Warning: This chapter contains adult themes that I consider dark.

Chapter Eight: Into the Black Forest

Yesterday is History,
'tis so far away --
yesterday is Poetry,
'tis Philosophy --

Yesterday is Mystery --
Where it is today --
While we shrewdly speculate
Flutter both away

-Emily Dickenson

ooooo ooooo ooooo ooooo ooooo ooooo ooooo

Kagome stirred slowly and still felt a little chilled even though she could tell she had blankets over her. It was several blinks and her vision clearing to realize that she was in the den and then several more moments before she sat up straight looking around in uncertainty.

The whole room was clean. The books that had been torn on seemed returned to completion and the walls and ceiling where clear of the strange symbols they'd been painted with before. The bedding was equally clear of any blood though she saw that her first aid kit had been placed nearby, all it's supplies must have been returned.

"So I guess Lezard is okay then?" Kagome thought idly as she rubbed at her arms. It was cold, she was gonna have to turn up the heat.

Wandering out of the den and across the living room she didn't note the wizard and frowned a little before calling his name to the house. The lack of a reply made her more nervous as she searched the house over before frowning at the thermostat reading a normal temperature and tossing her jacket on though she was moving into the fair warmth of a sunny afternoon there was something to the cold plaguing her she couldn't quite manage to shake.

She wasn't sure if calling his name would really do her much good and nothing in the yard seemed to place that he'd been there recently. "Could he have left and gone to the gathering without me while I was passed out?"

"That jerk...save his life and he goes out and parties while I'm still frigid...what the hell is happening anyway?" Kagome was grumpy and being reasonable when tired had never been one of her strong suits. She did consider just leaving him there but was concerned that her friends would wonder after her previous excuses as to his health instead of hers being poor.

She ran back inside, a pro at getting ready quickly out of sheer amount of experience. It was within 10 minutes that she had on a better outfit for the gathering (with the jacket still there) had done her hair and make up and grabbed what she needed for her backpack.

She was running down the steps in hopes of making it there before too much longer...she was going to really have to have a talk with him about manners and not just leaving her alone after she passed out at random. "Well I guess it wasn't random and he probably knows why but he's horrible just leaving me there for pizza of all things!"

The park where the gathering was being held was actually close to her home, quite a ride for most of the students going but the forested area within was a rare treat for those in the city and it reached far enough that it was a lovely place for parties. Several people had the same idea with groups of people here and there gathered together.

"Kagome! Over here." She recognized Hojo's voice and smiled awkwardly as she waved at him. She thought he was still on a trip with his parents but headed toward where he and other members of their class had gathered. "Are you sure you should be here? You look a little pale Kagome."

"I'm fine, just been busy trying to catch up on schoolwork." She lied smoothly, looking around and not seeing anyone else similar to Hojo's description made her frown a little. "That's not good, where could he have gone?"

"How is your exchage student? I heard from Yuka he wasn't feeling well himself. Don't think he's gonna make it?" Hojo made polite conversation. Kagome really didn't have much of a crush on him anymore, she might have over a year ago when her forays into the past started but now she only considered him a friend.

"Um...I'm not sure." She answered honestly. "I think he left before me cause I needed to do a couple things at the shrine and now I don't know where he is."

"You don't think he got lost do you?" Ayumi asked seriously, butting into the conversation. "Why would you let him walk on his own?"

"I didn't, he left before I knew it." Kagome defended herself. She didn't want her friends thinking she was that irresponsible. "Do you think he might have come but just not found this group yet? There are a lot of people here."

"That would be logical." Hojo nodded to Kagome's words. "The pizza guy apparently is having a hell of a time finding us and Ayumi even erected a flag out of one of the school gym shirts."

Pointing over his shoulder there was indeed a makeshift shirt-flag on a long but thin branch stuck between two of the boards of one of the picnic tables they managed to wrangle.

"We can try getting a few people to go looking for him if you want. Split up and see if anyone has seen him." Ayumi offered helpfully. "Most of the class can stay here in case he drops in. Does he have a cell phone."

"I doubt he'd know what a cell phone was." Kagome thought. "No. He doesn't."

"I'll get Eri and Yuka to help." Ayumi promised. "Hojo can stay here sense I don't think he's seen much of him yet. He looks a lot like you but has purple eyes, they're the wildest contacts but it's strange he wears glasses with them, you can't really miss that."

Hojo nodded, he seemed a bit disappointed as if he'd hoped to 'search' with Kagome.

"I should leave him lost." She was still bitter. "Where the hell could he have gotten to?"

"Okay I'm heading up toward the woods in case he didn't see us here. It's a little more hilly back there and no reason for anyone else to have to walk back there when he's my exchange student." Kagome explained, waving at her friends that seemed confident that the missing 'student' would be found before moving toward the deeper trees.

The park was nice if you stuck to the cleared areas for parties, the deeper paths were just thick enough for a close couple to walk on but in many places that wasn't even likely. There were a few cleared parts in the back but much of the time people didn't bother the treacherous hilly terrain to get there.

She'd liked running around back here as a kid though. The trees were deep enough and there wasn't much traffic so you could convince yourself you were in a real forest. That was of course before her trips into the feudal era. With even the occasional blare of a engine she couldn't hold onto the same illusions she'd made as a child.

One of the tables had a few kids sitting at it, they seemed to be upperclassmen as if they would graduate this year or possibly already in a young year of college. One of the boys seemed familiar as if they might have gone to her school. They all just looked as if they were hanging out and relaxing with a cooler and some bags nearby. She headed over with a fake smile plastered on her lips.

"I'm sorry to interrupt. Have you seen a kid about my age, he's German with brown hair and violet eyes?" She thought that would work well enough, she had no idea what he would have picked to wear and while he didn't have a large variety to choose from it seemed unwise to give loads of options.

"Dunno." She got a shrug from one of the guys. "Not many folks come back here."

"You are welcome to ditch the foreigner though sweetheart and stay here with us." A arm wrapped around her and she froze a moment before pulling herself away. She picked up the scent of alcohol and realized why they had picked to come so far back into the park's paths to celebrate. Likely none of them were of the legal age to drink yet.

"No, I think I should head back then and keep looking." She ducked further away from the guy and rushed down another of the paths that lead to a different clearing area. Eventually it would circle around to the large opening where she started and she would know if he'd indeed just wandered off or not.

"Wait up sweetheart...what's the rush. The foreigner won't ditch a sweet little thing like you." She didn't at all expect the blow to her skull. She was down almost instantly by the impact of a piece of wood one of the boys had used. "Give us a good time before you go running off to other men eh?"

Pain arched across her brain as terror set in. They meant to rape her?! The woods had always been secluded but she hadn't at all expected that sort of element to just be lingering here. She had to move!

By the time she lifted herself up one of the boys pushed her back down, her face slamming into the dirt path and adding to the head injuries to make more of that body part send daggers of pain to her senses. The first body bent her arms backwards and held her down, a second pair of hands was tugging the skirt she'd worn and she heard the clipping of scissors before she felt her panties slacken. "Oh god...they were just laying in wait for someone...no...this isn't happening..."

She started struggling in more earnest then, much of the initial shock had kept her like a frozen deer at first but now she was fighting against the hold and squirming as much as she could. She started to scream but it was cut off as one of the men shoved a cloth over her mouth and nose. "Don't worry honey, it only hurts for the first few minutes."

Her body was harder to move, there was a sweet smelling liquid she didn't recognize on the cloth and it was making her slowly cease her struggling as her body wouldn't quite react how she wanted. It was a deepening disgust as they were taking the time to arrange her body the way they wanted.

She closed her eyes, willing anything to help her stop them.

"May the heaven's relinquish even the light of hope from your destiny. Dark Savior."

Kagome's keen sense of dark magic went haywire as she heard the words. The voice she knew but it was warped and exceptionally darker than usual. She felt the person holding her release her hands and she scrambled away. She was several feet before she managed to turn around, unable to steadily rise to her feet, eyes widening at the bizarre energy that still coursed through the air but also at the fact that the person that likely was the second set of hands trying to grope her moments before was bleeding from several large puncture wounds so heavily she doubted that he would survive more than another moment. The man that had been holding her down didn't sport an injury of his own but was staring at Lezard in utter dread.

Lezard for his part was completely changed as she had found him just this morning. His body seemed normal and while he was wearing the clothes she'd originally discovered him wearing in the well they no longer were stained or had gaping tears. His eyes seemed somehow more mysterious and malevolent than they had before, though he was still looking dispassionately at the man Kagome was only barely managing to crawl away from. It was something else, something indiscernible by the eye that had changed, there was a electric static to the air around him, a power that she hadn't even seen around Naraku...the closest she could attribute it toward is the few times Sesshomaru had become completely serious against his opponents during the final days of her time in the fuedal era.

"What do you think you are doing to my guide?" Lezard asked it calmly, glancing over at Kagome a moment before making the vaguest of gestures her way and seeming to expect an answer from the boy.

"I...we were just..." The boy stammered and seem paniced but his knees trembled as he began to back up and he fell down. "Just trying to have some fun...didn't mean any harm..."

"Consider me a skeptic." Lezard's half-smile was downright vicioius. "If it is a lady you prefer, then I'll give you one."

"Arctic chill curl across my fingertips and send your touch into mine enemies. Frigid Damsel."

Even as he had started to speak a small wind curled up around him that wasn't felt by either the kid or Kagome as they watched, each vaguely speechless for what they were witnessing. Kagome's vision wavered as the dark energy sent her priestess abilities through the roof with alarms of 'holy shit that's not good!'

As Lezard pointed his finger at the boy a perfect woman crafted from ice seemed to leap from his grasp. Walking several steps toward the boy before a spear materialized into her hand and she danced around him, stabbing him exactly three times with amazing precision. He joined his comrade in a bloody mess split seconds later.

Kagome was gasping for air and trying to clear her head when she felt his gloved hand touch her arm. She jumped a little at the contact but was still fighting off the effects of whatever they'd used on her. "Lezard..."

"It's okay now. The threat is eliminated." He commented idly, looking her over with an appraising eye for damage. He'd found her just in time to pause the two delinquents from their heinous course. "Let's get you back shall we? Close your eyes."

She obeyed as much out of a desire to pass out as just going along with it. He had yet to willingly hurt her and had just saved her from something she wasn't sure she could have gotten over if it had gone much further. He was muttering something else and that alarm of dark magic sounded in the back of her brain before she felt even dizzier than she already had.

Then she was being set down on a mattress and she opened her eyes to find herself in her room, though her body couldn't listen to her desire to sit up and look around she just groaned a little.

"You are safe now." He commented still watching her. "They must have drugged you with something."

"You think." She didn't want to spend the energy actually saying it. "How'd you know where I was?"

"I was out looking at the portal when you vanished from the house. I wouldn't have known you were gone but someone started talking to you like you were here and mentioned that they couldn't find me." Lezard explained, unaware he'd heard one of her friends leaving a message on the machine. "I figured at that point I should see if you had gone to the party that had been mentioned and used a spell to seek you out."

"Thank you." She managed, watching the totally different boy before her in a mix of marvel and trepidation.

"Between us, you still have many more marks on the life saving scale." Lezard pointed out with a small shrug, as if it wasn't much of anything. "My healing magic is weak but I believe that you will recover soon. The effects of whatever they used seem to be similar to a tranquilizing effect."

"He knows just by looking?"

"I will wait to continue my research on the portal but I will find you some water. You'll want to drink a lot of it." He commented before disappearing out of her room.

He had killed those men, sure, people that she wouldn't lament the loss of considering what they were doing...but the spells he'd used and the ease with which he'd called on energy so dark she could barely comprehend it... "What did I release on the world healing him like I did? Why don't I mind it nearly as much as I should?

End Chapter

Whew, so things took a darker turn but with a story with Lezard, that was bound to happen sooner or later. I loves how easily he's like 'pssh, weaklings' and waves people off. I went with a poem from Emily Dickenson instead of the commentary on emotions this chapter cause I just wasn't sure what to do. I might just do quotes instead from now on.

-Nera

Reviewer folk:

minaseiko1 - Well, thats if he is still pondering it as time progresses. I can defintely see him messing with Inuyasha just to do it. Given their personalities wouldn't mesh at all. Thank you for the good luck wish, jaw still hurts some but gotta get it done.

Shiroi no Yume - I think I'm more crazy than brave. It's sorta hard to fit them together though. Hope you continue to enjoy it!