Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or song titles mentioned. This one is "A Trip of Destiny" OST 1. (Track #2)
Kaze no Rei Chapter VI: Shukumei no Tabi He
There are two girls floating high on a feather. Both are raven-haired, both with an inner fire that shines as their only other similarity. One's crimson eyes search the ground and sky, guiding the feather. The other's midnight orbs are focused on the first's back, her brows knitted in concentration. The elder, the red-eyed youkai princess, appears about seventeen. The younger human child appears no more than fifteen. She appears nervous, and looks as though she wants to say something, but remains silent. The youkai does not speak to her, instead focusing on guiding their feather.
Nazuna bit her lip, running her thumb across the gem set into Kino Chikara again. The gem's barrier had held against Kagura's wind-blades, but something told her that it would be unwise to use it against Inuyasha, should it come to a fight. Finally, she forced herself to ask the question that had been plaguing her ever since they'd left the castle, and Naraku's words.
"Hey… Kagura… Do you think I really have a chance?" Her voice sounded uncertain, even to her. Kagura's reply was not reassuring.
"To be honest… no. Not of doing it sneakily. Even though you look like him, you probably smell of Naraku like I do. Unless you can use one of those items of yours to mask that scent… We should get you washed clean of his Miasma as well. There's a lake down there." With that, the feather dipped and turned, floating down towards the lake. As they descended, Nazuna closed her eyes and focused on her ring, probing its powers. The two items were intrinsically linked to her, despite their essentially Youkai nature. But then, she was born of a Hanyou through the use of dark magic, so theoretically she should be touched by his Youkai side. Perhaps that was how she could use the items, for she was no Maho-tsukai herself to be able to invoke their power. The ring offered no guidance for this task, however. She realised that it would retain its secrets until she needed them. The sword, on the other hand… it had cut Kagura's wind, perhaps it could cut her scent as well. The wakizashi was a mystery to her - she could wield it with some skill, though she was not weapons-trained, and it seemed to be not entirely of mortal existence. When she touched the Hano Maneshi-Kogoe, she felt her senses extend beyond her normal five, into another plane of existence almost.
'Void-Whisper Edge… what is your secret?' she thought to herself, and realised she knew how to mask her demon-scent. She would simply use the blade's aura to cut it off. The effect would not hold if Inuyasha put his nose against her skin, but it would suffice for normal meetings. She did not plan to get that close to him, physically, except when she took the blade, which would blow her cover in itself as soon as she tried to leave with the weapon. Briefly, she wondered who her look-alike was, to be allowed so close to him under normal conditions, but dismissed the thought. If Naraku had not told her, it was likely not important. At least, she hoped so. Despite Kagura's warning, he'd seemed so… normal that she couldn't be too distrusting.
Thinking of the wind-user, she still could not figure her sister out. The youkai seemed to swing between open friendliness when they were alone to subdued hostility whenever she thought they might be being watched. She just didn't know what to make of it. All she could conclude was that, for some reason, Kagura hated Naraku with a passion. Briefly, she considered asking the older girl, but before she could open her mouth, she was forced to catch herself as the feather disappeared beneath her. Landings were always rough, it seemed, when riding a magically-enlarged feather.
"The feather… is it one of your powers, or is it like my ring?" She asked instead, seeing that the wind-user was looking at her with a raised eyebrow. As she spoke, she slipped the sword from the sash about her waist, and placed it down, starting to strip for her 'bath'.
"The enlarging part is a spell on the feather, but I make it fly. Don't bother undressing; we'll need to wash your clothes anyway." With that, the Youkai grinned and flicked her fan open, waving it sharply towards the lake. She couldn't help but smirk at the look on Nazuna's face as she went flying into the lake, clothes and all. When Nazuna resurfaced, spluttering, she shot the wind-youkai a glare that could convince a mountain to shuffle quietly out of the way.
Unfortunately, this only made Kagura grin wider, rather than having the desired affect. Suddenly, an idea flowed into Nazuna's mind, and she grinned herself. Clenching her fist under the water, she buried Kino Chikara in the silty lake-bed, and willed the roots of the nearby trees to obey her. The resulting look of surprise on Kagura's face was priceless as brown and green tendrils rose up from the ground around her, wrapping around her legs and torso, holding them immobile, before rising further to hold her arms out to the sides. In her shock, she dropped her fan, and Nazuna frowned, sending another root to lift it away from the writhing vegetation at Kagura's feet. It wouldn't do to crush her sisters' weapon accidentally.
"Was that really necessary?" She asked the wind-user, standing and re-belting her tunic. For her part, Kagura just glared, pulling uselessly at the roots. "You dumped me in the water. That was mean."
"It was fun." Kagura grumbled, obviously feeling mistreated.
I muttered angrily, and pulled at the blasted roots she's summoned. I was wrong about her. She's just as humourless as Kanna. I frowned as the roots moved around me, tightening their grip slightly. It was almost painful, and brought up bad memories. The roots (the chains) tightening (blue fire running across them, searing me) and pulling back slightly. The girl (man) in front of me would scowl and…
I felt the fear creeping into the edges of my mind, the vision of Naraku overlaying my sight. I felt my crimson eyes widen, my breath become harsh, the adrenaline start to pump, and I hated myself for it. I'd been careless, and now this little girl had caught me (Just as he'd caught me).
'Where did that come from..?' I thought, before I felt the roots swaying back, and the fear swept away the last of my thoughts.
The shock of the cold water threw me back into reality. I was staring at the bottom, floating face-down, so I rolled over in the water, staring up at a pair of concerned dark-brown eyes as the fear retreated to the corners of my mind again.
"Kagura?" A soft, female voice asked, and it took a moment for me to attach it to the eyes. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine." I replied, scrambling up to my feet and feeling them sink into the silty bottom. My dress was probably filthy. "You're probably de-stenched now. Let's go." I kept my voice neutrally cold. A stray thought gave me pause, and I briefly wondered if it had simply been a childish prank. She couldn't know of my fear of being constrained so. Still, I walked away.
"Kagura…" her plaintive voice stopped me. "I'm sorry. It was just meant to be a joke… you did dunk me." I sighed, and turned back.
"It's ok… you didn't know… that's how he… that's how he holds me when he punishes me." I looked down into the water swirling around the bottom of my robe, the line of brown muck around the hem rising as the water soaked into the finely-spun linen, ashamed at my weakness in admitting it, and in forgiving this girl. I heard the sound of the water swirling around her shins, but didn't anticipate the arms that went around my shoulders next, or the soft voice by my ear.
"I'm sorry. I won't let him to it do you again, I promise. I'm here, so... Don't be afraid. Kagura." Despite the fact I knew she couldn't follow through with her promise, I wanted to believe her so badly… This human girl I'd known for a few hours wanted to help me. I felt the overwhelming urge to tell her the truth. I got so far as opening my mouth before a scream jolted me to my senses. I felt Nazuna's presence recede, and heard her feet splash into the water as I looked up. There on the riverbank, towering over a girl wearing strange, glossy clothes was an Oni, identical to another of our siblings, Goshinki. The purple flesh, lizard like head, gazelle-like horns and oversized shoulders giving me pause. The monster looked up from the foreign girl, red-triangle eyes fixing on us, and though I was unarmed, I stood in front of Nazuna, arms raised defensively. Both of us had left our weapons on the edge of the lake, and the Oni's foot was dangerously close to crushing Nazuna's Hano into the mud, where we might never find it. It's lizard like maw gaped open in a vicious grin, moving it's foot deliberately over the Hano and picking it up, transferring it to one of it's upper arms to examine it. Its voice echoed in our heads, throwing our own voices back against ourselves in mockery of thought.
'This is what you worry about?' Its laugh echoed, derisively. 'You're pathetic, puppet elemental and her mortal sister, dancing on the spider's web. Paltry games and listless graces, I'm surprised you even show your faces.' I felt amusement well up inside me, as well as anger, and realised that with the mental voice came the Oni's emotions. It hadn't been like this when Naraku's mockery had spoken to me. I felt its laugh echo in my mind again, but quashed the Oni's emotion with my own irritation.
"Just give us the sword and let me grab my fan and we'll leave you to your meal." I responded. We had a mission to fulfil, and fighting psychic ogres was not on the itinery. The ogre threw the sword at us, and I caught it by the scabbard, only to be knocked down into the mud by Nazuna's body as the Oni's claw swept through the spot my head had just been in. On the way down, I lost my grip on the Hano, but it was too late to worry about the sword as I forced myself to stand, despite the heavy weight of my robes weighing me down. It would not do to drown now. I would rather be Oni food. The huge ogre loomed over us, though it looked perplexed. I saw why a moment later when I dropped my gaze. Nazuna stood between us, unsheathed blade in hand and raised in a high guard. For a human to stand so fearlessly against it must be something new.
The Kino glowed, and something flashed in the corner of my eye, and I was surprised to see the Oni's arm go up to catch a thrown rock. I was even more surprised when the Hano lodged in his open flank a moment later. It was as though the Oni relied on its psychic powers to forewarn it of attacks, and for some reason could not read Nazuna's mind.
'Your mind is clouded, how am I confounded! No matter, the time is nigh, your blade is trapped so now you DIE!' the voice that was not-quite my own echoed, enraged with pain in my head. Its hand came up; I saw, the three-clawed monstrous limb falling towards Nazuna with deadly speed. I bunched my muscles, prepared to leap, but was stopped in surprise as the limb was halted by a green disk forming under it – the Kino's barrier, I realised. The Oni roared again, out loud this time, throwing its lizard-head back in anguish. The sound was deafening this close. The Oni's words were true, though – Nazuna could not draw her blade forth from its sucking flesh, the Hano's preternatural sharpness giving her no additional strength to pull it free. While using her ring to generate the barrier, she could not use its power to form another attack. The two were deadlocked – unless the Kino's barrier was a disc and not a globe as I'd thought. I didn't stick around to find out. Unarmed, I couldn't focus my wind into whirlwinds or blades, but I still retained some control – enough to steer my feather, and hopefully enough to break this deadlock. Aiming my hands towards the Oni's head, I drew on the power within and threw it straight at the reptilian maw with a yell.
Nazuna heard her sister's cry, and threw herself down, dropping the barrier in order to grab her sword with both hands. The blade slid free with a slurp as the Oni was flipped over backwards, away from them, by the powerful gust of wind. Nazuna jumped backwards, plunging her ring into the murk and summoning the same power she'd used in her prank on Kagura. The roots ran under the lake, before shooting from the water with a splash and weaving themselves into a cage over the Oni. She directed another root to bring Kagura her fan, and the wind-user clasped the wood and paper construction with a look of relief.
"I'm not sure how long that'll hold him…" She muttered, mostly to herself. She was glad for the Hano's blade-aura, though, for it was all that had protected her from the purple Oni's mind-reading ability, and, from the look on Kagura's face, his awful poetry. One bout of that was enough for the human girl, thank you.
"No matter. Now I have this, he won't be too much trouble. Ryuuja no Mai!" Kagura replied, calling the last and sweeping her fan from left to right across her body. Whirlwinds with dragon's heads twisted through the air, slipping between the slats of the cage and drilling into the purple Oni's body ruthlessly. The ogre's death-shriek left Nazuna's ears ringing, and from the look of Kagura's face, it had echoed on a mental level as well. A flash of memory drove Nazuna to look at the shore, and the foreign woman who lay there.
"We should see if she's alright." She said, and Kagura shrugged.
"Probably just some girl. Naraku won't be pleased if we're late. We saved her already, there's not much we can do to help her," the wind-user replied. Nazuna just gave her a look. "Alright, alright. We can check the girl who nearly got us killed." Kagura started trudging towards the shore, the sash holding her kimono closed having worked so loose that she could stride effectively against the resistance of the water. Nazuna followed, cleaning her blade in the muddy liquid as she walked.
The foreigner was unconscious, and both girls were slightly surprised to notice that she was a Youkai. From the way she'd run from the Oni, they'd taken her as a human, especially in her shimmering robe. The material was strange, sheer stuff that seemed woven so close that it would repel water. She had dark blue hair held up in two buns at the back of her head, and a thick fringe similar to Kagura's.
Still, Nazuna knelt beside her and lifted her head, cradling her shoulders. Kagura spent a moment wondering why the human thought they owed his girl, before getting a handful of water and splashing the foreigner's face. She twitched, and groaned a little, before murmuring.
"Hari..?" she groaned, her eyes flickering open and looking up at Nazuna. She sat up, slowly, putting her hand to her head. "No… who..?" The foreigner blinked awake properly, before rolling to her feet and looking at her rescuers warily. Nazuna was still kneeling where she had before the girl had woken up, but Kagura had her fan opened and in front of her face, defensively.
"Yeesh, relax." Kagura muttered, partly to herself.
"It's fine; we're not your enemies." Nazuna smiled at the foreigner, standing. The foreign girl didn't drop out of her stance, however.
"What happened to the Oni?" she demanded, her pretty features fixed in a scowl.
"Dead." Kagura responded, shortly. "He tried to kill us." The curt statement bore a warning as much as it was a response.
"I'm Nazuna, this is Kagura. What's your name?" the human girl's tone was friendly, unlike her sister's, and this served to confuse the foreigner slightly. Something about the two girls was incredibly familiar.
"Ruri…" was all she said aloud, however, giving away little. She'd nearly been eaten once today, and she didn't want to risk these two having some name-magic to take her over to do the same. One appeared human, but that meant nothing. Though Ruri could see none of the youki that usually marked shapeshifters out to her, she wasn't going to let her guard down yet. Even after nearly two hundred years in this backwards country, the Chinese Youkai hadn't seen everything it had to hide.
"Do you need anything, Ruri? Or will you be alright now?" The human had real concern in her voice, Ruri noticed, though her Youkai guardian rolled her eyes, clearly wanting to be away.
"I'll be fine. Ah, could you just tell me one thing? Have you seen a weapon smith around? I need a spear, as my companion has been taken prisoner and I have no weapon to regain her." Ruri replied, though she didn't know why she felt the need to explain herself to these women.
"No, we've not." Kagura responded, slightly impatiently. "Nazuna, lets go. He won't be happy if we're late."
"Sorry…" Nazuna smiled, sheepishly. "I'll just be a moment, Kagura." The wind-user raised an eyebrow, closing her fan and watching her companion as the latter held up her left hand, fingers splayed. Green light played out from the gem set into Kino Chikara, before drawing back in and then flowing out of the gold part of the ring until it formed a bar of rippling green energy, about five feet long, which then turned white before coalescing into a spear-form.
"Here." She smiled, before grasping the spear and giving it to Ruri, butt-first. "Ah... What weapons does your companion use?" Ruri blinked, taking the spear and testing its weight without appearing to. It was perfect, and she realised that she could will it to take on the form of a silver ring set with a blue gem.
"A pair of Shamshir." She replied, slight curiosity tinting her voice. Nazuna appear to think a moment, before clenching her fist around the air, the same green glow from before spilling out between her fingers. She held the hand forth, and within were two leaves. Ruri took them, and raised a questioning look to Nazuna.
"They'll transform, like your spear," came the response. Ruri nodded to herself; it would make sense that only Hari would be able to use the weapon made for her. She bowed to the two women as she'd learned was the custom in this country, and then was surprised when it was the nobly-dressed Youkai who posed the next question to her.
"So, what's that outfit of yours made from?" Kagura asked, managing to inject some of her usual cynicism into her voice.
"Silk. Beautiful, isn't it? It comes from my homeland." Ruri replied, smiling slightly. She'd worked out who these girls reminded her of – they were like herself and Hari, after a fashion, though from Kagura's tone earlier she had gathered they did not share Ruri's devotion to Menoumaru for their own lord. Briefly, Ruri wondered if perhaps they could be convinced to change their allegiance. There was no harm in asking, she decided.
"Do you like it?" She tilted her head, and Kagura nodded. "If you tell me where your Lord resides, I might be able to prevail upon lord Menoumaru to send you some."
"I would like that, but… I cannot. My lord," there was a definite twist of distaste there, or perhaps something more, "is a secretive man, with several powerful enemies. If I were to give the location of his castle away, my punishment would be…" Kagura looked away, grimacing. "It would not be worth it."
"You do not like your Lord? Why, then, do you serve him?" Ruri frowned, leaning slightly on her spear.
"He holds our hearts. We cannot disobey." It was the human who spoke. Kagura seemed ashamed of her outburst. Ruri sighed, and looked away.
"So, you couldn't come to Lord Menoumaru if you wanted to. If you ever win free of your Lord, please consider the Moth Lord of China as a patron. He is kind, and asks no binding other than an oath of his servants, whether warrior, maid, or magic-user."
Kagura laughed at that.
"Of course we'll win free. I am the wind, I cannot be held for long!" She seemed slightly hysterical, though.
"I'm sorry, lady Ruri… we must go." Now it was Nazuna who wanted them to leave, and she tugged the wind-user's sleeve gently. Kagura sighed, becoming sombre, and nodded.
"Yeah, I suppose. Step back." With that, the wind-user plucked the feather from her hair and threw it upwards, a whirlwind hiding her for a moment before fading and revealing her atop her feather. She held out a hand to Nazuna, and pulled her onto the boat-like construct, before lifting a hand in farewell to the foreign Youkai. Briefly, Ruri wondered it she'd ever see the two again, but dismissed them from her mind and set out once more for the mountain temple where Hari was bound with priestly magic, the leaves comfortingly in her hand.
End Kaze no Rei, chapter six.