Chapter 01
"What a fucking waste of time!" Inuyasha complained for the millionth time, as the group traveled through the forest headed for Kaede's village.
The group had been walking for nearly a week now, after traveling far to the north in search of a rumored jewel shard said to be held by a nest of snake demons. Shortly upon reaching the small village, the group realized that the rumors were false and there was no shard. The group, much to the Chagrin of their half-demon companion, elected to stay the night regardless, to help the village with their demon problems anyway. It was then that his grumbling began. And now, two weeks later, the group had had enough.
"Enough already!" Kagome shouted at the fuming hanyou as the group continued to traverse the quickly darkening forest, "It's getting late and we can hardly see, Inuyasha! I think we should stop here and set up camp!"
"I agree Inuyasha," conferred Miroku as the group entered a clearing, "continuing on in the dark isn't going to get us there any faster."
"Feh," Inuyasha replied irritably, "Weak humans! Every time I even start to pick up the pace, someone's asking to stop." He said that last part while staring directly at Kagome.
"Grrrr! Sit, Sit, Sit, Sit, Sit, Sit!" Kagome said before she turned, huffed and walked to the middle of the clearing. Sitting down, she opened up her backpack and prepared to make camp. Sango was the first of the group to join her.
"I know he can be irritating at times," begun Sango as she sat down beside Kagome, "But do you really think it wise to keep sitting him like this?"
"Humph, he deserves it," she said as she looked over at the fallen hanyou, "jerk!"
Meanwhile, the rest of the group still stood near the downed Inuyasha. Though Shippo was the only one to talk, he seemed to be able to talk enough for the two of them.
"How you doing down there Inu-baka! Comfortable enough for ya! You're not so tough now! Ha, ha, ha!"
"Shippo, I don't think it's wise to tease Inuyasha like this," commented Miroku.
Shippo turned around to face Miroku, "Its okay, he can't do anything to me. If he does- ow!" Shippo complained as something hard hit his head. Turning around, Shippo came face to face, or rather face to knee, with a rather pissed Inuyasha.
"Uh, he, he, he, hey Inuyasha" Shippo said nervously as he looked up into the face of his half demon companion.
A cruel smile touched Inuyasha's lips as he stared down at the tiny fox demon. "So tell me again, what were you saying?"
"Uhhh," Shippo said, slowly backing away from Inuyasha. After about five steps, he turned, and sprinted away from Inuyasha as he yelled for Kagome.
Inuyasha was about to give chase when another scent assaulted his nose from not far away. Inuyasha stopped and sniffed the air once more to confirm his first smell. Turning away from the group, Inuyasha chose then to leap away into the forest, leaving his surprised group speechless.
A low growl escaped Inuyasha's lips as he continued to venture forth into the darkened forest. There was a demon very closed nearby, and that Inuyasha just could not have. This was his forest, and any demon that dared to enter would have to deal with him personally. Besides, from the near overwhelming scent of blood in the air, Inuyasha was sure that this demon wasn't just passing through.
So Inuyasha continued on. Running through the forest as the scent of his invading demon as well as the scent of blood became stronger and stronger. Eventually Inuyasha got close enough that he could hear the sounds of a battle going on.
Back at the camp, the gang just now seemed to be recovering from the shock of seeing Inuyasha skip an opportunity to beat up on little Shippo. Kagome, who had watched the entire event unfold, ready to sit Inuyasha if he got out of line was the first to utter her disbelief to the entire group.
"What just happened?" she asked.
"I don't know," said Miroku, "But it seems as if Inuyasha has found something a bit more interesting than Shippo, from the way he growled when he left. Kagome, do you sense any jewel shards around?"
"No," she said trying to understand where this conversation was going.
"Hmm, I wonder then. What else could cause such a reaction from Inuyasha?" inquired the monk.
Kagome just then seemed to catch on to Miroku's line of thinking. The thought of Inuyasha running off to find Kikyou did seem like a plausible reason for his sudden disappearance, except for one rather small problem. There were no soul collectors in the area. Kikyou never traveled without them. "No," Kagome voiced aloud, "There are no soul collectors around."
"The only other explanation that I can come up with is that Inuyasha scented another hostile demon nearby," said Miroku.
"If that's the case then he may be in trouble. We should go help him!" exclaimed Kagome.
"Or he may just want to be alone. How about Kirara and I go and look for him. If he is in trouble I'll send Kirara back to get you guys, ok?"
The rest of the group agreed with Sango, though Kagome did seem a bit less enthusiastic about the whole thing. Nevertheless, Kirara transformed and took off into the forest just as Sango hopped onto her back. The pair flew through the forest at an amazing speed, in search of Inuyasha.
The battle had ended by the time Inuyasha reached the scene. Stepping into another clearing in the forest, he looked around confused. He had only smelled one, maybe two demons as he sped across the forest toward this place, and yet the entire clearing was littered with parts from over a dozen assorted demons, which meant that the demon responsible for this attack was still in the area somewhere.
Inuyasha jumped back and scanned the area. Nothing moved. From the trees and the dirt, to the blood and assorted body parts littered around this area, Inuyasha couldn't spot a single thing moving. He relaxed immensely, and then stepped back into the clearing to check the area a bit more. It would do Inuyasha a lot of good to know more about this possible enemy.
Looking though the decaying mess of demon entrails that encompassed the clearing, Inuyasha crinkled his nose. The stench was horrendous but Inuyasha wanted to find out who could have caused destruction on this scale so quickly. So he stayed and dealt with the stench. But as Inuyasha continued to sift through the decaying pieces of demons, Inuyasha was not getting any idea of what had occurred. All he could tell from the mess was that the weapon used to slay most of these demons was a sword of some kind, and that a few of the demons had scorch marks on their mutilated parts.
"What the fuck could have done this?" Inuyasha said to himself.
Just then a noise caught Inuyasha's attention. It had come from the center of the clearing, so turning around, Inuyasha walked back through the grimy mess of demon entrails, to find himself in the center of the clearing.
"Uungh!" A pained grunt sounded from beneath the pile of flesh and other body parts that made up this rather large pile of filth in front of which Inuyasha currently stood.
Inuyasha bent down to get a better look at the pile. He was sure everything there had been dead. Then the pile moved as another groan was emitted from deep within the prison of flesh and blood. It hadn't moved much; in fact a human trained to notice the slightest movements, such as in Sango's profession might not have been able to pick it up. But Inuyasha wasn't human, and to him the movement signified that there was indeed life in the clearing after all.
Inuyasha bent over slightly as he tried to decide what to do. Should he save the person? Should he leave the person there? The person buried beneath the pile of demon parts might not even by a human at all. Then Inuyasha would be forced to…fight. Inuyasha nearly tripped in his hasty decent upon the pile of demon parts, then a thought came to him. This could also be someone in very real pain. He couldn't go rushing into this; he might end up doing more harm than good to the person he was trying to save. So calming down, Inuyasha came to the decision to take things slow for once, that is, until something moved in the corner of his right eye.
It was quick, extremely quick, even Inuyasha's demon senses barely noticed it, and even mere seconds after seeing it, while Inuyasha scanned the surrounding area for any signs of anything else, and he could not recall much about what he saw. Most of what he saw was darkness; the entire creature's body was enshrouded in darkness, at least in his mind. He did however recall two items jingling at the creature's waist, as well as two brilliant violet eyes. Eyes the likes of which, he had once seen, long ago. Those eyes still haunted his dreams now, more than 50 years later. Inuyasha continued to scan the surrounding area source of his reminiscent thoughts to no avail. Finally turning back to the pile in the center of the clearing, he remembered why he was here at all.
Inuyasha began almost immediately to pick and toss away bits and pieces of a number of demons that managed to stack up right here. It took a considerable bit of time to get down to where he needed, simply because of the sheer amount and size of the stuff. Inuyasha midway through, had nearly given up trying to be delicate, but stopped himself since he was unsure of just how badly wounded the person buried beneath was. Finally, Inuyasha did manage to get to his target.
Looking upon his subject, Inuyasha was amazed. She seemed to be in a good enough shape, compared to the rest of her companions in the clearing. Her biggest wound, it seemed was the one inch deep gash that began just under her left breast and ended an inch shy of her right hip. Inuyasha lifted her up from the grime, carrying her out of the clearing before once again setting her down near the base of a tree. She groaned a few more times on the way, and as Inuyasha set her down, he studied the young woman's tattered frame once more.
Her red hair was mangled, with foliage, as well as the dried blood from herself and her companions. She had a small frame, and wore brown fur clothes, that Inuyasha would have found extremely provocative was she not lying on the ground bloody, wounded, and unconscious. Looking once more at her face, Inuyasha could swear that he had seen this female somewhere before, but due to all of the different demon scents she was covered in, he found it difficult to determine. Oh Well, he thought, I'm sure I'll remember eventually. In the mean time, I'll take her back to camp. I'm sure there is something in Kagome's 'backpack' that can help her.
Inuyasha rose then, and turned to take the injured girl back to camp. It would take him a bit longer to get there than it had to come, simply because he did not want to aggravate any of her wounds. But time was of the essence, and Inuyasha hoped that they didn't run into any unwanted company on the way back.
Inuyasha took two steps back toward the camp when he was stopped. Already, this is going to be a long trip back. Inuyasha started to put his unconscious companion down when he recognized their new guest. Riding on the back of Kirara, Sango jumped down and looked at Inuyasha with a relieved look.
"Inuyasha, thank the gods," she said as she jumped down off of Kirara, "Why did you-" She stopped in mid-sentence as she noticed the young woman in Inuyasha's arms. Frowning in confusion she looked up into Inuyasha's eyes as her next question popped out. "What happened to Ayame?"