Disclaimer: Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi and her only!
Honestly, I'm surprised at the number of people still reading this story. As I said in the prologue, if you have any questions, just ask, and it'd be really nice if you could tell me what you think of this :)
Thanks!
~Stars Of The Moon~
Chapter 13
Hikari stared at what seemed like rabbit meat in front of her.
It was time to eat. And therefore, she had to eat more... food. Either not cooked enough or over-cooked meat. Most of the fur was still on it, and a single sniff was enough to make her wrinke her nose.
And today, she was going to put an end to this food poisoning.
She stood up and started walking to Renkotsu and Suikotsu's way, who were still out hunting. She was always the one to eat first, so the men had to bring more food for themselves.
Ginkotsu saw her leave, and said, "Where... are you going?"
Glancing at the tank once, she answered. "I'm going to search for Renkotsu and Suiktosu. I'll be right back, so tell Bankotsu that I won't take long."
And without a word, she disappeared into the forest.
It didn't take long before she found the two men. They were stalking a boar, so she was careful to not chase away their prey. She hid in the bushes and watched them.
The boar remained completly still for a second, and Suikotsu took his chance.
Hikari was surprised to see that he didn't have his claws on. Instead, he threw them at the poor animal, and they plunged into its neck. She winced as she head the boar squeel painfully, before finally falling to its side, and laying completly limp.
Renkotu and Suikotsu took above the dead animal.
"One boar," stated Renkotsu. "I guess another boar or three rabbits will be enough for later."
Hikari appeared from behind them and said, "Another boar or three rabbits are good. Just make sure that you kill them the right way."
The two men turned around, and Renkotsu asked with a hint of suspition in his voice, "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be back at camp."
She shrugged. "When I finished eating I decided to take a little stroll and since you two were near, I decided to check in." "Yeah, I checked in because I wanted to know why my food tasted so horrible," she inwardly grumbled.
The blad man narrowed his eyes at her. Yes, it was true that he had started calling her by her name as well, but that didn't mean that he trusted her completly. Why was she out on her own? It wasn't long ago she had to be accompanied by someone of the band everytime she went out.
She caught his suspicious glance and said, "What, do you think I should still have someone to guide me here? I think that it's pretty clear that I'm not going anywhere. "
He stiffened, and turned his back to her.
Suikotsu said, "Well, we're going to look for some rabbits or boars, so we'll see you back at camp."
"Actually, I was thinking about joining you two on your hunt."
Now they both looked at her weirdly. "What?"
Hikari smiled. "Come on. I'll make the hunting go faster and I'll even show you how I kill my prey."
Renkotsu almost growled. "We don't need your help, and we certainly don't need any showing from you."
She tried hard not to glare at him. This selfish, cold-hearted, bald bastard. Apart from Bankotsu, he was another man she couldn't figure out. He was all loyal one moment, and the next, his ambitions take completle control.
He was suspecting her of nothing, and he kept his guard up whenever she was around. Just what kind of man was he?
Suikotsu shrugged as he flung the dead boar onto his shoulder. He picked up his bloody claws and said, "I wouldn't mind that much. When you're the one cooking your own food, it does kinda smell good."
Renkotsu and the rest of his brothers noticed that Suikotsu has gotten more fond of Hikari. Actually, she seemed to have gained his confidence since the day before. Nobody seemed to know the reason why, but they didn't care much. Especially Bankotsu. He just grinned at how Hikari was starting to make 'friends'.
She clapped her hands together. "Then it's settled! I'm going to show you how I do it!"
And when she started walking away to the prey, she mumbled, "I have nothing better to do anyway."
She pointed to the trees in front of her and said, "There's a few rabbits up ahead. We should hurry up before they decide to leave." She started walking away, and Suikotsu followed close. Renkotsu stayed behind, hesitating for a few seconds before following as well.
The three kept walking for a minute or so before Hikari stopped. She crouched down, and so did the two men behind her. Suikotsu and Renkotsu looked over her shoulder, and saw two rabbits hopping joyfully.
"We're lucky," Hikari thought. "The scent here is downhill, so they can't sniff us up."
Suikotsu and Renkotsu looked at each other. So now what? They should go after them, but the girl wasn't doing anything.
Wrong.
In a split second, she drew her sword, threw it at one of the bunnies and sliced its head off. The blood didn't even splatter. The other rabbit ran off as soon as it saw its comrade dead. (A/N: RIP little bunny :'( )
Hikari got up from her hiding spot, caught her sword, and placed it back into its sheathe. She picked up the head of the dead rabbit in one hand, and the body in the other.
She showed it to the two men and said, "See, the thing is that you leave a few holes in your prey. That doesn't make the meat taste really good since there are some chances that bugs or other tiny things can get into it while you're bringing it back to camp.
"I don't know if you'll take my advice, but what I do is slash off one of its body parts as quick as I can. Or if the prey is big, I'd like to go for the heart and leave a single scar."
"She's giving her prey mercy by finishing them with a single blow," Renkotsu scowled. "Pathetic."
Hikari knew what he was thinking. She didn't even bother hiding her anger then. She gave the bald man a good glare, but quickly looked away after that. Getting angry with a man like him wasn't worth it.
She said to Suikotsu, "I know that it's going to be hard for you since your weapons are claws, so you should go with slow animals.
"Rabbits are small, and can outrun a human any time. But boars are big and slow, so if you use a surprise attack, it shouldn't be too hard to go for its head and slash it off."
Suikotsu nodded. "Doesn't sound too complicated."
She looked at the dead bunny she was holding and sighed. This was the part she didn't want to do. But she was going to have to do it anyway. "Now for the cooking."
"We don't need to do it here," said Renkotsu. "Were bringing all the food we need back to our brothers and we're going to cook it there."
And she glanced at Renkotsu from the corner of her eye. "I'm going to do a quick demonstration here. The less people there is, the better. Besides, I'm not going to wait until you get all the food before showing this to you. So I hope you're going to watch carefully."
The bald man glared at her. "I'll see if it's even worth looking at."
Suikotsu felt the tension in the air getting uncomfortable and got in between them. "Hey, whoa. No need to start a fight here, we have to focus on getting food first."
Hikari sighed again. She said, "First, we're going to have to slice off the fur from the body." She looked at Suikotsu. "That's your job, right?"
He nodded.
"Alright then." She pulled out her sword and pressed it agaisnt the little dead body. "First, you shouldn't try to rip the whole thing off at once. You have to slice it with precision, so that when everything is off, the meat looks clean."
She put at lot of emphasis on the 'clean'.
She continued as she started gently slicing off the fur with her blade, "And don't try to plant your claws into it or anything. Like I said before, any deep cuts may cause a small infection. Try using the blade on your claws to do the work."
It wasn't long before she finished. She placed her sword back into its sheath.
And now she had to cook. She asked Renkotsu in a forced polite tone, "I'm going to need some fire. I can't make any apear without burning the whole forest, so can I use some of yours?"
Ugh. If she was talking to some innocent old man she wouldn't mind asking anything. But this was one man she didn't like. At all. and it made her sick to her stomac just talking to him.
"... Fine," Renkotsu snorted.
He pulled out his gourd and breathed a great wall of fire.
Hikari dropped her prey down, and got closer to the fire. The two men wondered if she would get burned. She touched the fire with her fingers, and when she pulled them out, fire was floating at the palm of her hand. Renkotsu's wall of fire disappeared.
Suikotsu and Renkotsu stared with wide, shocked eyes.
She shrugged. "What? It's nothing special. It's thanks to my swords I can do this."
She gathered up some big leaves and wood and formed a small campfire, carefully keeping her little fireball away from the vegetation.
When she finished, she brought her little fire to the leaves, and made them burn. The wood around the leaves kept the fire burning. She found a sharp stick on the ground, and used it to stab the rabbit's body and to plant it to the ground.
She sat back on her knees and placed her hands on her legs. "Now all we've got to do is wait."
Silence.
Hikari couldn't stand akward silences like these. So she decided to start a conversation. But the question was what she was going to talk about. "So... How long have you been together?"
Well... that came out wrong.
The two men gave her a shocked and slightly disgusted look. And her face went red. She started shaking her arms up and down, and shook her head violently. "N-no, no, no wait! I-I didn't mean it like that! I wanted to ask how long has the Band of Seven been together!"
Suikotsu snickered and Renkotsu rolled his eyes. The bald man answered, "If you mean before the first time we died, then it should be a year or so."
Hikari's face was normal again, and she sounded surprised, "A year? Only?"
The doctor smirked. "What do you mean 'only'? A year feels like plenty if you hang out with men as odd as us."
She shrugged. "It's just that it's hard to believe that you've only known each other for a single year, and yet you treat each other like brothers. I would've expected two years, or three."
"Big Brother and Jakotsu were the ones who have started our band," said Renkotsu as he stared at the fire. "If I recall, they've known each other for perhaps three or four years.
"They found Mukotsu in an old village. If Mukotsu wanted to join the band, then he had to kill the small village on his own. He succed without any problems."
Hikari winced.
Renkotsu continued, "Soon after, they found Kyoukotsu. A man as large as him would have been rather useful in the band. He was abandonned by his parents when he was a child and became huge. Kyoukotsu joined Bankotsu and the others after passing a test."
Hikari tried to imagine Kyoukotsu as a young child. Nothing came in her mind.
And then, she tried to picture his parents. And still, she couldn't even think of how they looked like.
"Then, Ginkotsu and I came in. We had to pass a certain test too."
"And I was the last one to join," Suikotsu said. "But Bankotsu and the others found me while I was slaughtering a village, so I didn't really need to pass any test."
"Wait, so if all the members had to do something to proove themselves, doesn't that mean that other people tried to get in, but couldn't?" Hikari asked.
Renkotsu nodded. "Those people were either just not strong enough, or just weren't brave enough to join us."
By brave, he meant bloodthirsty.
"Then... What happened to them?"
Suikotsu answered, "What else could've happened? They either died trying to pass a test, or either were killed by someone of our band because they were a complete waste of our time."
Hikair winced again. So this was the past of the Shichinintai. She was always curious of how they came together, but didn't have enough time to ask Bankotsu.
And there was another thing...
"What about your names?" she asked. "Was it just a coincidence that all your names ended with 'kotsu'?"
The two men chuckled, and Hikari tilted her head. She didn't see what was so funny.
Renkotsu answered, "We get that question a lot. Bankotsu, Jakotsu, and Suikotsu were born with their names. But when the rest of us joined the band, we left our old names behind and changed them based on our skill."
She nodded. "I see... So it's like a resolve... They're getting rid of their names to show that they're living a new life."
The second in command continued, "After Suikotsu joined, not many people tried to join us. And we had to come up with a name, so we decided to call ourselves the Band Of Seven."
He saw Hikari glancing at him from the corner of her eye, and grew nervous, but kept a straight face. He looked away. She noticed that he didn't say anything about his or Ginkotsu's past.
And he knew that she wanted to know.
"Oh, look, it's ready," she suddenly said.
Renkotsu looked back at the fire, and the meat. "Don't we have to wait a little longer?" he asked.
She picked up the cooked body and shook her head. "If you wait longer, it's going to burn. Right when the meat starts getting a brown-ish color, you know that it's ready."
Hikari stood up and tossed the body to Suikotsu. "Here. Take a bite."
"What about our brothers? And you?"
She snorted. "I'm sure they can wait. And I already ate my full, don't worry. Besides, the hunters need to eat to keep up their strength."
And the thought, "Who the hell am I kidding? I haven't eaten the share they gave me! But I guess I could still wait."
The doctor took a mouth full. He gulped down the food and blinked. "Not bad."
Hikari stared at him, expecting him to say more. He rolled his eyes. "Alright, I'll admit that it's better than ours."
She smiled, and Suikotsu passed the meat to his brother. "Your turn."
Remkotsu took a bite and blinked. Well, it certainly was better than the food he made. "Hm. Better than I expected."
The healer inwardly sighed in relief. At least he liked it. She said with a smile, "You can have the rest. I'm going to have to go back to the camp before Bankotsu thinks I've run away. I'll see you both later."
With that said, she turned around and walked away.
She was aware of Renkotsu's eyes on her back. He felt relieved that she didn't ask him anything about his past. But little did he know, Hikari was already planning to make him spit out the truth.
If his past was so disturbing that he didn't want to tell anyone about it, then she had to know.
Something told her that his past was bad. Bad enough to make him want power at any cost.
*O*~*O*~*O*
"These claws have poison in them," Sango observed Mistress Centipede's hands up close. There was a foul-smelling purple liquid dropping from the claws.
"And so do the teeth," Miroku said as he opened the mouth.
"Then that must mean that Inuyasha and Kagome are posioned..." she trailed off.
"What's wrong?" the monk asked. "Does it look familiar?"
She shook her head. "I don't know what this is. I don't know a cure to this, and I don't know what the consequenses are. But Keade might know how to treat it."
Miroku walked around. This place wasn't as red as the clearing Inuyasha and the demon were fighting in. He and Sango were back at the well, and apart from the ominous aura that remained from the battle earlier, everything seemed calm.
He walked to the well and saw something odd.
"Sango, take a look at this," he called.
The demon slayer stood next to the monk. She looked down the Kagome's well and asked, "What is it?"
He pointed at one of the sides of the well with his staff. Dark blue liquid covered the wall. "This. What do you think it is?"
Sango ran over the liquid with her index finger and sniffed it. "It doesn't smell like anything familiar. And I've seen only demon blood of this color. It's slimy and still hot."
She looked at Miroku. "Do you think..."
The monk nodded. "This may be a clue. Inuyasha thinks the demon was brought back to life the moment they came through the well. This blue liquid might have been necessary to bring someone back."
"So did the Band of Seven and Yura go through this too?" Sango said with a hint of disgust in her voice.
Her friend shook her head. "We can't be too sure."
"... If the centipede was brought back when Inuyasha and Kagome went through the well, doesn't that mean the Resurrector was close?" Sango asked more to herself then to Miroku.
"Probably."
She sighed. "It's at times like this that I wish that Hikari was still here. She always was the best tracker when it came to auras."
Miroku nodded. "Indeed."
His friends' words rang in his head. "... Centipede... brought back... when... Kagome... through the well... Resurrector... close..."
And it hit him like an arrow. "Oh no," he whispered.
Sango heard the panick in his voice. "What's wrong? Did you think of something?"
His eyes were deeply troubled when he looked at her. "What if... the Resurrector knew all along that Kagome and Inuyasha were coming today? At that very instant?"
She looked confused. "The Resurrector knew that Inuyasha and Kagome were going to pass... He knew that... But how? Nobody's ever done that before... We knew what day, but not what time... Unless..."
Her eyes widened.
She had the same expression Miroku had. "You don't mean..."
"The Resurrector may know how to go through time."
"That can't be right!" She exclaimed, and looked down the well. "The only ones who could go through time is Inuyasha and Kagome."
Miroku closed his eyes to think straight. "Yes. But remember. Now, almost anything can be possible."
Back with Inuyasha...
"Kohaku! Kohaku!"
The boy turned around and saw Kirara flying with a bleeding Inuyasha and Kagome. Shippou was in his little flying pink form. Kohaku knew what was going on.
He started running to Kaede's hut. "I'll go call Kaede!"
Shippou yelled, "Hurry!"
The old priestess was sorting out her supplies in her hut. She jumped when she heard Kohaku barging in. "Kagome and Inuyasha are injured! Badly! Inuyasha's bleeding from his leg, and Kagome from her arm."
Kaede calmly stood up. "Oh, my. Bring them here quickly."
There was no need. Kirara was already outside the hut. Kagome walked inside and whimpered, "Hi, Kaede."
The old woman inspected her arm and said, "Now is not the time for words, dear. Lie down." She guided the young girl to the fireplace.
Kohaku appeared with Inuyasha limping at his side. The half demon's eyes were dull and didn't have any light in them, and when he spoke, they barely recognised his voice, "I'm going to be fine... Take care of Kagome first..."
"Nonsense, you need as much as care as her," Kaede said.
In a minute, Kaede was already inspecting both of their wounds. Kagome's injury was easiest to tend to. The only difficulty was closing the wound since it was so deep.
While the old priestess tended to the half demon, Kagome fell asleep.
Kaede looked over Inuyasha's injury a little more, and frowned. "Oh, dear. This certainly is a problem."
Shippou hopped onto her shoulder. "What's wrong?"
The dog growled. "What is it?"
The woman asked first, "Inuyasha, do ye feel any pain?"
"Of course I do, you old hag! With this kind of injury, who couldn't?" And he winced.
She sighed. "I mean anything odd. Do ye feel ye leg at all?"
He shook his injured leg and nodded. "It's fine, why?"
And all of a sudden, he felt his leg go numb. He tried to move it, but he couldn't do a thing. When he moved it with his hand, he couldn't feel it. "... What the hell?"
She closed her eyes. "It is poisoned."
"What do you mean poisoned?" Inuyasha and Shippou's voices sounded.
"I have never seen this kind of poison before. Therefore, I do not know how to cure the wound. I need details of how the poison smells like, how it feels like."
"Oh, that's just great!" Inuyasha growled. And he turned his head to Kagome with panicked eyes, and turned back to Kaede. "Wait, does this mean that..."
She shook her head and smiled. "No, I have not seen any sign of poison in Kagome's arm."
He sighed in relief and yelled to the door, where Kohaku was standing. "Kohaku! Go tell Miroku and Sango about the poison! I was bitten by the demon, so the poison must be in its teeth!"
"I've got it!" And they heard Kohaku running off on Kirara's back.
"The only thing I can do for ye now is clean that bite mark so that it will not get infected," said Kaede..
"Then do it!" The dog barked.
As she started, she said. "We are lucky that ye cannot feel anything. If ye did, ye would have been screeming at the top of ye's lungs."
Shippou mumbled, "You got that right."
While she treated his leg, Inuyasha asked, "By the way, why was Kohaku left behind?"
"Someone had to stay to protect the village if the demon ever came here," the old woman answered. And she added a little later, "But most of all, Sango was worried her brother would get hurt."
The monk and the to demon slayers arrived soon after Kaede had finished. Miroku called before coming in, "We're back."
"Did you find out anything?" Shippou asked.
"A few..." Sango trailed off.
Inuyasha spoke, "Then spill! We don't have all day! What was in that poison?"
Sango reached for the guard on her shoulder and pulled out a seashell. She opened it and gave it to Keade. "We found this in the demon's teeth and claws. But I don't think the poison will work now that the centipede's been killed."
His ears perked. "Did you say claws?"
She nodded. "Yes."
"Kagome's arm was scratched, but she isn't poisoned!" Shippou exclaimed.
"That certainly is odd." Miroku smiled. "But it's also a relief. That's one more problem out of the way."
Kaede stood up and started walking out of the hut with the poison in her hand. "I will be back with a cure, so until then, I would like ye to stay here." And with that she left.
"What else did you find out?" Inuyasha asked.
Miroku held up four fingers. "Four things. Let's se... Where do I start? Shall I say the worst first or leave it for last...?"
"Leave it for later, say what seems the easiest to handle," the dog urged.
"There isn't anything that's easy to handle," said Sango. "First, you know that its defenses are stronger, and that it got new sharp claws. The demon also got a lot faster, and could endure more shots. Plus, it got poison in its claws and teeth."
"Tell me something I don't know," he said.
"It said something about the Shikon Jewel not existing anymore," Miroku continued. "So it must have been informed of this from the Resurrector.
"Also, we found an odd liquid at the well, the place where it was resurrected."
Then, the monk went quiet. Sango didn't say anything either. "... And the last?"
Sango took a deep breath, and let it out. "We think that the Resurrector can travel to Kagome's time."
*O*~*O*~*O*
Bankotsu continued walking in circles around Banryuu even when Jakotsu told him, "Give it a rest, Big Brother. It's not like the woman was useful for the past few days, who cares if she left?"
His leader, that's who.
When he and his best friend came back from his little walk, Hikari was gone. She even left her food to rot in the middle of nowhere. Ginkotsu reassured him that she only went out for some time, but he wasn't quite sure that was it.
"Maybe she finally got tired of eating this thing," he thought as he poked the leftovers. "Or maybe she just got tired of being around men for so long. Being around us... Being around me? Nah, that can't be right... She never got tired of me... Did she?"
And then, he started pacing around the clearing. "But even if she did leave, she's going to come back, right? I mean, she can't find her way to Inuyasha... But what if she sensed that dog closeby and went after him? No! She's not the type to run after people, she's better than that..."
Jakotsu and his brothers have never seen him this worried.
Behind their leader, Jakotsu, Mukotsu, and Ginkotsu were gossiping like a bunch of woman.
"Can it be true? Will pretty Hikari not come back?" Mukotsu asked with a hint of disappointment in his tone.
His gay brother snorted. "If she really is gone, then good ridance."
Ginkotsu could have shaken his head if it wasn't half metal. "She will be... back. If she left... the food there... then she must have... went hunting."
Mukotsu said, "Oh yes. And if she did try to run away, then Renkotsu and Suikotsu must have seen her."
Suddenly, there was a flash of blue cloth, and the next thing they knew, they heard, "Now what's this about me runing away?"
The three men froze and slowly turned turned their heads. Hikari stood in behind them with her arms folded across her chest. She glared at them. "Ginkotsu said that I was going to come back. I don't see why you didn't believe him."
Jakotsu glared back. "We didn't doubt him. We were just wondering if you tricked him."
"And I didn't," she said coldly.
She and the cross dresser stood there, shooting lighting from their eyes at each other, until Bankotsu noticed that she came back and ran at her. He grabbed her shoulders in his hands and demanded, "Just where the hell were you?"
She blinked, not even a hint of surprise in her eyes. "Out."
"I can see that. And why did you go?"
Hikari tried to avoid his gaze. She looked nervous. Telling him that she was giving cooking lessons to his brothers wouldn't hurt, right? "Ummm... I... went to go see Renkotsu and Suikotsu... and kinda helped them on their search for food."
Bankotsu stared at her. "Is that all?"
"Ummm... Yeah."
He sighed in relief. "'K. Make sure that the next time you run off you come back in fifteen minutes."
Jakotsu's tone was filled with disbelief. "What? That's IT?" He pointed a finger at Hikari. "You're just going to let her do what she wants and not even give her some punishment?"
Bankotsu shrugged. "I'm not letting her do what she wants. I said that she's going to have to come back in fifteen minutes, otherwise, we'll have to go after her."
"But letting a captive this much freedom isn't good! You never know when she might disappear and have us searching for her like idiots!"
"Why would I try to run away when there's no where to go?" Hikari said. "For all I know, Inuyasha may be miles away, and it'll take days before I reach them."
And she shrugged. "Besides, it's not like I'm being badly treated here." Then, she tiped her head to one side as if trying to hear something distant, and said, "Oh, Renkotsu and Suikotsu are coming."
She started walking away, and the two hunters appeared.
Suikotsu had a big boar on his shoulders, and Renkotsu held a rabbit. Hikari noticed that the prey were only slahsed once, and felt a spark of... pride? "At least they used my method."
The doctor grunted, and said to her, "One nice, fat boar. This will be enough for at least four people."
She smiled. "Great."
Even if she kept a smile, she had other things on her mind. Hikari never thought about running away until that conversation from earlier.
Jakotsu's words rang in her ears. "You never know when she might disappear and have us searhing for her like idiots!"
She wondered why she really did stay. Even without Inuyasha or his group, she was fine on her own. She traveled alone for many years, after all. She could find a village in no time if she kept on walking for hours.
She thought hard. "... If I stay here and travel with the Band of Seven, I might find some clue to the one who ressurected them. And since both Inuyasha and the Band of Seven have the same goals, they might end up bumping into each other, right? That's why I have to stay here..."
But was that really the reason why she stayed with these men?
She looked at Suikotsu throw his prey on the floor, and watched his brothers gather around him.
Bankotsu whistled, impressed. He pated Suikotsu's shoulder and praised him."Nice catch."
"It was easy to kill," Renkotsu said. "Its weight slowed it down, and it was an easy target."
"It wasn't much of a challenge," Suikotsu added. "Anyone could've-"
"Hey, a catch's a catch," Bankotsu cut him off. "Looks like we're going to be full till tonight."
Hikari smiled. "Or maybe... I might have judged them wrong. If I look on their nice side... They almost look like a real family."
This one's kinda short since I wanted to hurry up with this.
And since the updating usually takes a while, I guess that I won't need to tell you that I'll be een slower since there's school and all... Alright, alright, I'll try to get this finished up quickly :)
~FoxRain7~