InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Bound to Tomorrow ❯ The Rabbit Hole ( Chapter 22 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

I will write a one-shot of any crack fic the person wants (of an anime I have seen) who can tell me why the hell Hulu keeps having a stroke on me every four episodes or so and HOW I CAN FIX IT. I have satellite internet but the weather's fine, my speed test is fine and other sites are unaffected. Every so often, no matter what I do, hulu stops running and says it's having some sort of trouble loading the video. I have tried fiddling with the java settings, restarting the computer, closing everything but hulu, and all sorts of other things yet it STILL persists. It also starts working again at random. Sometimes closing and re-opening the browser is enough. Other times it's two or three reboots of the computer. This is severely slowing down my writing process as I attempt to watch InuYasha while I work on BTT. HELP!
Silver flashed in the sunlight. White cloth fluttered in the breeze. A flash of red followed. Chitose's squeal of joy penetrated the quiet of the afternoon as InuYasha captured his niece and swung her up into his arms.
"Caught you, you little imp!" He smirked. He was astonished by how she'd grown in just two years. Her silver hair was already waist length. The little slashes of purple on her cheeks and the half-moon on her forehead reminded him constantly that she would eventually grow in to her poisonous traits. For now, though, her blood remained non-toxic. Sesshoumaru guessed she would start manifesting her poisonous abilities around age five.
The child squirmed and shrieked a giggle. Her claws curled around his fingers, the tiny, razor sharp tips drew blood from the knuckle she grasped. The hanyou winced and set her back down. He tapped the tip of her nose with a finger, then splayed his injured hand in front of her for her observation.
"Ya gotta watch those claws, pup. Your mom's human and she doesn't heal as fast as we do. What if you did that to her?"
Chitose looked from his hand to his face, huge gold eyes blinked back at him. She wrinkled her nose at the smell of his blood and sniffed the air. She was too young to understand much of what he said, nor could she speak much else but burble and squeal, but it helped to start teaching her as if she could. He waggled a finger at her and swept away the bit of blood with his thumb. The wound was already healed.
He sighed at her blank expression. "Well, you're only two. You'll learn soon. Hopefully before you hurt her." By five she would be able to control her power enough that she wouldn't be a risk to her human mother, so Sesshoumaru said, at least.
He squatted down next to her and ruffled her bangs with a claw. The toddler wrinkled her nose and raised her tiny fingers to bat at his hands. Chitose wasn't fond of anyone mussing her silver locks.
"Yeah. I know. Messing with your hair sucks. Ears are fun though. Just don't tell anybody." He grinned at her, giving one of her ears a rub. Chitose cooed happily.
Then the wind changed direction. Kagome's scent tickled his senses and he raised his face to sniff the air.
"InuYasha?" Kagome's voice brought his ears twitching in her direction. He turned his head towards the sound, his eyes found her emerging from a path that lead towards the castle garden. She raised her hand to wave at him and he reciprocated. Chitose grabbed a handful of his pant leg and tugged insistently for his attention. The hanyou turned his golden gaze down to her. She raised her little hands, clasping and unclasping them towards him.
"Hmph! Now you want to be picked up." He huffed and pulled her up into his arms. The little girl happily set to work weaving her claws into his hair in impossible tangles.
"Babysitting again?" Kagome said as she made her way towards him.
"Keh!"
"I'll take that as a yes." Kagome grinned. "Where's Akahanna? I thought she and Haruto were watching her?"
InuYasha shook his head. "Sesshoumaru called them out for something..." He shrugged. "Dunno. Don't care. Just needed to watch the kid until you get back."
"Ah." Kagome nodded and pursed her lips. She gave Chitose a weak smile.
The hanyou felt his stomach sink a fraction. The look on her face could only mean one thing...
Chitose raised her face to the wind and sniffed the air. Her mouth opened to release a wild squeal before she turned and began toddling her way towards the castle gates. InuYasha watched her go, not bothering to follow when he could scent her father so close. Instead, he turned back to his wife.
"That bastard... Noboru. He's called, hasn't he?"
She nodded.
"Where?" His fingers drifted to the hilt of Tetsusaiga.
Her lips turned white as they thinned further. "The well."
Trees blurred past them in flashes of verdant green. Out of the corner of her eye a hint of auburn drew her to glance back, just in time to see Shippou bouncing from tree to tree a few yards behind. A spark of red lit flickered beyond that--likely Kirara carrying Sango with Miroku. We're all together again, rushing off to fight the good fight, huh? She thought as she smiled and turned her head into the warmth of her husband's back.
When the forest opened to the clearing she had frequented so many times in the past her heart lurched in her chest. A thousand memories, a hundred tears, countless laugher; it all happened....here. She thought. Her stomach did a flip-flop when Noboru stepped from the woods, mere feet from the well. He tilted his head to the side and smiled.
"My, my, look at this! There's so many people it's like a party." The living tree tittered.
InuYasha landed softly in the clearing and Kagome clambered off his back. The miko lifted her hands to her hair and shook out her raven locks. It was an attempt to buy herself a moment's breath and school her features into one of boredom. She prayed that Noboru couldn't hear the wild beating of her heart, as any demon would and would know her distress.
"Hm... You sure picked a boring place to meet." The miko sighed, casting her eyes about the clearing. She hoped it appeared that she was surveying the area without a hint of recognition.
"Really, Kagome? You're going to play that game with me?" He swept an arm around and spun on one toe in a circle slowly. "In this place that has so much history for all of you?"
Kagome could feel her cheeks turn cold as the color left her face. Though the well was closed, and had been since she had arrived in the Warring States Period so long ago, something within her urged her to be cautious.
She released a long, slow breath. "I had hoped so... This place is much more comforting without you here corrupting it."
InuYasha growled and cracked his knuckles in agreement. Something about the whole situation raised the hackles on the back of his neck. He wondered if Miroku and Kagome felt the heaviness in the air.
Noboru made a face and stepped closer to the well. "Such cruel words, my love. I'm wounded." He threw his head back and touched his knuckles to his forehead, as if he had been physically slapped.
"I should hope to call you worse." Sango muttered.
Noboru's pale eyes blinked at Sango. "Of course you would. I hold your children, after all."
InuYasha's low, rumbling growl grew a few shades louder. "And murdered innocent people in fires and mass slayings. Doesn't exactly speak to your character."
The living tree sighed. "I had hoped a demon could understand the act of a necessary evil... but I see you lack the forethought for that. Just as Naraku said, you are such a simpleton."
He rolled his golden eyes. "Keh. Whatever." He'd heard so many insults in his long life he was no longer fazed when the bad guys resorted to name-calling.
"What, exactly, has Naraku told you about this place, then, since we are on the subject?" Miroku interjected.
Good idea, Miroku, let's see what he knows. Kagome thought as she suppressed a smile.
Noboru shrugged, his long, golden locks sparkled in the sunlight where they cascaded down his shoulders. The angle of the sun on them made it appear as though he had a halo about his head. Kagome found the thought disturbing, so far from the truth that it was.
As the living tree spoke he walked around the well slowly, one ponderous step at a time, almost as if marching to some unheard beat. "That stinking pile of flesh told me so many interesting tales. He told me my love appeared and disappeared here... That she was from a far off land where they raise powerful mikos... That someone summoned her here, though he never did find out whom."
InuYasha and Kagome exchanged a dubious look. They both knew much of that information was wrong. Unfortunately, Naraku had gotten some of it right, too.
Noboru was not yet finished speaking. "He said..." He paused as he rounded the well for a second time, sanding beside it. "...That you came..."
Kagome felt something pulse within her. Energy. Old. Alive. And sluggish. As if a great force had decided to stir from a long, long rest. A whisper of energy coiled near and ready to strike. She sensed the energy was waiting for something. It was then she felt something within it that was tantalizingly familiar, but she couldn't name the source of the feeling. Her right hand moved slowly upwards, inching towards the shoulder that held her bow. Whatever was happening, she needed to be ready. She cast a glance at Miroku for confirmation that he felt the spiritual energy she was feeling. He appeared near Sango's side, tense but confused. When she turned her gaze to her husband she found him reaching for the hilt of his sword. His nostrils flared as he sniffed the air, he too seemed to recognize something like she did.
Noboru's fingers came to rest on the lip of the well just then. "...From here."
*Ba-Thump!*
The air pulsed with energy. The well crackled with purple light. The great thing that Kagome had felt seemed to rise to action. In her mind she heard words that were not her own.
"Do not touch what is mine, weed."
Noboru's eyes opened wide with an emotion she had never seen before: fear. He snatched his hand away from the well and crossed them protectively in front of himself. A great crack of thunder rumbled from the well, and the purple energy raced out from the depths of it and slammed into the living tree. He flew backwards with a startled cry towards the closest tree within the clearing of the Bone Eaters' Well. The tree behind him grew suddenly, its thick roots pushing up from the ground and yawning wide into a gaping hole filled with the familiar light Kagome and InuYasha knew so well from traveling through the well.
"Be gone." The voice in her mind bellowed as Noboru disappeared into the light.
Kagome gaped at the spectacle. She was so caught up in the display that she failed to see the purple light zipping towards her. But InuYasha did. With a shout of her name the hanyou was in front of her, shielding her from the light. She screamed his name as it grabbed him and threw him into the opening in the tree. Then her own cries were cut off as she, too was overcome by the light.
The moment before it touched her she thought she felt arms around her middle, and a male voice shouting a warning. The sound vanished in the roar of energy surging past her ears. Then she was pulled in and the darkness enveloped her.
Then she felt nothing.