Remember when I said that chapter lengths were going to depend on my muse. Well. . . this time my muse decided that we needed an 11-page chapter to make up for not updating in a long time. He he. Sorry 'bout that guys. Work, my other fic and life (yes, I was also quite surprised to find out I had one) got in the way. I also had some problems with the last part. It's still not perfect, but hopefully it's not horrible.

The jyaki thing is apparently still a bit problematic. I accidentally came upon something on ear-tweak . com that helped. So it turns out, that both jyaki and youki are more or less right. Jyaki means "wicked energy" and youki means "youkai (spirit) energy." I'm not quite sure what the distinction between the two is, since their usage seems to be more or less the same. However, since I'm most familiar with jyaki and mostly because I've already used it in the story, I will continue to use it. Dementors aren't actually youkai anyway, so it fits. Actually no, wait, I tell a lie, I did use youki once in this chapter because Kagome was specifically looking to see if the death eaters were youkai.

And once again, for those of you who have apparently not been paying attention to the author's notes: this story will not have any pairings in it! I mean Kagome will obviously have made some new friends after this, but that's all.

Thanks a bunch for reviewing: chinadoll27, Saori Aki Orimi, sailor-saturn550, Kc, Samantha, shadows stalk in the night, Hikagi, lala-girl27, Evil Toilet Paper, kira, otakualways, inuyashas hun, Kaggy-chan2202, Natsumi Tsuchi-Ookami, Midnightwolf223, felinevampirewitch, dragondolphin1990, ForestSprite (lol, I like your muse; does she always carry a sledgehammer, or was it a rubber mallat?), Wytil, Harm Marie, nania, Mel0Yel0#03, Shadowed Rains (so you do loon imitations, eh? now that's a neat party trick), shangxiang10, The Violent Tomboy, Spelling Mistake/IYWriterGirl (wow, to say I'm flattered is a major understatement - thank you), lunar-blood-rose, Fuji the Hobbit, dark huntress, Talia Moon (well, someone is showing up in this chapter. . .), CuriousDreamWeaver, iygurl, tuskimiko, Shavaineth (I also really like Kirara, hence why's she's in this fic. . . as for what happens to everyone, well, you'll just have to wait and see), Kyokorain, Diana Artemis Silvermoon, kurishii, Moonjava and xHikari-808x.

Disclaimer: I solemnly swear that I own no part of this fic.

A Clash of Cultures

Chapter 6 - The Dark Lord

Kagome slowly opened her eyes. Her head hurt. She experimentally moved her arm and groaned. If the pain was any indication, she was definitely alive.

Her groan was answered with a pained meow. Suddenly everything came rushing back to her.

'Oh, right, we got hit with some sort of curse and fell,' she remembered.

Gathering all her strength, she slowly managed to pull herself up so that she was kneeling on the grass. She braced her hands on her thighs for a moment, waiting for the world to stop spinning around her. She heard voices shouting in the distance and felt energies clash together, but somehow couldn't figure out why.

Finally everything around her settled down and she could raise her head without falling down. The first thing she saw was Kirara laying on her side in her kitten form a few feet away. She looked at Kagome with sad eyes and meowed again.

Kagome crawled to her youkai friend's side and petted her. Kirara leaned into the touch.

"Oh, Kirara, you're hurt," Kagome whispered, "you won't be able to fight anymore, will you?"

Kirara meowed sadly and then rested her head back down.

Kagome looked up and spied her bow lying a bit further away next to an unmoving form covered in black robes.

'Draco,' she realized.

Suddenly a bush to her left exploded in a bright array of light. Kagome's head snapped to watch little bits of it fall to the ground. She turned her head to look behind her and got her first glimpse of what looked like a battlefield.

It was different from any battlefield she had ever seen before though.

She recognized one group of people as the ones she had seen from above fighting the demons, but now there seemed to be more of them. However, she was absolutely positive the black robed figures hadn't been there before. There were so many of them.

They had white masks covering their faces, so Kagome couldn't tell what they looked like. She couldn't feel any youki coming from them though, so she assumed they were human. Actually, their auras were similar to Cho and Draco's, except darker.

And when one of them stood still for a few moments, she could see that, like Draco, they too had marks made with dark magic on their forearms.

What Kagome found most fascinating though, was that all of them were using the same sticks Draco had. She had no idea what the lights coming out of them were for, but assumed they were spells or curses of some sort.

'What an interesting way to fight with magic,' she thought as she watched a green-haired woman send her opponent flying into the bushes.

Not far from the woman another masked man (it was too burly to be a woman) pointed his stick at a slender, blond man. A green light shot out of it and hit the blond directly in the middle of the chest. Kagome gasped when he fell like a leaf to the ground. She saw his soul escape from his body and knew he was dead.

'I have to help,' she decided and her eyes narrowed in determination. Not caring how sore her body felt, she stood up and stiffly moved towards Draco to retrieve her bow.

'I hope he's alright,' she thought, suddenly realizing Draco still hadn't moved. Worry driving her movements, she almost managed to sprint towards the blond.

He was laying on the ground, arms spread out from body as if he was about to embrace the sky that his eyes were staring at. Just from the awkward angle of his neck, Kagome knew. Draco was dead.

The sounds of the battle behind her faded out until they seemed to become only a dull murmur. Mesmerized, she stared at his face. The world around her evaporated and all her mind saw were his unseeing eyes and partially opened lips.

It wasn't that she hadn't seen death before; she'd seen entire villages slaughtered by demons. She couldn't even remember all the gruesome scenes she'd witnessed: battlefields covered in not only dead bodies, but body parts strewn in every direction. There was a lot of blood and gore when demons were involved.

When she stopped having nightmares about it, she had figured she had finally gotten used to it, that somehow her mind had become numb to the sight of death.

But this was different. She knew the name of the blond laying on the grass in front of her. For a little while he had been something of a friend.

Images of Sango, Miroku, Shippo, Inu Yasha and Kouga flashed through her mind. Then she thought of Sesshoumaru.

'Was this why he brought Rin back to life with Tenseiga?' she wondered. 'That somehow she had become more than just another human? That she had become a living being, a child, to him?'

Kagome smiled briefly to herself. It'd probably be easier to get Inu Yasha and Kouga to sit at a table and share a nice, quiet cup of tea together than getting any answers out of the demon lord.

She shook her head and reached for her bow.

'Come on Kagome, enough of this,' she chided herself, 'you can't help Draco, but there are other people you can help!'

Suddenly two pairs of arms grabbed her from behind and lifted her to her feet. Kagome yelped in surprise.

"Well, well, and what do we have here?" a rough male voice sneered maliciously.

"Hmm, she doesn't look like much," the other one said.

Kagome tried to get a good look at the two men holding her, but they were wearing those white masks over their faces. It was slightly unnerving. Kagome began to struggle in earnest.

'Dammit, where is Inu Yasha when I need him?' she asked herself. At the same time, however, she promised herself that if she made it out of this alive, she'd make sure to never, ever even breathe of this to him. He'd probably use it as proof that it was too dangerous for him to let her out of his sight ever again.

"Let me go!" she yelled.

"I don't think so," a third voice chuckled. Kagome looked up into a third masked face. "You've caused us quite a bit of trouble. The Dark Lord himself wishes to express his displeasure."

'I wonder if it's the same Dark Lord Draco talked about?' Kagome wondered. 'It has to be, these men all have the same mark on their arms.'

The third man walked to Draco and knelt down to take a good look at the body. His right hand froze inches away from the blonde's face.

"Merlin's damnation!" he whispered, sounding somewhat shocked. Then he suddenly sprang to his feet and turned around to face the rest of the sorcerers.

Kagome cursed herself for not noticing the battle was over. She spied the boy with glasses she had met with her cousin standing in the middle of a group of people surrounded by the masked men, all pointing those magic sticks at them. The red head was standing next to him and both were glaring at the dark figures surrounding them.

As Kagome scanned the crowd, she suddenly became very frightened. Cho wasn't among them.

'Maybe she was smart and ran away from the demons,' she hoped.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the man who had knelt over Draco's body. He was calling someone's name.

"Lucius!" he suddenly shouted so loudly that Kagome's ears rang from the noise. She shook her head and gazed at him curiously, knowing that there had to be some sort of trick to it.

Then she noticed yet another masked figure joining them. He carried himself differently than the other one though: his movements were regal and precise, almost elegant if it weren't for the hideous mask he was wearing.

"Avery, you had better have a very good reason for shouting my name in front of all these people," he growled.

"It's. . . well, it's her accomplice," the other masked man- Avery- said carefully.

"Is he dead?"

"Yes sir, yes he is."

"And? I fail to see the problem here."

"Well, umm. . . it's rather confusing you see, but . . ."

"Spit it out man, I don't have all day and neither does the Dark Lord!"

"It's.. . he's. . . your son. . . D-Draco is dead."

Kagome's eyes widened; she stared at the new arrival. This was Draco's father?

"Well, that explains why he didn't come when he was summoned," the man holding Kagome's left arm muttered.

"This has to be a trick," Draco's father finally said quietly, almost as if he wasn't really intending anyone else to hear. Then more loudly he added: "My son would never betray me. Besides, the pain from the Dark Mark would've prevented him from refusing a summons."

His last comment confused Kagome. She thought back to when she had purified Draco's mark. She remembered feeling a connection to a greater power, she had had to sever the link to it, although at the time she was acting on pure instinct. Were all the marks connected to this one well of darkness? Was it this Dark Lord? Was he like Naraku and used the marks as a way to control his minions, making them a part of himself?

As she was pondering the marks, Draco's father just stood there, looking down on his son. Then his head slowly began to turn to Kagome. Her throat went dry. She couldn't even see his eyes, but she could feel the cold glare he was giving her and felt a chill crawl down her spine. Then he advanced on her.

The next thing she knew, there was a hand around her throat and breathing was a chore.

"Who are you?" the owner of the hand asked in a quietly dangerous voice that reminded Kagome a bit of Sesshoumaru. Except that Inu Yasha's older brother would never sully his hands with a mere human.

"Ka-kagome Higurashi," she answered.

"Now tell me, Kagome, what did you do to my son? Did you curse him with Imperio? Hmmm?"

'Imperi-what?' Kagome gave him a blank look.

"Don't play games with me girl!"

Furious, the man tore his mask off his face and treated her to a full-on version of the glare she had only been feeling up 'till now. The resemblance was amazing: he looked like an older version of Draco, with longer hair. He practically radiated dark power and his eyes glittered dangerously.

Someone who didn't fight large, hungry demons on a daily basis would have probably found him quite terrifying. Unfortunately, while Kagome was certainly intimidated, she was quite a bit shy of being utterly terrified.

"I know my son! He is a Malfoy and he would never betray the family name voluntarily. You did something to him, now tell me what it was! You are the reason my son is dead!"

Kagome's eyes narrowed.

"The reason your son is dead is because we were attacked!" she yelled back at him. "If you hadn't tried to hit us with your magic spells then he would still be alive! Your people killed Draco . . ."

Her left cheek exploded in pain as the blond man backhanded her.

"You insolent mudblood, how dare you talk back to me! I will show you magic spells. . ."

"Dear Merlin!" the masked man who was not holding Kagome suddenly exclaimed. "This. . . this is impossible! Lucius, come and get a look at this!"

Lucius stopped mid-rant and glared at Avery. However, the later wasn't paying any attention to him and was instead staring at Draco's arm. A puzzled expression fleeted across Lucius's face before it was replaced by an annoyed one.

"What is it?" he snarled as he walked to Avery and looked over his shoulder. His eyes suddenly flew wide open and froze in a hilariously flabbergasted expression.

Then as one, the four robed figures surrounding Kagome hissed in pain. The grips on her arms tightened and she saw Lucius and the other man in front of her grab their forearms.

"It would seem that we have kept the Dark Lord waiting for too long," Lucius said and turned on his heel, striding off to where a circle had now been formed by the dark-robed sorcerers. In the middle of the circle stood the ones who had fought against them.

Kagome wasn't really all that surprised to find herself being shoved towards the centre of that circle. As they approached, a gap was formed in the circle to allow them to pass.

Once inside the circle, Kagome was given one last shove that sent her tumbling to the ground beside Cho's friends.

"Kagome!" one of them called and within seconds someone was helping her to her feet. She looked up into a pair of worry-filled, emerald eyes. "Are you ok?"

Kagome nodded, noting happily that she hadn't dropped her bow anywhere. She quickly glanced behind her and cursed silently at having only two arrows left. Not that they would've helped her all that much against the sorcerers around her. There were too many of them.

"That was wicked how you killed the dementors!" the red-head said enthusiastically. "I've never heard of anything like it; what kind of spell was it?"

"Yesss, that iss a quessstion I would alsso rather like to have ansswered," came a quiet, raspy voice that made her skin crawl and reminded Kagome of a snake demon Inu Yasha had once fought with.

The redhead's face paled considerably as his eyes widened.

Kagome turned to study the new arrival. The first thing that occurred to her was that she wasn't all that far off with the snake demon analogy. His skin was an inhuman shade of green-gray and his facial features looked as if someone had smashed his face repeatedly into a concrete wall and let them heal that way. Although he was wearing a long black robe, with the hood up, Kagome could tell he was bald.

What stood out the most about him, however, were his eyes.

Like two round orbs they glowed red at her from within the shade of his hood. They looked demonic, like Sesshoumaru's eyes when he got furious enough to transform. Kagome didn't even have to concentrate in order to see his aura; it surrounded him like a shroud of shadows even now, when he wasn't casting any spells.

It was faint, but she could feel jyaki emanating from him.

"You are the Dark Lord?" she asked.

Dark chuckles came from the masked figures surrounding her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw her co-captives staring at her with bewildered expressions on their faces. The red-eyed man merely raised an eyebrow. Or what would've been an eyebrow, had there been any hair on his head.

"Such ignorance is something I would expect from a muggle," he said after the chuckling had died down. "But you have already demonstrated that you are no muggle."

"I-I am not from here," Kagome explained, hoping she might still save herself from looking like a complete idiot, "I am visiting from Japan."

"Oh, but I can assure you that the Japanese Wizarding World has also heard of me."

Kagome frowned, confused yet again.

"Wizarding World?" she asked, regretting it instantly.

The Dark Lord's eyes narrowed.

"You'd be well advised not to play ignorant with me. Destroying dementors requires a considerable amount of magic, not to mention knowledge of some very obscure spells." He turned to Lucius. "What of her companion?"

"He is dead my Lord," the blond-haired sorcerer answered with a slight bow.

"Do you know who he is?"

Lucius hesitated, considering his answer for a moment. He was saved from answering by the sorcerer standing next to him.

"Mi'lord, it was young Draco Malfoy," Kagome recognized the man's voice as being the one who had first recognized Draco.

"What!"

"It would appear that not only is he a traitor, but he must also have been working with the Order of the Phoenix."

"Explain. What makes you think this?"

"His mark, it.. . it was gone. Dumbledore must've finally figured out how to remove it."

"Fool! There is no way to remove the Dark Mark!"

The Dark Lord's eyes flashed dangerously as he glared at his minion.

"He's telling the truth," another white mask stepped forward, "I saw his forearms: they were unmarked."

Kagome saw the redhead nudge his friend.

"So the ferret was initiated," he whispered.

"But then how did he get rid of the Dark Mark?" the other boy whispered back. "The death eaters don't seem to know what's going on either."

"And Malfoy certainly does not work for the Order!" The redheads features twisted in disgust at the mere thought of Draco belonging to whatever it was they were talking about.

"Hang on," the green-haired witch Kagome had noticed during the battle interrupted them, "are you saying you saw Malfoy earlier and he didn't have the Dark Mark?"

She seemed completely astonished. The boys nodded.

"He said. . ." suddenly the small one with glasses paused and his brow furrowed in thought. "He said that. . . that if he's a death eater, then Kagome's a muggle!"

The three of them stared at Kagome. Kagome felt her cheeks begin to burn.

"I didn't know it was impossible to remove," she smiled sheepishly.

Now the three were openly gaping. As were a few individuals who were standing nearby and had heard the entire conversation. Unfortunately, this included the Dark Lord.

"What did you jusst ssssay girl?" he hissed. Kagome gulped. "Do you expect me to believe that a pathetic mudblood like you managed to remove my mark?"

Kagome frowned, her eyes narrowing.

'Pathetic? I'm pathetic?' she thought, getting angrier by the second. 'This guy's just as human as me, but I'm pathetic!'

Her thoughts skidded to a halt and Kagome looked at the Dark Lord again, really looked.

'He really is human. Mortal. There isn't one bit of demon in him. . . but his power's not quite natural either. . .'

"Answer me, girl!" the Dark Lord now hollered at her, clearly getting quite agitated. Then he pointed his magic stick at her and Kagome the build up of magical power in his aura came so fast and unexpected, that Kagome had no time to react properly.

"Crucio," she thought she heard him whisper before a yellowish beam of light hit her full on in the chest.

Pain. She felt her muscles contract as if they were being stabbed repeatedly by sharp needles. And some sadistic bastard was twisting the needles that were already embedded underneath her skin. She was almost certain that there was a world around her, but it no longer mattered. All that mattered was somehow getting away from the pain, to tearing herself away from her own body and the fire that was consuming it alive.

It stopped as abruptly as it had started, leaving Kagome twitching on the ground wondering how in the world she had ended up on the ground.

"Oh Merlin, Kagome, are you all right?" she heard a voice ask. Soon her vision cleared and she identified the voice as belonging to the redhead. Kagome nodded weakly.

Then she noticed that his friend was yelling at the Dark Lord.

"Leave her out of this! She has nothing to do with any of it; I'm your opponent!" Kagome smiled at how much this boy reminded her of Inu Yasha. Except for the hair. . . and the glasses . . . and well, just about everything else.

"Oh don't worry Harry, your turn to die will come soon enough," the Dark Lord answered, chuckling.

'Oh, right, his name is Harry,' Kagome thought. She felt light-headed, detached from her surroundings, as if she were only an observer in her own body. 'And his friend's name is. . . I think it starts with an 'R' . . . Rick, Rom, no Ron. . . that's it: Ron!'

"Can you stand?" she heard a new voice ask her at the same time as a set of arms pulled her up into a sitting position.

For a minute she felt disoriented again, but that passed and Kagome looked into two worried eyes she hadn't met before.

She stared into his eyes for a moment. There was something there. He looked completely human, yet Kagome was sure she saw something distinctly familiar in his eyes. And it most certainly wasn't human.

'Could he be a vessel for some sort of demon?' she wondered and then looked at his aura. While it looked similar to the other sorcerers' auras, there was something darker in it as well. But this wasn't a taint in the aura caused by dark magic; it was a part of him. Again, Kagome couldn't help feeling it looked somewhat familiar.

The man the eyes belonged to looked to be in his early forties, although the gray hairs that ran through his shaggy mop of light brown hair made him look older. His face looked kind. . . and was currently turning red and Kagome realized she had been staring.

She looked away, embarrassed and began to slowly stand up, leaning on her bow for support.

'The last thing I need is someone else for Inu Yasha to think he needs to fight because of me,' she scolded herself, 'Kouga is more than enough for me. And here I thought it was dogs and cats that weren't supposed to get along, not dogs and wolves. . ."

Kagome's eyes widened. She whirled around to study the man who had helped her up again.

There it was. That's what was so familiar.

"Wolf," she whispered.

The man's confused expression turned into surprise and then fear. He took a step away from her. This in turn confused Kagome.

'If he's a wolf, why is he running? These are humans he's fighting . . . why is he afraid?'

"So, what isss your decission?" the cold voice of the Dark Lord interrupted her thoughts. "Will you co-operate or do I have to convince you? And I assure you the curse you just felt is the least of what awaits you if you do not co-operate."

Kagome's heart was racing. She didn't know how to explain her powers, not that the sorcerer could use them anyway.

"My Lord, may I?" Lucius asked, bowing courteously to the red-eyed monstrosity that was his master.

"Of course, Lucius, by all means. You have a son to avenge, after all."

Lucius straightened and turned to Kagome with a menacing smile. He flicked his wand and said something under his breath. She cried out at the sudden pain in her left leg. Her hand shot out to grab at her thigh. She looked down: there was a deep gash running diagonally on her leg.

Another flick. A second gash appeared on her leg and Kagome screwed her eyes shut against the pain as she fell to the ground. Once she had composed herself a bit, she looked up at Lucius defiantly.

"Leave her alone Malfoy!" the wolf cried as he stepped in front of her.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" Lucius appeared amused at this new development. "Remus Lupin, how lovely to see you again. Tell me how are you faring without your dog-I mean friend?"

'A dog and wolf friends! What weird parallel universe have I stepped into?' Kagome wondered.

She looked around. The white-masked sorcerers formed an impenetrable wall around her and the group she was with. The group themselves looked as if they were trying to appear defiant, but she could tell they were all frightened. A few of them had defeat written across their faces, as if they knew they were going to die. Harry had clenched fists and looked as if he was desperately trying to figure out how to turn the tables and still come out on top.

Inu Yasha had won against greater odds. But Inu Yasha was half-demon and had the Tetsuaiga.

Kagome looked back to the adults who were snarling at each other.

"Get out of the way you mangy wolf or. . ." Lucius was saying. Lupin never got the chance to respond.

"Who are you callin' a mangy wolf!" someone called from behind them.

Kagome's head snapped around at the familiar voice. She gasped.

There were four figures standing on the other side of the wall of sorcerers. Two of them waved at her.

"Hey Kagome-neechan!"

"Are you alright, Kagome-neechan?"

Ok, well, here it is. And the next chapter is actually already written. However, it's possibly the shortest chapter I've ever written, so I'll make a deal with you guys. I'm posting it just as soon as I get, let's say. . . 15 review, ok? I'm thinking that shouldn't take too long with this story.

Author's Note: I know I mentioned Inu Yasha fighting a snake demon. Before you all go searching, trying to figure out where he did that, I just thought I'd let you know that I have no idea if it actually happened. I just sort of figured that even if the show didn't show it happening then it's still entirely possible that at some point in time the Inu group came upon one.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Please review!