-1A/N: I should've titled this chapter 'Writer's Block' for I had a serious case of it while writing this chapter. It's still pretty...bland. Hopefully I won't lose too many readers over it.
Chapter 6
Inuyasha and gang were not-so-uncommonly traveling from village to village looking for news of Naraku. At each village, Kagome picked up new techniques for her powers, learning to erect barriers around herself and even this neat thing where she focused her purification powers on her hand so that she could throw a wave of purification with just a flick of her wrist. Kagome still decided to keep her training and new powers secret from the others. She had also kept her meeting with Sesshomaru a secret, which included that kiss they had shared. She hadn't seen Sesshomaru since and was beginning to wonder if he was avoiding her.
The group had reached the far west shoreline and were about to return to Kaeda's when they stumbled across a desolated village. Everything was dead: people in the streets and homes, chickens in the yards, horses in the stables, even the plant life had withered away into crunchy brown-ness. The strangest thing of all was that there were no marks on the bodies of the dead. Nothing to suggest what had killed them.
"What could do all this?" gasped Kagome, holding Shippo closer to herself.
"Naraku. His stench is everywhere making it impossible to tell exactly where he is," growled Inuyasha, his lip turned in disgust.
Suddenly, a pot flew out of a nearby hut doorway, shattering on Inuyasha's head. They could hear the shuffling and clinking from inside of someone rummaging as two more pots flew out of the door, both crashing on Inuyasha's head. The half-demon lost his temper, drawing Tessaiga from his side and transforming it into it's fang mode. He was about to destroy the entire hut with his windscar when Kagome shouted, "Inuyasha, sit!"
Inuyasha fell to the ground, barely missing the sharp edge of his own sword.
"Kagome!" Inuyasha yelled, but Kagome made hushing motions with her hands saying, "Inuyasha, you can't just kill innocent people. I don't sense a demonic aura, so it's probably only a human. Maybe they can tell us what happened."
True to Kagome's suspicions, a dirty head, yet a human head nonetheless, peeked out of the doorway.
"I'm warning you, demons! I'm armed!" the person in the hut threatened, though the voice was shaky. It was a gruff male voice.
Kagome took over this diplomatic situation, "Sir, please. We are not demons and we are not here to hurt you. Can you tell us what happened here?"
The man came out of the hut, still casting the group suspicious glances. He was pulling a wooden cart loaded with miscellaneous valuables which Kagome suspected he had pilfered from the surrounding huts. The man himself was thin and rough-looking- his ribcage was clearly visible beneath his torn weather-beaten and dirty clothes. Everything was evidence to the fact that he was homeless.
"Aye. I saw what happened. Never will forget it, I won't. I was live in the woods, see. Good thing too. The cloud of poisonous gas missed me. But these people weren't so lucky. It came rolling through, like a thick fog. A cloud of miasma it was. Killed everything, then rolled on to the sea, taking many souls with it. I'm just here to salvage what I can."
"You mean pick the valuables off the villagers' corpses," accused Inuyasha rudely.
"They wouldn't be needing them anymore," argued the man without shame.
"Never mind that," stepped in Miroku, preventing Inuyasha from punching the man, "Did you see where the miasma came from?"
"Just follow the trail of death. It leads to the cliffs and to that cave," the man said, pointing to a cliff face behind him. Even from their distance, they could see a black mouth of a cave entrance. The man went on with his pilfering, ignoring the group as they buried the dead bodies, Miroku saying a brief prayer over each mound of earth. It was mid afternoon when they finished and they began to journey to the distant cliffs. the way was easy enough, the followed the path of dead plants, speeding their trip along. However, they walked slowly so that they could rest their energy. There was no telling what they would meet at that cave.
They had an uneasy night, camped below the sheer wall of rock. They had reached the cliff at sundown and dared not climb the cliff until it was light. Kagome kept turning in her sleep, uneasy about something.
Sango asked, "What's wrong Kagome?"
"I can't sense any shards of the shikon jewel. If it was really Naraku, I should be able to sense his shards."
"Maybe there's a barrier," Miroku said knowingly.
"Maybe..." trailed Kagome, turning over again to try to go asleep. She was slightly upset that, even after all the training she had put herself through, she still couldn't sense past Naraku's barrier.
The next morning they began to go up the wall of the cliff. Sango and Miroku on Kirara; Kagome on Shippo in his bubble form; Inuyasha jumping from rock to rock.
"This cave reeks of Naraku. He's in there, all right.," said Inuyasha when they reached the cave entrance, holding his sleeve up to his nose trying to block the smell.
"It could very well be a trap," reasoned Miroku.
"Bah, doesn't matter," spat Inuyasha, "Naraku is going to die today no matter what he has planned. Well, what are we waiting for? I'm going to go kill that bastard!"
Inuyasha took off into the cave and was instantly thrown back as he hit a barrier.
"Barrier, eh?" Inuyasha pulled his Tessaiga out, transforming it into it's red barrier-breaking form. "Take this!" he shouted, throwing himself at the barrier only to be thrown back again as the barrier resisted his Tessaiga. "What!"
"Try this," Kagome said, placing her hand on Tessaiga's blade and causing it to glow pink, essentially merging her own powers with Inuyasha's. "Now it has a protective purification shield. The two attacks together might break Naraku's barrier."
"Since when has she been able to control her powers like that?" Miroku whispered to Sango. Sango just shrugged as she watched Inuyasha try the new attack. The barrier broke allowing the group to enter the cave. Inside, there was a single passage, like a tunnel. It sloped downward and had torches lit every ten feet or so allowing the group to see bones and carcasses on the ground. It just added images to the gore-reeked air smelling of death.
The group continued walking down this path, as it had no other paths branching off of it. An eerie silence fell over the group only broken by a distant drip of water. The further they traveled, the closer this drip of water sounded. Eventually, the tunnel ended and they came to a huge cavern. There was an underground lake in the middle of the open space. The lake was in constant ripples due to one huge stalagmite forming a stone tornado shape above the cavern that had a thin stream of water running down it. This water eventually dripped off into the lake. The rest of the ceiling could not be seen because of the hordes of flying demons- Naraku's usual entourage.
Standing on top of the water in the middle of the underground lake was the most hated enemy of the small group- Naraku!
He wore an evil smile and dangerously dancing eyes. He sneered, "Inuyasha..."
A/N: That's all I have time to type right now. I'll update again early tomorrow morning...okay...early to me is 9...so expect it around 10...maybe...