He felt a falling sensation. Ozawa's eyes were still closed, but he could feel the wind on his face, and the force of gravity on his back and as he awoke he could see the land spread out beneath his eyes. There were countless fields, forests, hills, and valleys, large and small. Around the corners of his vision he could see the land fall away, covered by the mists far beyond what he could see. The void had left him, and the ground came hurtling up towards him. Before he hit the ground, however, he felt Naraku's cold presence again, and suddenly the figure appeared beneath him, the wind flapping against his ape skin sending waves through it like an ocean of fur. Naraku spoke softly though his voice seemed to carry perfectly across the distance between them.

"Now boy, you return to the light, away from the savage emptiness that enveloped you. I have released you from that torment, so now you must repay your debt. I must warn you, the journey from the void back to the physical world shall cost you dearly, as it is out of my control. Take care to have a safe landing." With that a slight chuckle echoed over the air, and Naraku vanished.

Ozawa's eyes widened as the ground then came up to meet him. He felt a hard smack as his face and torso impacted the soil beneath him, but there was no pain, he reached up to his cheeks, nose, and eyes and felt no cuts, no tenderness, and no damage whatsoever. Ozawa thought to himself, puzzled. It would cost him dearly…? Then, how could he have survived his fall? This surely must be a gift, a blessing, not a curse. He smiled, for the first time in… well, he didn't know how long. His face seemed to boom with excitement, and he ran headlong into the nearby woods to find something to eat, because all the while all he could think was "I am hungry!"

After a while searching, he came across a tree filled with nashi, a type of pear. Ozawa gaped at the size of them, "These are at least twice as big as the ones back in the village!" he exclaimed. As he took a bite of the fruit, his mouth clenched and his tongue contracted in shock and disgust, and with a loud blech he spit out chunks of it all over the grass beneath him. He thought to himself, "Must have been a bad nashi. Oh well," he threw the rest of it away, "I'll get another one." However, the next nashi proved no tastier than the last, and as he went from pear to pear, ripping them off the tree he became angrier and angrier. He could not understand, they could not all be this bad could they? Was it the tree? But how's that possible?

He hurriedly ran around, he soon found a bush brimming with grapes. Grabbing the buds and shoving them in his mouth he tried to swallow them down, but he just couldn't take the taste. They were just as bad as the nashi. Ozawa started retching up any of the fruit he tried to eat, and slowly he started to realize that anything around here might be just as bad. An overwhelming sense of anger and frustration came over him. Ozawa had to find some food quick, or else he would surely die.

From out of the trees to his right he heard footsteps, horse hooves and sandals, patting against the dry surface of a nearby road. Grateful for finally being able to hear another human presence he raced towards the clearing where the road, and its travelers, were. As he drew nearer he slowed down and decided to observe the group of people from a distance first, making sure they were members of Takeda's army. Out of the thicket he could see at the head was a samurai dressed full battle array, however he did not wear the red and black colors associated with the Takeda clan, instead they were the white and black of Ozawa's people! Behind the samurai were around a dozen and a half foot soldiers, servants, and merchants following closely, probably hoping to sell their wares to more of the men back at the camp. Ozawa was so filled with joy that he burst forth from out of the brush and landed feet first onto the ground just ahead of the samurai, he spread out his arms in a large welcoming embrace. "Hello brothers!" he yelled aloud, but the reaction from the samurai and his companions was not what Ozawa had expected. The samurai's horse kicked its front legs in the air and cried in horror, and as each of the samurai's companions stood wide eyed at Ozawa he became even more confused. From a distance of about a dozen yards away Ozawa could hear the people yelling "Beast! Demon!"

Even more confused, Ozawa tried speaking to them, but he was drowned out by the flurry of shouting coming from the samurai and his soldiers. He then drew his katana and charged at Ozawa, screaming "Demon!" all the while.

As the mounted samurai charged straight at him, Ozawa could not believe what he was seeing, so he instinctively tried to get out of the way. His reflexes, however, were faster than he remembered, and he jumped, higher than he thought possible for him, and went right over the samurai's head. He locked eyes with the samurai as he flew above him, and he looked just as terrified and puzzled as Ozawa.

"What's the matter with you?!" Ozawa screamed at him, but the samurai either didn't hear him or failed to understand him, whirled around and charged again.

Again Ozawa screamed, "Stop! Please stop!" putting his hands out in a pleading gesture. The samurai continued to charge, and Ozawa decided to stop this nonsense himself, and he jumped again up into the air, this time just a head shorter and his feet first. His feet made impact with the samurai's face and breastplate. He felt the impact through his feet and up into his legs and his waist.

What disturbed Ozawa, though, was the disgusting crunch of bone breaking beneath his feet. When the samurai and Ozawa made impact with the ground together, he stood over his downed opponent with a sense of relief and astonishment. He gazed down at the fallen samurai and saw his eyes stared blankly into the air...he was dead.

A cry of anger came from behind him as three of the soldiers charged at Ozawa, the rest stood motionless, too terrified to move. Ozawa raised his hands in defense and caught two of the spear tips in his hands, while the third hit he belly. He then noticed the third spear tip lying on the ground and the shaft of the spear, its wooden frame split in two lying on the ground in front of him.

"Enough of this!" Ozawa yelled out and pushed with all his might, shoving each of the spear tips to the ground and saying two of the men flying to the ground behind him. The third stood shivering in front of him with mouth agape, his words failing him with nothing passing his lips but the occasional stuttered gibberish. Suddenly he lunged at Ozawa with his tanto, slashing at Ozawa's arms and torso all the while yelling obscenities.

Just as he finally had enough of this, Ozawa swiped his hands across and sliced the tanto into pieces, blade, handle, and all. Along with the tanto, Ozawa saw he had severed the poor soldier's hand, his fingers lay in small bloody pools on the ground between them, while Ozawa stood clutching the rest of his hand. Although he could not understand it, Ozawa was then filled with an incredible hunger and shoved the bits of hand into his mouth, and then the fingers on the ground. The taste was incredibly satisfying. "More!" he cried. "MORE!"

As he distracted himself with the first nourishment he could stomach, the rest of the travelling party fled for their lives. With a few shouted words, each man mounted on horseback rode off in a different direction, to warn all the surrounding villages of this demon who consumed humans.


Quickly enough, word spread across the region of an undead soldier who eliminated whole platoons of soldiers and feasted upon the dead flesh. All of the areas close to the battlefield were soon deserted, no one daring to approach, not even to clear the road of the bodies which had been stripped clean. All were terrified of being eaten.

The villagers now pooled all of their money together, and sent every local priest, priestess, and shrine maiden down to the roads, to try and drive away this foul beast.

But, none of them returned to collect their pay.

Things were beginning to grow desperate, and rumors were spreading that the entire region was cursed. None dared to travel between villages in groups smaller than twenty people, all of which carried arms. The weak were terrified of starvation, for no trade could occur between the regions. The daimyo begged his neighbors for help, but no one wanted to associate with them.

Luckily for them, however, Inuyasha's group was passing through at this time. They had indeed found it strange that nearly an entire region was deserted, and any towns they passed were shut up tight.

"What the hell is going on around here?" Inuyasha finally voiced his concern with the strange solitude of the land. "I can smell the fear, this whole place reeks of it!" He bounds ahead, having spotted a shrine. From within, wails of prayer rose and wound through the air, voices high and reedy with fear.

"It's the demon!"

"We shall all surely be eaten!"

"I don't want to die…I don't want to die…"

All the people inside continued to panic, growing more and more terrified at the sight of Inuyasha approaching. When he reached the gate, screams went up, loud and shrill enough to make him clamp down on his ears in pain.

"Wait, everyone! Please!" Miroku charged forward, placing himself in between the hanyou and the huddled mass of humans. "I am a travelling priest. Please, what is going on around here?"

A man drew shakily to his feet. "A-A demon…he looks like a man, but spears cannot draw his blood… It will kill us and then feast upon us!" Quickly, he fell back down into a kneel, prostrating himself before the shrine's deity.

"Do not worry, everyone. I travel with a renowned Demon Slayer, and a man who even demons fear!" Miroku smiled calmly at the crowd. "We will make your lands safe once again."


It had been barely a day since being released from the void, and Ozawa was changing. When he licked his fingers, cleaning them of the blood from his latest kill, he received a shock. His fingernails were claws, his skin was bristling with long brown and black hairs. He opened his mouth, reached around and felt long fangs on both his upper and lower halves of his teeth. This realization came down on Ozawa like a punch to the stomach, but he couldn't help himself, he still licked the blood off his fingers, sucking down every last drop. He then turned to the surviving travelers, having already plowed through most of the group. The head merchants had long since ran for their lives, but two guards and three servants stubbornly stood their ground, one of the servants having nothing but a basket as a weapon.

Ozawa lurched forward, his feet carrying him while his mind resisted every impulse that came with this new form, this new body of his. As he ran towards them, one of the spearmen try in vain to stick the end of his spear into Ozawa's stomach. He simply brushed him off, slashing his throat with his claws, making his way towards the wounded spearman, mouth dripping with blood and drool. Ozawa wanted to cry out, to speak to them as a man, to tell them to run, but he just growled and they stood their ground.

After it was over, Ozawa hovered over the corpses, taking chunks of flesh from each of the bodies, wolfing them down. Ozawa wanted to stop, tried to stop, but his body seemed to take over while his mind was absent, tied down and unable to prevent himself from becoming this...this beast. Just as he had eaten his fill Ozawa sat down next to a nearby tree, rubbing himself up against it then laying down on the cold ground. In his head he kept repeating to himself, "What am I? WHAT AM I?" over and over again. He dragged himself along, away from the stench of the corpses, crawled on all fours deeper into the woods. As night fell and the moon rose he started howling and wailing, his cried echoing through the dark forest. He was lost, alone, he felt more alone than he ever had in that place where Naraku had approached him. This was a new void, and knowing no one could ever be safe near him, he decided to find the one place he knew he couldn't hurt anybody.


Author's Note: Whoops, time to take a break from the fluffy stuff and get back to the demon hunting that makes this series what it is. Once again, big thanks to Gus for helping me with the Ozawa segments!

See ya later~! Love ya~!