InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Bloodlust ❯ Dawn Terrors ( Chapter 42 )

Uneasy dreams disturbed Shippou's sleep, playing tragedy in his child's way, shallow bits of nightmare reinforced by the memory of the terrors he had witnessed that no child should ever have seen. There were running footsteps in the hallways of his thoughts, a riveting heartbeat of fear, and he could only panic.

*Mama! Mama! Why are you running? You can't go away again! Don't go! Mama!!!!!*

 

With a new voice and face, there was Kagome in his dream, but she was running and running with dread in her steps.

*Mama! Don't be scared mama you said I was a good protector!*

 

She turned back to him with empty eyes and a bloody tear for a heart. Shippou awoke with a shrill scream that pulled Sango and Miroku both from deep sleep, and he shook awake a still-groggy Rin, panting with his fear.

“Okaa-san is in trouble! We've got to help her!”

“Lady mama in trouble? How do you know and Rin does not know, Shippou?”

The kit shook his head and shrugged, unknowing of how his dream had found its way into his head, but equally certain through an instinctual sense of his own that it was not only a dream. It was then that their adult companions rushed into the room, concern evident on their faces.

“Shippou! What is the matter?”

“'Kaa-san is in trouble! I know it sounds funny but I dreamed her, I saw her. There was a bad lady chasing her and then she was gone.”

Sango turned to Miroku with a drawn, tired face, unsure of what to think.

“Miroku…is there any way that this could be true? Is there magic that could tell him of something like this?”

“There is magic, yes, but it requires a most careful intent, and if Kagome is in so much danger, how would she send the message, and why to Shippou?”

Sango nodded and knelt by the kit's side to wrap her arms around him, a polite parody of his mother's comfort.

“It is alright to have dreams like that, Shippou, especially when the ones we love are in danger. It is only a representation of how much we value them, that we worry for them even in the quietness of sleep.”

Shippou refused to be comforted, and squirmed away from her, rebellious fire burning deep in his child-looking eyes.

“Mama knew when I was hurt, and she came to me and helped me, and you too!”

On his way out the door, Miroku stopped, stiff through his whole body with a pressure of memory that demanded his full attention.

“He is right, Sango.”

She turned swiftly to face her husband, doubt tangled with confusion on her face.

“Uh…huh?””

“Shippou is right. When you and he were attacked by InuYasha, Kagome knew that he was hurt. The release of her youkai blood gave her all the instincts of a mother, and all of those bonds with Shippou - she really does consider him her son, she always has. Perhaps…if she is in trouble, he would be the only one to know - the only one who could. I don't know if these connections work both ways like that, but can we take the chance?”

Sango's eyes widened in horrified surprise, and there was almost a smugness on Shippou's features. The kit was up and running before either Sango or Miroku had a chance for a second thought; at least until Miroku plucked him off the ground and deposited him back onto his futon.

“Sango and I will go towards the Castle, and see what we can find out. Sesshomaru went for her, and I somehow think that we will not be of too much help if he could not defeat what was threatening them…but we owe her much. I do not grudge her this battle chance, if it might save her.”

Sango nodded.

“She took away my guilt, and now she is my sister, the only family I have left. Even if it should chance to be nothing but a dream, her time approaches. I would be with her for the birth of her pup.”

Shippou sighed, and then resumed his headlong dash and managed to avoid Miroku's grabbing hands. He was back minutes later, dragging the bits of leather and cloth that made up the main part of Sango's exterminating outfit, and then he turned to run out again.

“What are you doing, Shippou?”

“Helping! You two are so slow!”

Sango laughed and grabbed her clothes, turning for the door.

“We'll be gone before you know it, Shippou. If you really want to help, go ask Kirara if she would please wake up and take us.”

“Yes!”

Rin sat still in the middle of her futon and looked back and for between Sango and Miroku.

“Lady Sango?”

“Yes, Rin?”

“What is wrong with Lady Okaa-san?”

The huntress shook her head, more worried than she could admit to the girl.

“I don't know, Rin but Lord Sesshomaru is with her, and we are going to help too. She'll be alright, I promise. We'll bring her back safe for you.”

The girl nodded and curled up into a ball where she sat. Sango, watching her, had a terrible desire to do the same thing, a panicked ball of pressure in the middle of her stomach - but she shook it off and went to find Hiraikotsu.

 

The snapping, flailing glare of youkai that had appeared so suddenly in Kinawai's eyes faded with the same trembling surprise that had called it, and Sesshomaru moved closer to the other lord. There was still wariness in his eyes, but his motions were open.

“I did not think it would be this easy to convince you to listen, much less believe my words. What has stilled your rage, Kinawai?”

Kinawai turned away, fighting with himself. Every great magic that had been used against them in battle, he had felt as a wave of energy in the soles of his feet, bracing for a collision that was made more in his soul than anywhere else. Sesshomaru's words pointed dramatically at the cause, but acceptance was hard to come to.

“I have felt Kasuka's magic. I do not like what this says of the honor of my house.”

Sesshomaru shook his head slowly, putting down Kinawai's worries.

“She is not truly of your house - mated to it but not born or bonded. She has never born you pups.”

“Does that really matter? Those who look will see what they wish to see. With Atawai killed, the lordship of the eastern lands already stands open. Many will come looking for power, and seek weakness in those that have it already. You know well that this is what destroyed your father - suspected weakness.”

Sesshomaru snarled at the reminder, a fair display of his closeness to Kinawai, and turned to face his ally once more when a psychic scream slammed into his awareness and knocked him backward like a punch to the stomach. A torrent of hot youkai flooded through his body in an angry rush, sweeping the sanity out of his eyes. He looked at Kinawai, spoke between a growl and a roar.

“Come witness betrayal yourself!”

For the third time that day, he was off and running, daring the wind to burn. Moments became eternity. The walk that had taken ten minutes with Kinawai was taking a thousand times as long no matter how fast he ran. He heard the noise of battle before he could see it, approaching from the forest valley, and the thick smell of spilled blood caressed his nostrils with a deathly hand. Swift on the heels of scent in general came scent specific, and in a tearing frenzy he sought Kagome.

There was wild-eyed violence wherever he passed, an incoherent shading of death that fell through the wind with a frisson of terror. In his hands, tetsusaiga writhed as though it were a living thing, breathing doom over every hell-damned dragon who stood in his way. Still, the delay was too much, and he let swing after swing of the great sword fall, seeking Kagome's scent or the sweetness of her face.

 

Kagome was alone. She stopped her running and stumbled backwards against the castle wall, the only luck she had left. She felt with a soul-slicing edge the clenching of her muscles, a tightening pull that clawed at her insides and tried to push a scream out of her throat. Her claws bit into the stone wall behind her, crumbling gently, staining her hand with marble powdered dust. There was a low whine in the air, and it took her a moment of half-quiet reflection to realize that it sprung from her own throat. There was a sniffing chuckle behind her, and her claws shot out, locking themselves deep in scaly flesh. There was a screech of death-pain, a splash of blood, and the chuckler was throatless on the ground.

She saw with anger and surprise that it was not Kasuka, and when the chuckling behind her grew once again, multiplied and spread in a circle of warning, she pressed her free hand against her belly and wished she could pray. Through pain lanced vision she looked up and saw face upon face that belonged to her enemies, and she shrank back against the wall, despair clawing at the edges of her heart with the sharp nicking pangs of her contractions.

 

On Kirara's back, Sango felt the tightening of Miroku's arms around her waist and leaned back into the enfolding comfort of his arms. The wind moved around them with fluid rapidity, killing spring's promise with its bitter chill. The fire-cat dodged liquidly around wool-fire clouds that sprayed them with a mist of invisible droplets. They settled against Sango's skin like dew-born powder, and she tightened her hands in the slick leather throwing loops of Hiraikotsu, the demon bone boomerang balanced carefully across Kirara's shoulders in front of her. Gently, Miroku reached in silence and covered her white-knuckled hands with his. The unconscious motions of her hands in the loops stopped, and she settled into the waiting of their journey.

The speed at which they moved brought them over the battle as Kagome fled Kasuka, but the did not see her small running figure among the masses of dragon youkai, crawling over the field like maggots on an open wound of green. As Kirara wheeled over the battleground, Sango saw with surprise that there was also no sign of Sesshomaru, until she detected a swirling disturbance on the edge of the forest valley beneath them. A roar of challenge announced the Taiyoukai's presence, and he ran directly into battle. The sun that managed to filter through Kasuka's storm clouds shone on the unsheathed blade of tetsusaiga, the great sword transformed into bright searing fang. It was lit in his hands with a golden-white glow as it sliced thick flesh into chunks of gore, and he sent Kaze no Kizu after Kaze no Kizu roaring through the dragon clans.

Miroku stared at the enraged Taiyoukai, following the slaughter with his eyes. He found a capacity for understanding in his love for Sango, sympathy born from the growing tongue of pain that lapped around his heart at the thought of Sango in danger as great as what faced Kagome now.

“Should we help him?”

Miroku's words were tense.

“I don't think we can. Look at his eyes- completely gone. He isn't even going to be able to recognize us until he finds Kagome.”

“Then we can help that way! Kirara! Find Kagome!”

In a wide circle, the passed over the field in search of their friend. The next thing they saw filled their hearts full of pain and Sango's sword full of longing - Kagome stood alone, pressed against the castle wall by an unceasing tide of dragon born foes. They swirled against her, beat like ocean waves against her, waving weapons of all sorts. Fangs and claws flickered in the rain patterned sunlight, and Kagome stared back at them, claws of one hand imbedded in the marble of the castle wall, keeping herself standing by sheer force of will and her own stubborn refusal to die. Desperately, she used her other hand to throw her miko power, glaring whispers of purified death rushing here and there among her enemies.

 

From the air, Sango could see the pale light of Kagome's miko magic, growing paler with ever shine. The thick taste of bile rose in the back of her throat, sour and catching, and as she watched the dragons beneath her moved forward as one against her sister. With a cry, she sped Kirara down in a whirling descent that brought tears to her eyes from the speed of the wind around them. No speed was enough. She watched Kagome fall backwards and the wall went with her, dissolving into sorrow weighted dust.

With a wail of grief, Sango threw herself out of Miroku's trembling arms and off Kirara's back, falling the last five feet to the ground. Hiraikotsu was swinging before her feet hit the earth. More than ever before in his life, Miroku wished for his Kazanaa, for a swirling void of nothingness that would consume all their foes and drag them deep into an endless hell. Rather than jump directly into the fray, Miroku waited until Kirara was once more high over the battlefield, and cupped his hands around his mouth for a ringing shout.

“Sesshomaru! Kagome is here!”

 

 

 

 

 

Noooooooo! {Is crushed to death by rampaging mob of fanfic readers} Don't worry! Its not as evil as it sounds I promise! I PROMISE! Hehehehehe….but I do so love the power of cliffies!!!! Please review!