Inu-Yasha sniffed the air, confused. There was a youkai fast approaching. No, that wasn't it. She smelled human, too. He corrected himself. There was a hanyou fast approaching! This hanyou was strange, though. He didn't smell any demonic sense of confidence from her. All he smelled was a bit of noble confidence and determination. He realized her mood smelled just like Kagome's when he was last fighting Sesshomaru.

Inu-Yasha looked up and realized that his three comrades were staring at him. Oh, he must have been zoning out! He cursed himself for his stupidity, and glared at them. "Yeah?"

Miroku laughed. "You don't have to be tough. I sensed it too. There is a miko heading this way."

Kagome looked shocked. "Is it Kikyou?"

Inu-Yasha looked at her strangely. "No. I didn't smell a miko. That's why it's so strange. I smell a hanyou. If it were Kikyou, I would smell the scent of bones and burial soil, remember?"

Suddenly, there was a scream from the trees overhead. "Hanyou! Get away from those humans!" A woman wearing a yellow patterned bandanna over her head and a luxurious set of miko's robes dropped down between Inu-Yasha and Kagome. Her bandanna seemed to swell with two small lumps on either side of the top of her head.

"Why," retorted Inu-Yasha, "you wanna kill them, hanyou?"

"Never," replied Yoshimoto calmly. "I need the assistance of the miko who you are with, and I don't think it would be appropriate to kill her, or the houshi. Now shoo."

Inu-Yasha stammered, completely taken aback and at a loss for words. He had never been insulted like that by a hanyou before.

"So, miko-sama," Yoshimoto bowed respectfully. "Would you help me? It takes too long to purify the shards of the Shikon no Tama by myself. My youki keeps on getting in the way, and I need to hurry. My comrades are in urgent danger. I trust these to you."

Yoshimoto slipped the shards from her pouch and poured them into Kagome's hand. "Please keep these safe until I return. If I don't, by all means, keep them." Yoshimoto turned, and was gone in an instant.

"What was that all about?" she wondered aloud, glancing at the purified shards of the Shikon no Tama resting peacefully in her hand. "It's not every day that a woman that you've never met before just runs up to you, lends you one of the things you've been searching for, compliments you, and runs away, all in the same minute."

"That youkai was strange, Kagome," said Inu-Yasha, losing patience with her. "It didn't take your pitiful reasoning to work it out. That was a hanyou, anyway."

"A hanyou?" Miroku asked, confused. "Her aura felt like that of a miko!"

"Look!" cried Shippo suddenly.

"Shippo, don't just shove your way into our conversation!" growled Inu-Yasha.

"No, look at all the youkai! Up in the sky!" He pointed upward for emphasis.

Kagome looked where Shippo was pointing. "He's right! Wow..."

"We'd better follow them, and see where they are going, then," Miroku commented.

"Yeah." responded Inu-Yasha dryly. "That sounds like a good idea. Especially since it's the only thing we can do."


Yoshimoto leapt from tree to tree as if her very life depended on it. In fact, many lives did depend on her speed and agility. If she was going to save Sango, Kohaku, and the rest of the Exterminators, she had to act quickly. She could both sense and smell the youkai, and that was its master's downfall. She sensed a powerful creature. However, the powerful one wasn't the one she smelled. It was a distraction from the real foe, its only ability being its ability to appear to exert more power than it had. She appeared at the castle, wondering if she was too late, and looked around at the situation. Kohaku, the child, was raising his throwing sickle, his eyes glowing from possession. As he threw the weapon, she leapt in front of its path toward his elders, and braced herself, drawing her arms up into an x-shape in front of her chest. A sharp pain stabbed into her right arm, but she ignored it as she grabbed onto the chain the sickle was attached to. She gave it a yank, inadvertently digging the sickle deeper into her flesh, but it was no longer in his possession.

Yoshimoto pulled the sickle out of her arm, discarding it on the ground as she ran up to Kohaku, drew her shinai and gave him a good jab to the head. He fell, unconcious. "He's a youkai!" she cried, pointing and throwing an untransformationseal at the lord of the castle. The slayers and servants both looked at her in shock before they noticed that he had now turned into a spider youkai. The youkai grinned evilly andstarted growing, metamorphinginto a giant spider, shocking many of the servants and Exterminators alike. Yoshimoto turned to Sango, the only teenage girl there.

"Sango," she whispered, "I'm going to take care of Kohaku, okay? I'll bring him back to your village."

"You know where it is?" Sango asked incredulously. "Only the Youkai Exterminators know its true location!"

"Yes, I know. I am a Youkai Exterminator." Yoshimoto leapt to Kohaku's side, and lifted him up onto her shoulder. "Sango, don't you remember me?" Yoshimoto turned to leave. Suddenly, she turned, and not a moment too soon, either. A stray throwing sickle rocketed at her, and she ducked over Kokaku to protect him. She felt the pain on her ears lessen, and a small breeze over the top of her head.

"Sango, I have to go. Kohaku is probably in shock; he was just possessed for the purpose of murdering his family. I am going to bring him back to the village. There was a group of people heading somewhere around there, and they had a miko there. I sensed that she was pure of heart. In fact, she smelled like the late Kikyo-sama. I think she is Kikyo-sama's reincarnation."

Yoshimoto bowed her head, her ears twitching slightly, gathered up Kohaku, and ran off into the forest without another word. Sango just stared. She didn't trust that person. She couldn't believe that one of the Youkai Exterminators was a youkai. She had thought Kirara was the only youkai that had joined the Youkai Exterminators.

Sango pushed back her thoughts. The most imminent danger right now is the demon in front of me...


Yes, my chapter is painfully short. Deal with it, and I'll make it longer later.