InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Moon Behind Clouds ❯ Chapter 5

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

Chapter 5


“That monk was nowhere to be found this morning”, the village elder said to Sesshomaru as he and Kikyo were standing in the hall, making ready to depart. He chuckled as he went on, “I suppose that look you gave him yesterday must have been enough to scare him off.”

Sesshomaru glanced at Kikyo. Kikyo looked the other way.

“I doubt it was me that he was afraid of”, Sesshomaru said.

“Oh, don’t apologize for it. I had meant to shoo him off myself. You just saved me the trouble.”

“I was not --”

“He did not mean to offend anyone”, Kikyo cut him off.

“Ah, Lady Kikyo. Do you mean to set out after the demon immediately, then?”

“Yes. We shall depart at once.”

“Excellent. I can’t tell you how much this means to us.”

“Really, you don’t need to thank us”, Kikyo said very kindly, then turned to look at Sesshomaru, who was glaring at her. So she glared right back. If the elder noticed, he did not say anything about it. Instead, he just smiled. There were several people at the inn already, who had gathered to see them out. They watched them with great trepidation, as Kikyo and Sesshomaru began their way down the path that led behind the town, away from the graveyard, and toward the mountain.

“How can you smile like that?”, someone asked him, as he stood watching them. “With all that we have been through -- if they fail, we are doomed.”

“I am old”, he answered, “and have seen many troubles. Before the demon, there was the landslide that buried the whole northern end of the village. And before that, there was the war with the neighboring provinces -- half the young men in this village were killed in that mess . . . And before the war or the landslide or the demon, there was the famine, when the rice crop failed for two years in a row. Troubles always come. And then, after a time, the answer comes after them. Now I have seen the answer to the trouble of this time, so I am at peace. That, and --”, he shrugged, and said again, “I am old. I can hope that I won’t be here the next time trouble visits our village. But they . . .” he said, looking down the path after Sesshomaru and Kikyo, “They are young . . .”

The base of the mountain was wreathed with fog when Sesshomaru and Kikyo set out. There was light in the sky, though the sun was not yet visible. The evening wind that came down off the sides of the mountain had stopped blowing, but there was not yet enough light or heat for the air to begin to climb its way up to the top again. Instead, everything hung suspended -- their clothes, their hair, even time itself seemed to dwell in a place that was neither day nor night, but dwelt between the two, and did not fully belong to either. Through the fog they could see the band of trees that marked the farthest edge of civilization. Beyond lay wilderness. At one time they had been well kept, as neatly manicured as a nobleman’s fingernails, but now they had fallen into an unruly condition, very rough, with chunks missing here and there and extra, untrained growth in other places. The villagers used to tell their children that the spaces between the limbs of the trees were made by the slashes of the swords of the tengu, the goblins who lived on the mountain. The tale was meant to keep them from wandering from home at night. But now there was no need for frightenning stories to keep them indoors. The demon, and the fast filling graveyard were enough for that.

The mountain went up for some ways, and then came crashing down, into a valley. It was very abrupt. You could not see it from the town because of the way the trees obscured the view when one was looking uphill and from a distance. But it was an eerie place, when you came to it, and it was easy to see how the villagers might imagine that there were monsters there, or that the whole valley had been made by the slash of some giant’s sword. The path crested the hill, then went down, sharply down, and straight, without any kind of switching back to either side to lessen the steepness of the grade. At its bottom lay the mouth of the tomb.

Kikyo and Sesshomaru had to lean so far back that they were walking almost on their heels, until they were only barely standing up. Loose gravel slid and gave way here and there, but they made it to the bottom without incident. It was a lonely place. Nothing grew in the valley floor, due to an abundance of red clay that had settled there. It felt very appropriate for a tomb. A path ran along the bottom of the valley, up against the face of the mountain where it rose again. In its middle was a doorway carved out of the rock.

“There,” Kikyo said. Sesshomaru nodded. Pieces of an old stone door were carelessly piled to one side. Inside was a long hall, skillfully carved but unadorned, that ran back into the mountain, until it reached another door, made of bronze. The door was partly open.

“What madness could have convinced the villagers to come to such a place?” Kikyo thought to herself, and she began to wonder if the townspeople really had brought this on themselves, or if they had been lured here by something sleeping inside the grave. Even the most heartless wretch would have thought twice about robbing such a place, if not out of propriety, then at least out of fear. The bronze door at the far end of the hall must have been quite beautiful when it was newly cast and polished, but it had long since corroded to a dismal green color that seemed to speak of rot and death. The lengths of the walls were lined with lamps.

They proceeded slowly. When Kikyo drew even with the first pair of lamps, fire leapt up in them, burning of its own accord, and casting an eerie green light. Her skin was so pale that when the light shone on her, it took on a greenish hue. She paused for a moment to take out an arrow, and fit it to the string of her bow. Sesshomaru drew the Tokijin. They waited to see if something would spring out at them, but nothing did. Kikyo looked around for any kind of traps or pitfalls, but there were no hidden panels or arrow slits in the walls, and no trip lines on the floor, so she proceeded. As she went, the lamps continued to light beside her.

“Whatever it is”, she said calmly, “It knows we’re here.”

Sesshomaru nodded again.

“At least it has a sense of courtesy.”

When they came to the door, Kikyo stepped sideways to get through it, and found herself in a large room, lit by several large lamps that were already burning. The lamps were on stands spread around them, and in their light Kikyo could see that the walls were lined with swords, bows, spears, and other pole weapons of strange shape and dubious classification. In the middle of the room was a large stone box. It’s lid was slid halfway open to reveal a skeleton inside, lying draped in what had once been armor, but the cords had long since rotted away, leaving the bones lying amid a pile of metal plates and scales. The dome of the helmet, being set with rivets instead of laces, still held its shape as it sat upon the skull, but the elaborate drape that protected the sides of the head and neck had fallen apart, making a wreath about the shoulders like a kind of devil’s halo. Beside the body lay a sword, a very old sword; its blade was straight, though its hilt followed a Japanese pattern, distinct from swords on the mainland.

Sesshomaru regarded the sword with interest. It had once been a fine blade, but it could not rival either of the swords he already carried. “So I’m still stuck with the dull, useless Tenseiga after all”, he thought to himself.

There was a doorway in the back wall. Apart from the door through which they had come, it was the only opening in the room. Kikyo looked at it, and took a deep breath. It was out of habit, of course. She didn’t actually need to breathe anymore.

“The gate must be through there”, she said.

Sesshomaru paid it no mind, but instead continued to examine the various artifacts along the walls of the room. When he came near to the door, he was not alarmed, indeed, he hardly seemed to notice, when the figure of young man stepped out.

“Who DARES defile the tomb of the great mountain prince, Yamahiko?”