Chapter XVII

Growing Thorns

Nobara lay on the ground at the campsite. She was still thinking of Sesshoumaru and that small girl. She then turns and looks at Inuyasha. She smiles sweetly as she remembers how he fought beside her. He was sleeping and Miroku had the watch tonight. Sango was asleep with Kirara and Shippou with Kagome. Miroku sat in deep meditation or thought, Nobara was not quite sure which, but his eyes were closed. She looks back up at Inuyasha, his arm in a sling that Kagome made; the bones would heal by dawn. And the toxin would be out of his system entirely by then too. She watches him sleep and remembers when she first saw him as a baby. When he smiled at her so sweetly, then Izayoi took him away. She remembered how she fought the taijiya that was there but that they were able to trap her and remove her. And when she returned to that castle, Izayoi and Inuyasha were gone. She closes her eyes and smiles. She finally found him again.

"INUTAISHO!"

Nobara suddenly sat up gasping for breath. The sweat beaded on her brow. She quickly looks around and sees everything how it was before.

"Another nightmare," she thought rubbing away the sweat with the back of her kimono sleeve. "They continue to get-" She suddenly froze as she looks down at the youkai blade at her side. Hisuibara was throbbing with jyaki. "Hisuibara!"

She glares at the blade alarmed; she realizes that when she thought she felt the blade many times before that she must have been right. She reaches out to put her hand on it. The throbbing jyaki subsides but her hand lurches back as if it was a snake that struck at her.

"Your father took his own life with this katana and then had it entrusted to me. The blade now throbs with jyaki, awakened by the blood it senses in your veins. But be warned that this blade is cursed. This blade has spilled the blood of many youkai, doragon-youkai alike and is a blade full of regret and thirst for revenge. It has its own spirit and will protect its wielder. However, until now it has been wielded by powerful youkai and you are just a hanyou, despite there being more youkai blood in you than most hanyou. The blade is connected with that youkai blood and will take control of it to aid the wielder to be more powerful. For a youkai that is a great asset but for a hanyou……your human blood may be destroyed…"

She remembers Toutousai's words as she stares at the blade. She had used one of its ultimate attacks too many times recently. She could feel the blade grip onto her blood like a cold claw holding her heart. She closes her eyes.

"Hisuibara is no longer being obedient is it, Nobara-san?"

Nobara looks up surprised as Miroku stood before her.

"Houshi."

"Earlier today when you yelled at Shippou, I could sense the jyaki on that blade. It was as if a tai-youkai was present in that field today," Miroku continues as he sits down beside her. "If Shippou touched it he may have been harmed by the jyaki. Perhaps it is time for you to let Hisuibara go."

"Keh," she scoffs. "It is my birth right, Houshi. Do you honestly think I will give up the source of my strength and power? The only thing I ever received from my family?"

Miroku looks at her slightly surprised.

"Nani?" she asks annoyed with his look.

"Hisuibara is your source of strength?" he asks as he rises then starts to walk back to where he was keeping watch. He then stops and turns to her, a small smile on his face. "Perhaps it is time for you to find a new source of strength," he adds as he glances his dark eyes over to a tree before he turns and continues back to his post. Nobara looks up to where his eyes glanced and saw Inuyasha sleeping peacefully. She then glances back at Miroku and sees the monk sitting with his back to her facing the fire.

"Perhaps it is time for you to find a new source of strength."

Miroku's words haunted her. She knew that she had heard them before, but could not remember where. The feeling of memory causes her head to hurt. Her pale eyes narrow as she rises to go walk off this feeling, taking Hisuibara with her and setting it back into her obi. She then walks away into the night.

After walking some distance she came upon a small waterfall and pool of water. She kneels down and splashed the cool crisp water on her face. The stagnate pool being disturbed by her interruption of its mirrored surface distorted the reflection with ripples. She stays kneeled at its side watching the ripples in the moon light. As the ripples subsided the once distorted image of her face comes into focus. She gazed down into the pool at herself. Her long face, pale blue eyes, and mane of yellow hair still tied back away from her face. Except for the two tendrils she let fall in front of each pointed ear. Her eyes suddenly sadden as the moon's reflection comes into view and she sees that is a quarter full. She places her hand over the spot where the dagger stabbed her. The wound tingled slightly to the touch.

"Will that blade be the end of this Nobara?"

"That blade will be the end of you!"

Nobara's eyes suddenly go wide as a familiar voice from the past haunted her thoughts.

"That's right, Inutaisho said that to me," she remembers as she looks over at the red and green silk covered hilt of Hisuibara. "He wanted me to get rid of-"

Nobara quickly rose as her nose picks up a familiar but dangerous scent. She holds the hilt of Hisuibara ready to use the blade at a moments notice as she gazes around the trees.

"Come out! I know you are there!" she calls looking around then focuses on an area in the trees. Her lips curl into a sneer. "Naraku."

At the sound of his name the dark hanyou emerges from the shadows. His tentacles exploding from his armor and the strands of his black hair bramble behind him.

"Nobara," he says a sinister smile over his thin lips. "So we meet again."

"Keh," she smirks. "Did you miss me, Naraku?"

Naraku narrows his eyes.

"Didn't we have a deal? That I would release you if you retrieved for me the last Shikon shard?"

"Keh, your deal was covered in lies, Naraku! It was off the moment I discovered those lies!"

Naraku smiles sinisterly again and closes his eyes for a moment. He then chuckles quietly to himself.

"So, how do you like our new arrangement then?" he asked raising his hand. There the peerless white dagger shined in the moonlight, the blade still crimson with her unwashed blood.

"The Gesshokudeba!"

"And it is so close to the full moon. Can you feel it, Nobara?"

Nobara suddenly gasps as she feels her youkai powers being taken away from her.

"Kuso! Damn you, Naraku!" she exclaims as she lunges at him. Naraku's tentacles suddenly spring out towards her. She closes her eyes anticipating the impact.

Everything was dark. Nobara could feel a throbbing pain at the back of her skull. She tries to open her eyes. Everything smelled different. She realizes she was no longer in the forest, but someplace cold and damp. Some sort of cave. She slowly opens her eyes and finds herself restrained against the wall. Chains at her wrists and ankles.

"Kuso!" she exclaims angrily of finding herself like that. She suddenly looks up at her hands and gasps. Her claws were gone. She was human.

"You have awakened, Nobara."

Nobara turns and sees Naraku. A small child clad in a white kimono with white hair and pale skin at his side. She is holding Hisuibara before her.

"Hisuibara!" Nobara exclaims pulling at the chains to get free.

"Kukukukuku," Naraku laughs at her desperation. "Where do you want to go, Nobara? Especially as a helpless human as you are now. But I am sure that I, Naraku, can change that." With his last words Naraku held up a small object in between his thumb and finger. A small pale pink shard.

"Shikon shard!" Nobara realizes as she wonders what he planned to do.

"Since I found you Nobara, something has been troubling me about you. You seem to be a youkai but are a hanyou. Yet unlike this Naraku who has been built from many youkai, you were born this way. That and your katana," Naraku took Hisuibara from the small strange girl and she backed away into the shadows. He unsheathes the blade and holds it up before him. His eyes then glare at Nobara.

"This blade is the source of your youkai power," he says as he throws down the bamboo saya and holds the blade before him. "Your blood is connected to this blade."

Nobara gasps, she didn't know what to do, but the knot in her stomach only got worse with feeling of impending doom.

Naraku smirks and then throws the blade her. The sword stabs her in the right shoulder and she cries out in pain.

"Kukukukuku," Naraku chuckles as he retrieves the blade removing it from her shoulder causing her to gasp. "Your katana has never tasted your blood before has it?"

"No!" Nobara weakly pleads, the pain suddenly overpowering as she tries to reach out to get Hisuibara.

Naraku holds the katana up, the tip of the steel blade facing the heavens as he watches her blood drip down to the hilt. He then looks at the shard in his other hand. Naraku smiles wickedly as he then places the shard into the blade near the hilt where her blood smeared the steel.

"No-!" Nobara tries to cry out again as the blade accepts the shard hungrily. She feels the throb of Hisuibara as it surges with insurmountable jyaki and the throb takes a hold of the throb of her heart. "No!"

"You need to stay here," Inutaisho stated as he placed the sheathed katanas of Tenseiga and Tessaiga on his belt.

"No my place is beside you! Please Inutaisho! Let me fight by your side again!" she said, placing a hand on his back. She suddenly jerks it back as he turns.

"Nobara, I do miss our times fighting together," he says reminiscing and smiles a little. "Those days are happy memories. But this is between me and Ryuukossei."

Nobara watched him prepare to leave. She felt she had to tell him something and she didn't know why.

"Inutaisho, I…" she began as tears suddenly fell from her eyes. She gasped as she realized. He turns and sees her tear streaked face. He cocks one eye brow and looks at her confused.

"Nobara, now you show me your tears?" He asks a surprised tone in his voice as he approaches her and places a hand on her cheek.

"I will be fine, Nobara. Ryuukossei will be defeated."

His touch took her off guard and she forgot what she was about to say. She looked up into his eyes, something she had never done before.

"Inutaisho…"

She then turns away from him and angrily wipes away her tears. She could still see Izayoi in his eyes. He turns again to leave.

"You should not fight him alone, please," she tries one last time, calmer now. "You need me to fight with you!"

He stops and faces her. His gold eyes soften as he looks at her. He sees the young woman that attacked him on the battlefield several years before. He walks up and places a hand on her small shoulder.

"I need you to protect, Izayoi," He says quietly. Nobara clenches her teeth and looks away. "And my unborn son." He steps back and looks at her then turns and leaves.

"Inutais-!" she starts to cry out, but he is gone.

"No!" she thinks as she runs outside after him. "Inutaisho!"

He sees her and stops puzzled as to why she was acting so strangely.

She runs up and holds him around the waist, tears flowing down her cheeks.

"N-Nobara?" he exclaims alarmed. "What are you-?"

"Inutaisho," she said calmly as she looked up and suddenly kisses him. "I love you."

The great tai-youkai stood frozen in the courtyard, he gazed down at her, shock clearly on his face. The silence was permeating and she waited then nothing. Inutaisho then backs out of her embrace, allowing her arms to fall at her sides. She looks up at him speechless and obviously pained.

"Nobara, gomen," he said looking down. "I love Izayoi."

Inutaisho then turns and walks away. Nobara felt the life knocked out her, her heart thumping so hard it hurt with each beat. The anger and hatred rising in her throat as she watched him walk away from her.

"NO!"

Hisuibara had a hold of her heart; her body began to feel hot as the youkai blood in her veins surged with jyaki. She tries to focus on something, anything as her head felt clouded with memories. Painful memories. But all she could feel was regret and anger; the thirst for revenge for her pain. Her hair returned to its yellow color and her claws extended again on her hands, but they were getting longer and sharper than normal. She desperately tries to fight the hold the blade had on her. The memory of Inutaisho's rejection permeating her mind. She thinks of Miroku, Sango, Kirara, and Shippou. But then their images fade and disappear with each throb of jyaki from the katana. She's sees Kagome but the young girl's image dissipates and converts to Kikyou with another throb.

"NO!"

She then sees Inuyasha, first as the young child she saved then as the warrior fighting at her side. She sees his warm gold eyes as Hisuibara throbs to take that away too. She clenches her fangs and struggles to break away. She reaches out to the young hanyou as he suddenly turns his back on her.

"Ofukuro was right about you, you never keep your promises."

"No!" her heart cries as Hisuibara throbs and his image disappears. She opens her pale blue eyes to cry out to him, tears falling down her cheeks. All she sees though is Naraku before everything goes red.

"Inuyasha….."