Scroll 25

Miroku jumped out of the way as Dark Miroku's staff rocketed toward him. The clone's attack nipped Miroku's sleeve, tearing a huge chunk out of it, which floated away on the wind. But Miroku himself was unharmed.

"Such power…" he muttered, as he continued to dodge a few more attacks, "But it's still just a demon, so I SHOULD be able to exorcize it."

The monk found it slightly difficult to rummage through his robe while avoiding getting obliterated, but he managed. Very soon he was holding a handful of white papers with writing on them, and was ready to exorcize his counterpart.

The scrolls caught fire due to the immense amount of power that was being poured into them. He knew that he might only have one shot at this so he wanted to do it right, and put an excess of power into them.

And with that, he threw the scrolls surrounded by a light blue blaze at his evil clone.

They flew through the air; small tails of blue flame trailing behind them as they went. Within seconds of being thrown, they made contact with their target. But unfortunately, the result wasn't of the variety that Miroku was hoping for.

As soon as the burning papers touched the clone's aura even the slightest bit, the fire and power supplying the fire became corrupted. That resulted in the scrolls burning up and disintegrating; they were harmless against the being that was made from the monk's hate.

"Shit…my sacred sutras didn't work," Miroku cursed, as he put some distance between himself and his clone.

Of course, that didn't work for long. The clone followed him wherever he ran to, and let loose fierce attacks at every opportunity. Many, many times Miroku almost got sliced by the duplicate of his staff, but no serious harm came upon him.

He dodged attack after attack, and desperately looked for a way to defeat his enemy. He knew that if he didn't figure something out quickly he would die there in that battle, so he forced himself to think as hard as he could while not getting massacred.

After a while he saw that his 'run away' tactic wasn't working in the least, so he changed his battle strategy. During his thinking, he had only thought up one thing that may be able to defeat the powerful opponent before him, and knew he had to put that plan into action quick. He turned to face his clone, and unleashed his ultimate attack.

((Change in Focus))

Kirara looked at the fire that continued to blaze in front of her when a cat demon that looked exactly like her confidently walked out of the flames. It strode toward Kirara, a menacing look in its eyes.

"Mew!" Kirara told her clone, as she transformed into her bigger and more powerful form. She personally didn't want to fight her clone, but was willing to if the need be.

Of course, Kirara was going to have to fight if she wanted to keep on living.

Dark Kirara started the fight between the two cat demons, and swiped a paw at Kirara. In mid-air the clone's claws extended and came down on Kirara's shoulder, slicing it open.

"Meeewwwaaaaaa!" Kirara roared in pain, as she swung her head around in agony. She knew then that she was going to have to go on the offensive.

Out of the need of revenge, she lunged at her opponent, despite the fact that the searing pain in her shoulder was threatening to take over. With vigour she landed on the ground behind Dark Kirara and sunk her fangs into its back.

Dark Kirara didn't so much as flinch, and merely bucked Kirara off its back as if she were nothing more than a pesky little bug.

Kirara landed on her feet like most cats do, though it was a wobbly landing, and glared at her opponent. A few drips of Dark Kirara's blood dripped from her fangs, and her own blood was beginning to dry where her opponent had sliced her back open.

A growl escaped her throat, and she started to walk circles around her evil clone. Dark Kirara did the same, and they ended up in a ring-around-the-rosy type pattern.

Neither of them let up, and threw whatever attacks they could at each other. Soon they were both covered in bruises, scrapes, and all kinds of very deep wounds. But still Kirara didn't give up; she was fighting for her life, and refused to give up.

She knew that this fight was going to be one that ended in the death of one of the two of them, and as so would be a very fierce and brutal battle.

((Change of Focus))

"AHHH! No, leave me alone!" Shippo cried, as he scurried franticly in no particular direction, trying to find a safe place to hide. He decided on a safe looking hold in a nearby tree, and squeezed into the empty squirrel's home.

The darkness surrounded him and he let out a sigh of relief. He thought that there was no way his clone would find him in this ingenious hiding place and that he'd be safe for at least a little while. Oh, how wrong he was.

An evil type of laugh erupted in the tiny little cubby, and Shippo began to panic. He whimpered softly as a bead of sweat rolled down his cheek, and the evil laugh grew louder.

As Shippo tucked himself into the tiniest ball he could to cower from the enemy, his foe launched a sneak attack.

Two beady glowing red eyes began to creep up the wall of the squirrel home, and soon they were towering over Shippo. The clone was certain that its plan would prevail, and the thought of killing his opponent filled him with a joy that only killing could power. The clone grinned in a Cheshire cat type of way, and its pure white teeth contrasted greatly with the darkness of the hole.

"Ehehehehehehehe…" Dark Shippo chuckled. It leaned over Shippo and was ready to go in for the kill when its prey started freaking out. But even that worked to its advantage.

"AWAAAA! Don't kill me!" Shippo wailed, as he franticly got up and rushed out of the confined space that he'd stuffed himself into.

The fox demon knew that running away on foot would get him nowhere, so he took to the skies. "Transform!" he said loudly, and in a puff of smoke transformed into his bloated looking and pink floating self.

He rose above the trees, and found that a nasty surprise was waiting there for him. As soon as he reached open skies a thousand fists came at him at once.

The fists pummelled him and he tried to fend them off, but he was too weak and too slow. His energy soon depleted all together, and he couldn't keep himself floating in the air any more. He started descending, and gained speed along the way.

Dark Shippo's attack plan had been successful, and the clone had duplicated itself to get an advantage in numbers.

((Change in Focus))

In the meantime, Sango was in a battle of her own. Dark Sango was ruthless in its attacks, and wasn't letting up in the least.

Sango knew that she had to get an advantage, so she retreated for only a moment. Once she was in a temporary safe place, she changed into her battle uniform. As soon as she had some armour to protect her and useful hidden weapons, she re-entered the fight.

Dark Sango was waiting for her to show herself and fight it, but now Sango was ready. She reached under her shoulder plate and pulled a handful of little grey balls from within. They flew through the air, and hit the ground with a small popping sound.

Poisonous gas surrounded herself and her clone when the balls burst open on contact with the ground. The air became thick, and almost nothing was visible inside the dark cloud of death.

She had her mask on and her clone had nothing to protect itself from the gas with, so she thought she had the upper hand in this battle. She couldn't've been more wrong.

She made a fatal mistake right then and began to relax when she didn't hear anything from Dark Sango. Then, all of a sudden, a boomerang made of bone made its way through the poison gas, almost hitting Sango. She saw it coming at the last minute, though, and whipped out her sword to defend herself with.

She held her sword out in front of her, with one hand near the middle to help sturdy it. A small series of cracks and snaps could be heard as the thin metal restrained the powerful attack. Her sword was just about to crack in half and let the boomerang maul her, when the bone fell to the ground.

Now knowing that she wasn't safe, she kept herself on high alert. Despite her awareness and best efforts to stay safe, however, Dark Sango managed to sneak up on her.

Without any warning at all, Sango's mask was ripped from her face. For a few seconds she was in shock and wasn't sure what had happened, but then the troubling realization hit her.

"Oh, shit!" she coughed, as she covered her mouth with her hands. She knew it wasn't going to do much, but at least it would make her inhale less poison at a time. For it was a very potent poison and every time she inhaled, the poison spread through her body.

((Change in Focus))

Seeing that Kagome had nobody to fight, Entei decided to keep her busy, in a very dangerous way. He neighed, and charged at her at full speed.

"AHCK!" the teenage girl choked, as she lunged out of the path of the demon horse. Entei missed her by a sliver or two, but was quick on the rebound. The air swirled as he stopped abruptly and turned to face her.

Kagome realized the sad truth that she was trapped in another life-threatening game of cat and mouse. Knowing that Entei would be quick to attack her again, she took up her roll of mouse in this dangerous game while sighing, "Not again…"

She was in the middle of running away when she remembered that she was still holding the Shikon Jewel; in all the commotion, she had forgotten that one of the only things that could save her skin was in her possession.

Thinking that she still had a chance to turn the tables, she made a plan up on the spot. She was about to put her new plan into action when something very unfortunate happened to her. Or rather, it happened to the Jewel of Four Souls.

A siamyosho flew from the sky toward her, and when it got close enough to her it snatched the Jewel right out of her hands. Just as fast as the demon wasp had appeared and acted, it disappeared to rejoin its master, the purple jewel held tightly by its stick-like legs.

"Oh…crap," Kagome muttered. At that point, she knew that she was totally and completely screwed unless she happened to cross paths with a miracle.

Entei expelled a fireball from his mouth, and Kagome knew that it was her impending doom. She accepted her fate, though she wasn't particularly fond of it, and closed her eyes to wait for her death.

The intense burning heat of the large fireball didn't kill her, nor did it touch her for that matter. Instead she felt a harsh jerk, and the wind blowing through her hair. She could feel a pair of hand holding her tight against a muscular body, and looked up to see a familiar face.

"Heh. Ya don't think I was going to let that Mangy Mutt let you get killed now, do you?" her saviour said confidently, as a wolfish grin crept across his face. He knew that he'd done well, and had saved his love.

"K-Koga…Koga!" Kagome exclaimed. She was overjoyed; not only had the wolf demon saved her from death, but now they also had another skilled ally to join them in the battle against good and evil.

((End of Chapter 25))

I am SO sorry for the lack of updating!

My job seems to be taking up more time than I had originally thought, and I have barely any time for writing and drawing...trying my hardest to get it all done, though!!

I really hope to get the next chapter up on scedual...I won't be on the computer at all for most of this week, because I can tell that I'm going to get grounded for (so far) having only 67 in my math class...that means lots of time to write, and draw, and all that jazz...

So I hope you all enjoy this filler chapter, and remember: I really LOVE comments that say how good or bad the fanfiction is, and how I can improve!!

And I now know how many chapters there will be! No more and no less than 30 chapters (including prologue and epilogue) will be written, and posted for you all to see!!

So, until next time, stay...uhmm...happy? Lol, stay tuned for chapter 26, coming soon to a post near you:)