QoH: peeks out nervously um… here's an update. i know its been ages since i last did anything with this, but… shrugs, trying to make herself as small a target as possible the muse comes and goes, and generally when i don't have access to a pc with writing capabilities (twitch which is rarely ). not to mention the fact that my disk died on me (AGAIN! ARG!) and I had to rework the whole thing (i spent a good few hours just to copy/paste from ffn, mind you, not to mention reformatting and such) and, of course, theres the fact that theyre piling even more work on me... --() eh… right. ya probably dont give a rip about that, dya? () anyway, enough of my whining. at this point, i'm listening to a certain song from Sailor Moon points to title quite inspiring, really, considering the topic…
Chapter 9: She's Got The Power
Human and demon alike stared at the enraged priestess that was Kagome as she, quite literally, radiated unadulterated hatred for the looming serpent before her. Miroku clenched his staff worriedly as the girl and snake sized each other up. A miko's full power should not be forced to bloom under such loathing. I hope this turns out all right.
"Houshi-sama?" Sango glanced at him, noting his tension.
He turned to her, his gaze troubled as he indicated their glowing friend, "She's attained her true strength."
The huntress blinked, vaguely confused, "You mean she's reached her peak? Wouldn't that be a good thing?"
Miroku shook his head, "Not like this. At this rate, she may go insane from the power surge, with her emotions in such turmoil. If she doesn't regain control, we could all very well die right here."
Sango gasped, putting a hand to her mouth in horror, "But how can she do it? How can she possibly rein in a fury like that? After what he did to Inu-Yasha, we all feel it, to some degree or another, and that's bad enough!"
His eyes widened and he grasped her shoulders happily, "Sango, you are an absolute genius!"
She eyed him as if he'd lost his mind, a little suspicious of another hentai attempt, "What do you mean?"
The monk grinned and jerked his head over his shoulder to the ex-prisoners behind him, "You remember that demon's weakness, I have no doubt."
Her exterminator's memory instantly provided her with the answer, though she still didn't see what he was getting at, "Numbers. So what? We're talking about a huge, high-level youkai, not some average creature. All we have is Kagome, Shippou, you, me, and a bunch of people who are in no condition to fight anything, much less that thing."
"You're forgetting one very crucial element, my dear lady." Miroku smiled slightly, draping his arm over her shoulders, "The way I see it, we have one miko in serious need of draining off some of her power, and a whole lot of willing vessels."
Sango gave him an odd look again, tensing slightly under his arm, "And how do you know they're willing? They've already been used beyond most people's endurance. You would put them through more?"
"We'd do it gladly if it'd take that monster down." They turned to see Tuya and the other conscious captives gather behind him, all wearing the same resolute expression, "What do we have to do?"
Miroku sent his solemn gaze over the small crowd, "All right. This will only work if you put your entire heart into it, so if any of you are having second thoughts, you must say so now," he paused for a moment and when no one spoke up, he continued, "You all saw our friend's sacrifice. How did it make you feel?"
A murmur went through the group as they talked amongst themselves. He felt a tug on his robe and looked down to where young Midori stood quietly, her large jade eyes far more world-weary than any child's should have a right to be. He smiled and knelt down to her level, "Yes, little one?"
"Sad, but hopeful," she replied as the others' conversations began to drop off, some of them approaching the two in interest, "That guy knew what he was doing from the start, I think."
Sango went down on her knees beside the girl, "What makes you say that?"
"When I was watching them fight, I saw his face." Midori nodded at the red and white form of the fallen Inu-Yasha and looked back to them, "He knew he didn't have a chance, so he just did what he could to buy some time."
"You mean he knew we'd find a way to kill Jashin-Jadoku, even if he couldn't?" Kai questioned, his brow raised.
"Uh huh. He was stalling, I could tell. I used to do the same thing back at home when I wanted to stay up longer."
Miroku chuckled, somewhat amused at the child's analogy to the current situation, and looked around the rag-tag group, "Are you sure you're ready for this?"
Tuya's gaze went to Kagome in concern, "Whether we are or not, I don't think your friend's going to be able to hang on for much longer."
It was true. Quite unlike the kind and gentle girl who did all she could stop bloodshed, the young priestess looked like she'd like nothing better than pull the snake-demon's scales off one by one, and come up with every conceivable way to make that process as painful as possible. Shippou worried his lip, well aware of the fact that he was going come out the worse for the wear, but with Inu-Yasha's last request still echoing in his mind, he set his jaw and went up to her. Reaching his hand out in an attempt to reach his foster mother, he came in contact, instead, with the battle aura that surged around her evidently frozen form. "Ite!" (sp? japanese for "ow!" etc) he yelped and immediately yanked his signed fingers back, popping them in his mouth.
Being the resident expert on spiritual powers that he was, Miroku hurried over and examined the kit's hand. Heaving a huge sigh of relief, he suddenly grinned at the others, "It's better than I thought!"
Shippou took his hand back, nursing it as he scowled up at the monk, "My getting burnt is a good thing? Glad to see you care, Miroku."
"He's right. How does that help us?" Kai wondered, eyeing him warily. Why is he smiling like that? Any idiot can see we're all dead, one way or another.
"Ok, well, I know Kagome looks like Evil Incarnate right now, but she's retained her original powers, which means that there's still some part of her that we can reach. Watch," he stepped forward and repeated the young fox's gesture, only he succeeded in putting his hand on her shoulder. Was it their collective imagination, or did the spreading, glowing red barrier dim just slightly?
Sango stared at him like he'd just done something miraculous, and let's face it, she wasn't too far off the mark, "H-how did you do that?" Shippou and the ex-captives echoed that sentiment.
"I'd never really thought about it before, but now it all makes sense." Miroku mused, half to himself, as he readied a spell with his free hand, "She's like a walking, talking Shikon Jewel, as Kikyou was before her. Fifty years ago, when Naraku pulled that rotten stunt of his, Kikyou was almost consumed by the anger and betrayal she felt... but not totally. She was able to retain a small bit of herself in her effort to save this world from itself by taking the Jewel with her to the one beyond."
"Yeah, I guess that makes sense," Shippou shrugged, still cradling his injured limb, "but what's that gotta do with me?"
"Don't take this the wrong way, kid," the monk answered somewhat slowly, his gaze on the girl and giant snake who seemed to be having a glaring contest, "but you are a demon, which automatically sticks you in the 'dark' catagory, whether you want to be there or not. Kagome, on the other hand, is most decidely a 'light' type, even with her current problems."
"Oh, I get it!" Midori piped up, proud of herself for catching on so quickly, "Light banishes Dark, right?"
"Exactly, and we can use that remaining 'light' to get her back to normal. Using my own holy powers, I can purify her energy, much like she does for the shards, and send it along to you all. Then," he jerked his head over his shoulder at Jashin-Jadoku, "we can all attack him."
Sango crossed her arms, smirking a bit, "So, we all get to be a miko for a day, huh? Not to mention, it's a fitting payback."
"True," Tuya nodded and glanced at his friends, who obviously agreed, "and it's a fine time to exorcise a few demons within ourselves. Helping you will allow us to put all this behind us."
"Right, then." Miroku, who'd been gathering a white light around himself for the past several minutes, held out his hand, "We'll spread out and make a ring around these two, keeping in physical contact so I can transfer the energy to you. But, remember, no one else touch Kagome until she's stable. You don't want to know what would happen if you did."
"Hey, what about me?" Shippou exclaimed, looking extremely put out as everybody started linking hands, "You guys are all humans, so you can take it, but what can I do?"
"If that guy sees us and suspects what we're about to do, he'll try and take us out, and even Kagome might get mad for breaking into 'her fight,'" Sango replied from her position beside Miroku, now also glowing, "You can create a diversion with your foxfire and keep them busy."
"Hmph, a diversion..." the fox-child rolled his eyes and shook his head, "why doesn't that surprise me?"
Midori sidled up beside him and gave him a shy peck on the cheek, blushing, "I think it's really brave."
Everyone grinned as Shippou turned even redder than usual, stammering with his eyes as wide as they'd go. Ducking away with a mumbled "Thanks," he slipped through the crowd to sneak through the blessedly tall grass to the middle of the battlefield.
An enormous blue fire errutped, breaking the shocked gazes of snake and priestess from each other as it began forming into a fox of incredible proportions, while the others took the opportunity to race around the clearing like a congo line on fast forward.
The apparation, for it's part, took in the situation before fixing on Jashin-Jadoku seemingly calm look, it's otherworldly voice echoing through the entire area, "Do you remember me?"
Though their enemy was evidently completely clueless, Kagome blinked slowly, coming out of her power-overload paralysis, "Kuroikaze...? Aren't you... dead?" Her gaze went to Inu-Yasha and back again very quickly, a faint, desperate hope flaring in her eyes, "Are you a ghost?"
"In a manner of speaking," it's attention split itself to include her while still eyeing the murderer, "Are you all right, child?"
"I... uh..." she frowned, suddenly feeling the hand on her shoulder and looked over to see her friends beside her, "What's going on?"
"Welcome back, Kagome." Sango smiled at her, "You really had us worried there for a while."
Miroku gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze, "You'll be fine. Are you ready?"
"For what?" she blinked again, now realizing that not only were they bright white, but so was she. Kagome frowned, trying to remember what had happened after Inu-Yasha died. Looking past the giant fox, she noticed Jashin-Jadoku trying to slink away in "human" form. It seemed he didn't think he could take on the spirit of his long-ago victim. She answered her friend in a voice loud enough for the snake to hear, "Yes, I'm ready."
Revealed now for the pathetic coward he truly was, like all those who choose to be evil, he froze in place and turned to look at her. It was clear what he was thinking. Gone was the arrogance of before; now, there was only the desire to escape, to run to another place where he could continue to terrorize and humiliate those around him. He tried one last stand, hoping to retain a small amount of his pride, and gave her a scathing glare, "You really think you can kill me when you little puppy failed?"
"Oh, yes. There is no mistake about that," the spirit replied and promptly faded out of existence, while Shippou ran for the relative safety of outside the circle, where Kirara already waited.
Kagome drew herself up to her full, if not considerable, height and looked directly into those slitted eyes, "You killed Inu-Yasha, and for that alone, you deserve the worst you could possibly get... But you also killed and tortured dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of innocent people, even children. You really think you're going to get away with that?" With that, the brilliant white ring around the demon blazed to its greatest intensity as the group, in total concert, fired on him like the spokes on a deadly, almost blinding wheel.
By the time the light died down, their target was nothing more than a pile half-shapeshifed scales and a shining Jewel shard, which flew to her outstretched hand immediately. Putting it with its fellows, where it reformed into a nearly complete ball, she turned to the others and smiled faintly, "Thank you. I understand now what you did for me."
QoH: huh... im rather proud of myself for this one (66() aside from the extraordinarily late update, that is...) ive had this scene in my head for so dang long, and i really worked hard to get it the way i wanted. hope you all like it too but dont think the story's over yet! theres still the matter of bringing Inu-Yasha back hehe yes, i know, i know... spoiler lol im just a sucker for happy endings, however much grief i put em through hehe
