Ch.11: Burning

Folks, I had to get rid of Miroku, Sango and Shippo, so…

"YOU DID WHAT!" Sharon yelled. Sharon likes to yell a lot Miroku moaned in pain.

"Please, please stop yelling." He and everyone else (beside Ahsay, Sharon and Shippo, of course) were all nursing huge hangovers. Inuyasha, every now and again, dug out another piece of glass.

But Sharon didn't care about that. She was stunned, yet happy. "You…got married!"

"I knew I shouldn't of had that tenth glass last night. I can't hold sake." Sango said. She lifted her hand

Sorry if that's not accurate, but we're going by what I know, and it isn't a whole lot.

and stared at her ring. "I don't even remember it. At least it's a good looking ring."

"Ow, my head!" Miroku moaned again. He glared at his new wife. "Could you keep it down? A man is in pain, over here." Inuyasha sniffed, and said,

"You'd think he's never gotten drunk before." Kagome stumbled in.

"Ow, ow, ooowww…" she said.

"She's probably never gotten drunk before." Sango said. "She's a bit young." Kagome couldn't hear them, her head was pounding so hard. She looked around the room, shook her head, and went back into the side room where she had been. No people for her today.

Two days passed, and the city became split into two parties: those on Miroku's side, and those on Sango's side. The two were always having arguments, very loud and very public. In honor of their saving the town, the two had been given a house. The others had been offered houses as well, but they declined in favor of money. Shippo finally had friends his own age, so when the time came for them to leave, he voted to stay behind and live with Sango and Miroku. After a tearful goodbye between Kagome, Sango and Shippo, those that remained in the group left the town.

They were at the gate when a messenger stopped them. He handed Kagome a letter, saying,

"The Lead Elder wishes you to have this." The young man bowed, and left. Kagome shrugged, then tucked it away in her bag. They could read it later. Right now they were in a hurry, for last night, they had caught wind of another shard. It wasn't too far away from where they were now, in another small town.

When they arrived, there was no longer a town standing.

They had walked over the hilltop, talking and laughing. The wind had been blowing away from them, so neither Ahsay nor Inuyasha caught the scent of smoke. At the top of the hill, they stopped. Where a town had once been, a smoldering ruin no stood. The laughing and talking stopped, and they walked down the hill, their intent to search for survivors.

Sharon was the most effected by what she saw. She had never seen anything so horrible, her life had been far too sheltered. In a shocked daze, she moved aside boards and ash, not feeling the splinters or embers as they became imbedded in her hands. Silently, she moved from house remains to house remain, searching, hoping.

Then she saw something that stopped her cold.

Flashback: Sharon was bored. The others were nursing their hangovers, and Ahsay was off somewhere. So she decided to take a tour of the town, and away she went.

It took fifteen minutes for someone to stop her.

"Miss Sharon, miss Sharon, come see the children! They are putting on the most wonderful play, and it would mean so much to them if you were there!" The woman obtained an iron grip on Sharon's arm, so Sharon really didn't have a choice of whether she went or not.

But in the end, she was glad of it, for the kids had made a hilarious play, and she was in tears of laughter by the end. When the play ended (right after receiving a standing ovation) she tried to leave, but her way was blocked by two tykes. Turning shining faces to her, they each presented her with a different flower. It had been so sweet! Soon, the mother of the little boy and girl had come to take them home, explaining that no that they were free again, their move could go on as planned. The mother looked tired (and not much older then Sharon, really) so Sharon had volunteered to watch the kids while the adults packed. Gratefully, the mother had accepted.

Sharon had spent the whole day, and half of the next with those two kids, and they had been little angels the whole time. It had saddened her greatly when the family had moved, causing her to have her own tearful goodbye.

End Flashback

Sharon now dropped to her knees among the ashes, and hesitantly touched a little hand. Wiping the cinders away, she saw the face of that little girl, untouched by the fire, but no longer breathing. She was clutching her dead brother.

Ahsay looked up as he heard the thunder. He had sensed no storm approaching, but suddenly, one was clouding up the sky, blocking out the sun. an even larger rumble of thunder, then lightening flashed, splitting the sky in half, cracking the heavens open, and the rain poured through the opening, putting out the last little flames. A wind rose, howling, sounding as if it were a living thing in pain. There was something wrong about this storm. Mindlessly, he raced toward the woods, toward shelter. Kagome and Inuyasha were there as well.

"Where's Sharon?" Ahsay asked. Wordlessly, Kagome pointed.

Sharon was standing in the middle of the town, her shoulders slumped. Ahsay could see her comet swirling with an unusual frenzy, and started to understand.

'Dead.' Sharon thought, numbly. 'They're dead.' The wind started swirling around her, picking up dust and ash, then it grew stronger. Whipping at her clothes, the wind soon became visible, stretching up into the sky. 'They can't be dead. They're only children. There was no reason to kill them. That means it was done for pleasure. Someone killed innocent children for…fun.' Lightening struck her tornado, and the wind became flame, forming a huge fire funnel, as she screamed out her anger, her rage, and her pain. The fire tornado grew in strength, and intensity, and so did the storm. Lightening stuck so often that the sun still appeared to be out, as hail pounded the ground. And still Sharon screamed.

Ahsay stopped helping them put up the tent to get them out of the hail. He stopped everything, as he saw Sharon's comets. They were huge, burning a bright red, with blue lined tails, but a deep black pulsed in the centers. And he knew what was going to happen.

"Run!" he shouted. "Don't bother with the tent! Run!" the ground groaned beneath them, and a spider web like crack started spreading from where Sharon was.

Then, suddenly, there was silence. Sharon was once more in control of her emotions, rather then them being in control of her. The ground stopped shifting, the tornado died off, and the storm cleared away. Sharon dropped to her knees again, but this time from exhaustion. She sat heavily, and just stared into space. Ahsay ran to her, shaking her shoulders.

"Sharon! Are you all right!" she looked at him, and in a dead voice, said,

"I'm fine, Ahsay. Just fine." Sharon paused, and looked around. "He has to die, Ahsay. This creature that kills children for pleasure. We have to search for survivors, find out who did it, and then kill him." She yawned. "But right now, I'm tired. I think I'll take a little nap, if you don't mind." She passed out just as Kagome and Inuyasha arrived.

"Why did she do that? How did she do that? I thought she was a magical dunce." Kagome burst out, then thought a moment. "Did she do that?" she continued.

"I don't know, I don't know, and yes." Ahsay answered. He picked Sharon up and carried her bride style out of the ruined town. He went into the woods, and found a small clearing. He put her down while he started setting up a tent for her to sleep in. Inuyasha and Kagome were right behind him. Inuyasha helped Ahsay with the tent while Kagome started a fire and set the tea to boiling. One good thing about the storm, wood was easy to come by, all of it having been blown out of the trees. It also provided cover from the storm for the town's only survivor. Kagome screamed in alarm as the survivor rose from under a pile of logs.

The demon coughed. "Is it over?" he asked. Inuyasha appeared beside Kagome.

"Who are you?" he snarled.

"I'm Jyn Toset, of the village Nakha." He looked away sadly. "I mean, the former village."

"What happened down there?" Kagome asked as kindly as she could, considering the question.

"Around noon, this demon showed up, a Wind Demon. Anyway, he started talking about destroying a prophesy, and asking fro information, threatening to destroy us all if he did not get what he wanted. Thinking to save us, our Elder took the demon into his hut, to tell him all he knew. The Wind Demon came out a little while later, the Elder's head on his staff. He laughed at all of us, then whistled. From over the hill a swarm of bandits came, easily five times our number. I alone escaped the battle, and the slaughter afterwards, but not unharmed." He gestured to his left arm, where it hung limply at his side. "My arm is broken, in probably more then one place."

"Did this demon have a name? This is very important." Jyn looked to the side, startled. He had been so involved with the memories of his tale that he had not noticed Ahsay coming up beside him.

"I can't remember it clearly. It was something like Nyff. Fyff? Oh, I remember now, it was Syff. I remember because he was very insulted that we did not already know of the great bandit leader Syff." Here he stopped, and grimaced. "Sorry, this arm hurts like bloody hell." Kagome offered him a seat, which he took gratefully.

Sharon didn't wake the whole night, not even stirring in her sleep, and Jyn left the next morning, after spending the night warm by their fire. Kagome gave him directions to the town they were just in, and told him that if he needed to, he could use their names to get a place to stay for a while. He thanked her politely, but said he had family and friends there, who he could stay with, and who needed to be told of the massacre. He left.

Slowly, Sharon came back to this world. She had been having a very nice dream, but when she woke up, she couldn't remember what it was. "She's awake!" she heard Kagome yell, and she sat up to see the girl smiling at her. "I was wondering when you'd decide to wake up. You've been sleeping all morning." It was early afternoon outside. Sharon threw the covers off. It was awfully hot inside the tent. Trying to stand, she found out what happens after you drain yourself of energy. You can't feel your legs. You can feel your butt, though, as it slams into the ground. "Ouch." Kagome laughed.

"You shouldn't be in such a hurry. That was quite a display you put on out there. Ahsay says it cost a lot of magic to do something like that, personal magic, so you might be tired, and/or weak. I'd say it's the latter. What set you off, anyway?" All the memories came back to Sharon, but this tie she kept a firm hand on her emotions. Quietly, she said,

"I knew some of the people that died there. They were only children, one five, one four." She sighed. "They had their whole lives ahead of them, Kagome. It shouldn't have ended this soon, this way." Kagome put a comforting hand on Sharon's shoulder.

"It should give you some comfort to know that someone survived, and even knew who did it." It got her attention anyway.

"Who?"

"Well, the survivor's name is Jyn, and he's already gone on to the last town we were at. The demon who did it's name is Syff. He's the leader of a group of bandits."

"Then Syff will be the next to die." Sharon said, then laid back down to try to sleep some more. Kagome went out of the tent, to let her, and informed Ahsay of her state. Inuyasha was on watch, in case the bandits came back.

"She's determined to kill him, Ahsay."

"I say we let her."

"Do you really think she can?"

"No, but I will for her." He said with conviction. "And even if I thought she could, she's too weak right now. We have to keep her from leaving until she's well enough to go. For some reason, I don't think this will be easy." He was right. Over the next day, Sharon tried everything she could think of to get away; from trying to levitate out, to simply walking out the door. Surprisingly, using that one, she got the farthest, out of sight of camp. If it wasn't for Ahsay getting water, she would have gotten away. As it was, he had to drag her, kicking and screaming, back to camp.

But soon she was decreed well enough for them to go. As they were getting their stuff together, Kagome saw the note in her bag, the letter the Lead Elder had given to her days ago. She took some time to sit and read it. And almost laughed, the contents were so hard to believe.

Damn those letters! It always takes forever to find out what is inside them, huh? Well, for you all, anyway. I already know. Yes, I have figured out what this story is about!

Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah!