The Storm

By: AniuLonewolf

Chapter 9 – On the Road

The morning started early, everyone wanted to make good use of the day ahead in their travels. After a quick and quiet breakfast, the group packed their things and bid farewell to the old priestess Keade. With farewells and goodbyes from Keade, the group made their way through the village and along the way they got wishes of good luck from passing villagers.

The trek was up and down hills through the countryside, the weather was good - sunny and no sign of any rain. While on the road, the group conversed about their upcoming battle with Naraku. Their battle with the evil demon had span over four long years, and they finally got this far. Almost all of the jewel shards where found and the group had finally sought out Naraku's hidden castle.

"What about the rest of the shards?" Shippo questioned while perched on Kagome's shoulder as he watched the young priestess hold the jar of shards in her hand.

They had only two shards in their possession. In the past couple of months, they didn't come across any jewel shards in their searches. Kagome had speculated that they couldn't find any more shards because there weren't very many left.

"Naraku has almost the entire jewel in his possession." Kagome explained out loud as she watched the jewel sparkle in the jar in her hand. "I don't think there are many shards left to collect."

"Well, we know that Sango's brother Kohaku has one of the shards in his back, keeping him alive." Shippo thought out loud, counting the remaining shards on his fingers. "And the wolf demon Koga has two jewel shards in his legs, making him unbelievably fast."

"Naraku has almost the whole jewel and we're going up against him with two shards? Talk about one sided." Inuyasha sighed, his arms hidden in his sleeves as he walked at the front of the group. He fell quiet for a moment; his thoughts going back to a fleeting idea that he had thought of last night; a possible way to defeat Naraku. But the half demon thought against voicing his idea – he figured Kagome wouldn't like his idea very much.

"Don't be so negative Inuyasha." Shippo called out to the half demon while still sitting on Kagome's shoulder. "We'll think of something to get at Naraku."

The group fell silent again as they continued their trek across the country side. They made their way through small villages, stopping now and again to rid of petty demons that were troubling the humans. It took them the rest of the day's light to make it half way to Naraku's castle.

As they left the countryside and villages, they made their way through a thick forest that gave way to the mountain side. They were almost there, only a couple more hours of walking and they would be Naraku's castle. But the sun was dipping lower in the sky and the group decided to call it a night, for it wasn't wise to walk through the night. Who knew what kind of traps Naraku was hiding in the dark.

The only thing that hadn't been thought of was where they were going to set up camp for the night. As they were running out of daylight, the demon exterminator suddenly stopped walking, the expression on her face showing sadness.

Kagome watched as Sango slowed down from walking with the rest of the group. "What's the matter Sango?" The young priestess asked as she saw that Kilala mirrored Sango's emotion by giving a low sad whine.

"We should stop here for the night." Sango announced, the rest of the group looking up to where she was pointing. The forest was growing dark from the setting sun but just over the tops of the trees, they were able to see the giant log wall, the once powerful demon slayer village where Sango used to live. "We can stay in my village for the night."

Without saying anything else, the group followed Sango and Kilala into what once was their village. Sango looked around the village – buildings that were once houses were falling apart from the weather, no one there to make repairs. The houses that families of Sango's memories were falling apart, holes in the roofs, porches caved in. The grass had claimed the soil once more from where the fires as killed everything in its path.

The sun dipped below the giant wall of the village so everything already seemed like nightfall in the village. The group walked behind Sango as she led the way, not making a sound as they heard nothing.

Nothing. Empty. Lifeless.

Sango was about to say something when the eerie silence was broken by the sound of a twig snapping. She jumped, not expecting to hear any sound in the dead village. Her eyes targeted the noise but her heart fell when she saw that it was a family of deer. The baby fawn has stepped on the twig which made both the deer and the group freeze where they were. Any kind of noise, even the tiniest whisper was echoed in the dead village. Sango kept her eyes on the two deer, the mother deer doing the same to Sango but then she moved, leading her baby away into the darkness behind a house.

"Come on Sango." Miroku whispered beside her, placing a hand on her shoulder. The demon slayer just looked up at him and followed without saying anything.

The group soon came across the main house where the leader of the village used to live – Sango's old house where she used to live with her father and brother Kohaku. The demon slayer walked into the empty house, holes in the roof and in the floor, the rice paper shoji doors were ripped and burned away from fires. She took a moment to take it all in; so empty, so dead. After a moment or two, the demon slayer and Kilala left the house and went to the corner of the village where she had buried their fallen villagers, their friends, their families.

Inuyasha and Miroku decided to go and gather wood for the fire which left Kagome and Shippo to tend to making supper. After the supper soup was boiling steadily over the fire, Kagome walked outside onto the porch to get some fresh air. The sun was still setting behind the wall, casting different colours splashed over the skies.

The group sat in what once was the living room of the house, a small fire going in the middle of the room that cast a warm but eerie glow around the empty room. They left one of the shoji doors open to the outside porch to watch the sun set as they ate their supper.

After their supper was done, Sango went to sharpen her tools in the corner of the room while Miroku watched Shippo and Kilala play around the room. Kagome found Inuyasha sitting outside on the porch and went to join him.

"The sky is so pretty, with all the colours that remind me of all my friends." Kagome said as she looked up at the sky and the colours that were shown as the sun continued to set.

"How so?" Inuyasha questioned while sitting beside her.

She saw the dog demon turn to look at her and she continued, smiling up at the sky. "Each colour reminds me of each of my friends; the yellow is Kilala, orange is Shippo, pink is Sango and purple is Miroku." She looked at Inuyasha and smiled. "And the red reminds me of you."

Inuyasha took a moment to think about what Kagome just said and then looked back up at the sky, seeing all the different colours. "Only you would point something out like that, Kagome. You always seen things that other people can't see." He said, his eyes still up at the sky.

With Inuyasha's words dying off into silence, the two continued to watch the sun set behind the mountains on the other end of the village. The sunset had a calming feeling; everyone drew quiet as the day was coming to an end.

Everyone was quiet and peaceful, that is until Inuyasha broke the silence by swearing.

"Shit!" The half demon growled.

Kagome turned to her mate and let out a surprised gasp. Everyone nearby heard the dog demon swear and came to investigate. What they came outside to see was that the Inuyasha was no longer a half demon.

"Inuyasha, you're human!" Kagome stated, running her fingers through his now-black hair. She looked up at the night sky, there was no moon. The night of the new moon was Inuyasha's human night.

Inuyasha's dog ears were now gone, turned into normal human ears. His golden eyes turned a deep violet colour and his claws shrunk into normal finger nails. "Goddammit!" The now-human Inuyasha growled but it didn't sound like his normal dog demon growl.

"Good thing we still have at least another day to get to Naraku. That would have been horrible to have gotten to the castle tonight when you clearly don't keep track of the moon phases." Miroku stated standing behind Kagome.

"Gee Miroku, that makes me feel a whole lot better." Inuyasha said sarcastically but then sighed. "Well, there goes my night of sleep." Every half demon's time where they lose their demon powers is different for each individual; some during the day, some at night – Inuyasha's happened to fall on the night of the new moon so he never got any sleep that night for he was too worried of his enemies discovering his secret. If his enemies knew of this time, he would never be safe.

"Oh come Inuyasha, we all need to rest up for the battle ahead." Sango said while standing beside Miroku with Kilala on her shoulder. "No one is going to be coming into this village, you could at least get a few hours of sleep. We can take shifts on guard."

It took him a moment to think it over. He had always been protective – borderline paranoid – about sleeping or letting his guard down on the night of the new moon. It had always been something he had to protect most of all when he was living on his own. But seeing his friends around him, offering to take shifts watching guard, he took a moment to reflect on how much had changed since meeting his friends.

So everyone got ready to go to sleep. Inuyasha went to patrol around the area for a moment before turning guard duty over to Sango. Kagome unrolled her sleeping bag and Miroku made sure that the fire was out so that no demons would be attracted to it while they were sleeping. Kilala transformed into her larger form and the two-tail and the demon slayer made their way over to one of the trees outside and set up for guard duty. Kilala laid down, resting her head on her paws but keeping her eyes and ears alert and Sango rested her giant boomerang in arm's reach just in case.

Inuyasha walked over to the corner of the room and slumped down, resting his back against the wall with Tetsusaiga resting on his shoulder. He watched as everyone else got ready for bed and then turned to where Sango and Kilala were watching guard. 'I know I'm not going to get any sleep tonight.' He thought to himself. It wasn't that he didn't trust Sango or Kilala, he just couldn't help but he couldn't help but be paranoid about his secret. He closed his eyes, doubting that he would fall asleep. But the moment he allowed his body to relax, he suddenly felt really tired and in a few minutes sleep over took him and he drifted into a dream.

o-o-o-o

The next morning, Inuyasha was woken up by the sun peering through the open shoji door. "Damn sun." He mumbled gruffly but then paused as he registered that it was morning. 'The sun?' He looked at his hands; he had claws again. He reached up and felt the top of his head; he had his dog ears back. He was a half demon once again, the night of the new moon had ended and it was morning.

"Good morning." A voice to his right caught his attention. Looking over, he saw that Kagome was already awake, sitting up in her sleeping bag and brushing her hair. The young girl smiled over at the half demon and offered him a bowl of the soup they made for breakfast. "Did you have a good sleep? Don't worry, we each took shifts watching out for demons."

Inuyasha took the offered bowl of breakfast and looked back at his mate. "All night?" Was all he managed to get ask as he looked over and saw that Sango and Miroku were already awake and having breakfast.

"Shippo tried to stay up too but he was too tired and fell asleep a little while after you did." Kagome smiled, looking down at the sleeping fox demon in her sleeping bag.

Inuyasha didn't say anything for a while and just looked between Kagome and the sleeping fox. They did that for him? After all he had put them through; the fights and the gruffness of his attitude and they still helped him. He didn't say anything but just got up to his feet and looked around to see where Sango and Miroku were. "Well… are we going to be leaving yet?" Was all that he could manage to ask.

After the sleeping fox demon was woken up and breakfast was eaten, the group packed everything up. They left Kagome's big yellow backpack and other items not needed locked up in one of the secret rooms of Sango's old house so that they could lighten the load for the battle. They were only a few hours away from Naraku's castle so they figured that when they were on their way back to Keade's village they would be staying another night in the demon slayer's village.

They were finally going to go after Naraku's castle and end his evil ways once and for all.