Chapter 50 Wei's Deception
What the hell are you doing Wei?
Confusion filled Kagome as the energy Wei was pouring into his summoning suddenly reduced itself to a trickle allowing Kagome to dominate the contest in which they were engaged. Reaching out to try and determine if Wei was deceiving her and somehow had managed to create yet another rhythm on which he was focusing his power, she sensed near stillness from him.
Could Wei have been defeated?
But no, the spiritual turbulence of a vicious life and death struggle still was still present and increasingly desperate. Expanding her consciousness outward, she strained to locate something; anything that would indicate what Wei was doing now. For her efforts all she got was the impression of was silence and nothingness.
Nothingness..Silence...
Intuition whispered to Kagome and she listened closely to the silence. He was subtle, but he was there, as difficult to detect as the space between words. A darkness that was just barely capable of being perceived as its tenebrous nature engulfed a darkness greater than what surrounded it.
Where are you...
...Listen...
"Kid, what are you doing here?" She heard Hakkaku ask. Shockwaves of unadulterated terror ripped through her mind as she sensed the cold lifeless presence of Wei practically next to her.
Jerking her eyes open and focusing once more on the physical world, she turned to her left and saw a lone child in ragged cut off pants just outside the ring of wolf youkai guarding her. He was sniffling and tears were raining down from his face onto the ground below.
Kagome locked eyes with the boy; his gaze was as bleak and pitiless as the icy void of space. She opened her mouth to cry out a warning, but it would never escape her throat.
The boy smiled cruelly at her as his tears turned to blood. "Saving my people."
The child version of Wei then exploded, drenching the youkai and Kagome with his nearly black blood. The force of the explosion itself was not the main thrust of the attack; any damage done by it was mild. Wei's unanticipated assault instead drove straight into the minds and spirits of his enemies. The youkai had no defenses to speak of and his psycho invasive strike penetrated deep into the pits of their souls where all their fears and self-deceptions lay dormant and awoke them. Countless razor shards of freezing black welled up inside them and tore through the walls of their subconscious rending asunder the conscious mind. As one they dropped catatonic to the ground. Kagome, however, did not surrender as easily to her inner demons.
To Kagome, Wei's attack was the vilest experience of her life. It felt as though he had just vomited on her soul and was trying to drown her in his spiritual bile. She struggled to push back against the viscous, crawling darkness Wei was inundating her with. At the moment she thought she had turned the ebon deluge aside, a sharp pain flared in her skull, like an icicle was being driven into her brain.
Wei had slipped past her defenses and his lifeless touch was upon her soul. Its empty chill spread through her, touching and profaning every fiber of her being. She tried to resist and ward him off but he submerged her into an arctic ocean of sheer nothingness.
Before she was lost to it completely, Kagome saw an image of the adult Wei in front of her, smearing her forehead with his blood.
Although he would never admit it to anyone else, Wei knew he had just barely overcome Kagome and only thanks to the element of surprise. The power he had in this body would not be enough to suppress her for long, as he could feel her struggling just beneath the surface of unconsciousness.
On the plus side, I won't have her interfering with my summoning. That should give me enough time to end this.
Adjusting the improvised shorts he wore by tugging on the drawstring, Wei picked up Kagome, being careful to not disturb the blood seal he had drawn on her forehead. He needed it to last long enough to get to the well. Wei's mahogany gaze shifted to the youkai lying on the ground, their eyes rolled up into their heads.
Don't go anywhere; I'll want to visit with you all later.
Turning his back to the fortress and the youkai, Wei started bounding down the mountainside, always careful to make certain his captive stayed uninjured.
Until such time as I don't need her anymore at least...
