Chapter 9
"There," said Kagome in a low voice, trying not to be heard by their target. "That guy has got a Jewel shard."
The man in question was walking down the path to the next village, while Inuyasha and Kagome hid in the trees watching him. His pocket glowed in Kagome's eye, and they moved in.
"I see you!" he sang, and they froze. His sharp black-green eyes looked their way. "What are you hiding for? I've got nothing valuable to steal."
They came out, sheepishly. "We're looking for Shikon Jewel shards," said Kagome. "If you don't think its valuable, do you think you could give it to us?"
The man blinked. "What's a Shikon Jewel shard?"
The man was quite short, about 5 9, and had very pale skin, and scars on his face.
He fished in his pocket, pulling out a little pouch, and took out the shard. "This?" he said. "What's it for? Something important? . . . I'll give it to you if you go on a date with me."
"Wha??" Kagome balked. A date?! Was this guy some kind of pervert?! She was only fifteen, and he looked to be in his twenties!
He grinned. "That's the deal!" he said.
Kagome relented. It couldn't be that bad. "Ok . . ." she said. "When does it start?"
"As soon as we get to the next village," he said, smiling.
So they walked, the man at Kagome's side, smiling, and Inuyasha walking on the other side of her. Kagome studied her new traveling companion.
He wore black and purple monk robes, and carried a staff with 4 rings jangling on the top end of it, on a larger ring encircling the head of the staff.
The rings were yellow, green, black, and a nameless color that looked like a combination of black, blue, and red. The word "orunitia" popped into her head, and she assumed that must be Kikyo's memories telling her the name of the color. The man had long, reddish orangish yellowish, very dark hair that came to the end of his back, and was in a ponytail on the nape of his neck. He had three scars on his face; one long one that ran from the left top of his forehead (underneath his hair) down through the separation of his eyebrows and nose and ended on his right cheek; the other two one right underneath the other on his left cheek just below the eye. He had a bunch of scars on his neck, but Kagome couldn't make those out very easily; they overlapped a lot and were messy-looking.
She wondered how he had survived blades to the neck, and wondered if he was part demon like Inuyasha. He certainly had the wild air about him, underneath his happy-go-lucky smile and expression. But she had Inuyasha to protect her, so she was safe.
"So . . ." she said, trying to start up a conversation, "are you a monk? You've got the clothes . . ."
"Yep!" he said smiling at her. "I travel from village to village giving my services! I do blessings, heal wounds (physical, spiritual, and mental) and fight off demons! What do you do?" He looked her up and down, taking in her unusual clothing and sensuous curves.
"Uhhh . . ." said Kagome, not sure what to tell him about herself. "I'm on a mission with Inuyasha to find all the shards of the Shikon Jewel, which I accidentally destroyed. I don't have a job yet, I'm only 15 . . ."
"Is that your friend over there?" he said, looking at Inuyasha.
"Yes," Inuyasha said apathetically.
"Heh heh. Boyfriend?" the man chuckled.
"NO!" they both shouted at the same time. The man blinked, and laughed his ass off.
Kagome was flushing slightly. "So . . . What's your name?"
"My name is Miroku. I can't tell you my last name." He grinned.
"My name's Kagome NoIkunan."
"Inuyasha."
He blinked. "NoIkunan? . . . . That name sounds familiar . . . Like I've heard it in ancient texts . . ." His handsome face furrowed in thought. " . . . I can't place it. I'll have to research it in the village."
Ancient texts? Why would her last name be in there? She felt slightly prideful that it might be, though. She wondered what Inuyasha's last name was, if he had one.
"Inuyasha? Do you have a last name?" she asked.
"Of course. I just don't want to tell you it." Kagome sighed. She hoped she could soften him up before long.
They walked and talked under the crystal-blue sky. Miroku talked about his life as a traveler, the people he met, and Kagome got the feeling he was hiding something. She reasoned that her family was safe on the other side of the well, if he was any threat, so she told him about her little brother, her mom, and her grandpa, and how her dad had run off when she was six and Shimbo was just a baby, and how her grandpa had sold his secret stash of poetry when the family had needed some extra income . . .
"I write poetry, too," she said, "but I'm not nearly as good as grandpa was. Actually, I have one I wrote on a scrap of paper when I was in Kaede's village. Do you want to hear it?"
"Sure! I'd love to!" smiled Miroku. At last, a willing audience::internal smile::
She dug it out of her backpack. She held the wrinkled paper in her hand as they walked and read
"Summer days, and winter lights
Motes, like dots of white
drift across my vision.
I stare down the long road ahead,
and I,
I long to live.
Live as the wild things do,
In the forest of freedom!
What comes
I yearn to know."
Kagome stopped. Miroku, and especially Inuyasha, stared at her. She was still looking at her poem. She sighed.
"Grandpa was a MASTER poet. He could make the heavens sing and the mountains turn at his words! I feel so inadequate when I heard his poetry." She noticed the two boys staring at her. ::sweatdrops:: "Good, or bad?" she asked.
"Very good!" said Miroku. He was impressed.
" . . . . . . ." said Inuyasha. " . . . How were you feeling when you wrote that?" he asked.
Kagome thought. " . . . I don't remember. . . . Angry, I think. I don't remember."
They walked in silence.
Soon they reached the village. It was a bustling, busy town, with lots of people and merchants. Miroku, Kagome, and Inuyasha checked into the hotel before going out to explore the town.
"Kagome and I have a date," he said to Inuyasha, "so go explore the town and we'll catch up with you at the hotel at dusk." Inuyasha gave a soft hmph and went off.
They walked through the busy streets. "Is he always so haughty?" asked Miroku to Kagome.
"Yes," she said, putting a piece of hair behind her ear. "You just get used to it."
"So!" said Miroku, clapping his hands together in excitement. "It's a busy town! What do you want to do first? Get something to eat? I have a little money to spend on you." He winked.
::sweatdrop:: "Sure . . ." she said. Some yakisoba sounded good right about now. They went to a noodle stand.
Finding a bench, they sat down and had their lunch. "Tell me some more about yourself, Miroku," she said, slurping up the fried noodles.
"I already told you all I can tell you," he said, green-black eye glinting, a devilish smirk on his handsome face. "I have secrets to keep, even from pretty girls like you. Why not tell me about YOURself?"
"Ok . . ." said Kagome. "My father was a gunsmith. He was a MASTER. He even invented a few new types of guns. . . . What's that noise?"
A siren was sounding. All the people were rushing around, closing up shops, and retreating into homes. Kagome and Miroku instantly became alarmed. "I think it's a demon attack alarm," said Miroku. "Lots of towns have them nowadays. Let's go get some of the action!" he said excitedly, grabbing her arm and dragging her toward town square, where some screeching sounds were coming from.
"W-wait! What about Inuyasha?" Miroku pointed up toward a red and silver figure leaping on the rooftops. Kagome smiled.
In the town square, the police, bows and flaming arrows ready, had cornered a giant white cobra. The trio arrived on the scene, and asked if they could help in any way.
"You sure can!" said the chief of police. "If you got any weapons that can nail this sucker, we'll be glad to reward ya. FIRE!" he yelled to the policemen, and the flaming arrows flew, sticking deep into the reptile's scaly skin. It screeched and reared, hood flaring, spraying the policemen with toxic gas. A few couldn't get their masks on fast enough and fell, dragged away by some of the others.
"Shit!" spat the chief. Inuyasha ran forward and raked the cobra with his claws, spewing black blood all over him. Kagome fired a holy arrow into where she thought the heart might be located. It screamed, diving at her. Inuyasha whisked her out of the way.
"Stand back!" said Miroku. He knew using holy spells on a creature with black blood would be useless, and Inuyasha's claws weren't going to put much of a dent in it.
The monk gathered his power over his staff, black lightning bolts writhing around his body. He closed his eyes, concentrating. The head of his staff glowed, rings lifting. Suddenly they melted, extending out from the staff into the shape of a blade.
A scythe.
Miroku grew, his 5' 9" frame stretching and growing to an incredible height of 7 foot 5; his skin's pallor now had a deathly quality to it, and his hair became black as a shadow.
He opened his eyes. They were blood red. He grinned.
"Kiibal gohna doran jjiosai, da?! (Let us do battle, one creature of darkness to another, eh?!)" he shouted at the snake. It hissed menacingly, accepting his challenge. Miroku rushed at the creature with his scythe, now coal-black robes billowing. The snake dove, and missed.
Twisting in the air, Miroku hit the cobra in the eye with the giant blade, and grinned like a demon when it screamed. He left the blade in it to distract it, while he ran over to the end of its tail.
"Say goodbye, demon!!" He smiled, ripping a ring on his middle finger off; it was connected to a cloth that covered his hand, and he revealed a yawning blue and black Hole in his palm. Free of the nullifying cloth and ring, the Hole began to suck in everything in its path; Miroku pointed it at the snake's tail.
The vacuum caught it, and began pulling it in, slowly at first, then faster and faster; it screamed as it was sucked into the yawning void, Miroku's scythe coming loose as its head was pulled in. Miroku caught the flying blade in his hand.
"Done and done," he said. Kagome cheered. The policemen gawked, terrified.
"He . . . He's a Reaper!!" shouted one, and ran screaming away, stumbling on his feet. A few other of them ran screaming, too, and the rest were too paralyzed with fear to move.
"What's a Reaper?" asked Kagome.
"I'll explain in a second," said the transformed Miroku. "Now . . . you said there was a reward for getting rid of the cobra demon?" he said to the chief of police.
"I'll double it," he said, "I'll double it if you don't take anyone in my family!! Please!! I beg of you!!" He was on his knees pleading, tears streaming down his face. Miroku grinned.
"You make a compelling argument," he said. "It's a deal!"
"Thank you!!" the man bowed. Inuyasha wondered if he had tricked the man, pretending he was going to take one of his family. He decided to ask later.
………………
Sana-gohma made her way back to her house. Tikarr and Jiono were dead as promised. She buried their cold, stiff bodies in the ground, and set up graves for them and the rest of her family.
She said her prayers for their souls and gathered supplies for her journey. She guessed she was going to get her dream of being a traveler. She just had never imagined it would be like this.
Her family dead.
Her purpose destroyed.
She took the money out of the safe and shifted her pack and Hiraikotsu on her back.
She started off down the dirt road.
………………
"What's a Reaper?" asked Kagome when they were beyond city limits. They had decided to let him travel with them, being a good fighter and them needing all the help they could get. Miroku smiled.
"A Reaper. Like the Grim Reaper. An agent of death," he said.
"Oh! Awesome!" grinned Kagome. "So, you're not really a monk?"
"I'm still a monk," he said. "A monk for the Church of Death! I travel from town to town reaping souls for my master, the Death Force! And this Hole in my palm," he said, brandishing his left hand, the silver ring and cloth in place again, "is how I do it! As a reward for reaping them I gain all the power and spell knowledge from their earthly bodies!"
He looked very proud. "This HellHole was a present from the Death Goddess herself! It's my pride and joy! I can't wait to pass it on to my children! . . ." He looked at Kagome.
"Say, you look old enough to bear children! Will you have mine?" he asked.
Kagome balked. "WHAAA?!?! Are you jackin' me?!?" She stared at him as though he were insane.
"Pleeeaase?" he asked, putting on the puppy-dog charm. He took her hands. "You don't even have to raise them yourself! I'll take care of them completely! I do want a big family, though," he said.
"Inuyasha . . . help!" said Kagome, looking desperate for escape. Inuyasha grabbed his ear and pulled him away.
"Leave the lady alone," he huffed. Kagome wondered about Reaper values that would make him ask such a question. She also thought that maybe it was just him.
Miroku consented, and dropped it. The three walked on back toward Kanta Village, and the sun shone brightly in the crystal-blue sky.