Disclaimer: Rumiko Takahashi owns Inuyasha, his companions and his story. I merely borrowed them for a time to have my way with them. Strictly for fun, no profit or disrespect intended.

Credit Due: I have no idea who thought of it first, but kudos to the one who came up with the Headless Horsemen.

Note: I love Halloween, it's my favourite time of the year. Since the wind was howling outside and the night was bleak. I felt the need to do this. It shouldn't take too long and then I'll get back to the other.

Title: Inuyasha: The Curse of the Orange Lantern

Author: Fluffy's Green Comb

Date: 2009

Rating: NC-17 (or M)

Pairing: Sesshoumaru/Inuyasha

Warnings: I'm not possitive there will be yaoi and inucest in this story. But I will warn for it just in case it comes up. Other than that, violence, spookiness, beheading

Summary: In the Halloween spirit, I give you the headless horseman, Inuyasha style.

Inuyasha: The Curse of the Orange Lantern

Prologue: One Should Never Stray

The wind screamed in broken agony like a mother whose child had been lost. She wailed in eerie refrain the rending of her shattered heart from her breast. The chords of anguish raking chills up a mortal spine and bringing the imagination wild images of fear. They huddled fearing her retribution of mindless, numb destruction in her grief. Her cold, clammy hands gripping at the pink flesh of the living world.

The night herself was ashen pitch. The glorious moon's enchanting visage was hidden by the opaque fingers of clouds reaching across the unlit sky. The air was cold and moisture froze in crystal drops on the skeletal fingers of the naked and gnarled trees. Breath of the living was pulled from the warm lungs in white plumes to leave frozen needles in its wake.

The wise did not venture out this night. They remained in homes curled around hearths and beneath blankets. Those few that did find this night without a roof took shelter where they could. They were bundled in rolls and with each other. Fighting off the loneliness of the cold dark. Their minds remaining in fearful alertness at every crack of wood or whisper of crazed youkai. For any sensible creature, man, youkai or animal was not alone in the open this night. The only one they thought who was would be death himself. Searching for prey in the stretching shadows of the sightless night.

A solitary figure ran.

Breathless and panic stricken over dead leaves and silencing pine needles. The sound of the mortal's heart was louder than the crunch of his sandaled feet over the coated forest floor. The brown of his clothing doing nothing to hide him from view.

His round brown eyes were dilated with blind fear. He kept turning to look over his shoulder into the silent distance. His steps and breathing more frenzied in their haste with each shadow that shifted into his peripheral view. He clutched his cramped side as he forced himself on.

He did not call for help.

There was none to be had in these parts.

Only a few minutes more and he would reach the safety of the covered bridge. It was not yet in view. But he knew it was close. Just a little further into the night. Just a little more time. The mantra of the doomed.

He continued to draw the frigid air into his beaten lungs. His feet propelled him forward past exhaustion fuelled by only fear and the certainty of what would happen if he stopped. Hoof beats now pounded in rhythm with his desperate heart from some unseen shadow behind.

A glance behind. Nothing.

Hope.

The covered bridge was just a head. He could see the lanterns at the entrance! He would make it. Beyond the bridge was the village with its protective barrier. He would make it home.

The villager surged forward with the last of his strength and reached the bridge. He fell to his knees with a clumsy thud as he hit the threshold of the bridge. Hastily pulling himself back up to his bleeding feet he panted desperately of the painful air that froze his lungs. He had made it inside. At the other end was safety. He chanced to turn and look with fatigue blurred vision into the forest. He could no longer hear the hoof beats against his breast. But the shadows in the trees remained filled with unseen malice.

Counting his blessings and taking a deep breath he turned into the bridge and took a step forward.

His head struck the boarded floor and rolled back out of the bridge entrance.

The villager's body fell to its knees and slumped forward but a moment after. Above him inside the bridge a massive black stallion paced in annoyance before it was goaded forward by its master. In the night the horse's eyes reflected red malice. The rider was wearing a samurai's armour of black and a held a long black sword in the covered hand. Upon the wide shoulders where the decorated helmet would have sat, was nothing. For this horseman had no head.

The figure bends and retrieved the head of the villager he had slain and was silently absorbed by the bitter night.