InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Tsubaki's Revenge ❯ Crossing Paths ( Chapter 24 )

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

 

 

Tsubaki's Revenge, Part XXIV: Crossing Paths

Kikyo took several sips from the bamboo water container, then looped its leather thong back through the rope holding her bags to the saddle. She glanced at the lowering sun, wondering if they had come close enough that Miyatsu could sense Tsubaki's aura. Her head was aching again, her leg was throbbing, and she would more than happy to let him take the initiative again for camping.

She wondered what he was thinking. She had told him about Onigumo and Naraku, and the end of the Shikon No Tama. He had not said anything since she had finished. Would it be enough, to help him see that Inuyasha was asomeone worth caring about, and not just a half-blooded youkai? She desperately hoped it would. The monk might have given his word about helping her, but in the middle of a battle, to save a mixed-blood from a human woman, however evil, what if he hesitated? Could she really trust him? He had still looked so shaken this morning, so uncomfortable. She hadn't entirely liked his bantering and his easy, physical contact with her before the relevation. But the total disappearance of that side of him worried her.

"Youkai. Coming straight at us."

She grabbed for her bow with his first low, taut word. His range for sensing youki was longer than hers, at least for now, with her healing head. Her hand hesitated a moment, before chosing to pluck an arrow from the quiver at her knee. She had discovered that morning that about half of her arrows had had sutras bound to them during the night. With her own power added, that would make the arrows very powerful. But it was best not to use them until necessary.

She felt the approaching cloud of youki just moments before he muttered, "I feel dark spirit power--it's probably your Tsubaki." She nodded absently, holding the arrow to the string but not pulling back. She heard him move up alongside her, then dismount. Muttering a charm under his breath, he stepped in front of the horses, touching their noses in turn. Feeling the mare under her sag a bit, she knew that Miyatsu had enspelled the horses to keep them from panicking. Freeing her arrow hand, Kikyo pushed back the conical, straw hat to free her range of vision.

Four flying snake-youkai loomed over the trees, surrounded by a powerful barrier. Two of them twined together, while the other pair had their bodies coiled around human-shaped bodies. She could not make out much about the one on the right, other than black hair, but the other body being carried was face down, and two white, triangular ears were clearly visible. "Inuyasha..." she breathed, feeling her heart sinking. She could not see much of him between the coils. But his hip-length fall of hair had been reduced to stubble, he was gagged, and his eyes were barely open.

A laugh trailed down from the paired youkai. "Good evening, Kikyo. Have you been looking for me?"

The pang of seeing Inuyasha helpless whispered away as Kikyo found the center of her cool, youkai-hunting self. "Tsubaki." She moved the center of her gaze to look at the dark priestess sitting on the back of the twined youkai. Letting her power slip into the arrow, she raised her bow and aimed it at the pair, watching the four youkai. The twined pair tossed their heads at the motion of her bow, while the other two twitched. "I suggest that you release Inuyasha, with no further harm, if you wish to live."

Tsubaki laughed. "Oh, my dear Kikyo, your accident did damage your head, didn't it? You don't really think that puny arrow can break through my barrier, do you?"

"She's right, you know," muttered Miyatsu.

"Hush," she breathed back, not looking away from the youkai. "Distract her." She moved the bow a bit again, aiming towards the left youkai. It shifted, drifting closer to the central pair. "Don't worry about me, houshi-sama," she said in a normal tone of voice. "I've defeated this dark priestess before, and I'll do it again." A scornful laugh responded to her words.

"Well, that may be true," said Miyatsu, "but I'd hate to think that it's really necessary to kill a woman as beautiful as she is." Out of the corner of her eye, Kikyo saw the monk moving forward.
 
"My dear Tsubaki," he continued, in a warm and genial voice. "I don't suppose you could be persuaded to come lower? I can see from here that you appear quite lovely, but you must come down, if I am to properly appreciate your beauty."

"Houshi-sama," Kikyo growled, not looking away.

"My dear Kikyo," he replied, turning his head to look at her, "you are not unlovely yourself, and of course, I could hardly refuse to help you, when my carelessness had caused your accident. But surely, you cannot expect me to ignore a lovely woman who appears in front of me? Why, if I ignore a beautiful woman, who knows when I will have ignored the one woman who will welcome me into her arms and into her bed? You would have me tempt fate, to end up old and alone, because I ignored beauty?"

There was a delicate snort from above, and the youkai drifted forward and down. "I was warned growing up that some monks were more interested in pleasure than in holiness, but I never really expected to run across such a person," observed Tsubaki, leaning forward from her position atop the two beasts. "Kikyo, do point that arrow elsewhere--you can't hope to penetrate my barrier, but you're making my youkai nervous."

Kikyo hesitated, scowling, then lowered the bow, releasing the tension. "That's better--it's difficult to have a civilized conversation when pointed weapons are aimed in your direction, don't you think, houshi-sama?" Tsubaki smirked, as the youki moved still lower, the barrier contracting as it was brushed by the ends of the tree branches.

"Weapons do distract from the more interesting topics," he allowed, taking a half step forward and to the side, moving the staff as well. "For instance, why did such a lovely woman as yourself need to become a dark priestess? The spiritual power I sense that you possess is amazing by itself--how much more beautiful would you be, if your soul were as pure as your skin. Have you ever considered repenting of your ways? It would be an honor beyond measuring, to guide you back into the path of the light."

The dark priestess smiled and shook her head. "Are you for real, houshi-sama?"

"Why, whatever do you mean?" he asked, sounding surprised. "You think I am insincere?" he asked in a hurt voice. "My dear miko-sama, I assure you, I take the condition of your soul very seriously. It grieves me, yes, it grieves me, to see such a beautiful woman, with such potential for good, to bear such a darkened soul. I beg you to reconsider your path, and learn what a gift you could give to this poor, undeserving monk--"

She laughed, cutting him off. "Oh, you have a sweet tongue, monk, but do not think your honey will attract me. Why should I change my path, when this course promises to give me all that I desire?" She reached for the pocket in her sleeve. "And what I desire at the moment--"

"Now."

 

Kikyo could put three arrows through Inuyasha's fire-rat robes in less time than it took him to move the diameter of a large tree, as she had proven on more than one occasion. Dropping the lightly-charged arrow, she pulled a sutra-wrapped arrow from the quiver. Four arrows, one after the other, blazed upwards, coruscating with light, all of them headed for the same point of the barrier. Miyatsu shouted a word and slammed the end of his staff into the ground. The first two arrows slammed into the shield and disintegrated. But as the third one neared the barrier, a narrow beam of blue light shot from the tip of the monk's staff. The barrier pulsed, and the third arrow disappeared in a blaze of light. The beam did not waver, and the fourth arrow slammed into the barely visible sphere.

It shattered. Tsubaki screamed with rage. Kikyo didn't notice as she notched and fired a plain arrow.  The youkai Tsubaki was riding disintegrated as her ordinary sacred arrows took them down with one shot each. Tsubaki shouted something, as the third youkai--not the one bearing Inuyasha, swooped down underneath its falling mistress. Kikyo started to draw a plain arrow, then changed her mind and grabbed one of the sutra-bound arrows, a flicker of thought in her mind that she had to aim at Tsubaki, in order to miss the prisoner of the youkai. She pulled the arrow back, shifting her aim for the more difficult target of Tsubaki's head.

Red light, threaded with dark, flashed in Tsubaki's hand. Miyatsu shouted something and flung up his staff with both hands. Kikyo loosed. At the same moment, a red light shot out from Tsubaki's hand, aimed directly at Kikyo. It shattered the arrow that soared to meet it.

Then slammed into something else.

The world exploded.