InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ From Beginning to End ❯ The First Challenge ( Chapter 9 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

The power just went out so I can use my laptop and not my desktop, so I thought that was a sign that I should write this chapter! Sorry for the late coming, I was busy revamping old stories. Please enjoy, and review!


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Disclaimer: I do not own Inu Yasha, but I do love him from afar.


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From Beginning to End


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--- Last Chapter ---


Miroku watched the half demon quizzically. 'Is he so sure that we are not capable of getting through this unscathed? He truly does not have faith in us…' Miroku smirked, thinking about the group's abilities.

He wasn't naturally one to jump to anything, but he was confident that he and his friends would make it through all right. With or without the help of the half demon Inu Yasha.


--- End of Last Chapter ---


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Chapter Nine: The First Challenge

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“Are you guys ready, yet?” Inu Yasha whined, lounging on his side as the others finished eating and chatting. “We should get going!”


Kagome stopped mid conversation to turn on the hanyou, and glared at him. Inu Yasha expected another fight, but she surprised him. Shaking her head softly, she dropped the glare and adopted a small smile. “You’re right, we should go soon. We shouldn’t be wasting time,” standing up, she hefted up her short bow and arrow quiver and turned on the others. “Ok, come on. Inu Yasha’s right, we should get going. Up and at ‘em!”


Shippou grumbled a bit but was perched on her shoulder soon enough. Sango and Miroku helped each other up and strapped on their weapons. Within a matter of minutes, the group was set to go, Kirara standing at their feet. Taking one last glance around to make sure they didn’t leave anything important [not thinking that Miroku’s pocket mirror was] Inu Yasha all but shoved them out of their campsite.


“Let’s move! I think we’ll come across the first challenge in a little bit.”


“You think? Wait- what is the first challenge?” Kagome asked, dropping back so she was walking abreast with Inu Yasha.


He looked at her but kept his scowl in place. “Can’t tell you.”


Now she mirrored his scowl. “And why not?”


A shrug. “It’s one of the damn rules. After the front door and Shippou, I’m only allowed to warn you when we come close to a trap, but I can’t tell you what it is.”


“Stupid rules,” Kagome muttered, “But…rules are meant to be broken, right?”



“Yeah, they are. But not this time.”


Kagome crossed her arms, Shippou struggled to keep his balance on her shoulder. “You’re just saying that since you’re the one upholding the rules this time. If it was anyone else, you’d brake them, right?”


Inu Yasha grunted. Kagome took it as a yes. Then he went on; “Damn straight. Because this time, if we brake the rules I get zapped.”


Kagome slowed down, Inu Yasha was forced to slow too if he wanted to keep level with her. Up ahead the others got a bit further away, but stayed in view. “Wait,” her ocean eyes were a little wide in awe, “If we brake any of Naraku’s rules, he hurts you?”



Another grunt. “Naraku is the person who has kept me alive and young since I stumbled in here. Although…even if I hadn’t, I would have stayed young anyway. Even if I am only half a demon, I only age like a human until I reach my mid-twenties before I basically stop growing at all. But that bastard is the one keeping me imprisoned here, so I have to follow his ‘rules’. If we don’t, I get zapped.”



“Zapped…?”


“Almost like lightning will strike me down. It’s weird, I’m normally too unconscious to see what happened.” Inu Yasha stuffed his hands up his sleeves and continued walking forward, looking straight ahead.


“Ok, so we’ll just have to deal with not being warned before hand.” Kagome nodded firmly and sped back up, so that she was getting closer to Sango and Miroku and Kirara. She didn’t want to lose them in this hell hole. That wouldn’t be a pretty picture. “Ok, so do you know how much farther? Or can you not tell me that either?”


Inu Yasha happily sped up to walk next to her again, only a few feet behind the rest of the group. “I could tell you, but I don’t have a clue.”


Kagome glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “And just how many people have you led through here?”


“Probably a hundred or something…But shut up. That’s not the point. Look around!” Inu Yasha commanded sweeping his arm out. “How the hell would I be able to tell how close we were?”


He was right, Kagome conceded, looking around. A thick smog covered everything, including the sky, so that nothing was very noticeable. The ground was dull and didn’t change all that much, so there weren’t very many landmarks. The only things to judge where the hell they were was the odd tree. And those weren’t much help since they all looked exactly the same: dead. “What a cheery place,” Kagome mumbled sarcastically, rolling her eyes. “You’d think Naraku would chose somewhere else to keep his bad guy hide out. Even a creepy dark forest would be better than this. Its just so…blah…”


Inu Yasha mirrored her eye roll. “Blah…yeah, that completely sums up this place.”


Kagome glared at him lightly, “I can’t tell whether you’re joking or not.”


“Good,” He smirked. “I hate it when people can read me.”


“Hn,” Kagome grunted before pouting. She’d die of boredom way before Naraku had a chance to run her through. The entire landscape was ugly. Dead and ugly and boring and…well, not very pretty. “Will it be like this the whole way through? It doesn’t look very maze like.”


“Labyrinth, not maze,” Inu Yasha corrected. “And yeah it’ll change. Pretty soon it’ll become all these twisting corridors made of cement. Wide, but at least in there you’ll be able to see around you and nothing will be too far away like it is here.”


“Twisting corridors?”


“Yeah, depressing if you ask me. Always unchanging and going on and on and on…”


“Everything here sounds depressing,” Kagome scrunched up her nose in disgust. “Naraku is such an ass. Its his fault everything is so screwed up…”


“Of course it is. Its always his fault,” Inu Yasha growled.


The miko hung her head. “I can’t believe I let him take the jewel like that!”


“Like what?” Shippou asked, quiet up till now.


Kagome tilted her head slightly in thought. “It was just so anti-climatic. There wasn’t even a big fight or anything. He just walked in there, scared me to death, laughed evilly, snatched the jewel and ran off. He even knocked me out, a trained priestess along with Sango and Miroku. The court was so not understanding!” Kagome ranted quietly, upset with her whole damn world. Was it really her fault that someone more powerful than her was able to steal the jewel?


“So then why are you the one getting in trouble?” Inu Yasha asked, scowling. He didn’t seem too happy with the situation either.


Kagome shrugged, sighing heavily. “I think its because I’m the only one who can get it back, even though Naraku is seemingly more powerful than me. No one else stands a chance, so they sent the only one that could do it…me. I know it sounds over dramatic, but if Naraku keeps the Shikon no Tama, all hell will break loose. Demons will be worried that since he’s half human, he’ll do something stupid to get rid of all the youkai. Humans are worried that since he’s half demon he’ll commit genocide and kill off all humans. A war will probably break out and the peace will be destroyed.”


“Uh…sound’s complicated?” Shippou offered, a little confused. How could one itty bitty little gem stone make this much trouble?


Kagome cracked her knuckles nervously and looked out into the distance deeply. “Since I’m the only one who can do it, and I don’t stand much of a chance in the courts eyes, they thought: Kill me if I’m that useless. Of course then Kaede had to ‘save’ me by sending me after Naraku. It was like this was all set up before hand. I had no choice but to do what they said. I’ll probably not come out alive…”


“What I want to know is this,” Inu Yasha finally spoke up. “If Naraku committed the crime, then why murder you? Its like blaming you for his crime. And why didn’t they just send you after the jewel in the first place? It doesn’t make all that much sense.”


“It didn’t to me at first either,” Kagome confided. “But I figured it out. When Naraku got the jewel, the first thing they wanted to do was to kill me off. Why? Because they were hoping that if I died, the Shikon would disappear, just like it did when Midoriko died. So they thought, kill me and the jewel would go away and everything would be fine.”


“Ok…I guess that makes sense, but then why did they agree with Kaede to send you after Naraku? Why not just plain kill you then?”


Kagome smiled slowly. “Because they want the jewel. The whole world, they all want it just in case we need it some time in the future. It would be stupid to just give it up without a fight. So instead, since I stand the best chance, they sent me to get the jewel. If I succeed, I have the jewel and everyone’s happy. If I fail, then I’m probably dead and the jewel will be gone anyway, so everyone wins that way too.”


“This is confusing,” Shippou muttered, his head feeling dizzy. “Can you make it simpler?”


Kagome nodded. “Naraku wants the jewel, so he can’t kill me. If he does, the jewel will disappear. The rest of the world wants the jewel too, but they can’t let Naraku have it ‘cause he’ll probably do something evil with it.”


“Ok…” the little fox said slowly, trying to get everything straight.


“So the world basically said that if I get the jewel, then the world is safe. If I die trying to get the jewel, the world is safe too.”


“Right, but they’d rather have the jewel around and be safe than have it gone,” Inu Yasha joined in, “So they’re hoping Kagome will win.”


“Ok,” the redhead nodded, “I guess I get it.”


“Confusing, isn’t it?” Miroku asked, slowly down so that he and Sango were even with everyone else. “And poor Kagome to get mixed up in all of this.”


Kagome blushed lightly but shrugged. “Hey, apparently in all this, I’m either worth everything if I get the jewel, or my life matters nothing.”


“I still don’t get something…”


Everyone continued to walk, but now looked questioningly at the hanyou. Inu Yasha was still moving, but staring off ahead of him, his eyes clouded over.


“If Naraku can’t kill you if he wants to keep the jewel, than why is he letting you go through the maze? What happens if you fail and die at one of the traps?”


Kagome winced. “That’s the one thing I don’t get either. But I guess I’ll just have to keep thinking about it, right?”


“Right,” Sango, Miroku, and Shippou chorused back at her while the half demon merely grunted.


It was all just so screwed up.


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At a time roughly around noon, or at least when they were next hungry, the group stopped to rest and eat a bit. Once they felt ready again, they set off heading in the direction Inu Yasha set for them. Kagome and her two friends had no clue where they were heading, or what was ahead of them, or even if they could handle whatever the hell it was.


That’s when they came to the first real challenge.


While walking and chatting with Sango and Miroku, Kagome laughed happily at some joke or another. Suddenly an arm swung out into their path. Stopping abruptly, Kagome followed it upward to Inu Yasha’s shoulder. He had been walking broodingly ahead of them all, but now he was stopped and standing erectly, his eyes sharp.


“We’re here. You all ready?” The dog demon glanced over his shoulder and waited for them to nod their heads silently. He locked eyes briefly with Kagome, the intense look making her shiver, before he turned back forward, it all passing too quickly for her to register what was shining in his golden orbs. “Good.”


Kagome ducked under his arm, which was still outstretched in front of everyone like a shield, so that she stood next to the half demon. “Now that we’re here, can you tell me what to do?”


“Yeah…but I won’t have to…” Inu Yasha stated ominously, his arm dropping back to his side as he glared at a thick wall of fog. All around them, everything looked like it had for the past day and a half.


Kagome started to become impatient but then the fog shifted. It swirled and started to shimmer slightly before pulling away like a curtain.


Out of no where stood two doors, floating in the air. They weren’t attached to anything, just simply there. Both were suspended a few inches above the ground. Kirara circled around them and came back. They were just like they looked, not leading to anything obvious. One was blood red and the other black.



‘I don’t get it,’ Kagome thought desperately. What was she supposed to do?


But before she could think about the situation any longer, two figures stepped forward. Like Inu Yasha and Shippou, they weren’t goblins. They were demons.


Now standing in front of the red door was a skimpily clad demoness. Her delicate lips were painted a crimson red and curved into a sly smirk.


In front of the black door was a ugly large demon with thick purple skin and a disturbing face. His mouth was crowded with fangs, which showed off as he grinned evilly.


“Oh,” Kagome squeaked, looking back and forth between the two youkai that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. She wasn’t scared, but startled.


Inu Yasha rolled his eyes at the two, knowing that if this was anywhere else he would have easily just defeated them both and moved on. But this challenge wasn’t one of strength, but of wits.


Miroku’s grip on his staff tightened. Sango had already dislodged her boomerang from her back. Both the monk and the huntress were back to back, prepared to launch a fury of attacks on the two demons if they attacked. “Do we get to kill them?” Sango asked, her voice firm but even a dimwit could hear the hint of hope in it.


“No, you have to-,” Inu Yasha started but the demoness cut him off.


“I’m Yura,” she purred, cocking her head slightly in an innocent manner. “And this,” her head was now tilted towards the large demon, “Is Goshinki. Welcome to the entrance to the labyrinth.”


Kagome blinked back at them both for a minute before waving her hands around in front of her. “What? That’s it!” She snapped.


Everyone looked at her, waiting for her to go on.


Kagome blushed a little at her outburst. “Sorry, its just that haven’t we already come to the entrance of the labyrinth, like twice?”


“No…” Inu Yasha said slowly, quirking an eyebrow at her. “What the hell are you babbling about, wench?”


Blue-gray eyes directed a withering glare in his direction. “First there was a door at the end of the tunnel, what was that?”


“The entrance to this world,” Inu Yasha scowled, crossing his arms as he glared back at her. Yura and Goshinki happily watched the miko argue with the half demon. Entertainment was rare around there.


“Ok, than what the hell was that huge door that Shippou guarded?” Kagome tried again, confused beyond belief. Why the hell did this whole adventure have to be so stupid? Couldn’t everyone just make up their minds? Seriously! You have one entrance door, not three.


“That was the entrance to Naraku’s lair, the labyrinth is inside the lair. Not the lair itself, get it now?” Inu Yasha rubbed at his temples. Before Kagome could answer, he started again, “Now just listen to these idiots and do what they say so that we can move on to the next challenge, ‘kay? Okay.”


“We are not idiots,” Yura hissed, her voice low as her black eyes flashed in Inu Yasha’s direction. Goshinki blinked stupidly, missing the insult from the half demon.


Inu Yasha was about to yell back, but Miroku asked innocently. “Kagome-sama, where are all the ugly little goblins you told us about? I thought you said bogies helped Naraku, but all we’ve come across so far are some demon minions.”


“WE ARE NOT HIS MINIONS!” All four with demon blood, minus Kirara, snapped back at the monk. Miroku let it roll calmly off his back, not even batting an eyelash.


Kagome had her face buried in her small hands. Her shoulders shook violently as she laughed. She finally threw her head back and giggled, “This is so great! We can’t have a single serious moment around here, can we?”


The others stared back at her, a little afraid.


Breathing deeply, a chuckle slipping out every once in awhile, Kagome turned back to Inu Yasha. “Actually, Miroku-sama is right. Where are all the little goblin things that Naraku used as his workers 500 years ago?”


Inu Yasha processed the question before shrugging, stuffing his hands up his sleeves, he looked away. “I guess they’re all gone. The only ones that work for Naraku now are the demons that don’t end up dying when they go through the maze.”


“Labyrinth not maze,” Kagome mimicked him, “And huh?”


Inu Yasha pushed the heels of his palms into his eyes. “Both humans and demons come through here, right?”


Yura and Goshinki slumped down, feeling forgotten while Inu Yasha explained to the others.


“Right,” Sango stated, nodding her head.


“Most people die,” Inu Yasha explained. “The humans that fail at a challenge but don’t die are normally killed by Naraku. But if a demon fails, but lives, then he becomes a worker here. That’s why Shippou, Yura, Goshinki, and I are stuck in this damn place. We didn’t make it to the center of the maze, but didn’t have the luck to die.”


“Ok…” Kagome took a deep breath and shook her head slowly. “I think my brain is getting an information overload,” she grumbled to herself. “So…what do we do here?”


Yura glared at them all hotly, but scowled and started again. “I’m Yura and this is Goshinki. We guard the two doors to the labyrinth. Got that?” She asked slowly, as though Kagome had trouble processing words.


Kagome tossed her head arrogantly. Why couldn’t anyone in this damn evil lair thingy besides Shippou be nice? Jerks… “Yeah, I think I do,” She spat.


Inu Yasha smothered a laugh into his sleeve and turned away when the demoness turned her glare on him.


“Good,” Yura sighed. “The challenge is for you to pick which door to go through.”


“Can’t I just do Eeny Meeny Miney Mo and be done with it?” Kagome asked seriously, looking between the red and the black door.


“No, you see,” Yura smirked, “That’s the challenge. One door really does lead you in, the other opens out into a pit of spikes. As you see…its not a simple choice.”


Kagome sighed and slumped down onto the ground, deciding she could at least sit down. This could take awhile. “I guess it was too much to hope for a simple task, huh?”


“Pretty much,” Inu Yasha sat down next to her, feeling just the smallest twinge of sympathy. But to tell the truth, compared to the other things in the labyrinth, this was easy as hell.


“Isn’t this thing overdone?” Sango grumbled, kneeling down next to Kagome before pulling Miroku down too.


“Yeah,” Kagome muttered. “You’d think that bad guys could come up with more imaginative stuff.”


“Why are you all sitting down?” Yura frowned, “Giving up? Not even going to try?”


“Of course we‘ll try!” Kagome snapped, not really in a good mood anymore. “But we have to think about it. I’m not going to send half of us through one door and the other half through the second, just to see what happens.”


Yura glared at the petite miko. She didn’t really like Kagome all that much…


“I think I saw this on some cartoon,” Kagome mumbled, her voice muffled since she had her head buried in her hands again.


“Cartoon?” Inu Yasha, Shippou, and Yura parroted, Goshinki was busy examining his claws.


Sango ignored them, “I think I saw that too,” she murmured, trying to remember what had happened.


Miroku tried to understand why two 20 year olds were still watching cartoons. He just didn’t get it…


“Um…didn’t one guard lie and the other tell the truth and they were supposed to use a riddle to know which door to go through?” Kagome asked, meeting Sango’s eyes.


The brunette nodded slowly. “Yeah…but I think they were both lying so it didn’t work.” Looking up at Yura and Goshinki, Sango asked: “Do one of you lie and the other tell the truth?”


Yura raised an eyebrow curiously but shook her head.


Kagome groaned. “Naraku is so stupid! How does he expect to challenge people if he doesn’t leave them a clue? A riddle, even?”


Yura snickered. “Normally people end up just choosing one. It’s a 50/50 chance, right?”


The miko glared at the demoness, “We’re not doing that.”


“So how do you expect to get through?” Inu Yasha asked, impatient. This task was so easy…If this Kagome girl couldn’t even get passed it, then why should he expect her to end up freeing him? Which he had yet to explain to her…


The black haired beauty shrugged. “Let me think for a minute…” A few moments later, her ocean eyes brightened. “Can I go up and knock? If I hear an echo wouldn’t that mean it was the real entrance?”


Yura smirked and stepped aside, “Go ahead.”


Kagome used Inu Yasha’s shoulder to pull herself up, much to his displeasure, and then walked forward. Pressing an ear to the red door, she knocked.


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“Damn,” she cursed under her breath.


“What?” Miroku asked curiously.


“The doors are too thick, I can’t hear anything,” Kagome crossed her arms and glared at the door like it was the source of all her troubles. This whole damn adventure felt like some kind of out of body experience, like none of it was real. It seemed to be so strange and going by way too fast.


“So what are we going to do?” Sango asked looking back and forth between her best friend and boyfriend.


Shippou and the others that worked for Naraku stayed silent, amusement twinkling in their eyes. Sango glared at them all, she didn’t see how this was so funny to them.


Kagome stepped back from the door and looked at them both. Maybe there was a clue etched into the wood? No…nothing. Hmm… “I bet this is actually way easier than it seems…”


“You can say that again,” Inu Yasha smirked, meeting eyes with Yura and Goshinki. All three looked like they knew something that no one else did…


Kagome walked back and stood next to her two sitting friends, thinking over the situation. There had to be something she was missing! Did Yura have a hidden meaning in her words or did she gesture to the right door as she talked or something? No…So how was the miko supposed to know which door to go through?


Damn Naraku…


After some silence, Inu Yasha and Yura met each other’s eyes again, this time exasperated. Didn’t Kagome get it? It was so easy!


‘Come on Kagome,’ Inu Yasha mentally cheered the young woman on. ‘Get past this, and then you’ll be one step closer to freeing me…’ Not that he was getting his hopes up. Oh, that’s it. “Wench!” He thundered, making said miko jump, “Use your brain!”


“I am! Be nice!” She snapped back before advancing on him, glaring down at him. “What the hell do you suggest I do? Just walk up and open them both to see which one I should use? Huh?”


The half demon smirked.


Kagome blinked.




“…You’re not serious…are you?”


More smirking.


“Shit…” Kagome’s jaw dropped as her eyes widened. Miroku and Sango looked after her, confused, as she wrenched open both doors and looked inside at the same time. “It’s the red door!” She announced, snapping the black door back into place, but leaving the right one open.


Sango and Miroku looked at each other and blinked stupidly. “That…was all we had to do?” Miroku finally asked, looking bewildered at the three older demons.


Inu Yasha smirked and hefted himself up. “Fuck yeah. Told you that Naraku was a moron.”


“He really is an idiot,” Kagome shook her head.


“Wow,” Sango said. “That was…amazing.”


Yura grinned. “Congratulations, you pass the first challenge. Welcome to the labyrinth of Naraku, enjoy your stay,” she stated sarcastically stepping back and sweeping her hand out in a mock bow.


Kagome glared at the demoness. “Oh, we’ll enjoy our stay,” she sneered a little more evilly than she normally acted, “You enjoy your sleep.” Kag knew that like the other two demons they’d met so far, once their jobs were done the youkai under Naraku’s control were put to sleep.


Inu Yasha winced, but smirked. “Stop teasing the dangerous youkai, Kagome, and hurry up.” He all but shoved her into the door, grabbing the other’s arms, he pushed them through too. Nodding to Yura and Goshinki, he followed them through. The red door snapped behind them all, plunging them into darkness again.


And the two guardians of the red and black door were gone.


Feeling unruffled after the challenge was over with so easily and quickly, Sango and Miroku moved ahead, Shippou and Kirara perched on their shoulders. One step in, candles on either side of them burst into flame. As they moved more and more candles came alive just as they reached them.


Unnerved, Kagome stayed still. Unlike Sango and Miroku, she wasn’t used to weird things happening everywhere. She spent her life in her shrine; sure she dealt with demons and humans all the time, but they were everyday things.


When Kagome refused to move, Inu Yasha grumbled some before wrapped his arm around hers to tug her forward. “You can practice being a stature later,” he growled.


Kagome smiled her gratitude and walked along with him. They were just behind Miroku and Sango, and as soon as they were clear of the first set of candles…the flames when out.


So the only light in the tunnel was around them, and they could no longer see ahead or behind.


Creepy.


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Later on that day, Kagome recalled the look Inu Yasha had given her when they’d reached the first challenge. And that was when she realized the emotion buried in the molten orbs…


It was hope. Faith in her. Kagome. The woman who’s throat he’d been at since they’d all met.


Life was just strange sometimes.

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Well, mm.org and ff.net are caught up! Sorry for the long wait! I know this chapter was weird, but I was trying to clear up some of the confusion with why Kagome was being blamed for a crime that Naraku committed and stuff like that.


Ask questions if you’re confused! Review! Enjoy! And ja ne!