InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Woodin Cylinders And Red Herrings ❯ The Usual Suspects ( Chapter 5 )

Disclaimer: I don't own InuYasha or any characters there in.

The Usual Suspects

Once they where on the road again Sango decided to indulge her curiosity about the "foreign youkia", especially if it would stop her from chanting "bored" over and over and over. Honestly she was worse than Shippo!

"Dusty, how did you meet Kallum?"

Dusty gave her a blank look, "Who?"

"Kallum." Miroku restated, giving her a curios look. "The man in the village who summoned you to help us."

Dusty shook her head, "Village? When were we in a village?"

"This morning." Kagome joined in.

"We were at a hot spring this morning." Dusty looked completely confused.

"Before that," Kagome tried again, "Last night Kallum called you to us, he called you Pixie Shit?"

Dusty made a face and shook her head again.

"The man with the headless flowers." Shippo piped up.

Dusty's eyes lit up, "Oh my dear friend Kallum! I may have a pixies memory but I never forget a prank."

"Just how bad is your memory?" InuYasha growled.

"Uh, Well, it's really just out of sight out of mind." Dusty explained, "It gets much worse if I transform. Have I done that recently?"

Sango nodded, "Yes, at the hot spring."

"Of course," Dusty smiled, "Never pull pranks while questing. Right?"

"Right!" Shippo chirped.

"Unless you get really bored." Dusty winked at the kit.

InuYasha was less than happy as he returned to leading the group toward the coast Dusty had indicated earlier.

"Cheer up InuYasha!" Dusty called after him, "I'll know it when I see it!"

InuYasha turned his narrowed eyes on her, "Know what when you see it?"

Dusty bit her lip, "What it is that we are looking for."

"Damn it!" InuYasha roared.

"Calm down!" Dusty demanded, "It's not like I've never quested before! Just tell me what I told you and I'll be good."

"You were leading us to a `Demon's Paradise', I believe." Miroku put in.

"Ah Yes, we are going the right way." Dusty nodded.

"What about the Fucking curse!" InuYasha snarled, she was much worse than Shippo, "Do you remember that?

"… Of course, InuYasha, I never forget a good on going mystery either." Dusty was on the edge of a pout, but didn't think that would have the right effect on the aggravated hanyou.

InuYasha stomped back to the front of the moving group and silence once again threatened to bring annoying verse from Dusty.

"Do you remember how you met Kallum?" Sango tried again before Dusty had a chance to start singing.

Dusty got a thoughtful look on her face, "We quested together all over Europe, trying to restore the `Unbreakable Heart' to it's rightful mountain home before… I don't know, the world blew up or something." Dusty shrugged, "I met him in a river, in my power form. It was cold."

"Perhaps you could tell us of your Quest while we travel." Miroku was not eager for her to teach Shippo any of her repetitive songs.

"I don't think so," Dusty said sadly, "My memory, and the facts of the story…. It didn't exactly end well. Our leader, my lady and the guardian of the stone, died a horrible crushy death at the roots of the mountain shrine, alone, and heart broken."

Well that was a conversation killer.

"The bastard realized he shouldn't have taken his duty so much to heart, and died a few years later. Tormented by his failure to protect her and the knowledge that she wouldn't have had to die at all, or at least not so… pained if it weren't for his stupidity and lack of emotional insight." Then she added a little more brightly, "So that made up for my inability to torture him in her memory."

"Perhaps we should keep as much as possible about InuYasha and Kagome's relationship from Dusty." Miroku whispered to Sango.

She nodded her agreement.

Dusty was looking at the trees again. "Let's stop under that tree for Kagome's switch." She said rather loudly.

"Feh." InuYasha responded, `Damn pushy pixie.' He thought. However he realized that they should stop for the curse's switch.

The tree had a wide canopy of branches and was positively covered in large white blooms. Under the tree the ground was carpeted with a cool dry moss, even a large rock and fallen branch sported the soft covering.

"It's beautiful!" Kagome sighed as she took a seat. "I can see why you would want to stop here."

"I doubt that." Dusty fluttered her wings slightly and lifted straight off the ground, ankles crossed daintily. Soon the others lost sight of her among the flowers. "So have you thought about who it is?"

"What?" InuYasha asked trying to see where the voice came from.

"Does Kagome have any enemies that might want to get revenge?" the disembodied voice came from the other side of the tree this time.

Everyone thought on this for a while. Then Dusty floated from the tree holding an armful of flowers, "What? You expected me to do all the work? I'm not a mind reader, a physic or an avid follower of quests great and small. You have to give me something to go on!" With that she sat on the ground and began to sort her acquisitions.

"Kagome doesn't have many enemies, living." InuYasha smirked.

"Sessoumaru doesn't like her." Shippo piped up, "He says she's annoying and interfering."

"That's good, Shippo!" Dust looked delighted. "But is that the extent of it? This is a rather complicated way of dealing with an annoyance."

"He wants to kill InuYasha and take his sword." Miroku added.

"That's right!" Dusty said, "I keep forgetting! This spell isn't necessarily limited to Kagome!"

"What do you mean." Miroku asked.

"Well, this spell on her has three parts, an active power, a passive power and humiliation." Dusty picked a large flower out of her bunch and looked at it lovingly. "The humiliation is the mark. And the active power is the word spell. That could be anything from kill to sleep."

"Humiliation?" InuYasha asked.

"What is the passive power?" Miroku asked.

"Why wouldn't he care that we discovered the word?" Sango asked.

Kagome remained silent, watching as Dusty took a large bite out of the flower she had been admiring. "So that's why they were headless." She stated.

Dusty nodded and swallowed, "Pixies in power form eat nectar, in this form I eat the whole flower. And it's a good prank on old Kallum. Now," she looked at each of the questioners in turn, "Kagome's bruise is forming into a slightly embarrassing phrase, I think it was supposed to keep her from revealing the magic's home before the client got possession of the spell. I don't know what the passive power is, only that it will, or is, keeping Kagome from doing something. I don't know what. The client might not care wither or not InuYasha gained control of the spell because, once activated, it might cause her to kill you all or something so then the client wouldn't care if it was now or then. Understand?"

"Why doesn't `the client' own it now? Why change possession at all?" Kagome asked.

"This spell likely took a lot of energy to bring into being, then there is the payment for the task. In order to offset the massive amount of energy taken for it, the ogre was made the owner of the spell. He would supply the energy required to form the spell in return for the casting of his own spell."

"But that would mean I'm supplying the energy to do this to Kagome." InuYasha glared at the pixie.

`I wonder if pixie dust has withdrawals, or if he's always this cranky.' Dusty thought. "Yes," she said, "and if you were killed or died the energy would come from someone else. So Sessoumaru is one, anyone else? I mean besides the obvious creatures just after the jewel and numerous who might want to avenge family members."

"Naraku." Sango spat.

"Yes this is sounding like something Naraku would do." Miroku agreed.

"And he is?" Dusty asked.

"Naraku wants the jewel, but he wants it tainted." Sango explained. "He turns people against their loved ones through deceit in order to taint the jewel."

"Then that would be a definite maybe." Dusty nodded. "More?"

"Kikyo." Shippo said.

"Kouga." InuYasha stated.

"Who's Kikyo and what is her motive?" Dusty asked.

"Kikyo wants to take InuYasha to hell with her," Sango said quickly covering Shippo's mouth. "Kagome keeps stopping her."

"That's… creepy." Dusty cringed.

"Well, she's already dead." Shippo had managed to wiggle away.

"Oh," Dusty said, "no, no that's still creepy. However she is an excellent suspect, she'll go in the list with Naraku."

"I don't think she's involved." InuYasha stated flatly. He didn't want to reveal too much to Dusty either, just for different reasons.

"Any particular reason?" Dusty asked.

"…No." InuYasha couldn't really defend his position. Using a vengeance demon was pretty under handed, but so was working with Naraku. And she had done that at least once. And she didn't have a problem with hurting Kagome, as much as he hated to think about it.

"Then she is still a good suspect. What about Kouga?" Dusty ate another flower.

"Kouga is a wolf youkia," Shippo said. "He's in love with Kagome and thinks once he kills InuYasha she'll love him too. He's kinda stupid."

"Kouga wouldn't do anything to hurt Kagome." Miroku said.

"Maybe he hasn't," Dusty said, "revenge demons can be tricky when they want to, the active spell could be over her heart. A lust or infatuation spell."

"WHAT!" InuYasha jumped up ready to chase Kouga down and kill him right then.

"No, wait," Dusty waved him down, "This Kouga wouldn't want to risk you stumbling on the spell if that was the case, and then the caster would have to refund the energy."

"So we're up to four, anyone else?" she looked at the group.

"I think that's all we know, unless someone came around while I was…" Kagome suddenly grabbed her stomach.

Dusty watched her intently. It was time for the curse to change.

Suddenly Kagome jumped up and headed into the woods.

Dusty jumped up as well. "I'll take care of her, this shouldn't take too long. When I get back I will have more info about the ogre's curse."

*

Conspiracy theory (the original chapter 6)

A few hours later Kagome and Dusty returned, freshly bathed.

"You two were bathing this whole time?" InuYasha yelled.

"No," Dusty said indignantly, "but it made Kagome feel better."

"What's wrong with Kagome now?" Shippo asked Dusty.

"I now know how the ogres spell is working." Dusty announced instead of answering directly. "The spell is working by turning each system almost all the way down, and then turning it all the way up. After dealing with the arms and legs in one go it has moved on to the torso, dealing in smaller increments."

Dusty received blank stares all around.

"So you mean that Kagome's muscles are loosing all their strength and then gaining all their strength all at once? Why?" Sango asked.

"Not just her muscles, and I don't know why." Dusty kneeled in front of the fire they had made, "The end of the spell is well concealed."

"I don't understand." InuYasha frowned at dusty in a thoughtful way.

"I bet." Shippo snorted.

"Do you?" Dusty asked. When Shippo just pouted into the fire, she asked, "What don't you understand InuYasha?"

"If this is a revenge demon, what… how is being the perfect ogre revenge?" he finished.

"Maybe the demon was just having fun." Dusty shrugged. "It's not likely though. You said that the ogre said `I will have complete power over her', right? Well maybe the `her' he's talking about was another client of the revenge demon. I did say that the spell was sarcastic, that it wasn't doing what he thought it was going to do."

"What, besides her muscles, is being effected?" Miroku asked.

"I love traveling with people of good memories and inquisitive minds." Dusty sighed happily, "Her web systems." As if that answered the question.

Another round of blank stares told her that it did not.

"Oh! I forgot. None of you have turned people into frogs!" Dusty smacked her head, then cleared her throat, "The body is made of bones, muscle, organs and connective tissue. All belonging to their own system. Some belonging to more than one. Also there are the `web' systems, like the tubes that transport blood, and that clear sticky liquid."

"Lymph." Kagome added in, "It helps clean the blood."

Dusty gave her a mystified look, "Among other things. Kagome are you training to transform people?"

Kagome shook her head quickly, "No, I learned about it in school. Please continue, I think they will understand your explanation much better than mine."

Dusty nodded, "Funny names only get in the way of explanations. There are other web systems as well. One is information. It is made of special tissue and uses a combination of tiny lightning and chemicals to `talk' to the rest of the body. All of Kagome's systems are being effected by the spell. Her muscles have been taken care of, as has her skeletal system, I think. And her digestive system now, she won't be eating any thing for the next day. The rest of her systems are to follow."

"What effect will this have on Kagome?" Sango asked.

"Oh lets not get bogged down in details that will only worry you." Dusty smiled, "It's nothing I can't handle, probably. Now let's all get some sleep."

The group nodded and prepared the camp for sleep.

InuYasha settled at the base of the tree, in order that his sensitive nose not be distracted by the overwhelming sent of flowers.

Th-pop!

"I thought you weren't going to transform any more, Pixie Shit." InuYasha grumbled.

A pale yellow glow floated over to him, "I've gotta check some stuff out, dog breath, I'll be back by morning. Otherwise, keep going until you reach the coast."

Then she was a pale yellow streak, going back the way they had come.

"Feh."

*

When morning came everyone woke and there was no Dusty. Everyone ate breakfast, except Kagome, and there was no Dusty.

"Lets go." InuYasha barked

.

"What about Dusty?" Kagome asked.

"She'll catch up, now come on."

They walked in silence for a few hours, until Shippo noticed something.

"InuYasha one of your beads is glowing yellow." He said.

InuYasha looked down at his shoulder, where Dusty was sleeping in her power form.

"GAH! Get off me!" He shouted and jumped, unwilling to touch the pixie.

Dusty fell onto his Jacket and scowled, "Relax, I'm not even touching you." She then floated up and toward the middle of the moving group. "I just went to check out that swamp you told me about."

"And?" InuYasha asked.

"And it's vampiric."

"I knew that was no ordinary Bug!" Kagome shouted.

"You were bitten?" Dusty asked.

"Yes, by a big bug." Kagome answered.

"Was anyone else bitten?" Dusty asked again.

"No." Everyone else answered.

"And you didn't think it odd that only one of you was bitten in a swamp?" Silent stares met Dusty's question. "I can't believe this, I'm surrounded by amateurs! It might not mean anything, but it might mean that some one, possibly our caster, got a hold of some of Kagome's blood. If they did that adds a whole lot of power behind the spell."

"But it was only the day before the spell was put on Kagome." Miroku argued.

"It might mean nothing." Dusty shrugged. "Maybe it was just a bug…. The swamp pulls energy off of living beings but not enough to do more than give you a creepy feeling, maybe make you more tired then usual. But the caster could have used the natural flow of energy off of the `host' to the swamp and just redirected it to where ever they wanted it to go."

"What good does that do us?" InuYasha asked.

"Killer rabbit." Dusty replied.

"What?" Everyone stopped to eye the little glowing dot.

Dusty pointed to her left where a large, fanged rabbit, about the size of a large dog, was watching them.

Upon being noticed the rabbit jumped forward and tried to latch on to Miroku's throat. Miroku deflected it with his staff flinging it right under Dusty, who shrieked and quickly took position next to InuYasha. InuYasha, with his sword already at the ready, jumped forward to slice it open, but the rabbit was too fast and jumped at the last minute. Sango pulled her sword and lunged, but once again the thing was too fast.

Dusty lifted her hands over her head while InuYasha and Sango tried to corner the angry killer rabbit. Then she brought her hands in front of her "Petal wind!" she cried as millions of tiny pink petals leaped from her palms and blew through the battle, temporarily blinding the rabbit and Sango. InuYasha, whose back was to Dusty, took the opportunity to slice the rabbit in half.

Once that was done, InuYasha turned to Dusty, "Flower petals? What kind of attack is that?"

"I'm a pixie," Dusty floated offer to him, "What kind of attack did you think I'd have? We only even have the dust as defense against our only natural enemies."

InuYasha snorted, "Let me guess, birds?"

"… Actually, yes." Th-pop! "But you should know that when hunting rabbits swords only get in the way, InuYasha." Dusty, now full sized, scowled at him.

"Feh."

"I do have better attacks, but I couldn't use them with you guys so close to the… Sango are you Ok?"

Sango walked up with tears streaming down her face. "I've got a flower petal in my eye."

"Opps, sorry." Dusty apologized, "I could help you get it out."

Sango mumbled that she was ok and wondered up the road to Kagome.

"That was one of the …prettiest attacks that I've ever seen Dusty." Miroku walked up absolutely covered in miniature pink flower petals.

"Thanks." Dusty giggled.

*

Dusty sat by the fire that night, counting off on her fingers and getting distracted by everyone trying desperately to keep Kagome from eating all of their provisions.

"They wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for me!" Kagome argued over a bag of potato chips.

They let her eat the bag but told her eat it slowly, the next day was going to be hard on her. The curse had switched and now she was constantly hungry.

"What're you doing Dusty." Shippo asked.

"I'm counting suspects, Shippo, I'm up to nine." Dusty answered.

"I thought there were only four." InuYasha said from his spot firmly between Kagome and her backpack.

"Ah, well," Dusty blushed, "I've found more. Good night!"

"Who are they?" InuYasha growled.

Dusty sighed and looked around the camp, "Your not going to like this, but its routine! Honest! I can't rule any one out who might have a motive."

"It's alright Dusty, we understand," Miroku said in his calmest voice, "we won't get upset."

"The first suspects in this kind of case are always those closest to the victim." Dusty bit her lip, "Usually ex-lovers, but Kagome doesn't have any of those so, current um, relationships must be investigated."

"I'm a suspect?" InuYasha snarled, to angry to realize what he had just implied.

"Yes," Dusty nodded, "I don't have much to go on there as far as motive. Except your rosary. The energy around it is very similar to the energy around Kagome's spell. But sense she owns yours and you currently own hers and they are both word spells it could just be coincidence."

"Damn right it is." InuYasha crossed his arms and glared at the fire.

"Also this Keade woman." Dusty continued, "She is the little sister of Kikyo and Kagome is the reincarnation of Kikyo, also Kagome broke the jewel, so there could be a motive there. That leads me to… Sango."

"What?" Sango exclaimed

.

"Sorry." Dusty muttered, "Sango's village was destroyed by Naraku in order to get shards of the jewel, which Kagome was supposed to guard and accidentally broke. That's her motive. Miroku, his motive wouldn't be revenge so it isn't likely him. But he might want to prevent InuYasha from becoming a full youkia, and he might use Kagome to do it. Shippo is too young to enter into a contract like this and I couldn't find a motive anyway."

"That's only eight," Miroku said, "who is the last one."

"InuYasha's flea," Dusty replied, "doubtful but it is possible, servants and such are always suspect and can have motives that we don't know about or can't understand."

"I didn't do anything." Sango insisted. "I don't blame Kagome…"

"Well, there is another problem." Dusty sighed, "I've been thinking the party of the second part. See I couldn't figure out why the vengeance demon didn't ever contact the client directly. That's very strange. The more I think about it the more I think the second party is a dream weaver. Both vengeance demons and dream weavers live on the intellect plan and they are the only ones that have contact with corporeal beings on a regular basis. If the party of the second part is a dream weaver the client might not remember making the deal until after the spell is complete."

"Shit." InuYasha said.

"Indeed." Dusty agreed.

*

A/N: That was two chapters in one, The Usual Suspects and Conspiracy Theory so don't be expecting them all to be this long. The next chapters will have more interactions between the characters and less theory. The end is in sight now.

Totals to date:

Kouga- 1

InuYasha- 1 (cursed_jax)

(I'm not giving the reasons anymore (until the end of the story) figure it out for your self, or look them up ^_^