The Cave of the Demoness

Suddenly InuYasha stopped. They were almost at the clearing, but something was strange. He smelled the air curiously. The scent of blood he had noticed earlier was now gone. It had just faded away, as if the blood had vanished. By the time Sango noticed InuYasha had stopped, she had flown quite a few feet away. She turned around and asked at the same time as Kagome, "What's wrong?"

"Uh, it's nothing. Let's keep going." He still couldn't tell them. He decided to investigate it before filling them in on the details. He jumped the distance between Kirara and himself and continued running. Once they reached the mountain directly across from the clearing, they saw that it was empty. Sango's face fell. She had been hoping to see something, some sort of clue.

"I can't see anything from here, Sango-chan. Let's go down there and look closer." Kagome climbed down off of InuYasha's back and hopped onto Kirara's. She and Sango flew toward the clearing.

"HEY! Kagome! What about me??" But Kagome and Sango were already too far away. He looked at the distance between the mountain and the clearing. It was too big to leap across, but if he got a running jump he might make it. He ran to the back of the mountain top, turned around, and ran as fast as he could toward the edge of the cliff. He jumped and flew through the air, landing very close to the tree on the outer edge of the clearing. Luckily for him, he tumbled out of the way of the branch that grabbed at him. He rolled a few feet farther, and his face landed in the dirt right in the center of the clearing. He lifted his head and sneezed. But as soon as he got the dust out of his nose, he realized that the scent of blood he had smelled before was back again, but very faint. This was where it had been, but it wasn't there anymore. He stood up and looked at Kagome and Sango. He had looked up just in time, too. Unnoticed by Sango, a demon was approaching the side of the forest where she stood.

Sango was looking around at the empty clearing. She looked toward InuYasha and Kagome and noticed InuYasha leaping straight toward her, with his claws in the air ready to attack. Surprised and startled without enough time to dodge, she ducked and prepared to be struck. She felt a wind pass over her head, heard InuYasha's voice yell "Sankon Tessou!" and spun around to see shredded bits of a demon fall to the ground. Another spider emerged over by Kagome. Sango saw it in time and threw her Hiraikotsu at it, cutting it in half. They moved to the middle of the clearing, backs together, waiting for more spiders to appear. When none did, they stepped away from each other, and InuYasha knelt down and smelled the ground in the area. Kagome, Sango, and Shippo waited in suspense as he finished smelling the ground and came to a conclusion of some sort. When he finally stood up, the expression on his face was undecipherable.

"Well . . . I don't really know what to think of this. In one spot, there's a lingering smell of blood, surrounded by Miroku's scent. He was here, and he was injured. But there's no explanation as to what happened to either him or his blood . . . And this whole forest reeks of the scent of demons. More than just the spiders and the trees, who knows what else might be lurking around here, looking for a new target."

"Yeah . . ." Kagome looked worried, but it was nothing compared to Sango. Her face looked on the verge of tears. She was looking at the ground in the spot InuYasha had smelled. She walked towards it and slipped on something. Catching herself, she looked down at the ground and gasped. InuYasha took a step forward and asked "Did you find something?"

Kagome turned to face Sango. "What is it, Sango-chan?" She watched Sango kneel down and pick something out of the thick, meadow grass. She held up Miroku's staff. It was covered with spider webs and bits of dead grass. But there was no blood on it, neither his nor any demon blood.

"His staff? What's he doing without his staff?" Shippo wondered out loud.

"I don't know, but somehow I don't think he left it behind on purpose. InuYasha, you said his scent disappeared?" Kagome watched as InuYasha nodded, then continued. "Well, maybe you could try to find which direction it disappeared in . . . ?"

"Keh! As if I haven't tried that already! It's only in that one spot, then after that it completely disappears. There's too many other scents of demons for it to be strong enough to be traced."

"Maybe that cave is our best bet after all . . ." Kagome said. "It might not hurt anything to check it out."

"If you'd have just listened to me in the first place, we could already be there, possibly standing next to Miroku right now!" InuYasha yelled, glaring at Kagome with a cocky yet angered expression on his face.

Sango stopped Kagome from sending some sort of remark back at InuYasha. "Do you remember exactly where the cave was?" InuYasha was startled to hear Sango's calm voice rather than Kagome's angry one. Apparently Kagome was surprised too.

InuYasha looked away. "Not exactly. But if we go back to the mountain, I'm sure we'll find it eventually."

"Ok then, lets hurry. We don't have any time to waste." Kagome walked over to Sango as Kirara knelt down and let Sango climb on. Sango looked shocked at Kagome for a moment. She started to say "Shouldn't you be riding with InuYasha?" but then realized it sounded rude. Instead of speaking, she ordered Kirara toward the mountain. Grumbling to himself, InuYasha leapt after them.

When Sango and Kagome reached the mountain, they waited for InuYasha to reach it. As he came closer, flying through the air, they noticed him beginning to drop. He got a slight look of panic on his face as he realized the distance was too great for him to jump up. He began to fall. He looked down, and let out a noise of surprise as he saw he was going to land right on top of a tree. The tree seemingly knew this as well, and reached out a branch to grab at him. "Keh, thanks for the help!" he said as he let his foot hit the tree branch, using it to launch himself the remaining distance to the mountain. The tree tried to grab his foot, but he moved away before it could. He landed on the mountain, turned around, and stuck his tongue out at the tree and his nose in the air. It had no effect on the tree, but Sango, Kagome, and Shippo all had looks that showed they weren't amused by his immaturity. "What an idiot." Shippo said, not bothering to lower his voice.

"If InuYasha's ready to act his age, maybe he could tell us which direction the cave is in." Sango looked at InuYasha, waiting for his response. He started to walk toward them, looking angry and cracking his knuckles. He punched Shippo on the head, watched the tears well in the fox's eyes, and continued past them. After a few feet he stopped, turned his head back, and said, "It's this way."

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When Sayuki entered the cave that she called home, she used her magic to light the torches that lined it. She began to wonder how she could use this monk to her advantage. She sensed other humans in the forest and wondered if they knew him. She hoped so. Humans built strong bonds with each other that were easily toyed with. If she could figure out exactly what those bonds were, she could manipulate this human to lure in the others. And with her magic already inside him, keeping his breathing steady, she knew she'd have no trouble doing it.

By the time her thoughts had reached this point, she was in the main part of the cave, the part that she spent most of her time in. It was a large, slightly triangular shaped cavern. In one area of the cave, there were items that she had either made with her own powers or slain demons to acquire. On another side was a flower patch and a small river that ran inside the mountain. The river had fish inside it that she could use to keep her new human "pet" alive with. The last side of the cave was almost a fork. It had two separate caves leading in different directions. One led out of the other end of the mountain, but the other led to an underground chamber, full of nothing but glittering jewels and natural rocks. The gems grew there on their own, and she loved to wander down and admire them. Occasionally she would break one off and use it to make a weapon or an ornament for her to wear. She made herself feel more like a human every time she did this, but that was why she had been rejected by her family and friends. But she didn't mind, she didn't need them anyway. She was plenty happy on her own, manipulating humans and demons alike, rather than aiding demons and merely slaughtering humans.

She lay the human down in the center, flat on the rocky interior of the mountain. She traveled down to the chamber and broke off some pieces of quartz, which she used to form chains. She carried them out, used some magic to attach them to the rock wall next to the cavern, and chained the monk by the wrists to the wall. She had made them at the perfect height. He would have looked as if he was just sitting on his knees with his arms up if the chains weren't there and his head wasn't hanging limply on his chest. Now all she had to do was wait for him to regain consciousness, and she figured that wouldn't take very long. She sat down on the flowers that she used as a bed and relaxed. She would be able to sense him waking up, so she didn't see the point in watching him. She leaned back and wondered what she should do when she was done playing with the humans. Should she eat them? Fish and spider meat got boring after a while, and she didn't like the taste of any of the plants that grew around this area.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a strange noise. She looked up to see the monk's face twitching. He was beginning to wake up. She stood up and began to walk toward him, waiting for his eyes to open.

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Miroku was beginning to wake up. He didn't know how or why he was waking up, or where he was. At the moment, he couldn't even remember what had happened to him, why he had fallen unconscious. His mind felt fuzzy, and his entire body ached with pain, as if something was flowing through his veins other than blood, something unwelcome. He tried to open his eyes, but he couldn't. As his other senses began to return to him, he heard footsteps approaching him. Please let it be Sango, he begged. Or Kagome, or even InuYasha. The footsteps grew closer. He tried once again to open his eyes, and this time he succeeded. As his vision came into focus, he saw he was looking down at his body, his head pointed toward the ground. It was then that he noticed he was being held up by his wrists. Something was around them, keeping him from falling down. But instead of looking up to find out what, he decided it would be smarter to find out whose footsteps had just stopped in front of him. He began to raise his head, but felt light-headed when he did so. Suddenly, his back throbbed so bad that he closed his eyes in pain to keep them from watering. And as he did so, a woman's voice began to speak to him.

"Oh, does it still hurt? Too bad, you're going to have to deal with it. I can heal human flesh wounds to a certain degree with my magic, but they have to be tough enough to handle the remaining pain on their own." Miroku didn't recognize the voice. He opened his eyes and forced himself to look up at whoever was speaking to him. She appeared to be a human, but she had just spoken of using magic. She was either a priestess or a demon, and he had a strong feeling a priestess's holy powers weren't what had healed him. She noticed him looking at her and began to speak again.

"You're lucky to be alive, Monk, I almost decided to let the spiders have you. They're horrible demons, even I hate them." She looked at him, apparently waiting for a response. But Miroku was unable to respond. He was trying to remember what she was talking about, trying to remember anything about spider demons. His mind was drawing a blank. He looked down and tried to find his voice, but didn't get a chance to speak before she did.

"Well, aren't you going to thank me for saving you, for reviving you?" He looked at her again. She looked angry now.

Without taking his eyes off of her, he said slowly, "I don't remember anything that's happened recently. I'm sorry for not thanking you, but I have no clue what you're talking about. All I know is that my body is in pain, and you're here telling me I was apparently almost killed. But I don't know how that happened, or who you are." He looked away from her and sighed. He felt weak and vulnerable, knowing that the woman in front of him knew more about himself than he did. Suddenly, he felt whatever was holding him up release, but he didn't have time to stop himself from falling. He hit the ground hard, managing to not land on his face. When some of his strength recovered, he rolled onto his back and looked up at the wall that had been behind him the whole time. Something sparkled white and purple. It seemed to be some sort of rock chain, but his eyes didn't linger on it long enough to find out. The demoness had unlocked the chains and set him free for some reason. Maybe because she now knew that now he could hold himself up. He sat up and put his hand on his head. It had hurt even before the fall, but now, sitting on the ground, it hurt so bad he was beginning to get dizzy. And it didn't help that he was searching his mind, trying to find any memory as to what had happened before he'd passed out. But nothing was coming to him. He sighed and began to wonder where InuYasha, Kagome, Sango, and Shippo were. He hoped they were all safe and weren't in the same position he was.

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InuYasha ran along the mountain, traveling faster than normal because he didn't have Kagome on his back weighing him down. Kirara had trouble keeping up with him. She had double the weight on her back now, and InuYasha was flying away from her faster than she herself could fly. But Kirara understood the need to rush. Miroku may not have been her real owner, but she had become attached to him, as well as the others, as if they were her owners.

Kirara was just beginning to catch up with InuYasha when he stopped. Unable to stop in time, she let out a roar as she collided with InuYasha's back. Sango and Kagome were sent flying off of Kirara's back and into the air. Shippo flew off of Kagome's shoulder. InuYasha pulled himself out from underneath Kirara and managed to catch Sango before she hit the ground, and Kagome slammed on top of InuYasha. Inuyasha fell to the ground again, this time landing on top of Sango in an awkward position. Shippo flew into the top of the mountain a few feet away from them. When Kirara stood up, she saw the three humans piled on top of each other and walked over to them, whimpering slightly, hoping they weren't hurt. InuYasha appeared fine, but anger burned in his eyes as Kagome managed to stand up. He jumped off of Sango, who stood up and turned away, her face burning red with embarrassment.

"Someone want to tell me what the HELL just happened?" InuYasha's eyes darted back and forth from Kagome to Sango to Kirara. He was completely ignoring Shippo, who sat up rubbing his head, where a small bump was beginning to grow.

"Um, well...I'm not too sure, actually." Kagome tried to answer, but realized she had nothing to answer his question with.

"I think I can explain." Sango said, her back still turned to InuYasha and Kagome. She was looking at Kirara, who was sitting on the ground in front of her, staring at the ground as if she were as embarrassed as Sango was. "We were moving so fast trying to keep up with you that by the time Kirara noticed you had stopped, she couldn't avoid hitting you." Kirara purred in agreement.

"Geez, InuYasha! Next time, give us more warning before you stop, that hurt!" Kagome glared at InuYasha, throwing all the blame on him as usual. She took her eyes off of him and walked over to Shippo. She picked him up and, all the anger gone from her voice, asked "Are you ok, Shippo-chan?"

"Yeah, I think so." His hand was still on his head. Kagome saw the bump on his head. It didn't take much to figure out that he had hit his head on the mountaintop. Kagome felt sympathy for him and kissed his head where the bump was. Shippo was shocked at first, then he looked up at Kagome and said, "Hey, that worked!" He shut his eyes and smiled. "It feels much better now!" He opened his eyes again and saw Kagome giving him a shut-eyed smile in return.

From beside them InuYasha made a retching noise and said "Keh, you people make me sick!" InuYasha started walking toward the edge of the mountain. "And if anyone cared to ask, the reason I stopped was because we've reached it. Right down there is the cave I saw earlier." He was looking over the edge of the mountain. It appeared to slant down toward a gap in the mountain wall. Sango guessed that must have been the entrance to the cave.

Kagome walked up beside Sango, still carrying Shippo in her arms. "Should we go check it out?" She looked toward InuYasha as she asked the question. Without even noticing, Sango had climbed onto Kirara and was already halfway down the mountain. "I'll take that as a yes..." InuYasha pulled Kagome onto his back and they followed Sango down to the bottom of the mountain. On the way down, a tree lashed its branch out at them, but once they reached the ground and were in front of the cave, it stopped.

Sango stared at the trees. "Doesn't it seem a bit odd that the trees everywhere else attack us, yet in front of the cave they act normal? Its almost as if they want us to enter the cave . . ." She turned to look at the others. Kagome was trying to see inside the cave. InuYasha was looking at the trees.

"Yeah, when they were carrying me, this is where they dropped me. And after they dropped me they acted as if they were done with me, like they wanted me to go into the cave." "But somehow I don't think you would have been able to. Look." Kagome pointed to the entrance, and Sango saw something gleam.

"There's a barrier over the entrance!" Sango exclaimed. "But if we aren't able to enter it, why do the trees seemingly want us to?" "Maybe they hope we won't notice it and will try to charge headfirst into it." Shippo suggested. Everyone looked at Shippo, surprised. He hadn't been talking much lately, seemingly too scared by everything that was going on. But now he suddenly spoke up, saying something that no one else would have thought to say.

"Nice thinking, Shippo-chan!" Kagome smiled at Shippo, then looked at InuYasha. "That sounds like a good explanation for what's going on here. Now all we have to figure out is how we get rid of the barrier . . ." She wondered if her arrow would be able to break it, but she didn't think that was the best idea. She didn't have very many arrows on her.

"That's easy. I'll use my Tetsusaiga!" InuYasha walked forward, pulling his sword out and standing directly in front of the barrier. Sango and Kagome backed away slightly. InuYasha stared at the barrier as his sword pulsated and then began to slowly turn red. When it was no longer the pale color it usually was, he leapt forward and swung his blood-red Tetsusaiga down and through the barrier. Only it didn't go through it, it was repelled. InuYasha was sent flying backward, landing on the ground right in front of the tree that had dropped him here earlier. "Damn, why didn't that work?" He stood up, dusted himself off, and ran toward the barrier again, sword lifted, ready to strike it again.

"InuYasha, wait!" But InuYasha ignored Kagome's voice and swung the Tetsusaiga again. This time it didn't even begin to sink through the barrier. It was sent flying out of his hand and he was sent flying backwards once again. He screamed as he felt himself fly backwards. His sword landed in the ground near Sango, and transformed back to its original form. InuYasha hit the tree he had landed near last time, and fell to the ground face first.
"InuYasha!" Kagome and Shippo yelled at the same time. Kagome ran over to InuYasha, Shippo jumping off her shoulder and running ahead. InuYasha began to push himself off of the ground when they reached him. Kagome knelt down and tried to help InuYasha, but he pushed her hand away and stood up.

"Dammit, how the hell are we going to get in there?" He stared at the barrier, feeling defeated, but he wasn't going to give up yet. By now he knew Miroku had to be in there, and he was going to be inside the cave soon, too.