My apologies for the late update but this story proved to be more difficult to write than I previously thought.
Once I finish the outline, the updates will become more regular. Stay tuned!
CHAPTER 2: Echoes from a dream
"KAGOME!" Lady Kaede shouted trying to wake her up. "Kagome! Wake up, you are just dreaming, please."
Kagome was groaning in pain, whatever she was dreaming of was no doubt horrible.
"Inuyasha…" Kagome said as she finally woke up, tears covering her face. She noticed that Lady Kaede was the only person in the room with her. 'I remember now…Inuyasha is gone.'
"Kagome…child…, what's gotten into you." Kagome was pale as if life itself had been drained out of her.
"Lady Kaede… I don't feel good…" This was Kaede's cue to act. She left the cottage in hurry to bring herbal medicine and equipments to check on Kagome and identify her sickness.
A few minutes later, Kaede came back but to her surprise, Kagome wasn't in her bed.
"Oh my…" to her horror, the girl vanished. Kaede looked and asked all the villagers but Kagome was nowhere to be found. This can't be possible; she couldn't have gone that far, especially in her condition. After assigning a villager to watch over the village, Kaede mounted her horse and left to look for kagome.
The fog was getting stronger as she neared her destination; she wasn't sure if she was going to make it but her last thread of consciousness kept pushing her limits and urged her to continue.
Kagome could remember very well the first time she got these awful nightmares but at some point, she started to suspect these weren't dreams perhaps they were visions from a past tragedy. The way that man was talking, and the agonizing voices, everything was so real to her at that moment.
At first, she blamed these nightmares on the fact that she got exposed to brutal events and twisted minds that she wasn't familiar with. Demons? Half demons? In her world, a demon existed only in fictional media or religious books; there was never a concrete evidence of their existence. So naturally when she saw a demon for the first time back in the well, perhaps she got traumatized and now she was suffering from unresolved trauma that manifested in her dreams.
Walking slowly while using her longbow as a crutch, she could see a shrine up in the mountains. This must be it, the shrine she saw in her dreams and even the smell of the sea breeze from her recent nightmare was present but there was no sea around, how strange.
'So this place exists…' she thought. After all, she was right, those weren't nightmares, they were visions but how were they connected to her? Perhaps Naraku was involved with this? He was after all name-dropped during the recent vision, that guy was babbling about some curse, and this Midoriko…If she kept thinking any longer her head might explode.
Alerting Inuyasha was probably the right course of action but she didn't want to be a burden, especially not now, he had more important matters to attend to, at least that was what she thought.
"Keep going," said a faint female voice in her head. She knew whoever was guiding her to this destination was not to be trusted but her curiosity defeated the rational part of her.
"Human." Kagome was startled; this was the last person she expected to see here; Sesshoumaru.
"Go back from whence you came," he threatened.
She hesitated in her steps; many questions formed in her brain, such as why was Sesshoumaru here? And why was she still alive?
"Take one more step, and I will eliminate you."
This answered it. She was dead the moment she defied him. Kagome was a curious woman, but she wasn't dumb. Testing Sesshoumaru wasn't a risk she would take, but as she turned her back to return from where she came, she suddenly felt dizzy and lost her balance, falling to the ground. Darkness clouded her vision, and she fainted.
Inuyasha stopped. The trail of kikyo's smell gathered in this location, a cave.
"Miroku, Shippo, we arrived, it should be here but…" Inuyasha was confused; he couldn't smell the demon who stole kikyo's ashes.
"Inuyasha, there's no presence here," said Miroku.
"Yes but stay alert something definitely feels wrong"
As they approached the cave's entrance, Inuyasha instructed shippo and Miroku to stay outside the cave and alert him if anything went wrong. Miroku wanted to protest but he understood whatever the situation was inside, Inuyasha wanted to face it alone, so he respected the man's desire for privacy.
"Don't stay for long Inuyasha," said shippo anxiously.
Inuyasha nodded and went inside.
What he saw was nothing he expected; an open coffin on the ground next to it was a demon, or rather a fried demon.
The demon coughed with her raspy voice "she is here, prepare to die," with a mischievous smile, she held her last breath as she died.
"Dammit!" he cursed at himself. Whatever this demon intended to do, he was too late to stop it for sure. The smell of bones and soil ravished his nose, someone was inside that coffin and he hopes it was not who he thought it was.
Inuyasha observed the ground, something was written next to the coffin.
"Find me at the Shrine"
"Kanna, what do you see?"
Her mirror showed Sesshoumaru and the problematic priestess he despised. She reminded him of Kikyo… and Midoriku…. These trivial thoughts didn't waver his amusement at the scene before him. They were right before the shrine where it all began. Perhaps Sesshoumaru did know his history, unlike the rest of the dog demons and lesser demons.