CHAPTER 27

Not long after, he was awoken by the sound of rocks hitting the side of the hut.

The village men were shouting. "Come out here, you murderer!" "Half-demon scum!"

The old lady picked up a gardening hoe. "It's all right, Jinenji," she said to her son, who was trembling. "You just stay here." She stood up, with an air of rage and determination, and headed outside the hut.

Certainly Souta did not want to deal with the angry mob, but he didn't feel right at all about letting an old lady go out by herself. Especially because the men just threw more rocks when she went outside. One hit her just above her eyebrow, but as a credit to her strength, she didn't utter even a small cry on the impact.

But this was just unacceptable. "Stop it!" Souta shouted, running to block the old lady from the barrage of rocks.

"Move aside, lad!" one of the men called out. "We have no bone to pick with you!"

"Why do you defend those monsters?!" another growled.

"Jinenji's not a monster! He never killed anyone, I know it!" Souta clenched his fists. "If you ever bothered getting to know him, you'd know he's too kind and gentle to even dream about killing anyone! Even if they were violent, angry prigs who would attack a harmless old lady!" Souta's voice rose with every word, reaching a volume that actually surprised him.

Still, the men were not convinced. "The boy's been brainwashed! He's just as bad as the rest of them!" the men yelled. A few threw lit torches at the hut, setting fire to the roof.

Souta's anger finally gave way to fear – these men were really serious about killing Jinenji and his mother. The flames spread quickly.

Jinenji's mother still brimmed with fury, however, and began to shout an admonishment to the crowd. She didn't even get a full word out before a severed head fell to the ground between her and the village men.

Souta stared at the head, uncomprehending, forgetting the flames burning behind him, as he tried to understand the severed head, where it had come from, and why the village men had thrown it at him.

However, the men were all quite confused. This had not been part of the plan – why would it have been? And they too could not figure out where the head had suddenly come from. The confusion only grew as a body, presumably matching the head, landed on the ground behind the group of men.

The explanation came swiftly, as a large… THING rose out of the woods. It could only be truly described as a monster. It was almost a huge centipede, but the head was a woman's. Not like Mistress Centipede, from so long ago, who was almost like a centaur but with a bug's body rather than a horse's. This was really more like a snake, with legs on its face, its weird woman's head-face. It also had quite the head of hair. Souta almost laughed from the absurd appearance of the thing.

He sobered up as he remembered the headless body, which was hard to forget as huge grubs, about the size of a nine year old child, slithered out of the darkness to devour the body.

The old lady seemed to be feeling the same way as Souta – confused, partly disgusted, almost as if dreaming, but with the slightest air of victory. "You see," she said, dazed, "it was those things that were devouring them girls."

The realization of the truth didn't have much time to sink in before the huge monster darted her tongue out, stabbing one of the men, and killing him instantly. She spoke, surprisingly, "Now, my sweeties, it is YOUR turn to hunt!"

The grubs, having finished their meal of the decapitated body, went after the new kill. Worse still, several of them went after the still-living men.

As awful as the men had been, Souta couldn't just stand there and watch them get devoured by the grub-monsters. Even if he wanted to, the odds were that the grubs would go after him, and Jinenji, and the old lady, and he really couldn't let THAT happen. He ran inside for his bow and quiver full of arrows, which he definitely had with him this whole time. He told Jinenji, who was still cowering inside the burning hut for some reason, "Just go and protect your mom, okay?!"

Souta ran outside, drawing the bow. He was a bit out of practice, and not used to going after such large creatures – and entirely on his own, too. So he was disappointed, but not exactly surprised when his arrow only hit the side of the giant woman-faced insect monster. But she wobbled and fell to the ground with a huge slam, so Souta got his hopes up – had it actually worked?

No, of course not. The monster lifted her tail/rear end and slammed it into Souta, knocking him over. The monster then lifted her head back to her full height, laughing menacingly. Souta had been knocked out by this fall, so did not hear the monster threaten to devour his bowels, and did not see that his arrow had at least taken a good chunk out of her side, even if it had only temporarily waylaid her. He also did not see the monster's tongue dart out of its mouth-hole, heading towards him to pierce his body just like it had done to the villager.

Jinenji however was conscious, and did see the tongue. With reflexes and a speed that were quite unexpected given his size and shape, Jinenji ran over to the she-monster and punched his huge arm through her mouth. "Y-you will not…" Jinenji drove his arm further into her mouth.

Souta roused, hoping, as he often did, that he had just been having a terrible dream. No such luck, of course. But he was surprised to see Jinenji above him, struggling to force his arm even further into the woman-faced monster's mouth. "Jinenji?!"

Jinenji's voice trembled as he struggled with the monster. "R-run…! Please! You're the only one… who ever treated me kindly, as a person… If you died, I couldn't live with myself!"

Souta heaved himself up. He was conflicted – he didn't want to leave, not with Jinenji and all the village men struggling against the creatures. But getting himself out of danger, especially at Jinenji's request, was tempting. But, no, he couldn't leave everyone there, to be devoured by horrible grub monsters.

Speaking of which, several of the grubs had ganged up on one of the men, knocking him down. The other men were at a loss – none of their weapons could harm the creatures, and they weren't physically strong enough to do any damage to them. The grubs began to drag the man off, chewing on his clothes, while the other men looked on uselessly.

"Iron reaver, soul stealer!" The grubs were torn into chunks, and Isha, more frustrated than normal, scolded the men. "What are you all doing here?!"

Souta was washed over with a feeling of relief he couldn't possibly measure, to find Isha had the instincts to return to the village. He directed his attention to Jinenji, and just barely noticed Isha following his gaze.

Jinenji's arm was shoved so far into the woman-bug's mouth that most of his forearm was sticking out the back of her head. Somehow, she was still able to growl, "I'll tear your arm off!"

"Isha!" Souta shouted. "Help Jinenji!" This command was unnecessary, though, as Isha was readying herself to attack the creature before Souta opened his mouth.

This command was also unnecessary as Jinenji's mother, quite unexpectedly, gave another command. "Don't you dare help him!"

"What? Why?" Jinenji's mother had never seemed especially soft, but this disregard for her son seemed just too callous to Souta.

Isha took a moment to take in the scene, then gave a slight nod, as if she understood Jinenji's mother's insistence. She turned her attention instead to the village men who were quietly crawling away from the scene. "Hey! You will STAY and watch this whole thing to the end!" she shouted at the men.

"Hey!" Souta was tromping over to Isha. "Why won't you help Jinenji?! He'll be killed!" Souta tried to take the tactic of posturing himself to intimidate Isha into helping Jinenji. This did not work, the least of which reason was that Isha was approximately the same height and width as Souta.

"He's fine," Isha said, giving Souta the side-eye.

"Jinenji… has always been such a kind-hearted boy," Jinenji's mother spoke up, tearing her eyes away from her son, who was still struggling with the creature. "No matter how badly you were treated by the villagers, you endured it all, with never a harsh word to say about them. But now," she looked up, with fire in her eyes, "now you can show them all your TRUE strength!"

As if on cue, Jinenji gave a great heave, punching through the bug-woman's neck, tearing her head off in the process.

The villagers and Souta all looked on in complete awe.

"Well," Isha crossed her arms nonchalantly, "maybe now those villagers will lay off a bit."

Jinenji turned towards Isha and the villagers. It was difficult to read his face, the way he was just staring at them. A bit like trying to figure out what a horse is thinking when it's just chewing oats.

Jinenji approached the villagers, still with his unreadable expression, and the men immediately began groveling. "P-please don't kill us! We're sorry we mistrusted you, and harassed you!"

"Well, I can't say I blame them for being scared of Jinenji now," Souta gave a small shrug.

Isha nodded and said with a smirk, "Of course, it's not like they'd suddenly all be friends. Now they know who's really the stronger one."

Isha was exuding an air of righteous triumph, which puzzled Souta, since Isha basically hadn't done anything.

Jinenji held out his hand. "Um… All of you who are injured, please… take these herbs, and make a poultice for your wounds." He opened his palms, revealing a cluster of the medicinal plants from his garden.

Isha was no longer pleased with the situation. "W-what? All that, and you're still being so nice to them?! THIS is why they harass you!"

Jinenji's mother sighed. "My dear little fool."

%%%

"Are you sure you'll be all right, ma'am?"

"Yes. You still need to take those herbs back to your friend, right? Hurry up and go, then." The old lady and her son were tending to their garden. It was surprisingly still in good shape, despite the fire, and the grub monsters, but still needed some fixing up. The village men had all slinked back to their homes with their herbs, and Souta gathered up his things to finally head back to Kannon and Hagane.

"Right, so… I guess we'll be going, then. Jinenji… Thank you for everything," Souta smiled.

Jinenji, his face still impossible to read, only replied, "Okay," then went back to tending the garden.

There didn't seem to be anything else to say, so Souta and Isha turned and left.

Jinenji's mother watched them leave, so she didn't notice the village men until they were right on the edge of the garden. Most of them were bandaged up in some way, and all of them carried hoes, wood, or tools. They looked not quite upset, but more ashamed and guilty. Finally one spoke up, "Can we help?"

The old lady stared for a moment, then turned back to her work. "Do as you please," she said with an uncaring tone. She, Jinenji, and the men all worked silently, some tending the garden, and more rebuilding and repairing the damaged hut. She and Jinenji hadn't many possessions, but losing their home and part of the garden had still hurt. But then, the old lady thought as tears came to her eyes, they had gained so much more.

%%%

Souta and Isha walked from the village in silence for some time. But a thought had been niggling away at Souta for a while, and his curiosity overcame his fear of Isha's possible reaction. Still, he approached the matter cautiously. "So… did anything like that ever happen to you?"

Although she didn't show it, she was startled by this question – specifically, just suddenly being asked something at all. She wasn't startled by the subject of the question, and in fact, didn't understand what it was. "What are you talking about?" She turned to Souta, brow furrowed.

"You know… like getting bullied by other villagers or something?"

Isha snorted. "Yeah, right!" She abruptly turned forward again without saying anything further.

Souta didn't buy this protestation for a second, but replied, "Oh, of course not."

A minute or two passed by in silence, before Isha surprised Souta by speaking without any prompting. "It's… It wasn't easy. I'm not a human, and not a demon either. So… there wasn't any place for me. I thought I had to make my own, by force. So that's what I did. And then I had my own place, but I was the only one in it. I was alone. That was the only way I knew how to live, though, and…" she trailed off.

Souta's eyes widened with surprise. Isha had never been so open, so honest, so… vulnerable before. When he suggested however long ago that they could chat on their way to collect the herbs, he had meant they could bond, but even then he hadn't expected to get quite such an admission from Isha, and especially without any direct prompting from him. He realized he was getting that feeling again, that he had gotten only a few times before. The feeling wasn't as insistent as it had been on a previous occasion, but it was still there. And he was surprised to find he wasn't even distressed by this desire this time – or at least, not AS distressed. But he decided, even with Isha being so soft – oh don't think of her being soft! not THAT way! – it would perhaps not be a good thing to indulge in his sudden hormonal urges. At least, not yet. After all, he reasoned, she had taken such a big step in talking to him this way at all. Getting physically affectionate in any way would probably be too big a step for her.

Still… Souta stepped towards Isha, and leaned forward, only to pat her affectionately on the head.

"Wuh…?" It was too weird a thing to even get angry at.

"I'm sorry, I'm just so… happy."

Isha's expression flattened. "Happy? Well I guess if you could find happiness in my misery, then it's all worth it, huh?!"

"No, no!" Souta should have figured something like this would happen. "All I meant was, I'm happy that you, well… that you opened up. I don't know if you know this, but you're a really hard person to talk to sometimes." Isha's expression turned to a mixture of suspicion and confusion, and Souta continued, "But I've known you for so long, and you've never opened up like that about anything. Actually, you've never really talked to me about anything at all. It's just, I…" Words were starting to bubble up. Souta tried to stop them, to convert them to something a little less mushy, but alas. "I'm here for you, you know? So you can tell me about this kind of stuff. I'm not going to make fun of you, not for this real serious stuff… And I'm not gonna leave. You're not alone now." Souta could only hope that his face didn't look as red as it felt. Souta felt like the heroine in a shoujo manga, making some big confession to the school's heartthrob.

Isha crossed her arms and looked haughtily towards the sky. "Well, of course. You know what happens whenever you leave."

Souta considered for a second, then grinned. "Oh, yeah. You always go after me."

OoO

Geez, the folder I keep the Word documents with these chapters in didn't load immediately when I was starting this chapter, and I was so worried that the whole story had been accidentally deleted somehow. Of course, since almost all of the story is up here anyway, that wouldn't be a big loss, I'd have just lost about four paragraphs from the upcoming SheKoga arc. Speaking of which, it's ALMOST time for her! I hope after all this buildup (literally years), her intro doesn't turn out to be disappointing. I'm actually excited about writing it, though, so hopefully it won't be. And hopefully since I'm excited it won't take months to show up on here.

One of the hardest things about writing this fanfiction is describing all the weird shit that shows up in the manga. "So here's this sort of thing that's like a big centipede, but instead of a centipede's head, it's like a woman's head, except she has a bug mouth, and the very top of her head looks like a praying mantis's head, and she's got like fuzzy feeler things on her mouth, and a really long, pointy tongue, and she has children that are basically giant grubs, except they have legs? Does that make sense?" It would also help if more of these characters had actual names – Jinenji's mother and the Peach Man, for instance. Or "the bug monster with the woman's face." SHEESH.

I couldn't remember if I was blatant in earlier chapters about Souta wanting to kiss Isha or not. How do people like George R. R. Martin write these giant, detailed books over the span of decades but still remember all this stuff? [They take notes. _ And aren't too lazy to just look in previous chapters to double-check.] I wasn't sure how to end this chapter. In-canon, Inuyasha's like "Oh yeah, I didn't even realize I was taking it for granted that Kagome would always be here." But especially for the mushy scenes I try to change it up a little bit, especially since for the most part we only get to see Souta's POV and hear his thoughts. I actually was going to have part of this storyline follow Isha, but ultimately it got kind of long, and hard to work in, and all that really happens is that Inuyasha realizes there's some sort of yokai that's probably been killing the villagers, and then goes back to the village.

SO WHAT'S NEXT? Well, on the one hand, the next arc is kind of important, just in getting us to know Tsuta/Kikyo and Naraku a bit more, and there's a couple good relationship moments, but… it's also SO LONG. And I don't like the arc that much. And whenever I don't like a story arc it always takes forever to write it and it ends up kind of lame. And then after that is the Wind Scar arc, with the return of Sesshoko/maru. I really ought to write one complete arc with Sesshoko in it eventually. But, it's just… so much ACTION. Blegh. And of course if I skip those two arcs, we can get to the SheKoga arc must faster. Ah, well. We'll see. Doing the quick recaps for the stuff I didn't bother writing has worked out pretty well before… Well, if there's an overwhelming demand for the next Kikyo and Sesshomaru stories, I'll try harder to write them.