NOTE: Inuyasha isn't mine. He's much too childish.
GRIEF"Kagome-neechan?" Rin called.
"Uh..huh?" The older woman blinked out of her trance and turned her head at Sesshoumaru's daughter sitting on the two-headed dragon.
"Are you all right?" concern was evident on the child's face.
"Sure Rin-chan, no problem." Kagome gave the child a sunny smile, which did not convince the latter. Rin frowned and shifted slightly on Ah-Un's saddle. Kagome became strangely quiet right after the fight with the Son's of Wrath. Then without a word the miko turned around and strode out of the orchard. Rin slid down from her steed to locate her father.
After defeating Muchitsujo, Rin ran back to check up on Kagome. From behind the trees she saw the woman still holding her own against Kyouhou. Not wanting to distract the silver haired miko with her entrance Rin sat on a branch that gave her a good vantage view of the fight while munching on one of the ripe peaches she found in the village orchard. She was halfway on her second peach when something glinted against her eyes. Rin's eyes widened when she saw where the prism of color came from. A blade glinting like a faceted jewel formed from Kagome's hand, and after a few heated words the miko charged at the demon. They exchanged blows and heated words.
From where Rin was at she couldn't hear any clear words but it sounded like the miko was extracting some answers from Kyouhou. The dark haired demon was laughing at the distressed woman, taunting her and making her angrier. The fight became more intense as the miko didn't let up her attack at her opponent. Her ferocity catching Kyouhou by surprise, he sustained deep cuts that bled copiously.
Rin dropped down from her perch and carefully neared the on going fight readying her battleaxe for any unforeseen event. As she crept behind a tree she heard Kagome scream at the fear demon and the sword reformed into shards of glass. Whereupon it sped to Kyouhou like a whirlwind as it slashed and tore at the screaming youkai.
Before the fear demon was reduced to bloody shreds Kagome made a motion of her hand and the shards vanished. In a flash the youkai/miko has Kyouhou's neck in a throttle, shouting at his face. The demon tried vainly to remove the woman's hand from his neck.
Vortex of power began to whirl around the miko; a telltale sign of transformation. Kagome's cobalt blue eyes began to darken even more, the pupils turning red. Rin has seen her father in numerous full transformations and once in half transformation where his eyes bled red and the pupils turn black but Kagome's seem to be different.
Suddenly, the miko was distracted by an approaching clamor from the opposite direction. She threw the gagging demon away; the transformation halted. When the Western Lord and his opponent crashed back to the fight scene the miko was standing calmly in the middle of the small clearing.
Previously on Triumvirate:"Brother, what happened?" Kyoubouna ran to his fallen brother. Kyouhou clutched his bloody side his whole body sliced in razor like precision.
"That bitch! You bitch!" Kyouhou spat. Bloody spittle spewing from his mouth. The object of his wrath looked at him and lifted her brows.
"That's what you get when you ruin a perfectly good pair of pants!" Kagome pointed at the tear on her right leg. "Serves you right."
"Where's Muchitsujo?" Kyoubouna noticed his brother limping out of the copse of trees. Kyoubouna snarled at the condition of his two siblings. "Did she do this to you?" He pointed at Kagome. Muchitsujo didn't even lift his head in shame; he fell on the hard ground.
"I believe my daughter should be blamed on his sorry state, Kyoubouna. She can be very vengeful when someone tries to play dirty tricks on me." The girl in question was lounging in the crook of a low hanging branch eating peaches.
"What? That kid? Imbecile!" Kyoubouna landed a slap on his sibling's head. "We are not yet finished, Sesshoumaru!" Kyoubouna shouted at the stoic taiyoukai.
"You are wrong, Kyoubouna. We are." Bakusaiga hummed and in a flash Kyoubouna went flying to slam on the side of the mountain before everything went dark for him.
~O~O~O~
Sesshoumaru growled with satisfaction at the smoking lump of Kyoubouna. The demon lay among the rubble almost a mile away.
"You killed my brother!" Kyouhou pointed a shaking finger at the tall taiyoukai.
"Fool, if I wanted to he would have been dead a while ago. Unfortunately, he lives to answer my questions. For now." The Western Lord sheathed Bakusaiga and ordered his generals to collect the troublesome trio and incarcerate them in the dungeons.
"My lord…" He turned to Rin but his ward has her head turned he followed the direction of her eyes and saw the miko walking away from the battle site and back to the village. When he turned back Rin's lips were pursed in a firm cast.
He recognized her expression. "What upsets you, Rin?" Instead of answering the young woman's eyes returned to the path where the priestess egressed.
~O~O~O~
Kagome's footsteps took her back to the village, her boots falling heavily on the hard sod, a grim expression on her face. It's not true. It can't be, she said in her mind over and over. She wanted to deny it. She felt the heavy weight of guilt on her shoulders, again.
As Kagome passed the rows of newly turned mounds at the end of the village the miko felt hot tears on her cheeks oblivious of the stares from the soldiers burying the rest of the dead. The men stopped their toil to look at the miko/taiyoukai; her platinum hair spreading behind her like a cape from the energy emanating from her whole being and recoiled when they felt the brush of her power as she passed by. They looked at one another wondering at the cause of the miko's rage. They observed as she stopped several feet before the gruesome looking poles left by the sadistic Sons of Wrath and with a violent surge of power that rocked the ground the poles were set ablaze.
Kagome lowered her shaking hands; the power subsiding from her palms as her body was wracked with hard sobs. First, it was the Shikon no Tama. Now, this. She felt every death, every sundered soul, every scream…
She fell on her knees in front of the burning poles. Her tears pattering down on her hands and leather clad knees. The length of her hair falling down around her head like a silver curtain.
~O~O~O~
The Fight"You lie!" The miko shrieked as she deflected a downward stroke from Kyouhou.
"Do I, priestess?" The demon sneered. "You know I do not."
"How?" Kagome gave the fear demon a bone-jarring hack.
"You sleep walked." Kyouhou even moved his fingers in a walking motion and sniggered.
Kagome paled. So something did happen that night! Gods! To be used this way, again, incensed the priestess.
"What did you do to Kazumi? Where is she?" Her anger lent more strength to her attack.
Kyouhou touched the open wound near his right lung and came away bloody. His eyes darkened in anger. "You bitch!"
"I'll carve my name on your hide so you'll remember it!" A blast from her hand staggered the fear demon almost losing his balance but she did burn his torso.
The demon laughed while backing away and coughing bloodily. "You've got guts, miko!"
"Where is Kazumi? Tell me!"
"There never was a Kazumi, didn't you know?"
"Wha…what?" Her anger peaked when she heard another cackle from the gray-eyed youkai.
"You honestly thought she's for real?" Kyouhou almost doubled in laughter. "I should thank Muchitsujo for that wonderful job!"
"You'll pay for this!" The miko screamed as she changed the sword into pieces of shards and let them slice and cut the demon all the while enjoying the scream coming from his mouth.
As the miko flicked her hand to vanish the shards she sprang at the bloody neck of the gray-eyed demon her claws digging into the flesh. She snarled at his face. "Die!" She could feel herself changing and she wanted to give in to her impulse, she liked the feeling of this power.
Her enhanced sensitivity alerted her at the double youkai signatures, they are still far away to sense her but they were fast approaching this way. She snarled in anger but released the struggling Kyouhou with a toss. The power curling back in.
~O~O~O~
The poles continue to burn tinting the darkening early evening dusk with its orange glow. It looked a like a gory funeral pyre. The woman sobbing on her knees was unaware of the silence that reigned at the fearful display of her power both to youkais and the human girl who witnessed it.
Kagome lifted her bowed head when a shadow blocked the flickering flames. Sesshoumaru held out his hand to the grief stricken woman, his eyes held hers. Kagome felt another surge of sadness and tears before she took his proffered hand. She was surprised when the Lord of the West pulled her into his embrace and the woman who had been the Shikon no Miko and now a transformed youkai felt her heart break once more.
~}O{~