InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Presence of Autumn ❯ Beat To The Punch ( Chapter 2 )

Ohayo. Still don't own it…

Chapter Two: Beat To The Punch

Just past noon on the third day after they'd left Kaede's village they were approaching the place Kagome had said she felt the shard. When they were near the place they dropped out of the trees and rested for a moment.

"Oi, Kagome, is it still around?" Inuyasha asked.

Kagome concentrated for a moment. "Yeah, it's off to our north and a little east."

"Let's go." And the dog-demon promptly began stalking through the woods, his companions following in his wake.

After a while a faint scent came to his nose. He gestured for the others to halt and continued on by himself. The scent was strange to him, almost not even there, but his sensitive nose was still able to pick it up, even though the owner of it had left this area the day before.

It was warm and heady and seemed to fill his thoughts with images of the forest on a warm autumn day, and the temptation to find a patch of sunlight and bask. For some reason the scent made him blush. He felt like he should recognize the scent, though he knew for a fact that he'd never smelled it before. He would definitely have remembered it, without a doubt.

And so it was that he crept into a clearing and found the remnants of a battle. Several trees were lying on their sides having been smashed to splinters at about shoulder height and toppling to the earth. Patches of turf were shredded down to bare dirt, and the body of a large brown and green snake demon was sprawled across half the clearing in man-thick loops and coils. His arms reached to the sky in mute supplication and his fingers formed claws as though he were trying to fend off an attack. Inuyasha sniffed cautiously. The snake had definitely been dead for a day at least, but that strange heady aroma was still subtly present.

"Come here!" Inuyasha called. His voice sounded strained to his own ears, and he cleared his throat, trying to will himself to stop blushing. He heard his companions begin crashing through the undergrowth. Curious, he walked around to the far side of the dead snake demon and found out exactly how it had been killed. It was impaled back first on a sharp tree stump, the point of which tore through its low abdomen.

"Inuyasha, what-" Kagome began as she stumbled out of the trees, but she immediately caught sight of the demon. "Oh, my." She grabbed at Shippou and tried to hide the scene from him but he squirmed out of her arms and came over to investigate.

"What a mess." Sango murmured. She looked at the snake with a slight frown on her face.

Shippou hopped around the clearing sniffing at the air. "What's that smell?"

"What smell, Shippou?" Miroku asked curiously.

"That wonderful smell! Can't you smell it? It's everywhere!" Shippou continued sniffing the air, pausing occasionally to inhale low to the ground. Kirara was making circuits as well, stepping delicately through the gore of the dead snake demon. She was purring loudly enough to fill the clearing with her low-pitched rumble. She stopped and made an odd barking noise, pawing lightly at the earth in that spot.

Shippou bounced over to investigate. "What did you find, Kirara?"

Inuyasha came over as well and bent down to see what it was. There was a small patch of blood soaked into the dirt. He took a pinch of it and brought it to his nose. The heady aroma was so powerful it made him dizzy and thick with blood's coppery overtone; it was definitely a demon's blood. He inhaled the earth again, letting the warm, autumnal aroma fill his senses.

"Inuyasha, what are you-"

"Kagome, can you see the jewel shard anywhere?" Inuyasha demanded, standing up abruptly and scrubbing the dirt off of his hands and onto his hakama. He tried to breathe out the scent, but it seemed to cling in his mind. He couldn't make himself stop blushing. Shippou's face was pressed to the ground next to the blood, he was inhaling deeply and making little pup's noises. Inuyasha grabbed him roughly by the tail. "Enough of that!"

"But I want to smell it!" Shippou whined, squirming in Inuyasha's grasp. "It smells good!"

"Just forget about it!" Inuyasha growled. He tucked the still squirming kit under his arm. "Smell that instead."

"Aaahhhh!! Let me go! You're gross!"

Kagome went over to join him and Shippou, scanning the carcass for the shard but it was nowhere to be found. She looked at Inuyasha and shook her head in defeat.

"Damn!" He kicked a chunk of wood into the air in frustration.

Miroku wandered over. "Someone must have beaten us here."

"No shit, someone beat us here!" Inuyasha growled. "Son of a bitch! Kagome, can you still sense the shard?"

Kagome concentrated for a moment. "Yes. It's off to the east now, about thirty miles."

They left the clearing and stopped around five for a quick dinner. With plenty of sunlight left in the day they kept traveling. Around dusk they came upon a small village of about ten houses nestled against the side of a gently rolling hill, its slopes tiered for rice crops.

Curiously enough Miroku was able to determine that an ominous cloud hovered over this village. With a completely straight face he announced that it was his holy duty to rid the village of its foreboding shadow. His companions rolling their eyes, they followed him down into the little village.

"An ominous cloud, you say!" The village elder exclaimed. They had been ushered immediately into his home and served tea. "I'm so glad that you were passing through! I shudder to think what could have happened to my beloved home if it weren't for your expert skills, Revered Monk."

"Nonsense, sir. It's all in a day's work." Miroku assured him. It took about a half-hour of chanting and lying ofuda, but Miroku managed to convince the village elder that their village was now free of its ethereal shroud. When he came back to join them there was a lovely girl on his arm, the granddaughter of the elder; she stared up at him with admiring eyes vacant of any coherent thought.

"Oh, Houshi-sama, you're so wonderful." Her voice was high-pitched and airy and it grated on everyone's nerves, including Miroku's.

Inuyasha cleared his throat to try and hold in his laughter. "Listen, has anyone strange been through your village in the last day or so?"

The girl looked over at him curiously. "Other than you?"

Inuyasha closed his eyes for a moment to calm his impatience. "Yes, other than us."

She thought for a moment. "Well, yesterday around dusk some people came through the town asking about demons in the area."

"Who were they? What did they look like?" Inuyasha demanded.

She blinked at him for a moment. "Well, I didn't really get a good look at them. One was wearing some kind of cloak. It was white fur, with a baboon head for a mask. The other was dressed in greens and beiges that were absolutely filthy. Honestly, I wouldn't even let the servants use them for rags, that's how nasty they were."

Inuyasha frowned. Two of them; while the first was obviously Naraku, the second was a mystery.

"The one in the filthy clothes was silent, but the one in the baboon pelt was scary. Oh, I shudder to think that they may still be in the area." She shivered and clutched onto Miroku even tighter.

"Now, now, Ateda-san, you should go and get some rest. It's late." With that he disentangled himself from her arms and politely shoved her out the door, quickly sliding it closed behind her, bracing himself against it to hold it closed.

Sure enough, Ateda tried to open it again. "Houshi-sama, I can't open the door!"

"Really?" Miroku said in a surprised voice even as he looked back at where Inuyasha and Shippou were rolling on the ground in hysterical laughter. "Imagine that. It must be stuck somehow. I'll see you in the morning."

"But, I didn't get to give you a kiss good-night!"

"Oh, too bad." Miroku commiserated with a grimace on his face.

"Good-night, Houshi-sama." The girl sighed wistfully.

"Good-night." Miroku responded tolerantly. It was some time before he was willing to leave the door unattended, as though concerned that she might barge back into the room and try to take him by force.

Sango sat at the small table in the room nursing a cup of tea and holding a smug smile on her face. She swirled the tea in the cup to cool it slightly before raising it to her lips. Miroku eventually came and sat down next to her, putting his head in his hands and staring at the tabletop.

"That one backfired, didn't it, Houshi?"

He turned his head to look at her. It was times like this, when he managed to get close enough to her without raising her defenses, that he relearned exactly how beautiful she was. Her glossy black hair was pulled back into a low tail at her waist, leaving a few strands free to frame her face. Her bangs lay softly against the sides of her face and she looked peaceful as she sipped tea from the cup in her hands. Even the smile of smug satisfaction lent a cast of mischievousness to her features, making him think of wandering with her through the dark to secluded places.

He blinked and carefully worded his response. "Actually, I didn't make any moves on her. She just followed me around the compound while I was doing my blessings and latched on to me as I was returning here. I didn't even care to ask her to bear my children."

Surprised and slightly hopeful, Sango turned sparkling dark eyes on him. "Really?" The blush that touched her cheeks was lovely and made her look almost girlish.

Miroku nodded sagely. "Well, it takes all the fun out of the chase if she throws herself at me."

That said, Miroku was promptly unconscious and slightly moist about the head and shoulders and Sango was death-clutching the remains of her broken teacup.

Inuyasha watched the whole exchange with amusement, but once Miroku was out his thoughts went back to Naraku and his companion. Who was it?

He wanted to catch this demon and get that jewel shard. He wanted to know whose scent that was. The village held slightly stronger traces of it. But then perhaps it was only the fact that after he had handled the blood soaked dirt this afternoon he had wiped his hands on his hakama. The subtle but intoxicatingly rich, warm aroma surrounded him through the night. His dreams were pleasant for the first time in a long time and when he woke he felt well rested.

S'all for now. Next one up soon. I have quite a bit written already, but I want to get some feedback before I throw it all online. Let me know what you think, it'll encourage me to post faster. Ja mata!