InuYasha had not seen sunlight since that morning, so it was a rough estimate of late evening when he found the stairs downwards to the dungeon, some three floors below the ground level of the castle on the hilltop.
Down here, the musty air smelt like earth, and that strange, yet distinctly moist scent of being underground permeated the air.
It was slow work, as he carefully made his way up passageway after endless passageway that was barren of both doorways and hiding places.
And on top of all of this, he had to be incredibly careful to not get lost in this labyrinth of passageways, because he was without his usual ball of string, because of the pendant Hiku and Osu had given him, he could not track nor retrace his own scent to figure out where he had been.
Finally, he found himself growing increasingly agitated; he could not see the state of the cherry blossoms outside.
But they could not be all that far away from blooming.
And blooming means falling.
InuYasha stepped up his pace as he strode along the mderately well lit passageway.
Kagome... I can't believe I let this happen. His hands balled into fists. I shouldn't have let you go that morning. He paused. I should have helped with that stinking harvesting. I can't believe I let my guard down!
He had to stop to carefully peer around a bend in his passageway, but upon finding it to be deserted, continued onwards.
This is insane. He shook his head slightly. If these people are anything like Izanagi-no-Mikoto and Izanami-no-Mikoto, I don't stand a chance.
There was just something about them that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
Their scent, and their aura about them, though vaguely, somewhat similar to humans, were probably most similar to daiyoukai, yet almost without the distinctive youkai scent, rather, an entirely new scent altogether that could only be labelled as "god".
Yet his thoughts, with all their complexity, he realized were distracting him from what was going on at the most present time.
It was, however, at this point when InuYasha was reminded of his last meal, being the morning of four days ago, through his stomach growling, and it was a grim grin and a silencing hand that he responded to it.
It was probably going to be at least another two before he could again, as well, and it put him in a decidedly glum mood, had he not been concentrating on the situation at hand.
That is, of course, if he survived this mess that he had gotten himself into once more.
He shook his head slightly as he hurried along the damp, narrow and seemingly endless pasageway as fast as he dared, painfully aware of his deadline hanging over him like a cloaked skeleton holding its scyth to his neck.
I've got to find her. He thought as he paused to peer around a corner, as he had been doing all day.
When suddenly, footsteps echoed behind him.
This, of course, nearly made him leap out of his skin, but he managed to keep silent, focusing on the sound of those steps, that had just hit the stone floor, after taking the steps down to the floor they were on.
With almost ninja-like stealth, InuYasha rushed down towards the opposing end of the corridor he had been hiding in and hid around the corner, listening to those footsteps approach him casually.
Throwing caution of people in front of him to the wind he raced foreward, making sure to always keep those footsteps on the edge of his hearing, however he was eager to reach the end of this maze of a singe corridor, that had so many twists and turns in it, as well as doubling back and racing forward that had he not been followed, he would have most definately turned back.
Yet, however, those footsteps kept plodding, like wooden sandles on the stone floor.
This odd form of chasing continued for what felt like a few heart-stopping centuries, until they reached a junction in the passageway, which was filled with filled in archways, most of which were strangely enough had been covered from the inside with a single slab of grey rock.
InuYasha made the fastest game of choice he'd ever made, and dashed down the left fork as quietly as he could, his eyes on the filled archways.
Yet, he was staring at it before he realized what it was; an empty archway about four dorways along.
He slipped inside, and pressed himself into the inside corner closest to the doorway as tightly as he could, listening hard to those footsteps.
Which found the junction, and turned right.
InuYasha barely let himself breathe that slight sigh of relief, and the footsteps continued untroubled some fifteen paces, before they slowed to a halt.
'Tsukuyomi?' Came a male voice, and the distict sound of someone knocking on solid rock.
InuYasha peeked around the corner, to see a man who was slightly taller than himself knocking on the rock of an archway casually.
He was the purple-robed man InuYasha had seen enter the castle when he had first gotten to Takamagahara, but now that InuYasha had a closer look, there was just something spidery about him that made his skin crawl and his blood boil.
The god had what must have been shoulder-length hair that was tied back into a high pigtail, and wore black shoulder- and chest-plates over his deep purple robes, of which the hems seemed to fall only slightly short of the floor.
He also seemed to emit a slight light that InuYasha could plainly see, but not describe in the slightest, as he had nothing that he could compare it to.
And then InuYasha saw something he had never seen before.
The god, pressed his hand flat against the boulder, and literally started to melt through it, as if he was walking through a sheet of water, rather than solid rock.
It's getting exciting! I meant to update sooner but I've been without internet on my laptop (where my records of this story's at, which is going to change drastically now it's back) for about two to two and a half weeks, but it's up now! Sorry!
But anyway, here you go!