InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Possessed ❯ Chapter 6

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

 

Chapter Six

 

 

 

 

December’s field exercises started off similarly to last month’s in a lot of ways. Whereas in November only part of the team had participated, on Saturday December 1st their entire fighting group initially faced off against a large collection of Miroku’s fake oni. A backup team was stationed in their hometown for the day just in case there was a local youkai emergency while everyone was training in the city.

 

There was no specific rhyme or reason to the massive collection of oni he created, it was just a group exercise where everyone was given their own oni to deal with, because sometimes that was the way it worked out, that any given fighter could wind up dealing with a particular youkai alone, one on one, because their teammates were busy. The key in such a situation was to find that balance between worrying about yourself and not allowing yourself to become distracted by what was happening with a colleague, while at the same time still maintaining enough situational awareness to be able to aid your teammates if at all possible.

 

Of course, just like last time there was a bit of a snowball effect, as the first few people, Kagome and Inuyasha included, killed their initial oni and then moved on to assist the others. It became easier and easier to take care of each remaining oni with more people able to team up as the number of oni continued to dwindle. Once they were finally all dealt with, everyone took a break, and then it was time for a second, different exercise.

 

This time, Miroku actually asked Kagome for her help in setting things up.

 

For their second exercise of the day, Miroku only created one single shikigami...that put Godzilla to shame. The houshi needed Kagome’s help to power the thing before they began, it was so large, the two of them sitting together in concentration as the giant monster grew in size like a parade balloon filling with air.

 

Once it was ready and Miroku ‘released’ it, Kagome and Inuyasha, Sango with Kirara, her father, brother, and their entire fighting team, all rushed in to take on the giant monster together. Because it was stronger than the previous shikigami oni, supercharged with both Miroku’s and Kagome’s reiki as it was, this beast could take a lot more damage before succumbing, so just because everyone was attacking it at the same time did not mean they would be able to deal with it in short order. Especially when even taijiya forged blades just bounced off its thickest scales. Some beasts were heavily armored like that in real life, and so the trick in such situations was always to hopefully find their most vulnerable spots.

 

Kagome’s arrows also had less effect, both because of how much reiki was powering the beast just generally speaking and because some of that reiki was her own, but it was good training because Kagome certainly wasn’t ‘all powerful’ and a more powerful youkai would be able to survive a few arrow hits. She also couldn’t cheat by pulling some of her reiki back out of the beast in order to weaken it because retracting one’s own reiki from a shikigami was visible, at least to those with the sight. Miroku once again was not participating in this battle and instead was a silent observer, so he wouldn’t miss it if she pulled a stunt like that, not that she ever would because Kagome wasn’t a cheater. She wouldn’t be pulling her reiki back out of the shikigami unless Miroku commanded it, the houshi pulling out his reiki as well because the monster was headed for freedom or something.

 

So far, though, they had it pinned in the center of their closed off training area, and Kagome had no intention of letting it get anywhere near the civilians on the other side of the fence.

 

With the massive beast slowly advancing towards the fighters everyone attacked it head on, which meant Inuyasha was free to slash at it with his youki, as well, and Kagome could fire her arrows without having to keep mental tabs on where Inuyasha and Kirara were. Sango was atop the nekomata throwing Hiraikotsu towards the monster’s head, but it was unfortunately able to bat her giant boomerang out of the way with its powerful arms. Same with Kagome’s arrows that had been aimed at its face; a well timed raise of an arm meant that its forearms each had a couple of arrows embedded in them, rather than the eyes she had been aiming at.

 

Every jolt of reiki it took weakened it a little bit more, though, making it both slower to block additional attacks and more susceptible to them; an accumulative effect. After a third purifying arrow landed in its left arm, one of Inuyasha’s slashes successfully severed that same arm, which turned into bits of paper that floated down on the breeze, separated from the rest of the body that still stood and still advanced towards them. Missing an arm, it couldn’t properly deflect Hiraikotsu from that side anymore, and swooping around to attack from behind, Sango nearly severed the beast’s head, her boomerang slicing through the left side of its neck from back to front. Only turning the other way at the last second, out of her attack, had saved its head, the artificial youkai at least acting as if it were alive and wanted to stay that way.

 

The only unrealistic thing about fighting such shikigami was the lack of blood. Despite its behavior, it looked more like a piñata being hacked to pieces, because that’s essentially what it was, but that didn’t stop Inuyasha from getting into the spirit of things as he jumped up onto the left side of the beast’s back, making sure to shout out “I’m going in!” to warn the various taijiya about watching where they swung their weapons. He was wearing his fire-rat robes, true, but taijiya weapons were designed to combat youkai. A regular sword would just bounce off his suikan, but not taijiya-forged blades.

 

The faux youkai started violently twisting and turning as it tried to dislodge the hanyou climbing up its back, trying and failing to reach for him with its one remaining arm, but digging his claws in, Inuyasha just went along for the ride as he climbed his way up to the head and then, leaping away from the beast by kicking off of its shoulder, he quickly aimed a swipe of Sankon Tessou right for the damage Sango had already created, severing the head even more.

 

Inuyasha was prepared for a hard landing, launching himself up into the air from the beast’s shoulder having made him over twice as high in the air as he could ever go from his own leaps from the ground, but suddenly Sango was underneath him with Kirara, giving him a much gentler landing on the back of the nekomata, behind the slayer.

 

“Thanks for the ride!” he said, shouting to be heard over the shikigami’s constant roaring.

 

“My pleasure!” Sango shouted back, before hefting up Hiraikotsu. “Now let’s finish this!”

 

Inuyasha ducked down low so that Sango could swing the massive bone boomerang around overhead, building up her momentum, and then the projectile was underway, aimed yet again for that same spot, and this time, thanks to the extra damage Inuyasha’s youki blades had just caused, her boomerang was now able to finish the job. The shikigami’s head came clean off, and for just a moment the severed head started to fall from the body, and then the entire beast turned back into broken bits of paper that rained down all around them.

 

Kagome grinned and nodded Sango and Inuyasha’s way as Kirara landed, and then retrieving the arrows that’d remained intact, Kagome then walked up to Miroku and asked him what he had planned for tomorrow.

 

“Oh, you’ll see,” was his foreboding warning, an evil grin spreading his lips that had Sango rolling her eyes as she approached her husband.

 

“I just hope there’s not another youkai the size of a skyscraper,” the miko said.

 

Miroku should have warned her to be careful what she wished for.

 

The next day the houshi did not, in fact, have their team face off against a single giant youkai, or even another horde of differently shaped oni, but instead they were all pitted against hundreds of tiny rat-youkai. They were easy enough to kill, there was just a lot of them, and because there was no holy barrier surrounding their training site Miroku came up with another fail-safe, seeing as he couldn’t keep track of where each and every one of his rats ran off to. All shikigami had limited lifespans, but usually for training purposes he gave his shikigami a huge enough power boost that they’d last for several hours, long enough to be slain. These rats, on the other hand, only had about a twenty-minute lifespan.

 

They also weren’t abnormally fast, or strong, but rather were actually pretty on par with mortal rats. In real life about the only differences between mortal rats and their naturally occurring demonic counterparts, besides subtle differences in appearance, were the ravenous appetites of the latter, and their inability to be injured by conventional means. They were easy enough to kill for our warriors only because they had weaponry designed to kill youkai. Whereas a regular sword would bounce off a demonic rat’s body, a taijiya-forged blade sliced through them as cleanly as a regular sword would slice through a regular rat. A normally messy process, but thankfully these guys just reverted back to paper, making the training area look like someone had thrown fistfuls of confetti everywhere.

 

Hell-rats summoned through magic portals would be a different matter entirely, of course, but there thankfully hadn’t been a recorded instance of those frightfully nasty things since Feudal times, when the last known anthropomorphic rat-youkai lord and his magic portal were destroyed. Even taijiya couldn’t deal with magically conjured demon rats that would just duplicate when you sliced them in half and could pick a human body clean to the bones in a matter of seconds. Thankfully, with the increase in reiki wielding humans, the biggest threats to humanity had been dealt with centuries ago, and all that remained now, as far as rat-youkai were concerned, were the ones native to this plane of existence, that had evolved spiritually from mortal rats once upon a time.

 

Their closed off training area was big enough that, by releasing the shikigami rats right smack in the center, with only a twenty minute lifespan none of them should live long enough to make it to the outer fence, and even if one or more of them did, they’d ‘die’ and turn back into paper within minutes, so they wouldn’t stay in rat form long enough to cause any harm on the outside. They also looked like regular black rats, save having red eyes and fangs instead of black eyes and buck teeth, something that most people probably wouldn’t notice if they just happened to see one scurrying about outside the training grounds. Also, being Miroku’s shikigami, these rats had no actual desire to consume human flesh, and so while he’d made them inclined to run towards the fighters, they would not actually bite anyone.

 

A black-hearted reiki user could make more evil shikigami that did have the desire to harm humans, or at least act like they felt such a desire since in reality shikigami felt nothing at all, but Miroku deliberately made his shikigami mimic youkai behavior only up to a certain point, without actually being able to hurt anyone. He never wanted anyone to accidentally get injured while training, after all.

 

So it was that as the massive group of rat-youkai were brought to life, and most of them ran straight towards our group of fighters, it was distinctly not in a scary, rabid sort of way, and for a fleeting moment Kagome imagined that if she lied down they’d all just climb all over her like the bunnies of Rabbit Island. She knew not to giggle, though, as she watched her teammates swing their weapons at the incoming rodents. The taijiya also used their stint pellets, of course, which incapacitated the rats that came into contact with the gas, just as it would in real life, but the tiny shikigami still had to be killed one by one even while they were temporarily ‘unconscious’.

 

Careful not to get a snootful of the gas, Inuyasha had a blast dealing with his own group of rats. Literally, when swipes of his claws launched blades of youki towards the vermin that took out not only several rats at once, but also chunks of old parking lot asphalt along with them, which had the few survivors turning tail to run away from him. He was eager for the hunt, chasing them down and slicing into them with his claws, especially the ones that ran into the various abandoned buildings. While they didn’t smell of rat-youkai, a scent he knew quite well, in fact, they still had a unique scent all their own that he was easily able to track, as was Kirara, who stayed on the ground but in her large form, chasing the escaping rats into different buildings as well. Kagome, grateful that she’d brought her blunted arrows in addition to the standard ones, fired a blunt arrow towards the ground as a large group of rats approached her position, the projectile releasing a large burst of reiki as it struck the pavement that took out all the rats in close enough proximity to the blast, while leaving the arrow intact so she could pick it up and fire it again.

 

The miko knew their relatively benign behavior was unrealistic, and that if they were dealing with real rat-youkai the situation would’ve been much different, and much more serious, as this many rat-youkai could easily take down a human even if not as swiftly as their unnaturally occurring, portal conjured counterparts. While this type of rat-youkai couldn’t eat all the meat off a human body in just a few seconds, leaving nothing but a skeleton behind, if you were attacked by a group of them they could still kill you quickly enough by going for your major arteries and causing you to bleed out while they ate you at a much slower pace.

 

Knowing she didn’t dare let any of these rats make physical contact with her, as they could grab hold of her robes to climb up her body, she scurried backwards as if the threat were real as she hurried up to fire her blunt arrow at the ground again. Just because she didn’t truly fear for her life in that moment didn’t mean she didn’t understand the seriousness of the training session. If she faltered and allowed some of the rats to jump her, she failed. In real life, when battling real youkai, there were no do-overs, so she had to treat this the same way.

 

Of course, if real rat-youkai ever got to me like that I could still purify the lot of them, she knew.

 

Being able to conjure up a blast of reiki would be just about the only thing that’d save your life in that situation.

 

Hopefully she’d never have to deal with a rat-youkai infestation in real life, though. In the wild they didn’t live in such large colonies, and they were also preyed upon by many larger youkai species, which helped keep their numbers under control. The type of scenario Miroku had set up for them was what could theoretically happen if just a couple of rat-youkai somehow wound up in a large building, like a factory, where they’d then been free to multiply unhindered. Their main food source in the wild was actually dead youkai, as most mortal carrion eaters could not digest demonic flesh, but just like mortal rats they were capable of eating just about anything, and would certainly attack a living human if their numbers were great enough to overwhelm their prey, and especially if they were starving.

 

But our warriors were proficient at their job, including Kagome and Inuyasha. Together, thanks to everyone, Miroku announced after about seventeen minutes that they’d successfully killed each and every one of his rats, before any of them had had a chance to wink out of existence on their own.

 

“Well, that was interesting. It was certainly the shortest training exercise I’ve ever had,” Kagome commented to Sango as the woman came near. “Not that I’m complaining.”

 

“In real life a lot of calls will be short like that,” Sango replied.

 

“Or at least you always hope they will be,” Kohaku chimed in as he approached with Kirara, the nekomata walking alongside the young man still in her saber form.

 

She changed into her kitten form and jumped up into Kohaku’s waiting arms around the same time Inuyasha came up to stand beside Kagome.

 

“The only hard part was resisting the urge to eat them, right Kirara?” the hanyou joked to the nekomata, who mewed her agreement.

 

A couple of the other taijiya crinkled their noses at the comment, perhaps actually thinking of Inuyasha as more of a person and then not appreciating the reminder of his canine nature, but Inuyasha was what he was, and while he thought hanyou deserved more recognition in the human world he wasn’t going to pretend he wasn’t half inu.

 

Kagome didn’t react in surprise, of course, because she’d already known Inuyasha had had to hunt his meals in the forest after his mother’s death.

 

Miroku also didn’t think less of the hanyou he was quickly considering a friend and only joked in return with, “That would not have been pleasant.”

 

It was Inuyasha’s turn to crinkle his nose, at the thought of all that paper in his mouth, and Kagome grinned in amusement as she glanced his way before belatedly realizing she should probably not look at him so fondly in front of the others. Quickly acting more serious, then, she asked Miroku what he had planned for them next, since there was no way they were done for the day.

 

“You’ll see,” the monk replied cryptically.

 

Inuyasha rolled his eyes along with Sango that time.

 

“Well whatever it is, we’re ready for it,” the hanyou said.

 

The other fighters all chimed in with their agreement.

 

oooooooooooooooooooo

 

“That Sango is something else,” Inuyasha said during the drive home.

 

Their second exercise of the day had consisted of two dragon-like shikigami. At least they hadn’t been that large, each one only about the size of an SUV. Inuyasha had gotten creative, jumping up onto the various buildings to reach even greater heights, Kagome firing arrows from his back, while Sango upon Kirara had used Hiraikotsu, nearly taking out one of the dragons all by herself. That she could handle a weapon like Hiraikotsu was impressive in and of itself, but it was actually the taijiya’s relationship with her nekomata that Inuyasha found the most remarkable.

 

“She seems like a wonderful person,” Kagome agreed, the miko definitely glad Sango had called her up like she had, wanting to become friends.

 

With the new moon coming up in just four days, Kagome wondered aloud about entrusting the taijiya and houshi with the secret that she and Inuyasha went out on his human nights, but ultimately thought better of it. She was sure they could probably be trusted with the information, but she wanted to wait and get to know them a little bit better, first. Inuyasha agreed, and suggested inviting them over for dinner again on a different night, saving the new moon for just the two of them, for now at least.

 

Besides, he had ‘plans’ for this upcoming human night, he told her while they were stopped at a red light, waggling his eyebrows up and down in an over-exaggerated way that had the miko snort-laughing.

 

Getting home, Kagome was too tired to do much of anything, including greet Shiro. A soft woof from Inuyasha had the akita mix calming down, and then Kagome squeaked in surprise when Inuyasha picked her up without warning, bridal style, and deposited her lengthwise on the couch. Shiro came up beside her and the miko just laughed as the dog proceeded to give her kisses while obviously trying to contain his enthusiasm. Inuyasha took her quiver and bow, and shoes, and told her to stay put until dinner was ready.

 

“Yes, sir,” she joked, while reaching over to pet Shiro.

 

After dinner the hanyou and miko shared a shower, which was now commonplace, the couple actually just showering because Kagome was tired, and then they snuggled together in bed with a happy Shiro at their feet.

 

Over the next few days their lives resumed their usual routine. Breakfast together and then shared chores around the house, a simple lunch in front of the TV followed by Inuyasha spending some time on his carvings, then they’d prepare dinner together and eat at the dining table before retiring for the evening. The only part of their lives that didn’t settle into a predictable routine was their intimacy, which still sprung up at random times throughout the day as the couple considered themselves newly weds. There were several times when one of them would just suddenly attack the other with kisses, and then whatever that person had been doing at the time was promptly dropped in favor of kissing back, which those days always led to much more than just kissing. A couple times they even started fooling around immediately upon waking up, and things got pretty heated until an untimely reminder from Shiro that the akita was still in the room with them. Some laughter followed by kicking the dog out always led to them picking right back up where they’d left off, before being so rudely interrupted, Kagome would joke.

 

On the night of the new moon, Inuyasha surprised Kagome by saying they didn’t need to go out to the ramen shop. She picked up food to-go from the place often enough, and it tasted so much better when he was hanyou, anyway. Besides that, he was still a little nervous about going out on the new moon now that his existence was no longer a secret. True, it wasn’t like the whole town knew about him...yet...but surely someone had seen him coming and going during their monthly training, and he also pointed out that it was really only a matter of time before everyone knew, because eventually they’d get their first real call to action and the local news always showed up to film the local youkai attacks.

 

Realizing he made a very good point, Kagome said they could go into the city, where it would be much less likely that either of them would ever be recognized, but conceding that they could do that in the future, going forward, for tonight, Inuyasha reminded her, he had other plans. He held up his claw-free fingers in emphasis as he waggled his eyebrows at her again.

 

They went to bed early that night, but didn’t let Shiro in until well past midnight.

 

oooooooooooooooooooo

 

As December wore on and it got closer and closer to Christmas, holiday decorations up everywhere – including in and on their own home – Kagome and Inuyasha both began worrying about Christmas Eve dinner at the Higurashi shrine. They would obviously be invited; they had been invited last year, even though last year’s Christmas Eve had been just a little over five weeks after her family had originally met Inuyasha, during the hanyou’s human night.

 

That he’d been included in their family get-together back then had really meant a lot to the both of them, even though Kagome had just barely considered Inuyasha a friend at that point in time. She’d mostly just felt sorry for him, and she’d been so proud of her family for welcoming him with open arms and showing him the kindness she’d felt he deserved. Inuyasha had been a nervous wreck, at first, but her family’s acceptance of him, just generally speaking, had finally calmed the hanyou’s nerves about halfway through the evening, and he’d actually ended up having a really good time, as he’d talked openly about how Christmas had always been his favorite holiday, and how he and his mother had always watched all the cheesy Christmas movies together.

 

As this year’s Christmas Eve rapidly approached, Inuyasha found that he was again a nervous wreck, but for an entirely different reason. He could only hope her family would still accept him when the night was over, as they’d made the decision to come clean about their relationship. Trying not to dwell on it, though, as there was nothing he could do about it and his worrying was making Kagome nervous, he tried to stay calm and confident, for her sake.

 

“I’ve got an idea,” he suggested out of the blue on the Friday morning before Christmas, in desperate need of a distraction. “Let’s go for a run in the forest.”

 

“What?” she asked, her latest bite of breakfast suspended halfway to her mouth.

 

“Just for something to do,” he replied with a shrug. “You on my back, like how we’ve done during training, but instead of trying to hit something with an arrow we’re just running, for the fun of it. I used to run through the trees by myself whenever I had extra energy to burn. I could show you all the secret places I used to go.”

 

“Sounds like fun!” she agreed. “I should bring my arrows, just in case we run into trouble, but yeah. Let’s do it!”

 

That was how, a few hours later, a giddily happy hanyou and miko accidentally ended up being caught red-handed on their way back home by a familiar houshi just doing his routine patrols. Miroku didn’t walk the forest every day, and when he did, the area he checked was miles long; what were the odds that he’d be directly in their path just as Inuyasha made a beeline back to the house after a long day of fun?

 

“Well, fancy meeting you here,” Miroku joked as Inuyasha came to an abrupt halt and a scarlet red Kagome dressed in a simple blouse and skirt, but with her bow and arrows, awkwardly climbed down off his back.

 

Miroku had sensed Inuyasha coming for a minute or so but hadn’t been alarmed because he’d recognized Inuyasha’s aura. It was easier to sense youki than reiki so he hadn’t felt Kagome’s presence as well until they’d been nearly right on top of him, due to how fast the hanyou was traveling. Kagome too had only sensed Miroku in their path with barely enough time to warn Inuyasha, and by the time he stopped they were already right in front of the houshi.

 

Kagome knew she had to say something, but what could she say?

 

“Uh...we were just...that is...we were just practicing running together in case...”

 

Miroku put his hand up to silence Kagome’s nervous rambling. He’d seen their expressions upon realizing they’d been caught, and ‘caught’ was definitely the right word for it based on the brief oh shit looks on their faces before they’d schooled their features.

 

He and Sango had already wondered about those two, especially after having had dinner with them a couple more times over the last two weeks. They’d always been on their best behavior, but that was just it. The hanyou and miko had seemed rehearsed, in a way, similar to that first fateful impromptu meeting at their house. At first Miroku had chalked it up to them just being nervous around Sango and him, in general, but with Kagome saying that she’d love for the four of them to become good friends, for the hanyou and miko to have still seemed like they were holding themselves back, like they were hiding something...well, given Miroku’s mindset it had only meant one thing.

 

His wife agreed, but Sango also had no intention of ever mentioning the proverbial elephant in the room, Miroku knew.

 

He was not his wife.

 

“Sango and Kirara go for rides sometimes, too,” he said then, observing the way hanyou and miko both seemed to relax marginally at his words. He smirked, and then blurted without really thinking, “Of course, Sango’s not a single lady, and Kirara’s not an attractive young man. If they were, I’m sure their rides would be about much more than battle practice.”

 

Kagome’s face turned as red as Inuyasha’s suikan, while the hanyou adopted a protective stance in front of the stunned miko, which was all the proof Miroku needed. Neither of them tried to deny it. Kagome’s mouth opened and closed a few times, but no words came out. She was actually starting to look terrified, which made Miroku feel guilty. He hadn’t meant to scare her. Inuyasha could clearly smell her fear, too, because his protective stance instinctively became a bit more threatening, all while never taking his eyes off the monk.

 

Miroku sighed, then, and felt his own cheeks warming a smidgen since it hadn’t been his intention to make them this uncomfortable. Sango had warned him not to tease them, but did he listen?

 

Me and my sense of humor...

 

They’d both been curious, but they’d also both agreed it was really none of their business. Because of their views when it came to humanoid youkai and hanyou, neither of them found the notion as ‘disgusting’ as most humans probably would. To them it was no big deal. Miroku should have known his sense of humor would land him in trouble sooner or later, though. Now, he needed to put their minds at ease.

 

“I was only teasing. I apologize,” he began right away. “You’ve truly done nothing to reveal anything,” he wished to assure them then.

 

Inuyasha snorted. “Too late to deny it, though,” he said.

 

Meeting Inuyasha’s eyes, then, Miroku took a deep breath and explained, “Sango and I had already wondered. After seeing the way you two live together and hearing your story it had seemed, at least to us, only natural that feelings might develop between the two of you, or already had. Seeing the way you two always seemed to hold a part of yourselves back when we’ve been over also added to our suspicions. But I want to assure you both that it makes no difference to Sango or myself, and from what my wife tells me, nobody else in your fighting team suspects anything, so closed are their own minds that they automatically see you as akin to an animal. We know otherwise.”

 

Inuyasha nodded to that, his eyes still narrowed a bit, his arms crossed defensively. Then he asked, “So what happens now?”

 

“Now?” Miroku repeated. “Now, I assume you two were on your way back home, and I still have the rest of my patrol to do.”

 

“Don’t be a smart-ass.”

 

Miroku opened his mouth to reassure Inuyasha but then Kagome stepped out from behind him.

 

“Maybe...” She took a deep breath. “Maybe you and Sango should come over for dinner again tonight.”

 

Miroku just nodded.

 

“We’ll be there.”