InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Price of Vengeance ❯ Chapter Sixty-Three: Kikyo's Wrath ( Chapter 64 )

Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha, etc. This story is for entertainment purposes only.

 

Japanese Words

 

imouta - younger sister

Shinidama-Chuu - Kikyo's white soul collectors

 

WARNING: Adult language, (limey) situations, and dark imagery. No one under 17 please!

 

Chapter Sixty-Three (Kikyo's Wrath)

 

Kagome turned onto her side in discomfort. Wrinkling her nose, she tried to rub away the itchy ache from her spine.

 

"Miko-sama, allow me." Suzume was suddenly there, putting down the small bundle she held, and kneeling by the pregnant woman's side. Kagome tried to smile in gratitude as the inu woman kneaded the small of her back, but it turned into a teeth-clenching grimace as another baby decided it was fun to bounce on her stomach.

 

"Ooh..." She let out her breath as Suzume gave her a worried glance out of pale blue eyes. Kagome waved the inu's concern away as she rolled back onto her pillows and lay like a sprawling turtle, grunting at the shift in weight. *Gah! I feel like a hippo!*

 

She was more than ready for this pregnancy nonsense to be done with, but Kaede told her she still had two months and a handful of weeks to go. And it wouldn't get any easier. Kagome thought glumly that she might grow as big as a house by then.

 

Literally.

 

Suzume remained kneeling, and unwrapped the cloth-covered tray she had brought the young miko. Warm, appetizing aromas filled the air between them, and Kagome blushed as her stomach growled. She was so hungry all the time, and therein lay the reason she was as big as a house...or would be. But she was suddenly, ravenously, starving-man hungry.

 

"Thank you, Suzume-chan." She was so famished she didn't even grumble as the young inu youkai leaned across her to place the cloth-covering over her white yukata like a bib. Normally, Kagome hated being treated like a baby, but right now she was too damn hungry to care...

 

"Ooh!" Kagome hissed out in surprise, clamping a hand to her side.

 

THAT had been a bad one.

 

"Miko-sama?" Suzume asked softly. Although her voice was low, Usagi's sharp ears heard the deep worry threaded in that whispered query.

 

"What is it?" The osambasan said sharply, looking up from her own lunch. The midwife had been on edge all day, and the gravelly quality of her earthy voice was as sharp and sudden as rocks falling down a mountainside. Standing up abruptly, she stalked over to Kagome's side and dismissed Suzume with an imperious wave of her brown hand. Kaede looked up from kneeling over the hearth, the bowl and ladle in her hands forgotten as her gaze fixed on the young miko.

 

With a grunt, Usagi knelt and felt along Kagome's belly with blunt fingers, frowning.

 

Kagome stirred restlessly under the open palm, which smoothed over the round bulge of her kimono with persistence. Usagi hummed lightly under her breath, her eyes half-lidded as she concentrated. Kagome grimaced, and Usagi jerked her hand back as a particularly healthy jab from an over-active infant bucked her fingertips.

 

It was the midwife's turn to glare at Kagome's belly.

 

Kaede let out an amused grunt at the old midwife's sour expression. Kagome giggled, and tension seeped out of all of them.

 

Usagi sat back on her heels and crossed her arms over her expansive chest. "Inu." She muttered with a scowl. Kagome giggled again, and then grimaced as another pain hit her side.

 

"They are active today, child." Kaede left the fire to come and pat Kagome's shoulder.

 

"Eat." Usagi said abruptly. "With their stomachs full, they'll sleep, and I can check you then."

 

The smell of her cooling lunch was abruptly unappealing, and Kagome pushed the rich stew away with a hand suddenly grown tired. She felt faintly nauseous, and wondered where in the world her appetite had fled to.

 

Usagi and Kaede were both now peering at her with sharp concern.

 

"I'm not hungry any more." Kagome said lamely. She didn't want to tell Kaede that her carefully prepared stew---which the old miko had labored over for the better part of an hour, trying to make fish liver and eggs more appetizing to Kagome's choosy tastebuds—was now turning her stomach. She felt overwhelmingly tired and sluggish, and the active gymnasts who had taken up residence in her belly were for once quiet and still. She felt as if the air had grown heavy around her, and her spirit felt weighed down, as if it too, was under strain.

 

Tension crackled through the air, and then they heard a muffled shout from outside.

 

Kagome jerked, her breath hitching.

 

She couldn't have heard InuYasha right. It had been faint. It had been muffled. It couldn't be right. He couldn't have said it...couldn't have...

Kaede's grave eyes met hers, and a single word dropped from the older miko like a stone between them.

 

"Kikyo."

 

*~*~*~*~*

 

Sango tickled him under a white ear, which twitched and flicked at her in reaction. Her laugh turned into a throaty sigh as warm lips and sharp teeth nipped playfully at the delicate pink curve of her own ear.

 

Her hanyou mate growled low in reply, and their bodies shifted like ripples of water as his lust gained new life and her own body awakened and hummed in response. She was taken by surprise---just as she had been taken by surprise from the village not long before. She had been furious at first, when InuYasha had plucked her up and hauled her off into the forest like she was just so much baggage, but then he had more than made up for it with his eager kisses once they were safely alone...

 

She had thought his need had been sated and spent in the wild abandon that had just swept them up into blissful joining, there on the chilled ground, his haori their only blanket. She had been basking in the golden glow of fulfilled aftermath, but she was more than willing to go another round. She could outlast him any day...

 

"Is that a challenge?" InuYasha growled into her mouth before kissing her senseless. Sango's hands swept up his bared back, marveling anew at the heat he gave off. She was starting to shiver in the chill snap of the air, the goose-bumps touching across her white skin. A warm tongue licked them away in damp heat and she sighed, for once content to let her worries and tension go.

 

It wasn't often they were able to get away from the crowded village and spend time alone...

 

Her eyes flew open as she felt InuYasha tense above her. She could not read his thoughts as he could hers, but she could feel the sudden tightness in his shoulders. Passion fled, and she opened her encircling arms. With the hanyou speed that always astonished her, InuYasha was on his feet, his nose twitching and golden-amber eyes wary. A chilling breeze sprung up, whipping the tousled silver hair over his shoulders and back.

 

Sango shivered. Something told her, a warrior's instinct, that it was trouble.

 

Dark trouble.

 

With scarcely a sound, she slid into the nearest brush, pulling her clothes in after her. She ignored the rose kimono she wore for everyday use and slid the black silk of her armor over her chilled skin. She secured her sword to her side, and stepped from the brush looking for her mate.

 

Tilting her head back, she spied him crouched in the nearest tree, already dressed in his Fire Rat robes and gripping the hilt of his Tetsusaiga. His back was to her, so that she could not see his eyes, but the tense line of his shoulders told her that something held him riveted.

 

Fixated.

 

"InuYasha?" Sango asked in a whisper.

 

He ignored her.

 

Something ate at her. Something---was there. Dark. Seething. Angry. She could feel the anger growing in strength as she recognized it for what it was. Trained as a slayer, she was also able to sense the presence of youkai, their aura, their menace. But this...this was...

 

"KIKYO."

 

Sango froze as InuYasha shouted that name in recognition.

 

In pain.

 

He sprang from his lofty perch, and was gone without a glance behind. A sprinkle of dead leaves were shaken from the tree limb left swaying with the power of his vanishing leap forward, and she watched them fall with frozen anguish, her heart tight in her chest.

 

He had loved her first, and most, of all.

 

Something snapped in the emotionally-timid taijiya, and her eyes narrowed. The white mark at the juncture of her throat and shoulder flashed. Without looking, she found the familiar strap of her Hiraikotsu where it leaned against the bole of a tree behind her. Fingers curled tight over the leather, and the heavy weight thudded against her back with a powerful jerk as she sprang after her vanished mate.

 

*~*~*~*~*

 

He could feel her...sense her...smell her. It had taken him a long moment, to recognize her scent. He had to be sure. He had to be certain. Her scent was different. It had changed, as Kagome's had changed.

 

The faint sense of faded flowers, battered by rain and washed in sorrow, was but a bare whisper among a rage so poignant and bitter it even overwhelmed the decay of dusty time that had wrapped the dead miko's scent in clayed age.

 

*Kikyo.*

 

He recognized it now. Recognized it as something he had sensed only once before in the miko who had been his first love.

 

*Anger.*

 

He had smelled it when first confronted by her reawakened spirit, when the witch Urasue had first given life to the soulless clay body she had created from Kikyo's soiled ashes. Her avenging anger had beat at him in cloying waves as she accused him of betraying her, of killing her.

 

The roiling rage he had sensed her at that moment had stunned him.

 

But it was nothing compared to THIS.

 

"Kikyo!" He shouted again, his fingers white-knuckled on the hilt of his Tetsusaiga as he sped through the bare branches of the trees, back to the village where he knew she was. Twigs snapped as he brushed by them unheeding. His only thought was to find her.

 

Darkness was seething across to lay the sky in shadow as clouds rolled into angry turmoil. Light flared across them---not the pure, untainted flash of natural lightening, but the seething anger of malevolent Jewel shards, glowering fuchsia and tainted rose. He saw a thin white line up ahead, a ribbon encircling a gleaming globe of sacred energy that spun in maddened fury.

 

Bursting from the last ring of barren trees, InuYasha was airborne, jumping toward that sparking light. The red sleeves of his haori snapped in the wind of his passage, and the long length of his silver hair spread out behind him. Amber eyes glowing gold, he called out to her.

 

"KIKYO!"

 

*~*~*~*~*

 

~Mad...maddened...we...mad...are...one...~

 

She could barely contain the rage that coursed through her as it fed her...strengthened her...

 

~Anger...death...rage...life...MINE...life...death...THEM...madne ss...lost...pure...anger...hate...them...blame them...KILL them...~

 

VENGEANCE.

 

She could feel him call out to her. She bared her teeth in a snarl of rage. Pitiful half-breed. How dare he even say her name! He was a part of her downfall. He was part of the blame. He was one of those whom she would seek revenge on. But first to die would be the very girl who had stolen her soul, her identity, her life.

 

"Miko!"

 

Fuchsia lightening crashed, and Kikyo laughed in delighted madness. They would feel her POWER. They would feel her RAGE.

 

*Die so that I might LIVE!*

 

*~*~*~*~*

 

Shippo helpfully pushed the old inu bitch out of the way as Miroku pushed open the wooden shutters that now served as Kaede's door. Natsuko gave a whispered shriek of half-rage, more-fright, and followed them inside, slamming the door shut, her breast heaving with indignation and a deepening sense of unfeigned terror.

 

Houshi and kitsune ignored the cowering lady in her tousled court robes, as did the harried Koharu who followed in their wake. "Lady Kaede!" Miroku jerked his head toward the door, and what lay outside as Shippo bounced right into his adopted okaa-san's arms. "Kagome!"

 

Kagome's face was white, her eyes wide, dark pools as she huddled in the corner amid her piled cushions. Trembling hands soothed the little fox cub with distraction as she stared at the tense faces around her.

 

Usagi snapped from a half-lidded trance, and said sharply, "That one is evil, and means the miko no good. She is pulling the dark powers to her."

 

Koharu gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. Her brown eyes swept to Kagome in horror.

 

The hurt of knowledge flashed deep in the old priestess's unpatched eye. For a moment, she bowed her head and whispered hoarsely, "Aye."

 

"Kaede-sama, it is Kikyo, but not Kikyo." Miroku said, his blue eyes dark and troubled. "There is that which is evil and mad..."

 

*Unholy...*

 

"She seeks Kagome." Shippo whimpered, burrowing his copper head into his mother's kimono with a sob.

 

"She seeks death." Usagi said bluntly, her eyes hard.

 

"Lady Kaede, we must confront your sister." Miroku said, his grip tightening on his staff. The rings jangled discordantly. "She has tapped into unholy powers."

 

"She is not of my sister. That out there is not anything of my sister." Kaede said with grim assurance. Although her voice was steady, the dark eye was bright with tears she would never shed. Calloused fingers closed over the bow and arrows the old priestess kept ever ready and close to hand.

 

"Kagome must be protected at all costs." Usagi said, her dark eyes bleeding slightly with youkai anger. "She cannot defend herself. Her sacred powers, and the youkai pups in her womb---"

 

Kagome gave an abrupt, sharp cry of pain, and doubled over. Shippo jumped free just in time as she folded around her belly, her small, white hands twisting in her kimono.

 

"Okaa-san!" The little kit wailed in the sudden quiet.

 

Thunder snapped and a screaming screech of thwarted rage and maddened evil overwhelmed them as darkness covered the village in heavy shadows. Koharu was at the young miko's side at once, murmuring worriedly. They all watched in frozen shock as Kagome shuddered, and a spasm rippled across the wide expanse of her belly. A small cry escaped white lips.

 

"What is she doing to Kagome?" Miroku snarled with sudden anger, his blue eyes flashing.

 

Usagi gave the young monk a look of disgust. "Nothing, unless you fail to protect her. Kagome-sama is going into labor."

 

"Kami protect us!" Koharu's fervent whisper spoke for all of them.

 

*~*~*~*~*

 

Light flashed around him in dizzying colors, but InuYasha ignored it. He could feel the inner essence inside that fierce glower, could smell the rage that boiled in the middle of that storming mass of hate and anger.

 

*Kikyo!* He cried out, seeking her. Streaking lightening snapped out at him in erratic arcs. He dodged one from the left and dove under another.

 

"Kikyo! What in the hell are you DOING!" He shouted, whipping out Tetsusaiga to fling off yet another strike of infuriated wrath. He raised the sword's defense barely in time. A shower of sparks flew off of the fang's widened blade, making it ring with force.

 

"Do not deny me, InuYasha!" The voice came whipping out at him like the blasts of her lightening of perverted power. "You will die!"

 

"Kikyo! What has happened to you? Why---" His question was cut off as a series of sharp blasts were sent his way, this time with deadly purpose. He fended off three or four, but two snaking strikes came at once, and he was knocked from the air with the scattered backlash as Tetsusaiga's blade cut through them barely in time to save his life.

 

"I will not be denied!" Kikyo screamed from the middle of her fury. Her body was a dark shadow in the raging fuchsia light of her glowering aura of tainted power. "I will have my revenge!"

 

The breath heaved out of him as he crashed to the earth below. Villagers had scattered in every direction, many taking cover behind hastily slammed doors. Erratic strikes of raging lightening spat out, striking roof and tree and ground. There was a gurgling cry as an unfortunate man was caught running from the invidious menace above. His blackened corpse fell to the earth with a dull, sickening thud.

 

An ookami youkai, eyes red and fangs gleaming, launched himself from a half-crouch at the seething globe of raging power. He let out a howl as lightening seared across his unprotected side. He barely dodged death, and fell screaming. There was a keening howl as an Ash-demon, one of the guards sent by the Taiyoukai, bared his sharp, double-rows of teeth and joined the fray with two others.

 

Almost casually, the dark miko who had been his first love struck them out of the sky, their death cries keening into the shrieking wind that had been stirred by her churning rancor. Another ash-demon, who had been caught on the roof he had been repairing at the dark miko's abrupt appearance, threw back his head and erupted a ball of flame that sizzled and flared as it flew across the darkened skies, right to the heart of Kikyo's raging globe of maddened power.

 

InuYasha leapt out of the hole he had made in the turf, and watched in disbelief as Kikyo did nothing to ward off the sparking orb of orange flame that hurtled toward her. With growing dread, he heard her mocking laughter as the spinning ball of fire touched her fuchsia-furled aura and disappeared into insignificant wisps of smoke upon contact, dissipating across the infuriated glow that surrounded the shadowed form of the dead miko.

 

"How pitiful!" Kikyo belittled, her voice almost purring. "Is this all you have to offer?"

 

"Hiraikotsu!"

 

A spinning blur rent the sky overhead, and InuYasha's fangs gleamed in a grin as he heard Sango's cry from the far right.

 

The shadowed outline glowed with an inner, malevolent light until it was Kikyo who stood in the midst of her glowing aura of raging vengeance, and not some shadowed woman-form. Her lips curled in derision, and she made a cutting motion with her hand. The powerful boomerang, forged from the bones of defeated demons, stopped spinning in mid-air, arrested into immobility. Kikyo's wide-spread fingers jerked down in a sharp motion, and Hiraikotsu dropped like a stone to the ground far below.

 

Mocking laughter filled the shadow-fallen village.

 

"Damn!"

 

InuYasha growled, fangs flashing. His grip on his Tetsusaiga tightened until he heard his knuckles pop with strain. She toyed with them, and even Sango's weapon could not stand up to the strength of her wrath. Without thought, he was running across the torn earth, his body poised for attack. He launched himself at the miko who had once chained his heart to her side, the curving, sharper edge of his sword facing toward her. His own anger infused him, but even then a small voice in the back of his distracted mind cried out in silent, heart-torn anguish.

 

*Kikyo...why!*

 

*~*~*~*~*

 

"What must we do, Kaede-sama?" Miroku demanded of the old miko as they stepped out of the small hut. Glowering rage sparked and flared above him, though he was distracted by the hoarse cry of the younger miko they had left behind them.

 

"Pray." The old priestess replied grimly. "Ye must help me to erect a barrier around Kagome. We must protect her at all costs. That thing that is not my sister must not be allowed to reach her."

 

Miroku's answer was to thrust his ringed staff into the ground directly in front of the miko's hut. He slid easily into a knees-out position, which the Shinto priestess silently echoed. Closing his deeply indigo eyes, he sought deep within himself for the inner peace to summon the sacred grace to his bidding. He ignored the screaming torment around him and the striking flares of lightening that danced colored spots behind his eyes. He pushed away his worry for Kagome, who labored before her time, too much before her time. He could not think of the fact that the child of a mortal woman would be too under-developed to live at only six and a half months from the womb.

 

*If only she were further along...another month even!*

 

His heart cried out for the poor girl who had gone through so much pain and heartache to labor now only for what would bring forth death to her unborn children. There was no way a human child could survive at only six months premature. Not in this harsh and fatal era.

 

What would it do to Kagome, to lose her unborn children?

 

Ruthlessly, he pushed the thought aside so that he could concentrate. What was important was keeping Kagome herself alive. Drawing up the sacred energy from deep within, Miroku bent his head.

 

And prayed.

 

*~*~*~*~*

 

"InuYasha! You dare to attack ME?" Flaring crackles of energy snaked round the brightening anger of the dead miko's aura, and Sango's eyes blinked against the growing fuchsia-laced light as she tried to track the smaller shadow of her mate. Tetsusaiga glowed a bloody challenge, the molten scarlet fire of the barrier-breaking strength flowing along the curving length of the fanged blade. She could barely make out the small ribbons of white that swirled around the expanding, rose-tinged globe that formed Kikyo's wrath.

 

Desperately trying to make out the smaller form of InuYasha against the overwhelming light of maddened power that surrounded the dead miko, Sango's breath caught tight in her throat. A flaring orb built of seared lightning spat out from Kikyo's aura with deadly intent and raced headlong for the smaller, red shadow of the silver-haired hanyou.

 

She could barely make out the swing of Tetsusaiga as it met that menacing ball of raw hatred. The crimson blade rang out as it collided with the miko's fury. Crackling, fuchsia fire split into soundless waves of power as it seperated under the Tetsusaiga's impact. The very ground trembled under the whirling wave, felling trees like so many match-sticks and flattening more than one defender to the ground.

 

Sango's knees fell out from under her even as InuYasha's smaller form was blown back from the power of the dissolving wave. His angry shout reverberated across the village as his body was hurled backward, flying away from the dead miko who screeched with fury at her denied vengeance.

 

"DAMN!"

 

Orb after flaring orb was sent in a torrent of raining rancor after him as the tainted miko's wrath reached new heights. Explosive power ripped across the sky as she focused her vindictive fury solely on the silver-haired hanyou who dared to interfere.

 

Sango rolled to the side as a blackened stick of a tree---ripped from the ground with the unfolding waves of Kikyo's wrath---slammed into the earth only a foot beside her. She could hear the distant shouts and screaming cries of men and youkai as the very earth rippled under them. Her world became crashing thunder and flaring lights as she fought free of the rain of shattered debris that followed multiple explosions as Kikyo's rage rent across the forest and fields surrounding the tiny village. A small hiss of pain escaped her clenched lips as a sharp-edged rock cut across her cheek, and she wedged herself against the tree that had threatened to flatten her seconds before, her hands curled over her head as torn dirt and earth thudded down in a shower of scattering dust. Her heart tightened as she heard a wolf's howl cut off abruptly into silence as a flying rock struck weaker flesh.

 

A snarling roar ripped across the destruction, and Sango unfolded herself with a glad cry of recognition.

 

"Kirara!"

 

In one graceful movement, Sango rolled from the scant protection of the tree she had sheltered under and jumped onto the blackened wood. Heat bathed her skin as the neko youkai, orange flames spurting from her black paws, swooped down and rowled reunion. Reaching up, Sango's fingers tightened into creamy fur, and she was up, carried by the neko's powerful thrust from the ground. For a moment, she dangled in space, before Kirara's back arced, and Sango threw her legs up and over so that she could wiggle into a seated position.

 

"InuYasha! Where is InuYasha!" Her words were ripped aside in the winds of Kirara's passage as she circled high above the dusty swirl of dirt and debris kicked up by Kikyo's rage. Coughing, Sango twisted her head, trying to see. Kikyo's blinding aura of fuchsian madness appeared untouched---as did the small dome of wavy-blue energy that encircled and barricaded Kaede's small hut.

 

*Kagome...*

 

She was protected behind the sacred barrier, Sango could ignore the danger posed to her imouta for now. But where was InuYasha...

 

"INUYASHA!"

 

Sango's cry hurled across the tempest-strewn battlefield as her brown eyes widened in horror. InuYasha lay on the broken ground, the sword flung beyond his reach and dissolving into the rusted blade that hid its powerful fang out of InuYasha's hand. Even as she watched, the hanyou stirred and blinked dust from his amber eyes, growling as the breath came back to him.

 

But the wrath of the dark miko did not wait for InuYasha to recover...

 

"GO!" Kikyo's command sent forth her Shinidama-Chuu, as her aura swirled over the smaller white serpents that snaked around her, feeding them her power of raging hate. As Sango watched, two Soul-Collectors flew from the dark miko's side, elongating and expanding into monstrous size as they sped toward the unprotected hanyou below.

 

"Die, InuYasha!" The dark miko screamed, her command lending speed to her rage-born monsters.

 

"Kirara!" Sango pulled her katana free even as she urged the neko to hurry. Kirara snarled, her fangs expanding as she raced to overtake the giant Shinidama-Chuu who sped toward her hanyou mate with death intent...

 

*~*~*~*~*

 

*How dare he threaten me!*

 

~Mad...kill...mad...anger...death...~

 

VENGEANCE.

 

Disgusting half-breed! He would pay for the anguish and torment he had caused her! She would destroy him and the disgusting whore who had stolen her pure soul and taken his love from her as well!

 

*Kagome!* How her hatred for the girl had expanded ten-fold when she, Kikyo, realized that the hanyou she had hoped to make human---and one whom she, in turn, might be able to love once the disgusting taint of his youkai-blood was drained from him by her wish on the Shikon no Tama—had grown to love the sappy slut who was her reincarnation.

 

The whoring thief who had stolen her chance at a second life...or death...with the young, silver-haired hanyou who had loved her in the true innocence of her youth, when she had been a pure miko, Guardian of the Jewel of Four Souls...

 

InuYasha was HERS, hers alone!

 

~Rage...anger...loss...madness...~

 

He had betrayed her...betrayed her dreams, betrayed her hopes, betrayed her life, and even betrayed the unkept promise of her love...

 

*I could have LOVED YOU!*

 

He would die now for what he had done to her---what they had all done!

 

Driven her, the pure and untainted miko, to the embrace of darkness and the seething madness of evil. If only...

 

If only he had loved her, and only her. If only Kagome, had not taken her soul and his hanyou heart. If only the Taiyoukai or Naraku could have killed the interfering slut, so that she, Kikyo, could reclaim her own soul once more. If only she could have used Midoriko's power and ancient soul for her own, to destroy the girl who had stolen so much from her...if only...

 

~Betrayed...betrayed...betrayed...betrayed...~

 

VENGEANCE.

 

"Die, InuYasha, and suffer an eternity of lonely abandonment in hell!" Kikyo called, the dark tides of madness engulfing the last shreds of her sacred aura. Now, there was only POWER, and the kernel of a dream that she would be strong enough to drive all youkai filth from the beautiful land of her birth and reshape its future under her unending Guardianship.

 

She had fed her Shinidama-Chuu with her hate, until they grew to terrible size. They would send the traitorous half-breed to hell, and she could turn her attention on the bitch Kagome, who lay protected under a paltry barrier of sacred succor.

 

*She will die so I might LIVE!*

 

The dark power rose up in her, feeding on the rage and hate that fueled her existence on this earth. She could feel it rising, its lust for death and destruction only second to its need for ultimate power and strength. All would die for their treachery---

 

"No! InuYasha!"

 

Kikyo froze, her dark eyes widening as she saw the girl and neko below her racing to intercept her white Soul-Collectors. The cream-colored neko roared challenge. Turning its head around, sharp fangs sank into the neck of the nearest youkai, who screamed in whispered agony as its long, white body writhed in torment.

 

Silvered light gleamed off of the bared blade in the taijiya's hand as she sprang from her neko companion's back to strike at the hissing serpent who turned to retaliate. The sword slashed, and the white Soul-Collector reared back, jerking away. The girl hung grimly on as the serpent tried to dislodge her by rolling sideways, her black-clad form tiny compared to the giant length of shimmering white destruction.

 

*That girl...*

 

The deterrent of taijiya and neko was not enough, other white serpents of her Shinidama-Chuu were closing in on InuYasha where he lay knocked aside by the furious balls of dark energy she had sent careening into him. Wide jaws opened, rows of jagged teeth ready to engulf the hanyou---except that he rolled aside just one second before death would have taken him, and shouting curses, grabbed up his fallen sword.

 

Tetsusaiga flared to sudden life, and InuYasha spun around, splitting open the jaws of the white youkai who had sought his death. The fang arched up, and the dead corpse thudded to the ground at his feet. Amber eyes flashed gold, and he bared his fangs at the dark miko above them in an angry shout of pained betrayal.

 

"Kikyo!"

 

But she ignored him. More of her Soul-Collectors were descending upon him, and he could not defeat them all. He was too weak, too pathetic. What held her attention riveted was the taijiya who had rushed to his aid.

 

The neko rowled in pain as a second white youkai grabbed it up in reaching claws. Fire spurted from black paws as the neko arched in the tight hold, unsheathing its own claws to swipe at its captor. The huge head turned, red eyes glowing as it roared defiance.

 

"Kirara!" The taijiya called out to her neko, and a fourth Shinidama-Chuu used her distraction to close in with sharp jaws and reaching claws, pink eyes glowing red menace and the promise of a torturous death.

 

*Kirara...*

 

Memory sparked, and dark eyes narrowed as she realized just WHO this taijiya was.

 

Midoriko's daughter.

 

Midoriko had been protected by a white neko, a companion and guardian who had pledged her aid to the warrior-priestess of old...and whose descendants had protected the priestess's line throughout the passing generations...

 

Kikyo's dark eyes lit from within with an unholy light of comprehension.

 

That girl could lay claim to Midoriko's very soul...could provide a gateway into Midoriko's sacred power...

 

*Madness...desire....rage...desire power...desire vengeance...~

 

The taijiya realized her peril too late---she raised her sword only so that the attacking serpent could swallow sword and arm in grinding teeth. A scream of pain was rent from the slayer's lips, and her body was dragged away as the Soul-Collector flew up at Kikyo's silent summons to return. The girl tried desperately to free her trapped arm, pushing against the jaws that enclosed it with her free hand, even as her legs swung free, dangling over the earth far below.

 

The neko roared defiance, but its struggle would be futile. It could never reach the girl in time.

 

"SANGO!!!"

 

That cry was ripped from InuYasha's throat and thundered up from ground far below with a heart-wrenching cry of unending agony and anguish. The fang in his hand erupted in a crimson glow, matched by the red fire that flamed in the hanyou's golden eyes. Molten red mists whirled in front of the hanyou half-breed in a doubled-vision as Kikyo saw both his physical self and the demonic aura that was rising as his youkai blood kindled into raging life.

 

White fire flared at taijiya's throat as the black tangles of her hair whipped aside. A knife flashed into her palm, and she stabbed at the youkai who had her right arm gripped in its jaws---a futile effort as the Shinidama-Chuu ignored the pain in order to follow its dark mistress's silent orders to return.

 

Kikyo's unfathomable eyes narrowed on the white mark revealed on the taijiya's flesh. Realization burned through her, making her fingers clench into fists as she recognised it for what it was.

 

The mating mark of a youkai inu.

 

How the taijiya had gained such a mark from the despised hanyou did not matter. All that mattered was that she, Kikyo, now knew that InuYasha had survived her own curse, had been able to find someone who could return the contemptible feelings of an impure half-breed.

 

InuYasha's love was hers and hers alone! Hers to keep, to use, to return or to destroy!

 

That whore of Midoriko's seed would not survive Kikyo's justifiable wrath. How dare she! How dare any of them!

 

Hate and fury consumed the dark miko in a torrent of emblazoning anger as the fires of her loathing and betrayal flared out with renewed outrage to dazzle the paltry defenders who would dare thwart her.

 

~Madness...anger...rage...consume them...destroy them allll....~

 

Calling on the endless depths of her hatred and fury, Kikyo almost laughed as her body filled and reverberated with pure, unholy power.

 

All would die beneath her wrath!

 

VENGEANCE.

 

*~*~*~*~*

 

Tetsusaiga throbbed in his hand, responding to the inu rage that gripped him. Blood curled through his vision, and he could feel the youkai reaching out for his human soul as the wakening blaze of his anger gripped him.

 

He could feel his mate's pain, feel her struggles to free herself.

 

The seething madness of the dark priestess above him was growing in strength and potency. He could feel her aura pulsing with renewed purpose, and knew that it sought his mate's death.

 

*NO.*

 

The growl heated through him, and his vision was robed in mists of red as his own fury crescendoed. His hands gripped the hilt of the Tetsusaiga, whose bloodied length matched the seeping crimson of his eyes. Long, silver hair frothed around him on unseen winds as he felt fang and claw lengthening to deadly poignancy. His youkai nature rose---and snarled.

 

He felt a sharp jerk on his soul, which was being buried beneath the inu that was asserting dominance over him. Tetsusaiga throbbed in his tightened grip, seeking for a moment to reclaim his soul and quell his nature. But the threat to his mate tipped the balance, and InuYasha was lost to the blood demon who rose to claim his body and soul.

 

::MATE.::

 

He howled in the primitive speech of the inu, and flung himself upward toward the raging, seething mass of twisted hatred that threatened her.

 

Enemy...

 

Tetsusaiga flared in his claws, burning and blistering his palms with an intense pain as he fed the fanged blade with his raging, demonic aura. The sword flared and pulsed with crimson light, overwhelming in its intensity. Everything was a red haze of blood to the silver-haired youkai whose eyes were like burning coals as the purpled streaks slashed across his cheeks.

 

Blood...

 

He would bathe in it, soak in it, feed on it...

 

"InuYasha!"

 

He ignored his mate's anguished cry, ignored the burning agony in his hands as his claws curled around the hilt of Tetsusaiga as it pulsed with blood-raging power, ignored the taunting laugh of the dead miko who gathered her own power to her to fling it at him like a thousand bolts of lightening unleashed in one summoning.

 

"Pitiful half-breed! Live in hell!"

 

The inu snarled in reply.

 

The dark priestess raised her hands and flung them wide, sending her dark globe of fuchsian power forth to destroy all in its path with uncontrolled scorn and loathing.

 

His body turned in a spinning arc, the curve of Tetsusaiga's blade gaining impetus and fury as crimson fire danced along its length. Silver tangles crept across his vision as he snarled his consuming wrath in challenge, incapable of speech. The blazing globe of malignant power bathed him, and he brought the sharp edge of the fanged blade to meet it.

 

Rage touched rage, and the world exploded.