Dying to Live
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.
The half moon hung low in the dark night sky, as fast moving seaboard clouds passed in clusters that blocked out its rays. The waves in the ocean were cast into intermittent inky blackness, like the shadows of moving hills on the horizon, though the crash of the tide was no less riotous.
Sharp, spindly arachnid like legs clawed at the young girl's clothes. Tears ran down her cheeks, as needle-like points scratched her forearms. Instinctively, she still resisted, as it kept pulling her toward the gaping mouth of the cave.
At 13, she was old enough to fetch the bath water on her own, and while she normally walked with the neighbor's boy, he had taken ill.
She only meant to go quickly. The girl knew the danger. Demons were stealing women and children out of the villages, often right around sunset. She needed the water though - her mother was still recovering from the same illness that had passed to her neighbors' home. The girl had been strong though - she had recovered faster than her mother. Getting the water on her own was not a big deal. Her mother had been counting on a bath after fever sweats the night before.
And she had it, almost - the bucket handle was almost in her hand, as she pulled it over the lip of the well.
In the utter quiet of the village square, she would never know how she missed the sound of the monster coming upon her, but within moments the claws were crushing her arms, choking her neck. The bucket was gone, flung from her hands - she could not even use it as a bludgeon. She thought she would die right there in the grip of its pincers, until she felt its spiny legs jabbing, pushing her into its bulbous, hermit crab-like shell, where she passed out, the stench of rotten things in there too much to bear.
So now she stood, torn once again from the shell and torn from unconsciousness, as it pushed her across the sand. Apparently the thing's lone catch, she walked the very same sand that all the others who had disappeared must have also crossed.
Her capturer, which she still had not seen very well, dogged her from behind, with legs and antennae battering away as she stumbled forward.
Suddenly they stopped. What could it be? she wondered, when the pincers gripped her again, and the strangest sound she had ever heard filled the air.
Her scream was no match for it, as from behind her the beast had let up a shriek, a loud rasping, creaking tone of horror.
Then the only thing that could be worse happened - upon the call from her capturer, what started as a low rumble quickly began to make the ground shake. Soon a never-ending round of raspy creaking and shrieking came up from the cave mouth, and dozens and dozens of the monsters appeared.
The clouds once again parted from the moon, and though the girl's eyes watered from the pain of pincers holding her tight, she saw: a hoard of blood splattered swirling shells the size of men and meanly glittering black compact eyes, dark with hunger, approaching her on countless spidery, crustacean legs.
Again, she cried into the blood-red colored chitin clamped over her mouth, and dark thoughts invaded her mind, as she realized that no one who mattered would ever hear her again.
Or so she thought.
The waves crashed deafeningly and somewhere far out at sea, lightning cracked as clouds hid the waxing half-moon again. A rush of salty sea air followed by another CRACK! filled her head so loudly, she swore it happened mere inches from her skull, when she understood it had.
Something hot, sticky, and acrid sprayed across the back of her head down her spine, seeping through her clothes. The smell was enough to make her retch, but the shock was too much, as the grip of the monster's nasty, stinking pincers had somehow slackened.
Suddenly, the chitin clamps that had imprisoned her were torn back. Ocean air surrounded her before warm, dry arms were tilting and picking her up. The night sky soared up in her vision, as she felt her body turning in the air.
The clouds passed, and the moon shone, reflecting her own face back from large, golden eyes nestled between dark brows and ruggedly perfect, mildly-tanned features.
A man? Her mind reeled, as she focused on him and not the sick feeling forming in her stomach from flying through the air.
A man with a mane of jaw length hair, silver-white as the rays of the moon itself, had grabbed her, and they were soaring through the air.
"Hey, are you ok?!" he shouted
She almost didn't dare breathe: the air blowing all around them buffeted his locks, and the moon illuminated shocking, bright-purple lines that slashed across his otherwise unmarked cheeks.
They hit the ground, and her head jostled against a thick, soft pelt of snow white fur that fell over his shoulder, which he tightly cradled her against. The rest of his broad chest was encased in material that looked like ceremonial polished boneware, the likes of which she had only ever seen once at a shrine.
Amazingly, she found her feet were touching down on the cool sand again. Her knees quaked, and she stared.
He was talking again, but the words seemed almost incomprehensible.
White fangs glinted in the moonlight and mesmerized her with fear. Strangely, his voice was rough but also kind and soft.
"S'alright. You probably haven't seen anything like me before, but I'm gonna kill all these things, and then I'm gonna take you home, y'hear? So don't move, alright?" the beautiful, fanged man promised.
'Kill all these things?' Should she ask how?
Before she could question it though, his back was to her, and he was walking toward the swarm of crustaceans that he had apparently leapt away from. Had this man - no, this being, he could not be a man - actually placed her out of danger?
He started to run, silver-white hair blowing up and glistening in the moonlight behind him. In a flash, he leapt high into the air, higher than the roof of even the headman's home in her village. With one silken sleeve pulled back to reveal a hand tipped with claws, his impassioned battle cry filled the air:
Iron Reaver Soul Stealer!
Over the riot of creaking and shrieking from those demons, their thick dark blood exploded from their bodies, as he made contact with a crowd of them. From where she stood, the girl watched. Shards of shattered shells splintered the moon-glazed air. Obliterated chitin pincers and blood-stained legs showered down in pieces over the sand in the wake of the fanged creature who had saved her.
Twenty, thirty, forty - the crustacean youkai fell before him, swarming without stop.
The girl wanted to stay as she was told, but she could not help stepping a little closer while keeping a good distance to watch. Forsaking his claws, savagely, her fanged victor soon grabbed several of the monsters and ripped them with relative ease, limb-by-limb. Demonic blood rained down everywhere, and yet it was still as if he seemed to shine under the moon.
And soon, she thought this even more so, as in one fluid motion he drew the sword that had been sheathed at his hip. Magically, the blade itself exploded and cried out with a loud metallic shing before growing to five or six times its size in his hand. Though he held it aloft, as though it was made of paper, she felt sure from its size it had to be heavy.
She heard him shout something, a word she didn't know, as he brandished his sword, but a battle cry would no longer be necessary: the remaining crustacean youkai froze, as the enormous sword glowed and throbbed, held high over its bearer's shoulder. Terrified, the creatures turned instantly toward their cave.
Her apparent victor, armed with his sword, stepped forward for the chase but quickly stopped. She wondered why. Was there something wrong with him or his sword? Or perhaps he just intended to let them go?
But then she was reminded of what he'd said: "I'll kill all these things."
She looked down at her toes just as the particles of sand began to vibrate visibly under her feet. The tremors mounted, almost earthquake-like, when with a creaking-shriek-like roar, the largest of the youkai emerged from the cave.
Bloody mandibles opened and closed deafeningly, as the thing towered high above at the height of about four or five village huts put together. It looked like the smaller ones of its kind but far bigger. A passing thought made her realize that it probably used the smaller ones to bring food to feed itself. Its shell was covered in algae and other nasty decomposed looking things, while its massive eyes were covered in an odd, cloudy looking slime. However, its pincers and sharp legs were by far the largest out of any, and in a moment, it used these to crush into the ground its retreating brethren.
"So you must be the hive mother, aren't ya, ya stinking crab?" her victor shouted, waving his sword, as the massive demon charged his way.
The distance between them didn't look that great to the girl. Frightened, she gasped and covered her mouth with her hands. Would she watch this monster crush the much smaller, whitehaired being in front of it?
Please, she begged the spirits, even though she wasn't sure that being alone with her whitehaired swordsman would be much better. However, she also felt sure she could not bear to watch him killed by the monster. She could hardly look, but still she forced her eyes up to the scene.
A strange isolated wind had picked up, coming as if in a cone from the whitehaired swordsman's grip on his sword. Amazed, she watched, as a gust apparently strong enough to buffet the giant beast's shell, began to shake it visibly on its legs.
"Ha! Looks like you aren't gonna know what hit ya!" the swordsman's voice rose over the waves and wind. In the blink of an eye, he launched himself into the air with his sword aloft. The blade flashed with a bright whitish golden light, as he barreled toward the ground, and the girl was forced to squint against its intensity. The creature's shell collapsed with an echoing sound like pottery smashing where the swordsman landed, making impact upon it, slashing with his enormous sword.
A golden-white trail of light followed along the creature's ugly shell where he dashed along it, swiping here and there at amazing speed. At last, he bounded directly off the back of the monster and high up into the air.
The explosion that followed was ear-shattering. The massive monster released one more unearthly, rasping creak before its shell blew-out, sending calcified shrapnel sky-high from the six or so points that the swordsman had struck with his sword.
Shocked, the girl hit the sand face first, throwing her arms over her head as fast as could. Debris pelted her back for a long minute, as the scream of the creature radiated back out of the cave mouth in a haunting echo, until at last only the rhythmic roar of the ocean waves remained.
"Hey, it's over now," came the rough but kind voice.
Slowly, very slowly, the girl lifted her head. She looked up into two incandescent, gold eyes yet again. Her heart hammered her chest.
"You probably won't believe me, but you don't need to be afraid anymore," he spoke softly, gently coming down to the ground on one knee. His fangs flashed dangerously again under the hood of his gently curving upper lip: "I should apologize to you though - I guess I didn't know my own strength there at the end."
His hand rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment, and somehow, the girl couldn't help but feel he meant what he said.
What was this being?
Still, she was afraid to ask. "Iie, d-daijoubu," she stammered instead.
What will he want with me now? She feared to know, when fangs and all, he smiled.
"Let's get you home. Do you know the way?" he asked.
:
The girl noticed her savior's hands were callused but gentle, as just at daybreak, he let her down atop the hill just outside the village. Even after the battle she had seen him fight, he still walked with her riding on his back through the night.
"I shouldn't enter the village, since I don't need to," he explained, as she rubbed half-sleep from her eyes. "Will you be okay from here?" he inquired.
She hesitated, having tried to think the whole way what she would finally say to him, if he really did return her to the village like he had promised. "H-hai! A-arigatou gozaimashita!" she exclaimed, dropping into a low bow before him.
With her head lowered, she started, as she began to see his boots turn to go. "Alright, see ya –" he began to say when she lifted her head quickly.
"W-wait!" the girl stammered. He looked back at her, and suddenly she felt very aware of the combination of sand and demon guts that were still probably matted deeply into her hair and clothes. What were probably ugly bruises around her neck and arms had begun to ache as well. She swallowed heavily, gathering confidence: "Who can our village thank for slaying the demons and returning me to my mother?"
He turned back to face her, as the sun began to peek over the hills, revealing what were handsome but more and more clearly inhuman features.
Though blood flecked his otherwise perfect features, the girl planned to remember his visage this way forever.
"You can -," he paused, evidently thinking. "I guess you can tell them it was the Dog Demon Inuyasha… Well, have a good life, kid."
And with that, in a flash of white light, he was gone.
:::
"希望を生かし続けなさい。 ~ Keep hope alive."
- Japanese saying
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Note: And there you go! Some action-packed, badass, Full-Fledged Demon Inuyasha goodies for you!
Hope you all enjoyed this series of little chapters this month, as we set things up in this, the "Living and Learning" arc.
Sorrellkaren and anime weabo: So glad you both enjoyed the cliffhangers! I can't help but feel bad for what this fic has put our favorite monk through – and Sango by extension. Indeed, Souta is growing up in this fic though, and it looks like Miroku is finally maybe getting into good hands with Souta there – along with Mayu – to get help...
anime weabo and Inusesshyfan: ...Speaking of whom, I am happy you are both intrigued by Mayu! Definitely, how it will go will be the question! Clearly, it's going to be tough with so many Feudal Era comings and goings that are supposed to stay a secret somehow, hmmm...
Hopefully Kagome's luck stays an indication of good omens though! Inusesshyfan, I hear you on the feelings about interviews – fun to hear that you found Kagome's feelings in the interview chapter compelling and real.
Thank you all for your loyal following of this story and all the love you gave with your readership here in February. Hugs, dear readers!
~ Origamikungfu (on tumblr too: origamikungfuwrites)