Fires of Destiny
Chapter 3: Feudal Scenery
Kagome's mind was a blank. At some point during her capture her kidnapper had thrown her over his shoulder. She heard faint cries of anger, and for a brief moment she hoped that it wasn't Inuyasha and the others.
They don't belong here.
The thought was so sudden and foreign that it startled her. First of all she didn't even kniw where here was. The forest that she was being carried through was strange to her. The vegatation was too green, too thick. (Not to mention the distant roar of the waterfall that they had just recently passed by would have been totally out of place at Tokyo Park.) The initial fear and stomach dropping sensation that had initially gripped her the moment she felt herself being grabbed had faded the moment they had crossed through the shimmering portal. The emotional wave swept over her again and tears started to form.
"Don't cry."
Kagome was surprised at the tender concern that laced her captor's voice.
"Why are you doing this? Where are you taking me?"
One of the man's hand squeezed her thigh in what was supposed to be a reassuring way. Kagome's face flushed and she shrieked. She could feel her captor grimace when she started pounding on his back. It gave her a small feeling of satisfaction.
"Let me go!"
"Not yet. We're almost there."
"I don't want to go there! I don't even know where there is!"
"Yes you do. You've just forgotten it. You'll like it. It's were you belong."
Inuyasha had pulled ahead of the others the moment he had felt the changes take place. They would ask questions, questions that he wasn't quite ready to deal with. Kagome was close; he could smell it. When they got to her and beat the pulp of whoever it was that had taken her they would all have questions. He would answer their questions then.
He only hoped that they wouldn't desert him when they found out what he really was.
Naraku stepped into the Sorceress' chambers, the maids standing to the side as they nervously awaited his appraisal of their work. The sorcerer observed the recieving chamber with a critical eye.
"You are dismissed." He said after a moment. "You," He pointed at one of the younger maids, "tells the cooks to start sending dinner to the Main Hall. The Sorceress will be here shortly."
The maids bowed before leaving the chamber. Naraku crossed the room, and opened the glass doors that lead to an expansive balcony. Despite the humility that she undoubtdly learned from her family experience the Sorceress was still going to need several lessons in etiquet. It had been one of her weaker points as a human being, and the sorcerer sincerly doubted that living amoung peasants did anything to improve that.
Naraku rubbed at his tembles. It felt like a headache was coming on.
"Hey, bastard! Stop!"
Kouga scoffed at the crude shout that followed him. This one prusuer was steadily gaining, but there was no chance that he would catch up with them before they reached the castle.
The sooner they got there the better. He was hungry, and the stench of his pursuer was really starting to get on his nerves. It was a strange, confusing scent. It reeked dog and demon, and that just didn't make sense. For the short amount of time that he had been on Earth Kouga discovered that it was just as Naraku said: that world was completely void of any magical presence. So why did he suddenly feel a flash of youki coming from his pursuer?
The murmuring noises of village life reached the wolf youkai's sensitive hearing and he grinned. There were so many advantages to being a Prince. His status may not be as high as that of the woman that was flung over his shoulder, but it was high enough.
The forest started to thin out and he could make out the small wooden railing that circled the small village that bordered the Sorceress' Estate. Kouga vaulted over the railing, and jumped high into the air. The Sorceress let out a shriek and clung to his tunic. As the ground of the Town Square rushed up to meet them the Prince frowned. When had the Sorceress become like a jumpy cub?
The villagers stood frozen for a moment before dropping whatever it was that they were doing to prostrate themselves where they stood. It made Kouga uncomfortable , and even a little embaressed. He knew who it was they were prostrating before and the fact that she was protesting against his hold did little to elevate his favor amoung the people.
"Mahoutsukai-sama." It was only when the murmer rippled through the crows that the Sorceress froze in her resistant. Her body went frigid and Kouga was a little worried at the fear that entered her scent.
"You." Kouga pointed a clawed finger at an awkward-looking guard-- a direct result of trying to appear respectuful without laying down his spear. the guard jumped up when he noticed that Kouga's attention was on him.
"Y-yes, My Prince?"
"There are three humans chasing us. Gather a unit and dispose of them."
"No!"
Kouga cursed inwardly at the protest.
"I won't," the Sorceress resumed her struggle. "let you hurt my friends!"
The guard looked from Kouga to the woman thrown over his shoulder. A distasteful look seeped into his eyes.
"As Mahoutsukai-sama wishes. We will bring them to the Estate for you to deal with. Is that appropriate, Prince?"
"Fine." Ever since the Riot any respect Kouga had for the populance that surrounded the Estate had been lost. He tightened the grip he had around one of the Sorceress' thighs. He let his claws press against the matterial. She needed to understand that such a display could possible lead to another Riot. She knew something of it, that much he could already tell-- if the fear that filtered back into her scent was of any indication. "Send a messenger to the outlying villages. Let the world know that the Sorceress has returned."
The guard dipped his head in thin respect before backing away. Kouga headed down the path that lead to the large obsidian walls that protected the Estate.
"Hurry up, Miroku!"
A pained gasp was Sango's only response. Her feet pounded against the dirt and occasionally she leaped over some stray branches that jutted out onto the path. There it was again, those silver whisps...
Was it a ghost?
She could hear him, Inuyasha, up ahead. How he had managed to pull ahead of them so quickly she didn't know. She only hopped that whatever those silvers whisps belonged to hadn't caught up with him.
A ways behind her Miroku let out a gasp, clutching his side, and rubbing at the stitch that started to form there. He was absorbed in his own pain that he didn't even notice that Sango had stopped—never mind how tense her stance was—until he crashed into her. Sango jabbed her elbow into his stomache, sneding Miroku sprawling to the ground, clutching his middle as he gasped for breath.
"What the hell Sango!"
"Shut up!" The girl hissed back in response, flexing her fingers as if longing for a weapon. Then, without warning, she suddenly flung herself towards him, instinctively covering his body with her own as best she could. An arrow sunk itself into the tree she had been in front of only moments before.
"Why Sango," Miroku decided to ignore arrow, "if you wanted me so badly all you had to do was ask."
"Shut up Miroku!"
She pressed her cheek hard against his chest as arrows rained past them.
They had mixed feeling about the Sorceress' orders. No one was very happy with her presence. Her mother had been almost like a tyrant, and that had been the reason for the Riot. Each worried about how her governance might effect their current way of living. Almost no one wanted change. The ones who did had escaped to the mountains a long time ago.
After all how good of a leader could she be if she let the Prince carry her like that?
The guards and their families would welcome a naive ruler. It would make it easier for them to keep things the way they were. As things stood now they had their run of their land; the only property that was beyond their reach was the Sorceress' Estate.
The peasants feared many types of rulers. They feared a tyrant or someone that could be easily influenced by the decisions of others. The Prince made no effort to keep it hidden—his distaste for the people.
He blamed them for everything: the Riot, his seperation from his fiance, the death of his clan...
"There's one!" A lanky farmer pointed at a silver-haired figure clothed in black.
"This must be the last one." The head of the guard unit murmured. "You there," he made a general wave at the peasants. "You capture him. Rid him of any weapons so that we can imobilize him."
A few grumbled protests came from the villagers as they gathered their weapons of torches, sticks of wood with nails embedded in them, and pitchforks. With the power that the guards hold over the villages they really couldn't afford to protest. Shaky hands gripped crude weapons tightly and the humans rushed at the silver-haired figure. No one realized that no human could possibly have hair that color.
It vibrated through his blood as the small group of people - the clothing poor and their scent tainted with a revolting stench of decay born from the soul - rushed at him, sharp edges of crude farm tools raised. Dark memories resurfaced. The beaded necklace nestled underneath his shirt vibated with power as it tried to leash in the power that was seeping out of the very pores of his skin.
"That sister of mine. Damn her, bringing that freak child here. Almost as bad as her freak husband."
They were closer now. He could almost taste their sweat.
"What are we going to do with this brat now that his mother's gone?"
"Can't we just get rid of him?"
"I would love to, but what of his father finds out? He's a very powerful person."
"Person? Don't you mean freak?"
It almost seemed to be in slow motion, the way the closest farmer leaped at him, swinging a hoe.
He could hear her protests, her yelling when the spell and the rosary that she had made him always wear to hide his silver hair and his odd ears failed. Somehow his mother had never been able to get the spell to disguise the color of his eyes. Her family had been suspicious of him the moment they meet him because of those eyes.
Those damn eyes.
His mind was surpisingly calm as he easily sidestepped the hoe's blade and sunk into the ground. It was so easy. A look of distaste crossed his face when he notice the farmer struggle to remove the hoe from the ground.
Weakling.
His vision was washed in red. The peasant's pale skin was flushed in a crimson hue. The grass, the sky, the woods, the scents…everything seemed to be washed in the stark flood of blood. The claws that the rosary kept hidden lengthened. Inuyasha all but tore off his school jacket. It was too constricting.
He gloried in the spike of fear that rose from the human when those deadly claws came into view. The others formed a loose circle around him and his first victim. His blood pulsed with glee as his claws sliced deep through the human's chest, wrapping tightly around the beating heart.
The hair-raising sensations started the moment her captor brought her through the mansion doors. When Kagome caught sight of the vivd tapestries that adorned the—was that marble?—walls she was hard pressed to called it that, but the building wasn't large enough to be called a castle. Besides it didn't have the sprawling layouts of the ones in her Western Art History book.
The large hallway was vacant of life with the exception of a dark-haired figure that stood in front of an entrance that seemed to made of granite. It was entirely out of place when comapared to the rest of the hall. Her captor was steadily approaching with, much to her annoyance, Kagome still slung over his shoulder.
Why did he have to hold her like this, and why the hell was he still holding onto her thigh!
"Prince," The dark-haired figure was obviously a man by the deep, if somewhat cold, tone of his voice, "is it really necessary to hold her like that? I feel that it is much unwanted by the Sorceress."
Her limbs shook as a shiver raced through her body. Sorceress, Mahoutsukai-sama…these words echoed through her head, the strange sensations that the very building seemed to emit making them seem less foreign then they should have been. Everything here was strange and new, and yet at the same time they resounded with a sense of heart-aching familiarity.
"Oi, you ok?" Her captor, or 'Prince' as the other man called him, set her down on the floor an arm around her waist keeping her steady.
Instead of blushing at their proximity, Kagome found herself grateful for the strength in his grip. Her legs felt a little better then jelly. She didn't like the emotions that were swamping her. She felt on the verge of tears. She felt like laughing and crying, all at the same time.
This is the Sorceress? This snip of a girl?
The scorn that carried on that voice was enough to hold back the threat of tears just a little longer. Irritation and more than a little annoyance welled up deep from within. She sent the offender a chilling glaring.
"Snip of a girl?" The look of shock that registered on the long-haired man's face filled her with a small bit of satisfaction. "Who the hell do you think you are! Excuse me for being a little scared. I just got kidnapped! I have no damn clue where I am! What the hell do you expect?" Kagome studied his face for a moment before adding a bit of an after thought. "At least I'm not the crossdresser!"
The man, whom Kagome had now decidly dubbed the "Crossdresser", raised a hand up to the vivid streaks of color that outlined his eyes, his expression dumbstruck. The "Prince" had a remarkably proud and arrogant expression on his face, and could hardly stop the chuckle that followed.
Seriously, can you call him anything else? Well, not a lot happened in this chapter. I originally planned for more, but 10 pg limit. This is a dark story (the best kind) but that won't start until later. Also, one reviewer commented on Kagome yelling for Inuyasha in her sleep last chapter. (Sorry, I can't remember who it was.) They commented on how unrealistic it seems. I agree. I put that in there because, considering the dream, she saw his presence as a pillar of comfort and support. It wasn't that she was instinctively crying out for him. She just needed something recognizable. Thank you for bringing it up…. (checks STATS) Shizuka Kaze. I defiantly will have to work on their relationship. Oh, has anyone seen Howl's Moving Castle? I saw it last Sunday at school. KAWAII! I wish I didn't have to work Wednesday night because I good see it again. I can't wait until it comes out. I'm sure the Japanese version is even better! Ja ne!
Jav-chan