Flames are okay, however threatening to kill me is one of those little things that will bring eternal vengeance down upon your doomed soul, okay?
And, hooray for me! This chapter marks 25 pages of story. Yay! This chapter was born from my strange love of differing POVs!
Oh, I didn't mention it, but Miroku's about eight or nine. Him getting
his wind tunnel on this day was a coincidence. Yup, coinckydink…
Ten year old Sango stared out the window, watching the commotion. Her
parents had forbidden her to leave the house until whatever was going
on had stopped. She thought they knew more than they were letting on,
but they weren't gonna tell her, so she didn't ask.
Nut that didn't mean she didn't intend to find out. She walked slowly
upstairs, watching her parents, who where nervously watching the
television. If they noticed her leave, they didn't show it.
In her room, she rummaged through her closet, pushing away the
carefully piled clothes, to reveal the floor. Searching, she found the
loose floorboard, and pulled it up. Underneath, amid the dust bunnies,
shiny stones and treasures, was an old paper scroll. She had found it
in their attic a year past, and it was her own secret.
On it, written mostly in kanji, were records of her ancestors, going
all the way back to the sengoku jidai. Her family had originated in
Japan, and so her parents had done their best to teach her a little
Japanese. She was able to make out what it said, although the paper had
obviously been through some hard times. In the upper left hand corner
was a dark spot which she fancied to be blood but was more likely
coffee.
The most interesting thing about it, however, were the descriptions of
the family legacy. In the sengoku jidai, they had been powerful youkai
slayers, and no demon could stand to them. When Sango had first read of
this, it was the most amazing thing she had ever discovered, and so it
became her secret. She kept the scroll in her secret space, and no one
had seen it but her.
She had started to find out everything she could about youkai, reading
and memorizing anything she could. She'd even tried to learn how to use
a samurai sword, though she wasn't very good at it.
Now, she felt, she had a chance to make her ancestors proud. She had a
chance to become like them, to fight youkai like they had. And she
wasn't going to pass it up for anything.
She dug out her roller skate bag, pushing the skates aside and getting
the knee, elbow, and wrist pads. The put them on, carefully, determined
that they would not fall off.
She got her sword. It was a family heirloom, a gift from her parents
when they discovered she was serious about learning to use one. Pulling
it out of it's sheath, she tested the blade, finding it to be as sharp
as ever.
"Perfect."
She wrapped the ribboned sash around her waist, making sure the knot was secure. It was.
Then she slid her window open, as silently as she had practiced night
after night, her parents sleeping peacefully in the next room. The
closest branch of the tree was five feet away. This, she had not
practiced so often.
She climbed onto the sill, held her breath, and jumped. Too low.
The branch slammed into her chest, knocking the wind out of her. She
started to slip, but wrapped her arms around the wood, stopping her
descent.
So far so good.
She looked below her. The ground was far away, but if she could get closer, there was another branch she could drop onto.
She let go with one hand, throwing her arm around the other side, and
clasped her fingers together. The weight of her body was on the palms
of her hands, her body hanging ten feet above the ground. She started
to move hand-over- hand toward the trunk of the tree. Just when she
though she couldn't hold on any longer, she felt the other branch touch
her foot. Relieved, she dropped onto it, taking the weight off her arms.
That done, she dropped the remaining five feet to the ground, landing in a crouch, and ran off.
There had to be someone who knew where the youkai were.
She didn't have to go far before she came to a gathering of people.
Some of them held rosaries, others held guns. As far as she could tell,
she was the only one with a sword.
The group seemed to be focused around a sobbing woman, who claimed her
son had been possessed by demons. She pushed thorough the group to the
woman, trying to look older than she was.
"You say your son was possessed? By youkai?"
"Youkai… that's who word the other demons used! DEMON!"
Several people turned on her, ready for some action.
"No, I'm not a demon, I'm a youkai slayer. I think I can help. Where did you last see these demons?"
"We've already been there, girl," said one of the men with a gun.
"There's nothing left, go home, there's dangerous monsters out here."
"I think I can handle them, sir," she said without looking away from the woman's tear-stained face.
"It was in the forest, an old hunting blind. That way." the woman
pointed. "There were five of them, three demons, a teenage girl, and
the creature my son had become. My son, Jaken, his body had changed… he
was tiny, green, like a toad. The demons were easy to tell, they had
snow white hair, and the youngest had the ears of a dog. The older one
was a teenager, he had satanic markings painted on his face, in red and
blue. The lot of them had amber eyes."
"And the girl?"
"Nothing special about her. She must have been their next intended
victim. I can only hope she got away when the creatures fled from the
sight of the cross." She pulled out a large silver cross to demonstrate.
'Fled from the cross? I've never heard of youkai doing that…'
"Thank you, ma'am. I'll do everything I can to bring the youkai down and return your son to you."
Sango turned to leave.
"Wait! You're going off alone?"
"Yes?"
The woman stared at the child with something like awe. Then she lifted
the cross over her head, trailing the chain behind it. She handed it to
Sango.
"Go, and may god be with you."
"Thank you."
Sango pulled her black ponytail through the chain's loop, and tucked it
inside her black shirt. Then she ran off toward the forest, trying to
remember where she'd seen the white haired family before, she knew she
had seen them somewhere…
She never made it to the forest. Just as she was about to enter the
trees, an explosion occurred, close to her. The wind picked up, a lot.
"Youkai!"
She ran toward the source of the strange wind, noticing that it got stronger as she got closer. She would have to be careful.
As she rounded a corner, a huge crater came into view. The wind seemed
to be blowing into it. Somewhere, another kid was screaming. Sango
thought of trying to find him, but she had problems of her own. The
wind was puling her in! She moved away from the crater, leaning against
the wind. At least she knew how close she could get.
The kid stopped screaming, and Sango didn't wonder what had happened to
him. She decided to look at all of this from a different angle, and
moved around the perimeter of the wind. And ten she saw him.
The eldest youkai, looking at the crater, a small child by his feet. A child or…
The child was green!
It must be that woman's son. Jaken?
Maybe if she were to kill the demons, the boy would regain his own body
and mind. It was worth a shot. But first she had to find where the
other two were. It was likely that the eldest was the one possessing
Jaken, but it wouldn't do at all to have to fight all three at once.
She was good, but not that good.
She would just have to follow this one until the other two came to him.
The wind was dying down, the youkai looked around nervously. People
would be showing up, soon, to find out what was happening. As the dust
and debris settled, she saw the teenage youkai, on the other side of
the crater, He had a kid with him. As Sango watched, he enclosed both
himself and the kid in some kind of barrier, and floated off.
That boy… he must be the youkai's next victim, in place of the teenage girl!
Sango was so mad she almost didn't see the elder youkai and Jaken
disappear into the woods. She followed them, trying to keep a good
distance while keeping then within eyesight.
When they cleared the woods, she expected to find a haunted castle, or
a cave entrance littered with bones. Instead, the youkai led Jaken into
a house that looked almost like hers. They had the same mailbox.
That should not be allowed. Evil creatures were required to live in scary homes, right?
"There should be a law," Sango muttered. "Have to get closer."
Drawing her sword, just in case, she spent five minutes sneaking across
the street before she realized she would have to hurry up if she was
ever going to find anything.
'The youngest, first,' she thought. She knew about succession of power
in youkai, and no matter how young the youkai was, if he had the power
of his older comrades he could still be a challenge.
The first window she looked on seemed to be a kitchen. There was a
woman at the counter, and no matter how hard Sango looked at what she
was cutting, it still didn't look any more evil than the carrot it was.
Through a doorway she could see the elder youkai sitting on a couch
talking to Jaken, who sat beside him.
No sign of the little kid.
She moved to the next window, a dark room, it looked empty. So did the third room.
The fourth window looked into a teenager's room. He was lying on his
bed with earphones on over pointed ears. His hair as white, and he had
a youkai's markings on his face and what she could see of his forearms.
How Jaken's mother got 'satanic markings' out of the simple stripes,
Sango didn't know.
The teenager's amber eyes flicked in her direction, she ducked. Not too
late, she hoped. Moving on her hands and knees, she moved around the
corner of the house. Not a second after she got out of sight she heard
the window open. She didn't hear anyone coming.
Well, that accounted for the older two, but what about the youngest?
He had to be around here somewhere.
She looked into another window. There he was.
The dog-eared youkai sat on the rug in front of a television. The
device was spewing some childish nonsense show, but neither the youkai
or the other boy, the boy from the wind crater, were watching. The
youkai folded some blue fabric across the palm of the boy's right hand.
It seemed to be some kind of glove. Then the youkai wrapped some blue
beads around it, and said something to the boy, who nodded.
This had to be the spell which would possess the boy! She had to do something.
Sango searched for other options, and seeing none, backed away from the large window. She was going in.
Sesshoumaru looked back and forth across the ground in front of his
window. There had definitely been someone here. Human, by the smell of
it. He had to tell his father.
He was distracted by the sound of breaking glass. Inuyasha screamed.
Sesshoumaru bolted out of the room, heading for the living room. He
expected to see some muscle bound man with a gun trained on his
half-brother. He was prepared to kill that man.
What he was not prepared for was a little girl with a sword, but his
momentum did not allow him to re-evaluate the situation. He slammed
into the girl, sending her to the ground. He took advantage of this to
pin her to the ground. Her sword fell from her hand, which as pressed
to the carpet under Sesshoumaru's claws.
This happened just in time for his father and stepmother to arrive, the
knife and carrot his mother had been peeling still in her hands.
"What on Earth?" she asked.
"Wow! Sesshy, that was awesome!"
"Don't call me that, Brat!"
Sango looked at the youkai pinning her to the ground. She did not like
the situation. There were not bones on the ground. There weren't
possessed slaves moaning. There wasn't even the smell of blood.
She looked like the bad guy.
She desperately wished she hadn't dropped her sword. She tried to reach for it, only to be met with more pressure on her wrists.
"LET ME GO!" she shrieked.
The eldest youkai knelt over her. She clenched her eyes shut, sure her
soul was about to be stolen, or her heart torn out, or something
equally horrible. Nothing happened. She cracked open an eye.
The three youkai stared down at her, questions in their faces.
"What are you doing here?" The teenager demanded.
"I'm a youkai slayer, come to release the prisoners you youkai have
taken! I'll give you a chance to release them and I'll let you die
quickly!"
"You're a human kid." The teenager stated.
"A swordless human kid," the elder corrected.
"We have prisoners?" the boy asked. "Where?"
"We don't have prisoners, honey," the woman said, a hint of laughter in her voice.
"Let me go! I'll kill you!"
"Doesn't give me much incentive then," the teenager said, his voice
turning cold. It felt as if his hands were heating up, burning her
wrists.
"Stop that!" she cried, fighting harder against her captor. "That hurts!"
"Sesshoumaru, let the kid go, she isn't going anywhere," the elder said, picking up her sword. "Not without this, anyway."
Sesshoumaru let go of her. She looked at her wrist. Where his clawed
fingers had been there were red marks, and the skin was tender.
"You didn't have to burn me, youkai."
"Burn you?"
She held out her reddened wrists, giving a dirty look to the elder, who was looking over her sword with some interest.
"I did that?" Sesshoumaru asked. "Huh."
He stared at his hands. Other than the claws in place of his fingernails, they looked the same.
"This is an interesting sword. Where did you get it?"
"Like I'd tell you, youkai."
"Judging by the fact that you are but a human child here alone, with no
significant power at all, I would assume that no one knows you are
here. Moreover, I don't know you, neither anyone in my family. If you
were to dissappear, no one would suspect us any more than they already
do. Getting to the point, this can be easy or hard, depending on your
level of cooperation."
"That was quite a speech, for a soulless monster."
"Fine. I'll just keep it then. Probably someone in the sengoku jidai
can tell me where it's from. Oh, and I'll have to kill you so you can't
repeat that."
"Wait!"
"Sesshoumaru, would you please-"
"I'll tell you!"
"Thought you might."
"It's an old heirloom from my family's origin's in Japan."
"That I know."
"Legend says my ancestors fought a great dog demon. He killed nearly
all of my family, but was badly injured, and fled, leaving the sword
behind."
"Oh. So that's what happens to it, is it?"
"According to legend."
"Hear that? Take better care of it, now that you know, all right?" the elder said, handing it to Sesshoumaru.
"What's this for?"
"That's the tenseiga, brother to the tessaiga. One for each of you. And I had a tooth pulled to make you that, so be grateful."
Sesshoumaru retrieved the sheath, using the yellow and blue sash to tie
it around his waist. The sword felt lighter than it should have. The
blade was sharp, and tapered toward the end in a gentle curve.
"I won't let a youkai carry my sword," Sango said.
"That's a youkai sword, I had it made myself. You're the one who shouldn't have it. We'll keep it."
"OVER MY DEAD BODY!" Sango shrieked, pulling the silver cross out and
brandishing it at the youkai. Inuyasha fell back onto the carpet,
moaning and theatrically rolling around. The other two gave her tired
looks.
"Not this again," Sesshoumaru said.
"Wait! That's my mom's! Where did you get that?"
Jaken appeared in front of Sango, grabbing at the silver cross.
"She gave it to me," Sango said with a sigh, handing the necklace over.
"According to her, you guys fled from the sight of it. I thought that
was a little suspicious."
Inuyasha got bored with rolling around on the floor and came to see what they were looking at.
"That keeps vampires away," he stated, pointing to the cross.
"So let me get this straight. You're not possessed?"
"No. Sorry, kiddo."
"And you three aren't evil youkai, possessing him?"
"No."
"Then what about the explosion? And kidnapping that little kid inside that bubble?"
"Who, Miroku? He's free to go. As for the explosion, ask him."
"Miroku?"
"I don't want to talk about it."
"Will it happen again?"
"Yes. But not for a long time, I think."
"Okay then. Well, can anyone explain the rest of what's happening today to me?"
"We've told you to much already, 'youkai slayer,'" Sesshoumaru said.
"How bout you go home and don't say anything to your parents?"
"No way. Not until I find out what's going on."
"…do we have any other options? I'd really really like to involve as few humans as possible."
"I'm going back to my room. If anything needs killed, call me."
Yay! 31 pages!
Okay, I'm going to my grandparent's n Wednesday armed with naught but a
spellcheck-less laptop with no connectios, short hiatus, but I'll be
back in about 2 weeks, so BIG update then, story probably ending.