The lack of reviews encourage writer's block. Really.

New Discoveries

A dirt path led out of the large village Inuyasha and his friends spent the night, very comfortably, in. The group was on the move again as always, in no particular hurry. Their treading was light; the heaviest object they had being Kagome's bike. As they left their marks on the path, their monk friend sighed dreamily.

"Ahh, that woman truly was a beauty. Her features were just so perfect..."
He said, obviously not noticing that the woman he proposed to was directly behind him, wielding a rather large weapon. How easy it would have been just to have his head at that moment, but no. Sango was a mature girl. She can keep things in... Sometimes… She did catch a glimpse of the woman Miroku spoke of the previous day, Sango had to admit, she wasn't a woman a man could ignore easily. Deciding to forgive him that once, she unintentionally bore holes into the back of Miroku's head with her icy glare; she found it hard to suppress her anger for an unknown reason with the monk. Shaking her head disapprovingly, she continued on down the path. Looking over at her other friends, Sango could see Inuyasha wasn't interested at all in what Miroku had to say. She smiled at this; Inuyasha was stubborn about everything, even women. It was the one thing that Sango envied about Kagome though; Inuyasha was a fairly devoted guy. She had absolutely no idea what went on in his enigmatic expressions, but at least he wasn't so open on who he found attractive and such. Looking over at Kagome, Sango noticed that she nodded with a smile to everything Miroku had to say about the woman. It seemed that Kagome didn't mind a lot of things, as long as it wasn't Inuyasha was the "criminal." She knew it wasn't any of her business, yet she wasn't very content with the number of times that her best friend used the somewhat cruel charm of the rosaries on Inuyasha for childish reasons. It always touched a nerve, but she didn't dare say anything. She believed in giving people their own space, and she wasn't prepared on intruding on Kagome's "methods" of affection, no matter how bad it was. Inuyasha hadn't done anything, so she decided to keep quiet until he did.

"And she had the silkiest hair I've ever seen! It was like..."

"What you're forgetting to mention..."
Inuyasha interrupted suddenly,
"Is that she smacked you in the face. She obviously wasn't interested, so shut up about it already!"

"Oh, what's this?"
A familiar, perverted smirk made its way across the monk's face.
"You didn't find yourself attracted at all to her, Inuyasha?"

Sango wondered how Inuyasha would respond to this question. With the eyes of a curious child, she scanned the hanyou's face. Would he blush and change the subject? Would he give an answer after glancing at Kagome first? She could tell that Kagome was also intently waiting for the answer. It came quickly, and didn't seem like much of a deal to him. Without a second thought, Inuyasha answered very casually with a shrug,
"She was actually kind of scary. Dominant, I guess? Not my type."

The simple answer was enough to silence Miroku, and wipe the smirk off his face as well, killing two birds with one stone. In conjunction to that, Inuyasha added,

"Hey, let's eat now, I'm hungry."
And he stepped off the pathway, sitting down on the grass without even caring what the others would say. After a second of the group staring at their unofficial leader, they followed his example, choosing a nice spot nearby to eat one of Kagome's packed lunches. Sango choked down a giggle,

'He can be pretty cute sometimes too...'
She thought.

Miles away, the small group of four continued their journey through a thicker area of the vast forests, led by the summoner Sheena. The loose ends of her long, silk, pink ribbon that she wore as a belt waved gently to her friends behind her in rhythm to her graceful steps. Her pace was quick; her excitement grew every step she took. Their destination was less than a mile away. A few moments of silent anticipation was broken by Sheena.

"There it is!"
Her sudden outburst surprised her friends, but they all lined up beside her to see the village for themselves. Under the small hill they were on, there was a large square wall of sharpened wooden pillars.

"That's all the defense they have? A bunch of sharp wooden sticks?"
Zelos scoffed, though the wall of wood was very large in size, about as tall as ten times that of his own height.

"Hey, watch what you're saying!"
Burst Sheena,
"The wall of the demon slayer village is special. The logs burrow deep into the ground, and on the bottom of each of them, there is a charm carved into it; one that was designed to protect themselves against demons."

"Like a barrier?"
Lloyd asked, his excitement also building.

"Not really, Demons can still fly over the walls.
Sheena explained, as she hopped down a small, steep ledge. Her friends followed.

"Then what's the point of having them?"
Colette asked,

"Well, all it does is limit the numbers of demons that can invade the village at a time. If there was a big attack, they would take on the airborne ones first, and then open the gates to finish the rest off. Mizuho used to have walls like these when our lands were also infested with demons. Simple I guess, but it works."

"These demon slayers were really smart, weren't they?"
Lloyd said; he couldn't even dream of something as 'clever and brilliant' as this. His idea of defending would be to pick up a sword, and take the demons head on; something that obviously wouldn't have worked.

As the group approached the gates of the village, Sheena felt more and more uncomfortable.
'Those walls, I can't touch them...'
Very casually, Sheena called her friend,
"Hey, Colette, can you fly over the gate and open it from inside?"

The smiling blonde haired girl gave a nod,
"Of course!"
And she went straight to it; her wings appearing at her back. She jumped, and her wings took her the rest of the way, over the gate and inside of the city.

The other three waited outside for their friend with much anticipation. A few moments had passed since Colette had gone in, and they heard her clumsy landing, caused by retracting her wings too early. Dusting herself, she giggled, and yelled over the wall,
"Haha, I'm okay, I was just clums-"
She froze on the spot; numbed by the sight of the state the village was in. The rust colored blood was everywhere, the houses crushed, but worst of all, round lumps that was above ground level. There were so many of them, and each had bloodstained weapons on top of them. Colette backed away with scared eyes; she definitely wasn't prepared for this.
"Colette? What's going on? Open the door for us!"
She heard Lloyd, Zelos and Sheena calling her name. Looking up, she could see a rope that held the gate in place. If she could just reach it... She couldn't, however. Truth be told, she was frightened, even scared. The fear paralyzed her; she could feel beads of sweat forming on her face and neck, her limbs shaking. There was a piercing scream; it took her a moment to realize that it was her that was screaming. The village scared her; the bloody masses of demon carcasses, the graves, everything. It was worse than being inside the Tower of Salvation with the floating coffins.

The heads of Lloyd, Sheena and Zelos snapped up from their conversations to the tops of the wall.
"Colette!"
They all exclaimed at precisely the same time, Lloyd and Zelos using their own wings to make their way over the wall as well, leaving a very hesitant Sheena. She knew she had to go inside to see if Colette was alright, and to investigate what exactly it was that made her scream. Lloyd and Zelos were completely out of sight now, and she could hear muffled voices behind the gate. She backed away, and bent down, prepared to make the high jump over the wall. After a few short breaths to get the adrenaline running, she took a few long strides, sprinting towards the wall before she made her jump.

'I can do this!'
She kept repeating it over and over in her head; and indeed, she was very far up the wall.
'Almost... There...'

She had finally reached the top, and gasped. She had caught a glimpse of the bloody, ruined village. Her focus was destroyed, and she gasped. In the moment of her distraction, she didn't realize that her leg had gotten dangerously close one of the sharp logs. By the time she realized, however, the damage was done. She felt the sharp point dig into her shin, her thin pants tearing as well as her flesh. Before the wound could bleed, there were blue sparks around the walls, and her leg, and with a small, pained squeal from Sheena, an unseen force threw her away from the village with great speed. Sheena's reflexes kicked in, and she caught herself before she could hit the ground. Widening her legs to make a wider base, she landed feet first, and skidded back.
"Ooow..."
She hissed, clutching at her bleeding leg. She was now about fifty meters from the gates of the village.
'Damn it, that stupid wall...'

She thought, applying some herbs to the cut, and wrapping it up quickly and skillfully. She walked over back to the gate, and Zelos flew over to check on her. Even Zelos was sobered by the sight of the village.

"Hey, Sheena, what happened?"
He asked, softly landing on the dirt. Sheena came up with a lame, quick response.

"N-nothing! I-I tried to climb the wall and fell."
Zelos nodded,
"Oh, okay. You should have waited for us; Lloyd's going to open the gate for us now. But... Sheena, the village, it's..."
The gates swung open as he said this, and the village was in full view. The shaky Colette picked herself up, and rushed back to join Zelos and Sheena outside of the gates. She turned away from the village, unable to look at it for any longer. Lloyd sheathed his swords which he used to slice the ropes holding the gate closed, and landed beside Colette, putting an arm around her to comfort her. Sheena hugged the girl from behind; she was so shaken up that she was sobbing quietly.

"Shh, Colette, it's okay..."
Zelos made his way to the opposite side of Lloyd, and took Colette's hand; she was shivering, and covered with goose bumps.
"I-it's t-terrible!"
Collette sobbed, wiping at her tears.

"I'm sorry Colette, I'm sorry I asked you to go alone, I-I'm sorry I brought you here..."

Sheena had tears forming in her eyes; she was struggling to keep them from falling. She had known the people in the village when she was a child, and even had a few friends there. Their search of the remaining exspheres in this part of the land was proving to be a very bad one; they hadn't found any, and the only thing they had to look forward to was the village. Even that was gone now, coming here seemed pointless...

Alright, so there's another chapter. Review please.