Of Gods and Demons by ToWriteLoveOnAPage

Chapter 15

Author Note:

18 reviews the last chapter! I was mega excited, thanks to everyone!

This chapter is kind of short, but it was the only way I could break up the monster of a chapter it would have been otherwise. Thank you to everyone who has been so supportive and awesome! I even had someone who wants to translate my story into hungarian, which is way cool lol. Anyway, I hope you all will continue to read and review my story. Now, get to it!

Also, on ffn I posted a list of a bunch of questions that I have been asked and answered them. It appears as a chapter and since I don't think this site allows chapters that just answer questions, I didn't post it here, but if you wanna read it, go to ffn.

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Sometimes people make mistakes. In fairy tales and legends of old, the hero, or the main character, or the great victorious champion, may make a mistake. They fall from grace, or take a wrong turn, or give into some forbidden temptation, but they learn from it, they grow, and in the end things always work out for the better. Most times their horrible mistakes actually lead to some great finding of self, or knowledge gained, or prize won.

Yippee, yahoo, and all other celebratory phrases.

But sometimes people make mistakes and because life is not a fairy tale no matter how many demons one might have bested, or how many gods one ma y have met, or how many silver palaces one happened to have visited, it was simply that: a mistake. Something stupid or foolish or downright unfortunate that happens just because it can, just because people are imperfect and not everything has to have a silver lining, even if we really, REALLY wish it did.

And Kagome really wished there was a silver lining to this monumental mess she had made, but apparently someone had stolen her silver lining. She wished they would return it, or at least leave a bronze lining in its place. That would have been the considerate thing to do.

Stupid, inconsiderate, figurative people! She swore inwardly. This was all their fault! It was in no way her own fault! No, that was just ridiculous.

Even if it was all her fault.

Stupid, logical mind! She cursed herself. Stop being all...logical and stuff!

Kagome sighed and slumped her shoulders. Of course she knew she wasn't perfect, she knew she made stupid decisions that didn't really make sense a lot of the time, but things always seemed to work out in the end.

Like a fairy tale! She thought hysterically. Oh good, now all I have to do is find the nearest toad and kiss it and it will turn into a delicious piece of man flesh and whisk me away...or was it a frog? Damn.

The next frog and or toad she saw she was going to jump on, she decided petulantly. And if she ever made it back to her time, she was going to burn every disney movie she could get her ands on. They were just so happy and upbeat and filled with hope and love and flowers and singing animals and handsome men and happy endings! Where was her happy ending? It certainly wasn't here.

Well, guess it's time to admit I'm not a princess, she thought dryly. Oh darn, there go all my hopes and dreams for a magically wonderful life. Yup, bye pretty hopes and dreams, see you later, come visit some time and I'll tell you how horribly miserable my life is becoming. We can have tea!

Tea. Yes, if her life were a fairy tale, she would have tea.

But she guessed she should have expected this. She should have known that just once her stupid little decisions weren't going to work out in her favor, that just once she would do something that promised to go very badly and it would go very badly. She should have realized that continuing to roll the dice and hoping to get three's wasn't exactly the best plan in the world and that eventually she would roll a four, or maybe a six, or some other horrible number that wasn't three.

But she hadn't realized this. She hadn't even considered it because she was imperfect and made mistakes. Mistakes that had lead her here: to a smelly carriage filled with half-dead, zombie women.

"Ugh, Sesshoumaru is going to gut me," she muttered. "No, on second thought, he'll probably skin me and make me into a rug so that he can walk on me and smirk for the rest of forever."

Yes, that seemed more demeaning to her. Much more his style.

She had been waiting for him to return to her smug and victorious after eviscerating whatever youkai had dared get within a fifty mile radius of him, when she had sensed it.

It was just a low-level youkai, circling around her and heading towards Sesshoumaru and the other powerful presence he had gone after. She knew she should have stayed where she was, that Sesshoumaru was strong enough to handle both nuisances, but she couldn't just sit there and let some stupid youkai sneak past her without even a glance!

She was a powerful miko, she had her bows and arrows, and Sesshoumaru had called her an ally! What good was an ally if they couldn't even take on one small, little demon?

So, she grabbed her bow and arrows and stalked off after the blasted creature intent on proving herself. Little did she know that this was exactly what the youkai wanted her to do, it wanted to lure her just far enough away so that Sesshoumaru could not sense the trickery they had planned.

But she didn't know any of this, and when she reached the demon, she saw that it wasn't alone. The lizard horse who seemed to be pulling a large, daunting carriage had two brutish humans as it's companions. Kagome hadn't expected this; she could only sense demons after all, not other humans.

And these humans were huge and wore malicious grins, rhythmically pounding heavy clubs against the palms of their hands. Before she could even scream for help, a third man who had been hiding in the shadows came up behind her and with a loud WHAP, everything went black.

And that was the last thing she remembered before she woke up surrounded by these silent women who hadn't even acknowledged she was there. She felt the back of her head and found a nice big lump along with the still scabbed wound from the night before.

Great, just what I need: more head trauma, she seethed inwardly.

"Sesshoumaru, you better get your high and mighty butt moving and come save me," she found herself ranting.

"W-who is, Sesshoumaru?" One of the zombie-women asked, slowly turning her fair face towards Kagome as though she had just realized she was there.

Except that this girl wasn't a zombie...not yet. She still had something in her eyes, a strange sort of sparkle that meant she hadn't really given up hope, that she still remembered freedom.

Kagome gawked at the girl and spit out the first thing that came to mind. "He's a haughty demon lord who's totally going to go ballistic when he finds out what I've gotten myself into!"

The girl blinked slowly before turning away. "Oh," she said tonelessly. "He will come for you then?"

Kagome frowned. "I think so."

"Well, I only hope he is not too late," Amaya sighed and closed her eyes, fading out of awareness like all the other women around them.

Me too, the miko thought desperately, bringing her knees to her chest. Me too.

***

Sesshoumaru was about three seconds from exploding into a giant, acid breathing dog and melting all of Southern Japan...and perhaps Eastern and Northern Japan for good measure.

In fact, it was only the small, logical part of his mind that told him stealth would be far more beneficial to his plight than an all out rampage, that spared the land around him. Cursed logical part of his mind - melting things would certainly have been cathartic.

And why was he feeling so discontented today? He had been tricked. He had been tricked and now he was angry. Perhaps even pissed...if he was more inclined to use such language.

It hadn't taken long for him to figure out something was wrong when he first burst through the trees to meet the youkai he had sensed. The beast was just leaning against a tree and smirking, his bright red hair and glowing red eyes standing in stark contrast against the greens and browns of the forrest. A fire demon, Sesshoumaru realized, though this revelation was hardly comforting. He wasn't particularly powerful, but fire demons were notoriously underhanded and remarkable escape artists; deadly tricksters with dark mischief on their minds.

This was his first warning that something was amiss. The second was when the demon yawned, asked if he had lost any pretty miko lately, and promptly took to the tree tops and sprinted away.

Then, the dragon came.

Bursting from the very ground beneath his feet, the dragon was a formidable foe, obviously capable of concealing its presence when needed. It took the inuyoukai far longer than he would have liked to kill it, but in the end, it lay slain on the forest floor.

Sesshoumaru didn't even give it a second glance before following after the fire demon, his heart pounding for some unknown reason and his breathing just a little faster than normal. He knew he had been fooled, lured away from the miko by the foul youkai so that he could take her right from under his nose. He needed to find the miko, he needed to find her now. From the moment that wretch smirked at him he had known who it was he was dealing with...the demon he had been after all along.

And now the beast had snatched another maiden, and this maiden, Sesshoumaru would not allow to be taken.

***

"What do you mean she's been taken!" Inuyasha yelled, jumping to his feet in irritation and nearly sending the tea Kaede was attempting to give him flying across the room.

"Inuyasha, ye must calm down," she said disapprovingly.

"Yelling will not help Kagome. Let us listen to what Kaede-sama has to say," Miroku said quietly, but commandingly.

"Keh, fine," the hanyou scoffed, folding his hands into his sleeves and collapsing back to the ground in a huff like a petulent child. "Out with it, you old hag!"

Kaede scowled at him, but cleared her throat and prepared to explain nonetheless. "When I was but a child, and Kikyou was still alive, our father told us an old legend. It was said that every few centuries or so, a great power would be felt coming from the bone eater's well," she spoke in the whimsical manner of one telling a great tale. "Anyone who was near the well at the time would simply disappear, never to be heard from again. Tis why the forest of Inuyasha remains so undisturbed; the villagers fear the well, they do not want to be near it should the power return."

"Yeah, yeah, but what's this got to do with Kagome?" Inuyasha growled impatiently.

"Patience, Inuyasha," she warned him, her lone eye giving him a harsh glare. "If ye had only let me finish I would have told you that I sensed this very power not but a few days ago, the same day Kagome went missing."

The group went silent. Sango and Miroku exchanged a horrified look and Shippou scrambled into Sango's lap, clutching at her shirt and trying not to cry. Even Kirara mewed in despair.

"So...you're sayin' she's never coming back?" Inuyasha mumbled, his ears flat against his head and his eyes wide. "She's disappeared?"

"No, Kagome has not disappeared," Kaede said simply. "She has been taken."

"But how can you be so sure," Sango asked, the desperation clear in her voice. She wanted to believe the old miko more than anything, but experience had taught her that life was more often cruel than kind.

Kaede took another sip of tea. "I may be old, but even my lone eye is well enough to know what I have seen," she shrugged. "Kagome was taken...she was thrown over a creature's shoulder and carried off into the sky."

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Chapter Note:

The pen is mightier than the sword they say

So what wars could be won with simple essays?

To write, not fight. To review, not smite.

To battle with a pen would sure be a sight.

Lol, this one kind of sounds like I'm preaching for world peace or something. Anyway, you read the poem, now review!