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It is the dead of night with a full moon overhead where we find Sesshomaru, Jaken, Rin, and lets not forget their two-headed horse in an open field where they are probably camping for the night.
"It is not like to do such things, Lord Sesshomaru," Jaken said gazing at the materials Sesshomaru had laid out. There was a small table with two lit candles, two-lit incense, and a small pinkish bowl in the middle of it all, "I've never seen you perform a ritual before."
Sesshomaru stared down at the short green imp, " Jaken, you may not see the ritual, for you may just become the most important part of the ritual, the sacrifice," he said. He sat down and laid two dead doves into the bowl.
"Lord Sesshomaru!" Jaken spurted in fear. He was in a complete haze about what his master was trying to accomplish by all of this. He didn't dare ask now for the horror of becoming one with the ritual.
Sesshomaru, though not visible through his apathy, was very serious about this ritual. He kept looking up at the big, bright, round moon as if it were suddenly going to disappear, he kept checking the incense and the candles to make sure the wind hadn't stopped their burning, and sometimes, he would just be in a daze, so it seemed. This was very unusual to Jaken and Rin.
"Fluffy-san?" Rin started, "What are you planning to do with all these...uh...things you acquired?" She was also quite puzzled by Sesshomaru's actions. Of course, this may be natural for a child of her age. Then again, curiosity killed the cat.
"I am finally going to get rid of my lowly brother," he replied with a hint of mischief in his voice. This frightened Jaken a little bit because for a very long time, he had not heard anything that came out of Sesshomaru's mouth that had emotion in it, "by brining an old friend out from the grave. "
"Sesshomaru has friends?!" Jaken thought. "Friends besides me?!" This terrified the midget green man because, lets just face it, he's gay. This is shown especially towards Sesshomaru.
"Jaken," Sesshomaru called.
"Yes, my lord?" Jaken responded heartily.
"Fetch me that smallish fox demon that hangs around Inuyasha," Sesshomaru demanded.
"But..." Jaken hesitated. He knew it would be rough to sneak Shippo away from the rest.
"You'll do it because I said so," Sesshomaru corrected him. Jaken stood with his mouth open for a second in silence.
"Right," he nodded his head. He set off mumbling to himself about Sesshomaru. Unfortunately for him, Sesshomaru over heard some of it.
"Don't forget Rin, Jaken," Sesshomaru called after him. As soon as Rin heard those words, she immediately ran up behind Jaken in excitement. She loved traveling with Jaken. She found him amusing. Jaken stopped in his tracks with anger.
"Yessssss, masterrrr," Jaken said through his teeth. Rin and Jaken had set off on their journey to find and capture Shippo.
After they were out of his sight, Sesshomaru pulled out his robe two raven feathers, a water Lilly, a bit of Juniper, and a simple puppet and set them into a bowl. After this, he had started to daze again.
At the site where Inuyasha and his group were, a fire was lit and everyone was in discussion about where to head to next to hopefully find Naraku and his fortress that held Inuyasha's sweet revenge, Sango's little brother, and the end of Miroku's hell-holed hand. Of course, Shippo was not in this discussion, because his young desire in toys was much more interesting, He happened to be playing with them at this time. He was totally oblivious to anything they were saying.
When Jaken and Rin came upon the troop, they had better-felt fortunate that Shippo was away from the group. Jaken still was clueless as how to capture him without it being noticed. If he just plain ran out and grabbed him, he might scream. He had nothing to lure him with.
"Umm...Jaken?" Rin said disturbing Jaken from his pointless pondering.
"What is it now?" Jaken said sounding agitated.
"I have a plan, can I try?" She said.
"Absolutely not! What makes you think your plan is going to work when I can't even think of a plan!? Besides you probably don't even know what were doing here!" Jaken babbled not noticing that while he was making his useless speech, Rin had already gone out to Shippo and started her plan.
Rin had only gone to the edge of the bushes closest to Shippo, "Shippo," she whispered.
Shippo had heard the noise, but didn't know where it had come from, "Who's there?"
"Over here!" Rin whispered the best she could without getting too loud for the others to notice. She figured she was doing pretty well since the others were starting to fall asleep.
Shippo had found her and was sorta startled, "What are you doing here?"
"I wanted to talk to you. Is that okay?"
"But you're on enemy lines, aren't you afraid of the risks?"
"I really needed to talk to someone and you're the only one I know that could help. I don't like to fight," Rin said. She had become a pretty good liar from being raised in an orphanage for so long.
"I don't like to fight either!" Shippo said excited that someone had something in common with him.
Unfortunately, by this time, Inuyasha had noticed Shippo staring off into space and talking to himself, "Who are you talking to?"
Shippo looked at Inuyasha and then looked at Rin. He didn't know what to say. He may have just made a new friend, but then again, he knew the punishment if Inuyasha ever found out that he was talking to Rin, "I'm talking to a raccoon," Shippo said. He wasn't quite sure what drove him to say that, but Rin had come all that way to talk to him. Anyway, its not like Inuyasha doesn't hurt him anyhow.
"A raccoon?" Inuyasha thought, "The kid's going insane." Inuyasha turned away trying to forget that he had ever asked.
Shippo turned back to Rin, "We should probably wait 'til they go to sleep," he said to her.
"Come with me when the rest go to sleep," Rin suggested. You probably have already figured out her plan. She may have known what Sesshomaru had sent her and Jaken out to get, she had no idea why he needed him, "They won't know the difference. I'll have you back by dawn."
"Okay," Shippo answered only because he had so desperately wished to get away from the others for a little bit. A few minutes after that was said. Everyone was asleep, and the fire had gone out, "Lets go," he said.
Rin had not expected him to come with little persuasion,"Alright." So Rin took him back to where Jaken was.
"What is Jaken doing here?" He asked.
"Uhhh...Jaken took me here," Rin quickly blabbed. Shippo wasn't exactly comfortable with this, but he figured he was still near the others if something went a stir. They went off back to where Sesshomaru was at and Rin made something up to talk to Shippo about.
Jaken couldn't believe that Rin, a little girl that was mute for a large portion of her life, could pull off a plan when he couldn't even think of one. He wasn't going to tell Sesshomaru about this.
Meanwhile, back at where Inuyasha and others were, Myoga had woken up and noticed that Shippo was missing. He went off to look for him and came up in front of Jaken. Myoga stopped at the sight of Shippo and SPLAT!!
"Eww, I think I stepped in something," Jaken said as he scrapped what was Myoga guts off the bottom of his foot. Although, his death really wouldn't be noticed or mourned, somebody did die. So I must emphasize it. Myoga was deceased.
At the reach of Sesshomaru, they found him daydreaming. Rin and Jaken, though now getting used to it, were still baffled by his unattentness.
"Lord Sesshomaru, we've come back with the boy," Rin pronounced to him awakening him from his fantasy world.
"W'what do you mean?" Shippo asked, but before he could run or scream, Sesshomaru was holding him down covering his mouth.
"Jaken, take Rin away from here!" Sesshomaru ordered.
"What are you going to do with him!?" Rin asked raising her voice. Jaken had grabbed her arm and slowly dragged her away.
When they had gone away, Sesshomaru laid Shippo out on the ground, drew back his one hand, and punched it through the young fox demons left half of the chest and straight to the heart with his toxic claws. He pulled out his heart and of course Shippo was dead with a loud yelp at the end of his life. Sesshomaru placed the heart into the bowl and hovered his head over it, "It's finally ready," he spoke. He fell in to saying a spell, "Shiori, the demonic puppeteer, I summon you from the dead, to give your services to this world again!"
Suddenly, the candles and the incense blew out, the wind got heavy, and thick black clouds covered the moon. The dead doves rose up with the water Lilly in their mouths, the juniper rose over them and rained over them while the raven feathers did a dance. Next, the puppet came up and started dancing with the feathers with the doves above it with the juniper now falling on it. The whole table started to shake and the bowl created a black liquid that raised itself with the heart in the center of it. The liquid stopped at the feet of the puppet. The heart began to glow blue and an aqua color back and forth, faster and faster, until it got so fast it turned red and everything stopped. The feathers, the doves, the water Lilly, the puppet, the juniper, everything in the air had fallen in separate places on the ground around the table. The black liquid had disintegrated and the heart sat in the bowl motionless. For a few minutes, there was nothing. Just the wind maybe, but otherwise it was silent, "Did it work?" Sesshomaru questioned himself. After this, however, a loud vibration and beat came from the heart that hurt Sesshomaru's head so much that he fainted.
When he awoke, he had in front of him a little girl with the lightest of blonde hair and mahogany eyes, with the two dead doves in her hair that she had used like clips. With only a white tube dress on, she was playing with simple puppet. She had freakishly pale skin. The table had disappeared. Next to him was the corpse of Shippo.
"You don't look like Shiori," he announced coming to his senses about what had just happened. It was almost dawn when he looked at the sky.
"Well, that could be because you gave me a child's heart," she said with a beautiful quiet voice. She looked up from her puppet at him. He got up and walked over to her, "You are the one who brought me back, right?"
"Yes, I am. Do you remember me?" He asked.
"Sesshomaru?"
"Yes."
"What do you need me for?" She asked now changing the look on her face and the expression in her voice. She was suspicious of Sesshomaru. There had to be some reason for him of all people to bring her back from the dead.
"I need you to get rid of Inuyasha, my younger brother, anyway you can," he said to her. She put down her puppet and stood up. There was quite a difference in the size. She looked him up and down.
"I need to be older," she told him. She looked up and saw his impassive eyes, "Do you show emotion with anything I say?"
Sesshomaru tried to forget about her last complaint, for he was not ready to have her die again yet," What do I need to do to get you older?"
"I'm so glad you asked," she said leaping up into the air and kicking him in the back of the head. Sesshomaru lay on the ground, once again, without consciousness. He didn't feel at this time, but I'm pretty sure he felt pretty humiliated by getting knocked out by a child with one blow. Shiori flipped the body over and retrieved the heart from his body and switched it with the smaller, less useful heart of Shippo's.
Back at the locality where Inuyasha and his friends were, it was dawn when everyone had awoken and found Shippo missing.
"He was talking to a raccoon before I went to sleep," Inuyasha explained to the others. They had stared at him for a while and then decided not to take that into consideration.
"Well, we have to go look for him!" Kagome exclaimed in her normal semi-bravley-encouraging way.
"But we don't even know what direction to go in," Miroku pointed out. Although nobody there had noticed, Kilala had already begun sniffing around for Shippo's scent. She found the scent, and followed it to the bush where Rin had taken him away when she bumped into an older Shiori. Shiori picked up Kilala by the tail and walked over to the rest of the group. When the rest of the group saw her, especially Sango, they were not exactly the happiest about the way she had been carrying their friend.
"Are you Inuyasha?" she asked looking dead-on at Inuyasha.
"Yeah, so what if I am?" he replied reaching for his sword. Shiori dropped Kilala. She put her hands together and stood in silence, "What do you want?" he repeated. She opened her eyes, which were now glazed over. She jumped up and shot out strings from her hands. Inuyasha and Kagome jumped, but Sango and Miroku, did not. They were caught by the strings and POOF! a strange smog came over the both of them; they were now life-sized puppets. Kilala, who wasn't even close to getting hit by the strings from her hands, got angered by this and transformed into the bigger Kilala. She tried to attack the fiend, but something along the way had stopped her. Midway in the air, Kilala forgot what she had been doing and fell to the ground in shock and hyperventilation. Kagome had thought that Kilala might be having a seizure or a stroke, but what would have caused them?
Inuyasha drew his sword and swung it with the words of, "Backlash wave!" By the time the dust had disappeared, there was nothing there. No body and no puppets.
"We have to go look for them," Kagome said to Inuyasha.
"Right," Inuyasha agreed. They did start walking, but not in the path of the scent of Shiori, he was following what little scent of Shippo that was there. By this time it was morning and it had began raining. Inuyasha, for this reason, did not know that Rin and Jaken had been with their small friend.
They came to the clearing where Sesshomaru was to find Shippo's cadaver, Rin and Jaken.
"Oh my gosh!..." Is all Kagome to get out before she broke down crying.
"What did you do to him!?" Inuyasha demanded to know.
"W-we didn't do anything! We don't even know where Lord Sesshomaru is!" Jaken stuttered.
"I'm down here, fool!" A mysterious voice shouted from a pile of Sesshomaru's clothes. The head of a younger Sesshomaru popped out from the top of the robe.
"Lord Sesshomaru, what happened to you?!" Jaken yelled running up to him.
"Well, I see your clothes aren't fitting right, are you having a shortage problem?" Inuyasha voiced.
"DOES ANYONE BESIDES ME CARE THAT SHIPPO IS DEAD?!" Kagome cried. The four other's looked at the body of Shippo, looked at her, and then thought.
"No," they all said at once.
"WHO KILLED HIM?!" she croaked through anger and sorrow.
"Shiori," Sesshomaru mentioned trying to wrap the non-fitting clothes around his waist, "She is also what happened to me."
"WHO IS SHE?!" Kagome crowed once again, she was not really crying anymore, but she was filled with anger. Just then, a puff of dust came into the center of all this commotion. After the soot had cleared and everyone could see again, they saw the two puppets of Sango and Miroku.
"You'll all die," Sango said. She was bent over and looked possessed. She was about an inch off the ground and in the air with strings that stretched up to the sky. These attributes also applied to the other puppet that was hanging right beside her.
"If not be turned into toys first," Miroku said.
Down from out of the sky came Shiori with a stone Kilala in hands. She looked at Sesshomaru and her pawns. She started to laugh.
"WHO ARE YOU AND WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING?" Kagome screeched,"HOW CAN YOU FIND THIS FUNNY? IT'S HORRIBLE!"
"That is Shiori," Sesshomaru sounded, "It was a mistake to bring her back."
"Is this what you created from your ritual, master?" Rin urged.
"What do you mean 'bring her back,' Sesshomaru?" Inuyasha requested of his brother," And what's this about a ritual? You never do rituals."
"This is correct," Shiori interrupted, "Sesshomaru had recited a ritual to bring me back to kill you, Inuyasha. You should be grateful. You perish as a slave to a powerful woman. You all will, or maybe I'll just kill you," she shrugged, "whatever feels right at the time. Take for example, this thing I have in my arms..."
"I will not be a part of any wench's army of dolls on strings!" Inuyasha bursted out and as he raised his sword, Sango and Miroku were pulled to gaurd Shiori.
"It just seems easier to dispatch now that it's stone," Shiori threatened.
"YOU WOULDN'T DARE! I'LL KILL YOU!" Kagome shrieked. She was so pissed at this girl from all that happened so fast; so far.
"You'll have to go through your friends!" Shiori yelled back. She through the horrified Kilala statue into the air and with a raise of her hands, a huge vibration filled the air and the model broke. The only thing the others could do was sit back, cover their ears, and watch.
Pieces of the demon's remains fell on Kagome's head. With this, she was off of the ground in a flash, ready to fire an arrow into Shiori's heart even though she would have to go through the figurine Sango and Miroku, "You're a monster," she remarked semi-calmly. She had fire in her eyes as she watched the witch cackle in delight of her torture.
"Calm down Kagome!" Inuyasha told her, "If you shoot Miroku and Sango, we'll never be able to have them back." After this, Kagome set down her arrow.
Sesshomaru had Jaken cover Rin's eyes through the whole thing. All she heard was laughter, a breaking of something, and more laughter, "What happened?"
"Nothing," Sesshomaru replied, "Jaken, I'm going to have to ask you to take Rin away again."
Jaken sighed. "Why don't you and I have any alone time anymore? It's always Rin and I now," he whispered as he walked off with Rin's hand in his.
Shiori noticed this and had realized that she had been negligent to the miseries to Sesshomaru for the past few minutes. She just figured she'd get what she needed to do done now at once. "No more stalling!" With that, many strings fled from her hands unexpectedly, catching hold of Jaken and Rin. They were instantly turned into puppets. She had them stand in front of Sesshomaru and perform a play.
"I hate being with Rin. I'd rather be with you all night, master," she had Jaken pronounce from his own mouth. She had the doll dragged over to the boy and had it hug him...below the belt.
"But Jaken, I love you!" Shiori had Rin coo. She dragged the Rin figurine over to Jaken and held his head to her chest.
"You are a sick, disturbed woman," Sesshomaru said pushing the both of them off him. He drew the Tokijin from its sheath and cut the strings attached to Rin and Jaken.
"I may be, but I didn't just kill my two allies," Shiori mused.
Everyone was in shock, "W-what?!" Sesshomaru stammered. He grabbed the two bodies and ran.
"Oh, he just wasted two perfectly good slaves, and now he's running away without paying the price? That's okay, I'll get him after you two. You're all that's left!" Shiori boasted and turned around to face the couple. "Upon this special occasion, I'll let you choose whether you want to be my slave or an addition to the dead."
"Neither!" Inuyasha said in a low tone.
"Never!" Kagome agreed in a low tone as well.
Shiori shot out more strings. Inuyasha and Kagome both ran as they realized the strings were chasing after them. Kagome hated to do this to Inuyasha, but she ran off into the woods as fast as she could. She didn't know what came over her. Somehow she knew that Inuyasha would get caught by her, too. She couldn't bear to watch that. So, she ran away crying saying over and over softly, "I'm sorry Inuyasha."
"KAGOME!!!" Inuyasha yelled as she ran away. He soon was turned into a puppet as well.
"Now, I wonder what that girl will do since I have her boyfriend," Shiori thought as her three prized puppets were bowing at her feet.
No more story until you review. My goal review number is 20, so if you really want this story to get updated, GET YOUR DAMN FRIENDS TO READ IT TOO! Be honest! I won't update if you don't review. But it's okay if you don't. (Takes out her bazooka and aims it at the readers.) You'll just pay with your life! I welcome flamies!