A/N: Hello again, I believe it's been two weeks, but this is faster than my other updates, no? Anyways, this one took me a while to write, and I ended up combining two chapters because 1. I love my reviewers to death and the hit: review ratio is much better now, thank you all again. 2. I just couldn't think of another title for this one, so I used the second one. Eitherway, be happy, the story is finally concluding.
.:Curse of Dragons:.
.:By: Maiden of the Seven Stars:.
.:Chapter 13: End of Time:.
She quickly finished chopping the last of the carrots, adding them to the cook's massive kettle of stew, and stepped back with a sigh. The stew would feed all of the servants and maids, like her. She'd do good to make the stew as well as she could, else she'd have to deal with food that was less then satisfying. Naraku's headquarters operated that way. Workers did work that affected themselves. If they wanted good food, they made it good.
She cleaned the knife she had been using and replaced it in the rack. She then grabbed a bowl from the large stacks and joined in the fast growing line. Carrots, the last ingredient, didn't take long to cook, and the cook, Oswara, had already taken her place behind the stewpot. She, with her long ladle, spooned out a large portion of stew into her own bowl, quickly gulping it down. The rest of the servants were forced to watch as three ladles of their evening meal was downed, though Oswara was fat enough as it was, before the line finally began to move.
She filled her bowl and took a seat at one of the tables, starting a chat with some of the other maids, but she wasn't focused on any of it. The food, the laughter, the room, it all disappeared in her mind, she could only think of her mission.
She had arrived a week ago and had quickly settled in as a scullery maid, only to work her way up to a regular maid. She now cleaned out the rooms on occasion, a task she had been taught to do well at the Taijiya stronghold. Today was one of the few nights she had cooking duty, which all of the maids, except the palace maids, shared.
She had to keep working at it, to work her way up to the position of the palace maid. Only then would she be allowed up to the main complex, and near Naraku's rooms. She hadn't been able to find out anything yet, and though the Taijiya hadn't wanted to put pressure on her, the spies would head back to the stronghold with the alibi of trading within the next week. When that happened, she'd have to wait another two weeks just to have contact with the spies.
"Kyoko?" asked a voice to her right, and it took her a moment to remember that that was supposed to be her. She was under the name of Kyoko.
"Yeah?" she replied, turning to see one of her fellow maids looking back at her, puzzled.
"You seem stressed." The maid commented, and she cringed inwardly. Had she been so obvious? She'd have to be more careful, or the maids would suspect something was up.
"No no, I'm just fine!" she said with a smile, but when the maid stared back at her wryly she sighed, stirring the last of her stew with her spoon to give herself time to come up with an excuse.
"It's just…. I'm really nervous." She started with a sigh, and the other girls stared back at her, waiting.
"My parents made such a huge deal about me coming to be a maid, and they all want me to be a palace maid and…" she bit her lip and flushed, hoping her excuse would work. Thankfully, the girls seemed to understand.
"Oh, Kyoko, you're a great maid!" cried one, patting her arm.
"I'm sure you'll be promoted really soon, and then your parents will be really proud of it!" chimed another, smiling.
"I'm getting promoted soon, I'll recommend you!" said another, and Kagome could have kissed her.
"You will?" she asked, her eyes lighting up. This could be her big chance; she could be in and out with the Taijiya spies…
"Yeah, this weekend! I'll be sure to mention you." She said, squealing happily, and the girls quickly swarmed over her, leaving Kagome to clean up her bowl and set it in the wash basin before heading back to her room, her hopes diminished.
The spies would be gone, and she would be stranded here for two weeks, two terrifying weeks that would spell disaster for her if she were caught. As her hands often did when she thought of this, they groped towards her neck, under her uniform, and clutched the two safeguards that hung there. One weaved into the beads of the rosary; the other clutched the silver dragon's scale.
"I want to go home." She moaned as the opened the door to her dorm. She strode quickly to her bed and slid into it, curling into a ball.
"Let this end…. Let this end!" she pleaded, pressing the two necklaces to her lips.
Not so far away, in the highest tower of the palace, two other beings wished the same thing.
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It was a week and a half later when she finally became a palace maid. She got lucky and was positioned particularly close to Naraku's rooms, and she was given plenty of opportunities to sneak around and get information. Unfortunately, the Taijiya spies had left, and with that a sense of danger and fear had risen in her. They had wished her luck and smiled confidently, but when the two drove off, their wagon jostling gently along the road, it was the most disheartening sight she had ever seen. She wanted to go back; she wanted to go home.
It was only when she received a note at the foot of her bed to not air out the rooms in the morning did she realize that time was not on her side. Fall was starting to set in, and the trading would end now, simply because the weather would be bad and the traders would go home to their families. This visit from the Taijiya in another week would be their last, and then she'd have to wait through the entire winter. She could not take that.
Her mind made up, that night she got out of bed. She had wanted to take a knife with her, just in case, but she found herself lacking that, so she pulled out Kikyo's arrow and slipped it and it's little quiver down her back. Without bothering to light a candle, she crept carefully to the room of the head maid and pawned the key to Naraku's chambers. She had done this before, but that was when she had actually been cleaning. Now she was on Taijiya business, and she hoped to god she was not caught.
She slid the key into Naraku's doorway, twisting it slowly in the keyhole. The door swung open on greased hinges and she tiptoed forwards. Naraku was not in his bed, he probably never was. He was always in that strange room, the one that was always kept under lock and key. It was on the east side of his room, and she turned towards it.
There was a crack of light between the doors, and she saw they were partially open. Voices murmured on the other side, and she leant forwards to listen.
"I swear, I don't see why we don't just rush in and take the shards from her!" snapped a woman, her voice hot with objection.
"Patience, Kagura, you must have patience." A voice hissed, in a long, slow, drawl.
"I don't see how you keep incarnations, Naraku." Said another voice, cold, emotionless, and dripping with acid. Kagome barely heard the voice though. She only heard one word.
He was using incarnations! That was an evil art, splitting your soul to make other selves. His power must be massive, if Naraku was using incarnations!
"They're powerful, and it's an… intoxicating feeling, to hold someone's soul in your hands." Naraku sneered in return, and there was a furious yelp from the other female. Two cold voices laughed in contempt, and someone rose to their feet.
Sensing someone was emerging, and cursing that she hadn't discovered anything, she backed away quickly and turned towards the door, starting to run out, when she paused. Standing in the doorway, staring back at her with empty eyes, was a little girl.
She was the palest thing Kagome had ever seen, and wore clothes of nearly the same shade. Her face was blank, devoid of any emotion, but as Kagome watched her eyes glanced down towards the mirror, as if wondering what it was, or wondering what to do.
"Quick, get out!" Kagome hissed, waving her hand, but in the middle of that motion her found she could not move it anymore. She glanced towards the girl, who was staring straight at her, and tried to speak, but she couldn't move. She saw the light along the floor, and heard the doors open.
She was caught.
"Kanna, let her go." Hissed a voice with a malicious satisfaction. Kanna, the little girl, obliged and moved the mirror again, letting Kagome fall to the floor in surprise.
At once, she rolled over and tried to cover her face, curling into a ball on her knees, but a hand grabbed her hair and pulled upwards. With a yelp, she looked up into a face identical to her own, and the resemblance shocked her. Could this be Kikyo?
"See, Kikyo? Incarnation's do have their uses." Naraku hissed behind her, the pale little girl suddenly at his side. Kikyo said nothing, peering into Kagome's face.
"What an ugly little child, how did you ever get my soul?" she asked, her eyes narrowing into a glare.
"We look exactly the same!" Kagome snapped in hate, and Kikyo laughed.
"That vanity is a new feature, but I see my reputation precedes me." The woman continued, "What lies have those fools been poisoning my soul with? Hmm?"
She snapped her mouth shut and glared back into Kikyo's stony brown eyes, refusing to answer, and her previous self laughed in return.
"No matter, you're going to die anyways." The woman said easily, raising her hand and striking Kagome on the temple. Black spots danced across her vision as Kikyo raised her hand to strike again.
Kikyo laughed, and the world went black.
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"Wake up, you little wench." Snapped a voice, and Kagome's subconscious stirred. What was she doing here? Who was this voice? What on— she was going to be late for work!
At the last thought she jolted awake, her eyes snapping open. If she was late, if she was fired, if she messed up the Taijiya might never get another chance to strike! At once, she leapt to her feet… or tried.
She was bound to a chair, ropes tied around her upper arms, her wrists bound behind the chair back. Her ankles were also bound beneath her, and as she tried to bolt up the chair rocked forwards violently. Only the pale hand that pushed her shoulder back kept her from toppling forwards, but the words of thanks quickly died on her lips.
That hand was Kikyo's.
Her memory flooded back, Naraku's incarnations, the secret plan, and her former-self standing in front of her. She was sitting in the great hall, or what she supposed was the great hall. It looked like a hall, but it was curiously familiar. Why, the design was the same as that first hall, so many days ago, when she had first been sentenced to be Inuyasha's dragongirl. Odd, she had never seen this hall in the palace before.
She looked to both sides, quickly, for any windows, but solid grey walls were the only things that met her probing eyes. Spider marked banners hung along them, a red spider silhouette emblazoned into a dark purple background, with decorative gold trim. On the spider's abdomen was an eye, and eye that seemed to watch her eerily. Kikyo chuckled.
"Those banners will hang from every building all over the world, when Naraku is through." Kikyo sneered, waving towards one of them. "We will crush any idea of rebellion, and establish Naraku's permanent place at the throne." The priestess's icy brown eyes bored into Kagome's own, shining with malicious light. "Naraku's era of tyranny will begin, and it will never end."
"Whatever you're planning, it'll never work!" she cried valiantly, struggling against her bonds, and Kikyo laughed.
"The classic line of a hero facing the inevitable." She said, when the cruel laughter had died.
Kagome didn't respond, not because she was robbed of words, but because she had felt the ropes around her wrists weaken—slightly.
"You look so defeated." Kikyo murmured, "Why don't I tell you what we're planning?"
"You'll regret it!" Kagome hissed, her gaze snapping back up. Her hands were busy trying to loosen the ropes around them.
"I doubt it." Kikyo sneered, her lips pulling into a smirk. "It will be delightful, seeing the look of horror and despair in your eyes." With that, she strode towards the near end of the room. Now that Kagome's view was unblocked, she could see steps leading up to a platform, behind which a golden throne sat, blood red stones set in the metal. Behind the throne hung a massive tapestry of a spider's web on purple fabric, the crimson spider in the middle, above the crown. The evil eye stared back at her, and she met its stare defiantly.
However, it was what stood before the throne that caught her eye. A small table stood there, with a tall red candle burning on both ends. In the middle was a golden dish, in which a red liquid barely rippled, and in a small stand above the dish, resting in a handkerchief of white silk, was a nearly whole shikon jewel. Even from the center of the room, Kagome could feel its taint.
"You know what this is, I presume." Kikyo began, standing behind the table, her face illuminated by candlelight in the fast fading light. The only window in the entire room was above the little table, a round hole in the roof with a line stretching out down the hall, filled with glass. The candles burned brightly, and the glass glowed orange.
She didn't respond, but Kikyo continued anyways.
"The Jewel of Four Souls is nearly whole, we're only missing three shards." Kikyo explained, and Kagome was shocked. But… the Taijiya!
"What about the shards guarded by the Taijiya!" She couldn't help but cry aloud.
"We stole them, not too long ago." Kikyo replied, with a smirk. "The entire camp was in an uproar. Now, will you let me elaborate?"
Kagome was silent, her wrists struggling with renewed vigor.
"Now, you know the power of the jewel: It will grant anything the beholder desires, if used the right way." Kikyo continued, "At midnight, which fast approaches, I will activate the jewel and make my wish."
"What? You're going to wish for your soul back?" Kagome snapped.
"No," Kikyo replied, her voice sharp, "You stupid girl, if you had never been born it might have been possible, but you have sealed your own fate. I am tied to you, bound to your life." Kikyo paused for a moment, considering. "I am you."
Kagome stopped in her attempt to break free, her eyes widening in surprise.
"I am nothing like you!" she cried, "We may share the same soul, but I am nothing like you!" but Kikyo shrugged and glanced back down at the jewel.
"Continuing on," the priestess continued, "My wish will require a power beyond the jewel itself, I will tame the power of creation."
"The what?"
"I will use the power of Nature, as well as the jewel, to ensure the world is forever under my control!" Kikyo replied, "I'm going to wish that the empire, young and old, will be turned into dragons. I will sacrifice their flesh, blood, and souls to turn them into dragons for now and forever, and when that happens, the dragons will control this world with an iron fist! I may have failed once before, but not this time." At this, her own hand clenched into a fist and she held it before her, triumphantly.
"And you, my little soul," Kikyo continued, starting back towards the chair. "You will be first."
"I thought you needed me alive!" Kagome snapped, squirming.
"I need your soul alive, but I can put you in a dragon's shell." Kikyo responded smoothly, sinisterly.
Kagome was staring at her former self in horror, her hands twisting blindly behind her. The dragons… they needed something more than simply herbs and spells to create. They required human lives! No… they were human lives! Humans turned into dragons, and then forced into the life of animals, controlled by this horrid woman! Hate coursed through her blood.
"Oh, you will wish you were dead, my dear." Kikyo whispered, "After what you will go through, after what you will see, after—what are you doing?"
Kagome had finally broken free of the bonds around her wrists. At once, her hands reached towards her neck, moving under her shirt and grabbing the rosary Miroku and Sango had given her. She held it in her hands, and she started to smile.
"The Taijiya will stop you, you'll never get away with this!" she cried, valiantly, and tugged at the string of beads. The rosary broke, brown, black, and white beads clattering to the floor.
Kikyo stared at the small, rolling spheres, watching them calmly… too calmly. And then she laughed that horrible cold laugh.
"You really never do give up." She sneered, "But the Taijiya are quite far away , they can not make it before midnight.
"Inuyasha will come, the silver dragon will stop you!" Kagome snapped in return, refusing to be ruffled, but Kikyo's triumphant gaze was doing just that.
"My dear, I know Inuyasha, and I know his secrets," Kikyo hissed, "He will not come, he can't come, look to the sky."
Kagome looked up, and she would have swallowed her tongue if she could.
The sun was setting fast, but there was no moon in the sky.
---------
A roar echoed through the air above the Taijiya stronghold, a mighty throaty roar of challenge. It was a battle cry. Warriors and monks, children and wives, all paused in what they were doing. From the training grounds, a cat demon rose to the sky, two people on its back, flying towards the shrine.
The silver dragon had been lying outside the building leisurely, his snout resting on the open window ledge. He had been snoozing, one golden eye half open and watching the pedestal. On the pedestal, a stand held a rosary of brown, black, and white beads. He had been watching it every second that he could, waiting, ready to sound the warning. Finally, it had broken, beads rolling to the floor.
"Inuyasha-!" Miroku cried as Kirara circled above. The silver dragon had reared up, its wings unfurled and beating. His scales stood on end, his tail whipping behind him. Dust scattered as he beat his wings impatiently and his neck arched in ferocity.
"It's broken!" Inuyasha roared, "She broke it! Let's go!" He beat his wings again, but Kirara was landing and, sadly, he lowered them angrily.
"What are we waiting for?" He demanded, scratching at the cobblestones beneath him with a claw.
"The Taijiya are being assembled, we are ready for war." Sango replied, "But-"
"But what?" Inuyasha demanded, but the warrior was silent. "Kagome needs us!"
"We're leaving, but you can't." Miroku said and his golden staff rose defensively. Inuyasha had snapped at him, his fangs dangerously close to the black haired monk.
"You know what tonight is," Miroku snapped, his patience lost in a time of crisis, "It's the new moon!"
Inuyasha paused, then glanced towards the east. Not even a sliver of silver was visible in the cloudless sky.
A horrible roar of anguish echoed across the land and those nearby clapped their hands over their ears to stop the terrible sound.
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Kikyo laughed, returning to the jewel, after rebinding Kagome's wrists.
"He will come," Kagome cried, desperately, "Inuyasha will move mountains to stop you!"
"I have no doubt that Inuyasha could move mountains, should he try." Kikyo murmured, "But not tonight."
She reached behind the golden plate, picking up a silver, sickle shaped, object. It was a knife.
"You're out of time."
A/N: Well? Tell me what you think.
Deadly Crimson: Thanks for the 13 reviews, it really motivates me. I think my eyes popped out when I saw the 13 new messages in my e-mail.
Lady Katreina: Sorry, but being a dragon is a very cruel fate and I can't do that to our heroine, can I?
Myinuyasha04: I want one too! -steals Inuyasha-
MoonGirl19: Nice guess, did I leave so many hints? -checks-
Angel-Tears-16: The ending won't be as horribly bitter-sweet-going-to-write-a-sequal-or-try-to as Forgotten Freedom's, but I think it is a bit bitter. I never do really intense romances, it's always just enough to be noticed. I shouldn't really classify the story as romance, but there is some.
Red RoseDragon: Well, considering when I started this story... Yup, I liked my ending too, though I had to rewrite it at least three times. I had to add an arrow, and then a rosary, and then Inuyasha's little blessing.
Dragon Man180: Sorry, but that arrow's not going to get Naraku, though it does set Kanna on fire, if that makes you happy. No, the arrow has a much greater purpose. Can you guess?
And now I'll stop replying to review because I'll never be able to get the chapter up if I do. Thanks again, all of you.