InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Past, Present, and Future ❯ Demon's Arrow ( Chapter 14 )

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

The guy really didn’t know who he was messing with. She may not have looked very intimidating in her simple clothing, Tetsusiga hanging in its idle form at her hip, but she was sure she could beat this bastard up five times over before he even knew what had hit him. She readjusted the bundle of herbs slung over her back, freeing her right hand in case she needed to draw her sword.

From the looks of the antennae perched on his head he was some sort of insect youkai, though it was otherwise difficult to tell in his humanoid form. If he really was an insect youkai, she would squash him just like a beetle beneath her sandal if he tried anything funny. It would be easy. He didn’t even have a sword on him. Just a bow and quiver of arrows slung over his back. Shizuka knew as well as any that a bow and arrows could be deadly. Her own mother could hit a target without even physically seeing it, but Kagome was a skilled miko. This idiot could not come into such close comparison.

The herbs her mother had asked her to pick were deep in the forest, but Shizuka always knew exactly where to find them. Lady Kaede had told Kagome where they grew many years ago, and Kagome had passed the knowledge onto her daughter. As seasons passed and as did passing sicknesses in the village, Shizuka grew from a child into a young woman and Kagome depended on Shizuka more and more to gather the herbs. They weren’t easy to reach, for a human anyway. Gathering herbs in that little patch of mossy grounds surrounded by thorny plants was where he found her, sneaking up behind her back as if he thought her ears weren’t keen enough to hear him, her nose too weak to smell his ugly stench.

“Well I’ll be damned, if you aren’t a half-demon,” he said.

Shizuka turned to look into those ugly red eyes. She glared at him, growling slightly, and he seemed quite amused at her. He wouldn’t be so amused when she beat him into the ground. She hadn’t spent the last five years training under the Lord of the Western Lands only to be bested by some pompous thug.

“Keh,” Shizuka spat. “I’m less than half-demon and I can still beat the shit out of you. Now get out of my way.”

She leaped gracefully over a patch of thorns and landed beside him, startling his steed. Judging by it’s red eyes and ugly, clawed toes, it was a demon itself. He managed to calm the horse down, giving Shizuka an ugly scowl.

“Well, well, the little demon has quite a big mouth on her,” he hissed, and Shizuka smirked at him.

“Yeah, real big mouth. Bigger even then your brain. Now get lost before I get out Tetsusaiga,” she said. She put her hand at the hilt of her sword, and the youkai threw back his head and laughed.

“A pathetic sword?” the demon scoffed. “As if you could beat the youkai Hiramura with that. You’re not even a full-demon. I would be doing you a favor by disposing of you. I‘m surprised you haven‘t been put out of your misery already.”

“Put me out of my misery?” Shizuka said through gritted teeth. “I’ll give you another chance to get out of my way. If you don’t, at least I’ll know what name to put on your gravestone.”

He wasn’t the first demon to throw such an insult at her, and she knew he probably wouldn’t be the last. In the last few years she had helped her uncle battle many a taiyoukai. Most of them had laughed at Sesshoumaru’s choice of dueling companion, only to be pierced through the chest by Kongosoha put to death by the Bakuryuha.

She drew her sword, and immediately there was subtle sting that flashed across her cheek, a quick rush and whine of wind against her ear. A hollow thump followed as Hiramura’s arrow embedded itself in a tree behind her. She hadn’t even seen him draw his bow. Perhaps she had underestimated him, though only slightly.

“Your aim sucks,” she said, her eyes narrowing dangerously.

“You must be mistaken. I never miss,” he said, and drew another arrow. “I’m just giving you time to realize who you’re dealing with, and to concede. You’re a scourge, but still female. You’ll die regardless, but I’ll make sure it’s painless if you bow to me.”

“Go to Hell!” she said, and lunged. “Kongosoha!”

Shizuka almost couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The massive shards of Kongosoha rushing at Hiramura, and he with only a single arrow in retaliation. The arrow weaved it’s way through the shards, ducking and rising its flight path as was needed, until it had dodged her attack completely. Shizuka ducked and rolled, but still there was a sharp pain in her back. She crouched near the base of the tree only to find the head of the arrow peeking out from between her ribs. She reached around and pulled it out, and from somewhere to her left Hiramura was laughing at her.

He appeared to be unharmed, but a thick shard of Kongosoha had pierced his demon steed straight through it’s bony body. Hiramura dismounted, and immediately after the horse-like demon collapsed to the ground in a puddle of it’s own blood.

“Now look what you’ve done,” he said, casting a sorrowful look down at his dead mount. He pulled another arrow from his quiver and strung it across the bow. “ I think I’ll aim for your belly next. That’ll be nice and painful, no?”

Shizuka waited until after he fired to launch her counterattack. This time she unleashed the power of Mediou Zangetsuha. One of the mediou blades succeeded in swallowing the arrow before it closed, and Shizuka saw the shock in Hiramura’s eyes as he dodged the other blades that threatened to consume him, letting them instead swallow some of the surrounding trees in his place. His shocked expression was fleeting, however, and Shizuka was quick to find out why.

She spewed out a mouthful of blood as an arrow caught her in the throat, and another caught her in the belly, just as he had promised. Hiramura began walking toward her, but Shizuka fended him away with another bombardment of Kongosoha. He pointed his next arrow at her slowly, deliberately, and Shizuka readied herself. He fired, but the arrow immediately deviated from it’s straight path, veering to the right and disappearing into the trees. Shizuka grunted, taking hold of the arrow in her throat. She pulled it out and let loose a waterfall of blood down the front of her kimono.

“What the hell are you playing at?” was what she meant to say, though to her ears it sounded like nothing more than garbled nonsense. Hiramura seemed to catch her meaning nonetheless.

“My arrow will hit any target I want it to,” he said smugly. “Even if I have never even seen my target’s face. You should consider your wretched next of kin dead as well as yourself,” he smirked.

Shizuka’s eyes widened as his narrowed. He had not expected her to be so strong. She had wounded his pride by still being alive, and now he was going to make sure she was not the only one who suffered.

“You bastard!” she yelled, nearly choking on the flow of her own blood.

Shizuka could tell that he did not expect her eyes to bleed red into that of a full-demon. He also did not expect his leg to pierced by one of those diamond shards, or for the little female to keep coming at him even as an arrow stuck into her shoulder. It was almost as if she didn’t feel the pain, couldn’t. It had been a long road, but after so many years she and Tetsusaiga had come to understand each other. She was her father’s daughter but she was less of a demon than he had been, weaker, though she did not care to admit it. Tetsusaiga had called on her demon blood many times, but never had she lost control with the sword in her hands. She had fallen into the darkness once without it, but with it, it was nothing but a sheer rush of power. She could push herself to the edge and Tetsusiga would draw her back.

A sentient arrow was nothing next to a sentient sword.

All the while, Shizuka was forcing him out towards the village nearby, flushing him out into the open. Some of his arrows disappeared into the black blades her sword let loose, as did his left antenna.

She could sense then that she would not be alone in this fight for long. She could smell his wayward arrow and the blood it had drawn. It only made her more furious.

He fired, and the arrow to the leg succeeded in slowing her down. He right knee gave out and she slammed face-first into the ground ad he turned and ran. By the time Shizuka righted herself, the screaming started.


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They had been walking together for what seemed like an eternity, yet he still had not posed the question that was begging to escape from his lips. He could feel it, lingering just on the tip of his tongue, but he could not ask it. He was frightened to, which in itself seemed ridiculous, but not so much when one considered the demeanor of the taiyoukai. It was true that Sesshoumaru was not quite the human-hating, arrogant brute he had been when Shippo first met him, but that did not make the kitsune any less afraid. Sesshoumaru could lop off his head with a single swipe if he so chose, and Shippo thought that broaching this subject with him might just have that very consequence.

Sesshoumaru’s silence was doing nothing to boost his confidence. Soon they would reach the village, and his little window of opportunity to speak to the taiyoukai would close. Since he had achieved Senior 3rd Rank in his Youjutsu Exams, he had taken time off from studying to help Sesshoumaru and Shizuka exterminate demons that wandered too close to the village. Sometimes Sango or Miroku would help. They had much more time to do so since their children were almost grown by now, but they were only human and they were getting on in years. The same was true for Kagome, though her duties as miko often kept her busy enough without her joining on their hunting party. Kohaku was away from the village a good amount of time, though he did join them when he returned to visit his wife and twin sons.

It was the perfect opportunity to speak to Sesshoumaru alone. A sickness was running through the village, and Shizuka had stayed behind that day to help Kagome prepare medicines. Usually it was always the three of them. Sesshoumaru, Shizuka, and Shippo. Shippo did not know when an opportunity like this would arise again, and he was afraid that by the time it did, but would start having second thoughts and lose his nerve altogether.

Though if Sesshoumaru did agree, then he would still have to face Kagome. And Shizuka. He felt his face flush and looked down at his feet.

Shippo clenched his fist at his side. This was ridiculous. If he had faced Naraku and lived, surely he could face them. He wasn’t a child anymore. He was a taiyoukai, just like the dog demon. He glanced to his side at the regal figure of silk and furs, two swords riding at his hip. Shippo sighed. He was a taiyoukai, but he was still little more than a teenager and still a head shorter than the dog demon.

“Lord Sesshoumaru?” Shippo said. He tried to keep his voice as level as possible, but the tail end of the demon’s name wound up cracking in his throat.

“Hnn?” Sesshoumaru mumbled. He came to sudden halt and Shippo almost walked into his back. Sesshoumaru turned to face him, and suddenly Shippo felt very small in comparison.

“I wanted to ask you something,” the kitsune said. Sesshoumaru raised his eyebrow. “Well, I wanted your permission to…” he stumbled. “To uh….oh…”

The elder demon turned quickly away from him, continuing on is way back to the village. Shippo’s face fell, and for a few moments he could not find the courage to follow. It took a awhile before he fell back in step with Sesshoumaru, and when the demon spoke to him, he nearly jumped out of his skin.

“If you are going to stumble with your words,” he said, and Shippo’s face drained of whatever color was left in it. “Perhaps it is better if you do not ask anything of me at all.”

“It’s Shizuka….” “I wanted to ask your permission to…if I’d be acceptable to…”

The demon’s eyes went considerably wider, and Shippo supposed that the taiyoukai knew exactly what he wanted without him actually finishing a complete sentence. The color was slowly rising back into Shippo’s cheeks, even more so when he realized that he had taken hold of the taiyoukai’s sleeve, clutching at the fabric as if clinging for dear life itself. How was it that Sesshoumaru had taught him the ways of the warrior, how to effectively take a life, yet it was so difficult to ask to court his niece?

Sesshoumaru turned away, pulling his sleeve out from Shippo’s claws. Shippo did not understand the look he saw on the elder demon’s face. His nose was turned skyward as if he had caught the scent of something, and he seemed distracted. In the next second, he was gone. There was a bit of delay before Shippo managed to get his feet moving, following Sesshoumaru’s path.

“Lord Sesshoumaru! Wait!”

It wasn’t long before he caught the scent that had pulled Sesshoumaru away from him. It was blood.