Word Count: 207
Upon hearing the loud howl, Kagome stopped dead in her tracks, peered around curiously for a moment, before she resumed her walk.
It came again, less thunderous and more resigned, and then came male yelling. A crowd caught her attention, and she felt a pull inside of her stomach, urging her forward.
Gasps and screams of the crowd caught her attention.
“Yokai!”
“A daiyokai!”
“An inuyokai!”
An Inuyokai? Hadn't they all died out with their most well known, Inu no Taisho, hundreds of years ago?
As she weaved through the crowd, murmurs rose around her, only this time they were directed at her.
“A priestess.”
“Perhaps she'll purify the abomination.”
“It's her duty to purge them.”
Kagome broke into the innermost ring of humans, and her entire body went cold at the sight that greeted her.
A crudely-made cage, sturdy despite the looks, was erected around a dirty, naked man with a tangled, gnarled mane of silver-white hair. His body was curled in on itself, crouched low, uncaring of his nudity. Blooms of dark color splotched his skin, hard to see under the layer of grime on him, and barely-healed wounds openly bled and oozed puss.
She stepped forward, ignored the stares, and cried, “Leave him be!”