InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Mysterious Little Visitor ❯ Scroll Fourteen: Ruse ( Chapter 14 )

A/N: I have a mailing list now: hanyoumiko.notifylist.com Now you can get updates! Yay!

Scroll Fourteen: Ruse

The wraith of Jumiyo raised her hand, eyes widening as they flared with some internal light, the wind tossing her hair and clothes in a manic disarray; Inu-Yasha strengthened his embrace around Kagome and Little Inu, intuition telling him that they were all very close to the edge of some very dark oblivion. "Feel my rage, Shiokki!" Numerous thin ice-like darts came soared at the company of Shikon shard hunters and the dragon-warrior, cradling the body of his love close to his chest, who all struggled to keep their balance.

Pleading desperately above the howls of the bitter wind, Shiokki cried, "Jumiyo! Why do you do these things?!" He flinched as one of the wintry skewers sharply slit the top most layer of flesh on his cheek. Blood began to lightly ooze. "You're hurting people! Innocent people!"

"Quiet!" she seethed, screeching above the doleful howls of eddies. "Everything was ruined because of you…. Now, DIE!" She threw her arms up in a sweeping motion up high above her head, her lucid body now hovering over the topmost petals of the Hakushinmu herbs; the blood which had been sliding in luscious streaks upon her body got caught in the whirlwind as it grew more impassioned with her emotions, making the air a hazy scarlet. Between her facing palms the small darts merged to form a giant ice javelin; it was massive, at least four times the size of the one who summoned it. Arching her back, the spirit of Jumiyo threw it in one huge blast of otherworldly might at the deadpanned-faced Shiokki.

Yet, without warning, as impending doom was beat away from stealing his breath away forever, there was another deafening crash and blinding light, and hairs of purplish-lightning met with it. They connected, and the rime lance returned to its sender.

The wraith flew backwards to dodge, but was still hit by her own attack; abruptly the air stream froze dead-still, and silence hung in the lifeless chamber as naught a sound was made. As the lingering effects of the flash died down, her voice, hissing, could be heard, though the tone had darkened and deepened. "So, you did survive, girl? And here I thought I'd disposed of you, once and for all."

"So, you did, but you thought wrong, Tsaku," a mildly annoyed, feminine voice countered. "You erred badly."

Kagome, still blinking madly, slowly began to see the image she was looking at betwixt the flashing, multicolored dots as she pulled her head slightly away from the comfort of Inu-Yasha's chest. Squinting, she could gradually see Shiokki's staggered expression and the girl in his arms push herself up, using his torso. Jumiyo's alive…? She subconsciously held Little Inu nearer to her. Was she the one who constructed the shield?

"How can you…" Shiokki, in disbelief, queried to the lass peering up at him with an unreadable visage.

A smile traced its way over her lips. "I have been guardian here for a thousand years or so…I would not be so easily done-in." Turning her jade eyes onto the staggering wraith, which had copied her form, with a hard glower, she said in an undertone, "You, Tsaku, should not have come here." She glanced back up at her lover's face. "Shiokki," she instructed gently, "set me down."

Reflexively, he grasped her tighter. "I can't, Jumiyo. I just had you returned to me. I don't want to lose you again.

"Never again…."

Her eyes softened. "Shiokki…"

"Touching," the look-alike scoffed, rising to its feet, the form now becoming solid and shifting in shape, "the lover's promise." The silvery tresses grew shorter and darker until they were a dull brown, and the eyes become black. "You failed me, Shiokki," the voice scolded, becoming more masculine as were the features in tandem, "and I have no need for failures." There stood a man about as tall as Shiokki-who was very tall indeed-clad in intense green and blue robes.

"I told you then I despised you!" he shot back. "I only came here. I never had any true intentions upon hurting the guardian. My feelings had never changed."

"I took you in, Shiokki," softly murmured Tsaku, treading purposefully on the Hakushinmu herbs as he trudged with even steps towards Shiokki and the weakened Jumiyo; he left sticky, foot-shaped blood-prints on the pure white petals. His target remained mute. "I fed you. I clothed you. I taught you how to fight, to make a man of yourself, Shiokki," he spat harshly. "And you still betrayed me."

"I betrayed NO ONE!" he howled, ruby orbs glistering dangerously as he swallowed. Low-voiced, setting Jumiyo to her dainty feet, yet still holding her tightly to his side, he ground out, "I should have killed you when I got my first chance."

"You are too soft!" Tsaku crowed, throwing his head back. "That was your greatest undoing. Did I teach you nothing?" He leveled his gaze with Shiokki, a commanding, intense glare. "The weak are to be dominated by the strong. That is how it should be. If the weak cannot survive, they should bow to the will of the strong, and perhaps they will live. That is the meaning of power and strength. That is why this haven must be destroyed; it's people like her that do not allow nature's cycle to follow the proper course."

"You're wrong."

Tsaku pivoted his glimpsing a bit to the threesome huddled together. "Am I, half-breed?"

Inu-Yasha nodded. "You're wrong. Without a doubt." He pushed Kagome and Little Inu behind him, giving the girl a decisively loving look as he said, "If the weak rise up, they are stronger than any one being. If they have heart, they can fight." The hanyou strode up past the fated lovers, his gold burning brightly against Tsaku's black. "I learned that lesson at least. What Jumiyo was doing was what more people should be doing, in a better world anyway."

"Hmph." Tsaku smirked. "So you learned to deal with your lowliness by pretty words and ideals?"

Inu-Yasha grunted, remembering such a phrase he'd muttered once, before allowing a haughty smile to fill his face. "I never said I was stupid, jack ass." He ceased walking, an even distance from the dragon-warrior and the guardian, and Tsaku. "I'm just saying you shouldn't under-estimate people, they have a way of surprising you." He cocked his head, eyelids drawing closer together, eyebrows knitting together as his entire countenance was engulfed in a scowl. "But what's with the deal about dragging me to Hell? Haven't I got enough bastards and bitches wanting to do that already? Who the fuck do you think you are to come waltzing in here and demand my head on a fucking platter?"

Tsaku shook his head. "I don't want you."

"Then who the-"

"Me." Little Inu gently worked his way out of Kagome's grasp. "I'm the one he wants…aren't I?"

"Such a smart child. You obviously do not take after your father, do you?"

The young dog-demon merely tipped his cesium-haired noggin noncommittally to one side. "How do you know of me?"

"I know much about you, pup. Oh, so much. The things you will do when you are grown and fully weaned…why, they are quite staggering." He waved a hand in the air, placing it to his waist in a mock bow. "The youngest heir of the Western Lands…yes, I can see it all. Foresight comes to a person who has been bound here for so many years. Am I correct in saying so, Jumiyo?"

"You are…" she murmured softly, eyeing him warily.

"Trapped as a putrid red smoke around this cursed mountain since I laid siege here." He glanced over to the maiden. "You truly had me in a fix. You should feel proud." He chortled to himself. "But, you were still too weak to complete the sealing spell, so I was able to transform my slave to his true form, and I laid in wait for the choicest moment to complete the cycle.

"I know the things you are capable of, young Inu-Yasha. None of them are good in the coming years--that is for certain." Clicking his tongue, he shook his cranium leisurely. "All because you had to take after your father." Lips twisting up in a disgusting sneer, he whispered, "Some of them don't like the naughty things he's done that he needs to be punished for with…a fang in the shoulder, for example."

Little Inu's eyes widened. He could feel tears coat the lenses, but his ire was too great for him to take any true notice. "Bastard…" he choked. "BASTARD!" He took off running at Tsaku before he was promptly snatched around the waist, caught in a tight hold. "Let me go! I'll murder him!"

Inu-Yasha refused to relent, allowing the boy to flail. "Give it up, kid. You swung the Tetsusaiga once; that don't mean you're suddenly up to handling a bottom-feeder like him."

"I don't care! I want to kill him!"

"Try all you want, pup," simpered Tsaku, "it won't make a difference." His arms went into a similar motion as they had when he had launched the ice javelin at Shiokki. "I will incinerate this main field, the fields of crops, and I will steam the water away."

"I won't let you," Kagome said, an arrow knocked on her bowstring. She released it, and it flew at Tsaku, striking him in the shoulder.

Startled as his flesh smoked and sifted into fine ash, fast falls of crimson spilling from the gaping crevice, Tsaku's coal eyes sparkled with a dazzling luster as his remaining arm arched over his head. Within the demi-arch, fire licked from where his skin was toward the middle.

"Is he making a fireball?" Shippo squeaked from Kirara's teeth.

"Get out of here, now!" cried Jumiyo, whipping her head around to two humans and two demons nearest the entrance. "Leave the Chamber of Spirits! You may not make it out alive!"

"But what about you, and Inu-Yasha, Kagome, and Little Inu?" Sango asked, worry lighting her brown eyes.

"Get going, Sango!" the older hanyou himself shouted, the heat of the blazing orb harassing his face in severe waves as its diameter grew greater. "We'll be right behind you."

Shiokki, having picked up Jumiyo and already sprinted to the door with springs of Hakushinmu herbs clenched in his fists, motioned. "This is no time to be indecisive."

Miroku and Sango both clambered astride Kirara, who romped her way to the pair, Shippo dangling from her teeth.

Kagome rushed out to Little Inu, bow slung over her back with its quiver. "Hurry," she urged, snatching his hand. In an eye blink, Inu-Yasha, had taken both her and the child bridal-style into his arms and was running full-speed to the Chamber of Spirit's heavy doors.

A little bit further, he mentally pressed himself; then, he saw the look that collective cross his companions' faces-horror-struck--, the laughing of madman behind them, the spatters of flame that licked at his hair and ears, and the feel of the fireball's impact with the ground as it gave way in impassioned heat, sucking himself and his passengers down.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

A/N: I find this story, most of it anyway, is best done with short chapters. The exception was Scroll Nine, but I don't know, this is its normal cadence. It should wrap up within the next chapter or two, I think.

Little Inu: Yay! I'm still cute.

Shippo: Well, my tail's cute too.

Little Inu: Reviewers either leaned towards me, or they were undecided.

You're both cute, not stop it. Grow up and deal with it please. I wonder where you two got this crazy idea from.

Inu and Shippo: Uh…nowhere. *run*

Well, that's about all there is to report.

Ja ne,

~Moonlight Shadow