Disclaimer: I own none of the Inuyasha characters. They
belong to their respected (and overly rich) creators and owners.
If I owned them then I'd make a movie instead of a fanfic.
Chapter 7: Naraku Makes His Move
"Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask any
failure."Earl Wilson
Sango was considering doing what that strange
girl had done -- slam the perverted monk between the legs and
let him rot. She decided not to, but out of sheer habit slapped
him across the face. He recoiled and then sighed.
"Sango, do you need to hit so hard?" The monk
rubbed his throbbing cheek.
Sango stared for half a second, and then
retorted, "Miroku, do you need to grope my ass twelve times per
day?"
He meerly chuckled. "It's a curse I'm afraid."
Sango snorted loudly. "Such a perverted action
would make anybody wonder if you really value your life. The
void in your hand is a curse."
Miroku looked ready to retort for a second,
but stopped himself. His eyes went wide, and then he held two
fingers in front of them, as if to see if he was going
delusional.
"What, did I hit you too hard?" Sango was
starting to chuckle a little.
Miroku slowly dropped his hand. "Look behind
you, and get your armor on."
All humor left Sango as she looked. At first
she thought he really was going delusional. All she saw was a
crow not too far away. Then, when Inuyasha drew his sword and
transformed it some distance away, she near fainted. Inuyasha's
sword, the Tetsusaiga, outside of battle, looked like a rusty
old wrecked katana. When it transformed, though, it grew into a
large, sharp blade about the size of Inuyasha himself. Since the
crow's wingspan was comparable to the sword from this distance
-- and that was a long distance -- she wondered how large
the creature really was.
Jumping up, she grabbed her katana and
boomerang, rushing towards the village to get her armor.
The sliding door was flung right above Kyone,
waking her from her drooling fest about the weapons. She felt
the wood skim her head. Any and all thoughts she was having
about the weapons evaporated as she rushed out of the building.
As soon as she left the building, she had to grab a rope from
the ground just to keep her balance. The wind whirled
tornado-like.
As her muscles were starting to tire, a loud,
smashing sound like a battalion of tanks ramming straight into a
concrete structure broke through the air. The wind kicked up,
and Kyone lost her grip. Her back slammed into a wall, and she
went right through it. When the winds died down enough so she
could see the debris behind her, she spotted a
silver-haired boy, wearing a red Japanese hakama. He was
wielding a sword that looked bigger than himself. The way he was
holding the blade, it looked like he had just swung it. In
the direction of that swing, she saw a large cloud of smoke with
the occasional black feather floating through. It looked
like this boy had just killed whatever it was that caused the
wind.
The monk she had met earlier and a teenage
girl in black armor (who was wielding a boomerang larger than
herself) were racing toward the cloud. To Kyone, it seemed like
those two had already missed the show... until a monstrous claw
swiped the silver-haired boy into the trees.
Kyone almost passed out when she saw what was
on the other side of the smoke: a bear, big enough to rival King
Kong, with arms thicker than tree trunks, stomach more
bulky than a professional weight lifter, and a crazed,
bloodthirsty look on its face.
Kyone wondered if she was still asleep, and
this was one bad nightmare.
The girl in the black armor threw her
boomerang at the monster. Just then, it blasted a feral,
maddening roar. The beast's roar blew the boomerang off course,
and sent it back into the armory where Kyone had spent most of
the day..
Most people would have been glad they weren't
in the armory at that moment. Not Kyone though. She was just
angry. Not glad, not scared, but absolutely insanely pissed off
that all those beautiful, delicate, delicious weapons, those
wonderful treasures had been damaged, some even destroyed.
She picked up the nearest spear and charged at
the bear, with no thought of her own safety.
As she moved forward, a new wind started up.
As opposed to the previous wind, this one wasn't pushing objects
away, like a fan; but rather rather was sucking things in, like
a vaccum. Immediately, she looked behind her, and saw the
monk, who had taken off his purple glove, and in the middle of
his palm she saw what looked like a black hole, sucking in air
and everything moveable, and even some things that didn't look
moveable, like trees and huts. With one hand, Kyone quickly
grabbed the nearest stable object -- a huge, boulder -- and with
the other hand she held tight to her spear.
Even the boulder started to move toward the
monk's damned hand. But the bear still didn't budge. Instead,
hairs shot out from it as fast bullets. Six of them hit the
monk: four on the right leg, and two on the left shoulder. He
quickly put the glove back on and put a Buddhist rosary on his
wrist, locking the glove in place.
The bear reared, as if preparing to attack the
monk. But then a flurry of arrows descended on it. Some of those
arrows burnt the bear's skin like acid. The rest only had the
effect of bee stings.
The bear then shot its spear-like hairs
towards the source of the arrows; and while he was distracted,
Kyone charged again, spear in hand.
She hurled it at the bear's head, and hit it
in the groin. This time, the bear didn't roar, it screeched. A
high pitched screech you'd expect from a twelve-year-old girl
who just lost her tickets to an Elivs-back-from-the-dead
concert. After it stopped screeching and panting, it stared at
Kyone, with eyes that were all white -- without pupils! Then the
eyes turned dark red, green pupils appeared, and the bear
roared. Or, rather, the bear looked like it was roaring --
Kyone didn't hear a thing. She just felt the wind throw her into
a tree before she blacked out.
Not long ago, in a fortress hidden not too far
away, a trio was sitting in a small triangle around a mirror,
only the mirror wasn't a mirror. Instead of reflecting, it
showed a three-D view of a faraway scene -- a bird's eye
view of a large crow causing chaos, complete with sound.
A white-haired girl, who looked eight or nine,
controlled the view -- zooming in and out, and turning 360
degrees.
The other girl, who looked 18 or 19, black
hair, red eyes, and an elaborate kimono spoke first. "All right,
I'd bet half of my food for today that Inuyasha will kill it."
Next to speak was an eleven-year-old boy with
brown hair and freckles who was wearing black armor with yellow
pads on his knees, wrists, and shoulders. "The girl with the
boomerang...what was her name again? Shango, Mongo,
Sango...whatever. Anyway I'll bet on her -- a quarter of my food
and my room...not like I use it anyway."
The young girl spoke last, her dark eyes
expressionless, and her voice a small whisper. "The monk,
Miroku. I'll bet on him. A third of my room, and all of my
food."
No sooner were the bets placed than a
shockwave struck the crow. It came from an extremely large sword
swung by Inuyasha. Apparently, he had done the Kaze no Kizu, AKA
"the windscar." They knew that move by heart now. It had nearly
killed them far too often. Feathers flew out from the smoke in
every direction.
The teenage girl smirked. "Well, Naraku really
sent a wimpy beast. That crow didn't even last for...huh?!?" A
large, furry claw smacked Inuyasha in the face, the girl's jaw
dropped in shock and dismay. She now wished she hadn't been so
hasty with her bet.
The boy just shook his head. "Kagura, next
time wait for the smoke to clear before you celebrate."
As the smoke cleared, a large bear appeared
where the dead crow had been.
Sango threw her large boomerang straight at
the bear, aimed right at its head. It just roared, blowing the
boomerang over the trees and out of sight.
The boy looked aghast. How strong were that
thing's lungs?
Kagura chuckled at him, "So Kohaku, are you
hoping she'll have a spare boomerang? Because that's what it
would take to even annoy that demon."
Then harsh winds started, as if in response to
the pull of another gravity source. The monk, Miroku, had
unleashed the kazana, a black hole in his right hand, usually
covered by his purple glove. Everything nearby flew into the
void -- trees, rocks... even a rock that had sitting on it a
strangely clothed girl with a spear in hand.
The bear's hairs stood on end like from an
electric shock, then one by one the hairs shot out like arrows,
heading straight at Miroku, riding the wind he had created.
Hairs hit him in the right leg four times, and nailing him to
that spot in the ground. Another two hit him in the left
shoulder. His face contorted in pain. He shut the void as
quickly as he could.
Kagura grinned like a bandit who raided a
king's castle. "Well Kanna, your guy is completely out of the
battle. Say goodbye to your food."
Kanna just looked at her with a raised
eyebrow, "At this rate, they'll all be dead. Then all bets will
be off."
That only got at a glare from Kagura. This was
the only entertainment any of them got. Their master-jailer,
Naraku, who had spawned the crow-bear demon, might torture them
all for months -- slowly and playfully testing new weapons and
abilities on them. If this demon failed, he still wouldn't have
the entire Shikon no Tama, the jewel that would vastly increase
his power.
The bear-demon started shooting arrow-like
hairs again, this time aiming them where the real arrows were
coming from. Under closer inspection, one out of every twenty
arrows burnt whenever it touched the bear's skin.
Kagome, with the help of villagers, was
shooting at the bear, but without having much effect.
The beast was winning, handily, when,
unexpectedly, the spear-weilding girl crawled up, below the
range of the demon's notice, and threw a spear into it's groin.
The bear reared its head and screamed, then roared and blew the
girl right into a tree. When the girl collapsed, the bear
charged at her limp body.
Just as the bear was about to trample its
chief offender, Inuyasha jumped on top the creature's head,
clawing with his talon-like fingernails. Following close behind,
with a katana in hand, appeared Sango. She jumped up and kicked
the spear deeper into the bear's groin. The bear fell down and
uttered another loud squeal of agony when Inuyasha tore its eyes
out.
Sango soon took her katana, and made a few
well placed slices on the bear's stomach. Within twenty seconds,
it stopped squirming, then stopped breathing, then stopped
living.
Kohaku walked away from the mirror, with a
smug look on his face. Kagura waited for half a minute, then
left shaking her head and chuckling about how she and Kanna lost
the bet, and would get a vacation from the wretched food that
Naraku provided.
Kanna then grabbed her magic mirror, went to
her room, and put it on the shelf...
Sango was breathing heavily, wiping the sweat
from her forehead with the back of her hand. Meanwhile, Inuyasha
was trying to move Miroku without removing his leg.
Sango was the first to speak. "You know...we
might...owe that girl over there our lives."
Inuyasha nodded. "Yeah, that was a tough one,
and she was helpful. But that was pure luck ... Someone ought to
teach her how to use her weapons."
Miroku, still pinned, just stared
incredulously at Inuyasha. "You think that was luck?!? She hit
the only place that could wound that beast. That was the shot of
an expert."
Sango just scoffed. "She was aiming for the
head, and it landed a lot further down. We need to make sure
that next time she fights, she hits where she means to... You
can't expect to have luck like more than once in a lifetime."
Once Miroku was freed, he rushed to Kaede's
hut. His knee and shoulder had been pierced to the bone, and
blood was pouring out faster than Miroku could guzzle water on a
scalding summer day.
No sooner did the proud victors leave the
field, than the bear's body began to twitch. The legs and arms
especially. Soon, the legs and arms began to split and generate
new joints, and the skin and head peeled off, revealing its new
form -- a spider, half as large as the bear. The spider stared
at the village as if it were trying to memorize the location
every hut and alley, then it silently ran off in the opposite
direction, leaving a trail of putrid pus.
