Fifteen: Time

'What the hell is that?' Kouga said as he stared into the sky.

They had just loaded the humans, who were still unconscious, onto Kagura's feather and were just preparing to take off. Starfire was unconscious as well, and she was bleeding internally. He could smell the blood. He only hoped she wasn't dying.

'Youkai,' the Wind User said sombrely. The sky was darkening with their aura. There were many. Maybe too many.

'Inuyasha,' Kagome said weakly, stirring and nearly rolling off the feather. The hanyou was there in an instant, his attention divided between her and the approaching swarm. 'I have to get to the library. Whatever happens, I have to be there by nightfall.'

'Why–' he began, but her eyes stopped him, wide and frightened but determined as always. She knew what she was doing. 'All right. But what about them?'

'Kouga,' she called softly. Inuyasha tensed as the wolf youkai came over to her. At least he wasn't clutching her hand anymore. 'Kagura, get the others out, and Kouga, keep the youkai from coming after me. I have to reach Jump City right now.' He nodded grimly.

'You aren't strong enough to hold on to my back,' Inuyasha protested.

'Carry me,' she said, sounding more awake.

'You're wasting time, dog breath,' Kouga spat, readying himself.

Inuyasha caught her up in his arms and began to run.

Kouga watched them go. He placed himself between the swarm and the humans and turned to his mate. 'Ready?'

She shrugged before unfolding her fans. 'Finally,' she breathed, and raised them high over her head.

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'Are they still following us?' Kagome said, trying to peep over Inuyasha's shoulder without actually moving. At the speed they were travelling, any wriggling could throw him off balance; and while the poison in her system was being destroyed, she was still sleepy. Not to mention the cut on her chest was on fire.

'Can't smell them.' Inuyasha landed smoothly on one foot and then leapt again. 'That damn poison's messed up my senses.'

'Kouga can take care of them,' Kagome said confidently. Inuyasha twitched. 'Oh, come on, he might make you jealous but he's quite capable in a fight and you know it. The others should be waking up soon, it'll be all right.'

'So spit it out.'

Now she was definitely awake. 'What?'

'Why do you need to be in the library? You're not telling me something, Kagome.' His eyes never left the trees they were passing through, or the rapidly growing skyline of Jump City; but she could feel the intensity in his question. 'I thought we agreed not to do that.'

'You're right. I'm not.' She prayed she was making the right choice. 'I can't tell you what it is just yet. I may be completely wrong. Please, Inuyasha. Just……trust me on this one, okay?'

After a long moment, he huffed, irritated. 'All right. But your plan better work, Kagome.'

She nodded and picked up the communicator. 'Raven? We're under attack…….'

Raven's voice came through clearly. 'So are we. Trigon's here.'

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Robin wasn't possessed of superpowers like the rest of his team. He was an ordinary human. Well, not all that ordinary. His detective skills had been honed by the best on the planet, he had training from all over the world, and he had a natural stubbornness and drive to win that kept him going once strength gave out. He also had a feel for evil, an innate instinct that prickled and warned when he was in danger.

Right now, it wasn't prickling and warning. It was stabbing and screeching and running around in small circles.

He opened an eye – who'd put Superglue on it, he wondered blearily – and then the other flew open on its own as he took in the giant swarm of youkai who were assaulting them. Where had they all come from? He wobbled onto his knees and peered up at the sky. There were thousands of them. There couldn't possibly be, he thought through the fuzz in his mind. He was having double vision, right? Or sextuple, septuple or octuple (were those even words?) or something. More blurry shapes resolved into the other Titans and Miroku and Sango on the ground, knocked out. None of them had any twins lying next to them. Reluctantly, the Boy Wonder concluded that yes, there were several thousand youkai attacking them.

Which brought him to why he wasn't in the happy hunting grounds yet. Kouga and Kagura were defending them, attacking the youkai. As he watched, the wolf youkai leapt up into the air as Kagura sent bladelike glowing arcs into the midst of the milling creatures. He changed angle in midair, ricocheting off the blunt side of the wind blade, and kicked a snakelike thing into pieces.

They weren't all attacking at once, Robin realised as his wits returned. They were coming down in batches, attacking and dying methodically while the others waited and circled with infinite unnatural patience. They were waiting for the youkai to tire, and when they did…….they were already slowing down.

He staggered upright, fighting the sleep off. He'd endured worse and taken it better and he was not going to let some stupid poison stop him now.

'Kag…….ura,' he rasped out. A passing youkai noticed him for his efforts and swooped down, jaws wide enough to swallow him whole. His reflexes (and his height, or lack thereof) saved him as he ducked to the side and brought his staff/sword up sharply as he twisted, stabbing it under the chin. It looked stupidly surprised for a second before it exploded, leaving no trace behind. Robin whistled softly. Those spells Miroku put on his bo staff really packed a punch. His chest really hurt. He looked down and was startled to see a long slice across his chest. Had that Nightmare guy cut him? Why?

The Wind User noticed him just then. She brought that fan she used arcing down into the air, sending a wave of wind-blades at him. Past him, rather, to cut down a youkai he hadn't noticed. 'Watch your back!' she yelled before turning back to fight the next incoming set. No other youkai were after him, for hich he was profoundly grateful.

Sango was standing up, too. She looked a lot less sleepy than he was. She'd been standing to the rear of the group, after all. She hefted Hiraikotsu and threw it over Kagura's head, the giant boomerang cutting cleanly through several youkai. Robin stared. He knew her weapon was sharp, but this……

'Waiting for something?' Sango gritted as the boomerang came flying back to her.

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'He's early,' Raven said, floating over to Sesshoumaru. 'I expected him to come just in time for nightfall, but…..'

Sesshoumaru said nothing. His nose could clearly pick out the combined miasma-and-sulfur stench of Trigon in Naraku's body. It was approaching, and quickly. He could feel the darkness in him/them. He had never possessed such darkness. No matter what, he had held on to his honour, and he had nothing but contempt for those weak enough to allow their basest nature to rule them.

This one, though, was not weak in other aspects.

Neither of them could take on Trigon alone. He was sure of that. He had already failed once, and even if Raven had banished him once, she hadn't killed him. besides, who knew what had happened to Trigon's powers once he had entered Naraku's body. The spider-marked hanyou was an enigma at best.

'Something's changing,' Raven said worriedly. 'I can sense huge amounts of magic being manipulated. He's doing something, and I can't tell………'

A tremor ran through the stone at their feet. Then another. The stone walls shivered and broke apart. Raven had just enough time to erect a barrier before the old Jump City library ceased to exist for the second time in its unfairly eventful life.

When she dropped the barrier, huge boulders lay all about them, and the late afternoon sun was beating down on their heads. And Trigon's laughter was resounding through the eerily empty square.

'Trigon,' Sesshoumaru snapped icily. The demon inclined his head in response. It was eerie, the inuyoukai reflected, to feel two auras, smell two scents in one body. It was Naraku's body, his face, but it was strangely stretched, strained, as if it was trying to hold in something that it couldn't. Which was the case. His eyes were solid crimson, and there were four of them, two where the eyes were normally and two suspended above. Like Jinx's had been.

'How are you, daughter?' Trigon rasped. It wasn't Naraku's voice at all. For all his evil, the hanyou's voice was smooth, even silky. This voice was slightly distorted, deep.

'Don't call me that,' Raven whispered intensely, defined in black energy, white seeping into her clothes as she felt herself harmonise with all her emotions. A bitter part of her noted that only in these situations could she ever fulfil herself emotionally. 'Don't you dare call me that, you monster. You have no right.'

'So you insist,' the demon said.

Sesshoumaru was becoming rapidly irritated with the whole business. He hated being ignored as if he were trivial.

'You are not worthy of my notice, foolish youkai,' the demon rumbled.

'He's a telepath?'Sesshoumaru said incredulously. Trigon smirked.

'Where do you think I got my powers from?' Raven said. He stared at her. 'You mean you didn't know?'

Sesshoumaru winced. He looked almost…….sheepish.

Trigon laughed deep in Naraku's chest (A/N: now that was weird to write), which instantly wiped the grimace off his face.

'You're early, Trigon,' Raven spat. 'It's still daytime.'

'Is it?' the demon said with mock surprise. 'But not for long.' Trigon's arms raised high into the sky, and his four eyes glowed as he chanted an incantation. 'I am the master of time. Behold my power!'

An unearthly wind began to rise, a wind that moaned and shrieked until all they could hear was its piercing wail. Sesshoumaru's hand twitched to cover his ears. The few cirrus clouds in the sky, deceptive omens of fair weather, raced into the horizon, casting swift shadows on the ground. Comprehension dawned on him, painfully slow. The sun was moving towards the west unnaturally fast.

'This is what he was planning,' Raven said softly. 'To turn it to night. To make it time.'

Sesshoumaru snarled and unsheathed Toukijin, blurring forward to strike at Trigon. Ten feet from him, the inuyoukai slammed into a red barrier that threw him back several feet. He flipped in midair, landing gracefully on his feet – and opening a few burns that hadn't healed fully yet. Toukijin flew into the air and landed with a clatter near Raven.

'A barrier…..' he hissed. 'Where's that idiot brother of mine when he's actually needed?'

Trigon continued to chant, and the sun inched towards the west, and time ticked away.

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'The sun…….' Inuyasha said, vaguely puzzled. 'Is it moving…….?'

They were near the outskirts of the city, and the hanyou slowed, puzzled, as he saw the star moving westwards faster than it should.

'What has he done?' Kagome said, awed, as they passed one of the major highways. The cars shot past them at preternatural speeds, speeds nearing an aeroplane's. 'Everything's too fast.'

'Too fast. Of course, that's it!' Inuyasha's eyes brightened. 'He's trying to turn time faster until it's nightfall. Raven's magic must have kept the same from happening to us.'

The miko's eyes closed, dismayed, for a second. 'You do realise what this means, don't you?'

She snapped the communicator open.

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'But why?'

'Simple physics,' Robin explained grimly to Sango. 'When two objects collide, their velocities are added to make the speed at which they hit each other. Which means that if something which travels at 20kmph meets something that travels at sixty, the speed of the collision is actually 80kmph. If a hummingbird hit us right now, it would be fast enough to kill on contact.'

'In short,' Kouga said, 'Until Trigon stops moving time, these things are going to be fast. Hellishly fast.'

The howling wind Kagome had warned them of finally reached them, and everything went crazy immediately after that.

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It was eerily silent in the ruins of the library. The only sound was Trigon's chanting, the wind, which had dropped soon after it rose, and Sesshoumaru's almost soundless snarling. In the void, Raven could hear her own heartbeat.

They had both tried to break the barrier he had erected several times before giving up and simply waiting. The sun moved inexorably to the horizon.

The first bird-turned-projectile had startled Raven, and might have killed her if it wasn't for her hastily erected barrier. The bird had been stunned by the barrier, and had fallen unconscious at her feet. She had levitated it far away. It was the least she could do. After that, she had blocked the entire area away with a barrier.

According to the time of day – which Raven had decided never to trust again – it was early evening. There were perhaps five or six minutes to nightfall.

Nightfall…….and resurrection.

Before the thought had time to sink in and really piss her off, Raven felt one side of her barrier being ripped apart with no subtlety whatsoever. She recognised Trigon's aura immediately, mixed though it was with another.

Jinx. She was almost transparent, and everything inside her glowed with magical light, turning her into a ghost of flame. Raven could only pray that the girl was as unaware of her body as she presumed she was.

Four eyes sought the empath. Two cleared, and for an instant Raven met Jinx's eyes. She nodded; the hexer shook her head slightly and the crimson returned. It was enough for the empath to understand what she had said.

I'm sorry.

And don't hesitate.

Turning her back on her allies, the lavender-haired girl walked stiffly through the debris, heading for the giant hand that Raven had once opened a portal from. Raven could only watch as Jinx floated up to its palm and spread her arms.

And dissolved.

Interlude the third: Assimilation

Naraku watched dispassionately as the girl's face changed. Whatever she was seeing, it wasn't pretty. Her eyes were wide, and horrified. He felt no pity, but there was a twinge of………understanding………in some forgotten corner of his self.

The girl whispered 'He's going to kill me now.'

Now that was a pity. She was the first person he'd met in a month, and he really did like to talk, even if his company was dead, created, or otherwise unintelligent. The other half of the conversation was irrelevant, but talking to empty air was said to be a sign of madness, was it not?

Pure evil, yes, and he was proud of it; but he wasn't going to let anyone call him crazy.

Well, he was going to die in a few hours himself, so he probably wouldn't have time to notice her absence. Naraku gathered all the shards of his self together – he seemed to be gathering all sorts of shards lately, a manically amused part of him observed, it was becoming an obsession – and waited.

What was that?

-Naraku-

-Naraku!-

Kikyou? No, no, it wasn't her. It was that little ninny of a reincarnation of hers. Was it time then? But his inner clock was insisting that it was only midday, late afternoon at most, and it was deadly accurate. Something was wrong.

He turned to ask the girl, but stopped as he saw the look on her face. She was standing, arms wide apart, legs braced. Her features were twisted in an agonised rictus, head thrown back, every muscle in her body convulsing in pain he could almost feel against his skin. The girl screamed, a wrenching sound, and collapsed lifelessly.

Just when things were going so well………he thought whimsically. And he moved towards the girl's body.

Though he had no way of knowing, the sun dipped beneath the horizon.

A/N: yeah, whoo! One chapter and the epilogue to go! This chapter is dedicated to Miss L Anyus, for her sweet review of the previous one. Oh, and points to eternally-twilight for guessing about the fluff. Will Sesshy ever be the same? By the way, does anyone know how I can sign up to receive challenges? I'm really interested in them but I'm rather new to this site.Thanks.