11.
Dawn broke in magnificent fashion, colouring the sky pale gold as the sun rose from beyond the horizon. Kagome woke to find Inuyasha gone. She could have sworn he had been sitting next to her when she had fallen asleep. Perhaps it had been a dream. As the golden fox gazed around at her sleeping friends, the half-demon re-entered the clearing.
"Time to go, everyone!" Inuyasha called, when he noticed Kagome was awake.
There was much grumbling as the group was roused from their slumber. Hayato, Miwa and Kazuo did not complain. But the three modern girls more than made up for it.
"Why do we have to get up so early?" Eri whined.
"It's barely dawn!" Yuka added, rubbing sleep from her eyes. Ayumi yawned widely.
A groggy Miroku seemed just as displeased. He sat up, blinking sleepily, and glared at Inuyasha.
"What's the rush, Inuyasha?" he yawned, stretching.
The half-demon folded his arms, "The sooner we get moving, the sooner we find what we need and the sooner Kagome gets changed back!"
"I am inclined to agree with the half-demon on this regard," Hayato added, leaping gracefully down from his perch on the rock, "It would be best if we continued sooner rather than later."
The foxes of the group, including Kagome, exchanged glances. Only they knew how important a factor time was to the success of their mission. There weren't many more complaints after that, except from Eri and Yuka who seemed to do nothing but complain. In silence, the group packed up camp and set off towards their next destination.
Inuyasha set a fast pace, but always ensured that Kagome could keep up. It irritated him that Hayato was as fast as he was. Kirara was once again stuck with her three passengers, with Shippo and Akira perched atop her head. They covered the ground with impressive speed.
"If we keep up this pace, we're bound to get there by midday!" Inuyasha exclaimed, calling to Kagome over the sound of the wind that ripped his voice away.
Hayato was loping gracefully beside the golden fox.
"Where exactly are we headed?" he asked her.
"We're after the fang of a demon that Inuyasha's father fought," Kagome replied, frowning as she concentrated on stopping her tail from tripping her legs up, "It was a great dragon known as Ryukotsusei. Inuyasha destroyed it a while ago, but we're hoping there'll be enough left to find a piece of its fang."
"Enough left?" Hayato looked perplexed, but Kagome didn't answer. The jackal-fox would soon find out what she meant, though.
Just as Inuyasha had estimated, they reached their destination shortly after midday. The rocky valley in which the half-demon and the great dragon had once fought looked just the same as it had back then. Hayato noticed, with some confusion, that there didn't seem to be any evidence of a dragon carcass. What had Inuyasha done with its body when he killed it?
Kirara took multiple trips carrying the humans down into the valley, but Inuyasha and the foxes climbed down on their own. Kagome was embarrassed when the half-demon scooped her up and carried her down himself. She could feel Hayato watching them.
With the group standing together down in the barren valley, Kagome took the chance to look around. As she did, she noticed the remnants of battle that she had not noticed before – scratch marks in the rocks, great chunks where sections of the wall had been blown away and, of course, the little bits of bone and scale that littered the area. Ryukotsusei's flesh had rotted away, but his fragmented bones and the pieces of his scaly skin still remained.
Inuyasha kicked a huge cracked vertebra with his foot, "Good to see the disgusting old dragon's bones are still lying around. There should be a fang around somewhere."
Hayato strove to keep the revulsion out of his expression as he asked, "Inuyasha, do you make a habit of blowing your enemies up?"
Shippo snickered, but Inuyasha merely turned away without answering. A sudden squeal from behind made them spin around in alarm, but it was just Yuka. She had picked up a piece of old scaly skin, wondering what it was, only to realise and throw it away in horror.
"It's everywhere!" she shrieked, shrinking away from the piece of skin she'd just touched, "Ewww, what is it?"
"I-It's like a giant snake skin!" Eri whimpered, staring at a similar piece near her foot. She backed away from it as though it would come alive and attack her.
Ayumi, on the other hand, was leaning over a very large vertebra that had once been part of Ryukotsusei's spine. She didn't touch it, but she did look very intrigued.
"Look at the size of this! Whatever it was must have been very big!" she mused. Eri and Yuka just looked disgusted.
Inuyasha snorted, "Big, yeah. But it was no match for me."
Kagome rolled her eyes. Miroku quickly came up with a suggestion.
"How about we split up and all look for a fang?"
"That's a good idea, Miroku," Sango agreed, "All I see around here are broken ribs and vertebrae."
Soon everyone was searching the valley floor for one of Ryukotsusei's fang. Only Ayumi, Eri and Yuka refused to search. They seemed to have had enough of bones and dried up pieces of scaly skin. However, finding a fang turned out to be a whole lot harder than they had first thought, as Kagome found out after an hour of searching fruitlessly.
"We're wasting time!" she groaned, kicking a rock with her paw. Shippo, who had been searching nearby, hurried to her side.
"This place is huge! It could take forever to find what we want," the fox demon sighed.
"We don't have time to waste like this!" Kagome whimpered, and then curled up on the ground. She buried her head into her paws, moaning, "I'm never going to get changed back."
"Th-that's not true, Kagome!" Shippo argued timidly, "It'll be ok!"
"But if we can't find this fang…" she sighed, her ears drooping. Shippo placed a comforting paw on her shoulder.
A yell of frustration came from Inuyasha, who was further down the valley, followed by a deafening crash as he threw a rock that was almost the size of himself. It smashed on the valley floor. Kagome winced and Shippo muttered dryly, "Looks like he's having just as much luck as we are."
Kagome was just about ready to give up hope, when Sango came running with her hand held above her head and her fist clenched around something – something large and tooth-like. The golden fox jumped to her paws.
"Hey!" the demon-slayer was calling, "Look what I found!"
Everyone came running to see the massive tooth that Sango was cradling in her hands. It was about as big as Shippo and chipped in a few places. It was also very yellowed. Inuyasha stared at the massive fang.
"Where did you find that?" he asked incredulously.
"It was lodged in the valley wall," Sango replied, "It must have stuck there after you blew Ryukotsusei up."
"Barbaric," Hayato muttered, but only Kagome and Shippo heard him.
"Good spotting, Sango," Miroku praised, "Now there's only a few more ingredients to find!"
"Shall we decide what to look for next?" Kazuo asked.
Kagome glanced at her modern day friends, who were still trying to keep as far away from the remnants of the dead dragon as possible. She smiled – a little exasperated, a little amused.
"Maybe we should get out of this valley first."
After they were out of the canyon, much to the modern girls' relief, Kagome murmured the curse, "A silken hair from the Lord of the West, a few drops of blood from the one you love best, a piece of fang from a beast the great dog fought, the claw of a warrior whose love came to naught, a cup of water from the ocean deep, and a soul from the wanderer denied from her sleep."
"Hmm," Shippo murmured, "We got the hair, the blood and the fang, and Koga's getting the water."
"What?" Inuyasha butted in, "Who's blood?"
"None of your business, Inuyasha," the young fox demon replied, much to the half-demon's annoyance.
"That leaves the claw and the soul," Kagome murmured thoughtfully, "Wait; a claw from a warrior whose love came to naught? What about Ayame?"
Shippo beamed as he translated and added, "And her pack's usually not that far from here!"
Everyone else was in agreement. They started moving quickly, eating a late lunch as they ran and rode. The modern girls muttered about one thing or another amongst themselves, as was usual. Akira had chosen to take fox form and run, rather than ride on Kirara.
They had been moving for many hours without incident until they happened upon an old and misted forest. It was dark here, amongst the towering trees, as the misted fog swirled around their legs and waists. Kagome shivered against the cold and for once was glad of her furry coat. The group slowed to a walk as they traipsed through the forest in silence. There was a strange feeling in the air, like millions of eyes were staring at them from the mist.
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a form appeared through the mist. A graceful white animal with piercing blue eyes. It stood in their path, surrounded by mist and flanked on all sides by the tall, dark trees. It was a slim, white fox, with many more than just a single tail.
The gang came to a stop as Inuyasha snarled, "Who are you? Get out of the way!"
"Careful, idiot!" Hayato snapped, eying the white fox warily, "Do you even know what that is?"
"I don't know and I don't care," Inuyasha snapped back, "It's in the way and we don't have time for diversions!"
"Idiot!"
"Lowlife!"
While the two demons threw pointless insults at each other, they didn't stop to look behind them or even at the fox as it considered them with alarming azure eyes. They didn't even notice when Yuka glowed blue for a few moments, nor as one of the blue tips of the white fox's nine tails lit up.
Yuka felt odd. It felt like something was pushing in on her – it didn't exactly hurt, but it felt so wrong. She tried to call her friends names, but couldn't. It was as though her voice had been stolen from her. The feeling intensified into a strange squeezing sensation, like something was pushing into the core of her being and pulling out at the same time.
And suddenly she could hear a voice in her head that she couldn't ignore. She tried to scream as her head was forced up and her mouth formed words she'd never meant to say.
"Greetings," she said coolly, her voice distorted strangely, "This is my territory. Leave now or stay for eternity as my servants."
Yuka saw the group turn in confusion. She didn't know what they saw, but Eri and Ayumi's faces twisted with bewilderment and fear.
Yuka's eyes had no pupils – just plain, glowing blue.
Eri yelped, "Yuka? What happened to you?"
"She's been possessed!" Hayato yelped, his eyes widening. He turned swiftly to meet the fox's glowing blue eyes.
"I am Sourankitsu," Yuka said calmly, "Leave one of your group to become my servant and you may go. Stay and you will all be as your friend now is."
'I'm possessed?' Yuka thought. She tried once again to scream, though not a word would leave her lips.
"Like hell that's gonna happen!" Inuyasha snarled, reaching for his sword. He tried to pull it out of its sheath, but to his dismay it would not move an inch.
"You dare to defy me, mere half-demon as you are?" Yuka felt herself say.
"Yuka, you have to fight it!" Kagome barked desperately, "Fight it!"
Yuka realised, at that moment, that she could understand Kagome's strange little language. She wondered dazedly if it was because she was possessed by a fox. She could only watch with horror as she raised her hand and pointed at Kagome.
"Don't listen to the voi-!" Kagome was suddenly cut off when rope appeared around her muzzle and bound it shut. She desperately tried to pry it off with a paw, but couldn't catch it.
'Did I do that?' Yuka thought, horrified.
"Kagome!" Inuyasha yelped and bent down to help.
"My patience wears thin," Yuka, or rather Sourankitsu, announced. Suddenly, all the humanoids were enveloped in the same blue light.
"Wha-!" Inuyasha yelped. His hand, which was about to remove the rope, shot forwards and hit Kagome over the head, bowling her over.
"What?" she yelped as she fell. Inuyasha understood the pained yelp perfectly.
'What the hell happened?' he thought angrily to himself. There was a strange feeling overwhelming his body.
Miroku and Sango, both trained in the art of fighting demons, were perfectly aware of what had happened and immediately started fighting as they were trained to. They released pure mental energy from their minds, hoping to overwhelm the fox's influence. But the squeezing sensation continued; the fox demoness was too strong. Sango tried in vain to reach for her Hiraikotsu, but she couldn't even twitch a finger. She stopped even trying when she heard a voice.
'What the hell happed?'
'Inuyasha?' Sango thought, slightly confused.
'Sango?' came the confused reply. It was definitely the half-demon.
'You can hear me?' The demon slayer thought. Her lips wouldn't move to speak the words.
'Apparently,' Inuyasha's voice grunted in her mind.
'Can the others hear us?' she thought frantically, unable to do anything else as her body was entirely frozen.
'You're the demon expert, you tell me,' his voice was exasperated.
'I can hear you,' Miroku's voice broke into their consciousness, 'Can she hear us?'
They didn't need a name to know whom he was referring to.
'She shouldn't be able to,' Sango thought, knowing her thoughts would reach her friends, 'But how is she doing this? A demon shouldn't be able to possess more than one person at a time!'
'Nine tails,' Miwa interjected, his gruff voice echoing through their minds, 'She has nine tails.'
'Your point?' Inuyasha asked irritably.
'Nine-tailed foxes are very powerful,' Kazuo explained. She too had been taken hold of the foxes curse.
As they were conversing, Kagome was on the ground groaning. When Inuyasha had pushed her, she had twisted her paw, possibly broken it. She groaned, trying to get up, but stumbled several times because she couldn't put weight on that paw.
"Inuyasha, snap out of it!" She called desperately, but he couldn't. Against his body's own will, Inuyasha took Tetsusaiga out of its sheath and raised it.
'Inuyasha stop!' Yuka yelped, the only one of the modern girls who was slightly oriented.
'I can't!' The half-demon thought frantically, fighting to stop his body from moving.
'Try!'
'I am trying!'
To Inuyasha's and the others' horror, he began to bring the sword down on top of Kagome. But suddenly she wasn't there – she was ten feet away in Hayato's mouth. Kagome was glad he had helped her, though she was humiliated at being carried like a kitten. It must have been hard on the jackal-fox. She was almost as big as he was.
Hayato set her down, "Akira, get out of here!"
"But mom, da-!" the young vixen, who was still in full fox form, protested.
"We'll get them later, I promise!" Hayato yelled, "We have to run for now!"
"No!" It was not Akira who spoke, but Kagome, "I won't leave them! I won't leave him!"
"We must leave!" Hayato insisted as Inuyasha began to raise his sword again. Against all of their possessed friends, he knew they stood no chance.
"No!" Kagome insisted, shaking her head.
"I'm sorry, I don't have time to argue!" He grabbed her again, but she dug her claws into the soil and refused to be budged. If he pulled too hard, she was likely to have some of her claws ripped out. Hayato released her, not wanting to harm her.
"Kirara," he called, keeping an eye on Inuyasha. The others were beginning to move towards them. Even Shippo, his innocent green eyes now glowing like blue pools, had been possessed.
Tears flew from the demon cat as she turned, knocked Kagome off her feet to unlatch her claws, and took hold of her in her mouth. Kirara turned, with one last hopeless look at Sango, and bounded away.
Hayato took hold of Akira in a similar fashion and followed the great cat demon, disappearing into the mist.
Inuyasha could hardly see now. His vision had slowly been overrun with a blue shade, and now all he could see was blue and shadows. He sniffed, searching for the scents of his fleeing friends. 'They're gone...'
'Good,' Sango thought, 'She must not be able to control animals. Or at least, demons in full animal form.'
'I almost killed Kagome...' Inuyasha's voice whispered.
'It's not your fault, Inuyasha,' Miroku insisted.
'What do we do now?' Shippo wondered miserably. He wished he had been able to take on full fox form like Akira. Then he could have escaped with them.
'What can we do?' one of the modern day girls asked.
No one wanted to answer.
After they were about five miles away, Kirara finally put Kagome down. Kagome looked at the demon cat and was surprised when she immediately shrunk and curled up miserably. Kirara draped her two tails over her muzzle, hiding her face.
Kagome struggled to her feet and began to limp in the direction they had come from, heavily favouring her badly-sprained foot. She had to save her friends.
"It's no use, Kagome," Hayato murmured kindly, walking to her side, "We have to think before we go back."
Finally accepting the legitimacy of the jackal-fox's decision, Kagome collapsed into a dejected heap, her sprained foot sticking out at a slightly odd angle.
"What do we do now?" she asked dismally.
Hayato looked at the jet black sky. He couldn't remember when night had fallen, but there was hardly a star in sight. Dark clouds obscured the sky above the forest they had fled from.
"For now we should sleep. Akira, you should remain in fox form, just in case," He, too, seemed to have realised that the nine-tailed fox could not control animals.
Kagome, too tired to even argue, laid her head atop her tail. She did the same with her sprained forepaw, knowing that elevating it would help at least a little.
Akira approached her. "Um…" the fox-child said awkwardly, "Can I sleep with you?"
Kagome smiled weakly and unwrapped her tail from around her body, inviting the young vixen-demon to sleep beside her.
The little fox smiled gratefully, before snuggling into Kagome's side, covering her nose with her small paws. Kagome wrapped her tail around the young fox demon. She was surprised when Kirara, in her larger form, approached and curled herself around both of them. Perhaps she sought for comfort or to comfort them.
'Or maybe it's both,' Kagome thought as she drifted off to sleep.
Hayato jumped branch by branch to the top of a tree. He did not sleep that night but, after whispering the two songs he sung every night, he kept watch in case the nine-tailed vixen decided to return.