InuYasha Fan Fiction / Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ In Pursuit of the Green Dragon ❯ Shards ( Chapter 27 )

Kasama Castle, 16th-century Japan

Kagome's initial terror at being snatched up and carried away by the dragon slowly began to fade as they flew through the dark skies, replaced by other sensations.

At first, she was all-too-aware of the burning pain that stretched in a line from her chest to her navel, where his claws had raked her.

I really should put some disinfectant on that, she thought, followed almost instantly by the realization that her first-aid kit lay miles away...back with her friends.

Was Alphonse going to be all right? What about Inuyasha? How would any of them find her?

Then, as more time passed, and they continued to fly, Kagome began to shiver as the cold night air bit through her torn clothing. She had stopped being quite so afraid when the dragon's hold proved to be firm but not painful, although now she couldn't stop shaking.

"Don't tell me you're quaking in terror," drawled the dragon, making her start a little in surprise. He chuckled unpleasantly above the rush of the wind. "I swear if you piss yourself I'm dropping you."

His grip loosened slightly, as if in demonstration, and Kagome instinctively grabbed at him.

"You were spunky enough back there, trying to shoot me with that toy bow of yours."

"I-I'm not scared," she forced out between her wildly chattering teeth. "J-just c-cold."

"What do you want me to do about it, little girl? Buy you a jacket?" the dragon asked derisively. "Stop whining. This won't kill you."

She wasn't whining! Kagome bit down on the retort that fought to escape her lips, and struggled to control her temper. The dragon had hurt Alphonse, and Kirara, too. Who knew what he might do to her, if she made him angry?

Neither of them said anything for a long time, the silence broken only by the steady flap of the dragon's wings.

Kagome's shivering started to lessen, but now she couldn't feel her feet and hands any more, so this worried her.

"Er, Dragon-san?" Kagome said, finally, her lips numb and stiff.

"You can call me Envy, little girl," the dragon said.

"E-envy-s-san, why d-did you--I mean, w-where are we g-going?" She didn't quite dare to ask whether he was planning to eat her.

"You mean, why didn't I just kill you like I did the Elric brat?" the dragon asked.

Alphonse is dead? No! He can't be!

But there had been so much blood...

Kagome swallowed, hard. The dragon was lying to her. He had to be!

"Well, really I could have cared less about the rest of you, but you have an interesting effect on my jewel. So I'm taking you home with me. Call it a test...if you pass, you get to stay alive."

A test...the Shikon no Tama...what on earth does he want me to do with it?

Shortly after this, as Kagome was still trying to formulate a follow-up question that would neither reveal too much, nor anger him too much, the dragon began his descent.

They landed in the walled courtyard of a castle that boasted a five-story keep rising above the bailey in a series of graceful tile roofs. The courtyard was dimly illuminated with torches, flickering in the cold wind.

Envy released his grip, and Kagome stumbled forward, falling to her knees on the hard-packed dirt of the courtyard. All around her, she saw shadowy movements, and the tingle of unfamiliar youki against her senses made the place between her shoulder blades itch uneasily.

Youkai. The castle was teeming with them.

"Get up." A long, clawed toe nudged her.

Kagome tried to stand, but her legs felt like jelly.

She felt something hook on the collar of her blouse, and haul her upright. She swayed dangerously, but just barely managed to keep her balance.

She raised her head to find the dragon standing entirely too close for comfort to her, scales shimmering ruddy and bronze in the uncertain light of the torches.

"Now, make it shut up." The dragon tapped the base of his long, sinuous throat, and with a start, Kagome recognized the darkly glowing thing embedded in the scales there--the nearly-complete Shikon no Tama.

Involuntarily, she reached for the chain around her neck, and found it missing. Oh, no! Her shards were gone, lost who-knows-where during the long flight. Or maybe lost even earlier, when she had been wounded and her clothing shredded.

"Well?" the dragon asked, impatiently.

"Oh! Sorry," Kagome said, automatically, and studied Envy's fragment.

Make it shut up? What does he mean by that?

It shone with the peculiar, shadowed quality of a tainted shard. Kagome frowned, and reached up slowly up for it. She wasn't sure what Envy wanted her to do, or why the Shikon no Tama might be talking to him, but it couldn't hurt to try purification, could it?

The tainted glow wavered and seemed to shrink as her fingertips neared it.

"It's scared of you," Envy noted. "Why?"

"I don't know," Kagome murmured, her attention on the jewel. She strained on tiptoes, unable to quite reach it, and Envy obligingly lowered himself.

She felt the familiar cool shock as she touched the polished surface of the fragment, and the odd tingling sensation of power running up through her fingers and wrist.

The surface of the jewel fragment seemed to ripple, and the shadow of the taint dispelled, leaving only a pure, rose-colored light behind.

"There," Kagome said, lowering her hand, and hoping desperately that this would please the dragon. "I've purified it."

The dragon's eyes closed briefly, and it tilted its head. "I can't hear it any more. Good. You get to live."

Thank you seemed an absurd thing to say under the circumstances, so Kagome simply nodded politely, and stepped back.

The large, fanged head swung around, apparently surveying the audience of youkai watching them.

"Chouko," he commanded, and a tall, slender youkai woman stepped forward, bowing deeply.

Kagome noticed that instead of eyebrows, Chouko had delicate, feathery antennae sprouting from her forehead.

"Show my...guest...to her room." His tone was deeply ironic, and Kagome's heart sank.

"Yes, Envy-dono," Chouko said, bowing deeply. She turned to Kagome. "Please follow me."

Wondering what sort of dungeons this castle had, and afraid she would find out sooner than she liked, Kagome stumbled after the youkai woman.

ooOoo

The room she was shown was part of the keep. It was spartan, the walls a bumpy layer of white plaster over stone, but it was hardly a prison cell.

The door had a simple drop-bar lock...on the inside.

Kagome blinked at it, feeling slow and stupid with cold and fatigue. "I'm--I'm not a prisoner?"

Chouko gave a wheezy laugh.

"You'll need that lock more than Envy-dono will," she said. "You're not going anywhere--we're at the top of a mountain and this castle is full of youkai who like the taste of tender maiden flesh." She laughed again, and her feathery antennae quivered. "If you know what's good for you, human, you'll stay in your rooms, and go nowhere--not even to the latrines--without my escort."

She shoved Kagome forward, forcing her to stumble into the room. It was furnished with a futon, the mattress neatly folded in one corner and piled with a quilt; in the opposite corner a chamberpot; a candle inside a paper shade sitting on a short table in the middle of the room; and on the wall a few wooden pegs for clothing. There was also a polished metal bowl on a stand that Kagome recognized as a charcoal brazier, but it stood empty and cold despite the room's chill.

Behind her, Chouko clapped sharply, and issued orders for a basin of hot water and towels.

When it arrived, barely lukewarm and slopping over the edge to puddle on the wooden floor, Kagome was permitted to strip and wash up under Chouko's bored gaze.

She washed her face and hands, then sponged carefully at the scabbed length of the wound on her torso, relieved to see that it was shallow--if painful--and that it had stopped bleeding.

Her kimono blouse was stiff with bloodstains along the ragged edge of the tear that bisected it, and probably ruined, though.

When Chouko finally departed, taking the basin and towels with her, Kagome hurriedly unfolded the futon and crawled under the thin quilt, fully dressed again.

Shivering, she huddled there, trying to ignore the burning throb of her injury. Exhausted as she was, she was still too wound-up--and cold--to fall asleep immediately. Instead, her thoughts wandered in plodding circles.

Wasn't this her chance to reclaim the jewel, and to undo some of the harm she'd done by shattering it? But without any weapons, and held prisoner in a fortress swarming with youkai, how was she going to manage it…?

How would Inuyasha find her here? Traveling here by air meant that there would be no scent trail for him to follow.

And was Alphonse really dead?

In the darkness, Kagome felt hot tears trickle over her cheeks and across her nose, and tried not to sniffle.

Alphonse was such a sweet boy, smart, polite, and brave. She knew she'd hurt him deeply by not returning his feelings, but was it her fault that he'd been killed?

She fell into an uneasy sleep at last, still cold, and very afraid.

ooOoo

Chouko delivered Kagome's breakfast the next morning, which consisted of a bowl of burned rice, watery miso soup, and tea so strong that she felt it pucker the inside of her cheeks and scrape down her throat. The youkai woman also informed Kagome that she was to attend Lord Envy as soon as she'd finished her breakfast.

Hungry and thirsty, Kagome choked down what she could manage of the poor meal. Then she followed her guard up several flights of steep wooden stairs to a large chamber overlooking a town in the valley below.

To her surprise, an androgynous-looking young man awaited her there, leaning casually against one of the plastered walls. Pale skinned, with long dark hair, he wore the rich robes and the swords of a daimyo, but he was clearly not Japanese. Then she saw his eyes, an unnatural dark purple with slit pupils like a cat's.

"Envy-san?" she asked, hesitantly.

Kagome had never heard of a dragon who was also a shapeshifter, but maybe dragons from Alphonse's world were different in that way.

He smirked at her, looking her up and down with insulting slowness. Kagome's cheeks burned, and she was suddenly all-too-aware of the gaps in her torn and blood-stained blouse. Lacking safety pins, she had wrapped and tucked the torn halves as best she could into her long red hakama, then tied the belt tightly to keep everything in place.

Then she caught sight of the jewel, half-buried in the flesh at the base of his throat. It was attached to a long silver chain that looped loosely around Envy's neck, and glowed malevolently against that pale skin, shadowed once again with the tinge of corruption.

Envy's first words to her confirmed it.

"The voices are back," he said, curtly. "Whatever you did yesterday, do it again."

Kagome reached out, intending to purify the jewel, then hesitated as an idea struck her.

"You know," she said, a hesitantly. "I think having it stuck to you like that is what's making the corruption--er, the voices--return. If you'll just let me remove it--"

Envy's face twisted in murderous rage, and she flinched as if he had burned her.

Then his expression smoothed out again, and he gave her a malicious smile. "Nice try, little girl," he said, "but I don't think so."

"But if you leave it, it'll just keep getting corrupted," Kagome protested, her heart still pounding.

That look on his face--she knew, without a doubt, that he might have torn her to pieces in that moment.

He raised a brow. "Then you'll just have to keep purifying it, won't you?" His smile deepened unpleasantly, showing far too many sharp teeth. "Think of it this way--the longer you stay useful to me, the longer I let you live." He seized her hand, his hard grip grinding her bones together painfully. "Now, hurry up and do whatever it is that you do. I haven't got all day."

Her heart sinking, Kagome obeyed. She had to find a way to get hold of this jewel fragment, but how?

Historical and Canon Notes:

There really was a Kasama Castle, built on the top of Mt. Sashiro in the present-day prefecture of Ibaraki, north-east of Tokyo. The castle was demolished during the Meiji Restoration, and only a few ruined fortification walls remain today.

The honorific suffix "-dono" means lord. It is no longer a commonly-used form of address, similar to archaic English terms such as "milord" or the French "monseigneur".

Thanks, as always, to my lovely beta, kokoronagomu!