I didn't get as much reviews as I thought I'd get for the last chapter…I'll have to change the summary on this then. I don't own anything but my sanity…ah crap, I lost that too!
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"Just our luck about the bridge..." Shippo mumbled to himself. Kirara, resting in his hands, mewed in pain as a raindrop fell into the open gash on her foreleg. The teen kitsune mumbled incoherent words to the injured fire neko as he used the sleeve of his green shirt to cover her. Sango, worried, stopped and fell back to have a look at the tiny youkai.
"She looks like she's running a fever…we better stop at this village ahead."
Miroku gave a sad chuckle. "If we aren't run out of it for working for Naraku like the last time, then yes, let's do that."
"I know this village up ahead," Kagome said loudly over the boom of more thunder, "I trained to become a miko here. I know they'll let us in!"
Sure enough, Kagome was right. The village looked a bit more welcoming to them than what they were used to. Despite the dirty walkways and the smell of farm animals, the place looked comfy, even in the storm. All the villagers where nestled inside their homes, waiting the storm out.
"So far, so good. Kagome must be right about this place, huh Sango?"
"Houshi-sama, think positive before I use my weapon on you…"
Ignoring the spat between her peers, Kagome knocked on the side of a wooden hut, with a woven mat for a door. Immediately, an old woman wearing red and white miko's robes came to the entrance. Her eye, there was only one, the other was covered up with a patch, looked at Kagome with a mix of surprise, and happiness.
"Kami above! I thought I'd never see the day you came to visit this old woman! It is a joy to see you. Come; come in from this wretched weather, you and your friends. Come, come!" Despite her poor age, her smile was as youthful as a girl who had lost her first tooth. The group obligated themselves to walk into the warm hut. It was tiny, but it looked comforting all the same.
"Pardon me, elder miko," Miroku said, twisting the rain from his locks, "are you the one who trained Kagome to become a great miko?"
The old woman smiled again. "That is true. Let me introduce myself to you. I am the miko, Kaede. What brings the lot of you out here in this terrible storm?" Kaede took some tea from a pot and poured it out for her weary guests. Each took a cup and sipped it, warming their chilled bones. However, ashamed emotions washed over each youthful face in that hut.
"You shouldn't really ask…we aren't exactly fighting on the side of good at the moment," Sango mumbled, her eyes staring straight into the fire. Flames flickered in her saddened eyes as a low rumble of thunder passed over each other's ears like a mother's gentle caress.
"Goodness, why do you say that? Tell me your troubles, young ones. I will not judge you." The elder miko waited eagerly for the truth to be told. Kagome coughed, clearing her throat.
"Well, it's very complicated, Kaede…"
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He hated this. He hated his life, and his life's duties as of this time. He was an ookami prince, the best of the best. And yet, here in this dreary castle, he was nothing but a slave forced to fight in battle, and guard treasure when at peace. How he had even agreed to this proposition brought by those swindling scumbags, Naraku and Sesshoumaru, was a mystery. He had no knowledge of agreeing his life for the freedom of his pack. Somehow, he had. And he hated it.
He was Kouga, a young ookami youkai from the mountains. But months in enslavement had changed his scrawny, yet muscular body into one that had been forced to become stronger to survive. He was pale, making his black hair stand out even more that it used to when his skin was a tanned sea of flesh. He glared at his captives with blazing blue pupil-less eyes, angered with many sessions of torture. A guard whipped his back when he struggled against his bonds. He doubled over in pain.
"Get up, pathetic whelp!" The guard's whip lashed across his back again, leaving another open wound to join those trying to heal. Kouga wouldn't allow himself to utter one sound of pain, instead letting his mouth open and shut with silent yelps. The guard lashed at his back until the ookami was numb with pain. Annoyed, the guard kicked Kouga violently in his ribs, sending him flying into the wall.
When he showed no sign of disobedience to the guards, they made their way into Naraku's personal weaponry, where mythical weapons from enemies defeated hung as a sick reminder to those who had died wielding it. Kouga gazed at the weapons, making a mental note to come here when an escape was successful. They passed through this chamber until they arrived in a room with only one weapon.
It was encased in a simple wooden sheath, a dark brown with some type of oak or pine in its design. The handle itself looked rusted and unkempt, the ties around it frayed and gray with age. It was surrounded by what looked like a blue demon's barrier, preventing any with youkai blood from coming near. A boy, about pre-teen age, sat in battle-armor with a blade in his hand. The guards threw the ookami to the ningen boy's feet.
"Kouga will help guard Tetsusaiga, Kohaku. Your lords wish him to help you." The boy, Kohaku, nodded his head from where he stood, his eyes blank and emotionless. Kouga had a feeling that this ningen was being held against his will, as was he.
The guards left, locking the demon-proof doors behind them. Kouga still attempted to break down the steel doors, pounding hard on the metal surface. He tried, and tried, and tried until his knuckles and hands were bruised and bloody. He growled in a primal state, and then kicked the doors in frustration. His actions only caused a small dent in the metal doors. Finally too sore to continue pounding on his only way out, he sunk down to a sitting position, facing the one weapon in the room.
Tetsusaiga was what the guards called it. The ookami was confused. Why would they leave one of his power and a subdued ningen to guard a piece of scrap metal? Just what exactly did this rusted sword have that made it have a room of its own? And why did Naraku and Sesshoumaru leave it to rust away? These were answers he didn't know…
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His cell was wet and damp, chilled with cold air. This was one more thing that made his life miserable. Loneliness and hunger were the worst points in his life. They drove him to near madness. Voices he could hear in his head because of the silence that surrounded him. Hunger gnawing at his frame day after day, threatening to devour his insides to maintain the nutritional needs of his body. The filth and rot hung in his sensitive nose, dulling his senses and making him sick to his stomach. How had he come to this?
The laughing and cheering of the guards drove his attention away from the miserable things in his life. Cautiously, he crept to the bars on his cell door and peered past the darkness with hanyou eyes. He could see what was happening, but barely.
Sometimes, when the guards had nothing to do, they'd take out starving, dying prisoners and pit them against each other, the prize either a full meal or sweet mercy of a cold dagger. Inuyasha himself had been in many of these brawls, fighting tooth and claw for that full meal. He didn't like to fight human prisoners, but it was a survive-or-die situation. His mouth began drooling when he spotted what meal they could win today. A fresh kill of a bull cow, still bloody and raw from the slaughter.
Inuyasha rattled the bars on his cell, his eyes wanting and lusting for that meal. He didn't care what he'd have to do to get it; all he wanted was a full belly. The noise of the bars attracted the attention of two guards, resting a few cells away from his. The bigger, more muscular of the two walked in front of the hanyou's cell, his sword drawn.
"So, you want that rotting carcass, huh hanyou?" the guard gruffly said, a devious grin showing rotten teeth. Inuyasha rattled on the bars again. At this action, the guard gave a hearty and amused laugh. "Well then, let's sees how you can do against these jewel thieves, hanyou!" Inuyasha growled in a feral manner, his youkai blood boiling to taste flesh again. He backed from his cell door, growling in frustration as three guards with youkai seals bolted into the damp cell, pinning Inuyasha to the ground.
Even with his youkai blood, malnutrition and weakness had taken their toll on his strength, not allowing his body to push the ningen off. He growled, baring his fangs as he felt the taught rope around his wrists, binding back his eager claws. Another rope slipped around his neck, as a sort of leash to restrain the desperate prisoner. These he could stand, he could break these and destroy all around him. But then, they pulled out the last restraint.
He feared it. His body froze as a thinner guard came out with it in his hands. Struggling, fear engulfed his yellow eyes, begging for mercy. Not this! Anything but that nightmare, that thing that haunted him in mad sleep.
At first glance, it looked like a normal mask that one would see a person imitating an inu-youkai in a Noh theater. It was white, with many designs on the face imitating battle scars and blood. The eyes had been cut out; as to use the actor's real eyes instead of painted eyes. The fangs were real fangs taken from dogs that had perished, all painted with random patterns of red dye to imitate bloodstains. In fact, it was a pretty plain mask indeed.
But Inuyasha was not an actor, and this was no normal mask to be used on a stage. Inside the mask were patterns of different enchantments, all glowing as the mask inched towards Inuyasha's fearful face. Each enchantment etched in the wood would slowly ebb his ningen blood away from his mind, leaving behind a terrible monster that dwelled inside the hanyou's mind. Inuyasha feared his youkai self, what it could do, and what it had done before. He pleaded and screamed for mercy as the mask was placed over his face, the enchantments burning his skin with their spells.
His yellow eyes were the only things that the guards could see as he writhed in agony to free his face from the mask. The muscular guard held the hanyou's head down as they tied the mask behind his head, sealing it with a binding enchantment, so Inuyasha couldn't untie it. Inuyasha kept crying out in pain, his bound hands flailing desperately to remove the offending mask. But, just as it had done many times before, the mask won over the hanyou and let his youkai self boil to the surface.
Red eyes with blue pupils replaced the normal yellow ones Inuyasha had a few seconds ago. He growled in an animalistic way, no longer the way he had growled as a warning. He sounded like a true animal, ballistic and hungry. The guards held him back as they picked him up, his feral sounds making them wary.
"Easy men, don't let him fool you. Don't let go of him until we get him to the thieves. Keep that mask on him the whole time." The smallest guard said, holding onto the rope around Inuyasha's neck. Once they reached a deep pit dug out with a cell door on top to prevent any escape, they quickly removed his bonds and pushed Inuyasha to the bottom. Inuyasha howled in glee as his claws reached out to the nearest ningen, tearing his eyes from their sockets…
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"It happened after I left to become a miko for another village. Naraku attacked my village, raiding it and taking women for himself. I tried to stop him, but I wasn't powerful enough. He captured me and forced me to work for him, so he would stop slaying the village I was in, which included my family. I met Shippo on my second trip to the kitsune kingdom on the mountains two day's travel from here. He was the son of the leader, and Naraku forced my party to take him as a hostage. That's how he came to be with us."
Kaede nodded, a grim look in her eye. Miroku took this chance to take voice to his part of the story.
"Naraku was once a good friend of my family, a good man. Then he met the inu-youkai, Sesshoumaru, and something clicked in his mind. My father and grandfather tried to talk some sense into him, but he killed them off. He took me in and placed a kazanna curse on my right hand." Miroku held up his hand, gloved and beaded. "I have to keep on payer beads Naraku gives me, or I'll be sucked into my hand. The spell lasts for a few moon phases, but I need to keep going back to keep the spell on the beads firmly. I can't run away, and I have to serve his wishes, or I can never avenge my family."
Sango's turn to speak came. "Naraku was a once a good man, as Miroku said. My brother and I used to slay youkai for him, the ones that threatened his home. I don't know what happened when Sesshoumaru came to his castle, but he was no longer the man we once knew. He stole my little brother Kohaku away, and brainwashed him. Now I have to serve under his rule in order to get my little brother's mind back, and to see what happened to the man we used to know as Naraku."
Kaede's old face frowned in sadness. "You have been through a lot of pain. I understand know. I will not judge…but I will ask what you are searching for."
Shippo pulled out the pouch from Miroku's robes. He took out the fragment and held it out. "Naraku and Sesshoumaru want these Shikon no Kakera to make a complete Shikon no Tama. We have to search through demon villages for these against our will. This one came from the ryuu village under the snow pass, the one with elder and sick demons. We don't yet know why they want the Shikon no Tama, but we can't ask. This last battle our fire neko, Kirara, got poisoned. Kaede-sama, can you heal her?"
"Of course. Tell me, what to you plan to do to stop this Naraku?"
Kagome look saddened. "We…we don't know yet. Why?"
Kaede came back with medicinal herbs and treated Kirara with gentle care. With the neko taken care of, the elder miko began to tell what was on her mind.
"There is a way to defeat them. Have you heard the story of Sesshoumaru's little brother?"
"Wait, Sesshoumaru has a brother?" came Miroku's confused question.
"Yes, a brother equal in power but not equal to him in blood. Inuyasha was his name, if I can remember. They shared the same father, but not the same mother. You see Inuyasha is a hanyou instead of a full youkai, as Sesshoumaru."
"Hanyou? Half ningen, half youkai, am I correct?"
"Yes, Kagome-san. Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru used to rule the western lands together after their father died. This was only because of a magical item given to Inuyasha from his father, though I don't know what it was. Sesshoumaru couldn't harm his brother, nor could Inuyasha harm Sesshoumaru."
"But I thought that youkai kill hanyou offspring? Why did he live?"
"That was thanks to their father's mortal wife, Inuyasha's birthmother. Sesshoumaru had to listen to his stepmother, even though he hated hanyou and ningen all together. Inuyasha's mother protected the life of her son until she died, about 60 yrs ago. I wasn't alive then, but my grandmother was, she told me the tale. Anyways, Sesshoumaru then fought Inuyasha and won over his brother, and cast him away into the dungeon of his castle. The magical item Inuyasha had could somehow destroy legions of youkai in a single try, but Sesshoumaru was angered to find it had a barrier on it to keep youkai blood from touching it. Ningen can't call upon the power, either, so it could only be used by those of the hanyou race."
"Well…why are you telling us this, Kaede-sama?"
"Because I think that's your best way to defeat Naraku and Sesshoumaru. Somehow, that magical item Inuyasha had makes those two very uneasy, so they locked it away from the world. You need to free Inuyasha from his dungeon and return that magical item to him, then see if he'll help destroy Naraku with you. I'm sure he wants revenge on his elder brother."
Sango scratched her head. "This Inuyasha couldn't have survived all these years in a dungeon…he has to be long dead!"
Kaede shook her hand. "I wouldn't put it past Inuyasha to give up on life that easily. I know which castle he's in too…it's the one about three days from here, the one with the black roofs-"
"Kaede, that's Naraku's castle!" Kagome exclaimed.
"Well, you better see about getting him out. I'll aid you to become partially free from his grasp…I can make a new set of permanent prayer beads for your kazanna, and send messengers to your families and the villages to abandon once he finds out you've betrayed him…leave that shard here, so Naraku and Sesshoumaru can't get it. I'll take care of your little friend as well…in fact, I think I have some method of travel to get you there faster, hold on…"
Kaede placed Kirara next to the fire and walked out the hut into the rain. She returned several minutes later, with a raccoon-like youkai next to her.
"A-a-are these the people that n-n-need to go to that castle?" The demon stated, shivering a bit in nervousness.
"Indeed, Hachi. They're going to stop Naraku and put an end to these dark times. Will you take them?"
Hachi nodded. "I'll take them as far as I can go, which is about a mile away from the castle…I-I-is that alright with you?"
Miroku nodded. "Most youkai can't even come that close to the castle without them knowing it…we thank you for your kindness, Hachi-sama."
"Please…just Hachi…I don't like the formalities." Hachi walked outside and placed a leaf on his head, transforming his body into a yellow, serpent like demon. "Everyone on, last call!"
And with this they were off, off to save Inuyasha and to stop Naraku once and for all…
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The mask was off. Blood stained the ground, his lips, and his claws. Mangled ningen bodies surrounded him, their haunting eye sockets staring back at him, crying tears of blood. He was huddled as far away from the carnage as he could go, shivering with fear and disgust. He rocked himself as he tried to rid his mind of the sound and sights of the ningen as they pleaded for their lives…
The cow carcass fell down the pit, landing next to a ningen with no jaw. The guards laughed at the hanyou's fear and shock. Inuyasha didn't even hear them. He didn't want to hear them. He closed his eyes, trying not to envision what his youkai side had done to these poor, hapless men. He had wanted to fight for the food, but not like this, no, not in this way. He didn't want to kill those men; he didn't want to lose his self-control like that. Now he reeked with their blood, he could still taste their flesh in his mouth. He wanted to throw up.
Inuyasha couldn't handle it. He heard the voices in his head begin to scream and call him monster, to yell at him for not doing away with his life. He cried out and held his head in pain, muttering for them to stop. His ears pounded with his imaginary voices, angry and lashing out at him. He lay down on his side, hands over his ears, eyes tightly shut. He wanted it to end; he wanted it all to stop. He wanted to see one of the only people to ever love him…
Kikyo…
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It's getting there, don't worry, Inu fans! What will happen next? Review and I'll get to work on the next chapter soon!
