Ok, I know this doesn't make much sense because Kagome has jewel shards while she's not supposed to because they were stolen, but oh well… Bear with me! This takes place about a little while after Naraku was reborn and Band of Seven was defeated.
Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha… or Bankotsu… or Sango or anyone else! –tears-
Chapter One: The Decision
The huge root thing that came from Naraku's body grasped Sango, holding her tightly against the wall. Then she watched as another root lifted up towards Naraku, carrying the severed body of the young leader of the Band of Seven. A pang filled her heart as she saw the handsome face of the dead mercenary. Then, almost as though to taunt her, Naraku plucked out the jewels and Sango bit her lip as she watched the flesh turn to ash on Bankotsu's body, leaving only a skeleton behind, still in his crisp blue and white clothes.
Tears burned in Sango's eyes and nothing else seemed to exist. 'He was a good man. Loyal and brave, even though he was a ruthless killer, he had a heart. Why did he have to die?' Sango thought. 'Besides, if he were alive, perhaps he could join us in defeating Naraku. Bankotsu was quite strong.' Then she shook that thought out of her head. That would never happen! An enemy on their side? Never! Suddenly, the taijiya drifted out of Naraku's body into a misty white place.
"You can save him," Erie voices said, coming out from nowhere, "Bankotsu's bones are still in Mt. Hakurei. You can use some jewel shards and bring him and Banryu back. He is strong. He can help you greatly."
Sango considered it. Then, she quickly stopped, snapping back to her common sense and said, "No, he's a mercenary, a bad guy! I can't do that!"
"Why not?" The wise voices asked.
She had to think on that one, "Because… well… That would be betraying Kagome and taking her jewel shards."
"She wouldn't mind." The emotionless voices said once more.
"Well, I don't think that Bankotsu would ever join us anyways. We killed his brothers!" Sango argued.
"You would be surprised."
"But-"
The voices interrupted her, "Take the jewel shards and bring Bankotsu back! It's your only way of surviving against Naraku! Now go!"
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Sango gasped as she violently woke up from her dream. Beads of sweat covered her forehead. Panting softly, she quickly slipped out the door of the hut they were sleeping in, careful not to wake the others who were peacefully sleeping, the problem of Naraku away from their happy dreams. The taijiya sighed, thinking about her odd dream. What is my dream trying to tell me? She asked herself, confused. It could just be a random dream… No it was too real for that. Must I really go revive Bankotsu? Is that the only way to save us from Naraku? She thought for a moment. It was true. Naraku had been getting stronger with more jewel shards. They had not been able to attack him to hurt him in the least, but the problem was that he had been very well able to harm them.
The taijiya sighed and glanced wistfully towards the hut where Kagome was in with the jewel shards snuggled next to her. It would be so easy to just go in there and steal the jewel shard and… Sango frowned, "Well, what good can Bankotsu be anyways?" She said out loud, "He lost to Inuyasha and Inuyasha constantly looses to Naraku! What help can he be?" Immediately after she had said this, she felt a pang of guilt in her gut. No, what she said wasn't true. Inuyasha wasn't necessarily better than Bankotsu… Sango sighed. That was enough of that topic. Bankotsu was never going to come back and that's that. No what ifs.
Getting up, Sango stretched out her limbs and trotted back into camp. The others were beginning to wake up now. Forcing a smile toward Kagome, who was sleepily brushing her limp hair, she said, "Come on, there's a village close by. We can go there and try to get some leads on Naraku's whereabouts."
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Sango raced behind a tree to fling on her tight slayer outfit then, she rushed out with her Hiraikotsu and jumped on Kirara's back along with Miroku, gripping around her waist to stay on. They had reached the village just minutes ago, but to all their surprise, they had immediately told them that they had seen a man fitting the description of Naraku in a nearby forest. Eager to finally find Naraku, Inuyasha and Kagome speedily raced below them. Sango wasn't as eager. They hadn't been able to defeat them before, so how were they supposed to now? The demon slayer thought, an odd feeling of disaster in the pit of her stomach, but she ignored it and urged Kirara faster.
They all screeched to a stop as they came to the first of large pine trees that marked the start of a forest. Sango and Miroku both quickly jumped off Kirara and Kagome got off of Inuyasha. They all exchanged nods and began to cautiously enter the forest.
It was a deep and dark forest with shadowy figures everywhere and creepy bird (were they birds?) calls echoing through the expanse of trees. It was quite moist in there, perhaps from a recent storm, but it made the grounds muddy and difficult to slosh through. There was also the dripping of rainwater onto their heads from the tall pine trees above, which startled Sango's sharp demon slayer senses and made her jump with fright every time, which was quite annoying. No one said a word in the damp forest. Everyone was too involved in his or her own thoughts, but Sango did huddle next to Miroku and grasp his arm. It wasn't as though she were afraid of Naraku. It was just that the same feeling of premonition. It's going to be okay, She tried to assure herself, We're going to defeat Naraku and everything will be good, But the truth was that she didn't even believe what she had just thought. Sango bit her lip, trying not to scream out, but couldn't take it anymore. Something bad was going to happen and she had to stop it from happening! "Guys, I don't think that we should continue-"
Unfortunately, at that very second, a light-colored baboon pelt emerged from the darkness of a shadow. Sango's hands clenched into fists. Too late now, it was Naraku!
Naraku grinned at them from under his ridiculous baboon costume, "So you found me," He said in his great husk of a voice.
"Damn right!" Inuyasha exclaimed, drawing out his Tetsusaiga and pointing it at Naraku, "Prepare to die!"
Naraku merely chuckled and a large root came out from under his costume and wrapped itself around Inuyasha, then tossed him back, making him hit hard on the ground. Sango quickly rushed to Inuyasha's rescue by freeing him with her Hiraikotsu while Miroku attacked. "Wind Tunnel!" He exclaimed, opening the dark air void in his right hand.
Having successfully freed Inuyasha from the root, Sango rushed to watch Miroku's wind tunnel in action. But suddenly, something black and yellow caught her eye. She followed the swarming speck of color to find it to be one of Naraku's poisonous insects! "Miroku, watch out!" she called to him.
Miroku swerved his head to find what Sango was talking about. Quickly, he clutched his hand in a fist and wrapped his prayer beads around it, sealing off the air void. The monk gave a feeble smile in Sango's way in gratitude.
At that very moment, swarms of hundreds, no thousands, of demons flowed out from under Naraku's costume. Kagome had snapped into action by then and released one of her sacred arrows, piercing through a row of vicious Naraku-minions. Helping her out, Sango swung her boomerang, which sliced through another row. Kagome shot her arrow again. Inuyasha, recovering from getting tackled by a root, used his Windscar to help wipe out a large number of them. Sango swung her boomerang once more… No matter how many times they attacked, there always seemed to be two demons flowing out from Naraku that filled that demon's place… It was useless to attack. The only way they could hope to defeat them was with Miroku's wind tunnel, but since he was in no position to fight, they were basically doomed. And, to make it all worse, Naraku just sat there and watched them, smirking.
Giving up on trying to defeat the waves of demons, Inuyasha yelled, "Hey, what are you grinning for? You can say good-bye cuz you're going down!"
That only made Naraku grin wider as he easily dodged Inuyasha's blade and attempted to strangle him with a root. Inuyasha was all about strength, not strategy, which was his weakness. Being very quick and agile, Naraku just kept on dodging the wind scars and even backlash waves the hanyou threw at him, as though in a teasing way. That made Inuyasha extremely frustrated. "Stop moving around! Stay still so I can kill you!"
The annoying villain stood silent and just continued to slip like jelly pass all the attacks while at the same time, holding them back with his never-ending roots. Dozens of minutes passed… Or was it hours? In all, for what seemed like an eternity of the senseless fight, "Enough of this fooling around," Naraku finally said. Everyone seemed to freeze in his or her tracks to listen to what he had to say. The wicked man looked straight at Sango, making her uncontrollably have shivers run down her spine, she being quite fearful of this monster.
After a tense staring contest of a few seconds, Sango finally looked away, frightened by his evil eyes. "I know what you're up to," Naraku said, not looking away from the taijiya, "You're trying to bring him back so that you can defeat me. Too bad that's never going to happen."
Sango blinked and the others all frowned at her. Wait, She thought, How does he know about…? "Well, to your luck, I wasn't even thinking about bringing that fool back." She announced.
Naraku's eyes narrowed menacingly at the girl, "That's what I thought you would say," He said, making Sango let out her silent breath in relief, "However," Sango sucked in the air and held it in her lungs, "I don't trust your word." His roots under his pelt began to spread out, brushing everyone's feet.
"Sango, what's he talking about?" Miroku started to ask, but it was too late.
Suddenly, a spiked root extended at full speed from Naraku's body, wrapping almost suffocatingly tight around the monk's blue-robed body, the spiked end pointing dangerously close to Miroku's neck. "If you even try to bring the dead man back, your little lover here dies."
Sango gasped, but stood still, not daring to move. Kagome pointed her arrow at the villain, "Naraku, let him go!" But, the half-demon merely smiled and an unexpected root came up and knocked the bow out of Kagome's hands, and before she could do anything, the root had snapped the bow in half. The schoolgirl stood shocked and the pieces of her faithful painted bow slipped between her fingers.
Angered by that, Sango snapped into action. Seeing Naraku's back turned to her, she began to sneak behind him, toward Miroku with her Hiraikotsu ready to slice the root imprisoning him. Obviously that did not work. Naraku was too sly and tricky and he had already known what Sango was about to do before she did it. Immediately, he sent a think pointed root that pierced through her gut, inches away from her heart. He could have killed her, but he couldn't because he still needed her if the prophecy was to be complete. Grinning with glee, Naraku said, "Ah, I see that you're still not listening to a word I'm saying." Sango staggered on the ground, clutching her blood soaked stomach.
Unable to stand anymore, the taijiya fell to her knees, her worried brown eyes watching Naraku's grip around her true love attentively. The pointed root inched closer to Miroku's fragile neck. The monk was unconscious now from the lack of air since the root was driven deep into his lungs. "So if you are going to bring the dead man back, which you're not, you get to suffer the death of your loved one."
Everything seemed to be in slow motion now. "No!" Sango screamed, but it was too late. She could only watch in fright as the pointed root stabbed the monk through the heart, not missing its target. The woman watched as warm red blood squirted out from the man, drenching the root with red.
"No!" Sango screamed again, her salty tears cascading down her cheeks and dripping down on her front. But, there was nothing she could do. It didn't seem real. Everything's going to be all right; She thought to herself, This is all just a horrible dream. I'll wake up in the morning and everything will be normal again. That was a lie and she knew it. It wasn't all right and Miroku was dead… her beloved monk was dead and there was no way she could bring him back.
"Lesson learned: Never try to go against Naraku," The baboon said, "Or else there will be consequences." Naraku smirked, then sucked back in all his roots, releasing the monk's body to make it fall on the cold hard ground. Then, he disappeared mysteriously into the clear night, only leaving a swarm of poisonous insects.
Sobbing uncontrollably, Sango ran to the body of her loved one and grabbed him, pulling his stiff body to her. No one did anything; they were all afraid to upset her. They just stood there, stunned and confused… Almost as though they didn't believe what had just happened.
The night went on and the first stars began to appear in the crisp sky. The beautiful night with the crescent moon showed nothing of the sorrow and pain the young woman deep in the forest felt. Naraku, Sango thought bitterly, I will get my revenge… somehow…
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Sango lay in the hut, her wounds being rewrapped by Kagome. Neither of them said a word. Sango was still too depressed by Miroku's death and Kagome didn't want to force her to speak. So, instead they both just stayed in awkward silence. Once she finished bandaging her friend, the schoolgirl immediately left the hut so that Sango could rest with privacy.
The taijiya sighed and curled up in a ball, careful not to strain her muscles in case her wounds opened up again. Sango had made up her decision. She was going to do it. No matter what the consequences were, she had to beat Naraku and avenge Miroku. She had made up her mind moments after Miroku died when she was clutching his cold, dead body to her heart. This was the only way to make sure Miroku did not die in vain. Sango sighed again. Despite her wounds, she would have to go do it now, or else she would never be able to do it. The woman got up from her bamboo mat and painfully slipped on her tight cat-like black slayer suit. It was now or never and she chose now.
Standing now, the taijiya tested her strength. It wasn't much, but it was enough to get through her journey to Mt. Hakurei. Biting her lip softly, Sango reached for the glass jar of jewel shard sitting on Kagome's bamboo mat…
Yep, and here chapter 1 ends... Sorry it's kinda short and I kinda left you all hangin. Please review so I know how I did!