AN:
Some events do not line up chronologically with the anime. I mixed it up a bit so that I felt it flowed from one experience to the next better. I'm hoping to make the story feel more real and less anime/manga-scattered-scenes-everywhere-ish.
-Ele
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Disclaimer: Not mine! Just playing with their concepts… Many thanks to the creator for allowing it.
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Posted: 5.1.2021
Edited: Unedited
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Redux
Chapter Four
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She waited for the inevitable killing blow, but it never came.
"Get up, stupid. Get the jewel out of here!"
The voice pried her eyes open and she was met with an expanse of red. Not the crimson of blood, but the scarlet of Inuyasha's clothes. He was standing over her with half of a broken katana in one hand, staring at the giant bandit leader.
"Inuyasha!"
"Yeah, yeah. Now get the jewel away from here!"
Kagome's eyes shot to the doorway, where she could still see the glow of the jewel laying in the dirt, covered in a layer of dust from the rest of the bandits' hasty retreat.
"Oh no!" She jerked into motion, ready to retrieve it, only to be stopped by a sharp tug on the cloth by her knee. "Inuyasha! Get off my pants so I can go get it!"
"Go get-" His eyes flew to the spot where her own were focused. "The jewel!? What the hell, idiot? What's it doing over there?"
If he had more to say about it, he was interrupted. A huge meaty backhand, trailing the rancid stench of rotting meat, knocked Inuyasha from his feet. He was flung backward into the pile of rubble under the window.
"Inuyasha!" She got to her feet and rushed over to him. "Are you alright!?"
"Ugh! What is that smell?" He pushed himself to his elbows, eyes fixed on a point behind her, and his lips curved into a mean smirk. "Oh. How much do you want to bet that bird ripped his living heart out and made itself a bloody little nest?"
She spun around and sure enough, where the armor had slipped off of one shoulder, there was a giant hole in the man's chest- and three red eyes stared out at them.
"What is that thing!?" She shrieked, taking a reflexive step backward and bumping into Inuyasha's chest.
"Crow youkai. They're scavengers. Don't fight on their own when there's dead bodies around for them to use. They're not so tough."
"Oh man. I knew something was off. That bird made him a puppet!"
"Yeah, yeah. You go get the jewel. This won't take long."
Shrill screeching and flapping wings spoiled their plan, though. The crow burst from the hole where it had been hiding and took off through the window.
"Ah, well." Inuyasha shrugged. "Too bad. It's weak ut it still would have been fun to have something to fight. It's gotten boring around here."
"Boring!? Boring!? The last two days are your idea of boring!?"
"Eh. That ain't important. Where's the jewel?"
"The jewel? It's outside. Over there."
She turned and pointed through the doorway, Inuyasha turning with her- just in time for her finger to point out the crow youkai, scooping up the jewel in its mouth and taking off into the air.
"That…can't be good.." Kagome murmured."
"No! It's not!" He grabbed her elbow in a bruising grip, dragging her through the doorway and after the crow. They only made it a few steps before inertia slammed her into his back.
"What? Why'd you stop?"
"Hang on." He released her elbow and liberated a bow and a quiver of arrows from one of the horses standing nearby. She hadn't seen them when she'd been brought here, but she figured they must belong to the bandits.
"You… don't really seem like the archery type, Inuyasha."
"I'm not." He thrust them at her. "You are." He turned his back to her and dropped into a crouch. "Get on."
"Wha-?"
"Get on! You're gonna shoot it."
"You're kidding, right?" She awkwardly climbed onto his back, regardless of her doubts. "I've never shot a bow in my life!"
As soon as Kagome had settled her weight on his back, Inuyasha grasped her thighs and took off at an alarming speed, Kagome barely managing to keep hold of both him and the weapons.
"Kikyo was a master archer. You shouldn't have any issue hitting it."
"I told you! I'm not Kikyo! Still.." She'd have to at least try. Kaede was convinced that she was Kikyo's reincarnation. Even if that was true, would something like archery skill transfer over into the next lifetime? She wasn't sure, but right now- she sure hoped so.
"There! What the hell are you waiting for!? Shoot the thing already!"
"How am I supposed to do that while I'm sitting on your back and you're running and bouncing?
"Just do it already!"
So she did her best to aim while she was jostled around, pulled the string and loosed an arrow.
A few things happened in quick succession, then. None of which were the arrow hitting the crow youkai or her becoming the hero of the hour.
The bowstring snapped hard against her forearm and then Inuyasha's cheek.
The arrow flew a few feet, pathetically, before falling to the whims of gravity.
Their momentum carried them right into the arrow's path of descent and Kagome got a face full of her own failure- literally.
Inuyasha's steps faltered and they both went tumbling to the ground.
Kagome stared at the flickering white ears atop Inuyasha's head for a few heartbeats.
"What the heck was that!? I thought you said Kikyo was a master archer!?"
The ears flattened to Inuyasha's skull and his face turned to the side, golden eyes looking at her in narrowed slits from a side angle.
"She was! It's you that's the klutz! I don't care what the old woman says, you are not Kikyo!"
"I know that! Ugh! Let's just go already! It's getting away!" Kagome pointed to the silhouette of the youkai as the distance between them increased. It was headed toward the village.
Inuyasha pushed himself up on all fours, quickly enough that Kagome got an unexpected rush of vertigo and nearly fell off his back, then he clambered back to his feet and took off again.
They caught up to it quickly, but not before the great bird had snatched a young boy from his mother's side.
She felt more than she heard the humorless laugh from Inuyasha as they neared the river's bank, right before he dumped her off of his back and leapt toward it.
"Inuyasha! No! You'll hurt the boy!" She yelled to him, hoping that he'd listen but knowing that he wouldn't.
The same light that she remembered sailing over her head on her first day here seemed to pulse around Inuyasha as he neared the youkai and its precious cargo. It seemed to pull in toward him and concentrate near his hands, brilliant trails of yellow trailing along in the wake of the slash that he made with his claws.
Chunks of crow youkai and a, thankfully, unharmed little boy fell into the river as Inuyasha touched down on a large boulder near the water.
There was no thought for anything other than the boy's safety when his first plea for help resounded. The boy was flung away and she dove headfirst into the river, cutting quickly through the waters and pulling the child into her arms as villagers gathered at the edge to praise her and gawk at her.
As she and the boy crawled through the muddy bank and weeds toward the awed villagers, Kagome pointedly ignored Inuyasha's shouts in her direction. She continued to smile and nod at the fussing people around her until Inuyasha bounded to her side with a panicked look on his face.
He grabbed her upper arm in a bruising vice and turned her to look at him, his face inches from her own.
"It's still got the jewel, stupid. It's going to reform and get away if you don't find it and get it back." He snarled through clenched teeth.
Her eyes widened in realization and she pivoted, scanning the waters of the river until she spotted the glow of the jewel… but it was moving- against the current. She was too late. The crow burst from the river as if it hadn't slowed down at all, as if it hadn't just been diced into a dozen pieces.
Kagome felt her heart drop in her chest. What could they do now?
Just as the panic began to worm its way into her mind, the mother of the boy she had saved let out an ear piercing scream and started swatting at the boy's back.
The crow's foot had gotten stuck in his clothing. A talon tangled in the cloth. It was pulling and jerking spastically. Kagome whirled to look at the retreating youkai and then back to the boy, remembering Mistress Centipede and the way her body parts all seemed to reattach themselves after she had swallowed the jewel.
She yanked hard on the foot, tearing it free from the boy's clothing, and then swung around to one of the village men.
"I need to borrow your bow!" She practically yelled, squeezing the crow's foot tighter as it tried to squirm from her grasp.
The man handed it over without a word, and she tied the foot to the shaft of an arrow in a hasty knot with the scrap of cloth that had been torn from the boy's yukata.
"You serious right now!? You couldn't even hit it when it was right in front of us! No way you'll…" Inuyasha trailed off as his eyes locked onto the foot tied to the arrow.
"This'll work. I know it'll work… please let it work.." And for the second time ever in her life, Kagome shot an arrow from a bow.
This time, it streaked through the air so quickly that the only reason she could track its progress was because of the foot. She felt a grin stretch her lips as the arrow found its target easily, embedding itself deeply into the bird's body.
That same grin faltered and slipped as she saw light flowing from the falling carcass. The jewel had never glowed that much before. Not even when her side had lit up right before Mistress Centipede ripped it from her body.
"Lady Kaede! Those lights! What are they!?"
Kagome's breath caught in her throat as the glow turned to innumerable streaks of light, shooting through the sky. Lights that everyone could see, not just her. She didn't like this, whatever this was.
Dread settled like a rock in her midsection as Kaede's responded with hesitation.
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"Are you sure it fell around here?"
Kagome didn't turn away from the bush she was looking around as she flinched at the impatience in Inuyasha's voice.
"Well… yeah. I saw it fall.." She'd seen something fall. Something glowing- but she'd also seen a lot of glowing things that hadn't fallen. "Though.. I'm still kind of worried about those lights." A sparkle in her peripheral vision caught her attention. "Oh! There!"
She rushed over to the thicker underbrush and swatted the leaves and grass away.
"Oh no…"
"Oh no, what?"
"I… I think it's… a shard of the jewel."
"A… A whaaaat!?"
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