Chapter 28-Dark Side of the Moon
Now now, Rumiko Takahashi and her designees own Inuyasha, not me.
"I know people are here. Would someone give me a hand?!" Inuyasha yelled, squinting as he yanked...and a glowing bow cleaved through the remaining vines. Kagome...? Or-Kikyou? No...couldn't smell...couldn't see. His glasses were in his bag in the car...
The blurry figure in white and red removed something from her sleeve and opened a box, taking something out and setting it on his nose with a strange expression. The aching hanyou helped her settle them with his free hand. She'd brought them with her, when she'd realized the eclipse was coming. Kagome knew he'd need them, after all. His spare glasses.
Taking her hands away, she bit her lip as he pushed them up with a hand that lacked claws. Black hair, dark eyes that blinked at her behind thick lenses, no fangs. Human ears...she'd touched them when she put the glasses on him, because part of her hadn't truly believed it.
Atsuo was staring into her eyes again. Bleeding, unsteady, but Atsuo. Her Atsuo, staring at her with a stunned expression.
"I brought your glasses," Kagome managed with a shy smile. He just nodded dumbly. Kagome had come to save him? Kagome?? A mere few days ago, she'd sealed him...and now she saved him. Again.
"Kagome..." Inuyasha began, and glanced around as he took her arms in his hands and stepped forward, away from the vine remnants.
He blinked, focused, and Inuyasha saw her. Shiori!
CRAP!
"Uh..." he looked away and blushed, eyes wide.
"Uh..." Shiori was beet red, and trying to find somewhere else to look. Anywhere else.
Hanyou didn't like to discuss the time of weakness-and they sure as hell didn't want anyone to see it! It was worse than nudity, worse than walking in while he made love to his mortal! The two hanyou were doing their best to pretend that this had not happened. Was not happening! Even if Shiori wanted to peek, the sheer oddity of it, of seeing someone else look human who, well, wasn't most of the time...drew her attention. Resolutely, she stared at the stone wall, standing almost at attention, gripping her spear tightly as she tried to pretend she hadn't seen the great and powerful Lord Inuyasha-weak. Human. Caught in vines and vulnerable.
She owed him what dignity he could salvage at the moment. He'd been a good friend to her for so long after all, kind, encouraging, completely impatient with her protests that she was just a hanyou when she was small. Like a foul mouthed big brother, watching out for her.
'Dang, he does look just like his Mom in that painting, though...' Shiori thought.
Others were not so circumspect.
"My my. You look...different then usual, Inuyasha," a thin, familiar voice said as Kagome dropped her bow to support him, pulling him free of the rest of the vines when the hanyou staggered in horror, letting him sling an arm over her shoulder and help him to sit, braced against the wall to one side. Crap. Crap crap crap! Miroku! Miroku too! He'd spotted him before, but-damn it! This was worse then when she'd told him about Tetsusaiga! Kagome had known about the Eclipse, yet had dragged people in on this!! But...Miroku looked very different. Very, very different. Small, as he had been. The monk walked forward, frankly peering up, staff in hand.
A very tiny Miroku. A Mini-Miroku, as it were. Like some horrible tiny pervert action figure with a built in ass grip...Inuyasha realized his wits were wandering a bit from blood loss, embarrassment, and shock, probably.
"Quit staring, Bonzu-crap!" he clutched his side, and swore again.
"Are you alright?" Kagome asked, and he forced himself to nod.
"Keh. Let's get this damned tree taken care of. Tetsusaiga? The hag?" he asked sharply, glaring around.
"Inuyasha, stay here! You're in no shape to do anything at the moment," Miroku meant his injuries, but the hanyou didn't take it that way.
"What? Fuck that! Like I can't deal with it! Time's wasting," Inuyasha bitched, and pushed himself upright, pushing Kagome's hand away.
"He's right, Inuyasha. You're-hurt," Shiori managed, still turned away. She couldn't bring herself to ask how long this would last. She didn't have the nerve.
"We have to wait till you're strong again, Inuyasha! They're right, please, sit. Tetsusaiga's out there still, anyways," Kagome reached for her bow, one eye on the shredded vine like roots.
"Shit. Let's go."
"Er-we have a problem. I brought custom ofuda for the tree to reseal it-" Miroku reached into a sleeve, and held out something Inuyasha couldn't make out even with his glasses on.
"They shrunk too." Kagome commented with a sigh.
"I'm afraid so."
"And that Priestess is a mortal, meaning she's probably immune to Kagome's powers," Shiori commented with a grim nod-still facing towards the wall. She was no real warrior, she could defend herself, but was no Inuyasha. Who winced.
"Some rescue. A miniature monk, a green Priestess, and Shiori. Look over here, and give me a hand up the fucking stairs, batgirl. It's still me, alright? You do the same fucking thing!" he said flatly, eyes averted, and Shiori turned with a wince of her own.
"Sure..." she answered carefully.
"I'll take care of the damned thing. We wait, and whatever she's cooking up out there is going to kill us all," he barked. They all paused. He was right. They only had to outwait the full eclipse, not so long, Kagome reminded herself. Even so-she couldn't think of him as Inuyasha right now. This was the nice guy who'd taken her to dinner and home again. Her...husband. Hearing it was one thing, seeing it, and seeing him hurt, quite another.
"Stubborn," the bat hanyou noted, and did as he asked as Kagome felt a tug on her hakama cuff.
"Could I trouble you for a lift?" Miroku asked, and Kagome carefully scooped him up in her hand. She peered at him, and shook her head, a grin lurking. At his inquiring look, she flushed.
"Hoshi sensei, it's just-you're so-cute at that size!" Kagome admitted, and the monk chuckled.
"Well, I still have the Kazaana, at least," he lifted his right hand. He just wasn't sure what good it would do at the moment.
They made their way carefully upstairs to collect Tetsusaiga...and do some extreme gardening.
"Nemenka, lend me your strength!" Urusue held her hands out, trying to pull power from the tree-who wasn't being cooperative.
Fruit trees are temperamental, sentient or no.
'You wish power, and I have granted it! I am injured...you will kill the interlopers!' he ordered, his slow, deep voice rippling through her mind and rich with contempt. Nemenka could not speak as such, only project his thoughts. Urusue, though, she had eaten his fruit. She was the servant here, and they both knew it. Nemenka's feeder roots had been damaged, and his boughs drooped from the searing touch of Spiritual power. A true Priestess! One with such power...if he fed upon her or the hanyou below...
'Bring me the one who harmed me! Bring me the hanyou!' he roared in her mind and Urusue felt her limbs try to obey. She struggled against the compulsion of the tree.
"Not now! We must kill them first, foolish tree-Aie!" she yelled. Her limbs twisted painfully as Nemenka asserted himself, his fruit in her blood made him part of her, a mobile servant.
'Lure them close to me...and I shall feast!' he ordered. She trembled and nodded, the tree letting her have control of her body for the moment. Bitterly, she glared at the massive tree, then hurried to do what she'd been ordered to. The witch noting as she did that the moon soon would begin to reappear.
"Got it," Inuyasha picked up the battered sword from the pile of discarded weapons, and set it again at his hip. He needed it, useless or not...or would soon. His chain. Worse than the beads, really. A leash for the monster inside of him, that was all it was good for. What he wouldn't give for it's old powers for once, damn it. But not for him. Even that names of the abilities everyone swore it had...the ones that he'd seen as a kid in the old man's hands, before it had been given to him when he was only twenty-awe inspiring.
Kaze no Kizu. Bakuyuhuura. The Windscar and the Backlash Wave.
"Surely it can be-well-useful?" Kagome asked urgently, keeping watch at the door of the garden room.
"Not likely. The fucking thing hasn't transformed in two centuries," he drew it to show her. A beat up, poor looking sword. It didn't even look sharp, and Kagome sighed to herself when she looked over her shoulder. Shiori looked up, but it was too late when her ears caught it, even as Miroku yelled warning-
"Kagome!" She turned slightly, eyes wide-and it saved her life.
There was a soft, heavy thud.
The Priestess looked stupidly at the arrow sticking out of her upper arm.
"Come out, little hanyou!" Urusue yelled. Kagome dropped her bow with a clatter and crumpled, clutching her arm...as Shiori leapt to drag her to safety...as Inuyasha, seeing his mate hit the ground-dove up the stairs. He pelted after her, shoving Shiori aside and nearly stepping on Miroku as he ran out. He kept low as a second arrow winged past him, close enough to kiss his human ear and thud into the wall.
With a scream, he was after her. Urusue had already run, though...to the tree. Inuyasha really didn't care. Tetsusaiga in hand, he ran after her, his face a mask of rage. All he could see was Kagome falling, the blood...no!
"DIE, YOU BITCH!" he screamed, heedless, uncaring, he dove at her-she was right under the fucking tree. Urusue drew back her own bow again, a dark Priestess, she charged it as she drew...saw the temporary mortal running at her, and knew. Oh, yes, she knew. Poorer food for Nemenka then planned, but food nonetheless.
Roots tore themselves free and snapped around him in midair.
"Uhnh!" he was slammed into the ground, his glasses flying off to bounce on the tumbled turf as he clutched the sword reflexively.
"Feast! His powers are gone, but feast!" Urusue yelled. Shiori came charging after him, eyes hard and grim under her helm. Urusue fired, and the hanyou threw herself down, sliding across the dirt to avoid the arrow. Two more thudded into the dirt as she rolled desperately. Kagome, bleeding, was stumbling behind her, trying to get her fingers to work properly as she ran to help.
Miroku was nowhere to be seen as she clutched her arm, and saw that the arrows Urusue fired were black to her Spiritual sight, not the glowing white of her own. She was getting dizzy, but saw Inuyasha covered with vines, her friends in danger-and charged. If she could close with her, send her own powers into her, maybe...
"Inuyasha!" she screamed.
Hearing her voice, he wriggled desperately, thorns working their way in. The hanyou had sworn to protect her, would protect her-as above, the moon moved through it's cycle. Silvery light began to reappear as the Eclipse faded, as it always did. He was so very tired though, far more then he expected...the tree was draining him of strength!
'You regain your powers too late,' that was a deep, terrible voice in his head. Nemenka, he knew it...as he pulsed repeatedly. His blood was rising again! He could feel it.
"KAGOME! Get away!" he yelled, gasping as his lungs were constricted, driving the breath from him.
"No! I'm not leaving!" she yelled back as Urusue drew her own bow again and smiled. The young Priestess' eyes widened. At this range she couldn't miss.
"You're going to let me protect you, damn it!!" Inuyasha's yell was muffled...but the moon was no longer fully eclipsed. But-what the hell?
Tetsusaiga pulsed. He felt it in his hand. Like a heartbeat, it pulsed again in his vine covered hand, as the roots yanked him into the ground...as Kagome saw the arrow pointing at her, dark with power, there was a sort of tie between Urusue and the tree, a tree with a black, dark aura. Nemenka! That was truly Nemenka, she saw it.
The dark Priestess, even as she drew back her bow, even as Shiori tried to interpose herself between them-suddenly screamed as the ground shook. There was a tiny, highly localized earthquake-a shower of wood and dirt...a demented laugh emerged from the base of the tree...as something sliced through it!
"Hah! Die!" Inuyasha? Inuyasha with-a mother big sword?? He swung it again, glee written all over him as he struck the heart of the tree. And it shook, as blood-like sap dripped from the glittering blade, flicking off in the returning moonlight, silver-haired again, and looking completely insane.
There was a strange scream that they didn't hear so much as feel...
The leaping, filthy, massively pleased with himself hanyou completed his maneuver, landing on one knee with Tetsusaiga alive in his hand. The ridiculous grin on his face as Nemenka toppled-and Urusue with it, fatally tied to the tree...
The grin faded when Kagome's top ripped open and she was yanked forward. Because a now full sized Miroku-fell out of it from where he'd been riding. He'd been tucked into her cleavage while she was running to save the hanyou.
Several groaning, bewildered, no longer tiny people were scattered around the hillside, but Inuyasha wasn't paying attention. Eyes narrowed at the monk, who looked-dazed, with a silly grin on his face as he lay there. They'd been huge. Just-huge.
"Wow," he said.
"Bonzu...what the fuck were you doing in my Kagome's damned shirt??" Inuyasha asked in a low, coldly furious voice. Tetsusiaga was lifted in threat-and transformed back into it's piece of crap form??
"Ow," Kagome lay on top of him, and looked up, gulping, "um...osuwari!"
Thud
Author's notes- Ah. Quick paced, but hopefully not too quick! Hope you enjoyed! Thanks for Reading!-Namiyo
