InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Dragoons of the Sacred Jewel ❯ A Ruby and Kagome's Transformation ( Chapter 2 )

I do not own Inuyasha or Legend of Dragoon

Dragoons of the Sacred Jewel

Chapter Two: A ruby and Kagome's Transformation

"I'm afraid I am unable to help ye child." Kaede said as she set the pearl down.

"Are you sure you don't know anything?" Kagome asked disappointed, Kaede was the only one she knew that might have a clue about the enchanted pearl that they had found. Kaede nodded and turned toward the fire once again.

"Aie Kagome, I am sure. That gem be like nothing I have ever seen before." The old priestess replied as she

"Thanks anyway Kaede." Kagome sighed as she picked up the pearl and dropped it into the pouch she had found for it. The pouch was made of leather and hung around her neck. She wasn't sure why but some inner instinct was telling her that she had to keep the gem close. Kagome turned to leave but Kaede stopped her.

"Wait Kagome." She called out. The younger woman stopped and looked back at the older priestess. "Be wary of thee gem ye carry. It may appear harmless but ye remember that it is of demon origin and ye must be wary of whatever power it holds."

"I will be." She promised and turned to head out, but she paused when Shippo ran up to her. "Shippo" She said frowning "Aren't you suppose to be waiting with the others?"

"I…was" He answered breathing hard "But…someone….came……demon"

"A demon's in the village!?" Kagome said in shocked tones as she glanced around trying to spot the creature.

"What be this I hear about a demon?" Kaede said as she stepped out of the hut. Her bow was already in her hands and she held several arrows.

"No!" Shippo said frustrated. "Here just follow me!" He shouted as he raced off.

"Wait up!" Kagome called after him but he was already out of sight.

"I shall follow ye as well. I may yet be able to lend some assistance." Kaede said from behind her. It wasn't hard for the two women to pick up Shippo's trail, the whole village was heading in that general direction. What could Shippo have found this time? Kagome wondered as she and Kaede hurried to where all of the villagers had gathered in ring around something. Some of the villagers noticed them and parted.

"Lady Kaede and Lady Kagome have come, make room!" As they walked through Kagome heard Miroku's voice right before they got to the center of the ring.

"Your certain?" He was saying to someone. She heard whoever he was gasp in pain as she pushed her way to the center of the ring. She walked up and gasped at what she saw. A young man was lying on a make shift stretcher in the center of the circle, his hair had almost completely been burned off and he bore bad burns on his arms and face.

"What happened?" She said as she raced over to were Miroku was standing.

"My village was attacked!" The man gasped out. "A demon covered in flames raced out of the woods and burned down everything before we could do anything! I was the only one to escape with my life." He lay back and closed his eyes, breathing heavily.

"From his description we believe the demon may be caring a jewel shard." Miroku told Kagome. "Inuyasha, Sango, and Shippo are waiting for us at the edge of the village."

"But I can't just leave him like this…." Kagome said as she looked back at the man. Kaede looked up from were she was kneeling by the stretcher.

"Get ye gone child! I shall take care of this unfortunate." She said. With a nod Kagome turned and ran toward of the village with Miroku right behind her. As she raced into the view of her friends Inuyasha sprang up and glared at her.

"What in the hell took the two of you so long!?" He demanded as she and Miroku came up to them. "We could've been halfway to the village by now!"

"I had to make sure someone was taking care of that man." She snapped as she stopped to catch her breath.

"Feh, who care about him, he could die now for all I care."

"Inuyasha!" Kagome gasped out. "You don't really mean that."

"You know Inuyasha" Shippo said from down by Inuyasha's feet " I wonder exactly how much of you blood is demon, because sometimes you act more demon then human." Inuyasha lifted his foot and brought it down hard on the little fox-demons head.

"Shut up ya little runt! We have to go now!" He snapped the last part of his statement at everyone in the group.

"Fine Inuyasha, just let me get my bike and we can go." Kagome said as she started to turn around. Suddenly Inuyasha shot out his hand and grabbed her wrist.

"There's no time for that wench!" He snapped.

"Then how am I suppose to keep up with you?" Kagome demanded.

"Just come here!" He said as he pulled her toward him.

In a few minuets the group had set out with Sango, Miroku, and Shippo riding on Kirara's back while Inuyasha carried Kagome.

"It would only have taken me a minuet to get my bike Inuyasha." The young woman grumbled.

"A minuet we don't have!" Inuyasha shot back "For all we know Naraku is already going after the shard!"

"I don't think one minuet would make a difference."

"You don't know that!" Inuyasha snapped and then glanced over at Kirara. He had noticed that Miroku had been following their conversation with a faint smile on his face.

"What are you smiling about monk?" He growled. Miroku shook his head and smiled wider.

"I was simply thinking Inuyasha: It would not have taken that long for Kagome to fetch her bike."

"That's what I've been saying!" Kagome said.

"So I thought that maybe you had…..other motives for carrying her on your back hmmm?" He finished.

"You…you stupid lecher! Not everyone has your perverted you know!" Inuyasha shouted out as he looked in the opposite direction to cover his slight blush. Kagome simply looked down blushing furiously.

"Kagome" Sango called out in an attempt to distract everyone. "Can you sense the shard of the jewel yet?" Kagome looked up and frowned.

"I can sense something…..but it doesn't feel like one of the jewel shards." She said

"One of Naraku's fake ones?" Inuyasha said as he flexed his claws.

"No, it's not that either." She said frowning. "It feels different but this feeling is familiar too, but I don't know where if felt it before."

"Could it be another pearl?" Shippo said as he hopped up and looked over at Kagome.

"It could be" Kagome said slowly. "but I really don't know Shippo. I could be anything."

"Well, we'll find out soon." Sango called out. "Look tree tops!" Everyone looked up ahead of them and saw a cloud of billowing smoke raising above the tree tops.

"That must be the village!" Inuyasha shouted. "Let's go." The group increased it's speed and in a few minuets had reached the edge of the devastation.

"What in the hell….?" Inuyasha asked as the dismounted and glanced around.

"Hell is right." Shippo said as he jumped into Kagome's arms to avoid the hot ground below. "It looks as if some dropped apart of it right here."

The ground on which the stood had, like basically everything else in the village, been burnt black. Only piles of ashes and charcoal with an occasional piece of wood sticking up out of the debris now marked the areas where houses had once stood. Small fires still burned and the ground itself was still warm from the flames that had past over it. However that wasn't what made Kagome shutter, what made her nervous were the skeletons that littered the surreal scene. The villagers that hadn't made it to safety were scattered every were, half-way buried under a pile of ashes, laid out on the ground or sprawled as if having tripped, it looked as if they had died were ever they had fallen. Miroku had stopped and it looked like he was praying. Sango had walked over and was kneeling by one of the skeletons who was half buried under the roof of a house. Slowly she reached and tried to pull it out but the moment her finger tips touched bones they seemed to dissolve, collapsing in on themselves until all that was left was a pile of ash.

"The flames were so strong they turned anything they touched to ashes." She commented softly. "We'll have to be careful when we take on this demon."

"Huh." Inuyasha snorted. "We'll see how tough it is when I blow it out with the Wind Scar!" Suddenly a scream rang through the air and everyone whipped their heads around to the east.

"It came from over here!" Sango called out as she started to run in the direction the scream. As the rest of the group caught up to her more screams rang out and the smell of charred flesh began to drift up from the edge of a river, the smell was strong enough for even the less sensitive noses of the humans to pick it up. As they neared the river's edge the demon came into view standing among the few houses that hadn't been burned down yet and Kagome gasped.

The demon looked almost like a blob of black ooze with flames running rampant all over it as if it was made of oil. The only features that could be made out were a pair of eyes that looked like small flames buried in it's head and big mouth that was lined with teeth that glowed red, almost like heated steel. A pair of long tentacles that served as arms stirred as it turned it's face toward them.

"Heeee, half-breed." It wheezed out in a hissing voice. "Burn it."

"Feh, not a very smart one are you." Inuyasha observed as he drew Tetsusaiga and advanced on the demon.

"Heeee, burn!" The demon wheezed and lashed out with a tentacle at Inuyasha. The half-demon easily dodged the clumsy strike but the tentacle itself crashed into one of the houses behind him. Immediately the hut burst into flames and within moments was nothing more then a pile of ashes.

"Be careful Inuyasha!" Kagome called out.

" I'll be fine." He answered right before the demon struck at him again. "Your going to have to do better then that….UH!" Inuyasha was forced to dodge to the side as the demon swung it's other tentacle-arm a few seconds after the first.

"Heeee, stupid half-breed." It said gleefully. Inuyasha, slightly scorched but otherwise unharmed growled at the demons remark.

"Who are you calling stupid, you blob! WIND SCAR!" The massive attack slammed into and knocked it backwards and, as Inuyasha had predicted earlier, extinguishing all the flames on the creatures body. With a final wheezing scream the beast seem to collapse in on it self. Kagome ran over to Inuyasha's side.

"Are you alright?" She asked him worriedly.

"Feh, I told you I would be didn't I?" He said confidently.

"Yea, right before you almost got burned." Inuyasha brought his foot forcefully down on Shippo's head.

"Shut up fox!" He growled. He twitched his ears as he picked up a conversation that Sango and Miroku were having over by the pile of sludge that had once been the demon.

"It's oil." Sango was saying as she rubbed a bit of it between her fingers. "And probably ash as well."

"And blood, lots of blood." Inuyasha added as he walked over to them.

"Are you sure Inuyasha?" Miroku said frowning.

"Feh" Inuyasha snorted. "Of course, I could smell it when we entered the village."

"Then that means that this isn't a real demon." The monk said frowning at the remains. "It was made by someone."

"Do you think it was Naraku?" Sango asked as she cleaned the oil off her fingers. Miroku shook his head at her suggestion.

"This isn't his style, this was just a simple rampage, the demon didn't even recognize Inuyasha."

"And it was heading away from the us." Kagome commented.

"True." Miroku said nodding in agreement.

"Well whatever it was it's dead now. Are you sure there's no shards on it Kagome?" Inuyasha asked turning toward her.

"Positive." She answered.

"Then lets go back." Inuyasha said turning to leave. He stopped when a flash caught the edge of his vision. What was that? He thought. He turned back to the sludge pile and saw something red flashing in the sun. Why in the hell didn't Sango notice this? He wondered as he reached out for it.

"What are you doing Inuyasha?" Kagome asked from behind him. The half-demon jumped and blushed slightly.

"What do you care?" He demanded. When she didn't answer he snorted and pulled whatever it was out of the still warm muck. As soon as his hand touched it a flash of red light caught everyone's attention. Inuyasha stumbled backwards and blinked rapidly trying to restore his vision.

"Inuyasha what did you do?" Kagome demanded, then her eyes went wide. "I…Inuyasha?" She said quietly.

"What is it wench?" He asked and then followed her eyes down to the thing that he had pulled from the sludge. It looked almost like a ruby that had been turned into a perfect sphere. And it was glowing softly.

"What happened Inuyasha?" Sango said as she came riding up on Kirara. She stopped when she saw the gem in his hand. When Miroku arrived a few seconds later and asked the same question Sango simply pointed at Inuyasha's hand. It was several more seconds before anyone could think of anything to say.

"Well Shippo appears you were right, it was another glowing gem." Miroku said at last.

"I knew it! You just don't pay enough attention to me." Shippo said looking smug. His expression annoyed Inuyasha and the fox-kit ended up with several large bumps on his head.

"Shut up! It's not like Kagome's at all!"

"Yes it is Inuyasha!" Kagome said as she took the pearl out of her pouch. "See?" However once her pearl began to glow the one in Inuyasha's hand glowed a little brighter and began to pulse. Before Inuyasha could do anything else Kagome's gem began to pulse in time with Inuyasha's.

"So the gems recognize each other?" Sango said surprised. "Does this mean that they were part of a set?"

"Well whatever they were" Inuyasha said as he threw the ruby to the ground "I don't want to have anything to do with them. My life complicated enough with out throwing in glowing jewels."

"Inuyasha!" Kagome scolded as she picked the gem up. "You can't just throw it away like that!"

"Who's going to care what happens to it?" He asked her.

"What if a demon picked this up and figured out how to use it? It could kill a lot of people!"

"Then I would just waste the bastard when I caught up to him!" Kagome sighed in exasperation

"Then I'll keep it until your grown up enough to handle it!" She stated.

"What do you mean by "grown up enough to handle it" wench?"

"I'm mean your to immature to be able to figure out how to use it Inuyasha!"

"WHAT!? Why you…..!" A sharp pain on Inuyasha's neck cause him to swat at whatever had bit him. He took down his hand and noted with some surprise the pest that had bit him. "Hmmm….Myoga what are you doing here?" A moment later the flea and popped up and bowed to Inuyasha.

"Greetings Lord Inuyasha, I was simply in the neighborhood and decided to check up on you." He said.

"Check up on me!? I'm not some damn little kid that needs a baby sitter!" Inuyasha shouted at the flea. Myoga glanced around nervously, he had missed the conversation that Kagome and Inuyasha were having before he showed up.

"Myoga?" Kagome asked "Do you know what these are?" The flea turned to consider the jewels that Kagome held in her outstretched hand.

"Those? Hmmm…they appear to be jewels of unusual size and color. A ruby and a pearl I bel..Urph!" Inuyasha grabbed him between two fingers and began to squeeze mercilessly.

"She means she want's to know why the keep glowing." He said. The flea squirmed uncomfortable.

"G..glowing?" He looked over again and saw the soft light the pearl was giving off. "Oh, glowing right." He managed to squirm out of Inuyasha's grasp and jumped over to Kagome's hand.

"Hm…Ah…Oh….Hm" He muttered as he walked around them, finally he jumped and cried out "Ah ha!"

"You know what it is?" Kagome asked excitedly.

"No, I have absolutely no clue what so ever." He said.

"Then what did you cry out Ah ha for?" An annoyed Inuyasha asked.

"Because I have discovered that these gems hold a lot of power in them!" He declared triumphantly.

"Are you sure?" Miroku asked

"I am positive! You see there is no creature that know more about power hidden beneath the surface then I, Myoga the flea!"

"Yeah, because you happen to a blood sucker." Inuyasha snorted underneath his breath.

"My lord, your unkind words wound me!"

"Yeah right!" Inuyasha said as he turned and walked off. "Anyway let's go, I want to find out were that demon was heading!"

"Fine Inuyasha!" Kagome said as she returned her pearl to the pouch. After a moments hesitation she dropped in the ruby as well.

A few hours later the group continued down the path that had lead from the village. After glancing around Miroku sighed and walked up to Inuyasha.

"We have been following the path for three hours Inuyasha, I don't think there's anything in this direction. We should return to the village and rest."

"Yeah, Yeah." Inuyasha muttered.

"Since we left the village you have been noticeably subdued. Is it because tonight is the new moon?"

"Shut up stupid monk!" Inuyasha shouted, "That has nothing to do with it!"

"Inuyasha?" The half-demon looked over to where Kagome had gone very still.

"What is it Kagome?" Inuyasha asked as he walked over to stand next to her.

"I…I sense a jewel shard near by. It's really close but I'm having trouble telling exactly were it is."

"Near by huh?" Inuyasha stated as he drew Tetsusagia. "It can't be too hard to find then." Suddenly Inuyasha's ears perked up and he froze then grabbed Kagome and jumped out of the way just as a giant tree crashed down right were they had been standing.

"What the hell?" He muttered and looked up at the demon that had thrown the tree. It's body looked almost like that of a giant human but it was covered in dense brown fur and had talons on each of it's fingers. It also bore the head of a giant bull.

"Hiraikotsu!" Sango shouted and hurled the boomerang at the demon. It looked up and grunted before bringing up it's arm and knocking the Hiraikotsu off course with it's talons.

"What in the?" The demon slayer stammered out before the demon lowered it's head and charged at them. Kagome ran to the left and Inuyasha jumped off to the right and the demon ran right between them. The demon ran right into a tree and game a growl of annoyance as it's horns were imbedded in the wood.

"Another idiot demon?" Inuyasha snorted as he jumped up with Tetsusagia. "This will be too easy!" Inuyasha started to swing the sword down in a strike that would have cut the demon in half but the demon gave a twist of it's neck and ripped the tree out by it's root and sent it flying into Inuyasha. It caught the half-demon in mid-jump and sent him flying backwards.

"Dammit!"

Meanwhile Kagome had drawn an arrow and was currently sitting with it to her bowstring as she waited for the demon to stop moving for even an instant. If I can just hi the jewel shard then I should be able to at least weaken it! She thought. A buzzing sound interrupted her thoughts and she looked up to see a few extremely large wasps hovering over the battlefield. Aren't those Naraku's insects? She thought almost panicking. Then that must mean he's the one controlling this demon! We have to get the shard quickly! She drew back her bow and let the arrow fly, she didn't notice that the pearl had begun to glow through the material of the pouch. Just before the arrow would have hit it's target the demon turned slightly and the arrow hit it's shoulder, blowing a hole in it and rendering it's arm useless. It gave a below of rage and turned from were Inuyasha was pinned under the log that it had thrown to fasten it's eyes on the girl holding the bow. Before anyone could react the demon charged forward and swung it's uninjured hand at Kagome, the deadly talons set to rip her to shreds. Several things happened at once after that: Kagome shut her eyes and jumped backwards in an attempt to dodge the demons attack, Inuyasha shouted out her name and the pearl burst into bright light that covered Kagome completely.

When Kagome opened her eyes again she was confused at first, the last thing she had saw was the demon coming straight at her to attack but now she was looking down at the demon. Is it over she wondered did it kill me? Kagome thought starting to panic Am I dead!?

"K..Kagome?" Inuyasha stammered from below her. Kagome looked down and saw the everyone, Inuyasha, Sango, Miroku, Shippo, even Kirara were staring at her open mouthed. Embarrassed Kagome looked down wondering what they were staring at, then she caught sight of her hands and let out a piercing scream!

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Plantress: There chapter two is done! I know I changed the title of the chapter but I thought this one fitted better. Anyway first things first: I want to thank my reviewers, I'm glad you liked it! Anyway as before please Read and Review so I know people like this! Please and thank you.

Next Time: Chapter Three: Power of Light!