Chapter 8
Kagome awoke to find Inuyasha snoozing on the ground a ways away from her.
She giggled, seizing another opportunity to play with his soft, cat-like ears. He awoke, growling.
"Stop doing that!" he shouted at her. She laughed.
"But they're so fun to touch!" she smiled. "Please can I feel them just one more time?"
"No! Keep your hands to yourself!" he hmphed, turning away. "Let's get going. Eat your breakfast and I'll go find mine." He walked off into the grove of trees.
Kagome got out a can of spaghetti and meatballs. She didn't feel like making a fire, so she just ate it cold. It was still delicious, though. Everything in this time was. That was one of the things she wanted to find out, why the food in the future tasted like boiled plastic compared to this. After she'd gotten the first Jewel shard she thought she'd try going back to her time again, when they returned to Kanta Village for supplies. She could get her huge backpack, and maybe her bike to carry it on. And Inuyasha could ride on the back! If he wasn't too heavy of course . . .
Kagome finished her can and apple, and Inuyasha came back licking squirrel blood off his claws and face.
"Get a good catch?" she asked. He smiled.
"Yep. Can't beat fresh squirrel." He licked his bloody fingers.
They gathered the garbage and sleeping bag and started off again.
………………
A woman with star-white hair down to her calves was cooking some fried noodles for her family. The hair gleamed in the light, a braid coming down from her mid-back.
Her skin was almost paper-white; that and her hair marking her as an albino, and her sun-orange eyes marked her as having demon blood.
"Sana-gohma, is it done yet?" asked her little brother, Nagoda. He was starving, as were all her siblings. She smiled.
"Just a minute, Nago-chan," she said. She doused the flames underneath the grill. "Okay! Everyone give me your plates and I'll serve ya up!"
The three children and two women came forward eagerly, getting their plates filled with noodles, meat, and some rice from a separate pot. Sana-gohma served herself, and they all dug in.
Sana-gohma's parents were out in the backyard training. They were a family of demon slayers for hire.
Their shame was that her grandmother (on her father's side) had been a Star Demon, and had passed her appearance on to her children, and grandchildren.
It marred their reputation. A family of demon demon slayers? It just wasn't trustworthy. They still lived well, though, in spite of this "handicap."
Sana-gohma loved her appearance. Her shimmering hair and bright eyes brought the attention of many gentlemen callers.
She had refused all of them, though. Her dream was to leave the family and go traveling, and find her mate while adventuring the Japanese countryside. She wanted to find someone who was part demon like her, or at least Iitairii. So they wouldn't be afraid of her or anything.
Sana-gohma had many scars on her body from sword, sickle, knife, and various other blade wounds from training. She'd grown up training to be a demon slayer, and she was one of the best.
When they were done eating and had digested and cleaned the dishes, they all donned their black demon slayer outfits and armor and joined their parents in the yard.
Sana-gohma loved this outfit. It was skin-tight, for greater mobility, and had silver pads with anti-demon magickal tags in them. The armor was blessed by the moon, an advantage because of her Star Demon blood; the affiliation with night gave her a boost in defense. (Especially at night. Unfortunately, many demons got power boosts at night as well. More of an explanation of how the armor works later.)
Her siblings all had different colored armor on top of their basic black clothing. They got their weapons out of the shed and practiced. Sana-gohma got her Hiraikotsu, a giant dark red boomerang soaked with demon's blood out and sparred with Kohaku, her eldest little brother.
He grinned devilishly, readying his silver sickles. He had a scar that ran from his jaw on the right side up to his right nostril. His hair was long strait and black, sticking up on his forehead like long grass. His hair was tied in a ponytail on the nape of his neck, and it came to his shoulder blades. "You ready for another scar, sista?" he asked. She grinned back.
"You're not gonna touch me this time, Kohaku-chan!" Kohaku had an accent, he wasn't just being impudent. He did mean it, though.
"I beg to diffa, sista!" He whirled the chain around his head and threw it, the deadly blade glinting. She stepped to the side and jumped away as he jerked it back her way.
Kohaku was by far her favorite sibling. If she was going to marry someone, she'd want him to be like him. She side-stepped another sickle and threw her Hiraikotsu, which was dodged by the slender boy. It came back again and he jumped 6 feet in the air to avoid it. All of the Nuriko family could do as such.
"Next one's comin' foh yoh head, sista!" he shouted, tossing the blade as hard as he could. It stuck in her boomerang instead of her skull. "Damn! You're fast wit dat thing, sista." Her parents had taught them all to train hard, being brutal if need be. Demons were brutal, and they needed to be prepared for it.
After all, wounds healed, and their demon blood made them immune to most fatal wounds. Take advantage of every opportunity, their mother said once. She was talking about taking advantage of their demon blood.
The mail bell rang and Taro, their father, went to get it.
"We got a call!" he shouted. "The village of Wallikehn needs to get rid of some snake demons! That's only 8 miles from here! Let's go!"
The two sisters, Sana-gohma, and Kohaku got in their wagon. The two smaller boys were too young to fight yet.
As the wagon went out of sight, the two silver-haired boys waved goodbye. When it was sure the wagon was out of hearing range, two snakes came up and bit the boys' ankles. They screamed, and were dead before they hit the ground. The snakes crawled away, quickly, back to Wallikehn Village.
………………
Something was bothering Sana-gohma. She couldn't figure out what it was. Something oppressive on the edge of her senses, something big.
As she rode in the bumpy wagon, hair in a plaited ponytail and Hiraikotsu leaning at her side like an old friend, she thought. Perhaps these feelings were psychic notions, watered down from her demon heritage by Iitairii blood. Star Demons were known for their psychic abilities.
She'd had these notions before. When that tree fell on her sister Dahgih-nora, and she'd had a dream about it the night before, exact down to the expression on her face. And when she'd seen gold sparkles in front of her eyes and a few minutes later Kohaku found a gold ring in the grass.
She was worried. She'd told her parents about the things that had happened, but they didn't know how to awaken her abilities, if that's what they were. She decided to tell her sister about this new feeling.
"Sanah-dohra," she said, "I think something bad's going to happen in the village we're going to."
Her sister was the skeptical one in the family. "You're being silly," she said. "I don't believe those psychic notions you have, you know that."
Slightly discouraged and wondering why she'd turned to her in the first place (probably because she was sitting right next to her), Sana-gohma went to Kohaku to tell him, but they had arrived.
They put on their poison filters, metal porous shields that covered the lower parts of their faces, and got out.
"You're here!" cried a woman villager, running up to them. "Thank the Gods! . . . Wait . . . are these two women demons?"
"They are my daughters," said Taro. "They are of demon blood, and that blood aids their abilities in combat. They are of no threat to you. We are here to help." He sounded tired of explaining this to every job they had. Taro silently cursed his father for being seduced by that Star Demon.
"A-alright," said the woman. "The snakes are in the mayor's basement. That house over there," she pointed to a green, large house covered with ivy.
They said thank you, and went over to it.
In the basement's sudden light, the snake demons writhed away into the shadows, hissing and growling, and Kohaku and the blonde-haired Sanah-dohra went down to fight them.
"Ai kehn take care of this myself," said Kohaku. He drew his sword and began hacking at the snakes, and told Sanah-dohra to stay back so he could prove his worth.
The snakes reared, preparing to strike, and Kohaku arched his sickle-chain around and lopped their heads off. He kept doing this until all the snakes were dead.
"My God, son!" said Taro, impressed. "You killed them all, all by yourself!"
"Yup!" Kohaku grinned. A flash of silver. Like a strand of hair. Had it been just her imagination? If it was her mind, what did it mean?
They headed out to the town square where they had parked the wagon.
"Here's your pay! Thank you so much!" said the mayor. She was smiling gladly.
"You're very wel—hurrk k!" Taro spewed blood from his neck and fell to the ground.
"Daddy!" cried Sanah-dohra. She fell to the ground bleeding fountains, too.
Where was the attack coming from! A sickle stuck in her mother's back. WHAT!
Sana-gohma faced Kohaku. His eyes were glazed, as if he was drugged, and he whipped his sickle towards Dahgih-nora. Sana-gohma wasn't fast enough with her giant boomerang and her sister fell with a cry.
Her mother, father, and two sisters lay dead around her. And Kohaku was their murderer.
Sana-gohma removed her mask so she could speak better, tears flowing down her face. "Kohaku . . . What the fuck are you DOING!"
Kohaku removed his mask and smiled. "Because I have every right." The strand of silver again. It wasn't just her imagination; coming off his neck. On his neck . . . a spider-shaped insect clinging to his skin! He was being controlled by a spider demon.
Enraged, Sana-gohma tossed her boomerang at the boy; he dodged, and the sharp weapon sliced the spider silk in two. The light came back to Kohaku's eyes. He blinked, and looked around.
"OH MY GOD!" he cried when he saw the dead bodies of his family. "What . . . How did . . ." he teared up with wide shocked eyes.
"Kohaku . . ." Sana-gohma was shaking. But the battle wasn't over yet. That spider demon must be hanging around somewhere . . . and she thought she knew where, exactly where.
She raced back to the basement in the mayor's house and looked up. Burrowed into the ceiling was the spider demon.
"Come out and fight, or I'll kill you where you squat!" she shouted. The demon skittered away, into its tunnels, and she went outside.
Outside the police had surrounded Kohaku. "Kill him! His demon blood has awakened and he's going to kill everyone here!" the townspeople shouted. Kohaku looked scared, not knowing what to do.
"No! Don't kill him! He's innocent—" But they filled him with arrows before she could save him. She screamed.
"Kill her, too! She's got demon blood!" they shouted and rushed at her, and she ran behind the house where the demon was waiting. The crowd stopped when they saw it.
"You! . . . Why did you kill my family!" shouted Sana-gohma. "Is it just because that's what demons do!" she growled, a tiger-like sound, sharp teeth showing. A few saw them and stepped back from her.
"No," it hissed. "Demons have the right to life, too. People get rid of us because we're bothersome, like houseflies with teeth.
"The Demon God Naraku gave me a mission! To get rid of all the demon slayers in the country! That's why I set up the snake demon trap. Your two younger brothers are dead, too, by the way."
Sana-gohma's eyes widened. She growled and threw her Hiraikotsu with all her might, shredding the demon. That threat vanquished, the villagers turned on her, pelting her with arrows, but she ran deep into the forest, where the human villagers dared not follow.
She ran, weeping and bleeding. She finally collapsed onto the shore of a stream in the trees, and wrenched the arrows from her back and legs.
The last thing that passed through her mind was Kohaku's image, and that one name.
Naraku . . . She passed out.