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.:*:.Chapter 3.:*:.
The girls and Shippou sat across from Inuyasha and Miroku, looking wary of their companions. Inuyasha and Miroku had been gone for quite a long time.
"I wonder what Inuyasha said to him", commented Sango. Miroku didn't look angry at Inuyasha in the least, nor did he look frightened to be around him. What on earth was going on here? The five ate their ramen in silence.
Finally, after what seemed like an infinite forever, Miroku leaned over and whispered to Inuyasha, "Do you think I should explain my hypothesis to them now?" Inuyasha gave Miroku a funny look. "What's a high-poth-eh-sis?" Miroku sweat-dropped. After a minute or so, he cleared his throat to get the girls attention.
He knew that it was time they faced their opponent, regardless of the consequences.
"I believe that I know what happened between Inuyasha and Sango here." The girls looked up, and slowly put down their bowls. "Kagome, may I see your bag?" She looked down at her bag and back up at Miroku.
"No."
Miroku blinked. "Why not?" Kagome's eyes grew large. How was she supposed to explain this to him?
"There... are... things... in there that I don't want you to see." After this she folded her arms across her chest, indicating that the case was closed and would not be further discussed. Miroku just blinked again.
"Fine. May I see your medicine kit then?" Kagome just looked at him. He must be doing this on purpose. Fine, whatever that stupid monk wanted. She slowly got up and retrieved the medicine kit for him, and hesitantly placed it in his hands.
Miroku focused on the box with utmost concentration. "Now then, what I believe caused this cha-..." As he flipped up the lock that held the top of the box in place, suddenly things popped out of the medicine kit and started attacking him. He tried to ward them off, but there were just too many. Instead of fighting them, he just played dead, hoping they would give up. When at last the onslaught slowed, he pulled a tampon from off his head. "Kagome, next time, put your sanitary napkins somewhere else, okay?" He retrieved a Kotex maxi with extra flexible wings from the inside of his sleeve and the Tampax Compact with retractable inserter from his staff. After he piled all the woman paraphernalia in one corner, he retrieved what he was looking for out of the box.
"This... is what caused Inuyasha's change."
The other's just stared on blankly at the bottle. "What's that?" asked Sango, finally breaking the silence. The bottle was roughly about 4 inches tall, with intricate carvings down the side. The top was fastened with a glass stopper, atop of which stood a small figure of a flower.
Miroku looked at it for a moment, and ran his finger softly over the designs, as though it would help him remember what was inside of it. After a long period of silence, he softly said, "This is what... what killed my father." Sango put her hand up to her mouth to silence the gasp that inevitably escaped. "Poor Houshi-sama..." she thought to herself. She put her hand gently on his shoulder as a sign of empathy. Miroku took her hand into his, and looked deep into her eyes. Sango felt herself blush at the intensity with which the monk stared into her brown eyes with his Prussian blue ones, and, though not for the first time, felt a deep connection with him, and truly felt their souls unite as one. But within the next moment the only thing connecting them was Sango's hand on Miroku's cheek as she slapped him for grabbing her butt yet again. "That monk..." she thought to herself, as thoughts of murder ran, no, stampeded, through her mind. Miroku smiled, and thought to himself, "That was so worth it."
"Sango! Don't attack Miroku! You've been injured! Wait until you've recovered!" Sango nodded. Suddenly Kirara appeared, almost as if she had felt her owner's distress. Everyone just looked at her. "Where has she been?" wondered Sango. After Kirara took her place between Sango and Miroku to prevent anymore lecherous events, and after Miroku had taken a moment to savor the feeling of having accomplished a very important task, and after having him and Inuyasha sent to the corner, he continued his narration.
Facing the wall, he continued by saying, "Though it was the air rip that killed him in the end, it was this... this poison that sent him to his grave long before the air rip had the chance to." He was glad he was facing away from Sango, as his vision was beginning to blur at the memory of his now-gone family. "Because of this, he believed that he could absorb a monster into his air rip, even though it was of an absurd size. He believed that nothing would happen... even though Mushin told him that he could not use his air rip any more. This poison, it... it tricked him. It deceived his mind by..." Miroku paused to blink back the water forming in his eyes. Sango spoke up, "The bottle does look familiar. I think I remember seeing one of the other demon exterminators retrieve it from a demon. I never asked about it though, and I don't know where it came from, or what they did with it."
Yes. Not many people know about this supposed elixir." After a few more moments of deafening silence, Kagome voiced the question that was foremost in everybody's mind-- except perhaps Miroku, who was thinking about the sleeping arrangements for that night, as it was evident that Lady Sango would need someone to watch over her while she was so badly injured. "What does this elixir have to do with Inuyasha?"
Letting out a deep, melancholic sigh, he explained, "This elixir is called 'chimera'. This comes from the Latin chimaera, which is derived from the Greek khimaira, which means she-goat. A chimera is actually a fire-breathing she-monster usually represented as a composite of a lion, goat, and serpent, or as it is stated in ancient mythology. But the secondary meaning is 'fanciful illusions or fabrications'. Hence this liquid's name. As I understand it, this powerful potion is made up of the dew of a rare flower found only deep within the heart of southern Africa. This flower is called the amaryllis, but its conventional name is Belladonna's lily. When ingested, this liquid imposes upon its victim whatever dreams the maker wishes to conjure up. It was supposedly created by le sorciere avec le coeur noir noire et gros." He lifted an eyebrow at Inuyasha and remembered that the hanyou didn't know correct English, much less French. He translated, "It means 'the witch with the black and heavy heart.' Her husband, a powerful demon, left her for another woman, not on his own free will though. A rival witch had hypnotized him into believing that he loved her, instead of his wife. The woman was heart-broken as a result of this, and heavily grieved. To extract her revenge on the other witch, she made this potion from the flower, to counter act the hypnosis. But in the end, instead of awakening from the previous hypnosis, the potion caused him to see her 'soul', bare and uncovered, and what he saw frightened him so that he killed her. He didn't recognize it was his lover until it was too late." Miroku paused, as he thought he heard a sniffle from Inuyasha. "It wasn't that her soul was actually that hideous, it was just what the other witch wanted him to see. This potion controls its victim's minds and enslaves them under a psychoneuromatic trance."
Everyone blinked. Miroku sweat-dropped.
"Okay, so 'psychoneuromatic' isn't a word. It sounded good though." Sango just shook her head in shame.
"But... how did this get into my bag? I don't remember getting it from anywhere... And how does this tie in with Inuyasha?"
"I'm not sure where you got it from. But somehow, Shippou, Kirara, and Inuyasha have all been affected by it. Inuyasha attacked Sango because he saw her as something she was not. I imagine that he saw her as Naraku or Sesshoumaru, or as another enemy of some sort. We all know that Inuyasha would not attack Sango for any reason at all."
Now Sango spoke up: "But I saw 'Kikyo' hand a bottle to Inuyasha, yet it's not the one you're holding right now. Why didn't Inuyasha remember that much? Or why were only Inuyasha, Shippou, and Kirara affected? When did they get affected by it? And before he attacked, he was fine; he didn't seem to be under any sort of illusion at all. And why did he change into a full demon?"
Miroku thought for a moment. "Perhaps it was part of the chimera at work. Or perhaps Naraku, disguised as Kikyo, did give Inuyasha this potion. Naraku probably then used a spell to make Inuyasha forget the encounter. And as for who can be affected by it, you must remember that it was created for a demon, so it will probably only affect demons, and not humans, which could also be the reason why Inuyasha turned full demon. And... I don't know how it just suddenly started to work. Perhaps it turns itself on and off according to the will of the one controlling it."
They had been in here for almost 2 hours, which was 2 hours too long for the impatient dog demon. Inuyasha got up and walked out without saying a word. The others looked on, as they were familiar by now with Inuyasha's moods. Sango sighed, as she continued thinking her thoughts to herself
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