InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Raven Moon ❯ Unsettled Times ( Chapter 1 )

Disclaimer: Rumiko Takahashi owns Inuyasha and all characters, settings, etc. Not me. I'm trying to put myself through first year university, so pretty please don't sue me. The plot, however, is *mine*.

A/N: Hey everyone, my name's Leo, and this is my pride and joy and first fic! I've got the rating down right now, but this will probably jump to `R' in later chapters due to violence and swearing, just to play it safe. I've heard a lot about stories being deleted because of supposed mis-ratings, so I want to avoid that.

This is a sort of fantasy/horror hybrid inspired by the Garth Nix Sabriel series (if you like fantasy, I'd recommend it). So, without further ado, here's the fic, and I hope you enjoy!

~*~

"So you think I'm not to be trusted?"

Twang. The cord on her bow vibrated and blurred, but his eyes were on the arrow she had let loose. It was caught deep in the bark of a tree, the shaft sticking straight out of the middle of a crudely painted circle. A perfect bull's eye.

She shifted, letting her hands fall to her sides, and watched him intently.

"No humans can be trusted," he said, moving further into the bushes. Should she make a move, just a twitch, he'd be gone in a moment. It didn't matter that no arrow was knocked in that bow. Humans were a tricky bunch, priestesses especially.

"Inuyasha," she smiled, "if I had wanted to hurt you, I would have done so already." When she smiled like that, her features softened. She often looked cold and distant - pale skin and black hair, dark eyes and impossible beauty - a snow priestess, a winter goddess. When she smiled, though, her features warmed and softened. Warmed and saddened. Her smiles were so very bittersweet it hurt to watch.

"Keh, what are you saying? You think I'm that weak?" he scoffed, leveling a golden glare her way. If possible, her expression darkened and lightened at the same time. He wasn't much for conversation, but what little she'd managed to get out of him always rounded on the same themes. Weak. Stupid. Inferior. Monster. Outcast. Hanyou.

Lonely.

"No, not at all. It's true, though: had I the intention, the will, I would have put my arrows through you long ago."

She was stating a fact, not unkindly, and he looked away. Her footsteps crunched and whispered as she approached, but he didn't run, only flinched. Not afraid, just educated. Close calls with humans were all filed under `bad memories' for him.

"But you could have hurt me too, Inuyasha."

~*~

Raven Moon: Ch. 1, Unsettled Times

Author: Cyan I'd

Beta: Special thanks to Sashi and Alex!

~*~

"Ugh…" she moaned, one pale hand tossed over her forehead and the other lying across her stomach. She stared dully at the roof, thinking about how sick she felt, how sore she was, and how absolutely exhausting everything had become. They hadn't had this much trouble for years.

"Kagome-chan, do just like I taught you, and you'll be fine! We need you now! The village needs us both!"

Rolling over was a little more strenuous than it used to be, but she managed alright, putting her back to the overly-cheerful morning sunshine. In her opinion, nothing should be that happy and uplifting unless she was too, and that included nature.

She tried drifting back to sleep, but she couldn't seem to take her mind away from the sounds of the temple beyond: a child's cry, a woman's moan, a man's near-desperate prayers. Then her mother's voice, chastising and disappointed, rang through her head. Kagome, mind-mother scolded, how can you just sleep in bed when there are people that need your help? Kagome groaned again and pulled herself up. Of course, her real mother would never say that, because her real mother would respect Kagome's need to rest after the events of the previous night.

"Probably just my own inner voice of guilt," Kagome grumbled to herself, "with a weird-ass psychological reason for sounding like my mother."

Groggily, she pulled on some loose clothes and stepped out into the hall, making her way towards the sound of voices and the scent of herbs. The old wooden floorboards creaked under her weight as she brushed past ancient tapestries and old water stains. This place had been here for centuries, and, in Kagome's opinion, had aged pretty well over all that time.

Inside the main room, bodies littered the floor. Some were groaning, some were unconscious, and some were talking softly with family or friends, but all were in need of care. They stretched out carefully on mats with thick blankets thrown over them. A full fire blazed in the pyre to make sure everyone stayed warm and comfortable. Kagome had to take a little detour around a whole family that clustered about their critically injured father before she could make her way towards her mother, the sole calm center in this place where death was a worry and a whisper.

"Mama…" she called softly. Her mother was stooped over a child, setting the little boy's arm in a sling. Kagome let her gaze travel over the small body, faintly remembering him from the night before. He'd been attacked by a serpent youkai, his arm slashed and bent by a blow meant to take his little head from his shoulders.

"Watch out!" she screamed, and fired off another arrow, automatically taking the wind direction and speed into account. With a solid thunk, it lodged into the youkai's chest, sending the scaled and thrashing nightmare tumbling back with an inhuman scream.

"What were you thinking?" she asked the little boy, breathless in her worry.

"I'm… I wanted… Papa was fighting alone…" he sobbed.

`Papa' now waited inside the small shack near the back of the shrine's property, wrapped in a thick black sheet. There were roughly twenty-seven others just like him.

"Oh, Kagome… you're up. How do you feel?" her mother asked. Kagome smiled for her mother's sake, taking in the dark circles, drooping shoulders, and weary voice. Her mother looked just as bad as she herself must look, even though she'd had a full night's sleep. The older woman hadn't caught a wink; instead, she was tending to the newly injured.

I have to get stronger… so I can help her.

"I'm alright, mama. Are there any herbs you need?" she asked. Her mother brushed her hands off on the long skirt she was wearing, then stood, making her way towards a small chest against the back wall. It used to stand near the front entrance with the shrine's bandages and water jugs, but everything - altar, offering table, chairs, etc. - was shoved up against the walls now to make room for the sick and injured.

"Hmm… some more Astragalus would be nice… Comfrey and Lomatium. I think that's all."

Kagome nodded, trying to remember what Comfrey looked like.

"And Kagome? Thanks. You're a great help," her mother said, giving an appreciative smile.

"Mama," Kagome shifted uncomfortably, "I didn't do anything, really."

Her mother waved her off absently.

"Nonsense, Kagome-chan, you were great. Now, get moving, I don't want to see you moping around here a second longer," her mother said, and shuffled off to go tend some other poor soul. Kagome sighed, running a hand through her hair before making her way out the door.

Her sandals clapped on the stone steps as she made her way down and into the village. The shrine itself was on the tallest hill overlooking the small settlement, therefore considered to be a sort of watch tower and safe haven, what with the holy ground and two miko (mother and daughter) and all.The path she'd chosen would take her through the heart of the village, down a dirt path and into the nearby woods where she would hopefully find all the herbs her mother needed.

As she passed the archery practice grounds, she scooped up a bow and quiver that had been discarded in the grass - it would be a good idea to be prepared since she was headed into the woods on her own. She was a very good shot, too - of all her mother's lessons, that was the one she picked up the fastest. With the strap over her shoulder, she picked up the pace and made her way into the busy town, listening to the crack of wood and the bangs of hammers and shouts. Over all that familiar noise, there was a loud whirring and clanking.

Last night's youkai attack was the third in just four days, giving credence to the talk of strangers that stopped by the inns. Travelers spoke of upheaval in distant lands, increased youkai sightings and strange disappearances and disturbances. Kagome didn't know what all this meant, but she hoped that it would all pass her and her little village over.

"Oi, miko-sama!"

"Oi, Kagome-sama!"

Kagome smiled and waved back, inwardly grimacing. The ones who had called to her were none other than the Omuhashi family. They were lucky enough to still have all five family members, but unfortunately, no house - and at the rate things were going, they would never have a home again. The first of the strange recent youkai attacks had toppled their wooden homestead, the next had undone all the repairs they'd started after that first loss, and the next, and the next… Kagome was pretty sure that they hadn't been missed once.

At least they still look sort of cheerful…

Just down the lane was something that was unquestionably out of place. The small village was filled with little wooden homes and simple wooden carts, built and maintained with tools that were made from the bones of slain youkai, animals, or whatever metal they could mine or buy. However, near one house stood a large mess of shaking metal and chattering bolts, a thing with a square base and one long arm that reached up and over the half-repaired home. A pulley with a thick wire cable was attached to bundled planks of wood on one end and ran down into the contraption on the other.

It was called `machina'.

Kagome's village never once was accused of being ahead of the times. In fact, it was quite far behind - further off to the west, marvelous leaps of ingenuity and cunning were taking place. They were creating things that people could ride in, albeit slowly, and things that could heat water. They'd come up with a way to throw their voices to one another over great distances (which Kagome was a little skeptical about), and freeze a moment in time on a thin piece of paper.

About a month ago, a traveling man had come to her village with an ox-drawn cart. Inside the cart he had boxes lined with straw and stashed with machina, only small examples of the wonders of the western inventions. He immediately demonstrated his wares to the village head, who, in turn, took an immediate distrust to them. Not that Kagome blamed him or anything; the `up-lifter', as it was called, made a terrible racket. It banged and clapped loud enough to bring down the snow on the mountain as it trembled and spluttered. The villagers (except for the man operating it) kept their distance. The women occasionally made warding signs and walked a little faster as they passed.

The village leader had bought only three pieces of machina that day: the `up-lifter' (which was brought separately a couple of weeks later), a `turn' which would turn the soil after the harvest, and a `washer'. The washer was given to the temple Kagome herself lived in, so that they might be able to clean the cloth bandages rather than burning them all the time. Her mother used it once then quietly set the machina in the corner, taking to burning cloths once more. Souta had dubbed it `Stutter-Banger', which, Kagome had to admit, was a very apt name for the thing. That one time they had used it, it scared her grandfather up a tree (figuratively) and shook two wall scrolls down (literally).

"Why, if you live amongst such marvels, do you still use the traditional ox and wagon to travel?" the village leader had asked the man.

"Because it frightens the village people to arrive in a `mover'," the man had replied.

Ignoring the `modern masterpiece', Kagome turned off the main road and made her way down a smaller path that wound between older huts and herb gardens. With the clanks and groans of the up-lifter behind her, she pulled her bow out to the ready and fisted one arrow, turning her attention to her surroundings.

She wasn't tense or afraid while walking these woods. She had grown up in these lands with her mother, the most skilled miko in the area (or so she heard), and had learned well the ways to defend herself and her people. It was experience she lacked, and experience she desired - maybe if she was more skilled, fewer would have been lost in the attack last night…

"But I shouldn't think like that…" she said aloud.

Kagome squared her shoulders and raised her chin, pointedly ignoring the wariness laced in her limbs. Her mother was counting on her to get those herbs, and she wouldn't let her down.

These woods were older than the village, and full of secrets. The trees were tall and thick, vines and creepers milling about their roots and spiraling up to the tallest branches. Even at high noon it was cool beneath the canopy. Patches of sun scattered here and there and served as the only available source for the light-starved saplings. There were a few paths that cut through the trees, but everywhere else was wild and untamed. That was where the danger lie - stumbling across a bear protective of her cub, or a wolf.

Or a demon.

True, this forest was calm - had been for many years - but with this new unsettlement rippling through the lands, one could never be sure. That was why Kagome was extra careful this morning, keeping her bow and arrow handy and letting her senses stretch beyond their normal perceptions.

The shadows were nothing but shallow and cool.

Maybe I am overreacting…?

Kagome expressed her fears to her mother a few days before, confessing that the brooding forest worried her. Higurashi-sama had laughed, telling her daughter not to worry. The older woman grew up living next to those trees, and never once had they sheltered a youkai - perhaps because of the watchful eyes of the temple? At any rate, they were safe grounds, and while one should always be on their guard, for the most part youkai came from farther away in the mountains and attacked the village directly.

Kagome sighed and hooked her bow over her shoulder once more, stooping beside a small herb. It was Astragalus, and felt cool and comforting as she ran her fingertips over the smooth leaves. She was careful to select only a few of the larger bottom leaves, unwilling to harvest the plant to death, and made a small collection that should last them another couple days at least. She stood from where she had knelt, brushing bits of dirt and grass off her knees, and adjusted the weapons she had brought. She probably should have brought a knife or something, too, since arrows were only really good for far-off enemies. She sighed. Then her eyes widened.

Wha…?

That smell… sweet but putrid, faint, and unmistakable. Fighting a growing sense of panic, she started off running through the woods away from the path. She cleared fallen logs and branches easily, but a few snagged on her clothes and hair as she rushed past, clamping a hand over her mouth and nose as the smell got stronger.

She knew this stench, knew it as well as any of the villagers did. After all, on more than one occasion a culprit had forgotten to properly dispose of the leftover meat from a hunt and the resulting reek soaked into the wood of the slaughterhouse and hovered in the village for days on end.

Rotting meat…!

It could mean nothing, but it could also mean everything. It was possible that some wolf's unfinished dinner was decomposing in the bushes, but unlikely. Kagome had to slow to a brisk walk to try to give her stomach a break. It was lurching dangerously. She actually did gag when she saw a limp white hand starkly contrasting with the dewy forest floor. Just the hand, pinky and ring fingernails torn off, and dirt caught in the lines of the palm and fingerprints.

After she had managed to recover herself somewhat, Kagome easily tracked down the rest of the body. It was sprawled in a small depression in the earth, one arm stretched out, the other flopped over the torso. It's face was turned away, thankfully, but Kagome could still tell it was a woman. The strange part? She was not from anywhere near here. Her clothes, ground with mud and torn as they were, hailed from someplace to the North, made of thicker fabric and more ornate than the things they wore around these parts.

Kagome tensed, pulling out her arrows once more and stretching her senses as far as she could. This woman was not dressed for traveling. She was from very, very far away. There were claw marks and chunks torn out of her skin. She must have been dragged here by something big and deadly and most likely still lurking in the area.

But where…?

Her eyes widened in realization. No! How could I have been so stupid to miss that?!

Now that she was looking for it, the small kernel of youki was plain as day in her mind's eye. It was compressed, trying to shadow its presence from alerting its prey, but it was big enough to pose a problem should it actually manage to reach the village. Speaking of which, the youkai was between Kagome and her home, when really it should have been the other way around.

"No! No, no!" she cried, terror making her heart pound. They couldn't fend off another, not so soon. She had to stop it before it got close enough to the settlement to do any real damage.

Whirling, she leapt nimbly over a toppled sapling, her weariness forgotten in her haste to head off the youkai. As she went crashing through the underbrush, she didn't see the head of the corpse - maggots weaving their way through the skin and hair - loll to the side and watch her retreat with black, soulless eyes.

Kagome raised her arms to protect her face from snapping branches and tried to reign in her blossoming terror. The youkai was moving slowly, she could tell, trying to creep up on the village - so that meant it didn't know she was coming from behind. If she took the river path that branched to the right, she should be able to head it off well away from any other people - provided it didn't pick up speed, of course. As she sifted through the sensation of the youkai's aura, something akin to alarm began to make her head pound. There was something… off. The youki she felt was most definitely a demon's, most likely a more primitive one - centipede? Mantis? - but it just felt wrong. Never in her experience had she run across an aura with quite the same taint as this one, though, so she couldn't tell exactly what was bothering her. There was nothing for it except to charge in and hope for the best.

She turned and crashed down the river trail, blessedly free of growth because of its use, and sprinted as fast as she could manage with the help of adrenaline pounding in her veins. The youkai was to her right, and apparently aware of her presence if its shrill scream and rapidly flaring aura were anything to go by.

"Kagome-chan, do just like I taught you, and you'll be fine!"

I hope you're right, mama. Here goes…

She abruptly turned, crashed through the narrow line of bushes and trees between her and her target, and fired off an arrow she had prepared. Then, she just stared in stupefied horror. The arrow blew a chunk out of a raging snake demon, but she didn't congratulate herself or prepare another.

She finally understood what that strange twist in the youkai's aura was.

~*~

This place was very cold… he could barely move his fingers. He could still feel that ghostly water, though, lapping gently at his numbed hands and feet. It soaked through his clothes, through his skin, and settled where natural things could not reach. He breathed ice and blinked at a starry sky, never lit by sunlight, but never darkening all the same. He stared not at his surroundings, because he'd seen it all before, but at the memories that still clouded his thoughts each and every day. He felt sick, he felt worn and faded, he swallowed screams and he had given up on drawing his own blood long ago. Now there was nothing but time and himself, but even that was better than what waited below.

He was a fool, but not stupid.

Then he felt it… a small tug. A gentle pulling that had all the effect of standing on the edge of a vast ocean.

`Hey… wake up.'

~*~

One eye dangled loosely from a bloated eye socket. The jaws stretched wider than they should have been able to - the skin at the corners of the lips was torn, but not bloody. In fact, not a single cut or burn oozed blood - but that only made sense. How could blood flow if the heart no longer beat to pump it?

Kagome's fingers seized around the smooth wood of the bow. Her feet were rooted to the spot as she simply stared in growing horror at the raging serpent youkai. It let out another shriek, and she flinched, a scream lodged in her throat and making it hard to breath. She didn't know how to fight this thing. Youkai, she could handle, but this? She could purify it all she wanted to, but it wouldn't make a difference - that kind of magic couldn't reach a dead soul. The cold and rotting flesh would remain untouched and quite animated. Whatever it was that bound this thing to the living world was beyond her meager ability.

She knew she had to face it. She also knew she didn't stand a chance, even as she drew her arrow with a shaking arm and set her sights on the still and silent heart. She had to try though, because the only other alternative to that was giving up - and that just wasn't possible with so many lives on the line. Kagome knew for a fact that her mother wouldn't be able to face this foe either.

She fired. The arrow sunk into her enemy with a wet crack that reminded her of mud being slapped. This only served to further enrage the already rampaging youkai, zeroing its focus on the lone girl that stood between it and the throbbing pulse of lives present in the village beyond. If it had its way, it would swallow those lives whole, make them a part of itself, if even for an instant before death snatched them too. One who is dead constantly yearns to be alive once more.

It slid through the grass with surprising ease, sliding the bloated remnants of its tail forward to circle the girl before she even had a chance to scream. It coiled and tightened, widened its great jaws, greedy for the warmth and the breath that its prey possessed. Kagome, with her arms pressed against her side, squeezed her eyes shut, trying to focus on something - anything - to get her out of this. She tried not to think about the cold and clammy meat sliding against her exposed arms, the putrid stench as it leaned forward with the jaws wide open.

No! Nononononono!

She could barely breath - but was that because of panic or the crushing coils of the undead snake?

Its aura was cold and uncomfortable, black - the sort of shadow that conceals all the things you don't want to know about it. Kagome couldn't get away from it; it pressed in on all sides and left her shivering violently. She was suffocating, about to be eaten alive, and failing all her loved ones. Her fingers twitched for the dropped bow and arrows, too far away in the long green grass.

It was just as the snake was preparing to close its jaws around her that she felt it. A small tugging on the whole of the youkai's aura, insistent yet not strong enough to overcome whatever drove it forward. Desperate, Kagome locked onto that little tug, throwing all her considerable spiritual strength behind it. Ice shot up her veins, she couldn't breath at all, and then she felt like she was falling. The youkai was falling away, falling apart, pushed fully into the force of that other power - and she was being pulled right along with it.

~*~

Water lapped gently against her cold, white body. She opened her eyes to shades of grey, endless in all directions and shifting into a starry sky up above. With a start, she recalled the serpent youkai, that cold and dead aura, and the feeling of falling away from everything warm and embraceable.

"-where?!" she cried, sitting bolt upright. Water roughly ankle deep covered what appeared to be ice, completely flat, and stretched for as far as she could see in every direction. Everything was grey, nothing was defined - it was like being trapped between sleeping and waking, except that never lasted this long. She could see dark shapes moving beneath the ice, but some primitive instinct screamed for her to look away, and she obeyed.

"Where… am I?" she wondered aloud.

"Well," a voice replied, "that's a stupid question."

Kagome started, glancing wildly around until her panicked gaze fell on a lone boy, dark and surreal and standing with limp arms and blank eyes just to her left. His lips twisted into a humorless smirk, but his eyes remained flat and lifeless.

"Stupid bitch. You're in death."

~*~

End Chapter 1

~*~

Leo: Well, there it was. I hope you all enjoyed it! Special thanks to my betas Sashi and Alex, who courageously warded off my arch nemesis, procrastination. If you liked, didn't like, or just have the time, drop me a line! That's what that little review button is for ^.^