A/N: where we last left off, we finished the Band of Seven/ Mt. Hakurei arc with some well-awaited fluff-borderline-smut on the part of everyone's favorite pair of lovebirds. things heat up next chap so this is like a prologue of sorts. other than that, enjoy!

**also, forgot to add this to the vocab list i put a few chaps back:

"tanuki" - raccoon dog

disclaimer: i don't own InuYasha; my OCs belong to me.


Chapter 29: Lightning - Up in the Air

The girl tilted her head to one side.

"Kori-onee?"

She opened one eye at her small voice, flicking a piece of grass between her teeth. "What's up?"

"Are Getsu-onee and Lord Sesshomaru fighting?" Her brown eyes were concerned as well as curious.

Her blue eyes lifted up to the aerial combat practice going on overhead, her sister's lithe form bobbing and weaving around the swipes her mate made with his Tensaiga, her own Mangetsuga blocking some of the strikes he made with ease.

"Nah, they're just practicing. It's nothin' serious so neither one of them will hurt each other on purpose. Does that answer your question?"

The girl nodded, her own eyes watching the match with a deeper sense of curiosity in her young face. "Can you fly too, Kori-onee?"

Her ears twitched and she spat out the blade of grass. "No; I haven't learned how to control my own demonic power enough to know how to fly. Getsu-onee can fly, but that's because she's a daiyokai." She explained, pouting at the reminder of this factoid.

Rin blinked. "A 'daiyokai'..? So Getsu-onee must be really strong to be able to fly and practice with Lord Sesshomaru like that!"

Korihime nodded sagely before she smiled thoughtfully at the girl's words. "She is the firstborn." She mused.

"What does that have to do with it?" She asked innocently, tilting her head to one side.

She flopped back into the grass, folding her arms behind her head leisurely. "Well, Getsu-onee being the firstborn gives her access to powers that our father had, such as using her wolf fire and being able to wield our grandfather's sword, Mangetsuga, which was forged from his own fang." She explained calmly.

Rin nodded again, looking up as the two blades clashed and then disengaged before swinging at each other once more. "Kori-onee, so are you just as strong?" She asked.

Boy this kid has a lot of questions today, she mused with a gentle smirk, glancing over at the child as she sat next to her left. "Almost; I'm not as strong as Getsu or Sesshomaru but I'm stronger than most female wolf demons considering both our parents were strong wolf demons." Korihime replied.

"We're still a family, aren't we, Kori-onee?" She guessed quietly, perking her ears.

Her eyes softened and she nodded; she reached to tickle her, making the girl giggle. "Silly, of course we are! And we're gonna stay that way forever!" She promised, grinning lightly at her laughing face.

She looked up at the she-wolf that was her babysitter and her older sister in many ways, smiling a wide innocent smile that only brightened her young face further. "I'm glad!" She giggled, trying to tickle back before she was assailed with gentle jabs to her sides that made her laugh protests in response.

We're gonna be a family no matter what; you can count on that, pup.

:::::::xXx::::::::

She blinked at the sudden change in breeze.

His ears twitched as he saw her sniff the air. "What is it?"

"Something's coming…" The rest of her comment was drowned by a yelp of surprise as she saw a beheaded demon body crawling up the side of the small hill they stood on; she clung to his stole before noticing that he simply stood there as if there wasn't a decapitated demon trying to get at them.

He did his best to not laugh at her comical reaction, feeling her tug on his sleeve as she poked her head beyond his shoulder.

Is it trying to get at him because of Tensaiga? She wondered.

"Sesshomaru!" A voice declared, making both daiyokai look to see the hanyou and his pack drawing closer to where they were.
Were they tracking the headless demon?

"Pa!" A small voice squealed from the half-breed's back before a pup that looked to either be a tanuki or an otter scurrying to the decapitated body carrying a large load on its back. "Hang on, Pa!"

"Kanda the head!" The familiar small voice of the kitsune chirped desperately as he followed the pup's leave and helped him unwrap the large load from the cloth he'd carried it in, moving the severed otter demon's head to place it on the shoulders of the body.

The head simply rolled away softly onto the grass.

"PA!" The pup Kanda wailed into the night.

He took her hand and began walking away from the sight; she glanced over her shoulder at the distraught pup and kitsune, looking away with a soft frown of pity.

"Oi, Sesshomaru," the hanyou started, making his older sibling pause. "What're you doing here? This's no coincidence, crossing paths with you…" He trailed off in something she could only assume was confusion.

He looked over his shoulder at the hanyou he loathed to consider his kin. "I don't owe an explanation to someone like you." He stated curtly.

"Hang on, Sesshomaru!" His brow briefly twitched in annoyance at being stopped once again. "The sword you carry, the Tensaiga, it can save one hundred souls in one strike; please help us. Use your sword to bring the boy's father back." The priestess pleaded, trying to be polite with the otherwise-stoic daiyokai.

He snorted under his breath, "why should I? This has nothing to do with me." He rebutted coolly.

Her silver eyes looked from the priestess to the mourning otter pup and recalling her own mourning period for her late father; she tugged on his sleeve, feeling his eyes on her. "Sesshomaru."

The kitsune scurried to plant his small body firmly between the Inu-Daiyokai and his path of escape, trembling slightly out of both fear and respect for the older male. "Sesshomaru, please find it in your heart to help my friend." He pleaded.

"Poor Shippo," the hanyou muttered.

"If his Pop passes on, then Kanda will be left all alone!" He insisted.

Her father's smiling face appeared in her mind; Papa, she thought.

"Step aside." He ordered quietly, mentally giving credit to the kitsune for being so bold as to plead with a powerful daiyokai such as him.

"Please, I'm begging you; please help my friend!" The kitsune begged vehemently, bowing low to the ground before the older and much more powerful daiyokai.

She finally exhaled. "Sesshomaru, come on, it's not as if his father was a threat to us, is it? For the moon's sake, do something." She tried to reason with him, meeting his slightly surprised gold stare with patient and slightly-pleading silver orbs.

Her compassion for this kit has yet to not amaze me, he thought, the surprise fading instantly when the priestess placed a hand on the aforementioned child's shoulder out of sympathy.

"You're wasting your time trying to reason with him, Shippo; Sesshomaru isn't the type to help people when they're in trouble. Besides, there's the issue of the sword itself: the Tensaiga isn't a sword someone like him knows how to use." InuYasha warned calmly.

Getsu made to open her mouth and spout a retort but decided against it and kept her mouth shut, her mind reverting to the day he'd brought Rin back from the dead.

"True enough, only someone with a caring heart can wield that sword," Miroku chimed grimly with his friend.

"Exactly." Sesshomaru agreed dismissively, starting to leave before both he and his mate sensed Tensaiga pulse at his hip; he stopped and looked at the heirloom fang, drawing it from the scabbard to see that the blade glowed blue.

Tensaiga… is it telling him to revive the otter demon? She wondered with a slight frown.

"Back away." He told the otter pup, watching his mate usher him away from the corpse, the fang pulsing again; he swung the fang with ease at the sight of a trio of underworld imps that surrounded the dead demon, breaking their hold.

Both kitsune and pup watched in awe at his actions, perking up as the demon's eyes slowly opened.

"Papa!" Kanda cried as he hurried to throw his arms around the now-alive otter demon. "Papa!"

Her own childhood memories of being with her father flashed in her mind again; she smiled softly at the sight, her ears twitching when his index knuckle softly brushed away a lone tear that fell from her eye.

He saw her sniff and smile again, wiping her nose gingerly with her sleeve, before she took his hand and squeezed in silent thanks.

The older of the two otters sat up after embracing his pup, reaching to pull the various arrows and spears from his back. "I surely didn't expect to come back to life!" He said in what sounded like relief.

"Could you describe where you went after you were beheaded?" The monk asked politely.

He looked thoughtful, "it was a strange place, I'll tell you that. A world shrouded in strange white mist! I was floating through the place, just my head, and I noticed many other demon heads were there as well; they all had pained expressions on their faces." He explained.

"They must've been the demons beheaded by Hakudoshi." The hanyou deduced with a grim tone.

"'Hakudoshi'; he smells like bad news." The female daiyokai commented, the soft frown returning.

The group of humans plus hanyou and kitsune nodded simultaneously. "He's another incarnation of Naraku." The demon slayer informed, seeing her ears twitch.

As I figured, her male counterpart mused as his mate's aura spiked briefly at the mention of that horrid half-breed.

"And when I went under the mist, I saw something extraordinary: giant bones! And by that, I mean that there was a colossal skeleton, still clad in magnificent armor."
The priestess, hanyou, and pair of daiyokai perked their ears at the mention of the skeleton adorned in armor.
"There were a lot of other skeletons, too, so I realized that I must've been in the afterlife."

Sesshomaru walked away into the darkness; she looked at the group and smiled lightly before trotting after him until she sidled up to his right side dutifully.

"I would imagine you remember what Jaken told you about the day I went to retrieve Tetsusaiga from my father's grave."

"Every word. So apparently there's a shard of the Shikon Jewel in the Borderland."

"How do you figure?"

"Why else would Naraku disturb the grave of a powerful demon like your honorable father that could easily crush him like a pitiful cockroach with his fist alone?"

"… Point."


"So, given all that you've told me about why we're going to the Borderland, I would imagine there's a plan?" The younger she-wolf wondered as she led the dragon by the reins, walking alongside her sister.

She glanced at her companion in the lead and then nodded. "Eradicate the vermin, right love?" She replied, seeing him glance at her.

He nodded. "By any means necessary." In order to cleanse my father's grave of that slimy prick, he thought with a growl from his inner demon.

Neither of the two sisters were okay with going to the border between the world of the living and the dead, but this was for Sesshomaru, and he was their pack leader; wolf logic stated that they were to follow his orders or risk the consequences… Simple as that.

"How long must this journey last…?" The imp whined as he had fallen back to walking behind his ever-powerful master.

Both sisters sported a vein that twitched on their left temple.

"Honestly," the older of the two muttered before she stooped to pick up the imp by the scruff.

"U-Unhand me, insolent wolf demon! Put me down, I say!" He flailed and squawked annoyedly before he was placed on the back of the two-headed dragon next to the girl, surprising both of them.

"That should stop your whining; and if ya keep whining I'm gonna beat you into the netherworld with the Staff of Two Heads." She sent an icy glare at the protesting imp, a trick she'd learned from her mate, as a dark aura overcame her usually-calm face.

Jaken instantly shut up at the familiar glare and cut his gaze to the side with a huff.

Rin saw the comical expression that adorned her babysitter's face and giggled.

Getsu folded her arms in the sleeves of her kimono as she wordlessly moved to walk next to the Inu-Daiyokai.

"Seeing what you just did to shut him up, I might have reason to be concerned now." Sesshomaru mused in mock-thoughtfulness.

She huffed and bumped his hip with her own, sniffing. "Be afraid, highly afraid, of what I'm gonna do to you later." She purred, smirking up at him and winking teasingly.

He shook his head softly and chuckled under his breath, returning the smirk. "Don't even think of doubting my… skill, in that department." He growled, seeing her giggle.

"Lord Sesshomaru, look!" The imp exclaimed from the dragon, making the rest of the group look up at what he'd seen.

A giant white bird's corpse lay on its side atop a flat hill, dried blood leaking down the left side of the hill.

"It's a giant bird!" The girl chimed in awe.

Her sister sniffed the air and she grimaced. "Whoever this bird was, it wasn't slain that long ago; I can still smell the blood from the decapitation." She noted grimly, watching the imp hop off the dragon's back to go examine the corpse.

She's got a point, though one could only guess who cut off that bird's head, he mused, his ears twitching as the sound of some rocks dropping behind them jerked him from his thoughts.

"It seems you were late in getting here, Sesshomaru." The cool drawl of the Wind Sorceress Kagura declared from atop a higher ledge, fan in hand when they turned to see her. "This entryway has already opened and closed again." She added.

"Kagura!" Both imp and she-wolf barked; the girl scrambled to hold herself closer to the dragon's necks as the she-wolf loaded an arrow into her bow and aimed at the incarnation.

Well look what the cat dragged in, she mused grimly as she lowered a hand to the hilt of her katana. "Not going to try another piss-poor bribery are you?" She growled.

She huffed, "not even close, pedigree…" Her sneered insult came to a halt when the male daiyokai leaped onto her ledge to stand a few yards away from her.

"'The entryway' to where, exactly?" He demanded stonily, his gold eyes mirroring the coldness that showed in his mate's silver-eyed glare.

"The path that leads to the border between this world and the next; Naraku and InuYasha have already passed through." She explained in the same tone.

"Judging by how you're talking, it sounds like you know something else; start talking." The blue-haired female mused stiffly.

"That's because I do know something else: about another path, actually. But it's dangerous. Even you three orphaned mongrels might not be able to pass through alive." She tapped her cheek with the side of her fan.

The sound of air hitting her claws hummed as the incarnation took a few steps back from the quiet female daiyokai that had tried to slash at her with her claws.

Silver clashed with red.

"Since when did you care about the well-being of 'three orphaned mongrels'? Tell us where the path is and I won't rip your throat out with just my claws." She threatened frigidly, cracking her knuckles.

He stared between both females, already feeling his mate's aura spike with her rising irritation towards the 'messenger' she had just threatened to slay.


A/N: AHMGCLIFFHANGER... nah but srsly.. prologue to the semi-final showdown between Naraku and both Sesshomaru/ InuYasha's group. who will win and come back alive? who will go home crying? until next chap!

**title ref - "Up in the Air" by 30 Seconds to Mars