children were arguing.
Their voices rang through the hollow cavern, the girl was shouting and they could hear her high pitched voice 'you moron why didn▓t you check who was around before you opened the door now anything could have got in! hold the girl higher so she isn't woken or the master will be angry and I will not take the blame for you! Where is Kahoko Aguri?' 'sorry Aemi, Kahoko was out hunting for spare souls she will be arriving soon' . Inuyasha could tell that the girl and boy weren't acting of their own accord and were somehow told what to do by the so called master.
Inuyasha made Shippo and Kikirara return through the tunnel and stay outside while he waited for the children to appear, first the sister came through she was wearing a crimson red dress and her hair was pinned with a magnificent red jewel, then the boy came through, he was all in red as well but his jewel was around his neck, he was holding Kagome high above his head and when they entered the cave a hissing sound erupted from the vase in the centre 'placceee her in the nearessssst Kontan Dorobou (soul robber) to meeeee' the boy moved slowly towards the coffin where Inuyasha was hiding when the vase fell to the floor the opening pointed towards Inuyasha and the girl jumped up and said 'well well well look what we have here, does doggy want to play?'.
Inuyasha was furious at this girl called Aemi he decided to fight her as hard as he could so he pulled out the tetsaiga and thrust it down onto her small body but her arm flew up and blocked it he noticed a glistening on her left wrist, she was wearing Shikoru armor! The most powerful armor that exists, it was forged by Fo-ji the master Black Smith of the west. !hen out of the back of her dress flew a machete, the blade was bigger than the girl herself and it shone in the light of the flames outlining the dueling pair, she brought it down to Inuyasha and he blocked it with tetsaiga then Inuyasha jumped to the ledge of one of the coffins and he flew down towards the girl, tetsaiga at the ready he thrust it down aiming for the Shikoru armor the tetsaiga shone not with the light of the flames but with the full power it possessed, it broke through the Shikoru armor and her left wrist. Inuyasha noticed out of the corner of his eye that her hand had disintegrated and what was left was a shard of the shikon jewel, the vase tipped towards the jewel and a thick black liquid poured out and edged towards the jewel. Inuyasha dived for it and grasped it in his left hand.
The hissing voice called out 'NOOOO my jewel, I cannot move! What have you done!' then the liquid slowly evaporated and flew out of the cavern through all the nooks and crannies in the cavern. The boy stood stock still near the coffin staring at his sister writhing in pain on the floor, Inuyasha turned towards him and took Kagome from his arms, he then bent over his sisters now still body and wept, but it was not over yet for the bakeneko, Kahoko, approached prancing across the floor with Sango and Miroku slumped against what looked like a saddle.
Inuyasha was about to put Kagome down when Kirara flew over the top of him and came down on Kahoko pushing Miroku and Sango out of the way with her paw she bit down into the animals fur, the animal screamed in pain and threw itself away from Kirara it smashed the vase and out came several orbs of light the souls found their way back to the bodies and all around gasps of air were heard when people were revived from there enchanted slumber in the Kontan Dorobou's, Kirara pounced again Inuyasha looked at the shadows on the wall and he could see the fierce battle between the two bakeneko's. The two flickering shapes flew at each other and the battle continued until one was still.
Inuyasha turned to face the two bakeneko's and saw black and red fur limp leaning against the wall and Kirara transformed back to her normal cat size went to Sango and licked her face, Sango and Miroku slowly revived and then they sat up panicky and said to Inuyasha 'what happened, one minute we were in a dark tunnel being knocked out by some type of animal then we end up hear surrounded by, by┘ umm what exactly are these?' then Sango noticed the girl and the boy on the ground and she had a flashback of her weeping over her brother's dead body, but then the girl stirred, she opened her eyes and asked her brother where she was, he looked up at Inuyasha and told the tale of what had happened to him and his sister, their step father had gained the trust of their mother when one day on a walk with the children he embedded a shard of the shikon jewel into Aemi and made a spell to take control of her then he said to Aguri that he would kill their mother if he did not serve him, then their step-father made a fatal mistake and lost his body, he was reduced to a thick black liquid but he still controlled Aemi he then ordered the two children to gather up souls to get his body back, but no soul was strong enough for him, they were trapped in his spell until Inuyasha came to save Kagome.
The air flew through Inuyasha's hair as he carried Kagome towards the Kyousei Kosui, the others were quite far behind because Inuyasha wanted to get Kagome to the half-demons so they could help her. He felt something move on his back so he stopped and put Kagome down she stirred again and then slowly her eyelids lifted and she began to sit up, Kagome started to talk in a current of words 'what happened to the children, it wasn▓t their fault!.. The vase, their step-father, mother, killed' Inuyasha put his finger on her lips and she stopped talking he then held her head and made her lie down again he said 'don▓t move Kagome your not well, don▓t worry your safe the children are back to their mother and the Tsubo Korekuta was destroyed along with the step-fathers remains, he did not take your soul', Kagome sat up and put her arms around Inuyasha's neck, he put his head onto her shoulder and said 'I thought I was going to loose you for good' they stayed like this for some time and Kagome could feel something wet on her neck, was Inuyasha crying?. Then Miroku and Sango turned the corner and found them embraced, they quickly pulled away from each other and both turned red, Miroku said 'I see you two are more intimate after Inuyasha risked us to save you' and Inuyasha stood up quickly and said 'I only saved her because she had the jewel shards', 'oh really, you┘ you┘ SIT BOY!'.
'KAGOME WHAT WAS THAT FOR!!' - Inuyasha
'I'm not talking to you' - Kagome
'well technically in saying that you talked to him' - Miroku
'SHUT UP MIROKU' - Kagome+Inuyasha