InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Tsubaki's Revenge ❯ The Curse Fulfilled ( Chapter 1 )

Disclaimer: This story is based on "Inuyasha," copyrighted by Rumiko Takahashi. No infringement of copyright intended or implied.

 

Tsubaki's Revenge: Part I: The Curse Fulfilled

 

Tsubaki always knew when one of her curses was completed. Even if months had passed, she would feel that peculiar little tug in her mind, then the twitch and fade as the tie to her power faded. Often enough, the final tug would be accompanied by a flash of vision that let her see the fulfillment of her curse.

 

And so it was, this time. It was not a particularly convenient time for the fulfillment to occur. She was still in the bargaining stage with her next customer—a fat, spoiled youth jealous of his sibling's rise to power, an easy target for her subtle wiles. The faint whispers of her spell had been sufficient to lure him here, to this apparently plain hut in the forest. He was precisely the type of customer she most enjoyed; evil enough to want her dark services, clever enough to find her, and stupid enough not to think about the longer-term implications of employing her.

 

As the tug came, she stiffened, and motioned him to silence. Her eyes closed as the flash came. As if from a bird's eye view, she saw the porch of a village shrine. A white-haired being was sprawled on the porch, a massive demon claw thrusting out of his back. Copious amounts of blood covered its mostly naked body and the floor-boards. It was almost certainly the half-demon Kikyo had fallen for, and it appeared that he had met a most satisfactory end. Near him, Kikyo was staggering, her right shoulder and back dark with blood. She dropped her bow, managed to totter another two steps, and then collapsed.

 

Tsubaki smiled as she felt the spell-tie fade. Her death curse had taken rather longer than she had hoped to take effect, but it was fulfilled now. Opening her eyes, her smiled widened as she took in her customer's uneasy expression. “My pardon for interrupting you, my lord,” she said smoothly. “But one of my other curses just completed, and I did not wish to miss savoring its final moments.”

 

He looked a bit uneasy. “Er, quite understandable, my lady. Was it, ah, someone I might have known?”

 

“Oh, no, my lord. She was only the miko of a small village.” Tsubaki made a dismissive gesture. “Now I must ask for your patience, my lord. We will have to finish this conversation later”

 

“What! You can't do that, wench!” he exclaimed, face going red. “I already paid you good money just for advice, and now you want me to leave before we're finished? How dare you demand that of me!”

 

She gave him a cold look, standing slowly, then raising a hand, palm up, calling a small bit of spell light. The man shrank back, paling. “I choose whom I curse, my lord,” she told him in a voice that whitened his face a further shade. “I suggest that you do not want me to choose to curse you.”

 

The young man went deathly white, stammered apologies, and beat a hasty retreat. Tsubaki watched him go with a thin smile, then sighed a little in regret. The man was well off, and had she helped him succeed to his brother's position, she would have had a firm hold over one of the most powerful men in the region. Then she shrugged off the regret. The man was susceptible to flattery; given the right lure, he would be back. If she wanted to bother with him. Once she had the Shikon No Tama, why would she need the power and wealth made possible by controlling the likes of him?

 

Dismissing the illusion of an austerely furnished hut, Tsubaki turned to the shelves that lined one wall. She would need to act fast. The knowledge that the Shikon No Tama's protector had died would spread like wildfire throughout the youkai world, and she would have competition. Normally, she preferred to rely on her internal powers and her shikigami, but she had known this fight was coming, and had made special preparations. From one box she removed a necklace of protection. From another, she removed packets of tiny arrows, each no longer than the length of her hand. Each was be-spelled with a powerful curse of death, the spell hidden another of illusion, easily aimed and triggered by a mere breath of her will. Those she distributed evenly between her sleeves, and the inner folds of her kimono. The final object she chose was the smallest of her scrying mirrors; a tiny, round mirror of obsidian that easily fit in her palm.

 

Satisfied with that part of her preparations, Tsubaki left the hut, whispering the words to trigger the protective barrier that would hide and protect her hut until her return. As it momentarily flashed behind her, the dark priestess came to a halt, and braced herself. Then she summoned three of her demons.

 

They poured out of her eye. It still hurt, and she hated the necessity of that pain. She craved and reveled in the power they loaned her, but she hated the thought of their small souls writhing within her once perfect body. Even more, she hated the woman who had made the alliance with demons a necessity. Kikyo. Kikyo and her smug, righteous airs. Kikyo, who thought she could let herself be attracted to an disgusting hanyo, and not pay the consequences. Kikyo was dead, the victim of the curse, but it wasn't enough. Not until she held the Shikon No Tama in her hand. Not until her beauty was restored, with no need for illusion. Not until she had the eternal youth and beauty she deserved. Not until she could grind these demonic partners of hers into pain-filled dust, for having the temerity to dwell inside of her.

 

The three demons hovered before her. Tsubaki spoke to the smallest first—a mere wisp of demon, scarce larger than a hummingbird. “You. Find the Shikon No Tama, then stay near it, and show me all that happens. Go.” The pale blue shape bobbed twice, then zipped out of sight. “You other two, bear me up, and take me to Kikyo's village,” she ordered. “And make haste!”

 

They wound their serpentine forms around her, and rose into the air. Once above the trees, they twined their necks to shield her head, then increased their forward speed. Tsubaki watched the trees speed by beneath her feet, and wished this power of movement was hers. After Kikyo had thrown her shikigami back into her face, Tsubaki had been forced to retreat to the hut, which was a good six days travel for mere humans. She could not afford the time to travel on foot. If she did not move quickly, six days from now, she would be forced to fight a demon that had already slaughtered hundreds of its own kind, and would probably have tapped into the jewel's power. Tsubaki was confident that she could deal with any low or middle class youkai. But a youkai backed by the full power of the Shikon No Tama? Even she had limits on what she dared try.

 

The small demon's mind chittered for attention. Holding up the small mirror, Tsubaki breathed on it, murmuring the spell. Instantly, what the demon was seeing appeared in the mirror. Kikyo's body had been moved slightly, and was on its back, arms folded over its chest. The hanyo was still collapsed face down, but the jewel, oddly, seemed to be emanating from beneath him, instead of from the necklace around Kikyo's neck. Even more odd was the barrier around him, crawling with red and white lightening. Tsubaki tried to make sense of the scene. Had the hanyo turned on Kikyo, grabbing the jewel from her? Had they turned on each other, with the hanyo succeeding (with the unknown assistance of her curse), and Kikyo almost succeeding? But then, where did that claw come from?

 

The barrier disappeared, seeming to drop down and be absorbed by the unmoving body. Tsubaki frowned. If the hanyo had turned on Kikyo, it would surely only be because he'd been planning on stealing the jewel all along. And the only reason she could imagine was that he wanted to transform into a full youkai. But he didn't appear to be transforming. So just what was going on?

 

The mirror flashed pinkish white, and then went utterly dark, returning to its normal surface. Tsubaki stared at it in astonishment, angrily repeating the spell to tie the small demon's vision to the mirror. Nothing happened. She tried a third time, then, with growing anger, tried to summon the demon to return to her. There was no reaction to the spell. The demon had apparently slipped her control, and chosen to flee. But why?

 

Before she could formulate an answer to her question, the other two demons slowed abruptly, their heads tossing in agitation. “What?” she demanded. “Why are you slowing down?”

 

The slightly larger of the two turned its vaguely horse-like head to stare at her, its vertically slit pupils wide, its scaled ears flat against its skull. Like all of the demons she had so far brought under her control, it could not use human words. What it conveyed was an impression of a distant explosion. An explosion of spiritual power.

 

“What? Can't be!” she scoffed. “Kikyo's dead, and her powers were waning, anyway!”

 

The other demon made a whining sound, and swung its head to face her. It projected a sense of nothingness. Tsubaki scowled at it. “You aren't making any sense. What is nothing?”

 

The first demon moaned. As she looked back at it, it managed to project an image of a pinkish-purple sphere. The second demon whined again, and projected the sense of nothingness a second time. Knowing that they didn't have enough brains to even be able to think of tricking her, Tsubaki struggled to figure out what they were trying to convey. When the thought occurred to her, she tensed. “You're not saying that something's happened to the Shikon No Tama?”

 

Their heads nodded wildly. “Impossible!”

 

They both whimpered. Tsubaki fought back an irrational urge to snarl at them. They were only the equivalent of dumb beasts, and it would be phenomenally stupid to get too angry at her transport, when they were hovering high above the nearest tree. “Take me to the Tree of Ages near Kikyo's village—but don't come near the village itself,” she ordered. She didn't dare risk flying into a middle of a melee. Without her scout, she was forced to use other methods. “Hurry.”

 

They hurried. Nevertheless, it was nearly evening by the time Tsubaki had her answer. That was partly her fault, though it did her temper no good, to know she had neglected to bring any basic spell-making supplies along. The herbs needed for a divination spell were not rare, but neither were they common.

 

The Shikon No Tama was gone. Destroyed.

 

And Kikyo was alive.