Cheesy Narrator Guy: When last we saw our heroes...they were receiving a sound thrashing from the onineko in the clearing of the Western corner of Inuyasha's forest... Will Inuyasha and Miroku's tag team be strong enough to fight off their formidable new foe? Or will our brave bishounen be catnip for this feline fiend?
Dun dun DUN!!!! O_O
Omoide no Mori
Forest of Memories
chapter seven:
*In Which Good Triumphs over Evil...for the Time Being...*
"Chikushou," Sango growled, fisting her hands. "This is bad...she's really strong..."
She grit her teeth and reached for the wakizashi she had strapped to her hip, then growled, dropping her hand to her side.
"And without my Hiraikotsu, I won't be of much help to them..."
Kagome pulled an arrow from the quiver on her back and plucked at the bowstring. She frowned, and raised the bow.
This may be the only way...she thought, then lowered the bow as the onineko stepped directly in front of Inuyasha again.
Kagome scowled.
Whether the neko youkai was doing it on purpose or it was just her nature to be a nuisance Kagome wasn't sure...but whatever the reason was, she sure had a knack for being a bother.
She clenched the arrow in her hands and tensed her shoulders. She couldn't fire now...it would be the same as before.
She gnawed on her lower lip.
Inuyasha...
"What, no snide remark?" the cat girl sneered, taking a slow, deliberate step toward the hanyou. "No last word? No final request? Somehow, I expected more of a challenge..."
"Inuyasha, abunai!" Miroku called as the onineko raised the fan again.
Chikushou...she really means to kill him this time!
She crossed her arms in front of her, this time emitting a pale crimson glow, as if she was burning from within. She grinned at Inuyasha, who was on his rump on the forest floor, gritting his teeth. The reversion of the Wound of the Wind had knocked Tetsusaiga away.
Several meters away, in fact; he would never be fast enough to get it back this time...not with the onineko standing there, ready to attack...not with his foot hurt. He glanced at Miroku, and the monk shot him a desperately hopeless look.
What would they do now?
"This is it, Hanyou," the onineko growled, and the fan snapped open. "My flames will burn you to dust, even that fancy red haori of yours!"
She thrust the fan forward--"Kajin!"--and a cyclone of fire swirled around her.
"Hona ne...Inuyasha!" she roared, and threw her arms up in the air. The flames erupted all around, and Inuyasha raised one arm to his face as the fireball encircled him, wrapping him up in an intense cocoon of unbelievable heat.
"Inuyasha~a~a~a!" Kagome wailed, tears springing to her eyes. She lunged forward, but Sango grabbed her by the forearms. "Hanashite, Sango-chan!" she cried desperately, "Let me go, let me go! Inuyasha!!"
"Kagome--look!" Shippou shouted, leaping up onto her shoulder, pointing.
She glanced up to where he pointed, and gasped loudly.
"Miroku...-sama..."
The cat demon's eyes narrowed.
"Nanda...korya...?" she said slowly, and lowered the fan.
The flames died away, and she took a step forward.
Inuyasha lowered his arm, startled, and glanced up to see Miroku standing in front of him, his shakujou poised, his left hand gripping it tightly. His right hand was raised near his face, his fingers held straight and rigid in a prayer-like position.
The houshi gave the onineko a piercing glare, then dropped his right arm back to his side and looked back over his shoulder.
"Daijoubu, Inuyasha?"
The hanyou nodded once, a little stunned.
The onineko scowled.
"You..." she said with narrowed eyes, "Houshi...you're a real pain in the ass..."
Miroku spun the shakujou.
"The feeling," he replied slowly, "is mutual, I assure you."
He glared at her.
"I dunno why it is you want to kill Inuyasha," he admitted, "but I, for one, won't stand for it."
Inuyasha balked.
Miroku... he thought, what are you planning...?
The cat rolled her eyes.
"All this friendship nonsense is highly overrated, if you ask me," she grumbled, sounding a trifle bitter, and she closed the fan, tapping it lightly against her hip.
She sighed a rather hopeless sigh, and gazed at Miroku for just a moment.
"You must be pretty strong, Houshi," she said to him, closing one eye and touching her finger to the side of her jaw as Miroku bared his teeth at her. "No one has ever survived my Kajin before... No one has ever been able to erect a barrier that could withstand its power."
She lifted her eyebrows.
"Pity," she added after a brief pause, "that I shall have to kill you now."
Miroku smiled.
"Don't pity me yet," he said, and tucked his shakujou under his arm, grabbing the rosary beads around his right hand. "Stay there, Inuya--"
Paff!
"Idiot!" Inuyasha shouted, kicking the monk in the back of the leg.
Miroku pitched forward, off balance for a second, and then quickly regained his poise, shooting a look at the hanyou, who flashed his fangs at him in anger.
"Bakayarou!" he snarled. "Don't you ever think?? This feline wench was undoubtedly sent by Naraku to--"
The cat demon's eyes snapped open wide.
"Naraku?" she echoed incredulously. "Naraku??"
She gaped at Inuyasha for a moment, then threw her head back in wild laughter. It was a sardonic and bitter sound with no joy in it. In fact, it sounded downright angry!
"Naraku..." she growled in acrid fury, "that miserable maleficent miscreant...you honestly think that I would ally myself with that bastard!? Bah! The idea!"
There was a sort of rage in her voice that almost made Miroku wince. The onineko eyed the monk coldly in contempt.
"If I actually cared what you simpletons thought of me, I'd be offended."
She tilted her chin.
"Still..." she added after a moment, "I suppose you do are deserving of some praise..."
She looked at Inuyasha, and tossed her head to get her unruly hair out of her eyes.
"As tedious as this battle has been, Inuyasha, you and your young monk friend don't make a bad tag team. You've lasted longer than any other opponent I've battled before." She smiled coolly. "Demo...ah, you know what they say...'all good things', and so on..."
She cracked her knuckles.
Miroku's features hardened.
He'd heard enough.
"Stay behind me, Inuyasha," he instructed with a wicked grin, and unwound the rosary.
"Houshi-sama, don't do it!" Sango cried. "There has to be another way!"
Miroku clenched his jaw.
There is no other way...
"Don't do it!" Kagome reiterated desperately.
The monk didn't look at them, for he feared if he did, he would not be able to endure their desperate eyes.
He clenched his fists.
"She doesn't work for Naraku!" he shouted, gripping the beads tightly.
"So she says!" Kagome protested.
"It could be a trick!" Shippou added, jumping up and down by Sango’s feet. "If you inhale the poison...!"
Miroku hesitated, his grip on the rosary loosening.
If he inhaled the poison...
He grit his teeth and growled.
The poison...the poison of the Saimyoushou...the huge, deadly wasps that seemed to accompany every one of Naraku’s underlings like some sort of virulent cavalry...the one thing that could render Miroku’s Kazaana completely useless...
Or rather, render Miroku himself as such.
He had found out the hard way just how vulnerable he was to the venom of the Saimyoushou, during a fight with Inuyasha’s elder brother. The first time the wasps had been released, Miroku had paid them no particular mind, and proceeded to use his Air Rip on the huge youkai tagging along after Sesshoumaru. He had pulled the creature halfway into the void when the Saimyoushou had been released.
The monk had been a little startled to see that the wasps were not being simply sucked into the void, they were flying in of their own free will, swarming in great numbers into the endless vacuum.
Then came the real start, when a shockwave of pain had shot through his right hand, radiating from the Kazaana like a tremor of stinging white-hot agony. He had stumbled backward, staggering to maintain his bearings, and sealed the Kazaana as he pitched to his knees. The wasps’ poison was fast, racing through his bloodstream as though it knew from the beginning where it was going, and had taken the shortest route to get there, constricting his lungs and making it difficult and painful to breathe, his body racked with a blistering fever as he desperately tried to fight it off...
He had barely survived...
It had happened more than once, to speak the truth...
Not that he hadn't learned his lesson the first time, no...he knew well what would happen...but it seemed he had been given no other choice in the matter. Either suck up the Bad Guy, Saimyoushou in tow...or watch the others die. He hadn't cared for either option, but it really hadn't been that difficult of a choice. Surely he had paid dearly for it later, both in pain and reprimand, but he knew that in the long run, it was worth the discomfort.
Miroku glanced back at Inuyasha, and clenched his jaw. The wound to the hanyou’s foot had been deep, and was still bleeding quite profusely. He would never be able to fight like that. He fisted his hands, knowing that, while Inuyasha’s wounds frequently took far less time to heal than his own would have, the onineko certainly didn't strike him as the type who would take a raincheck to let him recover.
He reasoned that hadn't seen any Saimyoushou with her...and usually the huge poisonous insects could be heard buzzing ominously from a distance. Miroku set his jaw and nodded.
"It’s just a risk I'm gonna have to take!" he said simply, more to himself than anyone else, and stepped forward, yanking the rosary beads from his palm. "Kazaana!"
"Miroku-sama!"
The onineko reeled back at Kagome’s shriek.
That name...she thought, her mind spinning as she watched Miroku, the world seeming to slow down to a half-speed vision from a long-forgotten dream.
Miroku...can it be true?
Her hand subconsciously flew to her neck, and her fingers wrapped around a slim silver chain she wore beneath her collar.
Miroku...
She hadn't heard that name in years...yet as she watched his thrust his right hand forward, his dark eyes gleaming with something far stronger than mere human resolve, she swallowed hard, feeling like she'd been slugged in the gut.
The monk grinned as a purple-black energy seemed to engulf his right hand as the Air Rip was opened, and there was an intense roaring sound, like that of a tornado. Everything in the immediate area seemed to shake and quiver in fear, and was then torn from where it rested, being pulled toward Miroku with such force as to uproot a tree or dislodge a boulder. His smile faded, however, when he lifted his eyes to see the cat youkai’s reaction.
He was startled to see the look on her face--it had crumbled from smug overconfidence to forlorn despair, as if she had just watched a loved one’s death with her own very eyes. She shook her head quickly, almost imperceptibly, and leapt backward into the boughs of a nearby tree.
Landing softly on the branch, she stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled shrilly. Almost immediately, a small black head poked out of the leaves, three red eyes staring, unblinking, at the onineko, a yellow beak clamped tightly around--
"Miroku--the jewel!" Inuyasha shouted.
The cat demon snatched the jewel shard from the crow’s beak, and threw it up in the air, watching as it was caught in the current of the Kazaana and pulled toward Miroku along with everything else.
"Dammit!"
With a curse, Miroku sealed the Air Rip, hurriedly winding the beads around his palm and snapping his left hand out to grab the jewel as it fell back to earth--
"Fuujin!"
He cried out and leapt back as the needles of white light flew from the onineko’s fan and struck his left arm.
Quicker than his eye could follow, she had jumped down from the tree and snatched the shard from the air.
"Yes, the jewel," she said, launching herself backward a few feet away, "you remember the jewel?" She waved it in a taunting manner. "Wouldn't want to pull this into a black infinity, now would we?"
Miroku cursed under his breath.
"You jerk!" Kagome shouted, yanking an arrow from her quiver and nocking it into the bow. "I won't be ridiculed by someone with an Osaka accent! Give us that shard!"
Twang!
The onineko’s eyes flashed, and she twisted to catch the purifying arrow in her right hand, then spun and dove forward, shoving Miroku aside and sliding to a stop on all fours just in front of Inuyasha. With a furious growl like that of an injured animal, she raised the arrow up over her head and brought it down sharply, plunging it deep into the hanyou’s foot.
Inuyasha let out an anguished screech and recoiled quickly as Miroku snapped the shakujou out, aimed for the base of the cat demon’s neck.
She ducked and grabbed the end of the staff with her hand--"You'll put someone’s eye out with that thing!"--yanking it from his grip, and tossed it aside.
"The Great Camphor to the North," she said, leaping back and grabbing a tree branch, hanging off the trunk like a monkey, the stolen shard glittering in her hand. "If you want the shard, Inuyasha, be there at sunset...alone."
"Why you--!"
Miroku dove to the side to retrieve his staff, but not in time.
"Tejin!!"
A plume of gray-purple smoke engulfed the cat demon as she brought the fan up to her face.
"Chikushou!" Miroku shouted, snatching up the shakujou and blindly swinging it into the cloud of smoke, trying to clear it, coughing hoarsely in the thick purple smog.
"The camphor to the North, Inuyasha," came her disembodied voice, and she cackled wickedly. "Come at sunset... Don't be late..."
When the smoke cleared, Miroku stood a moment, just staring at the spot where she had vanished from, his shoulders heaving.
Who was she? What did she want from them?
And what was that incredible weapon she had wielded?
"Inuyasha!"
The monk circled back at the sound of Kagome’s cry, frowning.
He'd have to worry about unanswered questions later.
He dropped to one knee beside the fallen hanyou as Kagome, Sango, and Shippou rushed over.
"Inuyasha," the houshi said, reaching hesitantly out toward the arrow in Inuyasha’s foot, "are...you okay?"
"Of course I am!" Inuyasha snapped. "My foot’s been impaled by an arrow, you stupid monk! I'm bloody fit as a fiddle! Never been better!"
Miroku almost laughed. It seemed that, despite the injuries to his foot (and to his pride), he was just fine...
Inuyasha grumbled something no one could quite make out, and leaned forward roughly to grab at the arrow, grunting as his foot exploded in pain when his fingers grazed the shaft. He quickly let go, growling expletives with no concern for the ears of the others.
"Jeez, Inuyasha," Sango gasped, drawing her hand to her mouth at the sight of the puncture in his foot. She met his gaze for a moment, then looked off toward the horizon. "Who was that girl, anyway?"
He shrugged.
"Shiranee," he confessed, his voice strained as he diffidently reached for the arrow again. "I was wondering why the hell she talked funny, but I've...never seen her before..."
"It seemed she knew you, though," Shippou said bluntly, and dove behind Sango’s leg when Inuyasha shot him an icy glare.
Inuyasha recoiled, unwilling to try to remove the arrow again. He folded his arms in his sleeves.
Great...what the hell do I do now...?
"Here, let me."
He glanced up and watched as Kagome knelt down beside Miroku, her knees near Inuyasha’s foot. The monk held back a laugh as Inuyasha proceeded to gripe and grouch, but made no move to shrink away to prevent Kagome from aiding him.
"Iteteteee! Oi! Watch it!" he cried as she wrapped her fingers around the arrow.
"Well, it has to come out!" she protested.
"You don't have to be so rough!" he argued.
"I barely touched you!" she shouted. "Don't be such a baby!"
"Who’s a baby??" he demanded, turning his head to the side and lifting his chin in defiance. "Temee...I probably just saved your life, and you've got the nerve to call me a--gyahahaaa!"
He let out a strangled cry and lunged forward to grip his ankle as Kagome quickly extracted the arrow. He glared at her as she waggled the arrowhead at him.
"Bakayarou!" he shouted. "You were supposed to remove the arrow, not turn my whole bloody foot inside-out!"
He tried to sit with the soles of his feet together, but it hurt too much, so he simply folded one leg beneath him and left the other one stretched out. He huffed again, and crossed his arms over his chest.
Kagome rolled her eyes--"Baby..."--and dragged the arrow head through the dirt to clean the blood off before placing it back in the quiver. She frowned as her eyes moved to Inuyasha’s left foot.
"That looks really bad, Inuyasha," she said, and he huffed again in response.
"Idiot, how is it supposed to look?"
She set her jaw, and Inuyasha turned to glance at her as she reached up to remove the ribbon from her hair. He smiled inwardly as her ebony locks tumbled down around her shoulders, and he twitched his nose.
He loved how Kagome smelled...how her hair always carried a sweet scent, like candy or fruit. He absently noted her hair smelled citrusy today, rather like ripe...what were they called again? A peculiar orange fruit she had brought along once...tangerines, he believed she had called them. He opened his mouth to say something, then frowned as her hands moved toward his foot.
"What are you doing?" he asked quickly, flinching away from her.
She blinked at him.
"The wound should be covered," she said simply. "Otherwise it might get infected."
"But you'll stain your ribbon with blood."
She smiled, and reached out again.
"Daijoubu," she said. "I have others. This is more important."
He felt an involuntary blush redden his features momentarily, and then he tucked his arms in his sleeves again and jerked his chin skyward.
"Feh," he muttered. "Fine, do what you like..."
"Inuyasha," Shippou whined after a moment, his voice sounding very small. Inuyasha glanced at him. The kogitsune’s green eyes were concerned. "You...you're not really gonna go...are you?"
Inuyasha blinked.
"Go?"
"To where that neko onna told you to meet her," Sango clarified, striding over to the center of the clearing to retrieve Hiraikotsu.
She brushed some dirt from it, then slung it over her shoulder. Frowning, she eyed Inuyasha.
"To the camphor atop the cliff," she said, "you won't go...right?"
Inuyasha frowned.
"I have to go," he said. "We have to get all the shards, we can't afford to miss any."
Whack!
"Is it worth your life?" Miroku demanded, lifting his shakujou from where he had buried it in Inuyasha’s hair. "Or your secret, for that matter? If you go tonight, she'll know your demon powers fade on the First Night."
Inuyasha rubbed the top of his head and pouted, as though mildly discouraged by the unwelcome reminder.
"She said she knew all my weaknesses, anyway," he said lamely, recalling the onineko’s words. "She knew well enough that she couldn't harm me through the Hinezumi cloak, that’s why she cut my chest and my foot..."
He rotated his ankle as Kagome finished tying the ribbon snugly over the wound. He'd never have admitted it to her, but that had actually helped relieve some of the pain...
"I'm rather lost for a motive," Sango admitted. "If she’s not affiliated with Naraku, then what reason would she have to try and kill you, Inuyasha?"
"I don't know," he confessed.
"Maybe she works for your brother," Shippou said, and immediately wished he hadn't. At the mention of Sesshoumaru, Inuyasha’s mood seemed to grow even darker.
"I don't think so," Inuyasha said firmly. "Sesshoumaru doesn't care for such underhanded tactics, he would have come after me himself...he wouldn't bother sending useless minions the way Naraku does..." He paused. "Besides, what would a cat be doing allied with a dog, anyway?"
"So who was she?" Kagome wondered out loud. "And where did she come from?"
"I already said I don't know!" Inuyasha snapped. "I have never seen her before in my life!"
"But she, so it would seem," Sango said somberly, "knows you quite well."
"Feh, it doesn't matter," the hanyou growled, crawling over to where the Tetsusaiga had fallen. Using it as a crutch, he slowly got to his feet. "I can handle her."
Miroku snorted.
"Right," he laughed. "You demonstrated that quite clearly..."
"Shove it, Bouzu," Inuyasha snarled. "You're lucky she wasn't lying about being partnered with Naraku. If you'd sucked up any of those blasted wasps of his, you'd have ended up flat on your back."
Miroku flattened his eyes.
"Aa, sou, and where would that have left you, Muteki-sama?"
"Okay, okay, you two," Sango chided, stepping between them with her arms held out to her sides. "Don't make me separate you. This is no time to argue."
She whistled over her shoulder for Kirara, and the big cat ambled easily over to the group.
"Come on," she urged, hopping up onto Kirara’s back, "lets get back to the village. Kaede-sama might have some insight on the subject." She paused. "And she'll at least have something to help your foot, Inuyasha."
"Feh."
Inuyasha snorted and swatted at Sango’s hand as she reached out to help him up onto Kirara’s broad back.
"Mou, Inuyasha," Kagome scolded, standing up, "surely you don't intend to walk all the way back? Not with that ankle..."
He didn't respond, merely took a halting step forward, refusing to limp. He grit his teeth as a searing bolt of pain shot up his leg.
Dammit, it stung!
He took another jerky step--
Whack!
"Miroku!" he barked, clutching the top of his head with both hands. "Temee, whaddya think you're--?"
"You need to learn a little something about appreciation," the houshi chided, lowering his staff. He grabbed the back of Inuyasha’s cloak and pulled the reluctant hanyou back toward Kirara.
As Inuyasha continued ranting and raving at him, Miroku tuned out the angry yammer. While the sensation of déjà vu he'd been having all morning seemed to have faded, the feelings of trepidation had not. In fact, it seemed that the knot of dread had tied itself even tighter in the pit of his stomach.
Or, then...perhaps it was just that ulcer...
Either way, Miroku didn't like where this was going at all.
Inuyasha, stubborn and pigheaded as he was, would surely do all possible to get to the camphor tree at sunset, like the neko youkai had instructed. He'd do just about anything to get his claws on a shard, no matter the danger involved.
Silently deciding he'd have to keep an extra close watch on the wayward hanyou, Miroku dragged him to Kirara’s side, and then the group headed back toward Musashi village.
* * *
Author Notes:
Cheesy Narrator Guy: So just who is this onineko? And what exactly is she after? Will Kaede be able to help our heroes with her infinte knowledge of nearabout every mysterious thing Inuyasha happens to come across in the show? And what about Kagome's ribbon? Will those bloodstains EVER come out?? Find out in our next exciting installment of Omoide no Mori!
...sponsored by my good friend Katy's website, The Inuyasha Shrine. Go check out her image galleries, they rock! ^_^
::falls over:: Ohhh man...can I just call in dead for the rest of the year or something? I am so burned out on work. You think you've got a stressful job? I dare you to pit the tension factor against mine: Frontline Customer Service Rep for a Struggling Global Airline. -_- I take more abuse than I put my favorite bishounen through in my stories! @_@ And that's a lot to go through in 3 dimensions, ya to??
*Glossary of Terms*
I am assuming we all know the Inuyasha basics, like youkai, hanyou, Shikon no Tama, etcetera, so those will not be translated here. Also, I'm only gonna put translations once, so as the story goes on, the glossary will dwindle. I'm hoping your memories will serve you, because otherwise the glossary will be absolutely enormous! Some chapters probably won't even need one, so I hope you guys can keep track of words already translated. Let me know if it gets too tough.
Chikushou: one of the stronger swearwords in teh language. This one is usually associated with "Shit!"
wakizashi: ah, here we have an author rant... Just a small one, I assure you... ^_^ This one concerns the what I am certain is an incorrect identification in 99% of fanfiction regarding Sango's other weapon: her sword. Sango carries a wakizashi, not a full-length katana. I have seen it referred to also as a kodachi, which has sort of become a generic term for a short sword, so it is not entirely incorrect, as a kodachi literally is a "small tachi", which is another name for katana. I'm not going to go into great depth about the different types of Japanese swords or which one is which...(unless you want me to, that is...), but my point is simply this--Sango's would probably have a hard time drawing a full-length katana. Well, think about it... A katana is defined as a tachi-length sword (that is, a blade of more than two shaku (11.9") in length) worn through the obi with the handle up. There's no way the blade on Sango's sword can be more than two feet long, that would simply be impractical for her height, she's probably only about 5'7" (and you people who think I pay too much attention to detail...are probably right, but shaddup anyway ^_~). It's extremely difficult to draw a sword that is longer than 3/4 your arm length (I know this from experience, I have to hold my bokken two inches into where the blade would be because I'm too short to draw it full-length), and so deductive reasoning would tell us that Sango most likely carries a sword more suited to her height, since she wields it so well...: A wakizashi, or Japanese short sword, measuring anywhere from 12" to 24" in length. End rant.
Kajin: Another attack name. Kaji indicates fire.
Hone ne: An Osaka-ben term meaning goodbye. Sorta comes across as "Seeya later". Very casual.
Hanashite: Polite conjugation of the verb hanasu, "to release". "Let go!"
Nanda...korya?: "What's this?" Osaka-ben. In Tokyo Japanese this would be written Nanda...kore wa? but in the western dialect, the wa particle is frequently dropped in this manner.
Bakayarou: We all ought to know this one. Just a slightly more severe form of baka. "Idiot!"
Tejin: Another attack. Tejin actually means "magic".
Shiranee: Shiranai. "I dunno."
"Aa, sou.": Translated literally, it means, "Yes, that is so", but this phrase is frequently used in a facetious manner, something along the lines of "Oh, is that so?", usually said when giving someone a hard time. I say it a lot at work just to confuse people. It is also used in its literal form, like a yes response to a question, but here it is intended to be a wise-guy remark. ::squeezes her multitude of Miroku plushies::
Muteki-sama: Mister Invincible. Literally. Miroku's such a smartass. ^.^
So what do you think?? Anybody wanna venture any guesses yet as to the onineko's motives? >:]
~~hikari