Author's note: Whew a bitch has really been struggling with trying to nail down what Kaya's semi-permanent outfit will be. Of course 5000 years ago when I was 10 and first created her, she just wore exactly the same outfit as Inuyasha… But for the plot's sake, there's only one Robe of the Fire Rat (apparently? Does Moroha also wear it in Yashahime? I haven't watched it yet.). So I'm like… well she can just wear red, I guess. Kinda boring but whatever, twin matching is cute to some degree. I do have planned outfit change later after some plot stuff occurs.
For now, here's what I've settled on unless I get a brainblast. Remember that episode where Kagome clothes get taken by some perv and she somehow twists Inuyasha's top into a whole outfit for herself? Girl is talented as hell. So I'm thinking something quite similar to that minus the flourishes in the from and back that seemed to have come from Kagome trying it. And then for modesty's sake, black tights that go just below the knee and y'know those arm… tights…. That go all the way down and hook around your fingers. I'll try to put together a ref. Note that right now she's wearing some trash clothes and will change into her red clothes shortly.
Ok love u bye, thanks for being here
Of course, Inuyasha had tried to kill the girl.
Kaya didn't find she was surprised by that when she'd learned he'd gained a pretty necklace for his trouble. If he was going to keep hounding the girl for the jewel, she might as well have some protection against him.
What did surprise Kaya was the news that Inuyasha and Kagome had somehow managed to cause a sequence of events that had shattered the jewel. First of all, she wasn't quite sure how such a thing were even possible. And second of all, she couldn't believe that the two of them were unlucky enough for it to occur.
But it seemed like misfortune seemed to follow the Shikon jewel. Perhaps they would be better for its shattering. If Kaede and Inuyasha both hadn't asserted that the jewel shards need to be collected and reassembled, she almost could have believed it. Yes, humans and demons alike would seek the shards out and use them for gods knew what… but why was that their problem? Just because Kagome was allegedly the reincarnation of the dead priestess Kikyou? It was clear the girl barely even wanted to remain there and that she only did so because she wasn't sure how to return to her own land. What had she called it? Tokyo?
As far as Kaya was concerned, the jewel could stay shattered. But if her idiot brother insisted on going on a quest to return it to it's original state, she'd have no choice but to follow along. Not only for his sake, but for Kagome's.
She let out a soft sigh and stared down at her reflection in the river pool, attention drawn after a moment to the shivering Kagome. The chattering of her teeth was so loud Kaya guessed that even the villagers could hear it on the other side of the hill. Kaede beckoned her to leave the cold waters, but the stubborn girl refused. As she disappeared below the surface, Kaya turned her attention back to an unsalvageable clump of hair. She'd told herself she wouldn't spend all of her time resting trying to untangle the mass that had once been her braid. Kaya had done just that, though. And now she took the same knife she'd on her chest and cut the clump of hair from her head. The tangled mess was tossed into the river to float downstream.
All thoughts were interrupted by a shrill cry from Kagome. Kaya's eyes snapped to her and she was just about to flip the knife into an offensive grip when the girl shouted the command that subjugated her brother to her will.
"Sit boy!"
She couldn't help but wince at the crash she heard behind her, considering it was likely her brother's body plummeting to the ground. "Are thee alright, Inuyasha?" Kaede asked. Inuyasha muttered something in turn that Kaya didn't care to hear.
"Serves you right for spying on me, you peeping tom!" The young priestess yelled back at him as she pulled her clothes on. Kaya nodded her head in agreement with that statement. "See! Even Kaya agrees with me!"
"Shows what you know! I was just—"
Kaede interrupted him, which turned into the old woman giving him a lecture. Kaya tuned it out and went back to trying to fix what was left of her hair. It was still moderately long, maybe the same length as Kagome's if one didn't look too closely at the uneven sections. Oh well, it's not as if hair didn't grow back…
"You really do hate me, don't you?" Kagome, now fully dressed in some borrowed clothes, asked the white-haired demon. She really did look like the dead Kikyou, Kaya noted, and that seemed to shut her brother up. But those blue eyes could been seen from quite a distance. It wasn't as though the two of them could be mistaken for twins. The girl began to shake the water out of her strange clothes and position them so they might actually dry, muttering something under her breath about 'soap'.
"Just ignore him, Kagome," Kaya finally spoke, trimming another piece of her hair. "Don't reward his bad behavior with attention."
"It's kinda hard, considering how loud he is." Kagome rolled her eyes, but there was a bit of a smile on her lips. "Here, let me even out your hair in the back while my clothes dry."
The young half-demon blinked, unsure of how to respond for a moment. "Oh, thank you." Kaya spun the blade around in her hand so she could give it to Kagome handle first.
"It won't be perfect, but at least you won't really have to worry about it being too uneven." Kagome set herself to cutting away at the most uneven strands. "So, will this knife stay like this forever?"
"Until my demonic energy fades from it, yes. In a blade that small, it will last awhile before it transforms back. The bigger or more powerful something is, the more energy I have to use to sustain it." Kaya let her hands fall into her lap as the other girl worked. In any normal circumstance, she'd never let a human get so close to her neck with a blade. But Kagome was… different.
Unlike anyone she'd ever met before. She couldn't detect a hint of malice in her. If she were honest, it was odd to experience kindness. "Be careful you don't cut yourself."
Kagome made a noise of affirmation, "I will."
Some time passed like that in the quiet. Even Inuyasha remained silent as Kagome cut away the tangled and uneven hair. Kaede seemed to be watching with interest, though Kaya couldn't see Inuyasha's face to know what he was thinking.
"There. That looks pretty good, if I may say so myself." The human announced as she brushed some fallen hair from Kaya's shoulders. "And it still looks pretty long, too, for how tangled it was before."
"Thank you, Kagome." Kaya said softly, accepting the knife back from the other girl handle-first.
"Happy to help where I can." She smiled at her. Then Kagome turned and began to fuss over her clothing once more.
It wasn't long before a woman carrying a baby on her back appeared to ask Kaede for help with her sick daughter. The old woman agreed to go back to the village and as she gathered herself to leave, Kaya stood up too.
"I think I'll head back as well, I'm still feeling rather tired." Kaya spoke, turning her yellow eyes to Kagome. The human girl nodded.
"Go ahead. I'll tell Inuyasha to you-know-what as many times as I have to if he gets out of line."
She nodded. The girl would be safe enough as long as the beads stayed on. And, honestly, Inuyasha was mostly talk to begin with. "Remember what I said about ignoring him." Her gaze drifted to her brother, who now seemed to be ignoring her, before she followed the two other women back to the village.
Kaya stood, arms crossed, outside of the hut that housed the sick child Kaede had been informed about. The truth was that she had no idea where the old woman's hut was among the jumble of rice fields and nearly identical structures—and her nose was no help at the moment either. The poultice that had been made for her smelled so strongly and was so close to her face that nothing could penetrate the stench of medicinal herbs.
She didn't mind the village or its inhabitants, truth be told, Kaya only wished she could somehow hide her ears so they would stop staring.
Yellow eyes averted to the sky, taking in the blue and lazy white clouds that lingered there.
"Everyone out!" Kaede shouted from inside the hut, just as Kaya had begun to daydream. The girl's mother and other family members rushed out. The young half-demon rushed in and came to stand behind the priestess. The village girl, cleaver in hand, was floating about a foot above the floor. She was clearly unconscious, but that didn't stop her from moving. Kaya grabbed Kaede's shoulder and pulled her back out of the way of a strike before stepping in front of her.
"Hurry, out of here!" Kaya demanded, catching the girl's wrist to stop the next strike. Clawed fingers wrested the cleaver away, but Kaya pulled the knife back realizing something had shredded the skin of her palm. "What the hell is this, Kaede? Some kind of possession?" In her hand the cleaver transformed into a long, dull weapon that could be used to fend the girl off… only for it to be pulled from her bloodied hand by an unseen force and land right back in the young girl's waiting grasp.
"Don't ye see it girl, tis the hair!" Kaede responded urgently, making room as Kaya backed out of the hut.
The half-demon stepped on the iron head of a hoe that leaned outside the hut's entrance and yanked the wooden handle out of it to use as a defense. "Hair? What the hell do you mean hair?"
"Ye cannot see it?"
"I don't see nothin'!" She responded, blocking the next strike with her wooden pole. The girl's mother and several villagers cowered nearby, and as Kaya turned she could see other girls were emerging from their places inside their family homes in a similar condition. Floating above the ground with weapons gripped in their fists. "Hey, get out here! Get outside the village if you can!"
"Listen to the girl! Tell the others to flee the village until this evil has gone from here!" Kaede commanded. The villagers that had gathered to watch scattered all at once as the other floating girls advanced, leaving only Kaya and Kaede standing on the path. "If ye can sever the hair that controls them, mayhaps that will put a stop to this."
Kaya put her body between Kaede and the swing of a scythe and earned herself a long gash down the arm. "Easier said then done if I can't see it! Get out of here, Kaede, get my brother and Kagome and figure out whats going on! I'll keep these girls' attention on me until the others have cleared out."
The old woman seemed to hesitate a moment, but then nodded her head. "Aye. But please, child, do not hurt them if ye can. They know not what they do."
Kaya blocked a blow from yet another kitchen knife wielded by a third girl. "Yeah, whatever! I haven't hurt them yet, have I?"
Kaede said nothing else and quickly began to retreat. One by one the village girls began to turn to follow her. Kaya let out an irritated sigh.
"Excuse me, it's me you're fighting!" She yelled, jumping over the girls' heads and landing between them and the priestess. "Kinda rude to leave when we were in the middle of something here."
The streets of the village seemed mostly to have emptied out, at least from what Kaya could tell as she charged down each one with the squadron of weapon wielding village girls behind her. That much was good—at least the rest of the villagers were safe. Now she only had to lose these and figure out where her brother and Kagome had gone.
Her feet touched the roof of a hut and came to a stop, looking down at the girls below her. Ten, maybe twelve of them in all? Enough to make it tricky to keep track of them, that was for damn sure. Her breath came in pants and each one seemed to amplify the burning pain from the wound in her chest. Exhaustion was beginning to get to her… How long had she been leading these girls around the village for, anyways?
The thought evaporated as the sharp pain of a blade stabbing into her back snapped Kaya into the present moment. A shriek of surprise and pain left her lips and the force of the blow caused her to tumble off of the hut's roof onto the ground below. However, the girl didn't have time to be stunned. Despite the pain, she rolled to the left to avoid another strike and then to the right to avoid a third. Finally with an opening, Kaya jumped back onto her feet. Her stick was clenched in her bleeding hand. But the possessed village girls never seemed to tire. One after the other they seemed to come at her, forcing her to dodge or parry with what was becoming an increasingly smaller wooden pole. A knife caught her wrist. A pitchfork dug into the skin near her ribs. And when Kaya jumped to her feet after rolling out of the way of the scythe, she found that she herself had been ensnared in something. Her feet wanted to leave the ground, but she struggled and tried to pull at what was restraining her even as the girls continued their attack.
"Let me go, god damn you!" She yelled. Her legs were now bound together at the knees and ankles. The hair, as Kaede had called it, seemed to be sharp enough to cut through the rough fabric of her trousers. It dug into her skin. Arms became bound to her sides. Something hitched around her throat and Kaya felt herself being lifted off the ground and slammed into the pole of a nearby Torii gate.
Shit shit shit. The more she strained to free her arms, the further the hair dug into her skin. But if she couldn't free herself… Warm blood dribbled down her neck. It was hardly possible to move her body at all. Yellow eyes squeezed shut as she tried to decide if losing a limb may free her.
There was a yell. A man's voice. The hair that bound her went completely slack and Kaya's body fell to the ground. She opened her eyes to see that she was somehow mostly intact, minus her clothing which seemed to be falling off in pieces. Inuyasha now stood between her and what was left of the possessed village girls.
"Get up, child, we must flee this place!" Kaede's wrinkled hands shook her shoulder. "Can ye stand?"
"Tell me you're alright, kid!" Her brother yelled, though his eyes remained on their opponents.
Kaya drew herself onto her knees, taking stock of her injuries. There were a lot of them, but none would kill a half demon like her. Her top had been completely shredded by the hair—all that remained now were the bandages that bound her chest. And her trousers were nearly as short as Kagome's odd skirt. Wait. "Where's Kagome?"
"Inuyasha has let her disappear back to her home." Kaede muttered. Kaya turned her eyes to her to see that the old woman was injured, too. "He will go to fetch her once we are safe."
"Never said I would!" Inuyasha yelled in response, dodging a blow from Pitchfork girl.
"Enough, brother!" Kaya pulled herself to her feet despite the pain. "I'm alright. You can't harm them, we have to go!"
He dodged Scythe girl and jumped into the air, landing beside the two women. "I know, we had a run-in with the village men on the way here. Gotta say, you're being awful particular about not wanting to hurt these humans considering how much they've hurt you."
"It's not their fault." Kaya responded. Inuyasha picked the old woman up off the ground and the three of them fled the village streets for the forest.
As they retreated into the depths of the trees, more and more cuts appeared on Kaya's body. The hair was weaved from branch to branch, canopy to canopy. The cuts didn't stop until they had landed in the smallest clearing.
The silver-haired half-demon set Kaede down and began to shed his robe. "Here, you can—"
"No." Kaya held up her bloodied hand to stop him. "Keep it. I'll stay here and keep watch over Kaede. If you're going to get Kagome you'll need more protection than me."
His lips pinched together in frustration, but he tucked his robe back in. Inuyasha watched as Kaya sat down beside Kaede on the forest floor and began examining her injuries. "Fine. But you have to promise me you'll stay put."
"So long as we can." Kaya nodded. "Bring Kagome back. I take it she can see the hair as well?"
"Aye." Kaede said. But then she groaned in pain and seemed to sink further into the ground. "Heed me, Inuyasha, ye need that girl to win this fight."
He seemed irritated. "Alright, alright, I'll go get her! But you two better not move."
Without another word he was gone.
Kaya leaned her body back against a rock, letting her fists clench together in pain now that her brother was gone. It hurt so much just to breathe. She'd managed to control her breaths to keep Inuyasha from worrying, but now the panting had returned.
"Rest, child." Kaede cautioned, though the old woman's voice was weak, too. "Your body was unprepared for this battle, you are still weakened from your wound."
"I'm alright," she muttered. The wounds would close in a matter of hours, she told herself. They always did.
one more author's note: i still really hate how the page breaks look...