Scroll 6 – Yura of the Hair

Inu Yasha shivered as he began to rinse the blood off of his side. Kaede's words flitted through his mind again.

"It is too cold to wash in the stream. You will freeze. We will have to cut your toes and fingers off to save you."

He gritted his teeth and continued to clean up. He knew his mother would go into hysterics if he came home covered in blood. He sighed and stood up. He was really glad there wasn't a breeze. He waded back to the bank and grabbed his clothes. As he turned to scrub the blood out of his school uniform, he noticed a dark head with pointy ears peeking over a rock. He let out a yelp and sat down in the shallow water. "Bad, kitty!"

The head immediately fell out of sight and was replaced by a cloud of dust. A growl drifted over to him followed by a chuckle. Inu Yasha hastily jumped out of the water and put on the clean outfit Kaede had found for him.

Up on the ridge, Kaede continued to laugh at the disgruntled cat demon. A few moments later Inu Yasha rushed up, fully dressed in a priest's outfit and began to yell at Kagome.

"What in the hell were you doing?!" he blustered.

"Keh! I wasn't peeping if that's what you're thinking," Kagome muttered, her back to the fuming boy. "Not that there was much to see anyway," she snickered. Even though she didn't turn around, she knew Inu Yasha was turning bright red. She could hear him grinding his teeth and muttering about not hitting girls.

"She was trying to get the Jewel, were you not, Kagome?" Kaede asked, still amused by their actions.

"Keh! Why do you ask such dumb questions?" Kagome muttered rolling her eyes.

As Inu Yasha continued to grumble and Kagome continued to sulk, one of the village women came up to Kaede and whispered something to her.

"Oh, dear," Kaede murmured. "Show me to her." She turned to the two fuming figures behind her. "I must go back and tend to one of the village girls. Try to get along. The two of you will soon be searching for the Shikon Shards together." With that, Kaede followed the woman back to the village.

Inu Yasha went back to the river and grabbed his dirty school uniform. As he came back up the ridge, Kagome finally caught a glimpse of him. She frowned. "Take those clothes off!" she growled.

"What?!" Inu Yasha cried, spinning to look at her. "You are one twisted little cat," he told her with disgust.

"I didn't say 'strip naked,' just put your own damn clothes back on!" she muttered rolling her eyes. "Someone obviously thinks very highly of himself," she snickered.

"And the old woman actually thinks we'd survive traveling together," Inu Yasha mumbled as he stalked away from the still laughing hanyou. "I think it's beyond time for me to leave this loony bin. Let's see if I can find this well place." He turned from the path to the village and headed towards the forest.

After a bit of searching and plain old luck, Inu Yasha finally found the old well. He peered over the side. Well, that doesn't look very deep.

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As Kaede approached the hut, the woman continued to explain how she couldn't even rouse her daughter. They entered and saw the girl lying on her mat, her skin pale and her breathing shallow.

Suddenly, the girl's arms lifted and Kaede and the girl's mother started in surprise. Then the girl began to rise. It looked as if someone was drawing her into a standing position by her arms. Kaede and the mother stared. They could see that the girl was not awake. Her head rolled from side to side and her body appeared to be held up by invisible strings.

The two women watched in horror as a knife flew into her hands and she began to glide towards them. The girl's mother started to cry and held her arms out to her daughter. Kaede caught a glimpse of something attatched to the girl's arm. She squinted ands aw a very thin strand of something that looked like it was manipulating the girl's arm and several more strands holding her body up. Her eyes widened in surprise. "Don't go near her! She is being controlled!" she warned the mother, but she was too late. The girl slashed her mother with the knife and turned towards the old priestess.

Kaede began to back out of the house when she noticed that the rest of the villagers were approaching. When she glanced at them she realized that instead of being there to help, they were being controlled like the girl coming toward her. Like the girl, they were all armed with cutlery. Kaede tried to slip past the shuffling villagers, but she was surrounded. They began slashing at her and the old priestess fell to the ground. Bleeding, she began to craw through the sea of legs as the villagers stumbled over each other.

Suddenly she heard a voice ring out over the villagers. "What the hell are you doing?! Get off me, filthy human!"

"Kagome!" Kaede called out. "Don't kill them, they are being controlled!"

"What are you babbling about, hag? What's going on? Hey! I said don't touch me!" Kagome hissed.

"Kagome, the villagers are being controlled by someone, like puppets. They are being manipulated with the hair," the old priestess explained.

"Huh? Hair? I don't see any hair!" She landed gracefully next to the priestess. "Stop talking nonsense, hag, and tell me what the hell is going on!" She lashed out at a few of the villagers who kept pressing closer.

"Where's Inu Yasha?"

"Don't know, don't care!" Kagome hissed.

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Inu Yasha stared down into the well. Do I just jump in? This place is like Alice in Wonderland, it all makes no sense, he thought with a sigh.

"Ooo la la!" giggled a voice behind him. Inu Yasha whirled around. A dark haired girl stood on one of the lower branches of one of the trees. "I seem to have found a very tasty treat," said the girl with a feral grin. She waved her hand and Inu Yasha saw hundreds of thin strands of hair rush towards him. He barely had time to flinch before they trapped him next to the dried well. The girl leapt gracefully down from the tree and landed in front of him. "How kind of you to bring the Shikon Jewel to me. Now, are you going to be a good little boy and just hand it to me or am I going to have to find it myself?" she asked. She grinned again at him and sidled closer.

"I-I don't know what you're talking about. And who the hell are you? Why would I have any jewels—" he began.

"Bah!" she laughed. "I am Yura of the Hair and I am not stupid. I can feel the Jewel on you, boy." She pulled out a dagger and began twirling it. "I guess I can do this the fun way," she giggled. She flicked her hand again and the hairs boxing him in pressed closer. He flinched away as one pressed too close to his face and left a small cut. She stepped up to him tapping her lip. She twirled her dagger again and smiled. She started to trace a line with her dagger starting at his head and tracing down to the waistband of his pants then continuing to his pocket. Where he kept the Shikon shard. She giggled and plucked the little bottle containing the shard out of his pocket. "I think I can make better use of this than you, pathetic human," she said as she hopped back up to her perch in the tree. She turned and looked at him with a grin. "I cannot think of any uses for you so I might as well rid this place of one more annoying human."

She hefted her dagger and without any hesitation threw it directly at Inu Yasha. He let out a strangled scream and jerked backwards. Inu Yasha managed to dodge the flying blade but lost his balance in the process. He let out another strangled scream as he fell. The girl frowned and jumped down to the edge of the well. Her frown changed to a look of puzzlement when she looked down into the well. Inu Yasha was no where to be seen. Yura cocked her head to the side. "Puzzling…Oh, well," she shrugged and smiled as she held up the vial with the shard in it.

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A/N: again I am sorry for taking so long in getting this chapter out, college and work hit me hard and fast...technically i should be working on my readings and physics for tomorrow, but i got a free coffee this evening (who am i to waste good coffee?) and so i'm kind of jittery, so i can't go to sleep, but i'm too hyped up to sit here and read boring stuff or focus on physics problems

i did manage to find a few websites that had summaries of the separate chapters of the manga so i won't get off track too badly now...i'm also almost finished chapter seven, so hopefully it won't be almost a year before my next post

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