Inuyasha's face paled seeing Hikaru all youkai. Juanyu was also shocked at
the slight transformation and afraid. Neither of them was sure what she
would do. But it was evident that it would happen soon.
"Inuyasha, what has happened to her?" Juanyu asked in a whisper.
"I think that Hikaru is going all youkai," he replied.
Juanyu looked bewildered. "What's that?" In a hurried whisper, Inuyasha quickly explained what it meant. Juanyu's face paled and both men began to work harder to break free.
Hikaru giggled in a frightening tone that sent shivers done the spines of everyone present. She was bloodied all over from her own injuries, which made the sight of her all the more scary.
The Queen was determined not to be frightened by the hanyou. She regained her composure and lunged forward. The spider wanted to finish this quickly, to prove to her family that this girl was nothing but a stupid hanyou.
Amazingly enough, Hikaru dodged the strike easily. Her own claws struck out and slashed the bottom part of the leg off. Violet blood gushed from the wound and the Queen screeched in pain. The spider also reared back to avoid another attack.
But Hikaru was moving faster now. She raced forward, tearing at the legs. The more her legs were damaged, the slower and harder it became for the Queen to move. Finally, she was crippled and forced to collapse onto the ground.
"Please, please. Have mercy on me," she groveled.
Hikaru's response was to laugh. "Mercy? Mercy for you? You sure as hell didn't bestow any mercy for anyone that came through here before us!" she yelled.
"But we needed the food," the Queen tried to reason, "How else were we suppose to survive? We need living flesh to feed off of."
"Well, in that case." Hikaru stepped forward and began to hack and slash with her bare claws. Soon the Queen was reduced to mere lumps of juicy flesh hurled onto the ground. "Now there is enough food to feed your family," she said.
Behind her, the spiders quivered in fear and anger. A pair of braver ones screamed in outrage and charged. How dare this bitch do this to them? The Queen was now dead! Her death had to be avenged.
Hikaru charged them and performed some impressive martial arts moves. The end result was that the pile of juicy spider flesh had grown by two more bodies. She smiled and licked some of blood off a claw. "Hmm. Don't like it. The taste is too tart for my tongue."
Juanyu was scared. He had never imagined that Hikaru could be like this, ever. It seemed to him that this wasn't the real Hikaru, just some scary alternative reflection of her true self. He struggled more within his silky confine. Without removing his eyes from the grisly scene before him, he spoke to Inuyasha. "Are you having any better luck than me?"
"I think that I'm getting somewhere, but I'm not sure," he replied.
At that moment, his ears pricked up at an unexpected sound: someone was leading several horses down the path towards them. The hanyou cursed their luck. Here was another suicidal merchant. He gathered breath to shout out a warning; then he noticed how the spiders were reacting. None of them looked interested in the prospect of more food. Given, most of their attention was on Hikaru. But a few did turn to the noise, and showed marginal interest.
Soon, everyone could see who was coming. To the surprise of the surviving victims, it turned out to be the captain of the guard that had refused to accompany Sanja earlier that morning that seemed to have been a hundred years ago. Some bandit looking men were with him; each of them was leading a horse.
Inuyasha swore again. This must be the bastard that broke the ward against the spiders and made the deal with them about the caravans. The captain stopped at the edge of the ambush site and gaped in surprise and terror.
"What is going on here? Why are these people still alive?" he shouted out. The human saw Hikaru and pointed at her. "Why isn't she dead?"
The hanyou grew more frustrated and glared at the man. What an idiot! He obviously didn't realize that Hikaru was mad in more ways than one. It wouldn't be a smart thing to draw her attention towards you.
But he had. Hikaru looked at him and her face grew dark. "Are you the one who sold himself out to these parasites?" she whispered barely loud enough for him to hear, gesturing to the youkai.
The man nodded, but with none of his previous bravado. "So what if I am? This is the best scam I have ever done. It has made me richer than I ever could have imagined alone. I harbor no regret about what I've done. These merchants grow fat and rich off of the labors of others. Why shouldn't I have a piece of the wealth?" he demanded. His voice had grown louder as he talked. Some of his confidence had returned to him.
One of her eyebrows rose. "Absolutely no regrets about all of the human lives that were sacrificed in the name of your greed?" she asked softly. Her tone sent shivers down the spines of everyone that possessed one.
Again the man nodded. Inuyasha thought that he felt the silk threads thin out; he guessed that he might almost be free. But he was afraid that he was going to be too late to try to help the doomed captain.
And he was right. Hikaru raced at almost godly speed and thrust her fingers through the man's shoulder. He screamed with great pain and terror but was cut short when Hikaru 's other hand grabbed his throat. "Then I won't be having any qualms about killing you," she said.
Inuyasha increased his struggles when he heard that voice. He had already seen what Hikaru was willing to do when she spoke in another language; this was going to be much worse. He needed to stop her before matters got any worse.
As he continued to break free, the hanyou used the unfortunate man to demonstrate some of what she had learned in regards to the martial arts. Although none of the other wounds bled out, everyone could hear it when she broke a bone or bones. The spectators were amazed at the angles that the human body could bend and move without pain. And they were equally amazed by the amount of bones in the body and how they could be broken. Yet in the back of their minds was a growing fear of this berserk hanyou.
Eventually, she allowed the once human body to fall onto the ground in a lumpy, bleeding mass of flesh and pieces of bone. The other bandits were tensed to run as fast as they could if she showed any intent to exact vengeance on them. Several had already decided to reform at this point and lead honest lives for whatever time remained for them. She slowly turned to them and glared at them.
"How pathetic of you. I attack your leader and none of you even protested to the treatment. But then, he had earned his 'reward'. Just like you have yours," she said. She popped her knuckles as a signal to her intentions. The men screamed and began to run. Hikaru began to chase them when her way was blocked.
"Hikaru! Stop this! It's over!" Inuyasha screamed. He had finally broken free of the spider silk and was standing in front of Hikaru to prevent her from harming any other people. She had stopped and looked angry.
"Get out of my way! Or are you in league with them.?"
She tried to push past him, but he would have none of it. They struggled against each other for a few moments. Juanyu broke free as well, change into his wolf form and took out the rest of the spiders. None of them gave any resistance. They had lost heart after the butchering of their queen.
Inuyasha needed some way to knock Hikaru out, but she moved her head too fast for him to hit. Then he remembered Tetsusaiga. He used his left hand to grab the sheath and rammed the hilt into her stomach. Hikaru let out a gasp then fainted under the sword's magic. His right arm held onto her by the waist then hoisted her over his shoulder.
When Inuyasha looked at the scene of the ambush, he saw that Juanyu had managed to free the men of the caravan along with some of the horses. The men were releasing the rest of the animals while the giant wolf had gone ahead. He went after him and discovered him trying to dismantle the blockade. It was made of several fallen trees held together by the spider silk. Unfortunately, Juanyu wasn't making much progress.
"Juanyu, stand aside. I can clear this easily," Inuyasha called out. After laying Hikaru gently on the ground he used the Cutting Wind to cut through the rubble and clear the path. Both hanyou and wolf managed to make the path accessible for wagons by the time the caravan caught up with them.
Sanja said nothing to them as they passed by. The man seemed scared, Inuyasha couldn't blame him. When they had first met, Hikaru was her usual cheerful self. Then right in front of his eyes she completely changed on him. The poor merchant probably wasn't sure what to make of them. The whole thing had also frightened Inuyasha a bit.
But the hanyou was also worried. What had caused Hikaru to go berserk like that? He got the impression that this hadn't happened to her before. Either she hadn't been in too bad a fight before or something happened back there that made whatever protection she had go away. Either way, they had to find something that can stop this from happening again or she would be lost to them for good. He had to admit that he had some affection for her, but nothing like what he felt for Kagome.
After the last of the caravan had passed, Juanyu (back in his human form) told Inuyasha that the merchant was kind enough to return their things to them. Inuyasha picked up Hikaru as the young man shouldered the basket and they continued on their way.
******
Evening fell with a gradual normality in the forest. With the spiders gone. The animals felt safe enough to return to their habitat. And there was no chance of their return; some of the men had found the nest of eggs and made short work of the lot. None of them, though, wanted anything to do with the death site on the path. Later that night, they might try to bury the remains, but not now. The stench was too great and the deaths too recent for their liking.
So it was curious when a single raven flew down and landed on the ground. Myouga jumped down by a pool of blood and sampled it a little. With a shock he realized that the taste was similar to Inuyasha-sama. Judging by the amount spilled, his master had partaken in a great battle. But the lack of a corpse showed that the resourceful boy was still alive. But there was something else. The blood tasted more like a youkai then hanyou. That could only mean that Inuyasha-sama must have gone berserk again. If that was true, then what had happened to Tetsusaiga? Thoughts for another time though; right now he needed to catch up with his lord.
Then his eyes spied something not too far away. The flea-youkai jumped over and looked on with curiosity.
The object was a little bigger than he was but lightweight when he tried to pick it up. It looked like a wooden box quartered equally into four smaller boxes. On one side of each box, a triangle rose up. It fascinated him that none of the triangles were close together but always a side apart. One of them had a hole bored through it and there was a little bit of thread going through. He didn't know what it was except that it radiated some kind of weird power. With some difficulty he wedged in between his back and his pack.
Then he hopped back on the raven and they took off. They kept close to the ground so that Myouga could track Inuyasha's scent. The strength of it told him that it shouldn't be too long until he was reunited with the hanyou.
"Inuyasha, what has happened to her?" Juanyu asked in a whisper.
"I think that Hikaru is going all youkai," he replied.
Juanyu looked bewildered. "What's that?" In a hurried whisper, Inuyasha quickly explained what it meant. Juanyu's face paled and both men began to work harder to break free.
Hikaru giggled in a frightening tone that sent shivers done the spines of everyone present. She was bloodied all over from her own injuries, which made the sight of her all the more scary.
The Queen was determined not to be frightened by the hanyou. She regained her composure and lunged forward. The spider wanted to finish this quickly, to prove to her family that this girl was nothing but a stupid hanyou.
Amazingly enough, Hikaru dodged the strike easily. Her own claws struck out and slashed the bottom part of the leg off. Violet blood gushed from the wound and the Queen screeched in pain. The spider also reared back to avoid another attack.
But Hikaru was moving faster now. She raced forward, tearing at the legs. The more her legs were damaged, the slower and harder it became for the Queen to move. Finally, she was crippled and forced to collapse onto the ground.
"Please, please. Have mercy on me," she groveled.
Hikaru's response was to laugh. "Mercy? Mercy for you? You sure as hell didn't bestow any mercy for anyone that came through here before us!" she yelled.
"But we needed the food," the Queen tried to reason, "How else were we suppose to survive? We need living flesh to feed off of."
"Well, in that case." Hikaru stepped forward and began to hack and slash with her bare claws. Soon the Queen was reduced to mere lumps of juicy flesh hurled onto the ground. "Now there is enough food to feed your family," she said.
Behind her, the spiders quivered in fear and anger. A pair of braver ones screamed in outrage and charged. How dare this bitch do this to them? The Queen was now dead! Her death had to be avenged.
Hikaru charged them and performed some impressive martial arts moves. The end result was that the pile of juicy spider flesh had grown by two more bodies. She smiled and licked some of blood off a claw. "Hmm. Don't like it. The taste is too tart for my tongue."
Juanyu was scared. He had never imagined that Hikaru could be like this, ever. It seemed to him that this wasn't the real Hikaru, just some scary alternative reflection of her true self. He struggled more within his silky confine. Without removing his eyes from the grisly scene before him, he spoke to Inuyasha. "Are you having any better luck than me?"
"I think that I'm getting somewhere, but I'm not sure," he replied.
At that moment, his ears pricked up at an unexpected sound: someone was leading several horses down the path towards them. The hanyou cursed their luck. Here was another suicidal merchant. He gathered breath to shout out a warning; then he noticed how the spiders were reacting. None of them looked interested in the prospect of more food. Given, most of their attention was on Hikaru. But a few did turn to the noise, and showed marginal interest.
Soon, everyone could see who was coming. To the surprise of the surviving victims, it turned out to be the captain of the guard that had refused to accompany Sanja earlier that morning that seemed to have been a hundred years ago. Some bandit looking men were with him; each of them was leading a horse.
Inuyasha swore again. This must be the bastard that broke the ward against the spiders and made the deal with them about the caravans. The captain stopped at the edge of the ambush site and gaped in surprise and terror.
"What is going on here? Why are these people still alive?" he shouted out. The human saw Hikaru and pointed at her. "Why isn't she dead?"
The hanyou grew more frustrated and glared at the man. What an idiot! He obviously didn't realize that Hikaru was mad in more ways than one. It wouldn't be a smart thing to draw her attention towards you.
But he had. Hikaru looked at him and her face grew dark. "Are you the one who sold himself out to these parasites?" she whispered barely loud enough for him to hear, gesturing to the youkai.
The man nodded, but with none of his previous bravado. "So what if I am? This is the best scam I have ever done. It has made me richer than I ever could have imagined alone. I harbor no regret about what I've done. These merchants grow fat and rich off of the labors of others. Why shouldn't I have a piece of the wealth?" he demanded. His voice had grown louder as he talked. Some of his confidence had returned to him.
One of her eyebrows rose. "Absolutely no regrets about all of the human lives that were sacrificed in the name of your greed?" she asked softly. Her tone sent shivers down the spines of everyone that possessed one.
Again the man nodded. Inuyasha thought that he felt the silk threads thin out; he guessed that he might almost be free. But he was afraid that he was going to be too late to try to help the doomed captain.
And he was right. Hikaru raced at almost godly speed and thrust her fingers through the man's shoulder. He screamed with great pain and terror but was cut short when Hikaru 's other hand grabbed his throat. "Then I won't be having any qualms about killing you," she said.
Inuyasha increased his struggles when he heard that voice. He had already seen what Hikaru was willing to do when she spoke in another language; this was going to be much worse. He needed to stop her before matters got any worse.
As he continued to break free, the hanyou used the unfortunate man to demonstrate some of what she had learned in regards to the martial arts. Although none of the other wounds bled out, everyone could hear it when she broke a bone or bones. The spectators were amazed at the angles that the human body could bend and move without pain. And they were equally amazed by the amount of bones in the body and how they could be broken. Yet in the back of their minds was a growing fear of this berserk hanyou.
Eventually, she allowed the once human body to fall onto the ground in a lumpy, bleeding mass of flesh and pieces of bone. The other bandits were tensed to run as fast as they could if she showed any intent to exact vengeance on them. Several had already decided to reform at this point and lead honest lives for whatever time remained for them. She slowly turned to them and glared at them.
"How pathetic of you. I attack your leader and none of you even protested to the treatment. But then, he had earned his 'reward'. Just like you have yours," she said. She popped her knuckles as a signal to her intentions. The men screamed and began to run. Hikaru began to chase them when her way was blocked.
"Hikaru! Stop this! It's over!" Inuyasha screamed. He had finally broken free of the spider silk and was standing in front of Hikaru to prevent her from harming any other people. She had stopped and looked angry.
"Get out of my way! Or are you in league with them.?"
She tried to push past him, but he would have none of it. They struggled against each other for a few moments. Juanyu broke free as well, change into his wolf form and took out the rest of the spiders. None of them gave any resistance. They had lost heart after the butchering of their queen.
Inuyasha needed some way to knock Hikaru out, but she moved her head too fast for him to hit. Then he remembered Tetsusaiga. He used his left hand to grab the sheath and rammed the hilt into her stomach. Hikaru let out a gasp then fainted under the sword's magic. His right arm held onto her by the waist then hoisted her over his shoulder.
When Inuyasha looked at the scene of the ambush, he saw that Juanyu had managed to free the men of the caravan along with some of the horses. The men were releasing the rest of the animals while the giant wolf had gone ahead. He went after him and discovered him trying to dismantle the blockade. It was made of several fallen trees held together by the spider silk. Unfortunately, Juanyu wasn't making much progress.
"Juanyu, stand aside. I can clear this easily," Inuyasha called out. After laying Hikaru gently on the ground he used the Cutting Wind to cut through the rubble and clear the path. Both hanyou and wolf managed to make the path accessible for wagons by the time the caravan caught up with them.
Sanja said nothing to them as they passed by. The man seemed scared, Inuyasha couldn't blame him. When they had first met, Hikaru was her usual cheerful self. Then right in front of his eyes she completely changed on him. The poor merchant probably wasn't sure what to make of them. The whole thing had also frightened Inuyasha a bit.
But the hanyou was also worried. What had caused Hikaru to go berserk like that? He got the impression that this hadn't happened to her before. Either she hadn't been in too bad a fight before or something happened back there that made whatever protection she had go away. Either way, they had to find something that can stop this from happening again or she would be lost to them for good. He had to admit that he had some affection for her, but nothing like what he felt for Kagome.
After the last of the caravan had passed, Juanyu (back in his human form) told Inuyasha that the merchant was kind enough to return their things to them. Inuyasha picked up Hikaru as the young man shouldered the basket and they continued on their way.
******
Evening fell with a gradual normality in the forest. With the spiders gone. The animals felt safe enough to return to their habitat. And there was no chance of their return; some of the men had found the nest of eggs and made short work of the lot. None of them, though, wanted anything to do with the death site on the path. Later that night, they might try to bury the remains, but not now. The stench was too great and the deaths too recent for their liking.
So it was curious when a single raven flew down and landed on the ground. Myouga jumped down by a pool of blood and sampled it a little. With a shock he realized that the taste was similar to Inuyasha-sama. Judging by the amount spilled, his master had partaken in a great battle. But the lack of a corpse showed that the resourceful boy was still alive. But there was something else. The blood tasted more like a youkai then hanyou. That could only mean that Inuyasha-sama must have gone berserk again. If that was true, then what had happened to Tetsusaiga? Thoughts for another time though; right now he needed to catch up with his lord.
Then his eyes spied something not too far away. The flea-youkai jumped over and looked on with curiosity.
The object was a little bigger than he was but lightweight when he tried to pick it up. It looked like a wooden box quartered equally into four smaller boxes. On one side of each box, a triangle rose up. It fascinated him that none of the triangles were close together but always a side apart. One of them had a hole bored through it and there was a little bit of thread going through. He didn't know what it was except that it radiated some kind of weird power. With some difficulty he wedged in between his back and his pack.
Then he hopped back on the raven and they took off. They kept close to the ground so that Myouga could track Inuyasha's scent. The strength of it told him that it shouldn't be too long until he was reunited with the hanyou.