(Inuyasha and Co do not belong to me. I just like to write about them. Graphic chapter here, dealing with death and various body parts. I'd consider this an R, for that and some language)

Kanashimi no Hate ni - End To Sorrow - Fourteen

Shadows of Onigumo!

Shippo, Sango and Miroku were on Kirara's back as the demon-cat flew above the skies. They were still headed westward with Miroku's staff, the dark Shikon shard pointing the way.

"Houshi-sama.." Sango looked towards a plume of smoke that could be seen from a grove of trees. "That smoke - it doesn't look right."

Miroku frowned. "No, it does not. Let's go down to the village - they may need our help."

When they arrived in the village, what they saw was devastation and dead bodies lying all about.

"Youkai.." Shippou growled.

"A dirt youkai.." Miroku frowned as he saw the churned up earth and the body parts all around it. The holes were all over the village as were the victims of the dirt youkai.

"They like to feast on the hearts of the dead..though my father told me they can get the living too." Shippo swallowed hard.

"There was more than one youkai here." Sango's eyes narrowed. "Unless the dirt youkai can breathe fire - look."

There beyond the small shine that had been desecrated, there were charred bodies all about.

"Someone has desecrated the shine..." Miroku said, pausing to read the inscription upon the shrine. "This is the shrine of a miko!"

Sango's eyes widened. "You don't think they took her bones - like - "

"No.." Miroku spied the small urn within the dug up hole within the shrine itself. "I think they were actually looking for a body - perhaps a live one."

"Looking for Kikyou." Shippo looked slightly sick. How long would people keep dying so violently? If only they would find Kagome!

"Which means they have Shikon shards.." Sango said angrily. This sort of devestation and death was why she was a youkai exterminator.

"Hel...p me.." The trio turned and for a moment Kirara hissed, so on edge was she.

"It's alright, Kirara.." Sango said, eyeing the villager with horror. She could not see how the villager could live, so burned was he. In fact his legs were virtually gone - the only reason he hadn't bled to death was because he was cautherized from the knees down.

"What happened here?" Miroku knelt to attend to the villager.

"They - came - two youkai. Killed many..ate them..burned.." He winced. "Desecrated the shrine of our miko.."

"Did they ask for someone named Kikyou..?" Shippo asked.

"Hai..we did not know of this one but they did - not believe us." The man looked terrified.

"It's all right." Sango tried to comfort the man but she doubted he would live much longer.

Quite unexpectedly, the man grasped Sango's wrist and pulled her down to him.

"Yes, it shall be all right..my Kikyou.."

"Ahhhh!" Sango pulled away in horror as the man's legs formed back, although his burned skin became worse - bubbling and oozing with pus. Shippo could swear he saw the white of bone within the chared flesh.

"Won't you take care of poor Onigumo, Kikyou? Won't you let Onimgumo worship your flesh?" The man was standing up by now, lurching towards Sango.

"Get away from her, demon!" Miroku leaped in front of Sango. He instinctively unwraped the hand with the Air Void in it and aimed it at the youkai. However, instead of a sucking wind that would have ripped the youkai off the ground, it only whipped the grass around Miroku as if there was a light summer breeze.

The Onigumo-youkai laughed. "Monk, for someone who hated Naraku's curse so much, you rely upon it!"

"Miroku! Your staff!" Shippo cried out. "It's glowing!"

"He's got a Shikon shard.." Sango said, hefting up her weapon. Without pausing, she threw it at the youkai, but he disappeared with a laugh.

"You are no Kikyou, girl but I would not mind playing with you for awhile." A voice came from the trees beyond.

"Come out, youkai!" Miroku yelled angrily. "Fight us, Naraku!"

The voice chuckled. "I am Onigumo, the wild bandit-thief, I steal your goods, I steal your life, soon I shall steal your souls!"

And with that he abruptly vanished, leaving not a trace that he was ever there.

"Was this an illusion?" Sango shook her head, still wary.

"No, the dead villagers still remain.." Miroku frowned. "I think that youkai is luring us - probably because we have a shard and also because - "

"We were there when Naraku was defeated." Sango nodded.

"Exactly, if all the parts of Naruku were split then they all share the characteristics of Naruku and Onigumo. They will want to be together once more." Miroku said, wrapping up his hand once more.

"When will this stop?" Shippo hung his head. In all his young life he had seen nothing but death since the Thunder Brothers had killed his father.

"I don't know, Shippo. Come, we must give these villagers a decent burial, then we must continue west to find Kagome." Miroku said.

*****

"Sesshoumaru-sama.." Kagome had caught up to the demon-lord. He only glanced at her and said nothing. Jaken gave her a glare but she ignored it.

"I - look. I'm sorry about earlier in the cave. It was an accident." Kagome said.

Sesshoumaru still said nothing, which exasperated Kagome.

"Uh! You could at least acknowlege that I'm here!"

Sesshoumaru looked straight ahead, although his eyes did look at Kagome briefly.

"I can smell you." Sesshoumaru said.

"That's not what I meant!" Kagome said.

Sesshoumaru shrugged.

"How can you and Inuyasha have been brothers! You're SO cold! But you're both RUDE. At least you have that in common." Kagome spat.

"Don't compare me to him." Sesshoumaru's voice was low and on edge.

"Humph. At least he could feel."

"I don't doubt that since you bedded him." Sesshoumaru said.

"I - did NOT!" Kagome blushed furiously.

"Really? That is hard to believe since you were with him all the time it seemed."

"Well if you subscribe to THAT theory, then you and I would be - would be - "

"Yes?" Sesshoumaru asked, enjoying Kagome's discomfiture. It was amusing.

"Sleeping together.." Kagome muttered.

"What is this sleeping together?" Sesshoumaru asked. "When I chose a mate for bedding, there will be little sleeping."

"Uh!" Kagome exclaimed, her face turning a beet red. "Okay! Have sex!"

"Humans - so crude." Sesshoumaru said. "Besides, I am not like Inuyasha - I have no weakness for human softness."

"Then why do you have Rin?"

Sesshoumaru abruptly stopped. "How do you know of her?"

"Myoga told me." Kagome said smugly.

The flea on Kagome's shoulder peered out from her yukata. "Hai, Sesshoumaru-sama. It is I, Myoga." Sesshoumaru saw the flea and plucked him off Kagome's shoulder. His gold eyes peered at the flea between his fingers and a slight smile crossed his face.

"Don't squish him!" Kagome warned.

"So Myoga, how many centuries are you now?" Sesshoumaru asked almost conversationally.

"Ah, Sesshoumaru-sama, too many to count. I see Jaken is still with you." Myoga thought it was a good sign that Sesshoumaru was talking not squishing.

"One must have entertainment.." Sesshoumaru placed the flea back on Kagome's shoulder.

~Entertainment!~ Jaken thought. ~Sesshoumaru-sama does not mean that! Stupid flea! I always disliked that Myoga.~

Kagome was relieved that the subject was off sex - that is until Sesshoumaru ordered,"Tell me of your world, wench."

"Uh.." Kagome stammered.

"A world where there is this ramen and small tablets with language that even I, Sesshoumaru do not understand. A world where women are indecently dressed in green and white kimonos."

Kagome was flabbergasted. Those words were the most that Sesshoumaru had ever spoken to her.

"It - it the future." Kagome sighed.

"Go on." Sesshoumaru said.

"The future of Japan.." Kagome said. "There are no more wars amongst the humans of the nation. We - live longer, can cure all kinds of sicknesses that now kill people here. We have - " she paused searching for the corresponding words that he could understand. "Carriages that go very fast on the ground and in the air. We can communicate with anyone in the entire world within seconds. That thing you held last night can do such a thing."

"Then youkai rule the world at last." Sesshoumaru said smugly.

"No, there are no youkai. They have faded into legend..just as the miko and samurai have done."

"What?" Sesshoumaru looked shocked and then he narrowed his eyes, angry that he would display such emotion in front of a human.

"Yes.." Kagome said. "I mean, I don't know if they died out or if they just remain hidden, but humans in my time have no threat from youkai or hanyou."

"You are lying, girl."

"I am NOT!" Kagome's eyes flashed angrily. "I am from five hundred years in Japan's future. I cannot help it if that's what my future is like! Maybe we don't know they exist in our time because we think our technology explains everything."

"Tech-nol-ogy.." Sesshoumaru did not like the way the unfamilar words grated his tongue.

"It's like - um, going from throwing rocks at your enemy to using spears, or bows and arrows, or swords."

Sesshoumaru of course could understand the allusion. From the odd things she spoke, he was sure that she was telling the truth.

"You say you seek Tetsusaiga's master, wench." Sesshoumaru abruptly changed the subject. "How did you come to have my father's sword?"

"It - was in a museum.." Kagome felt that she wasn't going to lose anything by telling Sesshoumaru now. "It's a place where they put old things - things that people no longer use anymore and show them to others."

"That makes no sense - but then humans never have." Sesshoumaru said.

"Spare me the comments from the gallery, Sesshoumaru." Kagome snapped. "Anyway, it was in a museum in a display. An old man named Kaedo said that it was my duty to take Tetsusaiga back to it's time - to it's master and also collect the Shikon shards once more, that only I could purify them. I held Tetsusaiga in my hands and the next thing I knew I was back here."

"Surely this is fate, Sesshoumaru-sama." Myoga said. "Now that Inuyasha is gone, the fate of the Western Lands lies in your hands."

"It always has." Sesshoumaru said. "I need no human hanyou-woman to assist me in that."

Kagome stopped and placed her hands on her hips. "As if! You are SO stuck on yourself!"

~With those eyes, that hair..~ The thought ran through Kagome's mind before she could stop it.

"It is you who are at my mercy, not the other way around." Sesshoumaru said, continuing to walk away.

"Oh spare me! Oh great Sesshoumaru-sama!" Kagome bowed her head.

~Finally, she sees the danger and respects me.~ Sesshoumaru said.

"Men..you're all alike, hanyou, youkai OR human.." Kagome lifted her head and started to walk away.

Sesshoumaru did not spare her a glance. She would not last long, even with the hanyou blood inside her. Let her perish. He would get the Tetsusaiga.

It was then that the youkai appeared - three of them.

"Kagome!" Myoga cried out, running for a hiding place quickly.

"Wha - ?" Kagome looked before her.

"Greetings, she-who-is-Kikyou.." The man before her bowed. He was horribly burned, but his eyes glowed with fire. Kagome recognized the look as lust and she shivered. The two youkai behind him grinned at her.

~Shikon shards! Damn, how could I be so blind not to sense them so quickly!~ Kagome reached back for her arrows and found she had nothing but her backpack.

~Old habits die hard..~ Kagome thought.

Suddenly Sesshoumaru leaped in front of her, his sword drawn. "You trespass on the Western Lands, youkai! Leave now and perhaps I will ensure you a peaceable death."

"Brother of the half-breed.." the burned youkai frowned. "He who-took-Kikyou-away.."

Sesshoumaru wasted no words. He attacked the youkai, but Kagome saw in horror as Sesshoumaru hit the ground hard. The burned up youkai had disappeared!

"Sesshoumaru-sama!" Jaken cried out, and aimed the staff at the other two youkai, who had merely stood still. They were gone before the flames of the two headed staff could reach them.

"Hey, you!" Jaken whirled around and faced the other youkai - a fire breating youkai of mottled red. Through it's mouth it breathed a straight flame of fire towards Jaken, who counteracted it with his staff of heads.

"Ha! Teach you to mess with us!" Jaken crowed. For now, they were at an impass.

"Aaaaaaeeeeiii! Put me DOWN!!" Kagome shrieked as the ground opened up before her and an eel-like creature, very similar to the centipede youkai she had encountered years ago, grabbed her in it's grasp.

"Pretty maiden! May I have your - heart?" The dirt youkai purred.

Kagome looked at the thing in horror and saw the Shikon shard in her shoulder. Arching out her hand, Kagome tried to make a grab for it with her - claws? - but Sesshoumaru, to her surprise, leaped up and pounced on the dirt youkai's head, intending to cleave the thing in two with his claws. The dirt youkai split in half, tearing down it's middle, dropping Kagome towards the ground.

"Oh crap!!" Kagome hurtled towards the ground but Sesshoumaru grabbed her and placed her somewhat away from the fighting.

"Stay!" He spat out. No one dared attack his party or his lands - not as long as he was living!

"I'm not freaking Fido, Fluffy!" Kagome said indignantly. Oh to have a bow and arrows!

"She-who-is-Kikyou.." A voice said from behind her and Kagome spun around, the Tetsusaiga already out. The large fang sword dwarfed Kagome.

Meanwhile Sesshoumaru saw angrily that the insignifigant youkai he had slain had split into two youkai. No matter. He would defeat all these foolish youkai. Sesshoumaru heard Kagome scream and turned as he saw her prepare to fight the youkai with the Tetsusaiga...