CHAPTER 35

"Geez, doesn't this guy ever take a weekend off?" Souta said, more exasperated than anything at the sudden appearance of Naraku's wasps.

Kannon groaned. "And we left Koharu in this village thinking she'd be safe!" Kannon ran back the way the group had just come, and the others followed her shortly.

The villagers also followed them. Although the villagers were all walking and the group had run back to the mayor's house, the sheer number of possessed villagers meant they could quickly catch up, and the group soon found themselves surrounded.

Kannon, who had found Koharu collapsed in the doorway, asked, "What happened?"

"I don't know…" Koharu said weakly. "I fainted..."

Isha eyed the restless crowd. "You should stay here. Hagane and I can manage the crowd."

Despite the surprise of being called out specifically to help, Hagane nodded, although he was wondering how to stop the villagers without hurting them terribly with his Hiraikotsu.

As the two left, Souta frowned. "Oh sure, just leave me back here," he muttered. "You're the one who's always getting injured, I save your butt half the time, but I'll just hang back here out of the way I guess."

Kannon pointedly ignored Souta's griping and said, "Let's just go inside now."

Koharu rose unsteadily to her feet. "Um, inside… Well, before I fainted, I saw something inside. A demon."

Kannon's eyebrows raised in surprise, while Souta's narrowed. "Of course," he said flatly.

The group headed into the building, with Kannon leading the way. Souta took this as another blow to his ego; but to be fair, Kannon was the only one with a short-range weapon, which tends to be more helpful in an enclosed space where you might be ambushed any second, than a bow and arrow would be. But just to be safe, Souta was armed with the bow anyway.

It was dark and quiet inside. There were bodies all over the floor – the mayor and his wife, and a few servants. Fortunately they appeared to only be unconscious, rather than slaughtered. But, it was unnerving.

All the bodies were in the front-most rooms. As the small group ventured further into the house, the emptier and eerier it became. There was no sound but their footsteps.

"You know…" Souta said softly and cautiously. "Isha said she couldn't smell any demons at all. And I know I'm not picking up any demonic energy or anything. So, what…?"

He had intended to trail off his question anyway, but he was also startled by a strange gleaming from the doorway to the next room. It turned out to be a mirror, reflecting a small amount of light. The mirror was held by what appeared to be a little girl, dressed all in white.

"Is this the demon?" Kannon asked, suspicion clear in her voice. She clutched her staff and half-reached for a purifying sutra.

Souta could understand Kannon uncertainty. Even face to face with the girl, he – and probably Kannon – couldn't pick up any demonic aura. But, what other explanation could there be for a creepy white-haired girl in a building full of unconscious people? The look in her eyes was certainly unnatural, to say the least.

Kannon pulled out a sutra and approached the girl. If she turned out to be a normal, if peculiar-looking, child, then no harm done.

The little white-haired girl proved Kannon had a reason to be suspicious after all, though. As Kannon lunged toward the girl, to smack her with a sutra, the little girl tilted her mirror slightly, knocking Kannon back with a startling force. Her head hit the floor with a small clunking noise. To Souta's amazement, she attempted to get back up immediately; however, she fell back down the floor after only rising a few inches, and did not move again.

Forgetting Koharu, the girl, and even Shippo, Souta ran to Kannon's side. She was out cold, but fortunately bared no visible injury. She was sure to have a bruise later, of course.

"Souta," said a soft, unfamiliar voice.

He looked up and realize the source of the voice was the strange little girl.

"How do you –" Souta found himself suddenly in a full nelson. A quick look around revealed his captor to be none other than Koharu. She had a much stronger grip than he'd have expected. Even with the small height difference, Souta was having trouble even struggling to get out of the hold. "What are you doing?!"

The little girl approached him and angled her mirror so Souta could see his own face reflected. There was nothing especially odd about the mirror. But as Souta stared at it and his reflection, he began to feel queasy, and light-headed, and all-around odd.

"Give me your soul," the little girl said in a soft, bland voice.

Souta barely had time to comprehend what had happened as he felt Koharu's grip loosen. He felt himself slump the floor, in a sort of removed, floating way. He'd felt this way before, but he couldn't quite remember when. It was a bit like that feeling when you're about to drift off to sleep, and you're aware that you're still actually awake but practically asleep. You can't move anything, you can barely feel anything, but you're still partly aware of your surroundings. But he couldn't remember when he'd felt just like this before. It seemed long ago… an image of an old woman's face flashed briefly in his mind.

The strange girl stood in place for several moments, before saying in that quiet and emotionless voice of hers, "His soul won't be completely contained. But still… he can't move anymore." She began walking towards Souta with her hand outstretched. "I'll take his shikon shards."

Souta thought briefly of another time, when he has been basically incapacitated and someone had taken all his shikon shards, and he was determined to not let that happen again. He realized he was still clutching his bow, and his quiver of arrows was easily within his reach. He quickly grabbed and arrow and readied the bow, aiming it at the girl. "D-don't…" he said with a cracked voice.

The girl was startled – the first bit of emotion he'd seen from her. Her face quickly fell back to dull and blank as she turned towards a noise coming from behind Souta.

"If you move, we'll… We'll rip you to shreds!" Shippo said. This was accompanied by the particular growly breathing of a transformed Kirara, who must have come in from outside.

The reason for Kirara's appearance was explained shortly as Hagane ran into the room. Souta wondered if Isha had sent Hagane inside because she knew she had things handled and wanted Hagane to give backup where he might be needed, or if maybe it was hopeless out there and Hagane went inside where he might be useful.

Whatever the case, Hagane and Kirara seemed to have at least temporarily saved the day, as the strange little girl took off running at the sight of Kirara.

"Was that the other demon who was manipulating the villagers?" Hagane muttered.

Souta said softly, "What?" as he tipped slowly forward, collapsing onto the floor. The danger was gone, for now, but he still felt woozy and light-headed, and like he was in two places at once. He realized there had to be some significance to what Hagane had mumbled, but he couldn't focus on the words themselves.

Hagane made a move to check on his fallen comrades, but looked up at the sound of sniffling.

Koharu was in the doorway, tears streaming down her face. She was holding a small scythe, slowly raising it. "I'm sorry. I've caused so much trouble."

It was clear what Koharu meant to do, even before she took the scythe's point all the way up to her neck.

"Hagane, be careful!" Shippo yelled. "Koharu's being controlled by that white witch!"

This was alarming news. Unbeknownst to Shippo and the others, the large mob outside, as well as apparently Koharu, were being controlled by a demon in cahoots with Kagura. Regardless of her being controlled, and regardless of whatever the nature of her relationship with Kannon actually was, Hagane wasn't about to watch a 14 year old kill herself right in front of him. His first instinct was to hurl Hiraikotsu at her, but he was ashamed at how foolish and impulsive that idea was – in such an enclosed space, he might hurt the others, and he didn't want to hurt Koharu too badly. Suddenly a very simple and obvious idea came to him.

He ran over and knocked the scythe out of Koharu's hand just as the point reached her flesh. Shock and then anger contorted her face as she lunged towards Hagane, who responded by shoving her before she could get a hit in. She fell backwards to the floor, and did not stir.

Hagane panicked, thinking he'd accidentally killed her by pushing her too hard. But a check of her vitals and her head suggested she'd merely passed out, to his relief.

"Koharu's soul is still in that mirror that girl was holding." Shippo said. "Souta's too."

"So she's controlling Koharu and all the villagers with the… mirror?" Hagane wondered. A frightening thought struck him, "If she's partnered with Kagura, and she's controlling all the villagers, and she just ran out, she's probably outside with all of them and with Inuyasha!" He gripped his Hiraikotsu and headed for the door. "Let's go!"

"Hagane…" Souta called out weakly to Hagane's back from his position on the floor.

OoO

WHERE DID THE TIME GO?! I'm so sorry, I remember I was going to release one chapter a week throughout Christmas and now it's July. And the worst part is this chapter has apparently been finished since January. Hopefully the next chapter won't take forever. I should do something special later this year, it'll be this story's 8 year anniversary. 8 years and only 35 actual chapters! Ugh, sorry. I don't have any excuse, I'm not actually busy or anything. Just lazy. And I'm trying harder to get the story to be… better. You know, so it's not just a transcription of the manga. I'm also working hard on improving some of the parts of the writing I personally find annoying. No one has complained about it, but I noticed I really overuse speaking actions. Like, "'Blah blah,' he said, [doing something]". I hope now that I've said that I didn't ruin it for you and that's all you'll see upon a reread of the series, I said, wringing my hands nervously.

Also OH WHAT'S THIS. I switched Kannon and Hagane's roles! It was hard. I couldn't figure out if Kanna's mirror could reflect the Wind Tunnel, and then it was like… yeah, well, anyway. This is hard. I want a recut of this story that's just Souta being mushy. If only I were the one writing it…

A "full nelson" is a wrestling move, it's that thing where you put both arms under your opponent's arms, and link your arms behind their neck. It's a difficult hold to get out.

I know this is like way shorter than the most recent chapters, but it felt like a good place to end the chapter. It's still longer than some of the really early chapters, though, right?