InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ One Can Only Wander For So Long ❯ Without Words... ( Chapter 11 )

Author's Note: Please understand I've got two children (one of which is a newborn!) and sometimes just don't care to write. Art is my hobby, writing is a side-thing. If you'd like to ask me to update - please take a moment to email me! I'm REALLY nice, and respond to all emails I receive. I'll answer questions and tell you yes, I'm still alive. It's frustrating when you guys leave anonymous reviews demanding things and I can't reassure you that I'm doing something about it. The illustration for this chapter will be posted before I write the next chapter, so when you see it in my MM gallery, you'll know when to expect the next chapter.

I hadn't expected anyone to be able to read this yet - I only posted it (hidden) so I could access it at home from work. This revision has a large section added to the beginning, as suggested by Dolphin. Please note - I'll be uploading revised chapters soon. There will be a link at the top of each revision that you can follow, to see what changes I made if you don't want to read the chapter over again. :) This is m first fanfic, after all, and I don't want it to totally suck.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters used in this story. They have been used without the author's permission, and hopefully I won't get sued for slandering Kikyo's name. -.- Excerpt taken from 'The Wizard of Oz' by L. Frank Baum.

Chapter Eleven - Without words...

The harsh rays of an afternoon sun assaulted the dimly lit room as a dark-haired man opened the door. Kikyo looked up from her seat on the floor, the greenish glow from her mirror fading as her sight left its surface.

"You called?" his harsh tenor voice sounding like music to the lonely woman. He crossed his arms in annoyance; a scowl marred his boyish good looks as he waited. Kikyo rose to greet the youkai she had summoned to her home. It was a dangerous game of cat and mouse when she used her magic to force more powerful youkai to her, for she could not control their actions once they had arrived.

"I have a request of you," she said softly. She reactivated her mirror and turned it around for him to see. "I need you to take care of this woman, in any way you see fit. Just as long as she is separated from that dog that accompanies her."

She watched the youkai carefully as he approached the mirror and peered into it curiously. "What shall I receive in return for doing you this… favor?" he asked, his voice low as he narrowed his eyes at her.

She returned his stare unblinkingly before she replied, "Anything you wish."

At her answer, his eyes widened a fraction before his gaze flicked back to the mirror. Kikyo knew his reply from the way his eyes lit up while looking at the woman, so she turned away from him and walked back to a small cabinet along the far wall. He watched her carefully as she withdrew a few small objects and brought them to a dusty table in the middle of the room. She pulled her knife from its sheathe and began the quick task of enchanting a wide bracelet.

His sense of smell was overwhelmed by the death-smell of her blood, and he had to control his desire to gag. She scratched something into the surface of the loop and it glowed white briefly, illuminating her scarred face in the darker part of the room. She turned to him with the bracelet in hand, holding it out for him to take. It was drenched in her blood, and he was hesitant to touch it.

"This will render her immobile for several hours before the magic fades. Once you get to her abode, she will be there alone with the dog. Both may cause you some trouble, but try not to kill the animal. If you can get this bracelet on her quickly, you won't have to hurt her to subdue her."

She turned away from him once again and walked back to her table. "Where do I find this woman?" He asked, his impatience to collect his prize rather great. Her hands closed around a dull chalice on the table before she turned toward him with it in hand. Using her knife once again, she drew some large shapes on the floor, muttering something under her breath. "Stand here," she ordered, pointing to the center of the drawing with the point of her blade. He tucked the bracelet into his pocket and stepped into the spot she indicated.

"Prepare yourself," she stated before splashing the contents of the glass on his form. He disappeared in a flash, leaving Kikyo alone once again in her chambers.

***

Inuyasha swallowed thickly as he followed Kagome into the living room. She sat down on the soft couch and watched him pad in front of her, stopping at her side. His glance shifted to the seat next to her, seeming to ask for permission to sit next to her. Kagome smiled at him and patted the cushion with her hand, inviting him up. He settled down next to her, boldly placing his head on her thigh, waiting for her to commence with the ear scratching he enjoyed so much.

"You've been through a lot, haven't you, Inuyasha?" she asked quietly. "I thought you were more than just a dog, but this goes far beyond any of my ideas..." She trailed off for a moment, and he allowed his eyes to slip close as she slowly stroked the fur on his head. "But you've been pretty well-behaved, for what Rin and Sesshoumaru had to say while they were here." She leaned to her left, propping her head on her palm over the armrest. He cracked an eye open to watch her movements as she turned her gaze to his ears and ran the tips of her fingers along the edges. "You've gotten away with quite a bit in my home..." He caught the amused tilt to her lips as she trailed off again.

She looked out the front window for a while, going over the tale in her head. "So... You broke a cute girl's heart, and she went crazy and cursed you...?" She asked, looking down at Inuyasha carefully. He huffed and rolled his eyes. When he saw her speculative glance turn into an annoyed look, he quickly shook his head 'No.'

His answer surprised her, and she asked, "Will you tell me what did happen?" He cocked his head to the side, staring hard into her eyes. He sighed loudly, then hopped off the couch, padding towards the bookshelves that lined the walls of Kagome's library. He paced back and forth in front of the titles before him, searching for something. He stopped and sat, looking up at a shelf a foot higher than Kagome's head. She stood next to him, looking between him and the shelf he stared at. "I don't think this is a good time for reading a book, Inuyasha..."

He huffed impatiently and stood up on his hind legs, pawing at the books in front of him, while still staring up at the shelf high above. "Do you want me to get a book from there?" She asked him. He barked once. She reached her hand above her and trailed her fingers slowly over the spines of the books until he barked again. "This one?" She asked, pulling it down. It was 'The Wizard of Oz'. Her eyebrow rose in confusion as she tried to understand what he wanted from her. She sat down next to him and opened the book, flipping through its pages. "The book doesn't have anything inside of it, Inuyasha. What do you want with it?"

He carefully pulled it from her fingers with his teeth, setting it on the floor and letting it fall open in the middle. He pawed the pages, turning them in large amounts, until he stopped and looked up at her. Kagome leaned over the book to see the page he had stopped on and began to read aloud. "The Emerald City was soon left far behind. As they advanced the ground became rougher and hillier, for there were no farms nor houses in this country of the West, and the ground was untilled. In the afternoon the sun shone hot in their faces, for there were no trees to offer them shade; so that before night Dorothy and Toto and the Lion were tired, and lay down upon the grass and fell asleep, with the Woodman and the Scarecrow keeping watch. Now the Wicked Witch of the West had but one eye, yet that was as powerful as a telescope, and could see..."

Inuyasha stopped her at this moment with a loud bark, startling her out of the story. He looked down at the book on the floor then looked back at her. 'He let me read an awful lot of that before he stopped me... so maybe it was something in the story he wants me to understand?' She looked at the section she had read. "Was I reading in the right place?" she asked.

Inuyasha nodded 'Yes' once, then looked back down at what she had read. 'Something in that passage that explains what happened to him?'

"Were you searching out a wicked witch?" she questioned, looking slightly amused. He growled low at her for a moment in annoyance before she asked another question. "Was there a witch at all?" He barked once and nodded. 'I'm getting somewhere...' she thought. "Um, was she a bad witch?" Another bark. "What did you do to make her curse you?" He huffed at this question, and she reworded it. "Did you do anything to her that would make her wish to cause you harm?"

He shook his head at this question. She wasn't very good at twenty questions, it seemed. "Hmm..." she reached out and pet his head softly while she bit her lip in thought.

"Did you hurt her?"

One shake, 'No.'

"Did she hurt you?"

A nod, 'Yes.'

She paused for a moment, then asked carefully, "Did she hurt you, more than just turn you into a dog for fifty years?" She could see his shudder as the words fell from her lips, and she pulled his furry body close to hers and hugged him tightly. "I'm sorry, should I stop talking about this?" she whispered softly. He sighed and nuzzled her neck, accepting the comfort she offered him.

The moment of tenderness was broken, however, as a strong force smashed through the huge glass window, showering the room with the shards. In the short time of confusion, Kagome was overwhelmed by the sense of danger as she was suddenly picked up by the back of her shirt and thrown hard into her easel. The painting she had been working on earlier that day was torn as she landed on it, and the mirror and tools she used fell to the floor amongst the broken glass.

Dazed and still shocked from the sudden attack on her home, she tried to sit up. Her focus fell on the mirror beneath her left hand, and the blood that had run down her arm to pool around her fingers. But what ended up catching her attention was the sight of the long white hair attached to the man directly behind her, facing away from her in a defensive posture.

She snapped her head around and caught sight of Inuyasha, his hackles were raised and he was growling loudly at the dark-haired youkai that stood near where they had been sitting before. The youkai, humanoid in appearance, narrowed his eyes at Kagome as his lips tilted into a smirk. Kagome shivered, suddenly wishing she had her bow on hand. The youkai reached into a pocket and withdrew a small loop, clutching it in his left hand before taking a step towards her.

Her fingers closed around a long shard of glass and she brought it in front of her, hoping to use it as some means of protection. The youkai was unprepared for the dog's attack, for his gaze rested solely on Kagome at the far side of the room. Inuyasha leapt at the intruder, his claws and fangs elongated to deadly lengths, a frightening red glow to his eyes. Kagome watched in morbid fascination as he sunk his teeth into the youkai's neck, digging his claws into the intruder's chest. The youkai roared in annoyance and retaliated, swiping once, twice, across Inuyasha's side, drawing large sprays of blood.

Kagome lost her grip on reality as she leapt to her feet to rush to Inuyasha's aid. The hand that clutched the shard of glass glowed brightly as blood seeped from the cuts on her fingers. She practically flew towards the dark-haired youkai and saw his eyes widen slightly in surprise before she plunged the shard into his left shoulder. Her power flared behind the strike and the youkai recoiled in shock as his arm caught fire. He cursed and leapt backwards through the window.

She was dimly aware of the creature moving around the house to a different entrance, but she could feel its intent to hurt growing. The slightest flash of black streaked past the corner of the dining room window that she could see, and Kagome, still holding the shard of glass, stood carefully and backed away from that entrance. She was thankful it was still broad daylight when the power to the house went out, leaving the estate in dead silence. But without power, chances were that the phones and security measures she had installed around the premises no longer worked.

Inuyasha's wounds bled heavily as he continued to stand in front of Kagome, trying to protect her from all possible directions, but as the seconds ticked on into minutes, and the minutes inched by in strained silence, Kagome loosened her grip on the shard of glass and stooped down next to her companion.

The words fell from her lips in a hushed whisper, afraid to break the silence and the relative peace that had come with it. "I saw you, Inuyasha..."

The smallest creak of wood was all the warning they had as the ceiling above them caved under a powerful assault. Kagome somehow managed to grab hold of Inuyasha's necklace as she rolled out of the way as far as she could, pulling him along with her to avoid the falling debris. She hit the wall rather harder than she had expected, her teeth clenching shut tight against the yelp of pain from jarring her injured arm. She squinted through the pain and saw that her library was demolished. The youkai, red-eyed and growling, crouched in the middle of the floor for only a moment before rushing to attack them with his remaining arm.

By now, her injured arm was throbbing in pain, most likely fractured, and the blood from both of their wounds was smudged, splattered over her and pooled in the area where they had been, but Kagome rose to the threat with her shard of glass in her right hand, Inuyasha's beaded necklace still in the other. She wobbled a bit from light-headedness, and didn't catch the look of surprise on the demon's face as he witnessed the startling events unfolding next to her in the moment before his demise. With his attention not fully on his intended target, she had no trouble lodging that piece of bloodied glass deep within his already-mangled throat. She didn't know why he fell so easily, it almost seemed as if his entire 'destroy the house' bit was a joke.

For a powerful demon to have smashed apart a room in an attempt to kill two defenseless people caught completely unawares... and to fall from a stab wound inflicted by a young girl was almost unbelievable.

So much so that, when the demon lay still after much disturbing bloody gurgling and painful hisses and snarls, and she turned around, what met her gaze convinced her she was having the strangest dream/nightmare that she had ever had.

~

Last note: While I hadn't intended on leaving it here, since marking the chapter as `hidden' obviously didn't HIDE it from you guys, I'll have to pick it up with the next chapter. You'll see what happened to surprise Kagome, and sometime LATER, I'll worry about writing in what happened to Inuyasha all those years ago.

Now! For all you people out there just itching for more great IY fics to entertain you, Might I suggest a few of my favorites? Of Gods and Monsters, by Niamh St. George, is my ultimate favorite Sess/OC story. Teles is the best Original Character I've come across, ever. Broadway Baby, by Del Kaidin, is a great fic with a very original plot, and is accompanied by much lovely art by the great Kristin. Transcending a Dynasty, by Jadewing, is also very original and, might I add, completed!

OGAM http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=1316397

BB http://www.mediaminer.org/fanfic/view_st.php/53920

Art for BB http://kriscynical.deviantart.com/

TaD http://www.iridescent-dreams.net/iy/fanfics/td1.htm