Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha or Yashahime.

Chapter 2: Moroha the Demon Killer

Kazuki awoke to find the upside-down face of a girl staring down at him. She had brown eyes and dark hair tied back in a ponytail by a large red bow. The bow was so large it almost made the girl look like she had animal ears of some kind. Startled, Kazuki sat up and moved away from the girl a bit. It was then when he saw the girl was sitting on the ground like a dog and dressed almost completely in red; her outfit included a cape stitched together from different pieces of fabric. She also had a sword hanging from her waist and a bow with a quiver of arrows on her back over her cape.

"So you're not dead," the girl observed. "I've been poking you with the scabbard of my sword for the last five minutes. You're dressed kinda funny, you know that?"

"Uh…who are you?" Kazuki asked, at last finding his voice.

"Oh! I'm Moroha," the girl answered, grinning. "Better known as Moroha the Demon Killer. And you are?"

"Kazuki Tachibana," the young man answered, bewildered. "You can just call me Kazuki I guess." He then noticed the change in his surroundings. "Where am I?"

"You're in the forest of course," Moroha answered causally. "Where else would you be?"

Kazuki frowned a bit. "That's real helpful." He at last got to his feet, dusted himself off and examined the area. He quickly noticed the wooden well he recognized as the Bone Eater's Well. "Okay, something is really wrong here."

"I'd think so, seeing as how I found you on the ground unconscious," Moroha remarked as she stood up. "Did you get robbed by bandits or something?"

Kazuki ignored her question and pointed at the well. "Okay, that's the Bone Eater's Well, right? Well where's the shrine that's supposed to be around it? Furthermore, what happened to the grounds of the shrine and the house? It's like they weren't ever here! It's just untamed wilderness?"

Moroha crossed her arms. "Those bandits must've hit your head pretty hard."

Kazuki turned to her and shook his head. "There were no bandits! Look, last thing I remember my friends and I were being chased by these…these things and…." He gasped. "Am I the only person you found?"

"Oh great, the bandits abducted your friends too?"

"THERE WERE NO BANDITS!" Kazuki took a deep breath. "Okay…okay. Gotta calm down. There has to be a logical, rational explanation for what's going on here."

Suddenly the trees began to rustle. Kazuki tensed up while Moroha's hand went for the handle of her sword. Thankfully, the person who emerged from the trees was Towa.

Kazuki let out a heavy sigh of relief. "Oh thank god! I haven't been so glad to see you since…well since earlier when you protected me from those two goons, but I'm even more relieved to see you now."

"I'm glad you're okay," Towa responded. "Hey, who's the girl with you?"

"As near as I can figure out? Some insane cosplayer."

Moroha ignored Kazuki and rushed up to Towa. The dark-haired girl got in close and began sniffing Towa like a dog.

"Whoa! Boundaries!" Towa exclaimed.

Moroha pulled away and smirked. "You're a half-demon aren't ya?"

Towa blinked in confusion. "Uh…half-demon?"

"I'm only a quarter-demon myself. The only half-demon I've ever met is my dad. This is pretty neat!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Wait, where's Yoshina-chan?" Kazuki asked.

"No idea. I've been trying to find her for the last several minutes," Towa answered. "Not to mention figure out where we are."

Kazuki adjusted his glasses. "I'm guessing Yoshina-chan probably knows. After all, she's the one who hit the well with that strange device of hers, and she seemed to know about those creatures that came after us too."

"What're you guys talking about?" Moroha asked.

"We dove into the Bone Eater's Well, trying to escape these…these monsters and we ended up here," Towa explained.

Moroha raised an eyebrow. "The old Bone Eater's Well?"

"You know about it?"

"Well sure. Long ago people would use the thing to get rid of remains of slain demons. They'd just toss 'em down there and eventually they'd vanish. Kind of a waste if you ask me. I bet a lot of the demons they tossed down there were worth a fortune."

Before the conversation could continue, there was a flash of red light near the well. A few seconds later the light faded to reveal one of the armored soldiers that had come after Towa and Kazuki earlier. Kazuki scrambled to find a place to hide while the soldier drew his blaster and aimed it at Towa and Moroha. The soldier pulled the trigger, firing a ball made of red light at the two girls. Moroha and Towa quickly jumped back and narrowly avoided the blast. The energy projectile left behind a large scorch mark on the ground.

Moroha grinned and drew her sword. "Interesting! The head of a demon like this has gotta be worth at least a bag of silver."

The soldier pointed his blaster at Moroha and fired again. Moroha jumped high into the air and dodged the blast as she raised her sword above her head.

"Crimson Dragon Wave!" Moroha called out as she swung down her sword.

Suddenly a serpentine dragon made of red light shot from the blade of Moroha's weapon and struck the soldier. The attack cut diagonally through the soldier's torso and caused him to fall to pieces. When his head hit the ground, the soldier's mask was knocked off and revealed the beastly face beneath. It was nearly identical to the other soldier Kazuki had unmasked earlier, only this one's face was a light blue color. The soldier gnashed his teeth together a few times before its yellow eye rolled to the back of its head and it stopped moving completely.

"No way!" Towa exclaimed, stunned.

Moroha landed on the ground and sheathed her sword. She then went over to examine the soldier's corpse. The innards of the creature's open torso were sparking with electricity.

"Huh. Never seen any demon like this before," Moroha remarked with a hand to her chin.

Upon finally getting over the shock of the battle, Kazuki crawled over to the demon's remains to get a closer look. The first thing he did was take the creature's blaster and tucked into his pants behind him. He then took a look at the exposed parts of the bisected torso and discovered the insides were mechanical.

"This is a cyborg," Kazuki identified.

"What's that?" Moroha asked.

"A being that's part machine and part living organism." Kazuki put a hand to his chin. "Could you do me a favor and remove his helmet?"

Moroha shrugged her shoulders and did as requested. The head underneath the helmet turned out to be mostly mechanical as well. Kazuki turned the head onto its side to get a closer look at the eyepiece. He noticed a round button where an ear should be and pressed it. The moment he did so a small rectangular section of the head right above the button popped out. Kazuki pulled the part out the rest of the way and examined it.

"It looks like some kind of hard drive," Towa observed.

Kazuki nodded and placed the component in his back pocket. "If I could plug the thing into my computer we might get a lot more answers."

"Can I keep the rest?" Moroha asked.

"Um, why?" Kazuki asked.

"Why? So I can sell it of course!"

Kazuki raised an eyebrow. "Okay, sure. It's all yours."

Suddenly there were two more flashes of red light and another pair of soldiers appeared. Moroha drew her sword again and charged at one of the soldiers. The soldier responded by drawing a sword slung across his back and charging in to meet her. As Moroha and the first soldier clashed, Towa drew her own sword and rushed at the other soldier. Towa cried out as she swung her blade at the creature, but the instant the blade struck the demon soldier's armor it snapped off right at the base. The blade landed next to Moroha's feet as she parried another attack from her opponent.

"My Kikujumonji!" Towa exclaimed.

Moroha ducked the swing from her opponent's sword and picked up the blade. "This thing's supposed to be the legendary Kikujumonji?" She parried another swing from the soldier's weapon as she examined the broken blade. "Please! This is nothing but a cheap knock-off!"

"Towa, don't take this the wrong way, but I always knew your great-grandfather's story about your sword was a load of crap," Kazuki remarked.

Towa let out a heavy sigh. "Deep down I always knew it too."

The soldier knocked Towa away and drew his blaster. He pointed it right at Kazuki, causing him to freeze.

"Don't!" Towa called out as she quickly got back up.

On reflex she swung the handle of her broken sword towards the soldier. A split second before the soldier could pull the trigger, a blade of blue light emanated from the handle. The energy blade cut through the soldier's torso like butter in one diagonal slice. Just like its comrade before, the soldier fell to pieces on the ground. Stunned, Towa looked at the sword in her hand and saw the blade of light blink out of existence.

"Nice!" Moroha praised as she jumped far back to avoid her opponent's swing. "Guess I better finish up too."

Moroha raised her sword above her head and swung it downward, releasing another Crimson Dragon Wave attack. The red dragon cut the remaining soldier straight down the middle. This time both halves of the fallen soldier exploded before hitting the ground.

"Hey! Why'd that one blow up?" Moroha asked as she sheathed her sword.

"It could be you hit the power source," Kazuki theorized. He turned back to Towa. "You okay?"

"I think so," Towa answered.

"What the heck was that earlier?"

"I'm not sure."

"You channeled your demon energy into the handle of that bogus Kikujumonji to create an energy blade," Moroha explained.

"Can you do it again?" Kazuki asked.

Towa looked again at the handle of the broken sword and tried to remember what she felt when she saw Kazuki in danger. She concentrated and soon a new energy blade formed from the sword handle. Towa felt power flowing from her arm into the handle and deliberately shut off the flow. She turned the power on and off a few more times to get the hang of it.

"You realize what this means Towa?" Kazuki asked enthusiastically. "You have your very own lightsaber!"

"Lightsaber?" Moroha repeated with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh, it's this weapon from a pretty popular series of movies," Towa explained.

"Mo…vie?" Moroha repeated with a tilt of her head.

"Never mind," Towa responded as she stuck the handle of her broken sword back in its scabbard. "The important thing right now is finding Suzumi and figuring out what's going on."

"Agreed, but where do we even start?" Kazuki asked.

"We could go back to my village," Moroha suggested. "It's a long shot, but my mom might be able to figure out how to help you two."

Kazuki looked to Towa and shrugged. "We might as well. It's better than just standing around out here."

Towa nodded. "Okay Moroha. Lead the way."

As the two followed Moroha out of the forest, Towa looked at her hand and thought about how she had created the energy blade. It was kind of a shock, and yet it didn't really surprise Towa to find she was capable of such things. The fact was Towa had always possessed abilities that were considered superhuman. She always hid them though because her foster father had told her to, and at times having to do so felt very suffocating. The worst part was not knowing why she had these abilities, but Towa had the feeling she was finally going to get some answers.

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