Amber Lote winced as she washed the rapidly healing wound in her side.
Kaede's wonderful salves had really helped with her various scratches and
pains. She stood waist deep in the cold water of the tributary that fed
down into the ocean carefully testing the ruby red flesh that had once been
a gapping hole.
She was healing well, the only things that ever bothered her anymore where the gashes on her back that Kaede had been unable to repair through stitching and had resigned to burning closed, an extremely painful process that had required several village men to hold her patient down. But even these were healing over now and Amber was able to enjoy a long bath in the cold water.
"Come out of there Amber, before ye catch yer death of cold." The rough call of the aforementioned priestess cut through the morning air and Amber decided not to argue. She'd managed to get herself clean as possible without proper soap, she was no longer caked with sweat and blood and that was enough of an improvement.
Amber clambered out of the water and rung out her hair, not bothering with a towel she let the warm sun caress her flesh and stretched painfully.
A rustling sound caught her attention and drew her eyes to the bushed across from where she stood, near where a small waterfall fed the still pond Amber had been washing in. The telltale golden eyes and white dogs ears pricked forward as the naked girl caught sight of their owner nestled among the foliage.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?" Amber screamed grabbing up the towel to shield herself. She hurled the first thing that came to hand, which happened to be a metal pot Kaede had used to boil her salves that morning, at his head and grabbed the clothes Kaede had set out for her.
Inuyasha caught the pot in the head and fell down the slope, landing rather ungracefully in the water. He surfaced sputtering madly and tried to climb up onto the rock ledges by the waterfall.
"SIT!" The angry girl shouted from where she was struggling into her pants, her face red with embarrassment. Inuyasha plunged back into the water as Amber pulled her bra on and glowered at his form under the water.
"What was that for?" He shouted spitting out a fountain.
"GUESS!" Amber replied, now fully dressed. Her face was dark and stormy and her eyebrows nearly met at the bridge of her nose as she glowered at him. Kaede looked up with a smile that was banished the minute she saw Amber in those clothes. Any doubts she might have had about Amber being her calm, level headed sister reborn were banished in an instant as someone who was Kikyo but was also not Kikyo sat her lost love once again as he clambered up onto the shore.
"THAT HURTS YOU KNOW!" Inuyasha bellowed at his fuming partner as he pulled his face out of the mold it had made in the wet earth. He clawed the clinging bits of sand off his face and shook his head to clear his ears of water.
"THAT'S THE IDEA DIP SHIT!" Amber bellowed right back, she managed to prevent herself from sitting him again but continued right along with the swearing. "WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU DOING UP THERE ANYWAY YOU PERVERTED BASTARD?"
"CALM DOWN! THE ONLY REASON I CAME WAS..." He seemed to realize what he was about to say an instant to soon.
"TO STEAL THE JEWEL? OH GREAT, I EXPECTED A THIEF BUT NOW I HAVE A PERVERTED THIEF?" Amber angrily turned away from the wet half demon and came to sit by the chuckling old priestess.
"Ye will need to work together if ye can ever hope to find all the jewel shards." She informed them sagely as she stood wearily and gathered the herbs Amber had helped her pick that morning. Amber was not a promising gardener as she had taken to swearing at the weeds as she was hoeing and hitting them with the gardening tools that really did more harm to the herbs than the weeds. "Only Amber will be able to find the shards and only Inuyasha possesses the strength to take them back."
"Well I'm still here ain't I?" Inuyasha snarled. "I'll put up with anything to get that jewel."
Amber was struck by the desire to sit his face into the fire but controlled it at a warning look from Kaede. The grisly old priestess seemed to already be aware of how Amber's mind functioned when she was around people she disliked. "Why don't you just shut the fuck up dog man." She said instead of speaking the word that would plunge his face into the hot coals.
Inuyasha looked up at her, no doubt to say something nasty in response, but his voice died suddenly in his throat and he just stared at the pretty girl seated across the fire from him.
"What the hell are you looking at?" Amber snarled catching his look. She was dressed in large loose garments that greatly resembled Kaede's and her hair was done back in a loose ponytail.
"Nothing it's just..." He trailed off and Amber looked at him strangely. For a moment he seemed a million miles away before he was brought back by Amber's rude snort of laughter.
"Whatever Barbie boy." She muttered shaking her head.
~IY~
Yura woke silently, her lips too parched to speak the name of the fire bright orb she'd been dreaming off. She smiled wickedly and wet them with her tongue, looking about the softly lit chamber she dwelt within.
"Shikon No Tama!" She called into the darkness as though calling for a small dog. "You've resurfaced at last! I'd almost given up hope." The pretty woman stretched and sighed contentedly. "It sure took you long enough." She chided the far away jewel in a childish voice.
She plucked her bright skull from the small space she'd made for it near her bed and began to brush its long hair as affectionately as a small child brushes the hair of her favorite doll, running her fingers through its silky length. As she readjusted her place on her bed one of the many skulls clattered down like a boulder down a hillside. Yura perched a top the mound of skulls and sighed. The resurfacing of Shikon No Tama was a grand thing indeed.
~IY~
"Priestess Kaede!" The woman's yell was all that saved the entire village from another long fight.
Amber and Inuyasha stood across from each other, their hands balled into tight fists of fury as the regarded the other. Amber's hair was loose and framed her face that cackled with ominous thunder and Inuyasha tossed his own white mane and glowered, lightening leaping through his large golden eyes. It had all stemmed, as usual, from the pairs unending problem. The fact that each of them knew exactly how to push the other ones buttons.
"What is it Akio?" Kaede turned away from the two angry young people and addressed the panicking woman. "What's the problem?"
"It's my daughter." Akio cried, wringing her hands in distress. "I don't know what's happened to her." She pushed her wild hair out of her eyes and shot a scared look at the priestess' furious companions before continuing. "Please come and heal her."
Kaede sighed and looked back at Amber and Inuyasha. Perhaps they needed to be left alone long enough for them to scream themselves hoarse and get all the insults out. Then again maybe Inuyasha would gut Amber if they were left alone or perhaps even vice-versa. But Akio sounded absolutely terrified by her daughters' sudden illness and Kaede had no choice but to decide to leave them alone.
"I will come." She told the distraught woman, and to her companions, "and you two please try not kill each other."
Inuyasha laughed a short joyless bark. "Yeah Amber'll kill me someday." He jeered roughly before Amber hit him again on the head with the pot Kaede had forced her to retrieve.
"YOU ARE SUCH AN ASSHOLE!" She screamed at him as he rubbed his sore head.
"WELL YOU'RE NO BETTER!" He yelled back jumping to his feet and flexing his claws threateningly. Amber gripped the handle of the heavy steel cooking utensil like it was a weapon and glared at her adversary.
Kaede sighed and turned away. She doubted either of them would be able to kill the other. Amber still had the power to contain Inuyasha and Inuyasha had proved many times already he could defend himself against Amber's assaults that were vicious in their own right. "I'll return later." The old priestess sighed but she doubted they heard her, as they were busy screaming at each other again.
~IY~
"WELL AT LEAST I DON'T WATCH PEOPLE WHEN THEIR BATHING!" Amber retorted as Inuyasha cut loose another insult.
"I TOLD YOU I DIDN'T KNOW YOU WERE BATHING!" He yelled back, a faint red tinge splashed over his cheeks.
"YAH RIGHT! YOU'RE A TOTAL ASS YOU KNOW THAT?"
"YOU'VE SAID IT ENOUGH TIMES THAT A MONKEY WOULD KNOW IT BY NOW!" Inuyasha bellowed back at her, his fist clenched in rage.
Amber spat some obscenities that Inuyasha himself wouldn't have dared utter in another beings presence before sinking down near the fire and proceeding to scowl. The girl was an absolute brat! A completely immature and selfish little child.
"Look you poor excuse for a demon." She growled, not meeting his eyes. "Kaede said we need to work together, and believe me I'm no happier about it then you are, but I can accept that we need to make peace with each other. We're going to be depending on each other if we're ever going to get that jewel." The entire compromise was pushed through her tightly gritted teeth that seemed to want to hold back any hope for advancement in this unholy union.
"You're going to be depending on me you mean." He corrected her snobbishly. "You could go home right now and I wouldn't care."
Amber thought about that for a minute before getting to her feet. She looked back at Inuyasha once more and began walking away down the path.
"Where are you going?" Inuyasha asked angrily.
"Home stupid." Amber replied casually. She smiled, finally making up her mind. The debate between the two worlds was finally over, she was running low on cigarettes and what did it matter to her what happened to Shikon No Tama anyway? It wasn't like a stupid hunk of glass was going to affect her life.
"Wait a minute you can't..." Inuyasha began.
"See that's where you're wrong." Amber said spinning on her heel. "I can very well go home. All I need to do is go back to that well in the forest and pull an Alice and the Rabbit Hole. It is you that 'can't'. That is you that cannot stop me in any way shape or form."
Inuyasha looked at her for a minute, his face blank and his confusion obvious. Convinced she had completely lost the stupid boy Amber turned away to continue on her chosen path.
"Hey!" Inuyasha snarled grabbing at her arm. He missed and grabbed her side, unwittingly uncovering Amber's most fiercely guarded secret.
"Don't touch me there!" She commanded pulling away from his hand.
"What? It's not like I groped you or something." He replied.
"No I just don't like you touching me there." She answered angrily shielding her weak spot with one hand and her other side, still tender and red, with her other.
Inuyasha looked puzzled for a minute before true realization dawned on him. He looked as a small child might if he were informed that Christmas was now every other day of the week as he leveled a finger at her and spoke his words of doom.
"YOU HAVE A TICKLISH RIB DON'T YOU?"
"............ No?"
His attack was swift and brutal. He, to put it bluntly, leapt on her and began to tickle her mercilessly, taking some sort of pleasure to see her scream and flail in a state his threats and real attacks could never render her. She managed to bite his hand and began a kind of odd wiggle to try and get away. He grabbed her ankle and pulled her back, her fingers making deep ruts in the soft ground, her legs flailing helplessly as he crushed her easily beneath him and continued tickling her.
"Nopleasegodstopdontticklemeohgodthatwasnotmyside." Amber's words slurred together into an inane string of giggle punctuated frenzy as she tried to escape. She kicked at him, missing her unmentionable target and hitting his own side. He let go long enough for her to roll away and grab the thick, lethal rake that she'd been using to help Kaede in her herb garden.
"Wait no don't use that!" Inuyasha gasped as she brandished it, red fury plastered all over her face.
The tables had turned.
"OW! THAT HURTS!" The first connection was into his already sore side. He thought that would be the end but the enraged teenager was angry beyond words and began chasing him around smacking him with the rake in various places.
"Stop it!" He yelled. He turned abruptly and sliced the rake into tiny pieces. Amber stopped and looked first at him and then at the two ends of her weapon she held in her hands.
"SIT!" She commanded. Inuyasha groaned for an instant before he face- planted into the ground. He lifted his head and spat out a mouth full of choking dust.
"Where are you going now?" He yelled after her retreating back.
"Home, like I was before you started tickling me." Amber shouted not turning around.
"Yah? Well good riddance, ya loony!"* He shouted after her.
She didn't turn around.
"Bah." He growled bitterly, jamming his hands in his pockets. "Women."
~IY~
Kaede pushed aside the hanging cloth that divided the two rooms. The smell of incense hit her like a wall and she winced before going to the crumpled form of Akio's daughter, laying comatose on a pallet. The mother was babbling hysterically as the priestess bent over her daughters' helpless form.
"I tried the incense but it didn't do anything, then I tried the salves, and the chants and all the things you suggested but she just lays there." Akio said hopelessly lost in her ramblings about inadequate medical treatments.
Kaede put her hand over the girls pale forehead as Akio wrung her hands and worried her bottom lip between her teeth and watched.
"She's running a high fever." Kaede confirmed opening the girls' mouth and looking for the greenish spots on the tongue that would have revealed Nordanak Fever. She found none. "I'm not sure exactly what she's got."
Akio looked even more worried now that even Kaede didn't know what was infecting her daughter. "Will she live?" She asked hoarsely.
"Oh I'm sure..." Kaede trailed off as a curious sound began to fill the small building. A sound like silken threads sliding over wood. She turned around and looked for some source of the curious sound and watched as the sick girl rose off the cot.
"Sakura?" Akio asked as her daughter dangled above the floor like a marionette, her limbs limp and useless.
"Akio, get behind me." Kaede commanded harshly, pushing the frail woman behind her.
"Sakura I..." Kaede began hoping to reason with the girl. Her words were cut off however, as a wicked looking butchers knife flew to the girls hand and before the old woman could blink, Sakura had attacked.
~IY~
Amber regretted her arrogance as she knelt beside the Bone Eaters well and looked at the many bones that lay strewn about inside it. The resting- place of monsters, Kaede had said it was called, full of dead things. Amber had thought about her plan more and more as she'd approached the well. It was really quite ridiculous. She expected to jump in the well and suddenly be back in modern day Tokyo?
It worked one way though. What was to suggest it wouldn't work the other? Did magic have these laws like normal things? A logical assumption would be that the portal worked two ways but then a logical assumption would also rule out the very existence of the entire portal so she wasn't sure if logic was of any help at all. Time travel was complicated business.
Amber sighed and looked up as a bird twittered away in a tree. The happy little creature sung brightly and its cheery mood made Amber want to throw something at it. She considered looking for a rock when something else caught her eye.
It was a thread. Or that was what Amber thought at first as she lent over to examine it closer. No it was more like a hair. A very long hair no doubt, for it didn't seem to have a beginning or and end. And a very ominous hair as it was hanging for no apparent reason in the middle of a forest, but a hair none the less. Amber lent back against the well and for the first time recognized her predicament. A web of hair.
There was hair everywhere. A huge living net of it surrounded her, the strands coming from the trees all around her and vanishing into shadows. There was something extremely odd about this. Well more odd then was usual in feudal Japan.
"So you can see the hair net?" A pretty woman dressed in somewhat slutty clothes stood before her, a red sword sheathed at her side and her wide somewhat evil looking eyes fixed on her. She smiled wickedly and Amber watched as the hair began to move around her like living serpents. She stood quickly and faced the girl, who was barely an inch taller then herself.
"Who the fuck are you?" Amber asked raising one eyebrow at her.
The woman looked at her for a minute then threw back her head and laughed as though Amber's words were some great joke. As the strange woman laughed Amber could feel a heavy, unpleasant weight begin to grow in her stomach. She was going to get hurt again. She knew it.
~IY~
"Stupid girl and her 'beads of containment.' Who needs her anyway?" Inuyasha thought to himself as he ran towards the village. Maybe now that Amber had gone home Kaede would take the beads off and let him go find the jewel for himself.
Inuyasha reached the village and landed gracefully. "I'm better off without her." He decided.
The streets were deadly quiet as Inuyasha surveyed them looking for any sign of the villagers. He didn't like the sickly cloak of silence that had pulled itself over the village. It made him uneasy. Inuyasha cracked his knuckles to break the quiet and took a step down the road.
The villagers finally appeared. The women, all suspended in the air as though they were dolls on the end of invisible strings, advanced; each clutching a weapon of decided ill intent.
"Now are you otherwise sensible women going to pull an Amber and fight me?" He asked them boldly looking around. Each one looked as though they were asleep, unwillingly puppets for some unseen master.
"Inuyasha!" The weak cry startled the hanyou and he turned to see Kaede dragging herself out of a nearby house. He leapt easily over the heads of the village women and landed beside her, the hot metallic smell of blood clouding his every sense.
"You're hurt." He stated, somewhat alarmed by the deep wound along her shoulder.
"Tell me something I do not know." She replied. "Inuyasha you must not hurt the village women. It is not their fault. They are being controlled against their wills."
Inuyasha tossed his long silver hair and looked at the puppet women that had begun to drift listlessly towards them.
"Well from the looks of it it's going to be us or them lady, and my vote's for them." He looked down at the helpless old woman.
~IY~
"My name," the strange woman said, "is Yura. Yura of the Demon Hair as I'm called." She smiled sweetly, a look that chilled Amber's blood. "But you needn't stake any effort on remembering that. You'll be dead soon anyway."
In that instant Yura overtook Inuyasha as Amber's least favorite demon. Of course she didn't know many demons but still. She was worse then the arrogant dog man and that was something.
Amber watched as with a negligent wave of her hand Yura sent a thick line of hairs towards her. She flinched back, but the hairs merely delicately plucked the bag that contained the single jewel shard from around Amber's neck.
She smiled and opened it, emptying the tiny sliver of purple glass into her palm.
"You BROKE it?" She asked disappointed. "How positively inconsiderate of you."
"Well you know me, selfish to fault." Amber replied weakly, now officially freaked out by this whole situation.
"Well where is the rest of it?" Yura asked testily replacing the shard.
"How the fuck am I suppose to know? It shattered." Amber replied backing up until she was pressed against the well.
"How rude." She chided waving her finger in Amber's face. She slipped the jewel bag around her neck and stepped back, drawing her sword from its sheath. "Well if you don't know then I'm afraid you're of no further use to me. Goodbye."
Amber glanced behind her as Yura advanced and sighed. Psycho hair lady with a sword or untested time portal, this was one of those questions she's never thought she'd have to ask herself. But Yura solved the whole thing by lunging. Amber tried to dodge, lost her balance and fell through the mouth of the Bone Eaters well.
Yura watched fascinated as the girl tumbled down the well, waiting for her to land on the bottom. If the fall didn't kill her Yura planned to pop down there and finish the job. But she never hit the bottom. Half way down the well her body was consumed by a burst of purple light, and Yura stood staring at the empty hole until she was entirely sure the mortal wasn't using some sort of trickery.
"Well that's not fair." She commented, disappointed by the loss of her quarry. "She got away. And what a strange girl she was to." Yura tossed her hair and looked down into the well once more. "Oh well." She turned her mind away from the odd girl and back to the task at hand. Disposing of the village and recovering the sacred jewel.
~IY~
Yura had found a comfortable position in a tree where she could concentrate on her puppets, far away in the little village. She'd planned to use them to destroy the village and then take their skulls but she'd run into an odd situation. There was someone who was not under her control.
"I'll just have to add you to my collection." She muttered to herself. She twisted her hands to work the hair and hoped she could hurry the process up a bit. This was simply far to a long a time to spend on one little village.
~IY~
"The hair Inuyasha! Look for the hair!" Kaede's yell fell on helpless ears as the dog demon looked at the surrounding women.
"WHAT HAIR?" He asked looking around bewildered. His adversaries made no sound as they advanced, the menacing weapons clutched in their hands. He glanced around nervously, but the attack didn't come from the strange villagers.
The feeling was that of ropes being attached to his every limb. He felt them pull tight and strong like chains of hair. He could feel them, but as he twisted his head around he still couldn't see them and that made him helpless as a blind man in a bandit raid.
"Inuyasha!" He could hear Kaede call out to him and saw her dragging herself weakly towards him, leaving a great trail of dark blood on the grassy ground.
"Don't worry so much." He replied. Flexing his powerful muscles. "Who ever is doing this isn't very smart. I can get away from this easy." He felt the strings rip away and he landed on the ground unscathed, shooting a grin at the priestess. "See?" He asked cockily.
"LOOK OUT!" Kaede responded, pointing to the invisible ropes of hair that once again pursued the tall warrior.
"What..?" Inuyasha could feel the lethal coils wrap around him. They slammed him against a near by tree splintering the wood and knocking the air out of his lungs. As he struggled to recover he felt the slither of hair against his skin as a thick rope slid around his neck and began cutting off his airflow.
But Inuyasha was not the type to be done in by some crazy invisible tangle! He struggled with it, digging his heels into the tree bark to brace his body as with enormous strength he tore away the rope that was slowly crushing down on his windpipe. He ducked as the line cut the tree he'd been pinned on in two and escaped again though he could still feel the place where the constricting grip of the hair had taken his breath away.
"That's a relief. For a minute there I thought I was a goner." Inuyasha muttered to Kaede as he leapt over to her side.
"If you were human, you would have been." Kaede replied weakly. Her one eye was dim and the amount of blood pouring from her large wound was enough to make Inuyasha nervous.
But that was not the end. As he bent over Kaede the unseen puppet master rose the village men, wielding vicious looking farm tools and with the same blank expressions on their faces. Inuyasha growled with frustration and knelt down beside Kaede.
"I'm getting awfully sick of this." He growled angrily, deep in his throat.
"Forget about me Inuyasha." Kaede gasped her voice fading fast. She looked up at him and pushed his hand away as he tried to help her up. "Save yourself."
"That's quite the noble act there Kaede but I'm not buying." Inuyasha laughed. He expected Kaede to argue but instead the old women collapsed onto the ground, quiet and motionless.
"Hey! Hey are you alright?" He yelled shaking her shoulder roughly. She did not respond and Inuyasha sighed, running his fingers through his hair helplessly. "Shit!" He cursed.
~IY~
Yura gathered her long hair in coils from her battle in the village, sighing. She'd been disappointed by the escape of the two people not under the control of the hair and was determined to capture them.
"Why look at this." She said plucking a clinging strand of hair off her own tresses. "Hair." She held it up to the fading light of the sun and gasped as she observed its color.
"Why it's SILVER!" She exclaimed completely delighted. "How beautiful it is. I simply must have the rest of it." She looked up as a tremor ran through her net like it was a web. "And there it is." She said as she followed the telltale feeling of someone breaking through her web of hair.
~IY~
Inuyasha could feel the hot trickle of Kaede's blood against his back as he ran. She tried to warn him of the invisible hairs in the path before him but Inuyasha ignored them as he ran, feeling them break before his legs harmlessly.
"Just hold on and worry about yourself old woman." He snarled as he leapt over a large decaying log. "I'll worry about the hair later."
"Put me down here." Kaede murmured the weakness of her voice alarming to the normally unflappable hanyou. He slid to a stop and carefully lowered her from his back before setting her against a tree trunk to rest.
"You can see the hair then? Can you tell me where it's being pulled from?" Inuyasha asked staring around the empty trees.
"I could but I am in no condition to help ye fight yer foe. Ye will need to get Amber to assist ye." Kaede answered her eye closing slowly and painfully.
"Amber can see the threads?" He asked her bending down close.
"Yes." Kaede answered weakly, the rise and fall of her chest beginning to falter. She lay motionless now and Inuyasha stared, unsure of exactly what he was expected to do.
~IY~
Amber woke painfully in the damp cold of the cellar where she had been lost. She struggled to her feet and looked up, where she could hear faint voices and the thud of someone walking slowly down the stairs accompanied by someone much more urgent.
"Souta we've already looked down there a thousand times." The voice of the elderly shrine keeper that was Souta's grandfather suddenly became the most welcoming in the world and Amber yelled up at them, lapsing slowly into hysterics.
"I AM DOWN HERE! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GET ME OUT!" She screamed. There was silence above her for a moment and then the golden bean of a flashlight fell over her and she squinted up at the two dark forms.
"Amber?" The voice of the old shrine keeper was concerned as though expecting some creature clad in her skin.
"Yes now please get me out." She screamed up, clawing at the sides of the stone prison, ready to rip every nail from her hands on the long climb up.
~IY~
Inuyasha lowered Kaede into the hole he'd dug for her and clambered up, dusting off his clothes and sighing as he began to spread the earth over her once more.
"I guess it's the least I can do for you." He muttered to her as he worked. He let silence fall over the forest as he reached back for more of the dark soil.
"I am resting not dead you foolish boy." Kaede said suddenly, her eye opening and glaring at him fiercely.
Inuyasha jumped unpleasantly and stared at her for a minute before recovering his ill temper. "Use it as a hiding place then." He snarled, working harder. "I'll come back and get you... if I remember."
When she was covered he tossed a few handfuls of leaves and torn grass over her before standing up.
"Do you promise to remember?" Kaede asked looking at him, silhouetted by the fierce rays of the setting sun.
He ignored her for a minute before muttering a stifled yes under his breath. Satisfied Kaede settled deep in her hole, knowing that she must not fall asleep. Inuyasha looked back for a moment before taking off into the forest with a muffled swear. Curse Amber Lote! Of course she left right when he needed her.
~IY~
Was it a dream? Amber looked at herself in modern clothes and wondered. Was it all just a stupid fantasy? She rose from her bed and looked around at the posters she had plastered on her walls and posing before her mirror. Only one way to find out.
The gashed were still there. Red and angry slashes burned closed by a one eyed priestess from the past. It seemed insane but there they were, staring her in the face. Amber sighed and rubbed her forehead.
"Might as well readapt." She said aloud, grabbing her towel and heading for the bathroom. "The shampoo bottle is calling my name."
~`~`~`~`~`~`
Let me say many thanks to all the people who have reviewed! Especially those who came back and reviewed the second chapter. You are all wonderful people!
Good riddance ya loony* - Cookies to anyone who can tell me what movie this is from. You will be a cameo in this story I can promise you that much.
Tootles! Review everyone!
~ Amobea Queen
She was healing well, the only things that ever bothered her anymore where the gashes on her back that Kaede had been unable to repair through stitching and had resigned to burning closed, an extremely painful process that had required several village men to hold her patient down. But even these were healing over now and Amber was able to enjoy a long bath in the cold water.
"Come out of there Amber, before ye catch yer death of cold." The rough call of the aforementioned priestess cut through the morning air and Amber decided not to argue. She'd managed to get herself clean as possible without proper soap, she was no longer caked with sweat and blood and that was enough of an improvement.
Amber clambered out of the water and rung out her hair, not bothering with a towel she let the warm sun caress her flesh and stretched painfully.
A rustling sound caught her attention and drew her eyes to the bushed across from where she stood, near where a small waterfall fed the still pond Amber had been washing in. The telltale golden eyes and white dogs ears pricked forward as the naked girl caught sight of their owner nestled among the foliage.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?" Amber screamed grabbing up the towel to shield herself. She hurled the first thing that came to hand, which happened to be a metal pot Kaede had used to boil her salves that morning, at his head and grabbed the clothes Kaede had set out for her.
Inuyasha caught the pot in the head and fell down the slope, landing rather ungracefully in the water. He surfaced sputtering madly and tried to climb up onto the rock ledges by the waterfall.
"SIT!" The angry girl shouted from where she was struggling into her pants, her face red with embarrassment. Inuyasha plunged back into the water as Amber pulled her bra on and glowered at his form under the water.
"What was that for?" He shouted spitting out a fountain.
"GUESS!" Amber replied, now fully dressed. Her face was dark and stormy and her eyebrows nearly met at the bridge of her nose as she glowered at him. Kaede looked up with a smile that was banished the minute she saw Amber in those clothes. Any doubts she might have had about Amber being her calm, level headed sister reborn were banished in an instant as someone who was Kikyo but was also not Kikyo sat her lost love once again as he clambered up onto the shore.
"THAT HURTS YOU KNOW!" Inuyasha bellowed at his fuming partner as he pulled his face out of the mold it had made in the wet earth. He clawed the clinging bits of sand off his face and shook his head to clear his ears of water.
"THAT'S THE IDEA DIP SHIT!" Amber bellowed right back, she managed to prevent herself from sitting him again but continued right along with the swearing. "WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU DOING UP THERE ANYWAY YOU PERVERTED BASTARD?"
"CALM DOWN! THE ONLY REASON I CAME WAS..." He seemed to realize what he was about to say an instant to soon.
"TO STEAL THE JEWEL? OH GREAT, I EXPECTED A THIEF BUT NOW I HAVE A PERVERTED THIEF?" Amber angrily turned away from the wet half demon and came to sit by the chuckling old priestess.
"Ye will need to work together if ye can ever hope to find all the jewel shards." She informed them sagely as she stood wearily and gathered the herbs Amber had helped her pick that morning. Amber was not a promising gardener as she had taken to swearing at the weeds as she was hoeing and hitting them with the gardening tools that really did more harm to the herbs than the weeds. "Only Amber will be able to find the shards and only Inuyasha possesses the strength to take them back."
"Well I'm still here ain't I?" Inuyasha snarled. "I'll put up with anything to get that jewel."
Amber was struck by the desire to sit his face into the fire but controlled it at a warning look from Kaede. The grisly old priestess seemed to already be aware of how Amber's mind functioned when she was around people she disliked. "Why don't you just shut the fuck up dog man." She said instead of speaking the word that would plunge his face into the hot coals.
Inuyasha looked up at her, no doubt to say something nasty in response, but his voice died suddenly in his throat and he just stared at the pretty girl seated across the fire from him.
"What the hell are you looking at?" Amber snarled catching his look. She was dressed in large loose garments that greatly resembled Kaede's and her hair was done back in a loose ponytail.
"Nothing it's just..." He trailed off and Amber looked at him strangely. For a moment he seemed a million miles away before he was brought back by Amber's rude snort of laughter.
"Whatever Barbie boy." She muttered shaking her head.
~IY~
Yura woke silently, her lips too parched to speak the name of the fire bright orb she'd been dreaming off. She smiled wickedly and wet them with her tongue, looking about the softly lit chamber she dwelt within.
"Shikon No Tama!" She called into the darkness as though calling for a small dog. "You've resurfaced at last! I'd almost given up hope." The pretty woman stretched and sighed contentedly. "It sure took you long enough." She chided the far away jewel in a childish voice.
She plucked her bright skull from the small space she'd made for it near her bed and began to brush its long hair as affectionately as a small child brushes the hair of her favorite doll, running her fingers through its silky length. As she readjusted her place on her bed one of the many skulls clattered down like a boulder down a hillside. Yura perched a top the mound of skulls and sighed. The resurfacing of Shikon No Tama was a grand thing indeed.
~IY~
"Priestess Kaede!" The woman's yell was all that saved the entire village from another long fight.
Amber and Inuyasha stood across from each other, their hands balled into tight fists of fury as the regarded the other. Amber's hair was loose and framed her face that cackled with ominous thunder and Inuyasha tossed his own white mane and glowered, lightening leaping through his large golden eyes. It had all stemmed, as usual, from the pairs unending problem. The fact that each of them knew exactly how to push the other ones buttons.
"What is it Akio?" Kaede turned away from the two angry young people and addressed the panicking woman. "What's the problem?"
"It's my daughter." Akio cried, wringing her hands in distress. "I don't know what's happened to her." She pushed her wild hair out of her eyes and shot a scared look at the priestess' furious companions before continuing. "Please come and heal her."
Kaede sighed and looked back at Amber and Inuyasha. Perhaps they needed to be left alone long enough for them to scream themselves hoarse and get all the insults out. Then again maybe Inuyasha would gut Amber if they were left alone or perhaps even vice-versa. But Akio sounded absolutely terrified by her daughters' sudden illness and Kaede had no choice but to decide to leave them alone.
"I will come." She told the distraught woman, and to her companions, "and you two please try not kill each other."
Inuyasha laughed a short joyless bark. "Yeah Amber'll kill me someday." He jeered roughly before Amber hit him again on the head with the pot Kaede had forced her to retrieve.
"YOU ARE SUCH AN ASSHOLE!" She screamed at him as he rubbed his sore head.
"WELL YOU'RE NO BETTER!" He yelled back jumping to his feet and flexing his claws threateningly. Amber gripped the handle of the heavy steel cooking utensil like it was a weapon and glared at her adversary.
Kaede sighed and turned away. She doubted either of them would be able to kill the other. Amber still had the power to contain Inuyasha and Inuyasha had proved many times already he could defend himself against Amber's assaults that were vicious in their own right. "I'll return later." The old priestess sighed but she doubted they heard her, as they were busy screaming at each other again.
~IY~
"WELL AT LEAST I DON'T WATCH PEOPLE WHEN THEIR BATHING!" Amber retorted as Inuyasha cut loose another insult.
"I TOLD YOU I DIDN'T KNOW YOU WERE BATHING!" He yelled back, a faint red tinge splashed over his cheeks.
"YAH RIGHT! YOU'RE A TOTAL ASS YOU KNOW THAT?"
"YOU'VE SAID IT ENOUGH TIMES THAT A MONKEY WOULD KNOW IT BY NOW!" Inuyasha bellowed back at her, his fist clenched in rage.
Amber spat some obscenities that Inuyasha himself wouldn't have dared utter in another beings presence before sinking down near the fire and proceeding to scowl. The girl was an absolute brat! A completely immature and selfish little child.
"Look you poor excuse for a demon." She growled, not meeting his eyes. "Kaede said we need to work together, and believe me I'm no happier about it then you are, but I can accept that we need to make peace with each other. We're going to be depending on each other if we're ever going to get that jewel." The entire compromise was pushed through her tightly gritted teeth that seemed to want to hold back any hope for advancement in this unholy union.
"You're going to be depending on me you mean." He corrected her snobbishly. "You could go home right now and I wouldn't care."
Amber thought about that for a minute before getting to her feet. She looked back at Inuyasha once more and began walking away down the path.
"Where are you going?" Inuyasha asked angrily.
"Home stupid." Amber replied casually. She smiled, finally making up her mind. The debate between the two worlds was finally over, she was running low on cigarettes and what did it matter to her what happened to Shikon No Tama anyway? It wasn't like a stupid hunk of glass was going to affect her life.
"Wait a minute you can't..." Inuyasha began.
"See that's where you're wrong." Amber said spinning on her heel. "I can very well go home. All I need to do is go back to that well in the forest and pull an Alice and the Rabbit Hole. It is you that 'can't'. That is you that cannot stop me in any way shape or form."
Inuyasha looked at her for a minute, his face blank and his confusion obvious. Convinced she had completely lost the stupid boy Amber turned away to continue on her chosen path.
"Hey!" Inuyasha snarled grabbing at her arm. He missed and grabbed her side, unwittingly uncovering Amber's most fiercely guarded secret.
"Don't touch me there!" She commanded pulling away from his hand.
"What? It's not like I groped you or something." He replied.
"No I just don't like you touching me there." She answered angrily shielding her weak spot with one hand and her other side, still tender and red, with her other.
Inuyasha looked puzzled for a minute before true realization dawned on him. He looked as a small child might if he were informed that Christmas was now every other day of the week as he leveled a finger at her and spoke his words of doom.
"YOU HAVE A TICKLISH RIB DON'T YOU?"
"............ No?"
His attack was swift and brutal. He, to put it bluntly, leapt on her and began to tickle her mercilessly, taking some sort of pleasure to see her scream and flail in a state his threats and real attacks could never render her. She managed to bite his hand and began a kind of odd wiggle to try and get away. He grabbed her ankle and pulled her back, her fingers making deep ruts in the soft ground, her legs flailing helplessly as he crushed her easily beneath him and continued tickling her.
"Nopleasegodstopdontticklemeohgodthatwasnotmyside." Amber's words slurred together into an inane string of giggle punctuated frenzy as she tried to escape. She kicked at him, missing her unmentionable target and hitting his own side. He let go long enough for her to roll away and grab the thick, lethal rake that she'd been using to help Kaede in her herb garden.
"Wait no don't use that!" Inuyasha gasped as she brandished it, red fury plastered all over her face.
The tables had turned.
"OW! THAT HURTS!" The first connection was into his already sore side. He thought that would be the end but the enraged teenager was angry beyond words and began chasing him around smacking him with the rake in various places.
"Stop it!" He yelled. He turned abruptly and sliced the rake into tiny pieces. Amber stopped and looked first at him and then at the two ends of her weapon she held in her hands.
"SIT!" She commanded. Inuyasha groaned for an instant before he face- planted into the ground. He lifted his head and spat out a mouth full of choking dust.
"Where are you going now?" He yelled after her retreating back.
"Home, like I was before you started tickling me." Amber shouted not turning around.
"Yah? Well good riddance, ya loony!"* He shouted after her.
She didn't turn around.
"Bah." He growled bitterly, jamming his hands in his pockets. "Women."
~IY~
Kaede pushed aside the hanging cloth that divided the two rooms. The smell of incense hit her like a wall and she winced before going to the crumpled form of Akio's daughter, laying comatose on a pallet. The mother was babbling hysterically as the priestess bent over her daughters' helpless form.
"I tried the incense but it didn't do anything, then I tried the salves, and the chants and all the things you suggested but she just lays there." Akio said hopelessly lost in her ramblings about inadequate medical treatments.
Kaede put her hand over the girls pale forehead as Akio wrung her hands and worried her bottom lip between her teeth and watched.
"She's running a high fever." Kaede confirmed opening the girls' mouth and looking for the greenish spots on the tongue that would have revealed Nordanak Fever. She found none. "I'm not sure exactly what she's got."
Akio looked even more worried now that even Kaede didn't know what was infecting her daughter. "Will she live?" She asked hoarsely.
"Oh I'm sure..." Kaede trailed off as a curious sound began to fill the small building. A sound like silken threads sliding over wood. She turned around and looked for some source of the curious sound and watched as the sick girl rose off the cot.
"Sakura?" Akio asked as her daughter dangled above the floor like a marionette, her limbs limp and useless.
"Akio, get behind me." Kaede commanded harshly, pushing the frail woman behind her.
"Sakura I..." Kaede began hoping to reason with the girl. Her words were cut off however, as a wicked looking butchers knife flew to the girls hand and before the old woman could blink, Sakura had attacked.
~IY~
Amber regretted her arrogance as she knelt beside the Bone Eaters well and looked at the many bones that lay strewn about inside it. The resting- place of monsters, Kaede had said it was called, full of dead things. Amber had thought about her plan more and more as she'd approached the well. It was really quite ridiculous. She expected to jump in the well and suddenly be back in modern day Tokyo?
It worked one way though. What was to suggest it wouldn't work the other? Did magic have these laws like normal things? A logical assumption would be that the portal worked two ways but then a logical assumption would also rule out the very existence of the entire portal so she wasn't sure if logic was of any help at all. Time travel was complicated business.
Amber sighed and looked up as a bird twittered away in a tree. The happy little creature sung brightly and its cheery mood made Amber want to throw something at it. She considered looking for a rock when something else caught her eye.
It was a thread. Or that was what Amber thought at first as she lent over to examine it closer. No it was more like a hair. A very long hair no doubt, for it didn't seem to have a beginning or and end. And a very ominous hair as it was hanging for no apparent reason in the middle of a forest, but a hair none the less. Amber lent back against the well and for the first time recognized her predicament. A web of hair.
There was hair everywhere. A huge living net of it surrounded her, the strands coming from the trees all around her and vanishing into shadows. There was something extremely odd about this. Well more odd then was usual in feudal Japan.
"So you can see the hair net?" A pretty woman dressed in somewhat slutty clothes stood before her, a red sword sheathed at her side and her wide somewhat evil looking eyes fixed on her. She smiled wickedly and Amber watched as the hair began to move around her like living serpents. She stood quickly and faced the girl, who was barely an inch taller then herself.
"Who the fuck are you?" Amber asked raising one eyebrow at her.
The woman looked at her for a minute then threw back her head and laughed as though Amber's words were some great joke. As the strange woman laughed Amber could feel a heavy, unpleasant weight begin to grow in her stomach. She was going to get hurt again. She knew it.
~IY~
"Stupid girl and her 'beads of containment.' Who needs her anyway?" Inuyasha thought to himself as he ran towards the village. Maybe now that Amber had gone home Kaede would take the beads off and let him go find the jewel for himself.
Inuyasha reached the village and landed gracefully. "I'm better off without her." He decided.
The streets were deadly quiet as Inuyasha surveyed them looking for any sign of the villagers. He didn't like the sickly cloak of silence that had pulled itself over the village. It made him uneasy. Inuyasha cracked his knuckles to break the quiet and took a step down the road.
The villagers finally appeared. The women, all suspended in the air as though they were dolls on the end of invisible strings, advanced; each clutching a weapon of decided ill intent.
"Now are you otherwise sensible women going to pull an Amber and fight me?" He asked them boldly looking around. Each one looked as though they were asleep, unwillingly puppets for some unseen master.
"Inuyasha!" The weak cry startled the hanyou and he turned to see Kaede dragging herself out of a nearby house. He leapt easily over the heads of the village women and landed beside her, the hot metallic smell of blood clouding his every sense.
"You're hurt." He stated, somewhat alarmed by the deep wound along her shoulder.
"Tell me something I do not know." She replied. "Inuyasha you must not hurt the village women. It is not their fault. They are being controlled against their wills."
Inuyasha tossed his long silver hair and looked at the puppet women that had begun to drift listlessly towards them.
"Well from the looks of it it's going to be us or them lady, and my vote's for them." He looked down at the helpless old woman.
~IY~
"My name," the strange woman said, "is Yura. Yura of the Demon Hair as I'm called." She smiled sweetly, a look that chilled Amber's blood. "But you needn't stake any effort on remembering that. You'll be dead soon anyway."
In that instant Yura overtook Inuyasha as Amber's least favorite demon. Of course she didn't know many demons but still. She was worse then the arrogant dog man and that was something.
Amber watched as with a negligent wave of her hand Yura sent a thick line of hairs towards her. She flinched back, but the hairs merely delicately plucked the bag that contained the single jewel shard from around Amber's neck.
She smiled and opened it, emptying the tiny sliver of purple glass into her palm.
"You BROKE it?" She asked disappointed. "How positively inconsiderate of you."
"Well you know me, selfish to fault." Amber replied weakly, now officially freaked out by this whole situation.
"Well where is the rest of it?" Yura asked testily replacing the shard.
"How the fuck am I suppose to know? It shattered." Amber replied backing up until she was pressed against the well.
"How rude." She chided waving her finger in Amber's face. She slipped the jewel bag around her neck and stepped back, drawing her sword from its sheath. "Well if you don't know then I'm afraid you're of no further use to me. Goodbye."
Amber glanced behind her as Yura advanced and sighed. Psycho hair lady with a sword or untested time portal, this was one of those questions she's never thought she'd have to ask herself. But Yura solved the whole thing by lunging. Amber tried to dodge, lost her balance and fell through the mouth of the Bone Eaters well.
Yura watched fascinated as the girl tumbled down the well, waiting for her to land on the bottom. If the fall didn't kill her Yura planned to pop down there and finish the job. But she never hit the bottom. Half way down the well her body was consumed by a burst of purple light, and Yura stood staring at the empty hole until she was entirely sure the mortal wasn't using some sort of trickery.
"Well that's not fair." She commented, disappointed by the loss of her quarry. "She got away. And what a strange girl she was to." Yura tossed her hair and looked down into the well once more. "Oh well." She turned her mind away from the odd girl and back to the task at hand. Disposing of the village and recovering the sacred jewel.
~IY~
Yura had found a comfortable position in a tree where she could concentrate on her puppets, far away in the little village. She'd planned to use them to destroy the village and then take their skulls but she'd run into an odd situation. There was someone who was not under her control.
"I'll just have to add you to my collection." She muttered to herself. She twisted her hands to work the hair and hoped she could hurry the process up a bit. This was simply far to a long a time to spend on one little village.
~IY~
"The hair Inuyasha! Look for the hair!" Kaede's yell fell on helpless ears as the dog demon looked at the surrounding women.
"WHAT HAIR?" He asked looking around bewildered. His adversaries made no sound as they advanced, the menacing weapons clutched in their hands. He glanced around nervously, but the attack didn't come from the strange villagers.
The feeling was that of ropes being attached to his every limb. He felt them pull tight and strong like chains of hair. He could feel them, but as he twisted his head around he still couldn't see them and that made him helpless as a blind man in a bandit raid.
"Inuyasha!" He could hear Kaede call out to him and saw her dragging herself weakly towards him, leaving a great trail of dark blood on the grassy ground.
"Don't worry so much." He replied. Flexing his powerful muscles. "Who ever is doing this isn't very smart. I can get away from this easy." He felt the strings rip away and he landed on the ground unscathed, shooting a grin at the priestess. "See?" He asked cockily.
"LOOK OUT!" Kaede responded, pointing to the invisible ropes of hair that once again pursued the tall warrior.
"What..?" Inuyasha could feel the lethal coils wrap around him. They slammed him against a near by tree splintering the wood and knocking the air out of his lungs. As he struggled to recover he felt the slither of hair against his skin as a thick rope slid around his neck and began cutting off his airflow.
But Inuyasha was not the type to be done in by some crazy invisible tangle! He struggled with it, digging his heels into the tree bark to brace his body as with enormous strength he tore away the rope that was slowly crushing down on his windpipe. He ducked as the line cut the tree he'd been pinned on in two and escaped again though he could still feel the place where the constricting grip of the hair had taken his breath away.
"That's a relief. For a minute there I thought I was a goner." Inuyasha muttered to Kaede as he leapt over to her side.
"If you were human, you would have been." Kaede replied weakly. Her one eye was dim and the amount of blood pouring from her large wound was enough to make Inuyasha nervous.
But that was not the end. As he bent over Kaede the unseen puppet master rose the village men, wielding vicious looking farm tools and with the same blank expressions on their faces. Inuyasha growled with frustration and knelt down beside Kaede.
"I'm getting awfully sick of this." He growled angrily, deep in his throat.
"Forget about me Inuyasha." Kaede gasped her voice fading fast. She looked up at him and pushed his hand away as he tried to help her up. "Save yourself."
"That's quite the noble act there Kaede but I'm not buying." Inuyasha laughed. He expected Kaede to argue but instead the old women collapsed onto the ground, quiet and motionless.
"Hey! Hey are you alright?" He yelled shaking her shoulder roughly. She did not respond and Inuyasha sighed, running his fingers through his hair helplessly. "Shit!" He cursed.
~IY~
Yura gathered her long hair in coils from her battle in the village, sighing. She'd been disappointed by the escape of the two people not under the control of the hair and was determined to capture them.
"Why look at this." She said plucking a clinging strand of hair off her own tresses. "Hair." She held it up to the fading light of the sun and gasped as she observed its color.
"Why it's SILVER!" She exclaimed completely delighted. "How beautiful it is. I simply must have the rest of it." She looked up as a tremor ran through her net like it was a web. "And there it is." She said as she followed the telltale feeling of someone breaking through her web of hair.
~IY~
Inuyasha could feel the hot trickle of Kaede's blood against his back as he ran. She tried to warn him of the invisible hairs in the path before him but Inuyasha ignored them as he ran, feeling them break before his legs harmlessly.
"Just hold on and worry about yourself old woman." He snarled as he leapt over a large decaying log. "I'll worry about the hair later."
"Put me down here." Kaede murmured the weakness of her voice alarming to the normally unflappable hanyou. He slid to a stop and carefully lowered her from his back before setting her against a tree trunk to rest.
"You can see the hair then? Can you tell me where it's being pulled from?" Inuyasha asked staring around the empty trees.
"I could but I am in no condition to help ye fight yer foe. Ye will need to get Amber to assist ye." Kaede answered her eye closing slowly and painfully.
"Amber can see the threads?" He asked her bending down close.
"Yes." Kaede answered weakly, the rise and fall of her chest beginning to falter. She lay motionless now and Inuyasha stared, unsure of exactly what he was expected to do.
~IY~
Amber woke painfully in the damp cold of the cellar where she had been lost. She struggled to her feet and looked up, where she could hear faint voices and the thud of someone walking slowly down the stairs accompanied by someone much more urgent.
"Souta we've already looked down there a thousand times." The voice of the elderly shrine keeper that was Souta's grandfather suddenly became the most welcoming in the world and Amber yelled up at them, lapsing slowly into hysterics.
"I AM DOWN HERE! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GET ME OUT!" She screamed. There was silence above her for a moment and then the golden bean of a flashlight fell over her and she squinted up at the two dark forms.
"Amber?" The voice of the old shrine keeper was concerned as though expecting some creature clad in her skin.
"Yes now please get me out." She screamed up, clawing at the sides of the stone prison, ready to rip every nail from her hands on the long climb up.
~IY~
Inuyasha lowered Kaede into the hole he'd dug for her and clambered up, dusting off his clothes and sighing as he began to spread the earth over her once more.
"I guess it's the least I can do for you." He muttered to her as he worked. He let silence fall over the forest as he reached back for more of the dark soil.
"I am resting not dead you foolish boy." Kaede said suddenly, her eye opening and glaring at him fiercely.
Inuyasha jumped unpleasantly and stared at her for a minute before recovering his ill temper. "Use it as a hiding place then." He snarled, working harder. "I'll come back and get you... if I remember."
When she was covered he tossed a few handfuls of leaves and torn grass over her before standing up.
"Do you promise to remember?" Kaede asked looking at him, silhouetted by the fierce rays of the setting sun.
He ignored her for a minute before muttering a stifled yes under his breath. Satisfied Kaede settled deep in her hole, knowing that she must not fall asleep. Inuyasha looked back for a moment before taking off into the forest with a muffled swear. Curse Amber Lote! Of course she left right when he needed her.
~IY~
Was it a dream? Amber looked at herself in modern clothes and wondered. Was it all just a stupid fantasy? She rose from her bed and looked around at the posters she had plastered on her walls and posing before her mirror. Only one way to find out.
The gashed were still there. Red and angry slashes burned closed by a one eyed priestess from the past. It seemed insane but there they were, staring her in the face. Amber sighed and rubbed her forehead.
"Might as well readapt." She said aloud, grabbing her towel and heading for the bathroom. "The shampoo bottle is calling my name."
~`~`~`~`~`~`
Let me say many thanks to all the people who have reviewed! Especially those who came back and reviewed the second chapter. You are all wonderful people!
Good riddance ya loony* - Cookies to anyone who can tell me what movie this is from. You will be a cameo in this story I can promise you that much.
Tootles! Review everyone!
~ Amobea Queen