No movie could have timed it better.
There was a high-pitched clink. All eyes in the shrine turned to the two porcelain sake cups that had come together on the table as if moved by a ghost. The soft ripple that had shifted them turned quickly into a deep growl emitted from the earth, sending the floorboards rattling beneath their feet.
"Earthquake!" shouted Souta. Though not even a minute could have passed, it seemed to spur them all to action. They ran out from the Shrine together, Kagome shrugging layers as much as she could, her mother rushing the Higurashi elder to the safety of the courtyard. There, they waited. The shrine house creaked in protest for a few moments more, abating into a soft tremor - and then nothing.
As the dust settled, grandpa coughed out, "Incredible! What a time for an earthquake." Souta muttered something about Kagome's luck.
At that moment, Kagome shared a cautious look with the daiyoukai at her side.
"That was no earthquake."
While her family looked at him in askance, Kagome couldn't help the shiver that ran down her spine. Sesshoumaru had only repeated what she herself was thinking. The residual energy in the air that made the hairs of her neck stand on end wasn't seismic - it was magic.
No sooner had she thought that than the rumbling returned with a vengeance. Kagome felt hands grab her - her family - as they all tried to steady themselves at the sudden tremor.
More than any other building on the complex, the well house on the other end of the courtyard seemed as though it were being beaten from within. The telltale blue of the time-magic lit up the cracks. They watched in confused horror as the wood splintered. As though it had been dealt some grievous wound, the well house gave a long, pained moan, before bursting from its roof came a surge of slithering, dark green tentacles.
"No!" Kagome gasped over her mother's shriek of surprise. This was her worst nightmare come reality. "Sesshoumaru!"
The daiyoukai swept her up without hesitation. "Get inside!" he barked at her family, but his eyes solidly landed on the trembling Souta. The boy gulped, wondering how anyone could infuse so much intensity into one look in only seconds, but he understood the message: he would have to be in charge now.
With a bound, the demon was flying up towards the well house roof. Miko tucked to one side, he sliced and diced at the unruly spiral of tentacles with his sword.
'Naraku, what game is this?'
The hanyou himself had not fully come through the well, but the cloud of miasma leaking from every felled tentacle was proof enough of the culprit. How he'd managed to penetrate the time portal was another question that they had no time for. Where one was cut, another tentacle seemed to spring. Kagome coughed violently into his collar.
'Damn!'
At this rate, Kagome would choke on the poison at such close range. Their only chance would be on the other side of the well. It would be risky, but he had no other choice.
With a flare of youki, the Lord of the West hacked quickly through the root of the tentacles, and, sword pointed down, made a nosedive into the infested blue waters of the well.