Intro to Chapter 2: The creature has chosen a young woman as its next victim. Will the creature devour her whole in front of their (Inuyasha, Kagome, and Miroku) eyes, or will it devour only a part of her – an action that seems illogical for a predator?
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"I can smell the creature," Inuyasha growled. "Follow me!" He exited the house through a window, while Miroku and Kagome ran out of the front door. Inuyasha jumped from house roof to house roof.
A familiar voice screamed nearby.
"That voice! It sounds familiar!" Miroku yelled.
"But who is it? We don't know anyone from this village!" Kagome said.
Inuyasha crashed in the house through the front door – or ended up breaking the door into splinters of wood. On the ceiling of the room was a giant, spider-like creature holding a woman by the head.
"I've found you!" he said and started to jump onto the spider. The spider made a noise of disgust and jumped off the ceiling. It ran across the room making a hard pitter-patter sound against the wooden floor. With the woman's head tight in its clasp, before it could jump out the window, Inuyasha rebounded off the ceiling and landed on top of the giant, furry spider.
Kagome put the arrow into her bow, and started to aim. She couldn't shoot because Inuyasha was in the way, and she might hurt the woman, so she stood her ground until Inuyasha was at least out of the way.
Inuyasha took his claws and pierced them into the head of the creature. The creature screamed out in pain. It tried to shake Inuyasha off, but found it couldn't. Then spores opened up all around the spider's body. These small holes started to ooze out a black liquid that camouflaged with its furry body. Seeing his clothes dissolving from this liquid, he jumped off and the spider went out the window.
"We're following it!" Inuyasha jumped out the window after it.
The spider creature was well aware of the three people running after it, so it jumped onto a tree trunk and ran up. Inuyasha was too late. He didn't know which tree it went up. He jumped onto a random tree branch and started to explore the treetops to search for the monster.
The same voice screamed out even louder.
"A woman!" Kagome pointed at a falling body.
"Find the monster! Don't worry!" Miroku said in a rush, for he planned to catch the falling woman.
Inuyasha, in the heat of a chase, did not reply back and kept exploring the treetops.
"Inuyasha! North of the forest!" Kagome aimed her arrow at the monster running away. She pulled the bow back as far as it could go, for the monster was running too fast. She released, and then took out another arrow and ran towards the monster. The first arrow hit the spider's back. She stopped running and prepared the next arrow. Inuyasha was waiting for her to spring the second arrow before attacking. The second bow missed.
"Die!" Inuyasha jumped off a high branch of a tree. Inuyasha landed on something soft and started to fight this creature in the dark. Although he could not see anything, he still attacked the creature by means of touch, smell, and sound. He ripped pieces of the monster – limbs, leg by leg, the shell on its back, the face, and other parts of the creature's massive body.
Kagome stayed out of the fighting area because she could not see anything past her standing point.
Inuyasha came back out; hands and clothes full of blood. "How's the woman?" he asked.
The woman was still screaming. Her hands wailed in the air, while Miroku carried her to the other two.
"Her face is gone," Miroku said.
There, in front of the Inuyasha and Kagome, was a faceless maiden. All they saw were two holes for eyes, a mouth without teeth, and a burnt face on her head. She looked as though she was in the process of decaying.
"I can't make her stop screaming," Miroku yelled very loudly over the screaming. The villagers came and asked, "What happened?"
"Do you know this woman?" Inuyasha asked.
The villagers were shocked at the appearance of the woman. Some even fainted from the sight of a decayed face.
"Is she alive?" another woman asked.
"She's screaming isn't she?" Miroku asked.
"That is Anzu!" a man cried out. "That is my daughter!"
"Anzu," Miroku said under his breath. "The woman who was the most beautiful lady I've ever seen is now the ugliest," he thought.
Anzu's father took Anzu and muttered to her words of love. He hugged her and kissed her on the cheek. The mother ran up to their daughter and hugged her as well.
"Anzu, you will always be our lovely daughter, no matter how you look. We love you," the mother hugged her daughter as tight as possible. "We love you," she whispered again. Anzu continued to cry, but this time, it is not from fright, but from pain.
A woman with herbs came and helped the poor lady.
"That must be painful," Inuyasha said quietly.
Kagome looked at him.
He continued, "How her eyes were taken out, her tongue, her lips, teeth, and ears. The most painful of all must be the taking away of her face. No one can identify her unless she speaks."
"Inuyasha, would you leave me if I ended up like Anzu?" Kagome asked.
Some girls looked at Anzu, and said a few words among themselves, then ran away. Apparently, they were the young lady's friends. It seems as though Anzu's friendships were broken because of her looks, but the bond between her family and her grew stronger.
"Kagome, what kind of person do you think of me as to make you ask such a question?" Inuyasha replied.
Inuyasha walked back into the forest and took a look at the spider. As expected, the spider had the face of the beautiful maiden, an arm of a strong young man, and five other spider legs.
Inuyasha came back to the other two and said, "I think I know what these monsters are up to."
"Did you say 'these'?" Kagome asked.
"Yeah. I bet there's more than one."
"What are they up to?"
"I think they steal parts of the body from any creature to be the most beautiful, the strongest, or any other personal goal they have," Inuyasha stated slowly.
"It doesn't make sense because if a lot of these creatures have the same goal, they have competition," Kagome said, "and how can they change their spider-looking figure?"
"Do you think there is head monster behind all of this?" Miroku asked.
"I think," Inuyasha said, "that there's something bigger hiding behind these creature's personal goals. There are a lot of questions right now, but I'm sure that we'll find some sort of answer."
