Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Inuyasha..........but I do own this plot so please don't steal!
Authors Note: Sorry for taking so long...school and such you know. Homework....infernal creature ¬.¬
"Kesshite Doriimingu"
Chapter six
Cold Shoulder Deity
Another day of travel. It was yet another morning. The group decided to leave early while the sun was still peaking lightly over the horizon. It was much cooler in the morning, the dew still coated thickly in a fine film over the land, wetting their feet as they trudged through the grass, but it wasn't any discomfort, it was quite nice.
Day seven. They'd traveled a week. They were quickly nearing the boarder of the farthest they had traveled, and then it would be unfamiliar and more dangerous territory. That was a thought. Danger.
Kagome looked up from where she'd been staring blankly into the ground, watching her feet and shoes begin to soak. She'd been taking all this time to contemplate. There was so much still hanging in suspension that she wanted to know, hear or say. She hadn't had a propper chance to speak with Inuyasha since three days ago, but she figured she could wait.
'But,' she thought idly. There was that nagging suspicion. Completely unrelated to most of her regular thoughts, Kagome had recently begun to worry about other demons. It seemed strange that they had not been attacked yet. Very convenient, but strange. She thought that at least they would have come into a weak demon by now. The fact that they had not made her worry.
'What if they know?' That was something to fear. She stared blankly ahead. 'What if they know that Inuyasha is di- sick? They'd take that chance to team up. And Miroku doesn't have the Kazana.' She shivered at the thought and sighed unintentionally.
Suddenly she was startled by the sudden touch to her shoulder. She turned in mild surprise to find Inuyasha standing there. He gave her a look. He didn't have to use facial expressions, his eyes always gave him away when he was around her. Even if no one else could see it, Kagome could read his eyes.
He knew how she felt.
She smiled at him in comprehension. They continued on their path, with Kagome more reassure. Whatever they may face, they'd face it together. That was the one thing sure.
~*~
As they walked on through the day they realized there was a noticeable temperature change from before. Yesterday it had been for the most part warm, but now it was a little chilly, to the point of needing a sweater. Kagome rubbed her arms. 'Odd...'
Shippo, though, seemed not to notice the change at all. He was bounding around more than usual, making everyone think he'd gotten into something, and reminding Kagome of her cat a little high on catnip. He was bounding around back and forth in front of them, talking a mile a minute and singing a little jingle he'd made up.
Kagome smiled to herself, but then shivered. "Hm," she muttered vacantly. Inuyasha's ears twitched in front of her and he looked around. "Something wrong?" he asked. He'd gotten very considerate lately. She shook her head lightly. "No, its nothing." He seemed unwilling to further an interrogation and turned back idly.
A few minutes passed in relative muttered silence, the background noise of Shippo, a reminder of school. A nap with background noise, if only there were a desk to sleep on. She smiled. But suddenly she was brought out of her thoughts by the sudden loudness of Sango and Miroku's conversation.
She hadn't realized they were talking, but from the sound of it their conversation was now more of a hostile one. "No...just drop it Houshi." "Sango, its just a question, why are you-" "I said stop." Miroku looked baffled and almost angry. "Did it occur to you that maybe I could help? That I would want to?" "I don't need help."
It seemed very much like a conversation that she shouldn't listen in on, but they all had stopped moving, Shippo had stopped singing. They were all watching Sango and Miroku.
Miroku gave her a look of frustration. "Sango, I know that I've been immature in the past but, this is serious! Was there ever a time when I acted wrongly when it really mattered? Do you think that I would now?" Sango looked down. "I said no. Just drop it-" "I can't!" She looked up. They seemed to have both forgotten that they were not the only ones here.
Miroku looked desperate. "This may be the most important thing to you, but none the less it's dangerous and I can't in good consious let you go alone!" Sango stared wide eyed looking like she wanted nothing more in the world than to run away and hide. She glared with a sudden fury. "No!"
In a final ditch of effort it seemed, Miroku grabbed her shoulders. "Sango-!" SMACK! She slapped him. Like she had a million times before. But this one was different. So very extremely different.
Miroku dropped his hands to his sides. Kagome looked between her friends in horror. Miroku dropped his head, his bangs shading his face as Sango looked away. No one spoke. Suddenly the most unconvensional of things happened and Inuyasha stepped forward. Kagome raised her eyebrows as he was about to say something, when Kagome shivered violently.
Inuyasha spun around instantly and as he did everyone seemed to look to her. Kagome left her mouth agape as she was vaguely aware of why they were staring. She hadn't realized it, but somehow she had become almost freezing in the past few minutes. Her fingers were turning purple.
Her teeth chattered. "I..." she didn't finish as a huge unembodied wind blew by, and.....snow....began to fall to the ground. Everyone looked around them in bafflement. Kagome continued to shiver. 'How on earth could it have gotten this cold so fast?' she thought. But then it was all too obvious, and the enlightenment dawned upon her with a look of utter fear as she looked from the clearing into the trees.
Standing in elegance and blank confidence, was an ice wielding humanoid figure. Their worst fear had come true. They could only pray she was somewhat civilized.
She was beautiful looking about eighteen, with apparently long lustrous silver hair that was mostly held up in many twists with a silver clip. Her skin was porcelain and she wore a silver-white gown. Simple and functional with a toga type look to it, though she had another layer of a chiffon type fabric that created the long open sleeves of the gown. Her pose was confident. She was inherently dangerous.
Everything else was forgot in an instant as everyone began to act. Sango held Hiraikotsu at ready, Kirara transformed, Miroku stepped forward with his staff and Inuyasha stood at ready in front of all of them. Kagome bit her lip as Shippo ran behind her. She stood by Inuyasha's side.
The woman tilted her chin up slightly and looked down at them from her ice thrown. "Are you the group of which is lead by the infamous 'Inuyasha'?" she asked them calmly. Kagome hid the fear from her eyes. "Yes." The woman leered upon them all. "I don't intend to harm you, but if you do not give me the Shikon no Tama, I will be forced to kill you." she spoke without emotion.
Cold, like the ice she apparently created. Kagome blinked hard, taking a deep breath, then looked up to the demoness with intent. "We will not give you shikon no tama, and who are you to demand such a thing?" The woman cocked her head, and then as if by mear thought she was broght down by a new ice ramp to nearly in front of Kagome.
"I am Aisu, diety of ice and snow. To you, I could be God." She said this without a bit of a waiver getting up into her face, and out of the corner of her eye Kagome saw Inuyasha tense. "Give me the jewel." she held out her hand keeping absolute eye contact.
"Hey Aisu," she stood up to her full hieght, brushing back a loose strand of her flawless silver hair. "Hn...?" she muttered curiously. Inuyasha glared her in the eye. "Diety of ice, was that it?" she cocked her head in acknowlagement. Inuyasha grinned. "Well then, it seems that you're pretty much screwed, cause I don't care if you're God of the air we breath, no one gives orders to me."
'He will never lose that confidence.' Kagome shivered, but not entirely from the cold. "Inu..." He stared ever to Aisu but dirrected one more comment toward Kagome. "Let me do this." He'd never stop being cocky. Aisu gave him a bored look. "Very well," she watched as he unsheathed and held Tetsusaiga. "Prepare to succumb." he charged forward. "Kaze no Kizu!" the blade flew but stopped mid swing as Aisu's hand came down, stopping the blow.
It seemed to be suspended by nothing, but then ice suddenly engulfed it. She smirked. "Nice try." With a wave of her hands she threw him back, and Kagome gasped at first before he got right back up. Aisu raised her hands again as large icy poles jutted from the ground nearly impaling them all. But Sango quickly stepped in and threw Hiraikotsu across the plain, cutting down the stalactites to short stumps but rebounding off Aisu's shield.
Aisu glared in annoyance. "Infidel," but as she spoke Inuyasha stood ready with Tetsusaiga no longer sheathed in ice as Miroku stepped up to play. Holding the Ofuda sheet in between his four and middle finger he muttered an incantation. The paper shot forth as fire and dissolved Aisu's frozen shield, gaining her attention. "Bothersome mortals." She raised her hand to attack when Inuyasha came through.
"Kaze no Kizu!" He shouted once more, but this time it took out the entire ice platform that Aisu was standing on, and she fell clumsily to the ground in shock. "My..." She stared wide eyed, but turned swiftly and glared, voice dripping with venom and hate. "You..." She stood easily and raised her hands before her as though she were holding an invisible orb.
Kirara growled as she began to recite an incantation in lost dialect. "Ela comfronte iasha miento, fia milantre kiatsa be noshen, icella icella destrunctivo," Kirara made a disturbing cry and lunged forward at the so-called ice deity, only to be thrown back by a new force field with seemingly no effort. Kirara crumpled back in her untransformed state with small whimpers.
"Kirara," Sango muttered, picking her up gingerly. Inuyasha stood at ready with Tetsusaiga again; Miroku stood nearest to Sango, though with no intension of this; Shippo hid behind them; and Kagome, was at the complete opposite to Inuyasha, watching in fear.
Aisu suddenly opened her eyes. "For you, I must destroy." she finished. As she stared unblinking into Inuyasha's eyes an orb of white light appeared in her hands. "Die." She pushed her hands forward with ever full power and strong might.
Inuyasha held up Tetsusaiga with a smirk as the light came head on. "Bakuryuu!" The intertwined power of the light energy and Aisu's ice creations combined and split, destroying the blast.
Aisu became enraged. "No!" She flailed her arms wildly creating jagged trails of badly aimed ice as Inuyasha ran at full force toward the self-proclaimed deity. Kagome watched in amazement thinking. It seemed he was doing so well now and it was almost unreal that he was fighting like this. Though he definitely needed the reassurance, he was still eerily over powerful.
Little did she know that the others thought this too, and that she was right.
Inuyasha closed in on Aisu as she raised her hands. "No, stop!" He swung. "Bakur-" and almost in suspended motion, Inuyasha stopped his sentence in a strange realization, and as Tetsusaiga hit...nothing happened.
A look of absolute shock and horror spread over all their faces as Inuyasha dropped back, and Tetsusaiga de-transformed becoming just another rusty old useless sword.
And Aisu's face lite up in a sudden revelation. "You're sick." She smirked as they all looked to her in terror. She stepped forward with a newfound confidence.
"So it was true, what they all have said. The one called Naraku is truly dead...and you, the one to destroy him, in result are dying." It was deathly silent but for the merry snowfall from Aisu, which seemed to increase in her revelation.
She chuckled. "Well now I guess I will now kill you. It was nice knowing you," she raised her hand and paused. "Well, not really." She held her hand up- "No...!" She was stopped by a small cry and as she turned, she was impaled with one simple arrow.
She looked down. "What is thi-?" but as she spoke, she was engulfed in a burning pink light of purification. "Ah-Noo! You-!" She screamed in agony and disappeared, leaving not even ashes behind in the white. They all looked to Kagome as she fell, holding her bow as tears glazed her eyes.
Sango stared tiredly and dropped to her knees as Kirara continued to whimper only a bit in bravery, while Shippo stood by Miroku who only just stared at the the group. And all of them looked to Inuyasha, who stood almost wavering looking down at his hands. His hands that had once held the Tetsusaiga, but he was now staring just at them. At the fact that his claws were gone; and replaced by short human nails.
Kagome stood up dropping her bow and walking to him, shaking with the cold that she no longer noticed, and stood there before him with the tears that still rimmed her eyes. She looked up to him, but he didn't look back, still staring at his hands.
Finally she squeezed her eyes shut sending the tears cascading down her cheeks as she embraced him strongly, and he still didn't move, letting out only one note of acknowledgment that he knew she was even there, when he made a choking noise and dropped his hands with his head.
And everyone else watched in solomn depression from the sudden new development. Inuyasha was loosing his power, the sickness was getting worse and they were in ever increasing danger. There was no more pretending, it was bad.
Standing in the remains of snow and ice that covered the cold surface, they all gave into the grey. They clouds that loomed over opened. And once again, it began to snow.
@ @ @
fun fun. Its now time to bring back the angst. Let me know how you like the new development, Review! I'll try to update soon, but it definitely wont be up for at least a week or so. Hey, I've got other stories and I'm in ALL Certificate Merit classes! Gah, +.+ why f\did I have to do that. ~Hears little voice in head~ oh yeah, collage -.-
Well anyway the next developments in the story will have a do with Miroku and Sango's situation and the fact of why they were fighting earlier. It's a crucial plot development ^.~ oh and i'm gona make it snow a lot. I seem to like snow, i wonder why that would be....lol
Extra note: ~~There is a Huricane coming to my area today and they've canceled school for Thursday and Friday, so I may not have power or internet servise for a while.~~
~SNOW