InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Snare ❯ Chapter 10 ( Chapter 10 )

Chapter 10

Kagome stared up at the apparition leering down towards her through the dark gap to the statue’s hollow head. The creature’s mouth widened horribly, opening to reveal fish-like teeth. With a gasp Kagome backed up toward the verdigris covered walls of the statue. She bumped against something solid and gave an embarrassingly high pitched squeal for help. The sound of her voice fell dead in the muffled enclosure of the statue and the monster never stopped looking at her. She was frozen by the sight as the youkai gave a slight belch and vomited forth a flood of webbing. That sticky spray hit her like the sudden douse of water from an old, over-filled, garden hose right after it snaps out of a kink.

Immediately, she was enveloped in a musty film. Her head cracked backwards from the force of the blow even as her hands flew up to protect her face. The web seemed to have active filaments which sought out her eyes and nose and even her mouth. Her arms flailed in a frantic response to the assault, clutching at the strands in an attempt to at least clear her nostrils. Sounds seemed completely muffled and her heartbeat thundered in her ears. One out-flung hand encountered what seemed to be a squishy spot in what surrounded her and broke through into an empty area. She reached for balance even as her arm was seized in an unbreakable grip and she was pulled through a gap into someplace else.

•••

Whic h is why Inuyasha found the interior of the great Buddha statue empty when he leapt down into the interior an instant later. He stopped and stared about as Miroku clattered down the broken steps and then slid the last couple of feet fetching up against his rigid back.

“Oh, err, sorry.”

In the dim light from the narrow entrance behind them they could see Kagome’s shirt lying crumpled in a corner and a twist of spider web hanging from the ceiling drifting slowly upon the breeze of their passage.

Inuyasha hissed to himself and muttered, “Crap, where is she?” before drawing a breath to shout, “Kagome!” There was the faint singing of an echo from above when he raised his voice, “Kagome-e-ee!”

Dull whispers were the response from the sand on the floor.

They could sense youki in the air and checked the walls and floor quickly for any strong traces. Inuyasha found Kagome’s water bottle and her bra in the shadows and his brows rose into his hair at that. A splotch of sticky webbing dangled from the wall above his find and he could taste the sweat of her fear on the air. Failing to find any disturbance on the ground or wall he looked up at the empty aperture leading to the head high above him and unhesitatingly leaped up to catch at the lip of it. A furious grunt and pull and he was through the neck into the close darkness of the head. Objects rattled away beneath his hands, but no one was there. He hurriedly swept everything he could off of the small space that formed the chin of the statue and let himself drop back to the ground.

Sango called in from the entrance, “What’s going on?”

Miroku backed up, trying to assess the situation. He could hear Sango telling Kohaku and Shippou to stay put and be quiet. A moment later and she was easing herself down the crumpled slope of the steps in a slow approach, “We need a light,” he said.

“Kitsune-bi.” Shippou’s voice rang slightly in the stillness, echoing around the interior of the statue and catching weirdly in the head only to be refracted back at them in an oddly flat tone that sounded like a murmur. Both boys were already at the foot of the stairs in defiance of Sango, eyes glittering, looking almost greedy in the suddenly illuminated dark. Shippou’s foxfire hung just above the floor in a bluish glare by which they could see Inuyasha searching the dusty area about him in a tense silence, shaking out his sleeves and scattering stray detritus.

Miroku watched as the hanyou swept his hands around, peering at all the scattered bits. A good many of them appeared to be gold coins so far as he could tell but Inuyasha chucked those aside with a huff, muttering to himself in a frantic undertone. The others advanced, drawn in by puzzlement at his actions.

“Uh, Inuyasha,” Miroku ventured, “Kagome-sama’s missing.”

Inuyasha’s head whipped about so fast that there was an audible crack from the region of his neck. Miroku found himself facing a mouthful of gleaming fangs, “Thanks for the information, Bouzu. I already knew that!” Inuyasha bit his words off as if he wished to take the monk’s nose with them, “Now, help me look.” He returned to scooping through the scattered debris and sifting them through

his fingers in a hurried clatter.

The others dropped to their knees alongside him except for Shippou who renewed his flare and brought it up higher to shine down on their work. Sango started sorting

the trash out for size and type but she noted Inuyasha seemed to be grabbing for pebbles and chips of wood. She licked her lips and spoke up, “Inuyasha, what is it you are trying to find? We can’t be much help if we don’t know what we’re looking for.”

Inuyasha grunted in response then slowed his busy hands. He spoke reluctantly, reaching into the top of his suikan as he did so, “Bits such as these. Every greater daemon carries them. They're doorways.” He drew out a tiny mesh bag that he wore about his neck and spilled its contents into his cupped palm. The others leaned in closer to look only to see slivers of wood and flat rocks scarcely the size of a thumbnail before the hanyou’s clawed fingers closed over them again and the little stash was poured back into the bag.

Shippou exclaimed with interest, eyes wide, “My father had one of those stones on a thong about his neck. He said it was to be used only for emergencies or the rice god Inari would be mad.”

Inuyasha gave him a level look and turned back to business, “Good, so you’ve seen them, there has to be something like that here.”

“You mean like this?” Kohaku’s grubby fingers extended holding a shiny piece of feldspar. Inuyasha grabbed it from him to slap it down on the pavement and surge upwards, setting his foot firmly over

it.

Nothing happened.

“Fuck!”

Still nothing happened.

Shippou leapt to his feet and clenched his tiny fists, looking as fierce as an under-sized kitsune could, “Inuyasha, that is an entry that belongs to another daemon! You would have to be a stronger daemon than the creator to break the barrier and enter. Face it, you are only a hanyou. Let me try.” He tugged at Inuyasha’s bloused hakama ineffectively as the hanyou stared down at his own foot with a bemused expression.

“Kagome’s in trouble,” growled the kitsune, “get off and let me do it.”

With an efficient sweep of his arm, Inuyasha knocked the kitsune aside and moved his foot just enough to nip the stone out from underneath of it.

“Oh, yeah, I guess that makes sense. Stand back all of you.”

The foxfire had vanished when Shippou was knocked over but none of them needed it to see what it was that Inuyasha did next. The blast of raw youki let them know. One moment he stood there, frustrated and tense, staring at a small rock held before him between his claws, the next moment his face darkened and his hair lifted on a non-existent breeze. The claws that held the rock were appreciably longer and stripes let themselves be known across his cheeks. Inuyasha spared them one glance out of eyes that glimmered red before he threw the rock down into the dust in front of him.

Everyone flung themselves back to the walls sure that he had gone berserk as the creature that had been their friend pounced to land squarely on the bit of rock in a crouch, only to disappear with a faint popping noise.

Silence reigned absolute before Shippou spoke up in an oddly studied voice for one so young, “What the hell just happened? He’s not supposed to be able to do that.”

After a pause, Sango answered him, “I think Inuyasha turned voluntarily into a powerful youkai, Shippou.”

Miroku coughed and shook out his robes before turning to assist Sango up, “I agree, I think he did. There was something I saw when he rescued me from the burning temple. He said he would explain later.”

Kohaku dusted his knees off matter-of-factly and stood up, “So. Inuyasha used the jewel’s power to gain control of his blood. An effective wish for him I would say and a good use for the Shikon-noTama after all. Better than the use Naraku would have made.”

Sango turned to her brother, distress written large upon her face, “Otouto… “

Kohaku smiled. Perhaps the smile was a little thin about the edges and maybe his face was pale to whiteness, but he did smile. “It’s alright, Ane-ue,” he said, “I remember

nearly everything. I’ve been slowly recovering the memories all this time.”

Sango gasped as the others remained silent.

“Please don’t worry about me, Ane-ue, it doesn’t help.” He walked over to the scuff in the dust marking where Inuyasha had so lately been and clicked his tongue in a ’tsk,’ as he bent over to observe the piece of feldspar left on the ground before sitting down next to it, “I guess we’d better wait.”

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& nbsp;

Inuyasha tore into a new space of close breath and silvered light such as he had never seen before. He came in at a slight stumble, knocking all that was moveable before him. His feet tangled up in what seemed to be branches before he landed on some sort of soft ground.

That appeared to be sifted ash and he had to flail his arms wildly on the slope before he gained his balance. There were black branches above and about him, filled with cobwebs with thumb-sized black spiders in the odd angles of the branches and the crooks of the trees. He was standing on a pile of ashen branches that were caught up into a fall from whence they would surely let go and collapse were he to take so much as a step forward.

“Fuck this,” he said to himself, glancing up from his feet and out across the tumbled snarl of wood. His view was of a land that appeared to be comprised entirely of black forest and gentle, ash covered, downs. No paths were visible and the opportunity to see it was not at all helpful. In fact, it made for a rather ghostly image. The only things that stood out were the trees and not even those where the grayish ash piled high. Of Kagome, there was no sign.

He stepped backward, feeling for a solid footing. But near as he could tell, everything was made of loosely piled branches drowned in the soft white ash.

“Kagome!” he called. No answer. He waited a moment, then shouted, “KAGOME!!!”

The branches of the trees gestured, or so it seemed to him. It wasn’t true though, they were growing tendrils even as he watched; new twigs, new offshoots. The powdery stack of branches beneath him let go and slid further down the slope even as he leaped up to a sturdy limb far overhead, calling upon his youkai power as he did so. Once secure on the branch he cast around again. From up here the ground, if ground you could call it, was even more difficult to understand. There seemed to be a mist creeping in amongst the trees that obscured everything. He tensed and called again, “Kagome!”

The branch he was on actually gave a jerk as it grew into a longer limb. Inuyasha set his claws into the living wood under him as the forest about grew once again.

“Crap.”

Twigs appeared in seeming response. He stared at the mesh of black branches he was in and gave things a bit of thought.

“I think you all are a bunch of poncy gits,” he said experimentally. He promptly was poked in the ass by the twigs exploding below as the forest tightened up more.

“You are so going to die when I find and kill your master!” To his surprise the twigs backed off a bit, “You don’t care? How could that be?”

The branches grew and twisted about themselves in response to his voice.

“You lot are shitass pitiful as Kami. You are traitors.”

The twisted twigs tightened and many broke off with muffled cracks. Inuyasha stared in confusion; his words were killing them? Something was killing them? Something was dead? He wrinkled his brow in thought, “Who’s killing whom?”

More twigs split and cracked and Inuyasha jumped as a large branch splintered and fell down from quite near him.

“Fine, something is wrong. Give me the way to my wife, Kagome, and I will free you from the one who holds you thus unjustly.”

Everything was still.

Inuyasha bounced on his branch slightly, “Come on assholes, show me the way to your

leader.”

The open area around him started to close, tightening up.

“Shit, don’t you know where your master is?” The branch he was standing upon lurched forward, becoming the beginning of an open road of sorts, roofed and floored with black branches against the silver air. Inuyasha looked down the midair pathway that had been presented to him. He drew a breath, and, taking the hint, began to run.

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“Bring me water!”

“W-water? Of course water. But you’re already dripping. That was all the water there was in the house.” The girl cringed away from the thing, which was beginning to stink of something unmentionable that had been kept festering too long. She tucked the ends of the brown scarf she had found in the hut more firmly into her waist band. It was a bit too fringy for true modesty but the creature hadn’t objected and it was going have to do in place of a shirt.

It thrust its head forward, “Try the yard. There must be a well.” The flesh of its face dripped but the girl could see dried crusts upon it. Its eyes were dull.

“Is there a well? Sorry to ask, but it’s your yard after all. Isn't it?” Kagome blinked expectantly at her captor while the critter twitched. She felt something that was almost pity mixed in with her disgust as the skin of it flaked and split to drip.

“Just get it!” The creature levered itself partway up off of the cushion it was resting upon, using the elbow rests that it had on either side. It flopped down incontinently again and rested a weary forehead against one fingertip, digging a whitish gouge of lifted skin as the heavy head sank down.

The girl watched in a sort of sick fascination as the head twisted into the pocket made by the neck and shoulder in an angle far more deep than it should have been able to do in nature. A malevolent greenish eye slid open and stuck beneath a drying lid as the creature focused on the girl, “Get! Bring me water!”

Kagome grabbed the buckets from the corner and stepped out of the doorway of the bizarre cottage to ease herself warily to the ground.

When they had arrived, the hut had been standing on what appeared to be a pair of scaly legs ending in clawed bird feet. At a command from her captor, the hut had crouched down permitting them to enter, Kagome had struggled uselessly all the while to get loose but to no avail.

The yard didn’t look promising. The ashy ground was barren and the twisted black limbs of the trees beyond bore no foliage. She stepped along carefully, the little puffs of dust turning her feet white. Almost immediately, tiny black tendrils shot up from the ground and caught at her toes and ankles.

“Please let me go! I mean no harm! Your mistress wants water. I only want to go home.” Kagome gabbled in a rapid litany that was partially born by fear.

The tendrils tightened in response and then released. All of the sudden the yard area exploded into a sort of flat lawn of black grass leaving a white ash path around to the back of the cottage. Kagome followed the path swiftly, trying not to think, but finding herself speaking all the while, “Good; let’s get this water and get on with things. My name is Kagome. Someone is looking for me. He's wearing red.” She turned the corner to the back of the cottage and broke off in dismay, “This is the well? How can I get water out of that?”

It was an odd one, to be sure. The well was clearly old and was surrounded by a crumbling circle of stone. A thick, black, branch hung low above it but no rope or pulley system was in evidence. Kagome approached the stone lip dubiously and looked in.

There was only a pool of darkness within, no scent of moisture such as there normally would be. The liquid, if liquid it was, touched the brim as if it were an over-filled cup and no light or reflection broke its dead surface. She stared in for a moment and then, with a furtive look around at the back of the brooding hut, dipped her buckets into the blackness. One never knew, odder things had happened in her experience than a water pool made of dark.

Sure enough, the buckets gained weight when drawn up and appeared to be full of water when drawn out. Kagome looked into the ‘water’ sure of its unwholesomeness and concerned about those which would take sustenance from such strange stuff. She breathed over the surface of the water in the bucket and it lost its opacity, showing clear to the bottom and smelling rather sweet.

So, it could be purified. Kagome was pleased to know it and sat back on her heels. She felt a tickle by her leg and glanced down. Some of the black tendrils were stroking her feeling up towards the water. On impulse she splashed a bit of purified water on them and then rose letting her buckets slosh freely on the way back to the house. She hurried in and dumped the purified water over the suffering creature, making sure to wet it thoroughly.

It gave a bubbling groan, its face hidden, as its back began to smoke. Kagome winced at the sight but whirled away, elbows akimbo, buckets swinging to head back to the well for another load. She nearly took a header over the rag rug that appeared underfoot but marched on irregardless.

The path around the cottage to the well was now outlined in pebbles and there seemed to be the veriest hint of a haze of green over the black root tendrils that comprised the lawn but she ignored them all in favor of getting and purifying the water.

Within a moment she had reached the well and drawn the water, letting her hands infuse a glow of purifying pink through the handles and into the bucket. She ran eagerly back.

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&nbs p;

Inuyasha came to the end of the trees in a rush and halted, peering down into the odd garden that surrounded a ramshackle thatched hut. It was of the sort that seemed almost an accident of nature, only it wasn’t. From his vantage point he could see numerous sets of unshod footprints leading around the tattered sides to a shallow pit and then back again. There were pale, oddly fleshy, flowers that were growing in random, strips off of the foot track. Otherwise, the yard was covered in the ubiquitous black tendrils which swiftly molded into the surrounding wood.

He was fairly sure that the tracks were those of Kagome even though the dust of the place stuffed his nose and seemed to dull his other senses as well. He considered his options and leapt to land on the thatched roof of the hut. With a bizarre lurch the hut surged upwards and started picking its way around the yard on legs for all the world as if it were a chicken. A clatter of a shutter signified a window opening and Kagome’s voice called out in some irritation.

“Now, you cut that out! Can’t you see we have someone sick in here?”

Inuyasha promptly wormed his way over the thatch and dropped his head upside down over the shallow eave. Kagome stood on the other side of the open window wearing little more than a brown scarf draped napkin wise over her front and what appeared to be a frilly apron over her jeans.

“Eek, a monster!” She squealed and slapped the window shut in his face, blocking his view inside.

Inuyasha remained hanging upside down grimly considering things as the hut ceased its antics and settled down in a new spot rather closer to the shallow pit. He knocked gently at the window frame.

“Who is it?” Kagome’s voice sang out chirpily.

“It’s the doctor,.” Inuyasha’s voice caroled in return in a syrupy manner that would have tipped the regular Kagome off in a splintered instant.

TBC