Disclaimer: Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi
A Suspect Vengeance
Birds called and chirped loudly, animals scurried about, chattering agitatedly at their unexpected company. The sky above was a bright, cloudless blue, but to the two people riding stealthily through a dense mountain forest, it was not light enough for twilight. A man hidden by an ape pelt and woman covered head to foot in leather armour, each astride a gleaming horse, rode up an increasingly narrow and overgrown trail through the woods. As the pass grew steeper and more difficult to navigate, the man began making noises of discontent. Finally, he called a halt to their short progress and dismounted, telling his companion that he was going ahead on foot briefly to see if the trail widened farther up.
Rosalie slid off her own horse gratefully as James disappeared into the woods, her legs shaking. Every muscle in her body quivered with the pain and effort of staying upright. She wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep forever, but she knew she had other tasks to accomplish before she could allow herself that luxury. She tried to gently lower herself before a tree trunk rather than collapse as her body pled for, and leant back against it with a long, relieved sigh. Her bright hazel eyes were dim with pain and sorrow as they shut.
So James found her a short time later, emerging from the underbrush with a terse, "It is impossible to go further by horse. Can you walk, Rosalie?"
He glanced at her prone figure, leant peacefully against the tree. No, not peacefully. Even in repose, there was something tense about her face. Well, he supposed, after suffering physically and emotionally as she had in recent days, true rest would likely never find her again.
"Rosalie?" he asked again, looking for some sign of response. Was she even breathing? He sighed impatiently. "So. You've gone and died on me, haven't you?"
Suddenly, the young woman's eyes snapped open in an enraged, bitter glare. She fastened this gaze on the hidden figure and nearly snarled at him, "Are you mad? Do you honestly suppose I would allow myself to die without avenging my village? Until I kill Edward, I will not die."
From beneath his mask, James smirked. He nodded without sound in agreement, though Rosalie did not see. As he watched placidly, she struggled to heave herself to her feet with the aid of her boomerang bone. James stared, and though his face was obscured, his tone was decidedly derisive.
"That's all well and good," he told her flatly. "Yet I wonder if you'll be able to. You can hardly stand with those wounds, let alone fight. And do not forget this is the demon that slaughtered your entire village in one night. You would be easy prey to such as him."
Rosalie sneered at him, "Exterminating demons is my job—my life."
James waited only for her to gain her feet before setting off, leaving the horses tethered to a tree trunk near grass and water. Rosalie trailed after him doggedly, using her boomerang bone as a cane and depending on it to stand the further they advanced.
In her mind's eye, she could see the young lord of the castle she had left behind. His placid muddy-brown eyes watching her with calm sympathy as he tried to dissuade her from going after the half-breed. After a long time of bitter arguing on her part and complacent rebuttals on his, he had finally forced on her one condition: that James accompany her for guidance and whatever protection he could offer. She would accept no guard or caravan.
And at the end of it all, the sight of his expression wavering into earnestness as he asked her to return to him after she had avenged herself and her village.
"Return here," he had said, "and you will be greatly cared for."
Feeling her legs fairly seizing with the effort of walking, Rosalie gritted her teeth, swiped away the sweat at her brow, and shook her head to herself. She wouldn't be going back, to him or to anyone else. She wouldn't last that long. Her body was desperate for eternal rest, she could feel that plain as day. She had lost too much blood from her wounds, and it made her heart race and her head spin to try and force herself on like this. Still, this was all that was left for her to do. She could only hope…
Please, she begged all the deities she had been taught to believe in, please let this body endure. I have one last job to do…
The ill-fated Slayers had all been laid to rest, flowers and left-behind weapons left to decorate and identify those within. After a short, sad, and mostly silent lunch, the half-demon and his comrades began to wonder what to do next. Should they explore the remnants of the village for whatever answers they could glean? Somehow, it felt too disrespectful. And yet, they had come so far out of their way to visit this place only to find it decimated…
As they bounced ideas and thoughts off one another, the conversation slowly turned to what was known of the village and its people. Since Myoga the demon flea was really the only one to know much of anything, the bulk of the conversation became his own.
From Edward's shoulder, he informed the others, "While this fort was indeed militaristic and its primary function was to fight and defend, it also served as a workshop."
Bella tilted her head in confusion at the choice of term. "Workshop?" she repeated, a little sceptically.
The old demon nodded, adding, "They forged weapons and armour from the bones and hides of the demons they had slain. Only those remains that could not be eaten or used were taken to the edge of the village and left inside the limestone cave."
The curiosity was too great for the group to bear. Since the rest of the village felt rather off-limits to them, being in such bad taste to explore, the cave seemed like a happy medium to their preoccupation. It might serve to answer a few of their questions.
Myoga, leading the group from Edward's shoulder, directed their way to the outskirts of the village, beyond the fortified walls. Bella followed behind him, with Emmett, Seth perched on his shoulder, just behind her. They were mostly silent on the short trip, each lost in thought. When they reached the cave, Bella stopped, suddenly unsure.
It looked as any ordinary cave might: rather small at the mouth, perhaps only slightly taller than the priest and only about twice again as wide. The stone was bare inside, a dull and rough-looking slate-grey limestone.
As the others steadily advanced in, Bella found she couldn't go on. She didn't want to. Somehow, it didn't feel right going in. Almost the same feeling she might have had rifling through the dead villagers' homes, this felt too intrusive. Something intensely personal, integral to the village, was hidden within this cave. She, an outsider, was not welcome here.
"Wait up!" she called after the others.
Impatient and at the lead as always, Edward, picking his way through the piles and piles of demon bones and carcasses left behind, called over his shoulder, "No, you hurry up!"
Rather in disbelief that they weren't sensing what she could feel within, Bella caught up to them and demanded, "You mean you still want to go in?"
Surprised at her hesitance, Emmett turned to her with a teasing gleam in his too-handsome blue eyes. "If you are frightened, Bella, then feel free to lean on me."
Edward promptly smacked the back of his head, either not noticing or caring that the priest had mostly said what he had because he wanted to comfort his friend with humour, rather than any true intent on her. It didn't really work, but Bella appreciated the effort.
A gleam from up ahead brought them all up short. As they all came fully around the bend in the long cave, the gruesome sight became completely apparent.
Demons, hundreds—perhaps thousands—of them, all different shapes and sizes. There was one immense one in the middle, seeming to be made up of a conglomeration of all the other species of demon. It seemed they were all somehow melding into one new creature. It looked almost like the Chinese imagining of a dragon: long and thin, like a snake, but with a pointed head and gargantuan fangs. Caught up in its mouth, half of its body already down the throat, was the figure of a person. It had long hair and wore armour ancient even for this era. In its chest was a large hole, perfectly circular, right where the person's heart would have been.
Covering all of these creatures was a thick, diamond-hard coating of some sort, not quite clear but able to be seen through. It seemed to be a sort of calcification, and it had mummified its captives, whether alive or dead was unknown. The human within the mass of demons was so badly decomposed within its calcification that it couldn't be determined if it had been a man or woman. The eyes had long rotted away, the lids drooping to cover the empty holes. The lips had begun to wither back, exposing the teeth and jaws in the horrifying grin of death. The dark brown hair, though down to the small of the human's back, was faded and wispy, and looked like nothing so much as a strong wind would pull it all out.
Seth and Bella recoiled with loud cries of shock and disgust. Emmett gaped in wide-eyed horror. Edward alone, though appearing surprised and confused, held onto his composure.
"What is this?" he demanded of the flea demon.
After a long pause wherein the flea seemed to find his voice again, he answered vaguely, "Just what it looks like."
Irritatedly, the half-demon bit back a growl and sneered, "And if I knew what it looked like, I wouldn't ask!"
On Emmett's shoulder, Seth rolled his eyes. "He doesn't know."
Bella ignored them, stepping closer to the creepy monument and examining the calcified person closely. "A mummified demon?" she asked the others.
Emmett joined her side. "You think it's a demon?" He leaned as close as he dared, his eyes narrow in thought. "It may have fused with a demon, but this part at least appears to be human."
Human? Bella wondered. Then what was with that hole in its chest? You could see clear through the body to the other side of the cave through it. Somehow, that fist-sized hole was what captured Bella's thoughts completely. Something about it had her worried.
Emmett stepped back, re-joining Edward who had kept his distance. "I'd bet this is not something the Slayers would have discussed with us."
Rosalie fell to her knees with a thud, but no cry of pain escaped through her gritted teeth. Her legs simply couldn't carry her any farther. Her arms were near to breaking with the strain of heaving herself and the boomerang bone about. This was a fool's errand, she knew, but her heart had decided matters for her. She would get to and destroy the half-demon who had robbed her of her entire family and livelihood, or die trying.
It was beginning to look like the latter option would be her fate.
"Are you in pain, Rosalie?" James asked, as calmly and blithely as if he were asking about the typical clime of her home. Collapsed on all fours, her limbs trembling violently with the effort to stay even partially upright, Rosalie could make no answer. She felt that if she opened her mouth now, she wouldn't be able to control just what came out. Her head was reeling, and she could hardly see past the swirls and pops of white and black swimming in her vision.
"Truly, I feel for you," the bizarre man continued as though she had answered. "And I know that if you die like this, you will not be able to rest in peace. Would you like to try this instead?"
From under his pelt, he withdrew a single, tiny shard of the Sacred Jewel. Rosalie knew it instantly by sight, though in her exhausted state she felt no presence from it, benign or evil. Still, it was alarming that one such as this James even had one. All the pieces should be collected and protected until one such as her father had spoken of could be found to guard it properly.
Father…
She shook her head quickly. If she went down that path, she'd never be able to bring herself out of it. Instead, she focused on the here and now.
"How did you come to possess that?" she snapped at her escort. "Who are you?"
James cut her off with a simple, "I have had this in my hands for quite some time; how I came by it is none of your concern. But I am offering to let you use it." Seeing her look of disgust at the very thought, James smirked under the hood of his pelt. "You seem to be under the mistaken impression, like so many others, that the Jewel of Four Souls is an object of evil. Not so, it has good uses as well. It merely must be used by the right person, with the right motives."
Rosalie was too smart to believe that vengeance could ever be considered a pure enough motive for the Jewel to grant her strength. However, in her desperate state, she allowed the hope to override her brain. Besides, what did it matter? She had nothing left to live for but this last act.
"I'm not complaining, Edward," Emmett was saying quickly, trying to ward off any arguments. "But can't we take a break for just a bit?"
The group had been trudging back down the side of the mountain since daybreak, and it was now past sunset. They had paused only to eat, and the meals were not particularly filling, just things Bella had found in her pack. They had all been impatient to reach the castle Myoga the flea had said the remaining Demon Slayers had gone to. Everyone worried over those remaining few's fates as well. But they simply couldn't continue at this pace.
Up ahead, Edward stopped and turned back in surprise. "What? You're the one who wanted to find the castle and talk to the people there."
"And that should be most important to us all," Emmett agreed smoothly. "It's only that I'm afraid that Bella will suffer from such a nonstop march."
For a moment, Bella was indignant. Had she complained? Had she whinged that she was tired and hungry and cold? Why should she be the one to slow the others down, even if she was all of those things? But then she realized that Emmett and Seth were looking just as peaky as she, and knew she was being used as a scapegoat. Particularly one Emmett believed garnered the most care from Edward. So she shut her mouth and went along with it.
Still caught off guard at this sudden placing the blame on himself, Edward fixed his gaze on her and asked in similar tones, "You tired, Bella?"
"Well, yeah," Bella shrugged. "I didn't sleep much last night."
"And she's hungry and cold!" Seth piped in, catching on to the game and adding his own miseries to the bunch.
Edward, still surprised, simply concluded, "What a spoiled little princess."
That was the final straw for Bella, who honestly hadn't even been feeling that poorly yet.
"Hey!" she snapped at him, instantly on the offensive. Edward recoiled from the sudden show of temper, flinching back. "I've been holding my own pretty well, but I am just a human, you know! Trying to keep up with your demon power is going to kill me!"
"You might show a little more concern for her needs, Edward," the priest scolded sagely, though the glint in his eyes showed he was enjoying this conversation far too much. "It isn't enough merely to say you love her, you must show it."
Both Bella and Edward stared at him, frankly stunned and red-faced. Bless them; they both had honestly believed their feelings were well concealed from all other than themselves. A gob smacked Myoga appeared from within the sleeve of Edward's shirt and nearly screeched, "Master Edward! When did you finally admit your feelings?!"
"Oh, shut up already!" Edward finally managed to choke out, his face still as red as his shirt.
In Bella's arms, the heretofore-sleeping Vera suddenly sat up and looked at a certain point across a small clearing in the mountain forest. She abruptly stood up against Bella's forearm. The others barely had time to notice before a giant boomerang of sorts came hurtling at them, cutting whole tree trunks in half and slicing all in its path as it came for them.
With a cry of shock, the group fell to their knees, Edward pushing Bella down with him to make sure she made it in time, though her reflexes were much faster than they'd been when he'd first had to start looking after her. In air, the man-size boomerang reached the end of its flight and doubled back, whizzing away back towards the opposite end of the clearing, where it was caught by a figure dressed head to toe in black leather and bone plating. The metal mask they wore obscured most of the person's face, but enraged hazel eyes stared out over it from beneath tied-up blond hair.
"So you are the half-breed, Edward," came a distinctly female voice. "Well, I am your death!"
"Wait, what?" Edward blurted out, utterly bewildered by this turn of events. That person looked like she was from the village of Demon-Slayers, though she could not have been much older than Edward or Emmett, but why should she have a grudge against Edward of all people?
From Edward's shoulder, Myoga the flea cried out in barely-audible dismay, "Rosalie!"
"So she's from the village?" Bella surmised.
"From the village!" the old flea demon scoffed. "She's the daughter of its lord, and more to the point, one of its—"
With a loud cry of exertion, the female slayer, apparently called Rosalie, threw her boomerang-shaped weapon over her shoulder and back into the fray. Edward's hand automatically went to the hilt of the Fang, despite Myoga's impassioned plea of, "Master Edward, you mustn't fight her!"
"She's not really giving me much choice!" the half-demon retorted, and fully drew his sword.
The blade met the giant boomerang in mid-air, and for a moment it seemed Edward might be able to fend off the bone. But the moment passed, and he was knocked backwards by the sheer force of the throw. The boomerang flew off to the side of the clearing, having been thrown off course by the collision. In an impressive show of dexterity and speed, Rosalie the Demon-Slayer rolled and ran low across the clearing, scooping up her weapon and returning to a ready stance within moments.
"Why are you attacking me?" Edward demanded, resting the Fang lightly on his shoulder.
"Silence, half-breed!" For a long moment, this was his only answer. Rosalie threw her boomerang at him again and he, dodging, allowed it to sail back to its owner. Then the Slayer elaborated a little, "This is revenge for my people!"
"What?" Edward was simply dumbfounded. "Myoga, what's she on about?"
The little flea demon, already hidden well within the sleeve of Edward's tunic, shrieked shrilly, "I haven't a clue!"
Abruptly, the immense weapon changed course mid-air and came down roughly for the half-demon, who only just managed to duck out of the way. Bella, watching from the sidelines, was getting angry.
"That weapon moves like it can fly on its own," she said, wanting to stamp her foot in frustration. "Unless we can immobilize it somehow, there's no way to get through to the girl."
"Right," said Emmett, already ripping off the rosaries binding his Wind Tunnel curse.
For a brief second, the plan appeared to be working. The giant boomerang bone weapon was diverted off course, and began to whirl around for the priest. Then, out of the trees surrounding them, millions of the tiny, poisonous insects James favoured began to whiz angrily about.
Emmett promptly re-sealed his cursed hand, with a curt cry of, "What the hell are they doing here?"
Edward, still facing Rosalie out on the cleared field, finished the thought. It couldn't be… But it was. Just as the idea finished itself in his mind in the form of a single word, the owner of said word appeared behind Rosalie from the trees. The man was still covered in his ridiculous costume, but there was no mistaking him.
"James!" the half-demon spat.
The hidden man laughed at the surprise laden in Edward's tone. "Edward," he acknowledged, almost politely. Then, "Resign yourself, and take your punishment from the Demon-Slayer."
Lifting his sword over his shoulder with both hands, Edward darted for the costumed enemy, preparing to strike. "This ends here and now!" he swore.
Mysteriously, however, James stepped back, purposefully not engaging the half-demon. "Finish him quickly, Rosalie," he instructed the girl before him. "The shard's effects will not last long."
"I know that," the Slayer sneered from beneath her mask, her eyes never leaving her intended prey. She raised a hand, though what attack she had planned may never be known, for Edward merely leapt right over her, his own focus never wavering from his target.
As he raised the Iron Fang for a fatal blow, one of his bare ankles was suddenly caught up by a chain and yanked back. Barely registering the painful pop of his ankle dislocating from the pressure, Edward was suddenly flung face-first into the ground as Rosalie pulled back on her tether.
"Your opponent is me!" she reminded him, growing angrier.
Already enraged at the sight of his long-sought prey sitting so close and yet not being able to attack, Edward was literally snarling as he coldly informed her, "If you don't get out of my fucking way, I'll kill you first."
"Master Edward!" Myoga the flea cried, scandalized at this speech, but he went ignored.
"Just try it," the Demon-Slayer taunted, already lunging for him with her huge boomerang weapon held aloft in one hand.
Out at the borderline of the trees, Seth leapt onto Bella's shoulder anxiously and murmured in her ear, "I don't get it! Why does she think Edward attacked her village?"
"Because she's been tricked by James too," Bella answered, but her focus was not truly on her reply. Something had caught her attention. A strange sort of glint from the vicinity of the girl… followed by a familiar tugging sensation, calling her to it. That girl had a fragment of the Sacred Jewel in her back!
Rosalie the Demon-Slayer once more lunged for Edward, throwing her giant boomerang bone with another cry almost like a scream of wrath and pain. Edward managed to deflect it and throw it off course with the Iron Fang, and charged across the clearing to take advantage of her momentary weakness.
Instead of conceding the upper hand, however, the Slayer fell back a pace and reached to her waist. With a triumphant cry, she threw out an egg-sized yellow ball that hit the ground at Edward's feet and exploded in a puff of smoke. Immediately, the half-vampire began hacking and clutching at his nose and throat, before eventually retreating from the area and conceding the ground to the Slayer.
Rosalie smirked smugly. "Vampires and other sensory demons are generally weak against scent attacks," she informed him, stepping right into the thick of the cloud of gas. Edward let out a growl of frustration, clapping a hand to his face, but could venture no closer to her.
Up on his ledge above them, James chuckled. "That's a professional for you."
His laughter was cut short, however, as Emmett approached, his staff held protectively in front of himself. Beneath his hood, James' tone was condescending.
"Well, well, if it isn't the priest," he patronized. "I suppose I should have expected only the best warrior of the half-breed tribe to take me on."
Emmett ignored the jibe, instead informing the mysterious demon calmly, "It's time to pay for your crimes, James."
While the poisonous insects swarmed all around him, James asked pleasantly over the hum, "And if I don't allow that?" He shrugged beneath his baboon pelt. "At any rate, very soon all of the Sacred Jewel fragments will belong to me. If I were you, I'd quit now and make off with your own pathetic life. I'm sure it's worth something to you, at least."
"Your plans are worthless. This is as far as you go!"
So said, Emmett lunged for the demon, all the hatred and suffering he'd endured to this point at an apex. He swung his staff out sharply, but James parried it with a sword he drew from beneath his pelt with incomprehensible speed. Over and over, faster almost than the eye could see, Emmett struck and James blocked—until the demon made a false move and Emmett took swift advantage of the error. Emmett knocked his opponent's weapon away and caught it deftly. Before a moment had passed, James' hand was cleaved at the wrist with his own sword. It cut cleanly, as though through clay, with not a drop of blood. Typical of a vampire.
Pressing his advantage, Emmett swiftly knocked the costumed demon to the ground and stood over him, sword poised at James' throat. Under the pelt, he could hear James panting in exertion, but he didn't sense defeat from the demon.
"It's over," he informed his long-time enemy, to which James laughed under his breath.
A sudden warning cry diverted the priest's attention briefly. James' detached hand was somehow still under his control. It snatched back the demon's blade before Emmett could react, and hurtled for the horrified Bella and Seth.
Crying out, Emmett flung himself after the weapon, staff outstretched, trying to come to the aid of his friends. Still engaged in his own battle, Edward heard the yell and followed the trajectory of the Emmett's run to see Bella trying to flee into the cover of the trees from the disembodied hand that pursued her.
In a flash, he was before her, the Iron Fang slicing through the hand once more. The sword fell harmlessly to the ground feet from its target, but the intended distraction had proved immensely successful.
Rosalie's boomerang bone came hurtling down on the pair before they had a chance to recover; Edward scooped Bella up at the waist and barely managed to jump out of the way. As they fell in their desperate leap, the severed hand was unbelievably still mobile. It soared up from the ground and lunged for Bella's throat, where it snatched up the large portion of the Sacred Jewel she carried around her neck.
The chain gave way almost instantly to the force of the attack, and within moments James stood before them, lifting high his newly attached arm and stolen Jewel fragment. Edward and the others could only gape at the speed and ease with which he had robbed them.
"Well," the demon said casually, "now that the Sacred Jewel piece is in my hands, I see no reason to tarry. Rosalie is more than capable of finishing you off."
He turned to flee, Edward and Emmett immediately lunging to give pursuit, when his figure seemed to all but explode with another poisonous gas he threw. Choking, the half-demon and his friend could only back away to get air.
"Rosalie, I shall await you at the castle," James called from somewhere in the thick of the dense cloud. "Be sure to destroy the half-breed before you return." And then he was gone.
The priest fled after him on foot, while the Demon-Slayer stared at the spot the demon had last been seen, her brow furrowed distrustfully. Perhaps teaming up with a demon to kill a demon hadn't been the best idea, but that wouldn't matter for very long.
A mewl from behind her almost brought Rosalie to her knees once more. Vera, tiny and loving and perfectly healthy, sat just behind her on her haunches. Rosalie gave a cry not unlike a sob and caught up her pet—her friend—joyfully. The two-tailed demon cat purred happily, rubbing her head against her companion with just as much relief.
"Vera!" she cried. "You're alive!"
For a moment, the Demon-Slayer hesitated. Vera was the last family she had left, but she needed help in this fight. She didn't know whom to trust anymore, and her suspicions were too high to be ignored.
"Vera," she whispered, holding the demon cat close, "I want you to follow that James. If he does anything suspicious, kill him."
With a tiny meow, the demon cat vocalized her understanding and leapt from Rosalie's arms. Upon hitting the ground, her form seemed to explode in flames. As the fires died down, Vera stood now many times her former size. Far larger than the average horse with fangs the length of a palm, she took off into the air, tracking the suspicious character by scent.
Edward wasn't far behind her on the ground, intending to go after James himself. Rosalie's boomerang hit the ground just in front of him, nearly crushing him altogether before flying back to its owner. Edward slid to a halt, seeming to have almost forgotten the Demon-Slayer was even there.
"You're not going anywhere!" she called to him. "Except perhaps Hell!"
Edward would have rolled his eyes if the situation weren't so damn frustrating. "Bitch, can't you give it up already?" he yelled back at her.
The Demon-Slayer ignored him, flinging herself forward and throwing her weapon once more. A new determination heightened her movements. She was more desperate than ever to see Edward dead. To end this once and for all.
This time, Edward purposefully struck out with the Fang, connecting with the boomerang bone in mid-air. He whacked it like a baseball with a bat, sending it careening to the other side of the field and far out of reach. In the next breath, he tossed his sword like a javelin for the warrior, intentionally embedding it in the earth right before her to make her jump.
She cried out in alarm, seeing her weapon hopelessly far and the vampire begin to turn for her. She reached for her waistband and pulled out more of her poison gas balls, exploding them on the ground between the two. But Edward was already in front of her, and with a single swipe, the Demon-Slayer's metal filter mask was torn from her face.
She clapped her hands to her face, already choking, and tried to turn to flee. But she couldn't see through the thick cloud of gas. Where—? Suddenly, a hand grasped her upper arm like an iron fetter. Frantic with pain, confusion, and fear, Rosalie fought the grip desperately. It not only didn't release her, it began to pull her.
With a jolt, Rosalie found herself outside the cloud of miasma, her arm still in the grasp of the half-breed who raced away from the poison, his own face covered in his tunic. Rosalie couldn't understand. Was he trying to save her? No, that couldn't be. He was only dragging her away from his so-called friends so they didn't see him feast. This was the monster that had slaughtered her village, after all.
With renewed hatred, Rosalie drew the sword at her hip and drove it into her captor's shoulder. Despite the blood now seeping through his clothes, the half-vampire hardly seemed to notice, while his friends cried out in alarm.
He let out a short, highly irritated scoff and came to an abrupt stop. Caught off guard, Rosalie lost her footing and was half-dragged to a halt on the ground, still held in his grip. With the other hand, he reached up and withdrew the sword without a wince.
"You still don't get it, do you? James is duping you!" he snapped at her. When she opened her mouth to make an angry retort, he interrupted, "And meanwhile, you're bleeding to death! Enough is enough!"
Completely caught off-guard by this announcement, Rosalie gasped, "What?" and glanced down. She was stunned to find herself literally dripping with her own blood. It coated her back and ran down the backs of her legs; even her fingers were dripping with it. She stared at the growing puddle beneath her in mute shock. She hadn't even felt any pain. How could she have gotten to this point without noticing?
"Edward, are you okay?!" Bella nearly screamed, running to the side of the half-demon. Edward stood calmly by his sword which was still embedded in the ground from his toss, applying pressure to his new wound as the Demon-Slayer stayed crouched on the ground.
"I am, yeah," he told her honestly.
Without a sound, the Demon-Slayer called Rosalie suddenly collapsed face-first into the ground. Seth screamed, then shouted hysterically, "SHE'S DEAD!"
"No, she fainted!" Bella countered quickly, rushing to aid the now unconscious young woman. "She's just fainted!"
As she turned the Demon-Slayer over and laid her in her lap to examine the damage, Bella murmured, "Edward, this girl has a Sacred Jewel shard in her back."
Edward nodded as though this new information explained something. "So that's it," he said conclusively. "She's badly wounded, and it wasn't something we did. I could smell her blood from the start. That damned James; I'll bet he gave her the shard. He wanted to make her fight until she died."
Plunging through the trees that were beginning to thin out, Emmett charged after the demon cat, which was on the very heels of the vampire James though he couldn't see. He was determined to not let Vera, at least, out of his sight, since she was his only guide to the demon.
The tree line ended suddenly, the grass disappearing almost as quickly. With a start, Emmett realized he was sliding down, almost faster than his control. He turned and drove his staff into the craggy hill, stopping his descent just in time. Below him opened an enormous gulf between two great cliffs. He glanced around, dismayed and infuriated to find that the two cliffs were too far apart to cross.
"Damn it!" he cursed loudly, desperately looking around for a solution. It came in the form of a flying demon cat, which had heard him and turned around. Without a sound or hesitation, she came up from behind and scooped him onto her back before once more pursuing their common enemy.
After his initial shock, Emmett called to her over the rushing wind, "Giving me a lift, are you? Thank you!" An exultant roar was his reply, which he took to mean she didn't mind.
With Vera's added speed, James was soon within sight. He had slowed, cockily believing himself to be far out of the reach of any opposition. Vera and Emmett came upon him so suddenly that he hadn't even the time to turn around. The cleric's staff caught him at chest level, dealing a debilitating blow.
Instead of falling, however, out from the lower half of James' pelt exploded a tangle of immense, bulging, muscle-like tentacles. Emmett could see the effects of many different types of demons among each arm. Some had shell-like casings; others were sharp and pointed like a bee stinger. But they had all merged inside James' body to become dozens of unified, muscled arms. The sight was sickening.
Hands with claws the length of Emmett's whole fingers sprang for them. The priest screamed in horror and disgust, batting as many as he could away with his staff. Vera was not so lucky; two particularly burly arms wrapped around her throat in a chokehold while she roared and bucked in defiance. In another moment, it became too much for Emmett as well. One of his arms was caught at the wrist. Both demon and cleric were thrown to the ground and pinned there whilst James laughed.
"Don't underestimate me," he reminded them.
Emmett shook his head at the monster, his disgust plain on his face. "Just what the hell are you?" he demanded.
For a long moment, her world was a peaceful, sheltering black. She couldn't feel anything, couldn't sense anything. Her body wouldn't move at her command, but she somehow didn't mind. Where was she? What had happened to her? It was so warm, almost like being held by someone else. There was even the comforting thud of someone else's heartbeat in her ear.
Startled, Rosalie awoke with reflexive jerk. She was being carried on the back of the half-demon. He had her boomerang bone beneath her like a seat and was holding onto it with both hands. The fox demon cub rode clung to the edge of her weapon with her gas mask on his head like a silly hat, evidently enjoying the ride. The human girl who so bizarrely followed the demons sat on the bone next to her, also carried along.
"What the hell is going on here?" she demanded, trying to push away from him. "Put me down at once!"
"Oh, awake, are you?" the half-demon asked rhetorically, completely uncaring of her anger or shoves.
"We're going after James," the girl next to Rosalie informed her. "He stole our Jewel fragment."
Rosalie stared at her, bewildered. Before she could come up with her own plausible explanation as to why and how a human girl could be carried by a vampire of all demons and look so comfortable at it, the demon in question recalled her attention.
"Hey, your name's Rosalie, right?" he asked her. "If you want to keep on blindly following James, I'll drop you right here!"
Indignant, Rosalie began, "What—?!"
But the human girl beat her to it. Smacking the half-breed at the back of the head like a misbehaving child, she snapped, "I thought we agreed to let me explain things to her! Sheesh, and you wonder why no one trusts you!" With a long-suffering sigh, the girl smiled at Rosalie weakly. "Sorry about him. We're still working on his manners but he really is a nice guy once you get to know him."
A familiar voice piped up from Rosalie's own shoulder, and she turned quickly in surprise, ignoring the wave of nausea and dizziness that accompanied it.
"You are here, Rosalie," Myoga the flea demon elaborated, not unkindly, "because Master Edward refused to leave you behind in your injured state."
This whole situation was just getting more and more incomprehensible to her. First she was told a demon had slaughtered her village. All right, she would track him down and kill him. Then, she found him accompanied by her own best companion, Vera. James turned out to be a highly suspicious character. And worst of all, Edward, the one she thought she hated above all else, had now saved her life and then refused to leave her to die when it was well within his rights to do so.
What was she supposed to believe?
Emmett and Vera had fought their way free of the tangle of burly arms, but it was exhausting work, and they were no closer to being finished. James was as complacent as ever, standing off from the fighting, letting his enormous tentacle-like appendages extend out from his body and do the work for him at a safe distance.
Panting, the priest let his staff rest on the ground before him, though his defensive posture never relaxed. Vera stood behind and halfway around him, growling, though she too showed the strain of their protracted fight.
James laughed once more at Emmett's clear horror and confusion. "Why so astonished, priest?" he queried.
Emmett shook his head decidedly. "You won't fool me. This is an illusion! It has to be!"
Again, the hidden figure chuckled gleefully at this assumption. "Well," he agreed, the smile still in his voice, "there is one quick way to find out if I am illusory or not, isn't there?"
The fighting recommenced—the muscly-arms attacked and Emmett blocked, over and over again. But every small piece he managed to hack away either regrouped to the main arm or was replaced by growing, clay-like flesh. Nothing the priest did seemed to have a lasting effect.
What was James? He knew he was a vampire demon of some sort, and that he was capable of shape shifting. Did those abilities extend to the other demons he devoured? Could he conjure up their abilities and physical characteristics at will as easily as he changed faces? But then, why did Emmett sense no evil aura from him? If he weren't looking right at the demon, he might not have known he was there; he had no presence whatsoever. It was mind-boggling.
Suddenly, all the appendages grouped together and surged for Emmett as one. Letting out a small involuntary cry, he just managed to leap away, cartwheeling back onto his hand for lack of time to think. Before he had time to even stick his landing, another hand caught his ankle like a vice, heaving him back towards James. A second arm formed a small, dagger-like claw and, with the first hand wrenching him towards it, impaled the priest at the gut with deadly force.
Edward arrived moments later, cleaving the arm in two with the Iron Fang. Emmett landed roughly on the ground with a muted cry, and the half-demon took over the fight. From a safe distance, Bella—Rosalie leant against her weakly—let out a small yelp as she took in James' new appearance. From underneath his ridiculous pelt, tentacle-like arms stretched thick with burly sinew.
"That's James?" she cried, disbelieving. The Demon-Slayer could only stare in open-mouthed shock.
"Emmett, you lout, sleeping on the job again?" Edward called back to his companion teasingly, trying to get those usual competitive juices flowing. But no answering jibe came.
"Emmett?"
The priest was sprawled on the ground, unconscious, the severed appendage still sticking out of his stomach. Having seen where Edward was looking, the rest of the group spotted Emmett and started out into the battlefield to help him. Recovering from his initial shock, Edward dove for his friend, preparing to take him to safety.
Just before he reached Emmett, however, James' creepy arm-like extensions came for him too. He scooped up his unconscious friend and sprang away, trying to make for the protective woods and their other companions, shouting, "Don't die on me, you crooked priest!"
With a thick cough and a shuddering breath, Emmett awoke, confusedly murmuring, "Die? What are you talking about?"
Edward halted, almost promptly dropping the cleric. Emmett stood on his own with remarkable strength, and pulled the severed appendage from his stomach with a small wince. The half-demon stared flatly.
"Wait," he said indignantly. "There's not even a hole…"
It was true. Emmett's tunic wasn't even smudged. Relieved, he sighed, "That was a close one."
"Are you kidding me?!" Edward exploded angrily at him. "You bastard, you looked dead!"
Emmett levelled him an expressive glance. "You went and panicked on your own."
James seemed to have grown tired of being ignored. "So, Rosalie," he called in a booming voice, inescapable by the others. "You failed to bring down a single half-breed, eh?"
An enraged snarl burst free of said half-demon's throat without his consent, before he inferred, "You lying bastard. You sent a swarm of demons to the Demon-Slayers' village and had it destroyed yourself, didn't you?"
Beneath the baboon face, James smirked and demurred, "All I did was pass the demons a little message that the most powerful of the Slayers had been called away, and that security might be a little lax back home."
"And your goal was the Jewel piece located in the fort," Emmett surmised.
James affected an air of patronizing surprise. "Oh, you've figured me out completely." He dropped the tones and continued seriously, "Yes, in the midst of that chaos, taking their small collection was simple."
"And just for that 'small collection,'" Edward growled, barely restraining his fury.
Emmett finished the thought through clenched teeth, also on the edges of restraint, "You would slaughter an entire town?"
Before the demon could make a response, Rosalie shrieked across the field, "At the castle, that spider demon—was that also a trick?!"
"Why, of course," James answered, his tone suggesting his surprise that she had not concluded that much for herself. "I did need a pretext to lure you Slayers out, didn't I? And a suitable means to get rid of you before you realized the truth. Call it me simply dealing with you exterminators before you became a nuisance in the future."
Rosalie could make no response, choking on her grief and hate. Her father, her brother, her uncle—every person she'd ever known and loved—had been lured out and ruthlessly murdered just to prevent a potential nuisance in the future?!
Shaking, the memory of her father falling with her brother's chained sickle in this throat sprang to her mind. Her brother, drowning his own blood, gasping for breath as he died beneath her, came next. Her vision blurred with hot tears, but she refused to let them fall.
Instead, she leapt to her feet with whatever strength remained to her, brandishing her boomerang bone with a wild scream of rage.
All it took was a glance, a thought. With it, James ejected his fragment of the Sacred Jewel that he had loaned Rosalie from her back. It fell to the ground with a small clink, and Rosalie toppled after it with a screech now of pain. That fragment had been blocking her suffering even if she had continued to bleed out. Now she felt every one of her wounds in agonizing detail.
"Rosalie!" the human girl said in surprise, coming to her side. She put a supportive hand to the Demon-Slayer's shoulder, helping her back to her knees at least.
From across the field, James laughed at her agony. "You are as proud and stupid as the rest of your people," he informed her. "Had you continued to believe Edward was your enemy, you would have died content, satisfied in thinking you had exacted revenge. Now, you—"
He broke off, stunned to find Edward suddenly beside him, sword at the ready as he cried, "You talk an awful lot about the 'stupidity of humans,' but what kind of coward wages his battles by toying with other people's hearts?"
As he retreated, James sneered, "What do you mean, Edward? Have we reminded you of what happened with Tanya?"
The half-demon had reached his boiling point. Beyond the use of words in his rage, he could only wordlessly yell as he swung his blade. James' severed head toppled to the ground, still swathed in the baboon pelt. There was no blood, only a sound similar to cracking rock.
For a long moment, silence reigned. Everyone was rather shocked that it could end so quickly. Privately, each felt it had been too easy, but the proof was right in front of them. The one who had killed Tanya, slaughtered an entire village, and caused suffering to untold others, had finally been defeated. And yet, as they stared at the bizarre personage still hidden under his fur, another thought occurred to Edward. They'd been chasing this man for many weeks, Emmett even longer, and yet none knew what he truly looked like.
"Let's see his face," he announced in a deadly calm voice, stepping forward to rip the swath of fur from the severed head. But the visage that greeted them wasn't a face. While Edward had cleaved the head from the shoulders, there was another cut: right through the face itself, as though the top half of the skull had been sliced clean off. Most of the nose and everything above it was gone, only the laughing mouth remained untouched.
"What in all hell—?" the half-demon blurted in shock.
They hardly had any time to ponder this new development either before the beheaded body sprang from the ground behind them, the disgusting arms at the ready once more. Two lunged for Edward immediately, who had just time enough to cry out in surprise before ducking out of the way.
Off to the side in relative safety, Bella and Seth were stunned with horror.
"The—the body's moving by itself!" Seth squeaked, clutching the girl's arm in terror.
Hearing this, the disembodied partial-head opened what remained of its mouth and laughed. "Don't underestimate me," he advised them, somewhat needlessly they might have noted if they'd had their senses about them. Instead, they could only gape.
What the hell was going on here? Vampires were notoriously hard to kill, but this was ridiculous. Still, the pair plunged ahead doggedly, determined to bring this monster down once and for all. They hacked at arm after arm, slicing them away only to have them grow back and repair themselves completely. Bella, watching all of this in mingled frustration and growing fear, briefly wondered if James weren't using the power of a Sacred Jewel fragment himself. The one he had stolen from Bella would have easily granted him the power to regenerate.
She focused, trying to see the telltale glow of a shard within the demon's plethora of appendages. As soon as she saw it, her hopes fell. The light of the shard hadn't dissolved at all, which meant James was operating under his own power and nothing more. Then how the hell could he be so damn near invincible?
Rosalie was thinking as frantically as her foggy, pain-numbed mind could allow. Why hadn't she realized it before? The entire time she'd been traipsing about the forest with that creature, she hadn't felt even an inkling of a demonic presence. Even now, she still felt nothing from the monster.
In all her years of fighting demons of every shape and size, she'd never once encountered anything like this James character. Even as she watched, the companions fought him bravely, though everyone knew it was a losing battle without fire. James' former upper body, still draped in his baboon pelt, hovered over the horde of tentacle arms he now waged battle with. Even from this epicentre she felt nothing untoward.
Her eyes suddenly flew wide, and she cried aloud in realization. Finally, she understood!
"The unmoving part—the chest—go for his chest!" she screamed to the young men fighting.
"The chest?"
Both cleric and half-demon were sceptical. Firstly, they had no idea how to even approach the chest through the tangle of other limbs. And more importantly, could they really trust the girl who had not fifteen minutes prior been trying to kill them?
But, seeing as they had nothing better to go off of, Edward pushed off the ground using all the speed his immortal heritage granted him. He leapt from arm to arm, propelling himself faster towards the chest, which he slashed in two upon sight. It was all over in mere moments. James' body and severed head began to lose shape and form, and eventually became nothing more than mud and soil.
In the midst of the soil where the chest had been now lay a wooden doll of some sort. Emmett noticed it first, and bent to retrieve it.
"A doll?" Edward asked, blatantly disbelieving.
The priest held it up for general inspection. "It's got some hair tied around it," he told the others, pointing. A long strand of dark hair was wrapped around the wood tightly. He sighed, and threw the doll away roughly in frustration. "It's a sort of magic I've heard of; one can make a decoy of themselves or any others using their hair and earth. The James we fought here was nothing but a fake. Most likely, the real James was controlling his puppet from a safe place far from here."
Many scores away, the castle where the best of the Demon-Slayers now rested was quiet, settling down for the night. The people of the average-sized community living on the grounds of the castle were finally peaceful, content in the conviction that the demon that had plagued them was dead. Their lord was also dead, but his son had taken over with hardly a wrinkle in their day-to-day lives.
Back in his own chamber, the new lord of the castle seated himself on his immense poster bed with a deep sigh, watching as the mate to the puppet doll he had sent out was shattered and rendered useless.
"Milord?" came a nervous voice, wavering with old age, from beyond his thick oak door. "What was that sound just now? Are you all right?"
"I am fine," he responded without moving. "'Twas nothing. Please, retire for the evening as I am."
"Aye, milord."
As he listened to the sound of his retainer's retreating footsteps down the hall, James sighed again and fell back on his bed. Despite the shortcomings of the day, at least he still had those Sacred Jewel fragments he'd taken from the Demon-Slayers' destroyed home.
Now that he'd assumed the visage of the ailing lordling—whose drained corpse had been rotting in a ditch some hundreds of kilometres safely away for a full month—and taken on the position of a feudal lord, he had the status to carry out many of his long-thought plans.
Yes, he would hold onto this charade for quite some time to come. And Rosalie, that foolish last Demon-Slayer… Well, her miraculous survival wasn't a total loss. He could make further use of her later. Her heart, tattered and shredded with grief and rage as it was, would make fertile ground for any future plots.
"Damn it all!" Edward swore impatiently, heaving a heavy log from a collapsed hut over his shoulder. "What's with that 'Rosalie' girl, anyway? She claims she can't remember anything about that suspicious 'young master' at the castle, or even where the castle is. It just happened a few days ago!"
Emmett, busy chopping up other logs Edward had already brought to him in preparation of a fire for supper, sighed deeply. Wearily, he said, "Stop it. This is James we're talking about. It's likely he bewitched the place to keep from being found even if she could remember. Until we hear of more of his crimes, we have nothing to go on. Besides, she is still horribly wounded. She mustn't move about for some time."
The half-demon scoffed and rolled his eyes. "She's been resting ten days now. They weren't that bad. No more than a fortnight or so of rest would do the trick even for you weaklings, I'm sure. If it were me, I'd have been up in three days at most."
Emmett laughed and said self-deprecatingly, "And if it were me, I'd have been in bed for a month."
"Lady Rosalie, I've brought you some bandages," Bella called politely, stepping into the hut in which they'd laid out a pallet for the wounded Slayer to rest. It was one of the few in the village that still had a roof, although there were several holes in the walls.
As she and Seth opened the door, however, their eyes immediately fell on an empty pallet. Worried, they ran back outside to try and find her and persuade her to return to bed. Whatever Edward might think, her wounds were life-threatening and she needed proper time to heal.
Finally, they located her by the freshly dug graves, sitting quietly before them with Vera and not a tear in sight. Her face was devoid of all emotion, though she did look deep in thought.
"Lady Rosalie, you shouldn't be out of bed like this yet!" Bella scolded upon finding her. Rosalie turned and gave her a rather flat, empty look over her shoulder.
"These graves," she said tonelessly, turning back to look at them. "You dug graves for everyone? And even put their weapons with them?"
"What else could we have done?" Bella returned honestly, sitting down next to her. Seth, still wary of the woman who had at first been after their lives, clung to Bella's back and refused to come out from under her hair.
A silence Bella perceived as awkward and heavy fell around them for a long moment. She had no idea what to say to the other girl. I'm sorry seemed so banal, but anything else she could think of sounded insensitive. What was there to say to one who had lost everything? Finally, slowly, an idea formed itself in her mind. Before she could overthink it, she gave voice to it.
"When you've healed," she offered slowly, "why don't you come with us?" Rosalie gave no sign that she was listening, still gazing at the graves and giving nothing away, but Bella didn't quit at that. "Deep down, Edward and Emmett are both very nice people."
"Way deep down," Seth interjected mischievously from behind her back. Bella shushed him, but he didn't appear much daunted as he promptly stuck his tongue out at her.
For a time, the Demon-Slayer was silent. Then, raising her gaze to a point straight ahead, she asked softly, "You still have that huge piece of the Sacred Jewel, don't you?"
Surprised at the sudden turn of conversation, Bella reached to her neck and withdrew her necklace that held their shard. "Yeah," she responded. "The guys managed to get it back from that fake James, along with the shard he gave you. I've been holding onto it, but if you want it back…"
Instead of replying, Rosalie said, as though the second part of Bella's answer hadn't been said, "Meaning that James will come after it again, yes?"
Bella shrugged, confused and off-put by the dogged way Rosalie refused to be moved off whatever train of thought she followed. "I suppose."
Finally, the Demon-Slayer met her eyes, and Bella almost wished she hadn't. There was something frightening in them, though they were of a pretty hazel colour she would have envied under normal circumstances. Despite the fire of hate and determination raging in their depths, they seemed… dead to her. Nothing but the fight could be seen on her face, like she had nothing but the fight left to live for.
"Very well, then," she declared firmly. "I will go with you."
Dismayed, Bella murmured, "You're still planning on avenging everyone?"
Rosalie turned away again, staring at the fallen walls of her fort, and the fleeting spark of emotion that had lit her gaze vanished once more.
"Of course," she said flatly. "Besides, the Sacred Jewel—"
"Was born in this town, wasn't it?" Bella finished knowingly. "Yeah, we'd heard that. In fact, that's why we came here in the first place. But… when we got here, well…"
She couldn't find the words to finish her sentence without sounding callous or rude, and so she left it at that. Laboriously, the injured Slayer rose to her feet and began to slowly stagger away.
Bella watched after her in concern, calling, "Er, Lady Rosalie?"
"Just 'Rosalie' is fine." The young woman stopped and stared, head bent as though defeated and weary, over the remains of her home. She turned and gave another emotionless glance back to Bella over her shoulder as she announced, "In thanks for laying my people to rest, I'll tell you the story—how the Sacred Jewel came to be."