Well, here's chapter 21. I seriously hope this is to your liking. It should be. I think… Well, there you go and happy reading, I won't be babbling for once :]
ANONYMOUS REVIEWERS:
CatchySayo: Miroku might not have gotten a chance to do anything lecherous in the last chapter (at least not something Inuyasha or Kagome witnessed, as the story is in their POV and not someone else's), but that doesn't mean he's not a lecher. Rest assured, sooner or later, he'll show his true colors. He wouldn't be Miroku if he didn't :3 And thanks for noticing how I tried to divide the previous chapter so that it focused on everyone… it's actually rather hard to do and I'm glad I managed to do so. I hope this chapter also shows like it belongs to everyone, as you put it. Thanks a lot for the great review and hope you enjoy this one, too. I'm looking forward to hearing (reading?) from you again :]
InuGome: I have to admit that Miroku's entrance was so 'perfect' in your opinion, because I took it shamelessly out of the anime/manga, like I said at the very beginning of the fic in my disclaimer that I would sometimes do. I only tweaked it a little so it would fit the situation and Kagome's character. Glad to hear you enjoyed it anyway, though, and I'm also happy that there are people reading the foot-notes. Believe me, I definitely appreciate your promise to always to read them. But read the chapter now, ne *winks* I hope you'll like it and I also hope to hear from you again :]
Guest: Well, this time it's only one of you, so at least you know who you are… Anyway, I think it's so hard to write characters IC because there's actually a lot of analasis work behind it. Other than that, I don't know how other writers do it, but I always pretend to be the character I try to write and see how I would react to something if I was like that character (a bit like as if I was acting). And well, it's not as easy for everyone as it is for me to put themselves in someone else's shoes… but from your question, I imagine you haven't tried writing yourself. I'd advise you to, that's the best way to understand why something can be hard to do LOL Anyway, thank you for the review and glad to hear you liked it. I hope you'll like the rest of it, too :3
Misty Blue: Yeah, I agree, she definitely needed that moment with Shippō :3 To answer your question, I actually took that from the anime/manga, too. If you watch episode 16 or read chapter 54 (or something around that… the beginning of the 50s, anyway) again, you'll notice that Inuyasha is wondering what Miroku does with his right hand. When it's unleashed on him near a village, market or whatever it was, Inuyasha wonders 'what's with this wind?' and upon closer inspection noticed things are sucked in and thinks 'a kazaana in his right hand!', so he obviously also knew what it was, though the idea that the monk had it in his hand didn't cross his mind. I interpreted it as the kazaana being something people knew existed, but it had to be rare for people not to expect to ever find one. That's why Kagome recognized it once she got a good look at it, but the thought that his beads could be sealing off a kazaana didn't cross her mind – it just wasn't something common enough for her to think of it. And even if people may know it exists, I highly doubt it's common knowledge that it originates as a curse. Besides which, as limited as her (or anyone else's) knowledge of it might be, a kazaana is usually associated with something or someone evil (at least it would make sense if it would, considering how dangerous it is, sucking up its own owner eventually and all), and you hardly think a spiritualist to be evil, now do you? Even Dark priestesses aren't easily identifiable as evil until they show they don't work quite like normal priestesses do. Does this answer your question? Thanks for the review and hope you continue enjoying :3
Tracks for this chapter: none
Breakers:
XxX: change of scene
~ξ~: time-skip
乗: Beginning/Change/End of Flashback
Ю: Beginning/End of a story told by one of the character (the parts in bold between the stars are what the present them are saying as a small narrative)
Ж: Change of POV (mostly used within a story told by several characters)
[T] and [/T]: Beginning/End of soundtrack
Reminder: 'Inuyasha' written normally refers to Inuyasha, while written in cursive (cursive and bold in thoughts) refers to Kagome, the "Gentle Dog Demon". 'Hanyō' written normally means "half-demon", while written in cursive (cursive and bold in thoughts) it means "half-breed".
Many thanks to Kanna37 for edits :3
Chapter 21 – Doubt
Kagome growled under her breath as she leaned back on the trunk of the tree she was sitting in. Eyes narrowed in a fierce scowl, she took another deep breath, even though she knew nothing would come of it. 'Damned houshi,' she thought sourly for the umpteenth time that evening. 'He had to go and mess up all the scent trails with his stupid kazaana.'
After leaping into the trees and disappearing from the monk's sight, the young half-demon had fruitlessly tried to find where the scent of the enchanted sword was the strongest. If she had, she would have been able to track it. One thing a Wind Tunnel was good at, however, except sucking up things into a void they would never crawl out of, was messing up all the scents in the air, so the search had been unsuccessful. Huffing again, Kagome slumped against the trunk of the tree. 'Great. All I can do now is wait for the frigging sword to raise its ugly head again… most likely with a body to its liking by then,' she thought, irritation rising within her. No matter how unsettling it was, though, it was sadly the truth. With no trail to follow or even speak of, the silver haired hanyō could only wait for its supposed prey to make its next move.
Huffing once again, Kagome's thoughts slowly wandered to the cause of her current situation – the monk with the kazaana. Having calmed down now that she knew and accepted that the cursed sword was nowhere to be found, the young half-demon focused on the monk himself. 'He was strong,' she had to acknowledge, and she didn't mean mere physical strength. His o-fuda would have been enough to purify Tessaiga if they had stayed on long enough, and they even burned her to a degree that could hardly be considered unimportant. In all honesty, though he wasn't as strong as Inuyasha or Kikyo, the houshi was coming fairly close.
Then, there was also his Wind Tunnel. Kagome narrowed her eyes as she thought about it, her mind moving to the prayer beads that sealed it. 'The prayer beads alone could never be enough to seal something like that. Meaning he has to infuse them with his own spiritual powers to make it work. And in that case…' she didn't even need to finish the thought, the conclusion to that was obvious. Had it not been for the Wind Tunnel in his hand that somehow reduced his power because it needed to be sealed, the monk would be the perfect candidate for taking on the Sacred Jewel, at least as far as his strength was concerned.
Still, that was only had it not been for the kazaana in his hand – which the Inuyasha was slowly starting to suspect was not something the monk wished on himself. As things were, he wasn't strong enough to relieve Inuyasha of his duties and Kagome didn't know whether to be happy about it or not. She couldn't help but be mildly surprised, however. The monk was the first spiritualist they'd met since they had started their travels, not that they had traveled for long anyway. Still, he was the first spiritualist and already one that was almost strong enough to protect the Jewel. Was it luck or some kind of karma that followed her when it came to insanely strong spiritualists? First Kikyo and Kaede, who was not as strong as her older sister, for sure, but was also a very strong miko in her own right, then Inuyasha, untrained as he was and now the monk. Was she some kind of strong-spiritualists-magnet? If so, she didn't doubt that it would one day be the end of her.
XxX
Inuyasha stared at the darkening sky above him with a frown on his face. Once Kagome had left, he had moved back to his camping spot, or at least he had planned to. He ended up staying closer to the village than he was before, though he wasn't sure whether it was in case Kagome came back, or in case he was attacked by a demon in the middle of the night. Not caring to take anything out of his backpack, as he didn't need anything right away anyway, he had simply laid down on the ground and had started staring at the sky above, the sounds of the nearby village men slowly starting to rebuild what had been destroyed in the battle a few hours ago not even reaching his ears. He didn't fail to notice that all of the destruction caused in the fight between Miroku and Kagome was caused by the monk. His frown deepened.
'When she first came to this village… I thought she was looking for me… to finish what she started, maybe,' he thought with a frown. 'But now that I think about it, if it was me she was looking for, wouldn't she just sniff me out or something?' The idea didn't sound as ridiculous as he at first thought it would. If anything, it only made sense. However, that would mean that it hadn't been him Kagome was looking for, but someone else. Most likely the villager she had been following before Miroku interrupted her… but wait, wasn't the villager she followed out of the village after disarming Miroku a different one? He was rather sure it was. What could that possibly mean?
Unable to find an answer to that, Inuyasha closed his eyes, trying to get the half-demon-girl he once dared to think of as a friend out of his head. Instead, however, his mind brought up the images of her fighting him, threatening his very life… followed by those of her fight with Miroku, when she only disarmed him and already considered that 'moving him out of her way'. She hadn't threatened him at all, at least not his life.
Frowning, the young priest opened his eyes again, staring at the clouds above him. His mind kept racing, bringing up more and more images from the last few days, and suddenly, he couldn't help but notice it just didn't make any sense. Not any of it. Scowling even fiercer, Inuyasha slowly closed his eyes and allowed his memories to replay before his mind's eye.
乗
He didn't notice when Kagome slowly walker around their crossed swords, until she was almost standing next to them. When he actually registered that she had moved, she had already swung her blade in a circular movement, the rusted blade easily trapping his between the ground and itself. He tried to free the sword, but no matter how much he pulled, it just wouldn't budge.
"Give it up. You won't free your blade from my hold now," she growled at him, warning thick in her voice. "Now release your sword, Inuyasha."
乗
He stared at her back. She didn't turn around or truly acknowledge him, staring instead straight at the approaching herd of pigeon demons. Then, she spoke only four words:
"Get out of here."
She had needed to repeat that before he actually listened to her.
乗
He watched as she battled the monk who stepped in her way, stopping her from following the villager she had obviously been hunting for one reason or another. Miroku was putting up a good fight, as much as he could call it that, as the monk never did anything else than parry her blows. Eventually, however, his luck ran out and he slipped on some wood, falling backwards and thus leaving himself open to attack. Kagome used that, easily hitting his shakujō out of his hands. But instead of raising her sword and delivering a killing blow, like most villagers probably expected her to (and he had to admit that part of him did, too), she sheathed her sword and murmured a few words too softly for Inuyasha's human ears to pick up. Next thing he knew, she was weaving her way through the crowd that had formed, the terrified villagers jumping out of her way in hopes of not being killed – which they weren't as the half-demon-girl ignored them.
He couldn't move. Whatever it was that he felt in that moment, it made his body freeze completely and even if he wanted to get out of her way, he just couldn't. She could have easily struck him down if she so wished. But she didn't. She passed him almost as if he weren't even there, acknowledging his presence only by slowing down and whispering four words into his ear, words he had definitely not expected to hear.
"Be on your guard."
Then, she leapt of.
乗
Inuyasha's eyes snapped wide open at that, his now calm mind finally registering what it had not in its emotion-consumed state. He frowned, both at his thoughts and at himself, berating himself for not realizing at least one thing sooner. 'It doesn't make any sense,' he thought with a scowl, his violet orbs glaring angrily at the sky above. 'First she attacks me, then she protects me? Where's any logic in that? Unless she wants to gain my trust back… but…' his thoughts were a jumbled mess he could hardly make anything out of. Cursing at himself, Inuyasha took a long breath and tried to make sense in his head at the very least. It proved harder to say than to do, but he managed to get one thing clear in his mind – namely, that there was doubt starting to grow within him, especially as more memories forced their way into his head.
"Why were you here? So near the well, I mean."
"I said I'd make sure no other demon came through, didn't I? I can hardly do that if I'm not nearby."
"You mean… you've been fighting off yōkai this whole time?"
"What of it?"
"Why would you do that?"
"Would you rather I allowed you and your mother to get killed?"
"That doesn't answer my question."
"Too bad. That's the only answer I have."
He bit his bottom lip as that particular conversation resurfaced in his mind, the one after she came through the well for the first time to protect him and his mother from a nymph that had come through in search of the Jewel of Four Souls. Back then she had risked her life to save his, she had risked her life to protect his mother… without any reason, really, at least not one he could truly understand. The only one he could think of, and that was based on what other people called her and on what little he's seen of her character, was simply that protecting people was her nature. Especially if they were weaker than her, as much as he may hate to admit that at the time it had been so. If it was really her nature to protect people, would she really attack him for no reason? He couldn't help but doubt it.
"I can't help you learn to control your priest powers, you'll have to figure that out on your own as we travel, because I won't be saving your sorry ass every time yōkai come around. And as for your swordsmanship, I'll train you myself."
That was what he had said when they decided to set out on this journey to find a spiritualist strong enough to take the Shikon in his place. She had said she would help him get stronger in a way. And she kept her promise, she had taught him how to use a sword, she had taught him to fight in this era, she'd made him stronger. If she had been planning on killing him all along, she wouldn't have gone through the trouble. She would have killed him while he was still defenseless, for no matter how much he detested having that word associated with himself, for a while, that's what he had been.
"You're right, he is involved now. That only means I have to make sure he gets out of here alive, though. There's nothing more to this situation than there was before. I only have to protect him."
The words she had said to her brother resonated in his mind once again, the glare he was sending at the darkening heavens becoming more and more confused with each passing minute. 'She had fought against her brother… she had even fought for the first time with the intent to kill him, according to Myouga. All that… to protect me…' he thought, confused. That's what he had believed. That's what he'd been told. That was what had made sense at the time (though it had also surprised him greatly), and it still made sense now if only he believed that it had been the first time Kagome fought her brother for real – and with how he had seen her fight him at the very beginning, long before they had gone to the grave or before she had even allowed Sesshōmaru to take the key to said grave, it wasn't very hard to believe such.
Sighing, Inuyasha rested his arm on his forehead, his eyes suddenly moving to it as if he only now noticed the bandage he had once again changed on his forearm. Now that he thought about it, his arm had already been bandaged when he first awoke four days ago, hadn't it? Sure, it was sloppy and definitely looked like the person who did the bandaging had done so for the first time in their life, but it had at least prevented his bleeding to death (and, though he didn't know it, infection as well, since the wound had been cleaned beforehand). Considering there were only two people who could be anywhere nearby when he woke, there were really only two options as to who bandaged his arm: it had to have been either Kagome or Shippō. But what reason would the hanyō have to bandage him up if she had hurt him on purpose in the first place?
Overall, the idea of Kagome attacking him and intending to kill him just didn't make sense. None whatsoever. Still, the image of her holding her sword at his throat, untransformed as it was, and of her tearing her claws through his arm just refused to leave his psyche. It didn't make any sense, but it had happened, that he couldn't deny. Briefly, he thought that he must be missing something that would help him understand the situation, some part of his jumbled memory that had eluded him. But before he could dwell on that thought, the emotions the whole incident had caused to erupt within him originally flooded him again and he closed his eyes as his breath hitched slightly.
"Why, Kagome… Why? Why the Hell did you do it?" he whispered to himself, his voice cracking and revealing all of his emotions – all of the hurt and betrayal he tried to hide – without fail, Inuyasha himself being unaware that he even spoke aloud, much less that another set of ears had hear his question.
"She did it to save your stupid ass, baka," Shippō murmured under his breath in response as the black haired priest fell into a fitful sleep.
XxX
Kagome stood before him in a defensive crouch, but it didn't last long before she moved, beginning to dance with him a very dangerous dance with him. Inuyasha swung at her, which he avoided, then he swung again and again. She dodged all of his blows without fighting back even the slightest bit, until he somehow managed to get behind her. He took the chance to strike her down, but before his sword could connect with her, she turned around and drew Tessaiga, effectively blocking his attack.
When she jumped away again to get some distance between them, he followed her. Once again, she dodged and parried, until finally she fought back. Her diagonal swing forced his arm upwards, leaving him wide open. Kagome scowled, but didn't use the opening as she jumped back. He could feel his body shaking with laughter, but no sound reached his ears. He followed her again, but she blocked his attack, then slowly moved to the side without his noticing. When he did it was already too late and she swung her blade circularly, effectively trapping his blade between her own and the ground. As if from a very long distance, he hear her faint voice, and he couldn't help but wonder why she sounded so far away if she was right in front of him.
"Give it up, you won't free your blade from my hold now. Release your sword, Inuyasha," she said faintly, to the point that he was barely able to understand her words. Once she stopped talking, sound escaped his ears once more. He could feel his mouth moving, but for the life of him couldn't discern what he himself was saying except for a few scattered sounds.
"…you… ould… ive up… breed… pri… t… he… yo…"
Soon, all was shrouded in complete silence once again and he could only watch as he kicked Kagome in the stomach, forcing her to back off and freeing his sword in the process. The next few minutes were once again a one-sided battle as Kagome was forced on the defensive, until she finally managed to block one of his backwards-slashes. She then pushed his blade upwards, once again forcing him to leave himself wide open, but did not use the opening. His answer was to swing his blade down on her head, but she sidestepped the attack, then quickly grabbed his wrist in one hand while with the other she held Tessaiga at his throat. Once again, he heard her far-away words, though even fainter than before.
"Release… sword," he heard her voice, not catching all that she said and even less from his, for whatever reason, muffled response.
"And if… on't… wi… ou… kill… bo…y?"
He tried to punch her, but she jumped over him to avoid the hit. He turned around and slashed at her horizontally, but she somersaulted backwards. When she landed, she sheathed her sword, then came at him with her claws. He could feel his body shake with laughter once again as he easily blocked one of her swings and prepared to block once again as she swung with the same claw. But then, her claws bypassed his sword and tore into his forearm instead. Surprisingly, it hardly hurt… until she drew Tessaiga once again and effectively hit his sword out of his grasp. The second it flew away from him, pure, blinding agony erupted from his injured arm even as a wave of unexplainable exhaustion hit him mercilessly. He could feel himself fall forward as blackness swirled in his vision, but his hearing suddenly improved immensely as he heard Kagome's very loud and very easy to comprehend scream.
"Inuyasha!" she yelled as she caught him, but he was unable to answer her as his vision turned black.
When the blackness cleared and he could see again, Kagome was nowhere to be seen. In fact, there seemed to be no one nearby. He was alone and surprisingly, his arm wasn't injured as it should be. But instead of pondering that matter, he simply strode forward, or more like stomped, muttering angry curses under his breath. Mostly about how Kagome was underestimating him and he was stronger than she thought him to be and wanting to prove it.
"Frustrating, isn't it?" he heard a voice to his right and quickly turned to see who it was. His eyes fell on a man clad in a white baboon pelt, handing him an old-looking long-sword with a dark violet scabbard, that for some reason send shivers down Inuyasha's spine. The man talked a little bit more, about the sword and how it could bring out his real potential, then stuck it into the ground and simply walked away. Inuyasha wanted to do the same, but something about the sword drew him in and before he could think twice about the irrational fear that rose within him as he approached the weapon, his hand reached out to grasp it and his fingers gently brushed against the hilt.
XxX
The black haired priest woke up with a jolt, barely registering the sting that shot up through his injured arm as he leaned back, though he put most of his weight on his left one. He was breathing heavily and sweat was rolling down his face. He could even feel his heart beating a mile a minute in his chest and no matter what he tried, he couldn't bring himself to calm down. 'What the Hell was that?' he asked himself as he straightened up, his uninjured hand unconsciously moving to his chest and resting over his still racing heart. 'A dream… or rather a nightmare… maybe even a memory… but what did it mean? And what exactly did I dream about?'
He remembered the beginning of the dream: his fight with Kagome, in which, he only now noticed, she used her sword but stubbornly refused to let it transform, using the rusted, old and useless blade instead of the shining fang it actually was. He recalled the end of that fight, which corresponded also with his memories of the occurrence how she used her claws to tear into his flesh. Then there was black… but the dream didn't end there. What followed? What in that nightmare had made his heart race so much, as if it wanted to escape his chest?
'There was someone I dreamt of… someone who wasn't Kagome…' he remembered vaguely, but the exact figure of the person escaped his mind. 'He wanted to give me something for some reason… but what… and what for?' Inuyasha wracked his brain, trying to recall both the dream and what actually happened on that day when he stomped off angrily, for he was sure that what he just dreamt wasn't just a dream. His subconscious had remembered something, had tried to remind him, but his conscious mind stubbornly refused to acknowledge the information. It was so frustrating!
"Frustrating, is it not?" a foreign voice rang in his mind, making Inuyasha snap his head up and look around, to make sure no one was there actually talking to him. But except for Shippō who was sleeping soundly next to him curled up in a ball, there was no one. It were words he had to have heard somewhere else, but he couldn't recall where or who said them.
Sudden screams interrupted Inuyasha's futile journey through his scattered memories, making the young priest jump as he once again looked around in bewilderment. The yells had come from the village, and normally it would have been much too far into the night for Inuyasha to see anything to even take a guess what was going on. But considering there were unnaturally bright lights and that he could see smoke rising from the few buildings that either hadn't been destroyed by Miroku or had already been partially rebuilt, there wasn't really much that could be going on. Obviously, there was a fire, which was already enough reason to scream for help, at least as far as Inuyasha was concerned. Had he been from this era, however, he would have known that a little fire wasn't enough to make people scream quite like that in this time. A demon attack was.
Not thinking about that, the young priest quickly stood up and headed for the source of the screams.
"Hey, where are you going, Inuyasha! Wait up! Wait up!" the young kitsune, who had been woken by the screams, yelled after him as he followed. He knew very well what these screams meant and he also knew that the black haired kannushi was in no condition to handle whatever was plaguing this unfortunate village at the moment. Too bad the future born teen was too stubborn to listen to him and headed for the heart of the chaos, little Shippō in tow before he jumped onto his shoulder.
XxX
Kagome's eyes opened slowly as her ears twitched on her head, easily catching the approach of someone, whom her nose confirmed to be a yōkai. She unfolded her arms from within her sleeves, one hand resting on Tessaiga, which was resting against her shoulder, the other reaching down to the branch she was sitting on in order to facilitate jumping in no matter what direction, should it be needed. It turned out, however, that the tree provided her enough protection, as the demons that oh, so stealthily approached her turned out to be a pair of clumsy and ugly forest trolls.
They were about twice her height and just as fat, with a grey-green skin color and small, beady eyes. One of them was male and the other female, though both were bald. Kagome raised an eyebrow as the two demons looked around frantically, muttering something her keen ears didn't care to pick up before they finally thought to lift their heads and look up into the tree to find her. Obviously, they weren't of the brightest kind, not that any troll was ever intelligent as far as her experience was concerned.
"We finally found you, half-demon!" the male of the demon pair yelled, shaking his gigantic fist at her. Kagome's eyebrow rose even higher, if that was even possible, at the not-so-subtle thread.
"You were looking for me? Oh, and to what do I owe the honor?" she asked sarcastically, her grip on Tessaiga slackening. Even should the two trolls attack, which they probably would, she wouldn't stain Tessaiga with the blood of demons of their kind. It would be a dishonor to herself as well as her father's fang.
"You shall pay for killing our son, hanyō," the female yelled back, moving towards the tree Kagome was sitting in. She easily grabbed it, almost hugging the trunk, and proceeded to shake the half-demon-girl out of it, not that Kagome cared much for it. Still sitting calmly as if nothing were, the young hanyō glanced towards the sky in thought.
"Yeah, I remember killing some troll a few days back," she said calmly, remembering the troll who had the misfortune of running into her while on his way towards Inuyasha and the Shikon Jewel. Glancing down at the pair of trolls below her with boredom shining in her eyes, she asked: "Do you really want to fight me in order to avenge that guy?"
She already knew the answer, so she didn't wait for them to respond as she stood up on the still-shaking tree and slid Tessaiga (still in its scabbard) between her suikan and her obi, preparing to jump down between the two demons. Trolls were often too stupid for their own good and this time would be no exception – they were going to pay for that stupidity with their lives. Unfortunately, the trolls enraged screams that were the answer to her question were loud enough to drown the screams of the people of the nearby village, that would have otherwise reached the hanyō's sensitive ears.
XxX
When Inuyasha arrived at the source of all the panic, he definitely didn't find what he expected to. Sure, after Shippō yelled at him while he ran, he figured there was probably a demon attack or something of the sort, and had been glad he had taken Seiryuu along, as limited as his ability to use it was right about now. But he didn't expect the 'yōkai' to be a very much human samurai, if his armor was anything to go by, on an inexplicable rampage, swinging his sword madly and trying to kill anything that moved and dared to get in his way. Nor did the black haired priest expect Miroku to be right in front of the samurai, obviously fighting him, or at least holding him back since he was merely blocking.
If the samurai's expression was anything to go by, he couldn't care less about the monk. Mostly, he seemed to just swing his sword in his general direction, more likely just to amuse himself than anything else, though his swings were still wild and had plenty of strength behind them – enough to push the monk back a step with each strike, much like Kagome had done earlier in the day. Only this time, it was clear that should the monk be disarmed, then following his staff would be his head.
The situation changed, however, as soon as Inuyasha joined the fray or, more accurately, when the samurai moved his eyes away from Miroku and set them on Inuyasha instead. A mad grin suddenly threatened to split the warrior's face in two as he whispered a barely hearable 'found you' with glee, before he easily sidestepped the monk and charged at the stunned priest. Inuyasha almost didn't manage to draw his sword and block the downward vertical swing coming towards his head, but when steel clashed against steel, Inuyasha nearly allowed his opponents blade to cut him in half. Gasping in pain, the black haired priest easily fell to his knees, bowed his head and closed his eyes, only barely managing to keep the shaking weapon above his head with one hand on the hilt and the other supporting the blade as he fought the piercing agony that shot through his injured arm.
"Hurts, doesn't it?" the samurai spoke with a deep, husky voice, almost sounding like he was ill. "It has to, otherwise it could never be enough of a wound to make you let go of me. I would never allow you to," he continued, anger slowly overpowering his voice. Then, before Inuyasha could even force his eyes to open to see what was happening, much less move or otherwise respond, the samurai removed his sword from Inuyasha's and hit him over the head with the hilt. The black haired priest fell heavily to the ground, his sword lying beside him as he tried to overcome the pain that pulsed from his injured arm, making him want to scream – and in all reality, he barely held himself back from doing just that.
"Well, what will you do now? Your hanyō friend isn't here to protect you now, is she? And you're the only one to blame as she only did what she had to save your skin, while you believed she'd really try to kill you. Pitiful, really. But that makes you that much more of an easy mark, I'm not about to complain about that. Especially since you have something my true master wants," the warrior spoke calmly to the helpless teen on the ground, his arm already rising to deliver the final strike. He was interrupted, however, as a few straps of paper suddenly cut through the air, one almost getting stuck to the blade. Narrowing his eyes, the samurai turned his head just in time to see Miroku coming at him, his staff raised above his head.
While the attacking warrior was occupied with the monk, Inuyasha slowly managed to open his eyes, then slowly get to his knees, still panting heavily and barely suppressing pathetic groans of pain. It took him a while, but finally, he was able to somehow see past the pain, though his brain was still much too unfocused to really understand what the samurai had said a second ago or even ponder it, focusing instead on the here and now. Gritting his teeth, the black haired priest slowly grabbed his sword again, this time with both hands on the hilt, and raised it into a fighting stance. The by then somewhat dulled pain in his arm intensified once again, but he managed to ignore it somehow, focusing instead on the fighting duo before him, waiting for the right moment.
It presented itself fairy quickly. The samurai, obviously absorbed in his battle with Miroku, had seemingly forgotten that Inuyasha was even there and turned his back to him. Still, Inuyasha waited, not allowing himself to take a hit as cowardly as this, though had he thought past his pride about it, he would have remembered Kagome's words that somehow, he sometimes mistook being honorable with being stupid. Unbeknownst to him, this was one of those times.
When the fighting pair turned a bit more, Inuyasha saw an opening and this time charged forward. The samurai didn't seem to have noticed him, but Miroku did and for some odd reason had yelled at him to stop. He didn't need to bother, though, for even with the samurai not moving an inch, Seiryuu's blade passed harmlessly mere inches away from his armored arm. He clicked his tongue.
"Ah, yeah, that was one of your body's problems, wasn't it. Such good aim and yet you fall a few inches short of your target. If anything was a pain while fighting that half-demon, it was definitely that. I'm not surprised this is the cause of your downfall," he said as he easily grabbed Miroku's approaching staff in his hand before pushing him a fairly distance away, while his sword came towards Inuyasha in a diagonal swing. The samurai had, however, underestimated Inuyasha's speed, and with the help of his uninjured hand to guide his sword, Inuyasha blocked the blow. Not without some difficulty, but he blocked it nonetheless.
"What was that? If you want to make any progress, you have to fight me like you want to kill me. Aim for me like you want to cut me open," Kagome's words resonated briefly in his head, but the black haired priest swiftly pushed them aside, only allowing himself to acknowledge that maybe he should have listened to her back then before he focused solely on the fight before him.
The young kannushi gritted his teeth once again as more pressure was put onto his injured hand and not only his sword, but his entire body started to tremble as he tried desperately to remain upright instead of falling to his knees again. Seeing this, the samurai smirked and easily put even more strength behind his weapon. Inuyasha hissed as he felt his knees were just about ready to buckle beneath him again, but before they did, his attacker suddenly retreated as Inuyasha's sword suddenly started to glow with a bright, blue light.
'The purifying energy,' Inuyasha realized as he gazed from his sword, to the samurai, to his sword and back to the samurai again, taking deep gulps of air and fighting with himself not to wipe away the sweat from his forehead with his good hand, as he could not use Seiryuu with only his injured arm. Only now did he actually take a good look at his opponent and, more importantly, his weapon.
The man in front of him was middle aged, hardly half a head higher than him and only slightly brighter, most of which was probably his rich, black-golden armor. He had black hair tied in the common top-knot and black eyes, which Inuyasha couldn't help but think looked like the eyes of a dead man. The sword in his hand was an usual one indeed, for its blade was a deep violet color. A few feet behind Inuyasha, Shippō observed the battle from a distance, his whole form trembling with fear, for he recognized the sword, of course. It was the very same sword that had possessed Inuyasha almost a week ago, the very same sword Kagome had tried to hunt down for the last two days.
Even though Inuyasha didn't know all that, however, he narrowed his eyes as he glanced at the sword, a weird feeling rising in his gut the longer he looked at it, like a mixture of anger and fear. 'That sword… I've seen it somewhere before… I'm sure I did… but where?' he thought desperately, but before he could even begin to try and remember, the samurai pulled him out of his thoughts with his laugh.
"I admit, that caught me off guard. But it will not do so again. You won't have the chance to even try that," he spoke and, before Inuyasha could blink, charged again, this time aiming a thrust straight at the black haired teen's trachea. It was only because someone unceremoniously shoved him to the ground that the thrust missed, as Inuyasha had been too stunned to move in time. Steel clashed with metal as the samurai's sword fell on Miroku's staff, the monk just barely seeming to strain a little to block the hit, though he did take a step back to have better footing.
"You are injured, kannushi-sama. You are in no position to fight. Get to safety, I shall purge the evil out of this man," the monk spoke calmly, yet his voice was still a commanding one. Too bad Inuyasha wasn't one to listen to orders.
"Keh, as if I would run. I'm gonna fight, damn it, and there ain't nothing you can do to stop me," he bit back, swallowing a groan as he stood up again, his injured arm unmistakably protesting the idea as another wave of pulsing pain cursed through him.
"Do not be foolish, you will die!" the monk yelled at him, the temper he never showed before suddenly surfacing. Their opponent was quicker to respond than Inuyasha, though.
"You will both die," he said with glee as he once again pushed Miroku away with little visible effort. "Starting with you!" he added as he attacked Inuyasha again, forcing the black haired priest to swiftly retreat to avoid the blade, blissfully unaware of its deadliness should it give him the smallest of cuts.
In all of the commotion, no one noticed the pair of children, one human girl and one little fox-kit, running in a large arc around the fighting trio and towards the forest as if the bats of Hell were behind them.
XxX
Kagome growled under her breath as she jumped once again into the trees. Stupid as they were, these trolls were sturdier than she thought they'd be and she had actually had to rely on her Sankon Tessō to penetrate their thick skin – not that her claws weren't enough, but it was definitely easier if she aided herself with her youki. Add to that they just refused to lie down and die and you had a pretty good idea of why the young half-demon was getting annoyed.
Her ears twitched on her head when she caught the rustling of leaves and some whispered voices that definitely didn't belong to any troll. She turned her head in that direction and saw Shippō coming out of the bushes along with a slightly familiar human girl. Unfortunately, the trolls noticed them, too, and ran at them with mad screams, thus notifying the kids of their presence, though instead of running, the pair seemingly froze in place. Cursing under her breath, Kagome dove straight for them, snatched one child in each hand and fled into the trees again, barely avoiding some angry and somewhat bloody fists.
"Shippō, what in the world are you doing here? And why is a human with you? Do you want to get her killed and yourself in the process, too?" she asked angrily with a furious frown on her face which made the young fox wince.
"No, Kagome-sama, I just…" he started but trailed off, his eyes falling down to the ground way below. Softening her gaze, Kagome opened her mouth to remind him not to use keigo, but before she could, the human girl spoke up first.
"I was the one to run into the forest, he just followed me, hanyō-san," the girl said while bowing politely as well as she could considering her problems with balancing on a tree branch. Kagome easily reached out a hand to steady her, actually surprised when her help was accepted but not showing it. Looking close at the kid, she suddenly realized that it was this very same girl that had almost been sucked into the monk's kazaana. What she wanted to know was why the kid was in the forest to begin with. As if sensing her questions, the girl, who Kagome now remembered had been called Kazuko by her mother, opened her mouth to speak, her hold on Kagome's sleeves tightening while Shippō dug his small claws into the branch he was standing on when the trolls started shaking the tree they were in, unsuccessfully trying to get one of the three down.
"I wanted to look for you and he said he'd smell you out and lead me to you, so that it's quicker," the little girl spoke swiftly. "We need your help, hanyō-san," she continued, speaking so politely that Kagome had to raise an eyebrow, wondering both at her way of speech and the fact that she was asking her for help. She soon understood the reason, however.
"A samurai came to our village not long ago, asking for shelter. But he isn't like samurai are supposed to be! He's evil! He came into the village looking for shelter, but when we denied him, as our village wasn't fit to help him, he started to threaten everyone and almost killed a few of the men… chichi-ue was among the ones he attacked. A monk and a kannushi are trying to stop him, but the monk lacks the physical strength to do it and the kannushi is hurt. Please, hanyō-san, you have to help us. You have to stop that samurai!"
Kagome only stared at Kazuko with wide eyes for several seconds, until Shippō broke her out of her stupor with one, final, vital information Kazuko had been unable to give:
"He has that sword that possessed Inuyasha!"
And that was all Kagome needed to know. With an annoyed 'stay here for a bit', she swiftly jumped down towards the trolls that still refused to either die or just let her be, drawing Tessaiga as she did so. 'I really don't like the idea of using Tessaiga against lowlifes such as them, but…'
"I don't have time for you!" she yelled out, finishing her thought aloud as the sword fell down, instantly killing the male troll. Landing gracefully on the ground, Kagome swiftly turned around and slashed at the enraged female demon that approached her with a raised fist. She didn't cut her in half at the waist like she actually wanted to, but managed to deal a deep enough wound to make the troll stagger slightly, giving the half-demon the few milliseconds she needed to decapitate the yōkai.
The annoyance being taken care of, Kagome threw what she could of the trolls' blood off her father's fang, happy to note that she managed to cleanse the blade with only air before sheathing it and swiftly jumping into the tree she left the children at. Snatching them both into her hands before she settled them on her shoulders, she told them to hold on tight as she leapt off in the direction of the village. Within minutes, she was close enough to hear the screams and sounds of battle that had previously escaped her ears and she cursed herself for allowing a pair of stupid trolls to lead her further away from the village than she should have been.
"Oi, human girl," Kagome couldn't help but speak, knowing they had a minute or two before she reached the village, though she was going as fast as she could. There was something she just had to ask. "Why did you come to me for help?"
"Because you can help," Kazuko replied like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "You know how to fight and you're strong. You can help our village, I know it."
"But I am a half-demon," Kagome pointed out, glancing suspiciously at the girl over her shoulder, but the child didn't seem fazed by it one bit. She just shrugged.
"But you aren't evil. I know you aren't. You don't feel evil, unlike that samurai," the child replied easily, making the hanyō-girl raise her eyebrows in wonder.
'I don't feel evil, huh? Wonder why she says that… Obviously, she's not sensing my youki, or I would qualify as 'evil' to her, so I don't think it's the same as what miko feel,' Kagome thought to herself as she ran, her keen eyes already seeing the end of the trees. She forced those thoughts aside quickly, though, as she neared her destination. Now was not the time to ponder such things.
XxX
The samurai laughed as he once again dodged Miroku's sacred o-fuda and blocked the monk's incoming staff just as easily. Trained and strong as he might be, Miroku could not best one who trained in the art of fighting for most of his life, not in physical strength anyway, especially if said someone was possessed by a sword that could care less about the body's limits. The samurai pushed the houshi back one more time, this time further than before and with a small scowl on his face, though his amused half-smile was still in place.
"This has really been entertaining," he said slowly, almost lazily, turning his head towards Inuyasha. The black haired priest wasn't far away from him, still with both hands on his sword and breathing heavily, though Seiryuu's blade was resting against the ground. Whether he liked it or not, he was tiring out and the increasing pain in his right forearm, along with the dulling throbbing of his head after the samurai had hit him didn't help matters any. If it hadn't been for Miroku, he would have probably died by now…
"However… it's time to finish it."
… but that didn't mean he was safe yet.
With a mighty battle cry, the warrior all but flew at Inuyasha, just barely giving the priest the time to dodge his horizontal slash. The young ningen boy didn't get the chance to counter, however, as the samurai swung at him in a diagonal, upward arc, forcing him to retreat a few steps more. With his sword once again in the air, the man grinned and let it fall vertically. Preparing himself for another wave of pain, Inuyasha raised his sword with both hands, then swiftly moved his left one from the hilt to the blade to support it, effectively blocking the attack… or so it seemed.
He had been prepared for pain at that point, but not the burning, blinding agony that shot not only through his arm, but seemed to travel through his entire body as the two swords collided. Inuyasha closed his eyes and his face contorted into a very telling grimace. The pain was so intense it was blinding and almost made him pass out. And though he didn't lose consciousness, his grip on Seiryuu slackened just a tiny, little bit, which the samurai used to his advantage, raising his sword once again above his head and slicing diagonally, hitting the sword away from its owner and throwing Inuyasha to the ground in the process, where the black haired teen remained, unable to move.
"It's the end for you," he heard above him, the closeness of the voice telling him that the person who spoke was only a foot or two away from him. Somewhere further away Miroku was yelling something Inuyasha couldn't quite make out and didn't really care to understand at the moment. Some small part of his brain was telling him to ignore the pain and ignore the fatigue, to just stand up and continue fighting. But that proud part of his mind was quickly forced to shut up as the agony he felt was just too overwhelming to ignore. Holding his arm against his chest, Inuyasha could feel the bandages getting soaked with a sticky substance and knew instantly just why it hurt so much he thought he was fucking dying. The wound had reopened because of all the strain he had put on his arm.
Trying to control his erratic heartbeat and to stop himself from groaning in pain (which he failed miserably at this time around), Inuyasha somehow managed to force his eyes open a little bit, just in time to see a violet blade descending towards him. Unable to do much else, he closed his eyes again and waited for the end, only one coherent thought passing through his pain-flooded mind.
'I… don't want to die…'
But his opponent hardly cared about what he wanted or didn't want and the blade was swung down mercilessly.
Evil cliffhanger much? Maybe, but I can allow myself one every once in a while, can't I? I actually wanted to go on after this, but then the chapter would be way too long.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed. And I forgot to say so before, but thank you for all your wonderful, encouraging reviews. I hope you'll keep them coming, I love hearing from you guys. Just please, don't try to kill me for not reuniting Inuyasha and Kagome yet, OK? To my credit and defense, Inuyasha's starting to have doubts, so you should be happy… partially… right?
Looking forward to hearing from you all should you choose to review :3