Well, what should I say...? I know some of you may be wondering why I said that I'd update one or two weeks ago, but it's a long story. I honestly don't know what to think about this chapter, but hopefully it's still good.
And thank you very much to those who review.
Forgotten Love – Thank you! You haven't been around for a while, so I wonder if you still like JCA. Yeah, I get this feeling of concern when JCA authors abandon this fandom for no apparent reason and let their fics unfinished. It's so depressing... Anyway, a Inuyasha/JCA crossover would be fun, indeed. Although your fic "Love's No Fool" already has some IY elements. n.n
VampireNaomi – You were scared? Hehe, that means I don't suck at horror scenes as much as I thought. But don't feel bad. I even considered if I should classify this fic as humour/horror, but I think that won't be necessary.
Hina Minamino (for chapter 1) – Yeah, you're not ok, since you wrote that awful typo. Can you see your money for your English course flying away? Well, I can see mine... -.-" Eh, sorry, but I can't delete your review. -coughs- And what do you mean "so many chapters"?! Only seven to read! ó.ò
Chapter 8: The Second Victim
The screams of his two brothers echoed in the whole castle, making Tso Lan sigh in annoyance and mentally curse them. Why couldn't he have a normal demon family? Why, why, why?
The moon demon reluctantly got up and left his room. As he did so, he met Dai Gui and Hsi Wu, both not looking very happy either. He shook his head and three demons continued following the screams.
It did not take them too long to see Shendu and Xiao Fung running towards them. Seemingly, the darkness did not allow them to immediately notice their three siblings' presence, and they ended up colliding with Dai Gui's legs and falling to the floor finally ceasing the shouting.
The duo looked up and saw three pairs of red glowing. The one in the centre was very tall and pale and was looking seriously at them – very scary, indeed.
"Wahhh! It's the ghost!" they shouted, panicking again.
"Shendu, Xiao Fung, behave. It's me, Tso Lan," the moon demon said. His two little brothers stopped shouting and got up.
"Tso Lan, Tso Lan, help us! There is a real ghost in this castle!" Xiao Fung said pulling his elder brother by his robe in order to make the moon demon follow him. Tso Lan, however, did not move at all.
"Stop that. You played that game way too much today."
Xiao shook his head. "No, it's serious now! There really is a ghost!" he said pointing at the direction where they had come from.
"Indeed, and he got Tchang Zu!" Shendu added.
Tso Lan sighed heavily and followed them until the place where they had seen the thunder demon. He was lying in the floor and his gaze was vague as if he were just half-conscious. And he indeed was. The moon demon could realise that as he approached, and had to admit that this really was odd. If whatever had attacked Tchang Zu managed to knockout him, perhaps they were dealing with something dangerous after all.
He bent down to check on his oldest brother.
"Is he dead?" Xiao asked. Dai Gui snorted and crossed his arms.
"Of course not. It's obvious that he's drunk."
The other four demons looked at him a bit confused. "Drunk?"
"Yes. Have you already forgotten what happened in our father's party last year?"
Everybody tried to remember.
...
"Oh, water!" Tchang Zu said when seeing a barrel being placed on the floor, next to the kitchen. "Good, I was really thirsty." He grabbed the barrel and lifted it above his head so that he could drink all the water.
The demon siblings immediately noticed that there was a smell coming from the barrel, and looked at one another.
"Tso, I thought water did not have a smell," Hsi Wu said to the moon demon.
"Tchang Zu, stop! That's not water, it's rice wine!" Bai Tsa warned. Tchang stopped drinking and turned to his sister.
"What do you mean? Of course this is water! Look, it's colourless!" he said, and then began to drink it again.
"I am the water demon! Do you think I cannot recognise my own element?!" she yelled angry. Tchang Zu just ignored her, and she rolled her eyes.
"Tso, I want to drink rice wine too!" Xiao Fung said.
"No, Xiao. You still are too young to do that."
"Aww, but I want to!"
"No."
"Pleeease?"
"No."
"Please! Please! Please! Please! Please! Please! Please! Please! Please! Please! Please! Please! Please! Please! Please! Please! Please! Please! Please! Please! Please! Please! Please! Please! Please! Please! Please! Please! Please!"
As Xiao Fung insisted, Tchang Zu drank the 'water' all at once and fell backward.
Everybody stared at him in a silent shock.
"You see? I told you that was not water," Bai Tsa said crossing her arms and smiling proudly.
"You know what? I don't want to drink it anymore," Xiao stated.
"Hey, I think he is dead," Shendu remarked. They observed the oldest one. He was looking fatter, his face was red, his gaze was vague and he shook his head very slowly, moaning for not having strength to speak.
"Hmm, he shouldn't have drunk so much..." Po Kong said.
...
"That's right, he's just like when he drunk too much rice wine that time," Shendu said.
"Not this time," Tso Lan stated, surprising them.
"What?"
"I sense that something is missing in Tchang Zu. As if... his chi has been taken off from his body..."
Shendu and Xiao Fung shivered.
"D-Do you mean... that the ghost is not just freaky and scary, but it also absorbs our chi?" Shendu asked and he and Xiao looked at each other.
"Are you sure about that?" Dai Gui confirmed.
"I am almost sure."
"Then what are we going to do, brother Tso? Is Tchang Zu going to die?" Hsi Wu asked.
"Do not worry. I believe a chi transfusion can save him," Tso Lan answered.
"Transfusion? Chi transfusion?!" the earth demon asked in disbelief.
"Yes. One of you has to give some of your chi to Tchang Zu," Tso Lan said and turned around. "Xiao Fung, could you-" Tso saw only Hsi Wu and Dai Gui.
"Those two ran away a while ago," Dai informed. Tso Lan frowned.
"Well, one of you still has to give chi."
Dai Gui grabbed the youngest one by his left wing and lifted him, handing him over to the moon demon.
"Take his chi."
"What?! No, I don't want to give my chi! Let me go! Let me go!" the bat-demon protested.
"Calm down, Hsi Wu. It will not hurt at all," Tso Lan assured.
The moon demon took his youngest brother and put him next to Tchang Zu. He joined his palms and concentrated. Few seconds later, he spoke six magic words and repeated them in a sequence three times. The red glow in Hsi Wu's eyes was replaced for a green one, which began to leave his body to reach Tchang Zu's eyes.
When the transfusion was finished, Hsi Wu blinked in confusion.
"Is it over?"
"Yes," Tso Lan answered pleased. The thunder demon rose, pressing his right palm on his head.
"How are you feeling, brother?" Dai Gui wanted to know. When the oldest one looked at them, everyone noticed that there was something very strange in him. His eyes looked different, they looked so innocent and... cute?!
"I feel fine, brother Dai," he replied with a childish tone. Dai Gui's chin dropped almost reaching the floor and his eyes widened.
"As you can see, the transfusion was successful," the moon demon stated.
"Is Tchang Zu going to stay like that forever?" Dai Gui asked.
"I don't know," Tso Lan responded, not making his brother feel any better. He then stood up and floated along the corridor. "He might be back to normal if we find what absorbed his chi. And let's hope that there still is a way to give his chi back to him."
"Po Kong..." Bai Tsa called looking around apprehensively.
"What is it?"
"I have got a bad feeling about this. We should go back."
Her sister sighed. "Oh, whatever, Bai Tsa. And let's hurry, because I'm starving."
The water demon lifted herself from the river and wisely stood close to her sister. If something were about to attack her, there were more chances that it would hit a Po Kong-sized demon, and then Bai Tsa could sneak away and survive.
It was very dark in the corridor, but that was not a problem for Tso Lan and Dai Gui, who were used to the darkness. Hsi Wu and Tchang Zu, on the other hand, were seeing almost nothing. They could just follow the sound of their two brothers' steps. Even, they were still very young – even though one of them was only mentally young – and sometimes got it wrong and ended up colliding with the wall.
"The stairs are right over there," Tso Lan announced and Hsi Wu thought it would be the best if he changed his strategy. He fastened his pace to catch up his brother and grabbed his robe. Now he could follow his brother more safely.
Tchang Zu noted that and thought it was a good idea. He did the same and almost made Tso Lan naked when pulled his robe with a rather unnecessary strength.
"Tchang Zu, you'll end up tearing my robe!" the moon demon scolded.
"At least it wouldn't be so embarrassing, since only Dai Gui would see that," Hsi Wu said.
"And it would not be a pleasant sight at all," the earth demon stated.
"But I'm curious, brother Tso. What do you have there? Legs? Tentacles? Nothing at all?" Hsi asked.
"If you have legs, how many of them? Four to compensate the upper limbs?" Dai Gui continued.
"Now that I come to think about that... If Tso Lan has two legs, then he must be an ant-demon!" Tchang Zu said.
"So if he has four legs, he's a spider-demon!" Hsi Wu concluded.
"Quiet! Can I know why you are so interested about the number of limbs I have?!"
All of them stared innocently at him. Tso Lan turned around and floated away. The others followed him, and the group went through part of the castle. They found nothing, but noticed that somebody was entering the house when they got to the hall.
"Ah, you are back," Tso Lan greeted as he saw his two sisters.
"Tso Lan, did something happen?" Po Kong asked.
"Eh? Uhn... No, nothing happened," he answered shrugging.
"Then why are you awake this late?" she questioned.
"And why is Tchang Zu sucking his thumb?" Bai Tsa asked in confusion. Everybody looked at Tchang Zu, who was seated in the floor like a baby.
"Tchang Zu, don't!" Dai Gui and Tso Lan ordered, making him stop. When they realised, their two sisters had already come upstairs and now were right by their side.
"Hmm... I don't know why, but there's something about Tchang Zu that is making me find him sweet..." Bai Tsa commented watching her eldest brother in thought. Dai and Tso Lan winced.
"Ah, must be just your imagination!" Tso Lan said shoving Bai Tsa away from Tchang Zu.
"Yes, Tchang Zu has never been so normal. He still is evil and arrogant as usual," Dai Gui said, shoving Po Kong as well.
The group stopped when they were about to enter a dark corridor again. Bai Tsa retreated and grabbed Tso's arm.
"Tso Lan, it's too dark there!"
"Calm down, my sister, you have nothing to fear. We have already been here and there was not anything strange..." He turned to the four siblings behind him. "Right?"
Both blinked and stared at Tchang Zu coming towards them. It would not that surprising if he were walking...
"Tso Lan, why is Tchang Zu crawling?"
Tso and Dai glanced at each other, one hoping the other had a good answer. Since none of them thought of something intelligent to say, they decided to tell her the truth.
"Uh... Bai Tsa, we have something to tell you..." Dai Gui started. The water demon looked curiously at him.
"Yes?"
"Uh... You see..." They hesitated.
"What is it, Tso Lan? Say it already!" Po Kong demanded.
"Well..." Tso shrugged. "It's just that an unknown being of a supernatural origin is wandering in this castle and just attacked Tchang Zu, absorbing his chi. Then Hsi Wu had to give him some chi so that he would not die, and we have been looking for that creature since then."
Bai Tsa and Po Kong stared at him in disbelief. It was normal that they still took a while to process all the information. After all, that should be a huge shock, especially to the younger sister.
"Hah..." Bai Tsa smiled. "Hahahahahaha!" she began to laugh aloud. "Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!"
And she kept laughing. Her siblings stared at her like she was crazy.
"I think the shock was too much for her..." Hsi Wu commented shaking his head. Dai Gui nodded.
Bai Tsa was laughing so much that she could no longer stand, and she had to lean on her sister.
"That was great, Tso Lan," she said, pointing weakly at him. "I never thought you would play such a childish game!"
"Childish game?" Tso asked, raising a brow.
"Oh, come on! Did you really think you'd get me?"
"What are you talking about?!" everybody asked.
"Oh... I know you just want so scare me. You find it very funny, don't you?"
"What? No, it's not that!"
"You know what? You're pretty good. You even managed to convince Tchang Zu to act like a baby," she continued amused.
"Not, it's-"
"But you'll not get me again, because now I'm ready." Bai Tsa slithered towards the dark corridor which she had find scary just a moment ago and turned around to see her siblings.
"Uhn... Bai Tsa..." Tso Lan murmured a bit worried, pointing at something behind her.
"I shall prove to all of you that I am not easily scared!" She turned again and bumped into something. Or someone. She looked up at a horrible floating figure. Greyish skin, yellow eyes, long nails... Definitely not good.
The two sisters' eyes widened. After some silent minutes, Bai Tsa finally found strength to scream and do the only thing she could at the moment: turn around and run, even if that meant that she would have to run over her siblings and almost roll down the stairs again.
Unfortunately, Po Kong had the very same reaction. Anyone could quickly realise that that could not be a good thing. Firstly, the castle was very old and the floor could break due to Po Kong's extraordinary weight. Besides, there was an expressive difference between being run over by the water demon and being run over by the massive mountain demon.
For everyone's misfortune, she tripped over Tchang Zu and broke the floor when she fell – as expected – taking Hsi Wu with her. Tso Lan and Dai Gui believed that at this point the two demons were already dead. Their only remaining option was run away as well.
The creature did not seem to be seeing anything of what was going on, relying only on its nose to find its next victim. Tso Lan and Dai Gui did not have difficulties to escape, Bai Tsa should be kilometres away, Po Kong squashed Hsi Wu in the first floor and Tchang Zu had fallen in the hole created by his sister as well. After all, it decided to go down and try to attack one of the three demons there.
Po Kong opened her eyes and got up with some difficulty. She did not even seem to notice that she had smashed her youngest brother against the floor, and ran away as fast as possible. Tchang Zu got up very slowly and also crawled towards a random direction before the monster arrived.
The defenceless Hsi Wu was the chosen one.
When Bai Tsa thought she had already run enough, she opened the first door she saw and went in hoping she could hide there until the menace was gone. How, she had no idea. She hoped that Tso Lan would somehow take care of that.
Or else, perhaps she would have to sacrifice all of her siblings to get away alive from this castle.
Bai Tsa slithered in the room and noticed that it was very small. So small that it did not take her too long to collide with someone. It yelped and she immediately hit the individual with a candle, which was the first thing her left hand grabbed.
It moaned in pain. She retreated and was in guard again.
"Who's there?!"
She finally could see some light. Thus she also saw her hated brother Shendu holding a candle that he had lighted with his fire after almost set fire to the whole room.
"It's us, Bai Tsa," he replied, and before the water demon could say or do anything she was his in the back of her head by a metallic object. The blow was so severe that she almost turned into water. But no, instead she fell to the floor a bit dizzy and mentally cursed whoever had attached her.
"I did it! I killed the ghost!" Xiao Fung commemorated, frenetically hitting Bai Tsa with a broom. Shendu slapped his forehead.
"You moron! You cannot kill a ghost because ghosts are already dead!"
"Really? Well, but at least I knocked it out!"
Bai Tsa got up ready to kill Xiao Fung and perhaps even Shendu as well. The little wind demon looked up at his very angry sister and smiled nervously, trying to hide the broom behind himself.
"Heh... Hi, sis."
"Give me that, you idiot!" Bai Tsa snatched the broom from his hands. "There is an undead wandering in this castle and you are here fooling around?!
"We are not fooling around, Bai Tsa. We are the ones who first saw the ghost, that's why we are hiding here," Shendu explained.
"Yeah, nobody believed us until it was too late," Xiao added.
"Then it's your fault!" the female demon concluded, narrowing her eyes angry.
"What? No, no, it's not our fault!" the duo defended themselves.
"Oh, really? Whose, then?" she asked in suspicion.
"It is yours," an old woman's voice answered echoing in the whole room. The trio got alarmed and looked around, searching for its owner. The two youngest demons widened their eyes as they saw something behind Bai Tsa, who also turned to see a bit transparent woman smirking sarcastically.
To be continued...