To Overactive mind: Hey, welcome back, and thanks for the review. You'll have to wait and see, nyah!
To Invader Iza: Yup.
To Kitsune Ryune: NO! No smashie! I'll sic Godzilla on you!
Yes, I'm sorry for the excess of suck recently. I'll try to be better in the next ones, K?
I vow to suck less, that I do.
"A baby?"
"That's not innocence, it's more like ignorance."
"Then a little kid."
"We can't take that away from a child. That's the thing about innocence. Anyway, we still don't even know how to incarnate it."
"This is fairy land we're in here, there's gotta be SOME way to do it. Some kind of spell or something."
Sango and Miroku sighed in unison. It didn't occur to them that they themselves were still children, but I don't suppose it ever does, does it? Inuyasha, bored with sitting around debating a problem that couldn't be solved, had taken it apon himself to examine the black prison from every possible angle, including above.
"Don't climb on that thing, Kid!" Kaede called to him. To herself she muttered, "I'm not a babysitter, this is SO not my job…"
Being a miko wasn't really a job that suited her. That's why the jewel had been given to her younger sister to protect. Kaede didn't mind. Demons looking for it tended to attack in the middle of the night, and she'd rather be asleep.
Yup, guarding the jewel was definitely a job for-
Kaede sat straight up, the wheels in her head spinning way faster then they were really meant to .
"Why did I not think of this any sooner?"
Sango and Miroku glanced her way.
"The jewel! The shikon no tama has incredible spiritual powers. Probably we could be able to purify the stone with it."
"The shikon no tama? That's what Kagome was telling me about…" Sango mused.
"You've met my sister? When?"
"She's your sister?"
"Yes."
"You guys look nothing alike."
"So we've been told. So when did you meet her?"
"We stayed at her village only a night ago. She was the one who sent us to you."
"Well, I'm sending you back. Tell her she needs to come to our village, and bring the jewel."
Kaede pulled a beaten copper amulet from around her neck.
"Give her this, so she'll know you're from me."
"Okay!" Inuyasha shouted, appearing from nowhere to snatch the amulet. "Come on, you guys! Let's goooooo!"
He started to run off, but Kaede lifted him right off the ground by the back of his shirt.
"Hold up. Why don't you just go tomarrow?"
"We have to leave as soon as possible," Miroku told her.
"The sooner we get all of this behind us, the easier it'll be, in the end," Sango finished. She looked at Miroku, but snapped her eyes back as he turned to look at her.
Kaede, who had seen all of this, smiled secretly, but said nothing.
(Okay, in the last segment, it was late at night, but here it's early morning of the same day. I can't believe I forgot these guys!)
"Does it work yet?" Shippo called sarcastically, looking down at the woman crumpled at the bottom of the well.
"No, not yet!" she yelled back, glaring at everything she could see.
"I don't blame it. I wouldn't work this freakin' early in the morning, either!"
"Shut up! You're the one who broke it!"
"I did not!"
"Did too! You and your stupid fireballs!"
"It's kitsunebi!" he shot back, firing a ball of the heatless flame at her to demonstrate.
"Keep that stuff away from the well!"
"If the thing's broken, the fire won't do anything at this point but help."
"Fine, whatever. Come get me."
"With pleasure," Shippo said, immediately changing his tune. He dropped down into the well, and scooped her into his arms, bridal- style.
"Watch the hands," Kikyo warned, with good reason. They were in a rather interesting place.
"Oh, can't a guy have a bit of fun?"
"No. No he can't."
"Hmph."
The two of them shot out of the well. Kikyo slipped out of Shippo's arms a bit sooner then he would have wanted her to.
"So what can we do to fix this thing?"
"We'd have to have some kind of healer, to right to flow of energy. Power, and probably time through the well."
"And that means we have to go find…?"
"Some preist."
"Okay. See, that I can deal with. Let's go find him."
"Well, we'll probably have to go find a town for that."
"And the problem is…?"
"Nothing. Come on, let's go. The nearest one's about an hour away. Hop on."
"Like hell. I can walk, and I want to never touch you again, if I can help it."
"Well, okay then. In that case, it's about a half a day's walking, provided we aren't attacked."
"Then we should start walking."
Sesshoumaru tore through the last puppet. It hadn't been able to lead him to another, which meant it had to lead him to the original. And when it stopped, that meant that Naraku was somewhere around here. All that remained was to find the tricky bastard.
The castle was big, but it appeared to be deserted. The smell of Naraku was everywhere, but the man himself was nowhere to be found.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are…" Sesshoumaru said in a sing- song voice. Hunters in scary movies always said that, and he sure felt the part of one now.
To his surprise, Naraku did actually appear, at his command. A spotlight appeared from nowhere, illuminating a single figure in the gloom.
"It would be best for you to leave, Sesshoumaru," the hanyou said amiably. "Before someone gets hurt."
"And that someone would be you," Sesshoumaru replied.
"I don't really think so. You remember my daughter, don't you?"
A second spotlight appeared behind him. Kagura stood there, two fans in her hands. A normal girl would have cried in her position. She took her unshed tears and converted them to hate. That hate filled her and spilled from her eyes as she glared daggers at the man in front of her.
"If my puppets have informed me correctly, you two spent the night together, correct? It would be a shame to have to fight her to the death, now wouldn't it?"
'I won't fight her, Naraku. I came to kill you, not to get entangled in your tricks again."
"Well, things don't always turn out like we want them to, do they? Shame."
"Shame for you," Sesshoumaru replied, flicking out with the green light. It almost hit the hanyou, but he jumped at the last second. The whip continued outward, hitting the next thing in line: Kagura. She didn't even flinch as blood began to trickle from a hairline cut on her hand. Instead, she continued to focus on Naraku, who once again landed in front of her.
"That won't work either. She won't move, I won't let her."
Sesshoumaru noted with disgust the red, faceted jewel Naraku held in his hands. It was chipped and marred, no doubt from Naraku's abuses in the past, but still it shone with a bloody light.
He would give it back to her, if it was the last thing he ever did.
He would give Kagura back her heart.
But he didn't know how. Any attack aimed at Naraku would hit Kagura if it missed. Projectiles wouldn't work.
He lunged at Naraku, poison claws outstretched. Naraku grinned slightly, preparing to dive sideways.
A breeze blew through the building, whistling through the doorways and cracks in the walls. It soon grew to a gale. Sesshoumaru stopped his attack and focused on not getting blown away.
"Kagura, stop it!" Naraku ordered. His command was ignored, if anything, Kagura's wind blew harder. Hairline cracks shot through the jewel as Naraku's claws dug painfully into it. If he put much more pressure on it, the thing would shatter. If Kagura felt any pain, she didn't show it.
Flicking her fan back one last time, she sent red blades of light flying it her master. He tried to avoid, only to fin there was nowhere to hide.
The wind cut into his body, hard. The white fur he always wore was shredded in seconds.
Kagura looked down at the splinters of red glass that littered the floor, and smiled.
She was free.
"So just any old preist will be able to fix the well?"
"I guess so. I don't know how that thing works."
Shippo scratched his head.
"Actually, I don't know much about preists either."
"I believe that. So let's just find one, explain our position, and get him to fix it for us."
"Yeah. Sounds good."
Without another word, the two approached the town. Not many people were around, which was probably understandable. It was about five in the afternoon, and everyone was inside.
Kikyo stopped a lone boy running by.
"Hey, kid, is there a preist in this little town anywhere?"
The boy shook his head.
"But there is a miko. She lives over there."
He pointed at a lone house and ran off to whatever game he had been playing.
"A miko, huh? Even better," Shippo remarked, grinning. Striding to the building, he rapped his knuckles on the door.
"Anybody home?"
The curtained door was pushed aside, and the kitsune hound himself face to face not with the pretty woman he had expected.
More like the business end of a bow and arrow.
"State your business, demon," the woman behind the bow demanded.
"What the hell?" sputtered Shippo.
"What the hell?" echoed Kikyo. The miko turned to look at her. Her eyes widened as they met a pair that mirrored them exactly.
She lowered the bow.
Yay! That's all for right now. It's short, but at least stuff happened, yes?
I have a really short but really good story to tell, too. True story. Here it is:
Once apon a time there was a hopeless otaku who fell in love with a bishounen named Inuyasha. She put pictures of him all over her room, and even on the computer's desktop. Her Idiot Sister often mocked her obsession, I mean love, telling her that the bishounen was not a bishounen at all, but actually a woman.
Well, this hurt the otaku very badly, and she vowed to prove her Idiot Sister wrong. She tossed and turned many nights, thinking of how to make the mockery stop. Finally, it occurred to her. She made a pilgrimage to the mecca of deviantart. There, using the skills only a dedicated otaku and rabid fangirl possess, she dug up every picture of Inuyasha (minus shirt) she could, and saved them to her Idiot Sister's folder.
Idiot Sister was awed at the otaku's uber- ness, and vowed never to mock her again.
The end.
To read the next chapter, hit the little purple button and type in the password. If you don't know what the password is, just type in as many words as possible. Maybe you'll get it right, there only are, like, a bazillin words it could be!